In 1978 I was living in San Francisco, CA. I watched a tv show on Japanese painting in which the narrator said that the characters on the front of a painting were not only the signature of the artist, but also the signatures of the people who had owned the piece. Who owned it could be as important as who made it. Provenance is important in Western art, but the main object in our culture where sequential signatures occur are our checks.

For a little historical context, the Jonestown Massacre occurred on November 18, 1978. Many people in the San Francisco area knew members of the church.

Then nine days later, George Moscone and Harvey Milk were assassinated by Dan White on November 27, 1978.

A year later the Iranian Hostage Crisis started on November 4, 1979.

Ronald Reagan announced his candidacy for President of the United States on November 13, 1979.

Additionally, my first roommate in San Francisco was a resident at UCSF-Med and an instructor had told him that a major killer venereal disease was on the horizon.

My friend Mario had played me a song that contained the lyric,

"How does it feel to be victimized?"

and I thought it said,

"How does it feel to be Vic Demise?"

Loving a pun, I decided to use that name on a checking account for the piece.

I went to the bank closest to where I lived and attempted to open a checking account under the name Victor Demise, LTD.

Since it was not my name to go on the account, I was required by the bank to file a Fictitious Business Name Statement.

The original intent was that I was going to use the checks as the paper to generate drawings, the checks always to be written out to names that were also puns. To prepare for that, I worked on compiling what I called "A Gross of Names". Some of the names still make me laugh. If you are offended by profanity you might skip this list.