by Mak Faene "Hi. I just wanted to stand up in front of you all and say that I think women have the intellectual capacity of apes and that they are nothing more than sex slaves to us men. Thank you," is what I may as well have said to these idiots for all their presumptuous little minds could tell.   It was my last semester in the Fine Arts Department of some University which will remain irrelevant. I'd had enough of this. The people with whom I'd begun my 3 year program had all been transformed into annoying, self-righteous artists.   An artist as defined by Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: 1: one who professes and practices an imaginative art. 2: a person skilled in one of the fine arts.   An artist as defined by one who's been within one of their nests: 1: one who does not necessarily have to possess any skills in the fine arts discipline but who must be able to make up a whole lot of deep meaningful crap without having a clue beyond their own anthropocentric shell. 2: someone who hides behind words like culture and creativity to receive government hand-outs so that they can rifle through dumps looking for the next piece of retarded junk they're going to hang on a wall and proclaim to be so full of meaning and significance that it ought to be worshipped like an omen.   I tacked my graphite drawing to the wall and stood back to hear the whispers and gasps from the predominantly female class.   "What is the meaning here?" The professor (or "prof" to use that swanky college slang) demanded. She was pretty riled.   My intention was not to disturb anyone. The topic assigned for the piece was "Nature". Nature? What the hell kind of topic was that for a university course anyway? And here's next week's topic kids: Cats and Dogs!   Here is a section of the illustration I'd come up with for the assignment. It doesn't have any meaning. It's just a person with a monkey head. The fact that it was a woman and that she is nude and that she is posed in one position or another was completely irrelevant to me. It could have been a man, it could have been a parakeet's head, and he could have been wearing a top hat; it doesn't matter.   We were in a drawing class. I truly love to draw and this was nothing but an exercise in pencil drawing. I mean, c'mon; these self proclaimed artists were reading into something that just wasn't there. Some Freudian-crack-pot might argue that through my drawing I was expressing my subconscious beliefs that woman are apes. To this I can only respond that this stance is of no consequence. The drawing I have submitted to be looked at contains no premeditated message. It is to be viewed for whatever technical merit it deserves and if you can attach some sort of meaning to it; well, sorry but that's your issue.   I was torn apart by the class that day. I had to start making up excuses for the piece on the fly. "It's got to do with man's inability to surpass his own primal desires and his yet the conflict between this and his affinity for the cult classic Planet of the Apes..."   This experience completely soured me on drawing in general. I haven't drawn for almost a year. Hey, maybe this sensitive p.c. world is better off, but just consider something the next time you're dragged into a gallery. Does the work excite your eyes? Does this "artist" have any hands-on skill what-so-ever? Forget what they're trying to say for a little bit and just look around. If art can't be at least visually interesting, then what's the point? If someone's painted a giant canvas entirely one colour and is shovelling a bunch of junk into your head about how this solid surface says volumes about some sociopolitical issue and such then don't feel bad. Well, feel bad for one thing anyway, that thanks to your tax dollars this clown is raking in government grants that give him the artistic license to call you a Philistine.   There's nothing wrong with meaninglessness. If you've ever felt cheated or inferior because you didn't "understand" art, don't sweat it. Hear the words of someone who unfortunately has been branded with the label of "artist": It's mostly bullshit, take it lightly and laugh in the faces of those beret wearing, chain-smoking, pretentious artists who scowl at you. They aren't starving and they certainly don't think much of you.   Damn, I feel so much better now, thanks.