I Don’t Watch TV

I make things…

Romantique Nouveau

Re-Start

 

I began following the hollywood rules

Laden with lies and vicious jewels

I gave myself up to love 

But never got my full wages

 

Should I have expected?

Is it right that when I devote I get neglected?

I found the cure to the fever

It is to drink and fall into a life meaningless

 

I tried this out once again

Never trust love – your fickle friend

But a friend is what it leaves me

I would give up and let anyone have me

 

I beg you just to let me touch

The hand of loathing has me in tight clutch

I would refuse the boy who would never

Tear me so I tear him

 

But now under this yellow moon

Nostalgia beckons and it croons

To make me remember all that love is and does

But I try and try again

Earthdick

Earthdance last year was the best weekend of my life. I found my third eye and soaked in the most blissful vibe of peace/love/unity/respect that I have ever experienced.

Unfortunately this year I was in a hurry to leave the ground that Earthdance was on in Sydney. It was the exact opposite of what this festival was supposed to be about. 

The area was a park in the city, fenced off and smeared with pigs. Most of the pigs had sniffer dogs that went through anything/everything/everyone. It was not a comfortable surrounding.

No drugs/alcohol/unsealed water-bottles/fun.

I saw no earth people – no culturally vibrant/artistic life-loving beings. Nobody was tripping either. The place was in fact full of bleach blonde skanks in short shorts showing off to the drunk shirtless guys wearing the matching faux 80’s sunnies (how I loathe thee).

I came and left as quickly as I could. This atmosphere depressed me. Humanity tends to depress me all the more every day. But I am a happy person I swear!

Bata’

I have finally settled into a small Samba band in Sydney – as I was feeling a lack of leisurely artistic involvement till now. Through this I was invited by my new friends Benny & Rana to practice ‘Bata’ drumming every monday night. We have been involved in these sessions the last three weeks and last night we had a visitor join us for some more intense and recorded fun!

I met Walter through my old Perth samba band – Beleza. He is a great percussionist and a very influential example – there are a lot of people in that band I look up to. Lately he has travelled from WA to NSW and is continuing up the coast in about a week. 

I was inspired to write about this because I have fallen in love with samba and percussion over the last 18 months. To play percussion with a wealth of people is a bond and a feeling that is so different from that of playing my bass guitar/viola. It becomes a trance.

You must close your eyes and your mind and just experience the natural phenomenon of that which is your subconscious controlling your hands. It is almost magical when you are slapping on a hide so fast you don’t know what you are doing anymore. It is something I relate to dance in that – the physical energy and the soul you put into it is so surreal and so uncontrollable.

The Notebook

I try and spend some time each day to do an illustration. Of what feeling or person or even stood out to me that day. What remained prominent about these moments in my memory. It is a good way to document and a good way to keep my pencil and brush in contact with paper more often than not. Here are a few I finally managed to scan.

Family & The Fifth Wheel

Little bit of a photography experiment – using a little set up of people I cut out from old romantic novels I found on the side of the road in Petersham. It is an installation about those days when you see couples everywhere – and you find yourself disgusted by their happiness. You just want to pull your cutlass out and kill them all. That may be a bit of an over-exaggeration - but everyone knows the feeling. The cut-out idea was discovered in a book I picked up at the book-shop near my house – too expensive to buy though and too hazy to remember the photographer who put it together. Maybe I will find out sometime and show you. A decent camera would probably work better in my favor.