been awhile.

this has been the strangest adventure of my life.
escapism led to blurry eyed video production,
escapism led to running out of money in the very small production account,
escapism led back to the start.
escapism led me out.

and i apologize for s(l)ick poetics but things have changed,
i have 100ft done of three hundred ***** hasnt gotten back to me
so new cities new plans new life.

and altho i have placed this painting as a tree in my life,
consistently branching and growing,
the strange or overtly natural thing about a tree is that it has roots,
deep covered roots, and when painting or visualizing a tree,
sometimes these roots get dug up or validated or any other word you can place.

and then how a painter does video better than painting, i
assuage to branches, to new leaves, to dare i say fruitfulness,

i found out tonite in my first real step away from this painting,
something that scares,
something that i dont like,

when i first started painting, i painted directly from my heart to hand,
i would black out i was painting her and her and her and her
and i would wake up to my mothers care,
my mothers unintelligable support (spelling might be wrong im fucked)
and so i stopped
i started researching leonardo, jacopo, giovanni so i could cope with
having strizucture so the things that happen dont happen.

dear mommy,
how come when sh. tries to paint pretty pictures,
things always end up dead or dying.
your father asked why i have to be so fucking morbid,
i dont know,
its bad genes i guess.
i dont know,
i think if this letter, this writing ends in aduoisbfgkjhdsbgkvljhfbdkjvbndsfjkv
its because i blacked out face down on the keyboard,
but i wont im stronger now, i think,
and im damn sick of thinking,
thanks mom, you were right.
sh.

trailer.

so heres the trailer, after cannes ill release the whole damn thing, but for now this is what youll get unless you are very very special, and i am completely convinced you wont exploit the exploiter.
love you.

the whirlwinds of absolution with gusts of confused air.

back from a short studious vacation, paris, berlin, the dam,
paris= kiefer (louvre) kiefer (d'orsay) corinth (d'orsay) bourgeoisie (pompidou et tulieres).
(and maybe one caravaggio that held its own- louvre)
berlin= kiefer kiefer kiefer (hbg bahnhof) baselitz, grosz, beckmann, kokoschka (neuenatgal)
kathë kollwitz!!! (she has a better pieta than michelangelo)
dam= vermeer!!! (but ive already talked about that one.)

so now its back to video world, maybe its good since the flood gates of time have reopened in the best ways i've ever known, dunkin donuts in berlin is a strange idea.

kiefer gave me alot to think about, he had a statement about his german background and how it affects his working process, and its readily apparent that he has embraced the horrors of history and understands something i have yet to attempt, after all the ashes and death life does come a new, be it bombers and books fertile with poppies, or constellations of sunflowers or an old man finding understanding in heavy metal. (that wasnt meant to be a double-entendre, they are just inescapable.)
his new installation at the louvre, titled "athanol" was stunning not only in its symbolism of redemption, cycles etc but he has opened up the world of painting in ways that only merlin could have imagined, he always has used the dirt and detritus of his consciousness to inform and lecture the viewer, but now he has become transcendent, there is no lecture, just hope and amazement.

and then to look at the past, his german past, his lilith was to be taken into a world that knows only slight hope and some sort of baroque amazement,
i came up with the crackpot idea of watching him work, working for him, producing a movie on him, because this movie/project has opened my eyes to the constant lineage of journalists, artists, filmmakers, musicians who are willing to actually open their eyes to the horrors of the human condition, including their own as some sort of wierd in/evolutional telescope, to map, to describe, and to warn others of dante, of merlin, of talmud.

"abandon hope, all ye who enter here" just not yet.

the videos almost done, i should have a preview up on withoutabox soon, and send it into sfc this week, and then its back to painting, its the river for a week or so, and possibly to the kurtz compound prior to cannes, i just dont know where any of it all fits in to the life altering alterior solutions i try to understand.

render me this.

so the video for the sfc at cannes is two rendering steps, and one compressor step away, im waiting on 7 minutes of video from new york to plug in,
ivan finished the song, "black and white" last nite, holy shit, the boy kills it, it sounds scripted, of course hes seen the movie probably as many times as me, but hes never seen apocalypse now, or HOD, and he gave me fourteen minutes of pure fucking amazingness,
the backstory is is the guitar he plays it on, HE BUILT!!! (in the time we've know each other!!!) hand tools, river water, my challenge, its the most beautiful guitar ive ever seen, and the fourteen minutes, i plugged in beginning to end of film and it just sits perfect, yes slight level adjustments, but i move and he moves, its synced, maybe its living in a submarine.
well the credits are done, and im just waiting on the video from NYC (or Boston depending where it is)
and its done done done, well the short version is, off to cannes by the time i arrive in Paris, or while im there.

im going to paris, berlin, and the netherlands for a short break,
the louvre (the new kiefer permanent piece), pompidou (a show on iraq war), kathe KOLLWITZ museum is two feet from my hotel in berlin, checkpoint charlie (peter your bars might go there?)
but ill be out of touch for about 2 weeks, painting 180ft (60m) is about all i have left to sketch out....
its getting somewhere?

wait.

Your accreditation request for the 61st Festival de Cannes has been duly registered.

theres that, and 100 ft are ready to ship, waiting, has become what my head is filled with when not painting, waiting for rendering, funding, answers, and yes this has become the game, and so after 4 days of hard hours breathing pigments fumes and everything else, struggling with overseers for my route my path, i wait, i wait to use fumes and pigments, i wait through copying line upon line of dialogue to create layers and depth, i dont like the overt narrative of text, its not voice it never will be when i write insane or shrimp or kurtz its contrived, yet it has to be, it focuses me into the composition of the work to come, the montenegran brigade of color that has 200 ft to colorize in 3 weeks, the me that has to write the words so long ago spoken, in grandure, in disrespect, in theory to respect.

i wait.

legitimacy... of sorts.

Monsieur S*** M***
Nous avons bien reçu votre film HEARTS OF DARKNESS: A PAINTER'S APOCALYPSE
La conférence de presse annonçant les films sélectionnés pour le Festival de Cannes se déroule durant la seconde quinzaine d’avril.
Si votre film est sélectionné pour le Festival de Cannes, vous serez prévenu avant cette date.
Nous essayerons dans la mesure du possible de donner des réponses à tous les candidats avant la conférence de presse.

Cordialement,

Festival de Cannes
Département Films

______________________________________________________________________________________



Dear S*** M***

We have received your film HEARTS OF DARKNESS: A PAINTER'S APOCALYPSE
The press conference will be held in the last two weeks of April.
If your film is selected for the Festival de Cannes, you will be notified before the press conference we will do our best to notify all candidates before the press conference.

Yours sincerely,

Festival de Cannes
Film Department

there it is now its time to fucking paint, until my hands bleed, not much more video work to do, fuck the web right now, the knock, the paperwork, the identity is sealed.

balance.

something good happens, then something bad happens,
and im too angry to get into it right now, i just have to paint,
tomorrow i will paint, but this fucking thing has become a self fulfilling prophecy;
i should be used to that right now in my life, 13 years of calling myself a suffering bastard from the old testament on the streets, and now when things are getting all too shiny, i find my marlon brando, and in a strange sense in the same person, coppola's ex-wife. i did ask for this in assuming the role of francis ford coppola as the director of a project like this, and for three weeks i thought i was willard. reality just hit.

the butoh portion of my piece and a large financial portion crumbled today, im not going to blame, its just fucking people's relationships to commitments and promises and the value i hold them at; without the budget, without hollywood connections, without... i am faced with the same fucking shit he was, and now not only am i director, but i am actor(s)(i thought i could just pick one), filmmaker, editor, fucking everything.

my title for the short was that perfect self fulfilling, dooming, prophecy... or maybe the whole piece is based in that, im a fucking painter living beyond his britches right now, and i dont know if i like it.

i think i just did a really good job about not really venting and blaming, i just dont know what to do right now. im so angry, i could spit, im so disappointed, i could cry, im so frustrated, i could give up. could can be replaced with should in every single one of those prior sentences.
theres no alcohol or drugs of power here like i desperately need to fall asleep, after 3 weeks of 3-4 hours a nite.

i wont say im done but im on the fucking edge. and im sick of fucking lies. (which i guess is where this whole piece started).