Let’s begin this long-awaited blog with an announcement: I’m going to have some scary art on display at The Haunted Art Show October 13th at The Art Wear House in Muskegon MI. What makes this event so unique for me is it’s the first time I’ve been able to display my Creatures Of Neptune publicly. Plus having it here in Muskegon, well, it’s a thrill showing off the strange drawings of my younger years around these parts.
I believe the show goes through to mid November, so if you’re in the Muskegon area and the lack of freaky art in town got you down, come turn that frown upside-down, ya clown!

I am also very pleased to announce that Wendell is very much alive and well in NYC. So well in fact, I hired him to make me another hat! No joke. Last month I noticed Wendell is quite active on Instagram. And he’s a big enough personality now that he’s being sought out by a new crop of NYC street photographers and looks-loos. So I hit him up on IG letting him know I was in the market for another hat. A Wendell Pillow Top Hat. To me these reflect what I love & miss about Union Square. Plus they look fuckin sharp displayed.
He seemed anxious to make me another. And despite Shaggy’s doubt telling me, “Say goodbye to that deposit! You’re never gonna hear from him again.” Despite this, I believed in Wendell! Then, to my surprise, it arrived on my doorstep just last week, and I am so very happy.

Finally, I’ve been maintaining my sanity the only way I know how. Drawing.
Book Nook Java Shop in Muskegon has my stuff on display and requested I draw more authors. So I’ve been practicing my pen & ink cross hatching on portraits of Vonnegut, Poe, Bukowski, Orwell and others. Stop in to view and purchase these fine, signed prints.

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I’m aware it’s been months since my last post. I have an excuse though. A few weeks ago my dad died.
It’s been a few years that the prospect of this event has been on the table. When I moved here to Michigan in 2018 I foresaw this as a very real event I’d be facing. Three winters ago he had to get brain surgery because blood was discovered on his brain. He came out of that a little slowed down, but not out. Then two winters ago he had a stroke. Though it took time for him to recover his strength and be mobile again, he got back on his feet. Then this last winter it was determined that the cancer he’d been fighting for the last many years had finally taken hold and he probably wouldn’t survive to see another winter. That turned out to be the case. On July 27th, three days after my birthday, my mom came knocking at my bedroom door at 7AM to tell me dad had taken his last breath.

I haven’t been sure at all how to write about this, or even if I should. Something like this happens and there seems to be not enough that can be said. It’s the nearest I’ve ever been to watching someone leave this life. It’s also been something I can’t stop dwelling on, yet at the same time I’ve not had any big emotional outburst to it either. I loved that guy, and in the 8 or so years it’s been since I’ve moved here, he and I have just become good friends. I never had any sort of falling out with my dad. He’s always been that stable, mild-mannered example for me.

It was this last week I realized that the experience of witnessing his deterioration over the last several months in particular, I’d been preparing for, and making peace with it. He lived to be 91, was able to have his last days at home with family, without pain, and I had a chance to tell him I couldn’t have asked for a better dad. It’s been a difficult couple months, but I’m getting through it all. One of the many things helping me is the drawing. So here’s some of those to show you.

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A fact worth mentioning before I begin this review is that I do indeed miss NYC and my time at Union Square. I’ve made some peace with this yearn telling myself it’s those times there that I miss. Going back wouldn’t be the same. I was different then. It’s all different now. And it’s pretty much impossible for me to consider returning in any real way at the moment. This is what got me to finally read Shaggy’s book after many months of it sitting here on my desk waiting for my attention. 

I’m happy to say Pray for Pigeons sucked me in and kept me enthralled throughout. I never realized how much Shaggy kept from me in regards to how difficult life got for him during the time we were hanging out. He’s not one to share that kind of info, even with close friends. For instance, he begins Chapter 1 telling about his mother, whom he lived with at the time, and her death. That happened when we’d hanging out together regularly for a few years, and it wasn’t until months after her death he told me about it. 

 “Bob, my mom died a few months ago. I didn’t tell you about it because this was the one place I could escape to and not have to think about it.”

That, for the most part, is the reason I think he’s not likely to share these sorts of personal details most of the time. But the book tells it all. The depression, hopelessness, and the degree of unpleasantness he was actually living in before, during and after we met each other at Union Square back in 2002. There’s also hilarious stories about so much of the trouble he’s gotten himself into over the years in NYC & NJ. For me it’s impossible to read it and not hear it in Shaggy’s voice. If you’re unfamiliar, you gotta watch “$100 Chill w/Shaggy” @SkateJawn. Skate Jawn mag gives him $100 to spend on the street of NYC and you get a ride-along tour of a day in the life of Shaggy.

This book is his best work yet and well worth the 15 bucks. Even my dad and aunt loved it!
If you want a copy for yourself, mail $15 cash (he specifically told me CASH) to:

Bob Crawford
300 West 57th Street
NY, NY 10019 
INCLUDE A RETURN ADDRESS!