David Choe (who I have posted about before) is an obscenely talented artist/thug/bible basher. He'll destroy your face. Well, he might think twice as he's just got out of the Tokyo jail he's been in for 3 months, where he spent his time creating over 300 paintings with Soy Sauce, making lists of all the people he wanted to kill/fuck, working on his Tantra, and bench pressing 80 pound junkies.
Superb illustrations by James Jean... I drooled over the sketchbooks.
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive. . . .” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”
That's the opening paragraph of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Yes, it was also a movie starring Johnny Depp playing Groucho Marx playing Hunter S. Thompson. If you haven't seen it, don't. It'll ruin both the book and Johnny Depp forever.
Oh, and lastly I'll leave you with this: Hunter's last creation, Shotgun Golf.
Shotgun Golf was invented in the ominous summer of 2004 AD, right here at the Owl Farm in Woody Creek, Colo. The first game was played between me and Sheriff Bob Braudis, on the ancient Bomb & Shooting Range of the Woody Creek Rod & Gun Club. It was witnessed by many members and other invited guests, and filmed for historical purposes by Dr. Thompson on Super-Beta videotape.
The game consists of one golfer, one shooter and a field judge. The purpose of the game is to shoot your opponent's high-flying golf ball out of the air with a finely-tuned 12-gauge shotgun, thus preventing him (your opponent) from lofting a 9-iron approach shot onto a distant "green" and making a "hole in one." Points are scored by blasting your opponent's shiny new Titleist out of the air and causing his shot to fail miserably. That earns you two points. But if you miss and your enemy holes out, he (or she) wins two points when his ball hits and stays on the green.
And after that, you trade places and equipment, and move on to round 2.
My patent is pending, and the train is leaving the station, and Murray is a Founding Consultant, along with the Sheriff, and Keith Richards, etc., etc. Invest now or forever hold your peace.
* * * * *
As for Bill's triumphant finish at Pebble Beach, I am almost insanely proud of him. He is an elegant athlete in the finest Murray tradition. Bill is a dangerous brute with the fastest reflexes in Hollywood, but he is suave, and that is why I trust him even more than I trust all his brothers. Yes, I say Hallelujah, praise Jesus. Where is Brian? I will need him for this golf project, if only to offset Bill's bitchiness. We will march on a road of bones.
OK. Back to business. It was Bill Murray who taught me how to mortify your opponents in any sporting contest, honest or otherwise. He taught me my humiliating PGA fadeaway shot, which has earned me a lot of money ... after that, I taught him how to swim, and then I introduced him to the shooting arts, and now he wins everything he touches. Welcome to the future of America. Welcome to Shotgun Golf.
So long and Mahalo.
Hunter.
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Looking at some of Kawashima's paintings, especially the one above, somehow I'm reminded of Brett Whiteley writing Asianisation = Civilisation on his studio wall in Raper St, Surry Hills. I like being reminded of that a lot.
Barry McGee is one of the artists in Outerspace Hillbillys at the Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco. P.S. they don't sell luggage.
Photographs by Joe Davidian of his travels around the world. No relation to the Branch Davidians as I understand.
