Serg, the guy who is accused of literally painting the town red plus an assortment of other colors, will be coming to trial soon. I assume that he will argue in his defense that he was exercising artistic freedom when he was wielding paint spray cans all over town. He'd be crazy not to because I think some people - maybe some of them on the jury - would agree with him.
To me, Serg's work was vandalism - but only because it was unsolicited. Maybe you could call it soft vandalism. From what I've seen of his handiwork, it's certainly not offensive or revolting. Some of it is rather pleasing - although I wouldn't want it on the side of my house. Serg is no Michelangelo. But the guy does have some talent. It's just been badly misdirected.
So I couldn't blame him if he contends that he was just exercising his artistic freedom when they bring him to trial. Even an old fuddy-duddy like me recognizes that artistic freedom is a valuable commodity as long as you don't make a travesty out of it. I don't think Serg would be guilty of that if he argued that his graffiti was art. I wouldn't want to see them throw the book at him.
On the other hand, it will be a travesty if they don't throw the book at Kevin Michael Allin. If you haven't heard about the charges against Allin, I hate to be the one to break the news. But sit down and brace yourself because here it goes.
Allin, 34, used to use the name G.G. Allin when he was the lead singer for a now-defunct rock group called the Toilet Rockers. The name alone ought to tell you something.
In 1989, Allin was performing at a Milwaukee café. In front of some 50 people who had paid to see him perform, he used the stage as a toilet. Then he flung his own waste at his fans. They fled in revulsion from the place, but not before somebody got the whole revolting thing on videotape.
He also exposed himself and pulled a female fan up on stage and jumped on her. The police arrested him on charges of abusive and indecent conduct and provoking a disturbance.
Allin, who was convicted yesterday of provoking a disturbance, pleaded not guilty, and I doubt if you'll be surprised to learn what he based his defense upon. Correct. He contended that he was exercising his artistic freedom when he defecated on a stage and flung feces at his fans.
"In a democracy, people don't have to like what they hear or like what they see," said Peter Goldberg, his attorney. "We fell that [Allin] is a serious performer, and there's serious artistic value to what he does."
Serious? Well, yes. Allin is serious. Seriously impaired, that is. Monkeys sometimes do what Allin did, and I guess they're serious, too. But they're still monkeys.
When a monkey does what Allin did, there's not too much you can do about it. You certainly don't charge him and bring him to trial. After all, monkeys will be monkeys. So maybe nothing should be done to G.G. Allin, either. Not in the courts, anyway. Maybe he should be treated like any other monkey.
Allin can be fined $1,000 and jailed for 90 days. That would be fine. But a lot of taxpayers' money will be wasted in the effort. Why waste the time of a judge, a jury and everything else that goes with it trying to punish a monkey for just being a monkey? So I say they should have forgotten the trial.
Instead, they should have put G.G. Allin is some zoo - if they could find a zoo that would take him. But I wouldn't put him with the other monkeys. I don't think they'd care if he flung something at them. They'd just throw something right back at him. But I don't think the monkeys could take his music. It might even constitute cruelty to animals.
So I'd put him in a monkey house all by himself. People would come to see him perform, and be amused by him. You wonder why I find G.G. Allin amusing?
Well, it's actually his attorney and what he said about G.G. Allin that I find amusing. In a petition for a dismissal of the charges, Goldberg contended that Allin's behavior followed "in the tradition of other avant-garde artists who have incorporated excrement into their work." He named Shakespeare, Aristophanes and Samuel Beckett as examples.
Maybe they did. I have no way of checking it out. But I doubt very much if Shakespeare, Aristophanes or Samuel Beckett did it the way Allin did it. And I find it highly amusing to hear this simian compared to Shakespeare, Aristophanes or Samuel Beckett. Much more amusing than comparing Serg to Michelangelo.
Tom Hritz
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