Pneumothorax

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One reason I draw at all is because it helps be figure stuff out. Last Sunday I was introduced to the incredible world of the pneumothorax. I was skateboarding at Pier 62 in Manhattan and fell 6 feet, flat on my back on the bottom of a cement ramp. There was a loud, weird popping 🔅🔆noise and a dude ran up to me as I lay trying to gain my breath after having the worst wind-knocked-out-of-me I’ve ever experienced. He thought I broke my wrist. Nope. My (padded) wrists are good. My back hurt though. So I ran back up the ramp with my board, took off my pads (I forgot to wear a helmet - so so so fucking dumb - and lucky I didn’t hit my head) changed shoes, slung my backpack 🎒 over my shoulder and walked about 3 blocks to a cab 🚕 . The adrenaline 💉 was wearing off during the traffic choked ride to Brooklyn and holy shit - I started to finally think, what the fuck did I do to myself?! I changed the destination of the cab from home to the emergency🏥 room near to where I live and checked myself in, barely standing, pouring sweat from the pain. Craziest ER experience of my life. 30 hours long - no sleep. It was like a corny Norman Rockwell painting: me laid out on an ER stretcher with my skateboard taking up 1/2 the bed where my legs should be. So many crazy 😜 stories/patient encounters from those 30 hours. I eventually learned I have 5 broken ribs, one of which punctured a lung and collapsed part of it. A pneumothorax is where there’s a hole in your lung from which air escapes and collects, trapped in the pleura surrounding your lungs. There isn’t much room for extra shenanigans in that area (our bodies are so amazingly 😉 incredibly evolved and efficient!!!) so the large air bubble starts to shove up against your heart - which could spell disaster☠️. So they insert a tube under your armpit and thread it toward the air sack to suck the fuck out of it (plus to get the liquidy gunk that collects there) out of the way. That way your lungs can reinflate properly and your heart isn’t in danger of malfunctioning. Glad I’m not a smoker 💨 because it would have been way worse, and recovery would have been more painful and take longer. Pretty amazing procedure - from the very idea to do it, to the material science🔬 that goes into the flexibility of the tube and the system they use to insert the tube - to the vacuum unit they hook up to it to monitor the stuff it sucks ⚡️out. I love that shit!! After 3 days of lung slurping in the hospital (and being attached to the weird vacuum thing) it worked perfectly. They pulled it out (holy shit the burning 🔥 during that short yank) and slapped a shitton of bandages 🤕over the hole. Now I just gotta keep my lungs inflated 🎈 and let my ribs 🍖 heal on their own. Also, pay the medical bills 💸 and try to show my wonderful and amazing loving wife ❤️ how much I appreciate her help and support (while she was taking care of our kids and working full time).

Star Island sketchbook for the week

Sketchbook stuff from Star Island (NH) last week, part of the Isle of Shoals

Dogwood day

Sketches

1/6 - Some new sketches that in the fall, will become giant fuckin' sexpot color bombs.🍆🌮

PRIMUS poster!

I saw PRIMUS at this very venue in Milwaukee back in the early 90's so I was very excited that I was asked to make a poster for a show at the same place! There are a few left and can be bought here. Ships out Aug. 9, 2017.

5 color print by the geniuses at Kayrock Editions in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Get yours here.

5 color print by the geniuses at Kayrock Editions in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Get yours here.

Silkscreening

8" x 10" silkscreen edition of 6, available here.

8" x 10" silkscreen edition of 6, available here.

It's been more than 30 years since I did any silk screening myself. Our high school was just phasing out technical trade classes in the late 80's and we had an amazing "graphics" industrial-style classroom (letterpress, silkscreen, offset printing) with no teachers (they all retired) so it was kinda of Lord of the Flies in there. I sort of learned from other students but not really - mostly just made Red Hot Chili Peppers and Jane's Addiction t-shirts to sell in the parking lot of concerts. I'm hoping to start making small editions in my studio and making them available for cheap, in my store this fall/winter. Click for more like this.

Camp 'n Sketch

Lilly Mugshot

I love to obsess over [drawn] lines. How it's not just a 'line' but how each side has a surface and that there's a variable difference between those to surfaces - they have a relationship to each other. I went to grad school for printmaking but really I only wanted to learn more about drawing. I wanted to know stuff that I never understood, like when, where and why to make lines thicker and thinner. I'm still learning about it and not unlike skateboarding - learning a new trick opens more doors to learning more tricks - more tools to keep in my toolbox. I still love looking through my toolbox and thinking about what to use on a drawing and maybe (hopefully?) know why to use that tool. But often it's just me taking a tool from the toolbox and using it because it seems fun and seeing what happens and inevitably learning something cool from it. Click for more like these.