HELL ON WHEELS

. The sign on the front door carries the familiar skewed script of John Callahan, the famed--or make that ill-famed--cartoonist, whom I've come to visit to discuss his new musical venture.

Inside, I wander alone past a parlor with a hospital bed in the center, a contraption complete with winches, pulleys and straps. Opposite, in a cozy living room, Annie, an ancient pug, wheezes her way through a dream under a mantelpiece graced with a figurine of Humpty Dumpty. Figurines of the injured egg feature prominently throughout the house, seeming to serve as a patron saint or penate for Callahan, who also hasn't been put back together again after smashing up in a car 31 years ago.

"Ah, you're here!" Callahan sings by way of greeting. Keith McCarthy, a Broadway Cab driver who serves as the cartoonist's unofficial chauffeur, holds the front door open while Callahan deftly maneuvers his electric wheelchair up the ramp to his house. "Glad you could make it."

The light timbre of Callahan's voice seems a contrast to his reputation, let alone his dramatic appearance, that unmistakable carrot-orange mop protruding from under a cake-mold-shaped hat.

Callahan, 53 next week, is one of the sights of Portland, gunning his chair down crowded Northwest 21st Avenue or Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard with books and coffee mugs perched precariously on his lap. In fact, the Portland-born Callahan comes with a perfect local pedigree, having spent the first years of his life on Northeast Klickitat Street, like Henry Huggins and Ramona Quimby.

In his bestselling and painfully honest 1989 autobiography, Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot (Morrow Books), Callahan describes his life as an adopted child, as a talented wastrel teen, and, finally, as a 21-year-old man having to come to grips with being quadriplegic, the result of a car accident in 1972. The book also tells a powerful tale of overturning horrendous odds to become a successful artist. Now the cartoonist is embarking on a new sideline, and his music video will be featured on next Thursday night's Oregon Art Beat on OPB.

As his autobiography chronicles, Callahan has overcome more than just paralysis. He also had to battle against demon rum, which played a supporting role in his car wreck, and afterwards, the low expectations of a society that still patronizes people who are disabled. He relearned to write and draw with the aid of a hand splint, producing cartoons about drunkards, handicaps, Catholicism, sex and politics--in other words, making art from the shell pieces of his life. As he writes in his autobiography, in a riff on Joseph Conrad, "Comedy is the main weapon we have against 'The Horror.'"

Callahan's timing was opportune, as his work emerged at the same time as that of Gary Larson, Lynda Barry, Bill Plympton, Jim Bashfield and Matt Groening, leading some critics to dub this collection of artists the "Northwest School."

Racist, Tortured Soul, Hypocrite, Misogynist, Bigot. These are only a few of the names readers have hurled at Callahan since his cartoons first began appearing in Willamette Week in November 1983.

The most infamous Callahan cartoon, published on April 26, 2000, sparked a firestorm of letters, as well as street protests outside WW's offices and threats of a reader boycott. After national media reported the Pope's alleged affinity for rock music, Callahan drew the Catholic leader with a caption drawn from Patti Smith lyrics: "I'm a Rock-and-Roll Nigger." "I can understand why people found it in bad taste," Callahan says now. "I don't defend that cartoon."

But the public's perception of Callahan still causes some to peg him as the David Reinhard of cartooning. So just how right-wing is this registered Republican who once ran for local office for the GOP?

"I think there's less humor on the left," Callahan says by way of explaining why his targets tend to be liberal. "Also, right-wingers are less likely to read the papers, so they're less likely to respond." He laughs while pacing back and forth in his wheelchair as we talk in his kitchen, suddenly turning the space into a miniature speedway.

"But I find myself moving more toward the left because of Bush. I'm more sympathetic to people who are protesting against the Patriot Act." He sighs suddenly, exasperated, it seems, by the great army of the inactive. "It's hard anymore to find people who haven't been dulled by the Britney Spears numbing machine."

Callahan's new life as a songwriter has been in development longer than the Spears phenomenon. Before his accident, like any good, aimless '60s teen, Callahan played the guitar. Now, with what little movement he has in his hands, he creates melodies by playing chords on a piano or Casio organ by hitting the keys with light karate chops. He's also a mean harmonica player.

His lyrics spring from the poetry he's written over the years, examples of which are tacked up on the kitchen and dining-room walls. His song "Portland Girl," which the Oregon Art Beat crew has included on a music video, is based on a poem he wrote for a young woman friend who died.

Callahan sits next to the piano, an upright that Pink Martini's Thomas Lauderdale helped him pick out. "Sometimes songs come to me in the middle of the night," he says, "and I'm afraid to lose them. So I call myself and sing into the answer machine."

Some mornings, Callahan has had as many as 36 phone messages waiting for him. "So I am a recording artist," he chuckles. One of his songs, as sung by Tom Waits, actually served for a time as his answering-machine greeting. "Tom's a friend of mine, and he likes my songs," Callahan says. "He's been very helpful to me--very supportive of what I'm trying to do."

Callahan's songs are as balladic as Waits' work--short stories concerned with mood as much as storytelling, though the cartoonist's voice is sweetly tenor.

After years of writing poems and creating melodies for them, Callahan's demo CD is making its way through the local arts community. "I don't know what will happen with all of this," Callahan says, "but I'm enjoying it."

There's a knock on the door announcing the arrival of Keith McCarthy, the cab driver, who's here to pack Callahan into the van. Whenever the cartoonist feels like fleeing the house, McCarthy drives. When the cartoonist goes clubbing at night, McCarthy, who is also the bassist for Joshua James and the Runaway Trains, accompanies him. But rather than leaving the meter running, the cabbie's fare is food, drink and Callahan's company.

Callahan rolls down the ramp and is waiting by the taxi in seconds, eager to get going. It's true he hasn't gotten far on foot, but he's gone further than most of us, and he's still moving forward--so quickly that I'm all alone again, left behind to lock up the house.

Hear Callahan on Oregon Public Broadcasting's

. 8 pm Thursday, Feb. 5, and 6 pm Sunday, Feb. 8.

You can also hear his music online at WW Radio.

Callahan is accompanied by pianist, Steve Solomon.

Callahan lives comfortably off his widely syndicated cartoons and the various Hollywood options that have been placed on his autobiography, Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot.

There have been three attempts to film his book, with William Hurt, Robin Williams and John Ritter earmarked to play Callahan. Callahan said no to the Ritter project for television, thinking it would turn into "the disabled movie of the week."

WWeek 2015