Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

krisis

Krisis has been creating Crushing Krisis since 2000, writing songs since 1996, and reading comics since 1991. He is a Customer Success and Digital Brand Strategy executive, serial organizer, parent, and feminist, among other things. Based in Philly through 2017, he now resides in Wellington, NZ.

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In my many, many months of blogging i have to say that in title, intent, and content, Random Fixation most closely resembles what my original intent for CK was: a voyeuristic peek into the things that can derail an otherwise normally scheduled life. If blogger Cory keeps it up he has definitely scored a life-time subcriber.

Also, elsewhere in the Crushing department:

I don’t exactly remember how our conversation on Sunday lead to it happening, but i am currently in possession of Elise’s clarinet. After a not-so-brief lesson on Sunday i bought my own brace of reeds and a method book that i can thankfully navigate without much instruction as i already read music quite fluently. I have to say that the thing looks a lot more intimidating than it actually is, as all of those little keys and buttons wind up making a lot of sense once you start learning scales. Clarinet practice has so-far supplanted my regular guitar practice this week. In an unsurprising turn, i have already played one Tori Amos song all the way through on the instrument.

I cannot stop buying things on BlogShares. A few days ago i created a user name so i could claim Crushing Krisis as my own, and i innocently bought a few cheap blogs a couple of days ago to see how the system works. Of course, knowing me as well as we all do, this obviously resulted in my paying a subscription fee this morning and turning my initial $500 (not including a hefty gift from Rannie, which i wisely did not sell) into what is approaching a two million dollar fortune of untapped wealth. And, of course, being the blog-snob that i am, i quickly switched to buying only domain-name blogs as soon as i could afford it … blogspotters are for day trading only.

And, finally, through my intense day of trading i have discovered an interesting blog that is the tip of a potentially nauseating phenomenon. The blog is that of the so-called Tarot-Kid who is an Atlanta-based [insert my jaw dropping as i read his page] a blogging singer songwriter, who not only makes literate posts, but even goes so far as to post some of his music for readers to listen to. As we all know, i often lament the lack of DIY songblogging, so you would think i would be incredibly excited by this development. However, it turns out that 1sound, the domain he is hosted on, actually touts itself as “Music Online, featuring Streaming and Downloadable music, graphics and blogging.” Or, essentially, MP3.com humping Blogspot’s leg. Though i find the idea intriguing, i think i will vomit profusely if the concept suddenly takes off after all of my hard work on doing the same thing on my own.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/06/200382406/

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No matter how badass you look with you new buzzed hair cut, scruffy visage, black wifebeater, and “don’t fuck with me” carriage, an entire exercise in acting can be ruined when you remind the dry cleaner not to forget your black shirt because it’s “part of today’s outfit.”

Up until that point i was doing really good character work, though.

But, really what do pissed off looking potential West Philly gang members usually say when the dry cleaner tries to steal their favorite shirt?

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/05/200367588/

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I didn’t think my question had been rude; after all, I would be missing half a day of work to attend their silly “Honors Day.” I just wanted to know what I would be honored for. My outstanding GPA? My flawless academic writings? My strenuous extracurricular schedule?

The associate dean was mum on the matter, somewhat indignant that I had even asked. Apparently the invitation itself should have been honor enough. After our exchange I might have skipped out on the ceremony altogether if not for the fact that Elise had also been invited. And ,she knew why: she was receiving an award for a particularly spectacular paper she wrote on the topic of style and pacing in James Joyce’s Ulysses. So, at worst I would be a pretty applauding face in the crowd when Elise took the stage, and at best I would be crowned as the most dominating intellect in the Liberal Arts program.

The event program was huge, listing all ninety honors that would be conferred during the ceremony to seventy-some individuals. It even listed the title of Elise’s paper next to her name (“Oh god, I’ll die if someone reads a passage from it”), though I could not locate the indication of my achievements as easily.

I finally found my own name, in the midst of a small group at the top of the last page, listed under The General Electric College Bowl Award. The image it summoned was that of the Alex Trebek hosting the National Geography Bee, which I absent-mindedly audited on PBS last week. I remember thinking that those kids were either geniuses or freaks of nature, and that either way I would gladly get them liquored up to avert their almost inevitable descent from middle-school smarty-pants to high school social reject.

Yes, I know that they’re mostly twelve. I’d still show them a good time. But I digress.

Being on the last page, my award was near the end of the ceremony. My trip up to the stage was unremarkable: two quick handshakes and I was down again, tiny envelope in hand, back to my seat. Like the Oscars, only without any movie stars or acceptance speeches. I opened my envelope and scanned the letter inside. Congratulations, blah blah blah, esteemed, yadda yadda yadda, deposited in your account, blah blah huh, call with questions.

It was not just a dorky award given in the memory of a former Junior-team-Jeopardy style television show that all of our parents apparently watched on weekend afternoons. Not just recognition for my two year string of As, only broken once. All of that, plus an anonymous faculty nomination in light of some distinguished facet of those efforts. And the end result was money. Cash, dollars, paid on my behalf directly to Drexel University. Not an alarming amount of money, but enough that I made my advisor assure me that he could deliver a thank you card to my anonymous benefactor. It’s only the third scholarship I have ever earned, and the first I had not applied for on my own.

In retrospect, missing out on a few dozen dollars from work was definitely worth it.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/05/200363453/

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The Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts show was absolutely wonderful. “Are these people,” I reverently asked Melon, “really our age? ”

Maybe I could have believed it after looking at the odd-shaped photorealistic paintings of clouds, or the conference of nearly a dozen porcelain toilets in the middle of the room, or what looked like an drawing Shel Silverstein would have done while taking acid named something to the effect of “A Beautiful Woman Shaves Her Hairy Gums.”

What stunned me were the pieces of art that looked timeless, looked beyond my ability to conceive of. A canvas, as big as my bed, depicting an armored female set against a descending purple twilight. A classical sculpture, in wood and maybe bronze, of a man wearing a boar’s skull. Painting, sculpture, photography, mixed media, all from people who are a part of my generation. Did the student who painted the female warrior watch the same He-Man cartoons as I did? Or, have I lived in a world apart all of these years, separate from the dimension where these artists exist?

In the gift shop I became enamored with a sketching set, suited for the artist who is constantly sketching in the margins of her notebooks. It combined a simple book illustrating how lines form to create simple things like cats, people, and chairs with a neat black sketch book, three pre-sharpened pencils, three sticks of charcoal, and a black crayon of wax (I forget what those are called).

I was determined to buy it for someone – almost everyone I spend my spare time with is an artist of some degree. Any oft hem would appreciate it. But, as I held it in my hands longer, offering it to Erika and Mellon to examine, I realized that all of the people who I wanted to give it to had made it past the margins-of-a-notebook stage of art. I had seen their art, in their rooms, hanging from magnets on my refrigerator, and even decorating their furniture.

No, the set was not for them. It was for me.

So far I have drawn a paper bag, Erika springing from the ground like a tree, a page full of felines and rodents, and a sketch of a Waterson painting. All of the images are imitative, even Ent-Erika, all trying to achieve an image that I have accessed once before. Every time I turn my glance inward I am rewarded only with blank white space, which is mirrored by the empty page in front of me.

Do the artists have a verdant jungle of imagery inside of them, pressing against the backs of their eyes and the insides of their fingertips begging to be rendered into real time and space? Or, is it that they see the same world as I do, yet are inspired to capture the fleeting and intangible beauty of it so that it can always be seen?

I suppose you could ask me the same question about my songs, and my answer would be that it’s all of the above – sometimes they spring from within and sometimes I observe them outside of myself. Sometimes, though, they really do spring fully formed from the proverbial thin air, begging to be formed into something more.

I bought myself a sketch book so that I can learn where to see.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/05/200356828/

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I am met only with incredulity whenever I mention that I haven’t seen it. Personally, I don’t understand the sheer and utter disbelief most people express when they find out that you haven’t seen a movie. Movies need to be found, sat down in front of, paid attention to. Much easier to hear music; I feel as though I ought to reflect back an equal amount of shock at people who claim that they don’t know any songs by David Bowie, or the Beatles.

Various women in my life have managed to seat me in front of the classic flicks of the eighties, but I still have survived with a big gap in the area of mid-nineties cultish comedy classics, to which my noise was firmly upturned at the time. The one movie that most often draws a reaction from my friends and colleagues is Office Space. How, oh how, could I appreciate working in a corporate office without having watched Office Space?

A more surefire tact would have been to mention that Jennifer Aniston played one of the few female roles in the film, but apparently she isn’t worth a mention in the midst of such apt critique of the business world. Something about “PC Load Letter?”

Taking pity on my ignorance of this film classic, my colleague John took it upon himself to loan me the DVD for my home viewing pleasure. And, well, I have derived some pleasure from it, though not as much as everyone seems to expect me to. I should preface this with a caveat that I only managed to sit through half of this dreadfully paced farce, and so could still be missing out on some golden epiphany that comes nearer to the end of the film.

I just don’t think it’s funny. I cannot have pity on hapless morons just because they work in an office, and I certainly can’t find the mocking of the Y2K code replacement especially amusing since grunt work like that is what averted a worldwide financial and nuclear fallout on New Year’s Day that could have effectively canceled my spectacular first kiss.

Aside from the obvious support of any character who romantically pursues Ms. Aniston, there was one scene in the movie that especially struck me. The bit about having a million dollars. We’ve all thought about having it, but I don’t know that the thought ever occurred to me that what I would do with it would be the ultimate reveal as to what I should be doing with my life.

I figured out what I would do while at an art show with Melon, Erika, and Kate over the weekend. I would do art. Not just pictures, or music, or words. I would surround myself with inspired and beautiful things and with tools, guitars, pianos, canvases, empty notebooks, and just create all of the time, every day.

What’s funny is that after you answer the million dollar question, the answer doesn’t seem so obscure any more. This weekend I spent a day going through my belongings from childhood through high school graduation in preparation for my mother’s quickly approaching settlement on a house, and everything I found was art. Academic papers, a comic book I had drawn across the headers of my eighth grade math notebook, a folder full of scrawled out short stories, two full-program scripts from high school health fairs, a binder of plotting outlines for my own series of superhero comics complete with logo designs, a pile of literary magazines that I edited. No science fair projects. No math tests.

A million dollars would just confirm what I’ve tried to do all along. Would it for you?

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/05/200352480/