The New Palace Halifax Nova Scotia

Ok, this place is a veritable Pantheon to the godly dick. Of all the stereotypes you can make about male rock musicians, The New Palace is a testament to the most sound of them all, that we are obsessed with our dicks. Walking into this place was like reading The 11th Hour as a child, scouring the pages for days looking for backwards numbers in the margins, or secret letter spelled out of bananas - everywhere I looked I found a new dick crammed into some nook or cranny all over the dressing room. There is a concept that astronomers talked about called the Omega Point, which is when every molecule in the universe is part of a conscious whole. If there is a concept of god, or nature that fits, its just that - that life will multiply until there is no more room. I can't think of a better representation of this concept than this dressing room, festooned with dicks.

Not only was it the bounty of sharpied appendages,however that made this room special - it was that almost every one carried with it a message of such harshness or needless provocation that the room took on a swirling tone of offense that was almost whimsical as it was surreal. It was like walking into some dadaesque Disney movie like Fantasia, except instead of multiplying cartoon hammers (or axes or whatever that was - I'm an adult that writes a blog about penis drawings, not a child that watches cartoons) it was these dicks - gloriously multiplying all around me.


This isn't really a dick, more of a reference, or a frustrated/artistic attempt to mold something essentially non-dick into the realm of dickness. Creative people will note the frustration of living in a world full what psychologists call the "other", where all around you are the codes and signifiers of a power beyond your reach. Well, not everyone can feel contentment from teacups and shiny saucers. Some of us have to forge into the other and make it a small piece of ourselves.


I don't know who David Wilcox (get it) is, but I can tell from this image that he gave a performance at some point at The New Palace, and was grateful enough to leave behind a signed poster. Well, whoever the next guy was must have enjoyed his night here even more, because what he left was so much more lively and descriptive - a drawing of a giant dick heading towards David Wilcox. We like it!


It's hard to see, but there is a tiny dick drawing on this Pepsi fixture for no reason. This goes back to what I was talking about before - the will of the artist to express by any means necessary and with no regard to jurisdiction or boundary. Who's to say that Pepsi-Cola isn't just one giant dick, and we're just blind to it because until now we've never really been able to see?


This is a common theme in the genre - the pioneer, that brave one who takes the courage to mold something fresh and new out of something so stale and old. To you or I, this might have just stayed a crack on the dry-wall ceiling until the end of time. But to a visionary, it was something more, there was possibility, energy, even elan. This is the essence of the dressing room dick - to draw a dick somewhere where before, there could have been no dick possible.



Suspend for a minute your values and your own conception of right or wrong. Sure, what we see here is immediately offensive. Was Big Sugar a terrible band? Who are we to judge. Are they all "Fags", as this poster would suggest to us? Probably not. These questions are both well beyond the point. Even the latent racism espoused by this expression cannot take our eyes off of what is really at stake here - 4 cartoon dicks ejaculating in four guys faces on a poster. Almost breathtaking in its resolve.

This piece carries the theme of the last but adds an element we see time and time again - the Trompe Dick, with it's own twist. Who this guy is is not important, or that he's smoking a cartoon dick (pedestrian). It's the artists passion for his own mother, his personal Madonna, emblazed with the ultimate expression of the movement - the heart shaped dick (with hairy ball-sack).


A minor variation on the style, one that is often disregarded, but important and poignant nonetheless. Here Ben is looked down upon by a piece that almost lives and breathes. It is for us to wonder what the inspiration was behind this jocular and ribald work. Here is man considering his own hairy ball-sack. But who will consider the man?


Another classic Trompe-Dick (with hairy ball-sack) with an added flourish at the finale. The heart shape of the sputum and the bi-colouring of the man suggest that racial harmony perhaps may be possible in our new millennium (of dicks).



Here we see harmony within a contrast of styles. This one piece attempts to unite centuries of debate between the baroque hairy dick (with hairy ball-sack) to the more modern and, as some would say arrogant and sterile smooth dick (with shaved ball-sack). The unity at work within this one piece, as the two schools of thought unite in a common creamy conclusion is as startling as it is beautiful.


Again art reveals to us what we may not have been able to see. Who is to say Alanis doesn't just have a giant dick for a nose?


True art has always existed on the margins (with hairy ball-sack).

A classic example of "dick within a dick" (within a Moslem terrorist). In our post 9/11 world, images like this are more important to consider than ever. This kind of art can teach us that there really are no sides, and that it is our unity that makes us strong. Our dicks have dicks, their dicks have dicks. Powerful.



The last piece in the room but one of the strongest. We can only wonder who King Benny was and what his influence could have been. Luckily there are many things portrayed in this piece that we do not have to wonder about - his veiny dick (with hairy ball-sack and hairy anus).