THE PERPETUAL SCENESTER

 I've been lucky enough to hit some pretty good scenes in my day. It's always been by accident. Coming of age in the early 70's, I was just a little late to be a full-fledged hippie and born too soon to be a punk. My first scene (after the draft ended and I dropped out of college) was Woodstock - the village not the festival. But, it was attending the festival in Bethel at 16 that drew me there.  In 1973 the word "Woodstock" still had cache, filled with the magic and promise of that festival in 1969. I married my first wife Renee in a Justice of the Peace's basement in Saugerties just before deer season in 1973. We had our wedding reception at The Woodstock Pub on the main drag. My wife was 19. I was 21. It didn't take long for us to realize we had arrived a little late to the party. 

We both worked hard, me as a carpenter, she as a seamstress. Where the fuck was all the acid parties and free love? We lived in a little shack back in the woods on a dead end road in Bearsville, barely making ends meet. We got food stamps, fed two dogs, a cat and heated by wood. Our lifestyle was way more hillbilly American that groovy hipster. But, we made do. I taught lithography at the Woodstock Artist's Assoc. for no money and dreamed of being an "artist"......whatever the fuck that meant. Eventually we decided to move on. Too insecure to hit Manhattan, we packed up the pickup truck and drove to SF - to Haight Asbury in the Spring of 1975. Maybe that was were it was still happening.

Yeah. You guessed it. The Haight was a skeleton of its former self. We got an apt. on Clayton St, near the panhandle, up the street from the Hell's Angel's club house. More work. Damn! We were too young to be working so hard. We moved to Pacific Heights in a "work for rent" deal with a gay landlord. Then on to Mill Valley when that deal soured. We always seemed to be the young, poor, kids among the older rich folks. Desperate to make my mark I reluctantly went back to college at The San Francisco Art Institute in 1977. That's when I realized I had to make my own scene. 

Two things happened in 1977. My art began to mature and I met a group of like-minded cool cats about my own age. We could form community on our own. With the help of Tony Labat, Karen Finley, Sally Webster, Debora Iyall, Bruce Pollack, and our teachers and mentors David Ireland, Howard Fried, Tom Marioni, etc. we found common ground in the Bay Area. The acid parties never materialized, but plenty of good Columbian weed and coke did. After getting my MFA I ended up going to seminary, buying a cow, starting a gallery, tattooing a bunch of people with my designs and eventually became a medium-sized fish in a very small pond. That's when NYC beckoned.

Now divorced (with another 19-year-old girlfriend nicknamed "Cookie") I moved back east to the big city. I opened MO David, Inc. at 436 E. 9th St. and Ave. A just after New Years Eve 1984. The first week in town I met Carlo McCormick and his wife Tessa Hughes Freeland. They introduced me to their world and became the nucleus of a new community. I never looked back. Although for years I would periodically go back to SFAI as guest faculty, I never lived in SF again. New York was home. I won't bore you with all the particulars of my 11 year stretch in the East Village, only to say that my gallery closed, my so-called art career tanked, I formed a band and a church, met Shewho, got re-married to a woman named Melanie and in 1995 together we bought an old church and shack in the Catskills.

This is where I will die (hopefully no time soon). This is my last scene, and by all accounts the best of the bunch. I've been here almost thirty years. I got divorced again in 1999. The run down isolation that accompanied the early years has been replaced by a vibrant, fun-loving, hard-partying groove that is now drawing people from the surrounding counties into our unique orbit. The CLGM is now an institution and there's a marijuana store in Rock Hill! I never saw that coming. I also never thought that hot young woman I met in in the EV in 1988 (Shewho) would become the love of my life, what in the olden days we would refer to as a "common law wife." There's nothing common about her.

Last night we went to The Dale (our local watering hole) for their annual Playboy night. Bunny ears (and feet) abounded. The good weed is even better now and that Miami coke has been replaced by Ketomine and Molly. Never one to dance (except onstage) these chemical enhancements have unleashed the dancing fool in me. No more inhibitions. I'm a balding, long-haired, white-bearded, skinny, old, white man with a head full of designer drugs and autistic dance moves. Who knew (with Shewho at my side) my presentation could be read as harmless....even (surprise, surprise) as charming. Pretty women actually come up and talk to me. I'm having way too much fun with Shewho, Sara, Brett, the IDF boys, Richard, Dreiky, Nick, Christy, Hetter, Josh, Sarah B., Dara, Hollie, Marianna, Carlo, Tess, John, Adrianne, and all the rest at my side. As the world seems to be imploding, this scene is only gonna get bigger and better. Spread the word - the Catskills are back! Who knows how long it will last. I for one ain't going anywhere.