I was looking for skunks doing handstands and found this truly bonkers BBC video of a spotted skunk taking on b-boys in two of the four elements: breaking and spraying. You’ll have to watch it yourself to see who comes out on top.
The really bizarre part was that the whole reason I was searching in the first place was because I had been in a similar struggle with many of the same tropes being employed in slightly different ways. When I first went to Chicago me and my friend Tim urinated on the side of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House. It was Tim’s idea – he said that it would render Wright’s ghost powerless if it ever tried to fuck with us.
Tim’s funny like that and group urination had been a frequent bonding activity for much of the trip. Part of this was pure necessity of course – when traveling long distances by car it’s inevitable that infrequent stops will have a shared functionality but Tim always liked to describe it as an activity in asserting dominance over often abstract concepts.
When he tackled all the driving to traverse the girthy state of Nebraska in a single sitting he metaphorized the SUV we sat inside as a bullet piercing the province’s heart as if it were a living organism. The finishing touch was a shared pee onto a field of corn near the border with the supposition that this act would banish what had been monotonous roadside imagery and conjure something more interesting to look at.
This, of course, turned out not to be the case as we next had to drive through the entire state of Iowa which is far more famous for only giving you corn to look at. In fact the ears would never truly recede into the rear view until the moment the mighty city of Chicago announced itself upon the horizon. Seeing this sight for the very first time reminded me of the depiction of the Emerald City in the original Wizard of Oz movie.
I was going to try to do some kind of golden imagery thing with corn and urine but decided to hold off for a more appealing proposition – an almost entirely unrelated anecdote. As a child my Classical education far outstripped a more traditional one to the point that when I first encountered the term “golden shower” in print my first thought was that it was a reference to Greek Mythology.
In the story of the demigod Perseus his mother Danaë had been isolated in a chamber to thwart a prophecy. Zeus appeared to her as a shower of gold from the sky to father the hero. As a child with next to no sexual imagination my immediate assumption was that “golden shower” must stand for the concept of Immaculate Conception as something like “watersports” wouldn’t have reached my radar in that context.
I had certainly urinated on and been urinated on by my friends at that point, including an epic neighborhood war when we realized we could put it into water guns, but this was always done for a different kind of gratification. Like most terrestrial vertebrates we abhorred the sensation of skin contact with the fluids of another organism and therefore did it to humiliate each other and cause anguish.
Back to architecture – I’d been a Frank Lloyd Wright fanboy since grade school and now that I was reaching an age where I could start traveling and visiting his seminal works piss became my paintbrush in an exercise that was otherwise visual tag collecting. For the thousandth time I’ve never really been one for taking photographs so in the pursuit of memories and accomplishments this forbidden act of temporary vandalism made quite the curio.
I got a few more around Chicagoland and got The Guggenheim the next time I was in New York. Unfortunately I only got the exterior in a discrete alley spot as I had not yet watched The Order sequence from Matthew Barney’s Cremaster 3 to be inspired by Richard Serra’s descending Vaseline or its sister ice luge scene in Jim Carey’s Mr Popper’s Penguins. Either of these might have sparked a resolution to attempt the far riskier proposition of the central ramp.
I’d always planned to visit Falling Water and make this the jewel of my collection for obvious reasons. Perhaps some day but the sad reality is that I will never “catch ‘em all” as a good number are simply no longer standing. For example I recently picked up a hardcover book called The Riddle of MacArthur by the journalist John Gunther. I picked up a habit while homeless of reading any book encountered on the ground which often leads me to unforeseen places.
In the chapter called Tokyo Today I learned for the first time of Wright’s version of the Hotel Imperial – built in 1920 but demolished when it began to sink in 1968. The place looks mesmerizing but my best opportunity to experience it firsthand is a virtual tour on my computer or smartphone. Engaging in my peculiar hobby through this medium would neither be satisfying or particularly advisable with the future health of my oh so precious devices in mind.
After returning to California in the wake of 9/11 I was able to go to Arthur Fest in Barnsdall Art Park in 2005 to see a bunch of freak folk, doom metal and my recent favorite Beatle: Yoko Ono. The building with Earth, SunnO))) and Growing was made inaccessible by a capacity crowd with little incentive to abandon their hard fought floor space.
I found an opportunity to scale a wall into an artist area prompting my long acquaintance Ron Regé Jr., then performing in Lavender Diamond, to take me for a fellow featured performer. I watched the music from backstage and saw the moment a large amplifier toppled into the audience. Much later I would learn special guest Malefic of Xasthur had neglected due diligence when parking in Rite Aid’s lot and had his vehicle towed.
I did not witness this first hand but read about it after. Malefic was freaking out – pacing the parking lot on his cell phone with the posted tow provider. Someone like Stephen O’Malley thought to buy him a Dove Bar. Malefic sits on the edge of the lot and regains his composure while consuming the treat. Apocryphal as it may be this story has persisted for the way it depicts a known “cult misanthropic Black Metal” icon in a far more relatable light.
I wanted to take the opportunity to mark the iconic Hollyhock House but with the crowded festival setting my best chance was to slip behind some of the prodigious landscaping. I’d already started my stream when I realized it had awoken a young spotted skunk who was taking advantage of the same cover vegetation to relax insulated from the sights and sounds of so many frightening human beings.
I’d seen the handstand display in a taxidermy diorama in a Natural History Museum somewhere so I immediately understood the threat but had already gone too far to curtail my flow and beat a hasty retreat. As the skunk inched toward me in aggression I defended myself the only way I could – by advancing my stream into its path as a warning.
We were in a classic “Mexican Standoff” or, in the jargon of the Cold War, a mutually assured destruction scenario. The skunk backed away – I never pissed on it and it never sprayed me but we effectively held each other at bay. As my bladder began to empty I was able to slowly back away then shake off and sheathe my offensive instrument before stepping back into public view.
I enjoyed the remainder of the festival with sets from Olivia Tremor Control and the headlining Ono. A crowd of protestors outside the gates harped on the myth of her destruction of The Beatles – no doubt viewing her set as performing the action thematic to this piece onto the band’s legacy. I thought no such thing, though I thought she might have announced her band including her son Sean by name, and left with relative high spirits.
I thought I would conclude this selection with an experience from my vivid world of dreams. In the early 2000s when I returned to San Diego a group of friends including Nick Feather and Nina Amour were renting a popular party house on A Street in Golden Hill. I’ve mentioned in other places my childhood struggles with bed wetting that only abated in my early twenties. This was one of the final incidents.
I fell asleep on a deep chartreuse crushed velvet sofa and found myself in the dilapidated tiled basement bathroom of an anachronistic department store. The man in the urinal next to me was a specific midcentury caricature – pressed suit, fedora and British style horrid teeth. We began our releases in sync then subtly tilted our chins to each other in mutual challenge.
We each began walking backward while arching our streams so they might continue to reach the appropriate receptacles. Things were neck to neck, or Turkey neck to Turkey neck as it were, until the specific floor plan guaranteed my victory. Just as I stepped into an open doorway he abruptly came against a solid wall. The sudden shock obliterated his concentration.
Suddenly his emission was not reaching the urinal but uncontrollably sputtering and flying into the air around him – soaking his clothing, shoes and the walls and floor as he futilely tried to regain his composure. I continued to back through the doorway as my own issue impossibly extended further and further to the target. When I reached the edge of the hallway I’d entered I proudly stood and concluded my now nearly twenty foot feat.
I had won!
In this feeling of elation I suddenly returned to consciousness and with a shock learned I had only succeeded in soaking my own clothing as well as my friend’s sofa. The sudden speed in which triumphant pride soured into deepest shame nearly gave me whiplash. The damage was reversible as this same vintage settee was later transferred to my family’s home upon the collective house’s dissolution and remained there for years in an odorless state.
I talk to Tim here and there but nothing like the Summer of 1998 when we were near constant collaborators in a variety of mediums. I wonder if he has outgrown such juvenile pursuits or rather if he has revisited them with renewed gusto as the father of a young son. We never compared lists of our respective marked Frank Lloyd Wright edifices and it feels entirely possible that he ended the practice with the first impulsive iteration at the Robie House.
Perhaps I’ll reach back out in the near future and learn for certain – one way or the other.
Adventures in the Undiscovered Interior of Underground America 