Adam Baran

 (click to enlarge)

So my friend Billy Miller who edits the brilliant magazines Straight-To-Hell and When Johnny Comes Marching Home, which I write for sometimes, but which were brilliant way before I came along - we were talking on the phone a few weeks ago. He mentioned to me that he was going to be curating a group show at an art gallery in Jersey City. I didn’t miss a beat before I asked him if I could join in. He was surprised, and I think not totally sure about it - but he said okay, but the art couldn’t be bigger than a normal piece of paper. I said that was fine with me and started to think think think about how I was going to make my debut into art-fag society. It just so happened I was busy doing my taxes at the same time as I was thinking about the show, and so…you’ll see how that came together when you come see the show.  A lot of my good friends will be in the show with me - cartoonist Dan Acton, orgy/drawing enthusiast Michael Bilsborough, deer-hunter and dear ex-boyfriend Christian Siekmeier, video artist and future collaborator Jan Wandrag, former film exec and fabulous photographer Mark Tusk, to name a few.

I have never in all my years of tramping round the Jersey in my 1987 Nissan Pulsar been to this Billyburg-esque enclave…but I do feel an adventurous streak taking hold as I come close to my 27th birthday and Saturn starts to return to New York. 

Details:

THE OTHER SIDE

@ The 58 Gallery
58 Coles Street, Jersey City
917-349-1693
www.fifty8.com

April 11th – May 3rd
Opening Friday April 11th 7-11pm
Live performances by Marianne Nowottny & Endless Boogie

Featuring artwork by:
Dan Acton
Al Baltrop
Adam Baran
Michael Bilsborough
Kathe Burkhart
Brendan Carroll
Baltazar Castor
Ain Cocke
Reuben Cox
Mark Dagley
Jeff Davis
Pia Dehne
Harry Druzd
Peter Eide
Yusuf Etiman
Carl Ferrero
Jonah Freeman
Mark Golamco
Janine Gordon
Christian Holstad
Tom Holmes
Scott Hug
Rose Kallal
Brian Kenny
Lisa Kirk
Paul Kopkau
Kristian Kozul
Ian Kuali’i
Steve LaFreniere
Paul Lee
Micah Lexier
Justin Lowe
Glenn Lunger
Lynn Lunger

Noah Lyon
Michael Magnan
Tim Maguire
Rachel Mason
Slava Mogutin
Paul Moreno
Bob Nickas
Mark Ohe
Joe Ovelman
Guerra de la Paz
Micki Pellerano
Michael Prettyman
Orlando Reyes
John Sanchez
Desi Santiago
Steve Schreve
Jason Seder
Paul Sepuya
Dixie Serrano
Christian Siekmeier
Barbara Sullivan
Ginger Takahashi
Jeni Tull
Mark Tusk
Nico Urquiza
Jan Wandrag
Ken Warneke
John Webster
Nick Weist
David West
Randal Wilcox
Susan Willmarth
& a special guest

-curated by Billy Miller

-   -   -   -   -   -   -   -

From NYC by PATH train:
Take the Journal Sq. bound PATH from 33rd, 23rd, 14th, 9th, or Christopher St. (or the Newark bound PATH at WTC) to Grove St. in Jersey City. Then take a short walk up Newark Ave. to Coles St. where you make a right and find the gallery.

—————————————

“you know the day destroys the night
night divides the day
try to run, try to hide
break on through to the other side”

See you April 11th!

Gonna be a mega art-fag happening!

That’s what the one person who reads this blog is dying to know. Well, I’ve just been working on a killer Winter depression for the past few weeks, while temping at the most evil corporation ever, whose name I’ll leave unsaid until I’m finished working there. I got sick last week with a virus and was a wreck, stayed inside for days and grew more and more stir crazy and depressed. Luckily I’ve got a bunch of books by and about David Wojnarowicz to cheer me up, along with the Film Comment selects series at Lincoln Center, where I saw Before I Forget, a thoroughly depressing film about a 60 year old hustler with HIV who’s troubled by his own mortality - what you thought I was going to describe the plot as an espionage thriller? Maybe that would have been more interesting. I’ve also got In Treatment, the Gabriel Byrne therapy show on HBO, which I’m thoroughly hooked on even though it too is like, majorly a bummer. Tomorrow at Film Comment Selects they’re showing Austria’s favorite bleak filmmaker Ulrich Seidl’s latest Import/Export which sounds like it could be even more depressing than his previous feature film Dog Days. Anyone want to join me? My real therapist, recommends I stay active in these bleak days.  Let me know.

I know I know, I’m a major drag.

Ugh, I’m trying to find a gym to work off all the fat you accumulate when you are unemployed for 6 months and you have lots of free time so you get really into food like, for instance, you wake up and have either a blueberry muffin for breakfast or some sugar cookies later, and then they open the best restaurant ever Shopsins near you and you can’t help but going every day and having a big chicken sandwich with a side of stuffing. And then for dinner you just get lazy and decide well, okay I’m going to have Thai food again tonight, same as always and your paunch grows and grows.

Despite the fact that somehow my metabolism works to keep my weight at 170, and that everyone tells me I am thin, I see the flab and it’s my mission to get rid of it pronto. But gyms are expensive and all I want is a place with a treadmill and a bike cause I just want to do aerobic workouts for about six months, as per my Dr’s orders, but I don’t want to pay $450 bucks for that! By the way, someone pointed out to me a month ago something that I never realized about Strangers with Candy, which is that the Doctor that Jerri Blank would go to see was named Dr. Zorders…Get it? That show is the comedic gift that keeps on giving.

In other news, for my birthday on MARCH 20th would someone please get me a copy of Kitten Natividad’s amazing (so I’ve heard) workout video “Eroticise” where she and her melon-breasted Russ Meyer recruited friends do a workout/striptease routine that ends with a completely naked workout session. If anyone sees one online that’s not a fortune, just like the gym, please let me know. I’ve seen bootlegs for around thirty which seems steep, and Eddie Brandt’s doesn’t even have it, though apparently Miss Natividad, whose bust suffered after a bout with cancer and a mastectomy, is a customer there.

Speaking of boobs, I was listening to T. Rex today and as much as I loved them, the lyrics to Raw Ramp are pretty cringeworthy:

“Woman I love your chests, ooh, Baby I’m crazy bout your breasts.”

That’s all for now. Ramble over and out.

So yeah, I had to give notice at that ultra-boring temp job I was working. I tried to use the free time to write but it just didn’t really work that well. I did figure out exactly what I need to be writing and what the script I’m writing is, which is a definite achievement. Think “Jinx!” but more Jewish, more Gay, more 12 years old, more realistic, and more autobiographical. This is the first time that I feel like I’ve really taken a lot of time to figure out what direction I need to go in - writing from the heart rather than coming up with a clever story with a typical movie hook. It’s going to be a kind of episodic coming of age story, but one that twists all those tropes in a very me fashion.

Anyway, I know I’ve been a bit slow on posts, but I’m trying really hard to think of good unique things to write about, rather than just throwing up YouTubes out of laziness. I promise some really good worthwhile ways to waste time (aka blog posts) coming up very soon. Hooray for Unemployment!

PS. That amazing Fassbinder/Metallica Shirt I’m wearing in the picture above is from Cinefile Video in Los Angeles. I flipped out over these shirts when I was in LA, and had a friend go pick me up several styles:

They make the BEST Xmas present for your hardcore film nerd children. And coming soon, according to their website www.cinefilevideo.com : the Scorcese/Scorpions shirt. Cinefile Video is really awesome, and I’ll have more on them soon.

Later!

Ugh! This past week has been just awful. I caught the bad cold that seems to be going around New York - everyone I meet has this cold. It sucks. I am almost over it though. I went to the Russian/Turkish Baths yesterday to try and kill all the germs with heat and steam, and I think it almost worked. I am much better though. Among the Hasids and the cruisey fat guys - okay, they’re one in the same, I admit it - was one very special person steaming his fat little stomach and plastic surgeried face off. Val Kilmer. Yeah I know, why was Val Kilmer at the Russian Baths in New York for a quick steam? He didn’t stay very long, but walked around with the towel draped over his head and wearing the blue robes that the guys who give the Platzas wear. It was great.

I’ve been watching a lot of movies too. There was Peter Bogdanovich’s four hour Tom Petty documentary, Runnin Down A Dream. Basically at the end of it you know almost less about Tom Petty than when you started the movie, that’s how light on real analysis or biography the flick is. There’s some cool footage - mostly of Petty teaching Stevie Nicks how to sing “Stop Draggin My Heart Around.” And Tom Petty was definitely super ugly/hot for most of his career. Ugly/Hot meaning from one angle, totally busted, but from another, totally hot, because of how ugly he is. But in the end you just kinda go, “Yeah, Tom Petty had a lot of great kick ass songs. I should get the Greatest Hits record.” I have no idea why this film, which has almost no real true documentary qualities, and was comissioned by Petty himself, played at the New York Film Festival.

In contrast, I saw Julien Temple’s Joe Strummer documentary Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten, which was pretty fucking great, although just like the Tom Petty movie, there were some questionable interviews. Johnny Depp, Bono, John Cusack (I know right - WTF - just cause he liked the Clash and put them on the soundtrack to Grosse Pointe Blank he is like an authority?) The worst interview by far, though, is Martin Scorcese. I think the dude must just come up with nonsense to say so he can be in all these movies as an authority on music just because he uses lots of musical montages in his movies. In this one, he claims that Raging Bull, his ode to boxing has-been Jake LaMotta, a movie that takes place in the forties, was inspired by the Clash, no more than that, that it was about the Clash, really! Come the fuck on! You know that’s a lie, says New York.

I also watched Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West for the first time ever, which was absolutely incredible. One of the best movies I’ve ever seen, and I can’t believe I never saw it before. Then the next day I watched Jess Franco’s Cannibals, released by my second favorite DVD company Blue Underground. Cannibals was also known as White Cannibal Queen and it’s about a dude whose wife gets eaten by cannibals (actually gypsies in crazy quilt face paint) and daughter gets kidnapped. Years later he goes to the jungle to find his daughter, only to realize that she’s been brainwashed and is now a super hot goddess and ruler of the cannibals. It’s pretty tame, but entertaining to watch, especially if you’re sick. Both physically and mentally.

Speaking of mental stuff, winter depression hit me this week like a bullet. I was at the Pylon show at Mercury Lounge, watching what has to be one of the best shows I’ve seen all year. All of a sudden, thoughts start racing, and I start to think that I’ll never be successful, find a boyfriend, write anything meaningful, make decisions for myself, live anywhere but New York. It’s pretty bad. I’m trying to find my UV light so I can start using it, and I have to force myself to remember that depressive thoughts like these aren’t really real. They’re a disease. It helps to think about it this way. Otherwise I’ll never be able to do anything all winter. I’m trying to figure out what to do next. What to write, and where to live, and what to do for work. I like sitting at home and writing, but if the government wasn’t paying me unemployment then I don’t know if I’d like it so much. As it is I want to go buy new boots, a new winter coat, some new sweaters, the new Twin Peaks Box Set, the new Mario Bava box set, the Danielle Baldelli Cosmic Disco reissue, and Berlin Alexanderplatz Criterion Edition. Do you think I can ask the government for a raise?

Well, that’s all the news that’s fit to print. I’m still trying to figure out a decent direction for this blog, so sorry if it’s been sort of all over the place for the past few months. But I’m working towards something great. Trust me.

Later.

Two more cute pics of me and my roommate Antonio, when we ran into a paparazzi (someone dressed as, rather) on the street on Halloween.