always david

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he is almost an instinct of mine.  in my alcohol-fueled lethargy, i began to quiz myself over the relevance of art...  what it means, what my art means and whether or not it even matters.  this is an aggravating little game artists play with themselves, it seems, but in the moment it really hurts.  it hurts to ask yourself, "is art meaningless?"  it's so close to asking whether or not life is meaningless.

and maybe it is.  maybe life is meaningless.  maybe art's role is to provide the meaning we're all searching for?  or at least an avenue to it.  i don't know.  i just suddenly found myself wondering this evening whether or not i'm defeated...  whether or not i still contain the requisite amount of FIGHT.  despite recent encouragements, i suddenly felt worn out.  

i got out of bed and went to my book case.  i needed another artist.  i needed a mentor.  i needed someone to tell me that everything is okay and to pull my shoulders back and fuck what the rest of the world thinks.  my eyes flowed across my collection of art books.  so many volumes of kiki smith's work, louise bourgeois, keith haring, andy warhol.  i paused at francesca woodman.  i paused again at terrence koh.  then i came across a book i forgot i had.  a book i hadn't even read yet.  i pulled it from the shelf.  david wojnarowicz's 7 MILES A SECOND. 

the moment i start reading his work i come face to face with the truth that art is a way of life.  i don't need to torture myself with the question of whether or not my work "matters".  what does that even mean?  i don't need to make myself cry about the accomplishments i've not yet made.  art is a path.  or better yet, art is a language.  it is how i speak.

i read his texts and i want to cry.  not only because of the sadness his work so often describes but because of his fearlessness in telling his story, his bravery in regard to confronting the twists of the heart and mind.  his love of humanity was so unapologetic, so humbling...  and so i want to cry when i am confronted with his work:  i am humbled.  i realize, in the face of david wojnarowicz's work, to ask, "does my art matter?" is a waste of time and effort.  just do the work.  just speak.  and even if it's just to speak about something as aggravating as my struggles with my own artistic temperament, that's alright.  i silence myself too quickly sometimes.  i mean, we all need to complain to each other every now and then.  it does us good to know we're not total freaks in this regard.  we all fear our work is total crap...  that how we are choosing to spend our lives is an act of  futility.  david's work reminds me that this is absolutely not the case.  the point is to care enough about the brevity of life to use what time you have to connect the way you want to connect with other human beings.  the point is to breathe as deeply as you can breathe, so deeply it hurts and then to tell the truth about yourself...  the truth that hurts.  the truth that nags and won't stop tossing and turning until you finally acknowledge it exists and needs a space in which to be seen, to be dealt with, to be wrestled with and contended with.

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YOLO

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58th @ telegraph
oakland, CA 2014


walking home in the cold tonight through oakland, i came across a couch that had been abandonned on the side of the road and totally stripped of its skin. perfect canvas for an Ode to David Wojnarowicz.  this is an action i've been taking for close to two years now.  the text is taken from his essay THE SUICIDE OF A GUY WHO ONCE BUILT A SHRINE OVER A MOUSE HOLE which is one of the most affective, searing personal essays i've ever read.  David Wojnarowicz is one of my most favorite artists.  an instant beloved and i ache for his loss.  the art and writing he left in his wake is beyond tremendous and i am inspired every day by his endless bravery and daring.  he was in touch with his own mortality the way few people are and, fearlessly, the man created and loved and didn't apologize for either of those things.  if you haven't read the essay, get your hands on it.  get your hands on any/all of his work.  because make no mistake: one day this is going to be YOU, friend.  each and every last one of us is going to meet our end.

SMELL THE FLOWERS WHILE YOU CAN.


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impotent dick

okay, okay...  so i have a bit of a habit.  me and my big black marker possess quite an affinity for abandoned furniture.  i just can't help it.  :)

in honor of David Wojnarowicz
58th Street Oakland, CA
August 15th, 2013


the flash blew out the black lines of the text but whatever.  this isn't an art that cares about being pretty.  in fact, prettiness is the least of its concerns.  the uglier the better, actually.  as human beings, we spend substantially more time discussing, dissecting, analysing, and assessing the "ugly" than we do the "beautiful".  that's an observation i can use as a tool and my aching heart simply won't let me walk passed an opportunity to get a little ink out in the world.

i actually walked passed this loveseat and made it all the way to the next block before the hook got in, whipped me around, and lured me back.  it's impossible to resist such a big, open canvas when i've got my Sharpie Magnum in my bag.  :)  especially after having sucked down a Corona after work and walked a mile from the train after waiting tables for 6 hours and all i can think of are the hands that aren't on my tits and the tongue that isn't in my mouth, my empty bed and my dead mother and how totally fucking angry me and my siblings are, how totally angry me and everyone else is. at least half the time.  because at least half the time we all feel like we're caught in some sorta crazy shit that is spinning well beyond our control and IF we're not allowed to have control then let's get a little out of fucking control. why not?  just once.  just for a minute.  let's see what it's like.  let's see if it feels good.  let's see if the house really burns down.  let's call bullshit on the threats.  let's see if the rules really exist or if its just impotent dick.  because i learned the hard way what being "good"  gets me.  scraps just like any other begging dog and no closer to claiming a seat in any supposed heaven.


it isn't bitterness.


and so i sat down on the edge of this loveseat abandoned on the street and i searched and searched and searched for my big black marker in the crazy abyss of my big black bag.  it took a while to root it out but i wasn't in a hurry.  one of my favorite things about being a Grown Up is the fact that i'm allowed to be out at night.  i love walking around my beloved oakland after midnight when everything is slow and dark and romantic.  i love the way streetlamps make everything beautiful; lonely in that way that makes the tears sting...  that unnamable heartache that lives within us all...


it isn't bitterness, it's heartache.


i take out my marker and i think of my mother.  i think of all the things she wanted to do.  i remember David Wojnarowicz and how adamant he was, how dedicated and in love with Art, how totally convinced he was that humanity matters and that we all have a right to live, not just march toward our End.  i think of what a minimal effort it takes to simply REACH IN YOUR BAG AND GET YOUR PEN, GIRL and i write the words.

i write the words because words make the world.  and i want to be in control of the world that i'm making for myself.  i want to see myself sitting securely below the lamplight on a dark street after midnight writing the mantra of a dead artist on a dead loveseat.  i want to see myself alive and moving, passionate and reaching toward the world.  fuck it if i make a mistake.  fuck it if the rules are real after all.  i can't stand the thought of dying before i've actually managed to say something.



it isn't bitterness, it's heartache.  it's the heartache born of realizing our time is too short and a day will never be longer than it is and later this week the loveseat will be hauled away to the dump where it will be hacked in to pieces by a man with a big bad axe.  and that's exactly the point.  one day, that's gonna be me too.  and you. 


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everything is new

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20 hours of travel, a delayed flight, a diverted flight, sleeping on the floor of SFO as i waited for the first trains to begin running.  it was a long walk home that morning but i didn't mind.  it was the first time i'd put my earbuds in in a month.  i was the first time music had coursed through me in lock step with my fast-beating heart.  it was the first time in a month that i was able to lock in to myself, only myself, like masterbation, no one else, no distractions, no concerns, no muttering in the distance.  i had been outside myself for an entire month.  i had been in the wind, in the sun, within a language that floored me and made me its' servant.  gladly (gerne). i'd been so outside myself for an entire month that it seemed impossible to find myself walking along familiar roads.  a part of me was still in Berlin, crossing the Oberbaum Brucke, not crossing Shattuck Ave in Oakland, California.

as i came closer to my house, a dirty, discarded chair came in to view.  no cushions, abandonned on the side of the road.  "ahhh... a canvas..." i thought.  a canvas.  i didn't know how badly i needed one until i saw one.  i went inside and grabbed my big, black marker.  "yes.  perfection.  the first thing i will do upon arriving in oakland is write on the street", i told myself, "this is the only real beauty.  this is the only gesture i have."  i thought of my beloved bridge in Kreuzbeg and my heart ached something awful.  where had my endless waters gone?  i thought of David Wojnarowicz and his plea that we live life like it actually fucking matters.   i thought of his refrain.  i scrawled it quick in fat print:

yes i will.  i fucking promise.


it's so hard to believe a week has already gone by since i've been home.  there is so much to say...  it will come as it is able.

yesterday evening, i stood in my dark kitchen and watched a man cross the street to take a picture of the abandoned chair.  the sun obscured the image and he kicked the chair in a half circle there on the corner to get it out of the glare.   i watched him the entire time.  it was a moment of quiet happiness.  it was a moment of connection to another human being.  i have no idea what to label the work i do that happens in the street.  i very rarely think of it as ART.  or rather, ART isn't even the consideration.  i think of these things as Signs.  as a Cry.  it was wonderful to be able to witness my cry being heard.  not only heard, but echoed in the heart of another.  i felt unbelievably lucky.

i am happy to stretch out in my white room and see the reflection of my body flash in the armoir mirror.  i am happy to make coffee in my kitchen and spend the first 2 hours of the day scribbling in my diary.  i am happy to have a washer and drier at my disposal.  but i assure you, 3 weeks overseas was definitely not enough.  all my plans have changed. my ideas are totally shattered.  i have no answers and all of my goals have been flung far and wide. 

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a sentence and a landscape:

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