Something Approaching an Introduction
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- kingjulien
Warning: Excessively Long
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I never grew up wanting to be an artist, I was raised too All-American for that, but deep down I always had a fascination with those who lived the creative life. Therefore, when I began art school, I was rather naive. I romanticized the whole process: the school itself, which was ranked one of the top institutions in the country, as well as the kids, who had to be young Picazos and Cezannes in the making. I entered with bright eyes and then was crushed when I realized the inevitable, that most of these people were elitist bastards, obsessed with being hip and avante-garde, snobs who turned their noses at my earnest sincerity, because I didn't look or think exactly like them.Once this realization came--that I was the enemy-- I made it a point to fuck with them. I might not have been the most talented, but I sure could get under people's skin. My first story, Nuttstains on My Sweatshirt-- about a young man who takes a stripper to the cliffs of Bodega Bay, and then suffers the ultimate humiliation, he prematurely ejacuates on his favorite sweatshirt, one that his mother had just purchased for him, did not go over so well in workshop.
At this point, my writing wasn't going well, but I didn't want to acknowledge the obvious, that I needed a lot of work, so I moved on to the next idea: the DJ Ricky project. One thing you learn in grad school is that you can explain any type of activity under the label conceptual art. Therefore, I had the perfect justification for why I thought it was necessary to spam the entire student body, as well as the staff and the President himself, with fake rythmes about a retarded white boy obsessed with vicodin and strawberry soda. I sent my entire school emails once or twice a week under a fake alias, DJ Ricky, really juvenile silly stuff. The funny thing is that the reactions were quite predictable: my friends thought it was hilarious, whereas the artists who didn't know me hated it, and sent threats about how they would go to the police if I didn't take them off my distribution list. This lead to many interesting exchanges, all in character, as this white rapper who snorted prozac ritalin speedballs all day and who walked around in headphones, lost in his own dreams (think The Who's Tommy with a hip-hop slant).
Once it was clear that a certain segment of the school couldn't control me, I upped the ante. I started this website called jewsinporn, which was a parody of the internet, and how despite all of this information and new technology at our fingertips, porn still dominates 70% of the industry. I thought it would be interesting to have a fake porn site where horny old racists would go with their pants at their ankles, only to discover a weird assortment of short stories and real art, which in theory should have ruined their morning wood. The thing is though, once things got started, certain people didn't get that the site wasn't real. Girls from the midwest, aspiring porn stars, began flooding my email with submissions or with requests to fly to San Francisco so that I could take naked photos of them. All these models wanted to be jewsinporn girls. At first I tried to explain the situation, then I didn't care. I was 26, horny and partying too much, and if some porn star from Detroit was obsessed with me, so be it. This led to some sticky situations, especially when girls from the same company were fighting over me, but I didn't care, I was making art, and I had beautiful women to attend gallery openings with.
The final project was the one I am most proud of: Operation Night Dog. You see, I lived in Oakland, and on Friday nights, from midnight to 4:00 am, this toothless crack addict named Night Dog would come on the public access channel, and play R. Kelly videos. The thing is, he also took on air calls, and because the station was so broke, they didn't have anybody screen the calls, nor did they have somebody with a button to delete the profanity. Therefore the gangstas of East Oakland would call all drunk and loaded and make fun of Night Dog, how he had no hair or teeth, and how he talked gibberish on the airwaves. One night I caught Night Dog blaming 911 on the Israelis, and when someone corrected him that Afghanistan was in fact a different country than Israel, he said they were all the same to him. This led to my first call where after arguing for several minutes about his need to disperse correct information on-air, I called him a toothless mutherfucka. At that point he hung up, but I still was able to capture the exchange on tape. This led to my first film, Toothless Muthafucka, which was a collage of crank phone calls to Night Dog, where I pretended to be a Jewish Rabbi, his gay lover in the Castro, a white kid calling in to request a set of Led Zeppelin, and finally, my favorite call, where I pretended to be a porn director who neeeded Night Dog to bust a nutt on cam--which he agreed to wholeheartedly, for $50 and a bottle of strawberry ripple.
The funny thing about Night Dog is that after awhile, I grew to like the guy, as ridiculous as he was. And yet, I would catch heat for showing Night Dog videos at gallery openings and anti-war poetry readings, where feminists who wrote poems about reclaiming their bodies would call the films racist, while the 3 black kids who went to the art school would show up with me and shoot down their silly limosine liberalism.
It was a chaotic time, and yet, as I look back on it, it's hard not to laugh. I'm not sure what I was thinking in those days, but it sure was amusing/
Sometimes people ask me where all this craziness comes from, and why I write so many personal things about my life. I then tell them these same stories and say, isn't is so obvious? How can I make things up when this is my everyday reality? And yet, day after day, I return to the drawing board, deleting scenes and rewriting passages and trying to turn this chaos into new forms of truth. I might not be there yet, but it's getting closer, so close I can taste it, like every girl I've ever been with, and one day it's all going to come together, and when it does, I hope the world's ready.
- mogwai0
wonderful.
the world is never ready. you gotta show them what they've been waiting for.
- kingjulien0
Thanks for reading that, bro, I know it's long and drawn out.
btw: I have that new Malkmus album zipped on my home computer--which I've been meaning to email you. I'll get it out tonight...
- Jaline0
I read it all too. I don't really have a comment though.
Go get 'em.
?
- mogwai0
much appreciated.
your friday spools are always welcome and entertaining.
keep'em coming!
- ThreeSevenFive0
That's some good stuff. Your writings are great and I think I answered one of your fake craig list ads. : )
- Bio0
awesome
- gruntt0
i do love a kingjulien post. I copy and paste it into illustrator and read them with mrs. eaves' typeface.
i would love to have hung out with you in art school.
- tim5250
as always, very enjoyable. you have a way with words dude!
- kingjulien0
Wow, thanks, that's cool of all of you.
Just to warn you, I'm working on a new collection of short stories about art school, complete with all the wackos: deans getting high, naked Asian girls jumping out of garbage cans in the middle of openings, a taco eating contest with a mass orgy of puking, a Black Terminator, a midget who got the school to fund his training with a real ninja for corporate espionage purposes, a famous Mexican (vampire) writer who collects the blood of the girls he sleeps with, and a girl who's Graduate thesis was collecting eyebrow hair from students at different schools and then eating them in a ceremonious token of Bay Area artistic unity. If nothing else, it should be a trip.
- Gorbie0
yeah... some of us remember when jewisinporn made cameos here on NT. :^)
gritty, vicarious fun. it's good you're putting the pieces together now... some wait till it's too late and forget how they got there.
- ********0
Hey kj, hows the Niners doin'? ;)
- kingjulien0
JazX, just to be clear, I had nothing to do with THAT video. Plus, I'm a Dolphins fan, and we've got our own issues with Ricky Williams.
Gorbie, a.) did you get that job?
b.) is this weekend or next weekend better to do some boozing?
- Gorbie0
do you happen to like Outhud?
former sacramento/bay area band that shares members with !!! (chk chk chk). they're playing at Old Ironsides on Sunday.... but then again, I don't have shit to do all weekend. Lemme know if you feel like meeting up...i'm down.
- ********0
ricky williams isn't coming back- he's playing hacky sack in arcada
- kingjulien0
Gorbie, I've never heard of them, but that sounds cool. I was thinking of doing the Heritage Fest but it's in West Sac, and I really could care less about Everclear (Frank Jordan is playing though). Anyway, I'll email you tonight.
uber....hahahaha, i thought Ricky was selling killer veggie burritos in Sebastopol. I stand corrected...
- GeorgiePorgie0
My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.
Exodus 22:23
- _salisae_0
do you really do that gruntt? cause that sounds like something i would do.
i heart mrs. eaves
great tales, kj ... and i thought my life was peculiar
- oopsbrokemyhip0
awesome. i wish you were my friend.
- kld0
CCA elitists represent!
Rob presented his jewsinporn project to a class I was attending and taught me about web stats, cheers KJ.
- ********0
Sure, sure, you sold the Niners that tape, you b*stard! ;)