Illustration: Ethan Persoff and Scott Marshall

How did you know Walter Bowart?

When I went to Japan to revise my book, “Japan on $5 a Day,” I had been dating Sherry Needham. When I returned, he was dating her.

Did you fight?

Of course not. I was just worried that she wouldn’t fulfill her promise to bare a breast in the fourth picture of a story I wanted to tell in one of those-25 cent photo machines.

And did she?

Yes, Walter came along and we had a high old time, assisted, as I remember, by the benevolent herb. Walter told me he was starting a new paper and I agreed to write for it. My first column was about how forgery had been a constant presence on the art scene for centuries. I called it “Art & Other Scenes” but Walter eliminated the “Art &.” The appearance of the column in EVO infuriated Ed Fancher [Village Voice founder and publisher] who insisted I choose between the two papers. Read more…