I DIDN'T HIRE HIM

 I'm $orry I've been lax in writing these days. The Gaza Strip mess set the dog days of Aug. in a little early. Every morning Amy Goodman bums me out a little more. Gaza, ebola, Russia, Ukraine, Iraq.... planes and bombs dropping from the skies, as ethnic Kurds flee to the mountains, with no drinking water, ISIS on their tail. Then Chuck broke his hip and has been in the hospital for a week. It all sucks. So I go in the studio and try to make some sense of it visually, conjer up a little schadenfreude. Sometimes this works. Sometimes it doesn't. Outside the birds are chirping and fluffy little clouds slowly drift against a robin's egg blue sky. Inside it's angst driven turmoil.  How can i be so fucking lucky?
   In a little over a month I have plans to go out to SF, where I've been invited to lecture on my work at my old alma mater The San Francisco Art Institute. I'm putting the final touches on the lecture now. It starts in 1965 with a trip my grandfather and I took to Cooperstown to visit the Cardiff Giant. I'd tell you more, but I don't want to spoil it. Shewho is helping me put it all on power-point. I'm worthless when it comes to the tech. stuff. The last time I did a lecture they still had slide projectors. I select the images and she loads them into the format. Most are by me, but a few are by other artists. There's a Rauschenberg and a Duchamp and a Fried, and a Green. The first two you know. Howard Fried was one of my teachers and remains a big influence. I swear, one day I'll figure his shit out. The last is Rev. Bud Green.
   Every couple of days since the white flags went up over the Brooklyn Bridge I've checked the internet for info on who did it. Today I saw that someone took credit.  Rev. Bud Green is a self proclaimed Marijuana activist. He claims he hired a crew to do the actual work, while he remains the "conceptual creator". I emailed Chuck (now in rehab. in Calicoon) the info on Rev. Green and he warned me not to claim credit for hiring him (even if I hadn't). "All it takes is one NSA or FBI or NYPD or Homeland Security agent without a sense of humor, to stumble across your email or blog rantings and you'll be fucked." Chuck warned me. He's watching too much CNN at the home. That, and the Oxy probably got him spooked. Either way, I'll take his advice. I did not hire Rev. Bud Green to claim responsibility for the white flags.......but I sure wish I had.