BIO HAZARD
The Long Version Biography of Rik Verlin Livingston
Childhood:
A small town in Kansas: Two rock-n-roll teenagers - Regina and Zelbert Livingston - are making out in a hot rod on a country road when they see a fiery star crash into a wheat field. (It smells like baked bread.) Star is found to be a rocket. Rocket is found to contain an infant from a recently destroyed planet of interstellar jokers who accidentally annihilated their world trying to create the universes' biggest whoopee cushion. (The sound of the explosion had people giggling for light years away.)
Unable to explain the child, 'Zel' is forced by torch-and-pitchfork-bearing Kansan peasantry to get married and "make an honest woman" out of Regina. They give the little cosmic orphan the name of Rik Verlin, figuring it sounds about as alien as is appropriate.
Since they are all ready doomed to a life of parenting, they go ahead and get two more children by more conventional means. They all roll around the great Midwest like tumbleweeds, living on prairie dawgs and sunflower seeds, finally lighting in a cow town fifty miles from the infamous Dodge City, Kansas ("Boot Hill," "Gunsmoke," etc.). Rik never reveals his alien origins and, although he loves the Big Sky Country itself, doesn't truly fit in with his classmates at the little one room schoolhouse, refusing to participate in such bonding rituals as chewin' 'n' spittin' and cow tipping.
Undergraduate College Years:
Despite his strangeness, he earns an Associate's Degree from the cow town college; Later, a Bachelor's of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing from Wichita State University, a college he picked because he liked the mascot, a dwarfish, maniacal creature called "The Wheat Shocker," who surely was an alien found in a wheat field, like Rik. Livingston receives three scholarships and graduates "Cum Laude." He becomes the manager of a picture-framing store and spends a lot of time making comic strips that he just shoves in a file and forgets. They are far too alien for the Midwest. He lives in New York State for a short time and visits (or at least drives through) all forty-eight contiguous states, including California.
A Masters Degree and the Birth of Zono:
Mr. Livingston finds himself in San Francisco, where "alien" seems normal! A scholarship to one of the oldest art schools in the nation, the San Francisco Art Institute, brings Rik to The City by the Bay to get his Masters of Fine Art in Painting and Sculpture, but the acceptance of diversity and progressive philosophies make him decide to stay...
Suddenly, there is a market for all of the comic strips he drew and filed away. Although he is spending most of his time getting his Masters doing fine art, the stockpile of comic pages gives him a second career as a published cartoonist under the name of "Mr. Verlin." The nonsense name "Zono" is first used and the book, "Mr. Verlin's Zono Comix," collecting work originally published in underground/alternative comix, is released by ThunderBaas Press (Baltimore, MD). Rik is steadily selling paintings and sculpture, as well.
A Painful Challenge:
After graduation, he becomes the Assistant Art Director at The Columbia Park Boy's Club, the biggest such institution west of the Mississippi. Soon as he accepts their promotion to head Art Director, he's struck down by a mysterious swelling of his spinal cord! A team of scalpel-happy doctors at San Francisco General carve up the back of his neck, thinking it is cancer, but are not successful at removing the malevolent spirit, in fact, doing much more damage than good.
After the surgery he becomes the Director of Art, as planned. His program is a success, but health issues force a discontinuation of his position after a year. It's a continuing practice, even up to the present day, acknowledging and dealing with the neurological difficulties, pain and side effects of the mysterious malady and misdiagnosed surgery, but Livingston learns acceptance and continues doing what he loves - making art! He uses the down time to make new "Zono Comikz" (more "ground-level," than underground) from his bed, this time a newspaper style strip that becomes a regular feature of San Francisco's comedic "Harpoon Magazine," and appears many other places. It becomes one of the earliest strips on the Internet and is included in a show at The Cartoon Art Museum.
The Fine Art Years:
Livingston begins teaching art very part time at "Whitney Young Child Development," a creative facility that mainstreams children with disabilities located in Bay View, the mostly African-American, poorer section of San Francisco.
Rik makes his living, though, primarily from the sales of his painting and sculpture, with five Bay Area galleries to represent him, group shows and some alternative spaces that features him each year. He is mentioned in many local papers and reviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle favorably. Somewhere during this time, he first meets Cat Lynch through a mutual artist friend, but since he is all ready in a long-term relationship they only become friends.
The Birth of Z.A.P! Grafikz:
Then, Silicon Valley invades San Francisco! The Dot Com Boom! Suddenly, tech start-ups and well-paid nerds can offer landlords much more money than galleries and artists. Over fifty percent of galleries close in San Francisco; Fifty percent of the artists leave. A fellow artist who has design experience, DC Spensley, asks Rik to design for "Electric Mind Design" in exchange for computer art instruction. Livingston becomes an art-nerd: proficient in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, etc. and makes his living illustrating and designing t-shirts, toys, etc. It is a much more lucrative lifestyle, but, even though it means a reduction in the amount of money he could be realizing, he refuses to completely quit the fine art or helping at Whitney Young. (He gets computers donated and becomes the Dr. Frankenstein of Macintoshes, combining parts to make art-worthy computers for the kids, empowering them with his new tech knowledge.)
Mostly, it was an exciting new chapter for Rik, though he did miss the old, friendlier San Francisco. Unhappy with the "Manhattanization" of San Francisco and the war that had developed between landlords and tenants, Rik finds a book called, "The 100 Best Small Art Towns," and begins to drive to and check out many listed. But then: The Dot Com Implosion! Almost overnight, all of the clients that had been paying nerds so much dropped off like over-ripe fruit in a Kansas tornado! It's recession time!
Karmic Pay Back:
Simultaneously, the City of San Francisco asked Whitney Young (remember them?) to take over a number of sites around the town that were being used for Day Care and After School Programs. Whitney Young asks Livingston to be the Art Director of this undertaking. Who would've thought the least of his undertakings would become his main source of creativity and income? But it does:
The site in the Haight Ashbury section of town just happens to have a 1906 banker's mansion that recently had only been used for office space and then allowed to deteriorate; Five-thousand-plus square feet that is soon beautifully restored and used for art, music, yoga, teaching and other events, most of which is curated and promoted by Rik. (He also exhibits there and another one of the recurrent exhibitors just happens to be Cat Lynch....)
The "Whitney Young Cultural Center" is a huge success, selling art for thousands of dollars, which is donated to the children's art program. There are articles and interviews, local shows, countrywide shows and even one international show. For three years "The Whitney," as it is nicknamed, made news, made money and made a home for the arts.
The Beginning of the Future:
All things must end: as the California state budget situation became more desperate and a new, less “art-aware” Executive Director of Whitney Young was unable to find other funding, the wonderful Whitney began to become less wonderful and more wound-down...
At the same time, the Landlady of Rik's apartment flat of 21 years is more and more unhappy with the rent controlled rate Rik has been paying and letting it be known in various ways. Concurrently, Rik's relationship of twelve years splits with him. Things are looking grim, but then Rik and Cat Lynch get together after one of the last of the Whitney Young art shows...
For Christmas Cat takes Rik to Joshua Tree Village in Southern California to see her Mom. Rik realizes he has found the small art town he had been searching for! He takes the art money he has been saving and buys a house overlooking Morongo Basin and the last event to be staged at The Whitney Young Cultural Center Mansion…is the fabulous April Fool's Day wedding of Cat and Rik!
And Then?
The move has been hard but Cat and Rik love their new home in the magical high desert. Can an alien and a feline puppetry-princess find happiness and success in a small town? Well, so far no one has broken out the torches and pitchforks...!
