Wayne Michael Reich Disses First Friday, Paris Hilton, and New Times

Wayne Michael Reich is at it again.
If you recall Benjamin Leatherman’s cover story about Ryan Avery (“Hi, My Name is Ryan,” August 3, 2006), a central figure in the piece was Wayne Michael Reich. In the story, which was eventually turned into a movie, the Phoenix-based artist poo-poo’d Avery’s then contributions to downtown’s creative scene. And he wasn’t shy about it. At all.

Now, dude is disposing his two cents once again. This time, via his blogspot.com account that’s aptly named “Artbitch.”

In a three-part entry titled “Exile on Pretentious Street PT. 1 (With apologies to the Rolling Stones)”; “Exile on Pretentious Street PT. 2 (Mediocre Media, or me write pretty one day!)”; and “Exile on Pretentious Street PT 2 1/2 (The Snark strikes back.)”; Reich goes off on all sorts of things about downtown Phoenix that’s contributing to the so-called downfall of the art scene.

In part one, Reich explains that Pete Petrisko’s recent move to Tucson is yet another defining moment in Phoenix’s apparent suckiness. (Petrisko, a standby in downtown’s creative community for years and years, hightailed it to Tucson a few months ago.) Then Reich – after writing that “being an artist from PHX is downright embarrassing sometimes, since no one takes us seriously” – goes on to list six reasons why it sucks ass for Phoenix creative types; the list includes First Friday being “a fucking joke” and the closing of the Willow House.

Part two and two-and-a-half finds a charged-up Reich all pissed off at people like Paris Hilton as well as local media, ranging from television journalist to New Times‘ “crappy editorial staff.” In the latter post, Reich is especially peeved that Jackalope Ranch hasn’t giving him any love in our “100 Creatives” series. 

So far, the three posts, chalking in at close to 8,600 words, have received two comments, one being from Reich himself.