This isn't very important. But a powersurge hurt the press at the newspaper I deliver. Delaying work start time from 2am to 5am. When I got home at 7:30am, the things I wanted most in the world were there. A Colt 45, a microwave veggie burger and a couple episodes of A Different World.
Sometimes, that's the world I wanna live in.
A silly sit-com about a black college circa 88. With Sinbad as my coach.
Yup.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
Art dickhead exchange
So a quick set-up. My personal email (Porkatron88@hotmail.com) was given by a friend to a guy who runs a gallery a couple towns over. I don't know the guy. He wanted "works with paper" for a big group show. My thoughts are "sure, I'll be in the thing" and we have a super casual back and forth via email about how much space I need, what I have, etc. I'm a little surprised he doesn't really ask me anything about my stuff (including what it looks like) until a few days ago. I send him a couple shitty JPEGs of my cube (where it sits in my garage) and some collage/trash garland I've been working on. A few days pass and I get this fucking email:
Danny, [the name on this email account is Danny Dentata]
After seeing your presentation, of the work you want to put in the show, I'm not sure who sent you an invitation.
You haven't gotten back to me, so I am going to make a decision based on the following questions.
Who is the artist you know, that is in this show?
Is this your best and recent work.
Do you have a portfolio, resume and references?
Have you been to art school or taken any art classes?
Do you know how to professionally present art work for consideration in an exhibition?
Do you care about how your work is presented in a show?
Does your work have any content or does it just sit on top of trash?
Do you have names of all the galleries and shows that you have been in?
Have you shown here.
I your name Dentata or Cashman?
Do you have a web-site?
What is a porkatron?
I can not answer any of these questions with what you have shown me.
I'm sorry to inform you that I am taking you off the list of artists that will be in this exhibition.
Best,
Art Dickhead
So, I realize that it's not a big deal, but really, what a dickhead.
Here is my response. I had a good time honestly answering all his questions.
Bruce,
Let me answer some of your questions.
A*********** ********* is the artist who gave you my email address.
Whether this is my best work is something I cannot really say, but it is part of a the most recent batch of things I've been working on.
I do not have a portfolio, I do not have a resume, but references would be easy for me to come up with.
I have not been to art school, and I have not taken art classes.
I have not presented work for consideration in an exhibition, I have always been asked.
I care about how my work is presented, but i think the work stands on it's own and I prefer it to exist in non-traditional/non-gallery contexts.
I don't see what the connection between having "content" and sitting on a pile of trash is. I don't have a studio, and space is limited in my home. I work entirely with recycled materials, often what people might see as trash, and I don't see any problem with keeping my pieces "close to their roots," so to speak.
I've shown work at the Dirt Palace in Providence, R.I., 3 different shows at the A.P.E. Gallery in Northampton, and I just had my first solo show in the gallery in Feeding Tube Records in Northampton. There might be something I'm forgetting about, but not in your space.
My name is Daniel J. Cashman, the email you were sent was my personal email address.
I have website, but unrelated to my art.
Porkatron is a disgusting word I came up with.
I was just about to call you when I received this email, glad I didn't call.
I am not a professional artist, or an aspiring professional artist. I am a guy who makes collages and collage sculptures.
I was responding to an invite to be in a big group show, and before you saw images of my work the interaction we had seemed casual and friendly.
The reason why I do not have curator-friendly images to shop around is that I think such a thing would convey very little about the pieces I make.
I was giving you images trying to convey a sense of the space I might need, not so that you could determine how much "content" was being provided.
I understand that my stuff might not fit in everywhere, and I'm fine with that. Tens of layers of collage on a cardboard box is not the same as a tasteful print.
Regardless, your insulting attitude towards me in these questions is exemplative of the bullshit I try to avoid by bypassing traditional art-world channels.
Have a good show,
Dan
Danny, [the name on this email account is Danny Dentata]
After seeing your presentation, of the work you want to put in the show, I'm not sure who sent you an invitation.
You haven't gotten back to me, so I am going to make a decision based on the following questions.
Who is the artist you know, that is in this show?
Is this your best and recent work.
Do you have a portfolio, resume and references?
Have you been to art school or taken any art classes?
Do you know how to professionally present art work for consideration in an exhibition?
Do you care about how your work is presented in a show?
Does your work have any content or does it just sit on top of trash?
Do you have names of all the galleries and shows that you have been in?
Have you shown here.
I your name Dentata or Cashman?
Do you have a web-site?
What is a porkatron?
I can not answer any of these questions with what you have shown me.
I'm sorry to inform you that I am taking you off the list of artists that will be in this exhibition.
Best,
Art Dickhead
So, I realize that it's not a big deal, but really, what a dickhead.
Here is my response. I had a good time honestly answering all his questions.
Bruce,
Let me answer some of your questions.
A*********** ********* is the artist who gave you my email address.
Whether this is my best work is something I cannot really say, but it is part of a the most recent batch of things I've been working on.
I do not have a portfolio, I do not have a resume, but references would be easy for me to come up with.
I have not been to art school, and I have not taken art classes.
I have not presented work for consideration in an exhibition, I have always been asked.
I care about how my work is presented, but i think the work stands on it's own and I prefer it to exist in non-traditional/non-gallery contexts.
I don't see what the connection between having "content" and sitting on a pile of trash is. I don't have a studio, and space is limited in my home. I work entirely with recycled materials, often what people might see as trash, and I don't see any problem with keeping my pieces "close to their roots," so to speak.
I've shown work at the Dirt Palace in Providence, R.I., 3 different shows at the A.P.E. Gallery in Northampton, and I just had my first solo show in the gallery in Feeding Tube Records in Northampton. There might be something I'm forgetting about, but not in your space.
My name is Daniel J. Cashman, the email you were sent was my personal email address.
I have website, but unrelated to my art.
Porkatron is a disgusting word I came up with.
I was just about to call you when I received this email, glad I didn't call.
I am not a professional artist, or an aspiring professional artist. I am a guy who makes collages and collage sculptures.
I was responding to an invite to be in a big group show, and before you saw images of my work the interaction we had seemed casual and friendly.
The reason why I do not have curator-friendly images to shop around is that I think such a thing would convey very little about the pieces I make.
I was giving you images trying to convey a sense of the space I might need, not so that you could determine how much "content" was being provided.
I understand that my stuff might not fit in everywhere, and I'm fine with that. Tens of layers of collage on a cardboard box is not the same as a tasteful print.
Regardless, your insulting attitude towards me in these questions is exemplative of the bullshit I try to avoid by bypassing traditional art-world channels.
Have a good show,
Dan
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Atari XE hopes
1987 was probably the worst year of my life, and also the best. I could go on and on about that for ages, but my memories of that year are very vivid and I keep coming back to that year again and again for various reasons (some unknown). I was 9 years old and obsessed with video games. Well, I still am, but things were at a fever pitch in 87, as the NES was still unattainable but so so close to my grasp, the Atari 7800 was in my clutches and I was psyched! The 7800 port of Xevious really broke my brain! In retrospect that system was a failure waiting to happen, but getting it as a bday present August 17th 1987 was a really invigorating prospect.
But beyond the hot desire for the NES and my love of this newly acquired Atari system, something lay like a nagging forgotten dream. Home computing. As I've written about previously on this here blog, (http://trashcanland.blogspot.com/2009/01/stevie-you-rodent.html) computers were rather fascinating to my young self. Not fascinating enough to really pursue a relationship with the machines mind you, but just enough to generate feelings of longing. I had no computer, could not financially have one, but I had used a C64 at my friend's house and found it frustrating and kind of obtuse: "Why do we have to spend all this time typing weird stuff into this thing to make it play a game? My Atari does it just by inserting a cartidge!" Yet, all those computer wiz characters in cartoons really inspired a need. A need to compute, even if it was in a roundabout dilletantish way that maintains to this day! I was more psyched on (the completely fictonal)computer book that Penny used to solve crimes for her lame as Uncle Gadget than I was in Basic or anything else boring...or based in reality.
I sort of gave up on the computer thing once I realized how out of my family's budget it was, and how very alien the reality of computers was to my sensibilities. But I thought I found the bridge; the place where I could rest my outsider head in the world of home computing. The Atari XE.
This was entirely inspired by the televsion advertisements, as I was enough of an outsider to the culture that I had no idea that Atari had several hugely successful home computers even though I had a fierce brand loyalty to the Atari name.
This is sort of similar to how I was too young to actually notice the great videogame crash, but I reaped the benefits of it in complete ignorant bliss. Discounted 2600 games at 4 bux a pop? Bring it on, merry christmas, Danny! But I read no magazines and had no context. I was 6 and loved my 2600 and that's all I cared about. I saw the 5200 games in Toys R Us and something about the boxes kind of scared me, but that was really my only exposure to the "second generation" systems. Oh and one memorable Donkey Kong/Colecovision commercial. That shit just baffled me though. Wouldn't you just prefer playing Frogs and Flies or Demon Attack for all eternity?
But these ads for the XE really linked cartridge gaming and computers! How could I go wrong! I remember kind of struggling with having designs on this guy, or the wave of the exciting future, which was obviously the NES. I went with the NES and found out there was no Santa in the process, but I still wonder what would have been. Would have I gotten into programming and have an IT job now instead of being a DJ and paperboy? Or would have I just been still totally alienated by all that nerd shit and stuck with yet more ports of Joust? I bet the latter, as it still took me a while to realize that the B button did anything on NES once I got one in early 88. Small minded in the realm of button possibility I suppose (this later really fucking threw me in Metroid).
But anyhow, here are the ads that gave that nerd-desire a momentary pop appeal for moi.
An odd side note: At a time when videogame rentals were still kind of rare, the local mom and pop convenience store rented out XE games. Bet they regretted that business decision!
But beyond the hot desire for the NES and my love of this newly acquired Atari system, something lay like a nagging forgotten dream. Home computing. As I've written about previously on this here blog, (http://trashcanland.blogspot.com/2009/01/stevie-you-rodent.html) computers were rather fascinating to my young self. Not fascinating enough to really pursue a relationship with the machines mind you, but just enough to generate feelings of longing. I had no computer, could not financially have one, but I had used a C64 at my friend's house and found it frustrating and kind of obtuse: "Why do we have to spend all this time typing weird stuff into this thing to make it play a game? My Atari does it just by inserting a cartidge!" Yet, all those computer wiz characters in cartoons really inspired a need. A need to compute, even if it was in a roundabout dilletantish way that maintains to this day! I was more psyched on (the completely fictonal)computer book that Penny used to solve crimes for her lame as Uncle Gadget than I was in Basic or anything else boring...or based in reality.
I sort of gave up on the computer thing once I realized how out of my family's budget it was, and how very alien the reality of computers was to my sensibilities. But I thought I found the bridge; the place where I could rest my outsider head in the world of home computing. The Atari XE.
This was entirely inspired by the televsion advertisements, as I was enough of an outsider to the culture that I had no idea that Atari had several hugely successful home computers even though I had a fierce brand loyalty to the Atari name.
This is sort of similar to how I was too young to actually notice the great videogame crash, but I reaped the benefits of it in complete ignorant bliss. Discounted 2600 games at 4 bux a pop? Bring it on, merry christmas, Danny! But I read no magazines and had no context. I was 6 and loved my 2600 and that's all I cared about. I saw the 5200 games in Toys R Us and something about the boxes kind of scared me, but that was really my only exposure to the "second generation" systems. Oh and one memorable Donkey Kong/Colecovision commercial. That shit just baffled me though. Wouldn't you just prefer playing Frogs and Flies or Demon Attack for all eternity?
But these ads for the XE really linked cartridge gaming and computers! How could I go wrong! I remember kind of struggling with having designs on this guy, or the wave of the exciting future, which was obviously the NES. I went with the NES and found out there was no Santa in the process, but I still wonder what would have been. Would have I gotten into programming and have an IT job now instead of being a DJ and paperboy? Or would have I just been still totally alienated by all that nerd shit and stuck with yet more ports of Joust? I bet the latter, as it still took me a while to realize that the B button did anything on NES once I got one in early 88. Small minded in the realm of button possibility I suppose (this later really fucking threw me in Metroid).
But anyhow, here are the ads that gave that nerd-desire a momentary pop appeal for moi.
An odd side note: At a time when videogame rentals were still kind of rare, the local mom and pop convenience store rented out XE games. Bet they regretted that business decision!
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Journal entries from 2001
January 21st: Once again
My foot is cold and wet
due to a hole in my shoe and snow on the ground
I feel city
It is nice
John Davis
January 22nd: Here is this time....I'm an Idiot
January 23rd: Coddled by life,
hated by many
Is the rug geoing to be ripped out?
Is this damage the final joke?
All meaningless.
January 24th: I'm stupid.
I'm Evil.
I'm a circle.
Ignore myself,
and send flowers for best results.
January 25th: More bathroom dreams,
Mike was wearing a lie...
"whitesnake"
Definitely not Mike.
January 26th: Written the day after Amy was here
She is TOO CUTE!
and I mean that
January 27th: Dream:
Chuck E. Cheese but different
Axl Rose down a river
Roger Ebert and MK fetching a frog
Monks,
Porno ----------->autobiography of a flea
we are in a movie
January 28th: Perhaps doing things of imiportance from a distance now, letters, etc.
My foot is cold and wet
due to a hole in my shoe and snow on the ground
I feel city
It is nice
John Davis
January 22nd: Here is this time....I'm an Idiot
January 23rd: Coddled by life,
hated by many
Is the rug geoing to be ripped out?
Is this damage the final joke?
All meaningless.
January 24th: I'm stupid.
I'm Evil.
I'm a circle.
Ignore myself,
and send flowers for best results.
January 25th: More bathroom dreams,
Mike was wearing a lie...
"whitesnake"
Definitely not Mike.
January 26th: Written the day after Amy was here
She is TOO CUTE!
and I mean that
January 27th: Dream:
Chuck E. Cheese but different
Axl Rose down a river
Roger Ebert and MK fetching a frog
Monks,
Porno ----------->autobiography of a flea
we are in a movie
January 28th: Perhaps doing things of imiportance from a distance now, letters, etc.
Anthro Rex things
Hey, whoever was interested in getting some old Anthro Rex material...email me: DJCashman78@gmail.com...I might have some things.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
And that's where I picked up...
Jan 15th 2001
Insignifigent dreams.
George went away.
I am not satisfied.
Explosions are important to me.
I need to grind.
Destroy
I've been a good boy
too good.
Jan 16th 2001
Trying to minimize hatred in traffic...
what hate people when I can just igore it
hate and hypocrite
Jan 17th 2001
Money problems are ridiculous
so are completist issues
Fucking, get off it, Dan!
Jan 18th 2001
A smell like musty nothing
else kept creeping in
Jan 19th 2001
I wanted to watch cartoons forever today.
sometimes it's all I need.
Jan 20th
I ran for the orange line
It wasn't there yet
there were some chicken bones strewn about
train came soon enough
it smells really awful in here
like vinegar.
Insignifigent dreams.
George went away.
I am not satisfied.
Explosions are important to me.
I need to grind.
Destroy
I've been a good boy
too good.
Jan 16th 2001
Trying to minimize hatred in traffic...
what hate people when I can just igore it
hate and hypocrite
Jan 17th 2001
Money problems are ridiculous
so are completist issues
Fucking, get off it, Dan!
Jan 18th 2001
A smell like musty nothing
else kept creeping in
Jan 19th 2001
I wanted to watch cartoons forever today.
sometimes it's all I need.
Jan 20th
I ran for the orange line
It wasn't there yet
there were some chicken bones strewn about
train came soon enough
it smells really awful in here
like vinegar.
Old entries found journal
Fri Jan 4th 1946
Dear Diary I did four test in school. I wonder if I got a hundred in each one.
Sat Jan 5th 1946
Dear Diary I helped my mother change the place around today. I hope I did good.
Sun Jan 6th 1946
Dear Diary I miss two masses this morning so I went to the eleven o'clock.
Mon Jan 7th
Dear Diary I got a bike today and it is a good bike. I have a basket on it.
Tuesday Jan 8th
Dear Diary I did mouthing today and I thing I am a awful bad boy.
Wed Jan 9th
Dear Diary I did a lot of work today. I hope you like it.
Thurs Jan 10th
Dare Diary I painted my bike today blue a orange.
Fri Jan 11th
Dear Diary I painted my bike bike again today and the color of it was red.
Sat Jan 12th
Dear Deary I was a bad boy and I got a licken it hurted me.
Sun Jan 13th
Dear Diary I was a bad boy today.
Mon Jan 14th
Dear Diary
[final entry]
Dear Diary I did four test in school. I wonder if I got a hundred in each one.
Sat Jan 5th 1946
Dear Diary I helped my mother change the place around today. I hope I did good.
Sun Jan 6th 1946
Dear Diary I miss two masses this morning so I went to the eleven o'clock.
Mon Jan 7th
Dear Diary I got a bike today and it is a good bike. I have a basket on it.
Tuesday Jan 8th
Dear Diary I did mouthing today and I thing I am a awful bad boy.
Wed Jan 9th
Dear Diary I did a lot of work today. I hope you like it.
Thurs Jan 10th
Dare Diary I painted my bike today blue a orange.
Fri Jan 11th
Dear Diary I painted my bike bike again today and the color of it was red.
Sat Jan 12th
Dear Deary I was a bad boy and I got a licken it hurted me.
Sun Jan 13th
Dear Diary I was a bad boy today.
Mon Jan 14th
Dear Diary
[final entry]
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