"Hangin'
on the tele-phone....I was...hangin' on the tele-phone" crooned Debbie
Harry in the background. The ArtCall gang however was not hangin' on the
telephone. We were waitin' on the telephone. Waitin' for Bell Atlantic
guy to show up to be precise. We killed time by emptying the ashtray of
two thousand butts, the in-box
of over 1,000 emails, the desk of all the mass pulp that you can accumulate
while traveling around this fair city. In defacto, we were cleaning up
ArtCall Headquarters.
We needed
the time to decompress from KatKitty's
visit. We wanted to find her new Minolta 1500 3D camera some work and needed
a larger portfolio to show the artists just how amazing 3D can be. We needed
to flex our ArtCall muscles by June 30th to stop the critics from kicking
sand in ArtCall's face. We dashed off to Follin Gallery (crossing our fingers
that Bell Atlantic did not choose to come at that moment) to find Heidi
(that's right Miss Follin in all her glory) adding appliqué to a
Paul Kostabi (formerly pronounced Cost-a-bee) sprucing it up for the Ebay
bids.
As the
waiting game continued with Bell Atlantic, I was taught the fine art of
'snipering' on Ebay by Paul, getting the final bid in just under the wire.
ArtCall was shopping for a digital camera and we had ebay bid debs on a
Sony Mavica F83. Paul also showed us how Ebay can actually function as
a search engine.
The
latest 'best he's ever done' work by LAII was hanging at Follin, and we
took a picture. We then ebay-bid good evening to Heidi and Paul and sauntered
off to Ray's News to read the latest Page Six gossip. Robert Arihood was
at Ray's and mused about what had to be done to help Ray keep his lease.
I suggested that it would take a real estate agent to negotiate a lease
for him. Bella of Sion Misrahi, was a likely candidate to help him and
the neighborhood out. I passed through Max Fish where Harry Druzd was in
rapt conversation with artist Thomas Campbell. Harry was raving that Thomas
has an upcoming show at Alleged Gallery on June 22nd. You can see a Thomas
Campbell installation at Max Fish in the pool room. There weren't any of
the usual suspects in The Pink Pony next door so it was back to headquarters
to await the phone installer (you know that 16 hour window Bell Atlantic
gives you).
As long
as we were gonna have to wait we might as well do something positive. So
I killed some cockroaches and found another image disk that was missing
from the CBGB's opening. Hitting the familiar delete key, I continued to
read email. I re-installed Civilization II multi-player Gold and
went to sleep at 4am, a happy camper.
I woke
up on Thursday from a dream about some Bell Atlantic guy showing up. The
installer finally called at 2:30pm and said that he would be by in 30 minutes.
We told him to look for the "Welcome Bell Atlantic" sign on the doorbell.
He arrived about 2:50pm and took the better part of 2 hours finally get
us up and running. The installer had to string brand new wire out my front
window and over the roof and then back down the building to get us a line.
"We can't string enough copper wire" the installer lamented. He was impressed
with our sign on the doorbell, "First time I think anyone has done that
for us," he said appreciatively, "You must not be from around here" he
theorized
We
headed out to see the new loft, Kostabi World had just purchased. The space
was raw and needed work. I cursed at myself for not bringing my video camera
to document the carnage of the gutted space. It was tough to tell whether
it had once been a Chinese whorehouse, but I'd have loved to have filmed
the negotiations over the repairs. ArtCall was the recipient of a nice
fan that had been found in the little terrace out back, the only relic
left from bygone years.
We
followed Heidi and Paul back to Follin Gallery and began 'sniping' on Ebay
in earnest. We had found a Sony Mavica FD73, with a top bid of $395. We
looked at the FD83s, we had bid on yesterday and our bid was still tops,
but the auction was a week away from closing. The FD73 had twenty-eight
minutes to go. A girl with the handle "Juliegrrl" had put up a close-out
bid of $414 on the FD73. We opened another window (a key to successful
sniping) and readied ourselves. It was very quiet as the last minutes ticked
off. We fired off a bid of $419 with just 38 seconds left in the auction.
The camera was ours!
The
camera safely ours we fired off an email to Avi, the seller, he called
us with instructions on how to train it to Coney Island Avenue and Avenue
P. That settled we went to the Veselka for another burger 'that could not
be beat' and laid plans to start getting content 'out there on a regular
basis'.
I awoke
on Friday the 2nd at about 2pm, it was the perfect kind of day for a train
ride, warm and sunny. We never meet Avi just Avi's friend, who handed
over our brand new camera. I rode the Q train back into Manhattan, very
happy.
I got
off at the Grand Street station and walked back up to Delancey where I
started heading east to go to ABC No Rio to see Matthew Courtney of the
Wide
Open Cabaret. Crossing Ludlow I saw Wilfredo coming up the block. We
wound up on the traffic island together, during the light change and I
set the camera box down to take his picture. I forgot to pick up the box
as the light changed and the rush of rush hour got to me. When I arrived
at ABC No Rio, I was all very happy and gushing about my camera and I wanted
to take Matthew's picture. I decided to recharge the battery. Realization
quickly set in, I had left the charger in the box and I had left the box
in the traffic island. I was totally shocked and shaken. Matthew offered
his condolences and $20 to help find a replacement.
Once
home it was time to destroy the Russian civilization, ruin the Greek civilization
and get 100 howitzers ready for the Spanish civilization, should they get
their spaceship off before we do. There were now 20 windows open on the
computer and no memory calls by the machine. We took a nap and got ready
for Saturday battery charger shopping on Canal Street.
Panasonic
Electronics at 406 Broadway had a used charger for $60. We took it to our
favorite gallery, American Fine Arts Co. at 18 Wooster, to see if it worked,
it did not. On the way back to Panasonic Electronics, we ducked into Uncle
Steve's at Greene and Canal and found a new charger for $60. We wanted
our money back from Panasonic Electronics to get the one at Uncle Steve's.
Panasonic Electronics refused to give us a cash refund, but offerd us a
new charger of an unused model that turned out to be a stellar performer,
giving us a high of 173 minutes on the battery. We have since discovered
that the actual replacement price of our charger is $50 from Sony, and
we had been quoted prices of up to $169 from the local merchants. Ah well,
it was then back to see Colin, apologize to Daniel McDonald for having
misspelled his name, and finally getting an hours worth of time in the
battery to go shoot the Chelsea openings.
We
noticed that West Broadway is now full of street art between Grand and
Spring as most of the big galleries have fled to Chelsea. It's a sign of
the times. We saw these wonderful funky little fountains of David Perlman's.
They are relatively inexpensive and would look great in an apartment space.
David gets down to Soho when he can and will be in the Lincoln Center festival
on June 17th and 18th, if you are in the fountain marketplace.
When
I arrived at Team Gallery it was already pretty full at 7:15. I saw this
pretty cat painting by Katherine Bernhardt, that reminded me of Norman
and Football, the ArtCall pets. A quick dash down 11th Ave. to the 520
W. 20 St. art building found lots of interesting sights and people.
The
building was very busy for a Saturday. Stefan Stux was on his way home
after a hard day, as our journey started at Kim Foster on the ground floor.
It was totally jammed and I decided to come back a little later. Up on
the 9th floor, Dee Glasoe Gallery was another packed house. There was a
Arnold Wechsler bed right in the middle of the gallery and I wanted to
take a nap in it. Arnold is still hanging around the WestBeth art complex
(found Basquiat and all). Liquid refreshment took center stage, as someone
named Jana was serving up lemonade and writing little slogans on the cups
to get better tips. It was then down to Gallery Alexie on the 4th floor,
where we ran into Il Sun Hong. She is an artist from Korea that works with
paper. In this exhibition she has used shoes as a metapor for living. A
closer look at the work above entitled 'Commuter', would show you
slight imperfections in each shoe such as a damaged heel or toe or lining.
I like this kind of work. This is the kind of work that is worth going
off the beaten track to see.
Outside
Gallery Alexie, an interesting contingent of folks had started a confab
including the old 57th Street Garage cabdriver Curtis Bunyan, ex-Kosabi
World canvas stretcher Bobby Belfiore, and others too numerous to mention.
It was then time to go back down to Kim Foster Gallery, where, lo and behold
we found the famed Red Spot Outdoor Theater artist, Mike Cockrill and Ellen
Lubell. Mike is now showing at Kim Foster, he married Ellen, she works
at Children's Aid Society, and he sends his regards to Anna Lascari. Mike
is part of a show called 2000 Clowns that will be at Illinois St.
University, starting June 10th, with Bruce Nauman and Thomas Woodruff .
Mike went on to tell about how he couldn't get his real name Cockrill as
an AOL emailing address because of the word cock in his name. Sheesh!
As Mike,
Ellen and I parted at 23rd and 10th, it was back to 26th Street to see
if an abandoned chair I had seen there earlier was still there. I didn't
see it in its original location and my heart sank a bit. I continued down
the street and there it was in all its glory. I was so happy! A nice sitting,
reading and reception chair, all for the price of a cab fare home. I spent
the rest of the night putting the finishing touches on computer reliability
and getting ready to take out the Spanish civilization.
Paul
Kostabi and Heidi Follin took off for California on Monday and "kddds"
the Kostabi collector wants to meet Paul in Topeka. Barb Fox was off to
California as well. "Until the money runs out," she said. There was a late
nite snack with the editrix at the Odessa for a ham and cheese omlette
'that could not be beat' and a Page Six snoop through at Ray's News. We
worked on being able to solve the problem of rain and the WebbCamm with
a plastic bag. We were "Cammin in the rain.....just cammin' in the rain!"
Tuesday brought more rain as diary entry 5/29 finally got published and
went live. There were no openings, no socializing, no anything, this is
all catch-up we are doing here in order to be able to get you fresh content
every day. About the only trips we did make at this time were to the little
stand on Kenmare and Centre Streets for triple eggs on a roll w/salt, pepper
and ketchup and the Korean Deli on Mulberry and Spring Streets for half
& half.
Calmx
called on Wednesday morning and came over for a coffee confab. She reported
on a new East Village gallery that will open up. Her landlord has decided
to open a gallery to show the work of her tenants. Richard Gins came over
for some quick computer repair (we need to get into his old BIOS chip)
and to catch up on ArtCall doings since he has been gone for almost a month.
I finally got some precious sleep as I hadn't slept in about 26 hours.
It
is now early Friday morning, the diary is now caught up. I wondered some
days if would ever get caught up, that goal is now a reality. And as ArtCall
day approaches on June 30th, I hope we can get you content almost every
single day. Now let's get on to some new content.
Jottings: Streaming Media East 2000 Hilton Towers June 12th-14th All day. We are there all three days. Wide Open Cabaret today 6/9 8-2am, SubCulture Gallery 6/10 7-9, Jennifer Blowdryer Collective Unconscious 145 Ludlow 11:59, Tsaurah Litzky ABC No Rio June 25th 7-9, All times PM unless otherwise noted.
photos ©carol braddock aka red ed
Artwork Permission of Richard Milone, Kostabi
World, David Pearlman, Team Gallery, Dee Glasoe Gallery, nico smith,
Follin
Gallery
artwork©LAII, heidi follin, nico smith, paul kostabi,
David Pearlman, Il Sun Hong, Brian Tolle, Carol Braddock aka Red Ed
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