The funniest joke

The funniest joke

Ok here it is, I currently live here in Berlin, where I am unemployed and frustrated. In fact I have been so all my life, and I don’t know what’s up with that. I have numerous qualifications, none of them worth anything. I have been told that I excel at art, yet no one buys my art in this town, what’s more noone buys my art in any town. Why? Because I’m unemployed and frustrated, yes! That’s right, its tragic, but then again the truth always is, and there is a joke to all this. I’m about to tell you what is, in a nutshell, my life story.

Where was I? Oh yes, me. Its always about me. This whole prose is going to be about me… and you, and I’m not sure if this is about our differences or similarities. So guess what, you all define me as smart. I score well on your intelligence tests, I do well in school, I score in the top 2 percent, I pick an intellectual pursuit and college course. Im studying psychology… bad choice for someone so ‘intelligent’, I should have realised no one employs people that study psychology, especially not when they are unemployed and frustrated. Why?! Why didn’t I just think?! Of all people you’d expect me to think, hell all I do is think…

Now this is how the story starts. I came to Berlin, hoping to create and sell art, maybe get another job too. Afterall, you look at all that abstract, naïve and otherwise childish art out there and you think, ‘sure, why the hell not, surely if someone can survive selling something so childish and stupid, I as a new artist on the scene should at least make it selling something interesting, intelligent and at times very accurate…’ but the joke is, art doesn’t sell. Come near us artists and our work and we will stare at you with the greatest curiosity, our eyes wide, quietly thinking to ourselves, ‘could this be what a customer looks like?!’ Then there are the ones slightly more accustomed to you all, accustomed enough to know that you will not buy anything, and very soon they will have to close down, go insane and live on the street… (but at least beggars make money). But this is about me and not those who simply passed step two.

Yes, I have passed step two, but I have also gone beyond homeless and insane and entered a state in which I at least believe that I am ahead of you… because I know what your thinking! I know you think ‘hahahaha, he still hasn’t caught on.’ ‘No one wants to buy art of someone without a name, ill wait until we drive him insane. Maybe when the newspaper shows his eyes cut out, or his corpse on a rope just hanging about, when a caption mentions his art, his tragic death, and last lingering staggering bloody breath; I wont see his art quite the same, and instead ill buy a print with his name’.

As I have mentioned before however, you don’t think I’m completely stupid, and so you would expect me to pick life over death, and probably a career instead of torture. And right you would be too, to expect such a thing of me! Until such a time as when I have built up enough art and cunning plans to have me diagnosed as ‘mentally interesting’ enough to reach the newspaper, I decided it would be better for me to get a job placing Kellog’s corn flakes on the second shelf on the cereal aisle, than to be a failing artist. But it seems I have entered too late to keep up with the human race, and now there simply isn’t place.
I’m left in a human sponsored walk until such a time as someone drops out. When one of you finally do drop out, then I must qualify as fit enough to place that box of cornflakes upon that sacred second shelf… but of course there are other barriers too.

So I chose to come to Germany… just like anyone chooses suicide. ‘Are you fluent’ you ask… eh no, I’m not. I can manage a conversation in German to the point at which it becomes obvious that I’m below the dumbest native in vocabulary, but above the best of the most enthusiastic, eloquent and intelligent tourists… ( you could say I’m more like the smartest monkey that ever lived than the dumbest human to the Germans). After this question, an empathetic person trying to help me resolve this situation would ask me grimly “but at least you have some relevant work experience?!” at which point I would stare at the floor in despair… knowing the look on your face says that zombie movie make-up artist skills and nude modelling are probably the least relevant thing the prospective employers could read.

Without relevant work experience, what must I do to get a job? All jobs require work experience!! And job interviews are so hard for me, ‘please’ I could say, ‘im really desperate, I NEED THIS JOB!!’. Must I prove my capacity to learn how to put Kellog’s corn flakes on the second shelf by doing a back flip, land on my nose, balancing and then exclaiming ‘tad dah’!? I see your face is grim and destitute again, there are women out their competing for such jobs, competing to get back into the human race, these women can do back flips, land on their noses, stick their hands up their mouths, reach out with their hand through their anus and then wave at the boss before masturbating themselves for his viewing pleasure… and that’s just the women… DAMN!!! If only I were a sexy, female who could stick her hand into her mouth, bring it up through her stomach, intestinal organs, out through her rectum and then over into her vagina before rubbing in it a rhythmic motion.

Alas I am not. So how does my story end if not by erotic show for an employer? Tonight I will go out drinking (as a pioneer, who orders drinks he cannot afford as an artist; so as not to get kicked out of pubs as a loiterer). I will go out under the guise of drinking! (see above for qualifications of the term ‘drinking’), I will go out with the aim of throwing my business card at people as if they were ninja death stars and I still had some honour to defend…

Wish me luck!!


P.S.
Oh yes and the joke is, that artists don’t exist, and real art doesn’t come to the surface. Having met many artists, all having suffered what I suffer for much longer than I, I have seen amazing art by amazing and suffering geniuses. It is this true art which you will not buy, and it feels almost as if we were the very scum of the earth which needs to be starved to death. It seems there is no such profession as “artist”, for the word ‘profession’ alludes to money being earned through the career.

Those you have seen in galleries are not artists any more, they are just bait put out in the open in order to catch and kill the artistically minded, or at the very most, grave stones to the victims of such a mind.

ART (even more so than crime) DOESN'T PAY!!!

also... I may not have given this art thing a proper shot, but it is no place for anyone without a name and without some other income. :(