I will not give in

IF I GET OLD, I WILL NOT GIVE IN
BUT IF I DO, REMIND ME OF THIS

Polish

POLISH

On a night that I stayed up til the six a.m with insomniac creativity, I painted my toenails.

My toenails used to grow inward and get infected. Pus and blood would ooze out. It was painful to endure but even more painful to treat. So I would usually let them rot and stink in my brown blood-crusted socks as long as possible. My doctors said I had the worst ingrown toenails they'd ever seen.
I finally got them so infected that the roots fell out. So the doctor lined the bed of my toe with rat poison and now I will never have another toenail on my left foot, and my right toenail will always be thin and short.

So I painted them with sparkly red nail polish. I did a horrible job, cause I don't usually do this. I like how covering my scars with glitter and color and still doesn't make it look pretty. Another reflection of society? Or I did it cause I was bored.

The paint came off in a few days, but showering in the dorm showers was a little embarrassing.

Another thing I can do with my toes is suck them:

Notes on the Wall

April fools? Art is like a joke and if you explain the punchline, the work loses integrity.
I'm sorry if my jokes are a little too vague or sophisticated.
Or illegal.

Embrace it or reject it, but my generation's art movement is street art. It doesn't need your approval to be considered art. It doesn't need a fancy gallery to be considered art. It doesn't need fame or fortune or identity to be considered art. It only needs a wall.


Street art is not about following the rules. It is not about me me me. It is about you you you. If they don't like my work, they paint over it. If they do, they are not charged an admission to see it. I risk jail time to show them my work, some would say, truly suffer for it. Not for me, for you.

Don't even call it art.


These are some examples of my street art and the responses from other artists. I don't know who they are. But I think this is all immensely amusing.

This is some of the first graffiti I ever did. It took me standing on a row of bike racks, barely aiming. The stencil was upside down and soon as the paint was applied my friend Ninja and I crossed the street. A security guard showed up and started screaming into a radio that we were just there. That's the closest I've ever been to getting caught.

The red eyes are still there, as of this date. The real "eyesore" is the fact that this wall was boring white and hadn't been painted over in some years. Notice the peeling. I made it look much better in my opinion.
It wasn't until recently that someone, a much better stencilist than I added "SORE" to the end, making pun of my art and possibly making fun of me. I don't mind, because it amuses me.

The argument still goes on, is graffiti art or vandalism? I decided I don't care. It is what it is. So I made stencils that claim: "THIS IS ART", "THIS IS NOT". I finally understand what the FREE ART? wheatpaster was trying to say.
It was clever to do, and then ZEAL/LABOR tagged underneath, as if to agree with my sentiment. It made my day.


Good things come in threes, but I only have two examples. I haven't done much stenciling in a coupla months. In any case, I feel as if I am communicating with my environment and people around me, albeit sarcastically, illegally and unintentionally. That's really what this movement is about. So what if I created an "eyesore"? I created much more than that in the process.
I'll leave the rest for you to interpret. That's your job.

Hexanchiformes (Mostly)

Hexanchiformes (Mostly)
March 9, 2008

Stole you, just to hear you whine mute again.
I’m addicted, not to you, but to the claw marks
you leave when you fuck me over.
Don’t try to act cute.
It’s not getting us anywhere.

How I could brag about avoiding you,
but now I must admit another guilt.
Another check-mark on my calendar,
towards a date that doesn’t get any closer.

They say tomorrow never dies
And then pull the shades down.
They say everyone is unique,
they didn’t count on me.

[Do not remember writing this. Thought it was decent, thought I would share]

The Happiest Photo in the World

The Happiest Photo in the World


My darkroom photo professor assigned portraits. I took pictures of Beth, Holly V. as studio portraits and K as an environmental portrait.
My prof liked my photos, but not my prints so he made me redo the originals today. He taught me how to use the parts of the photo enlarger that I didn't know. An hour later, my result was the happiest photo in the world.
No picture I have ever taken has made me as happy as the one of K. It's even hard to say any of my other work (writing, drawing) exceeds the pride and joy I felt for this print.


I'm really happy.

ABOUT THE PHOTO: CLICK TO ENLARGE: I took a picture of K in her kitchen applying makeup leaving a stream of (fake) blood trickled down her cheek. She was wearing weird purple gloves and a nice black blouse. The film did not dry correctly, and there are weird scratches and watermarks on the print. I love it more that way. I wanted this photo to be creepy, and it is beautiful at the same time.

I could easily say that the blood represents something anti-corporate or anti-establishment about makeup, but I'm not sure that was entirely my aim. Honestly though, when I read fashion mags I get very nightmarish images of what is really going on in between pages. Draw your own conclusion, if you will.

Schizophotography

I invented a new type of photography. Kinda. I'm not sure if this counts to you, or even to me. Not as an "invention". I coined the word at least.

I call it "SCHIZOPHOTOGRAPHY", which is:

"A portmanteau of schizophrenia and photography, schizophotography is deliberate disassociation with reality through photographic expression. Redefining "point and shoot", "snapshot". If the aim of photography is to remember then the aim of schizophotography is to remember what no one remembers. Mindless self-indulged photos. Beyond candid. Never posed, never using a tripod or straight angle. Forget focus, apertures, rule of thirds."

I wrote the entry on Urban Dictionary.com. Before that, I searched Google for many variations of the word, no results came up, period.

I don't know if you think this is original or crazy or stupid or not. But it's just something I've been working on in my spare time. It's better than nothing. I experimented when I was in Catalina Island and took 478 photos.
I will delete/hide the album soon. Then I will go through and actually edit the photos. This is mostly an experiment.
Some of the photos don't fit the definition. Oh well. I don't expect you to browse through them all. Or like most of them. Or understand why I did this. I'm not concerned.

I don't think schizophotography is original because many people take horrible photos of nothing (though not on purpose). I've been doing it all my life. I just coined the term, when I was going through old photos I've taken in my life and found some of my curtains. I have to admit, that picture said so much more about my childhood and personality at the age of eight than any stupid portraits I had or even most candids. I have an entire shoebox of similar pictures. Nothing and everything. And I treasure them.

I think that's the point. To explore my environment over myself.

---x

You can view my results here. Nothing is edited:


http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=24277312&albumId=1669556

Urban Dictionary entry:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=schizophotography

Dialogue Experiment

Dialogue Experiment

I wrote this for English class. I was supposed to write a dialogue between three historical figures, arguing about some poignant issue. I put it into a scene, gave my characters some life and some relevance.

I was very happy with what I wrote and I read it in front of the class. Everyone seemed to be shaken by it, good or bad. No one else wanted to read after me, one girl even said because she couldn't compare.

I'm not going to brag about myself and I'm sorry for dumping another school assignment in here, but I was truly pleased with what I wrote. This is a new style of writing I am trying out, where I just throw in too many adjectives and technical jargon and go with it. I did this for my last op/ed and a few other things and it seems too be working.

That is why I am sharing it. I know there are a few technical errors, and I could edit it a third time, but no thanks.




Beforehand, I was running on three hours of sleep for the last thirty-six hours. Finals week. A caffeine buzz that gutted my stomach; ripped me in two. Despite the health affects, I was studying some liberal doctrine on censorship in the schoolroom. When the clock struck two a.m. I drifted into a blur of psychotic delusion.
This is a mostly true dream I had while suffocating in my own psyche.
Sen. Joseph Raymond McCarthy was there, playing chess on a TV tray with Oscar Wilde. Mark Twain was there, carving into the wall with a Swiss army knife. The room they were in looked like the darkened captain's quarters on a steamboat. The windows were cracked and black-green with the stains of the ocean.
I was hiding in the closet, afraid that they would smell me out. I do not know what I feared from them, but I was bleeding from my ears and that seemed to provide an adequate explanation.
The chessboard was made out of ice. Wilde had his opponent on the run with three pawns and a half melted rook. His king was a puddle.
They were discussing theater for a while; Twain was off in his own little world, stabbing the wall. Between puffs of a clove cigarette Wilde would call McCarthy by his middle name, Raymond. Their dialogue was muddled, like I was hearing filtered underwater.
They got on the subject of censorship because recently one of Mark Twain's novels had been removed from school libraries across the country for being 'vulgar'. Raymond had a large smile that could have been cut from glass, it was so sharp.
"I couldn't be more pleased," he smirked. "Check."
"What's wrong with the book that makes it so dangerous?" Wilde asked.
"Well-"
"Will anyone really be hurt by the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?"
"Don't be melodramatic. The book itself is not dangerous, it's the language used in the book. It's an idea that could directly lead to violence, hate crimes and racist divisions." Raymond was yelling but from what I could hear it was like static on an FM dial. Twain was pounding his head against the wall and Wilde castled a third time.
"How does a book cause hate? How will a word used in historical context teach someone to hurt another?"
"The word 'nigger' devalues the black man. Teaching our children to devalue other people obviously causes violence. It even starts wars!"
"Really? That seems difficult to prove."
"Was not the American Civil War encouraged by Uncle Tom's Cabin? I mean, in a good way."
Twain shouted from his wall, "The Civil War was fought over taxes and secession, not slavery. Certainly not a trite, little book." He pounded his head again, and I could hear it crack louder than anything else. Wilde and Raymond ignored him.
"I meant it seems difficult to prove that the book teaches us to devalue each other, not that miseducation leads to war. However, censorship IS miseducation. I think more damage has been caused by censorship than from it." Wilde said patiently, chewing his cigarette callously. "The Nazis censored books, even such as the Bible. It is with an unavailability of diverse thought that any evil begins."
"America is not the same as Nazi, Germany, not even close!" Raymond pounded a fist against the chessboard.
"Imitation is the highest form of flattery."
Raymond was so silent the only sound was from the splintering of Mark Twain's forehead. The cherry in Wilde's cigarette crepitated in his clenched hand.
I began choking on something, material liquid, gas and solid all at once. Plasma asphyxiation. I hacked up dissolved wedges of my own trachea. Black bile dribbled out my lips, the taste of a concussion. The three in the other room heard me but chose to ignore the gurgles in the closet.
"Some," Raymond said. "Sacrifices must be made."
"Censorship is thought control. You would slaughter the mind on the altar of freedom?"
"Would you rather have our children hating and killing one another?" Raymond seethed in and out like a humidifier, visible clouds of gas seeped out his teeth.
"Your solution to the social ignorance of racism is to hide it? Outta sight, outta mind, right? You don't have to burn the books, just remove 'em?" Wilde played his pawn a space forward.
"Exactly! You do have some sense." Raymond laughed and more bile came out my mouth at the same time.
"Well, what about the damage your own life's work caused? Your mad raving about communism hurt people, perhaps even more than Twain's book ever will. I think we should censor that too, then." Wilde stood up. "Checkmate."
Mark Twain turned from the wall. His forehead had a gash like the entrance of a cave, with a waterfall of blood oozing out like a red carpet. His eyes were burning oil.
"George Bernard Shaw once said, 'assassination is the extreme form of censorship.'"
Twain pulled out a revolver and opened the chamber. He inserted one bullet and spun the cylinder. He held the weapon against Raymond's teeth and pulled the trigger.
I heard an explosion, but woke up before I witnessed a result. I was drooling on myself in a stupor of over-stimulation, dazed by a fit of narcolepsy.
The sun was rising.