Mondo New York — Mondo New York( Blu-Ray/ CD)

Mondo New York is an ‘unforgettable avant-garde time capsule of New York City that will leave you both shocked and enlightened’, according to the spiel on the back of this Blu-ray/CD package. It also comes with a booklet, a poster and a slipcover. The film, which I’d never heard of, documents elements of the NY performance art scene and beyond, filmed in 1987 and released in 1988, and according to one of the extras - an interview with Stuart S. Shapiro - never available in a digital form before, so this is a historically significant release. The film itself is a series of vignettes from performers and events, linked by the walking travels of a girl, who plods the streets of NY coming across these events.

The film starts, after a very 80s intro with very 80s ‘funk’ music, with a monologue from Lydia Lunch, a name I got excited about before watching it. However, her short piece really is just an intro to the film, eulogising NY as a city full of exciting madness, and it’s over before you know it. Thus, the innocent girl, Shannah Laumeister sets off on her guided tour of NY, blonde haired and wearing distinctive red trainers; the first thing she comes across is a performance by Phoebe Legere, which begins as awful 80s rock with Legere miming her way through a song about Marilyn Monroe, and ends with her rolling around on the floor waggling her bum and touching herself through her ‘sexy rock chick’ costume. It’s unclear if it’s meant to be transgressive or camp, or both, but Laumeister walks on and we follow her willingly.

Next, she visits a performance by Joe Coleman, an artist who has gone on to have a long career in transgressive art; Coleman strides the stage as Professor Mombooze-o, ranting, biting the heads off two mice, and setting alight fireworks strapped to his stomach. Obviously this sounds impressive but it’s reasonably tedious; and this is always the problem with a ‘Mondo’ framing; if you’re telling me I’m about to shocked (and enlightened) then this requires something actually shocking. The two mice deserved better too. After this we visit Coleman’s apartment, which is more fun, and he actually uses the term ‘apocalypse culture’, referencing the book of the same name by Adam Parfrey which came out around the same time. The red-shoed girl then peeks into an S&M club, where we get very bored, and a performance by the performance artist Frank Moore, where we get equally bored.

Laumeister next encounters someone possibly shooting up, who performs a monologue to camera about what a wacky place NY is, and it feels forced and trite. Joey Arias then performs an annoying song in a arty junkyard space, before the girl leads us to a comedy performance in the open air and I sit watching in stony silence as Charlie Barnett and Rick Aviles go through their ‘hilarious’ routines. The jokes are all largely based around racial stereotypes, and in that regard are certainly dated, but even in 1987 scrunching your eyes up and shouting ‘look at me - I’m Japanese’ was barely funny or transgressive. Barnett was African American and Aviles was Puerto Rican, and in that regard them joking about racial matters was slightly edgy, but their material still operates on the lowest level. Next Ann Magnuson dresses up as a Dutch woman and performs a monologue, before we get led to a cock fight, and then a Chinese slave auction - it’s entirely possible that the auction was an actually occurring event, but it feels like bullshit here - and obviously the soundtrack turns to god awful ‘Chinese music’ for that scene. Laumeister then encounters Emilio Cubiero and their poetry, which muses on the power of words; it threatens to be interesting but ultimately you’ll have trouble selling ‘the poet as rapist’ to many people. The final sections of the film visit a voodoo ceremony, where a chicken gets its head bitten off, a nearly great, wonky Beatles cover by Joey Arias, a performance by Karen Finley, covered in egg yolks and glitter ranting against yuppies in particular, some acceptable synth-pop from John Sex accompanied by lots of gyrating and 80’s corsets, an acapella tribute to NY, a visit to CGBG’s where some tame moshing occurs, and finally a terrible song called ‘Fuck You’ by Dean Johnson & The Weenies.

The Blu-ray comes with a photo gallery, scripts, and press material, but the main extras are all interviews. Firstly, one with Joe Coleman from 2022 where he discusses his art, his past (I didn’t know he’d started in a punk band - Steel Tips), geeking, and the influence of his parents. He also mentions the Viennese Aktionists as an influence, highlighting one of the problems with Mondo New York - it’s presented as transgressive madness, but there’s nothing in the documentary that’s vastly novel. Interestingly, Coleman has a really good reply to Shapiro’s obsessive questioning regarding the idea that art is now safe or restricted, or subject to ‘cancel culture’; Coleman simply says: ‘I was restricted in the 80s, but I still did it’, rejecting a whining cowardice. In that regard it’s unfortunate that Coleman continues later to say that things are now like ‘1984’ and that repression from the Left is dangerous, as it strengthens the repression from the Right - somewhat missing that vast swathes of the modern Right are based precisely in the demand for unfettered freedom that he too desires. There’s also a 2022 interview with Joey Arias where they discuss Mondo New York and the effect it had on their career and art, as well as some of the life problems that led them to rehab, and their advice to young artists. Shannah Laumeister, the red-shoed girl, is also interviewed (again in 2022); she talks at length about the film and its production, as well as the notion of innocence which she was supposed to symbolise; she states that she was 17 at the time and that sections of the film were indeed shocking for her. After the film she went on to have a career in the art world, prompting Shapiro (the interviewer) to ask her ‘what is art?’, stating that he wanted to expose the limits of art in Mondo New York. Finally, there is an interview with Shapiro himself, I say interview but actually it's a composite of interviews, leading to bizarre repetition. He describes himself as a ‘beacon of counterculture’ and tells how the film came about after he left the Nightflight channel where he’d worked for many years. Interestingly the idea of the ‘innocent girl’ was actually the producer’s, and Shapiro thought that it was ‘hokey’. He talks at length about the importance of language, discussing Lenny Bruce, Finley and Cubiero in glowing terms, but also oddly thinks it’s notable that people have different personas on and off stage… However, he does end with actually really good advice to aspiring film-makers and artists about how to manage and use failure. The disc is finished off with trailers for several films: DOA, about punk; The Allins, about GG Allin and his family, in which his mum looks to be glorious; Forbidden Zone, an odd-looking film; and Style Wars, a documentary about the graffiti scene.

There is also a CD with music and performances from the film. The soundtrack elements themselves are very 80s sounding, vaguely jazzy, vaguely latin, vaguely funky instrumentals which probably have some kudos in some quarters now - but not in this stereo. On top of this, there are four routines from Rick Aviles, which are just as unfunny without visuals, the Marilyn Monroe song from Phoebe Legere, Arias’ Fish Out Of Water song, and the awful ‘Fuck You’ song from Dean Johnson & The Weenies. There’s also ‘New York, New York’ by Manitoba's Wild Kingdom, a post-Dictators group (that featured Ross Friedman of Manowar); this is the song that accompanied the moshing at CGBG’s but it’s basically just hard rock. The last song on the CD saves it: John Sex’s ‘Hustle With My Muscle’, a nice slice of sub-Soft Cell sleazy synth pop; it’s camp and slightly awful but this works in its favour.
You might have gathered that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy Mondo New York… The ‘Fuck You’ song somewhat sums it all up: it’s just shitty rock music but because it’s performed in unusual costumes and there’s swearing in the chorus this somehow makes it transgressive… This is a theme that runs throughout: the Mondo framing threatens transgression but ultimately it’s cheap shocks at best. So, despite the grime of NY - and indeed the best bits of the film are the shots of Laumeister walking around gritty areas of the city - there’s a pretentiousness to Mondo New York, keen to show you things it thinks are shocking for some reason. Again, given the amount of misery in NY around that time, someone shooting up and delivering a monologue feels trite and forced compared to the infinitely worse actuality. The music hits the same problem: if I was in NY in 1987 I’d feel spoilt for choice for a good soundtrack, but instead we get jazz funk drum machine workouts; furthermore, the comedy performances are terrible and some of the longest scenes in the film - Aviles also takes up a lot of the soundtrack space - but at the same time Bill Hicks was living in NY and performing much more transgressive, offensive, and actually funny routines. I’m not criticising Mondo New York for missing out on Swans or Hicks, for example, just pointing out that its framing set itself up for failure. On the bright side, the film looks nice, and there are some effective shots when Laumeister is strolling the mean streets - and someone has VARUKERS on the back of their jacket.

This is a historical document, and if that history has meaning to you this is a perfect re-issue of the material and a no-brainer; however, if you don’t have a prior investment you might struggle with Mondo New York. It is wild and garish, and certainly, my mum would ask: ‘What the hell is this?!’, but ultimately, as with most Mondo films,  you’re just left with a vapid, empty feeling of shock for shock’s sake - except that so little of Mondo New York is shocking.