Wreck & Roll

My International Zine Month is slowly becoming a DIY Month, like I had back in 2012. Although not as elaborate, I am still finding myself doing different things. Aside from zine-making, I am engaging in the utter destruction of Wreck this Journal (more on that later).

I am also keeping up with my Writing Thursdays. This morning was yet another brilliant morning. I sat on the living room sofa with my husband’s laptop on my lap, typing away about anything at all that made my heart go pitter-patter.

Of course, I am also keeping up with blog-writing and journal-writing. Plus, I’m trying to add some drawings into the mix.

Yesterday morning, I met up with my friend for art morning. I bought my copy of Wreck this Journal by Keri Smith a while ago but never got around to decimating it, so I thought art morning would be a good time to get going. If you search “wreck this journal” on Google Images, you would understand why I found it so appealing. The ways that people use to destroy their copy are above and beyond anything that you could imagine. Using paint, crayons, scissors, glue, glitter, washi tape, needle and thread, hair, and absolutely anything, they turned the book into nothing short of a masterpiece!

I don’t know if I could produce anything as amazing as what I saw, but I thought of giving it a shot anyway. If anything, it might turn out looking like a zine, which is fucking fabulous!

I also don’t know how long it would take me to ransack the fucking thing, but I wish that if I managed to create (i.e. destroy) anything decent, I’ll post the results on here. In any case, destruction is another form of art I want to do this IZM/DIY month.

Peace, love and on with the jackhammer!

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Wake Up, Destroy!

With absolutely no relation to the title of this post, my 31-Day Zine Thing project is coming along nicely. Although I’m writing some pretty mundane things, it encourages me to make my month slightly more interesting by planning every week ahead of time and filling my days with fun shit, so that I could actually have something worth writing about. My usual list of fun shit includes reading, writing, Tai Chi, sleeping, music and art. So I try to write mostly about these.

I wish I had more time to write on my typewriter though, but the only time I can do it is at home. I mean, I can’t very well carry my heavy-ass Rose Madder to work, now can I? Carrying my daughter destroys my back enough as it is.

This morning, after my Tai Chi routine, I thought I may have some time left to write, but then my stomach got in the way and I just had to make myself an elaborate breakfast, complete with scrambled eggs, fresh veggies, cream cheese, yellow cheese, whole wheat bread, and apple juice. I’m not complaining, it was great, but that basically meant I had to spend more time doing the dishes and have no time for anything else as a result.

Yes. That’s what it all comes down to. On a regular day, I actually have to choose between writing and eating. That is a very real decision that needs to be made on a day-to-day basis for me. I really did just say that. I wanted to write but my stomach got in the way. Pathetic.

Whatever. I hope I find time later on this month for both writing and eating.

Peace, love and when your toddler won’t stop singing “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, you know you’ve owned the whole parenting thing.

Crazy Ozzy

Ozzy Osbourne performed in Israel last night as part of his farewell tour. The 70-year-old rocker kicked all fucking ass, and I was blown away by just how hard a 70-year-old dude can rock. He started off with Bark at the Moon which got me going right from the start.

Before he came on, there was a performance by Orphaned Land which I had absolutely no interest in. Since they started incorporating Middle Eastern instrumentation and vocals in their songs, I was interested in them even less.

I was not surprised by the crowd, but it was still a great feeling to see that most of it was made up of old people. Many of the concerts we go to, I find myself surrounded by kids, adolescent kids, pre-army or fresh out of the army, and it makes me feel old. But last night, at the Ozzy show, gray hair was all around.

The Prince of Fucking Darkness kept encouraging the crowd to scream louder and louder, so losing my voice was inevitable, especially as I had spent the past couple of days coughing my lungs out for god knows what reason. And songs like Crazy Train, War Pigs, and Fairies Wear Boots got me headbanging till my neck felt like a limp noodle. The last song, Paranoid, even got me jumping around.

Due to my coughing fits of the last two days, I also didn’t get any sleep, and I was tired as fuck when we got to the park where the show took place. But Ozzy was so phenomenal that I forgot all about my exhaustion and proceeded to “going fucking crazy” as Ozzy is wont to say.

Also the light show that accompanied every song got me all woozy. At some point, I actually wished for a toke. I can only imagine what the light show coupled with the amazing music would have done to me if I was high.

The only thing I didn’t like about the show was the guitar. More specifically, the guitarist, Zakk Wylde. I mean, fine, he’s talented, we got that. But goddamnit, this was an OZZY  show, not a Zakk Wylde one and not a Black Label Society one. And his solos just drilled into my brain and I was getting bored and restless. Suddenly, I started wishing for Slash to go onstage and replace him. Slash played with Ozzy when we saw him at Hellfest in 2012 and that was amazing. Slash plays in a way that makes you say “WHOA” without him shredding the fucking strings and without using his teeth and WITHOUT TAKING OVER THE SHOW THAT BELONGS TO OZZY! Zakk Wylde, take note.

But besides that, the show owns.

I got home all sweaty, with the humid Rishon air still stuck to my skin. Said humid air also did a number on my hair and the headbanging just added to that number. I don’t know how anybody can live in the Center, seriously.

I can’t wait until my daughter is old enough so that I could bring her with me to concerts and show her what good music really is.

Peace, love and ALL ABOARD!!!!!!!!

Ink and Blood Are One

For almost all of last week, I’ve been hardcore reminiscing. It was triggered by my plans to organize my DIY bookshelf full of my old diaries and high school agendas. As I was organizing, I found myself looking through some of them, skimming, reading, admiring the elaborate collages and drawings filling the pages top to bottom, left and right.

I kept on reminiscing as I was writing about it on my blog and in my zine and as I was reading my old posts. And it reached its peak on Thursday when Marilyn Manson’s cover of “Sweet Dreams” came blasting through my earphones. I flashed back to my confused wayward adolescence remembering how the freaky artist, the god of goth, the worst nightmare for parents worldwide became my ultimate salvation.

I was terrified and thoroughly disturbed the first time I saw the video for “Sweet Dreams”. The trashy smudged makeup, the different color eyes topped by no eyebrows, the crumbling run-down spot they chose to shoot the video, the close up of Manson’s scarred and slashed abdomen, all these elements scared me to the core, but I couldn’t turn away.

I tried to convince myself that this is something I should hate and ought to avoid. I tried. I really did. I drew Manson several times with the tagline “Check out that freak!” I watched his 1997 performance at the MTV Video Music Awards with my friend telling her “look at this freak. Who listens to that music anyway?” But when she switched the channel saying “Okay enough of this crap,” I regretted it. I wanted to keep watching but didn’t know why. If I hate it so much, why do I love it so much?

Soon thereafter, I couldn’t avoid it anymore. I had fallen for the fallen angel. My list of favorite artists changed. Manson had vanquished the top spot and Michael Jackson was relegated to the very bottom with a resounding crash. The posters in my room had turned dark and morbid. I plastered the walls with Manson’s trademark eyes and lack of eyebrows. Every visit to HMV or Music World left me with one more Manson record in my repertoire.  First was Remix and Repent, then Mechanical Animals, then Antichrist Superstar, shortly followed by all the others. I squirmed with delight with every “I AM THE GOD OF FUCK”.

My parents were mortified.

Everything I created, all my art, my writings, my poetry also turned dark and morbid. Manson’s influence was undeniable.

This past week, as I was looking at my drawings and read my poems of ages past, I thought how sad it is that I can’t draw as easily and as perfectly as I once did. I lamented my lack of time to write anything of substance and depth as I once did. My mind, fueled by Stephen King’s On Writing, which I read recently, frantically searched for ways to make time and set up an environment for me where I could reclaim my long-lost sense of creativity and my flawless prose. Back then, all I needed to do to write something brilliant was close the bedroom door and let it all out – no rules and no limits. I could even do it during some boring class. Bury myself within myself and sprinkle the page with magic.

But now, I’m filled with inspiration with no means for release and no way to use it to my advantage to fight the motherfucking end of words. The end of words which was my biggest fear, even worse than death itself, has grabbed me by the neck and I simply cannot wriggle myself out of its grip.

Fuck. This just made me cry.

I need to fucking write. I can’t take this. Even if my prose sucks. Let it suck, I don’t care.  End of words be damned, let go of my fucking neck. I need my oxygen, my ink blood, my life force.

What the fuck am I gonna do?

Writing for five minutes a day is far from satisfactory.

Peace, love and suffocation.

Zooted Zinester

I just read some of the really old posts I wrote (like from 2005) and I thought “Hmm, maybe I should write something like that again.” And then I remembered, I’m not 22, I’m not living with my parents, I’m not single, I’m not a student, I’m no longer a pothead, I don’t live in Canada, I’m not a journalist, and I’m not childless. I’m a completely different person and whatever words I put down on paper will be lightyears away from the ones I did all those years ago.”

I do have fun with the zine I’m making for International Zine Month, though. And that’s good. Again, the stuff I wrote so far is by no means brilliant, but the mere fact of creating and zine-producing is totally exciting as it’s always been.

Sometimes I wonder how my life would have turned out if I had discovered zines earlier. Back when I lived in Canada, I could have attended some zine fests, which I never get a chance to do now that I live halfway across the planet (the Boston Zine Fest in 2015 notwithstanding).

What would I have called my zine? At 12, probably something Michael Jackson related. At 16, something Marilyn Manson related. At 18, undoubtedly something riot grrrl related. At 22, more like something weed related, as Buddah was at the center of my universe back then. In fact, I remember an assignment I had to do for my computer applications class was a newsletter I designed with a bunch of made-up articles about Mary Jane. I called it The Daily H (hence the logo I put on all my zines reading “Daily H Publications”).

A newsletter about drugs called the Daily H could be misinterpreted as a newsletter about heroin. But no. I used the letter H to stand for my name, as Hadass is also a plant and the newsletter was about a plant. The tagline of the newletter was “Get your daily dose of vitamin H!” Have some weed, and have some hadass while you’re at it.

Journalism school was fun, so I bet I could have totally dug being a zinester back then. Maybe smoke a doobie right before, to make the writing sound like the ramblings of a stone-cold stoner.

Reading my old diaries and high school agendas today is fun. But I bet a stoner’s zine would have been hilarious.

Peace, love and H is for High

The 31-Day Zine Thing

International Zine Month 2018. Fuck yeah.

So being a mother, I barely have five minutes to spare for anything at all. But five minutes is all it takes for me to write one page of a quarter-page size zine. So here are (is) my plans (plan) for International Zine Month 2018:

1. Make a zine

That’s it. Just that. If I can do that in 31 consecutive days, I will be one super fucking happy zinester. I’ll spend about five minutes of each day to write/draw/collaging one page about whatever. If I keep at it for the full 31 days, I will have a nice full-length zine by the end of July. And that will be rad!

Also, I’m totally up for zine trades if anybody’s interested. IZM is totally the time for sharing zine love. So hit me up!

Peace, love and cutie booty, just because.

Order Rules and Toddler Shreds

I know this sort of post bores you to bloody tears, but hey, do I give a rat’s ass?

Organizing the house is one of my favorite pastimes. And passing the time it does, pretty much until I lose track of it and get to work late.

This morning, I planned on organizing a couple of garbage bags full of my kid’s winter clothes and giving them back to my sister-in-law. But after getting some kitchen chores out of the way, I found myself with less than an hour to take on that heavy load, so I decided to do some more minor organization tasks… which turned out not to be so minor after all and I got to work late anyway, but yeah.

Somehow, I always manage to have a bunch of papers piling up on what I call our “front desk”. It’s all bank statements and credit card statements and salary slips and a whole bunch of other boring shit that I fail to put away. So I organized that.

But as I was going to the other room to get the folders where I store said boring shit, I came across my DIY bookshelf. This bookshelf was once a product of an order-obsessed chick, with her zines organized by date, traded zines organized thematically, a shelf for her diaries, a shelf for her high school agendas (also organized by date) and sketchbooks, and a shelf for folders of boring shit.

The bookshelf that was once neat and tidy looked like it was hit by a shitstorm, followed by a hurricane with a touch of a flash flood. Though none of it was wet as the allegory would suggest, this bookshelf is now the product of a demolition-obsessed toddler, with shelves filled with torn papers. Luckily, she’s still too short for having inflicted such devastation on my zines and traded zines in the top shelves but, goddamn, what a mess!

To organize my annihilated bookshelf would mean putting torn agendas and diaries back together first before putting them in the right place, and that alone would take me a whole morning. So after a five-minute long longing look at the decimation before me, just begging me to be organized, I reluctantly walked away and back to the pile of boring shit papers.

Once that was done, I decided to organize our dining room table. I don’t know how we always manage to clutter it up, but I was getting sick and tired of having to constantly push a bunch of random stuff to the edge of the table just so we could have dinner.

The things that bothered me most on that table were the electronics – three remotes for our TV and sound system, a wireless keyboard and mouse and a wireless joystick. So I moved these to our electronics drawer, but not before reorganizing the drawer itself which was a whole other shitstorm – a bunch of intertwined cables and wires and chargers and spaghetti running up, down and around cameras, 3-D glasses, batteries, users manuals, a handheld vacuum cleaner and a broken iPod. I blew a hearty 20 minutes fumbling around with all of it and trying to Tetris the wireless keyboard into it, along with the mouse, the joystick and three remotes.

Even though we can now see the actual dining room table and the “front desk”, my mind keeps going back to my DIY bookshelf. I can almost hear its cries of disorder anguish.

I also have the living room bookshelf to look forward to. My growing Stephen King collection isn’t going to organize itself, and space shall be cleared to make way for the King, oh yes it shall.

I’m excited for the imminent return of the order-bug. I wonder how long it will take for my toddler to exterminate it. I bet not long. Not long at all.

Peace, love and happy International Zine Month!