Breakin' the Law

I was on my way to the city (NYC stupid) to go to a friend's opening in Chelsea. I was listening to "The boy least likely to" on the radio through a transmitter for my portable CD Player. I was massaging a cramp out of my leg, and was singing along with "please be gentle with me". There was bottlenecking on 95 and I was behind an SUV. I could see a TV playing inside, and within a short time could tell that it was the Dave Chapelle show. I could even tell what episode. And to crown the idea that this could only happen in today's world, I immediately, and illegally, picked up my cell phone and posted an audio blog! Who says that men can't multi task?

Let us review:
1. Driving
2. Getting in the right lane for my turn off
3. Massaging my leg
4. Singing along to a song on a burnt-mixed CD transmitted through the car stereo.
5. Watching an episode of Dave Chapelle through the back window of a moving SUV
6. Posting an audio blog from a cell phone to an online journal.

God, what a beautiful, crazy world.

ps please tell me someone understands why that photo is there.

The Bliss of Ignance

The clash song Magnificent Seven lyrics:

"Plato the Greek or Rin Tin Tin, whose more famous to the million billions, News Flash!"

I always thought were :

"Plato the Greek or Rin Tin Tin, whose more famous to the million billions, Whose Flesh!"

There's always that let down when you like your misheard lyrics better than the original.

I also named a dog "Saffro" after the misheard lyrics of Donovan's "Mellow Yellow"


misheard lyric site: highlights from my meager-andering:

Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney: Agony and Irony

Hall & Oates "I can't go for that, no can do." mistaken for "I can't coconut, no can do" (thought it was a dance)

Robert Palmer "might as well face it, your addicted to love" for "might as well face it, your a dick with a glove" (thought it was about Michael Jackson)

Lionel Ritchie's "all night long" to "all nylon"

Play Boy

Just saw a documentary on Ray Johnson. "How to draw a bunny". The continual jazz cymbal beats throughout the film are annoying, but some of the stories and quirks of Johnson make up for it. He did a series of portraits of dealerRichard Feigen and then asked if the dealer wanted to buy them. Feigen said he was interested but asked Johnson for a price. Johnson sends him a letter/drawing asking 42 grand for the set of collages. The dealer writes back saying that's out of his range. Johnson writes another letter/collage asking for half of the original amount. Feigen is interested and writes back. Johnson writes another letter saying that he's changed one of the pieces and comes up with a different offer. These letters/collages go back and forth till it slowly becomes apparent that Johnson isn't that interested in selling the pieces, but is more interested in prolonging the art piece of negotiating through the mail collages. Another story- Peter Schyuff started buying Ray's collages for a grand each. Then one of the collages Peter wanted to buy, Ray priced at 2,ooo. Peter said he'd pay 1,5oo for it. When Ray sent the collage, it had a quarter of it cut out. Yet another story- Johnson wrote to Christo, expressing a wish to purchase one of his pieces. This was during Christo's wrapping years. Christo made a small wrapped piece with a photo of the piece tucked inside of it. He then put postage on it and sent it to Johnson as a gift. On the photo inside was written (paraphrasing here) "I have just made you a piece of art, if you are reading this, you have just ruined it."



The film ponders the strangeness of Johnson's death as the ultimate art piece.

Local Hype

Local review of the show came out today on the cover of the arts section of the New Haven Register.

Are We Not Men?

My friend Sam (sounds like a title of a novel) just sent an email referring to a DEVO concert (they still play) she just got back from:


"amazing, i watched the show from the side/backstage...got some great pictures. they wore the hats , the suits, and everything...and of course they played your song!"


It is with swelling pride I read the last part of that statement. Yes folks, I now have a devo song recognized as my very own.

mongoloid

Spell check at it's finest.

Spell check for the post below suggested that I replace the word "freakin" with "foreskin"!

Death of a Virgin

The first time I left the states for overseas was a trip to London when I was 19. The events of that day have given me the courage to face all traveling nightmares.

I packed this huge duffel bag with my clothes, camera, some food, and a new tripod (i was into photography heavily then). The bag weighed about 50 lbs. The plane ride was fine. Came into Heathrow about 1pm. Grabbed my luggage and made my way to a phone. Booked a reservation for a youth hostel in Earl's Court of London.
"I'd like to reserve a bed for tonight".
"okay, what's your name, and when will you be arriving."
"I'm at Heathrow, and going to head over straight from here."
"okay, that's pretty close so I'll keep your reservation till 4:30, just in case."
"Great, thanks. See you soon."

I check the time for the next train into Victoria Station. It leaves in 5 min. I'm getting hot carrying this duffel bag around so I decide to put my jacket in the bag. I zip the bag open. My mother had put a glass jar of beef jerky in there, in case I got hungry. Glass is everywhere. Stuck in the clothes. Beef jerky is everywhere. I look at the tripod I bought a week ago. Head is snapped in two. I drag the bag over to a trash bin and start picking the big pieces of glass out. Running out of time to catch the train, I hobble over to the train and ride into Victoria Station.

Once in the station, I spend some time looking at the subway map. At 19, I was a subway virgin. I see that I need to take the green line four stops. I pay for my token and put my wallet in my chest pocket. Then I hobble over to the green line. I get on the train. After 6 stops, the virgin realizes he's going away from Earl's Court. I get off the train and spend some time trying to figure out how to get on the opposite side of the green tracks. Keep in mind I'm still carrying a 50 lb. duffel bag. I'm shuffling/crawling over the line and see the train coming so start to rush over the pass and down the stairs, sweating profusely. I make it into the train. Great! I'm headed in the right direction now. As the doors shut I feel for my wallet. Not there. It has my license, credit card, and about half the money I brought with me. I'm freakin by now, but of course I can't do anything until the train comes to the next stop. Like a wounded, fat bat out of hell I explode out of the train at the next stop, going back over to the other side, and ride back to the previous stop. I retrace my steps and look for the wallet. Not finding it, I go out of the stalls up to report it missing. I have to fill out some paper work. I pull more money out of my money belt, buy another token, go back on the green line, this time making sure it's heading towards Earl's Court. By this time I'm swollen, aching, and perspiring a nervous sweat that stinks like piss, and I'm still carting a 50lb duffel bag around with little pieces of broken glass occasionally pricking into my back. Arriving at Earl's Court, I have to walk about 4 blocks from the subway to the hostel. I arrive utterly exhausted at 4:34. The attendant tells me he gave my reservation away 2 minutes ago.

I'm in a stupor and shock. I end up finding a B&B close by and book the room for 2 days. I slept for 28 hours.

Traveling always has it's surprises. Like having your visa to enter Russia taken by the Latvian inspector and not given back, or having a drunk Russian bang on the door of your new apt. at 1:30 am with a lighter, taking chunks out of the door, until you convince him in broken Russian that you aren't in there with his ex-girlfriend, whom you've never met... or getting up at 3 a.m. to catch a flight out of Milan only to realize you're leaving out a different airport than you arrived in. All of these things happened, but after the first experience of overseas travel, I could handle these things, if not with class and dignity, humor and experience.

Takin it to the Streets

Someone's promoting the blog! Thanks, whoever you are. Please don't get yourself arrested on my account.

blood red sky

Nice Sky out tonight. Love this time of day.

Labor pains

Here's a new drawing and a painting in progress.

Environ Maiden

Had a crazy dream about the Vermont Studio Center and all the people there. I was a resident over the Summer. The dream didn't look anything like Vermont, it was some sort of carnival and I was driving around in a golf cart. The people were from the VSC though. And through the whole dream and golfcart driving segment was the song "wasted years" by Iron Maiden. Ridiculous. I've been singing the song all day.

miscalculation

I suddenly found myself depressed because it appeared I had lost my loyal or random reader base. It appeared I had no audience. I've been moping all day, checking back in with the statistics on how many people visit. Yesterday it appeared there were only four visitors down from about 20 the day before. And today it was zero. I got about 15 emails but no visits to the blahg. I tried to change templates yesterday and decided to stick with the one I had. Changing the template got rid of my stat counter and it took two days of moping to notice. I'm already in a chipper mood, because within 2 minutes of getting the counter back on, I already had a visitor. Hey all you readers out there (all four of ya) You matter.

Another thing that brightened my day. A friend told me her kids favorite saying now is "Dis is da hobo sayin hello to da mojo"

Latest ear occupants:

1. I found the F- Broadcast-Tender Buttons
2. Roller Coaster- Sleater Kinney-The Woods
3.The purple bottle- Animal Collective-Feels
4. Losing touch with my mind- Spacemen 3-taking drugs to make music to take drugs to


Apparently there are rules to playing air guitar.

Sugar Substitute

Watched Woody Allen's "Sweet and Lowdown" again on tv. There's something so unbelievably charming and painful to watch about the lead female, "Hattie". Somewhere between Chaplin, Stan Laurel, and Harpo Marx, the character is a mute with a general disposition towards happiness. It seems so misogynistic to like the character. (a happy dependable woman who doesn't speak) And the character's charm is enhanced by the complement- Emmet's crudeness, appetite, ego, ambition, and his sheepish adoration for Hattie. Both Emmet's desire for the high life and the character of Hattie seem fantasies of the male psyche, both ultimately abandoned or unattainable by the male character in the film.

sibling rivalry

From the NY times- On learning that Michael Jackson had named his son "Prince", Michael's brother Jermaine named his child "Jermajesty."

follow the leader

New York Times review came out today. Looks great. Very happy.

I did everything in my power to get local press to write something about the project, in that it has images of the newly demolished New Haven Coliseum and that students from local colleges were involved with the production. Not a bite. The review of the show comes out in the NYTimes and suddenly the local paper wants to cover the exhibition. Go figure.

Nice article on Damian Loeb by Charles Giuliano.

Dream Sequence: prelude and fugue

Prelude: I've been corresponding with a former student that is redefining for himself what "good drawing" is. I commended his quandaries into the relationship of form to content, and the questioning of his teacher's postulates for "good" art. I think I said something along the lines of "There's a lot of baggage that comes with learning to paint in a representational manner, and "good drawing" are the size 14 shoes that take up half of the god damned suitcase until you decide that you'll get along just fine on your own bare soles. "

-it might be important here to say that I wear size 13 shoes.-

Fugue:That night I had a dream that, at least in part, ensued from the statement to the student.

I was with my girl in a small city that we lived in. I wanted to see the inside of a hotel room that I had visualized in a dream. It was room 13 on the 13th floor. I convinced her to go in with me and pretend we wanted to book a room. Joy asked if we could see what the suite on the 13th floor looked like. The attendant gave us the key. After a round about avenue through the lobby and restaurant, we took the elevator to the 13th floor and looked at room 13. It was green and very reminiscent of room 237 in Kubrick's "the Shining", even more so of the paintings Damian Loeb had done of said room." Satisfied with seeing the room, we left the hotel. When outside, I realized I had left my boots on the 13th floor. I went back into get them. This was no easy fete (insert pun apology here), the elevator was crowded and there was a near accident where two children (boys) got separated from their mother. The doors closed as the woman and children entered the elevator with the stroller. The woman got closed off on the floor she started on, and the boys were dangling between the shaft and the elevator. The stroller was lost down the shaft. I pulled the kids up into the elevator. The kids got off on the 10th floor where they were reunited with their mother, and I went up to the 13th floor to retrieve my boots.

I forgot about the dream until it was mentioned in the morning that it was Friday the 13th.

Hobo goes Audio

Before the Sky, there are no fences facing.

Home sick or just want to see how well you remember a place you formerly lived or visited? Go here.

With a little sleuthing you should be able to find what your looking for.

Good Hash

A couple of months ago the guy that has a studio next to me knocked on my door. Larry Morelli is his name. He said, "sorry to bother you, but have you ever seen the movie 'close encounters'? It just occurred to me that's what we're doing here. We're all trying to make sense of some form in our mashed potatoes."

I understood what he meant immediately.

When he left, I fought the urge to give him the alien hand greeting and five corresponding tones.

Loyal Viewer

Strange news from Cincinati.

Broken Record

What's the last song you played more than 3 times in a row?

"King of Carrot Flowers," by Neutral Milk Hotel.

How could I not listen to a song that sings "and how you built a tower tumbling through the trees?

Riffing Gorilla Nose Flow

Had an opening last night. A lady down the hall from my studio has started running a little space called IPS-Installation Project Space. I’m in a group show there. The project had to do with a pile of wood left in the studio. Each artist was asked to privately go into the space and make and installation (sculpture that addresses it’s surroundings), photograph it and then dismantle it for the next artist. There are 10 different artists. At the opening we get to see ,through photographs, what the other artists did with the wood pile.

Turn out wasn't that great, but there was a dude in a gorilla suit playing the guitar with a huge nose run.

Amusement Park

Driving to the coffee shop today and find a parking space (metered) right behind a bmw boxter that had just parked. As I back in parallel parking style, I can see the owner of the bmw watching in my side view mirror. I guess it's important to reveal that I drive a beat up 89 Buick Park Avenue Cruising Vessel. I probably could have been perfectly secure in the spot in two shifts from forward to reverse. But I could tell the guy wasn't going to leave until I had parked so I shifted an extra 3 or 4 times for amusement.

I have nothing to say, and I'm saying it.

from a letter to my uncle-


"Interesting to be in my 30's. Have more ambition these days and am caught up in the rat race of wanting money and security, recognition, fame, fun, and youth.

Wasn't sure if the " What are you trying to say? What are you saying? What should, ..can.. you say?" was a question or statement.

I think in my artwork and life I used to be vehement about what I wanted to say, but couldn't say it so well. I think now, at least in painting, I can communicate much better but don't feel it is a time where I'm trying to drive home a point. It's more of an understanding and exploration of the language of images and image making. It's a time of experimenting and testing one's powers. I wonder if later in life I'll will try to focus those powers towards a particular (beyond the boundaries of aesthetics) message.

It's maybe similar in life now, experimenting...trying things out. I'm probably a little better at painting than living, though.

I remember looking at people's lives in their 30's when I was in my 20's and thinking, it's an ugly time. Now that I'm here, I think it is perhaps ugly, but not without its pleasures. Career opportunities in the arts are better with experience and I feel that change. Also the thought that you actually have a place in society, which is still hard to get used to. Always been skeptical of that.

I remember there was some occasion you were in, with a group of people, and you were asked to use one word to sum up yourself at this point in life. I think you said "surprised."

We're all on a ride. I don't know or care to try and figure out exactly what it is or what one should do with it (or whether it's possible to figure those things out). But writing a blog and making paintings is a way to stay involved with that ride. Not necessarily to have control over it, but a way to not get overwhelmed by it.

That line of John Cage's "I have nothing to say and I'm saying it." probably in Cage's mind has more to do with the significance of the void and silence as a statement. I like it for the idea of the importance to act, to do, to be. Misinterpretations are the jewels of youth and art. Half the time we do things to act and then discover (or create) the "why" and the "what" of our actions. I think it's an amoral way of thinking, and I think that's what attracts me to it.

Sometimes we find out what we're trying to say by opening our mouth. Kind of silly, but hey, humans are kind of silly.

There is an aphorism about a blindfolded guy that is using a shotgun to hunt for ducks. He shoots off a round every three seconds and after 10 years he finally gets a duck. He shouts, "see the method works!" puts back on the blindfold and goes right on shooting."

Industrial Garage Band

An installation view of the last work.

Holy Walk

Jeans from Old Navy. They're great. They fit well, they're relatively inexpensive and they're almost long enough to cover my chopstick legs. However, the pockets inevitably get holes in them. It's as if they're lined with tissue paper. I tell myself I will sew the holes shut, but you know as well as I do, it may take years to organize that sort of action, so I'm trying to come up with a way for the holes to be useful. Please share your ideas for the good use of holes in pockets.

The two things that occur to me are:

1. A PROVIDER FOR THE HOMELESS. ( I've probably done this inadvertantly for years) Every time you buy a coffee or anything in a store and are given change, you stick it in your pocket and walk around the block.


2. BECOME A STRUTTING JOHNNY SOMETHING SEED: Go for hikes in areas with fertile soil when you're hungry . Eat food with pits or seeds. (olives, nectarines, avacados, oranges) Put the waste in your pocket.

Art History Stint

Two semesters ago, I decided to teach an Art History Survey at a couple of the colleges around here. One memorable lecture was on Brueghel. I was trying to fight the structure of Teacher/student in most art history classes where the teacher does all the talking and the students sit there bored. This was the image I wanted to discuss:


I asked, "Can anyone tell me about the myth of Icarus?"
and this kid Jeff Suraci, who doesn't speak much raises his hand.
"Yes, Jeff? What can you tell us about Icarus?"
"It's my last name spelled backwards," he says.

exercising freedom

the commercial of the year? (thanks jenk)

Puppet to Cervantes

A critic for the New York Times is stopping by today to check out my show. Hanni (owner of the gallery) says to be forewarned that if he writes a review, it doesn't mean he's going to write nice things about it. Wouldn't that be great, you get a review in the New York Times and he trashes your art. Come to think of it, that might be just what I need.


There is at times a ridiculousness to being an artist and seeking recognition. It's a strange combination of ego, ambition, romanticism, and doubt. There is a Kafka story on the biblical story of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac:

"But take another Abraham. One who wanted to perform the sacrifice altogether in the right way and had a correct sense in general of the whole affair, but could not believe that he was the one meant, he, an ugly old man, and the dirty youngster that was his child. He is afraid that after starting out as Abraham with his son he would change on his way into Don Quixote."
.

New work? What new work?

Hoping to bang out a few paintings by the new semester. Joy wants something over the mantle. The new mantle that is. (I say that with my pinky airborne) "What about a still life?", she says. About five years ago I wanted to do a still life of coffee and kidney stones. Another still life I thought about in the last couple of years was along the idea of "how can one paint something vicious in a very mild and calm manner?" That is the interest of an artist like Balthus. Something a little dark or depraved fed through the refined filter of aesthetics.

What if there was a depiction of a Bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken with a Watermelon and a six pack of Miller High Life?

Then I could just say something Greenbergian like, "I was interested in the overall color construction between the chicken and the watermelon. It was strictly a formal decision based on texture, color and design."

Would like to spit out a series of drawings as well. Artspace accepts submissions to the flatfile in Feb. I'll be teaching drawing quite a bit in the spring. Already have plans for the "DRAW MAGGOT" T-shirt to be worn when I'm teaching. You gotta show the youngsters you can shoot from the hip, the chest, the arm, the finger, basically any part that shows evidence of the cro-magnon impetus to scrawl.

The big question, however, is what will be the music of choice for the new work? The last piece of work here was coerced to the gleeful march of Butthole Surfer's "pepper" and random things by Super Furry Animals.

I will use this image to guide me however.

Snowed in and ain't bitching.

Supposed to get 5 inches by tomorrow. Snow that is! (you filthy minded jackals). No school. No deadline. No nuthin. New kitchen, new books, and time.

On page 143 of "Satan Burger", a sci-fi novel. Title was irresistable. Here's a section:

"My parents were Mr. and Mrs. Cable. I don't caree to remember their first names. I'm sure they don't care to remember mine either. Actually, they better remember my name. They gave this weak-wretched title to me.

They said to me, 'Leaf is also a name for a person and not just the vegetation that grows on trees and plants.'

However they meant Leif. Leif is the person and Leaf is just a leaf. Great, eh? I'm a leaf, not a human being like my parents once told me.

People always took my parents for hippies for naming me Leaf. I would respond:'No take them for idiots.' "



"If you want to appreciate the strangeness of things as they are. Try to imagine them as different. "

Lao Tzu may have said that last one, but i take it for my own.

Recap of times past:

best thing a student ever said to me. "you are perhaps the most irreverent teacher I have ever met."
He said it in response to my statement concerning a german grandmother hailing a cab..."Manhatten provides a suitable home even for the Nazis."

There are a few proud moments in one's life.