Work, work, work

Well I am back at work after a week off and it does feel a bit surreal, I can see how people in isolation - self imposed or otherwise - can create their own separate unique realities. Is this because you are cut off from the collective consciousness, that consensus of understanding that informs our everyday...

That said I am fully refreshed eager to do battle, bring it on :-)

Man of Qee Blog: 2.5 inch Qee Sky Doll Cat

Man of Qee Blog: 2.5 inch Qee Sky Doll Cat

Toy2R Contest

Free Qees? you don't have to ask me twice

http://www.toycyte.com/toycyte-trick-or-qee-gigantic-giveaway

My name is Ozymandias...

Well I am officially excited, I can't wait for this to come out, global recession be damned!

I have waited soooo long for this movie to be made and now finally (legal wranglings aside) it looks like it's here.

Next march can't come too soon, maybe I'll get a Watchmen tattoo to celebrate - always wanted Doctor Manhattans hydrogen sign on my forehead...

If this movie is half as good as it looks it will be earth shatteringly awesome in its awesomeness, who knows maybe even Alan Moore will give it his seal of approval.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/watchmen/high.html

"My name is Ozymandias king of kings, look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair"

SAD

I am unnaturally excited about Heroes season 3, after season 2 descended into farce, episodes 1-3 of the new season have been superb and given me hope and another reason to live - right kids! Can't wait for Tuesday so I can download episode 4. It's just the tonic (along with lots of tea and cake OR biscuits OR donuts OR a combination of all three) to keep me through long British winter which has started to bite, an even as the credit crunch limits my social movements to those of hamster at least I can watch quality US TV the audio-visual equivalent of a SAD lamp to beat the blues.

Lucha libre!

Love this work, something really, look at this little fella, how cool is he, and the paintings are really haunting almost otherworldly, I wonder what's inside her head apart from talent.

http://www.miserychildren.com/

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it

"Primarily this is because rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and have abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men. True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence....The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit." - FDR, 1933, sound familiar anyone? Clearly the pursuit of wealth for wealth's sake is a trivial one, but a lesson we have yet to learn. I'm sure FDR is spinning in his grave.

Bruce Parry is my hero!

Gotta love a guy who can throw up and present a TV show at the same time, hardcore! Do they teach that in the marines? No wonder we have the best army in the world if they are trained by people like Bruce.  Then there's the imbibing of mind altering substances...Some of the finest TV ever made! Bruce you rock

http://www.bbc.co.uk/amazon/

"I am Godzilla! You are Japan!"

Today the last rays of summer bathed London in artificial optimism as the world continues to scratch its balls and the capitalist experiment is shown up for the sham it is. It amazes me that we all just sit around and hope the for the best whilst our leaders bail out rich bankers with our tax money, damn are we stupid or what.

Ah well, time to plan a new tattoo, I am thinking of a Nietzsche quote, something like 'when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you' or 'He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster'. Or maybe I'll go for the katakana text for Gojira...hmmmm. And what the fuck was up with Godzuki?

Soundtrack: Flobots - "Handlebars"

I squish your head!

Well the world hasn't ended yet that's tomorrow but there is a new iPod Nano which looks really cool so at least that's something.

Film of the year so far 'The Wackness', I graduated art school in '94 so the soundtrack just rules...if you don't love it then you don't deserve ears, buy it, steal it, whatever it takes.

"I squish your head!"

Bored....

I am now officially bored of the internet, it's everywhere just like TV! And now it's even showing TV programmes. Where has the cutting edge gone it's lost it's new smell? Web 2.0, Web 3.0, blah, blah, blah, bollocks! I need a paradigm shift, multi-dimensional holographic mind projections that are fed by the collective unconscious, now that would be cool!

Selvedge snob

Now I am vain I admit it, I have at various times adorned myself with jewelry and piercings (nose, eyebrow, lip, ears) but have always moved on, bored with that particular caprice (am just left with my 12mm ear plugs and tattoos) but I have never been the worlds worst fashion victim. However I have been doing my research and realised that I am a denim snob, not the £200 + kind but if it aint selvedge I don't want it, so unaware was I of this affliction that whilst I knew the term never really thought about it. However on Friday I picked up a pair of Lee 101B Dry in a sale and got that total sense of consumer satisfaction, it was an itch that needed to be scratched, I have also read that I shouldn't wash them but wear them until they get a distinct patina which can take up to 6 months, can't wait.

On another note, I wonder how many people out there enjoy the decadent pleasure of oatcakes with stilton and baked beans? I was introduced to this delicacy many moons ago whilst at art college and had forgotten it's sublime taste and texture until just the other day when it popped into my head, so simple , so exquisite, try it.

Rockkkkkk!

Now am not really a rocker but I do like a guitar solo, and I listened to this track for the first time in ages - possibly a year even - and oh wtf, it almost brought a tear to my eye. The solo on 'Oh, Sweet Nuthin' totally rules (I am doing the sign of the horns as say that out loud), top banana!

Heavens End

I think it's the apocalyptic Kali Yuga side of me that looks forward to the world disappearing into a black hole (actually I would settle for France) after they crank up the uber cool Large Hadron Collider (LHC) next month. Nestled under the Franco-Swiss border, eggheads will fuck shit up egghead style recreating the building blocks of the universe, how cool is that? I can't wait to see the stars going out one by one and imagining some geezer in a white lab coat mumbling "oh bugger" as it all goes black, watch this space....

Soundtrack: Fix to Fall - Loop

On the perception of time...

We are constantly reminded of what an accelerated culture we live in, of how fast our lives are. Days, weeks and months seem to breeze past without a trace leaving many of us with a feeling of anxiety that somehow we are missing out. Constantly bombarded by media images we are told we should be off somewhere exploring the world or our inner selves, we should be meditating with saddhus in India or riding rapids in North America or following the Inca trail, soaking up experience for experience sake. But surely we need a context to our travails, without this we are just chasing our own tails. With this in mind, I had the last week off work (just need to use up some leave time). I had nothing planned, no schedule, nothing to run around for, and for a short time actually slowed down. There was no feeling of constant motion, of acceleration, mainly just peace and quiet, it was only the five days but it felt like two weeks. I guess what I'm trying to say is that from time to time we should all (where possible) take time to do nothing, there that's it.

Untitled (Red Cross) 2008

Well, I always figured one of the main reasons for my current incarnation was to learn patience, I am naturally very impatient and struggle constantly with my need for thought to be translated instantly into results, but today I have finished my most recent artistic endeavour not too soon nor too late and I am entirely satisfied both with the result and the manner of it's creation.

For me painting is a journey, this is what separates it most from the graphic arts; when you start the end point is less certain than if you were designing a poster or a magazine cover -- not that I am any kind of designer -- but the process is as important as the end product, something which I am slowly but surely trying to apply to the rest of my life and try to remember 'Life is a marathon, not a sprint'.

Today I buried a pigeon

Still warm, I placed it's broken, melancholy form into the freshly dug hole as the rain fell from the grey skies of a typical English summers day. Was it suicide or was it an accident? The unfortunate bird had struck the window in my mothers house with such force that it was thrown back five feet, landing in a crumpled heap and leaving an eerie ghost-like impression on the glass.

Up to that point it had been an unremarkable day, I had gone round to my mums as I hadn't seen her in weeks and was showing her some family photos on Facebook in another room when we heard the sickening thud, at first it was a mystery we couldn't see what had happened but my mum soon noticed the a strange mark on the window, and it was only then that I looked outside to see the recently deceased avian.

We couldn't just dump it in the bin and we couldn't leave it -- the cats would play with it -- so interment was the only option; a shallow grave, a couple of bricks to (hopefully) stop the foxes and voila!

Then it was back inside for a coffee and biscuits, and a discussion on how the poor little blighter had met it's end, which was inconclusive.

My painting is coming on nicely, my tattoo is itching, there is a pack of oreos which is calling my name.

Better late than never, right?

Well I guess it's about time I got rid of some the junk that nestles in the silt of my brain and what better way to do so than with a blog, I can spew forth my inane ramblings and occasionally shrewd observations into the blogosphere for all to see, read etc.

So what's on the agenda? Well strangely today not all that much: my latest tattoo -- pictured -- is healing nicely, no I'm not a Communist, well not a real one, but I do like a red star!