Bad at Sports

- title credits -

 

 

 

 

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The Bad at Sports: Title Credits were created in late March of 2010 for the New York City Gallery show “Don’t Piss On My Leg & Tell Me It’s Raining” at ApexArt. 

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The Title Credits

Set to the music of Machine by The Buddy Rich Big Band this was created from scratch in one 16 hour overnight sitting for the NYC gallery show in a few days. Based on old Saul Bass  & Friz Freleng title credits. The goal was to give every member of B@S a title card, keep it entertaining and to a beat, and insert a bit of fun and commentary. It did all that to some pretty good reviews.

Art Doesn’t Pay Much

The first thing to keep in mind is Art in the beginning doesn’t pay much. This is 16 hours of work, which at near minimum wage would put its cost/value at over $160. Didn’t personally make a cent off of it at a time when $100 would have meant the world. You do it because you love the community, the creative challenge or you have something to prove. The minute one of those fade Art gets really hard to do. In the words of a wise man, in Art “Nobody gets fired, they die of attrition”. Stay close to the people, fall in love with the challenge or prove everyone wrong otherwise get out and feed yourself.

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Horns & a Tail

I never had the pleasure of meeting Edward Lifson but felt that his show “Hello Beautiful!” had more than passed its shelf life and in the vein of Robert Rauschenberg erasing a de Kooning I gave horns and a tail to Edward Lifson. Art needed some DIY Punk again and at that time (2006) was way way too deep in the NPR soft speech and grandiose self importance that it spoke increasingly to a smaller and smaller pool. Or so that was my theory and the prescription for that is a healthy bit of calculated intelligent rebellion. Intelligent being the key term which is often missed.

What is Punk To Me

Punk can mean chaos to some but it was never that to me. Punk wants order but is willing to break it to acknowledge the elephant in the room, it wants to eliminate the exclusive voice of pedigreed gatekeepers, it rejects minimal accepted expenditure to play. Punk is as historically Fine Art as it can be and every time it shows its head intelligently it is disregarded as outside Art because it threatens a carefully curated narrative of wishful thinking at best. Punk builds just often times in the opposite direction. The other type of Punk is just self aggrandisement chaos and destruction, in my opinion.

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Hudgens Nude Pictures

Before 2004 if you Googled the term Hudgens I held the entire first page minus a Governor and a Dallas Cowboy. I worked hard and long to SEO that and it all came to an end when the PR train that was Vanessa Hudgens rolled in. Didn’t bother be and found it fun to hear people pronounce Hudgens correctly for once but the seemingly opportunistic tabloid nude image coverage got old real fast  so this was my swipe at all of that.

Logic

Many things happen in life that people swear happened one way and if the story has a clear beginning, middle and end with a pro and antagonist; society lets it go. Society needs a pat answer for everything and has only seconds to get it before the next fire starts.  This is how spin works. No one has the time to ask, is that how a sane human would plan, act or react? If something was dangerous would a average person put it there? Does this person have a motive to act this or that way? No time for that kind of thinking. 

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Richard Flood 

Back in 2010 the Art World was still coming to terms with the online aspect of the Art World and many individuals such as Mr. Flood felt that online “laptop” or “blogging” culture was a type of ignorant disconected ghetto that he just learned about 3 months earlier. At the time I said he was a screwball that would either get up to speed or fade off. Now he still was one but he wasn’t 100% wrong. Either way it was a fun culture moment.

Coming Soon

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Richard Holland

The two co-founders of Bad at Sports Richard & Duncan each had their own patter and way of speaking. Richard would reference old material enthusiastically like a deep voiced Ethel Merman exhausted with the world. Eagerly awaiting any moment to sing a standard in tribute to something actually good in this world, once of those songs was “Wind Beneath my Wings” hence the producer card.

Coming Soon

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Duncan MacKenzie

On the flip side of that coin Duncan was (especially in the early days) the hyper, bounding with energy, focused on the new, internet meme drenched balance to RIchard. He latched onto memes before they even were memes and would wish the listeners a goodnight wibby in a type of Burns & Allen way. It was either that or “What What in the Butt” and I thought that would not age as well plus the animation might be a tad rough. So Goodnight Wibby it was.

Coming Soon

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Meg Onli

Back before Meg was a fashionable Curator in Philly she was a Pittsburg Pirates vintage hat wearing, Rihanna in dreaklocks street urchin. Hustling every angle and trying to build up a resume she could (pardon the phrase here) hang her hat on. She has worked hard for her career and helped make B@S literary works rich with content and it is fun to watch it continue.

Coming Soon

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Interns

There is nothing more thankless and fleeting than an intern. They can at time do the most important work that keeps the gears greased and at time be the grease of those gears. Nate Lee was one of many such Interns and deserved a nod, even if it is only a chalk outline.

Coming Soon

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Humor in the Arts

I have pushed for it all my Art life but there needs to be more humor in the fine arts. The level of top of the layer cake grandiose that comes out never fails to fall flat to anyone other than those pushing the narrative and those that really want to have it be true. I felt you could have a higher resonating relationship with the audience via self deprecating flawed openness than a fake polished affect. History has shown in every venue other than Art I was right and that is ok.  

Coming Soon

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