American Fez

Content Is KIng

To whom it may concern,

Although I shall persevere with this blog, fruitless and absurd though such efforts are, I have spent the last week creating yet another blog elsewhere. 

Hosted by New England's internationally ignored Catawampus Museum of Art, my new blog will be a repository of my willfully misjudged art criticism. Incorrect information about four paintings has already been uploaded for your eyebrow-raising perusal.

http://catawampusartmuseum.blogspot.com/

Catawampus has the advantage of being a word that not only means 'askew' but also sounds like one of those old western Massachusetts towns named after an Indian tribe. My hope is yo update the museum's collection of criticism at least once a week, which is roughly the same regularity with which I will continue to add to the nonsense appearing here.

Yours in blogdom, etc.

Slim Pickings

Nobody called Slim lives around here. This isn't a Slim town. Somebody called Slim just wouldn't fit in; same as an Atahualpa or a Nebuchadnezzar wouldn't. We did have a Jeremiah once but he didn't last long. 

There is a Montezuma's Cafe on Main Street, but it's not named after the owner. His name is Hank. Montezuma's is nominally a Mexican restaurant but folks only go there for the bacon-cheese burgers. I often look around the tables at Montezuma's and think there are guys in here who secretly wish they were called Slim, but they're too embarrassed to take the name on with all that it implies. 

Take Bubba, for instance, sitting over there by the cactus. Shirt barely covering his belly, ass always bulging out of his pants, legs the size of tree trunks and six chins, meat grease dribbling down all six of them. Your typical Bubba. But inside this Bubba is a Slim screaming to get out.

I've seen him slip those Raybans on when he thinks he's alone. I've seen him attempting to saunter instead of waddle when he thinks no-one is watching. It's excruciating theater. But at least he makes the effort, even if it is hopeless. 

I guess we're all a bunch of dreamers in this town, truth be told. We may not have any dreaming spires, exactly, but there is an impressive marble obelisk in the park -- although nobody knows what it commemorates because the inscription is on the base and we can't bend down that far anymore.

Jury Duty

Consider the juvenile delinquent. Let ye who hath never repeatedly kicked a vending machine in frustration be the first to declare him "guilty" of vandalism. Yea, though the delinquent be insolent and slovenly, I don't give a fig for the perimeter fencing at Querulous and Company that he supposedly destroyed. Nor am I convinced that the Querulous and Company premises did not deserve such destruction anyway.

My suggestion that everyone could easily "Skype" into the courtroom the following day when required to provide a verdict, instead of sitting on those uncomfortable benches all day listening to a load of petty legal twaddle, was not received well. The supercilious judicial phrase "found in contempt" was uttered, rather rudely if you ask me.

In desperation, I turned to my fellow jurors: why don't we each contribute a few bucks to get the fence mended? In exchange, Querulous and Company will agree to drop the charges. Then we can wash our hands of this ridiculously trivial case and won't be forced to come back tomorrow to waste more of our valuable time.

Alas, there were no takers. Honestly, what is the world coming to? Sometimes you feel like the only Joseph of Arimathea in a room packed with the Friends of Barabbas.

Marketing and Promotions

I am developing a rollable deodorant that reveals the name and logo of the manufacturer - "Sirocco by Maurice," for example - when applied to a person's armpits.  A sort of billboard under the arms, if you will.

What is the point of such a marketing ploy? Surely the name and logo will be concealed by clothing and the natural position of the deodorant wearer's arms?

Well, I imagine the sort of person who would roll branded deodorant on their underarms is the same sort of person who always wears sleeveless t-shirts and stretches their arms a lot when yawning, which they also do a lot. And there are, I hasten to add, a lot of those sorts of people in the world today. Just look around you. Clearly, the "Sirocco by Maurice" underarm billboard would be seen by millions on a daily basis.

My other idea is a speaking deodorant that announces the name of the brand name of deodorant whenever the wearer begins to perspire. This would be an ersatz sexy voice for women's deodorant: "This lady is wearing Fresh As A Daisy deodorant by Samantha of Bond Street." And a deep, husky voice for men: "This gentleman is wearing Woodsman's Fable deodorant by Hank of Fifth Avenue."

You can roll your eyes now but, trust me, you'll be rolling my speaking deodorant in the very near future.  After all, you won't want friends and colleagues to think the deathly silence emanating from your armpits means you aren't wearing any ...

Neptune's Vacuum Cleaner

Much as admire the swimming pool paintings of David Hockney, I feel he never quite captured the rippled reality of underwater vacuum cleaners. Mind you, I suppose rendering the daily maintenance of aquatic luxuries on canvas was not really what the Yorkshire master was going for. One imagines such an exacting artistic pursuit would give even Leonardo the benz. Nevertheless, although no great draughtsman, I myslef have given it a shot.

Eat your heart out Canaletto. I don't expect to receive any commissions from wealthy aesthetes in Beverly Hills, obviously, but perhaps there is a potential patron somewhere in Florida or South Carolina? I don't work weekends, FYI.