10/19/99

Summer 1982

I decided to hitchhike up to a cafe on the Russian River to here my friend Abdullah LeClair perform Hugo Ball's contribution to the "DaDa Manifesto. "

"Before disinfecting you with vitriol, cleansing you and shellacking you with passion, Before all that, We shall take a big antiseptic bath, And we warn you We are murderers..."

A.k.a. Lawrance LeClaire had been one of the many marginal crew of Andy Warhol's Factory in the 60's. By the time I met him he was living with an exotic beauty named Ishvani and two children that may have been his. He was generating a body of sculptural work reminiscent of Miro paintings and espousing his own lunatic version of Dadaist theory. I was slightly intimidated by this man and always sensed it best to remain in his good graces.

I had my new wife, Carol, drop me off at the Garnet Street exit with little trepidation and I caught my series of rides up to the Russian River. Around 5 a.m. and San Luis Obispo a man pulled over and told me if I could drive his car he would give me a ride. An extraordinary offer for a hitchhiker I agreed and we headed up the Sur on the One. He climbed in the back and went to sleep. The car radio was programmed for country and had a full ashtray and empty bottle as accessories. By Monterey he woke up and climbed back up front. I don't remember his name, he told me, but he was a truck driver heading home to his lady and job. It seemed odd he was not in a truck. He directed me to a neighborhood in San Jose where he invited me in to the inquiring presence of his girlfriend. She asked me which direction we had come from and I fell for this trap without a clue. When I replied from the South, she flew into a rage and started screaming at the trucker about broken promises and the bitch he must have been with. Her looked at me with disgust and latent violence and started to try to dissuade her with some other lies. I made my way to the door during this love tangle and found my next ride North.

Hugo Ball was reincarnated on the Russian River and no doubt more insanely than the original at the Cabaret Voltaire. I watched this audience of Popular Front exiles horrified at the spectacle of LeClaire destroying one of his own, previously admired paintings at the conclusion of the performance. That moment was worth the trip.

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