tum here, just thought i'd like to take this moment to mention that i'll be
recessing a bit from the ascii scene. i'm tired and the scene is even more
tired. i feel like an old, old man. many of my original scene friends are gone
(mrk, sargon, drax) and it's become extremely difficult for me to draw lately.
i remember looking at msd's final ascii pic, his "mixing atoms with angels"
and reading the footnote, and wondering how someone could let go of something
as fun as the scene. that was then and this is now. serial died, homo
disappeared, the phone conf's that once were so common (probably due to my
friendship with sargon) are becoming increasingly rare. and, of course, some of
my main inspirations (terrato, axb, mrk) have ceased drawing. i am with only
my peers in the scene. not my masters, as it once was. the enthusiasm isn't
there. the compo's are gone, the close friends are not there, the eagerness
that filled me when sending in my ascii's for submission (and, i'll admit it,
apprehension) is gone.

so i'm leaving. i promised myself i'd go out with a bang, and i did. my
original goal when starting ascii was to join remorse, and through this obtain
social acceptance from all my peers and consequently, be one of the eleet. =)
and i don't think i could have had a more succesful ascii career. from start
to finish, i've rapidly risen to pretty much the top spot in terms of all
around ascii talent and position in the scene.

message to skatter from a long time ago: "man, you get a million greets
whenever you go on irc and get ops in #ansi and #ascii, AND you're in remorse!
man, one day i'll be like that, and only THEN will i stop drawing. =)"
skatter only laughed back. such a goal seemed far away at that time. i have
surpassed that goal by a considerable degree.

so this is my epitaph.
and, as i mentioned to tsk a few days ago, it is also my confession. after much
deliberation, and consideration, i have decided to reveal who i really am, and
my unfortunate, unfortunate history.



tum's life:

i still can clearly recall seeing a lord jazz ansi in .. egh, 93? god i forget,
but i remember seeing the way that he & other acid artists proudly flaunted
their affiliation with what is clearly the most established and largest art
group around. and i remember thinking (this was the end of eighth grade, mind
you) "man, i wish i could be that eleet." my art scene career started then,
unbeknownst to most of you. i am probably one of the most old newschool artists
drawing around. 4 years, god. and you're probably thinking, "what? uhm. you
just started drawing 3 months ago!" well, heh, not really.

i started my scene career in ansi, under my original nick "hellspawn." during
this time, i drew NOT ONE original ansi. i figured i didn't have the talent,
so i ripped some of the biggest ansi artists of all time from cdrom.com..
somms, bad karma, silver rat, rad man, shit you name it and i ripped em. and
i didn't do subtle rips either. i was so damn new to the scene, that i merely
took these 300 line pictures, rearranged the font at the bottom until it had
a marginally good resemblance to the words "generation x", the name of one of
my long time friends "0-7 day warez boards." we wanted to make it look eleet =)
although many of you might not know this, 619 at that time was an extremely
big art area. we had sushi bar z, lord jazz, tsk, prodiac, emperor, christ, we
just had more than 20 art scene people in national groups, and god knows how
many local artists. so, as expected, i was caught pretty fucking soon. =)
pinguino, a local to me at the time, gave me a call (i assume she had been
tipped off by tsk), threatened to take legal action, and i thought i was all
bad ass by pretending i didn't know what ansi was, but i'm pretty sure she saw
through my facade. anyways, after that i definitely did not learn. i changed my
nick to "ash" ripped some more pics, joined a group, released em, got caught
slickity shit quick and then left the ansi scene entirely. i also released a
few ascii's at this time under this nick (dunno what year) and I DISTINCTLY
recall being asked by a guy called st'forge (heh) to join a group called
"forge" and getting accepted off of my ripped ascii's. (for those of you newer
artists, st'forge is blackdawn). at the same time, i also remember being
invited to join a new group, by the name of "trank." (no joke!) of course, i
was trying to be as eleet as possible at the time, so i joined trank as well,
and drew like 2 ascii's, but either i never sent them, or bothered to remind
him that i was still in the group. but, how many newschool artists are there
around that were in trank, eh?! fuck, even alot of oldschool guys weren't
around then.. so kiss my veteran ass. oh.. i also got offered membership in
noname when it was first starting.. but i didn't like the name.

at this time, i decided to take a little break, and stayed away from the scene
for quite awhile. suddenly, my, uh.. junior year (i think) i saw some of mrk's
and axb's stuff and saw some good art boards that were going up locally
(infinite dreams, black thursday, gum!, dunes, etc.) and i decided to start up
again.. this time under the handle KH0ON! Some of you may recognize this
handle. By this time, after ripping all those damn fonts i had actually begun
to learn something about ascii and i started not only ripping, but adding
in completely or partially original stuff of my own. because of this, it took
a bit longer for the ascii scene people to recognize my ripped work, and i was
looking at ascii coordinator of fuel (not secured, but tk told me i was one of
the candidates) by the time that discyple caught me ripping a stupid tiny
black thursday font from his "goodbye noname" thing. fuck, that really sucked.
i was actually producing good, ORIGINAL stuff too. and i have to admit, you
guys are really big fuckheads when someone rips. god, i wouldn't be pissed if
someone even ripped my stuff (maybe because of my perspective) but you guys are
so fucking anal that you go crazy when an artist rips someone else's stuff.
in any case, i was really pissed, and with no help from tsk or skatter (i was
fucking talking 3-way with them when that file was released, and when i asked
them what to do, they started talking about fucking irc bots or spending the
night at each other's house or something damn stupid like that), i turned to
the knight. he helped me get back on my feet, told me to think of a new nick,
and start ascii over again. he also gave me a few crucial pointers to change
my style so people wouldn't be reminded of kh0on's stuff when they saw my own.

so i started drawing again. this time with the nick "tum". i applied to fuel,
but discofunk rejected me and told me i wasn't good enough (i still think he
was wrong.. ironic that he applied to remorse a few weeks ago, and i had the
choice of rejecting him) so i turned around and applied to the next good group
that was accepting applications at the time (odelay was on crack, and remorse
gave me the cold shoulder).. serial. after that, i quickly improved my skill,
this time with no ripping, until i joined remorse when serial died and
became a senior.. where i am today.

so the fucking point here is, i'm special and you're not. don't give people
a hard time when they rip. i think i contributed something pretty valuable
to the scene and helped "keep it real" as sargon used to squeak during the
conf's (oh, sigh, those were the days). and it's 3:30 in the morning, i have
a nice big test tomorrow in calculus, and tsk still sits to my right in that
class (and he has a 95% because he's a smart little doodle boy).

just a couple greets. the second real attempt i've made in my life. if i forget
you (which i probably will), chill. i didn't forget you, i just don't like you.
-------
sargon- brad. you probably wont see this, but shit you're one of the more
intelligent, attention deprived, cool guys i've met on mirc. sorry i joined
remorse, but homo just wasn't the way. i just wanna draw. =)

drax- mikael. my man. seriously, everyone just respect drax because he has more
fucking commitment to the scene in his left testicle then you've ever had in
your entire life. this guy fucking FREEZED HIS NUTS OFF so he could call
american sceners. mikael, your art is getting better, and you're one of the
nicer guys i've had the pleasure of corresponding with over irc. your ascii
is one of the few that actually uses color properly, and shit you draw fast.
it was fun. mucho fun. wish i could meet you, sargon, and a couple other guys
(not too many though) from the acsii scene.

nmancer- mark. you trusted me with the responsibility of coordinating the
newschool affairs of remorse. i hope that your finding out about my previous
ascii ripping doesn't make you regret your decision. you're a funny, crackpot
kinda guy. i'll seeya around.

kenetic- wherever you are. i'm guessing that you'll see this. #ascii is fucking
gay sometimes, but we gotta live with it. good luck mango. start drawing with
a different nick. no one really cares. =)

archangel- hey man, i liked your art, even though you trust me too much. good
luck with future ascii. you're *this close* to remorse quality

pariahfat- it was fun working on remorse together. damn, now how the hell are
the applicants gonna apply? you're never on =)

bugsy- you oversensitive wannabe gangster! damn, what would ascii be without
you. probably alot less fun, alot less interesting, and definitely less lively
don't ever stop man. your personality is classic; wish i knew someone like you
in real life.

compuman- you sniff canned air! you sniff canned air! there, now everyone
knows. you and cannabis remind me a hellalot of eache other, probably becaues
you both are just so damn straight edge. your colored ascii fonts, as well
as your b/w are to be mulched on because they are so sexy. keep it going.

iron lung- cool russian dude who taught me how to say "fuck you." shouldn't
have said it to that russian guy at my school. my elbow still hurts, and
i can still smell the smoke from my house. oh well. you're damn good.. if only
you had more international commitment, you'd be easily into remorse.

essence- you're good, and you got into remorse, even though i could never tell
you. you'll probably never see this, but i can hope. =)

black jack- uhm i forgot to greet you.
            hey dammit, you got pubes half way through your scene career, and
all of a sudden your art just sucked. <g> just kidding around man.. good luck
w/ your script, and stop hugging people and stuff. we don't tolerate that gay
shit in america. <g>

skatter- thank you very much for flooding people who i disliked, and almost
pretending to invite me to your house. more likely than not, i'll see you
sometime with tsk.

shrimp- uhh. don't be so trendy and use american letters, and your art will
improve ALOT =). nah just kidding. keep it going, your coloring is mad.

meatpod- FUCK YOU! just kidding. you hate me because i think everyone likes me.
actually, you hated me originally because i wouldn't join homo, and after that
you hated me because i started insulting you back. that's ok. i don't really
care. your art is good although that slash thing kinda is wierd \//\/ =)

tzeentch- bless you.

rizzo- hi. thanks for greeting me.

dy- you're disgustingly cool. you're also one of the first people who's art
i actually admired.. admired enough to rip! hope you're not pissed at me.
maybe you are. oh well, maybe this will convince you to stop taking about
mulch and sheep and crabs and shit. =)

cain- uhm, your old style was better =)

prodigy- uh, good luck with your play that you're writing. your style is unique
and much like a breath of a virgin's genitals, in that it is very fresh.
i also loved illbient. everyone need's a confederate guy with knives. and
a toe with irregularly grown flesh that is hacked off with a knife. fuck that
article was disgustingly vivid.

blackdawn- thanks for letting me into forge <g>

tsk- uh why am i greeting you. we're going to see each other in math tomorrow.

prodiac- gasp, you found me out =) bet you didn't know all this though =)
too bad you decided not to draw.. i liked your ack type styles.

empower- what's up. i still think the scene is gonna die, unless something
happens on the lines of competition, but your opinion is your opinion. btw,
i first thought you were a chick for some reason.

konami- even though i made fun of your voice on that conf, you remind me of a
younger, more bass ackwards arrogant version of me =). keep drawing, just no
more fucking smileys <g> 

krestyle- too bad you didn't join. i like your style, even though you don't
like my suggestions =)

everyone who i've drawn for- you're welcome. thanks for not drawing anything
in exchange, fuckers =).

pd- thanks for all the art. i'm using that smiley morph thing.

ack- hey, ackamackagackajackapackaflackarackatackawackawacka! uhm, you slack
off too much =) i can just tell. and get that pen out of your mouth, dammit!

boilermaker- wow, you never suspected. if you put yourboard up, i'm sure
i can rustle up an old pic or two =)

theknight-thanks for seeing my situation and helping out a fellow artist.
people like you make the scene, and the world, a little nicer. probably wont
see this though. so i'll take this opportunity to call you a PERV! =)

fraud- arrogant bitch =) greedy punk.. WAREZ DOOD! nah, it was fun. you're
a nice guy. and your ascii was starting to look good.

devil- uhm, probably don't even care about the scene anymore, but that's cool.
i went to high school and stalked you. and me and forrest and ryan always used
to stare at you, sir real, xenophobia, and mr. supreme eleet himself (you know
who)

god knows there are so many people i've drawn for, and who've drawn for me,
whose names i forget, or who i don't think'll ever see this, and of course the
myriad of people i've talked to who were interested in remorse/serial/me..
sorry i forgot to greet you.

god that was great to get off my chest. i feel so much better.


                                                  Signing off,
                                                               -The Upright Man
         [Fuel/Pro/Girl/Trank/Forge/Serial/Renovation/Lame/Remorse Senior 1981]

SAUCE00Confessional..                     The Upright Man     Remorse Productions 19980104Ä8