So I had my “annual” physical today (in quotes because my last one was like seven years ago). I'm in better shape (by far) now than I was back then… It's actually a miracle that I'm still as healthy as I am, given that I've had, oh, fifteen years of lethargy eroding me. I guess having to spend summers tossing bales of hay was probably a very good thing!
Anyway, my doctor's office is in Yorkville, a fancy part of town with plenty of stores selling paintings for thousands and thousands of dollars a piece. Begging for change in front of this store selling First Nations artwork — often for as much money per painting as a low income annual salary — were three or four Inuit guys huddled with blankets around them. Oh the irony of having your culture sold for huge markups to the occupying forces while you are forced to beg for change from them…
The other thought that comes to mind when I see indigenous and other “outsider art” or even craft-oriented art being sold at massive markups is that it makes an unpleasant statement about the accessibility of creating art — everyone has art inside them. Galleries turning it into a luxury product enforces the dangerous worldview that creative expression is meant only for the “gifted”, and can not be created by the commoner.
Which makes about as much sense as saying only porn stars should have sex.
Anyway… I'm still loving the reaction the car has been getting. Pretty much everyone slows down next to it to check it out, and then turns around for a second look. A lot of compliments have been shouted from cars and passers-by, which is cool… I stopped and visited Blair on the way back from the doctor's, and as I was walking back to the car I saw a guy walk past, laugh and smile, turn around, laugh and smile some more, and keep going. When he saw it was my car he walked up,
Guy: “I have to ask… Why did you paint your Porsche camo?”Me: “I thought it would be funny; I wanted something that would make kids smile and laugh.”
Guy: “Well, you made me smile, thanks!”
So that was nice and friendly. I love those mini-encounters.
The Lizardman: “Tell me about your tattoos, or, as you put it, your 'dumb tattoos'. What's the main motivation behind them?”Steve-O: “A lot of people get tattoos for what the tattoo means to them, but I tend to get tattoos for what the tattoo's going to mean to everybody else. All my tattoos are supposed to make people giggle.”
The Lizardman: “You've reversed the perspective… instead of it's for me, it's for the world — I really like that just by walking down on the street I turn everybody's day surreal. They may be driving to work and all of a sudden, 'What the fuck was that?' It breaks them out of that mindset where they go to work, eat, sleep, die.“
Steve-O: “Yeah, some people just hate their day or they're having a shitty ass day, and they watch half an hour of me doing dumb shit and after that first half hour they didn't have their shitty day, and life's not a problem any more…”
What in life is more noble than making others laugh?
On the other hand, I stopped in at Gentry Lane, a Lotus and exotic/luxury car dealer around the corner from me, and the guy there (I think the owner but I'm not sure) seemed extremely unthrilled about the paintjob, commenting with a dour expression on how strange it was, and asking what year of Porsche I'd done it to, ha… I think he was deeply disturbed (or at least thought I was the biggest idiot that had come into his store for a while).
Meh, some people want to smile, some people worry about presenting a pedigree. I'd rather smile. The bad news is that life isn't always fun, but the good news is that life is always funny.
Well, I have an 18-page interview on microdermals (or surface dermals, or dermal anchors, or single-point pocketing, or whatever you want to call it) that I have to cull down to a more reasonable length so I can get it posted by or over the weekend… And I really should post something to ModBlog because I feel like I've neglected it the last couple of days…
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