It's Only A Swastika

Last week my proposal to make a gigantic wooden swastika was totally censored.

"Why is that?" I can hear you all asking yourselves. Well apparently it wasn't anything to do with the shape, as they've claimed to have seen this sort of thing a million times, that no one even cares it's a swastika.....but then later they asked me if it would be possible to change the construction to a different shape, such as...... wait for it..........a cross!

A cross! How totally depressing! I've never understood why people consider them "holy" and wear them on their necks, how's mangalation, blood and nails got anything to do with "ascension" into heaven? Sounds like some christian-terrrorist propaganda to me....




How typical, this is the first time I tried to actually make something beautiful and aesthetic, and of course it had to go and backfire. My filmmaking neighbour, Sander, says I should just send them a video of Rambo saving the world from AIDS (but killing 10,000 people in the process)...they ought to have some sort of intellectual banter about that.

The funny thing is, this time the curators were not even Thais (nor German), who often censor trivialities such as a monk kicking a football in Apichatpong Weerasetakul's "Syndromes and a Century" or Michael Shaowanasai taking a photograph of himself dressed as a monk, and being arrested because he's gay.


QUESTIONNAIRE: Which do you prefer?

a) Christians doing something silly with a cross.
b) Beautiful, sacred, remover of all obstacles-the original swastika.
Answer below.

(A)

This image is too gross

too be posted on this blog.

Click here to see it.

(B)

Well anyway, if you want to buy my swastika drawings, you can contact me here (and if you happen to meet any curators that were once daredevil motorcyclists or original members of Spandau Ballet, please also let me know)

Rocky1-6, the heptology...or sexology... or whatever

OOOOHHHHH.........OOOOOOOHH.......OOOOOHHHHH

I've been getting shifty glances at the video rental shop down the road for the last two weeks, ever since I forced "Gene-Machine" our unofficial new housemate to make me a membership card..... in his name. They'd probably feel more at ease if I was renting out hoards of midget-porn, but NO, what I'm looking for is way more extreme, way more testosterone fuelled, and filled to the brim with lines so bad that they are nearly philosophical............................it's Sylvester Stallone in the ROCKY hexology (I'm assuming that's what you call a series of "six")

Usually my converstation with "Bling" the video-store guy goes something like this:

Me: "Do you have Rocky 3 and 5? I can only find 1,2,4 and 6.....?"

Video-store guy: "er......no"

(5 minutes later)

Me: "Do you have Rambo?"

Video-store guy: "No we lent that to you last year and you never returned it"

Me: "What about Bruce Lee?"

Video-store: "Yes, right at the back, but its dubbed in Thai..."

Me: "IN THAI? why? don't you have it in Cantonese??"

Video-Store Guy: "ermm...do you know we can't let you borrow more than five movies at a time, but I can reserve Rocky 6 for you........by the way is your name really Gene Mahasamut Bunyarask.....?

Some more hidden gems from the 80s action flick.

Anyway, I totally don't understand what's so strange about borrowing the whole sexology/heptology of Rocky, or even Rambo for that matter. It's purely for "research" for the next exhibition. This is where my ultimate fantasy comes true- to see a film where Stallone, Bruce Lee and Nicolas Cage get sweaty and battle it out among each other. I don't really like Jaa Panom because I don't think he's had enough time to "age" and grow "character", but I had to throw him into the equation to make the gallery happy.

.......Sylvester Stallone is totally underrated!

If I have any regrets in life, it's only that I didn't go meet THE MAN himself when my friend was producing ROCKY BALBOA in Chiang Mai (that's Rocky 6 for those of you who don't know). My neighbour, Christian who lives down the road, and has worked with Stallone on "Judge Dredd" (fabulous movie by the way) insists that he's a moron. Here is Christian's website, in case you want to send him hate-mail:

www.lostinspace.com

Unfortunately, he also made this nifty special effect in Terminator 2, so you might have to forgive him.