an egregious juxtaposition of incongruity,

inconsequentiality and irrelevance.

Oh, and irreverence too...

by: joe nyaggah

 *
“ This is a work of observational fiction. Names, characters, places and

incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or, since

history is no man’s proprietary property, are used with and at the author’s

discretion. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business

establishments, events, locales are entirely coincidental, i.e. to extent in

which they can be.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved, no part of this

publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval

system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic,

mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior

written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this

book. This, of course, applies only to the extent in which the author can

claim said history as his own creation.

- enjoy!
*
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contents

04 08
T.A.Z.U MONEY OVER BITCHES. REALLY?
A brief listing of awkward situations. And An exposition on the crack, math and subtle
the ultimate of violations of gentlemanly homoerotica point of tangency i.e. rap lyrics.
etiquette.

12 16
A CHAIR IS A CHAIR IS A CONVERSATION IN GOD
Once and for all, the issues within art, The Judeo-Christian monotheistic deity is revisited.
beauty and funtionality are resolved Over copious amounts of alcohol, of course.
­— sort of.

20 24
“UNTITLED” OIL ON CANVAS COMMERCIAL -VS- FINE
On the occasional absence of ethereality Hunger or houses - the debate continues.
in abstract art and the insularity of art
critics.

26
thought IS related to doodle
COLOR THEORY
legend thought is NOT related to doodle
Advanced-level artistic/academic
thought is KINDA related to doodle
gibberish strikes again.

Published online at http://doodles.danjoedesign.com/

legend thought is KINDA related to doodle
Money over bitches. (really?)
An exposition on the crack, math and subtle homoerotica point of tangency i.e. rap lyrics.

W ith almost the same voracity an unattended

child might attack the contents in a cookie
jar; furtively, with the same sense of urgency and
insatiability, I’ve found myself overtaken by boundless
greed to consume copious amounts of what – to the
uninitiated – must sound like some genre of advanced
nursery rhymes (with the requisite pinch of inner-city
lingo, of course) – rap.
I should daily wield placards supporting whatever
agenda my fellow women had. Alas, as much as women
are demeaned in rap music, and in rap videos reduced
to nothing but jiggling breasts and bouncing buttocks,
they are the lesser victims in this pandemic for the
rappers themselves – enslaved by their vices – are the
biggest victims of their own devices.

It’s partly the gun-totting advocacy, the blatant

misogyny, the shamelessly celebrated chauvinism
and the cleverly arranged vituperation that makes
me want to altogether abandon the “music” (to be
Lil’ Wayne
so presumptuous as to label it such) that I’ve come to
love. It’s partly that, yes, but that doesn’t come close to
what might be the last straw on this camel’s back. As
a man – granted, an effeminate, epicene and at time
sensitive man, but a man nonetheless – feminism is a
study I didn’t expect to cross paths with and a class
on feminism, seeking to edify the world at large on
the plight of women, motherhood and femininity in
general is one I didn’t anticipate I’d be enrolled in
Observe:
Without unnecessary prodding from Vibe, The
much less enjoy. As the only male among opinionated
Source, Rolling Stone or whatever other publication
and quite convincing females and as the semester went
on, short of desiring to be a woman, I began to feel
one is supposed to read before making the informed ➥
Photo source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lil_Wayne 9
 cont’d... Money over bitches. (really?)
An exposition on the crack, math and subtle homoerotica point of tangency i.e. rap lyrics.
decision on what CD to purchase; without that and
without heeding the annoyingly pervasive NPR/
PRI-esque pretentious commentary by social gadflies
and pop-culture pundits at VH-1 and MTV (and rarely
at BET), I went out and on a whim (emphasis on “on
a whim”) purchased a CD by a certain rapper. Lil’
Wayne is his name but you can call him ‘The Baby’
but if you can’t say ‘The Baby’, you mustn’t say it at all.
Anyway, I digress.
To my expectation and satisfaction, the CD followed
the rap music blueprint with its spurious tales of
gallivanting neighborhood youth turned gangsters,
“
in between the bars, if you will – were these absolutely subtle
homoerotic undertones that have since my twenty thousand
and second listen ceased to be all that subtle.
turned millionaire, turned gangster millionaires (the
irony). In between the sing-songy refrains, Wayne
tells of his numerous sequestered mistresses whose sole
job it is to turn Colombia’s #1 illegal cash crop into
profit in his pocket. In 20 tracks and with only the
aforementioned material, Wayne manages to exhibit
impossible wordsmithery, delivers iambic pentameters
that Shakespeare would be jealous of and indulges his
listener in more brand pimping or whoring (whichever
you prefer) than does Lauren Weisberger her readers.
10
There are the Prada shoes and La Perla underwear for
his bitches, the Gucci shoes and sunshades, the Dolce
& Gabbana and Evisu jeans and of course – lest his
gangster millionaire status be revoked – there’s the
Jacob the Jeweler customized jewelry, I’m sorry, bling,
that need only be an ad lib in a track that has nothing
to do with either jewelry or Jacob himself. That’s just
the nature of the genre.
At the risk of having a grudge held against me for
so long that even when I’m married, living in my
Californian cookie cutter suburban home on a cul-de-
sac, just me, my wife and my 2 ½ kids, I’ll still be afraid
of being gunned down I’ll say this:
I’d listened to the CD twenty thousand times and only
on the twenty thousand and first listen did I realize that
behind the abrasive lyrics, behind the women bashing,
behind the affected rich-gangster blasé persona and the
still-petulant reformed drug dealer attitude, right there
in between the lines – in between the bars, if you will
– were these absolutely subtle homoerotic undertones
that have since my twenty thousand and second listen
ceased to be all that subtle.
Wayne seems to have a profound respect for the man
partly responsibly for his success as a rapper. His
respect for the man he calls ‘Pop’ drives him to treacly
and quite frankly, gay admissions of adoration. Barely
two minutes into the first track, Wayne reminds Pop
that it’s ‘money over bitches’ when it comes to their
relationship, a philosophy he reiterated too frequently
throughout the CD while painting the women around
him as whores who do no more than count his money
and cook his crack. That leaves the listener – at least
it left me – thinking that Wayne is neither very handy
nor any good at math.
navigated through the disagreeably lubricious music
industry. Kudos guys, kudos. Now all that’s left after
you realize no one is buying your shtick, is to admit
that indeed you prefer ‘money over bitches’, yes, but if
you didn’t have to worry about that image of the no-
nonsense alpha male you’ve established, you’d prefer
to run through a meadow with one of your male
paramours. In the case of Lil’ Wayne, Pop would be
the man.

It also got me thinking, what if all these bitches and

hoes, all these victimized women in Wayne’s pathetic
ditties just up and left the damn guy, then what? The
only people left with him would be his posse and Pop.
Then? Then, I believe, we’d begin to see much more
than the alpha male back patting and Wayne would
be in his element: a flamboyantly fey (the redundancy
is necessary) rich young man. Then he’d have no
problem admitting his previously fettered desires for
Pop. Incestuous as it may sound, this is indeed the
case.

I just think that it’s commendable how as closet

homosexuals, facing societal stigma of undisclosed
sexuality in our quite backward society (pardon
the pun), Wayne and, I’m sure, many rappers have

11
 legend thought is NOT related to doodle

12
A chair is a chair is a chair is a…
Once and for all, the issues within art, beauty and funtionality are resolved ­— sort of.

T he issues within art, beauty and functionality

are seldom severable much in the same way that
writing, bullshit and I are inseparable. For that reason,
have) Mona Lisa will always be the epitome of beauty,
granted from another era but definitely still an artistic
representation if not personification of beauty.
I never once lacked insight whenever my art professor
asked us to argue rather moot points. Case in point, the
issue of the chair. I wrote:

For the simple fact that if I had magical powers and

could effortlessly traverse the dimensions in the
space/ time continuum, I would immediately vacate Marcel Duchamp

the present and head out to, or more accurately, head

back to the renaissance and enjoy the glorious artistic
realism; for that reason, I do not appreciate work by
such ‘artists’ as Marcel Duchamp. I don’t believe that a
urinal, even if crudely signed and exhibited in lauded
galleries could ever qualify as art.
On the contrary, a chair considered art today, as artistic
That’s to mean that beauty depicted in the artist’s own sensibilities evolve will not always be considered so. At
way is just for the eye to enjoy and the mind to process. one point in time it will cease to be art and will just be
It’s not also for the ass to sit on. As soon as something a chair. It will perhaps be a “different looking chair”
becomes functional, crossing over from visual stimulus and antique hunters will most probably appreciate it
to palpable, usable thing, it ceases to be art/ beauty. because it will be rare but ultimately it will just be a
For instance, the paintings of the great renaissance chair.
masters will never fail to be considered art. Even if
artistic sensibilities change with the times (which they Therefore, a chair is just a chair, not art!

Photo source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp 13

the prepOWL
http://owlses.com/dudes/prepowl-dudes-red/

$
20.00
 legend thought is KINDA related to doodle

20
“untitled” oil on canvas
On the occasional absence of ethereality in abstract art and the insularity of art critics.
M s. Carrera - never mind that she’s named after
the Porsche she drives or it after her - breaks
into another of her eerie non-contextual grins as she
stares anxiously at me. “What do you think?” She asks
rubbing her hands together as if rolling a stick to spark
a fire.
I look up at the screen, at her slide show, and there
it is gnawing away at the last straw of my sanity. It’s
not another of Mark Rothko’s brilliant three-step-
separations of color, which are in my assessment his
artistic representation of traffic signals: red, umber,
green on gigantic canvases (the type that led him
inexplicably to commit suicide). Nor is it Marcel
Duchamp’s lunacy; works that personify his ubiquitous
and shameless declaration that anything, anywhere can
be and is art. It’s not his magnum opus; a urinal on
which Duchamp playfully signs his pseudonym, R.
Mutt…It’s not that at all. Instead, it is a Technicolor
mesh of paint haphazardly splashed onto a canvas. The
painting is much like a loom attempted albeit tragically
by a thoroughly fuddled person with its warps and
wefts improperly placed; an unprecedented pastiche of
nonsense – in a word. Even with the tiny signature
completely obliterated by the globs of paint, the entire
piece just screams: Pollack!
The lecture theatre is dark and the only sound is the
click, click, clicking of the professor’s slide projector as
it beams the majestic image onto the white screen in
the front. My fellow collegiate classmates are silent, all
eyes focused on the screen as though contemplating the
meaning of this elaborate patchwork of color. Some of
them, soon as the Pollack flashed onto the screen cooed
in the sort of “ah! I know that one!” subtle recognition
of artworks that makes one seem cosmopolitan. I am
unimpressed. There are no apparent design, layout
and/or pattern issues resolved in this painting, it’s just
plain chaos. It is hard to see how or even why this
and all other Jackson Pollack paintings made it into the
now all-inclusive definition of art.
“What do you feel looking at this?” Ms. Carrera
prods.
I feel that Jackson Pollack should not be any artist’s
influence. Him and the aforementioned frauds and
their work should not appear anywhere in academia.
➥
21
 cont’d... “untitled” oil on canvas
On the occasional absence of ethereality in abstract art and the insularity of art critics.
That’s what I feel but on the other hand, as an art major
I’ve enrolled in a bunch of art history courses and I
know exactly what Ms. Art Professor wants to hear.
“It gives the illusion that there’s more than meets
the eye. The streaks of paint haphazardly splashed
on the canvas allude to the artist’s plight, his woes
and innermost thoughts. His ethos lies bare for the
viewer to see. I almost feel…depressed, though in a
metaphysically aware sort of way. The kind of artistic
depression I am sure the artist entertained when he
produced the work.” I finally reply splaying my fingers
across my cheek like the thinker I am.
“
I almost feel…depressed, though in a metaphysically aware
sort of way. The kind of artistic depression I am sure the artist
entertained when he produced the work.
Ms. Carrera has previously called upon me to dissect,
analyze and/ or comment on artwork, which I’ve done
each time without ceasing to impress her, no doubt
why I’m her favorite student. She doesn’t seem to
notice that I regurgitate, sometimes verbatim the little
didactic panels that accompany paintings in galleries or
the eloquently narrated audio museum tours (thank you
J. Paul Ghetti). Sometimes even her very own words
from lecture. I usually deliver a hortatory exposition
22
on the artist in question relaying the usual struggle-
to-achieve-acclaim story and if not that, an elegiac,
sycophantic, mini-eulogy in mock reverence of such
greats as Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian, Caravaggio,
etc.
True, this masters’ works are magnificent and I would
probably bow in obsequious difference if ever I were
graced with their presence, but the issue isn’t at all
about their work or even that of the hacks like Rothko,
Duchamp and Pollack. These people had (and their
PoMo ilk have) artistic talents in varying degrees and
each had an appreciative audience, which is all well
and good. What irks me though, is the larger than life
quality that art critics – often not artists themselves –
ascribe to this works.
Most artists find it difficult to describe their work, so
much so that they can’t come up with a title that best
suits their work. As one (an artist of sorts) I can attest
to how hard it is to explain one’s intentions when one
was painting, say, an abstract piece. This is especially
the case when what’s on the canvas is exactly what the
artist meant to convey; the colors used do not represent
feelings nor do the lines imply motion. The type of
abstract painting wherein the lines are just lines and
the colors are just that. Yet for some reason people
assume that since they can’t make out any recognizable
shapes and forms, that the artist intended to torture
their minds with subliminal symbolism. Unfortunately
for them there are times when a blob of paint on a
canvas is a blob of paint on a canvas. Sometimes there
are just no underlying ethereal meanings. Leave it to
the self-professed art-critics, professors and for the
most part non- artists (people who have an essentially
functionless left-brain) to attribute non-existent
content to the work thus effectively confusing innocent
art lovers and sending them on the equivalent of a wild
goose chase whenever they are in front of a painting:
searching for hidden images and messages that might
betray the artist’s thoughts when he rendered the work
or his intention for doing so.
Ms. Carrera cycles through a number of Pollacks,
throws in some later-years Matisses, more Rothkos
etc, works I wouldn’t necessarily label beautiful or art
but nevertheless works celebrated as groundbreaking,
cutting edge and trail blazing – as it were, cornerstones
of the avant-garde over the decades. It is very clear to me
from these, why a renowned artist talented as he might
be would opt out of hyper-realistic representations of
life and choose instead facile stick figure abstractions
on canvases. Laziness! I would too if I did not have a
conscience and if I derived narcissistic pleasure from
cheating people out of their money by purporting eye-
opening philosophies and hidden meanings in third-
grade stick figure art.
What’s even more saddening is that to claim departure
from logical thought formulation on the basis of artistic
genius for artists is a no-brainer these days. Where
skill is lacking and when a seasoned artist looses that
intrinsic drive to create beauty, but still needs to pay the
bills he simply results to exhibiting the eccentricities
attributed to genius. This genius is the ability to
convince art patrons and gallery curators that your
recently rendered stick figure scratchboard etching of
Jack and Jill at the well is an erudite abstraction of not
only quotidian life but indeed of a clairvoyant vision
of the doomed future.
So, while I am saddened by what I’d like to call
“retarded art” making it in the big-league, I do
understand that it hasn’t started today and its not the
fault of one person but of the art world as a collective.
There seems to be a need to make sense of even the
most senseless of artwork and as much as I may inveigh
against this, it’s part of art to over-analyze art.
23
 legend thought is KINDA related to doodle

24
Commercial vs. Fine (art, that is)
Hunger or houses - the debate continues.

T he difference between commercial art and fine

art is also the difference between starvation
and survival, I think. If an artist, led by sensibilities
Hunger builds character, yes, but money builds so
much more.

and convictions that don’t allow him to produce

works that are mainstream or appreciated by the
masses – which would mean great sales and therefore
survival – chooses instead to produce works that are
only appreciated by a select, eccentric few and not
executed on demand/ patronage but on a whim,
then – if my long-windedness allows me to get to
the point – that person is a fine artist. Rembrandt

On the contrary, a commercial artist executes

work that his art director has directed him to, or if
independent, work that his freelance endeavors have
yielded for him, work that will eventually appear on
billboards, in periodicals and other printed texts and
media, on apparel etc. He is guaranteed a sale, and
an easy sale at that.

Of course both kinds of artists have that intrinsic Houses, for instance, that you and your extended
drive to create but I think the one that chooses to family can live in.
have job security is smarter than the one who won’t
relent to societal, industry and/ or mainstream That’s the difference.
requests and will therefore starve.

Photo source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rembrandt 25

 legend thought is NOT related to doodle

26
Color Theory & Aesthetic Gibberish
Advanced-level artistic/academic gibberish strikes again.

O nly after enrolling in an advanced art class

does one begin to understand the absurdity of
art and aesthetics theories. By which I mean, as the
Rothko (As much as I disagree with his artistic
sensibilities) suggested that different colors evoke
different emotions and the placement of certain colors
semester winds down one recognizes the syllabus – in in proximity to others – as my understanding of the
fact, the entire curriculum – to largely be a semiotic
gallimaufry of gibberish. If that makes no sense, that’s
exactly what I mean. For instance – what I consider
the coup de grâce of said artistic/ aesthetic bullshit –
was the requisite exposition arguing for the supremacy
of whatever color one chose over the rest. Befuddled,
but in need of a good grade, I complied. This is what
I wrote:
Mark Rothko, 1947
How does one make a case for color, for one specific
color? How does one arbitrarily decide that red is better
than green or that blue is far superior to orange?

There’re probably some sort of criteria but obviously

that’s something I’m not privy to. Of course if the
question were, “What color do you, Joe Nyaggah,
prefer?” then I’d have an answer for that: Yellow!

Shallowly though, the reason is because the color, a

primary color, is very pleasing to the eye.
➥
Photo source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Rothko 27
 cont’d... Color theory & aethetic gibberish
Advanced-level artistic/academic gibberish strikes again.

Berlin School’s description of Gestalt theory and effect
would lead me to assert – evokes strong, very strong,
and complex emotions.
For me, color does more than that and so my favorite
color yellow does indeed more than just evoke emotion;
it makes me think. It makes me think specifically of it
and this is what I think:
Pushed to the wall, one will say just about anything. So
as much as I fulminated against the assignment vowing
never to add to the artistic and aesthetic bullshit that’s
already in abundance, I ended up doing just that.
Contradiction personified, is what I am.

Yellow is a unisex color. It’s a very brilliant color that

doesn’t exactly denote sex or gender in the way that
pink would. It’s not a man’s color nor is it a woman’s
color. That I should be comfortable of such chromatic
ambiguity doesn’t speak so well of my character – but
whatever.

“
So if the prism of color were a physical expanse of rolling hills or
grassy knolls that I could run through, or better yet frolic through,
I would end up inexplicably atop the hillock called yellow

So if the prism of color were a physical expanse of

rolling hills or grassy knolls that I could run through,
or better yet frolic through, I would end up inexplicably
atop the hillock called yellow. How more to justify
this is not commensurate with my literary or artistic
abilities.

28
29
 
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