The rich are eating us and shitting us into grants.

The person who drew the above (and below) sidewalk drawings on 4th and Main in downtown LA was a young homeless white guy.  A relatively young homeless white guy who I hope will snap out of it and go back home to the little boring safe world from which he came. Currently though he is still a homeless guy and an artist.

I see a lot of working class and poor kids doing this kind of thing. Copying the methods of people like Banksy, Shepard Fairey and Robbie Canal, it's as if they don't get that these guys are rich and more importantly they are part of a privileged class. These are the kinds of individuals that have the security to slum for awhile, but do not mistake them for not always knowing that they are privileged. They are rich now and they were rich before they started “painting”.

They are so rich and privileged, they sometimes forget how rich they are.

“I’m not rich, 17,000 a year for grade school, is pretty middle class,” clueless rich kid.

Why did they get famous for their “graffiti” while Chaka the infamous tagger of the 90s got jail time, because he’s not rich. It’s really that simple. I remember Chaka tagged in the elevator while he was on trial. Beautiful. But you know there is no complicated conspiracy. It’s simply rich people help other rich people, because while they tell you it’s about the work, we all know that’s bullshit. Those of us who remember Mat Gleason’s Coagula in it’s heyday got a point by point description of the bullshit as well as maps to exactly how it was played out.

"The guerilla spray paint guru (Banksy) is 34-year-old Robin Gunningham, who was educated at the £9,240-a-year Bristol Cathedral School, according to reports.” Scott Hussey, The Sun. 7/ 14

The game is rigged.

I wanted to scream at this young artist lying on the sidewalk that no one was going to look at his work and think it was anything but a nuisance on the sidewalk. I wanted to inform him the only notoriety he was going to get from drawing little doodles on the sidewalk was a ticket, probably a bench warrant and then jail time.

There is no such thing as random. There is no such thing as getting discovered. The Schwab stories about certain young starlets getting picked up and pushed into stardom, lies. Lies construed by the great publicists of the 50s, great publicists with style like the late Warren Cowan and polished up by the cold impersonal PR firms of the 90s.

While we build it. The children of the establishment get inspired and use their parent’s wealth to make what they steal, the "true" art and music.

Things that were stolen by the rich (or as they say, things that "inspired" them.)

They stole punk from poor and working class white kids.
They stole hip-hop and jazz from poor working class black kids.
They stole art from poor and working class Latinos.

Punks were originally young homeless male prostitutes that played a few chords and later it became rich jocks from Orange County who were overly aggressive.

These examples are only what I know of from my time on the planet.

I shutter to think what else the rich were “inspired” from.

Who else didn’t get credit in the history books for creating an art, because their mom cleaned the floor?

Am I saying art is only a game that the working class should be able to play?  No of course not, but if art is only about art and not money or nepotism or connection why does the same demographic inspired from the same pool of the artistic working class seem to be the only group that is able to get press and money from it?

That seems a bit unfair.

I think the new word for steal is "inspired".

by Browne Molyneux

Comments

[Null]

Congrats! You're a fucking idiot.

[Browne]

Oh my god, was that your bad art. I'm sorry. One thousand apologies I was just using it to make a point.

Keep trying. It will happen for you Null.

[Art]

Rich sheltered artist slummin git and acting "ghetto".

Pat yourself onthe back for the ultimate douchebag behavior. now you get to act like poor opressed minorities without any real life repricussions. You want to be like people like me, but you dont have my scars. So go cry in a blanket and earn $6k for it, you are a modern day version of the Beatles getting rich stealing black songs, or Elvis ganking chuck berry.

Not to be confused with actual cool middle class white folks who move to hoods and are actually cool people and good neighbors, but it is a thin line indeed.

Oooh look at me, Im like puerto rican kid from the bronx or a black kid from southlos. Wow, praise my copycatness!! What a fucken joke.