New york new york

With much appreciated help from friends I loaded a greatest hits version of Notsuoh for a gallery show in New York.....lots of dirty work and heavy lifting into a 17' u-haul on wednesday night....I got sick wednesday morning with chills anf fever and nasty cough...but i had to ignore it and work my ass off....strange you can will your body out of being sick or just ignore it if necessary.....drinking a gallon of orange juice and doing what i had to do....kinda sucked....finally at 5am friday i set off with Sal on the 1600 miles to new york....food advice...never eat Mexican food in Birmingham Alabama (under any circumstances)....got caught in a massive traffic jam in Baton Rouge as all of new orleans was on the run....also it was the third anniversary of Katrina and the local radio along the Lousiana coast was in this bizarre schizophrenic mood...Bubbas Big Labor Day Furniture Sale....easy terms best deals of the year and come on out for the fun at Bubbas Furniture Warehouse for "steals of a deal" then Bubba got sorta uncomfortable and backtracked somewhat if the storm hit they would be closed.   Saw Dollywood in Tennessee from the interstate...it's a country music amusement park...Sal wanted to ride Dolly's Tits ...some kinda roller coaster I guess...we never stopped except for gas and a few carton of cigs in Tennesee for a mere $22....those coming to new york this wednesday better buy them in houston as it's $10 a pack at the corner store...of course I'll sell you a pack for$9....I even have American Spirits....driving only 50mph we still made the 1600 miles in 35 hours....switching off sleeping and driving and still being sick...adrenalin fueled mania....loved pennsylvania landscape...farm houses 150 years old and those dutch accents...time warp shit...we got to new york and well a uhaul can't go in the tunnels so got sent miles away on detour to the George Washington Bridge....and then the drive down Broadway from 178th to 25th at 6pm ....unbelievable to drive a 17 ft truck and change lanes and beat out taxis for a good spot...it's an organism New York traffic....reacting to lane changes in some strange unspoken harmony....anyhow have been sleeping in the gallery and making some of my best work ever...it feels like the upstairs but jim swept....they gave me a key and let me at it and will be back on tuesday....i opened the trunk full of coat hangers and about 20 roaches escaped into the gallery....they are everywhere crawling on desks....I'm not sure if these texas roaches will breed and take over Chelsea and the some 450 galleries in the neighborhood and is the gallery going to laugh or regret my having an exhibition...whatever

8:00 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

It takes a thief

sometimes I give someone a break....let him work for an hour for $10 cleaning beer bottles off my roof...I know these guys so well and the pattern is with one notable exception that they become pests and eventually steal from me...so why be surprised when i let my guard down i got ripped off.....but yesterday was a lot of stress as i leave for 10 days starting tomorrow....I needed some hands hauling hundreds of pounds of stuff and the guy wanted 10 bucks ...my change drawer was too light to accomodate and I told him no come back at 8 when we do the work....there is a look in someones eyes when a switch flips in their psyche and the desperation is molded into a plan...I could see that look and walked away for a second....the lawyer who wears no shirt was on the cell phone at the bar and when i came back one minute later I checked my cash register and saw the missing ten and fives....he got me....the lawyer was in his own world on the phone and did not see a thing....and the homeless helper was gone.....But here is where the story takes its twist...the homeless dude comes back at 8 as I said i needed help then.... I wait til he gets next to me and tell him "please leave and never come back again".....what Jim? what did I do?....at this point I actually bother to tell him that he stole from me and how I was absolutely certain ....and must I explain why I can't possibly want to help you in a direct way anymore....but i still listen to his denials for a minute observing the body language of lying...honestly he is a desperate soul without an education lost at the bottom of the american economic system.... i think most of us in the world like to view ourselves as good honest and fair...and if we do something counter to that self perception...we will try to fool our brain into believing what we did was ok...I remember playing CandyLand with my daughter who was three at the time....three year olds are the world's crappiest cheaters...and she didn't seem to have a clue that it was against the rules and seemed to feel genuine surprise when she got the perfect card.....I struggled somewhat in how big a deal to make of it with a three year old....how moral concepts seem to change with age....Did I ever cheat on a test in college? yes once...Did I ever lie to my professor about missing class?....yes I think my grandmother died some 5 times one year...a friend of mine who teaches College english knew a student was plagiarizing....just did not have the chops as a freshman for post structuralist analyses of Hamlet mixed in with some Freud...so he made a general announcement of the seriousness and said he would be in his office til 5 and the student better come see him for a conference ....9 students showed up to confess...but not the one he knew was cheating
that's why i like art....cheating is impossible....instead its called derivative or unimaginative
and by the way any good recommendations on somewhere cheap to stay in new york ? and anyone into loading a uhaul this evening around 9 or 10

5:35 AM - 5 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Notsuoh on the Road

I feel so early 90's...my cell phone works except....there is no screen....it's all a guess who is calling no stored names or numbers....pretty pathetic....I have no internet at the building so just get online every few days at a friend's house....my computer cash register broke so i take only cash on my 1904 cash register....and have been spending time watching videos on that technology called tape....strange it all seems normal to become a Luddite for awhile
on Friday a band from Boston called Muy Cansado will play....in Spanish that means very tired....I don't think I have been more tired than this month....the rooof has major problems that the rain is cruelly reminding me of....the property taxes I'm paying on a payment plan...that is well damn stressful to the bottom line...asshole taxes you know people breaking my front door or getting thrown through a window or the computer just deciding to quit....money i'm pulling out of my ass and I need to find another place to keep money as the bills stick together and it's hard to count....then this trip to new york and all next week will be loading a moving van late at night and leaving the bar for two weeks and hoping all will be well while I'm gone ....yes to bring Notsuoh 1500 miles begs the question what is Notsuoh and will it translate....I have to methodiacally choose objects that might represent the situationist randomness of the place....how does one move chaos without an orderly pla and then is it possible to recontextualize it as chaos ....I'm actually going to be very surprised to see how this works out...and will this blow away minds or just be oh so ho hum....not sure but that's what makes it scary ... art that has a huge possibility of failure seems so human and more interesting if there was not that fear of complete disaster why would I bother?
please come by before next wednesday and buy alcohol....

2:13 PM - 4 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

dreams of a fetus

a very nice band on tuesday from Arkansas,,,,lots of horns and a glockenspiel....but in the band were identical twins....they were'nt obvious as the hair and clothes and body language suggested individuality...nevertheless it's one of those oddities that is fascinating..seemingly we all are looking for that soulmate....that other to find connection love understanding....to feel not so alone....then you see two people who have identical DNA...and shared space in the womb....and I almost feel jealosy at their incredible sense of knowing another human...and the idea of identity and nature versus nurture....I thought a lot this week about sleep and dreams....do infants dream? does a fetus in the womb dream? when does dreaming begin and how does its content change as our brain develops and matures....how can there be a subconscious thought in the womb....ok life begins at conception as cells divide... but when does consciousness begin? I read some articles about animals and sleep and dreams....the biggest sleeper is the platypus and the least sleep is done by the dolphin ...the least mentally developed animals sleep the most and dreams in animals are a method of learning instincts of the species.. dreams are a way of connecting to and learning how to be that animal...I guess if your dog is acting weird you could take him to a Jungian veterinarian analyst....
I have been living in the 90's as my internet has not worked for over a week....kinda lost touch with writing on it....but my brain is almost exclusively thinking about the logistics of taking the second floor to new york ...i leave in two weeks

9:37 AM - 10 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Category 5 Television

I had to get rid of the spacebar blog as it made every other blog run forever to the right....no reason to be annoying unless there's a reason

I'm not going to tell you how I happenned to find myself doing this but it happenned and well I think I'm ok....I was watching The View....what I found interesting were commercials...i had not seen real tv with commercials in several years and suddenly I am in a demographic and my group is trying to be sold products....most involve cleaning either my dishes laundry or general grime.....i have health issues...maybe diabetes or herpes and there are a lot of drugs Crueloplex or Siloblaten...seemingly half the commercial is a man's voice warning not to use (with background visuals of old people boxing or gardening)if side effects  such as bleeding from the genitals hair loss constipation stomach ulcers severe vomitting shortness of breath and in rare circumstances death or rash occurs....then its body beauty enhancement products....shampoo and wrinkle creams......getting rid of dirt and living forever while looking good is what the people watching want....then six chicks talk about hotels no longer having the Gideon's Bible in the drawer next to the bed and you have to order the bible from the front desk and some large African-American woman was really pissed off about it....I don't know if i ever have read the Bible in a hotel as I usually read the yellow pages....learning amazing things like the number of chinese restaurants in Corpus Christi or that there are 3 massage parlors in Salt Lake City.... I wonder if the Book of Mormon is in the drawer next to the bed alongside the oils and handi-wipes....and wouldn't it be cool if the parlor had a sleep number bed and you got to play with the controls while getting a rub down(yeah i saw a commercial for that) but that's late night tv for a demographic of people who are deadbeats that can't sleep hold down a job or maintain auto insurance and want to talk to cool singles just waiting for your call....I love visiting friends who have real lives and watch TV.....
so I'm waiting on the hurricane....it's like company coming over to stay....you go around the house wondering if it looks ok should I pick up all those beer bottles off the roof while it's hot and not raining? and check the frig to see if there's enough food....hum since we quit serving food at notsuoh...I have a bunch of leftover condiments from a performance two weeks ago....what food group is tabasco in? and is worcestershire sauce like eating steak just without the meat? this one seems rather minor in societal fear as compared to Rita when I stayed at the building....I watched the city evacuate and suddenly a city of 4 million people and 6 million cars turns into a small town....all the typeA personalities left...the refineries were shut down  and only the bars were open....yes bike around in clean air and get shit faced drunk and talk to reporters from France about what the word hunker means as there isn't a damn story except all the people on the highway stranded and looting Valero's for bottle water....I remember all the people who stayed in Houston having this shit-eating grin having fun but expecting this category5 wind knocking that grin into a telephone pole...but it never happenned and that grin turned into a deep belly laugh.....I was planning on the city being in total shambles then getting rid of a lot of broken furniture and garbage from the 2nd and 3rd floor...just tossing it out on main street into the rest of the debris....you know try to make lemonade when life gives your city lemons....
tonight is movie night....swim on down....$2 wells and $1,25 lone star

12:13 AM - 9 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

It’s a story about a man named Brady ..and does that maid Alice clean up vomit or egg salad

little things happen and i figure "oh crap the door closer to the men's room is broken I'll fix that soon" but days turn into over a week and after watching a man crap whil e bartending I figure maybe move that to number 2 on the to do do list...butt do I remember my list...shit no...I remember as a child 1 was urine and 2 was grunting... and then of course we made up variations to 10...the beauty of being a child without a job.... and play and imagination was all we had ....and I can't get it into my head that I'm an adult and keep on trying to find variations of the scatological to 20 instead of fixin' the door closer....I put in this enormous club that would keep the door closed but only 1 in 4 can figure why the club in the men's room might be useful...I think it was used in the 1920's to beat meat to tenderize the meat but a club for 'beating meat' in a restroom is just wrong espescially if the dude doesn't use it to keep the door closed....for Halloween a few years ago I took that club and dressed in some ridiculous winter coat with a cute child's stuffed animal...a baby seal covered in ketchup.....which reminds me of my favorite t shirt....I was driving through Ohio and went to Kent....I made the pilgrimage to Kent State and saw where the national guard shot the 4 students in 1971during a Viet Nam War protest,,,,bought a Kent State t shirt from the campus bookstore and burned 7 holes with my cigarette in the front of the shirt....it was 1981 and I was in university in Scotland and Scots wanted American university shirts at the time but mine  would have been cool but it was damaged....as time passes my irony becomes more obscure....I have been scouring the third floor for weird shit to bring to new york for my opening but this Kent State shirt I found seemed beyond most everyone's 21st century black humour memory.....I read Obama's wife Michelle knows every episode of the Brady Bunch and can name that episode after less than a minute of viewing the opening.....yes the political leadership ....the cultural grownups are sharing my childhood nightmares of "Brady Bunch can we change the channel Mom this is stupid ....yeah Columbo is better" ....I am only 47 (a prime ) and have been scouring my past the last month in preparation for an art retrospective... it's a time travel experience of objects paintings video films writings photos sculptures....I have been so neglectful and disinterested in my past for over 5 years that i can handle looking at it without vomitting and even be slightly sentimental. ....bemusement at a box of cassette tapes....do they even make cassette players anymore.....my first cell phones that seem enormous and kitsch so late 90's....even the dust on stuff seems vintage.... the gallery sent me the proof for the catalogue...for the cover is a picture of the window front of someone else's sculpture....do I write back and say for my cover you want to use someone elses art .... or do I laugh at the irony and let it go..... oddly enough my own stuff seems so far away from me and done by someone else that does it really matter?

one more odd thing.....In the spirit of digging up the past I googled my first girl friend...or at least love Why? steak &ale just went bankrupt....I got my second job at Steak&Ale in 1978.....bus boy and the revolutionary idea of the salad bar...I used to clean salad dressing off of ice and replace cherry tomatoes and any maintenance needed at the salad bar....what a great idea! order steak then go get a salad without waiting for the server to bring it to you....brainchild out of Dallas and was all over Houston in the late 70's...the era of fern plants as decor...the menus were on faeux meat cleavers and lots of Henry the the 8th decor ...at 16 it was a great job....and this girl I had a crush on in high school ...well i got her job at my Southwest Freeway Steak&Ale.....all the waiters smoked pot...half were from Michigan fleeing to Houston as the auto industry collapsed and oil was in its heyday in Houston...and most of the busboys were Iranian students at St Thomas before the hostage crisis in 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeinie was a late 70's version of Al Quaida....lots of dartboards in bars with his picture and the beginning of Moslem hating in America and Donald Rumsfeld supporting Saddam Hussein and providing weapons from America to Iraq to help them kill the evil Iranians.....to think 1979 started all this crap....I just wanted to kiss this girl.....I think I last saw her in 1994....in 1978 I got drunk for the first time...yes at 18 you could legally drink and for that matter have a cocktail in your hand while driving on the freeway.....it was at some Steak&Ale after work party...and I got bombed on Tom Collins....gin and lots of cherries and oranges and really looked cool in bars with black lights....I drove my wannabe love to her house and was drunk enough to risk holding her hand in her driveway....then went into her home and proceeded to vomit my brains out and fall asleep in a pool of my own vomit....I woke at 6 in the morning with this vomit mousse hair style and drove home with my mother sitting in the den waiting for me,,,,vomit caked my face and said a quick 'hi and sorry' to mom...this mask of vomit on my face and she says"I was worried you need to call if you are not coming home"....gee no mention of the chunks on my forehead...we see what we want to see...So back to my friend fom high schoolwho I guess did not have a vomit fetish and well holding hands is all i ever got....let's move forward 30 years....she got arrested  for trying to walk past the secret service to the Capitol during an Obama rally in Austin...the secret service agent grabbed her and she flipped around and threw egg salad at him....apparently the egg salad left red marks on his face and she was charged with a felony 'assaulting a public servant punishable up to 10 years'....i lost my lunch on her floor and got a mean look from my mother....she lost her lunch and might get 10 years...anyhow

3:10 AM - 7 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

Another out of towner caught off Guard

I spent the evening talking to a physicist here in town til Thursday on a Medical Physics Conference....he is from Montreal and his expertise is Radiological Oncology....the science of kemotheraphy...when waves of light get so small they become charged.....so you know conversations about cell phones and can the electricity fuck with your head and if when I die I become a metaphysical ball of energy could my metaphysical ball travel the speed of light...He said...No but let me buy you a double Jim Beam and coke and you probably do that crap in side your brain while your still alive and feeling no pain.....he wondered into the bar Monday night and came back last night....he has met his Houston girl friend here for the next two days...he has found his favorite bar in the USA in Houston....he corrected my botching of science some 50 times (he would say 4 but then he was very precise )later I overhear him telling someone Montreal is as progressive as Houston.....to spend two days listening to lectures about cancer and medicine from a physicist point of view. he said boring would have been an upgrade of his past two days so he always goes to these conferences as random vacations in North America...then he is dragged to the Flying Saucer..."they said it is a traditional Texas bar but I thought I was in college with frat boys so i left to find something more interesting so I did and I'm back"...."It's just so strange to be around so many smart but freaky people...is this just this bar or Houston...what was the deal with that chick asking men what they call a vagina and you saying'fine china rhymes with vagina' then looking so proud.......so he has promised to blow off the conference on wednesday morning to work on poems for poetry night....his poems are equations....all those scribbles on the blackboard x(b-a)(2x+c)=......well he promises words and poetic calculus.....of course he promised that if his poems suck and his math is all wrong it will have absolutely no effect on prostrate cancer but as much as my science was wrong or skipping some key facts....it was very important to him that I like his poetry and would love any of my criticism..."Strangely I have learned more in this bar than in two days at the lecture hall"

4:36 AM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

who are you and for how long?

 I thought a lot about identity this week...that serbian genocidal monster who was caught who hid out by growing a beard and changing his hair style...a friend just got back from his 30 year high school reunion....and what happens to identity in 30 years....I once had someone recognize me from high school cause of my walk....I was watching some home movies of my mother from 1935...it was christmas and she got a present and the look of surprise....it's the same expression 70 years later something so natural like surprise remains through time.....my daughter was watching videos of herself when she was 3 and the fascination of seeing yourself and yet and so unrecognizable...when do you come into your own....find your look....and what about your insides ...your mind and thoughts do they gradually age and evolve into something almost unrecognizable or are they like that look of surprise almost immutable from the ravages of time and experience.....had some conversation with someone who thought she might be dieing and read an article about Larry Pausch....who was a professor at Carnegie-Mellon and at 47 died of pancreatic cancer he is my age and he started to make videos for his young children little messages in the bottle so they could know him when they were older....his video s became a youtube sensation of having a sense of humour and affability about heading to the big one...my parents seem ok with the approaching big one as retinas start to sag and my father can still joke about the machine starting to break down....there is a British documentary 49 up....42 up ....starting in 1965 20 7 year olds were filmed and interviewed....every 7 years they were re interviewed.....and out of these interviews comes the documentary.....and 42 years later they just now hit 50 and what happens to a life....who are you and who were you and what are the threads that stitch their way through your life...your cells are completely new every 7 years ..except for the brain.....only the structures remain and the memories inside those structures of you....can a boy at 15 who murders someone...change after 40 years in prison is he always that murderer?Looking in the mirror....we see ourselves and know it is myself only dolphins chimps elephants orangutangs and humans know that the mirror image is a representation of our self....you look at yourself in the morning after a hard night of drinking....you look at yourself after a shower and ready for work...you look at yourself just before going out for a romantic date...you feel and appear different in your mind in each scenario...the mirror doesn't lie but your perception does....hearing your own voice on tape recorder often messes with our self perception....we become to analytical an observer almost outside of our body and it's not in the moment .....so in this spirit video night will be at 7:30 tuesday nights...a somewhat self indulgent trip down memory lane....and parking is free after 6 on Memory Lane

11:13 PM - 6 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Press Release sent out by Cue Foundation in NY

Jim Pirtle
Curated by The Art Guys

September 4 - October 11, 2008
Opening Reception Thursday, September 4, 6:00 - 8:00pm

"Jim Pirtle has worn many hats in his life and because of this, he has presented audiences with an odd and unique view of the world…but notsuoH, Jim's functional, experimental, social/sculptural urban environment, is his supreme art/life work."
The Art Guys

Societal paraphernalia like high heels, records made by one-hit wonders and vintage clothing not only make up the ephemera of our popular culture, but serve as the building blocks for the artwork of Jim Pirtle. He has inherited and collected a wide range of materials, resulting in an amalgamation akin to the ready-mades of Marcel Duchamp and Claes Oldenburg, but with a touch of sentimentality for the past that these objects connotate. The line between his life and his artwork is blurry at best, founding a work-meeting-living space in the heart of downtown Houston in 1996 called notsuoH, "Houston" spelled backwards (at left). Purchased from a failing entrepreneur who tried a bevy of ventures in the space, leaving many of the remnants behind, the building now functions as a studio, bar, music venue, performance space and living area for Pirtle and the other local artists and eccentrics of the Houston scene. But the building does not just house art and artists, it has become art in its own right. A vibrant, active microcosm, constantly evolving while still retaining the material accouterments of the past, it has become the "eye of the storm," bringing together people, installation, music, performances and happenings.

Pirtle's statues made out of old bottle corks, portraits painted on gaudy polyester shirts and video of the artist as Forest Gump combine with walls of shoes and album covers, old mannequins, bicycles and various other kitsch to create this truly inordinate environment. Much of Pirtle's work reflects this sense of overindulgence and unconventionality, teetering along the line between art and mass-consumerism and exemplifying our innate desire for accumulation. Pirtle has also at times donned an alter ego, Stu Mulligan (bottom, right), a masochist who consumes mayonnaise and hot sauce until he vomits, jumps from the tops of buildings and shows images of generations of his family on his stomach. While there is definitely insanity, there is also sentimentality. Pirtle offers viewers a unique look at the things and people of the past while forcing the participant to step out of the bounds of the present. Rejecting the postmodern world, Pirtle finds his peace through creating his own reality - through intermixing art and everyday objects, the distinction is blurred to the point that the whole becomes art in its own right; art and life are one in the same.

    On view at CUE Art Foundation, Pirtle's first solo show in New York, will be a smaller version of Pirtle's infamous building, notsuoH. Transported across the country, Pirtle will bring with him an assortment of works and performance documentation from throughout his career. Portraits of friends on polyester shirts, wallpaper, a collage of photographs taped to the floor, antique auditorium seats and faded accounting ledgers to name only a few. The show will not only be a nod to the life and work of Pirtle, but to the past we all share and our innate desire to create something of our own.

(More, over)
    
For additional information, please contact Ryan White, Programs Assistant, CUE Art Foundation, 212-206-3583, or email ryan.white@cueartfoundation.org

Exhibition-related Programming:

To accompany Pirtle's exported recreation of notsuoH, he has invited to accompany him to New York some of the people who make the space so special. These travelling companions will include a swamp jug band, a poet and a ballet dancer.

ARTIST'S BIO:

Jim Pirtle was born in Houston, TX in 1960. In High School he was selected "Most Nonconformist." He went to Baylor University in Waco, TX and received a BA in history but more importantly was a member of the NoZe Brotherhood. The group was an underground mask wearing secret society of satirists that through writing, campus interventions and performance art exposed the hypocrisy of conservative Baptists. After college he moved to Austin, TX and got a job as an orderly at the Austin State Hospital. This was a crash course education in the extremes of human behavior. After two years in the locked up insaneness of collecting urine, breaking up fights and mopping up spontaneous miscarriages he jumped to the other extreme, moving back to Houston and becoming a Kindergarten teacher for 10 years  innocence and hope.

During the mid 80's he was becoming an obsessive painter and found the local art community. He moved into an artist warehouse and got his formal art training from Nestor Topchy and Mark Flood. A thrift store addict, he wore only polyester for seven years which eventually became his canvas. He also developed his trademark performance art persona, Stu Mulligan, a man that ate mayonnaise and chug-a-lugged hot sauce and mimicked the behaviors of the mentally ill while singing lounge music. He co-founded a theater and performance space with Nestor Topchy which began the concept of notsuoH  an 1893 building of 15,000 square feet that became a monumental social sculpture on Main Street of downtown Houston  it attracts the extremes and in-between of a community to interact and be whatever it is to be human.

About CUE:

CUE Art Foundation is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit forum for contemporary art and cultural exchange that provides opportunities and resources for under-recognized artists. We value the astonishing diversity of creativity that artists provide and the importance of their activity in the social context of the city.
CUE provides artists, students, scholars and art professionals resources at many stages of their careers and creative lives. Our programs include exhibitions, studio residencies, publications, professional development seminars, educational outreach, symposia, readings, concerts and performances. Since 2002, we have operated from our 4,500 square foot storefront venue in the heart of New York's Chelsea Arts District.
CUE exhibiting artists are chosen by their peers and a rotating group of advisors and curators from across the country. This pluralistic process ensures that CUE consistently offers diverse viewpoints from multiple disciplines of artistic practice.
Simply put, we give artists their CUE to take center stage in the challenging world of art.

Major program support is provided by The Accademia Charitable Foundation, Ltd., The Viking Foundation, Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, The Greenwall Foundation, The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The Joan Mitchell Foundation, Holland & Knight Charitable Foundation, Inc., The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, National Endowment for the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts (a State Agency).
 

5:38 AM - 7 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

finally a breakthrough

i spent the day on the second floor....i have an art show in new york in about  a month....I have been very vague with the gallery and myself about what is the show....        i got a video camera to replace one stolen 4 years ago...a nd have been watching videos that i keep finding in dusty corners throughout the building...one was from 2000 and Martha is a toddler...shots of a dance class and video of Houston Other putting out a newspaper....and the 2nd floor looks exquisite and crazy order of random and functionality...people are living here and artists and dancers are hard at work in ersatz studios...the place is bubbling with creative energy....i got kinda sad and sentimental for the paper and ballet and Dylan making art chandeliers....i felt as if I got dealt some cards that blocked a lot of creativity that emanated from this place......but my show must go on and I made a map of the Chelsea gallery and began to carve out enough room to make a mock up of my installation.....and suddenly it started to become fun and found myself in the zone where time disappears and began viewing what I have been thinking about for 8 months....and the show is starting to fall in place....ideas and concepts are finding spatial order and plans of action and myself laughing at how fucking crazy that idea is....and believing it beautiful....I have 4 walls a ceiling and the floor and I want to use all of it

..Wall one

I have 40 8mm and 16 mm projectors place them on the floor below my paintings and then there are random slides and movie screens annnnnd conceptually i found order in a wall of visual....films paintings slides eye charts and my massive collection of lamps falling from the ceiling on wires that are hooked up to a dimmer and glowing....a visual overload....with a small glasses case that if you open is a test tube of my tears

Wall two

A chessboard pattern of records and record covers attached to the wall all the covers are faces of people Nancy Sinatra Peter Gabriel Andy Williams Frank Sinatra Neil Diamond etc,,,below it are two old 60's record players......and next to it is a shelf stufed of dusty records and covers that are falling on the floor and you can play ....challenging people to participate and make a mess and change the art and be alive and not to worry about interacting and a stack of guitar cases and drum sticks and posters of bands that have played at notsuoh and broken trombones....and in one highly presented gutair case is a test tube of my ear wax.....(I'm trying to mix my fascination with body fluids with my ownership of a building that did retail and display was everything...i have so many cases that held watches or jewelry or silverware or makeup or tried to present  or hold in safety or mystery..objects for sale)....a frame on a painting....is it holding the painting or part of the painting

wall three

shoes and shelves......need I say more....it's fashion and obsession and fetish....it's the monolith of the building...it's the bloodline and the vomit...the taste and the smell...and yes both fluids will be in test tubes hiding in some display case.....it's where I want to show a series of monitors of my performance art.....mayonaisse eating picante drinking vomitting eggs......and people will stare and wonder "what drives this dude?" and why are "The 10 Condiments" looking so biblical....?

wall four

writings and paper......ledger books from 1938-1968.....typewriters...and damn i have lots of old paper frojm this place to make one helluva collage......this is the show....bring out all i got .......and the rest of my body .....fluids are in test tubes tastefully hidden and displayed...it is my final Touch

The Floor

John Powers has done some 40 portraits of the people who hang out in this building.....the people who for some reason find themselves attracted to being in this space.....are the art....this place is about community....it is in the historical center of the 4th largest city in America...yes it is beautiful architechture,,,yes it is filled with an obsessive collection of stuff.....but the humanity of this place requires humans.....or it would be bullshit of an ego centric....fortunately Houston is one of the coolest cities in the world....nod nod wink wink Haliburton Enron the weather and urban sprawl....but the weeds growing out of the concrete here are incredible....drawing life from each other....full of dysfunctions but human and forgiving.....and these people's photographs will be on the floor...walked on by New York....getting dirty and noticed in our beauty in not giving a shit because we are in it together and just doing our thing

And I want to display a decanter of body fluids....of all who have been here....ask the bar tender and you can spit bleed vomit clean your ears cry pop a zit sweat blow your nose remove the oil from your hair jack off piss(let's not all go there) hock up a lugee get spinal tapped or be fluidly creative

and at the opening my performance will be to drink it

Not

well maybe

3:07 AM - 5 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment

Home Movie/Video Night on Tuesdays at 8 and LOUD is LOUD

I bought a digital video camera to repace the some 4 or 5 i have had stolen over the years...I got to see a lot of video that i made but have not seen in years....this tuesday at 8 I will show Heist Heels ....it's a 30 minute video of 8 people breaking into Notsuoh in 1996 a couple of months before i even owned the building....it's real but completely silly....with Richie Hubscher Vivienne Kalinov Nestor Topchy  and Frank the dude who almost smashed my brains in with a bar stool 2 years ago...and myself wearing a inside out clown suit....yes my personality spelled backwards....followed by The Bob Dylan Raw Egg eating performance with songs by the S&MC&W band Stu Mulligan and the Miracle Whips....definitely one of my more absurd performances.....then for future Tuesdays I am seeking others to bring video shorts to be screened on Tuesdays....Lone Star is a dollar and a quarter during the screenings and $2 wells....I 'd love to see a video made entirely with the cell phone
Lots of music this week...tonight is a Jonathon Richmondeque band from Boston....then on tuesday is Agartha,,,,a band of dudes who drive those rickshaws around town...and a band returning from New York...The Boy Bathing....Thursday is a an girl band from New York ...Plastiq Passion....sounds kinda B52 ish new wave....and a band from Amsterdam ....Friday is She Swings She Sways...from Iowa and has thatAmericana fiddles and midwest ennui....
saturday seems loud but accessible and Sunday is The Houston Press Music Awards.....Two Star Symphony....Free Radicals with Harry Sheppard....Sharks and Sailors...Hearts of Animals...Full Release...and Wild Moccassins....
17 bands this week....which leads me to an idea I have been mulling over....I want to start asking these touring bands where they played and how many people came to see them and how were they paid....and start compiling a list of cities and venues and experiences at said venue....So if you are coming from Boston and going to LA....a kind of guide book of what to expect for the travelling band...with a list of emails to the alternative paper and the college radio station...so you can pick up the slack and try to make touring work and maybe hip other bands to cities and venues that are unexpected successes and might be worth the stop....I just meet so many people touring that I have access to a lot of information on this subject that would be up to date and relevant to so many bands that are still below the radar....
Which leads me to my lecture on VOLUME.....louder does not mean better....it is show business and if everyone in the room leaves the show ....there is no business...notsuoh is a small very bright room....and the band Monday night from oklahoma was very good but just too fucking loud....15 people went outside leaving me and the bassist mother from Peru...oh and the bartender...you could not hear the vocals so they turned up the PA which then started to feedback and distort...so instead of turning down all the amps to play underneath the lead singer...they just blew off the audience hearing any of the words.....it's a scenario so often repeated here that....please respect the room and the audience and your own skill as a performer of your instrument.....LOUDER IS NOT BETTER....I tried to scream that to the band but unless i was inside their body there was no way to have heard me

2:23 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

We live in tribes

Someone named Sal said write every day...just write...I tried that for awhile and at some point thought why would anyone want to know....such banal details of a human alive....i'm bored most of the time with my own existence....why spread the love....but i did and question the validity of sharing my disappointment in reality...or my blissful ephiphany in the uncommon....
But somehow I know I am in a tribe.....350 different people read the musings of an artist who is border line alcoholic.....i got an  email from el paso that Jim you drink way to much....I thought about mental disease....the mind and the body....if my leg is sore I can walk more slowly or favor the left side...there is a perception that I must adjust to pain.....;but being mentally sick the perciever is the broken part and the perceiver as part of the illness is unaware...
the olympics and baseball...drug enhanced performance.....in art no one would question or put an asterisk next to the art"he was doing mental/creative performance enhancement drugs"......it is a sham....food is a drug....air is a drug....who gives a shit if you are faster than me.....and how you got there....what a waste of concsious thought caring about how i got my body the best...in such limited terms of quantification.....the olympics is tribalism....nation state and culture wanting to be loved....it gets on my fucking nerves....last week a lad from Scotland was in the bar....and i got passionate about his passion for his football team...."I see you thinking I'm an idiot but tribalism is important to me and you are drunk and will wake up up with some nasty bruises if you keep mocking me and i really love your bar and will feel bad on the plane back to the UK for fucking you up....so let's talk about Microsoft and digital future or those fucking shoes in the boxes"
I flew to el paso and hung out at the Rusty Nail. and saw a good band....then walked 40 miles into the desert.....and found a cougar....we made love.....and I woke up wondering how my back was scratched and still bleeding

5:35 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

I am a whore or Don Quixote

I get a call..."private number"...notsuoh can i help you...already if i can help this is a losing deal...."yeah i want to know if I can have a private party at your bar?" .....certainly sir your special event is our speciality...."i am late in planning and my buddies and office people need a bar to party and you are advertised in Houston Press so this is legit...right".....yeah we are legit....."this is a downtown bar and all fancy" sure we 're fancy....and where are you located..."our firm is based out of Sugar Land and man I'm waiting last minute can you help me out buddy?".....do I go through the motions of him driving the 40 mile round trip to get freaked out and "it was last minute wait til next year you'll be older and wiser"....no i look at the space and realize these phone conversations are theater....you want to drink bud light and want 15 tv's on playing espn....you corporate fucks could care less about an art dive....but i need the money and try to make notsuoh look easy on the corporate fuck eyes....soap in the women's room....cat shit hidden...scrubbed off the graffiti"Bush is a pussies delight"....tell Rudy to get up off the sidewalk and be a desperate homeless retard  smelling of piss and urine next door....corporate america finds you problematic....or at least Sugar Land....call me Don Quioxte but the place looked great....I removed my shirts and pants laying near the stage after drinking and wanting to be free of the artifice of clothing conventions....yes removal of what should have never been there much less remain there for a week....clutter with a point was my theme not clutter because Jim is a lazy fuck...and employees are scared to rearrange"You idiot my smelly urine stained shorts was art! It was genious deconstrucvtive paridimgn...you are fired you insensitive ass wipe".....I have a collection of urine shorts that I am putting in a garbage bag for my show in New York....I'm not sure how to store them? will the urine smell dissapate? and not breed bacteria and form an army of disfunctional living...or just be "Piss Pants"....honey those pants layed on the shoe pile is only $400...let's buy....No dear it's art there is not a dna sample of the artists piss in those pants....

I keep adding New York corporate head honchos as lovers of the bar...of course they are Oil&Gas executives staying at a downtown hotel and find themselves seduced into their youth and present....leaders like notsuoh...have a single malt scotch....and realize we threw out the box as trash....every thought is outside the box and in the comfort of air conditioned bohemia...45-60 year old executives love this place when they are by themselves....don't bring anyone here and they are in heaven....tonight we had a review of

"Where you were?"

Kennedy assination 1963

Man on the Moon 1969

Nixon Resigns 1974

John Lennon Killed 1980

Challenger Exp-lodes 1986

OJ verdict 1996

9/11 2001

Jim pissed in his pants 2004-2008

and to be honest with you only john lennon  made me sad and wanting more Art of the asshole....i thought it was manic -depresive gone very bad...jodie foster ...catcher in the rye...golden showers of sadness

we didn't start the fire

12:27 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

the never ending story

stories never really end or even begin....it's an artifice of convenience because it always is in medias res or the middle of things...and somehow making things begin and end and telling them make them seem unlike life and manageable....almost fooling you into believing life has a meaning and design....so maybe that's why people tell stories....make up myths....write books ....they all seek to deny the unbearable lightness of being......I lost my dog to cancer last week....I sat on the bed with my daughter, her mother and wiggy.....we said goodbye and all cried....14 years of incredible companionship...an extremely smart dog....during the coffee shop era we were open 24 hours and 21 year old girls watching the counter at 4 am and all sorts of freaks and odd ones would come to the place and Wiggy made the counter girl feel in control of the room...She was half pit half boxer and looked like she was a killer though she never bit anyone her entire life..I don't want to go on too much about how much that dog had my back and how she was far more aware of my interests than any sentient being at notsuoh.....but sitting on that bed I actually felt as if i were in a family...that even though I have not lived with my 'wife' for years we all shared a deep and profound love of that animal and together felt like shit...which in a way is beautiful and seems to make me want to believe that there is more than just the illusions of meaning...this weekend I saw Dylan, Gavin, and Tim....the three of them had known Wiggy for over 12 years and all had stories to tell with begiinings middles and ends....and the next day I'm still here and she's gone and I'm still living in the never ending story

1:36 PM - 8 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment