<B>Lies</B>, huh? Wondering if you’re in the right place? You certainly are if you’ve even wondered.

The odds are enormous that you’re entering the real world you always dreamed of: <B>Lies</B>. Consider this a gymnasium, in the purest sense of the classical Greek, a gymnasium for future world leaders. Here, on the pages of <B>Lies,</B> you’ll be buffed, toned, oiled, ab-d, tri-ed and bi-ed into utter perfect – and you will become a certified genius, even smarter than Marilyn Vos Savant and every member of MENSA rolled into one.

Imagine! A Boflex for Thomas Jefferson, a Stepmaster for Leonardo!

With more of the bull and less of its droppings, we recognize without question that lies are breath and rice, shelter and cool water for any and all of art. Art is a careful and often painstaking piece of stunning sculpture, held together by a hidden armature of lies.

I more than just believe, I <I>know</I> that there are a number of quite talented writers on The Brink right now. Chances seem bright that they’ll be joined by more. It pleases me immensely to see wonderful writers like Jim Parks, Desert Denizen, even that dipshit Hagen, Dashing Danny Stuart, Zog, the admin person – just ones who rattle of the top of my pink Georgia granite skull. Most of all, for me anyway, is the delight that comes with watching a natural like Chuck Prophet hit a patch of fast water and paddle even faster. He’s been a fine writer as long as I’ve known him, but now he seems, well, on <B>The Brink </B>of … something. I’m not going to jinx him by spelling it out other than to say that Elliott Murphy and Moe Green, Don DeLillo and Thomas McGuane notwithstanding, the Great American rock and roll novel has yet to be written.

<B>Lies</B> shouldn’t be all about words, though. At least not the way I see it. I see the page evolving into a broad bazaar of any and every kind of art. JIMEYE'S often disturbingly brilliant film work ought to find a happy home within <I>Lies,</I> should Jim choose to share his work on this page. But film can’t lie – right? (more about that in a moment).

Davo’s work (should he choose) ought to fit right in. Katie Ford’s (I think she's QkrGirl) photographs, I can assure you, are rife with lies and deception. The camera never lies, though, isn’t that common knowledge? It’s false: the camera <I>always </I>lies. That's what photographers are for, to supply the machine with lies of intent It would be a great pleasure to see <B>BURNINGSAND</B> and <B>DUGGY DEGNIN </B> turn up with some of their truly interesting words and superb photographs. The page ain't worth having if there's no room for RENO SEPULVEDA, my hero since I was four years old.

<B>Lies</B>, like all of The Brink’s content, will remain edited only by the artist who provides material. No blue-penciling from my corner at any rate. The Jury does its job and I’ll do mine. Which is to shock and awe, to conquer the known and unknown worlds. Although the least ambitious person one might ever encounter, I’m also furiously competitive. Therefore <B>Lies </B><I>must</I> rule, <I>can </I>rule, <B>will </B>rule.

Here, we think we'll also try just plain old <I>bait</I> to see if it helps. You get featured, you'll recieve an invaluable item from the Art-O-Matic machine. Does such a machine exist? Get featured on the<B> LIES</B> page and find out.

Some surprises are in store. There is a very generous Brink person (and I suspect I know who he or she might be) who owns the legendary Rolodex. <B>THE</B> Rolodex. In North American Arts and Letters, from which our benefactor/-factoress can reach <I>anyone</I> day or night. And this friend of The Brink has agreed to allow us to private access to the Campaign '08 notes and doodlings of reknown journalists Louis Shiner and R. J."Dick" Spencer. A hard and hard-charging duo who represent the Right on one hand and the Left on the other -- often, surprisingly, changing their roles.

Lou and Dick, self anointed best poker team on the press plane will share -- exculsively -- with <B>The Brink</B> their iconoclastic and often hilarious unpublishable working papers.

What else?

Oh: yes, that is an absolutely genuine photograph of me, completely untouched, standing in font of my solid brick home (Solid! No brick facade!) in the tony side of town. If my art director had turned The Brink standard enlargement horizontally instead o vertically, you'd surely sit up and take note of the mighty package within those tight jeans. Yup, that's me!

Uh, in 1985.

The house was bulldozed to extend the rich folks’ YMCA here in River City. The ensuing 23 years were lived <I>hell-for-leather</I> rough. When I say living <I>rough</I>, I mean to imply living with a death wish far larger than the Grand Coulee Dam. I do not look a great deal like that silly 32-year-old boy in the picture. So is it a lie?

Consider this: Albert Einstein’s two greatest contributions to 20th-century physics were these: that space and time join into an indistinguishable thing, space/time, completely separate from its two components; and that the universe is both curved and ever-expanding.

So much for parallel lines.

Like all lines or line-directed waves, truth and lie intersect endlessly.

Climb aboard. <I>Lies.</I>