Sanders vs. Sanders: A Kmart Debutante Face-Off

 "Head in the clouds while still wearing the blue collar shoes 

my father gave me....from football to free jazz and everything 

in between"

That is the motto of this blog, and it's time to really put that into action because it's everything that I am really about.  I was the guy with the dyed black hair and studded white leather belt getting insane looks when showing up at sports bars in Chicago to watch the Steeler's games.  And I was the guy that was smirked upon by the other so called open-minded creative type people for liking sports and football specifically (and while we're on that topic, all of you art rock haters back then who suddenly recently became soccer fans because it's now so fucking hip to watch soccer can lick my taint).  I was at the last Indian Summer show at  924 Gilman Street on August 12th, 1994 to witness the decedent emo dance party that broke out on stage, and I was at the last Pittsburgh Steelers game ever to be played in Three Rivers Stadium on December 16, 2000, as well as the first regular season NFL game ever to be played the next year when Heinz Field opened up, but more on that later.  In the same year in 1996,  I saw the Chicago World Premier of the Steve Reich / Beryl Korot collaborative video/live musical performance piece "The Cave, and I climbed up a Chicago El train tower to drunkenly celebrate another Chicago Bulls NBA Championship.  I've been rock-star drunk at the Chicago Symphony, and was peeking at a TV for another Bulls score while at a Bedhead show.  And it all makes sense to me.  "From football to free jazz and everything in between."

Original set list from the final Indian Summer show

 8/12/1994 - 924 Gilman Street, Berkeley, CA

The Kmart Debutante at the first ever regular season NFL game to be played 

at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh on October 7, 2001.  

In typical fashion at the time, the Steelers beat the Bengal's in a Kordell Stewart mediocrity dump won on the back of Jerome Bettis and the foot of Kris Brown like they all were.  Speaking of Jerome Bettis, this one here goes out to all my hometown Chicago brethren.  The first regular season game there was actually slated for September 16th against the Cleveland Browns, but that game was canceled due to the events of September 11th.  They hate us for our Millionaire's club, open-air gladiator stadiums funded on the backs of the working taxpayers. Wasn't that the reason why?  No disrespect meant towards the pillars of sports families the Rooney's, but we keep it real over here.  It was also the game where on the big screen before the game, as well as TV screens  across America, Cowboy Bush announced he was about to bankrupt the United States of America and sentence it's young men and women to a life of PTSD and stumps.  And the crowd went nuts.

Back to the task at hand though, in the exploration of my dichotomous life and the overlap of art and sport, I bring you the first in the series of "Kmart Debutante" Face-Offs", where the heavy hitters of each category will face off to decide an ultimate winner.  For the first installment, we have to go big and toss the pigskin and the mic to two of the greatest "Sanders" of each side:  Pharoah Sanders vs. Barry Sanders:

All right, this one appears to be too close to call, we're going to have to turn to the tape here and see who the winner is:

Pharaoh Sanders & Sonny Shamrock -  Live in Frankfort (1992)

Barry Sanders in-action

Let's take a look at one of the judges scorecards and see if we can gauge where they might be leaning on this one:

"Atmosphere Burning" by Miqual Corley - 1997.
This is a writing piece I did after seeing the 1997 Pharoah Sanders
performance at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago mentioned above.

The Kmart Debutante might be conceptual, but I'm also Americana as fuck.  I grew up in the Laundromat part of society, cut my teeth in my teen years at the Arby's Roast Beef Emporium, and in my adult life I love to watch in fascination and disbelief when bold, over-the-top moves that up the ante in the great slow genocide program called the fast food industry are brought to market.  For the winner here, I've got to "Double-Down" on this and go in a whole different direction.  In the 1st ever Kmart Debutante Face Off:  Sanders vs Sanders, the winner is...........

The Colonel discusses proper smoking techniques for his 
"secret blend of herbs and spices" with Alice Cooper.

the_immaculatedeception Sunday Night Dance Party: Las Drugas

"Drugs have taught an entire generation 

of American kids the metric system."

-P.J. O'Rourke

Quit selling me fake opium! by Miqual Corley (2001)
typewriter text / pastels / on a torn envelope

Factums - Take Drugs (2007)

Ok, thanks for the suggestion. You don't have to tell me twice. Everybody's doing it. Your friends, your family, your pastor, Steve Jobs , even Tug McGraw... You gotta believe!!

"I don't know. I never smoked AstroTurf." 

 ~Tug McGraw, when asked if he preferred grass or AstroTurf, April 1974

Vicious Visions - Drugs (1983)

Swedish punk rock from the 1980's. The lead singer's name was Mr. Boo. You'd have to be on drugs to live under that...and think it sounded remotely punk. That being said, the dude from Roxette hails from the same city as him. Sounds like a good advertisement for drugs for me.

Mommy Give Me Cortisone by Miqual Corley (2004)

6" x 19": beer bottle / vintage photograph / magazine tear out / 

plastic letter / pastels on wood panel

"Ten Little Indians" anti-drug PSA (1972)

Contrary to the message, this video instead makes me want  to move to the big city and hang out with some hep cats. Damn...even the anti-drug films in the 70's were better.  I sure do feel like I missed out on the good ol' days of the 70's when sex was safe and cocaine wasn't addictive.  

Drugs by Miqual Corley  (1997)

AKA - City Drugs (1981)

I live in the City... my drugs are locally sourced, free-range, hormone-free, vegan, non-gluten, non-GMO from a worker owned farm sold out of a mobile food truck with Twitter updates on location....unlike that Walmart Meth you're rockin.

"I used to have a drug problem…..now 
I make enough money"-David Lee Roth

Black Heart Processsion - Drugs (2009)

Goodnight... I tried

Osaka 01: Repetitions and after influences

Silk Green by Miqual Corley - 2002
3.5" x 6" - cut and re-assembled commercial wallpaper sample book

repeat -- retreat by Miqual Corley - 2002

Mush Mushi by Dying Batteries.

Dying Batteries is:
Eric Broers: synths, echo pedal
Miqual Corley: guitar, synth, pedals, mixing
Recorded late winter 2004 @ Cigarettes on the Treadmill Studio - Chicago, IL

4/15/1973 - The Spaceship Landed

"For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier... I put them in the same room and let them fight it out." -Steven Wright

The Kmart Debutante straight gafflin people's drinks at a young age. 
Future Bukowski-like aspirations should not have come as a surprise.

April 15, 1783  - The Bottle Opener was invented

The day of my birth is shared with the day the device to open beer bottles was invented.  Not only were teeth saved, but future generations of hipsters were inspired to proclaim their love of the brew by proudly displaying bottle openers on their wallet chains and key clips. But then again, I myself didn't need one. I drank whiskey.  And thought listening to Palace Brothers records made me an urban fucking cowboy.

April 15, 1973 - I'm born.  Hinsdale Hospital, IL 

The Pittsburgh Pirates win. The Chicago Bulls lose. the_immaculatedeception is born. The Walt Disney Store opens. I guess that makes me 2/4 right from the start.

April 15, 1975 - The San Diego Chicken makes his first appearance at a Padres baseball game.

The San Diego Chicken character was originally created by Brian Narelle as a character for an animated TV commercial for KGB-FM radio in San Diego.  Brian Narelle also stared in the  1974 cult classic science fiction film Dark Star, the film that inspired the name of the band Pinback, and samples of the film are featured on their first album "This is a Pinback CD".  The actual character in the suit that went on to be famous was played by Ted Giannoulas, who after a dispute with the network and suing for the rights to continue appearing in the costume, relaunched the character in what many called the greatest sports promotion in history, The Great Hatching.  Giannoulas as The Chicken later went on to not only star in one of my favorite childhood TV shows, The Baseball Bunch, but he also made a cameo in one of my favorite pre-teen movies too, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.

April 15, 1994 -  21st Birthday - Spitboy show - 

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

For my 21st birthday, I drove up from Chicago with a handful of fellow young, emotive punk rockers to see Spitboy play a show in Milwaukee, WI.  During their set, there was a moment where Todd the drummer tells a story that describes a very personal incident in her life, and some drunk punk kid yelled out some super offensive bullshit while she was talking.  The crowd self-policed the incident and threw the kid down a long staircase and out of the show.  Turned out the kid actually used to be in Old Skull, the pre-teen punk band, and was now all fucked up.  Afterward in typical mid-90's hardcore fashion, we all sat around in circles drinking coffee and discussing the incident.  Ended up staying at the same house with Spitboy that night and the next morning there was a fat community breakfast thrown down. Sure did beat the alternative 21st bash many of my peers which was getting drunk in an Irish themed suburban bar listening to "Whoop There it Is"  followed by getting in a fight in a Taco Bell parking lot.  (Video from a show put on by the Cabbage Collective  in Philadelphia, PA in 1993".  In your Face" was one of my favorite Spitboy songs.) 

April 15, 2002 - 29th Birthday Recording Session: 
Michael Corley is....10 High - "You are not Mine / Canadian Clubbed in the Head"

Recorded in the early morning by Bort (Martin Schneider) in the kitchen of our Palmer Square apartment in Chicago.  A few candles.. a microphone..a guitar.. some bottles.. a hangover..red painted kitchen walls... candle-wax repaired bong.... Songs about her.

Canadian Clubbed in the Head by Miqual Corley - 2002
matchbook / typewriter text / burnt paper / pencil on chipboard

April 15, 2003 - 30th Birthday - Rush Presbyterian St. Luke's Hospital Psych Ward - Chicago, IL

Addiction by Subtraction by Miqual Corley - 2002

In July of 1992, Maximum RocknRoll #110 was released entitled "Punks Over 30 And Still Giving a Shit".  I remember thinking how old that seemed to me at the time.  When it came to be my turn at that game, I spent my 30th birthday in a mental hospital eating store bought cake with my family in the lunchroom area during visiting hours, followed by playing over-medicated Scrabble before bed with a few of the other patients.  I never thought I'd live past 28 anyway so fuck it.  Makes for a good story now.  Post-rehab times were wicked.  Really would have been much cooler if the Cramps had played my mental institution like they did the Napa State Mental Hospital on June 13, 1978.

April 15, 2011 - Squaw Valley U$A Ski Area, California

Ditched work and hopped on the proletariat ski-punk vehicle of choice, the Bay Area Ski Bus, for a dual birthday Spring ski session with Turx at the homebase of the UnofficialSquaw.com bastards.  Wet snow/rain/mist on most of the mountain made for super rippable fun.  Just the kind of day the Moment Belafonte's were made to destroy.  Silverado was a ghost town and it's own little micro-climate, and we spent the day skiing repeated laps in what has forever been dubbed the "Birthday Chute".  Ranks up there even with the deepest pow days as one of the best ever. As well as tops for birthdays.

Pagan, Eggin, Hand Pegging Easter Party

Tebowing for Christ in the morning...Pagan eggin' in the afternoon.. and a god damn American sugar indulgence all the time...join me as the_immaculatedeception celebrates Eostre. 

 EGGS by Miqual Corley (2004) 

4.5" x 10" / 6" x 13" mounted:  magazine tear outs / typewriter text / press on letters / 

acrylic paint / pencil on cardboard mounted to a broken wooden

David Lynch - Rabbits (2002)

Supposedly this references the 1980 film Mon Oncle d'Amérique by French director Alain Resnais in which he put giant rodent-head masks on the actors at one point.  I know nothing about that.  I do know that this one involves Humanoid Rabbits.  And that the Black Heart Procession's use of the Horse-head mask has much higher-brow references then I knew before too.  

Ivan DeJesus played for several teams in the Majors from 1974-1988.  He is best known not only for his deft play at Shortstop, but for also as being a part of the 1982 trade that brought Ryne Sandberg and Larry Boa to the Cubs, forever cursing my childhood to the sounds of Harry Caray's Budweiser-riddled attempts to slur out the word "Ryno".  I have fond memories of purposely mis-pronouncing his name, and in looking back now, these moments may have been the initial beginnings of the sarcastic wordplay and unrelenting attacks towards the JC that I've spun into the_immaculatedeception concept I now creatively wank-off under.

Teenage Jesus & The Jerks - S/T (1979)

The Post-WWII policies that created the Christian White Suburban Utopias and the safe clean culture within them at the expense of American cities and their residents, can be directly tied to creating the environment that led Hip Hop music and the cultural explosion that's come from it. But they can also be tied to Punk, No Wave, and all the other amazing progressive art, music, and film that came  out of New York in the late 70's to early 80's, due to the burn-out, cheap landscape that made work almost unnecessary, and allowed people like Lydia Lunch and James Chance to immerse themselves into a minimalist, creativity-driven lifestyle that has become the template for generation after generation of artsy,fartsy white youth that have come since then.  Thank you Christian Socialism and Racism!  And you know for damn sure the CIA wasn't supporting Fab Five Freddy like they were Jackson Pollock.  Plus all those 70's crime and action movies wouldn't have looked so damn cool if New York wasn't such a dark, dingy, burnt out shit hole at the time.

Typewriter text by Miqual Corley, (2012)

My parent's were not one's to motivate with incentives, but instead taught me the value of doing a good job for the sake of doing it. That being said, the one time I do remember them dangling the carrot in front of me to get me to do what they wanted was by the use of M & M's to potty train me and entice me to step up to the big-boy way of doing my business.

Jesus Lizard - Puss  (1993)

"Give me something to stop the bleeding!!"  Recorded by Steve Albini and released as split-single with Nirvana featuring their song "Oh, the Guilt!".  Albini and Nirvana would later go onto have the beautiful bro-mance that became knows as the In Utero sessions.   "R.E.M. with a fuzz box" is what Mr. Albooby was quoted as calling them, and then took the gig and the money. But enough about Nirvana. At a Jesus Lizard show in Chicago once, I saw a man who was a dead ringer for Michael McKean of Spinal Tap fame smoke 3 joints in a row and then stand catatonic in one spot the whole show as the Lizard pit swirled around him. A crowd surfer who fell onto the stage ended up face-first in Yow's ass crack as Yow grabbed him and jumped into the crowd with him in a 69-position too. JESUS CHRIST!

As a small child, we had a neighbor who watched me from time to time who had a habit of tossing around the famous shout to JC whenever something would go wrong.  When my mother went into the hospital to give birth to my brother, my Dad took me to McDonald's for a bit to go play in the kid's play area they had.  While we were there I slipped and fell off the rung of a ladder, and in repeating what I had learned from our neighbor, I let rip in my loudest 2 1/2 year voice a "JESUS CHRIST!!" that had all the mothers in the play area glaring at my father with a look saying he was going to hell.  I disagree with them though, as the man is a Saint to keep cheering for the Pittsburgh Pirates the way he does despite year after year of misery.

Eggman Scene from Pink Flamingo's (1972)

Edith Massey in a bra in a playpen in an egg frenzy, indecent exposure with Kielbasa sausages, a contortionist making his asshole pucker to "Bird is the Word, and Devine eating dog-shit.  It must be said again.... JESUS CHRIST!

the_immaculatedeception Sunday Night Dance Party: Pill Poppin and Lockin!

"But one led to two, two led to four, four led to eight, until at the end it was about 85 a day - the doctors could not believe I was taking that much. And that was just the Valium - I'm not talking about the other pills I went through" - Corey Haim

Solo Genocidal by Miqual Corley - 2001
  3" x 7"Magazine cut outs/ torn photocopy / typewriter text

We're not Candy - Public Service Announcement (1983)

A classic Long Island Poison Control Center public service announcement that might be familiar to kids growing up on the East Coast in the 80's as well as all the Busta Rhymes fans out there. (via Laughing Squid). Quite a contrasting message to today in times of Ritalin action figures being distributed in Happy Meals.  But can we really blame Mom for having all those pills around the house?:

A 6 year old Rick Perry already driving 
people nuts with his fucking cowboy routine

Polyphonic Size - Mother's Little Helper  (1982)

Cover of the Rolling Stone's Mother's Little Helper as seen on French TV in the 80's.  
Do what you gotta do ladies.  Because Daddy's got his little helper too:

Quaaludes...it's what's for breakfast!

Shel Silverstein - Quaaludes Again (1980)

Yes, that Shel Silverstein...and yes he's singing about Quaaludes.  Sometimes I feel as if I really missed out on the 70's...when sex was safe and cocaine wasn't addictive. 

Redd Foxx - Wrong Hormone Pills - (1980)

Live standup performance touring in support of his 1976  album "You Gotta Wash your Ass"
"Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing" 
-Redd Foxx

Request 51% Toxicity - by Miqual Corley - 2002
4" x 4.75" - commercial wallpaper sample book cut and re-assembled

Invisible Sex - Valium - (1982)

From Urgh! A Music War, a British released movie featuring a collection of live performances by various punk, post-punk and new wave bands such as Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Devo, Dead Kennedy's, Klaus Nomi and the Police.  As far as who this band if, for fuck if I know.  It's safe to say someone involved had some level of Valium in their bloodstream. Probably not the cardboard guitar players though.

Indian Summer - Sugar Pill (1994)

Originally released on the "Ghost Dance" double 7" compilation on Slave Cut Records (1994). Re-released on the Science 1994 CD on Future Recordings (2002). Rumors of association with said players may be truthful. Rumors of this being involved are just hearsay:

Codeine 

Les Pros - Drugstore Midnight (1967)

60's French Beat.  

Midnight refills.  Oh yeah.  

Dealer paid?  Yes...

Dealer Paid typewriter text by Miqual Corley

Panda Bear - Take Pills (2009)

From the album "Person Pitch".  I think I took too many..or maybe just enough.

syndicate..stare..through by Miqual Corley 2004
12" x 14" - food box / book page / sales card / needle / metal box /
domino /typewriter text on paper/ pastels on wood shelf