Twenty-five original poem/drawings by Chicago artist/actor/playwright/talk show host/poet/tattoo aficionado Tony Fitzpatrick. The series presents a painful, honest examination of the "drug culture" from a street level perspective. In an allegorical style reminiscent of 19th century religious tracts, he gives the casualties of the "war on drugs" human faces, at once personal and universal.
The title of the series is taken from a song title by poet/rocker Lou Reed, who strongly supported the idea of a series of graphics by Fitzpatrick linked to the themes of his song, and contributes an introduction to the book. Connoisseur/collector Mickey Cartin, one of the first to champion Fitzpatrick's work, furnishes a critical essay.
  "Tony Fitzpatrick is to my eye a modern master of etching, up there with all of my favorites -- Goya, Blake, and Dix. His line is both gentle and hard, vulgar and sublime."
– Joe Coleman

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A friend of mine is a 12 step addict, no doubt the least harmful addiction he could find. While this has made him very set and didactic in his ways it has also given him a perspective and informed view of addict mores. For instance you don't see any old ones. Old red ridged and bulbous nosed drunks yes. Skinny shiny eyed vein popping shooters, no.
Now, Chuck Berry said when he wrote he tried to think of what would appeal to the most number of people who would buy his songs. That's why he says he didn't write about cocaine users. They were such a minority old Chuck wouldn't have made a yen off of them. So we leave Mr. Berry rooted forever if we care to what would have happened had he spread his horizons. Why doesn't he do it this afternoon.
Tony Fitzpatrick writes and paints about bothersome subjects. He is serious about them. You'd have to be a deaf blind retarded mute to have missed the ugliness and debasing dehumanizing constructs perpetrated daily in any urban center today. Crimes against humanity.
Some of us have nightmares of violence, real or imagined, and we express it in various ways. We carry guns, learn to use knives, manipulate others to do our bidding or are so big in the first place that WE have to keep close guard and rein on the mad bouncing blood we call home. Tony's a big guy but I think it's more important to keep an eye and ear on his heart. He's bringing a message from a point of view of someone equipped and prepared to navigate the jungle. But he's also chosen to express it through his work.
I was watching Tony with his five year old kid, teaching him to box. The kid was ferocious. I remember thinking I hope Tony teaches him the other side of the equation or else he could be a potential bully. Unless he gets killed first...I completed the thought.
Tony is a humanist. He completes the thought.

by Lou Read
New York City, 3/97

.hard press edit