The book’s off to the printers. I always look forward to this part, when it’s out of my hands. A couple days later I start getting impatient for it to be printed already. It’s like ordering delivery when you’re already hungry. Seems to take forever even though it’s only been 45 minutes.

I don’t know what to expect with this one. I guess I never do, but more so with this one. It’s a more opaque or maybe obscure subject than my other ones. Everybody’s taken a cab, listened to music, and been to a bar at least once. But the average person doesn’t give a flying fuck about the art world. Nor should they. By whatever accident of fate or roll of the dice, I’ve spent my life drawing and painting, so I have to at least pay lip service to the industry, gatekeepers, and self-appointed geniuses of this sphere.

Every kind of endeavor has its share of assholes and blowhards, but few have a higher percentage—against any actual accomplishment or skill—than the art world. It’s a place where all you have to do is announce your ambitions and dreams and a chunk of the audience will accept them as gospel without your having to lift a finger.

So I’ve tried to put together an indirect, somewhat fictionalized but very fractured narrative about some people I had dealings with over the past couple decades in that racket. It’s not a pretty picture and I don’t come out smelling like a rose. I’ve engaged in my share of the horseshit. I feel bad about it sometimes. Other times I decide it’s inevitable. The price of playing the game. A small part of me still has impossible ideals connected to art. I want it to be beautiful and pure. But then people get their grubby paws on it and smudge and grease it up so it’s ugly.

Anyways, if you’re curious about any of this, please preorder my book, buy its cover art, some of the collages within, or a cassette of some excerpts. That’s a lot of goddamn shilling, but that’s what the art world’s all about. It’s a sales job. You could do a lot worse and spend a lot more of your hard-earned money elsewhere. 

Of that I have no doubt.

—A reedited version of the Cézanne show review I wrote here a few weeks ago went up at the Reader, as did my take on a book about the history of the Method.

—Wednesday, my interview with the great writer Lindsay Hunter goes up. In the meantime, listen to the one with guitarist Jonathan van Herik and catch up with some other talks. Many more good ones coming—queued up all the way through September as of right now.

—Talked with Mallory about A Nightmare on Elm Street.

—My show of collages at the Rainbo Club is up through July 23rd. Still happy with it, oddly enough. Hope you can see it.

Listen to Los Bitchos. They’re killer.