Cajun bluegrass and live djs set the pace as thousands of art revelers ruminated over wine glasses in stylish attire at the gallery last night. My job was to photograph the event and race invoices to the accounting desk via pulley hoisted bucket. But nevermind that. Art sold like hotcakes, and that can never be bad.
Enter Dickwad. A stout man in his fifties, he starts out friendly. I�m busy and distracted, but I courteously return his handshake, whereby he steals my hand and kisses it. (Is there nothing more uncomfortable than hand rape?!)
A woman immediately approaches and bitterly mutters something rude about my size. Unable to hear her over the music, I reply,
� What?? �
Mistaking my question as a quip, she admits ruefully that I�m a lovely woman, shaking her head as if announcing defeat.
After she walks away, Dickwad reappears and tells me she�s his "sister" and sneakily hands me his email.
"I know you�re married," he says. "But you�re stunning...Email me..."
Not this again.
I flip him the ring finger hoping he�ll fry like a vampire at the sight of a crucifix.
I toss his paper aside but he begs, �No, don�t lose it! Take it with you!�
"Ok," I lied.
"I have to go now," he said in a hushed tone. "She's driving." He then turned and quickly chased after his wife. Er, I mean sister.
That fucking better have been his sister. Pursuing a married woman is foolish, but doing so while publicly humiliating one�s spouse is just downright mean.
So, speaking of changing the subject...
A couple years ago I met a grad student in an art history class who was blacklisted on the sole basis of his Arabic name, thus unable to travel freely to complete his thesis research. Well last night he re-entered my radar as the special guest on The Colbert Report!
It�s always thrilling to see contemporary artists receive recognition in the broader pop culture landscape, besides being someone I spent three hours talking with, not knowing he would go on to do an entire interdisciplinary media installation about the same topic we discussed two years ago.
Due to his terrorist watchlist status, he has decided to outwit everyone by turning surveillance on himself, using the tongue-in-cheek language of art as both political commentary and alibi. Stalk his every move at trackingtransience.org and decide for yourself whether he's a terrorist, or just a cleverly wry comedian.
2:51 p.m. - 2008-05-08