Happy Happy New New

Elvis wasn’t expecting to spend the start of Twenty Ten with Marty Markowitz at Grand Army Plaza, but there he was, a Dixie cup of champagne in hand and a smile on his face. While Marty barked in the new year, Elvis’s toothy grin was lit up by the  fireworks popping above the great lawn. They were not high, big, nor long, but the pyrotechnics, viewed through the freezing rain and bare trees of Prospect Park’s northern entry, were a lovely way to begin the new decade with Emma Lee and her beau. New Year’s toasts were followed by  a less-lovely, more frostbitten dip into the Atlantic with Emma, Beau, and the Coney Island’s Polar Bears. The longstanding tradition felt more like a dirty baptismal than anything else, but Elvis spiritedly darted across the frozen sand and plunged in with the rest of the pasty revelers. This year, he’ll need all the good-luck dunks he can get.

Elvis hits the beach, gets a handful of sand

Elvis biked Brooklyn from tip to tip (thank you Janette, and your DOT bike lanes), on Sunday, to arrive at Fort Tilden and the Gateway National Recreation Area. The beach is largely car-free (seasonal permit required), which keeps crowds down, and potential for waterfront real estate–with a little elbow room included–way up. The beach day involved waves, whittling, and rescuing a fire-red boogie board from the sagebrushed dunes. Surf’s up…. and stayed that way right until Monday morning, when Elvis was reminded that weekends are only two days long, but Mondays are forever.

Elvis, the professional

Elvis crossed the line. He said he wouldn’t, he swore he wouldn’t, but he did: he’s working full time. Some mornings he wonders how he gets dressed:

The transition from working in bootyshorts to working in pantyhose reminds him a little bit of the first day of the session at Camp Sealth. It happened the same, just about every summer from 1989 to 1994. After a stop at the cabin for bunk selection, it’s straightaway to the bottom of duffel bags, to dig out your suit and head for the beach.

It’s nice on the rocky beach–nice to watch the tide come in, and to throw stones poke at sea anemones in the shallows, and to stick your toe into the scummy surf. But that’s not why you’re there. Within a minute, it’s off with  sweatshirts, then a crumpled pile of shorts and towels form on the damp sand. You walk the plank of the dock, west towards Juan de Fuca. It’s getting breezy as you get towards the end of the stretch, cold on pale thighs and skinny shoulders. Pretty soon you’re to the last piling and its the moment of truth.

The shock of the cold is fierce. It’s lung shrinking, jaw clamping, cold. It’s for the best, a necessary step to getting boating privledges for the rest of the week, but as you watch girl after girl wail on contact, your cabinmates not emitting a shriek of surprise but one of pure, screaming pain, you wonder: do I really want to get wet?

The answer, summer after summer is yes. So you jump.

Elvis sings “Cry me a River,” Emma Lee and her neighbors comply; East River surges two feet

A small tidal wave has made its way from North 9th to the East River, and is making its way south to the Buttermilk Channel. There’s been nonstop trail of tears coming out of one house. The four-floor walk up is an unsuspecting one, tucked onto a quiet block round the corner from Bedford’s hubbub. But listen quick, and you’ll hear it: by day, wails come from the buildings two youngest residents, aged three months and two years. By night, and at other unexpected hours, it’s Emma Lee, crying over the her recently ex’ed novio. There’s the before bed bursts, as could be expected, but she’s been spontaneous into tears at more inopportune times: while hosting brunch at a crowded restaurant, over Estrella Dam at the Spanish National House, directly before running ten miles, during a flamenco concert, at the Chelsea Hotel, in Flatbush Farm’s backyard. And of course, there was the floodgate cry, the straw that broke the metaphorical camel’s back: at her favorite restaurant, over a medium rare cheese burger. She never thought she was one to throw twenty dollars down onto a table and leave a restaurant, but she was. Emma Lee remembers the sun was setting over the East River, and he was waiting on the corner for her when she came back, all red-eyed and snotty.

Elvis knows it’s a necessary, unfortunate, part of healing (or in the case of the babes, growing), but it sucks, all the same. He brought Emma Lee a new box of Kleenex. It helps a little.

Elvis finds Jesse, Jesse finds Jesus: New work by Jesse McCloskey

What does it mean to be a working artist? Days, many days, alone, in the studio. There are other modes of artmaking—the smart ones in contemporary art seem to have fashioned more fun practices…ones that revolve around notions of team sports (the Starns Twins recent scaffolding adventures), cooking (Rirkrit’s Thai lunches), and dancing (the year of Trisha at the Walker/Drawing Center/BAM). Still, for the few, the stubborn, the proud, to make work means going into a room, closing the door, and pounding your fists on the wall until you’ve stirred up enough plaster dust to call it art. Elvis, in a manner, has been doing that with the books and the drawings etc, but he’s still learning his way. For a lesson in dedication, he ventured out of his studio, across the burg, and down Grand Street, to visit a master of the pound and paint technique.

“Cut and paste, cut and paste. That’s all I do all day,” Jesse McCloskey confessed. Jesse’s not an undergrad stealing term papers off the internet, he’s a painter that comes to the canvas with a unique method of applique: vinyl-painted paper swatches collaged onto canvas. There’s a carpet of Flashe paint shards on the floor, sheets of bright colors ready to be diced on a side table. The pile-up of bright, flat colors plus solid black—his stroke color of choice—makes for canvases that look, formally, like a nuked comic book…comics that are suddenly three stories tall and glowing neon, with a torn shirt and smoke coming out of his nose. Case in point:

The black and bright are a good match for his new paintings: Jesse’s done found Jesus. As for the bold black lines—on both his paintings, and handpainted prints—here’s a little stained glass church window in them, but the reference’s a little more loaded than a leaded rose window…See, it’s not the first time McCloskey and JC have met: the artist grew up in a devoutly Catholic home, complete with midnight devil raids (“get up! get up! the devil’s in the house and he’s… BEHIND YOUR CHAIR!”) and a shoebox of Jack Chick you-might-go-to-hell-if-you-don’t-wise-up comic books. Jesse nods back to the scrappy, thumbsized comics in many of his new compositions (see the “lake of fire” bubbling up on a couple canvases), but there’s one big difference between Jesse and Jack. Jack makes his protagonists mild-mannered Christians who tremble with fear, repent like the devil, and beg for forgiveness when it comes to reckoning time. With Jesse, it’s artist vs. Jesus in a throwdown, knock-out fight.

Let’s hope for the next round soon. In the meantime, Elvis says Godspeed, Jesse, and keep on pounding.

Elvis has always relied on the kindness of strangers

Last night, Elvis and Emma Lee were sprinting down Park Slope’s 5th Avenue, trying to get to the Union Street subway before the rain sunk to bone level. As they picked their way between the puddles,  a dude started catcalling. “Miss! Miss!” The midnight rain was serious business, there were few other fools on the street, and Emma Lee remembers thinking “not the time, buddy”…but the hollerer kept hollering. Finally, she turned around and saw two guys and two umbrellas, one of which was cocked to 90 degrees and pointing straight at her. “Really?” She doubled back, never having been so happy to see a $5 sucker, the curved plastic handle and flimsy stalk of the midtown corner vendors. “Really. We have two, and you’re getting soaked.”

Sometimes, New Yorkers are good ones.

While giving props to the man on the street, Elvis also has to tip a hat to the friends in his life. Emma Lee’s friends have stepped up bigtime in this moment of mild tragedy (read: bad break up), with hugs, pasta del mar, desserts (current tally: a box of chocolate, a cupcake, two chocolate bars, two pints of ice cream, three mint juleps, a beer and a martini), and fairly convincing assurances that life will go all right.

The Cinco

Last night, Elvis celebrated Cinco de Mayo and Laur’s natal day with a bevy of revelers at Vera Cruz of Bklyn. Not exactly the most authentic Mex, even on the northside of Williamsburg (La Superior! Yo te amo!) but it was good to sit at a red-checkered table cloth with another fifteen people that were glad the Mexicans had that revolution of theirs. Elvis and Emma Lee sat next to a liquor distributor who, which puffing up his chest feathers for the table of pretty young things (shots all around! and no patron, give me 100% agave!) did some kind of three-figure damage to his AmEx. Whoops, delicious.

Elvis vs. winter

It’s a good thing Elvis just got back from Vegas (post forthcoming), and will be going to Arizona in a few weeks to crush on Frank Lloyd Wright and Ken Griffey Jr., because this snowbird has had it up to his neck with New York’s harsh winter of 2008-2009. Just look at this morning’s scenario:

Good thing Emma Lee has provisions that’ll last a twenty-five year old writer and a diminiutive version of the king of rock and roll all week. Bundle up!

Chef Boyard-E hits Brooklyn

Last week’s big adventure was cooking dinner for eighteen in Emma Lee’s Brooklyn pad. There weren’t as many pots, nor as many pans as he needed, but he managed to do a mostly vegan, mostly japanese meal that didn’t leave anyone too hungry. The Gang, more or less:

In other news, far flung ghosts have been calling out hellos: Santa Fe, Washington DC, and a fellow that courted Miss Emma Lee during the last months of her freshman year of college. Blasts from the past, indeed.  An anticipated encounter is coming, as the most recent Seattle-to-Bklyn transplant is no other than her second date.  The first, another story for another time, but the second was fiasco enough: thirteen year olds sneaking into Saving Private Ryan. Underage readers: don’t fake your way into war films. Things will go badly.

Dr. Faber-Castell’s quick fix

Elvis and Emma Lee have been feeling a little long-in-the-mouth this week. The job’s a’draggin, the head cold’s lingering, and, well, there’s a good chance that Emma Lee will get dumped tonight around 11 pm. Whether or not the ax falls (she sincerely hopes it won’t), The Days of Waiting, overlaying the Weeks of Not Breathing Through Her Nose have put her in a dour mood. Elvis illustrates the sentiment, although, much like the time when Emma Lee drew her disillusionment, the drawing—up until 3 last night drawing the tin can—helped a blue streak. Thank you, Dr. F-C, for your fabulous pencils.