Thursday, March 31, 2011

THIS IS MY BRAIN ON PURGE



"Hey Joey, you've been kinda quiet, dare I say lax, on the blog front. What up with that homey?"...Yeah, I know, it's been a subject that has been mentioned to me a surprisingly number of times in the last few months. I mean, who woulda thunk it...I have more than 3 readers of this thing? But to answer your question of why I've been so quiet on this front...I really have no idea, Bucky. Yeah, I've been busy as always with all things creative...just started a large 3 month (or more) long retrospective exhibition of my art from 2000 to 2010, called, POP, CULTURE, and FULL FRONTAL NUDITY at Black Line Studio (577 King St. West) in Toronto (kids listen to yo' uncle DAMMIT!, never skip an opportunity for shameless self-promotion...DAMMIT! rule #9 for World Domination!). I was asked if I'd like to do their window display...I said "sure", I mean, Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns all did window displays in New York before fame came a-knocking. I forgot that I was dealing with a very large 20 foot, by 10 foot window. I have never worked so hard...but damn I'm proud of it. It's up for six months, if ya have a chance, go down to the King West neighbourhood, have a gander at the window, and walk into any of the great, local restaurants, and pay 50 bucks for a salad and a beer (I'm just sayin'...)!!!!

I do think that is actually a very poor excuse for the lack of my special brand of post-modernist literature, that I spew here. My best guess...laziness. A sin I've never been accused of before...you know, maybe a case of the winter blahs. Not very motivated to tell ya the truth...in fact as I type this, I haven't the faintest on what this entry is gonna be about (some of you have already guessed that, haven't you? Smug bastards!). Sooooooooo....hows about we do one of those stream of consciousness kinda things...whatever comes to my mind...whatever is pissing me off...makin' me glad I'm alive...you get my drift, right? I'm tellin' ya, this could be blog gold...or a big piece of doggy poo. Shall we begin???

Like almost everyone I know, I am royally pissed off that we Canadians are off on yet another Federal election! What? Fourth one in seven years??!!! You gotta be kiddin' me! I mean you gotta be a complete moron (or NOW magazine, and it's loyal sheep/readers) to not know that it's gonna end up like the last two elections...A Tory minority. Look...Harper is a crook, corrupt to the core... you just have to look into his beady, spinning eyes to know he's a-keepin' a lot of secrets from the people...and what's with the Final Net hair, and ironing board stiffness? Still, the rest of the country is not downtown Toronto (don't gimme that...you secretly wish you lived here in the only great and important city in this whole country)...we'll never vote for the Conservatives, but the rest of the country love him, and will certainly vote for him. Look, truth be told, the ruling party usually has nothing to do with it when escaping a world wide crash in the economy. But Canadians don't know that. All they know is that we came out smelling like roses compared to so many other countries. Most still have money in their wallets, a job, and a solid roof over their head...or let's put it this way, "IT'S ALWAYS ABOUT THE ECONOMY STUPID!"

Is it just me, or can you never get enuff of that talking baby in those Etrade commercials? MORE TALKING BABY! MORE TALKING BABY!...Pissed off that I can't come up with a great scheme to get all my Facebook friends to hand over 5 bux (the win a date with Joey DAMMIT! silent auction didn't go over as well as I thought it would), so that I can spend this spring in Paris...Put my name on the video store's waiting list to rent season 4 of Mad Men, which came out yesterday. Me thinks that their list is a long one. Guess I'll have to continue fantasizing about that threesome with January Jones and Christina Hendricks...Happy that I live in the greatest country in the world, even if it is run by a very stiff, corrupt, evil Emperor...Why? All you gotta do is watch the news and see what's happening in every other country. Do you people know what the biggest story in all of Toronto media is? Oh...the Maple Leafs might still sneak into the Stanley Cup play offs!!! I kid ya not.

Very happy for my musical hero Trent Reznor, who wisely put his Nine Inch Nails into a retirement home, so that he could finally spread his musical wings, and not be held back by Industrial music, and lyrics about his impending suicide, or wanting to "fuck you like an animal". The man rightfully won a well deserved Oscar for his brilliant score for The Social Network. He looks pretty dapper in that tux too...and a hot wife to boot. Well done....Intensely happy that I have my choice of thousands of DVDs at my sticky fingertips. Yup, my Wall O' Movies comes in handy, especially since I don't have HBO (or the like), and I would be stuck watching nothing but Charlie Sheen, and his boring/predictable/fake/money making machine/suckin' you in- rants! Hey, get this...on my never ending, life long quest to be seen, and called, a Renaissance Man (blame the Leonardo da Vinci: Artist, Scientist, Philosopher, Genius documentary I watched when I was 8 or 9), I am now gonna add art teacher to my ever bulging CV. Workman Arts have asked me to teach an 8 week, class/workshop to other Workman Arts arteests on how to create my style of artwork. The course, called, MANIC MONTAGE & CHAOS COLLAGE, runs thru May and June of this year. I actually get paid very well for it...class #1, how many shots of tequila should one down before starting on their canvas.

I poo-pooed it away at first when a friend mentioned this, but me thinks she has a valid point. The quite important observation is this; Have you noticed that both here, and in the States, the Conservatives have by far the hotter looking female politicians??!!! It's true... I mean, logically you'd think the more Liberal the sexier the clothing, etc....but Noooooooooooooo... Thank gOD, I still consider brains, an important, and very sexy quality in a woman! This last detail will no doubt bother Tea Party members, who have gone on record as saying that intellect is vastly overrated. Sorry Sarah.

Okay...to get all those year end, list makers off my back (not even one person actually...Ouch!), here are my Top Ten Films of 2010:
  1. THE SOCIAL NETWORK
  2. NEVER LET ME GO
  3. 127 HOURS
  4. EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP
  5. THE AMERICAN
  6. BLACK SWAN
  7. THE RUNAWAYS
  8. HOWL
  9. TRUE GRIT
  10. THE KINGS SPEECH
All very good films...but all in all...Jeez...crappy year for movies! Had to scrape some to get even those ten...

You've probably read/heard all the rave reviews for BILLY ELLIOT, the musical that has just opened here in Toronto. Maybe it's that I hate musicals with an extreme passion (second only to the Religious Right...Cabaret the play and the film excluded), but why, is the simple thought of just sitting through 5 minutes of this theatrical tour de force, make me certain that I would prefer being repeatedly water boarded by Dick Cheney?...Hey, I love ya to pieces PBS, and I love your show, American Masters...BUT GLEN FUCKING GOULD WAS CANADIAN!!!!! GOT IT??!!!!

Sheeeeee-it! Think my mood disorder must be acting up...or something...CBC News Network keeps telling me every 5 minutes that the whole country has something called ROYAL WEDDING FEVER!!!! Really???? Hmmmmmm...Do you????? I don't even have ROYAL WEDDING SORE THROAT!...I had to stop buying Rolling Stone magazine...in the last few years, they have had many award winning articles...great writers and journalists...But what's with these fucking covers???? I am not gonna get on the subway, reading a magazine with Justin Beiber, or the cast of True Blood, or even more recently Snookie, or whatever the bimbo's name is from that Jersey Shore show. A show I proudly have never watched. " So, how can you judge a show that you've never seen Joey? Huh???"...well Bucky...I don't have to set myself on fire to know that I'm gonna get burned...and it's gonna hurt like Hell! I'm sorry, but the book, or magazine you're reading on public transit (I know..I know..."huh...read...when you have a cell phone???) says so much about you...as do shoes of course...The kind of shoes you wear in the outside world speaks volumes about you. If you know me, you know you won't see me in sneakers/running shoes, unless I'm going for a run, or heading to my studio to paint. I have to agree with novelist/journalist, and Canada's most stylish man, Russell Smith. In his men's style column in the Globe and Mail, he proclaimed, "running shoes should only be worn at the gym" (and working in your studio). AGREED!!!! So buddy...yeah, you in that really nice Kenneth Cole suit...take off your fucking Converse already!!!!!!

Now...I could go on, but how on Earth can you top a post that ends with..." So buddy...yeah, you in that really nice Kenneth Cole suit...take off your fucking Converse already!!!!!!"...You can't!


Joey DAMMIT!

Photo by Barry Shainbaum
www.barryshainbaum.com