002 so, who's kidding who?
what sort of bullshit is this?
what does this mean to me?so, where were we?
somewhere in salem oregon. though we flip ahead to the present where a couple of his friends from these old days who he is still in touch with are reading this as he writes and posts it. they remind him of things he missed. the rat's tooth haven guy, mark - who is now an accountant/poet - wants more acid stories. what was it like? how did it feel? "try writing about a particular trip from beginning to end include physical symptoms, hallucinations, and supernatural occurrences" it was like nothing else. it felt like nothing else. it feels like god in a frying pan. do it and try it for oneself. though he doesn't know where one might get acid these days. it may have fallen out of favor. maybe at a rave - if they have raves anymore. mushrooms are just as good though, and in some ways better. acid has an edge to it. mushrooms are smoother. but acid gets you in touch with the modern world. mushrooms are more a nature drug. but both are like any drug or experience. usually it's too much information. who can remember it all?
there was this time at the jersey shore when from out of the ocean rose this great white light. it was huge and seemed to rise out of the sea itself. everyone on the beach was stunned and amazed. what was it? they all asked. are we all imagining this? is it some sort of mass hallucination? a ufo? then one guy stepped forward and rubbed his chin and said, "i do believe that is the moon." of course. that's what it was. that is also what acid is like - seeing the moon for the first time.
there was xmass in july. where they stayed at the shore was an island - actually a huge sand bar. there's the ocean side and the bay side. the apartments where they stayed were on the bay side. there were boats parked there. in the window of one of the boats this one time they noticed an xmass tree.
odd.
strange real things happen to you when you're tripping too. the universe gets in on the act. and some that are in-between. there were these large row boats on the beach in beach party bingo land, before the land beyond the jetty, that were moaning. they were there for maybe rescuing people drowning.
"i remember walking up ashbury street a very steep hill and being so high i thought I was walking down the hill the only other thing I remember was sitting on the floor in my apartment with my eyes closed so I could watch the pool of liquid blue electricity sparkling inside my skull" - so writes mark. this was in san francisco.
another time, or the same time, in san francisco robert and family had come down to visit debbi's mother for xmass, he brought some acid. he and his old friends from the city did it and went to see body snatchers. when they came out of the theater they were freaked. had that really happened while they were in the theater? the movie was shot in san francisco. they hopped in a car and drove up one of the hills and hid in a eucalyptus grove until they convinced themselves it was just a movie.
acid can be very real.
he also remembers a time at the jersey shore when they, mark and himself, went to this apartment of this girl they knew. mark remembers her making up some goo with cornstarch that was solid and liquid at the same time. the perfect acid toy. but they were laughing so much that she kicked them out. also robert had heard of this technique about astral travel. you visualize a red and blue - or maybe green - ball. these colors are hard to imagine together in your mind so it takes concentration and focus. then you place that ball where you want to go and you go there. robert was trying to do this. mark was bothered. he thought robert would disappear or go catatonic or something. he made him stop.
he also reminds robert of the oil drums he used as percussion in california. by the time they moved to oregon this expanded into all sorts of things one could hit and make noise with. he had sheet metal gongs that also if scratched with a stick made a screeching metallic feedback noise like amplified reverb fingernails on a blackboard. that's the kind of music he was into. the more it made you squirm and put your teeth on edge the better.
mark writes: "i've been thinking a lot about your new autobio assuming tommy is real in name, relationship, and fate the song tommy by the who takes on a whole new meaning in this context if you imagine your mother singing the lyrics about you who she thinks is tommy" the rock opera tommy did not escape his attention when it came out. being as solipsistic and self-centered as he is, of course he related it to himself and his dead brother. who would have been the same age as the fictional tommy of the opera. and, yes, tommy was his real name. all the names given here are real. mostly people who he doesn't know anymore. the others know who they are.
another who is reading this is his ex-girlfriend, sigrid, who he didn't fuck. they somehow remained friends to this day other than that and the fact that he dumped her because of it. remember he was 18. sex sex sex. centerfolds on his wall without heads. actually he took advantage of their parents breaking them up. they had gone to kennedy airport to watch people and planes take off. they had already gone to newark to do this. but they got lost on the way back and ran out of gas somewhere in the inner-city of new jersey. it was late. robert had to call his father to come bring them gas. both their parents were not pleased. they told them they couldn't see each other. robert felt he wasn't getting anywhere with her anyway, so...
one of the places they hung out was at these horse stables. sigrid had some neighborhood friends who had horses. the stables themselves were owned by the family of sigrid's best friend who became a flamingo dancer. one of her friends, lou, who owned one of the horses was kind of cute and robert started dating her. he got nowhere with her either. he looks back on this and the way he acted and cringes. he can still see the look on sigrid's face when she first saw them together and figured out what was going on. but that's how it was. she (#3) was soon to be history too. she had to sneak out to see him. her parents didn't like him. this was probably because he'd knocked up his first girlfriend and they knew about it. so he promised her love and devotion too but she wouldn't put out. time to move on.
leslie happened to sit in front of him in homeroom and next to him in sociology, where on the other side was sarah who he had sat next to when class started before she dumped him. now he was stuck there. this was high school and they were supposed to sit in regular seats. leslie was from california and she was the one who eventually he was able to fuck who went on the pill and the one who went to school in texas. that one.
they began talking and getting to know each other and then spring break came up and she invited him and his girlfriend over to a party at her house because her folks were going to be away the whole break. also she wanted him to bring wine. at the time the drinking age in new york state was 18, while in new jersey it was 21. a lot of kids died in car crashes driving back drunk from new york border bars. he was 18 so he went to get the wine. he and his girlfriend went to the party. it was a small party of just a few people hanging out talking and listening to music - and drinking wine. his girlfriend had to go home but leslie said he could come back, they'd still be up. lou said that'd be ok. little did she know. he went back. he and leslie went off to a room together to talk. they were soon making out. he stayed with her the whole night. they went driving around. at morning he had to get his car back for his father to drive to work. she followed him in her car. he went in to drop off the keys. his mother was waiting for him. "where have you been?" she asked him. he said, nowhere, and split. in his mind it was the car that had to get back, not him.
back in school after break he continued going out with lou but also seeing leslie when his girlfriend couldn't get out. this went on for awhile. finally leslie asked how much longer. he said he didn't know. well, i'll decide for you, she said and gave him a big fat hickey on his neck. the next time he saw lou they were in his living room making out when she saw it. she left in tears. he cringes again.
so he and leslie were now going out. he wondered if he was going to be able to fuck her. they were sitting in the hall one day at school and there happened to be a screw on the floor. he picked it up and showed it to her and said, wanna screw? - thinking he could always say it was just a joke. she said, yeah. that afternoon they were fucking in some field by her house. she was the one who got him to change his name back to robert. he had been going by bob up until then. bob's not your name, she said, robert is. so, robert it was. she changed him in a lot of other ways as well. she got him to pay attention and look at things more closely. she also wrote his sociology paper for him. it was about prison reform. after they handed in their papers they were each supposed to tell the class about what they had written about. the class was sitting outside under a tree while they were doing this. the teacher handed him his paper and said, so mr. ferry, tell us about prison reform. robert looked at the paper. it was the first time he'd seen it. he said, umm, and hesitated, flipping pages. the teacher then took back the paper and handed it to leslie and asked her if she would tell the class about prison reform. he passed the class anyway. he liked sociology. they had a lot of interesting discussions. he remembered one in which the teacher argued that hippies were conformists. the class hotly disagreed. robert saw his point. this was one time he was paying attention. a lot of the time he was asleep. the class was right after lunch. he would be right in front of the teacher's desk snoozing. the only class he didn't pass that year was english - which may explain how this writing is going. he tried to hand in the poems he'd been writing for extra credit to pass. the teacher wouldn't accept them. he had to go to summer school and take english again - with the same teacher - to graduate.but back in salem one good thing did come out of being on welfare. he had to sign up for vocational retraining. he forgot all about it when he went back to doing landscaping. but then he got a letter saying that they would pay for a year at a community college. he thought about what he wanted to do and came up with printing. he thought he could get into printing his own magazine and/or comics - or something. it seemed like a good idea. little did he know what it would bring - both good and bad.
so he went off to school in portland. graphic arts. it wasn't so bad. it was rather interesting. however this occurred just before the computer and copier revolution. what he ended up learning was old graphic arts done by hand that eventually would be phased out. he didn't know this at the time. nor did anyone else.
he did meet someone new. kathy, or mandy panda - a name she used when they started doing performance art together. he was rondo quatz. they were in classes together and hung out in the lounge. they found that they had quite a number of things in common. similar taste in weird music and firesign theater. they were once upstairs in the gallery which was this open glassed in entryway to the building. at the time there was a show that involved large geometric shapes filled with various rocks. the students who entered the building walked right by it without noticing. he and she started talking about how someone should do a show that forced people to look at it. before too long that someone became them. they decided to write a proposal.
there was also this place in portland called the northwest artist's workshop. it did off the wall shows. he had once signed up to do a show with eric and tom. they both chickened out though. they didn't believe that the music they were making wasn't just shit - and this was in the middle of the punk revolution. they thought it should be more polished - maybe with a horn section and violins and black chick backup singers, or something. but robert mentioned the workshop to kathy. they decided to write a proposal for them too. they got both shows. they ended up doing the workshop show first. it was called agoraphobia. the fear of open spaces. they divided this up into physical, social, political and religious open spaces. the show was some skits and poetry with kathy's then girlfriend - though now she's a he named, silas, though he'll say he always was a he, which is true internally - playing standup bass and with robert's tapes.
the setting for the show was in a huge open warehouse space. kathy had taken sign painting and made large banners hung all over the place. in one of the corners was a closed off little room with the rest of the installation - a little living room. this is where rondo and mandy were before the show and where they came out of to do the performance before the audience sitting out in the open space.
get it?agoraphobia manifesto
physical agoraphobia - the traps
once upon a time a girl and a boy grew up in little black boxes not much bigger than themselves. the little boy's name was rondo quatz. his original box was in new jersey and the girl's name was mandy panda whose first box was in ohio. their parents and the rest of the world felt the need to shape their environment by using these tight little conforming boxes to mold them into their idea of of acceptable functional citizens.
or did they?
let's find out.
one of the ways this molding is accomplished in these modern times is to limit from birth their exposure or contact with the natural environment and in its place they are given an introduction into a world where people rarely go outside, where modern architecture is involved in enclosing as much space as possible, where buildings are connected by enclosed walkways and underground passageways, where it is possible to go from home, to car, to parking garage, to office without going outside, and the outdoors that is available in cities is carefully planned and maintained. less populated or wilderness areas are becoming museums where people only visit in the safety of your own car. our connection with natural elements is being severed. the city in a dome is a reality. no need for your day to be spoiled by having to go out into the elements. physical space is made to be uniform. if you are traveling in another country, the familiar is there - a hilton hotel, mcdonalds and coke. at home rows of suburban stamped out houses and shopping malls gives people a feeling of control over unpredictable nature. thus, from a sheer lack of exposure, people come to fear the open spaces of nature, of cultures other than their own, the open space of almost anything not stamped out on an assembly line.oh, hi girls.
say - does your box look like every other box in the neighborhood?
well, let me tell you about this exquisite little place i found called the pink flamingo decor boutique.
it's just - well, you know - they have that touch that will give your box that look of exclusive wholesome distinction.
they have a special this week on the new line of never-die house plants in a wide choice of six neon colors.
so why don't you just go on down there now?
but - shhh - this will be our little secret.in the performance, while this was playing on tape, rondo and mandy came out in black boxes scooting along on the floor. these were washing machine boxes painted black. they looked real creepy with someone inside them moving around. they circled around and then their hands would come out of slots in the sides of the boxes and turn on a cassette recorder that had their individual poems on it. robert's were his own. kathy's were other women poets.
these are robert's:no one was there.
just a machine.
blinking light.
reading out.
come here.
i came.robots building tomorrow.
steel and glass cities rise everywhere,
even out in the deepest darkest jungle,
concrete ground for their wheels to ride smoothly.
and circuits and wires leading to the main brain,
who directs them all in its master plan.pieces of memories of many places,
all combining to form a new world inside my head,
inhabited by people alive and dead.
some who never existed anywhere else.
it's like a museum.
i am just a collector seeking out new things to put there.
someday it may be completed to my liking,
and i will not have to come out to get anything more.social agoraphobia - the trapees - the people and how they're trapped
the physical architectural design of cities limits our contact with other people. places for social contact and gathering together are limited to structured organized institutions such as churches, bars, work and school. when a person enters one of these places they must conform to that particular institution's code, there is no room for creative, original or spontaneous personalization. anything going on outside is regarded as suspicious, worthless, dangerous. group-think is strong here. either you join a respected group and belong or you are a loner and are on the wrong track.
we have been taught to fear people and to need people at the same time. classification such as, race, class, sexual stereotypes, social etiquette, etc. are used to reinforce the fear. mass media and social institutions reinforce the need. thus we are kept in check by contradiction and confusion - be sexy, but don't be sexual - be wealthy, but don't be working. dress right, be in style, but be invisible. don't stand out. tv gives us our role models.here rondo and mandy came out dressed in various costumes to read their poems. one poem rondo read with his pants down around his ankles.
jigsaw puzzle.
i'm missing so many pieces.
some the police have locked away for my protection.
some the priests have cut into different shapes that no longer fit.
some the businessmen have stolen and will sell back to me for my life.
some are just plain lost, i don't think anyone knows where they are.
so how can i finish?
jigsaw puzzle.hey kids, does your life involve too much thinking and not enough drinking?
well, come on down to "let's get down" lenny's lobotomy lounge for a cool after school pick me up just like dad has on his way home from the office.
be there or be square.
and don't be late.
yeah!hey kids, is your future nowhere?
well, your government knows where you're at and they want to help you out. stop by the state adjustment and assignment center anytime for a free evaluation.
- failure to respond to this ad will result in a punishment of your choice -political agoraphobia - the trappers - those who benefit
power in the world rests in the hands of a very few people. a system has developed where by these powerful elite don't work for their money but instead they exploit, colonize and play international money games for large profits. they legitimatize themselves by creating, interpreting and enforcing laws on the people. they regulate us and our work. they give us numbers to replace our names. they give us pseudo-choices, called freedom, in the form of a two party system and a myriad of shoddy poisonous products. their profit system is like a wildly spreading cancer choking out small individual businesses and craftspeople and replacing them with giant automated, computerized corporations. the effect on people is that it is mind-deadening from both the workers' perspective and the consumers. we are alienated from our work. we know our rank and place. interdependence among individual people is all but lost. no one person is responsible for their work so that pride in one's work and striving for excellence is destroyed. we are reduced to robot status both on the job and in the home. we forget what personal satisfaction feels like. and as our alienation from it grows, so grows our fear of it. we become hooked on regimentation, on following lists and rules in the hope that at least we will have gained some control and predictability. when an opportunity to be creative, innovative and/or responsible does arrive, we don't know what to do. lack of exposure to open space? we ourselves become our own jailers. we are the power structure's hit men and victims as we begin putting rules and bars around the moment and kill the spark - that unpredictable element.
hey, hey you - you think you're tough? well take it from a hardened criminal like me, prison ain't just a pack of cards. there's sex and violence in here that makes the real world look like disneyland. so don't end up like i did. don't be a fool, be cool go over to you state adjustment and assignment center and sign up and do it now.
- failure to respond to this ad will result in your being this guy's pet squirrel for the next 20 years -wow!
a new light!
all right!
oh - it's a flashlight - cool it cool it cool it - in my eyes bright as judgment day.
a voice from the light - a stern command: "let's see some id."
i open up my wallet and hand the light my driver's license.
"anything else? anything with your picture on it?"
"ah - my license has my picture on it."
"anything else?"
whoa - think think think - "um - my work id?"
and i hand that to the light.
"anything else?" - the voice now sounds hungry.
" ah - no, nothing that i can think of."
"where's your street permit?"
oh yeah, right right right - "oh, here it is."
"it's dated 3 days ago."
"it's good for the whole week, isn't it?"
" not anymore. you gotta get one every day now."
whoa - " i didn't know that."
"well, let's go over here and let's see your prints."
whoa - i'm in trouble...
i put my hand on the plate that's held out to me.
there's a pause while the voice behind the light talks to the radio.
the language is in a code i can never hope to understand.
the voice comes back to me - all about the usual childhood diseases, and didn't do too well in school, committed twice for adjustment and unsteady employment. the list went on. all the things i knew, they knew.
"well it doesn't look to good. you probably better come with us."
whoa, this is it - this is it. i knew it was coming...there was, however, resistance by many people who knew inside that this was wrong but couldn't formulate and alternative and thus fell prey to opportunistic, charismatic false leaders who capitalized on this natural resistive force to promote their own ways to organize the system.
those who fear the revolution i think have some image of everything being taken away from them
and nothing being given back,
and a bunch of people are going to be moving into their houses,
and no food except a few potatoes,
and gray clothes and thin overcoats.
and it's true,
most revolutions have ended up that way.
but the real true revolution won't be like that.
the real true revolution will open up your life beyond what you can imagine, physically, mentally or spiritually.
don't be misled by the false revolutions in america, in france, in russia, china, cuba and on and on,
and the many more that will come.
don't give up.
the real true revolution is coming.
this planet has enough to provide for everyone rich and poor alike,
more than any mythical kingdom invented by poetic imagination.
atlantis, camelot, the second coming - anything.
it won't be controlled and regulated by any group no matter how much they say the represent the masses.
it will be guided by the combined mind of humanity.
the vaults and warehouses will be opened.
the fences and walls will be taken down - ceilings lifted.
weapons will be left to rust in the fields and forests that will reclaim the barren cities and freeways.
it will come.
but be prepared to be disappointed many many times in this life and in the lives of our children.
the fast talk, fast buck rip-off con artists still abound.
but even so, each time we work it out and get a little closer,
sometimes losing ground but overall moving ahead.
it's coming.
it's coming for you.
it's coming foe me.
it's coming for everyone.
it's coming.religious agoraphobia - the bait
christian religion, which dominates the western world, is based on the fear of death. the object of worship is a corpse on a cross - and not just any corpse, but god's own child, or god himself. worship of a god that glorifies infanticide, suicide and is all-powerful induces agoraphobia in the populace. he's dictated a set of rules and he is watching. if you are caught, unless you confess or repent, you are threatened with being burned alive after you are dead, an unresolvable contradiction - a catch 22. christians worship a god that glorifies dualism - yes/no, right/wrong, correct/incorrect, moral/immoral/ civilized/savage, smart/stupid - ad naseum. since life as we know it is multi-faceted and continuos one can achieve static acceptability only occasionally, though it appears to be a simple easy choice. the rest of the time one must make it appear as such. this leads to the paranoia of discovery and the erection of walls and false faces to project the image of god or the good life. organized, ritualized religions do not allow for, or encourage people to think for themselves, but instead offer a plan, a system, a formula to follow. if people adhere to it unfailingly they are told they won't really die. thus, by worshiping a judgmental god who holds death and eternal torture over the heads of people, the people are caged, are made fearful of having an original thought, of questioning the rules. and because it is impossible to toe the straight and narrow of christian thought and morality, guilt is introduced as the portable cage.
we are made fearful to even opening up to any other ideas, situations or spiritual solutions when we venture out into life and confront a world filled with options, new possibilities and new interpretations. we are afraid to even look at alternatives, guilt by association or fear of temptation. so people remain blindfolded. we avoid open spaces - avoid even just crossing through them. instead we stick to the predefined, delineated predictable path of conformity. agoraphobic morality disallows anyone who does not put on the appearances of living life according to the narrow rules. and it especially disallows who disavows western white christian morality, the eternal prophylactic against social diseases and fiery damnation.
individuals seeking a personal spiritual path are frustrated by organized religions which are in cahoots with the political forces. because of the combined power of the church and the state those who espouse a different or non-christian morality are forced to hide themselves to avoid persecution as political spiritual dissidents or freethinkershello americans.
we'd like to introduce you to jimmy and suzie. they are happy now, but they weren't always that way. raised in a godless liberal household where the rap session took the place of the belt strap they ended up involved in sex, drugs and rock and roll. the jerry fargone's moral guidance committee picked them up on a raid on a local video pagan hangout. and we assigned them to the right-thinking environment of the gordon liddy neo-christian camp for today's youth where they received deprogramming in the form of ratsism and group goose-stepping.
and now they are ready to conquer the world!i'm trying, he whispered to his reflection in the dark night glass window.
not enough, howled the wind in the trees outside.
what more can i do?
open the window, was the answer.
he did and in a sudden gust the wind crashed inside.
his paintings were ripped off the walls.
papers of poems flew.
cupboards were opened and dishes crashed on the floor.
at last we've reached you, the wind laughed, but this is not enough.
what more do you want me to do? tell me.
close your eyes.
he did this too and felt the wind circling about him moving faster and faster.
he became dizzy and felt himself being lifted into a space whose limits were far beyond the walls of the room.
his clothes were loosened and were gone,
lost in the whirlwind about him which was moving even faster with each turn.
then his skin loosened also - his muscles - his bones,
all his physical form vanished.
there was nothing more between him and the wind.
they were one.
together they pushed apart the mere wooden frame of the house exploding into the open sky.
he used the voice of the wind to sing the joy he now felt.
i'm free, he told the leaves of the trees.
i'm alive.at the end of the show they performed a communion for the audience, handing them black necco (necro) wafers.
take this and eat it.
it is the body of our perfect technology.
may you serve it well.after they did the performance a dj from the local community radio station asked them to do it on his late night show on the radio. they made it on a tape and borrowed heavily on firesign theater and made it into a play. rondo and mandy grew up in their boxes in new jersey and ohio. they met briefly in college and went their separate ways. mandy became a high school gym teacher uncontrollably attracted to the women's bars. rondo dropped out and became a bum. they were each designated as unacceptable and sent to the state adjustment and assignment center where a computer tried to get mandy hooked up with a venetian blind salesman and rondo became a police/priest. mandy ran away with the bass player, who also read a poem of his. rondo was assigned to run her down and regroove her. the regrooving for both of them malfuntioned when they performed a stockholder's communion and they broke free and all lived happily ever after. radio agoraphobia was their sgt. pepper. it was somewhat autobiographical not only of themselves but their generation. it set out themes they would return to in subsequent shows thereafter. the dj joined them with future performance pieces they did. they got a nea grant for $250 for doing agoraphobia at the workshop. an actual agoraphobia support group came to see the show. robert forgets whether they stayed to see it or not. he'll have to ask kathy.
kathy is/was gay - one of them there lesbians. when they started working out these performances she felt she had to make that clear up front before they continued any further. one day she said to him, "robert, there's something i have to tell you." robert panicked. he thought she was going to tell him something she didn't like about him, like he smelled bad or something. when she told him what it was he was relived. oh, that's all. ok.
the show they did at the community college gallery was called, sorry for the inconvenience. they based it on the original idea of setting something up that would force the students to look at it as they passed through the entrance. they whitewashed the inside glass wall and painted the title of the show over the door. this made it look like what they do with storefronts when they're remodeling. remodeling was the theme. they wanted an installation that was changing all the time and always being in the way. the outside glass wall had a large op art checkerboard design painted over it. during the course of the show they kept bringing in more and more stuff. robert ended up bringing down all his living room furniture and a large collage construction he would still be putting together during the show. of course this entailed bringing down boxes of materials that were scattered all over the floor. they had some of their individual art work set up as well. kathy was into letters. she did ink drawings of them. they also made a stand-up of those headless life-sized bodies one could put one's head in to have a picture taken. they had two normal bodies and two not so normal bodies. you could choose which. robert brought in his industrial percussion and synthesizer and tapes and they played one night inviting the audience to join them. this was finally the music robert had wanted to play with someone. by the end the place was a mess. then they had to clean it up. it took several trips to haul everything back home again and scraping the windows clean with razor blades wasn't fun either.
by this time robert and family had moved to portland where they still live today - though each separately. kathy and her now husband, silas, live here too. they, robert and family, found a house with a basement that stunk like the cess pool during hot weather. that's where the washer dryer was. that's where robert set up his studio. that's where robert started spending most of his time day and night. other times about once a week he'd hang out over at kathy's. they'd smoke up some dope and plan new shows. they were also now into super 8 animation. they'd taken a class about it. kathy bought a camera that could shoot single frame stop action. they did flip books, animated collages and, he forgets what it is called, but animation of themselves. they started showing these at their shows with tapes robert made playing with them. almost any tape would do. they would synch as they will. the dj joined them. they explained to him how the animation worked. kathy had made an animation table to shoot on. he was pretty stoned and they weren't too sure he got it. he went down to the basement to work and came up with the best piece of all of them. a collage of things constantly exploding out of themselves. it was cosmic.
they would all sit around and bullshit, with silas throwing in some things at times but mostly walking away shaking his head and going into another room. he didn't like mannequins, cocaine or gibberish. they were all for gibberish. that was their creative process. they'd write down a zillion things and then narrow it down into something feasible. their next show was, opening night to elsewhere - again at the artist's workshop, though they had moved to a new space in a rundown warehouse district that is now all yuppie condos and fancy restaurants and such. it wasn't much of an organized sit down audience show. they didn't like that. they wanted people involved, not just passively watching. like inconvenience they brought in a bunch of stuff - not as much, but still a lot. they set up a tent and robert's kid's sandbox, they brought in his trailer upon which a friend of theirs would sit as the swami something-or-other. he forgets. he'll have to ask kathy again about it. the idea there was that they would rotate the trailer with the swami at intervals, but they weren't really rotating the swami but rotating the universe because the swami was the center of the universe and immovable. this was a germ of what later would become the idea of the dada-ananda. but we're not there yet. at one point during the show robert had wound plastic tape around and though the crowd and the trailer. he then blew the whistle which signaled that it was time to rotate the universe. the trailer and the crowd went around a complete revolution without breaking the tape.
there were his tapes playing and the animation. the dj played a very squeaky clarinet and would wander around doing so, once in while shouting things. kathy also pitched in. she had a very piercing shrieking laugh - or laughing shriek - she could let out. he thinks he remembers that they were doing some sort of call and response but can't remember what it was if they were - something absurd, of course. some people played in the sandbox with robert's kids. inside the tent were projections of slides they had made. kathy had a still camera as well as the super 8. robert hand made slides from old lithographic film he had from the place where he worked. though where that was he cannot now remember. this was the 80s. his memory of the 80s is a little blurry. he was working in print shops as both an offset printer and a lithographic photographer. the fumes from doing both wiped out a number of his brain cells. he might as well have been sniffing glue for all those years. he'd come home with pounding headaches and in a foul mood. he hated printing. why the hell had he decided that was what he wanted to do? he was inside all the time. he had to work year around. he had to fight with machines that wouldn't do what he wanted them to do. the people he worked with were idiots, as were the customers. his bosses were bitchy women - yes, that bothered him. he liked landscaping and working with men. is that a crime? when you screwed up something with a male boss he'd yell at you and then forget it - maybe only if you were another guy. women bosses wouldn't let you forget it - they'd keep score. he had a woman boss at home, he didn't need one at work too. ok - he's a sexist. let's move on. so why had he done this?
oh yeah, he was going to print his own stuff. and he did. the places he worked were a university and a college. though he doesn't remember when he worked at which one. they had in-house print shops. part of the print shop at the university was a large collating copier. after hours he would print out about 500 or so comics he was drawing called, the portland idiot. he'd then put them out for free around town. he doesn't have any left that he can post. he thinks mark might. he'll ask him. other than that, printing pretty much destroyed his mind, his life and his marriage. let's move on.
he's just heard from mark: "I'll work on that [robert asking him to scan and send him any idiots he might have] but I don't have a scanner. I'll pull the collection together and go to mailboxes etc. I think I have the complete run though they are not in one place samples should not be a problem
but mark never did send him any idiots. but rachel turned out to have some. here's some samples: idiots.
at home, as we mentioned before, he spent more and more time down in the basement in his studio. this was his most productive time making tapes - not only for the shows but for general. he did send some cassettes off to the community radio station. they played some of them. the tapes were montages from the radio and synthesizer. he went loop crazy once he figured out how to make them. he couldn't afford a sampler so he was a bit behind technologically. he only had two track reel to reels but they had sound on sound so he could do some amount of crude multi-track mixing. his tapes seemed to follow a theme of insanity - sort of like pink floyd. he was going insane now and he knew it. hiding down in a basement wasn't exactly normal socially well adjusted behavior. though what married men with families don't do this in some form or another? some go out to bars. some watch sports. some had woodworking shops or worked on their cars. some were serial killers or rapists. robert listened to music and made tapes. so, in some ways this was perfectly normal. he also had his old rock star fantasy going. he'd listen to groups - usually hard rock - and pretend it was him. he had an imaginary band all worked out in his head that were famous and that was an alternative life to the real one which he didn't like too much. in this group he played bass and was the singer. the group's name was, it - formerly the wizards. there was a guitarist and a keyboard player and a chick drummer. these were all people he had known when he was younger. if only..., he kept thinking.
he loved his kids. they were at the fun age - pre-teen. he'd always come up once in awhile to play with them. they'd roll around on the floor and beat each other up. he also took them to movies. he took them to whatever movies he would go to see whether they were adult films or not. once he took daniel to see "quest for fire". in this movie was a scene where the village woman turned the cave guy around to fuck face to face. daniel asked, "what are they doing?" oh - oops. robert told him they were mating. soon after that they got him a book about sex for him for xmass. rachel had problems wetting the bed. robert had had this problem too when he was little. he told her if she stayed dry for a week he'd take her to whatever movie she wanted to see. she did and she wanted to see the care bear movie. oh well, a promise is a promise. so he sat through care bears. she loved it. she had tons of care bears. they both were strange children - but then all children are strange. rachel spent about a year once saying almost nothing but, moo. she would swing for hours singing, hi-ho silver away. daniel was more moody and serious.
one of the worst times robert had had with the kids was the time he had to kill daniel's mouse. it had some incurable skin disease and was chewing its side open. the vet told them that the easiest humane way to kill a mouse was to swing it by the tail and crack its head on something. daniel was hysterical. he was down on his knees begging them not to do it. he'd take care of it. it would get better. but it wasn't going to. debbi held onto him while robert took the mouse outside and did what the vet said to do. he swung it once but not hard enough. it was still alive and twitching. he did it again and killed it. this still brings tears to his eyes now writing it - the first hard lesson of life for daniel and he had to be the one giving it to him. another bad time was once out riding bikes with rachel, she was ahead of him on a busy street. she looked back and asked him which way to go. he said straight but she thought he said across the street which she suddenly did trusting him that it was ok. cars screeched to a halt but didn't hit her. his heart pounded in his chest. if she had been hit because she believed he had said to cross the street and it was ok because he had said so he would have gone home right then and there and killed himself. as with the mouse incident, this still brings up strong emotion for him now. another time was when daniel was skating in their room and fell. he hit the bridge of his nose against his sister' doll crib. it bled like crazy. blood was all down the front of him. they took him to the doctor. the doctor had to give him stitches. robert almost couldn't watch but did so daniel wouldn't be afraid. there was also his first day at school. off he went on the bus. but he didn't come home again. robert got a paniced call from debbi at work. daniel was missing. they finally found him. he had stayed on the bus and ridden it to the next school which was where he was. they brought him home. they went to hug him when he got there. he ran to his room embarrassed.
let's forget about this part.
having kids was it for him. besides just the part about fucking when he first learned or figured out that sex produced children he wanted to have kids. it was a very strong feeling - probably genetic. as there are all sorts of sexual variations there is still the basic one to reproduce. he had it. he had it with a mission. this connected him in with the world and universe. he was in on the creative act. not only did the twirling dance of dna lead to him but it led out of him as well. whatever future humans had his children were a part of it. and maybe his children's children's children on into forever. maybe. he already has three grandchildren from daniel and three different girlfriends. rachel has no interest. she wants to be a rich pharmacist and spend all that money on herself. hooray for her! even if neither of them had kids he'd still feel satisfied with having brought them into the world. he dug life and wanted others to come dig life too. but one of them did have kids, though supposedly not planned. hooray for that as well! he loves his grandkids and the fact he has grandkids even though he only gets to see one one them - the middle one. the oldest is back east with her mother, the youngest is living with his mother's mother. she won't let robert see him. she told him it upset him too much. he suspects it more upsets her for some reason. oh well. of course, there's always still robert paul wherever he might be and whatever kids he might have. that and one abortion that he knows of. the girlfriend in texas. but with kids on the scene and in the world, he can die now. he's happy. he's done his part for creation whatever that might turn out to be. of course, he doesn't want to die now. first of all, he hasn't finished his memoirs. second, there is always more.
but there he was down in the basement pretending he was a rock star and making his tapes. he wasn't painting too much anymore or making collages. though he was still collecting junk as if he was. a few sometimes but not much. he was writing. he'd always written. we think we said since he was in high school. his writing was dark. it too was about insanity, both his and the world's. sometimes he couldn't tell which was which. but he had notebooks full of it. that was who he talked to. he and debbi didn't talk about much except about basic everyday stuff. she used to read his notebooks sometimes to see what the hell he was thinking about all the time. that was until she came across what amounted to a love letter he was writing to girlfriend #2 who he hadn't fucked but really wanted to. they argued about it until he ended the argument by smashing a typewriter on the floor. it was his mother's old typewriter. he had gotten it when she died with some idea that he was going to type up what he was writing and maybe try to publish it. he never did. the smashed typewriter was one of the things hanging in the little living room at the agoraphobia performance. it was now art.
he always had an explosive temper. he was usually quiet otherwise - shy. but isn't that the way it is. he only hit debbi once. they were having an argument about something. he called her a bitch. she slapped him. he slapped her back. they stood there both shocked. they reached an unspoken agreement that they wouldn't go there again. they didn't. but he still punctuated arguments by smashing something or slamming a door. that was abusive enough.
he would spank the kids too. usually as a last resort or when he was coming home with the pounding headaches from his printing job. he was the big ape of the house. his word was final - or his actions were final. again he cringes. he was out of control. he had no control. debbi was the one in control. she was the one who knew how to make things work. she was the one who looked out after everything and everyone. he knew this. he knew he married his fucking mother. he hated himself for it. he pretended it was her he hated and resented for it. but she did nothing. she was a very good wife and mother. she was the great woman behind whatever he did - even his art because she made it possible. she took care of everything else. she made it possible for him to have money for things he needed for his art when he made little money at all working - just above minimum wage. while he was making tapes she was cutting out coupons. who was really doing the art here? the feminists would say it was her. he couldn't disagree.
what he knows about feminism and a lot of other things he got a lot from kathy. besides doing art they talked a lot about things in general. a lot a lot. she turned him on to women writers. the one he remembers the most and impacted him the most was mary daly's gyn/ecology. he was at first unnerved to read what she had to say about men - all men. and he was one of them, all right. guilty as charged. he saw his face in the crowd. but then he was impressed by her method of untangling everything that was bullshit - for her, men's bullshit. for him, normal people's bullshit. he was a man but he had no power - except that which he forcefully tried to demonstrate around his little castle. to other men he was a women - or as good as or as worthless as a woman - to a lot of women in power as well, who may as well have been men. he was a pussy, a faggot. he got called those things from when he was in school. he still was called those things from pickup trucks when he was walking on the street. in school, it didn't help that his last name was ferry. nor did it help that it wasn't spelled fairy. it sounded like fairy, that was good enough. in high school there was a guy who seemed to be assigned to him for the whole four years. whenever he'd see him in the hall it was, "ferry, you little fuckstain."
so he tried to apply her method to his own situation and his own view of the whole world which was maybe all the men had the power but not all the men had the power. both were true. and you'd have to follow daly's line of thinking to understand how they both could be true. he liked how she had unlocked words meant to demean women. he used her method to unlock the words used against him - fool, crazy, idiot, irrational, faggot, pussy, hippie, asshole, whitey, wasp, man, etc. he got to thinking what his own history was - his own people's history. who were his people? basically the outcasts, the loners - those nobody wanted, men or women. even the outcasts of the outcasts, for outcasts had a way of forming into groups that developed their own power elite hierarchy - like daly's criticism of women's groups who only restructured the same male domination power plays within their own ranks. his own people's history of people outside the groups - even the groups of outcasts. and how does one find that history? by imagination. imagine what that history would be if it were ever kept. and it was kept. it was hidden within the words of the groups themselves. it was hidden in the open spaces between words. it was a history that was written by being unwritten - or written backwards from the others' point of view. and that's how he found it - looking backwards at everything around him. if it was up, he looked down. if it was here, he looked there. if it was east, he'd look west - and sometimes north or south. one had to be sure to look backwards at even looking backwards. their directions weren't his directions. his direction was his own. that was it. and once he started looking, he saw it everywhere right out in the open. no occult mystic bullshit. there was no mystery. there were no codes or secret doors. there were no curtains. no grail. there was no one on the mountain. there was nothing to buy. there was no initiation. no mantras. there is, was and will be only oneself.
yadda yadda yadda.