Contents:
1-My Paintings (AdriaSawaCharlieRavenVoltaireSean)
2-THE LONG VIEW
3-Frequently Asked Questions
1-- My Paintings
(print available in the SG store)
(print available in the SG store)
2--The Long View
Sometimes I wonder what all this will look likein the long run, in like 200 years.
He was the guy who made the loud, careful pictures of the novel-looking pretty girls and endless other complicated, impenetrable cartoon-colored pictures of all kinds and also the pornYeah it was that kind of time, theyll say, things were like that...
Like what?
I mean, Ive been to like the section of the museum and theyve got the Babylonian things with the 3-inch statues with wings and funny beards and tablets made of clay and Ive looked at them and thoughtOh, it was one of those loin-cloth-wearing, bushel-of-wheat-trading, oxen-herding kind of things they had going on then.
When people look back and say, What was it like then, in the early 21st Century? And these things people made, what did they mean?
Thinking about that today, I think that these people I know who make thingstheyre extremely contemporary peoplenot like priests or deli owners or senators whose basic ways of life have all been around, with different adjectives, for hundreds of years.
I look at my friends and think--they didnt make people like this 100 years ago.
There are new people.
It was the early 21st century and it was definitely an age of multiple professions:
There was the one...
...employed by an establishment specializing in strong drink and loud entertainment to provide the former and collect money for it...
...who also designed and created clothing whose irregularities of detail and cut implied a consistent and almost desperate prioritization of the visual and functional aspects of clothing combined with an inability to accede to clothing any participatory role in the visual life of the contemporary world. The clothing was consistent with no commercially productive landscape, genre of architecture, social situation, ethic or even mode of employment (other than those few essentially antisocial professionsprostitution, rock stardom, bartending--in which the display of extremely distinctive personal style as not an occasional indulgence but rather as a constant habit is a professional advantage).
...Having a face and body which similarlytigerishly--constantly drew attention to their own aesthetic and aggressive potential, she adopted sexually provocative poses in more-or-less novel settings in photographs designed for niche-market consumption.
There was one...
...who was employed by various commercial enterprises involved in the production of clothing for women to create photographs of women wearing their products in order to stimulate interest among prospective buyers...
...who had another job photographing more-or-less novel-looking women in sexually provocative poses in more-or-less novel settings for niche-market consumption in a style that, though always within the visual standards of clarity and polish required of commercial photography, used minute details of light, cropping, color, and facial expression to imply different dramatic and psychological circumstances surrounding the same individual...
...and also, being somewhat novel-looking (having a face and body which suggested the same multiple aspects, uses and range of dramatic possibilities as her photographs), appeared as a model in such photographs.
There was another...
...who was employed by the state to instruct young schoolchildren in the techniques for the manufacture of products requiring creative labor...
...who also produced and published illustrated magazines for a general audience detailing the difficulties and vicissitudes of being employed by a generally apathetic state to instruct young schoolchildren in the techniques for the manufacture of products requiring creative labor in a style that was superficially simple and direct and yet whose details, both verbal and visual, emphasized in more-or-less subtle ways the emotional and psychological differences between the various situations and parties involved.
There was an ex-Texan...
...who taught techniques meant to improve individual performance on tests designed to evaluate the mental fitness of prospective university students...
...and who was also employed by universities to teach antique methods of image reproduction, draftsmanship, and methods for making the property and messages produced by commercial enterprises visually distinct, expressive and attractive...
...who also produced exquisitely detailed drawings of imaginary hybrid lifeforms with hyperdeveloped and arbitrarily placed sexual organs for private consumption.
There was another...
....who also taught antique methods of image reproduction at universities along with other courses in the fine arts.
...He was also sporadically employed in periodically moving extremely valuable works of art (such as a medium-sized canvas featuring a handful of irregularly-sized interlocking depthless rectangles in white and primary colors, enclosed by regularly-sized black lines) for those who owned them but had not the energy or inclination to do it themselves.
...He also created paintings on medium-sized canvases featuring smeared fields of intense color crossing or otherwise interdicting seemingly arbitrary and clearly brushed-on marks of various widths, few in number, which expressed a belief that an effective art can be made, essentially, by attacking the white surface, and, by extension, the person looking at it, with a naked assertion of personal taste (I like this next to...hmmmm...THIS...and maybe a little of ...this!) without any mark or characteristic that could possibly be construed as making a case for itself on any other grounds.
There was another...
...who operated motion-picture cameras for those who conceived motion-pictures which required so much in the way of props, actors, set design, lighting, etc. that they had reason to claim they were too busy organizing this panoply to operate them on their own.
...She also created photographs which referred explicitly to the history of the medium and specifically to the non-naturalistic and purely artificial sense of otherworldliness and mystery produced by early photographs...
...while also photographing more-or-less novel-looking women in sexually provocative poses in more-or-less novel settings for niche-market consumption in a style that showed extensive knowledge of the pin-up format and its demands and yet managed often to leak the expressions and movements of eyes, lips and hips characteristic of genuine, uncertain episodes of real-life seduction into this highly artificial format.
...She also performed with a group of musicians, who produced cathartic music meant to summon and give voice to the most bloodthirsty emotions. She herself sang but the singing was more like shrieking and the basic impression was that of someone twisted by victimization into something so vengeful as to be no longer human...
...Having a curiously open and unaffected-looking face attached to an extensively and imperiously tattooed and otherwise modified body which was, like so much of her output, able to express a level of genuineness and humanity from within a sea of stylized and fantastic trappings she was also employed as a model in sexually provocative photographs taken in more-or-less novel settings in photographs, her own and others, designed for niche-market consumption.
There was one...
...who was employed as part of a troupe which staged various lavish, extravagant, and fantastical performances thematically and visually emphasizing controlled combustion...
...who also took photographs which were of categorizable, actual and specific but novel-looking places and people (a certain house, a certain garage, a certain young girl...) and were altered or edited in such a way as to exaggerate their unfamiliarity and psychological intensity...
...who also photographed more-or-less novel-looking women in sexually provocative poses in more-or-less novel settings and styles for niche-market consumption in a style that emphasized the use of the body as a tool or instrument toward ambiguouslydefined ends and the resemblance of the surfaces and joints of polished bodies to machines...
...and also, being somewhat novel-looking, having a dark, polished and androgynous aspect, appeared as a model in such photographs.
There are many more: make-up artist waitresses, the PR girl guitarists, stripper telemarketers.
So what was it like, back then?
Ages of prolonged uncertainty, while they are compatible with the highest degree of saintliness in a few, are inimical to the prosaic, every-day virtues of respectable citizens. There seems no use in thrift, when tomorrow all your savings may be dissipated; no advantage in honesty, when the man towards whom you practice it is pretty sure to swindle you; no point in steadfast adherence to a cause, when no cause is important or has a chance of stable victory; no argument in favor of truthfulness, when only supple tergiversation makes the preservation of life and fortune possible. The man whose virtue has no source except a purely terrestrial prudence will, in such a world, become an adventurer if he has the courage, and, if not, will seek obscurity as a timid time-server.
That was Bertrand Russel, talking about the 3rd century B.C., and, granted, things were a lot more unstable then they are in Bushwick, Berlin or Hollywood right now. People were regularly offered serious choices--like between eating pork or being stabbed to death.
Every day we wake up and were pretty sure if we want a slice of pizza we can get one and when we come home our apartment will probably be there and not on fire. But despite all that the description of ages of prolonged uncertainty seems not to far off.
Maybe thiswe live in an age of prolonged certaintybut it is certainty that everything prolonged will suck.
The neighbors will always suck, the people on the train suck, the things on TV suck, the fact that you cant buy a can of pop without the money going to some jackass who pays people 8 cents to make the can sucks, the planet will die slowly and nobody will stop it and that sucks, the president sucks and so did the one before him and so will the one after him.
And yet here we are, and were not dead, and not usually sick and sometimes, often, happy.
This is, roughly, the opposite of what were told the Dark Ages was like. You were a peasant and you were never happy, but everything eternal and unchanging like God and the King and the planet was supposed to be special and good and you felt grateful for it.
Life was horses and pigs and vegetables that would all be dead soon--temporary things paid the bills. The eternal was a luxury. Contemplation of the eternal was a comforting leisure-time activity.
People made art that made eternal things look immense, glorious, or utterly terrifying and pretty much ignored what happened to them on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Now it seems like the only hope or fear is about what will happen on Tuesday or Wednesday, and the only certainty is that nothing lasts forever except all these things that old people dreamed up that suck.
The eternal pays everybodys bills these dayssome companys huge mound of money or some unending stream of increasingly unsympathetic customers with their never ending desire for whatever it is they pay you to pull out of your ass. Theyre not going anywhere and when youre gone someone else will do the job.
Temporary is where the luxury is at. I was there! Were you there? It was a great day, a great sunset, a great movie. And fucking?--it lasts maybe an hourfour if somebodys filming it.
All the best stuff, the things my friends make these days doesnt seem to be about getting anywhereits all about getting a good moment that has nothing to do with these cocksuckers and their eternals.
Oh, I love the way the ______ goes under the ______ or I like the way you drew the ______ or the way the ______ looks in the ________.
Just give me good moments.
Just let this little life I live under the radar be good.
Please let everything big or eternal ignore melet the government, the cops, the war, the poisons in the air, God, groups and gangs and organizations, corporations, my boss. They pay the bills and they send the bills but please let them all ignore me and not be my life.
Let my life be private. Let me be passed over. Let me have my soapbox derby, my moment in the hallway, let me move between the big wheels.
Let it be obvious that the big wheels are not my fault.
We live in spite of them.
People say He wore long pants in spite of the hot weather.
But even though theyre saying spite which means hate its not like the guy necessarily hates the hot weather. Its just an expression.
Its like, you use the phrase in spite of so often that after a while you forget that spite means hate.
And its like thatI hate everything so often that I barely even notice Im hating itI just have fun in spite of the rules and the people and the dumb ideas everywhere.
You make a decision to ignore things because if you didnt you wouldnt be able to function.
And you make something about Tuesday and Wednesday and the not-eternal things and making them is like a little prayer where you say, I want all my eggs in this basket, I want this to be the thing that matters. I want to sink or swim based on how well this goes. Because if I was pegged to whats going on out there, I know Id be fucked.
And on a very good day, I say to myself, if everybody just bet their happiness on the little things--on real life--then everything would be just fine out there.
3--Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Where can I see your stuff?
A: In New York, I am represented by these peopleask them. I currently have a show at the San Francisco Museum Of Modern Artit'll be up for a few months.
Q: Do you have any shows coming up in [some place where the member asking the question lives thats not New York or San Francisco]?
A: No.
Q: What are your paintings made of?
A: PAINT. Acrylic paint on white paper. Drawn freehand. That's why they're called paintings.
Q: Where can I get your art book?
A: Well if you are too impatient to order it through the sg store then try going to a book store.
Q: Can I get a print of one of your paintings?
A: Posters of the Charlie and Sawa paintings are available in the sg store.
Q: When/Where can I get your porno movies?
A: VCA/Hustler's Barbed Wire Kiss is out RIGHT NOW!
Go buy it and if you don't want to watch it, give it to your perv uncle or something.
Eon_McKai's flick with me won't be out 'til september--it'll be with Vivid-Alt.
For other flicks, check my site.
When they do come out, a good place to look for them would be in some sort of Adult Video Store. I mean, call me hopelessly idealistic, but thats where Id look. VCA also has an on-line store.
Google works real well for this--google "barbed wire kiss" and "zak sabbath" and a bunch of on-line porno stores will come up.
Not sure if you want to buy Barbed Wire Kiss yet? This will change your mind. (especially if you like grindcore)
1-My Paintings (AdriaSawaCharlieRavenVoltaireSean)
2-THE LONG VIEW
3-Frequently Asked Questions
1-- My Paintings
(print available in the SG store)
(print available in the SG store)
2--The Long View
Sometimes I wonder what all this will look likein the long run, in like 200 years.
He was the guy who made the loud, careful pictures of the novel-looking pretty girls and endless other complicated, impenetrable cartoon-colored pictures of all kinds and also the pornYeah it was that kind of time, theyll say, things were like that...
Like what?
I mean, Ive been to like the section of the museum and theyve got the Babylonian things with the 3-inch statues with wings and funny beards and tablets made of clay and Ive looked at them and thoughtOh, it was one of those loin-cloth-wearing, bushel-of-wheat-trading, oxen-herding kind of things they had going on then.
When people look back and say, What was it like then, in the early 21st Century? And these things people made, what did they mean?
Thinking about that today, I think that these people I know who make thingstheyre extremely contemporary peoplenot like priests or deli owners or senators whose basic ways of life have all been around, with different adjectives, for hundreds of years.
I look at my friends and think--they didnt make people like this 100 years ago.
There are new people.
It was the early 21st century and it was definitely an age of multiple professions:
There was the one...
...employed by an establishment specializing in strong drink and loud entertainment to provide the former and collect money for it...
...who also designed and created clothing whose irregularities of detail and cut implied a consistent and almost desperate prioritization of the visual and functional aspects of clothing combined with an inability to accede to clothing any participatory role in the visual life of the contemporary world. The clothing was consistent with no commercially productive landscape, genre of architecture, social situation, ethic or even mode of employment (other than those few essentially antisocial professionsprostitution, rock stardom, bartending--in which the display of extremely distinctive personal style as not an occasional indulgence but rather as a constant habit is a professional advantage).
...Having a face and body which similarlytigerishly--constantly drew attention to their own aesthetic and aggressive potential, she adopted sexually provocative poses in more-or-less novel settings in photographs designed for niche-market consumption.
There was one...
...who was employed by various commercial enterprises involved in the production of clothing for women to create photographs of women wearing their products in order to stimulate interest among prospective buyers...
...who had another job photographing more-or-less novel-looking women in sexually provocative poses in more-or-less novel settings for niche-market consumption in a style that, though always within the visual standards of clarity and polish required of commercial photography, used minute details of light, cropping, color, and facial expression to imply different dramatic and psychological circumstances surrounding the same individual...
...and also, being somewhat novel-looking (having a face and body which suggested the same multiple aspects, uses and range of dramatic possibilities as her photographs), appeared as a model in such photographs.
There was another...
...who was employed by the state to instruct young schoolchildren in the techniques for the manufacture of products requiring creative labor...
...who also produced and published illustrated magazines for a general audience detailing the difficulties and vicissitudes of being employed by a generally apathetic state to instruct young schoolchildren in the techniques for the manufacture of products requiring creative labor in a style that was superficially simple and direct and yet whose details, both verbal and visual, emphasized in more-or-less subtle ways the emotional and psychological differences between the various situations and parties involved.
There was an ex-Texan...
...who taught techniques meant to improve individual performance on tests designed to evaluate the mental fitness of prospective university students...
...and who was also employed by universities to teach antique methods of image reproduction, draftsmanship, and methods for making the property and messages produced by commercial enterprises visually distinct, expressive and attractive...
...who also produced exquisitely detailed drawings of imaginary hybrid lifeforms with hyperdeveloped and arbitrarily placed sexual organs for private consumption.
There was another...
....who also taught antique methods of image reproduction at universities along with other courses in the fine arts.
...He was also sporadically employed in periodically moving extremely valuable works of art (such as a medium-sized canvas featuring a handful of irregularly-sized interlocking depthless rectangles in white and primary colors, enclosed by regularly-sized black lines) for those who owned them but had not the energy or inclination to do it themselves.
...He also created paintings on medium-sized canvases featuring smeared fields of intense color crossing or otherwise interdicting seemingly arbitrary and clearly brushed-on marks of various widths, few in number, which expressed a belief that an effective art can be made, essentially, by attacking the white surface, and, by extension, the person looking at it, with a naked assertion of personal taste (I like this next to...hmmmm...THIS...and maybe a little of ...this!) without any mark or characteristic that could possibly be construed as making a case for itself on any other grounds.
There was another...
...who operated motion-picture cameras for those who conceived motion-pictures which required so much in the way of props, actors, set design, lighting, etc. that they had reason to claim they were too busy organizing this panoply to operate them on their own.
...She also created photographs which referred explicitly to the history of the medium and specifically to the non-naturalistic and purely artificial sense of otherworldliness and mystery produced by early photographs...
...while also photographing more-or-less novel-looking women in sexually provocative poses in more-or-less novel settings for niche-market consumption in a style that showed extensive knowledge of the pin-up format and its demands and yet managed often to leak the expressions and movements of eyes, lips and hips characteristic of genuine, uncertain episodes of real-life seduction into this highly artificial format.
...She also performed with a group of musicians, who produced cathartic music meant to summon and give voice to the most bloodthirsty emotions. She herself sang but the singing was more like shrieking and the basic impression was that of someone twisted by victimization into something so vengeful as to be no longer human...
...Having a curiously open and unaffected-looking face attached to an extensively and imperiously tattooed and otherwise modified body which was, like so much of her output, able to express a level of genuineness and humanity from within a sea of stylized and fantastic trappings she was also employed as a model in sexually provocative photographs taken in more-or-less novel settings in photographs, her own and others, designed for niche-market consumption.
There was one...
...who was employed as part of a troupe which staged various lavish, extravagant, and fantastical performances thematically and visually emphasizing controlled combustion...
...who also took photographs which were of categorizable, actual and specific but novel-looking places and people (a certain house, a certain garage, a certain young girl...) and were altered or edited in such a way as to exaggerate their unfamiliarity and psychological intensity...
...who also photographed more-or-less novel-looking women in sexually provocative poses in more-or-less novel settings and styles for niche-market consumption in a style that emphasized the use of the body as a tool or instrument toward ambiguouslydefined ends and the resemblance of the surfaces and joints of polished bodies to machines...
...and also, being somewhat novel-looking, having a dark, polished and androgynous aspect, appeared as a model in such photographs.
There are many more: make-up artist waitresses, the PR girl guitarists, stripper telemarketers.
So what was it like, back then?
Ages of prolonged uncertainty, while they are compatible with the highest degree of saintliness in a few, are inimical to the prosaic, every-day virtues of respectable citizens. There seems no use in thrift, when tomorrow all your savings may be dissipated; no advantage in honesty, when the man towards whom you practice it is pretty sure to swindle you; no point in steadfast adherence to a cause, when no cause is important or has a chance of stable victory; no argument in favor of truthfulness, when only supple tergiversation makes the preservation of life and fortune possible. The man whose virtue has no source except a purely terrestrial prudence will, in such a world, become an adventurer if he has the courage, and, if not, will seek obscurity as a timid time-server.
That was Bertrand Russel, talking about the 3rd century B.C., and, granted, things were a lot more unstable then they are in Bushwick, Berlin or Hollywood right now. People were regularly offered serious choices--like between eating pork or being stabbed to death.
Every day we wake up and were pretty sure if we want a slice of pizza we can get one and when we come home our apartment will probably be there and not on fire. But despite all that the description of ages of prolonged uncertainty seems not to far off.
Maybe thiswe live in an age of prolonged certaintybut it is certainty that everything prolonged will suck.
The neighbors will always suck, the people on the train suck, the things on TV suck, the fact that you cant buy a can of pop without the money going to some jackass who pays people 8 cents to make the can sucks, the planet will die slowly and nobody will stop it and that sucks, the president sucks and so did the one before him and so will the one after him.
And yet here we are, and were not dead, and not usually sick and sometimes, often, happy.
This is, roughly, the opposite of what were told the Dark Ages was like. You were a peasant and you were never happy, but everything eternal and unchanging like God and the King and the planet was supposed to be special and good and you felt grateful for it.
Life was horses and pigs and vegetables that would all be dead soon--temporary things paid the bills. The eternal was a luxury. Contemplation of the eternal was a comforting leisure-time activity.
People made art that made eternal things look immense, glorious, or utterly terrifying and pretty much ignored what happened to them on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Now it seems like the only hope or fear is about what will happen on Tuesday or Wednesday, and the only certainty is that nothing lasts forever except all these things that old people dreamed up that suck.
The eternal pays everybodys bills these dayssome companys huge mound of money or some unending stream of increasingly unsympathetic customers with their never ending desire for whatever it is they pay you to pull out of your ass. Theyre not going anywhere and when youre gone someone else will do the job.
Temporary is where the luxury is at. I was there! Were you there? It was a great day, a great sunset, a great movie. And fucking?--it lasts maybe an hourfour if somebodys filming it.
All the best stuff, the things my friends make these days doesnt seem to be about getting anywhereits all about getting a good moment that has nothing to do with these cocksuckers and their eternals.
Oh, I love the way the ______ goes under the ______ or I like the way you drew the ______ or the way the ______ looks in the ________.
Just give me good moments.
Just let this little life I live under the radar be good.
Please let everything big or eternal ignore melet the government, the cops, the war, the poisons in the air, God, groups and gangs and organizations, corporations, my boss. They pay the bills and they send the bills but please let them all ignore me and not be my life.
Let my life be private. Let me be passed over. Let me have my soapbox derby, my moment in the hallway, let me move between the big wheels.
Let it be obvious that the big wheels are not my fault.
We live in spite of them.
People say He wore long pants in spite of the hot weather.
But even though theyre saying spite which means hate its not like the guy necessarily hates the hot weather. Its just an expression.
Its like, you use the phrase in spite of so often that after a while you forget that spite means hate.
And its like thatI hate everything so often that I barely even notice Im hating itI just have fun in spite of the rules and the people and the dumb ideas everywhere.
You make a decision to ignore things because if you didnt you wouldnt be able to function.
And you make something about Tuesday and Wednesday and the not-eternal things and making them is like a little prayer where you say, I want all my eggs in this basket, I want this to be the thing that matters. I want to sink or swim based on how well this goes. Because if I was pegged to whats going on out there, I know Id be fucked.
And on a very good day, I say to myself, if everybody just bet their happiness on the little things--on real life--then everything would be just fine out there.
3--Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Where can I see your stuff?
A: In New York, I am represented by these peopleask them. I currently have a show at the San Francisco Museum Of Modern Artit'll be up for a few months.
Q: Do you have any shows coming up in [some place where the member asking the question lives thats not New York or San Francisco]?
A: No.
Q: What are your paintings made of?
A: PAINT. Acrylic paint on white paper. Drawn freehand. That's why they're called paintings.
Q: Where can I get your art book?
A: Well if you are too impatient to order it through the sg store then try going to a book store.
Q: Can I get a print of one of your paintings?
A: Posters of the Charlie and Sawa paintings are available in the sg store.
Q: When/Where can I get your porno movies?
A: VCA/Hustler's Barbed Wire Kiss is out RIGHT NOW!
Go buy it and if you don't want to watch it, give it to your perv uncle or something.
Eon_McKai's flick with me won't be out 'til september--it'll be with Vivid-Alt.
For other flicks, check my site.
When they do come out, a good place to look for them would be in some sort of Adult Video Store. I mean, call me hopelessly idealistic, but thats where Id look. VCA also has an on-line store.
Google works real well for this--google "barbed wire kiss" and "zak sabbath" and a bunch of on-line porno stores will come up.
Not sure if you want to buy Barbed Wire Kiss yet? This will change your mind. (especially if you like grindcore)
VIEW 20 of 20 COMMENTS
pixiepearl:
Where are my photos, biznatch?
moniker42:
At any rate I just thought, considering the response from the rest of the internet you get if you google the bastard, someone should really say something nice occasionally. He's like the hooker with the heart of gold. What a dirty old man.