UNDERCULTURE

The subject matter of this diptych is pretty trite, and some would even say kitsch. I happen to be one of them but I needed a solid subject matter with which to push my lights and darks a little further, as well as start working with highlights and bring some colour into what some refer to as my flat blacks (which is, obviously, not the case. I can’t even remember the last time I touched black paint). It came out a lot more successfully than I ever thought it would.

Firstly, you must know that this painting has been a long time coming. I first acquired the massive canvas sometime in 1997 from one of the then PE Technikon. It was covered in notes and pages, most of them containing Nick Cave lyrics. I always meant to do something but never go around to it. In the meantime, it became a table, a wargaming surface and a door. Finally, finally I got cracking on it about a year ago. It was my intention to use the structure you see there (the red blocks) as a backdrop for several found objects, namely letters and flowers from Danni. That didn’t work.

And so I’d been staring at it for the last two months thinking of what I could do with it, to take it that next step forward, to take it from just pretty patterns to something meaningful and tangible. It struck me last week: I often refer to Danni as my North Star because, as I like to tell her, it is by her light that I navigate, which ties itself perfectly with the three panels, telling of the star’s ascendency.

It must also be noted that this is not a small work, being seme 2 meters across.

So, I’ve had this image floating in my mind for quite a while, I just never seemed to have gotten around to putting the final details down. This is similar to another piece I did a while back, called The Wonderful Mr. Happy which is a stylized depiction of a fantastic creature both incredibly malign and stupendously stupid. Those of you familiar with my Dangerous World cartoons I did for John Cheese will hopefully note the striking similarities.

The high-quality, large version can be found here.

Good
I’m on a limited budget these days (I think everyone is) and so I don’t get to go out often. That’s why it was such a treat to be invited to an extravaganza at the Kyoto where I got to eat my fill in sushi. And not just any old sushi either. This stuff is good. It’s so fucking good in fact, that I am surprised every fucking time. I’d also tell you about the crayfish teppanyaki but it’ll just sound like I’m showing off.

Hmmm. Yumminess.

Bad
Last week, I ranted about the EP Herald’s utter inability to put together a decent art review. I missed my mark, their incompetence actually spans all forms of aesthetic and cultural outputs. If this weekend’s Weekend Post (I’d provide a link but they haven’t updated their site since last Thursday) is anything to go by, they are unable to tell a good film from their own anuses with both hands and a map.

What’s got me so irked, you ask? Well, it’s that these idiots gave Hellboy 2 (7.6/10 on the IMDB), directed by the talented Guillermo del Toro a 2.5 rating. This is the same fucking rating as Meet Dave, a movie about Eddie Murphy as a robot piloted by a little Eddie Murphy (Hilarity ensues), and 1.5 points less than Mama Mia! which is (and I quote) “the story of a bride-to-be trying to find her real father told using hit songs by the popular ’70s group ABBA.” Aaaarrrggghh!

Ugly
ABSA are the proud and deserved winners of my contempt and hatred in this week’s Ugly section. You see, their phones have this automated system by which, after a few rings and no-one picking it up, they transfer your call to the national call centre. In theory, it sounds like a good system. In practice, however, and handled by retards, it is a system worthy of the Vogons themselves.

Let me explain. I phone the ABSA branch wanting to speak to Idiot A. Idiot B answers the phone and transfers my call. Idiot A is not there, so my call is transferred to call centre where Idiot C answers. After asking me what I want, they decide that I need to speak to a specific person (Idiot D) in the credit card division. Idiot D in the credit card division does not answer their phone and so I get patched through to the call centre again where a new idiot, Idiot E, picks up my call. I decide to be even more precise and take the time to explain my query in detail. Idiot E agrees with me that Idiot C was wrong and I didn’t need to speak to the credit card division but to a specific person in the local branch (Idiot A). They patch me through and my call is answered by Idiot B who apologizes and puts me through to Idiot A who doesn’t answer her phone and I then get patched to… You get the idea.

I am still waiting for them to call me back like they said they would. Fuck ‘em. Really, really fuck ‘em. With a stick. Made of snakes and wasps.

Good
Alright, alright, hold your horses (or whores, depending on what your riding crop’s used for - I don’t judge). I know I haven’t updated this in a few weeks but, in my defence I was up in Johannesburg for about 10 days. It was good: I got to see old friends, got to drink expensive drinks, got to eat like a pig and, most importantly, got a sharp visceral reminder of just how pleasant Port Elizabeth really is.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that this city is perfect (far from it!). All I’m saying is that it ain’t all that bad: it’s got no dust and smog cloud, it’s got no traffic and most of the houses aren’t behind twelve-foot walls. I also noticed, with some delight, that people are just a fucking retarded up north what with filling newspaper pages (the Star if memory serves me right) claiming that evolution is a lie and that God created us all. All in all, it served as a healthy reminder that you’re going to get dense idiots no matter where you go.

One thing did strike me about Johannesburg, though, and I have to give them their dues: the women I saw were far, far more attractive than the lasses I’ve encountered on the coast. Maybe I’m wrong but, somehow, I don’t think so (not that I really care: I’m dating a Jo’Burg girl after all). But don’t despair, PE girls, you’ll have the perfect opportunity to prove me wrong by shaking your shimmy at my upcoming birthday shindig-party-throwdown-thing that’s coming soon! Are you ready?

I would also like to congratulate Nicky and Gareth on the birth of their baby boy, Ethan!

Lastly, in the good section, is spam, specifically spam subject lines that have absolutely no right being as funny as they are. Last week, I got a spam email entitled: “I that a crowbar in your pants there.”

Why, no, ‘mam, I’m just happy to see spam…

Bad
OK, time to deal with the morons and we’ll start with a local Ken Bentley, the EP Herald’s resident completely bat-shit crazy mouthpiece art critic. In one of his latest insights, Ken informs us that judges in art competitions shouldn’t really consider photography because it’s too easy to photoshop. You see the little cogs working away in Ken’s mind. He start with a premise we can all agree with, namely that the creation of art should be demanding. His second premise, however, is where everything falls apart. The way he sees it, photography is easy and everyone can use photoshop, which means that, therefore, it is not demanding. This, of course, leads to his conclusion that photography shouldn’t really be considered fine art.

And I’m not picking on him ’cause I think I have a better artistic eye than him - anyone with a little bit (a tiny, tiny bit) of experience in the art field and/or a tiny bit of know-how with a camera will arrive at the same conclusion I did - I’m picking on him ’cause his opinion is so… so… provincial.

The next batch of morons must surely be the people who think that the world’s going to end because of the research being undertaken with the Large Hadron Collider. Fuck ‘em. Their technology permits should be revoked. They should not pass begin and collect $200. Their little shovels and mud huts await them. It staggers me that Joe Soap from fuck-knows-where presupposes that he understands enough subatomic particle physics to a)second-guess PHD’ed professionals, most of whom have been dealing with this their entire lives, some of whom have fucking Nobel prizes and b) tell the rest of us that he knows best. I’m still here crunching these words out for you, and will be for years into the future. The world didn’t come to an end and isn’t going to come to an end any time soon.

And when it doesn’t, does that mean we’re going to get an apology from the little panicky cry-babies? Of course not, they’ll busy brewing up the next batch of fear-mongering for public consumption. Idiots.

Ugly
Hilton from MyPE passed away and a beautiful, enthusiastic piece of PE’s gone with him.