Graffiti - Art?. . .

Banksy is a pseudonymous United Kingdom-based, graffiti artist, political activist, film director, and painter.

His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti executed in a distinctive stencilling technique. Such artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world.

Banksy's work was made up of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations between artists and musicians. According to author and graphic designer, Tristan Manco, and the book Home Sweet Home, Banksy "was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England. The son of a photocopier technician, he trained as a butcher, but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s." Observers have noted that his style is similar to Blek le Rat, who began to work with stencils in 1981 in Paris, Jef Aerosol, who sprayed his first street stencil in 1982 in Tours (France), and members of the anarcho-punk band Crass, which maintained a graffiti stencil campaign on the London Tube System in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Banksy says, however, that he was inspired by "3D", a graffiti artist who later became a founding member of Massive Attack.

A Banksy mural stenciled on the side of a Hollywood gas station five years ago has fetched $209,000 (£129,000) at auction. The 9ft by 8ft work called Flower Girl shows a little girl holding a basket under the eye of a CCTV camera on a tall stalk. It was bought by a Los Angeles buyer who requested anonymity and was the highlight of a sale of 100 works by 33 street artists at Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills, the LA Times reported.

(thanks to http://news.sky.com/story/1179022/banksy-mural-on-gas-station-wall-fetches-209k and www.wikipedia.com)

What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html

My latest release, Black & White Then Back,
can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak3)

Also, be sure to visit:
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

Tweet

Illusion . . .

. . . intentionally, and masterfully perpetrated-with the assistance of ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, WSJ, NYTs, USA Today, Washington Post, New York Post (you get the 'picture'). . .



(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Al-Qaeda translation: "The Base" and alternatively spelled al-Qaida and sometimes al-Qa'ida) is a global militant Islamist organization founded by Osama bin Laden in Peshawar, Pakistan, at some point between August 1988 and late 1989, with its origins being traceable to the Soviet War in Afghanistan. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad and a strict interpretation of sharia law. It has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United Nations Security Council, NATO, the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, India and various other countries (see below). Al-Qaeda has carried out many attacks on non-Sunni Muslims, non-Muslims, and other targets it considers kafir. . .


(from http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Analysis-Whos-really-calling-the-shots-in-al-Qaida-322309)
. . . the United States killed the second-in-command of affiliate organization al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Abu Sufyan al-Azdi, in a drone strike in Yemen last year. He was reportedly wounded in the October 2012 strike and died a few months afterward. Jihadists recently called for revenge, and the terrorist organization’s affiliates in Iraq and Somalia are expressing their anger over his killing, according to Site, a jihadi monitoring website. There could also be a connection with the recent appointment of a Yemeni AQAP leader, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, as general manager of al-Qaida, effectively making him the No. 2 man in the organization. . .


(from http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/fakealqaeda.php)
"The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the 'devil' only in order to drive the TV watcher to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US . . ." -- Pierre-Henri Bunel


(http://www.rense.com/general68/alq.htm)
Shortly before his untimely death, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that "Al Qaeda" is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Courtesy of World Affairs, a journal based in New Delhi, WMR can bring you an important excerpt from an Apr.-Jun. 2004 article by Pierre-Henry Bunel, a former agent for French military intelligence. "I first heard about Al-Qaida while I was attending the Command and Staff course in Jordan. I was a French officer at that time and the French Armed Forces had close contacts and cooperation with Jordan . . .

What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html

My latest release, Black & White Then Back,
can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak3)

Also, be sure to visit:
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

Tweet

Freedom From? . . .

(from Ain't Nothing Like Freedom by Cynthia McKinney)

". . . The old 11th District that first sent me to Congress was Georgia's second poorest district.  People paid rent, but didn't have running water in their homes.  Why was it, then, that when Blacks finally did get representation, the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that purports to be a "civil rights organization," filed an amicus curiae brief on the side of the five White plaintiffs, and against the 649,995 Blacks and Whites who were working together in that district, in a lawsuit designed to dismantle that district and allow insensitive representatives to continue to fail to serve Georgia's poor, rural, and much-neglected Black Belt?  Surely, the Anti-Defamation League would support poor Blacks who had never had authentic Congressional representation, right?  Wrong.

And as I think about it, it might have also had something to do with me not signing the pledge for Israel. . . "

What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html

My latest release, Black & White Then Back,
can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak3)

Also, be sure to visit:
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

Tweet

Waxing. . .

. . . not so poetically but ever so sincerely, about friends. . .

I think a lot.  Sometimes I think I think too much.  I suspect though that I'm not that much different than most people in that respect; at least not that much different than most thinking people.

Lately I've been thinking about the importance of friends.  At this point in my life, not only do I sincerely place a very high value on the good friends I have made in the recent past, I have also resumed contact with several good friends from the not-too-recent past, thanks to technology (i.e., the internet).  The satisfaction and pleasure of expressing myself musically with Oho cannot adequately be described in words.   Likewise, the reunion and periodic gatherings with my old radio friends from a wonderful, developmental time in my youth brings a contentment like no other.  And only in the last several days, still additional reconnecting with more friends, more geographically dispersed, reminds me of just how rich my life has been in my short two score and sixteen years.

To friends, CHEERS!

What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html

My latest release, Black & White Then Back,
can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak3)

Also, be sure to visit:
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

Tweet

Work . . .

. . . and other things. . .



I've always believed that if you put in the work, the results will come.
 -Michael Jordan

Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.
-Thomas A. Edison

A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
-Winston Churchill

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant's revolving door.
-Albert Camus

To climb steep hills requires a slow pace at first.
-William Shakespeare

Constant dripping hollows out a stone.
-Lucretius

If you have no critics you'll likely have no success.
-Malcolm X

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
-Epictetus

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.
-Henry David Thoreau

           
                and my personal favorite. . .




An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.
-Charles Horton Cooley

What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html

My latest release, Black & White Then Back,
can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak3)

Also, be sure to visit:
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

Tweet

Nothing Succeeds . . .

. . . like success

Formulate AND stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding.  Hold this picture tenaciously.  Never permit it to fade.  Your mind will seek to develop the picture…
Do not build up obstacles in your imagination.
-Norman Vincent Peale


To laugh often and much
to win the respect of intelligent people
and affection of children; to earn the
appreciation of honest critics and
endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty, to find the best
in others; to leave the world a bit
better, whether by a healthy child
a garden patch or redeemed
social condition; to know even
one life has breathed easier because
you have lived. This is to have
succeeded.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html

My latest release, Black & White Then Back,
can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak3)

Also, be sure to visit:
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

Tweet

Vehicles . . .

"From the standpoint of the ego your organism is a kind of vehicle, an automobile within which you move around."  -Alan Watts

"Whither goest thou,...in thy shiny car in the night?" -Jack Kerouac

She comes out of the night she wrote every book you've read
Fingering her pearl(s) every bead a lover dead
She wears that feathered hat ends up burning on the bed
Her freedom ring's not cheap the beast the till both must be fed

We twins sit on this leather seat this woman this man
One lives the level of her heart the other's gland's in hand
She serves that wicked brew opens minds opens eyes
Holds up the looking glass cracks to cut the shame that binds

What is is what is not is too
This emptiness inside includes
The mystery awaiting moving you
To be released and not removed

And she runs me down in my limousine
And she picks me up in my limousine
And we drive it home give our breath away
Though I'm left alone no way am I the same

The hand extends the fingers eyed they fondle urging every word
You only have what you give up fluxing in the flow
Holding on to what you want will only keep it out of reach
And lock you up inside yourself and block epiphany

Read the beat the rhythm takes and gives
The bodies dance in primal play
Forever steps alive into today
Here each word points but does not say

And she runs me down in my limousine
And she picks me up in my limousine
And we drive it home give our breath away
Though I'm left alone no way am I the same
 

Limousine
by John P. Graboski
(Oho [Jay Graboski, David Reeve, Ray Jozwiak]
recorded at Bread & Circuses Bistro, November 2013)






What do you think?
Tell me at
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html

My latest release, Black & White Then Back,
can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak3)

Also, be sure to visit:
http://www.rayjozwiak.com

Tweet