"NO DRUGS EXCEPT FOR PINK FLOYD" (Part Two)

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A few of you might recall my 2009 blog bit titled "NO DRUGS (EXCEPT FOR PINK FLOYD)". If not, and in case anyone's interested, I will post a link to it at the bottom of this installment. At any rate, I never intended to create a follow-up to that blog bit, but an exchange that I had with my brother Napoleon a little while back inspired me to create a Part Two.
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.For decades I have occasionally used a certain expression, generally after I have explained to someone my view about something. I might make a comment and then follow that with the question, "Can ya dig where I'm comin' from, baby?" It's the sort of thang you might have heard a hippie say back in the late 1960s.
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Well, in the not too distant past, Nappy and I were discussing something in our kitchen when I said something and then followed it with that silly question. Nappy said to me, "Where'd you get that line from?" and I told him it came from a cartoon I had drawn back when I was a teenager. Then I dug out one of my old sketchbooks and showed it to him. Nappy laughed and said, "Hey, that's a pretty good one." That's when I got the idea to eventually post a second blog bit about my sketchbooks and share with you more of my old drawings.
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I probably haven't drawn a single thing since 1984, when I worked as a sign designer. And please understand that I'm not showing you these illustrations because I think it's good art. It's NOT and I know it! I'm sharing these only because it shows the way my (weird) mind worked in my youth. I do believe that what I lacked in artistic talent I made up for with a wild imagination.
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You'll recall that as a young man, I sometimes listened to Pink Floyd through headphones in my darkened bedroom and would later draw some of the images that came to mind. But some of my "stuffs" was so bizarre that people who saw it sometimes asked, "Dude, what drugs were you on?" I answered this question so often that a few times I actually finished a sketch by adding the notation: No drugs!
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It's true, I never did drugs; this weirdo stuffs just came naturally to me. Today, my favorite thing about my old sketchbooks, and the reason I value them, is that they serve as a kind of "Diary Of Drawings", showing what was on my mind in my late teens and very, very early twenties.
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OK, now that we've gotten the explanatory notes out of the way, wanna take a walk with me through the recesses of my strange, youthful brain? Here's the stuffs, man, here's the stuffs . . .
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I might as well start with this :
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It's some sort of Cyclops Worm from outer space asking, "Hey baby, can ya dig where I'm comin' from?" Where's Ed Wood when you've got a good idea for a Sci-Fi/Horror movie?
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Don't ask me! I have no idea who "Martisk" is, nor have I ever heard of "Deep Forest".
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OK, here's "a picture of me dying" :
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This quick little sketch illustrated a dream I had long ago. I was sealed up in a brick pedestal that supported a statue of Buddha. I was gradually running out of oxygen, and the people gathered in front of the statue and taking photographs of it had no idea that someone was dying inside the base of it. (What's it mean, Arlee Boid? ;o)
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"I'm a spy in the house of Love" :
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Any guesses who this is supposed to be? :
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And how about the next one? Any guesses? :
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After drawing the cartoon below, I got to thinking that he looked like "the universal slob", so I added the question, "Doesn't this guy remind you of somebody you know?"
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"Hi, I'm Spunky the Squirrel . . . and I'm totally nuts!"
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'Ite, I'll admit it: this next one I really like; it can still make me chuckle. I dig the concept of taking a letter from the alphabet and personifying it by adding a face, but most of all I dig this one because it shows that even way back then I was engaging in wordplay. And I largely credit Bob Dylan's 1965 album 'Bringing It All Back Home' for inspiring me to play with words.
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"G" is for gnome. Never mind the fact that the "g" in "gnome" is silent. Ha!-Ha! I'm sorry; I know it's bad taste to laugh at one's own jokes but sometimes I make me chuckle.
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OK, here's a little more wordplay:
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"I'm lookin' fer a girlfriend . . . anybody seen one?"

Yeah, I was always lookin' fer a girlfriend!

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And below, I was messing around with a song title. Obviously I had been listening to the Pink Floyd album 'Ummagumma' which includes the track 'Careful With That Axe, Eugene' :

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Somehow, the drawing of "a pregnant fish coming up for air" got slipped in there.

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These next two are included primarily for the amusement of my good friend DiscConnected. [Be sure you visit his blog and sign up for his 'Super 8 Great Debut Albums' blogfest taking place on Monday, February 28th!]

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"The Magic Rat" and . . .

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"Well, I unsnapped his skull cap and between his ears I saw a gap, but I figured he'd be alright."

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I would often practice drawing human eyes (you know, "the mirror of the soul"). No actual models, but just from my imagination :

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"She came to me in a vision."

Yeah, unfortunately she didn't come to me in real life, damn it!

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This next one's closer to reality. The note attached to this drawing reads: This is a portrait of the girl that Stephen took to his high school prom. Two years later they were wed. When asked why he married her, Stephen replied, "Well... she may be a bit on the shy side, but she sure is a good listener!"

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"A pencil-neck geek!" :

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"A big time Hollywood director!" :
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This next one is titled "Madame Wong's Stable" and it represents a menu of prostitutes and their prices. The real Madame Wong had nothing to do with prostitution at all! She was the owner/operator of two nightclubs: Madame Wong's in Chinatown, downtown Los Angeles, and Madame Wong's West in Santa Monica. Back in the late 1970s and into the '80s, these were two of the premier clubs that booked New Wave and Punk Rock acts in the L.A. area.

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Reading from left to right and top to bottom we have: Marylin Majesty, $175.00; Sue Anne Supper, $100.00; Paula Payne, $175.00; Laura Leather (best show on the West Coast), $300.00; Madylin Whip, $200.00 ($150.00 without the glasses); and Bertha Ancient, "Will take best offer."

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In this next one, I was "Gettin' Druggy Wit It" (But not really! Remember, "No Drugs Except For Pink Floyd".) This is my Sister's favorite of all my old drawings :

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Occasionally, photographs found their way into my sketchbooks. Below are two examples. The first one is a picture taken from an old Playboy magazine (like my buddy DiscConnected - and every other guy who has ever purchased a Playboy magazine - I got it solely "for the articles"!)

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This particular issue had a feature about some National Football League cheerleaders who were fired because they had posed nude. I glued a picture of one of them into a sketchbook and gave her something to say :

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I know it's dark and hard to read. This is what she's saying: "Hello, I'm Elizabeth Caleca. I was one of the cheerleaders for the San Diego Chargers who was too hot for the NFL. I was fired for posing naked in Playboy magazine. So now I'm going to be a movie star."

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In other words, now she was "posing" as an actress!

Yeah, sarcasm - it's what I do . . . and always did.

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This next picture shows Yours Truly wearing a pig mask while holding up a can of Coors beer. My artist friend Eric (a real artist!) is wearing 3-D movie theatre glasses that he had colored black to create cardboard sunglasses, and he's holding up a can of Skippy dog food. This was taken in one of those drug store photo booths circa 1978. There isn't any real meaning to the picture; we were just being weird :

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The caption for the photo reads: "Horacio The Pig versus The Atomic Punk in the Showdown of the Century". Who won the Showdown? I guess it all depends upon whether one is more thirsty or more hungry.

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At times, my sketchbooks also served as 'Preservers Of My Philosophy'. On the page above I had written some of my "deep" (Ha!) thoughts from when I was a teenager. Some examples:

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...And the lonely shall inherit the Earth.

The artist's mistakes are half of his art.

Be careful about who you discuss your pain with.

The blade of a knife is no sharper than a blade of grass.

Don't think . . . feel!

[That last one was my personal motto back then. Uhp! I was an idiot!]

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There is more fire in the eye than in the mouth.

He who stops asking questions . . . stops living.

The road to satisfaction is dimly lit.

Light is in the mind.

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Robots . . . too many robots.

Genius . . . everywhere I look, I see a genius. Just once I want to find an artist.

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Some know, some must pretend to know.

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Every so often you run into fire, and fire is more refreshing than air.

What are you about?

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Are your pants too tight?

When you talk with others do you look into their eyes? Or do you look behind them?

Listen to meaning, not to words.

Anger is often a meaure of desire.

Desire is often a measure of anger.

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Oh, life is so grand.

(Yup. Sarcasm! It's what I've always done.)

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Well, that's enough of that.

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Anyone who might want to see my really weird drawings (this stuffs was pretty normal by comparison) can check out the first installment of "NO DRUGS (EXCEPT FOR PINK FLOYD)" by clicking HERE!

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Yak Later, Dudes and Dudettes.

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~ Stephen T. McCarthy

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YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.
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