Julio loves jelly. The only thing Julio loves more than jelly is his mother who died tragically three years ago in a circus train derailment. Luckily, Julio and his knapsack of Mason jars were on the scene. After several hours of working deftly with a melon baller, Julio went home with a sloshing arsenal filled with the salvaged fruits of his mother’s mutilated corpse.

Julio’s jelly was about to have a very delicious secret ingredient.

One morning last week, Julio had just finished adding a generous heap of apricots and sugar to a mixing bowl of pureed spleen. He was just slathering a greedy helping of the oozy jelly onto freshly sliced bread when he heard the sound of footsteps crunching along his walk. And then, an earnest rap at the door.

“Good morning, just us Witnesses passing by, thought you might like to chit chat with us about our Lord Jesus Christ,” said the elderly woman at the head of the religious trio. She donned varying shades of gray and soot, and her bony fingers clutched pamphlets depicting Jesus with wind-blown hair. Julio was glad it was not the crucified Jesus; those pictures always agitated his Stigmata.

Julio considered this invitation. He hadn’t had company in many months, not since the encyclopedia peddler asked to use the john. And Julio did so much like to share his jelly.

“You know,” Julio mused aloud, “that sounds like a mighty fine way to spend a Sunday morning. Say, would you like some jelly sandwiches?”

And that is how Julio found himself in his breakfast nook with three Church people, sharing sandwiches flavored with his mother’s sugared spleen.

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5.5″x5.5″ thick canvas.

I made one of these for my friend and it was so much fun that I couldn’t stop, so I’ve been doing customized ones. Sweetest Day is coming up, ya’ll! Mention my dumb blog and get $5 off! I AM SO LOVING.

More info here.

Akimbo is from a series of vocabulary-inspired paintings I’m doing because I like words and I’m bored.  It’s 5.5×5.5 and has that cute little pink-haired strumpet on it. More info here.

So I was interviewed for today’s spot over at Etsy Spotlight On. Go check it out!

After spending all morning plucking rotten apples from the orchard, Eduardo, Ski and Pig were finally on their way to the beach. Mother had packed them a lunch and Father had given them a few bucks to spend at the concession stand on the boardwalk.

“Don’t spend all your money on bubblegum,” Father warned Pig, who had a compulsion for hoarding used wads of the chewy confection in the most inappropriate places. Eduardo, fumbling around in the backseat of the car, once mistook a discarded lump of bubblegum for a condom and now he and Tracy Snorklebutton have a two-year-old son out of wedlock.

At the beach, Eduardo and Ski spent their money wisely, stocking up on fizzy water and lottery tickets, while Pig naturally blew his cash on an edible mucilage mother lode.

He stowed his cavity-causing cluster inside the beach bag he shared with his brothers, and re-joined them in the surf.

After awhile, the beach bag became a makeshift oven beneath the blistering belts of the sun. The bubblegum began to boil and the fizzy water effervesced the caps right off the bottles. Together, the gum and water coagulated into a sweet, yet pissed off, volcano. The eruption was so great that no one was able to escape the taffy tendrils propelling through the air.
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Original painting on a thick 12×12 gallery wrapped canvas.

A new Chinese restaurant just opened up down the street from the Bluebots. It was right next to the bazooka delaershop and across the street from the veterinary hospital, which everyone knew was really the mafia’s drug front.

The Bluebots, after a long day of worm harvesting, decided to try out the new noodle joint, moisten their joints with a few squirts of soy sauce.

While they waited to be seated, Alfred Bluebot spied one of the cooks blowing his nose into his balled-up hand and then promptly fisting a clump of lo-mein.

"We can’t eat here after all," Alfred declared.

"Is it because that waitress in the corner just shat into the squished eel delight?" Maddie Bluebot asked her husband, having spied a very different horror across the restaurant.

"No," Alfred said slowly.

"Is it because there’s a feral cat giving birth under the buffet?" their son Stanford guessed, squatting down to watch the cat suck on afterbirth.

"No," Alfred answered, chuckling incredulously at his family’s failed guesses. "It’s because I left my chopsticks at home."

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8×8 canvas board, blah blah.

The town of Speckleville desperately needed a new Bingo hall. Mrs. Crescent recently died from a combination of exposure to asbestos and one too many under-table rat bites. The roof had blown off during the monsoon of 1987 and the layer of marshmallow fluff used as a makeshift cover attracted hordes of roaches and orphans. The orphans would sneak inside the purses of unsuspecting Bingoers and suck dry all their Sweet n Low packets.

It was raining the day that Otis, Saffron and Richard planned to kidnap the mayor’s daughter. The trio painted themselves daffodil yellow to better blend in with the mayor’s stone manse, which he kept perpetually slathered with butter to ward off slugs.

When they arrived at the mansion, butter was roaring past them in rivers, washed away by the rain. This left Otis, Saffron, and Richard to stick out like sore thumbs, painted yellow against the original indigo of the stones. Saffron fell and broke her knee and Richard lost his dead father’s lucky cuff link in the butter rivulets, but they still succeeded in capturing the mayor’s daughter.

The next day, after the mayor’s domicile had been freshly re-buttered, he received a telegram.

GIVE US A BINGO HALL W/ A ROOF AND FREE OF ROACHES, OR UR DAUGHTER BITES IT.

The mayor’s face blanched, then flushed to a rich crimson. He let out a riotous belly laugh.

"If they wanted me to care, they’d have taken my goldfish! That wicked child they kidnapped is only my STEP-daughter!"

And so the residents of Speckleville continued to share their bingo hall with the rats, roaches and orphans. It wasn’t so bad once they realized the orphans could be sold to neighboring villages for fresh corn and Karo syrup.

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Original 8×8 painting on canvas board. Tomorrow is the last day of the fundraiser. Thanks to everyone who has shown their support this far!

The Gorpensteins had been traveling the world for the past three years, collecting feathers for dreamcatchers, and curing orphans of Athlete’s foot along the way. After three years, they had exhausted their funds and grew weary of living off meals of cattails and pond water.

So the Gorpensteins – there were three of them – packed up their Pinto with their feather collection and drove back to their hometown of Noodleton.

No one recognized them as they drove down the cobblestone road leading to their abandoned house. Maybe it was because the Gorpensteins had been gone for three years; maybe because the Gorpensteins now all wore tankinis made of mud and clay in lieu of cotton shirts and jeans. Maybe because half the town had gone blind from the great turpentine factory explosion of ’06.

The earthy family eventually traversed the entire length of Palm Drive, spilling the Pinto out onto their old property.

One by one, the Gorpensteins exited their rusted green Pinto with the broken tail light and shielded their eyes from the afternoon sun.

"Well," started Papa Gorpenstein, as the family stood in a huddle, gazing up at the lopsided structure that was once their home but was now a bait shop. "This changes everything."

Original painting on an 8×8 canvas board, suitable for framing.

After 7 years of crunching numbers for Jockstraps R Us, Felix put in his two week notice. It caused quite a ripple, as Felix was the tallest employee. Now everyone would have to be measured to find his successor. But mainly no one really cared.

There were a lot of things Felix would miss, like every Wednesday when Yvette the receptionist would wear polyester hotpants and a terry halter. And pizza Fridays when every one would laugh behind their napkins when Beatrice, unbeknownst to herself, wound up with shreds of anchovies ribboned around her braces.

Felix knew there would be a party — every one got a party thrown in their honor when they left the company; a soiree full of well wishes and moist cake with fluffy buttercream frosting. If the boss’s son hadn’t pilfered too much from petty cash that week, there was a chance a Mylar or two might be kissing the flourescent ceiling lights.

And on Felix’s last day, there was a kiss off party indeed. Beatrice diligently cut the cake into precise cubes, ensuring that Felix got the piece that had his name scrawled in shaky sugared calligraphy. After everyone licked the last of the icing from their fingers, various employees began stepping forward, saying a few words to send Felix off into the world of opportunity.

"Felix always wore deodorant," Samson declared, and everyone nodded their heads in earnest.

"Felix always bought a pack of Skittles after lunch, and he always gave me the red ones," Abraham spoke somberly.

"Everyday, I pissed a little in Felix’s apple juice," Cleaver chuckled.

"And everyday, I was banging his wife," hollared Julio, face red and bloated with hilarity.
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Original painting on an 8×8 piece of canvas board, perfect for framing.

[THANK YOU KATE for your purchase of "Leaving" and for supporting the shelter! You made my day!]

This is the banner for the Etsy fundraiser I posted about on Saturday. I love how my Lizzie Borden Christmas card is nestled so warmly among such cute and cuddly items. It kind of made my day a little.

I’m participating in this Etsy Fundraiser thingie. From July 26 – August 6, 20% of my sales will be directly dontated to Saving Shelter Pets, Inc.

There are several other Etsy shops involved, so if you like animals and your heart hasn’t been too hardened by that prick called Life, take a look around and help us out.

Etsy Fundraiser for Saving Shelter Pets, Inc.

This is probably the best – not to mention the worst – idea that I have ever had.

Mel couldn’t take the pain of his broken heart any longer so he gouged a hole into his chest with a melon baller and pulled that bleeding sucker right the hell out. Now he’ll never have to feel that breaking torment next time a favorite ice cream flavor is retired. On the flipside though, he’ll never again feel the swell of hope and love when his girlfriend comes over. But how often does that really happen? She’s a cheating slutbroad.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t have a heart, too. But I would rather suffer through the lows so that I may have the highs, rather than not feel anything at all. I love you, Craigery.

Carbunkletown. Population 789. Home to Mrs. Catsballs the contortionist, Father Pricklenuts the limp wrist, Frauline Gertude the snowglobe collector, Peter Sniffles the throat slasher.

789 residents: all different colors, some with herpes, some with stinkeye, all incapable of embracing emotion.

But down in the hollows of Carbunkleton, past Herman’s Booze Hut and a few stone throws from Porno Delight, lived a boy named Sigmund, and Sigmund loved music. He loved it more than the other 788 townsfolk, who turned the radio to the local Top 40 station only to block out barking dogs and dumpster-rummaging flaneurs. But they never listened to music to FEEL.

As he tacked up posters of his favorite bands, Sigmund would silently thank them for singing the words that swam in his heart, for screaming the cries that rattled inside his mind. He’d throw on records he found in neighbor’s garbage cans — discarded after they realized they might need to put effort into listening to it, that it wouldn’t go down nice and smooth like a swig of Pepto Bismol — and lay back in his bed, watching the hair on his arms stand up as the singer’s voice pierced through his heart with molted emotion.

Sigmund would excitedly run through the town square when he found a new band that made his heart quake. He’d try to implore the Widow Crotchbiter to listen, he’d tug on Jake the Smut Peddlar’s sleeve, tap Susie Chibbles on the back.

"Please, you have to listen to this band! They’re so good and full of emotion and they’re from Smugglesville and there’s this one song and and–"

"You’re so dumb, Sigmund," they’d laugh.

"Grow up, Sigmund," his co-workers would say.

"But, this record saved my life, seriously!" Sigmund would cry in defense.

"Music is for drowning out crying babies," his boss Patty Rumproast sighed when he asked for a night off to go see the Anal Probes play at a neighboring town. "And sometimes dancing to when you get drunk at weddings. Why would you want to actually FEEL something? That’s so stupid. YOU’RE stupid."

Slowly but surely, Sigmund put up his walls and stopped trying to express himself and stopped trying to share his love of music with his friends. He stayed inside his hut, listening to post-hardcore records with his headphones on, so he wouldn’t receive a citation from the out-pouring of emotion from his windows.

After time, his right eye swelled from the stress of bottling his feelings. Turned out his giant right eye really like synthpop, though.

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Original painting on a thick 8×8 wrapped canvas. Sigmund is loaded with texture and would make a great gift for your favorite misunderstood music-lover.

Darnell and Yolanda’s love had been on the fritz for the past 17 months, starting back when Darnell fathered a love child with the neighbor’s milkmaid and started stealing Yolanda’s pearls to meet his child support payments.

When Yolanda found out, she cared less about the pearls and more about the fact that Darnell had used Mountain Dew as an excuse for his inability to impregnant her. "Baby, my sperm count is drastically lowered from doin’ so much Dew." Turns out he was secretly using condoms because he was afraid that any offspring they might produce would inherit Yolanda’s lazy eyes, eczema, and blizzarding dandruff.

One balmy afternoon, after months of terse salutations and a frustrating sexy time hiatus, they finally decided to quit ignoring the skeletons in the closet;  and so, they dove right in to a wet, sticky and vulgar imbroglio.

They screamed things like: "You’re a good for nothin’ triflin’ HOBAG!" and "Oh my BAD, I thought that was your baby mama callin’ you but it’s just a STRAY CAT!"

At the end of the seventh hour, they stood in the kitchen, chests heaving with a polarizing combination of adrenaline and exhaustion. Yolanda did it first: using a butter knife, she made a calculated incision between two ribs and scooped out her heart with her palm like it was a chunk of melon for a fruit salad.

Darnell followed suit and the war of the roses ended with two abused, trampled hearts, discarded and stewing in a pool of coagulating blood on the linoleum.
 

Little does Darnell know, Yolanda has been moonlighting at the burlesque club, patiently saving money to pay for the hit she plans to put out on his stank cheatin’ ass.
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PLEASE NOTE: My scanner was acting like a crabapple, so I had to take actual photographs of this. It doesn’t do it justice, I promise. The areas where it looks like the paint is thin, that’s just glare from that stupid sun.

Original painting on a 5×12* piece of gallery-wrapped canvas. Sides are unstapled and painting so it’s ready to be hung as is!

Can be found HERE with all my other fine (haha) wares.

(* I measured this myself so God only knows what the measurements really are.)

Club Apathy: Where you go when you have no more shits to give.

Acrylic on 8×10 canvas board.