(And How Yul Brynner Saved My Soul1)
Let me begin with a confession, before any Melbourne-based painter leaks this to the press:
I failed to comment on a friend’s artwork on Facebook.
To normal people—people who enjoy sunlight, perhaps—you might think: “So? Who cares?”
But within the Melbourne Painting Community (MPC™), this is not a minor slip. This is not forgetting to like your cousin’s vacation post or accidentally double tapping your ex’s gym selfie from 2017.
No.
This is a sin.
An Art sin!
And the Melbourne painters don’t forget. They don’t forgive. They just quietly sharpen their palette knives and wait.
Meet Asa Letourneau (Painter, Friend, Judge, Jury)
Asa Letourneau is a badass with a brush. He lives in Melbourne, (Australia, not Ontario), which sounds like an idyllic, artsy paradise until you realize it contains people like Asa—people who WILL call you out in the comments if you fail to provide their painting with the correct level of absurdist reverence.
And to his credit, he was right.
Normally, when Asa posts a new painting—each one a wild synthesis of portraiture, gesture, angst, and whatever dietary secrets the Australians are hiding—I swoop in with my ritual contribution:
I compare his painting to an esoteric celebrity in an uncomfortable situation.
The rules are simple:
- Must be a real celebrity
- Must be at least 67.4% forgotten
- Must be caught doing something weird
- Must have the emotional tone of a rumour overheard in a bowling alley
So, when Asa posted a haunting, slightly sinister portrait that looked like a philosopher trying to remember if he left the stove on, I should have responded immediately.
I hesitated. Then got busy. Then, I simply forgot.
When Asa finally called me out, I felt like a defendant in front of the Melbourne High Council of Acrylics and Oils.
I deserved it, my October 2022 article about Asa notwithstanding.
The Melbourne Painter Mafia Comes for Me
(A Cautionary Tale of Neglect, Art, and Spiteful Microfoam)
There are mistakes, and then there are Melbourne mistakes.
- Stepping onto the tram without tapping your myki? Minor infraction.
- Liking the Collingwood Magpies ironically? Social risk, but survivable.
- Failing to comment on a Melbourne painter’s Facebook post?
Catastrophic. Biblical. Possibly unforgivable.
The First Signs of Trouble
The morning after my failure to respond to Asa’s painting, I sensed something was off.
I couldn’t put my finger on it at first. The sky seemed… more judgmental than usual. My coffee tasted like it had been brewed by someone silently resenting me. Even my cat looked at me as if she’d been reading gossip from Fitzroy.
Then, at 11:17 AM, I received a message from Asa himself—a gentle but firm callout.
“Lazy,” he wrote.
And that was it. Not even an emoji to soften the blow.
I could feel the ground shifting beneath me. The Melbourne art world, once warm and welcoming from 16,000 kilometres away, had turned its collective back.
Whispers on Sydney Road
Within hours, stories reached me. A friend of a friend in Brunswick told me he’d overheard two painters in an outdoor café:
PAINTER 1: “Did you hear? He didn’t comment on Asa’s new work.”
PAINTER 2: (clutching pearls) “No.”
PAINTER 1: “Yes.”
PAINTER 2: “God help him.”
And then, in a lower voice:
“We don’t tolerate that here.”
They shook their heads in unison and sipped their lattes with the solemnity of people mourning the death of a loved one.
Every Cappuccino a Threat
For the next 24 hours, any time I imagined walking down a Melbourne laneway, the murals in my mind’s eye turned their painted heads away from me.
Banksy-style rats refused to make eye contact. Abstract faces smirked.
A giant bin chicken in sunglasses whispered, “Not even a comment, mate?” (I don’t know why the bird had sunglasses. Symbolism, probably.)
Every coffee I ordered in my imagination arrived with the milk foam arranged into a passive-aggressive message:
- “Okay then.”
- “Guess we’re not doing feedback anymore.”
- “Hope you’re proud of yourself.”
- “Asa deserved better.”
- And once: “You monster.”
Baristas would hand me the cup slowly, like it was evidence, for added effect.
Persona Non Grata in Brunswick
Word spreads fast in artistic communities, but the Melbourne Painting Community (MPC) spreads it faster.
You cross Asa once—ONCE—and suddenly your name is scratched off guest lists for openings you weren’t even invited to.
Some say the MPC™ maintains a blocked ledger, like Santa’s naughty list but with more linen clothing and more expensive tote bags. I cannot confirm or deny its existence, but I suspect that next to my name it now says:
“Did not comment. Dangerous. Unreliable.”
I imagine the scene:
A hushed meeting in a converted warehouse studio. Dim lighting. The smell of turpentine. Everyone wearing scarves indoors for no reason.
The chairperson clears her throat.
“Next order of business: The Canadian. He failed to respond to Asa’s post.”
Gasps fill the room like cigarette smoke fills a bingo hall.
A paintbrush clatters to the floor, having even greater impact than a surgical instrument striking the operating room’s floor after it is announced that Henry Blake has been killed on M*A*S*H.
Someone whispers, “Excommunicate him.”
Someone else adds, “Publicly.”
A third voice says, “Make him drink instant coffee.”
The room murmurs in horror.
The Only Way Out: Yul Brynner
When you are on the brink of artistic banishment, you have two choices:
- Apologize meekly, hoping the painters accept your contrition.
- Tell an absolutely unnecessary hardboiled Yul Brynner story.
Naturally, I chose option 2:
And it worked—because Melbourne painters respect three things:
- Discipline
- Oil on canvas
- An obscure, threatening-sounding anecdote involving a Hollywood legend
When I unleashed the story of Yul Brynner spitting at a man for coughing during a take, Asa accepted it like an ancient offering.
The Melbourne Painter Mafia backed off.
The murals turned their faces toward me again.
The microfoam spelled: “We cool.”
Balance was restored.
- This post is the result of a conversation I had with ChatGPT. This is my original prompt:
This is a painting by Asa Letourneau. He lives in Melbourne, Australia. i have never met him in real life but i would definitely consider him a friend. i met him through Mark Seabrooke, another painter from Melbourne. Asa posts his paintings on Facebook, and i normally post a tongue-in-cheek reply, comparing whoever he has painted to a celebrity, usually an old, somewhat obscure celebrity, and usually in an awkward situation. This time i failed to respond to Asa’s painting. (Sorry, Asa!), and he called me out for my lack of response, calling me lazy. i deserved that. In an attempt to get back on Asa’s good side, and to avoid being excommunicated by the entire Melbourne painting community, i responded with the following: “Yul Brenner spits a son of a bitch walking to the men’s room as he tries to enjoy a coffee after a lovely parmesan linguine dinner, the garlic perfect. The SOB in question ruined a scene in a movie years earlier by coughing.” i am thinking of turning this entire affair into a blog post. Can you suggest some ideas and expand on the fabricated Yul Brenner story?. ↩︎
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