THE ARTIST ME:

They say Artists have to suffer. Well enough with the suffering already. Given the suffering I've put in, I must be some kinda super artist by now?

I'm a "STUCKIST". Not necessarily by choice I might add. But then neither was the original stuckist artist who's name I can't remember but you can look up the stuckists yourself on the net.

It may have been from the necessity of Australian culture or it might be my poor financial returns on my work that causes me to be a stuckist. Or both? But I have always recycled and re-used. Junk has always given me a prince-planet-like inspiration.

"Oh that vacuum cleaner could be turned into an atomic ray gun."

It might be an OCD component of my disorder. (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) But I can't bear to throw anything out. Well not quite true. My brother in-law keeps old news papers and bits of wood he found on the street. I'm not quite that bad. But I recognize the potential in a lot of junk and I do tend to turn it into interesting and even practical uses.

To me, there's no such thing as an old computer and I can't bear seeing them go to land fill. Old computers can be re-used as an assortment of devices in control applications. Applications we would never have thought of at the time because the computers were too expensive to dedicate to a single task.

Like many people dealing with electronics, I recycle electronic components. Though some people would shudder at the level I'll stoop to. Not many people recycle resistors. And whilst that's not something I like doing, it is only because of this that I can experiment with anything at all. Not only are components expensive here but extremely difficult to come by. Anything remotely esoteric isn't even heard of here. And for those, were it not for an extensive network of good friends in the synth-design business, I'd never have access to any cool parts.

I use to paint and sculpt. And Build models such as space craft etc. But music was the only thing I considered to be my true art. I use to try and position myself somewhere between Eno, Floyd and Thomas Dolby. Though I'm not really like any of them in particular. But lately I've come to realize that my whole artistic environment is my art. Since I build many of the instruments and systems I play and the whole lab is decked out in some kind of sci-fi-esk fashion, it has to be seen more homeopathic than any single discipline. It's the art of a mad-man.

If I have any significance in the art world at all, -which is highly unlikely- I'd probably be the kind of artist to only become famous after I'm dead. For some reason I'd always felt that from my earliest art recollections. I would be happy with that notion should I have received a little recognition in the here-and-now but that's not to be either. These days I feel it will be more of a 'rosebud' scenario at the end. A bunch of people in here after my death, selling off the hardware they think is worth something and burning the rest. Never realizing that inside it all were hidden treasures worth more than anything they'd get by selling the estate. Rather like the end of Citizen Kane. No-one can work out why his last words were "Rosebud". As the audience we see the sled going into the fire but the workers burning it are completely oblivious to it and when the evidence is gone, no-one will ever know.

In both cases it's because in the final analysis, my life and that of Kane's are ultimately inconsequential. Though I'd rather prefer if no-one remembered me at all than equate me with Kane. Or William Randolph Hearst from whom Kane was based if you wouldn't mind.

And I think that's precisely what will happen. I wouldn't even mind but my art tends to get abused and stolen while I'm alive. I can't bear the thought of some bunch of art critics who see the price of everything but the value of nothing, making money and a name for themselves with my art, after I'm dead. So everything is encrypted and locked down that can possibly be done so. When I die, my art dies with me. There is very little anyone could reconstruct. And that's part of my art as well.

The systems are unique in that there are passwords etc but the actual keys rely on environmental factors. Change one thing in here and it's no longer possible to retrieve any data. Those factors are random in many cases so even I don't have the keys. The people who do have the keys don't know they have the keys. So if the cops try to persecute and rape me again, there's nothing I can do to assist them. Or anyone else for that matter. We estimate it would take current supercomputing technology, 50 years to pick the locks. By which time computing technology would have advanced but so would anything else.

They've already destroyed and/or made publicly available, years worth of art and research. They were tools in a politically motivated stunt which largely backfired on them. But if no-one else cares about my art to find this criminal, then neither do I. The only way I can release the stress to any extent at all is to not care. But to make my ongoing mission one of battle hardening myself against all the mindless tools out there and that is also part of the art.

Though I have some choice art-tools to work with, I also have some gear which people would probably turn their nose up at. I have also noticed that while people think having an analogue modular is the pinnacle of electronic music at the moment, they turn their nose up at anything you've designed and built yourself. They want brand names and the smartest of my Synth-craftsperson friends have invented brand names for themselves.

I have always been anti-brand name. I refuse to wear anyone's logo on my shirt. I'm not a fucking bill board and they don't supply me with clothes. I might consider wearing a linux Tux logo since most linux people are people not unlike myself. But I doubt I'd buy a T-shirt with it on. When I use to play live, I used a Yamaha KX1 remote/strap-on keyboard. But all the logos on all my gear were covered up so that it didn't advertise for anyone. Yamaha didn't give me the gear. I had to pay for it. It was particularly difficult to disguise the logo on the KX1 because it was bright red.

Very little gear I've bought has worked as advertised right out the box. Some hasn't worked at all. There's not much hardware in here that hasn't had to have been modified in some way so it's not worth me buying the latest, newest gear. Even if I could afford it. It is ironic that most old gear does the same job as the new gear. And with the same degree of user friendliness. Take sound cards for example. I use an old AWE32 as a sampler. Creati-flabs haven't produced a decent sound card since IMHO. Although the AWE32 lacks portamento and only has a uni-directional looping capability, it's still more practical than their current crop. It not only loads in seconds but it can background load while your playing it. It requires no system resources. It has filters and programmable effects. And the two things it's missing are still not available (as far as I'm aware) in any of CL's latest sound cards or even their EMU samplers. Because they're all based on the SoundFont format which is extremely limited.

As samplers go, it's still right up there. I recently looked through a range of outboard samplers from various companies including creati-flabs/emu and Akai and none of them were as convenient to use and few offered any features worth the money. So I may be stuck but some times being stuck turns out to be a good thing. And all that cool but expensive hardware they use to make is now being seen as passe by people who didn't know how to use it properly in the first place. So you can snap it up cheap. I recently bought a TBC pinnacle card complete with Digital I/O and a yamaha daughter card. All for less than 50 bux AUD. Considering that combination was over 2 grand here just a few years ago, I'd consider that to be excellent bang for buck. And whilst I'd give TBS no points for user consideration in their design, for 50 bux, I can live with that. The Last AWE32 I bought cost me 5 bux.

And I find it kinda ironic that while people reading this will be turning their nose up, this is exactly the kind of thing that spurned the entire techno-culture/rave thing. Because people were able to buy cheap TB303s when no-one else wanted them. Then discovered things about them that their original owners didn't even consider.

It took people 15 years to realize that there was more to FM synthesis than making electric piano sounds. Things I already knew instinctively. Now they come to me saying things like.

"Hey Pops. How DID you get that filter sweep sound with that DX7 anyway?"

Well Sonny Jim. I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you.

So it's kinda amusing to see most others doing everything the hard way and then turning their noses up. I've got it easy these days in that respect.

So I make my music and I build my systems and I animate my space craft. Very few people want my art. Even fewer understand it. The few that do break that barrier seem to like it and so I continue to make it for them. The rest are just teasers. "I don't care if you're not listening. It's your loss now."

THE LOVER ME:

I hate nearly everyone and everything. But only because I love the rest so much. Hate isn't just the opposite of love, it can be the result of love. Marilyn Manson said.

"I never really hated the one true God just the God of the people I hated."

In reality I love my country and I love the planet. But I hate them because they let all this shit happen to them and fuck them up. Australia use to be a nice place perhaps. But in 200 years, white European Settlers have raped the country and turned vast portions of it into a desert. Then, after clearing the land to bare top-soil, we complain about how bad the drought is. I hate my fellow Australians because they're so stupid as to allow a bunch of corrupt criminals to run the country. I hate the police not just for beating me up and persecuting me personally but because they are simply thugs and bullies. Who, if they weren't bright enough to leave school and be brainwashed into the job, would naturally fall into a life of crime.

I hate drugs. Not because they're bad for you. Let's face it, on one hand they tell you their bad for you and on the other hand they make half the medicines they expect to cure you with from it. I guess no-one remembers films like reefer madness and what a joke piece of propaganda it was. No. I hate drugs because of the hypocrisy. The more illegal they make it, the more money, criminals can make from it. As long as it's illegal, organized crime will profit from it. And it makes me wonder every time I see someone rabbiting on about how bad drugs are, if they're not taking some kind of kick back for promoting it.

I hate censorship because I belive that people should have the right to make up their own minds. As that great Scottish philosopher, Alexander Harvey once said. "There's no such thing as a dirty book it's just the way you read it."

I hate religions of all persuasions. They're all hypocrites. I can't say if there is or isn't a God for sure but I seriously doubt it. What I do know is that with few exceptions, in nearly all religions I've come into contact with, they only serve to control and dominate human cattle. They put the fear in so they can extort the money out. Most Christian religions believe in a book that was first written 400 years after the actual events. Like as if details hadn't become a little distorted by then. And then it has been re-written a few times since. Most notably by King James, who insisted on a few get-out-of-hell-free clauses being slipped in so he could get away with a bit of hell of his own. In a way King James may have been a bastard but he was smart enough to realize what a crock of shit it was. Possibly realizing that it was all just social control. I have a fair idea what's waiting in the after life and it isn't in the bible. I could tell you but then I'd have all these morons joining with my cult and it's bad enough having to share the internet with all the morons and AOLers these days.

And people like Jerry Falwell and Fred Nile don't even rank. These hypocrit blowhards should be pleased for the people killed in S11. They've gone straight to heaven and are in a better place. Probably the same place the terrorists thought they were going. After all, there's only one God and apparently he loves everyone. So if you belive in God then it should also be clear that dying is good for you and I think Jerry and All his followers should go join God right this minute. Along with the police and politicians and all the other useless meat-puppets and leave me the fuck alone.

Jerry and his militant right wing cohorts, terrorists for God, think they're so influential but hardly anyone outside of the United States has ever heard of the dumb fucks. Given any real power, the likes of Falwell would turn out to be just another fascist dictator the world would have to rally together to get rid of. The irony is that he's not even good at being evil. No-one gives a fuck. He's more annoying than influential. I mean do the math. There's around 6 billion people in the world and even if every American was a zombie for God, there's still 24 people for every one of them who isn't.

And before you start telling me I'm a satanist, Satan can kiss my hairy ass as well. Why would I believe in one and not the other. Turns out, Satan was only introduced into Christianity when they realized that to effect better social engineering, they needed a boogie man to keep everyone in line. I've never felt more free than when I realized I was being shackled by the fear of something I instinctively knew didn't exist. As Marilyn Manson said.
I'm not a slave to a God that doesn't exist. I'm not a slave to a world that doesn't give a shit."

I hate politicians for obvious reasons. They don't get elected to serve the country or the people. The only reason they have policies at all is so they can get re-elected and put their snouts back in the troth. They only care about themselves. And I hate the majority of the media for similar reasons. In particular the commercial media. Which is biased as all fuck toward who ever's paying for their harbor side real estate. Who only fain concern about reporting the truth and will happily bend it if it'll help them sell more soap powder to the unwashed masses.

This is real conspiracy and corruption yet it's actually legal in most countries. Like the time there was a great hew and cry about logging some of our last remaining rain forests. The Logging industry commissioned a shit load of television advertising and suddenly logging was OK. Or the time some people got together to hold a big, free rave party in the old Adelaide Jail building. It was a well organized and safe event but it also occurred on the same long weekend that a large hotel chain had planned a large profit making rave event. The free event was at first heralded as a triumph in Adelaide music culture. Until the Hotel chain offered to spring for a bit of advertising time on a couple of Adelaide television stations. Suddenly the reports about drug use and a big drug bust emerged during the event. And of course, Parents were urged not to let their kids go there and the kids were told how dangerous it was. What we didn't hear was that the person who was busted selling drugs turned out to be a cop and that there was a shooting at the Hotel's so-called rave party which ended up with a couple of kids dead on the streets outside.

And that's just at a local level, you can imagine how much dis-information and propaganda get's churned out of the media mincer at an international level. For most of the media, Money talks. Bullshit walks into the history books where it usually turns out to be fact. Except for where religion,the supernatural and politics are concerned, the bullshit often contains more truth than the evidence presented to us.

I've worked in media and I hate it inside and out. You can easily spot the future journalists on the school play ground. Just unzip your fly. Your friends will walk up to you and discretely tell you your fly is open. The future journalist will tell everyone else first and then bring them up for a closer look while it's still open. I'm wondering what a Journalist expects to find inside the trouser of humanity?

And while we're at it. You can tell the future cops because they're the one's stealing your lunch money. You can tell the future politicians because they're the ones that put them up to it.

But most of all I hate myself. Oh I like who I am and most of what I've become. I'm glad I never had any notoriety as a kid with music. I would have ended up like all the other 80s saps who do more marketing than music making. But I can never forgive myself for not getting out of this hell hole and finding somewhere better. Even if it killed me. So now I'm Stuck here too and I hate that.