Artists live on

Just saw in the Times that Rob Pruitt lives on as an artist and has a new art awards program under the auspices of the Guggenheim.  It's good to see people living on.  I remember having dinner around '87 at what was to become a Lower East Side institution -- a Mexican restaurant called "El Sombrero" -- with Rob and his then partner Jack Early (from Winston-Salem, his dad is a lawyer of my dad's vintage and was known back in college days as "Squirrelly Early"). I knew them through Mattie Antezzo. Sometime in the middle of dinner, maybe towards the end, Rob swept his fork across everyone's plate (i.e., about five of them), made a big mess, and came up with a big composite mouthful of rice, beans, pork, salsa, what have you.  And ate it.  I was fucking furious.  I was not done with my dinner and I didn't have much money at the time.  Fucking artist junkies, I fumed. But it's good to see he's still around and that Jack Early (whom I last saw at the awesome Housing Works Thrift Store in Tribeca) is also having a comeback show.