(Video link here).

What should we be thankful for this Thanksgiving season? How about pills, golf, sparkle, women’s breasts, coffee, trees, flowers, alien communication? The Alien Comic, alias Tom Murrin, one of the most original, whole-hearted and daring people I have ever met, gives us a full run down. He brings a new appreciation to things we see daily, and almost certainly take for granted.

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During the 80’s, Tom was a driving force in NYC’s Lower East Side avant-garde performance scene, in clubs like the Limbo Lounge, 8BC, The Pyramid, King Tut’s Wah-Wah Hut and the Mudd Club. His Full Moon Shows were legendary, as Tom transformed himself instantaneously with one astonishingly improvised costume after another, while he spouted a narrative about the moon goddess Luna Macaroona’s transformation.

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He was a lawyer turned rad performance artist who followed his wondrous and strange path of performing “anything done with purpose and style” — making costumes from detritus he picked up on the street.  A broken umbrella became an antenna to listen in on another world; a dish drainer evoked a prison cell.

Murrin was of the opinion that any object could become a prop, as well as that almost anything could become a costume, or be worn on his head.*

When a friend gave him an electric glue gun, he dubbed it the surrealist’s dream tool”.  

Jim. R. Moore
Jim. R. Moore

He performed his joyous, mind expanding shows for over forty years, until he passed away at age 73. He is a role model, of sorts: a very kind person who did exactly what he wanted to, and who was indefatigable and fearless in creating his strange, luminous vision that inspired many to follow their paths….

Thanks Tom!

Cover Arts
Cover Arts

 

 

 

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