Suspect Press

Tag: Non-Fiction

  • Can The DIY Roots of Rhinoceropolis Survive Its Bureaucratic Renovations?

    Can The DIY Roots of Rhinoceropolis Survive Its Bureaucratic Renovations?

    By Josiah Hesse

    Photo by Tom Murphy

    [dropcap]F[/dropcap]or anyone that remembers pre-gentrification, pre-legal weed Denver, the all-ages, DIY venue Rhinoceropolis was the beating heart of our city’s underground art scene. Denver staples like the feminist/queer music festival, Titwrench, Denver Noise Fest, and the immersive art festival Fantasia, were born and thrived at Rhino. A young (pre-Elon Musk) Grimes performed there, and electronic musician Pictureplane (Travis Egedy) spent years performing and organizing shows at Rhino before moving to Brooklyn. And there’s Flosstradamus, Wolves In The Throne Room, and Lightning Bolt…we could go on.

    Back then Rhinoceropolis was in a dark corner of a warehouse district, where artists endured poverty but enjoyed freedom. And then a dark cloud by the name of RiNo (River North) Arts moved in, appropriating the name of the DIY venue while transforming the neighborhood into a cartoonish playground for developers and corporate-funded art.

    This was followed by the tragic fire at the Oakland DIY venue, Ghost Ship, where 36 people were killed and a panic about underground venues permeated the nation. Despite years of routine inspections from the Denver Fire Department, Rhinoceropolis was shut down by city officials shortly after the Ghost Ship fire, leaving several of its members homeless (including weirdo genius Colin Ward, who committed suicide shortly after) and a massive hole in the Denver arts scene.

    Fast forward two years and Rhinoceropolis is back open, having complied with all the bureaucratic demands thrust upon them by various civic agencies. Rhino director John Gross has put in countless hours and energy making sure the venue has all the walls, ramps, electrics, bank accounts, permits and contracts needed to make it a legit, above-ground venue.

    But can the spirit of DIY arts be maintained in a space that works hand in hand with city officials? We traveled out to the newly renovated Rhinoceropolis to speak with John Gross about this cultural conundrum, and what the future holds for one of our city’s finest arts institutions.

    Honestly, after hearing about all the changes you had to make to get this place up to code, I was expecting Rhinoceropolis to look like a slick, AEG venue. But it still feels like the same place. What’s different about running this place today compared to before the shut-down?

    Before, when we were living here and putting on events, it was like throwing a house party in my living room, so I didn’t care whether or not I turned a profit. It was about having a good time, and making sure the bands had enough gas money to get to the next place. For anything like this to work, the focus has to be on taking care of the artists.

    Today I’ve got these laws and bureaucracy to conform to that we never bothered to deal with before.

    What did you do before that you can’t now?

    The biggest one is we can’t live here anymore. But I’ve also gotta operate as an LLC, and if we pay any bands more than $600 I gotta have them fill out a 1099. Which would never have crossed my mind before. It was all cash. But now we’ve got a square reader, a business bank account, online ticket sales, all the stuff that you would do when you think of a legit arts organization.

    Photo by Tom Murphy

    After the Ghost Ship fire and Rhino being raided, was there a period of time when you thought: “Fuck it, Rhino is over”? How big of a blow was all that to your spirit?

    The Ghost Ship fire was still on my mind when the cops showed up that freezing cold night in December 2016. It was less than a week since the fire. Two of my personal friends died in that fire, who I’d met through this place.

    The moment I saw it on the news, I called my friend and said “we’re gonna need to be careful.” But there was never any point in my mind that this was a “death trap,” which was a common phrase in the news about Ghost Ship. With the DIY scene there’s always an attitude of self-policing, so I told my team that we’re gonna have to up our game. In the back of my mind I thought: The city is going to be paying attention to us.

    And then, soon enough, the Sheriff was here, social services, fire department, the press, all these city agencies watching us while we moved our stuff out. That was when I got a call from Vince from Meow Wolf and he asked, “What do you need?” And that’s when I thought we might have access to resources to keep this thing alive.

    Photo by Tom Murphy

    Did you have a sense of what it would take to keep it alive?

    Absolutely not. I don’t know how anyone could without a background in commercial real estate and international building code. And yeah, there were times when I had doubts that we could pull this off. But I started hearing from a lot of people, who reached out to say how much they thought Rhinoceropolis meant to their community. I heard from a lot of people who said all-ages spaces are incredibly important for music culture. There are a lot of people who had their first exposure to the DIY culture here, the first time they could relate to people performing, and first time they experienced art that challenged them. And that gives them the idea that “hey, if they can do that maybe I can.” Then a few months later they called me and said, “I’ve got a band, can I book a show?”

    Was Colin Ward’s death a factor in wanting to push on with Rhinoceropolis?

    Colin was my partner in all this. He was going to have a big leadership role in the new version of the venue, and his suicide hit me really hard. I think it hit everyone really hard. I can’t know what was in his mind, but all of the hurdles, delays, red-tape and city bureaucracy stuff [at Rhinoceropolis] had a big impact on his mental state, and maybe made him do what he did. For him to suddenly not be there, I thought, “I can’t do it without him.” But at the same time, I had to keep going because that’s what he would’ve wanted.

    Photo by Tom Murphy

    Everyone knew him as a great artist, but how was he as an event organizer?

    He was amazing at that. Fantasia was the biggest, craziest…It was a lot like what Meow Wolf does, but a little more of the chaotic, ecstatic, over-the-top type of thing. And that was all him. He was manic when it came to organizing that thing. He would pull people together from very diverse backgrounds.

    While the space itself doesn’t look wildly different than it did before, this neighborhood has changed exponentially. What’s it like trying to put on a show here late at night?

    Yeah, this area is the new Cherry Creek. We have had some noise complaints, but the cops just came in to tell us to turn it down a bit, and that was it. I try and go around and talk to the neighbors, but the trouble is I don’t live here anymore. This neighborhood went from being a forgotten industrial wasteland to hot property and the gateway to downtown. And that’s when they started rebranding it as an arts district.

    Photo by Tom Murphy

    And appropriated the name RiNo, right?

    Yeah, I’ve been saying that forever. The people from RiNo deny it and deny it. Was it too much of a coincidence? I think so. We’ve always had a problematic relationship with the arts district. They did support us financially when we were being shut down though. I don’t think they wanted us gone. I would like us to be more involved with them. The problem is a lot of the people from the DIY community don’t want anything to do with them.

    Do you feel like a diplomat between the DIY community and mainstream arts and law enforcement?

    Absolutely. A lot of the people from the DIY community are around 21. And I’m 41. And they ask, “Why do we need to deal with the city? This is bullshit.” And I say that we have to be legit now. You used to be able to do whatever you wanted, for years, but not anymore. Or maybe it’s just a generational thing, I don’t know. It’s complicated.

    Photo by John Gross (on far left)

    Yet I like the idea that there are still 21-year-olds out there saying, “Fuck the city.” I went to that Community Forum on Safe Spaces, with city officials and the DIY community, and when the Q&A started, the first kid up there let out the most horrendous screechy howl into the mic for something like two minutes. At first I was aghast, but then I thought: They’re all meeting with the city on the city’s terms, maybe the city should get a taste of this weirdo art world.

    That’s funny, because at the time I was upset about it. That was what made our first architect quit the project. But then I thought: Maybe this guy isn’t a good fit for us. And in the end we were able to find an architect that was an artist and knew this community. There are a lot of people out there who are really skilled professionals who support the DIY community and aren’t just in it for a check.

    Author of psychological horror novel Carnality: Dancing on Red Lake, and regular contributor to VICE and The Guardian, Hesse aims to blend journalism and the arts within the pages of Suspect Press, making it both a reflection of our time and an innovative force of creativity. He’s recently released the second book in his series, Carnality: Sebastian Phoenix and the Dark Star, available at several Denver booksellers and on the Suspect Press website. Contact: josiah@suspectpress.com, josiahhesse.com & @JosiahMHesse


  • A Brief History of Grace Jones

    A Brief History of Grace Jones

    By Lonnie MF Allen


    Lonnie MF Allen has long been a stalwart among Denver’s close-knit cartooning community. An oft-published illustrator, writer and designer, in addition being an award-winning cartoonist, and named one of Westword’s 100 Colorado Creatives, Allen is an organizer for the Denver Drink & Draw meet-up. His work has been published by Dark Horse, Image Comics, Colorado Sun, and he’s been nominated for an Eisner Award. He is the art director for Suspect Press. Find him at lonniemfallen.com.

  • A Brief History of John DeLorean

    A Brief History of John DeLorean

    By Lonnie MF Allen

     

     

     

    Lonnie MF Allen found his comic-art stride as a high-schooler dabbling in zines and mini-comics, eventually coming up through the ranks in the local comix scene, where he’s long been a regular among Denver’s close-knit cartooning community. An oft-published illustrator, writer and designer in addition to his niche as an award-winning cartoonist, and named one of Westword’s 100 Colorado Creatives, Allen is an organizer for the Denver Drink & Draw meet-up. His work has been published by Dark Horse, Image Comics, and he’s been nominated for an Eisner Award. Find him at lonniemfallen.com.

     

     

  • The Family Tree of Denver Dads

    The Family Tree of Denver Dads

    By Jake Fairly

     

     

     

    Jake Fairly oozed forth upon the Denver comics scene from the catacombs of the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. Be it comics about Neil Armstrong’s corpse, or generally being metal AF, Jake is a guy with considerably hefty night moves. He’s had work published in periodicals such as Westword and the Denver Public Library comics newspaper, and has been labeled a “street artist” by Westword magazine.

     

  • Lost

    Lost

    By Dan Landes

    Illustration by Karl Christian Krumpholz

     

    I walked in the room
    She said I reeked of death
    I said “I’m an American what the fuck you expect?
    I owe 40 million dead Indians for all my success.”

    The last thing I wrote for Suspect Press, the magazine I launched with Brian Polk over four years ago, was a letter from the editor. The letter expressed my need to shut my mouth, and take a hard look at myself. Despite my successes as a restaurateur (City, O’ City, Watercourse), I was becoming disenfranchised and lost within a changing city and couldn’t find the strength to admit it. I hid the fact that I felt lost like a tourist trying to not look at a map. I strolled along with aimless confidence portraying a false image of what success looks like.  

    Since writing that letter from the editor I’ve followed through and shut my mouth. This process led me to shutting many other things. I shut down my social media accounts. I sold my businesses and my sweet little Cap Hill home. I ditched my smartphone and replaced it with a flip phone (not sure how long this will last—texting is a bitch on a numeric keyboard). I closed my Spotify, Netflix and Hulu accounts. I turned off the news. I quit drinking. I hardly write anymore, but I read a lot. While I’ve become bored with my own thoughts, I am devouring the thoughts of others. I am grateful that Suspect Press exists for this reason.  

    Shutting my mouth adversely affected my worth as a conversationalist. I don’t really care about opinions—yours or mine. I don’t trust any sources of information unless divine.  Divine to me, anyway.

    Those without faith
    Are limited to logic

    I had reached the limits of what Western thought could show me. Deducing, categorizing, rationalizing and quantifying were not going to help me find my way. The scientific method killed the magic that I so much need in my life.

    My father taught me
    How to not dance

    Lost and quiet I’ve been trying to locate myself. Where am I? Literally. Where am I on earth? Denver.

    The buildings make the city
    The land makes it stand

    Denver’s footprint leans against the Eastern slope of the Rockies facing the Great Plains and stretches up and down the Front Range. The South Platte River confluences with the Cherry Creek in the energetic center of Denver and then continues northeast to eventually deposit into the Gulf of Mexico. For millennia, the confluence was an important landmark for migratory hunters (today it hosts REI—the Fascinations for outdoor fetishists). Cold air, blowing east over the Rockies, pools in the valley as the warm air from the Plains settles over it creating a thermal inversion trapping the cold air and all its accompanying pollutants.

    The migratory people never camped near the confluence. The smoke from their fire would be trapped under the inversion, signaling their exact location to others. Fast-forward a thousand years, and on cold days the stench of the Greeley slaughterhouses hovers above Denver city like rancid breath.

    I enjoyed being locked in this room with you
    However,
    If I knew the key was hidden beneath the welcome mat
    I would have left much earlier

    Denver is becoming massive. All the new asphalt, buildings and people have created a thermal mass that soaks up the heat during the day like a cast iron skillet and emits the heat back slowly into the cool night. I like to look at Denver from the foothills at 9000 feet. I go there to figure out where I am. From that vantage point the confluence looks like the center of a vortex sucking in the surrounding counties.

    From the mountaintop I spin a slow 360 degrees.  Where am I? To the North the spine of the Rockies divides the watershed. My mind reaches West toward the California shoreline, where 20 million people, guided by wanderlust and the desire for a better life, now wonder where the fuck to go. I turn to the East Coast, where a man lives in a white house built by people who were beat into servitude; he seems to enjoy smearing his feces over everyone. Finally down South to the Mexico border where Americans do as they’re told, upholding the law, and separating parents from their children.

    Where am I? I close my eyes and meditate on the Four Directions. The morning sun of the East. The abundance of the South. The cold North and the promise of the West. Here I am. Always and forever in the middle.  Wherever I go I am always and forever in the middle.

    Aho mitakuye oyasin; all my relations.  

    The people who migrated across this land believed that they were related to all things. I don’t. I understand the concept that everything is made from stardust—but I can’t help feeling separate. Rocks are rocks, trees are trees, stars are stars and I am in awe of them. Separate and in awe, like an alien observing a foreign land. Perhaps I am an alien. I don’t feel related to all things but I am aware that I can find myself in relation to all things by the Four Directions.

    Writing this for Suspect Press has been difficult. I used to love sharing my thoughts and stories, and perhaps I will again. For now I am systematically dismantling a scientific view of my existence. I am letting go. A sail pulled by unpredictable winds. There is no apology here. No regrets. Those sentiments only serve to placate me. I desire to get right with my god, to acknowledge my privilege and what it took for me to get here. Who was oppressed and eliminated to put me in a position of authority? I know the answers and it ain’t pretty.

    We can only make amends for the atrocities of our ancestors
    When we stop reaping the benefits of their crimes

    I look up:

    What the blue sky above Denver City told me:
    ‘On this desert lies hope.
    You are not on this desert.
    You are on the one below it.’

    I no longer act like I know what I’m doing. It’s better to be honestly lost than falsely found.   

     

     

  • Teenage Letters to My Future Husband

    Teenage Letters to My Future Husband

    By Amanda E.K.

    Illustration by Lonnie MF Allen

     

    In Christian college, I founded a monthly event called Single Girls Sleepovers. We’d dress up in old prom dresses and plastic costume jewelry, listen to Disney tunes, and color in coloring books while watching a romantic comedy. We were great at having “safe” fun, but the real point of these sleepovers was to spend time in discussion and prayer for our future husbands. (Assuming we were all to be married, and to men.) We’d sit in a circle and talk about our ideal guys, dissolving into giggles when describing body types. Then we’d blast “A Whole New World” and write our imaginary grooms a letter.

     We believed in God’s plan, and we were saving ourselves for the men God had already chosen for us. All we had to do was prepare our hearts for the union through prayer and contrition, and when we were finally ready, God would let us meet The One.

     We read books called When God Writes Your Love Story, The Bride Wore White, and I Kissed Dating Goodbye. I think it was one of these books, or maybe Brio Magazine (a lifestyle and entertainment mag for teen Christian girls) that sparked the husband-letter trend.

     The letters included promises to pray for this unknown boy’s purity and to remain pure for him (though you were unclear where the line was drawn for self-gratification). You let him know your interests, and how close your walk with God was. (“How’s your walk been?” you might add as a postscript.)

     The letters were never sent, but collected and saved to present to your husband on your wedding night.

     I still have all of these letters. No longer to share, but to keep a record of how I’ve changed.
     Here is the first of those letters:

    Amanda is a short fiction and freelance writer originally from Iowa. She’s a member of the Knife Brothers writing group – a small collective of short fiction writers – who can be found occasionally haunting the Victorian halls of Lighthouse Writers Workshop. You can find her work in Suspect Press, Birdy Magazine, Jersey Devil Press, and in the Punch Drunk Press Poetry anthology.
  • “People Hating You Can Be Energizing,” Says Westword’s Patricia Calhoun

    “People Hating You Can Be Energizing,” Says Westword’s Patricia Calhoun

    By Amanda E.K.

     

    Illustration by Lonnie MF Allen

    I sat down with Patricia Calhoun, co-founder of Westword and longtime editor, to talk about the Denver arts & literature scene, and to solicit some advice on managing a team of creatives.

    She greeted me at the Westword offices, her purse slung over her shoulder, ready to go out for a beer. My first impression: This lady’s got style. I took note of what she refers to as her ‘Granny Clampett gets a BeDazzler’ ensemble, complete with cowgirl boots and denim skirt, and thought: This is going to be fun.

     

    You’re known for working around the clock with Westword. How do you spend your downtime?

    Some friends and I just bought a crazy tower outside Lymon. It’s the World’s Wonderview Tower in Genoa, Colorado. It’s a 90-year-old tourist attraction that was falling down, so we bought it to save it, but we don’t know quite how we’re going to do that.

    Do you ever get caught up in fantasy, or are you mostly realistic and analytical?

    I think reality is much more interesting than anything coming out of my brain. Much more important than imagination is the ability to be surprised. You have to be willing to give up everything you thought going into a story because it might be very different. You’ve got to listen for nuance, look for detail, make connections, especially if you’re doing news and investigative reporting.

    Any addictions that get you through the day?

    Drinking is a time-honored tradition, especially in newspapers. When you go to a bar, you meet people who aren’t in your everyday life, and you find stories you wouldn’t find otherwise. Also, if you’re having a difficult conversation with someone it’s a lot easier to do it over a beer. I don’t like to drink alone, which might be why I’m not alone that often.

    I read too much, if that’s a vice. I read everything I can get my hands on. I love the fact that neighborhood papers and niche publications still seem to be doing pretty well compared to daily papers, which are dying right and left.

    What’s your take on the Denver underground magazines like Birdy, Barf, Cherry and Suspect Press?

    Really it’s similar to what it’s been over the last forty years. There’ve been a lot of zines and independent art publications; they don’t necessarily last that long, music ones especially, but I love it when people are trying to do it. But it’s hard to make a living at. You have to love what you’re doing.

    Do you see any of the art scenes in Denver expanding outside the state?

    It’s really cyclical. Sometimes bands are hitting it big, like Nathaniel Rateliff. You’ll have times when comedy is really strong. A lot of it depends on who’s running a venue. The writing area’s boomed a lot because of publications like Birdy and Suspect Press and Lighthouse Writers Workshop. But the book pub industry is so tough. You’ve got to have a strong writer’s community just so you can have people to commiserate with. I think the bigger change right now is people who think they can’t afford to stay in Denver, so they’re not necessarily moving to make it bigger, but just to survive and still be able to do their art, and that’s a depressing development.

    Have you had to make changes at Westword to evolve with an ever-changing Denver?

    The changes in Westword have a lot less to do with Denver itself than the media in general. Westword is one of a group of papers that evolved in the seventies called alternative papers, so we took that name because we weren’t the daily mainstream press, but now, most of the mainstream press is gone, or they’ve changed so much…What are we an alternative to now? A very tiny Denver Post? So now we’re really just a local media outlet.

    What advice would you give a new editor in chief?

    Absolutely be as clear as you can with people about why a story works or why it doesn’t. But the other thing is, always give yourself enough time to sleep on it, or at least walk around the block because, especially when you’re doing creative things, with a little time and distance the solution will float into your head. Also, get ready for everyone to lie to you and make up the most creative excuses for missing a deadline. I’ve heard about more sick cats—even from people with cats I know died months earlier.

    How do you justify pissing someone off in order to stand by what you think is best?

    As an editor, you’re working for the story, and the reader, so you want the story to be the best it can be. At Westword we’re either disappointing or hurting people, or making them mad because we’re telling stories they might not want told, because they’re true. It might be the easy thing to not run that story, but it wouldn’t be the right thing to do.

    People hating you can be energizing. Sometimes the haters are right. If we make mistakes and people call us on it, more power to them. I love when readers care enough to even say that.

    One of our editors—and a former writer for Westword—asked me to ask you: What was it like dating James Eckhouse, the guy who played Jim Walsh on 90210?

    He and I both played the violin, so we shared a stand in junior high, and both completely faked what we were supposed to be playing because neither of us ever practiced. It’s funny when one of your early boyfriends is not the hunk on Beverly Hills 90210—he’s the dad.

     

     

    Amanda is a short fiction and freelance writer originally from Iowa. She’s a member of the Knife Brothers writing group – a small collective of short fiction writers – who can be found occasionally haunting the Victorian halls of Lighthouse Writers Workshop. You can find her work in Suspect Press, Birdy, Jersey Devil Press, and forthcoming in the Punch Drunk Press Anthology.
  • Film Review: JonBenet’s Tricycle by Andrew Novick

    Film Review: JonBenet’s Tricycle by Andrew Novick

    By Cory Casciato

     

    Photo courtesy of Andrew Novick

     

    Denver’s godfather of weird—Andrew Novick—knew that he wanted to make a film as soon he got his hands on JonBenet’s tricycle, and in typical Novickian style, the results are a delight. Delirious and disturbing, yes, but a delight all the same.

    The titular tricycle—which Novick took from the backyard of the Ramsey family home shortly after the infamous murder—is the documentary’s focus, but the film is so much more than that.

    Recursive and multilayered to the point of being almost fractal, the film is a bewildering ouroboros of ideas and concepts, folding back on one another over and over again, stuttering and sputtering in a dance of intellect and emotion that’s surreal and beautiful, while also deeply creepy.

    It opens on an interview with Novick, before spinning off to give viewers a peak of his collections of everything and anything, from vintage clown memorabilia to morbid merchandise spawned from the Manson killings. Before long, we’re reliving the infamous JonBenet murder, communing with psychics (and debunking with psychic skeptics), meditating on tabloid culture, delving into the ways we experience cultural phenomena, examining the way we form both memories and attachments to objects, and dealing with the backlash to some of Novick’s especially outrageous stunts, such as the t-shirt designs that seemed to advocate suicide.

    Does this sound like an unfocused mess—a madhouse rollercoaster ride through dozens of concepts and ideas and images, going everywhere and nowhere all at once? It is. But it’s also a loose-limbed but fascinating look deep into one of the most unusual and unique minds you’re likely to ever encounter. It’s like an early Werner Herzog doc if Herzog had less focus and a hell of a lot more whimsy, but mostly it’s just like Novick himself: weird and at times off-putting, but always charming and full of joy.

     

     

    Cory Casciato is a Denver-based writer with a passion for the geeky—from old science fiction movies to brand-new video games. His work has appeared in The AV Club, Colorado Public Radio, Westword and many other places. He really likes zombies.
  • Interview: Talking Economics with Meow Wolf

    Interview: Talking Economics with Meow Wolf

    By Josiah Hesse

     

    Meow Wolf House of Eternal Return

     

    There is an old cliche that “real” artists aren’t interested in making money. Or that if you are focused on making money, you must be a shit artist. Sometimes things do play out that way, leading to great talents being ripped off, and hacks making a killing on hotel room art. But it doesn’t have to be that way, says Vince Kadlubek, co-founder and CEO of the Santa Fe, New Mexico art collective Meow Wolf.

    Since its inception in 2008 as an underground music and arts venue, Meow Wolf has set a new standard for what artists can accomplish when they pool their resources and aren’t afraid of  playing a little footsie with capitalism. In 2016 the collective landed their first permanent space—a converted bowling alley owned by Game Of Thrones author George RR Martin—and there created the world-renowned exhibit, House of Eternal Return, which has hosted more than 400,000 visitors in less than two years.

    Kadlubek has had no qualms about monetizing the popularity of Meow Wolf, and in turn his organization has been turning some of that capital into grants for various organizations, not least of all Denver’s DIY arts community, who received a total $74,000 in the form of 20 different grants just this year.

    We recently spoke with Kadlubek about Meow Wolf’s upcoming plans for a Denver location,  what our arts community can learn about the success they’ve had in Santa Fe, and why getting along with business and government doesn’t have to kill your creativity.

    For those that don’t know, what is Meow Wolf?

    Meow Wolf is a creative company that grew out of an art collective. Our main product, the thing we like to create the most, are immersive exhibitions. We’ve done around 30 temporary exhibits, but we have a permanent one in Santa Fe.

    But we’re also in entertainment media, AR, VR stuff. We’re looking to do feature films, documentaries, merchandising, product development, whatever. Our aim is to keep the spirit of the artist collective alive and open to whatever people are passionate about.

    How much of Meow Wolf is an extension of Santa Fe and the arts culture down there?

    It’s kind of based on Santa Fe in that it’s a psychedelic, weird, cyber-spiritual, culty, new age kinda thing. There’s a lot of Santa Fe influence on Meow Wolf, but there’s also a lot of national aesthetics we’re pulling from. We’re just doing what we’re doing.

    Meow Wolf House of Eternal Return

    In this age of income inequality, Meow Wolf seems to be pursuing a new economic model for artists and collectives. What can other artists communities learn from what you’re up to?

    I think artists getting comfortable with business-minded people—and business-minded people getting comfortable with artists—is very important. That needs to happen if we want to have the arts and creativity survive in this economic climate. Artists need to apply some business-type thinking to their work.

    Art exhibits get a lot of traffic, they’re an event that’s cultural and important and people want to be there. And yet it’s considered totally wrong to charge admission to an art exhibit—that mentality needs to change. I could have four thousand people lined up outside the door to see my paintings, but if no one’s buying them and everyone just wants to be there at the event, then I need to rethink this and consider charging everyone five bucks. Because there’s a valuable exchange happening there.

    In addition to a distrust with the business community, in Denver the DIY community has a strong apprehension toward working with city officials. Do you think it’s possible for underground communities to have a good relationship with the city without losing the culture, politics and lifestyle that make them what they are?

    I don’t see it as a need to balance to strike, or compromise. What you’re seeing in Denver is an issue with fire codes: An inspection from the city on DIY spaces finds that they’re not up to code and everyone gets kicked out. The honest truth of it is that artists don’t want to live in spaces that aren’t up to code, and the city doesn’t want to kick artists out—so there is some common ground there.

    From my perspective, the conversations and progress happening in Denver on this issue are far beyond most any major city in the country. Denver is having the most upfront, honest attempts on both sides to make this situation right.

    Rumors have been circulating for some time about a permanent Meow Wolf instillation in Denver. What can you tell us about that?

    Denver is at the top of the list of cities that we want to go to. We’re still working it out. We’re trying to find a large piece of real estate where we can do a badass exhibit, and real estate in Denver is complicated and expensive. I think we’ll have a space locked in soon, but there’s a lot of work to do even after that. We’d like to announce something in November.

    How can ambitious art projects like Meow Wolf serve as an antidote to all the damage that gentrification has wrought on the Denver arts community?

    When money pours in from the tech industry, or marijuana industry, or whatever, artists can’t keep up, they get priced out of their own neighborhoods, and their art spaces get turned into high rise condos.

    But it’s not going to be solved by slowing the economic growth of a city. Artists and creative industries need to be able to keep up with the economic growth curves, so that artists aren’t poor. And that’s the problem here: artists don’t have work. The world doesn’t value artists, businesses don’t value artists, and cities don’t value artists.

    So our hope [with Meow Wolf] is to show the economic value of artists. And hopefully artists can start to represent themselves in ways that produce value. And new businesses can be developed that are dedicated to supporting creatives. So hopefully artists can start getting bigger paychecks. And with bigger paychecks they can keep up with the economic growth curves of the city.  

     

     

    Author of the psychological horror novel Carnality: Dancing on Red Lake, and regular contributor to VICE and The Guardian, Hesse aims to blend journalism and the arts within the pages of Suspect Press, making it both a reflection of our time and an innovative force of creativity.
  • Cold Crushed: Why We Can’t Lose Denver’s Premier Hip Hop Club

    Cold Crushed: Why We Can’t Lose Denver’s Premier Hip Hop Club

    By Ru Johnson

     

    Just before Tyrone “TJ” Adair was gunned down just outside the patio at Cold Crush, the atmosphere was like any other warm Sunday evening on “The Block,” the nickname given to the 2700 block of Larimer. The dance-club and art-bar was packed with Denver hip-hop fans, who had been loyally filling Cold Crush for years, as it was one of the few venues in the city where this culture was given a little room to breathe.

    A sort of hip-hop Mecca for the city, Cold Crush synergized an otherwise splintered community; here slam poets, gangsta emcees and radical activists could all come together under the holy gospel of breakbeats.

    An altercation between Adair and an unnamed guest began on the patio, then quickly spilled out onto the sidewalk, ending with Adair dead of a gunshot wound. This tragic death would go on to divide this once solid community, leaving the future of Denver’s favorite hip-hop club hanging in the balance.

    Cold Crush became mired in troubles with the City Attorney in the wake of the murder investigation, leading to the controversial closing of the venue by officials and neighbors who considered it a “public nuisance.” Subsequent news stories highlighted the growing divide between hip-hop and the owners of Denver’s music venues (who often associated the genre with guns and drugs, and were reluctant to host concerts).

    Reporters from various news outlets called me directly, totally unclear about how to cover Cold Crush being shut down. I was a resource because I’m a member of the hip-hop community, and because I’ve become a quasi-liaison between the press and this scene since I published my first rap review in Denver Westword in 2009.

    They had no idea who to talk to get the full story of Adair’s presence and impact on the hip-hop community, and so most of the coverage was taken from a bird’s eye view. Writers who had never stepped foot in the location were covering the community rally in support of Cold Crush, lifting quotes that were published without attribution and circling the candlelight vigils like vultures hovering over their prey.

    I answered hurried emails from multiple writers who were doing the thing reporters do: crunching numbers, attempting to get the City Attorney on the phone, and doing their best to understand a culture alien to them, but which many of us live on the daily.

    It wasn’t until the writing of this story that I’ve given my formal opinion about Cold Crush and its importance to the hip-hop community.

    People like to mention Meadowlark and Larimer Lounge as the locations that first  created a music scene in the neighborhood, and that’s true with some segments of the populous, but for hip hop fans the opening of Cold Crush was a Denver game-changer: We now had a place to go that was a respite from the racist undertones that existed in other venues, where rap is tolerated but never welcomed.

    While many of us reeled from Adair’s murder and the trauma of being in a place where gunshots sent unexpected partygoers scattering, talent buyers and promoters for other venues patted themselves on the back in disgusting displays of “not in our bar, and not on my watch” smugness.

    One talent buyer told me directly they couldn’t book anything that was considered “rap or thug.” Already exhausted from these descriptions, it wasn’t worth it to debate anyone over it or try and explain the nuanced racism of this thinking to other reporters. And besides, Cold Crush was being shut down and labeled as a public nuisance, so we had bigger fish to fry.

    Additionally, hip-hop as the red-headed stepchild of the music scene was nothing new. Performers have been fighting and vying for a place of legitimacy in music scenes since the original Cold Crush Brothers (for whom the Denver club is named) came on the scene in 1970s Bronx. For decades rap has been seen as a commodified source of revenue, but rarely afforded a viable location, a consistent cathedral where the scene can develop its own expression and artful revolution.

    While Cold Crush owner Brian Mathenge (a hard numbers genius with a gruff, but generous personality) scrambled with his attorneys and staff to figure out a plan, the community got organized with a viral video dedicated to the unity found at Cold Crush. These efforts, combined with an acquiescence to program changes (no more dancing on the bar; ID scanners and pat-downs without exception) proved enough for the city to let Cold Crush open their doors once again.

    News trucks lined the streets for the first few days of the re-open, but none of the writers who crunched numbers, or asked for connections to Adair’s friends and families, returned to the bar. That was to be expected, but what surprised me was the absence of so many Cold Crush regulars, who couldn’t reconcile partying steps away from where Adair took his last breath, and began to associate the once-treasured club with gunshots and flashing police lights.

    In the months since Cold Crush’s return, the club has struggled to return to its former status as the hip hop Mecca of Denver.

    It’s hard to determine whether the central idea about the recent troubles from Cold Crush are about the fickle customers, or the nature with which hip-hop is treated in growing cities.

    Part of me wants to say it’s the spineless guests who don’t know how to stick it out when the chips are down, who made it hard for the club to reopen with its same vigor after Adair’s murder. Part of me wants to rail at the critics who are so hard on hip-hop but know nothing about the culture, and whose critical, racially inflammatory statements about Cold Crush did more harm than help.

    Still yet, part of me wants to blame the press and the obsession with tragic stories about black bodies, while ignoring the the years artistic beauty and community strengthening that happened at Cold Crush. I want people to understand the importance of having a place where hip-hop music is not only played but celebrated. Where the history of our culture graces the walls and the murals outside, and how important it is to have a black-owned business in an increasingly gentrifying neighborhood.

    Perhaps the troubles Cold Crush experienced are a study in human nature. A penchant for joyous devotion during the good times and reactionary conservatism during the bad. Or maybe it’s as simple as folks needing to work through the changes at their own pace.

    At any rate, the growing population in Denver continues to usher in more energies over time. New bodies have taken over the seats at the bar and some of the regulars have been lured back by the sounds of their favorite deejays paired with strongly poured spirits.

    Shortly after completing the first draft of this essay, the police announced they’d made an arrest in Adair’s murder (though naming him in these pages is not a priority of mine), and Cold Crush was again in the headlines. Unlike the weeks after that fateful night in October, though, the collective conversation feels more like a sigh of relief than a rallying cry for all hip-hop refugees to finally return home.

     

     

    Ru Johnson is a writer and founder of Roux Black Consulting who lives in Denver. Her writing has appeared in Denver Westword and The Denver Post with entertainment and hip-hop as the focus. A music lover and avid nail polish enthusiast, Ru believes art is the revolution and that if you stay ready, you won’t have to get ready.

     

     

  • At Home With A Ghost: Watching Harry Nilsson’s Voice Die

    At Home With A Ghost: Watching Harry Nilsson’s Voice Die

    By Sarah Kernochan

     

     

    1974 was the year RCA released House of Pain, my first album as a singer-songwriter. It was the year I loved and lost a man, so my songs poured out the sweet and the bitter in equal measure. Once I was done recording, I rolled up my sleeves to begin my new project: self-pitying, wine-soaked self-destruction. I had gotten off to an impressive start when I met Harry Nilsson.

    My album’s title song came from the Charles Laughton horror classic Island of Lost Souls. Laughton played a mad scientist grafting men to animals in his lab, which his unfortunate victims – now “manimals” – called “the House of Pain.” I spent my record advance making a weird short film to accompany the title track, including animation and clips from the horror film. This was before music videos. I urged RCA to use their newly developed video players to show the film in record stores, to see if it had any effect on my sales. They failed to see the point. However, the video did result in my meeting a long-adored idol.

    I was new to songwriting, and my early efforts didn’t fit any genre or show any other artist’s influence. However, if there was any singer-songwriter I worshipped, it was Harry Nilsson. His early album Harry (the one which brought him to the attention of the Beatles) captivated me, and then Nilsson Sings Newman (his perfectly distilled renderings of Randy Newman songs) tied the knot; every subsequent album found him defying prediction and exploring something completely new. Harry just suited me right down to the ground: his bizarre humor, his insouciance, his entwining of musical styles both quaint and contemporary, his impeccable taste in arrangements, his brilliantly layered background vocals and, above all, his gliding, golden voice.

    RCA was Nilsson’s longtime label. One late winter afternoon, on a visit from LA, Harry popped into the office of his product manager, who showed him my strange video. I happened to be next door with my own product manager when I was told Harry wanted to meet me.

    The following dawn, I remembered nothing. I had probably been out of body, and my body had apparently gone ahead and celebrated without me. My idol was standing by the hotel room window, smoking, and gazing at me sort of wistfully. He said he’d recently become enchanted with a young waitress from Ireland, who had gone back home but would rejoin him in LA in the spring. Now that he’d met me, he was feeling confused. I told him he didn’t actually have a problem, because I was going home, too. (My clothes smelled like the floor of a bar.)

    I didn’t expect to see Harry again, assuming that I had behaved as badly as I often did during blackouts, which were common enough for me in those 1970s days of wine and bloody noses. But it was a shame to have no memories to savor of my one night with Nilsson. I hadn’t even grabbed a hotel matchbook to prove to myself I’d been there. The RCA product managers knew more about what happened than I did. They were the ones to tell Harry, a few months later, that I was back in LA. They gave him my number.

    At 5 a.m., I was sleeping soundly on a bare mattress, the one piece of furniture in my West Hollywood sublet, except for a phone, which suddenly rang. In the blue light of this second dawn, I arrived at Harry’s La Cienega apartment, where I found him on the phone in hoarse conversation with his attorney. Flopped in an armchair was John Lennon. Harry was discussing the text of an apology to be delivered to someone, while John peered at him myopically (his glasses had been lost in a fistfight). Harry instructed his lawyer to send flowers with the apology, and hung up. It seems I had come on the scene right after Harry and John were thrown out of the Troubadour for brawling with the Smothers Brothers.

    John repaired to the guest bedroom. Harry downed a quart of milk and a couple of repulsive hoagies from the 7/11, and then fell asleep with his foot hanging off the bed, jiggling, still animated by all the cocaine and brandy he had ingested earlier. (“Ole Coke-foot,” I used to call him.) He favored Brandy Alexanders because the cream lined his stomach; thus the alcohol wasn’t absorbed, allowing him to drink more double Brandy Alexanders until the dawn like this one.

    Harry had introduced John to this noxious drink, which was also Ringo’s favorite. Now, Harry could hold his mud. No matter how much he drank, he seemed fine, mind sharp and words unslurred. Ever primed with witty banter and guile, he was a world class motormouth. He was also, as I was soon to learn, a raging alcoholic. And he was spurring John to commit brandy-kiri alongside him. John, for his part, was terrible at booze. Two drinks and the darkness fell; you never knew what demon was going to ride out of the murk.

    By now their escapades had hit the press. RCA was understandably anxious. John was supposed to produce Harry’s new album, Pussy Cats, with recording sessions to begin in two weeks. The word came down from the higher-ups: Harry and John needed to get out of LA, spend a weekend at a spa in Palm Springs, and dry out.

    Women were allowed on board. RCA must have thought we would act as nannies. This was not my strong suit. May Pang, on the other hand, didn’t mind being a minder. She was John’s new love, in the wake of his split with Yoko. She and I packed our weekend bags, jumped into our hot pants, and rode down to Palm Springs with our sick patients.

    I will not go into detail about that long and disorderly weekend. Suffice it to say, the boys took “dry out” to mean “no alcohol.” Nothing wet. That left drugs. And Palm Springs was dead boring. The sun was too bright. The shades got pulled down; calls to locate a dealer went out. Some white powder was scored. Perhaps it was coke. If so, it had been stepped on so many times that it was mostly suitable for babies with diaper rash. Whatever it was, Harry became more than usually loquacious. Hoarse to begin with, he talked and talked and talked until he was down to a rasp.

    A trip to the hospital ensued. He was handed some antibiotics, and told very sternly not to smoke, and to go on a complete voice rest for the rest of the weekend.

     

    Harry tried the pantomime thing for about four hours before he caved. Alcohol was restored to the menu. Swallowing the pills with cognac, he lit up a cigarette, and proceeded to talk. With a vengeance. He wouldn’t shut up. The rasp now sounded like he was gargling blood. Yet he talked on.

    And so I was present to witness the tragedy of Harry Nilsson willfully murdering his voice, that beautiful instrument I loved so much. It never really came back.

    I was back in New York when he and John arrived to finish Pussy Cats. I was horrified to hear Harry’s vocals. There was no trace of the swooping, heaven-kissed tenor he was born with. He sounded like he was being flayed alive. The album was one big drugged-out gangfuck of the ears.

    Meanwhile I was pulling away, for my own preservation. I lost my nerve, recognizing I had neither the stamina nor the capacity to keep up with this tireless, unending binge. Harry scared me. His attempts at self-destruction made my own look feeble.

    Besides, I had my second album to record, and Harry’s waitress was flying in from Ireland shortly. What should he do? Harry asked me. He was in love with two women. I told him he didn’t actually have a problem, because I was going home.

    I knew if I stayed with him, I was going to die. Instead, he died – twenty years later, in 1994. By then I was happily married (as was he, to his waitress) with one child (to his six). He hadn’t been sober for most of those years, so the news of his death from heart failure, while sad, came as no surprise to me.

    I hadn’t loved him, though I’d tried because he was a genius and I am partial to them. Nonetheless I was still and forever in love with his music. I mourned Nilsson’s death by playing his poignant “Turn On Your Radio”

    I don’t know where I’m goin’
    Now that I am gone
    I hope the wind that’s blowin’
    Helps me carry on
    Turn on your radio, baby
    Baby listen to my song
    Turn on your night light baby
    Baby I’m gone                

    I’d said goodbye to him many years before, and fate had not arranged for us to run into each other since. This time I knew for certain I’d never see him again.

    But I did.

     

    *For the rest of this story, as well as other entries in Sarah Kernochan’s At Home With A Ghost memoir series, visit sarahkernochan.blogspot.com

     

    First catching the world’s attention for co-directing the Academy Award winning documentary Marjoe, renaissance woman Sarah Kernochan has lived a storied career as a musician, screenwriter, filmmaker and author. “It’s my way of being promiscuous,” she says. She won a second Oscar in 2002 for her documentary short Thoth (available on YouTube). Her writing credits include the films 9 1/2 Weeks, Impromptu, Sommersby and What Lies Beneath, and she is the author of the novels Dry Hustle and Jane Was Here. Her blog At Home With A Ghost, chronicling Kernochan’s history with spirits, has a large online following. Kernochan lives in New York with husband James Lapine. Check out her website at sarahkernochan.com

     

     

  • Lady Lobster

    Lady Lobster

    By Josiah Hesse

     

     

    I didn’t care about the painting, but I sure pretended to.

    Still blinded after biking through a March blizzard, my eyes strained to focus on the painting as I entered the living room. I’d been out working as a dog walker all day, fighting through the snow drifts with expensive purebreds, and was exhausted by the time I got home that night. While I was out one of my roommates had taken it upon themselves to graffiti a painting of mine in the living room.

    There were twelve of us living together in that giant house, trading in basic necessities for the freedom of only paying a hundred bucks each in rent. There was no heat or hot water and a metropolis of mice lived behind the walls, but it afforded most of the residents the luxury of not having to work. They’d figured out how to make rent on their art, but I couldn’t lean into that kind of madness the way they could. I was a writer, and making money off of my sentences felt beyond me at the time. My bones craved the security of employment, which lead me to walking dogs in a blizzard.

    Several of my roommates never left the house, consuming pots of coffee and spliffs until dawn each night; painting, sculpting or writing themselves into a coma. Often their creative juices sprayed onto the walls, floors and ceiling, carving penis sculptures out of stairway banisters and drawing self portraits in their own blood on kitchen cabinets. This was all fine considering the landlord had no intention of ever setting foot in the house. But when someone drew the on my painting, I became hysterical.

    It wasn’t anything I cherished, just a cheap a portrait of young debutant titled “The Favorite.” The girl was poised and elegant, her hair pulled back into a clean bun while resting one arm on the iron railing of a bed. One of my ambitious roommates apparently thought that arm would look better as a big red lobster claw, and took it upon themselves to make the necessary changes.  

    No one would confess to doing it, but I simply wouldn’t let it go.

    I brought it up at every house meeting, the twelve of us circled around the fireplace for warmth, tossing in phone books stolen from the neighbor’s porch. I told them the painting was a birthday present from my ex-girlfriend, that she’d painted it as a self-portrait, and it was the only possession I truly cherished. Which was all bullshit, but they didn’t know that. Most of these people I’d met on Craigslist, and had only known them a few weeks.  

    It was true that I’d recently gone through a breakup, hence my living with a dozen strangers in a drafty mansion that was only an electric bill away from being considered a squat house. So I was probably just trolling for sympathy.

    I honestly couldn’t even remember how I came about the painting.

    More than that, I actually really loved what had been done to it.

    It went from being a hotel-hallway dud to a piece of comic surrealism.

    But I would never let any of my roommates know that.

    I refused to lean into their madness.

    They never seemed to worry about money and, like an Al Qaeda soldier in the mind of George W. Bush, I hated them for their freedom. They seemed to just absently float through existence on a cloud of inspiration, while I was riding my bike around Denver every winter’s day from 9 to 9 so I could walk dogs sporting collars worth more than my life for eight dollars an hour.

    After that, I could only squeeze in an hour or two of writing each night, with a space heater between my legs and a quickly drained box of Franzia on my desk, before I collapsed in a pile on my mouse-shit speckled floor. Their lives were a blank slate, an empty highway, or at least that’s the way I saw it. While I was the Horatio Alger go-getter with a heart of gold. All that Republican Party, Ayn Rand bullshit from my childhood was playing out in a passive aggressive roommate squabble, mostly of which only existed in my head.

    My resentment only solidified one frigid morning when I came downstairs to find Tina Turner smeared with blood. It was a 1969 photo of Turner performing on stage, shaking with preternatural madness as sequins shot out from her dress like exclamation points. I’d bought the poster in Omaha years earlier and had it framed.
     And now the frame was smashed.

    At some point the night before someone had gotten drunk and punched Ms. Turner. The glass was sprayed out from her face, the poster smeared with blood underneath.

    Again, I shamed the group at house meetings over the vandalism, but secretly adored the look of the thing. The blood and spider-webbed glass only intensified Tina’s explosive energy, not to mention the violent imagery being a provocative commentary on the domestic abuse she was enduring at the hands of Ike Turner when the photo was taken.

    But still I fabricated stories about my mother singing me Tina Turner songs as a child, and that this framed poster was a gift from her at my going away party when I left Iowa. Ever since Mom died from pancreatic cancer last Easter, I said during one house meeting, the only thing that brought me comfort was looking at this picture of Tina Turner.

    So whoever punched Tina essentially punched my dead mother, I told my roommates.

    After that, I had to quickly leave the room whenever my Mom would call.

    Our landlord eventually had the property foreclosed on him, and we were given the boot by the bank. The Tina Turner painting had been sacrificed in the fireplace weeks earlier, after one roommate had consumed a pint of Morning Glory seed tea, covered himself in Papua New Guinea tribal paint designs, and sang “What’s Love Got To Do With It” while wiggling his fingers above the smoldering poster.

    But I managed to keep the lobster claw painting.

    Eight years later it still hangs in my living room.

    I keep it as a reminder to try and lean into the madness.

    A ghostly memo from the past, bringing me comfort in the knowledge that life’s chaos will often bring pain and the need for sympathy, but if you can just manage to keep your mouth shut and ride out that pain, there may be a badass lobster claw painting waiting for you on the other side.

     

     

    Author of psychological horror novel Carnality: Dancing on Red Lake, and regular contributor to VICE and The Guardian, Hesse aims to blend journalism and the arts within the pages of Suspect Press, making it both a reflection of our time and an innovative force of creativity. He will be releasing the second book in his series, Carnality: Sebastian Phoenix and the Dark Star, in August 2018.
    Contact: josiah@suspectpress.com, josiahhesse.com & @JosiahMHesse