Studio Gallery: 8th Annual Clarion Alley Block Party, 2006.

Artists: Mary Joy Scott, Sara Thustra, Paul Madonna, Chris Lux, Aaron Curry, Dan Dorody, Jaqueline Cooper, Tim Armstrong, Caitlin Collentine, Huey Reed, Emily Butterfly, Snowmonkey, Jetro Martinez & Kelly Ording, Nome Edonna, Brion Nuda Rosch, Evan Larsen, Cake, VITCHE (from Brazil), Erik S. Foster, Kyle Ranson, Marina Shterenberg (teen mural director), Kamau Amu Patton, Chue, Darien Huckleberry Prendergait.

Comment: For the uninitiated, Clarion Alley meanders for one block from Mission Street to Valencia Street between 17th and 18th Streets. But it's not your normal alley; it's solid murals from start to finish, the large majority painted by a bevy of our best local artists. So once a year there's this block party where everybody comes to see new murals, listen to live music, drink beer, honk weed, skateboard, congregate, loiter, convene, saunter, stroll, carouse, stare at everybody else, and all kinds of slick shit like that. The best part? Everybody's cool and there's hardly any assholes.

Wait-- that's the best part about all art events-- there's hardly any assholes-- ever. (Egos perhaps; assholes no.) I don't know what it is, but assholes and art just plain don't mix. Art's not asshole-free, of course-- nothing's asshole-free except maybe certain neighborhoods in the afterlife-- but there's unquestionably a prodigious paucity of assholery around art. Anybody have any thoughts on why that might be? Hmmm.