jaw@ames-lm.UUCP (James A. Woods) (06/27/84)
# There's something I must tell you,
There's something I must say;
The only really perfect love
Is one that gets away.
-- The Residents, from "The Commercial Album"
My abstract expressionist uncle Michael Kennedy used to
work in the S.F. post office in the sixties with two of these chaps
from Louisiana. One of 'em is John Kennedy (no relation), and
they were fringe artists even then, into Sun Ra mostly.
Mike remembers that the guy wore Hawaiian shirts and liked to
paint his shoes blue. Everyone was being psychedelicized in the Haight,
but the embryonic Residents traced a slightly different "curve."
They eventually moved on to do some part-time bedpan work at U.C.S.F. hospital.
The rest is history.
The John Kennedy name is backed up by an old (2 year) S. F. Chronicle Sunday
supplement Residents puff piece, which runs down a roster of Ralph Records
"employees" (I neglected to save the list.) Anyway, now that the
Residents cultish anonymity is fraying at the edges, why doesn't someone
post this on the Ralph BBS for reaction?
I also suspect that Jay Clem, who did some radio interviews with
KPFA's Charles Amirkhanian (sp?), is also a Resident. Hmmm ... have
to walk down to Ralph to find the real info.
-- James A. Woods
{dual,hplabs,hao,research}!ames-lm!jaw (jaw@riacs.ARPA)