The dog’s not eating. It’s too hot. Since I upgraded to Microsoft 8.0, my computer is acting wacky--like I can’t log into Facebook any more. (I know, how tragic.) And I had to ask Martin to come here twice to adjust things and then today I realize that half my email is going to my Roadrunner Inbox, which is very hard for me to read and I have to forward everything to my Outlook Inbox, which takes forever. I email Martin who sends me back a tutorial for adding Roadrunner to my Outlook Express and I am successful until I reach the point where I have to input the Outgoing Server Info so I have to call Time Warner Technical Assistance, which always makes me a nervous wreck. I talk with the guy at TW for an hour and he’s incredibly patient with me, and I’m able to fix it. Is your head spinning? I know mine is. I can now read my email to learn that two of the messages are major rejection letters for two shows that I really had high hopes for. This makes about six rejections in a row. Ironically, I feel like I’m doing my strongest work now. Maybe people aren’t digging it because it’s so raw. It looks like something a blind person would paint--which, of course, it is.
This kind of sets the stage for how I’m feeling when I go with Leda to try out for the Artist Reality TV show. I never watch 'Reality' TV. Well, I’m lying. I have seen a few episodes of SURVIVOR when it first came out and, of course, a few snatches of AMERICAN IDOL. When I get the email about this audition, I notice that Sara Jessica Parker is involved, so how can it be bad? What do I have to lose?
Last night I happened to call Brenda and mention what I thought of doing and she says the audition controversy is all over the blogosphere and the Cal Arts people are up in arms against it---too commercial, too exploitative of the artists. Good, I think, less competition. Unnerving, however, is the fact that it is advertised in the L.A. Times. And here I thought I had been specially invited.
I’m not supposed to reveal the audition process unless I want to be sued for a million dollars--but I’m changing stuff, so this is fiction. If they sue, what can they get? My five-year-old Dell with Assistive Technology? My extensive and eclectic CD music collection? There’s always the dog.
After hurriedly completing a 23-page application and compiling a digital and Xerox portfolio (which luckily I had, but in kind of shabby condition), I wait for Leda to pick me up at 9:30 a.m., which is really early for me to pull myself together. The call is set for 10-2 p.m. at a gallery in West L.A.
I must admit some of the application questions seem surprisingly serious and thought provoking. What are your artistic influences? How would you describe your creative process? What are your thoughts on commerce and fine art? I speed through the 23 pages grudgingly. Who is really going to read all this crap? Leda tells me that a few cocktails helped to sail her through the process.
I climb into her car the next morning and notice that Leda looks really hot—boots, miniskirt, jewelry, black hair in a smooth, stylish, bob, and carefully applied makeup. I tell her, and sincerely believe, that she has a great chance of being chosen both on the basis of her looks and talent, which is considerable. She currently has a show of her masterful, large-scale “humanimal” drawings at a hip yet reputable new gallery downtown and her art career seems headed for a bright future. Mine, however, is bumping along the murky bottom of the Sea of Obscurity. I’m wearing jeans, a black T-shirt and my red high-tops. My hair is in its usual finger-in-light-socket pouf. I figure, who am I fooling? I would be a long-shot type choice--if they want someone older and weirder, the Susan Boyle of visual artists. (Yes, I do know who she is and actually I flatter myself with the comparison.)
As we drive up to the gallery we see a loooonnnnnggggg line of people stretched across Venice Boulevard to the door of the gallery. I immediately realize this whole idea is a huge mistake. I never wait in lines if I have a choice--this is one reason I hate Disneyland. I am lazy and have no patience. Leda says, “Oh we’re here already, let’s just try.” After a twenty-minute search for parking, we luck out and find a spot across the street where probably some other person who had sense decided to leave. The line is now even loooooooooonnnnngggger.
Fortunately, the buildings along the block provide a two-foot slice of shade against the brick walls, so we can hide from the hot July sun. After about an hour, the shade is shrinking and so is my enthusiasm for this venture. I am really ready to get out of here. But Leda wants to stay and I don’t want to blow it for her—Young, smart, talented and attractive, I think she really has a great chance of being chosen. Plus, she is my ride and there is no way I’m taking the bus home in this heat.
I call Chuck to see if he’ll pick me up. I know he’s vacuuming the house, because we’re going to Philadelphia in a few days to see my mother and we’ll have to leave Sheila in the house to watch the dog. “I’M CLEANING THE HOUSE, MARG!” he bellows when I ask him what he’s doing. I know his process, it’s intensive. “Never mind,” I say. I’ll just have to try and stick it out a bit longer. I’m entertaining fellow artists in line with the story of how this reminds me of when, in the late ‘70s, Sheila and I used to get up at 5 a.m. and take the bus to Watts to wait in line for the Quaalude doctor with all the other junkies. His doors opened at 8 a.m. and there was usually another looonnngg line formed at the door by seven.
Artists queuing here in 2009 are kinder than the junkies who sometimes pulled a knife on a line jumper at the Quaalude doctor. The artists here are of all ages though mostly young. Many are wrestling with large canvases. Leda and I congratulate ourselves that at least we didn’t go to those lengths, bringing original artwork is optional.
Leda walks the several blocks necessary to get us water and chips so I don’t die from heat prostration. Another girl in a flowered skirt (who tells me to my amazement that she has driven down from SF for this) takes pity on me and gives me a folding stool, which I can crouch on under a nearby sparse little tree. As we get close to the entrance, the shade disappears. Just as I’m about to keel over, a young woman comes along to check our papers. I have failed to sign one of the 23 pages and am so disoriented by the heat that it takes both she and Leda to help me fill out the missing stuff. In the process I drop my cane, my other papers, and the folding stool all over Venice Blvd.
Finally we’re being sent to the side of the building where there are tables set up and their minions take our stuff, put it into a big envelope with a number—I am 185—and take a Polaroid headshot. SMILE! Luckily I am so dehydrated that I don’t have to pee as often as usual, but, when I do, there is a delightful Port-A Potty set up at the rear of the gallery for our convenience. On my current visit I’m having an out-of-body experience because I can’t see the lock to open the door and I’m freaking—trapped in this hot, disgusting, smelly, blue box until someone comes to pee and free me. HELP! (Oh, here’s the lock.) Now we’re sitting in a crammed square cluster of folding chairs under a makeshift awning and waiting for our number to be called. I am getting faint really I feel like I am going to faint and Leda gives me an energy bar she has in her purse and I eat half which actually does help. WATER!
I call Chuck again, “I’M STILL CLEANING THE HOUSE, MARG!” I know his process and it’s intensive. “Never mind,” I say. No hope of rescue now. We wwwaaaaaaaiiiiiiiitttttt some more. Are you getting tired of this? I don’t blame you. I am tired just thinking about it, but now that I’ve started I guess I have to finish the whole stupid story. But you can always skip ahead.
“One eighty five to one ninety,” they call—so Leda and I are taken back to another table where some youngish TV producerish type gives us a spiel about not divulging this process under pain of lawsuit (I told you) and reminds us we’ve signed a contract. She asks if we have any questions. Leda wants to know if there will be time to complete actual art projects if we are chosen for the show or if everything will have to be done really quickly. Sometimes art takes time, Leda notes. “This process is not for everyone.” TV producer-lady replies. I just sit there and smile like a Buddha, Cheshire cat, idiot.
Next step—we’re directed back to the front of the building where we now line up in the alcove outside of the gallery door. It’s shaded but still hot as hell. More waiting, eventually we are called inside by numbered groups and led one at a time into a small room. There is a table where two young guys, each with a computer monitor, sit. I am directed to a chair before one of them. He pops my disc of painting images into the computer and says, “Oh, wow.” I am encouraged and ask if he wants to see my book, which I have in my lap, and, of course, have been schlepping around all day. I flip through the pages, not even sure if it the damn thing is right side up—but he nods his head as I talk about a few of the paintings. I imagine his eyes glazing over, so I shut up and he says thank you and I get up and Leda comes in and sits down across from the other guy. I go back into the lobby.
She comes out a few minutes later. One of the “handlers” calls her name and a few other names and says, “Come with me.” OK, this is it. She is chosen to continue and I’ll just have to wait for her. But at least she made the cut, it isn’t a total bust. A few minutes later, Leda comes back and says, “I was cut.” We look at each other in astonishment because this outcome is totally unexpected. Now there is really a problem because I’m sure all she wants is to go home and eat and take a cold shower and forget this ever happened. She generously suggests going out for sandwiches for us, as it’s nearly five and we haven’t eaten all day except for a few BBQ Lay’s potato chips and half an energy bar.
In the meantime, I call Chuck again, ‘I’M ALMOST FINISHED CLEANING THE HOUSE, MARG.” “Leda’s been cut and I don’t want her to wait, so can you pick me up if she leaves?” OK, call me when it’s over.” The handler comes over and gives the people left waiting another spiel.
“You are going to be in front of LOS ANGELES ART STARS, but don’t be nervous. Pretend like you’re at a dinner party and be passionate about your work.”
This is where I have to remind you how ignorant I am about reality TV shows and how they work. I’m thinking the next step will be a brief, video interview where at the end, I will be told, “Don’t call us…” and then I’ll never hear from them again. Or, if some miracle occurs, I’ll be notified at a much later date.
I’m waiting in another line where people are called in one by one--more slowly this time. By now I am filthy, sweaty, brain dead. I am sprawled on the floor in the gallery in my space on line. I recognize the guy behind me as the chubby Latino young man who told me earlier he is from West Covina. I ask him, “If you knew ahead of time what this would be like, would you have come?” “Oh, I pretty much knew what it would be like,” he says. He did? Great, how colossal of a moron does that make me? (That’s a rhetorical question, no need to answer.) My a s s i s r e a l l y d r a g g i n g, At the same time—I WAS REALLY WOUND UP.
Another young lady handler takes my book to give to the panel and tells me, 'When it’s your turn, stand on the mark.' They call me by name. I stroll in with my cane and sunglasses and find the big X on the floor. About 20 feet ahead of me is a long table with a few seated people. I really can’t see who they are or how many of them are there. Lights are shining in my eyes. No one says anything. So I just start talking. Passionately—about my work—like at a dinner party.
“Hi, my name…blah, blah, blah…University of the Arts…blah, blah, blah,…inspired by moving to Los Angeles….blah, blah, blah….retinal degenerative disease….blah, blah, blah…changed my painting process….blah, blah, blah….acrylics, bright colors I can see…blah, blah, blah…weavings of words…blah, blah, blah…”
I notice them passing around what I assume is my book. They are muttering to each other but no one addresses me, so I keep talking.
“Urban experience…blah, blah, blah,….graffiti influence ….blah, blah, blah…visual music…blah, blah, blah…layers of information…blah, blah, blah…large scale…blah, blah, blah ”
'Its’ not working for me.'
Did someone say something? Is he talking to me? I stopped talking.
Another male voice, 'Well, yes, we give you a lot of credit for your tenacity, but it’s not evident in your body of work.'
What is he saying? What about my body of work?
A female voice says something like, 'There are some interesting language passages.'
But at this point I am totally tuning them out. It is like a bucket of cold water is dumped on my head. DUH, much to my surprise I am IN the reality show—this is for real and I am being voted off the island! I stand still speechless for a moment. Then I thrust my white cane between my legs with one hand and extend my middle finger with the other.
"HEY ART STARS! I’VE GOT YOUR BODY OF WORK RIGHT HERE! YOU CAN KISS MY TENACIOUS, BLIND ASS!”
I spin on my heels and stomp out of the gallery.
Leda’s waiting in the lobby and we ride home laughing all the way.
I told you this was fiction, so here’s another ending. I am so humiliated, exhausted, and surprised that I really don’t know what I just said. Did I say anything at all? If only I had a snappy comeback--even something lame, but emotionally satisfying. Perhaps I should challenge and engage them in a serious discussion about the shortcomings of my work? Probably I will learn something. But I’m caught totally off-guard and I’m just not that fast on my feet. I’m sure that’s one reason they know I will suck as a contestant on their stupid show. Yeah, yeah, I know--sour grapes. The one strong emotion I have for certain is how happy I am to get the fuck out of here and head for home! I spin on my heels and skip out of the gallery. Leda’s waiting in the lobby and we ride home laughing all the way.
Strange that it is called reality TV. I feel like the whole thing happened in a dream.
Now my computer is acting a little less freaky. Thank God. That really makes me anxious when anything goes wrong with it. I’m trying to download the piano lesson that Eric sent me from his I-Phone so I can download it to my I-Pod (just a Shuffle), but the I-tunes program usually goes awry at some point. I’ve told Martin I need him to live in my closet so I can have access to his tech skills at all times. The dog is barking furiously at the gasman and I’ll have to go out in the heat and tell the guy not to worry. The dog won’t bite. He just barks a lot.
[photo: 'Pool Shark' by Barbara Romain]
