LA FAMILIA

Despite of what BB felt about my little circle of cohorts, for lack of a better word i considered them friends. I had stopped showing under Christmo but hadn't stopped curating. I'd even curated a group show of my various psuedonyms- Richard Mauwra, Kristan Kohl, and MO David, called HETERONYMIC, at Hallwalls in Buffalo. Cathy Howe, the director was one of my few supporters, and a year later she asked me to curate another show. This time I decided to organize it solely based on friendship. Like PAYOLA, the common denominator was something other than my subjective eye involving artwork. If there was a person whom I considered a friend and they in turn considered themselves an artist, I invited them to participate. I called the show NEPOTISM.
Unlike any other group show I'd ever heard of I paid the artists. I even paid Gary Okie 50 bucks to use his name and head shot, and I did the work. Cathy scored a grant for the show and printed up a catalog. Izzy and Chuck wrote essays and every artist had a picture of themselves in the catalog. Then Cathy invited me to do a church and a Purple Geezus show in Buffalo. Once again the caravan of 70's gas guzzlers left Manhattan for the hinterlands. Today, with the internet, everyone looks the same. Kids get off the bus from Bugfuck, Ohio looking the same as the Brooklyn hipster with a bad junk habit. Back then the Lower East Side musician or artist looked marketly different from the rubes of Buffalo. "Look Ma! MTV people!"
Cathy put us all up at a funky hotel with a bar in the basement. Although i'd included both Shewho and BB in the show, i didn't invite either on the trip. I needed to administer to my flock and could use a break from my mess of a love life. I hung the show and we did the PG gig to a less than enthusiastic crowd. What plays in NY should sometimes stay in NY. The band went looking to score and it being Buffalo and June 1st, it started to snow. By the time the church service was scheduled there was six inches on the ground. The intrepid heroin searchers got lost and ended up at Niagra Falls along with Chuck and all the church programs. The whole thing was a complete disaster. I think four people showed up for church.
Big Nose Julie was from Buffalo and had showed up for the HETERONYMIC opening, ruining that one for me. This time a stranger came up to me and introduced himself. "Don't you remember me?" he asked. I admited I did not. " I was Julie's roommate in SF." This was Julie #1's roommate. He's the one who told me she was now a district attorney in Northern California. There must be some vortex created by the falls that sucks the Julies (or their emissaries) into Buffalo. I kept looking over my shoulder to see if Cookie was going to show up. I called BB and told her I loved her. I called Shewo and told her I loved her. Then I went back to the hotel, watched the band shoot up, packed up the trucks and cars and we all returned to Manhattan. That was the last time I was in Buffalo.

PS- Everyone was pleasantly surprised over Gary Okie's cool little paintings. I had another psuedonym.