Ready for My Close Up

I just started my press campaign. It's emotional to put it all on the line. But it also feels good. I know this is curing something elemental inside of me. Good riddance I say. To whatever demon or fear was parked in there.

I've never been one to seek much attention. Overtly at least. But maybe that's been a hidden desire. Certainly not as much as me shirtless on the cover of my book would suggest. The way I see it it's just what had to be done. And fun. I guess I just never thought it was safe.

In high school I was much more loose. Or didn't care as much. I'd wear women's lime green paisley coctail pants to school(think Pucci--and pegged of course). I'd also get macked up at our parties and dance around with several "Sportpacks" (the cardboard boxes that 12 beers came in) on my head like a helmet. Captain Sportpack was a minor nickname for a while.

But it's a lot different to do it sober, during the day and telling people that's what you do. To step to women sober. To fuck sober.

My friend Charles, who took the photo on the cover of my book, laughed as I picked him up that morning. And he shot half-naked punk rockers for a living for years. But drunk and at night. In clubs. That was cool. Sober, in the morning, downtown--not cool.

My thinking was, and is, that we need more of that. Not more shirtless guys, not more cool, but more warm--more of that feeling. Proud and vulnerable at the same time. Just me and the business district. Especially in our art. C'mon art! White art is so shirted these days. Unless it's the stupid and ironic Har-Mar or some Brazilian Girls concert. Yawn.

So how come when we put up a poster it's as likely as not to be a provacative Lil Kim or 50 Cent. You've gotta go all the way to Tommy Lee to find a shirtless white guy. Or Travis Parker maybe.

I'm taking it straight to the Ivy League. Straight to Wall Street. And not as a hippy naked party at the co-op (although I went to those as well in my college years). That's a Gucci belt and Jil Sander pants, mind you. The best is the best.

I've said it before and I'm sure it'll come up again. Any improvement--whether it be social, economic, personal or spiritual--should yield better sex. Better intimacy. Better fucking. More feel. More of what you really, really deep down want. Or it's not an improvement. Fewer meetings, more time, better food, more relaxation, healthier health, more beauty, etc.

Thinking the truth should be ugly is just as much an abomination as anything else. And as we've got history's most powerful economic engine at our disposal, I expect to start seeing some results. Where are the artists creating for feelings? Going deep for love? Sacrificing for flowers and spring? Trying to better van Gogh?

I saw something great on tv last night: there are Thai seasonal workers in Finland making enough to fly home and live comfortably for the rest of the year after picking berries for 8 weeks.

Certainly we, their bosses, have the time and balls to do what we want.

Lots of love. If you're a press person reading this, please don't hesitate to call or e-mail me. You're sitting on the story of the year. And I'm getting less hungry by the day.

'06, baby! Let's do it!