AND THE SUN CAME UP....
....and it had two broken elbows and a triangled face. And the sun came up. I found this little piece of poetry scrawled in orange crayon across the face of a dirty piece of blue lined school paper in front of my Berkeley apartment. The year was 1979. If I'm to truely delve into my shadowy past we must visit this era. Crank up the Circle Jerks, spike that chicky yellow hair, wipe that white stuff off your upper lip, shine those pointy toed shoes and come along.
I'd driven out of the Bearsville hills in 1975 with a wife, a dog, a cat, in a brand new pickup loaded down with everthing we owned. A week later we were at the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets wondering where all the hippies had gone. Four years later the wife, cat, dog and pickup had disappeared like those hippies. I bent down, picked up that eerily predictive scrap of paper, touched the sticky bandages wrapping my midsection, sucked in my breath and straighten my vintage dark shades, making sure they hid all the swelling damage. Flint's barbeque was just opening up. I could smell the hot sauce. Coffee? Yes, please. Coffee.
The night before had started well enough. The previous year I had been working on a series of prints and that night was the opening for the showing of this work. The prints were tiny cryptic images captured in blood on large sheets of rice paper. I had seven of them. The source of the prints was a fresh tattoo placed on seven different individuals. I opened my shirt and peered down at my bandages, marveling how much the seepage looked like my prints. What do they call that...synchronicity? The opening was at Lyle Tuttle's tattoo palor above the bus station on 7th in SF. Instead of buying beer and wine I bought scotch for the opening. This was the first of many miscalculations that night.
Nervousness, some pre-opening lines of coke, heavy traffic getting across the Bay bridge, and the fact that my girlfriend had just learned she was pregnant, set the stage for some serious scotch imbibing. Before the lights were blinked in order to get the crowd down those Tuttle stairs and back on 7th, Honey and i had indescreetly aired our dirty laundry all over that tattoo palor, and she had gone home to Berkeley in coke fueled huff. Ahh, young love. Now I could get serious about the J&B.
The party moved from Tuttle's to Site, a gallery where Kathy Acker was doing a reading. I can see her like it was yesterday- tough, shaved head, wrapped in tight black leather, sitting in a chair spitting her caustic prose at a crowd of adoring fans. I didn't know who she was at the time but in my drunken haze her words hit me like BBs between the eyes. The only thing harshing my mellow was two rather large Germans having their own party right next to me. I glared and told them to shut the fuck up. Miscalculation number 2. The larger of the two grabbed me by the neck and shook me like a rag doll. Hearing all the comotion Ms. Acker stopped her reading and invited the German's on stage. Two big Germans were no match for one fierce literary lesbian from NYC. She clipped their wings as I went off the get rid of some of that scotch.
By the time I headed east across the bay I had to open the door of my MG and feel the road with my hand in order to get home. There was no way my eyes were working. I struggled to get up the steep stairs of our apartment house. The wall bouncing tipped off the girlfriend that her sweetheart was returning. As I fumbled for my keys, the door swung open. I smiled a big stupid grin of gratitude and was promptly stabbed in the chest with a screw driver. Hellooooo.
You want to sober up fast? Always carry a screw driver. I heard the bell. Round one. Now get in there. Left. Right. Uppercut. Watch your blindside. Rope a dope. It wasn't the first time Honey and I had gone toe to toe. But it was the first time weapons were involved. Honey was tough. Honey was mean. And Honey had been up doing all my coke since she left the opening hours before. Maybe this was why they tell pregnant women not to do hard narcotics. It seems to make them mad.
The expensive 50's glass table shattered. The TV went over. The dog (her dog) got in the act gnawing at my pant leg. That wasn't fair. I kicked it and looked at the judges for a ruling. They just shrugged. The neighbors beat the cieling with a broomstick. They were the hippies I had searched for in the Haight, who had journeyed to the East Bay many years before. Even gentle, peace loving hippies could take only so much of this kind of thing. Foot work. Defense. I got some shots in but it was obvious i was no match. Unanimous decision. Honey raised her arms, spat blood and went off to bed. I had the couch. The dog bared her teeth and snarled. Nightie night.....and the sun came up.
I'd driven out of the Bearsville hills in 1975 with a wife, a dog, a cat, in a brand new pickup loaded down with everthing we owned. A week later we were at the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets wondering where all the hippies had gone. Four years later the wife, cat, dog and pickup had disappeared like those hippies. I bent down, picked up that eerily predictive scrap of paper, touched the sticky bandages wrapping my midsection, sucked in my breath and straighten my vintage dark shades, making sure they hid all the swelling damage. Flint's barbeque was just opening up. I could smell the hot sauce. Coffee? Yes, please. Coffee.
The night before had started well enough. The previous year I had been working on a series of prints and that night was the opening for the showing of this work. The prints were tiny cryptic images captured in blood on large sheets of rice paper. I had seven of them. The source of the prints was a fresh tattoo placed on seven different individuals. I opened my shirt and peered down at my bandages, marveling how much the seepage looked like my prints. What do they call that...synchronicity? The opening was at Lyle Tuttle's tattoo palor above the bus station on 7th in SF. Instead of buying beer and wine I bought scotch for the opening. This was the first of many miscalculations that night.
Nervousness, some pre-opening lines of coke, heavy traffic getting across the Bay bridge, and the fact that my girlfriend had just learned she was pregnant, set the stage for some serious scotch imbibing. Before the lights were blinked in order to get the crowd down those Tuttle stairs and back on 7th, Honey and i had indescreetly aired our dirty laundry all over that tattoo palor, and she had gone home to Berkeley in coke fueled huff. Ahh, young love. Now I could get serious about the J&B.
The party moved from Tuttle's to Site, a gallery where Kathy Acker was doing a reading. I can see her like it was yesterday- tough, shaved head, wrapped in tight black leather, sitting in a chair spitting her caustic prose at a crowd of adoring fans. I didn't know who she was at the time but in my drunken haze her words hit me like BBs between the eyes. The only thing harshing my mellow was two rather large Germans having their own party right next to me. I glared and told them to shut the fuck up. Miscalculation number 2. The larger of the two grabbed me by the neck and shook me like a rag doll. Hearing all the comotion Ms. Acker stopped her reading and invited the German's on stage. Two big Germans were no match for one fierce literary lesbian from NYC. She clipped their wings as I went off the get rid of some of that scotch.
By the time I headed east across the bay I had to open the door of my MG and feel the road with my hand in order to get home. There was no way my eyes were working. I struggled to get up the steep stairs of our apartment house. The wall bouncing tipped off the girlfriend that her sweetheart was returning. As I fumbled for my keys, the door swung open. I smiled a big stupid grin of gratitude and was promptly stabbed in the chest with a screw driver. Hellooooo.
You want to sober up fast? Always carry a screw driver. I heard the bell. Round one. Now get in there. Left. Right. Uppercut. Watch your blindside. Rope a dope. It wasn't the first time Honey and I had gone toe to toe. But it was the first time weapons were involved. Honey was tough. Honey was mean. And Honey had been up doing all my coke since she left the opening hours before. Maybe this was why they tell pregnant women not to do hard narcotics. It seems to make them mad.
The expensive 50's glass table shattered. The TV went over. The dog (her dog) got in the act gnawing at my pant leg. That wasn't fair. I kicked it and looked at the judges for a ruling. They just shrugged. The neighbors beat the cieling with a broomstick. They were the hippies I had searched for in the Haight, who had journeyed to the East Bay many years before. Even gentle, peace loving hippies could take only so much of this kind of thing. Foot work. Defense. I got some shots in but it was obvious i was no match. Unanimous decision. Honey raised her arms, spat blood and went off to bed. I had the couch. The dog bared her teeth and snarled. Nightie night.....and the sun came up.
posted by mike osterhout at 9:34 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home