Boom . . . for Real!
Jean lived on and off with Gray’s keyboard expert Wayne Clifford. Wayne lived in a loft high above Central Park South, and the two were inseparable for a time. It was a very creative atmosphere. It was there that Jean-Michel made his Anti-Baseball Card series.
We had our own trends at that time, like saying the word "ignorant" when we would see abstract things or discuss abstract concepts. One expression Jean-Michel created happened when he would twist his arms around his head and perform a fake “cracking” of his neck as an off kilter and unexpected ‘coded’ way for artists to say hello to each other.
One evening Michael Holman and I went up to Wayne’s loft where Wayne and Jean-Michel were taking vocal samples from the television news. Wayne pushed the record button while a homeless person was commenting on the icy conditions in New York City. The man said to the reporter: "Fell on my ass, boom, for real!" Since the tape was at the beginning, Wayne could push “play” and then “rewind” quickly, and the audio was “ignorantly” looped to sound like: "Fell on my ass, boom, for real, boom, boom, boom, for real, fell on my ass, boom." We all picked up on this and found ourselves saying "boom" all the time as an expression of shock and realization. If you saw something you liked, you said "boom!"
