Some pontifications. Some poems. Some prose. Short.

From my Twitter account:

-- The Beauty of the English Language is in its ambiguity.

-- English lesson: Anyway is not now nor has it ever been plural.

-- Note: "ANYWAYS, suck my dick" is not an acceptable retort to that last tweet.

Blaring self importance aside,

I just want to make a couple of statements regarding the world at large.

1. Democracy as word and ideal has been bandied about and misused and abused for ages.

2. Activism is selective in its methods, talking points, and execution. Most recent examples: Iran election/Racism in Northern Ireland. Soon to come: Honduran military coup d'état.

Poems/Prose:

"Drunk Punch Slovenly Bunch"

We didn't meet in seclusion, our hearts were open in hopeless homes wrecks and depressive stretches, the dregs and empty bottles, but normally we spoke of the loneliness that abides the sauce, the empty bottles an effect.

Sometimes the monitor is my only friend. The 'we' in question being my assumption of togetherness quite abstracted from an idea of indistinctiveness-- I never cared for detail, for those tiniest of ifs and buts that trailed an ellipsis in every deduction.
Glass to glass, I drink to thee, for thee shall never make utterance of a love for me.

I prefer this.

You and I, we think alike.
You and I, we carry a huge ego.

I can drink you under the table, however.

(2007)

--

“Bitchslapping the Muse”

If she stops singing
and starts nagging
get to bitchslapping.

No.

I am not promoting violence toward women.
I am not promoting violence toward effeminate men.
I am not promoting violence.
I am promoting creative revolution.

The concept of the bitchslap in and of itself is humorous.
It evokes a comedic image.
If she stops singing
and starts flagging
...
wake her up with the beautiful words she used to wake you.

(2009)

--

"I like it because it hurts you"

In Soho, London you can get any kind of girl you want for a price. The girl I got liked slapping the shit out of me. Her English was terrible. I only understood a scant few lines. She said, "I like it because it hurts you" a lot.

(2009)

--

"The Photographer"

I hate posing for pictures. From the awkward positions, to the fake smiles, to pretending like I'm having a good time, the phoniness of event photography that drips slowly, annoyingly from nearly every photo makes me nauseous. The point of "capturing a moment" is as plain as the language used to describe it. You are "capturing a moment." There is no metaphor lurking between the letters or the words. When you "capture a moment," you don't choreograph it, you point and hit the shutter. If it looks like shit; having no symmetry or piss poor lighting, what you do with that photo is at your own discretion.

I have never discarded a single picture in all my years of photographing. So what (!) if someone laughs or looks away. They are communicating what most people communicate when being made to stand still in an unnatural position for a photo: "Don't you have enough pictures of people doing nothing?"

(2008)

All writing by Patrick Patterson-Carroll

Artist Interview: Jessica Terry

Interviewing "one of our own."


Over a period of a couple of days, I had a chat with my friend, colleague (we work for the same company), and fellow DbFP contributor Jessica Terry about her art.


Foreign fairy tales and video games inspire Jessica Terry. Jessica is a local Dallas art student and musician who is currently studying art in all its aspects. As of this moment she is not a well known artist (yet) as she is still a student but is content with just getting her thoughts alive on canvas or whatever medium she fancies at the time. She has shown in several art galleries in Dallas such as H. Paxton Moore Fine Art Gallery, The Kettle and Hal Samples Gallery. (At current all shown pieces have been sold). The next show for Miss Terry will be a group show at the MAC in uptown Dallas TX. The show is being called 'XV'. The exhibit will open August 1st at 5:30 p.m.. The exhibit will be open until August 29th. For purchasing, requests/commissions or any other inquiries contact : jessica.terry@gmail.com


The following interview happened over the course of three nights on gchat, and have been edited slightly. ...


Jessica: (with regard to the idea of photos of works in progress) I knew the documentation of my work in photos would be useful for something.


Patrick: Yeah, I'm all about the process stuff.


Jessica: Yeah same here.


Patrick: What's the saying? Sometimes the journey is just as if not more important than the destination... with any kind of art, I think that's true. For the most part.


Jessica: I agree with that... or at least it has been that way for me.

"Elepants Phobia" Sculpture in progress

"Cash in Space" in progress

Patrick: Well, it's always nice and fulfilling to finish something, but you're never AS connected to something as when you're in the process. Everything after that is hindsight. It's the same way with writing stories or poetry. Like, I look at some of the shit I wrote in hs and freshman year of college, and some of the stuff is so embedded in events and thoughts and reactions that I can't even remember... it's hard to decipher. There's a disconnect in that. I mean, sure, I wrote that stuff, but it's not the same me.
Jessica: Yeah.


Patrick: I imagine it's like that with anything one creates.


Jessica: It is. It is also very hard for me to let go of my artwork.. and sell it but that is what I have the photos for.


Patrick: Does that have to do with the difficulty in replicating pieces? I would imgaine that a photo is hardly a substitution for one of your sculptures.


Jessica: I thought so at first but it feels like giving a something personal about myself away.


Patrick: I understand that. Hell, Will Self says that when you read his novels, you know more about him than you could by meeting him and spending prolonged periods of time with him. Something about intimacy. Because the art is something you do when no one else is around.


Jessica: Exactly .. it is weird is a way to feel that way.


Patrick: It makes a lot of sense... but then, what exactly inspires you to create? And why should we care?


Jessica: I kick general ass in art.


Patrick: Well, I enjoy large healthy egos. So, tell me, do you remember the first time you ever tried something artistic?


Jessica: My grandmother was an artist and taught me to oil paint when I was five. Not sure why she did that since oil paint is toxic....


Patrick: Anything come of that?


Jessica: I am not sure of any abnormalities, but I love to paint.


Patrick: Okay, I want to talk about two of your pieces. Specifically "Elephants Phobia"* and the "Cash in Space" painting. Can you explain the genesis of these works and also detail where they've been showcased and where they are now?


Jessica: The elephant was conceived from an Asian influenced phase in my artwork with a color palette from a dream I have had often. It is not so much the elephant but the colors and shapes I want the viewer to see.


Patrick: I notice there's lots of curve to it. Admittedly, I'm not a fan of sculpture, but it always drew my eye in the gallery. Some of Borofsky's stuff at the Nasher does that to me as well.


Jessica: I tend to put curves in everything I create. Organic shapes with curves I have found are something we as humans can relate to.


Patrick: I do like a curvy lady.


Jessica: Well there is a sexual element that draws us to organic shapes and curves.


Patrick: Yes. There's not a whole lot of straight lines in the human form to begin with, sex only adds another dynamic, what with the shape of genitalia, etc.

"Elephants Phobia" complete. Sold for $200 in the private collection of Mrs. Vickie Walker. Can be a commissioned for the same price in other colors. Shown at the H. Paxton Moore Fine Art Gallery.

Patrick: Was the piece shown anywhere besides H. Paxton Moore?



Jessica: Not currently but it has been sold and I have been commissioned to make more by other clients. Cash in space was created for Hal Samples english bulldog "Cash". There was a fundraiser show to help the sweet pup with expensive vet bills related to chemo it needed. I cant say no to anything that cute ... It was shown at the upstairs "space" section of Hal Samples Gallery and auctioned off for the cash's benefit.

"Cash in Space" complete. Auctioned at an undisclosed price. Shown at the Hal Samples Gallery.

Patrick: That reminds me of the basement punk shows where bands would play to the benefit of struggling friends. Art and punk... go hand in motherfuckin' hand.



Jessica: Yeah it was similar to that.. We also had a band performing and shooting a music video there..



Patrick: are there any big time artists that you really can't stand? Since we here at DbFP are negative nancies. Haha!

Jessica: Yes but if I were to name her it might jeopardize my current job position but I can tell you she shows in New York and has a pedigree of art schools in her bio and an ego bigger than what she craps out and calls art.



Patrick: Some people are assholes, and some art sucks dick. Call me a cynic. Please.



Jessica: :)



Patrick: I always try to look at the bright side.

*"Elephants Phobia" is accompanied by a smaller piece. A mouse. I never noticed this before, but it can be seen, as close to scale as possible, in the completed picture.

Everything I Know About Silence

“Everything I Know About Silence”

By Patrick Patterson-Carroll

Everything I know about silence I learned from the dogged, unflagging (screaming redundant!) pursuit of love/that awkward time in a young man’s life full of moments/the negation, the ultimate denial of feeling, standing alone in a hallway or cafeteria or on a street corner. Everything I know about silence I learned from AIM conversations on a compy with a bad soundcard. Everything I know about silence I learned from reading books in the park. Everything I know about silence I learned from acquiescence due to a lack of information/refusal to update myself on current events. Everything I know about silence I learned from texting with the phone on vibrate. Everything I know about silence I learned from libraries. Everything I know about silence I learned from the crash after the party. Everything I know about silence I learned from getting completely intellectually stumped by some (haha) anomalous detail, complexity. Everything I know about silence I learned from the girls I never approached for fear of rejection. Everything I know about silence I learned from my dad, who I never called and rarely wrote. Everything I know about silence I learned from walking alone. Everything I know about silence I learned from skipping school, estranged from what I perceived had estranged me. Everything I know about silence I learned from contrasts. Everything I know about silence I learned from the noise that saturates every interaction with my contemporaries. Everything I know about silence I learned from college roomates and language barriers. Everything I know about silence I learned from using foreign idioms in everyday language. Everything I know about silence I learned from chatting drunkenly at persons with sober disinterest, possible disdain. Everything I know about silence I learned from silent movies. Everything I know about silence I learned from pillows that refuse, due to their inanimate nature, to critique my kisses. Everything I know about silence I learned from the girl who never defended me. Everything I know about silence I learned from open mic nights and mute hecklers. Everything I know about silence I learned from the non-functional jukebox at her favorite McDonalds. Everything I know about silence I learned from all those things said in my absence. Everything I know about silence I learned from those discomfited seconds after sex with the looks and gestures and the voiceless questioning. Everything I know about silence I learned from watching others read what I've written. Everything I know about silence I learned from the voice that could ever so slyly hide in my head.

But more importantly, because as time pushes forward and I become and more and more opinionated and cynical toward the motivations of the world at large,

Everything I know about silence I know because I-am-never-fucking-silent!

(2009)

Fair Warning.

To Whom it May Concern,

Hi, Patrick here (as if you wouldn't know), giving all a fair warning. Given the experimental/tentative nature of this blog, and given our aspirations (namely Strange and myself, but also including the regular contributors who hopefully will make themselves more frequent) for more contributors, readers, perhaps even a REAL site that we can do more fun shit with, we will be playing with 'zine names.

Strange made an observation that while we are certainly clever, talented pieces of shit, we have an extremely difficult time giving name to our scribbled abominations, so keeping that in mind, we are still, in reality, searching for a moniker.

We are grudgingly open to suggestions.*

My apologies for the (parenthetical shit) and the delusions of grandeur.

Thanks for reading and participating.

"Everything's the same, even if it's different."

* A note on this: if you go to the Google Translator, select the "Asshole to English" translation, you will uncover the true meaning of that statement.

Untitled/Yesenin/Esenin.

It is believed that the Russian poet Sergei Yesenin wrote a farewell poem with his blood before hanging himself: Dying is nothing new in this life, and living, of course, isn’t any newer. *

Gregory discovered Yesenin’s poetry in high school. In it, he found a relatable romantic obscurity; an albatross of a body of work that then consumed his every scholastic ambition. He wasn’t interested in math nor philosophy nor social studies. He found himself more drawn to reading the prose of a man devoured by his own humanity; Yesenin, who existed in a context little explored in the American public school system.

Not everyone has his soulmate,

But she was like a song to me,

Because she never took from the dog's collar

Any of the notes I wrote. **

He knows now that he left his heart in those poems. That innocent, quiet heart that yearned silently for just a moment to prove himself. After all, she was beautiful-- in his then media saturated and influenced view of beauty-- and young and open to suggestion (like most high school age girls), but mostly, he found her alluringly beautiful. She had blonde locks and blue eyes; the first and last of this type he’d ever pursue.

He writes:

Boredom, I think, is what drives my lack of… being compelled to chase after the blonde female. She bores me. Aesthetically, she is not off-putting, but she is by far not interesting. Blonde hair and blue eyes on a woman remind me of high school and my piss-poor attempts at building an obsession, a one-sided preoccupation with developing a relationship that would come to nothing but my own disappointment and resentment over wasted time. Though, I suppose that these days, I like to call what I did then practice. I lived, ate, and shat Yesenin, so naturally my advances were poetic and pretentious and generally not very exciting.

Gregory sat at bus stops each morning regretting not killing himself the night before. The obsession experienced vicariously through Yesenin wore thin on his patience. He sometimes wondered if that stupid girl even read the poems that he’d laboriously transcribed (from the book, not the Russian, which would’ve been more than impressive) all the while ignoring homework assignments and friends.

Gradually, he became frustrated with her distance, and more phenomenally heartbreaking, the shrugging off of his poetically inspired courting. The painfully obvious was that she wasn’t interested, and his undaunted pursuit would, with persistence, only become more wholly fruitless.

You, yourself, under the rain of my caresses will caste off your silk train, And I'll carry you, lightheaded, to the bush till morning. ***

This morning he wakes up and makes a list in his journal. Yesenin was married five times. Gregory believes not in trying for once. There’s vodka in the freezer and whiskey on the floor. Maybe he’ll spend some time outside today. Catch some sun. Finish one of the many books he began reading so long ago.

(2008)

By Patrick Patterson-Carroll

Notes: * -- from Sergei Yesenin "Goodbye, my friend, goodbye" 1925

** -- from Sergei Yesenin "Son of a Bitch" 1924

*** -- from Sergei Yesenin "The Scarlet of Dawn" 1910

** and *** from translations by Lyuba Coffey and * by Geoffrey Hurley.

Artist Interview: Raymond Butler

Top left: Gorilla Warfare

Oil on canvas

Recent interview with local starving artist Raymond Butler. A man of many talents in the arts, music and taekwondo. He has shown at local galleries such as H. Paxton Moore fine art and The Kettle to name a few... okay so maybe that is all he has shown at so far not counting a bare city wall or train car but his art is defiantly worth checking out.

(Jess) What is the significance of your post-apocalyptic concepts and is your animal imagery symbolic?

(Ray) Well I guess the idea is that there is an unheard of or unseen war that people tend not to recognize or acknowledge between ourselves and the animals and planet. The animals are trying to adapt and survive everything we are doing to this planet. We are destroying their habitats with our buildings we are destroying their food supply by cutting down their trees. The animals do not even have the same diets they used to. They are entering our city areas more and more looking for food and shelter cause maybe that is where they were born or use to live. People do not seem to care that we are being brutal to the animal world.

Take for instance when someone hits a dog they say "oh well it was just a dog" and keep driving they don't seem to freak out as much as if they hit a human. I think that it should be just as serious. I try to show in some of my paintings that if you are brutal to an animal it is just as serious as if you are brutal to a person.

(Jess) What is the reason behind your use of such vibrant colors?

(Ray) I use the vibrant happy colors as a play on how people seem to not take the damage we are doing to the planet and its inhabitants very seriously. For instance in my piece "Gorilla warfare" the colors are happy and the imagery of the baboon with his mouth open appearing to be laughing or yelling a war cry, depending on how you view it. People have been divided on what is going on in this piece. Some think the baboon is laughing and some see the pain behind its expression.

(Jess) As an artist that has had his "gallery cherry" popped is there any advice you would give to the virginal artists out there?

(Ray) I would tell them don't let anyone censor you. Paint, sculpt, and write exactly what you want to do. This is the world inside your head and you are writing it down on paper, painting it on canvas or sculpting it and it should be what you want it to be. You are taking something that was not 3d and bringing it into this world and it should not be watered down by other peoples opinions as that would just defeat the purpose of art.

(Jess) Where will we be able to see your artwork next?

(Ray) The next thing for the Ray-man in the art world is the "Cash for cash" fundraiser show at Hal Samples gallery in Deep elum on June 10th. And there are a few other festivals and events later this summer that have not been confirmed yet.

Raymond butlers work and info of upcoming shows can be found on:

www.myspace.com/rbutler

Bottom left: Murder of Crow

Oil on Canvas

Back like a shoulder blade

Oh Austin

This, sir, is a city of poetry,
and me, so preoccupied with being
someone else and missing the point,
almost done filling up my grave
with good deeds, I realize
I write too large and say too little,
don't love enough and sigh too often,
don't sing at all and hesitate too long-
But as a wise man once said, fuck it.
The plethora of discarded principles and
the mountain of mistakes can't be undone,
but that's not the point, right?
I'm trying to say beautiful things beautifully,
to make the mundane magnificent,
to prove I'm worth a damn-
pause just a moment too long
and dance awkwardly to perfect music,
as I cut this emo bullshit and the strings attached
and love everything because this,
sir, is a city of poetry.

And Go

Alright, the setting's night
and its cold and starry
and you're barely having a conversation through an almost dead chunk of plastic
and you hope to pump life into either or both
but you're tired and its increasingly too easy
to let nights slip away.
What do you do when your rent's late and your life's falling apart,
and your wallet's been stolen and you almost don't care?
The crowd is waiting and you've forgotten your lines,
and the light is glaring and the moment is tense-
inhale, exhale,
and go.

Stop it

Seriously, just stop it.
Enough with the eyelash morse-code
that my heart can't translate
and my breath goes ragged for
and my skin explodes for.
Quit it with the intent interest,
the satisfied smirks, the suggestive smiles.
My body can't take many more of these
endorphin induced euphorias.
For God's sake, just stop
being beautiful and laughing
like an angel.
Please, stop.
Please.