Why Does Government Fund The Arts?

After All, It's A Really, Really Bad Idea

I'm learning late in life that there has been an artist hiding inside my body. It must have been there all along because I haven’t had any surgery or an out of body experience or anything, but it’s rather surprising to me just the same.

I knew from a fairly young age that I liked music—learning to play at various ages and abilities the guitar, the piano, the trumpet and more recently taking to dragging a briefcase full of harmonicas around with me on the occasional musical evening out.

I actually like "blowin' the harp" the best because, although I have the least time and financial investment in the endeavor, I’m 200% better than I ever was on any of the other instruments. On the Harp I have the ability to improvise and “take a ride”—something I envied in a few trumpet players I knew back in high school and college.

I’ve also started working part time with water colors and acrylics and believe that I could really do some good, marketable work if I’d buckle down and stop wasting time blogging and watching the news.

My acting and theater adventures are pretty much over for the time being, not because I lacked the motivation and talent, but because of my inability to tolerate the petty politics and insufferable moronic ineptitude of the slovenly people that are currently posing as board members and individual show managers. Talk about EGOS…

Perhaps part of the problems I had with the “artsy theater crowd” here on the island was they were all flaming, bedwetting, sniveling LIBERALS and I’m such a blazing conservative LIBERTARIAN.

Just for fun I would go to rehearsals or to weekend set builds wearing my “Celebrate Diversity” T-shirt that features a dozen and a half different brands and calibers of handguns in a chart on the back.


My favorite Tee

Then again, it might have been my insistence to bringing MY radio into the theater during the week when I was working solo on the sets and listening to talk show hosts Neil Boortz, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity.

On a number of occasions people would come into the theater while I was working and out of the clear blue demand that they be allowed to change the station on MY RADIO to guess what—National Public Radio. I usually resorted to turning the radio off when someone else came in because I’d rather listen to “Nine Inch Nails” or “Tiny Tim’s Complete Greatest Hits” than listen to NPR for five minutes.

I think that it is a great idea for parents to encourage their kids to participate in the arts. Simple things like buying your kids a box of Crayola Crayons and a ream of plain office paper at a total cost of $5.00 is a great start. Buy your kid a cheep piano and make your boys learn to play like Billy Joel so they can date girls like Kristy Brinkley....er...um...any way...I think that it's great that our public schools have music class, art class, and drama classes for all ages of students and I’m completely behind the use of taxpayer dollars to pay for marching bands and class plays.

I guess what I’m saying is that I fully support government funding for the arts when it comes to ARTS EDUCATION, what burns my aching butt is other forms of government funding involving supporting unemployed, unemployable, idiots and morons that paint cows purple or put a Crucifix in a jar of human urine (brought to you with tax dollars by the National Endowment for the Arts), or guys like this that sew a dead fetus’ head on the body of a bird and display it as ART?!?!?!? WTF?

BEIJING --A Chinese artist who grafted the head of a human fetus onto the body of a bird has defended his work as art after a Swiss museum withdrew the piece from an exhibit.

"It's precisely because I respect all life that I did this," artist Xiao Yu said Tuesday. He said the bird and fetus "died because there was something wrong with them. ... I thought putting them together like this was a way for them to have another life."

Swiss museum visitor Adrien de Riedmatten, 29, filed a complaint on Monday with the district attorney of Bern, Switzerland, calling for an investigation into the piece, which was on display at the Bern Art Museum.

"I want to know where this baby comes from and if it was killed for this work," de Riedmatten said.

"We know about the problems of late-term abortions in China and we have the right to ask ourselves questions."


What was he thinking?

The work was removed, curator Bernhard Fibicher said Tuesday, because museum directors didn't want the controversy surrounding it to overshadow the rest of the "Mahjong" exhibit, which features avant-garde Chinese works from the last 25 years. The museum is planning an Aug. 22 symposium with artists, philosophers and ethics experts before deciding whether to re-exhibit the piece.

I know that I’m taking the story slightly out of context because it didn’t happen here in the United States—it happened in Switzerland—but I suspect that if the piece was offered for display in San Fransisco or NY City, the “usual suspects” and the rest of the “Artsy” crowd would somehow manage to crack open the government’s wallet and toss a few thousand dollars at the cost of the production of the show.

My question is, should the government be paying for the production, acquisition, or display of ANY ART unless the artist and the works have attained a status of bona fied historical value?

It seems quite acceptable to me for the Smithsonian Institution to attempt to acquire Vincent Van Gogh’s masterpiece “Starry Night” using government money (tax dollars) because the piece has historical significance and besides—it’s bound to go up in value.


Starry Night...

On the other hand, tossing my hard earned tax dollars at some starving asshole living in a sweltering Soho loft with his tie-dyed hairy legged girlfriend is NOT, in my considered Redneck opinion, making a good investment.

Just look at most crap they put on pedestals out in front of and hang on the walls of most public buildings. Most of this shit you’d have to pay someone to haul off after a yard sale, but the government and their “Artsy” consultants see fit to toss ridiculous sums of your and my money to support these struggling businessmen.

I have a message for all the little kids out there and their parents that think that they are raising the next Grandma Moses or Picasso—teach your offspring to read, write, and do math FIRST—then encourage them to draw, paint, etch, sing, act, sculpt, chisel, make wood chips in the floor, sew doll heads on stuffed animals, or whatever else you deem to be classified as ART.

What you don’t need to do is expect to raise an ignorant “Artsy” moron that can’t hold a job for two months waiting tables at a Pizza Hut and then expect to clamor and lobby the government to INCREASE FUNDING FOR THE ARTS.

OVER MY COLD, DEAD, DECOMPOSING BODY...

It’s just that simple...