2010 May

	2010, MAY

May 28

My aunt Gertrude volunteers for all sorts of artsy and charitable events on the west side, and she often gets invited to things we mortals don’t even hear about. Sometimes she can’t go, and Jeanine and I get to use her tickets. When she gave us the passes to a viewing of Eli Broad’s art collection, she wanted a one-page report. This is it. And now that Broad is trying to build a real museum, it seems only fair to make this public.

ART WITH BROAD STROKES

I would like to thank my parents, my producer, my agent, my wife, and especially my Auntie, without whom I would never be invited to these cultural proceedings.

The Broad Art Foundation is (or resides in; it would not do to mistake the building for the organization) a well-concealed fortress a block from the ocean in Santa Monica. The facade is (temporarily, one hopes) completely obscured by scaffolding and plywood, leaving exposed only one steel door which is identified solely by the street number. We arrived several minutes early and the young lady on the other side of the intercom told us we would have to wait until the rest of the group arrived before we could be admitted. I offered to let her hold my gun while we were alone, but she refused to unlock the door, so we strolled down to the beach and back. By the time we returned the door had been propped open and several people were milling about in the antechamber, chatting with a young lady who identified herself as a student and sometime docent.

The building was not originally intended to be an exhibition space but rather a warehouse for the part of Broad family’s art collection that wasn’t either hanging in one of their homes or on loan to other institutions. I confess I have trouble understanding why people want to own more art than they can look at. I suppose I’m in that position myself, but in my case it’s not that I am collecting but rather the fact that I’m not selling nearly as fast as I’m producing.

At any rate, the two employees (the place is not open to the public, and they have no guards or obvious security—if I’d been the docent, I wouldn’t have let us in, either) started hanging stuff on the walls, decided it looked good there, and the Broad Foundation Gallery (for museum and art professionals, scholars, and collectors—i.e. the obscenely wealthy—only) was born.

Interior design is not one of the arts represented here. The building is unfinished concrete inside: walls, ceiling, and floors. Parts of some of the walls have been covered with white plaster to serve the art beneath, and I found the resulting patterns as artistically intriguing as much of the framed painting. (No sarcasm intended, I really did like the way the walls made their own art!)

The ground floor houses the Warhol collection—part of the Warhol collection—which doesn’t actually belong to the Foundation but is spillover of the Broad’s personal collection. (If you can understand the distinction, you have way too much money.) You may be surprised (I know I was) to learn that Warhol actually could draw, though nobody really cared.

In the basement was a collection of Cindy Sherman’s self portraits that I found much more appealing and accessible than the work I’d seen of hers in the past—mostly naked body parts. These were thought-provoking without being revolting. I have seen enough of her work to appreciate her talent, but often found it difficult to go beyond disgust to see what else was there. So this group of photographs was something of an eye-opener, expanding my understanding of Sherman’s work.

Also in the basement were a few pieces by Tony Oursler, who sculpts vaguely organic and sometimes humanoid forms in white fiberglass and projects video clips of faces (or parts of faces) on them so they seem to move and speak. (It’s much more effective than it sounds.) While the group was watching Underwater, the face of a man wildly contorting his features while holding his breath, Jeanine noticed that no one was able to watch for more than a few seconds before beginning to make similar grimaces himself. I have no idea if that was Oursler’s intent, but it was a fascinating observation.

The third floor is given over entirely to Roy Lichtenstein. My personal favorite piece was Lichtenstein’s only sculptural work, Chair & Ottoman, fabricated of bent, laminated birch. I guess it figures. I think his comic book style was a marvelous idea—but he should have quit after the first one or two. I can’t imagine an entire career built on giant comic books. But then, I can’t imagine a lot of what is known as art in the last fifty or sixty years. There was more, four floors and a sculpture garden on the roof, some of it quite good and some either awful or beyond my understanding. Or both. But I’m already over my one-page assignment, and you probably don’t want to hear about the two-hour drive home. But if you get the chance to go, you’ll need to know: there is an elevator.

Thanks again for the opportunity. We are both really glad we had the chance to see it.

May 20

Aphorisms are pithy sayings we all know and accept as the revealed truth. I don’t know why we do that. Often as not, they’re wrong, and if you believe that “absence makes the heart grow fonder,” what do you do with “out of sight, out of mind”?

“All things [may] come to those who wait,” but not so far.

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Or to serve in Congress.

“Practice makes perfect”? Bah. I estimate that I have flossed these very same teeth about 21,875 times, using over 70 miles of dental floss in the process. So how come I still tear off too much or too little four times out of five? If practice really made perfect, I would get 17 inches every morning, and Shaq would never miss a free throw.

I’m sure you have your favorites—why not share them? After all, what goes around comes around. That might be true for all I know. What does it mean?

May 14

There is a ballot initiative in the upcoming California election that its sponsors are calling the Taxpayers Right to Vote. The clever and reasonable-sounding title conceals the fact that it essentially prevents the state from interfering with the power companies’ monopoly on the sale of electricity. It should come as no surprise, then, that the measure and the “information” web site, “Taxpayersrighttovote.com,” are primarily sponsored by Pacific Gas & Electric.

Sometimes it’s not that obvious, so as a public service, I hereby present the answer to the question you should be asking often: Who ARE these people?

Eaters of the world, rejoice! We have a new standard to help us make healthy food choices. All we have to do is scan the grocery shelves for products bearing the bright green “Smart Choices” checkmark. Like me and Professor Nestle (a real guy: how’s that for irony?) of NYU, you might find a hint of skepticism creeping in when you see the logo displayed on such famously nutritional products as Froot Loops and Peanut Butter Chocolatey Blast crackers. Where they came up with their guidelines is not really clear—OK, it IS really clear: guess who insisted that a Smart Choices cereal had to be allowed 12 grams of sugar. I mean added sugar. A Smart Choices cereal is a good breakfast “especially if the alternative is a sweet roll,” says guidelines committee member Joanne Lupton.

You have to pay to participate and only 10 companies have ponied up so far, but Smart Choices doesn’t charge the producers much, so it seems certain that other companies besides Kraft, ConAgra, Kellogg, Pepsico, and SunMaid (SunMaid? The raisins? Yes, them.) will soon be taking part.

The Board of Directors consists of an administrator; representatives from Kellogg, General Mills, Kraft, and Unilever (look for the big green check on Ben & Jerry’s sometime soon); and three academics from (but most emphatically not representing) Tufts, the American Dietetic Association, and the American Diabetic Association. All three of those organizations have asked that their names be removed from the Smart Choices web page, stressing that the individuals may be involved in the program, but the institutions are not.

There’s lots more, but I’m not trying to write a book here. Besides, I have other fish to fry. I want to know the names of the people behind the organizations.

I noted a full page spread in the newspaper to the effect that high-fructose corn syrup is good for you. So who is The Center for Consumer Freedom, which placed the ad? CCF does not disclose its funding sources but they are managed by lobbyist Richard Berman, who also manages the American Beverage Institute and conveniently share facilities with both groups. Known donors to CCF include Coca-Cola, Wendy’s, Tyson Foods, Monsanto, Pilgrim’s Pride, and about 100 other corporations in the food biz. I’m shocked, I say shocked, to learn that the guy who runs the American Beverage Institute is in favor of high-fructose corn syrup.

Remember the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? It’s an organization that claimed Senator John Kerry was some sort of traitor—I think they said he joined the National Guard to avoid the draft, and then didn’t even show up for the meetings. Something like that. The only objectively accurate word in their name is “boat.” The boats weren’t even all that swift, being designed for around 20 knots. There were some veterans listed as members (though none served with Kerry during the times in question) but the group‘s primary support came from three Texas Republicans who were all too old and too rich to have served in Vietnam.

The Center for Security Policy is a D.C. organization founded by its current president, Frank Gaffney, Jr., who resigned from Reagan’s Defense Department because he disagreed with Reagan’s liberal policies. The group has published or sponsored calls for G.W. Bush to kill all Iraqis who disagreed with him and to declare himself U.S. President-For-Life. They recently gave the Keeper of the Flame award to Dick Cheney, who joins a pantheon of previous honorees that includes Donald Rumsfeld, Newt Gingrich, Paul Wolfowitz, and Garry Kasparov. Garry Kasparov? The chess player?

Rumsfeld gets around. He’s also a former board chairman of the RAND corporation, a Santa Monica-based think tank founded in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft and 5-star General Hap Arnold to advise the U.S. Military. I guess they hadn’t discovered the notion of conflict of interest yet. RAND still gets half of its funding from the Defense Department.

Brookings Institution, the most widely-cited and most credible think tank in America, has been described at various times by the New York Times as “liberal,” “centrist,” and “conservative,” but it is usually considered pretty liberal. Its current president is Strobe Talbott, Clinton’s Deputy Secretary of State. The Board includes Reagan’s Chief of Staff, Clinton’s economic advisor, a lot of heavy-hitting business people, and at least 3 executives of Goldman Sachs. I don’t know how they ever decide anything: they list 45 members on their Board of Trustees.

Then there’s the Heritage Foundation, which claims over 500,000 donors and listed assets of $92 million last year. Historically, major donors are other foundations such as those named for William E. Simon, John Templeton, Walton Family, John M. Olin and many others. THC received $2.2 million from the Federation of Korean Industries in the early ‘80s “at the encouragement of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency.” If the donation had actually come from the KCIA, it would have made the Heritage Foundation a foreign agent of Korea.

Fibrocenter.com purports to be a “support” site for fibromyalgia sufferers. It is set up by Pfizer, the company that sells Lyrica—a pill for, of all things, fibromyalgia. They don’t come out and tell you it’s an advertisement but you could probably guess, even if you didn’t notice that Pfizer is listed on the home page as the site’s copyright holder. The site provides information about fibromyalgia, such as the symptoms of the disease: pain above the waist, pain below the waist, pain on the right and left sides, or pain “at every point in between.” My, isn’t that helpful?

The Cato Institute is a “public policy research foundation” formed by ex-Libertarian Party president Ed Crane and Charles Koch, a chemical and petroleum heir who was also active in the Libertarian Party. Koch’s brother is now on the board along with former Rep. Tim Penny (D-MN) and four of his co-members of the Commission to Strengthen Social Security. Cato spent $3 million to promote privatization of Social Security, which I suppose is how they figure to strengthen it. Most of its funding is through private donations (Rupert Murdoch is a former board member). Corporate sponsors include tobacco companies, a half-dozen oil companies, 4 or 5 banks, telecom companies, and Microsoft.

Just thought you’d like to know.

May 9

And, closer to home, Meg Whitman has set a new record, spending $46 million so far to whip Steve Poizner in the Republican primary so she can spend another $50 million or so in the general election against Jerry Brown (who, incidentally, has already squandered over $150,000).

She wants to be governor so she can save California’s economy by cutting spending….

May 6

I still don’t get it. Our congresspersons have been virtually unanimous (yes, you read that right) in their opinion that the country is in dire straits because the government is spending too much. There is ample disagreement over what to do about it, but it’s been a long time since I heard a lawmaker get up and proclaim that we have too much money and need to throw it away faster. Here in California, the state is bankrupt and the candidates for Governor are accusing each other of being liberal and spending us into the toilet. Even the local politicians, both the ones who just inherited the mess and the ones who still splash money around like champagne at the end of the World Series, are at least paying lip service to the idea that spending is the road to perdition.

Since “tax” is taboo even if you call it “revenue enhancement,” we can’t afford to subsidize medical care for the poor. We can’t shore up the crumbling bridges or patch the potholed freeways. We have to throw the mentally ill into the street because we can’t afford their upkeep; ditto for the prison inmates. Forget about the schools, or the cops, or the fire fighters—if your house catches fire, use your own hose. We have laws to protect the environment but no one to see that they are being followed; ditto for the purity of foods and safety of drugs. Every municipality has a social services agency, but the few social workers left don’t have time to see any of their clients, so children who complain about being abused end up dead. Things no longer fall through the cracks—there’s nothing left but the cracks.

But the economic news today is good: the recovery, mirabile dictu, is strong and growing. This assessment is based on the latest figures showing that consumers have come out from under the bed and are out spending their little credit cards off.

I don’t get it.

May 2

Remote Area Medical is a volunteer relief corps based in Tennessee that provides free medical, dental, and eye care to people “in remote areas of the United States and the world.” They have set up a free clinic this week in the Los Angeles Sports Arena, intending to serve some 8000 people who have no other access to medical care. The response has been so overwhelming that people are being given ID bands and asked to return next week.

I’m not sure which is more appalling: that people from Tennessee consider Los Angeles a medically “remote area,” or that they are right. When thousands of people here have to line up to get a tooth pulled, it’s a sign that you are not delivering health care where it’s needed.

First Lady Maria Shriver called it a “great day for L.A.” but observed it was also a “sobering moment for our state.” Her husband eliminated the Medicaid dental program in order to shave the budget shortfall down to 20 billion dollars. Or so.

The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect--well, yes, come to think of it, I guess they do.

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