On January 24, distracted as usual by the unavoidable pull of the endless scroll, I took a quick breather from writing a review of A New Love in Tokyo, Banmei Takahashi’s delightful and depraved sex worker buddy romp. I opened X and watched Minneapolis ICU nurse Alex Pretti wrestled to the ground and shot numerous times, his body nauseatingly thunking prone on the icy pavement, by a gaggle of blundering and malevolent dumpy-assed, gaiter-masked Border Patrol agents. By the time I saw the video, Mar-A-Lago-faced dog and goat killer Kristi Noem, and one-time spray-on-haired, Goering wannabe Stephen Miller had already found their angle. The problem wasn’t the expansion of a roving paramilitary force, with a budget higher than all the the militaries in the world other than our own and China, filled with unchecked power-hungry racist goons, many new recruits enticed by @DHS’s overt Nazi plagiarism, who are so unhinged even other ICE agents called them, according to Ken Klippenstein’s excellent reporting, “idiots” and “honestly pretty sketchy.” Nor was it that this band of drooling police school drop-outs went feral after watching Pretti defend women with the confidence of killers who knew, because of Miller and newly lip-fillered VP dork J.D. Vance’s proclamations of federal immunity, that they could get away with it, whisked away to another part of the country to abuse someone else. Apparently, this VA hospital nurse was, in fact, a domestic terrorist set on massacring these poor federal workers, who were definitely also not in the methed-up mob on January 6 or wielding backyard tiki torches in Charlottesville. How did Miller and co. know? Well, Pretti had a GUN, meaning the right-wing lunatics who scaremongered for decades about the libs taking away guns tossed out the Second Amendment in an instant when useful. This move shocked even the NRA, which would be funny if the entire event wasn’t so horrifying.
While typing and deleting tweeted responses that would most certainly have earned me a less-than-friendly visit from the FBI and potentially the Secret Service, I tried to go back to writing that review. But, how? How was I supposed to write it now, and how was I supposed to post it later when I would feel like I was standing up in the middle of a fascist takeover executed by morons to scream, “I LIKE MOVIES!”
Of course, Pretti’s murder is just one more horror added to the growing collection of snuff films produced by agents of the United States government, alongside Renee Good, yet another “domestic terrorist,” a mother with stuffed animals crammed into her glove compartment and a dog in the backseat. Then, there are all those who have been killed without videos that contradict the story concocted by authorities, like Los Angeles resident Keith Porter who was shot to death on New Years Eve by an off-duty ICE agent who, according to The LA Times, has a, uh, checkered history in which he “allegedly whipped his sons with a belt, made homophobic slurs and racist remarks about Black and Latino people, and brought a gun to a youth sports game.” A totally normal recruit who passed his background check with flying colors, I’m sure! Then, there are the victims who were shot by ICE or Border Patrol and lived, like Chicago teacher’s assistant Marimar Martinez and Santa Ana protestor Kaden Rummler. Then, there are the migrants who have been killed in detention centers, like Geraldo Lunas Campos, whose death in an El Paso facility has been ruled a homicide. And that’s not even getting into the less deadly domestic terror as they yank elderly American citizens from their homes in the snow on bad tips; wake up neighborhoods with Black Hawk helicopters on the orders of real-life Colonel Lockjaw, Greg Bovino; use bunny hat-wearing five-year-old Liam Ramos as bait for his father; snatch hard-working, tax-paying immigrants who have been in the country for decades in front of their families and house them in detention facilities where they drag women into Porta Johns; kidnap people and dump them, beaten, in parking lots once they realize *whoops* they’re American citzens; demand papers like it’s 1938 Germany; and leave countless abandoned cars, seatbelts cut, littered around the streets, like people have just been raptured. If you try to speak out about it, get ready to hear cute and catchy phrases like one ICE agent’s “You raise your voice, I erase your voice,” or get put on a Palantir-constructed digital surveillance list of domestic terrorists.
That’s just immigration enforcement. We are also watching the accelerating consolidation of power in the hands of a ballroom-obsessed, dementia-brained executive who re-Truths 2009-style racist Obama memes like the uncle you hate at Thanksgiving, while Speaker of the House Mike Johnson praises Nicki Minaj’s giant polar bear coat. Meanwhile, Trump kidnaps Maduro, jamming him in New York City’s Arkham Asylum alongside Luigi and Sam Bankman-Fried; inches closer and closer to another regime change war with Iran; obsesses about taking over Greenland with a penguin friend; encourages his son-in-law to make ghoulish PowerPoint presentations predicting a “catastrophic success” in Gaza; butters up Alberta separatists to flirt with taking over Canada; and demands Penn Station be renamed Trump Station (let him, it’s filled with piss), all while assuring all those boomer homeowners that he wants to keep housing prices high and making sure no states can block the endless AI expansionism that sucks up environmental resources, jacks up your electric bill, and drives your perpetually online cousin into Chat GPT psychosis. Add to this the Epstein files, which reveal that almost every titan of politics, industry, science, finance, tech, etc. you can name off the top of your head is probably a pedophile or at the least VERY desperate to hang out with the top diddler on Rape Island, who was also puppemastering global politics when he wasn’t getting massages from 14-year-olds or getting booted from XBox. The one billionaire who wasn’t implicated in a deeply nefarious way in the files just laid off hundreds of journalists at The Washington Post while also having the cash to put the Melania movie in way more theaters than you would imagine. And lest you think you can vote your way out of this, well, Tulsi Gabbard was spotted at the swiping of those 2020 election ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, after working for months on a 2020 election fraud report. I’m sure that’s nothing to worry about!
Not that voting your way out of this could help all that much anyway, as the Democrats, at least the ones wielding the most power at the moment, seem not to understand the gravity of the situation, despite all the blood splattered all over the pavement and all their buddies yucking it up with Epstein. A strongly worded tweet or letter seems to be the most they can muster, alongside negotiations that they’ll inevitably cave on, like Schumer hedging that ICE can wear masks a little bit as a treat. Not that any of this surprises me. ICE and Border Patrol’s utter lawlessness and the administration’s instantaneous lies remind me of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Some early ICE incidents even accused people of throwing rocks! Hm…where have I heard that one before?! I make this comparison because to fully tangle with how we got here, I think Democrats also have to reconcile that they funded and permitted similar (and worse) brutal behavior elsewhere. Which will not likely happen any time soon. As Ta-Nehisi Coates said, “We are at a moment right now where people are asking themselves why can’t the Democratic Party defend this assault on democracy… and I would submit to you that if you can’t draw the line at genocide, you probably can’t draw the line at democracy.”
*Takes a deep breath* So. Selfishly, as we move closer and closer to Stephen Miller’s school-boy authoritarian dreams, paired with the confirmation that we really are run by satanic pedophiles, how the hell am I supposed to keep posting about an art show I like? Or movie? Or album? Or book? How can I—or really any other writer—continue to publish criticism without feeling like a total, head-in-the-sand asshole? Screaming into the void, “This painting of a grumpy cat stuffed in a knit hat is adorable and amusing!” or “Tempers’s new video “Who Says,” featuring a sexy tentacled lady in a dumpster next to a discoball made me laugh more than any other music video has in recent memory,” while people are being hauled off and disappeared or documents indicate Epstein had some kind of fantasy of a eugenics baby-making factory at his Santa Fe residence is not a good look. I’ve always jokingly subscribed to preeminant filth elder John Waters’s also clearly satirical assertion: “I pride myself on the fact that my work has no redeeming social value.” But at what point should that delusional position get you prosecuted for assholism? At what point is it no longer ignorable that most criticism right now feels akin to analyzing the music played on the deck of the Titanic as it sank into the frigid North Atlantic?
“Nearer My God to Thee” is a cliché choice
Even though I opened this essay referring to a film review, part of the problem is specifically figuring out how to engage with visual art (the industry I know the most about) at a time when so much of the art world feels like it’s stubbornly determined not to meet the moment. Yes, even with their heavily branded day off last week…I mean, strike. Hell, at this point, I’d welcome a cringe shitlib late 2016/2017-style anti-Trump art show because, at least, that would mean someone was paying attention! Not that meeting the moment means overtly militant political art. Art with a sense of humor can be a welcome relief; somber or eerie work can match the general vibe of the times. And my personal dream is to print and frame photos from the Epstein files and slap them up in an art space to force the less interested to bear witness. But bland art during a time when AI might be gaining sentience in the form of a crustacian-inspired new religion via an AI agent social media app Moltbook, emails reveal the now-former MFA chair at SVA, David A. Ross, tittered with Epstein about Jeff’s idea for a show called “Statutory,” and Trump muses about taking over elections on ex-FBI Dan Bongino’s podcast? Unforgivable, which makes wandering around most galleries that still show pretty boring art feel as if I landed on a completely different planet. Granted, I understand the reasons why some are going for bland, not the least of which is the overall chilling effect caused by the richest man in the world ripping away funding from cultural institutions. Another issue is that the art market is in a slide because this new crop of oligarchs prefers rigging sports betting and buying Fartcoin to investing in art.
Yet, even for the art that does feel relevant, it’s hard for me to overlook some of those galleries’ dubious behavior, like swinging over to Art Basel Qatar, a phrase that makes me laugh every time I see it. How many galleries that “went on strike” cozied up to a country that bestowed upon Trump his new Air Force One, totally not in exchange for an air base in Idaho, and weirdly held Venezuelan oil money? Radical! Then, there’s my general queasiness when I see Instagrammed glamour shots from all those swanky dinners—or even worse, Cultured Mag’s dually revolting and dorky name-drop article about “the grand social experiment” of the gallery dinner. Real timely. A lot of people can’t afford healthcare, guys!
Much of the art industry’s questionable ethics are not new. Nor is my struggle to figure out how to write about art I like while also knowing that by doing so, I’m also tacitly providing free PR to an industry that makes me want to puke. I mean, I’m not exactly thrilled to pay $30 to go to MoMA when trustee Leon Black allegedly bit a child in the Epstein files. I wouldn’t bet on this changing any time soon, as the financial reality is pretty basic: elite pedophiles have way more money to art launder than people with core ethics.
This question of how to engage became even more pressing while watching the overt censorship occurring over Israel’s genocide in Gaza. I mean, how can you review the Whitney Biennial at all, even a negative review, as those are still free attention, knowing this is an institution that nuked their own Independent Study Program after cancelling a performance about Palestine? From Art Forum’s “every institution has constraints!” to the Art Gallery of Ontario’s reneging on an acquisition of a Nan Goldin video with a trustee laughably comparing her to Leni Riefenstahl, the response to the genocide is not only just a blight on everyone involved’s souls, but is a crack in the art industry’s façade that I’m not sure can be just simply painted over and forgotten. And those who just continued on like none of this was happening also made the industry as a whole feel totally irrelevant.
None of this means there aren’t shows–or movies or music, or whatever–that I want to write about. And yes, I know some will say that criticism provides at least a distraction during bleak times, but at what point is it so blatantly tuned out that it’s a problem? So, what do I do? Contribute to the chorus of bad reviews of the Melania documentary? Review 2024’s Civil War, a not-great movie with a timely premise and a dream ending? Make a YouTube mashup of Jeffrey and Ghislaine’s vacation photos, set to Lana Del Rey’s “Money Power Glory”? Mock the upcoming oversized Arc de Trump, the Florida retirement home signs outside of the Oval Office and the Rose Garden, or the marble armrests in the Trump x Kenney Center, so much that I annoy myself? Buy guns?!
Unlike many of the essays in which I pose rhetorical questions to answer them, I’m legitimately asking. Because I’m stumped over here. And even though I’ve spent like 2000+ words on this very likely gratingly navel-gazing rant, don’t take this to mean I’m going to stop. But I felt like I couldn’t move on without voicing what is rattling through my head these days. So the work continues! But, I’m going to feel like an asshole doing it.