My friend, poet/journalist Dennis Bernstein and I were eating (cheeseburgers no meat and fries) on the second level of the West 4th Street McDonalds, when we both realized that the place was living theater: one guy was there because it was warm and you could pick food left on the tables; mothers were there with their kids; a college student trying to study; a couple breaking up; another falling in love; there was the unspoken dynamic between management and staff; staff and customers; as well as the metaphorically-rich, ubiquitous familiarity of this cheap, greasy, fast, colorful, american-born eating experience, now replicated all over the world. We decided to write a play set in a fast food restaurant. I quickly envisioned the cover of the book as a container of french fries. Dennis, (the well known muckraking journalist, radio producer and poet) and I began interviewing people under the guise of working on a book called The Potato in America. We heard many great stories about food and the life that surrounds food. One woman couldn’t understand why anyone would want to write or read a book about the potato in America. As we talked she realized that she was in this country, she was an American in fact, because her great grandfather had left Ireland due to the potato famine. Eventually, a character in the play/book, named Louise Giallanza ends up the one writing the book The Potato in America, replete with prophetic insights into the “hybrids of hope” — genetically engineered potatoes.
Several months after FRENCH FRIES was published, I was up at the now defunct bookstore, Books and Co., near the Whitney Museum, when I happened to notice that FRENCH FRIES was in the cookbook section, not the more appropriate theater or art or design sections. I went up to the manager and told him I was one of the the authors of that book and recommended he relocate it. He looked it up on his computer, and said, “Oh, it’s doing really well there,” then ordered 15 additional copies right on the spot. No argument.
One young gallery owner who was carrying artists books asked me to come show her my work. She really seemed to like the work, then took a double-take when she came to the form I filled out for FRENCH FRIES. She thought I had said there were 30 copies at $700, not 700 copies at $30 a copy. She said she didn’t think she’d have any trouble selling it for $700 a copy, but she could not carry anything as cheap as $30. Well, now that the book is a collector’s item, it’s more in her price range — but the gallery is out of business.
The ear/say ensemble performed FRENCH FRIES in a number of venues throughout the country, including the 1985 Artist Book Conference in Boston. [Maybe have optional click to see poster for VSW performance] Eventually I took a solo show of the character Flash on the road doubled up with my solo rendition of Sasha as the guest artist from i mean you know. In retrospect, the book exudes a kind of overstuffed youthful energy, but it remains my most cited, reprinted and requested work.
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