this is for Tom Otterness--and for James Panero of The New Criterion--

Otterness who makes cute innoculous little statues littered around New York City

portraying "class struggle" and getting countless grants from

bureaucrats and cultural institutions who seem to have enough money

for this and not enough for teachers city hospitals or just generally the poor--

the same Otterness who in 1977 made a short film called "Shot Dog Film"

in which he took a dog from a shelter tied it up and shot it dead--

the poor trusting animal wagging its tail as Otterness killed for the sake

of his alleged 'high art'--I'll never forget the rage I felt years ago

when I heard about this because the rage never left me--

this sociopath made perfunctory apologies and pleas for forgiveness

and to the debauched cultural elites who empty their pockets

in the name of art and culture that was good enough--

entrenched in the old idiot belief that as an artist

he is held to some superior standard to the rest of humanity--

which brings us to Panero--who denounces these elites

in the name of conservatism--decrying public money going to

this depraved monster--public money he'd like to see taken away

from any department of society living--be it services or

infrastructure upkeep--who is exploiting this long-dead animal

for his own brand of elitism--writes Panero "Otterness' sculptures

"seem sweet, but they are meant to leave you with a bitter aftertaste,

"because Otterness continues to be the angry artist who once executed

"a defenseless creature. His work remains a meanspirited comment on the

" 'evils' of capitalism." what??? how much more 'meanspirited' can

capitalism itself be--with its credo of money and power over every

moral principle we've known as a race of beings?

he cites statues of "fat cats with bags of money [rolling] over smaller

"worker-men" and a "triumphant woman [reading] a book

"over a dead Monopoly Man, with coins spilling out beneath him."

I declare to the Living God--I don't know which one is worse--

and I don't care what said Living God or any of you reading this think--

for Panero--let him and all his conservative cronies hang

from lampposts with their throats cut (some thing's never change)--

and for Otterness--for his all-too-easy pleas for forgiveness--for his fake

contrition (not one penny of his gains going to help shelters--

preferably non-kill shelters--or any other organ of animal welfare)

and for the cultural elites who so easily turn away from his evil--

(their civic duties and tax write-off obligations just common vanity)

may he suffer a slower more painful death than he showed that animal--

let God punish me for my rage--they can all go to hell--

at least--all dogs go to heaven...

[This 'screed'--(I'm sorry that's what it is--but what's sorry anyway?)

was based on a guest editorial by Panero published in the NY Daily News,

May 11, 2011-- p. 26--(uh oh--there goes my credibility--but frankly,

it would never appear in the NY Times--they'd have their own spin on it--

proving culpability all around--but how easy it is for the jaded and the lost

to excuse themselves--]

Content (c) 2008-2011 Philip Milito.