Strategical Bumbling Man

I Am My Own Worst Enemy


If I were a superhero—you know, the kind found in cartoons and comic books—my name would be “Strategical Bumbling Man,” “Self Defeatist Man,” “Punching Bag Man,” or something of that sort.

I’d probably wear a pink or purple costume with a big bull’s eye target on my chest and on my back, and I’d stumble and run around in big oversized clown shoes and yell things like “SHAZAM” in a voice like Jim Neighbors’ character Gomer Pyle.

Each TV episode of my exploits would feature me saving myself from my own self-created problems or retrieving myself from needless peril.

It would basically be a one man show, because I wouldn’t have time to help anyone else as a result.

My art career is a perfect example of this type behavior.

I had nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by entering the Glynn Arts Association National Juried Exhibit that opens Thursday evening.

From the outset I knew that the Association President was a good friend of two women (also Association members) that disliked me from a prior relationship with one of the local theater companies.

I had previously upset their apple cart disturbed the hierarchy of the set design and construction clic and when they resorted to juvenile retaliation tactics, I resigned, but not before delivering a stinging dissertation outlining my problems with their organization.

In anticipation of similar exclusionary tactics, I actually went to the trouble to enter this competition using my “Nome de plume” (pen name) Maxwell Raymond, for fear that the acceptance committee wouldn’t fairly consider my work if they knew whom it was that it was actually produced by (me.)

I did, however, feel that, if my work was accepted, I would have a fair evaluation in the Jury process because the Artist that is doing the judging is from somewhere outside of Georgia and has no known relationship to any of the offending parties.

Needless to say, I was quite pleased when my pen and ink drawing composition entitled “Sanctuaries of the Golden Isles” was accepted in the competition.

So good so far. (que the ominous superhero theme music...)

Next I ran into a telephone booth, changed into my costume, and emerged as my super hero “altered ego”--Strategical Bumbling Man.

“Here I come…to save screw up my dayyyyyyyyy…”

You see, I was suffering from a bad case of “the big head” after my meeting with Mrs. Wilcox at the Left Bank Art Gallery, so in a fit of egotism I elected to put both my “Nome de plume” and my REAL NAME on the identifying label on the back of my art work.

Can you say the words “strategical error” or possibly BIG MISTAKE in laymans terms?

Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, apparently that is exactly what I committed, because when I stopped by the Glynn Arts gallery about 4:15 PM yesterday afternoon to sneak a peek at their progress in hanging the competitors’ artwork, I was crushed.

At first I couldn’t even find my drawings.

The gallery is really just a 30 foot square room with two doors opening onto the sidewalk, but even with the small size of the real estate, I had to wander around for a couple of minutes before I realized my art was on their wall, but that they had hung my drawings in the very back corner of the gallery, over the attendant’s desk, in behind the brochures and other obligatory crap that they have on display 24/7.

You can’t get within six feet of my work without moving the desk chair out of the way and leaning over a cradenza.

I was incensed…

I managed to control myself, and instead of throwing a public conniption fit (thereby awaking the old man dozing at the attendants desk), I just left the building.

Based on my history with the three aforementioned individuals I should have expected this exact situation to occur.

I thought about things for a while and decided to just go back by the gallery, show my ID, and ask that my work be removed from the exhibit.

When I arrived at the front door at 4:55 PM, the doors were locked and the lights were off, so I went home.

I’m fairly CERTAIN that there is no coincidence regarding where my work is hidden hanging, just like I’m fairly CERTAIN that it was a mistake to reveal my identity prior to the end of the art exhibit.

I don’t know what else to do, except grin and bear the experience.

Should I stay or should I go?

What do YOU think?

(If I hand you a big stick, will someone please attempt to beat some sense into me?????)