5 Art Documentaries in 5 Days: Day Five by Deirdree Prudence

Herb & Dorothy (2008)

Director: Megumi Sasaki

I love this movie. Just as much the third time as the first.  I chose this doc over others I haven’t seen just to spread the gospel that is Herb & Dorothy.  A quaint & sentimental hit about a librarian & postal worker who met, went to art school, decided others made art better and thus became two of the most prolific art collectors of modern time. 

     Buying multiple pieces at a time from rising artists straight from the lofts themselves, the Vogels bypassed the expensive galleries and began emmassing a collection fit for the Rockefellers, canvassing their entire apartment in New York City, from the walls to the closets to under the bed.

     This is a love story in two: between two people and a couple and their art.  Life (and art) is about love. And this movie gives me hearts for eyes.

5 Art Documentaries in 5 Days: Day Four by Deirdree Prudence

Beautiful Losers (2008)

Directors: Aaron Rose, Joshua Leonard

Where the skateboard scene became the art scene, where a group of friends converged in a New York storefront art space in the ‘90s, Beautiful Losers was beautifully filmed just as mainstream success came to many of the artists & many had gone their separate ways.  With old footage from other documentaries and home movies, amazing interviews & so much art by the likes of Ed Templeton, Barry McGhee, Mike Mills, Margaret Killgaren, Shepard Fairey & my beloved Harmony Korine.

     Like children never grown up, these were the lost boys (& girls), making art for themselves & for each other & they lived for it. From skateboarding and punk rock and graffiti to the cover of Giant Robot and write ups in the biggest art mags on the scene, this doc is cotton candy when you’re stoned.

5 Art Documentaries in 5 Days: Day Three by Deirdree Prudence

Waiting For Hockney (2008)

Director: Julie Checkoway

Oh, Billy Pappas, such a simply sweet man with a dream, such a simpleton. We follow him from the conception of his life’s work, through the process of working on a simple drawing for nearly 10 years, to the aftermath & his simple dream of meeting David Hockney (british artist extraordinaire) & having his idol exalt him into yesterday’s fine art world of expensive portraits,

     This documentary may not be the most inspirational for artists but I fullheartedly recommend it for the realness of Billy’s story, of the heartbreak and obsession that so many artists out there can empathize with. It’s about living out a dream, a lofty dream that you have to kill yourself over to achieve and even then success is the smoky façade of David Hockney’s scowl.

5 Art Documentaries in 5 Days: Day Two by Deirdree Prudence

In the Realms of the Unreal (2004)

Director: Jessica Yu

     Henry Darger died in 1973 & only upon his death did anyone fall into the Realms of the Unreal, the fascinating secret world of an orphan boy turned reclusive janitor.  Stacks and stacks of thousands of pages of writing, journals, an autobiography, a 15, 000 page novel, hundreds of paintings, many of them over 10 feet long and double sided. A self-taught artist who built his mixed media creations out of coloring books and children’s magazines, his Vivian Girls were his life and a fascinating case study into this mysterious artist who’s outsider leanings went on to inspire and shock la nouvelle génération d'enfants de l'extérieur.  

     Bringing his children to life, the war scenes, the butterfly girls with male genitalia, the paintings animated, this film is superb in immersing the viewer into the world of the Vivian Girls and into the mind frame of the strange madness and lovely artist Henry Darger himself. 

5 Art Documentaries in 5 Days: Day One by Deirdree Prudence

D.I.Y. or Die: How to Survive as an Independent Artist (2002)

Director: Michael W. Dean

This documentary starts out with the filmmaker asking the woman on screen, “What’s DIY mean to you?” and the answer that follows is the typical response you’d hear from a documentary called D.I.Y. or Die: “Answer your own damned questions, live your own damned life” and all the anti-corporatist platitudes we as artists need to hear sometimes.

     With interviews from J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr, Ian MacKaye of Fugazi, Jim Rose (without his Circus Sideshow), Lydia Lunch to up & comers on the scene, simple questions are responded to with complex, drug addled and poetic answers.  Not that great for a Friday night looking for a fantastic plot, but definitely a film I would suggest keeping near the computer, the paintbrushes, the amp or camera, because we all need a little inspiration sometimes, ‘cause the world is all DIY or die, baby.

Gloria Allred goes to Bat for Homosexuals

You would think that with the repeal of don't ask don't tell, the gradual acceptance of gay marriage from state to state, and the Obama administration finally supporting gay marriage it would be hard for a few slurs from alleged homophobe and Braves coach to get any traction in the media. But famed attorney Gloria Allred had to showed the country that a a base ball bat in the wrong hands could be a weapon of intolerance. Even though Roger McDowell's alleged behavior has been widely repudiated since Allred's press conference, and the coach will likely face a substantial fine and perhaps a suspension , the best thing to come out of the whole event was the 26 seconds of maple to palm penetration that is now circulating You tube.

Ugandan Gay Murder bill contested but still might be passed

The Kill the gays bill or Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill that has been floating in the ether for nearly two years in the Country of Uganda is currently being brought up for a vote yesterday but thanks to opposition support voting has been postponed, however the people who drafted the bill are doing everything in their power to have a vote on on Friday 13th to ensure that in Uganda killing "fags" is okay. According the proposed law, those who are found harboring homosexuals or keeping their orientation a secret from the Ugandan authorities could find themselves facing life imprisonment and any groups, companies, or media outlets that supports LGBT rights are also targeted by this bill.

In another sad twist, the American involvement in this possible Ugandan genocide has not been completely on the side of the opposition. Opportunistic evangelicals who make up the family and have the ear of many conservative members of the white house have been supporting the countries dictator. The Family has been supporting MP David Bahati for years and his kill the gays legislation covertly since it was introduced in 2009. The group has been able to stay out of the spot light in the states for years, considered by the uninitiated or politically ignorant to be nothing more than a prayer group.

However there is active opposition in the west in the form of petitions to stop the progress of the bill . But for the groups and individuals opposing the legislation on the ground in Uganda the price could take the form of severe beatings and extended incarceration. To Ugandan supporters of the bill, and in many cases their western counter parts, homosexuality is a scheme of active recruitment, a scheme which spent $15 million dollars in 2010 to recruit children into being gay, according to David Bahati himself as he spoke to Rachel Maddow. These people see themselves as crusaders against the gay agenda and many think that they were anointed to that purpose in the United States.

The Neko Century

Marguerite Kalhor is currently living a Californian track home suburb making life very interesting for the cat. This UC Berkeley is trying “to unlock the secrets of the highly-envied cat humanoid anatomy” as she puts it with this series of transitioned photographs. Currently she is focusing on cats, Greek mythology, video games and Civil War memorabilia which inspires her to “interweave fabricated legends with mass-produced/low-brow materials” to consequently “hyphenating the words felis”. Kalhor felines trapped in the depths of the painted photograph, giving them an invisible aristocracy”.

According to legend cats that are housed for too long, cats that have lived unnaturally long live, or have had their tail grow so long which splits in two, and eventually the feline would become a nekomata or "forked cat".

Bakeneko terrorize homes, shooting ghost fireballs, clawing at the appendages of passed out folks, people walking on two legs, wearing human skin to trick others, and sometimes eating their owners so they might take their place.When they are finally snuffed they can be about five to six feet long. If left alone with a corpse a bakeneko will reanimate them by leaping over the body.

In one legend A man named Takasu Genbei, realized that his mom's personality had shifted, leaving her in a moody state, but he blamed it all on the death of her eight year-old cat a month before. She had been avoiding friends and would often gather her food up and eat behind doors of the bedroom she had once shared with Takasu's father. Finally the son followed his mother and looked through a crack in the door and found a cat-like monster walking on its hind-legs and gnawing on a bird’s corpse.

Though the felines in Marguerite series have seem to lack the nefarious Bakeneko tendencies she intends to add more to the series, so there over all agenda remains to be seen.

Jai paul saved my brain in Thailand

Music penetrates in the developing world  not at all  and you can find a Khmer jet fighter, before you walk into club that isn’t playing the sped up Thai remix of “Run this town” while you get leg raped by a bar girl or dry humped by a drunk back packer. All they play is grindy house, since innovation startles tourist looking to escape the western experience and expats that left because they couldn’t hang good music is hard to come by in South East Asia.

I was happy as hell when I found Jai Paul, since I left England for Thailand and no longer have the geographical Justification to be into dub-step. My friend Ellie put me on and I‘ve been listening to them ever since. It’s the type of music that your friends will lie about.

Jai Paul is like that little moment during sex when you are both breathing the same air. A bit of methadone to my broken system and getting a fresh injection of anything thing that sound real and relevant in a sea of grunge covers and clubbed to death remixes is a special, soul warming experience.

Daddy, Deadest, Dearest: Why Pa Kent is so Unimportant

The next super dad

After a few weeks of no one really caring, Kevin Costner has signed on to play the father of Clark Kent in the upcoming franchise reboot Superman: Man of Steel.  Most Superman fans recognize Jonathan Kent as the old guy in whose house Superman grew up in, but hardcore critics consider the guy to be a the flaming torch of American masculinity who guided a super powered alien into a blue unitard and a retarded cover story.

wholesome=boring

In the past Pa Kent has stood somewhere between Wilford Brimley and Paul Newman, old enough to give you stale advice and creepily virile, dropping hints that when you left he was going to be ploughing Martha’s field. The Kents showed Clark that even though he could drive a person into the ground like a rail road spike it didn’t mean that had to. Jonathan and Martha were supposed to be the only thing that stood between humanity and a super powered sociopath.

Smallville's answer

Even though the casting of Costner is a little awkward it does give away a lot about the direction the movie is likely to go in. Costner will likely be taking a prominent role meaning the film it is either going to be a long and diluted biopic, that will eat up time like a slow cancer (two hours of Smallville) or we will see superman dealing with his dark side.

But for every Jonathan Kent there is a super dad that accidentally or intentionally or callously turns their child into a walking ball of murder and discontent. So here is a list of characters that are much more relevant to the comic book narrative than the stale Mr. Kent and reasons why his story is barely worth telling.

Odin

Odin, Thor and Loki’s father, was locked into screwing up his kids from the beginning. First of all Thor is a planned bastard, the product of Odin and Gaea. The plan was for the boy to be as tough as his parents on both earth and Asgard, but when he looked at the kid Odin knew the little omnipotent crumb snatcher would be a problem. 

So to balance things out he beat the giant Laufey to death and “adopted” his runt son Loki to even out the crazy in Thor, meaning that for every problem he tried to fix Odin made another one that was shit tons worse. This one eyed old man’s timing sucked. When his son stepped out of line he would repo all Thor’s powers, usually when some super powered jackass had his foot on the thunder god’s neck.

John Custer

Easily one of the biggest bad asses in the bunch is the father of a preacher man. John Custer’s dad fought in the pacific theater so when John was old enough he enlisted and landed “in the shit” of the Vietnam War. While he was there he smoked some weed, tried not to get killed, blew up a corrupt commander in a latrine, and carried his wounded friend over 10 miles through enemy territory, getting himself blown up and winning the medal of honor.

When he got back to the States his future wife spit in his face before calling John a baby killer. He charmed her with blank silence she apologized and they fell in love. They married and later Jesse “The Preacher” Custer was born. John taught his son to be kind to those who deserved it, respect women, love John Wayne, and never to give up when you have to make a point.

Later, his wife’s twisted relatives kidnapped John Custer and his family beating him neither to death, sparing his life only when they found out he was Jesse’s father. The relatives tried to brain-wash the Custer family, but John waited and made a doomed escape attempt and just before he was shot in the head he told his son, "You gotta be a good guy, Jesse. You gotta be like John Wayne: you don't take no shit off fools, an' you judge people by what's in 'em, not how they look. An' you do the right thing. You gotta be one of the good guys, son, 'cause there's way too many of the bad." 

Howard Stark

Howard Stark is the type of rich dad that turns a trust fund into a noose. The elder Stark was basically Tony Stark-boring. An alcoholic over compensator who developed massive stock piles of weapons that came back to bite the entire free world in its collective ass. He rode his son like moped with a bullet hole in the gas tank, and essentially fed into the future Iron man’s stupefying narcissism.

The worst of the relationship started when Tony turned out to be smarter than his father, but much more prone to not giving a crap. Howard decided to continue grilling his son while making money off of the killing machines the younger Stark’s genius mind produced.

The Hulk   

The Hulk is an example that shit parenting has a way of spreading. After being beaten like Kanye West at a Toby Keith concert for years, along with his mother, the young genius Bruce banner lost it and retreated and as a defense mechanism created alternate personalities, one of which was the Hulk.

Well eventually, after the earth had had enough of the hulk bulldozing things and a group of heroes launched him into space. The Hulk landed on a planet as violent as he was, met a nice queen and fathered two of the most destructive beings Marvel had ever seen.

What happened with Hiro-Kala and Skaar is pretty much an example of what you get when daddy isn’t around. The longer The Hulk was out of their lives the more the universe suffered.

Hiro-Kala destroyed his home planet, poisoned a galaxy, drove Galactus insane, and went about murdering worlds to send his father a message. Skaar who was a little less malicious, butchered his way to earth nearly crippling the Silver Surfer and being one of the few folks in the universe to spit in the face of creation. When Skaar finally hit terra firma he levelled the place until his father showed up and tried to kill him.

Not that Banner/ Hulk was absentee father of the year. When her found out Skaar was on earth and his kid, he resigned himself to the fact that he might have to kill the boy.

Brian Banner

But Brian Banner, Bruce Banner’s father, was an old fashion model of mean, who routinely tried to beat the monster out of the child he never wanted. He was the cause of the crazy which created the Hulk, making him one of the most destructive men in Marvel history by proxy.

He killed his wife when she tried to stop his “correction” of little Bruce. When Brian found his son at his mother’s grave the older banner started a fight that ended getting his neck broken on his murdered wife’s tombstone, the first step in Bruce growing as a person.

Wolverine 

Wolverine would have probably been a decent father if he hadn’t been screwed by fate so frequently. The first kid (Daken) was supposed to have been murdered in Japan. In response this tragedy Wolverine did what any good father would have done, slipped into psychotic catatonia and murder his way out of Japan. The second kid was a clone daughter (X-23), built with a homicide trigger who Logan didn’t meet until she was about 17.

                                                                           

Both of the kids were used like weapons, Daken was turned precise assassin, while his “sister” X-23 was more like a hand-grenade. Wolverine stepped in, and in both cases and tried to talk/beat the killer out of his kids to varying degrees of success. X-23 was trained past being just a killer and joined the X-men, while Daken decided to focus on killing people who deserved it, namely anyone who crossed him.

Thomas Logan 

Even though we never heard about the guy until recently Thomas Logan is the archetype for all the shitty things a father can do to his children over the course of a half life time. Thomas spent the latter years of his life drinking and beating his first son Dog at regular intervals out of drunken boredom. His second son James Howlett (Wolverine) was generally ignored by him because the boy was the result of an affair Thomas had with Elizabeth Howlett, and lived on a large estate being raised as John Howlett’s son. But after years of feeling slighted Thomas forced Dog to help him rob the Howlett house, murdering the only decent father figure Wolverine ever knew. A few seconds later when the young boy that would be an X-man slipped into his first blind rage, Thomas Logan became the first person Wolverine ever killed.  

Thomas Wayne

Thomas Wayne is probably the best argument for money not ruining people, and proof that all other characters who have let cash wreck their kids are just bastards. He was supportive, doting, and before he died catching bullets with his chest to protect his son, he made enough money to finance the Batman.

Magneto      

Even if you think that the master of magnetism has gotten a raw deal on the sliding scale of good to evil he is still an awkward fit as a daddy under the best cases and a neglectful ass in most others. For the past few years he has manipulated his son Quicksilver into leading a terrorist group on at least two occasions, and then ducked out on the job whenever he felt itchy and leaving poor Quicksilver holding the bag. 

In an effort to reclaim his relationship with his daughter The Scarlett Witch, Magneto decided to use her as a living nuke, sabotaging  her marriage and perhaps causing not only to the deaths of his own grandchildren but the near eradication of mutant kind.

Professor X                 

In the worst case continuity irony Marvel’s greatest father figure has managed to develop one of the worst paternal relationships in Marvel history. His son Legion was genetically predisposed to insanity thanks to his mother own mental illness. So as a consequence one of the most powerful mutants in the world was born bat-shit crazy.

Legion's mother neglected to tell Xavier about his son until the boy had began his own crusade against mutant oppression...I mean until he started murdering random people. At first Professor X tried to get the young man under control until he realized it was best if Legion just stayed in a coma of Xavier’s design.

So looking at this list should help you realize how irrelevant and unimportant Jonathan Kent really is, Just like Waterworld, and how focusing attention undermines Superman. Other characters either had a paternal figure with more blood on his hands than Genghis khan or a plan to eventually give their offspring a dirt nap for the greater good. If they were “lucky” their parent died before they were old enough to have their first wet dream. Considering this odds watching Jonathan Kent will feel like slow brain rot.

Rory Coyne: Myth and allegory

Dogma is dangerous but our myths are the tattered parts of the world’s ragged collective ego or as Rory Coyne puts it:

Why Myth? Because it connects us to the world and one another. It negates our differences and embraces what we actually are, human beings. We all descend from tribes and have comparable origins, and as the same species, have similar reactions to our surroundings.

There are very few people actively try to make myths in the world and fewer making the real in imagery but Rory Coyne has done this effectively.

Tricky Po Pables

Float On

Pig Tail

CooCooRooCoo

Hare Cut

Myth and allegory

The SF Giant Riot

Back in 2010 after the Giants won the World Series the fans lost their minds and caused enough damage to make basketball of Los Angeles feel like they had let the Lakers down some years before when they caused millions of dollars in damage after the NBA championship.

A child of Los Angles transplanted into San Francisco, Raun Harris knew where to stand and how to avoid the eye of drunks who had never thrown a baseball over base or used bat for anything else but a weapon. He got these shots creeping past the nervous SFPD while the city burned and dumb folk burned their own city after a game was played.

Wagdug Futuristic Unity: Masters of Mad Style

The MAD CAPSULE MARKETS was formed in 1990 by Hiroshi Kyono and Takeshi Ueda and over two decades their sound has evolved into a style unique to the band and its off shoots. Ueda and Kyono led MAD CAPSULE MARKETS, formerly called Berrie, as a punk rock front which resembled Japanese punk groups like GISM, Gauze, and The Stalin. The songs were short, violent and vitriolic, with thrash metal riffs, heavy metal bass lines with an anarcho-punk focus. Kyono's lyrics reflected the angst of a generation of Japanese disgusted by the economic shit-cake they'd been forced to eat through out the 1980's.

By 1994 they'd evolved beyond punk and started sampling. With the release of MIX-ISM and PARK, Takeshi's bass-lines took on a garage rock tone and Kyono's vocals became melodic with sing-songy tendencies, leaning toward grunge. The thrash was still there, but the bands punk influence was kept to aggressive guitar riffs. The songs were twice as long with refrains, chants, and hooks. With their 7th album MAD's focus shifted to Takeshi's bass more than ever and their guitarist ISHIGAKI left the band.


In 1999 MAD incorporated Digital Hardcore elements, a style created by ultra radical and often atonal Atari Teenage Riot, and disseminated through Alec Empire's Digital Hardcore Recordings. The DHR style was composed of grinding samples mixed with hip hop and drum 'n bass drum loops. Takeshi and Kyono called this blend of their punk rock influences and Digital Hardcore 'Mad Style', and with the release of their album OSC-DIS, Mad Capsules Markets received their first wave of international interest. This interest came from their juxtaposition of post pop riffs and melodic arrangements over the aggressive grind of Digital Hardcore's glitchy sound. Kyono's vocals became insistent, malicious and brutal exhalations, giving the tracks a more guttural, industrial quality.


By their last two albums as the Mad Capsules Markets, 010 and CiSTm KonFLiqT, they'd returned to a hardcore sound while including drum machines, synthesizers, and samplers. The beats were much heavier and largely more mechanical, with programmed bass arrangements accompanying Takeshi's live playing. The bands roster was in constant flux at this time, as the guitarist ISHIGAKI left the band. In 2005 the three remaining original members of the Mad Capsules Markets split. Takeshi founded AA=(aaequal), while Kyono perfected 'mad style' with Wagdug Futuristic Unity.


Even though Takeshi's AA=(aaequal) unarguably has elements of 'Mad Style'; hectic tempos, glitch audio samples, and manipulated vocals, it lacks grit and comes off cheesey and uninspired.

In contrast Wagdug's sound incorporates all the grimy brutality of MAD's first three albums with Kyono's willingness to experiment with novelty. On Wagdug's first album Hakai, Kyono collaborates with the likes of Chino Moreno, Ceephax, Funkygong, Justice, Numanoid vs. Mazda, Maximum the Ryo, Ultra Brain, and DJ Starcream. This was their first full length album and a defining example of the potential of 'Mad Style'. But the best examples are found on Wagdug's EP Nu Riot, specifically the track Hakai (Deathtroy).

Hakai (Deathtroy) was featured on the soundtrack of live action adaptation of DeathNote, a Japanese film about a bored angel of death, a sociopathic high-school aged would be god, an agoraphobic detective and a masochistic pop-idol. Wagdug's video for film increased the bands popularity in Japan and affirmed them as masters of 'Mad Style'.

SF Underground Comedy : Photography by Raun Harrison

Recently Mr. Harris has been express a real interest in how and why comedians do there thing some times for nothing but applause. So he took his camera and spent some time in the San Francisco underground comedy circuit doing his thing.