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Thu - February 2, 2006unabomberi hear tell someone that looks like him is loose
at work this evening. he threw a CD and screamed at it, 'why won't you
work?'
Posted at 06:37 PM Permalink | Mon - January 23, 2006say what?'hi thanks for calling
the place that must not be
named, how can i help
you?'
yeah, i need to have the handicapped parking sign in front of my house removed. 'what??' isn't this the place that must not be named? 'ye-es? but we don't have anything to do with that.' oh. well, i thought i'd just check. WTF? Posted at 04:13 PM Permalink | Fri - December 23, 2005speaking of coffee shops--i went down to latte land today to pick up coffee for scott and
brit (and a polar wave for myself) and viewed a stygian scene from hell. mandy
was obviously training some poor schlub while leto ran register and an army of
the no-tippers waddled through like penguins on the way to some slaughterhouse
in darkest antarctica. i wished i knew something about something because i'd
have been happy to help, but there wasn't a damned thing i could do for them
except tip well and get the hell out of their hair.
Posted at 05:49 PM Permalink | Sun - November 27, 2005for once we have new equipment . . .. . . but the vendor isn't providing
supplies.
Posted at 09:33 AM Permalink | Wed - November 23, 2005hey it's the day before thanksgivingso what do we
do?
go in and hassle parrish all day, by the dozens. helpless, hapless, hopeless. Posted at 07:24 PM Permalink | Fri - October 28, 2005Fri - September 30, 2005six of one----half a dozen of the
other.
while i was at work yesterday, everyone who came in demonstrated plainly that the city had put the good LSD in the water: even the angry ones were nice. it didn't quite make up for the kidney stone incident, which began around 9 am and reached a crescendo about 1 pm. Posted at 05:18 PM Permalink | Tue - August 23, 2005not nearly as bad as i feared . . .. . . but i don't see how matters can,
ultimately, improve.
i may have to do something about this. Posted at 10:33 PM Permalink | Mon - August 22, 2005Wed - July 20, 2005animals at worknot the usual kind, the two-legged sorts vainly
seeking an exterminator to give them release, but the other
kinds.
other day, i'm dragging the garbage up the hill to the dumpster, when i see something falling flutter flutter, end-over-end down to the ground across the street. it' a bird, a mourning dove, which has flown right into the bronze windows of the repulsive plaza steps building. the bird rolls over and over itself down the hill, flapping helplessly. this can' be good for it, so i roll my trash barrel back down the hill and go back inside. i get the second one, and a case box, and carry it all back out again. leaving barrel emptied in the trash corral, i cross the street. the bird is lying there still, eyes closed, but i can still see it breathing. i slip the box under it and push it against the wall, tip it in, and pop the lid on it. a quantity of skittering and flapping ensues, then fades, as i carry it back inside. lifting the lid presently, the dove eyes me with an idiot gaze and a cocked head, but otherwise sits there quietly, wings folded, like a bird. what to do? i call the lakeside nature center after querying the kansas city humane society and find that they'll take it off my hands. a co-worker drives the creature down there. supposedly we'll get a postcard when the creature heals and is released, or dies suddenly and unexpectedly. so today. leaving work. i bike over the hill and down again, to cross over into mill creek park on my way home. right in the gutter against the curb, inches from car tires, is a pretty little lady rat, panting heavily in the dust and the heat. 'well, rat,' say i, ' you aren't well.' she's doubtless gotten into bait which is burning through her insides, so nothing can be done about that. but i bike down the block to pf chang's and get a pitch from the box out front, and take it back to her. using it like a giant mitt i scoop her up, rolling her over limply. she gazes up at me with a still bright eye, half raising herself, still gasping. she's clean and tidy and well fed, and doubtless carries enough germs to do me in. hail the rat king! she's dying. i put her in those landscaped planters in front of the old sprint store, covering her with green viney leaves and those pink and purple flowers i call nine o'clocks*. the ground is cool and damp from the morning's watering, and she's away from the noise and the cars and her enemies. rats have been with us a long time, and deserve some respect. i'd rather she die in her torment in the cool earth than on hot asphalt. animals at work. many a human one i'd let lie dead in the street, but not these. ______________ *i name plants whatever the hell i feel like calling them. Posted at 05:52 PM Permalink | Thu - June 16, 2005Fri - April 15, 2005no commenta lady comes into work today, with a heavy gallic
accent, and carefully enunciated
english.
'i am french,' she says. 'and i need help.' the jokes just write themselves. Posted at 06:56 PM Permalink | Wed - March 23, 2005Wed - March 16, 2005at one point this afternoon at work . . . . . . i looked at
Δ
and said, 'what i wouldn't
give
to have the crack concession in kansas city.'
Posted at 06:25 PM Permalink | Fri - March 11, 2005bonne nuiti feel a bit better today, and at work we got
news that made us feel more upbeat about developments around
the place that must not be
named. there are people that like us, that really
really like us!
but i am not so well that i do not want to go to bed early. and we were very busy. so, good-night. Posted at 08:50 PM Permalink | Wed - March 9, 2005i think everyone's going to be sick at work by the time this is overmy fever's down to 99°, i
think.
Posted at 12:39 PM Permalink | Fri - March 4, 2005working in my sleepa couple of nights ago, i dreamed about people
coming into the place that must not be
named with impossible demands that had to be met
all at once, or we would fail The Audit. now, i have not dreamed about work,
period, any kind of work, for a year and a half. last night, to make things
weirder, i found myself in my dreams working at the broadway
cafe, a job i am not very suited for, since i do not know the least
thing about being a barista. the broadway was located in a huge mall-like
structure in a tower above the plaza, which has figured prominently in my more
hopeless wandering-lost dreams for years, and to make things more fun, aliens
from the movie alien--except
these were chalk-white instead of black--were stalking
me.
i don't see any trend here. bonnie's gonna be all over me to get a new job now . . . Posted at 06:25 PM Permalink | all dull and no play makes jack a work boyyeah, i got six and a half hours of overtime this
week.
as amy wong would say--'shmeesh!' Posted at 05:41 PM Permalink | Wed - March 2, 2005Mon - December 27, 2004the advantages of a third world economy'how much to have these four pictures
scanned?'
ten dollars each--$40. '$40? that is a lot of money.' yes. 'but . . . but this is for a green card lottery.' yes. 'that is a lot of money.' ... 'i do not know. i was in iran a year and a half ago, and i was charged $1.25 to scan three pictures!' ... ... 'okay, not today.' all right. have a nice day. 'thank you.' things that just make you go . . . . hmmmmmmmmm. Posted at 09:53 PM Permalink | |
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what is this awful thing?
what is sparrow's fall?
...somewhere between the city of the poor and the city of the not-so-poor, a long ways from heaven but not quite in hell, is a neighborhood where the people are mad and the animals are sane, where armadillos are on the wrestling circuit and dogs go to art school. If you see god, or aliens, or if you go to group with a neurotic otter, you live there. Only one question: did he fall, or was he pushed? who makes it? parrish baker, kansas city comic artist since at least 1995, was born as the old sepia-tone world was finally fading away, four days before nixon narrowly won a first term in the white house. parrish grew up in the countryside of missouri, not quite in the plains but neither quite in the ozarks. the summers are hot there, and the winters cold, and there is often a great deal of wind. eventually he received an adequate education--primary, secondary, and college, and even bothered to get a master's degree in a useless topic. he walked out of the halls of academe into the heart of a recession. moving to kansas city, he luckily found a temporary job that lasted twelve years before he decided that it had become permanent, and decided to move on to other endeavors. somewhere along there he began drawing mini-comics . . . or something like drawing . . . judge for yourself . . . he still lives in kansas city, drawing his ridiculous indy comics like there was no tomorrow. of course--if you watch the news . . . just what is it about comics in kansas city? The year was 1996. Or 1997. Your call. 1995 . . . 1996 . . . 1997 . . . 1998 . . . a golden age for comic book art in Kansas City. 40 Oz. Comics was alive and well, and, most importantly, here, Jim Mahfood’s Grrlscouts and Cosmic Toast were in wide circulation, and Thereyago! Studios was about to produce the first (and last) issue of Meanwhile... and other folk were busy drafting out comics and cartoons left and right. Like all Periclean ages, it was probably better in memory than in reality, and like all such ages, it did not spring out overnight and from nowhere, but drew, god knows, its strength largely from the illustration department of the Kansas City Art Institute. People who could draw and people who had something to say walked and breathed amongst us, and we were willing to listen. Amongst those paying close attention was a youngish scrawler who, encouraged, authored the dreadful comic book Calyx, after sitting in the Broadway Cafe for the better part of a year pretending to teach himself drawing. This little science-fictional horror fading instantly from collective memory, he looked for something else to create. Why did he do it at all? Obviously he was talent-free, that much at least could be said. He felt, nonetheless, that he wanted to say something, and in those days saying something seemed possible, mandatory even. An emotional catastrophe had taken the ability to write from him; the inability to draw would have seemed to conspire keep him in his place. He ignored reality, however, persisting in making wretched things that are safely contained, like industrial waste, in sketchbooks to this day. If he’d had half a brain, he would have despaired. But he didn’t. Chance encounters with no less than two possums birthed the characters of Possum and Hot-Dog onto paper; a failed attempt to sell the idea to the Pitch cemented a thick distaste for that paper that survives to this day. However, the Possum flourished, and, by a metamorphosis whose details have been lost to memory, a little cartoon called Sparrow’s Fall was born. Little of Kansas City’s comics heyday remains: an unfortunate exception is Sparrow’s Fall. It has endured, continuously published, since November 1996. The author of this long spiel of angst, irritation, and occasional perverse humor can’t understand why. More to the point, he can’t understand why other people do not try to hide his dreck with work of their own. It is becoming urgently necessary that people do it. Our culture is becoming suffocated with one great universal Voice, the AOL-TimeWarner-Disney/ABC/CBS giant that neither is interested in, nor wishes to hear, what we have to say. Comics, believe it or not, are an important part of the resistance. They and zines (which also seem dead, evidently a victim of the internet,) occupy a corner of visual and textual media the entertainment giants simply cannot fill or block. We must have a voice, we must draw, we must write. If not to drown out AOL altogether--then at least to distract attention from that dreadful Sparrow’s Fall. The author is gloomy. Where are the Mike Huddlestons, Jim Mahfoods, Daniel Spottswoods, and Scot Stolfuses of tomorrow? And why aren’t there more women here in Kansas City doing comics? Well . . . maybe one is looking at this right now. If you are--put it down right now, and start drawing. Kansas City Comics Community
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artstew astrobiology magazine ben hawkins david ford fahrenheit gallery grand arts green door gallery hugh merrill hammerpress john raux kansas city art institute kansas city infozine kittyspit: list of kansas city art sites knack living with liver cancer mike baker paragraph gallery peregrine honig prospero's books rachel stuart-haas reading reptile starbucks delocator the storm track susie gharemani telephone booth gallery wednesday kirwan wee wonderfuls kansas city comic book stores
Action Sports - 5243 NE Antioch Rd (816) 455-6319
A to Z Comics - 1300 SW Us Highway 40 (816) 224-0505 Astrokitty Comics - 7th & New Hampshire, Lawrence, KS (785) 856-8607 B-Bop - 3490 Main (816) 753-2267 B-Bop South - 5336 West 95th Street (913) 383-3200 Broken Lotus - 1412 NW Vivion Road (816) 587-2007 Clint's Books Comics & Games - 3943 Main St (816) 561-2848 Collective Cache - 10150 W 119th (913) 338-2273 Comic Cavern - 5404 NW 64th St (816) 746-4569 Elite Comics - 11828 Quivira Rd (913) 345-9910 Lawless Times Comics & Magazines - 3117 Troost (816) 931-2400 Mo Iikai Anime - 40 Highway and Noland Road (816) 478-2020 Monty's Book Swap - 9302 E. 40 Highway (816) 737-1427 Omega 7 Comics - 1925 N 83rd Terrace (913) 321-6764 Pop Culture Comix - 9337 W 87th Terrace (913) 341-0040 Pulp Fiction Comics & Games - 9337 W 87th Terrace (913) 341-0040 The Battlezone - 6608 Blue Ridge Blvd (816) 358-0870 The Battlezone - 11752 Blue Ridge Blvd (913) 492-6363 Vintage Stock - 9200 Metcalf Avenue (913) 648-8999 Vintage Stock - 8416 W 135th St (913) 681-1999 Wonderland - 1605 Westport Road (816) 931-0065 shows
miniatures! 8-96, juried invitational show at broadway café, kansas city.
reversion/counterrevolution 11-01, solo show at a copy shop, kansas city. mail-art show 11-01, at the telegraph gallery. heavy petting 10-02, juried show at the lemp, st. louis sequence 05-03, juried show, at the panacea, kansas city. solo show at broadway café 05-03, kansas city. Media
Spank Fanzine #25, 09/98
sometime in this period i think i was written up in the topeka zine, mimezine, circa 1998. You know what's next when there's nothing planned at the Crossroads gallery galas, Kansas City Star, 10/08/99 appearance on local cable access, in late 1999 or so: "Gallery Guide” for Kansas City Round a Bout.: interviewed by holly swangstu The Best of Kansas City: 2000--Best Local Zine, Pitch, 1/26/00 The Inscrutable Mr. Baker, Kansas City Star, 4/8/01 Homegrown: Parrish Michael Baker, Kansas City Magazine, 09/01 Superfast In Action: SPARROW'S FALL, by matt fraction, Warren Ellis Forum 12/16/01 From the Calendar section of the Pitch, by gina kauffman, 12/26/01 Action Heroes, Pitch 4/24/03 capsule reviews of no other fish in the sea, the girl in the window, and five string serenade, by lunar circuitry, 06/01/03 another brief mention from mimezine, 7/31/03. SPX-Parrish Baker, 10/03, comicreaders.com appearance in an account of the 2003 kansas city comicon, on scott stewart's comic art site capsule review of possum trot, by Jason Arnett, "I Make Believe #19," 01/01/04 mention on comicbookresources.com, by J. Torres / B. Clay Moore 03/25/04 ultimately uncaptioned appearance in community faces, 02-17-05 words - and - pictures (comic creator's network newsletter 04.24.2005) totally undeserved praise from fire and knives, the magazine for people who eat, 10-2005 article in the pitch about the broadway group, 11.16.05 reference from kansas city public library's local history collection, 2005 the kansas city comix scene's comic story of the day 01.14.06 FLICKR
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