The Cost of Everything

Watching the mayoral debate tonight, I listened to nearly all candidates fairly confidently offering their solution to the least curable of all chronic urban ills: poverty.  One of them spoke of the high cost of being poor-- something I am well acquainted with, having worked with underserved populations-- begging and pleading with mothers, often, to change their habits-- with little success.  Good luck to all of these candidates; the problems are slippery and the recovery paths are lined with red flags and splinters.   

On the other side of the poverty coin is its economic bedfellow: wealth.  As opposed to poverty, which is well defined by government standards in dollars and cents, wealth is amorphic.  Its definition lies somewhere in the gap between 'what you need' and 'what you earn'. For the poor, their earnings or income are pre-sold to some ruined version of future, things beyond the necessities of existence which they have every right to covet or need.  My friend Tyrone managed to get an address for receiving his stimulus checks.  Far from using this for food (he gets SNAP benefits), he paid a huge fee to cash the thing at some storefront, and the rest of it went toward cigarettes, liquor, scratch offs...  a few grams of weed.  I suppose this contributes something to the economy; he's doing his job, as opposed to me who squirrels it away for a future maintenance payment. 

My English grandfather told me once if I could not die with a million pounds, I must die owing a million pounds.  His million pounds would be a billion pounds in today's money.   But according to my country-raised father, there was nothing worse than debt.  To be $10 overdrawn on my student checking account was a crime worth a visit and a massive threatening lecture.  Like murder, one infraction was nearly as bad as several.  Something in his tone warped me, and though I could never get his approval, I could avoid his wrath.  I'd also discovered independence was crucial to my life-dream... and debt, in my understanding, was a kind of slavery.  

Sure I had my years of 'plenty', of partying and generosity and expensive clothes and hotels and restaurants... but finding myself at 36 with a baby and no support, I quickly altered my outlook.  There was actually very little I required.  I figured out how to navigate the city on less than $5 a day... how to live, to get some footing... and yes, my requirements by any standards are uber-minimal... so while I am designated poor by government standards, what I need falls just far enough below what I manage to come up with. 

And yes, I am fairly smart, educated... I know I could have some kind of job if I sold out but I managed to exist with my weird priorities and occupations.  Among my friends who consider themselves middle class, many live with massive credit card debt, doling out a monthly minimum which does little to help their situation.  Meanwhile they spend masses on rent, various monthly subscriptions, quasi-compulsory activities like Hamptons weekends which half of them don't even enjoy.  

Several of the mayoral candidates want to give money to the poor... one to children, yearly, so they accumulate a reservoir for education later... or maybe, I'd suggest, the option to use this to buy some housing security.  I still find it strange they teach sex education but not much about personal economics in middle school when even kids have a choice and are still malleable.  

But the poor are stubborn.  Their habits die hard and who can blame them?  Certainly not me who has tried and volunteered and failed, even with my own kids.  What mayor will fix these things in a city of millions where the wealth gap is measured for some in acres-- in billions, in cyber-trillions? 

Last night I got to play live in a studio-- loud, plugged in, with my old bass that sounded like a motherfucker to my damaged ears that craved the assault of drums and guitars for so many months.  My strings are old, my cord is taped up-- my gig bag is cheap and light... I rode down in the elevator with another woman bassist who had an expensive instrument-- a good looking case, salon-dyed hair... who knows?  I could feel her condescendingly assess my worth on the descent.  I got paid $40 to rehearse.  Touched me.  Did I buy myself a slice of pizza?  No.  I walked home.  No subway fare.  That $40 goes into an old tin box where I keep my monthly money.  The city was sparkling in the late-spring night.  I kissed the proverbial sidewalk on 6th Avenue.  The band sounded whole.

On Madison Avenue above 60th Street the blocks are festive with sidewalk restaurants serving $800 bottles of champagne-- packed. People are well-dressed... it is impossible to tell the seriously wealthy from those that masquerade as such... the difference between millionaires and billionaires is measured in how many are trying to sidle up to that person.  They have beautiful friends-- people who can afford to sculpt themselves if they were not born that way.  I felt a little ugly and primitive.  Invisible.  

Passing by the Richard Prince outpost at Gagosian, a small cluster of men emerged... they were watched by security men dressed better than any of my friends ever are; they looked rich... but as I passed, the distinct stench of fresh vomit was overwhelming.  Irony? Further up, in nearly every retail doorway, there is a little 'bedsit' set up by various homeless.  It's relatively safe up here and they seem to have reached some agreement of territoriality.  Their blankets and quilts and cardboard arrangements are like works of art-- they are the sculpted figures of these building niches.  They are urban art personified.  

One of them is an older man who has been squatting on Madison for years.  He does this charming sort of naive artwork on pieces of paper. A few, touched with the magical inspiration of a kind of schizophrenic genius, verge on brilliant.  He sells them, although there was little business going on at 11 PM... he doesn't take the platinum credit cards used by the men who would receive their Richard Price souvenirs by messenger in the morning.  I could have spent a very small piece of my $40 on what I know is real Street Art.... but he was asleep.  

Twenty-four hours later I still have my $40.  It will cover almost one day in my place here... my home of nearly 24 years which has nearly everything... windows, kitchen, full bath, instruments-- a library, computers, a TV which allows me to watch the candidates duking it out on NBC, trying to manage the range of issues in a huge city which is maybe recovering from a sort of fairy-tale evil spell, waking up to the same reality of economic inequality, the rich who have everything and the poor who want more than they can afford.  The overserved and the underserved... and the hungry and the overfed... the restaurants tossing uneaten caviar and sushi, the 'niched' men with their styrofoam containers and their itchy swollen limbs.  Blocks away a building is burning... two men shoot an innocent bystander as they rob a Bodega uptown.  In Brooklyn Kevin Durant has 49 points.

There are things to celebrate here.  Rock and roll.... free museums for the poor even though it's too high-maintenance to make an appointment... and what's in there anyway? My friends even though I rarely go out for a drink these days, or even a coffee.  Kevin Durant. I have everything I need--- the tools to create and invent something, and a safe place to do this. Is this not what all New Yorkers want? Not, apparently.  Melissa Russo has never looked so beautiful asking these questions.  I believe in her.  The mayoral candidates?  Kathryn Garcia just mispronounced 'mayoralty'; not a good sign... But I am hopeful.  I will vote.  

Go Brooklyn.

Scream 4

Having been subjected to an EL-AL-worthy screening at Sotheby's this week, I was taken past lines of docile-looking policemen to the 10th floor where Munch's 'Scream' was on display along with other stealthfully framed art-nuggets.  Nuggets, because some of them seemed quite literally to glow in the simulated daylight.  I have to admit that I was not just a little disappointed.  I have been to Oslo, seen the Thielska in Stockholm many times, and this crayon version, despite the hype and the staging and the 'poem' underneath--- well, it didn't knock me out.  In fact, I couldn't really 'hear' it.

Okay.  I wandered around, admired the glossy Picasso and the Gauguin, both of which looked freshly painted or maybe repackaged.  The clever frames, and the combination lighting--- a little seductive, but you definitely know you are not in any museum.  It is more like an upscale 'store'-- Prada or Armani-- or Harry Winston.  The whole scene-- with the well-dressed employees, their precocious formality and sly solicitous condescension,  resembled not merely a 'set' but a bit of a 'set-up'?

In fact, watching the actual sale, there was a distinct scent of staginess.  The auctioneer's comments  seemed scripted, the waving hands like a scene from Wall Street 4.  In a debt-fueled catastrophic world economy, zeros seem almost arbitrary and fictional.  I mean, who are these people--- and why are they here, abusing and distorting the art market, and who really cares?  I'm sick of seeing super-sized engagement rings and Vera Wang weddings.  How many hedge-fund-financed apartments have I visited lately with the required Richard Prince Nurse, the Damian Hirst, the Jeff Koons hideosity, the stock Warhol, Twombly, Richter... ad nauseam?  Even the Double-Elvis which used to excite me--- it all seemed like wall-treatment, not art.  It's oversized, and overdone, and --well, it feels downright cheap to me.  What happened to small pictures that draw you in-- paintings done in squalid damp studios in absinthy nights of unrequited passion, of wet lamplight and shadowy women behind doorways?  Something intimate and personal?  Something only you could own?  A painting on the wall that seduces-- every night-- like a kind of visual Sheherezade?

Honestly, it is not sour grapes.   I will venture that even the Basquiat Boxer didn't inspire me.  It all looked rather flat and frankly I don't want to own these things.  Okay, I am jaded and have seen 35 years of auctions now--- London, Paris,  especially New York.  I coveted these things when they were new and affordable.  I even invested, in those days, when Apple stock was a shot in the dark at $22.00.  But today the Scream felt like some Michelin Man version of what I used to admire.  A cartoon.  I do not want Mickey Mouse on my wall, diamond dust or not.  I have maybe outgrown these over-used pop-icons.  I'm sick of seeing Elvis and the Beatles and too-many Marilyns.   In a gallery in dark cold Norway where the 19th century seems a bit closer, the Scream has some authority, some meaning.  But here at Sotheby's among the well-dressed-- and the captions and the overweighted catalogue descriptions- it just looked a little Casper-esque.   Maybe the Warhol version would work for me-- and at 1/20th of the price and an extra layer of irony, it would seem a bargain.

Besides, it is Scream 1(?) of 4.  Did Hitchcock do Psycho 2?  He did not.  The shepherd who screamed 'Wolf' too many times? Remember the anecdote about the British philatelist who bought two of the rarest and priciest airmail stamps in UK history?  He immediately destroyed one.

How many of these artists at auction would make it today?  Would anyone pay attention to a Bonnard or a Delvaux or a Twombly unless he got raves in the Wall Street Journal and a one-man show at Gagosian's Basel booth?  Would Gagosian recognize a badly-dressed true artist on the street with his artwork?  Would anyone do a studio visit to someone who lives in a basement flat and has a vision?  Unlikely.  A certain amount of creativity in our culture has to do with reinforcement--- with  reward and recognition and then the courage or motivation to go on.  Not to mention money.  All of which taints the artist in a way--- too hard not to want to please, or to displease for attention, or to shock the audience or-- better yet, jolt oneself into some kind of artistic epiphany because the average collector maybe spends more time on Madison Ave at Saint Ambroeus having a morning latte or savoring the pretty amazing hot chocolate.  Imagine these people unable to distinguish between a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck and a fine Chateau Lafite except by pricetag,  especially if you switch up the bottles.  Well, there you have the art market, for some.  

My own mirror dates me with no mercy.  But I, unlike these 9-figured paintings, never expected to be timeless.  One of my photographer friends made a comment today--- he picked up a book on The Lost Vanguard of Russian art and remarked 'I never get tired of looking at these'.  A thumbs up for him.  And yes-- a few of these things in our lives: the NYC post-storm sunset-- the moon over the East River--- my wall of books-- the face of someone we truly love-- some of my pictures, like small deep windows,  the soul of the artist mixed with my own now from so many hours of intimate 'seeing'.

Still, personally, I like my music loud and my art quiet.

Play Offs

I passed this gymnasium today… a court where my son used to play his league games. It was the first summerlike day and basketball had joyously moved outdoors. There were 4 balls scattered on the wooden floor in a way which so completely defined the past tense… and I couldn’t help thinking, with a stab of something like nostalgia or loss… no work of art, no sculptural accident or surrealist act could possibly have conveyed the still and perfect randomness of those balls as they lay.

My neighbor called today and was annoyed at me for suggesting he watch some Indie Swedish film which he found totally worthless. Okay… maybe I was under the spell of the strange language, the dark, cold photography, the sparse, subdued, smoky breaths of dialogue. Had I underestimated his intelligence? Well, I countered, referring to some poet he had recently praised…if you define a poet as someone who is attempting to write poetry…
And there ensued a duel of minds batting back and forth the misshapen ball of mediocrity. Actually, the perfectly formed ball of mediocrity because this is where technology has placed us… in a position of perfect reproduction, straight edges, the pre-drawn, pre-loaded, synthesized, airbrushed landscape of culture. And who is really listening…or watching?

Paper and pen which were treasured by some ancient poets…is near-obsolete. Corrections are automatic, publishing is instantaneous… everyone has a network, a preset audience, an email list. Does it matter if they are too busy putting out to actually listen or read or watch? Everything has been said, written. This, as well. Every teenager has a guitar as well as a car in the garage. Not. But the new poetry might be architecture. At least it requires ‘presence’ to be experienced. For the time being, that is.

I read some work by a South African poet today who is quite acknowledged… and full of metaphor… so full, in fact, that it passed me by. I began to spar with the poet, mentally. Is a shadow really the ‘widow of the light’? Is that not the dark, what is left behind? And he spent so much time setting the scene…describing the landscape, as though none of us readers have eyes or soul or heart or imagination… I grew angry.

Maybe I, too, am a victim of the impatience instant messaging has cultivated. Maybe I am overstimulated and sensorily anesthetized. Maybe we all need to be shot, and then to feel the pain of the wound, in order to explore our own feelings. We are ever-so tolerant of the gruesome violence and gratuitous cruelty we see on even prime-time TV. The odd thing to me is the same audience seems to flock in equal numbers to both the horrific cinematic frightfests and the pathetically scripted Jennifer Anniston/ Reese Witherspoon froth which monopolize chain theatres. At least I stay home and watch Sundance.

I do notice, though, that in the award department, tragedy beats out comedy. How many of our lives are truly marked by 9/11 moments, as opposed to happiness. Besides, that is, the births of our children, which, according to the wise poets, is the sad instant their world becomes intermingled with death.

How is it, I wonder, coming home, still in the spell of the empty basketball court, that these people who live among me can worry about the status of their prams and strollers and fail to feel something for all the starving children? That we must feel guilty if we do not buy the iphone for our kids when animals are being tortured, millions are suffering? And on TV they are asking for money for the polar bears. I can scarcely manage the quarters for my corner panhandler who I notice today is missing another tooth. Does lack of money make me more qualified to empathize, to hate the investment bankers, to ‘dis’ the late Picasso show at Gagosian, to weep over the orphaned elephants and my own failed attempts to communicate all of it?

I do know that I hate more than ever the trapped basketball in the tank of Jeff Koons which always had some perverse sexual and monetary connotation. In a Batmanesque parable of the Gotham City art world, Mr. Koons is some kind of pathetic Joker. The anti-Houdini, the lizardous creature in a tank or a bank vault who conspires to deflate the souls of all those who might give to the polar bears if only they had something to give.

I am thinking also there must be some pop philosopher-- some pensive or laid-off sportscaster somewhere, especially during this season of playoffs, who will never read Writerless, but who has observed ‘I am the basketball on the abandoned court’. Maybe he is even a Swede.