Professional Documents
Culture Documents
NO. 392.2
wild what we’re up to
THESE DAMN DAYS
05.2020
riOt BreaD
NO. 392.2
wild what we’re up to
THESE DAMN DAYS
05.2020
wild what we’re up to
THESE DAMN DAYS
Issue Number 392.2
May 2020
words & images by R.J. Armstrong
2020 by R.J. Armstrong
riotbread.com
model & actress Britt Renee
brittrenee.co
words by Violet Vela
2020 by Violet Vela
violetvela.com
a RI0T BReAD production
We are generally engaged by shifting light
Riot Bread is a philosophy based on madness & discipline.
Riot Bread is a madness based on philosophy & discipline.
Riot Bread is a discipline based on madness & philosophy.
Riot Bread is a philosophy based on discipline & madness.
Riot Bread is a madness based on discipline & philosophy.
Riot Bread is a discipline based on philosophy & madness.
Philosophy is the art of concept creation.
Philosophy is the concept of art creation.
Art is the philosophy of concept creation.
Art is the concept of philosophy creation.
Concept creation is the philosophy of art.
Concept creation is the art of philosophy.
Britt Renee/Skyspace/Silkscreen
Strange friend. Some may say “go get a friend” (this very friend)
Always forgetting you’re there but how can one say such?
because breath is forgettable When you are already there, a constant
until it stops. conversation
with consciousness, until
Strange, exciting, terrifying friend. all senses nod in agreement that
Lots of spaces to fill with you, the body is done?
that build complete cities
of memory in misshapen rises of gold, As long as the heart is pumping bursts of dark red
as if we asked to tell our stories within limits. stories
Sparkling with energy. throughout every single reach of the body,
as long as the mind is not conclusively quiet,
Strange, wondrous, boring friend. you are always there,
Curiosity draws you to your opposite good and bad and all possibilities that
and loss of you is a connection cultivate between.
to remember where we are now.
Strange, beautiful friend.
Strange, joyous, hungry, painful friend. Because of you, we’re not alone.
Your surprises arrive in all colors,
a spectrum divine and always ready.
Your arrival in new faces- new reasons grand and
humble:
it suffices the formula
to fall in love with you
again and again.
“Dear Life,”
Violet Vela
How I learned Printmaking California and bolt to a cheap motel in the Mojave
for a couple of days, to smoke cigarettes and catch
my breath.
Having settled my nerves and made certain that I
am alone, I hit the highway east. I try to avoid being
seen by sticking to the packs of cars and rigs that
bunch together on interstate travel. Those groups
are also on the slower side of the speed limit and I
am totally not interested in allowing this trip to take
any longer than necessary so I stick with the pack
until I feel safe or impatient, then bust out and race
to the next group.
I have a couple of cities in mind as large enough to
be a safe place to stay but the adrenaline is getting
to me, and I am feeling super in-tune to the rhythm
of the road, so I don’t stop any longer than it takes
to fill the tank and grab a cup of cheap black coffee.
An hour before midnight I finally catch a speeding
ticket. 92 in an 85. She wasn’t even out clocking
story best read while listening to the song cars, just happened to be the car behind me leaving
Talk Show Host by Radiohead the gas station. Getting sloppy, I should probably
sleep now. I keep moving because I am a damn
I take what I can before the sun goes down. Of fool, but I know that already.
course I focus on my art. Paintings, sculpture,
sketches, and photographs crowd the ‘86 Volvo Just a few hours into that dark space between
station wagon from the tail right up to the driver’s Arizona & New Mexico, all the other cars having
seat. Into the empty spaces I wedge brushes, fallen away with the moon and the rigs having run
cameras, pencils, tubes of paint, heavy tools. All the off with the coyotes, a dusty dime-shuffle car
rest of my life I fit into a backpack that I throw on speeds up from behind with its fucking lights off. I
the passenger seat, with a bottle of water and a don’t even know how I see it coming among the
book of poetry. I hit the fast lane out of Southern vast field of stars.
me float away until they are almost out of my rear
Now, not that I thought even for a moment that I view.
would make it out easy. Maybe that’s how I see it
coming, so yeah, what else is there to do? Hit the Now, here they are again, figure they must be
fucking gas already but like I said this is an ‘86 hitting 120 jetting by like a slick bad dream. When
Volvo station wagon. She’s a real beauty. Solid. they are just about out of sight, they fall in front and
Gold paint and turbo. Never let me down. Never slow down until I am a few car lengths behind,
won a race on speed either. The shuddering dark keeping pace for some time. Then, they bounce off
horse glides into the lane next to me and keeps into the left lane, slow down, and pull into my lane
pace. I can see it better now, it’s one of those early a few car lengths back. Half an hour passes, they
‘90’s Mustang GT’s, all shabby rust and loose hop back into the left lane and take off until their
around the edges. We keep pace with one another tail lights disappear. When they are just about out
at like 90 for a while, side-by-side, my lights are on of sight, they slip into my lane and slow down until I
and their lights are off. am a few car lengths behind, then keep pace. Time
passes, a frozen river.
After some time, they flip their lights on, slow down,
pull into my lane a few car lengths back. Half an I think it’s almost 4, I don’t even know but I wake up
hour passes, they jump into the left lane and take real quick when the car hits me from behind, tap
off until their tail lights disappear. When their tail tap, nudging me as we enter a narrow canyon. Then
lights just about blink out, they drop into my lane they are beside me, keeping pace, maybe I did fall
and slow down until I am a few car lengths behind, asleep. I try to look into the car but the tint is only
keep pace for another half hour. Then, they bounce peeling around the edges and the interior a flat
back into the left lane, slow down, and pull into my black mirror reflecting nothing more than fear. But
lane a few car lengths back. Half an hour passes, they don’t know me. I’m ready.
hop back into the left lane and take off until their
tail lights disappear. When they are just about out I let my car drift left, slowly, imperceptibly, like a
of sight, they drift into my lane and slow down until new moon’s shadow, to a point that the side mirror
I am a few car lengths behind, keep pace for begins to grate on the Mustang, nails on a dirty
another half hour. Jump back into the left lane, slow chalkboard. Then, hit the brakes so hard I have
down, pull into my lane a few car lengths back. paintings overhead and burnt rubber in my nose. I
Keep doing that until 3am, a lullaby, rocking me in find a quiet spot on the side of the road, smoke a
the cradle, lulling me to sleep as they swing back cigarette and wait. The canyon is draped in the
and forth, back and forth, back and forth. They let
folds of imperceptible shadows and bathed by the crash and spin off into the canyon walls or traffic
amber glow of highway lights. I can hear the finally appears in the oncoming lane so head-on
barking of coyotes in the distance, undercut by the collision or I don’t even know, damn.
low rumble of a freight train.
But it is much less dramatic than all of that, it is a
Nothing happens. I eat a sandwich, find nothing on detour sign. Highway closed. Flashing lights. Our
the radio. cars relent and separate. Follow the detour signs
off the highway and onto a two-lane road. Suddenly
Nothing happens so I smoke a cigarette and wait. there are hundreds of cars, all in a line, going both
ways through a poorly lit desert town, shepherded
Get back in the car and start driving through the by detour signs. I think it is snowing. I might be in
canyon. Just a few minutes in, a dusty dime-shuffle Albuquerque. I don’t really remember the other car
car comes speeding up from behind with its fucking even disappearing, all I know is that by the time the
lights off. I don’t even know how I see it coming sun is rising and I see Santa Rosa, I check into the
among the vast field of stars. So, yeah, I see it first cheap motel I find and fall asleep until the sun
coming. I see it with it’s fucking lights off and I know goes down, damn.
I have not made it out easy when it slams full speed
into the back of my ‘86 Volvo station wagon. She is When I check out and take off, the Mustang pulls
a real beauty. Solid. Turbo. Gold. Never lets me out from the motel parking lot behind me.
down.
The traffic is heavier, maybe it’s the weekend now. I
The hit hurts them worse. I mean, damn, this car is take it slower and stick to packs of vehicles,
full of heavy duty art, all wood, wax, marble and maneuvering between rigs and traffic, always with
steel, even a bronze. The Mustang wobbles up the Mustang in the corner of my eye. Every once in
beside me, front bumper flapping in the wind. I can a while it gets a little dicey as a pack dissipates so I
see their passenger window start to descend but I use these opportunities to exit and fuel up or get a
don’t wait to discover their intention and use the cup of coffee. I don’t know where the Mustang goes
confidence of my golden Volvo to pull slightly when I am at a gas station but they pull in behind
ahead and drift left fast until our bodies collide. The me as soon as I get back on the ramp to the
weight of my art and the solidity of the car suggests highway.
their body into the opposing lane, the sound of
grating metal super intense, my teeth gritted and I We arrive in Dallas right as day breaks and morning
am expecting something dramatic like we both rush hour begins. I am in my element now, a big city
boy, I know how to shimmy through traffic and I alley is draped in the folds of imperceptible
quickly get to work losing my shadow. I engage in a shadows and bathed by the amber glow of street
mean-spirited campaign of cutting off cars at the lights. I can hear the barking of stray dogs in the
last possible moment, drawing more than a few distance, undercut by the low rumble of a freight
horn blares and flipped fingers. An increasing train. Then they are in front of me and I try to look
amount of space grows between the Volvo and the into their eyes but their pupils are opaque and the
Mustang. I exit the highway downtown and utilize interior a flat black mirror reflecting nothing more
the grid of one way streets to lose them long than fear. But they don't know, I’m ready.
enough that I can turn unseen off of Pearl Street
and bury my car in the parking garage beneath the I am by no means the fastest dude stocking
Dallas Museum of Art. I hang out with Mondrian, groceries at night but I am quick. I keep my box
O’Keefe and Kahlo until closing then find an cutter in my back pocket and open several hundred
anonymous parking lot and sleep in my car. boxes a night with sharp, reflexive motions, not
even thinking. They are barely pulling a slim black
Keeping one eye over my shoulder, I move into a pistol from their waistband as I snag a box cutter
small studio apartment and get a job stocking from my back pocket and slice through the air
groceries on the night shift. I enroll in printmaking close enough to their belly that they step back
classes at Brookhaven College. I get pretty good at off-balance. Darting through the shadows between
woodcuts but lithographs are definitely my favorite. their body and the buildings, I sprint home.
When I am carving the wood, I feel like I am
working. When I am working with the lithograph I take what I can before the sun comes up. Of
stone I feel like I am making love. The rhythm of life course I focus on my art. Paintings, sculpture,
settles in, stop looking over my shoulder as often, sheathes of prints, sketches, and photographs
find a sweet girlfriend, go out for drinks with friends crowd the ‘86 Volvo station wagon from the tail
on Friday nights. right up to the driver’s seat. Into the empty spaces I
wedge brushes, cameras, pencils, tubes of paint,
Walking home half drunk one night, I think it’s heavy tools. All the rest of my life I fit into a
almost 4, I don’t even know but I wake up real backpack that I throw on the passenger seat, with a
quick when the dude hits me from behind, tap tap, I bottle of water and a book of poetry. I hit the fast
feel hot blood on the back of my neck as we fall lane out of Dallas and bolt to a cheap motel in
into the narrow canyon between two buildings. The Louisiana for a couple of days, to smoke cigarettes
and catch my breath.
Britt Renee/Skyspace II/Silkscreen
We think we know you
because we’ve seen your fingers inching around
the necks of our loves, We try to understand
seeing up close whom and what you’ve taken. but where you are-
we cannot stand at the same time;
We act like we know you a darkness is thick with unknown
(I hear you laughing) between us.
but did you ever realize that we are laughing
back at you? We play with risk as if knives and guns and cliffs
Painting pretty little jokes of you on sugar, were all friendly games,
parading you in costumes coated in the safety of knowing the shape of results
when trees have given up their crowns. (as soothing as the drag of a cigarette is, who
wouldn’t mind meeting you sooner?)
We seem to really want to know you,
but not. We think we know.
No, we don’t really want to know you And maybe.
(a sub-cultural dissonance bleeding through Maybe we do.
seas of art- it pulses so humanly) As you help us arrive full-circle.
We try to prepare (whatever it is we think we must)
before you arrive
although some rather you just
come and relieve a hopeless ache of
heavy-chained thoughts.
They confuse you with silence,
but I do not blame
because, I too, have tasted those sorrowful
confusions.
“Dear Death,”
Violet Vela
+ nada dada manifesto
Among flames, lucid and clear, troops arrive to
after three frenzied days of looting monotonous quell the looting and storm the museum grounds.
postmodern primitivism, we write a manifesto that There is the bouquet of a phantom in minutes.
begins to flourish in the heat of a heart of words, Though each thing has its word locked in a glass
dada. display case like irrefutable evidence, some
thousands of years old, words are tapestry
Revolution without beginning, having invented the fragments and can be smashed like ivory figurines.
greatest cultural nada on the basis of a supreme Everyone dances to our own personal world and
supernatural force. Government ministries and we are in them all, among the band of rioters.
agencies run aground as looters stuff their pockets
with obsolete futures. In this latest appearance of dada we are seeing
being destroyed in front of our eyes, the word itself
“All gone, all gone.” she said, “All gone in six days.” preserved for safekeeping, boomboom.
The actual point is infinity and in principle we are Boomboom soaked in gasoline, decomposition.
against manifestos, rifles, pistols, axes, knives, and
clothing, as well as emboldened soldiers, exquisite
brutes, borders and fences, beauty, gold, silver and Everything,
copper, gender roles, detention facilities, and
creative exploding devices. Accepting reality every shapeless invention,
means we must sweep and clean vowels and
consonants constantly while smashing typography ( boom boom . (
and ceramic rhymes to an ignominious end, ringing
with carried away by the rioters to the artists
z noisy noisy explosions, boomboom. who are waiting at the edge of perception,
always
Possessing profound gravity, several thousand of writing
the marauders organize prose into a new currency,
slipping along the line but never quite writing. Around
boom, boom
“Riot”
Violet Vela
RIOT BReAD is a philosophy based on madness and
discipline, articulated to explore dada, punk and
existential themes through postmodern art and
literature. We manufacture destruction of image
texts, dispose of lost memories, articulate manic
noise and pound the naked pavement.
RIOT BReAD is a discipline based upon madness
and philosophy. The actual point is infinity and in
principle we are against manifestos, rifles, pistols,
axes, knives, and clothing, as well as emboldened
soldiers, brutes, borders and fences, beauty, gold,
silver and copper, gender roles, detention facilities,
and creative exploding devices.
RIOT BReAD is a philosophy based on discipline
and madness. We want to paint a picture and sign
your name on the canvas. We want to give you our
art and have you paint it all black, with glitter. We
don't believe in the individual. We believe in you,
but i don't believe you or i exist outside of we. We
believe in evolving beyond an ideology of The
Individual aka y esterday's news. We believe that
our art of a future will not be signed by any one
hand. Or best yet not signed at all.
we only are
Best damn get oughta here and see what our art
imagines, without us.
"Every page must explodes, whether through
seriousness, profundity, turbulence, nausea, the
new, the eternal annihilating nonsense, enthusiasm
for principles, or the way it is printed. Art must be
unaesthetic in the extreme, useless and impossible
to justify."
-Francis Picabia
In this latest appearance of dada we are seeing
being destroyed in front of our eyes, the word
itself preserved for safekeeping,
-boomboom.
riotbread.com