Trash

I walked into the room and saw the owner with several blood soaked paper towels wrapped around his hand. The skunk was in a carrier on the table growling and biting at the bars. I asked him if he was ok and he said yes, the bite was very minor and it happened all the time. Slowly I approached the carrier and the skunk began screaming and biting the sides of the cage.

“Has anyone else been bitten?” I asked.

“Oh, probably my whole family. He’s never been very nice.”

Slowly I bent down to look into the carrier again and the skunk rammed the front snarling and snapping. I felt drops of saliva hitting me in the face. Gently I explained to the owner that I was extremely concerned this skunk was rabid and his entire family and anyone else that had been in contact with the skunk needed to get to a hospital immediately and get rabies post-exposure treatment. The owner was understandably upset and asked me to please look at the skunk close. Politely I refused and told him there was no way I was going to open that carrier nor expose my staff to a possibly rabid animal. After several more minutes of discussion he agreed to allow me to euthanize the skunk and have it tested for rabies but he wasn’t going to go to the hospital.

“What could happen if it is rabies?” the owner asked.

Very sternly I told him, “You’ll die. There is absolutely no treatment for rabies and the only possible outcome is death. You will die. Your family will die. Anyone who has been bitten or exposed to the saliva will die.”

“Is it expensive?”

“If you have insurance it should cover it. If you don’t, yes it can be expensive. But this is literally a matter of life or death. I understand being concerned about medical bills but the alternative is death.”

The owner said he would think about it. I sent the head off for testing and didn’t think anything more about it.

A few days later I got a phone call from the health department telling me that the skunk was positive for rabies. The phone numbers and information the client had given me, which I included on the submission form to the lab, were wrong and the department could not get in touch with the family to tell them they absolutely needed to get to the hospital. I got a little sick to my stomach thinking about the saliva that had gotten on my face and likely into my eyes as well. Luckily I had already had the pre-exposure vaccinations so would just need to get two booster vaccines and would be fine. If the family did not get medical help soon they would die of rabies. I gave the health department all of the information we had on the clients.

A few days later I got word that a man had gone to the hospital saying he had been exposed to a friend’s skunk that was diagnosed with rabies. Luckily that man was able to give the correct information to the hospital and the health department was able to get in touch with the family and they came in and were all treated for rabies exposure. I don’t think they ever really realized how close they came to dying.

There are a few lessons to take home here:

Skunks don’t make good pets. Leave them in the wild where they belong.

Rabies is not an old timey disease that people used to die from. It’s still here and vaccinating against it is still very important.

Give the proper information when you go to the vet! These people probably gave false information because owning a skunk is illegal where they live but vets aren’t interested in turning people in. We desperately needed to contact them to save their lives.

60,000 people die every year from rabies. 

Fewer than 12 people in the history of modern medicine have survived it. 

Rabies. Will. Kill. You. 

And it will not be a quick death. You will slowly go insane. The best any doctor can do for you once symptoms have set in is put you into a coma so you won’t be awake to feel your own death. 

If you have been exposed to rabies, GET TREATMENT. Infection without treatment is 100% lethal. Those <12 only survived with intensive treatment, and are statistical and medical flukes. 

Rabies is arguably the deadliest virus known to man. Nothing else has such a high lethality rate once symptoms show up. 

So, sometime last year (?) science invented Vantablack, which is the darkest possible shade of black. Art world got incredibly excited. But as it needs to be very carefully made in a lab, it’s hard to get a hold of, and is extremely expensive. Enter Anish Kapoor, aka FuckFace McGee. Anish Kapoor buys the rights to Vantablack. He is the only human being on the planet that can legally use it, and he’s kind of a prick about it.

Art world is not thrilled with that.

Enter Stuart Semple.

Stuart Semple is an artist, and also makes pigments to sell in his free time. Stuart Semple is astoundingly pissed about this Vantablack nonsense, and Anish Kapoor’s dickery. Stuart Semple makes a new pigment, the brightest shade of pink ever, called Pinkest Pink, and puts it for sale on the internet. To be bought by everybody except Anish Kapoor. Literally, to purchase, you need to confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, do not associate with him, and will not sell or give the pigment to Anish Kapoor or his associates. Art world has a good laugh, everyone buys Pinkest Pink because it’s awesome, and damn it we deserve something.

Anish Kapoor however is a penis, and will not take this lying down, because HOW DARE he not have literally everything.

Anish Kapoor gets his London associates to buy him a thing of Pinkest Pink, and being such a classy human being, posts a picture to instagram of him with his middle finger covered in Pinkest Pink, captioned with “Up yours. #pink”

Everyone flips shit, because. Y’know. Fuck that guy. Especially Stuart Semple. For context here, Anish Kapoor is one of the richest artists on the planet, and has repeatedly been referred to as everything wrong with the art world, and the epitome of the art worlds elitism problem. He’s a giant douchebag. Meanwhile Stuart Semple makes pigments just to get them out there. He turns 0 profit from his now enourmously popular pigments.

Stuart Semple launches an investigation as to who the fuck leaked Pinkest Pink, and plans to strike back. He does so by releasing two new products. First is Diamond Dust, which is a glitter made from glass, so that a painting is still visible after it’s applied, but glitters like a mofo. It’s the most reflective glitter out there, and is available to everyone who isn’t Anish Kapoor. And it being made of glass, if you stick your finger in there, it’s going to hurt quite a bit, so that was Stuart Semple’s way of saying “shove your middle finger in this, asshole, see what happens”. Except without saying that, because he can get an insult across while still being fucking classy.

He also releases Black 2.0, created with the help of over a thousand artists worldwide.

Black 2.0 is the answer to Vantablack. Black 2.0 is a slightly less black black, but looks functionally the same to the human eye. It’s completely safe, smells like cherries, and costs four pounds. Vantablack is highly toxic, potentially explosive, needs to be applied in a special laboratory and sealed properly, can’t be moved across borders, can reach 300 degrees celsius if you’re not extremely careful, and costs thousands of dollars. Anish Kapoor is the only human being who can use Vantablack. He is the only human being who cannot use Black 2.0.

So I think we can guess who got the better deal.

And thus the feud ends, Kapoor defeated.

…But not quite.

Kapoor, in this entire afair, has made exactly two comments to the public. The first being his charming message about aquiring Pinkest Pink, the second being claiming to Buzzfeed that he and his small army of lawyers will be suing Semple, an extremely poor artist who cannot afford a lawyer.

No lawsuit has been made yet, fyi.

The point is, Kapoor is a prick, and doesn’t like talking to the lower classes. So one day in July 2017, he decides he needs another floor on his London studio apartment, and starts making arrangements to have it built. His neighbors are fucking pissed, because this will ruin the light of their apartments. They call to Semple to save them, or at the very least piss Kapoor off some more.

Semple answers to the call, and releases two new paints, Phaze and Shift, as always, banned to Kapoor. They change colours, Phaze with temperature, and Shift is just iridescent. Shift needs to be painted over Black 2.0 to work, and Phaze just works on its own.

So that’s been the art world for the last two years.

1. “Anish Kapoor is however a penis” is the best line in this post.

level 2: *realizing you don’t need to fit stereotypes or share exact experiences of other gay folks to be gay.*

IN THE LEGEND, THEY BASICALLY SENT SOMEONE TO TROY TO SAY “THIS HORSE IS FOR ATHENA, NOT YOU, SO OUR RETREAT BACK TO GREECE IS SAFE. DON’T TRY TO TAKE IT. IT WON’T FIT THROUGH THE GATES OF YOUR CITY, SO THERE’S NO WAY YOU DICKS CAN STEAL IT AND PRETEND YOU GOT IT FOR ATHENA. NOT FOR TROJANS.”

AND THEN TROY WAS LIKE “YOU’RE NOT OUR DAD. WE WON THIS WAR AND WE’RE TAKING YOUR STUPID HORSE AS A TROPHY SO WE’LL ALWAYS REMEMBER HOW BAD GREECE IS AT DESTROYING TROY.” 

AND A FEW TROJANS WERE LIKE “THIS IS A TRICK” AND TRIED TO EXPOSE IT AS A TRICK BUT THE REST OF THE TROJANS WOULD HAVE NONE OF IT BECAUSE EVERYONE WAS SWEPT UP IN THE THRILL OF VICTORY, AND ALSO BECAUSE THE GODS KEPT SENDING SNAKES TO STRANGLE ANYONE WHO SAID ANYTHING, BECAUSE THE GREEK GODS HAD NO WORD FOR “SUBTLETY”

Black Snow White

Photographer: London Mahogany

MUA & Stylist: Kristian La'Don