IMAGINE A BALLOON.

Tres elegant no? The symbolism of a balloon as art?

wonderful concept: pretty on the outside but absolutely empty on the inside.

I'll name no names, point no fingers, largely because some of the work that sparked this was done by nice people. Really nice folks. The kind you'd love to have coffee with and shoot the shit.

Er, there may be a horrible pun in there. Sorry.

It boils down to wallpaper. I love good wallpaper. Hand blocked, warm, colorful, and utterly vacant wallpaper. Something for everybody and no one's feeling ever, ever need get involved beyond the surface. Soma eye candy. It's everywhere, made by everyone. Why there's ever perfectly acceptable "rebellious" wallpaper. Sanctioned rebellion to the popular taste.

How charming.

Yeah. to a point.

Apples and pears. What? What happened to the balloons? The wallpaper?

Keep up with the flying metaphors, they are a bugger unless you think in circles. You gotta learn to duck or you could get a cramp. Which brings me back to apples and pears.

At one point in my career, it was expected that I be an apple. At one fateful intersection, I was told to be one. I honestly tried, largely because I had what's known as a "life". Read that as a mortgage, a lovely companion, pedigree dogs, a tricked out jeep with more balls than a stockyard, and closet filled with coolasfuck cloths. You know, stuff.

Well, as hard as I tried, my essential pear-ness won out.

So I did the only sane thing a befuddled and weary pear can do: I quite.

Nowadays, In refuse to be an acceptable anything. Nicely of course. I just wander off on my own when the conversation comes around to wallpaper, balloons or apples. Rebellious or otherwise.

You see, I'd rather fly at the sun and fail miserably that hover a discreet inch or so above the ground. I'm all about an old love letter in and empty dresser in an abandoned house, a ruined fountain overgrown with weeds in some odd place that stirs the heart. I'm about trying and winning pure poetry. The kind that bleeds without shame, and rouses the mind to long forgotten dreams of something that mean something. I want to be the perfect failure. That's where art lives. I never wanted to make balloons. All surface filled with nothing but air. I stumble around in the dark looking for light and by God, I find it from time to time.

Walt Disney can kiss my ass. So can anyone else that doesn't have the stones to get fucking dirty and make Goddamn art.

I won't live in a world of posers. Even well intentioned, talented ones. I'll make my own.

And I'm just insane enough to believe that the world I make will have enough room for anyone who wants to come too.

Michael the happy pear.

My love to you all.

M.Z.