I study art. I’m aware of the importance of Michelangelo’s Piata. Is brutalist architecture cool or gross? Which decade of Picasso’s life is his most important?
Frank Gehry just died. Were his blindingly shiny metal buildings with halls that lead to nowhere actually worth the death run you have to do to get in the front door in the winter as ice warms up on the metal roof under the sun and sooner or later lets loose and comes crashing down like some sort of Wiley coyote cartoon boulder?
But none of it causes more emotional rage in me as these fucking hostile architecture benches:
This one is in Boston but you can find them in every single city of America.
There are no other artists IN THE HISTORY OF ART I have encountered that make me more emotionally charged as the fuckers that make these hateful atrocities. I literally want to kill others and myself as I glare at them with apocalyptic hatred.
They are designed to make it so you can’t lay down (or sit next to your kid).
These hateful designs scream one thing: “To those residents of our city who are freezing, exhausted and have nothing: FUCK OFF! You are not welcome here.”
And please don’t forget these benches are bought and paid for by liberal Democrats who love to pat themselves on the back for their pronoun email signatures and land acknowledgments. Your performative lies make me nearly as enraged as these attractive benches that you ignorantly ignore as you scurry off to buy your annual $1000 winter coat at Patagonia in Back Bay.
I was so enraged by witnessing this bench that I started romantically studying the bombings, assassinations and other mayhem that peaked in the early 1970s in America. (The FBI recorded approximately 2,500 bombings over an 18-month period from January 1971 to mid-1972. This averaged about 5 bombings per day across the country.)
That sounded so cathartic and the work of real activists. But what was the outcome?
- Failed revolution: None of the groups’ stated goals—ending capitalism, achieving revolution, or fundamentally restructuring American society—were accomplished.
- Legal precedents: Enhanced domestic terrorism laws and surveillance capabilities that persist today.
- A landslide second term victory for Nixon.
- Meanwhile, 58,220 U.S. military personnel killed in Vietnam and close to 3 million civilians.
Nothing works. In fact, it made things worse. More surveillance and yet another glaring reality of all those lying “allies” who say they support civil rights when all they really support is their own fragile, delicate comfort and safety at any expanse of poor people of all shades of skin color (maybe this is the Christmas you get your little princess the Canada Goose Shelburne Parka she has on her iPhone notes wishlist. I mean, yeah, it’s $1,495. But she’s worth it.)
Can you see why I’m rooting for AI to win? We suck. And all signs lead to the fact that we’ve always sucked and we will just continue sucking.
Liberals are so outraged by Donald Trump and his evil hatred of brown people. But look in the mirror, assholes. At least Republicans are honest. Democrats lie to themselves and the rest of the world about how much they care. They care in words only. The most dangerous thing a minority can do is trust a liberal. They’ll sell you down the river THE MINUTE they feel the slightest amount discomfort or have to look at someone who makes them feel uncomfortable or if the polling data says your cause is no longer statistically trendy anymore.
I would rather you be honest about your fragile selfishness than put on a Broadway show about how thoughtful and woke you are. (Maybe this is the Christmas you take the fam on an impulsive quick weekend trip to Manhattan to see a show. Tickets are around $250 if you’re lucky enough to get them. But I bet you know someone. I’m sure you can get it done if you hurry.)
Go fuck yourselves.