BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

This is a repost of a blog from March 2007 – Fear not, new material for Brainpan Leakage is on the horizon. I’m just waiting for UPS to drop it off on my porch…

Until then, here’s a classic rerun:

Okay…

For medical reasons I am not going to disclose I have been off solid food since Thursday, therefore I’ve been a bit cranky. Generic Ensure ™ just doesn’t fill the empty space, if you know what I mean. Why am I telling you this? Well, it may have something to do with the events of the day…read on.

Fast forward to today, which was our designated “family” day for the week. That being the day where we do something “fun” as a family. On today’s agenda was “Art in Bloom“…This is where floral arrangers compete to create arrangements out of plant matter that look similar to various given pieces of art hanging in the Saint Louis Art Museum. (For purposes of this blog, I am using the term “art” very loosely…in fact, that is what this blog is really all about.)

Now… Since I have offended folks with my opinions in the past, understand that I am neither poking fun at anyone (other than, perhaps, myself), nor am I making light of floral arrangers, pedantic intellectuals, artists, or docents. My grandmother was a floral arranger and believe me she could have shown these folks a thing or two.

No…What I am about to go on about is the Art Museum. Again, I am using this term “ART” rather loosely (in my estimation.)

Really, what it comes down to is that I think I am about to go on about what a completely uncultured redneck I really and truly am.

Again, hit the fast forward button, and we arrive at the Art Museum in Forest Park, midtown Saint Louis, MO. For those who are familiar with the area, this is, of course, where “Art Hill” is…For those UNfamiliar with the area, Art Hill is a big undulating slope in front of the museum where people flock to in the winter in order to go sledding. I point this out because just about anyone in Saint Louis can tell you stories about Art Hill, even if they have never set foot inside the Art Museum. As you read on, you will discover that the folks who know about Art Hill and NOT the inside of the museum are the normal people (in my opinion).

Anyway, this is also where a major icon of Saint Louis resides. No, not the Arch (aka Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. That is down on the riverfront with such things as Lacledes Landing (a four odd block or thereabouts, cobblestone paved section that houses a ton of bars and eateries) and the Riverboat Casinos.

Nope, what I am talking about is the big ass statue of the dude on the horse. (King Louis IX of France, actually…but, I like the name, “dude on the horse” better.)

But, I’m digressing, as I usually do…

So, we go into the Museum. Now, understand that an ART Museum is one of the last places on earth I would take myself if I was the one making the choice. However, since this was family day, this expo was going on, and there was a kid activity (AKA “Arrange some wilted flowers in a block of green crap 101, on your own, have fun, hurry up, move along, see ya’ later, sir you can’t use the flash to take a picture of your daughter with her arrangement, even out here in the lobby where there is no art”) this is where we went.

Hang on…it gets better…But let me start with a question…

Have you ever seen one of those movies where people are languidly strolling around an art museum, nodding thoughtfully, and making overly pedantic comments about the use of color, shape, shadow, etc, all while wearing turtleneck sweaters and blazers that have been out of style for two years? Not to mention that the item they are making these pretentious remarks about, as if they are world renowned experts, is usually something so hideous that a velvet paint-by-numbers portrait of Elvis, “the girdle years”, would look good by comparison?

Well, if you have, then you already witnessed my morning and early afternoon. (other than the flower and green crap thing…and getting yelled at by a docent for taking a picture of my kid and having the gall to use the built in flash on the camera so that she actually showed up in the photograph.)

Basically, I spent two hours wandering around this huge building, dodging horribly rude people, looking at the following things:

REALLY OLD Furniture. I mean REALLY OLD. Like antiques from France and stuff. Kinda nice if you like that sort of thing, (I don’t, personally) but none of it looked actually comfortable enough to sit in, on, or even around, so I’m not so sure what was that great about it.

REALLY ODD (not old) Furniture: There was this chair made out of leftover 2×4’s. I kid you not. Pieces of 2×4’s and a slab of a 2×12. Put together with wood screws, and then whitewashed. Only one coat, too. And it didn’t even have a cushion. I actually have enough scrap lumber in my basement to make about ten of them. I’m thinking of going around to art museums and offering them the knock-offs at a reduced rate. Even at a discount I’ll still be a millionaire for an initial investment of $27.32 plus about 3 hours of work.

REALLY OLD Place settings that looked pretty much like the Courier and Ives that we have in our china cabinet downstairs, only the designs on the old stuff weren’t nearly as cool as the ones on the C&I.

NOT SO MUCH OLD Furniture. I mean furniture that is EXACTLY like the furniture my parents had in our living room when I was growing up. Hell, it might have actually been the furniture that was in our living room that someone rescued from the dump and wiped off for all I know. (Yeah, I know I’m old, but not THAT old. Besides, I thought this was supposed to be an ART museum, not a history museum…)

Some small GLASS “SCULPTURES” that looked exactly like some candle holders I bet you could get at Pier 1 for 5 bucks a pair.

Other than that, the rest of what I saw appeared to be a bunch of UNFORTUNATE MISTAKES.

These mistakes were supposed to be paintings. And sculptures. I think. I’m not entirely certain. You see, they didn’t really have any subject matter. Any that I could readily identify, anyway. Several of them looked like someone vomited and instead of cleaning it up they just smeared it around and then sprayed lacquer on it before hanging it on the wall and giving it a bizarre name like “Oxidized Metal Wires on a Paper Plate” or some such.

Others– one’s that actually HAD recognizable subject matter, looked horribly disproportionate and discolored. If they weren’t completely out of whack colorwise and proportionwise, then they were so horribly drawn as to look like someone simply doodled (poorly) while on the phone then colored it in.

(Note: My daughter, while in Kindergarten, did a self-portrait that ended up hanging in the board of education offices in Jefferson City (the MO state capital) for 30 days. And, yeah, while I am certainly prejudiced where my daughter is concerned, I would put that self portrait by a 5 year old up against just about anything I saw today…)

Believe it or not, there was this huge painting that was apparently worth some inordinate amount of money, and it was nothing but a stick figure (I kid you not) along with some VERY RANDOM splashes of paint, and some word scrawled across it (I can’t remember the particular word, as it was in a foreign language.)

What’s more…ALL of this stuff was protected not only by wandering docents and guards, but by alarm systems that detected such slight movements that my daughter set a couple of them off just because she was so short.

And, remember those people in turtlenecks? They were everywhere. One of them was even nice enough to attempt engaging me in conversation. Unfortunately, being the uncultured individual that I am, when she finished her unsolicited commentary about the particular artist’s use of color and shape, I looked back at her and literally said, “Really? What’s it supposed to be? It looks like an unfortunate accident to me.” (No…I really did. I’m not kidding…And I wasn’t saying it to be mean. I was hoping that she would actually explain to me what it was supposed to be and not just give me a lecture on color and some obtuse shape described only by her waving her hand in a wild gyration.)

Unfortunately, she wasn’t particularly interested in speaking to me after that. Guess I made her nervous.

Now, I did try to go into this with an open mind. And I DID actually see some wonderful photo’s of glaciers done by an artist who uses photography as his medium. I also liked the antique guns and swords. Those were pretty interesting.

Maybe the rest of it wasn’t all that enjoyable because I hadn’t had solid food in several days and I was just crabby. But, I don’t think so. Even if I’d just had a prime rib dinner with all the trimmings I’m pretty sure I would have still considered most of what I saw today a series of horrible mistakes being witnessed by a mess of pedantic folks with nothing better to do than get together and be pedantic with one another.

No. I’m not making fun of them or putting them down. If they think that stuff is art and they enjoy debating the subtleties of this shadow or that shadow on a canvas that is covered with random words and smears of ink, more power to them. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and hey, if what they saw was beautiful to them I’m all for it.

It’s just that…well…to me…Well, let’s just say that I don’t get it.

Must be one of those redneck, guy things…

MR

More to come…

Murv

Disclaimers… We’ve all seen and heard them. We’ve all sat back and wondered at the stupidity of people who sue over hot coffee because they hadn’t been told that the hot coffee was hot. Even worse, the stupidity of the jurors in the trial who saw fit to judge in favor of the idiot who didn’t know hot coffee would be… well… HOT.

Then there are the disclaimers we just sort of wonder about, because otherwise we would just burst into uncontrolled laughter… Of course, sometimes we do anyway… You know the ones I mean. “DO NOT USE IN SHOWER” emblazoned across the label on a portable electric hand mixer, as if I might happen to be mixing up some cake batter while I’m washing my hair. Of course, I suppose there could be all manner of kinky ramifications there, but I don’t want to think about that. It makes me feel all kinds of dirty. Even in the shower.

The thing is, you just KNOW they had to put that on there because some frootloop decided it would be a good idea to attach a Loofah to the beaters and use the mixer as a power exfoliation device in the shower. Hence, the disclaimer. What it should REALLY say is, “We know you’re an idiot, here’s your Darwin Award (Posthumously, of course).”

But then, there are those disclaimers that really are necessary. I mean the kind where a boatload of common sense might get you through, but for a multitude of reasons you cannot depend upon Sherlockian Common Sense to be in play. And, there are even those times when people truly have no clue what to expect, therefore a disclaimer is in order.

That’s why I have several. You can see one of them just to the left beneath my picture. It is there to let you know that this is a satire blog and taking it seriously, unless a particular post is labeled as serious, makes you not particularly savvy. After all, it says it right there…

I should make note, however, that among my disclaimers, none of them say “contents hot.” That would be EKay’s disclaimer, (along with may bite, prone to random acts of beating you severely, failure to bow and worship will result in extreme punishment, etc…) – There IS a “contents MAY be hot” in the footer of the blog, but note that it says MAY BE. It pretty much refers to posts where E K is involved…

But let’s get back to me. After all, it’s my blog, not hers… Well… Okay, I just use it… Don’t tell her I said that it was mine, okay? So… anyway… Among my disclaimers is one that I rattle off at the beginning of every workshop I present while at an event or bookstore. If you’ve ever attended one of my seminars it is highly likely you have heard some version of it. I usually ask who hasn’t heard it, but even if I get no hands raised I recite it anyway. It’s just safer for all involved.

So, just for drill, here is my workshop/seminar disclaimer. If you ever attend one of my workshops – not panels, mind you, those are different (although I sometimes work it in) – you will hear this, or the version of it that is current for that moment…

M. R. SELLARS’ DISCLAIMER

First off, I am a fiction author. This means I lie for a living. It’s what I get paid to do. Think about that… Okay, now that you’ve given it some thought, I’ll explain further – I write FICTION. What this means is that 99% of what I am about to say to you is probably bullshit. I’m making it up as I go along. My one goal here is to entertain you for the next 90 minutes and keep you occupied so that the staff of this event can finish preparing lunch [dinner, setting up XYZ, insert function here]. If you plan on taking notes, feel free. Just know that you are most likely transcribing fiction.

Second – I am irreverent.  I am also foul-mouthed when necessary. I know cuss words in several languages and I am not afraid to use them. In fact, they will sometimes just randomly fall out of my mouth, especially if you startle me. If you think this is going to offend you to the point where it is going to ruin your whole day, do us both a favor- get up and leave now. Regarding those last two points – If you sit through my entire workshop after having heard this disclaimer, then go to the event organizer and complain that I have ruined your whole day, I will find you. I don’t think I need to say anymore. Just know that I will find you. So you need to ask yourself if you really want to take that chance. I mean, after all, I warned you. If you get offended it’s your fault now, not mine. As to getting up and leaving, if you elect to do so AFTER I begin the actual workshop, I will make fun of you. The only exceptions to that rule are true medical emergencies. Needing to take a piss because you drank 14 cups of coffee and didn’t make a pit stop before coming in here does NOT qualify.

Third – I tend to not stand still and I talk with my hands. I will likely be right out in the middle of the crowd with you, as well as bouncing around the stage. This is how I get my exercise.

Fourth – I am an interactive speaker. What this means is that at times during this workshop/seminar, depending upon the topic, I am likely to ask you, as a group, a question. If I do this, I expect an answer. Allow me to clarify – I want the answer now. As in during the actual workshop. I do not want you to go home, ruminate about it for two weeks, and then email me an answer. At that point the workshop is over and it does none of us any good. If you don’t answer me at all, understand that I will just make up some more shit and say that you said it.

Fifth – During the next 90 minutes [120 min, 60 min, ??] I will say things that I personally think are funny. I expect you to think they are funny too. If I say something that I find funny and you don’t laugh, I will repeat it. That is your cue. Be on the lookout for it. Why? Because if you don’t laugh when I repeat it, I will then explain it. Believe me, you do NOT want to get as far as me explaining my jokes.

Okay, now that I have that out of the way, are we all in agreement? If not, this is your chance to leave unscathed…

I realize that there are some folks out there who are going to read this and be highly offended. They are going to think that I am a big asshole, probably because it is hard to impart the comic timing of the verbal delivery of this disclaimer via the written word in a short space like a blog. However, there are people who get offended by it in person too, and storm out of my workshop/seminar space in a huff…

You know what? They weren’t going to find me all that entertaining anyway so it’s just as well. I think that’s why their faces are all pinched up and pouty. Or I supposed it could be that they eschew disclaimers, and they are all pinched up and pouty because they take Preparation H orally…

Either way, I’m sure they’ll be picking up their Darwin Awards soon enough…

More to come…

Murv