Tuesday, March 23, 2010

the death of cool...

i hit the streets today to check out gallery showing of friend of mine you can get to know here. Him and i go back, he once drove the getaway car. Its a long story and none of your business. He's been exploring his creative side for the last few years and has found himself at the School of Visual Arts studying photography, but if you had gone here already you would know that...

i've helped him out a few times with photo shoots, whether it was lashing this guy's legs to a board and hanging him upside down, or celebrating a creepy birthday with a lovely young lady. This time i offered up my first aid skills...
So i hit the streets to check out the reception...

i made my way to the west side and i realized how the meat packing district hasn't changed all that much. Plenty of meat, its just now it is packed into dresses one size too small and pants that are on the verge of falling down...

i approached my destination and avoided the pillars of youthful disdain hanging on by the scaffolding that shrouded the entrance, smoking cigarettes like they came up with the idea. It was then i knew that i was in for it...

Hipster faggots, i hate 'em—even if i shouldn't say things like that. I mean; the last thing i want to do is offend homosexuals by pairing them with hipsters, they already have enough people condemning them...

as the elevator strained to open its doors, a stringy haired sort dressed in half-couture/half-couture made to look like thrift store, exited with two terriers and two dogs in open topped shoes, showing the tattoos on top of each. By the time i made it to the 15th floor i had reconciled that she'd probably went through a lot of unnecessary pain only to someday wonder is that gangrene setting in or if she really did think it would be cool to permanently scar her feet...

there was a time when getting a tattoo was considered subversive, taboo, a sign of rebellion—even cool. But when you decide to go through the trouble of paying someone to tattoo your feet, well, that's just plain silly...

Upon arriving at the Visual Arts Gallery, i wandered through the packed space, heated from all the hot air of ambivalence and scanned through each project room, looking for my friends, only to find retread and the overdone. The live-still-life of woman sitting in bed was especially lacking originality. Continuing through a pool of the desperately coiffed and the unfortunately dressed, i found my intended targets. i congratulated him on his work—i had seen some early mock-ups, but seeing the final product, i was again reminded with the way his mind works. His filter is unique...

i chatted with his wife, the Lovely Miss Anne (who would no longer be called Miss, i suppose), who i have known longer than him by quite a stretch. One of the few people i could and would be willing to rob a bank with. We talked about their honeymoon and then my lot of recent times, and the need to drink and frolic amongst our crew, then i bid them farewell. You see, it occurred to me that i couldn't take it any longer...

i hoped that along with the new decade would come a rebirth of cool. Something fresh and brand new, in music, film, art, science—anything. i stood there and realized, that at least for the moment, my hopes would be dashed. There will be no rebirth of cool from this generation. Only a rebirth of drab...

It was comforting to see a Stormtrooper there. i guess that's what's passing for art these days...
It also seems there was a Shane Macgowan look-a-like there, as well. After all that pestering for him to belt out a verse of Cracklin' Rosie, it turns out it wasn't Shane at all...

Oh, well—there's always youtube...

check out the Mentor Show at the Visual Arts Gallery. 601 W 26th, 15th Floor, through April 3rd...
and no, its not those Mentors...

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