I Could Have Just Said NO.

Last night I was part of another group art exhibition curated by my friends who call themselves, interestingly enough "The Curators". They have a little franchise going that started with the first "My Adidas" show in which a couple dozen artists were given the challenge to do their own interpretation of the classic shell toe Adidas shoe. That show was fun enough, It was kinda like doing a pinewood derby.

It started out as nothing but a groovy concept to hearken back to the days of yore when everyone customized their own shoes. Anyway -- Adidas, the huge multi-national corporation got wind of the idea and they jumped on the bandwagon to quickly bask in the glow of the street cred gained from such an event. I thought Adidas' official involvement cheapened the whole thing and almost made it kinda campy but I was happy to see my buddies make a few bucks.

The next show was "The Eames Project" -- basically the same concept except we all decorated an Eames chair instead of a shoe. A pattern was forming. Still, I did pinewood derbys once a year and loved it each time -- so I just went with that. But then, following the pattern of the first show, they had it sponsored by the Charles and Ray Eames house in LA --- hmmmn -- wait a minute, Is this just an ad campaign? I'm not so sure I signed up for any ad campaign and I'm certainly not being paid for one. -- awww fuck it, who cares -- they don't even sell Eames chairs anymore.

The next show was The Boom Box Show. Same concept with boom boxes and no possibility of corporate sponsorship -- I was happy to be a part of that one too.

Then Roman broke off and did a show called 21 Larrys and that was all right except for that it was also the night that I called out a local tagger for tagging a bus right in front of all those in attendance. A yelling match ensued in which I lectured him at full volume about the value of property rights to which he responded by scaling the nearest building defiantly tagging it as I screamed "There is somebody tagging your building!! Come out and catch them!!" it was truly a heated exchange and humorous spectacle as many in the crowd were of the graffiti lovin' persuasion. The scene ended with a young hip hopish girl yelling at me these words: "I thought you were a legend! I thought you were a legend!" she seemed as if she was about to cry. -- it was weird.

So that brings me to the point of this story which is based on the hypocrisy and retarded logic of that whole crowd -- including that of my friends who call themselves "The Curators". They need to be called out and I'm just the guy to do it.

Look people, you can't go around talking about how evil American corporations are and how you just gotta "keep it real" while rockin' your dumb ass Che Guevara t-shirts and at the same time curate an art show at -- get this -- The Adidas Concept store. That's right, last nights show either climbed to new heights or sunk to new lows depending on your opinions of sucking on the corporate teat. Last nights show wasn't even held in an art gallery. Nope. It was in a fucking shoe store. Keeping it real my ass. And in case it wasn't abundantly clear about the huge corporate status of Adidas Inc., the design of the shoe store should have been the first clue. Think "The Gap" and you'll have idea what it looked like.

For me, the whole thing was a bit embarrassing. Something just feels wrong about doing artwork to pump up a huge corporations "street cred" without getting huge money to compensate me for my *loss* of "street cred". And I don't even give a fuck about street cred. If you pour through all my writings over the years you won't find one passage about street cred unless it's me making fun of the people who care about such a retarded idea.

But it's with these same exact dudes that I have had hours and hours of frustrating conversation in which they extol the virtues of "keeping it real" and "evils" of big business while I bore them with lectures promoting more libertarian ideals.

I had a few cocktails before I arrived last night and my mouth was taking advantage of the opportunity to point out the obvious hypocrisies -- in fact, my piece of art work displays the message as well --- maybe I'll go up there and take a picture of it. But since I don't have one I'll explain it. -- It's four of my dudes -- like the ones from the old wisdomisms portion of the old website.

The first one is not wearing a nice dark suit like all of his cohorts, instead he is wearing a hot pink Adidas track suit on which is pinned a political button which reads "Vote Nader" and he is saying "I feel like a total sellout".

The next dude is also wearing a button, but his says "Vote Bush" and he is saying; "You look like a total FAG."

The next wears a "Vote Kerry" button and he says: "I'm OK with fags".

The last dude says "I'm OK with sellouts... meeting adjourned. Anybody got any weed?" his button says "Vote Woody".

And that pretty accurately reflects my views on "selling out" -- I'm ok with it if you want to do it. But I'm not interested in doing it myself. --- Well -- not for fucking free anyway. I have my price. Make me an offer.

As much as I love the American corporation with their Mcdonalds, Taco Bells, Coca Colas and what have you, I am just not interested in having my artwork associated with any of said corporations. Why? It has nothing to do me being anti-corporation or anti-anything really, It's more about my own notion that I think maybe art that tells the story of the artist might be more interesting and enjoyable to me than art that tells the story of a big multi-national corporation. Maybe that is what they mean by "Keeping It Real." -- Fuck keeping it real anyway -- who fucking cares?

My favorite part of the evening was when I was busting one of The Curators balls about sucking the big corporate Adidas dick and about how the next show should be at The Gap or Starbucks and how I was just a little bit embarrassed about having Adidas jizz on my face and he said the most wonderful thing I ever heard him say in the 7 years I have known him -- he said --- "You could have just said no."

What?!! You mean you are finally embracing the concept of free will? Holy Jesus and praise the lord you're learning. Maybe all of my lectures are starting to sink in. Hopefully he can extrapolate that little nugget of wisdom next time he feels like spewing off about how Clear Channel is brainwashing America and needs to be stopped.

As long as "No" still works, everything is juuuusst fine.

Anyway, I have zero beef with my pals and I wish my them all the success in the world. I just think now might be a good time for them to fully embrace the virtues of capitalism.


you know, this all reminds me of an email exchange I had with famed load of poop Shepard Fairey about a year ago. I'll find the emails and compile and post them below for your reading enjoyment.