There is a place in the United States called Oklahoma. Before I met my darling girlfriend I couldn't tell
the difference between any of the states southwest of Ohio. To me then Wyoming could have been Puerto Rico
& Utah and Guam could have been the capitol of Texas. Actually I'm just really bad at geography altogether.
When they have those interviews to show how dumb Americans are and they point at a map and say "find Iran",
my guess is usually just in the middle of an ocean. Wait, I do know of that giant garbage island on the way to
Hawaii, do we own that yet? It could just be named: OLD THINGS FROM FLYING J TRUCK STOPS.

I have been to a lot of places in the world. Once I went to Russia, another time I went to Haiti. I have also been
to Slovakia and China and Akron and Wall Drug. My favorite place in the world is Norman, Oklahoma. I have
been thinking of ways to get Pooks to move back there, but she just says: "NO, NO, NO, NO WAY."
People could say, "I would move to Norman and eat the Italian Sandwich from Forward Foods
every day and drink Swirls every night while loud trains roar past" and not really mean it, but boy
could I ever. I'd ride a bike to Pepe's to get "a few chips" and see people I'd met and would nod
my head and say, "s'up". Norman is like my college town but the squirrels are brown and they want
to be friends.

Below are some pictures from my trip to Oklahoma in May 2009. I was there because I had an art show
set up by Ruth Ann Borum. Somehow I neglected to get ANY pictures of Ruth. She is beyond bees knees.

The pictures aren't in chronological order because they weren't taken in chronological order. GO AHEAD
AND FIGURE THAT ONE OUT, KRESKIN.

This picture was taken outside of the legendary Sooner Legends hotel. At first Amy & I both remarked that we thought this
statue was somehow racist, but then we turned off NPR and decided that it was just a person made of licorice. Not Red Vines
either, those are gross.

This is the kind of thing that is painted on the walls of the legendary Sooner Legends hotel. Seriously, mull this over
for a second. This man has thrown 6 basketballs in a perfect arc. They're all going to go in and the last time I checked,
the bottom of a set of stairs is a 4 point shot. That's 24 points in probably less than 5 seconds. In Oklahoma, a legend
isn't a 1985 movie featuring Mia Sara, NO WAY.

Everytime Amy & I walked down any hall it was non-stop "OH WOW", "LOOK!", "NO WAY", "WHOA", "HOLY S!". I brought
15 terabyte memory cards for my camera on this trip and ran out of room by taking pictures of Bob Stoops being fed grapes
sheathed in platinum atop Mount Everest by women that never even existed. Soon you'll hear about THE WHITE FIRE.

Amy's friend pointed out that fire ants like to live near lights on campus and I was all like,
"WHAT A NICE TIME TO USE MY MACRO SETTING" and you are all like, "NICE PICTURE
OF DIRT MAPPLETHORPE".

This picture is at the end of the trip, very close to being back in Chicago. I got really excited to see Joliet at night
because it looks BEYOND THUNDERDOME and we had been driving for 14 hours and listening to DEVO
(CLICK TO D/L - BEST BOOTLEG EVER) most of the time. But really, from here it just looks like Cleveland during the day.

This is legendary linebacker Joe Bowden, now a coach at UCO in Edmond. We ate brunch with him
at Sooner Legends (which is icky but free) and he came to my art show and bought a painting
of a duck. He's a rather nice guy.

In the above picture HE IS COVERED IN ANOTHER PERSON'S BLOOD.

This picture is from a gas station on the way out of Oklahoma. I'll take a picture of pretty much anything
that uses Cooper Black as a typeface. I would go ahead and say that OK is stocked full of "Clean Places"
and "Friendly Faces" but I accidently kicked a 1/2 eaten muffin under the bed in our hotel room, so like:
NOT SO CLEAN ANY MORE.

OH! Here's not a clean or friendly face! This is a sculpture on the OU campus. A plaque nearby
explained that there was at one time a mysterious woman in Norman who was a great healer of animals.
Eventually she stopped healing animals and started working at Pepe Delgado's. Soon after that she put an
end to customers being able to choose two different types of meat when ordering the taco combination.

OH MAN LOOK, DEL RANCHO! We didn't eat at this place but everybody seemed to say
that it's pretty good. We saw a re-run of an old Del Rancho commercial on cable that featured
a child with fangs who had blood running down his face murmuring "STEAK SANDWICH". You'd
think a place like this would be on it's way to going out of business, but on the contrary, there
seems to be a whole fleet of them. If you have access to that CHILD STEAK SANDWICH
commercial and upload it to YouTube and then tell me that you did it because I asked you
to, I'll send $12 to your PayPal account, NO JOKE. Do note that their website ends in
".biz", so don't invest too much, Madoff.

This plate is at Mainsite Gallery and I like it very much, though I've forgotten the name of the
person that made it. There are a lot of plates by this person on display, but this is my favorite
because it's the pattern of dishware that I have a set of. It's called Desert Rose Franciscan
and 99/100ths of the world's grandmothers owned this pattern.

This gigantic painting of a dog sold for $100. Later in the evening Ruth expressed concern that
she had made a mistake pricing it. Last night Amy expressed dismay that it was only $100, she
also said that her father was mad that it was $100. It's a table cloth with a dog painted on it! It's
all wrinkled and dirty!

If you have ESP FILM covering your computer monitor, you can see into this man's mind. I have this
type of film, I am able to see into his mind. He is thinking, "THAT DOG PAINTING WAS ONLY $100!".
No, really he is thinking: I sure could use an Italian sandwich from Forward Foods.

Seriously, WHOA, this place. All of the foods sold here have EXTREME EDIBILITY. I just drew the schematics
of a conveyor belt that brings the Forward Foods Italian sandwich into my mouth. WARNING: do not follow these
plans, I am a college drop out. Confession: I am also wild for Orangina. The people that own this place are called
Wampus and Suzy and they are exceptional humans. Their business is great without exception. I'm like Ken Nordine

over here, get out of the way. Look, I bought a Black Randy record!

Here are nice people at the art show & the sign for the guidebook that nobody bothered to read. The guidebook was
for sale or for rent, or you could ask for a coupon and get one for free. It seemed that people didn't want to go through
that hassle though, so Amy just gave them out. Which was particularly smart of her.

This person has perhaps not yet gotten to the bottom row of paintings, as she would
certainly be offended by the Macintosh Plus with a black screen. Those screens were tan!
I am just joshing, a person got very upset because of the painting to the left which had to
do with an internet font sensation. I named the painting Zapf Dingbats (Fonts Against Zion)
which I guess, yes, could indeed, be, um, taken the wrong way. BUT I AM MAKING PAINTINGS
TO MAKE YOU QUESTION YOUR ENVIRONMENT AND STIMULATE YOUR BRAIN. This is
a total lie, I make paintings to stimulate pizza getting into my stomach.

LOOK! The owner of the dog painting is like: THIS PRICE IS WRONG, I HAVE RIPPED YOU OFF. Ok, no, this
is not true either, these people were very friendly and I was later told very important, though I cannot recall what for.

That book is a rather rare Phyllis Hyman coloring book. I gave the rest of them away
at this place. I can't imagine that anybody there might have been a Phyllis Hyman fan.
I also never imagined that one of these books would actually be given to a child to color in.
Now I'm wondering why I even do, you know, ANYTHING.

GET OUT OF TOWN: 4 Cargills & a Wiggins! If these people were a contract bridge hand, they would absolutely
be a, um, I actually don't know anything about bridge. And they did get out of town! They came from Lawton!

FREE FOOD ALERT: when you stay at the legendary Sooner Legends hotel, they give you these coupons for
each night that you'll be there for free breakfast. So, the next time you find yourself hungry between the hours of 7am and
10am with a computer, Photoshop, a printer, a pen and a pair of scissors handy, YOU'RE IN LUCK. Step #1: erase that date.
Step #2: print 'em out. Step #3: cut 'em out. Step #4: write-in current date in similar handwriting. Step #5: march
yourself up to that Sooner buffet and eat as many gray scrambled eggs as you can! OH WHOA, WAIT. The Sooner
Legends breakfast can just be purchased for $6.95. ACTUALLY, you'd be better off just eating an old muffin that
was kicked under a bed because that food was N-A-S-T-Y.

See, I wasn't lying! There was "FREE FOOD!" on the OU campus. It was popcorn given out by a man in a swine flu mask.

NO! That POP CORN painting was free! It took a long time before Shelley Cargill claimed it. Perhaps people
thought it was some sort of trick. Maybe people don't even look at prices! They just look at the pictures.
And how clean that floor is!

When I first saw this giant I thought it would be impossible to photograph without standing in the middle of
a 12 lane highway. Amy jumped out of the car and did it in less than a minute. She's the Boyd Bartlett of the digi-cam!

Seriously, the "horns down", it's a thing. They do it here. it's second nature. We were passing drivers with Texas plates
and Amy would make me press the horn and she'd give 'em the fingers. Steph's hand quickly morphed into the "hang loose"
right after this picture was taken. That's Nate on the left. Everything in this photo is awesome. I'm moving into Steph &
Nate's dining room at the end of August, I hope they keep that drawing of the guy in the three-wheeled car in there for me.
Their son Archie gave me this flower as we were leaving, as if to say: YOU CAN LIVE IN OUR DINING ROOM.

You know, at OU I didn't really notice any grungy college panhandler-moocher types. Even this squirrel was like,
"Hey man, don't worry about acorns. Let's just hang for a bit". On our way home while we were stopped at a Missouri
rest stop a guy asked me for some Fritos. Honestly, he asked me: WILL YOU BUY ME SOME FRITOS? Though Amy
just pointed out that on our way in to Oklahoma an old man in a camper tried to sell us a knife for gas money. So, you
know, it goes both ways.

Remember that licorice man from the beginning? I RODE HIM!

I did some research on current Oklahoma topics to make paintings of to communicate with "the people". I came across the
Flaming Lips hammer & sickle t-shirt debacle and invented a Lips (that's what they're called in OK) cover band and named
it INSERT COYNE like at the beginning of the video game GORF. I was so proud of myself. THEN Wayne Coyne & his wife
J. Michelle Martin-Coyne CAME AND BOUGHT SAID PAINTING! Go ahead and figure that one out, Kreskin.

The day will come when Bob Mehr & I will drain a bottle of rye and hurl rocks at passing trains from this here corridor. I mean,
I'll be drinking vodka, whiskey is gross. That's the same thing, right? Whiskey & rye? I like the toast a lot. James Garner threw
rocks at trains & got shot in the butt in Korea. That's a Purple Heart for you, Maverick!

If you were driving a purple Tron Light Cycle from Amy's birthplace to where we live now,
it would look like this. Amy got a speeding ticket for driving 148mph outside of Saint
Louis, MO but talked the cop down to 74mph. I'm paying half because we're in love.

REGARDING THIS GUY:

Derek Erdman: NORMAN OKLAHOMA KARAOKE LEGEND: HOAX
The White Fire is a HOAX. His only performance was lending his guitar to terrified onlookers,
instilling the sinking sinking feeling he would soon return for it. B-E-W-A-R-E.
Derek Duty: burnsauce? ...yupskis.
Steve Wampus Reynolds: I think the guitar loan is better than any stupid karaoke performance.
Derek Erdman: Perhaps, but nobody was like: YOU HAVE TO GO TO SOONER LEGENDS KARAOKE,
THERE IS A GUY THERE WHO LENDS HIS UNPLUGGED GUITAR, y'know?
Steve Wampus Reynolds: So karate kicks don't count for Mr. Fancy Chicago Lad?
Derek Erdman: Um, those were withdrawl spasms. I know the difference.
Amy Cargill: what about the ribbon dance?! that was white hot!
Stephanie Smith-Foll: severe disappointment? DUDE i am gonna fly him
to chicago to strip for you. then you will know disappointment.
Steve Wampus Reynolds: The title of this should be "WHITE FIRE =
NOT EXACTLY WHAT I PICTURED IN MY HEAD. WAAH"

It's quite obvious that I've lost this argument. If Mr. Fire happens to
subscribe to Google Alerts, I'd like to take this space to say: SORRY 'BOUT THAT.

This is the best painting that I've ever made. It is gigantic and costs $1,000. I will be glad and not glad if it sells. Buy and don't buy it, please.

When we were walking around the OU campus Amy got really excited to show me "the vulva statue". "OH MAN!
You've got to see the vulva statue!" She exclaimed. After looking at it for 30 seconds two guys walked by and
one said to the other, "heh, the vagina". I turned to look as they walked away and read the back of BOTH of their shirts:
JAMAICA: WE BE JAMMIN'.

In the background you can see I'm explaining myself. No, this is when I was asking if there was chocolate
to eat. There was chocolate here! This is my favorite art gallery in the world, I am going to have a show
here twice a year for the rest of my life. The shows will be up for 6 months at a time and I am going to live
forever. That's what Stephen Hawking would call I-N-F-I-N-I-T-Y.

I went to college with Vicki Gemmill. Vicki, do you remember the time when you and Jen
Stevenson pushed Bill Parkinson off of the front porch? Was that just Jen? That was totally mean.
Or what about the time I lightly crashed your Jeep? OH, those were the days. Vicki just referred
to this car as an El Camino, but it's actually a Ford Ranchero. It doesn't matter to Amy
though. A car with a truck bed is PARADIZE for a LORE QUEEN. Oh man, I am in big trouble now!

Back in Lawton it is BBQ & Sooners shirts. Amy's father is one of my top three favorite cooks on
earth but he rarely eats with everybody else, he just keeps cooking! He has a PhD in smoking meats.
He could smoke asphalt and sell it for $10 at Arts For All.

I was in a Plumbers Union building last month and a guy with dreadlocks from Kansas told me
that people in Oklahoma are the nicest people in the world. The definition of courtesy is a sign
for stairs at the bottom of a flight of stairs.

CONTROVERSIAL Pepe Delgado's taco combination plate. You see, recently a new rule demands
that you cannot have two different types of meat with the taco combination. SO, Amy and I got two
different types of meat and traded one taco each! On the way out the girl at the counter was
hanging a new sign above the counter: NO TACO TRADING UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE.
It's going to be one long hot summer in Cleveland County.

DEREK ERDMAN: OH BROTHER.

Shelley Cargill VS Josh Cargill. Who will win?
Not the one blasting Thunderstruck at 999dB in the shed in the back. That's where my money is.

This lady totally looks like my grandmother! She marched up to me after seeing my name on the
wall and said, "THERE ARE ERDMANS IN MY FAMILY!" I was dying to know about these other
Erdmans, she only told me about one. "He was a thief and a bootlegger and he died in jail, but
he was A CHARMER WITH THE LADIES." I proceeded to ask her for her Social Security
Number. A few seconds later her husband appeared and asked, "Is she giving out her Social
Security Number again?". You might not think this is all that funny because it's ACTUALLY
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED.

THE WHITE FIRE: FUCK THIS DUDE! Wamps, your hero is due for an episode of Intervention. Ain't no backwoods Frampton
gonna impress this city-slicker, NO WAY.

If Mr. Fire happens to subscribe to Google Alerts, I'd like to take this space to say: SORRY 'BOUT THAT.

Amy declared that these are official OU colors. "Crimson & cream," she said. "There's no mistaking Sooner Pride."

A Sooner Legends rug? You shouldn't even be able to walk on the word "Sooner". This rug should be on the
ceiling, closer to the victory of heaven! Rugs in Oklahoma should be made from the skin of fallen Texans,
you know, like "horns down", but like REALLY FOR REAL. Sorry, Lacey & Ruben.

There is a sandwich shop in Norman called WHICH WICH(?)! Man, I said the name of this sandwich shop
over and over again! I didn't eat here though, I only eat the Italian sandwich from Forward Foods at 123 E. Main Street FROM NOW ON.

This is our room in the legendary Sooner Legends hotel. Each room is themed after a player, ours was the Mike Vaughan room. Mike Vaughan
uses the room (like sleeps in the bed and leaves hair in the shower) and then you get to use it. THEN, when you're asleep he comes in and he
lightly whispers in your ear, "Don't worry, everything is going to be ok. Shhhh, no need for tears." I burned the carpet in this room ironing a
shirt. If you are employed by this hotel and are reading this, I did not burn the carpet in this room ironing a shirt.

I am funny on the internet but in real life I
AM 35 AND CHUBBY WITH A CRO-MAGS SHIRT & BLACK FLAG TATTOO. I am essentially "doing quite well".

THIS IS IT! THE SANDWICH! Forward Foods was kind of crowded when we stopped on the last day
so Wampus told us about additional seating upstairs. "Additional seating" turned out to be a 3000 sq/ft
loft space that would rent for $999999 a month in Humboldt Park.

I didn't take this picture. It's of Guestroom Records, a record store that absolutely owns. They had Age Of Quarrel
on display at the front counter for like $5.99. They were showing that CD NO MERCY. That joke is probably only
funny to me, sorry.

I WANT TO THANK ALL OF THE GREAT PEOPLE THAT I MET IN NORMAN, OKLAHOMA: Steven Wampus Reynolds,
Suzy Thompson, Jeff Dodd, Steph Smith-Foll, Nate Foll, Aimee Tietze-Adams, Christian Pitt, Gary Clinton, Laura Hopps, Ruth's
boyfriend Michael, Katie Kriegel, The White Fire, Derek Duty, Wayne Coyne, J. Michelle Martin-Coyne, Marian & Andy,
Randy Soto, Bob Stoops & everybody else who helped my DREAMZ COME TRUE. I haven't slept in a bazillion hours
and had a family bummer while making this, so I'm sorry if I left anything out. I love you, mama.

Julia just said, "You didn't thank Ruth!" but that was because I did not meet her on this trip, I already had met her.
but this whole giant thing could not have happened without her. Thanks Ruthie!