The Sunday Series; Sunday December 27, 2015

The Sunday Series:

Sunday December 27, 2015

Ah, the last Sunday of the year 2015.  A series of moments for me to reflect on all my successes and of course, failures.   Oddly enough, it’s the failures that capture my imagination and attention.   The successes would be perfectly OK, if it wasn’t for the nagging failures that pretty much spells out T.O.S.H. To bring lightness, let’s think of the successes this year.   Synesthesia Press put out my short piece from the “365” series (which I wrote everyday in the year 2014) as well as a short story published by Thistle & Weed Press, in conjunction to the Terry Braunstein exhibition that is taking place at the Long Beach Museum of Art.   So since I left Book Soup (a book store in West Hollywood)  three years ago, I have produced two books under my name, (“Sparks-Tastic” and “The Plum in Mr. Blum’s Pudding”) as well as a short story for the 3AM Magazine website out of London, and critical reviews published by Byron Coley in his zine/magazine Bull Tongue Review.   Through my press, TamTam Books, I have published Jacques Mesrine’s ‘The Death Instinct” and Lun*na Menoh’s “A Ring Around The Collar.” This is all, of course, great. 

The bad news is I’m on the collapse of financial disaster.   This past week I had to fire both my valet and butler.   I began by paying them a weekly check, which slowly turned to free food for them in the fridge.   Now that the food had disappeared from the refrigerator, they have disappeared as well.  I guess we can now sell the fridge, or turn the huge icebox into a bookshelf with a heavy door.   In fact, the kitchen has been transformed into a library.   Antique dishes have been sold through ebay and craigslist, and in the drawer that once had a kitchen utensil, now holds old issues of Mojo Magazine.   Since the gas has been cut off, we have one electric pot to heat up water for delicious cups of hot water while staring out the window on a cloudless evening.   My sweetie and I like to take one spoon we have, and stir the water till it becomes lukewarm, and comment to each other on our state of stress. 

It gets chilly in the winter night, and the cold draft tends to cut right through our summer clothing.  We often have to cut up our furniture and throw it into our fireplace to stay warm.  As we move the (what’s left of it) couch and place it by the one flickering flame at the base of the chimney, we tend to remember old folk songs from the 1930s dust bowl era.  Life was often simpler than now and not only that, but the people in the black and white images looked simple as well.  Due to the photographs I have seen from that era and subject matter, it is all gray and at times it’s gray on top of gray, which makes it into a super gray.  I don’t recall ever seeing a color photograph of the Okies traveling West bound.  I often wondered if they wore bright color shirts or pants.  My image is of them is wearing gray clothing, or perhaps their actual clothing lost color due to the various dust storms that they came upon them on a regular basis.  

Looking at my own life, I clearly saw the areas where I made the wrong turn.  Yet, in my own fashion, I totally ignored the direction I was heading towards, due to a great belief in my ability to write a bestseller or two.  That my friends, didn’t happen.  I wrote a lot of words.  My diary, “I Go With My Moods, ” one of my many writing projects for the year 2015 is over 85,000 words.  Yet, even though my computer screen is full of my words, it hasn’t produced any capital, in other words, currency.   

We rarely go out.  Our existence is somewhere between Turner and Jean des Esseintes in the rather large house that we can no longer live in.   Often in nights, I wonder around each room in a drunken haze, trying to find where I left the right side shoe, while wearing the left.   It would be comical if it wasn’t so tragic.  I do have a room where it is devoted to the image of me as a child.  When I was a baby till I was 10, I was often photographed by my father, as well as by his friends.  Due to that, institutions like the Getty own the negatives that feature my presence on film.  If a friend didn’t send me some photos through the miracle of the I-Phone, I would never have them.  I barely recognized myself when I looked at photos that were taken 50 to 55 years ago.   Now, when I look in the mirror I think, as I often do, I wonder what happened to that little boy.   

As I write, I have two scarfs around my neck, a sweater, and a long bath robe.  Today, I’m sad, because it’s the last Sunday of the year 2015.  What have I done?   Where am I going?   And perhaps the most interesting question, who are you?   It is time to get on my horse, and wander off to the sunset at the end of the road.   I’ll be around.  If you need me, all you have to do is put your lips together and blow.  Till then, farewell.  

February 17, 2014

February 17, 2014

Through my connection with Justin Bieber, I got an assistant job with Paris Hilton, which is ideal for me, because it also gives me time to finish and work on my childhood memoir.  I’m also hoping that I can either write a song with Paris, or someone else, with the hopes that it will end up being a recording by her.   I wrote a song with Justin, but the last thing I heard was that he rejected it, with respect to his new album.  But right now Paris has other interests besides fashion and music.   She is all deeply into early 20th century art.

Secretly she has been obsessed with the 1913 Armory Show that took place in New York City.  It is regarded as the first exhibition in America to expose avant-garde 20th century art to the masses.   Before that, Americans only knew ‘realistic’ art, but here, for the first time they could see Fauvism, Cubism, and Futurism art pieces.  For the first time, people could see masterpieces like Marcel Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2, ” Matisse’s “Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra), ” and Robert Henri’s “Figure in Motion” among other considered now classics.  For the past ten years, Paris has been secretly buying every painting and sculpture that were exhibited at the Armory Show.   One of my many jobs for her, besides making phone calls and bringing her tea, is to be able to keep an eye on this collection.  One of the key reasons why I got this job was because through my father’s reputation as an artist.  She also loved the fact that I wasn’t an academic and I liked to party now and then.

One would think, due to her publicity, that she was a monster, but I found her to be easy to work with, and she always calls me “dear” which I found endearing.  I also admired her attention to her collection.  For instance, she owns a building in Pasadena to house the art.    With this collection, she was obsessed with keeping the original floor plans as much as possible.  Only once, she opened up this collection for others, and it was a private party.  Only those who are called upon by her could come, but they must also dress in the style of 1913.  In fact, whenever Paris visits her collection she wears authentic antique clothing from that year or era.   Not only that, but she made me wear the clothing as well, whenever I either visit or more likely work with the collection.

The closest person I can think of with respect to Paris’ personality would be Jean des Esseintes, the leading character in Joris-Karl Huysmans’ “Against Nature.” The big difference between them is Esseintes is French, and Paris is a combination of San Fernando Valley and Beverly Hills, with more refined taste of course.  Nevertheless she lives in a world that is closed off, and she is only surrounded by things that make her happy.  The Armory Show is one of the subject matters that give her great pleasure.  Through her research of the Armory show, she discovered not only the artwork of James Whistler, but also his writings.  His credo “art for art’s sake” has a strong appeal for her.  In her home, she has a room set aside for herself called “The Peacock Room” which is based on Whistler’s interior design he did in 1876.  The interior is considered to be example of the Anglo-Japanese style, and Paris as much as possible tried to make a perfect or exact reproduction of that room for her home.  She got it mostly right, but eventually had to buy replicas of the original room, due that she couldn’t own them.  Nevertheless, this is where she often sits in the afternoon, reading art criticism by Whistler and meditate on her various business ventures.

I became quite attached to her, just because she treats me so well as an employee, that I often go out and buy her little gifts.   There is no way I can give her something that is money orientated or expensive, but I usually get her stuff like a Gene Pitney greatest hits collection on CD, or a vinyl re-issue of John Leyton’s “Johnny Remember Me.” I hope after I am gone and dead, she will still have this music, and therefore, one can imagine that I will still be a good memory for her.