1992 Through 1995/ Ken Nordine Through Stevie Wonder's Penis

ABOVE:
KEN NORDINE ! Great Caesar's Ghost what a cool show that was! Ken with live musical accompaniment. Noted in my diary is that we saw Dave Gardner in attendance there as well. One of the best gigs ever. I suppose some of my top fave gigs from the last couple of decades would be:
Arvo Part in 1996, Kraftwerk (on their amazing 2006 tour), SPK in 1982, Avenue D (a tiny, packed, sweaty club, and all of us dancing were completely blown away when they began to play DONKEY PUNCH, and we all realized what they were singing), Joe Frank (JOE FRANK?? -yes, he did a show at the Great American in SF, and it was a blast), Barrington Levy, (2005-'06)...I imagine I'll think of more to add. Well, Jean-Jacques Perrey in 2006 as well, but it's already written up in an entry below this one.
BELOW:
Double exposures taken with my Polaroid camera of Adrienne and I. May 1992.

BELOW:
Adrienne Ferrari (Media Guilt Productions), Dale Hoyt, and Jim Morton (author of POPVOID magazine and INCREDIBLY STRANGE FILMS) in her kitchen. A brainy gathering.
Adrienne and I worked on a film script of Dale's around this time, THE EAT FIRMLY CAFE (hilarious! Dale is a very good writer), which was directed by Monte Cazzaza and shot by Michelle Handelman, which also starred Bart Alberti, with Dale Hoyt appearing in it as well. We shot a good deal of it, including some very tough sequences involving a preserved dead cat, reeking of formaldehyde, and loads of dialogue, at the 'Cafe', and a torture scene, where I was strung up nude for hours with weights on my testicles. Just another day's work in front of the camera. I noticed in a diary that we were plagued by sound problems and buzzes, and that among other things led to it never really being completed. I always kinda wanted to get the raw footage and see if I could cut something useful together out of it ( although looping the actor's dialogue would've been a challenge! ) for my TV show, but never did get ahold of Monte. He did turn up at my job at the Juice Bar in the SF Ferry building one day years later, come to think of it, and it was pleasant to see him again.
'Ramona' Banzaca and I in 1993. The love of my life. A terrific artist and person. We met at a 455 10th Street gig. Had monkey/ape and ventriloquist dummy fetish. Never got over her, doggonit.
Santa Cruz Boardwalk. My cards don't look so good.
Follows a gallery of Ramona's (Jennifer's) art. All throwaway chunks that I saved. She probably would not be real impressed with this stuff! I find some of these hilarious, though.
This matchbook would've been done back when I was buying packs of blank matchbooks and making BCO and Chotchke matches as promo items, using rubber stamps with our band logos (and other stamps from my huge collection, come to think of it- I used to have some BCO matches left in the files, but those are lost now I guess after the two moves last year, too bad, they were really cute).


Here's a choice one sketched on some BCO notepaper. Apparently there was some drama out in front of my house that I missed that day:
The PEEPS bra and underpants set!
I'm glad this survived. These are all the rage, now.
Lady with Cat Onstage, and Somewhere Dogs A-Barkin', which really suggests a big city hangover so well, I think.
A lovely self-portrait. Charming lady.
Playing the $50 accordion that I was never able to get back from Suzanne Ramsey after she ended up with it, following the Very Zombie Christmas shoot. Probably around 1997, or slightly earlier. das's records filled the living room wall. A large metal table-base sits before me, mounted as a giant cymbal. Must've been a session in the room, looks like a whole kit was set up.
A household tradition for many years at the Grove street studio in SF was what came to be called "Potato Nite". This gathering grew out of a weekly salon with food at our house to which anyone interesting was invited. Later we had to make it a bit more exclusive. Actually, it's a bit confusing, as I think that the salon was originally a separate thing from Potato Nite, and the Potato gathering was originally focussed on getting together to watch Live Wrestling on TV. This was basically das, GX of the Haters and I, but could include all kinds of folks. Eventually Chris moved in, then das moved out, and GX kept coming over for the food and Wrestling. Here we see a Potato Nite setup with GX and Dr. Mess and the typical big woks-full of sizzling vegetables, often so highly spiced with peppers that a burning cloud of pepper gas would drive the fainthearted from the area. This pic looks to be from around 1996 or '97.
This is a photo found on the street in Oakland, Ca, that Chris (Dr. Mess) owned and somehow I have it now. It has always tickled me. It's just a sweet example of a nasty found photo. He's swelligant.
{Note for record-collectors: the title of this Autobioblog chapter is my little joke on the title of the famous John Trubee song "A Blind Man's Penis", which as we all know was originally called "Stevie Wonder's Penis", but was given the much more poetic and obscure title by the outfit that made his 'poem' into a 'song'. For some reason, this picture reminded me of that when I was preparing to scan it last week.}
I love the sky in this Santa Cruz session. It's too bad that I ever moved away from there; but then again, who knows what was best after all?