…there is a great compilation called "I Remember" by the artist Joe Brainard. I highly recommend it…He wrote it at least 40 years ago…Joe is now dead. I remember meeting Joe a few times at a bar in the Village called the 9th Circle…Jackie Curtis and Hollywoodlawn were regulars there along with me and countless young gay hippies. I remember getting into a ruckus at the 9th Circle one night because I had downed one too many 75 cent Budweisers and I had on a leather jacket and felt tough…I never wore the leather jacket again…it was too menacing….I have included a photo here that floats around my studio as a reminder of my youth…that is me on the left with three friends in Oklahoma…the other boy was my best friend. His name was Stevie…Stevie died two years after this photo was taken…leukemia…I remember Stevie for many reasons…he touched me so deeply as a young boy…his spontaneous abandon! This photo was taken in May of 1967…three months later I took LSD for the first time…I remember the abrupt changes in my life…I remember new doors opening…today I remember…yes, today I remember Stevie and the 9th Circle and Joe Brainard and Warhol Superstars and leather jackets and vanishing hippies and leukemia and Budweisers and Greenwich Village and Oklahoma summers and change……I remember all of it….
great pic. you were very,very cute. I too feel fortunate that I can remember those days. I was in the Village in 67 and I remember Hollywoodlawn. What was the name of Warhol’s club? Maybe I don’t remember it all.
Max’s Kansas City was the club on 18th and Central Park South…..
I love this pic! I had a hastily arranged date with Stevie for a winter party in 1964… my date had gotten sick so he ‘obliged’. We dated and played together a lot through the summer of 1964. Remember ‘Cherry’s on a Saturday night, with Stevie in his convertible, laughing his ass off? He was the first guy who ever told me I was beautiful, which of course I didn’t believe. He was also the first one we lost to illness… and until then we thought we were immortal.
Yes, Catherine, Stevie was something else. I spent a lot of time with him up until his death. We were psychically connected on many levels and I had two encounters with his spirit after he died. What a dear friend! I am crying as I write this….I feel his presence….
Glad you Remembered that today. Tomorrow we are having a homecomingof Joe and the Tulsa NY crew for a celebration of the “little” magazine, the White Dove Review. The Circle Cinema in Tulsa will be showing Joe’s Sceen Test as well as Allen Ginsberg and Ron Padgett.
http://vimeo.com/16060301
leeroychapman@yahoo.com
**BIG smile**