SELF-IMAGE PROBLEM

Over the summer, when I got really sick, I didn't want to eat any food. My liver was fucked up and I was having trouble digesting. I had trouble going to the bathroom; it seemed like when I was in there I was more like excreting shit and piss, than I was taking one. I was horrified by my body functions and pretty much lost my appetite.This went on for weeks, and I joked with my wife that finally I was dieting the way that I wanted to; pushing plates away after only half eating my small portions. I still didn't loose any weight.
I remember at the height of my sickness I went to see the doctor, and he gave me a physical and asked me to step up onto the scale. "Don't bother taking your shoes or cloths off..." he said. I told him my shoes must have weighed at least 5-10 pounds. And my wallet! He said not to worry about it and I got on the scale and tipped it well over 200 pounds. I was like, 'hey that's not possible...'

Recently I have been feeling really great. My health seems like it is normal and finally I have the energy and optimism that had been missing for months. I have had my appetite back, but I am not eating meat nor drinking gallons of beer every night like I used to. I am not eating big plates of savory, greasy foods to compensate for my hangover. I've been watching my weight still. I've been taking power walks with my wife 4-5 times a week and we are even talking about carrying along full liter bottles of Evian to add onto the exercise routine. People keep telling me I look so healthy. Which is nice. But, people keep asking me if I lost weight... Well, the answer is 'No.' Not only haven't I lost any weight, I weigh just about exactly what I weighed before all of this. I mean pretty much exactly the same. So I am wondering just how fat I must have looked in people's selective memory since everyone things I look so much thinner now even though I haven't lost a pound. I keep wondering, when people are thinking of me in their homes or cars, and wondering about me, do they say to themselves, "Oh yea, Kramer...I wonder how that Fat David Kramer is doing..." or do they say, "He's a good guy...too bad about his weight problem..." I mean if people keep on asking me if I lost weight and I haven't lost a pound, does that just mean that I have seared an image of me as a giant tub-o-lard in their mental photo album. It is distressing. I am wondering what I can do to change this perception. I mentioned this to my wife recently. She said, "No honey... You're not fat..." Later she'll say something like " you should start wearing vertical stripes. That always seems to look good on you."

I just wish that I could be a quick with the positive responses than she is when she asks me such difficult questions.

But from here on out, vertical stripes are the 'New Black' at least in my repertoire.

PROUD MOMENTS

Proud Moments...
Today marks one week until the election. I am optimistic. That said, it seems like every
election that I can remember, I assumed that the Democrat was going to win. It didn't matter what the pols looked like. I believed that people would come to their senses and do the right thing. Maybe this is because I was born in New York City. Or maybe its because I grew up in a house full of Democrats. I always just assumed that the entire nation would see things logically, and that America was a good country and the people were smart.
Anyway, obviously not everyone on the other side of the Hudson River agrees with my logic.

I will never forget when Bill Clinton won as president for the first time back in 1992. It seemed like for my entire life (with the exception of Carter) every presidential election was a brutal loss me. But then came Clinton, and I remember sitting in the old Ship's Mast in Brooklyn, sucking down beers and watching the victory. It was so sweet and I thought that this was the beginning of something new and great for this country...Little did I know it would only last 8 years. But I was proud and beamed with excitement. I really thought that maybe this country had finally grown up.
I remember walking out of the bar and smelling the November air, looking up at the dark sky and thinking, "Yes!" This is what it feels like when the good guys finally win. This is what I had been hoping for....
I hope I get to feel this way again sometime soon.
DK

VIRAL MARKETING Step 3:

STEP 3:Turn that frown upside down....:)

My plans for my successful Viral Marketing Plan to obtain World Domination hit a bump in the road
this weekend as I found myself getting into more trouble than I needed at this particular time, with people whom I actually do business with. This is never a good thing to happen, and when it happens at a time when I am trying to expand my world markets, well let's just say it took some wind out of my sails. Not to go into heavy detail but this was a bad case of HE SAID-SHE SAID were things can get heated and people are likely to say things they were thinking but never expected to say out loud. And the next thing you know, we've got problems.
Anyway, today is monday. And I like Mondays for the most part. I am the kind of guys who looks forward to Mondays. New beginnings A fresh start. A blank slate and a chance to start over.
I am not going to look back or appologize for anything I said over the weekend. That is history. I am looking forward. That's right, this is a new day. I woke up this morning, had a big steamy bowl of oatmeal and called my broker and bought a hundred shares of Apple. It is a new day, that's for sure. Hey I may be stupid and immature and not the best businessman in the world...But the thing I am good at is changing the subject. And that is a skill that I should be very proud of.

VIRAL MARKETING STARTS WITH ME Step 3:
What to do when things get out of hand.
Change the subject quickly.
Set lofty if not unobtainable goals.
Focus on the new goals and forget about what just happened as quickly as possible.
Repeat when necessary.
DK

The Color of Night

I remember when I was a kid, I really admired Van Gogh. He was the artist who I most loved and whose life I most studied. His story was the classic redemption story of a guy who did this incredible work that obviously he fully believed in, while struggling through a life of chronic rejection. He was a failure who never got anywhere in the art world, despite the fact that his very own brother was an art dealer, and he tragically ended his own life, only to be finally, posthumously appreciated for all of his hard work. His story gave me hope and fueled me and made it possible for me to shrug off rejection and failure, to move modestly forward.
I would never sellout, I thought, because look, look at Van Gogh who stuck to his guns and drove himself to finally kill himself, look at how worth it it all was. Just go up to MoMA and see that great little show, Van Gogh and the Color of Night, and see those remarkable paintings, and the insane crowds of people trying to get in there. Van Gogh was fascinated by the color of night and compelled to capture those colors through paint. Never mind that color is generated by light, and needs light in order to exist, Van Gogh was intent on capture the color that he "saw." The show is a jaw dropper, and worth the fight with the crowds to see this collection of works about this one peculiar obsession of an artist who had so many.
I strongly recommend going to see this show, despite the sea of people that you will have to fight to see it. To me, it reminded me of all of the reasons that I got involved with being an artist in the first place. Quixotic ideals that I rallied around and once really believed in. DK

THINGS YOU SHOULD N't DO

THINGS YOU SHOULDN'T DO.

I went out to an opening tonight. My friend Beth Campbel has a great show up
at Nicole Klagsbrun. Then I went to another opening. Meredeth Allen...
Good show too. Edward Thorp Gallery.Then I went to this opening at Front Room which I am in, called
The Ballot SHow. Lots of good stuff in there.


Then I went to this birthday party and that was great too...
got stoned

And now THIS,
and at this fucking hour....

Quick Questionnaire....

Questionnaire:
Yes No Questions:


1 Would you say that the top 2% of the country should get a tax break. and
get to hang on to their money, like a reward, because they obviously know what they are doing?

2 Do you believe that the people who have all the money are the ones who are
creating all the jobs that makes the economy work for the rest of us?

3 Are you willing to have a government that gets out of the way of the free market, and
take a total Darwinian approach to economics, and lets the people who know about these things
regulate themselves?

4 If you answered Yes to question 3, are you willing to allow the government to step in
when it deems necessary to fix the problems of the free market, when things get really bad?

5 Would you say that you have benefited from the economic
policies of this Administration?

6 Would you be willing to vote for a black man if it meant changing the way things are going?

My kid has a blog

http://martin-central.blogspot.com/

VIRAL MARKETING IS HARDER THAN I THOUGHT

MASTER PLAN day 2:

OK. So I admit that I am a little bit disappointed by the response and turn out to my last post. I had sent out into the ether my best swing for the fences with all of the home spun research and ground up optimism that I could muster. But as the old me would have said, "Why is it every time I try to put some extra mustard on anything, I just wind up getting it all over my shirt!"

But the new, improved me will not go there. I am thinking positive. :)

Last night I trotted out my master plan to rule the Internet through my new viral marketing strategy to think positive thoughts, and tried it out on my wife.... She was not impressed.  Our conversation went something like this.

Me: How was your day?

Her: Good.

Me: What'd you do today?

Her: Go to my office. What do you think?

Me: Guess what? Today I came up with a strategy to rule the Internet through a viral marketing campaign designed to channel my positive thoughts into world domination and ultimately millions, if not billions of dollars.

Her: What does "viral marketing" mean?

Me: Ummm, you know. It's like when everybody starts thinking the same thoughts all at once somehow....like it is in the air. Sort of a grass roots type of thing , only much bigger.

So you see, interference right here at home.

My strategy has hit it's first bump in the road.

:) My response. Ha! I will remain focused. I have a game plan.

Day 2

Note to myself:

Find a dictionary written in the last five years.

DK

VIRAL MARKETING STARTS WITH ME

VIRAL MARKETING STARTS WITH ME.

For years now I have been trying to reinvent the wheel or come up with that million dollar idea that every body's got to have so that I can, at least for a moment, sit on top of the wave of public support and ride it for as long as possible, and hopefully off into the sunset.

I have coined phrases (Plan B -yes, that was me....) and tried to rejigger old ones (I Am Living Vicariously Through My Credit Cards...) and mixed them together on canvas and in drawings. This process has, I admit, only small returns on my investment as I have not become rich or mythologized as I had originally thought. It occurred to me recently that maybe part of my problem was shooting at the wrong audience, as I tended to point my attention towards the rarefied  art market. Hey, it worked for Andy Warhol, I thought why not me. But now I set my sites on the mob. Anyone owning a computer who looked at blogs, this would be my domain and I would one day rule the cyber universe, even though I barely know how to download a photograph. I am a new man now, living my clean life existence with all of the extra money and time from not buying alcohol or cigarettes  or even coffee, what possibly could stop me from generating some brilliant new material that would take off like a rocket ship and cause all the planets to Aline? What could possibly get in my way of Global Viral Marketing my way to the center of the universe, I ask, rhetorically.. . Well, the answer is chemical depression. Recently I have been feeling really shitty and full of gloom. I don't know if it was from the chemicals, the ones that I have been depriving myself of, or if it from having to look at the world in its unvarnished form (if you will allow the metaphor of drugs as varnish). So I have come to the realization that I am not going to go back and find out if what is missing is what I am missing. I have been down that road many times and recognize that all my vices were lots of fun, but alas, not a means to the ends that I was looking for. No. What this global viral marketing campaign needs is a very simple central premise. A simple smiley face to remind me that I can do it. A cheerful and catchy positive phase, that keeps on coming (I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...).

What I need is just some positive juice. In these grim economic times, I have decided to become a ray of sunshine. Oh- sure, maybe a cynical or satirical ray of sunshine, but I am only going to "go positive" from here on out. I am going to think "big" and not let the realities get in my ways. I have decided to fore go my drugs and replace them with delusion.

Yes, viral marketing begins with me. If I am going to get what I originally set out for, I am going to have to lie and cheat that smile onto my face and make it stick. Because everyone knows that a smile can be an infectious thing, and everybody loves a winner...And the Toothless Alcoholic is going to be the biggest winner of them all! You'll see.

David Kramer

NOBLE WARRIOR

I was very impressed to learn that former Secretary of State Colin Powell came out over the weekend and endorsed Barak Obama in his run for President. I have always been impressed by that man. I heard the tapes of his moment on Meet The Press on Sunday where he made his endorsement, and boy was I impressed again. His take down of the subversive Republican Party strategy of calling out Obama as secretly being a Muslim was amazing. He stood up for Obama, who happens to be a Christian, and then went onto to say (and I paraphrase here),

'And what's wrong with anyone being a Muslim anyway?' 'What, a kid who is a Muslim American can't be allowed to dream of one day being President of the United States just 'cause they're a Muslim?' 

Powell took to task this point and other pointed and divisive strategies of his own party and slammed them for taking down American values by trying to paint America as a monolithic country of conservative white values. He said so many things that I have said; but who cares if I feel this way....I am just some liberal New York Jew. But to hear this from Powell was so damn meaningful. Powell is the man.

I have always been impressed by Powell. I admit I have let him slide for his bullshitting the UN about the weapons of mass destruction before the war in Iraq, mostly because I felt he was put up to it and also because he left the Administration afterwards in self imposed exile.

But I am glad that he is back and I am glad to hear his views.

DK

MINOR CELEBRITY

....One nice thing about being an artist is that you can be world famous and have your work in museums and the most important collections in the world, and your next door neighbor still has no fucking clue what you do for a living. Which is a good thing when you are taking the trash out in your underwear and you happen to run into them. 

One bad thing about being an artist is that you can be totally anonymous, even when you are out in the middle of the Art World because the Art World is actually a large and rambling place with many hallways and Cul-de-Sacs that have nothing to do with each other. Last night I went out to an opening. I wanted to see some paintings by a guy I knew. I went to the opening, but I really didn't know a sole and the the longer I spent there not talking to anyone, the more self-conscious  I felt that I was a weirdo actually looking at the art work on the walls.

Tonight was totally more like it. I remembered that this guy I know was opening a new gallery and I ran out of the house to see his first show, as this might actually be the last time I get to see someone act ambitiously and over-reach at least until after the Great Depression.

Anyway, the gallery is on a block with lots of other galleries who also happen to be having openings, and I couldn't even make it into any of the galleries without running into familiar faces and warm conversations. I felt like a minor celebrity as I waved hello to critics and gallery owners and I hardly had a chance to look at the art work. This is the way it is supposed to be. I've lived in this town for all my life and have been hanging around parties and openings in this neighborhood for almost twenty years. I think it is good when I can loose myself in these kind of social gatherings and feel like I have a lot of friends. God knows it can be fleeting.

UNTITLED (Self-Help)

OUTSIDE LOOKING IN

My wife has this cousin. He wanted to write a novel. He didn't really care all that much about being a writer, he just wanted to write a novel. So everyday he would make himself write between 500-1000 words and before he knew it, he had written this whole book. It was this cold-war-era-spy-thriller, and it wasn't to bad.  I told him it was at least as good as half the shit out there. I asked him if he planned on trying to get an agent or if there was somebody he was going to approach to get it published. He said that he was really happy that me and a few other people had read it, and that he had accomplished everything that he had set out to do. Now he wanted to get back to his wife and his family and back to his job at the bank; there were a bunch of things that he had let slide over the year or so that it took to write the book.  He told me that apparently my own life as an artist had had a profound effect on him as he had watched me and my career as an artist. He was inspired by this and this is what got him interested in writing his novel in the first place. He was happy that I read it and thrilled that I liked it and now he was totally ready to move on. Well, I was very satisfied and moved to hear that I had such an effect on him and his life. My only problem is that I am still looking for something so satisfying and constructive to take away from my own fucking existence.

PHILADELPHIA STORY

My Friends. Many of you may have noticed that I have not made a new entry onto my blog in quite some time. I had, in fact, suspended all blogging activities over the past few days in an effort to turn all of my attention to the current global financial crisis that has affected so many of us.

And now that the ship seems to have been righted, and the Dow has only lost like a hundred points today, I feel confident that I can return to my duties here. 

In truth, I was in Philadelphia. With renewed confidence in the economy we decided t to go away. My kid had a long weekend off from school, and we decided to take a little overnight-day-trip. There were so many interesting  things to do there, and with renewed confidence in the shaky economy, we decided to roll the dice and have a little get-away. One of the first things that we did was to go to the Liberty Bell. We had to wait on a line to get in and the anticipation was ripe. My son asked those historically relevant burning questions like, "Why do we have to wait on line to see a stupid bell!" and "What's the big deal about a broken bell?!" and Can we go now....Where's the hotel... 

While waiting on line, I had my  own thoughts. I was thinking about my son's questions about "what's the big deal about a broken bell..." I started to think about the guy who made the bell and how lucky he must have felt when he found out that his defective piece of shit product had turned into a national treasure. I was thinking about him sitting there, shaking in his boots waiting to be sued by the Constitutional Congress for his piece of shit bell, only to be showered with praise when someone figured out that the broken bell was a good thing. A symbol of FREEDOM.

I started to laugh at the inside joke of all of this and how America always seems to have been a country of positive thinkers who where able to turn lemons into lemonade. Americans always want to see the cup as half full. And then, that is when  I started to worry. I started to worry that  the stock market jitters were over. And that the  price of gas was going down, to give all Americans a certain strident step that we've been missing. I started to think that maybe things are going to start getting a little bit better and that people were going to start adopting that stupid "If-it-works-don't-fix-it" attitude that Americans are so good at adopting.

I hate to say it but I started to think that I hope things get a little bit more fucked up around here for just a couple more weeks, or we are going to end up electing McSame over here.

DK

Why art is great.

I went with my wife to this dance recital tonight. We had both had terrible days, neither of us wanted to go. This was a fund raiser for this professional dance company. The Doug Varone company, and it was in a theater on Broadway.

My wife's Pilate's  teacher is one of the dancers and she really wanted to support her.

Anyway, we got a baby sitter and went out for dinner and the whole time all we can both do is get ourselves more and more depressed about how much money I just lost in the stock market this week. How the wheels are coming off right from under us. We ate in Hell's Kitchen in the cheapest place possible, and my wife still offered to not eat if it would help us to make our next mortgage payment. I started to go on a rant about Darwinist Economics and how that the people we'd bought stock in would all survive and get stronger. It was wishful thinking I know.

Anyway, we go to this dance which we'd already bought tickets for, and we sit in this old, beautiful theater and the lights go down and the music starts and the dancers start to dance, and my whole mood started to get so much better. I really felt great and I wanted jump up and start dancing too. My mind was drifting away and I started to feel so overwhelmed with happiness, I started to think that all of the men and women on stage there all looked so tremendously happy too.  I started to think to myself..."How come I never became a dancer?" How come I never pursued a career like that. I looked at all these gorgeous girls and thought that they'd be my co-workers. I would get to know everyone. And the guys, they all seemed like nice guys. Sort of different from me physically. Kind of like stretched out versions of me, but with hair on their heads and not all over the back and shoulders. Then I began to realize that no one wanted to see me dance. And maybe that is why no one ever encouraged me to dance either. It was as if some sort of Darwinian experiment had taken place on me without me even noticing. No one had encouraged me to dance so I eventually faded into the T-ball league and then onto smoking pot in High School. 

I started to wonder how I had gotten to this place in my head, all the way from the economy, and I started to remember what it was that I love about art. Somehow all of that panic about money that I had had just a few moments ago had quickly dissipated into thoughts of me jumping around on a stage dressed in little more than tights.

ON BEING A MID CAREER ARTIST

ON BEING A MID CAREER ARTIST. I ran into this old friend of mine the other day. We used to be like best friends but over the years we had pretty much stopped talking to each other all together. But there we were some twenty years later, two old kooks standing on the curb talking about the recent real estate boom, the price of a gallon of gas, and where we were going to move when we finally had had enough of the old neighborhood. The two of us completely oblivious to the young good-looking hipsters who were passing us by on the sidewalk, no doubt wondering how these old farts had the time of day to just be standing there and talking so long. They couldn't possibly know that we were sitting on the last affordable studios in the neighborhood and that they were at this minute packed to the rafters with fully ripened works of art. Anyway, my friend was telling me that he had finally come to terms with himself, that he was not going to be a big star in this game. But he was completely at ease with this knowledge and that now, finally, after all these years he felt free and liberated and excited about going to his studio; and that everyday seemed fresh and fun once again. He said he was happy and content and I suddenly remembered why it was that I stopped talking to this guy so many years ago, because he was a lying sack of shit and because he always managed to arrive everywhere in life at least two or three steps ahead of me.

I am having one of those days...

Scary BIG (pine)APPLE MOMENT

You know that old cliche about how New Yorker's are just like pineapples.

That they are all prickly and sharp on the outside and soft and juicy on

the inside, and have this inedible core.... Well, maybe you haven't heard that one. But in general, it's my own personal metaphor for how  New Yorkers are always loud and running around like they don't have the time of day for you; but stop one and ask directions, and you will likely get directions to where you are going and a restaurant review to boot. Just the other day I was standing on the corner in Brooklyn talking to my friend Peter, when a car pulled up and asked how to get to McGuiness. I told them the way and Peter said that it seemed strange to him that he is always asked directions all the time. I told him that I get that kind of stuff too, and that I also seem to get into rather open conversations with perfect strangers, who tell me important details about their lives. This is something that I think I picked up from going to bars by myself for years. Not only was I a good listener, I also was good at getting people to buy me drinks.

Recently I've had a couple of strange conversations with total strangers. Now this normally would not be a topic of note, but in both instances I got to talking to these guys about the election and about the economy and about Sarah Palen's snow job, and both of these guys were white and somewhat older than me, pretty much from another generation, and despite the fact that we had had shared a bunch of information and I found both of these guys to agreed with me almost entirely,   both of these guys told me that they "could n't vote for a black guy." I could not believe it. That is what I heard. I was shocked. This is New York City. I was stupid enough to think we were above this kind of stuff.

I tried to bring up more points about the cynicism of what they were saying and how bad things were going and how much McCain would bring more of the same. I did what I could to tell these guys that they were being stupid. But at the end of the day, I am afraid that nothing will change these guys. And I bring it up here mostly because I know I didn't say anything compelling enough to get these guys to change their opinions.  Look, I have had very little faith in the level of intelligence of much of this country.  But, in the past I blamed it on mainland America and  continue to live here on this tiny island off the coast, feeling safe from views that I attributed to the rest of America. I know it's naive to think this way, and now, if McCain somehow does win this election, I promise to live my empty promises to leave, like I make every time every time the stupidity reared its ugly head. All I can say is god help us and please let these people wake up. I don't want to move out of this city. But now  I just can't help but wonder how many of these clowns I've run across in the past and let their transgressions go unchecked just because they were supplying me with free drinks.

My Greatest Weakness

For months now I have been treating my liver like it is a precious pet or pampered show dog.

I've had her on a special diet and taken great care to make sure she's getting all the spa treatments that I can provide. Acupuncture and yoga moves that gently massage her as I'd been encouraging her to health. After years of poison and hard work, I've made it so she hardly has to work at all as I've only given her clean, pure water and vegetables and the occasional soy treat. That all came to a crashing halt this weekend. Even after I 'd been to a bacchanal karaoke birthday bash on Friday night and somehow managed to navigate myself past all of the wines and beers and margaretas and spirits without drinking, I was finally done in on Saturday by what turns out to be my greatest weakness of all.... Free-give-aways.

I live near a Whole Foods market in Manhattan and outside there were these pleasant young women standing around giving away FOR FREE, their new product. A totally tempting and now forbidden fruit. Coffee. In this case, POM X Ice Coffee. I didn't want one. I wasn't thirsty. But they were free...I took one and carried it home. Under the guise that it was a gift for my wife. But when I arrived at home to an empty house that little brown jug started to naw at my psyche. I am after all, weak.

I drank it. It was delicious. I immeadiatly got a head ache and adrenaline rush and felt uncomfortably wonderful in a way I had not known for months.

This morning, Monday morning, all I can think about is coffee. Ice coffee. Feeling awake. Alive! I want to live again!!

Oh Liver! I am so sorry! 

Anyway- I just needed to get all of this out of my system. I am stronger than this. I can get myself right back on track. Just so long as I don't run into anyone giving away free cups of espresso anytime soon.

David Kramer

A MAVERICK GOES TO WASHINGTON.

I remember when we were kids, most of us didn't buy cars. We waited patiently for our parents to buy themselves new cars. We took the hand-me-downs and drove them into the ground. I had my mom's old Ford Torino wagon. One friend drove his dad's old Granada, and another his dad's Chevette. We identified ourselves and each other by what we drove, even though what we drove was almost as random as DNA .... I had this one friend, his name was Marc. He was the only one of us guys to buy his own car. He drove a Ford Maverick. Marc's Maverick was basically held together by rust, and was a brown lemon. But he had bought it himself out of the newspaper and saw saw himself as a Maverick for going out on his own to get his wheels. He was totally proud of it and blind to the fact that it was a piece of shit.

Once I was going to DC to visit some friends. Marc said he wanted to go. "We can take the Maverick!" he offered. I didn't really want the company, but being cheap, how could I turn down a free ride. Anyway the Maverick died on the highway on the way down there. We had stopped to pee on the shoulder of the road. For some reason Marc had turned off the engine and it never started again.  We got it towed and spent a hot sticky night sleeping in the parking lot of a gas station, somewhere  in Southern New Jersey, waiting for the sad prognosis.

Marc had a bottle of Rye in the trunk of the Maverick, which had been cooked all day in the hot sun. We mix it with cold cans of Pepsi out of the soda machine, but the drinks never got cold. We drank them anyway, and spent most of the night puking behind a dumpster.

I never made it down to DC that weekend.  I missed out on what probably was a hell of a weekend... I went on to live in a city were nobody really cares what car you drive.

Marc's next car was a Red Capri. 

I don't know what this story has to do with anything, but after watching the debate last night and hearing Sarah Palen call herself and McCain a couple of Mavericks, over and over again, all I can say is God help us if McCain gets elected, and God help us even more if he does, 

and never gets his old rusty-ass back to DC. He may be a Maverick, but he's as old as my father-in-law. She may be easier to look at than Dick Cheney, but she is no less scary.

David Kramer

http://artobama.org/node/64

The auction is Friday October 3, 2008

7-10pm

62 18th Street 5th Floor,

Brooklyn, NY

$25 at the door

Barak Obama Art Auction

Hey- I have some work in an art auction trying to benefit the Obama campaign.

I hope that maybe people will check it out...bid on the piece.

Hi-Life (Party's Over) 1999-2008

Toothless Alcoholic

I am not so sure about the name of this blog, TOOTHLESS ALCOHOLIC, but for now it sticks.

I gave up drinking this summer. My liver was barking. Or really, my liver was quitting on me. Going quietly into the night. It stopped working for a while there and I can't think of anything grosser to happen to me in my life. It was like I had swallowed sewer water. I could not stand the way I smelled as I slowly filled up like a Portie-John. I went to see a doctor who told me "The liver is like a star-fish..." It has this tremendous ability to recover.... "Tear off one of it's prongs, and it will grow back." If I stopped putting bad things into my body then eventually my body would only be filled with only healthy things. So-these days I am feeling much better. My liver is working fine again. I don't know if I was ever an alcoholic or not. Probably. I do know that I totally romanticized alcohol. And drugs. And cigarettes. Coffee. Fried foods. But for the time being I'm not putting any more poison into my body, even though I have not given up on my romantic ideals.

One American's sober view on the economy:

I was thinking about this bailout that is about to go on in Congress and on Wall Street. I was thinking about how the rich folks in this country haven't had to pay taxes thanks to their mighty leader. I was thinking that those muther-fXckers have been living high off the hog and how the banking system has taken all that money and figured out how to turn it into so much more money by lending it and then lending the notes on the lent money. And how institutions have made money just on the idea that they have paper that says that they have lent money and eventually will be getting more of it back. This is why we cut those taxes to the rich back then in the first place. Because the rich know what to do with all that money so we all can get a piece of it. Let them play with the money and all of us will prosper.

How about this idea... instead of a $700 Billion infusion into the banking system, let's announce that every American can immediately write-off the equivalent on their taxes for 2008. So we can all go on a spending spree. We don't need a check from the government. We just take the money off now and are asked to do our part as citizens and go spend it.  Whatever the share is for the 300 million people living in this country. Whatever $300 million is divided into $700 billion, we each get our share and are mandated as Americans to go and spend it and write it off our taxes for next next April....

Then, when the sea calms down, we tax the rich like everyone else in this country. The Bush tax cuts are pretty much to blame for this mess as they created this whole industry out on Wall Street. That, and the pyramid scheme that the housing market had turned into. We American deserve low taxes and the ability to spend wildly on whatever we want. We don't necessarily deserve to own our own homes. The only reason they want all of us to get homes is so we could all get more and bigger lines of credit... If the Republicans want to rule by low taxes in return for little services for the people, then at least start by taxing everyone the same way. The rich obviously know as little about money as the poor people do. It was the rich folks who got us into this mess to begin with.

David Kramer