Posted by farid from customer-148-233-93-48.uninet.net.mx (148.233.93.48) on Monday, September 08, 2003 at 10:37AM :
I'd forgotten how bereft of everything decent or wise these people are...Beth-Shlimoon and his ilk. I haven't had a yelp fest with any of them in quite awhile and wasn't prepared. And while they all come over here and sneak around seeing what we're up to on the sly, I can't bear to even see the home pages of the others...
Two things stand out in Shlimoons response. One was the notion that I am a "failed" sculptor the other was his persistence in writing, even though he knows damn well most of us are scratching our heads, when we aren't howling, at his heartfelt discombobulations.
Let's take the failed sculptor first...and this has nothing to do with whether I'm "good" or not. That's a meaningless criterion anyway...if you sell, you're good...that's all that means, as far as your contemporaries are concerned...but "failed" we can measure outside of sales, or even critical acclaim...since I never set out to win either. You'd have to measure my failure by what I attempted to do, not Shlimoons idea of what it is...being two things chiefly, one is making as much money as you posibly can, the other is being liked by as many people as you possibly can.
What I did try to do was get the funding from our own people to build monuments we could get installed in major cities in America. Sounds simple don't it? Just getting the funding out of our own people was a Herculean task that I defy anyone to repeat. Inspiring people like Narsai David, Dr. Vallo Benjamin, Anna Eshoo, Helen Nimrod Schwarten, Dr. Milton David...and a few dear people whose names I wont spell out, as well as other Assyrians from around the world and even some non-Assyrians...hell we even got several thousand dollars from IBM...I wouldn't class a failure of any kind...especially as it's never been done before to my knowledge...and certainly never for an Art project. Unless of course Shlimoon and his ilks consider it a failure of our usuall miserliness and mistrust.
Next task was to put this money to use and build something worthy with it...and here again the cost of making the sculpture was just that...what it would cost if you hired any foundry to make such a piece...only the money went to me because, like my friend said...I was playng the part of a whole troop of Egyptians...doing myself what it would take a handfull of people of various skills to do. So shoot me...
Next came the problem of actually getting a city to give us the space...for eternity, for the monument. Even with some last minute roadblocks put there by our "own" people we managed to get a very choice location in San Francisco, as anyone who visits the city will admit in a minute...unless they're built along the lines of Shlimoon and company...where sheer envy rules, a carry-over from that reformed, but-not-enough, Jew religion of theirs.
I gather then that we couldn't technically class the Ashurbanipal Monument a failure, although there's the issue of whether it's really Gilgamesh or Betsy Ross, but we'll leave that to Aprim and other hysterians. It's up there...it's a modern interpretation of an ancient theme based on authentic Assyrian designs. You don't have to like it...but it succeeded at what it was intended to do. It's there, it's been there for 15 years, three of them in a box addmittedly, attracting people, getting posed in front of, educating people as they read more of our history on its base than they ever will in school. And it drove one short guy an even shorter distance to his knees and to tears.
That brings us to Shumirum. Once again, after 13 years of work, the money was there, the monument was built and this time the city of Chicago accepted it and gave it an equally prestigious location. The monument failed, was MADE to fail, because of the incredible arrogance and stupidity of one man...coupled with the stunning indifference of the Assyrian community there...all too busy dividing "greatness" till you can't see it any more. Was it a "failure" of mine that I wouldn't kiss National Arse? Am I supposed to whore myself and my work for the "greater good"...of whom?
Undaunted I started a monument of Hammurabi figuring the people of Detroit could in no way match Nimrod and his crowd. This time however I couldn't even get past the plaster stage. After raising another $90,000 from the sale of my own sculpture...to make "them" a monument, they turned on me with a contract so they'd have a free hand to do what I wouldn't let Nimrod or Jackie, or aybody else do. Figuring I was broke and desperate, with a family to feed, they saw their opportunity and took it, never dreaming I'd tell them to go fuck themselves. And here again you see the malignant and pudgy paw of an Assyrian at work...Atour "Down-Here" Golani. His need for absolute control...his turds come in boxed sets, ruined the atmosphere among the Chaldeans there. Leave me alone...like you would your surgeon or carpenter...and I'll never fail you...but try to tell me how to make sculpture and we have problems.
There was no possibility of failure...not as a sculptor...not with such glorious material and the rapt interest of the larger community. Failure came from the impediments Assyrians put in our way...like Shlimoon and many many more like him that we're plagued with. Yet they actually take satisfaction in my "failure"...because my failure ensures the continuation of the status-quo, what they're used to calling their "success"...which is nothing more than the opportunity to be the only stars...the historians, poets, and writers and thinkers and artists...all of them below even amateur status and eager and desperate to keep it that way.
The other disturbing thing about Shlimoon, but also pervasive among his type, is the willingness, nay the eagerness, the craving for being trounced in public...preferrably in front of their peers, for being sad and pathetic and revelling in it. An Assyrian who didn't have a sword would go get one...if she didn't know how to use one, she'd learn...a Christian would wave his prick in the air instead, or use his godawful language skill and the rest of his infantile tols, not to vanquish or even defend himself, but to be SEEN to be getting pummelled...right there in front of god and creation...and why? Because that's what "they" did to Christ. Shlimoon carries the scars I give him, the welts and bruises as if they were a very stigmata...his way of showing his mates what a mean and vicious person I am, thereby making himself into more of an object of their anject pity because that's the one sure-fire and acceptable way to be "liked" among us, humble shit-pie eating Christians...and costing me "popularity". They're supposed to see Christ crucified all over again as I whip him and scorn him and drive hammers up his arse...he doesn't mind it in the least, in fact it confirms his deep devotion to Judaism to be seen getting a solid drubbing...like "He" did.
Am I supposed to do the "decent" thing...the "Christian" thing, be "nice" to a fellow-Assyrian...overlook his lack of language skills and worse...his total indifference as to whether anyone even understands him, like what does it matter?. Maybe, just maybe, the whole purpose of writing or speaking is to COMMUNICATE and not to confound as seems to satisfy these "writers". Why should I adopt a low standard...why should we be bothered with indigestible ideas to begin with, expressed in unintelligibale speech on top of that, from people who don't want to bother to read a book, or improve their skills in a language they INSIST on murdering, holding up their deficiencies proudy...as if they were the pierced limbs of Jesus...as who should say "Boo" to them? Why can't THEY make the effort...to upgrade themselves? Or are their versions of Assyrians supposed to be objects of pity and scorn...as "HE" was? Wouldn't that be better for all of us in the end...instead of having the swifter of foot slow down and then crawl just so a Shlimmon can keep up and not be made to feel like the lazy, pathetic yet arrogant "Assyrian" he is, that's bringing us all down to his level?
Where is there anything remotely Assyrian any sane one of us would want to claim as our own in this bundle of tortured rags?
-- farid
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