THE ASSHOLE HALL OF FAME

I have completely followed Benjamin’s Franklin’s four cornerstones, eexcept the last one. Franklin didn’t know assholes on this level, the same way that, the founding fathers didn’t dream of children murdering chldren or mass shootings based soley on race, religion, sexual choices and/or politics.

It’s only necessary to react when the damage is huge, and fuckin with my livliehood, is just that, especally by the most misinformed, gossipy and ambitious as to case so much destructions. Stands to reason a highly functioning person is the only one to lose amongst the dysfuctional herd of over-educated artists today. And, finally RealStill is a last will and testament, literally.

Asshole would be the worst way i could refer to anyone, and they must epitomize the word. Most importantly, assholes do real harm. Good at what i do, cannot ever make a living at it and in my seventies, with terminal, no-cure cancer. I wouldn’t spend my best days in the art word, sucking down every humiliation, just to make it to the world’s smallest audiences, and most pretentious. I never wanted to necessatily be widespread or popular, just underground, but seem, making jusrt 35k per year off me “art” that i had always paid for on my own into old age, preserving ethics and never having the need to compromise.

Not at all comprehensive, that would be volumes, but i don’t get around this crowd hardly ever. Just a few of the the classic assholes i’ve encountered, and, exactly what i have tried to keep far from, but, it’s ubiquity in arts and entertainment means it’s almost impossible. I did great at this, going completed underground or simply involved in the pleasures of a real existence, until gentrification brought the assholes right into my home, and losing everything i had worked for. For the time being here’s some, and, to be fair, there are bigger ones – how would you like to be raoed by a liberal producer – but fuckin wif my work, and livliehood? I know of no other preofession that promotes the worst kindergarten behaviour, and where so many are so willing to take any humilaiation to get a Name, and, by its nature is the most ego-driven and subjective jobs around, where an artist, compared to litrature, sports, cinema and music, has the tinest audience and least impact, overall on the world, but great for singular overvalued achievement, that’s if you get to the coveted, momnet of over valuation. Photogrpahers artificially enhance their prices by limited editions, where, an artist covering working-class subjects completely limit the audience to mostly elites, by both venue (museum) and price (limited editions sold by agent).

I have found, by experience, art is entirley middle-class in every way shape and form, as are, the assholes below, and all the unsung ones, with the exception of Gumpy Valentine, who became middle-class through art. I’m speaking mostly by what they value and how they perceive themselves. Anything’s up for grabs, i mean, available for approriation. And when it comes to that overvalued art strategy Gumpy Valentine was completely respectful, unlike the more well-off, and less arty, minor celeb below.

Gordon Quinn, Asshole

What a philospher, and grand hypocrite of our time, Gordon Quin. Gentrification is a plague? Where did you get that from? That’s my line, and my life, since i went through one of the most classic and long illegal, unethical displacement episodes in my city.

Going through the hell of losing literally everything, during the time that I lost my mother and father as well, this Mr. Gordon Quinn called me to request use of my unpublished Chicago industrial work. While talking to him I began to explain the story of my life is what I’m going through right now with displacement and death and everything else, assholes call me for free use of my unpublished work, and, after explaining the whole scenario to them, Quinn, did the same, not asking,howerever fake, can i help he asks, “How does that affect my request to use your “work?”

I wasn’t just starving, sacrificing and being selfless – precisely the flip of him and all the other rats – but was being forced to move – displacement – and the loss of all that i had worked for my entire life, and throw in the death of my Father and Mother who, during these times, i struggled for 10 years to keep going and avoid death in another impossible ordeal while laying in this bed of other’s bull shit.

You’re an old man, Gordon, looks like you have gentrified your head, literally and figuratively, with that dyed haired job of yours. Are you reality television or documentary filmmaker? Your ambition betrays you.

Fred Valentine, Asshole

Whether clothed or naked, it’s obvious, when it comes to malignant narcissism, where someone’s head is located, in this case, in a deep borehole of family perversions, dysfunction and some sort of fantasy about being a stand-up comic.

Swimming in their own sea of self-involvement and ego, a person suffering from such a Mommie-complex, he becomes the person he hates, like when he ends up disliking you and turns into a version of an alcoholic, child molesting hillbilly woman. Sick, and finding a refuge in the art world? For many it’s a scene to avoid precisely because of these motivations that i do not share.

RealStill creates only from positive interaction with the world in a combination of empathy and objectivity, and has absolutely nothing to do with using art as a therapy, finally fitting in or transforming former blue-collar ethnic neighborhoods into playgrounds for art.

Through my choice and my free will, and not my dysfunction.

Carl Gunhouse, Asshole

Not one person has ever said anything negative about this work, until, becoming an old man, Mr. Gunhouse, n’er do well, gentrifier from the Jersey burbs, the Puritan Hipster, who, ironically, moved to Greenpoint at the time i was illegally displaced from my home and neighborhood where i had lived most of my life. India Street, a favorite place there, where some friends had grown up, in Greenpoint, we never get a chance to see anymore since all of us were forcibly displaced from our homes. An art world recluse, beyond Banksy, i have a clear unfiltered view of the (art) world. Gunhouse, infatuated with the Known, and lost when seeing the work of someone wanting to be unknown with no Name. Like reality, with no point of reference, being the reference, he’s lost…

Curiously, what he did praise was others, even the gallery owner, who i have known longer that anyone in NYC, except his wife, calling him “rad” which, again, after gentrification, keeps making me ask, is this New York? “Rad”? I never even had spoken that word until now. Gumpy is radical, though, relative to honest working folks, as opposed to professional artists. He’s the biggest narcissist and Mommy’s boy, i have ever seen. One of those my art and the art world is my refuge people. Apparently, Mommy was a monster.

The extremely talented and “rad” Fred Valentine in 1988, when i lived around the corner from him. It’s the cover of a book that describes just one typical episode, with an art-creep. Yes, the life, wit and wisdom of a grand asshole narcissist of our time. After hanging out with fred and a mutual firend, Cliff, from Chicago, i simply stated. “I’m gonna go home.” and Mr. Valentines reply was, of course, “Whaddya Gonna Do, Jack-Off?” and, considering i was going home to work and write my books and essays, one has to wonder about this asshole.

Maturation? When artists, self-involved, always expressing what’s on and in their mind, then, artists are the biggest of masturbators. Also, you think yer John Gotti, talkin to me like an asshole?

Yeah, i was going home to watch Warhol’s Empire State for an entire day, and figure out a way to but an anteater, leash it and appear on interview shows about my art, or, maybe, dress uo and do selfies, i don’t know. Writing my books, scripts and essays, comapared to self-medicating with beer and weed, while incessantly talking about art, for not just this day, but your entire life, is patently masturbatory.

One of the truly hilarious things I have run across about Mr. Gunhouse is his association with a Bushwick Gallery, in which he is a “founder” and their In the statement of intent, of all things, they even pledging allegiance to the people who are used to inhabit the Bushwick area, prior to European settlement. Oh yeah, that’s great. Another woke statement amongst millions being made, which is just self-flattery masquerading as social consciousness, not self-consciousness. But, it was truly hilarious, is, what about the Brooklyn natives that your woke asses displaced? We were here before you were born. With clear, unfiltered eyes and ears I witnessed my home and neighborhood being destroyed by the likes of Carl Gunhouse. As if that wasn’t enough one of these gentrifiers, later, in his rise to fame, praising, “respecting” the native Lenape Indians, would just casually bull shit on the internet about something and someone he knows nothing about, because i avoid any spotlight, so he defaulted to his feelings about me, which, of course, like the truth of all feelings, is all about him, masquerading as a self-anointed expert, published on a blog.

Carl, you and your woke art tribe, want to honor the natives (by displacing them)? Before you were in kindergarden, here are some shots of Bushwick natives. No doubt, still retaining their Munsee dialect. And your honor goes way back to the time of Lenapehoking? Amazing commitment on your part, Mr. Gunhouse.

Top, Central Avenue. Bottom, Broadway Avenue, Bushwick.

Before the likes of Carl, and the Hipster Plague, had landed on the shores of Greenpoint and Williamsburg, and, before they were born, RealStill, had been working/living in what would be their their future homes and galleries in NYC. Working hard, shooting, writing and filming what would disappear in the Blue-Collar Holocaust, but not what replaced it, since they are so boring, uninteresting, having, really, no culture of their own, beyond whatever suburban-bred has to offer. They reinvent, remake, rehab and redo and never originate with the source that’s lost. Now over-educated ambition, is skipping around NYC and the world, with no connection to it, thus, making the world into another opportunity uner the rule of born and bred colonials. It’s called privilege, and, it’s right out of your own woke palybook. It can be transcended by what’s real, but that dangerous and messy, and certainly won’t get you anywhere in the art world, for those that think that is somewhere.

Im still aware that “Criticizing privilege becomes a privilege – the world’s course is as dialectical as that.” but, thankfully it’s a small percentage of RealStill.

Colonialism never dies, but takes on new forms, and it’s always the powerful (money) taking advantage of the lands and resources of the less powerful natives. It’s manifest in everything they do culturally, including their feelings about people and things they know absolutely nothing about. Their protected egos seem to think that posting non-tested, unresearched feelings, on the largest open forum that has ever existed, as normal, when this behaviour is appropriate as bar talk, girl-talk and assorted little worlds where gossip has some sort of value. It’s on the level of Q-Anon, or any delusional cult.

Like being “goosed” or molested, it’s creepy like your “rad” hero, the Great Narcissist and Mommy Boy, “Gumpy V.”, another self-proclaimed Name, whose claim to fame is being around at the beginning of the Williamsburg art scene, fully involved. And, more recently, and, i’m cracckin up, heere, “one of the 100 most influential people in Brookly.” Beginning with Gumpy has been a Queens guy since 1995, and loves it, as i do, and being a recognized gentrifier, not impressed, because this person’s vile creepy ways that i paid a price for, by vitrue of a malignant narcissism, as wide as Trump’s, masking the deep insecurities and jealousies, he couldn’t keep under control, talking about his family, especially his mother, incessantly. These endless stories had been embellished like make-up to make a really uninteresting person, somehow interesting. His father, and Italian-American, and a character, how now been upgraded to “Mafia Associate” even though the bullshit “city” he was from actually had no mafia presence ever, since his home was so white bread, Columbus, Ohio. Too bad Black is the big thing now in art, Gumpy had invesrted so much in promoting gays and women, in an art world drenched inPC and IP modes, so much, they can’t see it any more.

This is Gunhouse’s “rad” dude, the greatest platitude that a suburbanite can make to a fellow middle class artist.

Before the likes of Carl Gunhouse and the Hipster Plague, landed on the shores of Greenpoint and Williamsburg, and, before they were born, RealStill, had been working/living in what would be their their future abodes in NYC. Always working hard, shooting, writing and filming what would disappear in the Blue-Collar Holocaust, but not what replaced it, since it’s so boring, uninteresting, and, having, really, no culture of its own, beyond what suburban-bred does for you. Skipping around NYC and the world, with no connection to it, making the world my work into your image of what you want it to be, of course, while respecting all people back to the Lenape tribe that formerly thrived in north Brooklyn, and the whole tristate. You sure it’s not recolonization? After all these are the Re-Times – reinvent, rehab, redo and remake. It can be transcended by what’s real, but that dangerous and messy, and truth or realty, certainly won’t get you anywhere in the art world, for those that think that is somewhere.

Aesthetics, philosophy, yeah, i can get into that, but aesthetics and gossip is for the scared, or insecure who think that Names mean something.

Unlike the mindless, but woke, Mr. Gunhouse, before opening ny trap, i always research and/or live out what i’m talking about, carefully. Thus, all notions and ideas, tested thoroughly, are certain. Of course, the Pretentious One is a founder of a galley in a trend-out gentrified neighborhood. Here’s their “statement of commitment” which is a classic woke statement, defined by a set of secular values, their morality,, masquerading as social concern, cleverly masking their own roles in the demise of Brooklyn Natives, while in the throes of their ambitious careers paid for by Mom and Dad, for years, until the first teaching jobs appear.

Grossly educated at the finest schools, eventually “teaching” photography, closing the circle on realty with academic aesthetics. Just check out this definitive woke statement, their “statement of commitment” on their website, “As a collective of artists and curators, Transmitter (both as a group and individually) is committed to promoting racial and social justice in whatever capacity we can. We acknowledge the ancestral and living stewards of the Lenapehoking lands on which we organize, create, and live. We acknowledge our own ancestors and history of colonialism, slavery, and genocide. We stand in solidarity with Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and Pacific Islander, as well as the Palestinian community, and with organizers and collective protests that fight for justice. We support the creation of a just ecosystem that dismantles white supremacy and imperialist violence. We pledge to follow in this ongoing and urgent fight.”

What a choice of ethnic groups, including both “Asians and Pacific Islanders” et al. But what about the Italians, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Blue-Collar Natives that you displaced? I was there, i saw it, heard it and had my pure senses wrecked by it, and, after accomplishing what all these kids are trying to be, particularly two life times of work in one life actually participating and living in the world that i happen to shoot and write about, not bull shit about in a highfalutin, academic and elitist manner.

I don’t pledge shit and i don’t follow, but i lead myself into the foray, mixing with all folks in an open range of contact, and more. Being what these woke assholes purport to follow in a pledge of inexperience, narcissism and self-flattery masquerading as some sort of genuine concern, and not over-educated lip service devoid of any experience within the world that they claim to make a pledge to, like good girls and boy scouts do. Write a pledge, than do what your ambitions’ dictate. But we don’t rely on a preexisting institutional self-constructed reality, reification and hypostatization, at least, if for no other reason, we can’t afford it. We live in real time, we cannot change the past, only affect what’s present. In reality that is too messy for suburban-bred folk, and professional artists as opposed to honest working folks, the class that you know nothing about in your boutique view of a world of your own creation.

No Names were dropped during this essay, but for the named assholes, no natives were displaced, either, by my views. You use the words “trick” or “tricks” in relation to this work, quoting and bringing in the Names in your lame thesis.

Our aim is true here, asshole, and, it’s from the world, that you might take pictures of, but you don’t know or participate in, with absolutely no insights into life and the world, supplanted by learned and accepted ideas from, of all places, Yale and the suburbs of Jersey.

Outsider art, another category built to box up the uncategorized and unschooled, actually gives the main art world a big run for their money, since their work is intersting and good. But i ain’t retarded, handicapped, mentally ill or an outsider to the world and everything in it, but simply someone who sees things without filters of isms, identity politics, political correctness, or too much education, for what they are. and, flying the flag of truth and reality, stranger and more interesting than fiction, but also, because you’re dealing with truth, messy, dirty and dangerous, often depicted as the Magic Kingdom of existence and experience, in environments that scare you, as they should, since you have no real skills, beyond art skills, and writing skills, when talking about an unknown, he can’t place as a Name, and talking specifically about something he knows nothing about, since every thing he said is wrong and can be easily proven. based on ambition to be somebody, and that requires a Name, not experience and truth.

Experience, precisely what artists lack for the most part is at the center of RelStill’s work, not bouncing around galleries at their party/openings on Friday nights, extending the college life into adulthood. My friends and hang-outs, are all associated worth art, and, we pledge to fight the good fight all the way back to the Lenape Indians. Well now.

Contemporary, modern, whatever they call art of the last 110 years, prides itself on its open mind, accepting even the weirdest or wildest style of living, Basquait doing dope until death, or, Warhol dying alone, from with his fear of hospitals, that let his gall bladder go chewed up by chewed and, also, mistakenly letting the too-weird into the Factory, when he was brutally shot by a psychotic feminist, also contributed to his death, perhaps some wild Maplethorpe stuff…

As far as an open mind, in certain areas, art is open-minded, but, overall, it’s not that open, certainly not to truth, although, it is spoken there, and, also, self-importance, that only the reality of things, unfiltered by sharply educated ambition, could sober them up to, but the reality, for artists, is living in your own world, self-constructed as vehicle not just for self-expression but ambition.

Thus, you haven’t the skills nor experience to understand modes of photography outside the professionally trained artists sterotypical unfiltered background that couldn’t get anywhere near the idea of complete immersion in the field, to the point, when i go home, i’m still in the field, never setting foot in a museum or gallery since the outside of art world, the real one, is so impressive as to make art relative, and, as such, not nearly as great.

Colonialism never dies, but takes on new forms, but it’s always the powerful (money) taking advantage of the lands and resources of the less powerful natives. It’s manifest in everything they do culturally, including their feelings about people and things they know absolutely nothing about. Between 1995 and 2006, on a Jersey Run, shooting the infrastructure of the Meadowlands, i was holed up in the west portals of the Hoboken tubes and tunnels that drill through the Heights of Jersey City, off and on, until 2001. In 1999, they were making a movie on the roof of a Jersey City apartment building that towered above the tunnel and cut system that i was shooting. A year later, i would see the film, in a movie house, out in the Meadowlands, where i was pleasantly surprised to see the industrial lands of North Jersey so prominently featured in the famous roof scene. Before watching the movie i was shooting a toxic site in Newark on railroad property, and the cops showed up. After belligerently explaining the mission, they let me shoot, and, between that and doing a corporate freelance job, out at a Marriot by the airport, that night, i checked out Ghost Dog. It impressed me, since it was so similar to doing hits, or shots in the ghettos, industrial lands and infrastructure of Jersey, one of the lost and forgotten places i roamed after long-term exposure to the toxic art culture, that would, 14 years later take my supposed home for life and beloved hood, by the likes (names) of Carl Gunhouse.

Lisa Rinzler, asshole.

Probably the first one to make the Asshole Hall of Fame, after being exposed to it for years, was the weird, Shirley McLane of cinematography, the Asshole, Lisa Rinzler. Her exact mental iillness i could never nail down, but, to me she’ll always will be known as Lisa “I shit on your vision” Rinzler…

I had mentioned the last straw, with Gumpy Valentine, and one of the worst decisions ever made in my life, to have a show at his gallery. The price I paid? Not that I ever participated at all, but in 11 years I have not stepped foot in a gallery, studio, or museum, and, my trove of work must be kept away. I must find another way. Something, of course, better than art. But let it be noted, couldn’t take the bull shit, duplicity and gossip anymore. After experiencing the New York art scene as a New Yorkeer for most of my life, you gotta be kiddin. Charlie Munger would have seen it immediatley for what it is – kindergarten.