The Tears of Things

'Fraid Not, Bernard

Stop'N'Look Window, Beatrice Moore, Prop. Photo taken by Catherine King on September 4, 2004. Explanation below.

[Note: This piece, and its coda, would have been posted at least 24 hours ago if we had not been subject to what our hosting provider calls a "brute force attempt" on our domain, during which we couldn't edit our weblog. Comments were disabled as well. This happened not long after we stirred the local waters with a piece about hinky local art honchos. We can't figure out what went wrong, but . . . it makes you wonder. Now, back to business.]

by Jerome du Bois

An unexpected gift has stumbled over its kape through the comments door: confirmation of everything I (and Catherine, of course, my editor) wrote in the previous post. Bernard Shober spends a lot of words doing The Wonder of Him jam -- "Now, I can silence a room with the first sentence that comes out of my mouth"-- but ignores several reminders to discuss the main points of the piece. (It really isn't about you, man.) Instead, while indignantly denying he's carrying the water for anybody, he then names some of them. (By the way, is Trish Yaslosky TrishJusTrish? Asking just asking.) One of these "community" saviors is Jeff Falk, into whose arms, soon after Millennium's dawning, the thirsty Floridian pilgrim gratefully fell after comin acrost the dayzert.

(By the way, all the Florida inside hoohah was lost on us, Cosmo.)

I'm glad he brought up Jeff Falk, who has had several exhibitions lately --100++ career so far!-- work tagged with the usual unquestioning praise, work that Shober refers to as "Mental Cubism," an empty category which turns too easily into "BlockHeadArt," doesn't it?

While discussing the last posting, Catherine and I remembered the ugly window above. Catherine said, "Neither Beatrice Moore nor Jeff Falk will spend three dollars for some Windex and paper towels, much less take the computer time to print up a nice, neat sign for the public. They're cheapskates. But the City keeps throwing money their way."

Since Mr. Falk's lone defender so far makes much of him, I'm going to reprint the section of "The Pride Of Phoenix, Part Two: Reading Bad Signs Downtown," which comments on the photo above, then I'm going to refer the reader to our posting from October 7, 2004, called Stop'N'Look. See Jeff Falk Mock. Mock, Jeff, Mock. Shober claims:

. . . you chose to attack those people. And not through an art critique which can be both valid and scathing, but you chose to attack them personally. [We'll have a response to this "personal attacks" hypocrisy below.] Perhaps I should have gone beyond the whole "biggest hacks in Phoenix" and done a more spirited defense of Jeff's "Stop and Look" piece (which I consider to be an excellent example of what I call Jeff's "Mental Cubism"), but I chose not to after reading more of "TToT".

In the "See Jeff Falk Mock" piece we did both --we attacked Falk personally / politically, as well as analyzing specifics of his cheap-ass aesthetics-- so BS needs to reread his own BS.

There's more commentary about BS's latest comment, including how he didn't get two jokes --plus a scathing coda from Catherine King to the bloated pig Stephen Lemons-- so let's begin. Again.

[Originally published September 3, 2004:]

Jeff Falk Doesn't Bother Putting Lipstick On The Pig

Last week we took a picture of the Stop'N'Look window and said some things about it, mainly that it was empty. When we went back for Part Two we found this piece of paper, what turned out to be probably the most telling sign of this whole article, taped to the inside of the window, right next to a splat of . . . ugh:

Study this image, reader, ugly though it may be, because we'll both have a lot to say about it. First, whether Beatrice Moore decided to respond to our criticism this way -- "Run over there, Jeff, and leave some kind of note" -- we don't know. But it's there. Jeff Falk, a twenty-year veteran of the Phoenix art scene, over one hundred exhibitions -- MacDonald's owns his work! -- recepient of grants and other encouragement, probably the most-mentioned artist ever in Phoenix New Times -- this is how he deals with his "public." Just read the content:

Stop'N'Look is closed for renovations, but will open in September with an irreverent political installation by Jeff Falk.

Renovations: two pieces of drywall slammed up to block off the inside. No sign of work, either week. How's he going to get something done by September 3rd, First Friday? Or even their new thang, First Saturday? But wait, there's another significant date coming up this month . . . maybe he's aiming for . . . as I ruminate, my blood begins to rise. Oh, man . . .

Irreverent political installation.

September 11.

Jeff Falk, boogie out whatever St. Vitus buffoonery appeals to your stunted soul -- masks, gold-painted puttis, inflatable things, Kerry and Bush doing the dirty hula, crayon tutu facepaint hobbyhorse jamboree -- but keep your greasy fingers off The Twin Towers, off the Pentagon, off Shanksville. PLEASE. May the Perpetual Clown with the Stony Heart not touch these wounds! Don't go there.

[End of excerpt.]

As for our piece on Falk's Che / Lincoln window, I'll just quote the closing, addressed directly to Jeff Falk, now extended to Bernard Shober:

You mock everything Abraham Lincoln suffered for, everything that stands behind me, and elevate a bloodstained psychopathic mafiamechanic in a splatter suit for your saint. You shame yourself, Jeff Falk, but America endures you anyway. Let me say it in the short words you know best: Grow up. Your baby clown days are over. You. Must. Change. Your. Ways.

Let's get the jokes out of the way, Bernard. I don't know where anyone got the idea that we were wealthy. The chateaubriand reference was pure fiction, which I thought was obvious to anyone with a just a bit of wit. I was wrong. (And Catherine wonders about your reference to people in "certain corners" laughing about this. The usual word is "circles;" "corners" is a Freudian slip, and implies dark, ugly, souls.)

More recently, I thought you more media-savvy, but you failed to pick up the Goodfellas dig in my first response to you, in which it's obvious that the "clown" is the addressee (you), not me. But explaining jokes ruins them, doesn't it, you dull man? Let's move on to more serious things.

You trying to tar us with the racist brush, for example. We have made clear that we oppose illegal immigration from anywhere, regardless of skin color. Both Catherine and I have Hispanic relatives, who would surely take exception to your characterization; talk about ignorant.

Then the Muslim thing. Again, we oppose any religion or social system or "time-honored tradition" which practices any degree of misogyny. Islam is the most blatant and aggressive, for the last half-century at least, in defending its misogynistic practices. And when they come and kill us because of who we are, it's not just different, it's evil. Murderous evil.

I think you're a misogynist, Bernard, and you've signed off on attacks on my wife. Let me tell you a story. Back in November 2006 we got all dressed up and came out of hibernation to visit the Phoenix Art Museum's reopening after expansion. We wrote about it here. Little did we know that local lumbering slug Stephen Lemons was there, because not long afterward, certainly after getting an enthusiastic go-ahead from his boss Amy Silverman, he posted a vicious attack on his new blog on, of course, Catherine, because that's what cowardly male chauvinist fat pigs who have to pay for sex do, weenie-wanking losers like Lemons who is proud to be photographed with movie hookers. A mole rat among mole rats. (Read the coda for the whole score.)

Right after this asshat's posting, in the comments, came some anonymous wimp saying something like, "Oh, now you've asked for it. Here they come." But we didn't say a word about it, did we? until now. We stayed above the crud and mud. Catherine knows how I feel about her, and about those who attack her. I didn't have to share that with the world.

But then you, Bernard, as if on cue, showed up with the second comment, and you dragged out your usual boilerplate about the Mexicans and the Muslims.

And you said not a word in support of my wife --did someone say "unsupportive"?-- from Lemon's envious, irrelevant, putrid attack. You're quick to defend your friends from "personal attacks," but when somebody else does it to us for no reason at all except spite, you're all rahrahrah, hypocrite. You people: your self-loathing envy and fear of women is pathetically transparent. I say that to Stephen Lemons, Jeff Falk, and Bernard Shober, for reasons damning and abundant. I will leave Catherine to her coda, but for this:

Yes, Bernard, I remember friends. I still have the collection of knives they left in my back.

* * * * *

CODA, from Catherine King:

An Open Letter to Stephen Lemons, woman-hating race bully:

I was aware of the trash you wrote about me months ago, due to our sitemeter, of course; but until now you and your existence have never risen to what I considered a noteworthy, much less actionable level. In all honesty, I was embarrassed, even sitting here in my own living room, to visit your skanky blog. It’s just so not me.

But I’m taking time away from my art-making, as I work here in the dark aftermath of a fascistic strike against me, and my husband’s, freedom of speech, to compose a series of statements directed against you and your sleazy weblog.

If you, pathetic loser that you are, check out the “synchronistically”-titled The Arizona Partnership for Stagnation and Stifling Dissent, you can see that, “ironically,” just before we got muzzled, Jerome was having a dialog with Bernard what's-his-name. In this dialog, Bernie condemns Jerome and I for attacking his arts-community friends “personally.” My husband and I had been composing our responses to his ethical stumbling blocks.

In our comment, which was almost growing into a posting itself, Jerome and I were going to lump you in with a couple of the other vicious cultural chauvinists in the local arts scene. But pretty soon I realized you are in a category all by yourself.

Because you, like us (ewwww), are “media,” as they say. And it took a while for it to get to me, because I have a life, but you are not just chauvinistic --sadly, a plus in this era-- but you are also a BIG FAT RACIST, which I’m pretty sure you would flamboyantly deny with bloated pomposity.

You undoubtedly believe your readership expects you to roll around in the mud, but I’ll bet a million bucks you also love to believe that you stand up for the oppressed, you stunted grub.

It was the words FAIR GAME.

I couldn't get them out of my mind. In your stinky world, it's totally okay to attack a white woman about her body and appearance. Not only that, I'm a white woman who takes pride in her privacy and dignity and style and personal power. That gets to you, too, doesn't it, you low-rent skunk? It makes me fair game for attack.

But if I was black, would you be making jokes about kinky hair and a fat ass? that she looks like Whitney Houston in 15 years and a long bad month? You know you wouldn't, you coward, but I'm a middle-aged white woman who has a serious life, and that's a threat to your shrivelled nuts, but, luckily for you, the culture is on your side, so you keep on getting away with your filth and hypocrisy, happy as a pig in manure.

But you don't get away from us, bully boy.

Posted by Jerome at August 20, 2007 05:40 PM | TrackBack