Jupiter

Die Höhle - The Cave 40 x 50 cm mixed media

AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN MOMENT

Soggy morning on the outskirts

of Prague or Vienna—think of huge

pretzels big enough to hang around

an elephant’s neck, cakes and pastries

filled with whipped cream and jam, strudels

of such juiciness that the bearded among us

look befouled after only a few bites,

the blackest coffee, the blackest coffee ever brewed,

newspapers hanging like flags from the wall of a chandeliered cafe—

men in cloaks, little coffins with pistols, a doctor in frock

coat and top hat, called in from one of the season’s

more elaborate balls at which, evidently, physicians

were also needed. It’s ten paces, turn and shoot until

one of the dualists holds up a languid, white-gloved

hand and says, ”I’m not the man who insulted you last night.

That was my twin brother Edgar who even as we speak

is half-way to Nice on the Cote d’Azur Express. He has

enormous gambling debts as well which, in combination

with excessive consumption of Sekt and spirits, makes him, well,

say intolerable things to more or less perfect strangers.”

Something like this has happened to all of us before. We believed the

weather report. We went to that beach resort, that park famous for

its pick-nick areas and wading pools, the musical gazebos and dancing

polar bears, and it came down in buckets; when, against all expectation, all hope,

the whipped cream was canned and the apples sour. When even

Edgar wasn’t who we thought he was.

Mozart - 4th movement of the 41st (Jupiter) Symphony

Karl Böhm - Vienna Philharmonic

Pavarotti's Hanky

Die Zugfahrt - The Train Ride 40 x 30 cm Acryl on HDF board

ANDY WARHOL

We are asked to believe

Little Pete the street poet is Rimbaud

in no-ass pants, gobs of grubby

underwear hanging out

like Pavarotti’s hanky. Next, the Zeitgeist

comes prancing out of You Tube

singing hey looky looky at me

clutching its crotch and before long 

you clutch yours as well just

to see what it feels like even if

the terrain is well known to you. Not a

major issue any way you

look at it. After all

life could be more harrowing; at least you 

aren’t slotted for a body bag fitting

somewhere in the Hindu Kush. Demo-

graphically and even geographically  

you’re all wrong for such a last act. Are 

probably not from Kansas, from god

awful west Louisiana, from anywhere

in the Kentucky fried heartland.

You’ve never seen a trailer park or fired a gun,

never did crystal meth, never carelessly

impregnated your underage girlfriend

because rubbers weren’t available at Stop N’ Go.

You are not necessarily of the opinion that God hates fags.

No, you talk the talk or at least

try to and wait for signals from

somewhere far away

and unbearably cool, even if that only means

wearing the most unthinkable shoes

ever thought of. And yet

who doesn’t end up a like a tarnished icon

milking applause at a state fair? Who isn’t

Bobby Vinton in Sacramento?

The Beach Boys in Springfield, Illinois?

Andy Warhol just before he put his wig on the last time?

Nessun dorma - Puccini

sung by Luciano Pavarotti

Dance Fetish

Fetish 30 x 40 cm - mixed media

DANCE

In the midst of our multicultural festival

there’s an ageing overweight lady

dancing in the street alone, parade music floating

by on floats, and the homeless people  

are never without their bottle

of blue-label vodka and who always seem to be

shit-faced and hung-over at the same time.

Like having the flu everyday for the rest of your life.

I think that’s when I would stop. When I couldn’t

tell the difference between ecstasy and its punishment. 

I usually hate crowds, the teeming whatever, the pullulating

throng, but today I feel serene, almost scarily tolerant.

The dancing lady’s wearing a string of plastic flowers around her neck

and Karin’s photographing her and people smile but don’t shake

heads or mock or they simply ignore her, because the sun’s shining 

there are dozens of colors surging and everyone’s drinking

beer or Brazilian cocktails, getting high on whatever’s available

and judgment’s not an option; judgment, at this point, would kill. 

Opening Sequence Robert Altman's "The Company"

"Tensile Involvement"