Miami Fair: Bodacious Butts, Contagious Colds, Creepy Clowns, Happy Lesbians, and Stockholm Syndrome

Ah, Miami. I got back just several days ago, back to the sweet, sweet desert where humidity is low and eyebrow maintenance is not the number-one priority for most residents.

Yes, all eyebrows were "on fleek" in Miami. To the point where I began to grit my teeth every time I heard some girl exclaim that. It's amazing how two words can sound like bizarre new slang one day and sound like a tired, hackneyed phrase just a few weeks later.

But despite my sarcastic complaints, South Florida really does have its perks. And its perky body parts. See, it's a melting pot of South American, Latin, Caribbean, African, and all sorts of people. I could go into history and culture and race and genetics, but I'm not playing the academic here. I'm looking at it from a cartoonist's point of view. OH MY GOD, THE BUTTS! Sooooo many different kinds. The big booties, the little booties, the angular booties, the pert booties on tall volleyball-player-looking Amazons, the muscular booties on trans women so gorgeous it makes you feel inferior to be cis, the droopy bums on ladies whose salsa-dancing days are behind them, the perfectly round bubble booties, the booties that looked like they'd been drawn by Milo Manara, the booties that looked suspiciously like they'd been enhanced.

Yeah, I looked. I had time to look. It was kind of a slow fair. And in one respect I was grateful it was kind of a slow fair--as I caught the mother of all colds during the second week there. Two of our crew had already gotten the virus, and when you stay in close quarters (like a camper with a very small communal space), one disease vector is all you need. I was coughing until my whole body ached, my throat felt like sandpaper, and I apologized to so many of my customers as I gagged and sneezed and hacked my way through their pictures. It was just enough of a cold to make you miserable as you worked, but not enough to pull you completely from the workforce.

I eventually found my way (or, rather, Sara drove my sick ass) to the Walgreen's clinic, where I paid $120 for a nurse practitioner to look me over, swab me for Strep, and send me off with some prescription cough meds. They seemed to help, or maybe the visit just coincided with the natural end of the virus's reign over my bronchial system.

The fair was down a bit, in terms of attendance and numbers, and Miami has always had a late-night flavor to it. Lots of sitting around during the daytime hours, then we are always rushed as the last couple hours wind down. The same vendors were there, including Hector and his family, the purveyors of the best chimmichurri-drenched meat in Miami. Anthony Bourdain has not yet found Hector, and that's his loss. He only sets up at the Miami Fair and in one other Florida fair, so if you are in the neighborhood during the right time of year, and you see the little blue-and-white Argentinian Grill, do yourself a favor and try Hector's meat.

This guy didn't even pay. He just
squeaked and waved at us. Jerk.

This year there were a few changes. A couple of Miami Fair mascots bobbed their way around the fairgrounds, scaring the utter shit out of some of the kids. All the adults just felt sorry for whomever was stuffed inside those costumes during the hot, humid Miami afternoons. There was a butterfly habitat, where you could dip Q-tips into sugar water and feed the monarchs that flew around the bus-sized enclosure, trying to avoid the already sugared-up toddlers trying to grab them.

Fuck you, but gently,
like a butterfly.

 2015 also presented us with a unique scheduling twist: we actually all had four "days off," when everything was closed up. So for the first and last Monday/Tuesday we enjoyed a short respite from the carny life and got to go play Florida tourists. In those precious days off, several of us squeezed in a night-time fishing trip, a tour of the Everglades, and a night in South Beach. During that last week, we even got to spend time with Al-Rod and Michael White, two awesome Florida artists and longtime ISCA pals. That last day off was really a perfect day, and even worth the wicked sunburn I ended up with (despite multiple applications of SPF bazillion).

Florida wildlife: Michael White, a gator, and a "grunt" fish.

Which made it all the more difficult to head back to the fair. Workers grumbled that the days off kind of threw their rhythm out of whack. It was unusual, for sure, and I was glad to have the opportunity to go hang out with old pals, but I'm not sure I'd vote for that same structure next time around (ha, like we get a vote). It kind of felt like we were putting the fair-finishing celebration in the middle of the job instead of at the end. I and the other artists (and the rest of the fair folk) are really used to hauling ass for a few weeks and THEN getting time off.

By Lar de Souza

Otherwise though, the fair was much as I remembered it from last year. The clickety-clack of marionettes dancing hypnotically in the puppet booth near us. The overpriced fried food. The ants in the camper, and outside the camper, and around the camper. One of my hero artists, Lar de Souza, was moved by my Facebook complaints and kindly drew me as a "Carny Disney Princess" complete with ants and a vegetarian anteater sidekick. That made my week.

There were also the creepy clown garbage toppers. I have only seem them at Florida fairs, and they just . . . aren't right. In fact, Miami native Al-Rod even mentioned that he'd not been to the fair in years but remembers those things creeping him out as a kid. While they are all over the place in West Palm and Tampa, I only saw a couple of them in Miami. But, to my surprise, I got a photo message from a friend of mine visiting South America during that same stretch of time--and it was a picture of a fucking clown head garbage topper in Ecuador, where they were "inexplicably and unnervingly everywhere."

A Miami clown (left), a decapitated Miami clown (middle), and their Ecuadorian
 cousin (right). Though a little worse for wear, that South American clown is
 clearly from the same mold as others in Florida. Be afraid, be very afraid!

Now, I'm no conspiracy theorist, but the clowns are clearly up to something. Not sure if they are actually alien spawn crawling their way up (or down) the American continents, feeding on our refuse until they hatch from this latent form into who knows what . . . or if they have been planted there by government agents and genetically modified to eat certain children that wander by, thus controlling our population while they spy on us. But I'm fairly sure it's one of the two. Wake up, sheeple!

Oh yeah, and I drew pictures while I was there. Honestly, I wasn't too thrilled with much of my work this year. Maybe it was the sickness, or the days off, or the more leisurely pace with thinner crowds, but it took FOREVER to get into that "groove" we all strive for. Even with a less groovy groove, I'm glad I was there. I will still seek out retail stints like fairs, as a matter of personal development, for as long as I'm able. Gigging just does not give you the rounded experience as a caricature artist. Tipsy party guests who aren't paying for their picture can let you slide into mediocrity before you realize it. Working by yourself most of the time doesn't help. Nah, as aggravating as retail can sometimes be, I value those days where I'm working next to a bunch of other artists, with a critical, impatient, cheap grandma (or abuela) hanging over your shoulder judging your every line. That will keep you sharp. Or, at least, tell you when you're losing your edge. Or it might drive you bitterly out of the business--it can have that effect too. Results are not guaranteed.

There was one couple I remember pretty well, and I believe I gave them a nice picture--though I didn't photograph it. They were a couple of ladies, one more feminine and one more butch, who happily announced to me that they had just become engaged. They asked if I could put that in the picture. Well of course! I had done so for many couples before--one of them showing off the ring, the other smiling, both looking at each other, with a little heart that said "She said YES!" floating above them. Now, as I drew this picture I could not help but think about the new religious freedom laws in Indiana and Arkansas that were all over the news that same week. I hadn't realized it, but I am in an industry where I sometimes provide things for same-sex weddings. And here I was, in a situation where I could do a little thought experiment. I started wondering (silently, of course) what it would be like if I were religiously opposed to same-sex unions and chose to express that religion by denying these ladies a picture celebrating their engagement.

Wow, I thought, what an asshole move that would be. It would literally have ruined their day. And not in the typical "Oh my god do I look like that??" way that caricaturists can ruin your day. I mean in a demeaning, dehumanizing, hard-to-ever-laugh-about-later kind of way. What a stain on an otherwise special moment. As the hypothetical situation played out in my head, I literally cringed imagining the emotional harm one could do, even as a retail jockey selling a lousy $30 product (or AWESOME $30 product, as caricatures are).

But maybe I can invent a religion that requires me to refuse service to jerks. I could maybe get on board with that--goodness knows I've certainly put up with plenty of not-so-great people in my chair, and I've drawn them with a smile on my face simply because they had money and waited in line just like everyone else. Though I have heard some stories of ballsy artists rejecting customers (one of the other benefits to working a fair is that you hear stories of exploits on the road). At the Syracuse fair, one kid reportedly waited in line for 40 minutes with his girlfriend, then when they finally got into the artist's chair the smug teen said, "Twenty bucks to draw both of us, or we walk!" The artist chuckled, immediately motioned the kid away and shouted "NEXT!" His girlfriend looked angry and hurt as she skulked off with him, and she was likely rethinking her choice in the dating pool. Hopefully the young man learned a valuable lesson on haggling: it's completely ineffective if you have to wait in a line of eager customers first. One of my coworkers at this fair confessed that he had completely bailed on a picture a few fairs ago. The guy started with a request, then kept piling on more and more requests and warnings about how he didn't want it drawn, until he finally killed the artist's will to even begin the drawing. Without a word to the customer, the artist simply got up and left. Eventually the guy realized he'd been dumped and wandered away.

This baby was not a jerk (though she
did look worried as I started drawing). 

We all have moments when we'd rather not draw someone because they are drunk, arrogant, vain, obnoxious, argumentative, paranoid, cheap, or all of the above. But two ordinary, not-acting-like-jerk people in love? Hell, I'll draw that all day long, no matter what sets of genitals they own. The two ladies loved their picture, by the way, and I told them it would reduce well and make a neat save-the-date card if they felt so inclined.

And so ended the Miami County Fair. Even the long fairs, even when you're sick through them and business isn't great, and there's ants in your camper, you feel weird when it all comes to an end. Sara described it as "Fair Stockholm Syndrome," where you get used to the living situation and routine to the point where you kind of love it. But you hate it. But kinda love it. Sara and I had settled into a living situation like two primates at the zoo: she scratched my sunburned back and I picked stray hairs off her shirt for her. Then we'd screech angrily at people and fling our poop at them. Well, not really. But we thought about it pretty hard.

Until next time, Miami. Keep your eyebrows on fleek while I'm away.

P.S. A quick shout-out to Ali Thome, who has started doing a podcast on caricature called "It's Supposed to be Funny," available on Itunes, and Nolan Harris & Jon Casey who have been doing a podcast called "The Iscast" over on Soundcloud. Both of them are welcome additions to the caricature community, and I especially enjoyed Ali's last episode dealing with the whole "cookiecutter" debate that boiled over and got pretty divisive on a few Facebook pages last month. I look forward to listening to more of what they all have to say in coming episodes--and you should too!  

Caricature marathon gigs, I love and hate them...

Just finished a type of gig that's kind of unique to Vegas. Or at least more prevalent here than elsewhere. This is the land of giant, round-the-clock casino resorts, which employ literally thousands of workers split over three shifts.

When these resorts decide to throw an employee party, it can get complicated. Rob, Doug, and I worked a long day today for an employee-appreciation celebration and it was so much fun! But also exhausting. Honestly, this blog post will probably suck. I have no wind left in my sails today. Typing kind of hurts. I got about three hours of sleep last night because I'm really bad at making myself fall asleep early. Not the best approach to preparing for a caricature marathon that starts at sunrise.

I'm used to these gigs around December. Some of the holiday parties are crazy long, employing multiple artists over sometimes a stretch of 12 hours straight in order to give all three shifts of workers a chance to get to the event. This one was for a smaller sized Strip resort, only about eight hundred employees, so we were hired in spurts. We arrived at 6:30 am and drew for two hours, then got a long break and worked again from 11 am till 2 pm, then had a longish break again and finished up our last drawing shift at 9pm. So though it was a 14-hour day, at least it was broken up a bit. However, we were kind of trapped on property because you can't really leave and do anything substantial in a couple of hours. Going home would eat up 45 minutes each way, if traffic was cooperative, and why bother wasting the gas?

Likewise, we don't want to be too obviously on property while we are relaxing between drawing sessions--it's just bad juju to hang out too close to where the client and guests are. If you linger, you invariably invite questions from the hoi polloi: When are you going to start up again? How can I sign up to be first when you guys start? Can you start early, pretty please? Twice in the ladies' room I found myself recognized. "Hey, you're the caricature artist! When do you guys start again, will you be here tomorrow too? You're way better than those two guys working with you." (Hahahaahah! Rob and Doug probably got the exact same thing in the mens' room.) It's just more comfortable to get as far away from your target audience as possible when you're not on duty.

Luckily, this gig was happening near where Doug does tattooing part time. So we were able to sneak into the "Tattoo cabana," which happened to be vacant. A small room, but comfortable and with wifi. We killed nearly two hours in there, just chatting, and Rob caught a short nap on the tattoo chair. It was peaceful and, more important, away from all of THEM, all those people we'd been drawing and would be drawing again soon. We kept the curtains drawn, the lights dim, and just enjoyed the quiet. Rob said it felt like we were hiding from the Nazis and suggested someone start a diary.

I make it sound like we hated the people, but nothing would be farther from the truth. The drawing time wasn't bad at all. With any group of local people like that, you get to experience Vegas being a small town again. A good portion of the employees we drew were lifelong Vegas natives, and so we end up finding people who went to our same high school, or even graduated in the same class. So the chatter is always fun. Banter happens, and it's an adults-only environment where one can lapse into blue material if you also stay coy and classy about it. And on three hours' sleep I'm friggin' HILARIOUS. Or at least I think so.

Our contacts were awesome, and though there were a few bureaucratic snags (there always are when dealing with a large corporation and it's accounting department), they resolved everything in due time and made us feel really welcome. When they were unable to get us special dispensation to eat in the employee dining room, they instead handed us three comps for the nicer tavern restaurant out in the casino. It's definitely awesome working for folks in the hospitality industry!

To minimize muscle strain, all of us were using markers, which flowed with ease and stood out on the paper. I'm really loving the Crayola marker barrels filled with copic ink, and I'd made enough for all three of us to use. It was fun being between Rob's excellent structural skills and Doug's adorable, curvy linework. Both of them, being seasoned pros, took to the markers with ease. We were going at a good clip and, between the three of us, produced around 300 caricatures over the course of the day. Any feelings of awkwardness or needing to "warm up" fade after the first leg of the race, so I felt "on" for the rest of the hours. And just like some experience a runner's high, I swear there is a "caricaturist's high."

This guy. I had SUCH fun drawing this guy!

The different demographics filed in group by group, we'd spend an hour working on housekeepers, then several valets and bellhops would file in (sweating and happy to be indoors, it was 111 degrees today!). Managers, dealers, cocktail waitresses, lifeguards, front desk receptionists, I.T. folks, all took their turns. The security guards all had a great sense of humor and kept asking me to draw them "mean" or "angry." I ended up drawing one of these guys looking furious, with the Hulk in the background saying "Calm down, Hulk no like you when you're angry." I figured it would be a hit or a flop--luckily the guy loved it and laughed for a solid thirty seconds before showing it around. (Doug made fun of me for needing to do a quick Google search in order to properly draw the Hulk.) It felt like the last few drawings were breaking into new territory for me, pushing a little farther than I've been able to before. At the end of a gig like this I feel such a combination of exhaustion, giddiness, and euphoria . . . it could all be an illusion, as I said I'm crazy sleep-deprived right now, but pushing yourself to that point seems to be a way to tap into a deeper level of muscle memory and learning. I felt great.

Now I really, really, really need to sleep.

Radiation and You: Working in the Sun

Aaaaah, summer is here. Fucking awful, hot, disgusting, dangerous, deadly summer. And with it are tons of party planners organizing picnics, pool parties, and other events that, unfortunately, invite the sun--and he can be a very annoying guest.

Don't worry, I'm not just blogging to complain. I'll share some helpful hints (well, hopefully they will help). I'm no stranger to out-of-doors caricaturing. I work fairs that sometimes end up sunny, and my first eight or nine years was spent caricaturing at Baltimore's Camden Yards during the baseball season for Rick Wright, and the sun for those day games was brutal. Rick never seemed to mind the heat--and some coworkers even speculated that he had some lizard DNA that allowed him to happily soak up the sun and draw while the rest of us sweated buckets. It was always a long, painful wait as we watched the shadow of the warehouse wall creep ever-so-slowly until it finally covered our whole booth in blessed, cool shade.

One of the less disgustingly hot days at Camden Yards (with
Emily Anthony, who still draws there more often than I can!).

There are three things that you have to contend with, as a caricaturist, when you're working in a hot, full-sun environment: your own physical discomfort (dehydration, sapped energy, being blinded by the white paper), your model's squinty-eyed scowl due to the sun, and the technical problems that a hot environment poses to your media (sweat dripping on paper or chalk, markers drying out immediately, even printers frying if it's a digital gig).

The best possible solution to all three of these problems is to avoid the sun altogether. I try not to come off as a prima donna and I use careful language like "for best results" or "for the comfort of your guests and for the artist's safety" in emails where I am specifying that I'll need to be placed in the shade. That usually does the trick. Living in Las Vegas, I have gotten to the point where I have just refused to book the event if it's in the sun during the months of July or August. Those are seriously dangerous months. Most people who have lived here for any stretch of time understand how awful the heat gets during summer, so it's not usually an issue. Still, every once in a while someone calls and seems to think it's no big deal if the hired help will be in the sun for several hours--because we're getting paid, right? Avoid clients and agents who think like that.

More often, thankfully, you are dealing with a rational, friendly person who is just trying to put together a nice outdoor event for their kid's birthday or a company outing. Sometimes an outdoor event has mist coolers, which will help you remain comfortable but also soak your paper! So you might have to set up in a hot area just to keep the paper dry. Or you're set up at a festival where, despite your best efforts, the sun will be hitting your booth for a stretch of hours. And sometimes events get shuffled around, or the agents had no idea it was in the open air with no shade structures. In other words, shit happens, and if you need to be in the sun to pay your bills, sometimes you just gotta make due.

I loved the neat beach bucket-and-shovel snack buffet
this swim party had . . . the sun, I didn't love so much.

I worked two events this past week that were in partial sun: one, at a high-school football field, had literally no structure that could provide shade, and the other, at a municipal pool, had a mixture of danger zones--some shade, but it meant setting up by showers or poolside with splashing kids, so I had to pick my danger. It's pretty humbling: normally I'm good to go, without even a pee break, for four or five hours of straight drawing. Yet I was pretty sapped of energy after finishing these quick two-hour gigs.

Sunscreen is probably a big "well duh." Use it! It will help keep you from looking like a prune in your early 40s. But test it out first--make sure you don't have a sensitivity to it. I found out I have to stick with the baby stuff for my face or I end up rubbing my eyes and blinking like I'm chopping onions. In Florida one time I had to keep explaining to people that I wasn't crying because they were so ugly and hard to draw, it was just a reaction to the sunscreen I'd picked up from the convenience mart.

Wearing a big sun hat is imperative, preferably one that breathes a little so the top of your head gets some air circulation. Staying hydrated is also key, as you will keel over before you know it if you're lacking water. So it makes you pee often? Too bad, that's better than dying, so get a couple bottles of H2O and keep them by your easel leg where you can grab them between drawings. Bring sunglasses, even if you don't want to compromise the tones you see on people's faces . . . you won't be able to see ANYTHING if you're blinded by the sun reflecting off the white paper.

They may not be fashionable, but
they work. 

My years at the ballpark taught me some other tricks too. Your neck is a giant blood circulating conduit, so a few ice cubes wrapped in a bandana and tied around your neck can do wonders. For a little while anyway. I later discovered nifty gel neckerchiefs at the sporting goods store that you could stick in ice water for a while and then enjoy coolness from for hours (it's also a lot less drippy than ice cubes). I highly recommend those to anyone who has to work outdoors for any stretch of time. You can buy them all over the place, at big box stores and online and there's even video tutorials on how to make your own if you're a crafty person.

None of these things will protect you completely. Once you start feeling the effects of sun stroke, you need to cool down. Don't "power through," just excuse yourself and take a goddamn break. Weakness or cramps, lack of sweat, nausea, headache, dizziness, and rapid heartbeat are some of the nicer symptoms of sun stroke. Some of the later symptoms you could develop are seizures or unconsciousness. No color double sale is worth that. Find an air-conditioned area or someplace shady and just rest a while. Get some cold water into yourself. If you really overdid it, you might need to call it quits for the day and feel miserable for the next FEW days!

It's not just for baby butts.

But if you're not dangerously overheated, just uncomfortable and sweaty, it will still make for some annoying problems with your paper. Sweaty hands do not glide over paper the way you're used to. Buy a little travel-size shaker of baby powder and use it on your drawing hand--I was surprised at how well this worked, it kept me drawing fast and loose even in swampy, humid, awful weather.

For outdoor gigs, I have also taken to bringing both graphite and markers. I had never had a problem with markers drying out spontaneously in humid weather, but in the dry, arid desert air I have had my markers fail me. New ones ran dry within a few strokes and it was terribly annoying. I switched to my old Caran D'ache graphite holder and it worked much better (for that outdoor gig anyway).

Hopefully this helps, and please share any other tips in the comments--I'm always looking for ways to help get cool during July and August.