I was so excited to start writing when I first opened this account at Substack. I had all these grandiose ideas. I was going to pay attention to the analytics and I was going to be up on every new feature… Well that’s a bust. I barely know what I’m doing here. I don’t think my writing is any better. I haven’t done any of my plans, like illustrating my stories or adventures. I was going to illustrate these things to show how a good illustration would enhance even the most mediocre writing (mine). That was the plan at least. Illustrations take time. If you want to make a good illustration, it helps if you have a good subject to illustrate.
I used to hate illustrating for The Week for example. The concept would come from the editor. He was not much of a visual thinker and he was afraid to do something that would be controversial or too exciting. I quit trying and just did what they asked. I liked having regular income! I’d get just enough stuff in to some of the illustrations to make it interesting for me to do, but almost every cover I did for them I knew was not going in to my portfolio. They asked for mediocrity and that’s what I produced. Unfortunately, that is a very bad thing for your creativity.
I was creative in figuring out how to make a cliche’ image interesting. I learned their language about what they wanted. They would ask for things that could be interpreted in multiple ways and I had a knack for choosing the wrong one too often. I never made anything of note for them. I would go to the Society of Illustrator exhibitions of the best editorial art, the best advertising art, etc. and I could see the concepts were on another level. Technically , I was just as good as anyone in those shows, but the concepts and even the scale of the art was well beyond what I did.
The opportunities to make something amazing were far and few in my career. The rare time I had a chance to make something cool, I struggled. That part of my brain, the creative part, barely had any blood flow. I once had a job creating art for the window displays for Herme’s flagship store in NYC. Decent pay, great facilities to create the art, everything I need. They gave me a vague concept for the season and that was it. They didn’t talk to me or look at anything until it was getting close to deadline. I didn’t submit sketches, nothing! I was lost. I was ten or so years in to doing covers twice a month for The Week at this point. Most of my other few illustration clients were very similar to the process at The Week, so I was not prepared for freedom like this!
I was actually going to start things out in the old news letter thingy here with the opening line, “ I knocked myself out cold”. I didn’t know where to go from that. The basic story breakdown is, I was at a bar with a friend. We each had two shots and two beers, that was the special, over a two hour period. The perfect storm was, I hadn’t eaten much that whole day because it was in the mid 90’s and had all the humidity. I didn’t drink enough water at the bar. We walked up the block and my friend motioned that we should sit down on a ledge attached to a building about knee height on the sidewalk. They pulled out a joint as they ranted about something, and we were having a good back and forth as we smoked.
That’s all it took. We stood up to go get food and next I knew my friend was freaking out in my face and I was confused! I stood part way up and immediately face planted into the sidewalk with no warning. Not to brag, but I’ve drunk and smoked way more and been fine. It was definitely the heat that screwed my judgement. Fainting out like that is very disorienting. I was saying something to my buddy as I was standing. I passed out in mid sentence. I came to almost immediately but I didn’t know I had passed out. It was like magic that my friend was instantly in my face freaking out. They seemed to defy physics and instantly go from my side to right in my face screaming at full volume. I was annoyed because they were interrupting my thought I wanted to finish and my glasses were not fitting on my face properly. And why am I laying on the sidewalk??
I finally sat up as I put everything together. I was embarrassed and already wondering how much it was going to cost to fix my glasses. A couple that saw me go down came over to see if they could help. They got me a water, or my friend got me a water while they talked to me. All I could think to say was I’m sorry to inconvenience them and that I was just a overwhelmed by drinking in the heat. I thanked them probably way too many times. I was concerned with putting on a good face to calm everyone down. I could tell everything was fine, but I was still a bit drunk and now high. Having done this before, the drinking and the pot, I felt like I was supposed to. I had got my work done for the day, I can kick back and have a few drinks with a friend at the end of that day, this was normal. My friend got me home and left after we had talked for another hour. I knew the protocol after knocking yourself out. You don’t go to sleep, you talk a while to make sure all the fixtures in your noggin are working. They are.
A few days later Molly came back from her trip. She barely noticed my banged up face and my bruised glasses. She wanted to play chess. I beat her. This is rare. We played the next day and I beat her again. I was starting to think my knock on the head had somehow made me a chess master. Alas it has not. She is back to kicking my ass every day now.
Sorry to read that the knock to your noggin didn't imbue you with permanent Chess superpowers. Happy to read it didn't result in a serious injury. I would call that a winning tradeoff.