The Parallel President Missive number 2

image courtesy of the Pierogi Gallery
The Parallel President Missive Number 2

As the parallel president I am free to meander between the lines of current discourse and veer a little from the strictures presented by the Bouncy Banker Institute. As their guest I will however be sure always to bring my notes thundering back to the issues of art and finance, and how they intersect, bash into each other, compliment each and dismantle each other, and, above all, by all appearances, fail to connect.

You’ll wonder then at the extent of my meandering but should know I see connections everywhere. The great late artist, Mark Lombardi, perhaps best expressed this in his brilliant drawings that showed, using information freely available to anybody with a computer and time on their hands, how banks, politicians, generals, corporate interests, dictators and even, probably, obscure terrorist cells, connected, usually via money transactions.

Unchained as I am, unlike the actual president, I can float above the fray and make my observations with impunity. I can offer my own objective/subjective assessment of the messiness below. I can suggest irresponsible actions like burying all the lobbyists, be they for the NRA, the big pharmaceuticals, the insurance companies or the banks, in pits of lye. I’m not quite sure what lye is but you must admit it sounds right.

That is all for now.

The PP

The Parallel President Missive number 1

The Parallel President Missive number 1

I have the best job in the world. I am the Parallel President. I have all the fun of running the most powerful nation on earth without the responsibility of doing it right. I can shoot off at the mouth, foam even. When furious I can say so. I can swear a little and smoke a joint once in a while. I can enjoy a refined beer and not care if I’m deemed elitist. I can rail against my own cabinet, refer to the blue dog democrats as irritants, and call the opposition names. That said I do take my job seriously. I can posit ideas that might, just might filter through the fog. As the shadow or ghost not behind but next to the leader of the free world, a leader for whom I have the utmost respect, I can whisper in his ear and shape future events. If he cares to listen or not, at least I will have had my say.

My appearances on the Bouncy Banker will focus themselves, as per my host’s area of concern, on art and the current fiscal crisis, a crisis the president is just a little too optimistic about. Anxious not to cause any form of panic he plays it down the middle, is cautious, still reaches out to the lunatic Republican fringe. Reaching across the aisle is one thing but unseating himself as he reaches into the shadowy murk of the far right corner of the musty room approaches the tricky area of dignity loss.

I say my thoughts and policy directives shared here will be mainly those concerning the banking sector but it is all part and parcel—the health crisis, corruption, mortgage lending practices, the insurance industry. These things effect us all. How can you make art when you are trying to find work, or are standing by the road, your forlorn foreclosed upon family at your side, trying to hitch a ride to California—well maybe not California given their proximity to bankruptcy—so you can all break your backs picking berries covered in pesticides for a minimum wage, and later be cause for serious alarm inside the already overburdened healthcare system? Try drawing an absurdist caricature of your crew boss when you fingers are blistered and calloused from shucking a million ears of corn urgently needed to make the high fructose corn syrup required by the food industry if they are ever to keep up with the demand for cheap, nasty, fattening groceries. As the parallel president I understand that I am fortunate, and privileged to be able to make art whenever I wish. I shall make every effort to put myself in your troubled bohemian, blue collar or white collar shoes. I’ll post some of my art alongside these missives as and when the whim strikes.

PP