rduwtf.com

May 14th saw the passing of a major figure in the Raleigh alternative arts scene of the 80’s, Russell Boone, publisher of Scream magazine.  Russell had a stroke in 2003 and then an accident involving traumatic brain injury in 2004, and had been cared for since by his wife and publishing partner, Katie Boone.  She held a memorial gathering at the PR, and the attendees represented a fine tribute to Russ as well as a fascinating cross section of a certain segment of Raleigh’s intellectual culture.  Russell was a Vietnam War veteran who made a pretty complete break with his earlier life.  In finding and wooing Katie at a tender age, he married into a strong and distinct group of Raleighites who have always particularly charmed and impressed me – that is, the wave of NCSU professors’ kids who came of age in the 70’s, mostly in Cameron Park.  The PR’s side room was filled with them, many of whom made it back into town for the event.  The late Mike Reynolds, an NCSU Hemingway scholar, was one of the aforementioned parents, but also a personal friend of Russell, who spent some time at NCSU.  Mike provided original Hemingway material for publication in Scream, and helped it land on the map of small press publications of the era.

Scream was touted as a new combination of “literature, art comix and journalism.”  Drawing on the local zine tradition that included Blind Boy’s Gazette and Biohazard Informe, Russell upped the ante and went for a full scale magazine with designer graphics.  The marvelous community of artists, writers, and designers he attracted to his project created a body of work well worth remembering. In September 1985 Guy Munger, NandO’s book editor (and father of another family of Cameron Park intelligentsia) described the first issue thusly:

“…a mad melange of prophecy, poetry and ‘Rollywood Funny Papers’ (what us Mad mag grads call comix).  Among the attractions: ‘Gemstone File,’ a collection of predictions starring JFK, Jackie, Richard Nixon, Onassis, Howard Hughes and other notables that would make Nostradamus nervous; an eerie little piece by Mike Reynolds, ‘A Green in June’ about a hedge trimmer who just might play ‘paranoid parchesi’ with a chainsaw, and several poems worthy of note.”  (News and Observer, 9-8-85)

Billed as a quarterly, Scream’s run comprised seven issues, ending in 1989.  Each was more lush and polished than the previous, and Scream became an important venue for the emerging fusions of genre that would lead to graphic novels.  Local expressionist extraordinaire David Larson did many of the covers, but others such as William Waters, Errol Engelbrecht, and Denis Draughon got their turn.  Writers such as David Weaver, Richard Butner and Peter Eichenberger published early work.  The Rollywood Funny Papers took on a life of their own as the flip side of what was essentially a double magazine, with powerful and beautifully presented dark comix by Lillian Jones, Rick Koobs, and Matt Feazell. Danny Gallant also contributed comix, but became a leading force in Scream’s truly sumptuous graphic designs, executed in multi-color offset by Richard Kilby’s Barefoot Press.  The final two issues gained some extra excitement when Charles Bukowski ackowledged his admiration for Scream by sending two pieces for Russell to publish.

After Russell decided to stop publishing Scream, Danny Gallant went on to publish several issues of Alternating Crimes in 1996-97, using an imprint Russell had founded in 1985.  Russell was a consulting editor, and Danny continued to work with Russ on his own new publishing project – the catalogs for Boone’s Native Seed Company, his heirloom seed mail-order business.  Just as Scream laid new ground for a local literary magazine, these catalogs educated about heirloom plants long before they were hot topics, offered the fruits of Russ and Katie’s wildcrafting, and managed to offer more art and literary value than anything of it’s kind.  David Larson’s sultry charcoals and pastels were on the covers, and toward the back- “The Anguished Adventures of Cowboy Ant” !  This comic insertion in a seed catalog featured an ant hero whose work and words rocked the sleazy world of industrial agriculture.  Russell wrote the strips and Danny Gallant illustrated and lettered them.

Though he was a successful editor and also worked many years on a novel, Russell’s seed enterprise brought him closer to his true love – outdoors and botanical adventures.  He was just about the only person from whom I’d accept a wild mushroom to eat, and I was rather glad he never got to see the destruction of the wooded hills surrounding Lake Raleigh, which he loved to roam.  He and Katie went all over the state wildcrafting, and Russell always had so much to teach and share about plants, whether in the wilderness or the garden.  His last years were inactive, and for the most part speechless, but Katie faithfully rolled his chair along the greenway and occasionally got him down to Sadlack’s.  She will get some well deserved respite now, but she was fiercely loyal to him, and communicated with him in a way that most of us couldn’t.  Russell said his piece, a big piece, with Scream, and for that and more he will be well remembered.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

A Furry Geezer’s Lurid Recounting of Downtown Raleigh’s Open Mikes

This was the first piece written under the persona of The Furry Geezer, produced for 23Hours, the magazine associated with the documentary/retrospective show of the same name held at Bickett Gallery in 2003. It is astoundingly in date, since Stammer is going strong at Artspace, so the Administrator was kind enough to allow me to run it in celebration of one year with this fine blog. For the most current literary trends, check out Storyspark, the literary festival being produced by Raleigh Quarterly as part of the upcoming Sparkcon.

Summer 1983. Doonesbury’s “armpit of a decade” is in full swing. Raleigh’s civic leaders contemplate strategies and boondoggles toward rejuvenating the central district. The Art museum has closed and moved away. Sylvia’s Helping Hand Mission is going strong on Hargett Street in a large space deemed “under-utilized” by City Planners. Somewhere in the country, a group of people are working on the premier publication of a new national newspaper. It will be called USA Today. In the basement of a tiny luncheonette on Salisbury Street, a group of people gather on a Thursday evening. Drawn together by the funky used bookstore across the street, they are a truly diverse group. Initiated by a teenage drop-out and a former San Francisco open-mic emcee, the reading has attracted a few university types, but includes; the local H.P. Lovecraft junkies, Libertarian advocates for a nudist club, and a huge smelly man recognizable from his long naps at Olivia Raney Library (unless you happened to catch him heading into the blood bank, or see him rolling out of the signal shack by the Boylan Avenue Bridge). The reading starts, with nervous reminders from the bookstore owner about a strict ten minute limit. The huge man proceeds to unfold wads of paper from his many pockets and to borrow props (such as a full soda can) from his neighbors. When his turn arrives, he carries his small table and chair right up to the mike and delivers a 25-minute rant to the city that has the emcee sweating (8 more readers to go – my god) and has the audience in awe. Most of them hadn’t met a street bum with high culture before. But Ralph, and the Thursday Night reading, turned out to be special.

Continue reading A Furry Geezer’s Lurid Recounting of Downtown Raleigh’s Open Mikes
Continue reading ‘23 Hours + 5 Years’

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

You cannot paint the Mona Lisa by assigning one dab each to a thousand painters. William F. Buckley, Jr.

I am an old fan-as-opponent of William Buckley and I miss his raised eyebrow. He’s often right on target, of course, and I thought this quote fit my mood, pondering all the ugly crap we see going up all around Raleigh, sometimes right beside much more noble projects. Raleigh architecture has it’s bell curve, I suppose, but the view out your car window sure can be depressing these days. I have tried to live with beauty and make beauty all my life – I’ve watched many friends do the same – and IT IS HARD.

Try harder! Raleigh is supposed to be so hot, why can’t we see consistent efforts to achieve a new urbanism that has a fairly high baseline of aesthetic sensibility. When it comes to moderately priced and/or high volume real estate ventures, I say: Make ‘em eat cake!! We can demand quality in planning and materials, without imposing a specific aesthetic sensibility on anyone.

Try harder!! Everything we do is art. Even if it feeds, clothes or shelters us, everything we do is done with artifice, with art, in a creative way involving value choices – so we might as well make it good. The search for quality leads to intellectual aristocracy, some say – well, so be it. The will to excel, to lead the examined life leads to arrogance. But I can will democratic exchange instead of arrogance. Yet I must ask: why does it have to be so dad-lemmed ugly? What democratic process allows such crap? And when there are wonderful architects, thoughtful projects galore, why does any of it have to be so dad-lemmed ugly?

I close with a quote from another end of some spectrum, I’m sure you’ll agree.

We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same. Carlos Castenada

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

Geezer posted the following as a comment under Whiskeytown Part One but I think it warrants its own post:

My grandparents lived on Fayetteville Street in the 1920s and 30s, operating a boarding house in the 400 block while my grandfather successfully negotiated the Depression as a line foreman for Southern railroad. My uncle Percy, their oldest son, said he learned to drink working with Papa’s labor crew. As a young man, he worked for the famous Percy, at least indirectly, by running liquor from Johnson County to the large hotel that existed on the N&O site across from Nash Square.

This culture was quite evident in downtown Raleigh at least through the late sixties, because I experienced it as a young boy. At thirteen or so, I was skipping choir practice at Tabernacle and making my way up to Wilington Street to shoot pool. The upstairs pool hall, my favorite, was Skeeter’s, and it had a real special atmosphere. There was an old-fashioned Coke machine that took quarters. But the back door was unlocked, and Skeeter could reach around inside and grab up a pint of chilled moonshine – I certainly never tasted it – the pints were to go only! But I’m amazed they even let me in the place. A safer world – or at least, so it seemed.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

In a basement of the College of Design’s classroom building, along with the files and operations for State’s extension programs, Contemporary Art Museum huddles and waits, coordinating outreach programs, trying to stay alive and active until its long-awaited home is completed. Its current existence depends not on a gallery, nor exhibitions, but the vision and plans contained in the minds behind this cramped row of desks. Now a renovation plan has taken shape that may see reality in – well, the foreseeable future. It’s been a long time coming, and the lapse of time may allow us to forget the travesties of City Council judgment that led to such a predicament in the first place.

It has been almost a decade since the conservative Council ushered in by Tom Fetzer froze funds for City Gallery, as it was then called. It was a wonderful space right on Moore Square, in the old Carolina Printers space. Not only were the shows contemporary, they were urban – we’re talking Sue Coe and big disturbing paintings of Pentagon wound labs, Vietnam photo retrospectives, Robert Rauschenberg experimental prints. But it did the local scene right as well. After the Paper Plant closed, City Gallery sponsored “Paper Voices,” a featured/open mike venue that brought some up and coming writers to Raleigh. Richard Krawiec segued Paper Voices into some really cool poetry and writing workshops for homeless people. A major show in the nineties was a George Bireline decade show, and the very best thing about City Gallery was it’s annual hang-your-own show, where the community was invited to come in and fill up the walls with whatever they had. This event was so popular that Forum+Function sponsored it the year after City Gallery closed, and somehow one year of it took place in the Martin Street space to be renovated – it was only open for the reception itself, and I’d love to know how (or if) they got the permits. But for all it did to help make Raleigh a real city, City Gallery was snuffed out of the budget.

Now A.T. Stephens, the new director of CAM, sits in his temporary offices and plots the resurrection of the physical gallery and administers the very real art being produced by his organization in the meantime. He seems to be a very creative, energetic and hip guy. He worked at the Corcoran in DC and also with history organizations in the past. Stephens’ predecessor was fairly business oriented and brought the financial situation under control. Cam is aligned with, actually an initiative of, the College of Design now. CAM conducts educational programs such as the annual after school program, “Moore Square: Past, Present, and Future”, which “gives middle school students an opportunity to actively participate in the dialog concerning downtown Raleigh’s development and revitalization.” It conducts a Design Camp at Marbles, the new identity of Exploris. And it now works in conjunction with the College of Design to “redefine the relationship of museums and communities by presenting exhibitions in novel ways that illustrate the relevance of contemporary art and design to our everyday lives.” The Contemporary Art Museum will be a non-collecting art museum.

Where does that leave us? Is Raleigh poised to get its version of NYC’s P.S.1 – the legendary art center that started displaying performance art and experimental sculpture in the shell of an old public school and now continues to offer up cutting edge art – but in a liason with MOMA! Having the College of Design as an anchor of stability and a haven from local politics may be a boon to the new CAM. A.T. Stephens is being active in the local art scene and showing himself to be a Good Guy. Let’s hope the newest version of the plans for CAM – well reviewed at NewRaleigh, and enticing in their exclusion of local real estate interests that were formerly involved- work well. Simple, focused renovation of the old warehouse and opening ASAP – that seems to be the plan and direction. We wish the project well.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

Raleigh boasts a long, noble list of havens for alternative culture: The Berkeley Cafe, The Paper Plant, The Five-O, Cup-a-Joe, The Sting-Ray Room, Vertigo Diner, Forum&Function, and the Third Place are a smattering. None of these even comes close to the massive impact, over decades, made by Sadlack’s as the ultimate home away from home for the downtrodden student, the philosophical blue collar worker, the ambitious slacker whose burning for validation brings him again and again, the casual intellectual who stops for a casual beer and then has life-changing experiences: here is the backwater that acts as a cauldron of ideas, here is homely food sold and given as a basic human ritual, served with love and the admonition to shut up and eat it (if you want the best price), here, most of all, is beer. Dark drafts with lemon, PBR’s on a tab, the splurge for a draft Newcastle from the renovated bar, still served in a plastic cup, the frown of an oldie or a scream from a waitress at the smuggled bottle of Schlitz coming out of the coat pocket out on the porch. Let me get you a beer! Community libations. Sad’s!

*

Where else can you see the lost generation of Baby Boomers chatting up the lost generation X’ers, served by artistically punk Millenniumers. Where else to hear major bands (like the recently defunct Countdown Quartet) try out new sets and new members while they play for tips. Where else to hear garage bands playing like it’s 1981 – and they’re in their garage. Everybody comes to Sad’s sometime. I’ve heard story after story about spouses getting together the first time at Sad’s – it happened to me on October 2, 1984. My European friend had his first beer in America at Sad’s in 1979 – five minutes after legal closing. He later met his future wife there. Certain folks you know you can find there – but long term reunions with people you haven’t seen in years are also common. The community, over time, has exhibited an amazing genealogy of dating, mutual support, fallings out, and fantastically strong loyalty.

*

This loyalty was tested and proven during the long recent renovation. Analyzed and predicted in local media, the vacancy created a genuine minor life crisis for more than few. The PR became “Sadlack’s East,” the East Village “Sadlack’s West.” People said it would never be the same, that Rose never intended re-opening – or they would claim that a second floor was definitely in the works. After all the dust settled, Sad’s was back – a real kitchen, usable bathrooms, and an all-weather porch – but essentially the same, with plenty of pictures around to maintain a sense of the past. And you know, some people love to hate Rose – but let’s get real – Rose IS Sadlack’s – she likes, tolerates, feeds and hires all those interesting people. She fires them, rehires them, bans people for limited instructional periods, welcomes them back. She provides free food for special occasions. It is her thing, and an amazing thing it is. Sad’s! Thank you, Rose.

*

Favorite moments come easily – The Carolina Rollergirls fund-raising while their kids splash in a wading pool in the parking lot, for example. Last Friday night I checked in and saw a suspiciously large and preppy crowd out front. Damn, the Crawl! I hate the Crawl and what it does to Sad’s, even if it’s just one night. But it was early, and inside was still sane and mostly regulars. So I had my beer and visited with Dave, the best musician of the regulars. Dave and Peter E. are intellectual pillars of Sadlack’s. Dave had a nasty nickname for the young pretties who were starting to gather up on the concrete wall – we all love the atmosphere so much, we’re protective. Later that night I drove by and saw obscene crowds spilling out the door. I kept going and saw the Crawlers’ ultimate destination (some of them anyway) – a hospital paddy wagon for kids with alcohol poisoning, parked in front of D.H. Hill Library.

Sadlack’s itself has ongoing brushes with drunken misbehavior, as well as the rare truly criminal alumnus, but it is the most friendly, supportive setting for having a few beers in Raleigh. From a doughnut shop in a mobile diner trailer, to a Greek sandwich shop, to a Raleigh institution – Sadlacks now has a set of physical footings to match its deep roots in Raleigh’s alternative culture scene. Long live Sad’s – my fifth wonder of Raleigh.

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

Person Street Pharmacy, an old Raleigh icon, trades positions with Governor’s Square, a sign of the times, in the reflected image of Person Street from the window of Marsh Woodwinds. Its new location in a former wedding and photo shop, signals an exciting new era for Rodney Marsh and his multi-faceted inputs into the Raleigh music world. A talented musician himself, his technical services to musicians from grade schoolers to the Marsalis family have become legendary, and now his new digs have given him an opportunity to branch out into performance and recording venues. The cluttered chaos affectionately portrayed in the article about his move just one year ago has been transformed, or tamed at least, and the store, throughout, is engaging and visually a treat. Upstairs, there is a bar and bandstand which is like walking into some sophisticated movie set – the visual impact of the jazz collage with its size 72 sax suit is just truly amazing. The larger, more open performance space has already hosted some memorable events, and Rodney is just getting started.

Continue reading ‘The Winds Are Singing on Person Street’

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

I wanted to share a couple of items relevant to the Print Power post and a small personal plea, then get on to a First Friday preview. One of the “cutting edge techniques” to which I referred is being showcased in a workshop by Sue Soper at Artspace. “Waterless Lithography” takes place the weekend of March 15-16. A show in Asheville provides us with a broad showcase of printmaking techniques: 14 different ones, in fact, displayed in an “international, invitational exhibition representing the work of 50 artists.” The show runs through May.

Two cultural items whose hosts asked for a shout-out to RDUwtf readers: the last shall be first: on the last Friday in March, the 28th, Capital City Grocery (next to Logan’s) is having bluegrass music to accompany their coffee, beer and fine groceries. The Filmore Valley Boys will play and this unique grocery store’s large front porch, complete with rocking chairs, should be rockin’ indeed. Look for it. Capital City needs and deserves our support.

The second request leads us to our First Friday preview. The City provides a FREE TROLLEY FOR FIRST NIGHT(note:this link will download a PDF map), but may discontinue the service for lack of use. Let’s try to use it and keep it going – it’s a boon to outlying galleries like Rebus and sounds fun. (i.e. I plan to try it March 7th). So park anywhere you like on its convenient route – make the rounds (looks like seven stops on the map), and end up where you started -but plan an early stop at City Market, because Peche Chocolat is having a wine tasting that night. Artspace around the corner is opening a show of Regional Emerging Artists up in Gallery Two. Lump down the street has work by Jeanine Oleson from Parsons with interdiscliplinary media. DesignBox opens “Clique Clique”, constructs by Shaun Richards, which explores media, nostalgia and social dynamics. Free Range Studio, which is not on the trolley route,has yet another Australian show, “Landscapes and Signals” collage images by Clare Llewelyn. The trolley will take you out to Glenwood South, where you can check on the Carter Building or FM Goods and Sounds. Most of you guys, if you ride the trolley at all, will want to start and thus end up in this never-ending menagerie of watering holes. Just drive safe, and maybe I’ll see you on the trolley!

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

Printmakers, even among artists, are meticulous and controlling. They are fanatical about the papers, inks, and processes they use. The best ones transcend this geek mentality and present a universe of its own, in two dimensions. The worst ones appear to have played with fingerpaint. In the RDU area, this all plays out in a surprisingly rich context of organizations and physical resources.

A recent show at VAE, Raleigh’s community artist organization, helped inaugurate PoNC, a new printmaker’s group. The show displayed a wide, quite educational array of techniques and styles: indeed, an evening workshop during the show featured a wonderfully anecdotal yet scholarly talk by PoNC founder Judy Jones, as well as hands-on demonstrations and opportunities for members of the public to create blocks and pull prints. The print show itself was rich with peculiar edges: the aforementioned fingerpainting joined intricate, multi-textured images and inflamed political and sexual statements. Judy has big plans for the group and for her new printmaking studio at 311 West Martin (she recently moved there from Artspace). The group has lots of active members, some of whom work mostly in other media. They also are aligned with a state-wide printmaking group. It seems to be an admirable emerging community resource we will hear more about as time goes by.

Aligned very differently is another constellation of printers: the North Carolina Printmakers Guild, which is populated by slighter older and more established printmakers whose organization exists mainly to generate shows. One of those shows, at the BTI center in 2004, was the most impressive display of local printmaking I have ever seen in Raleigh. When these guys do a workshop, as they did at Blam a couple of years ago, they present some cutting edge technique and build a little working seminar around that. The lead member in my mind is Jen Coon, whose personal studio houses a magnificent etching press, next door to Rebus. Her Rebus show about the Boylan Bridge was a masterpiece in drawing together artistic expression and community memory. The rituals of remembering and the social history wrapped up in the Boylan Bridge (and its forgotten sister, the Martin Street Extension) are worth a post all their own: suffice to say that Jen Coon used the pressing of images to stamp the soul of a neighborhood on to paper for all to see. The Printmakers Guild is the best way to stay in contact with the best printmaking work in the area.

There is always room for the light touch and you can get plenty of that hanging around the infant printmaking center at Pullen Art Center. Resident artists and printmaking instructors Ann Podris and Keith Norval present a wonderful mix of true bohemian spirit and lots of dedicated discipline for their craft. They are teaching and qualifying people for use of the excellent press they have obtained for the studio at Pullen (They also have a painting studio at Artspace). Here, perhaps is the best of the two previous worlds: get down and dirty in an informal atmosphere with two highly professional and highly personable artists. If you are aspiring to some print power of your own – check ‘em out!

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post