GOF 001
Girls On Fire — I Think About Jackson Pollock
originally released in early February 1983
Girls On Fire — I Think About Jackson Pollock
originally released in early February 1983
I Think About Jackson Pollock - cover - Al Margolis copy
I Think About Jackson Pollock - tape, Side A - Al Margolis copy
I Think About Jackson Pollock - tape, Side B - Al Margolis copy
I Think About Jackson Pollock - tape, Side A - Discogs
I Think About Jackson Pollock - tape, Side B - Discogs
review of "I Think About Jackson Pollock" by Graham Ingels, Castanets cassette review section, "Q" issue of OP Magazine, May-June 1983. A scan of the complete page from OP can be found at the bottom of this page.
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clippings from an article titled "Two White Chicks Sitting Around Talking About Art" in Barbara Rice's Truly Needy zine, issue #9, 1985
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As for what got Brett (Kerby) and me to move to SF, like I have mentioned, I was a total fan of Kerouac's On the Road. Plus the DC scene was getting us down. The move to San Francisco was actually kind of sudden. By the late summer of 1982, it seemed like it was time for a change. I was ready for something new. SF with the Art Institute and a cool music scene with bands like Tuxedomoon, The Residents, and Flipper seemed like a great idea. And it would give me a chance to see the USA west of Virginia, something that I had never done before. Brett was ready for a trip to SF. Looking back on it, I'm not sure how serious he was about staying. We didn't do a whole lot of planning. We pulled it all together in about 30 days. Looking back now how I thought I was going to just show up and then go to the SF Art Institute like some kind of community college is beyond me. Both of my parents were college educated but by the late '70's were very disillusioned about what going to college could do for one. I think that they were glad to see me passionate about something besides Psychodrama.
Throughout the trip, we camped out in the back of my truck (it had a camper shell on it) at various camping grounds or RV parking lots throughout the US. We had an atlas/road map that listed all of them. When we got to San Francisco, we parked the truck in a parking lot that also allowed RV's. This was way down in the South of Market area near the Embarcadero Freeway. We did that for the first week or so we were in SF while Brett and I were apartment hunting.
Back in the early '80's there were still SRO's (single room occupancy apartments) in SF and we found one that would rent to us. We shared one room with an amazingly bad orange shag carpet. I think that I mention the layout of the apartment somewhere on I Think About Jackson Pollock. Basically, the landlords had taken a three bedroom apartment and broken it up into three studio apartments with everyone sharing a single kitchen and bathroom. This was at 1405 Van Ness Avenue. Not in Room 407 (where I stayed later) but on a lower floor.
Brett and I ended up finding that apartment building on Van Ness by luck/chance. He and I were walking all over town looking at apartments that were listed in the free papers. Then we would treat ourselves to a cheap warm Chinese meal at one of the cafeteria places that used to line lower Market Street in SF. They would only give you one small paper napkin. Though by the second or third time that Brett and I went there the staff started recognize me and I would be able to get a second napkin. (I think that I mention this in one of the songs on I Think About Jackson Pollock). The meal actually was good value. One piece of chicken, rice and some vegetables. But it definitely required two napkins to eat and properly clean one's hands afterwards. (This was before the invention of the wet wipes.)
So we tried the Lower Haight and only got as far as seeing the Flipper band van parked outside of someone's house. Then we we went to someplace way down South of Market, it may have been in what's still called the Dogpatch section. It was very industrial. We saw an ad for a place called The Brewery. A nice, friendly punk gal showed us the place. It was more of a squat in a former brewery where they were renting out the vats as rooms. The vats were built into the walls and one would climb in through a porthole. One could almost fully stand up in them but as she disclosed herself, you couldn't fit a bass drum through the portal so that had been a deterrent in renting them to punk bands. (Like Rob says on Diary of a Shiteater, you can't be a punk band unless you have acoustic drums.) They were more like cozy cubby holes than real rooms. I have no idea what the kitchen, bathroom or shower facilities were like or if they even existed. One didn't bother to ask or think about those petty details back then.... After we viewed the offerings at The Brewery, we saw the apartment (#309) at 1405 Van Ness and took that room right away. It was owned/run by these nice Chinese folks. Sure, the roaches and the mice ran wild, but everything else functioned quite well. To pick up one's mail, you had to go to their office and the main guy was always very nice and cheerful. After Brett moved, the main guy suggested that I move to Room 407 and get away from all the drama that I was living around and which I detail in "I Live Downtown." Room #407 was $25 more a month but it was bigger, painted really cool in black and white and had saner neighbors.
Brett and I went out on the Saturday night leading up to Halloween. He decided to stay out and go to some clubs. When I got home, I found my neighbor's husband trying to kick in the door of my and Brett's room. He accused my boyfriend (meaning Brett) of stealing his boombox. I calmly told him that we didn't have his boombox and opened the door of the room to prove it. He took one look around and saw a bunch of old tape recorders, cassette tapes and back issues of NY Rocker lying around and took off. It turns out that my neighbor had a boyfriend (I mention him as the one with the missing teeth) and he had taken the boombox.
While in Psychodrama, I had worked several administrative jobs for a few months. I also continued to do babysitting work in the neighborhood. I was living at home so I was able to save up about $1,800 from all these day gigs. All of us in Psychodrama lived very economically. So with that $1,800, I had a cushion to move to SF with. While there, Brett and I continued to live economically. Instant oatmeal and dried milk for breakfast, peanut sandwiches for lunch and dinner was ramen noodles with a bit of hamburger and canned vegetables mixed in. We each prepared on our own meals separately whenever we felt hungry. Sometimes we would have hot dogs and fried eggs and fried toast. Brett is the one who showed me how to do things frugally which was very helpful such as buying the dented cans of canned vegetables.
After Brett moved out, the landlords took pity on me and offered me another SRO type apartment on another floor. This was the Trips Room. This apartment was larger and my neighbors were way more responsible and mellow. That was room 407.
As for Brett's return to Virginia, other options back in VA kept calling him so he returned. I think that I was so focused with getting a job and staying on in SF (going back to Alexandria, VA would've felt like a failure to me and not an option), that I didn't let myself feel the loss of his departure. Because once he left, I was alone there with no one to talk to on a daily basis other than my co-workers until I connected with Denise Dee of Lobster Tendencies and John Hricko but that took a couple of months.
I remember Brett and Bob would call to check in on me and I would put on a "happy face" while talking to them but I was a bit lonely there for awhile. My parents would also call me too and would focus on talking about what was going on at work. I didn't let anyone (including myself) know how vulnerable and lonely I was there at first. Luckily, the city and the excitement of being on my own helped get through the lonely patches until I met some fellow kindred spirits. Making I Think About Jackson Pollock was kind of my calling card.
It is interesting to me, looking back on it, how little Brett, Rob and I ever discussed our feelings or our domestic situations. We just poured everything into the music and bitching about the DC scene. We never got in touch with our feelings about each other as friends, bandmates, and comrades in the struggle.
I think that once I got to San Francisco I was ready for a fresh start. I think that perhaps the whole thing was a way of disconnecting from Brett and Psychodrama; Alexandria, Virginia; Washington, D.C.; and my childhood. It was time for me to become an adult out on my own.
Brett left after two weeks and that is when I formed Girls On Fire.
I like what Hal said to me, "Your GOF tapes certainly bear the influence of Psychodrama, but there are differences!"
Throughout the trip, we camped out in the back of my truck (it had a camper shell on it) at various camping grounds or RV parking lots throughout the US. We had an atlas/road map that listed all of them. When we got to San Francisco, we parked the truck in a parking lot that also allowed RV's. This was way down in the South of Market area near the Embarcadero Freeway. We did that for the first week or so we were in SF while Brett and I were apartment hunting.
Back in the early '80's there were still SRO's (single room occupancy apartments) in SF and we found one that would rent to us. We shared one room with an amazingly bad orange shag carpet. I think that I mention the layout of the apartment somewhere on I Think About Jackson Pollock. Basically, the landlords had taken a three bedroom apartment and broken it up into three studio apartments with everyone sharing a single kitchen and bathroom. This was at 1405 Van Ness Avenue. Not in Room 407 (where I stayed later) but on a lower floor.
Brett and I ended up finding that apartment building on Van Ness by luck/chance. He and I were walking all over town looking at apartments that were listed in the free papers. Then we would treat ourselves to a cheap warm Chinese meal at one of the cafeteria places that used to line lower Market Street in SF. They would only give you one small paper napkin. Though by the second or third time that Brett and I went there the staff started recognize me and I would be able to get a second napkin. (I think that I mention this in one of the songs on I Think About Jackson Pollock). The meal actually was good value. One piece of chicken, rice and some vegetables. But it definitely required two napkins to eat and properly clean one's hands afterwards. (This was before the invention of the wet wipes.)
So we tried the Lower Haight and only got as far as seeing the Flipper band van parked outside of someone's house. Then we we went to someplace way down South of Market, it may have been in what's still called the Dogpatch section. It was very industrial. We saw an ad for a place called The Brewery. A nice, friendly punk gal showed us the place. It was more of a squat in a former brewery where they were renting out the vats as rooms. The vats were built into the walls and one would climb in through a porthole. One could almost fully stand up in them but as she disclosed herself, you couldn't fit a bass drum through the portal so that had been a deterrent in renting them to punk bands. (Like Rob says on Diary of a Shiteater, you can't be a punk band unless you have acoustic drums.) They were more like cozy cubby holes than real rooms. I have no idea what the kitchen, bathroom or shower facilities were like or if they even existed. One didn't bother to ask or think about those petty details back then.... After we viewed the offerings at The Brewery, we saw the apartment (#309) at 1405 Van Ness and took that room right away. It was owned/run by these nice Chinese folks. Sure, the roaches and the mice ran wild, but everything else functioned quite well. To pick up one's mail, you had to go to their office and the main guy was always very nice and cheerful. After Brett moved, the main guy suggested that I move to Room 407 and get away from all the drama that I was living around and which I detail in "I Live Downtown." Room #407 was $25 more a month but it was bigger, painted really cool in black and white and had saner neighbors.
Brett and I went out on the Saturday night leading up to Halloween. He decided to stay out and go to some clubs. When I got home, I found my neighbor's husband trying to kick in the door of my and Brett's room. He accused my boyfriend (meaning Brett) of stealing his boombox. I calmly told him that we didn't have his boombox and opened the door of the room to prove it. He took one look around and saw a bunch of old tape recorders, cassette tapes and back issues of NY Rocker lying around and took off. It turns out that my neighbor had a boyfriend (I mention him as the one with the missing teeth) and he had taken the boombox.
While in Psychodrama, I had worked several administrative jobs for a few months. I also continued to do babysitting work in the neighborhood. I was living at home so I was able to save up about $1,800 from all these day gigs. All of us in Psychodrama lived very economically. So with that $1,800, I had a cushion to move to SF with. While there, Brett and I continued to live economically. Instant oatmeal and dried milk for breakfast, peanut sandwiches for lunch and dinner was ramen noodles with a bit of hamburger and canned vegetables mixed in. We each prepared on our own meals separately whenever we felt hungry. Sometimes we would have hot dogs and fried eggs and fried toast. Brett is the one who showed me how to do things frugally which was very helpful such as buying the dented cans of canned vegetables.
After Brett moved out, the landlords took pity on me and offered me another SRO type apartment on another floor. This was the Trips Room. This apartment was larger and my neighbors were way more responsible and mellow. That was room 407.
As for Brett's return to Virginia, other options back in VA kept calling him so he returned. I think that I was so focused with getting a job and staying on in SF (going back to Alexandria, VA would've felt like a failure to me and not an option), that I didn't let myself feel the loss of his departure. Because once he left, I was alone there with no one to talk to on a daily basis other than my co-workers until I connected with Denise Dee of Lobster Tendencies and John Hricko but that took a couple of months.
I remember Brett and Bob would call to check in on me and I would put on a "happy face" while talking to them but I was a bit lonely there for awhile. My parents would also call me too and would focus on talking about what was going on at work. I didn't let anyone (including myself) know how vulnerable and lonely I was there at first. Luckily, the city and the excitement of being on my own helped get through the lonely patches until I met some fellow kindred spirits. Making I Think About Jackson Pollock was kind of my calling card.
It is interesting to me, looking back on it, how little Brett, Rob and I ever discussed our feelings or our domestic situations. We just poured everything into the music and bitching about the DC scene. We never got in touch with our feelings about each other as friends, bandmates, and comrades in the struggle.
I think that once I got to San Francisco I was ready for a fresh start. I think that perhaps the whole thing was a way of disconnecting from Brett and Psychodrama; Alexandria, Virginia; Washington, D.C.; and my childhood. It was time for me to become an adult out on my own.
Brett left after two weeks and that is when I formed Girls On Fire.
I like what Hal said to me, "Your GOF tapes certainly bear the influence of Psychodrama, but there are differences!"
After Brett left, I continued this regimen even when I got the receptionist job at the San Francisco office of FCA Asset Management which was just before Thanksgiving 1982. So in between the time Brett left and me getting that job, I was going to the SF Library-- the Civic Center branch, to type up my resume and cover letters, responding to job ads in the newspaper (wow- have things changed since the computer and the internet!) via telephone, going on interviews, etc. Luckily, I found the FCA Asset Management job pretty quickly. I will be eternally grateful to the woman who hired me, Janice Shapiro, especially when I think back on how I was new in town with not a lot of office experience, and how she took a chance on me.
I became an arts administrator with a focus on finance and accounting as a way to pay the bills and am fortunate to have the leeway to be engaged with art, literature and music. When I was 19 and moved to SF with Brett to start Psychodrama out in California in October 1982, I thought that I was going to attend the SF Art Institute. Well, reality called and I ended up working at FCA Asset Management (at 301 Broadway) which was part of State Savings and Loan. State Savings and Loan was a major player in the savings and loan crisis of the mid 1980's. Some of this makes it into I Think About Jackson Pollock, and songs like "Helen Schwab" and the cover art of the In My Blood tape.
I became an arts administrator with a focus on finance and accounting as a way to pay the bills and am fortunate to have the leeway to be engaged with art, literature and music. When I was 19 and moved to SF with Brett to start Psychodrama out in California in October 1982, I thought that I was going to attend the SF Art Institute. Well, reality called and I ended up working at FCA Asset Management (at 301 Broadway) which was part of State Savings and Loan. State Savings and Loan was a major player in the savings and loan crisis of the mid 1980's. Some of this makes it into I Think About Jackson Pollock, and songs like "Helen Schwab" and the cover art of the In My Blood tape.
At this point, going to the Art Institute was not in the cards for me. I was already making the "I Think About Jackson Pollock" recordings, going to revival house film screenings, working from 7 am to 4 pm, wearing business attire, sneaking into the office on Saturdays to use the toll free WATS line to make really long phone calls to Brett to stay apprised to what was going on with him, Rob and Psychodrama, and to let him know what was going on in San Francisco (I was starting to go to New Music concerts and meet folks in line like Philip Perkins who worked a bit with The Residents).
It must have been in December 1982 or January 1983, when I met Denise Dee, who put out the literary oriented zine, Lobster Tendencies. When I met Denise, I met a friend of hers, Susan, who was a bass player. Susan worked at the Cedar Street Cinema with Roddy Bottum who went on to being the keyboard player in Faith No More and one of the few people from the old days that still talks to Courtney Love. Susan was in a band and invited me to one of their rehearsals.
That is where I met Clara Lusardi. Clara was from Italy and had played in an all female band called Clito. Clito had appeared in the Fellini film, City of Women. I have forgotten how Clara had gotten to SF. She had perfect English. She and I bonded right away and became very close friends. She had been an art student in Italy so we both shared an appreciation of contemporary/avant garde art. She also was into noise and David Bowie. The band with Susan didn't last so we split off and became Mary Davis Kills Mary Davis Kills. This all must've happened fast since our rehearsal version of "I Think About Jackson Pollock" appears at the end of I Think About Jackson Pollock. As I recall now, I was going around town with draft versions of what became "I Think About Jackson Pollock" in an effort to find friends, new band mates, and kindred spirits.
[Editor's Note: I found an old website of Klara Lux, which includes info on Clito, other bands such as Typhoon, and Klara's other art activities.]
It must have been in December 1982 or January 1983, when I met Denise Dee, who put out the literary oriented zine, Lobster Tendencies. When I met Denise, I met a friend of hers, Susan, who was a bass player. Susan worked at the Cedar Street Cinema with Roddy Bottum who went on to being the keyboard player in Faith No More and one of the few people from the old days that still talks to Courtney Love. Susan was in a band and invited me to one of their rehearsals.
That is where I met Clara Lusardi. Clara was from Italy and had played in an all female band called Clito. Clito had appeared in the Fellini film, City of Women. I have forgotten how Clara had gotten to SF. She had perfect English. She and I bonded right away and became very close friends. She had been an art student in Italy so we both shared an appreciation of contemporary/avant garde art. She also was into noise and David Bowie. The band with Susan didn't last so we split off and became Mary Davis Kills Mary Davis Kills. This all must've happened fast since our rehearsal version of "I Think About Jackson Pollock" appears at the end of I Think About Jackson Pollock. As I recall now, I was going around town with draft versions of what became "I Think About Jackson Pollock" in an effort to find friends, new band mates, and kindred spirits.
[Editor's Note: I found an old website of Klara Lux, which includes info on Clito, other bands such as Typhoon, and Klara's other art activities.]
At first I wanted to put together an all guitar band (I was inspired by the Rhys Chatham and Karole Armitage show that I saw at the 9:30 club back in the summer of 1981. A photo from that gig is featured on the back cover of one of Rhys' albums. Brett gave Karole a flower as gift. She was very nice and appreciative. During this time she was about to leave dancing for Merce Cunningham and strike out on her own. She became a big star choreographer in the 80's with her own post modern work and with Madonna) but that didn't really come together so I kept making tapes myself.
I think that Girls On Fire was a breaking away from Psychodrama but a continuation of some musical ideas that I had had even back in the From Far Away, Beauty? days but there hadn't really been any room for them.
Leslie Singer's listening notes for
I Think About Jackson Pollock by Girls on Fire
“I Think About Jackson Pollock”
I think that Girls On Fire was a breaking away from Psychodrama but a continuation of some musical ideas that I had had even back in the From Far Away, Beauty? days but there hadn't really been any room for them.
Leslie Singer's listening notes for
I Think About Jackson Pollock by Girls on Fire
“I Think About Jackson Pollock”
— a string of word play and the anecdotes that come up out of it. Like the bit about the beer cans found at the scene of his fatal car crash standing up like the Jasper Johns' Ballantine ale sculpture is pretty good. This song is about how the mind works, running over the same stuff, making connections in its own way. Connecting one’s own family dysfunction to others (Jackson Pollock); connecting art movements (Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art), consumerism, colonialism, racism, (the memory of the photo that was shown in my high school music class of the apartment of the Buddhist monk with the TV set and being told that all his possessions would be burned along with him upon his passing and my classmates commented on what a waste that was to burn a TV); and mental illness (bi-polar/manic depression, eating disorders) and Jackson Pollock, well-known for seeing a psychiatrist every week while suffering from an acute case of alcoholism which led to his and a young woman’s early demise. And then a clip from what I think is Robert Hughes’ TV show, The Shock of the New comes in. It is from a segment from a staging of an Antonin Artaud play. Yes, the absurdity of it all.
The song "I Think About Jackson Pollock" consists of two separate audios intercut. One with me doing a cut up sound poetry thing with his name and then relating his biography including his manner of dress, his alcohol consumption, what make of automobile he drove, how he physically approached his paintings, but nothing about his wife, and one of my favorite painters, Lee Krasner. I find that strange. It is almost like I'm a teen girl with a crush, saying my beloved's name over and over again, thinking about his jeans and his penny loafers and then it gets all twisted with the car crash and the other women in the car (none of them Lee, by the way) with him. So my teen love reverie turns into a nightmare. Like the darkness and the fear is always lurking underneath the sunshine and the sugar.
There is also the brittle, clean, thin, clanky guitar. I find it interesting that Simon Reynolds brings up that distinctive guitar sound repeatedly and what it represents. The truth. This is what a guitar really sounds like. This is what I really sound like.
[Leslie is referring to Simon Reynolds' book Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984]
The other audio track sounds like it was recorded over the phone. Family confessions. All the dysfunctional stuff going in my family and on the block that I grew up on and it how it extends into global politics (there are repeated references to neighbors who work for the CIA and are evacuated from Laos when the North Vietnamese finally take over and then Nicaragua when the Somozas are finally deposed). Communism seemingly winning against Capitalism. But we all know what happened next....
And then there is the audio from "The Shock of the New". It is a segment from an Antonin Artaud play. She says: "You love me and everything is beautiful." He replies, "I love you and everything is beautiful." Those are the opening lines to "Spurt of Blood."
The song "I Think About Jackson Pollock" consists of two separate audios intercut. One with me doing a cut up sound poetry thing with his name and then relating his biography including his manner of dress, his alcohol consumption, what make of automobile he drove, how he physically approached his paintings, but nothing about his wife, and one of my favorite painters, Lee Krasner. I find that strange. It is almost like I'm a teen girl with a crush, saying my beloved's name over and over again, thinking about his jeans and his penny loafers and then it gets all twisted with the car crash and the other women in the car (none of them Lee, by the way) with him. So my teen love reverie turns into a nightmare. Like the darkness and the fear is always lurking underneath the sunshine and the sugar.
There is also the brittle, clean, thin, clanky guitar. I find it interesting that Simon Reynolds brings up that distinctive guitar sound repeatedly and what it represents. The truth. This is what a guitar really sounds like. This is what I really sound like.
[Leslie is referring to Simon Reynolds' book Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984]
The other audio track sounds like it was recorded over the phone. Family confessions. All the dysfunctional stuff going in my family and on the block that I grew up on and it how it extends into global politics (there are repeated references to neighbors who work for the CIA and are evacuated from Laos when the North Vietnamese finally take over and then Nicaragua when the Somozas are finally deposed). Communism seemingly winning against Capitalism. But we all know what happened next....
And then there is the audio from "The Shock of the New". It is a segment from an Antonin Artaud play. She says: "You love me and everything is beautiful." He replies, "I love you and everything is beautiful." Those are the opening lines to "Spurt of Blood."
The corner of Bush Street and Van Ness Avenue as it appeared in October 2017 in Google Maps Street View. My apartment building at 1407 Van Ness is to the right. The corner is mentioned in the song "I Think About Jackson Pollock." It is where I was standing when I see the one car rear-end the other causing a car to go into the pedestrian walk way. It made me pause to think about what would've happened if I had been a hurry to cross the street. I could've be a traffic casualty myself. The fragility of life...
“I Wash & Dry My Clothes at the Laundromat
— Recounting stories and experiences from the trip from VA to SF with Brett. The sound is a tape manipulation of a guitar track that rings clearly at the end of the piece. The petty dramas that arise and are observed while doing the laundry. My local laundromat was at the corner of Franklin and Bush. FYI — John Cage is said to have done his own laundry well into his old age. It can be a religious act. The Buddhists believe in it.
I think that song really got on Brett's nerves. Too quotidian. But it is all about coming clean, right?
I think that song really got on Brett's nerves. Too quotidian. But it is all about coming clean, right?
Google Maps Street View, 2018
1405 Van Ness Avenue, as it appeared in October 2017 on Google Maps Street View
“I Saw a Car Crash” — The car crash is the omen of the financial crash that was to ensue with the financial collapse of the savings and loan industry. This type of financial crash wasn’t a new phenomenon in 1984 and was repeated again in 2006 and 2008.
“I Ride the Subway” -- Night comes down—it is dark. Lots of reverb laden effects like a surf record on a very bad LSD trip. The nightmare of high car insurance rates as a bragging point. At this point I was already living in what was referred to as the “Trips Room” at 1405 Van Ness Ave. The room was painted all black with white trim. This room gets mentioned in another song, “My Groovy Apartment” which is on Life is Too Funny—I Think I’ll $hoot Myself. I also shot the video, “Rotten Bananas” in that room.
"I Ride the Subway" is so much about car crashes that the title ends up being an ironic joke. Again alcohol is mentioned as a factor for the car crashing into the auto dealership located across the street from me on Bush and Van Ness. My supervisor, Burleigh Sutton, asking me if I lived in a car dealership since at that time they were all located on the section of Van Ness Avenue. Burleigh was in the film Word Is Out and was an out gay man in the SF financial world during a time when many were not. He looked and talked like Mark Twain. Unfortunately, he died of AIDS in 1986 after I had quit the FCA Asset Management and started to work for the delivery service. Before I quit I sold my truck (the Psychodrama truck) to Burleigh so his boyfriend Dumont would have some wheels.
“I Ride the Subway” -- Night comes down—it is dark. Lots of reverb laden effects like a surf record on a very bad LSD trip. The nightmare of high car insurance rates as a bragging point. At this point I was already living in what was referred to as the “Trips Room” at 1405 Van Ness Ave. The room was painted all black with white trim. This room gets mentioned in another song, “My Groovy Apartment” which is on Life is Too Funny—I Think I’ll $hoot Myself. I also shot the video, “Rotten Bananas” in that room.
"I Ride the Subway" is so much about car crashes that the title ends up being an ironic joke. Again alcohol is mentioned as a factor for the car crashing into the auto dealership located across the street from me on Bush and Van Ness. My supervisor, Burleigh Sutton, asking me if I lived in a car dealership since at that time they were all located on the section of Van Ness Avenue. Burleigh was in the film Word Is Out and was an out gay man in the SF financial world during a time when many were not. He looked and talked like Mark Twain. Unfortunately, he died of AIDS in 1986 after I had quit the FCA Asset Management and started to work for the delivery service. Before I quit I sold my truck (the Psychodrama truck) to Burleigh so his boyfriend Dumont would have some wheels.
Google Maps Street View from October 2017 — 1405 Van Ness Avenue (where Leslie lived) looking toward the car dealership.
“I Ride the Bus Every Day” — This song is about riding the bus and losing your bus pass. The bus lines mentioned in the song, the number 42 and 47 still exist in SF. The movie that the stranger on the street invited me to was the Jim Henson film The Dark Crystal. I like the cut up effects towards the end—very impressionistic.
“I Live Downtown” -- Tape speed changes galore. What is a crime? Life on Van Ness Avenue and Bush Street wasn’t so easy back in 1983. The tape speed changes make the vocal/narrative sound like the Chipmunks gone to Hell.
This is the one where I relate the almost broken down door Halloween incident. I like the part where I say "She plugs in the iron, the TV and the heater and wants to know why she blew a fuse." I took an electronics class in high school and still find stuff like that funny.
“I Tried to Read About Joseph Beuys” — A 10 minute critique of consumerism with ringing guitar tones and overtones. I refer to Brett by one of his nicknames, JC. Then the song goes into a version of “I Think About Jackson Pollock” from a Mary Davis Kills Mary Davis Kills rehearsal that gets cut off abruptly.
I like how that goes into another version of "I Think About Jackson Pollock." It's like I'm saying when it comes to performance artists, give me Jackson Pollock over Joseph Beuys. I still think that. Be true to your school, right?
“I Live Downtown” -- Tape speed changes galore. What is a crime? Life on Van Ness Avenue and Bush Street wasn’t so easy back in 1983. The tape speed changes make the vocal/narrative sound like the Chipmunks gone to Hell.
This is the one where I relate the almost broken down door Halloween incident. I like the part where I say "She plugs in the iron, the TV and the heater and wants to know why she blew a fuse." I took an electronics class in high school and still find stuff like that funny.
“I Tried to Read About Joseph Beuys” — A 10 minute critique of consumerism with ringing guitar tones and overtones. I refer to Brett by one of his nicknames, JC. Then the song goes into a version of “I Think About Jackson Pollock” from a Mary Davis Kills Mary Davis Kills rehearsal that gets cut off abruptly.
I like how that goes into another version of "I Think About Jackson Pollock." It's like I'm saying when it comes to performance artists, give me Jackson Pollock over Joseph Beuys. I still think that. Be true to your school, right?
Castanets cassette review section, "Q" issue of OP Magazine, May-June 1983