#he s the excuse i needed to draw goth men

[cherrydeprived]

Gerry doodling in class... In his heart he is and will always be the tradest of tradgoths. Born to tradgoth forced to band shirts and sweatpants (for evil book burning) (alt clothes aren't what I'd call comfortable)

[dipplie]

Temporary list of my stories and OC’s until one day I make a comprehensive and well made list:

Blinded:

Polli: My oldest OC and fun fact was my persona till she become edgy and I wasn’t 12 anymore. Everyone’s favorite yes yes I’m aware. Yellow, energetic, eats dirt and bugs, I can’t tell if she’s evil because of a wisp possession or just crazy. Breaks the 4th wall. Is she a Mary Sue???????? Who knows.

Melody: NOT Polli’s girlfriend despite Polli’s delousions. Has an abusive mom :(. Only has one eye and then no eyes and then robot eyes or smthn idk she becomes a badass when she gets older. But otherwise trembling in her shoes all the time.

Melodys Mom/Sharren: Bitch. Okay well all I’ll say is she’s old and grumpy and probably smells bad.

Louise: Total hotty, rich kid, FtM, got bullied as a kid for his weight. Had a squad of fans basically in high school. Lived with his mom after his parents got a divorce but his mom was semi abusive, projected her femininity onto him, and wouldn’t have been supportive of his transition, so between middle and high school he went to live with his dad and got his sex change and testosterone. His best friend in elementary and middle school stopped talking to him after his transition, and became his competition for the most attractive and sought after boy in school (except Louise is a sweetheart while his friend Tommy is a dick and really gross) His dad runs a company that specializes in technology, and after meeting and falling in love with Melody (even after all her abusive trauma and losing both her eyes) he has his dad and some of the developers create a way to get her vision back and I mean honestly I love him how could you not love him he’s so perfect.

Watching:

Fick: Big nerd boy with thick glasses. I feel like he’d use Reddit but don’t quote me on that. Big crush on Vivinya. Boy don’t wander into the woods- oh look dead body with a curse on it don’t touch it- aaaand now he has a wisp that makes him kill people, way to go kid. Panic attack central.

Vivinya: True crime girl, yucky yucky. Probably had a knife collection. “uwu I’m insane” except she actually is and starts using Fick to kill people for her and treats him like her “Yandere boyfriend” or something cringe and gross oh god. She deserves jail. JAIL. Needs to learn guys need to give consent too. Just overall sucks 1/10.

Tommy: I mentioned him early to be Louises ex best friend and rival. He used to have a crush on Louise actually but that don’t excuse being a BITCH!!!! Also needs to learn people gotta give consent he is just as gross as Vivinya. Cheats on all the girls he gets with because he’s again, a bitch. Idk if he deserved to get murdered though I mean he was still a teenager but it’s fine. Thinks of the song Seventeen from Heathers actually this story does feel a tad reminiscent of heathers with vivinya being a crazy and wanting to off a bunch of students. Huh.

Suzannie: Tommy’s older sister who’s a detective. What a coincidence. Monotone and depressed. Probably because her little brother got murdered. Gets real awkward when she’s talking about her brothers murder(s) to Fick and Vivinya like “when I find who did this to him they’ll regret being born”. Kind of really pretty actually.

Adolescents (there isn’t actually a story here yet but don’t worry about it shhhh):

Nelson: HIMBO HIMBO H- Jock stupid idiot big dork god he’s so awkward and his main personality trait is having a crush on Naomi and being a dork when talking to her. Probably could benchpress you.

Naomi: Gamer or something and a nerd geek. Her main personality trait is having a crush on Nelson and also being a dork when talking to him. Probably a weeb and fandom dweller. Can’t draw but she commissions artists to draw. She does write copious amounts of fanfiction though.

Andrés: Ohhh the school bad boy babyyyy. Baseball bat with nails in it or something. There’s like... A thing between him in Charlotte and he wants to be a thing but she’s being difficult and makes it hard to talk to her or about her and ugh.

Charlotte: Princess, high school princess. She’s actually pretty nice when you get to know her- but she’s a diva. Ballerina after school. Best friends with Naomi and doesn’t know what she’s talking about when she mentions ships or OTPs but she listens anyways because she’s a good friend. There’s like... A thing between her and Andrés but she doesn’t know if she’s super into him but geez he’s really hot but she gets such mixed responses when she asks her friends about it and what if it doesn’t work outttt.

Marlon: They/Them but they’re okay with either pronouns they aren’t sure yet, he or she is okay... Box boy box boy. Autism... He doesn’t want to admit He’s attracted to men but he’s totally attracted to men. He lives alone which is probably illegal for his age but somehow he manages. Everyone thinks he’s “the quiet kid” and he’s really sad about it no don’t make jokes like that please guys ahh-

Sing for Me:

Kat: The color pink, addahadda(adhd), angry and loud and short. For being only like 10 and being an adorable little lesbian dressing in sparkly pink dresses she actually likes screaming a lot and would totally sing heavy metal if her producers let her. Loud and mad but gets so soft around her girlfriend. “If anything happens to Brie I’m killing everyone in this room and then myself”.

Brie: French... Birds and stuff. Loves her girlfriend even though she is so loud. So fast. So much. Likes to write pretty things. Is only like an inch taller than Kat. Filled with so much love for everything.

Elliot: The girls manager. Lots of coffee. Stressed out of his MIND please help this man. Probably gay. Seems like a smug dick but he is just a tall and lanky dork that loves puppies and wants nothing more than for Kat and Brie to be happy. Accidentally brands them as sisters and then Kat kisses Brie and- oh fuck oh shit oh no what has he done. Hides the fan and non fan responses from them. Poor guy.

Horror Hosts:

Ichabod: Hot demon who’s the son of the current ruler of hell or something. I mean he’s hot, smart, and royalty, what more do you want. I very specifically hear the dub voice of Kyoya Ootori from OHHC as his voice don’t @ me. Goat legs????? Yeah??? Don’t be rude.

Barnabie: Ohhhhhhhhh big orc teddy bear I’m crying I love him????? He puts up a more confident ploy and the given stereotypical personality orcs supposedly have but he’s just a shy boy that wants to give girls flowers and call boys pretty. Help him.

Garrison: Gary Burger. Fat hairy gay man. I mean werewolf. Wouldn’t it be funny if I made the whole werewolf thing backwards and made him transform into a HUMAN only on the full moon??? Party animal, pun absolutely intended. LOUD AND FUNNY he’s a dork. Bites. Horny on main Garrison please you’re supposed pamper and flirt with the guests but not quite that much.

Vincenzo: Token Vampire but he’s Italian because I felt like it. Talk and lanky of course. Bitch face. Blood coffee? Yeah lots of coffee. Tired. Let him sleep in Ichabod. Steps on people. Can summon and reanimate corpses but has a bitter attitude towards them because they get annoyed with him as much as he gets annoyed with- everyone else. He does have a soft spot but idk where it is. When he’s talking to guests he’s more suave and sexy though.

Kai: Genderfluid haha get it because slime fluid-... I’ll stop. Probably objectively the hottest because they can look anyway they want and shift their vocals to sound like almost anything, also probably objectively the best in bed (if you’re okay with the texture of Jell-o) and honestly come on save some for the rest of us it’s not fair. This boy can SING oh my god seranade me and whisper in my ear baby. Spunky and sassy.

Hallvor: BABY OCTOPOD BOY OHHHHH I LOVE HIM HE’S SO SWEET AND IS AN ANGEL DARLING BOY SO EMBARRASSED SO SHY SOFTEST VOICE OHHH- ohhh nooo he’s got a knife ohhhhh Hallvor baby don’t be like that ohhhh... Used to work in hentai actually (I wonder why) but quit because of immoral practices and good for him we love that. Okay he’s not actually a yandere or whatever but he DEFINITELY wants to squeeze you a little too hard and has those crazy eyes.

Carla: Main character of this OHHC monster clone. She sucks I don’t like her because listen listen she kills monsters as a living and when she tries to kill our boys here, Ichabod catches her and goes “no” but then the rest (not knowing her murderous intent) fall in love with her and Ichabod is like: “shoot well I’ll keep you alive and around but I’m watching you” and blah blah romance and feelings and character development and wow she seems like she’s grown to care about them... So Ichabod removes a curse he put to prevent her from harming them or leaving... AND THEN SHE STABS THEM ALL IN THE BACK IM CRYING. I mean she might have an extra reason for needing to kill them but I haven’t decided if I want to actually put it in the story yet so.

Fingertips:

Maria/Marianna: Was this goth angry chick and the head of these losers but after a failed heist, fire, and being betrayed and dropped from a window on a 3rd or 4th story down into flames, and going to the hospital and changing her name, she changed totally and become a soft pretty girl... And then the next three boys went “HEY BOSS WE FOUND YOU” and she went “oh no” and now she’s just an anxious wreck like “no no no no no I don’t shoot people in the face anymore no no no no no” And has a fear of hands. Also was Diamontés best friend in primary school and yes all these characters went to the K-12 school all the other characters do/did. Pretty voice. The story is mostly about her being anxious around all the other characters because who was it that betrayed her and dropped her into the flames below? Find out next week on th-

Nikki: He’s that character that you see and immediately go “oh he’s gross and is angry and is a bitch” and you’re right he is and has a cockney accent and screams a lot and probably swings a knife around a lot, but he’s got a sweet interior (somewhere in there... somewhere) Screamo heavy metal. Him and the rest of these character briefly talked about having a band and then they didn’t and then at the end of the story they do and although he plays guitar mostly, if he does do lead vocals he screams a lot. Bitch.

Anthony: Pretty boy but like the “was in the army” pretty boy vibe. Probably played football in highschool. Pyromaniac. Punches Nikki a lot. Almost gives himbo vibes sometimes, almost. Kind of likes the old timey cozy aesthetic. Plays the piano sometimes but “oh I’m not very good at it” Plays extremely well

Diamonté: TALL. Purple goth boy aesthetic hellll yeahhhh. CRAZY EYES AND THEY SPEAK VOLUMES WATCH OUT. Drums. The scary kind of quiet because he just smiles at you. Crowbar. Okay but he’s actually really sweet though. Secretly loves watching Anthony and Nikki get into fights so that’s why he rarely puts a stop to it. I think he’s a sadist. Can be a gentle giant, but can also be a not so gentle giant. The only time he’s really talkative is after copious amounts of booze.

Unnamed/Undesigned 1: Literally a pimp and he’s pretty gross. Blonde hair and pink and white clothes.

Unnamed/Undesigned 2: Chick that likes to throw knives and be angry and threatens Marianna a lot but in a quiet and monotone way, Marianna is pretty scared and hopes that these are just shallow threats uhhhhh.

Unnamed/Undesigned 3: Sells guns (without a lisence of course) and wears a bandana over his face a lot. Tired. Grumpy.

Unnamed/Undesigned 4: Like Marianna, was cold hearted and cool but then got caught in the fire and got all soft. He only has one eyes but how sweet his eyepatch is a heart. Recoved along side Marianna and they are good friends good friends tha- wait Marianna are you going back with them oh god you can’t do that oh dear oh no oh-

(I don’t have a story or name for these two but they’re my comfort ship OC’s and my current hyper fixaction right now):

Rodriquéz: I literally designed him with almost all the traits I find attractive in a guy other than freckles so as you can imagine I find him super HOT. I also designed his personality on what I find attractive from a guy so as you can imagine I find him super GREAT. But anyways he’s grumpy and closed off and monotone and smug. I really could go on for hours about how I want him to step on me I’m so sorry guys. Both him and Samantha give the “21 and having immature fun” vibes. They’re a thing but they like going to bars together and splitting off and doing their own thing (or doing someone else’s thing if you get what I mean haHhahHhahGahGhaha-) But so help them if anyone doesn’t oblige by the “no” from one of these two, someone’s gonna get beat up.

Samantha: (She literally just my personality shhhhh don’t tell anyone it’s a secret) Bubbly, energetic, a little shy by extroverted, bombshell blonde or something? It took me way too much time and effort to design her but I’m really happy with how I finally designed her, I love her outfit. She could kick me in the face and I’d say thank you. Girly drinks at the bar. Got that trauma and anxiety™️ secretly though. Skips and jumps a lot. As I’m typing this I keep looking up at the drawing of her and more and more I would want her to also step on me.

(Space Story I don’t have a nice title for):

Unnamed/Undesigned 1: So... Funny story this story originally was with me and uh... My ex I guess... So I gotta replace the MC’s... Whoops ahaha... Awkward. But anyways the MC is a robot and a girl and is a slight tsundere or smthn.

Unamed/Undesigned 2: Has a space ship, works for this organization in space that protects the galaxy. Is cocky, lazy, sly, oblivious, and an idiot. The love interest- obviously. Probably accidentally committing space crimes. (Like space pirating hAHAHA-) Kind of cool when he wants to be.

Dandelion/Dandy: CAT. WITH A JET PACK. Kind of an asshole. Fun fact used to be Polli’s cat but then when the Second MC crash landed on earth she was like “fuck this noise I’m going with space boy laterz” (okay she can’t talk but she thought it).

Zizii: Lesbian alien? Yeah???? Okay but I mean her main character trait is being a dorky back alley doctor and engineer obsessed with the MC because they’re a sentient robot with emotions and a lazer arm and rocket boots WOW!!!!!!!!

Story I want to revive:

So I had a story I started writing a long time ago about this tech theatre kid that had a crush on this other theatre kid character, but in a play that other character has to kiss another person for the show, and as the story progresses the MC convinces themselves that it isn’t just a play and that their crush actually loves and is kissing that other kid. And in the play, that other character is supposed to die. Show night comes along and they die, but like actually, and by the hands of the MC (Idk maybe like a light falls on em or smthn). So it’s a grotesque scene the audience sees as just an act. (Mutters I dunno I think my idea’s cool...) So I’ve been wanting to design these characters and work more on the story but I’m busy being obsessed with Rodriquez and Samantha so. (And the Horror Host Club too I love them too still).

Other Characters that either don’t have a specific story or are kind of like background characters:

Jacqueiliquinne Merril: Sara Berry vibes from 35mm (go look up The Ballad of Sara Berry, maybe like an animatic idk the first one that comes up is nice) But otherwise rich, pretty, popular, bitch. Tries to like, steal Louise from his squad and it’s like bro that’s unnecessary who hurt you that’s so rude. She gives Nui from Kill La Kill Vibes too. Oh she knows her name is long and annoying but you have to say the whole thing.

Brianna: Jaqueiliquinne’s sister. Big titty goth gf??? She’s pretty popular too and kind of a bitch too but to a much lesser degree. Her and he sister throw hands a lot when no one is around, you know, “THEY GIRLS ARE FIGHTINNGGGG”.

The Louise Fan Club: 4 characters I haven’t named yet. One writes fanfiction of Louise and shares it with the others and with him sometimes and although he thinks it’s a bit weird he also finds it a tad endearing and supports her. One is an aspiring photographer and is constantly asking Louise to model for him. One is an artist and draws Louise all the time. And one is an aspiring musician who writes songs based of Louise’s relationships which again he finds a little weird but endearing and supports her.

The Jacquiliquinne Merril Fan Club: Genderbent-ish (I say ish because one of the characters is a little bit less defined gender wise) versions of the Louise Fan Club. Yes I’m lazy, and no they don’t get along with them, infact they hate each others club with a passion. 

Unnamed/Undesigned: I wanna make some hacker kid just because I wanna have one.

Unnamed/Undesigned: I also really wanna have a super cutesy magical girl and then a really super duper generic boring character probably like star vs the forces of evil idk I never watched that show but it looks cute.

Me: I exist in the universe fukc you I can do what I want it’s my story and I get to chose the who also if you wanna be in the mess of a universe go ahead draw yourself with my OC’s I allow and encourage and appreciate it. I literally made the Horror Host Club as a sort of Harem story and you are absolutely allowed to make out with them if you’re a monster fucker DO it GO ahead it’s canon.

and that is ALL I have FOR now Knowing me I’ll make like 12 more characters by July, and I mean I need more characters for the high school anyways so...

[ghoulluck]

It was a brief nightmare. She didn’t remember the nature of it, but it didn’t have the hold it once had on her decades ago. Cheryl reached over to the night stand to pull the pack of cigarettes her brother had gifted her before they had left to New York.

She furrowed her brows as she grabbed hold of the empty black carton. Cheryl chucked it half way across the room in an attempt to throw it away. The package fell disappointingly short.

The red head sighed as she pulled back the sheets carefully to avoid waking the blonde woman next to her. Karen twitched in her sleep, a quiet characteristic she shared with Frank. She missed Johnny and wished he had come. Karen looked sad without her dumb ass. Leaning over the bed, she left a bright red pair of lips on the others cheek. She would have gladly stayed in hell for all eternity if it meant Karen would love her bother forever. Whatever speckles of trouble that spotted the blonde woman eased some.

Cheryl broke away from the bed in silence to get dressed. She chose a Depeche Mode shirt courtesy of tall blonde and hung, a blue flannel shirt that belonged to Karen, long socks in case her legs got cold and some boots Frank had bought her. She picked her id from her bag along with some cash and the hotel key.

When she wandered from the suite’s bedroom, she found frank laid asleep with a book on his chest on the floor as if he had been guarding the door. He was as restless as ever, his features twitched violently and she could see his muscles flexing as if he was fighting something in his dreams. She knelt down to his level to put a hand on his chest to rub it lightly in an effort to pull him from his nightmares.

The woman leaned in closer, tucking her red locks behind her ear as she left him a delicate kiss on the mouth. “I’ll be back,” she whispered to him softly, “take care of kare bear.” He grunted in his sleep much to her amusement and she leaned him to give him another kiss to soften his expression.

God, how she fucking hated the champagne bubbles in her stomach.

The woman closed the hotel door behind her with a click of her near black eyes. Most people didn’t know exactly what the Constantines had in common aside from the color of their eyes, the aloof nature of their smiles and their willingness to drown their sorrows in a glass of bad wine championed only by a burning clove cigarette.

The walk down to the convenience store was a good thirty minutes from the hotel room. Cheryl took her time observing the new world around her. Oh how times had changed.

Pushing the store door open, she made her way through the first row made up of cheap knick knacks meant to be souvenirs. I ❤️ New York was plastered grossly across mugs, key chains, really anything that was marketable. She passed these things in favor of looking at wines, sports drinks and sodas.

Every row was more processed then the last. The last time Cheryl had been alive, times were vastly different. Goth was alive and well, now it was a watered down artifact along with quality control. Her eyes wandered as she walked each aisle carefully until at the end of a hall, she was met with the devil himself.

Her head tilted towards the door. If she ran now, she could make chase, but that would lead him to their safe place. Instead, she calmly turned away towards the register to shell out a few pretty dollars for the man there, “marboloro reds. 100’s.”

“ID.”

Without hesitation she pulled out her fake ID to hand it over. The man took a look at the age, handed over her cigarettes and put a few coins on the counter as her change. She took the pack as she outright plucked a red lighter from their selection with another few dollars placed on the counter.

Once outside, she waited to see if the blind man would follow her out. She knew his face from his place in Karen’s hell and her own interactions with him. Despite being blind, his advanced senses allowed him, even when she was dead, to always point his nose in her direction.

The lighter’s flame did not reflect in her eyes as she sparked the flame to get her nicotine fix. She only managed half a cigarette before Murdock came out empty handed. Cheryl had always known she was pretty. It attracted men like her father and men like matt. She and Karen were the same kind of pretty.

Matt’s cane touched her boot in a blatant attempt to sell his blindness as he sheepishly excused himself.

“It’s fine,” the eldest constantine stated as she loudly tapped the seating next to her, “You should probably sit down before you run over any other pedestrians or vice versa.”

Her tone was saccharine, “would you like a cigarette?” He seemed to cautiously buy into the act, but politely turned the offer down, “no, thank you. I just enjoy the smell.”

Cheryl puffed on her cigarette a half second, “really now?” Her flirtatious tone came with the steady exhale of smoke, “guess you’re in luck.” Her boots shifted as she turned more fully to him, “You know you look familiar.” The man laughed, putting a hand on his chest in faux mild embarrassment, “don’t tell me it was on a bus or bench.”

“No,” Cheryl states easily as she watches the cherry in her cigarette fade from behind its cylinder of ash. He bites the tid bit of information, “oh, where?”

The red head stood before Matt to gauge his reaction as his head swiveled in her direction. She stepped on his foot that was missing the pinky toe that johnny had harvested from him. It was a warning she knew he would get. Constantine may have been the one who took the toe, but Cheryl was far more petty.

She watched Matt’s face almost twist when it changed from curious to tense. She raised the cigarette to her red mouth as she applied more weight to his foot in silence. “Who are you?” Cheryl dropped the cigarette to her thigh to debate calling on Frank.

When she doesn’t answer, he swings at her knocking the air from her lungs. Her cigarette goes straight to his face out of instinct.

Karen yells in pain when the burn wakes her from her fitful sleep. Frank is at once at her side. When he doesn’t see Cheryl, a fist of something ugly starts twisting his guts. Karen holds her cheek where the burn mark manifests on her skin.

Matt’s next punch draws blood when Cheryl hits the concrete where she spits it out with malice as she kicks out his legs from under him. She had enough practice in hell by frank’s side to ensure that she won’t loose to him. The red head scrambles to get on top of him. her arm draws back to stike him with her bony fist, but the fall through fails when she feels Frank’s arm yank her off of the devil. There’s still fight in her left and she spits at Matt’s exposed face right in his blind eyes.

The ex-marine only lets her go when they’re back in the room where Karen is clasping her cut hand. Blood magic is an easy calling on the linked four. Frank let’s Cheryl thud heavily on the floor as he gets down eye level to inspect her face forcefully.

He doesn’t reprimand her. He just makes sure she’s okay and kisses her temple roughly because he’s pissed, but he still loves the fucking shit out his brat. Cheryl swallows as Karen doesn’t seem to know what to say at first.

“W-wher-where did you go?” The blonde woman crosses her arms, more like she’s hugging herself as she clasps her bleeding hand tightly to stop the blood flow. For once, she can see the tight jawed expression Cher and Constantine share, something he clearly got from her and not the other way around.

“Got cigarettes,” she answers as she pats the carton in the flannel pocket.

“Why are you bleeding?”

Cheryl’s dark eyes avert to Frank where he stands, “don’t worry about it. Frank saw it. I tripped.” Her lie is just as easy as Constantine’s. The ex-marine shakes his head with a sniff as he looks away as he usually does when shit doesn’t smell right, “matt knows we’re here. Two made direct contact.”

Karen swallowed as she nodded. The last time she had seen matt was when he delievered her to Fisk. He still haunted her dreams, probably as much as Fisk did. The blonde woman’s mouth hung open, “we-we have to go to the oracles.” It seemed like the only definitive action to take. They needed a safe house.

More accurately, Cheryl needed a safe house.

[nofomoartworld]

Art F City: L.A. Art Diary: The Final Entry

Doug Crocco

This is my last entry from L.A. I’ll explain why later, but basically I realized it was not the city for me, despite the past month+ of adventures I’ve had: Week One, Week Two: Part One, Week Two: Part Two, Week Three, Week Four.

Monday 7/17

#spiritual #technology #LA

A post shared by Michael Anthony Farley (@ellende666enerate) on Jul 17, 2017 at 6:04pm PDT

I realize I really miss walking, and that I have spent very little of the last month outside of a car/bus/train actually experiencing the city. I decide to take a semi-urban hike to the Hollywood Hills from Echo Park, roughly nine miles and an elevation climb of about 1,200 feet (an Empire State Building!). It takes a little over 3 hours, and along the way I fancy myself on a Situationist dérive.

A post shared by Michael Anthony Farley (@ellende666enerate) on Jul 17, 2017 at 6:32pm PDT

I pass Scientology compounds, mansions, slums, mini malls, beautiful old art deco buildings,  most of Sunset Boulevard’s eastern leg, Little Armenia, Thai Town, and plenty of weird sights. It occurs to me that L.A. seems so surreal and familiar at the same time because it’s an unlikely pastiche of different urbanisms. The scattered pockets of dense eclectic pre-war architecture (themselves mostly referent to other places’ vernaculars) don’t quite coherently connect to one another so much as they float in a sea of postwar sprawl and car-centric infrastructure. But bits of big-city reality end up accumulating in all the wasted space of the suburban dream—the dead sidewalk space fronting big blank side walls of supermarkets become tent cities, highway medians host street preachers shouting at passing cars futily, and those odd islands between boulevards and parking lots get occupied by food trucks and other vendors. People sleep and conduct a shadow economy in the grassy areas between the street and gated parks.1950s motels have been converted into studio apartments with businesses below.  L.A. feels like the not-so-distant future of so much of America.

At one point my sidewalk ends and I’m forced onto a steep hillside between a freeway onramp and a walled-off neighborhood of mansions patrolled by private security. I stumble upon an entire impermanent shanty town, hidden from the highway by scrub and the wealthy residents above by an impossibly high concrete wall topped with barbed wire. Los Angeles might have one of the worst housing shortages and income disparities I’ve ever seen in an industrialized nation. It’s a thought that sticks with me on my ascent past single-family mansions the size of office parks.  

Tuesday 7/18

I temporarily move onto the futon of artists Meghan Gordon and Manny Prieres in Koreatown. (Coincidentally, I’d written about Meghan’s work and Manny’s work, respectively, before I became friends with either or knew they were roommates). Staying with them is awesome. Their apartment is huge, full of windows, one adorable cat, and is walking distance to roughly 2,000 businesses and two subway lines. Their rent is maybe half of what a comparable spot in a convenient New York neighborhood would be. If they had a third bedroom, I would be seriously tempted to sign on as a permanent roommate.

Wednesday 7/19

A friend from Baltimore lives close-ish to Meghan and Manny, and we meet up to check out The Faultline, a gay bar that hosts a crazy drag competition on Wednesdays. Someone is dressed as Ursula the sea witch lipsynching to Divine and it’s a show-stopper. It feels appropriate that it’s hump-day and we find this very NSFW GIF-able neon sign. It’s a good night so far.

We leave the club to grab a drink at a quieter spot to catch up, but after 30 minutes of wandering, can’t find another bar. Although it’s before midnight, the streets are almost entirely empty. On our walk, we pass exactly three other people, all of whom are men who catcall her. She says that’s not uncommon. Street harassment is obviously a problem in every city, but it’s usually tempered by having positive or neutral experiences with the vast majority of the thousands of people one encounters in public space in other cities. The lack of pedestrian culture in 90% of L.A.’s surface area (excepting commercial strips in a handful of older neighborhoods) makes public space intimidating. It also emboldens creeps. Basically, in vast swaths of the city, the only people you see on sidewalks are either batshit crazy or scurrying from a car to an indoor space. We both admit we’re slowly becoming more misanthropic the longer we’re here. That thought really bothers me.

We both take Ubers home. I decide it might be time to book a flight out of L.A.

Thursday 7/20

Marcel Alcalá is having an informal showing of his recent drawings at Club Pro, an art space in a loft downtown. The pastel works on paper are really nice—they’re humorous, direct sketches that play with body image and sexuality in the age of dystopic-fake-cheery late capitalism. My favorite depicts an ambiguously-gendered person running gleefully with an erection—wearing only a tube top and go-go boots, one of which bears the acronyms: “DNA YSL NBA STD TSA”—between a house labelled “WELLS FARGO” and another “THE MALL”. In others, the imperfect figures seem to be posing for “sexy” selfies, but end up endearingly goofy.

After the opening, my former roommate from Baltimore invites me to her friend’s loft for a drink. It’s several stories above the eerily-dead-at-night Fashion District with sweeping views of the skyline. We can’t tell if it’s an apartment, coworking space, or event space. We’re both too embarrassed to ask, but joke that it looks remarkably like our old illegal warehouse apartment in Baltimore with several hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of renovations.

I end the night at General Lee’s, a Chinatown cocktail lounge that’s become my favorite L.A. art people hang out. Aria Dean, assistant curator of net art at Rhizome, is DJing. Again, I run into multiple people I’ve known in different cities at different time who all ended up here. Between that and the movie-set-like vibe of Chinatown’s pedestrian passages, L.A. starts to feel more and more like a dream.

Friday 7/21

The post punk proto goth neo noir sci fi half robot half man anti hero Los Angeles has been waiting for. Pickle dog is VERY impressed.

A post shared by ManyDistantCities (@nolizzie) on Jul 21, 2017 at 5:58pm PDT

I’ve spent the night on Liz’s couch to avoid Uber surge pricing, and we take her dogs for a walk along the L.A. River. The L.A. River is basically a concrete drainage ditch full of abandoned objects that the dogs love playing with. We discover that the concrete “river banks” are actually the perfect angle to lay upon in the sun while hungover. She describes the river as “either a triumph of urban planning or a really big urban planning mistake?” We decide L.A. needs a museum dedicated to the history of its divisive built environment. Liz’s bulldog Pickle gifts us with a tire full of potentially-toxic river slime in our laps and our art-viewing plans take a backseat to laundry and showering as a priority for the day.

By the time I get back to Koreatown, Manny and several of his artist friends are heading out to the Bigfoot Lodge. It’s a kitschy bar that looks like a Wes Anderson set where a DJ is spinning the best set of obscure-ish old vinyl I’ve ever heard. The music is so good we don’t even realize we’ve stayed until last call. We all end up chatting at a nearby diner (that looks equally like a Wes Anderson location) until sunrise, when we notice Coyotes have encircled the parking lot looking for easy drunk prey.

Only in Los Angeles.

Saturday 7/22

Manny and I are having some much-needed coffee with one of our mutual friends, artist/curator Jacqueline Falcone. To varying degrees, we all think of Miami as “home” despite the fact that none of us were born there nor live there presently. Jacqueline moved here from Miami about a year ago, and the three of us start talking about the similarities and differences between the two cities. Both have beaches, palm trees, tourists, endless traffic jams, glamour, and the bad urban planning that seems endemic to places with perfect weather in this country.

We all concur that the biggest adjustment is the isolation one can feel in Los Angeles. South Florida is spread out, but nothing like the scale of L.A. But mostly the art scene in Caribbean Miami feels like one big loud family you’re immediately welcomed into with cheek-besitos and all-night parties. There, our friends would ride a bike across a causeway in a tropical storm or sit in gridlock for hours to not miss your opening. Everyone shows up absurdly late for everything, but there’s a sense of ironclad dependability. Meanwhile in L.A., people will sometimes cancel lunch plans if it’s overcast (really) or they just don’t feel like dealing with the logistics (constantly feeling pressured to look your best in public, moving a car or paying for Uber, the vast distances, expensive valet parking everywhere) of leaving the house that day.

I admit that L.A. is starting to feel oppressively lonely when I’m not with friends. In most East Coast or Latin American cities, for example, it’s not considered creepy to strike up a conversation with a stranger at a coffee shop or bar if you’re alone. It’s a lot harder to meet people in L.A.

Manny thinks that’s not such a bad thing—the isolation of L.A. forces you to be more independent. You drink less here, care more about your health, and have less distractions from studio time. Knowing his labor-intensive process (he precisely recreates things such as book and album covers in delicate graphite on black enamel) that makes sense. I, on the other hand, might be too much of an extrovert to deal with the creepiness of all the times I’ve walked for 15+ blocks without passing another human (and in the rare cases I have, been regarded suspiciously for being a pedestrian without the excuse of a dog to walk).

I’m struggling to remember a quote I think I read somewhere (or maybe made up?) as an angsty, wander-lusty teenager. It goes something like “The world’s great megacities always attract lonely people, where they can hide in a teeming crowd, like crying in the rain.” It doesn’t matter, though, because Los Angeles seldom has “teeming crowds” per se. And it certainly doesn’t have rain.

One thing I love about both Los Angeles and Miami is that art openings, to quote Whitney Kimball, have “replaced stuff to do” in a dearth of opportunities for chance encounters. She was writing about New York, but I always think her description is much more appropriate to the sprawly Sunbelt cities: “Non-art friends sometimes ask if I can take them to openings to meet people, which I thought was weird, until I stopped going to art events for a year and realized there aren’t a lot of scenarios in this city where you’re allowed to just stand in a room and mingle for free.”

I can’t think of a better example of this phenomenon than BBQLA, a tiny gallery in the back of a studio building that celebrates openings by roasting an entire pig in the parking lot outside. We arrive and all concur it feels very Miami—down to the side dishes of platanos and arroz y habichuelas served in the lot of a one-story warehouse covered in street art. After about two hours chatting with friends outside, I feel guilty I have spent less than ten minutes actually looking at the small show, Cabin Pressure, curated by Quinn Harrelson.

Janeva Ellis, “Bloodlust Hero”

That’s not to say it’s uninteresting. I revisit the exhibition text and realize it’s eerily in synch with what I’d been thinking about the past few days:

“The year is 2017 and over the vast urban sprawl of Los Angeles, the world has just ended, like a cracked egg. Many are taking post-apocalyptic selfies with the remaining minutes of their batteries.

But here, the crust of the peopled desert springs open, and something else crawls out from the earth’s core. It is possibly just a sentient silence, and yet an oasis germinates. Here lives a swamp, a jungle, a digestive system flipped inside out, a white cube of humidity transported from Southern Florida to Southern California.

To what extent does a group of works construct an environment? an ecosystem?

To what extent are they truncated into mechanisms of the jungle? into a single human body?

Like crocodile tears are artificial tears, this is an artificial rainforest, a simulacrum of the swamp. Constructed to push mutability to limits. Here alchemy transmutes mud to matter and nothingness to mud.”

Purvis Young

The most-discussed piece in the show is undoubtedly a small Don Quixote on a found metal panel by the late self-taught artist Purvis Young. Young has somewhat of a cult following, and there’s something nice about the un-precious (but also revered) quality of some of the objects he left behind. I’m mostly drawn to Janiva Ellis’s portrait of a melancholy demon, “Bloodlust Halo”. It’s a weird painting, one that elicits unlikely empathy. Most people don’t want to linger with me in the tiny exhibition space, though, because there’s an installation of handmade dirt-and-paper bricks that smells overwhelmingly like pee. For a show with only six or seven artworks, it sure packs a sensory punch.

Sunday 2/23

Organizer Phil Davis makes shirts for the participating MINIBAR artists. I love these.

File this under the “stuff to do” category of art happenings: I’m on my way to a miniature golf course in South Pasadena. I think this was a “Suggested Event” for me on Facebook, but I can’t remember the name or find the information about it anywhere and I suspect the friends I’ve dragged along are beginning to think I made it up as our Uber winds through a suburban park.

We arrive, though, and lo and behold there’s a small group of art-looking people hanging out in the snack bar of the golf course. We ask them if we’re in the right place, and they explain that Phil Davis has been curating a series of monthly group shows, called MINIBAR, in the club. The work is all small and kind of easy to miss, which is actually a nice layer to enjoying the overall unlikeliness of the idiosyncratic setting. Los Angeles has become known for art shows in small, strange places, but this one might take the cake. There are 2D works scattered around the walls above booths, and a video by Tyler Finnie loops on the TV behind the bar.

Tyler Finnie

I’m a big fan of Finnie’s “Liza Six Pack,”  which comprises simply a plastic six-pack holder superimposed over a Polaroid of Liza Minnelli in a brass frame. Other highlights include Jessica Williams’ “Keep on Dancing Til The World Ends,” a washy watercolor of a girl looking over her shoulders while walking her bike. She’s wearing booty shorts that say “BABY” on the ass and, like Liza, is a little funny/sad/creepy.

I bum a cigarette from someone I’m convinced I’ve met somewhere before—another art opening perhaps? A friend-of-a-friend’s dinner party? But they don’t remember me. This has happened to me three times in L.A. Later, someone will whisper in my ear that I recognize these people because they had supporting roles on the type of T.V. shows you lovingly binge-watch on Netflix when you’re sick. My urge to facepalm never wears off.

We end the night by walking through (but not playing) the miniature golf course, and fantasize about which structures would make the best tiny house squats.

Monday 2/24

I’m leaving a gym on Wilshire Boulevard at dusk and realize I’m across the street from LACMA. The sun is setting, and Chris Burden’s epic public sculpture “Urban Light” has just been illuminated. It’s really, really beautiful. From this distance, the gaggle of selfie-takers doesn’t even seem annoying. I’m struck with a sense of regret that I probably don’t have time to make it to all the museums I wanted to see. I debate pushing back my flight when I get back to my computer.

On the walk home, though, I pass through the dark dead space between Miracle Mile and Koreatown. There, two inhabitants of a tent village that’s sprung up in the yard of an abandoned brutalist office building follow me for several blocks, shouting alternately homophobic and (incorrectly-assigned) racial slurs until I cross into the bright neon and peopled-sidewalks of Koreatown. I’m beginning to feel like Los Angeles is hell-bent on reminding me that it hates me every time I start to love it.

Wednesday 7/26

I’m at a taco cookout at Big Pictures Los Angeles, an art space run by artist Doug Crocco about a 10 minute drive south of Koreatown. The space has several rooms, one of which is functioning like an open studio of Doug’s own recent work, and another showing excerpts of Steve Gladstone: The End of Pictures alongside works from the group show Polaroid Black. BPLA also has the coolest toilet seat I’ve ever seen in a gallery, made from colored pencils in resin. It’s a really nice space that strikes one of the best balances I’ve seen here between professional and casual.

Excerpts from “Polaroid Black” (R) and “Steve Gladstone: The End of Pictures” (L)

Manny Prieres has a piece in Polaroid Black, a detail from the cover of the Joy Division album Closer, enlarged and rendered in hand-drawn graphite. Until you’re right on top of it, you’d swear it was a silkscreen. It occurs to me that Manny feels like an old friend because his work would’ve appealed as much to my younger, more punk-rock self as it does to me today.

Manny Prieres

Doug Crocco’s colored pencil drawings are just as meticulous and lovingly crafted. At first, I mistake them for oil paintings or collage. The appeal of the distraction-free studio life is starting to reveal itself to me.

Doug Crocco

Thursday 7/27

It’s my last night in the United States for the foreseeable future, and I want to gorge myself on Ethiopian before heading to Mexico City (it’s oddly my one comfort food you can’t find in the world’s second biggest city). Liz, ever the obliging tour guide, takes me to Little Ethiopia to meet up with a friend at a vegan spot and it’s amazing. We end the night miles away at Hop Louie, a Chinatown dive bar known as a go-to spot for drinks after openings and a fantastic juke box. Tonight though, it’s kinda dead.

I step outside with a friend and realize the things I’m really going to miss about L.A. Chiefly, all my friends who keep trickling out here for the promises of big-ish houses, careers, and endless sunshine. Sometimes those dreams are actually fulfilled! Sometimes though, people end up endlessly stressed over car payments and the dead-end jobs they necessitate. L.A. seems singularly magnetic to the best (and sadly, many of the worst) people of the 25-45 demographic. Maybe I’m either too immature or prematurely crotchety for the appeal?

At any rate, I could see myself living in Chinatown. Ironically, its faux-pagoda-lined pedestrian malls are likely one of the earliest examples of “Disneyland Urbanism” I can think of—a genre of made-for-tourists architecture that usually makes my cold, modernist eyes roll. But this kitschy simulacrum of a neighborhood has somehow accrued a lived-in vibe of a real place that L.A.’s far older fake chateaus haven’t quite. There are people on the “street” here, and even if they’re just outside for a smoke, that’s a world of comfort.

L.A., this isn’t goodbye forever, just a “see you later”. To quote your former governor, I’ll be back. But definitely as just another tourist. 

Postscript 7/31

I am publishing this from Mexico City. I really wanted to fall in love with Los Angeles, but despite my best efforts, I couldn’t. I really wanted to. The art scene is great. The weather is usually amazing. Mostly, I wanted to love L.A. because so many of my favorite people in the world have made the city home for various reasons. Their hospitality (and that of their friends) has been so humbling.

But that warmth stands in contrast to a city whose culture, in general, is at times pretty unfriendly. I realized L.A. can be a very lonely place when you’re by yourself with unstructured time. Being a human body moving through space outside of a car can be downright depressing, if not dangerous. It’s not really the kind of city for wandering around and people watching or spur-of-the-moment unplanned encounters. I know that those things aren’t important to everyone, but since being back in a more conventional “city” city, I have to admit that they are to me.

It dawned on me that I was neurotically starting to feel like a second-class citizen on account of not having a car, a buttload of disposable income, nor a face/body/wardrobe worthy of 100k+ Instagram followers (there were literally times people cropped me out of photos, because I suppose I was “off brand”). I found myself becoming a little vain, self-conscious, suspicious, and resentful—qualities I don’t like to see. A lot of that has to do with money. The myth that L.A. is “affordable” only holds water when housing is compared to San Francisco, London, New York or a handful of other global financial centers. Indeed, it seems like a substantial chunk of the “affection” a lot of transplant artists have for L.A. is rooted in resentment toward New York—as if those were the only two cities on the planet.  When one accounts for transportation costs and the obsessive commodification of “health culture” (example: eating vegetarian in Los Angeles is more expensive than any other city I’ve ever lived in) L.A. ends up being pretty damn pricey.

I’ll definitely be back in Los Angeles at some point—as I mentioned, it’s home to so many of my best friends. And I never made it to the beach! But I don’t think I can live there. My first night back in Mexico City, I actually teared-up a few times because I realized I wasn’t crazy for feeling isolated in L.A. I missed walking in crowded streets, and strangers being nice to me, cheap food, and dancing not just for the sake of an Instagram story (it’s noticeable how much less time people spend on their phones outside of the Los Angeles bubble).

Honestly, I am probably just personally incompatible with the L.A. lifestyle. I’m sharing this because I suspect a lot of other people tempted to relocate there might be too. I have plenty of friends who are super happy living there, but also met plenty of people who weren’t. I guess I just fall into the latter category.

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