PRE-SEASON

   I've been in the worst of holding patterns, suspended between "churches", out of work, riding a horrible dry spell writing songs, no art project on the horizon, out of money, a broken string on the guitar, watching bad TV and opening day of turkey season is a week away...so I call Shewho. She always has a way of cheering me up. She tries the usual- "You must need it.....enjoy the bad TV." But I can tell she's just giving me good phone. "What if it's over?" I say, not really believing it, until it comes out of my mouth. Fuck. What if it is? Oh well. That would save a lot of time and money.
   Then we get to chatting about Smokey- Shewho's 16 year old daughter and her group of rich friends. Smokey lives in a different world than her mother and I. Shewho has spent all of those 16 years making sure of that. She goes to a toney private school and private school don't come cheap. On the weekends she hangs in the Hamptons or jets off to St. Barts for the holidays. All her friends have names that would fit perfectly on a cute, fuzzy puppy in a West Village pet store window. A lot of these kids have older parents- like Shewho. Sometimes Shewho knows the rich parents and sometimes she doesn't. It's considered bad form to use private school like the local Elk's Club, so the Uber-rich ones are not in her circle. I'd be horrible at Private school PTA meetings. "Excuse me Mr. Rockafeller, our kids are tight...... Howzabout a beer after this shindig?" Rest assured I'll never be invited.
   But Smokey's position in this world is secure. She's cute, smart, funny, charming and unimpressed by yachts and pretentious bullshit. They all love her. In fact there's one particular rich guy that is thinking of naming the new baby Smokey. "But the new wifey  is not carrying this one. They have a surrogate." Shewho tells me. Wait a minute.....she CAN carry the baby but isn't?  Shewho confirms that this is indeed the case. Now I know the rich can do pretty much whatever they want, but I had no idea that they did THIS. Just to make sure I press the issue. Is this a well known practice? Who the fuck knows.
      I gather all my self-restraint not to dial PAGESIX. I once had Michael Douglas' and KZJ's complete wedding itinerary and guest list in front of my morning coffee, 2 weeks before Entertainment Tonight. Carpenter Code- never divulge on a client. I went about my business. I could've retired on that dime. So I can't say who this rich guy is. But man do I want to meet him. All I know is my twenty year old quest to recreate the Virgin Birth may be closer than any of us thought.

11:08

   Puts things in perspective, when a man knows his exact moment of death. It's a nausea producing thought just to ponder it. Last night the State of Georgia ended Troy Davis' existence at 11:08 PM. By most accounts he was innocent of the crime he was accused- the killing of a police officer trying to help a homeless man in a parking lot in Savanna. This happened before there was a camera on every lamp post. 7 of the 9 prosecution witnesses recanted their original testimony, but still the State (and the dead officer's family) felt confident that Troy was their man- and killed him. He refused to select his last meal and was served what was on the menu for Wed.- cheeseburger, beans and fries. Why meet your maker still digesting lobster bisque if you are innocent?
   I don't know if I would be an opponent of capital punishments if someone I loved was brutally murdered and the case was iron clad. I think I have enough rancor to want to see that criminal gone. Some people ARE a waste of space. There's a case now in Ct. of a man invading a home and killing a Doctor's picture book beautiful family. There's no question that they have the right guy. Should the State kill this person? I'm not sure. But I think so. This is my dilemma. I can't call myself a true opponent of the death penalty. That said, I in no way feel that Troy Davis should have been put to death. The system sucks. Obama golfs while another black man is put down like a sick cat? NO DNA. NO GUN. NO DOUBT Troy Davis should still be alive to see 11:09.

MUGSHOT.XXX

  It's no secret that porn and war are at the forefront of most major technological advances in our little post-industrial universe. The internet is the prime 21st century example. Started as a war tool, it was quickly co-opted as the next step in smut delivery system. The man may still rig the net up to drones and flame our asses, but for now it's pussies and pricks that are driving things forward. When the eggheads at Apple finally figure out a way to physically hook us up to the laptop you won't have to wonder for long why the "finger hole" is so large.
   I don't know who is behind the move to shift Adult material into its own XXX ghetto, but I'm all for it. For all its usefulness as a ready made community, Facebook has failed miserably in offering any sort of underbelly alternative to the big room of smiling, happy faces. I can only reel myself in so much, even if my nieces are in the room.... and even if I block the baby pictures and sunsets, I can't make them block me. (Unfriending seems so mean). Of course I'm something less than a smut peddler, yet FB has taken upon itself to shut me up. (I've gotten around this by making Shewho an admin on the CLGM page and letting her know when fresh copy in the hopper. She then links it to HWSM.) I may take to banging out morse code on the pipes soon.
    Recently Staples Copy Center refused to xerox the church program because of the "Nudity". Tracing her finger between the wig that covered Mystery Girl's titties and her exposed landing strip, the girl offered "If there was hair here..." I rightfully pointed out that the perfectly trimmed punice HAD hair, but she stormed off. "It may be kiddy porn." she said in parting.
   This Puritan, uptight, Republican, tea bagger, middle American, protect us from ourselves attitude is slowly creeping in all around us. It's disgusting. So if artists and other forward thinking drunks and reprobates have to be lumped in with people who make a damn good living off girl on girl action so be it. And being the real estate enthusiast you all know me to be I've started snatching up .XXX domains. JESUSHCHRST.XXX  was my first. I have no idea what I'll do with it but I know it will look damn good on a billboard down by the river. MUGSHOT.XXX is my latest. I envision this as the new adult facebook- a place where the grownups can go and talk about grownup things. I'm sure there will be some titties involved. I have some venture capitalists already interested in bankrolling the project. "We're gonna make a fucking million." All my money ideas are well......money dude. Ask anybody. Get your profiles ready. Now if I can just fit the mainframes in the outhouse.

MYSTERY GIRL @ HOLLIE WITCHEY PROJECT

FACEPLANT

  After all my agonizing over becoming a facebook fag and even removing myself from the room for a bit, I  re-joined the party with a new found energy. I had a great weekend shooting the next church invite with supermodels HW and ML and in my excitement to share, I posted a photo of HW tying ML's hands behind her back. I noticed they had removed my link button on top of the page, so I wrote in "Going Jew" and the HWSM blog url. Oh yeah, ML didn't have any pants on. Is that a problem? Now, here on blogspot, thank God, that's not a problem. But when I went on fb today and tried to retrieve some messages nothing happened. WTF? I punched the other little buttons on top of the page and same thing. Then just for fun I thought I would find another bare ass image to post and guess what? Froze out.
   This had happened before with warnings, but now they had disabled my ability to transmit.....while I was on a streak. I typed my question into the help box- "Why can't I post?" YOU HAVE BEEN BLOCKED! Someone out there has taken offense. Was it the bare ass? Was it the hands being tied? Was it the blond girl in Mormon clothes? Was it the "Jew" thing? Was it my new website JESUSHCHRIST.XXX? I didn't have a clue. I'd rejected fb, then come back and now was being uncermoniously 86'd. They said it could be a few hours, days or weeks. Forget any previous notion I had of quitting fb. Do they have any idea who they are dealing with?

GOING JEW

I've been pondering this for a while. Since the Catskill Cliche Temple and the Teenage Hassid attack on THE GOD LOVES FAGS Tobias Yves Zintel billboard I've been considering changing teams. Not in the traditional read the Torah and give up Red lobster, study all night, movie and Chinese food for Xmas way, but the get the sign painter to change "church" to "temple", Sunday to Saturday night service way. Maybe the Christians deserve a break and I can work full time associating the TLGM with my Semitic brethren. I like Saturday night for services.
   I brought this up with one of the elders- Savage Lynch and he was not so sure. "I went to Sunday School with you. I KNOW you are Christian." I disagree. The CLGM may borrow heavily from the Christian tradition but I never declared myself to any Sexy Jesus. I've always been a free agent. Hell, if the Muslims had a little more of a sense of humor I could easy like Mohammed. So why not? I like the Jews. They are funny as shit. Even the ones who aren't funny, think they are and that's a total crack up. Plus there are plenty here in the hood. Savage may just have to accept the tide change. It'll take a little time to get the paper work together. I'll keep you posted. TEMPLE OF THE LITTLE GREEN MAN has a nice ring to it.
  
      

END OF THE WORLD BIKER UFO S&M TEMPLE OF THE LITTLE GREEN MAN SAT. OCT. 22, 2011 8 PM

REACTIVATED

  I've spent over a week recuperating from "Church", alternating between hours of TCM on my couch and crawling in the rubble under a friend's ancient barn, trying to determine what was keeping it standing. I had a bad case of post-partum depression. The Tobias Yves Zintel show had gone nowhere and once the debris had been swept up in the chapel, sanctuary was just another word for empty room. I'd even made the unwise decision of quitting facebook, shrinking my already little comfort zone into a pitifully puckered asshole. Three cats can only be so much company.
   I'd known R.Kennedy was coming to town with his band the JAM MESSENGERS for a while and intended on seeing him in Woodstock, but without facebook the lines of communication had gone dead. OK, guess I had to punch in the password in order to get back in touch. "WELCOME BACK!" the computer greeted me. Christ- I'm such a tool. My first surprise was that the show was in Hudson, not Woodstock. Fuck, that was 20 miles south of Albany. I definitely did not want to make that drive. It took all the energy I could muster AND a whining call from RK to get my ass in the car. Oh well, it was still better than driving to Manhattan.
  THE SPOTTY DOG was a narrow book store on a main street of high end stores selling high end crap. I had 4 dollars and change in my pocket. "I'm on Kennedy's list." I told the young granola chewing hippie minding the door. "It's $5. There's no list." I pulled out the crumpled bills and lint covered quarters. "4 is OK." he said. I was pitiful. Then I spotted RK and he got me back the four bucks and bought me a beer. That was better. Three of us went outside to blow one.  When Kennedy left to do something, the granola hippy yelled at the other guy (Mike Edison) and myself for smoking next to his door. "Come on guys..." he moaned. Still getting yelled at and now they're half my age.
   There was a girl in short skirt and wool socks sliding around on the floor alternating between screeching into a mic., over a tape of her screeching into a mic. and apologizing for the whole thing. I'd missed RK's train mate- this guy Mike Edison a writer from the New York. We drank our beers and waited for socky girl to run out of steam. THE JAM MESSENGERS are Kennedy and a Brazilian one- man- band by the name of Marco Butcher. Somehow a blond woman named Sandy from Detroit was also on board, driving the rental and sitting in on the drums. Edison and I watched as RK unleashed his shirtless, manic blues act in the little bookstore.  I was waiting for him to climb the shelves, toppling them onto the crowd. Somehow we got out alive.
   I'd agreed to put up the bunch for the night. RK rode with me and the others followed in the van. Two hours later, following me down dark back roads, on a head of talking powder and the three of them were slack jawed and hopelessly lost."Where the fuck are we?" they asked. I took them to the bar for some bad fried food and more beer. By the time my headlights lit the church the van of fucked up hipsters were primed for an epiphany. As I turned on lights and sound systems and Kennedy stuffed the pipe i saw fresh just how good I have it here. Sometimes I lose that perspective. Sandy, Marco and Mike bounced from gallery to outhouse to church to inner sanctum, babbling and vying for Kennedy and my attention with their own twisted freakazoid histories. We didn't quit until 5am.
    By the time I'd crawled into the nest, and the rest had scattered on the couch, futon and floor I'd been rejuvenated by the tribe. RK and I had reaffirmed our keep doing it until your dead with or without support credo, as i learned just how cool my new guests were. Marco- a pure musical genius from the favelas of Rio, ladies man and all around charmer. Sandy- hot widow, Detroit musical royalty (Jack, Patty, etc come over for bar-b-qs) and natural drummer. And last but by no means least Mike Edison- drummer from Sharkey's Machine and Raunch Hands, and as I sit here reading his book I HAVE FUN EVERYWHERE I GO- a helluva fucking scribe. Thanks folks. You put me back on track. My door is always open.
 

WHO CALLED THE COPS?

  Recently I received an email from a grad student wanting to know about the famous Karen Finley and a piece I did long ago. I had rented the display windows of a defunct department store in SF, and scheduled artist performances and installations. One of my artists was Karen Finley. We were fresh out of art school. She proceeded to get naked and bang on the windows like a crazy woman for the downtown SF lunch hour crowd. After she escaped on the back of a motorcycle the crowd and the cops were left to me. Without the naked girl they had nothing. I told them I had rented the windows from Bob Lurie (the owner of the SF Giants) and was just trying to bring a little art to downtown. They scowled, got on their radios and eventually kicked me loose. "Watch yourself!" a burly officer warned me. This got me to thinking- how many times have I been told that by the law?
   A year later I organized an exchange between The Federal Correctional Institution in Pleasanton, CA and The SF Art Institute. My contribution to FCI co-ed prison was THE UNDEAD and THE PUDS- both punk rock art bands who had a predilection for removing their clothes. When Philip Huyser the lead singer for THE PUDS took the stage with his penis poking though the hole in a 45 rpm record taped around his waist I should've realized things were not going to go well. By the time a doz. Kathy Acker paperbacks had been tossed to the cheering crowd the Warden was already on her way. "Where the HELL do you think you are?" the big stern woman asked me as I squirmed in a metal chair. After confiscating the photog's film we were all released. "Watch yourself!" the Warden growled as we made our way back to the truck.
  In NYC I strung the artist Stelarc over East 11th St. with 18 shark hooks in his back. The cable was jerri-rigged to a 4X4 and a fire escape three stories above the street. When the cops shut down the spectacle their only concern was that the man hanging from hooks and flimsy cable was naked. They hadn't written yet all the other laws we broke. It being NYC the cops were cool and non-plussed by the whole thing. They wrote Stelarc a ticket for disorderly conduct and assured us they wouldn't show up. I accompanied Stelarc as his dealer. I have a fond memory of Stelarc bantering with the judge after he insisted the artist come up with a last name. "Like Cher your honor." Stelarc told the judge, in his most charming Aussie accent. "Dismissed." his frustrated honor barked with a bang of his gavel. Then he looked down at me and pointed his hammer at my face. "You better watch yourself mister." I got a million of 'em.

Nowadays it's me calling the cops when the kids fuck up my GOD LOVES FAGS sign or the neighbors  cover my FOR SALE sign or run their ATVs in circles at 4am in the morning. WTF am I losing my stuff? Must be getting old. Still, I'd like to think that given the opportunity to walk that razor edge between legal and illegal I'll always come down on the side of the law. I'm just trying to bring a little art to the sticks.

    

IT'S OVER

No- not the World. Not yet. What's over for me is my participation in the social media site known as Facebook. I guess I'd been in that crowded little room for a little over a year. Before that I'd partied, drink in hand, at the MySpace get together. But then someone told me that there was a much cooler party happening on another floor. I came late to both, eaten a couple of hot dogs, had a beer or two and left without so much as saying goodbye. That's just me.
   There is no specific reason for leaving the fb crowd. In many ways it was a hip little get together. I always brought along flyers hyping whatever I was doing at the time, handing them out and waiting patiently for the thumbs up or maybe even someone telling me how much they liked my efforts. But after a while the whole process became predictably stale. And not only this, but when I wasn't in the room I found myself wondering how the party was going? Was I missing anything? Maybe I'll just poke my head in and see what people are talking about.....Like the clackety-clack of a razor blade on a mirror, I salivated in anticipation. Then, disappointed in the banality of the dynamic, I closed the door and walked down the stairs.
   I've always insisted that it is just as important to cease something as it is to start something. I've started and stopped plenty of projects over the years. The reasons are many for stopping. Failure is a big one. Boredom runs a close second. Then there is "liking" it too much. An admittedly addictive personality plays into this. I stopped watching TV in 1995 only to get satellite 10 years later. I stopped hunting in 1975 only to return to it with religious ferocity 20 years later. Heroin has got nothing on sitting for 8 hours in a tree stand. My art runs the gamut of styles, medium and artistic personalities. Some are fictional, some real. Some are alive, some dead. Some techniques I continue. Some I drop. Projects start and stop. The church and the gallery continue.....for now. When I joined facebook they asked for a quote. It's as relevant now as it was then. All I know is "I'll never join facebook- again"

ONE MILLION FIVE

HIGH WATER

The Neversink River Valley has been spared much of the devastation that her northern cousins The Esophus and Mombackus and plenty others have endured. Nonetheless as an owner of river front property I was concerned about the CLGM Baptism Access site on Holiday Mt. Rd. I drove down through Bridgeville and at first didn't see the sign. Then I noticed it had been covered up by two pieces of plywood and an old pink bed cover. Two people were along side their white Jeep in the road. I pulled up, removed the wet pink cover and heavy plywood. "Are these yours I asked?" politely. They both shook their heads No. Then the blond woman asked if it was my sign? I said it was. She wondered what it was all about?
   At first I thought she was just curious, but soon realized she was pissed and did not like the sign at all. Her husband did not like it either. I tried to explain it as an art work but I wasn't getting through. "Two people called and asked if we were selling? It's confusing." I didn't see it but also didn't want to be a bad neighbor...."Plus." she continued "the town says it's illegal." Ahhhh. Now she had my attention. "The town does not regulate for sale signs." I explained. "But there's no phone #." This seemed to bother her quite a lot. I give you what you paid for it. You paid $250." I actually paid $300, but if she knew that she could get my ph #. "No." I said. "How much then?" she asked. "One million five." I love saying that.
   Then ensued a back and forth that got testier and testier. "Get your car off my property." My property is a little bigger than my Neon. All but the sign was underwater. The blond wife stormed off and the hubby hung back to try to talk sense into me. I moved the car and tried in vain to explain the art tradition of Gordon Matta-Clark and myself to this guy. "Are you sure this isn't your plywood?" I asked the guy. He just looked at me. "OK. They're going in the river." At this the wife screamed something about recycling out of her Yoga/ Snowboard Shoppe window. I took that as an admission of guilt and tossed it and the bed sheet over on her property. Another front opens.

THANK YOU

I'd like to thank everyone who made the Catskill Cliche Church one of the best LGM services ever. When people ask what the church is all about, I never quite know what to say. Words fail it. But the one thing I'm certain of it IS a church in the classic sense. And what makes up a church? CONGREGATION. Yeah, I may run the show and The Band of All Faiths may drive the bus, but it is the congregation who burn their hard earned dollars who really make it a church. Without them it's just rehearsal. All my love and appreciation goes out to the CLGM congregation. See you for THE END OF THE WORLD BIKER UFO TEMPLE OF THE LGM- Sat. Oct. 22, 2011- 8pm.