Artist's Statement Ah, SlugFest '89. Those were happier times. The polar opposite of "The Man Who Kisses Things." Some days you wake up and pretty much the first thing you think, before you've even opened your eyes, is "Aw, fuck." Monday was the first day of spring and there's snow on the ground. I The thing that seemed to be a really nice date last Friday turns out not to have been a date at all. You gotta do the goddamn taxes, send a claim to health insurance, get that not guilty plea to the MTA notarized, and oh yes, now The Cat requires special medication to be ground up into her cat food every single morning and night. Once in a while you have one of those bleak epiphanies, a kind of dark satori, where you're fully aware of being alive and in the present moment, and it sucks. Sometimes a certain mood seems to be in the air, like a flu; this week my friend Jim (our birthday guest cartoonist) sent me the following poem: I am at work and I am not in the mood to work.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOO work.

I would like to get all smoked up or hammered

something very violent and self destructive.

this will sooth my soul

I would like to play very loud music

while all of this mayhem progresses into passing out. I want to drink and drive with the radio playing very loud

all the windows rolled down.

I want to stop on the side of the road and take a leak.

I want to hug my passenger

ask them to get me another beer

to finish the one they are drinking

and get one for themselves too.