Half man, half hedgehog

Some call it wrong ... I call it progress.

What I do for fun

While song is most charming, theatre is the soul at its most intriguing guise.

Just Like Heaven

I wish I could stay up all night … drawing, spilling semen, listening to music … tumblers of whisky, pastels, wife … art, romance, indulgence … goddamnit it if I don’t hate bedtime.

Boys will be boys

The second last episode of “Paris Hilton’s My New BFF” has been unavailable for the past couple of weeks for some unexplained reason, so between pornography I’ve been watching my 25 DVD box set on WWII instead. My favorite quote so far: “Do you know what it’s like to squeeze a tomato till the juice oozes out of the broken skin? That is what it’s like when you bayonet a German soldier.” Another good one was: “I watched a man next to me take out a photo of his wife and two children and look at it, then he tore it into pieces and shot himself. Then I felt a pistol against my chest, and after a short time passed they still had not shot me … I knew I was not going to be killed, then I felt my new life begin.”
It’s intoxicating … the carnage and the kill or be killed stories. The big strategies and leaders are interesting, but I love the little people, the little people thrust into the lap of the gods … the common man who finds himself in a foreign field, face-to-face with an enemy after months, years, even a lifetime of propaganda training him to believe this enemy is less-than-human. Literally face-to-face, with nothing but a shovel in your hand and a realization that you will die, your family could die, your entire country could be ravaged, raped and enslaved if you capitulate. I love it. Man, Hemmingway was right. I gotta get me some war experience.

Stalin wouldn’t have done this (he never would have done this)

I always thought I would be bigger than this … when I was a kid I thought I would take over the world … lately I just can’t wait till the weekend … I know rich people … people who can do things … billionaires … people who could make it happen … I thought they would have taken me under their wing by now … I should have sucked more dick, or, I should have been more discriminate.

It's okay to be red

I have a friend in China who says there are 35,000 people employed just to scan the internet and block sites that have any content that shows China negatively. He says there are even people who are paid to say positive things.
Just for the record, if you’re out there scanning this, I’ll gladly say anything you like for cash.

The Prince of pop

It’s hard to explain in this day and age … the first time I head “Lovesexy” … so foreign to me … so black … there was a great divide … not theoretically … culturally … your body wanted to dance, but all you had was the Footloose soundtrack at every high school dance. Then Prince came … we were never the same again.

Joke of the week

Two muffins were sitting in an oven. The first muffin said, "It's getting hot in here." The second muffin said, "Holy shit! A talking muffin!"

Monday, 2:40am

Is it the weekend yet?

Somewhat slightly unrestrained

I’ve shifted from drawing to painting. It feels like moving from voyeurism to rape.

The early days

Today’s drawing is too wet to scan.

We’ve been preparing the new official site for Wrong design … I’ve been scanning through old CDs for sample works for the portfolio … the old days … before I had staff … things were different then, in the early days of email … I have backup CDs of email attachments … funny photos … cute puppies, candid shots of local celebrities without their make-up on, suicides, naked women with penises … all sorts of junk that was revolutionary in the early days of email … amazing, I really kept this stuff? I still remember Kenneth … I was complaining the police were closing down illegal pornography shops … quite, unassuming Kenneth … he said “Why not make your own pornography?” … ah Kenneth … good idea … in the early days of affordable video equipment and digital cameras … I’ve been scanning through old CDs … all the fun I used to have … I’d completely forgotten.

A rough guide to New York City

Back from 2 weeks in Old Lady Manhattan. For the uninitiated - New York City: smells of urine, everything is broken, its okay to be clinically insane, community motto: “fuck your neighbor before your neighbor fucks you” … I’m starting to like it there.

The greatest show on earth

“Paris Hilton’s My New BFF” … when Shelly said “I’m crying now” … I cracked ... I broke down … she didn’t mean to look indifferent … she was just protecting herself … and then she finally broke down … but it was too late … oh Paris, you know I adore you … but that was a mistake.

Random Screen Shot - Ryan Adams

My first memory of Ryan Adams … sitting on the top deck of the bus … the front seat … rain driving down against the glass, then a sudden tunnel … a long tunnel … I felt the peace you can only feel after laying a brand new lover … or after a car crash … the water droplets on the window distorting the lights and the motion … “Jesus (Don’t Touch My Baby)” was playing … I’ll never forget that moment.

Random screen shot – Ryan Adams

This may not mean a lot to you, but I know exactly what I’m doing.

Random screen shot - Ryan Adams

If there was a God, Ryan Adams would be gospel.

Random screen shot - Ryan Adams

I'll continue it tomorrow if I have enough time to pick up another litre of whisky.

More important than truth

Save your unhappiness till after midnight … bury the pain … nobody likes exposure in the daylight … too busy … I do like it though … when girls cry … it kind of turns me on … its not the pain … it’s the sincerity.

Caught up in myself

I saw a client at the gym today … I tried to prove myself a little more … I always think everyone is watching me … then my penis got caught in my underwear … somehow … it stuck forward ... a little triangle … a difficult situation … then Ryan Adams' “Blue Sky Blues” came on my MP3 player … I got lost in it and started crying … just a little … nobody noticed … why doesn’t anybody ever notice me?

All together now

I went to the vigil for the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre two days ago … I was surprised … in recent years it has been so quiet … but this time … even the subway had police … even 2 stops away, there were crowds unable to get on the trains … the first time I went … I’ve never been so frightened … the first time I went … 1997 … how many was it? … 150,000 people? … I lost count … I got there early … I was keen … I’d never seen so many people … all in unison … it frightened me … all together … usually the scary things happen too fast … but that day … it was hours … all those people … I was terrified … if I screamed, they all would have turned … so I held my breath … I forgot why I was there … all I could think was … all those people, how frightened I felt … if they turned, I wouldn’t stand a chance.

Unbelievable

I wake up … in a stupor … every day … like it is the first day of my life … no identity … a stupor … with the radio news, and the boring sports … it confuses … who was that? … they did what? … half dreaming, half grasping consciousness … Red Bull … cocaine … Martin Lee ... assasination plot ... it confuses me … once I was convinced Baby was a Tamil Tiger Rebel … I'm sure, but I can't believe it ... Red Bull … cocaine ... unbelievable …

No more Mr Nice Guy

Baby has left for Old Lady Manhattan … leaving me to my own devices … 2 weeks … imagine the police on holiday … consider it the violence of an imperfect soul … like an orgasm born out of rage … its going to get ugly.

Small in Japan

Baby and I just spent the week in Tokyo … in what remains of the Edo Period’s red light district … namely Yoshiwara … the true gutter of Tokyo … bums and madmen … rows of vending machines with men obsessively checking each returned-change pocket just in case … just in case … scavengers … all men … the only women there are beautiful … beautiful because they’re paid to be, or beautiful because they’ve survived … sitting at the end of the bar, the oldest one there, history stamped on her countenance. At night the men line the arcade, some drinking, some too drunk to keep drinking, some in eye glasses, moustaches, reading, like they just left a lecture hall, all lined up together with their cardboard and their blankets and awnings … they sleep early … why is that?
One night we went to the seediest bar we could find … it was just like my teens when I’d seek the lowest, most profound amongst us … it was just the same, but in Japanese … the emotion, the wild mood swings, the love and the violence … and the stink and the alcohol and the crescendo of insistence … in something … I couldn’t understand, but I knew the routine … we left as a fight was starting … same old story.
I loved that place, I’d like to stay a while ... all those humans.

Everything

I finished … the end … 3 times tonight … but I kept going … fool I am … a sketch …. done …. goddamn I’d love to draw with you … bravado aside, I’m shy as a motherfucker … hiding, behind make-up and a lack thereof … I know the rules … how to rule the masses, the world, my oyster; a piece of cake, let them eat, but goodgoddamn … nothing, yes, nothing. I’d love to be me … infront of you.

Coming soon

Just in case I die tomorrow … on the way to seeing you … just in case … my happiest moment … that room in Kyoto … waiting for our friends … our friends … that beautiful room … Richard Hawley played … “Danny” … while my heart was silently filling … and the room filled with that music, and it was you and me, waiting to start our life together … tears … at last, tears of happiness.

I’ve been nice

I’ve been nice … all day … I got out of your way in the doorway … apologized in emails even though it was your fault … I lowered my eyes when I started mentally undressing you … I turned the music down, I smiled even though I knew one day we’ll all be dead … I’ve been nice … the patience of a saint … after midnight though … when the day is done … I’d like you to meet Mr Edward Hyde … to introduce you to Mr Johnnie Walker … Mr Thriller is just around the corner, it’s the man in me … I’ve been polite … now I’m full of want.

The youth preservation society

To start with ... youth … Baby calls them vegetarians … that’s just right … vegetarians … youth … the trouble with youth … they don’t have any aggression … no balls … no insatiable urge to get into shit … they have an inherent urge to be okay … to be without the anger that destroyed my generation … to be without fire … to be above it all … to be what we should have been but couldn’t … they just don’t have the balls … the trouble with youth … no self-destruction.

I’ve been reading … Celine … he writes … he writes like this … with ellipses … fragments … like pieces that make a whole … analatycical cubism … it catches on quickly … fast … you read … then think … then blog that way.

The cereal box … yesterday … it was Kellogg’s … Kellogg’s Honey Crunch Corn Flakes … I had nothing to say … like when you’re in a rhythm … thrusting … eyes wide … caught … like a dog humping, ridiculous and urgent … wide eyed, transfixed idiothumping … notimegoodidiothumping

Profoundless

$5000 to the first person who can guess what cereal package I drew this on the back of.

Live slow, die old

I think I was about 20 when I quit drugs. I’d already had one overdose and was having trouble concentrating on drawing. Looking back, though, I wish I’d done more. There’s so very, very, very much to do before dying.

The man in me

I was involved in a conflict the other day, and I liked it.
I was in the lobby of my building waiting for the elevator while a man was stuffing junk mail into the mailboxes. The security guard was standing next to him and asking him to stop. The man ignored him and kept stuffing the mailboxes with his advertising. The security guard didn’t back down, but also didn’t push harder; he kept his composure and repeatedly asked the guy to stop. My elevator was taking a long time and I watched this undramatic drama continue, waiting for a solution that didn’t involve me, but it didn’t stop. I became slowly resolved, and when enough time had passed I stepped in. I walked up and stood over the junk mail guy, put my hand out infront of him and said in Chinese “Really, you have to stop”.
I was scared, I had no idea what would happen next. I was all tensed up, ready for a physical fight, or worse. This moment was magical, a come-what-hither moment that perhaps only a man drunk on testosterone could appreciate.
The man pretty much immediately backed off and scurried away, but not before giving me a big grin, which I interpreted to mean he wanted to diffuse the situation with a bit of good-natured humour.
I shouted after him, “What, you don’t understand Chinese?” in my bad Chinese. It could have been comical, but when you’re the winner you’re allowed a little bravado.

Coming into myself

Baby’s coming back tomorrow after a week in Japan. No more staying up till 5am, listening to Ryan Adams, crying into my whiskey with my make-up running down my face; but at least I can finally get a decent meal and maybe randy Mr Thriller will stop bothering me at last.

Superstardom (or, true love)

Today was a remarkable day.
A lot of you (none) have been asking me about the status of my idol Ah Giu / Gillian Cheung - the star that was shot down last year due to the “sex photo scandal”. Well, the corporate machine has judged 12.3 months to be enough for the dumb-fuck masses to forget about the titillating pornographic images taken of her and re-educate them into believing that the boy was bad, and the girls were good.
Ah Giu has returned! It started a couple of months ago with interviews about contemplation of suicide that made the heart-strings weep; then a real life, full blown advertising campaign where Ah Giu is sponsoring the new jeans by Bauhaus / Be Tough. I bought my first pair, and I look shit-hot. You can see the new campaign here: http://www.toughjeans.com/

Okay, I admit it is all pretty lame, and they'll never come close to capturing her beauty; but hey, who am I to confront the corporate machine? Especially taking into account I rushed out to buy my new jeans and get my very own “Ah Giu” bag which I will treasure forever.
Anyway, true love is alive and well.

Oh, and by the way, my close friend went into a coma when I was 25 because she had epilepsy and had a fit while she was also having an asthma attack. They held her on life-support for a couple of days and then pulled the plug. I’ll never forget that exact second when she died. I was at work, and I tried to ignore it, but I was aware, all day, of every second leading up to the exact moment when they were scheduled to turn the power off.

Now my company does cheap ads for a local epilepsy charity, and today I received a signed birthday card from the celebrity sponsor Mok Man Wai.
It is not my birthday, but I adore Mok Man Wai. She has long legs and is way too cool.

I know the world is two-dimensional. I know the world is driven by celebrity and religion and a violent need to be larger than oneself. I know it all, but it’s okay. I know it’s nothing and meaningless and hopeless. I know it all, but I still love you beautiful people. In fact, I love you more.

tonight

Oh man, don’t get me started Outlaw Josie Wales.
For the past couple of weeks I have been listening compulsively, obsessively, urgently to a playlist on my iTunes called “tonight”. I call it “tonight” because it’s what I like to listen to after work, during whiskey and drawing.

The songs in order are:
1. “Utru Horas” by Orchestra Baobab (from “Pirate’s Choice”),
2. “Spaceman” by The Killers (from “Day & Age”),
3. “The Only One” by The Cure (from “4:13 Dream”),
4. “Love Etc.” by the Pet Shop Boys (from “Yes”),
5. “Why Can’t I Be You?” by The Cure (from “Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me”),
6. “Pandemonium” by the Pet Shop Boys (from “Yes”),
7. “The Way It Used To Be” by the Pet Shop Boys (from “Yes”),
8. “A Little Death Around The Eyes” by Peter Doherty (from “Grace/Wastelands”),
9. “Pearls On A String” by Ryan Adams (from “Easy Tiger”),
10. “Stop” by Ryan Adams & The Cardinals (from “Cardinology”).

You’ve unleashed something like a chapter from American Psycho in me, so I won’t stop, I WON’T STOP! I’ll keep going.

That Orchestra Baobab song is sublime. The guitarist has the violence of murder in him, but it comes out slow and smooth, like a gentle caress on skin that leads to the kind of orgasm that tears your soul right out from the Devil’s hands.

I have a weird relationship with The Killers. I know in my corrupted heart I should not like them, but they always push all the right buttons and get me all happy and fired up inside. By the time this song comes on I’m 150% alive and drawing like a fevered, rabid wolf.

The new Cure album is amazing. Robert Smith has so many qualities I desire. He has big hair, he can sing like nobody can sing, he can play guitar like nobody can play guitar, and he can write songs like nobody can write songs. He has a freedom in him that I can’t compete with. I bottle up so much, and he just let’s loose. I have no idea how this song could ever be made. It doesn’t make sense and it’s perfect. In my very fundamental understanding of music I really see Robert Smith as a guitarist and vocalist on par with Thelonious Monk.

Before the Pet Shop Boys new album was released I downloaded an EP of mixes of “Love Etc.” These mixes haunted me for weeks till they finally released the full album which this is on. I got it the day it came out and listened to it every day since then.

After The Cure’s “4:13 Dream” came out I started listening to everything by The Cure, and this one made it onto the coveted “tonight” playlist. Don’t think, just let it drill into you. By this far into the playlist you’ll be frenzied, dangerous, and frankly frightening.

The two stars of the playlist have to be “Pandemonium” followed by “The Way It Used To Be”. I could write novels about these 2 songs. The Pet Shop Boys have that perfect pop skill to be able to make songs that make you want to play them again even before you finish listening to them. These 2 songs together are pretty much the perfect experience in April, 2009. “Pandemonium” will get you physically all riled up, then when “The Way It Used To Be” launches you’ll accept death because your life has now become complete. I’ve listened to these 2 songs about 2 billion times since the album came out two weeks ago and, in the words of the Pet Shop Boys, “too much of anything is never enough”. When Neil gets angry during the verse about betrayed promises, and then launches into the 10th Avenue verse, and then it goes into the synth solo, it’s pretty much the perfect experience. No need to exist any more. Just hold on till the end of the song, then you can die.

For a while the playlist ended here, but I noticed I was also compulsively listening to the new Pete Doherty album “Grace / Wastelands”, and “A Little Death Around The Eyes” in particular was haunting me. Strange, the perfect playlist getting another song didn’t make sense, yet like all zen things it, at the same time, made perfect sense. Or, like Pete says, "it makes perfect nonsense". By the end of this song I am a changed man. I am more.

When I played Baby the song “Pearls On A String” she said it sounded like any typical song. I need to warn you right now, that this is exactly the reaction you will have when you hear Ryan Adams. It’s practically legend the confrontation I have with the DJ Chris Hawkins about Ryan Adams, and how he refuses to play him, even though Chris and I are best friends (not really). Even I, a seasoned Ryan Adams fan, feel bored whenever I listen to a new album by Him. It takes time for the songs to sink in. This whole album (“Easy Tiger”) was completely dull to me till I sat down one free evening and watched the accompanying DVD that came with the album. When I saw them play the song I finally got it. It was a lot like reading the Miles Davis autobiography. After I read that book, I understood so much about music.

The final song, and the undisputed final song for me at this moment, is “Stop” by Ryan Adams & The Cardinals. This is from their latest album “Cardinology”. As usual, I ran out and bought this album as soon as it was released and I was completely bored by it when I listened to it. Later I read that He wrote this song in rehab, and He wrote it about the process of disputing the need for drugs, and the desire for recovery. Last “night”, at 6am, I listened to this song, thinking about myself, and cried like a baby, while videoing myself trying to draw (hence the last entry titled "Stop"). It wasn’t just lucky timing; the man and His vocal chords are closer to His soul than anyone since Billie Holliday.

Okay, that’s almost it, but I will also say, knowing you, The Outlaw, as much as I sort of do, I will strongly encourage you to go out and find the album “Songs for Drella” by Lou Reed and John Cale. This has essentially been my Bible for the past 20 years. Everything you need to know is in this album.
For other matters, like pure sensual pleasure, I will strongly recommend Motley Crue’s latest album “Saints of Los Angeles” (plus their autobiography “The Dirt” at the same time, if you have time), anything by Richard Hawley, the last Radiohead album (“In Rainbows”) plus Thom Yorke’s solo album (“The Eraser”) if you have time to get into something deeply, anything by AC/DC, Rufus Wainwright if you are in the mood for beautiful singing and lyricism, Bright Eyes if you want poetry and like bursting into tears, Japanese band Perfume if you like artistic pop, Chinese singer Andy Hui if you want to listen to a real human being singing, and the White Stripes if you want to feel the gutter of your soul thrusting.

In short, though, you urgently need to rush out and buy “Songs for Drella” by Lou Reed and John Cale, and “Yes” by the Pet Shop Boys. Everything else is up to your mood and budget.

Start again

Stop

Pandemonium

It used to be pandemonium. Tonight’s drawings are for the gallery owners I admire, for the passing strangers I admire; for the beautiful people who passed me by on the street today; for the beautiful people who passed me by on the street yesterday. For the musicians who I wish would show up unexpected on my doorstep to meet me while I’m covered in paint, covered in make-up, unawares, with little starlets in my bedroom, and a guitar on my shoulder, in an illegal hetro/homo/bi and sexual relationship, amid a night filled with spilled paint and emotion, and narcotic, narcissistic neophyte delusions of self-indulgent release. They are for the moment when someone bigger than myself draws me in to their circle, accepts me into their circus.

When I was a semi-child I used to have a routine. I would wake up and masturbate, then my mother would bring me tea, then I would prepare for school. One day the pursuit of orgasm was too great and I decided to masturbate 3 times, even though I knew it would cross over the tea delivery time. After many failed attempts my mother finally came in with the tea and asked “Are you done?”, and I replied “Done with what?” in a defiant manner, certain she was unable to answer this question. I pursued it relentlessly, and she was never able to say it out loud, and this somehow made me invulnerable to the shame I deserved. I never forgot this sickening episode.

Tonight’s drawings were brought to you in part by Bacardi “Oro Rum” and Gosling’s “Black Rum” and in full by Jameson’s “Irish Whiskey” and the Pet Shop Boys “Pandemonium” and “The Way It Used To Be”. Tonight’s art was brought to you in full by desire, by need, and by relentless, insatiable self-indulgence.

Look back composed

Half out of anger tonight I said, “I don’t care if we lose our US$54,000 deposit, I’d rather sit here and draw.”

Later, I looked back and meant it.