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

One Bag Theory

Back in 1974 my good friend AK and I traveled cross-country to Encinitas, a small beach town slightly north of San Diego. We crashed at his friend's bungalow and spent our days sunning and bodysurfing at Moonlight Beach and our nights smoking pot and drinking wine. We made friends with a hippie guitar guru wandering the coast with a long-haired blonde. Rockford and Carol were free as the wind.

"We only want a place to sleep, eat, and place our music," Rockford explained atop the bluff, as the sun set in the Pacific. They were staying with a clinical psychiatrist from UCSD studying the effects of LSD on humans. They were two of his guinea pigs and the acid left them daily dazed. One afternoon Rockford defended his participation by saying, "I don't believe in money. I have everything I need in one bag."

"What about your guitar?"

"That's my extra, but other than that one bag is all anyone needs in this life. Some clothes, sandals, a good book, plus a little weed."

Rockford offered me a place in his band. Carol played tambourine. I was to solo on kazoo. He looked at my canvas travel bag.

"Way too much shit."

"It's almost nothing." I had more clothing than the two of them.

"Nothing is nothing other than nothing." Carol dismissed my excessive possessiveness with a wry smile. I wasn’t getting the message and the next morning they left without me for San Francisco.

AK and I hitchhiked back across America. We re-united with Rockford in Woodstock. The three of us remained friends and I never asked the old hippie about abandoning me to a life of meaningless acquisition.

This morning I read an article in Huffington Post echoing Rockford's one bag theory.

A 69 year-old German woman abandoned money twenty-two years ago. The divorcee has perfected a barter economy called “Gib und Nimm” or Give and Take. Her attempts to convert Dortmund to a moneyless society was met with derision by the workless and retirees addicted to cash or credit, but her year-long experiment has made her a happier and healthier person.

According to the HP all of her belongings fit into a single-back suitcase and a rucksack, she has emergency savings of €200 and any other money she comes across, she gives away. Heidemarie doesn’t even have health insurance as she didn’t want to be accused of stealing from the state, and says she relies on the power of self-healing whenever she gets a little sick.

Rockford understood that money is the root of all evil, but somehow I don't think this theory works in a go-go bar.

At least not at my age.

We Are Not Alone

On April 4, 2013 the National UFO ALERT Rating System along with California, Florida, New York and Texas updated the UFO status alert to Code 3 with the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) according to Huffington Post.

California had 59 sightings in March.

New York experienced 30.

I have looked for space ships since my youth.

At night I lay on the back lawn. Our house shielded me from curious eyes and I watched the skies for any signs of extraterrestrial traffic. I prayed an alien might take me to Space. It had to be more interesting than my suburban hometown south of Boston.

One night my father came out of the house.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking at the sky."

"There are a lot of stars up there. No one knows how many?"

"No one?" I thought Klattu and his robot Gort from THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL might have a good idea.

"No one." My father believed in infinite space.

"Not even God." I was only saying that to camouflage my puerile atheism

"Maybe Him." My father reached down and lifted me to my feet. He knew me well and said, "Go to bed. If the Martians come, we'll hear their death rays."

"Okay." I walked inside the house up to my bedroom. My brother was asleep. I laid in bed and joined him, only my dreams were of the stars.

One day with the help of aliens they would be mine.

Portrait By Parker Dulany

If ever there was someone easier to paint than Suzanne Mallouk or Ann Magnuson, it was Peter Nolan Smith. I think Peter is the Jack London of our scene. If you have never read any of his short stories, you are missing out of a time gone by on the innocent dark side. My favorite is "The Rule of Mr. Klaus", which isn't really a story but a collection of little vignettes of the vanished NYC of the late 1970's.

I moved to the city in 1979 and I immediately connected with his images and words in this piece. I saw Peter at one of the various club 'reunions' and we spent a long time at the bar, of course, trading stories of the nightclub shenanigans and the mischief that we did out of boredom or cash; he told me of growing up in rough Boston, 'procuring' cars and other various high-jinks and we ended up talking about our childhoods.

I told him how one day when I was 13 my mother came to me and told me a story about how after all this time that my 'real' father, not the father that I lived with, wanted to meet me and then she put me on a plane to Dallas and my 'real' father and some French lady picked me up in baggage holding one of those placards the limo drivers hold with my name and his last name, (I guess my real name), on it. Straight from the airport we went to Dealey Plaza,then I learned how to hit a golf ball and I fired a pistol. All on the first day.

Then a dinner in total silence, because I didn't know what to say and neither did the real dad. Peter looks at me and said, "You win, that is terrifying!"

This nightclub legend and Boston thug had a soft heart.

Till the next reunion Peter!

# 45 In Paris

Paris is eternal.

A city separated by the Seine.

Blessed by beauty.

Home to people of all races.

Welcoming every in the world to visitone of the greatest cities in the world.

Even H?itler.

Even Hitler.

Maybe not.

But definitely me in the 1980s.

Last week Donald Trump made his 2nd visit to Europe.

# 45 was snubbed by the Polish president's wife.

He angered Jews by not stopping at the Warsaw ghetto.

And the jubilant crowds loved getting paid for their cheers.

Next stop the G-20 meeting in Hamburg.

Riots rocked the city.

Angela Merkel rolled her eyes at him.

His daughter Ivanka played Secretary of State.

And no one wanted to sit with Mr. Lonely.

Next Paris.

To celebrate Bastille Day with his handshake nemesis, President Macron.

# 45 and his !st Lady Melania arrived at Charles De Gaulle Aeroport on July 13.

The Slovian teenager had modeled there in the 90s.

Trump was no stranger to Paris or models.

This trip was all business, but he could concentrate on his grip.

His son Donald Jr. has come under tight scrutiny for his onvolvement of cullusion with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump was happy to be with the Macrons.

He went out of his way to say to te 1e Madame, "You're in such good shape. She's in such good physical shape. Beautiful."

Le President de France made no such comment to Melania.

After all she was a paid assassin for the Russians.

Wise ecision or the younger man.

After a day of discussing Franco-American issues the couples dined at the jules Verne on the Eiffel Tower.

According to all sources # 45 never proposed a menage a quarte to the Macrons.

The next day was all pomp and splendor on the Camps-Elysees.

Some horse poop too.

The band played Daft Punk.

# 45 was not amused, since he had requested Peggy Lee's Is That All There Is?, his favorite.

And like that Mssr. Long Tie was gone.

On Air Force 1 he complained to Melania, as she slipped in into assassin chic

"Don't worry, 45. I hit them hard."

She was such a good girl.

Except when she was bad,

As for 45.

45 was always 45.

Bon Voyage a tout.

Good Girl Trixie Treat Bad Girl

Boys and girls in trouble gravitated to CBGBs in the 1970s. No one had to be good and bad was a virtue. Few were more trouble than Trixie Treat. Like most of us she was her own worst enemy. I didn't know her, but she handled personal mayhem with great dispatch. Sadly not much has been written about this vixen of vice.

She accompanied the Plunger Girls from LA to New York.

I think she worked at Revenge on St. Marks Place.

Wherever she is was or will be I wish her well.

Brian Saltern RIP

Brian and I met at the Jefferson Theater where I was doorman at the Weinstein's fabulous after-hours extravaganza in 1980. We remained friends through the years. He let me in where he worked and I did the same. He was a gentleman on every occasion. Sadly he has left this mortal coil at the tender age of 72. I thought he was much younger.

He will be missed by friends and family and especially by his beloved wife, Joan.

Brian will be waiting in the Here-After for us all.

With Art Weinstein.

Brian was his plus 1.

I shall bring the drink tickets when I go.

See you when Comrade.