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March 1, 2005
A Day In The Life Of.... David Choe
(click to enlarge)
As a slum lord once told me, real g's don't get up before noon, my whole life I've worked hard to get to a place In my life where I don't have to wake up before noon, and now I'm here and I love it, sleeping in is the best shit in the universe and I sleep in everyday!!!
1)When I wake up I'm usually not hungry because I usually eat a gigantic meal right before I go to sleep, so I take this huge cocktail of vitamins to help with my OCD, ADD , and clinical depression, with a cup of water and then take a huge shit down the hall with a newspaper.
2)The guy living at my loft, sleeping under my trampoline, is filmmaker harry kim, he made ashort ten minute movie about me two years ago ,and has been following it up with a full length feature, so he's been following me with that fucking camera the whole time, only thing is he has no funding and his parents don't like the fact that their son is spending his whole life making a movie about a guy that destroys the earths surface , my place is big , so he's here with me now, I introduce him to everyone as my documentater but he's always drunk, asleep , or dancing with girls ,so I spend more time documentating him these day . I keep telling him he hasn't earned the right to sleep in yet.
3) I fire up the playstation and play the best/worst thing in the universe, GRAND THEFT AUTO SAN ANDREAS nothing makes you more anti-social than this thing. I've had it since it came out and have yet to pass one mission. I start each day by killing at least 100 people I shoot them repeatedy in their genitals with an AK-47 even after they're already dead, when I was staying at my cousins house my 7 year old nephew walked in one me while I was doing this. It was not a good scene. But the true diamond in this game is the photographing option, as an illustrator I've sort of had to become a photographer by necessity for a lot of the shit I have to photo reference, but I would never call myself a photographer. But in this world I am the greatest photographer in the universe. I'll spend hours, days in this game trying to get the right shot, I'll picture it in my head and then spend hours trying to make it happen. I'll want it at a certain time of day with the light just right, like a burning wall of flame in front of me from
molotav cocktails, with a full moon in the background and at least two spotlights from 2 different helicopters, with dark shiloettes behind the wall of flame shooting at me, of shot's of people wile they are stabbing and shooting me in the face, where else can you do this?location has to be
perfect, sometimes I'll want a certain characrter in a certain shot so I'll punch him/her and have them chase me on foot all the way from l.a. to las vegas, or I won't have enough light so I'll steal 5 cars and place them strategically to get the lighting I want. My favorite photo is the jellyfish in the ocean ,but there was no good way to photograph underwater so it took me three days to figure this out, but I put the floating car cheat code in which makes the headlights point downwards and I parked it over the jellyfish illuminating them and I snapped the golden picture, another thing is after you murder your models for a shot you have a limited time before they dissapear, I figured out the only way to make them stay forever is to run them over with a car expertly so that they fly up and then land on top of the car if they land on top of the car they will stay on screen forever, once I do this I put the invisible car cheat code in and set up shots, here's a good one with some gangbangers shooting at my face while my model seems to be floating in front of them and what looks like gas escaping from her pussy ends up being smoke from my invisible car shooting up because I crashed it. it takes so much memory to save photo's I had to go to fry's and buy 4 more memory cards I have more than 200 amazing
photographs to date.
5)There's a knock on the door, it's joseph, I turn off the playstation , I didn't think I would be teaching until I was really old and have something to teach, but by fate ,god put joeseph in my life, joe is a special kid he's 15 years old doesn't say much, autistic, and one of the best painters I know, I've painted with a lot of people this year and no one paints faster than me than joe. This guy can paint anything from memory and comes up with the craziest comics, I'd actually have to say I don't teach him shit, I learn more just by watching him, all I do is set up the canvas and mix his paint, look at this noahs ark he did in like five seconds with every single animal in the world, check out how big those fucking deer are ,awesome! Class is two hours and only twice a week, besides joe I have no other responsibilities in my life. Party on!
4)It's starting to drizzle, I take a picture of this shedding tree outside, it reminds me of the artfag project I'm working on, my dandruff didn't go away after I got out of prison with head and shoulders and selsum blue and so like ally sheedy from the breakfast club I shake my flakes onto this black board with matte medium everyday, it's taking shape but after this year it's gonna be a snowstorm in the city you can kind of start to tell already.
6)Harrys finally up and he's getting hungry and it's 25 cent hotdog wednsday, so we chopup a full onion at my house cry a little and go down to the schnitz and have 4 mustard dogs each for 2 dollars, harry says it's on him since he's staying at my place, but oh no he left the house too fast
and left his wallet at home. Ok harry you get it next time.
7)Next on the wednsday ritual like any true comics nerd will tell you is it's new comics day. I've been buying less and less comics since I got out of jail but I still can't help it, all those dudes you went to high school with that could draw like mother fuckers that used to end up in comics . now they all work at pixar or video game companies. The only people left reading and making comics are people like me who grew up reading this shit, never stopped and now are making them all fucked up so only adults can read them. yes!!! But anyways it doesn't really matter where I'm at if I'm in new york I hit jim hanleys by the empire state building, when I'm in the yay yereo, comic relief, when I'm in la. Hideeho, goldenapple , or meltdown depending onwhere I'm staying at, and it's been that way since high school. Today I should have stayed home, I get there nothing good is out, but I end up getting the avengers because the guy that's writing it right now is killing off all these old school characters like scarlet witch and hawkeye and fanboys are getting pissed. I get home and read the avengers see a piece of artwork that I let warner brothers use for the inside liner notes of the jay-z linkin park album, and see that they went ahead and used it for an entire ad campaign, the next few hours I'm on the phone with
the worst people on the planet, l.a. entertainment lawyers , the only worse people are tobacco lawyers, I don't have the stomach for this verbal sparring I want to puke my hotdogs, I'm a fucking artist , these guys are professional put words in your mothers and word twisterer's . I need a fucking lawyer this is gonna be a long day, long month , year.
8) This is one of the gayest things ever, but right now there is a double rainbow outside but it makes me happy.The rest of the night will only get better.
9)Mylious the drummer for pink and guch the drummer for insolence stop by the studio and I give them a drawing I did of a drumset for their drumming dvd ,kidguch, how are they gonna pay me? They are both sponsored drummers so they said I can go down to lemmon percussion on the alameda and pick out any drumset that sonor makes, fuck yes, I wish everything in life worked out like this. I draw a drum set, I get a drum set, I draw a girl I get a girl I draw a fat burger I get a fatburger.never having to ever deal with money again would be a blessing.
10)I go down to the drum shop , they're closed but I salivate in front of the window of what I'll soon be getting,
11)I see that there's a drum clinic next door with Kenny aranoff, arguably one of the best studio and touring musicans ever has played with everyone from Jessica simpson to the smashing pumpkins and everyone in between , next door is my friend Johnny granado' 5 color cowboy
hair salon it's packed in and Kenny is in the middle of a half hour drum solo which destroyed my brain, it was sick as fuck. After the show we get to hang out in the back room, and Kenny tells me really entertainingly about his failed marriage and kids,he seems to have all the same problems as me , even though he's in his early 40's. fuuuuuuck I think to myself, I'm 28 now and I keep thinking by the time I'm 30 or 35 all this shit will start to make sense, I had the best girl in the world and I let her go because I'm a fucking idiot and my foolish pursuit to be the greatest artist in the world, and the guy tells me guys like you and me are not built that way, if you want to be the best at whatever it is you do, art , drumming, your gonna be a
shitty dad and husband, if you try to be both or try to find this imaginary balance that everyone keeps talking about , you're gonna fail and be miserable at the same time. Fucking greaaaat.
Do I want to be the best artist in the world, or do I want to be a cool boyfriend? It was totally unexpected to meet Kenny tonight.I end up driving past my ex-girlfriends house a few times with harry sitting shotgun saying I shouldn't , I didn't take any pictures because I want to
protect her address and I was too busy stalking.
12)It's about 11 pm now and we head over to steve caballero's house for art night. Steve has people over about once a week when he's in town for art night, he's one of the most unstoppable characters I've ever seen, a skate legend, but when not doing that, he's touring with his band the faction, doing motorcross , or painting and drawing it's like a train, get on or get off, steve has a kid too and got divorced last year, I tell him what Kenny told me, and he says back all the same things, shit is looking grim if I couldn't work shit out with mylan I don't think I'm ever gonna get married. Even though it's art night we end up just talking and playing ping pong, it's like a dude's version of a sewing circle.
It's past midnight , I missed loveline tonight, I got a lot to think about, I want to drive by andstalk my ex again and then crawl into bed and sleep forever, but there's lots more to do.
13)We stop at my cousin alex's and pick up some more blanket's for harry because it's cold at my place and I see one of the best things in the universe, my nephew Brandon is playing with cars and then all of a sudden just falls asleep on the stairs.
Next I have to drive out twenty minutes to palo alto to clean up a paint spill and a few touch up's on the mural I been working on for the facebook ,so I burn a disc real fast for late night painting . I have to take in consideration that I'm working late at night so I need music that soothes yet energizes and also the fact that I'll be alone allows me to add guilty pleasures that I'd otherwise be embarrassed as fuck if they walked in on me. But besides those few exceptions my musical taste is indestructible.Duff mckagan 10 years, rattatat 17 years, izzy stradlin pressure drop, ennio morricone (last song on the mssion soundtrack),robotech-boobytrap, Body count -there goes the neighborhood, DMX - party up in here, eazy -e real mutha fucking g's, esg -you make no sense, sick of it all -sanctuary, distillers-beat your heart out,tatu -all the things she said, mike watt and sonic youth-get into the groove, fatlip-whats up fatlip, boxer -georgia, ucla marching band drum squad vs. usc marching band drum squad, optimo -liquid liquid, aphex twin- alberto balsam,desparecidos-manana,john fruciante-murderers,temple of the dog- hunger strike, fugazi- provisional,pepe deluxe-indifference,concrete blonde- everybody knows, pixies -honey pie T.I.Rubberbandman-instrumental, sepultura and pavoratti- roots bloody roots, casino soundtrack -theme de Camille, guns n roses -you aint the first, Julie delpy -before sunrise soundtrack, RX Queen -deftones, blink 182 -the fallen interlude..
I grab the disc and leave my computer on to keep downloading porn and head out to palo alto.
I even have a special detective assigned to my case in palo alto to make sure I clean up my spill,
Heres an email from Phil
You are hereby notified that it has been determined that a painter,
> contracted by you to paint in your leased space at 471 Emerson Street, is
> responsible for the spilling of some white paint on the pavement in a
> parking space on the Emerson Street frontage of your building. The
> spilling of this material is a violation of Palo Alto Municipal Code
> Section 5.20.160.
>
> You are requested to provide the name, address and telephone number of the
> responsible painter. Code Enforcement will contact this individual and
> request a cleanup of this paint. Ultimately, if compliance is not
> achieved by this painter, you and your company will be responsible to
> clean up this paint. At that point, an Administrative Citation may be
> issued to you. This citation has a $250 fine associated with it and this fine is assessed daily.
The guy that hired me to paint thefacebook.com offices, is sean parker he's only 25 and was one of the founders of napster fucking brilliant guy. It takes me two and a half hours of back breaking work to clean up the spill,
14) I never thought I would ever in my life purchase a product called graffiti remover, but I did, and It works like a dream. Phil will be happy..
15)My head is fucking killing me from the fumes of paint thinner and graphitti remover I almost crash the mini van, my knuckles are bleeding and I really need to take a shower. I don't have a shower at my loft only a kitchen and public toilet, so I either go swimming at the condo' next door or go to 24 hour fitness and use the public showers for my hygene.
16)it's past three in the morning and the same guy has this shift every night yet he still asks to see my id every time. This part of my life is still identical to prison life, I shower every other day in a public bath with 5 to 10 other guys just like in Tokyo , but it's late tonight and it's only me, harry, and a fat Mexican dude , he had the nuts the size of spaldings I had to wait for him to finish scrubbing those things before I could take this picture.another problem is it's been a year since I got a chance to do any manscaping and without the privacy of my own shower I didn't get a chance to trim the pubes and their getting pretty long, will have to remind myself to pack scissors on my next trip.
We eat pancakes and mini burgers at the only place open this late in san jose, denny's and then we get home as the sun is about to come up .I feel like a monster right now . not like a scary one, though at one time I did, I'm more like a sad ghost or Korean vampire, how I ended up like this
I don't know. I'm like this art fag that only exists at night . it's been like this for awhile but it's gotten really bad this year.besides tonight, I never talk to anyone anymore, people that hang out around me always are wearing masks because I'm painting with toxic chemicals, I hardly leave my cave. I'm only awake when everyone else is sleeping, it seems quieter and like the world is less populated. I feel like I'm slipping between the cracks. I often wonder what would have happened to me if the whole art thing didn't work out for me. I've totally turned into this fat typical depressed neurotic self loathing art fag. But I can remember being hungry . I can remember the first time getting a rejection letter from a magazine getting rejected from a gallery . the anger and the fire that ,that rejection created inside me like I was fucking nothing, like I didn't matter. I was so angry then I wanted to destroy everything that made people feel safe, I wanted to terrorize America I wanted to throw the first rock and start a revolution , anarchy and riots all the way people would listen to me, but then I sold my first expensive painting and bought a car ,and everything changed. People like Hitler and charles manson real monsters, yet human, how did they become like this? Rejection, Hitler's paintings were
rejected everywhere, and mansons songwriting skills were laughed at. With all that hate and anger I funneled into my art, what kind of monster would I have been now, if not for success?
There is an Indian family living underneath me illegally in a place of business, I don't want to but I have to , especially after a day like this.
17)I drum my heart out, the loudest fucking drumbeat ever for about ten minutes till I drum myself to sleep. I beat off twice ,read two more comics and finally fall asleep at 8.
18) here's everything I've painted since January.
Check out David's website here
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