10:30am – Sunday, June 28, 2009 – Venice Beach (see above)
“Ew, there’s something unique,” says the tourist pointing at a lump of sand on the strip. She’s determined to have the Venice Beach experience, but she doesn’t bother to patronize the bucket asking for donations, via a cardboard sign, if you like the art. Art? Only artists make art and artists are a disciplined people who suffer and live for nothing but their work. Otherwise artist is what a bum calls himself to get his parents off his back. Real artists work hard. This is how this artist works:
2 minutes:He’s face to face with the beast. His 5’8’’ frame bent over his significant gut puts his body at an acute angle. With a disposable plastic knife he carves little canals out of the mass, and blows the dug out sand away with a thin red straw that dangles from his chapped lips.
10 minutes:He collapses into a lawn chair, replaces the straw with a cigarette.
2 minutes:He carries sand over from the beach to his work station in two plastic buckets.
10 minutes:Cig break.
Repeat cycle.
Here’s how the math works out: ten minutes of actual work per hour.
“Fucking finish your dragon or get a real job, you fat fuck!”
I repeat this in my head like a mantra as I watch him smoking in his chair, staring at the sky, chatting with the other stinky crazies who inhabit this armpit of a beach town.
Spare me the analyses. I know I’ve projected myself onto him. Every time he sticks a cigarette into his chubby face, it’s me stepping away from the keyboard to cherry pick my roommate’s groceries. Every time he laughs at another street urchin’s dumb joke, it’s me hooting as I beat a record on bubble breaker. Every time his eyes glaze over as he looks to the horizon, I recognize my own expression as that list running on a loop in my head suppresses the oozing forth of literary brilliance. You know the list. All the coolness a Google search away: porn, cupcake recipes, cryptozoology, obscure Olympics sports that I may have a shot at but really don’t, porn.
But that list isn’t running through my head now. For 45 minutes, I got my mantra going, “Fucking finish your dragon or get a real job, you fat fuck!”
I’ve spent almost one whole hour calling him fat. I feel obliged to inspect (judge) more closely what he’s contributed to the world. Here’s what I find.
11:15 – Same day, same place
Head and upper torso complete, the sand has been transformed into the beginnings of a convincing dragon: a protruding spine running down its back, covered with intricate scales, talons and legs, complete with sinewy muscles. Every third tourist drops a buck in the bucket, confirming they like the art. Most impressive are the dragon’s full lips curled into an ear to ear smirk. As if to say, fuck you too.
BB
