Category: Friends

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Parrots, Shaving, New Piece, Voice Recognition

It’s been a while, blog, and I haven’t been terribly busy, just lazy, eating lots, drinking more, entertaining out-of-town guests from New York, the midwest, and Tokyo while also enjoying some time alone in the house while Bob’s been away on vacation, and not getting a thing done, although I am working out again, after a 3 (or 6) month hiatus. Yesterday the Parrots of Telegraph Hill (a noisy flock [?] of 80 or so parrots that were set loose in San Francisco around 1972) came and visited my hawthorne tree, having a sensational time eating the berries and squawking hysterically. I love them. Around this time of year they come to my garden and eat the berries and poop all over the place. Just like relatives.

I shaved my beard off this morning. I haven’t been able to convincingly transform myself into a bear, or even a cub, so it’s back to being a twinky–a 36 year old one, though, with 20 extra pounds and graying hair. This is not an age that I know what to do with. Can I fast-forward to old and distinguished?

Okay, so it’s back to work tomorrow. I have to finish this piece for my show in Portland this week. Big Chrissy is going to model for me tomorrow. I’m taking no chances, and have designed the outline for the piece.

I usually don’t work this way, so I’m extremely nervous that it’s not going to work, especially since I’m starting with a 2-dimensional draft and I want to make a piece that’s multi-dimensional. Typically I respond to my subject without a finished piece in mind, and then find inspiration in the individual images, piecing them together like a jigsaw puzzle. Stay tuned for the results… or the lack thereof.

I and BC are bonding with our G4s–we’ve discovered the voice recognition software. Frequently I can be heard screaming “Computer, BEARLICIOUS” or “Computer, FUR BEAR DOT NET.”

Handsfree, finally.

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Jam Up and Jelly Tight

I’ve just completed the annual plum jam session: 18 half-pint jars this year, and 3 one-pint jars. I totally forget what I do every year, but this time it’s in the blog–equal weight sugar and plums, 220 degrees. My plums were a little less ripe, so the jam has a sweet and sour bite that is going to be perfect with peanut butter. If you’re into plum jam, let me know and I’ll send you a jar (while supplies last…).

Sarah is in town, and came over last night to celebrate her birthday. She’s the author of Empathy, My American History, etc, and a play on Carson McCullers that got totally trashed in the New York Times last year but she says every performance sold out. Any review it seems is a good review. She brought with her a bottle of Châteauneuf du Pape (’95) that was out of this world. I’ve never had wine like that–bandaids and honey. Is there a term for that bandaid-type taste that seems to permeate expensive french wines? It had to be one of the most delicious wines I’ve ever had. We decided not to have the Russian River Pinot afterwards, even though we knew it was a good one, afraid that it would appear too brash after such a complex sensual experience. Sarah also brought everyone presents–she gave me a CD of the Original Broadway recording of Hair! Yipee!

Oops, there’s Carla–gotta go…

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Ashes, Ann Miller

I just got back from the movies, Wong Kar Wai’s Ashes of Time, which started an hour late due to a burned out bulb so I was late getting home to talk to BC, who hung up on me, so instead, I’ll snuggle up with my Dear Blog and update you on my evening with Ann Miller last night!

I drove down to Palo Alto this morning to pick up my new coffee table with Big Chrissy, which turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment (not original finish, no identifying marks, scuffed well beyond “great shape”), then on to the LAB’s board retreat with my house guest Carla, an experimental playwright with an association to the language poets, she’s married to one, who’s in town from Detroit for a residency at the LAB. I stopped in as a member of their advisory board to see what was up and say hi, and to have Carla talk to the board about her residency. The retreat was at Minnette’s, an old pal and photographer (her son is Michael, the film director). I was on the board for about 5 years, and last year left to serve in an advisory capacity. Elizabeth, the administrative director, greeted me with a pat on the stomach and “Chriiiiis, you’ve GROWN so muuuuuuuuch,” and Richard greeted me with “You’re so gray…” Have I gone downhill that fast? Anyway, Ashes of Time was great–almost incomprehensible but with fabulous fight scenes and deeply moving highly manipulative expressions of emotional intensity that just popped out of nowhere and left you crying before you could really figure out why.

Okay, so the evening with Ann Miller started out with a little reception for her, at the Castro Theater. She held court in the lobby, surrounded by drag queens and old movie buffs. I decided to go upstairs and grab a bite before introducing myself and telling her how much I totally worshiped her, but ran into Roberto from the BAR and had a few too many glasses of wine, so by the time I meandered back downstairs, she was gone! The pre-show entertainment was pretty swell, though, with a tap-dancing drag queen recreating Miller’s “Shaking the Blues Away” number and Connie Champagne doing a very believable Judy Garland. At one point, the drag Ann stepped up to the mike and said “I have some bad news–I’ve just been told that I’m not Ann Miller….” and then introduced the real McCoy, who was interviewed for about an hour by Jan Wahl, who asked fairly tame questions, but the crowd went wild whenever Ann said anything. After the interview, the drag queen in front of me pulled off his big hair, opened his suitcase, set a mirror on top, took off his makeup, slipped out of his leopard-skin dress and into a gray sweatshirt. During the screening of the film, Kiss Me Kate in 3D, he and his companion took numerous flash photographs of the film. Can’t wait to see those…

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Connie, Joyce, Su-Chen and the Miami Collector

I visited Connies studio today, a very dear friend. She’s been working on a wonderful series of paintings consisting of very rough surfaces, like three-dimensional topographical maps, that have been painted over and then dusted with colored glitter. Connie had cosmetic surgery around the time that she started this series, and there’s a clear connection between the paintings and her own changing image. A mutual friend, Joyce was there, as well as a big collector from Miami who summers in San Francisco and has been buying Connie’s crazy creations for years. Connie and Joyce were in the first show that I put together in 1990 for Secession, my former non-profit gallery without walls.

Connie, Joyce and I hopped over to the Marin Headlands Center for the Arts to visit Su-Chen (who was on the Secession Board back then), for a little reunion and to see Su-Chen’s piece that she created during her current residency. In one of the large empty halls, she’s stuck red-threaded needles in all of the walls, the thread trailing down the walls and moving delicately with the shifting air. In the center of the room, dangling magically from a light fixture on the ceiling, are more needles, bundled together and trailing red thread in a straight line down to the floor below. The thread spills out onto the floor in little spiral patterns that are contained within the boundary of an eight foot square space. Su-Chen’s installations are always stripped down to the most bare elegant visuals. She was my biggest influence when I began making installations. When I showed her my first proposed installation for Haines Gallery, she X’ed through all of my plans, except for one element, and said, “There, that’s what it’s about. You don’t need this other stuff–get rid of it.” It remains the best art advice I’ve ever received, and which I continue to heed.

Su-Chen introduced us to a fellow resident artist, from Taiwan, named Duck (“Like the chicken,” Su-Chen said). He makes installations in the countryside with duck feathers, lots of duck feathers. When asked about his background, he told me that he joined the air force so that he could fly in the air, and then quit to become an artist so that he could fly in his mind.

Look for Su-Chen’s work in the Bear Show next February.

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Curator visits, A Call From D

The chief photo curator at a local museum, is coming next Wednesday to see selections from my new Thundercrack! series. Maybe s/he’ll go for the Jack Radcliffe pics–wouldn’t it be great to see that shlong in a museum? I bought a Paul McCobb coffee table on eBay, that I really can’t afford right now. But it’s so beautiful. Boss at work got a botox treatment that eliminated all of the lines on his face. He looks 20 years younger. And like Frankenstein’s monster. A friend of his talked him into it. The friend also ordered some foreskin stretching device on the internet that bossman seemed very curious about. I was very quiet. Anyway, when are they going to create a drug that makes chest hair? I talked with D. tonight. Remember the guy who told me 6 months ago that he never wanted to hear from me again? Well, he’s baaaaaaaak. And only a month after the last phone call announcing that he never wanted to see me again. Well, this time he called to tell me that he’s discovered that he’s bipolar. Like, duh. I didn’t bother to remind him that he had already announced this to me 2 years ago, shortly after announcing that he had borderline personality disorder. Anyway, he’s on drugs now. Whether prescribed or self-medicated was a little unclear. I accepted his good will and wished him well. One less person to worry about spitting on me in the gutter.

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Distractions

Last week Jane Delynn stayed over for a few days. She was in town reading from her new Semiotexte book, Leash, which promises to be a fun read. Degradation and submission, oh my! She has a motherly butch look, and the cutest little girly giggle. And then Robert Flynt flitted into town to speak at Camerawork and crash my guest pad. He’s in a show called “Everyman: A Search for the Male Form,” in which I am noticeably not. The same tired old hairless muscular young body is the subject of the mostly insipid and utterly drab work in the show. And then there’s the intelligent and beautiful work of master collagist John O’Reilly and Robert’s surreal and ethereal little gems to steal, if not save, the show. Robert and I traded two images each, and I am a happy little camper. Mysteriously, Camerawork called me today to ask for slides for consideration of including my work in an upcoming show on intimacy and erotics–right up my furry alley. Thank you Robert! Okay, so I get off the phone with Camerawork, and there’s a message on my voice mail from RJ, the curator of the AC at the PotLoH. Okay, so I call back and leave a nervous as all get out message–I think I forgot to say my name, but I’ll call back tomorrow and find out what the deal is. And yes, I would trade my soul to be in that collection.

I photographed the assmaster’s masterful ass a few days ago for my Thundercrack! grid, but need to arrange yet another photo session. It seems that I need to make a white “Y” out of his thighs and lower leg to get this thing to work. Hmmmmm…

Movies this week included Y Tu Mama Tambien and The Cockettes, both fab films. Y Tu.. was one of those movies that you wait years for. I’m not going to tell you anything about it, except drop what you’re doing and see it right now. The Cockettes, was equally enjoyable (plus my friend, David Weissman made it), and it left me yearning for fabulousness. After seeing it you’ll want to drop acid, put some glitter in your beard and spin like a dervish in your grandmother’s blue chiffon.

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Carmina Burana, Hakuna Matata

Last night Reese sang with the SF Boys Chorus and the Berkeley Community Orchestra at St. Joseph the Worker (it was in Berkeley) Church in a production of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. What a completely hysterical but thrilling piece of music. I was able to read the libretto during the performance and really enjoyed it. Orff set the music to medieval poems about love, fate, drinking, and gambling, and the poems are quite bawdy and sensuous at times, even racy, but really, the music is just too much, although the solo parts were completely gorgeous. After the piece, I dropped Bob and Reese off at home and headed up the hill to BC’s and then back down to the Lone Star to see Randy and Matthew one more time before Randy heads back to the midwest. Randy and Matthew came over earlier in the afternoon for a drink in the garden and one of the last whiffs of my rhododendron “Mi Amor.” They’re both very sweet real people. What is it with you bear guys? It would be SO great if you were all artists instead of computer geeks. I’m hoping that Randy will write and stage something for our bear show in February, assuming I secure a space, artists, funding, etc, etc, blah blah blah. Maybe we could just have the show in a barn somewhere? And I could make the curtains? Reese’s moms are coming over this morning for a Mother’s Day breakfast with me and Bob, and then I’m off to BC’s for the afternoon and Sunday night on HBO.

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Bart and Elin are Here

Elin & Bart of Maine & Texas, respectively, arrived last night, for a little visit. I had earlier dined Chez BC, and thus was a little tipsy. From what I recall, they’re here for a reunion of Bart’s glee club from Princeton. Bart’s one of those guys with the tan face, wide grin, and loud voice who slaps his knee when he laughs. Elin is the daughter of a famous photographer, lives on a tiny island off the coast of Maine, and brings a bit of glamour into our lives. She’s tiny, with long black hair, tiny lips and a beak of a nose–stunning, actually. Oops, here they are–gotta go. More later…

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Thursday Night

Thursday night was Dean Smith (intooutof, 2001, pictured below) and Barry McGee’s opening at Paule Anglim. Their art created a fascinating dialogue–Dean’s hand almost invisible and so controlled, and Barry’s just as precise but gestural and expressive. One is drawn closer and closer into and beyond the surfaces of Dean’s universe, and Barry’s world seems to leap out and surround you. All of the people who make me incredibly uncomfortable were at the artist dinner afterwards–Renny Pritikin from Yerba Buena CFA, who visited my studio last week, the collector Robert Shimshack, and former Examiner/Chronicle art critic David Bonetti (who actually walked right up to me–I was in his way–after averting his eyes from mine all evening at the opening, and said “Oh HI, I’m SO sorry we weren’t able to talk at the opening–it was SO crowded!”). But Barry was there, and he is just an angel–someone who’s always present for you, even though he’d rather be tagging the building outside. And the lamb shanks were awesome.