0008 Matinee Soup 'French Kiss a Bulldog'

0008 Matinee Soup 'French Kiss a Bulldog', originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

It's Valentine's Day coming up.

And I thought Bambi would like to acknowledge romance in some oblique way. Without being mushy about things.

Seems like she wanted to go the mushy route. I couldn't stop her.

Have a happy V-Day!

This painting was made using ArtRage 2.2 on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc. I'm sitting in Nino's in Rosebank. Nesbert, my waiter, has been to my table four times in six hours. He gave me a teacup that was FILTHY. I wiped brown stuff off the rim with a serviette. He's NOT getting a tip. But the place has been buzzing with babes.

One or two of my lapel badges are pretty romantic. Sorta. In a perverted kinda way. Go get some.

2007-02-03 Illustration Friday -- Spur Rot: Sprout Proust

2007-02-03 Illustration Friday -- Sprout Proust, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

It's Illustration Friday time again. Even though I'm posting this at 1:30 am, basically the small hours of Monday morning. And I should be sleeping. Cos I'm acting in a feature movie tomorrow. Yeeehaaa!

Anyway. The topic is 'Sprout'. Which is once again an irresistable anagram. Spur rot: sprout Proust.

So... the portrait is of Marcel Proust. The quote comes from REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, Cities of the Plain by Marcel Proust.

I made this painting on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc, using ArtRage 2.2. There is a fan blowing heat away from a blistering summer night.

Uh... have you bought any of my buttons yet?

0007 Matinee Soup 'Light Breakfast'

0007 Matinee Soup 'Light Breakfast', originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Yup. Sometimes, Bambi can't resist a pun. It's true.

When I first wrote this one, I had the lines reversed. But that breaks a comedy rule... you need to end with the punchline, not start with it.

It's not that the joke DOESN'T work the other way round. It simply changes the nature of the 'laugh'. (I put 'laugh' in inverted commas cos I don't expect EVERYone to find EVERY Matinee Soup joke funny, simply cos I find them funny.)

The way I've presented the joke here, we have the setup: 'I had a light breakfast'. Followed by the speech bubble break into a new panel. With the punchline delivered after a very slight speaking pause: 'I ate the bedside lamp.' Followed by a change of 'camera angle', and the tail-end of Bambi's exit.

There were two things I toyed with. One was making the first two panels into one bigger panel. I resisted that, cos it destroys the amount of time occupied by the pause.

The other thing I tried was having Bambi's 'owner' shouting, 'Bambi! Did you chew the bedside lamp??' with Bambi telling the viewer, 'I had a light breakfast.' This is probably funnier than the current version. But it's not quite in Bambi's character.

The way I've opted to go is to keep Bambi completely aware of her actions, and the consequences. She's in total control of her life.

This painting was made on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc using ArtRage 2.2. A bunch of my friends were sitting in my living room watching THE SECRET on my big screen video projector while I worked, with me occasionally looking up.

PS: Hey... have you seen my buttons yet?

A conspiracy-theory night out with the South African leftwing poets and the American consulate staff

So now what exactly IS a conspiracy theory? When a whole bunch of seemingly random events all tie together with an underlying 'obvious' pattern, is that conspiracy?

I'm in the middle of one.

Here's how it looks...

1. Roy makes a few inflammatory 'anti George Bush-USA' lapel badge designs.

2. States in his Flickr gallery that he hopes some of his buttons put him on the CIA hit list.

3. He starts a satirical group on Flickr titled, 'BIN LADEN... IS THIS HIM?' He asks people to help the CIA find Bin Laden. They must do this by posting pics to the group of ANYONE who could POSSIBLY be Bin Laden. They must include the exact time and place of photo, so that the CIA can collate the information. 16 people join the group immediately. Another one joins some time after.

4. Roy posts a pic of some Arabian-styled fellow and his girlfriend. The pic is a lucky shot at the gym. The couple were joining up, and Roy happened to be going to the changeroom at the time. Yes!!!

And then the interesting coincidences start...

5. Roy gets an email out of nowhere from a dude called Ismail Mohamed, who is the 'Senior Cultural Specialist' attached to the 'American Culture and Information Center, U.S. Consulate General'. The email invites him to attend a do at the home of Steven Coffman, the American Consul General. The do is a poetry event, featuring Toni Blackman.

6. Roy thinks, 'What the...?' He thinks, 'Who the heck is Ismail Mohamed?' He thinks, 'Sheesh. The Americans are INFINITELY politically correct. If this IS legit, then they've DEFINITELY hired a guy with the right name.'

7. Roy phones 1023, and verifies that the number given on the email is indeed attached to said Info Center of said Consulate. The email is legitimate.

8. Before Roy phones Ismail Mohamed to find out more about the event, he checks his dating profile. Cos an email has just arrived stating, 'CoffeeShopSchmuck... you have a new fan!!!!!!!!' On said dating profile, Roy finds an attractive gal has faved him. Her country of origin? America. Living in South Africa. Studying.

So Roy thinks, 'Okay. Guantanamo Bay. Bring your own lube, dude.'

He also thinks, 'Oh, don't be paranoid, dude. It's ACTUALLY a set of coincidences. For instance, the dating site gal is just a gal. The poetry thing? It's JUST a poetry thing. Except that I haven't really been all that active in the performance poetry circle for a long time, apart from occasional forays. And the dating site thang? Well... my profile has been viewed maybe three or four times a week for the last month or two, and the last time I got faved by someone was two weeks before the American babe.

Nothing concrete. Nothing 'real'. Except for the coincidences.

So...

9. Roy phones Ismail. Says, 'Yeah. Would LOVE to come. Can I bring a partner?' Ismail says, 'Absolutely.' Roy contacts another babe from the site. One he's been flirting with via email for a while. Says to her, 'Would you like to accompany me to the US Consul General's house for some poetry as our first date?' She says, 'Yeah!'

At this point, I'm wondering what the hell to do at the poetry event. Ismail has said that there'd be an open mic.

And I'm torn.

For me, it would go against my ethics to simply accept the invitation and say NOTHING. For me, saying nothing against the current American government is tantamount to collusion with the Bush regime. At the same time, I don't want to use an open mic as some kind of soapbox to froth about politics. And anyway, I'm a minnow in the world of politics. At best, I'm some kind of semi-informed leftie-libertarian. At worst, I'm a victim of several streams of propaganda. So anything I say can't actually be anything more than my opinion. A dilemma.

10. Roy meets his date. She turns out to have platinum blonde hair, and THE most piercing blue eyes he's seen. And she's STACKED. Awesome breasts. Really. Sheesh. Nicely dressed. Alluring. A sharp, angular face. Kinda Nordic. Kinda fierce. But soft. Very pretty. They go to the consul's house in Roy's little red sports car. Which desperately needs a session at the valet. But hey.

11. They park. Roy has intentionally left his Swiss Army Knife at home, thinking he'd be cavity searched by special agents before being allowed into the hallowed presence of the esteemed consul. Instead, the guards wave him and his babe-date in. Roy's thinking about shagging her somewhere in the consul's house. And he's working out what he's gonna say.

12. They get inside. Ismail Mohamed is familiar to him. It's the same Ismail Mohamed who ran the Windybrow Theatre in Hillbrow many years ago! He's a leftie! He's all right! He bumped into Roy a few months ago in a restaurant, and took Roy's card. (The cards here are the two sides of Roy's new card, which is currently at the printer.)

13. The consul general is a cool dude. He's wearing a delightful Mandela shirt. He's shortish, greyish, and very jocular. Roy imagines he's quite a bright fellow. There's a picture of what must be his daughter in the living room they walked through to get to the garden. And she's scrumptious. Holy moley. Roy wants to shag his date AND the daughter!

14. Poets arrive. It's basically a pretty damned high-powered collection. The cream of South African performance poetry. (Although, Lesego Rampolokeng and Kgafela oa Magogodi aren't there.) So Roy's thinking, 'Uh... I'm NOT in this league, am I? I MUST be a token invite, so they can get their eyes on me.'

15. Roy and his date (who remains nameless, cos she doesn't want anyone except the CIA to know her name) are scoping the joint, trying to spot which of the consulate staff are secret service agents. Roy and his date have discussed things in the car before the entered the premises. They speculated that the sexy woman who tries to seduce Roy would be one of the agents. And whoever else is wearing shiny shoes and hippy clothes would be the other one.

16. Paulina, the 58-year-old busty honey-blonde with huge breasts and massive hair, immediately starts hitting on Roy, stepping into his personal space, so that every time she breathes, her breasts glance across Roy's wrist, which is defensively holding a glass of water in front of his chest.

17. The second agent isn't all that obvious. But there's only ONE person wearing shiny shoes, aside from the guy in the suit. The guy with the shiny shoes is fairly old. And he's in hippy clothing. It's our man.

18. The poetry starts. Two guest poets kick off with short works. Quite good fun. Then Toni Blackman kicks into gear. Does two or three terrific poems. She's employed by the US government as some sort of cultural commissar. Brilliant. She finishes her short gig, and opens the mic by calling for an improv session with three poets from the audience. Asks the audience what the improv poem should be about. Roy pipes up, 'It should be about two minutes.' She calls his bluff, and the poets improvise a poem entitled 'Two Minutes'.

19. Toni calls for another improv session. Roy gets up. Joins two other performance poets. Roy is wearing a t-shirt with Rosie the Rivetter on the front, and the slogan, 'Just Do It'. Someone says, 'Just do it!' So that's the title and topic of their poem. Roy slips in a wry dig at Nike in Vietnam, which gets a big laugh.

20. Applause. Other poets do some solo material. One or two poems max. Roy figures out what he's going to do.

21. Allan Kolski Horwitz takes the mic. Does an incredibly funny and harrowing poem about putting despots into power. The twist at the end is that the despot he's referring to is George Bush. And his father! Heheheeheheh!

22. Roy takes the mic. Starts off pretending that he wrote a Linton Kwesi Johnson poem. Outrage while he recites the opening phrase... 'It was in April 1981, down inna di ghetto of Brixton...' Tells the crowd to relax. Then says, 'I'm going to do two poems tonight. The first one is incredibly short, and it's one of my two political poems. It's called, 'AFTER'.

AFTER

The lovers lie like statues
shattered by the tanks.

23. Roy then says, 'Mr Coffman, I need to make a personal appeal to the American people. Please tell them that Roy Blumenthal is asking them to impeach George Bush. Because of him, I do NOT feel safe.'

24. As Roy says this, the man adjusting the microphones spins around and takes a photograph of Roy's date. Hmmmmm. Not wearing shiny shoes at all.

25. 'Right...' says Roy, 'politics over for me... here's my next poem.' And he performs, 'IT'S LUNCHTIME IN THE CITY' which features 'the heads of leaders turning tails, touched by crimes... the slime!'

26. Which effectively closes the open mic. Coffman steps up to the mic during the light smattering of applause, and says, 'Thanks for being here,' etcetera. And Jim Callahan steps up and makes a speech, cos he's retiring to Cape Cod. And the evening's almost over.

27. But Ismail Mohamed comes up to Roy and says, 'Are you available to be on the radio at 8:30 tomorrow?' Roy thinks about this for a few whirring moments. What's going through his mind is this: 'I would dearly love to shag this incredible specimen of babehood tonight. 8:30. Traffic. Ugh. That means waking early. Which means I can't have a VERY late night.' He says to Ismail, 'Sure.'

28. Roy and his date leave. On the way out, they notice a HUGE photo of George Bush senior, framed, on a side table. It's one of those candid-style shots. The kind buddies take of each other. Mr Coffman is probably someone who has pictures of the Bush clan in his house, not, as some might have it, out of patriotic duty, but rather cos he DIGS them.

29. So Roy and the date head off to the rapidly closing Rosebank Mall. Europa shuts around them. They go and walk around. Sit at the closed Sophia's which has chairs outside. They kiss a bit. 'Wanna go home with me and have sex?' Roy asks. The date smiles. 'Why not?'

Intermission. Private stuff takes place. One phrase only: 'GREAT breasts.' The rest is on a need-to-know basis. (I'm sure the CIA already know everything they need to know about the sexual proclivities of Roy and his date.)

30. The morning after, Roy gets to the Radio Today studio on the dot at 8:30am. There's the guy with the shiny shoes! He IS an agent! Cool! Roy's suspicions are confirmed. The other poets arrive... Toni Blackman, Mac Manaka. The clincher? It's the 'secret agent's' radio show that they're being interviewed on!

So. That pretty much brings the conspiracy up to date. Let's hope I sell some buttons as a result of it. What kind of agent WOULDN'T wear a badge that says, 'Sayonara, you incompetent fuck,' against the backdrop of an American flag?

2007-01-28 Illustration Friday -- RED -- Rhinoceros-Egret-Dog

2007-01-28 Illustration Friday -- RED -- Rhinoceros-Egret-Dog, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Thanks to Illustration Friday, I'm going to be forced to buy biking leathers and a Harley Davidson motorcycle.

Cos I was strolling down the main aisle of Cresta shopping centre, easel hanging off my shoulder, napsack on my back, my tablet computer ensconced in the napsack's warm, moist, fertile interior. When all of a sudden I thought, 'Hey! It's the Exclusive Books sale! Let me see if there's anything I can put onto my overloaded credit card!'

No sooner had I thought it, than I was upon the rows and rows of sale tables.

And one book called my name.

FREEDOM: Credos From the Road by Sonny Barger.

I bought it. And went to Mugg & Bean to paint my Illustration Friday pic, on the topic 'Red'. As is my wont, I couldn't leave well enough alone and simply interpret the topic in a linear way. Instead, I had to go lateral. Again.

But when I got to Mugg & Bean, my favourite window seat at the table next to the plugpoint was occupied by a woman with loutish kids making smart-alecky remarks that made the woman laugh.

It's sick. Sick.

Sick that someone could sit at my table! Thereby making it impossible for me pull my computer out and start working on my Illo Friday pic.

I was forced into starting Sonner Barger's book.

Sonny barger is the archetypal Hell's Angel. I'm not exactly sure, but I think he started the movement. And he's got some incredible things to say about life and ethics and honesty and laws and treating people well. He's got a philosophy that I could have written. Cos it's completely in line with almost everything I think and do.

All that's missing is my leathers. My bike. And my wandering along the open road.

To be fair to myself, I WAS a biker a long time ago, but I had a pretty narrow escape from a serious injury in a major accident. And my brother, one month after my accident, lost his arm and about a year of his life to hospital recuperation due to his own serious accident.

And one of the bibles of my early adult life remains Robert Pirzig's ZEN & THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE.

Anyway. The woman with the kids wasn't budging. So I decided to move to the other plug point next to the cash register, deep inside the shop. Not a great spot to babewatch. But hey.

And that's where I implemented my take on 'Red'.

Keith, one of the managers there, helped me with lists of animals. There were three categories. Animals whose names started with the letter 'R', those that started with 'E', and those starting with 'D'.

o Red Panda. Rooibok. Raccoon. Rabbit. Rat. Raven. Red Herring.

o Eagle. Eggeater (a type of snake). Eland. Electus Parrot. Elephant.

o Duck. Donkey.

In the end, I chose the Rhinoceros, the Egret, and the common or garden Dog.

So here's my contribution to the world of R.E.D.

By the way... it's my duty to inform you that my button shop is up and running, and causing a stir. Please don't visit it if you are easily offended. It's a little bit like T-Shirt Hell, in that I'm attempting to be as tasteless as possible in some cases. Though there are one or two safe ones.

This painting was made using CorelDraw 10 for the initial design, and ArtRage 2.2 for the painting, on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc (whose battery is wrecked, hence my need to sit near a plugpoint), in Mugg & Bean Cresta, with the first third of FREEDOM: Credos From the Road by Sonny Barger devoured.

0006 Matinee Soup 'Brushing' (with a chat about my first feature film acting role)

0006 Matinee Soup 'Brushing', originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

I had a great day today.

I had my first ever wardrobe call as an actor in a feature film. My scene will be shot on Monday 5 February.

A coupla weeks ago, I went to an audition for a part that my agent was hesitant to send me to, and the casting director was hesitant in seeing me for.

Shane (my super-agent) was kinda, 'Roy, this is a bit of a HECTIC role. And I don't know if it's your cup of tea. Are you okay with semi nudity?'

Christa, South Africa's top casting director, was kinda, 'Hmmm. Roy. Are you SURE you're okay playing this part? If you GET the part, will you realllly be comfortable doing it?'

The audition itself was fun. And the girl who was reading opposite me was utterly scrumptious. And Damon, my best buddy and horror script writing partner was behind the camera (he's one of Christa and Digby's regulars).

Afterwards, Damon said, 'Dude, if you DON'T get this part, I'll... well, I'll... whatever. You nailed the audition, dude. Spot on.'

So I got a call from Shane a few days ago, saying, 'You got it, Roy. You're the Sugardaddy in Darryl Roodt's latest feature film! Congrats!'

I said something similar to, 'Yeeeehaaaa! Fuckin' ay!!!! Asssskicker!' Something like that. I forget exactly.

And Shane said, 'Underpants.'

I said, 'Huh?'

He said, 'I've negotiated that you won't have less than your underpants on.'

'I don't mind nudity,' I said.

He said, 'I've discussed it with Christa, and she agrees. Underpants. Nudity can definitely come back to haunt you later.'

So this is the scene I'm in. Yup... it's ONE scene. I'm a bit player. I'm the mean muthafucka client of a prostitute. She's late. I'm waiting. She arrives. And I get her to start giving me a blowjob. But she's reluctant. So I get a little, uh, nasty. And some older woman comes into the room. It's her mother. So I attempt to 'persuade' the mother to join in on the fun. Which is when the gun comes out, and the knee makes contact with the only scrotum in the place.

And, as of today, I know EXACTLY what that scrotum is going to be wearing. An extremely garish pair of scants. Striped. Loud. Pimpish. And the rest of me is going to have nothing on except a gold chain.

All of which has NOTHING to do with my sixth installment of MATINEE SOUP. But hey.

I painted this one on... wait for it... my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc, using ArtRage 2.2 with the Uncut psychedelic hard rock cd playing in the background. No prostitutes, toothbrushes, or underpants were handled in the making of this pic. Actually... I may have handled the underpants a little. Just a little.

Lu -- Tattoo Concept sketch -- with notes

Lu -- Tattoo Concept sketch -- with notes, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Lu is a manager at Look 'n Listen in Cresta. He and I started chatting when my special order of the band SUN KIL MOON arrived.

He said, 'Yeah! When I saw that someone else in the world was into Sun Kil Moon, I thought, "Hey! There's hope for music in this country!" And then when I overheard you asking about Micah P Hinson, I thought, "I've gotta talk to this guy." Yeah!'

So we started chatting. He's a muso, into roots music and alt.rock. When I showed him the list of artists I was steadily trying to track down, he knew almost every one of them. (And, uh, almost every single one of them was unavailable in this country. But hey.)

And then he asked what I do, and I told him I'm an artist. And showed him my 'Right Arm' tattoo. And he told me about his idea for a tattoo. So I said I'd give it a shot, with embellishments.

So this is the result. Lu's original brief was for a tower with two instruments of power, like a hammer and an axe, or something like that, with energy radiating from the tower.

It's for his upper arm, so all of the elements going off the edge of the page are meant to go all the way round the arm. For me, that sorta roots the tower to his arm, and seats it well. It's anchored, potent. And the arms holding the instruments of power are kinda like musicians' arms. And the instruments are musical instruments.

This is really just a raw and rough concept design. It's nowhere NEAR what the tatt itself would look like. But hey. Things have gotta start somewhere.

I've just sent it to him. So I'm awaiting his response. Chances are it won't be totally to his taste. Cos I've added loads of my own mythology into it.

I sketched this in ArtRage 2.2 on my Toshiba Tecra M4.

Paul recommends: 'The Good The Bad & The Queen' -- Damon Albarn's supergroup

I thought I'd reproduce this missive from my buddy Paul in London (that's a pic I made of him when I stayed at his flat for a coupla weeks some time ago).

Paul was my best friend up to Grade 2 in primary school, before he moved to a different school. I trust his musical judgement. And have in fact 'discovered' joys and wonders thanks to his recommendations. I put 'discovered' in inverted commas cos HE did the discovering on my behalf.

I'm gonna go and buy this album at the next opportunity.

Dear fellow music lovers,

Please forgive the group mail, but I feel it is my moral duty to tell you that I have heard the first great album of the year, nay the greatest album since the heady OK Computer (not counting, of course, Rufus Wainwright's Want One/Two which you probably know is my all time favourite album). As someone slightly prone to the odd bout of hyperbole, you may be tempted to take this recommendation with a spade full of salt, but I really can assure you that The Good The Bad & The Queen is a masterpiece of modern melancholy.

You will know that TGTB&TQ is Damon Albarn's 'supergroup', including Paul Simonon (the Clash), Simon Tong (The Verve) and Tony Allen (Afrobeat). Albarn can come across as self important and smug, but on the strength of his work with Gorillaz and now TGTB&TQ, he more than deserves your respect.

There's an effortlesss melding of Victoriana (circus sounds, gas works, dank skylines) and the apocolyptic present here, held together by a superlative Dangermouse production employing warm swathes of electronica and live organic session playing. The reference points are Gorillaz' El Manana, and Blur's This Is A Low (the highpoint of the Parklife album). Imagine, also, Massive Attack channelling The Specials, David Lynch directing Radiohead. The alchemy that results is all the more impressive for its lightness of touch, a playfulness almost, that belies the undercurrents of malaise.

But a great record is not composed of soundscapes alone. There are songs here of rich melody and canny imagery under which flows a current of dislocated yearning. Pretentious this may sound, but this album seems to have mainlined the Modern Condition, the fractured experience of big city living. Like Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, it feels complete in and of itself, a statement plucked from the ether. A contemporary album, yet a timeless one.

I cannot praise this record more. Buy it. Put it on late at night as the sleet falls from the winter sky. Feel your heart expand. Give thanks for the little moments of sheer joy that take us by surprise.

And if you don't like it, well then you can just *&&%^%$!

Pxx

2007-01-23 Illustration Friday -- Super Hero (anagram) O Her Purse

2007-01-23 Illustration Friday -- Super Hero (anagram) O Her Purse, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

I reallly really reallllly didn't want to do a Super Hero for this week's Illustration Friday topic: 'Super Hero'.

My solution came pretty quickly. I decided to do a manual anagram of the letters, and the one that satisfied me intellectually was this one: 'O! Her purse!'

The next challenge was working out how to illustrate that.

So I did what any self-respecting new-media-liberal does. I turned to the Creative Commons. Using the beta version of the Flickr Foto Finder, I looked for images that I may use commercially and that I may alter. ('Commercially', cos I'm now offering art prints of my paintings for sale -- email me if you're keen, and 'alter', cos I mostly take liberties with the works I use as inspiration.)

And that's how I came up with a pretty funny photo of a woman with a little dog in her purse. It's by a gal with a pretty funny profile. Her name is 'Malingering' (aka Irreverent). The photo is titled: 'at least it's not a pink pup purse' .

For me, the presence of the dog is what made this pic such a 'YESSSSSS!' for me. It kinda links in to the super hero theme, cos it's about this little innocuous animal who THINKS he's a super hero. And his leggie babe owner probably regards him in the same light.

I opted to use a completely different style to my normal mode.

In this one, I did very loose line drawings as the top layer, then immediately set them to a low opacity, so that I could start blocking in colour without paying too much attention to the line. I decided before starting that this one would have no line art in the final.

I then started working from background through to foreground, making everything pretty messy and shoddy and inaccurate. I used only the roller tool and eraser for this entire picture.

Each colour got a new layer. And each colour was sliced back with the eraser set to the thinnest possible width. Kind of like a needle scraping away at a piece of scraperboard.

I ended up with about twenty or thirty layers, which I only merged down when I was happy with my look.

The little messy bits of erasings are left in on purpose. I wanted this pic to show my process, to have evidence of being worked. And more than that, to give it the sense that it actually WAS handmade. I kinda WANT people to know that this isn't some sort of computerised conversion of a photo into an artwork thing. It's actually my eye, my judgement, my brushstrokes.

I changed the composition to suit my needs. And I've used the background to lead us directly to the woman's face. I wanted this because her face is in a dominant position at the confluence of a horizontal fifth, and a vertical third.

But the real hero of the piece is the crazy super hero dog in the purse. Which is why he's a straight drop down the woman's arm, down in the middle of the pic. This is NOT a great place for him to be in traditional composition. Which is why I strengthened the lines leading to the woman's face.

Im not sure if I'm making sense here. What I'm TRYING to say is that the compositional WEAKNESS of the dog's placement BECOMES the punchline, thanks to the strength of the woman's face in conjunction with the title of the piece. (That's also why the skirt and purse are so much darker than anything else on the page. To make sure that dog can't be missed.)

As usual, I painted this in a coffee shop (this time, my usual local haunt, the Mugg & Bean in Cresta), on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc, using ArtRage 2.2. A gorgeous lass I've dated a few times asked me whether or not I get paid to mention the hardware and software I drive. The answer is no. I do not receive ANY remuneration, or favours, or anything else from Toshiba or Ambient Design. I'm a paying customer. And I just love the products. And I'm keen to let people into my process. So I disclose stuff. Thanks for asking, Sandi!

'Roy Blumenthal -- The Movie' -- The Soundtrack of My Life

Hmmmm. Here's one of those viral tag things that actually caught my attention and seems worth doing.

I read Victoire's soundtrack, and thought I'd give it a shot.

Here's what you do...

• Take your mp3 player, and put it on shuffle.


• For each 'act' in the movie of your life, write down the song playing on your mp3 player.


• Add a short 'interpretation' of what that song means to you in the context of the act (this is my addition to the game).

So. Here's my soundtrack...

01. Opening Credits: 'Only You' by Portishead

'We suffer every day... what is it for...' Hehehehehe. Part of the opening lyrics. So. This song portends a life of misery and suffering, with 'only you' able to help me out of my misery. I wonder who this 'you' is?

02. Waking Up: 'Colours' by Ayub Ogada

This is gentle world music. A very emotive track. Killer dude's voice. It could actually be a lullaby. Suggests that things start smoothly in this life of mine. That I wake up easily and quietly. But knowing me, knowing my history, I'd say it's a false idyll. Cos in actual fact, my mother is already an alcoholic as I'm born, and my father is a wifebeater. So while all's seemingly well in my world, there's this underbelly lurking.

03. First Day at School: 'X&Y' by Coldplay

'I dive in at the deep end... you become my best friend'. Yeah. It WAS the deep end. I was petrified of school. My first day, I clung to my mom. And at the door of the classroom, I wedged myself into the doorframe, and it took two teachers to pry me loose. I was crying like crazy. I think it set the scene for Miss Light to hate me. One good thing about my mom is that she taught me how to read by the time I was three years old. Which in the South African schooling system, in a Germiston government school, was NOT such a great thing. Cos I was considered 'too big for my boots'. And when it took me three minutes to complete a writing exercise that took the rest of the class 30 minutes, I was forced by Miss Light to stand in the corner INSIDE A DUSTBIN. Coldplay is singing the phrase, 'Drifting into space', as I type. Yup.

04. Falling in Love: 'Bring It On' by Gomez

Two words... Hayley Moffat. I fell in love with her in Standard One. And have been in love with some version or other of her ever since. I often wonder what became of her. Gomez sings, 'I've been walking far too long... drag my feet like everyone.' This song is passion-filled, but it's an underground passion, contained mainly in the lead singer's voice. Cos it's also filled with weariness.

05. Fight Song: 'Greetings To the New Brunette' by Billy Bragg.

'Shirley... it's quite exciting to be sleeping here in this new room. You're my reason to get out of bed before noon.' This is one of my favourite songs of all time. I can sing this song in the shower on infinite repeat. I love love love it. 'Shirley... sexual politics has left me all of a muddle... We are joined in the ideological cuddle.'

So what's it got to do with fighting? Hmmm. Gotta think about the connections here. I guess it's about yearning. Yearning for a better life with a girl I love.

Back in primary school, I turned into a bit of a bully-basher. My dad was a ruffian, and he taught me and my brother how to fight pretty effectively. His advice was, 'If the guy's bigger than you, climb onto a wall with a brick in your hand. When he walks past the wall, jump on him and smash his head in with the brick.' I've never done that, but the principle is sound. I've used the principle.

So my own reality is that I was a kind of superhero in my own world, which was something I did to makeup for a pretty bad childhood.

06. Breaking Up: 'Treasure' by Perplexa

This band makes very edgy industrial-tinged sweet music. It's definitely edgy. The lyrics are kinda mumbled on this track. It sounds like someone making excuses for something. Sigh. Breakups. I've had a few of those. Some long-ish relationships. But quite a lot of ones that didn't make it.

07. Prom/Matric Farewell: 'Zahrafat Al Sa'id (Rejoicing in Upper Egypt)' by Musicians of the Nile

Ah. It was fun. The girl that I took to the dance was a blind date that a friend of mine organised. I don't even recall her name. I bought the most unbelievably horrid Pierre Cardin jacket for the occasion. It was hideous. Ultra thing vertical stripes. White alternating with salmon pink. What the hell was I thinking??? I look like an idiot. The girl is wearing a holy-moly-wow!!! red dress. I didn't even get to kiss her, cos I was too shy. In fact, I only got laid for the first time when I was repeating second year engineering at Wits. Now THAT was memorable. This music is percussion-based, Arabic. Some of my favourite ambient stuff. I actually use this track quite a lot when I do ka huna massage.

08. Life’s Okay: 'Stranger in the House' by Elvis Costello

This is one of Elvis's country-esque songs. Crappy slide guitar all the way through. But, as usual, killer lyrics. 'I get the feeling that I don't belong here. That there's no welcome in the window anyway. And I look down for a number on my keychain, cos it feels more like a hotel every day.' So yeah... to anyone looking at me... life's okay. But in reality? I've fought depression and anxiety my whole life. Still fighting.

But by this point in my life, leaving school, studying engineering, things are pretty hectic. I'm eighteen or nineteen. I get home from varsity one day to find the Sheriff of the Court driving away. There's a writ nailed onto the front door. I'm named as the person whose goods are being attached. I'm in debt for R300 000. A debt I signed for when I was thirteen. My dad handed me some piece of paper to sign way back then, and I did.

I go inside, and look for him. He's bankrupt yet again, so he's not working. I find him hiding from the sheriff in a cupboard in his bedroom.

He's a man I've seen break someone's jaw with one punch, and continue smashing the guy on the ground. I saw that when I was around 11 years old.

I confront him. We're nose to nose. He loses his temper and takes a swing at me. Without even moving my head aside, I swat his hand away, and tell him to TRY and take another swing. He's around 58 years old at this point, and still does twenty pushups at will. He glares at me, and then walks away. A week later, I move out of home into a commune in Yeoville. I drop out of university shortly after.

09. Mental Breakdown: 'Throughout the Dark Months of April and May' by The Cocteau Twins.

Hmmm. What a melancholy song! Phshew. Apt.

1989. I'm twenty years old. I've been called up for National Service in the South African Defence Force. I face the following options:

o Leave the country.
o Stay in the country and draft-dodge.
o Continue with tertiary education.
o Declare my refusal to serve in the SADF, and get a mandatory 6 year jail sentence.
o Serve in the army, but as a conscientious objecter.
o Serve in the army as a normal conscript.

I'm a student leftie at this point, albeit a cynical one. I'm a member of the End Conscription Campaign. I consult with some character at a clandestine meeting. And he gives me the lowdown on all of my options. And under his guidance, I opt for 'serving in the army', as a 'conscientious objector'. He gives me an army rule book, and tells me to learn it off by heart. And he gives me a typed sheet with the steps I have to take in order to be an objector within the army. It clearly states 'conscientious objector' in the section that says, 'Declare to the officer commanding of your unit that you are a conscientious objector, and that you refuse to bear arms in an apartheid army'.

I get to Kimberly. I get issued with my rifle. This will be one of only two times I ever touch the rifle again. The second time is when I hand it back after basic training.

I go to the officer commanding. He is the Commandant in charge of 1 Maintenance Unit. He has a walrus moustache. He has big game heads mounted on his walls. He has hunting rifles under the heads. I salute him. He salutes me back. He offers me a seat.

'Yes, Private Blumenthal,' he says.

I say, 'Commandant, I am a conscientious objector, and I will not bear arms in an apartheid army.'

His eyes narrow, and I realise that I've just been buttfucked by the End Conscription Campaign. I realise, in the narrowing of his eyes, that there's something terribly wrong.

He says to me, inexplicably, 'Private Blumenthal... Do you mean "conscientious" objector, or "religious" objector?'

And I swallow my panic, and say, 'I mean religious objector, Commandant.'

He says, 'I'm relieved, Private Blumenthal.' And he points out of his door. And there are two red-bereted troops standing at attention at a door. 'See those two soldiers? They're military police. If you'd MEANT "conscientious" objector, I would have had to call them in and send you to prison for six years.'

And so, Roy Blumenthal, scurrilous half-Jew, chorister in an Anglican high school, atheist (or agnostic, at best), becomes a 'religious objector'. And has to invent a religion.And be a pacifist. Which I'm not.

And is suddenly the most profoundly alone person in existence. Insanity. Insanity squared. With at least two psychotic episodes under duress. One near-death experience. All of it tightly tightly tightly controlled by the strongest force of will in the world (my own). What I've come through lets me know that NOONE will fuck with me and live. I'm one of the most hardcore motherfuckers I know. And I know this very well indeed.

10. Driving: 'Got the Time' by Joe Jackson

Ah! Out of the army. 'Sit down, got another letter to write...' Yup. I'm a writer. I've been studying at Unisa while I was in the army. And I'm now free. And I'm driving a Fiat Uno, which I'll own for around 10 years before progressing to a little red convertible sports car.

Time is ticking. But I'm allowing myself the time and space to learn as much as I can. I'm an avowed autodidact. And I'm soaking up knowledge. I become an advertising copywriter. And I get headhunted to Hunt Lascaris FMC. A HUGE ego boost. The best agency in the world at that point wanted ME. Yeah! And I flew.

Time. Ticking. I become a hot performance poet. I start writing stuff other than poetry. I write a novel. I write a screenplay. I become a filmmaker.

And now, years later, I'm a fulltime artist, living my art in prosperity and abundance, even though I could do with getting my credit card debt down, and my overdraft shrunk. But I've got time. And I'm using it nicely.

11. Flashback: 'Window on the World' by Bright Blue

Takes me straight back to the army. Oh man. And before the army. I interviewed David Bruce for WITS STUDENT newspaper just before he went to jail for six years as the first objector to the SADF. Interviewing him is what decided me NOT to follow that route. I realised that this gentle dude was going to get completely mindfucked by the jail system when he went in. And I met him years later, after his release. And he's NOT the same dude he was going in. He's damaged.

Bright Blue. Wow. I believe they're one of the bands that changed South Africa and got rid of apartheid. And this song is one of my all time favourite songs. 'For the young men marching everywhere, trying their best to escape. I'm watching it all from my window on the world.'

I saw Bright Blue live at Jamesons in Joburg city centre just a week before I started my army 'sentence'. I cried all the way through the gig. And I took them to the army with me. And stayed sane cos of them. Thanks guys. You saved my life. You and Jennifer Ferguson (cos of 'Dickie Baby'). Thank you. And thanks for changing the country. (I'm crying now as I type. Hard hard hard days.)

12. Getting Back Together: 'You're Pretty Good Looking' by The White Stripes

'Oh yeah you're pretty good looking for a girl... But your back is so broken...' I had a long relationship with a beautiful artist, decades older than me. She taught me pretty much everything I needed to know about THINKING. And sex. And liberation. It was a difficult relationship. She'd been married for years. The marriage was largely dissolved by the time I came onto the scene. I had been seeing her for a year when her son died in a car prang. It fucked her over completely. Our relationship lasted a full three years, with a little six month gap in the third year, when we broke up. OF COURSE it was unsustainable. But I was young, and king of the world, and thought it didn't matter that I was 21 and she was 49. It mattered. She knew. She was wise. I have her art on my wall. She was my first true love.

13. Wedding: 'Volcano' by Damien Rice

'Don't throw yourself like that, in front of me. I kissed your eyes and mouth. Is that all you need?'

Wedding? Ain't gonna happen. I don't believe in the institution. It's a crock of shit. And I'm totally opposed to it. I'm polyamorous. And at best, I subscribe to the pagan seven-year. That's where partners commit to a 'marriage' for seven years, at the end of which they either continue for another seven years, or they part.

14. Birth of a Child: 'We Suck Young Blood' by Radiohead

Probably not gonna happen. I'm not keen to bring kids into a world at war. I believe we're in the last world war on this planet. It's happening as we speak. And the key player in it is the American right wing and the rise of Islam.

I'm an adult child of an abusive family. And I don't want to perpetuate any cycle of abuse. I don't WANT to bring a kid into the world to be abused. I don't THINK I'll be an abusive father. But I can't guarantee it. I simply don't KNOW enough.

I do know that I'm aware and alert and awake. I do know that I'm incredibly gifted in communicating with children. I do know that I'm NOT my mom or dad. But I also know that the co-dependent hooks were driven deep into my core. And they tear at my flesh every day and night of my life.

15. Death Scene: 'Weeping' by Qkumba Zoo

Wild stuff. My second-most favourite song of all time is the Bright Blue original. And it's so apt for the death scene. 'I knew a man who lived in fear. It was huge, it was angry, it was drawing near. Behind his house, a secret place, was the shadow of the demon he could never face.'

I don't think I need to say anything at all about this song. Except to say thanks again to Bright Blue for smuggling Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika into this song, and giving hope to the ordinary people of this country when the censors didn't spot it, and it made the radio charts, and spread and spread and spread. Only now this country faces the spectre of Jacob Laduma Zuma being our next president. And people like Tony Yengeni walking free. We're in trouble. A country that I sacrificed stuff to make better. It feels so awful.

Actually, I will say something. When I die, I want to know that I did NOT build walls to hide behind. I want to know that I spent my life breaking walls down, and shining light for other people too. That's why I'm an artist. I want people to be able to avoid the horrors.

And thanks to Kevin and Jeanne (as they were once known, when they were in a folk band called Ocean Road, a band I shared a stage with at the Black Sun theatre in Rockey Street in Yeoville so many years ago) for such a beautiful rendition of this amazing song.

16. Funeral Song: 'The Devil's in the Details' by Lowen & Navarro

Ag. Wrong song. I wish it could have been Shriekback's 'The Cradle Song'. The chorus is so beautiful for endings... 'May the fire be your friend, and the sea rock you gently. May the moon light your way, till the wind sets you free.' But yeah, I suppose 'The Devil's in the Details' is apt. It's about the sting lurking.

But here's the thing. For me... no funeral. I've been to only one funeral in my life, and that was my older-lover's son's funeral. It's the last funeral I will ever go to. And that includes my own. Cos there won't BE a funeral for me. I'm not interested in that institution. I think it's a hurtful institution. I think there are better rituals to work through someone's death. I think there are better ways to acknowledge someone's life.

I am donating my body to science. And I want my friends to know that I'm not dishonouring them by asking not to have a funeral. They can have a party somewhere without me. And they can laugh and cry and have fun and seduce strangers and just be cool about it all.

17. End Credits: 'To Love Someone' by Slobberbone

Jeez. I've just googled this song to try and find out who did the original. Can't crack it. Someone like Percy Sledge or something like that. This version is pretty cool. It's from an UNCUT magazine sampler, and it's the only Slobberbone song I've ever heard. I think it's a pretty neat closing to my film. 'What good will it do if I can't have you? You just don't know what it's like to love somebody the way I love you.' May it all have a happy ending. May my life in art give me some light moments. May my journey out of my abusive childhood bring me love and light and joy.

So. There were have it. A musical journey through Roy Blumenthal. A bit more stirring and painful than I would have imagined such an exercise would have been. But a good eye-opener. It's a pretty cool thing to do. Give it a try.