Circus Animals Depart Staples

The evening of Tuesday, July 17, 2012, I looked at my clock and hurried to downtown

LA so I would catch the elephants leaving Staples where they had completed their final performance with Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus. I snagged a terrific parking spot at Flower and 11th arriving just before 11pm which was the appointed hour per the LAPD for the beginning of the Departure of the circus animals who were to head up Pico to Alameda to Washington continuing up to the railyard for the 3 mile walk of the elephants with a half dozen or so ponies following on hoof.  The other animals are transported in animal trailers, but the elephants and ponies get a tourist's view of LA under moonlight.

I talked to a few people who didn't know anything and talked with police and security guards who wouldn't say anything about the animal departure -- because PETA members had set themselves on the curb with their posters claiming animal cruelty as they had the entire week during the Circus' run.

Due to their hysterical antics, the elephant walk was delayed while the circus moved all the other animals and all its equipment first in order to out-stay the possibly contentious intercourse with the protesters that could most probably cause the animals to be distressed.

The idiot PETA women were the real perpetrators of cruelty to the circus animals causing undue stress by waiting to heckle them and their handlers as they headed to the train after their long work day.

So, I left without any photos as I couldn't tell when the walk would occur and I figured that if I were the circus I'd just route them up Pico directly instead of down 11th to Flower to Pico as reported in the Police announcement. I'm all for correct treatment of animals but PETA seems to have other motives. There was no one around that night for PETA's message to work on; they were just being bullies.

The photos in this report were made by me in 2009 when the circus animals arrived at Staples on the day of Michael Jackson's memorial service. The streets were quiet at about 4am and occasionally you'd hear an elephant sound a muffled trumpet call as he/she was anxious to arrive at the stall filled with soft hay following a journey on the train.



Hopefully, the next time the circus visits, I'll be able to view the elephant walk and experience the magic between the handlers and their animals who seem quite content to walk through the streets to their next destination to perform.

I just wish I'd taken a photo of the self-possessed woman giving clear, decisive orders to the circus workers who were packing up the trucks; she was a pretty heroic figure... focused and determined.

"Made in LA 2012" Filled with Vapid Work

I like the Hammer Museum. It always has its yin and its yang, I know, but their latest exhibit, Made in L.A. 2012, has no real up to its many downs.

There were only four artists who had work in the show at the Hammer that were warranted to be on exhibit. One older artist, Channa Horwitz, had 2D work that illustrated a system of art making that showed awareness of an subconscious ordering

and one painter, Meleko Mokgosi, held up a mirror to events affecting his life.

Two other artists made work that illustrated inventive craftsmanship in the form of frames (Zach Harris)

and of table tops (Joel Otterson)

that were joyful expressions. But the work of these 4 artists were merely life saver buoys

enabling me to get through the wasteland of the rest of this exhibit.

Most of the work in the show "Made In LA 2012" is like bad art student work. Most of the work has no idea behind it. There are no revelations, no transcending moments, no meditations. It is filled with poorly made consumer products by a lost generation. Lost in its purpose, perpetually acting the part of the coddled child who gets bored quickly and so throws its food at the wall.

What do instructors say to these students in their classes? Do they say nothing? There is evidence of some art historical information as a few artists have chosen to be derivative of, if not outright rip- offs of Oldenburg, Red Grooms and Baldessari. It is obvious that there is no technical information being passed to this generation. It is disheartening that the artists in the show have no ideas with any life experience to them ... there is no pondering, no soul searching, no emotion.

Is this exhibit evidence of the secularization of our world? Has the youngest generation not discovered its soul? Even when artists were being demonized by politicians in order to attempt to completely abolish the NEA, they drew from a spiritual place. Serrano's photo "Piss Christ" was obviously a struggle with his faith and Mapplethorpe's photos of S&M were staged in a similarly dramatic questioning of morals arising out of religious teachings. And it is not that I'm looking for work that takes on organized religion. But I am seeking artwork that has a soul, that questions and seeks answers to the dilemmas of conscious living.

Just because work is made in Los Angeles does not have to illustrate there is no there there.

Chief Seattle's Speech

"CHIEF SEATTLE'S 1854 ORATION" - ver . 1
http://suquamish.org/HistoryCulture/Speech.aspx

Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion upon my people for centuries untold, and which to us appears changeless and eternal, may change. Today is fair. Tomorrow it may be overcast with clouds. My words are like the stars that never change. Whatever Seattle says, the great chief at Washington can rely upon with as much certainty as he can upon the return of the sun or the seasons. The white chief says that Big Chief at Washington sends us greetings of friendship and goodwill. This is kind of him for we know he has little need of our friendship in return. His people are many. They are like the grass that covers vast prairies. My people are few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain. The great, and I presume -- good, White Chief sends us word that he wishes to buy our land but is willing to allow us enough to live comfortably. This indeed appears just, even generous, for the Red Man no longer has rights that he need respect, and the offer may be wise, also, as we are no longer in need of an extensive country.

There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory. I will not dwell on, nor mourn over, our untimely decay, nor reproach my paleface brothers with hastening it, as we too may have been somewhat to blame.

Youth is impulsive. When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint, it denotes that their hearts are black, and that they are often cruel and relentless, and our old men and old women are unable to restrain them. Thus it has ever been. Thus it was when the white man began to push our forefathers ever westward. But let us hope that the hostilities between us may never return. We would have everything to lose and nothing to gain. Revenge by young men is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives, but old men who stay at home in times of war, and mothers who have sons to lose, know better.

Our good father in Washington--for I presume he is now our father as well as yours, since King George has moved his boundaries further north--our great and good father, I say, sends us word that if we do as he desires he will protect us. His brave warriors will be to us a bristling wall of strength, and his wonderful ships of war will fill our harbors, so that our ancient enemies far to the northward -- the Haidas and Tsimshians -- will cease to frighten our women, children, and old men. Then in reality he will be our father and we his children. But can that ever be? Your God is not our God! Your God loves your people and hates mine! He folds his strong protecting arms lovingly about the paleface and leads him by the hand as a father leads an infant son. But, He has forsaken His Red children, if they really are His. Our God, the Great Spirit, seems also to have forsaken us. Your God makes your people wax stronger every day. Soon they will fill all the land. Our people are ebbing away like a rapidly receding tide that will never return. The white man's God cannot love our people or He would protect them. They seem to be orphans who can look nowhere for help. How then can we be brothers? How can your God become our God and renew our prosperity and awaken in us dreams of returning greatness? If we have a common Heavenly Father He must be partial, for He came to His paleface children. We never saw Him. He gave you laws but had no word for His red children whose teeming multitudes once filled this vast continent as stars fill the firmament. No; we are two distinct races with separate origins and separate destinies. There is little in common between us.

To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of your ancestors and seemingly without regret. Your religion was written upon tablets of stone by the iron finger of your God so that you could not forget. The Red Man could never comprehend or remember it. Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors -- the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.

Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb and wander away beyond the stars. They are soon forgotten and never return. Our dead never forget this beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its verdant valleys, its murmuring rivers, its magnificent mountains, sequestered vales and verdant lined lakes and bays, and ever yearn in tender fond affection over the lonely hearted living, and often return from the happy hunting ground to visit, guide, console, and comfort them.

Day and night cannot dwell together. The Red Man has ever fled the approach of the White Man, as the morning mist flees before the morning sun. However, your proposition seems fair and I think that my people will accept it and will retire to the reservation you offer them. Then we will dwell apart in peace, for the words of the Great White Chief seem to be the words of nature speaking to my people out of dense darkness.

It matters little where we pass the remnant of our days. They will not be many. The Indian's night promises to be dark. Not a single star of hope hovers above his horizon. Sad-voiced winds moan in the distance. Grim fate seems to be on the Red Man's trail, and wherever he will hear the approaching footsteps of his fell destroyer and prepare stolidly to meet his doom, as does the wounded doe that hears the approaching footsteps of the hunter.

A few more moons, a few more winters, and not one of the descendants of the mighty hosts that once moved over this broad land or lived in happy homes, protected by the Great Spirit, will remain to mourn over the graves of a people once more powerful and hopeful than yours. But why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man whose God walked and talked with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We will see.

We will ponder your proposition and when we decide we will let you know. But should we accept it, I here and now make this condition that we will not be denied the privilege without molestation of visiting at any time the tombs of our ancestors, friends, and children. Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as the swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Our departed braves, fond mothers, glad, happy hearted maidens, and even the little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love these somber solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits. And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone.

Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds.

The Suquamish Tribe - Chief Seattle's Speech & Gravesite

I’ll Have Another
was scratched today, Friday 6/8/12, one day before the Belmont.

The news analysts said he had been galloping strongly and looked great. He seemed healthy. He hadn't had a workout since the Preakness.

I'll Have Another went to the track this morning at 5:30 am, a break from his usual routine. Trainer Doug O'Neill wanted him to go out while it was quieter. O’Neill wanted to have an “off-speed day” with him. He jogged ½ mile with Lava Man ponying him and then galloped 1 mile with the pony. He had been going out at 8:30am. He looked in good spirits. Nothing seemed a miss. 

The attending vet, Dr. Hunt, was interviewed by phone on HRTV by Gary Mandella. 

Dr. Hunt had looked the horse over before going into the holding barn - everything looked fine.

Doug called the vet this morning as he was a little unhappy with his left foreleg.

Upon examination, I’ll Have Another did have a little bit of filling, some inflammation, slight tenderness to his lower tendon on that leg. They ultra-sounded it and there is enough change in comparison to his right tendon to think that there may be some stress, some damage to the tendon. So, the vet advised Doug not to run him. He could have run the horse. But the value is such that they don’t want to risk it.

These things heal, the longer time off the better. There are some modalities, some treatment protocols that are new now, stem cells, etc. This injury is a potential serious injury if it gets stressed. You don’t have pain.

Think of tendons like the cables of a suspension bridge… multiple fibers on fibers on fibers.  When you first get some inflammation in a tendon, the glue that holds the fibers together side to side weakens. On ultrasound you see an enlarged tendon in comparison to his opposite one. So that indicates something is going on.  When you remove the glue that holds the cables together, side to side, this makes them weaker. and once they break you cannot reattach them. So at this point, if you can simply let them rest and heal, the glue comes back. Generally speaking, you do not have palpable pain until the fibers broken.

 So it is a suspicious situation {in the sense that inflammation indicates something is going on}. 1 ½ mile is a long way. Fatigue is your enemy and that is when bad things happen. The horse {comes} first.

They have decided to retire him to stud.

He’s grazing on the grass now with a slew of photographers.

IHA will lead the horses onto the track tomorrow for the Belmont Stakes so the fans will see be able to see him, celebrate his Derby and Preakness victories, and wish him well in his next chapter in Kentucky.

The Experimental Impulse exhibit at REDCAT

The Experimental Impulse at REDCAT gallery, November 18, 2011 to January 15, 2012.

Display of copies of ephemera attempting to express CalArts in the 70s.

Letter from Doug Huebler to Laurie Anderson offering her a full-time Fall semester faculty position in 1978.

• Usual requirement of 14 weeks shortened to 11 to avoid registration requirements and initial meetings
• 2 1/2 days per week which could actually be accomplished in 2 days if 1/2 day was scheduled from 7 to 10 pm.
• 1 day - teach a class; limited to 15-20 students; course description required; suggested that she give assignments and then "crit" the results.
• 1 day - office time to meet with students from her class and to meet with independent study students who have signed up with her; meetings to last about an hour each
• Independent Study - available to 6 or 7 students; meet with them every 2 to 3 weeks; discuss their work
• 1/2 day for a seminar - could be an art history class; could include field trips followed by discussions (at the next class meeting)

EastOfBorneo.org website with links to articles and videos etc. related to CalArts and Chouinard

• Transcript of interview with Terry Allen from the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art.   Terry talks about his nascence as an artist - coming out of Lubbock to go to Chouinard in the late 60s; his education at Chouinard; and what it is like leaving that supportive environment and entering the real world.
• Video of interview with Chip Lord - made in 2011 of his experiences coming to CalArts with Ant Farm and working on their media van; positive about putting restrictions on students.

Written material documenting a Radio Play by Jacki Apple in 1984 for MOCA's "Territory of Art" program (released as a cassette compilation).

• Dialog - Music : 2 columns
• Time Chart with about 8 columns : Dialog 1, Dialog 2, Volume notes, Sound Effects, Music / Songs to be played behind the dialog, DJs / News bites / PSAs, Background behind DJs etc
• Summary / Pitch of Radio Play

Words of Wisdom posted on the Wall

• "I basically did two things with my class; we took the clock out of the equation and forgot about time." - Michael Asher
• "The younger artists are dealing more with ideas. Here's a media city, and the native language just isn't painting and such; it's television, films, the media. This place is about illusions, sanity and insanity." - Chris Burden