Titus O.

Well, I’m just about burnt out on this whole Siros/Trich business (if you came in at the intermission, it starts here back in November, renewed two weeks ago and daily since). I’ve run the gamut, from confused to amused to furious, and now, just over it. Amateur hour is over.

I had to go explain this whole business to 40 of my colleagues in the UT Arlington art and art history department, all of whom received 20-article press packets from Siros (at $2.67 in postage alone). There were the predictable guffaws, pats on the back, “hang in there”s. There would have been more laughter, if it simply wasn’t so baffling. I’m receiving supportive calls from anyone who’s talked to him. Crackpot alert is code red. The best reaction was from the editor at the Star-Telegram, who just deleted his message 20 seconds in. “Oh, one of those.”

The bulk of the press packet consists of full page copies of the gallery listings in newspapers that ran the Richland show. It’s just sad. He included my original blog post. I’m fine with that – it’s not my worst piece of writing. I hope all of his “collectors” read it. It might wake one or two of them up. Stapled to it are the “about” page from my website , and a blown up detail from the pictures of my work from the Road Agent site. Talk about copyright issues…but thanks for the coverage, I guess…

On it, just for me, Siros wrote “Titu (sic), you are not in Kansas anymore!” He then highlighted the Kansas City Art Institute in my bio, by hand, in each and every packet. It took me a minute to figure that one out, but I realized he’s alluding to my reference to the Art Institute of Dallas as a “franchise McArt school.” He must figure KCAI is another one, instead of the 150 year old 4-year mainstay it actually is (alma mater of Walt Disney, Bob Rauschenberg, Robert Morris, Mel Ziegler, et al.) And btw, Siros, KCAI is in Missouri. Sigh. This is all just so pathetic.

Other bits of press are paid advertisements, some written by Siros himself. In one he describes himself as “renown (sic) Dallas Artist Siros.” Apparently Dallas Modern Luxury doesn’t pay for type-readers, allowing people to write glowing undeserved praise about themselves unchecked. Other pieces include one in the Richland community college newspaper, and identical articles in two different editions of weekly community newpapers (Turtle Creek and Park Cities.) These and others are that sort of puff piece that passes for usual art coverage nowadays. Unresearched, solicited by the featured party, and consisting solely of Siros’ cooked-up sales pitches. On and on the drivel goes, from the moronic to the creepy (One headline supposedly from the Chicago Tribune [uh, listing his Richland show?], reads “The Sexiest man Alive in the Art World.”)

Well, it looks like Eric Trich himself is trying to get free from his association with Dallas Artist Siros, SGA Enterprises, and that posse of Japanese and Brits allegedly riding his coattails to the bank. I talked with some faculty at SMU today and got the skinny. See, Siros met this teenageer with paint under his nails working in a Starbucks. Siros says “Are you arteest, too? I am world famous Siros!” Siros saw his work and from “his background living in New York in the 1980′s where he knew Basquiat, ” well, he obviously then knows talent. The clueless kid didn’t know shit from shinola – or even who Warhol is (but Siros knows; check out his portratit of “Jan Strimple,” the one and only reference to him online, besides this blog. Hey, Siros: Andy called on the Way Back Machine, circa 1978. He wants his style back). Siros says “you’re a genius! Stick with me, kid. I’m gonna make you a stah!” He then convinces Trich to sign a bunch of contracts, including signing away all his copyrights to Siros and whatever front organizations he’s concocted, with some mysterious clueless cadre of sycophants and maneuverers. They flew him around, to New York and London, selling him with all the same tired lines that I’ve trotted out for you already.

He’s like a human spam email from Nigeria. “Dear Sirs: please buy my prodigy’s art. Your fortune is already assured!” Trich is just an investment opportunity – like those cheap posters auctioned for thousands as lithographs on Bahamian cruises. I guess I must have thrown a wrench in the master plan of total critical capitulation before the inevitable conquest of the prodigy/genius Trich. Hence, they’re coming at me like bats out of hell. And there is something distinctly Mephistophelean about this Siros Guidan/Guidon, whatever the hell his name is.

Actually, I’m embarrassed to be the first, and only, person to have written anything actual about the work itself. And even I didn’t see it. I’m wearing out the “oh brother” switch in my brain. Somebody, please go ahead and write something else about this kid, so they can come after you. This will be more entertaining from the sidelines. A few more rounds of this, and they may just go broke from the postage.

I’m told Trich is saying he wants out, but he’s bound up with a bunch of contracts. He’s beginning to realize that maybe he actually needs an education and some time to develop. “No, no,” I’m sure Siros is saying. “We’ve spent our money, and you’re going to pay out.” ‘Mentor’ turns out to be Svengali. I’m hoping to talk to Trich soon, get his side. There are still a lot of unanswered questions, not least of which involve Gerald Peters Gallery’s by any measure utterly reprehensible help in facilitating Siros’ exploitative pimp routine, complete with bemused denial of any connection; and for a number of the publications that bothered to buy in and help hype this schlock-fest, biting simply at a single call from Dallas Artist Siros.

All art is a bit of shuck and jive; we know this. Its business is by nature messy. But many of us here in Dallas saw the posters and catalogs for Trich’s show back in November and thought something was particularly off. There is a basic standard we all maybe unconsciously adhere to, expect and even demand for our attention’s worth. It’s art after all – it’s about physical, visual and conceptual presentation, at every level. I used this forum to voice an obvious reservation (shared by everyone I’ve spoken to who saw that stuff), and the suspicious nature of the circus around Trich just keeps getting uglier, like lancing a boil. The spooge just keeps bubbling up. I wish the kid luck. He’s gonna need it — probably in the form of a good lawyer.

(and just one more should do it.)

Ok, in case you weren’t aware by now, I’m having truck with “Dallas Artist Siros”. (Glasstire publisher) Rainey Knudson thinks this may be a brilliant publicity stunt. I am more reticent to connect the word “brilliant” and either Siros or Trich in the same breath. I think they’ve clumsily bumbled their way into a big mess, destined to get bigger no doubt before the fat lady sings.

This morning, I was about to fax off Siros’ letter threatening me with legal action (re: my photos of Trich’s gear) to various parties, when I was reminded I ought to call over to Gerald Peters gallery. Most listed works in Trich’s November show at Richland College were shown “courtesy of Gerald Peters Gallery,” and they are thanked in the long list of acknowledgements. Their director, Ashley Tatum Casson, after a long-ish wait turns out wasn’t available, so I posed my questions to Karen Fedri, also listed as “Director” on the website, but she stated she was “assistant director.”

I began by asking her if she knew why I was calling. She pleaded ignorance, but I got the distinct impression I was known about the place. I let her know about the letter in question, and that Ms. Casson, c/o Gerald Peters, was cc’d on it. I asked if Gerald Peters Gallery in any way represents Eric Trich. She seemed amused by the whole thing, and said the gallery has received a number of calls asking about this, but they do not represent him. Laughing along, I quietly said that, while absurd, fundamentally I didn’t find any of this really all that funny.

I asked her why then were most works in Trich’s exhibition in November at Richland Community College individually and collectively listed as “courtesy of Gerald Peters Gallery.” She said that was done “just as a favor to his mentor.” I asked if this referred to “Dallas Artist Siros” and she replied in the affirmative. I asked her what the gallery’s relationship was to Siros, and she told me it was none of my business.

I then asked her what “courtesy of” meant in this context to her, because to everyone else it clearly implies that Gerald Peters Gallery represents the work and the artist. Increasingly less amused, she was unable to tell me, simply repeating “well, it doesn’t mean that.” Then, obviously upset, she accused me of raising my voice (I didn’t; I think I just repeated the question too many times for her liking) and being unprofessional (if collusion to willfully misrepresent an artist’s stature and hence market value is the new standard of professional practice, I guess I’m lower than low.) She offered to provide the name of the gallery’s legal counsel. I think now I may call back and get it. I still want that question answered. It ought to be good.

So, on Trich’s website, the only functioning link is to this letter … dated “January, 2008″, it contains (along with the senseless pabulum about Trich’s utter genius) a 30 + item global “collections” list, and shows the rapid development in four short weeks of some “London and Tokyo based art collectors and investors” to the speciously named “London-Tokyo Investment Group” (listed as plaintiff in the letter re: my photographs). A google search for “SGA Enterprises ,” the other actionable party listed in the letter sent to me, and purported investor/sponsor of Trich, pulls up hazy looking companies all over the world, but nothing in Dallas.

I caught a distinct whiff of something off when I first encountered the stuff from Trich’s show, and made a casual reflection upon it the substance of the original post. The stink just keeps getting stronger; I think I may have gotten some on my shoe or something.

Mas y mas:

Just got off the phone with someone at UT Arlington. Turns out “Siros Guidon/Guidan” has sent hundreds of packets out re: me and my dastardliness, to every listed member of the art and art history faculty at UTA, accosting numbers of staff on the phone repeatedly, and for long periods of time (I’ve been assured my job is not threatened.) Oh yeah, he called the dean (of a nearly 30,000 student institution) a few times too, and actually managed to talk to him. UTA has been forced to contact their legal rep’s, to just make sure everyone is on guard. He called Blum & Poe Gallery. He’s been enjoying telling everyone how they fired me, although I sort of stole his thunder with that one. He’s declaiming from the rooftops that the art world is up in arms against me – the Modern and DMA and Gerald Peters Gallery and Jay Sullivan at SMU and and and…

This is just so uncool.

I’d been fighting off a cold for weeks. I finally got it, the day after receiving this letter. I’m blaming Dallas Artist Siros, and “Texas Native, American Born” Art Prodigy Trich.

BTW, here are some pics of the global headquarters for SGA Enterprises and Production. The address was listed beneath the Lion-adorned masthead on the envelope. One would presumably have to knock on the door to Unit C to see the wizard. I’m leaving that to the process server:

(for the next chapter, click here .)

(The original post, Smells Like Teen Spirit, was published in November ’07. Around Feb. 23, I received a letter, cc’d to a dozen unrelated parties including my wife, gallery, employers past and present, etc, threatening to sue me if I didn’t remove the photos in the post. This kicked off a series of follow ups, and months of insanity, that starts with the post script below this initial post, “Dallas Artist Siros” is Mad at Me)

I recently received a packet in the mail, of promotional materials for an exhibition at Richland Community College , for a solo show by a nineteen year-old named Eric Trich . A little non-profit venue with a who-cares show, right? I would never normally say anything about it unless I could be a booster. Who wants to spoil the party? I haven’t even seen the show, and I won’t. So what could I possibly have to report?

I guess I just wanted to reflect a bit on the politics of presentation – the presentation in this case being rather lavish. Included were an 18” x 24” poster, a handsome double-sided card-stock folding essay with list of works, in addition to the obligatory post-card – which (not to be overshadowed) is oversized.

God, where to start. First, who wastes this much paper anymore? Some significant commercial galleries in LA and NYC, who used to create mailable posters for shows by artists who actually deserve them, have lately stopped even sending postcards in favor of email. I’ve asked to be taken off most snail-mail lists, because I’d just rather get the email, and save a tree. This kind of cornucopia sets up certain expectations – none of which appear to be met.

The art, as depicted here, is nothing to write home (or I suppose, blog) about. But hey, the kid is 19, and as the materials state, only a second year student at the Art Institute of Dallas , one of those franchise McArt schools advertised during morning court TV shows. You’ve got to show somewhere, and get some gigs under your belt. The work looks like pretty typical art student fair. Save the cheesy iPod references, it could have been made anytime in the last 30 years. Take the card image. On a black background, only passably drawn in red and white, is a bearded man, seemingly flayed, copped most likely from an ‘anatomy for artists’ textbook. His muscles are relabeled in a loopy, youthful scrawl with words like “pain”, “lust”, “fall”, compassion”, “wisdom”, “ache.” These vertically roughly correspond with chakra areas – someone has an Alex Grey poster and a yoga book in his bedroom at the parent’s house.

Then there is the following, cringe-worthy text written underneath the figure: “Not Christian or Jew, not Hindu or Buddhist, Sufi or Zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, not of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist.”

Well, as the Sufis and Rabbis and Zen masters extol, you have to be somebody before you get to work on being nobody. The work’s sentiment is just fine, if a bit pretentious, clumsily stating something that might be a truth coming out of the right mouth, or transmitted in a more compelling manner. It just seems a bit ironic that the show title, taken from this work, is “I Do Not Exist,” and yet I have never seen a more assertive, or premature, push of an artist’s heroic precociousness. Maybe the title is part of Trich’s own unconcious reaction to be singled out too early.

Other pieces pictured include a silhouetted pope dancing with an iPod (“iPope” it says, in a pun worthy of recent SNL) and a half-way interesting Picasso homage that unconsciously resembles Hockney, ruined with more juvenile text. Then there’s the poster, of the artist’s bare torso, unsmiling youthful visage, and tribal-tattooed shoulders – half in positive, half negative. He both exists and doesn’t exist, get it?

Look, there are important personal developmental issues going on here, many of which I recognize all too well, and I in no way mean to belittle them. The artist himself shouldn’t be taken too much to task, but he’s being set up with all this gear. It frames the art with big neon lights saying “Wow! Look! A phenomenon! Real good art here!” The work’s not great, but it’s passable for a second year art student, which after all is all he really is. As my mentor in college liked to say, try not to worry about what you make before you’re 30 – it will most likely seem like crap later. Much less before 20. In a persistant ancient myth, the Grimm brothers’ version of which is called Iron John, there is good reason why the hero hides his soul-signifying golden hair until he has actually achieved something.

It’s the organizers of this show, of which there appear peculiar numbers of layers, that are doing this young artist the worst disservice. They have torn a protective, mundane obscurity from him well-before he has actually clarified and refined his inquiry, and complicated his coming to terms with an egoic identity no less real just because at this point he’s trying to deny its existence. Not to say this is instant fame and fortune – Gagosian this ain’t, nor would it be. But it would have served Trich well to have to actually make something worth showing before he was handed a solo show.

These guilty promoters, with hazy intentions, include Gerald Peters Gallery , who apparently have picked this kid up (to join their cast of thousands – check their artist list) and helped sponsor this show (most of the pieces are “shown courtesy of” GP.) We’ve all heard or encountered the stories about New York galleries looking beyond the grad school hunting grounds of the 90’s to undergrads during these latter boom times, trying to beat the competition and sew up the up-and-comers. This is taking it to a whole other, much weirder, level. While I have enjoyed some of Peters’ shows of older heavy hitters (a James Surls show in 2005 comes to mind,) many of their more “contemporary” choices are, quite simply, heinous – even when the artists are out of puberty. Richland has put on some decent shows on the past. I have no idea what had them facilitate this one. The long list of thanked sponsors bespeaks either Trich’s commerical savvy (in which case he should aim for an MBA), or Peters ability and willingness to sell pretty much anything to anyone, anytime.

It all shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what art does, and what it doesn’t do; what it is and isn’t about. But it shows an equally clunky comprehension of media and pop culture, aspects of which someone seems to want to mimick. This is all ripe territory. Opportunities are missed here. “Artist emulates pseudo-spiritual testosterone rock hero from 90′s” – I would keep that poster, if it were self-aware. Banks Violette could rock that shit.

Also standing accused – Randall Garrett , the purported curator. In his essay for the show, from slim ingredients, Garrett whips up a frothy biography for a kid who hasn’t done much, and to boot, claims to not exist. After a weighty preamble about the life and ideas of Gautama Buddha and their prescience to our current moment, in the capper for me, he writes: “Let’s rewind to the spring of 2006…Like most kids, Eric liked to hang out with friends, listening to Tool, Rage Against the Machine, and other cool bands on his stereo. He worked in a grocery store, had a girlfriend, and [played football]…he really liked to paint.” It gushes on, and on, and on, about the subsequent wonder years (that include a trip to NEW YORK!!!) full of spectacular insights into science, art (influences include Caravaggio and Bernini), history, religion, and philosophy – or rather, I’m sorry, make that wonder year.

Are you kidding me? Am I just having a bad dream? I half expect to look out the window and see a locust plague, and blood rain. Call this Confirmation of the Apocalypse #436. Thankfully our big blue recycling bin showed up this very week, so at least this stuff can be reincarnated at some later date. Identity, real or nonexistent, is happily always simply in flux.

Later, on Glasstire I wrote a comment to a discussion thread, that I found archived somewhere online as the original stories were censored from GT:

“As I wrote to Randall, I’ll say here that I appreciated his accepting some criticism in a good-natured spirit.I think its good to have art, or its presentation, discussed like this. He was also kind enough to send some pictures of the show, which I will try to catch in person before it closes next week. However, seeing the pictures simply reinforces my suspicion that this kid needs more time to develop. If he had had a more “traditional” art education, he might have witnessed how many other young artists (by the thousands) paint the exact same tropes, and he might have pushed the work beyond the most standard bohemian neo-neo-neo expressionist cliches (but then, this should have been the curator’s job, and his mysterious mentor’s, “Dallas artist Siros”) It’s simply bad painting, 19 or not, and meaningless at this moment. I applaud his ambition. The paintings are big enough, painted with sort of clueless bravado. But this ambition and energy, well directed, would get him somewhere away from the yea-sayers, and to some teachers who could get him up to speed with art in the 21st century. I feel bad even beating up on him like this.I shouldn’t even have seen this stuff. But if he’s really an artist, then he‘ll keep making things, have some crises of faith, and learn that the kind of approval he seems generally subject to right now might be the worst kind of impediment. I am still left with questions about why Garrett signed off on this show, with this shadowy “camp” of backers hidden behind the trees.”

bottom 2 photos courtesy of Randall Garrett.

other photos: Titus O’Brien

Dallas Artist Siros is Mad at Me, Feb. 25, 2008

holy mother, you never know what kind of nut job you’re going to scare out of the bushes.

Some people in town called me last week to say that “Dallas Artist Siros”, Eric Trich’s art guru or whatever, was out for my blood. He was calling around demanding my address, my phone number, my email, whatever (he was refused). I imagine him saying “Siros wants the sateesfaction. I, Siros, weel eat his heart for the breakfast!” Why do I picture him with a big Greek mustache and crazy, dark Arshile Gorky eyeballs? No offense meant to Greeks or Armenians. I freakin love Arshile Gorky, and Greece – I obviously have to get more pc around here. In fact, I must say that I really feel this sort of warm humorous affection for the Zorba-esque Siros in my mind.

First thought hearing he was after me was, stand in line brother. Second thought was, isn’t this a kind of belated response? My post was months ago. Third, why would he bother? Forth, this is hilarious. Then I forgot about it.

Well, the laughs keep coming. Siros called one of these folks again, saying that they will receive a letter soon from his lawyers. What? This party has no official connection with me, only friendship, and certainly not to my blog or GT. Why he wouldn’t just contact Rainey, or me through my own website, is beyond me…maybe because it’s kind of crazy. But anyway, this person got the letter a couple days later, certified, with lots and lots of red “CONFIDENTIAL” stamps all over it (like James Bond!). Care of her gallery, my wife also received one (someone knows how to use the internet.) CC’d on the two pager, and assumed to be fellow recipients, are (drum roll please) the dean of UTA, the chair of my dept at UTA, the editor of the Star-Telegram, Randall Garrett, Ashley Casson of Gerald Peters, the Art Inst. of Dallas, the “Fort Worth Modern” (sic), my wife, Road Agent gallery, and weirdest of all, Tim Blum and Jeff Poe, my old bosses in LA, who fired me over four years ago (suffice to say it was the best thing for everyone. I still love ‘em. Thanks for everything guys, if you happen to read this wondering what the hell is going on with that letter.) No Glasstire. No me. Still, a small fortune in postal costs.

Ok, so the obvious intent is slander, and some old school indignant saber rattling. He said as much in his calls. He’s mad at all the horrible things I’ve done to Dallas (“This isn’t about Eric” he said. Uh, ok.) He wanted to really tell me off, I guess, about…well, no one really knows. He was a bit all over the place. He didn’t mention copyright stuff, until the letter. But anyway, I got my hands on one of ‘em, and it’s got this weird, bad fake letterhead, and is written in bad fake legal-ese. “It has come to the attention of SGA Enterprises (New York, Los Angeles, Dallas) and London-Tokyo Investors Group that …a certain Titus O’Brien” is using copyrighted materials, etc, contacting our lawyers, yadda yadda. “We are surprised that a person of Mr. O’Brien’s reputation and education (not to mention a teacher at the university of Texas Arlington) would use these images for his own benefit.” Etc. No address on the letterhead, but there is one on the envelope. It’s the same as the one listed for “The Studio” on the 9×12 manila envelope that enclosed the letter envelope (I guess extra envelopes added to the fear factor), that sits in a residential neighborhood in Uptown Dallas. Smells like Siros Spirit. I don’t remember copyright credits to SGA or whoever on the cards, but as I said, those things hit the recycling bin months ago. If you’ve got one, check for me, would ya?

This is all referring to the pictures I took of the pile of, uh,”promotional materials” that inspired this post. I took them down briefly while checking on things. It turns out we’re good, under a nifty little concept called “fair use”. Since my piece is fundamentally a critique of said materials, and the photos are my own.

The remaining pics were sent to me by Randall Garrett. If you need more pics go the kid’s website (www.erictrich.com). Whoops – they’re down now – you’ll only find a letter from one KR Shook on that same letterhead. Check it out. Trich is an “astounding…prodigy.” It says so right there. Who needs pictures? And I’d be curious to explore the collections list in that letter…

Hey, if I turn up missing, will you guys promise to check Siros’ basement first thing?

When I was 18, I met John Cage. I was in art school. He was coming to our city to do some performances and lectures and things. I didn’t know who he was. Some one said to me that they thought I especially should. I still don’t know why he said so, but as it turns out, he was right.

I’ve since realized that Cage had what must have been a profound love of teaching, and of young people, which explains why he would agree to spend a number of days involved in activities at an art college. It would have made much more since for him to have done his thing with the symphony and left, but instead he stuck around for a week or two.

He was giving a lecture one lovely Spring morning on our fair campus. I won’t forget that day as long as any shred of memory holds, I imagine. He spoke about ideas, and he laughed. He laughed a lot. It struck me that this was perhaps the first truly happy person I had ever seen.

I was in the midst of a few years-long wrestling match with the question of human suffering. I was sort of obsessed with the Holocaust, unable to shake some images from Western Civ of those piles of bodies discovered by the allies when they liberated the camps. Plus, Lynch’s Blue Velvet had recently come out, and seemed eerily parallel to experiences I was going through in my first real (ie messy and tortuous) love affair. I carried around dog-eared copies of Rimbaud, Kafka, and a particularly worn-out paperback of Camus’ Myth of Sisyphus, with a floating Magritte rock on the cover. You know, life is a godless, absurd mess. All we have in the end is one choice: Do I kill myself today, or do I live in revolt? Sheesh, no wonder I was depressed.

So, there is this impish little man, breathlessly giggling while telling us all we didn’t exist. That was part of his thing. You know: silence, chance, anarchy, Duchamp, Nagarjuna, “I have nothing to say, and I am saying it.” He got to the Q&A bit, and kids started asking the dumbest imaginable questions. How many plants do you have? How many cats? What do you feed your cats? Do your cats eat your plants? I mean, it was unbelievable, and he seemed to be getting annoyed. Meanwhile, I’m sitting there stewing. This whole thing was really rubbing against the grain of my whole angsty “all I got is me and my choice to not die today” thing. So I stood up, all 6’, 130 lbs, and two feet of Cousin It-meets-Eddy Vedder hair and said “What do you mean I don’t exist? That’s all I got, man! Here I am!” He lit up like a Christmas tree. “Yes (giggle.) What is that?”

Later I would read all the Zen stories, recognizing immediately what was happening in those encounters. The young monk asks the Master some variation of my own question, and the master’s response would stump the student’s rational mind, shove him out of his egoic box-trap with one well aimed push.

I just stood there, speechless, my eyes locked on his, him beaming that smile. My mind just stopped. I didn’t know it could do that. I suddenly heard the bird song coming in through the open windows of the auditorium, for what seemed like the first time. I felt the warm sun, the breeze, and some natural well of joy and pleasure native to my very own being, bubbling up and greeting the joy radiating out from this little old dude.

We talked afterwards, and again later, and I wrote to him a few times. None of that was nearly as important as that one moment (little else has been.) He spoke of Zen. I wanted a hit of whatever he was taking, so I looked into that, met some Zen teachers, felt drawn to do the monk thing. I spent the next decade in and out of monasteries and Zen centers around North America (tough way to make a living in the US, by the way.) During one long intensive retreat, I thought of him constantly one whole day, almost breaking a vow of silence to call him. A few days later when the retreat ended, I took a train home to New York. I picked up a Village Voice, sitting down hard when I saw a black box on the cover that said simply “John Cage: 1912-1992.”

Anyway, my friend Kevin just sent me a great video of a performance of Cage’s 4’33″ today. Then I found an interview with him (from around the time I knew him) that was sort of like coming across footage of a dead family member who’s voice you almost can’t remember anymore. Thought I’d share them here. Watch for that giggle. Enjoy.

Not to flog a dead horse, or thinking that anyone cares, but I thought I’d give my final two cents on O’Neil’s appearance on Stern. I surfed around this morning, and the common response on the myriad forums of discussion is “Art people are snobs, fuck off. Rock on, Robyn!” This is from all the art people, of course, reflecting the common self-righteously “other” persona that artists group in large numbers to assume, as if in a protective stance against the ennui felt about heavy stuffed-shirt culture – in who’s ranks I guess I’ve been lumped. We is the Man. Newsflash – there is no other. Y’all are not cool and edgy. There is no avant-garde.

 

I don’t think I expressed much horror, nor has anyone else; more just sort of befuddlement. If you read the Stern breakdown that started all this, and only that, it comes across as fairly demeaning and weird. To me and at least a few others, anyway. Like, “Well, what do we do now with this artist chick but ask her to masturbate and lift her shirt?” Why is a rumored-to-be-happily-married woman failing to mention that, in order to wrangle a date with Benjy (or lying about wishing to do so to get on the show in the first place) and discussing her masturbation fantasy of giving head to obese depressive alcoholic drug-addicted masochistic Artie (however fascinating he might be) on global satellite radio? Talking at length with O’Neil about it, of course the thing gets humanized and it’s easy to understand her nuanced experience (if not everything she said), factoring in her long hours listening to Stern in her studio, and the fact she’s a fandom junky, etc etc. Which is all honest and fine, and actually not all that special: it is the standard mode now. It’s cool for “smart people” to like TV and crassness and all things pop and lowly. This is all such old news. It’s what 90% of all art is about now. That culture war was won decades ago. Stern isn’t (however speciously) called the “King of All Media”, and making $500,000,000 a year, for nothing. And anybody actually heard of Warhol around here?

 

But the elephant in the room is that O’Neil herself freaked out, got upset and defensive, and demanded that everybody take the picture of her lifting her shirt down ASAP, or get sued. Now, she said this in the absolute nicest possible way, and while I may not yet be in her ‘circle of trust’, we have had a sort of meeting of the minds and are continuing an enjoyable exchange. She’s seems very gracious, generous, and nice. I have expressed to her the same things I’m saying here, namely that I wanted to leave the picture up for honesty’s sake, not to punish. If it was all so much fun, then let it ride, it’s simply the nature of the Stern beast. Celebrities have to deal with this shit daily, as does everybody else who goes on Stern. If you want to go dance around in the glaring light of hilarious, multi-million audience listening/watching, crass media culture (which is culture now as far as anyone can tell,) then just do it and watch, giggling, while the Google hits mount.

 

But I think it’s interesting (and a totally honest reaction) that she flipped out to find herself there, and felt sick and scared and ready to escape from her own skin, because the situation wasn’t natural, the intimacy and the nuances didn’t get translated into the breakdown (how healthy it is to realize one isn’t Tia Tequila. It’s maybe a good sign.) That private-seeming little party happened in front of an audience of millions and millions of people and growing, for 24 hours anyway in a slow media cycle. Her parents didn’t like it at all, and she felt embarrassed. So, could the intimacy she experienced perhaps be a tad naïve? Wasn’t she really just another prop, all the more exotic for simply being a touch more eloquent, and reluctant to bare all, than the typical aspiring-stripper tourist from the boonies, or Sybian-riding porn star? The bit mainly consisted of their bread-and-butter shtick, which is to demean, deflate, lower, and flatten, turning women into objects of alternating desire and revulsion. In her Globe interview about it, O’Neil seems to think she elevated the usual content, that they were all so glad to have a breath of fresh, noble high art culture air. Maybe they were (though I just heard the typical “wow, I should get into that racket” cliches). I doubt the next stripping midget who gets tossed will notice the elevated atmosphere. And if O’Neil weren’t pretty, she doubtless would have simply been flayed alive…

 

The actual Stern fans acted like you’d expect on their message boards, analyzing her body, her breast size and ass-firmness, etc, just like the master. Of course it’s entertaining! Who doesn’t like nudity and sex? Who can turn away? Me, I love Henry Miller, naked old Blake, Annie Sprinkle, and reruns of Real Sex. But everyone is defending Robyn as if she was having such a fabulous rockin’ time, when personally, all things considered, it looks really like about as much fun as having a prostate exam on Larry King. “Oh, Larry, I’ve dreamed about this for such a long time!” “My pleasure, kid, it’s my pleasure.”