Good Friday seems the ideal time for this post, and though there’s still a good deal of uncertainty around the topic, I’m going to forge ahead anyway. It concerns a different long-haired and widely loved prophet who walked into the desert looking for wisdom, who in the end sacrificed himself. If the Jesus talk puts you off, think also of Tiresias, for the man we eulogize seems to be wearing his breasts in that photo above.
Doug Black, known professionally as Purple Organ, is the figure of whom we speak. I’ll never forget the first time I saw Purple Organ perform because it was one of the most memorable aesthetic experiences of my life. It was at Surf Reality, that incubator of so much I hold dear, at around the turn of the century, during one of those long Bacchanalian variety nights when oddball genius after oddball genius took to the stage in seemingly endless progression. When Purple Organ was announced, I feel like I heard him before I saw him: a distorted guitar and a distorted, amplified voice coming from… somewhere. I couldn’t make out what I was hearing, but the audience was already erupting. Eventually I became aware that someone was slowly making his way into the playing space, with the same slow stop-start rhythm of a New Orleans Second Line. I’ve always remembered him in dreads, though I haven’t yet come across a photo with that precise look. When he performed he adorned his body as a work of art, too. As was not unusual at the time, he seemed to combine the primitive with science fiction. I think of him in, like, a sliver-colored puffy coat, with lots of duct tape. I picture him with a portable amp fixed on his back like a papoose so he could walk around with his axe. And he was playing this loud, harsh, simple riff of perhaps two or three notes, and screaming some lyric I couldn’t for the life of me pick out, though others were laughing and hooting. And then, bit by bit, it began to come into focus. This is what it sounded like:
I-have-a
Va-gin-a
Dent-at-a!
He would sing this many times as the repeated “A” part of his verse, and then periodically, he would swing to the “B” part for the slower members of the audience:
That means pussy with tee-yeeeth! That means pussy with tee-yeeth!
I thought it was the greatest thing I had ever heard, less for the post-punk minimalist songwriting than the presentation and showmanship. In retrospect I realize the performance was somewhat GWAR-like, though they weren’t yet part of my vocabulary at the time. Nowadays, there are at least a half dozen songs by that name, and with that theme (check Youtube), but back then I knew the term chiefly from readings in mythology and psychology, no doubt most immediately from Camille Paglia’s Sexual Personae, which was just about my favorite book of the time.
So I had to book him for my show. I presented him a few times, I think. Back before smart phones we didn’t take pictures of absolutely everything so I can’t find a photo record, but here’s a detail from a flyer for one of my shows at Surf, circa 2000:
And others have posted photos. Rob Prichard, chief bottle washer of Surf (and producer of Surf Vaudeville at Coney Island USA, coming up next month) published this great one with (I think) Jonny McGovern at the mic (Jonny was also in my shows back in the day):
And here’s another one from Maurice Narcis, which I especially love because of the Fringe Festival poster on the wall (Surf was a sometime Fringe venue) and because it shows Doug making noise from behind that curtain next to the theatre entrance.
Surf was carved out of half of Rob’s loft apartment on Allen Street. There was no real backstage — behind that blue curtain was the entrance to the theatre. More often than not, late arrivals to Surf would get to their seats by running a gauntlet through performers waiting to go on. I think my years of performing there have forever ruined me as an actor for pretending there’s a fourth wall. Can’t do it. If you’re in the audience and I’m on stage, I look right at ya, see ya, and interact with ya. On one mortifying occasion I locked eyes with the critic from The New York Times. The next day’s review was not good.
In addition to the way out scene at Surf Reality (and I’ll go out on a limb and say Collective Unconscious, too), Purple Organ was a mainstay of the Anti-Folk crowd over at Sidewalk at Alphabet City. He was much more a music guy with a theatrical flair than a theatre or comedy guy, after all, but there was much, much welcome overlap. For someone who loves variety, like me, that’s a godsend.
It’s been years since I’d seen him, but I remember him as a shy and humble and sweet guy, quite at odds with his flamboyant, psychedelic persona. I probably last encountered him in the Bushwick scene, either at Goodbye Blue Monday, or at the apartment of my long time comedy partner Robert Pinnock, who was room-mates with Julie La Mendola of the band formerly known as Ching Chong Song. This goes back over a decade and I felt old even then!
These memories feel digressive, but they’re important because we seem to have lost somebody and to express loss it’s important to shine a light on what a person meant to you. I heard Doug had passed from friends a couple of days ago, although much fog remains about what happened. Most recently, he has been living in the high desert area around Joshua Tree, California. About a month ago, he didn’t show up for a gig, and within a couple of days he was declared missing. Nothing public has been released. But from social media, I have collected scraps. His car may have been spotted in an area called Yucca Mesa. He may have been “found” and “taken his own life”. There has been no official announcement by media, authorities, or the family, but people pretty close to him have made comments that confirm this many details at least. I came across more, but it’s premature to spin it, that is, if it should ever be spun. (Addendum: I have since heard from Doug’s dad. The sad news is, unthinkably, true).
I remarked on social media that Purple Organ was the first alum of my American Vaudeville Theatre to pass away, but that was before I remembered that I’d presented numerous people who were elderly a quarter century ago who surely must be gone by now. And of course, there was Brody Stevens, about whose sad death we wrote here.
I don’t know about Doug’s motivations, barely knew him at all except from the perspective of a fan and colleague, but on the topic of solitude, I did come across this song on his Youtube page, which felt relevant. The best way to honor his spirit, it seems to me, is to explore his amazing and original music on Youtube, Bandcamp, Soundcloud
(Travalanche) 
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