Whether We Like it or Not

Mathieu Laca, Bogeyman, 2011

Sometimes, I look at myself in the mirror and, to be really frank, I don’t find very exciting the face I see on the other side of the glass. A bit depressing! I tend to ask myself: “Will it get much worst?” Everything happens so suddenly! One morning you’re still young, the next morning… Your whole skin seems to be desperately attracted by an irresistible force hidden somewhere beneath you. Maybe if I start standing on my head a few hours every day… Anyway, I guess I don’t have any choice; that’s what we call “getting old” and that’s what’s happening to me.

On the other hand, I think I’m living in a world that is getting more and more exciting years after years. Nowadays, the whole world seems to get upside down. Dictators are falling everywhere. People are demanding to be heard, mainly young people. Politicians, religious leaders, even famous journalists don’t have any choice but to justify what they repeated over and over again for decades. Everyday, on the news, we see a strange mixture of violence and hope, of hatred and love. It’s obvious that a new world order is taking place. The world won’t ever be the same, whether we like it or not.

I like it. Being probably the best example of a baby boomer, I am not that proud of the world we created. I guess we did what we could with what we had but I’m sure we could have done a better job even if it would have been less fun!

Anyway, most of the old values are seriously scratched and I think it’s highly exciting. Just wait for the day Steven Harper and his royalist brown-nosers hit a brick wall: what a national orgasm it will be! “Steven Harper and the royalist brown-nosers”: sounds like a great rock band, doesn’t it?

After all, I think I’m a lucky man. First, I’m not only happy with that new world order, I am blessed to be married to an artist that so perfectly well represents this new world. Sincerity and frankness are probably two of the main key words of that new order. A polluter is a polluter. A crook is a crook. A dictator is a dictator. An asshole is not called His Excellency. A pedophile is not called His Eminence. A fucking sadistic bullfighting fan is not called a traditional art lover. A cock is a cock, long, hard, throbbing and proud. Whether we like it or not.

Mathieu (Laca) is an artist that belongs to that new world. He’s a tremendous artist and an extraordinary technician: I’m sure he would be able to paint the Queen’s portrait with nothing else but a paintbrush stuck in his ass (this one is for Harper!). But he decided to talk about History, about pollution, about cruelty to animals, about political abuse of power… about that new world order that is taking place… whether we like it or not.

In a few months he will be 30. He is here to stay. He is here to grow as an artist and as a man. We might decide to put his paintings away when our mother-in-law is coming for dinner: but he will always be there ready to explode with his sincerity and his frankness.

Thanks to Mathieu, I’m sure, pretty soon everybody will be able to consider a cock for what it really is: a fucking cock!

Comeau