A soon to be true story

This is why there’s a doctor about to stitch an open wound on my head:

Not so long ago, I said enough. I said this in a very dramatic way, maybe even hitting the table with my fist. I don’t remember. But I’m sure it would’ve made a pretty cheesy scene in a B movie.

The reason why I said enough is I was really pissed off.

The thing I said enough to was letting other people do whatever they want.

That is, if you even want to call them people.

I am of course talking about tough guys with shaved heads. The type that wears big black boots and bomber jackets that make them look even bigger than they are. And in their pockets, you just know they’re carrying at least a knife.

I believe these people are usually referred to as skinheads.

All they do is work out, shoot up on steroids, and act as if the whole world belongs to them. Their IQ is most likely even lower than their moral standards and they don’t take shit from anybody.

My problem is, neither do I.

When I see a muscular bald guy walking down a street, my only wish is to kill him. To show him that he’s not above the rules, that no one’s scared of him. Because that face of his, the look he gives everyone he passes by, it’s not as intimidating as he thinks.

Unfortunately, most people think the exact opposite and they’re not about to stand up to them.

Most policemen you see, they’re big and hairless. All security guys and henchmen. Most sex offenders. Aggressors. All the thugs. Even the mafia, the ones who are supposed to be elegant men with greasy Andy Garcia-like hair, even these people are just Hitler enthusiasts and benefactors of the head-shaving industry. Sovereign motherfuckers.

They invaded everything.

You know how in Fight Club, all the men with bruises were members of Project Mayhem? Well in reality, all the men without hair are part of some secret organization hell-bent on acting like arrogant asses and beating others.

This one time, I was at a concert. Front row. Time of my life. And suddenly, two gorillas elbow their way through the crowd and throw stuff on the stage. Of course, no one tells them anything, because they are big and they have shaved heads. So they continue to trash-talk and move around in the crowd, stepping on people’s feet and hitting them.

The reason they do it is because they can do it.

And that is also the reason why I got angry. Furious. For the remainder of the concert, even after these two idiots left, all I could think about was how kneecapping them would teach them a lesson.

That’s when this story really started.

Later I told my friends about the two dickheads. The response was each had a similar experience to top mine. Most shocking was the one you probably already know if you have ever watched the movie Duel and pictured the truck driver being nothing but muscle and shit instead of brains.

My friend was driving home from somewhere, and for no reason, a hairless individual started blowing the horn at him and hitting his car. Then the man rolled down his window and shouted something at my friend and continued road raging and harassing my friend for several kilometers.

Of course, this was not really done for no reason.

The man’s motive was he could get away with it.

Here’s when I said enough, as I mentioned earlier. And here’s when you could say this story really started. Because we decided to make our own Project Mayhem. A crusade against the bold arrogance of the bald.

Don’t picture us as vigilantes or avengers. We were so much more than that. Soon, we were an army. Because for every cockface weightlifter out there, there are ten people he pissed off or abused.

Ethnic minorities especially.

And we did unto them as they do unto us. An eye for an eye, dignity for dignity. And when it finally got uncontrollably out of hand, even life for life. But you don’t want to hear about that. This story started with my head sporting a big open wound, and that’s how it’s going to end.

Who would want to hear about the street war I accidentally started? About the news reports of stabbings and beatings piling up and filling every aspect of daily life? About the fear that soon transformed into anger that immediately transformed into violence? There is no way I’m telling you our revenge group soon became the oppressor we once hated so much. I am certainly not going to imply that the message of this story is supposed to be something along the lines of power corrupts or don’t do it just because you can or violence is not the solution.

All these things, they are really just the result of my head getting spliced open.

On our first day of active hatred and resistance, my associates and I were verbally attacked by I’m guessing either a chemotherapy patient or a skinhead. His problem was friend number one’s long hair, friend number two’s The Who T-Shirt, friend number three’s tan, and my short hair that wasn’t 100% Adolf-approved short enough.

And by verbally attacked I mean the guy came to us and grabbed me by my collar and started yelling and threatening to kill us. Then he threw me into the crowd of my three bystanders and put on a brass knuckle he took out from his pocket.

And that’s about everything I remember.

Friend number two got his arm broken, the other two are OK, and I have, among other things, a concussion. And as much as it hurt, I must say it was absolutely worth it. Because this is when the story began.

Our attack was featured on a soft news TV show three days later, and the interview I gave, it changed everything. I said all the stuff everyone thinks but won’t say. That the police will never catch the guy because chances are, he was a cop himself. That the guy deserves the same knuckle treatment I got. That people should not be afraid to stand up to anyone. And hey, I know how this sounds, but it’s exactly how it happened. I gave a speech that moved a nation. It would be a pretty cheese scene in a B movie, wouldn’t it?

And that concludes the story of why a doctor was about to stitch an open wound on my head. And it really starts the story of public upheaval, underground groups, rebellion and anarchy.

But that’s a whole different story.

A short but artsome rant

Learning about the 15th century Flemish painter Jan van Eyck, I wonder what happened to art these days. Looking at The Ghent Altarpiece, I question civilization. Knowing you’re probably googling it right now, I guess books and galleries are dead.

The very fact that spell-check underlines Eyck as a mistake catapults us back to the Stone Age.

Standing on the sidewalk and observing all the graffiti, I can’t help feeling there is no real art left in this world.

I take my camera and photograph every obscure and unimportant thing I can think of. If I can’t think of anything, I just take pictures of trees and clouds. Two hundred photos is all my memory card can handle.

I keep fifteen of them.

Fifteen pictures out of two hundred that I present to others. That’s 7.5% of my work that’s worth showing to people. Approximately one thirteenth of my work that’s not laughable. Embarrassing.

People see these pictures and they think, Wow, this guy is an artist.

Yeah, sure I am. Because Michelangelo had to do thirteen statues before he got it right, too.

Then I borrow a handycam and I shoot stuff. Everything safe for the plastic bag in the wind. Then I put it on youtube and suddenly I’m an artsy filmmaker. I get comments like, Wow, this is good. This reminds me of (insert any director you like).

What’s sad is that instead of becoming an artist, all you become is just another person with a Mac and a camera, but you still think you’re the next best thing.

Oh yeah, and speaking of Mac, all people can do is bitch and moan about Microsoft, but hey, why don’t you start your own multi-billion corporation from scratch?

I hate it how those MacBooks are all white. They look like a compressed fridge.

But seriously, now that I’m a photographer and a cinematographer, I can progress further. With the -grapher bases covered, my next step is becoming a musician.

What I do is I learn to play the guitar just good enough to be able to make a demo. My singing is no good, but I hide it by covering a Beatles song and writing my own stuff easy.

The lyrics make little to no sense, but they include the words love, God, Iraq war, and my mother, so I guess I’m gonna be alright.

And if that doesn’t work, I can still have a sex scandal.

You think Mozart was just plain good? Oh please. I bet he fucked half of Vienna before he became famous.

Oh right. He was six years old. My bad.

The problem with art is that it’s not defined properly. You say art when you see a Monet painting, but you also say art when you see spray paint on a wall. OK, technically you’d call it street art, but I bet you can see how the key word is not “street” right now.

To become a painter, all you have to do these days is dump a bucket of paint on a canvas and add some straight lines. Maybe a circle. It takes about ten minutes, but it’s immortal.

Ever wondered how long it took van Eyck to paint the bleeding lamb on the altar?

Ever seen it?

I guess what I’m doing right now is I’m becoming a writer. I already became everything else, so why not do the easiest one, too?

The fact that I’m posting this on the internet and thinking how clever I am just proves my point that everyone being able to express themselves is basically what killed art.

I mean, in a couple centuries, this is hardly going to be quoted as often as Shakespeare is now. The to be’s and not to be’s of this time can be found on lame blogs like this one, smartass icons and banners, clever T-shirts, text messages, doors of toilet cabins.

Everyone is an artist, which means no one is.