Wednesday, January 27, 2016

RAW Currency


Back in the summer of 2006 I created a novelty currency for Robert Anton Wilson to use in a crowd funding effort to help pay for his end of life care. The idea, as conceived by Vincent Murphy, was to print up some RAW money, Emperor Norton style, which Mr. Wilson would then autograph, and auction off on eBay. A plan which was pulled off w/ modest success, and ended up chipping in around about $1,000 to RAW’s medical bills.

(Eventually Douglas Rushkoff & Mark Frauenfelder would initiate a much more substantial fund drive, which afforded RAW the opportunity to pass away in comfort & levity.)

At that point I’d been studying w/ Bob for 2 years, and had become accustomed to regularly learning mind blowing life lessons from that damn old crank, but this one got me good!

See at that time I couldn’t sell any of my artwork to anyone at any price. Hell, I couldn’t even give the shit away! But in his hands 10 scraps of paper I made were worth $100 + each. Now the obvious difference is the autograph right? Except at the same time the RAW bills were selling on eBay, I won an auction for a signed coffee mug of his for $10. So what made the difference? How did RAW transform my paper into money? Well, magic, of course!

RAW had a bit about the surreality of the Federal Reserve, a private bank, printing money into existence, ex nihilo, which begged the question: what transforms that paper into money? And why does only the paper printed by that particular institution pass for money, and all else is considered counterfeit? RAW mused that the Federal Reserve must have a magic wand! After they print paper bills they wave the magic wand over the paper and presto change-o: the paper transubstantiates into money.

And the truth in that joke makes for some very funny money indeed!

So as to honor the lesson learned from this almost decade old caper, I should like to release the RAW currency into the wild. Print it, enjoy it, spend it, whatever you want it!


A 2 page pdf, which if you print on a duplex (double-sided) printer, will give you 3 RAW bills per sheet.
(Cut out along the front page for correct trim size)



“Wealth is nature’s abundance, freely given, plus the exponential advance of technology via human intelligence, and as Korzybski and Fuller demonstrate, this can only increase at an accelerating rate. Money is just the tickets or symbols to arrange for the distribution—either equitably, in a free money system, or inequitably, as under the tyranny of the present money-cartel.”

From: Illuminating Discord: An interview with Robert Anton Wilson

I was reminded of all this recently after watching the entirely excellent film “The Big Short” wherein the absurdity of the finance industry is elucidated w/ stunning clarity. As the movie so bluntly states: “It’s possible we are in a completely fraudulent system.”

In other RAW related news: A new eBook edition of Cosmic Trigger has been released by Hilaritas Press & the RAW Trust!





Monday, January 25, 2016

Strange Universe


I'm currently reading the heck outta John Higgs' new book "Stranger Than We Can Imagine" - An Alternative History of the 20th Century.

I enjoy being reminded of J.B.S. Haldane's cosmic humility, in any of its various phrasings.

Here's a fuller version:  "I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."

Which I tend to associate w/ a complementary sentiment from Warren Ellis' Planetary: "It's a strange world.  Let's keep it that way."

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Jersey Shore Caricature


Back in 2014 I had a brief run of drawing caricatures of local business people for Jersey Cape Magazine, until reader outrage had me ousted from the gig! Apparently the magazine received a flood of reader complaints, as the locals were scandalized by my wild cartooning, which is kind of neat :) Though to be fair the artist that replaced me was way better suited to the job, and drew in the traditional Caricature style, which fit the ad book style magazine way better. So it goes!

Monday, January 18, 2016

Portrait of the Artist as a Reddit Alien


I recently joined up as one of the mods of the James Joyce subreddit, and have put a bit of elbow grease into a redesign of the site, which you can check out here: http://www.reddit.com/r/jamesjoyce





Sunday, January 17, 2016

Writing Agnosis! on a snowy Sunday

Ineluctably making my way through the captions of Agnosis EP. 26 "Millennial Wasteland" (A really bad title out of context, and hopefully even worse otherwise!)

Friday, January 15, 2016

Jumping Jesus on a Pogo Stick!





I'm super hyped about the new posts that have been popping up over at my favorite blog, Overweening Generalist!  

The OG is a reader's reader & a writer's writer and his blog is an indispensable source of grist for any sufficiently quixotic mill. 

His latest is an examination of what Robert Anton Wilson called "The Jumping Jesus Phenomenon"

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Good News!


I posted an old favorite to disinfo.com this week, which seemed to do pretty well for itself: Bill Hicks with the Good News

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Monday, January 11, 2016

Remixing The Collective


Another iron I've got marinating in the fire is a redux version of THE COLLECTIVE, a 2005ish cyber punk comic I made w/ writer & legendary mainframe hacker Stunning Steve Houston.

It's already got some of the weirdest & wildest stuff I've ever drawn in there, and we haven't even made it to the main event yet!