America is a strange, troubling country, a country that treats sex as a commercial commodity to sell products, and then tries real hard to make you feel real bad for wanting to actually do it.
Advertising positions sex as something you must pay for. And pay dearly. If you have a luxury car, you get sex. If you don't, fuck you! If you're good looking, wealthy, arrogant, smooth, well educated, and swim with the sharks in the right circles, all the sex in the world is yours.
If you're none of the above, fuck you, Charlie!, and, even better, we'll bust you for leering at teenagers, those same teenagers we exploit to sell our products to gullible cretins with money and "status". And, hey, we'll shame the fuck out of you for masturbating to pornography and getting erections.
If you're poor or not on the approved grid, you get nothing, fucker! Actually, I'll do you one better than that: You get prison AND eternal condemnation.
What I love love love about Oscar Bazaldua's masterful work is its utter contempt for polite (read: corrupt) society. This guy does not drink the Kool-Aid.
Clearly, he doesn't subscribe to the polished bullshit that every American is fed from birth 'til death. He doesn't play favorites. He's not afraid of sex. He's not afraid of desire. He's simply not afraid.
His art portrays a world not perverted by religion, not twisted by hidden political agendas, and not hideously dishonest like the one we're all supposed to aspire to so the rich can get richer.
Bazaldua's people are my people. They fuck, they love, they hate, they feel.
They're humans.
You won't ever see real humans on the commercial TV networks... but you will see them here.
Cheers, Oscar, you're a true Apostle of Pulp!
