Getting to Know Biff Bolen

Biff Bolen is a fantastic multi-media artist currently living in New Orleans. He enjoys skydiving and was kind enough to contribute his painting, 1st new deer rainbow to the pretty side of Issue 001.

Some of his newer work is interspersed below with a mediocre interview conducted while Biff was living in Chicago during the sweltering summer of 2005—a great time and place for alleys.

Biff had recently returned from Las Vegas …

Did you do anything wild and crazy in Las Vegas?
Well, if you don’t have any money in Vegas there’s nothing to do.

I like going to the dirty, cheap bars. Or down to the old Vegas strip.
I didn’t even know about that.

I think it’s in what’s considered the downtown area. There’s a big arched ceiling over the whole street where, at night, they project laser shows every hour.
That must be where the Welcome to Las Vegas sign is—the one on the postcards. Actually the drive down there was the best part. We took the Scout with the top down the whole way. If you go to Vegas on I-70, the last ninety miles are two lane highway. We hit that at about 8:30pm, so it was completely black and we were listening to Joanna Newsome really loud and Andrew was standing up on the back of the Scout. It was pitch black. There was nobody out—I don’t even think the moon was out. I grabbed a sleeping bag from the back and sat on it, so I was driving with my head above the windshield. It was so great after just so much traffic and so many trucks. It was nice. The ride was cool.

It’s hot there.
It’s the hottest place I’ve ever been. You know down in South Carolina, we have the same heat, but it’s humid. Everybody’s always saying it’s hot in the desert, but it’s a dry heat so it’s not that bad. That’s bullshit. It’s fucking hot.

It’s a more painful heat, where it’s directly on your skin. Humid heat just sort of bogs you down at your core, it’s more oppressive.
You have to turn your arms like this or it feels like it’s cooking your skin. It’s the hottest thing I’ve ever felt in my life. You don’t sweat but you still get dehydrated.

So did you just stay on the strip?
Yeah. We hung out on the strip. We stayed in a hostel the first night, and we met some people there, but they didn’t have any ideas about where to go. Even the kids that worked there, they just said to go to the strip.

It’s supposed to be the fastest growing city in the country, so maybe that’ll change.
There’s so much land out there. It’s hard to believe that there’s no cool bars though because there’s the University of New Mexico there, and that’s where Dave Hickey was teaching.

We mostly tried to learn to play craps by watching and people don’t really want to help you out because they’re gambling. The dealer will help you, but then you look like a chump. I played roulette a lot. I like that.

We stayed in the new Wynn hotel. Andrew, who I was traveling with, his parents are jewelers in Florida and they were there for a two week convention and had these rooms comped. It’s posh. That was great. I came back with a nice assortment of lotions and shampoos and soaps.

I had to fix my radiator, and my speakers blew out in Vegas, so I had to go to Circuit City and buy some new ones. These are not repairs you want to be doing on blacktop in Vegas.

It’s kind of a gross place. It’s good to visit for two days. On third day, as you sober up, you start to notice how cheap everything really is. The mirage fades and you see that it’s a big shithole.
I thought I would like it a lot more than I did. It’s so clean. I didn’t like how everything was so pristine and new. I wanted to go have a beer at a dive somewhere.

The old strip would be your cup of tea. It’s very grimy and seamy. The sell these giant slushy booze drinks in what look like three-foot thermometers with wide mouths, and they are only four dollars—for an extra dollar they top it off with a shot. I also bought a plastic football filled with beer that was another four dollars. It had a straw in it and I didn’t really take into consideration that it was 64 ounces.
I regret not going down there. That’s what I was looking for. Old casinos and history.

I drove back myself. I left Sunday at 5pm and made it back here at 7pm Tuesday. I stopped and slept Sunday night in a hotel and Monday night at a truck stop for a few hours. Long, long, long drive.

I don’t mind driving an old car, because it feels like you’re actually driving. In a new car the only thing you’re doing is holding a steering wheel straight. In an old car you really have to pay attention to what you’re doing. You have to check all of your gauges and you can feel the road. It’s more like work.

I do feel more tired driving a new car.
It’s cause you’re just keeping yourself awake to hold the steering wheel straight. You don’t have to do anything. With your top town, you don’t get tired, you’re wide awake. You have constant wind in your ears, and your ears catch it, you know. It’s kind of like that white noise. I had a hoodie and when I put it on it would eliminate all of that white noise. Five or six hours without that thing on, when you stop your ears just don’t know what to do.