Satisfaction

To live life to the fullest… and be a hairdresser.

To do a polka in the kitchen with my baby daughter and speak to the dead, briefly.

Honey child, I can’t think of a damn thing I would want. I’ve had everything.

It’s the idea that there is such a thing as completion, and everyday I’m surprised that there isn’t. Everyday I’m surprised that the mailbox fills up again and the beds have to be made and the food put away. I go through the mail and filter out the junk and make the beds and I have this deep feeling that I’ve done what I had to do. But the treadmill always starts up again. It’s a funny realization about the world that continues to surprise me. I feel that if I ever catch on, I couldn’t even get up.

Doing anything I want to do, and I mean anything, when I want to do it. And Jesus.

Geez – Hmmmm – Uhh. Well, PUMPKIN PIE

To make Katie happy.

A stacked woodpile.

I wish satisfaction wasn’t so tied up with the Rolling Stones. Satisfaction is something I associate with a warm, benign feeling in my stomach. For example, when I saw Carrie, the De Palma movie, for the first time, and the girls in the gym class were throwing tampons at Carrie in the shower, I got a knot, a horrible knot in my stomach. I thought, Ooh, can you get cancer that quick just sitting in a movie theater? I realized I was experiencing such anxiety for the girl that I made a knot. When Carrie began to get her own, back at the prom, the knot began to unravel and I began to experience something akin to satisfaction. It’s such a polite word, I can’t imagine anybody after they’ve had a major religious experience, or a major intellectual breakthrough, or a major orgasm saying, Hmmm, that was satisfactory. I want something bigger… something that would slake my desire. I would hope that I could aspire to a state of existence that is bigger than satisfaction. I wouldn’t have to think about it, I would just be it. That sounds very George Harrison on his way to India, but…

Anybody that’s ever been rotten to me getting the same shit back to them. Particularly red-haired men.

More money.

My wife died this morning so don’t ask me about satisfaction. I made a good living in the Canal Zone. Now, I’ve got a good retirement and I can sit back here and tell the whole world to go to HELL.

TO LIVE LONGER THAN SOMEONE ELSE. Having another lay or screwing someone in a business deal or doing something good in the world are minor satisfactions and nothing like living longer than someone else.

There’s a discomfort to life and very few moments of satisfaction. I don’t like people who seem too self-satisfied. It’s an assumption that life is so stable.

A private place with a few hundred favorite books, 1,000 records, 500 audio tapes, T.V., a V.C.R., and a computer on which to write narrative Haiku.

I would like to believe that one person could effect change. A cure for AIDS. And to not feel alienated from the things my hand and mind make. It’s very satisfying to feel connected to your production.

Participating in a program that I’m extremely fond of, Alcoholics Anonymous. It saved my life and gave me the worthwhile things in life… serving God and helping my fellowman. My main goal is getting in touch with people like me and getting blacks started in the south, and that I’ve been able to achieve with God’s help. Many, many, many, people I’ve seen get good jobs and go back to their families and become tax paying citizens and live the kind of life they should have been living before they got tied up with some type of drug.

I can’t answer.

At Christmas time I get calls from all over the United States saying, HEY, YOU BIG FAT SWEDE, HOW YA DOIN? That’s satisfaction. Many of the callers I will never see again. Now, the Christmas cards all come with horror stories. I’m at the age where it just starts happening. Those friendships mean more now than they ever did. The hardest shoe to fit is aging. It’s a great big foot and a little tiny shoe.

It was to own a house with nobody’s name on it but my own, but I’ve accomplished that. Now, I want to stay healthy and not live any longer than I can help myself.

To have peace of mind… not having to worry about the bills, that sort of thing, and good health. I want both of these things so I can stay in my home.

Due to my asthma, I’d like to get out of here for two or three months every winter… to where it’s warm, either Arizona or Florida.

I think I’m already satisfied with my building business, and my hobby raising beefers, and most of all my family. I really am a happy person… the only thing I don’t like is humiliation and I get some of that once in a while. You know the reason why? I was humiliated when I was a little boy up to the time I started the business. We were a very poor family and we lived in a community where they had wealth and they were very humiliating. So now that kind of gets on me very fast. We had to strive so much harder because people would say, THEY WILL NEVER AMOUNT TO NOTHING! Now, I am happy with my family… I’m very family oriented and I like people.

To not worry… I worry about everything.

I suspect that satisfaction is an elusive notion. My oldest son always cried on Christmas day because it was over. I was very touched by it. I didn’t understand what was going on the first time it happened. WHY THE HELL IS THIS KID CRYING? DIDN’T HE HAVE A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS? And then I realized what an insensitive ass I was being. He had had a perfectly wonderful time but he just hated to see it over.

Kicking ass on a paper and getting a good grade is satisfying because you are achieving what others expect of you. That’s a mainstay of this society and it’s very satisfying to fulfill those expectations.

To be employed. I’d like the job at the hospital as a secretary receptionist, but what I really want is to be RICH AND FAMOUS.

There is none. To quote my daughter, THE FUTURE IS STUPID.

When I feel I can’t do something, maybe something really stupid like sewing and I sit down and do it and it comes out sort of okay… That’s satisfaction. It’s taking the unknown challenge no matter how queer it is.

First of all I have to start with myself… Inner peace. Making sure that everything I do gives me pleasure, so I can give it all back. If you LOVE yourself, it’s so easy to LOVE and be LOVED. Also, knowing that all the people I LOVE the most are well and healthy and productive and LOVE life as much as I do. All I want is everything, that’s satisfaction.

To bring a little peace and tranquility into my personal life which has been bruised and abused and ravaged… by the divorce and my loss of trust in human beings. I find myself very cautious and withdrawn sometimes as far as feelings, and find it very difficult to get those out front and face those feelings so I can feel satisfied.

Tête de Veau, a French preparation of veal’s head.

It’s achievement after a struggle. On a basic level, making good art and having a good fuck.

HEALTH WORK and FAMILY.

Seeing your children grow up and learn to function in the world.

To create my own pleasure.

Satisfaction doesn’t apply to the human experience. We’re all empty containers and we never quite fill, because we are always draining out the other side.

I always like the phrase universal veneration.

Boring as it is, health and pleasure for my family, animals and myself, and on the mind side, enough good ideas to justify my existence. In case the ideas are worthless, some acts that are useful. Finally, to have the pleasure of stopping cold one or more of the murderous jerks that we all know or hear about.

Installation ViewBarbara Gladstone Gallery, 1989

01.
Untitled
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

02.
Untitled (Mike Glier)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

03.
Untitled
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

04.
Untitled (Eva Grudin)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

05.
Untitled
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

06.
Untitled (Tom Otterness)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

07.
Untitled (Ken Dimaggio)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

08.
Untitled (Lili Kobielski)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

09.
Untitled (Peter Grudin)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

10.
Untitled (Richard Flood)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

11.
Untitled (Julie Holzer)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

12.
Untitled
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

13.
Untitled
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

14.
Untitled (Leon Golub)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

15.
Untitled (Nancy Spero)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

16.
Untitled
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

17.
Untitled (Ross Bleckner)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

18.
Untitled
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

19.
Untitled (Barbara Kruger)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

20.
Untitled (Herb Oscar Anderson)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

21.
Untitled
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

22.
Untitled (Ethel Schweninger)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

23.
Untitled (Ruth Brownell)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

24.
Untitled (Charles Brownell)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

25.
Untitled (Andres Serrano)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

26.
Untitled (EJ Johnson)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

27.
Untitled
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

28.
Untitled
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

29.
Untitled (Richard Holzer)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

30.
Untitled (Nancy Glier)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

31.
Untitled
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

32.
Untitled
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

33.
Untitled (Raymond Learsy)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

34.
Untitled (Cara Perlman)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

35.
Untitled
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

36.
Untitled (Gabriella De Ferrari)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

37.
Untitled (Jan Glier Reeder)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

38.
Untitled (Walter Burr)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

39.
Untitled (Berta Burr)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”

40.
Untitled (Jenny Holzer)
1989, charcoal on paper, 12” x 9”