Perpetual Novembers; Spring Eternal in my Mind; Late-Summer Labyrinths: De Regreso...

Sunday, March 12, 2017

De Regreso...

... a Nueva York... a Harlem... Lower East Side... East Village... Spanish Harlem... de regreso... pero con James Baldwin... on the streets of New York... hundido en relaciones urgentes, riesgosas, penosas, peligrosas, profundas... violaciones y preocupaciones... cajas aldentro de cajas... aulas, cages... yes you could have read "cages" as in shits... y no estarías tan equivocada... ¿cuanta gente cagando eldentro las necesidades de otras... abriendo el cranio de la otra persona y cagando aldentro de su cabeza... De regreso a Nueva York... YES I am! Pero, con el libro de Baldwin, "Over My Head"... And, yes, it was all over my head... too much... but at the same time, not enough... and I left too soon... Fled... and yes it's true... I fled... better off than dead... said... yes, I said... Nueva York... y sus calles y avenidas... importantes... todas importantes... just as are all of the relaciones... importantes, aunque impresionantemente destructivas... en una forma u otra... u... o... ¿la diferencia? quien sabe... La intensidad... la importantes... lo tabu... taboo my friend... taboo... sí tabú

De regreso a Nueva York... en los 40s, 50s, 60s... aunque estuve aya en los 90s... y hasta poco después de 9/11... sí estuve ahi... alli... aya... YA... pero, esta vez con "sobre me cabeza" escrito por James Baldwin... y que tan complejo, complicado, stratificado... bifurcado...

...entre en sueño... anoche... preparando una obra de teatro, de performance arte para niños... lo organize con Michelle Farbman y contigo... Milo... Pero, por una razón u otra, no aparecieron uds en las reuniones... aunque continuó marchando adelante... ¿donde estaban uds? y ¿por qué estuve yo en el teatro...? Sí, escribiendo el reparto... pero, también actuando... Tenías que hacer el diseño del vestuario... Milo... ibamos ser como títeres gigantes... humanos... diseñado por tu... pero, nunca apareciste... y ¿donde estaba Michelle? Y ¿yo? un cambio de carera que solo puede ocurrir en los sueños... pero cambio "carera" Michelle... y no fue en un sueño... sí cambié de carera yo... hace muchos años... y ahora mi mejor forma de escribir es en españglish... aunque, en esto momento, estoy recargandome en Español...

Fuimos... ¿con quien estuve? ¿cuantas personas con nosotros en la preparación de la obra?... fuimos... fui ¿con quien? hacia Argentina... caminando... a la facultad de teatro... para seguir trabajando en el reparto... en el "guion"... en la estructura... y yo considerando como iba yo actuar... y ¿donde estaban uds?

Sí Milo, estoy pintando otra vez... y como me gustaría escribir como escribo en mi mente... tantas palabras tiraras... como tiramos urina en el inodoro... como tiramos esperma en el suelo masterbando... y no lo hago por años... años... parece...

Todavía pienso en mezclar palabras con pintura... pero, no sale... vasectomía no intencional... existe la intención, aunque no fue mía... y ahora no sale nada... NADA...

And I walked through another exhibition of art last night... here in Guadalajara... and I could exclaim "¡sin verguenzas!" Yes, I could... not a dream... too bad... aunque iba ser una pesadilla... ¿have I ever seen an exhibition of art here that wasn't like staring at vomit on the sidewalk outside the clubs early Sunday morning... before they clean the streets...? But, for some reason, no one believe that we should clean the salon walls of what the "artists" vomitted...

And, yes, you could ask me who am I to criticize... No, I'm no one... I just go into these exhibitions feeling, sensing... and if they are fortunate, I sense vomit... could vomit be better than garbage...? Yes, this is me...

To every critic qualified for assessing art and obras... there are thousands of everyone else... who keep quiet or make "unqualified" remarks... who react inwardly or express their reaction outwardly... but they still react...

Remember Birdman? Remember the critic? Remember the problem, the conflict, the issue, the preocupation...?

In the box office, what truly matters is that the thousands of unqualifieds leave the cinema smiling or crying... and recommend the movie to other thousands of unqualifieds...

And over the years, how many people have raved about the difference of my paintings... although I KNOW I sufficiently qualified to know that their reaction does not mean that I can sell a piece... Does not signify putting aside my new "career" and my relationship with Margarita for risking it all, living for showing my paintings and dedicating my life to paying with paintings... if I could sell one...

But what if this unqualified sold his paintings...? A constant question...

And back to the dream... What was I doing writing a play, although for children... performance art, within which I was acting... when I've never been an actor or a playwrite...? And why were Michelle and Milo there, although without camios? Yet...

No, I don't spend my days thinking about you...

Michelle...

Milo, yes, I have responded to your current dilemma, current situation... many times... in my head... considering writing you personally... but always immersed in another inspiration... Forced writings never come out correctly... so, I've waited... for the correct moment... although imagining your disappointment, at how little I've responded... although, you can't know just how much I've responded within...

what I think about she in Boston... in-love with you... easy to be... for different reasons, especially considering the convenience of being in-love at a distance... never truly wishing for leaving her cage... her situation... what if...? The what ifs... so, as long as you are profoundly attached from a distance, you will always be hope... from a distance... why relinquish that hope? It's certainly better living miserably with hope than relinquishing that misery and not having hope... I'm not talking clearly... the what ifs... "What if life with Milo isn't what I thought? And now I lost my negative reality AND my fantasy"...

so... better living in dreams of an unplanned theater project with my former Brooklyn friends Milo and Michelle, born a day apart... ¿coincidencia? and they never truly appear in the dream... And why have the damn dream? What does it mean? And better to write in espanglish than in English, since that is the truth of only my life... only my life... just mine... not yours... not anyone else here with me... without me... there...

Nice dream... nice piece of writing... at least for me... nice enough to share with you... although you won't understand the half of it... and translation will not understand espanglish...

later continuation... a continuar...

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Unfinished "Self-Portrait at 33"

Something I've dreamed of painting since just after my ultimate surgery in 2001. I post this now since I don't know if I will have the chance to work on it before going back on the road on Sunday... The problem is I've been sick for the past 5 days, painting this for the past week, a few hours per day. Whatever the sickness is, it isn't anything I've known and seemingly changes every day. In order to guarrantee my being well anough for the intense work for the following month, I may have to leave this hanging until I return at the end of August...

"La Sonrisa de Amarillo" (Amarillo's smile).

"La Sonrisa de Amarillo" (Amarillo's smile). José and Nicolas were commenting that I should sell the shirt I use for painting, since it is covered with paint. And then José said, "better yet, I'll give you one of my shirts to paint..." It was a joke. But I took it seriously. He has shirt he bought 4 years ago in Zacatecas with a copy of a painting of a bull in a bull fight. However, the print was erased from the shirt years ago. So, I decided to use the space that had the bull. "Amarillo" (Yellow) was the dog at my in-laws ranch when Margarita and I met. Due to a bad fight, he was left with one side of his mouth and one of his ears mangled, which gave him a permanent half snarl with one fang sticking out. He died years ago. But we often mention him...

New House/Studio Guadalajara

Over 20 years ago our friend José "Montaña" bought a parcel of land in the center of Guadalajara. His uncle who was a constructor/mason helped José build the brick house that has 6 bedrooms. Not long afterward, José entered into his older brother's Indian crafts importation business and decided to sell the crafts in fairs around Mexico. His brothers were one of the first people in Mexico City to enter into the Krishna movement that gave them certain perks. While José became vegetarian 4 years ago, sells the Indian furniture and crafts etc, has a giant shrine to Ganesh in his house and hosts the Mahareshi at least two times a year, José doesn't consider himself a Krishna. For at least 15 years José experienced extreme success in the fairs and was able to send his children to private English Language schools (his oldest son went to University in Texas and Married there),was able to visit with his children the U.S. and India and even bought the "castillo" (castle---an insider joke) next door. For years he used it as a store house and for a shop where Mary had workers fabricating crafts and Mexican/asian Indian style clothing. Then, about 4 years ago, Mexico entered into the international economic crises and José began losing money in the fairs. (I, on the other hand, have managed the situation and the coffee business well enough to be able to improve our economy over the past 2+ years, although this year we lost half our fairs (my decision not to enter into suddenly horribly violent zones where the people are fleeing and have fair to go out to the streets.) Out of desperation, José put the house he built on the market and moved his family into the "castillo"; his children were not happy. The "castillo" was built in the 19th century and has very high ceilings and wonderful giant windows and a terrace surrounding the second story kitchen. After a year on the market, One of José's Asian Indian suppliers bought the house and decided to put it on the market. A year ago, dreaming of having an artist studio/house in the center of Guadalajara with it's majestic tree-lined streets, I asked José to contact the Indian suppliers to see if they would sell the "guest house". José replied that he couldn't locate the Indians' representative in Guadalajara. And that ended that fantasy. However, a year later, upon returning to Guadalajara, Margarita called Mary who asked Margarita if we were in need of a house. We had just rented a house for 3 months (a house infested with cockaroaches). However, I had to see the house. The moment we set foot in the empty guest house without kitchen, bathroom, closets, I was hit with the return of the dream I left behind when we left Guadalajara last November. This time I could see all the projects we would begin over the next 10 years. So, we decided to rent the house and hoped that the 32 day fair in Guadalajara would be good for us; and it was. So, now we are "building" the kitchen, we bought a new refrigerator, are having a stainless steel restaurant sink fabricated for us, are looking for good furniture, looking into nice tiling and thinking about the future one more time.

"Hummingbird Goddess of the Mountain"/"Diosa Colibrí de la Montaña"

Crucified Pregnant Woman

(Unfinished Painting November/December 2010). This was the last painting I worked on before putting aside the painting and drawing for 6 months. I don't have any artist training. I haven't ever taken a painting or a drawing class. I don't know anything about anatomy and I have NEVER seen naked pregnant woman, let alone a naked pregnant woman on a cross. That created a hell of a headache working on perspective and shadowing... How does a head hang with the arms spread outwards to the side? My dilemma. After the fair of Tepic, I asked my friend José "Montaña" to take it with him to Guadalajara. Truthfully, it created so much stress that I really didn't want to see it. The problem is that we don't have a house of our own. I don't have a studio for storing my work and supplies...

Stream of Consciousness Drawing "Your Turned Back/The Cold Shoulder" July 11, 2011

In La Isla de Mexcaltitan, Nayarit

The story goes that the group of Mexica indians had a dream one night of the great city of Tenochtitlan they would construct 200 years later in the Valley of Mexico, now known as Mexico City that later on became known as the Aztec Empire. The dream was had on the Island of Mexcaltitan, Nayarit. Upon leaving his "home" on the edge of the river Antigua in Veracruz, Cortez journeyed to the center of what is now known as the Republic of Mexico and conquered the Aztecs, with the help of the Totonoco indians of the region known as Veracruz. Cortez destroy the Grand Tenochtitlan, probably the largest pre-hispanic city in the Americas and constructed churches and cathedrals where the ancient temples and pyramids had been...

Pico de Orizaba in the Morning

I took this photo during our Sunday morning walk. We found a wonderful route that circles Margarita's parents' house; great for a jogging route. When I've run in Mexico, Margarita was my running partner. Back in 2005, when we were running in the Lakes, there were many times when Margarita ran faster than I ran. But, I always passed her on the hills... The wonderful thing about this route is that it passes through the woods, coffee plantations and sugar cane fields; a lot of hills as you can see... So, we've decided that, if we have a strong finish of 2011, we'll buy land here and build a house.