A Dream That Will Be Carried Out on a Fully Loaded Touring Bicycle

(Photo from “The Fully Loaded Touring Bike Photo Gallery: http://www.fullyloadedtouring.com/. So, yes, this is not my Surly Cross Check with a Brooks saddle and Ortlieb panniers. Aaahhh, but soon, quite soon.)

On March 24th, 2010, I will be embarking on a solo bicycle tour of the United States and Canada, originating here in Charlotte, North Carolina. How long will I be gone? I honesty have no idea. Where will I be going? Wherever the wind and my heart takes me. To forecast times and locations is impossible enough without being classified as utter foolishness on my part. I know where I would love to go, but Spirit will guide me in the right direction. This is something I have dreamed of doing ever since I was a little dude. The first time I saw a loaded Schwinn navigating a highway in Kentucky back in the 1970’s, my eyes bugged out and my heart raced. I was born and raised in a nomadic family with gypsy genes and a love for new adventures, and I have always had a passion for bicycles. As a prerequisite, I have traversed several thousand miles hitchhiking in the Lower 48 since 1984. At the still young and extremely youthful age of 44 years, I know deep in my heart that I have got to do this. I will be creating, exhibiting, and selling my art. I will be having conversations with thousands of people. Mostly, I will be listening. I will lend a hand as necessary. I will engage in Direct Action of the purest, most non-violent kind. I will be documenting everything here on this blog. Words, art, photos. Natch.

(This is me, DAG. Photo by the too kind and awesome Mr. Steve Holt, a.k.a. Lepton Neutrino. It was taken on a festive evening back in October of 2004. I’m still the same guy, just more significantly bearded.)

For the sake of safety, my good health, and optimal mobility, I wish to outfit myself with the best equipment, whether it is new or used. I will accept donations of whatever is necessary to fulfill this dream and obligation to myself that I wish to share with others along the way. For all of you who contribute towards this project in any fashion, and think this is a truly awesome idea, you will not only be thanked profusely but you will be listed here (if you so desire). I’m not just aiming to write a book, I am aiming to write many books.

To write to me, and/or make a donation:

David Alan Goldberg
945 N. College Street
Charlotte,
North Carolina
28206
USA

The Three John Lennon Portraits I Drew in the Spring and Summer of 2001

(“John Lennon – 1965″ Color Pencil on Watercolor Paper, June, 2001)

(“John Lennon – 1967″ Color Pencil on Watercolor Paper, August, 2001)

(“John Lennon – 1971″ Pen & Ink on Penny Sketch Paper, March, 2001)

For me, John Lennon has always been an iconic catalyst for ultimately doing the right thing, for carrying a beautiful, creative spirit, for having strong opinions that you can voice intellectually, for standing firm in your convictions while being willing to listen, for disarming the tense with a chuckle, for settling differences through art, for living and loving peacefully… for being a vibrant human being and a regular guy… who had one of the very best friggin’ rock ‘n’ roll voices, ever.

In December of 2000, I resolved to do several drawings of John Lennon in 2001. These are the only three I created. Bloody brilliant, they are.

The year was 2001. March, April, May, June, July, August, Sep…

Henry Darger and His Vivian Girls

(“Spangled Blengins, Boy King Islands. One is a Young Tuskerhorian, the Other a Human Headed Dortherean”
Collage, Carbon Tracing, Pencil and Watercolor by Henry Darger)

“Art, by its very essence, is of the new, we expect art to uproot us, to unhinge doors. When the pompous platforms of Culture are erected, and awards and laurels come raining down, then flee as fast as you can, there’ll be little hope for art. If art did exist here, it’s already gone by now, it hurried off for a change of air. It’s allergic to the air of collective approval.”

- Jean Dubuffet

“Take a look outside
Those lively arts are on the slide
And culture’s just a chore
When you’re angry young and bored
And if I had my way
Those idle rich would pay
When the discussion starts
On the lively arts”

- The Damned

“Am I a real enemy of The Cross, or a very sorry saint?”

- Henry Darger

In 1972, the art critic Roger Cardinal brought forth into the culture a new, working English descriptor synonymous for Jean Dubuffet’s “art brut” (raw art or rough art) in his book, “Cultural Conditioning”. The new coinage became “outsider art” and would henceforth yoke the necks of untrained and self-trained artists alike as a wretched, dead, stinking albatross to be cheerfully lugged up mountainside while pushing a boulder. Such Sisyphean toil serves only as a crippling stigma to the artist who deserves to be treated as a brother or a sister in the community despite their lack of academic/aesthetic programming. This only benefits the so-called “Creative Class” who were already born into considerable wealth and monied tourists to throw their pennies at the freak show and laugh. It was no mistake that Dubuffet focused his art brut attentions on insane asylum patients. Dubuffet was the son of a well-to-do wine merchant and received his early studies at the prestigious yet revolutionary Académie Julian in Paris. As much as Dubuffet was a great champion of a more primitive, yeomanlike approach in his own work, he was afforded a certain position at the social expense of non-academic artists.

More to the point: if one artist is an outsider, then, we are all a bunch of outsiders. Welcome to the club.

(“Still a sorry saint…” One of only three known photos of Henry Darger, possibly the last. Late 1960’s, early 1970’s. Lincoln Park neighborhood. Chicago, Illinois.)

The exact month and day have been debated for years, but according to all reports, Henry Joseph Darger, Jr. was born in Chicago, Illinois on April 12th, 1892. On June 2nd, 1917, toward the end of World War I, Darger filled out a draft registration card for the U.S. Army. He listed his birth date as April 17th, 1892. From the time he was a young boy until he was aged seventy-nine years, he exhaustively amassed the great vernacular fantasy work, “The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion”. At 15,145 pages, he collected volumes of his writings by re-using old telephone books which also displayed hundreds of his delicate illustrations depicting his asexual girl-boy warriors, The Vivian Girls. Henry Darger died the day after his eighty-first birthday on April 13th, 1973. His landlords, Nathan and Kiyoko Lerner came across Darger’s monumental work moments before his death. Nathan Lerner, himself, was a professional photographer whose images appeared in The New York Times for many years. Immediately seeing the profound depth of artistic merit in his volumes, the Lerners took charge of Henry Darger’s estate. Nathan Lerner died in 1997, making his widow, Kiyoko Lerner, solely in charge of both estates. The Artists Rights Society is the United States copyright representative for both Henry Darger and Nathan Lerner.

(“At Jennie Richee – Vivian Girls Are Sent By General (Emperor) Vivian Their Father To Seize A Certain Enemy Plan” Carbon Tracing, Pencil and Watercolor by Henry Darger)

To give an encapsulated overview of the life and work of Henry Darger would extend beyond a couple thousand words, and I don’t want to wear you out with my spin on all what has already been said in tribute songs by Sufjan Stevens and Natalie Merchant, a well-researched article on Wikipedia, and the extremely fine 2004 documentary, “In the Realms of the Unreal” by Jessica Yu. Nor will I bother to speculate on the layers of his eccentricity and mental illness. Preferably, I wish to give my interpretation of how his art effects me, and as I opined in the beginning, what an abomination of a title “outsider art” is in describing the work of poor, dormant geniuses.

During his lifetime, Darger, who worked as a low-paid hospital janitor for sixty-plus years had his manic obsessions. He combined his devout Catholicism with his defending love of children, Christianity, and The Civil War. For Darger, his novel was a true labor of love. He did it for only himself, though in the narrative, he leads the observer to believe that he was a protector of these children who were very real to him. Essentially, The Vivian Girls were his friends. Darger had no desire for financial gain from the adventures of these characters.

Henry Darger imbued his child warriors with what he perceived to be the Spirit of the Holy Ghost. It’s very effective, for the “girls” seem to levitate off the page, to float entirely on their own. They individually appeared to be capable of all that was miraculous… and were pretty handy with bow and arrow in mortal combat. I leave you here, my friends. Something to think about.

Mothership Down

There I was in my rubber soled hiking boots shuffling backwards, on the safe side of the gravel-lined breakdown lane, facing the steady traffic of Hwy. 62. In my left hand was a cardboard sign that read, “Truth” with an olive branch drawn beneath the greeting. The thumb of my right hand pointed toward the western horizon serrated with Loblolly Pine trees. The ribbons of alizarin crimson that had scored the coral blue sky earlier in the morning had suddenly cleared, opening up the most radiantly beautiful field of periwinkle blue I have ever seen. I was headed west, hopefully California. This is Hwy. 62 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, my friends. I had just come down from Norris Dam State Park. I had no idea the Clinch River was so wide and proud and ran so thick with life. To hear that river breathe is an honor. Ideally, today I would like to make it to Memphis. If I make it as far as Cookeville, I will be satisfied.

Cars and trucks had been zipping by about a dozen per minute. I had settled on that patch of the berm for maybe less than half an hour of kids yelling obscenities at me, flipping me off, and scared old ladies looking at me, terrified of the potential voodoo my eye contact may level against them. None of it brought me down, though. The air was warm and breezy. I was well rested before the bacon and eggs hit the skillet. I was in no hurry.

Skidding to a halt on the gravel behind me was my first ride which came as a big surprise to me. It was a 1940’s K-model International Harvester bus painted cold gray with a jackrabbit stenciled on the rear and a Texas license plate with a passel of registration stickers keeping it up to date. The big surprise was the first impression of the driver, this old cat who cut his eyes toward the sun as he lowered the visor, approaching me. I thought he was yet another motorist on a mission to get somewhere, like so many others. No worries. No sweat. Now, here he was waiting on me. Sweet! The door swung open and revealed this skinny septuagenarian with a voice not unlike “Mule Variations” era Tom Waits, just a little smoother around the edges and understandably twangier.

“Git on in, son!” he growled with a gold-capped grin, shaded by his Asleep at the Wheel hat. “Plenty of room in this here spaceship!” Then the funk of marijuana smoke hit me along with the sight of the multi-colored Tibetan prayer flags strung along the windows. “This is gonna be a good ride!” I responded, nodding.

Four Eyes

(This is me wearing a pair of 1950’s grandpa glasses I bought at Century Vintage on Central Avenue three years ago. They came with the bifocal lenses. Photo by David Alan Goldberg, 2009)

My first pair of prescription eyeglasses were nested gently on my nose and ears at the tender age of eight years. The initial impression they made on my sweet little face was one of fascination and horror. The latter aspect subsided quickly for the ultimate practical reason that, for the love of God, I could see again! Colors were brighter. My surroundings were fully realized, rendered in crisp detail. Being the quiet kid who kept to myself yet made friends quickly at every opportunity, there were always the jealous types who singled me out for ridicule with the weak epithet, “four eyes”. Lima, Ohio in March of 1974 was hardly a hotbed of enlightened thought for its citizenry. The fruit of their loins tended to not be in any sort of imminent danger of being awarded a full scholarship to Oberlin or Antioch, so, there was no real threat posed to my budding intelligence.

Later on in my teens, I kept hearing the verbal missive, “nerd”. When I discovered it was the generalized descriptor of almost all bespectacled folk who possessed a fondness of reading books, hacking computers, and making strange honking noises radiate from their sinuses, my immediate response was, “Shit yeah, baby!” So, by the age of fourteen, gorgeous college girls were flirting with me over my whole Poindexter look. Some of them were rocking their own Peggy Hills with winged Farrah Fawcett hairstyles. On one occasion when my parents and I drove up to Southwyck Mall in Toledo, I was hoofing around the most awesome “Old Town” section of the mall and these two nineteen year old goddesses approached me. Grinning, one said to me, “You look so handsome in those glasses, tiger!” They both leaned over and kissed my cheekbones. My friends, at that precise moment, it was a new friggin’ dawn! As they walked away, they did that Emma Peel hair flip thing and waved bye-bye in that hot girly fingers scratching the air way. When I met up with my parents an hour later, still in shock, I told them what had happened. My dad asked me, “So… didja get their phone numbers?” I responded, “Are you kidding me? I was frozen! I couldn’t speak!” My mom, happy for me, shook her head at my dad.

These days, I am a collector of vintage eyewear from the 1920’s to the 1980’s, digging through bins at thrift stores for Italian made Safilos from forty years ago and drooling over high priced newer models online. It’s 2009. Nerds have gone from cool to hip in the past quarter century. We have arrived.

(Image from the Urban Spectacles website: http://www.urbanspectacles.com/)

Avant Garde Magazine

Time was that all advertising was plotted and created entirely, exclusively by hand and it showed. At a period when the contemporary artists of the day effortlessly (or, so it seemed) tapped the vein of the current condition, turbulent yet hopeful with a hot new breath of cynicism blowing in, communicating their spontaneous intuition paid off. They amassed in the advertising center of Manhattan to rip the lid open of all that was proven sterile and set ablaze the contents, providing their own outlook. This is how it was done.

Avant Garde magazine reared its glorious head in limited circulation in January of 1968, just before the Battle of Khe Sanh and the Tet Offensive began during the Vietnam War. Johnny Cash was set to record “Live at Folsom Prison”. Eartha Kitt, singer and actress who portrayed Catwoman on the television series “Batman” denounced the war in Vietnam to Ladybird Johnson at a Ladies Luncheon held at the White House. Campus unrest was boiling over in Chapel Hill, Madison, Berkeley, and Paris. “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” began its 140 episode run. Comedian Lenny Bruce died two years previously, while George Carlin and Richard Pryor were poised to carry his torch.

The publication was helmed by Ralph Ginzburg, a provocative author, editor, publisher and photo-journalist who was arrested for violating federal obscenity laws over distribution of obscene literature through the mails in 1963 by then U.S. Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy. Ginzburg’s creative partner at Avant Garde was Herb Lubalin, a prominent graphic designer celebrated for his ground breaking fonts, including the one named after the magazine’s title. Lubalin’s distinctive genius at utilizing typography as a creative communications force reached a much larger audience through the magazine, inspiring other publishers and artists throughout the world.

Herb Lubalin was not the only graphic designer that Ginzburg had on deck. Avant Garde proved to be a boisterous showcase for the visionary designers and artists of the day, whom gladly contributed their efforts. For the third issue released in May of 1968, the artists recruited for the cover story, “Revaluation of the Dollar” was a treasure trove that included interpretations by Edward Gorey, John Alcorn, Lionel Kalish (pictured below), Etienne Delessert, and a slew of others. Heavyweights in the industry, Milton Glaser, Seymour Chwast and Tomi Ungerer were regular contributors. The cover story for a later issue featured the lovely Bag One Lithographs by John Lennon.

Avant Garde placed beauty and clever aesthetics on a well deserved golden pedestal, championed sexual liberation and social lubrication, and picked fights, choosing battles wisely with colorful language. With Richard Nixon about to take office after Lyndon Johnson escalating the war in Vietnam, well, you get the idea.

(dollar bill redesign by Lionel Kalish from Avant Garde #3, May, 1968)

The magazine lasted for sixteen issues from 1968 until it ceased in July of 1971. For three and a half years, it was brilliantly conceived as a publication being the exact dimensions of a record album, looked marvelous on any coffee table, and sparked many discussions. There will never be another like it. Farewell, Avant Garde.

Friends

As human beings with divining spirits, our constant need is to find some reflection of ourselves and some unidentifiable new quality that locks us in forever, despite ourselves. Some are subtle, quiet reflections. Others rage out of control with abounding light and life. Steadfast. Consummate. To spend two hours in their company is to know them for a lifetime… to know they have your back just as much as you have theirs… and they burn so bright you don’t ever want to look away.

You are in their prayers 24/7. When you think you are the loneliest, most miserable, wretched soul currently existing on Planet Earth, there they are. Doesn’t matter if you are an atheist or Grasshopper’s Pebble. Someone, somewhere has selected you and actually cares. Every moment is a blessing. Your heartsickness has considerably subsided… and their music collection is so bloody tight you want to burn all their compact discs.

Friendship is absolutely necessary to our survival. When we are lonely, our world is a deserted island. When we are with good friends laughing our asses off thinking about what if Gilbert Gottfried was selected to be the next Columbo, our world is Chicago in the summertime.

Dude. Chicago in the summertime, I’m tellin’ you!

(All photographs by David Alan Goldberg, 2009)

Quisp Cereal

Okay. How do I begin this post? Jesus. Strength.

I have no earthly idea of what smoking crack cocaine is like… but, if it is that damn good to the user, if I could fathom any sort of real or imagined correlation… I would go for the imaginary option this go round.

Quisp cereal manufactured (still to this *eep!* very day) by the Quaker Oats Company must certainly have a fair dose of crack in its ingredients. Heroin? Both!? Say, how’s about a speed ball, little guy? Harry K. Thaw, we love your moon rocks! That Quazy Energy has sent us into orbit, loving us long time! Oooooohhhhhhh, ffffffffuuuuuu… ssssweeeet mmmama… what Wikipedia best describes as a “saucer-shaped, baked paste of corn meal and syrup, identical in overall taste to its sister brand Cap’n Crunch but with softer texture,” has been sorely missed by my palate for many years and Cap’n Crunch doesn’t even come CLOSE! (harshly whispered) They liiiiiiiiiieee! I have had this monkey on my back for too many years! I cannot find Quisp anywhere, and they still make it?

For the past twelve years, I have heard reports (more like ugly rumors) that not only is Quisp still in production, you can only buy it online with a credit or debit card, and it’s $10.00 a box. WHAT? I cried “FOUL”! Do a Google search for “Quisp”. You will get its official site url from Quaker Oats: http://www.quisp.com/, click it on and it automatically redirects you to a much longer url which shows a box of Quisp and all this information leading us cereal junkies on to the false hope that Quisp can still be had. To the left, click “Buy at Online Store” and that is only an advertisement for their current marketing ploy on a t-shirt showing a suited yuppie hipster with a jet pack on his back, sending him into the Williamsburg/Silverlake cosmos of his dreams with the shill sloganed on the L.A. sweatshop tee, “Quaker Go Humans Go”.

Stay tuned for other breakfast and snack foods I have long suspected of containing addictive drugs, like the Jewish stoner favorite, Mallomars by Nabisco. Nabisco doesn’t tell you outright lies about those lovely little cookies. They can still be purchased for $4.00 a box in grocery stores predominantly in New England, New York, Michigan, Florida, and California. Although here in Charlotte, North Carolina, our very own Harris Teeter gladly sells them in the aisle for cookies and snack cakes. However, because of the consistency of Mallomars extruded marshmallow puffed atop a disc of graham cracker “enrobed” by a thin veneer of chocolate, they melt too easily in the summertime heat. So, wherever they are sold in the USA, it’s only for a seasonal period, beginning in October through early April. I’ve got a month. I’m waiting.

Cinéma Vérité Slapstick Traces

“I am not a comic, I have never told a joke…The comedian’s promise is that he will go out there and make you laugh with him… my only promise is that I will try to entertain you as best I can. I can manipulate people’s reactions. There are different kinds of laughter. Gut laughter is where you don’t have a choice, you’ve got to laugh. Gut laughter doesn’t come from the intellect. And it’s much harder for me to evoke now, because I’m known. They say, ‘Oh wow, Andy Kaufman, he’s a really funny guy.’ But I’m not trying to be funny. I just want to play with their heads.”

- Andy Kaufman

**************************************************************

Loose cannons left to their own devices make the world a better place to live.

It’s not about hoofing around campus wearing a traffic cone as a hat and dragging an i.v. drip pumping Coors into your veins. It is the truly gifted whack job who outshines them all, that foole who goes through the random piece goods trunk o’ laffs and melancholy and seamlessly welds them together to create a thought provoking narrative clad with his or her own personality, wit, and a kamikaze willingness to fail. Andy Kaufman always did that.

To know who Andy Kaufman was, to appreciate his style and sense of comedic chaos, is to love everything he stood for. Unconditionally. Equal portions of Living Theatre anarchy and Ernie Kovacs improvisational put on with the call and response mayhem feedback of the Velvet Underground.

Andy Kaufman was a comedian whom despised the standard conventions of stand-up comedy. He was a performance artist who would have given anything to throw a pie at Lenny Bruce. He was a comedic actor who hated sitcoms with a purple passion. Andy Kaufman hijacked these arts completely on his own terms, giving them a whole new meaning.

Farbs Cars by Mattel (Hot Wheels) 1971-1972

There was a time when all that was mass produced was brilliant to a six year old. That six year old was me and that time was the early 1970’s. I loved fast cars and I was a cereal killer. I was one bad little dude.

Mattel Toys had a red line series at the time called Farbs Cars. The issue consisted of four comical, half-human cars that could be purchased at almost any store in the USA for fifty cents. The four were Myles Ahead (pictured above), Hy Gear, Red Catchup, and Hot Rodney. Only four hit the streets! No more! EVER! Only two prototypes never made production. They were Bye a Nose and Wyndan Cheeks.

Apparently, there was mad pressure to produce these guys. To the team that manufactured them, FARBS officially stood for “Fucking Absolutely Ridiculous Balls-out Schedule”. Nice!