Revision as of 14:14, 15 December 2005

One Word- Free Associating with Steven Cerio

by Thomas Scharff via email, February- November 2005 for Expressobeans.com

 

 

 

 TS: EYEBALL? 

 CERIO: Ever since I remember, every time I've walked long distances 
 I've imagined my body was gone and I was reduced to a drifting, floating eyeball 
 observing but not interacting with anything around me. When I lived in New York 
 City I found myself walking much more than in my suburban muscle car teens and 
 I would feel this sensation quite often. Walking in New York with a walkman 
 stuffed with those cheap knock off Duracell's and my pockets full of cassettes 
 is still one of my favorite sensations.

 When I was 10 or 12 I used to sneak out of bed in the middle of the night to 
 watch "Night Flight"...a musical variety show....I saw The Mole Show 
 film by The Residents one night....when I saw the giant eyeballs they wear on 
 their heads I immediately made associations to that sensation. That night my 
 obsession with their music began, possibly because of that juncture....it was 
 very resonant.

 

 

 TS: FOREST?

 CERIO: Yeah, deep green.. I hate the fall...all of those bright colors 
 wreck it for me, and the woods begin the smell like a moldy towel.

 I used to use bags of goldfish tank gravel to decorate the ground under a patch 
 of poplar trees in the woods behind the house where I grew up. I used to climb 
 those trees just as it got dark and pretend I was waiting to kill soldiers that 
 walked below me ...I could hear my mother call me for supper from up there. 
 I used to pretend it was my forest. Thought I'd build a house there one day.

 Once there was an ice-storm (no big surprise...I grew up outside of Syracuse) 
 and the trees looked shiny and fake...each branch was covered in a half of an 
 inch of ice. I could walk across the 2 ft of snow in our backyard like it was 
 a skating pond. I sat on the ice and listened to the crackling of the trees 
 when the wind blew...I still remember that sound.... then a large branch fell, 
 knocking down a few others on it's way down...cylindrical chunks of ice shaped 
 like tootsie rolls with twigs in the center came sliding at me like hockey pucks...my 
 mother screamed.

 

 

 TS: APPLES?

 CERIO: I had been ling in Brooklyn for about 10 years, the stress of 
 the city and my irritating hipster douche bag neighbors were getting to me. 
 I took a trip up to ( 0 to stay with a friend for the weekend. Her brother lived 
 in a former migrant workers hut. I borrowed his bike, put a Captain Beefheart 
 tape in my walkman and went out for a ride in the apple orchard surrounding 
 his apartment. The moon was bright enough to follow the trails by. I was smelling 
 the apples and humming "ice cream for crow" as I rolled down a hill 
 and came within inches of hitting a deer. I decided then that I would leave 
 Brooklyn and get back to the fresh air and animals. I moved to a tiny town in 
 the Catskill Mountains 3 weeks later.

 

 

 TS: BUSINESS?

 CERIO: In their silly cars hurrying to their next television set in 
 a beige room dressed in their shiny suit jackets with the terminator sunglasses 
 on. I hear their car doors slam when they head off to work in the morning. They 
 probably smell like cheap cologne and cheap pitchers.

 They live the life that frat boys talk about during their senior year.

 

 

TS: CORNER?

 CERIO: I waited on the corner of Glenwood and Birchwood for the school 
 bus with Cindy Stevens. That's the only corner I've ever had a relationship 
 with besides the corner of Elizabeth and Houston on the Lower East side of NY. 
 Once I waited for a light there with George Petros in his car...he was driving 
 me home from a party...I told him how there was always a puddle on the street 
 there. I laughed as a man was being continually splashed as he used a nearby 
 phone...I finally noticed that it was George and that I was sitting alone.

 

 

   TS: CATCHPHRASE?

 CERIO: That's how people communicate in Central NY. I listen to the 
 locals talk over their morning coffee at the B'Ville diner when I can't sleep 
 and head down there for eggs. They can have a 5 minute conversation just using 
 antiquated euphemisms..."working hard or hardly workin'?"..."Cold 
 as a witches teat"..."Can't live with'em, can't kill'em!!"...and 
 then they laugh like they've never heard it told exactly like that before.

 

 

 TS: PAINT?

 CERIO: Philip Guston used the ugliest palette in the world....salmon 
 chalk pink eeech!!! I love his stuff. He used white like stale cream cheese. 
 I saw an egg tempera painting by Stuart Davis in a museum in Utica ...very careful 
 and beautiful. Franz Kline's paintings look like they weigh more than an SUV 
 when you see them in person. My friend gave me an oil painting of a desert by 
 an inmate. It makes me sad.

 

 

   TS: PREMONITION?

 CERIO: Since my mother got sick I've believed that there is a force 
 acting against me. Since my mother died I know I was right.

 I dreamt I spilled red paint on new white shoes...I woke up and grabbed a wrapper 
 Emily left on my drawing table, when I squeezed it thawed cherry popsicle dripped 
 on my clean white socks.

 I woke up one morning and I felt that something bad was going to happen, the 
 phone rang and it was my brother in law telling me my sister was having emergency 
 surgery.

 I was telling a friend about these coincidences or premonitions and he asked 
 me why they were always negative. He laughed when I said "Wow, imagine 
 if I was the first person to truly see through the veil into the future and 
 all I had to report were flat tires and toothaches?" Ever since then he 
 often refers to me as The Psychic Douche. We have a routine that goes "hello, 
 Psychic Douche?" I reply "say no more, you're going to hit a kitten 
 on your way to work today and your ear is going to get infected....now leave 
 me, The Psychic Douche has spoken!"

 Seriously though, I never foresee anything positive happening to me though it 
 often does.

 

 

 TS: TABLET?

 CERIO: Wacom tablet. Best hundred dollars I ever did spend. Mice should 
 be diced up and burnt. Roger DeMuth described a mouse as "a potato tied 
 to a string." The Wacom pen makes computer work as comfy as scribbling 
 on a notepad. Honestly changed my life by giving me more time and helped my 
 illustration and design work by facilitating my speed and coordination.

 

 

   TS: MUSIC?

 CERIO: Elvin Jones died recently. That's sad. I think music that you 
 love truly makes your life better. John Coltrane, Soft Machine, The Residents, 
 Captain Beefheart, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Harry Partch, Amon Duul and Can have 
 been making my life better.

 I just got Pink Floyd "Umma Gumma" on cd. I've had it on LP since 
 I was 13 but I don't think I understood it fully until now and I think records 
 that take that long have more resonance, like Captain Beefheart "Trout 
 Mask Replica" in example.

 

 

   TS: INK?

 CERIO: Beefheart wrote a song called "Dirty Blue Gene" and 
 sums up her evil ways by having her dump his ink down the sink. I love that! 
 "She's swingin' a sponge on the end of a string, right on the brink. She 
 spills the ink down the sink. She's not bad, she's just genetically mean." 
 Ink is so precious when you get the right brand. My brand just got VERY expensive...Higgins 
 Black Magic....I made a contact with a chemist that works for Speedball...I'm 
 hoping I can glean a chemical or pigment that can have me magically transform 
 crappy ink into thick, black, oily, luscious ink. I feel much more strongly 
 about ink than paint...I think it's the absorption. I got a set of technical 
 pens in the 6th grade and didn't put them down for years...I did my homework 
 with them. I obsessively gather empty Sheaffer SKRIP ink bottles. I put my own 
 ink mixture in them. They have a great ridge I side the bottle to sharpen my 
 brush on. I've never broken one but I gather them in case some madman runs amok 
 in my studio with a bb gun!

 

 

 TS: SALE?

 CERIO: I had a Kmart down the street from me as a kid. I got 3 frozen 
 bags of cauliflower on sale for $3 last week at Wegman's. I sold two drawings 
 this week.

 

 

 TS: LEGGO MY EGGO?

 CERIO: My mom bought egos when I was a kid. The berry ones were tasty! 
 I never eat breakfast food anymore. I did have eggs with homemade salsa in Arizona 
 2 weeks ago though. I was thinking about those this afternoon.

 I used to get sore fingers from my Leggo sets....sometimes pinch my fingers 
 between a couple of them and get a blood blister. Nothing hurt like erector 
 sets though, what with all of those blisters and cuts from the bolts.

 

 

 TS: SHOW?

 CERIO: I saw William Parker play bass with Dave Burrell last week...'twas 
 amazing! I think William Parker is our greatest living jazz musician. I've seen 
 some amazing rock shows too: The Butthole Surfers and The Jesus Lizard. The 
 Residents put on the best show out there in my opinion.

 I just took down my show at Fuse Gallery in NYC. The opening was a lot of fun...had 
 a really extra friendly unguarded vibe which was great...a lot of smiling. If 
 it was because of my art I would be really really happy about that!!!!

 

 

 TS: CROWDS?

 CERIO: I love crowds in NYC but nowhere else.10,000 New Yorkers can 
 get off of two trains simultaneously without one scuffle and without one person 
 not being able to board. They have no time for petty passive aggression or vindictiveness. 
 In other smaller cities and 'villes I believe the boredom offers a lot of time 
 for those things. Crowds can't handle themselves with any coordination anywhere 
 else, especially in Chicago.

 

 

 TS: MOUNTAIN?

 CERIO: "The holy Mountain" by Jodorowsky is one of my favorite 
 films.

 I watched a short film about mountain climbers the other day. They had a grotesque 
 jock attitude. It was about conquering and winning. That's repulsive and absurd 
 to me in so many ways. People die trying to "defeat" nature. You only 
 defeat nature and odds by being born, not by gasping your way to a lichen covered 
 rock. That adrenalin adventure stuff like bridge jumping, and bull riding cracks 
 me up. Does your world have to conform to a car commercial or an action movie? 
 You really bought into that?

 Hunting is probably the ugliest though. I'm convinced that most hunters don't 
 really want to kill. They'll admit to you on occasion that they find waiting 
 for the animals in the forest very relaxing. I had one hunter admit he wrote 
 poetry out there. I think they can't go for a hike or sit on a rock because 
 it's not "manly" enough. You want "manly"?...go kill a bear 
 with your two hands then, instead of climbing up onto your deer stand and shooting 
 it with your Sears and Roebuck twelve gauge you silly redneck! America wasn't 
 "carved out of the wilderness" by pick up truck owners with Metallica 
 bumper stickers. I'm almost completely sure of that.

 I had a redneck mock me for saving a thirty pound snapping turtle this past 
 summer. I carried the turtle towards him him first and he took off pretty fast. 
 Either he was scared of the snapper or he had to get home to watch NASCAR.

 

 TS: CITY?

 CERIO: I loved New York City. I lived there for ten years and enjoyed 
 almost every minute. I only moved back here to take care of my Mom. I've never 
 been to another city that I liked for longer than a day. The NYC subways are 
 by far the best form of transportation. I wish I didn't own a car.

 I decided that my cats and I had to have fresh air, bees and lawnmowers but 
 I didn't think it would be so hard to find entertainment out of the city. I 
 entertain myself with work now. New York was too entertaining sometimes, you 
 always sense you're missing something and you always are. I love the bombardment 
 of image, sound and smell that it had before Giuliani. The infinite variation 
 and action was addictive, Chinatown and the East Village were better than a 
 good movie. I didn't own a television for nine years. It was wonderful! Was.
 

 

 

 TS: TRACK?

 CERIO: I remember standing at the 72nd street station on the 7 train 
 in Queens, listyening to Firehose and the Minutemen on my walkman in 89 staring 
 down the subway tracks outside thinking of how beautiful it was. That moment 
 still occurs to me every couple of days ....I don't know what triggers it.

 

 

 TS: MOVE?

 CERIO: I need to get out of Central NY. I've never been so unhappy 
 anywhere in my life. I have theory that the boredom causes the Central NY human 
 brain to cannibalize itself causing obsessive compulsive disorders and empty, 
 ritualistic behavior. I witness roads full of pick up trucks and wheelie pulling 
 garishly colored crotch rocket riders in effeminate leather body suits, nervous 
 middle aged housewives managing performance anxiety brought on by simple grocery 
 shopping, every man and boy (as well as the occasional woman) in tan Carhart 
 work jackets and Terminator-esque sunglasses in mad hurries between badly timed 
 stoplights, every third person sporting a mullet (though they don't believe 
 that they qualify as such). Even the pick up truckers are in deep denial, they 
 fancy themselves intellectuals and folk heroes but I've heard the dick jokes, 
 heard the farting and catch phrases in the diners, overheard the courageous 
 beer drinking stories, I've overheard the racial epithets that would embarrass 
 a Klansman so I'd have to disagree.

 Each and every small shop owner, tiny restaurant provocateur, bank teller, music 
 store clerk and tattoo artist believes they're the big fish in a place where 
 I am convinced there isn't even a pond. A friend visiting described them as 
 "five hundred dollar millionaires." Owners of closet sized restaurants 
 strut like rock stars, all of them so busy trying to knock each other down they 
 could forget to mail in the payment on their black or silver car.

 The entertainment is limited to mainstream films and even the music scene sports 
 middle aged men in battles of the bands competitions that they should have embarrassed 
 them in their teens. Each year a local paper has these yokels cast their vote 
 on a "Best of Syracuse" competition. Even the simple concept of promoting 
 local family owned business and originality escapes them. One year a Burger 
 King was voted in for best burgers....a Friendly's won the best ice cream prize 
 and year after year various cover bands that perform current radio hits win 
 best band award. So exhausted from trying to knock each other down they could 
 nap through the latest NASCAR. But we know that won't ever happen. Watchin dem 
 dere pertty cars drive 'round in circles sure is stimulatin'in'.

 If I could press a button......

 

 

 TS: GROSS?

 CERIO: I always think that the word gross should rhyme with moss. The 
 only association I have with this one is Moon Zappas lyrics in her dad's tune 
 "Valley Girl."

 TS: PAPER?

 CERIO: I've always fetishized blank paper and printed paper. I've collected 
 books since I was nine. I got a forty pound edition of the Random House dictionary 
 for my birthday that year ( I was in love with the illustrations and there were 
 thousands!) I've drawn seriously since I was seven I think. I fell in love with 
 lines and drawing early on because I was forbidden coloring books to encourage 
 just that reaction. It seems that a large part of my life is paper, drawing 
 on it, writing on it buying books and pads of it and putting them on shelves 
 and in flat files, arranging them ,selling them.

 

 

 TS: SMURF?

 CERIO: I never once saw that show. I don't know how but I didn't. Is 
 there a character in it called Gargomel? I know that from watching Donnie Darko.

 I never liked elves or any other tree dwelling shorties, even Lord of the Rings 
 bored me for that reason. It's strange now that I thought of that. I don't have 
 any problems with short people or anything like that. I just hate elf culture 
 I guess, the mead drinking, tree populating, cookie baking and long pipes never 
 appealed to. I find it a bit to quaint, but coming from a Hello Kitty fan that 
 might not hold much water with you!

 

 

 TS: FAMILY?

 CERIO: I had a family but my parents and grandparents have all passed 
 away. My mother was my last true family, what I mean is she was my last unconditional 
 love. Everything else goes away. Whoppeee, I'm lots of fun!!!

 

 

 TS: PICKLED?

 CERIO: I don't drink. I do like sweet pickles though...the little gherkins. 
 I haven't them in years...maybe I'll get some today. I hate when I get pickle 
 juice on my deli sandwiches. It soaks into the bread and makes it green and 
 awful. My friend Mike gets sick when he smells vinegar and he's Italian, it 
 must be difficult.

 

 

 TS: BEES?

 CERIO: Leopard frogs hatched from the red haired English couple's unkempt 
 pool next door to me as a child. Tons of bees flew over their fence too.Looked 
 like they were weaving through. Crunchy wings reminded me of the cellophane 
 wrappers on my parent's cigarettes...fat bellies full of what?? Pollen, Kool-Aid, 
 pine sap... everything probably.

 In the suburbs you always expected the honey bees in the grass. Always a surprise 
 and a treat to see a bumbler though. Never soaring or graceful. ..like fat yellow 
 sheep ....Find them in lemonade and Kool-Aid glasses....do they try to drink?...bathe?....lay 
 eggs like mosquitoes? I don't believe that I've ever been stung by a bumble-bee....but 
 a honey bee will sting you right on the bottom of your foot.

 I was realizing last year that I have drawn a bee almost every month since I 
 was five. Now I'm I draw a couple dozen a week. Is it exponential? Wonder how 
 many I'll be drawing when I'm sixty?

 

 

 TS: CACTUS?

 CERIO: I just got back from Arizona. I shot eighteen hundred photos 
 of mostly plant life. No landscape is more beautiful than South Western Arizona 
 in my opinion.You wouldn't believe the size of the organ pipe or saguaro cacti 
 out there. The skin is hard and waxy, when I imagined them to be soft.

 I have a couple shelves of succulents and cacti. I've accidentally broken off 
 pads and sprouts. When left in the dark for a week without water they sprout 
 roots and you can plant them. I read that if you cut an opuntia (variety with 
 beaver tail like pad) pad into one hundred pieces each fragment can sprout roots 
 and mature into a full plant. Talk about hearty!

 I bought a pack of saguaro seeds in New Mexico eight years ago. Thirty or so 
 sprouted and two survived. The package said the probability of any growing taller 
 than four inches was next to none but each of mine are nine to ten inches. They 
 are an endangered species so I've been researching a park or botanical garden 
 in Arizona that would adopt them from me. That way I can do my part and what 
 kind'a life would they have in New York anyway?

 

 

 TS: PUBLISH?

 CERIO: I self published once, it was a collection called "Mother 
 Shovel". It was'89 or so and I was working with Jacaeber Kastor at his 
 gallery "Psychedelic Solution". Sixties poster artist great Randy 
 Tuten was in the back room while I was whining over the three hours of paper 
 cutting I had left to do for the cover image on Jacaeber's paper cutter. I remember 
 fretting over the already long eight hour day of gallery work and the additional 
 labor. Randy and Jacaeber laughed at me and agreed that if I was to become a 
 successful full time artist twelve hour days would be a short day. They told 
 me that all nighters would become a way of life for me. Boy, were they right! 
 They didn't tell me how much I would love it though. I'm an adjunct teacher 
 at Syracuse University and one morning this past year a student told me he was 
 exhausted after spending three hours that week on the assignment I gave. Guess 
 what lecture I gave him?

 

 

 TS: BREAKFAST?

 CERIO: I have a friend that pronounces it "brefiss" and another 
 that says " brefkass." I rarely eat breakfast food. I like the idea 
 of going to get waffles at 6 or 7am before I go to bed but I never do. I used 
 to get egg and bacon sandwiches from a Greek deli in Brooklyn but I haven't 
 had one since.

 I enjoy taking my time in the cereal aisle in the grocery stores, always did. 
 Cap'n Crunch, Quake, Quisp and Frankenberry were my favorites, still are. I 
 rarely eat cereal anymore though, but when I do get a box I finish it in twenty 
 four hours. I'll eat at it until it's gone, get a stomach ache and swear it 
 off like a bad habit.

 Scott Bruce did a picture books of cereal packaging and prizes from the fifties 
 and sixties, I look at the sixties volume compulsively. It's so happy! If any 
 American product has sugar in it you can be sure that the packaging is happy. 
 They're selling joy, bliss and sugar highs, how can you beat that? That book 
 got me accumulating cereal boxes and that got me accumulating ice cream paraphernalia 
 for the same reasons.

 

 

 TS: TRAVEL?

 CERIO: After just recently considering a move back to NYC I decided 
 to travel more instead. It really makes me sad... there used to be life there 
 . You could afford to rehearse a band and hang out with artists, you could see 
 music for five bucks. Now it's run by trust fun kids. There's no where to play 
 jazz except for Zorn's new club and I hear that you're not allowed to use the 
 restroom during a show or have a beer. I guess it's some fantasy of the past 
 that never existed. . I spoke to Jemeel Moondoc last week and he told me he 
 has to play out of town That's the kind of mentality that thrives there now. 
 After the investors and kid's living off mommy and daddy's money get bored after 
 they push the life out and realize they've created the world's largest outdoor 
 mall they'll flock like little overdressed locusts to a new field. Where I couldn't 
 guess, there's even less going on everywhere else.

 I decided to use that extra two grand a month to travel with.

 

 

 TS: WALNUT?

 CERIO: I dreamt I could see all of the atoms of walnut shells but everything 
 else looked the same. Oppenheimer, the one that invented the atomic bomb was 
 there and tried to explain it to me and I asked why he would invent something 
 like that and he got all arrogant and wise assy with me until I stabbed him 
 in the arm with a pencil.

 In actuality Oppenheimer thought that the first atomic explosion might set a 
 chain reaction that might destroy the entire universe but he did it anyway!!! 
 Can you imagine a bigger fame seeking jack off than that??? I can't. I should've 
 asked him about that while I had the chance. That's like cartoon villain moustache 
 twisting behavior , uglier even!!

 

 

 TS: SNAKE?

 CERIO: I've been to Arizona a half dozen times and hiked probably 200 
 miles and never ever saw or heard a snake or scorpion. Now I understand how 
 dumb this is...believe me, I really do....but on my last trip I sought them 
 both out by tipping rocks and wading through grass...no scorpions sadly but 
 I came across a small rattle snake sunning herself on a rock near the Gila cliff 
 dwellings. Then I continued to move closer snapping photos the whole time. I 
 know, believe me....

 

 

 TS: TELEPHONE?

 CERIO: I call it "the bad news machine." Something about 
 a phone ringing or an unexpected someone knocking at my door that makes my stomach 
 turn. I wish it didn't. Funny, but when I do get on the thing I don't shut up. 
 When I moved here I realized I had to spend more time on the phone than usual 
 so I could feel like a part of the civilized world. Tons of long distance calls 
 to friends in bigger cities or smaller towns even. It made my life feel bigger 
 because it felt so small here. It was an irritating illusion.

 

 TS: SAXOPHONE?

 CERIO: John Coltrane with the Classic Quartet. Rahsaan Roland Kirk, 
 Pharoah Sanders. I used to hate all brass instruments until I heard "A 
 Love Supreme."

 I've always liked the shape of a tenor sax, the curve is nice. I tried to play 
 one once, it takes a lot of air to get the smallest peep. Dizzy was a trumpet 
 player but I can imagine how he stretched his cheeks like that after blowing 
 into that tenor.

 

 

 TS: CAT? 

 CERIO: That word is way too loaded. I have two cats, Elephant Monster 
 and Eggplant mobile.I used to be a dog person now I walk around with a cat on 
 my shoulders at home and refer to Eggplant as my "cat wife". I'll 
 probably be a cat lady when I get older. William Borroughs wrote a pro cat book. 
 He theorizes that dogs have picked up all of the worst qualities of mankind 
 including treachery. A cat purrs when you wake it, a dog is angered or startled. 
 Cats don't know "human" right from wrong yet they do no truly vicious 
 deeds. A dog understands right from wrong but will cross the line. A dog once 
 killed a baby in its owner's home and immediately hid under a bed where they 
 found it some time later. I'm not a dog hater I just thought that was interesting.

 

 

 TS: SWEET?

 CERIO: I don't eat much sugary food but I collect dessert cookbooks, 
 cereal boxes, older ice cream cartons. Well, I don't collect, I accumulate.

 

 

 TS: FAMILIAR?

 CERIO: I heard the euphemism " consistency is the hobgoblin of 
 small minds" when I was a kid and it still resonates with me. I still believe 
 that the ability to transform and to be fully accepting of that transformation 
 is a sign of intelligence in people.

 I had a fever most of this week and I watched a lot of television because my 
 head was too foggy to work. Talk about 'consistency"? Bragging music, whining 
 music, changing your wardrobe, violence, pick up truck commercials, adventure 
 hippy bullshit....depressing. What happened? The last time the television spoke 
 directly to me I was four.

 

 

 TS: SAND?

 CERIO: I read a story about a guy who met Pablo Picasso on a beach. 
 Picasso drew in the sand with a stick and the man frantically tried to figure 
 a way to capture it and own it before the tide came in. He failed.

 

 

 TS: DRUNK?

 CERIO: I like to talk with people when they're high on any drug...even 
 coke, but drunks are boring.

 

 

 TS: INTERNAL?

 CERIO: I always wondered why blood was supposed to scare me.

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