Eat My Shorts, Mr Burns.

So there I was, thinking about the economy. I don't know anything about the economy, other then the fact that there is not one part of the economy that is visible to the naked eye, that you can point at and say "Look! It's the economy!" It's like this many-tentacled beast that has an appendage in every office/business/home/wallet/you-name-it, and yet no one can see it. It exists, but you have to take it on faith. If you lose faith, it actually runs away, and the stock market crashes, and people get very uptight about all the money they lost, yet had never actually seen either.

And I thought about how companies merge, and become more profitable. And then i realised celebrities also merge and become more profitable, like whenever a celeb has a new movie coming out, they have to be rumoured (by their publicists) to be in a hot romance with the other co-star. It's just another merger, of their brand, and some other brand, for a time, for symbiotic pecuniary gain.

AND THEN I thought, hey...what about if celebrities and product brands merged also? Like, instead of just promoting a product, actually BECOMING the product in a sense...merging with it? Like, Jennifer Garnier. Or Fiona Apple iPod. Or K-MARTin Luther King.

And then I realised I have no idea how this 'life thing' is meant to work...

There was a crazy guy on my tram today, gibbering away to himself for the full half hour. At least, I thought he was, but as I got off, I heard him say "Melbourne girls are crazy, you've got to have a Ferrari before they'll even look at you!" It was then that I realised that man was a genius, and I wished I could have sat at his feet and soaked up some more of his ethanol-fuelled wisdom. He knew how life works. Me though? I have no idea.

I have friends and acquaintances who are quite rich in the financial sense, but they're not very happy. And I have lots of poor friends and acquaintances who are not very happy also. I know all kinds of people from all walks of life, and whether they are Bono from U2, or Vanessa the hot news agency girl in North Melbourne, none of them have "found what they're looking for".

Metaphysical questions surrounding the nature of what life is, and how we fit into it all have bothered us for countless centuries (by "us" of course, I mean ancient Greeks and annoying Philosophy undergrads). And although there are many advertised snake oils to remedy the confusion, there still evades us one unifying, binding, sensible cure for all people, all of the time.

Most of us here on planet Terra have no idea what it is we're looking for anyway. Most of us have no idea this planet is actually called Terra either. Most of us think it's called 'Earth', but it isn't. Just ask anyone who isn't from here.

So I've been thinking through many years, just what is it that will finally make me happy?

I went through all the usual phases, and a few others besides. I even spearheaded/pioneered a couple of phases, which not only shows you my age, but how immensely rad I am also.

In order to address this question, I had to sit down (believe me, this helps), and think of all the times I've been happiest in my life. The results were quite astounding. I realised I have been happy in or on the ocean more times than in any other location, second only to forests and deserts (both arctic and arid). Nightclubs and bars didn't even figure in my equations, although they did rate rather highly when considering places I have been most confused and/or bored. Without exception, my happiest times were when i was alone.

The happiest times were, by and large, the simplest times. When I was close to nature, when I had animals around me, when I could swim or climb or be alone in the wide and distant places of the world. But I also realised that pulling a Grizzly Adams and staying out in the wilderness wasn't going to work as a lasting cure. The reason I like it out in the world so much, is because I'm a city kid, and I live most of my life in very tight spaces in various 'downtowns'. Seeing the stars is like a full-on novelty for me. Yin and yang, just like always.

After many years of post-acid comedown introspection, and listening to Depeche Mode on cassette, I realised the thing that makes me most sad in the world is the possibility of not mattering. You can tell how egotistically wrapped up in my self I am, because I used the word "possibility". Ha ha! What a jerk! Anyway, it's true. I'm terrified (or rather my ego is) of embracing the reality of my (and everyones) existence, namely, that we as individuals, and as a race, and even as an evolutionary scale, are just the faintest prelude to a shadow of an echo of a blip on an immensely big galactic radar, and that in another blip, we, and everything we know, will be gone, and gone forever.

No one will remember us, and there will be no one to do the remembering. Even the pyramids will be gone, and the oceans will be empty, and no number of iPod nano's, or internet porn files can save us from the inevitability of nonexistence.

Picture it with me. Look at something. Anything. Look at it, and imagine that in a hundred or a thousand or a million years, it will not exist any more. It will be dust. Picture that happening before your eyes. Good. Now picture the thing next to it doing the same. Then everything in the room. Then the room, and the house, and your hand, and you, and your pets, and everything in your area. It's a hard thing to do, because this world is all we know. It's why death is so shocking. It's like the grim reaper comes riding up, and pushes your face into a carcass saying "Breathe deep human! It's reality!" We're all toast, and so is everything on earth, when we reach the breaking of the world, when it all gets swallowed up by Sol, our sun.

Even the dust will disappear, and not be.

And no, I don't like it. I don't like the fact that six months after I die, no one's going to be sitting around going "Life sucks without knifey". It hurts my ego. It's what seperates me from the animals (along with opposable thumbs). And so it came to me that the thing that could possibly make me most happy is, wait for it: eternal fame.

I tried academia (and hated it). Apart from the truckloads of sex I managed to hook up in lecture theatres and study halls, it was a total waste of time. I went post grad...honours, masters, doctorate...less and less hot sex the further I went, and at the end of it I have a qualification and a skill set that makes me eminently unemployable in all career fields except teaching English in Japan (which I have done, and plan to do again soon). The one upshot of my 6 years as a student is when I go to the doctors, and the people in the waiting room are looking at me like I'm a filthy gang member from Detroit, and the doctor comes out and says "Hello, Dr Vanderwerff." That part fucking RULES! Yeah, that's right bitches...I'm a motherfucking doctor. Woo-hoo.

What works is when I'm at a gallery opening, and I'm interviewing the artist for whatever European art magazine I'm writing for that week, and the artist turns around and says "Wait...YOU"RE knifey?!" I love it when I'm bowling and the guy from Rolling Stone comes up and talks to me about whatever I wrote here in this blog. I love it when I'm on a tram listening to the two cute girls in the next seat talking about an interview I did, or a poster I made, or...whatever. I know it's considered crude and uncultured, but I love people loving what I do, knowing who I am, considering me a contributing part of the culture at large, and thinking that I matter, because it all means I EXIST, and I'M NOT INVISIBLE, and I'M AS IMPORTANT AS EVERYONE ELSE.

Insecure? ALWAYS!!!

I would like it very much if people came to my funeral (genuinely giving a shit optional). I would like it very much if after I die, people remembered me, and felt I had something to contribute with my life. I would like it very very very much if in five thousand years, knifey was in the history books, and my name was recorded for all human time as part of this world, and worth remembering. "Mummy, who was Ned Kelly?" "Mummy, who were Bourke and Wills?" "Mummy, who was 'knifey from the internet'?"

And that's why this week was so great, and why I am so happy.

Because it's happened. I have entered the history books, and best of all, no one had to get hurt!

I got contacted, and met with two people from Canberra on Friday, who have officially asked me to contribute an art work to the National Archive of Australia. So for as long as there is an 'Australia' on planet Terra, there will also be a 'knifey'. Look Mum, I'm famous!

To the best of my knowledge, I am the only graff artist to have ever been asked, so I'm extra chuffed, both for me, and for the credibility of street artists as a group. At least, that's what I say here. I really only care about me. Me. Me. ME. ME. Me.

I remember when I was thirteen, my art teacher (Mr Burns) sat me down and told me I didn't have an artistic bone in my body, and that I would never amount to anything at all. God bless our teachers. Anyway, my thoughts are with him tonight, as he agonises over the deeper meanings of each new painting he produces, and languishes in bohemian galleries that are so amazing and cool no one ever goes to them, or even knows where they are. And I think "Man, were you wrong! Clearly at least one of my bones is artistic...maybe even more!"

I like this 'being a serious artist' thing...hope no one finds out I'm a total fraud. Now I want at least one piece to be exhibited at The National Gallery of Victoria, and I can just kiss my own ass with pride and satisfaction. Oh, and get a top 10 album in the USA.

God I love dreams!

Anyway, all is not perfect in knifeyland right now. As some of you already know, my beautiful and amazing girl and I have parted the ways (let's call it 'artistic differences') after 8 crazy and intense months, so if anyone wants to throw some chocolate cake my way, you know where to find me. By 'chocolate cake', I actually mean 'chocolate cake'. I take cake very seriously...it is one of the few groupings of words I use that aren't a euphemism for sex. I plan on getting very fat and hairy (like Jim Morrison), and acting like I'm ok and fine and good, when clearly I'm not.

Also, my dog has a major flatulence problem, and it's making me very sad (and ill). She's got a great personality, unfortunately her anus is the embodiment of pure evil, so please include her colon and sphincter areas in your prayers tonight. If we can "bind it in the name of Jesus", I know I'll feel a lot better about sleeping in the same room as her.

Thank you brothers and sisters...


This is knifey, from 'the internet'.

*FAST BREAKING NEWS!*

I am at the public library posting this, as I don't have the interbet at home nowadays...anyway, no more than 2 feet away from me an unusually flatulent old Asian man is letting rip with the loudest most wet sounding pants trumpets I have heard in a long time (worse than my dogs!). Either he's deaf, or he just doesn't give a fuck. Either way he's totally gangsta, and I'm gonna leave him to it...unless it smells.

4 eva.