You don't deserve to read my writing. You don't deserve to hear any story that I have to tell. You're accessorizing with a free art rag — trying to act like everything's fine while global warming melts your face, our government kills children and Sallie Mae sends cops to my apartment to collect on student loans. Why should you get to read my shit? Why should you benefit from my wanderings? Maybe you'll use the information to help better the world ... bullshit, we're Americans. You're good at going to Starbucks and complaining about cultural homogenization, but you have no convictions or beliefs. Worse, you're an American who claims to dig art, so not only are you devoid of any legitimate core, but you have pretensions to being French.

I am writing this piece for one cause: to give recognition to a group of real artists who have risen from the ashes of a civil war. That, and to give myself a sense of purpose for a few hours — a midsummer night's distraction from the grinding disappointment of existence. (Talk about "pretensions to being French…")

Being a death penalty lawyer in Post—Katrina New Orleans fucked with my heart. A little exposure to violent depravity can clear the mind, but constant contact shuts you down. I was so worn out, that I couldn't masturbate to Internet porn. I would sit there staring at the screen, contemplating the nastiness of the human condition … and when masturbation is retarded by the world sadness — then its time to hit the road. Grab freedom at all costs. Seek truth, avoid catastrophe. Or seek catastrophe, avoid truth. Either way, you gotta make a move.

I flew to El Salvador because I heard it was dangerous and that I might get killed. My first move in the capital was to contact the members of La Fabri-K art collective. Use my credentials as a "writer" to gain access to the scene. I wasn't expecting much — mimicry of the Mexican muralists or the usual backwater attempt at being contemporary, but then I met Mayra Barraza, Luis Lazo and Francisco Zayas — sitting at a bar called La Luna Casa y Arte. The bar was built by artists who lived through the El Salvadoran Civil War. A civil war that left charred bodies and decapitated heads on the side of the road, where death squads raped and dumped the bravehearts who fought for human dignity, where family members disappeared forever and friends were forced to flee. The grotesque barbarism, as usual, came from all sides: the right (ARENA), the left (FMLN) and was made possible, in part, by the generous funding of our United States government. The members of this art collective had lived through a hell beyond my comprehension.

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