Today is the first day of the rest of your..huh?
Hello!!!
Today is June 6th 2006 or as 50 percent of America likes to call it 666
the mark of the devil..there are born again Christians all over America wondering if today is the day they get pulled out of their cars on the freeway and up into the arms of Jesus.
Truly, even for me, a glittered in the lame' Zen-Buddhist-Sufi- Kali-Karma-Franciscan-Carmelite' it feels like the end days..or as I find myself frequently asking.."Will it never end?"
Just a glance at the news and I want to head for a secluded strip of rainforest or mediteranian mountain strong hold.Which I am going to do anyway at the end of July.
get me out of this country, it is like a car without a driver.
Plus , in NY me and alot of people can't breathe between some as yet un-named pollution, higher than ever allergins and with apparently no city planning...we have a building per block going up or being torn down..the air fetid with dust, dried rat juice and different enviormental hazards.
meanwhile many of you ask me about the Jack Smith case..it keeps fullfiling Jack's fears..that hippie munchkin Irving Rosenthal of the legendery Kaliflower San Francisco SSI comune that was the nesting ground of Cockettes and others who were influenced by the brilliant but disturbed Rosenthal.It was Rosenthal who gave us Mary Jordan, the supposed film maker who has brough the world her version of Jack Smith's life. I refuse to see it until it is in open release..I can't deal with seeing her in person..not that I have ever recognised her, she morphs constantly but I hear she's blonde like me these days..her emails to me "I have found no proof in my research that you ever knew Jack Smith" or her phone calls "Look you love Jack as much as I do" ??????? yeah MJ except unlike you I KNEW him and I don't go around trying to rewrite his life...the latest from her after film talks.."the answer to wasn't Jack gay ? is "We don't know for sure..he was very private about his sex life ??????) and "he loved women too!" While I suppose this belief made the film palatable for Jack's homphobic sister who Jack managed to avoid from 1953 till his death in 1989..Jordan has rewritten history making Mary Sue Slater and Jack Smith as close as ..well, as close as Jack Smith and Penny Arcade!!! oh except in Jordans world view Arcade NEVER knew Smith..I guess that is why the legendery monster Jack Smith,chose Arcade to attend him at the end of his life...Arcade who 'didn't know' Smith seemed to be the only one who could talk Jack into returning to the hospital..Smith who kept most of the people who worshipped him in a constant state of fear for their lives...
So the latest is that a "millionaire' has emerged out of the mists to 'buy' all of Jack's work...work that Jack wanted desperately to stay public..work he didn't want locked up in a vault. Why is there only one buyer??? who knows? Have the museum's who have shown so little interest since Jack's death in 1989 been made aware of this 'special sale" ??? meanwhile these undereducated Smith aficionados who have been oriented by Mary Jordan, who feasted on never proved or publically stated slanders
regarding the archive I altrusistically created for Jack's work 16 years ago ..show up for the first look at the Plaster Foundations
storage space where all Jack's work was returned after it's 1998 retrospective at PS1 where the work was archived from 1992-1998 when the show went to the Warhol Museum.
The Jordan hand picked buyer shows up to the storage space demanding to know where Jack Smith's paintings are..of course anyone who knows anything knows that Jack was a filmmaker and performance artist...and the main thing he painted was his 1st street and First Avenue railroad apartment which he struggled to remake into the set for his never to be filmed master piece SIMBAD IN A RENTED WORLD'
I spent two years trying to save Jack's amazing work at 21 First Ave...were any of his so called acolytes interested in saving this master work? no, no support for that. "Why bother ?" said one of his former acolytes (who Jack had told me crossed the street when she saw him) "Jack's dead!"
Jerry Harding , the famed painter, set designer and costume designer who often worked with Jack as well as with famed Playhouse of The Ridiculous founder John Vaccaro revealed during our interview in January for The Lower Eastside Biography Project (watch it every wednesday at 10:30pm on Manhattan cables channel 34 or rcn 112 or live streaming on www.mnn.org)that he had once met this 'performance artist" with Jack and when Jerry Harding inquired about her Jack said, "She crosses the street when she sees me..she is afraid that I am going to stab her egg sack!"
So here we are poised on the edge of the Art Heist of the downtown art scene...read my essay on the last days and last hours of Jack Smith for background..it is on my website under FRIENDS.
Their next visit is here at my studio to look at the negatives Jack asked me to keep from Irving Rosenthal..among the other ephemera that I saved from Jack's fetid and rotting apartment.
Do you think I was naive to hand over the $50,000 in bearer bonds to Jack's sister to insure that the homophobic sibling would not destroy the life work of her brother that she deemed "garbage". Jack made me promise to not give his sister anthing..do you think I am going through this nightmare for 4 years as Jack's punishment for defying him???
Note I recently contacted old Dyke in the Box, Lori E Seid, who many of you will remember from Bitch!Dyke!Faghag!Whore's tours around the world. who has worked with Rosie O'Donnell since she stopped touring with me ...Lori produced TABOO , the underated musical about the lives of performance artist Leigh Bowery and singer Boy George. If anyone can save Jack Smith's work for te public it would be our magnificent warrioress Rosie O'Donnell...love to hear her VIEW!!!!
Tomorrow is 666....June 6th 2006..the day this site truly launches.
I will be doing a kick off show at PARKSIDE LOUNGE East Houston at Attorney St (god knows I need an Attorney! where is the great Ray Dowd????
Show starts at 9PM and s free and follows with the great Chris Rael unveiling his new Band of Billies
Feel free to respond to my rants..i will print them..you know Penny Arcade -Full Disclosure!
feel like I am leaving something out..but of course i have so much more to say...
love
Penny
posted by Penny Arcade @ 11:30 AM
5 Comments:
thank goddess you are blogging....can't wait to catch a show in new york......
Dear Penny,
I have been following the story of Jack Smith's legacy for now 5 years...
My note is to let you know that I went to see Mary Jordan's doco at Tribeca ... the one with the self important title..."
I don't know all the details of your relationship to the filmmaker,( besides what I read in the blogs..) but the fact is that the film is very mediocre. it bombed.
I wish someone with a bit more talent was in charge of sharing the work of Jack with the world...
sincerely
Luise. from Montreal
Dear Penny,
I have been following the story of Jack Smith's legacy for now 5 years...
My note is to let you know that I went to see Mary Jordan's doco at Tribeca ... the one with the self important title..."
I don't know all the details of your relationship to the filmmaker,( besides what I read in the blogs..) but the fact is that the film is very mediocre. it bombed.
I wish someone with a bit more talent was in charge of sharing the work of Jack with the world...
sincerely
Luise. from Montreal
Penny, I just found you while looking for information on Quentin Crisp. I listened to the sound bites from your records and I said yes, I like this woman! I'm 10 years younger than you and I have been around.
I read the story of Jack Smith's work and your attempt at protecting it with horror - my goddess, the squabbling over anything that might conceivably be converted to cash at the death of a loved one! In '89/'90, I went through a terrible terrible thing when a member of the family I married in to died - what a horrible fucking thing it was, the backbiting and all the bullshit to get a little money and a little control! I told them to take it, they needed it more than me (they all had much much more money than I ever did), and I walked away. Ugh!!! I learned my lesson. Did you learn yours? It surely takes a toll, Ms. Penny Arcade, doesn't it?
Also, I have hep C. I'm pushing 48 and the viral count, which was low for years, is now climbing. I dread taking Rebetron or any of that shit - it seems to make people sick as a dog and I'm too fucking poor to be sick and not be able to work. I also don't have health insurance and haven't for years!
I like what you do. I like that you documented the east side before the yuppies took over, before Giuliani criminalized your poor and misfits, the way they did here in my home town of Chicago. It's disgusting. I never thought the day would come when it would strike terror in my heart to see a white, well dressed person walking down the street, but it does now, because it means condos and Starbucks and the gutting of another beautiful, ethnic neighborhood, with affordable housing and independently owned shops. I am getting sort of optimistic though, since the economy is crashing, though I know who is going to be hurt the worst. Maybe the yups will all go home one day, my fondest wish.
If there is a place on the web where Mr. Smith's work can be seen, I would love to know about it. Thanks, Ms. Penny.
Xtina
Chicago
HAVE YOU EVER CONTACTED ADAM PURPLE TO GIVE HIM BACK HIS BELONGINGS?
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