NO DEPOSIT, NO RETURN BLUES & OMA
by KC Bull
ca. 65 minutes.
NO DEPOSIT, NO RETURN BLUES ( 2004/09, 55 minutes, video)
A cult hero revered in folk circles and beyond for his incredible ability to play seemingly any stringed instrument, Sandy Bull’s virtuosity was only matched by his technological curiosity and inclination towards experimentation, both in the studio and onstage. Often compared to contemporaries such as John Fahey and Robbie Basho, Bull’s music merges influences from the worlds of jazz, classical, Arabic, and Indian composition, yet always retains an immediately distinctive feel that comes across as both effortless and timeless. NO DEPOSIT, NO RETURN BLUES shines a light on Bull’s unconventional life, bringing forward many unknown stories, interviews with friends and admirers (Wavy Gravy, Hamza El Din, Bob Neuwirth), as well as long unheard recordings from different periods in his career. If you know Bull’s music you’ll want to see this film, and if his name is new to you then it will serve as the ultimate introduction.
Screening with:
OMA (2001, 10 minutes, 16mm-to-video)
by KC Bull
A short portrait about KC’s grandmother (Sandy’s mom) Daphne Hellman. Daphne was a harpist in NYC who played everything from Bach to boogie woogie. The portrait traces Daphne’s life through stories of her career playing harp and of her several marriages to New York socialites. The film includes footage of Daphne and her long-time musical partner, Mr. Spoons, performing in the Subway.
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10003
(212) 505-5181
$9 General Admission
$8 Essential Cinema (free for members)
$7 Students, seniors and children (12 & under)
$6 AFA Members
Tickets are available at Anthology’s box office on the day of the show only. The box office opens 30 minutes before the first show of the day. There are no advance ticket sales. Reservations are available to Anthology members only.
I first met Tuli Kupferberg in the early ’60s at the Paperback Gallery in Greenwich Village. I was delivering my magazine, The Realist, and he was delivering his booklet, Birth. Sharing a concept that tragedy and absurdity were two sides of the same coin, we bonded immediately.
In 1966, I published an article by John Wilcock, “Who the Fugs Think They Are.” Tuli talked about the importance of sexual liberation. “Americans like to kill or be killed,” he said. “Aggression is reaction to frustration. Sexual frustration is still the major problem to be solved and in my opinion the appearance of sexual humor is a healthy sign. And if we can put some joy, some real sexy warmth into the revolution, we’ll have really achieved something.”
When Norman Mailer wrote his first novel, The Naked and the Dead, he used the euphemism “fug” for “fuck,” which was then a literary taboo. At our first encounter, I asked him if it was true that when he met actress Tallulah Bankhead she said, “So you’re the young man who doesn’t know how to spell fuck.” With a twinkle in his eye, he told me that he replied, “Yes, and you’re the young woman who doesn’t know how to.” Anyway, that’s where the Fugs got their name. In “Doin’ All Right,” they sang, “I’m not ever goin’ to Vietnam/ I’d rather stay right here and screw your mom.” Tuli told me, “That was enough to get us beaten up if we did it in the right place.”
In 1968, at the counter-convention in Chicago, hash oil in honey was the drug of choice. The Fugs co-founders, Ed Sanders and Tuli, sampled it. This was strong stuff, and they got completely fugged up. Sanders described the grass he was walking on as “a giant frothing trough of mutant spinach egg noodles.” Tuli’s friends had to carry him by the armpits back to the apartment where he was staying. “They’re delivering me,” he explained.
There was a rumor that Philip Roth had lifted the masturbatory obsessed theme of his novel, Portnoy’s Complaint, from a Fugs song, but that notion was disavowed by Sanders, who assured me, “Philip Roth did not plagiarize a Fugs song. He came to a Fugs show in 1966, and I think he was inspired by Tuli, in top hat and cane, singing ‘Jack-Off Blues.’ Many times in reunion concerts, introducing Tuli singing that song, I have suggested that Roth got some of the impetus for Portnoy’s Complaint from that time he was inspired by the Tuli tune.”
Another rumor was triggered by Allen Ginsberg’s famous poem, Howl. Tuli acknowledged that he had been the inspiration for this passage: “…jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alley ways & firetrucks, not even one free beer…” Actually, it was the Manhattan Bridge. Tuli was just out of college and in the throes of the break-up of his first major love relationship, which contributed to a nervous breakdown that precipitated his suicide attempt. He was rescued by a passing tugboat and taken to Governor’s Island Hospital with a broken transverse process that put him in a body cast.
“Throughout the years,” Tuli complained, “I have been annoyed many times by, ‘Oh, did you really jump off the Brooklyn Bridge?’—as if it was a great accomplishment.” At first he had refused to talk about it, but as Ginsberg’s myth spread that he had simply “walked away” after jumping off a bridge, Tuli became concerned about wrongly influencing young people. He didn’t want anyone else to take a similar chance of being severely injured if they survived.
Tuli was the first Poet-in-Residence at the Bowery Poetry Club. Proprietor Bob Holman sent an e-mail two days before Tuli’s death on a gloomy Sunday: “I am in Medellin at the amazing International Poets Festival here—100 poets! Ten days of it!—and Tuli’s spirit is everywhere. Tell that bum to get up and out and over here.” Norman Savitt, producer of Tuli’s TV show, Revolting News, reported from the hospital bedside that Tuli reminded him “what a shame it was that I had my son circumcised, how I should be putting lyrics to all my instrumental music, and the importance of raw garlic in my diet.” And Larkworthy Antfarm adapted a Fugs song, applying the original lyrics to the BP catastrophe, singing about “a river of shit.”
Epilogue: Ah, the condolences: “Tuli, may you see Boobs a Lot in Heaven” . . . “This Monday will be just a little more Nothing” . . . “Mourning, Mourning” . . .
Check out paulkrassner.com to see the digitally colored edition of the infamous Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster.
Who are MEN?: “MEN is JD Samson, Michael O’Neill and Ginger Brooks Takahashi—with contributions from Johanna Fateman and Emily Roysdon—a Brooklyn-based band and art/performance collective that focuses on the energy of live performance and radical potential of dance music… ”
Pappy and Harriet’s is a big all-ages honkytonk located in Pioneertown, two and a half hours’ drive from Los Angeles, next to the town of Yucca Valley. The beautiful Joshua Tree National Park is 20 minutes’ drive away. There is almost zero cel phone reception at Pappy and Harriet’s, which helps you to enjoy where you are. On most nights, you can see the Milky Way.
Previously in Arthur Magazine: JD was in Le Tigre, who were interviewed at length by Oliver Hall in Arthur No. 13 (2004), available from The Arthur Store for $6
Here it is! I will tell you the big secret, what it all boils down to, the heart of the matter. I know, I know, this column is still pretty new and I should probably hold off on bringing out the big guns until later. But I feel (& hopefully acolytes of this periodic grimoire have already experimented with the lucid napping & Ganzfeld techniques, as proscribed in the previous two issues) you are ready to grasp the core issue here; the fundamental concept of magic to which we will return again and again.
That which is below is as that which is above, and that which is above is as that which is below.
That’s it. The quote is from Hermes Trismegestus. Rather then get side-tracked with an investigation into the musty pedigree of the quote (a rabbit trail that too many texts on magic become entangled in) we can take that statement — as above so below, and as below so above – as a jumping off point. On the surface it seems simple enough, almost a tautology. However, like all big truths, it grows in profundity as we approach it, and like Zeno’s arrow we are always only halfway to fully reaching the truth.
This idea of correspondence between the above and the below is of course referring to the link between the self and the world, the microcosm and the macrocosm, the interior/exterior. The accomplished magus is one who realizes that by changing the one, she changes the other. It is as simple and powerful as balancing algebraic equations – what is done on one side must be done on the other.
(In the realm of magic this law is as basic as Newton’s 3rd law of motion, that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction; it is likewise elegant. Interesting to note that Sir Isaac Newton was himself an alchemist and well familiar with the writings of Trismegestus – even writing his own translation of the Emerald Tablet!)
Now let’s begin with a basic example – if you were to walk around the block with a pebble in your shoe, it would change not only the way you walk, but also the way you think and feel. That’s too obvious perhaps. Let’s zoom out. Picture yourself commuting to work. Do you drive? Then imagine yourself taking the bus. Already take the bus? Imagine if your commute took place by subway or train. Would you like it better, less? If you currently ride the rails, then imagine what it would be like getting there by horse. Now imagine bicycle. Depending on the distance and route you travel daily, some of these means of transport might sound preferable, while others would totally suck. We are affected not only by our environment but by the way we navigate it, and of course it flows the other way around. Take your bicycle for example: what is healthy for us is also healthy for the environment. It is cheap, efficient and contributes 0% pollution – it bears mentioning that at this point in human history if everyone on earth used a bike as their main mode of transportation it just might save the ecosystem of the planet. That is the Macro level. We could also go down one level and talk about what your hometown or city would look like right now if every car was replaced with a bike – no roads, just trails! Picture how that would change the dynamics of day-to-day life. Roads would be replaced with what? Promenades? Parks? Goat trails? The change in infrastructure this would have on everything from grocery stores and markets to shopping and business centers would be beyond revolutionary.
My point is not to rally y’all to tear down urban blight … not just yet … but to consider the ramifications that change on the micro level proportionally affects the macro, i.e. more bikes = less pavement. The equals sign in the previous statement may be thought of as Psychogeography. A term which Guy Debord defined as “the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals.”
Finally, let us consider the profound effects that biking–not driving–has upon oneself: mind, spirit and body. You travel much more slowly on two wheels than four. You notice things. The spirit feels the freedom inherent in self-sufficiency as the body is strengthened rather than atrophied. With this in mind, I present today’s magic spell:
How to Get Lost in Paris Regardless of Where You Are
This experiment works just as well with a group as it does solo. It can of course be done on foot as a flanuer as well. It just depends on how much time you have. Really getting lost on foot, or at least finding yourself in a place you normally wouldn’t be, is hard. It’s easier on a bike since you travel faster. I can get lost on my bike in less than an hour! On foot, it takes all day. This spell will force you to see bits of your macrocosm (ergo yourself) that you are not used to seeing, as you don’t seek them out. If you can become completely lost while performing this spell, then consider yourself an adept – the trick of such magic is to be able to trick yourself.
There is of course a rich history to the art of the flanuer, the on-foot version of this exercise. It is the lost art of sauntering. Also known as going for a stroll. The potency of this magic is verified in that it is illegal – No Loitering signs are the most commonly posted law in the English language. “YOU MUST WALK WITH PURPOSE & DESTINATION; IT IS THE LAW,” sayeth the law. Therefore when riding or walking, we may meander and lolly-gag with mutinous anarchy in our steps. Take the time to experience just the “going” part without the “somewhere”.
For brevity’s sake, this tool for tweaking your psychogeography is focused on the art of the radonneur, which I am going to redefine for my own purposes as “sauntering on a bicycle”. The spell itself is quite simple. Take your map of, say Paris, in honor of the Tour de France (or anywhere where you are not). Now carefully consulting this map, choose a start location and an end location, e.g. the Champ-Elysees to the Eiffel Tower, and use the directions as dictated by the map to navigate your way from where you are, transposing the navigation of another place onto your current location.
Since you aren’t in Paris (if you are, use a map of Paris, Texas) you should hopefully be helplessly lost after a few turns. If not, keep going until you are. The map you choose and the directions are incidental, as long as you try to follow a route that is sufficiently complicated. You can even replace the map method with any number of means, such as rolling dice or flipping a coin at each intersection, or better yet, asking strangers for destinations rather than directions.
With a little bit of practice, you are ready to experience your environment as though you were a visitor. See it not as a place to traverse, but as an environ to explore and experience . . . go as slowly as possible. Unless you’d like to go fast; that’s good too.
* Have a burning question about magick? Email questions to anthony@arthurmag.com for our upcoming Q&A issue.
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