"DEAR LEADER"

Since I already know, why don’t “You” tell me…..

That about sums it up. 

An early afternoon spent trying out antique hairdos with Gabriel modeling .

Since I only came to this country when I was fourteen, it stands to reason that I spent the better part of my formative years in the country of my nativity; France namely. The country which gave you the “freedom frie”*, a healthy love of ridicule and what some might contemptuously taunt as, a shallow infatuation with the sumptuous.

The later, but a reverence for craftsmanship, and a refined sense of a life well achieved, and by that I do not mean, the incessant pursuit of the feckless riches which we seem to so abundantly revere in this country, but an almost obsessive love of perfection. Because a living, is better appreciated when your hands produce an object of beauty, rather than the blood they once shed over the forced labor, king and country so cruelly expropriated in salt, and tears.

It made for a land greened and rooted in craftsmanship, only to reflect the brilliance of a nation and the humanity contained within; a trait, deeply ingrained into the french psyche. In France, the artisan and the thinker are esteemed and worshiped like no other, save for Japan, may be!

As I was saying, having spent half of these first fourteen years in a Parisian suburb(the rest in a Corsican village), I never, as much as batted an eye when the French Communist party would take to the streets and chant up and down Parisian streets, or strike the country into a stand still. I saw the communists as just another stitch in the fabric of my own birth country, another voice within our politically french cacophony. Consequently, when I first came to New York’s Duchess county, the visceral McCarthyism of these here Yankees, save for a few contrarians, neither here nor there nor yonder, made for some pleasantly stupefying head scratching to this teenage creed.

What was the meaning of these North American dogmatists, these ante-bellish certainties? Communism? How could this mirrored Narcissus, to their own puritanical absolutes, could possibly have been confused for anything else but another one of man’s own self absorbed tyrannies? What was it about the American psyche which demanded a murderous end to the constraints of someone else’s philosophy?

Was it the fear of those nuclear tipped flying machines, or the intellectual fear to compete with another, less fortunate citizenry, trying to brake loose from the tyrants, real and imagined, they had been made to worship; in duchesses and counties, where land wasn’t a plenty and the natives ever so pliably sickened by a battery of ship born diseases?
A continent twice the size of the known universe, ripe for the Christian taking, and so it goes, no one to argue with, except the remorse and the guilt, but nothing the confessional couldn’t fix, but not until those well meaning, god fearing Christianialists, came to realize that tilling and claiming such fertility, took more than a plow and crucifixes; it also took a people whose skin came better and more readily accustomed to working, in these sub-tropics.

Did we really, need afore mentioned intestinal rhapsody to introduce the poetic politics of Communism’s favorite opiated lyrics. Probably not, but nevertheless, this chant’s call to equality seems but a sad recall to the principles of our two mutually wounded and competing philosophies. I guess it never hurts to look back at the twentieth century, or the 16th, and remember that human dissonance makes for the inexorable furtherance and pursuit, of life, death, and the murderously brutal persuasions, of the living. Nevertheless, The International “is” a beautiful song, especially when harmonized acoustically.

Here is a link to the lyrics, so that you may sing along, in English or in French, given that, afterall, the tune itself was originally written in the French I first spoke, not the English I seconded, in Duchess county.

[display_podcast]

* It is claimed that a belgium born man, by the name of Parmentier, is to be blamed for that culinary epiphany, but who’s counting?

To complement the post below as well as announce my intentions of personally redesigning my site, I had just wanted to add a few comments to the post below, to further refine my thoughts.

When I tuned in to “A Photo Editor” this morning I was getting a haircut. Knowing full well that the potential for hits and track-backs had been greatly heightened I promptly tore off the stylist’s robe and rushed home to post below. The resulting “do” was less than symmetrical but Jennie got a kick out of it, and besides I quickly returned so she could resume and make it just so.

As I was saying the hardest part of survival as a photographer is accepting your work’s failure to produce results. You keep repeating to yourself that some day, somehow, they will all come to their senses and finally understand what it is you think you are doing. Unfortunately, we cannot work in a vacuum, divorced from the times and the fashions which so often dictate how we must think and create to earn a living.

All is great under Heaven’s banners but financial recognition* rides a very thin line, and the more there are of us, the sharper and razor thin it is.

A more perfect metaphor for this condition might be better explained by drawing upon a non too subtle parallel with the Amazon: As you may know, there are no “large” predators in the Amazon as the diversity and abundance of rain forest life can only survive and thrive if, and only if, it becomes, over eons, smaller and more specialized.
The Amazon is a desert full of life and only those who can reduce their size survive: There are only a few large predators in the Amazon because the ecosystem cannot sustain them, as a result, random selection favored smaller, more nimble predators. These are well know facts to biologists and zoologists but little observed by artists and other such parasites.

So, until you somehow manage to become the creative primate’s equivalent of “The Jaguar”, you will have to learn how to stay small, nimble and specialized. Those skills will come in handy when self doubt, failure, life, death and the Santa Anas burned down you little piggy’s house.
Until you manage to reach the top of the food chain, you will need to feed on the canopy’s lower terraces. The trick is to accept failure promptly and adjust to the never ebbing cultural tsunami that is “Sparta”. May be some day you’ll make waves of your own but in the meantime you will need to be able to run for the hills and distill your moonshine with no other company but your own.

As stated below, I have no intention of stopping the work I am presently doing but I need to find alternate ways to fund it. A new, more “visually acceptable” and “a propos”, body of work is a good way to do so, as long as it let’s others in, on the festivities. Car jacking will have to wait until I am good and ready.

I have put considerable amounts of thought into this in the past few months and have come up with a plan to rescue this faltering financial house. If I stick to it, I’ll be fine, but that might be the hardest part of this upcoming trip. Staying happy in this business is learning to dance the very fine line between the ideal and the mundane, insults and promises.

* There are other forms as we know but without capital there is little chance of continuation, especially as a photographer. This ain’t no cheap profession.

Overseen in San Francisco: On Castro and Market, a homeless man pulled out his member in front of “Pottery Barn” and tried spraying the crowd with a perfectly formed jet of urine. All the while screaming: “You ain’t no Condoleezza Rice, motherfuckin’ bitch…!“. This gives new meaning to Colin Powel’s famously adage to W: “You break it, you buy it”.
So, “Condi”, I guess that means, in a cosmic sort of way, ” that if the man tries to piss on your diplomacy, you ‘d better get out of its way”; but it seems that you probably already knew this.

In other news: A gratuitous and graphic image to complement above post. NOT AT WORK…! I just thought it had some, how to say, psychic similitudes to the afore mentioned scenics. I’ll have to admit, I collect ridiculous images like these.
Upon viewing, please reverse roles immediately to appreciate as it is truly meant to be. I just couldn’t find a similarly graphic image where the sexes had been flipped to illustrate my point appropriately.

This essay was written and is being used by permission. Father Ignacio Kotsakis, pictured above (not a pseudonym), is the author of the treatise you are about to read–:

Begin transcript:

“I am a cold war baby and for what it’s worth the Soviet Union used to be an altogether appropriate and useful reflection of our collective imaginations; kinda made you wipe your nose on the curtains more carefully, so to speak….
Some may say, that it’s still the case, that nothing has changed, but they would have to prove it and show me these are not simply more opiated promises. From my vantage point as an abbot, this country and most of its western approaches have become much more socially and religiously conservative; and I don’t mean it compared to the sixties, or in response to its excesses. It is not, as they meekly proclaim, the other arc of the pendulum’s swing, a spasmodic twitch, a reappraising of the consequences.

I won’t use the current administration to bolster my pieces, since so many have already made very good cases against these new century national polices, but simply put, these times are not, as they pretend to claim, a counterpoint to an overly liberal society; but a long standing need which man seems to indulge in, and often recklessly; to approach reason and humanists from an irrationally privileged and entitled need to dominate our fellow bedmates.

In the case of the United States, this was brought on by race and the perceived abuse of the concessions the majority felt they had made in good faith . Loosing some of their hard fought cultural, economic and political prizes reduced them to these great seething and consumptive masses. Law abidingly, they relented, because it had thankfully been civically ingrained, but they only did so because they intuitively sensed that the anger and hatred, of their formerly enslaved roommates, needed to be peaceably moderated.
The possible consequences of these continued inequities might just be too eminently catastrophic and brutish, to be confused for more of the same.
The rapid growth and economic prosperity of the 50s and 60s were about to be wiped clean, concessions had to be made, but not without consequences.
Legions sat bitterly and passively waiting for a lovable and popular Moses, to deliver them from the compromises they felt they had been forced to make. And It came, ever so cleverly disguised as an enlightened sheep, in economically lupine clothes; but best of all it was sincere, self convinced and soothingly reassuring to these fatherless masses.

The political shift began to swing from a society where the individual pretended to be prized and adulate for questioning the state, to elevating him for his ability to beat it, cash it and love it. In short order, opportunists, gurus and self anointed abbots began the oft mentioned and inevitable process of ridiculing the very ideas, they had espoused with such evangelistic and vigorous zeal. They began to espouse commercial incentivistic as a better and more patriotic way. From idealism to embracing “The Prince” in less than 30 days. Injecting religiosity into the brand, to transform it into a new form of political thinking, I might venture to name: “National Social Narcissism”.

A political ideology based on speculatory enthusiasm, religious persuasions, self evasion; and on the religiously implicit acceptance, of an eminently pliable and disinterested populace; geographically gated and isolated, and continuously marinated in a mildly anxious chemical haze, masquerading as change.”

PS: I also found this while surfing.

I had originally posted this poem last June about my friend Steve, who I assure you, is nothing but an entirely fictionally character and in no way bares any resemblance to himself or anyone else. I had appropriate his name and relative likeness to allow me to post the original poem below, which had been crafted to reflect my uninformed and entirely fictional views and opinions of the Art World; of which I am not a bona fide, plenipotentiary and recognizably known member.
Nevertheless, since it was one of my best poems “ever”, it really needed to be re-posted in its original form, devoid of potentially and offensively injurious references meant to humiliate, denigrate or disparage Steve’s character, honor or person.

I shall post it first, before the perniciously ironic rant directly following this short, yet lyrical narrative epic sonnet(!). Furthermore, should you decamp and choose to browse greener, less obscure pastures, I shan’t blame it entirely on you, but rather on the interminably long vituperations which follows this decidedly and purposely rank poetic odyssey. It is, I admit, long and tortuous even to those of you who might have by now become better accustomed to my professional and personal sense for self-ridicule. Those of you who may not have taken the time to ease into these mindful peregrinations might find it pretentious, offensive and bitterly pompous :

The Poem:

The Art World ; it’s like….

It’s like snatch; but sweeter
It’s got swatch; but sooner
It’s got stash; but bigger

It’s like smack but stronger
It’s like you; but better
It’s like Yak; but butter

It’s like; nice but later….
It’s got racks; like “Hooters”
It’s got back; like looters

It’s like grass and fiddlers…
It’s like ass, and fingers
It’s like mass but longer….

Next:

I decide to remove the second part of this entry and will probably not be reposting it. I am a big fan of my own ramblings but finally decided against it.