Nietzche

"For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain precondition is indispensible: intoxication." -Friedrich Nietzche

Intoxication is what ViceVoices is founded on. What, you thought "Vice" was referring to something like "Vice President?" You thought "Voices" didn't refer to the ones in our heads, which sing while we're intoxicated?

The name "ViceVoices" came from our one-time band. Well, more of a regular drunken midnight choir jam session than a real band. The gigs we played were at whoever was hosting the night's session's house. The band moved apart back in the 90's, as we moved on with our separate lives. (ie; some of us got new girlfriends who disapproved of loud, all-night get-togethers, others went on to new levels of intoxication that the rest of us could not keep up with.)

Though I could not keep up with the escalating tastes of others, I haven't gone all righteous person of temperance and virtue. And smug. I enjoy wine and when its there, weed. At the end of the day, when the work is done. Some days I look forward to the day being done more than others. And it takes me to a place that is a haven. A happy place, where the unhappy shit on the horizon sets with the sun. A new horizon appears, where all things are possible again.

But, for others, the days never change. The horizon remains the same, and the shit sails forward, docks and boards. Suicidal tendencies crop up, violent streaks emerge, the need for higher and higher levels of intoxication takes hold, and intoxication becomes for intoxication's sake. Not for creativity, not for keeping on in this river of many currents, but like a demon inhabiting the person, feeding itself, with the person fully signed on as driver. Fully resigned as driver.

But, for many of us, intoxication remains a portal to the great stream of ideas, when it's gotten lost in the days, faded day by day, lost in the cacophony of white noise spewing from mundanity. Not that we always choose the best ideas that stream into our intoxicated receptors, but being in the stream again is well worth the following day's pain and lethargy. And, still in the stream we stay for another few days, beyond the pain, in the gain. No pain, no gain.

Posters, t-shirts and gift items of the above ViceVoices original artwork are, as always, available at the ViceVoices online jubilee of wonderment.