Monthly Statement:
January 2006

OBJECT #18
DATE SENT: January 31, 2006
SENT TO: Joe Jackson
SENT VIA: US Postal Service
DESCRIPTION OF OBJECT: Blue and red tin kazoo. 4 3/4” x 1/2” x 3/4” (wide end); shaft of kazoo tapers to 3/8” (narrow end). A screw cap with a hole in the center is affixed to top of shaft. Over the hole is a thin membrane of plastic, and this covers another hole in the hollow shaft. Screw cap is red on top and inside, blue on bottom and outside. Shaft is blue on top half and red on bottom half. Three circular indentations are on top of shaft, imitating fingering holes. Paint on top and bottom of wide end of shaft is chipped from biting on it when playing. Finish in general is scratched and dulled from handling and use.

ORIGIN AND APPROXIMATE DATE OF POSSESSION OF OBJECT: Given as a gift from a friend sometime between 1974 and 1977.

MOST RECENT LOCATION OF OBJECT: In a cardboard box with other mementoes from my past. Box is on the floor in front of the first, easternmost window, facing south in my studio.

RELATION OF OBJECT TO RECIPIENT: Joe Jackson and I entered kindergarten together in September 1959. He lived on 75th Street between Bergenline Avenue and Palisade Avenue, about four blocks from me in North Bergen, NJ. We both went to Immaculate Heart of Mary Grammar School in North Bergen through sixth grade and then on to St. Joseph’s of the Palisades Grammar and High School in West New York, NJ. We graduated in 1972 and our college and subsequent lives took us in separate directions. I still see Joe, however, approximately once per year at a Poker night that is held at the home of Damian Testa (see d-acum 11 jew’s harp) for the express purpose of getting many of the guys whom I’ve known since I was in kindergarten together. Joe was instrumental in introducing me to Kurt Vonnegut when he loaned me “Welcome to the Monkey House” in 1968. It was a perfect book given at a perfect time. Joe also, like myself and the above mentioned Damian Testa, was a fan of Jean Shepherd (see note above). Shepherd played the kazoo often on his show. I have a distinct, though possibly erroneous, memory of Joe playing his own kazoo at lunch time in our school cafeteria. He was one of the few among us (Walter Murawinski being the other, on organ) who actually played a real musical instrument (trumpet) and to my mind was quite skilled. He played in various school functions and never seemed to be at a loss to provide a beautiful rendition of any type of music, from rock to standard to church hymn. During the fall of our sophomore year in high school, 1969, the students were caught up in the fervor of the country, rebelling against all forms of authority real or imagined. Our cause became the Dress Code, which enforced buttoned white or very light colored shirts (not pink), straight leg pants (no bell-bottoms, no dungarees) leather shoes with laces, a sport jacket and a tie. This code also included monthly hair cut inspection (no round or square backs, no side burns, no facial hair, and always above the ear). Transgressors on either count were liable for detention after a good cuff to the head or upper body. We challenged the Dress Code by assembling in the ball field across the street from the school on Broadway on an early October morning. We were led in our chant of “DRESS CODE, DRESS CODE” by Joe and perhaps by John Kennedy, who, although he was in the D class, had quite a bit of credence among the more hippie-ish elements in the A class, of which Joe and I and most of my friends were members. Part of my memory also includes Joe playing the kazoo as we finally disassembled and I believed that he had more of a claim to this rudimentary music-making device than most others due to his actual abilities and training. Surprisingly, the Dress Code was changed, and we were allowed to wear jeans and certain casual shirts. Ties and jackets were gone and soon too, amazingly, was hair cut inspection. We students at St. Joseph’s Boys High School tested the extremes of our freedom, were reined back in by the Christian Brothers who taught and administered the school, and eventually a relatively fair compromise was achieved. At about this time Joe introduced me to George Santa Cruz, a member of our class who was a certifiable hippie, and George in turn introduced me to pot smoking and perhaps by extension to much of the way I lead my life today. Joe continued to play music and read and write, things he was all quite good at. He and I and a few others in our class saw ourselves differently than the others - perhaps pot and Vonnegut have that affect on pre-adolescent boys. We knew about the theatre and poetry and Bessie Smith and had some connection to a world that was slightly more edgy than the normal fifteen year old’s, or at least we thought so. In retrospect we were all smart, good kids who generally behaved and led unremarkable lives. None-the-less, when I think of Joe and music I think less of him playing “Maria” sweetly on his trumpet, but rather skidding in his school shoes across the frozen lake in Hudson County Park, humming into his kazoo, after us smoking some good shit at George’s house on a very cold January afternoon as the sun waned out across the Meadowlands to the west.

RESPONSE OF RECIPIENT:
DATE OF RESPONSE:

Process: My plan is to de-accumulate objects I now own during the course of the exhibition year. I will photograph the selected object then send the object with a letter to a person who has some relationship to the object or whom I think might be interested in the object. The letter will discuss the project and tell the receiver they can keep the object, destroy it, give it away, recycle it or anything else they choose. I will ask them to document it in the place they now have it and send their image and/or written description back to me of what they did with it and where it is. I plan on de-accumulating an average of one object per week. The new images/descriptions will be placed in a plastic folder and exhibited along with a photograph of the object as it was in my possession.