Monday, September 21, 2009

Frank: Ex-Alpha Male

All images are photos taken by Angie at The MIA

Meet Frank. Although he may look humble, I'd encourage the viewer to consider the following.

Frank shares a flat with two other guys... The seemingly spontaneos Paris von Gutersloh and...

Ruggero Leoncavallo... the composer.

Now you may ask yourself, "what's the problem here?" Which is a legitimate thing to ask. So I'll give it to you straight.... Frank is a huge jerk.

Story goes-The three gentlemen met at an art gallery about a year ago, and they hit it off. They enjoyed each other so much in fact, they decided to move in together. That's were I enter the picture. I'm their landlord.
Not even a week after these fellas settled in I began to hear fights. I could tell by the thumps and bumps, crashes and screams, Frank was causing a bit of havoc. But I keep to my own business. If my tenants pay rent, I don't complain... Plus Frank is a big guy. His 9 feet tall and 7 feet wide were enough encouragement for me to keep quiet. But one day there was a knock on my door. It was Paris von Gutersloh. He was looking a bit stressed. He said he couldn't deal with Frank anymore, and he wanted out of the lease. It was at this point in his story I stopped him.
"Paris" I said... "You guys were three peas in a pod when you moved in here. What could be the problem with cute and cuddly, straight forward, black and white Frank?"
Then he proceeded to tell me how Frank was always taking up the entire couch, never allowing them to watch the shows they wanted to watch, and continuously GLARED at them from across the flat, claiming he was, "a photo-realist image created by the living legend CHUCK CLOSE!".
Paris and Ruggero took issue with photo-realists. Paris was painted by Egon Schiele, a cohort of Gustuv Klimt. Ruggero was of considerably prestigious lineage. His painter was Giovanni Boldini of Italy, famous in London for his expressive portraiture.
He through up his hands in defeat. I could tell by the guy's tone he wasn't going to stay, no matter what I said. So I told him... in a whisper,"I've heard you straight laced guys being pushed around by that over grown photocopy. If you keep paying rent, I won't bother you. And I'll turn a blind eye if you and Ruggero haul a couple of 9 foot stretcher bars and a flaccid rolled up canvas out to the dumpster..."
A devious smirk crawled across Paris' lips as he quietly nodded his head, turned and closed the door behind him.
They've been quiet as mice ever since.

4 comments:

  1. Haha very nicely done. I could defiantly see how the narrative you laid out could come about if those paintings interacted with each other.

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  2. Very Creative. You took it literally and made them have a conversation, totally not the traditional approach in anyway. At first I was wondering where you were going with this - but the images fit the characters well, and in the end tied in the art history in nicely. Good tie in at the very end. Totally a great way to inject a little fun into the assignment - paintings in an apartment - Very cool.

    Also, the images fit each other very well. Great take on images of masculinity and their interactions & the dialog images like this creates.
    I'm impressed.

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  3. BILL ACTUALLY IS SAYING:
    Blog title: Frank: Ex-Alpha Male
    Comment:
    I think your story shows you have a little envy for and jealousy of Chuck
    Close.

    ReplyDelete