Art of Darkness (2014) - full transcript

[eerie music]

- I can say, I can sit
here, and say right now,

I got a calling to
do self portraits

everyday for the rest
of my life until I die.

But that's not
necessarily being honest

because there's some
thought involved with that.

It didn't take a
supernatural being

or some magical thing to happen;

it was just a decision I made,

a logical, rational
decision I made.

And then all this other
stuff, everything else,



just all this
bloomed out of that.

[eerie music]

There might be some
desperation there,

where you feel desperate,
like you're alone.

Maybe for me
personally, I'm like,

"Oh, I'm alone in the
world," or something,

or maybe I thought
no one understood me.

You know, whatever
type of negatives...

Part of me, with
the self-portraits,

wants to get as much experience
out of life as possible

so that by the time that I die

I will have really
lived a full life.

I really don't like it
when people say that,

"I was chosen," or
"Painting's my calling,



"I can't imagine without
it," or something like that

because it tries to make it
a mysterious type of thing.

So, like, someone
with some depression

or low self esteem
and beats them self up

or someone that's a
little bit psychotic,

maybe even have a whole
bunch of psychotic in them.

It just creates all this baggage

that they don't need
when they just want to...

They just need a little bit of
encouragement and self worth.

Sometimes I'm easily excitable

so I can get really outrageous.

I get on the bullhorn and
yell at people on the streets

and just act up and stuff.

I don't get depressed too much

more of some mania,
but not really too bad

where it can't be kept in check.

Ever since I got
in that knife fight

and went to prison, I always
knew, "Don't carry a knife."

If you don't have a
knife in your pocket

you can never use it, you
can never stab someone, ever,

if you don't have a knife.

I never stabbed
anyone after that.

But then, I did cut...

I was just so much of
a trouble maker then

and doing so many
terrible things

that I didn't really
get to stay with it...

I always liked art, and
stuff, but it wasn't until

I went to East Tennessee
State University

that I really saw that I
could use it to help me

psychologically and
emotionally and socially.

[deep piano music]

I don't have a lot of joy.

Doing the self portraits
I get some joy from

because I know that no matter
whatever happens to me,

unless I'm in a coma,
or have a severe stroke,

or frontal lobe damage,
there's no way that I would...

I think even if I had
frontal lobe damage

I would still be able to draw
my self-portrait everyday.

I think, by now, I
would not forget.

I think it's so much a
part of my daily life.

Like eating or something,
I might forget to eat,

I might forget to bathe,
or something like this,

just because I'm
wrapped all up in art.

[dramatic music]

[traffic]

[light music]

When it comes to the
dark side in the arts

and the tortured soul
and the tortured artist,

teachers, educators, and
people will like to say that,

"That's a myth and that you
don't really need that."

But there is some kind
of connection there.

I'm not going to lie, there
is some kind of a connection

because a person that
is a tortured soul

is a frustrated person,
a person that has

some kind of inner
demons, or maybe

they don't like mankind,
or maybe there's things,

like they love animals and
they don't like people;

the way people treat
animals, or maybe they

have real serious problems that

they're witness
to in these times.

And it bothers them and
creates a conflict in them

and then they have no
way to really express it.

Art is the best way to
express things culturally.

You can go to church and
witness, and give your testimony

and say, "Oh, this
terrible thing's happened,"

and stuff, and you have a
support network in a church

and stuff like that,
but you don't...

It's not your own
pulpit, like art.

You're a congegration member

or something, and you
get a little bit of time

to ask for a prayer,
or something like that.

But art is like,
you're the preacher,

you're the pulpit, so it gives...

I think it's a great
motivational thing,

the dark side, I'm not
afraid of it at all.

I'm not afraid to
face that because

I'm inspired, by a lot of that

and I'm inspired by
some desperation.

Someone a long time ago said,

"Desperation was
a great inspirer."

Feeling desperate, and
then still continuing

down your artistic path
is a great inspirer.

[deep piano music]

The self portraits, I used them

for long time I
would tell people

I was growing my feelings.

I was using them
to grow my feelings

because I kind of had some
sociopathic tendencies

but a lot of people
wouldn't necessarily see it

because I can pretend.

I see how other people
that are emotional

all the time, and I
can imitate it to...

Not a great actor, like a
professional type of actor

but I can act like I
feelings really well.

But I would use
the self-portraits

to put my real
feelings in there;

I called it my true feelings.

I would use the
self-portraits everyday

as a way of purging
the negative feelings

and allowing myself to have
more positive feelings;

dealing with stress
daily, like a therapy.

So I think it's
really helped a lot.

[dramatic music]

I don't know if there was
a magic, eureka moment,

I don't know if I
ever experienced

a magical, eureka moment
where I would say,

"I'm going to be a
professional, full-time artist."

But I know the day I drew
the first self-portrait

and the series of all
of them in my life

I knew this was my life calling

because I knew that
the possibilities

were endless and infinite.

And I can do them under
any circumstances;

if I have a headache,
I do a headache one.

I have insomnia or something,
I can do an insomnia one,

if I'm totally exhausted
I'll draw till I fall asleep.

No matter what the
circumstances are

I can do a self-portrait.

It's really ingrained in
my central nervous system.

January 6, 1999, I'd been
doing a self-portrait

everyday since March 30 of '95

and had never missed a day.

After I did this one, I realized

there's no way I
will ever miss a day.

I didn't remember
doing it, I had gotten

into that argument with
that girl in the other book

where we were breaking
up or something.

Well I got really drunk
on some cheap liquor

early times and it was a
snowstorm, like a blizzard.

I just remember getting lost
and falling down in the snow

and I kept finding my way
back to the liquor store.

Then I ended up at
this girl's house

and she let me in and then
I spent the night there,

or whatever, and she took
me back the next day.

And I felt so hungover
and just awful

and I thought, "Oh
man," on the ride back,

I was like, "I did not even
do my self-portrait yesterday.

"Oh my god, I missed a
day, I can't believe it."

Then when I came into the office

I opened up the door
and my book was laid out

just like this, and that
picture was on the page.

And I was like, "Oh
my gosh," and she

was there with me and she
looked at it and said,

"You sounded exactly
like that on the phone.

"You sounded exactly like that."

And that's when I
knew, because it

was like a drunken blackout,

and I still did
the self-portrait.

Then I knew, unless
I'm in a coma,

I would never have to
worry about missing a day.

[dramatic music]

Oh, I think I was
in the process here

of starting to break
up with this girl.

Yeah.

Oh, I was crying.

This is probably one of
three pictures, total,

out of 9,000 where I drew
it while I was crying.

There's another one
I did where my aunt,

my great-aunt passed away,
and I was crying a little bit.

I don't really cry too
terribly much, or anything.

[dramatic music]

Whoa, that break up must
have been really troubling.

Yeah, here she goes.

"Doing better."

She was a really short girl.

[dramatic music]

I'm not so concerned
with composition

and figure ground and all
these types of things.

I don't think of drawing;
when I do the self-portraits

I don't think of them as...

I think of them as all
as one piece together.

I don't think of each day as an

individual work of
art, really at all.

Even though I might
like one and share it

with some people, show
some people or something.

If it's crappy I
don't care because

it's the act that's
more important to me

than the final product.

I had this real feeling that
filled my whole entire being

that no one way of
interpreting myself

should set the standard for
the way I see the world.

Because, you know, I was
taking art history classes

and things, and all
of these artists

like Van Gogh would
see the world one way;

Cezanne would see the
world another way.

And Paul McCartney,
a performance artist,

sees the world another way.

Everybody from hundreds of years

has being seeing the world
in their own unique way.

And I thought, the
truth to me was that

everyone is different,
and then I thought,

"They really encourage
you in school

"to develop your
own style, your own

"unique way of
seeing the world."

And they give you
these assignments

where you try out all
these different types

of ways of doing
different media.

So that way you can get,
like, a bigger palette

to interpret your expression.

But I don't know, something
in my physical body

was just like, "Wow."

Today is not the
same as yesterday

and if I'm happy one
day, and then I'm sad

the next day, why do I
have to limit myself,

limit my media palette to
this one form of expression?

But I knew that if I did this
everyday it would come out.

I knew that subconsciously,
or even consciously,

I would be able to have
a means of expression

that was really super-rich.

[dramatic music]

[island music]

Very rarely will I just
be an abstract thing.

Usually I try to at least
represent myself somewhat.

Here's me as an island;
I made myself an island.

We'll skip that one. [chuckles]

Let's see.

I don't know, these
are probably...

I don't know why I'm crawling.

Something happened.

Oh, uh, I was mad
about a sandwich.

That's strange.

Going back to this one
where I was an island,

where I said I hardly
ever draw myself,

like abstract, where
there's no representation,

this writing it looks like
some kind of nonsense,

"Mudaks and vudaks
and woodaduku,

"mujudak mujadak daku maku."

It sounds like the
ramblings of something

of a weird person,
but really what it is,

is I had read a
book by Nietzsche

that said, "I had a
pain and call it "dog"."

And one of the
first steps toward

controlling pain is to name it.

So what I did, was...

Well because you'll
probably see later on

in some of the other books,

like some stomach aches
and stuff like this.

I was plagued all
in my youth with

these terrible,
terrible stomach aches.

Well, after I read
that I named it "Daku"

and so this like some weird type

of trying to make a
little nursery rhyme

or something out of it.

But years later once
I started performing

I ended up making an album about

the evolution of my
interpretation of
pain over the years.

And then the album
is called "Daku".

Daku is the negative side
and maku's the positive side

that I just have in there.

[dramatic music]

A couple thousand
of them are just

a daily purging of
anxiety and stress.

Like a mental
health maintenance.

Sometimes I will be
happy with myself

and do something kind
of like that and, like,

I say, "Oh, it's okay to
love yourself," or something

[deep piano music]

This one, I think I
was a little bit blue,

and little bit depressed.

I had noticed, over
the years, that

when I do black and white
drawing it's depression

but I was thinking
of all these colors,

like the color of
life or something.

But it was just a
thought, like I didn't

have a color in my life.

So I forced myself to
put the color in my life.

It kind of looks stressful now.

[train horn]

Yellow and green to
me have always been...

I see other people,
other artists' artworks

and they use a lot
of yellow and green.

To me it's a sign
of mental illness

because yellow,
they want some kind

of spirituality and
the green, they want

some kind of calming thing.

But when you put...

They're trying to
express themselves

and do something,
but they're having

some kind of problems and so

a lot of times
yellow's spiritual

and then they went to calm,

but when you put the
yellow and green together

it's really electrifying
and it shows their mania

and their not
really aware of it.

I've got this...

Probably my heart's
cut out, or something.

That girl cheated on me so I

did a yellow and
green one on purpose.

I must have been
thinking I was having

some type of little
bit of mental problem.

[intense music]

I had a spontaneous
pneumothorax;

my right lung just popped.

[intense music]

That's my painting
from the hospital

and I did this one in
the emergency room.

Here's me in the hospital,

and you can't really
see it, but they

had a monitor or something,
that's an IV bag, I guess.

They had a chest
tube and everything.

It was pretty crazy, but
it's happened before.

Oh yeah, here's the
chest tube right there

and I made myself
kind of surreal,

like part of the equipment.

I don't know what
kind of medicine

they had me on at that time.

And there's me
looking in the mirror.

I finally got up and was able
to walk around a little bit

and then look in the mirror.

And then there's the
chest tube going in there.

It was real painful.

There's the scab, the
scar, not the scab.

I was drawing the
open wound that I had.

They don't seal it
off whenever you

have an open chest wound.

It has to heal from
the inside out,

they can't just stitch it up.

That's what it looked
like in the mirror.

Then I got some kind
of chest infection.

Here's me as some kind
of crazy little voodoo

trying to make that chest
would, chest pain thing

into some kind of,
like, a talisman,

or some kind of magical thing.

This is after Picasso's
"Women of Avignon"

and my open wound is an
eye and a mouth and vagina,

for the ego, the
superego and the id.

I just put myself in the
same poses as the women

from that very famous painting.

And then the scar almost
healed up completely

and I'm sitting
in this building,

one floor down I lived
in a different apartment.

Some guy gave me some
religious picture;

I don't have it anymore.

Oh, then I started
riding my bike.

I got a bike, that's the day I

got my brand new bike helmet.

And the doctors said,
"What can't you do?"

on the follow-up
for my pneumothorax.

And I was like,
"What do you mean,

"what can't I do? I
can do everything.

"I've got a bike
and everything."

And they were like, "Really?"

They were expecting
me to not be able

to go up and down
stairs and stuff,

but it's happened so many times

I've had a
pneumothorax, if I get

too stressed out one of
my lungs will just pop.

I'm real used to it.

I get a pain in my chest
when he's not in his nest.

I can't walk when he's hungry.

I can't sleep when he's lonely.

I've often tried
to talk to the Daku

but he doesn't listen
very well, either.

He's unruly and I
think Daku is deaf.

If I stabbed him I'd
be certain of relief.

Daku hates to be petted
so I poke at him.

He's outgrowing his tank.

Daku can also eat in
two different places
at the same time.

He's right here just
begging me to stab him,

gut him, gut
myself, pull him out

and stomp of the Daku.

Daku is no friend,
Daku is killing me!

[dramatic music]

One time when I was, 19,

I had major depression
and I stayed in a room,

I was living with my
girlfriend at the time

and I stayed in
a room for, like,

six months in a straight,
hardly ever left

the room but to
use the bathroom.

I've had times where I've had

some types of
delusions of grandeur.

[dramatic music]

That's a weird one.

Me, like a little kid,
holding a teddy bear.

My childhood, I would
say, is probably colorful.

I had a single mother
for a long time,

I stayed with my grandparents

quite a bit during summers.

I think drew circles
prematurely, like age one.

Then it wasn't but
a week or two later

I started putting eyes in them.

[dramatic music]

When I was 1 1/2 I
was potty trained

and I went straight
to school after that.

And was reading when
I was two years old

and was in the gifted
and talented programs

all through school.

I wasn't really a
prodigy or anything

because I never
got to nurture it

but then as I got
a little bit older

I started not being interested

in school anymore, it
was kind of boring.

I felt like they
were holding me back.

I was also a latch key kid, so
was I home alone a whole lot.

I had wear this awful
red yarn with a key on it

and it would rub me all day

because if I lost
my key or something

I would have no way
to get into the house.

But my mother showed
me how to break-in

to the house with a knife
through the kitchen window.

When I was 10, I started
getting in trouble with the law.

If my mother wasn't coming
home after work, I...

All the other kids had
to go in at dinner-time,

I could stay outside forever.

But it was dark; I was
more scared of the house,

than I was the
dark so I started...

By the time I was
11 or 12, I started

breaking into people's
houses after they died

and would go through their stuff

and hang out in these
other people's houses.

[chuckles] It's a strange thing.

It just my mind
would wander, like,

one lady died across the street.

She was elderly and I
broke into her house

and I stayed in there
for a couple weeks.

I wasn't every missing;
I went to school,

come home before my mom got home

and stuff like
that, but if I found

some swords, or something
from her travels,

I would play with them and
give them to the other kids.

I'd steal her TV and
stuff. [chuckles]

Just to hang out in the
people's houses after they died.

[dramatic music]

I would, rather
than play outside

or in some dead person's house

than in my own house
because for some reason,

I had this irrational
fear, paranoia

of the bad people.

I had really no concept
of what they were.

I just had this vague idea that

the bad people were killers.

Anyone whoever got
killed was killed

by these mysterious bad people.

One lady down the street, Olga,

she got murdered and they played

the 9-1-1 tape on
TV and her husband

had escaped, or something.

He got furloughed or something

from a mental hospital
and stabbed her all up

and every time he stabbed her,

he was screaming her name, Olga.

He was going, "Ol-ga,
Ol-ga, Ol-ga, Ol-ga,"

like that and then she
was screaming to death,

she screamed until she died.

And that really
haunted me; that type

of thing really scared me.

So I was just always
afraid of these bad people.

I just always thought they
were somewhere around.

I had this whole ritual before
I went to sleep at night.

I would pretend like
I was dead already

so that if the bad people
found me and tried to kill me

they would see I
was already dead.

And I would have
this elaborate set-up

like a funeral or
something, and I would sleep

next to the open window
in the summertime.

[eerie music]

I was picked on a
lot by the older kids

because they could
stay out longer,

so if some of these
older high school kids,

they would try to beat me up.

Then I would take it out on...

I would just pass the
beating down the line.

I would only have one
friend at at time;

they would be my best
friend, inseparable,

and then I would
eventually beat them up

and then look for a new friend

and be their friend for
awhile and beat them up.

Then after a while nobody
was allowed to play with me

probably by the time I
was about 13, I'd say.

I used art a lot of
times, at least in

the beginning, a whole lot.

Maybe not the self-portraits,
but with the performances,

to purge myself of the trauma.

Traumatic events,
I would relay them,

like an exorcism
or something, just

let it all out, all of
these terrible things.

But my mother, she has no idea,

all these crazy
things that went on.

She might remember
a few incidents,

or something with
me with the police,

but she had no idea
the types of things

I was a witness to,
or subjected to.

I don't know because
when you're a boy

you're supposed to suck it up.

You don't really
tell your mother

that Officer [beep],
the one you think

is supposed to be helping people

is molesting all
the troubled kids.

You don't uh...

You know, you got a single mom

and you're a boy, you just
got to suck it up, really.

[dramatic music]

I think this is around the time

that I was graduating.

I graduate from ETSU
in the summer of '98,

so there'll probably be some

of the pictures in
there about that.

The dorm was like a prison

with the cinder block walls.

I just had these scribbles
on this old palette

and it's like some
tensions are flying off,

it's a self-constructed
wall it looks like

I'm trying to build in my brain.

I really felt comfortable
in the college

and the dormitory; I stayed
in the dormitory five years,

every semester,
even summer school

because it was just convenient,

and stuff, and I didn't mind it.

I been in prison one
time, a long time ago,

and I got used to it.

There's some
anxiety; that's nuts.

I was under a whole lot of
stress going to college.

It was really hard for
me to do assignments.

The called the
ACLU on me one time

because I sewed
my mouth shut for

this photography student.

They had the lawyers
come, and they

had this big meeting,
and everything.

They had more than
one meeting on me.

But was this one
was the big one.

And then I had to jump through

a lot of hoops in
order to graduate.

Even if my faculty,
my teachers, advisors

and stuff would say, "Oh, we
recommend," at the evaluation,

"you skip two or three
years worth of stuff

"and just take
5,000 level advanced

"classes, electives
and stuff like that."

The head chairman
said, "No, if he wants

"to graduate he has to
jump through every hoop,

"he has to do everything
just like everybody else

"and he does not get
special treatment."

That guy really held
me back, big time.

And I didn't like
to do assignments.

They would have me
make a painting;

like in the syllabus it would
say, I think one of the said,

"Make a drawing that
weighed five pounds,"

and I told the teacher...

I mean, that stuff
really stressed me out,

kept me up at night, all
night, and I would think,

"How am I going to approach this

"and not fly off the
handle and get upset?"

But I would say, "If
I make any drawing

"that weighs five pounds,
it's automatically garbage."

It doesn't have
anything to do with me.

I have my life purpose,
I'm going to draw myself

everyday for the
rest of my life.

If I make a drawing
that weighs five pounds,

I don't want it;
that's silliness.

And they would say,
"You have to do this,

"you have to do that."

I would never do it;
I would never do it.

[dramatic music]

That's the last day of classes.

Last class, last exam,
last hoop, last jump.

I look kind of
blue, kind of down,

but I probably was really
relieved to get out of there.

This is funny; here's me in
a diaper with a ski mask on.

I don't know why,
but at the time,

still to me it speaks
to me something about

being a baby and in
a violent ski mask.

And I made this
nail-studded paddle

for an Intro to Sculpture class

and on one side of the paddle,

I don't know if you
can really tell,

I painted welts, and
flesh-colored welts

so it looked, like,
you saw that nails

and it was like a
before and after.

But the teacher did not want
me to come back into class

because she thought I was
going to spank myself with it.

But my girlfriend
at the time took

all of these Polaroids of me

with the ski mask and the diaper

and I would just
scribble red pen on it

and make it look like some kind

of spank yourself or something.

And I would leave these...

I still have quite
a few of them left,

like probably 20 or so,
and I would leave them

in people's places,
like in their car,

or different stuff and it was

kind of like a
funny thing to do.

People would find it and
then they'd feel like...

[laughs] They'd
freak out. [laughs]

One time I left one under...

I was house-sitting and they had

a big tub of sour cream
in the refrigerator

and I left a Polaroid
of me in the ski mask

and the diaper under it.

Well, apparently that sour cream

had gone totally sour
and they never moved it

until they moved out
of the apartment.

So a year later of something,
when they moved out,

they were cleaning
out the refrigerator

and they found it
and they thought,

"Oh my gosh! We've
been violated.

"Some psychopath
freak has come in here

"and took pictures of the
ski mask and a diaper."

But then they saw the tattoos
and they realized it was me.

[laughs] And I just think
that's funny, sometimes.

I still do it, but, you
never know what happens

if the people meant to
find them will find them.

That's just a regular;
probably some anxiety.

Then, my best
friend, Don Morgan,

shot himself in the head.

Don, he had some
mental problems.

He had gone to some kind
of inpatient treatment

for a couple of days
and his girlfriend

had me go over and try to
clean up the bloodstain

before his parents
came from Chattanooga.

And the more I was scrubbing it,

the bigger the
puddle kept getting

until, finally, I just left it.

I don't know how you
clean up that stuff.

He was in the ICU
and I was wanting

to trade places
with him and stuff.

And then I had to
call his family

and I was like a
robot, or something.

Then I had to get to
the free mental health

and tell them, "Oh my
gosh, my best friend

"shot himself in the head."

Oh, here's me crying
again; it looks more

like I was trying to
force myself to cry.

I don't think I was
really crying too much.

Actually, that looks
like a real teardrop.

This is probably a water color,

chalk, that is some tears
on there, so I guess,

yeah I was probably
really crying.

But it's not too
many times I do that.

[dramatic music]

[knocking]

Hey, come in; kitchen.

To the left is the closet.

People tell me that I'm like

some frightening and some scary.

Well, now, because of
the drug things online

people say I'm an
attention whore

or I'm a liar, like I
make these things up

to get attention, or you know,

because I want publicity.

Here's the bathroom
if you need to use it.

- And this is the cool
shot, right there.

I do a lot of painting
in the bathtub to relax.

So those water color crayons
in the corner are for drawing.

- [Voiceover] Nice, cool, okay.

They say I'm doing some
gimmicks to make money

but I'm like, "Oh my gosh,
they're in some fantasy land."

Because if I had some
money, I would not

be living in this type of place.

I would not be
living in squalor.

That's how a lot
of people see me.

Okay, then here,
are my releases,

basically my merchandise,

like old stock, that's
my inventory stock.

And these are the ones
that haven't released yet,

that are still being developed,
but they're still products.

I was having a really
strange experience

where I was waking
up with seizures

and I was having a
fit and the world

would be too bright,
my fists would

be all clenched up and
I'd be shaking, like this.

And I would have
this feeling that I

was being born, physically,
for the first time ever.

And then these are
documents of projects past.

No, not these two, but these
boxes, and these things here.

And after the first
couple mornings waking up

like this, with the
seizure fit and everything,

and being born for the first
time, it was really scary.

And then the third
day, the third morning,

I wake up, I'm
twisted around with

the blanket all
wrapped up around me

and I'm thinking,
"I'm a breach birth,"

like the umbilical
cord or something's

wrapped up around my
neck, and I'm choking

and I'm dying, I'm being born,
and the world's too bright

and I'm shaking, and
then I said to Nicole,

"Oh my gosh, what
if I'm a C-Section?"

This is art supplies and media.

And then these are
the photographs

that I find in the
trash constantly.

Then, the next
morning after that,

after having a wonderful,
peaceful sleep,

I wake up, I'm having a seizure,

I'm thinking I'm
being born again

for the first time, physically.

I called it a
near-birth experience.

And there's walkie talkies
just going off over my head,

like, "Kssh, calling 124, kssh,"

and all this stuff...

And then this little
closet is a clothes closet.

And I can barely walk,
I'm practically crawling

and using the walls
with my shoulder

to get to the front door and
I look through the peephole

and there's cops
here, and cops here,

and my neighbor across
the hall door's wide open

and there's a dead lady laying

in the middle of
the kitchen floor.

And so I went from a
near-birth experience

to a instant
tunnel-vision of death.

These are DVDs,
art films, art DVDs

that I used to really love but I

don't have time
to watch anymore.

That's the only time I've
every really contemplated

moving out of here, I thought,
"It's getting too close."

Then I opened up
the door and looked

and they picked
her up in a sheet

like she was on the
streets of Syria

and they just slung
her onto to the gurney

right in front of my door.

Then the next morning I woke up

and I didn't have the seizure,

pushed the button for
the elevator door,

door opens up and there's
a dead body on there

with the cops, and
the cop's like,

"You can't come
on, on this one."

And I was like, "Oh my
god, it's closing in."

And these people next door to me

used to party all the time
and they hadn't been partying

and I was like, "Oh my
god, if this guy's dead

"I'm outta here," because it's
just coming too close to me.

The last closet is
the potluck closet.

And it's got tools,
bicycle pump, all my books.

I don't have a
whole lot of books.

Even though I don't
socialize and interact

with these people, it was just
getting to be too much death,

and with this near-birth
experience, seizure craziness,

that's the only time I've
ever thought about leaving.

I love this place so much,

no matter what
happens, I love it.

[dramatic music]

When I first moved
into this building

in 2000, or something,
my original goal

was to make a
documentary about all

of the interesting
people that live

in this building, from
veterans, to elderly people,

just all different
types of people.

And this building
is really well known

for having a whole lot of
interesting characters.

So I was going to
do a documentary

but then I never
felt comfortable.

Most people don't even
leave their apartment

and they're all on
drugs, some of them

are so messed up,
on psyche meds,

that the case
manager once told me

that if she could get
them out of their chair,

recliner, lounge chair,
three times a day,

that was a good day for them.

And it was really boring,
I never did a documentary.

I started a new sketchbook
and this is what I wrote:

Theme: pill, medicine
and drug experiment

Every single person in
my apartment building

takes pills and or drugs;
I live in a big building.

They say someone
can get every kind

of pill there is
in my apartment.

The experiment is to
take every single kind

and draw myself
under the influence

of every drug and every
pill and note the changes.

That was my big
delusion of grandeur,

I could take all these pills.

And the first day I got a hold

of something called Butalbitals,

they were pain pills;
I took four of them.

Then the next day I took Valium.

Then I took a break
from the pills

and I drank all
these liquor drinks.

I was sitting at the
bar drawing myself

it was looking pretty good but

then it got to where
I had get someone

to make a map of
how I get back home.

I was just scribbling and stuff,

I was all messed up on liquor.

This one I took some Percocets.

This is Lortabs, it made
my nose really itchy.

Didn't do too much else to
me, just made my nose itch.

And this one is huffing
Nitrous Oxide, laughing gas.

And then this one is Xanax;

this one was my favorite of all.

It made me feel most
earthy and peaceful.

Then this one, someone came...

All these pills were things
people just gave to me

because they heard
about my project.

Every time someone
would give me something

they would tell
someone about it,

so people were just
knocking on my door

left and right and
saying, "When I was a kid

"we used to do this;
or here's this."

This girl cleaned out
here medicine cabinet

and she gave me one blue,
one milligram Xanax,

one and a half
rocks of [mumbles],

one Vicodin and
then a totem pole.

And I just took them all.

Originally I was
going to do one a day

but then by the time I
think I got to about...

This one says I took a day off

and did nothing but Percocet.

So I think I was already
doing more than one a day

but I'd wait until it wore
off and I felt normal,

and then I would do another one.

But by this day
I was taking more

than one thing at a time.

It was getting to
be quite a bit.

Then I did mushrooms, the
psychedelic mushrooms.

Right as it started kicking in,

my eyes started getting bigger,

and colors, and then my whole...

It's weird, all these
pixels started radiating

and flying out of my face.

By the time it got
to here I couldn't

even draw anymore, so it ended.

I mean, the drawing
ended at a good point,

I got a lot of
details and stuff.

This one, after
that, the next day

I went to a
psychiatrist and I said,

"Here's my pictures on
all these different drugs,

"I'm doing this experiment."

Nobody had given
me anything else

after the mushrooms and I said,

"I just want a
prescription for one pill

"of every type of thing
I haven't done yet."

And what he did
instead was he thought

I was psychotic for taking
all these different pills.

So he gave me a prescription
for 100 Seroquel pills,

which are heavy
tranquilizers and it

was the worst
experience of my life.

The worst drug I
have ever ingested

was a Seroquel
tranquilizer pill.

You can see I was
having to fight it

the whole time, to
be just to draw.

I started off doing
the proportions,

getting the ears and
the cheeks and the eyes

and everything right,
and then all of a sudden

something inside me,
like an inner voice said,

"Don't look at the mirror!"

So then I just kept
drawing in the book.

And then the same voice said,

"Don't look at your book!"

Then I thought, "Oh my gosh,
I may need to lay down."

And I looked over at
my bed and it said,

"Don't look at your
bed," like that,

and I was just stuck.

The medicine was trying
to cut my brain off

from my body.

It really effects you,
probably your nervous system

and I had to
physically force myself

to keep drawing through
the worst feeling ever.

And it was then that I realized

that when they shoot a lion with

a tranquilizer dart, or if a
bear gets trapped in a tree

and they need to shoot it
with a tranquilizer dart,

it always looks to
me like it's drunk,

like in La-la
Land, but it's not.

In real life that
lion still wants

to chew their throats
out of all those people

It just can't move; that
inner voice is saying,

"Don't rip their
throats out," like that.

So it's scary, one of
the most terrifying

things I've ever experienced.

Then, this is Ambien.

And I kept getting lower
and lower to the floor,

by the time I got
to my body, my arm

was not even attached
in the same place.

Then Buspar, I snorted...

I crushed it up and snorted it

because they said it
would act faster that way.

Then I drank a bunch
of cough syrup.

And my friend, when
she saw this, she said,

"You're giving yourself
Down Syndrome,"

but I already knew that,
kind of, subconciously

because I found this
Korean book in the trash

and found a picture of a
girl with Down Syndrome

and put it on there.

And I was drunk, almost
hallucinating on cough syrup

and I went to this Chinese
restaurant up the street

to ask what this
meant because I knew

there was the lady at
the, when you walk in,

the greeter, was
Korean, so I was trying

to find out what it meant
and she wrote something

and that said, "A
very beautiful woman."

So here's me and some
Korean; it's very strange.

Then this was huffing
lighter fluids.

Some old man knocked
on my door and he said,

"When I was a kid we used
to huff lighter fluid,"

and he just stuffed his hand,
gave me some lighter fluid.

He said, "Put it on a
sock, stick in a brown bag,

"and just breathe that stuff
and you'll get real messed up."

And I did it, but I
really liked the fact

that I subconsciously
picked this metallic crayons

because it really
shows the fumes.

When I look at it I
can still smell it

and see the fumes
and the blurry eye,

like that metal
smell or something.

Then this one was Ritalin.

It didn't really do
too much to me, really.

Like, in the other books
you've seen more wild.

Then this one, I made PCP.

My face, you can see it's
coming off in sections

and then this is some
vomit, not in real life,

this is drawing,
painted, but I vomited.

I had eaten a sandwich
earlier that day

that had some tomato
in it and then did

the PCP and everything, then
someone knocked on my door

and said, "Oh, I heard you
was on the Appalachian Trail,

"and you got a lot of
pictures and stuff."

So invited them all in
and I was sitting around

telling 40 different
people that...

I was showing them the
Appalachian Trail book

and then something told me,

"Bryan, these
people aren't real."

And I was like, "Whoa,
this is messed up!"

Then there'd a knock at the door

and they'd say, "Oh
hi, Bryan, I heard

"you were on the
Appalachian Trail."

I let them all in, 20,30 people

and after, like,
a half hour or so,

showing them all that
book and telling them all

these crazy stories, BAM, these
people aren't real. [laughs]

And I would totally freak out.

After I realized the
third or fourth time

that this kept happening,
I went and vomited

and all this red
stuff was coming out

of my nose and I thought,

"Oh my god, my brain is
falling out of my nose."

But it wasn't; it
was that tomato

that was in that sandwich.

But I was on PCP and I thought
my brain was falling out.

And then that's when I quit.

I mean, I've done
others since then

but that's when that
little experiment ended.

I couldn't keep going on
like that; it was crazy.

[dramatic music]

When I was living with my aunt,

my second cousin, which
was a small child,

and her mother,
and my grandmother

and my great-aunt, there
was a lot of chaos.

I was living in a trailer
in central Virginia

and a lot of arguing and
typical family-type of drama

but it was somewhat
stressful because

the child was involved.

My great-aunt, she was in the
last stages of Alzheimer's

and couldn't remember
anything past 18 seconds,

so she was constantly
repeating the same questions.

My grandmother had
a couple strokes,

there was just all
this stress around me.

And so I thought, "Well,
I'd like to go to China."

I thought if I went
to China and I heard

all of these people
talking in Chinese

I wouldn't mind, like,
I could live with that.

Then I thought, "Well,
if I go to China,

"I've heard so much stuff," like

they drown their girl babies,

there's just so much
outrageous things.

All my life, from
elementary school on,

I've heard all these outrageous
things, and I thought,

"Well, if I go there, I
better learn Chinese first,

"in case the people
started yelling at me

"I'll know what they're saying."

So for 6 hours a day,
everyday, 7 days a week

for 9 months straight, I
taught myself Mandarin Chinese.

While I was doing
this I would go,

every now and then, to the
Chinese restaurant in town

and I could practice,
and say some things.

Then there was a
waiter I befriended

and he would come
over once a week

and I would teach him English.

We didn't really
do too much; I did

the Chinese all on
my own, but I really

tried to help him learn English.

But somewhere along that
line I thought to myself,

"Well, if I learn
Mandarin Chinese,"

and I know it really well,
I go to some city in China

where there's no foreigners
at all, no tourism,

no white people; I'm the
only white person there

and I tell jokes in Chinese
and do stand-up comedy,

I thought, "Well, I could become

"a famous comedian instantly."

Because they have so
many millions of people.

Then I thought, "If
I do stand-up comedy

"in China, within nine months
I'll have my own sitcom,"

and stuff, like
Seinfeld or something,

And then I thought,
"Well, right after

"that I'll be doing
blockbuster movies,

I'll become a superstar,
a Chinese superstar."

And I really believed that this
could be a real possibility.

Then I did a Chinese
wedding in New York

after about nine months of
teaching myself Mandarin

I performed my, I wrote
a routine and everything,

and I performed my stand-up
comedy at a Chinese wedding

and it was a big
hit, and I thought,

"Well, this is a
real possibility.

"I'm doing it, I'm
going to China,

"I'm going to become a
famous stand-up comedian.

"Within a year, or a
little over a year,

"I'll be a Chinese superstar."

Then I get to China
and after a couple days

I met a guy on the
street that had lived

in the United States
for quite a while

and he spoke English and I said,

"Where is the stand-up comedy?

"I want to be a
stand-up comedian."

And he said, "We
don't have that here."

and I was like, "Oh my gosh."

All my dreams were
completely shattered.

Then when I found myself
back in the United States

I thought, "I cannot be
a stand-up comedian."

There's thousands and thousands
of stand-up comedians,

everyone wants to be
a stand-up comedian,

there's just so
much luck involved

and all this other type of
business trying to do that.

And then I'm here, back
in this nasty place

where I was a long time ago.

And I was like,
"The hell with it,

"I'm going to start
stand-up tragedy."

Instead of making
strangers laugh in public

I'm going to make them cry.

I started doing it
at this coffee shop.

I was nervous,
like stage fright,

so I read other people's poetry,

or some writings, but
I read it my own way

because, see, I'd been
doing the self-portraits

the whole time,
for over 10 years.

It was putting
all of my feelings

into a little 8.5 by 11.5
inch sketchbook page.

So I was constantly
putting all my feelings

into this confining
little place.

Then when I started to decide,

"Okay, I'm going to
do this other stuff,"

it was an explosion of emotion.

I was bottled up into such

a little tiny
place, surface area.

When I started reading
the other people's poetry

I just went off, I just
read it like I wanted to;

as aggressive as I wanted,
as deranged sounding,

or whatever I wanted, I just
did it really outrageously

Then I started
writing my own stuff.

I'd read these other
people's things;

I did it twice, reading
other people's stuff,

then I wrote one
thing, or two things,

and then I went and did
it again the next week

that way, with my
own stuff and it

had even more emotion in it.

Then one of the side
goals in my mind

was to make psychopaths or
sociopaths have feelings.

I've been concerned
with this quite a bit.

So I tried to use
videos, microphone.

My name is Bryan Lewis Saunders,

I'm 16 and I'm
allergic to popcorn.

Sounds, experimental
music to evoke

as much feeling into
people as possible.

I was hoping I could do
it so intense that even

a psychopath would have
feelings and be upset.

I was a little bit delusional
because no matter what

the people, the psychopaths
would take it the wrong way.

You can say anything
about some animal torture

or something and they
will think it's funny.

It just depends on
who the people are

but the psychopath that's
there in the audience,

you not doing nothing for
them but entertaining them.

They got off on
some crazy stuff.

[melancholy music]

[eerie music]

The word "daku" has
many definitions,

like love, time, God,
or any other word.

Its meaning is its use.

By this I simply mean
that its definition

lies in our daily conversation.

So for someone to
say, "What is God,"

"What is time,"
or "What is Daku,"

creates linguistic
superstitions.

It creates a mystery where
there really isn't one.

We know what it is
by how we use it.

Before I divulge the impact
that Daku has had on my life

it is both necessary and vital

that I first share with
you the origins of Daku.

[eerie music]

My first experience with
the mysterious stomach pain

occurred when I was 16.

I was at a movie theater
with a friend of mine,

named Craig Whines, eating
popcorn in an aisle seat

when WHAM, I got broadsided by

the most excrutiating
gigabolt of pain

comprehensible to man.

It doubled me over and
my right arm stiffened

and stopped me from
falling and rolling

all the way out into the aisle.

I could have make a
somersault out of it.

But you don't show
pain in public.

After the initial
shock, it felt as if

the whole left
side of my abdomen

was being pinched by
an industrial strength
metal clothespin

that had been
heated up and stuck

where a drill bit
is supposed to go

and then run in reverse,
drawing me up tighter

and tighter until
is stripped around,

triple knotted, burning
more tissue in my gut

and I couldn't move.

Emotionally, fear and anger
are brother and sister,

stay with me here.

My anticipation of
more pain equals fear

and my perception of
doctors as ignorant

equals anger, and when
both of these feelings

taboo fornicate inside my head

I became the proud
father of a bouncing,

new baby bad blood
emotional incest offspring

of hatred towards man like
none I've ever known before.

I have this little
pet; it's name is Daku.

All of his teeth
and claws came in,

I no longer eat,
I only feed him.

He can't be killed unless I die.

He is an invisible part of me.

Daku is bad mystery.

No one, not even doctors
with all of their machines

can see him, machines
might make him high

but medicine makes him angry.

And we don't want him angry!

He digs and claws,
meats and tears,

rips and gnaws and
chews tunnels in my gut

always moving forwards.

Sometimes I feel
like rescuing him

by taking a knife
and freeing him.

Cut Daku out!

Sometimes I think he's cancer.

Daku says "yes", but
the doctors say "no."

I get a pain in my chest
when he's not in his nest.

I can't walk when he's hungry,

I can't sleep when he's lonely.

I've often tried
to talk to the Daku

but he doesn't listen
very well, either.

He's unruly and I
think Daku is deaf.

If I stabbed him I'd
be certain of relief.

Daku hates to be petted
so I poke at him.

He's outgrowing his tank.

Daku can also eat in
two different places
at the same time.

He's right here just
begging me to stab him,

gut him, gut
myself, pull him out

and stomp on the Daku.

Daku is no friend,
Daku is killing me!

["killing me" echoes]

[crowd cheers]

[melancholy paino music]

[upbeat music]

A lot of the time
people, I think,

when it comes to me
they're just trying

to figure out if what I'm
doing is even real or not.

I don't fault them with it;
it's just the times we live in.

I consider myself
weird, I know I'm weird.

If you isolate yourself,
you develop weird ideas.

I wouldn't film me walking
through here, though.

Let's take these stairs.

Because I interact
socially with people online

and with the phone,
I'm not totally alone

and I've got friends
that can say,

"You're getting a little bit...

"That's too much,
that's too weird,

"That's not really the
politically correct way

"to go about expressing that,"

I get feedback.

I will say that I'm
definitely strange,

I would definitely say I would
think of myself as weird.

Some people might
think of me as creepy;

I don't think I'm
creepy, I think

that people might
be creeps themselves

and see something of
that creepy nature

in them, and then be
like, "Oh, that's creepy."

because it maybe affects them.

I don't set out to be
like, "Oh, I'm going

"to be as creepy as possible,"
or something like that.

If I was going to do
that, I'd be a real creep,

I mean I would creep
people out big-time,

more than they could handle it.

I don't have any
desire to do that.

I'm sure that some people
think that I'm creepy.

But I tell stories like this.

It doesn't haunt
me so much, like,

I don't still fear
the bad people.

I really became one of them.

I still have this negative
self-image a lot of times,

like, oh I'm a bad person, I
became one of the bad people.

But people that know
me now, and don't know

anything about me in this past

other than what I say
during my performances

or in my books, or
dreams and things.

They would never think
I was a bad person.

I use the art, really,
to change my life

and become a good person.

I need to more accepting
that I am a good person,

try to be a good person

but I fear under certain stress,

or some situations,
social situations,

I could easily revert; I
have that ingrained into me

that kind of anger, and
lack of emotions sometimes

and I have to try to
really stay focused.

And I isolate myself, really,

so I don't get involved in that.

[dramatic music]

When it comes to the dark side

in the arts, and
the tortured soul,

the tortured people are
the ones that give a shit.

The tortured people are
the people that care.

So there's nothing
wrong with that.

And art is probably
the greatest tool

we have right now
to deal with it,

to deal with all of it.

I'd say there's a
real great link.

Some kids get into art because

they don't know what else to do,

so at the universities
they'll tell them,

"Well, you don't
have to be tortured,

"you don't have to do this,
you can just like images,"

but a lot of times I think
there's something lacking.

I would suggest that
if someone is not upset

they want to be an
artist, they like art,

they think it's really
interesting, and
they're not upset,

I'd say find something
to get upset about.

Go there and then you
can really be inspired

and do some great
stuff that will provoke

other people to
use their brains.

Because there's not
even enough people

in the Western world
really even using

their brains anymore,
and it gets worse

as time goes by, that
they're doing less thinking,

more repeating,
more cut and paste.

So I would recommend to people

get tortured, become a
tortured soul, really.

I don't suggest go
out and get drunk

or create problems for yourself,

but I would just say,
"Find out what bothers you

"and explore it, find
out what upsets you,

"find out what really
gets your goat,

"what really pisses you
off, and then explore that."

Ask yourself, "Why is
that, what is it about me

"that makes react this
way, or feel this way,"

and then go there.

And they're going to do
some interesting stuff

no matter who they are; whether

they're really that
tortured or not.

You don't have to be
insane and ranting

and raving, and flopping around

and cutting parts
of your body off

to do great art; you
just have to give a shit.

You just have to
care about something.

And not enough people do.

I would just
recommend people care.

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