Because he’s decided against Santa Monica as a site for his modern art museum, Eli Broad may think that I’m squeezing sour grapes here. But Mr. Broad cannot and must not build his art mosque on the hallowed downtown ground he has selected.
You’ll say, “It’s not a mosque, it’s an art museum.” Fiddlesticks! Broad has paid millions to amass an impressive collection of art. Why? Because he more than admires the artists involved; he nearly worships them. So that makes the planned downtown Broad art facility much more than a “community center”, that’s for darn sure! It’s at least a church, and if I’m going to push some bassackwards unconstitutional notion through the zombie megaphone of corporate media, then you’re just going to have to go with me on the semantic stuff. So it’s a mosque, okay? Look, I’ve already sent this on to FOX News, and they totally agree with me with on this. So let’s get on board, kids.
For those of you that understandably don’t pay close attention to radical groups such as billionaires attempting to positively impact American culture and taste so that we might turn our heads away from “Family Guy” and go to an art exhibit… Broad was considering Santa Monica and downtown Los Angeles as possible locations for a new modern art museum housing his impressive collection. He had clear choices, and he has wrongly decided to offend downtown LA.
Offend? Yes. When I say to you “downtown Los Angeles”, what comes to mind? Proud Los Angeles traditions. Broad’s “museum” will be built only a few blocks away from our revered courtrooms, where celebrity murderers gather with their millionaire lawyers to seek justice. How dare they put an art museum so close to the gates of freedom that have set free modern folk heroes like Robert Blake and OJ Simpson. How does Mr. Broad rationalize placing a building full of intellectually stimulating material anywhere near the jails that almost kind-of held Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan? Does he believe for even one moment that his obsession with art somehow trumps our worship of no-talent doorknobs that can’t act their way out of misdemeanors?
If it’s freedom of religion you want to argue, Mr. Broad, I’m way ahead of you. Pick up any LA publication or turn-on one of our local TV affiliate “news” broadcasts. It will soon become clear to you what the people of Los Angeles want to be free to worship: Surgically altered faces and weekend box office numbers. And where are those faces deployed? Where are the films that make all that weekend B.O. (uh, box office) photographed? That’s right, downtown LA. Do you understand what I’m saying? On the sacred ground that provided settings for all those witty “Lethal Weapon” movies, you want to build your art mosque. Do you think that people coming from all over the world to visit the locations used in rib-tickling Martin Lawrence comedies want their view blocked by some big art warehouse?
And what about the role your facility will play later? Are you ready for what’s coming, Mr. Broad? Because I’ll bet you twenty that within two years of completion, your fancy-schmancy downtown museum will be used as a backdrop for a movie scene in which Iron Man wrestles with a computer-generated robot with flatulence. (Or maybe they both have flatulence; twice as funny) Outrageous? Do you know how many grown men have already read this essay and are right this minute on a cell phone pitching “Iron Man/robot/flatulence” like a mantra that will make the heavens rain cash?
And what of heaven, Mr. Broad? Have you given any thought to exactly how your selection of a downtown site honors… the Lord? I’m sure you could give me some smarty-pants spiel about the soul of man finding expression in the works in your collection. But come on! You know as well as I do that many of those art pieces strongly suggest that man evolved from apes and that some of them represent lust and passion outside the confines of one man/one woman marriage. Further, there are gay artists whose work is represented in your collection. Gay artists who intend to adopt babies just so those babies can stay in America and become “anchor artists.” And once those babies grow up, they will become tax-and-spend politicians who will drive America to bankruptcy with Obama Care while they happily create art of their own using human urine and elephant poop!
So let’s just get a hold of ourselves and consider the options. Yes, Mr. B, you’ve gone ahead and announced the decision to build your museum in downtown LA. But you could change your mind. Big important people change their minds all the time now and nobody ever goes after them. They run for governor, and then they quit that job after two years so they can sell books. They call for a higher moral ground and family values, and then announce that their teen daughter will have a baby out of wedlock. They read “all” the newspapers, but continue to make up words that don’t exist. And that’s just one of them, Mr. Broad. Trust me: No one will call you a hypocrite simply for changing your entire course of action. Those days are gone, bud. You can refudiate your decision to build in downtown LA… and come home to Santa Monica.
