From: "John Weeks" <[platypus 26] at [hotmail.com]>
Subject: New Zealand Trip Journal Day Zeven: Irish Coffee Action
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 23:32:13 PDT

Day Seven: Millennialism and Dowsing.  DunedinäTuesday, March 17th. 

	"Gonna have to leave soon" I tell Kitty in the A.M. as the kids get
ready for school.  "If I stay any longer I'll have to start pulling my
weight around here."  
	I'd planned to leave today but got swayed into staying onäLiz & Co. are
having a Saint Patrick's day party today.  
	Liz has finally received the second part of her paper from France via
e-mail.  She gets cracking on getting it in shape for presentation.
	I've got to get my tickets and tie up last minute business.  I go to
the travel agency and inquire about plane tickets.  Then I go down to
the Octagon where they sell train tickets.  Hey, that's not too far from
First Church.  I get a train ticket from the folks at the Info Centre
who are dressed up in 19th century period costume.  I try to use my
Australian student ID card to get a discount, but no dice.  I need one
of those international student cards, or at least a local student card. 
	I go over to First Church again to see if I can say hello to Colin
Andrews, one of the cartoonists exhibited at Fuel Cafe.  I encounter the
same workmen and like yesterday, no Colin.  This time, though, I'm smart
and I check at the church office.  It turns out he's painting the church
all rightäbut it's a miniature one in the basement that he's working
on.  It's about as tall as I am, I guess for children to play in.  
	Colin is friendly and positive, and enthused about learning more about
Australian comics. He has an idea for a song for my _Quickdraw_ musical
compilation.  
	With a new address and a hearty handshake I'm off.  I get my plane
ticket on the way back to Liz's house.  No student discount there
either. 
	I really should get them some flowers or some token gift. They've only
put me up for four days.  I try to think of something but I'm stumped. 
Maybe I can give them a place to stay on their next world tour.    
	Liz needs supplies for the party so I'm out again for a head of cabbage
and 2 pints of whipping cream.  
	I get back and people are starting to drift in for the party. I have
some of the Irish coffee - it's not bad.  Eliot is enjoying mixing and
making it. 
	I meet a woman who dabbles in local history.  I'm told that NZ had
similar liquor laws to Australia - they didn't repeal the "Six O'clock
shout" until 1967.  Basically, the bars were only open for an hour after
most men got off work (no respectable women would be seen in bars, of
course.) After it was repealed?  Well, it was still pretty bad, lotsa
drunk driving.   
	Since Dunedin had a sizeable Scots population, the drink of choice in
the past was often Gin.  This worked well with the local diet; something
in the chemical structure of the drink helps it break down the fatty
tissue in mutton.   
	I meet a fella from Liz's church who had sent me an inquisitive note
about dowsing and landmines on email.  He's used his "third eye" to find
lost objects in his garage, and had some ideas about using dowsing in
mine detection.  I've actually met a few dowsers in the past; when I was
working during summer break at UC Santa Cruz, I was employed by the
Conference Center, which would host meeting of various groups at the
school.  Business training, Astrophysicists, Leadership Training - and
Dowsing.  They'd walk around campus with their sticks and tools, looking
for water, gold or whatever piqued their interest.  Not sure I'd want to
risk my life on these methods, but it's fun to chew over the ideasäsee
what sort of belief system they're based on.
	I chat with Ed and discover that we'd both hiked the same mountains in
earlier days: San Gorgonio, San Jacinto.  The party slowly begins to die
down. 
	I thank Inez for her CDs.  "That's money you've saved me," I tell her. 
	"That's money you've taken out of the local economy!" she chides. 
Whoops.  
	Inez & I listen to Liz explain a Buddhist myth that I'm completely
blanking on now.  I lean on Liz to work on the screenplay idea we'd
talked about.  
	The Irish Coffee keeps me up a bit but I eventually sleep.

______________________________________________________
From: "John Weeks" <[platypus 26] at [hotmail.com]>
Subject: New Zealand Trip Journal Day Eight: Panel Beater.
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 22:25:53 PDT

Not sure if this got through or not previously - Hotmail arrgh. 


Day Eight: Panicked Panel Beater. Dunedin-Christchurch-Auckland.
Wednesday, March 18th. 
	
	I say goodbye to the kids as they take off for school.  Eliot gives me
a little fernäapparently it's another NZ emblem.  
	Ed is going to work and Liz suggests we go down with him.  Down at the
University of Otago in town he's got a sophisticated computer setup for
making ID cards.  I'm like,  "I wonder if I can get a student discount
on my plane tickets!"  "Maybe I can use it as a way to get discount
photocopies!"  I'm always thinking of a useful angle.  They were
thinking more of a souvenir. 
	Liz has recently had her hair done by Ainis but kept her streak of
gray.  I'm glad she kept the streak, it looks nice.  
	On the campus I notice lots of signs in English/Maori.  I've been
seeing 'em in other places on this trip too.  It's interestingäMaori
culture is much more present and visible here than say, Aboriginal
culture in Australia. 
 	I get an ID card made.  Cool.  I hope Ed can extend his franchise to
other schools or uses. 
	Liz and I head out to the train station.  It's _huge_, a classic old
Victorian building.  At the time it was built, Liz tells me, gold money
and ship traffic gave Dunedin some pretty high expectations.  Then the
Panama Canal was built and local industry took a downturn.  
	We've got a little time to kill so Liz takes me by an exhibition at a
photo shop.  It's of Valentines' Day photos.  Ed had warned me about
this one.  Lots of people did cutesy little efforts; Ainis's photo is of
a sheep's heart being held up by a model.  I think it would be a great
design for a card.   
 	We go to the art gallery in the Octagon. In keeping with yesterday's
Buddhist stuff, there's an exhibition of postmodern paranoia:
_Pre-Millennial_, featuring the work of Ronnie van Hout and Mike
Stevenson.  Van Hout uses plastic army figures to depict scenes from a
UFO invasion: military evacuation, makeshift checkpoints, poisoned
water, dead bodies in unusual settings.  Stevenson provides advertising
and art classics with hidden messages written in fluorescent ink.    
	My favorite was the picture of Jeff Koons with 666 written on his
forehead.  The show program is designed to look like a tract from door
to door missionaries.  
	It's time to go.  I thank Liz for everythingäI really can't thank her
enough.  She's given me a place to stay and a lot of her time; I've
probably given her a cold. 
	I get on the train and it takes off.  I'll bet she gets back to her
conference paper.  I hope I haven't been taking up too much of her time. 
	The guy sitting in front of me is talking to himself, the woman across
the aisle, and anyone else who makes eye contact with him. I guess it
could be worse, I could be someone like that.  Someday I will, perhaps. 
He starts to quiet down after a while. 
	Through a veil of mist I see lush forested hills and the sea.  If
there's any dominant images I'll retain of NZ, it'd be clouds and
trees.  It's a lot more cool and green than arid Australia.
	I'm feeling kinda out of it.  Hope I'm not getting sick again.   I keep
myself hydrated by drinking several cans of L&P, a NZ lemon pop drink.  
	I pull out my ever-growing stack of  New Zealand comics.   A sizeable
chunk of them are the ones I got from Tony, he's quite prolific as an
artist and an anthologist.  His own work is in a basic caricature style
with carefully ruled lines.  There's a number of repeating characters: 
		Sedgewick, a disgusting little boy with a teddy bear, 
		Peetar Rabid, a degenerate foaming-at-the-mouth mammal, 
		And OyOy, a capricious killer created in collaboration 		with the
also-prolific Cornelius Stone. 
	Many of these folks can be seen in Tony's recent collection, "Free to a
Good Home", which also contains the strip he did for the _Small Press
Expo_ book. (Actually, that's how I got in contact with him, from his
address in that comic.  Don't nobody say it's a waste of time doing
stuff like that!) I've also got various short bits and one-offs he's
done.  
	Perhaps my favorite bit is Tony's Peetar Rabid one pager 'Excess is a
Lifestyle'.  Peetar steps out of a building labeled 'Moderation',
proclaiming, "Everything All at Once!"  and proceeds to back up his
maxim in each successive panel.  Eating.  Rooting.  Drinking.  Smoking. 
Playing music.  Ingesting substances.  The last shot is of his
gravestone: "Everything all at once - for a limited time."  I can
empathize, I just don't know when to say No.  I'm not being a wild man
but I'm definitely moving a bit too fast. 
	Another favorite is Tony's anecdotal "Never tell anybody you've stopped
drinking."  I don't know about New Zealanders, but I'd swear on a stack
of comics this high that Aussies look _hurt_ when you tell them you're
not drinking. 
	Anthologies:  Tony's edited _Treacle_, a collection of Dunedin toons. 
Five were done, A4 size with one-color covers. 
	"I edited number one without reading it." Tony told me.  "I wanted to
read it for the first time like those who bought it, so I collected the
art and compiled it, then sent it off to the printer."  
Did he like it?  There were one or two strips that he thought were a
little immature, but he enjoyed his experiment.  (He was more hands-on
in future issues.)    
	I liked Chris Stapp's "Grandaddy Afro" strip, in the first issue,
though his Hewlett/Glyn Dillon style is a bit too derivative in this
one. 
	#2 Has "Redneck Weird", rural apocrypha by Glenn Ross. There's also
more Chris Stappälooking just a little more original in his tale of
hangover cures. Kirsten March makes her debut with her childlike yet
moving style.  One or two other strips I liked, but there's no credits
in this issue.     
	#3 includes the charming "Stillborn Dreams" by Glenn Ross, a child's
view of a grandfather's suicide.  We also find another fable from
Kirsten March, a piece on animal testing by Tony Renouf, plus "Burns to
be Wild" (about the Robert Burns statue in Dunedin's Octagon) by Peter
Johnstone. Cute.
	#4  Has more of the usual suspects.  Tony continues his animal testing
comedy, Glenn Ross contributes an existential tale,  plus Anthony
Behrens's "Titanus":  Mecha-Godzilla in terms of defense weapons
policy.  Behrens has an interesting style, reminding me just a little of
Kaz.  
	_Treacle_ #5 is a product of a one-day comics drawing workshop at the
1995 Dunedin Fringe Festival.  26 folks contributed, including Tony,
Glenn Ross, Colin Andrews, Adam Jamieson,  Toki Wilson, and a few others
who didn't sign their  names clearly.  As happens with this sort of
thing, there are one or two unknowns who are great, and don't appear
anywhere else ever again.  
	_Treacle_ is succeeded shortly after by an A5 size black and white
anthology which Tony started in '95, _Umph!--_  ("the sound you make
when reading a comic").
 	#1 has Tony's  Peetar Rabid, plus (among others) a rapidly developing
Glenn Ross, Toki Wilson. We find Colin Andrews' slacker character Lewis
cunningly stealing beer from underage kids.  "The Steamer" contributes a
weirdly prescient strip that evokes the current power crisis in "When
the New Right Take Over Everything".  ("If we borrow an economic concept
and devalue the energy section of the equation by, say, 40%äwe can have
enough watts for everybody at a only a fraction of the energy
requirement!")  Also of note is "Alice in Manga-land" by Paul Potiki. 
	For #2 Tony contributes a fine comic about French Nuclear
testingäsomething that still raises hackles in this part of the world.
There's a naturalistic Glenn Ross strip, "Lost in the Fog".  Colin
Andrews goes for the jugular with "Lewis Fucks a Dog", including a
gallery of dead cartoon dogs hit by carsäSnowy, Snoopy, the dog from
Footrot Flats, I thinkänot for the squeamish.  Also some Toki Wilson,
the energetic "Monster from the Deep".  
	#3 leads off with a surreal cover by Morrie Brown.  Glenn Ross outlines
"Nine Steps to Transcendental Bliss".  Colin Andrews steps up to the
podium with "So you want to be a cartoonist", a cautionary tale. Tony
explains the concept of "Abductotherapy", while Toki Wilson provides
some short strips. Also, Stephan Neville's warped writing and textured
rendering make a debut.  Tony was quite enthused about him, but I wasn't
able to get in touch with him either. 
	All of the anthologies and comics that Tony's done are notable in that
they have an ISSN (what's the difference between that and ISBN?  Arent
they the same?) number. He's done this to make his comics
internationally registered, and also has them archived at the National
Library.  Apparently all you have to do is send three copies to the
Library and they'll give you a number. It's an interesting approach: 
_Zine World_--- won't carry you if you have an ISBN, yet these are
definitely small press in terms of print run and content.  Tony sees the
numbers as a toehold for getting more notice and insuring that his books
won't fade away.  	  
	Anyway, _Treacle_ /_Umph!--_ can be gotten from Tony Renouf at 39A
Willis Street, Dunedin, New Zealand.  $4.00 NZ cover price for
_Umph!--_, No cover price on Treacle.  
	I can see a few of similarities between Tony and me: we're both put
together anthologies, we both do this on top of our day jobs, we both
have a simple, basic style.  I think that's a common denominator with
organizersätheir own art is less developed 'cause they're often doing
everything else besides drawing.  While I think organizing can be as
much of a skill and talent as drawing, I wonder if I really want that to
be my role.  
	As the train is traveling through one town, I notice a sign for car
repairs: "PANEL BEATER".  I think of Tony Renouf's "standover tactics" -
maybe that's what we are.  Panel Beaters.  In terms of extortion or
perhaps a more derogative masturbatory sense.  Dang, I should have
gotten a picture of that.  
	We reach the Christchurch station around sundown.  I hop on an airport
shuttle and the driver asks me if I mind going out of my way.  As the
sun sets I end up going way out to Sumner, an outlying suburb of
Christchurch with a gorgeous sea view.   
	I get to talking with a musician guy who's a Vertigo junkie and give
him some of my comics.  Just as we're discussing Jim Woodring we pass a
sort of sculpture with a crescent head, like one of Jim's recurring
characters.  Weird. 
	I get to Christchurch airport eventually, and have some dinner in the
only place that's openä.the "Cheers" bar, based on the TV series. Yay
globalization. I try to play "Rapper's Delight" on the jukebox but it
curiously refuses my request.
	I've got a little time to killäLiz had suggested I see the Antarctic
Centre.  There's a set of blue painted footprintsähuman and penguinäthat
lead from the terminal to the Centre.  
	I'm expecting something very touristy but it's really quite
fascinating.  The New Zealand scientists working in Antarctica are
supplied from Christchurch, and they've got all kinds of displays and
features about the work they do there.  There's a snowcrawler, a room
with real snow where visitors are invited to put on boots and trek
through, and lots of photos and films.   Of course, I arrive just a few
minutes before closing but I manage to get a look.  
http://www.iceberg.co.nz/
	I hop on the plane and the person next to me asks me if I have the flu.
The in-flight magazine has a feature on one of the character actors from
Hercules.  Hey, it turns out one of the Split Enz guys is now the chief 
set designer for the show.  Huh.
http://www.frenz.com/splitenz/bios/enz-amg.html
  	I think about the heaps of minicomics I have from Australia and the
many more that I have at home.  If only I could get them in a smaller,
more permanent format.  Like a CD-Rom.  I should get some techie with a
CD burner to scan them in, make a special copy for me.  Then instead of
having boxes of this stuff I'd just have a CD.  That'd be great.  
	Hmmmä. If Heavy Metal and Doonesbury can have their own CD-Roms, why
not minicomics?  It might be a good way to resell them, if you managed
to get everybody's permission.  It'd be a good way to encapsulate small
press history. 
	This is my frame of mind as I'm getting off the plane in Auckland. 
They're starting to close down the domestic terminal.  My backpack comes
through and the top flap is open, some of the clothes are strewn
around.  Shit.  My carefully compiled stack of Australian mini-comics is
gone!  
	No Stateside reviews.  No goodies to show people.  No chances of making
copies or doing a website.  I'll have to write each person individually
to get their comics again.  I'm feeling really upset, almost physically
ill.
	I go to the check-in desk and ask them to check for the lost stuff in
my luggage.   They call the luggage handlers in Christchurch and  - yes!
- they have my stuff.  I'll have to come in tomorrow morning to get it
though.  Whew.   
	I'm starting to feel really familiar with this airport. I get a shuttle
ride to Auckland City Backpackers.  I dump my pack and collapse. Forgot
about the disco next door thoughäkeeps me up until about two in the
morning.

______________________________________________________
From: "John Weeks" <[platypus 26] at [hotmail.com]>
Subject: New Zealand Trip Journal Day Nine: I do laundry
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 22:30:20 PDT

North Island, Part Two

Day Nine: Half a Week Away.   Auckland.  Thursday, March 19th. 

	Searching for some breakfast I spot _Pop Culture_, a comic shop that
several folks suggested I check out.  It's just a few streets away from
my hostel.  (23 High Street, Auckland, NZ.  (377-5227)  It's got a
fairly good selection, nice and diverse.  http://www.popculture.co.nz 
	I buy a James Kochalka book http://www.indyworld.com/kochalka and a
mini that's an anthology title, _See Saw_.  Hey, it's got Adam Jamieson
in it!  So that's what he's been up to since _Blink_.  
	I take the bus to the airport.  It takes a roundabout routeätakes about
an hour and fifteen minutes to get there.  The bus driver is apologetic,
I'm queasy.  I'm feeling really lethargic and tired. I have to sit down
and have some caffeine once I arrive at the airport, my  home away from
home.  I feel like an old man. 
	The Australian comics are retrieved.  Today is a good day.  
I trod over to the International Terminal. I'm getting pretty used to
this place by now.  I should probably get a shuttle over, take it slow
but it's such a nice day.  
	I retrieve my laptop from the luggage storage folks.  I run off a few
copies - on disc - of my thesis.  I then leave them at the Information
counter for Liz to pick up the next day.  Then she can take them to the
Asian Studies conference she's going to and distribute them.  	I suppose
I could just mail them to people, but it's cooler to do it this way,
just 'cause I can.  Whoo.  I'm such a high-tech dude.  Somebody write me
up in _Wired_.    
	I take the bus back.  Almost another hour. Yeah, I'm getting more
queasy.  I should have taken a shuttle rather than another interminable
bus ride. 
	I get back late in the afternoon.  I manage to make it over to the
other comics shop, _Ground Zero_.  I'm quite pleased.  I'd have to say
it's the best comics shop -that I've seen, that is - in the country.
It's got a great, diverse selection.  Many things I would buy if I
wasn't poor and traveling light.  (_Ground Zero_, Shop 12, Mid City
complex, Auckland, New Zealand. Phone 307-0215, fax 303-1073.)
	Perhaps the most eye-catching bit there was the _Acme Novelty Library_
point of purchase cardboard display rack, a stunning bit of cardboard
confectionery that I wish I had for my own home.
http://www.hotwired.com/serial/9520/index2a.html   I see a new issue of
_DeeVee_ out. http://www23.pair.com/ozcomics/dvp.html  There's photos in
the back of some awards the creators are winning.  That's something 
that really oughta be done in Oz (and maybe NZ): some sort of yearly
mini-comics awards thing.  It would provide a useful short list of some
of the more popular books and names, at the very least.  
	The highlight is the well-stocked selection of NZ minicomics.  Some are
years old, but there are several new ones.  I pick up, among others,
Timothy Kidd's _Half a World Away_.  I just get one issue, but I'm
impressed by his understated storytelling and fairly realistic figure
drawing.  It's a tale of alienation in a rural environment, from what I
can make out.  Unfortunately, this visitor who came from half a world
away in part to find stuff like this is stymiedäthere's no address! 
That kinda complicates things, and in half a week, well, I'll be away. 
(Okay, later I find an address.  _Half a World Away_ has a cover price
of $3.00 NZ, from Timothy Kidd, P.O. Box 5722, Wellesley Street,
Auckland, NZ.)  There's so many other titles at the shop, I try to limit
myself to what's recent that turns my crank.  I don't think I'm gonna
have time to see and understand it all. 
	I return to the hostel and sort out my gear.  Time to do some laundry. 
	I go to Ichiban again and read manga and have some miso soup.  It's not
too far from the corner of Albert & Swanson in central Auckland.
	Still a lot of generators around.  There are construction workers
tearing up what must be underground power lines, working night and day.  
	I jot down a few notes in my trip log.  I go to the bar upstairs to get
some orange juice. It's full of tanned young travelers trading adventure
stories and chatting each other up in broken English.  
	There's a big crowd in front of the hostel TV.  Honestly, do you go to
another country to watch TV?  I don't think so.  So I should go out, but
I'm feeling a little nauseous.  Off to dreamland.
	The disco keeps me up again.  I keep coughing and waking up in a cold
sweat.  Sore throat too.  The five other occupants of my room must love
me.

______________________________________________________
From: "John Weeks" <[platypus 26] at [hotmail.com]>
Subject: Feverish: NZ Trip Journal Day Ten
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 17:36:21 PDT

Day Ten: Feverish.  Auckland. (North Island)  Friday, March 20th. 

	I wake up in the late morning.  I'm feeling tired and weak, really
sick. 
	I call Ant and ask him where to get cheap copies.  I need to make a
heap of them before I return to the States.  He gives me a few
suggestions and I head outä.I'm glad I'm downtownäexcept for that
irritating disco, everything I need's nearby. 
	I buy cold medicine.  I need drugs.
	I do some laundry.
	I make copies, moving very slowly, until closing time: my own comics
and those of a few friends:  Mandy Ord (_Wilnot_), Michael Fikaris
(_Froth_), Kirrily Schell (_Wide Arsed Mole_).
http://www.loud.net.au/noise/display_stories/1-90000/1201-1500/display_st
ories_1231.html
	It's not very wise to do this now; I've got a fever, but nothing'll be
open on Saturday.  Poor me.  Sick and alone in a strange town.  I want
to go home but I can't for the life of me figure where that is. 
Portland, where I used to live?  Melbourne, where I recently lived?  LA,
where I'm going?   
	I can't eat at Ichiban every night so I go to a Chinese place and have
some vegetable noodle soup.     
	I've got a bad cough but I manage to go to sleep.  I wake up at about
four AM in a cold sweat.  
	I try gargling with Listerine but my sore throat hurts pretty bad.  I
go downstairs.  Maybe I can go across the street to the disco and get
some earplugs.  
	The desk guy downstairs has some, and gives them to me out of sheer
pity.  I must look like hell.  I can finally sleep.

______________________________________________________
From: "John Weeks" <[platypus 26] at [hotmail.com]>
Subject: More Phleghm: New Zealand Day Eleven.
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 17:42:38 PDT

Day Eleven: Preparing for Armageddon. Auckland. (North Island) Saturday,
March 21st. 

	I wake up, cough up some phleghm and go out.  
	I have a croissant in the park and read about the power outage in the
magazine _North and South_.  I save the article for later reference.  
	A guy asks me if I want to buy some weed, but antihistamines are my
drug of choice today. 
	I'm feeling a bit better. I dunno about all this travelingähow can you
_not_ catch a plane?  How can you ignore rare opportunities you may
never have again?  And it's all at the expense of my health.
	I'm lucky enough to find an open photocopy shop!  I make more copies of
comics for the convention that's happening tomorrow.  Finally I'm
ready.  I'd thought the show ("ARMAGEDDON" featuring "Captain America":
Mark Waid (Captain New Zealand, anybody?) and "Baron Zemo": Kurt Busiek)
would be both Saturday and Sunday but the Comics segment (Comics n'
Cards, a sign of the end times if there ever was one) would be Sunday. 
Hmmmäominous Buddhist scripture photocopies I'd made in Dunedin,
"Pre-Millennial" exhibition, now "Armageddon" convention.  Yep, definite
theme going on here. 
	At a café I discover a comic: _Strumming Teeth_.  One-color cover,
free.  It's paid for by ads, distributed around Auckland, and is up to
it's 21st issue (can that be true?).  Andy Conlan's style alternates
between caricature and a more realistic look, but his life drawing
skills need more work.  
	There's brief-one pagers, mostly about relationships, and a continuing
serial, "Mausoleum", with a creature that looks much like _The Mask_. 
The underlying themes are those of awkwardness and people's capability
to be cruel to each other. ("I can't stop pushing old men into
urinals.")  Obviously this guy's been reading Brunetti, Newgarden and
Clowes. (P.O. Box 105-278, Auckland NZ.)  I've always been curious about
whether accepting ads would work for mini-comics, if one was
sufficiently organized.  It seems that it's been shown to be viable, in
this product.  http://www.titan.co.nz/fodder/
	Alex was pretty negative about this one in his collected _Largely
Critical_. ("I tried to cheer myself up by burning  _Strumming Teeth_
but even that didn't bring me out of my melancholyäwhat the hell are
they made of anyway?  It takes half a bottle of petrol to burn a copy!" 
"They're held together by hate!")
	I begin to walk over to Ant and Alex's to retrieve my briefcase full of
comics.  Turns out downtown is having a festival of some sort today. 
There's a stage being set up, the theme seems to be the revitalization
of downtown.  Oh great, the Danish pop band _Aqua_ (hit single "Barbie
Girl")is playing.  Time to move along.  
	I leave some of my comics at music store _Real Groovy_ on Queen
Street.  I mean to invoice but a) I'm tired and b) the usual guy who
manages that stuff isn't there.  So I just give them the comics and hope
for the best.  I'm on a mission, dammit.  I will not be stopped. 
There's a music magazine put out by the store as well. 
http://home.xtra.co.nz/hosts/realgroove/static/rg_info.html
	Walking up the street, a woman in a fairy outfit smiles and points her
wand at me.  For a moment I think I'm hallucinating, then realize the
get-up's for the festival.     
	When I meet up with Ant and Alex, the latter is excitedly  auditioning
for a band, _Tadpole_.  I chat with Ant about some of the comics.  It's
good to yak but I can't take up their whole afternoon.  Plus I'm feeling
pretty tired.  Ant offeres a ride to the convention tomorrow.  Mighty
nice of him.
	There's a graveyard on the walk back from their apartment.  Lots of
cool old gravestones, moss encrusted.  Too bad someone had to build an
overpass so near it.  I'll bet the local Goths must dig this place.  I
take some photos. 
	I trudge back downtown, late afternoon.  The festival is over and city
workers are cleaning up.   The street barricades are still up, though,
so heaps of skater kids are going nuts, zipping all over the place. 
They're having a blast.  You don't need to import a bubblegum pop band
from another country to have funäsometimes all you need is an empty bit
of asphalt.  
	I leave some comics at _Ground Zero_ -  I don't think I'll get back to
them before my plane leaves, so again, I just give 'em to 'em.  
	I buy cold medicine stuff at a drugstore.  I also get a lottery ticket
because I like the ticket design and want to use the logo later. I win
two bucks!  It's a good sign.
	Feeling feverish again.  At least I'll be able to recover at my folks'
place when I get backädon't wanna crash and burn though.   
	A German girl in my dorm room takes interest in the comics as I'm
sorting them out.  My three years of High School German aren't much
help, but we manage to chat a bit.  I always see Germans in hostels, for
some reason.
	At about ten pm I realize I'm missing something.  I'd been meaning to
do some interviews tomorrow, I had a tape set aside, and of course I've
lost it.  I ask the guy at the desk downstairs if there's anyplace I can
buy a tape at this late hour.  He rummages in box of cassettes and gives
me a tape of really bad slow jams.  "Just take it" he says, "I hate this
one."  Saved again!  
	I actually manage to sleep a bit, though I'm getting a pretty bad
cough.  The drugs are a help, but I need something stronger.  Or maybe
just a week of rest.

______________________________________________________
Subject: Armageddon: NZ Day Twelve
Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1998 23:05:51 PDT

Day Twelve:  Armageddon.   Auckland (North Island) Sunday, March 22nd. 
	
    I stumble out of bed and swallow a croissant.  Ant and Alex show up
right on time, and we head off to pick up Cornelius Stone.  
	In the plethora of hostel and backpaper information I've spotted a
"Black Sheep" hostel in Queenstown, on the West Coast.  I suggest to Ant
that his "Black Sheep" character has retired and started his own
business.
	I complain about the place next door that is blasting music.  They had
a cover band last night, some of the music seeped through:  Gloria
Estefan, Alanis Morissette. 
 	"Oh yeah, 'Park in the Bar'." 
	"Bloody Park in the Bar." 
	"Corn" is a thirtyish thin blond fella, unassuming and friendly. You
wouldn't know to look at him that he's a titan of NZ comics.  He hasn't
been doing much comics work lately, apparently focusing on some film
projects.  He's got some boxes of old comics to sell. 
	We pull into the Alexandra Convention Centre parking lot and load
out.   We set up inside the venue with other sundry sellers of comics
and stuff.  
	Incongruously, there's an energy drink promotional stand next to us. 
What were they thinking? 
	There aren't too many small pressers there.  We sit and hang reading
each others' stuff.  I wonder if the _Oatz_ Comics folks are going to
make it over from Hamilton.  It's a shame I haven't been able to get in
contact with them.  
	Alex is hung over and not shy to admit it. "Yuppie!" he accuses as I
dredge out my laptop.  I show him and a few others some Australian
comics stuff I've got stored. 
http://evolver.loud.org.au/nupoo/comics/index.html
http://www.grafted.net/8D/
	Despite their relative nearness, I'm starting to realize there's not a
lot of Trans-Tasman comics communication.  Most of the stuff I show
people is new to them.
 	I'm still feeling kinda feverish.  For liquids, I drink an endless
stream of L&Ps.   
	We're soon joined by Adam Jamieson and Dylan Horrocks.  Adam is quiet
but friendly, and has most of his earlier comics for sale.  His latest
work is in _See Saw_, a collaboration with two others: Sophie McMillan
and Timothy Kidd.  I'd gotten the first issue the other day; here's the
second. 
	In #1 Timothy Kidd's feature "Encyclopedia of Crimes Foretold",
includes some recurring characters of his, Jose and Rosa, and in the
second installment, a fable about a chimera.   We're also introduced to
Adam's slickly drawn "Hortz", a horselike creature thrashing out
questions of identity and purpose.  Man that description sounds dull,
let me try again.  Hortz argues and interacts with other woodland
creatures, sometimes stoic and stubborn, often childlike.   The one page
strips are simple, fun and visually appealing.  Finally, Sophie's
"Nameless Romance" is a short vignette of illusion and reality in the
life of a stuntman.
	#2 includes the second part of Sophie's continuing adaptation of
Sartre's _The Reprive_ädone more as a joke than in a serious sense.  I
think it goes against the grain of what _Classics Illustrated_
triesäthis strip really makes a case for Sartre's unreadability. 
Another episode of  "Encyclopedia of Crimes Foretold" sees a voyeuristic
ghost peering through windows of space and time.  Adam includes four
"Hortz" stories, where we find the creature is a bit of a loner, trying
to understand and sort out his life.     
 	All the contributors of _See Saw_ are pretty talented.  Get wise and
get it.  ($4.00 NZ, P.O. Box 5722, Wellesley Street, Auckland, New
Zealand.)
	Dylan is wearing a zig-zag shirt much like Charlie Brown's.  I think
I've mentioned before, he's the creator of Pickle.
(http://www.blackeye.com/)  I've been scouring NZ to complete my
collection so I can interview him.  
	Dylan's excited to see the Australian stuff and we have one of those
rapid-fire conversations common to comics aficionados.  He introduces me
to Darren Schroeder, a fella who's compiled a register of NZ comics. 
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~chayne/comix/nzcomreg.html
	People start to drift in.  Their attention is mainly taken up by cards
and superhero comics stuff.   The star attraction, the Captain America
scribe does his signing and the people line up attentively.  We've got a
good vantage point to watch. 
	"Man, I'd write Spider-Man in a minute."  Alex says. 
	"Sure you could do super-heroes," I counter, "but look at the clothes
they wear." Gesturing at the writer and the fans.  "Could you do the
clothes?"  Alex shudders inside his leather jacket. 
	People start drifting by and I sell a few comics.  Enough to pay for
the L&Ps, at least.  Maybe I should try the energy drink at the stand
next door.  They're not getting any attention at all. 
	I'm still pretty sick.  I hope I'm not giving this to everybody I meet,
like a jet-setting Typhoid Mary.  What if I've given the plague to all
the comics folks I've been meeting? The horror.
	I ask Dylan about the interview and he's into it.  I dig out my list of
questions and tape recorder; we decide to do it in about an hour.  
	I chat a bit with Adam.  Dylan says he's reminiscent of Paul Pope in
terms of style, but he's a nicer guy, "The Anti-Pope".  Wasn't that term
in Revelations or something?  Definite millennial theme for the last few
days.  Or maybe I'm just feverish and hallucinating.
	Dylan shows me a booklet collecting Tove Jansson's newspaper comics. 
They were only published in England, I think, and I'm stunned. She's one
of my all-time favorite cartoonists, I was raised on her stuff. 
http://www.io.com/~fazia/Moomin2.html
	Alex tells me he's joined the band he was auditioning for, Tadpole. 
They're gonna go on a trip to Australia at some point. I tell him he's
got to check in with my homeboys in Melbourne. He keeps going on about
how music is more rewarding than comics: his weekly strip "Largely
Critical" has garnered him more notoriety than roots.  It's a tough
angle to argue withälearn three chords and you're ready to go on stage. 
Draw three lines and you're still sitting in your room by yourself.
	I show Dylan another obscure comic.  My friend Amber found it when
cleaning out her library at the development agency she works for.  It's
about food pricing, done in the 1970s by one of  America's great
underground cartoonists, Spain.  (And damned if I can remember the title
nowäsomething like "the food pricing scandal".)  In _Pickle_ Dylan had
an imaginary library of undiscovered comics masterpiecesäI feel like
we've got two more right here. 
	We take a break to judge a fan art contest.  Timothy Kidd and Sophie
McMillan show up.  I get a look at their solo comics, respectively
_Illuminata_ and _Interlude Pie_.  I can see I've made a mistake in not
getting all five issues of Half a World Away.  Timothy's style is great,
and Sophie's is also fairly realistic and shows a good degree of gentle
humor - reminds me just a tad of Jenny Zervakis (_Strange Growths_).  
	_Interlude Pie_ is a loose assemblage of stories, characteristically
experimental.  There are at least two repeating characters, Otto and
Poppy, native to Jangle Rock.  I've got numbers four through six.  #4 is
A6 in size and consists of short one or two page character based
vignettes.  Losing a hat, buying a book, anecdotes and fables.  It's a
fun mixture.  
	#5 is back to A5 size and Could be called the TV issue.  Otto and
Sophie click through the same channels, as they watch TV in separate
places, linked by the monadic unity of centralized broadcasting.  Plus
the _Interlude Pie_  Sweepstakes.  
	#6 we see a bit of experimentation with zipatone.  This one finds Otto
in the big city and being scammed.  The thieves mean no bodily harm,
though, and even sing to Otto as he is sleeping.  (I think this is the
best example of the playful nature of Sophie's stuff.)  We then find
that Jangle rock is in peril from a zoological oddity.   
All issues feature variations in size, storytelling and format.  Looks
like she's testing her voice, seeing what she can do. 
	No cover price. (7 Northland Street, Grey Lynn, Auckland, New Zealand. 
I'm fairly sure Timothy can be reached through this address as well.)
	What I like about Kidd's work is that he _shows_ you his story and
allows you to make the connections.  His storytelling is quite
sophisticated for one so young.  The central character is obviously a
stand-in for the author, as is the similar-looking one in his more
recent work, _Illumina_.  It's clearly an interior environment that's
being depicted in his work.   He seems to have been experimenting in
this _Half a World_...it looks like he's using pens, brushes, even
ballpoint. 
  	I particularly enjoyed his new story _Illumina_...two issues so far,
the first told entirely in a fictitious language. (And forty pages too!)
Angels.  Mermaids.  Aliens.  Lots of fun storytelling bits. 
	#1 finds the protagonist abducted by aliens, after which he is rescued
by a mermaid.  Taken into the care of a family in a small fishing
village, he begins to recover from his ordeal.  He is searched for by an
angel, with whom he seems to have a mutual past.  The aliens show up to
interfere again, eventually leaving the two reunited but in distress, to
be rescued again by the mermaid and her aquatic brood.  
	The best bits of storytelling language in the story are, well, about
language.  The angel's affinity with winged creatures allows her to
listen to a bird's chirpy exclamations, a collage of overlapping speech
balloons with pictures inside.  When the mermaid combs her hair and
sings, siren-like, in a language unknown to us, we see the sinuous
speech balloon wind like an exhalation under the chins of those it
affects.  This is good stuff with a mythic bent.  
	The nominal protagonists of the second issue spend most of it asleep! 
They wash up in a small town, where a whole new cast of characters is
introduced.  I sense perhaps a little Gilbert Hernandez influence here. 
I like how we're eased into the rhythms of the lives these people lead.
No panel borders in this issueäthe lives of the people here bleed into
each other.  We meet Rosa and Hector, who take in the sleeping angel
(now losing her feathers) and lost boy. 
(No cover price, try Timothy Kidd, P.O. Box 5722, Wellesley Street,
Auckland, NZ.) 
	I get a moment to interview Dylan and we talk for what stretches out to
be a good forty-five minutes.   He's fun to chat with - fascinated with
practically everything related to comics, possessing a contagious
enthusiasm.  I get the background story on _Pickle_ as well as his other
efforts, like the _Hicksville_ graphic novel.  He's done some locally
published strips and in explaining their content shares some of his
opinions on NZ politics and culture.  
	Dylan's also got a number of future projects he's thinking of, now that
_Pickle_ is drawing to a close.  In addition to all this, he's teaching
a course on comics -- I try to pin him down on his definition of comics,
something he's given a lot of thought to.  That part alone's a good ten
minutes at least.  I could have taken up heaps more of his time but that
would be a bit selfish.  He gives a plug for the _See Saw_ creatorsäwhom
he thinks are doing their best work in their own books. 
	When it's done I think I've got a pretty good interview on tape - the
more I think about it though, the more I realize that I wasn't so much
asking him interview questions; rather I was asking him questions about
comics issues I'm curious about, that his work addresses. Hopefully that
will still be an interesting read when I transcribe it. 
	I'm given a new mini, _Chrysalis_.  It's an okay first effort, with a
cute two pager, "The Goth Killers". I trade some comics with Sophie and
Timothy.  Turns out that they've just gotten married.  They'll be an
unstoppable comics couple.  
	Corn gives me a whopping stack of comicsä_Knuckles the Malevolent Nun_
, _Family of Sex_ (heard about this one in Melbourne), and many more. 
I'm not sure if I can give him adequate goodies for exchange, but I give
him the best of what I have remaining.
	People are starting to leave.  Dylan says something cryptic before he
goes, about fanboysä "Yeah, I like those guys."  I'm surprised and ask
for confirmation.  He's sincere but we don't get to elaborate the point,
he's taking off.
	It's time to wrap up.  I start packing and giving away the few comics
that are left.  I've sold more than I thought I would.  Ant's sold a few
for me while I'm gone, bless him. Now I can go back to the hostel and
rest.  
	We pile back into Ant's car and head out. The sun is setting.   One of
their friends points out graffiti as we travel through the city,
describing who's done it and why.  "The guy who did this piece was
arrested in Australia - the Judge put him on a plane to Auckland and
said he didn't want to see him again." There's a little bit for a story
in there, how seemingly obscure things we see daily can have hidden,
decodable meanings. 
	Ordinarily I'd ask if anyone was up for a beer but I'm feeling
feverish.  We drop off Corn and I'm next.  I thank the boys for all
their help.  Then I go up to my room and collapse.  
	After about two hours of sleep I wake up and go to the hostel's
restaurant to find some food. 
	I've got copies of _Razor_, _UFO_ and _Family of Sex_.  I leaf through
them in a sleepy haze.   
	_Family of Sex_ #2 (1990) has lots of short non sequitur bits drawn in
comic strip format, generally drawn by Cornelius ("New Zealand comics'
great survivor") from photo reference.  I've seen the title in some zine
compendium from years agoäit's not one you'd forget.
	#3 (1990) adds some new bits to the mix: real fumettis and guest
artists, as well as guest characters.  In short, mixing things up a
little more.  We find short pieces by Dylan Horrocks and Tony Renouf,
while Roger Langridge deserves a special mention for his story "Desk", a
24 hour comic.  It's a true tale of Langridge's childhood as a "big
poofy girl's blouse" dealing with tough kids at school, a nice
stand-alone bit.
	_Razor_ is an NZ anthology, and contains work by many folks - Stone,
Langridge, Horrocks and many more.  #5 (1987)  has a long collaboration
between Dylan and Cornelius, a moody personal bit with anthropomorphic
characters.   
	#9 contains two long strips, the final one a jam by seemingly everyone
in the known universe.  It's "the last Joe Dole story", with lots of
digs about NZ politics and also starring  the character Tisco George,
whom many may have seen in Pickle.  While it's uneven like many jams,
it's fun to see so many different cartoonists being playful and loose.  
	_Razor_ #11 is an all-Knuckles edition, featuring Knuckles the
Malevolent Nun.  Hmm...summer 1993. This must have been just before the
strip got picked up by Fantagraphics.  I find this some of the more
accessible of Cornelius' stuff, simply 'cause it's played strictly for
laughs.  (Of course, I'd imagine he's tired of being known just for that
feature.)  
	Slightly more recent is another anthology helmed by Cornelius, _UFO_ #1
($5.95 NZ, 1995).  There's a great Lisa Noble strip, "One Way Jesus". 
I'm also impressed with Barry Linton's work, both on his own and with
Cornelius in "Jazzmen 3".  There's a short strip by Dylan, and some fine
work ("Dirt") by David Mitchell, a sort of surreal serial killer bit. 
Aha!  His work was also in _Treacle_ and _Jesus on a Stick_.  I believe
Tony Renouf told me that he was a musician on the side.  His stuff is
detailed and moody, I wonder what he's up to nowadays.  Carl Wills
contributes "Figaro", a wordless fable of weird chimeric creaturesäand
now that I'm starting to become more familiar with his style, I seem to
recall he's done one of the one-pagers in the last _Treacle_ as well. 
Things are starting to make a little more sense.  His work is very
accessible - polished and slick yet sick.
(Most of these don't have cover pricesäto inquire write to Cornelius
Stone, 61 Mt Eden Road, Eden Tce, Auckland, NZ.)	 
	I read these and have a big salad (gotta get those greens) and a huge
glass of orange juice, then I go back to sleep.

______________________________________________________
From: "John Weeks" <[platypus 26] at [hotmail.com]>
Subject: New Zealand Trip Journal Day Thirteen: "Mr. Charisma".
Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1998 23:12:07 PDT

Day Thirteen:  "Mr. Charisma".  
Auckland (North Island) 
Monday, March 23rd. 

	I wake up and cough up more phlegm.  I hope I haven't kept the people
in my dorm room awakeäthough I certainly wasn't as loud as the disco
next door.  Glad I've got those earplugs.  
	It's a nice bright day, shorts weather.  It's my last day here, but
I've got one more thing to do.  I've set aside part of today to
interview Chris Knox, a well-known figure here.  I've been trying to get
up to speed by reading zines and listening to his music, but he's just
done too muchähe has a finger in every pie.
http://www.flyingnun.co.nz/bands/knox.html
	Fortunately things are a bit simplified in that I want to interview him
on just his comics work. For _The Clean_'s _Boodle Boodle Boodle_ EP, he
drew a comic for the CD booklet.  In 1981 he edited the "Rock" issue of
Strips, and began a regular comic, "Max Media", for the NZ Herald in
1987, which continues to this day.  He draws music reviews for _Really
Groovy_, and various other pieces for _Stamp_, _On Film_, _The
Listener_, etc. Prolific. 
	Perhaps, though, the best-known thing that established Chris as a
cartoonist is the fondly-remembered anthology _Jesus On A Stick_, which
he self-published four issues of from 1986 to 1987. 
Ant was kind enough to lend me three copies.  It seems to have made a
big splash at the time, and all issues have some fine stories.  Some of
the best are by Chris.  I'm envious - getting paid for doing comics
_and_ music. 
	It had a print run of about 1500 per issue, color cover, roughly A4 in
size. The art styles mostly leaned in a non-representational
noncommercial direction.  Having put together the anthology, Chris also
got to do the honors on the covers.    
	Issue #1 has "The Bruce Springsteen Story" (a fetus) meeting Cyndi
Lauper (lookin' awful like Snoopy), by Chris.  I have a weird feeling
this strip is allegorically autobiographical.  Nothin' else in that one
turned my crank, except maybe the cover with Mickey Mouse up on a cross
grinning in his undies.
	"Free Jesus Mask!" advertises Issue #2.  This is accomplished by having
two covers.  (I don't want to imagine how much of the budget that ate
up.)  The first cover is of a skull with skin peeling off it, surrounded
by dotted lines.  The second (interior) cover appears to be a color
negative of the first cover.  The outside one is intended to be removed
and used.  A surreal, somewhat morbid untitled story of a transient
sort-of-homunculi is done good service by David Mitchell's able figure
drawing, and intricate stippling and shading.  Chris contributes a
nicely detailed nightmare of childhood toys and dolls come to life.  I
see a Golliwog doll in this too, an item that often pops up in Tom
Priestly's stuff
http://www.murchison.com.au/offplanet/
äam I right in guessing that these are representations of Aboriginals?
	In #3 Tony Renouf makes an appearance with Sedgewickägood lord, this
guy's everywhere. Chris reprints a religious tract in its entiretyäwhile
some of the strips in _Jesus On a Stick_ have a blasphemous bent or
mystic allusions, for weird religious shit, how do you top Jack Chick? 
http://www.disinfo.com/prop/brainw/prop_brainw_jackchick.html
 	Standout strip for this issue is Chris's "Radiation Sickness", two
pages about gang rape, understated but still not for the easily
disturbed.  I found them both particularly moving.  In one, we hear a
second-hand story of the crime, chilling because you are made to
imagine.  Second is a postscript where convicted prisoners are
role-playing what a rape victim goes through.  Both are true. 
Lisa Noble also contributes a fine tidbit of paranoia on scratchboard,
"The Watchers".   All this plus a letter from Pete Bagge, another guy
who gets around. 
	#4 finds a sick Muppet parody by Tom Cardy, a ghost story by Chris,
more of Lisa Noble's "Watchers", and a bloody ear on the cover.  Van
Gogh's?  Oh yeah, Joe Wylie contributes a cute comical fable of the end
times in "To Hell and Back".  Don't let the angels lobotomize you!
	After seeing Chris play back in Melbourne I was curious about his other
efforts, and was interested to learn that he did cartoons as well. 
Onstage he was unpretentious and energetic, two admirable qualities. By
the end he looked like he'd been through a workout.  I did a drawing of
him labeled "Mr. Charisma" in my sketchbook at the time.   
	So after seeing him perform and reading his comics, I'm ready to ask
Chris some questions, but, of course, I can't find his address.  Arrgh! 
I know Chris is listed in the phone book, so I try ringingäbut it's the
wrong Chris Knox.  Oops.  "You must get this all the time," I say
apologetically.	
 	"Yep." I'm told. 
	I call Ant and Alex, and in an amazing display of prescience, they've
left Chris' address info by the phone.  Their housemate fills me in. 
Phew. (The address: 2 Hakanoa Street, Grey Lynn, Auckland.  Chris really
doesn't do any minis at the moment, but he may have some issues of
_Jesus on A Stick_ left.  $4.00 NZ per issue.)  
	I grab my briefcase and tape recorder and then look at the time.  I
feel like I'm splurging getting a taxi but it's probably the easiest way
to get to Gray Lynn where Chris lives.  I don't wanna kill myself
tramping all over town.  After some nasty ethnic jokes I step out of the
cab (no tip).  
	I'm lost for a momentäthe house across the street has the same number
for some weird reason.  Chris' partner comes out to get the mail and
spots me looking clueless.  Apparently the postman's been pretty
clueless too.  "We've lost a lot of mail that way." she says ruefully. 
	Their house is great.  Stuffed with books and records, which I'd love
to linger and check out.  Chris breaks off a phone call and drags out
some photocopies he's made.  He's way ahead of me.  
	I whip out my trusty recorder and my list of questions. Like Dylan, he
cranes his neck to second guess what I've written.  He's thoughtful and
perceptive; direct and literal, much like his music and comics.  I can't
for the life of me figure out why his art is so often seen as naïve just
because it's not cloaked in indirect metaphors. 
	I ask him if being a rock musician has any relation to being a
successful cartoonist.  "There are far, far too many rock musicians in
this world" he responds emphatically.  "Ninety-nine percent of them
should be taken out and shot."  What a cool guy.
 	Comics and copies in hand, I stuff them in my briefcase and take my
leave.  I decide to walk from Grey Lynn to the city center.  I can see
the skyscrapers in the distance.  
 	I buy an apple.  It's a gorgeous sunny day, and the walk into Auckland
gives me a nice view.  I take a few pictures.  Probably not the smartest
thing to walk that far though, I've still got a bit of a cough. I make
it to the city center and miraculously don't seem to have gotten a
sunburn.  
	And that's it.  It's time to go to the airport and head back to the
States.  Not really sure how to feeläwish I had more time here, going to
miss this corner of the world äbut mostly, I'm tired.  I feel a
weariness that permeates my bones.  I've pushed myself too far.  I can't
wait to get back to the familial homestead and recover.  
  	I make some phone calls in the downstairs lounge area in the hostel. 
Suddenly I see my battered old briefcase is gone.  With my recorder
inside.  Shit!  The ten or so interviews I've done so far, of bands,
comics people and other stuffäall gone. 
	I ask at the deskäsomeone's put my briefcase behind the desk for
safekeeping.  Second time I'd almost lost priceless stuff.  I could have
coughed my heart right out of my throat.
	I take the bus to the airport.  As I get on, I remember my fake student
card from Dunedin.  I wave it at the bus driver and receive a discount. 
Yeah!  Came in handy after all. 
	This is what, the fifth time I've been at this airport? I retrieve my
luggage.  I put all the suitcases and stuff in one huge precarious load
and navigate my way through immigration and other obstacles, pausing
only to buy some Vegemite for gifts later.   
	Filed, stamped and sorted, luggage tagged and transferred, I finally I
make it on the plane.
	I've got tapes and a walkman.  I've got heaps of comics to read. I've
got my sketchbook to draw in.  But what I _do_ is to sit and doze in a
fetal half-asleep state for eighteen hours.  As the plane takes off and
the pressure drops I feel like a balloon has been inflated in my sinus
cavity.  
	Halfway through the flight I cough up a big green glob of phlegm and
breathe much easier.  I'm sure it endears me to the people in Economy
Class that I'm wedged between.     	 
	Suddenly I'm there.  Due to the international dateline, I've arrived
before I left, hours earlier on the same day.  I stumble out of the
plane and blink at the bright California sunshine streaming through the
windows.  I'm about to find I have sinusitis and bronchitis.  The sky is
impossibly blue.

______________________________________________________


John Weeks
[platypus 26] at [hotmail.com]
(310) 541-4520
P.O. Box 13172 
Torrance, CA 90503
USA
http://www.comicuniverse.com/JWEEKS.html