Early Draft, for more info check out the 1134 Timeline, starting with August 2014
MOSHE TAMSSOT
"Moshe rhymes with OSHA, and that can't be good."
I first became aware of Moshe from Hayden Connor, the gentleman who bought 1134 West Washington Boulevard solely to flip it. I had met first talked to Hayden in the summer of 2013, then got his Cook's Tour with Bob Hess and Victor Heredia, and when Hayden sprang the news on me that he needed my help when he was leaving the building, he warned me that there was another charactore involved. And to watch my step. I thought, Gee, nobody could be worse than those who had previously inhabited these halls. But as it turns out, Moshe would have made himself right at home in this 1134 upside down world.
Moshe's most audacious act, and one that made my heart skip a beat, was when he reinstated himself as the head poobah of the Fine Arts Research and Holographic Center with the Secretary of State of Illinois. He was excited to announce on August 17th, 2015, that he has "successfully resurrected the ORIGINAL Museum of Holography, Not-For-Profit, corporate entity. Long live the Museum of Holography!" (from slack.com) He can claim being the president of the board since 2008, as he paid the fees to the Secretary of State of Illinois from the last time Loren did to the present.
His first act as Acting President is to shake people down for "his" assets.
I thought for a stoned paranoid moment that he could possibly legally come after me and all the goodies I had excavated from the bowels of 1134! But thanks to Jon Seymour scouring the web, what Moshe had done was illegal! Jon had found a case where someone tried doing exactly the same as Moshe on United Way! (Full article)
One of the most interesting schemes of two of holography's most diabloical villians, Eduardo Kac, The Bloated Holo-Poet, gave Moshe the School of the Art Institute's Holography Lab equipment! Here is othe Moshe-Mobile filled to the brim with about $15k of great holo-lab gear, I should knwo, as I was the Director of the Holography Program at the School of the Art Institute, or so my business card said. All that stuff was orders of magnitude better than anything Moshe could have gleaned from the caverns of 1134.
So all that stuff is just sitting in Moshe's garage, since 2018, waiting to be resurrected, as Chicago wants its museum back!
The Many Faces of Moshe
I have collaged many of the images I have downloaded from the Facebook Group, True West Loop'd. You may have to be a member of that group to see them, or use an incognito window in a browser to see this satirical community page.
Explanation of the symbolism: There is no doubt that Moshe could stand to lose a few pounds, so the blubber is a bit exaggerated. But he is always looking for or shaking down a handout from West Loop neighborhood merchants, his favorites evidently being pizza and hot dogs. The inclusion of tamales as a food group is because Moshe decided to promote a local street vendor and that unfortunately brought "The Tamale Man" to the attention of the city's health inspectors.
He claims to have been born in Israel, migrated to Canada with his family, and no one is sure if he is even an American citizen, so that explains the Maple Leaves. He was delinquent on his property taxes, and it appears that his condominium associates bought his back taxes so that they can evict him legally, and that brouhaha is a thread through the pot shots.
One of his fiascos involved a West Loop Community Garden, with donated kiddie swimming pools filled with soil for plants, but instead of supplying the neighbors it supplied plenty of rats. So to right that wrong, Moshe thought of using feral cats to clear out the rats, so that's why both of those critters are a common mascot along with the swimming pools. Then some of the pools were moved and repurposed much to the chagrin of those who were cleaning up the ecology at the Goose Island Overlook Point on the Chicago River.
I am not sure of who the source of the images is personally, whether they are the work of a Photoshop genius or artificial intelligence, but they do seem to nail the soul of this character! And it's amazing that there is so much contempt for him, but I can understand why, and it also points out that he is a thorn in the side of many more than myself!
So here are some curated collages of more than 100 images that the good folks at True West Loop'd have conjured up!
And here is my favorite!
