America 2009: The Perfect Dystopic Shit Storm

Remember that whole American free market capitalist financial system thing? Yeah, well, that's done. The foundations, the bedrocks of our financial system -- institutions like CitiBank, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns, Bank of America, Fannie Mae -- they're bankrupt and/or have completely collapsed. And also that whole automotive industry --- as American as Chevrolet? Finito. Hasta la vista, baby. Also, print media like newspapers and magazines where I've made bread and butter for the last 15 years? Quaint and antiquated and also dropping like cracked-out flies. Insurance industry? On it's back. Health care system? Intensive care unit in desperate need of resusitation. Energy policy? Ha-ha-ha. It's all complete MERDE.

Thing is, even though it's never ever nice to point a (or the) finger, MOST EVERYONE IN OUR COUNTRY BARES RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS SHIT STORM. The greedy bankers and their absurd/criminal lending practices predicated on giving credit to utterly unqualified people; the government (holla Phil Gramm!) for deregulation fervor, integrating industries like banking, insurance, mortgages that were separated FOR GOOD REASON during the FIRST great depression; and the vast number of Americans for devouring credit for homes and SUVs on terms they could never ever hope to repay and for NOT using their brains to consider what was wrong with subprime interest loans.

And now here we all are in the perfect shit storm. Unemployment is skyrocketing, there's no credit to be had, real estate values are collapsing, businesses are shuttering, and there's a general malaise and despair not felt here in a long time.

Our AMAZING new President Barack Obama is a godsend. But he doesn't have the bi-partisan support he needs. The Republicans are obstructionists and playing petty politics -- which is laughable with the enormous deficit THEY ran up over the dark Bush years with an ABSURD UNNECESSARY WAR in Iraq. But Obama's focused on the economy, health care, and energy policy and seems to on the right track despite a daunting road ahead.

It's gonna be a tough couple of years here in the U.S.A. But the way things went over the last decade or more, with incredible avarice, sloth, stupidity -- gas guzzling, overweight, crass materialism, know-nothings engaged it vacuous mass culture, war mongering -- it's high time for a moral, spiritual, communal purge that makes this country a better place No more stupid wars, no more torture, no more SUVs, no more tainted food supplies filled with corn, hormones, or antibiotics, no more inaccessible health care, no more ridiculous income disparities, no more demonizing the others.

The incredible election of Barack Obama seems was bright light and an ENORMOUS step in the right direction. If the know-nothings let him, he and his relatively enlightened program move this country into a new orbit that's desperately needed, there may be hope. Meanwhile, many of us are going to have to hunker down for a while to keep the caca from blinding us.

Whitney Biennial: It's Just Aiiiight...

...per usual and that's pretty much a given year after year after year. There are always scattered gems hidden amongst the general detritus-- that's somehow supposed to represent an overview of the contemporary art scene -- which if these are any indicationk, but really suck. Perhaps if I were willing to sit through an entire video installation with a 5-month old dangling off my torso there'd be more to namecheck here (there was one on immigration that looked incredible). All the same, it was worth wading through for the following:

My favorite for its high-concept, sheer absurdity and overall brilliance was an installation by Mika Rottenberg called "Cheese" that left me both giddy and thoughtful like I wish the rest of the biennial had. It featured videos of women with floor-length hair galavanting about a farm (almost like livestock) milking goats and perhaps their hair(?) -- the videos were encased in this log-like shack you had to crawl inside of to get glimpses of the video screens. Though the message wasn't overt, it seemed an impressionistic meditation on mysogeny and chatel and cattle and hair care and nature without clobbering anyone over the head with any of it engendering smiles and head (and hair) scratching and thoughts. Later i found out the women were world-record hair growers (for real) with hair growing up to 13 feet.


Also really likeed Michael Smith's class portraits with his alter-ego "Mike" looking awkward and out of place in each picture. He literally took these shots at Sears with his first semester art classes over several years and his strange demeanor is just so obtuse and absurd and completley entertaining.

Melanie Schiff's large print photograph "Cannon Falls (Cobain Room)" looks just like an incredibly stark 1970s non-descript motel room with a shag carpet and a floor-to-ceiling curtains with a nude female image moving behind the curtains. It's not until you read the wall text explaining that it's the a room where Cobain slept in while recording at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, Minnestoa that the photo takes on this incredibly eerie and ethereal mood.

Eduardo Sarabia's "The Gift" is essentially a store-room with shelving" with nonsesical products like oversized dice, large elephant legs, horse heads, memaid tails, banana boxes, chinese vases. I'm sure it's a commentary on crass commercialism or something or another -- but it's trippy on its own terms and the mismatched products have a certain strand that kept me smiling in the storage room.

Amanda Ross Ho's simple large blue kitty litter box was just straight up amusing and glad to see a space where much of the surrounding art should and could fit comfortably.

Fia Backstrom's chocolate or clay lettering that spelled out the words "Let's Decorate, Let's Do it Professionally" and "Communal Focus Group" and "Toothy Smile" --- just so banal and obtuse and somehow stuck out more than the rest

Finally, Carl Bove's "Night Sky over New York"

BARACK OBAMA CLINCHES THE 2008 DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - YEAH BABY!!!!!!!! (And Hill, Do the Right Thing)

Just didn't think it could happen in this lifetime -- with this country's tragic legacy of racism and close-mindeness and especially now, after these eight darkest of dark years of Bush incompetence and corruption (you know, war, economic woes, social polarization, corporate corruption, government ineptitude, irresponsible fiscal policies, environmental degradation, etc.). I'm so friggin happy! To see a presidential nominee with integrity and pragmatism and brains is miraculous; someone whose campaign stayed above the political muck; someone with brilliant oratory skills and an ability to transcend the worst of the American political process -- baby, I'm amazed! That he's an African American certainly wasn't the determining factor, but it's a bonus, and a lovely historic moment to revel in to boot. It's restored some of my faith in this sometimes wonderful and sometimes scary country. In a nutshell: Yeah America!

One a LAME note: Hillary Clinton refused to step aside tonight after Obama absolutely clinched the nomination with the delegate count or to really acknowledge REALITY. Instead of making an honorable conciliatory concession speech, she took the low road asking people in her speech to write in to her campaign to tell her what to do. So here's what I wrote on http://www.hillaryclinton.com:

Dear Senator Clinton (2nd Place Finisher in the 2008 Democratic Primary),

While I once respected you as a candidate and as a person, your refusal to step aside after tonight's Democratic primary final, when your opponent clearly clinched the nomination, is detrimental to our party, our country, and the American people who you claim to serve. It is unseemly. If you are worth your word and have any integrity left, you will humbly step aside as soon as humanly possible, congratulate your opponent and his supporters, and begin working on his and the American people's behalf. I have for most part refrained from criticizing your historic campaign (well... maybe not your strange and ominous Robert Kennedy remarks, your backtracking on the Michigan and Florida primaries, and your refusal to apologize for voting to authorize the Iraq war), but your decision to stay in the race tonight after a final conclusion was reached is reprehensible and pathetic and difficult not to be angry about. You are alienating yourself from the American people and helping the Republicans. Don't fool yourself that you are doing this for your supporters, this is clearly all about you. It is now well beyond the time for you step down, please do your part for the American people and for history. Do us all a favor, do the right thing.

Cai Guo-Qiang's Art is WAY Better Than Google

The FANTASTIC Cai Guo-Qiang show "I Want to Believe" at the Guggenheim is a ridonkulous breath-taking fun house with impossible installations like 9 full-size cars cascading down the towering rotunda with lighted tubes, a wave of 99 fake taxidermied wolves (of course), exploded gun powder paintings, deconstructed propaganda sculptures, tigers festooned with arrows and a raft ride down a flowing river, oh my! The distilled Mao-era propaganda sculptures, which are sometimes no more than just a piece of wood and brackets, somehow managed to be the perfect analogs to the originals, pictures of which were scattered about the floor. He assembled an entire shipwreck surrounded by thousands of broken ceramic dishes and little dieties. Incredible in scope and scale, brilliant originality, and diverse mediums made this easily my favorite art show of the year thus far.

Here's what some pro says: "Cai draws on a wide variety of materials, symbols, narratives, and traditions—elements of feng shui, Chinese medicine and philosophy, images of dragons and tigers, roller coasters, computers, vending machines, and gunpowder." I just know the show made me tingle.

Bukka White: Way Better Than Google

Last week I stumbled upon this UTTERLY AMAZING clip of Delta bluesman Bukka White playing guitar that blew me out of my freelance work cubicle (which upset h.r. quite a bit). White is, bar none, the greatest guitar player of all time -- sit down Jimmy Page, John McLaughlin, Chuck Berry, Joe Satriani, Jack White, whoever -- you are all Bukka's beyotches. According to Wiki, White recorded with folklorist John Lomax while serving time in prison (extra points for that), played with Charlie Patton, and even Dylan covered him. On this clip of "Aberdeen Blues" White plays this chunky two-handed rhythm and does this percussive cross-over trick slapping the neck of the guitar with his strumming hand (years before Eddie Van Halen) on a dobro that will send electric jolts through your spinal fluid and having to call the paramedics -- see for yourself here.

Hercules & The Sad Love Affair

Hercules & Love Affair are an NYC dance electronic band whose fine album is deservedly getting lots of love but who unfortunately were just terribly mediocre Saturday night at Brooklyn's Studio B. Sadly, they weren't way better than Google. And compared to their strong debut, which has a couple of slamming singles, including the Tom Tom Club-like "Iris" and the somber pop track "Blind," featuring the excellent and vulnerable vocal stylings of one Antony Hegarty of Antony & the Johnson fame, they were off their dance music game.

Inexplicably it was the band's first show EVER -- which is kind of insane considering all the bizz buzz they've inspired. All of which begs the question: Why play your very first WAY OVERLY-HYPED NYC show -- one which is sold out, getting a buzz from abroad, in front of a hometown crowd, with tix being scalped on Ebay, with a strong album coming out on the great DFA record label, and all the media peeps watching expectantly -- when you aren't ready and without your award winning vocalist Antony? Woodshed in Dubuque or New Hope or anywhere for a few weeks or months before conquering this sensationalized and judgemental big city show filled with great expectations, rabid bloggers, cool hunters and fresh makers and all manner of miscreants.

If and when they can get Antony out front and can work in the album's great techno club production elements, they will be great; meanwhile, go buy the record or get the singles and feel free to sleep on the live show.

Season Finales: Tighty-Whiteys, Over-Produced Bores & Coke Whores (Oh My!)

Last night's crapitudinal t.v. (redundant i know), was only worthy because it's the absolute bestest time of the television year: season finales! Even if you've only seen this caca passing for entertainment in a channel-surfing coma, than you well know that even a minuscule amount of it will turn your gray matter into gray cheese whiz. But not for the finales, the crap is gilded, all dream-like, fluffy and wonderous as new love blossoms, suspense is resolved, goodwill for all man-and-woman-kind reigns supreeme and guilty t.v. watchers can feel slightly less horrid for tuning in.

To wit, last night's Bachelor season #49 finale: A Brit with an upper crust accent who looks like a tighty-whitey model emotionally disemboweled some sweet bimba a few seconds before proposing to another on bended knee. The best moment came when the first bimba, after getting brutally rejected, said to the bachelor twit that the other bimba was the "falsest woman in the house." Imagine that, a carefully orchestrated "reality' show about love where a fake pot calls a fake kettle fake. What must it be like to watch yourself on national television horned-out and slobber-boning, psychology destroying someone, or convulsing, blubbering and babbling before millions of rubber-necking Americans? It's all perfect and horrible, treacle and a trainwreck and difficult to avert your gaze from, except that it's the finale!

Then came MTV's The Hills' grand finale, the greatest fake reality show ever ever ever -- impeccably produced, with gauzy shots, city lights, inane contrived dialogue about inconsequential pap with elongated quizzical looks backed by an insidious sad pop alterna-rock balladry. Lo and Audrina can't get along as roommates and L.C.'s caught between the two crying crocodile tears -- who cares? Eveyone, because it looks so damn good. The dark Spencer and his plastic-surgery-victim robotron/fiancee Heidi are in a tiff and she blows the best fake job she'll ever have and what does that mean to anyone? Everything. MTV has done an incredible job gilding the pitiful and dreadfully boring SoCal elite with production gloss and sheen far outweighing the cast's trite existences. It's like an Extreme Makeover for the pathologically uninteresting.

Gossip Girl, on the other hand, is a fictionalized drama about hot-cha-cha upper east sider prep schoolers and on a whole nuh-thuh-lev-el. Last night's episode was the first i'd seen in its entirety. Teen goddess Blake Lively (who my gf and i have an agreement about...) is going through a typical teen rebellion phase -- the kind we all have: being a cheating coke whore, abetting a fatal overdose and ruining your mom's wedding. Yes it's preposterous and disposable and the rich kids are deplorable, but they're all so damn cute and at least its fictitious. Add in the degenerate underage plot twists that inexplicably make it past FCC censors, and you have a brilliant series that is our collective responsibility to support and love and keep on the air -- at least until next week when the season finale runs.