Crap, Trash, Dreck, Porn, & Craven Bigotry

From the Admiral this morning:

Dropping a crucifix into a beaker of urine became a celebrated work of "art". Flinging elephant dung at a picture of the Virgin Mary and surrounding the image with pictures of genitalia got NEA funding here in the US.

In short, "art" literally became sewage nearly twenty years ago. Now it has also literally become garbage as well (via uptowncoffeenews.net):

Bio-art is a new trend that blends art, technology, and science to create interesting and provocative works of art. Most of the works have themes that focus on social and political criticism.

An example would be the art of Kevin H. Jones, whose recent exhibit at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Massachusetts, incorporated bioluminescent bacteria and rotting fruit. A Brazilian artists once had a microchip implanted under his skin to make society contemplate the relationship between humans and technology.

Then there is the sheer indescribable, much of which ended up on the White House Christmas tree during the first Clinton term, as recounted by former FBI agent Gary Aldrich in his White House expose Unlimited Access:

Sure enough, in 1993, I was invited back to assist in hanging the Christmas decorations, but I declined. I was fed up with the attitude of the Clinton administration and its endless scandals.

Just before Decorating Saturday, I ran into some of my old team members from the previous Christmases. They were next to the oval Office working on wreaths. None of them was cleared to be in this part of the complex (you needed a permanent pass), but then again, no one seemed to need clearance for anything anymore.

"Gary, how you doing? I hear you can'thelp us this year. Why not?"

I made a flimsy excuse and avoided eye contact.

"Well, don't feel too bad about it, pal. You aren't missing anything. You wouldn't believe what they're calling 'Christmas decorations' this year. It's unbelievable. In fact, it's downright disgraceful. There's this one ornament, a clear lucite block, and inside are some old computer parts, and that's a Christmas ornament, see?"

My other former team member chimed in, "Yeah, it's true, and there's all of this carved dark wood, not resembling much of anything - just sticks and twigs tied together. They look like fertility gods or something. We can't tell."

"Yeah, and there are pots, and carvings, some that look kind of obscene, and boxes, but nowhere can we find anything that resembles Christmas. Nowhere."

"And have you seen Bertha?"

Yes, I had seen Bertha - big, ebony Bertha. Bertha was a statue that Hillary had selected to be placed along the public tour line. About eleven other examples of modern art were in the Jackie Kennedy Garden (the companion garden to the Rose Garden). Bertha was twice life-size and was very naked. In addition, Bertha had enormous buttocks, far out of proportion to the rest of her body.

That was why the permanent White House staff named her Bertha, which was short for "Bertha's Big Butt." This is what the first lady [and the next president of the United States] considered appropriate for the eyes of the thousands and thousands of visitors who daily toured the White House - Bertha's Big Butt....

Fast forward to one year later. Again I was asked to help decorate the White House. I didn't get it. There wasn't much to do. The Clintons didn't like tinsel - not one tree had any tinsel - nor was there any fake snow, nor did there seem to be much for decorators to do. Christmas 1993 had been pretty stark, but then, it's always hard to hang wooden fertility symbols [no pun intended, I'm assuming] and lucite blocks with old computer parts; the branches keep bending and breaking.

But I agreed to help. It might be a last chance to help the permanent staff with the decorations. I could see retirement up ahead, just six months out, and though I had loved working at the White House, the Clintons had made the idea of retirement particularly sweet for me.

I arrived early. Everyone was in a good mood, but I was surprised to heart the first family was at home. They had not gone to Camp David, as was traditional - that way, the decorating could go on undisturbed and they could be surprised when they returned for the great unveiling. Perhaps Hillary didn't trust us. She had, in fact, "hired" some volunteers of her own. While in New York, Hillary had seen an office she thought was well-decorated. She ordered the staff to find the decorators and bring them down.

The permanent White House staff wasn't wild about this idea, but, after all, it was the first lady's [and next president of the United States'] show, and everyone understood that it would be done the way Hillary Clinton wanted it done.

"Gary, you and your team will work on the Blue Room tree."

What? I had been "fired" two years before from the Blue Room tree, the first lady's [and next president of the United States'] tree, for complete decorative incompetence. "They must have forgotten," I thought.

I went out to unload a truckful of ornament boxes. They had been received at another location and then X-rayed and examined to make sure nobody sent the White House a ticking bomb. We brought the boxes into the hallway just north of the Green, Red, and Blue Rooms, between the State Dining Room and the East Room.

The GSA, the Park Service, and the Residence maintenance staff had erected all the trees. Some staff were on high ladders, hanging evergreen garlands. We gathered around folding tables to unpack the ornament boxes.

It took about ten seconds to get the first reaction. "What in the world?"

Then another. "What the hell?"

Then another. "Look at this thing! What is it?"

"Hillary's ornaments is what!"

From one end of the hall to the other, about forty people were picking up these "things," staring at them, turning them around, trying to figure them out or stifle embarrassed laughter. I turned to one of my team members. "What are these things?"

"I heard the theme is The Twelve Days of Christmas, as interpreted by art students from around the country. Hillary sent a letter out just two months ago, really late actually, asking budding artists to send in an interpretation of The Twelve Days of Christmas, and this is what they came up with."

I couldn't believe what I was looking at. "This stuff is just childish garbage! We can't hang this stuff on any White House Christmas tree! This is a bad joke."

"Gary, the orders from the first lady's office are to hang these. It's what she wants, so we have to hang them. Anyway, many of them are from 'blue ribbon' art schools, as designated by the Secretary of Education. The whole administration has a stake in this."

"Well, if this is blue ribbon, then we're in serious trouble, educationally." I pulled out one ornament that was five real onion rings (five golden rings) glued to a white styrofoam tray, with a hook attached to the back so it could be hung. But where? Maybe in Bill Clinton's bedroom so he could rip off a midnight snack?

I was disgusted, but some of it was actually pretty funny.

"Gary, come here, look at this!" It was a mobile of twelve lords-a-leaping. They were leaping, alright. The ornament consisted of tiny clay male figurines. Each was naked and had a large erection. My friend said, "Whoops!" and he dropped it on the floor. Then, "Oh, no," as he stomped on it. He joked, "Man, I hope I don't get in trouble with Hillary for that!"

Some of the ornaments were silly and some were dangerous, like the crack pipes hung on a string. We couldn't figure out what crack pipes had to do with Christmas no matter how hard we tried, so we threw them back in the box. Some ornaments were constructed out of various drug paraphenalia, like syringes, heroin spoons, or roach clips, which are colorful devices sometimes adorned with bird feathers and used to hold marijuana joints.

Two turtle doves became two figurines that had the shells of turtles but the heads of birds; there were many of these. Four calling birds were - you guessed it - birds with a telephone, and there were at least two miniature phone booths with four birds inside using the telephone. There was a partridge in a pear, without the tree - a clay pear with a [literal severed] partridge head sticking out of it. Three French hens were French-kissing in a menage a trois. So many of the ornaments didn't celebrate Christmas as much as they celebrated sex, drugs, and rock & roll. Several of the birds had dark glasses and were blowing....saxophones [Hey, Monica's antics came a few years later]....

I went over to one of the tables I hadn't looked at yet. What's this? Of course. Two turtle doves, but they didn't have sheels this time - they were joined together in an act of bird fornication.

I picked up another ornament that was supposed to illustrate five golden rings. One of the male florist volunteers grabbed my arms and laughed and laughed.

"What's so funy? What are you laughing at?"

"Don't you know what you're holding?"

No, I didn't, but he was happy to explain it to me: the golden rings I was holding were sex toys known as "cock rings" - and they had nothing to do with chickens.

Another mystery ornament was the gingerbread man. How did he fit into The Twelve Days of Christmas? Then I got it. There were five small, gold rings I hadn't seen at first: one in his ear, one in his nose, one through his nipple, one through his belly button, and, of course, the ever-popular cock ring.

I couldn't believe the disrespect that these ornaments represented. Many of the artistws invigted to make and send something to hang on the tree must have had nothing but disgust, hatred, and disrespect for the White House and the citizens of this country, a disgust obviously encouraged by the first lady [and next president of the United States] in the name of artistic freedom....

Here was another five golden rings ornament - five gold-wrapped condoms. I threw it in the trash. There were other condom ornaments, some still in the wrapper, some not. Two sets had been "blown" into balloons and tied to small trees. I wasn't sure what the connection was to The Twelve Days of Christmas. Condoms on a pear tree?

When we were through, the first lady's [and next president of the United States'] tree had all the beauty and majesty of a landfill.

An apt aesthetic encapsulation of the entire misbegotten Clinton presidency, actually. Hard to believe we're about to make the same grievous mistake twice.

Which brings us to the Christophobic bigotry, which now has an overt ecumenical beneficiary:

The artist behind a controversial work depicting terrorism mastermind Osama bin Laden morphing into Jesus today asked people to look deeper into the work.

Queensland artist Priscilla Bracks denied she had deliberately set out to be offensive.

"Absolutely not, no, no. I am not interested in being offensive. I am interested in having a discussion and asking questions about how we think about our world and what we accept and what we don't accept," she told ABC radio. ...

Ms Bracks said one issue behind her work was the glorification of Osama bin Laden in some parts of the world.

"What I was thinking about is, well, what would happen to the stories about this man over thousands of years. Could that possibly lead to someone with a cult-like status," she said.

Oh, of COURSE Ms. Bracks didn't mean to be offensive. So sincere is she about that assertion that she's going to prove it by making another holographic image showing the "prophet" Mohammed morphing into Pat Robertson or Pope Benedict XVI. I'm sure the global Islamic community will understand perfectly and take no offense at this next piece of "artistic expression".

Right?

What's that you say, Ed? Ms. Burke won't be even-handed in her "religious commentary"? Why not?

Because any depiction of Mohammed is considered profane by Muslims and can get an artist killed. Just criticizing Islam got Theo Van Gogh murdered in the street in Amsterdam.

It's much safer to demonize Christians. They don't try to kill people.

Indeed. That must be why Aussie Catholics aren't burning down major cities down under.

If it weren't for emphatically non-bin Ladenite passages like this one, such demonization might not be so safe. But then, vengeance is the LORD's prerogative, and....

Well, not for nothing exists the t-shirt I saw once and have never been able to find again, which said on the front, "Jesus is coming!" and on the back said, "and is He ever pissed!"

That'll make a great work of art in His Kingdom. And there won't be a piss jar, pachyderm poop, rotten fruit, fat ebony ass, roach clip, cock ring, or holographic blasphemy in sight.