There is something existentially terrifying about American big-box grocery stores. Maybe it’s just me. Shamefully, I have melted down in more than a few ginormous supermarkets across the country, sniping at family members over muffins and abandoning shopping baskets in the cereal aisle in a panic. I know I’ve fashioned myself as a supporter of … Continue reading
I have a thing for freakish fast-food menu items. Always have. Back when Facebook wasn’t the platform for Boomer rage, I frequently amused myself by putting up the latest in chain publicity stunt psychosis for group consensus. Looking back, KFC’s Famous Bowl, a glop of every conceivable menu item, from chicken to mashed potatoes to … Continue reading
Our new Bible (all photos by moi) Susan Sontag may have written the most renowned and widely considered definitive consideration of camp, but let’s be honest, Susie could not be camp if her public intellectual life depended on it. Regarding the Pain of Others, Illness as Metaphor, or even, On Photography aren’t exactly laugh riots! … Continue reading
Blame it on the cum shot. That’s all it took for me to fall permanently and irrevocably in love with HBO’s widely loathed, universally mocked, critically maligned, and now-officially canceled and “canceled” show The Idol, created by Euphoria‘s Sam Levinson, Abel Tesfaye aka The Weeknd, and Reza Fahim, all of whom have been unfairly raked … Continue reading
I’ve recently experienced a religious conversion—become born-again if you will. At least where art is concerned. For decades I avoided Medieval art like the plague due to (what I felt at the time was) its revolting connection to Christianity at its most conservative, a kneejerk response after reading too much Christopher Hitchens as a contrarian … Continue reading
I’ve recently been suffering from a fever. No, not that kind of fever. I’ve been struck with a Thomas Kinkade fever! Yes, the less-than-esteemed painter of shopping mall schlock (before the fall of malls) and the bane of snotty critics recoiling at the satiated bad tastebuds of Americans enamored with all those little queasily quaint … Continue reading
Eric Sneathen’s Don’t Leave Me This Way, published recently by Nightboat Books, is a ghost story. Ok, the book is not a ghost story in any traditional sense. There are no vengeful ghosts banging open closets or throwing silverware around after being summoned by a Ouija Board or, as in Danny and Michael Philippou’s film … Continue reading
What does a deep-throating, tongue-heavy interspecies make-out session between famed feminist artist, meat writher, and interior scroll yanker Carolee Schneemann and her cat have to do with Pablo Picasso? Is there some tenuous link between Carolee’s hot and steamy pussy-licking, Infinity Kisses II, and Pablo’s looming animalistic Minotaur draftsman cosplay? Are they both aspiring furries? … Continue reading
Americans are never happier than when they’re getting in on a scam. Or so said comedian Tim Dillon in a set I saw at The Stand in April (and as a former subprime mortgage hocker, he should know). If he’s right—and as much as I’ve rambled about con art as America’s foremost artistic discipline on … Continue reading
The muddled, muffled sounds of an indiscernible song fuzzily blasted through a pair of wireless headphones at Vito Schnabel Gallery. Even though the listening experience was akin to holding a tin can full of static to my ear, I got a little choked up, straining to hear a then-new Velvet Underground demo played over the … Continue reading