At 20 years old my entire life took a weird turn and even though my energies went in strange directions it has always been those electrical surges that guided me. So it is no coincidence that my first art history class inspired me to think I could do anything, be anyone. At 20, through art history, I saw one image that got my imagination flowing. This image was a blue painted print of a real woman's naked body on a canvas, with blue paint imposed to make her look like an actual vampire. The subject: women as vampires.
That's cool in itself but the artist, my favorite for the past ten years, Yves Klein, was more then a one dimensional producer of art. He wrote volumes of books about the spirituality of the blue paint he used and how the blue he chose was a metaphor for the human spirit. Human light. The soul.
Yves Klein is difficult to research, in part because he died so young, but try to google him if you want exposure to fresh, life affirming art to celebrate.
If you're looking for logic in anything I say, please stop. Alex, my good friend from Baltimore, has a logical, informative, highly articulate blog laced with compassion and enthusiasm. ANTIWAR ZONE (click to my right), is his blogging site.
The last time I saw him was last summer. We shared drinks at an Irish bar overlooking the Baltimore inner harbor. He talked about a film director that I knew nothing about except:
1.) He once ate a boiled shoe (saw it on youtube). 2.) He was shot in one of his interviews.
Alex told me about his collaboration with Harmony Korine (don't like that fellow) in a movie about schizophrenia. He mentions a scene in that movie where a fake premature baby was brought onto a subway and filmed without people knowing it was all for a movie. It was too rough an image in my head to handle as a movie....but...a few days ago I saw a Hollywood movie where not a soul warned me about the fake dead baby, so that was my boot camp for a Herzog Werner film.
Side Note: Life is strange that way. About a week ago my dad mentioned this particular Herzog Werner film ("Grizzly Man") because I had just finished, "Into The Wild" and my dad told me about this guy Timothy Treadwell, who I learned all about today. But it was not my dad that lead me to that movie. It was random and as the movie unfolded I remembered my recent conversation with my father.
So I just finished Herzog Werner's "Grizzly Man" which was randomly recommended to me while I was in the good video store yesterday. I loved it. Loved it. However it's almost cosmical to hear Herzog's monotone German voice narrating scenes where he has to butt in to say, "The world is rough and cruel, full of chaos and savagery" etc. Ah the Germans! A jerk could take that tone and turn it into some commentary on the stereotypical German nihilism. I'm a jerk, but I loved the film.
So, to delight and instruct, here is a video of Germany's most well received and (in my opinion so far) talented film maker being sniped during an interview:
Okay, I don't know much about Billy Ray Cyrus except a few things: 1.) He has, or had, a mullet that looked like a animal died on his head -Side Note: I was convinced for a while that the "Billy Ray Cyrus" mullet was a sign of insanity. Well the jury is still out. However people in the mid-west can hold prominent positions of authority looking like him. I know, I lived there. 2.) He went on a country music award show and yelled some insult to his rival Travis Trit. He said, "For those of you that don't like my music....Travis Trit...here is a quarter! Now call someone who cares!" 3.) I nearly peed my pants when he said that. People with mullets like that that take themselves seriously make me want to pee. 4.) When I was in late middle school to early high school my siblings used to watch, "Animanacs"- and there was a skit where Pinky and the Brain try to take over the world by playing, "Don't tell my head, my empty hollow head, I just don't think it would understand" all over the world to make people stupid and/or crazy so they could rule the world.
That's my knowledge of Billy Ray Cyrus. So when I saw on the front cover of Yahoo News: "Is Billy Ray Cyrus a good father or not? Details inside." I just flipped my fucking wig. This is the world news. The world Internet news that informs us what's up around the world when we sit at our computer to coffee and a new day. There are civil wars in many countries in Africa, AIDS, that mess in the Guantanamo Bay Concentration Camp, ghettos, murders, etc (you get my point), and they choose to pop a question about: Fucking Mullet Man being a good father? I don't give a fuck! I don't care about his dumb life, the slow moving electric pong game going on in that guys head, the inevitable fight he got into with his barber years before he became famous for looking like an asshole, or about his parenting skills. What the fuck is going on with the world? What the media chooses to tell us is seriously in question when the king of all inexcusable hair styles (if one can call it that) makes the front page of the news. I am certain that this is the first sign of the coming Apocalypse.
I check the Internet every morning to see what's going on. I don't know why, but this article was hilarious to me. Probably because out of all the goings on in the world this made the front page of Yahoo News. Man orders pet python to attack police officers
Tue Jun 17, 7:20 AM ET
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. - Bridgeport police say they arrested a city man after he ordered his pet to attack two officers. Lucky for them that 9-foot-long pythons aren't very obedient.
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Police Lt. James Viadero says 21-year-old Victor Rodriguez was charged with threatening police and disorderly conduct after Monday's incident. No one was hurt.
Officers were called to Rodriguez's apartment on a report that he was threatening his girlfriend with the pet reptile.
Viadero says that when the building superintendent opened the apartment door for the officers, Rodriguez allegedly threatened them with the snake and told it to "Get them!"
Rodriguez and his pet were both taken away: Rodriguez to jail on a $10,000 bond, and the albino python to the city's animal control shelter.
This is where you could find me yesterday, at the top of this gigantic bolder called, "Wedding Rock". I went here two years ago with all my siblings but Julie and Ambrose. It's been over three months since Amby died, and I thought I've come to grips with the entire thing. The irreversible loss. I lay down at night and think that he's at peace, rather then in pain, or waiting in some administration building's long line, or having his feelings hurt, or worrying about bills, work, rent. But yesterday it all broke apart after this trip to Wedding Rock. I kept thinking that Amby will never be able to see the ocean again. That he can't see the horizon, or smell the ocean, or climb those rocks. Life is terrible- it's hell- but these things make me miss my man. What can I say?
Lucian, a little past two months, ready for his close up with the camera. He loves to climb this foam and nibble it to pieces. This is our adorable boy. He's a lover.
You can tell I'm unhappy in this photo because I am clutching my Vodka Blush. One of those days before of no sleep, so I decided to drink a vodka blush to remember the first drink that Daryl and I had together. That was around the beginning of September, at C'est La Vie Cafe, overlooking Laguna Beach. This was my first significant trip to Southern California. Vodka Blushes remind me of my new life to follow, almost a year later.
