The Believer chose the organic chicken restaurant in the hipster district, the one with the abstract artwork on the walls made from the blood of Choctaw Indians. The Cynic swore that he saw a chicken truck pull up and dump a bunch of little formerly-boxed ex-con chicken being unloaded out back and the chickens attacked a Choctaw before they made it to the kitchen. The Believer laughed and passed out sugar plums to the other customers. The Cynic made fun of the Believer and insisted that sugar plums have been extinct since at least the 1950s.
That’s how I felt going to see the Alex Grey artsplosion event last Thursday at New Earth. It was a hotly contested battle between a Believer and a Cynic. They both live inside my head.
I want to believe in a collective consciousness, in a world where the spirit of love informs our interactions and our national foreign policy, in a place where art is truth and truth shall set you free. It’s just really hard to trust in those principles after you turn twenty-two. Luckily for Alex Grey, most of his audience didn’t have the problem of being middle-aged and cynical.
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Alex Grey is a psychedelic painter, and a prophet of peace, love and psychotropic drugs. Like a Terence McKenna or a Ken Kesey, Grey preaches the gospel of existing on a higher plane with a little help from art, ambience and acid. In between trippy band sets, the man and his wife/muse/fellow painter led a group of entranced young people through the doors of perception and possibility through a PowerPoint presentation. Up until that point, I think I understood the vibe, but as soon as he started his PowerPoint, the Cynic in me came out of hibernation, poked its head around, saw its shadow and now we’ve got six more weeks of winter.
From that point on it was just a battle.
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This guy is teaching us about peace, love and understanding using PowerPoint? Point to the Cynic.
The kids are lapping up his knowledge. It’s rare these days to see college kids listen to anything a sixty-year-old guy is saying, much less something that involves the history of anything other than boy bands. Point to the Believer.
But he’s talking about drugs. And they were on drugs. Tie. One point to each side.
It was a peaceful event and it looked like most people there were at peace, or at least not fighting. Point to the Believer.
The guy is preaching love and charging a minimum of forty bucks for one of his paintings, in an event with a twenty-five buck cover charge. Point to the Cynic.
But he’s got to make a living. Can I really blame him for that? Don’t I want to get paid for writing? (It’s not a rhetorical question—I do.) Point to the newest entrant in our contest, the Jealous Hypocrite inside me. It’s now a heated three-way dash to the finish.
I love the artsplosion idea. I love the idea of combining multiple art forms in one place. My business partner has created events like this, his Cafés Apollinaire. They’re more cerebral and high-minded and no one’s tripping, but the concept of making different art forms into a casserole of creativity is the same. Point to the Believer AND to the Jealous Hypocrite. The Hypocrite is making this a race.
The race ended in a three-way tie. The Hypocrite made fun of the Cynic and the Believer. The Believer laughed. The Cynic got mad at the Believer and taunted him mercilessly until he crawled back in his shell. The Hypocrite and the Cynic then went on a drinking binge, bar hopping and making fun of the Believer until he was curled up in the fetal position, clutching his knees, rocking back and forth and sobbing to the heavens.
This is the world in which we live, people. But don’t take the word of any of the three assholes inside of me (even the Believer is a bit of an ass). Check out Alex Grey. Decide for yourself if humanity is basically good or evil.
