Posted by pancho from pool0111.cvx20-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.250.111) on Saturday, November 23, 2002 at 9:24AM :
We were discussing his act again last night with pals. A lot of head shaking and "what was he thinking" going on. Some small acts reflect the cosmos...ours at least.
Imagine if you can, a concert in which Pavarotti, Plastic Flamigoes and that other wop sing their hearts out. The audience has been assembled and told to expect a treat...indeed lengthy introductions tell you what a rare thing you are about to hear...how these three are incomparable...how you will me so moved...get out your hankies...your meatballs...get ready to be thrilled and devastated, lifted to the very stars etc.
And the three come out and sing their hearts out and it's every bit as good as you were led to believe...you're moved, you're weeping...you want to go order Italian take-out...you don't know how to contain your excitement...
and then...the master of ceremonies...a lawyer or teacher or engineer takes the stage and says..."I have a song I'd like to sing too". And they send you home feeling molested and abused...like you were tricked into a room with a promise of candy, only to have THAT hairy hand run up your thigh.
That's what Alphonse did.
Jackie too wanted to to have me drape some cloths, expensive ones I'm sure, on the pedestals at the convention.
What is it with these people? Does the fact that they run their businesses, or manage to get jobs, graduate from college...do these things so impress them...about themselves, that they feel there isn't anything they can't do?
There's Atour, a nice enough little guy, happily working away at Ford Motor Company making cars that stall, and get people killed...cars that roll over, and get people killed...cars that explode, and get people killed...cars that have magic tires that disintegrate, and get people killed....who finds he has some spare time left...and the extra expertise, not to mention a god given talent for things aesthetic...so he decides how a sculptor's pieces should be done...and takes them to the place where they make all those exploding cars to make the improvements.
I swallowed a whole lot of insults from these people for the sake of the work...and they dished out a whole lot of insults because, "we pay you". They make of us their whores. Atour Golani "cried" at his desk...(probably smudged the blueprints and now a whole lot MORE people will die in Fords) when Janey told him how I was now broke and about to lose our home in Mexico. he is so "good" that he told her to send me money Thanks a whole fucking lot. I was perfectly able to earn my own living after years of preparation and effort in a field and in a way that had never been done among us before, and he and Jackie and the rest of them get together to stop me from earning my keep and my family's...and now they want to be "charitable"...so we'll know they "gave" money to a porr, indigent, starving artist, but an ASSYRIAN artist...so "we must be charitable"..some people are like that...they get off on the humiliation...the knowledge that a poor woman or young boy, or artist, can be made to endure their piss in his mouth because he's broke...because the buyer has power...they like it that way.
I'm sure the subtext at the back of what passes for a mind in Alphonse and Jackie goes something like this..."I volunteer my time selflessly to make this poetry reading/art show possible for these useless artists...I do all the work...they expect to get all the glory...I think I deserve to get some of the glory too...after all, without me, where would they be...who would have given them the chance to recite their dumb little poems...big deal...without my money and contacts they could sing their poetry in the bathroom..I am the one who makes it possible...they owe ME!"
-- pancho
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