Seven years in a seventeen square meter room, tiny nook to cook in, and the wc and shower out in the hall, and there wasn't much heat out there in winter, but you could turn the shower on to very hot.
The night I moved it, it was very late, early in the morning actually, but Habji sort of corralled me. He was from Cairo, and was wide awake and wanted to talk and talk, and I was exhaustedly tired. I learned he was a coptic christian.... (whatever that was, I thought at the time...) And he was friendly, but I thought he was sort of devious.
Well... before I knew it, his friends occupied the other two free rooms after the heroin addicts moved out, please don't ask, they scared the hell out of me one night.... (Don't freak, it was a bad part of town, hey...)
So the radios going all around that house were stations from Cairo. I went off to work twelve hours a day, they did what they did, and occasionally, we'd stop for a moment, and really discuss what rocked their world. They didn't want to be here, and were homesick, but they wanted to go back and have the education to help them advance.
They never bothered me.... I never bothered them.
B'ut when it came to the foreign policy of the US... it was always the same.
I'm beginning to get a sort of chuckle out of how perceptions have changed, and the elite nor most of the media in the US aren't really understanding it.
The most radical come from their own offspring, the best educated, and not all this fear mongering that the poor are going to rise up. Putting that via the total entertainment media, the news... it only makes people think of what they can't have.
Then: a Pakistani backing me against a wall. He fucking hated me, because I came from America, he despised me. He would be in a room, I would come in to see a friend, and he would S'TORM out in the most histrionic way possible to show his outrage. Wouldn't talk to me. Didn't blame him, but took it personally, I wanted to know why.
And that is when he said, 'Your country comes in and takes our treasures and rescources. They take all that is valuable. And give us fish.' 'You want to be a good country? 'TEACH us to fish.'
People have no relationship in their minds to what they manufacture, or where it might GET to, or what consequences it might have. They make things. Then owners sell them. The least consciensous of them sell them indiscriminately for the highest profit. That is the market we always hear about, right? And something someone made... has no relationship to them, right? It''s just a tear gas cannister, after all, and am surprised they don't have inscriptions like on the bombs the air force uses. Or the ones in WWII.
I wouldn't even be sure if the manufacturers know where their products are going. Price is right? You sell.
But there is a hitch....
The brand goes out into the world. Even people who aren't educated can be tear-gassed, and pick up a cannister, and see that it was manufactured in the US.
The world is fucked up, have said so for decades. People exploit, and some really horrible ones seem to want to set the world on fire again and again and again till it hurts... and if you've never been really out in the world... the elitist strategy SUCKS.
Radio Cairo Days.... Then and now II
Then and now....
Now... Listen closely to minutes 8:50 and 10:26
I really LIKE these two people together on the news, so yeah I admire them for their intelligence, seriousness in reporting, but the camaderie, and willingness to relate that they bond in their jobs.
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So if you are really interested in what goes on in the world.... do yourself a favour and listen to it all. Will continue 'upstairs'.
Arizona Death Panels.
Jan Brewer's face is a road-map of hate.
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I guess it's time to see a psychiatrist....
Was watching a clip from the Today Show... and realised it's about time to do that.
It was about people who are care-givers to loved ones with dementia or Alzheimers.
I haven't been out of the house this month except to cross the street to the tobacconist once a day, and pick up food I can hardly eat. Have laundry to do, but am too apathetic to put it in and start the machine. Won't open my snail-mail post box because I have an irrational fear of what I might find in it. As for instances. Can sleep around the clock, am really good at it.
Depression? Yup, it's gotten out of hand, all right.
However.... the clip showed me... I haven't been doing the right thing all this time.
You are supposed to be calm when you visit, for instance. And accept what is going on. And be soothing, speak in short sentences, and a mess of stuff like that.
And WOW, did I get that wrong. I've had phases where I was so pissed off at him, I went off like Aetna. I was so used to having a bright, intelligent partner, not some child lost in the woods of what is left of his mind.
But when I went off... he'd been agressive, and it was my normal reflex. I do not allow being attacked in any manner.
And letting the comforting silence sort of envelope me this past week or so.... the phone is off hook... gave me time to think. And the clip made me realise... I've been selfish, and so very angry.
Yes, very selfish. Because I feel like someone has stolen my most prized possesion, and I would love to smash things. So I haven't been the good kid on the playground, and wanted to be the bully.
I didn't want to accept anything, facts, rhyme, fiction, I went into denial big time. 'Things will be ok, all will be well, something will STOP this'.
One of the points in that clip was you should not stop visiting, even if they don't recognise you any more. Well, so far, that isn't the case. Thank whomever. But watching him cry, and then suddenly asking if I weren't tired, and would I lie down, just so he could hold me and watch me sleep? Freaked me.
If he were 'there'... oh it broke my heart.
Well, things got worse, as they always do.... and I can only visit once a month. I thought that might be good for us both... but the 'experts' said it isn't. I'd contacted his one close relative, laid out the problem, hoping for the 'fairy godmother'.... and got what I expected. 'YOU will manage...'
Oh yes, always have. But this time? uh-uh. I am not managing, and would like to go screaming off into the wilds and never see anyone ever again.
Isn't that mature.... I feel like a child having the world's worst temper tantrum, because what I fought to get is being taken away from me, and that is really sick. And not what I should be doing.
So I guess it is time to seek some professional help. Not that I hold much store in that, but better than talking to the walls.
Silliness
Supposed NY trend.... cat-packs. I hope they are just for taking kitties to the vet. When I think of all the cats we had.... I can't imagine taking any of them for a walk that way.... without coming home with your back in shreds, that is.
Can she go for a trifecta?
Oooo Crazy Eyes. And you get Chris 'Tweety' Matthews not well adjusted on his insulin, you get entertainment. And yes, he's said on air he's diabetic, and if his shots weren't well dosed, it's EXACTLY how hyper and into attack mode he can get. Am not a fan, but he really is well versed in history. And I always like Joan Walsh's counterpoint poise. But as in all things Bachmann.... tempers flare. 'Baloon Head'.... really? The tea party rep is a robot, and Matthews takes him down.
Paradise Found, Paradise Lost...only to find guilt
Have been thinking this past week with the phone off the hook. And of the literally thousands of books I have read.... there wasn't much for a young gay person with any postitive message. And movies? Well the characters were so fucked up, they committed suicide, or became homicidal murderers, and were killed. Not much to aspire to, in my days growing up. James Baldwin's 'Giovanni's Room'. Beautiful, but oh please...
Nothing had a happy ending, not Gore Vidal's terrible novel, and especially not John Rechy's stellar 'City of Night'. I was about fifteen when that one fell into my hands, and it rocked my world.... the wrong way. It was about a very lonely young man who is so hurt, he prostitutes himself to anyone willing to pay. He wants love, but can't give it. It was gritty, graphic, but not pornographic, and horrific to read. It covers the major American cities where male prostitutes virtually eked out a living, and there was a time stamp on it, as long as they were young. It's a brilliant book... with so much packed into it you ended up breathless. The end was tragic, but not in the traditional sense. The main character meets someone who really wants to love him during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and is honest with him... and the main character just doesn't dare, and walks out on him on Ash Wednesday. Crushing. No, no happy end.
Later, authors got really 'out there', but I cannot think of one that was life-affirming, or offering any sort of hope. And the end-Seventies came, along with AIDS, just when people felt they were on an even keel, and wow. Just wow. Larry Kramer started it with his novel 'Faggots'. It was very controversial. He was alarmed at what he saw in that hedonistic time in New York, and although his novel was hilariously funny, he thought things had gone too far. And got a mess of flak for it. And his thesis was correct. There was was this explosion of freedom, and people did what they did sexually. And in the end, he warned about everything being too EASY, and the attitude of if you didn't hook up or someone had a wart or something... there was always a better one around the corner, and there were few commitments. Funny as it was... it was a warning. And came just as the first AIDS cases were reported.
So yeah, retribution from on high, or something. As if people hadn't had enough to deal with, guilt much? Terror? Just when you thought, hey... the world came crashing down, and people you knew were dying like proverbial flies being bombed with some sort of aerosol. Including a brilliant young man of 30 whom I wished would have been my real brother, because he was that to me.
Well yes, the world goes on, and the books came out. Andrew Holleran wrote the incredible 'Dancer From The Dance' in 1978. An wonderful epitaph of a culture that grew up, bloomed, and was obliterated. And very beautiful, but not positive.
Felice Picano wrote the stunning novel, 'The Lure', a pseudo 'krimi' which explored the dark side of that culture from the same time.
And there was the wonderful Edmund White... (who was sort of a snob, if erudite...) who wrote a wonderful trilogy. I couldn't get through his last one. Peter had that in German, and the title was 'Abschiedssymphonie'. (Departure symphonie.) He was ill. I couldn't finish it. It was too hurtful. That must have been in 2003 because he wrote about an artist who designed 'the island in the Mur for our cultural year. According to the book... he was nuts. An 'actionist', which I basically hate, and he would lie under stairs in an office building in NY, and masturbate to looking at ladies' underwear as they descended, and spill his seed into little boxes with soil, so to speak. And then sell them. I found THAT really odd. 'Where's the ART, hey?' That was in the Seventies, in 2003... he was a sensational architect.... go figure. Some people get success if they are brazen enough.
There was the devastating film 'Long Time Companion'. Great movie, but not if you're already depri. Or Torch Song Trilogy... which was uplifting, but more in the I will survive mode, although Harvey Fierstein knocks me out every time.
What I mean is.... every cultural reference I ever grew up with was negative in the end. You don't GET good references, or books or movies, and everything is 'you're gonna kill yourself and die, because you aren't worth anything.' That is the message, and it came from the gay authors, and movies, and the news.... How could you not help hating yourself?
I have YET to see something positive on that score. And I do NOT think the people mentioned above did much to better anything. You can write beautifully... and kill people with it. Kill their hope.
You can make people laugh till they hurt... but they end up hurting.
I've met artists of all kinds in my life. I've been intimate with them if our minds were on the same page. Writers, composers, theater people in my salad days. Connecting physically doesn't mean you will connect in your minds.
I would love to see something with a positive message of hope. For the next generation so that they do not despair.
I am seriously trying to figure out
When 'Murka went over the line into crazy in the medical sense. This is the sort of thing that makes me not ever want to set foot on that continent again. Science? Pah! Humbug! Zealot righteousness? Oh, yes, lots of that. Outright bigoted stupidity? Wellll.... This person is a self-proclaimed prophet. So she probably speaks in tounges as well, for all I know. I met a self-proclaimed prophet once. Who wanted me to sell stoves in Nigeria. Neither of them impress me.
What I would like to know is... who pays people like this? Must be a miracle....
Low hangers
Oh wow, cowbells.... this is NOT what you want to know about a former president. And why in creation did anyone think it was worth recording? But it was funny.... somehow. Disregard the first part with all the Nancy Reagan stuff... it's at the end. Makes you wanna shudder. And I LOVED the burp... just sayin'.
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Lombardi....
This is for the Ven. I'm fairly sure you don't watch the show. As you love the Packers, thought it would interest you.
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Normally I don't find ven charts interesting....
But found this one interesting today. Via Joe. My God via here, I guess.
It says a lot.
This is going to be the LAST post on a stupid topic: pegged pants...
Most people who ever check into this mish-mash of what is left of my mind....
Never grew up in the Fifties. If you were a young boy, you wore balloon pants that were so baggy, you were amorphous, hey. Neuter.
And 'pegged pants' suddenly became the rage, and I hated the balloon pants. I was maybe thirteen or so. Elvis was King,, and there was a sort of new awareness. Cigarette Babies used to hang out in front of the Sweeney Post Lodge dance hall on Saturday nights, in everything that made them look even thinner than they were, tailored, and they had greased up duck-tails, and cigarettes hanging off their lips, and looked dangerous, and sexy. It was a VA bar with a huge hall upstairs, and me and my brother used to be onlookers. Watching negatives of a picture of 'fun'.
The girls came in petticoats, and the more they had, the better off they were, or something. I wanted to grow up and be cool, and 'dangerous' looking.
My brother was interested in the petticoats, and embarassed me totally by hanging upside down on a low fence, and counting how many they had as the girls walked by. He was ten, you couldn't take him ANYWHERE. And hardly innocent... he got caught playing doctor with a young girl his age under the porch when he was eight. 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours...' so to speak. But no one really made a huge deal out of it, which was good....
Yeah, so I wanted to be a 'hood', as we called them, short for hoodlums... And I did errands, and went out and got me a pair of pegged jeans with the money I made. I loved those jeans. And was excited, on my way to hoodlimism.... yes!
And I wanted to show them off to my cousin, what a cool thing I'd gotten for myself, and my Mom was there. The details are vague on that... But I came out in those new jeans, and nuclear followed.
My Mom said, 'YOU'RE not wearing THAT!' I was genuinely confused. 'Why?'
'Because you can see EVERYTHING, even the CRACK! Go to your room and change!'
Y'see, Puritanical.....
But the devil in me was delighted, and I WORE them because it was 'cool'.
That line has followed me for decades now. It was a mainstay in Peter and my relationship. If we were going somewhere? And he'd be 'inappropriate'? I'd say the magic words... 'Go to your room and change, hey...' And he LOVED that story. Hell, he loved all of her maxims for 'proper' living and even adhered to some of them.
He could laugh so hard when I'd do that. I found a whole list of her 'rules and regulations' for living he had written and tucked away when he was in the hospital once.
But 'Go to your room and change!' was one of the ones we delighted in.
Styles change, people change... oldies here go off the charts for kids wanting to look like Justin Bieber, or Goth or Punk and sort of become ghosts of my past, but it doesn't bother me. I just keep thinking... 'when they are 3o or so... someone will show them a picture of how they look now, and they are SO going to wince.' And I never had a picture of me in pegged jeans. But my Mom was more than cool. She was wise. 'Give someone enough rope, they'll hang themselves.' That was my favorite.
End of history lesson.
Just an afterthought to the previous post....
When I was thirteen, I was out shopping with my cousin. It was her favourite pastime, looking for sales... And she suddenly threw this 'thing' at me, and said, 'Wear this the next time you go swimming.'
It was a jock-strap.
She was embarassed, I was totally confused... and am sure my Mom put her up to it because she was too emarassed to tell me...
I thought it was weird.
So I shrugged it off, and didn't understand, really.
And I don't to this day.
Please explain. WHY is it bad if a man 'shows off his goods', but women make progress accentuatating their breasts?
Oh, will give you the benefit of doubt. But some women's breasts aren't exactly perfect, or what men perceive as such. But men?
Their Junk is sorta disgusting to women, and never to be seen, even clothed.
What is WITH that? I could understand if it were Mr. Cow Bells whose testicles came down nearly to his knees, and what would you wanna do with THAT, hey...
After much reading... ladies like a well-toned behind. Men like breasts. But men's reproductive organs? 'Seem to disgust people.
That is weird.
They didn't wear protective underwear in the 30's....
This photo made me laugh, after being sour all day and don't look at it in large till you read. It reminded me of a day at Rye Beach, to study, of all things. The Goethe Institut of Munich was hosting a summer school at my university, and we were in a group, faculty and students, and actually studying out in the open. I remember reading my first novella in a language that was very foreign to me, and one of the faculty saw me struggling with my dictionary, and gave me the best advice I ever had.
'Do NOT look up every word you do not know. Read the sentences. It will fall into place, and you will begin to understand. Use the dictionary only if you really get STUCK.' I trusted my mentor, although I was sceptical, and all of a sudden, it all clicked, and had to use it less and less.
They were all amazing. I acheived two semesters in eight weeks', and got praise as best in my class for progress. And it was sort of easy for me, and we had much fun, it was never pressurized.
I don't think I have ever laughed so hard or so much in one summer. And we would take short breaks and go into the icy waters of the North Atlantic as one does, when lolling around on a beach, just to keep fresh. And the guys on the German and Austrian faculty.... welllllll... they didn't wear a jock strap under their bathing suits. Which is a must for puritanical American males. So they attracted the attention of the female students, which led to speculation and commentary... because.. if you go into the North Atlantic water... your junk wants to crawl up into your abdomen, because it is so cold.
And one of the women in our group looked at one of the male European teachers clinically, and said, 'Ya know... if you see a guy like that on the beach? He's either European or gay.' I bust out laughing so hard...
Because it was probably true. I hated 'supportive underwear'. It was clammy after you'd get out of the water, and uncomfortable, and sort of disgusting. It would take me years to just go European style and leave it off, and be comfortable on a nude beach in Europe.
On the latter... if you are young and slim... most everybody is really nothing to waste a second look at, just saying.
So the picture... they hadn't invented jockstraps yet? I have no idea. But the kid became famous. He won five Olympic gold medals in swimming. Broke hundreds of records. And turned out to be THE Tarzan, King of the Jungle. Johnny Weißmüller. And was originally from Austria. That Tarzan yell? He once said it was part yodeling, I remember reading that. So he was European, no jock.... and as far as I know, never gay.
So much for that theory.
Freedom of Press, Freedom of Speech? Ya think..
Look, I KNOW Keith Olberman irritated a lot of people. I found an excerpt today on Scott's blog that I wish to quote. Am only doing it because his ads would probably offend some people, so it's cut and paste, but really supports my opinion. I will SO miss Countdown. I didn't agree with everything, I admired his humanistic activism, and the wonderful things he did, and his fearlessness in getting in people's faces when they were horribly wrong and more or less disgusting, the most recent being Arizona cutting off nearly 100 people waiting for organ transplants, and giving those people a face and a forum. He showed people who the REAL death panels are.
I think the following quote is fairly accurate for facts.
"So with Keith Olbermann’s by all accounts unceremonious firing last night by MSNBC there is one less liberal voice on the tee vee machine.
One less in a medium woefully bereft of liberal voices.
There are all sorts of conspiracy theories playing out over the blogosphere about why this happened — Comcast hates Olbermann and they told NBC to fire him as part of their unholy merger deal with Comcast.
Comcast is run by CEO and rabid republican Brian Roberts who is said to have long agitated to unload MSNBC’s biggest star from the networks highest rated show as part of a merger; the departure of Jeff Zucker as NBC prez removed the only layer of protection Keith had at the network; Keith was too difficult to deal with and they’d been looking to get rid of him for a while.
You choose. It’s probably a little of all of the above. Actually, its probably more of the first and second.
Love him or hate him there is simply no way that any honest, thinking person, either of the left or the right, can ever say that what Keith Olbermann said on the air was something he didn’t believe in.
You could see and feel the passion that he had for the positions that he took and advanced. And when he was wrong about something he corrected himself. Unlike pretty much everyone else in the public sphere who just assumes the viewing public is so deeply stupid and paying so little attention that there is no reason to correct one’s mistakes because . . . well, why fucking bother?
Apparently Keith is contractually obligated to remain off the television airwaves until 2012. Hopefully CNN will have the good sense to snap him up. Acquiring Olberman will go a long way toward rehabilitating their sadly diminished brand."
So yes, je suis d'accord. Genau meine Meinung. Agreed.I wish to expand on what I wrote last nite...
Mr. N. A boss I had. From Persia... not Iran... Persia, bitchez.... He emigrated to Austria the same year I did. And we had a TERRIBLE confrontation per telephone between me in Graz, and he in Vienna.
Because, you see, the tourist board of Tunesia was coming to visit for business with tourist people, and he wanted to be splendiferous, wonderful. Candles in the rooms, which were against our fire laws. Big welcoming baskets. I sorta nixed the candles, but... he wanted fruit juices and booze on the tables.
And I said, 'WHAAA?' NO, no way, will not DO that.'
And he got into his usual coaxing sweet-talking mode, and brought up one of his Persian sayings, 'You aren't supposed to go over 60 miles an hour on the Autobahn, but people do it...'
And told him an anecdote about how I unintentionally insulted an Egyptian in the Olympic village, which I will not relate. There was an Austrian businessman outside in the lobby pretending to read a paper, and was off the charts for 'amused.' And I said, 'I'm sorry, Herr N..... there is no WAY I would risk doing that again.'
He was quiet for a moment. And he said, 'You're probably right. If they want to do that, they will find a way.'
I was going way out on a limb about that. It wasn't about what I thought. It was about not being corrupt in any way, and swaying people in a way they might have regretted.
Herr N. respected my decision.
We came up with things that were good, in the end analysis.
I worked with him.... and he could make me laugh, and was very kind. I met his family, and his son was his world. He only had one child.
So... we got on. Had disagreements. But respect for one another.
It would be a wonderful world if people could act like that.
As to Moslims II
I seem to have gotten a lot of hits on that post so relatively long ago. Which confuses me.
Certainly, I can go off for incendiary on some topics.... but that? No....
I was trying... in my stupid way... to defuse things. And probably made a stupid analogy to make my point.
I am agnostic. I don't believe in any religion.
But I do believe in my fellow man, (or woman), and try to bring respect to everyone I meet, hoping to receive respect in return.
And respect means trust. So I used an extreme example. Trust.
I walk out of my house onto the square, and there are all sorts of people out there. Whom I find interesting, just visually... and who might be nice. And who might be kind. It doesn't matter how they dress. People are potentials.
Good, I'm gay. Someone else is a Buddhist. Someone else wraps themselves up. However... you see the eyes. And you know, this is a kind person, this is a troubled person, it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure it out.
The PROBLEM is.... most people don't take time to look.
Eyes... the first thing I notice.
I do not think that most people are so defined by their religion. That is crazy.
Some adhere to their traditions, and it is their right to do so.
Stupid people feel threatened by what they do not recognise or know, and react badly.
I can't find the key to going off the charts for being unaccepting for anyone. Surely, they live their lives differently from what others deem 'appropriate', but that is really off the charts for unacceptable.
We have to learn to accept that, and treat our fellow humans as neighbors. Because I know from experience, they will enrich your lives if you only smile and keep an open mind.
I had one boss who was Moslem. He was from Iran. We got along famously, and he was a very lovely person. I thought it was so very ironic. But we did understand one another. When I left, he said, 'What I admire about you most is your loyalty.' And I sort of looked at him and thought, 'Whaaa?'
'Your loyalty. I admire that very much.' He meant Peter and all the catastrophes we had gone through.
I would have thought it was a 'Christian' thing to say to me...
But it was human.
So can we get to a place where humanity and caring for one another is what really counts?
It would be so nice.
Am sorta at a loss at the moment....
Oh, I know, I CAN be brave, and just muddle on through whatever life tends to dish out. But there is 'brave'... and brave, the former just brazening it out.
However... my phone is off the hook again. In order to STOP Peter's calling costs, because once I relent.... he calls.... and calls.... and CALLS till I go bonkers in my head. Because he has nothing to say. He just wants to hear my voice.
The few times I DO leave it on.... ow. ouch. aua!. He firmly believes for instance, that our former first boss (who is 75), comes into his room with the nurse, and interferes in what is prescribed for medicine, and he gets angry, and agitated.
Two days ago I lost it. I can't LISTEN at the moment. It drives me to distraction. So I did something cruel, because I did NOT want to deal with it. And told him I had talked to her, which is true, (after the first time he claimed she had been there). And that she had NEVER been there.
And wow, did he go off on me. I was everything evil, leaving him in the lurch, finally showed how much I never cared... it was fairly comprehensive. Ten minutes later? The phone rang.... and it never happened in his head.
I am so trying to get him to a place in his mind where he feels comfortable, and Aires that he is, he fights me every inch of the way.
I used to like it when it was just some sort of catastrophacal event, like diabetes, or stroke, or his two heart attacks. He was still himself, caustic, interested in everything, and we could talk about gawwd and the wurrld. And laugh so hard about anything we found absurd.
But that person is gone now. And all he remembers is me, it seems. And I don't know if I am up to the task. I do not. I loved and still love him, and am devastated, because the man he was is mostly gone now.
And there is no way I can tell myself, 'we're gonna get through this', or HOPE that things might improve in his condition.... it will never happen any more. Those things kept me going for a very long time, am a pessimistic optimist.... expecting the worst, and hoping for the best. Served me well for a long time.
So yes, this is a personal note. Interrupting normal broadcasting.
I can't GO to Gamlitz again this month. Due to crushing financial circumstances.
So he is gonna try to keep calling, and I get the pits, disenabling my phone. Which is not of consequence... no one calls me anyway except in a full moon.
It feels cruel to do what I am doing. But there has to be a break, here, and he has to get some peace, and I can't BE there. Listening to it per phone is really counter-productive.
Quote of the day
'Dick Cheney needs a new heart. Maybe they should water-board the Wizard of Oz.'
--Stephen Colbert yesterday....
Oh, good....
Golden Globes were Sunday, my tee-vee connection is down, so was ticked off. I lurvs me awards shows, all the pretty people, and waiting for the gaffes. Glee received three. Best comedy/musical series, the incredible Jane Lynch, and the very young Chris Colfer. I believe he was in shock, but very good with his acceptance speech. Short, to the point, and on target.
Venice is on my mind this evening...
I don't know why. Maybe because I saw a poster going to my train platform saying you could go by bus for nineteen Euros, I don't know....
Just remembering. The first time I took Peter there. He'd never been, I had, alone, and fell in love with the city. And I booked a 'reasonably priced' ho-tel room for five days on the Lido, which is an island of itself and borders the Adriatic sea . There was one wall totally glassed in and looked out to the ocean. Splendiferous. At high tide, the water came to within fifteen feet of the building.
We had a wonderful time there. And I think it was the second night, we ferried back from downtown, and it was sultry and decided to eat at a place on the main drag, Via Santa Maria Elisabetta. And had harldly gotten our food, it had gotten very black of a sudden, and started to rain. So we grabbed our plates and went indoors, which was also a very nice place.
Other guests weren't so considerate, and the waiters ran all over the place, bringing in the food they'd served outside. It was mad-cap, and thunder and lightning came up, and one poor waiter came rushing in with a huge platter of stuff, and did a prat-fall that was extraordinary. No, he didn't get hurt. But you do NOT run on wet marble floors, take a lesson. It was like a choreography scene by Blake Edwards.
Optically, it was so funny, I could hardly contain myself. Well... it wasn't on the one hand, but on the other? ''Adventure.'
'The storm got worse, the food was excellent... and we grabbed a cab to the ho-tel. And I sat in a chair facing that incredible view, and that thunderstorm was more than any fireworks I ever saw. Seeing it all come down over the sea. And we just stayed very quiet, and watched Nature do what it does, and it was overwhelming. I can still feel Peter holding me, and feeling 'safe'.
How could we NOT fall in love with a place so mysterious, and wonderful, and mystifying? Some people have been with me there. One can visit many cities in the world. But I think they would agree... it ranks very high for exceptional.
I've missed feeling that safe for years now.
Hard Decisions....
Oh yes, was in Gamlitz on Wednesday. Horrible weather-wise, fog. And Peter was overjoyed to see me. He wouldn't let me go off to smoke for a break, and clung. And the picture is deception.
He cried for most of the time I was there. He is so sad and so alone, it breaks my heart.... but he's breaking down very fast.
I don't know what is right any more. I've run into a bind, because his bank card expired, he can't get a new one, and so I can't access the little bit he gets for the train fare down, and have some major problem coming up of my own on the financial front.
On what I can get.... I can squeeze out a once a month visit.
Therein lies the crux. On the one hand... it does him good at present, but on the other... he gets really over-excited. I hardly get in the door after visiting, and the phone is ringing. And then he goes into overdrive, and have to leave the phone off-hook for DAYS, just to save HIM some money.
The poor man has nothing to say, just wants to hear my voice.
So I think that going too often upsets him more than anything else. And I guess I'd keep on going on if I could afford to... but can not. Which pisses me off... And on the other hand... if I do not, he might find someone there he can talk to, because he won't interact with anyone, and counts on my visits.
It is the pits, what is better? I really can't tell, but haven't an option at present.
And THAT is almost literally killing me. Normally, I usuallly know what is the 'right' thing to do. Now? I have no choice, and have to hope for the best.
Horrible. At least the photo turned out nicely, and not like our lives at present....
Just had a funny memory..... Venice
Sitting in St. Mark's Square in Venice one of the last times. And they have duelling musicians in front of the cafés there in season. And we were chatting and laughing, and having a wonderful time. And the ones nearest us began the WORST and most MAUDLIN version of 'My Heart Will Go On' from Titanic that I have EVER heard.....
And it was high tide, and water started to bubble out of the drains beneath the square and started to flood it. (It happens very slowly, btw...) And I spotted it bubbling up near our table, leaned over, and said, 'Hey.... whenever we're here... do you often get this sinking feeling????' and nodded in that direction.
Peter bust out laughing so hard.... And the musicians drew out the end so badly and so long we burst out singing ''And ON, and On, and on and on.... and On and On and on and on...' till I muttered, 'Oh, give me a break. Where are the life jackets?'
We ended up in near-hysterics for laughing. I so miss that.
Truly Gritty
Have been doing some quiet soul-searching the past few days, and needed quiet.
Today, I ran across a full version of the remake of 'True Grit' on the internets. Seemingly one that was intended only for awards jury members, because it would run a banner on the lower screen pertaining to that, and so on. 'For your consideration', it read.
And I thought, 'Good gawwd, why remake that horror???' And shuddered at the mere thought.
That 1969 piece of dung drove me crazy. Disneyfied Americana. And John Wayne was a cartoon in it as far as I felt at the time, and it had Glen Campbell, who couldn't act his way out of a paper bag, and it was syrupy, ballsy, punch in the shoulder, oh how the West was friggin' dandy. I hated it, in other words.
Now, I will admit, I am extremely predjudiced as to that. I hate Westerns, always have. And I hated John Wayne as a person, and especially his politics at the time with a vengeance, and punched a dent in the lobby wall of a cinema after seeing the horrible 'Green Berets', which was so propagandistic, I was incensed.
Whatever, I saw that the new version is available.... shuddered, and passed on by. Till I read that there was Oscar buzz out there for the girl and others.
Well, it being Sunday, I decided to take a look, certain I would start yelling at the lap-top screen within the first ten minutes.
That was after having looked at over one hundred reader's reviews on the NY Times website. Those told me the viewers were clearly divided into those who revere the first version, and those who loved the new one. Both sides maintain the films remained close to the novel, which I have never read.
After having seen the new one, and cringing over some YouTube excerpts of the original version, especially the credits with Glen Campbell twanging his vocal cords out, I DID see the new one in its' entirety. And was surprised. I actually liked it. I had skipped over the opening credits, thinking there was no sound to the upload, but was wrong, so I missed them. At the end, I should have known. It was by the Coen brothers. A-hah....
Just for those who love language, it was worth it. So archaic, funny, biting, I loved that.
The cinematography breathtakingly ugly.... dark, dank, cold, bleak. Exceptional. The music underscored, but never intruded. All fine values that make a fine film.
The girl who plays 14 year old Mattie was fine, which was a risk, because in this version, the story is hers, seen from her eyes. Matt Damon gave a stupendous 'in-love-with-himself' Texas ranger. Nothing over the top, just layered, and the script was complex enough to show who the man was beneath. Nice work.
Jeff Bridges took on the most thankless job of all. Playing Rooster Cogburn. That is one hell of a task to take on. I think he did very well indeed. His Rooster is a guy who mishandles Indian children without a second thought. (Throwing them over a railing off a porch to the ground. Twice. Little girls, by the way.) Mean to the bone, but also has his good side. Like lots of people.
And yes, they had the scene with him taking the reigns in his teeth and charging alone against five or six bandits, but it was more frightening than anything else. But they also had him in a scene being dead-drunk, and so mean and turning on his own, it was sort of shocking.
What impressed me was that this was probably closer to the novel than that piece of treacle from the Sixties, where 'Murkins were He-roes. The people in the new version aren't heroes at all. They are out for greed and revenge, and they never flinch causing damage if it helps them reach their goals. It is like looking at history through a dark mirror.
Undercurrents run through it, which I found menacing. Like Mattie waking up to find LeBouef watching her as she is sleeping in a boarding house from Hell, and making an insinuation that was sexual and dangerous. It kept me in suspense and wide awake for a change.
The ending wasn't 'happy', but supposedly in keeping with the novel. Mattie wants to look up Rooster twenty five years later, and had lost her arm due to a snake bite. He had saved her. She arrives to find out he had just died. He'd been trick riding in a travelling carney show. She has him interred in her family plot. It was a sad, but very appropriate ending. About people single-mindedly going after what they want, and damn the consequences, but in the end, all they have are hollow victories.
I can't say I 'enjoyed' the new version, but admire it very much. It stays with you. And that dark vision of a not so recent past was 'inspired', and it felt right. Someone on the Times reviews said it was 'a PG13 Deadwood'. Might be, never ran here. But it was gritty, all right, you could almost taste the dust and dirt. Whatever.... it stays with you.
Blood libel? i never heard that term before....
Disgusting. Sarah Palin is either clueless, or evil.
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Glocks
are manufactured in Austria. Did you know that? Immensely successful company. THE preferred gun of choice for law enforcement agencies world-wide and especially in the US. I had the not-so-fun experience of having two pointed at me in the doorway of my appartment in June. They didn't actually look REAL, y'know?
And seemingly, criminals love them as well.
But they developed some really creepy things as well. Like extended magazines so you can shoot thirty rounds without reloading. Ok, with harsh restrictions only using them for SWAT teams for hostage situations, good, I can understand it somehow. But to sell them indiscrimanately doesn't make any sense to me. You don't go hunting with a semi automatic pistol. Unless you are hunting PEOPLE. Even I, dumb as I am, know that. Those things are for creating maximum damage. I don't think the manufacturers thought about how the misuse of them could turn into that. I hope not, at least.
But Maddow blew me away this morning. They manufactured fully plastic ones in the Eighties! No metal detector would find them. Listen:
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Arizona...I REALLY don't know how appropriate this is....
But learning of the events in Tuscon early Sunday morning after it happenend on Saturday left me at a loss for words. So I sort of took an inward pause, and really thought about it.
(No, this isn't going to be about pointing blame, or anything like it. It saddened me, and made me reflective.)
I watched the MSM going through their hoops, and doing what they do. 'Oh, WE aren't to blame.' 'Oh, THEY don't have clean hands', and everyone wringing their own. There were plausible explanations given in many cases, but nothing really satisfying to me at all. Till I took a nap this afternoon, as is my wont... and woke up remembering 'The Great Rock Fight', and then it made sense of a sudden.
Children. Nothing but reckless children, some of who never grow up or learn about consequences.
I grew up in the lower class, a disgustingly ugly place, although, if you had good parents, you didn't notice it all that much for quite a while, unlike the privileged who grew up in lovely houses with manicured lawns, and were pampered. It was a rough neighborhood. My part of it was north of a canal, and the mills, and was once known as the upper corporation. Then there were a mass of factories, ugly and worn, and to the left of it, the 'lower corportation', which was 'wilder' than my part.
In my part growing up, there were few children. Most people had been able to move away. It was all red brick, dirty, and here and there were little patches of 'hope' in that someone would put in a strip of grass which always looked sort of sickly, and try to grow something on the side of it against a building. My grandfather planted hollyhocks, I remember, and used to delight in them once they would finally bloom in late summer.
It wasn't a place of great hope, but rather feeling trapped. With high unemployment, decaying infrastructure, and the feeling of great hopelessness.
Down in the lower corportation, there were a mess of kids, and they were allowed to run wild all over the place and wreak havoc. The crop down there were really rough and older than me, so I tended to stay away, and wasn't supposed to be there in the first place, but I'd go there occasionally. School acquaintances. I was younger than most of them, so they didn't want a 'baby' hanging around. They played rough.
One of the 'games' was a sort of playing 'chicken'. They would go to the train depot nearby, and hop on a freight train. The cars had ladders on the outside, and whoever hopped onto one and rode one the furthest 'won'. By the time they got opposite my house, those trains were about up to 60 mph, and the kids would jump off usually about there. Until one day, one of the kids jumped badly, and had his legs cut off, I heard. I don't know if he lived or died, but I do know it happened. I just heard about it. That was the end of that game.
Then there were the little gangs who went hunting through the millyards, chasing sewer rats, big ugly things. And I heard they would beat them down and blow them up with firecrackers, shades of Dumbya... I guess that was fun for them for a while, till one guy's little brother tagged along, and was eager to get himself one, except no one told him never to corner a rat. Which he did. And the rat jumped the kid and nearly bit off the bottom part of the child's ear. Which led to rabies shots, and probably a life-long phobia on the child's part. The kid was my age at the time, and I never wanted to go along on those expeditions at all.
In the upper corporation we had our phase. I have NO idea how it started or why, and it probably lasted only a few days. There was a long strip of lilac bushes with a couple of lilac trees in it, it was summer, and somehow animosities among the few children arose, and some began throwing rocks. The ones on the defensive took shelter in the lilacs, and began hurling pebbles and gravel back. (That place was Gaza for having something to throw at hand...)
The first day it was 'fun'. But it escalated, until some twirp threw a brick, and blood flowed. And the 'fun' was over. And remorse set in. Tja, 'The Great Rock Fight'.....
But we learned that there were limits in every case, and that actions have sometimes very severe consequences. And took a lesson.
But all this came to mind over the past 72 hours, and I think I see parallels there.
What with all the 'You did this' and 'they did that'... and some not willing to give an inch on laying blame and playing the blame game.
What did these people with their flame-throwing rhetoric have for a childhood? Did they NOT learn that actions and words have consequences? Seemingly, everything is ok, as long as they get their way, even if they damage innocent people and bystanders for some sort of gain.
Certainly, they created an atmosphere in which some unstable individual goes off and pulls a trigger, and does irreparable harm. And there should be better programs to help people who have mental health problems, and ban extended magazines for guns, and yes, there should be double rainbows in the sky.
What worries me is the baseness, the immaturity, and inability of people to be accountable for their actions.
For Sarah Palin's group to come out and say, oh no, those weren't rifle cross-hairs, they were surveyor's symbols is so heinous, it defies description.
Lack of accountability.
You reap what you sow, as the saying goes.
And THAT is 'Murka, the ugly side. Children throwing rocks till someone throws a brick.
Everyone just LOVING getting the ugly out, and damn the consequences.
Innocent people died on Saturday. Thanks to a gross lack of maturity and willingness to engage in HONEST discourse.
As a child, I learned where the boundaries are. It is sickening to see so-called adults who never learned the lesson.
I have some ideas..... Bonehead....
Something is going on.... I really hate this stuff.
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I love this story..... Soupy Sales of congress...
So typical.... and notorious not-gay Congressman David Dreier, who reportedly is gay according to BlogActive... defended them.
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And so good to see Anthony Weiner back.
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Games.... just games... some of these people are disgusting.
Interesting... if the gay issue is off limits, you go to religion???
Who thinks this shit up? I don't get it.Spiritual fitness center? Give me a break. Why not just call it a brain-washing center.
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Class War..... oh yes...been around a while....
Wanna switch to 'Dancing With the Stars?' Or let your shoes get thrown up on?
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Oh, I like this discussion.......
Mark Twain....
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Aaand the year begins like the last one ended,
and why am I not surprised....
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Jane V
It came without warning, for me at least. Peter came over to my room one day with 'news'.
Jane was going to adopt him, and sign over everything to him.
I threw up.
I hated them both SO much at that moment, I was so angry and disappointed, it was near criminal.
And I said, 'That's it, I've HAD it. Do what you want. But without me. I'm moving to Vienna. Alone.'
Check-mate, Jane. Take a bow to the master of the game, I give up.
Whereupon followed a mess of subterfuges, and everything horrible you could think of, Peter wanted me. And I was still stupidly in-love, which is not a good place to be. He pretended to support me in leaving, but he too was a master of games. And said we'd both move to Vienna, and tricked me in the worst ways possible... telling me he'd found an appartment, and I sneakretly went out to see where? It didn't exist and I ended up barfing in the park of Schönbrunn palace. I had a hope to gain a toe-holt there, and he undermined it like he undermined everything.
He showed me the house, and my heart sank, so much would have to go into it. And I said, 'No. No way.'
Jane was cheerful. I was disgusted.
Well... the papers were hardly signed, and Peter came over one day, and he was ill. It was hot... in summer, so I had the drapes closed to keep my little box cool. And as the light was poor, I didn't notice right away, but over the next thirty-six hours, he got worse and worse... and then I saw his eyes turned yellow. The whites I mean. And I had to get him to hospital, like fast. He nearly died, had sepsis. It was then they found he had diabetes. And it wouldn't have been a week in the life of RenB if his aunt hadn't shown up, or his friend Andreas giving him a huge bucket of ice cream the next day, whereupon I went into the first of my rage rants on the staff of the hospital, and.... they thought I was nuts.... I'd just gotten back from 'Murka, after all.
Jane had taken a fall on a drunken junket with a 'friend', and had broken her hip, meanwhile, and they had given her full narcosis, which is not so advisable with an 85 year old patient. That had been in winter. She slipped on some ice on a sidewalk across the street.
Peter being hospitalised set off a chain of events in her head that became irreversable. I was juggling hospital visits, his relatives, and she would come running into the lobby in the morning, yelling 'Peter's dead! Peter's dead!' Crying, it was to be pitied. And I would take her aside, and say, 'Shhh, it's all right, he's not dead, you just dreamed it, he'll be fine.' (Which I wasn't even sure of, but she needed to hear that...)
'No, he will be just fine, you'll see. It was a dream.' And I held her till she calmed down. It went on repeatedly, and Jessica and the secretary in the office were more than amazed. 'My boy, my boy, I can't lose him!'
'You won't, I promise you that, you WILL not.' My heart was breaking in more ways than one.
This was in 1993. And I realised.... for her, he was the son she never had. The shock of it was too much for her, and she couldn't do much for herself after that. But Peter took good care of her. He had her transferred to the most expensive nursing home available, and went to visit her every day. But she sank and became apathic. And hardly lasted a quarter of a year, and her heart gave out. He gave her the funeral exactly as she had wanted it. Simple. There were only four people there. But I was, and grieved.
So she's resting now. And I decided that what she so generously gave should not be in vain, and wished to make that home a place of light and laughter, and something very special. And I succeeded.... for a while.
Jane drove us apart, brought us together, and was bigger than life. I've never figured something out, however. Since then, if Peter talks about his 'mother', he always means Jane, never his biological mother. I'll never know what the hell went on between them. I could just as well ask the sky. Since that is the case, I assume it wasn't being venal for gain. I'll never know... but in life, you never know absolutes, do you?
Jane was a very special woman. Odd, fierce, hilariously funny. I hope I have portrayed her correctly. Because if there is ONE thing about her, she really could love. And near the end, she turned to me. Because she knew. That was very nice of her. And yes, I held her, and saw her going confused and losing it. And I held her. And whispered, 'Everything will be just fine, you'll see. Please don't worry.' And I didn't give a shit who saw or knew....
So... I finally wrote it all out. That's how it was. That was Jane. And no, it wasn't her name. We had nicknames for everyone at work, and a colleague was a Rolling Stones fan and used to call her 'Lady Jane'. It sort of stuck. Her name was Elisabeth. I heard that her long-departed friends called her Elsa.
This has been a sort of chronicle. About how you perceive people. Who can seem a bit crazy, but aren't what you perceive at all.
I knew it was gonna be long. And I wanted to do it in the time-line. How you perceive someone you think is 'crazy', to coming to recognise there is a method to the 'madness'.... and that at core.... you find a very hurt human being capable of a vast love.
Jane IV
What followed during the next ten years was rivalry. Pure and simple. At first, Jane was hell-bent on destrying me. She hadn't had a problem with Rudi, who came before me with Peter and was a jerk, if cute. But he had a taxi, and would drive them off somewhere and knew how to play her. And she would get tanked, and Peter and he would tryst meanwhile.
Well, I've never even had a driver's license, let alone a taxi. So... not good. One evening she dressed up as Babushka, with a head-scarf, and was gonna blow us up and tell his mother what was up. Luckily, Peter was at home and sent her away. Oh, the drama. His mother was dying, for cripes sake, and even I never got to meet her.
But then... a truce was made, although never spoken. And no.... over the next ten years, she hated my guts.
However. Once she learned that I wasn't cutting into 'her' time with her 'Pezi', as she called him, she relaxed.
It went from a position of heated rivalry to begrudging respect.
I could not for the life of me figure out why in the world he'd want to spend time with her... other than being pampered, and projecting my altruistic attitudes and opinions to him, thinking he was just feeling sorry for an old woman who was very lonely, and being charming enough to entertain her. So I thought he was being kind, and kinda shrugged inwardly. 'To each his own', I sorta thought.
And yes, his mother had just died, so I thought, 'He's seeing something there that I do not.' And left it alone. Of course the stories kept coming, and she went after my 'substitute parents' from Connecticut, 'da W's....' Oh, they were lovely. Visited at least once a year, if not more often, and we were very close after a while. I loved them, they were so much fun. Bill was a hoot. The first year, I learned that he was born the same day, same year as da Ven. But his ancestors were from Austria, and he could speak a dialect that some people hadn't heard since the 1930's. He could charm the pants off of anyone, and was so very kind and decent. He had relatives here in the area.
They had a chalet in Vermont and would always go through NH on the way there, and I would always encourage them to meet, and stop by for corfee, at least. They were too shy to 'just drop in', so what did they do? When they learned that da Ven was coming over for a second time, they dropped everything, booked a flight, and first met him here. Now that is what I call crazy. But just scoping out Bill and my father really hitting it off in the café his cousin owned a few doors up, and them ogling all the pretty girls at the bus stop was hilarious and I guess it was worth it all. And they would ALWAYS call him after visiting, btw. Giving him progress reports. It was so amazing, and kind.
But it wouldn't have been Jane if she hadn't had something evil to say about them. They were 'wictims'. Oh, yes, Preciousses. Poor Bill. With his heart. (One of his sons died in Viet Nam, whereupon he had his first massive heart attack, and he wasn't really well from that time on.)
However: he was related to Erika. You see, she was his cousin and owned the café a few doors away. And SHE.... was a siren, in Jane's eyes. Ow, wow, Jane called her the 'Marketenderin'. Those were women who followed the troops in the 30 Year's War and carried kegs of booze for the soldiers. Among other things.... Dirt travels fast, even in a big town. And, it seems, Erika was a young thing working in a bakery-café across town, and the proprietor got her preggers. And she cut a settlement, and opened her own café bakery on the other side of the river, near the hotel. Jane despised Erika, the Marketenderin upstart. Everyone knows everything about everyone in a town this size.
And Bill came to know all our stories about Jane, and would draw her out. Flirt shamelessly with her, and we'd laugh so hard. But she was convinced.... Erika was eeeevil. And Bill was weak. And of course he would go over there without his wife and visit his cousin. Which set Jane off.... ooooo, the seductress, that poor naive man. (riiiigghht...) And his wife, so unsuspecting, and he flirts in front of her, and she never sees it. 'That Marketenderin, I can just see it, she probably has him in the back room on a chaise longue!!!!'
She was hovering in the back at our good-bye party, as per usual, just like a spider. It was a 'going away' party for da Ven and my friends, whereupon I sprang a surprise. My substitute parents had a son who had a travel agency, and I surprised my father with the news that he wouldn't be flying alone, I was going for a visit as well. Richard had booked it for me, with perks. So I was going with him on the plane. Best surprise I ever did.
Jane was flummoxed, and muttering imprecations about Bill's granddaughter who wouldn't even have a glass of champagne, and how Bill's granddaughter was a fool, that 'Coca-cola Girl'. And that 'tramp' next door, and Bill's wife's naiveté. Of course I told Bill's wife 'M' about all the 'fun' things Jane was up to, and she had the giggles. They left before we did, and I already had the latest report going over to them via aerogramme. Bill's granddaughter never forgave her for that Coca-Cola Girl remark. She was a CEO at Palmolive, last I heard. Take that, Jane....
So Jane had some high octane moments in that decade. And I thought it was so very funny, and there were good times, and hilarity, and friends and fun. Bill and his wife are gone now. He left first, and his wife hardly a year later. She visited us one more time, alone. She was just lost without him. They were married for fifty years. Just gone, just like that. Da Ven and me sort of trundle on.
And Jane had something in store for me I never saw coming. She was goooood...
Jane III
A lot of Jane's time was spent in the lobby, or having Peter accompany her to expensive restaurants, and she was 'oaked', as they say. Having two entrées wasn't unusual for her, and one bottle of champagne was unthinkable for her. She had two appartments and an empty house in town, but preferred to live in the hotel and terrorise everyone. Once in a while she would check into a hospital of her choice as a private patient... just for the hell of it and terrorise them for a month. Getting 'rejuvenated'. Once she fell in her room and broke her wrist and called me up there, ripped the door open, and was screaming 'Look what I just did! Call a doctor!' flapping her hand back and forth, which couldn't have been good for her. It was so grisly, I nearly vomited.
But mostly, she would sit in a niche in back of the reception desk, downing beers, and inventing pedigrees for everyone working there, and some of the regular customers. I, of course, was of russian descent in her opinion. But the very best one, which she began as a short bio and embroidered on over time and blew into epic proportions involved 'da Ven'. I always wondered why he never told me what he did in the War...
It turns out, ya see, he was russian, of course. But he was 'from the wrong side of the Urals', a Cossack, in other words. And there was a massive fight between the Cossacks and the Germans on the Drau river in the state of Carynthia. 'And the river ran RED, with blood.' And she would relate it in a breathless sort of way, really living her tale.
Well, to make a long story short, my honourable father escaped the massacre, you see. Yup, he did, traveling by night over mountain ridges and hiding on mountain meadows by day, being protected by rubinesque shepardesses, 'churning their butter.' So, Ven, what was the story with that last, huh? Sounded lascivious to your son's ears. (wink).
Aaand he finally reached the Atlantic, sailed to Amerika, which took weeks, of course, married a Black Woman, and landed in 'The steel combines of Pennsylvania', where his children grew up in the slums. Which she always pronounced 'slooms'. She 'recognised' him immediately the first time he visited. 'He was at the head of them when they marched in. With a red star on his cap.' (Were you a general, or something, what gives?)
I really messed up during that visit. He arrived in a suit. I wanted to take him out the next day to an open-air museum in the hills outside of town, and told him to put on something casual. She was sitting on the bench at the tram stop across the street, so she was checking us out boarding it, and immediately reported to Peter. 'Just one day here, and he ruins his father. Such an elegant man, and today? Dressed like rabble.' She was disgusted, I tells ya.
This story had 'da Ven' in stitches, and I think it sorta tickled him silly. It really was one of her best, and there were others now long gone who knew us and her, and were absolutely delighted at the nuttiness of it.
Another involved the hotel secretary. It involved her being rowed down the Zambesi river in Afrika by huge muscular Nubians, and there were crocodiles involved, approaching the canoe, and of course there was the biggest Nubian of all keeping the rowing tact by beating drums. (I wonder what Hollywood epic that one came from???) And yeah, the crocodiles were approaching to have her for lunch, but when they saw her.... 'They turned away, disgusted. No meat on the bones, they said, not for us.' (Well, she was thin... you see...) She had a really mean twist on that story, regarding why she had never had children. It involved those huge Nubians. I'll leave the rest to your imagination, just the quote 'They ruined her, so she wasn't capable.'
It's sort of odd, was just thinking... whether you worked in a cinema chain, or public service like a hotel.... there were always people that you and the staff turned into a bonding thing. Were the stories mean-spirited? Oh yes, at base they were. But sometimes even mean-spirited oddity can delight you to the point where you just shake your head and laugh whole-heartedly. And turn it into the things legends are made of.
Things turned sort of ugly when Peter and I sort of clicked. She knew, oh boy, did she know. Because she was possessive, and ready to fight for all the attention he could give her. And I would stay after shifts, and we'd talk, and she was getting so green-eyed jealous, we had to be extra careful. I spotted her one evening coming in for her tryst, and she had seen me slip into the room behind the desk, wanted to pretend I'd already gone. But she knew and flew into a rage, 'Listener at the wall... hears his own shame!' she screamed. (In German, that rhymes, btw.) 'I'll KILL him! I'll KILL him!.'
Well, obviously she didn't, but it sure changed things regarding the workplace, that's for sure.
Just an intermission...
Opera... Haven't been in years, but at the time, I witnessed something remarkable.
Anna Bolena... Donizetti. And I thought I had fallen 'in-love'. And this 'person', took me for the first time. With his clique. I liked the guy, hated the clique.
And we were in a loge in the opera. How classy. Except.... the audience wasn't. And it ended with a viennese claque coming down to boo her, and the Graz people defending her... (It was a lovely show, sets from the Met in NY, and she made up for acting in what her upper register was lacking....)... and from my perch in the loge, I saw people bitch-slapping one another. Good we have gun laws, it would have been pistols at dawn.
People here have other reasons to be vitriolic.
It used to be fun. But the Opera was... and some of you have been there.
Jane II
I fell in love, didn't mean to... with Peter. And Jane was on it like a duck on a June bug. And got weird.
She would wine and dine Peter when he was on night shifts in a niche in the back of the lobby.
And he would 'Keep her calm', as he said. Right. She was never calm.
And she would rope him into going out. She wanted operettas, and some Brazilian show with samba and stuff. And I would think, 'Oh, you poor barstard, doing THAT.'
And one night, our paths crossed. I was in love with Peter, but not 'in-love'. And discovering opera. And I booked myself a ticket for 'The Tales of Hofmann', and was really looking forward to it, it was a premiere. So I had a super tenth-row seat on the aisle, which is very good, because if you go further, it restricts your view of the whole stage, and you have to keep rubbernecking like fans at a tennis match.
I only learned at the last moment that Jane and Peter would be at the opera as well. Which made me reluctant to go at all, but I wanted to continue my 'edumacation'. She was all aflutter in the afternoon. I got there, and no sign of them, whereupon I breathed a premature sigh of relief. The overture started, and in Europe... if a show starts, no one is let in till the next intermission, so I thought I was safe.
Ya think.
The doors in back opened, and there were Peter and Jane marching down the aisle to the front row, she in a flowered 'house dress' and an ostrich boa. I sank in my seat. It nearly looked like part of the pantomime that was going on on stage.
I love The Tales of Hoffmann. It was a good production. Except Jane sorta threw some monkey wrenches in the works. I had seen it before, so I could tell the orchestra sort of stuttered here and there.
It turned out, she bought tickets EXTRA to sit behind the conductor, and give him directions... 'More swing, more DRIVE!'
It was a night to remember.
There is more to come, but am tired. The subject Jane could fill a book.
To Peter's credit... many years later, he took me to the Vienna State Opera... and we saw The Tales of Hoffmann with world-renowned stars. It was so beautiful, I cried.
