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The things you learn on the Internet…

21 Comments

I was reading one of my favorite comics, Doctor Fun, and I didn’t get it.


Here’s the comic:

Naturally, the only way to really get the joke is to know something about this “GG Allin.” So I Googled him, found an “official” site that was disturbing and not especially educational, but that linked me to a very well-written MSN piece: link.

I say “well-written.” It is, but due to the subject matter, it’s also very disturbing. Here’s an excerpt from the summary paragraph:
WARNING! EXPLICIT CONTENT!!

Allin usually took the stage in a jockstrap and wound up nude; he beat himself bloody with broken bottles, torn cans, and microphones (when he wasn’t trying to shove the latter up his own ass); he attacked and was attacked by his own audience; he urinated on the stage, on his band, on the audience; he frequently took laxatives before shows in order to defecate on the stage, after which he generally ate his own feces or threw them at the audience; and yet, somehow, he still found audience members willing to perform oral sex on him on-stage.

I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of this particular sicko. His vileness sounds… well… LEGENDARY. Like, the kind of legendary that everybody would have heard of, but that everybody wishes they HADN’T heard of. And maybe that explains his obscurity. At any rate, what I learned in that short read was enough to help me get the joke, which is what I wanted. I guess I got what was coming to me.

Now I need to go wash my brain with Clorox.

–Howard

21 thoughts on “The things you learn on the Internet…”

  2. How different to the genteel art of M. Josef Pujol, “Le Petomane”

    Ah me! it was an elegant age….well, apart from the Great War, but what’s a political difference or two?

  6. My ex was a personal friend of GG Allin. His letters to her were … interesting. And no, she doesn’t share any of his values or behaviours. He was a most fascinating character, and his recorded material is, for lack of a better term, very interesting.

    He died well before I met her. Overdosed in a hotel room in NYC, IIRC. But then, I’m not sure the world really was ready for him … or ever would be, for that matter.

  7. … Is it a testimony to how much fandom has innoculated me against the need for brain bleach when my first reaction is “…I think that’s probably in a Harry Potter fanfic somewhere.” and my second reaction is “…has anyone posted about this guy to yet?” and my third reaction is “Hmm. Maybe this isn’t trainwrecky enough to qualify. might be better.”

    And only after all that did I think “…wait. …he what? Ew.”

  8. You people need mental censors and ‘mind’s eye protection’ devices. 😀

    *whistles as he blithely blanks out the part about the bodily wastes*

  9. I guess I have a higher resistence level or something…
    But then the very first job I got as a raw teenager was working in the local hospital’s mortuary, [thanks dad!] washing down bodies.

    Trust me, after you’ve been handed a bag of assorted body parts, and told to sort them out into, “which internal organ and/or limb belongs to which head” piles, there’s very little left that’ll make you gross out.

      1. that’s one of those kind of problems. On the one hand… Chick magnet. On the other hand, what kind of person gets attracted to people by that kinda thing?

        “Gee she’s a real babe, too bad she’s got an unhealthy morbid interest in dead bodies.“
        I suspect the answer’s probably…
        “Dude, she’s Goth!“

  10. That’s… interesting. I have to admit, I’m not as grossed out as i feel i should be, but that’s likely due to my ability to separate myself from the experience. I can reed about it without feeling like I had been there and had poo flung in my face.

    And, as an artist, it represents exactly why it is so difficult so often for real artists to be taken seriously in these here modern times. The part that makes me sick is the part where he called himself an artist. He was a shock-celebrity, but he was no artist.

    I have to go vomit now… Maybe I’ll frame it!

    1. Was GG an Artist?

      You raise an interesting issue, and it’s one that has a simple semantic answer: Introduce a differentiating word.

      GG Allin was an artist, and was a musician, and was a shock-value pseudo celebrity. What he was NOT was a “craftsman.”

      There is little room for the artiste (note the effete “e” on the end) in any craft. Wood-working “artistes” are not the folks you want building your cabinets. GG Allin lacked the stagecraft and the musiciancraft to succeed widely. He can call himself whatever he wants, but artists who are ALSO craftsman (cabinet-makers who can do gorgeous scrollwork, and put cabinets in cathedrals, for instance) can still set themselves apart from and ABOVE him with the word “craft.”

      –Howard

      1. GG was not an artist.

        Maybe, but the “shock-value-artist” is a creature that only began to surface in the later part of last century. Before that time, those cabinet makers and other fine craftsmen (and craftswomen) of many ilks were respected as artists. In fact, even for a great portion of last century and until today, many still are. However, there is a word the separates the guy who is highly adept at creating the gorgeous scrollwork, and putting cabinets in cathedrals and casting the intricately decorative doorknobs in the temples and that word is “artisan.”

        Prior to the 20th Century, artists were revered as a rare breed that brought beauty and philosophy into the world. During the 20th Century, however the term “artist” has become synonymous with “do you want fries with that?” Artists are not artists simply because they call themselves artists, and I agree that there should be a term that separates the degenerate who uses his crap as a crayon (and by the way, if you’ve seen that guys art, he really is a very bad artist so he went for shock value) from the studied discipline of real artists. The “art scene” in New York has suffered greatly from that kind of abuse of the term.

        I think, in the end, that there already exist a decent number of terms that adequately separate “artists” into proper categories. Artisans (craftsmen who’s craft borders on fine art), Artists (craftsmen who use the traditional materials and mediums to produce visually compelling, thought provoking and pleasant artwork for display in a plethora of different ways, including the internet) and “Psychotic Degenerate” to cover the shock-rockers like Mr. Allin.

        I’m sorry if I seem a bit sensitive on the issue. I’m an artist, and I hate being classed in with people who, by rights, belong in asylums. If you ever find yourself in the Chicago area during the right time of year, the SOFA show is a real education on what art is supposed to be. I highly recommend the trip.

        That’s my humble opinion, and therefore the only correct one.

        1. Re: GG was not an artist.

          The SOFA (Sculptural Objects and Functional Art) show is a real education in some kinds of art. It does leave out most of what people think of when they think of art: paintings, drawings, photographs… (notwithstanding the counterexamples, such as Dale Chihuly’s paintings in the Holsten Galleries booth this year.)

          Which is not to say you shouldn’t go. I’m definitely going back next year. And the year after that. And…

          1. Re: GG was not an artist.

            But in Chihuly’s case, it should be noted that he’s a glass sculpter. He only started painting after his accident, and he has been displaying his paintings with the glasswork from his studio for years at SOFA.

          2. Re: GG was not an artist.

            Well, sure. But if I hadn’t mentioned at least one of the counterexamples, some other pedant would have.

            How about the “frit paintings” (I’m struggling to remember the artist’s name…) in the Bullseye Connection booth? Yeah, yeah, they’re glass and so they’re technically sculptural. My point was that while there are some pieces at SOFA that blur the established lines between sculptural/functional and the sort of thing you frame and put on the wall, the latter category isn’t very heavily represented at SOFA but is definitely still art.

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