MARK PAULINE
(From page 75) just set pieces that don't
even move. They get mauled or in-
teract in one way or another with the
machines. That's pretty much what
makes the show."
SRL has mounted thirty-five full-
fledged shows since opening its
doors in 1979. For the last two years
Pauline has not actually handled the
equipment himself. His crew of 70
volunteers do that while he directs
them, each listening to instructions
on helicopter headphones. There's
so much stuff lying around you
wonder what goes where, but Pauline
says he likes to start from scratch,
tossing out the old, building a whole
new line of devices for each show.
Last year, for the first time, SRL
received a small amount of private
grant money, enough to keep Pauline
from having to go back to work
teaching at the S. F. Art Institute. He
doesn't think they would have him
back anyway
"I was a disruptive element in an
otherwise fairly placid place," he
says. The course was performance
video, "sort of a catch-all phrase for
things they don't want to be specific
about. I taught the SRL approach to
doing things."
His shows are as spontaneous as
the class must have been. They are
events with little or no pre-publicity
that draw a wide range of people.
Last May, 2,500 people showed up
under a freeway to watch a show that
had no advertising, only word of
mouth and a few posters to lead peo-
ple there. It was at that show the
dynamite got away.
"I don't know if I should talk too
much about that because the police
were extremely disturbed. It wasn't
illegal. They could not have done
anything to us if even we said we'd
done it on purpose. They were just
mad because they had 50 police
officers out there working their asses
off for three days."
The S.F. Chronicle's headline at
the time read: "Bomb Scare Traced
to Performance Art." Three fake
bombs from Pauline's show ended
up on beaches in San Francisco and
the Marin Headlands, according to
the article. This forced the police to
close part of the Great Highway over
Memorial Day weekend last year.
The canisters were about the size
of large square lantern batteries and
were labeled high explosives. They
looked real but were actually filled
with plaster of Paris.
"People thought they were real
because I had a live one filled with
high explosive, a nitrate-based
chemical, I lit that and threw it down
near where all the people were. They
ran and it blew up with this huge ex-
plosion. Then everyone ran back and
picked the other bombs up because
they thought they were real."
Pauline does not always play with
fake materials, however. His right
hand has three digits, only one of
which is his original finger, and a
pulpy mass of red skin that was
grafted from some other part of his
body. He showed us two toes that
were grafted on after a rocket fuel
project blew up in his face in 1982.
"I was making these really high
powered military rocket motors.
Somebody gave me a manual that
Metallurgist Mark Pauline sets the match to his 10,000 G-force, TG welding rod was put out by Morton Thiokoll and
fueled molten metal shotgun.
106
some other fuel companies on how
to make test fuel, solid fuel, how to
mix the chemicals, and how to find
out if it's too volatile."
"I built some, supposedly about
1,000-pound thrust motors, about
what you'd find in a Stinger missile.
You have to cast a pin down the mid-
dle of the fuel and then cure it for
several days at a very high temp
erature. I didn't have a lathe that
would cut a taper so I had a straight
tube with a release agent on it. But
heating it up for several days at 150
degrees allowed the release agent
to absorb into the fuel. The rod was
stuck, so I was trying to tap it out. I
probably should not have done that,
but I was in a hurry. It blew up and
blew my hand up and they put a
couple of toes on."
Getting chemicals for his projects
is no problem he says.
"You can have UPS deliver all your
chemicals. I had 50 pounds delivered
during the Democratic convention in
boxes marked 'Danger, Explosives'
and no one came down here."
Pauline, originally from Sarasota,
Florida, moved to San Francisco in
1977 after he completed a BA degree
in visual arts that year from Eckerd
College in St. Petersburg, FL. a
school he describes as: "A draft eva
sion school, a free school of the 70s.
The best people there were evading
the draft, the tail-enders of that were
the wildest people there. No grades,
develop your own curriculum."
Pauline showed us around the
place and pointed out the various
tools available for use by anyone who
wants to build something. Most of it
was scrounged or bought cheap after
it had seen years of use. But it was
all serviceable.
The tool shop is supplied with an
industrial-sized drill press, a band
saw, a punch press, an old Miller
Square Wave welder and a 20-ton hy-
draulic press (which was missing a
part so he improvised with giant rub-
ber bands instead of springs to pull
it back up). There is an old Bridge-
port milling machine he said he
bought from Stanford "for a song."
Pauline described the shop as a
combination research-and-develop
ment and repair shop. "We repair a
lot of older equipment. You need a
lot of research tools for R&D."
Further back, in the dark reaches
of the work space, Mark keeps
something he scrounged up one day
when visiting a former mortuary.
Framed and encased in glass is a
dark, leathery sort of material that
looks like American Indian art work.
"This is human skin," Pauline says
with as much enthusiasm as he has
mustered all day. "It was in pieces
when I found it and I had to sew it
together."
Mo marvels over the handiwork of
the stitching
"Notice the tattoos?" Mark asks
Not until he pointed them out. It
was on that happy note we left SRL.
BUZZCOCKS
(from page 2) "If ever I'd said, 'Oh, I've
got a classic here, we'd have been
locked away long ago."
Humble as he may be. Pete
Shelley-and his band-mates of
course-will long be remembered for
their peculiar twist on the traditional
love-song. Certainly the throngs that
have turned out throughout this tour
are testimony to the staying power of
the Buzzcocks' material. Shelley's
tendency toward the bleaker side of
romance always seemed influenced
by real life experience.
"It was in some ways," he
concludes. "I was going through at
lot of soul-searching myself. The
darker side of it came out. Even
though I wrote what were called 'love
songs,' there were never the hearts
and flowers and typical 'love song"
imagery. Instead, I opted for the inner
turmoil of being in love; the friction
and the paranoia which love induces.
as well as the exhilaration and the
highs. The bittersweet. So, those love
songs ended up as philosophical
treatises."
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