The Irish Are Coming 2011

After a month visiting my family in Thailand I returned to New York in 2011. On March 17 I extended invitations to a drinking Craic around the East Village for St. Patrick's Day.

"I’m back. Happy St. Patrick’s Day," I announced at the 169 Bar. To most od my friends, however my good friend Jocko Weyland, skateboarder/urbanologist, had begged off joining us with the following words.

"Thanks for the invitation. I’m honored, but I want to hibernate a bit and stay away from the sauce. Too much sauce in Tucson!"

My response was swift, because hibernating during the high holy holiday of hibernian inebreations was a heresy and I told Jocko, "Go dtachta na péisteoga do thóin bheagmhaitheasach."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"May the worms choke your worthless butt. But no worries. Tuesday evening I had a practice run in the East Village and I woke in a coma yesterday."

"Too much sauce."

"Too much everything."

Tonight is St. Padraic Eve. I'm beer-hungry.

Drinking with two comrades-in-arms.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to ye all.

Birthday Suit Swimming - 2009

Man and woman are emerged naked from their mothers. Nudity is our natural state. Adam and Eve roamed through the Garden of Eden without any Gucci grape leaves covering their genitalia. despite this biblical precedent New York retains several laws on the penal code banning public nakedness. Most were written to prevent the spread of pornography, however law § 245.01 against exposure of a person's private parts. Friday night I protested this odious restriction by skinny-dipping at the dumpsters pool along the Gowanus Canal.

It was late. The full moon was hidden by clouds. Our host Jocko Weyland green-lighted my nakedness and I climbed onto the deck with my female accomplice. Shelley was wearing a bathing suit and expressed no need to bare her flesh to the four elements on a summer night. The glimmer of silver moonlight bathed the transformed parking lot and I stripped off my jeans and shirt. I was commando on the underwear front.

The swimmers in the pools laughed, as I approached the water. Fifty-seven year-old naked men are funny, especially since my hands were cupped over my genitalia to avoid any embarrassment about the size of my penis. I leaped in the water. It was cold. Not as cold as the air, but my cock shriveled to a cashew. The other bathers veered away from me, until my accomplice joined me. Shelley was young. Twenty-two. A fellow poet. The companion of a female tends to lessen the collective disdain for naked old men. I kept my distance. Room for the Holy Ghost. I was no longer a pervert.

Only cold and I climbed from the dumpster filled with water to dressed in my clothing. No one had really saw my member and I was glad. I'm definitely bigger than Michelangelo's DAVID.

At least after I'm shaken off the cold.

I only believe in indecent exposure in the bedroom.

Both alone and with my wife.

Elk Books At Printed Matter

Years ago famed skateboarder Jocko Weyland published my story FAMOUS FOR NEVER in Elk Books.

My failure versus the success of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

The celebrated artist painted my refrigerator.

I had my girlfriend from West Virginia wiped off the images.

My jealousy had a stiff price tag.

At least a million dollars.

Jocko went off to be the curator of MOCA Tuscon.

No money.

Some prestige, but Tucson was Tucson.

A city most people love to leave before it's too late.

Jocko returned to New York this summer for an opening of his artwork.

Images of ruined Detroit.

Paintings of the mysterious Gowanus Canal.

No nudes.

Jocko was a vagabond.

He was staying out in the Rockaways with his girlfriend.

She could have been his uncool niece, but she was plenty cool.

I crashed at the gallery.

No bed.

No shower.

It was only two blocks away from the 169.

I slept there too.

Last week Jocko had an opening at Printed Matter in Chelsea.

He re-published all the Elk Books.

There were many.

FAMOUS FOR NEVER was one of them.

Jocko was with his girlfriend.

They were a happy couple.

Her name and Alyssa.

She read aloud a paragraph of FAMOUS FOR NEVER.

"After midnight Times Square was awash with wickedness. We posed on the sidewalk with the pimps, whores, and drug dealers. Clover reveled in her role as a rich man’s mistress and I passed for a detective in my pinstriped suit."

1978 was a long time ago.

Decades before Alyssa's birth, but she was cool and we drank beer, toasting the many volumes of Elk Books.

And there were many.

I no longer sleep on the floor.

At least not tonight.

And I still have a drawing from Jean-Michel.

He's not alive, but he remains famous.

And me I'm just living.

A vagabond.

Like Jocko Weyland.

ps besides skateboarding, Jocko is a wicked skier.

A legend.

Especially in Tahoe.

Go see the Elk Books collection at Printed Matter.

231 11th Avenue New York, NY 10001 Today until 7 pm

And you can purchase FAMOUS FOR NEVER at this url https://www.printedmatter.org/catalog/49540

Jocko Weyland "Vagabond" Show at Kerry Schuss Gallery

Metal and leaves, concrete and plastic, trees and trains, scrap heaps and decaying drive-ins, parking lots and telephone wires, luminescent polluted water and cranes, bridges, overgrown tennis courts, and public housing in the distance, Everything is something as the most ordinary objects and prospects are saturated with detail and nuance. Things, places, views. Taken between 2009 and the present, the photographs on which these paintings are based are from travels around North America. They are not ends in themselves but tools for engaging in a wholly different, time-consuming, satisfying endeavor – that of painting. The photographs are jumping-off places for diving deeper through concentrated physical and mental effort to arrive at a personally consequential artifact owing all and strangely not much to the source material. Copying to rebel and revel in the freedom to reject verisimilitude in search of sensual meditation, wrestling with the medium because without that resistance there is no meaningful fulfillment. - Jocko Weyland

KERRY SCHUSS 34 Orchard Street New York, NY 10002 212-219-9918 info@kerryschuss.com www.kerryschuss.com

summer hours: Tuesday - Friday, 12 - 6pm

36th Street Crossing

A train passing through at night.

Signals flashing bells a-clanging

Drivers impatiently waiting the passage of the caboose.

A red light fading into the night.

Foto by Jocko Weyland

36th Street Crossing

A passing through Tucson at night. Signals flashing, bells a-clanging Drivers impatiently waiting the passage of the caboose. A red light fading into the night.

Photo by Jocko Weyland

Gowanus Diving Hole

Several weeks before my departure to Thailand Jocko Weyland told me about his project to provide the Gowanus Canal with pools by filling dumpsters with water. The idea was radical in both concept and location. The cost was minimal thanks to contributions to Macro-seas from a construction company with a surplus of dumpsters. Jocko showed me several photos of the pools. They were lined next to a building. One of them low enough to jump into the pool.

"Jocko, can I jump into the pool from the roof?"

"Er, I don't know." Jocko had concern for my possible injury, which was quite touching from the well-known skateboarder author of THE ANSWER IS NEVER. "I'm not so sure about that, but I suppose it would be alright if you signed a release. When you want to do it?"

"Not until I get back from Thailand." I wasn't threatening my life with a trans-Pacific ticket in my hand. "I don't think anyone else would do it."

"Maybe not." Jocko was a big fan of my quarry diving story THE HOLE OF HEAVEN.

"It's only 15 feet. And there's sand on the bottom. How bad could it be?"

"Er, I don't know." Jocko was non-committal. Skaters are used to falling down hard but not from 15 feet.

"That's the only answer I need for a green light." I was pleased to think that I could jump into the water from a height. Nothing like that in Thailand or the rest of New York, unless it's someone jumping from a balcony in Pattaya or the Brooklyn Bridge. None of those jumpers want to live. Me, I want to live forever.

Go to this URL to read about the Gowanus Pool

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/arts/design/20pool.html?_r=2&hp

Gowanus Dumpster Pool

In the summer of 2009 Macro Sea filled two dumpsters with water and opened the Gowanus Canal swimming hole. Jocko Weyland, one the the minds behind the pools, invited me to the opening and I planned on leaping off a nearby roof into the water.

Jocko didn't think this was a good idea.

"It's not that deep."

"We'll see." I had jumped off the cliffs of the Quincy Quarries and various bridges around the world as well as piers and docks.

That evening we arrived at the site.

One look at the dumpster and I bailed on my feat.

There were no children allowed after dark, I went swimming naked.

Several women joined me.

It was good to be free in a city of so many restraints.

Thanks to Danny Tinneny, whose idea created the dumpster pools.

EVERGREEN by Jocko Weyland

Jocko Weyland moved to Tuscon. He works as the curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art. The veteran skateboarder loves the West. It is his home.

And he loves trains.

My son Fenway does too.

The other day I spotted an Evergreen container on a truck in Greenpoint.

They get around.

FREE AS THE WIND by Peter Nolan Smith

Man and woman have emerged naked from their mothers for time immemorial. Nudity is our natural state. Adam and Eve roamed through the Garden of Eden without any Gucci grape leaves covering their genitalia. Despite this biblical precedent New York retains several laws banning public nakedness. Most were written to prevent the spread of pornography, however law § 245.01 directly deals with the exposure of a person's private parts in public places.

Several years ago I protested this odious restriction by skinny-dipping at the dumpsters pool erected by Macro Sea along the Gowanus Canal in late-May.

It was late. The full moon was hidden by clouds. Our host Jocko Weyland green-lighted my nakedness and I climbed onto the deck with a female accomplice. May was wearing a bathing suit and expressed no need to bare her flesh to the four elements on a summer night, especially since we had only met twice.

Modesty accepted I stripped off my jeans and shirt.

I was not wearing underwear.

As a young man I had the body of a Greek god, which decayed after the decades of wear and tear.

I thought of myself as the Acropolis.

In a state of ruins, yet in the right light its failed glory was obvious to the eye. I waited for the full moon to break through the overcast. My body glowed like a decrepit statue dug from a grave.

The swimmers in the pools laughed, as I approached the water. 57 year-old naked men are funny, especially since my hands were cupped over my genitalia to avoid any embarrassment about the size of my penis. I leaped in the water. It was cold, although not as cold as the air and I could feel my cock shrivel to a cashew. The other bathers veered away from me, until my accomplice joined me.

May was young.

22.

Cute.

Beautiful girls have a tendency to lessen the younger peopled's disdain for naked old men.

I was no longer a pervert.

Only cold and I climbed from the dumpster filled with water to get dressed in my clothing. No one really saw my member and I was glad, but even cold I was definitely bigger than Michelangelo's DAVID.

No police arrested me and I returned that evening to my bedroom at the Fort Greene Observatory.

I only believe in indecency exposure in the bedroom.

Both alone and with my wife.

Jocko Weyland Opening in Konstanz

This weekend Master skateboarder/artist/curator Jocko Weyland will be exhibiting his newest works in Switzerland. If I were close, I would go.

Here's the info.

Axel Görger & Jocko Weyland @ Holz & Beton

Kunstausstellung Neuwerk , Großer Saal Oberlohnstrasse 3 78467 Konstanz

Vernissage / tunes by Sergeant Pfeffer : Saturday 05.04.2014 / 20.00

Finissage / concert with country band "Death Machine" : Friday 11.04.2014 / 20.00

Open from 18.30

Installations of Jocko Weyland

Fire Extinguisher Empty office Stacked chairs Jocko Weyland homage to Marcel Duchamps at Tucson's MOCA 2012

The Truth About Whores

"Beware of whores that don't want money. The Hell they don't. What they mean is that they want more money." William Burroughs.

Several years ago I had occasion to visit the Elk Gallery on Crosby Street.

Jocko Weyland was curating a photography exhibition of lurid bloody vistas of wild Italian youth.

Punk, guns, and drugs with a little nakedness.

A 50 year-old art critic deemed the pictures derivative.

"You are a cynic without any feel for the future or past."

"And you are who?" He sounded like a Harvard boy. They possessed a free pass with bad grammar.

"No one special, but these photos have more of a feel than those at the Diane Arbus show I saw in Paris." I would have only hung one of those pictures on my wall. It was a photo of a movie theater.

"But why?" He wasn't getting it.

"Because I'm an ex-junkie." I never was a junkie, but saying so sounded wicked in these modern times.

"What's your name?" The critic wanted to add me to his enemies list.

"Who I am is unimportant. Really."

I don't lie and walked off to the cheap white wine table.

The artist, a skinny 20 year-old Italian man came over to shake my hand.

"Grazi."

Abe Formenti was his name. Jocko liked his work. It reminded me of Danny Lyons or Richard Kern. That was a good thing.

Per niente." That exchange exhausted my Italian.

"I'd like to shoot you injecting heroin." The young artist had overheard my declaration.

"Sure." I thought it out a little more. "Only if you get me the heroin and a needle. I'll provide everything else. Setting and ambiance."

Abe took my number and introduced me to his young girlfriend.

"I like old junkies." She smiled with a missing tooth.

The critic joined us and asked, "Are you trying to be a legend?"

"Who cares?" I've ceased wanting anything more than a couple of beers before I go to sleep, however I wouldn't mind doing a little dope with a couple of near-naked Italian girls. Abe and I left the soiree with the girls. Thankfully they weren't able to score any dope.

Call me square. Never a legend. I've lost my name.