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Jeffrey Lewis

It’s been a Jeffrey Lewis week. Heard and loved “Anxiety Attack” at the weekend, then went to the new Zine shop in Boro where I spotted a comic drawn by a Jeffrey Lewis, which I thought was an odd little coincidence, but then it turns out it’s the same Jeffrey Lewis, and he self-publishes comics as well as writing songs about what happens in my head. Then I get to Peg Powler gallery on Tuesday night to do a bit of faffing with The Story of Grass exhibition, and Rebecca says: “Hey, Gus chose the music that’s playing. It’s Jeffrey Lewis, have you heard of him?”. So… lots of Jeffrey Lewisness in my life just now. He seems like an interesting dude.

I really like this song because it’s funny and it asks some good questions about the kind of life I have found myself leading.

I was thinking this on the L train, intent on bursting my own bubble
How long should an artist struggle before it isn’t worth the hassle?
And admit we aren’t fit to be the one inside the castle
This quest for greatness, or at least hipness, just a scam and too much trouble
But then what makes one human being worthy of an easy ride
Born to be a natural artist you love or hate but can’t deny
While us minions in our millions tumble into history’s chasm
We might have a couple of laughs but we’re still wastes of protoplasm

Ah, well now, waste of protoplasm is going a little far. Sure, my protoplasm could have bnen used for other things, some of them quite beneficial to humanity, I imagine, but on the other hand would that protoplasm have been quite so good at drawing giraffes?

Leave a comment Posted on pictures

Zine!

I went to AJ Garrett and Rebecca Little’s inaugural Zine workshop at their fantastic new Zine PopUp Shop opposite Binns on Newport Road in Middlesbrough. If you’re in the area, I absolutely recommend you drop in. They have loads of small-press goodies to browse and buy, and you may find yourself photocopying your own zine before you leave. I hope you do. I drew this. Couldn’t really say why…

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Christmas Song

Happy Christmas every one! More of that melancholic triumphalism I love so much. Bit sad, bit hopeful, bit like Twin Peaks – pretty similar to the inside of my head. Nice going, Mogwai. Off the Mogwai EP, proably the best thing they ever did. Apart from that t-shirt with the Batman logo, I liked that a lot too.

2 Comments Posted on blather, comedy

Mitch Hedberg Joke Evolution

Two Mitch Hedberg jokes:

Spaghetti… I can’t eat spaghetti, there’s too many of them. No matter how hungry I am, 1000 of something is too many.
– Mitch Hedberg

I like rice. Rice is great if you’re really hungry and want to eat two thousand of something.
– Mitch Hedberg

So these two are pretty much the same joke, but for me the rice joke is better, and I think it’s obvious the spaghetti version mutated into the rice one at some point. Or God changed it, whichever. Anyway.

Why is the rice one better? Because…

1. The rice joke is more absurd. The spaghetti joke’s “I can’t eat two thousand of them” – well, who could?

2. The first one is not quite true enough – there aren’t 1000 bits of spaghetti in the average bowlful, but there are more likely to be 2000 bits of rice in a meal. Maybe. Look, I haven’t counted them (or if I have I’ve blocked that particular evening out of my memory) but it certainly seems likelier, doesn’t it? The closer a joke like this comes to the truth, the funnier it is.

3. The rice joke is a positive, which suits Hedberg’s free-wheeling persona more than the negative of the spaghetti version. Point of view is incredibly important when writing jokes for stand up. A different comedian with a different persona would be able to spend five minutes shouting about how he doesn’t have time to eat 2,000 of something, but Mitch was a happy-go-lucky one-liner merchant.

4. Fuck it, rice is just funnier, isn’t it?

5. It is.

Leave a comment Posted on the story of grass

The Story of Grass Flashes Before Your Eyes

Imagine these are your final moments, and this is what you see as the tiger lazily licks its lips/the fallling piano’s shadow pools around your feet/The Hooded Claw tightens the knots and raises one deliciously evil eyebrow as the train approaches with a TOOT TOOT.

Has this been a good llife? Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Things to do before you die:
buy a copy of the story of grass.
or two, in case you break one.
the rest, I dunno, freestyle it.

http://thestoryofgrass.bigcartel.com/

4 Comments Posted on animation

I Won a Thing!

OMG. This dumb cartoon just won me an all expenses-paid trip to London on Tuesday to sit in a room which will have food, booze and Terry Gilliam in it! I will be allowed to put the food and booze into my mouth. OMFG. OMFFG. There aren’t enough F’s in the world, frankly.

Criminy. I have to find a tux from somewhere.

Link: 30 sec film comp winner announced.*

And thank you SO MUCH, NFM!

*The cartoon is thirty-eight seconds long. Is that ironic?

Leave a comment Posted on the story of grass

Bookmark

Mr Hughes and I were asked to design a bookmark for Writers’ Block (info here). So we did! This is it. We think it is the ideal shape, and that it will look excellent between the pages of your favourite book, perhaps with just the top 1cm sticking out to aid you in finding your place.

If you would like one, simply order a copy of The Story of Grass online.

Issue 2

Issue 3

Or just ask one of us for one. That’d work too.

Leave a comment Posted on art, the story of grass

The Story of Grass Exhibition Today

It’s the exhibition! I am an artist! You will all have to take me VERY SERIOUSLY INDEED now. That includes you, Mr Mahan, my old art teacher. Yeah, you thought I was rubbish at art, didn’t you? Yeah, just because I couldn’t draw or paint which is discrimination, probably, but LOOK AT ME NOW! I WILL HAVE THINGS ON A WALL IN A GALLERY, AND WHERE ARE YOU NOW MR MAHAN? EH? HAHAHAHA. WHERE ARE YOU NOW? AND YOU MR BLYTH! YOU THOUGHT I WAS RUBBISH AT CHEMISTRY BECAUSE I WAS RUBBISH AT IT BUT WHERE ARE YOU NOW?

Ahem.

Anyway AND YOU, MISS PEACOCK! YOU THOUGHT I WOULD NEVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING BECAUSE I WOULDN’T KNOW PURE MATHS IF IT SAT ON MY FACE AND STARTED BOUNCING AND DOING COMPLEX EQUATIONS BUT LOOK – I HAVE PICTURES ON A WALL. OF GIRAFFES! PURE GIRAFFES! HAHAHA!

It’s no big deal, really.

Mr Gus Hughes arrives in the country today – I haven’t seen him for around a year and a half – in fact it was when we were both at Bristol Encounters festival in 2008 for the launch of our Chad Banger animations with 4mations, and instead of going to see short films and all that we got drunk on free beer and started doodling ideas for a stupid comic, which we decided to call “The Story of Grass” because we thought it conveyed excitement and dynamism and because we were drunk.

I can’t wait to see him again! And then we’ve got 90 minutes to get into the gallery, fling our stuff on the walls and start drinking wine and being sophisticated. That’s art.

It should be fun. Hopefully see you there! BUT NOT YOU MISS WILSON! WHERE ARE YOU NOW? WHERE ARE YOOOOOOOU?

ps It was hard to write this because looking back I rather liked most of my teachers at school and college, and they were all mostly ok with me. Except Mr Blyth. He was a colossal twat.