5 Sheares Street, Cork. €376 + 20% Tip 2023. Acrylic on loose canvas, 21 x 22"
Maybe a reason I desire the homogenization of nations, or an alternative, adding 10,000 more countries to the geopolitical map, is so I can get me some of that universal basic income the Emerald Isle is doling out to its artists. It’s become too easy for the oligarchs to control only 200 or so nations. Either conglomerate to one big earth country or divvy out thousands of tribes ironing out their local wrinkles. For years I’ve wanted to believe the Irish people are the most golden-ruled advanced in the world. And after a visit in 2023 and this month’s news revelation, I think it might be so. To be sure, Ireland has its share of dumb bigots, but the ratios are controllable. Give decent housing to the under-employed nativists setting cop cars on fire. Provide a cappuccino machine in the lobby and they’ll trade their kitchen-made molotov cocktails for Irish coffees quicker than a scalded cat can leap and yowl.
Bigots and artists can use a little lift. It decreases bitterness and de-radicalizes political philosophies. Basically encouragement in many forms helps us play nicer with the world.
Seriously, good for Irish artists, but then I don’t seek another government grant for me. They come with humiliation strings attached. I’d rather fail financially for a society that prefers a “tactical” nuclear weapon over communion with its human populations. But that’s the way it goes for now anyway. When my neighbor’s kibbles run drier (and they will very soon after China abandons the dollar), his eyes will pop out of his head like a terrified rabbit, and I’ll be the lone wolf content in my meager pack. The U.S. government is in debt of up to 38 trillion dollars. Money is an abstraction as real as male chauvinist sky fairies and billionaires with a plan to meet them. The artist is a concrete reality that very few pay or pay much attention to. The other night I left a 25% tip to a waitress just because she smiled and did her job mediocrely. I should have stiffed her and ran while she chased me out the door demanding something more for the bland cosplay of servant/master pretend, so base and boring that it just insults our capacities to be human being. Even in these embarrassing worker bee bubbles we still pretend, and take on roles to be millionaires and/or the “lower” class that serves them. And on her night off, she will also dole out a tip for mediocre service while lounging with friends in the master’s seat. It’s the acceptable way. For money to pay the rent, she spends many hours of her waking life carrying salty food to tables of tippers. She expects compensation from society for suffering her humiliation. That’s just the way it is for the servant class—the food deliverers, garbage grabbers, care providers and art makers. The latter are worse off financially because they’re paid the least, if at all. A career that keeps on outpouring for such little monetary return is a fool’s choice. One of so few modern humanist callings that proves by lack of societal support, the latter is running out of steam being human being. On low days I think her tip would help carry my heavy tray to the next table. I would drop the coins into my “Art is not self-deprecation” piggy bank, always emaciated and holding on by the tip of his curly tail. But then maybe that’s not the way of the artist, to mark success by other people’s support—the hand-out, gratuity, tip for not dropping their food on the floor… Maybe by always attempting to return to the servant class and failing, lies the indication that I have already arrived at something “unservant” and “never master”. Maybe I have it all with nothing. Maybe I’ve become an aristocrat of the spirit. Or just another unmentionable of the broke and beggar class. Call it what I will, and I will. Either one works for me.
So far.
All of Our Sweetbreads Taste the Same 2018. Acrylic on soiled dinner napkin, 12 x 12"