Neighbors Saving Byrd Park

From my latest rant about the proposed Go Ape ropes course project aimed at Byrd Park:

Gathering the story of why City Hall is considering the installation of a “ropes course” in Byrd Park has been something like trying to lasso a smoke ring. The only person who seemed to be able/willing to answer questions about the proposed project, J.R. Pope, no longer works for the City of Richmond.

But we have other sources. On Fri., Nov. 12, between 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., Richmond’s then-Director of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities, J.R. Pope, was at a meeting in the Marshall Plaza Building at 900 E. Marshall St. The initiator of the meeting, Marty Jewell (5th District Councilman), was also there.

Click here to read "Anywhere But Byrd Park."

Sunlight or radioactive glow?

Oops!

Is Wikileaks welcome sunlight onto secrets that matter? Or, is it just another radioactive glow?

Ropes Course? City Stays Mum

Interested in the controversial ropes course project the City of Richmond has been studying for installation in the last untamed section of Byrd Park?

Here are some links that will tell you something about it (some of the stories have more links for additional background).

"Go Ape bringing a ropes course to Byrd Park," RVANews (10/7/10), click here.

"Proposed ropes course would offer above group adventure at Byrd Park," Richmond Times-Dispatch (10/8/10), click here.

"Save Byrd Park" at the Fan District Hub (11/10/10), click here.

"Ropes Course Good for Byrd Park?" at Richmond.com (11/16/10), click here.

To visit the Byrd Park community blog, which has several posts (some with numerous comments) on the ropes course issue, click here.

To visit the Facebook page for Save Byrd Park (and join up if you like), click here.

Meanwhile, the postponed meeting to discuss this issue the City of Richmond had scheduled for Nov. 18 (6:30 p.m.) at the Carillon has not been rescheduled. The status of the Go Ape ropes course project remains in limbo, as no one who works for The City -- since J.R. Pope's sudden departure from Rec and Parks -- seems to know anything about the ropes course.

At least, they're not talking.

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Update (11/24/10): Fifth District Councilman Marty Jewell was good enough to talk with me on the phone this morning. Jewell characterized the ropes course project as, "a ludicrous idea, from start to finish." And, he had quite a bit more to say. Thus, I'm writing a new piece on this brouhaha right now. Stay tuned.

Williams: VCU president a keeper or a clunker?

The video above is the Richmond Times-Dispatch's columnist Michael Paul Williams' rant on the Rao row at VCU. Is Michael Rao, the man VCU hired last year to follow Eugene Trani as president of the university, already on his way out?

Click here to read the rather strange "confidentiality agreement" Rao wants his underlings to sign.

City official J.R. Pope fired!

J.R. Pope, who headed up the City's Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Development for the last five years, has just been removed from his post in what has the appearance of a forced resignation.

Read about this sudden change in personnel at City Hall here.

At this point it’s unclear how this news will impact this Thursday’s (6:30 p.m. at the Carillon) meeting with City officials to discuss the ropes course project being considered for Byrd Park. Pope was a major booster for the Go Ape ropes course plan.

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Updates:

• A new piece I penned about the Go Ape ropes course controversy, which Pope was at the heart of, is up at Richmond.com. Click here to read "Ropes Course Good for Byrd Park?"
• Click here to read Chris Dovi's report on the Pope story at his Richmond Magazine blog.
• From the City of Richmond: Due to internal changes, the public meeting scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 18, at the Carillon on the proposed Go Ape ropes course for Byrd Park has been postponed. A new date and time will be announced when it becomes available.

Who will save Byrd Park?

From "Save Byrd Park" at the Fan District Hub:

The City of Richmond is close to forming a partnership of a sort with Go Ape (of Maryland) to install a high-flying ropes course in the dense woods behind Dogwood Dell in Byrd Park. The course will be built and maintained under Go Ape’s hopefully watchful eye. Once completed, the concept will have people paying money to swing through trees and so forth.

Below are excerpts from comments posted by The Hub's readers:

• The area at risk is a forest treasure...

• ...Go Ape is a private company. They should put their course on private land instead. The city should not take the park away from the public and allow the Go Ape owners to make a profit at the expense of the citizens of Richmond.

• This is a public park for all of us to enjoy. I can’t understand why the city would allow a private company to permanently alter and destroy what is there, to build something that only a limited number of the population would be able to use...
  

Click here to read the entire piece with links for background and comments from readers.

Next Thursday, Nov. 18, at 6:30 p.m., there will be a public meeting at the Carillon. This may be the only public meeting because the project's planners want to install the ropes course this winter. The ropes course developer, Go Ape, will be there to make a presentation and answer some follow-up questions from the audience.

City of Richmond officials will be there, as well. Maybe they will answer questions, but I wouldn't bet on it. Some of Byrd Park's neighbors and others who want to save Byrd Park's last naturally wooded acres from going ape will be there to ask some questions.

Click here to visit Save Byrd Park's Facebook page.

Republican Tea Party Caucus agenda

As with the aftermath of all elections, if you don't tear yourself away from the churning political news you will be inundated with analysis. This year the pundits are telling their audiences about what the new Tea Party Republicans want. They’re explaining what the Independents who voted Republican want. We’re hearing about the direction in which the lawmakers are heading and so forth.

Me? I can take only so much of that stuff. On the other hand, when you get the real inside story, instead of spin, that can be fascinating.

Over the 26 years I’ve been writing commentary on politics and popular culture, I’ve had various characters approach me with stories they wanted told, but they needed to be left out of it. Some were clearly whistle-blowers, others had more complicated agendas. Some were righteous, others were more mischievous. In every case I have stuck to a policy of not revealing the identity of such a source.

So, dear reader, I can’t tell you who my source is this time, either. I did get permission from this self-styled whistle-blower to say that he or she may have been an official within the Virginia Republican Party at one time. Although this year my secret source became disgruntled and was not directly involved in party politics, he or she remains in touch with the guys who call the shots.

From here on this source will be called Sore Throat. What follows are five strategies from a supposedly longer list detailing what the Republican Tea Party Caucus will demand be made into new laws and new programs.

Sore Throat sat across from me in a Museum District watering hole and told me to write down what he or she said. He or she then unfolded a piece of paper and read from it. Afterward, Sore Throat ate the paper like a film noir spy. Then he or she bought us another round of beer.

Here’s what I wrote down:

In order to create jobs, cut taxes and pay off the deficit, certain laws must be written and passed by Congress next year. Certain new government-shrinking programs must be created by Congress. In the first 100 days of 2011 the Republican Party must put the following 20 ideas on the table. With no compromising, before the year is over they must all become the law of the land:

1. English must be declared the official language of the USA. No taxpayers’ dollars can be spent on signs written in any language other than English. The teaching of any foreign language in public schools must end. Subtitles in all foreign films must be eliminated. The wearing of scary hats in which bombs could be hidden, such as fezzes or turbans, can only be allowed behind closed doors on private property.

2. The Indentured Servant program, which helped to build this nation into the greatest in all of Earth's 10,000 years of existence, should be revived. This time-honored program would be used to give illegals without a criminal record a path to citizenship. The number of years an illegal must be indentured would depend on their native country. Without discrimination, any bona fide citizen would be eligible to bid online on the annual contract of any servant. The revenue from the auctions would be earmarked to go directly toward paying off the national debt.

3. To eliminate frivolous lawsuits and stimulate the economy the cap for any valid corporation’s liability exposure must be set nationwide at $19.95.

4. To save time, and time is money, extra points must be eliminated from football games at every level.

5. In order to avoid impeachment by proving he is an American citizen -- and therefore eligible to be president -- President Barrack Obama must bring his birth certificate to a joint session of Congress and pass it around for inspection by all members requesting an up-close look at it.

Sore Throat said the rest of the Republican Tea Party Caucus list of top priorities will be revealed to me in a similar manner soon. Then he or she stood up and said, “These bozos want to plant Cheerios to grow doughnut trees!”

Sore Throat promptly disappeared into the night. No, I can't yet verify anything my source said. However, if there's any truth to his or her claims, next year promises to be a bumpy ride inside the beltway.

Let the GOP explain why

If President Barack Obama totally caves to the yammering Republicans on the extension of Bush tax cuts issue, and gives them everything they want, he may never recover the ground he would sacrifice in the process. In a nutshell, he will look like an absolute wuss.

Without an agreement of some kind in Congress the tax cuts will expire for everyone. So, in a brutal sense, time is on Obama's side. Obama, the good poker player, must calmly wait for the Republicans to recover from their victory party hangovers and offer the Democrats a compromise worth considering. After all, this is a showdown he has known was coming for a long time.

Moreover, this is precisely the perfect time for the president to demonstrate the bottom line veto power of the presidency and play some whoever-blinks-first hardball politics. Either it's a meet-in-the-middle compromise about this dollars and good sense issue, or the time just expires.

Obama can't cave on this one -- scared money never wins. If the time runs out, let the GOP explain why it allowed taxes to go up for 98 percent of the people.

-- Words and art by F.T. Rea

Five Favorite Prison Movies

At the James River Film Journal last week's list of five favorites was about doing the crime -- Film Noir. This week it's about doing the time -- Prison Movies.

While you're there the JRFJ has plenty of other, more legit film buff commentary to read, too.

Holmberg on handbills

Please click here to see a video report from Mark Holmberg on handbills/signs. It was shot on the 900 block of West Grace Street last night. Spoiler: Yes, a (nearly reformed) handbill-posting geezer is in the picture.

Questions about Ropes Course in Byrd Pk.

Today children who live near Byrd Park -- or near Carytown, or in the Museum District, or in the Fan District -- are a few minutes bike ride from an undisturbed, naturally wooded area in which to play and learn. They can walk through the quiet woods and see the animals that call that part of town home. Soon, that may be changing.

And, now some questions:

While the public -- including Carillon/Byrd Park area residents -- first learned of the project last month from a newspaper article, is it true that City of Richmond officials have been working with Go Ape for almost a year on developing a ropes adventure course in Byrd Park?

Who initiated the contact between The City and Go Ape that has had them working together behind closed doors? City officials? Go Ape? Or a go-between?

With Mayor Dwight Jones talking about allowing sunlight into how his administration operates, why has the public been kept in the dark as the plans solidified?

Why does The City want this project to be shoehorned into the only passive natural area left in Byrd Park? Who decided this project would be better suited in undeveloped public land in the middle of town, rather than in a county or state park, or on private land?

If there are over a hundred zip line courses now operating in the USA, why is Richmond seemingly committed to Go Ape, a British company?

What has The City done to evaluate other ropes theme parks in America to see how many are on private land verses public land, and how those arrangements have worked, so far?

Note: Apparently, Go Ape will form/has formed a separate company to conduct its business here. That company, Adventure Forest, LLC, will be/is a limited liability entity, putting only its assets in the USA at risk. On top of that, Adventure Forest might not be responsible for construction liability, because another company, Altus Outdoor Concept (from France), would actually build the ropes course.

So, if there is a terrible accident, who would the City of Richmond expect to have enough liability insurance to pay damages, so it would not have to pony up? Would it be Adventure Forest, LLC, in the USA? Go Ape in Britain? Altus Outdoor Concept in France?

Should there be a catastrophic accident, who really thinks a competent personal injury lawyer working for one of the injured parties would not name all of those players as defendants -- including the City of Richmond, with its deep pockets -- in a law suit?

With the ropes adventure course installed in the Byrd Park, other than a huge liability potential, what will Richmonders have gained? What will they have lost?

-- 30 --

Thank You, Masked Man

At the Biograph Theatre we had our own 16 mm print of this classic Lenny Bruce short subject.

1968: Political upheaval like no year since

In an interview (Oct. 19, 2010) televised on MSNBC author (“Eighteen Acres”) Nicolle Wallace said, “If 2008 was about change, this year is about upheaval.”

Wallace, a former Bush White House communications director, makes a good point. But in spite of how much noise has been made by the Tea Party activists and other players this year, 2010 has been smooth sailing compared to 1968.

The events of 1968 unfolded the year after San Francisco’s Summer of Love. It was the year before American astronauts walked on the moon and the Amazing Mets won the World Series. Here’s some of how the political news played out that year, as I remember it:

Jan. 23: The USS Pueblo was seized on the high seas by North Korean forces. Subsequently, as captives, its 83 men endured an ordeal that was shocking to an American public that had naively thought its country was too strong for such a thing to happen.

Jan. 30: The Tet Offensive began, as the shadowy Viet Cong flexed its muscles and blurred battle lines with simultaneous assaults taking place in many parts of South Vietnam. Even the American embassy in Saigon was attacked/penetrated.

Mar. 31: Facing the burgeoning antiwar-driven campaigns of Sen. Eugene McCarthy and Sen. Robert Kennedy, President Lyndon Johnson suddenly withdrew from the presidential race, declining to run for reelection by saying, “I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination...”

Apr. 5: America’s most respected civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, was shot and killed in Memphis. Riots followed in cities coast-to-coast. The bitterness that remained after the dust settled was scary. In Richmond, it ended an era. Young adventurous whites who followed music could no longer go in the black clubs they had once patronized.

May 13: The USA and North Vietnam began a series of negotiations to end the war in Vietnam that came to be known as the Paris Peace Talks. Ironically, as a backdrop, France itself was in chaos. Workers and students had shut down much of the country with a series of strikes. The trains weren’t running, airports were closed, as were schools, etc. (Sound familiar?)

May 24: Father Philip Berrigan and Thomas Lewis (of Artists Concerned About Vietnam) got six years for destroying federal property by pouring duck blood over draft files at Baltimore’s Selective Service headquarters.

June 5: Having just won the California primary Robert Kennedy was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan in Los Angeles. The hopes of millions that the Vietnam War would end soon died that night, since it’s hard to imagine that Richard Nixon would have been able to defeat Kennedy in the general election. Just as JFK’s death in 1963 had played into the radical escalation of the war in Vietnam, in 1968 RFK’s death meant it would go on for several more years.

June 8: James Earl Ray was arrested in London. Eventually, he was convicted of murdering Martin Luther King. Yet, questions about that crime still linger today.

Aug. 21: Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia to crush what had been a season of renaissance. As it had been with the construction of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis, talk of World War III being one button-push away was commonplace.

Aug 28: In Chicago the Democratic convention that selected Vice President Hubert Humphrey to top its ticket melted down. With tear gas in the air and blood in the streets 178 demonstrators/bystanders were arrested. Many were roughed up on live television. As cops clubbed citizens in the streets, CBS reporters Mike Wallace and Dan Rather were punched on the convention floor.

Antiwar Democrats were greatly disillusioned. It seemed to many of them there was no reason to vote at all. At this point, it really seemed to me the civilized world was coming apart.

Nov. 5: Richard Nixon (depicted above) narrowly defeated Hubert Humphrey. Although Humphrey himself was for peace, out of loyalty he refused to denounce Johnson’s failing war policy; it cost him dearly. Also elected that day was Shirley Chisholm from Brooklyn. She was the first black female to serve in the House of Representatives.

Dec. 24: After having its way with them for 11 months, North Korea released the 83 members of the Pueblo’s crew. The U.S. Navy had to just suck up the humiliation.

Nixon escalated the war and it dragged on for years. Many people my age now believe that thousands died because Nixon won instead of Humphrey. Eventually the utterly corrupt Nixon White House gave us the bewildering series of scandals that led to his forced resignation in 1974.

It matters who wins elections. Maybe some of the ghosts of those who died in the undeclared wars the United States prosecuted -- by choice -- over the last 50 years, will speak to you about that vital topic … if you will listen.

Via cable television news channels, vociferous Tea Party opportunists and crackpots have been telling us how bad it is with President Barack Obama in the White House. They would have you to believe that life in America has never been as bad as it is in 2010. If you tell them they should try reading some history about the Great Depression, the Jim Crow Era, WWII, the blacklisting days in the 1950s, etc., they will call you an “elite.”

For those readers who are put off by being called an “elite” by obstreperous, self-styled patriots who wear their ignorance like badges of courage, the answer is to encourage everyone they know who Tea Party propagandists would probably call an “elite” to vote early, and vote often.

-- Art and words by F.T. Rea

Apologies Upon Demand

Now we have Ginni Thomas, the Tea Party activist who's married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, demanding an apology from Anita Hill. Reportedly, Thomas has said she was extending an "olive branch" with her out-of-the-blue phone call to Hill. What she didn't mention was that she tried to poke Professor Hill in the eye with that olive branch.

As absurd as Thomas' demand might seem, she's just one more political player insisting on an immediate apology. These days, stories about impatient demands for apologies from the deeply offended are an every day thing. It seems the surest way to create a news event out of thin air is to puff yourself up with blustery indignation and call upon a politician to apologize.

Typically, a planted outrage story goes through its predictable cycle, which usually plays out something like this:

The Demander: Sir, I demand an apology. When you said, “War is hell,” you demeaned every single young American in uniform today, particularly those serving on the battlefields of this nation’s War on Terror. You were saying they’ve gone to hell, which is to say they do not deserve to go to heaven. Who are you to judge?

The Offender: What in heaven’s name are you talking about? “War is hell,” is a quote from General William Tecumseh Sherman.

The Demander: That’s your opinion.

The Offender: OK. I regret accidentally offending anyone who agrees with you, if it is true that offense was taken.

The Demander: If? I demand you apologize for issuing an insulting apology, and I also call upon you to apologize to Maria Shriver and Caroline Kennedy.

The Offender: What have they got to do with this?

The Demander: When you say “war is hell” it has to remind them of the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, because that was the title of the war movie he slipped into a Dallas theater to see, after he alone shot President Kennedy. Why do you hate poor Maria and the rest of the Kennedy family?

The Offender: How about I just hate Arnold Schwarzenegger’s movies?

The Demander: Your un-apology apologies reek of sarcasm. I demand a full and unqualified apology, immediately. And your elitist opinions about movies are only making it worse.

The Offender: Does saying “war is heck” make it any better?

The Demander: The hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers” should convince you that saying war is hell, while we are engaged in righteous war against heathen terrorists, is tantamount to blasphemous treason.

The Offender: The First Amendment says you can't put blasphemy and treason in the same sentence. How about I put it this way: “War is so dangerous it can be hell-like?”

The Demander: You’d only be emboldening the enemy.

The Offender: To hell with the enemy!

The Demander: Better, now we're getting somewhere.

O'Donnell: Separation of church and state not in First Amendment

Today Republican Christine O'Donnell and her Democratic opponent, Chris Coons, debated at Widener University Law School in Delaware. The debate was carried live on radio by WDEL-AM.

During the debate O'Donnell called for teaching Creationism/Intelligent Design in public schools. Coons said that would be unconstitutional because it would violate the separation of church and state. O'Donnell then shocked the roomful of lawyers and law students when she questioned (several times) whether the First Amendment of the Constitution calls for the separation of church and state.

Don't believe me? Watch the video above. Click here to read more in the Washington Post about this bizarre episode.

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Update (4 p.m., same day): O'Donnell is a litmus test for your Republican friends. From here on you'll know it's a flat waste of time talking politics with anybody who can ignore all the crazy stuff and go on saying she really ought to be in the Senate for six years. Look at it this way: they're either so cynical it would make a goat puke, or they're dumb as a post.

Yankee Doodle at the Tea Party

The main character in this story, which is fiction, is a 33-year-old man who lives in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. He normally works at least 50 hours a week, although he only gets paid for 40 hours. He works in a warehouse-like building full of audio visual equipment, which he delivers to clients who rent it for big trade shows and conventions; he also works on the crews that set up and tear down the gadgetry. He is one of 21 fulltime employees at the local branch of an AV rental company that has similar branches in seven other cities along the East Coast. He lives in a two-and-a-half room apartment, not counting the tiny bathroom. He has a satellite dish and watches a lot of sports. He is divorced. He makes good on his monthly child support payments over half the time to his ex, who has custody of their seven-year-old daughter; the softhearted ex gives him a hard time but she lets him get away with it. He smokes a pack of Camel Filters every day. He drinks a six pack of Bud Light Lime every night. His name is Josh.

The two men who own the company that employs Josh are millionaires, several times over. Josh admires them even though neither seems to know his first name; one of the owners has never spoken to him in the nearly four years he‘s been on the job.

Like his successful bosses, Josh considers himself a conservative, when it comes to politics. Also like them, Josh’s two favorite sports teams are the New York Yankees and the Dallas Cowboys.

In the company trucks on the road, in the process of driving AV equipment back and forth, Josh likes to daydream about being a wealthy man. He thinks about what sort of cars and boats he’d have. He thinks about traveling and staying in fancy hotels. He thinks about watching Super Bowls from inside private luxury boxes. He thinks about drinking expensive Tequila. He thinks about having a beautiful redheaded secretary who travels with him and services his account on a regular basis. He thinks about what cigars he’d smoke. He thinks about wearing a Rolex watch and shoes imported from Italy. He thinks about playing golf on the world’s most famous courses and hobnobbing with the other wealthy men. He thinks about not having to work. Josh can see it all in his mind’s eye.

When he’s not imagining how he’d spend his fortune -- if he had one -- Josh listens to talk radio; politics and sports, mostly. He’s a big fan of Rush Limbaugh and Jim Rome. Although he's not religious, Josh likes televangelist Glenn Beck, too. Those well-to-do men are good at saying what Josh likes to hear, because he's a Yankee Doodle Dandy kind of guy who loves his country and hates trade unions, although he‘s never been a member of a union.

This year Josh is a Tea Party kind of guy, too.

In his Oct. 2 OpEd for the New York Times Frank Rich wrote: "[Christine O'Donnell] gives populist cover to the billionaires and corporate interests that have been steadily annexing the Tea Party movement and busily plotting to cash in their chips if the G.O.P. prevails."

Josh hasn’t ever read what Frank Rich has to say about politics and he‘s not about to start now. He heard Rush call Frank Rich a “Dem Flack,” so Josh doesn‘t care that Rich says the Joshes of the Tea Party movement are dupes who don‘t even know where their bread is buttered. Josh is against taxes and he thinks Christine O‘Donnell is sassy.

Josh wants the Bush tax cuts for millionaires to continue. Not only does he believe in the whimsical trickle-down notion that the super wealthy need tax cuts to create more jobs like his, Josh expects to be a multimillionaire, himself, one day. Josh doesn’t believe in ivory tower theories like evolution, global warming or the national deficit.

Josh wants America to leave the United Nations tomorrow. Josh also believes it would be a good idea to nuke Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan all on the same day. Josh’s favorite movie is “The Godfather.” He loved how Michael Corleone had all of his family’s enemies wiped out in one doomsday of payback. So, Josh would be happy to include Somalia, with its pirates, on the to-be-nuked list. Angry Josh is too conservative to enjoy Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Josh would also be happy to deport every undocumented worker in one day to create jobs for real Americans. Logistics don't concern him. The next day he would close every mosque in the USA and deport every Muslim who isn‘t a U.S. citizen, born in America. Therefore, Josh believes President Barack Obama should be removed from office and sent to Kenya.

To win Josh’s vote, senate hopeful Christine O'Donnell proudly flaunts her angry ignorance as a sign she is more like him than her opponent and her elite detractors. It gets worse.

Josh hates elites almost as much as he hates ethnics with funny accents, gay men and unattractive lesbians. He has no opinion about witches. Although he disagrees with O’Donnell about masturbation, she will get his vote. In fact, Josh particularly enjoys masturbating when he's watching Christine on television.

While all of the above is fiction, nonetheless, it appears there are plenty of Joshes out there, dwelling on fantasies with Election Day approaching. Will these self-styled patriots vote in large numbers? Or will they be too occupied with holding their Bud Lite Limes in one hand and yanking their doodles with the other?

The End.

Five Favorite Directors

My Thursday gig at the James River Film Journal has me making lists of favorite movies. This time it’s favorite directors. Click here to read the post on my five favorites and some of their best movies.

While you're at the web site there are several other recent posts. Unlike my tendency to dredge up old movies for my lists, the other writers at the JRFJ write about the work of contemporary filmmakers.

Art: What It Is

Jerry Donato (1941-2010) in the Texas Wisconsin Border Cafe (circa 1985)

In a Richmond, Virginia courtroom in November of 1982 I witnessed an entertaining scene in which an age-old question — what is art? — was hashed out in front of a patient judge named Jose R. Davila. The judge seemed to thoroughly enjoy the parade of exhibits and witnesses the defense attorneys put before him. The room was packed with observers, which included plenty of gypsy musicians, film buffs and art students wearing paint-speckled dungarees.

The defendant in this freedom of speech case was this story’s teller.

When I got charged with a misdemeanor for posting a handbill I had designed that promoted the premiere of a new feature, “Atomic Cafe,” it was a bust I deliberately provoked. At that time I was determined to beat the City of Richmond with a freedom-of-speech defense and knock out the statute prohibiting the posting of flyers on utility poles.

The little poster had been stapled to a pole near the Virginia Commonwealth University campus. Rather than pay the small fine for breaking The City’s law forbidding such advertising in the public way, as the Biograph’s manager, I opted for a day in court. My defense attorneys, Jack Coaln and Stuart Kaplan -- who were also my good friends -- attacked the wording of the statute as “overreaching.”

They asserted on my behalf that it was my right to post the handbill, plus the public had a right to see it. The prosecution called the handbill “litter.”

Beyond the wording of the statute it was easy enough to see the real push behind The City’s crackdown on posting handbills in the Fan District was coming mostly from people who didn’t want rock ‘n’ roll, or alternative cinema, or all sorts of activities close to where they were living.

Thus, my day in court was one little battle in what had been an ongoing culture war in the Fan District in that era. Some of the Fan’s property owners wanted to get rid of much of the commercial activity in the densely populated neighborhood, especially the restaurants/bars.

The expert witnesses/friends who testified to support my case were David Manning White, Phil Trumbo and Jerry Donato. White had been the chairman of VCU's mass communications department. Trumbo was the best known handbill artist in the Fan. Donato was a painting and printmaking professor at VCU.

We also entered into evidence 100 cool handbills by a variety of artists. We contended that when such flyers appeared on key utility poles, in certain shop windows and on selected bulletin boards, they constituted an information system. We said that an aspect of the citizenry didn’t always trust the mainstream media, especially the daily newspapers, so it frequently relied on information delivered by posters made by people they knew.

The judge was reminded that history-wise, handbills predate newspapers. Furthermore, we asserted that the eight-and-a-half-by-eleven, cheaply printed posters were art — a natural byproduct of having a university with a burgeoning art school in the neighborhood.

At a crucial moment, Donato was being grilled by the prosecutor over just where to draw the line between what should be, and what should not be, considered to be genuine art. The Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney, William B. Bray, asked the witness if the humble piece of paper in his hand, the offending handbill, could actually be “art.”

“Probably,” shrugged the prof. “Why not?”

The stubborn prosecutor grumbled, reasserting that it was no better than trash in the gutter.

Eventually, having grown weary of the artsy, high-brow vernacular being slung around by the witnesses, the prosecutor tried one last time to make Donato look foolish.

As Warhol’s soup cans had just been mentioned by the art expert, the prosecutor asked something like, “If you were in an alley and happened upon a pile of debris spilled out from a tipped-over trashcan, could that be art, too?”

“Well,” said the artist, pausing momentarily, Jack Benny-like for effect, “that would depend on who tipped the can over.”

Donato’s punch line was perfectly delivered. The courtroom erupted into laughter. Even the judge had to fight off a smile.

The crestfallen prosecutor gave up. The City lost the case. Although I got a kick out of the crack, too, I’ve always thought The City’s mouthpiece missed an opportunity to hit the ball back across the net.

“Sir, let me get this right,” he might have said, “are you saying the difference between art and randomly-strewn garbage is simply a matter of whose hand touched it; that the actual appearance of the objects, taken as a whole, is not the true test? Would you have us believe that without credentials, such as yours, one is ill-equipped to determine the difference ordinary trash and fine art?”

A smarter lawyer could well have exploited that angle.

Still, the prosecutor’s premise/strategy that an expert witness could be compelled to rise up to brand a handbill for a movie, a green piece of paper with black ink on it, as “un-art” was absurd. So, Donato, who was a wily artist if there ever was one, probably would have one-upped the buttoned-down lawyer, no matter what.

Perhaps the question shouldn’t have been — how can you tell fake art from real art? After all, any town is full of bad art, mediocre art and good art. Name your poison.

The better question to ask is whether the art is worthwhile or useful. Then you become the expert witness. However, when it comes to great art, it still depends on who tips the can over.

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-- Words and photo by F.T. Rea