Getting Pizza

Kind of a sweet moment tonight. 

There's a pizza place up the hill from us I've been going to for ten years now. Red Boy Pizza. I used to go up there and order a small pizza, usually pepperoni, sausage and green bell peppers, and have a Trummer Pils at the bar while I waited for them to make the pizza I'd take home. 

Sitting at that little bar having a beer with other Gen-X dudes, who most likely had kids they were foraging for and taking a break from the chaos was a thing. A break to hang and watch the Warriors or whatever other sports ball was on the TV. 

The pandemic hit and the place was shutdown for months, then it opened and was pickup at the door with all the masks and hand sanitizer and signs, then they added all these benches outside where people could eat, so in 2021 I'd go up there and order then drink my beers outside and wait for my pizza. I kind of became used to sitting outside, so tonight I went up, ordered my pizza and drank my beer out at the outside tables. It was cold. I finished the first one, then went in and they said, "Four more minutes" so I said, hmm, I'll have another beer, and I sat at the inside bar and there was some hockey award thing on the TV. The girl who took my order pulled my beer, gave it to me and it was warm at the bar so I stayed. I've been all over the country this year and I know the worst of the pandemic is rearview. 

I was just used to the outside here, but that moment made me take pause and once again, like so many other times before, realize that we went through something worldwide, species wide serious. 

We lived through a pandemic that shut the world down. It could have been worse but it was pretty bad. The death and the division, watching how something that could have brought our species together instead divided us (at least in the US). There might be another one in the wings, but I believe we just had our 1918-1919 moment and fuck all, we had that. People, American's especially, tend to move forward and not give themselves a break, some don't take a breath and acknowledge trauma and uncertainty, and just let it be "ok". Or they make up alternative realities to deal so it isn't as scary.

 We went through something massively natural that's been going on since life existed. And those of us who made it, made it. Life is for the living. What a thing to have in our brief time in this life to have as part of our memory. 

After the girl gave me my beer I asked, "How much is the beer?" and she said, "It's been years since I've seen you at this bar", and she smiled then said, "This is on us. "

 2005 tribe.net

Back from the playa for sure now. We dusted off our playa gear as best we could and now we’re ready for the frozen wet San Francisco Sunset winter. We cleaned and organized everything in the house, the house that is bursting at the seams with the Bird and mine creative insanity.

Friday night I really wanted those Funhouse panels out of the basement because I wanted people to be able to see them at the party, but mostly I wanted them dealt with because of the rank polyethylene, almost fresh diaper smell of their plastic wrapping. I decided to clean them so Jenny could hang upstairs and relax and listen to Flamenco on the RCA Victor and chill.

I started off with a production mindset. Just get it done. Cut off the hated stinking plastic wrap using scissors that slid through the dusty stuff, then I’d flip the painting on its face and first use compressed air to blow out playa from the frame. Then I used tacky cloth on the back since that hadn’t been treated and water would warp it.

Then I flipped the 4x8 panel over and with a moist towel barely wetted with 2% vinegar and water, I’d wipe the playa dust off the front. I was covered with playa dust within minutes.

I did “Miss Direction” first and her colors jumped out at me with every long rotational swipe of that vinegar cloth. Then I did “Separated at Birth”. There were some nicks on the panels, but nothing too bad. The bottoms were pretty grungy.

As I wiped the thin yellowish gray dust off, I felt like I was bringing them to life again. The colors turned lucid. I became transfixed on them, watching eyes and limbs glowing. It hit me that 35,000 people had walked through these things. These paintings I’d lived with for four months before the playa, the paintings that I was ready to be done with, the paintings that seem to have taken on the vibrations of all those people and that Funhouse beneath the man, lay out before me like mad Tarot cards, whispering, “If you’d only seen what we saw that week…”

It was then that time fell away and my production drive became a loving process of watching each panel reveal itself. There were goosebumps. There was wonder, as if these paintings had somehow been baptized out there on the playa.

“No Escape Artist” freaked me out a little when I cleaned the dust off the maniacal bits. “Raving Mad” spoke to me when I cleaned its face.

For those who say, “Why didn’t they BURN everything beneath the MAN???? I MISS THE OLD DAYS when they burned everything” I say, we’ve never burned this kind of art. There is definitely something that happens to the art in there, something living that happens to it, some possession that enters those pieces.

At the risk of sounding like a damn hippie, now we can bring that back and continue with the vibrational thing.

Yes, the hay bales were cool. Maybe one day we’ll have a retro man and only 10,000 people will show up and no one will get there early for seats and we’ll all go out to the man in processions and the city will come alive that night and we’ll all scream when he goes up and then we’ll run hugging and jumping and falling down and fucking with mad abandon when the man goes up in flames.

Maybe….

But until then, this weird gallery that is evolving inside the ManBase seems to be working just fine.