New Waldorf Inspired School in Oaxaca

My wife Serena and I are on to a new adventure (as usual!). We are part of a group that is opening a Waldorf inspired school here in Oaxaca, starting in late August. Serena has posted a description of the school and curriculum on her blog, Have You Seen the Dog Lately.

We are looking to give our kids a crack at a fine education, without a lot of the toxic programming inherent in traditional models.

El Vocho is Here

Finally, my new graphic novel El Vocho is available! You can order it from my lulu page via this link for $12.00 + postage.

It is not in stores yet, but I'll be hawking it on my summer tour, and Top Shelf Productions (publisher of my BugHouse trilogy of graphic novels) will have it available at their booth at comic conventions this summer.

I'm developing the whole publishing picture for this book on a DIY/grass roots basis, working with my contacts in the indy/alt comics world, and will be posting details as I put them together.

Improved Ballad of the Bug & west coast tour dates

I've been working with producer/arranger Bill Stair and we put together a tight, bright version of Ballad of the Bug. This is the theme song for my upcoming graphic novel El Vocho, written by myself and my pal Todd Spiehler.

Have a listen:



(My music posting program considers the file a video, thus the big blank box.)

I've confirmed publishing events for my graphic novel El Vocho as follows:

Reading Frenzy, Portland Oregon, July 15th (time TBA)

Mercury Cafe, San Francisco, July 22nd, 7:30 p.m.

I'll have copies of El Vocho for sale, and will be rocking with my guitar on both occasions. David Perkin will play percussion in Portland, and I'll be joined on bass by Scotty Hoover in San Francisco, along with a drummer and lead guitarist.

I think my four year old just woke up!!! Better post now...

Don't Forget About Lou

After all, he is Lou.

Here's a killer video of Sister Ray, with Robert Quine on guitar.



Lou Reed, New York, 1989.
This is an insanely great record. I like Dirty Boulevard, Busload of Faith, Straw Man and Romeo Had Juliet.

The Cooperative Model

We human beings can do better. It is high time we release ourselves from the violence and ecological disaster of human history.
I propose an end to hierarchical, top down structural models. Yup, the stuff found at your job, government, school and other institutions we encounter in daily life. We need to share responsibility, with its burdens and rewards, in cooperative structures. Whenever and wherever power is concentrated in few hands, the natural outgrowth is greed and abuse.
Condescending, patronizing elites may argue that the masses can't shoulder responsibility. This argument underlines their fear of losing power and control.
It's noteworthy that Dutch and English settlers in the Northeast (of what is now the United States) marveled at the egalitarian cultures of the Iroquois and Algonquin Indian federations. It's generally acknowledged that the new country was influenced by their democratic models (native American societies in other areas were top down hierarchical).
In industrial and post industrial modern times, we have no functional large scale cooperative nation state models. With the Soviet Union, Lenin imposed a dictatorship out of a war situation, and Stalin took it to insane heights as history's bloodiest dictator. Not cooperative! Nor communist, really.
I am not a Marxist, but I have been a member of four successful co-ops, each of which delivered equal benefits to all members, while exacting labor or fees from them.
Co-ops are beautifully self regulating, like water finding its own level. If the members lose interest, they ultimately collapse like the Amherst Food Co-op I was once part of. No problem, it served its members well during its tenure. Another, Warehouse Artist Studios in Eugene, Oregon, provided great, inexpensive studio space to a dozen artists for several years, even surviving a manager/member who was embezzling funds!
Hierarchical, top down structures are outmoded, serving only the polities (okay, the swindlers, megalomaniacs and thieves) at the top.

Some other time I have to address the problem of power structures that use force and violence to gain and maintain power. That is a huge mess that dovetails with my subject here, but will need to be tackled separately.
I've been thinking like this for a long time. That is why I've taken part in several co-ops. They are messy, but I'm willing to take the risk and do the work to develop the co-op model.

The Ballad of the Bug

Here is Ballad of the Bug, pretty much the theme song for my new graphic novel, El Vocho. I wrote the lyric and the music was composed by Todd Spiehler.



This summer I'll be in the states promoting El Vocho and performing my tunes. I'm setting up dates now, so far I'm confirmed at the Mercury Cafe in San Francisco for 7:30 p.m., Thursday July 22. It will be a fun night as I'll be joined by my old friend Scott Hoover on bass, and we'll be playing with two guitars, bass and drums.

You might ask, why is this here cartoon dude gettin' into guitar slinging?

It started when I moved to Oaxaca in southern Mexico close to three years ago with my wife and two kids, looking to enjoy this cultured city, and an easier pace of life.

Before long, I met the aforementioned Todd Spiehler, a great guy who extended an invitation to jam on Thursdays with a loose confederation of musicians known as the Bodega Boys.

Not only do the Bodega Boys have a heck of a lot of fun playing musical styles from country blues and bluegrass to rock & roll, but they embrace the Oaxacan tradition of enjoying fine mezcal, the local spirit distilled from the maguey cactus. This is smokey, smooth stuff with a real mystique -- the best mezcal is made at country stills in the villages and valleys of Oaxaca state.

Did I mention that the Thursday night host of the Bodega Boys, Tony Raab, is a master distiller who crafts the best Mezcal this side of Monte Alban about 60 meters from the Bodega where we jam? You get the picture, we never fail to have a good time when we tune up and howl out a few tunes.

I really caught the fever for playing live music, I've pretty much gone Oaxacabilly. So, as I've worked on my El Vocho book these last couple years, I simultaneously penned a stack of tunes. I've been beating them into performable shape (I hope) and I'm gonna put myself on the line with them when I hit the states this summer. Maybe I'll see you then.



You never know who is gonna turn up at the Bodega! I'm jammin' here with Kim Berly of the Stampeders, premier Canadian rockers, and on stand up bass is John Harlin, noted expert mountaineer. Photo by Tania Roman

Ripe Pineapple Drunk

Here's a rough version of Ripe Pineapple Drunk, a song I wrote about Corn, Biodiversity and the Monsanto Corporation. And about being a hippy and a punk.



I'm gonna polish up my tunes and get around the states this summer, caterwauling with my guitar and promoting my new book El Vocho. Also gonna get some decent recordings done.

I've been fumblin' around like a Caveman trying to figure out how to embed my tunes in this here blog. I done got sore thumbs bangin' away at Google, messing with code. Me sorta dumb about this stuff, and I could not get a handle on it.
So I went beggin' to Nate Beaty, world class cartoonist and webster supreme. It took Nate like 5 seconds to generate the info I needed (try DivShare). Hey Nate, I owe you a Mezcal. Or an ice cream cone, or something as good as your advice! Thanks!

A New Chapter in My Life as A Teenage Werewolf

Since I moved to Oaxaca almost 3 years ago, I've sort of been drafted into The Bodega Boys, a local "Oaxacabilly" band. Inspired by the thrill & fun of playing live music, I've penned a number of my own tunes and I'm gonna be performing in the U.S. this summer as I tour in support of my upcoming graphic novel, El Vocho.
I've begun experimenting with recording and I'm looking to issue an Ipad version of the book which will include the songs in it. That being the case, I'm trying to figure out how the hell to post music on the web in some functional way that is relatively easy for me, and accessible to anyone foolish enough to listen to my caterwauling.
So here it is, a link to my page over at lastFM. This is just a little trial to see how it all works.
Truth is, I'm gonna get myself in a decent recording studio and get down some reasonably tight, well recorded versions of my tunes before going much farther with posting music, but ya gotta start somewhere and assess how to proceed, so there it is!
There are two songs on the page, a cover of the traditional tune John Hardy, and my homage to the Cramps, You Got That Hair.
They are set up for free download.



You Got That Hair!

Email is Dead

For awhile I've suspected that I'm an anachronism -- that is to say, I like email and it's my primary mode of personal and business communication.

Serena has been telling me for awhile that people don't email anymore, they just send Facebook messages. Easier, lower stakes/commitment. Breezy.

And of course, half the world are already cyborgs, with a blackberry or iphone all but grafted onto their face. Yes, I'm one of those Luddites who expects people to have a conversation with me when they are having a conversation with me, as opposed to compulsively staring at and molesting their electronic brain/external digital Id. I know, I'm a 53 year old guy, my thumbs don't text, not yet anyway.

Still, I earnestly sit and compose emails. I carefully consider my spelling, meaning and grammar, and indeed I edit before pressing send. Well, most of the time, anyway.

Meanwhile, I'm experiencing a sort of diminishing return on my (hopefully) pithy and eloquent efforts. People are not emailing me back! And I'm not even asking for money! Taking the digital pulse of communication, I can only come to one conclusion: Email is dead!

The Nature of Time

OR, Here We Are, Fine With Me (loudly, in a mildly threatening yet happy voice).

{CLICK ON PAGES TO SEE THEM LARGER}





Pretty much my whole life, I've questioned the nature of time, as we all do to some degree. This little comix vignette illustrates some of my ideas on the subject.
The preceding three pages of comics are from a digest sized comic, CAT SUIT, which I put out three years ago. The story also appears in my graphic novela TRANNY that I published two years back.

Meanwhile, I've been wading through Daniel Pinchbecks heroic tome 2012: The Return of Quetzacoatl. Mr. Pinchbeck strongly puts forth the idea that the evolution of human beings depends on us developing a different idea of time, a different relationship with time. Couldn't agree more on that point.

Further he suggests that key to advancing is the adaptation of a new calendar based on cycles from days and seasons to the turning of the planets, solar system and galaxy. Fair enough, but some of the ideas in the book do not resonate with me, on the other hand.

Pinchbeck shares ideas and roles, to some degree, with the late Terence McKenna, but they are very different guys. Each has bonafides as a psychedelic guru, and the levity to admit that their pet theories might simply prove they are quite mad, but for my money McKenna does it with a charm and humor that's hard to beat.

For my own part, I too gotta cop to arriving at piercing ideas about the nature of time and reality while communing with 'shrooms. Part of my conclusion, along with the actual ideas about the nature of time, has been that I was in for a big change in the nature of the human experience during my lifetime. By the late 70s/early 80s I would rant about this to friends who would grant me an ear.

I've taken on the task of communicating these ideas in my comics, interspersed with a range of characters, narrative and poop jokes. Like McKenna and Pinchbeck, I've always felt like a conscript in the army of transcendental truth and change. Like Ken Kesey said, "Ya can't quit da mob".

For me, the original insights and messages came in a flash, when I was a freshman at UMASS Amherst on April 10, 1976, but that is whole other story.

And just for the record, I don't have to admit to the possibility that I'm quite mad. I mean, c'mon, I a cartoonist!

Monsters on Guitars: New T-Shirts

What could be more fun than painting your favorite monsters shredding on some cool guitars?
Putting them on T-Shirts, natch!
I just put up these two T-Shirt designs on my Cafe Press storefront, so you all can get some styling Ts for the warm weather.

Illustration Portfolio, updated.

Been dabbling in Illustration a bit lately, looking to do more.
Here's the latest version of my online portfolio.

Above, milkbug on a skateboard for Sarah's Science. Am I crazy to think that this drawing is informed by my child hood delight in the art of Jack Kirby?

Start that T-Shirt Business This Afternoon

A guy named Russell just wrote for advice on starting a T-Shirt biz. Here's my reply. I hope it helps!

Hi Russell,

Sounds like you have some great ideas and could really make a go of a t-shirt biz.
If I was starting as you are, perhaps I'd get into screen printing, setting up a shirt shop, and creating a focused marketing program, pushing Tshirt printing to a targeted group of markets in your area -- restaurants, schools, service businesses, retailers, government and university/college markets. Try google adwords and monthly postcard mailings to a list of 1000 or more. Network and hand out your card, talking up your biz, etc.

The inkjet transfer is a winning idea. Get one of those Epson printiers that can handle an 11 x 17 sheet.

Embroidery is a lucrative market. At first, it would be better to send the embroidery jobs out to a shop in your area, or maybe one that sells on the web. You can take a good markup, I've done a lot of outsourcing embroidery.
Maybe get a machine later as you add staff.

Good luck -- if you want to succeed, and are willing to put everything you have on the line, from smarts, guts, determination, ingenuity and capital, you will.

STEVE

Hey, I finished a graphic novel today.

El Vocho is done, and it's posted here, on it's own blog.
I just posted the last page, seen here. Click on the art to see it bigger.
IT's also started running at CO2 in a more visually pleasing format.

I'm gonna do some edits on the book and begin the whole marketing & publishing process over the next few months.

The book won't be out for awhile, but you can visit my web store if you'd like to check out the El Vocho T-Shirt.

STEVE

J.R. Williams is Dog... I mean God!

Anybody who loves comic art and painting, do yourself a favor and check out the work of the brilliant & wholly unique J.R. Williams.

Over the last 25 years, J.R. has been one of the funniest guys in alt comix, and now he's painting up a storm. Well worth a peek.

Build Your Own T-Shirt Press

The first diagram shows how to cut a shirt board/print area into a four foot square piece of plywood. The second diagram shows how to add screen clamps and finish your press. Note that the shirt board area needs rounded corners. Sand it smooth too! Cover the shirt board area with a smooth piece of masonite or pressed board, fasten it to the shirt board with brad nails by the edges, and wood glue.



Here are plans for a 3 color table top T-Shirt press. This is a simple design that can be build for under $200 in materials. It's no substitute for a good rotary press, but it works and it's cheap, a great DIY machine. I've build and used these to print three colors in perfect register.
This press is cut from a 4' x 4' piece of 3/4" plywood. Basically, you cut out the shirt board/print area with a jig saw, screw three sets of screen clamps around the print area, and mount it on sawhorses.
This is a good machine for Punk rock DIY printing, for anyone starting out, for the hobbyist, etc.
IF you have questions about how to build this or how it works, send a comment and I will answer.
Click on the images to see them enlarged.
If you are a graphics person but are unemployed, you can sell screen printing services for up to three colors and print on this machine. It's a great shoe string start up business.
If you do decide to buy a used rotary manual T-shirt press, you'll probably spend more like $1,000. Be sure to actually try any press before buying, to make sure it still prints true and is not completely worn out.

HYPE TIME! It's T-Shirt Season Again

As March approaches, once again I remember -- I'm a screen printer! Yup, I'm still in the T-Shirt business.
The economy is pretty slow, but Manx Media Custom Screen Printing is still whipping out shirts at a semi furious rate. I'm running the office, handling sales, marketing, and graphics, and my long time press operator David Perkin is in the St. Johns neighborhood of Portland, Oregon handling production. David works on the six color manual Workhorse press, a quality machine capable of perfect registration.
Our main clients are Haight Ashbury T-Shirts, where we print thousands of shirts each year for designer David Boyer, whose classic retro hippy designs are the top sellers at the store, and Sarah's Science, the great kids science educator and proprietor of fantastic summer science camps for kids in Oakland and Berkeley. Sarah's summer camp is called This Land is Your Land, and we have adorned many thousands of T-shirts and hoodies with her banana slug mascot.
Other clients we have served include Sony Music Distribution, Margaret Cho, The Residents, Apple Computer, and many schools, clubs, bands, cartoonists and more.
We can handle jobs 1 - 6 color, on any type of t-shirt, hoodie, or sportswear item, and we do runs from 50 pieces and up.
We have plenty of production capability left over for new clients, so email me for a quote, or call me at 503-213-3671.
Happy T-Shirts!
Steve Lafler

Bughouse Makes the Top 100

Bughouse ranked #22 -- top 100 comics of the decade.




Rob Clough, writing for the Comics Journal, ranked my graphic novel Bughouse at #22 in his list of the top 100 comics/graphic novels of the decade.
Well hell, what an honor. Thanks Rob!
Click here to read the list.
Here is the cool thing, it's on sale cheap at Daedalus, click here to buy it.

How to Start a Custom Embroidery Business

How to Start a T-Shirt Embroidery Business

Overview
The market for custom embroidered T-shirts and sportswear is strong. According to Impressions, the decorated apparel industry trade magazine, the industry is recession-resilient. With a commercial embroidery machine and a strong marketing plan, you can start a successful embroidered T-shirt business. You can fill custom orders, and also create your own line of designs.
Step 1
Purchase an embroidery machine. Choose from leading brands such as Tajima or Barudan, known for their reliability. Attend an industry trade show to see the variety of machines offered and to try them. Check on the ISS trade show nearest you (see Resources for a link). Decide whether to buy a single head machine, or one with multiple sewing heads.
Step 2
Set up your shop in a garage, spare room or small commercial space, with an eye towards keeping overhead low. File a business name at your county courthouse and open a business checking account. Consider purchasing liability insurance for your business. Practice with your embroidery machine, loading it with digitized designs, placing T-shirts in the clamp, loading thread and sewing.
Step 3
Create a price list for your embroidered T-shirt services, and include sweatshirt, sportshirts, caps and the range of imprinted sportswear. Components of pricing are cost of blank shirt, 50% markup on the blank shirt, and embroidery charge. A run of 100 T-shirts with a small design could be billed at two to three dollars per shirt for the embroidery charge.
Step 4
Target your market for custom embroidery services, for example restaurants or schools. Compile a list of potential customers for embroidered T-shirts. Contact potential customers via phone and personal visit. Market your services with postcard mailings, blogs, a website, order forms, and business cards. Craft a simple message with a call to action: "Custom Embroidered T-Shirts, top quality at great rates, call now for a quote."
Step 5
Write a detailed work order when a client places an order, have the client sign it and pay half the fee up front. Produce a sample for the client to OK prior to production. Upon sample approval, produce the job. Collect the balance of the fee from the client when they pick up the job. Extend payment terms such as "net due in 30 days" to trustworthy clients.

Have a look at Impressions, the trade magazine for the imprinted sportswear industry. This is a link to their embroidery page.

This article was written for an online client who rejected it. I admit I'm not an embrloidery technician (I'm a screen printer), but I have sold and produced at least $25,000 worth of embroidered hats and shirts in my career.

A Visit to Huautla De Jimenez

My visiting father in law expressed interest in visiting Huautla de Jiminez, the remote mountain town in the northeast corner of Oaxaca famed for it's magic mushrooms. I've been living in Oaxaca for 2.5 years, and of course I'm well aware of Huautla and it's sacred mushroom rituals. I have been in no rush to get there and gobble down magic fungus, as I approach them with respect and a wee bit of caution these days. Past experience with them has generally been wonderful. I consider that the 'shrooms themselves have a sense of humor and important information for human beings. This being the case, I figured I'd get to Huautla when the time was right, no rush. David inquired as to whether we might visit Huautla, and my wife Serena offered to keep the home fires burning with the kids, so the adventure was set.

Early last Saturday morning we set out in the Toyota RAV4, headed north on the Cuota, the super highway toll road towards Mexico City. After about a couple hours, we exited and headed back south a few miles on local roads to a town called Teotitlan before turning east towards an imposing range of near mountains, climbing steeply from the valley floor.

I gulped when I saw these hills, as I noticed the ribbon/shelf of a roadway winding precariously up to the ridge. Yup, guess where we are headed! It was vertigo inspiring to say the least driving up out of the valley, but rewarding—once at the top, in the space of twenty meters, we traversed the ridge and were greeted with a splendid vista, ridge after ridge of rugged green hills bumping across the landscape to the east.

In the city of Oaxaca, we are at the start of the dry season; things are getting brown and dusty pretty quick. But after cresting the ridge out of the dry valley last Saturday, we were clearly in a more temperate zone. When I saw all the verdant mountains, I was hopeful that we might score some fresh mushrooms, even though we were going in the off season.

David and I chatted and listened to some Bluegrass as we negotiated more than an hour of tight curves up against sheer drops. We spied a verdant valley below spotted with houses around a small village, watched over by undulating peaks, some of which were planted, while the sides of some of the hills were terraced with farms.
At long last we rounded a bend and came into sight of Huautla de Jimenez, a sizeable town that looks like it was spilled out of a giant bucket down the side of a mountain, dripping into the valley below. Huatla itself is on the north side of a great bowl formed by a loosely connected ring of mountains, facing south and covered with green, a moist wonderland.

The town itself seemed to have been designed by a Mexican Dr. Seuss, narrow switchback streets bounding up hills, clogged with people, cars, market stalls and stores. We hoped to find one Ines Cortes, a curandera who is famous for conducting a sort of folk Catholic healing ceremony utilizing psychedelic mushrooms.

After a surreal few moments of asking directions, driving up and down impossible narrow, insanely steep streets, and being forced to back down at least one, we found the house that Ines and her husband live in. David exclaimed in wonder at my ability to drive under these conditions, and the amazing feat we performed by finding Ines in this rabbit warren of a town on a hillside. Me, I've learned that if you are just a bit patient in Mexico, everything happens in due course.

Ines' husband invited us in, the door was ajar and he was peeking out as if he was waiting for us. They rolled out the welcome mat with an easy grace. We discussed the prospects for a ceremony that day, only to find that no fresh mushrooms were available, as it was the off season. Ines offered us the opportunity to do the ritual with dried 'shrooms, but warned that we would not experience visions. We were game to give it a try.

The ceremony was set to begin that evening at 10 p.m., so David and I poked around Huautla and then took a siesta at Ines' house. We rested in the cozy ground floor room where the ritual would be held. Ines has a gorgeous improvised altar at one end of the room, festooned with every Mexican chotchke you could possibly imaging, with pictures of various versions of Christ, the saints, the virgin, and other mythical images and photos of people.

Ines and her husband had left David and I alone to their house while they tended to business, so after we awoke from our fiesta, we sat in the cozy room, with it's earthen floor, and chatted about anything and everything. There was a dull light and a candle burning as we talked, but suddenly the light went out. It seemed an auspicious moment, seeing that we were about to knock on the door of the unknown. Minutes later the candle burned out and we were left in near total darkness. We chatted more and noted that the whole adventure, the drive through amazing emerald territory and the plunge into darkness all seemed very surreal and psychedelic.

I took a walk to the roof, up on the third floor, to use the bathroom there. It was twilight and the fading green of the valley was subtle and stunning just the same. A half moon smiled from straight above and cast a shadow at my feet. Jupiter, Venus and Mars blinked from their corners of the sky and I watched in delight as twilight waned and the stars poked their heads out one by one. I felt relaxed, happy and ready for the ceremony.

Inis and her guy came back and jokingly asked what happened to the lights. David and I both wondered if they had turned them out on us for fun, a little test. They got the lights back on and Ines made ready to begin. She gathered a quantity of herbs and set them on her splendid altar, then lit an incense burner that was filled with copal.

She began praying and chanting in both Spanish and Mazateca, the local indigenous tongue. She blessed both of us by name and brushed us with herbal leaves.
The preliminary invocation done, she handed each of us a little bowl brimming with dried mushrooms and poured a small amount of water from our personal bottles over each, instructing us to eat them. I looked at the 'shrooms and thought, “Shit I'm in trouble, this is the biggest pile of 'shrooms I've ever seen!”. It reminded me of the time in Summer '79 when I finished the thick remains of a mushroom milkshake that I'd split with friends. My eagerness that day saw me on the up escalator a mere 15 minutes from ingestion, traveling too fast to the outer limits. David mumbled similar sentiments about the quantity, and I said, dude we just gotta go with it, trust Ines.

We ate 'em up, and they tasted pretty bad. I really wish she did not put the water on them, it sort of made them f-r-e-a-k-y nasty, I woulda done better if they were just dry!

Regardless, we got them down in good order and settled in to wait for the boost, the beckoning to almost literal other worlds, and the A-HA moment provided by mushrooms: “Oh yes, now I finally see, this is how it REALLY IS!!!!!!!!!!!! I always knew it, I just forgot! The knowledge of the ages under my big dumb nose the whole time, and I never noticed! Etc., etc.”

I could go on about time and simultaneity, and other matters the mushrooms have whispered cosmic joke about into my psyche, in the past, but I'll wait on it, that's for some future post.

Ines continued to chant, and gave way to improvised blessings, songs, and banter. To say she made us feel welcome and at ease is a huge understatement. Here is a women who well knows what the mushrooms reveal, and she offers them in the spirit of healing, calling them “little saints”.
David and I were content and affable as we waited, chatting and feeling profoundly relaxed.

At one moment in Ines' song, I felt a wiggle in my gut and stood up, approached the altar and stretched out my tall frame, reaching for the roof. A quick shimmer worked from my center to my top—I was knocking on the door to “the other”, ready to tumble in. But the inner light dimmed, and I lay back down to relax.

Ines reminded us again what she had said that afternoon, that we can't expect visions from dried mushrooms. I freely admit that David and I both hoped to trip out anyway, but alas it was not to be. Still, we went to sleep content, open and relaxed, having had a most interesting day and evening.

The following morning, our hosts served us a flavorful breakfast of local coffee and eggs with a mountain root vegetable folded into them, and hot tortillas.
We headed back to the city of Oaxaca perhaps slightly disappointed at not finding the fresh mushrooms, but I can guarantee you I will visit Ines again in the rainy season!