CHECK OUT MY BLOW-HOLE: #MERMAN COLBY COMES TO LIFE

Congratulations to Cameron Stalheim for bringing his vision to reality and thanks to everyone who helped to fund this larger-than-life project!  I figured that 30-odd photos of the sculpture would suffice for this post.

BONER FOR. . . BOY?

Boners aren't for books silly faggot; boners are for boys!!!

Sadly, impending doom, errrrr my "move", means I must firmly close the final chapter on the Boners for Books program.  Without the financial means to preserve my beautiful library, I'm sharing the many gifts you gave me with anyone willing to snatch a slim volume (or shelf-full or two).

I now have the freedom to re-direct my riding crop back where it belongs: perniciously pointed at the beautiful boys of the internet, most of whom I'll never have the direct honor of meeting in person.

One boy in particular stands out among the many: xxcraiger.

I'm a little late to the Instagram game (COLBYKELLER if you want to help me earn my first "k").  I only recently acquired a smart phone.  Sadly that too will go.

It took me a while to figure out the private message function.

When I did, I discovered xxcraiger, Craig Ryan, who sent me a card to his upcoming thesis show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University.  I scrolled thru Craig's selfies and instantly fell in love.  While the panhandle state is a loong ways off, and too hot to handle for this pale pony (not to mention Craig himself), I can certainly admire from a distance.

His silicone-centric work looks pretty alluring too.  If you find yourself near Florida State tonight, be sure to check out the opening of his thesis show.  The reception is from 6-8PM:

BIGSHOE TUNES: ECONOMY SIZE

"We wrap it

and then we bag it

in a tight little package and there you have it.

Or else we sack it.

Do you want to sack it?

Alright, let's sack it.

I'm a little ambitious and I want my wishes so I got a fictitious Sid Vicious doing all my dirty dishes.

You go upstream when you get with me, do you know what I mean?

You go extreme when you get with me, do you know what I mean?

Baby, get in and jump me.

Or Baby, get out and dump me."

-- Peaches, Bag It 

 

Gu Tong Yue Wu -- Dong Ke
Dangerous -- Big Data
When I Was A Fair Maiden -- Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill
The Day After The Day Before Yesterday -- The Northwest Man
Ye Mele -- Elis Regina
Szumniala Leszczyna (The Hazel Tree Rustled) -- Pieśni Odzyskane
When We Were Younger -- The Careful Ones
Hapo Zamani -- Dorothy Masuka
Alphabit -- John Oswald & Susanna Hood
Puirt-A-Beul -- Eilidh Mackenzie
Nonscience -- TTC
Humps -- Alanis Morissette
Marie Louise -- Yann-Fanch Kemener
Take My Soul -- Bergheim 34
Policeman -- Spare Change Boys
Louva-A-Deus -- Milton Nascimento
Greenland Whale Fisheries -- The Weavers
Rush Into Love -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.
Slap and Shot -- Cheveu
Stranger In Moscow -- Transformer Di Roboter
Diskko 5000 -- Communista Como Hijo
The Kitchen Floor -- Little Green Cars
Take Cover (Featuring Pumpinkhead) -- Purpose Of Soul
Bag It -- Peaches
Reconstitution -- TTC
El No O Busca So Voz -- George Crumb
High So High -- Latin World
Kunjan Sabuki -- Nenes
Married To a Mermaid -- Tom Goux & Jacek Sulanowski
>Anawa, Anawa< Kiribati Women's Hip Shaking Dance -- The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music
Worms Cannot Swim Nor Can They Walk -- The Hidden Cameras
Rules Don't Apply -- Seasick Mama
Hiden-Nakafu-- Toru Yonaha

Don't forget: Wrap it and bag it, grab it and dash at the 1st Decennial Colby Keller Potlatch this 4.20!

PIECES OF EIGHT: VALOR

VALOR: "VALOR iS COURAGE TO STAND UP AGAiNST RiSKS"

The time has come to cut the thread between us.  This will be my last request for contributions to "Pieces of Eight".  I plan to save the last response (and drawing) for myself.

Give it a stab or don't.

Keep your sword sheathed?  Beat it into plows?  Share the blade?

The decision is yours.  :-)

POETRY MINI-CHALLENGE #2: CONCRETE POETRY (I SEE. . . ) #NPM14 #BSDPOETRY

Holy wow!  Over 100 entries in the first mini-challenge!!!  Last week's winner will receive a special Colby Keller video poem version of their haiku later this week, but ya'll are some crazy poetry loving readers!  It's like you love poetry almost as much as Colby loves cock. . . and speaking of cock and poetry. . .

This week's mini-challenge is CONCRETE POETRY, poetry in which the shape of the poem itself evokes meaning.  I'm not saying I only want penis- or vagina- or booby-shaped poetry, but I definitely would love to see some erotic lines take shape.  Now a lot of people roll their eyes at concrete poetry, but it's my favorite.  So give us something that rocks the poetry snobs so hard that their eyes roll to the back of their heads!

Submit a CONCRETE POEM for this week's mini-challenge. Your entry will also go into the Big Shoe Diaries Poetry Contest!  The winner of the mini-challenge will have a special video poem made by yours truly, so give it your best shot!  Entries can be sent to lawntattoo@gmail.com with the subject line, "CONCRETE COLBY" by 11:59pm on Sunday, April 13th.  Good luck!!!

THE FIRST DECENNIAL COLBY KELLER POT-LATCH CATCH AND RELEASE EASTER EGG HUNT EXTRAVAGANZA!

The First Gift: Crown Jewels (ten years collecting rare coins and medals)

I need help!

LOTS of help!

Largely due to a capital-intensive expansion of the University of Baltimore (where I go to the gym), a dark and foreboding cloud of pure-bred-Chow-Chow-Denali-driven gentrification has swiftly swept a shadow over my small neighborhood in Baltimore.  Characteristically charmless and brimming with spite, Simone Campbell-Scott, the Charm City Queen of serpentine slumlords, and her witless handmaiden, Anne Rowan, will officially kick my well-fucked ass on the street at the end of May.

Erotic fictions fan girls do your dirty work!

When I moved to Baltimore from Texas to attend grad school ten years ago, I signed my first apartment lease sight un-seen.  I couldn't afford a trip to inspect the place beforehand.  After a long drive alone (and several frustrating hours attempting to secure a set of keys) I walked in to my new digs only to discover a 5 foot pile of sawdust in the middle of the room, the un-explained absence of a bedroom loft (as promised in the ad), and a colony of bitchy mice, whose calumny of constant chirping kept me awake every single night.  One unforgettable evening, I welcomed home a date to the sight of a small grey soul in the final throes of life's last grasp, expiring comfortably on my pillow.  This evidence (and more) to arm a defense, I kindly explained to my prevaricating landlord that I would break my lease unless she found the ethical prudence to severely reduced my rent.  Simone never forgave me.

10 years of property-owner bullshit now behind me: weeks in winter without heat, utility bills unpaid, an untold number of broken fixtures never fixed.  For a whole year Simone completely disappeared.  My neighbors and I regularly checked the obituaries for her listing.

That said . . .

Love, not spite, ruled Lovegrove: a dozen community pig roasts to benefit local artists, two co-hab boyfriends, each coloring disparate, though memorable, moments in my life (despite one souring tragically), and the incommensurable solidarity and friendship of two beautiful neighbors-- neighbors who fell in love, got married, conceived their first child and gave birth, all in the same building.  

Sadness aside, let the healing being!  I'm still dirt poor.  I can't afford to carry my many treasures with me, but I'm happy to share.

This 4.20 I'm throwing an epic POT-latch!!!  Come to Baltimore this Easter Sunday and carry away your very own bunny basket, full of freebies.  

But don't think you can get away without a piece of art too.  I heretofore declare every object taken a priceless Colby Keller original!

I've initiated a project I'm calling "Everything But Lenin" (a partial pun-- dumb-- on the sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond").  I intend to give everything I own away for free, everything except a large metal plaque of Lenin I bought off the black market in Ukraine thanks to Ebay.  Each exchange comes with a handwritten drawing/document declaring the piece a work of art (both the document and the exchange it represents).  The only thing I ask in return is a photograph together with the object(s) of your choosing.

Art often shies from the implications of transparency.  Obfuscation captures greater intensity.  A constitution of unwritten laws governs our collective aesthetic temperament-- appearance over insistence.  That said: every rule should be broken.  I've embedded another "utopian clause" in the project that deserves a concise explanation:

Ideally, I would like to find a person willing to grab the entire apartment in one sweep.  This would include EVERYTHING-- wallet, phone, computer, all of my clothes.  I would get a new phone, wallet, computer etc after the project period ends on May 31st.  There would be a brief moment where I am completely stripped bare, literally and figuratively.  This exchange would happen for free.  The person accepting the apartment and all of its contents cannot pay to acquire the piece.  A separate project for "donations" also exists.  The recipient of an object (or the entire apartment) is not obligated in any way to donate.  Each donation would also come with its own drawing/document declaring it a work of art.  Both types of transfer, a "free" object-based exchange and a currency-based donation, would essentially function equally as works of art.

Any single interested party would simply have to "store" the piece (my entire apartment and its contents).

The stored apartment however, exists only as an incomplete work of art.  To complete the piece, a "buyer" is needed.  The buyer would repatriate the entire apartment and its contents to its original site in Baltimore (or to a different location if the buyer pays to fully and accurately reconstruct an exact copy of the building at 1211 Lovegrove St).  Rather than buy the contents of my apartment, the "buyer" would instead purchase the building itself or have a copy of the building constructed.

Two other apartments currently exist in the building.  The buyer would then convert these two existing apartments into artists studios.  To fully "complete" the piece, a residency program for community-based or social-practice art must also be established with a pre-determined endowment-- "two", the absolute minimum social "exchange rate".  The buyer would fully restore my apartment as a permanent installation.  Imagine a small town "historical homes"-type scenario: "this is how a porn star lived in Baltimore in April 2014".  My apartment would function as a museum/library of sorts.  Lenin's tomb.  The apartment would be open to the public at set hours.  I, the artist, could never live in the apartment again for any period longer than 8 days, once a year.

Ultimately, the only requirement to bring the "utopian option" to fruition is a willing to remove the entire contents of my apartment for free and store it until a "buyer" for the piece can be found.  Potentially this could mean decades, or never.

It might also make sense for the person or institution acquiring the piece to arrange for a photographer to document the apartment and its contents for restoration purposes.  These photographs would also be considered works of art, owned by the photographer.

The person storing the apartment would have the right to sell the piece if it remains whole (even if this means selling the piece "incomplete").  This person would also have the right to show portions of the apartment in an exhibition context, as an "incomplete" work of art.

If the "utopian option" does not find a willing collaborator, I will distribute the contents of the apartment piece-meal.  While this process has already begun, I will keep most of the apartment intact for YOU until 4.20. . . 

Come and get it!!!

Bag of Beer

Underwear

Socks

Tea Kettle

Paddles

Empty Bottle

Sunglasses

Grandma Box

Honey Kombucha

Tea Strainer

Thrifted Pictures

Phallic Figurine

Eight Days a Week

Lana

Box

Frames

Pillow Case