death of a dream

Well, no sooner had I finally snapped a photo of it than someone (presumably the owners of the garage on the other side of the wall) painted over this amazing piece of art so that it now looks like this:

the nothing

They didn’t repaint the entire wall. They just specifically painted over the coolest part of the wall. In gray. Gray that doesn’t match the other gray (which I suppose would be impossible with the weathering effect of… um… weather). Why the paint job/censorship? Methinks someone objected to the message of the ad, as the artistic quality cannot be in question. They probably objected to the very laissez faire attitude I found so heartening. This is New York after all, where you’ve got to fight for your right to party (and by “party” I mean “sustain a tolerable existence”), so you can’t afford to be doing/being/saying nothing and you sure as hell can’t avoid criticism.

"Excuse me, sir, but I take issue with your conduct."

I will have to follow up with the owners of the garage to understand the motivation behind the painting’s removal. Maybe someone is a recovering alcoholic. Maybe they’re more Jim Beam drinkers. Or Evan Williams. Or maybe they’re just pricks.

eyes without a face (or eyes for that matter)

Reports are pouring in about a new Montauk monster. I was excited last year when the original MM (OMM) showed up, as I am usually excited by the term “monster” (who isn’t?). I even sojourned to Montauk itself this February, not so much to see or hopefully see the MM, more out of an inborn instinct to travel to the very tip of things:

Montauk is the tip of the lower pennisula on the far right. Brooklyn is in the lower left.

Montauk was very cool (and cold, as it was February) and very lovely. Devo and I spent an extended Presidentine’s Day weekend at Daunt’s Albatross, which was quaint if backbreaking, and took in a pancake breakfast at the fire station and walked the pristine beaches and forests. We watched a solitary seal lay curved to the sky on a solitary rock until the lapping waves of a stiff wind and rising tide rudely tossed him into the sea and overwhelmed his perch. We saw and a dried-up-and-split-into-pieces carcass of what appeared to be a long-legged starfish (or, you know, a monster). But we saw none of this:

OMMMG

But still, the very notion of a monster, and one so conveniently located, had me hooked. I’ve long been a fan of Bigfoot/Yeti/Sasquatch, the Loch Nech Monster (got to like it when they put “monster” right in the name), Ogopogo, Chupacabra, the Hairy Half-man from Hinkley, dragons, ghosts, aliens, three-card monty and the smile on a dog’s face, so I still carry an affinity for MM, even as it was been explained to me by strangers over coincidental beers that Montauk isn’t far from an animal testing facility and, in all likelihood, MM is just a water-logged pug with it’s face peeled back like a hoodie. So when my friend Lesley said she was selling handmade clay animal heads and would make them by request, I didn’t hesitate to request a bust of the Montauk Monster:

so full of life

a twinkle in the eye

Very cool. I can totally see “Monty” hanging out with Glomer:

But during the design phase of the MM bust, I saw an image, an angle on the beast, that changed everything:

full frontal

Sure, I had been told that MM was just a dog with a ruined face, but now it was clear what I had taken for a turtle beak was just a side view of snout-bone. It’s that angle that had people hooked. Hell, if it had a turtle beak, then anything was possible:

Gojira!

But instead, it’s just some dog gone to pot. Which is the same case with this new photo. Anyone with a casual knowledge of what animal skulls look like (which is maybe less than I imagine, but there are museums full of this stuff) should note the snout-bone jutting from these “monsters” faces. A good axiom for Montauk-monster-hunting: “The snout points it out!”

I think the real question is why are Long Islanders throwing so many dogs into the ocean?