"I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests"

I've stood where the forests were, where IKEA forests grow, & with a smile I remember jungles.

Freedom of speech

"Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak without censorship and/or limitation. The synonymous term freedom of expression is sometimes used to indicate not only freedom of verbal speech but any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used. In practice, the right to freedom of speech is not absolute in any country and the right is commonly subject to limitations, such as on 'hate speech'."
- Wikipedia

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.""
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights

"If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech even if the law forbids it. But if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them."
- George Orwell

"I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man."
- Thomas Jefferson

El dos de mayo de 2010 en Berlin

So, normally I don't think its necessary to explain artwork - since you, as a product of this new mediascape, are so versed in media that you either like it or you don't and I trust your judgment - but I was asked by someone I know to do so... so I will. And here goes:

First, the title is taken from Goya's work but the date and place are changed. Lot of the significance of doing artwork in the street is related to this time of year & relevantly I am thinking a lot about Goya's series of etchings Los Desastres de la Guerra. I first saw them while living / studying in the Provence and this collection of works (which I saw in a semi-private collection) is one of my favorite and one of the more emotionally provocative series of works. And you can see them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Disasters_of_War

The black text reads:
My barrow run a flat tire & i ain't
got nuthin' but bricks to move - wet
cement - peanut butter on the roof
of my mouth - buying a dollar's worth a
fat & blood - & laying forty-two cents down
in a chocolate man's Mrs Winners cup -
the black woman with a white mouth &
a stolen bicycle - do you hear
the rooster crowin'?
-i dont really believe in all this shit
anyway.

The blue text reads:
Las mujeres preparaban la chicha.
PARA
EMBA
RAZAR

The first line of the blue text means:
The women prepare the chicha (a strong alcoholic beer in ecuador - often drunk in great quantities around the solstice on June 21 or so).

The second line meas:
To impregnate (themselves)

Black Text:
So, the black text is representative of my life in the South, the religious and racial tensions, and the growing discrepancy between the rich and the extremely poor. It seems that often in my life I found myself pushing a wheel barrow with a flat tire filled with bricks and solidified wet cement, something I always hated doing. But it's also a metaphor for life and the difficult situations we all go through, suffering. And it's like peanut butter on the roof of my mouth, sticky, a product from the South, but somehow wonderful just the same. There were a few years when I would use fat and blood in my artwork and was always surprised about how inexpensive fat and blood packages were in Savannah, Georgia. Often after buying things like that I would be asked for change and I recall one man asking for forty-two cents. Another time in Savannah a woman who had been using too much crack and had stolen a bicycle asked me to help her because she did not know how to ride a bicycle. And I don't mean that she simply had no experience, I mean that she was confused as to where to sit, which direction it would go in, and whether it was a horse or something. Anyway, she had used too much crack at the time. And then I leave it with a question about whether or not you can hear the rooster crowing. It's just a thing. I mean, the South is known for its roosters, chickens, and maybe my words - at least for me - they sort of bring together all of these feelings I have about the South, the people, the culture, race relations, economic disparity, etc. And then I end with a general feeling I have that sometimes it all just seems unreal, surreal, maybe an illusion or a dream.

Blue Text:
So this is sort of how I feel about the intellectuals who come from South America, specifically the Peru / Ecuador region. And I feel that they, along with just about everyone else, look contemptuously upon the people who have been there longest, the Inca, Quechua, or just anybody living on the land. Anyway, it's a quote from a Peruvian intellectual and exile I met a while back. Nice guy.

So, ... I'm tired of writing now so I'm going to stop. (I didn't write about the finished work or public space because ...wtf, who's going to read this anyway)

Some skreet arts

Music: Bjork - Hyperballad & Eric Lewis

TED - www.TED.com

Collage

... and then I felt a little drunk.

Call for Artists

This should be a pretty big event in part of the world where art, especially the art found at street level (streetart, wheatpasting, graffiti, bombing, tagging, etc) is dangerously misunderstood by the establishment. So, please help support cultural education in a place where it is greatly needed. The people setting up this event are doing a wonderful service for their community.
www. Living Walls Conference .com

AMERICA! . . . a reminder

Just one exclamation mark!? That is not the "AMERICA!!!" I know and love.

Just reminiscing about competitions, about how there must always be a loser, and about how - even though we may all want the same thing - we seem to be more than willing to do the most monstrous things to one another, ourselves, and our very planet in order to get there.

Cheers to whosoever owns the AMERICA! franchise. It'll be with even more pride that I wear my dog tags with the engraven cross upon 'em and sing "Onward Christian Soldiers."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&v=YJgt2ktRJME

Untitled Watercolor of an Erlanger

Mother

title of a pink floyd song ... yea, in case u aint know, look at below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRj46X4ZYM0&feature=related

The pope deserves a spanking

Yea, if the head of your religion was a Nazi & thinks it's not such a bad thing to rape hundreds of little boys... yea, consider fucking changing religions. Or just accept your idiocy, be happy, rape less.

Drop Art

You can't tell from the images, but I put nails in the wood & the wooden panels are hanging there. I don't take pictures of everything & I don't post all the pictures I take.
From left to right (Gambler in a Casino at 5am on a Tuesday. / Untitled / Superman)

I drank raw ether

Sketches

Does this even count, wooster?

Looking for inspiration today I decided to check WoosterCollective.com . If you like art & you've not heard of it, it's worth taking a look. Anyway, ended up finding this there. And the only nice idea I come away with is that it sounds better when the word, "wooster" is tacked on to the end of any question... or sentence even. Examples follow...

Some older crap of mine, not really worth mentioning wooster. Does it also give you that dreaming-feeling like when the drugs just aren't working-feeling wooster? What do you think wooster? The television is on the fritz wooster.

Flower of Life