Don't bother Watching the Watchmen (film).

D'yu remember a little wile ago I was talking about Watchmen?

I posted a link to a torrent for the motion comic and said I was actually gunna go to the cinema and see it.
Well I actually tried to do that.

I checked out times on the internet and decided to go for the 11.30 on a Friday night showing, the theory being that the film'd finish about 2ish, perfect time for a bit of masked vigilantying.
Anyway me and my friend Melvin got proper high, then went down to the new Cinima de Lux located on the lumpy left shoulder of Leggy's new dormant robot corpse/shopping emporium, the Highcross centre.

must have been about 11.02 as my hand touched the front door, we pushed open the cinema's mouth and were swallowed into the foyer. There I stood with my stoned face, face to face with this stone-faced woman.
I'm like "Watchmen, 2 of us."
She's like "Not on any more"
I'm like "What we missed the start?"
She's like "It's not on any more."
I'm like "uuuuh."

Long story short, it wern't on. We didn't even bother going out adventuring just went to our respective homes and went to sleep, rubbish.

Anyway following a recommendation from another friend I decided to just watch it on-line yesterday. To be fair if I had gone to see it at the cinema then this would probably be a blog about me getting kicked out of the cinema for shouting at the screen for 2 hours 45 minutes (2 minutes longer than the film's running time.)


Right first off Hollywood, Rorschach is one of the best characters in any comic ever. In fact I'd say he's one of the best characters in anything ever. Hollywoods Rorschach is a sloppy edit of diary highlights performed weekly and out of context. 

It hurts me to see brilliance diluted to the point of average.

Also why the fuck are you changing the end of the story?
That's not what happens.

here's a quote, "I deal in Fiction I don't deal in Lies." Alan Moore.
What he means by that is that He spent a lot of time writing the story. A story filled with spectacular events and characters, but a story that feels real. A story that rings true.
Here's another quote, "This film is awful," John Berkavitch

The amount of things that have been unexplained/forgotten/omited in the transition/metomorpasis from book to film makes it not worth making the film, no wonder Alan Moore didn't want his fucking name on it. Just quickly have you ever seen a picture of Alan Moore?

I got a lot of respect for the unkempt beard and scarecrow haircut, 

it's a strong look.

What I will say for the film is if you're a fan of the old crotch shots then mate you are in for a treat.
My favorite of these being in the sex scene between Silk Specter and 4 Dr Manhattens.
At one point there's a panning wide shot of 4 flacid blue penises, (or is that Peni?)Although if it is extended shots of full frontal male nakedness your lookning for, then fuck Watchmen, I'd recommend watching Oz the HBO Drama series from 1997.
Yu know the one in the prison,
guy in a wheelchair telling the story
Yeah that one. Oz.
I watched six seasons of Oz over the last 2 weeks, intense. 

You can watch all the first season on here. message me if you want links to the rest.

To conclude if you ain't seen the Watchmen film don't bother, watch the motion comic.(link) Or better yet read the fucking book.

Also I've still got to tell you about my history as a crime fighter. Don't worry I ain't forgotten just not typed it up yet.

Fine Art; Painting

Being an Artist alot of my days are spent asking rhetorical questions.

You know what rhetorical questions are don't you?

anyway one question that drove my Artistic practice throughout obtaining my degree was, 

What is Art?
this became What is an Artist?
the answers are An Artist is someone who makes Art, 

and Art is something made by an Artist when the Artist's intent is to make Art.

So what this means is that if it's been agreed that you are an Artist then anything you make intending it to be Art, is infact Art.

The people who decide who's an Artist or not are other Artists and the Arts establishment.
It's basically about knowing the right people.
In fact I remember in the second year we had a 2 hour lecture about how to get a residencey with a gallery after graduation.
I can summize those two hours in twelve words.
Move to London and become friends with someone who owns a Gallery.
Bullshit, (Why was I paying tuition Fees?)
Anyway, It has been agreed on a few different occasions that I am actually an Artist, (Other Artist, The Art's council, Royal Opera House and The Gardian Art's section have all said so.)
So This week I've been making Art, working in the medium of paint on wood.
I've created a series of three works and by each I've given a short explaination of the piece.

Door one
A well used door.

2 coats under coat.

1 coat gloss.

In this site specific piece the Artist explores ideas of haste, speed and general carelessness in an attempt to truly represent the practical aspects of  the piece's surrounding location.











Door Two

A toilet door.
2 coats undercoat.

1 coat gloss.

touched up gloss after drying.

This piece is sited adjacent to the first piece working to give ballance and a feeling of equilibrium. In this instance the Artist has chosen to continue to add to the piece after it had reached a stage of completion thus reflecting aspects of the human condition. 

Door three
A back door.

3 coats undercoat.

3 coats gloss.

Without doubt the Tour de Force of the series.

With this piece the Artist has explored the themes of pointlessness and repitition, and in doing so both exposes and highlights the mundanity of modern existence.

 The increased level of workmanship and attention to detail is dynamically juxtaposed by the pieces challenging location. The artist's own exploration of this paradigm lead to the following statement.

"It's the fact that it seems almost completely pointless that makes me feel like it's important."

Bumping my Bumper

So I'm sat at the lights and as red becomes green I start to pull off.

but literally just before the biting point bit it's point I hear the slam and feel the shudder.

"what the fuck was that? did I just crash into someone?"

Turns out No, someone crashed into me.

introducing this little fella.

As you no doubt can see this didn't look like the first time he'd had a head on collision recently.

I particularly like the fact that the front half of his car is held together by sello-tape, hope and the dents of previous crashes.

So I'm like, "Mate! yu just fucking crashed into meh"

He's like, (Nodding) "Yes crashed"

I'm like "didn't you see me?"

He's like "The light was green."

I'm like, "Mate! was my car in the road?"

He's like, "yes"

I'm like, "So what are you doing?"

He shrugged.

I'm like "Have you got insurace mate, gimmy yu details etc."

he fumbled a partial explaination about not having it here or someone else having it somewhere else.

I said about the front of his car looking like he does this all the time. 

He's like, (nodding)"Yes all the time."

I'm like, "show me some I.D mate I'm reporting this to the police,"

he showed me this.

Now you might want to take a minute to look at both pictures.

Yeah you're right, it's not the same guy.

I'm like, "I need something with an address fella, yu got ownt else?"

He shruggs.

I'm like, "Mate! if I call the police you could lose you licence."

he's like, "I won't, I have not got a licence."

I'm like, "you've not got a licence,"

He's like, (nodding and smiling) "No, no licence."

I'm like, "look mate gimmy fifty quid and fuck off yeah."

After standing in the road for about another 5 minutes of haggling 

we settled on £30.

He payed up and we both fucked off.

teenage girls.

My cousins are at my house at the minute.

Eski and Ruth.

13 and 14.

I said I was gunna put um on my Blog.

Ruth said that's not how you spell Gunner. (and apparently that way was even wronger).

I said do some cool things and I'll blog it.

I don't want to document my cool things cos they just happen.

you don't no one sees them happen

yes the do my real friends
like Rosey and Felix and Martha and Dryer(?) and Alice has x box.

you've just been documented.

and you spelt all their names wrong and actually get rid of martha because i don't have any fun times with her anyway, rep[lace her with Georgia. 

why are you writing this.
what is the point in writing that down.

Can't put a proper picture of them because my uncle says it's not appropriate. I agree.

That's their left hands.

King of summer

Dunno if you know this or not but last year I was the official king of the UK Summer.

True.

I've been planning my festivals for this year recently. Working out which ones I want to go to and where/if I might want to perform at any.

So far it looks like going to 5 performing at 2. Good ratio I think.

Anyway, it got me thinking about this thing I almost wrote last year about

sex at festivals. 

See I didn't have a blog then so I'm gunna put it up here, now.

Yu know it all seams very romantic,
You meet a girl at a festival, 

Everything seems magical,
Yu feel like you’ve really connected,
You take her back to your tent, or you go back to hers,
Smoke a spliff together, or drink a little whisky or something,
You both get in your sleeping bag,
And just start exploring and discovering each other,
Yu know just mutually experiencing and sharing in this perfect festival moment of loveliness,
It’s a beautiful, romantic, idea,
Beautiful,

The idea that is,
But then when it comes down to the actual reality of it,
And its about 5 o clock in the morning, the sun’s already come up and now it’s really pressing against the outside of yu tent, turning the inside into some kind of stinking, humid, sweat-ridden, claustrophobic, slow boiling, canvass oven,

When yu find yuself slumped across the back half of a girl you never really found that attractive, 

a girl who's been becoming steadily less attractive in the last sort of twenty minutes,
And yu repeatedly bashing your hips into her hips as you struggle unsuccessfully to thumb a semi-flaccid, festival-weathered penis into a well-used yet surprisingly arid and unyielding vagina,

And as yu gasping for breath, and the mucus your sweating falls from your face into the small off her back and the nylon of the tents clammy innards cling to your weary shoulders,
And as yu look down at the business end it becomes obvious that there is no way your gunna be able to push your increasingly indifferent windsock of a penis into what now looks like a necklace of human ears and bacon fat,

And yu just trying to cough up enough saliva to be able to swallow even though you know it’s a lost cause, and the stink of piss and sweat and shit and cum and blood and earth and nylon and baby wipes and stale smoke and cock and feet and vagina catches the back of yu throat making yu retch and gag almost choking you on yu own dry tongue,

Yu just got to say tu yuself,

Ah god

This is awful.

Moggelin.

Yeah check this out I'm in someone else's blog.

House Of Billiam

Industry people

My half-cousin twice removed was saying yesterday how he wants to be an industry person.

I told him if there’s one kind of person I unequivocally hate then it’s fucking industry people. Dirty-nosed, pin-striped, fileofax-weilding, no-talent, art-raping idea thieves.

Make’s me want to start shitting into padded envelopes and posting them round to all the industry offices. Even though I know full well that they’ve got some volunteering cock-sucker of an art school graduate who’s sole purpose for existing is to make regular trips to Nero for skinny decafe what’s-the-fucking-point lattes and to spend around 3 hours a day filtering all the incoming mail so as to make sure all my envelopes were spotted before they reached their intended targets. Poor little wannabe fuck-job.

The way that I’d do it would be to drop my load on a sheet of A4 grease-proof paper, fold the paper in half secluding my secretion in the belly of the fold, then carefully stuff the folded paper into the envelope, seal it with gaffa-tape, and beat it flat with a table-tennis bat. 

This way when the package is opened and it’s contents tipped out onto the desk, 

the paper should unfold upon landing revealing a filthy, stinking, toothless, corn-ridden, Rorschach butterfly smiling back at him. 

A virtual mirror of an industry person’s heart.

"Looks like we got us a reader"

At one point last night I was in a room in the upstairs of an East end pub while a group of about 40 fairly cultured people chanted Rape at an 18 year old girl.

[Edit: She's contacted me on Face book, 

Turns out she's only 16].

Had a gig init,

I know what yu thinking, after last months fairly well publicized notoriously "Bad Gig" I bet some of you are surprised to see folk are still willing to book me. (To be honest this had been booked for ages and the new booking ain't exactly flooding in), 

but Berko's still on the circuit. 

Infact I'd like to take this opportunity to commend the bravery of the promoter, Jody Porter, who'd already booked me but choose not to sack me off. Even though I'm pretty sure he must have got a lot of negative pressure from the promoters guild, (I feel reasonably confident in asserting that there must be some kind of guild/co-op of promoters who meet on regular occasions to discuss my blog, it's just like the coalition of psychoanalysts who meet to discuss the validity of my deluded assertions).  

Anyway, Nice one Jody. 

14 hour at the griffin

Shorditch London

right this one was a bit different to the kind of gigs I normally do,

This time I was asked to read, Yeah "Read" not just talk like what I normally do.

tell yu the truth,

I'm not much of a reader.

But the idea of it made me nervous and excited in the kind of way that teenagers get right before their first sexual experience.

Yu know the feeling of really wanting to do it but not completely understanding the mechanics of it. Hoping to think that I'd probably be good at this but at the same time not completely sure that I'd know how to do it right.

Right, I was the headline which meant that I got to watch a couple of actual readers doing there thing before I came along to lower the tone,

One of these readers was a girl called Ash.

She did a few things, some were about relationships/sex etc.

One of her poems included a list of things that were better than sex and she pointed into the audience for us to shout out our own suggestions.

I shouted Vagina and it sort of through her off, but to be honest she opened that can of beans when she pointed her finger at ol' Berxy.

Anyway, it was this girl Ash that they were chanting at,

she offered us a choice for her last poem. It was either one about a girl who got raped or one about her ex I think.

it took literally seconds for the "Rape" chant to start.

In the end I found myself standing up in front of the girl calling for the crowd to back down, 

Shit was like the Colosseum,

In retrospect I imagine after the whole vagina thing, the sight of me lumbering towards her as an excited crowd incessantly chanted "Rape, Rape, Rape, Rape," might have been a bit daunting, I'd like to hope the memory should at least stay with her for a couple of days.

I was on next, here's how I opened my part of the show.

thanks to Inua for filming.

I actually read some sections of this blog and an edited version of the first 3 chapters of DogMan.

If your interested in DogMan you can read it all if yu like. Here it is.

All in all it seemed that everyone in the room was into what I was doing, 

everyone, the crowd, the promoter, even me.

I think this might be the beginning of a new style of gig for me. Berkavitch the Reader. Crazy.

Oh and in case all you people were wondering. No I didn't get paid. But I didn't want paying, it had been arranged. Basically it's a free entry night run by good people who do it for the love of what they do. 

Yeah they actually love it.

Thing is I love it to yu see, and it's all about supporting the events that support the people who do what we all love.

Berko out.

"for many years in the future I will be fascinated by time travel",

this blog for example, exists in multiple times,

right now it is only 2 lines long and only exists as an idea from the past about the future being brought into existence now. In the present.

When I wrote that in the past it was true but right now in the present as your reading this then that might seem confusing, if you ever read this passage again in the future it'll probably make more sense,

OK

In the past when I thought about writing this my plan was to read it out in front of a crowd in a room in London, In the present this is still my plan. 

In the future I have achieved this, in fact that's happening right now, In this room with these people,

I am filming it here in the present, I plan to put the video on youtube in the future, when I do it'll appear in the past as if it was always there, 

See 

If you where in the video of the past and it looks like I don't know you, that's because I haven't met you yet, I'm gunna do that now.

"hello,

what's your name,

good to meet you"

see perhaps time is an unchangeable constant and all our destinies are predetermined,

or maybe I'm just talking shit, there is no video, I never read this out, we never met, the future is undetermined and the past was written earlyer today.

Who watches what I'm watching?

you know what this is.

It's Berko's occasional foray into telling yu about things to watch,

I'm gunna build it in though.

check it out

I've been doing a lot of youth projects of late, (I figured I should try and give something back to da yute dem).

On one project I had a 14 year old girl called Sophie tell me,

"Yu know what yeah? If you got a decent hair cut, had a shave and got some nice clothes then you might be alright yu know, not alright to fancy like, but alright as a mate."

I told her if she was about 10 years older and didn't have a mouth like an arse then she might be alright an all,

anyway on a different project I'm working with a graphic novelist called Al Davison a.k.a. the Astral Gypsy.
Al is one of the most inspirational people I have ever met so check him out.
Al has made me want to develop moments from my life into comic form, so I've been drawing a lot on the last few weeks.
He made his own life story into a graphic novel called The Spiral Cage
and the forward is written by Alan Moore.
Yeah Alan Moore........ who wrote Watchmen. (Bang d'yu see how I linked it).
So anyway I've just finished watching the Watchmen motion comics, (torrent link)
It's the graphic novel set in motion, It's like a cartoon but it's not a cartoon. Feels like a film because of the angles yu get me.
I'm saying it's probably one of the best things I've ever seen. And I fucking mean that.

This is an edited version with Alan Moore reading the duologue

I really like the character Rorschach,
The one with the mask that changes to different "blot-test" patterns.
Down load the torrent and watch it eh.
Anyway the films out now init.
I'm actually gunna go the the cinema.
yeah not downloading. can you imagine?
We're going in a group of us, bout 10 I reckon, and we've been talking about taking masks so we can fight some crime on the way home.
I've been a vigilante once before and it was one of the best moments of my life.
Tell yu about it next time.

here's a Rorschach test yu can do yourself, write down what you think each blot looks like and email it to me.