Idaho Goes GaGa For Van Gogh

*Drawing by a teenage Chubbs

by Idaho Chubbs (Eluvium/Arvo Part)

"Alas, we often lack breath and faith, wrongly certainly but--and here we come back to the point--if, however, we want to work we must submit both to the stubborn harshness of the time and to our isolation, which is sometimes as hard to bear as exile. Now before us, after our years which have thus been lost, relatively speaking, poverty, illness, old age, madness and always exile."

- Vincent Van Gogh

God's eyes are burning an ulcerous hole through my ab vein. I want it to stop yet I beckon the intrigue that may solve the mystery of my life--My life or anyone else's. The burn furies forth like Van Gogh's "Starry, Starry (McLean) Night". The blues, the yellows, the suicidal insane aylum wonder created such a work that will forever live . Fucking damnit, let my shit live. Let it yearn, let it grow, let it not be bastardized into a severed ear's life. Vincent and I share so many fucking secrets together. The Christian Lord tore a gap into him that he could never escape from. The escape from one's existential psyche. So you know that Vincent knew at least three languages? Do you know that Paul Gau "Fucking" guin probably cut off his hearing vessel over frustration over a whore and Vincent's insistence/badgering over starting art's fucking pure Reich of an art community? Gauguin was a total balls to the wall meat head who happened to be good with a paint brush. He left his family, his beautiful children, to be a prostitute of art, women, and a dueler who perchance, sliced my ardent hero's skin. He did not realize that his manic friend would change the world. Oh, it might not be true, but I feel it might so be...so much so that I will swim laps in The River Styxx to prove him just. My man Vincent tried so many paths; he tried to be one with God--no dice (or maybe his paintings were the only time he was?). He yeared for companionship but settled for money groping ladies of the night. He lived off coffee and tobacco, he suffered (I'm starting to cry), he sold less art then I have when he existed on this cruel forsaken rock planet. Have you ever attempted a copy of one of his visions? I have, it sucks, but every sloor/decent human being believes it to be sound. It's NOT! I exist because of him! Art was raw in way BC...after, it got super fucking restrictive. Over the last 150 years it went psychotically into the future; Van Gogh, Schiele, Ryder, Chagal, Picasso, Dali, Max Ernst, Escher, Pollock, Giocametti, Basquiat, Godinez...my friends, my compatriots, they saw the amagalm of colors and insight, and brush strokes in this weird fucking unexplanatory life and they got on with it. Shit flooded their brains that existed nowhere except within their heart, their minds, their being. To express truth, bones were scorched, petruding through the skin (alla the original LT sacking of Theisman on Monday Night) to take hold of the definition of LIFE! Are we not looking for that? Color, sound, verve, explosion, euphoria!--Sigur Ros, Godpeed, Tarkovsky, Fellini---We want to remember the past to express it in a fulfilled future. A future where the artist won't suffer...AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! The utmost beseeching of fair mythology will not deem that appropriate; and I will accept that. Men can lead an unintentional/"evil" life on earth but produce art fit for Zeus. Are they damned to Hades, or did they just try to see the wonderful, sad and happy beauty that is this realm (Pergatory has levels). My brothers, my soul-mates, we love paint, the way it dances on our cold skin, our brush, oil, water and canvas; We are gods, but for a short time, to give the universe our true expression the best way we truly know how; through our subconscious/conscious selves. And to tell you the real truth; that's way more invaluable than any walk on Mars. BTW, Prince, you owe Gauguin a shot of absinthe...he wants to cut you (Van Gogh and Chubbs high five!)...Hades is fun in the Spring...or is it Heaven?

"The 1-21 Pill"

by Idaho Chubbs

The more I watch TV, the more I LOATHE teenagers ( = the most selfish sloors on the face of the universe). So when Jezebel and I finally conceive I will give her "The 1-21 pill". The result will be a baby living the first year of life, cute, chirpy, cuddly and yes, it will keep us up till dawn's bright fiery eye most nights, but the cuteness will balance that, like it does for all couples. But then on it's first birthday, the baby will become a fully functional 21 year-old, mature enough to exist in a civilized society, have intelligent conversations with, catch up on the sports scores, movie or latest Mother Nature disaster over a Nectar in a group setting, and they can go to college or get a job, or both; and they’ll actually understand that those are the only two options, and that will be O-K. No terrible 2’s, or weaning off of breast milk, no unrelenting nagging, or behavior that puts you in situations any choice you make is wrong (“you’re too hard and easy on them, smother them, don’t smother them,”), your friends will only have to look at a year’s worth of baby pics on Facebook, not 10; and when the kid turns 1/21 they will get their own profile! What’s so great about them being one too, is that they can’t really go anywhere (like out into street to wave to a car that’s about to crush them), or physically harm you (head-butt to groin, they plain just smack you on their way to a meltdown...nap) or insult you, because they can’t talk!!!...SO GREAT, and when they can talk they will already be a polite, caring and rational human being.

I know what you’re thinking, “Chubbs, what about little league, having a catch, the weird toddler phrases that we think are genius-ly adorable that I can put as my Facebook status, my dream of being a psychotic stage parent, teaching them to ride a foot cycle properly, and making them watch inane cartoons so I can catch one second of something that resembles a sane earthy moment?” My answer is simple, just take (after partner consultation) “The 1-10-21 Pill”. I don’t need most of those experiences, but if you so choose you can get them when the child is the age of one decade without actually being a decade old*. They are aware of rules, are still cute (to high school girls; I was at least), can talk but are respectful. You can give them nurturing cozy hugs when they get hurt (crying is still acceptable and not vexing because it usually means they are actually in physical pain, not whining about something completely insignificant) and they will make you feel important by asking you all sort of questions, and your answers can be mostly truthful (“Dad who made God?”, Me – “T2000 and I did for our high school science fair. Earth and the resulting aftermath escaped our original calculations”), but they will know when to stop because they will have some sense of logic unlike children ages 1-6. The periods between one, ten and twenty-one, no one will miss, including the child, am I right? Especially awkward junior high anxiety into teenage self-centered-ness into not understanding that this adult human who gives you everything is in fact a human too, has a life, and should be treated in a polite and dignified manner. Teenagers like toddlers, overall, do not understand this concept and never will. And if the “pimply-faced-goth-punk-jock-preppy-art-nerd/ musically, inclined goody toosho rebel without a cause BMOC loser shut in with no friends on a Friday night” sloor-kid wants to use the argument against your request for a morsel of gratitude, decency and respectful behavior, that, “Well I didn’t ask to be born”. You can say, “That can be arranged, better yet, your new baby brother will be your new older brother in almost two years, and I’ll finally have someone to knock some sense into that thick skull of yours without it being illegal. That’s what brothers do right?”

* Most ten-year olds are capable and loving humans, but if your child is remotely like Prince Tebow at that age, put them in their room, tell them you’ll be right back, and find the nearest space-ship launching pad and get the hell off of earth. Or you can just ship them to Antarctica. Not even my worst enemies, let alone a kindly person should suffer such a horrific experience.