Kamiblue

Steve I just thanked you for hipping me to those musicians in NY and said that I would try to listen. I am definitely not trying to glorify addiction---I'm lamenting it...If you look at and read my prints you can definitely see that. If anything they are a protest not for, but against junk addiction. Oh, and you said that they were "the supposed last great jazz musicians", not me..They're just among my favorites....As to your question: I plead ignorance, I haven't heard it, but if you doubt my admiration for the 3 artists I chose to glorify(not for being junkies--although I do believe that junkies and everyone and everything are holy) you'd be incorrect.

Hi Steve--Yeah, I was pretty upset when I visited Lowell, Mass too-- Jack Kerouac,who died a bitter alcoholic,was born there and moved back there for a time after being so soundly trashed as writer of significance...From what I know about Hunter he chose to end his life because his body and art were failing him and he wanted to go out on his own terms..I feel bad for any one addicted to junk--William Burroughs, who was much invested in the idea of control, saw junk addiction as the ultimate control. But I especially feel bad for those we lost to junk, which is really all that I'm trying to say. Another quote from the footnotes to 'Howl" with annotations from me. I asked you to please refrain from discussing the current state of Jazz as surely you and many others on this board are Jazz musicians and know quite a bit more about it than I do. However, I will proffer my opinion. I think Jazz died when Miles Davis(once a great Jazz musician) decided to try to mix it with funk soul and rock music. Herbie Hancock and innumerable others followed suit. The last great Jazz musicians to me were John Coltrane(another junkie) and Sun Ra(possibly insane) and I think the music as a relevant art form pretty much expired when Coltrane did. Anyway, that's around the time that I stop listening. I'm not sure what we hear today can even be properly called Jazz, but like I said I'm not a Jazz musician and I really haven't listened to any current Jazz music. I am indeed significantly younger than you and I defer to your far greater knowledge of Jazz--Alas, I haven't been listening. I have family in NY and if I'm there in October I will definitely take your advice and check it out. Thanks.

Steve, I understand your points and sympathize with you--I don't agree with your assessment of either Kerouac or Ginsberg(although, I don't think they'd mind being called lunatics) or with your preference for today's Jazz over say Louis Armstrong or Django Reinhardt. It was a vital art, but it reached its end in the 1960s and since then has been something of a dead art form. That's just my opinion though and I'm sure this will only invite more vitriol towards me...Bring it, I'll take all of you motherfuckers...jk---Please don't...I'm not a Jazz musician.. There may be an inherent romanticism in my prints, but the intention was not to romanticize addiction..I kind of addressed that earlier too. Here's a quote you might like from Hunter S. Thompson(his styling of reportage was clearly Beat)--

Hi Steve--Um, I replied to that--

You're kidding...................aren't you? In case you're not--Amico mio, mio fratello, mi scusi! Come sta la tua famiglia?

Ciao Marcello--If I said that I was related would you feel more inclined to support my prints? No, no relation--Joe Scarpa, see http://en.wikipedia....f_Jay_Strongbow, bore a striking resemblance to my very dark-skinned father, who probably could have passed for a Native American(at least a Hollywood one) too ...so maybe he was related. You're not related to Marcello Mastroianni, are you?

Merde! JS...It seems that your logic is a bit constipated---Tums addiction? But being that you have that quote about logic and because you are holy I'll forgive you. Let me put this in terms your copromania would appreciate--The reminder(the shizz(ing)) in this case was the followup action, i.e. my followup post to your farty posts--If you fart than yes you should probably take action, but who farted? The prints are also the shit(IMHO) and I think they impart that same message, albeit visually, which I took the time(followup action) to remind you and e v e r b o d y who cared to follow these posts to read. We cool?

six string-I'm not advertising "junkie jazz"--just a piece of junk(in a lot of the opinions I've received here), perhaps. I'll say it one more time--My prints are laments for the untimely loss of these great artists. It's pretty clear that anyone hooked on any type of junk, doesn't want to be hooked on it. My intention was not to say that addiction is good. I am simply mourning their brief lives and in doing so, mourning all junkies. If that is objectionable to you and this fine community, so be it. I'll end with a quote from "Chimes of Freedom". I think I pretty much defended my prints in earlier posts. If anyone cares to read them, they remain here--But I'm gone..Thanks for welcoming me here. oh, and for you my dear holy JSngry---"then what?"--Then act like it and don't be surprised if someone tries to remind e v e r y b o d y.

I'll say the same thing--"Everything is holy! everybody’s holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman’s an angel!"-Ginsberg

Hi again Dan--Frankly, I am amazed--I'm not feigning this--I've posted this on quite a few Jazz discussion boards and this community is the first to find it so abhorrent and distasteful. Or at least, the first to express their outrage. Although, I did watch Ken Burns' documentary, I was unaware of any controversy, but I'm guessing the criticism started right here... I have to say I disagree about 'Linking artistry to the use of junk is questionable at best'(I've discussed this in earlier posts)--and I don't think I am being callous to either the artists or their fans. I don't find the term "Junkie" derogatory like you seem to. The Junkie is holy to me. These are religious prints. I don't know what else to say. Hi Ted--That's because I'm quoting from Jack Kerouac there and that's the way he spelled it. JSngry--check out the footnote to 'Howl'.

Hi Larry--Nope, you're the first one and you're right I flopped it.

Big Beat Steve--Sorry, imagining 2-D objects in 3-D and translating them back into 2-D renderings leaves me about as cold as my prints do you. There are innumerable forgeries of any of the great masters..It's a purely mechanical skill... I don't claim to be a great artist, but I do claim that great artists(all artists, in fact) have voices and I think that when you look at my images you don't see the photographs, rather you see my voice. It may be very ugly, more folk than art, but it's authentically mine..I wasn't trying to lose my voice by borrowing a photograph..but I did want the image to be iconic. These are iconic photos..My intention was to take a culturally iconic image and give it back, or give it, its proper iconic significance(in the true religious sense of that word), which perhaps, as you pointed out, has been lost(or in the case of a religious icon, not expressly intended) due to its having been printed over and over again ad nauseam..by framing it as a strictly religious piece. I get it that not everyone is going to like my prints--Did I think I'd unleash this rancor over a title? no....

JSngry-I don't know what you're talking about and I don't care, but don't call me a bitch old man. Marcello-Should I make fun of your misspelling of you're as your when you wrote "no real idea of what your talking" or to as too where you write "Too be fair"? or here where you wrote "when he we taught in Buffalo"? or when you used the wrong tense and wrote "how enlighten he was"? Or "seeder" when you meant to write seedier? I see your profile lists your age as 58--I'm a great deal younger, but not nearly so childish. You know the Beats better than I do? I find that assertion highly dubitable at best, even if you did know Robert Creeley--It's thunderously apparent to me that you have no IDEA about what they were talking about, either. I've lived in Jersey City, Culver City, Oakland, Harlem(when it was Harlem)...so a field trip to the seedier areas is as misguided as the rest of your "thoughts". Sorry, for upsetting your delicate sensibilities Head Man, but alas it's for real. Big Beat Steve---My German friend. I didn't assert that and I'm not celebrating shooting dope--These prints all lament what is often the endgame of being a junkie. I'm sorry you don't like my reworkings..I don't consider them Warholesque though..something more like a mixture of Graffiti and Folk Art. Anyone can draw as anyone can play a musical instrument--There is no lack of able people who are at the very least competent artisans. I'm sure that you're aware that many of the greatest painters/artists in history had their work at least partially done by their assistants. Why don't you write some software to extract a 3-D rendering from 5-10 photographs? I'm not interested in doing that. There's nothing new under the sun, even that statement is old. Yes, I used photographs, perhaps, famously recognizable ones...that was kind of the point...Now the composition of the 3 figures(junkies) as religious icons, although, not new, is all mine... These prints are my authentic voice and that's all anyone can be expected to express...If you don't like it, that's fine...It's the only voice I have. John L--I think they'd dig being the new holy trinity..Jazz Junkies is just a title--It doesn't exist anywhere on the prints...

Marcello--I respectfully disagree--I believe that what is perhaps the most definitive biography on Chet Baker, "Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker", alludes to his being a junkie in its very own title. And Billie Holiday is quite frank about her addictions in her autobiography, "Lady Sings the Blues". Is this title, "Bird Lives!: The High Life And Hard Times Of Charlie (yardbird) Parker ", objectionable too? The infinite refers to god. "The triptych form arises from early Christian art" and my prints are clearly meant to have religious significance. Charlie Parker is compared to the Buddha and the text extracted from "Mexico City Blues" is quite obviously a prayer to Charlie Parker--A prayer for forgiveness. I also put a halo behind his head to make my intentions clear. So, we have Charlie as god--Buddha-- as the center panel, flanked by the other parts of what forms a holy trinity. You may have noticed both Chet Baker's and Billie Holiday's head are at the same level, which is significantly lower than Charlie Parker's as traditionally triptychs had a larger center panel. This is a traditional triptych:http://en.wikipedia...._-_WGA11878.jpg I don't know if you are familiar with the Beats, but the originator of the term(the Beat Generation)--Actually, picked it up from a junkie-Herbert Huncke--Jack Kerouac said Beat was Be-at(Beatitude). Huncke the junkie was beatific to him. Pure. Open. An open door. The Beat writers in America celebrated Jazz musicians, Rimbaud, drugs, junkies, free love, etc--Need I remind you of William Burrough's "Junkie"?--The Beats begat a rather large movement in the 1960s--the Hippies, and Huxley's "Doors of Perception', (not to mention "The Doors", the band)..was one of their bibles. So yeah, pretty much for at least the last 60 or 70 years some of our most celebrated American writers and thinkers, and prior to them the Surrealists and prior to that the Dadaists, etc, etc, have come to embrace certain chemicals as doorways to the infinite. Of course, you could go further back into our prehistory and take a look at Shamanism--"Shamanism (pron.: /ˈʃɑːmən/ SHAH-mən or /ˈʃeɪmən/ SHAY-mən) is a practice that involves a practitioner reaching altered states of consciousness in order to encounter and interact with the spirit world." Res ipsa loquitur---The fact is consciousness altering substances do indeed allow for glimpses of the infinite, like it or not. The Beats believed that Jazz musicians had "it". The "it" referring to a beatific vision--which to me implies that through their music they were able to come face to face with god and to convey that voice to all those who were listening. The Jazz musician..the Junkie..is the ultimate Beat...

Actually, jlhoots my next prints(triptych) were set to be about 3 of my favorite Beats: Kerouac, Ginsberg and Cassady, which I planned to title "The Father(Kerouac), the Son(Ginsberg) and the Holy Goof(Cassady)." Unfortunately, there may not be a next set, because without the support of others I can't afford to do this. Sorry, if I offended this community. Kamiblue