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/