This is the sad but funny story of how an insult develops into an almost a phenomenon. And nobody gives credit. Literally. "Anonymous"? Please read on.
Greg Allen is an individual related to the Arts based in New York City. He has a blog where he posts a bit about nothing. He is more interesting for his occasional articles in The New York Times, like the excellent feature he devoted to Dan Flavin and the conservation of his lights. He is also interesting for being a well-connected person, arrogant, vain, self-centered and just a "me me me my deeds my influence and my celebrity acquaintances" type of those the New York art world and its environments has. If you are not one of those types, he will not talk to you. That over-the-top silliness makes Greg Allen interesting.
One day, and another day and yet one more day he kept posting about The Gates project, Christo and Jeanne-Claude and their money, possessions and habits like only a paparazzo chasing Martha Stewart to publish the color of her underwear would do. It was frankly embarrassing, uninteresting, gossipy, vain, frivolous and similar adjectives. Think about it, how would you feel if a stalker goes around you asking if you pay your taxes, how did you afford your car, your house and rambles about it on a website? This is what Greg Allen did. Do Christo and Jeanne-Claude deserve being scrutinized and harassed like that? The “privacy” word does not apply to them because they are famous artists?
He hinted at fraud and tax-evasion when itemizing The Gates “expenses”, but his so-called estimates were conducted so poorly, incompletely and probably biased that I felt appalled and disgusted.
All in all, this deplorable and very poor attitude of this Allen person enraged me. So much that I decided to canalize my anger by ways of an “anonymous” e-mail. I pointed out his vacuity and waste of words, time and brains on pursuing every Christo and Jeanne-Claude movement to report the price tag. And I finished the e-mail by saying
“You ridiculous apprentice of nothing”.
I sent the e-mail under a name that coincides with an artist of the 60’s. He not only thought I was the real artist (gullible individual), but went on to create a series of t-shirts on the orangey Gates color with a single phrase on the chest: “apprentice of nothing”. The idea was funny, but outraging- here we have an insulted person that tries to cash on the cuss words sent to him. As amused as I was, I was also very frustrated; this Greg Allen person insists freakily in his web not to be “ripped off”, and yet he is the first to rip off other people!
I sent him an e-mail, still under that name that is the same of a certain artist, asking to withdraw the sale of t-shirts with MY words for HIS profit. He responded me (thinking I was famous and a sort of celebrity; if not, I would not have had a single line, he humbly talks only to the elites). He told me how much he admired my work and bah bah bah, and poo pooh and this and that about him, the artist he thought I was and the Christos and their interiorities.
By then, my “You Ridiculous Apprentice of Nothing” flag-phrase was making the hits on google and the blogs community. After a series of movements and e-mails, I exposed my identity, so he knew and knows my real name, this one displayed here prominently on this very blog. The real name of the creator of “You Ridiculous Apprentice of Nothing”. My name. My words.
But the story didn’t end here. Days later, just yesterday, The New York Times features an article written by Mike McIntire that goes on the same mission that occupied Greg Allen (and some other bored bloggers) for a while: finding the “real” price of The Gates project. After the first four paragraphs, it reads:
“A New York filmmaker who dared to dissect the $21 million figure on his Web site was savaged in an anonymous e-mail message, which included a suspiciously European-sounding putdown: "You ridiculous apprentice of nothing!"”
I was flabbergasted and shocked. So my now-infamous phrase had made it not on a blog or a crappy personal place but in The New York Times! And I was and am still anonymous for Greg Allen and his journalist friends. Whatever pieces this sneaky Greg Allen (always seeking more name and recognition for him) moved in The Times for having his story published, his personality and hobbies mentioned, his art collection, his early Christo, his past as a Wall Street man reported to the nation I ignore them, but something he definitely moved to get a whole bunch of name for his web, his person and his remarkably grand vanity.
Of course, my phrase was kept as “anonymous”, even though he already knew LeMieux-Ruibal had sent him the “You Ridiculous Apprentice of Nothing” e-mail under a name that he thought it was the one of an artist. So he cashed in the story as usual, and I was left as a “suspiciously European-sounding” anonymous communicator. “Suspiciously”? Does Mike McIntire think I am Christo himself!?
Greg Allen gets interviewed by his friend on The Times, saying no less than “but just because you’ve spent a lot of time and money on something doesn’t mean it’s very good”. (!) Oh really!? So? We’re talking privacy and solid art writing, not if The Gates are “very good”. Allen just wants some publicity. And he got it.
Daring reporter Mike McIntire runs into Christo in Central Park and asks him “how much, Christo, how much”. Christo is understandably pissed by this stupid violation of his privacy, and the reporter goes away feeling exactly like a damn
“apprentice of nothing”. (!)
So here I am looking like Michael Heizer interviewed by Michael Kimmelman in The Times, pathetically yelling “I did it first”, “those words are mine’, “I’m not anonymous”, “Greg Allen and Mike McIntire are truly real apprentices of nothing”.
At least, I unveil the truth of the famous phrase and its author. Next step will be copyrighting the words to avoid sneaky individuals like Greg Allen cashing and making a name off my words.
The whole world must know, hereby, that I, Bruno LeMieux-Ruibal, am the original, one and only creator of
“YOU RIDICULOUS APPRENTICE OF NOTHING”.
(Allen and company, please stop ripping me off, dammit)
