Donna Barr Live on the Radio

On October 24, there was a radio interview with me. Here's the link.

Here's the original announcement:

Corbie Mitleid, of Fire Through Spirit interviews:

Art, Activism and Attitude: An Interview with Donna Barr 

"I've known Donna Barr for over 20 years, and her passion for looking at the world in all its facets -- good AND bad -- is what I love about her. This is no fluffy-rainbows-and-unicorns woman, but one who sees everything about the world that needs repair and redress and dives in. Whether its pointing out human foibles and blind spots through her characters, championing the environment or calling on people to rethink their ossified attitudes, there is never a dull moment around this woman."

Cartoonists Northwest Talk in Seattle

Art in the Wild

I'll be in Seattle on October 16, to appear at the Cartoonists Northwest meeting in Seattle.

Come find out how to run your own comicon, with no admission fees or badges, low table fees and just one staff person - and how such a model can expand and re-adapt. Come loaded with questions, because if I haven't thought of the answers for new situations, we'll discover them together.

AND - come find out what T. Brian Wagner and I are doing to make the revival of the our Desert Peach musical - as a concert - happen all over again. This time, crowdfunding will make it more fun and memorable than ever - and that's saying something!

Of course, I'll have books and even the remaining Stinz pins. Yes, I still have them! And sketches and stories and whatever anybody else wants. If you haven't met the fun, happy, highly professional people of Cartoonists Northwest, it's about time you did - and this is a great opportunity!

(Thanks to Seattle friends for making this event possible. You're the best!)

2014 Clallam Bay Shop Poster

Shops! Go ahead and download this jpeg of the 2014 Clallam Bay Comicon poster, and print it out for your shop window.

You can print it on a color or black-and-white copier, or use it in to promote your own attendance at the comicon - either way, it will look beautiful.

See you in July!

Bad Seattle! BAAAAD!

Men are so lazy....

Leaf blowers. Lawn mowers. Edgers. Rowr rowr rowr rowr, hour after hour, no matter where we go, while their clueless macho users bitch and whine about how expensive fossil fuels are (wah wah wah).

There's ONE thing the Ghosts (the future Dead People and their dead DNA) hate more than anything in the whole world: being made fun of. You know how girls get the hit with slut-shaming? Well, this is slug-shaming.

In Seattle, in a nice little apartment-complex area, the entire place was assaulted with the sounds of these asshat things.

First of all, thanks to Roberta Gregory for this site on the health hazards of leaf blowers.

So here's the pretty picture and suggestion for going after the noise pollution. Anybody looked into all these shootings and asked if enough noise drove anybody over the edge? We know it does in the rest of the animal kingdom. And we're no different.

Get a fucking broom - STUPID.

And don't bitch about not having an edger. If I can sit on the edges of my yard for a few hours in late August, and edge everything by just ripping, so can you, Mr. Thinks-He's-So-Tough (oh, and can we SAY passive-aggressive with your little machine, you dorkwad?). And then, since you used an electric or push mower, you can use the CLEAN grass hay for your own animals, chickens - or even offer it at farmer's markets for sale!

That's right. Instead of losing money on your yard, you'll be making it.

The Ghosts are also the Greeds. They cannot resist cash. Here's how they can get some. And shut the fuck up.

(And my fellow rural types - yeah, I was raised hick - that don't let you off the hook. Plenty of rural people in cities, now, and even if we've moved back we're calling our own on the arrogance, stupidity, pride in ignorance, cruelty, rank cowardice, narrow-minded industrial greed, short-sightedness, whining when you've been told That's Not A Toy! and fear of wildlife. It's 2013 - get with the program and grow up.)

For you Libertaripoops, Goethe said, "Control yourself or be controlled." New York went there before we did, with Noise Ordinances.

Hempfest and Me

Okay, so I don't do the EmJayJay (yes, I'm one of the 29% who have their own cutesy name for weed); I cough my brains out if I try. Or at least nothing but medibles, if legal and available (and please, coconut oil), for sleep and pain.

BUT I do want to hit Seattle Hempfest in 2014 for the first time in years and years and years, just as a party. See the picture? That's me with far too little Seattle of late, at C.C.Attle's on Capitol Hill. It's also why @RuPaulDragRace now follows my tweets.

And because I'm a Leo, we could use the August date to consolidate all our birthday parties! Heck, we could do everybody's birthday party - why not?

As usual, looking for a couch. I'll buy breakfast, or one of those Safeway Roast chickens for supper. Hey, I'm an artist. We're always broke. Well, no we're not - but properly managed, food and clothes and even shelter can be cheap - and why spend the Trying to Recreate the Olduvai money when  we can use for that next set of brushes or that art program? Priorities, people!

Hallowe'en in Seattle? Maybe?

Am seriously thinking of going to Seattle for Hallowe'en - haven't seen the Sisters in years, or BUMP ever, or a Big City during my favorite holiday for ages. Damnit, I'm due one. 

I'm WAS going to experiment with buses. But now I know I can do it - and I always save so much money on bulk items for food and the house that I end up making a profit, 'way over the gasoline. So I'll have a car at LEAST up to Bremerton, and then can do public transport and Car2go in Seattle. I can stay longer an visit with people if anybody wants me to.

I'll be driving in the 31st, and I have a room Hallowe'en night at the Green Tortoise Seattle hostel. 8-girl room; but I've lived in barracks, and am kinda looking forward to it.

SOOOO.... anybody got a couch? Anybody want comics or art? Or there other events you're part of I should be at? And - I CANNOT PROMISE. I'm just setting this up ahead of time, because snowing in on people at the last minutes is crap. We could do that when we were kids, but now we need some lead time. There are sick people, and schedules and even poking into a couch and staying most of the day out of the house when there's been no warning is hard on aging system. For everybody. I mean, I may be a hobo at heart, but that doesn't mean everybody else is (come to think of it, unless it's an emergency, I'm not real will about the sudden visit, either. Dan certainly isn't).

Whether or not I actually arrive depends on HEALTH. If all I can do is sit huddled by the woodstove watching "Arsenic and Old Lace" and handing out candy while wearing my sequin fedora (thank you, Maureen of Cartoonists Northwest), I might have to. But just in case.... I would really love to do Hallowe'en in Seattle.

Note: I did attend the party in Seattle - and another one. Will be posting soon!

Cartoonists and a Play Meeting

Grey Cat! Best snuggles ever.

Ah, fun in Seattle - and Renton! Went to the Cartoonists Northwest Mad Hatter Party, even scored a sparkly-banded fedora, which I shall probably be wearing at conventions.

Roo Butt!

Thank you, Noel Franklin and Roberta Gregory, for arranging to put  me up for the weekend. And Shawn Connor, Noel's boyfriend, who provided space in his grandparents' 1916 house on Phinney Ridge, and Bruce Taylor, who owns a lovely condo on Yesler Way.

And Grey Cat for cat snuggles all night. And Roo for keeping a tired stomach warm.

Noel is the accountant for the Desert Peach Musical concert revival. She and I and T. Brian Wagner, who is one of the original writers on the play, had a very productive meeting Monday, at CCAttle's on Capitol Hill, hashing out some details about accounting, funding, contracts, copyrights - you know, the usual nuts and bolts. Everybody seems pretty confident and happy that this thing is very possible, now.

Roberta Gregory and I ran around Seattle, of course - a must for when I'm in town! I wish I could come in more often - I had promised every month - but I'm afraid that, with travel, illness, recovery and catch-up, it's going to have to be once very quarter. But this site will always have details at the top of the page for when I'll be peeping out of our place on the beach.

Yori at Pike's Place Fish Market.

Of course, had to hit my homeland - the Pike's Place Market  - while I was there. Here are a few of the fun people I spoke to while there.

Mike's Peppourre, offering their new beer hot pepper sauce! 

While I was working as a vendor at the market in the '80's, I walked past Mike's Pepporri. I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, an older First Nations woman, wearing a basket hat, selling baskets, right in the outer doorway. 

"Huh," I thought. "Doesn't have to have a booth or a slab? Must be really grandfathered in." 

Jonny Hahn - on the piano in the rain.

Of course, nobody is allowed to just sit and sell at the market, especially a full display like that. It wasn't until later that I remembered that Chief Sealth's daughter originally sold baskets in the area - and that one never recognizes her at the time, and only realizes later. Oh....

Here's one of the street musicians in the market, name of Jonny Hahn. Any man who can drag a piano out every day, in the rain, AND be a leftie activist - hey, I'm putting money in the hat. And yes, I posted his information, so you can buy CD's. He's good!

Oh, it's worth it.

And thanks to Denny Eichhorn and Jane Rebelowski, for allowing me to leave Altima Thule in their driveway over the weekend. These travel plans get a bit complicated. I'm going to try to use the State transport systems more in the future. Organizing now for an Orca card (Washington State epurse card) and I've already got my Car2go card. 

Roberta and I were going to use a Car2go ofter the meeting, but she'd had a beer and I'd had a very nice gin Collins, and one doesn't drive a Car2go in that state, thank you. The next time we thought to use one, when properly sober, it was reserved. No matter. I have my card, we shall drive the tiny blue-and-white chariot yet!

Okay, except for updating my cell phone situation, I'm closer to getting back to drawing pages for Afterdead. 

And Jim, the cat we're teaching to walk on a leash, has decided to sleep in the chicken coop today, the big one, not the little tractor the hens are in. So I should check and see if he's over his nap, yet.