i'm going back to cali, later this month for work and relaxation. I havent figured out my route yet but i need to go to L.A. , san diego, mexico, the bay area and of course las vegas, maybe vegas, the bay,l.a., s.d., and then vegas again? i dont know i'll figure it out i first met the guys at GIANT ROBOT over a decade ago at san diego comicon this year giant robot turns 15. we are gonna have limited skatedecks and a new version of my wood toy called, WOMBAT. i dont know how many or how much the decks are gonna be, but the toy is limited to an edition of 200 and will be around $40. This might be your only chance to get this stuff, if it sells out. i'll be there to sign some shit, at the giant robot booth, but mostly i'll just be wandering around. i need to find a copy of this Comic-Con International: San Diego 2009
All Memberships Are Sold Out!
JULY 23-26 Preview Night: July 22
San Diego Convention Center 111 W. Harbor Drive San Diego, CA 92101
the con has been sold out for months, but i been sneaking in every year, it doesnt take a genius to figure it out. so figure it out. and nerd out.
It’s 7 a.m. in new york, I haven’t slept in two days ,I’m working on my 300 page book(out next year with chronicle) I’ll probably go to sleep in a few hours(or maybe not, they have a good shrimp burrito at broadway east on the weekend), in the meantime I’m filtering through decades of art, photo’s and stories, so here’s some random old shit from back in the day, with some new shit from this week in new york city.
Some wood sculptures from the first show at GR2 in l.a. (by the way I haven’t gone to san diego comic con in 5 years, but I’ll be there later this month, I have two different limited versions of my wood toys and 2 limited skate decks with giant robot, both will probably only be available at the con, see you fellownerds there!) this is one of the skateboard designs kevin ancell, the perverted mickey avalon, and another pervert, at the MGM for the last BJ Penn fight. Kevin is one of the best artists in the world , but more important than that ,he’s one of the best dudes ever, he’s a drifter like me, so I can relate to him better than old married people, if I was a chick I’d probably marry him and we’d be even more fucked up then woody allen and Soon-Yi(by the way I saw the third installment in the trilogy of: old salty and vinegary,bitter white man teamed up with young, lost ,looking for guidance kid, becomes an unlikely friendship movie, which was 1) gran torino 2)UP by pixar, and the one i just saw, 3) whatever works, the larry david/woody allen movie, and you know woody wanted to make the lead girl, asian ,but everyone would’ve frowned , he shouldve made her asian). Here’s a little bit about Kevin
JJ, Horny Kim, Pat, and Eric, at the Penn fight. My mom cooks an amazing Korean dinner in Koreatown, los angeles, for all the lost boys and lost souls and those who have halitosis of the heart. Harry kim, eric nakamura, bobby namba, james jean, and Mr. Hahn
Here’s some down and dirty quick watercolor sketches from new york Supermodel,and all around cool chick, Erin Wasson , changing in front of us, showing off her new clothes line for RVCA at the Barney’s HQ in midtown I’ve never seen a girl so lost in the city before, I don’t know if she was lost or homeless, but she looked like she had stepped out of an Charles Lutwidge Dodgson novel or tim burton movie from the 80’s. I felt like I just wanted to give her a giant bag of candy laced with elf tears and a giant horse made out of taffy and cotton candy to carry her out of this city, and this time period on giant mammatusclouds back to where she belongs, but I just drew her instead. I got to be completely honest, I actually feel like total shit because when these old identical twins got on the L, wearing the same exact clothes, even at their age, I did the typical Korean pre-judging ,and the first thing I thought was, Danny DeVito from the movie twins, and his rant about being the genetic shit and Arnold being the genetic gold, and I thought here’s two genetic shit’s. and I couldn’t stop looking at them. I saw them be completely loving to each other, how they touched and talked to each other, with patience,kindness,and tenderness. I could see they were totally dependent on each other, and I got sad thinking one of them might die before the other one, and they were so brotherly to each other, and I loved them too, and they were not genetic shit, and neither was danny devito in that movie and/or in life Chizzzzzed in china town (maybe one of the best drawings I’ve ever done in my life)
My mom dropped by new york this week, so she made me breakfast every morning, with a little drawing, and I took her back to see Bacon with my bro. On her last day she cooked for us and my friend mike namba , and my niece Maya.(Mr. Hahn gave me this Mickey Mouse zombie brains t-shirt, that my mom stole from me, and wears all the time now, after i threw all her ed hardy bullshit out) Maya got down on the drums likeMeg White,she got so worked up she had to take a nap standing up. When she woke up , she was like,"what the fuck !? who told you to stop partying?!?!"and she started to scream, LET’S KEEP PARTYING!!!!!!!! So we did
Here’s the complete partylist: YALL SO STUPID-introduce me DIZZEE RASCAL- sirens GARY NUMAN -M.E. LIL WAYNE -shoot me down SONIC YOUTH- drunken butterfly THE GZA -liquid swords YO LA TENGO -our way to fall HANG ON THE BOX -no sexy GUNS N ROSES -rocket queen DEPECHE MODE -taking a ride with my best friend STEELHEART- Ill never let you go (angel eyes) TRIBE CALLED QUEST -buggin out SUPERCHUNK -Connecticut KORN- porno creep THE CONCRETES -foreign country MONEY MARK -sometimes you gotta make it alone APHEX TWIN -alberto balsam ANDREW WK -I get wet KEITH FORSEY - love theme (breakfast club soundtrack)
AXIS BOLD AS FUCK!! I remember listening to the ,wind cries mary, for the first time over and over, again studying the words, the background snare noises, the rhythm and guitars ,till it drove my ,in the closet at the time roommate insane enough to throw my alarm clock tape player against the wall, smashing it to pieces. After I smashed his head against the wall leaving the embossed wallpaper pattern imprinted on his forehead, I grabbed all my blue cans, and proceeded to paint all the streetlights blue, for tomorrow. I fell asleep with the sun coming up blue paint all over my clothes, face and hands. The sounds of confused traffic horns in the background. "The traffic lights they turn blue tomorrow And shine their emptiness down on my bed, The tiny island sags downstream 'Cos the life they'd lived is dead."-JIMI HENDRIX That’s jimi Hendrix, he fucking ripped the shit out of life and then died My fellow left handed bro died when he was only 27 years old. This extremely limited print is of the legend jimi hendrix, in all his glory and inspired madness, there will only be 27 editions of this giclee’ print, at $600 plus shipping, all signed numbered, and left handed guitar drawn on some of the prints, I already gave 8 of them away to friends and family, so really there’s only 19 left. This print would not be for my ex-roomate ,You will really have to like Jimi or have manic depression for this one, my largest print to date, the print will be reproduced the same size as the original 4 foot painting on, Breathing Color's Elegance Velvet Platinum Edition ,It’s a high end digital water color paper at ,44" x 51 5/8" . Longtime family friends the namba’s ,will be producing this bad boy, 30 years in the business with top secret custom silk screening techniques, look for totally mental prints in the future. For this JIMI print Contact bobby namba at bnamba@live.com, the prints are huge so expect at least 3 weeks for delivery. He will be handling all orders and sales . he’s in l.a. I’m in new york ,Don’t email or call me, I cant help you. be nice to bobby and he'll be nice to you.
Los angeles, san diego, san jose, santa cruz, new haven, san Francisco, boston, Burlington, Montclair, Brooklyn, Harlem, seattle, Portland, Baltimore, Philadelphia, sacramento, Berkeley, Washington d.c., new york city ,with aphex twin music go here
the date farmers fucking rule!!! as you can see from this picture. after hanging out in the parking lot, carlos drew this in my sketchbook, and i painted it with some watercolors. here we are in denver at the 2008 democratic national convention, with cardboard portraits of us courtesy of sam flores.
Is bacon high society? Who doesn’t like bacon? I had a Man date to look at art with my art fag friends Sam, Tomer, James, Jules,Kenichi, and Ben and Bobby from the hundreds, (here is the text message from james to set up our date). Franky B. aka Francis Bacon r.i.p. arguably the greatest painter of the 20th century, has a huge retrospective at the Met right now, and I live in new york so I got to see it right? I get on the F train going uptown, and I put on the other Franky B. aka Francis Black one of the best singers ever, on my ipod and I fucking see a gustav klimt painting come to life , it’s just me and her on the train so I feel like a creep taking her photo, so I try to sneak it, In korea the phones are so advanced people can talk on their phones or even watch live tv on their phone miles beneath the earth, that shit don’t work out here, everyone knows that , but here I am trying to pretend like im talking on the phone sideways while taking a cameraphone flick , the phone even made a loud taking a photo sound, she totally knew ,I was busted, but whatever how often do see a 200 year old painting come to life . so klimt to bacon , he’s an angry mother fucker started hitting his stride at 60 ,paints like an angry old queen, his art is filled with hate,anger, hacked guts,gore, sprinkled with mangled and bloody cocks,all exploding into pent up homoerotic awesomeness and I love it, I’ve seen most of his stuff in books, but seeing it in person with the paint chunks ,clumped, stacked, and layered ,with all the violent brush strokes is like seeing a messy murder crime scene, I had never seen his paintings of dogs and I love that shit, it made me miss my dog rosie,
and I paint her,rocky and angel as much as possible, here's a picture of rosie looking more like a bacon painting , and here’s a painting I did back in the day that a lot of people said looked like francis bacon, and so I looked him up and that’s how I first learned about the Bacon. here's James studying a painting with his futuristic backpack, that hides his adamantium wings and records all of mans accomplishments before they unleash the angel of death aka james jean, onto the world, see most people that meet james, think he's a pretty mellow dude, they have no idea that the inside of his soul looks more like this painting he's standing in front of. this was right before we got into a lively discussion about what shade and hue of cadmium, Bacon was using In the description next to his dog painting, there was a quote from the man saying “I remember looking at dog shit on the pavement and I suddenly realized, there it is- that is what life is like.” ….. damn bacon, don’t you remember what it was like to be young and full of life and not jaded and bitter??
here’s a picture of a strip of sugar cured bacon from my lunch at clinton street bakery inspired by bacon's art, i collaged many cunts and clits into it's surface for you to enjoy. After hanging out in high society I brought it down 100 notches going back to the sewer, the epitome of low art, the comic book shop !!!! on the subway down ,a watercolor sketch I did back in 07 somehow materialized into real flesh and blood, with chuck taylors, like amazing stories, got loose on the train, and was looking around lost, I was like,” who fucking told you, you could leave my sketchbook, get the fuck back up in there!!” I got out my sketchbook, spread the pages wide open and she jumped back onto the page where it’s safe and where she belongs. if the comic book shop is actually the highest form of art for me, than this guy must be my priest, this is silver age larry who’s at jim hanleys 85% of the time I’m there, what happens in new york comic shops is you see grown adults in buisness suits as well as nerds and ne’er do wells getting into spirited debate and conversations in the aisles over capes , inkers, and swiss cheesed plot lines ,larry knows absolutely everything about comics, I go in there once a month and try to stump him on trivia and he has yet to disapoint me, he is always smiling knowledgeable and ready to help a new reader or seasoned veteran to new material, I ask him about everything from comics, comic book movies, boners and girls, that’s why I guess im so fucked up sexually. Anyways there's larry wearing the classic punisher shirt and a winning smile(you can see by the weathered cracks in the skull, larry's been rocking the punisher for more than a minute). the punisher is the unofficial mascot to new york city, you see more punisher shirts in new york than any other city in the world, he’s batman with no rules, he's a revenge fantasy porno to the max, he's basically the perfect superhero for new york, it’s the only city in the world wear you can buy a punisher t-shirt at any hour of the day, if you have lived in new york for more than 5 years you can wear one as a badge of honor. Fuck everyone who was involved in the last two punisher movies for delivering such shit( with the exception of the last movie which had two standout scenes where the Punisher punches a big hole in a guy's face and blows up a guy with a bazooka while he's doing a cartwheel in mid-air) ,the original movie with dolph still rules the school, quit being fuckers and make a proper punisher flick that the new yorkers deserve. Dolph’s opening monologue is one of the best scenes to capture the punisher spirit, and was used in a biohazard song appropriately titled "punishment". And than to top off seeing some of the greatest paintings of the 20th century, I then ran into my old mentor barron storey who is one of the greatest drawers of the 20th century, who’s having an opening at the society of illustrators with over 100 of his mind fucking face melting sketchbooks on view this week ,on the 12th. here's a painting from Barron and finally, on my final descent home, fate saving the best for last, a true beauty, stepping right out of the pages of a dan clowes comic, a hair helmeted, no country for old man with tiger striped nikes appeared on east broadway
As a lifelong comic book fan, this year has been an utter dissapointment so far with a firehose of dogshit being blasted on to our faces, fuck the wolverine movie, fuck the watchmen movie, fuck the terminator movie, fuck all the studios and directors that are ruining these awesome characters, the best character this summer is iron mike, and his superhero movie TYSON is better than all the shits I just mentioned, I seen it 6 times already , as mike likes to say , ”I’ll fuck you in your ass you faggot, I’ll eat your asshole alive you bitch, I’ll fuck you till you love me faggot, I want to eat your children! praise be to allah!!” anyways this kid keeps popping up in these movies, I don’t know his name but he was john conner in this new terminator and Chekov, with the goofy Russian accent in the new star trek (which was actually good, and I hate star trek! It was fucking awesome to hear the beastie’s SABOTAGE in the movie, speaking of the beastie boys, adrock and john doe from X were in an amazing road movie that I used to watch everyday called ROADSIDE PROPHETS, until harry stole it from my house, anyways it has one of david carradine’s best scenes ever R.I.P.) he also has a pretty good scene with Michael Jai White in KILL BILL that got deleted,
(Michael made a funny fucking movie BLACK DYNAMITE with director scott sanders, which is playing in vegas at CINEVEGAS next week, i might have to hit that up) anyways , I’m watching all this shit going , this kids in every blockbuster this summer where the fuck have I seen him before, and then it hit me, he was in this fucked up movie ALPHA DOG with Justin timberlake and Sharon stone in a fat suit, and he wore a mixtape shirt I made for upperplayground during the entire movie , he even dies while wearing it (just ruined the ending). Here’s some screengrabs off that movie, i think it was a pretty cool shirt , they printed one of my cassette mixtape cases on the back, here’s the image that’s on the back of the shirt, and then Thurston moore grabbed my songlist and put it in his mixtape book, which I got, looked through and realized I had the most superior taste in music over anyone (to bring the shit back full circle "sabotage" is on the list). Anyways since I’m talking about t-shirts and shit, does anyone know where I can get a L.A. raiders t-shirt?? this is the last time I wore mine, and I haven’t seen it since. And if you don’t know steve nazar, you actually probably do, he designed all the T&C surf t-shirt designs, like thrilla gorilla, this fucking nerd alex in 4rth grade ,used to sit right in front of me in Mrs. Zanka’s math class wearing a DA’BOYS shirt and I’d copy that graphic on my homework over and over, while trying to look up her blouse while she leaned down to help other students from across the room (I was a pre-vert even back then) anyways my friend bobby asked me to design a shirt for THE HUNDREDS, and I was like fuuck I’m so over t-shirt shit, I just want to paint , but then I was cleaning my desk and I found some old nazar shit, and I was like I’m gonna do my ripoff/homage to nazar by doing my take on thrilla gorilla using my whale MUNKO , I sent my shit over , and just my luck, bobby was like,”did I tell you nazar is doing graphics for us now?” so now I feel like a fucking jerkoff doing hack art in the same season as the artist I’m hacking off, but what can I do? It’s all love,respect to nazar, check the shit out and have a neat summer .
i guess sometimes things turn out for the best, after the bounced check debacle with my obama painting, i got a nice invite from the White house to have my painting up in there, while they were taking down all of george bush's cowboy and western art. here's some bootlegged obama schwag found in new york
before i left to china I finished some new paintings for London, here's some news from over there "Regardless of linguistic logistics, we will be opening the (probably still wet) doors of our newly renovated, elegant, five-storey Georgian townhouse to the public on Friday the 15th of May. With just under 4,000 sq. ft of space for exhibitions, studios, and offices to play with, our first show will be the next installment of the Lazarides cornerstone; the ”Outsiders" group show featuring brand new work from Antony Micallef, Bast, Conor Harrington, David Choe, Faile, Jonathan Yeo, JR, and Vhils, to name but a few; as well as some outstanding pieces from some very special guests." if your interested in these pieces you can get at them at http://www.lazinc.com/contact/
here's a drawing , the amazing Steve "Ribs" Weissman did of me and my bro ,from years ago and i probably shouldn't be being buying anymore art because of space and my drifting nature, but i cant help it , i have a problem, here's a painting i purchased from the fabulous mitsy avila ovalles
i'm cleaning up my desktop and i found these out takes from an upperplayground shoot i did last year, with jon dragonette , here's a closeup of what's going on with the shirt i made without all the blood, you can get it here
It's not as messy and sloppy as sex, actually i guess it can be, but eating fast food, and trying to do watercolors of my favorite cartoons, just for shits, while sitting on the couch can be very tricky yet very rewarding AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE(best intro to a movie ever, nacho on drums!) METALOCALYPSE(best thing on t.v. right now) and with that enjoy this cartoon from Todd James
third drum practice: TIFFANY- I think we’re alone now BEASTIE BOYS- an open letter to NYC JAY-Z- dirt off your shoulder THE SMITHS- there is a light that never goes out ARCHERS OF LOAF- fabricoh LAND OF THE LOOPS- multi-family garage sale JUSTICE- valentine 50 CENT –ayo technology NIRVANA-tourette’s RATATAT-gettysburg U.G.K.- international players anthem LISA LISA AND THE CULT JAM- lost in emotion AUDIO BULLIES- we don’t care DESPARECIDOS- manana BRUCE SPRINGSTEIN- I’m on fire DMX- x gonna give it to ya THE KNIFE- heartbeats CADENCE WEAPON- oliver square BAT FOR LASHES- what’s a girl to do? YEAH YEAH YEAHS (PEACHES REMIX)- cheated hearts
First drum practice: OUTKAST-b.o.b. (tom morello remix) RATATAT- 17 years BLINK-182- carousel NELLY FURTADO- promiscuous MICKEY AVALON- 2 hookers and a Mexican CLIPSE feat. PHARRELL – mr. me too LIL WAYNE- a millie PEACHES- fuck the pain away JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE- sexy back TAYLOR DANE- tell it to my heart JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE feat. CLIPSE- like I love you MCSLEAZY- pixies vs. run dmc it’s gigantic DEAD PREZ-hip hop T.I.-whatever you like HAROLD FALTERMEYER- axel f
From one of my favorite artist's , JIM LEE and one of my favorite writers, BRIAN AZZARELLO , comes this oversized, slipcased volume collecting the entire 12-issue "For Tomorrow" epic originally presented in SUPERMAN #204-215! this bad boy is 340 pages and Features an introduction by Azzarello, an afterward and sketch section by Lee, a newly illustrated 2-page origin of Superman by Lee and Williams! and a painting over Lee's pencils, by artist David Choe. get it here
I just returned home from china, if i didn't have to finish the projects i agreed to out here in america,i would've stayed out there forever, the art show was big fun and a huge success for me,and the Chinese were cool as shit, thanks to everyone out there. Me and Harry ,just finished shooting thumbs up season 3:china, it was our most brutal trip to date, hopefully you will enjoy it (all above photo's by Joe To). in the almost three months i was gone i turned my phone off and rarely checked my email, it was very calming, it was such a relief to turn on my computer today, and finally get some fan mail instead of the usual hate mail, finally someone who agree's with my appraisal of myself and my art.
"David choe is a total asshole and his art is total crap, he seems to have failed to develop as a person, I suspect that I’m hardly alone in my appraisal of david choe and his sloppy, ugly, worthless art, as far as I’m concerned he will have to work in an orphanage for AIDS orphans in the congo before I’ll ever respect him, He isn’t doing anything good for the world , and I’m calling bullshit on his whole immature shtick." – Will
thanks to everyone i met and helped me out in china, thanks to all the people that flew across the world to support me out here, your the best, and thanks to Joe To, my hero -love david I think i'll stay out here for awhile...
i been spoiled all these years with the finest spray paint, montana and all the european shit, i haven't used krylon in years so when i got to china, all the spray cans were male, rendering all my male fat cap tips useless, and the only female cans had to be imported from hong kong, plus the paint was the cheap watery shit from my past, you had to go over the same lines over and over to get hard, its not my best work but you try using this cheap shit busting out with some 1990's shit ,i still got a little bit of the touch
if you want to get any of this stuff contact info@pyogalleryla.com
my BEIJING solo art show,DEATHBLOSSOM, opening in three different spaces on the same night april 4rth, here's some work in progress, and a couple finished pieces
