hello friends, fans, lovers, and foe,
here's a piece i've been chipping away at for a while.......this is by no means complete, as i plan on adding text........also, i haven't been feeling tops lately, under the weather a bit......
hope this lovely art update finds you well and all that......the image below contains an old photo of what some say is my great grandfather.......this is up for debate, but if it is, who has more right to it? myself to use in art as a direct descendent or the person who took this photo who is surely gone in the otherworld and this is an estate thing? art has so many pompous debates, that sometimes, it's ridiculous........almost like politics..........
also, i've been listening to some of the old back log of Constellation music's stuff, the first full length album by Frankie Sparo, called "wecome crummy mystics," and the Godspeed You! Black Emperor album "Yanqui UXO" both of which i discovered back in 2002 or 2003. i hosted a variety of radio shows at Thompson Rivers University the past decade, so i was always exposed to new music at the campus/community station......
Well, if it was in the year 2003, which i'm reasonably certain it was, that was a year of fires here in British Columbia, especially in the Southern Interior.......I had been working as a farm labourer for 2 or 3 years, and was basically fed up with where i was going in life.......which seemed to be nowhere quickly.......
my peers were succeeding, scoring book deals, and touring, and i felt the art climate was stagnant and boring as hell, and I was creatively frustrated.......and i remember bitching about the status quo while pulling weeds in this huge field, with the sun beating down, and the air thick with smoke from all the massive forest fires around us, the sound of helicopters in the air, and just hitting the wall so to speak.
and as i was complaining, the kids who was working with me, looked up at me, i'm not kidding, and said, "are you chris bose?"
ha ha, i nearly shat myself, and sheepishly said, "yeah, why?"
and he told me he had read my 'zines that i was publishing and read an interview that was published by the local university magazine the "omega." i was all conspiracy theory and shit, bring down the man, kind of stuff......and he said it was cool to meet, and we stood up, shook hands, and i think i walked back to the house and quit that job.
it felt ridiculous, and i knew i had to change my life, because we had a kid coming, and so began the long process of pulling myself out of that existence into the current one.
now, seven and a half years later, i've gotten the book deal, have started having success as an artist and filmmaker, or, at least some recognition from my peers, and toured the country endlessly. now there's just the music thing to have a go at properly..........
but there's a price to pay for everything, and i'm not here without one........
anyway, listening to Frankie Sparo's song "city as it might have been" brings me back to those early struggling days of madness, hunger and such.......it's not nostalgia, because that's a dead horse, but it brings me back to our little apartment we had on the corner of 2nd and st. paul, and in many ways that was a beautiful, perfect time.......simple and clean.........
my ex and i were madly in love, and felt really united against the world, the system and the man........we had no phone, no teevee, no internet and were in this rare time in our lives where we were both super clean, straight edge, and shared ideas and moved in the same direction. it's strange the people you meet, and how many have come and gone in our lives........so many people i knew are no longer a part of my life, it's strange..........
alas, this semi golden era wasn't to last, but it was amazing while it did.......and now all these years later, you can see the mistakes you make, and how you could've avoided them.......well, life is for learning and living, and i keep on keeping on........i miss those times though.......and in many ways, my ex as well.......
but enough of that, just know i'm working on more art and some new songs and will keep on going, so in the meantime, check out some of these photos from the year we were on fire......
i totally remember this sight........it looked as though we had been nuked or something, and i was working directly across the river from that fire......the smoke was incredible.........i'll never forget that smell.......
that was the year my son was born, in the midst of all these fires, turmoil and struggle.......things don't always go as planned, but as long as you have a plan, i think that things will eventually sort themselves out.......
oh, back the music, on a final note, these albums were essential to my mental health and well being because i felt connected in some way, that i wasn't alone in the cosmos and the beauty and haunted sadness of these songs reflected my own in some way......i connected deeply with them and still feel that way, listening to them now takes me back to those days, but in a good way.........
enough of my meanderings, take care lovers, until next time,
cb
thee silver mount zion orchestra and tra la la band.......the album art caught my attention, and then the music rewired my brain! ha ha!
Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Yankee U.X.O.
a deep, dark, brooding beautiful album..........
