New Deal

Hey!, I didn't get my ass kicked this year! It was by no means an easy year, but the low was never as low as taking cold showers in the dark. How was that possible?

• January- No great promise coming out of the gate. I spend the month "networking", which is shorthand for; documenting my calls to friends who have jobs for my weekly unemployment claim.
• February- Halfway through the month one of these calls pays off- I am hired on a film in the Boston area. Myself and seven other local artists leave our families in the lurch to work on a Martin Scorcese film over three hundred miles away. It is the beginning of three and a half months of re-furnishing my life. A week after I show up I am assigned to run the scenic shop for the set dressing department. The film is set in the 40s and 50s so this involves refinishing old furniture to look new, rendering hundreds of historically 'plausible' documents in media specific to the era, aging everything from desk blotters and lampshades to jars of pickles, and altering high-ticket rentals and museum loans (with reversible processes) to suit the aesthetic of my larger-than-life bosses; Dante Ferretti and Franchesca LoSciovo. For the uninitiated, they (husband and wife) ONLY designed settings for a slew of Fellini films ('Satyricon' among them), all of the Pasolini films, and lord knows how many beautiful films up to and including "Sweeny Todd", for which they won an Oscar the night before I started working for them. These are the "nobodies who are somebodies to the rest of the nobodies" in the credits rolling by at the end of a film to which I referred in my post last Easter. Franchesca is a tiny woman in Converse sneakers who breezes through the storage space at the end of a work day pointing out a dozen furniture choices to be made ready for their close-up by the following day. I nonchalantly struggle to keep my ear in front of her mouth so I have half a chance at sorting through the flurry of rolled 'r's and long 'e's that tax my comprehension. She interprets my vigilance as that thing where Italians get in each others faces and I'm golden with her. Ninety-nine percent of the time the upshot was "Paint it brown". Do I want to be the scenic artist on Ed Wood's "Plan 9 From Outer Space" ,watching the film years later and saying " I kinda believe that spaceship is not two pie plates on a string"? Surely not. I love working on something I'm good at. This balances out the frustration of trying to run a modest suburban home with two kids and a dog.
• March- I'm finished with primaries, hating Hillary by now. I ward off sickness with my new invention; the 'Emergence-C' martini. Replacing Vermouth with a high dose of Citric Acid (favoring the Raspberry flavor), I avoid the 'sick' that takes my more sober workmates down. I've refitted my hotel room with, among other amenities, my own watercolors taped on over the existing "artwork", and an entirely new lighting plot and furniture scheme. (I do the same for my Phila. friends). I've seen those 'black light' hotel room exposes- I contrive a path of hygienic carpet samples from the toilet to the bed. I assiduously wash and/or Fabreeze everything- I have a lot of free time on my hands. My plan, however, fails to render me immune to speed traps.
• April- Franchesca rewards me with this line; "Ohh Peeetarrr, Yoo arr soo clos tooo meee." I get homesick, reassuring Michael nightly that I am not ditching him to follow my Italian hot-shots back to Europe- that through it all I am a grounded family man. The Quaker meeting here is more 'mega-church" than it is 'silent refuge'. On odd days off I visit museums, exploit New Hampshire for cheap cigarettes and Staffordshire figurines. The busloads of Belgian soccer teams that punctuate life in a Marriott parking lot in the wee hours add to my further ungrasp of reality. I return home now and again to a household that looks like it is running better without me.
• May- I am charged with planning a party for the Art Department, which with my assistant we do fabulously well; an in-shop affair, employing a warehouse of priceless antiques and 200 latex corpses from the "Dachau" scene. It is worthy of inclusion in "101 Days Of Salo". (Dante pops in). I get upgraded to a Hilton where I learn that my mattress at home is shit.
• June- I return home. Immediately I go to work on a restaurant decor on Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square. (High tone) The last people to realize that the decor is contrived to look like a century-old Paris bistro are the carpenters watching me assault their newly fitted mahogany cabinetry with chains and purposefully administered cigarette burns. The destruction of freshness is an easy fit, but I'm horrified to learn that the rest of the world doesn't operate with a twenty million dollar budget.
• July- My brain is apparently emptied of everything I ever thought was true, and I design for dinner theater again. (see; Feb. 07) Yeston & Somebodies "Phantom" this time. Nothing more challenging than creating six or more scenes in and around the Paris opera house on a thirty foot stage (with about ten feet of wing space). It didn't totally suck this time- except maybe for the part where the producer yelled at me for not being five extra people with two extra weeks. Otherwise, a beautiful production... and if it didn't sell, blame Yeston or Weber or fickle summer seniors- I did my job!
• August- I design and paint elements for a fund-raising gala for the Delaware Symphony. It pays well , the work is fun, but the event itself is a total perk. Michael and I eat tons of oeuvres, drink deeply from the open bar, accept accolades, and pal around with a dozen hard-bodied 'Circ' performers whose antics in front of my barely lit scenery give us both a bit of a rise in our finely pressed trousers.
• September- I start work on a film, in Philadelphia this time. I render hundreds of animal hides to look more like animal hides (a movie thing)- this entails unpackaging and painting a 'dead zoo' of ten or more species of animal skins that comprise the roofs of fiberglass igloos. Painted-on frost clinches the illusion.
• October- I'm laid off from ice-capades and move to a Carnival Cruise commercial featuring the World's Largest Pinata (click on photo to view). A 62' burro, now in the Guinness Book of World Records. It snow-balls into a PR fiasco when the highly attended event involving the dropping of four tons of candy from the pinata's belly is postponed by the Philadelphia police (wisely supposing that young children would be trampled to death in the crowd of +3,000).
• November- I get fresh hope for the political future of the country for my birthday. I eagerly respond to working on more commercials. Big budgets- not one foot in reality. Among other cinchy tasks, I paint the tiny luggage of an hydraulically animated groundhog pink. 'Cause it's what I do.
• December-Some 'Bollywood' movie painted the column tops in a subway station red (it's a movie thing). I painted them orange again. Now- nothing but time off. Mom-mom died this month. When she did, I hear, she sat up, opened her eyes to something beyond the room in which she lay, and reached out. What do you think of that!

tina

My would-be mother-in-law. That beige thing in the coffin only reminded me of her. She didn't have a phone to her ear, didn't beg for a kiss. She sometimes fought cancer, sometimes didn't. We have a strange mix of seasonal cards ..and sympathy cards, flowers and baskets. She was a nut about Christmas, it's hard to do another one without her. She enforced the 'all occasions captured on film'. Who steps up to be that obnoxious? She had a tough childhood, widowed at an early age , two kids to rear. Not easy. Tina rocked [once you got a few Bartel&James in her]. She wanted to be loved, maybe not realizing how many people did. A lot of criers at the wake, just what I'd want. God bless Tina.

what are you doing right now?

Smack Dab is drinking beer in his underwear. Smack Dab is in his underwear, drinking beer. Smack Dab is blogging about nothing, feel free to ignore. Smack Dab is listening to old vinyl; Sparks/ "Indiscreet" at the moment. Smack Dab is wondering where his neighbors are going all gussied up like the Botswanian royal family. Smack Dab is wondering how to 'send a chrysanthemum', and why he would do that. Smack Dab is new to 'facebook' but totally sucked in. Smack Dab is wondering how his friend Kelly has over a hundred friends while he only has twenty-five. Smack Dab is not a 26 yr. old gorgeous blond female, that's why. Smack Dab is watching his kids play Wii games- out of context they appear severely autistic. Smack Dab is hoping his rosemary plant survives the winter. Smack Dab is musing over the term 'picture window'. Smack Dab is imagining the heightened paranoia officially pardoned turkeys are feeling right now. Smack Dab is tuning out you-wouldn't-believe-what-kind-of-racket. Smack Dab is impressed by how Tori Amos got away with stealing Kate Bush's act. Smack Dab is wondering if Thanksgiving in an Indian casino is any fun. Smack Dab is staying away from the kitchen today. Smack Dab is staying off the highway today. Smack Dab is almost finished posting. Smack Dab is watching another neighbor with a leaf-blower- out of context he too appears severely autistic. Smack Dab is almost ready to stand up and "dance this mess around". Smack Dab is wondering what '44' is doing right now. Smack Dab is contemplating drinking beer in a pair of pants. Smack Dab is contemplating putting on a pair of pants. Smack Dab is pushing 'SAVE'.

letter to the editor

Have faith, "...losing respect.."(Nov.15). You are witnessing yet another "revision of American history"- this one not as intent on glorifying narratives from the past as it is on creating new ones which all may be privileged to participate in, comment on, and hold up as an example of ourselves for the future. Without dismissing your perception, nor confirming or denying the truth of what is written as history, I point to the last administration as a clear example of greed, secrecy, and unchecked power attempting to present- as history- a narrative of wealth and opportunity few of us have realized. I have as deep a regard for the Presidents you have mentioned- their role in shaping the freedoms we enjoy cannot be understated. Felled cherry trees and log cabin bunk-mates aside, many of these freedoms have come at the expense of peoples of other nations as well as of our own. To ignore suffering and injustice where and how ever it occurs for the sake of national pride is a "glorious history" I do not celebrate. The feeling of the country right now (!) as we face economic and global uncertainty is that, with this new President, we are offered a chance to acknowledge our failures and move forward. Maybe we do this as a collection of fractured self-interests, as sniping partisans of one party or another, as people who resent other people for their language and culture, but I have greater hopes for our nation than that. We are constantly in the process of determining one just law to place ahead of the last to ensure that failures from the past are not perpetuated or revisited on citizens of this country whose advantages, despite the language of our founding documents, are fewer probably than your own. There's a lot of glorious history out there. Much of it from civilizations at points similar to our own who could never have predicted their own demise. But I remain hopeful that given this new opportunity, with the transparency in government we need in order to participate fully, with an understanding of other nations as people not so unlike our own, and with an earnest regard for the planet that supports us all, we will succeed.

joe the DemoIndePublican

As I predicted (see May 2007;"Buzzed"), he is just not funny anymore.

anthem

from a band (pair of brothers, Ron and Russell Mael) that have been around for years (factually, since they were born). I've been a 'Sparks' fan since the early seventies, then disinterested during the eighties when they went on some weird kind of Giorgio Moroder/Belinda Carlisle thing- virtually missing in action through the nineties, to emerge as THE new music of the millenium (the first decade of it anyway). Their last three albums; 'Hello Young Lovers', from whence this anthem comes, is all killer/no filler. Don't miss any of the videos on You Tube; the previous 'Lil' Beethoven', which forged the new sound (their third or fourth) cemented them as the purest cross-over of Gilbert & Sullivan to Alternative, and 'Plagerism'- this new treatment applied to other songs in their vast catalogue ( & featuring guest vocalists). Enjoy.

12 missed calls

As was the case during most of the game-changing events in my life, I slept... through a fire; my parents still tell the story of firemen trapezing through the [hotel] room; me dead to the world... college exams; zzzzzzz... through free tickets to the sold-out King Tut exhibit... I've even been dumped in my sleep; the flashy new boyfriend wanting me to walk him to an early train; "If you can't get your ass out of bed...!". I didn't catch the rest of it. Even my 'how we met' story requires inclusion of how excited I was waiting for Michael to call that I kept the phone right next to me- in bed. Of course I fell asleep and knocked it off the hook (remember hooks?). On his end; busy...busy...busy, "Oh, what an asshole!!". I sat on the front stoop of my apt. building [where I first met him] for two days until he walked by again- to [alas] convincingly deliver the lamest story in the history of 'call me tomorrow'. Yet still... there he is picturing me passed out in a gutter with a missing kidney every time I'm out of town and sleep through his calls. '12 missed calls' should be etched on my tombstone. It inspired this haiku; No good thing happens, and the gods plot against me, when I am sleeping. This morning I popped up at 5: something in a gut-churning panic. Sweet Lord, what year is it! It can't happen- I'm allergic to foreclosure! Blearily, I found the right button on the remote..."Barack Obama Elected 44th President". Exhale. It was game-changing in a new way. For the first time in my life something good actually happened while I was surrendered into the arms of Morpheus. I mean it, I thought it was a curse that would follow me past the job a hundred miles away I'm supposed to show up to at 6am tomorrow, through both of my children's weddings to their future first ex-wives, through my Tony acceptance speech (hope springs eternal), to the day when I keep Jesus and my Grandmother standing there tapping their wrist watches in the beautifully lit passage to the hereafter. Jesus:"Does he know how tight my schedule is?". Things I had lost sleep over; North Carolina, Nevada didn't even matter. The grayness of every November 5th in my memory this day seemed 'cheerfully' gray. The last thing I remember is texting a friend in South Carolina to gloat over his state being on the wrong side of history- all the sweeter after being there so many times myself. In the re-telling , I know where I was and what I was doing- even if I can't actually remember it happening.