Perverse Preachers, Fascist Fundamentalists and Kristian Kiddie Kooks The booklet 1992

Your Zontar Editor sloged through a video hellscape to amass this chilling and befuddling compilation. Here is the original photocopy booklet that accompanied the VHS tape.

See it here:

 

My adventure with Wildman Fischer

Wildman Fischer was my house guest.

In 1987 I was an Artist in Residence at the Massachusetts College of Art.

One day at Mass Art,  I  found myself in another planning meeting for "Eventworks" a Performance and New Music Festival (I'd been involved for some years, bringing The Church of the SubGenius to Mass Art as the Boston Bob-a-lon. I also produced two performances by legendary Boston Psychedelic Punk band "The Girls").

Laurie McKenna was in charge of the festival that year and was in the pre-planning stage. We were talking about contacting the talent when she mentioned Larry Fischer, and as I was the only other person in the room  who knew his work, I expressed an interest in working on this performance. Accommodations needed to be made, so Laurie had planned to have Larry stay at her Boston apartment... but this was not to be.

That year Eventworks also featured  Under-Ground
Filmmaker Jack (Flaming Creatures) Smith. 

I had some knowledge of the ordeal involved in hosting Mr. Smith, as I had witnessed an acquaintance's experience some years earlier.  Since it was the late 1970's Jack required a constant flow of Guinness Stout and cocaine, this meant he also needed  someone to lead him  from place to place.. I shared this information but Cassandra-like it went unheeded. Not surprisingly, Laurie decided that one high maintenance house guest was enough of an adventure and would not be hosting another.

So it fell on me to welcome Larry into the Zontar compound. We were still publishing the Magazine then but one of the Editors had moved to Western Mass to pursue an academic career, so luckily we had an empty bedroom.

Wildman Fisher didn't fly so he took the train from LA to Boston. I met him at South Station and was immediately struck by his warmth as well as the contradictions and energy of this person.  I was
already familiar with the symptoms of Bi-Polar Illness but Larry at this point in his life was experiencing mood swings every hour. This most likely was made worse by his nervousness anticipating his first and it turned out only East Coast performance.

I slept little over the next five days and Larry slept even less. Over the course of an hour he would swing from manic euphoria to paranoid depression. Larry had just recorded "It's a tough business" with
Rosemary Clooney, so in his high points he would speculate "What's next, a duo with Sinatra?" In his low points he would rage that Zappa had cheated him and was trying to kill him. In the space between the extremes the real Larry existed, an open insightful individual that has made his recordings loved to those in the know.

It fell on me to help Larry get through the highs and lows and to deliver a performance. Larry's anxiety was extreme. He was constantly threatening to bolt back to LA.  One evening we got a call from "Art Barnes" of Barnes & Barnes, who produced Larry's later albums checking in on him. This was of course Bill Mumy, but at this time it was not widely known. We knew but choose to play along. For a few days  all three of the founding editors of Zontar Magazine were able to enjoy the company of this unique  artist.

The performance was almost anti-climatic. Loose and chaotic, Larry none the less pleased the audience. I ran the theater soundboard and from there I continued my encouragement, (for instance advising Larry
not to play his recorded Rosemary Clooney collaboration a fourth time.)

The school wanted to video tape the show but, no matter what I tried, he refused to perform
with the camera recording . I did make a recording off of the soundboard but Larry made me sign a paper that I would never copy it, and I never have.

For several months after his return to LA, I received collect calls at 3 AM from Larry, checking in.

Frank Gorshin at Ho Jos

My mom was a waitress at the Howard Johnson's just off the highway leading into Lowell Mass.  One day in the late 60's Frank Gorshin stayed at the motel component while touring.  She told me she met the person who travels with him to "keep him from running naked through the halls."   Was his manic acting style rooted in a chemical imbalance?  Somewhere I still have a Ho-Jos place mat with Gorshin's signature. 

The week I worked for Sun Ra

It was sometime between 1980 and 1983 and I was between my two stints at Massachusetts College of Art. I was thrilled to discover that Sun Ra had a five day performance planned for the Longwood Theater, the very stage that I had spent many hours doing every job from lighting to acting to producing.

Arriving very early the first day of the performance I found Sun Ra and his Arkestra alone in the theater without a single representative of the College to be found. John Gilmore and Marshall Allen were desperately searching for things like light switches.  Luckily for all involved I knew the space like (what ever cliche inserted here). I made a few quick phone calls to my pals and easily had a staff willing to work for comp tickets. My friends sold and took tickets and did lights gladly and I played supervisor.

Not only did I get a front row seat for three of the shows, I had to work during two of the shows, but I was rewarded with a private audience with Sun Ra back stage.  He gave me his personal thanks and signed my freshly purchased Saturn Records copy of "I pharaoh".

First informing me that it was their last copy of the album and then regaling me with an epic vision of what I was to experience upon listening to the vinyl.

"You will be transported to ancient times and see other worlds..."

To this day I have no idea who could have scheduled this astounding event and not showed up, but I am quite grateful to them.

Christmas Mass at Mass Mental

In 1979 I was working my first job in the in field of Psychiatry at a place that was both a Harvard Teaching and Massachusetts State Mental Hospital.   Massachusetts Mental Heath Center  known simply as Mass Mental was a few blocks away from both my apartment and Mass Art., the school where I had just spent the last few years.

Repeated viewings of films such as "The Snake Pit" and "Shock Corridor" did not prepare me for the reality of such a place.
Rodents and cockroaches, crumbling walls and shortages of things like towels were an everyday experience. Violent attacks and worse were common.

To continue the film metaphors,  the melodramatic tableau of Christmas Mass at Mass Mental was a cross between Luis Buñuel and Fellini.

I led my charges to the little used and ill maintained chapel in the bowels of the building.
At the decaying pulpit was a slovenly priest, his red bleary eyes barely open, the stench of alcohol plain across the room. The mumbling Mass was hardly discernible above the babbling Bedlam of the parishioners. Into this cinematic vision strode a little man parting the crowd like the Red Sea.  Though he was small of stature his visual impact was impressive .The haunted other worldly look combined with  his hospital robe, long dirty blond hair and beard, gave the impression of a renaissance painting of the Son o' God, - interpreted by a Surrealist.

Sudden manic laughter drew my attention to a corner.
A wild eyed man taunted his attendant.
"Swallow that!", demanded the exasperated Mental Health Worker.
There on the end of a waggling tongue that would make a heavy metal guitarist proud was a communion host.

I have racked up about 30 years now in the strange world of Psychiatry, and oh, the many things these weary eyes have seen.