Helixx C. Armageddon is a Performance Artist, Lyricist, Experimental Music Producer, Mother, NYC resident, 1/5 of the Anomolies and a Philosopher.

Visit: The House of Helixx

Special thanks to Gene Frankel Theatre: Intimate, storied rental space for performances & rehearsals, established in 1949.

Show Notes

• Poem Title: Jame Baldwin
• Parkland Shooting 
• Macro Vs. Micro 
• Having those Tough Conversations 
• Instinct, Discernment, Intuition 
• Exhaustion 
• Channeling Energy 
• Life is Stressful
• Therapeutic Activities 
• Writing Poetry 
• The Calling into Hip Hop
• South Side Jamaica Queens 
• Sutphin Blvd
• Flea Markets and Bootlegs
• Vintage Levi’s
• Nigo
• The Beetlejuice Aesthetic
• Early Influence 
• Unpacking Memories
• Reflection
• Entered Corporate 
• The Anomolies Collective
• Be Comfortable in your Own Skin
• Highly Curated Experiences
• Challenged by Algorithms 
• True Growth 
• Understanding the World that You’re In
• Digital Minimalism
• Traumatic Life Experience
• A Slow Decline to the End
• Dressed to the Nines
• Howl! Happening: An Arturo Vega Project
• The Louis Armstrong Department of Music and Medicine
• Nose to Nose with Death
• All the Words Past the Margin
• Dharmapunx NYC
• Losing the Sense of Smell
• Lunchbreak By Helixx C Armageddon and Pri The Honeydark of the Anomolies
• In the Spirit of Memory 
• Black List
• Creating Experiences in Galleries 
• Scooter La Flore
• The Art of Story
• Bring the Moment to Life
• Conscious
• Scooter LaFORGE
• Tone and Texture of the Voice
• Moody Dresser
• Garb
• What character are you?
• Emotional Intelligence
• Being Present
• Active Listening
• Fading in the Background
• Take Up Space
• Create Your Bucket List
• Still Shining
• Cleared Her Regret List
• See the Alps
• Journey of Souls
• All the American Dream Stuff
• Find Your Tribe
• Replenish the Soul and Spirit
• Con Artist Collective is now The Bowery Union
• Anna Bernabe
• Pri the Honeydark
• Black Listed
• Closing Poem…

~~~
We would love to hear your thoughts on the episode. Leave a comment on the Apple Podcast App and don’t forget to rate the show.

The long awaited book “How To Be An Artist” by Jerry Saltz is here. Based off of his early Vulture essay by the same name, he wrote the work as a note to his younger self.

In this week’s episode Jerry Saltz, Senior Art Critic for New York Magazine talks with Amon Focus about being radically vulnerable, the importance of deadlines, the Pulitzer Prize and how to look at art. There are a few surprises in this interview but we don’t want to give it all away in the intro.

Just a heads up, during this conversation you may hear a little bit of phone static from time to time, it’s only for a few seconds, it’s nothing crazy, I just wanted to give you a heads up so you’re not wondering what the heck is that sound.

Listen & Enjoy!

Keep up to Date with Jerry Saltz

@JerrySaltz – Twitter

@JerrySaltz – Instagram

How to Be An Artist by Jerry Saltz

Want to Buy “How to Be An Artist” by Jerry Saltz?

New York ‘s art critic Jerry Saltz and his forthcoming book, How To Be An Artist (Riverhead Books, 2020).

“How to be an Artist” is a note to my younger self.

Show Notes

• 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism – the details (links to articles for Mr. Saltz’s winning work are located on this page)
• JERRY SALTZ WINS 2018 PULITZER PRIZE FOR CRITICISM– Art Forum, April 16, 2018
• History of the Pulitzer Prizes
• The demons
• Your misery is my company
• Work and creating are the same thing
• The journey to finding one’s voice in writing
• Long distance truck driving
• Art Forum
• Art Critic
• Art Criticism
• Whitney Museum
• “The late commodified object of Marxist simulacra finds the interrogation of cross-sectionality…” -Jerry Saltz (Wait, what?)
• I wrote what I really thought
• I want people to know the me I think I am
• Radically vulnerable
• Jasper Johns
• “You do everything you can do until you do what comes helpless.” Jasper Johns Quote
• Dark Wood of Error Symbolism
• Dante’s Inferno
• “I had to go through hell in the trucks to come out somehow perfect, pure, and ready for the stars.”
  -Jerry Saltz
• Clement Greenberg – Art Critic
• Avant-Garde and Kitsch
  (Greenberg, Clement (1939). “Avant Garde and Kitsch”. The Partisan Review: 34–49.)
• Art & Therapy
• Dexter Hand Sewing Machine _Jerry Saltz’s father’s invention (images)
• I don’t know how I got involved with art…
• Inner city of Chicago
• The Art Institute of Chicago
• Diptych
• The beheading of St. John the Baptist
• A letter to the world in the art
• What can be lost
• Abstract Operating Systems
• Coronavirus
• Art will still be here
• Bush & Cheney War aka Iraq War
• Flint Water Crisis
• How to see art?
• Embedding of thoughts
• All art is subjective
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• The Best of Mozart via YouTube
• William Shakespeare
• Do not be intimidated by art
• No right way or wrong way to look at art
• Indian Raga
• Anoushka Shankar – Indian Classical Raga via YouTube
• Music from Tibet via YouTube
• Matrices of Beauty/Ugliness
• Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring his Son
• Charlie Parker Jazz Musician & Composer
• Charlie Parker – All the things you are via YouTube
• “Not all communication is accessible to all people” -Jerry Saltz
• National Endowment of the Arts
• I’m an artist
• The value of delusion
• Hearing criticism
• Roberta Smith
• A grain of truth in every criticism
• Vincent Van Gogh Artist
• Vincent Van Gogh Gallery of Paintings
• My Life as A Failed Artist Essay by Jerry Saltz in Vulture.com 4/17/2017
• Pulitzer Prize for Criticism
• Graffiti
• “I don’t like Banksy’s work.” -Jerry Saltz
• Banksy Street Artist
• Jeff Koons Artist
• Imitative & Generic
• Larry David moment
• Mark Rothko Abstract Artist
• Emily Jones Artist
• “You can learn enough from bad art as good.” -Jerry Saltz
• Free Live Audio Streams of Met Opera
• Pinball
• Approach- the first marks are very hard
• Each essay is a trip somewhere

Importance of Deadlines

1. I know they are bad
2. Make a deadline
3. Never break a deadline

Biggest Lessons thus Far:

1. Be nice
2. Energy-Bring it!
3. Make an enemy of envy
4. Don’t let rejection define you
5. You have to listen to get the final lesson…(We can’t tell you everything)

New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz as Salvador Dalí, based on a photograph by Philippe Halsman. Photo-Illustration: Joe Darrow for New York Magazine.

Jerry Saltz Quotables

“…fear is the admission price to the house of creativity, to the house of art.”

“I have no choice but to get on with it.”

“Things only happen when you work.”

“Roberta is the greatest art critic alive.”

“I throw out about 99% of what I do”

“I’ve got to get back to the art world, I’m in agony.”

“I had to go through hell in the trucks to come out somehow perfect, pure, and ready for the stars.”

“I want people to know the me I think I am”

“We are mildly insane.”

“Art – the greatest abstract operating system(s) ever devised by our species.”

“Not all communication is accessible to all people”

“All art is subjective”

“No right way, no wrong way to look at art.”

“Don’t be intimidated by art”

“Deadlines come from Hell via Heaven.”

“You can learn enough from bad art as good.”

~~~
We would love to hear your thoughts on the episode. Leave a comment on the Apple Podcast App and don’t forget to rate the show.

In this episode we Celebrate the Legacy of Ralph McDaniels and Video Music Box. With over 35 years in the industry, Ralph sits down and shares his story with us.

Show Notes

1. South Jamaica, Queens
2. A South Side Kid
3. Queens Jazz Musicians 
4. Crack Era
5. Chemical Warfare 
6. War on Drugs
7. Stop and Frisk
8. Queens Central Library 
9. A Cipher in Queens
10. Sherwin Banfield
11. Club Encore Mix
12. Eddie Murphy 
13. Disco Records
14. Soul Music 
15. Blue Ice Night Club
16. Video Music Box
17. Baisley Park
18. 1990 Redman and Biz Markie Springfield Freestyle 
19. Stretch and Bobbito
20. Grandmast Vic
21. Doggtime
22. DJ Dirty Harry
23. Lionel ‘Vid Kid’ Martin
24. Mister Cheeks
25. Mobb Deep
26. WuTang – Ice cream 
27. Shirt King Phade
28. Jay Z
29. Kool Red Alert 
30. Dapper Dan
31. LL Cool J
32. Colosseum Mall
33. FUBU
34. Daymond John
35. Karl Kani
36. Cross Colours
37. April Walker
38. Diddy
39. Hype Williams 
40. Irv Gotti 
41. Queens Village
42. Mic Geronimo – Shit’s Real (It’s Real)
43. Cash Money Click 
44. Ja Rule 
45. Self Destruction 
46. KRS One Stop the Violence   
47. Nassau Coliseum
48. Nelson George
49. D-Nice
50. Overcoming Self Destruction – Docuementary
51. MC Lyte
52. Big Daddy Kane 
53. Daddy-O
54. Drake
55. Chance the Rapper
56. Uncle Murder
57. Just-Ice 
58. Wu-Tang Clan – C.R.E.A.M.
59. Heavy D
60. Salt-N-Pepa – Get Up Everybody
61. Lil Wayne 
62. “Don’t Get in the Way of you Getting the Interview”
63. Ice-T
64. Flip Da Script 
65. Superstar Jay
66. Funkmaster Flex
67. Sway in the Morning
68. Ebro Hot97
69. DJ Clark Kent
70. Chris Brown
71. Cardi B
72. ICP
73. Vikki Tobak 
74. Contact High
75. Danny Hastings 
76. It Ain’t Hard to Tell
77. Nas EPK

1. Q-Tip
2. Belly
3. Biggie
4. Tribe Called Quest
5. Leather Medallion 90s 
6. Paid in Full
7. Willie Burger
8. Cappadonna 
9. RZA
10. Adobe After Effects
11. Chyron 
12. Grassvalley Wipe
13. Tats Cru 106 and Park Ave
14. Socrates Park 
15. Fred “Bugsy” Buggs
16. Imhotep Gary Byrd
17. Hank Spann
18. Disco fever
19. Russel Simmons
20. Davy DMX – One For The Treble (Originals B-Boy Dedication Video)
21. Fat Boys
22. Krush Groove
23. Sheila E.
24. Naughty by Nature 
25. Juice (Film)
26. Beat Street
27. Breakin’ (Film) 
28. 2Pac
29. Ernest R. Dickerson
30. Spike Lee
31. Queen Latifah
32. The Bomb Squad (Producers)
33. Something for the Radio – Biz Markie
34. Motown Philly
35. Who Got the Props – Black Moon
36. Tha Alkaholiks – Only When I’m Drunk 
37. Loud Records 
38. Gin and Juice 
39. Yo MTV Raps
40. Luke Ft. 2 Live Crew – I Wanna Rock
41. New York Hot Track (Video Show)
42. Who Is Gil Scott-Heron?
43. Winter in America 
44. S.O.B.’s
45. Blue Note
46. Crazy Sam