My history with Performance Art is rather amusing. Not once did I set out to do any of these works with the intention that my actions would represent anything specific. No, it was more like "What's the stupidest thing I can think of doing in the name of art?" and actually going out and doing it.

Good thing we now have shows like Jackass and Tom Green because I really don't feel the need to do any of this stuff anymore. My big performance art hero in high school, Chris Burden, seemed burnt out with it when he was my teacher at UCLA, so I guess other people "outgrow" it too.

All I do now in terms of performance are my Wrong Dimension Boy karaoke shows and occasional group shebangs with The Los Angeles Cacophony Society. Still, the stuff I did in college was kind of funny. So here it is, online now for the first time... 2 moments of dada absurdist situational comedy.

I WAS A SUPER HERO ON THE DATING GAME

KTLA Studios, 1997
You can read about this story on the San Francisco Herald's web site, or for the very first time online... watch it right here! I only got the last half of the show since the producers told me the wrong day it aired and a friend of mine just happened to catch part of it for me. The question I was just asked as Movie Clip Part 1 begins was "I love sushi. What would you do if we went out for some and my yellow tail began dancing around on the table?"

FISH FIGHT AT NORMS

Norms Restaurant bathroom
Santa Monica, CA.
1990
Mike Gump and I went to Norms at 2am along with our friend Steve Harris. We ordered food and then went to the bathroom. Mike and I stripped naked and beat each other with dead fish. Then we put our clothes back on like nothing happened. Steve got the whole thing on video. Now you can see it online for the first time! (P.S.: Thanks to Jenny N. and Liz, who were also there that night, and to Retinalogic for editing the video!)

COW MAN AND CHICKEN BOY

Mad Hatter's Espresso Bar, 1990
In the middle of an open mic night at the coffee house, a group of ski-masked thugs burst in and grab the cafés mascot: Hector The Lucky Plastic Penguin. They are followed by the evil Ace of Spades (my friend Steve Garrett in a card costume.) He tells the crowd that with the Penguin, he now has control over the universe. On cue, the host, Steve Isaacs, yells: "Who can save us now?"

Farmland music begins and Cow Man (me) and Chicken Boy (Mike Gump) arrive to save the day. We beat the thugs with coreographed dork-fu moves we practiced earlier and by chucking plastic egg and beef darts at them.

Then the Ace of Spades turns his Death Ray (a flash-light or something) on us and we get weaker. He has us in his power and I say:

Cow Man: Ugh! No... Use... Falling... Into... His... Command... Can't... Move!

Chicken Boy: That's right, Cow Man! (That's all Chicken Boy ever said.)

Cow Man: We're... done for... Unless... Everyone... Starts... Starts... Mooing and Clucking like cows and chickens... So we can regain our strength!

Chicken Boy: That's right, Cow Man!

So that's what people did. We had the whole place mooing and clucking. We got our strength back and knocked the evil Ace of Spades on his ass and addressed the crowd. I told the crowd to eat from the 4 food groups and a girl actually tried to interrupt my speech by saying "Why haven't you called me?" .

Guess you had to be there.

COYOTE BEATING

Jabberjaw coffee house, 1992
I was asked to do a performance by the band Chalk Circle before they came on at Jabberjaw, an early 90's coffee house where Nirvana and Hole would hang out at and play. I wore a giant 3 foot long paiper mache penis, my mother's dress and a knights helmet and stood in a bucket of mashed potatoes. I was tied to a giant wooden cross. As I was reciting some stream of consciousness poetry, Adam Bregman entered in his underwear with a hose coming out of his butt while he sucked the other end. He kept telling people "I can't get any! I can't get any!". Mike Gump then came in dressed like a clown with a marionette puppet he had made from an actual dead coyote he had found on the highway. (He was doing a lot of roadkill art back then.) Mike had tied strings to the carcasses legs and was dancing it around. He then, completely unexpectedly, jumped on stage and began beating me senseless with the coyote. Just slamming it into me as hard as he could. Blood and coyote guts were getting on my mom's dress. The guy who had made the 4 foot paiper mache penis was freaking out because his art prop was getting whacked, and since I was on a cross and standing in a bucked of mashed potatoes, all I could do was either take it or fall, right into the band's drum set behind me. Needless to say, I didn't fall, but I was pissed at Michael Gump for a while.

CHICKENS IN THE ELEVATOR

UCLA Campus, 1993
Adam Bregman and I went to UCLA dressed like chickens. We we entered lecture halls, a French class (where the teacher tried to get us in on the action by telling her students "C'est le 'poulet.'") and eventually ended up in the elevators at the art building. Adam got in one elevator and I got in the other. We clucked at people. It was stupid, but I got an A. Art is easy.