Bob would have roared with laughter, uttering one of his mirthful growls - surely he would have put the kibosh on the notion that the “E” in “Sleazy E Ranch” stood for “evil.” He had arrived by night, so until he stumbled out of the house into noisy din of a Boston summer morning to enjoy his first cup of coffee in our tiny, pathetically barren back yard, he did not understand the significance of that “E”. It’s not like he was in a hurry to leave town, but had he stuck around long enough to hear how some people talked, one can imagine him guiding our critics on the brief walk over a highly trafficked bridge (which all but crossed over the top of the “E Ranch”) for a bird’s eye view of what brought one of those famous involuntary shrieks to his lips: an army of two-story tall stout robot aliens standing rigidly at attention, connected head to toe by a complex grid of wires in perfect formation across some ten-odd acres, encompassed by an equally tall chain link fence topped with razor wire. Boston Edison’s second largest electrical transformer station perpetually buzzed and crackled and hummed not sixty feet from the kitchen window of “the E” as our home was also known.
No one who saw the place by daylight took exception to ”ranch” status either, despite the fact that probably no livestock other than police horses dwelled within a one hundred mile radius. The Walsh family – our landlords who lived next door - had sliced lengthwise with a brick wall clean through the center of a classic Boston triple-decker, creating two rental units architecturally suggestive of three story tall mobile homes. Their yard bristled with animals, albeit formed of molded plaster or concrete. Their tacky fantasia of rabbits, giant toads, mushrooms, butterflies, ducks, lambs, cows, various birds and leprechauns (really, who can remember?) initiated a theme which streamed on inside to litter their house, whose interior was dominated by a huge, perennially squawking television set crowned by a genuine chunk of the Roman Coliseum. Mrs. Walsh’s prudent business strategy was to collect rent individually from each of the inhabitants of the south unit. While she always received rent from at least some of us, none of us could form a quorum to evict anyone else. It also took her a few years to resolve problems with the “dark side of the ‘E’.” The northern unit, which received next to no sunlight, served as a group home for young autistic people who occasionally strayed into the south E for surprise visits, sometimes locking themselves in the bathrooms or the attic for hours before they were coaxed back home.
Bob and Greg Garvin did not find the door to the E ranch locked. Even in Boston it was unnecessary. The neighborhood feared the household and its frequent noisy activities. The renters sublet their basement to local punk bands for rehearsals, resulting in a steady stream of bizarre characters meandering in and out of the place at all hours, many of whom sported the black leather, chains, studded bracelets, bizarre hair and make-up which then were considered reasonable political responses to the initiation of the Reagan era. Some came and went on skateboards, and no one, renters included, knew for certain how many people inhabited the E. Quieter activities included “outdoor television,” starry nights when various occupants perched a black and white TV set atop a short ladder in the center of the small front yard, facing the blue blaze toward the front porch, whereby the whole world could witness the bizarre, pulsing light of television in a fresh artistic context as the notorious house appeared to tremble from irradiation to distant passersby. Such were “postmodern” times, when the art world had degenerated into an apparent psy-ops boondoggle gone amok.
Our new art heroes’ visit was a complete surprise. Earlier that year, Bob had given me a lift back to my university from Livingston cross country as far as Ironton, Ohio in his sassy red convertible. A delirious romp through the verdant Midwest, my Bob-guided tour included a jaunt through the Kentucky hillbilly regions on the other side of the Ironton River from where Bob was raised, and a shopping spree at the Ironton local Salvation Army thrift shop - Ben Franklin stores’ answer to the Twilight Zone - which yielded a fine art heirloom of one plastic half-bust JFK mold. I had the pleasure of meeting his Mom and spending a couple of nights before heading on to Boston aboard a Greyhound bus.
One night a few weeks after my return to the E Ranch, the doorbell rang. This was odd as it never had rung before. The door was seldom shut, and anyone who had the moxie to enter – ghoulishly-attired antique mannequins attended the doorway – usually just drifted in like they owned the place. I opened the door to see what looked like a couple of cowboy-style ruffians, hat brims pulled low over their faces, and Bob inquired with a well-disguised growl: is Kerrie here, ma’am? It took me a minute to catch on.
Inside, Bob convulsed with squeals of laughter, beholding all the industry he’d helped bring about since I’d left Ohio. The E Ranch was inhabited by what might loosely be termed artist/musicians, many of whom were then caught up in the thrall of Kennedy bust manufacture. What rascality! Kennedy busts numbered in the dozens. Every day flowers were purchased from the Moonies on the corner and crammed into the face of the half bust mold while still fresh, and then plaster was drenched over them to immortalize their impressions in place. Paint, food coloring and whatever else was found at hand supplied diverse finishing touches. The effects on the facial features of the progressively wilting flowers entombed in plaster rendered dramatic, eerily lifelike insinuations of the manner of death of the model.
It was perhaps the strangest JFK honorarium ever seen: the book case in the living room was a grid of some fifty squares, each one now containing a Kennedy. One of the scalawags had painted a specific hairstyle and mustache onto a “Hitler Kennedy,” another featured imbedded doll lip implants which held smoking cigarettes. Someone ran across a bust of Elvis in the trash and dropped it by, for the house served as the local Americana repository and such gifts constantly manifested via anonymous donations. While taking a reverse impression of Elvis when initiating the mutant Elvis-Kennedy series, it was discovered that by lightly dusting a reverse mold with spray paint from beneath the chin, a holographic shadow effect was created; the eyes appeared to follow the viewer everywhere. The Kennedy business had burgeoned into a “process piece” filling two rooms around the time Bob and Greg showed up, accented by dozens of plastic flowers which one artist had taken from a cemetery, stabbing their wiry stems upside-down into the rotting acoustic ceiling tiles as a decorative appointment which concealed the history of plumbing leaks upstairs. Montana souvenirs included a genuine jackalope mounted over the kitchen table, augmented with a second, much larger set of elk antlers, the whole mess duly strung with blinking colored Christmas lights, the stuffed rabbit snout adorned with the obligatory rubber nose/glasses prop. The colorful, perpetually twinkling snarl of lights illuminated the front of a refrigerator onto which had been affixed – among other accents - the former parking place placard of F. Lee Bailey.
One “E” alumnus, although unfortunately not on hand for the occasion of Bob’s and Greg’s visit, would be destined to carry the Ironton-inspired Kennedy tradition to its ultimate extreme. Private Kitsch (a pseudonym will suffice) vehemently denied being an artist, although she was culpable of masterminding initiatives such as anonymously propping large wooden cutouts of entire herds of cattle in a dismal vacant lot by night, also outfitting the bathrooms at the E with custom Howard Johnson’s and Holiday Inn roach motels. Only by day was her addition to the Kennedy series visible: five Kennedy busts painted with white skin, blue eyes and red hair, ears pierced by hoops joined in chains, one to the other, circled a rose bush planted in the front yard of the Sleazy E Ranch.
Mutual friends might well imagine the mischief waxing within Bob and Greg, inspired by their exotic new environment. Country punk was born that night in a collective fit of glee which instantaneously melted away superficial differences of fashion.
Bob carried a small pocket recorder around and encouraged everyone to speak. The next morning, Andrew directed them to his day job, where he was hired to take molded impressions from the rock cliffs along the coastline to incorporate them into new Boston Aquarium exhibits. Bob and Greg held lucid conversation with the wildlife there, where Bob captured a number of lengthy interviews at various seal exhibits on tape.
Meanwhile back at the ranch that first night, Lisa was going out to hear the night’s act, dressed in her usual friendly vampire attire of red basketball sneakers and a black dress, with a bottle of vodka stashed in her Barbie Doll case which doubled as a purse. However she found the visitors so intriguing that we decided we all had to go together. This led to the problem of funding, for the cover charge at her favorite haunt was significant so she usually sneaked in. Bob and Greg and the rest of us hit upon the concept of catering the evening’s entertainment as a means of gaining entry. Greg dug through the record collection to recover John Denver records to serve as platters, and then walked to the store to scrounge up Velveeta and Wonder Bread and Spam to make little sandwiches cut on the diagonal, artfully lanced through with safety pins. Lisa, a professional waitress, coached us on the demure with which we ought to approach people: “care for a little sandwich?” Things worked simply enough with gaining entrance. Lisa simply told them the truth, that we were there to cater little sandwiches, and filed in for free admission on the strength of the sight of us all balancing our platters.
The interior – we were all but deaf for the music – was fairly jammed with black leather. This was before the days when it became popular to adorn one’s face as if one had suffered a nosedive into a tackle box, but at least lots of studded collars and chains were visible. However there were only two men wearing what approximated cowboy apparel. Bob of course had demonstrated superb timing, for the next night was Andrew’s opening for a group art exhibit, and the night of the little sandwiches was groundbreaking work for our art heroes. They quickly discerned the vapid soul of the fashion movement of the day, to dress to inspire terror. Most particulars have faded from memory, but nor the sight of Greg arguing with what might have been a future Republican who was adorned with pounds of metal studs, the latter shrinking back in genuine horror at the sight of safety pins speared through the little sandwiches. “You’re no real punk,” Greg offered, reciprocally leaning further forward to the degree the man arched backwards. Greg’s big blue eyes became hypnotically intense, as if to peer behind the man’s pupils, a characteristic outsized grin stretching across Greg’s teeth. “You’re a wimp, you’re afraid of a little safety pin” he laughed with impunity. The “punk” and his girlfriend slouched away, shooting Greg an unbroken sidelong stare backwards as they retreated. One replay after another of such scene took place, until it could be said that Bob and Greg had fairly humiliated the place for its pretensions.
Admittedly we did end up eating a lot of the little sandwiches ourselves, later employing the John Denver albums as Frisbees.
Now adroit in punk sociology, Bob and Greg were prepared to hold court at Andrew’s opening the following night and take on the modern art world. Beneath outsized orbs of large cast shadows from their hats under the intense spotlights illuminating a certain group of works suggestive of a child smearing mud onto expensive paper, from across the room I could not quite make out the thrall with which Bob attracted a growing crowd. A line developed, Bob stood stalk still with a stern, philosophical expression as one person after another spoke animatedly before him, gesticulating wildly in inverse proportion to his quiet poise.
I wove through the jabbering crowd towards Bob and Greg, who stood abreast, solemn and rigid before the mud prints, legs apart, arms quietly to their sides or folded in solemn philosophical attention. Transistor radio-recorder in his hand, Bob gruffly inquired of one inspired observer after another: how did this sound relate to the prints behind him? Bending over, straining to hear the low-fidelity guttural grunts and bellows of sea otters (“bwaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhaaabbbbaaaa…”), in all seriousness, a steady stream of ersatz art critics coined theories in response and sputtered them into his recorder as he switched it into record mode…
An outcry eventually came from the landlords once they identified the likenesses of the busts circling the rose bush out front: “it’s a desecration!” Mrs. Walsh objected. But an unwitting prophetic gesture appeased her sense of impropriety, as it surely treated of things impossible in the US: Private Kitsch painted the front yard Kennedy's black.
