I suppose the current phrase would be: He is a man of many hats.
Over the years of my creative life one of the things that I've taken great pleasure in has been inventing alter egos. These identities have helped spark tangential projects that aren't necessarily representative of my main work in boxed assemblages. A couple of my pseudonyms have been kept from the public, loose secrets between friends and acquaintances. The others have a public life of their own. Even in this small burg of Portland, Maine I've managed to carry on the duties over the years of these separate identities with only but a few in the public sphere making the connections. This may be in part due to the disconnect between the music crowd and the art crowd and their several subdivisions. The 'public' tends to be fairly cliquey unless they are spoon-fed the information via mass media. Entire life stories, individual creative oeuvres can and do remain within the knowledge of a few. And so, as a way of connecting the dots, I have decided to use the public forum of this website to reveal to the world my several creative personas.
Leighton Hasselrodt
As I ventured into art-zine territory in the late 80's my impulse then, as now, was to use a pseudonym for the project. And so in an act of true collage acquisition the name Leighton Hasselrodt was clipped from a 1950's era magazine. (Ironically, I strongly suspect that this name itself was a pseudonym for the author of the original article). Leighton Hasselrodt became the author of some of my first collage zines including my series Practical Knowledge ( of which the last few remaining copies are still available at Printed Matter in NYC Printed Matter). The prolonged use of this austere sounding name also led me to apply it to several writings about my art and eventually gave the name to the creative household where this pseudonym was born, institutionally transmogrifying that living experience into the Hasselrodt Center for Art Studies. (An institution that proudly adorns my resumes as the graduate studies program it truly was.) Over the years Leighton Hasselrodt has become the voice, guise, and symbol of my disgruntled academic persona. And in a twist of the psyche Leighton Hasselrodt is my mentor.
Mr. Hasselrodt's business venture for the past several years has been Galvanic Enterprises. GE is basically an 'ideas factory'. There has been talk for a while of a web presence for this project... but don't hold you breath.
Gary Manners
Gary Manners arrived spontaneously (in true Gary Manners fashion) during a catty complaint call involving some corporate phone-tag run-around that got myself and the jerk on the other end of the line in a pissy mood. When asked for a name I gave the name Gary Manners. Totally out of the blue. A name for a mood is a very useful thing. Gary is the embodiment of the explosive release of emotion that happens as a result of a self-inflicted passive-agressive pent-up anger. (editor's note: Gary likes hyphenating words) Over the years it has been Gary Manners who has written letters to the editor, called into radio talk shows and yes, filled out book club forms to get several free books and balking at the obligation to buy more at the retail price. As I've mentioned, pseudonyms are useful.
Gary's artistic talent surfaced as the graphic designer for the CD releases of the free improvisation trio Mystic Out-Bop Review. More recently an outpouring of his painterly work ( due in part to a manic obsession with Vincent Van Gogh?) was shown at an exhibit at ubu studio art gallery in September of 2006. The success of this show has encouraged Gary to create some similarly minded work in the no too distant future. Gary Manner's exhibit: Art Brutes
Cranky the Clown School Dropout has been more closely associated with Frank Turek than any of these others and I wasn't going to mention it but for the fact that there was a bit of creative mythologizing about the origin of The Clown School Dropouts. I will refer you to the still alive and kicking website dedicated to this dynamic duo of avant-schmaltz. There are quite a few Portlanders who have seen "that clown school dropout guy" playing his crazy straight saxophone down in the Old Port section of town, so Cranky at least bears a mention.
The name Alonzo Holiday literally came to me in a dream. In the dream it was the name of this legendary jazz trombone player who was hanging out in a bar with me and several others regaling us with stories of the 'old days' as ancient trombone players are wont to do. At the time, 2000, my then fledgling improv trio Mystic Out-Bop Review was performing as part of a production of the play "Lenny" about Lenny Bruce. When asked how we wanted to be credited in the program we decided to go with pseudonyms, Chrys became Kit, Frank became Chico Valentine and I became Alonzo Holliday. (Lenny Bruce was played by yet another Frank so having a Chico and Alonzo around made cast conversations a little less confusing.) The name stuck as my avant-garde saxophonist persona. Alonzo even has his own myspace page. Alonzo Holliday's Myspace page.
