In the new issue of Swindle Magazine, Shepard Fairey interviews Banksy. Shep says “He’s a good friend and a tremendous source of inspiration; he’s The Great Communicator of our time, and the most important living artist in the world.” That’s a massive statement, and one that I may not disagree with. I’ve been looking at Banksy’s work a lot lately, and I think it would be pretty hard for anyone to not have some appreciation for what he’s doing.

I’m still struggling with my own art these days. I have so many fucked up distractions and problems going on, and they’re getting in the way. It’s not a good excuse I guess, but for me to make the art that I want to make, I need to be able to have a clear line between my mind and my medium. I’m workin on it.

It’s amazing how powerful a song can be with extremely minimal instrumentation. These days, even mediocre bands can hide behind layers of gloss and production and manage to sell some records to the more casual record buying public. Us old-heads aren’t fooled by that though. Luckily for you, I’m here to educate you all one Top 10 list at a time.

You’ll thank me.

Yesterday evening I went to the opening of a group show, which included Philadelphia artist Mark Price. I first met Mark on February 4, 2005. I know that was the date, because it was the opening of my second solo show. I left my show and walked along 2nd Street in Old City, and I came across a guy with some seriously kickass screenprints laid out on the sidewalk. We talked for a few minutes and exchanged an email or two. Since that time, this guys presence in the Philadelphia art scene has grown tremendously. He’s all hooked up with 1026, and his books, prints and tshirts are all over the place (including in my house). Anyway, it was a pretty cool show, with some killer new work. Good job, Mark.

As for the GetHurt Radio reference in the image, you need to subscribe to the damn thing. This one involves a very special homework assignment given to Srp in 2005, and some Living Colour.

This is a test. No seriously, this is a test.

If you have iTunes on your computer, USE THIS LINK, and subscribe to it. Let me know if it seems to be working. “Episodes” have apparently been published without me even knowing it, so I might as well take some level of control and put this outlet to use. I was hip to this whole “podcasting” thing before they came up with the term podcast, but since iTunes jumped in the game I’ve been kind of out of it. We’ll see what happens. So yeah, let me know what’s going on.

That face I saw and thought of love
Is gone.
And if you thought you’d end on top
You’re wrong
You’ll realize when I’m standing over you
Time will cut you down
Time will steer your path from your precious dreams
And I won’t be around
No souvenirs or guilty tears
Or anything
My trust is lost and it will cost
You everything
There’s a lot of lies but I’ll tell you one thing that’s true
Make no mistake, the hearts you break
Grow strong
I know this shame will bring you pain
So long
I know this memory will haunt you ’till the end

I don’t take nearly enough photos of my dog. I have to remember to do that more often, because he is one fine looking beagle.

Today I went to Nexus after seeing Beer League with Rosa. Rebecca and one other artist were having a public discussion type thing all about the art they have hanging there at the moment. Its a great thing to do, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. At the same time, it was yet another reminder of how I am struggling to become more prolific with my art. I have ideas and concepts in my head, but I’m still having a really hard time getting it all out. If I don’t start getting it out soon, I can pretty much forget about grad school. Not good.

Yes, it is the 5th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It wasn’t the first time that the U.S. has been attacked, and it won’t be the last. I could write pages about how I feel about it, or how I felt that day… but I won’t. I will leave that to every single other person with internet access.

That photo was taken just the other day, and it is a letter of recommendation from my favorite artist; Shepard Fairey. He’s been a huge influence on me, and he and his wife have been pretty cool whenever I’ve interacted with them in person and through many emails. I really hope that my letters help get me into grad school. The first of my 3 letters has already been sent to the school, and that one was written by the President of the Art Fag Basketball League. With cred like that, how could they deny me?

The band rehearsed on Friday, and we sounded absolutely horrible. At this point I don’t know if people just don’t give a shit about sounding good anymore, or what the hell it is. But if we sound anything close to that at the next show I will be extremely embarrassed and pissed off.

Wow. That is a picture of an old man. There’s been plenty of times when I’ve looked back at older photos of myself and noticed just how different I looked back whenever. But this is extreme. That is a photo of myself taken about an hour or so ago, and when compared to photos of me taken less than a year ago, I am barely recognizable.

Anyway, the band. Anyone who reads this site is surely as sick of hearing about my band as I am, but it’s my life, so what the hell can I do? Here’s the deal: we have 2 shows left. We have one show in Philly, and one in some town I’ve never been to and never wanted to go to. The odds of anything really cool happening at either one of these shows are pretty damn slim, but we’ll see.

I’m working on a book. It’s a book about my “family”.