journal page 1

march 24, 1999

there's this guy we've seen running around town for the past few years. we call him gas mask guy. he's a fairly big homeless guy who is invariably covered from head to toe in black leather, despite the santa barbara sun. no inch of skin is ever exposed - black gloves, boots, jacket, thick scarf, and an enormous hooded black wraparound gasmask with totally opaque goggles, covering his entire head.

the first time i spotted him i was taking a break from animating 'lily' in 97 and was exiting the shitty taco bell near the sound studio. gas mask guy slowly staggers past me and waves a crumpled up one dollar bill at the mexican girl behind the counter and goes, "gaaaaaaah!" .when i get back into my car a fat woman in a business suit hastily exits after me with her food and - pretending to be completely oblivious - is closely followed behind by gas mask guy who is waving an empty pepsi cup at her. i am hopelessly intrigued at this point. mr gas mask had me at gaaaaaah.

a few months later i spotted him lurching around the grocery store carrying this empty basket. he wandered the aisles STARING at people and scaring the life out of all the little kids. the beauty of it was how everyone simply pretended he didn't exist at all and just went about their shopping. parents yanked their saucer-eyed kids along with them and were in blissful denial.. "no that is not a creepy gas mask thing staring at my children."

rob recently saw him staggering around in unmoving traffic at a stop light. he would walk right up to somebody's car and peeeeer into the windows. and all of the drivers would just stare straight ahead, suddenly transfixed by the hood of the car in front of them, or suddenly need to fiddle with their radio. windows rolled up. lane changes. sudden need to bend down and tie shoes.

what does he look like? is he entirely insane or just having a great time? does he have a body underneath or is he a ghost gas mask guy in a gas mask suit? one of these days i will have to give him a ride and solve the mystery. we have also formulated the following questions for further discussion:
- who is he?
- where did he come from?
- how can we get him elected to public office?

don

march 21, 1999
really late/early
lucked out last week and ended up only having to do the whole LA commute just once for the latest slew of studio meetings. the whole eventually-moving-down-there thing seems all the more inevitable. when i'm in town just poking around, it doesn't always seem that bad - there's definitely something to be said about a city where you can buy quality chicken blobs at a restaurant at 2 in the morning. aside from the traffic and the inhuman people who have LOST THEIR VERY SOULS, i think i am putting my finger on what weirds me out about it.. "i hate you. go away" is pretty much the central vibe of the city. largely the go away part. it's very much a california thing that i never notice anywhere else. cities used to have downtown areas or city centers or sort of nucleus places where people traditionally go to hang out in a public atmosphere. like the happy town square with the big stone elf water fountain or something. most modern places have nothing like that anymore - everything is isolated and constructed for cars instead of people. nobody wants anybody anywhere so there's lots of shooing you along from one place to another. no benches, no elf fountains, no loitering, no places to sit, to park, or just hang out and talk to your friends or meet people. curbs and planter boxes are angled or have pointy things so you can't sit. the benches they do have are subtly barrel-shaped so homeless people can't sleep on them. everyone must go away. there are gated communities surrounded by security surveillance and barbed wire. instead of finding a community, you walk into a nice-looking neighborhood and are confronted by signs on every lawn - armed security response, guard dogs, 24 hour security, use of deadly force. miniature fortresses, closed off and contained. does anyone really like living like this? is it all just a segmented racial thing? rich don't want to look at the poor? where did all of this stupid paranoia come from?

so i'm driving around the city wondering about all of this stuff and get pulled over, apparently for safely making a 'u turn in a business district'. you know those cameras they have now sitting on traffic lights? they snap pictures of people running red lights and stuff so they can mail them a traffic ticket. they have those in europe too. but in europe there are warning signs many yards down the road telling you that there is a camera ahead. so people slow down and be more careful before they reach the camera. i knew somebody who was visiting germany once and said, 'well that's stupid, why do they warn people about the camera ahead? they're never going to catch people breaking the law that way.' and his german friend looked at him confused and said, 'the point of the cameras aren't to catch people, the point of the cameras are to make the streets safer.' thus illustrates the priorities of the glorified tax collectors with sidearms we americans know as traffic cops. and los angeles too. um. or something.

well it's another late night of drawing weird things. then don's mind will turn into mess of ink fumes before he puts on sleepy-time music and makes mildly retarded, baby-like chirping noises

march 17, 1999

thanks to everyone for helping us put together this little website. i know nothing about computers. mine is a little glowing magic box. don use rock and stick. fire bad. there is not much to look at just yet but there will be soon. work is underway on animating the brand-new project, so there will be a great many late, late nights to share our bleary eyed delusions with all of you

don