Lefty Frizzell

Jazz playing softly on the radio. Bill Evans. When the news comes on, at six in the morning, I turn the radio off, not that I'm in denial, but I can't think clearly, listening to the latest stupidities, and I wanted to start another paragraph. I'd only been up a short while, and I was shuffling around in my bath-robe and slippers, making a double espresso, rolling a smoke, reading some paragraphs from a few years ago, wondering if I should read them at Chautauqua. This is a big deal for me, being acknowledged; not sure I'm worthy, actually. I'll take their money and the free meals and the hotel room with running hot and cold water, be a fool not to, but I doubt that I could teach anyone anything. I'm a behind-the-scenes kind of guy. When the lights go up, and the mingling begins, I usually disappear. Dizzy Dean was once asked why he was such a successful pitcher and he replied that he threw the ball where they couldn't hit it, which about sums it up. I installed this show so well, in point of fact, that it looks like it was never done. It looks so well, that we expect it was manifest. There's a element of pride involved, I want (especially) certain people to know that I'm the one that hung that group of paintings just so; but I also feel strongly that work needs to be displayed in a proper manner, and I'm capable of doing that, so it's not a big deal. I need to shave and go to work. I have to hang the entry wall. The drive in was particularly beautiful, the dappled light. Saw a flock of about twenty turkeys, stopped and watched them for ten minutes. Everybody arrived and got right to work. They got the lighting done and it looks fantastic, then, at noon the three of them left for the day to spend time in Alan Gough's studio, picking the paintings for a big show in the spring. I went to the third floor and made labels, then came down to the common room and trimmed them. It's a lot of labels. Have to put them all up tomorrow. I'll be making little loops of blue painter's tape for an hour. The bottom of labels are at 57 inches, and I have a story-stick (two yard sticks taped together) to find the height, then level them by eye. TR walks around and adjusts. He's got a good eye, and he's a little compulsive. I wish he'd been available to work with me on this show, but the bosses had him doing other stuff. I pretty well installed it alone, after working on the Carters the week before. I'm exhausted, but just one more push-day, and I can sleep late Saturday, go in at noon, lunch at the pub, then set up for the opening. 5 - 7 Saturday night. Four of the six artists will be there. I can stay until 6:30 and still get home before dark. If something gets interesting or I drink too much I can always bunk in town. I can at least stay long enough to eat finger-food, have a beer, and make snap-judgements about people based on what they smell like. There actually will be a great many interesting people, and, at this point, I know most of them. There'll be some interesting clothes, interesting shoes and ankles, and that interesting ebb and flow of language when people talk about art. Sara was surprised that I was going to show up at all, but I want to meet the artists, because I've been so intimate with them, for the last several days; that I feel I'm in their wheelhouse, and I want to talk about, with them, their work.