Eventually, it was my turn, I used all the leftover Streaming Media 2000 promotional items and began handing them out. A round of pens and then a round of promo frisbees as sheer bedlam broke out, the crowd was so overwhelmed that they couldn't calm down. MC Matthew Courtney was pressed to control the tiny mob with the question, "What is so powerful about these little tiny trinkets?" I began to explain where all of the bounty had come from.

KatKitty and I gave out ArtCall shares to Bob Arihood and John Penley at Ray's, and headed over to alt.coffee for an iced one. We took stock of the day, the fabulous emails, the printer being fixed, calmx's visit, the 3D camera, the ArtCall started and the Wide Open Cabaret success. After chillin' for a bit we ambled up St. Mark's Place and found Red over at the pizza joint across the street, after exchanging pleasantries it was back to the Bowery headquarters for some needed sleep. I lost the flip and wound up on the inflatable bed where I dreamed of an inflated market and beautifully redesigned shares.

Paul Kostabi woke me up to suggest to him a place for dinner. We used the opportunity to test out the Web Cam and it's 30 second update feature. After rejecting Odessa, Becenka (that's Veselka to you english speaking folks) and Sidewalk, we settled on Noho Star, Lafayette and Bleecker Street. On the way we looked at the Absolut Vodka ad at Lafayette and West 4th and noticed how similar ArtCall and Absolut campaigns were.

We dashed in and out of Starbucks and retired to Follin Gallery, where strategy and Heidi did the best she could to keep me there, until she fell into a coffee laden sleep. Richard Gins checked in and reported that he had finished his redesign, I then took my leave of Follin and went off down the avenue looking to see which of 'the usual suspects' were out and about. I found Clayton at his place on Essex, and we dropped in at The Pink Pony to find a half a dozen ArtCall artists busy having a confab as Richard had beaten us there. Jamie Lavender and Nico Smith joined us and if the ArtCall's progress could be measured on a status symbol bar, ArtCall made history registering a blip in the collected artwork area.

Richard found a ticket on his van that had been parked on 1st and A, a No Standing from 11 to 7 issued at exactly 11:00 on the nose, we are willing to go to supreme court over this unfair ticket.

Monday found us dodging the heat as the AC stayed on full blast. It was in and out of the East Broadway post office during the height of rush hour as priority mail went out to Delaware. We dropped by Kostabi World where Wilfredo was still doing his best to dig out from under the fire that had burned down his Queens home. The air was thick and steamy and rain threatened as I left to go have a Clayton confab up on Essex Street and to see Cliff Chase (Routine Six, 350 9th Street) about his share. Cliff reported that no progress had been made on the Red Ed outfit he had been commissioned to do.

After getting all scratched up by Football the cat, I ran up to Ray's to find he needed a wife and that he had a new employee by the name of Dorota (that's Dorothy to the english speakers). John Penley also reported ArtCall's first nightmare, as he had filled in an area in his share that could not be filled in. He had written his name in the area where you fill in the name of a shareholder, and also that he had filled in a share amount in the share amount area.

John promised to fix the error, and I rejoiced that we wouldn't have to get a reprint. I then ambled down to the Pink Pony to find Jamie Lavender engrossed in the new Village Village article on Rudy Guliani's mob father. It struck me as odd that the NY papers hadn't managed to do this expose  and further that it took a book to get the NY weeklies to get the truth out there. Is the NY media that scared of the guy?

This year's display featured multi-colored mega-balls and the smiley-faces red. ArtCall artist Colin Moynihan, a writer for the New York Times and salon.com filled out a contact sheet for his share of the redesign. Local 4th Street regular Frenchie showed up with about a dozen visiting Italians, who oohed and ahed their way through the big display.

Mamushka was at Ray's for her daily dog and John Penley turned in his share, he bought a share of ArtCall's parent company (thanks John). I came to my doorway and there were two people waiting for the bus, sitting on the front step. As I tried to keep the door from slamming, my right index finger was caught and got sliced as I pulled it out. It hit a major vein but I could still type with my left hand.

I read an email from a barter agency that ArtCall's parent company is involved in. It seemed there was $3,000 in our trade account! I was stunned. Someone had ordered twenty of signed Kostabi: The Early Years books, that we had listed back in April when ArtCall began in New York. Mark is in Italy, but I hope he has long enough arms to do the autographs. A twenty-one inch monitor is now high on the list of ArtCall's most wanted items.
 

It would be interesting to see if 'Lady Luck' was on ArtCall's side for a change. Lo and behold, there was Fran Luck, still patiently holding down a table at Caravan of Dreams as I arrived late. Fran brings an unusual assortment of ingredients to the ArtCall roster as she is a Cooper Union grad, a neighborhood resident and a social activist. It was important to her that there would be an outlet within the ArtCall's parent corporation for social activism. Considering that we are so small that you can talk to the CEO at any time, she didn't have too much trouble with that

"He (father) put a brush in my hand and said go to it," related son Anthony Zito at his Deepdale Gallery opening. The gallery goers were socializing on Broome Street when New York's finest paid their usual visit around 1am and issued an open bottle ticket to an unlucky patron. Marz Bar on 2nd and 2nd was the after opening spot, where no tickets were issued.

I went back to headquarters and dropped dead away as I was that exhausted. I did notice was that the roof was open and the tiny chips of paint and putty at my feet as I opened the headquarters door. The door was not locked, I was amazed at that as the door came open in my hand as I put the keys in the lock. Shock immediately set in and a sinking feeling slowly creeped into my existence. At first I'd thought the damage to have come from the inside lock (see lower right pic) as it does open and bang against the outside frame once in awhile. But the bolts do not line up exactly. The inner bolt is about 1" lower than the lock bolt. You could see the scrapes from where the intruders were using a screwdriver to gain entry. You could see the putty marks on the door change as they had not set yet. For if the putty was completely set, it too would have broken off. The office had been broken into just before I had rented it.
 

 It was like a detective novel in my head as I examined all of the damage. Were there one or two criminals? Was this against ArtCall or just a random break-in? Had I stopped the intruders on Sunday by returning so soon? Was I being "clocked" and would I get hit again if I left? Had they taken an inventory of the place, so they could 'time their hit' and take everything at once? Was I being bugged?

No, I am not at complete ease. Tomorrow we will reseal the roof with phone company seals (they are tough). But even that is not enough reassurance. It will bother me for quite awhile. I  will hold my breath every time I come back here. I will have to go get various cables and cable down everything in headquarters. And even that leaves the main Web Cam at risk. I know now how Kinko's felt in the early days of Mac SE 20's, when boxes would disappear from the copy stores. I just hope I am not as crazy as the 'residents' of the asylum that I am gonna go cover later today, and leave headquarters for too long a time.

WIRELESS WEB INFO: Now as you can see below, the plate is full of Jottings listings for the remainder of the month. You can access this information via the URL webbittown.net/up.hdml (note the HDML extension) in your wireless web browser in your cell phone. It is ArtCall's aim to make every event listed in the Jottings section. These are good times and places to drop off your ArtCall share redesigns at. We do our best to list mostly quality, free, art related events that promise to be fun, interesting, and on the bleeding edge. If you have or know of an event please write the ArtCall and we will list your event on the Wireless Web. As far as we know we are the ONLY service of this or any kind in the New York City area. We would also be happy to list events outside the NYC area too.

The fickle of fate. It was bad, but not as bad as it could have been. And it was able to be remedied, whatever it had dealt us.

Till next time, happy share redesigning!

Next Issue: Stopping off in Soho on a visit to the Asylum.

Jottings: Asylum of the Deranged 409 W 13th St 7/11 8-4am, Art Club Gallery 19 Hudson 7/12 6-8, Robert Pardo Gallery 210 11th Ave 7/12 6-8, Fly Tillie's 248 DeKalb Bklyn 7/13 8-12, d.u.m.b.o. 56 Water Bklyn 7/13 6-9, Matthew Courtney's Wide Open Cabaret ABC No Rio 7/14 8-12, New Century Artists 168 Mercer 7/15 6-8, Temple Bar Reading 332 Lafayette 7/16 7-11, Lance Fung Gallery 537 B'way 7/18 6-8, Hello Laura Forde Weiden+Kennedy 7/19 12-5, Nexus Gallery 345 E 12 St 7/19 6-8, Montserrat Gallery 584 Broadway 7/20 6-8, Matthew Courtney Tillie's Bklyn 7/20 8-12, Hammerbrain Continental 23 3rd Ave 7/20 10-12, Broome Street Gallery 7/22 5-7, Purple Organ Pussy Puddle Party 172 Allen Street 7/22 11:59-2am, blue Veruka 525 Broome 7/23 10-2am, Denise Bibro Gallery 529 W 20 St 7/27 6-8, Deepdale Gallery 248 Broome St. 7/28 6-2, Jennifer Blowdryer Collective Unconscious 145 Ludlow 7/29 11:59-2am, Hello Brendan Cotter MeetingMakers Inc. 7/31 1-6, Pillow Talk Bryant Park 7/31 8:30-10:30, Tribes Gallery 285 E 3rd St 8/3 6-9, Sub-Culture Gallery 376 Broome 8/12 7-9:30, Harry Druzd 303 Gallery 525 W 22 St. 9/7 6-8, All times PM unless otherwise noted.

photos ©carol braddock aka red ed
Artwork Permission of Webbittown Corporate Corporation, Kim Foster Gallery, Deepdale Gallery, Follin Gallery
artwork©Anthony Zito, Bokov, Kevin Lander, Pual Kostabis

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