i've been out of the drawing game for quite some time now. not that i haven't been drawing. i probably have enough new things in my sketch book to replace every drawing in my gallery. it's just that, for some reason, i never seemed to take the opportunity to pick up a scanner. last time i was about to pick up a scanner, i saw my keyboard and bought it instead...

when i was younger, about 4-5 years ago, drawing was all i did. there was nothing else. then i got a guitar from my dad and my mom finally got a computer. i started to find that anything computer related became second nature. so all my time started going into it. i would sit in our office for days installing and re-installing EVERYTHING. taking our computer apart and putting it back together. i became like this DOS master. i learned a bit of UNIX. i even started learning C and Cobal and Basic.

and then i found the web. i think i became obsessed with it for awhile. we weren't really the richest family on the block, so we never had our own connection. i would use it at friends houses and stay long nights while their families slept. it was insane. i don't even really remember why i was so fascinated with it. now i realize 90 percent of the web is retarded. but back then i was interested enough to do something that had to do with the web.

i made silly little webpages in notepad. i learned a little bit of javascript. they all looked retarded. i tried to be all artsy and cool with them... but they sucked. i think i had just learned how to use photoshop. so i was making these ludicrously huge images that would make the pages take FOREVER to load had i ever put them on the web. but i never did...

then i found the fahq, or aahq... whetever it was called at the time. so i started drawing again, and i even made a webpage for the stuff i did. i can safely say i was bad at both drawing and web design at that point, so... yea. i also seem to recall that i was insane. i mean literally. i saved some e-mails i had sent to people in the past and... christ. i'm afraid of who i was. i sent an e-mail to lex (of the paradox) at one point, that i think was... the pinnacle of my insanity. i formally apologize to her and for any scars i may have brought upon her or her future children.

anyway, i took up drawing again, and made some semi-decent-but-not-that-great-stuff. then i started playing my guitar again. i learned a few songs and quickly realized that no songs on earth really accurately reflected me. so i took to writing bad songs. it was fun. i snagged a microphone that my mothers boyfriends son wasn't using anymore and started recording them on my aiwa boombox (of all things). they sounded terrible... but i felt i should keep recording enough to fill up a 90 minute tape. and as bad as they were, i can't say it was a waste. i still have that tape and pull it out every once in awhile.

so, everything i've ever done creatively (at least trying to be) has always led back to the computer. i'm in love with this cold little box. i'll never understand... but i don't think i need to. so, i took my sound card and started to record things digitally. actually i think it's still analog, but it like, converts it to digital... or some junk. i made more bad songs (and continue to do so).

somewhere along the line mal liked a song i did and he started to record songs... thankfully so. i like his stuff way more than mine. but i think the fact that he does it too keeps me recording new things all the time. if he never started, i may have lost interest in it. or maybe not... i dunno.

so... i kept drawing inbetween everything. i still love it. but i think it's just another thing i can do to say something. i mean, generally, expressing yourself through art is a pretty cliche idea... but it's like, why fix what isn't broken? especially if you enjoy it? i do a lot, and i'd never consider myself really good at anything. i love to write, but i'd never call myself a writer. i do call myself an artist, but i recognize that it's the bastardized term. i just do what i enjoy. some people have sex. i don't always have that option, so i play make songs. or draw. or design. or write. or masturbate.

i guess saying it's a "release" isn't really an accurate description of what i use art for. it's like a band-aid. it helps cover old wounds. nothing is released. if anything, more is taken in. it helps me observe the world. and honestly, if i'm ever depressed, art is probably a contributing factor. becoming too familiar with life and it's intricacies and realities is bound to make anyone heavy-hearted. it's like a drug. it's like trying to find a purpose so you can go on living, only to find there probably isn't a purpose...

but, uhh, honestly i was never into finding a purpose. i could really care less. i'm here. i don't need a reason. i don't need to know why the sky is blue or why bad things happen to good people. it just does. and i change what i can change. the only thing that hurts for me is my own expectations for myself. i've made promises to me. promises you make to yourself must be kept. i'm my only purpose. and i let myself down sometimes. so that's what needs to be healed.

christ, if there was ever a long pointless rambling...

sometimes i just write things to make hard evidence of what is in my head... because all the stuff that resides in there is fleeting.

i think i'm done for now. bleh.