Sports Redux: Pats Fans: Feel The Schadenfreude
Kells Closing
Photo of the Day, February 8, 2010: Alewife Station
Scott Brown: 41st Vote or Campaign Prop?
Sports Redux: "Bad Luck, Story of My Season, Nothing Can Go Right"
The vanguard of the proletariat? Or a bunch of drunk rich people?
It was bound to happen. A day after street artist Shepard Fairey protested the timing of his arrest, somebody at the Wooster Collective street art blog has run a lengthy narrative suggesting a Boston police conspiracy designed to bring down Our Popular Mayor.
The plot? Boston cops, furious over Mayor Menino's wage freeze, conspired to arrest Fairey during his DJ set at the ICA, which would have taken place in front of nearly 800 people. Those people would riot. The police would dredge up the photos Menino had taken with Fairey in front of an "Obey" banner festooned on City Hall, and then... Well, what, exactly?
Cylon-on-Fairey taxi cab sex, we hope.
We all like to think that we are at the center of events much larger than ourselves, and the first-person narrative, by somebody named Dave Combs, has a certain paranoiac thrill that has spread it quickly across the internets. But the story doesn't add up.
If the BPD wanted to embarrass Menino so badly, why didn't they arrest Fairey at City Hall? If this is the best our police can do to get back at Menino for the wage freeze, we should probably take their guns away, for safety.
People reportedly paid $500 on Craigslist to get tickets to Fairey's DJ night. These are people without good sense—nobody should ever pay $500 to see somebody do something that he is not famous for doing—but are they the sort of people who set off a riot? Fairey's art might be resplendent with revolutionary posturing; the crowds who gather at the ICA? Not so much.
What do you think? Dastardly doings among the BPD graffiti squad or the fantasy of an overheated friend of Fairey?
Previously:
Shepard Fairey Sues Associated Press
Can Shepard Fairey Brand His Own Indignation?
Shepard Fairey Talks Obama, Plagiarism and Capitalism at ICA
Shepard Fairey Street Art Map: Boston
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
here's what i don't believe:
"Shepard spontaneously offered to share the cab with us since we were leaving the hotel to go to the show at precisely the same time. Holly hopped into the front seat, Amanda remained on the drivers-side, and Shepard made room for me to his right. I squeezed in and shut the rear passenger-side door. One of us quickly told the cab driver we were going to the ICA and the cab driver quickly backed out of the hotel pick-up area and headed up Seaport Boulevard toward the Museum."
am i reading this right? shepard fairey sat in the middle?! no way.
I'm no literary scholar but that story would have been better with police dogs. Just sayin'.
And a turncoat!
That story would be better if the BPD had shot at Shepard Fairey, and if Shepard Fairey had then hijacked the cab and driven into the BPD.
wait, Our Mayor is popular?
He is with 72 % of Bostonians.
allegedly. he is not popular with 72% of *me*
So what do you do with the 28% of you that likes him so much?
The fact that some guy who was in the taxi sensationalized the story doesn't mean that it's completely untrue. The riot idea is stupid, but are you saying you think the police arbitrarily arrested him behind the ICA?
I think the real point of contention is whether this was a dick move to embarrass the mayor or a dick move to embarrass Shepard Fairey.
Some thoughts: http://www.thathottness.com/blog/why-the-shepard-fairey-arrest-has-nothing-to-do-with-shepard-fairey/
I was mostly posting on how insane the taxi story was. I agree that Bill Kelley, Boston's graffiti cop, had it in for Fairey, and that his zeal for collaring supposed vandals ("he’s the cop who spent a decade tracking a notorious vandal known as 'Spek'") is somewhat excessive.
On the other hand, Fairey must have known he had an outstanding warrant in Boston; maybe he shouldn't have told the city where he was going to be last Friday night.
Part of street art's allure is its very illicitness. Where would Fairey, the outlaw, be without Kelley, the cop?
That's the thing...I don't think Bill Kelley had it in for Fairey. I doubt Bill Kelley had a clue that warrants had been issued until after the Menino appearance, or that he was in the city at all.
Bill Kelley could have figured out where Fairey was at any point in the last two weeks if he had really been "investigating". I actually complained about the SF media blitz last weekend after returning from the bar, I'm told.
You could make the argument that Kelley waited until Friday night because he wanted his Ahab graffiti-killer moment in the spotlight, and that the mayor wasn't a motivation at all. But if that was the case, why not bust him at City Hall on Wednesday?
Certainly a better photo op, and Kelley would have had more than enough time to collect evidence and make a case. In fact, he probably could have tailed him and photographed him putting up graffiti illegally.
The Herald even admits at the end of its Monday story that the case against Fairey isn't going to stand up in court.
People reportedly paid $500 on Craigslist to get tickets to Fairey's DJ night. Agreed: those people didn't have good sense. Still, the admission price for the event was only $25. Of course, "a bunch of drunk rich people" makes for a better caption than "regular people having a good time."
When will Shepard Fairey take some responsibility? Instead, all we find is people creating conspiracy theories as an excuse for his actions and choices. Here is my take on it,
http://www.myartspace.com/blog/2009/02/criticism-and-arrest-of-shepard-fairey.html