PUNK ROCK, ART GIRL, MY FIRST STALKER
Occasionally I do finish a story, like the story of Art Girl. http://subgeniusslack.blogdrive.com/archive/9.html It has taken awhile, but here's the story. When punk hit I was blown away. Although it wasn't covered by publications like ROLLING STONE, it was huge in fanzines- fan based music publications.
Because mainstream music mags wanted nothing to do with the music, fanzines filled the void. Like the beginnings of the hippie music scene that started at art schools (and the military as so many musicians from David Crosby and Jimi Hendrix had been in the military), to bands like the Stones and Who earlier (all from art schools or had members in them) punk would meld into the art world and I helped bring it to Chicago.
When I heard that Patti Smith, then a New York poet dating a member of Blue Oyster Cult would be in town to sing on their encore numbers (she actually wrote a few of their songs) I got tickets. None of my friends at the Art Institute knew who she was, had seen her books of poetry, or had much interest in a heavy metal band.
She kept the light open, all night long
For me to come home, and sing her my song
Oh Debbie Denise was true to me
She'd wait by the window, so patiently
And I'd come on home with my hair hanging down
She'd pin it up, and softly smile
But I was out rolling with my band
And I was out rolling with my band
I never realized, she was so undone
I didn't suspect she had no life of her own
She was so true but she was a she
She was just there I would just come
Stumbling in she'd show me she'd care
I didn't care cause she was just there
But I was out rolling with my band
And I was out rolling with my band
I wouldn't come home for weeks at a time
She wouldn't accept that she was free
Oh Debbie Denise was true to me
She'd wait by the window so bitterly
Wanting me to come close, I guess I noticed
I couldn't see, so what could I say
That more affection could I show her
I had only one thing on my mind
When I come to her, she'd pin back my hair
And out past the fields out the window I'd stare
Where I was out rolling with my band
I was out rolling with my band
BLUE OYSTER CULT AND PATTI SMITH
The Art Institute was a mix of hippies and Nam era vets. I had actually been a hippie and was tired of the way that scene degenerated, had taken to wearing biker jackets to school and ordering bootleg punk shows from NYC on cassette tapes. The UK with Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McClaren beckoned and their new take on clothes beckoned.
I knew there was an alternative to arena rock and disco, and I knew it would hit hard. As word spread through the school that I knew about this "movement" from the fashion department to painting, people started to come up to talk to me around the school. That was how I met Art Girl. She was married to a security guard and had invited me over after her husband went to work. When I showed up she was in her nighties and began kissing me at the door and this routine would continue for weeks.
That's when she told me she was being blackmailed into having sex with a black guy she had previously fucked into having sex with her and she asked if I could scare him off. For the kind of sex we were having, I said yes. To show how naive I was about a real relationship, there were no warning flags on the field - married, blackmailed, seeing her after her husband left for work, zero.
When I did finally get a warning signal I was talked out of it. I went to Le Mere Viper, a Puerto Rican lesbian bar that one night a month began having punk music nights an hour earlier than I was supposed to and she was making out with some guy. I turned to leave, she followed me down the street and talked her way out of it. Or I guess, told me what I wanted to hear to ignore what I saw. She told me she loved me. She was willing to divorce her husband, and did.
I had more sex than Hugh Hefner's total- before I was 18. I had become somewhat in demand as Art Institute girls began hearing that I actually knew what I was doing (there is a famous tale of me banging a girl I picked up in the cafeteria in a room that students smoked pot in, some dozen students walked in to catch me in the act!),
but I knew less than zero about love.
I met Art Girls best friend Junkie Girl. For some reason, people into heroin never liked me. When Junkie Girl found out I was at college on scholarships she confronted me, saying that if she were poor she'd never admit it, and I must have no shame. This, for winning scholarships! She would send letters to the press when they covered the things I was doing claiming everything from me having AIDS to being a school bus driver responsible for the deaths of kids in Indiana ( I don't drive). For years this went on, as she endeavored to "expose me". God only knows what the press thought. Long after Art Girl and I were through, for quite a few years, she circulated letters spreading absurd crap about me.
Art Girl had a couple of surprises for me.
The last two years I was in school I taught for salary - I was teaching students who were my fellow students. Not bad for a kid that went through the admissions process three times with nothing in my portfolio but a three minute film. Stan Brakhage, Ken Anger and John Schofill intervened to get me admitted. Brakhage actually threatened to quit teaching unless I was admitted!
This only got many students and Professors angry at me. Before I graduated, three museums had purchased my underground film, ORGASM.
I was going to Don Seidan's graduating class party and at the last second Art Girl suddenly said she had a headache and couldn't go. She gave me a drink and when I got to the party I became violently ill- in front of the graduating students. Though we lived just a few blocks from the party, Art Girl was too busy to come get me. I passed out on Don's bed. Not a very good impression.
A few weeks later, an artist named Montana who was dating a doctor contacted me and said her boyfriend was having an affair with Art Girl, and they had drugged me so they could rendezvous. She had heard them on the phone. I got home and threw her out barefoot in below zero weather.
A couple of weeks later, she enticed me back. Without telling anyone, she begged forgiveness and started seeing me for sex again.
Two months later, we were to go on a boat party and walked to the river to board. She told me these words I will never forget:
I AM GETTING MARRIED IN TWO WEEKS. BUT DON'T WORRY, I CAN STILL SEE YOU EVERY WEEK.
There was no way to describe the devastation. Funny thing was, it wasn't to the Doctor!
Everyone was getting played with Art Girl.
I walked away with tears streaming down my face.
To this day, people from the early punk days still tell me she was the one, that they all thought she was the one I'd marry. That she was so nice and cool.
I guess she fooled them, too. I lost my chance to teach as a result of her antics. People I thought were friends were elated over me being brought down several notches.
She went into fashion for several years, and then switched careers.
SHE BECAME AN ARTS TEACHER! The career she denied me.
