Art-o-Hurl
Whoa, what a goddamned weekend over Nordeast! Absolutley wild, everyone seemed to have a terrific blast. And how could they not, with hundreds if not thousands of artists proudly pimping their wares in galleries, studios, bars, boutiques, restaurants, cafes, bicycle shops, street corners, back seats of cars, law offices, public toilets - the list is as tediously endless as a sober stroll through the Northrup King Building. Screeeech! Did I just make a 180? Oh yeah, I freaking hate Art-o-whirl.
Fortunately for drunks like myself, there are always plenty of parties to crash with my special companion, Miss Six-pack. Thus, I gloriously got my drink on, both Friday night and Saturday afternoon, enabling me to ignore the collective vacuity of the warehouse scene. Seriously, does anyone over there even bother to think about creating work about something other than just crafting some self-centered personal ’statement’ that is a stylistic rip-off of some vapid prop they took note of in a fashion magazine? Is that too harsh? Is it completely inaccurate? Let’s fight.
Wait a minute, I was having a good time at the parties. Everyone was beautifully dressed to the nines, the dudes in their rock-n-roll shirts and ironically tight pants, the ladies in their overpriced sun dresses and glasses of Merlot. Totally hot. My Friday night scene was a trip down memory lane, biking myself half to death, from my secluded section of the Southside to the Mn. Center of Photography and Rosalux, to Quincy St., back to Surdyk’s for another sixer, over to Fox Tax, and finally up to Grumpy’s for godknows how many more bad decisions before making the long, lonely ride back to South. I got so drunk, at one point I deludedly felt as if people might actually like me, maybe even enjoy my company. I felt like I was having good conversations, met a few interesting people, and made a good impression. But as I said, I was wasted, and soon vomitting in an alley.
Saturday was a totally different story. There wasn’t a single moment when I even began to entertain ideas that I was anything but a worthless piece of shit who will have a hard time amounting to anything. And I still managed to have a good time. I wound up at some bar, in nothing more than a daze, only to stumble upon some old friends from Chicago who were in town to play some rock songs at this unmemorable drinking hole. What dumb luck, I didn’t have to pay for any more drinks! So I got stupid with my fellow Southsiders until it was showtime, at which point I may or may not have ralphed in their van. Not wanting to ruin my ride, I high-tailed it out of there with with visions of more good times, many more beers.
The moral of the story is that there is only one way to mediate the giant junk market that is Art-o-Whirl and that is with cheap, delicious alcohol and a bicycle. I don’t even have any friends yet there wasn’t a moment those two didn’t make me feel like the king of the idiots. Even bent over, barfing behind Midway Contemporary, I knew that, by god, I was doing it my way.