The Laundromat Louvre!
(The Art Attack Blues)
By: Mike Marino
Does the Guggenheim Groove gitcha down, Luv? Is the Museum of Modern Art too moderne for your truest scholar and bluest of collar concept of art? Is the Smithsonian stuffy, staid and as stale to you as a flat-ass two day old beer in a mug sitting next to a jumble of wet cigarettes ripely fermenting in an ashtray in some dingy dive in the Tenderloin? Does your dictionary spell art "prissy" and "sissy"? Man-up! You know damn well and you have a $10 bet to back you up that the heavy-metal mucho machismo macho-machino Diego Rivera could kick whitebread milktoast Monets lite-rock soft-pastel ass in a fair fight!
Flashback. An evening with imposters and impossible poseurs at the galleria; joining hands with the incurable curators who act as secretive as ever; stealing and smuggling art and antiquities from the backalleys of Tangier and Cairo. Goodfellas and Artfellas smoke dreaming of lit-fame and big chunky bricks of "dumb blonde" hashish. Flashforward. The effected t-girl "Toodles" and Ru-Paul "Ta-Ta's" following at the end of the sequined evening, Dahlings! Dreadful wine-in-a-box puns, "Got to go, Sweetums, it's getting latte!" Ha! Guffaw!
Listen up! All is art, and art is well. There's narry a Mary Martin lostboy or sweet Sal Mineo lostgirl in all of Neverland that has to search very far for it. Far from it. Great walls of art everywhere, along with painters and pirates inhaling pixie dust, and there's a full jammin' needle loaded with kreative karma to ease the pain of the summertime art-fix cold turkey blues.
Look, art is where you find it, and most of it is right in front of you. The cost? Free, at least a lot of it, amigos y amigas. Cities and towns circling the globe in 17 languages have vibrant art scenes and communities popping up like a garden of peyote buttons in the desert. So, what the hell, grab a crowbar and a chainsaw, it's time to tear down the academic Walls of Geritol Jericho and take to the streets, as mad for art as a French student is for leftwing politics. It's time for the Spare Change Asphalt Kickin' Street Fightin' Art Attack!
'Merika is high on art, from the urban crossroads of cocaine and concrete to the rural regions of barnyard methlabs and farm fields of beans, corn, wheat, surrounded by purple mountains filled with manure and majesty. Visual arts come into clear focus in the worlds great cathedrals of creativity to be "oooh and ahhhed" at by the toney tuxedo'd crowd and not necessarily by the brigands and brigades of bowling shirt Bolsheviks.
Peoples art, volksart, is readily available everywhere and freely viewable too. Depictions painted on buildings along the strolling boulevards of the city and on the beatup grey weathered old barns off the beaten path of forgotten two-lanes.
It's on daring display in parks populated by people and the bovine enriched dung filled cowpie pastures of plenty. There are festivals of arts and celebrations of crafts in big cities and small burgs; and art is not marooned on the Devils Island of academia either. Today art is not only visual, but viewable in diverse venues such as, but not limited to public libraries and public reading rooms.
It's alive on the mass-transit systems and can be savoured on subways, muni-cars, buslines, trolleys and railcars. San Fran-freakin-cisco is most creative culturally when it comes to the display of all things art for arts sake, fer Crissakes.
Masterpieces for San Franciscos tired, poor and huddled masses can be enjoyed in varied locales in The United Nations of Art. Elvis kitsch kulture is on display in a unrinal packed mensroom in a metro-sexual fern bar and literally plays to a standing room only crowd. That would make it the first Uri-National Art Gallery of the Porcelain Proletariat, wouldn't it?
Next stop on the trolley ride ain't exactly the Louvre, but is a peculiar "peoples gallery" that opened it's doors amidst great flamboyance and fabric softener fanfare at a laundromat! Now, that is artful power to the artful people, not to mention whiter whites and bluer blues...Right On!
Murals are the Katherine Hepburn of art forms. Elegant, stately and regal, they dress up the austere highrisers with imaginative and colorful imagery that induces a mild art-cotic narcotic buzz. Bangor to Boston; St. Loo to San Fran, all jump and jive with outdoor visual art feasts delighting the eyes. Jazz and blues themes dress up the West coast as sexy as a female impersonator in black fishnet stockings doing Liza justice in fresco Frisco's frisky North Beach enclave of cleavage, Italian sausage, cheap wine and ten dollar whores. Midwestern murals depict the turn of the century age of raucous ragtime and tickle the ivories of the highrise and sedate Scott Joplin streets of Sedalia, Missouri.
Street art itself is schizoid, with a mean streak and a soft spot sharing the mind. Visceral and existential to a fault, it's created in pshyco-science labs by visionary Sterno holymen disguised as monks and madmen. Street smart art also comes in a can well shaken, as great-gonzo grafitti articulations appear on masonry palettes created by crazed dayglo tribesmen who've braved the journey across sea-beast infested oceans sailing on flimsy straw rafts. In time, with fast currents and favorable winds, they arrive safely ashore from the bitchin' beaches of the Islands of Graffiti.
Contrary to public belief, the subway IS the underground and it's a full metal jacket of gangbanger art created by an army of 9mm graffti commandos who watch it all glide by on electrified third rails below the ground. Railyards too, have been known to shapeshift into lonesome whistle gallerias du arte as the graffiti ghosts decorate the rusted, weather beaten boxcars of the Haiku Hobos. This is a mobile art attack on the march at 45mph-ish.
Sculptors of metal mold shapes and forms from whitehot fires produced by the redhot lava that flows slowly from deep inside old black volcanos. Musicians without stages or roofs play chords on a bluesy guitar or on a jazzy sax. These lost chords were once lost and tossed haphazardly into dark alley dumpsters and forgotten. Soon they're found in the piles of trash and castaway garbage by street-music saints who have the word "crazy" written all over them in invisible ink. The band cranks up the volumn to play as they wash down a feast of diuretics and meds with bottles of warm Night Train wine.
The panhandlers pavement is alive with homeless poets, prophets and discarded prophylactics. The passing parade includes mimes who speak in stony silence, as though their tongues have been removed, and jugglers who juggle torches, gas powered chainsaws and swords of Toledo steel. Vendors line the streets, like mucho sand dollars on a golden beach in old dusty Mexico.
Tables laden with fine crafted riches as if it were stolen booty from the hulls of Spanish galleons sailing from the Phillipines. Beaded jewelry from the Orient; Black gold from the Black Hills; Arizona turquoise and New-Mex silver from deep inside the mines of the old Southwest. Mandolin makers and makers of handmade lutes and homemade flutes. Hemmingways and Steinbecks offering for sale stapled books of xeroxed poetry and prose.
Rural 'Merika ain't immune from the art junkies' needle neither. The highest of plains in plain old Kansas are anything but plain what with whirlygig artfarms and hayseed haystack tom-foolery with feet emerging from the inside of large round bales of hay to haystack fabrications of giant Area 51 alien monsters from outer space staring in a vacant purple haze from the hayfields with giant hubcap eyes, All this and more, displayed with a devilish hayseed wink of the eye to delight the most skeptical who happen by.
The Lone Ranger, Hi Yo Silver, Away! and longneck beer Lone Star State of Texas has a chrome-magnon Motor City phenom of cool Cadillacs. They're set at a weird angle nose-down, chrome down, and look for all the world as though they crash landed; a metallic heavy meteor of unknown substance, composition or origin from somewhere deep in space at high velocity and then, bang, boom, smack, crash into the ground of an old barren bean field in rusted repose resting just west of Amarillo. It's visible and visitable from the interstate, interestingly enough.
Now, gas up and head north to the rectangular, (and damn proud of it!) cornhusker, corn happy state of Nebraska. It's as flat as roadkill after it's been turned to toast by an 18-wheeler; the utility pole is the state tree and the horsefly is the official state bird. It's also where you'll find a gased up and jazzed up enclave of fantastic farm folk/artisans laying claim to being the heavy weight champeenship grease monkey-monkey wrench Hall of Fame trophy winners when it comes to pop culture and chrome. It's one of 8 wonders of the roadhead world. Ladies and Gentlemen...I present to you for your enjoyment and pleasure...Carhenge!!!
The curtain rises in the morning mist as the actors fill the stage.. Beads of sweat form on your brow and Your mouth drops open as you join the audience in an assault of appreciative applause. You gaze in wonder at the mighty "Carhenge" the King Kong of Khrome!. Forget those dreary Druids, this is the ultimate heavy metal knockoff of Stonehenge itself in Jolly Olde England, eh wot?
Got bull testicles? Colorado does and has been long known for it's legendary Rocky Mountain Oysters. Colorado also has altitude and Colorado has attitude, but, it also can induce a damn near mile high art attack at the Swetsville Sculpture Zoo just north of old dharmabum Denver.
Carparts and their second cousins, truckparts and tractorparts, have become part and parcel of the metal sculptured moonscape of the zoo/farm/gallery, Steel and iron have been welded together into shapes resembling large prickly pineapples of polynesian persuasian; gigunga metal ants and humunga metal bugs. There are fish fashioned from joyous junk, and there are enough rusted T-Rexs made of old tractor parts to fill Spielbergs' Jurassic Park!
Metal sculptors who sculpt and welders who wield diabolical welding devices are in the genre top ten of the art worlds hip-parade, but, there is another sculpting movement afoot, Sherlook Holmes! Grab some smoked whitefish, a six pack of Moosehead beer and a handful of sawdust knotty piners, because We're firing up the four-wheelers and snowmobiles and heading deep into the North Country to visit woodland venues of plaid and proud art created by the "youbetcha" crowd.
This is the fabled bar and grill kingdom of pool tables, bowling alleys, guns, ammo, camo and booze, Here, you'll find cocky, as well as half-cocked chainsaw art inspired by Scandinavian lumberjacks with Viking names like Lars, Rolf and Nils. They wear lots o' plaid and Carhart bib overalls and fell trees to the cries of "TTIIMMBBEER". They also create hardwood masterpieces by sculpting tree stumps and tree trunks into fine looking bucktoothed incisor baring Canadian beavers and hungry, angry, salivating black bears that would scare the hell out of Cujo!.
Legendary Lumberjack Lore is alive and well with the legend of Paul Bunyan and Babe his Blue Ox. Paul left years ago, literally and literarily from the great shite northland of the French Canucks who gave birth to this tallest of woodland tales. Rumour has it is that he crossed the border as an illegal alien somewhere near Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.
Today, thanks to a compost heap of timbermania, Paul is a full blooded double-axe tossing log rolling red, white, blue, plaid and proud, my country right or wrong 'Merikan citizen. Just as the flag flies at full staff there stand in tribute to his most holy bruteness, a delightfully weird assemblage of lumber monuments, that penetrate the willing 'Merikan landscape like a compliant virgin on prom night.
His boots roam the hard and soft woodlands from downeast lobstah-chowdah coniferous rich Maine to the giant redwoods of far-freakin-out California. Big and bad, the biggest badass Paul of all is a northern Californian, and has the dubious distinction of being the only talking Paul Bunyan statue in the United States. During my last visit to this Pauly anomaly it could only speak English, but, who knows, by now it could very well be bi-lingual, bi-sexual and multi-cultural all at the same time.
Other Pauls of note line the highways and byways of Northern Michigan like so many unemployed concrete and plaster statues waiting in line for foodstamps. As you enter the Realm of Unemployment in Michigans Upper Peninsula, there's a Paul on the westside of the highway greeting you as you exit the Mackinac Bridge. He's sitting down holding a sign facing the highway. One can only assume that the sign reads "will work for food".
Another Michigan Paul is on the Sunrise Side of the state in the Lower Peninsula and is made entirely of old discarded Kaiser junk carparts. Then..then, well, then there's the story of an Ox named Babe without any balls standing off Highway 23 south of Alpena, Michigan, So, settle back now, pop open a brew and gather 'round children, I have a tale to tell about an Ox with no balls.
Long, long ago, in a galactic bar and grill far, far away, a blue ox named Babe had his ox balls blown off by with a double barreled shotgun by jackpine savages with deerheads on the wall, all drunk. Seems they was drunk. Drunk as skunks they was, yessiree, and stumbled out of the bar for a bit of beer and buckshot saloonery buffoonry across the highway, all at Babes expense mind you. They, the balls, have never been replaced by ball bearing men nor beasts bearing balls either. One lesson learned though, is that it answered the gender defying question of the ages regarding Babes sexual identity and preferences, and gave meaning to the phrase "breaking your balls"!
Creatures from the mad lagoon of Madison Avenue have created a universe of orbiting planets of commercial kitsch culture that includes a huge Mr. Peanut, tophat and cane in hand near Ft. Smith in Ar-Kansas, to a bizarre Ethel Mermanesque tomato tribute in Collinsville, Illinois to one of 'Merikas fave mondo-condiments, Catsup! Ketchup or catsup, it doesn't matter how you say it, besides you say to-may-to and I say toe-mah-to, it's in Collinsville, Illinois. Don't be retching at thought of advert art either. Remember, in the groovy '60s old randy Andy Warhol turned Campbells soup into something unfathomably fashionable in the highly unfashionable pre-Seinfeld soup-Nazi blitzkreig of pop culture.
Squaresville, USA. Be there, and be square! It seems that every square towns townsquare has a Statue of Liberty of varying size and stature. Other cities, in lieu of Libery statues, are infested with an array of bronze beasties in the form of sculptures of historical figures from past and present.
The Honeymooners ruled the small screen for years and a statue of New Yawk City's most irrascible bus driver, Ralph Kramden stands guard on a pedestal in front of the Transit Authority Building. Superman stands tall in the square of Metropolis, Illinois and Spokane, Washington can boast a big bust of Abe Lincoln actually looks more like Hawkeye Pierce on "M.A.S.H" rather then The Great Emancipator. Long distance information, in Memphis, Tennessee it's pop goes the culture as multiple Elvis sculptures sneer, swivel, shake, rattle and roll on a blue suede cruise along the bbq boulevards of the jukin', jivin', jumpin' jambalaya highway of great gobs of gumbo known as Beale Street.
Artists inspire, but also neep second helpings of inspiration themselves. They need a muse to amuse and one that speaks creatively from deep within. Winston Churchill, no stranger himself to the demands of literary demons, once refered to the muse as more of a demanding mistress that requires more and more on a daily basis of the writers heart, art and soul.
In addition to inspiration, an artist also needs an audience and will take one where he or she can find one, and as we've seen that can be almost anywhere today. In New Yawk City home of culture and Nathans hotdogs, the art comes to your neighborhood, via a Ryder Truck. Dubbed "The Rider Project" some of the City's finest or more revolutionary artists and activists travel the burroughs from the Bronx to Chelsea bringing a truck full of art and social commentary to the masses. Get your Rider Project fix online at http://www.art-anon.org
During your own personal journey and expedition searching high and low for highbrow or lowbrow art in the artistic highlands and lowlands, bear in mind that art is what you feel it is, and when you find it, enjoy it like a good old fashioned stolen, illegal Cuban cigar my stogey stokin' Amigos. Enjoy it too, WHERE you find it, because art has hopped the fence having escaped from the asylum grounds. The inmates have shed their creative straitjackets and are hiding in the bushes, in plain public sight, crazed, existential and bonko wild-eyed in venues that defy the status quo.
Open your bloodshot all-night eyes and enjoy the performance on the cities concrete streets and along the asphalt highways of the rural realms of the midwest; as well as in the hayseed haystacks and on the haughty highrises of the for the people, by the people and of the Peoples Republic of 'Merika. Remember, now, the next time you can't get the Guggenheim to give you a full tilt boogie artistic groove, just check out the subways and the Elvis bathrooms. Hell, if you really have a case of the art attack blues, just load up a basket of your dirty laundry and bop on down to the local Laundromat Louvre to get your laundromat groove!
Toodles and Ta Ta's!
Classic Cars, Rock n' Roll, Elvis, Drivein Movies & Route 66! Kerouac, The Beats, Haight Ashbury, Easy Rider & Vietnam!
The Roadhead Chronicles goes from the Cold War Fifties Pop Culture of classic cars and rock n' roll to the spaced out Spare Change Sixties of Vietnam and Hells Angels. Not the usual look at the era, instead It's written by someone who lived it and spent a life of being on the road from his beach bum days in Honolulu to the glitz and dangers of the Sunset Strip in LA, and his purple hazed and double dazed days in North Beach and the Haight Ashbury in San Francisco. The Roadhead Chronicles also looks at the history of Route 66, Roadside Neon Culture and old diners and dives!
Mike Marino writes in an offbeat and irreverant style with a beat and a cadence that is all his own. His writing style has been compared to John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck and Terry Southern and one reviewer likened him to Frederick Lewis Allen on acid! Readers and critics call the book "wickedly wonderful", "delightfully weird" and "automotively sexy."!!
THE ROADHEAD CHRONICLES BOOK By: Mike Marino
THE ROADHEAD CHRONICLES BOOKSITE