Category Archives: family

mikey wild has been a part of my life since i was a young teen. if being an eighties south street kid has any kind of real youth culture cred — to be held up against that of other cities — it is, in large part, because we have mikey wild and they don’t.

in 2007, i included him in my “knitted philadelphians” series. a gracious muse who, when i told him i had something i wanted to give him, guessed excitedly, “vincent price?!” — but was even happier to see that it was himself.

weren’t we all amazed when he started drawing and painting, after (and during!) such a legendary performance career? — i became a collector: christopher lee battling a thanksgiving turkey, a large canvas of “the tingler”…

and, this portrait of “the baby and dracula”. i think we recognize that baby.

and here’s mikey on the day he did that drawing for us.

it is one of my favorite mikey stories; although we had known each other a long time, the way you can “know” people in philly, i was never entirely confident he knew my name. on that day, it was clear from his behavior, which was a little tentative, that he KNEW the last time he had seen me, i had not had a black infant with me. “is that your baby?” he asked, and when ben and i replied in the affirmative, he said, “she’s really cool.”

we discussed pricing for a commission of a baby portrait, and he started drawing. when he handed me the portrait, everything had been colored in except claudia’s skin. mikey had such a sheepish look on his face, as if to say “i’m not ENTIRELY sure of the protocol here and i’m going to err on the side of caution.” (as if anyone can imagine THAT coming from mikey wild. but that’s what i read in his face.)

i told him he needed to finish coloring it in, but i didn’t give him any hints about how. he took it back, and we had the finished product shortly after.

another favorite mikey story of mine took place the morning he drew christopher lee battling a turkey. it was the morning before thanksgiving and turkeys were on his mind. i was in gleaners, waiting for sonny d’angelo to open his shop so i could go pick up our bird. everyone in the café was doing some thanksgiving shopping, and a guy came in and said he had to go pick up a block of cheese.

mikey looked up and said, “like a block of led zeppelin.”

the guy who was shopping for cheese laughed and said, “yeah — like a rock block.”

“a rock block of cheese,” mikey said.

it’s difficult to put a final word on my own feelings about mikey. i think about that old roger corman movie, bucket of blood, where dick miller plays walter paisley, an exciteable — and socially unsophisticated — busboy in a beatnik café. when walter’s desire to be part of the culture and excitement around him — and to contribute to it — becomes unexpectedly realized, he is elevated in status — briefly — by the crowd he has admired.

things don’t end well for walter, whose contribution to the the counterculture community is more radical than any of his peers initially suspect. but mikey’s contribution — of himself, and his vision — to the punk rock, art, and horror film communities, is the story of his success, rather than of his demise. he was supported by those communities, and by a family that encouraged him to embrace what he loved.

not everyone gets that encouragement, and even people who do get it can be afraid to really immerse themselves in their loves like mikey did. the world gives us the message that there’s something wrong with people who do that — they are “obsessed” or “geeking out” or “have too much time on their hands” (which is often exactly what people who are really in flow — really connecting to what matters to them — do not have.) on whatever standardized tests are out there, mikey certainly could have been perceived to have a “deficit”, but in day-to-day living, he surely did not. those who cannot see how deserving of admiration mikey was should weep for no one but themselves — but the fact is, everyone i’ve ever known, who knew mikey, got him. and i don’t think he was even trying to make that happen. and that’s really unusual, and great.

mikey died on the morning of may 25th, 2011. he missed the hundredth anniversary of his beloved vincent price’s birthday by about 48 hours.

i spoke briefly about the upcoming exhibit at pageant, on WHYY’s newsworks radio, on the day of mikey’s death. the great kenn kweder was interviewed to great effect.

a celebration of the work of mikey wild was held at pageant:soloveev gallery at 607 bainbridge street, on june 18, 2011. it was beautiful!