DJ in NYC

[Lee]

Perhaps this discussion has already worn itself out, so I'm sorry if this post is unwelcome, but having just discovered my post sparked an interesting discussion I wanted to contribute.


As we all know Daniel is mentally ill and that is all I chalk his comment up to.  I've noticed that many people with mental problems become fascinated with the whole Nazi thing.  Nonetheless his comments could be very hurtful to people.  I don't think Daniel has/had really internalized this, as I think he's basically a gentle, loving person and wouldn't intend to hurt anyone.  His family was totally in the right to give him hell, though.  Frankly, he's lucky to have people like them to set him straight.  They should force him to watch Schindler's List or a similar movie to make him understand what he was really talking about.

I do not believe his comments had any 'artistic merit.'  On the other hand, I believe his use of  swastikas in his art does.  While I can't know for sure, I think that he uses them to represent the dark side within us all.  ("Fear Yourself")

At the end of the day I do not hold his "joke" against him, though I hope he learned something from the experience and will not repeat that mistake.

[Henry Long]

Well, a stand-up comedian he's not. If his jokes were funny,
as it has been suggested to me personally, it might be a different story. But you can't make The Holocaust funny. Mel Brooks, maybe, but even then, it was intentionally in bad taste (see "The Producers"...the original.)

As for the symbols, I'd agree in part with Lee that it is representative of the dark side of the human soul, or Daniel's personal battles with that side of himself. There's also other artists (along the Juxtapoz so-called low-brow or no-brow genre) who use the swastikas in a way to re-claim the symbol, take it back from it's gravitational pull of BAD Karma and turn it into something else, or into what it was long before those now infamous Berlin beer-garten lecture hall days of the horrific recent past. (See German Neo-Expressionist A.R. Penck as a contemporary example.)

Daniel, like many artists, (including your wordy but humble moderator) works things out in his art. Works out emotional conflicts, personal pain, trauma...etc. If only A. Hitler could have continued with his art studies in Vienna, "worked some things out" with his watercolors and oil pastels, maybe had a show at the cafe around the corner from the Hofburg Museum, sold a few pieces, gotten a little press, what a different 20th Century it would have been!!!

[madnell]

amen, brother! ..

Daniel, like many artists, (including your wordy but humble moderator) works things out in his art. Works out emotional conflicts, personal pain, trauma...etc. If only A. Hitler could have continued with his art studies in Vienna, "worked some things out" with his watercolors and oil pastels, maybe had a show at the cafe around the corner from the Hofburg Museum, sold a few pieces, gotten a little press, what a different 20th Century it would have been!!!

[richtupica]

If only A. Hitler could have continued with his art studies in Vienna, "worked some things out" with his watercolors and oil pastels, maybe had a show at the cafe around the corner from the Hofburg Museum, sold a few pieces, gotten a little press, what a different 20th Century it would have been!!!

I just imagined a young hitler painting elmo...am I crazy??!??!?!?!??!?!

[deadjoe]

its all too easy to make something out of nothing when it comes to the holocaust i think.
i don't believe he meant any harm by it, rubbish "joke" thats for sure but it obviously wasn't said with the intention of hurting anyone!