"DEAR LEADER"

Yesterday, while searching You-tube for root canals, I aimlessly, inadvertently and serendipitously wandered; what else could I do. Like a long strand of DNA, YouTube seams to work that way, randomly leading you astray; from bikini wax to Brazilians to root canals. Root canals are not that interesting but I just happen to be very naturally curious and simply wished to compare the actual process as opposed to how I actually lived it, yesterday.

One of my molars needed a drilling, and since nature has a way of repaying you for ignoring to furtively look its way, it just happened to be one of those days when fate’s suggestive forces dictated I spend a morning getting drilled and up rooted. Contrary to public expectations, root canals are fairly painless. The dental arts have made great progress and can now provide us with the painless convenience of laughing uproariously without looking like the village idiot *.

Anyway, and like everything else, the bikini wax, the brazilian, the boyzilian or Carpecian, what you are about to see, got me to thinking about the state of “Photography Today”.

I know this does not seem neatly related but please bare with me, at least for the next minute of your own peregrinated wanderings on our beloved communication superhighway, hear me out before you move on to this delectably Anglo interneted. I got to thinking that, paradoxically, that photography has become so absurdly specific as to increasingly value projects, based solely on how specific and narrow they actually be.

More and more, photographers, and its consuming masses are rewarding those among us who display the ability to document microscopic slices of our universes. In order to garner attention from the fickle masses, we are slowly reducing everything into anecdotally and easily consumed bite size pieces. The human race has become more and more specialized in its pursuits of creativity and is slowly ingesting, but in prodigiously Gargantuan quantities, smaller and smaller pieces. From the cave, to the niche, to the nook, to the crevice, we are more and more rapidly consuming smaller and smaller ideas, and retreating deeper and deeper…. into Plato’s cave.

*BTW, if you do not appreciate long winded run on sentences, this probably isn’t your place

I have been looking for Tahoe vacation rentals for my older brother Frédéric, and consequently, he is foremost in my mind. He lives in Paris, France and has become one of the world’s best orthopedic surgeons. That alone should make me extremely proud of him and make it a simple and easy matter to post a mention of his accomplishments here; but what compels me to do so is far more universal.

Even though, my brother and I are very different, we share some very fundamental characteristics, a unique fruit cocktail of my mother and father’s traits, which and with time, has made us both who we are, but first and foremost, we are brothers. I was reminded of this, in a nice way, by reading Stefan Rohner’s latest blog entry.

My big brother has taught me much but I have always known that he has always loved me more then any other play mate. When we were just little kids he would cry inconsolably for me, if I got hurt and was in pain, and this I knew showed, that despite our relative differences, he loved his little brother, “L’ olivier”.

Brotherhood is an extraordinary bond, and if you are going to have kids, at the very least, give them someone to play with. Today, I was certainly happy and grateful to be once again reminded.

Frédéric, if you ever need it, you can have either one of my kidneys……and whatever else you ever need from me.

From Left to right, excluding newly married couple: My mother in her early thirties, my brother Frédéric, unknown relative, and yours truly, approximately 4 years of age (my son Raphael and I at this age looked so much like each other, as it to be genetically freaky).

What have we done to deserve this? First they put a fucking idiot in office, procreate like bush rabbits… and now this….. Enough already! and the fucking thing lights up too, aaargh!

Yo, Kincade, where is that IED when you really it, I mean, really…. Thomas, next year, I promise, I am signing you up for:….. “The Running of the Car Bombs”…., and please, paint thy bird finger, and shove it up where it don’t light up; I beg you, please….!

What if, and if only, the intromittent sexual organ wasn’t just, a spongiform, but a muscle, prone to serve the same functions, as to produce both frequent and infrequent, voluntary and involuntary, autonomic obfuscations?

And furthermore, I am to presume that he is just simply trying to pop off the Stick and Stay, and indicate that he is indeed ready for a carvin’…..

Photo: Per Bernal

Image: Perkin Lovely.

Julian Richards is a “top tier” artist representative in New York City. After a mutual acquaintance introduced us, I thought it instructive to follow in MDM’s footsteps, and start running “Dear Leader” interviews. I was not disappointed by his responses but rather felt that I, should have worked a little harder on the questions. But if you feel that the interviewer’s job is to make the interviewee shine through, then I must have done a good job of it; or was it an inevitability, given the personality.

To put it mildly, few things are more entertaining than intelligence, eloquence, self confidence and comedy, all wrapped up in one lusciously human representative.

Begin here:

DL: Describe your kitchen sink?

JR: A single piece of concrete carved by our friend Trevor Heatherington into a dynamic reenactment of the Tiresius myth. He’s prodding the fornicating snakes with a stick, mid-way through his metamorphosis. It’s like a Bernini, but lumpier. The hot and cold faucets are particularly arresting – realistic arrangements of his male and female genitals, respectively. It’s kind of a rite of passage at our home for visitors to be photographed drinking directly from the orifices (ordinarily men from the cold, women from the hot) whilst grinning libidinously at the camera. We have a gallery of polaroids on the wall by the fridge. Hilarious, eh?

DL: If you could choose to come back as a prairie, which one would it be, and would you let anybody till ye?

JR: I’m not really clear what a prairie is. If I were to come back as a fairy it might be WH Auden.

DL: What living person do you most admire, be specific ?

JR: It changes. There’s this actress Natacha Regnier who is the right shape. She occasionally gets my aching admiration.

DL: Do you love all your children equally?

JR: Over an extended period, probably. But there are huge fluctuations over the short term. They offer very different challenges.

DL: Is there something photography is lacking, if anything?

JR: I can’t help thinking that it lacks so much, simply because of its inherent limitations. In that sense you can’t blame it. But you can feel a bit embarrassed observing it’s importance being inflated to laughable proportions. Photography is the homeland that flocks of itinerant charlatans have spent generations seeking. It it so replete with the ordinary pretending to be extraordinary … and I’m as guilty as anyone of lionizing mediocrity – my home-loan company requires it of me. I suppose there’s an academic argument for it being the art form of our age … shabby times, given to a relentless stream of product rendered quickly for an audience of glazed eyes and dull, lazy minds. As such I suppose it becomes relevant as a kind of cultural emblem. This relevance, however, doesn’t go far in offsetting the paucity of the experience of dealing with what is frequently required of us on a day-to-day basis. But like anything, if you suspend disbelief and confer special status upon material which is deeply banal, you can quickly build yourself a new hierarchy of value whereby bad is good and okay is wonderful … and ten minutes later you can confidently pontificate upon such things as ‘greatness’ and ‘beauty’. People will apparently know what you’re talking about and nod accordingly. Maybe you can even sell some stuff.

DL: If you were to be given just one print to give to former Senator Joseph McCarthy, what would it be and how would you deliver it?

JR: I don’t think I’d bother, really. Maybe if it was simply a matter of emailing him something off one of those Amatrice Francaise sites. It’s nice to have a reason to poke about in there for a half hour.

DL: What do you dislike most about bakeries?

JR: Most of the women in them aren’t naked.

DL: If you could change soft core pornography, how and who would it be?

JR: I guess make it less content to be soft. I like the tension between soft straining against the impulse to be hard. Who? Some of my friends’ girlfriends, probably. I’m interested in tinkering with the unfamiliar/familiar equilibrium.

DL: Are you in it for the money?

JR: Yes, naturally. There are other ingredients, but the absence of any one of them alone wouldn’t be reason alone to stop. Without money though, it would be over in a heartbeat.

DL: Any further penchants you’d like to reveal, unofficially?

JR: They are so prosaic I think it would be hard to stifle a yawn. I like to think I have my own unique niches in the canon of the commonplace, but perhaps I don’t … and anyway it’d take too much time and penmanship to state them prettily. They tend to wiggle about.

DL: Is there anything else you need, besides money?

JR: I need objects for the unholy bits of my imagination to alight upon.

DL: Favorite childhood cheeses?

JR: I remember discovering that camembert sometimes smells like semen. Still tastes good though. I’ve since noticed that day-old pancake mix has a similar quality.

DL: Which talent would you most like to have and how much would you pay to get it, Euros please?

JR: I can’t afford to shop in euros, I earn my crusts in dollars which are currently equivalent to the Namibian Lucky Bean. I have always aspired to possessing talents which might alchemise me into a state of irresistibility. Hypnotism, manufacture of persuasive pharmaceuticals, knot-tying, those kinds of things.

DL: If you were one of those emoticons, which one would you be, and how big?

JR: The sunny vagina, 1:12

DL: What is your most treasured possession and would you give it to me, if I asked nicely?

JR: If I lived in a land where spouses were still considered goods and chattel I might entertain a loan or a swap under very special circumstances. What you got?

DL: What is “clam happy”?

JR: See response to emoticon question above.

DL: What are the upper body qualities you most like in a woman, or a man, if that doesn’t do it for ye?

JR: Modest dimensions, please.

DL: What is the greatest love of your life and will it love you back, eventually?

JR: Overall I’m happy being the less loved in the greatest love equation. The inequality keeps the horizon line in view and the mystery of the other side intact. Who knows (or wants to know) what the landscape looks like once you crest the hill? Some fetid bog pocked with slag-heaps and sulfurous chimneys? Or just a flat expanse of featureless nothingness, like fucking Holland? Even if it’s better than that, it’s hardly likely to outdo the euphoric pornography of my imagination. So better to keep panting and chasing.

DL: How many horse-ladies in your Apocalypse?

JR: A brace of small-breasted ones.

DL: Who are your heroes, and do they even know you exist?

JR: I’m not sure I have any. Which isn’t as cynical as it sounds, it’s simply a matter of age and cheerful skepticism. Given time, most heroes seem to acquire feet of clay. Possibly I have a few dead ones, but I’d be irritated to see them stated as such, especially by me. Obsessions, however, would be a different story, although they might not be whole human beings. Just bits.

DL: Is this mildly annoying?

JR: Not at all, it’s mildly flattering to be asked.

DL: Chicken or fish?

JR: I’m afraid I need a url to answer this.

DL: How’s thing?

Once again I find myself on Market and 16th, browsing Books Inc. As frequent readers of this electronic entity know, I am a male hetero living “In the Ghaytto”, in San Francisco. My sources tell me that the Castro is being gentrified my breeders, as older gay men leave, sadly, to relocate to less expensive pastures, Guerneville namely, at least that’s the word on the street. Anyway, that’s besides the point as I am here to discuss erotigay, as I stumble upon it, or rather, as it stumbles upon me. As previously mentioned I am quite fond of most gay specific imagery and seek it out every weekend, after coffee (on n’est pas des cochons, on se leve vers huit heures et demi le samedi).

As an aside and just in case you are reading me from a non Judeo-Christian country, we in the West have a holiday which yearly celebrates the virgin birth of a man also know as Jesus Christ, AKA ,JESUS, Jesus fucking Christ, Geeeez…uss Christ almighty!!!; anyway you get the idea. Christmas is a time of joy and gift giving in our country and come December 25th, we shower those we love with, quite literally, millions of tons of joy and gifts. I feel compelled to mention this as Books inc is peddling its annual Christmas selection of published gayrotica. This makes for wonderful perusing. I love it.

Upon entering I immediately came upon the new Harry Bush book “Hard Boys”. Whoaaaa! I very much like it. I won’t review it here since I do not do that kind of thing but you can find one here. Harry Bush’s work reminds me of what a talented pupil might have been sketching to stave off ennui, in Mrs. Perkins high school chemistry. Don’t let the cover fool you, crack it open and check out the packaged goods within. It’s definitely worth a look see.

I am currently developing a line of photography based video games with Atari. This up coming video gaming library will be available for purchase on this site in Q3.

The franchise’s titles we are currently developing and market testing are being quickly expanded to satisfy the needs of the gaming and discerning visual creator’s library.

Titles available in Q3 :

“Terry’s Pro Shooter 4”: Join Terry Richardson and shoot socialites and celebrities in New York’s heavily defended upper East Side social gatherings . Join Terry and shoot your wad on your gallerist’s tits and fornicate with up to 16 online players, featuring never before seen multi-player hotel-animatronics. New “T4™” joy sticks, deliver unmatched social climbing and positioning while you surf Lexington and 85th, survive a debutante’s dream body and join the “Crank Gang” to roam deserted streets.

“I’m Diane Arbus, bitch!”: Join Diane Arbus and Joel Meyerowitz as they challenge you to make your mark in the fast moving world of street photography, capture the elusive with startling flash photography, evade polices and street sweeps. Dive in an unprecedented 353 levels of “Street’s” and “Hobo-photography”. Redeem camera credit anthologies or clash with angry mobs in ‘The Grid”, in level 3.

“June’s Weddin’ 3?. Capture lifetime memories, indulge in our virtual 3D wedding planning and catering and try out our “Brother’s Speech Slurring” technology, catch the garter and bone aunt Mary. But Avoid our “Dry Heaves’” pit to fly to honeymooning Tahiti, but plan it well or beware of version 3’s “Her Hidden Newly Hitched Neurosis™” .

” SS-ex Freaky”, Join Michio Nobuyoshi and capture “The Money Shot™”. Explore your sexual identity within our 7 multi-player levels of split-screen love nut busting 3D virtual reality. Our unprecedented “Scratch and Sniff™” and online avatar slut technology gives you a unique 360 intensity and unheard off directorial gaming abilities.

“Call of Art Basel 3?. Follow your favorite artists and critics to Basel and Miami, drink appleteenies and make your assistants fly economy. Virtual “You Sell Them Larry™” and 3D horn rim technology. Navigate our new multi-player online HD booth technology and live the breathlessly real, contemporary cinematic fury of collectors, artists and critics.

“Conde Nasty 3?: Travel French counties for Conde Nasty and shoot lifestyle of real Caucasian “Hottie”. Our “Quaint™” technology will have your eating organics and driving antique French Citroen 2CVs. Pose near lavender fields, smiling country bumpkins and 300 kinds of stinky cheeses. Restore your peace and harmony with our new Euro-3D virtual realities.
Choose from one of our twelve traveling possibilities but start with “Richy Rich” or “Bobo Pastorialist”, and then move on to level three and “Landed Gentry”. Graduate to ” Grand Thai Whore Mongery”.

This game is also available in travel Adrenaline, Medical and Sexual tourist; breath taking gaming combinations of :”I’m Diane Arbus, bitch!”, ” SS-ex Freaky” and “Conde Nasty 3?. Shoot those adorable Guatemalan hill ladies or “Run for your life in Karachi”.

more to come….. Stay tuned to further developments and to all our upcoming gaming possibilities.