{"id":7604,"date":"2015-09-07T23:57:53","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T06:57:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/?p=7604"},"modified":"2021-04-12T19:07:06","modified_gmt":"2021-04-13T02:07:06","slug":"i-did-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/i-did-not.html","title":{"rendered":"I Did Not"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n

\"The
The artist with his parents at Disneyland's Tomorrowland, 1959. "We're a happy family, me mom and daddy." Photographer unknown.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I did not start my American life at Disneyland
\nbut it was a close starting point
\nI was born September 7, 1953
\nDisneyland opened in California in 1955
\nmy parents took me there in 1959
\nI was six-years-old.<\/p>\n

That same year Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev
\nwas denied permission to visit Disneyland
\nI liked Tomorrowland
\nwhere I rode the look-alike U.S. Navy nuclear submarines
\nI liked the Rocket to the Moon ride with its space age astronauts
\nI did not like Mickey Mouse.<\/p>\n

\"The
The comedy album "The First Family," was one of the most popular records in the United States in 1962. A lighthearted parody of President Kennedy and his family, the album was recorded on the very evening that J.F.K. made his Cuban Missile Crisis speech. The album sold nearly eight million copies, more than the debut album of Peter, Paul, and Mary. I bought the album as soon as it was released, and in the above photo I am pictured listening to it on my portable record player. Photo by the artist's father, Joe Vallen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1963 at the age of ten
\nmy parents gave me a wooden palette box
\nwith oil paints and brushes
\nI painted a portrait of President Kennedy
\nright after he was cut down by an assassin
\nMy painting is lost, but I did not misplace
\nthe wooden palette box
\nI use it to store my paints today.<\/p>\n

In 1967 I was fourteen when
\nPresident Lyndon B. Johnson spoke
\nat L.A.’s ritzy Century Plaza Hotel
\noutside 10,000 people protesting the Vietnam war
\nchanted “Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”
\nthey were attacked by a phalanx of 1,300 club swinging LAPD officers<\/a>
\nI did not attend that protest, but it moved me just the same.<\/p>\n

It would be a short time later
\nthat I would attend my first political demonstration
\na massive protest against the Vietnam war
\nwhere thousands of people snaked their way down Wilshire Boulevard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"My
My father took this black & white Polaroid camera snapshot of my mother and I as we marched in the huge anti-Vietnam war demonstration that took place on L.A.'s Wilshire Boulevard in 1967. The placard carried behind us that reads "Bring the Troops Home," was the theme of the march. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1968 I was fifteen-years-old
\nThe Vietnam war was escalating
\nMartin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated
\nSo was Bobby Kennedy, at the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard
\nAt the Democratic Party National convention in Chicago
\npolice beat and tear gassed thousands of antiwar protestors
\nI did not go “Clean for Gene<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

When I was sixteen in 1969
\nI convinced my parents to donate food
\nto the Free Breakfast for Children program
\nrun by the LA chapter of the Black Panther Party
\nWe drove the family car full of food stuff
\nto the L.A. Panther headquarters at 41st and Central
\nA week later on December 8, 1969 the Panther H.Q.
\nwas raided by officers of the LAPD SWAT team<\/a>
\nThey dropped a bomb on the rooftop of the Panther H.Q.
\nIt was the first military operation by a SWAT team in the U.S.<\/p>\n

On August 29, 1970 I watched live TV coverage
\nof the Chicano Moratorium in East Los Angeles<\/a>
\n30,000 Mexican-Americans marched against the Vietnam war
\nThe L.A. County Sheriff’s Department attacked the people who
\ngathered in Laguna Park to listen to speeches
\nPolice gunfire killed four that day:
\nBrown Berets Jos\u00e9 Diaz and Lyn Ward
\na Jewish supporter of the movement named Gustav Montag
\nand L.A. Times reporter Rub\u00e9n Salazar
\nSalazar was shot in the head with a wall-piercing teargas canister
\nas he calmly sat in the Silver Dollar Bar and Caf\u00e9 on Whittier Blvd.
\nI was seventeen-years-old and my blood boiled.<\/p>\n

\"kfgjfhfhfjfjfj\"
Yours truly at eighteen years of age, standing on my home turf of Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, California, 1971. Photographer unknown.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"mfgmvmfvm\"
My first public art exhibit, an open-air display of pen drawings, watercolors, and collage. The art was displayed at a 1971 counterculture festival sponsored by the L.A. Free Press that took place in the San Fernando Valley. The art included tributes to Hippie, Native Americans, psychedelic rock, and the Black Panthers. I was eighteen at the time, and yes, I made the tie dye backdrops myself. Photo\/Mark Vallen \u00a9<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1971 I published my first street poster
\na pre-Watergate print titled “Evict Nixon<\/a>”
\nI did not vote for George McGovern
\nIn 1972 when traveling in Europe
\nTo avoid the condemning stares of an unapproving public
\nI hid my ponytail under my collar
\nAppropriately, I was standing in the Roman Coliseum
\nwhen I got the news that Richard Nixon had been re-elected
\nThe Italians were furious; I told them I was Canadian.<\/p>\n

In 1973, a U.S. backed fascist coup destroyed Chile’s democracy
\nsending shock waves around the world
\nA Chilean family friend told me the coup made her feel “secure”
\nI did not concur. I preferred Victor Jara<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"ffjfjfjfkgkfhdgsgf\"
"Self Portrait" - Mark Vallen. Pencil on paper. 1973 \u00a9<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At twenty-years-old I ate tofu, wheat germ, sprouts, and yogurt
\nbefore they could be found in mainstream grocery stores
\nThe fast food culture was driving me insane<\/a>,
\nI had a growing interest in T.Rex<\/a> and David Bowie<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 1975 the war in Vietnam finally ended
\nThe alternative culture flew apart
\nI was twenty-two-years-old
\nA new conformity began to rise
\nI did not think it would be long before another war started
\nIn 1976 I did not vote for Jimmy Carter.<\/p>\n

When I was twenty-four in 1977
\nI did not listen to the Bee Gees or the Eagles
\nTo provoke the condemning stares of an unapproving public
\nI writhed and frothed in the birth of LA’s
\n nihilistic punk rock scene<\/a>
\nmy hair whacked off and my clothes torn to shreds.<\/p>\n

\"gdgddfdfssgss\"
"Self Portrait" - Photo\/Mark Vallen Feb. 1983 \u00a9 Punk rock portrait on Sunset Blvd near L.A.'s infamous Whisky a Go Go.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By 1984 Orwell’s words had already come true
\nI made art against the policies of President Ronald Reagan<\/a>
\nI feared the world would end in a nuclear holocaust
\nI did not vote for Walter Mondale.<\/p>\n

In 1985 I created the silkscreen print, Free South Africa<\/a><\/em>
\na poster created to support the anti-apartheid movement
\nI worked with UCLA students that demanded the
\n university divest its funds<\/a> from apartheid South Africa.
\nDespite the “Reagan Revolution”
\nI did not vote for Michael Dukakis in 1988.<\/p>\n

I was thirty-eight in 1991
\nI made art against President George H.W. Bush’s Gulf War<\/a>
\nI became a vegetarian
\nIn 1992 I did not vote for Bill Clinton
\nAnd with the indigenous people of the Western hemisphere
\nI condemned 500 years of colonialism in the Americas.<\/p>\n

In 1996 I was forty-three-years-old
\nI worked at a top advertising agency
\nI offered to build the company’s website,
\nsaying the internet was the wave of the future
\nThe CEOs told me the internet was a “passing fad”
\nThere was no future for me in the 9 to 5 world
\nI did not vote for Clinton’s re-election.<\/p>\n

I was forty-five-years-old in 1999
\nIn the spring of that year, I made art against
\nthe war President Clinton waged on Yugoslavia<\/a>
\nI liked the film Wag the Dog<\/a><\/em>
\nand was amused by “The Billionaires for Bush or Gore<\/a>”
\nI did not vote for Al Gore
\nIn 2000 my chad was not hanging.<\/p>\n

My grief was not a cry for war<\/a> in 2001
\nI made art against the war in Iraq
\nIn 2003 I joined 100,000 anti-war protesters
\non the star studded Hollywood Blvd Walk of Fame
\ndistributing my artwork Not Our Children, Not Their Children<\/a><\/em>
\nI did not vote for John Kerry in 2004, the former “anti-war” activist
\nknown in the UK as “The Haunted Tree”.<\/p>\n

\"nfdjfjhdhdh\"
I am pictured standing before a John Heartfield reproduction at the 2006 J. Paul Getty Museum exhibit, "Agitated Images: John Heartfield and German Photomontage." Photo\/Jeannine Thorpe 2006 \u00a9<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 2008, friends and associates asked me
\nto create and exhibit artworks to support
\nthe presidential campaign of Senator Obama
\nI declined, and I did not vote for Obama
\nbut dared not publicly say so until now.<\/p>\n

I was fifty-eight-years-old in 2011 when President Obama
\nwithout Congressional approval, began a war against Libya
\nAntiwar activists said the war would being democracy to Libya
\nI lost friends because I thought the war illegal & unwise
\nToday Libya is overrun by al Qaeda affiliates and ISIS<\/p>\n

In 2012 I attended the first day of Occupy Los Angeles
\nthen got back on the subway and went home
\nThe movement coined the phrase “We Are the 99%”
\nbut in L.A. it degenerated into a squabble about
\ncamping on the lawn of City Hall. Another missed opportunity
\nI did not vote for Obama’s re-election.<\/p>\n

I will be sixty-two on September 7, 2015
\nI make no apologies for my life thus far
\nI am the most un-Baby Boomer person in existence
\nborn between the execution of the Rosenbergs
\nand the premiere of the radioactive monster-movie, Godzilla
\nGiven my crown of thorns in the punk rock summer of hate in 1977
\nThis is not a nostalgic poem
\nall of this and more made me what I am.<\/p>\n

\"goggkfdgdgdshs\"
Yours truly at sixty-two years of age, still standing on Ventura Boulevard, but it is now an "upscale" street awash with corporate logos. Photo\/Jeannine Thorpe 2015 \u00a9 <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m still clawing my way to the bottom,
\nas an artist and a counterculturalist
\nbecause “radical” means “the roots”
\nSometimes saying “no” is not a negative but a positive.
\nJust think of what I will be writing about after
\nthe lyrics to the Beatles’ song When I’m Sixty-Four<\/em>
\nactually fully apply to me.<\/p>\n

All this started for me years ago
\nwhen people were optimistic enough
\nto work at creating a new world
\nWhile that optimism has lapsed for many
\nthe need continues to be great
\nThis is what inspires me to create my art
\nto transform horrible circumstances into a world at last livable.
\nSo dear reader, I am not a cynic after all
\nI did not think that at this late date
\nI would still be saying
\n“be more than a witness.”<\/p>\n

— \/\/ —<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>All photos and text are the property of artist Mark Vallen \u00a9<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I did not start my American life at Disneyland but it was a close starting point I was born September 7, 1953 Disneyland opened in California in 1955 my parents took me there in 1959 I was six-years-old. That same year Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was denied permission to visit Disneyland I liked Tomorrowland where I rode the look-alike U.S….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-activism"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/art-for-a-change.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}