Blog

The Fish Market
The Fish Market
In central Tokyo, the biggest fish market in the world attracts damn near as many people as the Grand Canyon every year. Its proper name is, “The Tokyo Metropolitan Central... Read more...
Man With A Gun
Man With A Gun
There is a horror implicit in the stick-figure, “Man with a Gun,” from the hobo alphabet.  Its triangle with outstretched arms hints at a fleeing figure and encourages the viewer... Read more...
The Blue Wound
The Blue Wound
After the Civil War, a great many of the men honored for valor could not read or write.  Less than half of Americans were actually literate.  A good many of... Read more...
The Song of the Devil (El Canto del Diablo)
The Song of the Devil (El Canto del Diablo)
The term “murder ballad” always sounded somewhat comic to me.  I’m not sure the first time I ever heard that term.  I’d known about “corridas,” which people tell me are different,... Read more...
Volver (For the Daughters of Juarez)
Volver (For the Daughters of Juarez)
Mexico is a word composed of  metztli (moon), xictli (navel) and co (place): the place in the navel of the moon.  That is, in the navel of the lake of the moon, as the Lake... Read more...
Black Sheep
Black Sheep
When he was  in his 30’s, my friend, Vince Solano, could hit a golf ball 300 yards.  He was thick, had huge arms and the strength of a weightlifter.  Now,... Read more...
The Tiger Koi
The Tiger Koi
Over eight years ago, at the completion of The Autumn Etchings, I stopped making etchings.  I’d made them for 12 straight years and made over 400 images.  I love making them;... Read more...
The Whispering Women (For the Daughters of Juarez)
The Whispering Women (For the Daughters of Juarez)
Yesterday was the birthday of Cesar Chavez, the heroic leader of the Mexican migrant workers throughout the 1960’s and 70’s.  Mr. Chavez would have been 84 years old; he passed... Read more...
The Chihuahua Monster
The Chihuahua Monster
Charles Bowden is the Lannan Literary Award-winning journalist and author  who is probably the best chronicler of the America-Mexican border history working today.  His Murder City is a harrowing account of the... Read more...
The Juarez Beast
The Juarez Beast
In a conversation with Miguel Aragon; a young artist I know who grew up in Juarez, he told me that after the North American Free Trade Agreement, and actually long... Read more...
The Red Bird (For the Daughters of Juarez)
The Red Bird (For the Daughters of Juarez)
The term maquila, or Maquiladora, comes from a time when Mexico was a colony of Spain.  It referred to the price the Spanish paid the native Mexicans for processing grain.  Over... Read more...
Bird For The Daughters of Juarez
Bird For The Daughters of Juarez
Shortly before his death in 2004, Roberto Bolaño, the great Chilean novelist, mailed off the manuscript for 2666, his sprawling, frustrating, multi-layered masterpiece about a world coming apart in many locations and... Read more...
The Hobo Smelt
The Hobo Smelt
At the end of March and in early April of every year, the smelts of Lake Michigan decide to kill themselves.  The little fish haul ass from the deeper parts... Read more...
Star For the Yellow Cabs
Star For the Yellow Cabs
In mayoral politics, Chicago has a fascinating ongoing narrative. When I was born, we had a Mayor Daley.  When I graduated grade school, we had a Mayor Daley.When our country’s... Read more...
Star for My Black Irish Heart
Star for My Black Irish Heart
Almost every year in Chicago, it’s the same story on St. Patrick’s Day–a bunch of drunken, green-wearing slap-dicks spilling out of bars all over the city and projectile-vomiting foamy green... Read more...
Janky Ohio
Janky Ohio
In the Shreve High football stadium,I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling... Read more...
Star for the Night Radio
Star for the Night Radio
For about a decade, I had a job working in radio.  Not really a career, as I was only full time for about a year, mostly I reviewed horror and... Read more...
Star for the Eternal City
Star for the Eternal City
Chicago is never more beautiful or dangerous than it is at night. The workman-like, bustling, hurly-burly like endless hustle of daylight becomes a fleet and sleek animal at night.Dressed in... Read more...
Star for Tuscon – January 8, 2011
Star for Tuscon – January 8, 2011
There was a  time when I regarded the Tea Party as noisy,  but mostly harmless geeks.  With their triangle hats and Jefferson quotes, they reminded me of the same dopes... Read more...
Star for a Blue Mosque
Star for a Blue Mosque
Places of worship are an odd  thing for me to like. On the face of it, it would seem unlikely– I am not religious.  I am an atheist. When you... Read more...
Star For a Ghost Town (Southeast New Mexico)
Star For a Ghost Town (Southeast New Mexico)
On the drive to Los Angeles last year we went south to Texas and then west, hugging the Mexico border as often as not– mostly on Routes 20 and 10.... Read more...
Star for Western Avenue
Star for Western Avenue
As any good auto thief or auto parts thief can tell you, Western Avenue is home to the Midnight Auto, the night and day marketplace for hot cars and parts... Read more...
The Gypsy Star
The Gypsy Star
In conversation a few weeks ago, a friend of mine made a remark about “fucking gypsies.”  I was a little surprised and he elaborated, “Hey, they’ve more than earned every... Read more...
Star For The Aviator
Star For The Aviator
Nothing scares me like flying.  Whenever I board a plane, images of flaming balls of carnage go through my mental highlight reel until I convince myself that I’m on the... Read more...
Star For The Naked City
Star For The Naked City
Every night at 2 in the morning, the old man cable station, WE, plays an old Naked City rerun.  I barely remember this show because the reruns were old before I was... Read more...
Boom Star
Boom Star
When I was in grade school, a few times a year, the school would have bomb-drills.  This was in case Russia woke up with a pee-hard and decided to launch... Read more...
Star for the Winter Music
Star for the Winter Music
  At the Adler Planetarium, there is a star show that is pretty good.  You sit back and they show you the constellations up close and personal.As a kid I... Read more...
Star for a Red Bird
Star for a Red Bird
Last year I made a number of ‘Star’ pieces. They were the coda to a body of work I’d made about the great Indian warrior Crazy Horse. Id always loved... Read more...
The Spider Songs
The Spider Songs
I stopped making etchings about eight years ago.  I’d made a suite called the Autumn Etchings, and at the time I thought that was about as good as I had ever... Read more...
The Winter Tiger
The Winter Tiger
In the past couple of months I’ve designed a couple of signs.  It’s kind of a natural fit because my work has a strong graphic component.  In both cases I... Read more...
The December Moth
The December Moth
I found this moth in a book.  Startlingly and chillingly white, like the Angel of Death or the Eucharist of Winter, these elegant ladies seem to entreat the abandoned Catholicism... Read more...
The Messenger
The Messenger
Istanbul has stayed with me a bit.  Upon landing at O’hare we were told about the suicide bomber that detonated a bomb in Taksim Square, 150 feet from the hotel... Read more...
The Apollo Moth
The Apollo Moth
“We die of cold, and not of darkness.“–Unamuno Hey– The first frost is hell on moths.  On window sills they lay, powdery and seized up, each a mirror of another... Read more...
The Devil’s Moth
The Devil’s Moth
I recently gave up my studio. I’ve been there, on North Damen, for 17 years.  I decided after watching some artists that I admire getting stuck in the mud of... Read more...
The November Moth
The November Moth
“Every Angel is terrible. . .” –RilkeThe Duino Elegies As a kid, I’d watch moths dance around the streetlights and wonder if they were angels.  My Irish grandmother told me that... Read more...
Broadway Beast
Broadway Beast
Few memories evoke as much giddy joy for me as Halloween.  For myself and the  collection of miscreants, juvenile delinquents and future felons that comprised my peer group, Halloween meant... Read more...
Cannery Row
Cannery Row
“Cannery Row in Monterrey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.” John Steinbeck, Cannery Row... Read more...
The Black Moth
The Black Moth
I have to laugh when I hear the code words the Tea Party braintrust bandies about.  “Loud Tribesman” was Newt  Gingrich’s latest euphemism for the “what-can -we-say-besides-N-word” code that identifies... Read more...
The Archer
The Archer
I have so much fun making the White Canary Samurai Chicks that I may make my own little army of them.  They are kind of based on the teenage girls... Read more...
Blues for Jumbo Cummings
Blues for Jumbo Cummings
Jumbo Cummings was a hard-luck guy.  He’d done 12 years on a murder beef in Joliet when, in the late ’70s, he rose to some prominence as a heavyweight fighter. ... Read more...
The Star Fish
The Star Fish
I’m a mile and a half above sea-level in Snowmass, Colorado, about five miles from Aspen; home of much Botox, spray-on tans and cut-rate tit-jobs. I’m a visiting artist at... Read more...
The Soul Rebel
The Soul Rebel
As a kid I remember the sound of America changing; the assassination of Dr. King and the back drop of the anti-war and civil rights movements raging at the close... Read more...
The Tool
The Tool
On  occasion, in life, one meets the irredeemable shithead. The asshole’s asshole. The ass-hat who cannot find his better self. The slack-jawed dip-shit, who is convinced they know a lot... Read more...
The White Gator
The White Gator
There is an old folk truism about baby alligators. The story goes that all kinds of dangers befall baby alligators.  Big fish eat them.  Snapping turtles eat them.  Flamingos eat... Read more...
The Red Cat
The Red Cat
When I first got there, it seemed everyone around me was a lot freer than I was, as odd as that sounds.  It was a crazily sexy place with grownup... Read more...
The Witness
The Witness
Youth is tyranny.  Youth is cruel.  I certainly was.  As a kid, we would often hang unflattering nicknames on each other, often in relation to some physical abnormality, haircut or... Read more...
The Devil and Western Avenue
The Devil and Western Avenue
There is an underground industry in Chicago known as the “Midnight Auto.”  Those working and trafficking in this part of the auto industry, deal with hot cars and auto parts. ... Read more...
Bucktown All-Star (Goat Man)
Bucktown All-Star (Goat Man)
My neighborhood, Bucktown, is named for goats;  male goats, specifically.  Four or five decades ago, this neighborhood was almost exclusively Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, and other eastern Europeans like Latvians and... Read more...
The Orange Spider
The Orange Spider
I once met Louise Bourgeois.  She was a marvelous, elfin, dirty old French lady who made some of the most compelling sculpture and drawings of the last 50 years.  She ... Read more...
The Oil Man
The Oil Man
On April 20th, the worst oil spill catastrophe in human history began.  Today this broken drill bit is still pumping 60,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of... Read more...