I Like Art! I Hate Art! perpetual motion roadshow tour diary [part one]
[disclaimer: these are my opinions, everyone sees the world through their own prejudices and experiences. I'm not omniscient, yada yada yada]
"I guess you could say I went west. You know .. the way of Horatio Alger, Davy Crockett, the Donner Party..."
The quote comes from Grosse Point Blank. It's not a very profound movie but for some reason it had a strong effect on me. Everyone goes West. Kerouac went west. Hunter Thompson went West. Unfortunately, my references end there but as far as I can gather, West is the way you need to go if you're looking to understand this country. Further unfortunate, I went to LA earlier this year and was completely unmoved. I didn't like how the sleaze battled with the gloss like vinegar and water and the whole time I was there I felt like getting pissed on.
Back in September, I had the unique opportunity to go on the road with a couple of strangers and pimp my writing on the East Coast and Canada. Seven cities in eight days. The Perpetual Motion Roadshow.
Chicago
I've never left Chicago, not in any way to speak of. I've never been on tour before and I've never gone on any road trips, nothing that lasted longer than a week anyways. Apparently, not too far outside of Illinois, you start seeing hills and mountains. That seems like something I should have known by now. China and Troy teased me about it for three states, not my lack of knowledge but the amusement I got from driving through hills.
We started out at home, my home, and I got to feel like big shit.
It wasn't much different from any other reading I've done at Quimby's except that my family and friends were there, and my pet rat, and some puppets, and a singing saw. We went back to my place for Walgreen's dollar pizzas and beer. Troy snooped through my records and got laid. China crashed out on the couch. I said goodbye to Sarah. We rented an SUV and went off.
I Like Art! [Chicago]
CINCINNASTY
There was no reason Cincinnati would be the city I liked the best, but it was.
The city had everything I like: there was a lot of grey, a lot of blight, a lot of young people, and a lot of fat people. It was a very Midwestern place, where motherfuckers gave a shit about the Bengals and ate disgusting food like Goetta.
After a couple redneck altercations and missteps in Indiana, and a few dozen mutilated raccoons, we were at the show (an hour late). Shawn Obnoxious read short, funny poems and The Seedy Seeds played dancey electrofolk with kazoo, banjo and electronics. They would have the first of three accordions we would have the pleasure of hearing on our trip.
After the show, Faith took us to the house we'd be staying at, with somewhere between five and twenty other people. It was like a cross between a punk house and a frat, only the majority of the residents were in their late twenties and thirties with legit jobs, cool toys and open season booze. People came and went at all hours, and slept everywhere on any surface available.
Though Gemeos' art is in Cincinnati, is it of Cincinnati?
To give you an idea of the mindset of the place:
It's our first night there and we're drinking on the porch. Some crusties come up and ask, sheepishly, if this is the house where the bonfire is.
"No," Faith says, pausing for a moment to think, "Would you like to have a bonfire here?"
I talk to some girl who says that the two guys she's with wouldn't be hanging out with her if she hadn't given herself a chelsea cut earlier. China talks about anarchist child rearing with a really nice guy with a heavily tattooed face. When he pulls out pictures of his son, it's just about the cutest thing ever.
We stay there for another day. China gets laid. I steal a scarf and buy 7"es by As Mercenarias and Carpet of Sexy. We watch Drop Dead Fred, Kung Fu Zombie, and the amazingly funny Trailer Park Boys at various locales. We visit the contemporary art museum. We drink heavily and leave, but by this time the dynamics of the group have changed.
I Like Art! [Cincinnati]
CLEVELAND
I've never talked less about myself in my whole life. When I'm around more dominant personalities, I tend to yield my own. Troy has been exhibiting moody diva qualities, which is fine, because we're all artists and melodramatic. He seems to prefer conversations that give him a chance to say something impressive about himself, and when he's not in the mood to talk, he'd rather not listen (or even hear) anyone else talking either. China, on the other hand, has a habit of talking whenever she gets nervous. She told us that she went on the Roadshow because she felt like she was getting too neurotic acting out her daily routine in Baltimore. Because of this, she talks a lot, some of her stories are interesting, some aren't. She can feel the tension building betwen her and Troy, but I don't think she's figured out why. We're no longer drinking jovially as we drive, which is probably a good thing.
You can tell in the first few seconds of conversation whether or not you're going to want to fuck a city or not. We were a few minutes inside city limits wbefore we realized that Cleveland didn't turn us on at all.
The woman at the bookstore looks like Harvey Pekar's wife (from the movie, at least). Apparently she's not. Perhaps all of Cleveland's bookish women look like this. Unfortunately, she fucked up and we didn't have an opener in Cleveland. Or anyone to see us.
We decide to hit up an open mic to try and sell our wares. The closest one is in a lounge underneath a grungy rock club called the Grog Shop, where a cat by the name of Q-Nice kicks all kinds of ass as the emcee of an otherwise unremarkable show. It's perhaps the worst possible fit for me and China, in that it was nothing but hiphop. Troy changed his act from some John Mayer shit to a slam/soul sound. I made a big faux pas when I didn't realize that there was a much higher percentage of churchgoers in the crowd than in the audiences I'm used to. Halfway through a very slammy Jewish-angst piece, I realize that I'm about to blaspheme heavily, offering that...
if I have to spend one more Christmas with [blah blah blah doing Jewish-people things in Florida] I will pick up a holy hammer, build a holy time machine and spread [Jesus Christ's] palms myself.
Sigh.
We were all received alright in the end, but we didn't sell shit and had to dip into our pockets to get out. We couldn't get out soon enough.
New York
New York was New York. No one was very impressed with anything, and we weren't a huge draw even though we had an alright crowd. I could feel a cold coming on in Cinci and by the time we got to Williamsburg I was a snotty pile of gross. I read my retard piece but the timing was all off.
The only good thing I could say about NY is that we all had our own friends there. This would be the last chance we had to seperate before leaving the country. Luckily, I had my old friend Marisa to take care of me, and take me out to dinner with her theater friends for her 22nd birthday, and let me use her nice-smelling girl bathroom, which was a godsend after the weirdo Christian book guy's place in Cleveland, and the predictably icky shower in the Cincinnati party house.
With a snoot full of Cold-Eeze, Ibuprofen, and Emergen-C, we endeavored off to Canada.
I Like Art Criticism! [New York]
[Currently watching Brick]
"I guess you could say I went west. You know .. the way of Horatio Alger, Davy Crockett, the Donner Party..."
The quote comes from Grosse Point Blank. It's not a very profound movie but for some reason it had a strong effect on me. Everyone goes West. Kerouac went west. Hunter Thompson went West. Unfortunately, my references end there but as far as I can gather, West is the way you need to go if you're looking to understand this country. Further unfortunate, I went to LA earlier this year and was completely unmoved. I didn't like how the sleaze battled with the gloss like vinegar and water and the whole time I was there I felt like getting pissed on.
Back in September, I had the unique opportunity to go on the road with a couple of strangers and pimp my writing on the East Coast and Canada. Seven cities in eight days. The Perpetual Motion Roadshow.
Chicago
I've never left Chicago, not in any way to speak of. I've never been on tour before and I've never gone on any road trips, nothing that lasted longer than a week anyways. Apparently, not too far outside of Illinois, you start seeing hills and mountains. That seems like something I should have known by now. China and Troy teased me about it for three states, not my lack of knowledge but the amusement I got from driving through hills.
We started out at home, my home, and I got to feel like big shit.
It wasn't much different from any other reading I've done at Quimby's except that my family and friends were there, and my pet rat, and some puppets, and a singing saw. We went back to my place for Walgreen's dollar pizzas and beer. Troy snooped through my records and got laid. China crashed out on the couch. I said goodbye to Sarah. We rented an SUV and went off.
I Like Art! [Chicago]
CINCINNASTY
There was no reason Cincinnati would be the city I liked the best, but it was.
The city had everything I like: there was a lot of grey, a lot of blight, a lot of young people, and a lot of fat people. It was a very Midwestern place, where motherfuckers gave a shit about the Bengals and ate disgusting food like Goetta.
After a couple redneck altercations and missteps in Indiana, and a few dozen mutilated raccoons, we were at the show (an hour late). Shawn Obnoxious read short, funny poems and The Seedy Seeds played dancey electrofolk with kazoo, banjo and electronics. They would have the first of three accordions we would have the pleasure of hearing on our trip.
After the show, Faith took us to the house we'd be staying at, with somewhere between five and twenty other people. It was like a cross between a punk house and a frat, only the majority of the residents were in their late twenties and thirties with legit jobs, cool toys and open season booze. People came and went at all hours, and slept everywhere on any surface available.
Though Gemeos' art is in Cincinnati, is it of Cincinnati?
To give you an idea of the mindset of the place:
It's our first night there and we're drinking on the porch. Some crusties come up and ask, sheepishly, if this is the house where the bonfire is.
"No," Faith says, pausing for a moment to think, "Would you like to have a bonfire here?"
I talk to some girl who says that the two guys she's with wouldn't be hanging out with her if she hadn't given herself a chelsea cut earlier. China talks about anarchist child rearing with a really nice guy with a heavily tattooed face. When he pulls out pictures of his son, it's just about the cutest thing ever.
We stay there for another day. China gets laid. I steal a scarf and buy 7"es by As Mercenarias and Carpet of Sexy. We watch Drop Dead Fred, Kung Fu Zombie, and the amazingly funny Trailer Park Boys at various locales. We visit the contemporary art museum. We drink heavily and leave, but by this time the dynamics of the group have changed.
I Like Art! [Cincinnati]
CLEVELAND
I've never talked less about myself in my whole life. When I'm around more dominant personalities, I tend to yield my own. Troy has been exhibiting moody diva qualities, which is fine, because we're all artists and melodramatic. He seems to prefer conversations that give him a chance to say something impressive about himself, and when he's not in the mood to talk, he'd rather not listen (or even hear) anyone else talking either. China, on the other hand, has a habit of talking whenever she gets nervous. She told us that she went on the Roadshow because she felt like she was getting too neurotic acting out her daily routine in Baltimore. Because of this, she talks a lot, some of her stories are interesting, some aren't. She can feel the tension building betwen her and Troy, but I don't think she's figured out why. We're no longer drinking jovially as we drive, which is probably a good thing.
You can tell in the first few seconds of conversation whether or not you're going to want to fuck a city or not. We were a few minutes inside city limits wbefore we realized that Cleveland didn't turn us on at all.
The woman at the bookstore looks like Harvey Pekar's wife (from the movie, at least). Apparently she's not. Perhaps all of Cleveland's bookish women look like this. Unfortunately, she fucked up and we didn't have an opener in Cleveland. Or anyone to see us.
We decide to hit up an open mic to try and sell our wares. The closest one is in a lounge underneath a grungy rock club called the Grog Shop, where a cat by the name of Q-Nice kicks all kinds of ass as the emcee of an otherwise unremarkable show. It's perhaps the worst possible fit for me and China, in that it was nothing but hiphop. Troy changed his act from some John Mayer shit to a slam/soul sound. I made a big faux pas when I didn't realize that there was a much higher percentage of churchgoers in the crowd than in the audiences I'm used to. Halfway through a very slammy Jewish-angst piece, I realize that I'm about to blaspheme heavily, offering that...
if I have to spend one more Christmas with [blah blah blah doing Jewish-people things in Florida] I will pick up a holy hammer, build a holy time machine and spread [Jesus Christ's] palms myself.
Sigh.
We were all received alright in the end, but we didn't sell shit and had to dip into our pockets to get out. We couldn't get out soon enough.
New York
New York was New York. No one was very impressed with anything, and we weren't a huge draw even though we had an alright crowd. I could feel a cold coming on in Cinci and by the time we got to Williamsburg I was a snotty pile of gross. I read my retard piece but the timing was all off.
The only good thing I could say about NY is that we all had our own friends there. This would be the last chance we had to seperate before leaving the country. Luckily, I had my old friend Marisa to take care of me, and take me out to dinner with her theater friends for her 22nd birthday, and let me use her nice-smelling girl bathroom, which was a godsend after the weirdo Christian book guy's place in Cleveland, and the predictably icky shower in the Cincinnati party house.
With a snoot full of Cold-Eeze, Ibuprofen, and Emergen-C, we endeavored off to Canada.
I Like Art Criticism! [New York]
[Currently watching Brick]
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