More Bad News for the Service Industry

The offender is not at fault - the provider is to blame.
Does this really make any sense at all?

Posted as a MySpace bulletin last night, by "Travis" (of Albuquerque) under the header:

THIS IS BULLSHIT

I am writing this on behalf of myself, a fellow co-worker, and all those in the hospitality business. Tonight at work, a gentleman comes in and orders a beer and a burger. He hangs out for about an hour and pays his tab for one beer and a burger. SID (Special Investigations Division) comes in shortly after he leaves (walking home) and presents a breathalyzer test with results of 0.17 BAC from the gentleman that had one beer and a burger. (The law states that it is illegal to serve someone with a BAC of 0.14). They proceeded to give my co-worker a citation for serving someone who is intoxicated. This gentleman, who had one beer and a burger, is a valued customer, who regularly comes in for lunch and has one beer and a burger. This evening he came in as always, showing no signs of intoxication. He was calm and cool, well spoken, and genuine, just as always. My co-worker greeted him as usual, and served him one beer and a burger. Now she is staring down a fourth degree felony and a thousand dollar fine! THIS IS ABSOLUTELY PROPOSTEROUS!!

Is she a criminal? NO! What she is, is an artist. A good one at that. A kind good person who always looking out for the benefit of others. What she isnt , is psychic. How would she have any inclination that this gentleman had five beers before he came in? What if she had asked and he said he didnt have anything. She had no means of determining that he was in anyway (legally) intoxicated. The point of this story should be clear. The new laws put into effect recently are completely absurd. Can we not serve anybody? Do you we have to go through twenty question with every customer before we serve them. Do we have to cut every person off after three drinks? Or even one!?

I have been bartending for ten years now. I am a professional bartender. We are not all college kids getting our friends wasted. There are some of us that take pride in what we do because we love what we do. Helping people through low times and celebrating their high times. Turning a bad day into a good day. We are not there to be down anyones throat about how much theyve had to drink. Thats their own business. In fact the fourth amendment in the Constitution of the United States of America states that we have the right to privacy.

Now, I am a single father. I have my daughter half of each week. I also have about thirty-seven thousand dollars in credit card debt, a car payment, insurance, my daughters school payment, gas, rent, etc. Just the same as most everyone in this business. We work in the bar industry so we can make good money, spend time with our kids, pay our bills and build a good future. What if the money I make gets cut in half? I lose my credit, my daughter loses school, I lose my vehicle, end up on welfare, with no future. With the new laws, this what I am faced with. Losing my job because I dont serve anyone or risk getting a felony and a fine EVERY TIME I SERVE A BEER! I understand that the state wants to stop drunk driving, but destroying peoples livelihood is the worst way to go about it.

This is harassment and unconstitutional. Please forward this to everyone in the New Mexico area. This needs to be stopped.

My Favorite Market Moment

photo by Sam Haozous


At the Gary Farmer/Floyd Red Crow Westerman gig at the VFW Hall on Sunday night. I have this guy's name written down somewhere. I'll post it soon.

An Open Letter to Klaus Ottman: I'll Eat Humble Pie Near You in December

Dear Klaus Ottman:

I received your comment to my post about the Site Santa Fe Biennial, and I have to admit you are right. My post, which is one of the highest rated articles on google for the search phrase "Site Santa Fe Biennial," is not a review. It is a screed and a rant about local art politics, a petty rivalry between myself and Zane Fischer, and about what happens when people (like me) allow their perceptions of a space and the discourse that informs it to take complete precedence over the work that is or was actually shown inside of it.

My only reasonable defense for trashing your show while elevating IAIA's show is this: while most Santa Fe art critics like to talk shit about diversity and multiculturalism, few, if any, have bothered to take Native American contemporary art seriously. That's my beat, my pet project, something I am willing to apologize for endlessly when it comes to its shortcomings - in the same manner that Fischer, THE magazine, and the Santa Fe Reporter will go to great lengths to cover the Site Santa Fe Biennial - even if many admit in private that they simply "didn't get it."

While interviewing an artist yesterday for a bio for that artist's website, I pointed out to him that here was an opportunity to explain his work to the public - as an arts journalist, if I don't *get* the work and I'm intrigued enough to *try* to get the work, I simply call the artist and ask. Or the curator. Many people do not have such luxuries, but I do, and thus for someone like me to say I didn't *get* your show was fully disingenous of me, and thus, I apologize.

However - because my review was never really about you and your show, nor about the artists and their work, I will take you with me for a moment down the avenue of comparison in our city's art politics. While your show was amply covered by *everyone*, (including Pasa Tiempo, The Reporter and THE magazine) the equivalent kinds of shows for Native artists were only amply covered by The New Mexican. This is not your fault - but perhaps you can see what makes me such a reactionary shit about a) (mostly) white Site Santa Fe, b) hearing from pooh-bah art critic Zane Fischer that "Indian Market sucks" while seeing no real retraction or analysis of any of the *ART WORK* in Indian Market, c) seeing that The Reporter had no coverage of Indian Market _at all_ other than a nice piece on Native Cinema, and d) hearing from the publisher of A Prominent Arts Monthly that Indian Market had nothing to offer him.

Again, this has nothing to do with you, but I am only mentioning this because while *I* can clearly see a racially-based bias about arts coverage in this city, and I can admit that my own white-guilt suck-ass apologist writings are focused firmly on the interests of promoting Native American art, no one in these other camps are willing to see at all, (it seems to me) that their coverage of your show and a lack of coverage of these other shows is a bunch of racist bunk about what Contemporary Art is supposed to be. Just as I think it's fine for me to say that "Site sucks and it's boring," Fischer thinks it's okay to say "Indian Market Sucks and it's all SWAIA's fault," and so we're all a bunch of rednecks yahoos (essentially) protecting our own little separatist turf.

You just happened to walk into this, however, and since you took the time to write to me, and to invite me to a private tour of Site's Biennial in December, I really have no choice but to write back and graciously accept your invitation. I, personally, know that neither the curator of a show nor the venue in which it is shown should have any bearing whatsoever on how a serious critic approaches *the work* itself - I wonder if it's possible for my esteemed colleagues to recognize that as well.

warm regards & please call when you arrive
Gregory Pleshaw (aka gregoryp(tm))

Does Indian Market Suck?

post scriptum: I wrote this post on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning, the Reporter came out and I read the Whole Damn Thing cover-to-cover. The only mention of Market at all was a piece on the Native Cinema Showcase, so the inspiration for the piece Was Not True. However...it's still a nice story.

So today, I was standing in the foyer at SWAIA talking to SWAIA PR Director Stacy Golar when the phone rang, and suddenly, I was plunged deep into the heart of the imaginary movie in which I find myself living most of the time. The movie is called "Art Town", and its the story of the continuing drama of a city "where all actions are fueled solely by the cash of wealthy white people, where the Creative Impulse and the Art World Aren't even in the same universe - and artist Bob Haozous is a brilliant feral animal who loves to spit in the face of those who love him."

The call was from Zane Fischer, arts columnist for the Santa Fe Reporter and my good friend, (most of the time, though perhaps not after today.)

"Hello Zane Fischer," I chirped into the phone, as I often do - I am little more than a trained bird in this ongoing movie, trained to speak my lines like a parrot, though I occasionally detract from my lines when I forget the prime directive of the tag-line above. (My opinions often keep me from the big juicy roles - the money is not in opinions, y'see.)

Staci sighed and slapped her hand against her forehead.

"I don't even want to know," she said.

I was puzzled and continued the convo about a party this evening for a magazine I don't write for anymore, then I rang off.

"What's up with you and Zane?" sez I.

"The Reporter is doing a cover story on Market tomorrow," she said. "We hear it's mean."

"Fuck that," sez I. "Call all your sponsors and tell 'em to pull their ads from that rag for a few weeks - those cowards follow the money just like everyone else in this town. Gerry Peters does it all the time - and how much negative press do you see about him?"

We had other more pressing things to talk about - like did they get me inside the SWAIA auction this year? (And they did, just so you know whose payroll I'm on in the access department.) But an hour or so later as I was pulling into the Baking Co., I called Zane and asked about the skinny.

"Yo no se," sez he. "I just write my column and send it in from home."

"Well," sez I. "Rumor down at SWAIA is that the Reporter doing a smear story on Indian Market tomorrow."

"Well, I hope they do," said Zane, perhaps the Most Important Art Critic in Santa Fe (after me, in my own narcissistic mind) "I think Indian Market sucks."

I shouldn't print that. We reporters rarely print each other's opinions - yet, I always seem to be the one with the vocal opinions, the no-compromise in-your-face dickhead don't-come-to-my-cocktail-party opinions, so since Zane had one inflammatory comment (for a change) I think I'm cool to print it now.

We proceeded to have a heated conversation (we have them all the time - Zane Fischer LIVES to bait me into writing more screed that gets me in trouble) about how Indian Market stifles creativity with its criteria for inclusion, its insistence on certain types of materials, and its "frozen-in-time" stance towards Native American arts & crafts. Clearly, Fischer hadn't bothered to read my story on contemporary native american artists that will be coming to Indian Market - but that's okay too, because we never read each other's shit either. We just pretend we do and argue from the hip about it, most of the time.

"Have you heard what people say about Indian Market? People who participate in it?"

Hee hee. Isn't that something? It's like - "I hate that chick, but I'm dating her 'cause her dad is rich." Kinda unseemly, don'tcha think, to participate in something but secretly hate it all at the same time? Man. And yet the question arises: Does Indian Market suck?

Here's my stupid narcissistic dumbass opinion on that point-of-view:

The idea that an organization stifles choice and creativity is an interesting one, because it essentially places the oppressed (the artist) in a position of more or less utter helplessness. Thus the detractors from the organization in question, (say, Indian Market, or perhaps, in my own case (for I've done it too) Site Santa Fe) look across the wide expanse of what is being displayed (say, at Site's beer-hall warehouse) or the Santa Fe Plaza) and sees not an endless supply of interesting and pretty objects but instead sees what is not there, either by dint of outright ommission, or worse, all that *might* have been created by all those unknown artists who *might* hgave created something INFINITELY COOLER were it not for the fact that the organization's criteria were so restrictive to the artist's "fragile little mind and delicate creative sensibilities."

The beauty of the latter argument is that since the imagined work is without question So Much More Fantastic than what has actually been produced, (since it exists, after all, ONLY in the detractor's head) there is no reasonable argument that can be made against the detractor - because his point is, again, Completely Unreasonable, on par with the logical capabilities of the nimrod in South Dakota who wants to outlaw abortion simply because an Einstein or JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF might lie somewhere in those vast fields of aborted seeds.

The issue at hand here is whether or not Santa Fe Indian Market (and perhaps the Heard Museum Show and possibly dozen of other "tokenistic" (my phrase, do you like it? I stole it, really) shows throughout the Native American Arts & Crafts world are totally fucked organizations because they have certain material criteria about what can and can't be produced by "official" Native American artists. (And hey, while we're beating on what can't be made, why not attack the DNA requirement as exclusionary and wrong too?)

Pushing aside the fact that criteria of *some kind* exists for every damn show and contest and production in the known world (except, of course, at Burning Man, which no one in the straight Art World has any respect for because it's not "archival" (they burn it) and there's Nothing to SELL when it's all over) let's look at some of the criteria that Indian Market has in place, both according to their own guidelines and complaints I've heard as I skip, merrily about town, parroting my lines to those who will listen:

(INSERT CRITERION CONTENT HERE)

For years, I've written all kinds of (mostly) worthless copy about music, technology, and the arts, and so some losers in those fields actually talk to little ol' me about their fledgling careers. And what they talk about most are complaints like these, "the bar that won't book us," "the company that thinks our idea is dumb" & the ever-popular "the curator who won't hang my paintings." And my response to such things is more or less always the same:

*** Book your own damn show. (ya wussy.) ***

*** Start your own damn company. (ya wussy.) ***

*** Hang your own fucking work and the work of your friends. (ya wussies.) ***

Be an imaginary David against the Goliath of your mind. DO IT YOURSELF. Really. You can. And you should. And unless you're a self-indulgent asshole like me, you'll do it *without* attacking the cash cows that make your independent work possible - you'll be graceful, instead, and pretend they're Not Even There.

The hypocrisy of those folks who'll tell you they hate Market (behind closed doors) and then still show up bright and early to participate in it -

Wait! Please. I have to tell you a story, you really have to hear it . I have a good friend named Gregory Lomayesva, an artist of Hopi descent, who was practically raised in a booth at Spanish Market, who swore up and down that he'd NEVER do Indian Market. And guess what? He didn't. He hasn't. And he's still famous and makes a good living as an artist. I ask you, man, WHAT DID HE DO WRONG?

- are just the kind of people who are too damn afraid to build their own Rolodexes. Indian Market, of course, has the biggest one in town, made up mostly of Those Wealthy White Patrons who Control the Native American Art Market (with a MAFIA, I was told today. Can you see it? Rex Arrowsmith and Sam Balleen and the ghost of Al Packard riding six-guns around the booths on the Plaza, ready to shoot any Injun who dared to show innovation in their work.)

So they HAVE TO DO IT. They MUST compromise and play the game of Indian Market. But what exactly (pray tell) keeps these folks from making all that cutting edge work they'd be making if they *didn't* have to fall pray to THE MARKET (you know, the market, the same one each and every one of us making any kind of stuff have to think about when we're pitching a story - don't you think I'd LOVE to make a living making this fucking blog every day? I SHOULD BE ALLOWED. And yet I'm not...sob....)

Sorry. WHAT KEEPS THEM FROM MAKING THAT CUTTING-EDGE WORK? And if they are, in fact, making other stuff, is it *really* so terrible that Indian Market is their cash cow that maybe gives them a little flexibility to make that super-duper stuff?

In either case - cutting-edge or traditional - the patrons will still be wealthy white people. Just like the rest of us. So...what's the problem again?

The Cheesy Fuckin' Obit (Better Late than Never)

(Composed while listening to Neil Young's "Needle & the Damage Done" on endless repeat.)

So, tonight, by accident, (more or less) it was revealed to me that my old pal Alex Magosci died in April. I guess that shows you how out of the loop I can be.

How fucking hard is it NOT to try heroin? I'm 36 and I've pulled it off, and I've done pretty much *EVERYTHING* else. Alcohol. Pot. Cocaine. Acid. Mescaline. Mushroooms. Crystal Meth. (snorted and smoked, like the wreckless high shithead that I can be.) Crack. (Yes, I did crack, read my fucking book.) I've even huffed Endust with a bunch of rednecks in the middle of Black Rock City. Warning. Do Not Do This. It is Stupid and Destructive. But somehow, I managed to keep from sticking a needle in my arm.

Ah, Dr. Dis - you needed this. You needed a kick in your dumbass about what a stupid waste of time - and life - heroin would be. And since you're fucking dead, you fucking loser, maybe someone else will read this and manage to Not Try Heroin.

I met Alex Magosci, aka Dr. Dis. (the name of a light-hearted yet mean-spirited music column Alex wrote for the New Mexican) in 199...shit, I *think* it was 1992. I had dropped out of college and I was writing for Pasa Tiempo, and so was he. I had written maybe three pieces for them, met Alex, and got him to write a piece about a rave I was producing. The rest was history...

Alex knew a LOT about music - so much so, that when he asked me to write about his band, I begged off for months because I hated his stupid band, and I thought it was because I didn't get it and I didn't want to reveal my musical ignorance. The name offended me - it was called "Junk," though at the time, GenX-nihilist stupid fuck Alex said he'd never done Junk, he thought of it as a metaphor for our time, since everyone with talent was doing Junk. Motherfucker...

I did, eventually, write about Junk. I probably lied about how great they were because Alex was my friend. I still couldn't get over the name, such a prim little shit I was about heroin, but you know what? I'm STILL a prim little shit about heroin, and for good fucking reason:

No good comes from it. If someone would tell me a story about heroin and enlightenment, I probably would've done it years ago, but every fucking story about heroin has a BAD FUCKING ENDING, and I've read all of them. Alex - WHY DIDN'T YOU?

Here's a list, for those of you unclear: Junky. Naked Lunch. Trainspotting. The Basketball Diaries. Hey - how much more fucking proof do you people NEED?????

I used to date an ex-junkie. She was clean before I met her, but I broke up with her twelve times over the issue before I finally did my namaste/compassion rituals enough to say, "Okay. She's clean. I accept that. I can love her and believe." We eventually broke up for other reasons, (she had the *worst* taste in jewelry) but the point is this: Speed kills. Smack destroys. And I don't want anywhere near it.

Alex...fucker. You were so smart and talented and pure, in your own stupid way. And yet...

In the middle '90s, I was living (oh-so-briefly) in a funeral home (I kid you not) in Austin, Texas. Alex found me and begged for a report from South by Southwest for Reverb, his short-lived online 'zine. I turned in a brilliant (maybe it sucked, but he ran it) report about Dutch pop bands, a wack-job act called Rope, and staying up for three fucking days snorting cocaine off the naked back of some cheerleader from Waco who glommed onto me for my press pass - wild sex, loud music, too many drugs, and total craziness at SXSW - that piece is lost from my archives, and the only person who might've had a copy was Alex...another piece of self-indulgent screed lost to herion. Thanks Alex, thanks a lot.

The last time I saw Alex Magosci was in the basement of the old mental hospital in downtown Santa Fe (a sanitarium, when it was active) in the Community Guidance Center waiting room. I was waiting to see my therapist and get a med check - Alex was there too, in some sweater vest, clean for eight months or something, talking twelve-step in the biggest way, I was so happy for him, but I couldn't help thinking - if you never loaded the needle, you fuck, you wouldn't be so shit scared that you couldn't ever drink a beer again, you fucking fool.

So - Rest in Peace, Alex - and for everyone else - DON'T TRY HEROIN. There are so many other stupid things to do, I promise.

Hippie Smiths

from a letter to Gerald Hausman (author of the new book "A Mind with Wings", a biography of Henry David Thoreau.)

Dear Gerry:

So a funny thing happened on my way to attempting to really *get* Indian-ness art-ness. I saw a job listed in the paper that I had to apply for - "downtown store seeks individual interested in Native American art and Mexican arts & crafts." Sounded like my job. I checked their website and found they dealt in original Curtis prints, among other items, and basically begged them for a job.

Six weeks later (I cannot believe it's been such a short period) I know more about Native traditional arts that I thought possible. I can spot a Phase One piece of silver at a hundred yards. I can tell the difference between Santo Domingo and Acoma pots at a glance. I am familiar with major names and families in the creation of everything from ceramics to cradle boards to tablitas. (I even know what a tablita *is*!!!) I know which kachinas appear on which mesas at which time of the season. I know which kachinas have been incorporated into Zuni ceremonies and back into Hopi. I understand how and why redware becomes blackware and which cuts infer a "traditional" pot from a sgraffito pot. And yet...

The thing that is interesting me the most at the moment (in terms of something to write about) are the Hippie Smiths. As you are probably aware (in spades!) the hippie smith arrived in the American southwest round about the early 1960s. Folks like John Ripple, James Reid, James Neely, Russell Greene, and Jerry Faires dropped out of whatever rock they were living under somewhere else, and came to New Mexico to learn this venerable trade, studying what books existed on the subject, talking to Navajos, etc. I think there's an interesting book to be written about the subject - particularly when one considers (as I only recently figured out myself) that Native Americans had been working silver for less than a hundred years, having picked up the trade from the Spanish settlers and Mexicano plateros.

I didn't expect to study to find "my own" heritage - (heh) - though as I may have written to you at some point, I interviewed this Commanche photographer named Walter Bigbee for one of my stories for the Santa Fean (I'll send you a copy, I promise) and he asked *me* some very probing questions about why I was spending time (like an anthropologist) studying other people when I could be studying my own past - I told him, point blank, that a) I was living in a community that contained Indians and would feel remiss if I didn't learn anything about them, and b) that my Celtic culture had been conquered and absorbed about two thousand years ago and the closest thing I could get to an indigenous past was Someone Else's Tribe.

But in any case - I seem to have stumbled on a thread that is potentially both "indigenous" and Anglo, simultaneously.

I am thinking about book proposals - can you point me in the direction of a text for non-fiction books proposals? I figure it's worth the exercise. Maybe it's something John Muir might like...

cheers
gregoryp(tm)