Watching the empire coming apart at the seams with a front row seat for the Apocalypse. New years eve on Hollywood Blvd, USA. 2011. The human race, I fear, has finally degenerated into a state of pure unrestrained savagery, hate and mental retardation. All hope is gone as I wade across this river of drunken […]
read moreVeracruz, Mexico — 1974 Before starting on Pepe’s new tattoo, we decided to go to the bar downstairs for a couple of cold caguamas to bring back to the room. The place was a typical low-end Mexican dive filled with babbling drunks, alcoholic port workers, street hustlers, trinket vendors, beggars and car washers with their […]
read moreChristmas carols make me want to vomit and take a month-long dump. The streets of Hollywood are artfully decorated for the season with red-devilish shapes and surreal contours, pulsing jingle bell sounds and gaudy colors, all come to life on a pre-Christmas night behind the drab industrial facade of nowhere. Signs of the holidays are […]
read moreStill life: Razor blade and a book of matches atop a pile of white sheets of paper… does every eye see it the same? Tired old rush, tied off, tucked in and sucked away. Drop by drop. Away. Dried blood spots on the wall here, unique Christmas decoration, jazz writing, surreal hieroglyphics, no gimmicks. The […]
read more“As I descended into impassible rivers I no longer felt guided by the ferrymen…” — Arthur Rimbaud “A few days later,” Cigano reads, “I sold off the swag I’d taken from the Gringos. Impulsively, I walked down to the port and bought a ticket on one of the dirty-white riverboats. Before I knew it, I […]
read moreIt’s been really weird and kinda wonderful lately. I’ve been getting deeper and deeper into my ongoing memoir, Scab-Vendor — Confessions of a Tattoo Artist. Since I started writing this book about my life and my past, particularly since writing about my ultra-strange, violent and abusive childhood, a staggeringly synchronistic procession of people from the […]
read moreClick here to view the feature: Night In The Zone by Jonathan Shaw Click here to get a copy and visit their website: OBSOLETE Magazine
read moreDeep under the still waters of a sick hangover morning, I saw the yellow eyes behind a mask of my Mother. The ancient eyes of an entity who hallucinated this game of life we play and she sat as still as a sphinx in a desert of nothingness, a place as quiet as the grave. […]
read moreOk, now for a little slapstic comic relief, Scabvendor style. You’re not gonna believe this shit: I finally gotta laugh to keep from cryin’ –crossing Houston St. on my way from my arraignment at the courthouse today, I got run over by a truck on my fucking motorcycle. Now I’m in the hospital with a […]
read moreInternet radio show with Larry ”Ratso” Sloman: Jonathan Shaw reading from a new book in progress Wednesday night at KGB Bar in New York City. If you don’t wanna listen to the whole show, JS reading begins at 48:00 min. Click here to listen
read moreWoke up out of a surreal slumber, my head covered in sweat, resting like an inanimate thing on the flesh pillow of some sleeping whore’s meaty thigh. As she slept on, I looked around the dark little cubicle, suddenly feeling a bit surprised to find myself there curled up beside her like a cat seeking […]
read moreFirst light. 6am sitting in the back if the Music Express limo riding out of Kennedy Airport, fresh off the plane from Buenos Aires. Pink cloud whisps in the first faint blue sky of a Monday morning rush hour are my first impressions as I arrive in NYC after all these months and years. And […]
read moreArgentine society and social philosophy seems to be typified and defined by all sorts of small details one sees all day long on the streets of Buenos Aires. Like the way people cut you off in traffic, then slow down just for the fuck of it, or the insanely egotistical habit people here have of […]
read moreI was in Sao Paulo on business. I’d just sold an eighteen page cover story to Trip Magazine, the pulse of Brazilian pop culture. I’d just gotten paid, so I’d called my cousin Theo who lived in Sao Paulo to join me for a night on the town before going back to Rio. The night […]
read moreSitting outside the first whorehouse in Vila Mimosa. The same place, I remember, where Samanta used to work, where I first saw her standing out front one distant summer night and couldn’t believe such an exquisite creature was possible; when she was still young and bratty and sassy and full of insane young sex attraction, […]
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