Jesus tits, you'd think the College Art Association had never run a goddamn conference before! First I tripped over a microphone cord, which caused a roomful of people to, like, laugh at me, and then there was all this awful feedback that sounded like somebody applying a baby to a cheese grater, and then William Pope L., who's, like, supposedly this super-important art person, he's there to talk on a panel discussion called 'The Politics of Visual Culture,' and I think he's supposed to receive the Frank Jewett Mather Award or something, starts going off about anticommercialism and fascism and all this fortune cookie politics.

And the kicker is that while nobody could hear a goddamn thing, because I totally ripped the mike cord out of its socket, the audience is all nodding their heads in agreement with everything that's being said the whole time, like one of those head-bobble toys you put on your car dash, and they tell me afterwards that they couldn't hear, but it was okay, they just wanted to bask in the presence of Pope L. or some crazy-ass crap like that. He might as well have been talking to a bunch of neutered, lobotomized sheep.

The other panelists came on after and started talking about who the hell knows what, they don't give a crap, the audience doesn't give a crap, they have no more interest in each other than they have in the contents of their bellybuttons, everybody's just there to be there, because you do that when you aspire to join the ranks of the alleged cognoscenti. I'm going down to the bar where I will proceed to drink Manhattans until I am blind.

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I left the panels, because I felt tired, and I wandered around the halls of the mall where the conference is taking place. Everything means something if you look at it close enough. I have a brother who says that. He's retarded, but sometimes he says good things anyway. Actually I should say had, because last year he was playing Superman and he ran in front of a schoolbus. Anyway, the mall had a lot of walls. A mall of halls of walls. I looked at the walls a long time. Some of the walls had dust on them. I looked at the dust a long time. Some of the dust had some more dust on it.

I went to some panels. Some people spoke at the panels. Sometimes artists spoke on the panels. Sometimes academics spoke on the panels. Some of the artists were academics. But sometimes they weren't. It was kind of confusing. But they seemed really nice.

While some of the speakers were speaking, I noticed that the electrical outlets were evenly spaced. I like electrical outlets. Most of the electrical outlets had two slits with a hole under them. I guess that most electrical outlets are like that. At least most of the electrical outlets in America are like that. Anyway, after the panel discussions I looked around at some dust again, and then I felt thirsty and tired. When I feel thirsty and tired I like to drink coffee sometimes. Unless it's late and I have to sleep soon. Then I don't drink coffee because it keeps me awake and I can't sleep. Anyway, I wanted to drink some coffee. So I looked around and they only had Starbucks. I like Starbucks. They make coffee with whipped cream and fluffy milk and peppermint at Christmas time. But I can't tell my artist friends that I like Starbucks because they will make fun of me. They'll say that I'm not a real artist if I like Starbucks. They're so mean! But the place we were at only had Starbucks, so if any of my artist friends saw me with coffee from Starbucks I could just say that the mall only had Starbucks and that I am still a real artist.

They also said I'm not a real artist if I don't use this list of words they gave me. Not really words, but terms. I don't like them because I don't think they're real terms. One of them is surreal. I think it means not real, or sort of real, but not really, like someone made up something. Another one is mis-en-scene. Maison means house in French so I think it has something to do with a house. I think repurposing means when you lose your purse and you have to buy another one. I don't like the terms but when I say them my artist friends smile and say that I'm a real artist and they love me. I like my friends but when they make me do things I don't know about sometimes I don't like them so much.

There's a really cute handbag store across the street so I'm going to go do some repurposing. Bye now!

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Well, this conference alternates between boring and nuts, but the ICA is pretty cool.

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I have rules, and I have theories. One of them is that fellatio is not okay on the first date even if the guy is driving a really nice car. Another is that the interview process here at CAA is like going out with a guy with a really nice car who is expecting fellatio on the first date. Plus, if you do it, he's going to give you a debit card with some monster cash on it and tell you to buy yourself something nice. You know it's wrong to give in, on principle, but in practice, welcome to Headville, first stop: me.

Job-seekers have basically turned into crack whores, constantly scanning past your head like they're on the lookout for cops and johns at the same time, and they're so out of it you could practically slap them across the face and they would still just keeping muttering about having enough packages to hand out.

Now that my interview is over I'm going to head back up to my room and rest my jaw muscles.

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I get up earlier than you in the morning, and spend my time doing interesting things that would never even occur to you. I attended a conference a few summers ago, who remembers which, but I tossed a Fendi scarf around my neck and dashed out, nestled into a café in foothills of the Himalayas and sipped yak butter tea at the roof of the world. Some other mistily-remembered year I applied the brutal touch of my red pen to student papers while I worked over an ouzo at a quaint whitewashed bar overlooking the beaches of Naxos. This year will be no exception as I stride boldly out of the College Art Association 94th Annual Conference in search of adventures unknown to the average conference attendee.

We're here this year to hire a historian of contemporary art. Having been on both ends of the grueling, sweaty interviewing process several times now, I'm beginning to see certain patterns, or continuities. Firstly, I infinitely prefer being in, not to put too fine a point on it, the topmost position in these situations. But one musn't apply too much cruelty at the onset - it cheapens the experience and causes the interviewee undue, perhaps uninteresting discomfort. Interviewees who wish to be violently beaten may find a better match at another school; my department specializes in a more psychological approach. Nevertheless, time is limited, and we sometimes must get down to business immediately. The best guideline on both sides is honesty. The interviewee must confess, early on, what his or her true desires are in regards to our university. For our part, we must be clear about our demands and expectations.

Perhaps what's most interesting in all of this, though, is the way in which our usual professional tools and methods don't necessarily serve us well in the interviewing process. Students typically have a low threshold for discomfort, being new to the academic environment, while the interviewee has probably spent years in the confines of academe and can withstand a more rigorous regimen of discipline.

There are many basic tensions that color the interview, but those tensions, handled properly, honed by years of administering similar stressors to students, can become the source of enormous insight and arousal. Hopefully, regardless of who we select as our initiate, the interviewee will come away from us having learned a few things about him- or herself. Such is the nature of the pointed tools we wield.

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