Whenever I see older zines like this full of a hope and joy I am secretly praying to whichever god is in power at the moment that whoever did that is still seeing things with life. I hope they aren’t dead, broken or bitter. Life is rough and it’s inevitable that we all get cynical as we age. Bad things happen.
But to lose that beautiful moment just because you have more candles on the birthday cake is unfortunate.
Plus it makes me happy to see happy skateboarding people.
I realize I’ve been hassled a little lately when I skate so I do mention it. However I do NOT want to give the impression that skateboarding is unfriendly towards women. It’s actually a lot cooler.
This is addressed to such a small segment of skateboarding as to be laughable and I wish I didn’t have to even talk about this at all. So I’ll try not to because 99% of the people are a million times cooler than most of the general population.
And remember… Punk’s not dead oh no! And neither are start-ups.
Japanese art is incredibly beautiful in so many aesthetic ways, but if you study the history and culture you learn that even the most innocent flower screen sitting in a museum is loaded with philosophy, poetry and cultural references.
Japanese can be enjoyed on many levels, but to truly appreciate what the artist was trying to communicate requires the viewer to spend some time reading Japanese literature. A kimono hung out to dry is a reference to a sad love poem that is a reference to a Buddhist text which is… you get the picture.
It’s getting technical with feeling. You need both though.
One of my favorite artworks and German language poetry combinations are these two works: Anselm Kiefer’s Margarete (1981) and Paul Celan’s “Death Fugue.” You can take a look at it yourself and find all sorts of ways of thinking.
These two really show that they’re classics that can stand the test of time. You only really need to make one or two great works of this level in your life. Then you can give it all up and hang out on the beach and take up skateboarding.
I was talking to the little kids today at the skatepark and trying to explain to them why I wore so much gear.
Part of it is because i’m scared of getting hurt and then not being able to dance or skate, which is a very difficult state of being that cannot be described in words to normal people. Normal people don’t get it. They view exercise as a chore.
The real reason is because once I get in the zone, then I cannot stop. All these little weird injuries I have are because I couldn’t stop going when it was common sense not to go on. I rolled my ankle at a skatepark but that was because I was overdoing it the night before and couldn’t bear to take more than a day off. So I stepped on uneven ground and great, that’s how I hurt my ankle.
The other ankle was struck by tendinitis from overuse. I don’t want to come off as a total freak, but normal people don’t get it. This isn’t like running a marathon half-assed. This isn’t like joining the football team just because your dad was a football star and you want to please him. It’s not about living life half-assed, so that’s why moderation is so hard.
This is real-deal stuff.
When a sport like skateboarding gives so much to you, makes you feel so mentally focused and happy even if you aren’t so great like I am, you have to take precautions so that you don’t overdo it. You have to put all these little rules to trick your mind and avoid things like street skating because then that would mean 24 hours of skateboarding a day… and if the tendinitis is hitting now, imagine how hard it would be then. Wow!
The little kids get it. They are working so damned hard. There is a whole lot of focus there.
I guess it’s the same way with work. This weird lady I don’t know called me “Minnie Mouse” the other day and made all sorts of weird implications about my laziness when anyone who knows me well knows that I’m the worst workaholic in the world. I just look like I’m not working when I am. It’s very hard to explain this concept without sounding stupid, but that’s the easiest way to say it. It’s also very silly to me to pay attention to what total strangers without a clue say about my work habits, but I had a nice laugh walking home that day.
When you are doing something you love, then you are focused and on point and in a very intense mental state that’s difficult to describe except by analogy. There’s a scientist who wrote a big paper on “the flow” so he says this more than I ever could.
I was listening to NPR today and a famous jazz composer / musician said he went through a scientific study where his brainwaves were measured as he improvised jazz. Weirdly enough, when he was improvising there was no brain activity in most of his brain. Whole areas of your brain shut down. They chuckled about it on the radio interview, but if you’ve ever gotten into that state doing something, it makes complete sense.
I’m on a roll mentioning the cool designer kids in Berlin that I knew. Heiko Nerenz is another wonderful designer with whom I’ve worked who has grown up to become an accomplished illustrator.
Heiko Does it Again with Another Cool Illustration in his own quirky style
There’s something very weird about “letting go” and having passion. My art professors and teachers would always say to “let go” to make your best work–this is true, but you do need to think a lot and practice and read a lot before you can let go. That’s what makes the different between a great salad and digging through someone’s garbage.
When artists are perpetually thinking about how they’re going to make money off something the way a I see a lot of people do with their product designs (myself included), they’re going to fail to make the truly great connections necessary to actually make things that are meaningful which often eventually do make money.
Heiko worked with Daniela Uhlig (I’ve written about her before) and another group of talented kids who matured into something great. They’ve really grown up, and I’m wondering if it’s because they had to practice so much, probably more than most designers I know, and learn from each other. There’s something about having this creative freedom without the corrupting element of big salaries at too young an age that really develops talent and shows that it isn’t geneticat all, especially in fields like art.
My generation was so hardcore. Wow! Rest in Peace.
This isn’t really related to Tim Brauch at all… I was just reminded of the people I came of age with who are dead now. It’s sad because nowadays there’s so much potential to grow after the age of 30, and people dying at 24, well, it just seems like such a waste.
We always complain about how lightweight the 20something kids are. Sometimes I wish they were less corporate, but it’s good the trend makes most of them not walk on the wild side.
You lose the spark with the corporate and moldable though. There are trade-offs that can’t be avoided.
I used to work at a fun place in Berlin with some cool young graphic designers who could draw anything I wanted. It’s so nice to see them grow up… Daniela Uhlig is one of the illustrators that grew up and became really really awesome! One of the nice things about becoming old and crotchety like me is seeing the kids grow up. They’re making really cool stuff now and it’s neat to see how they’ve progressed from these young graphic designers to become full-fledged illustrators. And what’s even more remarkable was that there were so many good ones in Berlin!
