Where's Pine Bush NY?
A new lease on life. A new lease on my apartment. A two year lease, with maximum increase allowed. I could not ask for anything more, or better. Except maybe they can turn down the heat. 80 plus degrees with my windows open. I think my neighbors across the hall are moving out. They've been here maybe two months.
Would anyone like to write a bio of me for my web site? I've asked five or six friends, and received one. I need more. They don't have to be factual, or even make any sense.
Would anyone like to write a bio of me for my web site? I've asked five or six friends, and received one. I need more. They don't have to be factual, or even make any sense.
posted by josh at 10/27/2008 11:14:00 PM
3 Comments:
josh wetheimer was born in philadelphia, pa on march 14th, 1970. his mother went into labor in a pizza restaurant on the block corner where he would spend his formative years. garlic powder substituted for baby powder, and ever since, his back kind of smells, but not badly. his father was a lawyer and could not play the house piano at all, his mother an artist who sewed diamonds & jewels on jean jackets perhaps because she was blind and this was actually an attempt at eating breakfast. both his mother and josh wore braces for 2 years during his teens. it was weird. from early adolescence, he developed a keen interest in photography, music, & duct tape. he had a weakness for joe jackson the singer ("stepping out") but we all have our faults. his early photographs show a fascination with the color orange - difficult to represent as he's worked exclusively in black & white. musically he became well-adept at the guitar, fretless bass, & shoe horn. he had an uncanny natural ability as a musical engineer, manipulating a four track tape machine so that it would create delicious hoagies sought after by neighborhood street kids. thusly he became popular among a small (but tall) group of rowdy & lustful teenage boys who all had very puffy unruly hair. one of these friends would later grow a beard.
graduating highschool from the private & dubiously-respected solebury school ("world peace class"? gimme a break), in new hope, pa, where he experimented with psilocybin mushrooms (nearly killing a hippy student in an estacic /psychotoc state) and studied the rubik's cube during a month's study abroad in beijing, he then attended hunter college, where he began an intense & confusing study of the hammer, anvil, and stirrup. unsure whether to persue carpentry, manufacturing, or a career in the rodeo, he dropped out, opting for audio engineering school, which, upon graduation, landed him a lengthy music producer gig at green street studios in soho where he recorded david hasselhoff's (german) hit album "Everybody Sunshine ", and ordered in a lot of pizza (lifelong obsession). when green street studio collapsed, folded, or was blown up by terrorists, he was hired by the legendary NYC punk club CBGB as sound mixer, where he spent a dozen years, a respected & reliable worker in a sea of post-hair bands, square dance jam bands, riff-raff & flim flam, while also redesigning the club's sound system and mixing classic concerts from patti smith to the swans to tav falco's comeback tour. all the while, wertheimer was documenting in snapshots the history of this club - the backroom dealings, the high-pitched squealings, caved-in ceilings, rivalry feelings, pierced noserings, & the financial underpinnings that eventually led to its demise in 2006. wertheimer's photographs, first exhibited on the walls of CB's Gallery, drew exceptional criticism from important art figures of the city. on the other hand, some people really liked his work.
a natural artist, a see-er and seer honing in on the various aberrations of the decaying seagull, i mean city, his photos carry a unique and well-exercised eye (he's been practicing his" jumping jack eye workout" for 20 years now, and has patented the routine - a workout video will be released this december. imitators beware). each photo is full of emtoion & tells a storiy, one i remember seemed to go on and on for about half & hour and there was no resolve at the end (i forgave the ropes & chains on my chair but see how that was necessary at first). if you allow your eyes to stay on an image for awhile, wertheimer's photographs reward you with the weird, profound, & unique details that emerge from stark corners of the frame, a moment of time in the crusty cruxt of wertheimer's lonely jaunts thru the naked city preserved & reserved for those willing to look deep into the dark edges of his visions. one time i thought i spotted waldo. you are also rewarded by buying his books of photographs, as there's a chance to win a malrboro backpack or even a mountain bike. perhaps that offer has expired. they usually end the offer just as you've accumulated the proper amount of points. life sucks. and in this way, wertheimer understands it best, and turns that cynical phrase on its head, as his camera lens assumes to be life itself, and thereby, with his snapshots, suck you into a world of nagging beauty, causing a near derangement of the senses (which led to me breaking everything in apartment in a fit of rage), coming from a rare & keen sensibility, perhaps one that has been jockeyed up on too many 18 hour work shifts, too many sleepless night, too many tropicana OJs not from concentrate, a madman whose allowed to see his city as the very asylum for which chooses not to escape.
when CBGB's folded, he got a job mixing sound for a comedy club, no joke.
writ haphazardly at 3 a.m. in hazard county, 11/10.08
- Norman Z Crunch
Yes, thank you so much! That is perfect, and a far more accurate history than people will realize.
yeah!
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