Posted by pancho from ? (64.79.4.3) on Sunday, April 14, 2002 at 9:41PM :
They say when all hope is lost, when the sky is falling and trees are being uprooted, dogs and cats are fornicating with each other in the streets, and all hell is generally breaking loose...is the best time to start something new. What's to lose?
This community of ours, if indeed it exists anywhere but in our dreams or ravings, desperately needs to rally round a single something. John Nimrod wants to be that "Maypole" for us, to date he's been more a poker in the arse than anything else.
This generation is the one that has a greater burden thrust upon it than almost any other I can think of. We are being pushed out and bombed out of our Homelands, or forced to live in anonymity there because a Jizzimbetbattybasoo and others are constantly reminding the Muslims who control our homelands why they despise the exile community so, and the rest of us why they take out their frustration on the only ones near at hand.
In Our Diapers we stand a real risk of being assimilated to death, as a distinctive ethnic minority with a culture almost worth a Benz, or five. We have about as much idea of our strengths, of resources at hand, as does John Nimrod of what function he's snoring at. All the accumulated wealth that the nations of the West we live among does us not a damn bit of good. We still pass the hat to help NEEDY Assyrians like some peasants we still are...and just like peasants with scant understanding, we know nothing about new fangled and demonic things like Public Relations, or Lobbying...or god forbid, public exposure ( a lewd act to us) and recognition.
We need to unify...everyone says it and everyone means it and no one does it because what they really mean is, "you join ME". I think I figured out what got up Golani and Nimrod's and Bejan's collective arses. See...while I MAKE monuments...thnigs that are separate from me...sort of "over there"...they ARE their own monuments. I want us to unveil a monument...they want to "install" themselves. The monuments are to glorify THEM...I hardly act like someone who wants your "glory" or goodwill. They feel the need to wrestle them out of my hands somehow so the last thing you'll remember is that THEY brought these benefits to you. And failing that, they feel "eclipsed" at the thought of ME getting all that glory...
I've done about all I can think of to become as roundly disliked as any Assyrian could...so much so that my wife couldn't stand me after a while.
If anyone ever thought I wanted personal adulation...you think this is the way to go about it? I'm trying to tell you, as David Chibo did...forget about me, forget about what I think, what I drink, who I like, who I hate, what I think of America or Holland, or martyrs...these are all besides the point. The POINT is that I can make sculpture well enough to get us some recognition...that's ENOUGH!
If I have to have the Bejan Stamp of Approval on my dick, the Nimrod seal of GoodFoolishness on my butt, the Golani certificate of Wothwhileness on my forehead... and then and only then be allowed to represent us...you think I'm gonna do anything but either USE us or embarrass the hell out of us? Do we really want to run our writers, or poets, our artists through this machining process...to homogenize and Pastuerize them until they are "fit" enough, and bland enough, and harmless enough not to cause a Bejan to get hot flashes...or a Golani to duck behind the nearest fire hydrant?
This is a recipe for mediocrity...LOOK AROUND YOU!
Would you want a surgeon or a lawyer on those terms? Wouldn't you rather have one who was well respected by his profession...who was recognized and proven as capable of delivering the goods, when a legion of pygmies aren't trying to shag him, or a ride to "glory" on his efforts on YOUR behalf?
Okay, let's cut to the chase...YES, I will admit it...right here, right now...before you all and anyone who is searching the net for "Ass", and winds up here...ready? Here goes...,YES, I do expect that this community, scattered as it is around the world in some of the wealthiest countries the world has ever known, can support ONE FRIGGIN ARTIST!
Sounds awful doesn't it, when you just come out and say it like that. The reason we have amateurs is that we expect an Assyrian to have "things" first. A man or woman, to maintain self-respect and the good will of the community has to first surround himself with enough material goods to choke a horse...only after which he can go to that corner of the garage where a car ISN'T parked and do "his art". That's exactly ass backwards.
An artist, like an Assyriologist, is gonna be broke for most, if not all of his or her life. It's a given. Anyone who actually thinks there is a "living" in being an artist should try to be a movie star instead...it's easier. That's why you practically have to be willing to drive a stake through your mother's heart to get free of the tremendous obligations and sense of propriety that keeps us out of those "nasty" professions where you will have to live in rat infested flats...cage what you can...keep your head up when everyone you know is convinced you just can't make it anywhere else so you decided to make being a Bum noble by renaming yourself, as Jazzbetboohoo did, and coming out an "Artist".
Okay...so one dumb fuck has been doing this for 24 years and has gotten good enough at it. I'm still not expecting anyone to pay me a fair price...you think I'm really crazy??? All I'm saying is that if people would pay me about what a dish washer makes in a union joint, a bit more for health insurance and such...I will GLADLY make us monuments worth the name and notice.
The Assyrian community could EASILY do it, if it wanted to...if it even EXISTED. But it doesn't. There is no "community". There is a smattering of wet hens, going at each other as if there was a prize awarded to the smallest fragment of the smallest portion of the tiniest segment of what might be one tenth of us left world wide after all those centuries and millenia.
This has gone on too long...I mean this post, Later.
-- pancho
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