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.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, April 10, 2009
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.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
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/
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.
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.
Monday, April 06, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
