It was one of those mornings where you wake up feeling hung over, but you didn’t drink anything the night before… is it spiritual malaise, or did I catch a cold from the better half? She is sleepless and allergic and shifting into contageous, no doubt. She is in T.V. and always telling me how messed up BET is (constantly playing the race card looking for guilt advertising and stereotyping their own audiences as people who spend beyond their means… you know the ghetto Cadillac syndrome…. Swing Low Sweet Cadillac). That brings us, however, to BET Jazz which is a really great niche network and the only place (other than Ovation) where you can see some great old Jazz concerts (and lesser new ones). So anyway this morning was Dizzy with his United Nations Band. The nice thing was that Dizzy more or less let Arturo Sandoval and James Moody upstage him. He did it with great class… like everything Dizzy did… may he rest in jazz pieces. Swing Low Sweet Cadillac, in deed ribbit, ribbit.









That Madonna is the very same one at whose feet I left several magic tsochkes on coming home from Basquiat’s bash in D.C. and being locked out of my house by the worser half, finding Bill’s house around the corner to be 567 (birthdate) and feeling like the ghosts were watching over me, or I would be dead already. She is powerfully beautiful, don’t you think?




It may not be a Cadillac, but this old Edsel gets you in mind of all the loser saints of Brooklyn:

In the words of Carl Sandburg: “Lord, let me remember all great losers.” And right across the street is Bishop Ford High School… irony abounds in Windsor Terrace.

So maybe that is what it looks like when you die, or if it is possible that John Paul George Ringo II is a saint, than maybe there are no saints, just Heroes and Sandwich Villains, but I was out of the wire tunnel and into the park and the dog beach where the other day I’d taken Bailey Zuzu swimming and her Kong had sunk like the S.S. Danehower (or Belafonte?) and there in the crystal clear I could see it’s yellow plastic line floating like kelp and the dog dived in and I, inspired by early acoustic Dylan (she’s got everything she needs, she’s an artist, she don’t look back) I waded out into the river and objects seen under water, unlike those in rearview mirrors, are deeper than they appear, but in for a penny, in for a yard and so chest high with the dog swimming around me like a Loch Ness Retriever, I grapped the golden chord and up came the skyblue rubber Kong …. another $15 plucked from the briney depths and I who have swum with dogs have keys with an L.E.D. flash light on them and the water made a short and the keys glowed green all day, like Gatsby’s Light. A good omen I hope…. Authurian…. or Spamalotian! My dog is the lady in the lake? Just my luck, no sword, but a rubber dog toy…. with this he wants to conquer the world?







MP called late the other night to wake me from my sleep and tell me that there were too many neon nail signs in one post. HA. Untill I see a duplicate, you will see all the lovely variations: a sisyphusian task if ever there was one

Here’s a photo of me shot by Beryl Sokoloff that I played with myself:

I’ve been listening to my pal Charles rail against hip hop culture for years now and sort of put it off to a generational clash. He grew up on Jazz and I sort of came of age with Public Enemy and De La Soul and DMC and I still love them, but there are two things pissing me off this morning: one is the current state of Television News (why do I have to watch BBC to see what is going on in Uganda? or even Iraq?) and the other is the current state of Hip Hop Culture, or lack there of. There is nothing wrong with a little ass shaking now and then, but this not stop ass medley that passes for programming on MTV has got to stop. I keep thinking about Ozzie Davis and Sidney Poitier and and all the great Jazz singers and players and the real vibrant intelligence and dignity and broad depth humanity expressed…. no forced onto white/European culture. You hear Billie Holliday sing, or Miles blow and it is impossible to exist with the idea that Africans are somehow less than human and have no feelings, etc. But if a Confederate Klansman somehow jumped into the present day… or Hitler for that matter… and watched a half hour of MTV, they would rest easily on the notion that Africans are good for only two things: fucking and picking cotton.

I feel like it all started when Hollywood money got a hold of the west coast scene and started pushing this racist, minstral-meets-Scarface (it’s not a great movie people!) anti-political rap. By splitting the dialectic of Flavor Flav and Chuck D, disposing of the politcal Yin, and giving the jester/clown Yang a gun and a mug of pimp juice, you create the ultimate minstral show… it just confirms the ideas of middle American white people who have no contact with their Urban/Southern other asside from what they see on t.v. (and most aren’t watching the sitcoms either). You don’t have to ask what blue and red is all about. It’s fear and ignorance and it is fed not only by Republicans, but by Hip Hop culture itself. I guess the bastards who set me off on this are called Ying Yang Twins and they sit in a car and put headlights on a ho and they’re in an orgy surrounded by a throng of same dressed hos (multiplied like rabbits and don’t they all look alike anyway?) and they pimptalk and bleep bleep bleep morse code from swearing till it’s hysterical and look like white America’s worst stereotype of ghetto trash…. and what the fuck is Ying anyway? It’s just so fucking pathetic (even if I have to admit that the production sounds pretty sweet). It’s like watching people who are paid to be professional idiots… little cultural bombs sent out to make you stupid… smart dumb bombs, or something. Maybe I’m getting old, but how does that excuse the morning news….. or the evening news for that matter? They’re killing off all the old liberal (read educated and curious…. not necessarily politically liberal, but Socratic and Scientific and searching for facts and evidence, etc.) journalists and replacing them with rich haircuts and helicopter chases…. I actually watched a man get shot and killed in L.A. this morning and then they segwayed into some bubble headed gossip about Michael Jackson and McCauley Culkin (who did a pretty good job in Party Monster, I think though the role seems to start playing oddly against his testimony). Talk about your television lynch mob morning. I feel like puking.

What will it take to wake this generation of Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, Mongrel kids up… It ain’t rock n’ roll, I can tell you that…. atleast not what passes for it on MTV2: what a bunch of irrlevant, pasty faced, emasculated crap that is. It is a sad day when only George Michael comes off as having integrity…George Michael!? I know, but Faith was a great pop album, what can I say? Takes me right back to the Dog Fish Shark Girl and Sinatra and depression and wandering lost in my youth (and it was my black roomate who turned me on to that album in the first place: I’d play sinatra and he’d play Anita Baker, or Sade, or yes George Michael and we’d drink Haffenreffer and sing till all hours). Tear it up kids. Make something new on the piled bones of the old. Get off your asses…. the computer is your crowbar, now tear down the wall motherfucker! Or, rest assured, you’ll be up against it, or shot from a helicopter and that will be your tag: blood spatter on brick.


©Mingus Designs 2005

Just to remind you of what is at stake and how amazing cultural practice can be, Charles sent me this image of the rail lines into Auschwitz lit up for the 60th anniversery of it’s liberation….never forget, indeed:

Oh and maybe Frank Zappa could be of help here too. The fantastic combination of musicianship (best fusion bands after Miles as far and music goes), idependent production (and studio skill/cerativity), and devestating satire with attention getting, adolescent filthiness. I’m not arguing here for clean art… Puuuhlease. I love sex and I love sexy art and music, I even like Porn, but that’s different than pimping… pimping is abuse and rape and just a shitty way to treat women and reflective of genearl laziness and corruption. Making a hero out of pimps, is like making a hero out of Hitler: Wrong Headed.

It was another frustrating dream night with the better half coughing all night from allergies and not even sleeping with me in my dreams and baggage under the eyes and up to the park to swim the dog.

Dave Conrad called yesterday to touch base on his impending New York visit and the show at Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh. He thinks I should make the little witch drawings into an e-book… which would mean a whole bunch of work. While walking the dog, however, I realized that the little witch drawings are actually about the feamale lead in omEGG. I’m making her a sort of boho daughter of priviledge (slightly Tatiana Vonfurstenburgish)… who is struggling with father/drug/sex issues and mostly the vast shadow of her mother. This will allow me to use pages from omEGG and make a cool looking thing in the two weeks I have till show… plus I think it is a good exorcise and a good tool for whoever actress plays Caroline in the end. Problem solved.

Watched part of Hair yesterday and then woke up at three in the morning and watched some more. Dave was mocking me for it, but I still like it. Milosh Forman is always interesting to look at and the music is great and I still can’t believe that’s Treat Williams as Berger… it’s maybe the only thing I’ve ever liked him in… real charismatic performance…. and whose the Okie kid Pual Batowsky finds that its groovy to hide in the movie and pretend he’s Fellini, or Antonioni, or even his countryman, Roman Polanski….. Story of my fucking life. That guy does a great job too.

Many miles away something crawls to the surface from the bottom of a dark Scottish Loch… no wait that’s the dog, or Zizou’s yellow submarine (dvd finally arrived… distraction extraordinaire perhaps?). It’s just a Dandy Warhol world I guess. I’m cutting it short to work on witchOM today. Love and Flowers and Monsters and I can’t believe that the sweetie owns so much Sting, but doesn’t own Sychronicity….I may settle for Ghost in the Machine instead, which may shychronize with witchOM after all.

After yesterday’s Sideways, laziness with the Purple Mountain Pinot Noir, today seemed the ideal sort of day for a grand dog march from the slope up to Carrol Gardens and on to the Red Hook Piers and back. I walked out the door to find the fuel oil man lighting up a cigarette as he pumped the oil…. nothing will set you to praying (and walking faster) than the sight of an idiot puffing away by the flammable sign on the back of the truck. Luckily Brooklyn is full of steeples and Lawn saints and suddenly I had the perverse idea to take a shot of every single Madonna on every lawn in Carol Gardens…. maybe some day… today was more Jungian in its battle of Italian Saints and Cathedrals vs. grafitti skulls and fucked up walls, etc. There seems to be some sort of story here, but you tell me. I think it looks awful nice though. It’s amazing how much time it took me to make and then When I scroll it (listening to Pink Floy Dark Side of the Moon… which works earily well)… it seems to just move like butter. Like I breathed it, where as I’ve been beating it into shape for eight hours now. Nature of art I guess: when it looks simple its hard and when it looks hard, it’s generally simple.

Speaking of art, here is a cool little installation at Art Lot which is at 206 Columbia street through the end of may. It is by Jong Il Ma… Korean? and is delightfully titled: “How do you feel today?” I feel great! and you?”

I liked it before the title, now I like it more. Brooklyn Abides and the grafitti and steeples really tie the boro together do they not, dude?

It was one of those Valley Stream type mornings where you run into Steve Buscemi at your dry cleaners and tell him you love his work and choices and he is nice and then when you ask for a picture he says no and your first response is to be pissy, but you let it slide as you realize he is completely gray and looking shitty and he is even telling Mr. Lee that he is off to L.A. next week and you realize he is realishing noncamera status… and anyone who did Tree’s Lounge deserves patience and resptect and after the rug really ties the whole room together and Brooklyn Abides and not everything has to be photographed for the blog (WHAT AM I SAYING?!)

So you come home and put on the New Springsteen and Major Tom shows up pissed about a new job he didn’t get and then we put on Sideways and soon it is off to the wine store for Pinot Noir and I’m making chicken sandwiches and our day is retarded bu two hours. We watched the commentary… which is probably funnier than the movie even… and possibly more wine sodden based on laughter of actors… not to mention the audience


It was a really good shoe… bravo!







It has always seemed to me that the two greatest jazz singers lived in a Jungian dialectic of Manic Happiness and Bitter Sadness. There is a kind of teenage graduation you go through, where you say Billie isn’t all of the blues, because Ella exisists too…. some say Ella can’t sing the blues, cause she’s too happy. I say: Happiness is part of the blues, period… and Ella sings it best…. The rapture, the manic, the whatever side of the opposite coin of Billie Holliday.

I found a hundred women to say happy mother’s day to… feeling that spring fertility goddess vibe I suppose. Donna was in the park and so were the cops so we took the long walk home and laughed and looked at flowers and talked about her son who just got into Dartmouth where my older bro went many moons ago. Errands and sleep seemed the order of the day and buying wine and then drinking some Sancerre with our chicken and paté. Bourgois? You bet. I have always subscribed to Matisse’s view on these things: “Picasso,” he said. “You must paint like a wild beast and live like the simplest borgoise, if you want to survive.”

Speaking of survival, more three a.m. gunshots from 2nd ave… seems they’ve got a bit of a heroin problem there…. still rent control strip between sixth and seventh…. Guy got shot a few months back. The better half freaked out and I’m say…”Ehhh backfiring car, dear. Go back to sleep.” Ony to find the next day walking the dog, about a thousand detectives and a river of blood running from sixth all the way down to the intersection of fifth. Six shots fired in anger…. three rear windows blown out… Long story short: the guy actually lived …. it was a drug deal gone south. Surprise surprise.

So VE day was sixty years ago tonight and people are still dying in the streets of Brooklyn and Bagdad and in Africa and Eastern Europe and good old Afghanistan… which brings us right back to where we started: Heroin. Expect things to get a whole lot worse now. It’s like Catch 22 and the Milo’s M&M company. You put Americans someplace and they figure the quickest, sickest, most amoral way to make money… Afghani Heroin is probably flooding our streets as we speak…I wouldn’t mind if they brought in the famous finger hash. That stuff smells like perfume, but I don’t know a sigle person who has benefited from Heroin… okay maybe some Jazz musicians, but it took more than it gave in the end. Have some wine and coffee… works for me.

Strange and primitive night of the bell jar and the electroshock and the college with the wacs during the war and I was biting on a wire and thinking fondly of paris and popsicles of love gimmmee gimmme gimmme waterfalls, etc.

and here is the red kimono of my sixtieth year, or 38th in the infinite mind… and the history of electroconvulsivetherapy….I was president of my class at Columbia business school…

CALL YOUR MOTHER! IT’S MOTHER’S DAY ALREADY!

The petals have fallen on the table, but we can get more of those at the florist, but outside a wind is blowing the cherry blossoms around in great pink drifts. It sort of put time in perspective: