Dammit... why did I never post a link to this place before?

[sanpaku_backup]

Down the street from me, in Dedham, is the Museum of Bad Art. Contemplate the horror -- if you dare:

Comments

[ex-fauxpas266.livejournal.com]

Um. I actually really like that. Does that make me a bad person?

Re:

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Uh... [sound of me backing away from the computer]

Actually, I guess it is really interesting in a Dogbowl (http://www.attitudes.ch/expos/megahertz/dogbowl.htm) sort of way. Maybe I should find another example.

[ex-fauxpas266.livejournal.com]

Dogbowl! Oh my god! You got me! I read Flan when I was 14 and absolutely loved it. I reread it many times in the following years. Eek.

Re:

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Aha! I knew it! What an excellent album, too. Frank (http://flw.livejournal.com/) introduced me to him and the whole King Missile thing back in the day... we actually saw the "reunion tour" of Dogbowl and Jon S. Hall in 1994. Dogbowl was a friggin' genius. Anyway, one of Frank's friends was reading Flan for a while and I got to briefly see it then.

He really affected my entire outlook on life circa 1992-94. I don't know what would have happened to me if I'd encountered Dogbowl at an impressionable age. I'm certainly surprised when I encounter anyone who has heard of him.

I haven't heard anything from him in a while, as I got disappointed in some of his later albums and then he moved to France and I could never find anything new of his. But Flan, wow... the end of the world was never so much fun.

[ex-fauxpas266.livejournal.com]

A then-friend of mine, to whom I lent the book, was so taken by it that he ordered the CD. I only got to hear it a few times, though, and I really don't remember anything about it.

Hah! Yeah, I wonder what reading that book at the tender age of 14 did to me. Maybe it explains my constant dissatisfaction with fiction. Nothing else even approaches it. Except for Vonnegut maybe?

[flw.livejournal.com]

Dogbowl was intensely proud of Flan. I think Frank Gagliano still has my copy of it. It was published by Four Walls Eight Windows Press in NYC. You should be able to chase it down. I didn't really like the book. Maybe, if I can find it, I'll give it another chance. The constant stream of imagery was just a bit much for me. It was too episodic.

I go to a shopping mall people scream as they rip their flesh off from running globby-glop plastic spiders crawling out of their mouths while underneath a sea of molten plastic and inside a fairy calls to me Flan you are the standing carp man Flan you are the abject dart man My love my spider head love goddess bite me bite me burn me ... etc ...

I would've broken at age 14, however. My mind would have gone over to the other side.

The album I hardly listen to in deference to "Cyclops Nuclear Submarine Captain". Flan is simply too self-indulgent. CNSC is more other oriented and generically appealing. Plus, I think the music is much better. But that's just me.

Re:

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

CNSC is the superior album all around, but Flan was what got me into Dogbowl. The parts of it that are sad are so, so sad, and that's a real accomplishment given the goofiness of the conception. I would say that it has stuck in my head even more than CNSC, because CNSC is more about being Dogbowl, whereas Flan is more about the world as Dogbowl sees it. So whenever I get into a post-apocalyptic mood I find myself humming "Here comes the eyeball!" And that is more often these days than before.

[flw.livejournal.com]

Did you ever hear the "Here Come The Man (With The Plucked Out Eyes)/I Am Drunk Every Night (Because Of The Blue Fur Bosom Girl)" single? Man, those were some of my favorites. It was just pre-Flan.

Here comes the man with the plucked out eyes
Here comes the man with the plucked out eyes
Don't be fooled by the lack of eyeballs, he can see you!
He's gonna hit on the head with the hollow holly bolly hammer!

I'm drunk every night (drunk every night)
I like being this way
that's the way that I am that's
the kind of man I am.
I'm sick in the morning and
I'm sick in the day and
I'm drunk every night (drunk every night)
I like being this way
that's the way that I am
that's the kind of
man I am am.

Re:

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

You put the former on a tape I had somewhere. Never heard the other one.

[ex-fauxpas266.livejournal.com]

Hmm, well I haven't read Flan in years, since I was in high school I think. I still have my copy though. Maybe I'll re-read it one of these days. But I really liked the imagery. Some of it really stuck with me, like the guy with the flip-flopping eyes. But I don't remember the book well enough to say anything interesting in its defense ...

[flw.livejournal.com]

First of all, I have seen the MOBA collection and the thing that disappoints me most is their bad attitude. Some of that stuff is truly fantastic. They have such a patrician attitude about it. Snobbery. My take on the situation is look at this great art that people threw away. Their attitude seems to be, "Let us, the chosen, gather together and, with our wine and cheese, snicker at the feeble attempts of the proles to make art." Of course, maybe I am reading that into it.

I really do think that any work that reflects a sincere attempt on the part of the creator to express something unique has value. Technique is inconsequential if you have nothing to say. And it is also inconsequential if you have something to say. The message, not the medium, you dig?

Re:

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Eh. Sort of. I think you read too much into the wine and cheese -- I think that is their parody of the art world. I think they actually do have a kind of amazement -- awe, really -- at what went into the paintings. No one is saying they don't have value, after a fashion.

But you, who introduced me to MST3K (and the concept of Bulldada) must agree that there is something funny as well as profound in the attempt at bad art. The best episodes of that show are when there is some really big (maybe even good) idea that is being done with cardboard and bikini dancers -- the collision of aspiration and medium. I think it's the same thing here.

In some cases, the paintings really have passion. They've just gone terribly wrong. In others it's because there really wasn't anything being said except "I am in an art class." Both cases are instructive.