My Conversation With Al - by Robert Robert - I remember standing on the corner of Third Avenue and St. Marks Place one summer evening at about 3 o'clock in the morning and striking up a conversation with a sort of shabbily dressed, but friendly guy, who turned out to be Al Hansen. We had both just come from the Balloon Farm, a disco set up in the old Polish Meeting Hall on St. Mark's Place. The Balloon Farm was Andy Warhol's multi-media disco, featuring the band The Velvet Underground and Nico (of "La Dolce Vita" fame) singing "I'll Be Your Mirror", which I think happened to be the only song she knew. There were also two movie projectors. One projecting a large Nico face at the front of the hall, over the real Nico who was singing. The other projecting on a side wall, various of Andy's "laid back" films - such as a close-up of someone's face for 10 minutes, or an artist, just sitting in a rocking chair eating mushrooms. Andy Warhol was the hottest thing in town, with his cool silk-screened art pieces and now his new multi-media disco. It was definitely the place to go, and to see and be seen. We were standing outside a pizza joint just a half block from the Balloon Farm. The year, I think was 1964. Anyway, Al was telling me about how he helped Andy to prepare for his first big show featuring the Brillo boxes. I remember Al saying, "Yeah, Andy seems to be real cool these days, with his white hair and black leather jacket and so forth... But I remember him before his first big gallery show, and at that time he was a mess. I had to go up to his studio every day and hold his hand because he was so insecure about his first Brillo box pieces." He said, "Andy was a nervous wreck" - asking Al every five minutes if he thought the Brillo boxes were OK. Or were they really the right thing, or were they too big or too small, or the right color, or whatever. Andy was totally unsure of himself. Al and I must have stood on the corner for over two hours, talking about Andy and a lot of other stuff. That's when Al first told me his idea of wrapping his head in masking tape. He also told me about how he loved the "four for a quarter" machines that were all around the city at the time (that's where you sit in a little booth, deposit a quarter, and a camera automatically takes four pictures of you, and delivers them a few minutes later). But the funny part was that Al spoke with what sounded like a strong New England or Boston accent, and I thought he was saying "Four foot water" machines. And I'm standing there listening to him tell me how cool they were and I'm thinking to myself "What are these four 'foot water machines' he keeps talking about?" Eventually, of course, I figured it out. I remember Al's enthusiasm about the machines. And later it all made sense because I realized it fit perfectly into Al's concept of a "happening", which was what Al was known for. That's also when he first told me he was planning to use one of these public photo machines to wrap his head in masking tape in four successive stages. Anyway, I found Al very open and likeable, and we became friends. By the way, Al was scheduled to wrap his head in masking tape as part of Erotic Salad. Unfortunately, in the confusion of filming, I didn't get around to it. I really regret it now. It was Al's classic "performance art" piece. Al also wrote a great review of Erotic Salad, which appeared in April, 1970 in the East Village paper Kiss. Incidentally, Al Hansen is the (late) grandfather of Beck (Beck Hansen), the popular performer and recording artist.