Profile

Bloomsday New York

(Photo: Ann Weathersby)

Andy Friedman
Artist and performer, 29; married; lives in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

The voice of Howard Stern. Nine o’clock and no dread yet. Two-plus years as a touring artist, a “slide-show poet” whose art has moved from gallery walls onto rock-club stages and low-lit taverns via a slide-show performance—and now time to finish new work. The draw-ing waiting for me on the easel. The wife Tara gone already, her school-day social work begun. No rushing: Stick to the rituals, stay loose, warm up like an athlete.

First thing is reading: Pick up the Skip James biography, although it’s not the preferred choice. Left the Andy Kaufman book in the Catskills. Trying not to think too hard about the drawing. Gotta check the e-mail because no bookings, no money. Hate the e-mail, feel like a junkie. Need an agent, a manager. There’s one good mes-sage: Some Colorado guy bought my book off the Website. Collection of my work—writing and drawings.

The ringing phone while packing up the book. Tara, to say hello. Look at the photo of her on the fridge while talking, a family-reunion shot from before we met. Wonder what Tara was like then. Ask her about it, her different hair. When are we gonna have a kid not mentioned. Both of us thinking about that, sometimes talking. Soon maybe. Grew my sideburns long for the wedding just so our future kids would laugh at their parents’ wedding photos.

Heading outside. Sending myself through the mail: Andy Friedman, the maverick visual artist—invite him to come and play in your town. He goes to bars and music clubs, gets onstage, shows his pictures on a science-class projector screen. Kind of performance art, kind of a reading—it’s a new something. Painter with lyrics, pictures and words that come together in a rambling, country-blues-rock-and-roll-cabaret spoken song. (But no music.) When will the Times write about me the punks. Down four flights onto St. Marks Avenue. Nod to the stroke-victim guy with a million cigarettes at his feet. “Hey, champ,” in reply.

Back home: starting to think about the drawing a bit, and what albums to play while working. First new drawings in three years, shit. Turn on NPR and hear Brian Lehrer. Always about the war. Is he a pink-faced white man in a sweater? Boil the water for the green tea, the Cream of Wheat—the kid on the box a dead ringer for Speiser, a friend from second grade.

Brush my teeth: Sour mouthtaste would distract me. Take the taped piece of paper off the drawing: a pen and pencil of a man stubbing out a cigarette in a plant bed. Extremely detailed work: Spent last week on the shadow behind the head. Two weeks on the hair. Put in “Love and Theft,” Swordfishtrombones, and Bryter Layter. Sony headphones over the ears. Hit play, and then light the candle. It’s gotta work in the first five minutes. Stare at the man’s arm. Pick up the pencil—a Ticonderoga Extra Soft No. 1. Sharpen the pencil with the razor. Three strokes. Re-sharpen. Three strokes. Re-sharpen. I’m in the arm. I’m falling into the picture. I’m gone.

Hours pass. Sense of hunger, smell of hot wax. I’m out of the picture. The candle snuffed out on its own. A signal that the working time is done. Has that happened before, all timed perfect like that? Cover the drawing on the easel. Brew coffee. Find the vein: Go and check e-mail. Take off shorts and T-shirt, and put on pants, plaid shirt, and a straw hat.

Walk to Vanderbilt Avenue. The neighborhood triple crown achieved years ago—Freddy’s bar, Vanderbilt Laundromat, diner called The Usual, all know Andy, say hello Andy, and no reason to leave ever really. Order a bacon burger deluxe with fries at The Usual. A few burger bites while watching the Twins game on television. Three days of no shaving: not depressed enough yet.

Home again and the ritual of falling back into the picture, except now it’s Jackson Browne’s Late for the Sky and Lucinda Williams’s Sweet Old World in the CD player. No point working after nine o’clock anyway. Sit down on the couch and join Tara in the middle of a Sex and the City. The girls are in L.A.

Tara gets a phone call, and now it’s a no-man’s land for me. E-mail-addict thing creeping up. Find the vein: Go and check. Oberlin offers a November date to come out and perform, another pin to put in the map. Mississippi John Hurt recorded a live record there, maybe I’ll do the same. Find a slice from nearby Gino’s pizza in the fridge. Tara says, “You’re microwaving that?” And I say, “That’s the way I grew up.” Long Island pride.

Friends from Atlanta phone up and say they’re here and can I come out for a beer? Then another call and they’ve ended up in Clinton Hill. Too late to go. Turn out all the lights and recede to the back room. Look through the book of Ingres drawings, and admire his untortured lines. Go back into the studio, uncover the drawing for a look. Different from the others but satisfying.

Midnight and a peek in at the sleeping wife. Turn on the TV to Blind Date. Dread leaving, body relaxing. The girl is a really hot Russian model. Put my hand on my head when her geeky date grabs her—“Vhat are you doing that for!” TV off and the burbling Brooklyn sounds. In bed with Skip James bio and the book-lite attached. The batteries are weakening. The pages turn yellow and then brownish-orange. The light fades, then dies. Twice today, all perfect-timed like that. —Michael Agger