I met Doris in the park, like, my first week out there.
Doris: He was, um, doing his puppets in the park, and I'm very interested in puppets. I brought
him a couple of my articles that I had written for the paper.
She was a columnist I guess, way back.
So the next time he saw me, he said, "Oh, I have something for you." I sat down next
to him and he pulled out the Little Doris puppet.
Ricky: I decided to make a marionette of her, just to wow her, like all right you want to be
nice to me, well here we go.
Come on inside. I'll show you the place. Sometimes I call it "the garagenous zone."
This is what would normally be like my little general store, you know. Nothing you have
to buy, but I keep little chips over here on a little rack here, you know.
Look at Little Red. Watch Little Red. Oh, he's wicked. Look at him.
Hey, why don't you help Stix out with his— oh. Never mind.
This is my very, very first marionette, Elwood. As I carved out, he started to take on this,
like, Haitian artwork. That's what it reminded me of. So I said, you know, I said I'll make
him a little beachcomber. A little Haitian beachcomber.
Turn on the little house light here in the center and, you know. I'll show you a little
bit of inside the dog here. Wood, and string, and eyelets, uh, you know, a piece of rubber
hose. This is a Glade Air Solid cover. I sculpted the mouth and the lips and the whole head
out of tin foil and then little glass marbles I used for the eyes. Then there's this really
wicked looking control that just looks like it wasn't built overnight, for sure.
I hated work more than anybody. Hated being there. Hated having to be there, driving there
when everybody else was driving there. Ah, man, being in the rate race was just—and I
wanted to be out so bad. So you know what? Music was my halfway step out. Doing my music
gig. During all that time I had all week to do what I wanted to do, and these marionettes
I started making. And I took them to the park when I was going to street perform and, you
know. I would rather die on the street as a street performer than try to create some
sort of life that's going to satisfy somebody else.
This guy's name is Chops. He was a prop for this music video I did. This is actually my
face. See, this was me under all this. Without the bandana and this, it's really me.
Come on in.
I grew up up until high school in Queens. And then my folks moved to Massachusetts.
And small town was not for me. I came back to New York. I got married to the guy who
had this apartment. We never had any kids. We had sex, but nothing happened.
I have no sense of age somehow, which everybody gets a kick out of. I can't tell whether they're
25 or 45. When I go to the park, any number of people from different groups and ages and
so forth come over and greet me. If the person is interesting, that's what I relate to. Not
whether they are black or white or 60 or 15. Well, 15 maybe is a little bit—20.
Oh, I think Ricky is supposed to be coming.
Doris: Hello? Ricky: It's the IRS. Hey!
Doris: Well hi there!
Ricky: Hey.
Doris: Oh and here's the puppy, too.
Little Doris has curly hair now, and I don't anymore.
Yeah. Are you going to make me change the hair, or are you going to change yours?
Doris: I guess it was about two weeks after he made it that he said he was going out and get something
for lunch, could I watch the puppets while he was gone? So he came back and he discovered
that I had a whole line for the puppet that he hadn't even thought of. I had the puppet
waving to people when they came by, you know, and people would wave back to the puppet.
Ricky: She likes to do her thing where she doesn't want to dance with Stix. Like, Stix goes to
dance with her, and she moves away. And then she gets her cane and shakes her cane at Stix,
you know, and then Stix walks over to the bench all bummed, you know, and I'm like,
"That's all right, buddy, just drink it off," you know.
People would walk by and take pictures of her with the puppet, and she just felt like
a queen, you know. And her friends are telling me that, you know, since this puppet, man,
you know, she's really, it's like she's getting younger, you know, and I'm going like, oh
wow, like, you know, did I do that?
I went from having to play gigs and, you know, pull concrete and all that to I'm doing this
and people are putting money in my hat and people feel like this. I was just overwhelmed.
All these years I haven't been a laborer trying to be an artist or a, uh, steelworker trying
to be an artist, you know. I was an artist trying to be all those other things.
So that's who I really am.
(singing) Your Cheatin' Heart will make you weep. You'll cry and cry and try to sleep. But sleep won't
come the whole the night through. Your cheatin' heart will tell on you. When tears come down
like falling rain, you'll toss around and call my name. You'll walk the floor the way
I do. Your cheatin' heart will tell on you.
Hahaha.