Lots of drawing these days. Lots of teaching and dadding. Trip to Denver. Spring. Rain – sun – rain – sun again. Watching the Mets win ballgames – lots of them. Lots of time far from my computer. This is a good thing. But this website need to have the weeds cleared. I’m going to start posting fragments of the drawings I’m working on – so those will start appearing soon. Until then – some good things going on:

First, we got Lily Hoang reading over at Apostrophe Cast. That’s 20 minutes well spent for anyone. (If you’re not sure, send me an email and I can convince you.)

The second annual Chapbook Festival is happening at the CUNY Grad Center. It looks like a lot of fun. Good people will be there – M.C. Hyland and Adam Robinson included (and I’m supposed to be reading, if we can work out the times) – Ana Božičević is helping to organize.

I’m drawing a new comic – with colored pencils. Using a set I think I got for my twelfth birthday. Getting back to my rooooots.

Oh, and Greg Gerke and I will be announcing the new bi-monthly series that we’re running at Soda here in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. So as not to confuse anyone, we’re calling it Soda Series. It’s going to be four writers having a conversation (rather than simply reading at you), every other month. The first on will be in May. More on that in a few days.

Tomorrow Lydia Conklin is having a party to celebrate her new comics and her love of dogs. On Friday, Lara Glenum’s coming into town to read for Amy and Ana’s Stain of Poetry Series. On Sunday, I think we’re going to eat some sausage from this place. Good time to live in NYC.

What else? The Mets are in first place. Don’t know how that happened.

“Wait. I was supposed to get surgery or I wasn’t supposed to get surgery.”

Dave Kushner has posted another killer ’86 Mets painting. This time capturing the tough-but-loose likenesses of Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry from their classic Sports Illustrated cover. (Around the time they both recorded rap singles.) The background says “Gangsta,” a very contemporary Mets reference. Maybe Dave is co-opting the term, taking it from Jerry Manuel’s failed bunch, and giving it back those few guys who actually won games for this franchise. I blogged about Kushner’s portrait of Keith Hernandez smoking a cigarette a few months ago, and I still think I’d pay more money for that one than this one. Either way, I’d love to have them both on the new studio walls.

I had no idea that Doc Gooden (aka Gary Sheffield’s uncle, for those of you from north Florida) and Darryl Strawberry both recorded rap singles in the 80′s.  I really wish I had “Dr. K.” and “Chocolate Strawberry” on my iPod for at least 3 years at this point.  Doc is super legit; he recruited Melle Mel (of Furious Five fame) to MC with him.  It makes for a super goofy three and a half minutes.

Too bad these two never thought to work together.  They could have buried Eric and Parrish.  Here’s the album cover that never was. (And too bad they both decided to sully their careers with subpar stints on the Yankees, a time in which their hip-hop productivity was nil, I might add.)

Will Nunziata made some tight videos for these hitz.

Click here for “Dr. K.”

Click here for “Chocolate Strawberry.”

I only wish that Darryl and the good Doctor were still cutting tracks.