A visit to the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum

The second museum in Baltimore that I’d like to salute is a very sincere one that is, by turns, educational, entertaining, and inspirational. The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum (surely one of the best musuem names in the country), located at 1601-03 East North Avenue, has a website that can be found here.

Wax museums are usually fascinating time capsules of the period in which they were created. In the case of BiW, it is not an ordinary wax museum focused on the entertainment industry or mainstream historical figures. It presents instead a history of African-Americans from slavery to the civil rights movement, with sidebars on art, celebrity, entrepreneurship, and the even the Presidency.

On first entry, you see a series of tableaux about slavery. These scenes are disturbingly realistic and must be seen in person. One less disturbing but still fascinating tableau illustrates one way that slaves were helped to get onto “the underground railroad” – via stoves with fake backs that led into other areas. (A recorded narration emphasizes for those who are unaware that the underground railroad is only a phrase – these methods for slaves to escape involved neither a railway nor were they underground.)

African-American legends are depicted in the center of the main floor. Several icons and trailblazers from the worlds of literature and sports, among many other fields, are featured.

Figures of Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, and Jesse Owens.

Figure of Bill Picket, the first great black rodeo star.

On the second floor one encounters more black game-changers. There are also menacing tableaux like this one.

Traditional wax museums set aside an area for “horror” exhibits. In the case of BiW, the horror is all too real, since the basement is devoted to the horror encountered by African-Americans. Thus, we see documents (news clippings, photos) concerning, and tableaux depicting, lynching, medical experiments involving black citizens, and the nightmare murder of Emmett Till.

I won’t show these images – adults need to see them in person (kids are not allowed in the basement exhibit) – but I can guarantee that anyone who thanks of wax museums as “hokey” or for entertainment purposes only will be extremely sobered by the basement in the BiW museum.

News clippings on the wall in the basement exhibit.

The final hallway contains important figures in Black history including, of course, civil rights icons. One person had seemed to be missing, though – but I should’ve known better. Dr. King is the final figure one sees as one leaves the museum, which provides a perfect counterbalance for the grim history recounted in the opening hall.

Figure of Malcolm X.

The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum is worth your time if you’re traveling to the Baltimore area. Check out the museum’s website.

In Every Dream Home: the ‘Parenting’ Exhibit at the American Visionary Art Museum

artwork: ©Ed Brownlee

It’s been a while since I’ve had the time to devote to this blog, but I’ve wanted for several weeks now to put up another Funhouse travel piece. In this case the subject of discussion is a museum in Baltimore, Maryland. (If all goes according to plan there will be a companion entry to this piece about another unique Baltimore museum soon.)

I was in Baltimore for a work conference some weeks ago and had been told to visit this particular museum — I was not disappointed. I present a short write-up here and some photos I took but, as always, the pics can only provide a cursory idea of what the museum is like.

Andrew Logan's 10-foot
statue of Divine.
artwork:
©Andrew Logan

The institution deserving of your time and attention is the American Visionary Art Museum at 800 Key Highway (“at the base of historic Federal Hill”); the museum’s website is here. Like many cult-movie buffs, I identify the city of Baltimore with John Waters. The Visionary Museum underscores this connection, as there are not just one but two tributes to Waters’ stars on display; the gift shop called “Sideshow,” which is *heavily* recommended, contains, in addition to a sublime collection of kitsch and oddball artifacts, exclusive Waters-related items from official Dreamland photographer Bobby Adams.

At first I was apprehensive about the museum, as the dreaded phrase “outsider art” has been used to describe its contents. I have big problems with this phrase because it has become a money-making “brand” for certain thoroughly unctuous individuals who take advantage of often mentally impaired artists and performers for profit — and the right to be claimed as the one who “discovered” their work.

"The cosmic galaxy egg."
artwork ©Andrew Logan

I’m happy to report that the museum — which has clearly been curated with both love and a sense of humor — is very respectful about its presentation of the art. In other words, some of the items on display are very amusing (many on purpose), but there is also a sense of sincerity about the place that contradicts the “outsider” label.

This is best reflected in the exhibition “Esther and the Dream of One Loving Human Family” by Polish Holocaust survivor Esther Nisenthal Krinitz. Her simplistic, handmade embroideries truly do move the viewer, as the subject is what happened when she (at 15) and her sister escaped being put in a Nazi death camp and wound up surviving the occupation. In this case the perspective is that of a young person, so her simplistic, untrained approach to art underscores the raw emotion of the situations depicted.

The museum currently has a wonderful exhibition on called “Parenting: An Art without a Manual,” now through September 1. If you are going to be anywhere near the Baltimore area in the next two months, I heartily urge you to check out this exhibit, as it says more about the American family than any amount of “reality TV” and several bookcases’ worth of self-help books. Plus, it’s more colorful.

"Fifty Girls in Food Sack Dresses"
artwork ©Linda St. John

The show features several striking images of kids and many more of parenting. The pieces on kids deal with idealized notions of parenting and the neurotic reality that lays within. Alex Grey’s psychedelic paintings in the entryway to the museum are among the most wonderfully loopy that I’ve seen, since one of them depicts “visible body” parents admiring their child, who seems to be a sort of space-Christ figure. (I believe the artist’s intention was to depict the “aura” of the figures in the painting, but the “visible body” aspect is the first thing that hits the eye.)

artwork ©Alex Grey

Some of the items in the exhibit present the feelings of those who are – to put it mildly – ill at ease with their family. We thus see imagery representing twin family trees by Robert Belardinelli. First the ideal one:

artwork: ©Robert Belardinelli

And then, let’s say, a more realistic view of matters:

artwork: ©Robert Belardinelli

More stirring are these reflections on childhood by artist Robert Sundholm. His stuff speaks volumes:

artwork: ©Robert Sundholm

artwork: ©Robert Sundholm

Two of the most unforgettable pieces are conveniently situated right next to each other in one of the main rooms. Artist Bobby Adams (yes, the same gent who has worked for John Waters) has put together a family scene that offers a grim view of conventional domesticity:

artwork: ©Bobby Adams

artwork: ©Bobby Adams

The most disturbing item on display, though, comes in the form of that most wholesome of toys, the dollhouse. New Orleans artist Chris Roberts-Antieau created an idyllic little house and then situated in it a real-life family murder case. Depending on the way that one views the house, one’s eyes either light upon the ultra-grim contents of the living room first or, in my case, last.

artwork: ©Chris Roberts-Antieau

The latter is, of course, the most disturbing way to view the piece, as it reveals the “punchline” — that this happy house was where, in 1971, New Jersey’s John List killed his entire family and placed them in sleeping bags in the living room (except his mother, who was apparently too obese to be moved from her room).

artwork: ©Chris Roberts Antieau

To add to the dark aspects of the piece, one learns about the murders from a discursive series of notes, handwritten on legal-pad paper by Roberts-Antieau. After reading this, one realizes that one figure is intentionally missing from the piece — List himself, who destroyed all photographs of himself in the house. List was caught several decades later and died in prison.

Again, if you’re thinking of a road trip and are looking for a well-curated selection of art you won’t see anyplace else, visit the American Visionary Art Museum. Preferably before September 1....

A post-mortem on the Metropolitan Museum’s punk fashion exhibit

In its quest to recreate the magical mayhem (read: long lines and big $) that accompanied the 2011 Alexander McQueen exhibit, the folks at the Met conceived of “Punk: From Chaos to Couture,” a truly ridiculous tribute to what was a lively and often ugly “movement” distinguished by its anti-fashion and back-to-basics attitude.

I am reviewing this uncommonly "pretty!" tribute to an intentionally garish way of dressing and accessorizing — that was inextricably linked with an important musical movement — a few days after it has closed. But I’ve noticed that The New York Times frequently “gets around” to reviewing art exhibits just as they’re closing (more fun to make the rabble scamper to something interesting), so if they who are paid can do that, I can most certainly conduct a post-mortem on the punk show for the no-pay that blogging confers upon its participants.

I was underaged when punk hit NYC, but the “fashion,” if it should be called that, was everywhere, and the music was indeed getting airplay on certain fringe radio stations (I vividly remember a show called “Punk-o-rama” on WHBI at the top of the FM dial – “rip up my school books/tear down the dirty looks/this/is punk-a-rama!”). By the time I was attending concerts “new wave” music was in full effect – these shows took place in venues with no liquor license.

In the decades since that galvanizing explosion – which took some time to be heard in other parts of the world (thus the docu title 1991: the Year Punk Broke) – it's become apparent to anyone who listens to the music that there were excellent punk bands and many, many shitty ones. There were people grouped under the punk umbrella who didn't make “punk rock” at all (Blondie, Television, even Patti Smith). It was a musical movement that thrived on the live concert experience, but those concerts are long gone (as are the venues), and so the “summing up” began as early as the late Eighties.

And then there was the fashion. As with hippie fashion, it was basically dressing “down,” wearing shitty clothing that shocked older folk, getting jarring haircuts and affecting whatever was the utter opposite of the hippie/hard rock look (long hair, bell bottoms, sideburns, halter tops, whatever). It was rebellion pure and simple, and it fed off of the rebellion of the past. And like past rebellious movements, it gave birth to a bunch of shit culture in its wake. When a rebellious sense of fashion is codified, it officially is dead (even though wildly colored mohawks were still seen in the Village up until the early Nineties).

What the Met programmers did with their little punk outing was to show how “ugly fashion” was transformed into “pretty!” dresses and ensembles. They wanted to show how the punk movement lived on, but instead they emphasized how its worst poser aspects influenced subsequent generations of posers. They acknowledged the music, but truly rooted the show in the fashion world – all the better to recapture that McQueen vibe (his stuff was present in the very first room of the exhibit, natch – and I did like his crazy-ass goth-meets-H.R. Giger exhibit, by the way).

So you entered and saw a recreation of the CBGB men's bathroom – oh, for the sweet cuteness of a disgusting toilet recreated as a museum exhibit (idea for true modern art experience: not only visual input, but *smell* and stickiness on the bottom of the shoes score points for verisimilitude). And not even rendered in its truly, truly graffiti-covered nastiness (the source photo used was from early on in the club's existence – that men's room was fucking disgusting, and therein lay the “mystique” of the place. Life as it lived, no prettifying anything ever, deal with it or go home).

That little intentionally shabby nook was followed by several rooms of punk fashion, progressing from a recreation of Vivienne Westwood's shop “Clothes for Heroes” to several groupings of dresses and outfits that looked weird and spacey (paging Alex Mc), and finally ending with items created for Dolce and Gabbana and Dior in the 2000s that were “inspired” by punk.

Gone was the shocking, disturbing, and abrasive edges of the homemade punk look. As with most haute couture, this stuff could never be worn on the streets of any city anywhere, and if it was you wouldn't wind up bleeding for your troubles (or having the fabric tear).

Surrounding the fashions were some punk sounds (the most famous artists from NYC and London), plus filmed images on video – of which the only one that was truly jarring was a person in a bondage mask (or was it a scuba mask – who the fuck knows, it was jarring and that's all that mattered) in some cityscape standing around being generally weird and impressively disturbing. The walls had graffiti on them: mottos like “Destroy Capitalism,” “Punk is a revolution for countries that don't allow revolution,” and other items like that.

Throughout the five or so rooms of high fashion, one got the distinct feeling that the only way to make the show “legitimate” would be to have the galleries trashed by people who had a true sense of artistic vandalism (a fashion show based on punk is dying for a Magic Christian-like statement in which everyone who enters the gallery gets randomly gobbed on or some such). Graffiti slogans and cleaned-up digital video doesn't quite convey the anarchy and randomness of whatever could be called the punk “ethos.”

I saw Brian Eno speak at MoMA back in the Nineties during a “High and Low” art exhibit, and he lamented that Duchamp's Fountain – the famous toilet with the name “R. Mutt” inscribed on it – couldn't be used for its initial purpose. He mused on the fact that it was under glass (in that show – subsequently I'm sure I've seen it out in plain air) and secured from the touch of bystanders.

He fantasized about getting urine in the bowl and thereby cheering up Duchamp, and anyone who had a sense of humor and playfulness (and utilitarianism). The closest the punk exhibit got to any sort of acknowledgment that punk clothing was CHEAP clothing by its very nature were the wall-texts that explained the derivation of punk, including John Rotten's famous quote that “when the arse of your pants falls out, you use safety pins.”

So, what did tourists experience? A quaint look at a long-ago pop-culture movement that rebelled against everything that was mainstream, and was (as per the usual) gobbled up by the mainstream and transformed into something “pretty!” and worthy of aesthetic consideration. It was bullshit, but then again Orson reminded us in F for Fake about the question the Devil himself asked when he saw the first man make the first crude drawing: “it's good... but is it art?”

The last word on this artistic farrago – where one of the more affordable items in the gift shop was a set of pencils with quotes from Sid Vicious on 'em (!) – was provided by a guy who I am *sure* never went to the exhibit and also never was the biggest fan of punk. But he was around at the time, and he respected the rebellion enough to summarize cogently what the Met's exhibit “meant.” Read the words of decoder of popular culture tropes (and one of America's best writers) Nick Tosches writing for style.com. A few paragraphs (read the whole article here):

"Have you ever read a definition or description of any kind of music, be it plainsong or punk? Lifeless and untelling compared with hearing even just a few breaths of the music itself.

"Nobody can say where it came from or where it went, and we should beware always of those who would bring sociology or any other ology to rock 'n' roll.

"[...]Thus, we have Punk: Chaos to Couture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Not the Museum of Modern Art, but the big one. The vast Gothic Revival mausoleum of the greatness of the ages. Giotto, Botticelli, Raphael, Rembrandt, mummified Egyptian guys. The big one.

"Museums. "Art appreciation." If you have to be taught to appreciate something, it can't be much good. Who ever heard of sex appreciation, drug appreciation, pork-chop appreciation? I shall not forget being asked to extinguish my cigarette at the Apocalypse exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2000. Welcome to the end of the world: No smoking allowed."

Epilogue: Research shows that the theme song to that “punk-a-rama” was the product of a Kim Fowley prefab, post-Runaways teen guy-fronting-girl-band combo, Venus and the Razorblades. My fond memories of this defiant ode, as is always the case, are tarnished (or at least made into quaint kitsch) by the reality involved – kinda like mindset that produced the Met show.

Jeezis, this is a ridiculous ditty, kinda like the “Life is a Rock (but the radio rolled me)” of punk. Enjoy (if ya can):

******

As I walked through the punk exhibit, I did begin to wonder if there was a fitting “punk anthem,” since the music chosen by the Met was painfully obvious. There are many, many seminal punk tunes, all of which could be declared to present the punk “sound” (right, right, there WAS NO punk sound, it was a conglomeration of influences and rebellions against arena rock and “album-oriented” MOR).

Iggy's “I want to be your dog” is probably the archetypal punk tune (the live versions, without the lovely bells), but there are several other songs that could qualify as anthemic punk tunes.

First and foremost, the Dead Boys' “Sonic Reducer.” The influences are here (Iggy, Yardbirds and the louder Sixties British bands), but everything else is new. And short, man – short songs were the very essence of punk:

The Sex Pistols were either the epitome of a punk band (esp. with the inclusion of the absolutely unable-to-play El Sid) or the ultimate concept in fake entertainment by Mr. McLaren. Whatever the case is, John Lydon's hooks are still catchy, and you can't possibly fault a band that sings the immortal lines “We're so pretty/oh so pretty/vacant.”

When it comes to bands that transcended the label punk, the Clash are the prime example. The tension between Joe Strummer's pure and simple rock 'n' roll and Mick Jones' refined pop songsmithing produced some eternally playable albums. As for their punk anthem?

A key song in any history of punk is the item below from X-Ray Spex. It is incredibly important because it voices the female teen’s point of view, something which was not heard much in punk. The late, great Poly Styrene wrote and sang the song, which is as close to a teenage cri de coeur  as you’re going to get during the punk era (yes, yes, Poly was actually 20 when the single came out, but it distills everything that repulses teens about adult culture).

Poly’s lyric rejects men’s oppression of women and age’s oppression of youth, but she could equally have been talking about the bondage strain in “punk fashion.” Her own outfits were pure thrift-store style — it’s hard to imagine her being chosen by Westwood as a model for her duds.

Those music producers packaging “punky chick” teen pop-tarts (looking at you, Avril Lavigne) might wanna take a listen, just so you know what you’re ignoring:

 
The Met had certain individuals spotlighted as “poster children” for the punk exhibit. The key figures who wound up on the merchandise they were selling in the gift shop (I'm talking refrigerator magnets in addition to postcards) were Debbie Harry (alluring, a great singer, but punk – ??) and Richard Hell.

Hell is a fascinating subject, in that he did create some great music and has established himself as a fine writer and reviewer in the years since his music career dissipated or was suspended, or whatever went on there. The song has been labeled his ultimate statement by critics is this snappy ode (which McLaren admitted had inspired “Pretty Vacant”), “The Blank Generation”:

What makes it hard to declare the above a true punk anthem is that its melody and concept were swiped from a novelty record (or is the claiming of someone else's work part of the artistic statement?). Bob McFadden and “Dor” (Rod McKuen) had a big novelty hit with “The Mummy” in 1959, and around the same time released a single called “The Beat Generation.” Hell appropriated the tune and the concept and is still listed as sole composer of “Blank Generation.” I love his lyrics for “Blank,” but it's wild to compare the two and realize that one is a direct swipe of the other:

I would also put into contention as an anthem this ditty by the Cramps that in 1979 already acknowledges the poser component of a lot of punk in its opening lines (“You ain't no punk, you punk/you wanna talk about the real junk...”).

I have an endless admiration for Lux Interior and the exquisite and talented Ms. Ivy Rorshach, and there is something timeless about all the great recordings by the Cramps. Their style was more “psycho-billy” than punk musically, but their approach was minimalist, absolutely pure rock 'n' roll – and they wore their influences on their sleeves so wonderfully that it's no doubt that they (and Lenny Kaye – all credit to those who matter) who really spearheaded the “Underground Garage” concept decades before that radio enterprise began. This is garage, and it is punk also (and yeah, the video is the template for a lot of goth):

Patti Smith's music wavered between brilliant hook-driven rock and pure poetry (obviously). The closest she came to providing a punk anthem of sorts is “Rock and Roll Nigger,” a song that never got air play for obvious reasons. It combines her poetry, her concern for all things aesthetic and beautiful (not “pretty!” mind you, but beautiful), it has a hook to kill for, plus it's very minimal and angry. The fact that the song ends with the refrain “outside of society...” sez it all:

The only place to end this is with the band who are identified by most as being the ultimate punk icons. Again, their music was very different from basic punk – they combined surf, bubble gum, garage, and the bliss of sailing right through a set. All the acts above were terrific (I am an addict for them all), but it's hard to pick a more goddamned FUN band than the Ramones.

And, screw fashion, Joey and crew dressed in torn jeans because they were goofy, no-budget guys from Queens. All hail the guys whose records were never played on the radio, but we loved 'em so (fuck that – love 'em, present tense). Now the t-shirt with the emblem designed by the late Arturo Vega is *everywhere* on the streets of every major city, and they are seen as “stylemakers.” Life is funny, fashion pathetic.

Garden of Earthly Delights: Andy Kaufman, the Abrasive Genius (part one of two)

Andy Kaufman was a “child of television,” and — although those who saw him live rave about the experience — it was on television that he made his greatest impact. He enjoyed provoking and irritating his audience, but also betrayed a serious love for the inanities of television, from its variety-show excesses to its emphasis on childlike, simple emotions. Perhaps the most striking thing about his work is how it was insanely childish and incredibly sophisticated at the same time.

I write this a few weeks after a major celebration of Kaufman's comedy took place here in NYC. A gallery show of his costumes, notebooks, correspondence, and many personal possessions was supplemented by more than a week's worth of video presentations, hosted by fans and Andy's co-conspirators, at another gallery. The cumulative effect was fascinating, since the work of a resolutely and often intentionally abrasive comedian was discussed in earnest detail and put in a much larger context.

It would be hard to think of another comedian who could be celebrated in such a way – many movie and TV comics are honored with film festivals at rep houses or month-long showings of their old programs at the Paley Center, but to have a display of costumes and notebooks, as well as moderated discussions among “downtown artist” folk, points up how really unusual and genre-bending Kaufman's work was.

Those of us who were watching it at the time knew something really weird was going on. I remember first seeing Andy on Van Dyke and Company doing his “foreign man” bits (with jokes that just laid there, a character who seemed brain-damaged and juvenile, and this unknown comedian coming in at various points to “interrupt” the proceedings). As even a cursory look at the Kaufman “archives” on YouTube shows, he did a *lot* of talk show appearances, and although he did repeat certain bits, he concocted special bits that were done only once for certain appearances, like this "homeless" bit on the Letterman morning show.

As a young fan of his work, I often wondered what the fuck he was doing, but the laughs far outweighed the head scratching. Sometimes it was definitely something recognizable as “comedy,” but when he embarked on the “Intergender Wrestling Champion” and Tony Clifton bits, they seemed interminable and had no payoff.

One of the joys of watching his work on video and online these days is discovering the “punchlines” for some of his long-stemmed pieces of shtick. The intergender business had its payoffs revealed in the Carnegie Hall tape (in which he finally did something with the bit that was conventionally funny – downing spinach to get Popeye-like strength) and the I'm From Hollywood documentary (in which you see the well-executed finale of his wrestling career). The Tony Clifton provocation had its own payoff, in that Andy wasn't always in the makeup, a fact that was finally sprung on the public in a memorial special hosted by his siblings and Taxi costars.

The Kaufman gallery tributes showed that he really did a create a world of his own, through his standup, his talk-show appearances, and especially his concept specials. The threads that run through all the material are a spoofing of conventional show-business and a confounding of audience expectation. His unexpected death at 35 seemed to make no sense at all, but fit into a larger scheme of insanely talented performers who kick off before their time — most because of self-destructive tendencies and addiction, and others because they’re just too special to stick around for long.

In this part of my tribute to the “abrasive genius,” I want to pay tribute to his “bigger” creations (that are not Tony Clifton or intergender wrestling). I can best do this by describing the joys to be found at the show that recently closed at the Maccarone gallery. The show was held in a large room with the pieces exhibited in vitrines. The first things one saw were his personal papers – letters, passport, diaries, etc – then went on to his costumes, his record collection (more on that in the second part), and other objects (tape boxes, notes with phone nos. for contacts at Saturday Night Live, items reflecting his interest in transcendental meditation).

The highlight of the papers was surely his fan letter to Elvis, handwritten when he was college age. Steve Allen once wrote that when he first met Andy he wasn't sure if he was a big fan of his work or mocking him – the letter to Elvis runs along similar lines, since it is an *overwhelming* fan note in which Andy used quotation marks for emphasis. When he mentions being a “big Elvis fan,” the quotes do lend a weird note of irony. I'm sure he meant it, but setting something in quotes means you're being ironic or sarcastic.

The other weird aspect of the letter (one true to Andy's style as an anti-comedian) is his telling Elvis that he would love to replace him someday. One can only imagine the King's response, had he read this feverish fan letter from a young man who swears he writes papers in school on Elvis's movies. Andy cites two or three of Presley's worst films as some of his faves, so one gets the impression that Andy's taste in pop culture found him deeply loving some really cornball stuff (thus the delicate “balance” in a lot of his standup between mocking something and paying tribute to it).

Andy clearly didn't like to type, as only his stories are typed (there was even a handwritten resume on display). I haven't read his fiction and poetry – which was indeed published long after his death and now is out of print and fetching inflated prices on eBay – but he clearly was inspired by the Beat writers, as the items that were featured in the Maccarone show were redolent of Kerouac at his wordiest.

Andy's note to the Maharishi also is a curious item. He wrote to say that he loved TM, but it wasn't changing his life entirely, he was still descending into sadness. (It must've worked better for him in subsequent years, as he continued to practice it until his death.) The strangest notes in the collection weren't from Andy, however. They were housed alongside a group of jokey/angry/self-promoting notes from women who wanted to wrestle him (which were published in a book edited by his girlfriend, Lynne Marguiles).

The women challenged him to matches, writing in the same style he used when he put down women in his “intergender wrestling” bits. The weirder letters were from men who picked up on Andy tapping into a familiar wrestling trope, a “hair match” in which the loser has to have his/her head shaved bald. This excited some of the viewing audience who wanted Andy to beat a woman in the ring and then have her shaved bald (a pic of the fetchingly chrome-domed Persis Khambatta in the first Star Trek film were included with one note). One can only imagine the laughs that Kaufman got from the fact that he had fired up the libidos of some gents who were even kinkier than he (for an exploration of his sex life, see his friend Bob Zmuda's bio, Andy Kaufman Revealed!).

The gallery show also included a homespun feature in which visitors could sit down at a round table in the center of the room and talk to people who knew Andy at some point in his life. I would've loved to have chatted with Carol Kane or the most surprising name on the list, Prudence Farrow – whom I have to assume had some connection to Kaufman through his TM fascination. The day I went the guests were Andy's brother Michael and the “Bunny Ranch” owner Dennis Hof (a gallery employee informed us Andy was a regular customer at the Bunny Ranch....).

The piece de resistance of the show a notebook of performance ideas that Andy jotted down in '73-'74. Among them were these (all paraphrased here):

— Bring out bald men who look like “Great Neck executives” (then a list of names of famous bald men who looked the way he wanted – “Mel Cooley,” Milt Kamen). Have them play congas in a men's room in separate stalls.

— Go on Carson and get married, sincerely, but do an “Alice Toklas” (Andy referring here to the Peter Sellers movie, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas) and make sure the commercial breaks interfere with the ceremony. Wind up never getting married.

— Come onstage with Bobby Fischer and play chess with him for the whole show.

— (the single best item and one I'm sure he could've carried off with much deadpan certainty) Come out on stage, say "Let Us Pray," and then just lead the audience in prayer the whole time.

The video and panel discussion presentations at Participant Inc will be discussed in my next blog entry, but here is a list of the “essential” Kaufman complete shows, as preserved on tape and now available (for the moment) on YT for free.

First is the show called “Uncle Andy's Funhouse” that aired as “The Andy Kaufman Special” late night on ABC in a 90-minute timeslot (the YT poster has put up the full version with the original commercials and sporadically sizzling audio). The show was shot in '77 but didn't air until '79; it includes some of his most famous bits, including the Foreign Man/Elvis transformation and his wonderful, truly manic conga drum version of “It's a Small World After All.”

The items specific to this show are his oddly touching chat with Howdy Doody, the introduction of the “angry Andy” (which basically became the Clifton character), “Has-been Corner,” and an odd framing device which finds the Foreign Man watching the show as it is being aired (he thinks it's pretty awful).

One of the oddest artifacts to show up in the era of VHS was a documentary called The Real Andy Kaufman, which chronicles Andy doing his full act at Kutchers Hotel in the Catskills and not going down all that well with the audience. This is an interesting opportunity to see his live act and also to see him literally knowing that the audience ONLY wants to see him doing “Latka” and Elvis. And so he brings up his entire family (with both grandmothers!) onstage to provoke them ever further:

The documentarian Seth Schultz conducts an interview with him after the show, in which Andy seems truly offended that the audience didn't enjoy the show (they were “downright rude!”). One assumes that he was used by this time (1979) to appearing before nightclub and college audiences who got what he was doing. How he thought the intergender-wrestling bit would go over with a resort-hotel audience is anyone's guess, but this one of possibly only a handful of times that he was seen with his guard down, for at least a minute or two:

His Carnegie Hall show is uniformly agreed to be possibly THE high water mark of his career. It's a full-fledged stage show that he financed himself and, as noted above, he provided contexts for all of the bits, including the intergender thing and Tony Clifton:

In 1981, he hosted an episode of the Midnight Special that included all of his “greatest hits,” but also included video of his very odd stint working as a busboy at a deli-restaurant while he was starring on Taxi, as well as two special guests he clearly chose for the occasion: Freddie Cannon and Slim Whitman:

Possibly my single favorite thing that Andy participated is the video My Breakfast with Blassie, in which he has breakfast at a Sambo's restaurant with the one and only “fashion plate of wrestling,” the classy one, Fred Blassie. The film contains my fave moment featuring his partner in crime Bob Zmuda (it is gross and stupid, but never fails to make me laugh) and many, many bits of wisdom from Fred to Andy:

While Breakfast is definitely in my Pantheon of favorite Kaufman creations, his last TV special, which aired on Soundstage in 1983, is perhaps his most extreme subversion of the TV medium (making him only one of a handful of comedians who picked up where Ernie Kovacs left off). The show begins suddenly, showing the end of the program and then restarting – instead of Latka watching the program, this time it's an old couple in a tacky living room (“he's playing with the medium... leave it on”).

His nod to Winky Dink and You (playing with a “magic screen” three years before Pee-Wee did it) and onscreen argument with his real-life ex Elayne Boosler are both mind-bogglingly weird sequences, but nothing is as good as the end, where he tells us all off and then “angry Andy” gets counseling from Latka (who is also a sarcastic son of a bitch).

I'll outline a number of extremely wonderful rarities in the second part of his blog entry, but this special is perhaps the best example of Andy toying with his audience's minds while he screwed with the cliches of television talk-shows.

Images in this entry came from the "Fuck Yeah Andy Kaufman" Tumblr, "Tropical Nut Borer Control," and "Kvetchbook."