White Trash Art

Hope Chest

oil on canvas 24x36"

American Heroes and Madmen #11: Annie Edson Taylor

acrylic on canvas paper 12x16"

Annie was an educated, well traveled Civil War widow who had spent the many years after her husband's death going from vocation to vocation. Nearing old age and wanting to secure a nice retirement income for herself, she agreed to go over Niagara Falls in a specially designed barrel. She took the plunge on her 63rd birthday (although she told the papers she was 43) and became the first person to live through the feat. Her retirement plan of living off of the publicity that followed was cut short by her manager absconding with the barrel, which she traveled and posed with all over the country. After an unfruitful attempt to get the barrel back with the use of private detectives, she drained most of her savings on their fees. Sher spent her golden years working, as she always did, where she found a niche - as a clairvoyant and giving therapeutic magnet treatments.

Snookie Box

ink, marker, acrylic, decoupage, nail polish on cardboard shipping box, left intact to put any old trash in. about 8"x12"x2"

Fist pumpin.

New Obsessive Issue 006

featuring:

Battle Fish!
Cat Lady Fashion!
How To Manage Your Dictatorship, Now That You've Conquered!
Aero Disaster Omelets!
Must-See London Travel Sites!
Barfing In The Bread Bin!

Kissin' Cousins

 

Marie-Louise d'Orleans and King Carlos II of Spain, acrylic, ink on vellum 12x16"

King Carlos II of Spain was the last ruling member of the Hapsberg royal family. The Hapsbergs had a disturbing penchant for incestuous marriages with resultant childbearing among them - especially pairing uncles with nieces or first cousins with one another. Their need to keep the icky DNA of non-Hapsberg human beings out of their gene pool over several generations led to the creation of poor Carlos. He had been born from a niece/uncle pairing, and both of his parents had been born of other various pairings of family. This not only made family reunions confusing occasions, it also gave him more recessive genetic ailments than your average product of direct incest between father and daughter. His health problems included:

The "Hapsbug Jaw" ("Hapsburg Lip") - a condition that was associated with a large number of Hapsbergs over many generations. Mandibular Prognathism (excessive underbite) that grew more pronounced with age, and was not only unsightly but also caused problems with eating and speaking - not to mention drooling.

Probable Craniosynostosis, or fused fontanels during infancy, which causes mental retardation and an odd shaped head. Carlos, it was said, had a huge head, flat cheeks, a "deformed" nose and everted lower eyelids.

Developmental problems that caused him to be carried around by servants until he was 10. Also, Carlos wasn't encouraged to bathe because it might strain his frail health, and his poor hygiene did not go unnoticed by the rest of the court. 

Genitals that were in such sad disarray that it was evident to an onlooker that Carlos' chance of producing an heir would be a difficult task. Also he was deemed a chronic premature ejaculator by two wives. So premature, it seems, that he couldn't even get it in first.

Carlos married Marie Louise D'Orleans at age 18, and fell madly in love with her. She was a bit less enthusiastic about the union, and lived about a decade in the court, depressed and over-eating, until she died suddenly after an acute bout with abdominal pain. Carlos, by this time rapidly going bald and described as "senile" (he was in his mid twenties, by the way) was distraught. As his mental state declined he had Marie Louise exhumed to look upon her rotting remains long after her burial (as well as several other dead relatives, because that's what a king does when he's bored). Carlos married again, but never got over her death.

American Heroes and Madmen #8: Mike Tyson

Mike Tyson: Heavyweight Champion of the World, Convicted Rapist, Distraught Father, Lifelong Lover of Pigeons

"As a little boy I was fat and everybody picked on me."

 

watercolor, 12x16"

Baby New Year

cardboard, marker on pressed board, 8x10"

American Heroes and Madmen #7: Michael Alig

In the late 1980's Michael Alig was a very successful NYC club promoter from South Bend, Indiana. His theatrical persona and outlandish costumes were, in part, the aesthetic basis for a small pop-culture cult who were known as the "Club Kids". The club kids became an international phenomenon. I remember seeing a bunch of  them on "Maury" when I was about 18, and they were all about my age. I also remember thinking that they were kind of sad in their life's solitary quest for people to look at them and watch them prance around on ecstasy, being fabulous.

By 1996 Michael Alig was a junkie, addicted to heroin, cocaine, ketamine, rohypnol and more. After an argument with his drug dealer and roommate Angel Melendez, Melendez allegedly started to strangle Alig. Michael's friend Robert "Freeze" Riggs stepped in and bashed in Melendez's head with a hammer. At that point, both Alig and Riggs made a bad situation worse by trying to inject the dealer with intravenous doses of Draino, and by pouring Draino into his mouth and duct-taping it shut. Admittedly in a foggy drug haze, they kept the corpse around the apartment for a week, at one point stuffing it into a chest that people were using to sit drinks on at a house party. After the body started to reek, Riggs, who apparently had an disinclination for cutting up former friends, paid Alig ten baggies of heroin to dismember Melendez. They dumped him, in pieces, in the Hudson River. Alig told everyone, including a crew filming a documentary, that he had murdered Melendez, but everyone thought he was just full of shit and looking for attention. After Melendez' torso was fished out of the river several weeks later, police picked up the duo, who admitted guilt. Alig was sentenced to 20 years, which he is currently serving in Attica, NY. A movie was made about Alig, starring Macaulay Culkin, called "Party Monster", as was a documentary film of the same name.

Alig, these days, suffers from Cauda Equina Syndrome, a CNS disorder that causes incontinence and involuntary bowel movements in some cases. He has to wash his urine and shit soaked sheets in the prison toilet. He is terrified of not being able to find a decent boyfriend if he gets out of prison.

His cult still exists, long after the club scene has fizzled out in Manhattan. You can reach him at:

Coxsackie Correctional Facility
Michael Alig # 97A6595
Box 999
West Coxsackie, New York, 12051-0999

http://nymag.com/news/people/24365/
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/longhand/riggs1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Alig
http://www.michaelaligclubkids.com/
http://rickx.com/movies/Alig.htm

Villisca Iowa Axe Murder House

watercolor and ink on paper

 

victims of an Iowa axe murder massacre

The New Obsessive Issue 004

Brains the size of cantaloupes
The cleaved head of a famous British thespian
Lusty, salty sea-dogs
beehive diplomacy
additions to the English vocabulary
muthafuckin WORDSEARCH!

and, adventures in pube grooming.