thinking, drawing, being simultaneously fully three dimensional and fully 2 dimensional, painting, paint, pencils, killer draftspersons, sound metaphysics, Cathedrals, pro wrestling*: (*for further illumination of this kraftily kounterintuitive kultural krossfertilisation, see my grey blog ) (Additional note, June 2008: Me and wrestling might have broken up.)
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classic cartoons, omnology, Krazy Kat, becoming cerebral about pop music, getting lighthearted about heavy things, blogging as an act of faith, reading, books, John Ruskin, Grunewald, Ren and Stimpy, JMW Turner's whisps and puffs
I'd like to meet:
FRIENDS. Allies. (real ones) Wealthy patrons/eccentric benefactors, people who empathise with the things I say in my blog in any way at all, people who find my pictures to be acceptable. Those who beleive in beauty and put their money where their mouth is.
Maybe also chaps who want to take me on exuberant art materials shopping expeditions. Oh, life could be so sweet.
The best way to show you love my pictures is to buy one. Because that helps me to keep doing them. Yes it's true. It's damn true.
Music:
bollocks. Beach Boys, Joe Meek, Mozart, Phil Spector, Brian Wilson, Prince, Motown, Carter Family, Ivor Cutler, artful comedy bands, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Incredible String Band, Charles Ives, Currently Elgar, joyous dumb bubblegum pop, death songs from the late 50s/early 60s, dumb music when I find it to be a gateway to an atmosphere, Beatles, Everly Brothers, *I'm not really comfortable with anyone trying to deduce my essence from lists of this sort... I'd like to think I'm far too erumpent and charismatic to be reduced to such linear squareness. Also, I have had a willfully retarded approach to music appreciation since I lost the hearing in my right ear when I was seventeen... I'm not frantically searching... but I am gently curious
Movies:
Random Harvest, All About Eve, anything with young Clark Gable, currently things with Bette Davis, Eisenstein face closeups, Some Like it Hot, Pinocchio, Rebecca, Lord of the Rings trilogy, Airplane, The Elephant Man, possibly Mullholland Drive but I've only seen it once, I like David Lynch things, Crumb, Dumbo, Princess Mononoke, Paul Newman's eyes and Paul Newman's consistently getting wet, Rocks are Ludo's friends, really I'm wilfully ignorant and I've given up collecting cultural allegiances in earnest, or at least, I've given up holding them tightly; so... I'd like to be able to use culture as a means by which to reach beyond culture. I say this partly because my films list looks somehow wrong, like I haven't seen enough films to have favourites, or I'm not cut out to have favourites at all.
Television:
Doctors, Newsround, The Box of Delights, Watercolour Challenge, The Young Ones, Father Ted, Monty Python, Vic Reeves Big Night Out, WWE Raw, Newsnight Review, Harry Hill's TV Burp, The Mighty Boosh, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Look Around You, The Day Today, Jim Henson's The Storyteller, the Wonder Years, Ulysses 31, Ren and Stimpy, Moondial, Twin Peaks, Lost, Neighbours (it's Scott's fault), Rolf's Cartoon Time
Books:
Currently reading (as evidenced by large pile by my bed... I didn't plan it this way...)Depression: the Way Out of your Prison by Dorothy Rowe, The Ode Less Travelled by S. Fry, Victor Ambrus's drawings from Time Team, a book of Durer's drawings which I'm studying from rather than reading mainly, Meditations on the Tarot, Wrestling with the Angel (about the Delacroix mural), Beatrix Potter biog by Linda Lear, Modern Painters vol. 2 by John Ruskin (which is still in one peace as I only read it gently in bed), Michael Palin's monty python diaries, The Pathway by Henry Williamson...
Heroes:
Rembrandt, Samuel Palmer, John Ruskin, Beatrix Potter, George Herriman, Orson Welles, Stimpy, my cat Hal, His late and much missed amazing brother Stephen, Sister Wendy Beckett, Brian Wilson, Robin Williamson, John Kricfalusi, William Blake, my friend Bob (the world's best person), most flowers and trees and the odd duck here and there... some nice people. Not that niceness is the be all and end all. I hiss like a snake sometimes! (I hissed like a snake at the end of the horror film Love Actually)