Art is in the eye of the beholder

I found this hiding behind a spare couch in a storage area of our basement yesterday.  Here is the backstory:

Twenty five or so years ago, I was at a store that had thousands of old, antique-ish posters for sale.  After flipping through hundreds of them with nothing catching my eye, I came across this poster of Frank Zappa.  It made me laugh out loud, as I was a big fan of Frank.  Not so much a fan of his music as a fan of the man himself, who was a fascinating human being.  I highly recommend his autobiography to anyone who doubts that.  He was another intellect who left us way too soon.  Anyways, I was quite poor at the time, and twenty bucks was a significant investment for me but I shelled it out and brought it home anyways.

For years I kept it rolled up and safely stored, and kind of forgot all about it.  Eventually I bought a house, and found this ornate gilded frame hiding in the attic of the house.  It was empty, backless, and had no glass, but I was determined to bring it back to life.  I just needed something interesting for it.  That’s when Frank spoke to me from beyond the grave and said “PICK ME!!!”  Though it would involve cutting the prized poster and hurting any value it may have had, it was only a twenty dollar investment so I went for it.

I decided to express myself with a unique creation that would be sure to catch any eye in the room.  I cut a new backing, cut an affixed the poster to it, and cut an old plexiglass window to fit the frame.  As a bachelor, there was no one to tell me no ‘effin way is that hanging in my house, so it hung prominently in my family room for several years.  It drew a lot of comments.  My kids’ friends would ask “why do you have a picture of Howard Stern taking a poop?”  Lol.

Then bad financial times hit, and I lost my little house to foreclosure.  There was no work in my area, and I ended up moving three states away for the only job I could find in my profession.  I packed up everything I owned, and most of it went in storage while I spent the next few years renting small apartments that all cost a fortune.  Eventually my wife and I connected, and we bought a nice big house together.

Now I had room to finally unpack boxes that I had not even opened for years.  This was in one if them, and it brought back memories.  Most of the stuff in those boxes turned out to be junk that I just got rid of, but not this.  Unfortunately, I now had someone to tell me no ‘effin way is that thing hanging in my house, so I hung it in the unfinished side of our basement.  My wife never was a fan, and she took it down and hid it from me.  For years it sat behind some things in our storage area, but yesterday I found it.  Sorry honey, but it is now going to be a fixture of the man cave.  As it turns out, it is one of the only things that I still possess from that long ago.  

Some Zappa quotes:

If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.

Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read.

There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.

There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we'd all love one another.

Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.