Recently, I have begun to take walks in the city. It’s the rainy season and I can’t stand the rain, which, if you have ever lived in Paris for any length of time, you’ve grown to hate.
At the slightest sign of a break in the clouds I put on my overcoat and step out into the California winter haze. I leave the umbrella behind, a willful thought and hope for the best; and damn the consequences.
Today I walked straight down Market, from my house on Castro, without even stopping for gay porn, on the way. So as I said, down Market and onward to the feces district (the Tenderlaid, that would be between 6th and 7th street).
Onward…..and by Bloomingdales, by the make up counter ladies taking languorous cigarette breaks, trying not to plant face from all those samplers they’ve meticulously applied to their faces; passed Old Navy, thru the Metreon and into the light, where there it is, the: Museum of Modern Art, all brick and mortar and eighties fugliest.
Into the lobby where monitors rudely remind me that I should not be loitering here any more than those poorly covered feces I recently passed on 7th and Market. My way of saying, ‘I’ve seen this shit before and even wrote about it. So what to do? I did not plan ahead nor did I consult the internet before I left!
So, I bowed to the inevitable and quickly retraced my steps to reluctantly open the door to da YBCA, or Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, as it is also known to the verbosely minded. (BTW, for yall hippies out there, Yerba Buena (Clinopodium douglasii) is a sprawling aromatic herb of western and northwestern North America, ranging from maritime Alaska southwards to Baja California Sur, and NOT what you imagined it to be).
Apparently the YBCA, in a thinly disguised attempt at placating the flower child community into driving East, from Berkeley, North from Willits and South from Venice, is now featuring some half baked exhibit curated to venerate his holiness, the ‘Dalai Lama”.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Dalai Lama and he is certainly worth a walk down market street but besides what I think about him, the show is an unmitigated piece of shit.
Enough said, but despite what I think, at least you get to live vicariously through me, and experience, for a brief moment, what it’s like to live here, in this soiled City by the Bay.
So, I perfunctorily went thru this display, cursing my fate, invisibly mumbling words so rich in sexual degradation as it would shame me to repeat them here, with impunity….. when at the corner of my eyes, what do I see; a side chapel, a votive assembly, right there in front of me, a notebook, left by one of the artists, to share your thoughts and feelings with the him and the community; ” Bingo! bitches!”, I exclaimed, “tis not in vain that I ambulate….!”
Here you go, excerpts, with my comments (apparently nasty, I hear, DL:). From the book of life, at the YBCA. Actual comments from visitors, regular folks, like you and me, carefully noted:
“We are the cusp of great AWAKENING“.
DL: Personally, I was thinking pandemic…
“Let peace and love prevail all over the world. Let all people love each other beyond borders. Fight for humanity and not for land and religion.”
DL: Do I detect a thinly disguised “Peace in the Middle East” message, massaged within an inch of saying it, but too “site specific”, too narrowly minded; I’ll replace it with a more non-denominational cliché?
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams“.
DL: Fair enough, roll it, package it, and I’ll smoke it….
“The world is a complicated place to live in! Yeah I know it blows, its pretty weird but it is“.
DL: I don’t know what to say but try a Garmin, it usually works for me, until it tells me to take the 10 to Venice at 9 in the mornin’ (LA drivers, you’ll know what I says, the rest of yous can ask them what I am just trying to say).
“Reveal, expose, do not deny eternity.”
DL: Expose eternity….! Is that a call to arms, a political statement or did you just parfumate with one of those samplers on sixth and Market.
“Dear god,
Just as every stream and ocean are connected, some how I must believe…..its hard to believe in you. Bless the falling with compasion. The architecture of the sea creates its own laws; why can’t humanity create as a matter of architecture? Let us begin buildings peaceful society, NOW-”
DL: Who does not want to chant a prayer that starts nice and easy and ends by screaming… “NOW”.
“You fucking killed it brutha, you inspire the revolution. Burning free and bad…, love“.
DL: I am sensing some innate contradictions, but never-mind me, I am far too cerebral for this….
“Words are not enough,enough,enough,enough,enough,enough,enough,enough,enough,enough,……….”
DL: That’s the great thing about mantras, if you repeat them long enough, they start to mean something else.
“Keep that spirit flowing breathe your art until your last breath. Oliver.”
DL: This one startled me for a micro-second. I thought to myself, did I sleep walk to this bitch and signed my name. No, that’s signed Oliver, not Olivier.
“You are perfectly complete and whole“.
DL: (Accompanied With a drawing of what looks like a butt with flowing gas coming out of it). And I am a complete ass whole for thinking it.
“I really like your exhieibit very much!” (Lightning bolt and a house drawn, a kid’s handwriting and drawing).
DL: He/she is innocent until Early Onset Adulthood.
“Derek,
I have always been in awe of your creativeness. The passion for what you do always shine thru. Don’t ever stop believing in your capabilities.
You are a true artist. I knew this from the day you were born.
Love and forever
Yours forever yours sincerelly,
Mom.”
DL: This one is a little tricky, as the artist’s name is actually spelled Derik, not Derek, so I am to presume that his own mother does not know how to spell her son’s name, or she did not get the memo as to why Derek is now called Derik; or some clever little trickster wrote this, but failed to properly read the wall’s” “My name is..and I did this…”
“Derek,
You are now an art fag
Welcome to the club. Vital power takes you right there wherever there is, Leighton, Dad”
DL: So dad is in on this too, but I find his message a little more masculine, a little more type A, in a gentle sort of way. Go get the “WHEREVER” Derek….!! I mean, Derik…!
“I am done, I am complete”
DL: and someone else wrote next to it, making my work easier, but more indirectly ” You are a fucking hippie“
“Thank you brother, I am so proud of you and your vision to wake each and everyone of us from the dream into the living dream of our own potential. Many blessings- reverence.”
DL: Shoot the messenger, and the message.
“Whoahhhh, whoahh, wwe,…..whoahh, wwwaa,….”
DL: Next time I am in a museum I’ll shoot for the orgasm, the wine and cheese buffet sucks anyway.
“I honor the place in you where the entire universe dwells. I honour the place in you that is of light, love thruth & of peace. When you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me. We are one. Namaste, Infinite gratitude & love”
DL: Hey brother, I want to come with you but before we begin, please to point me towards the nearest consulate.
“Wubba wubba ….Wubba wubba ….Wubba wubba ….Wubba wubba ….”
DL: The afterglow, I presume….
DL: and to conclude, MY PERSONAL FAVORITE:
“I want to face fuck that girl in the video, she’s hot“,
DL:Comment circled and note added next to it ; ” Wow, how sad and insulting that that is all you got out of all this love and work. Micah(the girl in the video) the artist’s wife.-”
DL: No comment…..
Epilogue:
As I stepped out of the side show and into the lobby, it was now filled with old ladies, when before it had been empty. The place now smelled like chlorine, that public pool smell old people tend to retain after bobbing in it, to sooth the years away. I presume the YBCA was part of the day, a retirement tour date.
Being of less than sound mind, and urgently needing to pee, I made my way to the latrines but overshot and ended up in the women’s bathroom. After vainly looking for urinals, it finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place. I retraced my steps, only to run into an old lady just about to step into the man’s toilets. She had seen me go in the ladies’ room and wrongly assumed the other door was where she also needed to do, her business.
How ironic, to get all turned around at the YBCA, where every other exhibit is about some gender specific group show, exploring some sort of gender based “ism-é”, or, “Feminism and the subversion of identity, bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of sex”.
…..humm, remind me not to have sex with that one, too damn intimidating.
PS: MDM, I wrote this one with you in mind, hope it helps lift your spirits, and Alyson too, they had a bit of a rough week.
Oliver,
I am the one that left the comment “You are perfectly complete and whole“.
I can’t help but comment to say that I am offended that you would take these comments out of context of the exhibit (one image is not enough for your readers to experience it) and mock us in such a mean-spirited fashion. Of course I have seen this attitude on your site before, so perhaps I should not be surprised. I guess I looked instead at your wit and the Beauty and Life found in your images.
I’m sorry you don’t appreciate my drawing. We all can’t be professional artists like you are. Many of us have had our creative impulses and natural talents beaten out of us by Society and don’t have many chances to express ourselves.
Maybe you are also the kind of artist that mocks what you overhear people saying at galleries and museums. It’s good that you are so much smarter and informed about Art than the rest of us and you have the Correct opinions.
It’s also wonderful that you have the free time to traipse around this wonderful City, looking for what you consider stupidity. Myself, after working 10 hours a day, I am looking for Beauty and Joy. Try it some time. Namaste.
I’ll have to go into the comment’s management section and correct the spelling on my name, but just this once, I’ll forgive it. So, “sad today”, here is what you do. Instead of moaning and bitchin’, you’d best turn around and mock me. Believe me, if I can dish it, I can take it. Short of that, tell me why you liked the show, what you got out of it, but please use your own words, not somebody else’s.
On the other hand, if you penned the above comment as a clever ploy to add further comedy to the entry, I salute you, well done, you did it. You got me, my compliments, nicely done. Nevertheless, below is unfortunately necessary, just in case you’re not as clever as I’d like to imagine.*
Yes indeed, I mock everything, you, other people, myself, but let me tell you, you’d be better off with me by your side than some whiny platitude spouting historical through back. Believe it or not, I have a great deal of admiration for the “OHs”(original hippies) and for Buddhism, but have found, not always, thankfully, that there are very few cultural niches which attract more than their fair share of phonies, self righteous, manipulating and entitled trust-afarians, than the hippies of today.
PS: BTW there are not too many correct opinions and I am no dogmatist. Sorry my derision, sarcasm and so called mean spiritedness has hurt your feelings but I have a feeling that I will not be the last douche bag to hurt them. Latching on to some mixed ideological bag full of half truths, catch phrases and cheap cerebral candy is not much of a philosophy but to my mind, rather intellectually lazy.
Nothing wrong with joy and beauty and there is much of it in my life but it is often fleeting and fragile. I’d rather make fun of life than take it so seriously, may be therein lies the roots of your own fragility.
PS2: Also the image which garnishes the top of this entry is there for a reason, I happen to think that it is great. I found it on the web but could not find its author’s name. If anyone out there knows who shot it, please to let me know so it can be credited. I do not remember that image being in the show.
and BTW, love the fake email withheldforfear@ofridicule.com, you see, you have it in you, I think that’s pretty amusing actually.
* and one more thing, that Jonathan Swift quote, a couple entry below this one, is a fake, I actually wrote it. So you see, if you are indeed faking it, as I hope you are, since it would be so much more fun that way, you are not alone, even I, am doing it. So there. Cheers. Olivier.
Dude, good herb is good herb. Don’t be silly. (And I think it was a clever ploy, and you are got. But who cares.)
I agree with you but either way, I had to respond as thoroughly as possible in case it isn’t a ploy, but a real complaint. I certainly do not seek to hurt people’s feelings. Nevertheless, I have no intention in censoring myself to better please some, who might be easily offended. But I do owe them further comments, whenever timely and possible.
As a whole, it certainly does not hurt to clarify my thoughts, as comments, in whatever form, are appreciated. They often work to further my thoughts. You can only learn so much from yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smug_Alert!
Click here….
Nice site. Check out this one sometime……