Gordon W. Zealot Interview
recorded @ 50 Wabash
(the junkyard building where Gordon lived & wch he used as a "speak-easy")
- Toronto, CacaNada
- December 1994 or January 1995
[This interview is previously unpublished. I was planning to publish it in my magazine "Street Ratbag" issue 7/2 or a later one but issue 7/1 was the last issue - largely because my coeditor had lost interest in it. Gordon W (as he's usually known) is a neoist largely unknown outside neoist circles. This is partially due to current internet historifications in which many of the people presented as 'important' in connection with neoism were actually almost entirely peripheral to it.]
[This interview was originally fairly meandering. It's been edited into somewhat more coherence here.]
Gordon W. Zealot in front of 50 Wabash in the fall of '94
Gordon W. Zealot: ..the matter of the story of the health inspector - this was in 1988, '89.. Underneath where I was living there was a mad butler training school - just some obviously gay guys.. some kind of a schmooze pad, but a butler training school - this guy was a very manic coke head.. &, uh, my catering company (myself, John Engler [sp?], Ottolie Mason - who was my girlfriend at the time - & some other people..) had been away all summer working on a project for a mnth & a half catering a film in the woods of northern Ontario.. We came back & this man was very upset by the fact that we were walking on the floor above him, he went very crazy &, uh, he put his speaker cabinets against our floor & then took off all night - playing the music at full blast &.. very strange behavior.. - & he phoned every inspector against us in the bk. He tried to get the bldg inspector, the health inspector - he sd we were cooking there & shdn't be allowed to cook there in the warehouse bldg because it was dirty or whatever - & all these other people - & the big irony of the story is that, finally, he flipped out & the bldg inspector that he had called was inspecting another space next to him & looked thru his wall & saw that he had ABS plumbing wch was black plastic plumbing wch is not allowed, it has to be pure copper here, so, he was about to be kicked out for this..
tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: Did any of them come & actually look at your place, the inspectors?
GWZ: MmHmm, the health inspector came, & this man was a crazy, twitchy character that was just bitter at life & just absolutely was lording it over us because of his petty bureaucratic job of being a health inspector so he wd come thru &, say, see a crack in our cutting board & all this kind of stuff so.. We were getting ready for a catering job &, he came thru one time & I'm making sushi & he's putting me thru this whole big ritual, I got the feeling that he was just coming by so often just so he cd voyeur on Ottolie or something - see what she was wearing that day or whatever..
t,ac: Like cops..
GWZ: The guy was a really bent character. So, finally, he came in & I put on Laibach full blast just to irritate him & we were on the way out to a catering job & he's insisting on all these things so, finally, I sd "Please get out of our place now, please just leave. I want you to leave right now." He became so upset that he took a swing at me. So I.. BANG, BANG, he was on the ground, ripped his shirt off him, kicked him out of our space. Of course he phoned the police right away & all this kind of bullshit &, uh, it was a big event - so I went to my catering job, I was given a ticket to appear in court at Central, big deal, & some of our neighbors were saying "Huh! Gordon W just beat up the bldg inspector" - he goes running w/ his clipboard down the hallway w/ his ripped shirt.. So we went to court about this & the judge gave me a thousand dollar fine wch I still haven't pd one cent of, & the judge was so mean. The judge sd "Ok, we realize this guy Ross is not a good example of a human being." He was talking about the health inspector. He was criticizing the health inspector & criticizing everyone. He sd "But this man here, this Gordon Wociekowski [sp?], is patently oily," he used these words, "& is not to be trusted whatsoever." &, apparently, they have to say that, they have to make a character judgment - so that I can't take it to appeal.
t,ac: They can make character judgments?! I don't understand that!
GWZ: It's some sort of weird Canadian law. I went w/ the hopeless lawyer, Hugh, who was defending us & the judge just walked all over him & he basically just sd "You've got the worst judge in the city" so..
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[interview interrupted by phone call from annoying landlord]
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Amen!; BruSex; tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE; Brian Damage; & Gordon W. Zealot @ the Ady statue during the Summer of Neoism?! in Pest, Hungary in '97
GWZ: Yeah, the Eternal Chapati Event. This was May the 1st, 1984. We made a procession from the Cameron, wch is a bar here in Toronto on Queen Street, & it so happened that Ian Hynchcliff [sp?] & the Matchbox Purveyors [a performance group that included Roger Ely & Ian Smith & others - it was unknown to the interviewer or to GWZ at the time who the Matchbox Purveyor was at the time] were also in town doing performance events here & there at different galleries. We started our parade.. They were painting the wall of the Cameron w/ graffiti art wch was popular at the time & we started the procession & I had a huge trombone & I used to keep yelling out "L'ANARCHIE!" w/ a big trombone, bwoomumbwoom [mimics trombone sound] because we saw this guy, here in Toronto, who used to go around terrorizing people at the Center, terrorizing people at at the cafes. "L'ANARCHIE!" [whistles]
t,ac: Really? & you never knew this guy?
GWZ: No! Just a complete [unintelligible].
t,ac: Sounds great!
GWZ: Yeah, older guy, like in his 50ties. "L'ANARCHIE!" [whistles]
t,ac: & nobody you knew ever went up & talked w/ him or anything?
GWZ: No, he was inaccessible to people. So, I had this suit on, the trombone, &, of course, I had stashed my rubber boots because I knew I was going to be on to make a [unintelligible] Nathan Hale Square [?] in Toronto they have an Eternal Flame wch is lit by the Pope & some nuns, 9, 10 nuns - lit the flame on the Eternal Flame - in the Peace Garden.. A symbol of world peace. On an occasion of the Pope's visit to Toronto it was lit. They built this Peace Garden & they had water shipped in from Nagasaki to fill the pond up - at extreme cost, like $60,000 or something - real Nagasaki water. [..] We took the parade down there so that the "Peace Guards", we called them the "Peace Guards", wd be distracted & take the attention away from me who was now rolling a Chapati at the ft of the Peace Garden. You have to see this, tENT, when you're there. There's a big sign there, right where the flame is: "WARNING: ETERNAL FLAME".
[mutual laughter]
t,ac: So the flame is inside the pond? How much pond water did you have to walk thru in order to get to the Eternal Flame?
GWZ: Oh, the pond is small - maybe 2 ft.
t,ac: But I mean distance-wise, not depth.
GWZ: Oh, 2 ft out to the flame, yeah. It was just far enuf so I cd duck them when they were swinging the walkie-talkies at my head - the Peace guys.
t,ac: Well, wait, you haven't gotten to what you did yet.
GWZ: Ok. So, they were distracting - the other members of the parade. Oh, by the way, Ian Hynchcliff was wearing white bread cellotaped all the way around his head - w/ a foppish suit. So his whole head covered in white WonderBread wrapped w/ tape - just rm for the eyes & mouth - & the other guy was wearing huge red lips & a pinstripe suit wch was covered in all kinds of pink stains & really foppish - 2 tone shoes & a really over-the-top kind of character. & I was making the Chapati at this time & now, the Peace Guards, I see them notice that I'm in the middle of the pond making something. By this time our parade came over to try to protect me, I had my rubber boots on, I was in the middle of the pond, cooking the Chapati w/ tongs over the -, I had rolled it out already & I'd already cooked it on the taba [sp?] wch is like a skillet - 1st you cook the Chapati on the skillet, then when it starts to bubble then you put it right over the open flames, & it puffed up & made it into a Chapati.. The idea of this was to, on May the 1st, to do an action in the name of all the breadmakers of the world.
Gordon W. Zealot cooking @ the wok during the Summer of Neoism?! in Vác, Hungary in '97
t,ac: So they saw you & came & started swinging their walkie-talkies at your head.
GWZ: Yeah. I ducked & what I did is I used my rubber boots to spray them w/ water - so I put out the Eternal Flame. I just was kicking my feet - so the Eternal Flame went out. They hadn't anticipated the Eternal Flame ever going out because, after all, it's an Eternal Flame. So, the next day they had nuns come to ceremoniously relight the flame. A number of nuns of high.. I guess they turned the gas off. But, as I left the Eternal Flame Peace Guards, I rc'vd a ticket from a policeman there, the police came on the scene & a lawyer, as the lawyers were often doing walking across the plaza, 'cause there are courthouses all the way around, a policeman grabbed a lawyer & sd "Well, what can we do about this guy? Y'know, he was doing.. because of what he was doing in the Peace Garden." So the lawyer suggested "Making an artistic performance in the Peace Garden." I still have the ticket, I can show it to you sometime.
t,ac: Well, obviously that's not an official legal charge. I mean there cdn't possibly be a legal charge against making an artistic performance in the Peace Garden. It wd have to be something more specific like making a public disturbance in the Peace Garden. So they actually wrote out the ticket in that way?!
GWZ: I can show it to you. I have it right here.
t,ac: So then you ended up going to court for this, right? - & what happened to you?
GWZ: I had the hipster downtown lawyer. One of my 1st, 2nd brushes w/ the law - wch brings us to our next story: The Margaret Dragu vs Gordon W scandal wch began the whole discourse in Toronto on political correctness. Margaret Dragu was a sortof very arch mainstream, y'know, art - she was a stripper & then was doing her stripping as art & all the performances were like that. It was an occasion.. - I was enlisted by a friend of mine, Gary Shilling, as a member of the Eternity Orchestra. I was playing bongos & it was an orchestra wch was to accompany an ersatz Christian revival show making fun at Jim Bakker & this kind of stuff. This was 1981. & it was failing miserably. All members of General Idea were there - 2 of wch are now dead of AIDS.
t,ac: What was failing miserably?
GWZ: The performance. The Ersatz Revival performance.
t,ac: Where was it at?
GWZ: It was at the Cabana Room at the Spadina Hotel & many people were there - including Penny Hoar [Whore?] was there in the front row & she saw everything. Margaret Dragu was inviting all the sinners to come up on stage.
t,ac: She was part of the same performance that you were in?
GWZ: Mmhmm.
t,ac: She was an ersatz Tammy Bakker type?
GWZ: Mmhmm. That's it. & she was dressed in a leopard-skin bikini - & she was inviting all sinners to come up on stage. So what I did is, being a sinner, I crawled up on stage w/ a coat-hanger over my head, round my head - a tribute to Monsieur Kiki BonBon, I gently look up at her, undo the string that tied the bottom of her bikini, her bikini falls down & then I notice a little white cord hanging down from her tampon & I just diddle it, diddle it, & tease her by just nudging it slightly & that was the end of the performance & I went off stage & that was it.
t,ac: Did the audience respond to this?
GWZ: I guess aghast that I was doing this. It was like a big scandal. I was sabotaging the performance in a way.
t,ac: But you were part of the performance.
GWZ: But I was also a part of the performance as well - my point being is that what is this stage concept? Why can't any action take place? Wch the Matchbox Purveyors were also dealing w/ as well. I mean they wd definitely encourage audience participation overtly. Try to get the audience engaged - in some way or another.
t,ac: How many people were in the audience?
GWZ: Oh, I think about 40 or 50.
t,ac: How wd you characterize the audience? Art crowd?
GWZ: Total art crowd - all the establishment art crowd of the time.
t,ac: How did she respond when you undid her bikini?
GWZ: Nothing. She went on w/ her performance - no problem, she didn't kick me.
t,ac: That was professional of her.
GWZ: Mmhmm. Yeah. & then afterwards we find out that, because of the performance, I had been banned from the Cabana Room - & then she ends up trying to sue the Cabana Room for $150,000 as well for allowing this to happen, allowing me to "rape" her. She called it a "rape". Then [because Dragu was sueing the Cabana Room] I was no longer banned from the Cabana Room - then she was banned from the Cabana Room.
t,ac: [laughter]
GWZ: It involved all the big art celebrities of the time - like Robert Stewart was involved..
t,ac: I don't know who that is.
GWZ: Yeah. He's quite a character. [unintelligible] & so it went to court, we even went to what's called "Discovery" & she dressed as this poor downtrodden woman. "Discovery" is when all the parties get together separately & the other lawyers get a chance to find out your story - what really went on. My lawyers w/ her lawyers &, in turn, Margaret wd be there w/ my lawyers & her lawyers. It was like a big gathering. She wore this delicate brown suit, this terrible hat, dressing down like a poor tortured woman - how cd anyone pick on such a dowdy wallflower kind of woman - meanwhile she's this total sex trade worker - cum [?] artist.
t,ac: So do you think that she just saw this as an opportunity to make alotof money off of ersatz feminism?
GWZ: No, it was an opportunity to create scandal. To make a little sensationalism.
t,ac: Was there much support for your position? My personal take on it is that, as a sinner, you went on stage & committed a sin, wch was pretty absurd, & that, in fact, you contributed to making the performance more interesting.
GWZ: Than it wd've been, yeah.
t,ac: That's the way I wd probably respond. I personally feel it's pretty hilarious. I don't really see it as "rape" because I don't feel that you, well for one thing, forced her to do anything.
GWZ: Gently, it was all very gently.
t,ac: She had the option of kicking you in the head, eg, wch wd've discouraged you!
GWZ: This is what it was. It was the worst taboo: the "T" taboo.
t,ac: So what kind of rumors started as a result of that?
GWZ: Oh, that I had taken the tampon out & threw it at the audience, that I had taken it out.. & all kinds of bizarre, bizarre rumors I can't even remember them now it was incredible, 10 yrs ago, 12 yrs ago..
t,ac: The community was taking sides because it was a fairly talked-about thing?
Gordon W. Zealot w/ a new friend during the Summer of Neoism?! in Vác, Hungary in '97
GWZ: [coughs from smoke inhalation] Absolutely, & Margaret was part of the establishment art community, so.. - meanwhile we were more Fluxus, into that kind of, more radical kindof performance concepts. It finally was a game of Chinese Roulette w/ Napoleon Fast Worms.
t,ac: What was the 2nd part of that? Worms? What?
GWZ: Fast Worms. Napoleon Brusseau [sp?], an artist here in Toronto, Napo B was a member of "Fast Worms", or was - until they actually ganged up on him & kicked him out of Fast Worms. A 3-person performance group - they did mostly visual art. An art group.
t,ac: Ok, "Chinese Roulette w/ Napoleon Fast Worms". What does that mean?
GWZ: He [it's unclear to the interviewer while transcribing this whether the "he" is Napo B {probably} or Gary Shilling] asked me to go & make an intervention on this performance 'cause I had lost the Chinese Roulette game.
t,ac: Oh, I see, & what.. he didn't specify what he wanted you to do?
GWZ: I think that secretly he knew that this was going to be a crock-of-shit performance & he wanted to sabotage it himself. So that was quite absurd & finally the charges were all dropped.
t,ac: Whose decision do you think it was to drop it? Her lawyers recommended to her that she drop it?
GWZ: I think so.
t,ac: You think she had to pay these lawyers? She must have.
GWZ: She must have, yeah.
t,ac: So she probably lost money on this.
GWZ: & the big irony is that my lawyer who was defending me is now the Mayor of Toronto! Barbara Hall.
t,ac: Really? It was a woman who was defending you. What was her position on the case, do you think?
GWZ: Um, I don't know. Y'know, of course, lawyers, they have to be.., you know..
t,ac: On your side.. on wchever side they're hired for..
GWZ: Yeah.
t,ac: Did she ever.. When you described to her what happened, did she make any sort of comment? Or did she ask any particularly probing questions?
GWZ: Well, she asked me exactly what happened. I told her to the best of my knowledge. I also gave a hotfoot to another guy - same method, very gently, [..] this is the Jim Bakker character.
t,ac: So you went on-stage to him 1st?
GWZ: Yes, him 1st & her 2nd.
t,ac: He, I take it, didn't sue you.
GWZ: [laughter] No.
t,ac: I guess you shd've stuck the matches inside the urethra in his penis..
GWZ: Maybe that wd've changed things a little bit - hot penis. Of course, because of this I developed instantly a very scandalous reputation here in Toronto.
t,ac: Were there people who thought the whole thing was very funny? Or did most people take it much too seriously?
GWZ: I think that a few of my friends thought it was very funny, but, of course the serious art establishment..
t,ac: Is Margaret Dragu still active in Toronto?
GWZ: No, she's moved out to Vancouver.
t,ac: How do you think that she felt about it all after her lawyers recommended that she drop the case?
GWZ: Oh, I'm sure that she just thought that I'm a misogynist pig [..]
t,ac: Did you say anything while you were doing this?
GWZ: Very silent, Buster-Keaton-esque. Tampon action.
t,ac: Were there any women who defended you?
GWZ: I don't know, don't know.. Penny Hoar..
t,ac: She thought it was an acceptable action?
GWZ: Yeah, but she's very.. she's a sex trade worker & she was, y'know, this kind of stuff, it's light weight for her, I'm sure.
t,ac: Do you think she actually defended you at the time? Or do you think she just sortof found it to be not even worth thinking about?
GWZ: Probably not even significant - but, of course, it became the big Toronto scandal wch created the whole discourse on political correctness.
t,ac: Do you think that there were any feminists who thought that your action wasn't offensive?
GWZ: I can't..
t,ac: Hard to say.. All of your friends who thought it was funny were probably men - except for maybe Penny Hoar?
GWZ: I think so, I think so. Yeah. I mean my friend Gary Shilling, who's a very sober guy, was there & he sd that these people are all nonsense. But then he's the kind of guy who's putting up Russian Constructivist posters, 4-color posters, all over billboards, for no reason, doing an intervention - so he's a different kind of character.
t,ac: You mean as a guerrilla action?
GWZ: Yeah, as a guerrilla action. Tatlin's "Kunst ist tot, long live the Machine Art!". Tatlin's.
t,ac: Ok, is there anything else you want to add to that story before I turn this off?
GWZ: Well, I think what we were talking about earlier was the.. can't read my own handwriting.. the ironies, the ironies of feminism.. When I was a new, had a new baby - living on Toronto Island doing food distribution programs, y'know, doing Chapati Cart & this was definite action here in Toronto - distributing chapatis in the street - no one had ever thought of doing that before. We made a real scene, a real theater about doing the Chapati Cart, I just became a real controversial character & they just wanted to take me down..
t,ac: That was before?
GWZ: No, that was during. New baby, & then the so-called "ironies of feminism" comes into play w/ the persecuting the new mother..
t,ac: Well, they were persecuting you specifically. I mean it was probably making life difficult for the new mother. Do you think that Margaret Dragu was aware of the fact that you were a father?
GWZ: She must've been. Susan [the mother of Gordon's baby] was a video artist here in Toronto.
t,ac: So tell me a little bit about the Chapati Cart business, a little bit of the history of it & how it developed. I remember in New York, I think it was at the 5th Apartment Festival, wch was in early 1982, still the winter, if I remember correctly, you made chapatis out on the street, maybe just over an open fire & were giving them away to people. Did the Chapati Cart business start before that in Toronto? 1981?
GWZ: Yeah, it must've.
t,ac: You had a sortof stainless steel cart that you pushed around the city..
WGWZ: It's from Washington DC, the cart. It was owned by a friend of mine, George, who you met, the chef. &, um, we went down to Detroit to get the cart. It had an oven in it. & insulated containers for drinks & we used to make a couple curries up every day & make fresh chapatis & serve them up.
Boris Wanowitch, Gordon W. Zealot, & George @ the 6th International Neoist Apartment Festival in Montréal, C@c@N@d@, winter '82
t,ac: Who was we? You & George?
GWZ: No, myself, Adly , & Kevin O'Neill [sp?]. They were both working on a student training program. They were working under the OCA [Ontario College of Art?]. They were working in the summer on the Chapati Cart.
t,ac: That was a part of their student training?
GWZ: No, it was a grant given to students.
t,ac: To choose what they wanted to?
GWZ: It was an employment grant.
t,ac: But how did that connect in w/ you?
GWZ: They were given a grant, $125-$130 a wk to just work at the Chapati Cart.
t,ac: They actually asked for a grant specifically to work for the Chapati Cart?
GWZ: Yeah, & I was able to employ them.
t,ac: [laughter]
GWZ: If I had had to pay an hrly salary I wdn't've been able to make any money at all.
Wt,ac: As I recall, you wd set up across from where Martin Heath was living & he wd project out his window onto the wall behind where you had the Chapati Cart & people wd stop & watch films & then you wd sell chapatis to them.
GWZ: Well, in this case that you're mentioning.. Martin lived a bit up the street where we kept the Chapati Cart. We'd take it every day out of there out on the street. & the person who wd do the projection was Hans Burgschmidt [sp?] who was an acolyte of Martin's. We had a drive-in lens & we projected on the wall, we painted the wall, we projected.
t,ac: You actually painted the wall?
GWZ: Yeah.
t,ac: This was just on some..
GWZ: On the side of an old clothing store wch was destined to be torn down anyways..
t,ac: It was occupied?
GWZ: It was occupied, it was just a bare wall.
t,ac: They didn't.. did you say anything to them?
GWZ: Just sd we wanted to paint it white - so we cd project film.
t,ac: They sd "fine".
GWZ: Yeah.
t,ac: Did you..
GWZ: It was a white section w/ a black border. Free movies.
t,ac: But you pushed the Chapati Cart around to other places, right?
GWZ: Definitely. We did the [?] Group performance here in Toronto. We'd bring the Chapati Cart out.
t,ac: That's the Japanese dance troupe that wd hang themselves from bldgs?
GWZ: Yes. We went to different folk festivals, different events, art festivals.. Rolled the Chapati Cart down. It was entirely a bicycle-supplied business. All the shopping, everything was done on bicycle. We called it the chapati-powered business.
t,ac: So you didn't do it as a daily thing, you did it more for special events?
GWZ: Daily thing, during the summer, every day.
t,ac: Every day?
GWZ: Every day. We wd come out.. Apparently we started coming out quite late sometimes.. We tried to get together lunches, but that was too much of a tax on our lifestyle, to actually have the Chapati Cart out when we'd be most likely to sell the most amt of chapatis [laughs] - lunch to the street traffic, but, of course, we were out late at night, & we wd get up & have to cook & shop & everything so generally we wd get out at 2 or 3 & serve the dinner - it was more of a dinner cart. It was like a roti concept where you have a bread, inside wd be the curry of the day, & then on the side we'd have yogurt & Bermuda onions & chili peppers & chutneys & pickles. Curried vegetables. It was all vegetarian.
t,ac: How long were you doing this for?
GWZ: I guess 4 yrs? 4 summers.
t,ac: Did you have other people working for you who weren't funded by grants? Or did you do it by yourself the rest of the time?
GWZ: By myself, Adly. Adly was there for 3 seasons? at least? Yeah. Adly Gawad. Egyptian. Regarding this phone conversation I just had [w/ the irate landlord], Adly taught me a very nice thing.. [says something I assume to be in Arabic? - followed by the English translation:] "What does a donkey know, but ginger?"
t,ac: [laughter] I won't get into that on this tape, but.. that was a good one. So, w/ the Chapati Cart, did you do the film stuff every summer?
GWZ: We did the film stuff once.
t,ac: Only one time?
GWZ: Once like 2 wknds I think. Martin projected some movies. "La Jetee". "Hiroshima, mon Amour", Resnais. A few other things.
t,ac: Chris Marker did "La Jetee".
GWZ: So there were very interesting visuals.
t,ac: Was this w/o any publicity?
GWZ: This was w/o any publicity. Word of mouth.
t,ac: Did you have much of a crowd?
GWZ: Yeah, we had seats. We had chairs set up. This time it was on an open parking lot that wasn't being used. Queen Street wasn't exploited to the extent that it is now. We were able to get away w/ it.
t,ac: The films were just shown & the police never came?
GWZ: The police did harass me, I got quite alotof tickets.
t,ac: I assume you didn't have a license to do this?
GWZ: I did have a license, I had insurance. I had an ersatz kitchen that I was supposed to be making the chapatis from. I had to have a $400-a-yr insurance policy for.. in case someone was poisoned or whatever, & in terms of tickets, at one point Toronto realized "We don't want to have this happen". Now, if you go to Toronto, you'll see many hot-dog carts everywhere, many, many hot-dog carts - every street corner.
t,ac: But at the time that wasn't common?
GWZ: That wasn't common at all - there were only a few. Toronto didn't want to have the sort of situation like street life on the streets. You have to understand, Toronto's cold most of the yr. There's no chance to have any of this kind of street life so I think the authorities didn't want Toronto to be like New York City or something - having these vending carts out on the street - I mean, god knows, that's not clean food. How cd it be? Anyway, this is what they were thinking, so, we attracted quite alotof attention, you know, w/ people hanging out of their cars, people dressed weird, outlandish people - friends of ours, people who were attracted to the scene. We were playing interesting music at the cart all the time [on a "ghetto blaster"]. We played Vedas chanting, Balinese gamelan, "exotica" music - this kind of stuff, stuff that was not the mainstream culture - the music wd've been more on the exotic, ethnic, ethnomusicology sortof element ["Caravan" plays in the background here].
t,ac: Did anyone ever complain about the music you were playing?
GWZ: Yeah, many times, I'm sure. The shops down the street complained - that we were driving business away.
t,ac: Wd you usually set it up in one place & stay there for the whole day?
GWZ: Yeah, yeah. The law at that time was that you had to move every 15 minutes, the cart - so it was like a law that you cdn't possibly.. y'know, I mean, these laws. Now that law doesn't exist anymore, obviously, because the streets are just full of hot-dog carts.
t,ac: How cd they expect you to move every 15 minutes? It's amazing. You may as well just basically push the cart the whole time.
GWZ: Exactly. Well that's the reason why I got so many tickets.
t,ac: What wd you do w/ the tickets? Wd you pay them?
GWZ: No I didn't. I had to pay one though because I was actually caught in a driving violation & they saw this ticket unpd & they took me to jail until the ticket was pd.
t,ac: A ticket for the Chapati Cart.
GWZ: Yeah. For the Chapati Cart.
t,ac: How much was the ticket for?
GWZ: $104.
t,ac: One ticket was $104! Whew!
GWZ: So at that point I decided what's the point in getting into this Chapati Cart business when it's gonna be a failure business..
t,ac: How long wd you've stayed in jail for?
GWZ: Until the ticket was pd.
t,ac: I mean isn't it the way it usually works that a jail day is considered to be a certain amt of money pd towards a fine?
GWZ: I think so. I think that was a bit of a scam. I don't know if they can do that anymore - just because you have an unpd ticket put you in jail?
t,ac: That's the equivalent of debtor's prison.
GWZ: I had the $1,000 fine, wch I didn't pay - but they didn't force me in jail because of that.
t,ac: Is that because of the beating of the inspector?
GWZ: Yeah. Hardly a beating, more of a roughing up. Shirt ripping, shirt rearranging, shirt deconstructing.
Neoists gathered at the "Fuit" ("Was") grave (Gordon W. Zealot 2nd person to right of gravestone) during the Summer of Neoism?! in Pest, Hungary in '97
idioideo at verizon dot net
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE as Interviewer page
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE as Interviewee page
to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE movie-making "Press: Criticism, Interviews, Reviews" home-page
to the "tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - Sprocket Scientist" home-page
to the "FLICKER" home-page for the alternative cinematic experience
to find out more about why the S.P.C.S.M.E.F. (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Sea Monkeys by Experimental Filmmakers) is so important
for info on tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's tape/CD publishing label: WIdémoUTH
to see an underdeveloped site re the N.A.A.M.C.P. (National Association for the Advancement of Multi-Colored Peoples)