empty sentiments

...after a year

2009-08-18T18:59:00.003-04:00

....I'm surprised this site still exists.

Right now I'm taking a break from feverishly attempting to finish paintings for my show that open on November 6th. It's impossibly hot in the studio. It only got to the low 80s today, but this being the 7th floor of a giant brick factory, the heat and humidity is intensified to uncomfortable levels. The six fans that are on don't seem to be doing much good.

I imagine that I'm going to be here until 3 am or so. The painting is going surprisingly well. I'm slowly discovering why I paint the way I do. It sounds silly to say that after 36 years, but screw it. I've seen a lot of painting recently, work that I couldn't imagine doing myself.....on many levels. Work that I love, but still nothing I could see myself doing. I'm trying to use as little paint as possible. I like the immediacy of this approach. I liken it to playing a song live. Once a note is played you can't go back and replay it. It's over. I'm trying to bring that approach to painting. I've never liked working and reworking a part of a picture. I see a lot of other painters doing that, and when they do it it looks great, but I've never been interested in that approach to work.

It always bothers me when people say that my work is photorealistic, because I just don't see it. I want to sit them down and show them true photorealistic work and show them the difference. The point of my work is not to reproduce the photo that I took, but more the moment that the photo was taken.........or more to the point the spark in my brain that led me to take the photo. The surface of my work is usually very dry and rough....the texture of the canvas is visible. I guess I want that texture to interfere with the image that people see.

Gone an' done something crazy.

2008-08-27T12:04:00.003-04:00

I went out and bought (ordered is more accurate) a mandolin.

Why the mandolin? I've always loved the sound of them, and any douchebag can learn to play guitar.......and their are a lot of douchebags out there playing guitar.

I guess my last (and current) bout of depression pushed me over the edge to get one and learn how to play. I figure with as much "down time" as I have in the studio I might as well do something constructive. I also recently learned that if I repeat something over and over again (read practice) I actually can become good at something......and it only took me 35 years to realize this!!!!

This is the one that I got....The Kentucky KM-161

I had to get it switched over to a left handed model because, although I've never picked up a musical instrument in my entire life, I know I'm left handed...........This also added $150 to the price of the instrument. This could either be one of the best things that I've done for myself in the past ten years or another particularly comic waste of time and money (I'm getting really good at those........I guess it's all the practice I've had)

No good deed goes unpunished

2008-06-02T13:18:00.002-04:00

I left the studio at around 8-ish last night and decided to stop out and get a drink to unwind. I stopped on Allen St. and popped in to see a few friends who were bartending.......most specifically my friend Drew at The Pink. I ran into my friend Dan who was heading a few miles uptown to see our friend Working at the Left Bank. I finished my beer and was about ten minutes behind Dan.

I get to the Left Bank and proceed to enjoy a Framboise. I fucking love Lambics.....I can't help it. Dan finally arrives and we talk over our respective beverages. After a while two women (We'll call them H and K) come into the bar, both just finished their second year of medical school. Both were leaving the net day to go home for a few months off of the medical grind before heading back in August.

They seemed bright, interesting and nice enough.

........let's fast-forward a bit.

The two med students are now wasted........a combination of the wine and the weed they hd smoked previously. One of them (H) clearly can not handle the combination. She starts to tweak a little and wants to drive home. That wasn't an option. She was coherent, but clearly a menace. I say I'll drive her to her apartment and she can get her car in the morning. Her friend plops her in my car and we're off. We get to her place, or at least in proximity to it, and she again begins to freak out that she needs her car because her flight leaves at 4 in the morning (At this point, it's around 1). I tell her that no flight leaves the Buffalo airport before 5, but she still insists her's does.

I then say that I will drive her back to her car, drive her and her car to her place, then walk back to my car ( A walk of no more than a mile and a half). This for some reason is not an option for her. We argue, and argue, and argue. She yells at me that I kidnapped her. I tell her that she is welcome to get out of my car at any time. This goes on for twenty minutes. I finally get her keys and head back to her car. We get to her car and she flips out again demanding her keys. I tell her that there is no way that I'm letting her drive. Using less than polite tactics while she bends my middle backward she gets my keys out of my hand. I drive her back to her car, because she was still very very drunk, and most people (sober) can't figure how to get out of a Volvo 240.

I get her back to her apartment, and the arguing continues..........................

Finally I get her keys back and drive back to her car. We notice that her friend ( K, the other med student) is now in her car with a man. We walk over and K insists that I give her H's keys (it was strange that she wasn't surprised to see us considering we'd been gone for nearly an hour). I go back into the bar to tell my friend of my little adventure. After a few minutes K enters the bar saying that H left her keys in the bar and she wants them back. I nearly have an aneurysm. I inform her that I had just given her H's keys. She seems to not recall that. Just then I see H leave the parking lot and speed her way home.

Lessons learned:

1. Random acts of kindness are for suckers
2. Let drunken women drive.......trying to get their keys is a lesson in futility

Ugh! Sick Again!

2008-04-03T15:03:00.003-04:00

It seems that I have the immune system of an AIDS patient. If I just even see someone with a cold I'll catch it from them. Thank God for Tylenol with codeine, otherwise I would never sleep.

I'm exhausted. Aside from working (still) at the gourmet shop (how I've held this job for two years is beyond me!) I'm now deep into my fourth month working as a bartender/waiter/busser for my friend Dan at his new restaurant. It's funny because I've never held a bar/restaurant job in my life and now I'm the only one on the floor. It's a blessing that the pizza is so good because the service is lacklustre at best.........at least I smile a lot.

I've decided to stop going out for the next few weeks. This past Saturday I went out to among other things an "art party" at the studio that I was kicked out of two years ago. I went out to my usual bar (Fat Bob's) afterward. After a while I realized that I just wasn't happy doing what I was doing. Thinking back even further I discovered that I'm rarely happy when I go out. I'm entertaining, sure, but not happy. So I've decided to not only stop going out but also not contact any of my friends that I know solely through my extensive bar travels.

I'm curious to see what happens.

The show is finally over

2008-02-27T01:30:00.002-05:00

After what seems like an eternity my show is finally down. I went to the museum to take down the Guinness and red wine self portrait. It was kinda surreal, systematically dismanteling a giant image of myself......breaking it into its individual pieces, grouping them and putting them into their labeled envelopes. Surreal, but it made some sort of sense in a way that I still haven't figured out (probably won't for some time).

Hopefully having this thing over will help me get over this gigantic rut that I've been in ever since the show opened. Painting just hasn't been a joy for some time, more tedious work. I almost felt a slight tinge of happiness over the last two days while painting, but nothing overpowering or consistant.

I have a small show coming up in June and I need to get at least two new large works and a few small ones done.

I'm really whiny and I'm not happy about that

Craziest shit I've ever pulled off

2007-07-30T12:23:00.000-04:00

So I going to be in this exhibition in September. Beyond/In Western New York....it's (obviously) a regional show pulling (supposedly) from places like Cleveland, Toronto, and as far east as........Syracuse? Anyway I finished all of my oil paintings and finally got around to doing a large scale version of my self portrait.

It was a giant pain in the ass, but all around kinda satisfying.

It's 408 beverage napkins stained with Guinness, Wolavers Oatmeal Stout (it's organic and damn tasty!) a cheap bottle of Shiraz and about two tablespoons of graphite powder.....I was going to use cigarette ashes instead, but it didn't work. I needed something to get the darkest parts darker. It's just pinned to the wall using 816 clear push pins.

It's just under 10 feet tall.

I'm insane.

Back again....thanks to my friend John...blame him.

2007-04-27T12:00:00.000-04:00

So my friend John decided to start up his own blog...this has inspired me to continue my own. It only seemms right. I mean, I finally get my own computer..I have a digital camera...why not clog up the internet even more?

It just makes sense.

Lessee.......I'll start with March. I spent the entire month in Vermont at the Vermont Studio Center...a damn perfect place for an artsy geek like me to go and concentrate on nothing but my work...if I want. That was the greatest thing about the experience...I HAD to do nothing. I Had a place to live a place to work and all the meals were prepared for me. On top of that I met some truly fantastic people (there were 49 other artists and writer along for the ride in March).

This was my view from my bedroom.....ahhh the balmy month of March in Vermont!

Some of my friends in Vermont...From the right....Brian, Ashley, Jessica, and John

I left Vermont feeling great. I had been in a bit of a rut, as far as my work was concerned. Vermont got me out of it. Don't get me wrong granola crunchin', white people with dreadlocks, poser hippies piss me off and they always will, but Vermont and, more specifically, Vermont Studio Center........genius!!

A..J. Finally enters the 80's

2007-01-03T15:46:00.000-05:00

That's right I got my own li'l laptop. It's all shiny and MacBooky........and I haven't the faintest clue as to how to use it properly.
Now (probably) I'll be able to add photos and other shit......for noone to look at.

This is an example of what my work is like now. It's a 36" x 96" oil painting. It's called "Window 1".

New Studio!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-10-18T11:10:00.000-04:00

Granted it's not that new. I moved there about a montha ago, but it's finally set up and functioning. It's fucking awesome. It's about 1600 square feet with additional 200 square feet of storage. I'm sharing it with two friends and so far it's been going smoothly.

We're having an open studio/studio party this Saturday

I'm painting again!

I almost forgot how to do this

2006-08-01T13:21:00.000-04:00

A quick recap.

1. I'm still in my interim studio, but I have two interesting possibilites and I hope to move by September.

2. I'm still working at the gourmet food shop. It doesn't suck, but it's still a job.

3. I got another mural gig for ECC this one is for the city campus. This one has an accelerated deadline. I have about four weeks to paint the 5' x 20' painting.

4. I still don't have a computer of my own.

5. It's way too fucking hot! This is Buffalo for fuck sake!!!!

This, pretty much, sums up my last two weeks.

2006-05-26T13:41:00.000-04:00

..................................minus the boobies part, of course.

End of an era

2006-05-04T12:06:00.000-04:00

5/11/06

1. Last Wednesday I received an eviction notice from the "director" of my studio. No reason was given, and according to our contract none was needed. Yeah yeah, not smart signing something like that, but nothing like this has ever come up. Oh yeah, and I've been there for FIFTEEN FUCKING YEARS!!!!!

2. As I mentioned before, my studio is a large group of "artists" who collectively rent space out of an enormous factory building. Over the years the studio grew beyond what was feasible. They over extended. They got an education department, two galleries, a board of directors (who are good people individually, many of them are friends of mine, but rather ineffectual as a board), and their non-for-profit status. The studio started out with a main studio space holding around 25-30 artists. As the years went by a ceramic studio was added along with outlying studios on the same floor, all associated with the main studio. The buildings management wanted space back. Supposedly. The studio, as an organization, is, quite possibly, hopelessly dysfunctional.

3. The "director" (whom I have known now for about fifteen years) had/has a habit of exaggeration. So some/most information given by her MUST be taken with a grain, nay pillar, of salt. This isn't just my opinion. Her penchant for half-truths is well known throughout the area, and is probably the biggest reason for the general unrest around this place, which is why I'm not all that upset that I'm leaving. It's just a HUGE PAIN IN MY ASS RIGHT NOW!!!

4. An artist's meeting was scheduled for last night to get to the bottom of all of the rumors. Although many of the rumors still exist because the board member that was present didn't have any information, or just wasn't that forthcoming. Instilling faith is one thing that the board of directors and staff of this organization have never done well.

5. Anyway for the last week I've been speaking to essentially everyone I know, telling them of my plight. Seeing if anyone knows anyone that has studio/industrial space available. Everyone has been enormously sympathetic to my situation. For what it's worth, I have never heard so many good things said about me. For once, being a relatively good guy might be pay off!

6. I've been searching for a suitable studio space, and I have found some possibilities. One was very large, 1800-2000 square feet for only $450 a month. Unbelievable, I know. It's so big that I would probably split it with two other artists. Its only flaw is that it is in the middle of nowhere. I'm looked at another space yesterday afternoon that seems promising.

7. Along with all of this other drama going on I just took a part time job at a gourmet food and wine store near my house........goooood times.....hopefully. I also got a call from my friend's sister who is moving into a gigantic home, and wants some mural/faux work done. Buffalo, for all of its flaws, has some amazing homes. This one is a 1911/1912 E.B. Green designed stone mansion. Carved oak and mahogany paneling everywhere, insane amounts of latticed plasterwork on the ceilings, leaded glass, hidden wine racks and shelves.......on and on! And on top of that, I just got an illustration gig from a friend of mine.

8. When it rains it fucking pours!

Cycling while intoxicated

2006-04-28T15:22:00.000-04:00

So I'm on this little health kick. I'm riding my bike, instead of driving, (weather permitting) to the studio. Yesterday was a beautiful and brisk day....sunny in the high 50s-60s so I rode to the studio. After working I decided to go out for a drink or two. I got to Fat Bob's at around 9-ish and settled in. At around 10:30 the place was taken over by a little party of lawyers and soon-to-be-lawyers. They were all dressed up which was funny to see given where they were. Fat Bob's is a Smokehouse restaurant and bar. I love it there, but it's not the first place to jump into my mind when I think formal after party.

Anyway, more drinks were had and shots, of course accompanied them. It got to be around 12:30 or so when I decided that it would be in my best interest to head home. It was fucking cold, which was good, because it gave me some clarity that I quickly found out that I sorely needed. Booze has some interesting effects on exercise. I got home without any trouble. It was only around an 8 mile trip, but around the fourth mile I could definitely smell vodka in my sweat.

Yes, my health kicks do involve mega doses of vitamin V.

Going back to Papaya tonight for more ridiculously cheap beer and ca-la-mar-i!!!

Weekend update.....not that anyone should give a crap.

2006-04-24T17:53:00.000-04:00

Friday started out wonderfully. I left the studio a little after five (an especially early day for me), and headed downtown to Papaya. I called a few friends en route to see if they wanted to meet for a drink and/or snack. I had been jonesing for Papaya's calamari all day.........it's perfectly not fucked with. Lightly battered, tender, and served with a spicy/sweet dipping sauce. I got to the bar and ordered my first beer......poured perfectly into a frosted footed pilsner. All the friends that I called began calling me back to say that they wouldn't be out until later. It was just as well. I was enjoying the the easy conversation with my friends behind the bar. It was just sooooo relaxing, sipping an icy cold beer, eating the most perfect calamari around, and not having to say a goddamned thing. As I was finishing my first beer another was being poured into another frosty glass (Now that's fucking service!). I finished my snack and beer and paid my bill. Total (without tip of course) for two Sapporo's and the calamari.............$7.48. Oh yeah, sometimes living in Buffalo fucking rocks!

I sorta jumped from bar to bar for a while settling at Fat Bob's eventually....typical Friday. It was getting on to be around to be 1:30 or so and my friend said that she was hungry. We went next door to Mother's which is usually a good time, in that they serve their full menu until 3:00 AM. It wasn't fun at all. Our waiter sucked in every sense of the word. He was rude, our food was late, some of it wasn't even brought to the table, he never checked on us, and he never properly corrected the bill. Complete dick. I was paying with my credit card and was getting cash from my friends. My opinion was to leave this tool a tip of, say..........$0.17. My two friends who both work in the bar/restaurant business insisted that I leave the minimum 15%. I acquiesced, but on the back of the bill I wrote

"YOU SUCK"

My friend took the bill away from me put a single line through my message and began to write the douchebag a little note saying that he could have easily made a $20-$25 tip from our table if he would had just done the bare minimum. Sucky the Waiter shows up and sees the "you suck" on the bill and begins to yell, that's right yell, at my friend for writing something so childish. I interject, pointing out that I was the childish one, and that his tone pretty much established my comment as dead-on true. As we were leaving he loudly asked me the question "Is that what you do? You go around trying to make people feel bad about themselves?" I answered by saying "When they suck as much as you do, yes."

Apparently Sucky McDouchebag put in his two week notice the next day. Fuck him.

On Saturday I went to go see Conan O'Brien speak at the U of B. I had always liked him and found him very funny, and this experience solidified that opinion of him. He insisted on making it an interactive Q&A type o' deal, instead of the standard speaker monologue. This made it much more fun to see, especially since he used the poor moderator as a comic foil for most of the evening. He fielded questions about all facets of his career, a lot about his Simpons years and what to expect when he takes over the Tonight Show. Funny shit all the way around.

Sunday was my usual trip to see my friends in Hamburg, NY. I don't have HBO and watching the Sopranos with them is always more fun. I'm hoping that by the middle of this Summer instead of driving there, I'll be riding my bike. It will be about a 45 to 50 mile round trip but I think with a little conditioning I'll be able to do it. I'll save on gas and, barring a heart attack, I'll start to be less pudgy.

Today I decided to not got to the studio early and instead go hear Al Franken do his radio show live, from a renovated church (now a performance space) that is attached to Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center. The three hours went by very fast. It was a fun time. The crowd was in to it, and the space is amazing.

Things I don't give a shit about...part 1.

2006-04-19T14:30:00.000-04:00

In no specific order.

1. Natalee Holloway Another dead blonde. A little course perhaps, but c'mon a girl disappeared. Why should it affect my life? Why can't I listen to the news without hearing about it. Is she the only kid to ever be abducted and killed? Is this the only news to be reported? Why is it that whenever a pretty white girl vanishes it's front page news for months? Fuck her and fuck her family! My little brain can only hold so much information and this dead blondes name is taking up space.

2. Duke University One of two things happened.....The stripper is lying or some douchebags raped a stripper. Either way, my mind reels at the thought of the amount of time and energy devoted to this case

3. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes I kinda wished she and Tom's spawn would have died in childbirth, and Tom in his "grief" would have killed himself. The sickening coverage of Hollywood's most manufactured family would have ended sooner, and the child would have been better off.

4. Donald Trump and the entire Trump Family/empire He is a shining example of the fact that money........even billions of dollars ........cannot buy one class.

....to be continued.

Buy this book!

2006-04-12T13:45:00.000-04:00

Although the official release date isn't until May 1st it is available now on most online bookstores. I highly recommend it, not just because he's a good friend of mine, but because it's a great work of art. It's like those bird or wildflower identification books, but useful. It's funny too!

Buy one for yourself and it makes a perfect gift for those witty, sardonic types on your list!

So, once again, that's.......

The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America :A Guide to Field Identification

Julian Montague

Stuff

2006-04-12T12:54:00.000-04:00

The studio feels strange and has so for the past week or two. This is one of the problems with working in a collective or co-op ish type of space. When someone else is having a bad day, it can have a profound effect on my work....or lack thereof, more specifically. I'm hardly the new-agey, aura feelin' type, but one person's bad energy can really fuck up a place. This is nothing that I need. I'm here for one reason alone, and that is to work. It's a studio for fuck sake!

I've been playing with the idea of getting a new studio. People say that change is good. I abhor it. My work changes on its own. It has its own course. Plus, I hate moving. I have a ton of shit. Besides my mechanic is walking distance, and the place that builds my canvas supports is right across the street. Still, I'm considering a move. I might need to be on my own. Even some of the other artists here have said that the place needs me more than I need it. I'm not sure if I agree, but it was nice to hear. I've recently found some interesting options, affordable ones. I think the spaces are kinda rough, but that really doesn't bother me. All I need is wall space, electricity, a sink, and a bathroom. I think I would have to construct the working walls (ie. do all of the drywalling) myself, but that's no big deal. I've done that shit before, and I'm a goddam Michelangelo with joint compound.

I've been getting a lot of (almost) overly positive response for the new work that I'm doing. People seem to be wetting themselves in front of the horizon painting. It's cool, but I have a hard time taking a compliment. I really love the work. It will sound awful, but this is the first time that I can see me working on a series for a very long time. The possibilities, for this work, truly seem endless.

A friend and I have some funny and offensive ideas for t-shirt designs. Their very simple and graphic, and funny as hell. They could potentially make us a little money if we get our acts together.

I'm still waiting on the mural for ECC city campus. From the language that was used it sounds like its definitely my job, but I never want to be that confident about anything. Other contractors still need to get their shit together before I can get paid and started on it. Slow-ass cocksuckers! I'm goin' broke here!!!

I finally got my taxes done today (one employer was a tiny bit tardy with my 1099). I FUCKING OWE MONEY! I hardly made any money last year. How do I owe?!? Self-employment tax my ass!!!

Emotions are a pain in my ass

2006-03-27T13:33:00.000-05:00

I'm coming down with another stupid cold. I guess it would be more accurate to say that I'm deep in the throes of another cold. I started feeling it around Thursday. I think it was the misguided courtesy of a friend that caused this. I was out and saw a friend who kissed me hello then immediately followed up the kiss with the phrase "I feel like shit. I have a cold.". Wonderful! Fucking awesome! As far as I know I don't have an immune system. Like Nazis on the French countryside, I could feel the bacteria invading my system and taking over.

Thanks for the kiss............oh, and the two weeks of pounding headaches and lungs filled with mucus the consistency of joint compound. Bitch.

Anyway, despite my diminished capacity I helped a friend move into her new house on Saturday. She is an ex-girlfriend, but the breakup was almost nine years ago and we've been in the same circle of friends since college. We've remained close......ish. The move went relatively smoothly as she had moved a lot of the small stuff over the past few weeks (much appreciated). She had rented a u-haul for the bigger things, and showed up with it a few minutes after I arrived at her apartment. She was with, what I can only assume as her new boyfriend. If not boyfriend, someone who is probably interested......first one there, helped to pick up the truck, last one to leave.....you get the idea. Either way, he seemed like a nice enough of a guy. I was pretty much useless because every few minutes I had to cough up something. My main job of the move was that of the sarcastic prick who made everyone laugh...........except for the guys who were doing the hard moving, like getting a couch stuck in a doorway. So that's how the pack-up went........me cracking jokes, making some people laugh, while pissing off others.

--- Quick aside ---

After the truck was pretty much all packed up I heard a couple of the guys talking about getting together and jamming or singing or whatever. After listening for a while I realized that, although it will sound horribly pompous and elitist, I hate hobbyists. That is, I hate people who only do things half way. I think it's an insult to people who actually do it professionally. For example, when I talk to people who say that they paint in their spare time, because it's soooooo relaxing, I try to be nice, I really try to care, but just want to break their hands. As if what I do is just a full-time hobby. Sometimes it's frustrating to describe to people how difficult what I do is. Once again, I'm not complaining, I love what I do. I wouldn't trade it for anything...........................I also wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

--- Back to the move ---

We all got into our cars and made it to her new home. It's small, but cute and on a nice little suburban street. We got everything in and relatively organized in less than a half hour. After all the moving was done we were all standing on her front porch, when one of her friends drove up. She brought her 11 month-old girl. Yeah, I'm not really a kid person. I don't talk down to kids, and at 11 months this little girl wasn't getting any of my jokes. I refuse to use baby-talk. In fact until a person can carry on a full, lucid, adult conversation they're pretty much useless to me. Both of my nephews were able to do it by the age of two, that's why I would happily die for them.......my niece, she's getting there.

Our little party broke up after about an hour. I left my friend and her new.....whatever at the house. As I drove away I noticed that I was feeling depressed (that feeling lasted all night). I'm not exactly sure why. Is it because I see other people building normal lives, and I know that's not the road that I'm heading down? Am I giving up that stuff for pursuing my work?

Or worse.........Was I jealous? Not of the homes and the families, but of my friend. In the past I've always kind of chided people who got sad when they see a long-past ex out with someone else or getting married. Now I'm not so sure, but why?

I wouldn't want to be a kid again.....at least now

2006-03-24T13:02:00.000-05:00

I was driving in to the studio this morning....around 11 am, and was amazed to see the amount of middle school-aged kids on the street. Was there a half day? School fire? Water main break?

Either way, for some reason I was fascinated by them. First of all at least half were on cell phones. Now I know they are ubiquitous, but c'mon why, in the name of all that is good and sacred does a ten year old need a cell phone?!? I don't know, maybe I'm showing my age. All I know is that NOTHING ever happened in my life, when I was ten, that warranted constant communication.

I saw two boys, who could not have been over, thirteen smoking. It was one of the funniest things I had seen in a long time. They seemed so proud of it too. I think they might have been strutting a little.

There was a large group of kids hanging out outside of a corner store. I was a little scared to see how eerily similar their social dynamic was to what I see when I go out to a bar. Granted, I was only able to watch them for the length of a red light (and the time it took some asshole to turn left, without signaling of course) but you could see the "alpha" people, the "fringe" people, who liked who....................I swear it was like I was on a safari.

All of them were trying to look and act as if they were much older. I never understood why kids (and this includes myself at the time) are/were in such a rush to be older. For fuck sake it happens naturally at a fast enough pace, there's really no reason to hasten it on.

It's this kind of crap that freaks me out a little about ever being a parent........not that that's a possibility now or even in the near future.

Maybe it's a Buffalo thing

2006-03-21T12:24:00.000-05:00

Friday was St. Patrick's Day and Sunday was parade day. As Buffalo has a large Irish population it tends to be a big celebration. As if anyone in Buffalo ever really needs a reason to drink publicly. The parade goes in a simple straight line, right down Delaware avenue. It has the requisite politicians, police, firemen, and float after float of wee Irish dancers.

I started the day relatively early (noon-ish) at Fat Bob's. I made the mistake of parking illegally in a parking lot. I didn't get a ticket I just got parked in until around 8:30. The dining room at FB's was surprisingly crowded and a lot of people were enjoying their corned beef and cabbage. I had my first drink by 12:30. A couple of friends (Mara and Jen) showed up and we stayed at FB's for a while before we ventured into the cold. We made our way to a parking lot of a corner gas station. The place looked more like the parking lot outside of a football game as people had kegs and grills and folding chairs etc.

I made my way to my friend's annual party. She lives in an apartment on Delaware and her patio overlooked the busy scene below. It was nice to have the option of standing outside or going in to be warm.....and get another drink. Plus the food was good and the bathroom was clean --- I'm kinda girly when it comes to my appreciation/demand for a good clean bathroom.

After being removed from the parade festivities for a while I made my way back to FB's. The scene on the way there was a little different, or should I just say drunker. The strange thing is that no one was really that obnoxious, which is usually the case. In general I refer to days/evenings like these as "amateur nights", where people who have no business consuming more than two drinks decide to have a dozen or so, usually with annoying, or at best comical results. Although most of the people who I passed were visibly drunk, not many were of the fall-down variety. I dunno, maybe I got just lucky. Back at FB's it was wall to wall to wall people, and I hate that. Luckily they had erected a heated tent on their back patio, and the crowd there was much more manageable. I spent a few hours there then again decided to venture forth.

I wandered to Cozumel (another place that I like, only because of the staff). Saw lots of friends, lots of tipsy friends. I ended the evening at the Old Pink (several years ago In-Style magazine voted it as one of the best dive bars in America, a fact that the owner was exceedingly proud of at the time). I was happy to see that my friend Drew was back in town and back behind the bar. After talking for a while I decided to make my way back to my car, luckily the douchebag that parked me in was gone.

Some may say that I'm getting to old for this kind of shit, and on some days I might be inclined to agree with them..........................some days.

Meh

2006-03-16T17:43:00.000-05:00

Dammit, but that blinking cursor is mocking me! Telling me that I really don't have anything even remotely interesting or important to write.

............and yet I prattle on.....

Maybe it's because my work is going so well, that I got nuthin'. Maybe all I have to say is already being said in my work. OK, even I don't buy that line of bullshit.

I have been researching a lot online lately.......grants and artist residencies. I figure, fuck school! It's for quitters. There are hundreds, if not thousands of opportunities out there to travel and live and work on somebody else's dime........What? I'm an artist. I'm a leech on humanity. Although I am up for going anywhere, I'm focusing on Europe and Japan. There are actually a bunch of residencies all over the country that I'll be applying for.............so, you never know, I might just end up living for a short time near you.

I'm just wrapping up two applications for grants. Foundations are awesome. There only reason for existence is to give away money...............hopefully to me.

Oh yeah, the blow-up doll won. Her name is Sally.

Dead Moms suck

2006-03-10T14:50:00.000-05:00

A friend's Mom passed away this past weekend. I went to the funeral yesterday with another friend. It was kinda rough. At times it was really difficult to even look at him, even though I knew a lot of what was going through his mind. It wasn't until the afterparty that I was able to speak to him (and do shots, of course. There is no warmer hug than that of booze). It was good to see that he was doing relatively well. We told him that his family extended far beyond his relatives. It's nice to know that the same is true for me.

Got another opening tonight. This one should be fun, openings at the Burchfield-Penney usually are.

I'm feeling incredibly lazy, I don't feel like working that much. Work seems to be going very slowly. I can work for several hours on a painting and make very good progress, then stand back and see that it doesn't look like I did very much of anything............just a little frustrating.

HAPPY WEEKEND!!!

I'll live......................................big deal.

2006-03-07T13:17:00.000-05:00

............and so I stand triumphantly, bathed in sunlight, in front of the ACME Nipple Manufacturing Company.

So much for my liver scare. I'm gonna go drink now.

Like a school house on a Saturday.............no class.

2006-03-06T17:08:00.000-05:00

It was an interesting weekend. Met friends for happy hour Friday, at one of my favorite places in town.....Papaya.......the name, being meaningless to anyone out of Buffalo reading this, but let me assure you, the place is great. Pacific rim/Asian fusiony food, the best fucking calamari I've ever had and the sushi just keeps getting better.................the spider and eel rolls are acts of God! I really do like this place because although it is an upscale place, it doesn't come off with any pretension. I mean, I showed up right from the studio, my pants with splotches of paint all over them, and one of the owners.........whom I recently met.......met me with a handshake and a smile, at the door. So Friday was fun.

Saturday..........didn't start out so great. I woke up a little groggy, got my mail, and lo and behold....I got rejected from grad school! I gotta be honest, I was a little surprised. Fuck that I was shocked. For fuck sake, we're talking about the University of Buffalo, not Yale. I've seen the grad students that they've been cranking out for about five years or so, and with few exceptions I wouldn't let them even wash my brushes. Granted, I wasn't going back to school to learn anything, I just wanted two years of working on my stuff and the degree. Everyone that I spoke to about my li'l rejection was shocked or surprised. The best reaction came from my friend who is, of all things, the curator of the University gallery. She said my rejection was unconscionable.

Fuck school! Most of the reason that I was applying was out of fear. Fear that I'll forever be broke. Fear that I will never have anything resembling stability in my life. This is an evil profession to be in.

Anyway, the rest of the day was great. I went to a couple of art openings at Big Orbit and Hallwalls. The people were more fun than the artwork, and it was too crowded to really get a good look anyway. I'll have to go back...............to actually see the work.

Sunday was Sunday...............painted. Painted badly. Luckily I didn't manage to really fuck anything up.

I'm getting my results of my CT scans and my blood tests tomorrow at 11:40. I'm sure everything's fine and this has just been a huge waste of time and money. At least now when I finally do have some form of cancer I have a good doctor to go to.

..................look at me being all glass-is-half-full and shit.

My cat's been scanned

2006-03-02T12:41:00.000-05:00

I've never had one done before, and it was kinda neat. I gotta be honest I was a little unnerved by getting a CT scan done in the first place, even though they are routine as hell. Maybe it was because I had it done in the same hospital that my Mom died in, and in my book that makes them 0 for 1 with members of my family.............but I digress (for an interesting change of pace).

I had finished off the banana-flavored barium colada earlier in the morning and showed up at the hospital a little early. The whole process from check-in to pull-up-your-pants-sir was less than an hour and a half, to my astonishment. The staff was really cool and friendly and took my sarcasm and cynicism surprisingly well. They gave me an I.V. to...................um, I'm not 100% sure........activate the barium?.........whatever. The nurse told me it was going to feel warm..............HOLY SHIT!!!! She wasn't kidding! This really cool internal heat hit my shoulder then my throat. It made its way to my heart and once there shot immediately to my.............um.........well......cock. I swear, if I had to piss even the tiniest bit, I would have let loose. My God it felt great! All together it wasn't a bad experience. While the test was going on I didn't hear the dreaded words "hmmm that looks interesting" or "What the fuck is that growing in your small intestine?" or "Holy shit! Guys, you gotta come and see this freak!"

So now I wait until the seventh to find out that there really isn't anything wrong with my liver, but unfortunately they detected a rare form of intestinal cancer......................I dunno, is that being pessimistic?

Work is going well, sorta. I wasted all of my time at the studio yesterday. I was useless. It was as if I had forgotten how to paint. Everything I touched turned to shit, and I spent most of my time fixing mistakes that I was making. Not wanting to surrender to this futility, I ended up staying at the studio until after midnight. Ugh! What a waste of fucking time. The one good thing is that I came up with an idea for another painting.

The problem is with the raindrop painting. I think I left it before it was really done. I moved on and painted other things (the lake horizon) so much better, and more in line with the way I was thinking. Now I have to go back and either re-think it, re-do it, or completely trash it. I know I know.........what's the big deal? It's only a painting. In the great scheme of things it doesn't matter one bit. It's just the thought of months of work going for nothing that bothers me, and I know myself I won't let it happen. I'll end up spending months trying to fix it. It's funny, I usually give up on things so easily, especially if there are many failures along the way, but I can never give up on a painting. Is that some dopey shit or what?

Tuesday.....................yeah, that's it, just Tuesday.

2006-02-21T14:42:00.000-05:00

I'm going to the hemotologist tomorrow. I can just imagine that he'll tell me that there's nothing really wrong with me, and that I've been worrying about nothing for the past three weeks. Either that or that my liver packed it in a year or so ago, and I have only months to live.

I'd find both of them extraordinarily funny.

I think I might join a gym. Just typing those words makes me feel ill, however I'm gettin' kinda tired of being a pudgy artist. There is a gym....or as they call it "fitness center".....(my pride slowly disappearing as I type those words)....between my home and my studio. Convenience is key, I'm a lazy shit.

I joined a gym a few years ago with relatively lacklustre results. I didn't go that often (see lazy shit comment above). I could barely stomach the locker room.......I mean, c'mon I'm not homophobic in the least, but please. I can barely stand the sight of my own cock let alone a half-dozen different ones all at once. Seriously, why would I want to have a conversation with a naked man. And the smell, Christ! Why do all men's locker rooms smell like someone giving a corpse a perm?!?! For God's sake it's 2006, can't something be done?!

And another thing............why all the mirrors? We can't all be that narcissistic. I know, I know.......you need to see that you're working out in the correct form blah blah blah. Look at me. Do I look like I would know what the correct form is? I wouldn't know the correct form if it snuck up and bit me in the ass! Listen, I'm working out here because I don't like the way I look, why are you forcing me to stare at myself............when I'm sweating, no less!?!?!

I don't know why I'm ranting about this shit now. Maybe it's because of the documentary that I watched on Sunday night on TLC. It was about this couple of guys that ballooned up to and over the 600 lb. mark. Surprise, one guy died. Honestly, has anyone watched these medical oddity shows. They could market it as Look at these freaks. See your life isn't so bad you whiny shit. Sundays on TLC. Anyone who complains about their life, after watching these shows should be shot..............................not killed, just wounded. Oh yeah, that includes me.

The painting is going well. Starting a new one today, one of the 4' x 5' paintings.

Almost at two weeks

2006-02-17T13:48:00.000-05:00

......without booze that is. I know it's no great accomplishment, but DAMN.....two weeks. I was thinking, and I'm pretty sure that this is the longest I've gone without a drink since I was.......uh.............maybe thirteen. Twenty goddam years!!! Hmmmmm maybe it's a good thing that I take a break. Seriously, what's the longest you've gone without a single drink?

As I said before, I'm still going out bars and art openings and such. I'm amazed at how utterly annoying everyone is when I'm stone cold sober. With the exception of several of my friends I hate everyone................or at least I view them with the coldest form of indifference. Most of these people aren't even snot-licking drunk. If I ever needed confirmation of this.....which I didn't.............I am definitely not a people person. I often joke that I'm a lot more charming when others are drinking, I guess others are more charming if I'm drinking. Shit!...................................did I just have a moment of clarity?

It is strange though, most people do like me. I can't figure that out. A lot of the time I can be a pompous, arrogant, sarcastic prick. I freely admit to being an elitist jerk, but I guess I'm always friendly. I meet people with a smile, and I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt (at least for fifteen seconds to a minute) . I'm also painfully shy. I don't think I have ever spoken to someone to whom I've not yet been introduced. I'm always open to a conversation, but starting one always makes me feel a little ill. I can't start a conversation, but when it comes to continuing one I'm a fucking juggernaut. It's funny that shyness and arrogance can often be confused, and in my case they're both true.

Happy weekend!

"....so you better go back to your bars, your temples..........your massage parlors..."

--- the first person that can tell me what song that line is from, and who sang it gets a free painting!

Valentine's Day makes me think of my dead Mom

2006-02-14T13:54:00.000-05:00

Isn't that a warm and fuzzy thought. It's true though.

A lot of people have been writing about their horrific parental relationships recently........so if this isn't the shit that ya want to read right now, no biggie.................I'm sure I'll be writing something funny soon......probably something about about my newly formed liver polyps or a crippling blood disorder that I contracted from Haitian hooker back in my fraternity days......ya know, comedy...not this maudlin bullshit.

It's coming up on her deathday (well, what do you call it?)........the 20th. It will be the 17th anniversary of her demise. I was thinking that I have now lived longer without a mom than with one. It's funny, you can take away the mama and you're still left with a mama's boy. Once again, I guess some back story is in order.................

Flashback to the 80s......big hair......stupid clothes.....and everything new seemed to be designed around neon and an isosceles triangle......................

My Mom gets diagnosed with lung cancer somewhere around my birthday (Oct. 6th). She ends up going into the hospital around Thanksgiving and is released after a while. She goes on the usual course of chemo and radiation with the usual side-effects....lotsa fun. We get a huge oxygen tank installed in our house. All in all she seems to be doing pretty well. One morning, while I'm at school I'm told that my Father has just had a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital. Either en route or soon after arriving in the emergency room he has his last rites read to him. Somehow he pulls through ( I swear the man will probably outlive me). While visiting him in the hospital one evening my Mother has, what I can only imagine as, a complete nervous breakdown. She is taken to another hospital and observed. My Mother is released from the hospital and a few days later so is my Father. My Mother is then admitted back into the hospital for some sort of complications of something the details are sketchy to me (mind you I was 15-16 and I was getting profoundly high on a regular basis). She was in the hospital for a few days without me visiting her. At this point I was pretty numb. Finally I decided to visit her one evening, with my father enormously pregnant sister and my brother-in-law. She ended up dying that night.

After the wakes and the funeral and all that garbage, my father plans a Florida trip for us, over Easter break. While on vacation, staying with my Aunt and Uncle, my Aunt goes into the hospital and dies.

SPRING BREAK!!!!!!

Yeah, I was a fucked up kid.............or an especially efficient killer. Is seventeen years too long to still be whining about it?
So, that's what I think of when Valentines day comes around.

Anyway, hugs n' kisses everybody!!!!!!!!

Deep thoughts......or incoherent ramblings

2006-02-13T14:25:00.000-05:00

Well, since nothing of any importance happened this weekend, other than the fact that I haven't touched a drink in a full week, I figured I'd prattle on endlessly about my current work. This was actually a suggestion by a fellow blogger (thanks!). I figure that it'll be a good thing, especially if I am to be going back to school. I'll be having to explain and defend my work on a daily basis.

Anyway........................

I'll start with the big work. When I say big I'm talking about paintings that are only around 4' x 5' and others that are between 1 1/2' to 3' x 8'. Nothing monumental, but decent sized works.

--- A little background. My last series of paintings were about relationships, or more specifically the relationships that our minds create between two or more objects, when we see them together. For example, in one work I painted a pair of white cotton panties normal-sized on a panel that was roughly 3 x 4 feet. The background was a soft textured pink. I paired that painting up with a painting of the Denny's grand slam breakfast. The breakfast was painted slightly larger than life-sized on a background of a light greyish blue. In another work I reproduced a 50 year-old photograph of my Father smiling, when he was in his 20's (my favorite picture of him). I paired that with a painting of my (deceased) Mother's false teeth, the teeth she had in her mouth when I was a kid, thus painting her smile. Hopefully you get the idea. When I was working on the last painting in that series, a painting called breastpumps and crazy straws ( I don't think that needs a description) I started thinking about the work that I am now doing.

One day after my show, with the new work that I just described, opened I was kinda depressed and was moping around the studio like a big dopey sap. I ended up by the sink in the kitchen. I leaned up against it and rested my chin on my hands and just stared at the sink.....completely zoned out is more honest. After about fifteen minutes (that's right fifteen minutes!) of just staring and having my mind wander I realized that I was staring at what could become my new work. After that I became interested in the things that I stare at when I'm thinking about something else.........more interested, in fact, than the shit that I'm thinking about. So that's what I'm painting. They're almost non-images, kinda the thoughts between thoughts, or images that you only see on the periphery of your vision.

The first painting that I started was of rain on my front door window (it's 3' x 8'). The background is completely blurred and the focus is on the raindrops that perfectly focus my front lawn, the street, and the house across the street, only upside-down. C'mon everyone's done it, stared out a window during a rain storm. You look out into the distance and then focus tightly on the raindrops on the window. You go back and forth, alternating between foreground and background focus. The raindrops become perfect convex lenses. The next two paintings are going to be the sink that I first mentioned and a seascape (really a lakescape). The inspiration behind the sea/lakescape was a ride with my father to my sister's house on a particularly grey and windy Thanksgiving. The ride took us by Lake Erie and I stared out the window at the horizon, watching as the wind churned the water. The sky and the water took on the same feeling, and for a few fleeting seconds the clouds and the waves became interchangeable. The painting will be 16" x 8'. The horizon will be dead center. 8 feet of just horizon! I forgot to mention that all of the "big" paintings are going to be grey......well grey scale......different kinds of grey (warm and cool) but just grey. I always thought that it was funny that my paintings were always so colorful even though I'm red-green colorblind. This will make that a non-issue and it will also help to homogenize the imagery.

Okay, now on to the small paintings. These are all going to be 2' x 2'. I was thinking about rituals and ritual vessels/containers, religious and secular, past and present. I noticed that much of what once was a ritual is now considered common place.....eating, drinking, washing etc. I also noticed that we still have rituals though we don't realize it or think of them as such...........Stopping at the same place every morning for coffee or the process of going out to dinner and taking leftovers home. The work is going to be about the vessels with which we carry out these modern rituals. The first painting is of a small styrofoam to-go container, the next is going to be of a green two liter soda bottle, another is going to be of those classic yellow and red mustard and ketchup bottles with the white caps. I have plans for between 10 and 20 of them. Am I full of shit or what?!?

So that's it. That's the shit that I'm working on. Believe it or not that was the condensed version. I know what you're thinking..................Sweet fuck I hope he starts drinking again soon!!!!!

Art openings without booze........do such things exist?

2006-02-10T13:27:00.000-05:00

I'm gonna find out. Due to my latest health concerns I'm imposing a two week drying out period on my liver. This wasn't even a recommendation from my doctor. I'm just doing it to give the poor little guy a well deserved vacation. I figure it will only do me some good as drinking causes the body to absorb more iron....and I already do that at a freakishly breakneck pace. It will also save me, from my calculations, a metric shitload of money. This is a good thing, because with my recent creative explosion I've been hemorrhaging money on art supplies...........close to $1000 in the past month or so.

So tonight there is an opening, and I'm gonna see what these things are like without any social lubricant. This will be fun. Of course I'm going to go out after........I gotta stay social. Holy shit am I going to be hydrated!!!

I can't begin to describe how much I like the work that I'm doing and that I'm going to do in the next few months. Ideas are coming faster than I know what to do with them. Mind you my fast pace may be, to another person, glacial.

....and there was great rejoicing

2006-02-09T14:07:00.000-05:00

The cafeteria that I did the mural for had it's grand opening this morning. I really don't like having attention drawn to me that much. I had to stand in front of a small group of people and be introduced............................I'm really much more of an in-the-background kind of guy. It's a look at my work, don't look at me sorta thing. All in all not that bad though. The really good thing was there were representatives of two other campuses and they were impressed enough with my work to ask about doing things for their schools.

There's an tiny picture of the mural at http://south.ecc.edu/pr/ecctoday under the Feb. 8th archive. Almost too small to be worth it, but I'll be damned if I gots the time to figure out how to post a picture. I told you already that I'm a fucking tard when it comes to computer shit.

My liver's the size of a toilet seat

2006-02-07T16:39:00.000-05:00

Well, I got the results back from the doctor today................................Looks like I got the blood thing, and on top of that, an enlarged liver. I now have to go to a hematologist for more tests and a course of treatment. It was kind of funny. My doctor was giving me the list of problems that this shit can lead to (down the road).................Diabetes....Hepatitis....and such, I didn't much care until he mentioned vision loss.

I swear, it's the only thing that I fear. Being a colorblind painter is stupid enough, but blind blind, that's just going way too fucking far! Granted it's all very treatable/preventable, but the sheer mention of its possibility freaks me out a little.

Canadian boobs and not seeing them

2006-02-03T14:44:00.000-05:00

Just got back from lunch and I'm stuffed. a friend called me this morning and asked if I wanted to meet him and another friend, and we ended up going across the border to Fort Erie for Chinese. Sauteed baby corn is the fucking shit!! Unfortunately I couldn't get them to go to one of the fine "ballet" establishments. No boobies for A.J.

Another Friday, another art opening. This one's at 7-ish. I'm actually lookin' forward to it a bit. It's a friend's show and I'm always curious to see what people are working on or have just finished. Either way it will be nice to connect again with some of the other poor slobs who make stuff for a living. Fuck, it's such a silly job. I love it so much.

I'm kinda shocked at how well my own shit is going. my first big painting is almost done, granted i did get a little head start on it a while ago, but not for nuthin'...... It's a little funny I'm finding myself slow down a bit near the end of this thing. I'm not sure if it's because I'm not fully prepared to start the next big painting, or what. Once again I have to get over myself and get to work and not think so fucking much. the new smaller work is going just as well. This is one of, if not the first time I've ever worked on two different series of paintings simultaneously. If things go well I might be able to manage working on five different canvases at the same time. I fear saying it, but I'm happy with the way things are going.

Well, I should get back to work. It is Friday and I can only stay sober for so long.

GO STEELERS!!!!

The opposite of 'tis?............................TAINT!

2006-01-31T15:27:00.000-05:00

'Twas an interesting weekend. Well, not so much interesting as it was long. There was an art opening at my art studio (did I ever mention that there are over forty artists in the studio....and we have two galleries www.buffaloartsstudio.org if you give a fuck. There's images of three of my paintings and a poorly written description of me that I haven't cared enough about to change)

Anyway, the opening went off without too much fanfare. Previous to the opening I was lucky enough to catch a ride with my friend Rob (also an artist in the studio and damn stellar drummer) to get provisions (read: Vodka) for the evening. This made the evening much more enjoyable. After the opening (and, yes I'm giggling because I keep saying "opening") I went to my friends 50th birthday party at his place.

This is where the evening takes a fun turn.

My birthday friend's girlfriend wanted to hook me up with one of her friends. Usually I'm greatly opposed to this kind of situation, but I didn't have a choice in the matter. She was really cute, sarcastic and talkative. I thought I completely ruined any chance for even a conversation with her when, on our way up a ladder to the roof of my friend's place, I kept, accidentally, kicking her in the face (Am I fucking smooth, or what?!?) Well, thanks to my best friend (red wine) I became a much more charming person, in her eyes at least.

Didn't do shit on Sunday. No Football? No Hockey? What the fuck?!?!

The new paintings are coming along relatively well. We'll see how work goes tonight. I' m going to start a series of smaller paintings 2'x2'. I'm almost as excited for them as I am for the one's that I've already started. Both series are very different, but they both deal with things that we see but don't pay attention to. Ooooooooooooooooh! I'm soooo fucking deep!

Motivation

2006-01-26T13:56:00.000-05:00

Yeah! I ain't got none of that. This is bullshit! I'm bullshit!!! I finally have my studio back, with time to work on stuff, and it's as if someone unplugged me. I've been standing in front of my latest painting, that I'm working on and..................there's nothing there. BULLSHIT!!!!

I gotta force myself to get going.

It's kinda funny. In many ways I'm very similar to my car. Not much to look at, but distinctive in a quirky way. Reliable (usually). Sometimes difficult to get started, but once going, works perfectly.

The problem is..............I desperately want to paint, but by head's not in it......Fucker. Maybe I gotta do some mindless shit like stretch canvasses or something. Something so I'm not wasting too much time.

My next work is going to be so much fun! Most of it is already done in my head and all I have to do is paint the shit.........easy, right? But nooooooooooooooooo! I gotta be retarded.

What a Fucker I am!

Friday night quickly turned into Monday morning!

2006-01-24T16:21:00.000-05:00

Zoinks! What a weekend, at least the parts that I remember. Details would bore anyone but me, besides most things are rather fuzzy. The more interesting parts happened at a house warming party on Saturday night. My friend who, along with his wife hosted the party, has a book coming out this Spring. He is also an artist, and if it weren't for the fact that he's so fucking good at what he does or that he is genuinely a great guy, I would be dying of jealousy (because I'm that shallow)...........In the words of Gore Vidal (I believe) "Every time a friend succeeds, I die inside."

Seriously though, I hype his work wherever I go, not that it needs it. www.montagueprojects.com Look at it. It's cool shit.

Also, a local paper "The Beast" finally came out with there 2005 year in review (yeah, just a little late). It's online at www.buffalobeast.com Their 50 Most Loathsome People in America is some funny fucking shit!!!

I heart booze!

2006-01-20T17:04:00.000-05:00

Yep, it's Friday, but this time I'm not spending the evening in the studio, that's for damn sure. Aside from the fact that I don't have anything to work on..................I'm fucking burned out! Shit, I had to go and touch up the mural earlier. The paint didn't have enough time to cure properly and in hanging the mural we ended up scraping of some sections, nothing too bad though. It was unavoidable. I probably could have gotten away with just leaving it, nobody who saw it noticed any of the small sections that we damaged......................I wouldn't have felt right doing that though.

Look at me, all ethical!

I'm gonna help me to some large doses of creativity juice and mega doses of Vitamin-V. Is being a drunk artist too much of a cliche'?

Fuck it! I'm gonna wear it like a crown tonight.

False alarm! False alarm!

2006-01-19T15:19:00.000-05:00

Had to cancel the "date". I'm going to be covered in contact cement until at least 8pm hanging the mural that I just finished, and she has a 6am flight to Connecticut tomorrow. Thus we would have had an evening that lasted about 2 hours, and rushing is no fun. So, we have to reschedule, and I can obsess about this again in a week or so.....Goody Goody Goody!!!!!

Other than that........................I got nuthin'......................for an interesting change of pace.

On a happier note........I HAVE MY STUDIO BACK!!!!!! I can't wait to get things back in order and get back to work on my shit. Nothing stirs my imagination for new works more than being stuck doing a money-making project for a couple of weeks. I have a bunch of new ideas for paintings that I want to test out. Hopefully most of them won't suck ass..................you know, in the bad way.

I think I'm going on a date tomorrow

2006-01-18T14:47:00.000-05:00

At least I think it's a date. I've gone out with her once before but it was more of a "get to know ya" type of thing. We only met out for a drink and then went to an art opening that I had to go to. She seemed.....................normal (a shocking departure for me), funny, extraordinarily sarcastic (good thing), Oh and she can pound a pint of beer in less than six seconds!!! Not bad for a girl that's only 5'2". Yeah and she's really cute. You want to put her in your pocket.

Anyway, that was Saturday. Apparently I didn't scare her off cuz we're going out tomorrow. I think it's a date.

My biggest fucking problem (...and I have catalogued well over 1100 of them) is that I fall into the "friend trap" way too easily. I can get along well with anyone, and it's very hard for me to tell if someone is interested. Seriously, nothing short of dry-humping will get that signal across to me. I'm probably better of not thinking that it's not a date, because that way it probably will be one. It's fucking annoying. It's as if I'm back in 8th grade, for fuck sake. Maybe it's because I don't date that much (because I find it so fucking annoying.........Problem #418). Sure, I'm good at painting about this shit, but dealing with it myself...................I'm a fucking douche (Problem #63).

Over-thinking it? (Problem #3) Probably.

Ah, to hell with it! I'm just gonna go and enjoy the evening (probably).

Three days of not doin' shit

2006-01-16T17:22:00.000-05:00

Starting today MLK2 2K6. The mural's done and slowly drying on my studio wall, which is good thing. The only problem, it's taking up all of my fucking space. To do the mural I took everything off of on wall and essentially shoved everything that was on the floor to the opposite side of the room, so I would have room to work. I can't take the mural down yet (still wet) and there's no room for me to work on the other wall, so I'm kinda stuck. I knew this this morning and I still came to the studio. I feel guilty not getting here every day..................it's a fucking sickness. All I've done today is stare at the mural and pace around my work table several dozen times. It'll all be over Thursday. I hang the mural, get my check and get back to work.

I have to go and get another blood test. As it turns out, according to my doctor............................my cholesterol-----elevated but relatively normal, my liver function----surprisingly robust, my blood sugar-----defying rational explanation, normal!

HOWEVER, I apparently have a strange, little blood disorder. I absorb iron at an accelerated rate which causes me to...now get this...................PRODUCE TO MUCH BLOOD. The only course of action...now get this...............IS TO BE BLED! Kind of freaky, but nothing too alarming. He said it's something that's not detected in people until their fifties. He laughed when he saw that one of the things I'm supposed to avoid is alcohol, because we both know that's not an option. I asked my doctor if I could just give blood once a month. He said if it turns out that I actually have this shit that I could feasibly give blood once a fucking week. To hell with the red cross I'm selling my shit on ebay. How much do you get for donating plasma? All this time I thought I was poor and here I am with gallons of red gold squirting through my veins, and I'm creating an endless supply!!!!

So I gotta go for another test to see if I really have this shit. I'm torn between wanting it, just cuz it's kinda freaky, and not wanting it because it might end up being just another hassle................................because above all else I'm a lazy shit.

Mural's done and I'm a graduate school applicant

2006-01-12T15:28:00.000-05:00

How quickly shit can change in only one day. I finished the mural at around 9-ish then spent the rest of the night writing my bullshit essay for school (more on that later). I got to bed at around 3:30-esque, woke up, got my shit together and sent my application on it's way. It's a motherfucking relief. Now I just have to wait a week, to let the mural dry and then I can take it down and get back to work on my shit. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Essay
Sweet fuck, what a pain in the ass! I swear I was pulling penguins out of my ass writing that thing. It such bullshit. I hate writing about my work. It just seems so pointless. I feel like such a douche, giving my work that kind of importance. Don't get me wrong, it is important, but it's meant to be seen, not read about. If I talk about it, I'm very plain, plus I can say shit and fuck and douche. They don't like that in the accademic world apparently. I even hate reading other artists' statements. Mostly because they describe their work with these grand flowery statements that essentially mean nothing. It's just artistic doubletalk. In my opinion, art is like humor, if it has to be described, it's not that good. I'll grant that art is much more difficult to grasp, sometimes, than humor, but if given enough time anyone can understand the most complex work of art................assuming it's good to begin with. If it's crap, it's crap and no amount of critical essays will change that.

Unfortunately I had to wade into the dark swampy waters of artspeak, to write the essay. Eventhough I didn't go to far with it I still feel a little dirty, like I need a second or third shower.

Fantastic time waster

2006-01-10T19:52:00.000-05:00

www.fabrica.it/flipbook/

I wasted almost an hour and a half on this. Fuck it was fun. It reminded me of drawing these things while not paying attention in school.

Yeah, that's all I got today. I'm boring.

Friday night

2006-01-06T17:59:00.000-05:00

Here it is Six o'clock on a Friday evening and I'm still in the studio. There's half of me that's screaming to get out and go to one of three happy hours, but yet I'm still here. I'll probably still be here at nine o'clock. Although I know it's a good thing (I have a lot of work to do), I still have the feeling that I'm missing something. Although there are few, if any, places that I would rather be than my studio, it's very isolating. The funny thing is my studio is in essentially a co-op of 45 artists. I'm the only one here right now. Where the fuck is everybody else? You call yourselves artists. Am I the only one with this much dedication or am I the only one without any other life?

Fuck! That's a sobering thought.

My studio is in a huge converted industrial building. It was originally a Ford plant (they built model A's here). Usually mine is the last car in the parking lot. I sometimes feel a little proud when that happens, although I'm not exactly sure why. Right about now, and especially on weekends this giant building is nearly empty. There are probably no more than six or seven people in here right now. The silence is deafening. It can get kinda creepy................in a good way.

Don't get me wrong, after I'm done working I'm going out. My inspiration tank is on empty and I'm in deep need of some vitamin-V.

I can't wait for the mural to be finished.

Thankful

2006-01-05T15:28:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I feel extremely lucky. It's hardly ever apparent, but it's true. I feel especially lucky to have the friends that I do. Let's face it I'm a self-important, lazy, pudgy fuck with a tad of painting talent and a wee bit o' wit. I'm amazed that, somehow, I've attracted the friends that I have.

I was in a relatively bad mood today (nothing major, just the "I haven't seen the sun in 13 days kind of blahs"). Before venturing to the studio I went to see a couple friends of mine. Without them doing anything in particular, they just put me into a good mood. I don't know what it was. Sometimes I feel that I take them (meaning all my friends) for granted, and for that I am sorry.

OK this is sounding a little too sappy and gay.

BOOBIES BOOBIES BOOBIES, CUNT, TWAT, GASH, MEAT WALLET, MEAT WALLET, CLAM STRIPS, B-O-G-I-N-A!

........Ahh that feels better. Now I gotta go to work.

Ugh! I got nuthin'!

2006-01-04T18:04:00.000-05:00

Work on the mural has gone unexpectedly smooth so far. So well, in fact, that for the time being I don't have anything to work on.............................Once again I am in a position to actually HAVE to watch paint dry. I gotta tell ya............it's just as fucking boring as everyone has always said.

I figured I'd write a little, to pass the time.

I'm actually going to go through with the whole "applying for school" thing (shudder shudder shudder). I have to write a letter of intent for the application. What kind of bullshit is that?!?! I'm trying to get my masters in fine arts! What do they expect me to write? I suppose I have to give them some bullshit about what my goals for school are. In reality my only goals are to create two years of work that are better than the previous two, and to get my degree so I too can be a professor and impart my great wealth of art making knowledge to the rest of the world. In reality my great wealth of knowledge could be inscribed onto a postage stamp, sure it would be one of those big $3.00 commemorative stamps.............but it's still just a stamp.

It would really be funny if (a.) I wasn't even considered for the fellowship (b.) didn't get a t.a. position, and (c.) I wasn't even accepted. Although (c.) is highly unlikely, it still looms in my head a possibility. Hopefully the fact that I've making art and making a living (although a meager one)at it for the last eight years will carry some weight.

Regarding school, I did find out some good news........................my application isn't due until the 13th of January. I thought it was due the 7th! To think I almost had everything done already, and I was worried that I would run out of time.

PROCRASTINATION ROCKS!!!!

I gotta go see if my paint's dry.

Mural

2005-12-30T12:39:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I stood, horrified, in front of the huge expanse of white canvas that has to turn into a mural, in about fourteen days. After about fifteen minutes of whining (to self) I kicked myself in the ass and got down to work. wat I painted yesterday isn't dry yet, for some reason. I added a ton of dryer to the paint but the results were lackluster. Fuck it. I have to continue working, even at the risk of destroying what I did yesterday. I suppose if I'm going to fuck things up I might as well do it in the beginning.

Last night, after leaving the studio I went out for a drink. When I got to the bar I was a little horrified to see that the bar was packed with people in their late forties to early sixties. Their age didn't disturb me, it was the fact that, from what I could tell, most of them were single.........and looking. I suddenly had a flash-forward. Was this how I'm going to end up? Still single at 50 going out to see some lame-ass blues band, trying to get laid one last time before my semen turns to silt. It was a sobering thought.....................exactly the last thing you want to have in a bar.

The strange thing was to see the similarities between their little group dynamic and the one that usually occurs in the bar that I was at. Everybody was eyeing everyone else, in a cute nonjudgementally judgmental way. There were the annoyingly close couples who apparently would die if they broke physical contact for more than fifteen seconds, the quiet loners, the drunken whores, etc...............................if it wasn't so sad it would have been comical.

New Years eve is coming. Whoopty-fuckin'-doo! Even when I wasn't single I was never a huge fan of the evening. Like St. Patricks Day and night before Thanksgiving, it's amateur night! People, who have no business having more than two drinks, decide it's a good idea for them to have fifteen. There are few things that bother me more than a person who doesn't know their limitations. Aside from the parade of douchebags, the evening still doesn't hold that much cache' for me

Either way Happy New Year!!

Yea! Christmas is over!

2005-12-27T13:37:00.000-05:00

The lousy holiday is fucking up my damn mural. Getting supplies together is enough of a pain in the ass without Fed-ex taking Monday off. What the fuck! What if it was insulin.....or or cocaine? I'm sure I could have gotten that shipped next day air!

Ugh! I feel trapped. I asked a few friends to write me letters of recommendation, because I said I was applying to grad school. I'm now second-guessing this decision. I have to go through it though (I hate people wasting effort on my account). The thought of going back to school makes me nauseous. It's supposed to be a good thing to have a bunch of people critiquing your work while you're doing it, but I've always found it annoying. Oh God, and theory......so much fucking art theory it makes you vomit. Writing about art, for me is a gigantic waste of time. Art is simple. Most of it has to do with sex (maybe not directly, but trust me it's in there somewhere). Getting sex. Not getting sex. Getting too much sex. Not enough sex. The (many) results of sex. Thinking about sex. I hate it when people over-complicate things.

I paint. That's what I'm supposed to do. Let other people write about it. I don't want to write some detailed explanation for everything that I did! What's the point of doing the actual work if you explain it in exhausting detail in writing. There's gotta be some mystery. I don't want to hold someone's hand while they're looking at my paintings. They have to do some work on their own!

Lazy bastards!

That's probably why art isn't as popular as other forms of "expression", people are too fucking lazy. Art is simple but it does require some effort from the viewer. Unlike movies, music, and theater where the viewer can passively sit and let the action happen around them, in art the viewer has to be an active participant. Some people might say that it's boring, but a work of art is only as boring as the person looking at it. To those people I say "Fuck off, go watch some NASCAR you douche!"

Hey, I never said that I wasn't an elitist prick.

I'm drinkin' a lot this weekend

2005-12-22T15:45:00.000-05:00

I'm going to be away from any sort of computer for a while, so I'm going to take this time to wish the seven people who read this A VERY -------- --------------!

I'm going to have a ton of work ahead of me. I think I'm going to have to start the mural on Christmas eve or Christmas day. The more that I think of it the more nervous I get (very typical of me!) I'm trying to visualize how exactly I'm going to paint all of the space stuff that's going to be in the mural.

I'm fucked, proper fucked!

No food stamps for me!

2005-12-20T15:21:00.000-05:00

I found out yesterday that I got the mural job that I've been hoping for. It's such a fucking relief. I was skittering into abject poverty. OK maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration but I was coming close. I mean, I was seriously rationing my booze money for the week, and Daddy needs his liquid inspiration!

The strangest thing about the mural is that they picked a design that I would not have expected. I gave them around ten concepts, and there were a few that I thought for sure that they would gravitate to...........things involving food, architecture, shit like that. Go fucking figure they go with an idea that I literally pulled straight out of my ass. It's a lot more conceptual (conceptual about what? Beats the fuck outta me!). I thought it was basically filler, something to show them that I did some work and that I could essentially paint anything. The best part is that of all the ideas that they gave them it is/will be the most fun to paint. Most of it is space, distant stars, and nebulas. The bottom left will have a 8-9 foot curve of the moon's surface. As the mural moves from left to right the space/nebulas will dissolve/solidify into a curved surface that will be covered in large drops of water. All in all pretty basic stuff, which is good because they want the thing hung by January 23rd. I'll be working my ass off for the next three weeks!

Needless to say I'm in a chipper fucking mood! Ok, that sounds painfull. Let it be known that I would never fuck a wood chipper.........................no matter how many drinks I had or how hot said wood chipper was or how much she comes on to me. A man's gotta have standards!

My other work is going to have to go on hold for a while which kinda sucks (I gotta put a black cloud around everything), although not for a day or two. I'm not doing dick until I get the deposit check. I think I'll have to spend around $500 on supplies, and it's not coming out of my account.

CAR UPDATE

I got a message from another guy at CSX this morning. Why do people insist on calling me when I'm in the fucking bathroom? I don't take my phone in there out of courtesy. Maybe it's just me but I don't think someone/anyone wants to hear me trying to have a conversation while deucing out. Anyway this guy (the claims guy) will be out of the office until January 2nd.

................................my windshield saga continues.

Everybody has an opinion, but why does everyone feel the need to voice it?

2005-12-16T13:27:00.000-05:00

This question is posed to myself as well. Trust me. I ask this question and then continue to blather on endlessly? I'm a dick too.

I've been literally bombarded over the past few days by opinions. I suppose this always happens, maybe I'm just becoming more conscious of it. Either way, I'd like everyone to SHUT THE FUCK UP!........for at least five minutes. There are few things in this world that I love more than silence. Unfortunately it seems to be in short supply. It seems that the people whose opinions truly mean the least to me are the first ones to offer them up. In my head I'm saying "My God! Thank you for giving me this kernel of wisdom. For my life has been, and would have continued to be an empty shell without it"

THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS

Bullshit!!! You oversensitive fucks! Both sides! If someone says "Merry Christmas" to you, and you're offended by this act, you are a douche! If you politely point out that you are not Catholic, or you don't celebrate Christmas.....you're still a douche! Just smile and say "thank you"! However, if you're a person who thinks that someone saying "Happy Holidays" is a communist and trying undermine your personal beliefs, you are also a douche. Maybe they have shit to do and don't have time to say "Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!". Whenever I hear "Happy Holidays" I'm taking it as an all-inclusive...Christmas and New Years. Everyone lighten up! Be happy that someone actually gives you a friendly and polite greeting.

CAR UPDATE

I got a call this morning from a very nice guy from CSX (the company that owns/runs the bridge under which my car got damaged). He told me that that they got my message, and that that he was forwarding my info to there claims department. Not to bad. I called their corporate headquarters (in Florida) yesterday and got a call back this morning. Even if the claims department tells me to go fuck myself with my busted windshield, they get points for a quick response.

I gotta get to work!

Great, an ice storm!

2005-12-15T15:22:00.000-05:00

After enjoying temperatures below 10 degrees for the past few days we are now being treated to a swell little ice storm. Not that they are that much of a big deal, people just tend to over react or under react to them........................another couple of days of idiots on the road. For fuck sake people, how long have you lived in this town? The problem is that because of this "frozen death from the sky" I won't be meeting with the mural people until Saturday. If I do get this job (Jesus Allah Buddha I'll love you all if I get this job) I'll have less than a month to get it done. .

After careful consideration I've come to the conclusion that I probably have to break down and actually buy a computer. That's right, I've never owned one. UGH! I still fucking hate them, but it's becoming increasingly obvious that one might be a necessity, for work at least. The next logical step would then be to get a website. I have truly gone over to the darkside. Next thing you know is that I'll be mastering photshop and all those other douchebaggy programs. Personal growth suck my ass!!!!!!!!!........................and not in the good $500 an hour way!

I am lucky enough to be surrounded by a few people who really know what they're doing when it comes to computer shit. Once again I'm clueless. As worthless as I am around cars, my knowledge of computers makes me look like goddamn Mr. Fucking Goodwrench!

Fuck, I am a throwback. I probably would have been comfortable living in the 1800's except for all of the cholera outbreaks, rampant syphilis, and lack of flush toilets.

Procrastin...ah fuck it! I'll finish it later!

2005-12-14T15:02:00.000-05:00

Shit, I can't get anything done today! My hands aren't working. For fuck sake it took me two minutes just to type these sentences! I still have around ten more designs to do for the mural. The thought of it just makes me want to take a nap. But, damn! I need this job....................desperately.

For some reason writing this shit make me fell like I'm actually accomplishing something. Fuck, I'm deluded!

CAR UPDATE:

I picked it up about twenty minutes ago. All it needed was new spark plugs. The 1991 Volvo 240 DL sedan, now with all new STARTING action! My mechanic is the best. I'm a complete douchebag with cars. Always will be. All I need now is a new windshield. Oh yeah, I forgot. On my drive home Monday night I drove under a RR viaduct and something fell off of it and cracked my windshield. What the fuck? I know now that I will probably end up dying in a car crash. I am the vehicular version of AIDS!

Screw it I'm gonna go get a gin and tonic, take an hour nap and then get my work done.........................................probably.

Fuckin' Fucky Fuck

2005-12-13T17:40:00.000-05:00

It was around 9 degrees when I went out to start my car today. Don't get me wrong I actually love this weather, but motherfucker! My nipples became innies (yes, and hard as diamonds!) Of course my car didn't start. Had to get it towed. Rode with the driver (A good enough guy. Didn't make me feel like a wuss cuz my car didn't work. I still felt like a fucking douche!). As I write this I still don't have my car. I'll either have a frigid walk home or I'll have to beg a friend to pick me up from the studio. I hate to beg, or even ask for that matter. I need a sudden influx of cash. Any lady in need of a male escort? I can eat a peach for hours (wink wink, nudge nudge)

Mind you, I still love my car. It's the best car ever made. Ahhhh the 1991 Volvo 240 DL.

hopefully this repair will be manageable.

Got filmed again today for the stupid home show. They loved the mural (DUH!). I was, once again, a complete spastic on camera. I don't even know what I said, and I refused to see the tape afterward. Nothing, for me, will set off a bout of self-loathing more than having to see or hear the recorded version of myself. It was over quick enough though. Got a ride back to the studio from my friend who owns the house. On his way back home he got into a car accident.

I AM THE AUTOMOTIVE GRIM FUCKING REAPER!!!!!!!!!!!

My friend is OK, and the accident wasn't his fault.

I somehow started a new painting today. It's along the same lines as the mural (water on glass). It's not too big, only 3 x 8 feet.

By Thursday I need to come up with fifteen ideas for a mural at a local college. They approached another artist to do the project, and this fucking douchebag priced it at $2200!!! It's a mural that's 6 feet tall and nearly 20 feet wide for fuck sake! I don't care what your opinion on art is, that's fucking cheap! Too cheap!!! Luckily they didn't like his design, a nice view of Tuscany. Did I mention hat the mural is for the cafeteria. What a dick! Nothing makes me think "TUSCANY" more than community college cafeteria food. Again, I say, What a dick!

It's done!!

2005-12-02T15:08:00.000-05:00

Sweet fuck, the damn thing is done. I walked out of my studio at 3:30 am tired, sore and a little buzzed. The crew from the television show wasn't able to film yesterday (THANK SWEET FUCKING CHRIST!!!). They are the most disorganized bunch o' fucks I've encountered recently.

- - - -I've noticed that I've been swearing a lot more, as of late. Fuck it!

The mural turned out great................as far as I can tell. This is good for my future painting. I've been planning a shift in my work for some time. I was getting a little too comfortable. This little mural confirms (at least a little bit) that I might be moving in the right direction. The work is going to be even simpler than it has been in the past. Quieter. People who have seen the mural in progress have said how "abstract" it is. I can see how they would say that, but they couldn't be more wrong. It's just as realistic as anything I have done in the past, but the subject matter and how I've focused on it is what's changed. I love the fact that people can't see or make out what they're looking at......even though it's sitting right in front of them.

Back in the swing!

2005-11-30T19:43:00.000-05:00

Holy shit this is great!!! Last night I didn't leave the studio until almost 3 am. There's nothing like a looming deadline to fuel the need to paint. I've been working on a mural for a friend's house. He, somehow, is getting it redone by one of those house makeover shows. The cool thing is that I'm getting to do whatever I want. I'm treating it like a large study for my next "body" of work. It's about 9' x 6'.

It's fucking great. I'm exhausted (a 17 hour day will do that to you) and I can't wait to get back to work................................I plan on doing so after wrapping this shit up.

I actually did a little on camera work yesterday. I was such a fucking 'tard! I had to ad-lib some lines about the mural and the wall that it's going on. As soon as as the producer said action it was as if I was sticken by a series of gradually intensified strokes. I couldn't speak, became all shades of red, and became painfully aware of the large, fluffy white balls of saliva that were collecting in the corners of my mouth. Doing a bang-up job on my P.R.!!!! "Ladies and gentleman get a mural for your home painted by a SPASTIC DOUCHEBAG!!!" I'm getting filmed again tomorrow, in my studio no less. Hopefully that will go better.

BULLSHIT!!!

Thanksgiving

2005-11-23T05:40:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving with my sisters family. Yeah, this is going to be interesting. Driving through a blinding snowstorm for forty miles with my father at the wheel. The thing that I'll be most thankful for is that I don't end up bleeding in a ditch somewhere outside of Hamburg, New York.

Hopefully enduring twelve years of Catholic school is going to finally pay off. Now where did I leave my rosary?!?!?

Cheap art people

2005-11-22T17:30:00.000-05:00

So my studio has this little group show this past weekend. I wasn't terribly excited because my work rarely sells well at these things. It was early in the evening and I had a decent buzz going on (I had gin and vodka and rum in my studio for myself and friends...gotta be a good host even if you're miserable!). A friend of mine comes in. I offer her a drink. she says no and asks if I want to bargain for one of the pieces that I had in the show. Mind you, the prices are clearly marked and that sales out of the gallery are subject to a 25% commission/donation by the gallery. It was a matted pencil drawing. My price was $275.................not exactly a metric shitload of money, especially compared to some of the other prices around. She offered me $200. So in the end, for a work that I wanted $275 for I would have gotten $150. FUCK THAT!

I was polite, although a little indignant with my sarcasm.....remember I did have a pretty good buzz on. I reminded her that she had a job, a rather nifty one, and that my money comes pretty much exclusively through my work. Either way we parted ways, saying that we would think about it. No surprise, I didn't see her for the rest of the night. I grew more and more pissed as the evening and drinks went by. She should know the difficulty of keeping your head above water (........."and making your way when you caaaaan.........temporary layoffs.........GOOD TIMES!".....................sorry got carried away) when you're an artist.

My question is..................Why do people always think that they can, and for that matter should bargain for a lower price, especially when dealing with artists? God knows the vast majority of us aren't rich. Why do people think that my studio is Canal Street and I'm a little Asian guy selling a knockoff Gucci?

More whiny shit

2005-11-11T17:27:00.000-05:00

Ugh!! I'm getting a little burned out of all this art-as-a-business/career shit. I go through this every once in a while and it drives me crazy. It's hard enough to come up with ideas and then actually create them, but all the other little aspects of doing this just grate on me..........matting....framing........photographing..........sending out slide packages......applying for shows and grants and residencies. All I wanna do is paint stuff. I gotta have faith that this will just pass again. It always does. i won't be able to be around myelf if my attitude doesn't change soon..................................GOD, I'M SUCH A WHINY PRICK!

I have two small group shows coming up and I just can't bring myself to give a rats ass.

Oh..............and I'm really hung over.

So what do I do now?

2005-11-10T13:34:00.000-05:00

My show was taken down two days ago. I still haven't done a real painting yet.................granted I don't have anything to paint on. I just spent several hundred dollars on supplies. So now I'm just a'waitin' for inspiration to wash over me.

I got reviewed in Artvoice and got a less than positive response. I'm not sure what the reviewer recently got shoved up her ass but it must be terribly uncomfortable. The best part was the response from everyone else. A bad review is a bad review................no big deal at all, but everyone thought that she was making more personal statements than anything about the work. The public at large has never been impressed with her writing abilities, but this review really sent people over the edge. At least three friends sent letters to the editor about the review.

I've never gotten this much of a response to a positive review. There is no such thing as bad press!!

QUESTIONS

2005-11-01T18:30:00.000-05:00

How come nobody knows how to use an elevator anymore? I don't know if this lack of skill and manners is exclusive to the mongoloids that work in my building but DAMN!!!! It would just seem to be common sense to let people off of the elevator before you try to squeeze your fat ass on to it..........ESPECIALLY WHEN I'M CARRYING SOMETHING BIG AND FUCKING HEAVY!!!............I know this and I don't have a physics or engineering degree.

Do people think that just because they are on a cell phone that no one can hear what they're saying? Same elevator ride as above. I now know that it burns when a particular stranger pees. I didn't ask for this knowledge. I guess I'm a better person for knowing it....................I know what bathrooms to avoid. Even if I'm talking about something cool I keep my voice down out of, I guess, respect. Maybe it's me, but if a conversation revolves around my having a sensation of "prickly heat" I'm gonna lower my voice

2005-10-28T16:02:00.000-04:00

HAPPYHOUR!!!

The gallery in which my work sits is having one of their semi-monthly happy hours. They are usually fun and relatively well attended....................another excuse for people to drink, I guess. God knows I never actually need an excuse. I am, of course attending. I'm such a whore that way. I truly hated the attention that I got the night that the show opened, but I like watching people look at my work. I think the crowd (assuming that there will be one) will be more manageable, given that I won't be the main focus of the evening. Unfortunately most of the people there will know me. I like it much more when I can be anonymous. I think that's why I liked living in New York so much.

2005-10-27T16:41:00.000-04:00

I've decided to title these things now

For whatever that's worth. Aside from the fun of tending to a recovering parent, I've also developed a wonderful head/throat/chest cold. It's really quite nice. I feel like I have a family of rabid and pissed off raccoons residing in my sinuses and the only thing that I can truly taste is the blood and mucus in my throat. Too graphic? I don't want to go to a doctor for something as wussy as a bad cold. If I can't make it to the studio then I'l go

Work at the studio continues though. I'm starting and hopefully finishing one of the paintings that I'm donating today. Orchids. That's what I'm painting, orchids. Why? Beats the fuck outta me! I've never really painted flowers before. I just hope it will be relatively easy. I hate spending an inordinate amount of time on something that I just end up giving away. I'm not even sure what charity this is for.

I'm thinking limited palette..........................whites, yellows, greens, and greys. I gotta stop writing and get back to work............................................cough up some blood and get back to work.

2005-10-26T16:32:00.000-04:00

My dad's got wires in his heart. I just picked him up from the hospital after getting a defibrilator implanted in his chest. He's OK................as OK as a 72-year old man can be. It's a routine procedure but still a little wierd. The several recallls that have happenend surrounding these devices is not the least bit calming. He's probably still gonna outlive me.

I had a ton of very wierd dreams the night before his operation.......I'm not terribly surprised, although one thing confuses me...................Why can't I read in my dreams? The words are there, but when I go to read them they become gibberish.

2005-10-24T22:19:00.000-04:00

The kids class went reasonably well. I was spectacularly hung over. I only wanted to throw up twice............resisted the urge both times. Luckily one of the moms that was there was some sort of an education student, so she sort of took control of some of the aspects of the class. For some people her actions would have been a little aggressive, bordering on overbearing, but I didn't care. I had no turf that she was pissing on. She could have taught the whole damn thing while I napped in the corner. Everyone drew their drawings, painted their paintings, and ate their cake. No tears. No casualties. I still don't like kids.

I'm finally getting back in to the swing of painting again. Much of this has to do with the fact that I've promised a couple of charities that I would donate a painting to their auction (cuz I'm so F-ing generous). Why do organizations always feel that the best way to raise money is to have some sort of an art auction? Can't their development people come up with any better ideas. If I hear one more person tell me about the great exposure that donating my work will bring me, I'll have to shoot someone!!!!!

The painting itself is actually going well. I still can't afford the canvas stretchers that I need to do larger paintings, but I'm getting occasionally flooded with ideas and imagery that I want to explore or at least sketch out. That's the scariest part, coming up with the ideas. I swear, I've been doing this for a decade and it still freaks me out. After a show I feel like I'll never come up with another idea ever again. Eventually it all comes around.

I FUCKING LOVE THIS JOB!!!!!

2005-10-21T18:44:00.000-04:00

I don't know what it is but most of my thoughts recently surround my car or driving. Maybe it's because I'm not really getting any real work done, or more likely because of all the rampant douchebaggery that I witness while I'm on the road.......people driving over a mile with their turn signal on while others apparently never learned how to use them.............I just don't get it!

My show was reviewed in the paper (The Buffalo News) today. All in all a good review. I wasn't panned in the least, but it really wasn't a critical blowjob or anything, not that I was expecting one. i was called wity and ingenious, so I got that goin' for me. All of the work was mentioned except for one of my favorites, which I found kinda odd. I suppose I'm being a little too picky/greedy cuz there's no such thing as bad press. Now I gotta go get twenty copies or so to feed my self-important delusion. I hope something sells. .........................................because I'm a greedy materialistic bastard!!!!!!!.....................who needs to buy a shitload of canvas.

I have to teach a children's class tomorrow.....................in the MORNING!! I'm barely functioning right now. I can't imagine what a hangover is going to be like with a bunch of kids added to it. I don't know how I got roped into this. It's too late to get out of it now. I give a ton of credit to anyone who deals with a group of children on a daily basis. I don't like them.

2005-10-19T17:05:00.000-04:00

That Post Show Depression Thing.

OK, so it's been five days since my show opened and I'm now deep into a fantastic depression. I don't even have the satisfaction of having it be alcohol-fueled! I was really trying to avoid this. Hell, I don't even understand it................well, I suppose I sort-of do. Work my ass off........................big build up..........................lots of attention (briefly)......................and then nothing. I guess it's a bit of a letdown combined with the frightening thought that I have to do it all over again, but it has to be even better.

I saw an article about this situation in an old ARTnews once, and most of my friends who are artists experience the same thing. For some reason that this happens to a large amount of artists gives me little comfort.

Holy shit this is some whiny crap!!!!!!

I just gotta get back to work. I have to do more big paintings.

On a different topic.......................Shit am I getting tired of all those magnetic ribbons on the backs of cars!!! The sheer number of them is bad enough but, for God's sake people they are symbols!! They do not need to be (nor should they be) turned on their side so people can read whatever is printed on them. And since when do symbols even need words?! On my way into the studio today I was driving behind some douchebag in a giant black pickup. His ribbons (obviously, tilted on their side) made the important statements "support lap dancing" and "support sex, dugs, and rock and roll". Don't get me wrong I support all of those things, but if your only avenue of self-expression is the back end of your vehicle, you've got problems.

I can't wait for these magnetic pieces of bullshit to go the way of the "Baby on board" sign and the cuction cup Garfield!

2005-10-18T19:17:00.000-04:00

Well, considering how much I detest most technology, it seems pretty silly for me to even have one of these things. Hell, I may be getting a website soon........................GOD WHAT HAVE I BECOME!?!?!?!?

I figure I can whore myself and my work even further with the help of these terrible machines. Unbeknownst to me my friend Val Hyped my new show at the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo on her blog.......creativebflo. So with this I have already doubled my web presence...............................WOW! This shit works!!!!!