Dec. 30 & 31, 1978

The Situations became my favorite band at the beginning of November 1978. I refer to them as the new suburban band.
Gigs with the Offs, the punk-reggae band lead by Don Vinil, had to be strange ones. "Die Babylon" preceded by "Mr. Toaster."
Now I wonder why I would post these, why I have so many posters of a band that doesn't have a MySpace page or an entry on wikipedia. Exclusionary, superior, or just pointless, wasted energy. Misspent youth. Or, just youth? It was the situation I was in.

30 years after 1979

performed at the KNOCK Literary Journal release Friday night, Dec. 4, 2009.
www.knockjournal.com

in issue #12 I have four small pieces--I started to write 'drawings,' but one is a lino block print on business reply card, one is collage on security envelope and magazine page, one is double-image photocopy glued to a found piece of cardboard, leaving only one business reply card with marks and writing that might fit one's description of a 'drawing.'
The layout of the magazine, by Ed Perkins mostly, practically overshadows the works themselves, with the text from each work amplified larger, shouting obliviously, declarative wherein the works are relatively unassuming. Certainly in size the works are unimposing.

For the performance, I harkened back to a work from thirty years ago, wherein I broke into pieces 7-inch forty-fives over alternating knees, shouting out the Rock-and-Roll Dinosaur Alphabet--Aerosmith, B is for Boston...." I wrote that alphabet after Chris Burden's Atomic Alphabet: ""A is for Atomic, B is for Bomb..." http://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/92
There is a description on a site I stumble across today, daddytypes.com, that perfectly captures the intent of Burden's work--"redirected outrage"--
http://daddytypes.com/2009/06/06/chris_burdens_atomic_alphabet.php
that I attempted in the reading performed for KNOCK.

The Rock Dinosaur Alphabet I did at the Hotel Utah in San Francisco's South of Market area--further south than general traffic, but next door to Trocadero Transfer, where Grace Jones performed "I Need A Man" ascending the Crystal Staircase. Fourth and Bryant, south of the elevated freeway that leads to Bay Bridge and Interstate 80. San Francisco being as time-warped as it is, the Utah is still there
30 years ago, it might have been an SFAI performance night--Monty Thompson might've been another performer.

I'd kill to know where to shop
I'd kill to take that back
I'd kill to have your back
I'd kill for someone to climb on my back
and hold me down
I'd kill to have Harvey Milk
instead of Barney Frank
I'd kill to have had Dan White's address
I'd kill if I thought I'd keep my job
I'd kill to drop a dress size
i'd kill to be her
I'd kill to be me
I'd kill to be in
I'd kill to not have to come out
I'd kill to shut the friggin closet forever
I'd kill to see straights stand up for my rights
I'd kill for the right to be left alone
I'd kill to be alone
I'd kill to take that back
I'd kill to know my way
I'd kill to know what I'm doing here.

a weekend in NYC 1978

11-1-78
"I hit rock bottom. Have 87 cents in bank, and am not real sure when my paycheck will be coming in. Need, have to conserve money. Yet albums and 45s keep coming.
"This is my first day in New York. I haven't the money to go out. I shall stay home and write, listen to records. I have a good size stack of things, maybe I'll take some records down to 42nd Street, try to trade for more. Bleecker Bob's would charge too much, plus it means using the subway, which I can't afford.
"From my apartment/hotel room window I can watch the varied New Yorkers going by. The indian summer heat coming in, forcing the roaches to bask ion the window sill, or to look for crumbs on the bed sheet, a little saliva on the pillow cover.
"Maybe today I will get around to working on that fanzine. Eddy at Cafe Flore is putting a sheet on Friday, called TURPOR-"physical and/or mental inertia"--"Nothing that we write will affect you.
"I'd like to do a write-up on Situations, the new suburban band.
"The new Suburbia. I want to get Situations on the bill with Mutants and B-52s when the show comes. Edy doesn't seem to have a date lined up, but the place is on Main St. Janet from Situations says they don't want to play Mabuhay [Gardens, the principal SF punk club]."

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."