G(r)eek God(s)

It's funny to see that, in "The day after tomorrow" by Roland Emmerich, we are not allowed to see the freezing process of the american flag to the end. It's a really interesting movie. Emmerich should have waited more before offering us the tsunami pictures, and stretch this climax. After having destroyed music (Capitol records), cinema (Hollywood sign) and litterature (the books in the NY library), we are happy to learn that the last value in this post-apocalyptic world is the american family, thanks to the US God(s).

We came back from the Rex cinema and passed by Le Palace, the legendary club, which is closed. The doors were open. Robin, the squatter-en-chef, welcomed us, saying: "you're the first visitor entering by the front door since 1996". It's his second squat, after the recent destruction of Le Temple (Place Pigalle, near Les Folies Pigalle). He saved some decors and stage clothes that he brought to Le Palace. He calls himself Robin des Bois, stealing closed theaters from bourgeois owners and giving them back to the public.

A small faintness in the metro, after having visited N. at the Mental Hospital. The last time it happened, it was while watching Miike's "Audition", one morning after breakfast (which wasn't the best time for watching this movie).

They have recently changed the law for M.H. regroupment: the patients are not grouped in accordance with their illness anymore, they are grouped in accordance with the area where they live. Now, you can have violent or ultra-confused patients living with depressed ones. It remembers me my brother Julien, who's blind, when he entered his school in Strasbourg, in 1978: all the children were raised together (blinds, deafs, dumbs, mentally handiccaped), in separated houses.

A step forward, towards the middle age!

It's hard to not talk about Momus when we are sitting at a table with Remi and Antonin. Being sort of a king, he is our favorite subject!

Back to the basic with J.T. Leroy and Asia Argento

"The Heart is deceitful above all things"

For me, the movie is perfect from the beginning to the end of the second Jeremiah's preach in the streets. After such an amazing performance as a child-priest, I was thinking that the second kid will be offered as an extraordinary role as the first one. But this was his only "big" performance, his role wasn't as developped as the first boy, as if there was some "fatigue" in the script.

The new Jeremiah doesn't carry a new rythmn, a new registre. Watching this third part of the movie, I am slowly missing something in the second part: the days of the first Jeremiah in the grand father's house weren't developped enough to create a surprise when the mother is back with a truck driver. Then, again, you have this crazy life you already know, until the end.

About the roles: the first little boy is incredible, Asia is also perfect as Sarah, Fonda and Muti are not. They don't exist in real as Sarah does, they sound like cliches, they have no thickness, they are rather drafts than characters. Manson is great playing what we call here a "beauf", I only regret that he doesn't have more time. The soundtrack, especially the Marco piano pieces, are beautiful. Marco should write a piano album, like the Sakamoto's BTTB.

Le film dans son ensemble m'a paru vraiment bon, bien meilleur que "Scarlet Diva".

"The Heart is Deceitful above all things" makes me think of "Wanda" by Barbara Loden, the best road movie I have ever seen. The parcours of the two women (Sarah/Wanda) is similar. Kids fighting against misery have been remarkably filmed recently, by the young french actress Isild Le Besco, in "Demi-Tarif".

All Sparks

I am listening to LIL' BEETHOVEN by SPARKS, which is one of my favorite albums ever. Pop at it's best. The songs are so funny, funny dark, the subjects of the songs are so close to my spirit. And it is ambitious with a smile. The video was made by Kuntzel and Deygas, from Paris.

SPARKS TO PERFORM AT MELTDOWN FESTIVAL, LONDON, JUNE 12!!! Sparks will do a very special concert performance of 2 of their classic albums, "Kimono My House" and "Lil' Beethoven" as part of this year's prestigious Meltdown Festival at the Royal Festival Hall in London on June 12.

Sparks' fan and friend Morrissey is this year's curator and has personally asked the band to do this unprecedented conceptual show.

The band will do two special sets, one being the entire "Kimono My House" album from start to end, the 2nd half being "Lil' Beethoven" from start to end. "Kimono My House" has never before been performed in its entirety, so this will truly be a unique presentation.

There will not be a support act for this show which starts at 8PM.

Shimmy with me!

Shimmie was danced after WWI and came from voodoo dance. There's a Harold Lloyd's movie in which he tries to not shimmy, but he can't and eventually, he's thrown away from the saloon.

MINIMUM ROCK'N'ROLL is out. It includes a short story by Toog, "FRANGE" (fringe), illustrated by Florence Manlik. A short story about a skyscraper covered with hair... The magazine is about rock culture (hair, cars, roadies) and is curated by Marie-Pierre Bonniol.

http://minimumrocknroll.free.fr/

Thanks to Marie-Pierre, I eventuelly found a printer for our poetry magazine, TO. It will be lauched in july 2004. It's 64 pages, bilingual, and the designer is Rémi Gérard-Marchant. As everybody knows, poetry is the quickest way to make your first million. (the million obsession)

Unit millions

Karaoke Kalk proposed me to share 50/50 on the profit. The same conditions as Le Grand Magistery in the USA. But you have to have a look to every sale and every expanse: 50/50 is a good solution when you're IN the house.

This is why I prefer to get what artists usually get, a percentage on every sale. And a signed contract. I also checked the CDS and I couldn't see the GEMA logo (authors collecting society). I ask for it too.

This is a way for the producer and co-writer, the fabulous DIGIKI, to make money. I plan also to share the artist's percentage with him. Of course, this won't make any sense if we sell 1000 copies. But we have to work as if it will sell millions.

Free gift!

Every religion's like a spouse
Becoming cantankerous and possessive;
But God is elusive,
He's already gone to share himself.

Bye bye, Adorno

"L'industrie culturelle est muette devant l'art."

On est dans la même problématique si l'on regarde la position de Jésus devant les Pharisiens: il est comme un artiste contestant l'industrialisation du religieux.

"L'histoire domine complètement les oeuvres, même celles qui la nient".

Oui, je suis encore d'accord avec toi, Adorno, même si tes écrits sont les plus emmerdants au monde et m'ont fait m'endormir à deux reprises dans le train.

Luckily, I had also Hubert Selby Jr, "The demon" in my luggage. Bye bye, Adorno.

Mind shelves

Musical projects sleeping on the lazy mind shelves

JUSTICE SAUVAGE

a duet with Toog and Kumi Okamoto, from the Konki Duet (Active Suspension), one full album demo has been recorded during the summer 2003. I like some of the songs with their demo touch; one song, "Alphabet Soup", has been released through Beikoku Ongaku's compilation in Japan.

PANDA 43

Panda 43 is a duet with Florence Manlik. We recorded a 7" for the french label Safari in the year 2000. The main purpose for this project, was to compose with an old Panda organ, with no Midi equipment, and to privilege humour and instant recording process. A full album's ready, but it also needs a better production.

ERGROUN

Ergroun was my first album, recorded in 1996 and released in 1998 for a (shhhh...) label based in Marseille. Listening to it, I am thinking of recording better versions for some of these tracks.

GOOT

Goot would be a collection of my early songs (recorded between 1982 and 1990), remixed by various musicians. I do have about 50 tapes, mainly recorded on a 4 tracks recorder, the super heavy Tascam 244. Most of the songs are ugly attemps to sound like an english New Wave band, but some are OK.

Seven up

I would say that the eighties are the years of the coherent mystery.
What means: no mystery at all,
But a deep and annoyed disillusion.
The years of the mystery are the seventies, those of the danger too.

Never reveal.

My father is in the hospital for 12 months. He comes from a time and a social category which wasn't familiar with communication. He was an excellent bridge player, a game which is all about showing/not showing, pretending/faking, and never reveal.

Suctions

This morning I went to a small book fair in Halle Saint Pierre, at the bottom of Montmartre. Some good stuff, especially some funny drawings published by Memo: the repeated same image of Guillaume Tell with variantes, such as the apple in the mouth of the boy, Guillaume aiming at him, or the apple replacing the boy's head, or the boy hidden in a pile of apples... But I couldn't find any fresh idea for our poetry magazine called TO.

Noura is already organizing the launching of "TO" in New York, with a collective called "Ugly Ducklings". She recently did a lecture about philosophy in Montreal and met a publisher. She was proposed to translate Maurice G. Dantec in english. She knows how "sulfureuse" the reputation of this writer is. I told her to prefer a percentage to a fee, since this book will be published in north America when Kassowitz movie will be released.

And it's a Hollywood production.

I had a meeting with my friends Nadia and Leon, who work together as fashion designers. They will get married on 5th june, under the armenian rite. Leon is still working for Ungaro, doing also some free lance design, and Nadia will launch a magazine at the end of 2004, a fashion magazine based on the Advent calendar. Leon wants to go back playing drums in a rock band. He says all the pop can be summerized in Revolver (Beatles), the only true discovery.

I don't know Revolver.

I checked the internet to see what was going on with Asia Argento's movie in Cannes. 700 people couldn't enter the cinema to watch it! She sayed her movie is going in all directions. A journalist mentions the scene in which the boy sings the Sex Pistols to his ultra conservative grand father as one of the best scenes. Asia is behind, it's not a narcissist exercise. It's a real tentative to create something new and entertaining, based on the true J.T. Leroy's memories. I am sure it is a good movie. Because Asia is not thinking too much; she is trusting herself and going on. She acts.

I wrote an email to Terry Richardson's office the last night, because I would love to send a copy of "Lou Etendue" to his muse and model Susan Eldrige, when it will be out. Because she's having this lolita side which is inspiring me a lot. I would love to have her singing a song of mine. We were sitting in front of Eres shop with Leon and Nadia, near Madeleine. Leon met Susan at Ungaro. She had her neck covered with little succions scars.

Fuck the duck.

Matthew Jacobson and his wife Leigh came to my place, this afternoon. His record label, "Le Grand Magistery", has been releasing my two first albums in the USA. Strange to meet him right after my coming back from Berlin.

I remember their wedding in the Slocane valley, in British Columbia. A valley that is famous for its marijuana. So famous that you could meet the Stones in the 70's there and still can cross Snoop Dogg now. Also famous for its bears and cougars.

Matt and Leigh saw one bear the night they got married. I wrote a song about the bears in British Columbia, it's called "the black bear". I also heard a story of a man eaten by a grizzly, being watched by his friend from a tree.

Matthew did some mind reading and asked us to think about something. He left the room and we decided to think of the duck, that is also a telephone in my studio. Then he came back and couldn't find it first, saying:

"I'm having a hard time right now."

Suddenly he announced that he was thinking of something that was "Fuck". He was almost right. What was the trick? His wife Leigh stayed with us. Do they have a secret communication system? Fuck is close to Duck. How does it work?

He is we.

Berlin. I have met my new record label, Karaoke Kalk, and its owner, Thorsten Lutz. Thorsten says "we", speaking of Karaoke Kalk. I ask him: who are the others? Thorsten is we.

Thorsten picked me up at Ostbahnhof, 8 am, and we went straight to his place. I haven't slept at all. I was speaking half the night with my compartment's neighbour, a young physician specialized in matrix (Ackeman was his name), about music, mathematics, Marseille, art.

In the streets, Thorsten seems to be furious against the Bobo's in Berlin-Mitte, cheechee-poopoo people (yuppies) who deforms the original atmosphere of the city. I tell him that he speaks like an ex-punk.

I feel bad wearing my Dior black trousers now. It was hard to choose what clothes to wear. Since I hate luggage, I had to choose some clothes I will wear for 4 days.

Hedi Slimane made a nice book about Berlin. Ostalgia and trend.

Karaoke Kalk office and home are on Rosa Luxemburg Strasse, 16, in Mitte, close to Hackesches Markt station. Thorsten lives there since 2 months, having moved from Cologne. He is still doing DJ gigs there and around the world.

We do the mastering of "Lou Etendue" with Rashad at Dubplates and Mastering in Kreuzberg, close to Kottbusser Tor and Oranienstrasse. I go alone to have lunch in a turkish restaurant and order something "au pif" (without knowing what it is). Aubergines served in a yoghurt sauce with ketchup. How strange.

Rashad is torturing the sounds and then obtains the result he wants. It is curious to be able to listen to separate sounds in the final stereo mix. There is a 12'' cut device in the same studio and I can watch my music grooves through a microscope. It looks calm and slow, as it is.