by CHRIS BARRY

Name: Jon Cohen a.k.a. Negro Jamaica a.k.a. The Window Washer

Age: 28

Occupation: Window washer/musician

Bio: This handsome heathen of an NDG resident is one of those annoying musico guys who can pick up pretty well any instrument and be playing it like a master within 30 seconds. Yet to parlay his gift into something that might actually earn him the big bucks, Jon currently supports himself as The Window Washer (483-6242), a determined and conscientious go-getter responsible for some of the very cleanest windows this side of Atwater. He says he “used to have a real and genuine fear of heights, but now I actually enjoy them. I’m not scared at all anymore. I’ll stand on one leg, jump up and down on my ladder—it’s like I’m in Le Cirque du Soleil now, I’ve no fear whatsoever.”

What’s a Negro Jamaica? “Negro Jamaica is my a.k.a. in my band Launie Anderssohn. The idea came from this T-shirt I have from this town called Negril, and the T-shirt says ‘Negril, Jamaica’ on it but there’s a bird flying over the ‘IL’ which makes it look like an ‘O.’ I don’t even know where I got the shirt but the words ‘Negro Jamaica’ rolled off the tongue so well that it was just inspiring. I certainly don’t intend for it to appear racist or anything, but occasionally people do get offended by my name. Perhaps those people need their own Negril, Jamaica T-shirt.”

Something Jon did of which he has absolutely no regrets: Leave his band, the Dears, just as they were about to embark upon their journey to mega-stardom. “I just wanted to do more of my own thing, write my own music and be more in control of the project. I’d been with them for three years, had a great time, but it was time to go.”

Is he familiar with some old “nobody” drummer guy named Pete Best? “Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m Pete Best of the Dears. Tell people I just sensed that they were going to get huge and decided it was time to jump ship.”

Somebody who’s hired him to wash their windows last week: Murray Lightburn (of the Dears).

A couple of good reasons to drop out of school and wash windows for the rest of eternity: “Because I’m out in the sun, I’m usually finished by mid-afternoon, and window-washing is really meditative, it’s like Zen. The window is the reflection of your soul.”

What a solid morning of work will net him: “Approximately $150, and I’ll do a whole house in that time. Window-washing is like second nature to me. I’m very fast.”

Current ambition: To see the upcoming third Launie Anderssohn record, The Big Awesome Vietnam Party, climb to the top of the Billboard charts. “Um, we’re not much like the Dears.”

Musical preferences: Ween, the Meat Puppets, the Police.

Last book read: The Portable Poe, by Edgar Allan Poe.

Words of wisdom: “Live every day as if you’re standing proud atop a 40-foot ladder, holding a golden squeegee.”

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