Howdy,

The Francis Bacon exhibit opened at the Albright Knox in early May and I was so ridiculously excited to see it. But the heavy burden of careless weekend possibilities would keep my Fridays sacrosanct. Monday would come along and I would drive to work past the gallery and slap myself on the forehead for missing it yet again. But today I got lucky.

If you doubt the relevance or power of painting, waltz on over to the gallery and take a look. My stomach turned, I felt incredible anxiety, I laughed out loud. It was one of the most emotional experiences at an exhibit I had felt in a long time. Even if you don't like art, check it out, you may be a convert.

Another treat though was I got to see my first Albert Ryder. I have been to the gallery a dozen times in my scant three years here and if it is in their collection I have never seen it. The man was insane. He would fire off a painting and be off onto the next thing, never finishing his paintings with a sealant (or whatever it is they use). He was a very prolific man but very few of his paintings remain. The ones that do are all cracked and chipped, having been posthumously finished. Even through cells of paint could be smushed together to form a seamless painting, the quality it lends his work is outstanding. You can see Winslow Homer in his dark, sparse seascapes with waves like overturned storm clouds. Marsden Heartly's landscapes are almost derivative of Ryder.

Please, stop by and see Bacon and the Ryder. You will be glad you did.

What to do, what to do.

The owners of most of the homes on my block live on those homes. They aren't sleazy slum lords who live on Long Island and rent until the house burns down in a bong-bloomed blaze. There are just a couple of houses filled with obnoxious college students.

Now, I may not be a spring chicken (I am an human worm android infact) but I remember those college days of carefree parties and a foolhardy sense of immortality. Loud parties with Jock-Jams soundtracks are understandable. They are the very stuff of youthful indiscretions we laugh at when older and wiser.

But for the love of dog anus, must you break beer bottles all over the place?

I don't know? Who cleans up broken glass infront of your house. Well, it is close to the curb so the garbage men must pick it up, right? Maybe our slumlords who last visited Buffalo when steel plants were open and 'talkies' were the wonder of motion pictures.

I mean, do you notice that your frat paradise is right next door to a home full of children? Too bad little billy fell off his skateboard and shredded his face on your sidewalk.

Well, accidents happen. They do. But clean it up.


Soon, very soon. There will come a time when I will pick up glass and beer bottles. And it will go to a place you never knew you loved so dearly.

You know what I find super cool about our Independence day?

Other nations celebrate their independence with the day they stormed a Bastille, or lopped off some head, or won some battle. But here in America, it is the day we signed a document a year after the fighting had begun.

Our independence is linked not to the comings and goings of power and the nation state, rather it is indelibly linked to a set of ideas. Ideas that even the founding generations found contentious and are even debated to this day. Women, for example, are not constitutionally made equal to men and an amendment to such has been debated in congress nearly every session since the 1920's. In a sense, this revolution is still going on. Not being made of armies and generals there is not point of 'mission accomplished'.

In terms of how we recognize our nationhood we are a nation of ideas; other nations are those of wars.

So why in the name of fuck's ugly grand daughter are drunken men throwing little colorful explosives in the air?

Or, more importantly, why are they doing it before it is dark out? You can hardly see them and are scaring the neighbors dog.

Have a few more beers, wait a few more hours, and when your alcohol thined blood is dripping on the floor of the local emergency room remember, those bullets fired and lives sacrificed do not make our nation. But the freedom to blow up your beer bottle in your hand does.

Good night, and Hern bless America.

A clip from the movie Groove Tube



goodnight

Apparently New York state health insurance sucks!

They covered my hospital trip minus $50 no problem. But the ambulance ride which cost more than the ER and resulted in a mis-diagnoses is not covered by it. Ya, apparently the unconscious diabetic with low blood sugar is having a bit of a drug overdose... When there are no drugs to be found.

What annoys me is that the insurance is for low income people, such as myself. I guess if taking the bus to work is good enough so is taking it to the hospital for a gun shot wound.

My medicine costs less than my monthly bill. The total I will spend this year on medicine, doctors visits, and my one hospitalization will all cost less than what I pay them, and I am an expensive guy to insure. So, well, I guess they would loose too much money paying for ambulance services. After all, if they are still making money off someone expensive like me imagine how much they are pulling in on perfectly healthy specimens.

I feel like I am paying a mob boss protection money. Only, he isn't threatening to break my legs. He is letting me know that on the off chance that I do break my leg, saw off a finger, get hit by a car, I am shit out of luck if I don't pay him.

Well, to put it as succinctly and poignantly as possible, fuck you.