Livin' in the Sub-Blurbs

An early work by Scott Rideout, this mix of watercolor and collage was fairly typical of the artist's collegiate efforts. In an interview with the Smith-Greggor Junction Herald he was quoted as saying, "I have always been uncomfortable with the overt machismo that permeates our culture. Everywhere you go it seems to hover thick in the air, like you are constantly re-entering the same hellish sauna. It's built into the structures we inhabit and move through. Every second that tics by there is some sick individual out there perverting human sexuality, turning it into an oppressive form. I know it might sound neurotic, but you can't walk outside, turn on the TV, or shop in a store without getting whacked in both your retinas by aggressive masculine forms. It's tiresome at best." This piece is owned by the G.S. Hoss Gallery.

Impasse

So a newlywed couple is walking through a treacherous mountain pass and they come across a dragon, okay? And the dragon says, "alright you two nutballs, I am going to eat one of you, so quit your sniveling and just relax because that isn't going to change. But you're lucky, see, because I am going to let the two of you lamebrains decide which one of you is going to take the scenic route through my digestive tract, okay?" Well, the newlywed couple didn't like this too much, right, because they had just gotten married and they had made one or two long term plans as a result of that. So one of them gets up real close to the dragon's earhole and says "Hey, buster, you don't want to eat my mate, because he snores and his breath smells like a dying turd, and I'm pretty sure he's got worms." The dragon turns this around in his dragonbrain for a while and then looks at the newlywed and says, "Well, that decides that. Do you need to use the restroom before I gobble you up, because to be honest, it's just going to be better for the both of us if you take care of that right now." And before the dragon can slap its gabbers on that newlywed the other newlywed jumps up to the dragon's other earhole and says, "Wait a minute, jack, you sure as a sump-pump don't want to eat my mate. She soaks her face and toes in brine, and I think she eats her own hair, and she twitches whenever somebody says forklift." The dragon loses his appetite in a hurry and he says, "Wow, you two beetlebutts have some real problems, you know? Makes me think fondly of my failed marriage. Might I suggest a visit to divorce court? It's right through this treacherous mountain pass." The newlywed couple stares at each other and their eyes get real narrow-like, the type of angry glare that could cut a diamond, and they say, "I think that's a great idea!" And they walk right past that dragon with its earholes and dragonbrain, mumbling and grumbling the whole time. In fact, they fight most of the way to divorce court and then they make up and live a fairly happy life as shrimp farmers, and that's the fake story.

Be Very, Very Quiet

Two travelers from a distant land running for their lives. When one finds oneself in a hostile environment alone it can be very difficult to pull oneself together, and these two adventurers are lucky enough to have each other to rely upon. If the lumbering sentinel should happen to spot the two rats-out-of-their-hole then it could be curtains for the both of them, but at least they would both go down knowing that their buddy was right by their side. Then again, what if they get plucked up, dragged back to N.S.C.C. and separated, tortured, and interrogated. Would their loyalty remain steadfast? I'd like to think that it would, but don't ask me, I don't know the answer.