Bullrider is doing some soul searching (but not too much).

Art O'Connor and Bullrider address BREXIT

Bullrider 11.13 Mr. Bullrider Checks Out (for the afternoon)

Bullrider 10.13 Mr. Bullrider hears his Conscience

Bullrider 7.13 Art is not bitter...just very frustrated.

Bullrider 2.13. This Bank Manager has a Special Way With His Clients!!

A Day In The Life Of The Bouncy Banker-Dark Pools in the Park

A Day In The Life Of The Bouncy Banker-LIBOR suction

A Day In The Life Of The Bouncy Banker-Letters and donuts

A Day In The Life Of The Bouncy Banker-It's not all grey for the Bouncy Banker!

Steve Bell on Brian Lehrer

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/20Great slide show of Steve Bell cartoons12/may/03/steve-bell-cartooning-election/

Draws every day in response to the news "my way of shouting at the radio..." in interview with Brian Lehrer.

We really do need ruder cartoonists in the US.

SHARE The Bouncy Banker!

photo credit: Marikama Dado

This blog has taken way to long to top 10,000 views but finally did so this week. Maybe Art and The Bouncy Banker is only just beginning to find its feet. What began as the semi-biographical musings, ravings and satirical commentary of an oppressed home owner, artist and family man to his fictional bank manager and sometime therapist, evolved into a forum for anything pertaining to that place where art and finance collide or collude. Reposts of related stories from the blogosphere will occur less often now that everyone is feeling something of the same fury I felt when I began this blog. Henceforth the majority of posts will concern a comic and absurdist portrayal of "A Day In The Life Of The Bouncy Banker". Art O'Connor's letters to his bank manager, AKA the Bouncy Banker, the BM, and Mr. Bullrider, will continue sporadically as the need arises. As the Bouncy Banker's nemesis Art O'Connor will make it his job to be a perpetual thorn in Bullrider's rear end, behind and...let us not beat about the bush...bottom. 

Now that I've stopped pretending I know anything about finance despite semi-serious attempts to understand what things like toxic assets and zombie banks are, you can be confident you are in good hands. Please help me increase my audience by sharing "The Bouncy Banker" with your friends. Thank you.

Letter to the Bank #67 (What Art Can Do For You?)

Dear Manager of my Accounts, Bank Advisor, Financial Oracle of Yore,

After some serious thought I’ve decided to downgrade you. I stared into my iced coffee for a good few minutes before making this drastic decision and can only give you an F.

1. You stood idly by and let the madmen vote in your favor thus proving you cannot think counter-intuitively.
2. You revelled in the fact that interns in Congress cheerfully did your bidding (so saving you astronomical lobbyist fees) and thus revealed your culturally boorish nature.
3. You have, as usual, failed to stand up for anything except your own bottom line...so now you must fall.

Your thick skin resists. My penetration quotient disappoints. You still don’t get it. I haven’t gained access. The disappointment is so great I’m once more inclined to stop writing these letters. In them I’ve always grappled with describing the emotions of financial distress and have failed to seek out or find effective coping mechanisms. I do make Art and whilst it is, as I've said before, worth way more than money, it still fails to bring in the bread and butter. I always was more interested in expression than practicalities. Still I persist in wanting to get through to the mutable you, that figment of my imagination who runs in the unfeeling world of acquisition that is Hedge Fund Land, the Financial Sector, the Marketplace. The wistful hope remains that I might show you to that deep, dark place where your emotions reside, shivering, scared and neglected, help you connect, warm you up to real gut feeling, and then get you out into the sunlight, guide you out of the darkness that hovers over us all. But these letters seem trite in face of the hugeness of the problems we all are facing. I cannot explain the Economy nor would I presume to do so though my understanding of the economy may be just as water tight as yours or anybody else’s—trouble is that isn’t saying much and gets us nowhere. These feeble missives hardly aid the jobless or the homeless. Some understanding of the human side of what happens in markets sinks in but in the face of astronomical greed I remain as ever gob-smacked and stunned in the focused, narrow beam of your cold headlights, a wounded little pocket pet grown conscious of why you’ll never take me to the vet. You’ll pat me on the head, stroke me, watch me on my treadmill, and then flush me down the toilet when inside-out bowel syndrome strikes—so much for me putting you on notice with a downgrade.

Thankfully the madness, the impotence, the inaction, the hopelessness is now being captured and cornered daily by courageous writers in so many parts of the media universe that the insane and unreasonable voices, loud and obnoxious as they are, must eventually be drowned out by common sense.

Meanwhile what can Art do to help? What has he to offer in these surreally difficult times? He can slither though cracks, cross borders without a passport, pen cartoons that dissect with precision and send—get this—electronically! He can look through holes in the fabric of fraying societies the world over and report back on what he sees. He must see and hear and smell and feel harder, and do so outside the box, seen only by choice, revealed on his own terms, not telling the obvious stories but those stories that blow open the conventions that hold us all down. He stencils the walls of your institutions, sings in the library, upends convention, turns your golf game inside out and so changes your perceptions, gives you alternative perspectives, and permission to re-envision this whole experiment called Life on Earth. He even gives you permission to doubt yourself, change your mind, admit failure and be silent once in a while.

Whilst Art works at his modest goals you might consider looking at what you do from a different angle yourself. Write that check whilst standing on your head. Sell those bundled mortgages whilst intoning a story from Edgar Allen Poe, but always have a mind to the hurt you might cause if you allow your hubris to undermine due diligence.

This humble life lesson offered sincerely by yours truly,

Kristian A. Witherkay

Artist’s Statement Video – Charlotte Young

Artist’s Statement Video – Charlotte Young

Very enjoyable

"Artist's Statement"

Letter to the Bank #58

Dear Financial Engineer,

We do not expect this to make sense, or for you to understand as I—no fan of banks—do shower down upon you a hail of incomprehensible ponderings on the subjects of money and art, art and poverty, wealth and acquisition, greed and patronage of the arts. As one of your clients I do expect you to sit there squirming, suffering through my abstract tirades, my obscure assaults on your wrong headed approach to life, the Universe and everything. Clearly those whose lifetime pursuit of money finds them sitting pretty must feel  that their chosen path is somewhat justified. They have all the stuff of their dreams and can only hope to acquire the one last item on their list—intelligence, or something that approximates depth. Perhaps there is an outrageously expensive machine that can inject the sum of everything into the brain, a time saving educational device that in much the same way money saving devices like collateralised debt bundles need no further input once turned on to churn out profit, will provide infinite wisdom whilst requiring no book learning or essay writing, no work in fact.


You might detect a hint of frustration in my writing. As an artist I have no interest in trying to grasp the intricacies of your grasping ways and am determined to maintain my oblique tangent on life but I do resent the way once you have money you can with little thought churn out more and more of the stuff. My approach to trying to get through to you is patently absurd and that is the way I like it! I am baffled by what you do and hope you are equally baffled and shut out by the meager but honest meanderings of a creative mind such as my own. The frustration you detect is based on the fact that I would also like to have a money machine at my bedside that required no input from me as it churned out a living, enough at least to keep our family at some distance from fear of starvation.  I'm not interested in the pursuit of money. It bores me. You see I can think of a million things to do with my time. I'd make art. I'd  be ever fascinated by the effort to contribute to the big essay of life. I wouldn't find taking and taking and taking that satisfactory. I only want enough money to fend off constant worry. I understand that is a highly mutable amount but do believe if I were confident I could secure enough to support our basic needs we'd be inclined to send the extra toward the helping of others. My most basic need is peace of mind. If only we could secure peace of mind for everyone. So much human capitol is wasted on worry. Freed of anxiety humans would produce so much more effectively be it in the arts or indeed in industry where a happy employee would surely be happy to work if they were confident that they and theirs could rest secure in the belief they'd be provided for. That may be the kernel of this letter, the core of this thesis.


Your response to this: 
1.—Hmmmm! Perhaps we should spread the wealth? Perhaps having the wealth concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority is wrong!
2.—Hmmm! Clearly we are dealing with a liberal/populist/socialist/communist/atheist and anti-plutocrat! Ah! His address is on the envelope!


Yours sincerely,

Kristian Stillwitherkay

Letter to the Bank #57

From Russell Christian Illustration

My Dear BM,

These letters are turning existential! I think that is the right word. Rather than be mired in the humdrum world of my own crumbling finances I like to look up and out and on. I cannot stand just thinking and breathing anxiety all the time, or being pulled to shreds on the torture rack of the need to make art (and live and breath it as and when moments in the day open up) and make money not only to confront the impossible task of paying down debt but also to keep the little people in my life, at the very least, away from robbing banks i.e.—in modern parlance—off the computer. I’m confident my brood would make fine cyber-hackers given enough incentive and believe me if you deprive them of their candy, their toys, their sugar-bloated cereals they will find a means to acquiring these things themselves. You mark my words. In fact you’ve always known this and that is why, not so long ago, you were giving them credit cards as soon as they could walk. This whole financial crisis is THEIR fault! Let’s blame the toddlers! This isn’t far from the truth either come to think of it. Blaming naive, wannabe homeowners for the crisis, beginners who’d were sold a bill of goods, toddlers who dreamed of home ownership, were What did you expect? You guys didn’t understand what you were doing and still do not understand the half of it so how dare you point at those who fell for your sales pitch? If it was too good to be true then why were you selling it in the first place? And now you want to take their toys away! Simply put your behavior was criminal.

Gosh every time I start writing these letters in hopes of soaring poetical I end up dragged to the ground by these sorry, all too earthy and humdrum truths.

I was going to write about how life is so much more than money but money somehow always inserts itself into the picture. It destabilizes me every time I think ont (sic—I believe this is an acceptable Shakespearian term).

I was going to share with you all the current questions in my head. Some examples:

How would people respond if I burnt the books of Ann Coulter?
What if I framed a book of hers and titled the now completed artwork “Unburnt Book by Ann Coulter”, could I sell them? Make some money?

How about an artwork so insulting to bankers it could never possibly sell? You’d buy it, right?

Do you thinks bands who perform on a nice sunny day at an open air concert are sorry for those who are cancilled the next day due to rain?

Do you know what GOP stand for*? I bet a good fifty per cent of the population has no idea.

Do you like ambient music? That one just popped into my head.

Yours trying so very hard to remain polite,

K.W.

GOP stands for "Grand Old Party". Its a nickname for the Republicans who resent any form of government because it always gets in the way of them having "Fun."

Letter to the Bank #56

Hello Bullrider,

Finally another letter!

Funniest thing is writing these letters is such hard work but I keep doing it anyway. Finding a moment to sit down, getting comfortable (so hard to do when your ceiling is leaking), finding a pen that works, finding a stamp for goodness sakes!

Fortunately I am a patient man and so I go to this effort for you, my bank manager.

Funnier still is the fact that you are, frankly, the last person I wish to write a letter to but here I am, pen in hand, doing just that.

Feel free to explain!

Foolish Harry here certainly has no idea what is going on.

Frankly though I keep writing in hopes an explanation will be forthcoming.

Felicitous greetings aside why do the rich feel so entitled?

Falling stocks, crumbling edifices, collapsing DOW and they keep partying?

Fold your newspaper under your arm and join me for a drink.

Face to Face perhaps we can figure this thing out together.

Ferocious cold aside I think you should touch base with your real clientelle—those like me with nothing to offer but the shirts off our backs because we’ve given everything else.

Sincerish regards,

Kristian Witherkay

PS-To keep things lively I might start a series of letters whereby every sentence begins with the same letter—a madcap creative exercise guaranteed to infuriate my BM (you!) and keep me on my toes and out of  oh I dunno—Debtors’ Prison. Oops! I forgot! I'm already in Debtors' Prison! My own home! I exagerate only a little. Fond of it though I am it is a ball and chain around the neck. 

I’ll work my way through the alphabet in no particular order starting today—it would appear—with F.

Letter to the Bank #54

Dear Longshot,

It's been so long I've completely forgotten your name. It is possible your bank changed hands since we last spoke, and I use the word spoke loosely considering we have never, in fact, spoken. Are you still you, or have you morphed into someone else? Has your staff turned over? Is it facing the other way? Is the new new team on board with financial regulation or already finding ways around it? I gather all financial regulation is pretty much demolished before it can ever take hold. Sad really. I'd like to get this relationship going again if only to keep you on your toes. You certainly keep me on mine with your continually badgering me for my next interest payment. Like I told the previous gentleman I'd appreciate it if you threw more of my payments at principal in future. Then we might get ourselves on more of an even footing. We'd almost be able to look each other in the eye! A society where the distance between the rich and poor had been substantially eroded would be a thing to see wouldn't it?

Yours sincerely,

K. W.

PS-I'm feeling a little flush! Sold a couple of drawings and have more than enough in my pocket to pay for lunch this week!

Letter to the Bank #53 (Financial Streaking)

Dear Bullrider,

Hello! Your transparently ridiculous friend here, or more precisely ridiculously transparent friend...the one who believes you should/we should all be up front when it comes to the money we do or don’t have. I understand that smoke and mirrors are all part of the game but this game you are all playing is now ruining lives. You are leaving a trail of destruction in your wake—foreclosures and oil spills being just the tip of the ice-burg—not to be rude but the public is beginning to perceive you all as murderous thugs who are indifferent to life as we mostly know it.

So why is it that when I wish to bend an ear it is yours I turn to? I believe if I can bend your steely, sludge filled cochlea there might just yet be hope for us all. As obtuse as I may be when it comes to balancing a check book I may be the one best situated to see this whole shebang of toppling and regenerating stock quotes for the soggy cardboard edifice that it is. To the world of high finance I am the quintessential outsider (no longer victim but wizened observer).


My proposal is this:

We must all engage in a new openness regarding our personal finances and recognize the inarguable fact that, like the Greeks we live beyond our means and perhaps, like the Greeks, are in danger of having assumptions about what we deserve—like retirement at you know...forty, and so forth. These assumptions are based on what? Certainly they are not based on reality. We are all in debt whatever way you choose to look at it. Even you guys are in debt. The bonuses comprise the money you don’t throw at your debt obligations because having (as you all are so sure you do) the money smarts, you don’t want to tie up your money in petty matters like reducing the abstractions and distractions imposed by debt!

I’ve a name for this new plan of mine—Financial Streaking.

Henceforth we shall bare our financial souls.
I’ll be the first.
Just when people are least suspecting it, in the middle of a nationally televised football game for example, I shall rip off my facade and run across the pitch of our shared existence, plow through our collective dreams and so reveal the shallowness of the motivations at their core.

You’ll hear the sound of shock and awe as I determinedly streak, financially butt naked for all the world to see, dropping personal information like PIN numbers and passwords as I go.

Being human and all too frail my gumption and gall will run out quickly and so, if all goes to plan I shall needs must reach the changing rooms (preferably of my favorite team though truth being told I’m indifferent to football and use the analogy only to garner a populist connection to my otherwise whacky theme), having evaded security as I go.

Back on the field there it will lie, throbbing and sad, teetering on the twenty yard line, my dirty laundry, the truth of my financial instability, and in it the masses shall see therein reflected the paucity of their own dreams, based as they too often are on materialistic yearnings.

Yours sincerely,

Kristian Witherkay