Snowman Expert Interviwed by Mr. Media on Radio

Open in your default player


Detach into a separate window

Well, here's the interview...it's all about snowmen and my new snowman book...I was dealing with a bad cold and cough so I may sound a bit funny...but, anyhoo, Mr. Media is very cool and I suggest you visit his site and check out his list of celebrity guests he's interviewed. I've been going through his archives all week listening to the Chris Farley story, getting to know Robert Schimmel and learning alot about the business.

It's in the Air

Bob Eckstein © 2008 Please contact me if you want to use elsewhere. eckstein@pipeline.com

Post Mortem

I Hate Marathons

For the back story to this cartoon go here.

Small-town Sign-swiping in a Swing State

The topic of conversation during my travels through the Pennsylvania heartland the past couple of days has been the battle of the election lawn signs. This is nothing new. Just my first hand account from the front-lines.

Last night I stayed in the old stone home of a distinguished academia couple situated predominately on the corner of an intersection in the eastern part of Berks County, where only hours earlier some wild maverick had stolen a large Obama-Biden sign. This ad was worth about $60 in plexiglass and was wired and secured near the front door on a tall pole that requires a ladder. The pole was all that was left from a sign that once belonged to one of the state's oldest pubs dating back about two centuries. Sam upped the ante after a couple of smaller lawn signs had disappeared. That night we kept going over it while Sam contemplated whether or not to contact the police. "When I called four years ago, the police just wanted to know why I was voting for Kerry. What's the point." Someone argued because if it's a brick through the window next time there's a record of cause and motive on record. Someone else reasoned that the action could just motivate revenge. By the second Scotch, Sam and I were re-enforcing stereotypes and blaming NASCAR somehow (I was thinking; "while we're in a war over oil, shouldn't NASCAR drivers be carpooling on the racetrack?"). I thought I solved the whole mess the following morning when I spotted a white and blue sign laying on the ground in the distance. But the sign only said "Christmas Trees Sale."

A couple of hours east, a friend drove me through Fort Washington, Pennsylvania siting which lawns had McCain or Obama signs that had recently mysteriously vanished. Some homes quickly replaced them. We passed a mansion with a billboard size lawn sign for McCain. In the car we all shared stories, quoting racial remarks overheard at auto shops and in supermarkets. I had only one incidence. A guy, my age, asked me who I was voting and countered, "Well, you want the White House filled with jiggies? You're gonna wound up with a congress of blacks."

Before I made this trip, my friend from New York City, we'll call him Joe the Dreamer, stayed with me a couple of days to canvas my Pennsylvanian neighborhood back in the east side of the state. I warned him that my next-door hunters would not welcome him and his Vegan ways. To his credit he went door-to-very-far-apart-door using his VW hippie mobile dressed for his last Burning Man trip, walking past many a McCain sign to chat up the locals. He told me he considered it a real success—I'm not sure if this is because I know he had a cold and he told me he shook alot of hands but I considered it a great success that he returned for dinner alive. Or maybe I'm not giving my neighbors or him enough credit.

My friends from Berks County have decided not to contact the police after-all but their mood improved when I said I would write a little something about their theft. For them this is not all about changing anyone's mind but exercising their freedom of speech and continuing to get the word out that this is going on. I'm not convinced. I think deep down people think they can change people. But nobody is "undecided." This election was determined a long time ago, we just haven't counted up the votes. Stating who we are on our lawns just creates a wedge. Am I a horrible person for thinking our society is not mature enough for all of this? The signs don't work. They just make us worse.

Artist Statement

Today’s email; 2009 NYFA Artists' Fellowship Applications are due Friday. Application materials must be submitted and postmarked by midnight on the due date of your category.

Dear Jurors of the NYFA Grant Committee,

I would like to respectively apply for a 2009 NYFA Artists' Fellowship to complete my current art performance slated for early 2009. Sadly, this work is currently in danger of not being realized due to a lack of funds.

Since 1978 I have enjoyed a long, lustrous relationship with the New York Foundation of the Arts starting with my first major project (Disability), where I shot myself in the foot. In 1987, I received my second NYFA grant to fund Your Insecurities Are My Broken Limbs, which consisted of me being shoved down a flight of stairs. Finally, thanks to a Pell Grant in 1996, I was triumphantly run-over by a family Winnebago in the critically acclaimed, Run-Over. This lead to a series of happenings I conducted in alternative spaces, executed in front of select art circles where either I was run over or pushed down something. In the new millennium I explored getting stuck in everyday things (most notably; wet cement, a washing machine, retractable ladders) in mundane locations (new pavement, laundromat, fire escape). I am quite proud of this diverse body of work and take seriously my role as a non-traditional artist.

With the successful completion this summer of my of most recent project Downsize, in which my wife of twelve years walked out on me, I have spent the past two months deliberating over my next artistic venture, a spontaneous, yet staged dramatic performance involving burlap bags, a tribal war mask, a gun (again), and a 1998 Saturn hatchback. Heist is my ambitious statement on the current economic collapse and Wall Street’s emotional effect on artists, both consensual and concessional, a logical step from my previous pieces Sweeping Out Water Fountains Under Gloom of Night (2002-04) and Bodega! (2005). Inspired by my own confining experiences of being late with my rent, this event would capture a moment of “role-reversal” toward my current financial institution.Visual and political puns emerge, ingeniously using class, justice and ethics of power with the actual act of robbing a bank. Addressing issues of self-esteem, society restrictions and irony, both apparent and concealed while placing others and myself in great danger (again). Making poor life choices is a reoccurring theme in my work (so says my life coach). Heist would be a natural extension of these ideas, expressing a narrative frame of my life, allowing me to draw from my immense life experiences and expansive anger, and ideally, turning my anti-commercial tendencies into a fortune, that would present new opportunities for me and any future art projects (should I decide to stay in the country).

I ask you to consider and process my request for a NYFA grant briskly as the tenuous time frame for this ongoing piece is February 20th, 2009, the date my unemployment runs out. The location chosen for the event has been the Citibank on 36th St and Avenue of the Americas due to it’s inviting layout and proximity to my current art studio. With proper financial backing of an NYFA Fellowship, I can complete the necessary research and add a qualified henchman, both which will prove paramount to this project’s success. Enclosed in this application are slides illustrating a floor-plan of the aforementioned Citibank and mug-shots of leading candidates to recruit as the driver of the getaway car. The preamble to this performance would be a surprise entrance before proceeding to close off the establishment. At this point my years as an artist being shot at and/or wounded will be instrumental and critical to the complexities I hope to archive during this unscripted progress.

Upon request, I can provide your committee with references from those who would vouch that I would actually go through with this. As with many of my artistic endeavors, revelations will unfold during the course of the project—the one-day performance will be, no doubt, filmed and documented on the bank’s security cameras and receive tremendous media coverage, from both television and print media. Full credit would be given to you—I intend to explicitly state that Heist was made possible thanks to funds from the New York Foundation of the Arts.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I hope that the NYFA council and it’s members appreciate the importance of work like this which expands and invigorates the elastic boundaries of what our society perceives and accepts as art. My resume and character I know speaks for itself and will make yours an easy decision. It goes without saying, that the prestige attached to an NYFA Fellowship would give such a plan creditability and stir excitement among other avant-gardists exploring shady activities, encouraging them to seek support and sponsorship. Your generosity would not only allow this dream to be realized but assure the safety of those involved...both voluntarily and involuntarily.

Joe the Plumber in hot water with the IRS

The real identity of this man is Samuel J. Wurzelbacher who actually owes the state of Ohio $ 1,200.00 in back taxes for his income. The records on file in the Lucas County court has a tax lien filed on January 26, 2007 and remains unpaid to this date. It's all here.