man lonely emotion alone dormant break 750x410 - The Pain

The Pain

My empty eyes look towards the heavens. The sky, foreboding and forlorn. Hanging there like a proscenium in ruin, spotted with dark clouds looking like so many bits of cracked plaster waiting to peel back and fall down upon my skull.

A cold wind blows from the east, ushering in the night, which spreads across the land like a blanket of impenetrable ebony. A velveteen wraith spreading its bony limbs to all four corners of the heavens, as if to reach out with its decaying hands to rip asunder the curtain of protective daylight revealing the nocturnal void of darkness that lays just behind.

Like the ashes of the Phoenix yet to be reborn, black as pitch hiding the world in a depressing neverland of darkness, where all manner of beast come to satiate their desires, both sublime and gross.

Even the silvery light from the moon is obscured by the gathering cumulation of vaporous water in the firmament of infinity. My heart beats slow and ponderous, echoing in my ears, the only break from the deathly still silence permeating the landscape like an icy funeral shroud. The beating of the heart continues, almost mockingly, a bitter reminder that my wretched existence continues unabated. How I wish it would burst forth from its prison of flesh, blood, and bone, to fall upon the ground and ebb profusely its crimson liquid of life, ending my miserable existence on this pitiless ball of rock.

All the colors of love and companionship fade to an obsidian haze. The endless empty pit of my soul reverberates with disdain. The ages pass and nibble at my flesh like so many demons, withering away my youth until I am a decrepit and frail reflection of happier times.

copyright © 2016 Gene Chiovari

Mars atmosphere 2 750x410 - Life On Mars

Life On Mars

Okay, here’s another bizarre dream from last night: I was on Mars, and it was like the wild west with a Western town and Cowboys, except they were all riding mechanical horses that looked very steampunk like. The horses could talk, except they all had personalities that were very childlike, and they all sounded like the robots from the cartoon ghost in the Shell.

The cowboys did not herd cattle but instead herded a strain living tumbleweed. And the main crop that sustained all of the settlers was Martian kelp. But unlike earth kelp, The Martian version grew in the sand. But it was dangerous to grow the crop because the kelp had tendrils that would occasionally creep out and grab people and kill them.


However, Mars was very gay-friendly.

copyright 2016 Gene Chiovari

32b50d 2092 750x410 - Remain Human

Remain Human

“There are things we must do, essential needs that must be fulfilled if we are to all remain human. Be it prancing around the house in a purple glittered tutu to the song ‘Music Box Dancer’, or demanding your God-given right to be taken down to funky town!  Do not believe them when they tell you you must put the lime in the coconut to be able to shake it all up. Grab the Minotaur by the gonads and shout to the world: “The video to ‘Take On Me’ is far better than the actual song will ever be”. Do not let your humanity slip through your fingers! Rick Roll somebody this very instant!” — more practical philosophies for every day living from Mr. Gene Chiovari 

copyright © 2016 Gene Chiovari

demon

On Loan To Hell

So I had this dream last night that I was in hell. I was not dead, however. Apparently I was only on loan…

What happened, I guess is there was one particular fellow who is down there, and in life, he truly hated me and couldn’t stand me and just the sight of me drove him crazy. So his punishment was he had to spend eternity with me. It turns out that there are a lot of people in hell who have a deep hatred for another human being and that their punishment is that they have to spend the rest of existence with the human being they hate the most.

There is one particular demon down there whose job it is is to assume the identity of the people that these other people hate, and torment them. But apparently that demon called in sick and they needed a replacement. So they got the real deal, me. They said if I do it it counts as brownie points towards getting into heaven as I have fulfilled a supernatural duty but I am not required to take the task. So I said yes.

I had a really great time. They made sure I was never hot and they gave me awesome hard lemonade with little umbrellas in the glasses. And every so often there were smoke breaks and I got to go into the employee lunchroom and it was really fascinating to hear some of the water cooler conversations with the other demons and the staggering amount of job dissatisfaction there was in the underworld. One particular Damon was complaining about having to do this sort of thing for all of existence and how much she hated having to torment people down here and also having to fuck with people up above in the real world because it was really taking out time from her golf game. But the only bright side that she could find was everyone she had to torment was a complete douchebag and totally deserved it.

I was down there for about three days tormenting this guy, and I met a lot of people that I did not expect to have ended up in hell, and there were several people that I thought for sure would be in hell but apparently they went to heaven. After the three days, the other demon was feeling well enough to come back to work.

They gave me a tour and I got to see all behind the scenes of what goes on. I got to visit the main office. There were a lot of humans in the office block and I was amazed because they seem to have all really nice cushy jobs and were enjoying themselves. I asked one of the demons about that. Apparently what God thinks is bad enough to send you to hell, and what the devil thinks is bad enough to send you to hell are two very different things. It seems that there are some minor infractions that God frowns upon but the devil considers tiny, petty and really not worth their time torturing you over when they literally had bigger fish to fry. So all of these people got a cushy office or personal assistant jobs.

Before they sent me on my way I was given a get out of the limbo free card. They said they really appreciated the help and if I ever fuck up in life and end up in hell, I would get a personal assistant job on a field assignment working for the possessions department.

copyright 2016 Gene Chiovari

gay weasle 2 tinified 750x307 - The 4th Of July Dream (or Gay Weasels for Uncle Sam)

The 4th Of July Dream (or Gay Weasels for Uncle Sam)

The dream went down like this:
It was the 4th of July Gay Weasels for Uncle Sam Parade, I was the only human there, and for some reason, there was also a real live teddy bear. It wasn’t much of a parade as all the weasels only had one float, but they had a cannon on it that shot red white and blue glitter into the crowd.

Let me tell you, seeing go-go dancing weasels is really strange. The float just kept going back-and-forth, up-and-down the street for about 20 minutes while they played lots of Donna Summer disco.

There was also a group in the crowd calling themselves ‘Gay Ferrets For Sailors’, and they were all dressed in Sailor Moon outfits.
It then started to rain, and the parade disbanded, and they all went into their underground hovels except for me because I couldn’t fit. So I was just standing out in the rain, but it was a warm rain so I did no mind.


And then suddenly for no reason, I was at Mount Rushmore where there was a heated political debate on whether they should take down the president’s faces and replace them with American Indians. And then somebody started to politicize the term ‘American Indian’ and said we should be calling them ‘Native Americans’. Then somebody else said that was politically incorrect and that should be called ‘Indigenous Occupants’. It was at that point that I walked away from the conversation and for some reason, the Grand Canyon was only a couple hundred feet for Mount Rushmore, so I took in the view.


Then I heard music playing, and it was Shirley Temple singing ‘On The Good Ship Lollipop’ while two people in business suits showed up and started to do calculations on exactly how many ping-pong balls it would take to fill the Grand Canyon. One of them was on a cell phone trying to convince an investor that it would be an economically viable thing to do. I told them they were bonkers, and one of them turned to me and said: “You call us bonkers? You’re the one who had a dream about gay weasels in a parade”, and then I woke up.


copyright 2016

lonely

The Sadness

  A coyote howled to the moon in an empty desert, crying out proof of his existence. 

“I am here, I exist!”

  But the desert is empty and unforgiving, and no one is there to hear the cries. 

 “I am here! I exist! Find me.”

  The howel, a lonely painful wail rolling out across the cold desert, only the wind and the sand and the nothingness hear the cry, and they do not respond. 

 “I am here! I exist! Love me.”

  The sound of the howl, wavering and Unsure, like some wayward string instrument on the verge of becoming out of tune. 

 “I am here! I exist! I know not what I look for, but I know I must find it. I exist, I exist.”

  Even the Moon turns his back on the coyote, hiding behind a lone cloud in the sky, the silvery glow now defused, obscuring further the vision of the path to be taken. Still, quiet, no sound except for the breaking heart expressed through the howl. 

 “I exist! I matter! To someone, somewhere… Maybe….”

  The only response this time is the desert wind which briefly picks up speed, lifting sand up into the air and throwing it wildly about, like an expressive dance, a dervish, somehow paralleling the emptiness and the pain in the coyotes outcry. 

  For brief moment the coyote and the dervish meet, sending sand stinging at the skin like tiny little pinpricks and stinging at the eyes, blurring a vision that the coyote already did not trust to see clearly. 

“I exist! But do I matter? Is there no one to hear me, is there no one to share my existence?”

  The wind and the dervish have died down, leaving the coyote alone once again not even the pain and irritation of the small sandstorm to keep him company. The cloud has moved and the moon shines once again, this time it seems almost mocking. 

“Am I here? Do I exist? Do I matter, to somebody… Somewhere….”

  The coyote cried out once again, but this time even the sound of his own howl could not convince him of the validity of his existence, Could not convince him he was real, therefore he could not be convinced that he really mattered anymore to anybody, anywhere…. 

“Why am I here! How can I exist? Why am I not real?”

  He looked out across the endless expanse of the desert, lit only by the moonlight. Looked out in every direction, and still no one was there, no one heard, no one was coming. 

 “I am not here, I do not exist, I do not matter, to anybody… Anywhere…”

  And the coyote stop howling, stopped crying out, stopped trying to convince himself that he mattered, and stopped looking for what he knew not, but knew he must find. His soul laid bare and open for anyone to see, if only there was somebody there to see it. To see it’s emptiness, and it’s longing to be filled, it’s unquenchable thirst, it’s need to be loved, it’s need to matter, to somebody, somewhere… it’s need to exist for more than just the sake of existence itself.

  Alone, in the emptiness, in the unforgiving silence of the cool desert night, the coyote never made another sound again and eventually cease to exist. 

And no one ever knew. 

copyright 2016, Gene Chiovari

prisoner small 750x307 - The Prisoner: I am not a number. I am a free man!

The Prisoner: I am not a number. I am a free man!

The Prisoner

The original 1960s television show ‘The Prisoner‘ may be broken down into three basic stages. 

Stage one: ‘What The hell is going on in this madhouse. F**k you guys!‘.  

Stage two: ‘Alright, I will play your game, sort of. By the way, f**k you guys!‘.  

Stage Three: ‘Screw this crap, you’re playing my game now! P.S. F**k you you f**king f**ks!‘.

— another in depth analysis by Mr. Gene Chiovari

© Gene Chiovari 2017

(you can check out this show here)

Fractal Art On Display At Martini Room

My fractal art is no longer on display at the Martini Room. It had a good long run though.

What was supposed to be a three month run starting in December of 2018 and end in Feburary 2019 has lasted all the way to the end of July 2019. This has surprised me and made very very happy.

Thank you everyone who came to see the art over the past eight months! And thank you all who have purchased the art as well. (half the pieces sold!) And most of all thanks very much to the Martini Room for giving me this chance to display and sell my artwork.

My fractal art work is still on display/for sale at the Martini Room in Elgin Illinois! It has been six months on display! Far longer than I expected. So if you like fractal art or great martinis, give them a visit. 161 East Chicago Street, Elgin Illinois, 1-847-741-0349.

martini room - Fractal Art On Display At Martini Room

New Site, New Home

Well, here I am. A new website, new blog, new art gallery and a new web server.

I have outgrown the previous hosting site, both in space and bandwidth. I was getting annoyed that my old site would shut down about the first week of every month due to bandwidth restrictions. (although this tells me that more people are looking at my stuff) This new hosting company claims unlimited everything, so we shall see.

The migration was not without incident as the previous site suffered a crash and the backup service did not do its job, so I am starting from scratch!