https://www.davecarnie.com/contact daily 0.75 2025-07-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1568129634604-4HRAO9EYPA05ZUJJV6P8/BARB_29-2.jpg contact - CONTACT https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1568129634604-4HRAO9EYPA05ZUJJV6P8/BARB_29-2.jpg contact - CONTACT https://www.davecarnie.com/work daily 1.0 2025-08-04 https://www.davecarnie.com/work/mr-booger-art-dy682 monthly 0.5 2025-07-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567704857895-MKL2R3QD1IV45Z90IQAC/ACIDINVADER_booger_01.jpg editorial - Mr. Booger Art - Mr. Booger Art [Originally appeared on an ad agency bathroom wall and then was published as the eighth installment in my monthly column, “Endgame,” in Penthouse magazine.] I was in the bathroom at work—a large, prestigious advertising agency—standing before the urinal with my pants around my ankles when my wandering eyes noticed a small speck on the white tile directly in front of me. “That’s curious,” I thought leaning in for a closer look. “Is that a booger?” It was a booger. And there were lots of boogers. There were big ones, little ones, crusty ones, bloody ones, ones with nose hairs in them—I’ve seen a lot of gross things in public restrooms, but I hadn’t seen this before. Someone had stood at the urinal, with their penis in one hand—unless they peed no-handed (which is also weird—put the phone down in a public restroom, you weirdos)—and their other hand was jammed up their nose. It’s a very peculiar image: man holding dick, peeing, and blowing boogers. Disgusting, but kind of funny—but then disgusting again. The more you think about it, the less funny it gets. Who does that? I presented the booger gallery to a small group of coworkers I was comfortable sharing this kind of sensitive information with. They were, to my relief, similarly amused, but also disgusted by the wall of snot samples. And like me they had a lot of questions: 1. “How were the boogers applied, were they blown or wiped?” I’m no forensic scientist, but I presume they were blown onto the wall because the mucus appeared raw and unmolested, as opposed to smeared or wiped. Both methods of application, though, are equally curious. 2. “Did he know what he was doing was gross and unacceptable in a public space, or did he think it was completely natural? Does he, for instance, practice this behavior at home?” Our entire inquiry, it could be said, was focused on this question. Much like the modern, Western, judicial system, we were more concerned with the motivation behind the act than the act itself. (This question also brought to mind those snappy workplace signs, “Your mother doesn’t work here, so please clean up after yourself.” Maybe his mother taught him this?) 3. “Did she know what she was doing was gross and unacceptable in a public space?” We were nearly 100% certain the culprit was male, but we thought it best not to rule out any suspects. Perhaps there was a militant feminist in our midst who enjoyed expressing her displeasure in the men’s room? I like her style. 4. “Was there a message or image hidden in the arrangement, or were the boogers blown/wiped completely at random?” There was something cavalier, almost contemptuous, about the practice at first glance, and the composition appeared completely random, the result of mucus being forcibly ejected from the nasal cavity, but we acknowledged the possibility that there might be a hidden code in the arrangement. Maybe someone needed to be rescued and this was their SOS? 5. And again, but most importantly, “Who does that?” Our first thought was that because it was such a brazen and crude act that it had to be a prank and therefore it was one of us. No one in their right mind walks around blowing snot on the walls in a public space, right? Yet no one in our small circle fessed up (not even Robert who got naked at the company Christmas party and somehow crammed himself into a tiny Igloo cooler), and there didn’t seem to be anyone else in our office capable of such a vulgar joke, so we assumed that the culprit probably wasn’t doing it for comedic purposes. No, we decided, whoever was doing this was doing it “normally.” Which, of course, made it all the more disgusting because this was being performed in the restroom of a large, international advertising agency that has big, fancy, multi-national corporations for clients. Whoever it was, it was someone we worked with. “Which one of our coworkers is the fucking weirdo?” we wondered. Despite a couple days of amateur surveillance and a bumbling investigation that resulted in zero leads, new boogers continued to be added to the composition above the urinals. We were baffled. So I decided to go public with our search for Mr. Booger Art, as we had come to call the perpetrator, and appeal to him directly. I wrote a note and hung it over the boogers on the wall above the urinals: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567704948094-ZACAYLU8OVSVC3KWTZYK/ACIDINVADER_booger_03.jpg editorial - Mr. Booger Art https://www.davecarnie.com/work/the-hidden-life-of-trees-h3zdt monthly 0.5 2025-07-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567703797469-WMGXZ1Q5NTJZHXNH0XE3/ACIDINVADER_hiddenlifeoftrees.jpg editorial - The Hidden Life Of Trees - The Hidden Life Of Trees [Originally published as the seventh installment in my monthly book review column, “Rough Text,” in Penthouse magazine.] The Hidden Life Of Trees, By Peter Wohlleben, (Greystone Books) “It seems the trees can count!” writes Peter Wohlleben in this astounding, yet utterly boring book about trees. (I’m not sure how something can be astounding and boring at the same time, but Wohlleben has a peculiar talent for it. Which is fascinating in itself.) But, wait. Trees can count? Well how high can they count? They can count to tree. One, two, tree. Sorry. I was very proud of that joke when I committed it to paper late one night, but seeing it now in the light of day… Counting is a very interesting process. The first time I really thought about it was while reading Molloy, Malone Dies, And The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett. Early in the book, Molloy discusses the process he developed for communicating with a woman, who may or may not be his mother, by knocking on her skull. One knock meant yes, two no, three I don’t know, four money, five goodbye. “That she should confuse yes, no, I don’t know, and goodbye, was all the same to me,” he wrote, “I confused them myself. But that she should associate the four knocks with anything but money was something to be avoided at all costs.” So he would stick a bank note under her nose or in her mouth when he would administer the four knocks. Unfortunately he didn’t consider how deteriorated her memory was when he chose four knocks as the symbol for money. “In the innocence of my heart!” Molloy exclaimed. “For she seemed to have lost, if not absolutely all notion of mensuration, at least the faculty of counting beyond two. It was too far for her, yes, the distance was too great from one to four. By the time she came to the fourth knock she imagined she was only at the second, the first two having been erased from her memory as completely as if they had never been felt, though I don’t quite see how something never felt can be erased from the memory, and yet it is a common occurrence. She must have thought I was saying no to her all the time, whereas nothing was further from my purpose.” In short, counting requires memory. And if trees can count (fruit trees are able to distinguish the difference between the arrival of spring and a warm spell in January by counting the number of warm days), then that means they have memory. Memory requires storage, so where are trees storing their memories? Do trees have brains? Do they think? There is much debate on the subject, but there is ample evidence to suggest they do. Trees are able to “talk” and communicate with each other through chemical messengers that travel through underground networks of fungi (many of the processes in our own bodies are regulated by chemical messengers), but for there to be a brain with thinking going on, electrical impulses need to be present. And they are. Scientists have been measuring electrical signals in trees since the 19th century, but researchers are skeptical about whether this means trees and plants have repositories for intelligence, memory, and emotion. I have, through my own personal research, arrived at the conclusion that trees are in fact intelligent and can talk and even listen. (The Ents are real.) I know because I was on acid this one time and I had a very long conversation with a small tree next to a payphone in front of a liquor store in San Luis Obispo. I remember the payphone rang at one point in the middle of our conversation. I answered it and was surprised to find the young tree’s mother on the other end. “Oh, hello Mrs. Tree. Yes, hold on a second, let me see if he’s around,” I said. I covered the receiver and whispered to my little friend, “It’s your mom.” The little tree seemed a little bummed, but indicated, yes, fine, let me talk to her. So I held the receiver up to its ear. Yes, trees can hear, too. Researchers in Australia discovered that grain seedlings’ roots quietly crackled at a frequency of 220 hertz. Plants generating sound waves is bizarre to begin with, but then the scientists noticed that nearby seedling roots not involved in the experiment were reacting to the sounds. “Whenever the seedlings’ roots were exposed to a crackling at 220 hertz, they oriented their tips in that direction. That means the grasses were registering this frequency, so it makes sense to say they ‘heard’ it.” Da fuck? As if we don’t have enough to worry about already. The government is spying us, phone companies are eavesdropping on our conversations, microwaves are filming us (?), Google is collecting our data, hackers are stealing our identities, the Russians have brainwashed a large swathe of the population—and all this time trees have been listening to us, too? The information contained in this little work is remarkable, life-changing even, but it also now makes reading books a little problematic—and a book about trees, printed on paper, is especially awkward. It’s sort of like reading a book about us printed on human baloney. https://www.davecarnie.com/work/predator-pee-xbam4 monthly 0.5 2025-07-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567554776169-1C90FDPNSOAPWD30TOQN/ACIDINVADER_predatorpee_01small.jpg editorial - Predator Pee - Predator Pee [Originally published in Bizarre UK magazine.] I bought a bunch of pee. No shit. I actually paid money for pee. I got it at predatorpee.com. They sell piss. And I had to have a bottle. I’m not sure why, I’ve got it on tap for free right here. Although my pee is boring. I’m so over my pee. Theirs is from predators. GRRR! It’s tough piss. I think maybe I was overcome with the same yearning for the unusual that must have overcome those seventeenth century men who filled their “wonder cabinets” with all kinds of bizarre nonsense. I assumed a peculiar pride would come over me if I owned a bottle of a dangerous animal’s urine. I wasn’t sure, however, what kind of piss to get. They sell all kinds of piss. Should I get fox piss? I like foxes. Fantastic li’l fellas. Or what about bobcat pee? They’re kinda cute too. Coyote piss? Oh, and they have mighty mountain lion piss! Ah, wolf piss? Ah-ROOOO! Such a difficult decision. And one that I never dreamed I’d be forced to make. Fortunately the people at predatorpee.com thought of this dilemma in advance and offer a pee sampler, a little bottle of each. So I ordered the sampler and about a week later I had five little bottles, each containing the pee of a different predator. Beyond a center stage position in my wonder cabinet, though, I discovered that predator pee actually has a use: hunters use it. “They use it to do two things,” Ken Johnson, owner of predatorpee.com said to me over the phone. “One, they use it to lure animals. So for example they would be using something like a deer urine and put it around where they’re going to be hunting. Deer would come in to check it out and see if there’s another deer in the area or something like that. And then they use different types of urine, say the fox urine or some of the other urines, they use as a cover scent. They actually put it on their clothes to camouflage the human scent. The whole thing about urine is to outwit the animal one way or another. When it comes to the urines there’s a lot of history there because it was used by primitive folks because they had to get close to their game because they didn’t have high powered weapons or anything.” “How the hell did you get into the pee business anyway?” I asked. “I was in marketing and I had a client who was a hunter—actually a Maine Master Guide and he had developed some products for hunting—“ “Wait,” I said interrupting him, “a Master Guide? Is that like a black belt, or something?” “Well yes, they’re like a black belt of guides. They’re the guys that take the hunters out. In Maine here it’s quite a tradition, the guided hunt.” “Does the Master Guide wear like a flannel wizard outfit or anything to differentiate himself from the other hunters?” “No, they’re pretty rough, basic guys,” he said. “So he had come up with some formulas he was using and he asked me to help him bring them to market.” Which he did. Ken eventually bought the company from the Master Guide, who, as Ken said, preferred playing Rambo in the bush to running a pee company. Which may have been a mistake because the pee company has gone on to be very successful. Especially after Ken realized that piss wasn’t just for hunters. “The big change for us,” he said, “was when we discovered, quite by accident, that there was another whole market outside the hunting arena. The hunting season in most areas is concentrated in the fall months, but we started getting orders from stores for the fox urine and the coyote urine way outside of the hunting season. And so like good marketers on top of their game, we said, ‘What’s going on?’ We went out and found out our customers were using it to deter animals from their garden, for example. Coyote is a natural predator for deer, so people had discovered that coyote urine could be very effective in keeping deer out of their garden. And then others found that the canine urine, because of a dog’s territorial instincts, dogs would mark over the spot that you squirted with urine. So they were using it as a pet training tool.” Indeed the first thing you see at predatorpee.com is a banner that says, “Trains pets where to go!” There’s a picture of a dopey looking golden retriever puppy saying (which I can’t help reading in baby voice), “Teach me where to go!” This was an interesting piece of information for me because dogs crap in front of my house all day long. I affectionately call the patch of grass “Doo Doo Depot.” The signs I’ve put up, though, have never effectively deterred the neighborhood curs from crapping there. So I actually had a use for my predator pee beyond a curio in my cabinet—more on that in a moment—but its place upon the shelf would not be left vacant because I also bought a bottle of butterfly pee. Yes, butterfly pee. When I was whizzing through the on-line checkout, a window popped up offering me a bottle of butterfly pee. I didn’t even know butterflies peed. Does that mean they fart too? I mean that really changes everything doesn’t it? It throws a lot of what I learned in childhood into question. Do you unicorns shit? Do rainbows get diseases? “In the wild,” the site read, “butterflies find their greatest source of sodium, essential minerals and vitamins from wild animal urine puddles and urine-soaked leaves. Now you can bring this natural butterfly attractant to your garden with Butterfly Pee, pure urine from the wild.” Ewww! What a filthy little animal. They drink pee! I mean, I’ve drank my own pee before, but that’s different. I look like I’d drink my own pee. Butterflies are the nearest Nature has come to creating pure beauty. They’re the offspring of angels and rainbows. But they drink pee? Disgusting. I’m not getting one of those dirty little brutes tattooed on my ankle any time soon, I’ll tell you that right now. I’m going with the dolphin. That was my original idea anyway. But I ordered a bottle anyway. The 12-ounce jumbo size bottle. It’s butterfly pee, right? How bad could it be? Probably smells like flowers and tastes like champagne. I convinced myself that I was ordering a bottle of Ambrosia. Delightful. I even entertained the idea of splashing some of it under my arms and going to a bar to see if chicks were attracted to the scent. The day it came, I stood in my kitchen and read the directions on the back of the bottle, “Pour a shallow pool of Butterfly Pee into a colorful dish and place on the ground, stump, or fencepost in a place that gets a lot of direct sunlight. The butterflies will find it quite soon. Replenish as needed.” Fair enough. So I opened the bottle and poured some of the pee into a little bowl. It looked like human pee, golden and amber, if not a little more concentrated. Then all of a sudden my nostrils were filled with the most noxious, pungent, foul aroma I had ever smelt. “Holy shit!” I said. And because I was still under the impression that butterfly pee was going to smell like the Nectar of the Gods it took me a second to realize that it was the source. “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SMELL?” Tania, my wife, yelled from another room. The stuff was filling the house. “IT’S FUCKING BUTTERFLY PEE!” I yelled as I ran out the front door with the bowl of liquid filth in my hands. At the nearest patch of sunlight, I bent over and placed the bowl on the ground and, while doing so, I practically put my face in the piss and thus got another huge whiff of it. I stood up coughing and gagging, my eyes watering. “Are you okay?” Tania asked. “No,” I whined. I wasn’t physically hurt, but I was mentally scarred. How could the Creator suffer such a blasphemy upon His earth? What kind of cruel joke is He playing upon us when the most beautiful, wonderful creatures in the world produce the foulest, most vile smell in all of Nature? Ugh, it’s so gross. It smells like ammonia and horse shit. Lots and lots of ammonia and lots of horseshit. And maybe a dash of human dung. Actually, it’s the other way around: it smells like a lot of ammonia and a lot of human dung with just a dash of horseshit. And a dead baby in a Dumpster full of hot trash. Just horrible. It was so bad that Tania and I had to leave the house for the day. Not only was the house consumed by the odor, but so was the whole front yard. Naturally, I had to ask Ken, “What the hell?” “Well, actually,” Ken said, “if you read the description a little further, you’ll realize that it is not the pee of butterflies. It is actually wild animal urine. And for butterflies in the wild that is one of their favorite foods. They get many of the nutrients, particularly minerals, from urine, so in the wild if an animal pees a puddle on the ground, butterflies will gravitate to that area to get the nutrients.” Okay, so the pee in the bottle that nearly knocked me on my ass didn’t come out of a butterfly. That’s good. I was beginning to imagine they had this laboratory with a bunch of butterflies all pinned to a wall being force fed water all day long with teeny, tiny li’l catheters rammed up their teeny, tiny li’l butterfly cocks with tubes that drain their pee into giant 55 gallon drums. So there’s still a chance butterflies don’t pee. Or fart. Or poop. Hell, they might not even have cocks. Thank God. However, they do drink another animal’s pee, which to me is grosser than if they drank their own pee. Like I said, I’ve drank my own pee a few times, but I would never drink someone else’s pee, let alone something that came out of a mountain lion’s cock. Disgusting li’l beasts. Flying filth. The bowl of butterfly pee in my garden has yet to attract a single butterfly. That I’ve seen anyway. I’m assuming it’s because they’re migratory and they’re probably still in Mexico drinking Chupacabra piss or something. The predator pee, on the other hand, did work with fabulous results. As Ken said, wherever you sprinkle the predator pee, that’s where the dogs will do their business. They’re programmed to piss on piss. Vis a vis. So the question was, where did I want to relocate Doo Doo Depot to? I mean, really, I’d just be transferring the problem to a fellow neighbor and that’s not very nice. The answer came soon enough. One day, quite out of the blue, I received information from a neighbor that the lady across the street from us was conspiring to have us evicted from our apartment. Apparently she was upset with all the “partying” and had drawn up a petition of sorts and presented it to my landlady requesting that I be evicted. I had lived in that apartment for five years and never seen this woman once, let alone knew that she considered me a nuisance. I do entertain on occasion, but it’s not a bacchanalia over here. The whistle blower neighbor told me not to worry about it. He said the author of the petition was a certified nutcase and my landlady had defended me and refused to evict. That was good news, and I didn’t worry about it, but still it’s a very odd feeling to learn that a complete stranger is waging a secret war against you. “Well,” I thought, “if it’s war she wants, war she gets.” “Does anyone use it for pranks or revenge?” I asked Ken. “That’s quite a common use,” he said. “They always ask, ‘What’s the smelliest one you got?’ This particular individual had had a dispute with his attorney and apparently his attorney was going to be getting a bottle… perhaps not fully closed. We’ve had numerous people having problems with their neighbors and wanting to deal with that. Other people, particularly in rural communities, there will be one spot downtown, like a Dunkin’ Donuts or some shop where the kids hang out at night. Well that was another use: someone wanted one of the urines to sprinkle around the area where the kids tend to congregate to kind of encourage them to congregate somewhere else. There are a lot of uses.” I went with the coyote piss first. I marched across the street and picked a spot in the corner of the petition lady’s front yard where it met the sidewalk and unloaded the contents of the bottle. I walked back to my side of the street and sat down on our porch to watch. Sure enough, within minutes a woman walking her dog was halted mid-stride as the leash went taut. She turned around to find her dog sniffing the hell out of the spot I had sprayed with the coyote pee. The dog finally lifted its leg, took a long squirt and they were off. I clapped my hands and squealed with glee. For the rest of the afternoon it seemed that every time I looked out the window a dog was pissing on her lawn and all over her flowers. “It works!” A couple days later, right in the middle of the sidewalk and next to the coyote piss spot, I saw the biggest pile of dog crap I have ever seen in my life. I’m not kidding. It was beyond poop. Poop, or crap, can be kind of cute, but this was just a big, black pile of excrement. Utterly revolting. No one would clean it up. It sat there for hours. Unbelievably, later that day I noticed that some poor soul actually stepped in it. “How could you not see that thing?” I wondered. I mean I could see it from across the street. It was like a mountain. It cast a shadow. And judging by the smear, whoever stepped in it slid about 12 inches. I felt kind of bad, but then I envisioned the crazy woman herself stepping in the pile and I felt better. Ah, revenge. “Where do you get all the pee from?” I asked. I wanted to make sure the supply wasn’t going to be running out. “We get it from various places,” he said. “From farms, game farms, zoos, various places where there are animals in captivity. It’s collected in a non-intrusive way. You know, they pee in their cages, and it’s collected in floor drains, and it’s filtered and bottled, so it’s not anything that harms the animal in any way. And it’s a renewable resource, and animals tend to pee a lot.” “Sure, sure,” I said. “Let me ask you, though: how much money is in the pee business?” I got a cat that pees a lot. “Well, it’s enough to put several children through college.” “Really?” I said. I wonder if there’s any money in crap? “So what do you tell people you do?” “I’m in the pee business,” he said flatly. “Having raised three daughters, it’s usually more difficult when they’re asked the question what their dad does, especially in some formal setting like when you’re taking them around to visit colleges. They want to crawl under the table.” They wouldn’t be crawling around under the table if you sprayed some fox piss down there. https://www.davecarnie.com/work/the-carmel-crimecone-j9cd9 monthly 0.5 2025-07-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567552934941-7E79VFT3R2QBGY1A0HNL/ACIDINVADER_crimecone_frontsmall.jpg editorial - The Carmel Crimecone - The Carmel Crime Cone [Originally published at thekindland.com.] I enjoy playing a game called “Fantasy Lottery.” It’s not really a game so much as it’s just me daydreaming about what I will do with the money when I win the lottery. At the top of my list is purchasing a chunk of land in Big Sur, my favorite place on Earth. The Hobbit house I have designed for the property will be built into a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean where there will be a sea otter sanctuary, a free-range dachshund village, a cheeseburger farm, and it will only be accessible by a marshmallow helicopter. Since I’m going to be moving to Big Sur, I thought it would be a good idea to stay abreast of the local news in the area. Unfortunately Big Sur does not have a local paper, but the neighboring town of Carmel-By-The-Sea does: The Carmel Pinecone. Although I call it The Carmel Crimecone because the only section I find myself reading every week is the “Police, Fire, And Sheriff’s Log,” the local crime blotter. If I’m going to be living in Big Sur, I need to familiarize myself with the local crime scene so that I can stay one step ahead of its villains. One can never have enough fantasy security for one’s fantasy property. It should be noted that Carmel-By-The-Sea is a small, but very affluent community. Clint Eastwood was once the mayor. They also host a prestigious PGA Tour event on their Pebble Beach golf course. This is, in short, a town that is full of rich people, and rich people crimes are very different from poor people crimes. For the most part, the Log is filled with mundane traffic stops and lost dogs, but there are always a handful of very curious incidents entered into the log each week: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567552103193-JONV0VRMR5R62C525XKE/KINDLAND_CRIMECONE_01small.jpg editorial - The Carmel Crimecone “Five Piles of Pig Feces” isn’t quite a band name, but it would make a great song or album title. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567552148125-85WC4NCDK7UYB456KQV5/KINDLAND_CRIMECONE_02small.jpg editorial - The Carmel Crimecone One thing I’ve learned from the Crimecone is that rich people love to call the cops. About anything. I can’t wait to move there and call the cops on my cat next time he brings a fucking dead animal into the house. “Yes, officer, there’s been… A MURDER!” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567552185535-01CRE00YMGSA64AZTCH3/image-asset.jpeg editorial - The Carmel Crimecone The bums of Carmel-by-the-Sea are a colorful lot, but there wasn’t much activity from them this week. There’s one, for instance, who leaves notes at businesses inviting the owners to spaghetti-and-meatball dinners. And then there’s a female one who poops all over the place in public, and then denies that the poop is hers. I like to imagine the subject above is her packing her musket with free hotel breakfasts. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567552258192-GNQDJTMNDZNORRPX85FU/KINDLAND_CRIMECONE_04small.jpg editorial - The Carmel Crimecone Yep, in addition to Clint Eastwood, Mary fucking Poppins lives there too. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567552313801-Y92PWWTBK9XJWRQUY7PP/KINDLAND_CRIMECONE_05_small2.jpg editorial - The Carmel Crimecone Twenty-seven-year-old designer, on coke, released to his parents… It sounds like a magical place. (All three of those golfers are on coke also.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567552352106-C4EHFI15O3Z8X9ZF32HX/KINDLAND_CRIMECONE_06_small.jpg editorial - The Carmel Crimecone Again, you can call the cops on cats? The crazy Hungarian cat lady across the street from me has five of those fuckers that leave more than five piles of feces in my yard nearly every day… https://www.davecarnie.com/work/die-jai-alai-my-darling-p2h59 monthly 0.5 2025-07-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567635696107-DASR3S3LCNK6GIWK6EOW/ENDGAME10_jaialai-6small.jpg editorial - Die, Jai, Alai, My Darling The author attempting, and subsequently failing, to huck the pelota with his cesta across the cancha. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567635708833-5N7X12PAITL888DDRK0P/ENDGAME10_jaialai-1small.jpg editorial - Die, Jai, Alai, My Darling An overview of the Casino Miami and the Jai Alai court. As you can see, it’s very popular. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567635905761-FH539F4J3XLZYTA9026L/ENDGAME10_jaialai-3small.jpg editorial - Die, Jai, Alai, My Darling This is a photo of one of the screens around the stadium. I imagine they were brand new in the 80s? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567635931788-YOIESB06LUCOZDDZZW4G/ENDGAME10_jaialai-8small.jpg editorial - Die, Jai, Alai, My Darling Luis tried his best to teach me, but I am apparently not jai alai jedi material. Me and my cesta did not get along. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567635917636-8C3UTRIYFDY6CY32EG42/ENDGAME10_jaialai-5small.jpg editorial - Die, Jai, Alai, My Darling This beauty was in the Casino Miami parking lot. Obviously belongs to a jai alai fan. https://www.davecarnie.com/work/tongues-n-lungs-in-beijing-6fnnx monthly 0.5 2025-06-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567638448589-N9YA5Q1MAJRN5AH6YMAW/CHINAlungs1small.jpg editorial - Tongues 'N' Lungs In Beijing First there were cigarettes, then came vapes, but the new cool way to ingest carcinogens is by eating a big ole plate of Chinese, smog laden, cattle lungs. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567550812852-QPTIZXXRLJ9PMGNNERS9/CHINAtaniafront.jpg editorial - Tongues 'N' Lungs In Beijing Tania outside of the Beijing Noodle House. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567550797647-8C6EYATSISTL9NQC4AFI/CHINAtania.jpg editorial - Tongues 'N' Lungs In Beijing At this point we were fine. The beer was delicious. Which was good because I needed three more of those tall ones to wash those lungs down. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567550809044-GWJWLRWA0GHMWENZZFOO/CHINAwaiters.jpg editorial - Tongues 'N' Lungs In Beijing These are the waiters clearing a table. They were snickering at us the whole time. We were, after all, the only round eyes in the place. I was like, "What? Did you guys spit in our cattle lungs? Like that makes it any grosser?" https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567550820835-2SHRIRBVT27PATJZ037B/CHINAdavelung.jpg editorial - Tongues 'N' Lungs In Beijing “DAVID! Stop playing with your cattle lungs!” https://www.davecarnie.com/work/mword-jfawh monthly 0.5 2025-06-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567639265632-5883QQJKT508E68R788O/COVER-3.jpg editorial - The M-Word (My Visit To Morrissey's House) This Charming Can. Some Turds Are Bigger Than Others. Sweet And Tender Poop Again. Vicar In A Poo Poo. Pretty Girls Make Waste. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567543508875-SMKNN8SZWSCXRYFJL2AZ/FRONT-2.jpg editorial - The M-Word (My Visit To Morrissey's House) The front of M-words’s former Hollywood residence. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567543524955-1CKAJ6Y9JWQPMJAU0N7Q/MEANDSTEPHEN-2.jpg editorial - The M-Word (My Visit To Morrissey's House) Me and Steve The Realtor on M-Word's balcony. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567543488832-1UMRK47LP1PR92N77T80/FIREPLACE-2.jpg editorial - The M-Word (My Visit To Morrissey's House) The Gable family’s homework repository. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567543460341-5O9SJQG0FR8YI5TCQ5VP/BATHTUB-2.jpg editorial - The M-Word (My Visit To Morrissey's House) How long does it take to fill a Jacuzzi with tears? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567543476191-51R2RWIRM9JJY4G2NKKU/FAUCET-2.jpg editorial - The M-Word (My Visit To Morrissey's House) M-word fans were very jealous that I fondled his spigot. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567543537460-X5GAJQD2UV0H6K2A8EQ2/MEONTOILET-2.jpg editorial - The M-Word (My Visit To Morrissey's House) Do you think they were messy? Or were they like rabbit pellets? Or did he even poop at all? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567544044430-I7ADKRI4G66E2O6JQ48R/MORRISSEYad223-small.jpg editorial - The M-Word (My Visit To Morrissey's House) The author posing with Morrissey at The Cat And The Fiddle in Hollywood. https://www.davecarnie.com/work/bearded-buffoonery-w484e monthly 0.5 2025-07-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567539485570-QGKWNSYVDB1CZE0BEPBJ/ACIDINVADER_beards_01.jpg editorial - ANYTHING Anything? A Bristling Tale Of Bearded Buffoonery - Anything Anything? A Bristling Tale Of Bearded Bufoonery [Originally published in King Shit Magazine.] Two young men recently approached me and one said, “Nice beard.” I nodded politely in thanks. I’m always kind of baffled by that compliment. It’s not like I do anything to it. Then the other asked, “How long did it take you to get it like that?” I found the question odd. It’s kind of like asking, “How long did it take you to get that tall?” “I was born like this,” I replied. They took note of the annoyance in my voice and wisely moved on. “We won’t bother you anymore,” one said. Which kind of disappointed me because I was looking forward to giving more stupid answers to their stupid questions. I have some friends who are in a beard and mustache club. The club is called, The Bristly Chaps of Los Angeles. “We are the official SoCal Chapter of Beard Team USA,” it says on their site (bristlychaps.tumblr.com). “We grow facial hair, and then, once every two years, gather in a different place around the world to show off our awesome facial hair and compete for the title of World's Best.” There are some skateboarders in their ranks: Patrick Melcher, Gareth Steher, John Spencer, and Richie Jackson. I met with them one afternoon at Footsie’s bar in LA. Richie was sleeping on a bench. He had just flown in from Australia and was suffering from severe jetlag. Some Jagermeister helped revive him a little. The Nuge was playing pool, but we weren’t concerned with him because he’s Asian and can’t grow any facial hair. But the rest of us sat down at a booth and chatted about beards. “You don’t choose your beard, your beard chooses you,” they all said together in unison at one point. “If you’re doing it for the ladies, you’re doing it for the wrong reasons,” that was another catchy one. They were really into their beards and mustaches. It was cute. Because I don’t even care about my beard. I’ve had it for over 20 years and I’ve barely touched the thing. But since these guys were such beard aficionados, I thought it might be fun to let them do some styling. I offered the hair sculptors my untamed beard as a canvas of sorts to make whatever fabulous creation they desired. “Can we do anything anything?” the Bristly Chaps asked after I said they could do anything to my beard. I had heard this question before in regards to shaving my beard, and it gave me pause. A few years before, I had set up an interview with Zach Galifianakis for a new magazine we were launching. This was years before The Hangover came out. Zach was, and still is, one of my favorite comedians, but at the time he hadn’t blown up yet. (I feel the need to get huffy and say, “I was soooo into Zach way before you were,” because I heard a Hollywood movie critic review The Hangover recently and he said, “And that new actor? Zach Gaffagus? What a find!” What a find? What a douche—the critic, not Zach.) Anyway, Zach agreed to do the interview and graciously invited our small crew to his house in Venice Beach. There wasn’t much of a plan for the interview. I brought Zach a red, union suit to wear while we talked. I’m not sure if there was any other point to that other than it looked funny, but Zach said okay and donned the suit. I wore one also. We looked cute together. Kind of like Thing One and Thing Two. I also knew that I wanted to try and mate my beard with Zach’s in the hopes of breeding some sort of super beard. Not sure where I got that idea either, but again Zach went along with it and our beards “mated.” Unfortunately, while all this was going on, I was also drinking heavily and I got a little drunker than I probably should have. Zach admitted experiencing a similar problem. We were both nervous, albeit for different reasons, and we were using alcohol to mask our disquiet. On paper, it’s a great interview. But I refuse to listen to the tape of the interview because I know I was a stupid, slobbering drunk idiot. After I conducted an interview with Jason Jessee a number of years ago, in which I was more or less blacked out and continually repeated the same questions over and over again, I made myself a rule: no more drunk interviews. I don’t think there is anything more depressing than having to transcribe an interview and listen to my drunk, alter ego, Darf[1] slurring a bunch of stupid questions. Darf zux. And I know Darf came out that night at Zach’s house because I decided to show him, a perfect stranger, how to make a “Portland Frank.” Darf likes to impress people with his buffoonery. Here is the recipe for a Portland Frank: Ingredients: 1 penis 1 refrigerator 3 tbs. of mustard Preparation: 1. Open the refrigerator door and pull out your penis. Bathe the penis in the light of the refrigerator until you get an erection. 2. Once erect, grab your penis like a hotdog and spread mustard all over it. 3. With your finger, take some of the mustard off your cock and spread it on your upper lip. And that’s a Portland Frank. After making Zach wear a union suit, raping his beard, and sticking my dick in his refrigerator, I thought it only fair that Zach should have some fun at my expense. I handed him a pair of clippers and said that he could do anything he wanted to my beard. “Anything anything?” he asked. “Yep,” I said. I was drunk. What’s the worst he could do? Well, he did pretty much the worst he could do: he shaved half my face and left me with half a beard. The right half, although either side is wrong. Zach was very pleased with his work. I had had a sneaking suspicion he was going to do that. I had thought of the possibility earlier because I used to do something similar to my victims. When I lived in the dorms in college, we used to shave off one eyebrow of anyone who was foolish enough to pass out in the common area. It forces the victim to make an uncomfortable decision when they awake: do you shave off the other one to even it out, ala Terminator, or do you leave it as is and just wait for the missing one to grow back? Either way, you’re fucked. I believe that’s called a “fork” in chess? So with half a beard, we all decided to visit Zach’s local bar. And that’s where the trouble began. While alcohol turned Darf into a total buffoon, it turned the filmer in our crew into an Olympic name-dropper. “Do you know this guy? Do you know that guy? I’m friends with that guy. Do you know some other guy that I sort of kind of know that says that he met you this one time?” Not sure why that shit is more embarrassing to me than showing people my tiny penis covered in mustard, but it is. Some of Zach’s friends were also at the bar, so he politely excused himself and abandoned us to our own devices, and for good reason. We were annoying and I looked like a freak with my half beard. After a few more beers we decided to pack it in and leave. But when I got the bill, it was well over $100. We had five cans of Boddington’s between us. I called the bartender over to explain the charges, because the total was surely incorrect, but he was too busy or too much of a cocksucker to give me any explanation other than, “That’s what they cost.” Each can of beer costs $20-something dollars? Well, whatever, I thought, I was drunk, who cares? I paid the total with a credit card, but I intentionally left no tip. As we were saying our goodbyes to Zach and his friends, the bartender walked all the way over to our table with the bill in his hand and asked if there was anything wrong. He suddenly had the time to talk to me! I told him, no, there was nothing wrong. “Well I noticed you didn’t leave a tip,” he said, “so I was wondering why?” He was being confrontational. Darf loves confrontation. Especially with some little fella in a white turtleneck sweater and an Andy Capp hat. He was wearing cologne and fancy sneakers. “Well,” I said, “when I was wondering why the beers were so expensive, you said ‘That’s what they cost.’ So to answer your question as to why you don’t get a tip, it’s because that’s what you get.” “Well as bartenders,” he said getting testy, “we make our living off of tips.” “Well then maybe you should find a better job that you’re actually good at,” I said. And that was it: FIGHT! Fortunately, nothing of note happened and nobody got hurt. Probably because Darf can’t fight (even with a full beard) and what’s some twerp in a white turtleneck sweater going to do? I ended up on the sidewalk yelling at the owner and I was subsequently banned from Zach Galifianakis’s local bar for life. Wah. It was that night that was in my head when Melcher was standing there in front of me at Footsies with the clippers asking, “Anything anything?” “No, not anything anything,” I said to Melcher after thinking about it for a minute. Bad beards lead to trouble. “Do something stupid, but something that’s not completely stupid, you know what I mean?” “Don’t be a pussy,” someone said. I was less worried about myself than I was about Tania’s reaction. The old lady often disapproves of these kinds of shenanigans. She might laugh, or she might throw me out of the house. I never know. They decided on the Abe Lincoln style, a cut that is technically referred to in beard circles as “The Whaler.” I suppose “The Whaler” sounds cooler, but why don’t they just call it “The Abe Lincoln,” everybody knows what that is? Anyway, it’s a rather simple procedure, but it produces a very dramatic result. We were all surprised that it came out as well as it did. “It’s not bad,” Richie said holding his chin while surveying my face, which was now without a mustache. “It actually looks pretty good on you. Plus it goes with your whole Whale Cock thing.” I was quite pleased with it. It was horrible, but not so horrible that I couldn’t get used to it while it grew back. I thought it was kind of funny. So when I entered my house, I had my shirt collar pulled up over my nose. A little surprise for my wife. “HI-EEE!” I said when I saw her. “Oh no,” she said seeing the shirt covering half my face. “What did you do?” “Check it out!” I said. I pulled the shirt down to reveal my new beard. “I’m a whaler!” “Get out,” she said. 1. To discover the name of your drunk alter ego, just take your name and slur it, garble it, or otherwise mispronounce it. Dave = Darf, for instance. Heather = Hubdur. Tania = Tanny. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567537608964-5PRJ02GZZEVOKO3C543Q/ACIDINVADER_beards_02.jpg editorial - ANYTHING Anything? A Bristling Tale Of Bearded Buffoonery https://www.davecarnie.com/work/mildew-lisa-79w9a monthly 0.5 2025-07-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567540745772-ZWO63UC1PJW6TCIXSJK1/ACIDINVADER_mildewlisa.jpg editorial - Mildew Lisa - Mildew Lisa [Originally published in the “Maelstrom” (letters) section of The Skateboard Mag.] Dear Dave, I remember reading a while back about that time you went to a dog hotel and your dog went to dog prison. That was pretty cool. And Salope Canard too, pretty intense shit. Do you think the sky puma and salope canard and your dog would ever start a band? Carl Sagan Yes, Carl, we will start a band. With the addition of one more band member: Mildew Lisa. She’s the front man. Front woman. Whatever. Mildew Lisa is the hummingbird my cat Lobster dragged in the other day. The name Mildew Lisa comes from Finnegans Wake—Joyce was fucking with “mild und liese” which is German for “mildly and gently,” the first words in the final aria in Wagner’s Tristan Und Isolde. Smarty pants hummingbird. The cat is named Lobster, just because, although when he’s bad I call him Robert. Like when he brought a live hummingbird named Mildew Lisa into the kitchen and plopped it down on the kitchen floor right behind me. I was making dinner and the Talking Heads’ “And She Was” was playing on the stereo, so I didn’t realize there was a murder being committed right behind me. “ROBERT!” I squealed as I almost stepped on the tiny creature. Fuckin’ cat. We think he’s mildly retarded. I know cats, and this one’s got a touch of the stupids. It’s amazing that he can catch anything, lizards, moths, but a hummingbird was astounding. “How the fuck did you catch this?” I asked Lobster as I beat him off—yeah, I beat off the cat—as I beat the cat off the tiny creature. I scooped the hummingbird up off the floor and marveled at the magnificent specimen in the palm of my hand. I love hummingbirds. I never thought in a million years that I’d be holding one of the most magical animals in the world in my hand. Her heart was beating like crazy. She looked at me with an eye that was almost human. Her eyes were wise, but consumed with panic. “Get me the fuck out of here!” she seemed to say. Although she wouldn’t have said “fuck.” Hummingbirds would never use such coarse language. “It’ll be okay,” I cooed. My mother instincts kicked in. “We’ll make you all better.” Chicken soup? No, that would be weird. As I began to cast about for something that could act as a nest while she was convalescing, she took off. Which was a good and a bad thing. Good that she was alive, bad that there was a hummingbird flying around my kitchen. A hummingbird in the kitchen looks and sounds really weird, by the way. BZZZZZZ! ZOOM-ZOOM! And of course I lost her. Hummingbirds are fast. It took me a while to find her, but she had landed high on the bookshelf. A reader! (I later checked out what author she was interested in: Bukowski? Pah. I was hoping I could report something cool like Barthelme, or Beckett, or Celine.) I tried to trap her on the bookshelf, but she flew off again. And again I was awed that Lobster had managed to nab this animal. Eventually she landed on the counter, face down, wings spread out, exhausted. She looked so sad. I scooped her into a container, she lost a couple feathers in the process, but she didn’t protest. I carried her out the front door. "It's okay," I whispered to her as I mildly and gently placed her infirmary on our porch. Seeing the dusk gathering in the sky, she pulled herself up and flew high into a tree and alighted on a branch out of sight. And she was. Which will be the first song our new band will cover when Mildew Lisa returns, “And She Was.” If she does. https://www.davecarnie.com/work/olympic-skateboarding-nrsxg monthly 0.5 2025-07-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567637656150-QPWOP16HTJA4YTTOPNV3/THEKINDLAND_olympics_05.jpg editorial - Olympic Skateboarding “Wearing the shame of all their crimes / With measured steps, they walked in line.” —from Joy Division’s “Walked In Line” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567637570890-W0HFH3MI80UU4Y5SB1KE/THEKINDLAND_olympics_03small.jpg editorial - Olympic Skateboarding “Why is skateboarding an Olympic sport? Because we said so, that’s why!” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567637889759-7JR9GTLHYIGAR5BO77YJ/THEKINDLAND_olympics_04.jpg editorial - Olympic Skateboarding This, by the way, is the logo for the “Official Governing Body of SKATEBOARDING.” Imagine if the NFL had MLB’s logo. If I’m a rollerblader, I’m laughing my ass off right now. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567637884467-ONDN9CALNYBIFX66P4F3/THEKINDLAND_olympics_01.jpg editorial - Olympic Skateboarding This costume is on my “idea board” for Olympic skateboard uniforms. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567637884476-7QQIBRCALQPEPJUDIS3F/THEKINDLAND_olympics_02.jpg editorial - Olympic Skateboarding “So she suffers under the weight of my plane. You know it's my art, when I disguise my body in the shape of a plane!” —from Shellac’s “Wingwalker” https://www.davecarnie.com/work/hoverboard-with-tony-hawk-3dzgg monthly 0.5 2025-07-03 https://www.davecarnie.com/work/mczenos-paradox-pb8gw monthly 0.5 2025-07-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/1567538385873-D36V8ZW0ULFXY4X6IM34/ACIDINVADER_mczeno.jpg editorial - McZeno's Paradox - McZeno’s Paradox [Originally published as the 14th installment in my monthly wine column, PLONK, in Monster Children magazine.] On our first day in Dublin, Tania and I decided to visit the Book Of Kells at Trinity College, which on our map appeared to be right up the street from our hotel. As we were leaving the hotel that morning, I stopped at the front desk to confirm the directions. “Ah yes, the Book Of Kells, lovely, lovely,” the elderly man behind the desk said smiling. I noticed his nametag said “McZeno.” “To get to Trinity College from here,” McZeno began, “you’ll be taking Dame St., which is right outside here you see, and just carry on straight ahead and it will deliver you directly to the door step of our esteemed institute of learning.” We thanked him and started for the door. “However,” he said rather gravely, “you’ll note that it’s traditional that you can’t go anywhere in Ireland without stepping into a pub at the halfway point of any journey. May I recommend one to you?” Sure, we nodded. We like pubs. “Well then, I would recommend O’Connoly’s pub,” he continued, “which is equidistant from here to the Book Of Kells. You can’t miss it.” “Sounds good,” I said nodding and turning again towards the exit. “But of course if O’Connoly’s is your destination,” he said, halting us before we had even taken a step, “you’ll have to stop at O’Connoll’s, which is halfway between here and O’Connoly’s and a quarter the distance to Trinity.” “O’Connoll’s,” I said, pretending to make a note of it. “Okay, we’ll stop there too.” “But if you’re going to O’Connoll’s then you simply must stop in at O’Connor’s,” he bellowed, “which is a lovely place and it’s only halfway between here and O’Connoll’s, or an eighth of the way to Trinity.” “Cool,” I said. “O’Connoly’s, O’Connoll’s, and O’Connor’s. Got it. We’ll be sure to check those out.” “Aye! But I would be a terrible host if I didn’t also mention that halfway between here and O’Connor’s, and only a sixteenth of the distance from here to the college, is O’Connie’s. And if you’re going to go to O’Connie’s you’ll find yourself stepping into O’Keefe’s first, as it’s practically next door, yet exactly halfway between here and O’Connie’s, and believe me you’ll have quite a thirst after completing the first 1/32nd of your journey.” There was no stopping him at this point. “Before you arrive at O’Keefe’s, however, you’ll have to get half way to O’Keefe’s, and that means you’ll be fixing to drop into a fine establishment we like to call O’Kearney’s—even though it now says Molloy’s over the door—and have a pint to celebrate the first 1/64th of your adventure. Of course when your destination is O’Kearney’s the halfway point ‘tween here and there is…” He was so immersed in his pub-crawl itinerary that he didn’t notice us as we quietly opened the door and exited the hotel lobby. Out on the sidewalk we paused for a moment, exhausted by the idea of trying to get to Trinity College. It was less than a mile up the road, but there was no way we would see the Book Of Kells with the infinite number of pubs we would have to stop into and the infinite number of pints we’d have to attend to within each. Looking around, we noticed we were in fact standing in front of an Irish pub. So we went in, ordered a couple of pints, and spent the day enjoying the Irish tradition of not going anywhere or doing anything. The End. https://www.davecarnie.com/work/the-kiss-guy-cant-paint-k2mnj monthly 0.5 2025-07-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/f2a3f2d9-3099-4676-b4f1-45d351ecc662/PORTFOLIO_creem_fartworks_wide.jpg editorial - The Kiss Guy Can't Paint - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/e8c93849-760c-4879-ad49-d4cd989b7fb4/Screen+Shot+2023-02-15+at+9.40.54+AM.png editorial - The Kiss Guy Can't Paint - FARTWORK 01: Paul Stanley We live in an age where technology has made everything so easy and accessible that many are deluded into believing that even without any training they’re at the level of a professional photographer, designer, model, artist, actor, musician, dj, writer—“I’m good at EVERYTHING!” The thing about “belief,” though, is that you can believe in anything you want, but that doesn’t make it true. Santa Claus, Jesus, Zeus, and Big Foot all come to mind in that regard. “Just ‘cause you feel it, doesn’t mean it’s there.” —“There, There” by Radiohead. I, for instance, like to believe that we are all artists and that we should all be expressing ourselves through art. I want that to be true, but the reality doesn’t seem to match up because ART SUCKS. Almost all of it. And I’m an artist. I make art. I have lived and breathed art my entire life. Have you ever heard of me? No. You know why? Because my art sucks. And so does yours. I’ve never even seen your art, but I know it sucks. (And guess what: no one is going to “discover you” after you’re dead, so stop harboring that stupid fantasy.) As if art didn’t suck enough, there is the curious phenomenon of musicians who have decided that they too want to dabble in this crap. Only a few hundred years ago they would have been minstrels, clowns, and court jesters, but today we place musicians on a pedestal where we shower them with accolades and exorbitant sums of money. I’ve met lots of them and I can assure you they are tiresome cocksuckers just like the rest of us—probably even worse on account of the fame and fortune. And, because they are “good” at this one thing—playing guitar, singing, etc.—they believe they are good at all things. I appreciate this confidence: I wrote a hit song, therefore I can make a hit painting (“hit painting” is an interesting term). Makes sense. It’s a natural, but illogical, thought process. I do it all time. For instance, I fixed our toilet the other day, and, riding high on the confidence it instilled in me, I then believed I could also fix an electrical problem we have in our house. NOPE. I was forced to call a professional electrician after fire shot out of the box and hit me in the face. Turns out plumbing and electrical are different. Paul Stanley, for example, is the lead singer and guitar player of the very successful group, KISS. Their music has made them millions of dollars and they've performed in sold out stadiums across the world to their adoring fans. Anyone’s ego would be inflated. “They like me, they really like me, and therefore if they like THIS thing that I do, they’ll probably like EVERYTHING that I do, right?” It’s curious how many musicians follow this train of thought: I’m good at making music, which is an art, THEREFORE I will be good at any art, painting, sculpting, writing, dancing, etc.. “As soon as I put [a painting] up in my house,” Paul Stanley said in an interview, “everybody would want to know who did it—that was a revelation to me. If once again I follow something I love doing, it seems to follow suit that somebody else likes it.” I don’t mean to diminish anyone’s creative explorations or discourage someone from making art and expressing themselves—knock yourself out—but when it comes to the bizarre genre of rock star FARTWORK, I feel like we need to take an honest look at it and turn the hubris down a couple notches. To begin, let’s have a look at Paul’s boutique of FARTs. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/4eef2f90-7256-45b7-9435-8319d8375dd3/FART_peace.jpg editorial - The Kiss Guy Can't Paint - PEACE1, PEACE4, LOVE1, and LOVE4 If you like the derivative work of that dingdong Mr. Brainwish—that’s an apt typo, I’m leaving it—you’ll love Paul Stanley! There are so many hacks who have made a living painting hearts that I am not going to even mention their names because let’s just all agree: a heart is not art. And neither is a peace sign. This is complete garbage. And there’s more than one of each, what is this like a study of the peace sign and a heart? There really is nothing to study. Or maybe they’re offered in different flavors so you can pick the one that best matches the Taylor Swift posters and ceramic horses in your nine-year-old daughter’s bedroom because that’s the only place I can imagine one of these hanging. Live, laugh, love. Bless this home. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/a60fcdfb-71fb-4c90-bfa9-abd543c5a84d/FART_astralautumn.jpg editorial - The Kiss Guy Can't Paint - ASTRAL AUTUMN “One sees in Paul’s abstracts the influences of Kandinsky, Mondrian, Malevich, Paul Klee and Mark Rothko.” —from PaulStanley.com. This “one,” for one, does not see the influence of those artists. At all. To say you are influenced and gain inspiration from another artist’s work is fair, but to say your art resembles that of a great painter is quite another thing. As a fan of all five of those artists I find it rather insulting that anyone would compare Paul Stanley’s FARTWORK with any of them. I suppose you could say there’s a little Rothko in “Astral Autumn” (my favorite title) because anyone who slathers a canvas with a few layers of paint will inevitably be in a position to reference Rothko. But that’s like heating up a can of soup and claiming it contains influences of Chef Thomas Keller. I mean, sure, it’s food? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/95b9df99-8144-4a6c-bbdd-70ec9fc73c9d/FART_crossroads.jpg editorial - The Kiss Guy Can't Paint - CROSSROADS “Lead guitar players always paint. That and cooking. It’s a thing.” —Jaan Uhelszki It’s titled “Crossroads” so I presume this is Robert Johnson? Hard to tell. Does Robert Johnson look like a brown smudge with eyes? I don’t think he does, but this is probably supposed to be guitar legend, Robert Johnson, because since I’ve embarked on this survey of musician art (many of whom are indeed guitar players as Jaan notes) Robert Johnson is a recurring subject. It reminds me of the shitty art of sports painter, Leroy Neiman, who, along with Nagel and Ansel Adams, ruled the world of mall-art throughout the 80s. Neiman made wildly impressionistic paintings (which is a polite way of saying they’re “a fucking mess”) of famous sports stars, which, of course, leads one to wonder: is it the painting, or the subject of the painting that people are buying? Because people were buying. I will describe Stanley’s portrait of Johnson as “wildly impressionistic,” but I wouldn’t hang this piece of shit on my refrigerator if my child painted it (I didn’t know I had a child?). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/861723da-d980-4faf-b974-8ee0718e52d6/FART_portraits.jpg editorial - The Kiss Guy Can't Paint - PORTRAIT 1 and PORTRAIT 2 Interesting titles: who are they? I presented this question to the staff and they also have no idea who these people are, but their guesses ranged from Suzanne Vega, to Susan Lucci, to Tanya Harding, and, my favorite, from our Senior Editor Maria Sherman: “a woman from KROQ I saw interview Third Eye Blind once.” I also have a suspicion these aren’t “paintings,” but rather someone was messing around with some images in Photoshop and wondered, “What’s this button do?” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d5c2b7005cd1e00013aa410/2501bc17-bf24-4ecf-840c-ec469745f6ac/FART_jester.jpg editorial - The Kiss Guy Can't Paint - JESTER I’m—hm… It’s—uhhh… ??? Anyway, keep up the good work, Paul Stanley, we’re proud of you—just don’t quit your day job. To learn more about Paul Stanley and his art, visit PaulStanley.com.