utilityofnothing

in the next two weeks i will be leaving to travel the US. im sorry thats a bit limited for some of you, or most of you, but for those of you in the US, upon your request, i can come to your town. i do not require a place to stay. while im there, i can paint a portrait of you or anyone you know, meet with you to share techniques and method concepts, etc, for some good old artist camaraderie. i also write and play music (jazz, blues) if you are interested in any of that.

i should be heading out around by sept 8th or so, and plan to be on the road for about a month, hoping to be back in the south by mid to late october.

hit me up if youre down with a visit from me in your town.

Clearly i have begun painting again. in fact, i dont think i ever stopped. time lapses. however, im not exactly painting as i used to, so a change has certainly occurred. what *did* happen, anyway? somewhere along the lines i became emotionless, throwing cares and concerns over my shoulder to land on an invisible shelf supported somewhere at the back of my head. and sleeping. i slept much of the days and the one unfinished piece (Fragment Motion; i think a month went by) sat upright on a stack of blankets, leaning against the wall, and i lay days wasting on the small portion of my bed that was not covered in empty endeavors, forgotten excursions, lost experiments, filth. and then sometime ago i lost my job and, eyes popping out of my head for all the magnesium my body has dwindled, went to town saying, "perhaps and maybe" --but no! i must be certain this time, and do. just fucking do. get up and do, damn you.

So I may have stopped painting. For a time. Im working on literature now. Get on the ball, they say. People want me to write, then they say paint, then they say play music, and each time, i cant help but agree.

It is what it is.

Ive been painting alot alot alot lately. Ive been experimenting with various methods of abstraction and arbitrating form(such as writing words to determine space and relation). anyhoo, today i uploaded abunch, and thats not even half of what ive done since ive been gone. i buy something like 4 canvases/panels a week. long story short, im back(there was no internet for months!).

and now i have to go to work.

As I look over the photos of the old faces in old routines of old places I wonder, and its nothing special, what I wonder. They're in another time, another world, living wildly on whatever vices lie in wait beyond the corner, beyond the night. I wonder if they would recognize me now, after these years and habits kicked; my hardened heart has grown soft again, and so has my face. Strangers used to think I was much, much older than I am, and now they think Im younger. I see Soup shooting pool at the John and he still has his one black glasses lense over his one bad eye. Greenteeth Sean grew a beard and no longer resembles himself, the himself I knew. Some change and some stay the same, but new orleans will always be another time, another place, where the clocks dont even tick despite the sun's passing. I hear stories of of stabbings and derailed freight trains; a 5AM head-shave from a crackhead while blacked out in a barber shop, waking up in the gutter with broken ribs. rapings and near-kidnappings and an angry junkie with a lead pipe. I remember the girls I made sing before I broke their hearts on a bottle of gin, and the big black gay pianist who loved me, but I cant remember his name. The street was easy and the hustles were plenty, and getting drunk was free, and if not, cheap. Crack was everywhere and I was halfway to hell pushing steel wool in a broken glass tube. I can miss it, but a well of bad jazz pours out of my guts and I remember being half conscious outside a convenience store, wanting someone to call the cops for me because the clerk wouldnt let my bloody body step foot inside.