LETtheBLACKfridayGAMESbegin

STUDIO

GOING/POSTAL

To any of you readers out there who are in retail, I am warning you, don't read any further because you probably are going to just get mad at me. For the rest, here goes my rant:

I hate the Christmas shopping season, it is the worst thing of all about this time of year. I hate how stores start putting up Christmas decorations right after Thanksgiving, and I hate even more how Thanksgiving is to most retailers, a chance to get folks to carbo-load so they can have the energy up to shop like made on the Friday after. Today I heard on the radio spot for Kohl's Department Store saying that they will be opening their doors at 4:30 am on the Friday after Thanksgiving.
4:30 AM IN THE MORNING! Who the fuck is going to show up to the store on that day at that time? What? You want to avoid the crowds???. NO, if you show up at 4:30 in the morning to shop, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM.

Maybe it is because I am Jewish and grew up n a Ghettoized Jewish town, but I never paid much attention to Christmas. To me it was mostly annoying. Particularly the commercials and the music that gets piped into the stores. I am in general a generous person. But force me to buy gifts because of some "holiday" and I turn into a total prick Mr. Scrooge. I will do whatever it takes to avoid acknowledging the holiday. One time I even got a job working on Christmas eve. I got hired to build a set for a TV commercial, and the shoot was right after Christmas. We had to work right through the night to get the job done on time to the shoot. We had the radios blasting away playing classic rock and the commercials were all for Christmas sales and specials right through the evening. Then, as midnight rolled around and Christmas eve turned to Christmas day, like clockwork, the radio commercials immediately change from Xmas to
POST-holiday sales at the stroke of midnight. If I already wasn't completely jaded about the real meaning of Christmas, this would have converted me for good.

Anyway- I am just ranting over here. Preparing myself for the worse. I know I will get through this season as I have done every year prior, without going postal.
Before all that stuff has to start, let me just wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. We'll worry about the shopping later.
DK

ITS HILLARY

I was very pleased to see that Hillary Clinton will be our next Sec. of State. I look forward to hearing her called Madame Secretary. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment.
I don't really care so much that she will have this job or title; that will hardly have any affect on my personal life. What I am proud of is that I thought of it first. It was MY idea. I was lobbying for this since back in the primaries, when she and the President-Elect were still duking it out. I said back then that Mr. Obama should make her an offer that she couldn't refuse. He was clearly in the position of position, and she still would not get out of his way.
And then, back in August, when Sarah Palin appeared on the scene, and fooled everyone into thinking that she might be the next Ronald Reagen, I wrote a personal note to Barak Obama, on Facebook, and pleaded with him to get Hillary on board his team. I told Barak, 'Offer her the Secretary of State' and get her to do all the dirty work of dismissing Palin as the phoney version of a woman in waiting that she was.

I knew that if Biden played the role of attack-dog, as VP Candidates are often asked to do, he would have planted his foot so firmly in his mouth that the McCain/Palen?Rove ticket would have somehow grabbed victory out of defeat.

I am happy that Mr. Obama listened to my Facebook please. I am proud of myself for my strategical insight. I think things will be alright with this country, just you wait and see. Mr. Obama... Barak. You don't have to give me any credit. It's fine. I don't need any of that. Just keep checking in on my notes on Facebook.Keep up the good work.

DK

Art

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HOMEWORK SUCKS

Here's a quiz....
How many conceptual artists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Answer: It is the idea of the light bulb that is what is important.

Not very funny I admit. But here is the real trick question...
How many people does it take in my house to get an eight year old to do all of his homework.
Answer: A team of three yelling and screaming people who are ready to kill each other by the time the assignment is finished.

I know that this is not funny either but it does make the bad joke about conceptual art seem more interesting, at least to me.

When I was a kid, I never did my homework. Both my parents had busy careers and lives, I never saw them. I would sit on the floor and watch TV and when I heard the keys turning in the lock of the front door, I would quickly turn off the TV and grab a book. This was pretty much a nightly activity. It was all fun and games back then although I used to put on a pretty good show about how the teacher was out to get me every time the report cards came home.
So I should be sympathetic or at least uncaring about my son's horrible work ethic and study habits. I should leave him alone and let him figure out for himself how important or not school is. Yea right. And have him turn out like me? I am going to make that kid work his ass off so he gets into Harvard.
I am embarrassed to admit that I have completely grown up into being just like my father. Only minus the lucrative career. Sure my father didn't give a shit about whether or not I did my homework on a nightly basis. He still thought I shuold go to an Ivy League School.
Here is another joke: How many Harvard educated lawyers does it take to get his kid to do his homework. The answer is NONE. You just hire people to try to do that.
I did learn something from my dad. I just don't have the money right now to apply what I learned.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT

Attitude Adjustment.
One really tough thing about not drinking or smoking, and giving up on all of my other vises all at once, is that all of the tools that were in my tool box that helped me fend off bouts of depression have been taken away from me. And what really makes matters even worse is that without all of these chemicals and stimulants floating around in my blood stream, my body is going nuts trying to figure out who turned off the juice.
In the past I was always very lucky. I was so good at medicating myself that I never felt much depression. And if I did get depressed, I had no tolerance for it. I would just head on over to the local bar and adjust my attitude accordingly.
And let's just say it would work like a charm every time.

Tonight I tried the G-rated version of adjusting my attitude. I went to Blockbuster and picked out a movie with my kid. We watched Elf. It was OK. I don't particularly like Will Ferrell. Christmas movies tend to make my eyes glaze over. But watching my son, who still completely buys into the Santa Claus thing, laugh and giggle and practically wet his pants has completely thawed my black heart. And I began to realize just how deep into the emotional vortex I had traveled. Well, I've always found that once you recognize the emotional state that you are in, you are immeadiatley starting to make your move out of it. And now that I know full well how depressed I was for the past couple of days, I am starting to feel better already.
So Elf wasn't so bad. And the way I feel now, I would even call it a classic. I mean it's no Christmas Carol, but I don't think anything that Dickens ever wrote was going to get me out of my past mental state. So, God Bless you Will Ferrell. And God bless us-everyone. I am feeling much better now.

I Can Live With The Choices That I have Made , Because I Don't Have Any CHoice About It.

I remember years ago my friend called me up. There was a building in his neighborhood that was
available. It was an old store front and my friend thought it was the perfect spot for a bar. An old swimming pool supplier with a great Aqua Blue exterior and even better inside. I knew the place and I totally beleived him. The place was perfect and would have made a fantastic bar and a money maker for sure. But I told my friend that I didn't think that the bar was for me. I knew that I loved to drink and I would have a terrible time going to work every night and not drinking and keeping myself under control while running a business and keeping the place from getting out of control too. I also was an artist and wanted to concentrait on my career and I knew that if i were to run this kind of business, I would be lucky to get anything else accomplished with my life.
Well, anyway, someone else opened up a bar in the same place... the place was and still is a huge success and the folks that own the place are just rolling in money.
The crowd is always full of cool and attractive people who can't get enough of the old store front that had hardly been altered at all by the people who took it over. And as for me, it didn't matter. I didn't have to own a bar to get into trouble with alcohol. And my art career is still an up hill battle as I am still always wondering when we are ever going to get ahead.
I am proud and happy with the career that I have chosen for myself. I really am. I just keep on wondering how it is that I can keep on making all of my decisions with the best intentions in mind, and why it doesn't ever really seem to make anything in my life seem to come any easier.

Weekend Gallery 2

Weekend Gallery 2

UNFORGETTABLE MOMENTS

I will never forget where I was when I found out that John Lennon was killed.
I will never forget how I learned this. I was in high school at the time and I was in my bedroom in
New Rochelle, sleeping. For some reason, that I have always wondered about, I woke up and turned on my digital clock radio. The dial was set to WNEW FM and I heard the DJ say that there were rumors around that John Lennon had been shot outside of his home. Soon this was confirmed. I remember Scott Muni, the DJ known as "Scottso" and "The Professor" (for his encyclopedic knowledge of the Beatles) reporting that 'a terrible calamity' had hit the world of Rock and Roll....
I always wondered why I happen to wake up at that time. And why did I immediately turn on my clock radio. Why did I need to know this at the moment in time that it was happening. Was there some message being sent to me. I didn't even like the Beatles very much. And after they broke up I tended to Blame John Lennon for marrying Yoko Ono, and sided with Paul and became a bigger fan of Wings. Why did I need to be part of history while it unfolded; I would ponder this for years...

Anyway, I read the news yesterday, Oh-boy.... Actually it was Post. I saw this tragic story, which the NY Post put the following way: An "American Idol" reject who was obsessed with Paula Abdul - and who was mercilessly ripped by judges after trying out for the show - died in an apparent suicide outside the star’s LA mansion.
The NY Post went on to link every celebrity killing or attack from John Lennon to Monica Seles.

I was truly sorry to read about this details of this story, and felt for this crazy obsessed fan. And I was so obsessed by the details in the paper that I practically missed my stop on the subway. This all stated to conjure up all of my memories of John Lennon's unfortunate death. And brought to mind the unanswered questions as to WHY? Why did I wake up that night back in 1980. Why did I need to know this bit of history as it was unfolding, and why do I continue to attach so much significance to minor details and minutia and miss the larger point of the much bigger stories that are unfolding all around me. This is really THE question for the ages. The last part. (About the minutia vs. the larger big picture...).
One day I hope to answer this, when I can finally figure out how I can be so easily and totally distracted by things and events that happen in the world that in truth have no effect on me. News items that in truth I do not even really care about.
I hope not to forget the sad events of November 13, 2008,sure. But mostly because hopefully it will serve as some kind of a reminder of how distracted by the irrelevant that I can truly be.
DK

GOOD DAY

GOOD DAY
You have been chosen as a grant beneficiary for the sum of 500,000.00 USD
from the board of United Nations Organization. You are required to
contact the Executive Secretary of UN (UK branch) for more informations
on how to claim your grant.

I am one of those people who does not believe anything that I read on the Internet. I don't believe that I can have a bigger cock,
I don't believe that I can work from home and make lots of money with no inventory to speak of, and I doubt very much that I can make my wife happier just by ordering Viagra from India. And I seriously doubt the E-Mail that I received this morning which I have posted above....
This disbelief is probably my biggest source of trouble that I keep walking into. I am so full of doubt that I believe that I too can say anything that I want, and get away with it. That no one takes seriously anything that they read on the World Wide Web. This can be true for my personal E-Mails, and most certainly true for this Blog. I write it because it sounds good. Because I think that things are funny and the combination of words will make people laugh out loud, and entertain them. It's hard news as satire.
It's sort of like FOX News over here. (lol)

Yesterday I complained about being "fucking broke". (See posting : A SUPPORTIVE AND CARING SPoUSE IS HARD TO FIND). This is a relative statement and is completely true in its general way, as it embellishes a story or riff that I am working on. Someone anonymously complained that I was being disingenuous, in the comments page. All I can say is that they are correct. I am totally disingenuous. That's show business. IF you want some hard facts and journalism with proper vetting, I suggest you go elsewhere. (not FOX News...). But if you want to be entertained, that is what I am going to try my best to do. Please keep coming back for more. I appreciate all visits. And comment all you like... but leave your name.

Now you will have to excuse me as I have a 500,000 USD to claim from the board of United Nations Organization.
I just have to send my bank account and social security number, and then wait for the money to roll in. The Internet has made me rich!
Today really is a GOOD DAY
DK

LIFE IMITATES ART over and over again.

Here is an example of the way that I think....
Once, when things were gong really badly for me in my young career as an artist, I decided to give it all up
and do something else with my life that seemed more practical. So I enrolled in an architecture class. And almost immediately I got into a feud with the professor who challenged me on my aesthetics. So that didn't last long and I found myself back in the studio, making art with renewed energy.

More recently, when I hit a big bump in the road and swerved off into a ditch, I got up and dusted myself off and decided that I should take a more pragmatic approach to my life, I decided that I should write a novel. This is what I should do. This would the way out of my struggles and into the "Good Life" that I'd been looking for. So anyway, I started to write a novel and got myself fully invested in the process. I worked like mad; waking up in the middle of the night and spending my afternoons at home pounding away at the computer. Writing and revising, going forward and backwards, never looking up to see how things were going. When I finally did take a deep breath and look up, it seems that what I had come up with with about three pages of incredibly insightful character development, about a guy who seemed remarkably just like me.
The only problem was that I had come to the point in the story where the protagonist actually has to "DO" something. The story has to have some action. Well, I couldn't think of anything. I did not have a clue...
So I did what I always do and got back to work in the studio.
This may not be the most practical way to spend my time nor will it do anything to get me out of my current position, but at least over there,
I always seem to know what I am supposed to be doing.

Pinch Hitter

A SUPPORTIVE AND CARING SPoUSE IS HARD TO FIND

For years now I have been using my writing as a form of cathartic release from what ever it was that was bothering me. Somebody did me wrong, well I would just go and pound out a paragraph or two on the old typewriter and I would feel much better almost immediately. In fact, by the time that I got to the end of the paragraph that I was writing, I tended to find the whole thing funny.
Sure I often blamed myself for why I was angry, but even that became humorous and these rantings turned into drawings that I have been able to exhibit in art galleries all over North America and Europe. I am not tooting my horn over here, I am just saying that I somehow found a way to displace my anger and make something positive out of it, and that is about the most constructive thing that I have been able to do with my life with any consistency. A funny thing started to happen though, and as I got to show my work and it became more and more public, friends and total strangers would come up to me and tell me that they hoped that things would not necessarily workout for me the way I wanted because it would only ruin everything. If I got happy, well then what would I have to write about.... My career would be finished. I would laugh along with whom ever said such things, but somewhere in the back of my mind I would cringe and pray that they were wrong. I wanted to be happy. Pain is not fun. I could figure out something better to do with my time once I was happy.
Recently I have had a terrible run of bad luck. I mean things just could not be going any worse for me. One thing after another and this had been going on for months. I felt like shit and even embarrassed to come home at night to have to tell my wife of yet another failure (even though she has been remarkably supportive). Anyway last week, finally, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Multiple projects that I have been working on and doors that I have been pounding on all seemed to be opening up at the same time and I feel like my life is turning the corner. Everything is going my way. All the hard work and heart ache may actually have been worth it... So, anyway, I had nothing to write all weekend. I let things really good for like 4-5 days. No art. Nothing. And it was getting scary. Was it that I couldn't work at all because I was finally happy?
Was this the self -fulfilling prophecy that I had been warned about? And now I am rambling on with no end in sight. I told my wife about my problems with writing and the first thing she said to me was..."New outlook on life, whole new set of problems!" "And besides, we're still fucking broke!!"
And just like that the gears started to move again and I was able to find
some terrible way to look at my current situation and then start writing.
See, I told you my wife was supportive.

MOTEL SIGN

Weekend Gallery

I have decided to start posting images of my recent art works here on thee weekends.
I hope that visitors will find it as compelling and interesting to look at as I do.
DK

No.One in the Rankings

PASS THE KOOL AIDE

My wife called me this afternoon and said, "Can we play that game that you play?"
She was at work having a tough day and needed to capture a big blast of enthusiasm to take
care of one last job to finish out her day. This was the first time that she ever put it this way; calling
it "The Game" that I play. Apparently, it goes something like this:
She says that she is having a totally shitty day at work and I say "No you're not...it's a good day." I say things like, "You should be happy that you have a job and are working... This is a good thing." "Some people would love to have any kind of a job right now,
and you HAVE one."
I give myself a similar pep-talk all the time. Sure it runs against the grain of every emotion that one is feeling at the time, but somehow it breaks up the downward spiral and gets thing moving again. Me, I find it kind of funny and even refreshing in a way. My wife, I always thought, found it to be one of those things, if not the thing about me that she once might have found charming only to later make her want to kill me. Well, things seem have come full circle. I am not sure when this happened but but maybe it is a fallout form the economic disaster going on. Anyway- I am happy that she now finally finds this way of thinking to be charming.

Is funny, there was a period of my life when my wife would tell people that I was maybe the funniest person that she had ever met. Maybe it was all the responsibility that goes along with that title, but when I would hear this I would often cringe.. Anyway, I have not heard this in years I am sorry to say. But I am more than happy to have moved on to be credited with being the inventor of some game that apparently has some remarkable effect on her, even though I can't figure out where she got this idea from either.
DK

FRUITS OF VICTORY

I was so excited by the election and results this past Tuesday.
It seemed like my entire life had been put on hold and then swept up into a giant wave of emotion.
But like most waves, ultimately it has to crash onto the shore and sometime
in the middle of yesterday afternoon my metaphorical hangover began to take hold and
I started to wonder what I was going to do now.
I am happy and excited for Mr. Obama, but I was deeply disappointed that he has already started to assemble his
cabinet, and I did not even got a phone call, much less an interview.
I would have made an excellent Chief of Staff. So now I am back to where I started
a few weeks ago before I became so absorbed in finding HIM a job. Now is the time for me to start thinking about getting my own self back to working.... I am going to start trying to accomplish my goals.
I am going to finally start the business that I have been thinking about. Its time to finish that novel. It is time
to train for that Marathon that I keep promising myself that I will run before my knees need to be replaced.
I want to learn Spanish. I intend to be a better father. I want to figure out what kind of art to make
now that I can no longer try to make a living complaining about how some people
never seem to get what they deserve no matter how hard they try.
Now that I fianally saw that hard work and preceverance can actually get
the things that you want,
I am going to start setting resonable goals.
I am going to have to start working on the things
that will make my own life better.
Or I am going to have to, at the very least,
come up with a new list of viable excuses.
DK

AMERICA GETS IT RIGHT

LAST NIGHT the Untied States of America made me proud. Not only did we elect the right guy for the job,
we did it loud and clear, with a resounding and lopsided victory. It was an undeniable message sent to ourselves and to the world that we were sick and tired of electing people who looked the part, or used privilege to get the part and then delivered nothing but their selfish vision of the country and the world to the exclusion of both the country and the world. America took a huge step in growing up yesterday. And I am proud to have been able to witness it and be part of it. We elected a president whose motives are not to divide, but to bring people together. And this was not easy. This was not easy. This is a country that hasn't been whole since Monica Lewinsky, when we started to use politics to divide and to trash anything that could possibly be good. Karl Rove cynicism was buried last night, at least for now, and we have a chance for change. Last night this country put its baggage away and put its best foot forward. I am really proud of of America right now. We are on our way to somewhere better.

WOW

WOW

Praise for Me

Liz Phillips has written some kind words about me and my blog...please have a look at her blog.
Thanks.
blizzypea.blogspot.com/

BLUE ELECTION DAY

My father and I had a difficult relationship. He had been a lawyer, and desperately wanted his only son to follow in his footsteps, and eventually take over his firm. Well, I had very different ideas about what I wanted out of life, and I obviously was too young and naive to take advantage of an offer to live on Easy Street, so I told him "No thanks..." I was going to be an artist.
My dad and I didn't speak for about two years of my life as I turned my back on his dreams and pursued my own. After college I moved back to New York City and began my career and my father slowly began to appreciate my efforts and our relationship began to thaw. I remember that I had this job working for this artist back then, and she had an opening of a show on Halloween night. I had worked hard to help her get her show together, and I had told my father of my efforts, and to my surprise he showed up at the opening and was cornered by this woman who I had been working for who told him that I was a talented guy and a hard worker and deserved so much, his support. My father told me that he was really proud of me, and left the opening, and I spent the rest of the night celebrating Halloween and my boss' accomplishments and my own.

The following Tuesday was Election Day and I remember I was working diligently at school in my studio when my roommate came in looking for me and told me I had to go home. That my mother had called and that my father was sick. I phoned my mother who told me to come home but she didn't tell me that my father had already died. He had an aneurysm on the train on his way to work. I went home and spent the night there, my entire family was in shock. That night we had all kinds of visitors and got all kinds of phone calls. My dad had been an active guy in local county politics and he was missed at the Democratic Headquarters that night for vote counting and celebrating, as he was normally there.

Anyway-Election Day always carries with it some strange significance for me. I look forward to the day every year as the day of remembrance dedicated to my father. I don't have any idea of what day he actually died. To me it is always Election Day.
It is usually bittersweet. Sometimes my melancholy is relieved if the Democrats actually win. I hope that this year will somehow be a joyous one.
DK