Twelve local artists ... made their way down that great fairway of inspiration to bring the golfing and art-loving public an entire course of art commenting on golf. Or is it golf commenting on art?
So says the e-blast about the new nine-hole miniature golf installation, Obstacle Art, at Commerce Street Studios. The exhibit is funded by Todd VonBastiaans and the First Friday gang and open March 3 for three months.
But for artist Danny Roberts, who decided to make his art/golf hole on the theme of propaganda, the challenge was less art vs. golf than Lenin vs. Hitler. "I had the idea of having Hitler with a golf bag, under a swastika made of golf clubs," he said. But he and organizers mutually decided it was too controversial, and so, he opted for the far less upsetting propaganda figure, Vladimir Lenin. Lenin, you'll recall depending on your history book, was the Bolshevik leader who set in motion events leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, labor camps and famine ...
"But Americans are willing to accept one but not the other," Roberts says of the Lenin and Hitler in the context of putt-putt golf, though he is not at all pissed about the unfavorable reception to his original idea. "It's not a thing with me. I was trying to do something kind of edgy but kind of funny." After he became aware that kids would likely play the art course, he was in favor of toning it down from one genocidal maniac to another. Actually, now that he's seen some of the other artists' designs—Candyland, Godzilla, cartoons and at least one Jesus—he's decided his piece may still be over the top. "Now I think it's too aloof, too heady."
Ah, the quandary of art, golf and genocide.
Conan O'Brien Joins LVCVA: "Vegas: Whores, Gambling and Weed!"
Apparently stoned out of their minds, the Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana (CRCM) is polling its supporters on TV's Conan O'Brien's suggested campaign slogan, "Whores and gambling aren't enough."
"So far the response has been negative," according to a news release by the campaign.
Conan spoofed the group's ballot initiative recently, saying, "A group of Nevada residents began a campaign to legalize marijuana in the state of Nevada. The group's slogan is: Whores and gambling aren't enough."
The group's website, www.RegulateMarijuana.org, now invites readers to vote on whether CRCM should adopt O'Brien's wording as the official campaign slogan. Currently, the overwhelming response is "no," which has earned 78 percent of the vote.
Presumably right after a long, deep drag, campaign manager Neal Levine commented in a press release, "I'm not surprised. It's not a very good slogan."
Hawaii 4.0
The expanding Clark County School District is taking its aggressive recruiting tour of America to those paradisiacal islands of Hawaii February 25 and 26.
Southern Nevada's only school district, in its eternal search to fill some 2,000 teacher vacancies each year, can offer $30,000 to novices and $60,000 to the most qualified veteran (with the luxury of no income tax), full retirement pay, and a cost of living that's 30 percent less than the cheapest major Hawaiian city.
Amazingly, Roger Takabayashi, the president of the Hawaii State Teachers Union, fears that many of his best teachers, having lost all faith in their own state's commitment to education, won't be able to resist Las Vegas or any other city that comes luring them.
"With the low morale that we currently have," Takabayashi has told Hawaii news station KHON 2, "yes, I'm concerned people might consider going."
And that would be great news for Clark County, which apparently does not have the worst school district in the nation, contrary to the popular opinion among many of its own teachers.