Peripherus Max: Another Blogspot of Overcaffeinated Ennui

There is a kind of amnesia that grips my mind during protracted illness. Gargling with warm salt water, I find that I’ve forgotten the sensation of speaking without coughs bookending phrases. Losing my sense of smell, I strangely empathize with gravel underfoot - the sound of it, the need to compare pain with Nature, to find acid-trip kinship in inanimate objects.  Ambling through neighborhoods of displaced Central American immigrants, I think FOX News thoughts of infectious H1N1 particulates entering a mouth forced open by nasal congestion.

The subway is a mutant incubator, and my barking cough gives way to voicelessness, to pink rawness primed and ready to sponge away stray splatters from a melting pot set to boil.

An icy Jager shot. If only…

The cruelty of strangers, however motivated, always comes as a surprise and rarely draws an appropriate response. Give yourself a break when dealing with these people. Sidestep and forget; and save one lesson learned from half-lives half-lived: never close your heart. No matter how cruel the world may be, it is more important to find love in life than to die safe, recoiled, like a shade sick plant grown into itself.

Is this what Christ meant? I hope so. Goodnight New York.

I want to build a full-size house within a giant room inside the top of a skyscraper. I want to be able to control the daylight and the moon and stars on the walls and ceiling through carefully hidden LCD projectors. I want a small garden behind the house, a doorbell, a tube television made of varnished cheery that sits on the carpet of the living room floor, walls made of artist’s books, original art, 12" singles, and the mixtapes of friends. I want to buy the two floors beneath me so that I can dance hard and press the "Bass Boost" button on my stereo at 3 A.M. I want a job outside the service industry in a magical office peopled by genteel, well-traveled Southern women who reminisce about free love and the late 1960's. I want to manage a vast trust ensuring that all of the dreams of my friends will come true. I want to throw an intimate party in a different international city every Sunday night. I want to send surprise Saturday night airline tickets to a circle of intimates, perfume them with coffee and handwritten reminders that life is short. I want to open my heart, be invisible, have a family again, know more children, read the Bible, dig a hole in my hometown and speak a sermon into the Earth. I want a ring cast from the first metal that I excavate placed on Alton’s finger and inscribed on the inside with a phrase that only he will ever see. I want our marriage ceremony conducted without an audience and behind a waterfall. And, I want to leave behind a good story, something worthy of fairy whispers.

So Pigxote’s up for one more week! If you weren’t there, last month’s opening was a sardine packer. Check out this video shot by Kentucky-based artist Robert Spees that best captures the chronology of the evening. (p.s. Watch for the nun. A real nun showed up! Seriously. Everyone thought that she was part of the exhibition because of the skydiving scene from Mister Lonely. Turns out, she's a Watkins art student!) "Devils and Babies" is the working title of Harmony’s new zine (the one that I mentioned earlier), and we ended up partnering with Nieves to publish it. 11 pages, single run of 150. It contains new drawings paired with previously unseen texts salvaged from one of Harmony’s house fires.

Just got word that Phiiliip’s flying in to DJ the Pigxote opening, R. Stevie Moore name-dropped my sis in this month’s Vice, Grant’s new Polaroids are in a show at Fold Gallery (London) this weekend, AA Bronson says that I can partner with Printed Matter to produce a new zine for Harmony in ‘09, and my pitch to reunite Sweet Thunder in Brooklyn is a-go! Kelly’s coming to Nashville next month to silkscreen artwork for 100 copies of a 7” record that we’re pressing to sell at the gig. Gavin Russom is mixing “The Museum” for the A-side, and Phiiliip will be remixing “Sweet Thunder Medley” on the B. For the last two weeks, I’ve been brainstorming a series of solo performances leading up to the big reunion finale, a la 1998’s famous Astor Place Starbucks gig. Here’s the scoop… Andrew W.K. wants to reprise his famous instrumental keyboard solo, Gavin wants to debut a gorgeous existential ballad called “Lady Lazarus,” Casey wants to perform a track from his unreleased solo record (possibly “Faye Dunaway,” my vote - a total rocker), Ford Wright is onboard with International Fiction, Lizzy Yoder, Angela DeCarlo, Alex Eiserloh, Peter Redgrave, Heather Romney, EVERYONE from ’98-‘99 is down, maybe even Monotrona if she doesn’t move to Poland! The date’s April 11, 2009, pending an alignment of schedules.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, listen to Fakeways: Manhattan Folk, a pre-podcast documentary of fin-de-siècle underground New York by Momus. It’s a Rosetta Stone of sorts, describing a folk village-style utopia that existed in Williamsburg just prior to influx of million-dollar condos and hedge funds. Speaking of Nick, I just picked up the new Joemus today at Grimey’s! Get it. Joe Howe is a genius. I don’t know what methods were employed, but I vote for a new triptych of collaborative albums between Momus and Mr. Howe to match the “Stories of O” series with John Talaga.

FYI: Jules’s retrospective is up for two more weeks… the Gallery’s closed for Thanksgiving break, but ring my cell. I’m in the dungeon downstairs and can let you in.

When I lived in Athens, I used to know a woman who’d take smoke breaks outside of a strip mall fitness center, in between sets, with her sister. Once, I overheard her singing “Scar Tissue” by RHCP, earnestly, with conviction. She's a couple of years younger than me, I think. Ten years ago, I used to work with her at my father’s restaurant. She’d relay orders from two takeout windows, help me pound up meat, wrap sandwiches and sack. One of these windows faced a trailer park where I grew up. One evening just before closing, she stared down a carload of skinheads who'd screeched to a stop outside. They lived in a double-wide in the back of the court and had been racing past our walk-up, raising rebel flag hell all day. They decided to shoot her a bird after some quick taunting. And without missing a beat, her response bird flew out the window. Simultaneously, in one gesture with her other hand, she lifted her blouse and bra, flashed them full titty and mouthed “fuck you,” snapping her head forward three times to emphasize the end of each word and an exclamation point. We never saw them again after that. Those were good, bright days. She used to brag about how she ran away from home when she was 12 but didn’t have to sell her body, and that her toddler was “hung like a mule.”

I don’t know if she knows it, but she’ll always be a hero of mine. Whatever happens.

The essay for Jules’s show is done. And, pending the safe shipment of around 14 paintings and 2 sculptures from New York and Rome (insured out the wazoo), I will again be able to re-enter life, hopefully without peptic ulcer. The roundtable that Klaus B. organized at MOMA last month was amazing. Met Joan Jonas, Sue De Beer, Charles Atlas, some cool curators whose names got lost in Drambue. Paul Chan spoke about his staging of “Waiting For Godot” in post-Katrina 9^th Ward NOLA, and left me speechless. He reminded me of my friend Eddie from grad school – a ‘speaks in parsed paragraphs’ type, charily cool. (I don’t know if Paul would be up for going out in drag and crashing a night of Korean karaoke with me though. That's another story.) Got to hang with Marina Abramovic in a studio off Avenue B as she laid down some spooky Slavic spoken word for Casey’s solo record. The track’s called “Spirit Cooking,” and I video’d a ton of footage with a cell phone cam that’s going to be upped to the FS site at some point. I still can't believe it but I managed to work out a book deal with Nieves for Harmony’s Pigxote show in January. It’s going to be a limited edition artist’s book sold through the gallery and various specialty shoppes worldwide (i.e. Printed Matter, Colette, Spoonbill, etc.). On Thursday, Harmony called and tried to convince me that he was Paul McCarthy and that he wanted to do an “underground” exhibition in our basement. I didn't fall for it, although he’s punk’d me three times before. Earlier this year, he called and totally sold me that he was Leonardo DiCaprio: "Joseph?" "Yeah." "Yeah, Joe! Leo DiCaprio. Harm and Rach invited me down for a few days, Listen, I heard about the show you’re organizing man, can I get a brief tour or something? We’re driving down West End right now I think.” Sounded exactly like him. At the Polaroid opening, Harmony pokerfaced that a homeless man was taking a shit in our stairwell. I bought it. (Actually, it isn’t so implausible.) Third strike was when he invited me over to his house through his assistant. I get there, I’m standing on the porch, no one’s answering the doorbell or knocks, so I call him. “Hey what’s up?” “Hey, it’s me. I’m on your porch.” “You’re at my house?” “Yeah.” “Oh man, fuck! Scott was supposed to tell you next Friday.” “Oh no. Really?” “Yeah. (sigh.) Damn it, I’m really sorry. I'm not even in town.” “Oh well… okay. I…” “(interrupting) Hey! Don’t move. Can I put you on hold for a minute? I have another call.” “O-okay.” Five seconds later, door opens, there’s Harmony, pointing finger and laughing. One day I’m going to write about the motherload of contemporary art that he’s acquired/acquiring though art trades. Pettibon drawings from the late 70’s, works by Cameron Jamie, Martin Kippenberger, Christopher Wool, Leigh Ledare, Mark Gonzales, Rita Ackerman, collabs w/ Rita Ackerman that have never been seen, an unreleased suite of Larry Clark photographs depicting native American teens tweaking out on speed in the Midwest, seriously poignant and tragic… so much! The whole inside of his house is this constantly unfolding readymade museum survey of taboo and transgression. I really, really want to curate a show with it.

The last time that I was in Chelsea, I ran into artist-provocateur Mark Kostabi on the street. I’d remembered seeing him on 60 Minutes and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous as a teenager, and we struck up a conversation about the heady East Village art boom that led to him inviting me up for a whirlwind tour of Kostabi World. It was brilliant! He's asked me to come back to be on a future episode of Title This, a game show where art critics and celebrities compete to title his paintings for cash awards. And as you’ll see here, he showed me how to properly drop my name amongst his army of assistants. We talked for about an hour, as I eavesdropped on goings-on. Before I left, he generously offered to play me his interpretation of Ornette Coleman’s Lonely Woman, which was delicate and well-placed in the middle of one of the most hectic business days of my life. Behold, the highlight reel.