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Jack Michelin at The Curtis Hotel.

Welcome sign at the Curtis HotelThe last time I walked into the Curtis Hotel, it was for an appointment with Jack Micheline. I wanted to buy some paintings.

It was 1996, and I had just landed in SF for grad school. One of my first days there was spent exploring the city I’d spend the next three years calling home. So I jumped the BART and headed to 16th Street.

The Mission. It was kinda gritty and kinda grimy. My kinda place. And I had heard about The Abandoned Planet Bookstore, which was my final destination that day. What a great place. One of my all-time favorite bookstores, ever.

Along the top perimeter of the store, completely out of reach and above the top row of books were maybe a dozen or so paintings. Totally Outsider work. I don’t know why I ID’d the artist so quickly; it’s not like I had seen any of Jack’s works before. But one — a portrait of Jack Kerouac as a football player at Columbia, caught my eye. I asked the clerk, “hey, did Jack Micheline paint that?” The bookseller confirmed, then without quoting me a price, got on the phone.

“Hey, there’s someone here who wants to buy a painting.”

And within 3 minutes — literally — Jack lumbered into the store and walked right up to me. “Which one you want?!”

I pointed to the Kerouac. Jack offered it up at a bargain. I ended up commissioning another author’s portrait — one of Henry Miller — and I bought three other small paintings. Jack invited me over to his room at The Curtis to pick them up. Then I had a new friend.

Jack and I worked on a chapbook together, and once, walking through the Missions, Jack told me, “you need to meet Johnny Brewton. You need to see his work!” Jack and I ate at Kenny’s from time to time; once, he asked me to be a thug and sent me over to this dude’s house who owed him money  (I had a hard time not laughing as I asked the dude for Jack’s dough, tough guy that I am); and Jack even made a cover for a book catalogue for me (when I used to send those out).

But my best memory with Jack was when he walked me over to his painted room over at Scott Harrison’s bookstore and taught me the “proper way” to read poetry to a crowd.

They’ve cleaned The Curtis up since 1996…at least the outside of the place. The whole Mission is gentrified. The Abandoned Planet went the same way most of the other brick-and-mortar bookstores. And Jack died in 1998 on a BART train bound for Orinda.

The Curtis Hotel in San Francisco's Mission District

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Sofia Heftersmith Always Everything.

I swung by These Days to check out Always Everything, new work by Sofia Heftersmith.

Sofia’s based in SoCal, and (I think) this is her second solo show. Here’s Sophia’s Insta;  her first show was Proof of Life on Earth over at Shit Art Club; here’s an interview with Sofia Heftersmith at Uproxx; here’s another one at Powerzine; and finally, she was interviewed for the podcast What’s My Thesis.

I love Sofia’s work. It’s easy to pigeonhole her as a “young artist”. I’d say she’s wise beyond her years.

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Wendy Blades, Sword Swallower

Wendy Blades is, among other things, a sword swallower / human sword basket, an emcee, and a chairstacker; she can escape from straight jackets and eat fire; and, finally, she’s a human cutting board.

I don’t go anywhere near Pier 39 or Fisherman’s Wharf while I’m in the Bay Area. But I was with family and while we were “doing touristy things”, I was lucky enough to catch her between sets. So I made this portrait of Wendy and her doggo.

Wendy’s on Insta, has a YouTube channel, and a Facebook.

This is a picture of Wendy Blades, sword swallower, holding her dog.
Wendy Blades | October 2022 | Pier 39 | San Fransciso.
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Marianna the Nomad — Prague 08.25.2022

Nomad Marianna in Prague

I was walking back from the coffee house when I met Marianna, her dog Duna, and Amber The Pink Puppy.

Marianna wears friendship socks and makes paintings of her her Changa Trips. Changa — a mixture of DMT and edible flowers and plants. She smoked a changa  joint and began to see colors and shapes and when she squeezed her eyes shut and moved her hands in front of her eyes, well…Marianna painted what she saw.

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Charles Bukowski — 4 Poets

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the synaesthesia press published an essay on the state of American Poetry according to Mr. Charles Bukowski. It appeared in synaesthesia press chap book #2, 4 Poets. The chap book is long out of print.

Bukowski wrote the essay in 1964. It was discovered in an old notebook that’s in the special collections department at the University of Arizona’s library. It’s in one of those 39 cent spiral-bound notebooks you buy for school. There’s beer stains and doodles all over it, and most of the contents are random thoughts and the kind of rants you’d find in someone’s personal journal. And right in the middle is this great essay.

So without asking anyone’s permission, I published it.

John Martin didn’t like it. But he bought almost the entire run. Maybe he’s got some laying around, but I wouldn’t know.

Every once in a while a copy shows up on eBay, but I’m not the seller. Because I don’t have anymore left; besides, I promised Black Sparrow no more sales.

In the same notebook was the first draft — in Buk’s hand — of “The Day It Snowed in L.A.” It was published almost 20+ years later, and almost verbatim, as what sits in that notebook.

I found the cover illustration I took for my book in that notebook, too.

I can’t tell you how excited I was to hold that notebook in my hands. It was a special experience I don’t think I could ever relive, cause I’m 20 years older now, and those sorts of feelings have long left me.

There were 243 copies printed; in addition, I printed 11 special copies that had another essay called “The House of Horrors” tipped in. The 11 copies were printed using 11 variant covers, all different mock-ups I had in mind for the regular edition.

Oh — “The House of Horrors” was in that same notebook, too.

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Billy Childish — The Strangest One of All

Johnny Brewton introduced me to Billy Childish.

Billy Childish is a musician/poet/artist. And, instead of writing something up here on my own, I took this straight from his website: “A cult figure in America, Europe and Japan, Billy Childish is by far the most prolific painter, poet, and song-writer of his generation. In a twenty year period he has published 30 collections of his poetry, recorded over 70 full-length independent LP’s and produced over 1000 paintings.

Born in 1959 in Chatham, Kent. Billy Childish left Secondary education at 16 an undiagnosed dyslexic. Refused an interview at the local art school he entered the Naval Dockyard at Chatham as an apprentice stonemason. During the following six months (the artist’s only prolonged period of employment), he produced some six hundred drawings in ‘the tea huts of hell. On the basis of this work he was accepted into St Martin’s School of Art to study painting. However, his acceptance was short-lived and before completing the course he was expelled for his outspokenness and unorthodox working methods. With no qualifications and no job prospects Childish then spent some 12 years ‘painting on the dole’, developing his own highly personal writing style and producing his art independently.

My name is Billy Childish. I was diagnosed dyslexic when I was 28.
I have published 30 collections of poetry and 2 novels. I have made about 100 independent LP records and painted over 2000 paintings. When I was 17 I had a bank account under the name of Kurt Schwitters. I lived on the dole for 15 years.

I am self taught.
I do not like fashion culture.
I do not hate anyone.”

Billy created the woodcuts for Barry Gifford’s The Strangest One of All. Every woodcut is the same subject — William S. Burroughs — the subject of Barry’ s book.

There’s a single woodcut of WSB peering through the die-cut window on the cover of the chappie; and, if you have the edition of 26 lettered copies, you got two bonus woodcuts of WSB, all wrapped up in a nice manila envelope.

Billy fondly calls William Burroughs “the old duffer”; I think that’s pretty funny.

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Richard Brautigan chapbook Four Poems

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I was talking to my friend Mark at his bookstore in the Haight, St. Adrian. This was a long time ago.

We talked about books.

We talked about Kerouac or Bukowski or maybe the great things coming from X-Ray Press. I don’t recall.

Then, we talked about Richard Brautigan. I do recall this, because as we were talking, Mark brought out a copy of All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace. It was a first (and only) edition, and it was published by the Communications Company in 1967 — and probably within walking distance of Mark’s store.

We talked about the fact it was probably printed right around the corner, and we talked about the fact that, 30 years earlier, Brautigan had roamed this very neighborhood, handing out poems and chapbooks freely, and how that sort of thing doesn’t happen much anymore.

We even talked about R. Crumb walking this same neighborhood during the same time, pushing a baby carriage full of Zap #1, and how he sold them right out of the carriage.

Then Mark read the copyright from Brautigan’s book: “Permission is granted to reprint any of these poems in magazines, books and newspapers, if they are given away free.” The book was published in an edition of 1500 copies — none of the copies were offered for sale — they were all given away.

The entire edition was given away. 1500 copies. Free.

We both agreed this definitely doesn’t happen anymore.

I bought some books from Mark, jumped on the #7, and headed back down to the Tenderloin and the hotel I called home.

Sadly, St. Adrian’s doesn’t exist anymore, either…just like Crumb and his baby carriage and people giving stuff away for nothing.

A few years later, while working on the Vandercook, I decided to take a few of my favorite poems from All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace, print them, and, following his copyright, give the book away to the friends of the synaesthesia press; the people who, since its inception, have supported synaesthesia either through shared knowledge, submitting work, or buying the books.

4 Poems was the result.

Twenty-six lettered copies were printed. There were maybe 20 “overs” which were sent to Brautigan’s daughter, Ianthe.

I have no more.

My only hope here is it’s an adequate thanks for all those who have helped synaesthesia make it this far.

And maybe this little book has some of the spirit and essence that All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace offered.

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Neeli Cherkovski — Johnny Marries Giselle

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When Johnny Brewton married Giselle Orsolio, I approached Neeli Cherkovski to write a poem for the occasion. I had met Neeli few times earlier at his home in San Francisco, and he was always a gentleman. This made it easy to approach him about the project, and when I called him on the phone, I was right. Not only was he kind, he was genuinely enthusiastic about writing a poem for Johnny & Giselle, and, just a few days later, he called me and said it was finished.

I printed up a hundred or so and handed them out to the guests at the reception.

Johnny Marries Giselle

I

it’s a wonder
like grass, the glass
in that music, brittle
steel, strong
silence pushing a man
through print
into light, the marriage
of spirit and
soul, the union
of imagination and
mind, the rooms
two will find
together and those
that remain
locked in one set of eye

II

“…the marriage
of true minds…” how
we read ourselves and bend fog
backward and dream
waves, arm in
hand, lip to lip, hand in
the sky, till we bend
to our twin reflections and
never do anything but live

Neeli Cherkovski
2 May 1998

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a. di michele — The Mollifier

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A. di Michele’s chap book The Mollifier was published November, 1996. When people ask me to describe it, I like to say, “Joycean HyperText”, cause that’s how a. di michele describes it, and who better to describe his own work but the author?

When I say “Joycean HyperText”, they usually follow up with an unsure nod, or “what?”

And then I say, “exactly. Now go read it.”

di Michele illustrated The Mollifier, too.

I found this bio somewhere…I can’t recall where:

A. di Michele
Jackson, MS
B.A. in Philosophy and M.A. in French (Critical Theory)
from Mississippi State University

Poet, lingual neuro-situationist trans-bard and furniture/enviroment deconstructor

Author of:
BLACK MARKET PNEUMA (Lavender Ink, N.O., 1999)
THE MOLLIFIER (Synaesthesia Press, S.F., 1996)
NAY-PAU-LORON (Fell Swoop Special Issue #42, N.O., 1996)

His poems/works have recently appeared in: MESECHABE (N.O.), LOST AND FOUND TIMES (OHIO), SANDBOX (NYC), NEW ORLEANS REVIEW (LOYOLA), BALLPEEN (MS), SZ2 (BOISE STATE), and MY CAT SPIT MCGEE.

His poetics reflect/refract/distort/etc. an inter/intra-ACTIVE submergence into the proto-bitstreams of primal-archaic “thought” or sense in all our various sub-vernaculars (post-anti-modern, lingeaux-des-rues, gnostic litany, taoist/soto transparencies, synaptic skat)

latest work (in progress):
NOTES FOR/AGAINST ARCHITECTURE: a situationist foraging through the phenomenological bandwidths of ungridded celebration and diagonalized confrontation with mortar and design; to be published in modular dispatches beginning in november.

statement about play(ing):

“i’ve done better. i’ve done worse”

and:

“poets would do better to work in sweatshops rather than sweat in workshops”

or:

yes! the 1000 monkey funny-bone power plant!