BEER SUMMIT WAS AESTHETICALLY DUMB

BEER SUMMIT WAS DUMB, AESTHETICALLY SPEAKING. But maybe effective. The so-called summit arranged by
Barack Obama to diffuse the fallout of the arrest of the Harvard professor (Henry Lewis Gates Jr, for breaking into his own house), was
flawed and in desperate need of an art director to give this thing some much needed help and authenticity and flavor.

First of all, they should have done this in a bar after work. What a joke to meet up in the Rose Garden around some K Mart looking table and chairs. If they had to do it in the Rose Garden, how about a grill and some hot dogs? Men like to stand when they are in the back yard drinking....
And come on! Beer Mugs?! These guys should have been drinking out of the bottle.
I could live with them having pint glasses for their drinks. But beer mugs!!!
It all looked so goofy and staged.

Here's what I wanted to see:
I want to see these guys gathered round the corner stools of the corner bar after work, drinking up their beers and having a wise-cracking bartender looming near by bringing them the next rounds and taking the money out of piles of cash sitting in front of these guys. And for some real flavor, I wanted to see the cop in uniform, with his gun on his belt, tipping back his bottle of Bud.
And how about a Marlboro for Mr. President? Go for it.



I was glad to see that Joe Biden turned up to down a non-alcoholic beverage. Turns out he doesn't drink. Hmmm. (There goes that excuse Joe.)



Having said all of this, maybe the summit was a success.
I could not help but smile when I read the quote of
Mr. Gates Jr. when the summit was over....
He said of Sgt. James Crowley (the white cop that busted him);

"...turns out he's not such a bad guy...when he's not arresting you!"

I have to admit after reading this quote I smiled and thought of another President with whom
people seemed to think it would be a fun to have a beer with. "Mission accomplished". I am not thinking about race issues when it comes to this unfortunate episode, anymore..
DK

getting over it

It is not even August yet and already I have slipped into the
abyss. I do not know what happens to me every summer, but every summer I wind up
in this murky place waiting out for life post-labor day to begin.

This summer was supposed to be different.
The weather has been most un summer-like.
I have a couple of projects that I am working on.
Lots of personal reasons to be motivated and happy and
distracted.

I am going to commit myself to living out the next month without
complaint or boredom.

I am going to make myself a little promise here to
ignore my August swoon. I am going to use my computer and make a calendar page
that has all of August printed out on it with SEPTEMBER* written
across the top.

I am tired of pissing away my summers whining about it.
Turn on the air conditioner and get busy.
That is my mantra for the day.
DK

Summer Reading Suggestion

I am reading this great book. I am totally enjoying it.
Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys
about this totally fucked up writer/college professor trying to
write a novel as his life spins out of control.
Really tremendous writing here.

Here is a great passage...

"I drank for years, and thenI stopped drinking and discovered the sad
truth about parties. A sober man at a party is lonely as a journalist,
implacable as a coroner, bitter as an angel looking down from heaven. There's something purely foolish about attending any large gathering of men and women without
benefit of some kind of philter or magic dust to blind you and weaken
your critical faculties. I don't mean to make a big deal out of sobriety, by the way. Of all the modes of human consciousness available to the modern consumer I consider it to be the most overrated."

Thank good this is a book all about constant drinking and pot smoking and cigarettes and men chasing after loose women and the next party, or it would be unreadable for sure.

DK

Summer Show

Hey-
I am in a show at Freight and Volume
that opened last night.

542 W24th Street, NYC 10011
M-F 11-6

It is a good show and a cool gallery.
Here is the link...
www.freightandvolume.com


the show is called Heartbreak Hotel.

I think my painting fits in real nice with the theme....

Untitled(Romantic Notions...) 2008

Please stop by if you can.
DK

Summer of Discontent....
I hate summer usually and this one, despite all of the great weather, is
no exception. I somehow way back then seemed to get onto an academic calender, despite my complete lack of interest in school.
And so for me, my summers are spent waiting around for September.
Back in the day, when I was back in school. I
could at least have some mindless summer job to distract me.
I had jobs flipping burgers and working in a bar, I rode a bike
as a bike messenger, and worked in a sign shop. Oh sure there were others, but what all of these summer jobs seemed to include was making new and temporary friends and
drinking huge volumes of alcohol and spending my nights forgetting all about what ever it was that I had wasted my entire day doing.
The summers slipped by quickly and I didn't seem to have the time to stand around and pine for September.
It is only since I started having an after school life
and no longer had my summers "off" that I have began to find this time of year to be slow and hot and boring and
a period of time wasted waiting for the first day of school....
DK

Examining the Navel

So here is some good news. My show got a really nice write up (so I am told) in Le MOnde.
The big newspaper in Paris. I think that I have translated the review well enough to say that the guy really liked my work. It is funny but I have this friend here in New York who often writes reviews for the New York Times and I have been having a little back-and-forth regarding my show and Paris and the Art World, etc recently. I don't want to read to into things and take things too personally but sometimes the tone of the emails that I have gotten have been on the defensive and putting down the French and Paris in some attempt to maybe temper my enthusiasm. Or maybe this was just
banter and I am taking things personally when they are not meant to be that way.
But in an attempt to understand things better on my own I am going to share the final back-and-forth here because it really revealed things to me that maybe I should have known, or did already know and didn't want to think to much about...
I will pick it up in the middle ...
Here goes:

SUBJECT: Nice Review

There are probably fewer galleries to cover in
Paris, and I would imagine that art reviews also
get a bigger percentage of their daily paper?
Just a guess. But NYC, where there are
probably around 800 galleries (just a guess
but a slightly educated one) things are spread more thinly.

I always thought the house was just to look cool,
but also to amplify the sense of danger.

[reference to the North by Northwest mention in my review]

SUBJECT: Re: Nice Review

I just think it is funny, after all of my hard work, to finally get some
nice words of praise in the paper of record (of France) and
too not even be able to read the article because I don't speak the language.
I think it is great irony,

David


SUBJECT Re. Re: Nice Revie

That is funny! I never even thought of it that
way. You can use it in future. The book looks
great, by the way [SNAKE OIL]

I think it's always hard when work is funny or
appears to be light for people to see its
essential gravitas. I feel it's often a problem
for me, for instance. But it will all come out
in the wash, as your career is obviously building
in a very good way.

The book looks great, by the way!

Best -



Anyway- I always thought that humor was the strength of my work...not its weakness.

I hope that my friend is not offended that I used the transcripts here, but it was really to reveal things more clearly for me. But if so- Se la vie - as the French say.
Or was that the Italians?
DK

A tribute to MJ from way back when

Here is a version of a video that I made back around 1998- 2000.
I was always a big Off The Wall fan.

Anyway- this is sort of a truncated version here for the blog.
I also just put this version up on Youtube...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDcO9ErmtI4
All the best, DK

INSPIRED

While I was in Paris I spent about 4 days locked in the basement of this gallery.
I had a show to put together, so things like seeing the sights was completely not happening. Anyway, after I finally got the show together my wife and my son came over to Paris to visit and we took some time and ran around and saw the sights.
We did the Louve and the Eiffle Towwer and we went and saw the Impressionists' paintings over at the D'Orsay.
We had been having this on going discussion about what my son was going to do with his summer vacation, and after we walked out of the D'Orsay my son announced that he wanted to spend the entire summer over in my studio making paintings and carving stones into sculptures. He had a whole list of things that he wanted to make and my wife looked at me and was like so proud of him and excited for his new focus and designs for his future.
I was thinking more like, "No fucking way " am I going to have to try to entertain this kid for an entire summer. I mean I have work to do.
Listen, don't give me this shit that I am some kind of monster and bad father. I have probably spent far more time with my son already than I ever spent with my own old man combined. I want to encourage him to do all kind of cool things. But I have work to do.
And besides, I mean before we had gone to France, I was hoping to convince him to go to Sleep-Away.

DK

bigger than Elvis'

Another tragic loss to an icon from my youth....

Karl Malden dead at age 97.
RIP
DK