Jerusalem Syndrome - Marc Maron [8]
I didn’t know it at the time, but Eddie offered the waitress staff a bonus to the first one who took my virginity. So, the first time I got laid was by a waitress named Diamond. It was awkward, but a relief to get it out of the way. I guess that’s a jewel.
Budget Records was next door to The Posh Bagel. A guy named Steve LaRue managed it. He was a frustrated musician who played in a two-man experimental rock band called Jungle Red with a guy named Craig. They only played out twice a year, intentionally. I would spend hours in the record store with Steve. He shook me out of my commercial rock brainwash and threw me into the lexicon of experimental art music: Fripp, Eno, Fred Frith, Jon Hassel, The Residents, and a whole world of avant-garde noise noodling.
The night I went to see one of Jungle Red’s semiannual performances I had been out drinking with some high school friends and I told them we were going to an art party over by the college. We got to the house near the campus and rang the bell. When the door opened, there was a man wearing a loincloth with the word HEATHEN written across his chest in lipstick, standing in the doorway. He threw his hands in the air as if presenting something on the ceiling and said, “Welcome.”
I think we said, “Uh, where’s the keg?”
The house was packed with the cutting edge of the Albuquerque art scene. Mostly gay guys, women in black, and a few people that looked like they might’ve been part of the A Flock of Seagulls entourage. The stage was set. There were a couple of guitars next to a keyboard. One of the guitars had a doll’s arm gaff-taped to the neck. Steve and Craig came out in surgical scrubs and proceeded to create a wall of chaotic sound. Steve was screaming and playing guitar, and Craig rocked back and forth, with his hands pounding the keyboard. Every few beats Steve would kick the guitar with the doll’s arm taped to it, causing a feedback that was deafening. In the middle of the performance Steve pulled out a box of vintage Fiestaware that he had been collecting for years, and in between lyrics he would violently break a piece with a hammer. Beneath the din of electric noise was the sound of delicate colorful plates, pitchers, and cups being shattered by Steve’s swift hand. As each piece fell into shards on the floor, one could hear a barely audible chorus of gay men groaning. It became an integral layer of the sound. It was an amazing show. Pure anger-infused rock ’n’ roll art that engaged and disturbed people. There was Truth there. I wanted in.
The times, they were a changin’. The great war between disco and rock raged on the high school campus. Punk had surfaced as a legitimate disposition, and the freaks made some space available beside their perch for the new adolescent archetype. Soon after, new wave infused itself into the student population, so thin ties and poofy hair bobbed down the halls beside flannel-shirted long hairs, mohawks, and Britannia jean–clad dance-club kids. My sense of humor allowed me to walk freely through all the sectors. I had shifted my interests to the art department, where I immersed myself in the craft of photography. I played guitar. I began writing poetry. I no longer thought of myself as a high school student. I was an Emerging Artist.
My most important body of work was a series of photographs that won the Best of Show honor in the Highland High School Art Exhibition. I had set up a ladder in