In another world, I would be Sonny

Sonny Burnett, not Sonny Corleone.  Because undercover police work and the type of painting I do are not that dissimilar.  Given this, I've decided to sprinkle the blog, for the next undetermined period of time, with cheesy clips of Miami Vice set to rock music.  If for no other reason than to get Scully off my back about Marianne Faithfull.

Miami Vice!  The greatest cop show ever.  In the history of the world.  The Wire be damned.  Likewise, NYPD Blue.



Watch the whole thing if you like, but you can also stop it at the :53 mark and know everything you need to know about Miami Vice.

Me?  I'm a good looking man.  And I've always felt the burden of proof that my success was a function of talent and not just David-like physical perfection.  But never in my wildest dreams will I ever look as good as Don Johnson did in Vice.

Back to those 53 seconds:  Sonny and one of his first great Vice loves (played by a young Helena Bonham-Carter).  You can make the argument that he's more beautiful than she is.

And then there's this whole Seven Years business upcoming

Look for a moment, Dear Friend, Old Buddy, Mi Compañero, at the column on the right hand side of this blog.  The one that shows the blog archives, arranged by month, starting in July of 2006.

2006!

Jesus, Joseph and Mary!

It will be July of 2013 soon enough, and that will have been The Seven Years of Magical Painting.  Which is a fair bit longer than any right minded soul might have predicted.

Seven!

Think about that and get back to me.  And while you're doing so -- thinking about it, that is, not getting back to me -- there are worse ideas than picking some month at random and just going back and reading what your reporter had to say then.

The Myth of American Exceptionalism

The Second Season of HBO's Newshour is bearing down on us.  Who could forget Jeff Daniel's speech about the Myth of American Exceptionalism that opened Season One?


... You—sorority girl—yeah—just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there are some things you should know, and one of them is that there is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we're the greatest country in the world. We're seventh in literacy, twenty-seventh in math, twenty-second in science, forty-ninth in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, third in median household income, number four in labor force, and number four in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined, twenty-five of whom are allies. None of this is the fault of a 20-year-old college student, but you, nonetheless, are without a doubt, a member of the WORST-period-GENERATION-period-EVER-period, so when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about?! Yosemite?!!!

Here's where we stand ...

I am exceedingly fond of the small red nipple just below the red blotch near his underarm.  And then it came to me:  A series of attached nipples!  Something we can suck on for comfort during those times when things look bleak.

Nipple close-up ...

Terrible picture.  Here's a better one ...

Self-Portrait of the Painter, Nude, with Model On The Floor

Amazingly enough, just after I posted the Astronaut post, Israeli supermodel Bar Rafaeli wandered into the studio.  I asked her if she'd mind helping me out with a test and she said Sure.  I said Do you mind taking off most of your clothes? and she said Of course not, do you think there's anybody in the world who hasn't already seen me naked? and I said That's a very positive attitude.

So we came up with something like this ...

She's laughing because I had just told her my girlfriend-addicted-to-brake-fluid joke.  And manoman, on a personal note this 18mm lens makes my feet look really fat.  I like a leaner foot.  Look how nice hers look.

Anyway, I think in a perfect world there would be more dynamic tension between the left side and right.  Similar in intent to my obscured box technique paintings, of which Old Bobby Lee is a great example ...

Man, look at that jacket.  One of my finest moments, one could argue.

Since the image would be comprised of two separate photos, they wouldn't line up quite so perfectly as a photoshopped single photo with a black line inscribed through it that I glommed off the internet.  Which is what really happened.  Nobody actually wandered into my studio.  Nobody ever does.

Nobody writes to the Colonel either, but you don't hear him complaining.

Nicely said.

And the person would be more normal looking.  Nobody's got time for supermodels anymore.  Nothing's black and white anymore -- it's all fifty shades of gray.  

Which brings up the kind of kinky dominant/submissive subtext of the photo which, honestly dear friends, can't be ignored.  Because, truth to tell, it would be just as much fun if the person was clothed and I was wearing shoes.  Nobody's got time for nudity anymore. 

Me?  I like to be on top.  Which shows a certain dearth of vision, but there it is.  And besides, this series isn't about hootchy-kootchy; it's about the dynamics of power.

And the other thing, just since we're endlessly prattling on about it, is the fact that there's six feet total.  Four of mine and two of hers.  Her's don't matter.  But I like the idea that there appears to be more than two people in the room when there really isn't.

Which makes no sense at all.
No.  It doesn't.
No.  It doesn't.
Does it have to?
No.  It doesn't.
Good.

A friend of mine has a huge printer.  So I like the idea of printing them out big.  Likely without the stupid title.

Boldly going ... and all that business

I had a big fight with the people at the Pavilion Theater in Park Slope.  I would urge you never to go there, no matter how convenient it might be.

But the fight is unimportant in the larger scheme of things.  Suffice it to say that Earl from Denver and I arrived in time for the 11:30 am show of Gatsby, The Great and were told it had started at eleven.  Heated discussion ensued and, for a moment, I thought I was in a story by Frankie Kafka.

The only real solution, after five or ten minutes of backing and forthing, to-ing and fro-ing, was to go see the 11:30 show of Star Trek.  Which wouldn't have been even my fifth choice, but turned out to be way better than expected.  The good news was, somewhere in the uproar, they either didn't charge us an admissions fee by accident, or decided not to.

Regardless, free Star Trek is way better than the 16 fucking bucks they would have charged us.  It being in 3-D.  And while we're on the subject, Star Trek in 3-D is just one more exhibit in support of the utter uselessness of 3-D, other than to generate more box office.  Hell, I would have paid 16 bucks to NOT HAVE TO USE THE GODDAM GLASSES.

Anyway, now I'm home in the studio and I've peeled this disaster off the wall and thrown it on the floor.  Followed by a good deal of paint.

Note the feet.

I'm thinking of doing portraits of people lying (possibly nude) on my studio floor.  I see them as broken into two large images.  Above the belly button would be the left panel and below the belly button would be the right panel.  In each case, my feet would be visible.

Can you envision this?

Circling the wagons at SAC Capital

This was inspired by Ben Protess' and Peter Lattman's article in Dealbook titled "Hedge Fund Owner Gets Subpoena to Testify."

So this basically means you'll never sell Steve Cohen a painting.
Seems that way.  But hey -- maybe the guy's got a sense of humor.
Possibly not so much, just now.
Possibly.

You can see all of my map paintings here.

I understand you have your needs ...

... so I've been blogging hard today.  Making up for the past week when I was offline.  Which I know was a burden.

I'll leave you with this bagatelle ...

Is it?  Is it really?

Every time I listen to Ted Cruz I'm not certain.  I'd move to Reykjavik in a heartbeat if: a) I could spell it; b) my daughters wouldn't kill me.

One theory says move to Reykjavik but buy a Westsail 32 and dock it somewhere in the Bahamas or the Caribbean.  Spend summer in the Big Rake and winters someplace else.

Just a thought.  This is a Westsail 32.  A legendary sailboat.  Thought by many to be the smallest production boat you can fearlessly sail anywhere.

Will Arnett and the Peter McManus Cafe

This from an interview with Will Arnett in Details ...

DETAILS: You're sober now. What was the turning point?

Will Arnett: Every day at 5 o'clock, I'd go to Peter McManus on 19th and 7th. It's a classic Irish bar. For six years, I was there six nights a week. In the fall of '99, I did The Mike O'Malley Show for NBC. After two episodes, it was panned and it was canceled. I took it a lot harder than I thought. I had a lot of stuff going on in my life. I'd broken up with my then-girlfriend of many years. I proceeded to spend the next six to nine months on an unprecedented run. And by run, I mean downward spiral. A friend called me up, and she said, "What are you doing?" It was almost as simple as that.

If I was his friend, I would have called him up and said "What are you doing?  You're missing all the fun at McManus."  And hopefully he would have come back into the fold.

The late 90s were an excellent time to be at McManus.  That was the beginning of the Perez/Callahan era, which was one of the golden ones.  I miss both those guys.

It sounds like they're dead.
They're not.  I spoke to Callahan a month ago.
So.
So I say "Next time I'm in town let's get together" and he says "Great" but it never happens.
Why not?
Shit happens.  Times change.  The camel shits and the caravan moves on.  

A good drinking buddy is the most fragile of things.  I'm not talking about true friends that you happen to drink with.  I'm talking about people with whom you become friends because you're drinking with them.  It's like those movies where somebody steps on a metal plate and suddenly a bomb is activated.  After that, even the slightest motion can blow everybody up.  It's a ticklish situation.

Everyone in Saigon: 2B2F is named after a regular at McManus, including Perez and Callahan.

New Followers of @GVRaymond

By "following" me on Twitter @GVRaymond, you are eligible for a one-time discount on either prints of, or a commissioned painting base on, the "map" studies you can find at http://paintingthestreetweekly.blogspot.com/

Prints are $200, plus domestic shipping/handling.  You can order as many as you like.

Paintings are $5,000.  You can only have one at this price.  Both offers last for one month following your "follow" date or one month from today, whichever is longer.

You can't imagine how beautiful something like this is when it's actually painted ...

If you're an adventurous sort, I'd be happy to collaborate with you for a custom map.

The mind reels.

Contact me directly at gvraymond@gmail.com


Follow @GVRaymond

I took it like a man

I refer, of course, to the final Knicks game of the year.

I didn't come downstairs and blog.  I didn't hide in the bedroom.  I didn't wander into the Trojan night, seeking drinks with friends.  No, dear reader.  I sat there, watching the whole thing in more-or-less real time.

At halftime I went into the bathroom and took either a Xanax or a Zantac.  I'm not sure which it was because my hands were shaking so badly.  That said, throughout the 4th quarter and quite a ways into the rest of the night I suffered from severe mood swings and at least two lengthy crying jags.  At the same time I experienced no sign of gastric reflux.

So you're thinking it was a Zantac?
Yes I am.

I will say this:  down by eight or ten for much of the 3rd quarter, the Knicks pulled themselves together, reeled off a 12-2 run and put the fear of God into those corn-fed Midwestern motherfuckers.  We couldn't keep it up -- some things are just not meant to be -- but we stood up like men.

When it was over I felt a little bit like the Lady Sansa Stark watching her fiance Joffrey put the sword to her father's head.

Me?  I'm not one of those crazy people with a psychotic need for my sports teams to win championships and the belief that anything short of that equates to failure (read: Yankee fans).  So give me a couple of days and I'll be able to look back at this Knicks season and smile.  Because prior to the year before this one, Knicks basketball was horrible.  For at least a decade.  Soul-deadeningly horrible.

And this was better than that.  Way better.

Downright fun, in fact.

Click here for a NYTimes slideshow of JR Smith's tattoos.

Winter is coming.

The Preakness

Orb.

The trifecta is Orb, Mylute and Departing.  Don't forget to put them in the box.  Or don't.  Up to you.  I don't even know what that means.

I've complained to friends that Orb has a strange looking nose.  I was breezing through the Times earlier today and saw a link to a piece about how Orb caught his nostril on something in the barn a while back and tore it.  Ordinarily, because I'm a structuralist, this would be enough to make me not bet on Orb.  But I like the name.

And then there's this magnificent thing ...

This is the EXACT moment that the President of Long Island University conferred the degree of Masters of Science in Elementary and Special Education on my daughter.  And a bunch of her friends.  They do it in packs, apparently.

The exact moment.  And let me tell you, dear reader, my eyes were moist.

Attention, as Willy Loman's wife used to say, must be paid.

The event occurred at the Barclays Center.  If you look at the lower right quadrant of the people on the floor of the arena, you can see a group with blue sashes trailing down the back of their graduation gowns.  They look like little pastel blue Ys.

Count in about four from the right and that's Daughter #2.

Bingo

In a celebratory mood, given Daughter #2's graduation of two days ago, I bought a $600 million Powerball ticket.  I don't usually buy Powerball tickets, because I think the odds are too stiff (I stick with mega-lotto), but I was buying The Times and I thought, what the hell...

My numbers are 3, 6, 9, 15, 21 with 11 as whatever they call the number on the bottom of the little card. 

I'm telling you my numbers so you will avoid them.  In other words, please don't buy these numbers.  Get your own.  I read a disturbing article that said over 80% of the available combinations have already been bought.  This means that, in addition to the 175-million-to-one shot of winning, you've then got only a 20% chance that you're not sharing the money with somebody else.

Which would really suck.

One last thing ...

I leave for New York in the morning.  A day later, Daughter #2 receives her Master's degree in Special and Elementary Education.  I could not be more proud.  Prouder.  More proud.  Whatever -- my heart soars like an eagle.

I'll be back Saturday with a full report.

KRA

Acronym.  Medical term.  Knicks-related anxiety.  Frequently accompanied by nausea.

It's like post-traumatic stress syndrome, except it's happening right now.  There's nothing 'post' about it.  As I type, the K-Whoppers are down by eleven.  But not to worry, there's still eight minutes left in the second quarter, so there's plenty of time for things to get worse.

Thus, as an act of avoidance, I blog.  I'm blogging.  What a stupid, fucking word blogging is.  Picasso never blogged.  He was protean.

I think of you as being more of a carbohydrate.
I know.  That's the problem.  I've got to get my shit together.

You're familiar with this painting?

I can't believe this is the best photo I have of it.  All that glare makes it look like I used a flash.  Anyway, it's on public view and you're welcome to go to Daisy Baker's, a lovely restaurant in the center of scenic downtown Troy, order a drink and stare at it.  Bring a portable defibrillator, because it's powerful in the flesh.

Just so we're clear, the importance of this painting is that it, and others like it, are a precursor to my now famous Map paintings.  But that is now and this is then.

I painted "Don't Order the Cold Noodles" and set it on an easel in my living room so that, when I called the Chinese restaurant across Monument Square to order some take-out, I would remember not to order the cold noodles.  Because I'm a sucker for cold noodles and I needed something visceral to keep me from doing the wrong thing.

But now, as we both know, the painting is hanging in a public place, not my living room.   So it was of no help when I called the Sushi King -- terrible name for a Chinese restaurant -- and ordered some fried dumplings, some hot and sour soup, an egg roll ... and some cold noodles.

The good thing about the Sushi King is that the food comes quickly.  It's horrible, but at least it gets here fast.  It's like that old joke where one woman says to the other "The food here is terrible!" and the other responds "I know.  And the portions are so big!".

Here's a better one ...

A penguin walks into a bar.  Says to the bartender "I'm supposed to meet my brother here.  Have you seen him?"  The bartender asks "What does he look like?"

Now that's a fucking joke.  But not as good as this one ...

My girlfriend's addicted to brake fluid and it concerns me.  She tells me not to worry -- she can stop at any time.  

Bam!

Anyway, the food arrives.  I open up the cold noodles to find that they are steaming hot.  Right out of the cooking water -- let's say, after cooling during transit, right at 200 degrees on the nose -- with a big dollop of the brown sesame sauce.  Cold noodles that are hot.

*

A quick note on life:  in a world full of disfunction, it's important to be able to honestly differentiate between your disfunction and that of the world around you.

*  

I understand that this is my fault, not the restaurant's.  I painted the painting.  I knew they had this one profound weakness but I pressed ahead.  It's like trading for Tim Tebow, thinking he'll play quarterback for you.  I mean, what did I expect?  That said, I called the restaurant and told them what the problem was.  They sent some cold noodles over, which were only horrible.  But they were cold.

And all the while I was on the phone, I was inspecting the round, plastic to-go container with the hot noodles in it.  And I discovered that they've increased the capacity of their to-go containers.

So that's something.

Knicks down 34-48 at the half.

Anthropomorphism

... the attribution of human qualities to something not human.

Are we allowing ex-wife jokes here?
No.

I'm talking about the special way that kid and the Mercedes were staring at each other in the commercial.  Like two sentient beings.  Which, of course, a car is not.  But I remain fascinated by that bit of psychodrama.

I'm speaking to you here as a car guy.  I'm obsessed with Formula 1.  I'll even watch NASCAR, although sometimes it's stupid.  For sure, the national anthems they play at NASCAR events are almost invariably excruciating.  As an aside, it amuses me that Jimmy Johnson, probably the best current stock car racer in the world, lives in Chelsea.  Probably eats at Elmo with his wife, then has a beer at McManus with Howie.  Who probably doesn't know who he is.  In fact, he lives there because nobody in New York gives a shit about NASCAR and he can walk around like a normal person.  If he tried to walk around, say, Charlotte -- it would be like Elvis had returned from the grave.

Anyway, I've owned all kinds of cars.  Two of them didn't even have side windows.  On purpose.  Which was pretty fucking cold in the winter.  Bracing and exhilarating were the two euphemisms I was most fond of.

So I understand the world's love affair with cars.

Now consider this:  What if cars didn't have headlights?  What if internal combustion engines didn't need cooling?  What if these issues were dealt with in alternative ways?  If you think about the front of a car, the grill looks like a mouth and the headlights look like eyes.  If both those features were gone, cars would look very different.  I wonder if we would still care so much about them?

This is a D-Type Jaguar from the 50s ...

Looks like something out of Cars, the movie.  Makes you want to throw it a num-num and pat it on the head.

This is a bit fiercer.  More fierce.  The front of a Mercedes DTM car ...

I wonder what it's thinking.

But it's not cars like that we need to worry about.  It's when they start to look like this ...

... that the lessons of Battlestar Galactica will seem, in retrospect, like Gospel.

I Ate The Bones!

Did you watch Battlestar Galactica?  Manoman, it was great.  And I don't mean great with the supposition that you, dear reader, might, in a different world, be a character in The Big Bang Theory.  I mean great period.

Basically its a rehashing of Wuthering Heights, with the Cylons as Heathcliff.  Cylons being robots so highly adapted they look exactly like humans.  By way of packing muscle, the Cylons commanded a cadre of warrior robots called Centurions, with things like machine guns in their forearms.  They looked a lot like the new E-class Mercedes, but with arms and legs.  And there was a very interesting bit about the Cylon occupation and the good guys (the race of actual humans) resisting them in the manner of, say, the Viet Cong.  Or the French Resistance.  Or the Afghans.

All very thought-provoking.  Plus, you should have seen the female Cylons.  Dog!  As a boy I used to have a poster of Cylon #6 pasted to the ceiling above my bed and I used to go to sleep reciting the Three Laws of Robotics.

To paraphrase the line from Apocalypse Now about the Do Lung bridge: "Every morning my mom would come in and tear it down.  And every night I'd put it back up."

Just for the record, although they were hot, the Cylons wanted nothing to do with the Three Laws of Robotics.  The only good human was a dead human -- that was the general thinking.  All of which brings me to my three favorite current commercials:

There's the KFC commercial where, in a moment of panic, the protagonist shouts, "I ate the bones!"  There are a number of versions of this commercial, and I enjoy each actor's interpretation of the line.  The revolting idea about boneless fried chicken notwithstanding.

I once made a documentary called "Come In Willy" about my friend Stan Zawatsky appearing in Death of a Salesman .  He played Willy's boss and only had a few lines.  One of them was "Come in, Willy", which, as part of the voiceover, I recited over and over again, each time with a different interpretation, the way David Letterman sometimes repeats the same joke over and over again.  The effect was stunning.

Same thing with "I ate the bones!"

I also like all the Wendy's commercials too, mostly because I'm attracted to the red-haired woman who plays Wendy.

And finally, I love the commercial where the little girl runs into the street to retrieve her soccer ball and the Mercedes Benz E-class sedan sees her, identifies the situation, slams on the brakes and saves her life.  All without any input from the driver.  Who was probably texting someone.  Possibly his mistress.

The next-to-last scene of the commercial shows the little girl and the Mercedes, about a foot apart, standing in the street staring at each other.  Two minds sharing the realization that something important has just happened.  You see the little girl completely, but all you see of the Mercedes is the hood and grill -- the driver of the car is almost never seen throughout the commercial.

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

For the record, the Batmobile (mine, not Batman's) is an E-class Mercedes.  But it was built prior to the point when they became sentient.

Was ist los, Angela?

It's hard to find a good picture of Angela Merkel, although I'm fond of this one ...

And this one, but for different reasons ...

But neither exactly suits my purposes.

This one might work ...

The problem with Merkel is that she's a plain looking woman with a plain looking haircut.  There's nothing to grab hold of.  Don't take this as criticism.  We can't change the way we look (unlike, say, the way we behave), and not all of us can be Lisa Fonssagrives.

Take Tim Geithner, for instance:  he's got hair like Kosmo Kramer.  John McCain: he's got a neck like the Mississippi delta.  Angela (hard G) doesn't really have a lot of compelling terrain.  Paul Ryan:  Looks just like Richard Nixon ...

Imaginary conversation with Paul Ryan:
"Your painting doesn't look like me."
"It will."
"It looks like Richard Nixon."
"I know."
"And I don't like that crack about 'Women of America -- Wake the fuck up!'"
"I'll bet you don't."
"My preference is that they remain sleeping."

Nonetheless, it's my job to paint Frau Merkel and I'm going to trudge forward without complaint.

When have you ever trudged forward without complaint?
Dunno.  Maybe this is a new start for me.
Dog -- this whole post is a complaint.
Okay.  Maybe I'll start after this post.
I doubt it.
And you are, of course, welcome to your opinion.  Let the proof be in the pudding.  I just wish she had a face that was as interesting as her Sherman-esque march through southern Europe.
I rest my case.

Just so we're clear, here's a picture of Fonssagrives ...

Dog!

The Bells are Ringing in Maranello

Which they do every time a Ferrari wins a Grand Prix.

In this case, my boy Fernando Alonso coughed up a flawless ride, leading almost from start to finish in Barcelona -- site of the Spanish GP.  Worth noting: Alonso's Spanish.  So the place went bananas.

Check out this bit of cream cheese, brought to you by Santander.  Which, apparently, is a bank ...



Kimi Raikonnen came in second in his Lotus.  Massa was third in his Ferrari.  And not only did Sebastian Vettel come in a shaky fourth, but the mighty Red Bulls appeared to be weakening at the seams.  One can only hope.

I had the most horrible dream last night

Let me begin with this:

A couple of weeks ago, Daughter #1 sent me a text out of the blue asking "If six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, who accounted for the other six or so million?"  Because the total number is often pegged at twelve million.

So, while grumbling to myself that she could google it as easily as me, I googled it.  The answer: Polish citizens in general, intellectual dissidents, Catholics, Gypsies, Homosexuals and the disabled.

Shit, I'm like more than half of those things.  Definitely out -- Polish citizen.  And while I'm not actually gay (my dialogue with Daughter #1 being held as Exhibit A), I am deeply in touch with my inner woman.

Try telling that to the nice Nazi.
Dog!  That's what I'm talking about.

As for the rest, I'm in on one level or another.  Plus there's my theory of New Yorkers in general becoming partly Jewish by dint of cultural osmosis.  So for me to have a dream about being caught up in the Holocaust is perfectly legitimate, not some sort of glib misappropriation of some other culture's suffering.

I mean, they were slaughtering Catholics left and right.  Priests?  Fuggedaboutit -- you were screwed.

Okay.  Now, with the stage set, fast forward to last night, around three a.m.  I'm on a packed subway train.  [We're dreaming now, people -- thus the italics.]  Taking up two entire seats in the otherwise crowded car is my old folding suit bag -- the one I dragged around the US and Europe for thousands of miles, back when I had a job that required going to Europe with a suit.  Lying on top of the suit bag is a cat.  

And when I tell you the rest of the subway car was jammed, I'm telling you it was jammed.

Then suddenly I'm on a very narrow part of the station platform, outside the subway car, trying to get back into it.  It seems like I'm going upstream against a million people coming the other way.  Somebody comes up to me and says "Here's your valise."  Which I take, although I don't remember having a valise.  And through the window of the subway, I see an old porter loading my suit bag onto a cart and taking it, along with some other people's stuff, away.

Really, you had to be there.  But suffice it to say I sat bolt upright in bed, sticky with sweat, my gut filled with that horrible mixture of fear and despair that I don't have the energy to actually describe for you, relying instead on the hope that you know what I mean.

I could feel my blood pumping through my temples.  I got up, went into the bathroom, took a piss, then stood in front of the sink, letting the water run.  It was 3:15.  For some reason I took an aspirin, then a long drink of water.

And when I tell you it was a long drink of water, I'm telling you it was a long drink of water.

And so we beat, endlessly, back against the current ...

... or something like that.

I think what you're searching for is "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
Perhaps so.  It's certainly one of the two.
It certainly is.
This would make a nice pairing with "All My Love's In Vain."
Yes it would.  Blue lights; red lights; green lights.

Rolling Stone ...

... that is to say, it's good to be in it.  Rolling Stone.  The magazine.  Even if it's only the online part of the magazine.  Even if it's in a really convoluted way.  Still, it's a lot like being Bob Dylan, who also shows up in Rolling Stone a lot.

See here, by Matt Taibbi.

It was the heartbreaking genius of "It's a 401(k) World" that got me where I am today.  I'd like to thank the little people I stepped on, en route.

Or en croute -- whichever isn't the one wrapped in dough.