Read about what happened last night and
that the only saving grace was meeting
a nice magician.

who was actually nice.

http://mai-ling.livejournal.com/264271.html

Feel free to comment there or here.
If you have thoughts to share.

Marshall:

These people aren't discriminating. They are bigots. And they are stupid.

One of the best answers to this kind of person is, "Well, actually, we were here tonight to purchase that painting, but since you are obviously a bigot, we will take our trade elsewhere. You won't be selling that to anyone else, either, you know. So we will wait until he removes it from your gallery and purchase it directly from him. Thanks."

What goes around does comes around...

Yes, I would remember it and I hold grudges as well. It was nice of you to go and support the magician. At least this time the magician wasn't the jerk in the story. That's kind of nice.

Yeah it was super nice!
I thought the fact he
went outside of the
godforsaken place to
the car to say a 'hello'
to mom & dad was very
much professional and
cordial.

something tooo rare these days!

It's a pity that the word "discriminate" has acquired a secondary meaning that is so ugly.

Originally "discriminate" meant to choose or judge wisely. Now it has acquired a secondary meaning that has to do with judging without reason, simply on the basis of sex, age, race or religion. I wish people had left "discriminate" alone and stuck with calling it what it is "acting like an idiot jerk, because you can't see past the surface."

The only way to deal with people like this is on an economic basis. You've started the ball rolling. Now, nobody on this board (except the idiot jerks) will trade with this gallery.

There was a scene in "Alias" a couple of months ago, in which one of the characters impersonated a wealthy African diplomant. He set a bigoted art dealer on his ear. I loved it.

If you think some booking agents are slime, remember that art gallery owners like this are the slime on the bottom of these booking agents' boots.

So the art idiot said:

"I know you guys were here foro Cao (the Chinese artist) but
his painting were down there, and you guys blocking the Michael's
(Goddard) painting here which we are trying to sell. And people can't
see them..."

Ouch.

Marshall,

I live five minutes drive from the Arts District in Dallas. Being half latin and half white confuses some people and amazes me with their discriminating assumptions.

A gallery member asked me, in broken Spanish, if the work was done. I told her that it should be as I was called to pick it up. She apologized and actually told me she thought I was one of the grounds keepers. Nice.

There's nothing wrong with being a groundskeeper as I actually like gardening but that day I was a paying customer. I turned away and left.

The shop keeper called me having the nerve to ask why I hadn't shown to pick up my print. I'll end this post here as I cannot spell or even suggest what I dropped in his ear.

I discriminate on talent, attitude and whether someone is looking to give or take.

Oh yeah, and "issues". I really don't need to get involved in other people's "issues" with the world. I have enough of my own.

:)

I gathered from your story that the Gallery Lady was an assumptive rude idiot, nothing more.

Oh no, no no...not at all kregg. She was certainly entitled to think and speak as she did. I mean this is a free country isn't it? I think it was more the fact that she was fat, naked, and smelled bad that added insult to injury.

Well at least that's the way I saw her but I didn't say anything.

Bill Cosby tells the story about how he was mowing his own yard in Beverly Hills one afternoon, and a lady drove up. She looked at the yard and said, "The yard looks very nice."

"Thank you."

"How much do you charge?"

"The lady of the house lets me sleep with her."

She drove off.

It doesn't extend just to race, though. Sometimes it goes other places. I had a friend who was quite wealthy. He also was a violin maker. So he tended to wear coveralls, and sometimes these coveralls had a little sawdust on them. One afternoon, he drove up to the local Cadillac dealership, stepped into the manager's office and said, "Well, Cal, the ashtrays on mine are full. I think I need a new one."

Cal said that he would be glad to accommodate him, because he knew that the fellow always paid cash, and that was a good thing at the time. So my friend started looking at a few cars. He opened one of them, sat down in the front seat, and a salesman walked up. "Sir, be careful. You might get that car dirty."

That did it! My friend walked over to the cigarette urn, picked it up, and emptied it into the front seat of the caddy. Then he went into the manager's office, wrote a check for the car, and told the manager what had happened. The manager winked at him, and as they walked past the car, he turned to the salesman and said, "See that Mr. Thorp's new car is cleaned and detailed, filled with gas and ready to go in an hour and a half. By the way, it's my commission, so make sure it's done right.

Does The Great Wall of China suck?

Kept a bunch of people busy for a while but did not keep out the invaders.

Or David Copperfield.

As the wisdom literature suggests, it is always wise to assume that the person you are talking to might be an angel in disguise. You really never know who that person is or might become, even if you think you know them.

My favorite story was of a young starlet that came into Gladstone's 4 Fish restaurant in Malibu beach back in the late Seventies. I was the house magician then, and one of my friends, named Mark, was the waiter for the lady's table.

She had four men with her, and they were really celebrating. It was her manager, husband, agent and a producer. She had just been given the lead in a major motion picture--her big break--and she was gorgeous and flying high.

She sent things back for no good reason, she didn't like the wine, she was a real pain in the butt. And she lorded it over Mark and the bus boys like they were her servants. I couldn't stand it any more, and called Mark over.

"I have never seen you take this kind of crap from anyone, Mark. Why don't you tell her where to get off?"

"I don't need to. I am enjoying this."

"Why is that, Mark?"

"Well, she thinks she has the lead in a major motion picture. But she hasn't met the director yet, and he always has final say on casting. That is because he is a very big name director. He hates people that act like this woman and will not hire anyone that is a prima donna and difficult to work with, and non-respective of the crew and locals. I know this because he is my dad. She will not get the part when I tell him what a horror she is...and the cool thing is this: she won't get the part and she will never know why, so she won't even learn anything from this experience."

That last sentence was so harsh it made my blood run cold. I have always thought that Karma can really eventually come back and hit you, but here it was a real riposte.

Be kind and treat people like you would want to be treated. Otherwise, you may find the world hard and unforgiving and your luck withdrawn, and you may never even know why, or what to do about it.

Mine too! Man....mine too...

:applause:
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Very well said. Our ability to discriminate is one of the better things that separates us from the lower primates. That and thumbs. Beats the heck out of being "indiscriminant."

Assuming I am showing my ignorance.... I don't see the problem with the original story. Regardless of what everyone else was or was not doing, she perhaps thought you were in the way most. I don't understand where the idea of bigotry is relevant. You were there to see the magician for Goddard, she thought you were there for Cao, maybe she was guilty of a mistake.

I don't know, but I think people throw phobia's, discrimination and bigotry around a little too freely. Not every mistake is a result of preconceptions, some are simply mistakes. I am sure I missed something here.

Whatever the case, I like those story's.

RE "I don't see the problem with the original story."

Has anything like that ever happened to you?

-Travis