You Should Be Making a Million Dollars...

It's interesting to be sketching out like this. I see so few others with sketchbooks at cafes. Mostly, I see readers with their dog-eared bestseller throwaways that bore me to tears, sipping at their drinks, nibbling their food in a dull stupor. I see the same faces everyday, day after day and it haunts me. I feel like I'm in Dante's Purgatory, reliving the same exasperating events with the same mundane people, day after day after day, ad infinitum, with no reprieve except for God's mercy that allows me ascend into heaven. It's this kind of fear that forces me to move from one venue to another.

I can almost guess whose in the coffee shop or cafe before I even sit down. The faces are dull and cumbersome, but they know me and come over to look at my latest work, my dailies, so I can't be rude or obnoxious. They are actually well meaning fans and always wish me well. "Honey, you're so talented," the gray-haired lady tells me. "You should be making a million dollars. I sure hope someone discovers you soon." It's hard to get angry or cringe at all this optimism, even though I have to remember that most of these well wishers have no other reference points to make a viable criticism. Still, I want to answer "Gee, can you hook me up with that million dollar benefactor, cause I'm starving a little on my end."

I've heard tell that R. Crumb keeps a traveling sketchbook for his sketching jaunts at cafes that is a little more palatable, more PG-rated, for the curious on-lookers that want to peek in at his latest efforts. I try to keep my work a little mean and edgy and I get a cross section of people that either love me or hate me. I get the little side peaks that causes the more prudish to move on quietly and quickly. Or I get the real enthusiastic guy with tattoos with a shaved head that wants me to draw his latest tattoo idea on the small of his back. "Yeah, could you draw like a giant scorpion killing a snake with its pincers, man?" My favorite though is the little old gray-haired lady, the retired art teacher, that looks at my pages with utter fascination. "Did you draw that?" She pauses, eyes wide with wonder. "My word, look at all that detail. I used to teach art in high school and I think that you are very talented, young man. Keep it up."

"Yeah, but can you direct me to the guy that wants to pay me the million dollars so I can keep doing this stuff!" I put down my pencil and wipe at the graphite smear on the side of my hand with a damp towel.

"You know, young man, you shouldn't worry about the money, just do what you love and the money will come later."

"Oh, shut up." Is what I'd like to say. But for as much as they exasperate me, I still need my boosters. I'll move to another spot and look for new love, but I'll return to slake my ego and to refuel on that misplaced optimism to keep me going to the next page and the next.

Still, a million dollars wouldn't hurt.