Always do whatever's next.
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
Why do they put Braille on the drive-through bank machines?
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
At a formal dinner party, the person nearest death should always be seated closest to the bathroom.
Get on the plane. Get on the plane. I say, "Fuck you, I'm getting IN the plane! IN the plane! Let Evil Knievel get ON the plane! I'll be in here with you folks in uniform! There seems to be less wind in here!”
Here’s a bumper sticker I’d like to see: “We are the proud parents of a child who’s self-esteem is sufficient that he doesn't need us promoting his minor scholastic achievements on the back of our car.”
I'm always relieved when someone is delivering a eulogy and I realize I'm listening to it.
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.
Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
Dusting is a good example of the futility of trying to put things right. As soon as you dust, the fact of your next dusting has already been established.
If God had intended us not to masturbate he would've made our arms shorter.
Whose cruel idea was it for the word "lisp" to have a "S" in it?
Electricity is really just organized lightning.
I woke up the other day and the first piece of news on television was “Last Tuesday marks Mickey Mouse's 78th birthday.” That's not news! You know what I say? Fuck Mickey Mouse! Fuck Mickey Mouse up the ass! Fuck Mickey Mouse up the ass with a big rubber dick!
What year did Jesus think it was?
Muhammad Ali, whose job is beating people up, didn’t want to go overseas and kill people. And the government said, "If you’re not going to kill them, we’re not going to let you beat them up."
If the police arrest a mime, do they tell him he has the right to remain silent?
There's nothing funny about rape.....unless you're raping a clown.
Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.
We have to declare war on everything. We have the war on crime, the war on poverty, the war on litter, the war on cancer, the war on drugs. But did you ever notice, we got no war on homelessness? You know why? There's no money in that problem! No money to be made off of the homeless. If you could find a solution to homelessness where the corporate swine and the politicians could steal a couple of million dollars each, you'd see the streets of America begin to clear up pretty goddamned quick, I'll guarantee you that!
Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.
If a man is standing in the middle of the forest speaking and there is no woman around to hear him... is he still wrong?
If a deaf person swears, does his mother wash his hands with soap?
The real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse: You cannot post “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” and “Thou shalt not lie” in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.
It's never just a game when you're winning.
I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.
...the baby boomers: whiny, narcissistic, self-indulgent people whose simple philosophy is 'GIMME THAT! IT'S MINE!'...these people were given everything, everything was handed to them, and they took it all, sold it all; sex, drugs, and rock and roll and they stayed loaded for 20 yrs and had a free ride, but now they're staring down the barrel of the burnout, and they don't like it, they don't like it so they've become self-righteous, and they wanna make things hard for young people, they tell em abstain from sex, say no to drugs, as for Rock and Roll they sold that for television commercials a long time ago, so they buy "pasta machines," and "stair masters," and "soy bean futures." You know something? They're cold, bloodless people. It's in their slogan: "no pain, no gain," "just do it," "play it hard," "shit happens, deal with it," "get a life!." These people went from "do your own thing!" to "just say no!" They went from '"love is all you need" to "whoever has the most toys, wins!" And they went from cocaine to rogaine and you know something, they're still counting grams, only now it's fat grams! And the worst of it is we have to watch the commercials on tv for Levis loose-fitting jeans and fat ass Docker pants because these degenerate, yuppie, boomer cocksuckers couldn't keep their hands off the croissants and the Haägen Dasz and their big fat asses have spread all over and they have to wear fat ass Docker pants. Fuck these yuppies, and fuck everybody now that I think of it.
If the "black box" flight recorder is never damaged during a plane crash, why isn't the whole airplane made out of that stuff?
Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?
I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.
I recently went to a new doctor and noticed he was located in something called the Professional Building. I felt better right away.
I think it would be interesting if old people got anti-Alzheimer's disease where they slowly began to recover other people's lost memories.
I think people should be allowed to do anything they want. We haven't tried that for a while. Maybe this time it'll work.
I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood.
If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.
Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.
— all quotes George Carlin
Election Season Gut Check
So why are there no Barack Obama bobblehead dolls for sale at the airport gift shop in Washington, DC? When I asked, I was told, "We're getting more Tuesday!" They just can't keep the Bobblin' O-Man in stock. I fistbumped the salesgirl and bought a bumper sticker instead. Plenty of Cranky McGillicutty, though!
What do great Canadian artists do in the summer?
Dai Skuse of FASTWÜRMS demonstrates...
currently on view at Hallwalls
SEIZED
Critical Art Ensemble
& the Institute for Applied Autonomy
exhibition continues thru July 18
Check out Amy Goodman's interview with Steve Kurtz on Democracy Now.
Check out Lucy Yau's piece in Artvoice
Check out Bruce Sterling's piece in WIRED
Check out Bruce Adams' article in Buffalo Spree
Check out Colin Dabkowski's review in the Buff News
"A spokesman for the FBI said he could not comment on the specifics of the raid on Kurtz's house but emphasized that 'it's not our general practice to leave a mess in the house like that.'"
ABC News
Critical Art Ensemble
CAE Defense Fund
Institute of Applied Autonomy
and on July 26...
Karma Cab Boa
Hallwalls 2008 Members Exhibition
Exhibition opens Saturday, July 26, 8—11pm
Exhibition continues through Saturday, August 30.
It’s an anagram for “Barack Obama.” Which doesn’t mean the title requires a politically-themed submission or a portrait of the O-Man, though both are welcome. As always, you can ignore the theme. (But you must be a dues-paying Hallwalls member to participate—this you cannot ignore.) You might consider whether or not we are about to turn and face the ch-ch-changes. Is it karma, a generational shift, the beginning of a new direction for the pendulum? Is he a snake, spewing snake oil, a new boss the same as the old boss? And what of the cab? Is our meter running? Are we stuck in traffic? Or does the driver know the shortcuts?
DROP OFF DATES:
SAT JULY 19 12 noon to 4 pm
MON-WED JULY 21-23 11 am TO 5 pm
PICK-UP DATES:
MON to WED, SEPT 2, 3, 4 from 11 am to 5 pm
WORK SPECIFICATIONS: The theme specified above is, as always, OPTIONAL.
ONE work per member—if you have small work, more than one is possible, but you MUST phone ahead to confirm.
Maximum size 48" x 48" —larger works are possible, but you MUST phone ahead to confirm.Video works are welcome, but you MUST phone ahead and inform us.
You MUST be a Hallwalls member to submit a work for the show.
You can join/renew when you drop off the work, OR You can join/renew on line: Hallwalls Membership
(Current members of the Rochester Contemporary are also allowed to submit work for the exhibition. You must show your RoCo membership when dropping work off.)
Any further questions, please contact John Massier, Visual Arts Curator at john@hallwalls.org
Opening Elsewhere
• Dianne Baker at Kouros Gallery (NYC) opening Aug 6 (thru Aug 29)
• Michael Lovullo, James Angelo, JC Delettrez, Gene Witkowski, Steven Myers, J. Tim Raymond, Chris McGee, Jonathan Rogers, Mike Martell, Tim Stinson, Elvis Snache at Gateway Gallery opening Fri, June 27, 7-10pm (thru July 12)
• Writing With Light at CEPA opening Sat, June 28, 8-11pm (thru Aug 27)
• Buffalo Flickr Photographers at Betty's opening Mon, June 30, 6-9pm (thru Sept 7)
• Robert J. Witzel conversing at Grant St Gallery, Sat, June 28, noon to 4pm
When there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire...
Writing With Light @ CEPA
opening Sat, June 28, 8—11pm
CEPA Gallery
Gordon Ballard says buy a ticket or he'll shoot AJ Fries
Continuing Elsewhere
• Geoffrey Alan Rhodes at Big Orbit thru June 28 Artvoice Yau
• Michael Veit at the Castellani thru Sept 14
• Kara Daving at the Toronto Zoo (thru June 22) and at the Niagara Aquarium (thru Aug)
• Katie Sehr at the Center for Inquiry thru July
• Richard Huntington at the Albright Knox Collectors Gallery thru
• Lukia Costello at Artsphere thru July 5
• Tom Holt at Gallery 164 thru July 13
• RJW at the Grant St Gallery (216 Grant) thru June 29)
• Kristina and Cindy Wentzell at redFish thru July 23
• Buffalo Society of Artists Annual Spring Exhibition at Insite thru July 26
• Patrick Robideau at SPACES (Cleveland) thru July 6
• Dianne Baker at the 51st Chautaqua National thru July 15
• Dianne Baker at Galleryh @ Artpark thru Aug 22
• SKINNED at Allen St. Hardware thru July 17
• Chris McGee at Gateway on Elmwood thru early July
• Julian Montague at Black&White Gallery, NY thru July 12
• Jennifer Steinka at the Albright thru June 29
• Catherine Parker at Charles Burchfield Nature & Art Center thru June 29
• Lawrence Badgery at Kenan Center thru June 29
• Impact Artists Gallery Annual Members Exhibition thru June 20
• Julian Montague at Socrates Sculpture Park thru Aug 3
• Will West at El Museo thru August 31
• Shadi Nazarian at UB Art Gallery re-opens to the public July 1—July 25
• Diane Baker at The Mansion on Delaware (indefinitely)
Spalted: "(of wood) containing blackish irregular lines as a result of fungal decay, and sometimes used to produce a decorative surface"
"Lawrence Kinney received the Grand Prize at the June 3, 2008 opening of the first annual Edges Outdoor Sculpture Competition, sponsored by Artpark, for his sculpture, Spalted Device. The competition was juried by Robert L. Wood, Professor of Design, and Head of the Ceramics Program at Buffalo State College. The exhibit, which features the sculptures of eight finalists, will continue through September 15, 2008. Kinney's sculpture is located adjacent to Artpark's Art Gallery near the venue's Mainstage Theater entrance."
Buffalo News
Galleries Off The Beaten Path
Artvoice Lucy Yau
Infringement Festival Auditions
Directors seeking actors and performers of many different types and ages for the upcoming Buffalo Infringement Festival. The open audition will be held Sunday, June 29 from 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm at the Alt Theatre, 255 Great Arrow Ave. This is in North Buffalo, between Delaware Ave and Elmwood in the old Pierce Arrow building, facing Great Arrow, NOT the building that faces Elmwood. Please bring a resume and head shot (if available, but come anyway even if you don't have one!) and be prepared to do cold readings. A very short monologue (less than 3 minutes) may be requested by some of the directors. For more information, you may contact Virginia Brannon at 716-228-1403
Buffalo Infringement Festival
EXIT ART Call For Submissions
DEADLINE July 11
EXIT ART
We Gon Pass A Good Time Yeah Cher
We were talking about our recent trip to New Orleans for a convening of non-profits funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and Ed said, "It was like a Fellini movie!" And parts of it were. Picture this...
Our second last night. We've been in different meetings and seminars all day, hashing out different organizational issues in a time frame too tight to do more than scratch the surface and at least reaffirm that we all shared the same non-profit woes and non-profit dreams. We've had our box lunches of sandwiches and apples and anytime we venture outdoors, it's a soupy swim through the Big Easy's uniquely moist version of humidity. Then we have maybe an hour before we're loaded onto buses and taken to the Ashe Cultural Center for a performance by Mardi Gras Indians. Appetizers, alcohol, and lots of raucous music, not to mention the surplus of feathered costumes.
A few of us took a break from the action and wandered down the block to visit Zeitgeist, a media arts screening room run by former Hallwalls' video curator Rene Broussard:
Eventually, it's back on the buses. The itinerary read "Dinner at Mardi Gras World featuring the Hot 8 Brass Band." I couldn't have been the only one expecting merely a great New Orleans restaurant and hot jazz band. The buses leave the city and get on a bridge, crossing the Mississippi into Algiers county, where we turn off the road and travel down into that strange space beneath massive bridges, which lends an especially desultory tone to neighborhoods, like living under hydro electric towers. The buses pull up to a big warehouse.
You remember the Simpsons' episode where Itchy & Scratchy Land is described as the "happiest place on earth"? Well, I've been to the happiest place on earth and it's not Itchy & Scratchy Land. Mardris Gras World, duh, is where they store many of the floats and pieces of floats used in the annual parade, as well as manufacturing—carving from styrofoam—new ones. There was a palpable delight among our throng of 160 hard-bitten arts professionals as we wandered into our summer wonderland. Leave that anti-anxiety medication at the door because nothing will cure what ails ya faster than hundreds of chunks of parade floats. I don't even like parades that much, but the splayed guts of a parade—that's entertainment!
As I walked into the wide concourse—where a fully loaded bar and individually-manned food stations awaited us—Ed came up to me and his first words were, "This is where we should have Artists & Models!"
I'm still coming to grips with my new camera, so these images are completely inadequate documents of the place. As an adult, you concede to the fact that those kid-in-a-candy-store moments are probably mostly behind you, but this place really generated that gaping, eyes-widening pleasure in everyone. The Foundation put us up in a really nice hotel with awesome beds and really satisfying showers, but I could have spent the whole week at Mardi Gras World. Had we been commiserating amid all that frivolity the whole time, we might have solved all our funding woes, banished all our physical ailments, ruled the world. There was food and drink a-plenty, but the atmosphere fairly banished hunger and thirst.
It was in this delirious environment that I heard one of the more delirious notions for the future of arts funding in America. I was sitting at a table across from a jovial man with glasses who was sitting with Pamela Clapp of the Warhol Foundation. I introduced myself and since he didn't have his name tag on I asked, "And which organization are you from?"
He smiled. "I'm Joel Wachs, President of the Warhol Foundation."
After I finished that nyaaghhh sound while pulling at my collar and distending my jaw, we got into a conversation and Joel said a number of interesting things. He remarked on the $200 million dollars that the Foundation had managed to give away in 20 years and said, "You know, Andy left everything to the Foundation, but he wasn't exactly rich when he died. It's been the growing market value of his work that has made it all possible."
Then he explained to me, as he would to the group at large the next day, that the Foundation had been approached by several artists who were interested in doing something akin to what Warhol accomplished, with a major endowment once they passed away. Joel noted that there are many, many artists who have enjoyed unparalleled financial success—beyond, he said, anything they might have ever hoped for—and that many of them were interested in giving some of that back. He spoke with great optimism that artists' endowments would eventually surpass government and establish itself as the major funding source for the non-profit arts in the United States.
It was a heady enough idea that I was glad I was sitting down. The free market can't take care of the poor or infirmed or elderly, but it may, perversely enough, save non-profit realm cultural organizations. Maybe I won't have to go to bartending school after all. It was like someone pulled me into some fantastic fantasy world that was already pretty spectacular and then said, "Just in case you're not having enough fun, here's a shot of pure heroin." I had to get up and wander around a little more.
Are you still with me? Because we haven't even got to the Fellini part yet.
Okay, imagine another day of meetings, seminars, and such. Another box lunch. More coffee and water. More humidity. Then at 5pm, those of us who signed up were bussed out to the Saint Claude Arts District and short visits to a number of smaller and start-up galleries. After which we're starting to get hungry and tired. But first it's off to The Porch, a community arts space run by artist Willie Birch, who my predecessor Sara Kellner brought to Hallwalls in 1994.
We had spoken word performances by Saddi Khali, Asali DeVan, and the utterly amazing Kalamu ya Salaam, a dance number, then a performance by The Stooges Brass Band. Earlier in the day, as the evening's activities were described and the musical act referred to as "The Stooges Band," a young curator from Washington stood up and asked, "Uh...you mean THE Stooges...?" Had they been there, Iggy and company might have had a tough time elbowing their New Orleans breathren out of the way as they eventually, you guessed it, left the stage and hit the street.
For at least the next half hour, a mob of roughly three hundred (our group plus many local arts folks) followed the band through the dark, the humidity, and the streets of the 9th Ward, much of which makes the east side of Buffalo look like some bucolic suburban paradise. All we really knew was that they were leading us to dinner, which had been explained to us would be on the street somewhere. I presumed it would be a cool summer block party with cajun barbecue. But we're not quite there yet. And we're still not up to the Fellini part.
As we staggered behind the band, who stopped in the middle of pretty much every intersection they crossed just to recalibrate their groove, people from the neighborhood just joined the fray. Kids howled and danced on the tops of cars. At one point, dozens and dozens and dozens of residents came swarming up from the right, pouring out of the darkness, and while it never seemed dangerous—quite the opposite—a thought did cross my mind, which the girl beside me articulated out loud: "How are they going to keep everyone out of the dinner? I hope they have enough food."
After many, many, many blocks, the band stopped and just left. They walked back from the direction they came. We had been ferried to our destination. The swarms who had joined us faded back into the night and their homes. It was pretty clear that this kind of shit happens all the time. People get into the moment, ferociously, going with the flow, until the flow subsides and it's time for something cold and a long sit on the front steps. There'll be more flow soon enough.
We passed by the one police car in the street and the couple of languid cops standing around. Oh, by the way, New Orleans cops are nothing if not languid. Here's a couple from the previous evening:
Once inside the dinner zone, we found one bathroom, one guy pouring wine, absinthe bar, a number of crazy installations in abandoned buildings—one of the few buildings occupied was the Kirsha Kaechele Projects, which hosted the dinner event—and the biggest banquet table any of us had ever seen. It was pretty much the length of the entire street. I was sitting more or less halfway and here's what it looked like to my left:
And here's what it looked like to my right:
Enter Fellini.
Gigantic folded menus were propped on each plate and for a moment the horrified notion entered my mind that we might be ordering off menus. Insanity. How could this be accomplished? Was there an army of oopah loompahs lurking in the dark, all wearing white waiter smocks? No, the cards—which couldn't be read in the beautiful dim—were essentially catalogues describing the multi-course New Orleans meal that was about to reign upon us. It began with spicy soup covered by saran wrap, upon which sat a wee crawfish. I was going to bring my critter back to work for Polly as crawfish was the only thing she requested but some gal near us pretty much gobbled up all the crawfish within her reach.
The menu is two feet square and I'm not motivated to scan the whole thing, but here are the headings of the various courses we were served:
AT THE CROSSROADS
CHOOSE LOVE
IN PASSAGE AND MEETING
US AND OTHER DISSOLVES
NOW BECOMES CREOLE
THE TRANSFORMATION
BY THE POPCORN GOD
INTO PURITY
LIKE AND AWESOME FIREWORK
A COMBUSTION TRULY RADIANT, SURRENDER TRULY DIVINE
Among my dinner companions were Claire Breukel of Locust Projects in Miami and Ben Haywood of The Soap Factory in Minneapolis. Ben remarked that he was pretty well satisfied after Mardis Gras World and this, while extraordinary, was almost unnecessary. There was a lavish decadence about it—either like a Fellini movie or the court of Louis XIV—but it was tempered by the dark, struggling surroundings and the knowledge we all had that no matter how much the Foundation had shelled our for grub and festivities, they had likely contributed an equal amount to all the communities and arts centers that hosted portions of our convening. The whole point of coming to New Orleans this year was that the Warhol Foundation wanted to spend lots of money where it was needed, showcase the local scene and allow it to shower us with its generosity, and give us hard-working art swells a night to remember.
Ask Ed to describe his post-dinner evening and weird encounter with army dudes dressed in camouflage gear. I can't do it justice. The next morning, I was up after three hours of sleep and waiting on the sidewalk by the airport shuttle bus when Ed walked out dragging his suitcase and a thousand yard stare.
"I got in at 5:30...I can't believe I woke up!"
When we asked how he felt, he said, "Well, I'm not hungover yet. I'm still drunk."
It was humid and tiring and less than a week later I miss it already. Oh, I also fed my assassination buffness and found the building in which former FBI agent and right wing fanatic Guy Bannister had an office in 1963, the address of which once appeared on leaflets handed out by Lee Harvey Oswald on Canal Street:
I Love NY Film Competition
I Love NY Film Competition
Your Guide To Aggressive Common Sense
We're winding down our way through the alphabet and some definitions extracted from The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense by John Ralston Saul. We're up to the letter V...
VISION
A state of honesty which is often misrepresented as a divine purpose.
At the end of Euripides' The Bacchae, Agavé holds the dripping, lacerated head of her son, whom she has herself killed and ripped to pieces while caught up in a vision. Her father, Cadmus, says, "And whose head is that you are holding in your arms?"
Agavé: A lion's—so the women said who hunted it.
Cadmus: Then look straight at it. Come, to look is no great task.
Agavé looks; and suddenly screams.
Agavé: What am I looking at? What is this?
Cadmus: Look at it steadily; come closer to the truth.
Agavé: I see—O gods, what horror! Oh, what misery!
Visions of redemption or infinite wealth or superior destinies for a particular racial group are among the thousands of false vision in whose face we fear to look, and so believe that we are hunting lions.
Yet Shiva Naipaul has quite rightly pointed out that "a people without vision must inevitably perish." People who are panicked by the temporary nature of their own lives, insist that vision involves subservience to structure. They reassure themselves by believing that humans can have no purpose unless it is grand enough to make the individual a servant of some rational or universal system. IN such a case, a flawed methodology such as the marketplace or centralized management of free trade—each of these can be useful if treated as a practical method and balanced with others—is happily mistaken for a vision.
But an honest vision is a matter of seeing; a best of seeing ourselves. When we cannot, we slip into a life of pretense where our existence is dependent on those who can see on our behalf. These religious or political or economic visionaries encourage us to wallow in comforts which we shall know only by reflection and promise.
To see is to come to terms with ourselves. For a community or a nation, an honest vision is a shared internal agreement on the nature of the relationship between the individuals. Although this is a practical rather than an abstract relationship, it is not principally one of self-interest or of contract. It is a matter of seeing the shared interest.
No One Here Gets Out Alive
Do you ever notice how the weather often seems spectacular during the worst moments? JFK was gunned down in the bright, brilliant sun of a November Indian summer. 9/11 was a clear and gorgeous fall day. The December day 25 years ago when I learned that a high school classmate couldn't resolve her anxieties and touched the third rail of a subway track was cold and brilliantly alive. And the last few days of June 2008 have been pretty delightful. But Bo Diddley, Tim Russert, and now George Carlin—if there's some karmic joke at work (and there always is), I don't find it remotely funny. In those three individuals alone, gigantic monsters of cultural significance have been stopped in their tracks. And they all deserved—and earned—much more than that. Cruel fate indeed.
Is there consolation attached to this? Let's try because I'm not sure how to talk about the death of George Carlin, the grandest "old fuck" (his words) of our time without pulling back to the Big Picture. If I stay in the present, it's just monumentally depressing that Carlin did not make it to at least his mid 90s. It's not like he was sitting in a wheelchair in a nursing home dribbling over his bathrobe and ogling nurses. (Okay, I don't know what George did in his spare time, so don't quote me on that.) Carlin was clearly aging, but the man was magnificently plying his trade and burning a beautiful swath through his autumn years. Go to YouTube and watch segments from any of his recent HBO specials and you'll see a senior artist still on his game, still incisive and cranky and brilliant. And funny.
Last year, I was listening to the audio book of Carlin's Napalm and Silly Putty, read by the author, and I was pleased at how often I was laughing out loud. And LOL is a good gauge because when you do that, it's not merely because someone was smarmy, mocking or clever, but because they lobbed you an entirely unanticipated grenade. The artist is the one who dismantles you with what you didn't see coming. Carlin did that so often it's really a staggering achievement, that sublime facility with language and its implications. The sharp turn of phrase; the utterly obvious perpetually revealed in its asburdity; the skill of knowing what inflection or vocal timber will deliver the line. NOt to mention impeccable timing, the detail that defines great comedy.
I have no doubt that George Carlin will be remembered as one of the most brilliant social satirists Western culture ever produced. Up there with Aristophanes and Chaucer and Swift and Twain and Bruce and Pryor. I will be relistening and rewatching Carlin for the rest of my life. It was an astounding body of work that he amassed in a field in which it's remarkably easy to suck, to fail, to fall away into pathetic obscurity, to be just another schmuck standing in front of a brick wall on a lousy cable comedy hour. He had no backup band, no instruments, no costumes, no sidekick, no pratfalls—nothing but himself and his words. To take those barest (but greatest) instruments and be so good for so long....I don't even know how to quantify or measure such an achievement.
He was a gallant, fearless knight in the struggle against bullshit and hypocrisy. It's worth remembering that in Shakespeare's King Lear, it was The Fool—the class clown—who uttered the deepest profundities.
"He worked over an idea like a diamond cutter with facets and angles and refractions of light. He made you sorry you ever thought you wanted to be a comedian. He was like a train hobo with a chicken bone. When he was done there was nothing left for anybody."
NY Times Jerry Seinfeld
NY Times obit
June is turning into the cruelest month
"Jamie Lembeck, a loyal friend of Hallwalls (and many of us personally), and devotee of the arts (especially music) and man about town known to (and loved by) most everyone in the art and music scene of Buffalo, died at home overnight, June 24–25, 2008. As was his wish, he had just been released from the hospital earlier, where he had been treated for newly developing respiratory problems and had contracted a serious infection, both complications of the prolonged paralysis that required him to use a wheelchair for most of his adult life, but which never kept him from getting around or attending more concerts and other art events than just about any non-wheelchair-using person you could name. You never thought of Jamie as being "wheelchair bound"; his wheelchair was his means of mobility, and he was always on the cutting edge of technologies for independent living.
"He passed away peacefully in his home in the former firehouse at 1416 Main Street, which he had designed and built as a model of independent living, with both close friends and hospice caregivers present, though he had been expected to last longer than the few hours he had left there.
"Although many of our current Board members might not know Jamie, Jamie served on Hallwalls' Board of Directors for a full decade, from January 1996 through January 2006, until the institution of term limits that year (coinciding with our opening in The Church, as it was then called), but he was a long-time supporter before that, and remained a loyal supporter to the end. He advised our architects (both Hallwalls' and the entire Church project's) on accessibility, as he had done on so many projects in Buffalo, and one of his legacies is certainly the exemplary accessibility of Babeville, which he took advantage of as long as he could.
"The last Hallwalls event I know he attended was the full-to-capacity Eyes & Ears: Sound Needs Image Part II, on April 5, 2008. He had wanted to attend Artists & Models at the end of last month, but, not feeling up to it, he sent his regrets—along with a donation—with a friend."
— Ed Cardoni, Hallwalls Executive Director
Something I listened to this week...
With humidity and wonder on one side and death on the other, I needed something solid and smooth to reorient the soul. Doesn't the badass album cover—and equally badass fro—just make you want to listen to it? A brilliant—and brilliantly titled—album of 1970 soul funk from the drummer who became most famous for playing with JImi Hendrix in Band of Gypsies. Miles was a superb musician and he surrounds himself with superb musicians on this album. He writes a fews songs, but also covers tracks by Otis Redding, Rufus Thomas, Greg Allman, and Neil Young. The added bonus is that Miles could also sing. In fact, he's a good enough singer that he could have been just that. I really enjoyed it. Highly recommended.
There's no present. There's only the immediate future and the recent past.
Not only do I not know what's going on, I wouldn't know what to do about it if I did.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.
— all quotes George Carlin
