October 30, 1978
This is the story of my life. I'm writing for the first time on ruled lines. Holding within boundaries, writing down parallel lines. Normally, I have trouble reading my journals, a hodge-podge of angles, directions and moods. This book is an attempt at going in one general direction. Following the lines as laid out by the Mead Corporation of Dayton, Ohio, not to mention years of American tradition.
I have avoided this kind of book, because as an artist, I always felt it necessary to have blank pages, for those pictures that invariably spring to mind while the artist strolls down Market St. My most recent journal, on blank pages, contained fourteen "illustrations". a large majority being pasted on pictures which would be affected by blue horizontal lines only by placement, image not impeded to any degree. And there is [not] no question to the fact that an artist;s "sketch" looks more authentic when it is on this form of paper. It is almost as validifying as a textured surface, ie napkin, oilcloth, etc. Also, I no longer feel any great desire to be an artist. I would like to hole up somewhere with my 45s and write about being forecefed art rhetoric, about the lack of forcefeeding, about the need for forcefeeding, & the undeniable thrill from forcefed.

broken 45 rpm on graph paper

My computer died, I had a foul week--that's what I get for sending negative energy White's way! "Golly," this corpse says, "a guy can't kill two people and serve only five years but some jerk has to go and smear me twenty-five years later. Heck, they were elected politicians. What'd'ya expect?"

Dan White's Demon

A different face, this one for Oct. 21, 2009, 24 years after Dan White took his life, having served what, five years, for killing San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.
photo taken in San Francisco, Pierce Street off Duboce Park, 1978

I was trying on clothes at the time, lots of them, trying on outfits, see what fits, being trying. Thought I'd try on several at a time.
I didn't like the images and scumbled the emulsion, in the sway of Lucas Samaras and the Samaras Album.
Published by Whitney Museum and Pace Editions in NY, I have been intrigued, influenced and of course humbled by Samaras's self-exploration. The AUTOINTERVIEW, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, and the AUTOPOLOAROID turned me on as budding homo, novice artist, and raging narcissist.

I think this is mine, there's some whiteout on it that makes it seem original, and I used this outline image in a much later poster--vase and horse rider--but still unclear on this image's provenance.

the suit makes the man

Looking back

November 10, 1978 is the day Dan White resigned his position as San Francisco city supervisor. So if the fliers in the post before were a Monday night, and the 13th, then Dan quit on a Friday. Maybe that's where George W. Bush got his idea for dropping bombshells on Fridays, slow news day.

No New York at Cafe Flore, November 13, 1978

fliers for my Monday night dj gig at Cafe Flore. We used to listen to records at the Flore then head to the Stud to dance after the Flore closed, when the Stud was still across from Hamburger Mary's on Folsom at Eleventh. Cafe Flore, affectionately Cafe Hairdo at some point, is still serving coffee, food and drinks at 2298 Market in SF in 2009, and turntables are still part of the decor.

charting the color of the hair July 1978

red
salmon
bleach
black
bleach
red
back
deep red black
bleach
salm(on)
purple
blue
bleach
A new You

Identity Crisis

July 1978, and I'm getting contacts for the first time. I'm confused by who I was, who I might be if I could figure out what I want, so why not take that confusion further and be someone I am not. My name is Mark.

I make a flier as Jack A-New. Most of my friends want to
know who the bands are and which club the show's at.

I Love Hate the Mabuhay

My love hate affair with the principal punk club in San Francisco, the Mabuhay Gardens, is reflected in this détournement of a Mabuhay poster:
"the Mabuhay gardens in not worth patronizing. It is unresponsive to the needs of us. The prices are exorbitant for an evening of entertainment. The prices for drinks is way out of the question. A mere glass of water w/ ice is $1.00. It is the only place currently playing p music. But the music is often inflammatory. Why can't the place be more of a gathering grounds than it is now. Playing music during intermission that is current, serving as a nucleus for news of upcoming shows. Serve as a place during the day for listening to p music, music of the new wave. A juke box rather than a gum machine. It should be more conducive to the audience it serves than to the customers it attracts because of its own hype."

These are non-band fliers from 1979. The Deaf Club "Kids of today" reflected my mood in the days before the verdict of involuntary manslaughter for Dan white, who had assassinated the mayor of San Francisco, George Moscone, and a City Supervisor, Harvey Milk, six months before. "Kids of Today" was included, along with several other fliers of mine, in the book, Street Art, the Punk Poster in San Francisco 1977-1981, published by Last Gasp, August 1981.

dancing to the Stranglers

The Stranglers had some of the first singles out in the early days of punk rock, but as any avid reader of the weekly British newspaper magazines, Melody Maker, Sounds and New Musical Express, knew, the Stranglers were a bar band before and just took on the facade of punk. Their sound roiled, ebbed and crested for me on Dave Greenfield's keyboards, which weren't 'punk' so much as a snoty little brother to Ray Manzarek's band, the Doors. By May 1978, the Stranglers released their third album, punk was already dead, and the dancing could begin. The forty-five on my turntable is the 7" with their cover of the classic, "Walk on By."

The song is seven minutes long, with band members solos, especially of Greenfield's organ and J.J. Burnell's bass, a large part of that time. I still love playing this record really loud when I am alone. As a d.j. in Dallas in the nineties, the Stranglers cover of "Walk on By" was in regular rotation, providing a route to go retro into an early seventies organ romp or leap into female vocal classic set.

October is the Cruelest Month

October: National Equality March in 2009 on National Coming Out Day; Matthew Shepard's murder in 1998 and Dan White's suicide in 1985.
I begin the blog already messing up time frames and themes--is this a queer blog or a punk? "Queer punks vs. Gays" read some graffiti in SF in 1978. Did Marlon spray it? Martin? Me?
October 1978 and punk is about to die.
"the best show in punk history"--Dils, Avengers, Zeros, Plugz and Angry Shoppers at 1839 Geary at Fillmore in San Francisco.
"We're so young but we don't know what to do," I wrote then. "We're so bored, I wonder what we did when we were twenty-two/ Now we're so bored."