Artist of the Week
Jon McCurley
By Amy Lam
Posted September 4th, 2007.
In Jon McCurley's words: "Life of a Craph ead is all the projects we [Amy Lam and I] do together. We've made stuff like a free lunch where we ordered everything on the menu at a Chinese restaurant all at once, or we made rumble strips into Yonge by the Future Shop to make a musical road you drive over, we've made a bed sitting on a sofa, stuff like that. We also have a traveling store where we sell things like moose perfume and laser beam glasses you wear when your mad, or laughter treated wood, or jeans with the crotch blow out. We performed Dune (memorized), we made a cake look in a mirror. We made a man-made hill in a park once, we barbequed a box of waffles. It makes more sense then I've made it seem though. We've done art shows and events and comedy shows and have a store we set up sometimes."
MONDO: What is your dream Craphead project, if we had all the money and time?
Jon McCurley: Am I talking to you or to nobody? The dream would be to do something impossible like make everyone go "Duh." Or something. Infinite money and time, then... who even cares! Anyone would just have earth duplicated, and have the moon flash in S.O.S.
What is more exciting and interesting is could a person, living in a dumpy smelly house with no working electronics, and the cabinet in the ceiling falling off because shower water drips on the kitchen underneath, and -$1000, and a broken sink that I have to dump a bucket out every day with a cat who's pregnant again, and mice, moths, fleas, bugs that look like flax seeds, and all this bad stuff: e.g. nobody here has a proper mirror, and the lady at the laundry mat yells at me so much, and I was doored and my bike broke, so I got a helmet I found in the garbage, and I looked into the mirror of a car to put it on and the lady who owned the car yelled don't look in my fucking car! Can someone who lives like this — it's too hot and stuff — do something that makes everyone excited and feel free and not think this crap living means they too are crap. If you could do anything you want with no money and no time, then none of these hardships matter. You could live in a sewer hole and it would be ok.
MONDO: What do you think you can't do? There's no way you could do _______. You are not allowed to say "Nothing!!" You have to name something.
JM: There are a thousand things I can't do. We live a life in fear. I went to the Star Bank with no shirt on because I was afraid I follow crazy rules, and when I was there I was afraid of my body being seen by the people so I'd look to the magazines. And then I was afraid I couldn't look them in the eyes with no clothes on so I stared into the ladies eye, then I was afraid there was no point in doing any of this I should go home and read wikipedia. So at home I did that and thought there is no direction to this! What kind of a way of living is this! Right now I'm afraid I'm writing like a crazy person. Fear, fear, fear, fear!
MONDO: Do you think we should learn some new skills? Do you think I should drop out of school? Do I learn any new skills at school? What skills do you want to learn?
JM: Anything you need to know you already know. If you trust yourself you could do anything. For example, you may say, "oh I need to learn flash animation! Because it will get me here and here and talk on this level to these people maybe I could become world class at it and make money!" Or you could think about it, and come up with some original way of doing the same thing and nobody would be able to tell you you're terrible and should not do it, because no one has ever done it before. I would like to learn how to do everything — plumbing, webpage, healthcare, everything everything.
MONDO: You're good at drawing. How come you don't try to frame and sell your drawings for hundreds or thousands of dollars instead of sitting around with me coming up with a hundred worthless ideas? You could even frame your drawings with hundred dollar bills or something.
MONDO: Do you believe in God?
JM: I know a woman in Mexico who had stomach cancer and was going to die in 2 weeks and she prayed and then the cancer vanished and now she runs a church that saves people's lives. That lady believes in God. Where we are, in Canada, religion is at best a hobby or something.
But once when I was 21 and a garbage man, and I was really unhappy, and it was 8 am and I was in a 7 foot deep, 25 foot long dumpster, full of bar waste which was all chicken wings and red cups, behind a strip club called Silvers or something in Oshawa, and it was a huge strip club. And it was a thunderstorm. And I had to shovel all the chicken wings out of this dumpster into another dumpster with a shovel, and it was so slippery that I could get only 1 chicken wing out with every scoop. And I was IN the dumpster surrounded by chicken wings. And white napkins. I was so unhappy because I just dropped out of school and here I was in a dumpster in the rain, and things were bleak. And then I felt the comforting presence of some unexplainable hope. But that's it. That's it.