BILL'S ART

Soooo I rehung this painting Bill Cullum (for whom this blog is named) gave to me back in 1995.  Its part of a series of four (two of which I own) but I left this one unhung after it fell off my wall several years ago.

It's a mixed media piece -- oil paint and photographs on wood with an epoxy resin coat.  Its huge.  50 inches by 38 inches and it weighs 55 pounds.  So hanging it is a motherfucker.  And keeping it on the wall is too.

The photographs used in the piece were taken by Bill in the Jardin Tuileries and the underground catacombs below Paris.  I can't recall where the barn was located.

The New York Times, in their review of the show in which this piece appeared, called the painting "Sweet and resonant -- yet somewhat derivative of the Starn Twins."

OH! EM! GEE!  I thought poor Bill's head was going to explode when he read that, he was so enraged.  And of course, for years (decades really) afterward my younger brother Ken and I would tell Bill, upon seeing some new piece of art that he had painted, that we found it, "sweet and resonant -- yet somewhat derivative."

Interesting thing about this piece.... Bill used an epoxy to coat and set the entire piece and its thick and hard like heavy glass.  But he hadn't quite perfected the formula for the resin and if you look closely at the bottom of the painting you can see the drips from it.  And those drips were sticky to the touch and ever so slowly dripping further off the wood.....for over ten years!  It was truly a piece of evolving artwork.

It finally fully dried in 2007.

Bill was hugely talented and brilliant and totally fucking nuts.  I miss him.

1989

This was the invite for the grand opening of Sound Factory back in 1989 -- the REAL Sound Factory at 27th between 10th and 11th and not the pale simulacrum that catered to the Guido Long Island and North Jersey B&T crowd up on 46th Street that opened in or around 1995.

The BF at the time and I paid our money for memberships (we only really wanted the membership for the laminated member ID cards but the cover charge discount was nice too) and those fucking crooks (Because club owner Phil Smith was basically a fucking crook) took our money and then took two years to give us our cards -- claiming each time we asked that "the machine is broken." And during which time we were forced to pay full admission rather than the reduced admission that the early membership holders got.

Full admission was twenty-five fucking dollars....in 1989! $63 in today dollars. For a club that didn't serve booze!

That shit adds up when a two-person household is going to the club EVERY Saturday for two straight years without ever missing a weekend....as was the case with us.

We'd hit the club one of two ways each weekend -- we'd either take a disco nap Saturday night and set the alarm for 1 AM and be at the club by 2:30 or 3 or, we'd go to the Roxy first and party there until they closed at 4 and then taxi up to 27th Street and hit the Factory at 4ish.

SF at full tilt on a Sunday morning

We'd dance and do drugs until noonish on Sunday (or later if Junior was feeling it and not pissed off and playing banging pots and pans, trying to send everyone home) because those were the days when there was one DJ, not a half dozen in a lineup, and he stayed in that booth and played until the fucking club closed...sometimes for 14 hours or more.

The view from the Sound Factory DJ booth

And then we'd start cruising around the club and dancefloor telling our friends (and pretty much every hot guy we came across -- as well as all our drug dealers) that there was an after-party at 95 Christopher Street Penthouse C.

After that we'd hop in a cab to beat the mob home and the house party at Penthouse C would get rolling to full effect and last well into Sunday night.

Those parties were notorious.

MY NEW YORK ROOF WAS NUDE PHOTOSHOOT CENTRAL

In fact, entire books were shot either inside my apartment at 95 Christopher Street, on my terrace, or on the roof just above my apartment.  Like the shots here from Michael Huhn's book 'Michael Huhn Photos.'

Well, that first one wasn't in the book.  I think either my BF at the time or my Dad took it of me back in 1993ish.  But all the rest are Michael's.  And the really annoying thing?  I let him use the terrace and roof as a favor on a dozen or more occasions and I never got a fucking thank you in the book.  

Asshole!

 

The hallway outside of the roof tank above my apartment.

The fire stairs on my floor leading up to the roof.

On my terrace rail off my living room and above Bleecker Street.

Mmmmmmm, Jose! Jose and I had several night's worth of meaningful relationships.

Taken from terrace off my living room. The apartment across the way just above his butt at 45 Christopher Street -- where the white brick transitions to the brown brick of the terrace -- that was Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson's apartment terrace.  We all used to wave at each other when we were out gardening.  One time, in Gristede's, Laurie snuck up behind me in the checkout line and whispered in my ear, "Your terrace looks MAGNIFICENT this year."  

New York....it ain't Kansas!

The roof above my living room.

Same location as previous pic, different model different photoshoot.

The top of the top!  The roof tank on the very top of my building. About 210 feet up.

And last but never least, Chris Perrino.  Sitting in the sun on my terrace wearing goggles. Chris and I were buds for 25 years.  We met at the Roxy when he was a 6 foot 2, ripped 18 year old kid with the most gorgeous blowjob lips in all of New York.  We had a very meaningful relationship.......on several occasions over the years.

And that's that.