Godcat…the Cat that Really Was…Take That from the Cat!

In the past day I have procrastinated to a startling degree rarely achieved by those in possession of “Amateur Boredom.” For starters, I headed out to Assembly Square Loews, by myself, and caught an early screening of ‘Brokeback Mountain’ last night, wihich I can only describe as “pastoral.” How Ang Lee went from directing ‘Crouching Tiger’ to this film is a transition beyond the grasp of my “Amateur Crossfading.” Funny, but the moments of the film that really touched me were somewhat distorted.

I mean literally. For some reason the projectionist had the film projector or whatever you call that glorified digital overhead light machine on the wrong resolution at the beginning of the film. Those with a sharper eye than mine detected this almost immediately and immediately vocalized their concerns up to the projectionists cage up in the back of the theater, and the problem was corrected, but not before the opening shots of the double-trailer truck flying down the Great Plains dusty highway. Damn, that opening shot was out of site! Funny resolution notwithstanding.

The experience of seeing such a subtly powerful film fully crept up over me when I got home and I had to lie down for about an hour to let my mind-intestines digest the load. The nap that this led to was probably a bad idea and as a result I didn’t sleep well at all when it was finally time to close my eyes last night. I was up with the sun and downloaded about 200 songs right off the bat. Then I made coffee. With my hearts pumping into my veins blood in the hue of caffeinated-brown I took up the New York Times Saturday edition, including the NYT Magazine, Style & Book Review, and read it all.

That accomplished, I picked up my cellphone and began my version of drunken dialing… calling people in the morning after an insane amount of coffee. Wisely, my friends from Chicago decided to let the machines pick up and I rattled off phone messages as if in a freestylin’ daze. Back at my laptop, the baby bizamp, who is known in the ‘hood as the bebe biz, I am once again tempted to go download some more block rocking beats, such as De La Soul’s “It Ain’t All Good” or the tracks from Donald Fagen (of Steely Dan fame) new studio LP, “Morph the Cat.”

What I really need to do is whip out the original software and manual for the “bizzy box,” my portable Phillips mp three player, and try to organize my digital collection. The bizzy box has become my hip hop catchall and the result on shuffle-all is an over-the-top non-stop gangsta-Native Tongue-krunk-krump-hyphy-atl-dirty-word-driven assault on the ears that could easily knock Belle & Sebastien purists right into the emergency ward.

Speaking of those going to or coming back from the emergency ward, seems to me a form of blaxploitation that Daniel Johnston’s handmade artwork & drawings are looming large onto the international art collection scene. The picture accompanying this post is one such work, which Daniel simply hands out to people he meets or trades for Diet Cokes at the dollar store in his Texas town. No doubt, Daniel is a genius, and the New York Times article on his work had me itching to get a little for myself…

Eliot said that I remind him of steely Daniel Johnston grinding my art through the sharp edges of my brain like cheese through a grater. Got to wonder how long I’d last if the NYT came knocking on my door some over-caffeinated morning and blew up the 3rdarm.biz animated gifs on the cover of Weekend Arts. I probably wouldn’t survive the weekend because my head would explode. Big ups to the marvel that is the manchild Daniel Johnston pushing pushing pushing his art into the world of wolves: Godcat.