Songs for Humankind

Anyone who knows me knows that, on any given night, you can more than likely find me rounding up the day in front of a self portrait I've drawn that night, in tears, listening to "Songs for Drella" by Lou Reed and John Cale. Some albums fall in and out of vogue throughout the years, but since college, something like 15 years ago, I've only been consistently satisfied listening to Verdi, Puccini, and the Velvet Underground while painting. This album is a veritable bible. It holds enough wisdom and instruction to lead an entire human life. If you don't know it, buy it now. If you don't have the means tell me and I will try to get you a copy.

Blind Sycophancy

I'll let you into one of my own trade secrets. When I do portrait photographs, and the sitter arrives, I always look delighted when I open the door and see them for the first time. It's a concocted reaction to seeing them and it sets the tone for the entire session. I don't mind revealing this because I think it's a good thing. This person is paying me to get a good image, and this means I need to manipulate them into smiling and projecting whatever beautiful things they are holding inside themselves out onto their faces.
I do genuinely adore almost everyone who poses for me. In fact, I pretty much adore all the masses of people I pass on the street every day. I wish I could meet them all and photograph them.

On the street in the morning I always see little, fat schoolgirls waiting for the bus by themselves. They're less popular and more introverted. They don't have many people who are always pleased to see them and subsequently they speak softly and look at the pavement when they walk. It's a shame to see a human, just as fascinating as all the others, restrained and silenced. Don't get me wrong, I'm an impassioned, slaved dog for any pretty face that passes by; but it doesn't stop there. People are strange, amazing ... wondrous. I love everyone.

Perenially Confused

I have been traveling for a while and haven't seen much news for a little over a week. Coming home and checking the news on the internet I was excited to see a new scandal involving the US military - the US Army Secretary was dismissed due to shocking conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre. I imagined festering disease that was left untreated for weeks due to bureaucratic irresponsibility or negligence, or collapsing walls crushing poor soldiers as they recovered from their wounds, but it turned out to be only damp walls and animal pests. This has left me, once again, confused. These men and women, who have been sent overseas to war and have returned with physical wounds, are considered mistreated because the rooms they are staying in have damp patches? Isn't it somewhat more pressing that they have parts of their bodies missing due to explosions? Maybe my perspective is a little off-centre; call me crazy, but who cares if they have mice in their walls? I'm more worried about the bullets and bombs they've been subjected to. I guess I was hoping for some stark, black and white wake-up call that these people aren't on a divine mission from God/America to preserve the liberty of this pure section of the globe against those maddened Muslims over there.

On another note, a young US soldier cut in front of me at the security gate at Savannah Airport in Georgia, USA last week. Like a lot of people who cut into lines, he ended holding me up while he searched for his passport and boarding pass etc. Instead of being treated with the reverence I was expecting, he was greeted with the usual contempt from the security staff who want to keep the line moving. I took this as a sign that the tides really have shifted and the general public just isn't buying the line of "we have to stand behind our men and women who are putting their lives on the line for our freedom" propaganda anymore. Hopefully, if this becomes more vocal, these soldiers will realise they are not heroes who will be cherished and put on pedestals for the rest of their lives, but are instead cannon-fodder who are readily sent into danger for the sake of the economic privileges of the elite - a club they will never, ever, be unworthy enough to join.

Macbush

“I am in blood. Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er.”
Shakespeare, “Macbeth”

In Japan they call Junko Koizumi ‘the dog of Bush’. An appropriate accolade as we say goodbye to the year of the dog and ring in the year of the pig. Farewell to all the hopeful upstarts who, against their better judgments, allied with the United States with hopes of being one day winners. I suppose it was a case of “damned if I do and damned if I don’t”. So, you did, and the governments of Britain, Japan, Spain, Palestine, Libya, Iran, Venezuela etc etc etc one by one ride with surging public opinion against the hypocrisy and arrogance of the warmongers in the United States. And, damned be you all as you wallow in the blood and carnage that is failed colonization. Goodbye to you all, once fresh-faced political fore-runners, now desperate salesmen, urgently trying to find a catchphrase that leaves you, still buried in death and destruction, with some credentials.
Fuck all of you, quite frankly, you dogs and bitches who traded human life for economic development. Good riddance. I’d rather the sincere Hitler with a clear manifesto of evil than the devious spin-doctor lacing poison with candy.

Wouldn’t It Be Great To Be Gay?

A few years ago I was at Kennedy Town public swimming pool and a young man approached me and we started talking. I don’t remember what he said except that he liked ‘The Rock’ – the wrestling star turned actor. After I finished swimming he followed me to the changing room and asked me for my phone number which I gave to him. When I was in the shower he came into my cubicle and asked me if I wanted some shampoo. This made me think – wouldn’t it be great to be gay? Imagine if you’re in the gym or the public swimming pool and you see a sexy girl; you can just follow her into the changing room and see her naked. After I mused on this, I thought it was sexist somehow that gay people could freely go into changing rooms and watch people they are attracted to get undressed and dressed, so I had the idea that we should designate changing rooms to gays and straights instead of men and women. It made sense at the time, but I was never able to complete the theory with any feasible argument. Either way, it’s a crying shame; but I suppose if one sector of society that has seen so much injustice over the years gets a lucky break every just so often, it can’t be an entirely bad thing.

Time To Pay The Piper

Is there something I'm missing? This war in Iraq is pure, senseless violence. In the beginning it was clear the Americans' stated motives didn't add up. Bush should have been impeached before he made it to his 2nd US presidential election. His victory in that election left me with little sympathy for the American general public. I assume that the people who planned this war themselves assumed that the resistance would be weak and uncoordinated. Even Americans with hearts full of hatred must see by now the stream of anti-American political, religious and independent parties across the world one by one winning greater and greater public support. There are almost 2 years till the next US presidential elections when, presumably, an anti-war leader will be elected. If we wait till then it can easily mean needless deaths in the hundreds of thousands. This is human beings - dying - needlessly. Does this need an argument? The humiliation and repercussions of failure are irrelevant by now. There is no solution to this, so just stop the war. Iraq and the whole region is fucked up more than ever thanks to the United States, and the US just doesn't have the strength to kill the entire lot of them. The priority of the 'coalition of the willing' should be to end their involvement in the bloodshed immediately and address their own issues of violence and elitism.

Growing Up Excited

Hey G,
I’m up all night doing taxes. My insides are hurting; don’t know why, no stamina left. I used to have too much energy but now I’ve beaten it out of myself.
Did you hear the new Bob Dylan album? It’s insightful in an indirect kind of way. I haven’t heard the whole thing through yet. Usually after a few songs I have the urgent desire to commit suicide. Like a passion and hunger for the act of suicide, it’s unique to me. I think it’s just an interpretation of an overwhelming influx of ideas and unmasked truths. I used to get the same thing after Philosophy 101 with Jorge Garcia-Gomez in college. I didn't really understand his classes, and they brought my grade-point-average down, but they thrilled me. At the end of each class i just wanted to throw myself out the window.
I’m getting old. It’s a good age I think. I feel calm, but can still fuck.
I had a night of rum and cokes with MJB last week. He speaks well of you and Alex and wants to meet you if you come to HK.
Taxman’s waiting, I gotta go.

Suicide Deluxe

Hi G,
Days and nights here are cool too at the moment. We are clinging to the remnants of comfort before the oppressive heat envelopes our world, just like a dying man indulges in his happy memories, even though they are, in reality, scant and scarce between his endless torment and disappointment.
So, off he dies and I stamp over his fresh grave as I’m still young enough to summon the violence that drives this senseless machine forward, driven by seemingly endless, expendable me’s.
In the morning I’m inspired as Hitler, poised to recreate the world in my perfect mould. By afternoon I’m overrun with urgent, masturbatory promises. By night I’m relieved but awakening again, frantically trying to intoxicate myself to suffocate the passion; asphyxiate the raging, desperate soul-screaming. The older I get, the better I get at destroying myself.