Artist George Horner w- Paul McCartney, David Bowie, MTM

In Part III, artist George Horner leads us through the "Magic Time Machine," a portal into his creative world and  eventually his time embedded at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery. The journey eventually brings us to Annie’s Garden, where he planted Linda McCartney’s Lily's of the Valley—a soft touch in the unconventional setting of the funeral home he eventually moved into. Upon taking the place, George famously declared, "I'll buy it—just leave the stiffs!"

Music by: Los#2 Dinners

Songs: Chingadera & Friday the 13th Part 85

Podcast Copyright: 24 Hour Entertainment- 2024-2026

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Welcome to Down in SA, aka Down in San Antonio, Texas, that is. Here you will be a part of the lives of the cool kids who grew up here in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. From the music, culture, society, big red, hippo sodas, and breakfast tacos. You will learn the cool elements of our hidden society. So grab a long neck or a shot of tequila, light up a doobie, and say, screw the Alamo. This is who we really are. The cool kids down in SA. Don't record that. The recording just started. Hey, that's a good slogan for Planned Parenthood. Great. No, um the um the listeners have really enjoyed listening to our interview with you. And almost all of them had never heard of you before. They were fascinated by your family history, the history of a lot of the beginnings of uh performance art, the different artists, how they all kind of merged together and different thought patterns and whatever. I mean, they were just totally intrigued. So thank you for uh meeting with us here again uh today. So um my name is Chick. You're listening to oh, let me do a countdown. Three, two, one. My name is Chick. Welcoming all of our audience across the world to Down and SA. Uh, I'm here once again with artist George Horner. Spent many a decade in San Antonio, currently lives up in Brooklyn. He's actually been up there for quite a few decades, and proud to have him as a friend and one of the most hilarious individuals I've ever met outside of Robin Williams. So he's he's he's right, he's right up there at the notch, man. So put too much pressure on me. No, the pressure's the this is this is how hilarious George is. I've never had a moment where I've dined with him, with a group of people or with him individually, and he has this way of delivering a punchline at a dinner table right when people have food in their mouth and watching him spit it out because they're laughing so hard. That's that's and whatever comes out of their nose, too. Almost every person that knows George can say, yes, that has happened to me. But um there's like two parts of this interview that I'd like to do. Uh one of them is gonna be George Horner artist in New York, and the first part of this is taking uh your experience in which was really a living art experience. And what I mean by that is we met at the Magic Time Machine. I met you, Don Evans, Joe Puglese, Cheryl, um Joanne, um uh Bart Bart Nichols, Richard Rodney, um, Gary Mueller, Joe Delasantos, uh Steve Leary, Tarzan, um I mean, just you know, Pete Steve, Rob Raina, uh Mark Spitz, Bill Lloyd, and his brother Mongol.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Oh, yeah, Bill Lloyd. Yeah, Bill Lloyd and his brother Mongol, Mongolloyd. And it just so happened that that's what his name was. And you know, because if you can't believe he called that guy a Mongoloid, well, that's his name. Mongol Lloyd.

SPEAKER_04 3:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

And his brother, I mean, you know, he looked exactly like Mark Spitz. I mean, that was like the biggest selling point, one of the biggest selling points of the Magic Time Machine. How did you come to working at the time machine? What what what brought you in there? What was your character, and how was that experience?

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Um I think I think Joe Paglis uh was uh somehow connected uh with uh the restaurant business at the time. And he told uh Don and I about uh this new restaurant opening up. And and um uh he uh he was told that um uh everyone's gonna be wearing costumes, uh waiting, waiting tables and singing songs and all that stuff. And uh they said anyone who who shows up in a costume will hire. So Don and I uh I would we were I was working on this movie, it was kind of a sci-fi spoof. It's called Pinfu Stifa Mayu, and that's good that's good for penis monsters from outer space, down from Mars and Up Uranus. I remember. And uh yeah, and then we we had made uh these big paper mache uh penis you know heads that we that we wore. And anyway, it was a crazy sci-fi thing. And um we had costumes, we had made costumes uh for for our movie. So Don and I both showed up in that costume, in our costumes, and they hired us. However, um they hired me as a waiter, and it was I was the very last waiter hired, and they hired Don as a busboy, and that kind of pissed him off. But it was sort of but it turned out that the guy who was interviewing us was somebody that I went to high school with, and so he knew me. And I kind of knew him, but I didn't really, you know, but he he recognized me and it was like, George, how you doing? Oh, that's great. We're you know, we're really not hiring, but you know, we'll we'll hire you, you know, and and and I was that wasn't fortunate they didn't hire both, but I mean they hired us both, and then after a couple of months, then Don became a waiter uh as well. And then um my my I had a number of different costumes over the years, but my my uh my favorite costume was a Superman costume, and I called myself Supperman, uh Superman's cousin, able to eat tall buildings with a single bowel, and um, you know, and uh and then I was the flash. I was the world's fastest waiter. And I remember the opening night I I screwed up an order for uh uh a Roman orgy and the the or the or I I don't know. I don't know what happened. I uh whatever. The guy the the people waited for hours for their dinner, and then you know, then I'm supposed to be the world's fastest waiter. That was uh ironic, you know. And then uh and then I I was uh dressed up, yeah, probably probably couldn't do this now, but at the time, uh whatever, you know. But it was uh I I had this I had this costume, um, and it was I was like a uh Chinese man, you know. Oh I remember, yeah. Yeah, and I was I was Chin Zit. Uh uh Chin Zit, the world's most famous um um uh acne acne puncturist, you know. And um, and I was, you know, anyway, the the the kinky chinky with the stinky pinkies. I was a part-time gynecologist, also, you know, but I you know kind of politically incorrect now. You know, back then I guess it was pretty well.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

At that time, it was you had f you had TV shows like All in the Family or The Jefferson or The Gong Show or Yeah Uh Laugh In. I mean you you had it where you know the civility of America was actually kind of civil at that time because we could all joke with each other's background and and ethnic and religion. And it actually, I thought it actually brought more people together.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

And no, I think I I I totally agree with you, you know, and and uh but I you know I get it, you know. Um, but uh, you know, I I certainly would would never kind of do that sort of right, you know, uh character uh now, you know. Yeah, but um I was also Jaws. I had a a shark costume, and uh that was a lot of fun. I was I was Picasso the house painter. I had these overalls that were splattered with paint, they looked like a Jackson Pollock painting. And I said I was Picasso the house painter. And you know, so there was a number of You had a lot of costumes. You did.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

Did I lose you there?

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Orders and stuff without talking. That was that was kind of fun, you know. Right and Don, I think Don was uh Groucho Marks, yeah, and it was kind of fun when he was Groucho and I was Harpo, and we would kind of clown around together. And and um um that was great fun. And Joe Paglise, he was like a bumblebee, right? And um uh and and chick, what was your costume?

SPEAKER_02 9:29

I was uh I was originally the Green Lantern. Oh, that's right, and then I was Harvey the Invisible Rabbit. Oh, yeah, but my getaway costume, which you know, all of your costumes you could just make make up all kinds of slanderous fun humor, right? Yes, I was uh Harvey Horntoad, the Texas Horny Toad. Oh so I could gen I could get on women's laps, I could hunt his legs, I could make anybody laugh, going, we want to see the horny toad, we want to see the horny toad. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Yeah. Hey, save it for the shrink, you know. So that was a lot of fun, you know. I mean, it was it was it was kind of a new thing, that that whole uh waiting tables in costume and and and singing and and and and kind of entertaining uh uh the the customers, you know, and and uh of course I had a theater background and and and you know we were doing key flow turtle and all these other kind of weird weird uh uh uh performance um uh events and that sort of thing. So it kind of it it it felt really natural. It was kind of it was it was a lot of fun. A lot of people is like, oh, I would never want to do that. I wouldn't want to see wear costumes and act silly. And it was like uh that's that's what I do best, yeah. So uh it's and you can get away with it.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

And you get away with that. You get away with it, you get paid for it. Yeah, you get paid for it while people are dining and spitting their food out.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Yeah, exactly. And and uh squirting their cocktails out of their nostrils, you know. So but but it was it was a lot of fun, you know, and um um uh I don't know. It it it um it was real interesting because a lot of the people that worked at the time machine were people that were affiliated with Keyflo Turtle and that were affiliated with Samoa later on, and uh and then uh uh many of the members uh became the the musical band that that uh that we had, the number two dinners. I mean, right uh it was it was pretty pretty interesting uh how cohesive kind of things stayed and and uh morphed a bit, but then kind of you know lost people and added people. And um, but it was it was kind of interesting how how how closely knit we were for about 10 years while all of this was going on.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

Well, what was I thought was extremely interesting was that uh here you had a German conservative family, Jim Haslocher. Oh, yeah. And he and at that time he owned probably more than 20 Jim's coffee shops, which were like notorious. Like everybody wanted a Jim's coffee shop in another city in Texas, but it primarily stayed there, maybe went to Austin. Maybe one.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Well, they had frontier hamburgers also, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:31

And that was the beginning because he would sell watermelon slices in Breckenridge Park and then open up Frontier Burger. But they would be, you know, Jim and Viva Haslocker. Yeah. And you know, everybody would, it was interesting because as conservative as they were, as many business associates as they brought in, you could just you'd wonder how far you could go with the joke, and they seem to hang in there, and they seem to like let it run. I mean, I never remember Jim ever going to Neil Miller or Kurt Fonstiel or Tom Stark or any of those managers and going, like, uh, you know, that joke that George told, um, maybe we should cut it back a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

I don't think they heard most of them, but that's okay. You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

No, it was um it was uh uh they were the most unlikely people that I would have ever met. Yeah, San Antonio business community.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Yeah, you would you would never think that they would be behind the the crazy magic time machine where the waiters uh dressed around in costumes and sang and entertained people. It was so far removed from from uh the gym's coffee shops and the frontier burgers.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

And a men's and a men's bathroom that had Playboy centerfalls plastered all over the walls. Oh, that's right. I forgot all about that.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

And there was no redacting anything in those centerfalls, yeah, yeah. And and like every like you know, 11-year-old kid was asking his mom, you know, can I go to the bathroom? Because they had told one of their buddies to another, to another, and could you take my son to the bathroom? Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Yeah. When daddy went, it was going, you could never go to the bathroom again. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

But daddy was in their longer. It was fun and it was kind of uh amazing how how uh protective we were with the house lockers. I remember there was one evening where some some some old redneck guy was really drunk. You know, that was the problem. It was like it was so popular that people went into the to the bar disco area for hours to get a table. And by the time they came to the table, they were drunk as shit. You know? I mean, they were just wiped out. And I remember this one guy, we had to kind of get their food right away and then be like, you know, cut the comedy there, Batman. Bring me my damn food, you know. And um, but I remember this one guy uh was really upset, and and Jim Haslocker actually was there that evening, and he he walked up to the table and said, Oh, you know, good evening. I'm your host, Jim Haslocker. And and the guy said, uh, listen here, ass licker, you know, I don't I don't care who the hell you are. And and we we all heard that and we kind of rallied around Mr. Haslocker and and uh um uh we were really ready to just beat the crap out of this guy, you know. And but he he um he uh de-escalated it and was very kind and kind of comped the guy's dinner, which he shouldn't have. The guy was just a complete asshole. Right, you know, but I never I'll never forget you know, he we when he uh Jim introduced himself as Hasslocker and the guy said, listen here, ass licker. We all just we we almost started laughing, but it was it was such a tense situation, you know. And Kip, you know, and Kip was there, and Kip was a huge guy. Oh, yeah, you know, and Kip was just ready to tear that guy's head off, you know. Yeah. And um, but uh, but yeah, it was um it was a lot of fun until it wasn't, you know. Right. So you know, it's like as as with everything. It just kind of ran its course, at least for me. And and uh and then I I I got my scholarship to go to the University of Chicago. So I I left in 79. And um uh but it was it was just a lot of fun, a lot of a lot of crazy good times.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

Well, that's a good jumping off point. So you you go to Chicago, yeah you get your scholarship, and what are you studying, and what degree did you get there, and like how long were you there?

SPEAKER_00 16:44

I got my MFA, I got my master's degree as if art can be mastered, but uh I I um I thought because I went to UTSA, I went to Southwest Texas for a while, and then I dropped out, broke up with my girlfriend. I was brokenhearted, blah blah blah. I just dropped. I literally just stopped going. I got all incomplete. It was so stupid. I had to go back to when I went back to college. I tried to apply to Trinity, but my my grade average was so horrible because I had just dropped out of Southwest Texas and got all incompletes and F's and all the courses.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Well, it wasn't that your GPA was horrible, it's just that your bank account didn't have enough money, or Trinity would have accepted you.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Yeah, probably. Yeah, I think it was both. And um, but uh but looking back on it was fine because I I uh UTSA had just started up, I think a few years prior to that. It was brand new. There were like maybe three buildings out there at the time. It was, you know, and the art department was one of them. And so they had a great art department and uh met Ron Cohen and uh David Story, who who we showed at uh at Samoa. We showed uh Ron Cohen at Samoa. We we showed a number of the professors at uh at SAC and and uh Trinity and uh um uh UTSA at Samoa.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

Hey, didn't Ron have that house up on that hill where Fiesta, Texas is when he was teaching there, and it was it was like a little windy road. He had a small house up there in the you know the oak trees. And because I remember going to a party up there, man. What a great fucking party that was.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Yeah, yeah. Uh Ron was Ron Ron was very instrumental. He's a great guy, great artist. He had two shows at Sumoma, right? And um uh and uh just fantastic show. He opened Sumoma actually with uh with uh he had all these different radios in paper bags. I remember that. Yeah, he he was doing artworks. He used to show at the Bikert Gallery here in New York in the in the uh late 60s and early 70s, and then he left and came came to to San Antonio. Um but um uh he you know he was kind of he was a conceptualist, so he and he was doing works about nothing. Kind of he was doing these artworks about nothing. And and then he wanted to do an artwork about everything. So so the piece that he did at the at Sumoma, the first show, that he had uh radios turned on full blast and inside paper bags, and there were probably about 15 of them, and they were all turned to different channels. So it was just a cacophony of noise. It was so loud, and and you had to like scream in order to talk. Right. Uh and it was a really interesting opening, and it was great. And um, and then uh uh towards the end, uh Don and I went over to the bank of of uh light switches, and we you know we screamed quiet and then we hit the hit the light switches and and it turned off all the radio, so it was just and everyone just stopped talking and it got really quiet. And then everyone looked at and then everyone just broke out in the in applause because it was such a it was such a incredibly interesting moment. It was it was just such a it was a such a uh uh uh uh a bank of noise and suddenly it was just gone. Right, you know, and it was it was really interesting. That was a that was a fantastic opening. Uh you know, absolutely loved it, you know. Ron was very instrumental in getting me to Chicago. And uh he said, You get George, what are you doing in San Antonio? Come on, you gotta, you gotta you gotta you gotta spread your wings a little bit, you need to grow, and you're not gonna be able to do it in San Antonio, and I can get you a scholarship, and blah, blah, blah. You know, so so anyway, I applied, I got a scholarship, and then, you know, I you know, Don, I remember Don saying, Well, you know, you're gonna you're never gonna come back. And I said, No, I'm gonna come back. Because originally it was gonna be like, you know, you you leave your village and you enter the jungle, you know, and you learn the ways of the jungle, you know, you learn how to, you know, stay alive, you learn how to uh uh uh fight the tiger or whatever, you know, the arm wrestle the gorilla, you know, and and and once you obtain all that knowledge, then you go back to the village and you share your your knowledge with with your you know fellow you know tribesmen. Yeah, with your tribe. Yeah, you you you you you you share your n your knowledge with the tribe, and that was the plan. But you know, uh as it you know, Don Don probably was right when he said that well, you know, you're just gonna you'll fall into another tribe and and um and then you'll just you'll just go from there. And he was pretty much right. Um about that. And um, but I mean I s I continued to keep my roots in San Antonio. I would I would come back pretty often. Uh I was still in the number two dinners for a while, but then that just kind of petered out after a while. And I just I just didn't really, you know, I I was really more interested in pursuing my art career than than um pursuing music. Right. And I think at that time uh uh Don and Norman were kind of more interested, although they continued, of course, with their art career, especially Don. Um he was always making art and always doing everything. And uh uh, but they they were kind of more interested in in pursuing the the music end of things, you know. And then they went on to form a couple other bands, like electronic bands like uh Batteries Not Included and El Even.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

You uh go get your MFA, yeah. And Don's pretty much correct on you know, you you probably never gonna come back, you just beat another tribe and move on. So you go from there. How did you go from there?

SPEAKER_00 23:08

Well it wasn't it wasn't quite it wasn't quite that, but I mean, you know, I I did uh you know, as I said, I did kind of keep coming back and forth. But you know, I met I met Michelle there, who I've been married to for over 40 years, and we were we've been together about 45 years. So, so you know I I started my life with Michelle there, you know, and then I then I got a job working at the Museum of Contemporary Art. I was a guard for a while for the Judy Chicago dinner party, which is actually permanently on display here at the Brooklyn Museum, oddly enough. I can't seem to get away from it. And um uh but um but yeah, uh worked at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and then I I got a job uh with the Tony Shafrazi gallery. I I worked uh an art fair, it was called Navy Pier, and I and I they they just happened to call the museum, and I I was there, and my boss said, Hey George, you want to work for a gallery in New York for the art fair? And I was like, Who? And they said Tony Shafrazzi gallery. Well, back in '84, I'd never heard of the Tony Shafrazi gallery. So I went to the library, did some research, and it was like, oh man, they show they show Keith Herring and Andy Warhol and uh Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Sharp and Dougle Bachelor, and they had the Francis Bacon Estate. It's like, oh no, they sound like a really cool gallery. I didn't want to work for some, you know, six-generation abstract expressionist uh gallery from Florida or something. I'd be bored out of my butt but this was you know, they they were very uh interesting, very um uh, you know, of the times uh gallery. And and it was a you know uh an 80s gallery, you know. I mean, Keith Herring, he had you know the epitome of the 80s, Keith Herring, you know, and uh and he was a good friend of mine, and I knew Jean-Michel Basquiat as well. Um uh he gave me a really nice drawing that I still have, and Keith Herring was very generous, did a drawing on a hundred dollar bill and gave it to me as a Christmas present. And you know, that was one of the perks of working in an art gallery is getting to know the artists and and get to um uh learn from them and also be mentored by them, but also be part of their tribe. And and on, you know, and we would uh exchange artworks. They really loved my silly putty work when I was doing my work with silly putty, and uh so anyway.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

So like even Dennis Hopper had had his work there, right? His first one. Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

Dennis Hopper, yeah. Uh uh Tony, the owner of the gallery, was very good friends with Dennis and was his uh best man at two of his weddings. And uh the the running joke was that if if Dennis um uh remained alive, that uh Tony would probably be uh his best man for the third and fourth wedding. You know, but uh but you know no, Dennis was great. He's a very sweet man. I liked him. I like Dennis a lot. He was he was uh um a good artist, good photographer, you know, and um that was the peak, that was the peak time of New York between discotheques, Mary Lawrence.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

You know, I was working for Braniv, Her and Harding, Halston, you know, running the airline, operating the whole look and the whole feel. Yeah. A lot of movement going in and out of New York. Uh I remember when Kathy and I went up to visit, we went over and and and visited with you there at the gallery. And I mean, when you roll off the names of that time, period, I mean, that was just like that would be like working at a dance studio and having, you know, Borishakoff, you know, as being like one of the guys that's always there, or Alexander Gudnov. You know, at that time, like everybody who was at the top of their game in music, dance, art, theater, Gregory Hines. I remember meeting him, seeing him. I mean, like, that was like the caviar of the American society and the global society in New York at one big smooth pulse. I mean, it was it was hard not to be anywhere in New York and not be around cool, attractive, intelligent people.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Yeah, yeah. It was um, it was a very interesting time.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

And uh and you land there. I mean, so you end up being at Tony's gallery. I think you guys moved once, right? Did you guys move from one location to another?

SPEAKER_00 27:44

Uh no, we moved uh the original location was at 163 Mercer, and then we and then we moved around the corner to 130 Prince, and then we moved to one nine, and then we moved uh to the other corner, and that was uh 119 Wooster, and then we moved to Chelsea to over to 26th Street. So when I was with Tony, we moved four different times. Crazy. You know, and that that was so so hard to move a gallery and all the art, and oh my god, it was such such a lot of such work. But it was great at the same time, it was it was really fascinating. And and because we were showing people like Keith Heron and Jean-Michel Bascal in Warhol, uh, we showed Picasso a number of times, and uh we had Dennis Hopper, we showed uh David La Chapelle, um uh you know uh it just kind of goes on and on, Kenny Sharf.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Um who was walking in off the street to come into the gallery and say, Yeah, I heard Frank Beard stuff's up right now. I mean, like who would walk in there that you would just kind of walk them through the gallery with QA or or meet them that you know it's interesting? Like who who popped in, you know?

SPEAKER_00 28:58

Well, I mean, everyone popped in. I mean, I I met so many people. I mean, I mean, because the work that we were that we were showing um was was really kind of cutting edge of the time. And and um, but it was it was the the rich and the famous, you know, because they had the money and the culture and the taste to buy art. Uh, you know, but it was a lot of musicians. I mean, like Mick Jagger and Anthony Keatis and Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Leonardo DiCaprio would come in a lot. He was a big art collector. His dad, George DiCaprio, did underground comics. He did uh cocaine comics, which I think is really funny in the early 70s. Yeah, yeah, no, typical. And um uh Leonardo DiCaprio's mother was a photographer as well. But uh, you know, Elton Sir Elton John, uh um uh, you know, David Bowie uh came in. Really, really nice man. Uh Mick Jagger, eh, not so much. He was kind of you know reserved and kind of didn't want to deal with anyone other than Tony and that. But you know, the one time that was really interesting was when Paul McCartney came in. And it was right after Linda McCartney had passed away. And um uh and Linda was from New York. It was her name was Linda Eastman, right? Eastman Kodak. No, it wasn't he she wasn't the Eastman Kodak. Um it a lot of people think that because she was a photographer, but uh she wasn't. Her brother John Eastman was a lawyer that um worked a lot with artists. I think he was uh Willem DeConing's art uh lawyer. Uh he was also Paul McCartney's uh lawyer, uh, you know, through Linda. Maybe that's how he met Linda, I'm not sure. But I remember Linda, okay, Linda, Paul and Linda had a a farm upstate. Right. And um one of our artists was really good friends with with Paul McCartney and Linda, and uh he designed sets for wings, and his his name was um Brian Clark, and he was an English artist. Uh uh Tony Shaprazi, the owner of the gallery, went to school in London. He was educated in London, so he had a lot of English connections. And um, so uh when uh Linda uh McCartney died, uh uh uh Brian Clark did this. He was a he was a uh a painter, but he also worked a lot with stained glass, but kind of monumental, like architectonic stained glass, like stained glass that would be you know uh on the side of a skyscraper or something like that. I mean, just just monumental bands of glass and that stuff. And then he would incorporate photography, and it was kind of really state of the art. It wasn't like wasn't like Tiffany's stained glass with little tiny pieces. These were like gigantic big sheets of glass. Yeah. And he would incorporate uh Linda McCartney's photography in the work a lot. And uh anyway, so he he did a piece in honor of uh Linda McCartney, and then Paul McCartney was in town for her memorial service, and then he came by the gallery to see the um to see uh Brian Clark's piece on Linda, and it was beautiful. It was this it's called uh Running Wall, and the uh Corning Museum here in New York purchased it uh as part of their permanent collection. So if you ever go to the Corning Museum, you can see this uh uh piece on display. It's called Running Wall. It's like 15 feet high and 75 feet long. You see seven different panels of glass, and right in the center of them have this very abstract um flower, and it was a lily of the valley, which was Linda McCartney's favorite flower. And and anyway, so before Paul McCartney came to the gallery, he went to their farm and dug up a few of Linda's uh lilies on the valley plants and gave them, gave them to us at the gallery when he showed up. Um and everyone gave them to me because they know that right next to my house here in Brooklyn, there's the it's the oldest community garden in Brooklyn. It's called Annie's Garden, and I take care of it. I've been taking care of it for the last 35 years. I love to garden as well. And um, so I I everyone gave me those lilies of the valley from Paul McCartney, and and then I planted them in the garden, and they have just proliferated. They're kind of bully plants. They they kind of take over. A lot of gardeners don't like them, but I was like, fuck that. This these these are from Paul McCartney. You know, take over. I don't care. Yeah. It was like an afterlife.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Uh absolutely to the city of New York.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

Yeah, and they're in bloom right now. So you have these little beautiful little white flowers uh all throughout the garden right now, and they're really quite lovely. Uh, if anyone gets the chance to go to Brooklyn and come by uh Union Street between Fourth and Fifth Avenue, there's Annie's garden right there. You can see it. That's and I'll probably be sitting in there. I'll say I'll say hi to you. You know? Wow. And uh my house is right next door, and I always uh have uh my house used to be a funeral parlor a hundred years ago. And so it had the they took the stoop off, which is the steps right um you know going up. Uh and uh stoop, it's an old Dutch term, means steps, you know, stoop. And so, but uh that it it was removed and kind of an addition on the front of our house was built. I it looks like a castle. I call it my fortress of solitude, like Superman's fortress of solitude. And uh, but I like it. The old timer said there used to be caskets on display up up above on on the roof, yeah. And then I think the bodies were on were on uh display. And I said, Oh yeah, I should I should do that for Christmas, you know. Put put some caskets up there. And um they said, Don't you mean Halloween? And I went, no, Christmas. So uh Yeah, yeah. Get your holidays straight, man. Yeah, Halloween, that's too obvious. It's too obvious. Yeah, Christmas. So um, but uh uh but yeah, I the because the front of our house has that weird addition uh on it, uh uh it has these big uh plate glass windows, and I always have uh some of my art on display in the in the front window of our house uh all the time. So it's uh mostly my posters that I make. I make these posters. And um right now the poster it says um it's nice out. I think I'll keep it out. So that's the uh that's the poster that's out there right now. People are always stopping and taking pictures. Uh Satan is happy with your progress is another poster that people love. That's a good one. And uh I can't remember what I did tomorrow is a good one. And one of my favorite recent ones is is uh it came out of an old Mutt and Jeff comic, and it said, um, the more you know, the more you forget, and the more you forget, the less you know. So the less you know, the less you forget, and the less you forget, the more you know. Yeah. Sounds like uh sounds like magas, magas speak to me, you know. You know, yeah. It's it's it's it's it's great to be ignorant, you know. So yeah. And destroy the world at the same time.

unknown 36:41

God.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Yeah. Oh my goodness. So that's but but but that's kind of neat because it's it's uh people people uh that come by and and go to Annie's garden can also see some of my art as well. So that's uh it's kind of uh I I like the the fact of putting the posters out on the street and kind of giving passerbys a an aesthetic experience, what whether they want it or not. And that really kind of came that really kind of came from uh Keith Herring, you know, where in the in the early 80s, Keith Herring would go down to the subway and do his chalk drawings on the on the uh black uh billboards. It's like when you when you ran out of time, they would just put black paper and they kind of looked like chalkboards. So Keith Herring would start doing chalk drawings. Oh, he became very famous for that. Um but you know, in the early 80s, the subways were so dirty and you know, just kind of scary, you know, kind of ominous. And and and but but to be able to go down there and and see one of Keith Herring's drawings was just, you know, it was so uplifting and and and such a wonderful experience that I just thought, well, I I love that that fact of kind of just putting your art out into the public. Yeah, opens your eyes like free art. You know, it's not really it's not it's not really graffiti, uh although Keith got arrested a couple of times for for doing that because it's he's he's putting marks on on you know public uh you know pop public or private property. Uh, but it's like it's chalk, give me a break, and you know, and eventually the police left him alone. But but it's it's kind of that same um you know, that same uh venue of of of just putting your art out into the street, you know?

SPEAKER_02 38:37

Yeah, just throwing it out there and let's see what the response is gonna be. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 38:42

Or you know, and it's it's usually it's usually positive. People are always stopping in front of our house and taking pictures, or if I'm sitting out there, they start and talk and oh, you the one who's been putting those posters up for the last 30 years in front of your house, and yeah, that's me. And oh, I was always wanted to meet you, or or it's like, well, you're an idiot, or something. You know, I did have somebody write uh fuck you right in front of my house once, you know. So you know, and I was like, really? Okay, whatever. You know, did you leave it on there? Yeah, pretty much. Well, I think it was it was one, it was the it was the poster in the window, and I think somebody got upset. And it it said, um uh I was in bed with a blind girl, and she said I had the largest penis she ever felt, and I said, Oh, you're pulling my leg. And I I think somebody somebody got really upset about that, you know. Is it was it the blind girl? Was it the the word penis? Whatever. Was it leg? Yeah, was it leg, you know, and I and I thought, well, maybe maybe it it has to do with uh being in bed with a blind girl. So I I actually made another poster and I said I I was in bed with a blind guy. I was in bed with a blind boy, and and he said uh had the largest penis. Uh and I said, Oh, you're pulling my leg. And and then nothing, no, you know. No response. So I was sort of like, okay, well, do the blind error. Yeah, I guess it was the blind girl. I don't know. Nobody had a problem with me having sex with a blind guy with that blind girl.

SPEAKER_02 40:23

And all the blind women are going, when is somebody gonna have sex with me?

SPEAKER_00 40:30

I just did. Yeah, I and I'm done.

SPEAKER_02 40:33

Yeah, everybody gets it. Hey, so before we close, tell us about um you showing your art in galleries in New York. Because you have one now, but you've shown around New York. You know, I mean, oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

I mean, the whole time I was working at the gallery, I I was, you know, I always maintained my my uh identity as an artist as well. I was not only the guy who worked at the gallery, but I was a I was an artist uh myself. And I Tony actually even let me exhibit at the Tony Shafrazy gallery once. Uh I did uh like a double uh silly putty uh painting there that was that was fantastic, you know. And um uh but um yeah, I mean it's it's it's it's it was always a little difficult. It was kind of uh uh caught between two worlds, uh trying to be an artist and working for a gallery and uh with that showed you know Picasso and Keith Herring and uh Jean-Michel Basquiat. It's like, well, I'm an artist too. You know, it's like oh god, you know. Why can't I be up there with them? You know, and uh no, but I was. I mean that's that's what it was, you know, kind of kind of kept you humble in a in a weird sort of way. But also it was a great learning experience, and and um and it just it it just kind of kept things in perspective and and and uh you know and it just continued to inspire me to continue to be an artist. Um, you know, I'm I'm I'm sitting here at and talking to you and I'm I'm working on a painting right now, you know. So it's um it's it's great. And and and the fact that so many of these people are are are dead now, like Keith Herring's dead, Warhol's dead, Picasso's dead, uh Francis Bacon is dead, Dennis Hopper is dead, Donald Bachelor is dead. I mean it's just like so many of the artists that we represented are are gone.

SPEAKER_02 42:39

You know? That window got small, you know, it was huge, but when it closed, it closed with a lot of significant.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

It seemed like it. You know, I mean, I mean, there's plenty of artists, and and and there's always artists that are coming and going, and and uh you know, plenty, plenty of great artists that are still making art and still around. But I just you know, and and and our dear friend, you know, Don Evans, you know, passed away. So many, so many great artists in San Antonio passed away. I mean, uh Gene Elder, uh Jim Harter, John Rogers, uh Don Evans. Uh uh this is well, this is gonna, I don't know if you had I don't want to get morbid or anything, but it's like damn, you know.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

Yeah, I I don't know if you if you had this opportunity. I did. I did my best to get the acquisition of Don's cell phone. Don would do this incredible, incredible art pieces on his cell phone, drawing with his fingers and with the back end of you know, pens with pin caps. Oh yeah. And his work was unbelievable. I mean, so like he lashed into I want to consider him one of the first digital artists. Using that platform. Okay. He wasn't going off and using an Adobe. He wasn't going off and using some artist software. He was actually implementing it with the palette that the Apple phone had. And when I was looking at these works that he had, and then he passed, and then I asked him, Yeah, you got around somewhere, Chick. I reached out a couple of years ago in Bay and reached out to Joe and said, Hey Joe. Like he fell around, yeah, you know, once in a while should show somewhere. Well, I mean I need to get Don's phone because I wanted to publish his works off that phone. And I mean they were incredibly powerful. I I considered some of his best.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

I have a lot of them uh on my phone uh because um I I remember well the the uh that show that we had at Texas Pop, I kind of surprised Don and I printed a bunch of them up and gave them to him. Okay and and uh and uh so no he's fantastic. I mean I mean Don was always such an incredible artist anyway to kind of whatever whatever uh medium he he uh he would do uh really great uh uh work on and I I particularly love the uh uh his his uh phone phone art. Yeah just fantastic. And I'm glad I do have quite a bit of it. I think it would be a great thing to to publish. I I I uh you know, I I as you know, you know, I I published a book on Don, yeah, and and uh self self-published it, and then uh Joe Joe helped and my friend Renee um Paris uh helped put this book together on Don, which is a I I think just a fantastic book. It was kind of really uh my personal collection of of Don's work.

SPEAKER_02 46:02

And um I got a copy of it upstairs in my living room.

SPEAKER_00 46:06

Oh yeah, yeah, that's great. I know it's it's it's so it's so much fun to just pull uh out and and look at. And uh I just um I was absolutely heartbroken when when Don passed away suddenly uh a few years ago. And it was it was uh quite a quite a shock to everyone, and I'm still reeling from it. And um, but um yeah, I just wish he was he was still around that we he could participate in this uh in this talk. He's uh he's quite uh quite the character.

SPEAKER_02 46:38

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

Well, dear.

SPEAKER_02 46:41

He may be able to be a part of that, and I won't disclose to the audience a project that I'm working on in association with you. But I'd like to wrap it up here. I want the I want the audience that listens to Down an SA, whether you are from San Antonio, South Texas, or from around the world that is just visiting San Antonio or begin to migrate and live there. Um you've been with uh with artist George Hornet and myself, the cool kids getting the inside of the inside to know that while we were, you know, lived there, grew up there, went out to find other tribes, or tribes discovered us at some point in some time. What made San Antonio in part what it is today and its early creation has been all a part of people like George Horner. So thank you for being with us. All the best, and um we'll visit again here in the near future. Sounds good. All right, take care, everybody.

SPEAKER_03 47:38

Peace, and then we'll get to the night, feel it's great.