faith and begorrah, sodom and gomorrah? or wtf? I HAVEN'T BEEN BLOGGING.... [OBVIOUSLY]... or answering emails or snail mails, or voice mails [oh my] or messages texts, land lines, nada nada nada. etc etc etc ...
there are days when, as my friend memo says, [paraphrased] "it doesn't pay to try and chew through the restraints"... charles bukowski wrote "love is a dog from hell"; in my version it would be 'life is a dog from hell" ... WOOF!
i thought by now, after about 2.5 years of therapy and enough head medications to fill the superdome, that i would be better. i don't think I am, or my mind is, "the problem"; it is the non stop, relentless getting beaten down by life. i get up just to be knocked down again. with MAJOR DEPRESSIVE DISORDER sometimes i wonder why i even struggle to maintain the level of existence [torture] that i do.
[C]2013 DOUG DUFFEY
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Saturday, August 17, 2013
AUGUSTUS, BE GONE...
AUGUST is almost half way through - which is a blessing. Even though the past few days have been pleasant enough to be outside, i haven't been; but then, i haven't been outside, very often, for the past two years. i will not repeat all the reasons here; people probably assume i have Munchausen syndrome, as is.
As always, i look forward to fall, which is my favorite time of year. there is something magical about the light- and a different kind of cool than spring. in summer i seldom if ever turn on the stove, except to light a cigarette when i cant find my lighter. i keep all windows and doors and shades blinds curtains closed. i live like Dracula, waking late, going to bed late. But that also goes with my line of work, which i have done for 45+ years. fall- spring i am forever baking home made bread, muffins, etc. cooking soups. enjoying living in flannels and thermals 24x7 and snuggling in my flannel sheets. et voila. i have repeated these things in many older posts.
fall is like dying, winter like death, spring like rebirth. i am looking forward to my rebirth.
my muses left me. they will return. they come and go. they sometimes work me non stop for weeks on end- then vacate the premises, leaving me exhausted, to renew/refill my energies, then come back with a vengeance. in the past months [since the robbery in february] i have not touched my piano, i have made no music. i haven't even edited any past works in the 'archive'. and even though i did many [hundreds] of line, or marker drawings, many mornings, they rest in chests of drawers. the plans of doing large watercolours and works on canvases did not happen. i'd planned to do them outside, but the heat became unbearable. nor did developing about 30 rolls of film, which i had planned to do. everything was to be done in summer, when i would be inside. everything has been postponed. delayed.
not to be maudlin, but in the past few years i have seriously questioned everything! questioned everything from life to death to heaven and hell, GOD and the devil, and the age old question: what is the meaning of life? what is our purpose? after 2 years of self imposed exile, much introspection, prayer, meditation, and therapy i STILL don't know THE ANSWER. but i believe being in, and living in, "THE NOW"... and "following your bliss" as Joseph Campbell preached [doing what you LOVE to do; doing what you have a PASSION to do]
[C]2013 DOUG DUFFEY
As always, i look forward to fall, which is my favorite time of year. there is something magical about the light- and a different kind of cool than spring. in summer i seldom if ever turn on the stove, except to light a cigarette when i cant find my lighter. i keep all windows and doors and shades blinds curtains closed. i live like Dracula, waking late, going to bed late. But that also goes with my line of work, which i have done for 45+ years. fall- spring i am forever baking home made bread, muffins, etc. cooking soups. enjoying living in flannels and thermals 24x7 and snuggling in my flannel sheets. et voila. i have repeated these things in many older posts.
fall is like dying, winter like death, spring like rebirth. i am looking forward to my rebirth.
my muses left me. they will return. they come and go. they sometimes work me non stop for weeks on end- then vacate the premises, leaving me exhausted, to renew/refill my energies, then come back with a vengeance. in the past months [since the robbery in february] i have not touched my piano, i have made no music. i haven't even edited any past works in the 'archive'. and even though i did many [hundreds] of line, or marker drawings, many mornings, they rest in chests of drawers. the plans of doing large watercolours and works on canvases did not happen. i'd planned to do them outside, but the heat became unbearable. nor did developing about 30 rolls of film, which i had planned to do. everything was to be done in summer, when i would be inside. everything has been postponed. delayed.
not to be maudlin, but in the past few years i have seriously questioned everything! questioned everything from life to death to heaven and hell, GOD and the devil, and the age old question: what is the meaning of life? what is our purpose? after 2 years of self imposed exile, much introspection, prayer, meditation, and therapy i STILL don't know THE ANSWER. but i believe being in, and living in, "THE NOW"... and "following your bliss" as Joseph Campbell preached [doing what you LOVE to do; doing what you have a PASSION to do]
[C]2013 DOUG DUFFEY
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
heaven hell the world and art
i have not been blogging; i have also not been facebooking or myspacing or checking emails or phone messages or, or, or... i have been in my own personal purgatory, for various reasons, so have ceased being as public as i've been in the past; and for yet other various reasons.
today:
faith and begorrah! what started as an unproductive and guilt ridden day[because i was a 'slugabed'] has transformed into, as Ms McCausey would say "heyyyavun" - or somewhat quasi close... spring is springing and the only thing i can think of is that i am missing it. that i'll wake up in the hell of summer before i know it.
i began doing pencil sketches on Michaelangelo paper [that grid stuff- Wellie told me that he invented that graph paper, and of course i believe her] when i finally crawled from my coma at 3.30PM [which seems to be where my body clock is set these days] -i DID wake at 1PM, but said WTF? and went back to sleep; i have been having delightfully bizarre dreams all week; so I take every opportunity to have more. nothing like free entertainment while one is unconscious
I did possibly 6-7 drawings with coffee, today; then TOLD MYSELF i had to get up and work. so i piddled about, con scopa, washed a dish or 3, then went out and discovered the roses had exploded, made photos, then made MORE coffee/more drawings. had breakfast at 6PM, then began scanning said drawings and working with them in Gimp; more series of star people, sky people, bar flies, asylums, erotic misshapen bodies and faces, perhaps flashbacks- und jetz, i am again, @ 9PM about to do MORE drudgery, get some it out of the way, so i can devote the rest of the night to artwork; and hopefully get to bed earlier, so i can get up and see daylight for once this month; and possibly get some much needed WORK done around 'the property'.
have been inundating myself with, have been fressing, documentaries on Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and Fandor till 4AM except when i make myself stop! documentaries and bios on art, artists, religion, global warming, ancient aliens, the history of genocide, euthanasia, WW1, WW2- 3, ancient civilizations and cultures, ghettos, and more. definitely not UPBEAT material- but thought provoking.
it drove me to do 'research' all night long on everything from the Olmec, to ancient religions, to WW2 political artists. Unfortunately there are not enough documentary channels on ART, or documentary channels period, on any of the Roku channels i subscribe to [Gott im himmel, i miss ARTE]. When i checked the 'channel store' on Roku, last night, to see what new channels had been added, it seems the right wing christian conservatives have swarmed to IT like flies and are about to over run it. 50 million RWCC CHANNELS, in every key; still trying to reach the godless heathen [and get votes in 2014]- "electric church on fire" [line from one of my songs] - oh what will they do when the Mothership returns? [or THE government and THE church tell the truth] at least the catholic church has covered it's behind by admitting that out of the gazillions of galaxies, that yes, there might be life on another planet. lol. is that why Benedict split? "out with the heretic!" they said
above: a pencil sketch i scanned and worked on in gimp and camera bag...
so, after hours of documentaries: ancient aliens, Auschwitz, Art 21, the trail of tears, etc. i went online and revisited many of my favorite political and so called 'degenerate' artists- whose major trip was to comment on their times; the times they lived and worked in. they knew art was not something that goes over the couch; but a tool, a mirror, a weapon. I DID many political drawings and collages during the Bush era; things that will probably never see public light any time soon, even though they may be more relevant now.
i always loved Dix & Grosz and the German Expressionists, because they faithfully recorded and exposed their era- even their art depicting the decadence of their era was political; they also paid the price of having done so, by having to go into exile. but i also again checked out a lot of ancient petroglyphs, and spacecraft in ancient religious art, lots of online reading about ancient cultures who all seemed to be on the same page at the same time; and they were faithfully recording what THEY saw in their time... before: "Man made electric light to take us out of the dark"- James Brown. i fear we live in more darkness with the lights on.
i feel like we live in a bubble; that we have been kept in the dark about more than we can ever imagine- from the big bang theory, to evolution, to Roswell to Hiroshima JFK/RFK, to every conspiracy 'theory' up until the present day; and that we have become DE-sensitized to reality, to the rest of the world, and even to our own surroundings. strangers in a strange land. watching one horror after another since the 1950s, flickering on tv screens, and into our heads; war after war after war, catastrophe after catastrophe after catastrophe... not news, but entertainment; distraction; obscene titillation. as susan powter screamed, "stop the insanity". i had to cut down the volume, which is why i went Roku
there are crawls across crawls of the horrors, everywhere- even while you're out, gobbling that big Mac or Taco, or guzzling a brewski, in an airport or doctor's office, or bar, there's always a big assed plasma screen hanging in the air, while radio/ muzak blares from somewhere else, while everyone is yakking, and yakking on cell phones, watching or listening to even more horrors on cell phones, tablets or laptops, oh my. there but not there. OUR era is a 24x7 kaleidoscopic nightmare made up of trillions of non stop sound and video 'bites'. there is no decadence; there is no shock value; everything is shoved in yo face, anything and everything goes... and goes and goes... [but does not go away] we ARE Babylon; one world speaking a single common language of noise.
unlike in the days of the expressionists, of blut und eisen, when 'the war' and all its horror was there, on their streets, in their towns, in their homelands, nowadays, someone pushes a computer key somewhere and people thousands of miles away are evaporated; or someone flies an airplane into a building; or blows up a bomb in a subway; or, hurricanes tornadoes and tsunamis destroy what mankind [oxymoron] doesn't. i don't even know if IT [this era] can be depicted. Guernica Guernica Guernica! x 1000 on stadium sized plasma screens- could not even begin. the whole world has gone beyond mad, and doesn't even see it, doesn't even care... "just give me my creature comforts and leave me alone"
i wonder what would happen if everyone would just STOP! not for a day or a week, but a month... or hell, a year; or just stay home and finish off their stockpile of food and drink; and only leave the house when they HAVE TO. never turn on a tv or a radio. i DO that 90% of the time. i AM 'occupying', not wall street, but myself. trying to decrease the noise pollution [and my carbon footprint] as much as i can. i'm not an anarchist, but i'm not so sure that total collapse of 'this' would be such a bad thing, if we would rebuild smarter.
i think of hans bellmer's quote "If the origin of my work is scandalous, it is because, for me, the world is a scandal." - or as some breadcrumb quote that has eternally stuck in my mental throat goes, "man is wolf to man"...but, it seems, in this day and age, that is magnified to the Nth degree. the gap between uber reich and uber arme is ever widening. for now the wars are about oil; tomorrow: food and water... but i digress, as is my wont...
as a visual artist, i can only depict what i am exposed to, or have been exposed to, or what comes to me in memories, dreams and nightmares. maybe 'le milleu', carnvial, halloween, star people, sky people, bar flies, asylums, erotic misshapen bodies and faces; some imaginary some vague memories coming out as cartoons is enough. i am not out to save the world, which is impossible, but to save myself.
C]2012 DOUG DUFFEY
today:
faith and begorrah! what started as an unproductive and guilt ridden day[because i was a 'slugabed'] has transformed into, as Ms McCausey would say "heyyyavun" - or somewhat quasi close... spring is springing and the only thing i can think of is that i am missing it. that i'll wake up in the hell of summer before i know it.
i began doing pencil sketches on Michaelangelo paper [that grid stuff- Wellie told me that he invented that graph paper, and of course i believe her] when i finally crawled from my coma at 3.30PM [which seems to be where my body clock is set these days] -i DID wake at 1PM, but said WTF? and went back to sleep; i have been having delightfully bizarre dreams all week; so I take every opportunity to have more. nothing like free entertainment while one is unconscious
I did possibly 6-7 drawings with coffee, today; then TOLD MYSELF i had to get up and work. so i piddled about, con scopa, washed a dish or 3, then went out and discovered the roses had exploded, made photos, then made MORE coffee/more drawings. had breakfast at 6PM, then began scanning said drawings and working with them in Gimp; more series of star people, sky people, bar flies, asylums, erotic misshapen bodies and faces, perhaps flashbacks- und jetz, i am again, @ 9PM about to do MORE drudgery, get some it out of the way, so i can devote the rest of the night to artwork; and hopefully get to bed earlier, so i can get up and see daylight for once this month; and possibly get some much needed WORK done around 'the property'.
 |
| BARFLIES- ROUGH SKETCH- PENCIL ON GRAPH PAPER 8.5X11- [C] 2013 DOUG DUFFEY |
have been inundating myself with, have been fressing, documentaries on Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and Fandor till 4AM except when i make myself stop! documentaries and bios on art, artists, religion, global warming, ancient aliens, the history of genocide, euthanasia, WW1, WW2- 3, ancient civilizations and cultures, ghettos, and more. definitely not UPBEAT material- but thought provoking.
it drove me to do 'research' all night long on everything from the Olmec, to ancient religions, to WW2 political artists. Unfortunately there are not enough documentary channels on ART, or documentary channels period, on any of the Roku channels i subscribe to [Gott im himmel, i miss ARTE]. When i checked the 'channel store' on Roku, last night, to see what new channels had been added, it seems the right wing christian conservatives have swarmed to IT like flies and are about to over run it. 50 million RWCC CHANNELS, in every key; still trying to reach the godless heathen [and get votes in 2014]- "electric church on fire" [line from one of my songs] - oh what will they do when the Mothership returns? [or THE government and THE church tell the truth] at least the catholic church has covered it's behind by admitting that out of the gazillions of galaxies, that yes, there might be life on another planet. lol. is that why Benedict split? "out with the heretic!" they said
 |
| STAR PEOPLE- 5/6/2013- [C] 2013 DOUG DUFFEY |
so, after hours of documentaries: ancient aliens, Auschwitz, Art 21, the trail of tears, etc. i went online and revisited many of my favorite political and so called 'degenerate' artists- whose major trip was to comment on their times; the times they lived and worked in. they knew art was not something that goes over the couch; but a tool, a mirror, a weapon. I DID many political drawings and collages during the Bush era; things that will probably never see public light any time soon, even though they may be more relevant now.
i always loved Dix & Grosz and the German Expressionists, because they faithfully recorded and exposed their era- even their art depicting the decadence of their era was political; they also paid the price of having done so, by having to go into exile. but i also again checked out a lot of ancient petroglyphs, and spacecraft in ancient religious art, lots of online reading about ancient cultures who all seemed to be on the same page at the same time; and they were faithfully recording what THEY saw in their time... before: "Man made electric light to take us out of the dark"- James Brown. i fear we live in more darkness with the lights on.
i feel like we live in a bubble; that we have been kept in the dark about more than we can ever imagine- from the big bang theory, to evolution, to Roswell to Hiroshima JFK/RFK, to every conspiracy 'theory' up until the present day; and that we have become DE-sensitized to reality, to the rest of the world, and even to our own surroundings. strangers in a strange land. watching one horror after another since the 1950s, flickering on tv screens, and into our heads; war after war after war, catastrophe after catastrophe after catastrophe... not news, but entertainment; distraction; obscene titillation. as susan powter screamed, "stop the insanity". i had to cut down the volume, which is why i went Roku
there are crawls across crawls of the horrors, everywhere- even while you're out, gobbling that big Mac or Taco, or guzzling a brewski, in an airport or doctor's office, or bar, there's always a big assed plasma screen hanging in the air, while radio/ muzak blares from somewhere else, while everyone is yakking, and yakking on cell phones, watching or listening to even more horrors on cell phones, tablets or laptops, oh my. there but not there. OUR era is a 24x7 kaleidoscopic nightmare made up of trillions of non stop sound and video 'bites'. there is no decadence; there is no shock value; everything is shoved in yo face, anything and everything goes... and goes and goes... [but does not go away] we ARE Babylon; one world speaking a single common language of noise.
unlike in the days of the expressionists, of blut und eisen, when 'the war' and all its horror was there, on their streets, in their towns, in their homelands, nowadays, someone pushes a computer key somewhere and people thousands of miles away are evaporated; or someone flies an airplane into a building; or blows up a bomb in a subway; or, hurricanes tornadoes and tsunamis destroy what mankind [oxymoron] doesn't. i don't even know if IT [this era] can be depicted. Guernica Guernica Guernica! x 1000 on stadium sized plasma screens- could not even begin. the whole world has gone beyond mad, and doesn't even see it, doesn't even care... "just give me my creature comforts and leave me alone"
i wonder what would happen if everyone would just STOP! not for a day or a week, but a month... or hell, a year; or just stay home and finish off their stockpile of food and drink; and only leave the house when they HAVE TO. never turn on a tv or a radio. i DO that 90% of the time. i AM 'occupying', not wall street, but myself. trying to decrease the noise pollution [and my carbon footprint] as much as i can. i'm not an anarchist, but i'm not so sure that total collapse of 'this' would be such a bad thing, if we would rebuild smarter.
i think of hans bellmer's quote "If the origin of my work is scandalous, it is because, for me, the world is a scandal." - or as some breadcrumb quote that has eternally stuck in my mental throat goes, "man is wolf to man"...but, it seems, in this day and age, that is magnified to the Nth degree. the gap between uber reich and uber arme is ever widening. for now the wars are about oil; tomorrow: food and water... but i digress, as is my wont...
as a visual artist, i can only depict what i am exposed to, or have been exposed to, or what comes to me in memories, dreams and nightmares. maybe 'le milleu', carnvial, halloween, star people, sky people, bar flies, asylums, erotic misshapen bodies and faces; some imaginary some vague memories coming out as cartoons is enough. i am not out to save the world, which is impossible, but to save myself.
C]2012 DOUG DUFFEY
Friday, January 18, 2013
À la recherche du temps perdu
 |
| self portrait- 2013 |
a new year, and another birthday [63!]- another year that i've dodged the bullet. another year of dealing and coping with this business of living. the old phrase comes to mind, "if i knew i was going to live this long i would have taken better care of myself" but, nah- i would have, for the most part, lived my life exactly as i have, given the chance to do it over. i often think "if i only knew then what i know now"; mais, je ne regrette rien.
sometimes i think i live in the past too much; romanticizing it; remembering what was; regretting the loss of it; not thinking that NOW is particularly special, or that tomorrow will be. perhaps a certain weltschmerz has set in.
i've always written my life into my songs, but find the music is still steadily flowing but the subject matter for lyrics is harder. i sometimes feel i have already said everything
[C]2013 DOUG DUFFEY
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
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