Jeffrey Hicken (see links on right sidebar at the bottom) is one of my oldest friends and I call him my art soul mate. He's like the big brother I wanted around to give me wedgies of love. He gives me metaphorical wedgies to this day. Anyhow, those of you who know my books, might remember him at the book readings or remember his name bandied about as he's the art director of my books and my life. You think I'm kidding? He came up with the poster idea on the other side of the HOOCHIE MAMA book cover. I've stolen his riffs throughout the years, and when we work, we don't sleep and we laugh and laugh because we're think--no, we KNOW-- we're the funniest people ever in the world.
(Remember, click pictures to make 'em bigger like our egos. But who cares about small egos. The art of fake humility is perfected by my generation. So click for more bigness or just FEEL it.)
Jeffrey's so great because he's like your friend that you always get to ask to come out and play. We never get too old to think we're so amazingly funny. Sometimes when we get going with our art ideas, I think I'm just so lucky. Like I'm in an eighties movie where I pray to hang out with the cool kids---only to find! Whoa! We ARE the cool kids! Yeah. I totally dig hanging out with myself. I'd totally walk up to Jeffrey and me at a party and ask for our numbers and stalk us if we were laughing too hard at our own jokes to call back.
I know this is sounding like he's dead or something. No way. This is just because I'm finally remembering it's his birthday for a change, as I try each year to forget my own and just live without panty lines of time. We're working together on bringing you all sorts of motorcycle riding goodness. This is our murky jerky food Jeffrey made up for road trips.
Protein is protein. A rose is a rose--
--And a birthday is a birthday. Even though this is dated the day BEFORE his birth. It's actually on the 18th. And the 19th is all AfterBirth. Yum. Eat me!
Jeffrey also did the postcard on the previous posting. I fixed it, by the way. Nice, huh?
And that ain't nothing. Anyhow, life is pretty good. It doesn't get too much better than this. It's like I don't know what the heck is gonna happen with this movie, as if I'm WATCHING a movie--and with food stamps, I can even afford the popcorn! How perfect! And I'm not touching that damn script for a while and I'm outside playing with my pal, Jeffrey on the stuff I love the most. Drawing.
See, I never had rapidographs before. I was too broke when I was in art school, so to draw, I used pen and blood. Other people's blood. Nah, I liked fancy pens and ink, anyhow. But I got some cheap rapidographs on ebay because I had this olde timey fantasy about actually drawing in a sketchbook again. I haven't wanted to get lost in sketchbooks in years. I think it's a young art school thing for me. Practicing fingers and left-sided lip shine. Even as I was doing my books, I spent so much time trying to get the writing "just so" because I'm not a writer, that by the time I got to the best part--the drawing--I had to careen through it to make our publishing deadlines. Oh, it was so sad for me. Like saving frosting for last only to have the Star Trek transporter beam all frosting back up to the ship.
So anyhow, I got the rapidographs and one of my many empty sketchbooks (I collect them because each sketchbook has a mood and a theme for a time in your life), and just started drawing for hours and hours all day. It's better than church. How could I forget? Sex can be like that too, though. You wait five years and one day you fall on that bar across your bicycle, and then you're good to go. Cracking lobster claws to get at the meat is harder.
This is Jeffrey's page and day today, so we won't talk about crunching pubic bones to get at the fortunes. No. We're gonna bring him out in the light more and more and give him applause. We're good collaborators and I owe so much to him. Most of my professional life has been shaped by our collaborations.
He's ridden down to LA with me on our motorcycles, bought that biker flat-tire insurance, and let me break into tears after sitting through more BS meetings. He taught me how to be classy by not clearing out the mini bar at the Sofitel just because I CAN.
So all the art you're seeing and will see surrounding this movie is Jeffrey's work. I'm always rushing to go out with a sticky drawing with coffee rings in the corner and 3-d white out touches, but Jeffrey gives me that metaphorical wedgie to bring me back and make it all sweet and look good like we're going to art church.
He's my pal. Sometimes it makes James jealous because when you're around some folks on a creative jag together, no one else exists. We were writing an ancient version of this script with Mark de la Viña a few years ago, and Mark's fiance kept stopping in and asking us if we wanted more hummus. Hummus is a dead giveaway for all kinds of loneliness. As you've probably guessed by now, they never got married.
You decide why.
Creativity kills.
Hummus bores.
Anyhow, so go check Jeffrey's stuff out on those links over to the right. He's a hot shot art director so if you punch his name Jeffrey Hicken ["chicken" with it's head cut off] with a "dot com," you can see his fancy-pants stuff that got him a couple of Harleys and a couple of houses. Without him, I'm a cave painter. So this is a living memorial to Jefe, my buddy who's always got my back no matter how little sleep he's had. Thanks a lot, Jefe man. My art director. How lucky can a girl be? Everyone else is for hire and they leave me to go actually have lives and children and houses. Jeffrey has that, too, but like I said, he ALWAYS comes out to play. Even if it's at 2am.
Like that "Kick the Can" episode of The Twilight Zone, Jeffrey always remembers the mania of childhood, the sun on his back, running around in barefeet as we go out to play. Yeah. Cool. Jeffrey IS summertime, as evidenced by his mug shut above. Good artists always have problems going just a little too far, so most of us have mug shots before we figure out how to just pull back in the nick of time.
So he IS still summer incarnate. Just no 7 year locusts to collect and cram into jars. I remember the smell. The crunch of daytime.
Jeffrey doesn't crunch. He has to have the best of everything, so all of his clothes are as soft as a kitty's tummy, and as drapey as a boneless chicken. And he's the guy who gets the little up nod from lowriders at the gas station. (Man, this is the best lunch table EVER.)
Happy Birthday my dear, very much NOT-dead friend. Thanks for being there for me all of these years. Working with you on this stuff never gets old. It's just as fresh as the day I arrived in your office with a view of the Transamerica building downtown, with my ragged portfolio, looking for an illustration job, and then I wouldn't leave for two hours. I was calling you out to play. It's the same now.
And I adore your Jersey Girl Wife, Vicki. I tried to be jealous of her taking you away from San Francisco, but she's so cool, sometimes when you were crabby, I even liked her better than you. She's cool. But then again, she IS from Jersey. We just need to make her hair a little higher. It may be 2007, but some things are just not negotiable when you call gravy "gravy" instead of "sauce" or in California...uh, "marinara." Oh. The pretension! It's killing me like our creativity!
And to all of you who are into what we're doing, I hope that you continue to enjoy what we're on about. If you don't, that's quite alright. We think we're the funniest things since American cheese. So stay tuned for more. We've only been back at it for a week now...this is the beginning of the biggest phase yet! We're going to take over the world with our lunch table! Ha ha!
