GregStacy.com

Hi folks. This blog is basically an archive at this point. If you want to keep up on my latest doings, check out GregStacy.com and Monstersandrockets.com.

Monsters and Rockets

So. I am no longer writing for LA CityBeat. Not long after I posted about my exciting new gig at the paper, there were large budget cuts and suddenly my exciting new gig didn’t exist anymore. LA CityBeat limped along for a few more months and then in late March it went out of business very suddenly.

I am sorry to see the paper go, and sorry to see print media in general in such sorry shape. But I am excited to announce that I’m now the editor of Monstersandrockets.com, your online guide to science-fiction, horror and all things geek. Monsters and Rockets is brought to you by some of the same brains behind Darkworlds.com, the popular sci-fi/horror news site that ran from 2002-2008. Think of Monsters and Rockets as Darkworlds’ little brother, only less dark and more dork.

I hope those of you who followed my work in OC Weekly, CityBeat and elsewhere will stop by my new online home. I’ll probably still drop by here now and then to offer bits of news about Monsters and Rockets or my other new projects.  Be seeing you.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

You’ll have to forgive me if this post seems a little stiff and formal. This announcement is kind of a Big Deal for me, for a number of reasons.

I have been with OC Weekly for 13 years, first as a film writer and later as a fine art critic. With this post, I announce my departure from the paper that has been my home since the days of the original OJ trial.  I will always be grateful for the opportunities given to me there, and I leave with fond memories of my former colleagues.

I am very pleased to report that I will now be covering fine art for LA Citybeat, which was recently taken over by Will Swaim, my old boss at OC Weekly and Long Beach’s The District. I’ve lived in Los Angeles for years, long enough that I’ve come to think of this crazy place as home. There is great art happening all over Los Angeles, and I am truly thrilled by this chance to write about it.

What it is

Hello, all you happy people. Here’s a rambly, unedited, just-before-bedtime update on what I’ve been up to lately…

I am doing regular art criticism for OC Weekly, but I don’t post those columns here. OC Weekly has a rights policy where I need to wait for a while after an article’s printed (a month, I think) before I can post it here, and by that point the art show has probably closed. Art show reviews have a limited shelf-life. When I was reviewing movies, those reviews could be read and (theoretically) enjoyed by people all over the world, for years to come! But a review of an art show is generally only going to be relevant to locals, for a few weeks at most. So, things have been quiet, here.

I was a film critic for ten years, and it took time to get used to this new gig. Reviewing movies, I rarely had to deal with outraged directors. But fine artists are very, very tempermental! I know, that’s not exactly news, but I’ve been surprised by just how angry artists get about reviews… even the positive ones. I went through a period where I was getting these furious emails about almost every review. I suspected a lot of them were coming from the same person, but still, it got old.

It’s pretty rare that I’ll write a negative review of an art show. What would be the point of that? “Here’s an awful show at some gallery you’ve never heard of, and I hate it and you should avoid it!” As a film critic I felt like it was my job to warn people away from the crap, but as a fine art critic I feel like it’s more my job to point out the stuff that’s worth your time. Occasionally I’ll single a show out for abuse if it exemplifies something about the art world I dislike, but as a rule I don’t like to harshly criticize living artists. These people are lonesome weirdoes just trying to express themselves and make a living. I can relate.

I don’t do the OC art social scene at all, and as a result I’ve apparently developed a reputation as a rather mysterious character. The fact is, I’m just very shy. The idea of walking around at some glitzy art opening and trying to make clever small talk sounds like pure torture. I don’t want to deal with people fawning over me in hopes of getting a good review, and I don’t want to deal with people giving me the stinkeye over a bad review. I don’t go to galleries to make friends! I like to look, and I like to lurk.

All that being said, I have been toying with the idea of trying to curate a show at some point. If anybody in the OC or LA art scene would be interested in something like that, drop me a line and we’ll talk.

I do miss film criticism sometimes, but I really like being an art critic and it’s probably a better fit for my talents. I definitely plan to stick around as long as they’ll have me. Oh, and for those of you who asked, my cat is still doing fine. He’s touched that you cared.

Hopefully I’ll update this thing again sometime soon. If not… See you in 2009, the world of tomorrow.

We get stacks and stacks of letters

I have been terrible about updating this thing lately, and I feel kind of lame about breaking the silence just to answer an angry letter about one of my OC Weekly columns. But… Well, what the hell. This is my goddam blog, after all.

So this passes for edgy and irreverent when it’s just crappy writing [“Not Negotiable” by Greg Stacy, April 11]. It’s not about yourself, fool, but what you’re seeing. I thought this crap went out when Commie Girl still masqueraded as an art writer.

Anonymous, via e-mail

Thank you for your thoughtful and well-reasoned argument, Anonymous!

I was never really close to Commie Girl. I rarely worked with her and we haven’t crossed paths in years, so I’m not gaining anything by defending her. But as a reader, I did enjoy her art columns. So much art criticism is silly, pretentious garbage, and Rebecca did the same thing I try to do: she made it lively and funny, smart but also grounded in real life.

I don’t write the way I write out of any affectation. I write the way I write because… Well, this is how I write! And it is also the kind of thing I want to read.

Commie Girl was not masquerading as an art writer, and neither am I. We are both professional art writers. Like it or not, we have convinced our bosses that our opinions matter enough to publish them. We have our soapboxes, and we’re not bitter cowards who are stuck firing off insulting, anonymous emails to people.

You think you’re so smart, go get your own art column.

Dork.

Hello, folks. Long time, no post.

For months now, I’ve been doing regular fine art reviews for OC Weekly. If you’re curious, click on over to OCWEEKLY.COM and put “Stacy” into the search engine.

I’ll post something again here, soon. No, really. Don’t give me that look.

One door closes, one door opens

So, uh… turns out you won’t be seeing me regularly in The District, after all. I’ll probably continue to contribute the occasional article, but my byline will no longer adorn the Film Events column. I will, however, be OC Weekly‘s regular fine arts critic, starting in an issue or two. It’ll be hard to get used to not writing about movies anymore, but it’ll be great if all that time I spent in art school turns out to actually be good for something.

I think my OC Weekly column, It’s a Living, is probably dead. I honestly loved doing that column, and it’s been a joy to introduce you to Southern California’s hardworking mortuary makeup artists, taxidermists, celebrity impressionists, et al.

So much drama in the LBC

I keep trying to think up some clever way to announce it, but it’s late and I’m tired and I should just get this over with. So:

I am now writing for The District, the new Long Beach paper started by OC Weekly‘s founder, Will Swaim. There have been a lot of staff shakeups at OC Weekly lately and it all got very alarming for a while, but in the end I think it’s all worked out very well. It always bothered me that Long Beach, my hometown, was outside the coverage area of both OC Weekly and LA Weekly and didn’t have a weekly paper of its own. We’ve needed a paper like The District for a long time, and Will is honestly just the guy I’d want at the healm.

Right now I’m basically writing my old OC Weekly column, “Special Screenings”, under a new name: “Film Events”. (I know… Imaginative, huh?) I’ll admit it, I did miss writing blurbs for all those Rocky Horror screenings and surfing documentaries. I’ve been blurbing movies since 19-freakin’-95, and it was tough to go cold turkey! Right now “Film Events” is my only job at The District, but we’ve been talking about some more ambitious things and hopefully I’ll have exciting news to report soon.

(NOTE: That title should not be construed as an endorsement of the odious “Snoop Dog” or the even more odious phrase “LBC,” but was used purely because I suck at coming up with titles and the sun is almost up and I want to go to bed already. Thank you.)

I got blurbed!

A few weeks back I was at the local Fatburger, paging through the latest LA Weekly, when I read the blurb featured at the top of an ad for the new indie picture Ten ’til Noon and damn near spit out my turkeyburger:

“Best movie since Pulp Fiction” – Greg Stacey, OC Weekly.

Talk about mixed feelings. I’ve always wanted to see myself quoted in a movie ad, like I was Roger freaking Ebert or something. But unfortunately that quote was taken completely out of context, giving the impression that I consider Ten ’til Noon to be the very best movie, of any kind, since Pulp Fiction. Well, I absolutely do not. I saw this Tarantino knock-off at the 2006 Newport Beach Film Festival and quite enjoyed it, jokingly suggesting in my review that Tarantino himself secretly directed it and that this was his best film since Pulp Fiction. In other words, I thought Ten ’til Noon was better than, say, Jackie Brown… which is a long way from calling it the best movie made since Pulp Fiction in 1994. The really nutty thing is that there were plenty of legit quotes they could have pulled from my original review, the thing was basically a rave. Whoever put this ad together is a sleaze or an idiot… or maybe both.

Oh, and they spelled my name wrong. 

Looking on the bright side…

While losing my regular gig at OC Weekly sucks major butt, at least this year I won’t have to write yet another column about the utter tediousness of the Oscars.