Month: March 2022

I draw a lot of birds and sheep. They are my default creatures and I love them. I just drew the ballpoint peacock bird up top for a friend’s forthcoming album art. He’d said the album was inspired by late, fabled novelist Flannery O’Connor and then told me about her obsession with birds, something I had no awareness of.

I did a little research and came upon this amazing magazine essay O’Connor wrote in 1964 where she explained the roots of her bird-love and why she raised peacocks in particular.

Here is a completely awesome quote from it:

“The peacock does most of his serious strutting in the spring and summer when he has a full tail to do it with. Usually he begins shortly after break­fast, struts for several hours, desists in the heat of the day, and begins again in the late afternoon. Each cock has a favorite station where he performs every day in the hope of attracting some passing hen; but if I have found anyone in­different to the peacock’s display, besides the telephone lineman, it is the peahen. She seldom casts an eye at it. The cock, his tail raised in a shimmering arch around him, will turn this way and that, and with his clay-colored wing feathers touching the ground, will dance forward and backward, his neck curved, his beak parted, his eyes glittering. Meanwhile, the hen goes about her business, diligently searching the ground as if any bug in the grass were of more importance than the un­furled map of the universe which floats nearby.”

Amazingly, hilariously perfect.

On that note, it is now time for the latest WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST featuring the finest songs from this week’s travels. There are many beauties, for real, for real. You can listen below on Soundcloud or Spotify. Bird on…

Listen on Soundcloud

Listen on Spotify

A couple of weeks ago, Robyn released a really cool cover of Neneh Cherry’s 1988 classic “Buffalo Stance” (listen here). And unsurprisingly, it inspired me to revisit and fall down the rabbit hole of reminiscing, like every damn pop song from the ’80s does.

But “Buffalo Stance’ was special. It’s hard to explain how out there and amazing it sounded in comparison to everything else in late ’88. I’m not exaggerating when I say hearing it for the first time was revelatory, and a genuine “what the fuck?!” musical moment.

I was instantly, endlessly smitten with the sound and Neneh herself. I had the picture at the top of this piece hanging on my wall for years ( that is the actual artifact, complete with pinholes).  

In the early ’90s, one of my best pals, Angel Ugarte, a tall, lanky, and debonair DJ, got invited to a party in NYC where she was the guest of honor. I could have gone but for reasons I cannot recall, didn’t (absolute idiot move). Neneh made a big entrance at the event, doing a dramatic descent down a long staircase as everyone gasped and cheered. Angel was standing along the staircase railing and as she was coming down, she stopped and kissed him. She freakin’ kissed him. Just him. When he told me about it the next day I was both overcome with jealousy because I wished it had been me, and ridiculously thrilled that she had chosen him above all others. And I get why she did it because he really was the coolest. 

Angel passed away from AIDS in 1996 and I still miss him a ton. I know he would find it ridiculously funny that whenever I hear “Buffalo Stance” I think of him and that legendary kiss. I am also 100% sure he would rather have been making out with Peter Gabriel but hey, Neneh is a pretty damn good runner-up pal 😉

And now it is time for the latest WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST featuring the finest new songs that have come down the pike over recent days. They are melodic, anthemic, jittery, weird, and beautiful to the last. You can listen on Soundcloud or Spotify below.

It’s sweetness that I’m thinking of…

Listen on Soundcloud

Listen on Spotify

That’s a pic by Swiss photographer Karlheinz Weinberger whose photos of unspeakably cool teenagers in the late ’50s & ’60s have to be seen to be believed ( this pic is actually pretty tame, there’s a lot of homoerotic rock ‘n’ roll rebel boy action to be had and all of it is awesome). Weinberger’s photos are among the myriad of crazy, amazing art that is being shown at the annual Outsider Art Fair which is happening in NYC this week. I can confirm that it is full of all sorts of treasures.

The first time I attended this event was around 1990 and I was very much blown away by, well, everything. Both Peter Gabriel and David Byrne were there, walking around like regular humans and buying art right off the wall (uh, this very much excited me). It’s where I first became acquainted with perhaps the best- known outsider artist in history, Henry Darger, whose work unsettled and impressed me so much I wrote about it in my freakin’ diary which up until then had only featured angsty personal adventures and mishaps. But what I loved most about the show was that it was full of artists I could relate to, who just made stuff because they couldn’t help it and looked to please and sate no one other than their own weird selves. It made me feel so validated and alive regarding my own demented, oddball ballpoint pen art. And it still does. I’d always been jealous of painters, the attention and glory they got and at times wished I could express myself that way…but all I wanted to do was to draw bizarro shit on small pieces of paper with cheap BIC pens.

That was all brought home at the show yesterday while looking at a display of 2 inch(!) paintings(!) of landscapes by a guy named M Winston who is currently incarcerated in Wisconsin. Looking at them, you can’t help but think, what is so great about “big”? Their power is in their tininess. You had to get right up next to the wall to meet them. They weren’t sucking all the air out of the room demanding to be stared at. Anyway, Outsider Art Fair is cool and moving and I just wanted to share that with y’all and encourage you to check out Weinberger’s incredible photos if you are doing any online rabbithole-ing today.

Hey, it’s time for the WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST featuring the finest new music that has crossed our path over recent days. There is some seriously lustrous and melodic magic happening in this week’s small but perfectly formed playlist. You can listen on Soundcloud or Spotify below. Embrace the weirdness…

Listen on Soundcloud

Listen on Spotify