The Moose in the Closet: Ray Ceasar and Killing Clapton

I’m not a big fan of digital art in comics. I guess I’m more of a traditionalist – I like my imperfect lines and occasional botched inks. Nowadays, with digital color and inks, you don’t get the traditional feel anymore but I take comfort in knowing that underneath the digital layers there are imperfect pencils. It makes me a little warm. My dislike for digital comic art is one thing; I can’t even imagine a digital painter, displaying his work in galleries, printed out from a computer. If you sell your work, the buyer is basically paying for the frame – the art itself has no value as it can be reproduced as many times as needed. And then I stumbled across Ray Ceasar’s website and I stopped thinking about tradition and sales. Go check it out, it’s something beautiful.

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After a couple of years of working in the video store I started getting relatively OK at handling my money. I was at least able to occasionally save up for special occasions. One year, November of ’94, junior year in high school, I wanted to do something extra-dope for my father. So, I got the two of us tickets to see Eric Clapton at Irving Plaza.

Irving Plaza is a small club. I was expecting them to clear out the tables and pack us in. Instead, the seated us at the tables and had waitress’ serve us drinks while Eric Clapton played a three hour long blues set, literally twenty feet away from us. To this day, that was the greatest three consecutive hours of my life.

The guy was amazing. He would just start jamming and improvising and go off on ten minute long solos. The audience would cheer and shout and he’d pause to raise his hand, nod in acknowledgement and give us a quick smile. He had a rack of guitars on stage and a story for each one; he’d switch them up almost every song.

My pops and I just sat there in awe. He was drinking his Budweiser and I was kicking back cokes as we just stared at this man that was doing a marathon set of songs for this tiny venue. This guy was a god and if I wanted to I could reach out and touch him while he was jamming “Hoocheecoochee Man”.

We left that joint high; all we could do was talk about how amazing that show was. We hopped on the train and started home, t-shirts and CDs clutched in our hands.

We couldn’t shut up, even on the train. We were just gabbing like two girls at a slumber party. We were completely oblivious to the world around us and nothing could shake us from our Clapton-induced tunnel vision.

Well, almost nothing.

A couple of Hispanic guys get on the train, looking like they just got off of work. One was holding a paper bag, one an empty bucket. The third guy was just looking around the car, seeing what was what.

In a flash the guy flips his bucket around, puts it down on the floor of the train and crouches over it. The other guy grabs a water bottle (Poland Springs – with the ridges) from out of his brown bag and pulls a hair pick from his back pocket.

They start jamming away some Latin rhythms, the one guy playing his drum like a conga while the other moves the hair pick along the water bottle. The third guy begins to belt out some lyrics.

I’m sure that if this were any other day, my father and I wouldn’t care. Hell, we might have even liked some sweet Latino explosion. I’ve been known to shake my hips from time to time; it’s a right of passage in my family.

But not today. Not right now. After sitting through three hours of Clapton to hear this on a train, this was totally ruining our high. We stared those Latino fuckers something fierce but, alas, our staring had no effect.

As the train pulled into the station the singer let out a broken English equivalent of a “Thank you” and started going around with his hat out. No-one gave that bastard any money and for the first time in my life I was happy that New Yorkers don’t give a shit, I understood the philosophy.

Those poor fuckers can really ruin your good time.

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Ray Ceasar and Killing Clapton

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

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