tracey stalin, your blog hostess

As I’ve mentioned before, my teeny new coffeehouse Boheme shares space with a wine lounge. Now the wine lounge is huge, actually, but there are restrictions on where my customers are allowed to sit — basically, NOT in the wine lounge. They can sit on the front sidewalk patio; they can sit at one of the two– yes, two! how cute! — tables inside my itsy-bitsy foyer area, or they can walk through the wine lounge, down this little hall, past another large under-used room that is begging to be a wi-fi room, frankly, and plop themselves out at a table in the bamboo Eden of the back patio. It’s really beautiful out there and helped quite a bit by the presence of all the tables and chairs and umbrellas I inherited in my purchase of, uhm, the entire contents of The Beanhouse! Before we moved in, that patio had maybe two measly tables — which just means that we’re basically the saviors of everrything here!

Hooray for us!

Still …. self-congratulation aside …. it’s weird, always having to explain to people that they can’t sit in the cool cool space that is the wine lounge. “Oooh! This is so nice! Can we sit in here?” “No. Uhm, sorry.” “Oh.” I do understand to an extent because of open shelves of wine there. But then — I DON’T understand my Overlord’s lack of initiative in protecting his big ol’ stash of wine. He hasn’t purchased any locks or put in any cabinetry. He hasn’t installed any alarms or video cameras. It’s just “Don’t let people sit here. We have to protect The Wine.” Okay. But DO something to protect it, dude.

Which is utterly tangential to what this post is really about. Awesome. I’m actually starting on a tangent.

This post is really about my role today as oppressor and censor of artistic expression. Okay?

So — no sitting in the wine lounge. Whatevs, weirdos. But then there’s that large nebulous room beyond the lounge. I have business groups that meet there a few times a week and the wine lounge sometimes has private parties there in the evenings. But most of the time, it just sits there, all forlorn, with sparse leather chairs and giant wooden vases and random clusters of peacock feathers. “It’s like a furniture museum,” MB says. It’s a sad, lonely room to me, as if it’s not fulfulling its purpose as a room, as if it belongs on The Island of Misfit Rooms shaking its feathers and moaning about how no one loves it. Sometimes, though, my customers, shifty wine thieves that they are, actually pass through the lounge, brazenly ignoring the open shelves of wine in a move that I can only assume is part of some larger looming con, and wander through that Misfit Room, giving it a wee bit of love, en route to their pre-approved plop: The Bamboo Eden.

With me so far? No? I literally cannot imagine why.

So the other day, The Misfit Room suddenly became a pseudo art gallery when some lightfooted fellow began adorning its walls with mixed media pieces in preparation for a fashion show he’s having. I love mixed media, but these pieces just didn’t grab me, from my cursory glance at the first few. And I’m too busy most of the time I’m there to have realllly looked at them.

But this morning, before we opened, MB came rushing infrom The Misfit Room and announced, “Okay. So there’s p*orn in the back room there.”

“What do you mean?!”

“I mean — p*orn.”

I ran to The Misfit Room. And there they were — a couple of mixed media pieces showing completely naked women, ah, being involved with their southern hemispheres in a loving and solitary way. The word “pleasure” was prominently displayed alongside these haphazard, decoupaged nudies. So the whole effect was very subtle, you see.

Okaay.

And in a split second, I thought of, well, many things: my customers — of the kids that come through, of my elderly customers, of, I guess, the more family-friendly vibe I want to have when I’m open for business. What the wine lounge does during its hours of operation is its own deal. But my motto basically is: If my niece Piper can’t see it, I don’t want it around.

So — I took the pieces down. Intending for them to be down only when I’M open, not permanently.

And I got in big big trouble with The Overlord.

He came in — on his day off — and saw the pieces in the back. I know this because they were moved when I next saw them. The Overlord acted weird, didn’t say anything, and left. MB left. The Overlord came back a few hours later after MB — who towers over him and frightens him — was gone.

Overlord approached me.

“Can I talk to you?”

“Sure.”

“It’s about the art.”

“Okay.”

“You shouldn’t have taken it down. It’s art. You can’t just take it down. That wasn’t courteous.”

Have I mentioned how many times already we’ve spent our early morning hours cleaning up the destroyed patio and lounge after their private evening parties?

He continued:

“You should have talked to me first.”

“Well, I can see your point there, but you weren’t here and I felt I needed to make a decision about what’s appropriate for my business. I didn’t even know those particular pieces were there and I just thought some of my customers might be offended.”

“Well, that’s art. That’s what art does. That’s an art gallery right now.”

“Okay. Hm. I’m confused then. I thought this was a business. I know I’m a business and I feel I need to consider my customer base. The wine lounge is, obviously, an over-21 crowd. The coffeehouse isn’t. And those are definitely over-21 images. So which is the priority — the art gallery or the businesses? Which comes first?”

(Peeps, I’m sorry. He really set me off with that “courteous” comment. I’ve done nothing but bend over backwards to BE courteous, to be a good roommate, and the same cannot be said for him and his partner. So I felt a little feisty.)

“Well, they both come first. Everyone comes first.”

“How is that possible? Not everyone or everything can come first. How does everyone come first?”

“Well, we’re all working together here.”

Uh-huh. Annoyed with this line of nothingness, I switched gears.

“Um, well, I have lots of kids who come through here and I just don’t feel those images are appropriate for kids.”

“I’ve never seen that many kids in here.”

“Well ….”

“And art is supposed to be controversial”

Is it, dude? Is that the entire purpose of art? To provoke, to be controversial, and nothing else? I musta missed something in school. And I don’t think the definition of art is even relevant to the discussion. But — wait. Let’s say it is. So if I punch you right now, dude, that’s art, right, because it’s provoking? Like, maybe it’s performance art. Maybe I’m a performance pugilist and you are my canvas and it’s all very provoking and controversial. Wow. You know, I think I’d really like to become a performance pugilist because have lightning-fast little hands. Who knows? It just might be my calling.

All right. Look. To me, it’s a question of appropriateness. And, I’m sorry, those pieces are not art. They are exploitative. They are p*orn. They are a cheat by a guy who thinks he’s an artist and is trying to shortcut his way to attention.

He was still talking.

“And people make their own choices. They can choose not to go in there.”

“But they don’t even know the pieces are in there until they get there. When they come in during the day, they’re coming into a coffeehouse, not an art gallery. That’s the expectation.”

“Then you have to tell them there’s provoking material in there. If it’s bothering you, it’s obviously doing its job.”

Oh, so I’m an uptight prude in this scenario? Great. Thanks. But why are we suddenly an art gallery? I thought this was a business. I really did. But I open up a coffeehouse and suddenly p*orn breaks out?

Grrrrr — I’m frustrated, peeps. I’m seeing my desire to have a family-friendly environment colliding with The Overlord’s desire to be all things to all people. G-rated? Good. R-rated. Good. X-rated? Good.

It’s all good.

No. NO. It’s all bad! All BAD! NO to everything! Tracey Stalin hates it all! Art-hater and oppressor of creative expression that I am! Away, you non-conformists! Away, you revolutionaries! To the gulag with you! Tracey Stalin decrees it!