JaMiE BaKeR: fallout

This sketch shows a sculpture in a little park a few blocks from my apartment. I rarely sketch in watercolour but I should try more of these, because this particular sketchbook is made from watercolour paper…

From a sketching trip to Golden Gate Park, late last year. This one was all done in brush pen, including a pen that had almost run out of juice (for the soft-focus background).

It has been a while since I posted anything from my sketchbook, so I will be clearing up the backlog in the near future. This one was done while sitting outside a coffee shop on Filmore Street, near the intersection with Haight.

Seeing WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE recently (which I enjoyed a great deal) reminded me of the time that I too ran away from home as a child.

I can no longer remember what caused the argument between myself and my mother on that particular day, long ago, but it probably wasn’t serious. At the age of 11, I had not yet acquired even the maturity expected of a child but already owned all the moodiness of a teenager. I was prone to statements like “it’s not fair!” or “you just don’t understand!” or “I wish I were never born!” and other such melodrama. While often silly, these churnings of my mind were not mellow-drama from my point of view… it was all intense drama to me.

Whatever the cause of the friction between us that day, it caught fire when my emotions got the better of me and I swore horribly at my mother, using a cuss word I didn’t fully understand then but that burns me with shame to remember now. The word launched from my lips, flew across the room, and struck her. The pained expression it marked on her face made me briefly but keenly aware that I’d crossed a terrible line between she and I, yet the insight was but a flash; I was still possessed by the boiling emotions that had conjured the vile incantation in the first place. Rather than reverse direction and apologise on the spot, which was certainly required, the momentum of my juvenile petulance flounced me not just across that terrible line, but also out of the house altogether.

I couldn’t believe it myself; I was running away from home.

Of course, I was really running away from what I had just done… but if that realisation came to me at the time, it was quickly trammeled underfoot by self-righteousness; I immediately re-cast myself in the role of a bold outlaw, on the run from injustice and a world that didn’t understand him… YEAH… Muttering grimly to myself, as I often did at that age, I stomped off to the far side of my tiny home-town; unfamiliar neighbourhoods where I felt I would not be pursued by my foes. Though it seemed to me then that the forces of oppression (ie; Mum) would round up a posse and try to hunt me down immediately, it is obvious to me now that this was not so; my mother had other children, including an infant, to watch over that day, and my father was at work.

Now that I was finally FREE, I thought of where, actually, to go… I had no idea at all. After considering my options, I head towards my friend Stephen’s house… then, half way there, thought better of it… I cannot now remember why. Perhaps, even then, I subliminally realised that I would appear absurd to anyone else, including a child of my own age, and therefore wanted to stay alone in order to enjoy my outlaw persona for a while…

It was a summer day; possibly during the end of year school holidays. I angrily kicked stones along the road, frustrated that the pockets of my shorts were empty of anything useful to a fugitive (not even a pocket knife) and my flimsy T-shirt would be useless after sundown. Even summer evenings can be cool in my home town, up in the mountains. I mused that it would have been superb to have prepared an escape package in advance; a bag of money, clothes and food, stashed somewhere in the garden, to be snatched up with a dramatic flourish as the parting-shot of a most-marvellous exit. That is what I should have done… This regret over my lack of forethought and stage-craft was an annoying pebble in the boot of my defiance; although I wasn’t actually wearing boots, I was wearing Flip-Flops, which was yet another source of regret for the great outlaw that day.

Well, too late to worry about that now; I am out in the world now and never going back.

As afternoon turned to evening however, my thoughts turned to home. I wondered how the family was dealing with my absence. I bet they miss me now that I am gone… A picture formed in my mind’s eye; my mother slumped distraught at the dining-table, in a kitchen bustling with police men and ambulance men, all offering comfort to the rest of my family members, each now heart-broken by the ME-shaped hole in their world. This vision of their pain was very moving… so much so that it moved my legs back towards my own neighbourhood. I suspect that my “compassion” was merely a glove-puppet manipulated by my ego, fascinated by the vision of a family hollow with the loss of ME and wanting to see this charming tableau for itself. Or else, it was my hollow stomach in control; simply walking the body across town towards its dinner. Whatever was driving my machinery, I furtively made my way through the darkening streets towards home, entered the vacant paddock behind our house, quietly jumped over the fence into our back yard and stealthily crept up to the house to peer inside…

I have a vivid memory of my family as seen from the kitchen window, though I am not sure if that is actually possible, given that that particular window would have been too high for me to peer into at that age… so either (A) I saw the kitchen from the bottom of the backyard where it was possible to see into the room, though from a distance (B) I pushed something up to the window to stand on, to get the closer view that I seem to remember (C) I actually saw my family through the (much lower) window of the TV room or (D) what follows is actually the memory of an entirely mental picture; inspired by the sounds I heard coming from within as I crouched in the dark outside.

Whatever the case may be, the memory I now see in my mind’s eye is not the the touching Pre-Raphaelite oil-painting of abject misery I had imagined and scurried home to see, instead it is the very picture of a family happily eating their dinner; exchanging stories from their days’ events and laughing at one-another’s jokes. My ego was outraged by this cheery Norman Rockwell scene; No one seemed disturbed that one member of the family was absent. My stomach was also peturbed; every last one of my family members was heartily and noisily enjoying their food. As tempted as I may have been by the sight of all that tasty chow, the affront to my ego was too much to bear, and away I stomped once again, into the gloom. My wounded-prince performance was pitch-perfect and spoiled only by the fact that nobody saw it, apart from the stray cat that lived in our yard.

I skulked in the shadows at the bottom of the garden while my wounded ego and rumbling tummy battled for the decision of what to what to do next. Meanwhile, the more thoughtful part of me tried to make sense of the difference between what I had imagined my family would be doing versus what they were actually doing… surely my family must eventually become worried at my absence… surely they will come to understand that I am serious and not kidding around… While evening became night, I watched the house intently; scanning for any sign of a search party… where were the Policemen? The ambulance men? Where was the visual-sweep of the yard by a concerned relative? I would have settled for even a perfunctory, bored glance out of a window by an uninterested relative…

Surely such a thing must happen eventually? No?

But the attention of the household was elsewhere… I could hear the theme music to various TV shows of the time, one after another as the night wore on, accompanied by the raucous laughter of a telly-watching family sitting comfortably inside, while I hungrilly shivered (with cold) and quivered (with rage) in the bushes outside. Grimly, I resolved to wait until everyone was asleep, then sneak inside the house, grab a few things (the bundle I had ruefully imagined earlier) and then depart, never to return. Ever again…. EVER. For real this time. This momentus decision was reached as my family, up yonder, noisily enjoyed the bald-head patting, high-speed antics of Mr Benny Hill.

Behind our house was an empty plot of land (used as playing fields by the primary school across the road) where I went to hide from the cackling mockery of my family and wait until they chortled themselves to sleep, choking as they did so, hopefully. As I’d done many times before, I lay in the grass and looked up at the stars… On that particular night, My thoughts were every bit as dark as the sky above me but nowhere near as beautiful. The night sky in the Southern hemisphere has infinitely more constellations on view than in the Northern sky. One feature of my home town to this very day is that the streets are not well lit at night. This lack of light pollution, plus the fact that my home town is up high on a plateau, means that the view of the night sky is even clearer there than most places. It is really something to see. On that night however, the beautiful, tiny clusters of distant worlds out there in space merely reminded me that I longed to be somewhere else.

They’ll be sorry when I am gone… said my ego. My stomach made the argument that the “punishing them with my absence” strategy didn’t seem to be working. Despite having a noisy stomach and a whiny ego as my companions that night, I felt utterly alone. My dog Jock; my tiny comrade from early childhood, had been “put to sleep” the year before, otherwise I would have had some warm-bodied company out there in the dark, not to mention a furry pirate for the noble outlaw to run away with… but as things stood, I was alone with my thoughts; Stewing in the brine of my own mind…

I checked on the house. Some lights were still on but the house itself was absolutely silent. I made my move. In my memory, it was around Midnight, when I finally re-entered the lair of my oppressors… but allowing for the time-dilation effects of childhood memories (not to mention childhood hunger) I now suspect it was much earlier when I stealthilly entered the back door which, like all the other doors in our house, was never locked (well, not until after a robber finally crossed the threshold 20 years later). In trying to piece together my frame of mind from that time, I believe that I intended to quickly grab supplies and head out immediately, to make good on my thus-far poorly executed escape. However, it is entirely possible that on some unconscious level I wanted to be caught, (as caught I soon was). What I am absolutely sure of now is that, as I entered the house, there was no hint of remorse for my earlier brutishness towards my own mother.

None that is, until I saw her sitting alone quietly in the kitchen waiting for me. I have no idea if my mother had planned to be there alone when I came home. Clearly the other children were in bed and my father, who played the Dirty Harry role when Mum and Dad did the “good cop bad cop” routine, may have gone to bed too (no doubt the evening’s hilarious TV entertainment had worn them all out) so the final showdown was between just she and I, in the exact same Saloon where the whole shooting match had begun; the family kitchen. It makes sense to me now that she may have wanted to handle this situation on her own. I would love to ask her now what was on her mind that day but sadly she isn’t around to tell me the answer any more. My mother died many, many years ago.

If she’d had a stern expression; hands on hips and a mouth full of recriminations, I could have kept up my “persecuted outlaw” performance but my mother’s wide-open face and compassionate eyes made that impossible. She gave me nothing at all to fight against… and, as I stood stunned, staring at her, my conscience, which had thus far been kept at bay by self-righteous mutterings, finally saw its chance and did what it had been trying to do all day; it gave me a thorough-going, savage internal pummelling, and relished every moment of it. I was overcome with emotion. During the thrashing emotional battle inside of me, the ego-fog was blown away, revealing what I must have known all along; I had wronged her and not the other way around. I was the bad guy in this story and nobody else. The extent of my theatrical posturing that day was the degree to which I had tried to convince myself otherwise. I burst into tears at this realisation, apologising profusely for what I had done. I was absolutely mauled by my shame. Pounded by guilt. But more than that, I was overwhelmed by gratitude, for though it may not have been in my conscious mind until I saw her waiting patiently for me, at that moment, I saw with great clarity that she was so much better than I… and how much more she deserved than what I had given her.

She welcomed me into her arms and I knew then that all, unbelieveably, was forgiven… which made my tears flow even more freely, rather than less, as you might reasonably expect. When I had calmed down a little, she had me sit down at the kitchen table and attempt to compose myself as she prepared me some food; my dinner was being kept warm in the oven all along. She had not forgotten me. This too, provoked another blubbering wave of emotion. I wolfed the food down hungrilly, through wracking sobs of tears, in that way only children can do… and as she watched me eat, Mum stroked my hair and gave me silent comfort through touch, in that way only mothers can do.

——-
This is one of the earliest memories I have of my conscience having a profound effect on me, forcing me to see myself not just in the 3rd person but also firmly in the wrong. It is one thing to say “sorry” because you know it will get you off the hook, and it is another thing altogether to actually be sorry because you realise what you have done is wrong, or hurtful to others. It was many years before I finally gained a fully functioning conscience; one that operated without authority figures present, or fear of punishment or other external consequences, but that allowed me to make moral judgements purely on my own… The conscience I have now isn’t perfect; it still sometimes takes some reflection for it to kick-in, though I do believe it is a reliable moral compass… but if I have have any consience at all today it is largely due to the long-suffering parenting and compassionate moral example of my own mother.

Another drawing from my sketchbook. This one is an attempt to address my weakness in drawing vehicles. (Somehow I missed that phase of childhood where little boys draw cars).

Here is an old drawing of SEPHILINA that I recently made a new Background for, to sell it as an 11X14 print at comic conventions. I’m still fiddling with it, but here is what I have so far.

Last year, during a visit to New York, my buddy Dave gave me a beautifully leather bound sketchbook he’d bought in Italy but never used. Despite being exactly the kind of posh sketchbook that I’m normally too intimidated by to actually draw in (the watercolour paper is clearly of a higher quality than my timid scrawls are yet worthy of) I’ve been trying my best to fill it with sketches done from life, and ONLY from life, over this past year.

Once upon a time I used to draw from life, and quite often, but over the years I lost the habit and turned instead to drawing from only my imagination. I enjoy this kind of doodling very much and I believe that is where my heart will always be in regards to drawing. Consequently, I have piles of recent DOODLE books, but hardly any true SKETCH books. Though my imagination is constantly active and relatively strong, I’ve wondered recently if it has less “food” to nourish itself and truly grow (rather than merely chew on old imagery from within) if I never feed it with any new real-world observation. So I decided to use this leather-bound book to try and improve my observational drawing skills and I’ve been re-learning what l already knew; drawing what you actually see is surprisingly difficult.

This attempt at a monochrome watercolour was done sitting in the park at the Yerba Buena Center. I didn’t get as far with it as I wanted it before I had to leave (to see a movie) so I returned another day at the same time (and hence similar lighting) hoping to tighten it up a bit, but one of those downtown loons that you’ll only find the likes of in a San Francisco park was sitting in the exact spot I’d used earlier and having a conference call with Aliens. So I thought better of working any more on the picture. So it is what it is. Voila.

This ball-point, brush-pen and colour pencil scrawl was drawn while sitting on the kerb in front of St. Cecilia’s Church in the Sunset district. I am a life-long pedestrian and walk as much as I can, but lately I have been walking even more, traversing neighbourhoods I’ve never strolled through in the past. Taking a rest break is a good excuse to draw a little, but despite the pleasure it always brings, I still have to force myself to do it for some reason.

These pencil sketches of a grave-sculpture angel were done during a Halloween inspired trip to Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, a city largely comprised of cemeteries (17 in fact) meaning that dead people out number the living by a factor of thousands. The place is full of beautiful old sculptures, such as this one, and I plan to go back there again to do more drawing, perhaps even some more of this particular angel. I would like to do some more sketches in paint, as the coarse paper isn’t best suited to a detailed pencil drawing.

Thus far, I have been timid about showing my drawings from this book but lately I realised that I should post them, come what may, to record my progress (if any at all). So be warned; I will be scanning and posting more in the near future.

Halloween is perhaps my favourite American holiday. Some of my earliest happy impressions of America were in seeing the cities of New York and San Francisco throwing themselves into this tradition with gusto. The spectacle of Werewolves, Popes, and Cowgirls… Zombies, Witches and Animals of all ages, shapes and sizes, out en masse, walking the streets, or riding buses and trains, was new to me and I liked it. Although Halloween has been become popular over the past decade or so in Australia, I don’t remember ever celebrating it in my childhood. The closest equivalent was “Black Friday” parties, which were SOMETIMES held when a Friday fell on the 13th. But, to me, the eclectic costumes of Halloween make for much more fun. Unfortunately, as much as I enjoy an entire nation being silly for a day (and my part in that group therapy) I was a no-show at Halloween this year, due to the recurrence of an illness that had stalked me off-and-on all throughout the month of October.

Thankfully, I had my chance to act the clown exactly one weekend later, when JEFF and ANITA hosted a viewing of STAR WARS (the un-updated version that I grew up with) over dinner at their house. JULIA had the genius idea that two of us might surprise the others by attending in Star Wars themed outfits and I liked this suggestion so much that I didn’t need to hear it twice. It turns out that the week AFTER Halloween isn’t a bad time to buy costumes, for although the stocks are severely depleted by the buying-frenzy of the week before, the prices on what remains are dramatically slashed. Thus, a child-sized Darth Vader helmet and cape were acquired at a bargain price, not to mention the cheapest, shittiest Light Sabre that money could buy. So, with the addition of hastily made cardboard boots, cardboard chest plate, cardboard shoulder pads and cardboard codpiece, the mighty CARD VADER was born. And standing by his side, wearing discounted plastic go-go boots and too-small wig, was PRINCESS LAY-AWAY.

In order NOT to change into these splendid ensembles AT JEFF and ANITA’s place (which would have ruined the pageantry of our “entrance”) we got into costume in the bathrooms of a nearby mall, necessitating a stroll through the mall in full geeky regalia, past the stares of Joe and Jane public, and back to the parking garage. After a short drive, we found the correct address and the PRINCESS had to ring the door bell as The DORK LORD couldn’t see well enough out of his eye-holes to push the button himself. Standing on the doorstep in all our splendid idiotic finery, we had time to ask ourselves if we were doing the right thing? Or were we about to make prize-arses of ourselves? ELAINE’s reaction, when she opened the door made it clear that we were doing BOTH. When someone tells you that you have just made them laugh so hard that they almost peed themselves, then making an idiot of yourself has been worth the effort… Well, that the philosophy that I live MY life by, anyway…

No sooner had CARD VADER gained entry into JEFF and ANITA’s Rebel-Base, than he made the mistake of brandishing his cheap TARGET Light Sabre… In response, JEFF unsheathed his pricey SPECIAL EDITION version; you know, the FANCY one that looks “real”, powers up all sexy-like and makes the proper noises and everything. The DORK LORD forgot who he was messing with there for a moment, but was soon shown the error of his judgement in a clash of sabres (one of them glowing and making movie-quality sound effects, the other doing nothing impressive at all) that subsequently played out in JEFF and ANITA’s dining room.. TED and ANITA were on hand to document this epic struggle with a series of photos that records the intensity that JEFF brought to the defence of his domain from an invading, pin-headed Sith. And no wonder: JEFF and ANITA’s place is a veritable Guggenheim Museum of tasty pop culture riches; beautiful original artwork and gorgeous collectible toys are on display everywhere that you look. JEFF was right to defend all this hard won bounty with such passion… and verily, the FORCE was with him that night.

Once the laughter had died down and the sabres were sheathed, we all dined on super-tasty SLOPPY JOES, which was a first for me (where I’m from, the term “sloppy Joe” is a type of sweatshirt) plus a mighty fine Macaroni and Cheese, with a secret ingredient that pushed it to the next level. The tastiness of the food proved that the FORCE was clearly with ANITA in her kitchen that night, every bit as much as it had earlier been with JEFF at his threshold. Dessert was a stack of rice crispy balls, provided by ELAINE, that were immediately named “CRISPY DEATH STARS”. The similarity in appearance between her home-made dessert and the famous Star Wars Battle Station was an absolute coincidence, as ELAINE is one of those rare people of my generation who has somehow managed to avoid seeing STAR WARS her entire life. In fact, remedying that omission was the reason the whole STAR WARS NIGHT was held at all. And so, after the eating was done with, we trooped upstairs to the TV room to watch the movie. Though firstly, JEFF had us watch an episode from a 1940s FLASH GORDON serial, by way of setting context for the pulp serial tradition that begat Star Wars in the first place.

It has been years since I watched this version of Star Wars, rather than the new-fangled version, with all the CG shots jammed in there, and re-edited to change “who shot first” and all of that…. and it really was a lot of fun to see it again… Despite being more aware now of its filmic shortcomings than I ever was as a child, I still felt that this movie held up rather well as a piece of ground-breaking yet timeless, pure-fun entertainment, with perhaps only the HAIR dating it as being from the mid 1970s. Seeing the film again has had me in mind, over the past few days, of the first time that I saw it when I was 13 years old and had my tiny mind thoroughly blown… and the subsequent the expansion of my imagination which came as a result; the days of staring out the window and dreaming, afternoons of doodling space ships and looking at sci-fi books. Given this sort of reaction, it is always hard to know just how much of the positive response in re-visiting old childhood favourites is due to the merits of the pieces themselves and how much is merely nostalgia, and attachment to the effect that certain films (or books, record albums or whatever) once had upon us…

However, on this occasion, something of an empirical test-case was provided by the fact that we had one amongst us who had never seen the movie before and was now watching the film entirely through the eyes of an adult rather than eyes squinting through lenses fogged by childhood memory. Not only was she able to spot the legacy of influence on films that have come along since, but she also stated that watching Star Wars was entertaining for her as well. While it was gratifying, on that evening, to hear that ELAINE liked this childhood favourite too, it occurs to me now that perhaps she only gave it a THUMBS UP to keep a room full of nerds from bursting into tears if she had said otherwise.

After all, when a middle aged man in a home-made, cardboard Darth Vader suit leans forward eagerly to ask if you have just enjoyed seeing Star Wars for the first time… well, what ELSE is a girl supposed to say?