zaksmith

Contents:
1-Paintings (TemperSawaCharlieRavenAdriaVoltaireSean)
2-THE HUMILIATING FAKE FAMOUS SHUFFLE
3-Frequently Asked Questions

1-- My Paintings


(print available in the SG store)

(print available in the SG store)





2-THE HUMILIATING FAKE FAMOUS SHUFFLE

I am now going to address a difficult subject_The Fake Famous Shuffle.

Here's the problem: Like a lot of people, I am interested in The Media. I am interested in the way that events are taken and reported and sent around the world and I am interested in the strange customs and gadgets and people that make this happen. They are weird. It is weird to see your cousin transformed from someone who showed you how to make Kool-Aid and who accidentally stepped on your toe once into Area Resident Patrick Smith, Who Witnessed The Police Entering The Meth Lab.

Lots of people are interested in such things, tha's not a problem. The problem comes because the clearest vantage point I get on The Media is when it turns its glassy eye on me. So when they write about me, there's an opportunity to write about them. Which makes it sound like I'm trying to draw everyone's attention to the fact that I'm getting publicity or else, even worse, that I'm complaining about it.

Anyway, that's the problem. But fuck it. Here is the Fake Famous shuffle.

Famous is: I don't know you, but I know who you are whether I want to or not. (Kevin Federline) Not-famous is: I only know who you are if I know you. (My cousin Patrick) Fake Famous is: If I know you, I think you're famous, but if I don't know you, I don't know who you are. (Like the guy who invented zippers).

So my friends will say Oh here comes famous Zak! What's it like to be famous, famous Zak? It is, my friends, a lot like being you, only you get more shit from you guys about being famous. Then we go eat.

If you are Fake Famous, chances are your livelihood depends on keeping that status. Fake Fame is fake, but it is definitely good for business. It means you can do less real work.

Example: some guy works all year and makes a series of linked paintings of 100 girls and 100 octopuses and then goes to sell it so he can eat.

Potential buyer goes: Well are you famous?

(This is always a ridiculous question. Of course, if the person were actually famous, there'd be no need to ask this question.)

No, says the artist, I'm not famous.

Ok, says the buyer, I'll give you 60$ for those paintings.

Artist takes the money and decides that he needs to get a real job.

However, if the artist (or his duly appointed representative), replies "Famous? Oh yes, here is documentation!" and then produces a sheaf of narrow newsclippings and sharpie-circled articles that convince the buyer that, indeed, the buyer has, through some odd series of interlinked incidents, traveled continually in shadows where the bright beams of the artist's fame has failed to reach, then the buyer says "Wow, I never knew it, but apparently you are famous. How about 20,000$? Will that do you?" And then the artist gets to do nothing but eat and paint for another year.

So there's that. The Fake Famous person gets to do what they want only by remaining Fake Famous. So the Fake Famous, loathe as they may be to admit it, cherish their Fake Fame.

So when another link in the Fake Fame Chain gets manufactured, the Fake Famous subject pours carefully over it. It's either that or go back to working at Taco Bell.

Now I am going to digress slightly and talk about the Actually Famous. By way of example:

I like Kevin Spacey. The actor.

I'm not sure he's my favorite actor, I've never thought about it. I just think he's good. I mean to say, when I see him in movies he's good, when I hear he's in a movie, I'm more likely to go see it. I appreciate his work. I think he is a Genuine Talent. The world is richer for having "The Usual Suspects".

Ok, so what do I know about Kevin Spacey, the man. Let's see...

1)He's gay. I think.

2)...

Ummm..ok, that;'s about it.

So, ok, I know one thing about Kevin Spacey, other than, y'know, that he did a pretty good job in the movies he was in that I saw. I don't even know if it's true, actually, that thing about him being gay. I don't even know where I heard it. Maybe it's not even true.

So what if it's not true. Then by repeating the only thing I know about the actor Whose Work I Appreciate and who I think is a Genuine and Respectable Talent I am actually doing him a disservice, I guess. I am making it harder for him to get laid. That would suck.

What's my point? My point is here's a bona fide celebrity who I actually like and I know like one thing about him and it might not even be true. And I'm not going to even look it up on the web before I write this because I don't even care.

So then let's take somebody in my field, some living person, a fine artist, who I like. And so this person is a definite non-celebrity, only well-known within his field. Like, say, painter Phil Frost.

What do I know about Phil Frost, aside from the fact that he made his work and it exists...

Ummm...nothing. No, wait, I remember hearing he was married to somebody once. And I remember reading he was in some gallery and he didn't like his dealer. I don't remember what dealer or gallery.

Ok, so, see, here's an artist I like who's alive now and I know pretty much nothing about him.

So then take me.

How much can I reasonably expect a casual art fan to know about me? Maybe nothing. Maybe one thing.

Should I care what that one thing is? Usually, no. If it said that I killed babies and used their blood for paint then that would threaten my Fake Famous status and I'd have to do something about it or else get a real job again. But it usually doesn't say anything like that. But you never know, so you read what they wriote about you.

And it's terrible and humiliating and you do it anyway because this is your lot.

There's this article which mentions me (and has a goofy, snazzy, picture of me) out this weekend.

First, let me say it is utterly harmless and probably even good to be in this article. Let me get that out of the way immediately. I APPRECIATE YOUR SUPPORT.

Ok, now, in the matter of all Fake Famous Fellows, I examine the article which mentions me carefully.

This guy, the writer who came over here to write this article, was a very nice guy. He is obviously well-read and all that_he could throw down about my work, he knew every author I talked about, I misquoted Henry James and he said maybe I meant Emerson and he was probably right. We talked about Thomas Pynchon, the subject of his article and my next art book, at length. He asked questions, I said things, it was all tape-recorded.

And then, inevitably, there in the article I am represented by an inaccurate physical description and one tiny quote which is definitely not something I said. I mean, I don't talk like that, nobody talks like that. I am not complaining. No one will think ill of me because of this misquote_this is just the way it always goes in short newspaper articles. I just want to highlight this little thing about the minor media-- It is always wrong. This is a fact of life on the Fake Famous circuit. They squeeze the juice out of what you said, leaving a sort of trainwreck of adjectives and nouns that help them get the point of the article across. If you want to be actually quoted in the strict sense of the word, you have to wait for your Rolling Stone interview.

Again, this is not a complaint. There's nothing really wrong with the quote, I come off fine, but we Fake Famous are left to wonder why the reporter went to all the trouble to even come down here. And why did you bother to tape record it if you were just gonna make something up? And why did you say I had a mohawk? I don't have a mohawk, I've never had a mohawk. Are you blind? You were right here in my house looking at me. I mean that's demonstrably, verifiably, ten-seconds-on-google-and-there-you-go false. If you're blind then why did you become a reporter? And, come to think of it, why did that reporter from, of all places, Woman's Wear Daily say I wore cargo shortsIf you work at Woman's fucking Wear fucking Daily can't you fucking tell the difference between fucking cut-offs and fucking cargo shorts? And why did my publisher think I should be talking to Women's Wear Daily anyway? And why did that fucking nimrod from the Time Out say...

But no. No. No. You should not get angry. These things do not matter. None of them will reflect ill on you. No-one will care. It will be ok. Calm down. There are much more important things to worry about. Like death and terror and getting paintings done. Like the phone interview you have with the Washington Post tomorrow...

Lesson for me: It doesn't matter. This is The Fake Famous shuffle. And you will shuffle it, or you will have a boss again, so shut up.

Lesson for you: If you read one day that I, or Phil Frost, or anyone else, crushes babies in a juicer to make paint, or does not actualy paint but instead just takes their friends and acquaintances and smooshes them flat onto paper like a butterfly collection, or has three arms or a beak. remember that it is probably a lie, because the people who write about the Fake Famous have no incentive to tell the truth. And the Fake Famous have no reason to correct them.


3--Frequently Asked Questions
spoilerized to save space