Busted

My wife and I passed the ice cream sandwich between us as we cruised down St Roch ave.

Lights flashed in the rearview mirror...Busted!

Lesson learned: don't pass an oblong white thing as you're driving through the 'hood.

The degreaser

This is just a bunch of stuff about Jake, the guy who rented me my art studio when I was fresh out of college. As I mentioned in the previous post, he mortgaged the art studio to buy a guitar, tried "vibration" as an alternative to making mortgage payments, and was foreclosed. Jake was 48, which seemed like a zillion, when you're fresh out of school. Maybe experience isn't the best teacher...

The weird thing about Jake was that he was a handsome intelligent talented person without addictions or obvious psychosis. So wtf?

These are the kind of people who can draw you into their delusions.

Supposedly he was involved in the development of a "degreaser".  The word degreaser popped up all the time, almost like a word of the day, but my awareness of what it really was, was so peripheral,  that for a long time I thought it was maybe  a new and improved dish detergent, or something like that.

The degreaser seemed to have been in the final stages of development for years, and I couldn't see why it was such a big deal, until it was revealed to me that the purpose of the degreaser was to save the earth from the environmental destruction of fossil fuels. It was going to be easy. And we could could keep driving our gas guzzlers, as we ushered in the new age. Pretty seductive.

Oh, and the degreaser formula, (unfortunately incomplete) was channeled from the spirit world.

"Come on now, that should have been a tip off!" you say.

Well that's the problem with the outlandish. Experience tells me outlandish things can be inlandish, so who can say?

Sometimes my pal Gina and I channel drawings from the spirit world. It's so easy and reliable that it's almost mundane, but since I have no viable explanations besides spirits, that's what I accept as being true.
Wait a while and I'll post some spirit pictures.

I'm assuming the degreaser was bs, considering how greasy everything is. (especially in our corner of the world)

The free money society

I'm not saying that my father was convinced that I was a dummy.
But I am convinced that he had his suspicions.

During college I didn't work much, So I had to put up with my father bugging me about why I couldn't stretch that $20 longer than a week.

Like all college students, I was a revolutionary thinker, with all kinds of ideas for improving a society that can be inconvenient and annoying to 18 year olds.

So I said to my father, "I don't understand why people have to work to get money, why can't the government just set up a bunch of free money stations, and you could go there, fill your wallet up with free money, and not have to waste so much time and energy working for it. Then when your money ran out, you just go back to the free money station, and get some more."

My father really took it to heart, and it irked him to no end.  The "free money station" haunted me for years, and whenever he thought I was being financially irresponsible, he would bring it up again and again.

No matter what I said, he wouldn't believe that I'd only been kidding, and yes, I had a grasp of basic economics.

The most annoying part of all was that he always mislabeled my sham concept as being the "free money society" instead of the "free money station". Even when I'm being totally full of it, I'd still appreciate a little proprietary accuracy.

Had I only known the extent to which my "free money station" would affect me...
After graduating college I was renting an art studio from a new age musician who was supposed to be using the money for the mortgage he had taken to pay for a new guitar. He was unemployed, so instead of paying the mortgage, he was hurtling towards foreclosure. Luckily he had a plan. He vibrated. He vibrated for months and months.

Ultimately this plan failed, and with my fathers help, I could have scooped up the deal of the century before it went into foreclosure, if not for that cursed "free money society".

ya snooze ya looze

WTF?! I was going to post on that!http://cakewalkneworleans.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/on-my-street/
On one hand, what a gyp, on the other hand, more proof we are soul mates.
(incidentally, we're not just talking about some random blogster, that's my wife we're talking about, I don't know why she doesn't have her name on her blog.)

Jammin'

When I first moved to New Orleans I bought a road bike, and put a big delivery basket on the front of it. It was fast as lightning, and I could carry anything on it.

One night I was riding home with a big Jar of strawberry jam in the basket. I was in top gear and had attained warp speed, when the car turned left in front of me. I didn't even have a chance to brake, and as I flew over the trunk, I though of how different my life would be, in a short while.  

Somehow I popped up off the pavement without a scratch! 

Or did I?

Glistening on the asphalt, a big wet gelatinous pool of thick red blood.

Oh, it's strawberry jam!

I rode my skinny tire 12 speed road bike into the side of a car as fast as I could peddle, flew over it, landed in the road, and didn't get a bruise, scrape, scratch, or mark of any kind. 

But I ruined my jam. 

Walking to New Orleans

The summer of 95 was marred by lost love, epilepsy, and a lost drivers license. I wasn't going though another northeastern winter, not after that.

I socked away a weeks pay in Connecticut, I packed my bag and stuck out my thumb. The rides were rare and short, and I did a lot of walking. So much walking.

A man picking apples in his yard lifted my mood when he gave me one and said, "There are enough apples for the people and the animals!" I walked along eating my apple, and considering the good omen, maybe it is a kind and benevolent universe, with plenty for all.

When I got to Albany I found the train yard and spiked the door of my boxcar. (If the door slides shut, a boxcar can become a rolling tomb) My train finally pulled out, and I was surging across the landscape, cutting towns in half, through fields and forests, leaving everything behind.  A freight train stops for nothing, a welcome contrast to my hitch-hiking stint.

The day faded to night, wake and sleep wrap around each other, and you become another clunking swaying part of the train.

I was awakened by stillness and quiet in the dark. I poked my head out the door, and found myself in a rail yard. I hopped down onto the crunch of the gravel, shouldered my pack, and started walking. I wasn't ready for walking again, not so soon. My feet ached, and I had blisters.  I made my way between the rows of train cars, far above me the lights buzzed atop their poles. Corralled by chain link, and with nothing to get to on the other side, I followed the rails. There were no people. I finally extracted myself from the deserted netherworld of rail shipping, and staggered along the side of a highway. Cars raced by, and I wondered if there were people in them. I still had no idea where I was, or which direction I should be going, so I kept on walking.

I don't remember how I found out that I was in Syracuse NY, but I do remember the collect call I made to my mother.

"Uh, it didn't work, my feet hurt really bad, and I am in Syracuse, can you come get me?"

An hour later I was riding home in my mothers car. I stayed there, eating whole grains and letting my feet heal for a week, before catching a bus to see see my sister in Minneapolis, and then successfully hitchhiking to new Orleans. Never hitchhike within 200 miles of your home town, you will never escape it's gravitational pull.

Zen and the art of wheel alignment.

Once I swapped some art for a Ford Probe. It was a good car, but it wore tires. When I took it in for an alignment, the mechanic noticed that one of the front wheels had been pushed back, probably from hitting a curb, so he couldn't put it on the wheel alignment machine unless I had some very expensive front end work done. A bitter pill to swallow, on a bartered car. I guess he could sense the position I was in, because he volunteered, "You can align it yourself, you know." 

I asked how, and he gave me a demonstration.  He planted himself about 15 feet in front of my car, a wide stance, and proceeded to do automotive thai chi moves. "First you find your center...Relax, breath..." He pitched gracefully to the left, sighted down the side of the Probe, then pitched to the right, and repeated, explaining how to align a car based on this combination of intuition and observation. Later that day I found my center. It worked very well.

Almost dead from hippees.

Once, a long time ago, I was almost dead from Hippees.

I had taken a semester off of art school, and was living in my car in Mexico. I visited the Peyote capital and took a long hike through the desert to the top of a cosmic mountain, to take in the vibrations with my new hippee cohorts. (it was a special mountain)

I didn't take any peyote, because I am scared of drugs. Still, it was interesting to see peyote in it's natural form at this hippee show and tell. I got my finger stuck in some peyote, because it is similar to a Chinese finger trap.

Night fell, and it became deathly cold, Thunder and lightning crackled through the night sky, the wind battered us with occasional horizontal sprays of rain, and scattered parts of our camp fire across the rocky soil. I prayed the sky wouldn't open up. I shivered and hugged a sooty stone that I'd raked from the decintigrating camp fire, while my cohorts, bonkers on peyote, marveled at the "energy".  While the scenery was truly awesome, My outlook was slightly 

less cosmic, as I occasionally traded in my anti-hypothermia stones, and made half hearted suggestions that we might be less likely to be electrocuted if we did not sit on the peak, of the mountain.

I didn't sleep at all, and morning was truly a rebirth, the sky was clear, the sun was shining, and I hadn't died of exposure with a clan of chemically armored hippees.

It really was a pretty cosmic mountain after all, and I found a couple of meteorites. Pretty soon we were ready to leave. But when you're among hippees, there is a big difference between being ready, and really leaving.

Feeling confident of the way back, I headed of down the trail by myself. The trail forked into another, and divided, and meandered around the hills and gullies of Dr Seuss land. I was lost. I tripped and stabbed my wrist on a truffalump tree. Ok, it was yucca. My wrist stiffened up.  I was thirsty, and my jug was empty, the sleeping bag I almost froze to death in the night before, weighed me down as I schlepped it through the desert heat. I was miles from nowhere,

but the power lines that traced the sky over my head mocked that reality. The lines disappeared up ahead beyond a ridge. I scrabbled my way up the long rocky way, to the top of the ridge. The lines had to dip down the other side to the village just beyond the ridge. Just beyond the ridge... It's just beyond the ridge.

I popped my head over the top of the ridge. Nothing. Lots and lots of nothing. The power lines disappeared into the atmospheric haze thickening in the unfathomable distance.  My hope disappeared into a bad 70s van mural.

I staggered back down the mountain, I stopped on a bluff and caught my breath. I sized up my options. Well, assuming that I would be dead by nightfall, It seemed kind of pointless to drag around the extra baggage. So I threw my sleeping bag and plastic jug down the mountain side, and  continued on my way.

A while later, I reached the place where my baggage had landed, and I had a change of heart. If I was going to be dead soon, I might as well not also be a litter bug...  So I picked up my stuff and trudged onward.

It took about 10 hours, but eventually I strayed across a couple of small children playing in a brook. With gestures and with my bad Spanish, I gathered that I should go that way, turn at the thing that looks just like everything else, go the other way for an indeterminate distance, turn that way at the other identical thing...  I gave them $10 and forced them to take me there...   It was right there.

I was down with OPP, do you know me?

Yeah, I've been to the big house, the slammer, the crowbar hotel, the Orleans Parish Prison, the joint, , the plate factory, the final mile, the freezer, the Florida State University, the calender shop, up the river, what have you, do you feel me?

What I'm saying, is I've been to a place that you don't ever want to be, and I ain't ever going back. I'm here to tell it like it is, and scare you straight.

It starts innocently enough with one little dot...  And then another dot, and then they connect. Before you know it, you're on your way to a whole constellation of consternation.  

Skateboarding is not a crime...

Or is it?

One important thing to realize is this happened a long time ago, and I have been rehabilitated.

Carrying my skateboard across Jackson Square, "what the heck" put down the board, one lazy push, BUSTED!  As I was handed my ticket, the kindly officer told me to plead not-guilty, and the ticket would be thrown out.

My day in court came, and I did as I was instructed. Then the judge asked, "Well were you riding your skateboard?" 

Faced with explaining how I might have been doing the thing I plead not guilty to doing, I stammered, "not guilty".

Exasperated, he asked me again, and again I stammered, "uh, not guilty?" Clearly irritated, he gave me another court date and sent me away.

I left town a while later, and came back in 6 months, having forgotten all about it.

Christmas eve, after finishing a very long very difficult job, I was pulled over and sent to jail for my skateboarding warrant. My bail was set at $1000. 

I called my then girlfriend, who's reputation I will not taint with my criminal past, and began the 36 hour process of attaining liberty.

Mostly it's waiting. First there's the big room. boring. Well, they did drag a bloody screaming woman past and put her in a cell... Then more boredom. I struck up a conversation with a young man. I said, "I am an artist! what is it that you do?!"  He replied, "I'm a thug".  "Oh", I said. More waiting.  A tray of crappy sandwiches came along. Eating can be a good way to pass the time, but then, there's the issue of those truly public, public toilets. I didn't have many sandwiches...

After an eternity they rounded us up and took us to a room.  

"LINE UP AND STRIP TO YOUR UNDERWEAR!" The guy barked.

I raised my hand..."Uh, what if you're not wearing any underwear?"

"IT'S OK WHITE BOY! WE WONT LAUGH AT YOUR LITTLE DICK!"

So there I am.

And they toss us our uniforms, nurse pants, and shirts, except for some people got shirts that said Florida State University, with OPP silk-screened on top.

Then...

"Uh, Sir?"

"WHAT!"

Uh, my pants don't have a zipper or a button."

"WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS IS BOY, A TAYLOR SHOP! TIE IT SHUT WITH YOUR SHOELACE!"

I'd always thought that they took your laces away, so you didn't commit suicide.  I guess they figured I'd choose the dignity of wearing pants over the relief of hanging myself.

So I tied my pants shut, sort of. I could only tie them shut at the top, so my genitals kept popping out. When I was in my cell, I was having a conversation with a prisoner on the other side of the bars. He's like, "Oh, your, uh," and gestured downward. "Oh, excuse me", and I tucked myself back in. It was so casual and civilized, like if you were at a party, and someone told you that you had a crumb stuck in the corner of your mouth. Jail is a surprisingly civil place, inmate wise. Nobody shanked me or anything. My cellmate related all kinds of inspiring stories of his glory days in crime. Dinner came, and everyone was so excited to find out that we'd be having black eyed peas! 

I'm not trying to say that jail isn't so bad, only that while I was there, the people didn't seem so bad, and it really gave me the sense that incarceration, at least at these lower levels, is based on dumb luck more than ridding the streets of dangerous bad people.  The bigger, more important lesson I learned, was how important freedom is, on an instinctual gut level. Being in there was like smothering. The need for freedom feels similar to the need to take a breath. 

My message to the masses is this. The man is watching you, so don't smoke any doobies, or do anything else that gives him an easy way to grab you and mark you. It's impossible to be subversive if you let yourself become easy prey. I will cuss out anyone who loses their right to vote over a stupid law. Abide the stupidest laws the most, because those are the laws that Republicans use to rip the dicks off of Democrats.

Set my Blanket free.

Today I bought a turtle from Michael Jackson, I called him Blanket, and then I released him into the bayou at city park.  

There's this guy who thinks he is Michael Jackson, and he wanders around the Bywater, asking people for $1, to buy a diet coke, presumably because of the Michael Jackson Pepsi hair fire. 

Also, He seemed to have a little existential crisis, when Michael Jackson died. He always says, "Michael Jackson's dead, but I ain't dead, right? I'm Michael Jackson, can I have $1 for a diet coke?"

Usually I reassure him that he's not dead, but I won't give him the buck.

Today was different, because Michael Jackson was carrying a turtle, and asked me to buy it for $1. How could I resist the liberation of Blanket the turtle for the price of a diet Coke? I franticly scrambled around for the $1, could only find $20s, asked my pal Gary for $1, he could only scrape up 50 cents, freaking, I finally dug $1 from the depths of my pocket, and Blanket was mine. He was a good sized turtle, 6 or 7 inches from head to tail (retracted even), and mossy, definitely not a domesticated wus. Not a snapper though, he had pretty markings, and his shell would have cleaned up nice, had I wanted to keep him captive. I put him in the bathroom for safe keeping.

MJ wandered by a little while later, and asked if I'd save one for him, if it had babies, save two, if it had a whole lot of babies.  I told him I would.

Here is a picture of Blanket, right before we set him free.

I love them both.

Of Cats and Peanuts

 I recently opened a package from my pal John Cooper, who is a conceptual artist. (of sorts) It was full of individually wrapped florescent orange circus peanuts, and a home-made T-shirt that says "ADAM" on the front, and "scorch" on the back. The words are stenciled in silicone caulk, for rubbery permanence. Apparently the circus peanuts were a tastier alternative to those "technically edible" cornstarch packing peanuts, that are a biodegradable alternative to those evil styrofoam peanuts that people usually use to pack extremely delicate things, like Tshirts. The box even said "this side up". This kind of stuff is highly conceptual, and the average lay-person may not fully understand the layers of significance and nuance.

John has been on this peanut kick, since commissioning my mother to make him a ceramic cat, and it arrived snug and tight, wrapped in a recycled wadded up cat-food bag and a warning from my eco-mother  that "friends don't send friends packing peanuts."  

Shortly after John received his ceramic cat I received a package notice from UPS.

I live upstairs above my metal shop, with no doorbell. I miss a lot of packages. So I get the first UPS notice,  I leave my phone # in the window, but get no call, just a second notice. I got the third notice, and have no clue why I'm getting a package anyway...  I had a lot of stuff going on... no time no time... got to get out there to Morrison ave...hmmm....if I don't get out there soon it's going to get sent back to where it came from....now what did I order?

So finally I drag myself way out to New Orleans East, Wait in line at the UPS...it was a really long wait...She finally comes back with...A huge plastic bag of biodegradable cornstarch packing peanuts? The UPS lady was sure it was for me, so I slung it in the back of my truck feeling mostly puzzled, but a little bit biodegraded, as well. The sack of peanuts is still laying in the front room of my studio. It turned out to be one of John Coopers conceptual art projects. He was a little disappointed that they had arrived in a clear bag, without the surprise of opening a box, and mortified that I'd had to go on an Odyssey out to Morrison ave, but I assured him that it was a privilege to feel that bewildered, with no negative consequences.

I was once bewildered by a peanut, without being so lucky.  You know that song from when you were a kid? "Found a pea-nut, found a pea-nut, found a peeeeeeeeea-nut just now!"

I was up late at night with my wife, and dozing off in front of the TV.  Too tired to follow the tv program, I shuffled off to bed, pulled back the sheets and climbed in. While shifting around to get comfortable, something poked me. Groggily, I pulled out a peanut, still in the shell. It was the most worn out peanut I'd ever seen, but definitely a classic "Mr Peanut" peanut, with that irregular hourglass figure, that funky fibrous peanut texture, everything except a top-hat and monocle. It was a peanut's peanut, even if it had seen better days. 

But what is a peanut doing in my bed? 

So naturally I smelled it. WTF? This peanut smells like shit?! I guess any food can go past it's prime, but why would a rotten peanut smell like shit.?

So I smelled it again to make sure. Sure enough, a rotten peanut that smells like shit. How peculiar! And I smelled it again, and again, marveling at the olfactory alchemy involved in bestowing such an unlikely smell on a common peanut. When I could no longer contain my wonder,  I shuffled out into the living room to show my amazing peanut to my wife. "Smell this! It's so weird, this peanut smells exactly like shit."

She drew back in repulsion, "Adam that's cat shit!!!"  

Farrington's Favorites!

 Mark Chatterley, "Dreaming in Clay"   showing at Docs Gallery at 709 Camp street, until Nov 4th.
http://www.docsgallery.com/

 Most glazes have a glassy uniformity that makes me want to put the piece in the dishwasher.  Not so, with this glaze treatment, It's almost volcanic, pitted, bubbling,  mineral encrusted. Sculptures dredged from the lost city of Atlantis, or recovered from centuries under the the earth. Whatever strange society these sculptures were recovered from, they had an appreciation for quirkiness and a sense of humor. These things have a fantastically enthralling if somewhat sinister absurdity.

steel spokes and axels

When a clay sculpture is fired, that's usually the last step of the process. Something I like about this work, is the use of welded steel as a contrasting element, and also as a means to assemble ceramic components, after they have been fired.  I really enjoyed this work.

this guy could fly up and tell you off...

What's up with this gang? Friend or foe!

Art wranglers, in the courtyard!
(Gallery owners Richard and David)

Bertha, the Halloween Punkin

Here is a Halloween animation I made tonight. It's pretty scary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-99e1AuH1uo

Some desolate found photos

A few years ago I was poking around a dump on the west bank, and found a bunch of black and white 120 negatives fro the early 50s, which I processed in photoshop. A lot of wide open spaces, for New Orleans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqb1NAVvnkM