Ain't it fun

My momma, bless her heart, instructed me, 'Don't make personal remarks, never tell a hostess you enjoyed yourself, don't force anything mechanical, never kick anything inanimate and don't fuck around with the inevitable'. Now, Gold, it appeared to me that in disputing with me you were drawing very close to fucking around with the inevitable. I hope I am mistaken.

Catch 22

"Be glad you're even alive."

"Be furious you're going to die."

The number of the beast

I'm always down for goat encounters. But I can pretty much rule out having one for a pet now -- some guy came over and told horror stories to my dad about how his rogue goat used to jump up on everyone's cars about as soon as they pulled up in the drive.

Regardless of that, they're still cute, they still have octopus eyes and I've been seeking them out, living vicariously through various kinds of fencing.

Satanic symbols couldn't get much cuter.

This guy was the best, he came straight over to see what was up. Everyone else was shy.

Jirat James Patradoon

Jirat James Patradoon is probably my favourite Australian artist, more so than Lister now... It almost physically pains me how much I'd like to have his talent -- or even just huge pieces of his work adorning my walls.
Look and love.

Both images copyright Jirat James Patradoon.

I saw a couple of his works in Byron gallery Retrospective last year (?) and they're so much better (bigger, brighter, meaner) in real.

He makes me want to lock myself up and learn to draw for real, but I have no where near that discipline.

Blog here too.

The Likes of You

And look at us, all our lives at different levels with our fuck ups and failings cast all around behind and before us. Ex-communicated wives, kids and girlfriends, drinking problems, lost jobs and driver’s licences, no money, no board, no car, no booze, no cigarettes, no clothes, drug problems, and that guy on liquid acid sitting quietly at the table... Al making cock-and-balls out of sausages and rissoles, the boys kicking the football onto the roof, the phonecalls, the hand rolled cigarettes, the coming night, the passing fitness freaks, the bullsharks being reeled in on the river and bogans in hotted up cars. All this stuff is crashing heavily around us in what is just another evening, and at times it weighs heavy on one or two of the minds. But we all just keep getting by and surviving, because that’s what we know. We have fun on our lives’ tight budget and hope that waking up next to that person will be enough to make you smile today, that that tiny break is going to make it seem worth it, when it comes.
It’s all miniscule and big at the same time, and it’s impossible to balance, so we never try. We just keep on going on until we notice again the failures and fuck ups strewn out before and behind us forever.
And we hope it won’t matter.

Weird scenes inside the goldmine

Having a time in the archives.

It's time for the desert wild.

Time for an island, get drunk, write and sail.

Freshness

Francoise Nielly

Image: Copyright Francoise Nielly

Juxtapoz just dragged this little gem out into the light... Francoise Nielly paints oils with a knife and super-bright fluro colours.

James Jean

Image: copyright James Jean

How amazing is absolutely everything he creates?

Middle-aged

Process: You can't go back the way you came

The time has come for me to try and figure out how to paint as opposed to colour in large sections of canvas.
As this post suggests, I have no idea what I'm doing ever... but none-the-less, here's how I'm doing it.

At this point my parents got awkward about the really shit thing I was making.
"They're... nice... colours."
Mum teaches kinder kids, so she knows how to compliment things that represent a similar skill-level.

That weird jaundiced colour was caused by it being night-time when I got done, and there was a bit of a wet paint slick whacking shit out up the top.

But I like her enough.
It's my first painting in ages.

Home is wherever I am with you

Love letter to ESPO

Love Letter to Syracuse from Maarten Jacobs on Vimeo.

I remember first getting into street/urban art by way of the Stencil Revolution site, and then Wooster Collective. Wooster Collective was the first place I saw Espo's work and was totally blown away, but not quite comprehending.
Stephen 'ESPO' Powers has a clean, nostalgic sign-writer style and packs the sort of wisdom that makes you hope, selfishly, that it's your world he's commenting on.
And his "Love Letter to Syracuse"... love and wit coming together in big big big sign writing prowess is nothing short of rad. And according to Juxtapoz's site, Faythe Levine and Samuel Macon have made a short film about Syracuse, too.

But how nice it must be to drive past snippets of Love on your way home from work or the supermarket.

Love Letter to Syracuse from Maarten Jacobs on Vimeo.

I remember first getting into street/urban art by way of the Stencil Revolution site, and then Wooster Collective.

Act in haste, repent at leisure

It took me a year to finish this film and get it developed, but it was a mighty fine year.

"That most substance-addicted people are also addicted to thinking, meaning they have a compulsive and unhealthy relationship with their own thinking... That 99% of compulsive thinkers' thinking is about themselves; that 99% of this self-directed thinking consists of imagining and getting ready for things that are going to happen to them; and then, weirdly, that if they stop to think about it, that 100% of the things they spend 99% of their time and energy imagining and trying to prepare for all the contingencies and consequences of are NEVER GOOD...
In short, that 99% of the head's thinking activity consists of trying to scare the everliving shit out of itself."

I love David Foster Wallace so much.

out on the roof, sippin' 90 proof

These shots surfaced when I was trying to safeguard against losing all my shit when my computer finally, inevitably, goes into its mother electronic arrest system meltdown.
When the fuck-up hammer finally smashes down.
Because my life is a series of incidents involving leaking battery acid, melting cables, smashed lenses, and shit just not working.
I had a bad morning with the dryer, computer, ipod, camera....
Anyway, introducing Aston Street.
A singlet so good it was pinned to the wall until it had to be used to soak up one of many JD spillages.
Because a JD cap is too small to do shots out of.
Laptop in its hey day, meaning when it still had the functions of a laptop and was portable.
Pint of goon in bed is right too.

Bitemarks. He's psyched.

During this time we compulsively listened to this:



It reminds me of getting wasted on my bed, watching my pet geckos Biggie and Pac eat bugs that were caught in the white curtain, getting up at 5am with the brutalist of hangovers, and getting psyched as love got bigger.
Also on the playlist were Ratatat: 17 Years, Biggie: Party and Bullshit, Fleetwood Mac: Crimson and Clover, The Shins and Hendrix pretty much nonstop, burning Nag Champa and kicking back.

Camberwell Markets in Melbourne. What a fresh day.
Marvel Street Byron Bay.
It is basically just goon punch, cigarettes, gossip mags, and Dylan gasping 'Oh my God!' like the raging homo he is every two minutes.
It is love.

Sometimes, do you get the feeling that you've made a really bad decision in leaving the past behind?
Or is that just what nostalgia is?