Meme Moi et Moi Meme a Memoir by Paul McMahon: In Progress
Born 1950, San Diego, CA BA Fine Art; Pomona College, 1972 Project Inc. 1972-75 MS Art Education, Massachusetts College of Art, 1975 Assistant Director Artists Space 1975-77 Interfaith Ordination; Center for the Living Earth, Bearsville, NY, 1996 Artist at Mothership 2007-present, intermittent
My life mission is to know the deepest truth. My career, or if you prefer 'non-career,' is remarkable not so much for the heights of my achievements as for their breadth. Oldest of four children, my parents took the family to hear Pete Seeger when I was about 11 and I decided that's what I wanted to do. I started with banjo at 12 and by 15 was taking guitar lessons from Elvin Bishop, then playing with Paul Butterfield. Kismet led me to receive darshan from Pir Valayat, prominent Sufi sheik in 1969, my first experience of a holy person. All is blessing. The next year I heard a terrifying recitation of Hopi prophecies from Thomas Banyacya. Both events occurred at Pomona College, which is where I encountered the redoubtable Stanley Crouch, under whose influence I abandoned the blues and switched my attention to conceptual art. I started making art in 1970. My first teacher was Mowry Baden, second was James Turrell. Helene Winer was the gallery director. Lawrence Weiner and John Baldessari lectured on their work at Pomona that same year.
Crouch
Turrell
Crouch
Baden
Turrell
Crouch
Turrell
Turrell
Turrell
Winer
Turrell
Turrell
Claremont gas stations 1970: My first artworks come about because of an accident; a photography mistake. Hal Glicksman assigned us the task of documenting Claremont architecture and I chose gas stations but badly overexposed my slides. I stacked them just to try to see more color and I liked what happened serendipitously. I mounted them, layered in single slide frames.
I began playing with postcards in 1971. At first I paired them with one upside down looking for a seamless bleed from one to the other to make the transition from right side up to upside down disorienting. Helene Winer set me up with contacts for a semester abroad in London where I met Barbara Reise and David Askevold. Through John Baldessari I met CalArts students Matt Mullican and Jim Welling in spring '72. Later that year at the age of 22, bored and jonesing for conceptual art I began producing a series of over 30 one night shows of mostly conceptual and performance art at Project Inc. in Cambridge, Mass. on my salary at a gas station. These shows, mentioned in AVALANCHE, brought artists like Welling, Mullican, Dan Graham, Laurie Anderson (first Boston performance), David Salle (first solo show), Jack Goldstein and Lawrence Weiner from New York. In 1973 I went to Mass Art for an MS in Art Ed and passed the gas station job to James Welling.
Vermont 1971
I began playing with postcards in 1971. At first I paired them with one upside down looking for a seamless bleed from one to the other to make the transition from right side up to upside down disorienting. Helene Winer set me up with contacts for a semester abroad in London where I met Barbara Reise and David Askevold. Through John Baldessari I met CalArts students Matt Mullican and Jim Welling in spring '72. Later that year at the age of 22, bored and jonesing for conceptual art I began producing a series of over 30 one night shows of mostly conceptual and performance art at Project Inc. in Cambridge, Mass. on my salary at a gas station. These shows, mentioned in AVALANCHE, brought artists like Welling, Mullican, Dan Graham, Laurie Anderson (first Boston performance), David Salle (first solo show), Jack Goldstein and Lawrence Weiner from New York. In 1973 I went to Mass Art for an MS in Art Ed and passed the gas station job to James Welling.artist before opening my own studio in {Year}.
Oily to bed, oily to rise; at the job; 41.9 a gallon in 1972
Assisting Matt Mullican performance imagining entering the picture which was then set on fire, 1973. Charles Simonds installing inside/outside ruin at Project Inc, 1974
Nixon Resigns 1974, Private Collection, Woodstock.
Also in 1974 I started coloring onto newspaper photos with pastel as a way of exploring the mystery of visuality within the informational context of news.
It was at Project Inc. between 1972-1975 that Conceptualism passed the baton to the new Post-Conceptual art in the form of one night exhibitions and events by an impressive roster of Conceptual and Performance artists McMahon had met through his contacts at CalArts and Pomona College. An important group exhibition, discussed below, entitled Indian Summer featuring McMahon and his friends could be described as the first presentation in embryonic form of what would become the Pictures sensibility.-Douglas Eklund the pictures generation 1974-1984
David Salle (Coffee Drinkers) 1974
Indian Summer Project Inc, September 1974. Matt Mullican, James Welling, Paul McMahon, Robert C. Morgan and David Salle. This was over three years before the Pictures show at Artists Space and it included a half dozen or so pieces later shown in the PICTURES GENERATION 1974-1984, at the Metropolitan, 2009.
James Welling (Rothko/Cocteau smoking) 1974
Postcards with marker 1975, collection Metropolitan Museum
Helene Winer hired me as Assistant Director at publicly funded Artist Space 1975-77. I moved to NYC where I was involved in the formative stages of the scene which exploded on NY in the 80's with David Salle, Cindy Sherman, Michael Smith, Robert Longo, Sherrie Levine and many others. Of my tenure David Salle said in 5000 Artists Return to Artists Space, "The key intelligence at Artists Space was always Paul McMahon and his intelligence was humor."
Postcards with marker 1975, collection Metropolitan Museum
I am a firm believer in the power of experimentation and play in the artistic process. I often incorporate unconventional materials and techniques into my work, which allows me to explore new ideas and push the boundaries of my craft.
In New York, the noise level in the art world was a lot higher and the pastels were too small and subtle to be seen so I didn’t see the point of continuing and also in NY suddenly the Times didn’t seem 100% unbiased truth the way it did in Boston. So I set about finding 'louder' ways to make art. One night in the fall of 1975, when Matt Mullican and David Salle were hanging at my apt. at 110 Thompson St. I began writing on postcards. It felt like yelling.
One Artist Trying To Convince Others That He Is Right; Artist And Layman
I also began making drawings. I found them a convenient way to dialog with the world. In 1976 I began focusing more online drawings and made a few small books. Originally stapled 8.5 × 11" photocopies, six books were re-printed in 2014, sized 5x 7" with card stock covers.
Installation v RESEMBLANCE
RESEMBLANCE; Group show at Hallwalls: with Matt Mullican, Troy Brauntuch and David Salle, April 1977
QUESTION: WHY DID THE CONCEPTUAL ARTIST START PAINTING? ANSWER: BECAUSE IT WAS A GOOD IDEA -One of the jokes from I'M WITH STUPID
Fired from Artists Space 7/7/77 perhaps due to the influence of Saturn return and punk rock. Booked by Robert Longo I performed first three songs and jokes as floor show supplemented with media at the Kitchen in November 1977.
Audience at I'M WITH STUPID, shots by Ericka Beckman. Left foreground: back to camera, foreground, Willoughby Sharp, above his head, Troy Brauntuch, above him Helene Winer with Susan Wyatt to her left. Right of WS, in front of pillar Mike Zwack, facing Nancy Dwyer, and Matt Mullican, yawning
Audience at I'M WITH STUPID,
Audience at I’M WITH STUPID, possibly standing left Sherrie Levine possibly talking with Troy Brauntuch. Matt Mullican looking to his left, Richard Prince to right of column.
DAILY LIFE with scratched faces, Christine Hahn. Paul McMahon, Glenn Branca, Barbara Ess, photo Dale Kaplan. 1978 scratcher unknown
My performance of the floor show in a make-believe nightclub called I'M WITH STUPID at the Kitchen Center later that year led to an invitation from Barbara Ess to join DAILY LIFE, a punk art band. When I quit they re-formed as The Static and released a very cool single paid for by Dan Graham. I played in Glenn Branca's first two all guitar pieces.
photo: Tom Otterness
Nancy Chunn and I organized the first PARTY CLUB at Franklin Furnace over Christmas-New Year's 1978-9, for the 'stragglers' who, like us, weren't going home for the holidays. It featured many performers in an impromptu social club format. Michael Smith did a James Brown bit involving a plunger and backbends.
Cindy Sherman was the coat-check girl. Our corporate sponsor of choice (ours not theirs) was Carling Black Label Beer, available free of charge. We all smoked cigarettes back then. Indoors.
Sleeve design by Matt Mullican
Formed A BAND with Wharton Tiers playing my pop songs and his minimal compositions. We put out a 45 of LOWLY WORM by me and NO LOVE by Wharton on Nancy Records, with the sleeve designed by Matt Mullican. Lowly Worm was played first on DJ Alison's 'best of 1979' review of indie releases on WPIX. Alison had a weekly show, then New York's only 'new wave' show on commercial radio that we knew about at that time
A Band; Peter Moser, Joe Gone, Paul McMahon, Wharton Tiers, David McMahon photo:James Welling 1979
We had a few parties where we made people chose up teams and everyone had to perform in a band. In his memoir BAD BOY Eric Fischl claims it was his idea, which is possible, though doubtful. Neither Nancy nor I remember it happening that way. Then again neither of us remember how the idea came up. I remember exactly how it was implemented though. Buy my future book, MEME MOI, for the whole story.
Ericka Beckman shot this film for German TV, of 10 No Wave Punk Art Bands playing at my and Nancy's loft in 1979. Released on Souljazz UK, 2010; DVD and CD. Cover shows Glenn Branca and Christine Hahn of The Static.
I starred in OUT OF HAND, a film by Ericka Beckman, 1980
on the LIVE! Show with Jaime Davidovich, 1982
In 1980 I invented the ROCK'N'ROLL PSYCHIATRIST; a completely improvisational act where I ask audience members to tell me their problems and they are always cured. And there's a guarantee: "If your problem is not cured within your next seven lifetimes I will take it on as my own." The songs seem to heal them. Many problems have been mysteriously cured, even car and money ones. I started appearing on the radio first on WBAI, then WFMU, also Manhattan Cable and CNBC-TV in the 80's. In the 90s I often performed on WDST-FM on Doug Grunther's Roundtable. In 1994 a German psychic invited me to perform at a New Age seminar because he believed I was channeling. Recently I've been appearing in yoga studios as the Rock'n'Roll Yoga Therapist.
I traveled to Europe in1981 as artist/songwriter in residence at Corps de Garde, an innovative residency in Groningen, Netherlands run by Leendert 'Van' Lagestein, whose prescient 'flyer' advertising my performance was a bumpersticker, 15 years before I started making bumperstickers in 1996.
John Baldesssari organized this group show. I was invited to name it and designed the poster.
Third 45; HOW I LOVE YOUR PAINTINGS b/W MOVIE STAR, EOS, 1981, photo by Robert Mapplethorpe, design by Anthony McCall. Full page print, 'First Impression', in INTERVIEW. Exec. Producer Barbara Jakobson
How I Love Your Paintings, Artists Space May 1982, David Gumpel video still
In 1982-83, with Nancy Chunn as my co-pilot I toured the US and Canada with ROCK'N'ROLL PSYCHIATRIST and SONG PAINTINGS, a solo musical art performance critical of the new and apparently more materialistic art world of the 80's. This collaboration with Nancy was cute, amusing and pointedly satirical of the booming 80s artworld. I was not able to get the SONG PAINTINGS exhibited in a gallery or museum in NYC
Simon Weasel RIT 1983, photo Robert C. Morgan
The tour put 11,000 miles on a rental car in 5 weeks and only broke even. I think I also broke the unlimited mileage option for the rental car industry, because I’ve never seen it since then. Depressed to be back at my 6 AM job calling substitute teachers I wondered if I would always be small potatoes and spontaneously understood the formula for riddles and wrote 200 about potatoes before realizing I could write them about other subjects too.
With Soupy Sales on COMEDY TONIGHT, Metromedia TV 1985
POTATO JOKES was published by Pocketbooks in 1984. Other joke writing gigs: MUPPET MAGAZINE and Workman Press, where I authored the hundreds of jokes in the PAGE-A-DAY JOKES, PUNS AND RIDDLES CALENDAR, 1984 and 1985, a humbling experience. In a giant potato costume I duelled one-liners with the legendary Soupy Sales. That was on COMEDY TONIGHT, which also featured Whoopi Goldberg in what I think was her first TV appearance. This led to a gig at the original Caroline's Comedy Club. I also appeared on the JOE FRANKLIN SHOW and on news shows, notably with Morry Alter on WCBS-TV. He liked his piece so much he put it on his clip reel.
MILD STYLE
MILD STYLE, comic short of an incompetent white break-dancer, distributed by Coe Films and screened often on WNET-TV in NY, 1985-6. Shot on White Street by Ericka Beckman, edited by Tony Oursler.
I was the 'disturbing' clown in William Wegman and Michael Smith's "World of Photography" Aired on PBS, 1985.
Also in 1985 I organized a show called FUNNY ART at the Concorde Gallery in Soho with William Wegman, Ed Ruscha, Komar & Melamid, Robert Cumming, Michael Smith, Jessica Diamond, Steve Gianakos, others.
I used this blurry altered photo of me on the Funny Art postcard. Later it was cropped and reprinted as a postcard by Fotofolio and has been distributed worldwide ever since. It was published as a print by Strother Elwood Editions and I used it on the cover of my eponymous LP on Neutral in 1986. I garnered a prestigious PRINT Annual design award for that LP design. My friends 'the girls' in the Art Dept at Henson Associates insisted I enter it. I hated to part with the $10 entrance fee, but then I was selected! In 1998 the picture appeared in a major photography show, Under/Exposed in the Stockholm subway system. The image was then used for a Swedish comedy book cover, and licensed for other commercial uses.
PAUL McMAHON (my first LP) was released in 1986 on Neutral Records; Josh Baer and Glenn Branca's label (Sonic Youth, Swans). It charted on WFMU, where I soon appeared monthly for a year on Bill Berger's HIP BONE as the Rock'n'Roll Psychiatrist and thereafter often as a musical guest on the Glen Jones Show and the Music Faucet with Nick Hill. Produced by Mark Valenza and funded by Eric Fischl, the fine cast of musicians includes Philip Johnston and Dave Hofstra of the Microscopic Septet, both of whom also backed me up at the Central Park Bandshell when I opened for Michael Smith later that year.
With Nancy Chunn I produced the second PARTY CLUB at Franklin Furnace in the fall of 1986; a performance art festival in a faux nightclub setting. This extravaganza featured many including Linda Montano, David Leslie, Syd Straw, Joey Arias, Diplomat Samurai Band, John Miller, Ronald Feldman, Microscopic Septet, Tim Maul, Pat Oleszco, Peter Blegvad, Happy Cat many more. I think only Michael Smith and I performed in both Party Clubs. Paula Court was the roving (polaroid) photographer.
Above: Paula Court polaroid.
Below: postcard announcement, lampshade and tablecloth from the second PARTY CLUB at Franklin Furnace.
In 1987 one of my volunteer workers at the PARTY CLUB, Michael Dorf founded the Knitting Factory on Houston St. soon after, which I was the first to book during the early months of 1987, starting before it was named.
My projects room show that year at White Columns got a rave review from Carlo McCormick in ARTFORUM.
photo: Dorit Cypis
I produced a quasi-operatic meditation on the subject of identity, SONG OF THE STATUES at Home, NY. Jon Pareles, writing in the NEW YORK TIMES called it,"…better than an hour of MTV." It included collaborative works by Cindy Sherman/Michel Auder and Dorit Cypis. Masks and Puppets by Richard Curtis. A cassette album of the songs from this show was recorded by Don Hunerberg at the recording studio at Radio City Music Hall. SONG OF THE STATUES, Akashic Records and Tapes, funded by the Boston ICA, who produced the show in 1988. After the show a reporter named Paul McMahon interviewed me for a predominantly gay Back Bay community newspaper called The Mirror.
Performance soundtrack is my second LP, cassette -Akashic Records and Tapes, recorded at Radio City Music Hall recording studio.
Mylar videos used as entre-actes at ICA performances of STATUES.
My performance of one of the songs from Song of the Statues, "Bang Your Crazy Head," was praised in the DAILY NEWS review of MIKE'S TALENT SHOW, 1989 on Cinemax, hosted by Mike Smith, starring Lyle Lovett and Stephen Wright. Produced by the Kaminsky Brothers. Stephen Wright and I sat alone together in a small room for maybe 15 minutes. He was listening to the Cowboy Junkies on headphones and I thought I'd screw with his mind a little by not saying anything. It was hard. I'm such a fan.
Spring 1988:
My father died on a Blue Moon by a lagoon in Florida. Nancy Chunn and I broke up after a decade and I took up with Peggy Preheim. That summer I received a very powerful healing massage from Eleanor Moore, which was followed in a day or two by cathartic emotional eruptions which drove everyone, even Peggy away from me. This set the stage for a remarkable Kundalini rising experience with vivid sensations and pictures. The process began in a dream and woke me up. I surrendered, merging with godhead. I experienced the seamless oneness of everything as a fact. I think this is what is meant by self-realization. When it was over I immediately got up and made a series of gouaches to record the imagery.
I had a two day a week job in the mailroom at Henson Associates for the 80s. I also did a little writing for Miss Piggy and concepting for Little Muppet Babies and contributed jokes to Muppet Magazine. These were wonderful people to work for. Jim Henson was an inspiration, not only because of his works but also because of his synergistic business model and his astounding courage. He was constantly betting the farm and sometimes he lost big, but he kept right on going either way
Moved to Brooklyn, age 38, to live alone for the first time since my college dorm room in 1972. I needed to make more money and in autumn 1988 I had a dream which showed me how to market MOCK MOUSE (Nancy Chunn named it), the cat toy I invented in 1980 to play with Billie Blue. In the dream I was told to use recycled cardstock and display the mice in the open box. The box must have a picture of the earth and the initials E S P on it somewhere. I followed the instructions and it worked like a charm. The toys started flying off the shelves in Brooklyn. Pet toys became my main means of support until 2001, providing the modest essentials to support my spiritual project in the 1990s. A second product, Ms.'Tick' Mouse was invented around 1995, and eventually surpassed Mock Mouse in sales. Mock Mouse was my first successful micro-business, still successful and still micro.
Rock'n'Roll Therapist
was one of the original acts on KTV, the kids show on Sunday mornings on fledgling CNBC-TV; making up songs on the spot about the kids' problems, dreams, etc 1989-90. Without consulting me the NBC lawyers changed the name from Psychiatrist to Therapist. I didn't find out until tape was rolling and I was about to go on. I was indignant at first but eventually came to prefer the new name, so ‘Thanks!’ corporate lawyers.
Released my third album, ADULT CHILD on cassette, 1989.
Produced by Richard Jean (Pianosaurus) with another fine cast of musicians, including Steve Bernstein and Bill Ruyle. It's a diverse, genre-bending collection of songs around recovery issues and psychological healing, 1989, cover art by Peggy Preheim.
In 1989 I received initiation in Kriya Yoga and the darshan of Sri Hariharananda-Giri, disciple of Sri Yukteswar, guru of Yogananda. One time in a group meditation the swami asked who is not seeing light? I raised my hand. He touched my crown chakra and I saw light inside my head.
The fourth album MR. PAUL MCMAHON, 1990, is 22 songs, mostly self-produced, mostly at Big Saw in Tucson, mostly solo acoustic. Photos: Paula Court. This album charts my journey of mental/emotional healing and recovery as it opened into spiritual experience.
1988-90 Artwork is reflecting a more shamanic orientation; notions of channeling, animism, dream content, feathers, found objects, synchronicity.
I received a fellowship in New Genres from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1990.
Late 1989: My meditation was interrupted at a significant moment by the telephone. It was INTERVIEW magazine calling me out of the blue asking me to fly to Las Vegas right away to interview Wayne Newton. On this trip my spiritual quest began in earnest with a near-death rock climbing experience on Bell Rock, Sedona AZ 1/1/90. That night I was touched by the Goddess in my first sweat lodge and I have served Her ever since. I sought Native American teachings from Grandmother Twyla Nitsch of the Wolf Clan Teaching Lodge on the Seneca reservation in NY. There I also met Grandfather Thundercloud, my mentor until his passing in 1995. He encouraged me to move to Woodstock, which I did later that year, after traveling to Wyoming to seek a vision with a mixed blood (Crow) Heyoka shaman named Two Feathers. I moved from Brooklyn to Woodstock to become an intern, later artist in residence and finally seminarian at the Wittenberg Center in Bearsville. I was ordained in 1996 as an Interfaith minister by Joseph 'Beautiful Painted Arrow' Rael and the Rev. Betsy Stang in the Wittenberg Sound Chamber.
Portal, acrylic on canvas 36 x 36” 1994
In the spring of 1991 I taught at the San Francisco Art Institute as a visiting artist. I organized a faux night club in the dining hall called Club Sandwich for my class to present work in all media. On the way back east I visited the Hopi reservation in Arizona for the first time, and met Grandfather Titus Lemson. I gave him feathers and mailed many more later. I was told that since the coal companies take so much of the water Hopiland became too dry and many of the birds left. A lot of the feathers they had were old and they couldn't get more. I think that may have improved since then.
DECEMBER 10, 1992. Thomas Banyacya speaking about the prophecy stone, with Onandaga Faithkeeper Oren Lyons
I became interested in Hopi prophecy in 1970 when I heard Thomas Banyacya. I saw him again again 22 years later, on December 10, 1992, when he addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations, warning of the Day of Purification. Within minutes of his talk, New York City was hit by an unforecast 'spirit storm.' The song McMahon wrote about it was included on his fifth album, WALKING IN THE DAYS OF THE PROPHECIES.
Fourth LP,
produced by Marc Hayden and recorded at Applehead Studio with excellent local musicians, including Randy Ciarlante of The Band, the album was finished in 1994 and released on cassette, Six Fans music. Woodstock artist Gina Funk made 50 handmade sleeves for the cassette.
Pink Cloud acrylic on wood panel, 1991, 16 x 22" -one of two on this subject, the other was bought by Edward Albee, who walked in off the street.
In 1993 I had three simultaneous art shows in Soho, at Muranushi-Lederman, Horodner-Romley and Zand, and was favorably reviewed in the NEW YORK TIMES by Roberta Smith. I sold a lot of work at low prices, mostly to other artists. I offered to draw a picture of anything anyone wanted a picture of for $20. I drew a lot of pictures.
That February (1993) I spent a month at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. I produced a lot of both visual and musical work and clarified ideas about process, working on both music and art daily. Virginia was hit with a rare snowstorm when I was there, creating amusing chaos.
1993 Road Trip: I flew west to work on helping to build a meditation chamber with Joseph "Beautiful Painted Arrow" Rael on the Southern Ute reservation in Colorado. I visited Hopi Grandfather Titus again, who was now living at his corn field on third mesa, which was growing well despite a long drought.
In 1994, in a story about the Woodstock 25th anniversary concert in Saugerties, pictures of me which I did not know were being taken showed up on the front page of HET PAROOL, Amsterdam's daily newspaper. A copy of the paper came to me in a most unlikely way. Someone’s grandmother in Woodstock subscribed and he saw me and nabbed it for me. Just before the festival a Japanese camera crew looking around for a representational Woodstock hippie filmed me in my apartment and aired it on Japanese TV.
With Magnolia Santibanez-Nava from 1994-5 I co-produced a weekly cable access show called DOGS ON PATROL
which ran for about two years. We were eventually kicked off the air because of horrendous behavior by some young guests we failed to supervise closely enough. The show featured local musicians and productions of several plays and short pieces written and acted by McMahon, Santibanez, and friends.
St. John the Divine 1996
I also started backing up Lakota singer/songwriter GAYLE TWO EAGLES.
I was ordained an Interfaith minister at the Wittenberg Center
in the Sound Chamber by the Reverend Betsy Stang and Beautiful Painted Arrow, the 'sneaky shaman' whose interdimensional teaching vehicle is metaphor. I never met a four I didn't like.
I was struck by the irony of Woodstock getting the credit for the 1969 concert it refused to host. Once again, the 25th anniversary show was also not in Woodstock, but down the road in Saugerties. I fantasized putting up a sign at the edge of town saying, WELCOME TO WOODSTOCK, STILL NO FESTIVAL HERE AGAIN. In 1996 my friends’ business downstairs got a computer with a graphics program and all of the ideas that were festering in my mind came pouring out. With start-up capital of under $10 I began producing a popular series of satirical "Welcome to Woodstock" bumper stickers that make fun of the town with punchlines like, "Old Beer, Stale Hippies and Psychedelic Rednecks," "Mid-life Crisis Center of the Northeast," and "Most Famous Small Town on Earth." I also printed on magnets, coffee mugs, ashtrays and shotglasses. In 2007 Shivastan Press published the original 1996 collection as a book.
In 1997 I started producing bumper stickers for the general market like; "My God Can Beat Up Your God," "CAR," "Inner Child In Trunk," and "Green is Green".
I made all of the stickers on this van except the *EVOLVED* one.
Around this time I also started producing a line of buttons.
Also in 97 I got a prank call from JAY LENO, pretending to answer a prank classified ad Wayne Waller and I placed in the Woodstock Times.
"Position available: m/f 50 or over: Must be willing to run naked in public covered with a fine dusting of powder. No pay. No questions. No wimps." and the phone number. Leno displayed it on the Tonight Show.
Around 1998 all of my twenty-something friends in Woodstock suddenly thought of themselves as poets and 'en masse' manifested large group poetry parties in my living room where everyone read. They also put together five or so chapbooks called 'Of the Beet In Poe Tree Path'.
At this time I started performing songs with two young girl backup singers, Julia Nichols and Diana Penz. We did some shows in NYC, mostly at the Sidewalk Cafe.
In 1999 I traveled to South Dakota and was adopted in a Making of Relatives (Huncka) ceremony at a Lakota Sundance on the Rosebud reservation, by Gayle Two Eagles. It was the greatest honor of my life up until this point.
I have also backed god-daughter singer/songwriter Shamsi Ruhe in a few gigs, and continue to do so on occasion. Her rendition (on Youtube) of my song BRING IT ON DOWN is great! I was in NAKED, a band of four songwriters doing each others' work. We lasted about a year, breaking up in 2000. One of us, Julia Nichols kept the name for her band. In July of 2000 I turned 50 and released QUEEN PAUL QUINQUADRIO, an improvisational collaboration with DJ 113; recorded, mixed and pressed in the 48 hours before my birthday party. This was my deepest foray into free-style hip-hop.
After she liked a song I sang in a concert with Gayle Two Eagles in September, 20-year-old model Amanda Williams and I hooked up and soon became pregnant with twin girls.
In December 2000 the costs came down enough for me to release my first CD, ARMY OF LOVE, a compilation of old and new tracks including three which had just been produced by the gifted Shahzad Ismaily.
In January 2001 Amanda, pregnant with twin girls, started writing songs and with Emily Lopez we formed a band which she coincidentally named ARMY OF LOVE. The first album, DEMO, was completed that month, with Williams recording each of her first 14 songs in just one take, only 5 weeks after I showed her three or four chords on the guitar.
We were married on Easter 2001 by Bhagavan Das, who was living next door. Ginger and Hominy were born in June.
Taking the babies to the stream, summer 2001.
In August 2001 I recorded and released a six song CD with Pete Caigan called WOODSTOCK WINDMILLS. It got good airplay on WKZE-FM.
September 10, 2001; in order to provide a more stable income for my new family I joined the Post Office and soon became a part-time letter carrier in Woodstock, which I still am at this writing in 2016. photo: Sharon Gannon
September 11, 2001; I noticed this day was the 108th anniversary of an address on Interfaith tolerance at the Parliament of World Religions, Chicago, 9/11/1893. This was the first known public presentation of Indian spiritual thought in the New World. Vivekenanda was the most important disciple of Ramakrishna. In a bid to raise money to feed the poor of India he carried the gospel of Vedanta to the West. 108 is the most auspicious number in Hinduism. It is virtually synonymous with God.
September 15th; Pete Caigan recorded Army of Love's second CD, SERGEANT CATFISH AND GENERAL WILLIAMS, which adds him on drums, Drew North on bass and Hollis Smith on voice. A ditty written by her and Amanda on September 9, 2001 called "Here Comes The War" was more than a little freaky. "Don't be afraid to march in the parade!"
After 11 months of nursing two babies, the adventurous 22 year-old Amanda left for her next adventure, which included trying out for women's professional football in Florida. This left it to me to raise the twins, which turned out to be the best possible thing that could have happened for many mysterious reasons. Amanda and I are best friends today and she lives nearby with her new family.
photo: Martin Brading
Holding the kissing couple of Pooh and Grumpy, Hominy asks the blessing of the head garden gnome upon their marriage, 2004.
What's a product or service you'd like to show.
Army of Love stays together even though Amanda and I do not: ARMY OF LOVE SAVES THE WORLD AGAIN 2003, features Alanna Orr (Dutchess of Funk) on drums, and sports a sleeve design by Drew ‘Ion’ North.
This is a collaboration with Melissa Eppard, who took this picture at the peaceful Washington DC anti-Iraq invasion demonstration, one of 600 demonstrations in 60 countries, then the largest intentional gathering of people in the history of homo sapiens on Planet Earth. Dismissed as a 'focus group' by the Neo-Liberal Neo-Conservative regime it was followed within 2 days by a huge snowfall shutting down DC on President's Day 2003, two weeks after the Shuttle Columbia disaster, a layered omen of doom for the coming Iraq invasion of March 2003.
Martial Art USA postcards and tape 14 x 14” 2003
ARMY OF LOVE's 4th album WITNESS TO THE MONKEY recorded by Wharton Tiers, 2004. Max Parker, Drew North, Paul McMahon and Amanda Jo Williams
