I grew up in Chicago during the time Pepsi Cola was the pop of choice. In the morning we'd search for empty pop bottles in the alley (worth 2 cents each) then a 12 oz. bottle of pop was 8 cents . So you'd need to find at least 4 or 5 empty bottles and another couple for a 5 cent bag of chips. Then we'd sit in the alley backs to the garage and enjoy our summer breakfast. Then we often need to get 99 cents together to buy a ball at the hardware store. Part of the ball money would be bottles found and redeemed and then it was pennies and nickels from usually about half a dozen boys. Then we'd play hardball in the alley until it was dark usually with the ball covered in black tape as it came to pieces getting whacked into concrete and buildings over and over. Down the block was a man who had played for the Boston Red Sox, sometimes he'd play catch with us man he could throw his normal pitch was awe inspiring such force it felt like a blow in your glove. In those days every body wanted to play ball one day in the big leagues, it was the poor kid's fantasy. Buy your mom a house! But in High School I was quickly out for baseball and turned away as fast as could be. My great dream was over, so I switched to art as my favorite thing to do. And that's all I've ever done since, I was lucky to be in a city HS where I could major in art where indeed they had huge skylights in the art rooms, whole walls of light. Later I got to go the Art Institute every Thursday which included a very picturesque bus ride down the Lake Shore Drive where we could see the waves and often storms on Lake Michigan. I went with another student Leonard who was a trip like character in MAD Magazine only gay very gay and scared he'll never have true love though he would never say as much. He fancied himself super cool no emotions to speak of yet hed never missed seeing a boy walking by in tight trousers. When I met Joe Zucker at a critique, silk screen was big in the days of Andy Warhol. We had a strange mostly distant relationship but then Joe's obssesion with art, contemporary art really made him isolated. We had some friction in those critiques Joe was a second semester grad. student and I was second year BFA student. He was smart and that can be a problem for artists or for anybody. It turned out that Zucker made a name for him self in New York and that is what he had wanted. Why our friendship ended seems to be a judgement Joe made about me. Not about my art more likely about women but it's lost on me truth is my own artistic life was helped by having distance from Joe and from Peter Saul. Truth is you have to be interested in your own work your own ideas, it's like the miracle Mets - You Gotta Believe - I think the first sign of trouble was went Joe Zucker gave up on the Chicago Cubs baseball club. All those years he followed the Cubs and finally he quits . Besides when my baseball days gave way my Sexy Days drew nigh. The reason I was waiting for the game to be over had changed in the most delightful way.
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