of no interest to anyone here but i’m still going to mention it as it does file very neatly next to “england’s hidden reverse” (re c93/nww/coil) which maybe is on many bookshelves of a certain sector of tb fans (and carries some possible similar outsider philosophical parallels?) - anyway, this is volume one of the madcap daevid allen memoirs - australia’s second best known hippy guru export (next to richard neville - who is also on my heroes list) - this covers his pre-gong years - bill burroughs / the ufo club / paris student riots and all that - related in a very haphazard acid-crazed manner - with eccentric typography and page layouts (by allen himself) littered with pix and allen’s characteristic python-esque charm - investigate at your own risk (it might change your life!) - an all rights reversed copyright free book (tho i’ve not seen it downloadable myself) - volume 2, “gong”, much desired but still long awaited - “it’s all written, just needs illustrating and designing” says the planet gong website

tristes vacances is the essential classic romain slocombe book - tiny in size but (for me) epic in portentousness - 15 colour plates depicting the survivors of a japanese tourist coach crash, along with medical documentation (in french) detailing their assorted fractures etc - released in 1986, the same time i was doing my own idiosyncratic and commercially nonviable graphic autopsy booklets - i was given a copy of le livre shortly after by someone making connections between our “misogynist” deviant art - also at that time i picked up a zine called casual casual which included an excellent and inspiring slocombe interview and art feature - then around 1990 someone in france had shown romain samples of my work and he got in touch (sending me another complimentary copy of tristes vacances!) - i was encouraged to become “an artist” and the rest is history - romain today can be found here

tristes vacances is long out of print (needless to say?) but not so difficult to find - it tends to crop up either at ridiculous throw-away or ridiculously exorbitant prices, depending on the disposition (artistic appreciation or lack of) of the bookseller - as i write there are four copies on abebooks priced between $9.95 and $177.07! (also copies of the more rare “l’art medical”!)

just doing (done?) an interview for the rock/metal magazine revolver in america - for the column “visions of disorder” in which they tell the story behind the creation of classic and iconic album covers - my “infamous” deicide “cover”, “once upon the cross”, selected after a readers vote - it also apparently appeared in a feature they ran titled “graphic violence: the most demented, depraved, and demonic album covers of all time!” - so much controversy over barely two square centimeters of (out of focus) gore hidden inside the sleeve [reproduced above in greater clarity] - of course after all this time my recollections are poor but it’s nice to have something different to talk about instead of the usual “why did you move to japan” type interviews - it’ll appear in the issue due out the first week of november if anyone at all interested …as i said in the interview, nowadays it feels like another trevor brown did it - how (un)fortunate i never got inundated with cd art requests from other death metal bands following that cover - not one, ha ha!

aka cave story - just started playing this and immediately hooked - a very charming and compelling 8/16 bit style game with excellent graphics - zelda, mario and megaman all rolled into one - amazingly the labour of love of one japanese guy over five years, released as freeware(!) in 2004 - and has rightfully become a classic it appears - it’’s easy to find on the web in pc and mac flavours and english patch, i’m playing a psp port myself - so much fun packed into a mere two megs!

(apologies for no life geek post!)

having been deleted from blogspot (and myspace naturally), the bizarrejapan blog resurfaces under it’s own domain freakyjapan.com - and carries on where they left off giving us the best (and/or worst) of japanese pornography, art and madness that even the baby art blog is too much of a baby to touch

irvine welsh tends to be hit or miss for me - “porno” was very entertaining but “filth” meanderingly tedious (imho) - the new tome (a bit hyped? - how many novels have trailer films?!) seems to be distractingly attracting either love or hate reviews - but mention of a ten-year-old girl, inappropriate sexuality and a paedophile ring… hey okay, i’ll bite! - i like how the blurb includes a sort of detached exoneration: “A novel about the corruption and abuse of the human soul and possibilities of redemption” - just to make you feel like a refined reader rather than a prurient pervert - but of course, altho way better than vachss for delving into depravity, welsh is still popular mainstream and kinda falls short of gratuitous lasciviousity - “porno” contained more cocaine than carnality as i recall - and i suspect this book perhaps likewise - anyway, looking forward to reading it

You know what? Having a look at your site, I was starting to think you must be a misogynist. I was wrong. You’re a misogynist PRICK.

Get off the web and die. Or at least keep your bad taste to yourself. Seriously.

ho-hum

my recent “ask the misogynist PRICK a question” post has been restructured more orderly and added to the baby art interviews and articles section

paul mccarthy, mazakii???, boris lurie, makoto aida, john isaacs, philippe starck