For Steven Dovas

Illustration by Andreas Hykade. Courtesy of Chris Robinson.

During the 2004 Ottawa Festival we had a panel devised by Steve Dovas about the state of criticism in animation. In my guise as the Animation Pimp I was asked to be a part of the panel with Rita Street, Richard O’Connor, Amid Amidi and Mikhail Gurevich.

I think there was some anticipation that the Pimp would let go, unleash his venom LIVE. Maybe I thought that too. Instead I sat there with nothing to say. Now okay, part of this was because I was exhausted from being right smack in the fact of the festival itself. I couldn’t process much to get saucy about on two weeks’ worth of a few hours sleep. But in truth, I was silent because I really didn’t have much to say. As I heard the others talking about this and that technique and industry, and their critical strategies etc.… I realized that I really didn’t give a hoot, that I wasn’t an animation critic or a historian nor did I ever want to be one. I knew this before and in fact I never sold myself as either. I’ve always been an outsider in animation (yes… okay… I realize that I do have a bit of power as the… as Plympton — the fact that I can say refer to willie billie so casually is PROOF that I’ve got a stake in this campground — once deemed me “the tastemaker” of the Ottawa festival) and what you’ve read over the years have just been observations about many different things made by someone who stumbled into this animation tent. I never saw myself as a permanent resident, just someone passing through. I mean... isn’t that life in itself? I just picked things that I thought were interesting and in particular how these people, ideas or whatever they might have been, affected me as a person. And that was the key. You never really lose sight of the observer. And in that sense, you not only see this world of animation through the Pimp’s eyes, but you are also seeing the essence of the person behind the Pimp.

The tales say as much about me as they do about the tent. And it wasn’t just about what animation brought to me directly… it was never direct… animation came to me filtered by the world I’d experienced before and around the tent. So it was never about criticism or history, just a philosophical jaunt.

Nick and Dick
Even that approach is nothing even close to being unique. My own introduction to that personal gonzo style came through the 1970s and ‘80s writings of Nick Tosches and Richard Meltzer. So much of the free form style that has dominated Pimp columns comes from Meltzer’s influence. When he was a full on rock writer in the 1970s. He reviewed records he never listened too, concerts he wasn’t at. His work was dense, playful, self-centered and almost always funny. For whatever reason, one review (Real Time, Real Demons: Bouncing with Bud ‘64) always stayed with me. Inside a Bud Powell CD review was a story Meltzer’s “first completely sexual relationship.” For Meltzer the critic wasn’t some objective, impartial deadbeat who just stood atop a mountain telling the readers what he saw. He was down in the muck with them.

Here’s a link to an Opera review called Fuck My Childhood http://www.angelfire.com/ny4/ungodlyvision/AtN/fmchildhood.htm

Now Tosches… holy fuck… what can I fucking say about my first fucking encounter with grandmaster Saint Nick. He’d written a book about Dean Martin called Dino. I didn’t really know or care much about Dean Martin at the time but some prof at school had suggested it. It just blew me away… it was profound and profane. I’d never seen the word ‘fuck’ used so poetically. I mean… one minute Tosches would be calling Jerry Lewis a cocksucker… and then he’d be referencing Dante and pre-Greek philosophers… and it all made sense somehow: