Concrete Barrier on FlatBed Truck

shot these on my cell phone out the window of a Metro bus at the cargo on the flatbed of the truck beside the bus, just south of the Spokane Street bridge on 6th Avenue south, heading north.

black and white dance from 1977

These are two from long series of self-portraits taken with a Kodak Instamatic camera . To take self-portraits, I tied a string to the shutter release on the side of the camera--that means I must have used an X-15 from the looks of pics on the web. The shutter-release sting would then go down the tripod and out to me. I held the string by hand and by leg and by arm, developing a sly dance that would create enough pressure to pull down the release but not pull over the tripod. The dances of Steve Paxton and Contact Improvisation were specifically on my mind--I'd seen a photo in a NYC paper of Paxton dancing and thought it the most beautiful man pose this side of Egon Schiele. this link is not the shot I'd seen, just a good example of the slight moment of a photo-captured dance that I was after, aiming for, so to speak: http://artsalive.ca/fr/dan/mediatheque/photos/photoWindow.asp?mediaID=277

Journal May '77, Process Drawing

A Kathy Acker moment

I want my memoir to have something like the following on, say, page 190:
"We started dating and fell in love. I felt a little weird since she was still in high school, but as soon as she graduated, we decided to move to Portland, Oregon. We ran an espresso cart business and I started publishing more of my writing in magazines. I also met many more writers and began publishing more books by other writers. Even though I was happy, I felt anxious. My girlfriend and I had our ups and downs. There were breakups and infidelities and apologies. There was a miscarriage that I didn't know how to handle. I was unfairly distant and selfish.
But then we got back together and my son was born." [the quote from A Common Pornography, by Kevin Sampsell, HarperCollins, 2009]

typed musings, 5 3 77

"Am I working in a manner, that does not lend itself to examination from normal criteria? For instance, does the energy I expend to get a show together, enough to last for a certain period? Right now, I feel like I am in a transitional period. I don't feel like taking the dance class, mainly because I don't want to stay here in any form. I don't feel like I have anything to do that might mean anything to me. I feel like I should rest. I feel like I didn't do enough, could do more for the show. I still don't have the input I need. But is it something I can get? Is it possible to have?

"I feel like I'm doing all this dialogue with myself and just perpetuating a myth. A myth about myself. My work. Not really getting anywhere. But that is the story of where I am right now. I feel like I am not functional.

"Why feel so depressed when there is not really anything to worry about. New work always comes. I never have a period when nothing comes in. Things are not necessarily always coming out, but I guess that is to be expected. But that is what I am questioning. I want to go forever. I want to keep working at the rate that I know I can do, a rate I have proved I can do,"

14th Street and Sanchez apartment, SF 1976

The Fourteenth Street apartment, at Sanchez, is situated mid-point between Lower Haight and the Castro. It is an ideal location for me; I lived in this apartment building at least twice in those early San Francisco years. A block over and I am on Market and then a block from Cafe Flore, where I dj-ed in late seventies. A block up north and east, skirting Duboce Park, and I am at Fillmore and Haight.
Gentrification was already taking place--I recall being advised against getting off a Haight bus, that is from Market Street heading out to the Haight-Ashbury district, advised against trying to transfer at the corner of Haight and Fillmore. "Wasn't safe for a little white boy from Texas." My first two apartments were on Nob Hill with Bill J. But I moved to Fell Street by the winter of 1976, a year that saw me living in faded hippie Haight-Ashbury a block away on Clayton, and 14th Street, in two different apartments.

70s concerts that stay in memory bank

concert ticket stubs and recalled events for which I have checked on dates:

Bruce Springsteen Oakland Paramount Theater October 31, 1975
David Bowie Cow Palace Feb. 6, 1976
Genesis (without Peter Gabriel) Berkeley Community Theater April 29, 1976
Bob Marley & the Wailers Oakland Paramount Theater May 29, 1976
Bruce Springsteen Oakland Paramount Theater October 2, 1976
Patti Smith Berkeley Community Theater November 12, 1976
Patti Smith The Boarding House November 16, 1976
The Last Waltz Winterland November 25, 1976
LaBelle Oakland Paramount Theater November 27, 1976

Richard Hell & the Voidoids The Village Gate August 26, 1977

Sex Pistols Winterland January 14, 1978
Patti Smith Group Winterland May 13, 1978
Stranglers at Old Waldorf, summer 1978

Peacock blue hair, the first Manic Panic color I used, 1977

May 1978

wearing only underwear is a lampoon. Think of Elvis as a model.
Shooting in the morning, Monday, with Mark. Label pictures according to day. Buy Presstype?
Buy Label maker-which could also be used for slides for Tuesday.
Theatre of Instruction as opposed to entertainment. performance of instruction as opposed to autobiography, which has a tendency to weakness, over-self indulgence. But I want politics. I feel I should be on Castro & 18th at 10:00pm. We cannot sit on the sidelines until it is too late. A good lead-in to my piece, do the "Heel, Hitler" piece, between either first & second pieces (I am third) or before first starts. Then for my piece, start from the sidelines again, get out half-way in a similar situation, but with contemporary name-clothes, then stop and jump into repression piece.

There is not much knowledge that leads to power, but plenty of knowledge to which only power can lead. Brecht on Theatre, pg. 72.

A book called "Stereotypes", small, along the lines of Alexis Smith's and the dada's "punks" book. Containing double images of faggots and punks.