July 24, 2017

"It’s hard to appreciate how little Warhol’s art was worth at the time. Twenty-five hundred was the going rate at the time. Why would Andy give him a fake?"

"He had plenty of electric chairs. They were not an easy sell. They weren’t decorative in the conventional sense. It’s a brutal image."

He = Alice Cooper, who "says he remembers having a conversation with Warhol about the picture. He thinks the conversation was real, but he couldn’t put his hand on a Bible and say that it was."

"Little Electric Chair" (from the "Death and Disaster" series) was found rolled up in a tube in storage.
Never stretched on a frame, it sat in storage alongside touring artefacts including an electric chair that Cooper used in the early 70s as part of his ghoulish stage show.
I saw that show, actually. I remember the electric chair. It must have been July 28, 1971 in Wildwood, New Jersey. That was the "Love It to Death" tour:
The Love It to Death tour featured an elaborate shock rock live show: during "Ballad of Dwight Fry"—about an inmate in an insane asylum—Cooper would be dragged offstage and return in a straitjacket, and the show climaxed with Cooper's mock execution in a prop electric chair during "Black Juju."
Let's see if Alice Cooper is mentioned in "The Andy Warhol Diaries." Yes! Exactly once:
Bianca took us to On the Rox, owned by Lou Adler. When we got there it was Ringo Starr and Alice Cooper. I’m not saying they were the only celebrities there— they were the only people there, and they were in the john. Whoever is there is in the john taking coke. Bianca introduced me to Ringo. Alice came over to say hello. Bianca left because she was staying out in Malibu and Mick was coming in and then leaving town the next day so she wanted to get home early to see him.
Those were the days.



And here's what Alice Cooper said last August about the 2016 election:
[The election is] funny in a Kurt Vonnegut kind of way. It's also funny and kind of seriously demented that nobody wants to vote for a candidate; they want to vote against the other candidate. I can't think of anybody that's going, "I really like Hillary. I'm going to vote for her." No, it's: "I'm voting for Hillary 'cause I hate Trump." Or it's: "I hate Trump, but I hate her worse." Nobody's actually for anybody.... I honestly cannot in my head look at either candidate and say, "Oh, yeah. I'm behind that." So it's weird. I'm going to vote, but it's really going to be one of those last-minute decisions going."
Ha ha. Me too. That's exactly what happened to me. I decided which one I would vote for as I walked to the poll. (That's all I'll say about how I voted.)

35 comments:

tim maguire said...

My only question for months was do I vote against Hillary or do I vote against them both? Fortunately I vote in New York so I have the luxury of casting a protest vote. Which I did. I haven't cast a vote for a major part candidate since 1992, and that's the only vote I regret.

Robert Cook said...

"I haven't cast a vote for a major part candidate since 1992, and that's the only vote I regret."

Wow, me too! However, I wouldn't have voted for any of the major party candidates in all these years even if I didn't live in New York.

Robert Cook said...

I saw Alice Cooper once, on his/their 1973 BILLION DOLLAR BABIES tour.

Meade said...
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Robert Cook said...
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Earnest Prole said...

I decided which one I would vote for as I walked to the poll. (That's all I'll say about how I voted.)

Say no more: that says it all.

Bay Area Guy said...

School's out for summer, baby!

JPS said...

tim maguire and Robert Cook:

Interesting. 1992 was the last time before 2016 that I didn't vote for a major party candidate. I was too disappointed in GHWB to vote for his reelection, and I thought Clinton was an unprincipled phony.

This I liked from Cooper:

"I can't think of anybody that's going, 'I really like Hillary. I'm going to vote for her.'"

because an old student of mine loved Hillary uncritically, and posted a plaintive wail on Facebook late in election season about how many of her friends were talking about holding their noses and voting for her, when they should be doing it joyously! Seriously, why are even so many of her supporters so negative about her?

(And I thought, if you don't know, I'm not going to be the one to break it down for you, and I wouldn't do it on Facebook anyway.)

Wilbur said...
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Jim Grey said...

I saw Alice Cooper open for Iron Maiden a few years ago. The show felt like a shadow of what it had to have been in the 70s, but it was still fun.

Bay Area Guy said...

Re politics, I subscribe to the "binary decision" theory. If you don't for Trump, you help Hillary. If you don't vote for Hillary, you help Trump.

So, in the early stages, I wasn't too impressed with Trump, but refused to help Hillary, so I planned to vote for him.

As the campaign progressed, I came to affirmatively like Trump, so voting for him was easy.

Hillary is still not President.

Chris N said...

You know, Poison's a surprising song musically....

Same 4 chord progression (you'll know it when you hear it)) but the progression jumps from Dm-Gm-Am back to Dm after the intro.

Total schlock lyrics and kind of circus/burlesque/minstrel show thing.

Robert Cook said...

"Hillary is still not President."

Yes, but Trump is, so the American people are fucked anyway.

I refuse to vote for anyone who I believe will fuck us, and this means I can't vote for someone who I think may fuck us just a little less badly than the other person. In the end, you've still voted for someone to fuck you.

tcrosse said...

Hillary's popularity numbers are right down there with Trump's. His crime is that he won an election he was supposed to lose. Hers is that she lost an election she was supposed to win.

Bob Boyd said...

Who would be in Scalia's seat right now if Hillary had won?
Loretta Lynch?

Lewis Wetzel said...

I think that the "he" in the quote refers to Warhol, not Cooper. That is, it was Warhol, not Cooper, who had "plenty of electric chairs" (referring to the prints).

Lewis Wetzel said...

Loretta Lynch has always found the law amazingly flexible. It always says what she wants it to say. Her and RB Ginsberg would get along just fine.

Etienne said...

In July of 1971, I was an student intern for the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), where I was assigned to the massive electronics room where sensors were converted to digital signals and sent to the CDC 6600 computer. Just the smell was like viagra for a nerd. Those sensors were very temperamental - Moody.

As for music, I was probably listening to the Moody Blues, as I was dating a music student who was fascinated with all their albums.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

I decided which one I would vote for as I walked to the poll. (That's all I'll say about how I voted.)

A wise decision that I respect, but one that would be completely unnecessary in a country that wasn't pathological in its political striations.

David Smith said...

I'm about to turn 70 and as yet I haven't once voted for anyone for POTUS - always against one of the candidates. Voting in Maryland, Illinois and California means that it's been largely symbolic either way. Hard to say whether it's causal or symptomatic of my cynicism about "democratic government".

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The curiously apolitical hard rocker says he has always kept mum on his opinion of Washington because in, his opinion, rockers are not the people to look to for guidance. "I hate it when fans go, 'Who should I vote for?'" he says. "Why do you think rock stars would know any more than you do? We're rock stars; we're dumber than you."

that should be the answer from Hollywood.

Bay Area Guy said...

Hah - Cook is on a roll!

"I refuse to vote for anyone who I believe will fuck us, and this means I can't vote for someone who I think may fuck us just a little less badly than the other person. In the end, you've still voted for someone to fuck you."

What's wrong with a good fucking every once in a while? It's important to get fucked now and then. Trump has done a good job of fucking those in dire need of a good fuck. Don't be such a prude, Cookie:)

Lyssa said...

I've always liked Alice Cooper. He seems to wholly embrace and have a good humor about this ridiculous persona that he developed. (Remember when he was doing Office Depot back to school commercials? Love it.) He knows that he's ridiculous, and just runs with it.

That's a quality that I've always liked about Donald Trump, too.

mtrobertslaw said...

Could somebody please explain to me why certain social groups consider Warhol a serious artist?

Achilles said...

It is sad for a country when the people all know what they are against, but don't know what they are for. It is in vogue now to say you don't like politicians. It is always easier to say you don't like anything than to actually put an opinion on the line.

Nobody is perfect, but Trump is closer to anything I have wanted since maybe Reagan and beyond that Coolidge.

I am ecstatic about what is happening to the Republican Party as well. The uniparty is being killed off. It is going to be so effective that democrats will be forced to drop their globalist patrons and actually listen to their voters too.

Ann Althouse said...

No betting!

Bad Lieutenant said...

Earnest Prole said...
I decided which one I would vote for as I walked to the poll. (That's all I'll say about how I voted.)

Say no more: that says it all.

7/24/17, 10:46 AM


It does? Be so good as to elaborate.

Leeatmg said...

While I understand that to some, voting is an intensely private enterprise, and I would never want to violate that...I do hope that Professor Althouse has written into her will that her 2016 presidential vote be disclosed someday after her passing. I do find myself extremely curious.

tcrosse said...

Unfortunately, the Perfect Candidate, the Platonic Ideal President, was not on the ballot in my state.

Etienne said...
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Virgil Hilts said...

Alice Cooper is extremely charitable and charming and really appreciated here in Phoenix. Truly one of the good ones to survive the 60s.

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

I'm reading the Greenfield biography of Timothy Leary, trying to finish my own chapter on Leary. Of course a who's who of musicians (jazz more than rock in the early days), hipsters etc. put in appearances. Leary always had a knack for hanging with people younger than himself. He had the gall to say the performers at both Woodstock and Altamont were too old, and the problem at Altamont was that the drug of choice for the old people was alcohol.
Warhol: When Leary was travelling with the lovely Joanna in Europe (fall 1972), trying to find a country that would take him, there was a Christmas Eve party at a chalet in Switzerland. Leary and Warhol "sat next to each other on a couch. 'There are only three real geniuses in America,' Tim told Warhol. 'You and me, and the third changes all the time.'"

A bit weirdly, Barbara Chase, who eventually became Leary's fifth wife, joined Mick and Bianca Jagger for the first two days of their honeymoon in 1971.

Leary attended Warhol's "star-studded" funeral and following lunch in 1987. The funeral was at St. Patrick's in New York--a full Roman Catholic funeral? That in itself might indicate how things had changed.

Howard said...

In our local progressive county, after Hillary was anointed the Dem nominee and up to the election, the Bernie to Hillary bumper sticker ratio was 98 to 2. Most people are still sporting their Bernie stickers.

Robert Cook said...

"Leary attended Warhol's 'star-studded' funeral and following lunch in 1987. The funeral was at St. Patrick's in New York--a full Roman Catholic funeral? That in itself might indicate how things had changed."

Andy Warhol was a Catholic who attended services regularly.

StephenFearby said...

These days, Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier) could justly be accused, tried and convicted of gender appropriation.

Mitigating circumstances: Fauxcahontas lineage!

"...Cooper was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Mae (née McCart) and Ether Moroni Furnier (1924–1987). His father was a preacher in The Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite) headquartered in Monongahela, Pennsylvania.[9] He has English, Huguenot French, Irish, Scottish, and Sioux ancestry.[10] He was named after his uncle, Vincent Collier Furnier, and the writer Damon Runyon.[11]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Cooper

Another "get of of jail card" -- that his father (Ether Moroni Furnier) could be a distant relative of Bony Maronie.