BELLINGHAM BY THE BAY
by Bruce Bellingham

When I heard that San Francisco artist Bruce Conner died the other day, I was reminded of my childhood in New Jersey. I saw a film documentary back then. I have no idea how old I was. The film was about underground filmmakers, and was broadcast on a New York TV station. This is what struck me: On a panel where Bruce Conner had to field questions from a hostile press about the meaning of his movie work, he responded, “Now, I am going to play the harmonica.”

And he did – until the members of the press drifted away.

He shrugged it all off. I knew then that I wanted to be some sort of artist – I already had made 8-mm films – and I knew then that it was right to proceed with a passel of harmonicas (we called them “harps” in those days) at all times.  

Bruce Conner was 74 when he died. He was the sort of artist who could make things ordinary not look so ordinary. All good artists have a sense of humor. For example, Bruce had a skillful tendency to report his obituary on several occasions over the years – and get people to believe it.

That’s only more evidence of a true artist: to manipulate what an obit is all about. Obits are extraordinary pieces of literary limestone, cut from quarries that no one will visit for real.
Now I’m going to play the harmonica. …

You might think this spooky. The mostly Latino kitchen staff at the Balboa Cafe is preoccupied with the end of the world – no, not the end of the shift. It’s seems that the notion of the Mayan Calendar that dictates worldwide calamity in the year 2012 has taken hold of the lads in Cow Hollow. I was told from one of them that a super-sized tsunami will engulf all of California and Nevada. One thing for sure: this will be very bad for people who market 2013 calendars. Apocalypse Pretty Soon.…

Speaking of Francis Ford Coppola, he’s down Argentina way making a new film. His good friend, North Beach poet Tony Dingman was at LaRocca’s Corner reminiscing a bit about the movies he’s worked on with Francis, particularly the 1992 production of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, where Gary Oldman was a nonstop, intemperate funnyman on the set. Let’s not forget Tom Waits’s off-the-wall portrayal of the demented, spider-gobbling Renfield. …

Photographer Dominique Tarlé was the guest of honor at a reception at the Clift Hotel last month to preview his show of Rolling Stones pics from 1971 when the band was in the south of France and recording Exile on Main Street. The show is running at the S.F. Art Exchange on Geary Street through Aug. 30. In attendance was Jake Weber, who stars in NBC’s Medium with former San Francisco resident Patricia Arquette. Jake, a very amiable fellow, was there because he appears in several of the Stones photos from 37 years ago. One poignant shot is of a woebegone 7-year-old Jake with Mick Jagger, separated by four guitars. I mentioned to Jake how lost he looked in the picture, and he explained that it was about the time his mother had committed suicide. Famed rock photog Michael Cooper, who shot the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band, made some of the images. Cooper died of a heroin overdose in 1973. There’s a lot of wreckage left over from that exiled world. Meanwhile, the Brit tabs are reporting that Stones’ guitarist Ronnie Wood, 61, has left his wife of 23 years to traipse off to Ireland with an 18-year-old Russian cocktail waitress. Keith and Mick have reportedly implored Ronnie to come to his senses. Imagine that. A Rolling Stones intervention. Now I’m going to play the harmonica. …

Local solo guitarist-singer Brian Keeney has been wowing them at Tiernan’s Pub in Fisherman’s Wharf on Wednesday and Friday nights. Liam Tiernan, who owns the place along with wife Susan, takes the stage occasionally, too. But they’re both rather busy getting the Washington Square Bar & Grill reopened by September. … Local literary legend Herb Gold had a reading from his new book, Still Alive: A Temporary Condition, on July 17 at City Lights, demonstrating that the unstoppable Mr. Gold is more than alive. … Firefighters managed to save Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s cabin at Big Sur, as they also bravely preserved the Henry Miller Library there. That’s not the sort of book burning that Miller would have anticipated. …

The Horseshoe Tavern on Chestnut Street in the Marina is looking forward to its 75th anniversary next year, and saloonkeeper Stefan Wever notes that it’s been 17 years since he bought the place from the late, storied Vic Ramos, a real tough, lovely Marina character. Vic was a gent, as is Stefan, who occasionally lets me play the harmonica in the pub. …

Bruce Bellingham is a columnist for the Marina Times, and the author of Bellingham by the Bay. Tell Bruce what he needs to know at bruce@northsidesf.com