(Also, because I want to make some extra bank as one of my courses at SVA was cancelled this semester due to low enrollment. While I wasn’t thrilled, I must say its nice to get a break from lecturing six hours in a row, which has been my Thursdays for a long time now. Not a big deal, but being free at 3PM and in the city is rare for me and I’m enjoying it.)

Something so engaging and real about being on the sidewalk meeting and talking to all kinds of people, eye to eye…SO glad i did it:) And was so happy to have my neighbor-longtime friend hang with me all day, from beginning to end, helping me set up and take down! How fucking sweet is that?! AM SO GRATEFUL. Of course I kept trying to foist stuff on her, lol, in gratitude – and I had great stuff out there, from Gunne Sax to Leslie Fay to Ungaro, with lots of great 1960s-70s stuff, which she loves. But she only took a couple things. I also think she enjoyed it too, the human side of it reminding her of her retail/record store days in San Francisco in the early 1990s.

I was surprised how little people knew about what they were looking at. I thought with all the young blood in Greenpoint and the popularity of all things “vintage” there’d be more cultivated tastes out there. My biggest sale, who also has an Etsy shop, being an exception. Regardless, the fact that people just bought things because they liked them was also cool!

I do though wonder if I’ve just acquired more expertise than I realize (to justify my endless thrifting, no doubt), or if there’s no desire for expertise anymore as “vintage” simply means “second-hand” now. Ie, its just all “old”. I’ve always taken it quite seriously thanks to gay male friends who schooled me back in the day (some cliches are true), but that’s when very few did the vintage thing, and everyone had a niche.

Anyway, I’ll be uploading new stuff on romanlovesgigi (my Etsy shop again soon), and perhaps doing more street sales (next time with biz cards for my shop), so stay tuned!

(Btw, if you didn’t catch my show, From the Ruins…, it got great reviews, meaty thoughtful ones, in the New Yorker, artforum.com, Time Out New York, the Brooklyn Rail, PAPER, and observer.com so Google that shit! Pretty damn grateful for that still too!!! And I’m excited to be working on some other projects! this amazing Fall weather on the east coast, and look out for the giant red moon Sunday nite!!)

some super quick pics from the iphone…(I am laughing that I threw in curlers I never used and nail polish: classy, lol!)

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I’m on a cooking binge these days, grilling and stove. Made this tasty mushroom, lentil, quinoa, carrot, celery dish, close to this Martha Stewart recipe but with rosemary and some of Trader Joe’s garlic and eggplant dip mixed in.  Improv-style. Delish! A bit heavy for summer I suppose but it can be eaten cold (or must mushrooms always be served warm?), and its vegan (I added no butter). I also made a hearts of palm, avocado, artichoke, cucumber, celery, and mint salad, which I’ve made before, and always change up a bit. Its based on this recipe.
 

Tomorrow night I hope to grill more than I can consume, or at least that’s the plan:)) Happy Summer!  Enjoy the fresh food, and in the spirit of company, I’ll leave you with some choice words on food by Lydia Lunch discussing her cookbook, The Need to Feed:  “(Plus), cooking is one of the most intimate things this side of sex—cooking leads to good sex. You are touching something that someone else is digesting. Your DNA is on the food they eat. It’s a form of impregnation—which is basically what my entire artistic motive is, anyway. The whole goal of why I create is to either allow people who have been poisoned or contaminated to feel some relief. So cooking is just natural. Plus, cookbooks are so awful and boring. Except for Coolio’s, who measures the spices with nickel and dimebags. ” The interview is with VICE, namely Brad Cohan, who calls her ” the iconoclastic no wave skank goddess” recalls  this great issue of RE/Search devoted to her). Okay. He wrote preview/ Village Voice listing for her Retrovirus show, which I should’ve seen:((((((, earlier this month, so he’s sincere. I’m just not sure what I think about him calling her a skank, or later, whorish.  The  interview did inspire me to cook, which is always good, and I loved hearing LL trash New York, so I still recommend it. NITE!

(pics represent recipes given in links)

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I will say I don’t think I could’ve succeeded if I’d had to conduct business this way. Talking on the phone is one of my least favorite things to do (I feel easily trapped), so having to perform for a machine may be a step up, but I’d still rather meet someone in person or correspond via email. No one leaves voicemail anymore, anyway. That’s why this is such an analog time capsule. An artist friend recently played me excerpts from answering machine tapes he’d kept from the early 90s when he was w/his now quite famous ex, with whom he made notable work with as well. They led a very glammy queer downtown drug-fueled life, riding a tide as swell, I’d bet, for their time, as Moorman’s must have been in hers, albeit shorter. I remember thinking how Warhol it all was in a post-Aids way. Anyway, I really hope he makes art out of them as was the plan.

Not feeling so great, so that’s it here, though a couple pics of the mama and baby kitty kats from my backyard, who I mentioned, I think, before. I finally got some close-ups during a feeding. And only because I’m at eye level and they’re starving would they come that near, trust me. Mama’s eyes read pretty feral, I think. Today, in frigid weather they lay huddled in a clump of long dead grass smack in the middle of the yard. I got a shelter tonite for them. From one of cat colonies I help out w/ (thank god for that contact, but good breeds good) so that’s out now with a line of catnip leading in:) Hope Mama figures it out. She’s a good mother and often lets her baby eat first. I have ‘cuter” pics but its best to remember these are creatures fending for themselves not images to make us feel warm and fuzzy. We can help them survive or not. Same with homeless people we pass by in the winter. Its really tough out there. Please give.

Ok thats the end of the PSA:) For countermeasure, listen to the latest Keiser Report. Its about the upswing in the art market as shamed bankers look to hide more money with greater insurance. Good for the auction houses, and mega-collectors, bad for everyone else. That’s my layperson’s take. I’d be very curious to see follow that money trail into the museum boardroom. Oh and to remind everyone that humans only THINK they’re smarter than animals, here’s a fox in the Dakotas tracking his prey. The baroque explanation proves only that opposable thumbs, giant brains, and a fetish for tools apparently allows a species to analyze and annihilate whatever it wants. GO FOX GO!

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So on my way to teach at SVA earlier, I was suddenly craving a grilled cheese sandwich, something I never eat, but my body wanted the grease. And lo and behold A & A Coffee Shop (see pic below) appears! Where I’m able get one quick and cheap without sitting down! This place is one of the last uber tiny mom-and-pop coffee shop/grills in NYC (see pic below), and happens to be in the building next door to my shrink’s. She once mentioned it, but I never went inside.

It reminded me of a place I used to go to when I lived in the Financial District 20 years back (probably because those kind of places were the only ones open after 8pm down there back then). Its like a very narrow pizzeria with a window onto the street, and a few stools at a counter. Another endangered species in this town, WHICH HAS A NEW MAYOR TONIGHT, WELCOME BILL DE BLASIO! He won as predicted. And I voted for him though I was tempted to vote “Green”, the party not candidate. But changed my mind after my student today, who admittedly isn’t the most sophisticated, said in reply to my question of whether she was voting: “Um, I’m not political. I don’t believe in politics. Yeah sorry, I don’t even watch the news anymore.” To which I said, “Well, its going to impact you anyway, you know”, smiling, and she said “I guess so.”

The lack of any real debate, seriously campaigning dismayed me though, and I’m not convinced De Blasio isn’t just a blowhard who knows how to style his songs, if you know what I mean. Here’s a quote from his acceptance speech, if you don’t: “So far, I like it… “We know that we are not defined by the cold steel of our skyscrapers but by the strength and compassion and boldness of our collective spirit. We are all at our best when every child, every parent, every New Yorker has a shot. And we reach our greatest heights when we all rise together.” A sweet talker.

His record would indicate someone not prone to running city government with a board room mentality, which is hopeful (though Bloomberg’s resistance to cronyism had its benefits). So I’m hopeful. As I’ve already said, I think NYC may have a rocky adjustment period, if not initially, but it will depend on who de Blasio appoints, and whether he really takes in Wall Street/taxes the rich. Anyway, here’s to a little old New York becoming new again in the future!

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When the stock market crashed in 2008, I remember talking to friends about the ensuing recession and how long it would last. One insisted it wouldn’t last but a couple years at most, waving off my prediction that in fact it would be long. Time has born out, sadly, my expectations, as we all know. Occupy Wall Street ignited the flame of unrest, but its been slow to have direct impact. I realizes that when none of the parties in the last presidential race acknowledged this constituency, the so-called 99%. Though de Blasio seems to, which means maybe OWS could revive itself and eventually do what the founder of the concept-brand intended. For now it seems to have been appropriated as a brilliant marketing strategy.

Still, I’ve made the same prediction for NYC after Bloomberg leaves, and presuming de Blasio wins: that things will get rough, unemployment will rise, as will crime, and hopefully that will be all (one can imagine energy outtages, and water shortages, too, but I try not to). As if that were a logical statement, for that to “be all”. I imagine there will be more cultural wars coming as well, but I’d like to believe the Tea Party et al won’t ever have much traction here. That 20-somethings would resist. Enough? I don’t know. I don’t want to dismiss the Occupy movement going forward, but I also hope that it evolves into something with more structure. Even anarchic models require a consensual vision. I get that one wants to avoid hierarchy and standardization, particularly when it comes to value systems. I’ve worked in all kinds of collectives, and have experienced the benefits and pitfalls, but to refuse to define an agenda is to disperse energy and focus, to lose, essentially, crucial momentum. IMHO, it was a tactical failure.

Or course, I waited for people to occupy real estate in NYC, take over empty buildings, camp on public monuments en masse, etc. I tend to be all in, or not, and had my moment in the 80s, and again during both Iraq wars, so I’d decided to watch from the sidelines for a while. Let the 20-somethings and lifelong activists take their rightful place in the sun. Taking on the banks pretty much means being willing to put your life on the line or damn near it, IMHO, as I pretty much see them as an international coterie of bandits who live outside the law

Of course, I respect very much those who made it happen, who were in the trenches from beginning to end, and not just site-seeing as so many did, literally and otherwise (at least in Zucotti Park). I tried, naturally, to encourage my students to get involved, but when I proposed having SVA faculty organize students to do the same, I became the satanist in church. WHAT WAS I SUGGESTING?! Students free to leave class and join the occupation?! This was not 1987. So instead we talked about it in class every week, and I saw that many were just ill-equipped to empower themselves, which I tried to counter. I think populist movements should be multi-generational and multicultural, but ultimately youth-driven because its a matter of preparing for battle.

Wow, what a rant, and all because I heard the BBC World News Report tonight discussing unemployment rates rising in Europe, and how crucial a moment it is now for the EU/Euro, etc. and it made me think of NYC, and what’s to come…let’s hope I’m wrong this time. But regardless, think about what you’re willing to do, and how best to harness your energy to do it when the revolution comes, and it won’t be on Facebook. Bodies are the most political tool we have. G’Nite all!

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I didn’t know Lou Reed personally, I imagine few really did. Of course, because of his tangential relationship to the art world via the uber-brilliant Laurie Anderson, his wife, I know people who did. Or who thought they did, wanted believe they did, because they interviewed him or took a picture together, hung out at some event, etc. Over all, capitalizing on a just-deceased person’s fame really turns my stomach, but once its an official news story, I guess its expected.

And then there were the people who got to trashing him right away?! The inevitable “he was an asshole, period” comments (eyeroll) that seemed so inappropriate. Doesn;t anyone consider the suffering and shock of loved ones left behind, especially when they have to live in the fishbowl of public scrutiny? It astonishes me. There’s just no communal respect anymore for those in mourning, it would appear. Anyway, I attempted here and there to politely counter these callous digs by saying “well, he might have been a misanthrope but he was also compassionate” – a contrary nature that gave his work its power IMHO. When one blogger suggested that LR had no talent – because the latter gave him a hard time when he was first starting out – and got by on attitude, I thought nice eulogy, who’s the asshole? That’s when I gave up, and said nothing:)

How people hang on to things like that for decades is beyond me, anyway. Pouncing the second they can when a person is no longer alive to defend themselves. No balls. Case in point, Vulture today publishing “Looking Back at Lou Reed’s Famously Contentious Relationship With Rock Critic Lester Bangs”, which I’m not going to link to, but here’s the opening line, which relegates LR’s death to a parenthetical (?!): “Over the years, Lou Reed, who died today at age 71, gained the reputation for being a sensationally prickly interview subject.” (Here’s the original profile by Bangs, that I’ll share) So you see what I mean, I’m avoiding the media on this for a while.

Mostly though I just posted all day to process my own sense of loss. LR’s music meant a lot to me, and I identified very strongly with it for many years. I’d rather not get more maudlin than that. There were a few interesting obits I read too (always amazes me what good writers can do w/so little time), loved this one by Michael Musto, and Rolling Stone did a good job of getting the whole profile together and focusing on compiling music (sadly one expects there was a file ready to go in some computer before the transplant though), and a few impromptu tributes here in NYC (Bowery Poetry Club, Otto’s Shrunken Head), which I decided not to go to (open mic is not my scene).

Here’s what I posted on FB followed, if you can stay with me that long, by some observations as I re-experience these posts in reverse (created links w/quotes when latter were song lyrics):

I AM STUNNED… LOU REED HAS MEANT SO MUCH TO ME OVER THE YEARS…WAS JUST LISTENING TO VU, AND “NEW YORK”, SO GRATEFUL I GOT TO SEE HIM PERFORM SEVERAL TIMES, ALWAYS CANTANKEROUS AND BRILLIANT! RIP

“HE’S NEVER EARLY, HE’S ALWAYS LATE…” — Velvet Underground – I´m Waiting For The Man

GREAT FOOTAGE OF LOU DANCING!!! — Lou Reed – Sweet Jane – live in Paris, 1974

Vicious / You hit me with a flower / You do it every hour / Oh baby, you’re so vicious / Vicious / You want me to hit you with a stick / But all I’ve got is a guitar pick

“sha lalala, c’mon baby lets slip away…” — Lou Reed – Street Hassle (complete music video)

“One chord is fine. Two chords is pushing it. Three chords and you’re into jazz.” — Lou Reed Metal Machine Music, Part 1 (HQ)

“lou was very adept at spontaneously erupting into elegant forms of prose and poetry” – john cale
— John Cale on Lou Reed and himself

Lou Reed & John Cale – Songs For Drella (Full Album) (HQ)

“so you want people to take drugs, why is this?”
“oh yeah, cuz its better than monopoly.” — Lou Reed Interview at Sydney Airport – 1974

THE EYELINER AND ‘FRO DAYS, LOVE THIS FOOTAGE THO HE’S REALLY HIGH HERE — Lou Reed Live Olympia Theatre, Paris 1973, Walk On The Wild Side , Heroin and White Light, White heat

“give me your hungry, your tired, your poor, i’ll piss on ’em, that’s what your statue of bigotry says” — Lou Reed performs “Dirty Blvd.” live at the Farm Aid concert in Indianapolis, Indiana on April 7th, 1990.

“people in new york do get ahead by who they know not what they can do” lou at his cranky best, taking on the music biz:)) –Lou Reed grills Mark Josephson, co-director of the New Music Seminar, on a 1986 episode of MTV’s 120 Minutes.

Lou after the transplant, on spotify/free downloading of music: “this whole idea of starving artists that stay starving artists, meanwhile you’ve got artists like damien hirst selling for a gazillion dollars” –Lou Reed’s shock at Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations

ok, the last one – my namesake song, a bouncy version, lou you will always and forever be in my heart

OBSERVATIONS: Obviously, I was drawn to live footage immediately, interviews as well as performances (as I’m sure were many, but I didn’t read posts until after I’d “processed”. AND it seems I liked anything that captured him dancing (and less guarded)! I think I captured examples of his rancorous wit and fierce generosity ( (even on David Letterman), that unusual mix that as I said above made his music so potent (and like Sinatra, I find his phrasing brilliantly varied in live stuff). The verbal runs in this show when he just ad libs all this poetry is a perfect example. The line I quoted in related thread being: ‘fuck radio ethiopia, man, I’m radio Brooklyn” Recorded live at Bottom Line 17-21 May 1978, no overdubbing. Mixed at Delta Studio, Wilster — Sweet Jane Germany (and yes, I noticed there were several Sweet Jane versions — naturally!)

I noticed too I liked the 1970s and 1990s Lou the best, the former for the obvious sexiness and decadence but also for its fevered experimentation, and the latter for the more reflective writing. I think of LR as a storyteller. “New York” is on my desert island list, I never get tired of it. I could go on and on. I’m glad to have a place to archive my thoughts/reactions. My little mourning session for the ICONIC NEW YORK ROCK LEGEND, LOU REED (1942-2013) who will forever be missed. RIP. (How painful to have to type that end date…may a new fan be born every minute)

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ANYWAY (speaking of cat ladies), I was told there would be a new one in the midst today, a gray and white cat, and there s/he was, a nervous nelly if ever I saw one. Darting under the construction fence every second s/he heard a noise (Greenpoint, as I’ve mentioned, is in one gentrifying k-hole of hell). Poor thing:(( Trying desperately to stay alive and get a bit to eat. I think someone booted it. DON’T GET ME STARTED…its so sad. But if you wanna donate, your time or money would do:)) There’s a pic too of Moo and this other newcomer, “orange baby” I call him, duh!:), who the colony lady doesn’t like so far because he’s aggressive (he’s nothing like Jocelyn was who she liked so kind of interesting). I don’t think he’s so bad but she’s definitely been yelling at him as she said because he seemed very hissy defensive when I know he’s just trying to live too, and hasn’t settled down enough to trust the food will keep coming. I guess I can relate, haha!

The other pic is of a house that decks itself out (well, the ground floor) every year for all the holidays, which I love (anyone who knows me personally knows I’m big on glittery holiday cheer whether in goblin form or bunny rabbits)! Its interesting to note that its a Dominican extended family that lives in there and its sweet because they all eat together, at least on wknds when I pass by at dinner time, and play outside on the street. And they’ve probably been there longer than I have, at least 20 years. A nice counterpart to the yippies. Not that they all suck because a lot of them are nice enough. Oh and the last pic is of some dude in a white sequined jacket playing some kind of electronic music on his bike who happened to stop right where I was feeding and I took this on the sly (hence its a bit blurry).

Ok, I need to empty my mind in a movie. I gotta tell you not having TV is like kicking crack for me. I don’t know what to do to calm myself even though I’m simultaneously opening up into the space/silence. Its been a long long time since I gave it up. I don’t think I could’ve if I’d not known I could watch online (which I have already, but not nearly as much). Something I observed summer before last while on a residency.

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“I am tired and I am weary, I could sleep for a thousand years. A thousand dreams that would awake me, different colors made of tears…shiny shiny, shiny boots of leather”… I’ve just listened to Venus in Furs (Velvet Underground) 5x. I love the whole record. Always have, always will. Can’t believe I gave my brother a copy ages ago and he didn’t get it. I guess Nico can be hard to take. But amazingly you can listen for yourself in full on Youtube! Here it is!

Alright, here’s two images inspired by one of my students today, who gave the best presentation (of 3 classes) on Toulouse Lautrec. An artist of real fortitude considering all he endured. The woman in both look like I feel, dejected and ready to cast a spell. Knowing they were produced just after he secured his release from an asylum through work that proved his sanity (he was thought to have syphilis-related dementia) makes them more meaningful, somehow!

The Milliner, 1900

Messaline, 1900
(FYI, Messaline, according to this article, “was the great-granddaughter of Mark Antony, the great-grandniece of Augustus Caesar and a cousin of the Emperors Caligula, Claudius and Nero, but the high degree of inbreeding in her family appears to have created in Messalina the same sort of sadistic, hypersexual insanity as it did in her imperial cousins.” I guess Lautrec could relate, HA! The Empress who became a whore, indeed!

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Getting out of the train tonite, I found myself thinking about my 20 year anniversary, of how impossible it would seem to live anywhere else. Outside NYC I mean, because I’d move back to Manhattan, should it be an option (not likely, waay too poor). But Brooklyn really is a lot more interesting overall (filmmakers, musicians, artists, everyone whose anyone in the up-and-coming way is producing in this borough).

Greenpoint has changed so much since I’ve been here these last 14 years. Which is what I specifically was thinking as I saw a new yippie shoe store go up, and a Ricky’s pop-up for Halloween. And I thought Starbucks and then Seven Eleven had truly sealed its fate. HA, who knows. As the waterfront gets developed and more homeless shelters get built to shuffle all the newly vulnerable homeless that it will create (there’s already a 200-bed facility that went up a year ago, and one of the worst SROs in NYC history a few blocks away, which has been here for decades). But I don’t wanna go off on the horrors of gentrification, here’s a few BK pics for you of the hood instead!

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