day EIGHT HUNDRED and TEN

FLAG PROJECT JULY 2019:

I'm no patriot....not even close. But even i was a touch sickened at the image of this pig-fucking racist hugging the flag. I shouldn't have been. While I don't normalize the orange fuck, his displays of bullshit patriotism have become more than commonplace. What's the phrase? Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel?

Anyway...my point. This July I'm going to try something new here at the blog. Going to spend the month posting images of the flag that I, and hopefully a lot of you, will take. This isn't a nationalist project or a patriotic one, but simply an artistic, philosophical look at an image that unites and divides so many of us.

I also think this project is a good way to get people involved in the blog, in what we're doing here; people who don't normally make art but take a look at this blog.

so....send me your flag images. The flag standing erect. The flag on a bumper sticker. A bunch of tires outside a Firestone painted, red, white and blue; some dipshit at a street fair wearing a flag t-shirt. Snap a photo and send it to me with the heading: Flag Project 2019.

SUBMIT2RESIST: winedrunksidewalk AT gmail DOT com



now......on with the show.....

on looking for somewhere else

to buy my apples and oranges

the arab cashier

at the produce store

looks at the pin on my jacket and says

never trump?

but what does that mean?

exactly what it says i say

and it seems as impossible as always

not to mix politics with consumerism

she says

but i don’t understand

i look at her hijab and think

how can you not?

but there i go making assumptions again

she says,

never trump

then turns to the cashier behind her

who’s wearing a big american flag on her breast

and says,

selma, selma

look at his pin

selma looks up from her cell phone

and stares at the pin forever

hmmm, she finally says

then puts her head back down into her phone

as i take my grocery bag

and go back out into the miserable glare of the sun

where here it always seems to be

another weekday morning in america

choking the lifeblood out of me

again and again.                    

--John Grochalski