How not to sell out and save your soul from anothers hell

It's not often I run into a really bad art show but it's also more rarer to see one that is a step above the chaff.
Two this year I can remember, the first was the extra-ordinary compilation of works by William Kentridge, arguably one of the best shows of my minutae existence.   And the second is some of the works on exhibition currently at the Lesley Kehoe Gallery at 101 Collins street.

I do have a weakness for some of the Japanese styles and this is the freshest works I have seen on our shores yet.
Shohei Otomo is the artist in question and I know of his fathers work in the ground breaking single cell animation masterpeice Akira.  The sheer detail of these works and the level of completeness to the peices is extraordinary.  For working with cheap pens this is a feat in itself.  The show felt reflective in its mood and covered a range of subjects from Yakuza to Shunga and cyber punk styles as well as western toon styles - glimpses of the east west exchange clearly visable.  The combination of these themes is I think what makes this exhibition interesting, the masked geishas and the reworkings of the classic Shunga as well as the commentary upon the permeating threats of nuclear catastrophe with the recent Fukushima reactor collapse.  The ability to complete works that perhaps would be special using any subject considering the workings of penmanship combined with the humourous touch of Shohei make this something you might want to see if you are in town.

It's nice just to enter the building and see the architecture too, one of the powerhouse buildings of the Australian economy.  Pretend you just walked out of Harrolds and the security shouldn't bother you.

lets see how much we can say, as fast as we can - without missing the beat : before we are invariably unable. At last; to continue.

if it is indeed god who is testing us with self resolve then it must be a sadistic motherfucker with too much time on it's hands.  
what is god to the masses anyway, like the taste of saline to the sea.
sterile and only used ornamentally, to most of us anyway, over here in heathen land anyhow.  
i am trying not to be so disinterested but i'm not having much luck.  
Realestate is too expensive, and i am broke, this is not good for being in the city, whats the use of having great skills and fortuity if you cannot earn money, your honesty translates as simplicity and every hack down the way takes a peice, you either become indeed simple or as cruel and opportunistic as them.  
And then you are ripping of people who may have been having an honest moment and then the cycle starts again and keeps going on and on.  
I was honest once but now i've learned to just be quiet.


petite a petite i am learning this modern reason that abounds the city scapes and rips the bonds of resistance to cheap thrills and moral degradation.  That enforces the will of the many and crushes the individual of their chance to fuck up and learn the cut stings and the break takes time.


it's been a while sinse i was on here this computer making words into verse,
in the time since last time, i have:


had a freestyle rap battle with a mate and as a result he doesn't talk to me anymore,
and it wasn't even personal it was but not momma jokes yet.

am being ignored by another friend because i talked my mind about a mutual friend who has dependancy issues.


done about eight quotes and not got one job yet, well maybe one this week.


have painted a lot of pictures of various things human and not so human.


joined a band,


formed a band


relyed solely just about on the goodwill of lentil as anything for my tucker, because i 'm broke,
i consider my current debt to society level as i have been tuning RAHRAHRAH radio (rrr) and it's comunity love is all up there in my braine.


silconed my fireplace because there is a dead mouse in there and the wind comes down the chimney and blasts fetid death zephyrs into my sleeping nostrils.


saw my father and talked about what to do with family land.


...


Thats about all folks and remmeber,

if the bush was too quiet there would be fear without seeing a fearful creature.

i didn't make up the last line but everything else i am guilty your honor,

the title is what happened when i listened to charlie parker,
bird.

art is living made visible

i'll shut up here's a photo

This is where i spent weekends as a child.  Mostly happy, mostly up the coconut trees or in the bat caves

DICKNOSE LIVES

If anyone is interested in reposting this please do.

This Friday, BYO, Refills Brunswick Street Fitzroy.


See the work of the man himself.

strass nulius

it seems a little too quiet on the streets of late, rain and other stuff holding people back but still quiet.  as the winter sets in everyone goes down into their cave and thinks about what's next.
plenty of shows, not that i go to them but still, plenty of them.  bastardising the rawness into quiet squares and galerie pour le amusement ou nouvue bourgeoisie .  not that it's a bad thing, but it definately isn't that good either.

the council here now has so much money from the blossomming rates, reaping in with their fat little tentacles, pouring it into yarra city council sponsored grafitti buffing crews.  they may be black that dont mean shit to me but you've got a black heart.  by laws to protect the walls please.

Lovers of the art lite you can please all go back to prahan.  Isn't there more fake tan range there.
But you never will.  you want the desert of the real.

All there is to be done is to pick up the pieces and carry on.  petite a petite.  For what it's worth i hope you enjoy what is left.  There is still plenty. Skin and bones, the flesh is gone, the blood all drunk and the smile hollow and cool.

a material love song is always sad.

happiness is the consolation for life's necessity

i often find when i am in old gold mining town and i see the incredible architechture i am thankfull to the people who lived there and invested into the town they were a part of, the sense of community, though long gone but impermeable and outstanding in the relics that remain.  I think of this only in comparison to todays mining boom where the places where this is happening still remain extremely bleak outposts with little more than corrugated iron and a few truck stops.  I took two years travelling australia and seeing all this as well as growing up in a mining boom town, Mackay no less.  And the companies that run the mines don't seem to be interested in investing in this kind of thing and the government has little plans besides some kind of block art sculptures that keep popping up around the place.  I see there was a time in australia's past when there was some pride of home and town, i can only assume this in my interpretation of the art and architechture but the feeling grows nevertheless that the Australian majority culture has lost a sense of overall community.  I don't know, i am no sociologist just a layman but it is only in rare circumstances that i have felt a strong community around.

Is it because a big portion of the mines are owned by offshore investors, so the money is filtered into the government and then rushed overseas.  All i notice of the boom is the exhorbitant price of land, unruly development, over development of agricultural areas by sprawling urbanisation, extreme rent prices. 

I can't complain, i feel responsible and part of an apathetic generation.  I sometimes dream of owning a v8 7 litre just to get rid of the fuel quicker so we can settle down again.  Burn up all the coal so we can go back to having more simply and less disposable lives, disposable like our phones, our plastic bags our cheap thin plaster houses, with weak walls and poisonous materials.   It is a inevitablility that this will happen but i feel particularly impatient, because i work in the building industry, and i drive around the city  for my work and i have to see the mess that is spreading like a rash across this southern land.  And also because i recently saw a photo of an aboriginal camp amongst the trees on the yarra huge gums and ferns and healthy people, happier than us, living within nature instead of "above".

I long for the country and it's complex simplicity, but then i would miss the complex naivety of the human animal and their maruading ignorance.  I chose art as a agent of change and only time will well if it is a plausible vision, this one of mine.

If you have a lot of money you can do a lot of wack shit, If your are broke ass you gotta make the few count.

after navigating the treacherous sea which is impersonality
one may see a glimmer of hope,
that which lies in a true impartiality.

I find this all symptomatic of my unfortunate case of goodness.

There is no monetary reward in this, only greater challenges.

And temptation is a word in itself.

lots of country spraying lately.

and some trees too.

vaya 

Fitzroy Art Deaths

Have been noticing the export capper who's been smashing around the roy of late, i don't have photos but you can do yourself a favour get some exercise and see for yourself on Fitzroy Street.  The whole wall from rose street down to street i don't know the name of but towards alexandra parade.
This talented individual has taken meticulous care to make sure all the details have been given a bit of a touch up with the black export quality sheen.  psychopathic talent, distilled into malicious art.
I suppose it is a direct response to the tagging and sometimes vicious locations and responses by graffers to being shoved out so rudely by the influx of shiny tanned newbies and muscular clean shaven meat axes.
I actually me one of these bright sparks one night and he was sadly opposed to the graffetishism that can spread quickly in the soul of true believers.

But who are we to say that colour is better than white and black and long bands of monotonous faber.
i am sure there is room for both of us here in this habitable little village.
Because after all, this all will fade, and run into the seperatness from which it has come, and in a few billion years the sun will devour the earth and all you will have will be your excuses.

and so despite being human i have tried to approach the tit for tat with a bit of impartiality and tolerance and to tell you the truth from my little black heart i find it is the only way.

to 

a pocket full of rhymes

autumn fades now into winter and it is good to think about the places to avoid the cold and to try not to piss off too many people that you may have to rub shoulders with in the close quarters a suburban winter promises.  A full year back in Fitzroy and I feel at rest, i hate what the new folks done to the saturday night street though, it is repulsive.  But the cold days still find me happy on the streets and in the cafes, bimbos pizza still great as ever and if you tip the staff regularly the pizza is even better.  I am not drinking caffeine in any great amounts anymore so i can only rate the Chai that i have drank at many of the places, first place goes to Babka, second to Black Cat, third to Nova and fourth place to Lentil as anything( because it's free)
I pay really.
with my conscience.
And so we go, another wet winter perhaps, perhaps the sea temperature will change and we will get more droughts in years to come, probably, and perhaps the sun will spew a giant flaming arc of gas at the southern hemisphere and destroy all southern life as some have predicted.  I hope i can get my shit together and get my publication out on the streets though, if you do happen across it don't be afraid of it, fear of something is just a naive way of hiding from the truth that you hold onto to deeply, the truth that you think the same as me just at different times and sometimes, gracefully, in harmony.
My critics are my best friends, they're just going through a particularly arduous period of reconciliation.

Because sometimes is takes a lot of right to correct a few wrongs.

lates

hunger strike in nobu restraunt hostages eaten as appertif

a man went down to the town one day
came right back and had this to say
never saw a crowd like that fair play
went to the tree and sat in it's shade

sun moved about just to scare him out
he was not happy and said you lout
movin about like that old trout
i outta comethere and knock you out

so he devised a keen plan of paper and sand
wrote it all down with his opposite hand
made it to the sun and had his stand
then came right back with a fresh raw brand

cried for week then died last night
worried the neighbours who got quite a fright
when his corpse walked out devoid of sight
into their kitchen and said goodnight.

thanks for having us

dust becomes life and ashes snow
a life can be lived in an instant
and soon passes beyond and away
into the barren lands and the dark cool
what is this life that takes us down into the dark
and into the light beyond the night

i only know what ignorance has held tight to
and i've forgotten the best ideas i've ever had
they fell into that place all ordered and ready
and tied tight with a string of patience
and deep unknowing

autumn ushers in the window
it changes the firs to yellow
and then orange
and finally brown where they touch the ground
to shelter the cold stones of winter and bend down
to slip between them in spring and feed them through summer
before rising into the air
anew and asking us to trust our lives to them
and their knowledge
passes on and on beyond our brevity
but don't wait to hear
life is out there

DN

A memorial eulogy BOUT dn

Ciao

I think even in the next 10 years or so or as long as the paint will last there will still be dn in Fitzroy.

I remember noticing dick nose getting up back around 2009, it looked crazy as they come.

It's funny that i still recall the exact place in Fitzroy and the exact wall and as the wall hasn't been buffed yet i suppose it is still there under the countless layers that coat these talking walls.  

dn was impossible to define, he was equally hated and loved depending how you knew him, and sometimes how long.  He was brilliant and this was evident in nearly every artistic pursuit he did, whether it be writing, music, chefing and graff.  Because he had a style and he stuck to it.

he once told me that in the future people would see the joke in his words.

He went to court a few months ago for his accumulated spree's throughout Fitzroy and as his last defence  his legal team noted that preceeding must move quickly because the mayor was to be interviewed by the defendant.  This seemed to be sufficient to give a little leniency to the man.

I knew him through music initially and writing and he was already established in both these fields.  Several years in the Appalacians with some of the best players around gave him some chops to watch for, and every now and again he would freestyle some that could only have come from a NYr. 

There was no denying the criminal in dn.  he worked the streets for what it was worth and in the heights of his junk habit he rolled many people for cash for a hit.  He has enemies from this that will probably last their lives.  But he kicked the habit and was sober to see what he'd done and he took the hits he got and didn't say too much to tears about it. 

I hope other people can see the joke at least once, that which lies behind the simple letters we have to see everyday.

Rest Easy Brother

dn

1980 - 2012

serial tagger

musician

writer/poet

chef

boxer

and in his own words 

king of no style

though sometimes a mountain may be shrouded by mist and cloud is it still a mountain

.

an ocean of tears for a simple lie

wrapped in a ribbon
flailing
and sending out rings
in the cool water
just hit by the sun
rising in the haze
of early morning

are you there yet

the moon doth shine as brite as dae

i haven't had much to say because i have been thinking of silence, and silence is a clever devil.  and because i was stolen by a dragon, it lifted me up and took me away over yonder hill.  I slept awhile neath a cyprus pine and when i awoke the air was pure.  I drank of the water and the blackberries that grew i did taste.  Down the wandering stream, where the earth does like to hide this season round.  A silly mole that danced in his own self worth was upsetting the bank and digging his holes too spacious, a rain came down and they all fell in and he washed away and that was the last we saw of him.  Further down the apples spread up the soft curve of land away up to blue.  But they were restrained by fence and i couldn't bear the thought of that kind of joy so i left and like a leaf upon wind swayed on into the unknown.  It is said people fear that which they do not know, this seems foolish, as we are probably incredibly ignorant in comparison to the design of nature and the enormity of its character, but also fear is a great teacher and when we understand what fear really is the humour of life becomes a little more evident.  I reached a bend in the path and my way entered the stone and like all good friendships the stone became a part of me. It ripped a hole like a vent and out into the air came the life like red paint.  There is no time for dilly dallying though so i take my lesson with me and down into the forever.  The forever follows down the burrurulung to the sea but it will only be tomorrow that we make it down there to clasp eyes on the old mother, salty and cool like the shade in an autumn garden in Fitzroy.  The stranger blows into the room and like a friend is acknowledged and in the right direction pointed.  The service is with a grimace not a smile but this is the way and idle chit chat is a pithy substitute for a good job.
Return to the deep truths that you cover with your suspicion and your selfish heart.
A life spent in service to a goodness beyond its own needs is no longer kept in secret to happiness.

in the space of time

the spirit of

the wild

is everywhere

it purveys

all things

with heart or

not. the 

wild, the 

unnamed

the raw and

the primal.

the end and 

the return

a simple 

answer.

silence

and the

roaring 

sea.

a constant

movement

in the

perception

of

c a l m

deep fried lettuce in soy sauce

when the light all hustles and clears away all i am left with is a vain shadow that follows me everwhere and a mind that won't let me be.
The streets all empty one by one.
I was born here and i'll die here, against my will.
It is presumptous to think that life has a meaning and to ask a meaning of something so simple is a mockery of the reason each of us is endowed with.
If i could have anything in the world i would have nothing.
I can still remember the cannibals reminiscing about the flesh of man (sic) humans.

Ignorance was and still is human kinds greatest enemy.
The only thing any of us have to fear is ourselves.
God is inherent in all things of an equal and true measure, the more civilised that thing becomes the less visable it becomes.

 if you can laugh at your own mortality you can be free of its finality

graffitti is in someways like planting a garden, if you pick the right seeds, make sure they are well suited to their soil and water them and care for them, don't worry if someone pisses on them and have patience you may be rewarded and surprised by what they become and the nourishment they provide.

satan is not so dissimilar to god kind of just seen from a different point of view.

words are a guilt free way of reminding myself that life is the great illusion.

the new year

Ok so enough putrid bullshit and esoteric scum, this post is addressing the vital importance of the ongoing assignment of renewing street art/art in general and exploring its future possibilities in what some people suggest is at the end of its epoch.

  And the possibilities that australia has to offer on an international level?

We have geographic isolation, an emerging indigenous renewal and a simmering local scene.  Due to the catastrophic rise of the Aussie dollar we have unfortunately lost much European travelers, and also due to the approaching calamity of both the American and Euro currency.  But this has never limited the dedication of artists that are after specific locations for their scene and styles.  Melbourne has been in the past such a place and once again it should be.  With the proximity to the emerging powers of the new world, China, India and the fucking AMAzing amount of culture that is able to integrate into Melbourne without too much prejudice.  All these factors point to a high chance that Melbourne/Australia could have a serious influence on  international arts and culture in general.
Whether in Graff or arts is irrelevant, i think it is time the sketchy local differences could be put aside and the hatchet buried for a while and would be good to see some ideas and new directions tested.

And for gods sake thrown up on the fucking walls.
It would be good to attack the buffers with personal stuff and get a bit of press and get some support from the community this way, without being violent or assuming ownership merely suggesting a share.
After all we all have to look at these walls and in a healthy society everyone should get a chance to put up their piece.  


Australia is in a boom period and these boom times echo across all facets of society and resound through all halls and dells.  I plan on smashing it with all I have, I would hope that there would be some other interested parties open to collaboration and extended integration of alien styles and assimilation with any new scenes that appear, there will be opposition i suppose but there is DEFINiately an opening here.
It would be great to get todays sublime into the castles of tomorrows.

A shout out to all, regardless of everything, united for lunch and a hope to make a mark of the now.

                                                                          ...
 

the eternal battle between day and night

They rest under the lilac tree and the water, the water is all around.  On blade and grass and leaf and limb.
Dappled the sunlight through the darkening, creeping in becoming the subtle colors that underline the changing.
Pines line the horizon and green grass is still and looks like a velvet cloth draped over the ancient contour.  Steadily they rise and into the sky.
Back over the yonder way, where the valleys lead to the bay, where the restless waters play and the ancient sailors sway beneath the blue yonder out beyond the night, into the day, again, until the wax is gone and the curtain collapses.

into the empty

and the glistening hand swam t'wards the pale purple sun.  A long line of creatures mired in the marsh stopped and listened to the frogs and toads.  An army of insects line the coveted leaves and a million lights rose from the steam.  The tree's were few and memorable, they dragged up to the stars a beard of silver tentacles and hushed a curved canopy beneath the night.
By day the olive drab covered much and the relief only was a mottled braun.
A red desert lay beneath.  And every hundred years or so it would appear, black pebbles and all.  Drink in the sunshine, and then disappear beneath the clear and present waters, darkening steadily with the algae.
A distant world, a memory wrapped in soft paper and hessian string, bound by the mysterious will of the mind.