What's So Funny? The horse-cock of the beholder

The summer before my senior year of college, I had an internship with 20/20 in New York City. This was back in the day when Connie Chung was on the team, and the highlights of my internship were the times when Connie’s secretary would have to run out and I would get to man the desk—because that’s when Maury Povich would call.

“Connie Chung’s desk, how may I help you?” I would beam, picking up after one ring.

“It’s Maury. Is Connie in?”

“Maury!” I’d yell excitedly. “How the hell are you, man? Hey, what’s the topic of your show today?”

“I don’t really have time to get into it. Just put me through to Connie, please.”

“You got it, Maury!” I’d schmooze. “Whatever the topic is, I’m sure it’s going to be great! I’ll patch you right through, Maury! Thanks Maury! Just a second, Maury!”

It amused me endlessly to try to keep Povich on the line for as long as possible, though I doubt it was as enjoyable of an experience for him. I pictured him taking out his frustration at being strung along on the phone by sucker-punching some deadbeat dad backstage at his show, calling him a bitch for refusing a paternity test. Eventually 20/20 stopped letting me sub for Connie’s secretary. As for Connie, well, she never even got my name right.

“Good morning, Connie,” I said to her in the elevator one day. “How are you?”

“I’m very well, Jason!” she responded. “How are you?”

Jason! I never corrected her. I just let her call me Jason all summer. Also endlessly amusing. 

The other highlight of my internship was living in New York. Heat and humidity be damned—summer in the city was a ball for me, and I had an amazing apartment on LaGuardia Street between Bleecker and Houston, right in the heart of the East Village. So amazing was my pad that many of my friends from my East Coast college would visit me—and, seeing as we had all recently turned 21, we would drink our faces off. Consequently, one night I found myself several 40s deep on the fire escape with my friend Alex, loudly pontificating that I could hit a giant statue about a half block away with an empty 40 bottle. It was late, the streets were dead, and I have always had impeccable aim. 

“Adam,” he said, trying to soothe me. “Do you not remember almost getting expelled from school, not even a year ago, for vandalism?”

I did, in fact, remember. Alex was able to pry the bottle from my hand before we both passed out. The next morning we walked by the same statue I’d been sizing up the night before. It was a Picasso. I’d nearly drunkenly whipped an empty 40 at a Picasso statue in New York City. It’s just like Frank Sinatra once famously sang about New York: “It has really dope public art.”

The public art in Denver, on the other hand, blows harder than fresh fish at Shawshank. Whereas in New York you can breeze by a Picasso completely unawares, in Denver you’re either assaulted by asexual, alien ballerinas or baffled by a horse on a chair outside the downtown library. It’s a tradeoff, I suppose. NYC gets the art; we get the backyards and parking.

Despite its many public-art failures, Denver keeps trying. Too bad our latest showpiece, Luis Jiménez’s Blue Mustang at Denver International Airport, has created a firestorm of controversy rather than admiration. You might not know Jiménez’s name—although he’ll go down in history as the unlucky guy who died after part of Mustang fell on him and killed him during its sculpting—but you know his lethal statue. It’s the 32-foot-high steed with glowing eyes and huge cock-and-balls that either entices or repels all who gaze upon it, depending on their past experiences at Tijuana sex shows.

People had their opinions about Mustang when it was erected last year, but things really heated up when local real-estate agent Rachel Hultin recently got bored at work and created a Facebook page urging the city to get rid of the statue. Pretty soon, though, Hultin had to change her Facebook status to “it’s complicated” because all of a sudden everyone wanted to hop on Mustang. The Wall Street Journal wrote a piece about it. The New York Times got involved. Bono was overheard at a pub discussing the fate of public art while weeping—fucking weeping—into his Guinness then heading home to record a tribute track.

Hultin struck a nerve. But since launching her online campaign she’s learned, along with the rest of us, that the city grants a five-year trial period to public art, and thus Mustang can’t be immediately removed. But she also learned that maybe, just maybe, art is as much about provoking discussion as it is about aesthetics. All of Denver is now pondering that giant-cocked stallion of the plains: what it means to the landscape, what it says about us, what it does to the horrified children who pass by it on their way to the airport.

See, look, even I’m thinking about it. I’m thinking that any statue that kills its creator is instantly pretty badass. I’m thinking it’s a shame that Denver, unlike New York, doesn’t have lots of subtle public art that blends into its city. But I’m also thinking it’s good that we keep trying. But mostly I’m thinking that the next time I’m drunk, and someone's willing to drive me down Pena Boulevard, I could definitely hit that blue fucker with a 40 bottle.