There’s something about San Jose that is very beige. Jon Brumit’s South Bay Talent Center – part of San Jose’s Who’s on 1st public art program I had the pleasure of performing in – is not one of them, however.
It was my intention to present a solo ten minute version of the American Pied piece that I debuted at the Boise Experimental Festival (as a 30 minute conducted group improvisation). It met with limited success, but a super-cool spinet wurlitzer organ onstage saved the day, was incorporated into an old ICS song, The Day I Learned to Sell and, despite my rustiness on the keys, went over quite well.
Other talent demonstrations included a gal who spun yarn from her cat’s hair, a very interesting homeless guy named Red who played a penny whistle and told stories and a gal who held a headstand for 3 minutes – with whom I later collaborated on a sound piece as she played a contact mic with her head in a headstand. You know, Art.
However, the real fun started after the gig. We were joined by a few more friends and found ourselves at the Global Village Vietnamese vegetarian restaurant. Things quickly took on David Lynch overtones with curious menu items such as sizzings disk, grilled.com.veg.beef (which I ordered), several that were listed as being out of order and a very hands-on waiter/owner/husband and cook/wife team. The food was delicious, the company grand and the table conversation lively. We blew passed the time to go catch Batman – The Dark Knight at a real drive-in, paid our incredible $45 bill for eight people and hit Beige-town instead.
Highlights included visits to the Cesar Chavez public fountain sign pictured above, a lovely physics/sound exhibit that would have made Rube Goldberg happy, some not so great ‘Who’s on 1st’ public art exhibits and ended back at the Talent Center for an after hours jam. Things got pretty nutty and included some subtle work by the maestro himself (see vid). Fortunately, the San Jose Saturday night revelers walking by on the main drag paid us no mind. Ah yes. So very beige.