Ciao Bella!" from a balcony and have it be completely sincere and real. I just had mine.
I spent my last night in Barcelona with Daniella and her friends. These Italians, they can go into a kitchen where there is nothing and come out with something wonderful. We drank and ate and smoked and listened to music. Daniella performed a Moroccan belly dance. At midnight the girls put on their make-up.
We wandered around the forbidden areas of the Barrio Gottico,down twisting streets so narrow you could touch either side, through hidden plazas where the addicts slept, past skinny drug gangs on motor scooters, by big black barking dogs and gypsy beggars with babies at their breasts. I asked Cosima if it was dangerous. She looked me in the eye and said "Of course, I live here."
We started to dance. We were at the bar where Xavier worked and the drinks were plentiful and free. She asked me if I would and then held out her hand. Soon we were kissing shamelessly on the street, in doorways, on the beach. We were touching everywhere. Daniella appeared on the back of a motor scooter with some spanish boy and as it whined away into the dark, yelled back to Cosima that the apartment was free. I had the most peaceful sleep I ever have had in her arms.
When I woke she was already dressing. Her English is not so good nor my Spanish either. I asked her if we would meet again and she said that she would think about it. I figured she was done with me. I went to the balcony in time to see her disappearing down this narrow medieval alley. She walked like a queen. "Cosima" I yelled. Ciao Bella.
I spent my last day at the beach. When I returned to get my bags Daniella told me that Cosima had come to say goodbye. There was an old 78 on top of my bags entitled Sueno de Amor". I called her and somehow it was decided that she would see me off. We had a mad dash through the jammed subways to the train station. There on the platform we kissed along with three other couples before the train began to pull out. Still holding her hand I jumped on. "Will you come to New York?" "Vale, Vale!" .... ok ok
Friday, August 30, 2002
Tuesday, August 27, 2002
Nightbus
I have learned that life if you split it open has as many possibilities as a fig has seeds. I have learned that you can dance all night only if you sleepall day. I have learned that the moon is not just the moon but "La Barca""The Ship", also the word for cone as in ice cream. I have learned that a beautiful woman is even more beautiful if she lies brown and naked and oiled in the sun as if she is being roasted for a feast. And above all I have learned that I have been smoking way too much hash.
I screamed when I saw him. He was leaning over me burnt and red with dark sunglasses like some poorly briefed technician at Los Alamos. It was five in the morning. It was Neshta and he had brought home a spanish boy. They made ficky ficky in the bathroom while Tunte and I tried to pretend sleep. These are the whores of Marbella.
They come from England with their perfectly bred daughters to mate them off to the proper people. Both the mother and daughter are so fine and so stylishly dressed you could go either way. But the girls slip away at night to fuck Spanish men. Everyone is fucking spanish men mainly because it is so hard to fuck a spanish woman that they mostly all go either way.
I was having no luck until I talked to a Norwegian bartender at The House of Silk. He told me it is possible to have something with Spanish girls, but only after you have met their family. They wont even talk to you unless you prove yourself by following them around for days like a dog. The English girls are all sluts. Then he pointed out two Morenas at a table, slender, lovely, a blonde and brunette, sisters.
"Have a go with those two, they're not typical Chicas, tell em there will be Chupitas at the bar soon"
That was how I met Alithia and Marta.
They were both studying to be ecologists and intent on saving the world. We talked in spanish, in english, in spanglish. We argued about politics, we laughed and we danced like mad people. They rolled one fat joint after another of hash mixed with tobacco. At five or so in the morning. Alithia took my arm. Her black arabian eyes pierced right through me. She told me that if I came back tommorow I would find her and then they disappeared into the moonlight.
I found Tunte passed out under a table. We walked along the marble promenade past palm trees, past the light of the full moon which glistened like broken glass across the Mediterranean. We found Shatzie in a smoke filled gay bar where Andaluisian men, shirtless in blue jeans danced to the rhythmic clapping of their peers. I left those two there and completely disoriented stumbled around for an hour before making it the two or three blocks I had to go to reach home.
In our tiny room with my bed one foot from the door I fled this world in a haze of hash dreams until Shatzie stumbled in. I screamed when I saw him.
We had to be out of there by noon. We managed to wake ourselves up and get to the car. At the airport I kissed the boys good-by. I was on my own again. It was time to get out of town. I had no place to stay and no chance of finding one. Except in Barcelona. Tunte had arranged it all with his friend Daniella. The only problem was getting there. It is 1064km away. It is the end of summer and everyone is traveling. There were no seats on the planes. There were no seats on trains. But there was a bus. They told me you can always get a seat on the bus because nobody wants it.
It is a fourteen hour ride to Barcelona on this shitty bus. At one time someone had had a vision of luxury and comfort but now the seats are all broken, the TV's hang mute, the drink holders and dinner trays lie useless like vestigial organs. You ride all night, in the cold, in the mountains. We stopped at one place called The Hotel Zurich where the driving team had beers and sandwiches. It was in some dusty forgotten town filled with freaks and the hopeless. A mother with her retarded son played cards with her parents. A old man in a tattered yellow and black outfit which included matching two tone shoes sat with his elderly blind dog in his
arms. I asked the fat woman at the bar who had a face like a sunburned Wayne Newton
"where are we"?
"A la Frontera" "At the Frontier". I couldn't imagine what she meant. We were in Spain, miles from any border that I knew of, but apparently here in the mountains the people of Andaluicia consider Alicante another country.
The next stop was at a super sleek ultra-contemporary place called Autogrill. Perfectly modern with modern graphics and food content. The parking lot was filled with hundreds of Gypsies, all of their belongings roped onto the hoods of their cars. They were sleeping on the pavement
next to them. One felt as if they had been passing through this way for thousands of years and that something had always been in this spot, but instead of being able to get figs and flat bread, water, one could now get pasta with pesto and orange Fanta. And Sangre de Torro, but you could always get Sangre de Torro.
And finally, Barcelona
I screamed when I saw him. He was leaning over me burnt and red with dark sunglasses like some poorly briefed technician at Los Alamos. It was five in the morning. It was Neshta and he had brought home a spanish boy. They made ficky ficky in the bathroom while Tunte and I tried to pretend sleep. These are the whores of Marbella.
They come from England with their perfectly bred daughters to mate them off to the proper people. Both the mother and daughter are so fine and so stylishly dressed you could go either way. But the girls slip away at night to fuck Spanish men. Everyone is fucking spanish men mainly because it is so hard to fuck a spanish woman that they mostly all go either way.
I was having no luck until I talked to a Norwegian bartender at The House of Silk. He told me it is possible to have something with Spanish girls, but only after you have met their family. They wont even talk to you unless you prove yourself by following them around for days like a dog. The English girls are all sluts. Then he pointed out two Morenas at a table, slender, lovely, a blonde and brunette, sisters.
"Have a go with those two, they're not typical Chicas, tell em there will be Chupitas at the bar soon"
That was how I met Alithia and Marta.
They were both studying to be ecologists and intent on saving the world. We talked in spanish, in english, in spanglish. We argued about politics, we laughed and we danced like mad people. They rolled one fat joint after another of hash mixed with tobacco. At five or so in the morning. Alithia took my arm. Her black arabian eyes pierced right through me. She told me that if I came back tommorow I would find her and then they disappeared into the moonlight.
I found Tunte passed out under a table. We walked along the marble promenade past palm trees, past the light of the full moon which glistened like broken glass across the Mediterranean. We found Shatzie in a smoke filled gay bar where Andaluisian men, shirtless in blue jeans danced to the rhythmic clapping of their peers. I left those two there and completely disoriented stumbled around for an hour before making it the two or three blocks I had to go to reach home.
In our tiny room with my bed one foot from the door I fled this world in a haze of hash dreams until Shatzie stumbled in. I screamed when I saw him.
We had to be out of there by noon. We managed to wake ourselves up and get to the car. At the airport I kissed the boys good-by. I was on my own again. It was time to get out of town. I had no place to stay and no chance of finding one. Except in Barcelona. Tunte had arranged it all with his friend Daniella. The only problem was getting there. It is 1064km away. It is the end of summer and everyone is traveling. There were no seats on the planes. There were no seats on trains. But there was a bus. They told me you can always get a seat on the bus because nobody wants it.
It is a fourteen hour ride to Barcelona on this shitty bus. At one time someone had had a vision of luxury and comfort but now the seats are all broken, the TV's hang mute, the drink holders and dinner trays lie useless like vestigial organs. You ride all night, in the cold, in the mountains. We stopped at one place called The Hotel Zurich where the driving team had beers and sandwiches. It was in some dusty forgotten town filled with freaks and the hopeless. A mother with her retarded son played cards with her parents. A old man in a tattered yellow and black outfit which included matching two tone shoes sat with his elderly blind dog in his
arms. I asked the fat woman at the bar who had a face like a sunburned Wayne Newton
"where are we"?
"A la Frontera" "At the Frontier". I couldn't imagine what she meant. We were in Spain, miles from any border that I knew of, but apparently here in the mountains the people of Andaluicia consider Alicante another country.
The next stop was at a super sleek ultra-contemporary place called Autogrill. Perfectly modern with modern graphics and food content. The parking lot was filled with hundreds of Gypsies, all of their belongings roped onto the hoods of their cars. They were sleeping on the pavement
next to them. One felt as if they had been passing through this way for thousands of years and that something had always been in this spot, but instead of being able to get figs and flat bread, water, one could now get pasta with pesto and orange Fanta. And Sangre de Torro, but you could always get Sangre de Torro.
And finally, Barcelona
Sunday, August 25, 2002
Alive!
I have learned that life, if you split it open, has as many possibilities as a fig has seeds. I have learned that you can dance all night only if you sleep all day. I have learned that the moon is not just the moon but "La Barca" "The Ship", also the word for cone as in ice cream. I have learned that a beautiful woman is even more beautiful if she lies brown and naked and oiled in the sun as if she is being roasted for a feast. And above all I have learned that I have been smoking way too much hash.
I screamed when I saw him. He was leaning over me burnt and red with dark sunglasses like some poorly briefed technician at Los Alamos. It was five in the morning. It was Neshta and he had brought home a spanish boy. They made ficky ficky in the bathroom while I tried to pretend sleep. These are the whores of Marbella.
I screamed when I saw him. He was leaning over me burnt and red with dark sunglasses like some poorly briefed technician at Los Alamos. It was five in the morning. It was Neshta and he had brought home a spanish boy. They made ficky ficky in the bathroom while I tried to pretend sleep. These are the whores of Marbella.
They come from England with their perfectly bred daughters to mate them off to the proper people. Both the mother and daughter are so fine and so stylishly dressed you could go either way. But the girls slip away at night to fuck Spanish men. Everyone is fucking spanish men mainly because it is so hard to fuck a spanish woman that they mostly all go either way. I was having no luck until I talked to a Norwegian bartender at The House of Silk. He told me it is possible to have something with Spanish girls, but only after you have met their family. They wont even talk to you unless you prove yourself by following them around for days like a dog. The English girls are all sluts. Then he pointed out two Morenas at a table, slender, lovely, a blonde and brunette, sisters. "Have a go with those two, they're not typical Chicas, tell em there will be Chupitas at the bar soon"
That was how I met Alithia and Marta.
They were both studying to be ecologists and intent on saving the world. We talked in spanish, in english, in spanglish. We argued about politics, we laughed and we danced like mad people. They rolled one fat joint after another of hash mixed with tobacco. At five or so in the morning. Alithia took my arm. Her black arabian eyes pierced right through me. She told me that if I came back tommorow I would find her and then they disappeared into the moonlight.
I found Braulio still dancing away as if in a trance. We walked along the marble promenade past palm trees, past the light of the full moon which glistened like broken glass across the Mediterranean. We found Shatzie in a smoke filled gay bar where Andaluisian men, shirtless in blue jeans danced to the rhythmic clapping of their peers. I left those two there and completely disoriented stumbled around in circles for more than an hour before making it the two or three blocks I had to go to reach home.
It was time to get out of town. We had to be out of there by noon. We managed to wake ourselves up and get to the car. At the airport I kissed the boys good-by. I was on my own again. I had no place to stay and no chance of finding one. Except in Barcelona. Braulio had arranged it all with his friend Daniella. The only problem was getting there. It is 1064km away. It is the end of summer and everyone is traveling. There were no seats on the planes. There were no seats on trains. But there was a bus. They told me you can always get a seat on the bus because nobody wants it.
It is a fourteen hour ride to Barcelona on this shitty bus. At one time someone had had a vision of luxury and comfort but now the seats are all broken, the TV's hang mute, the drink holders and dinner trays lie useless like vestigial organs. You ride all night, in the cold, in the mountains. We stopped at one place called The Hotel Zurich where the driving team had beers and sandwiches. It was in some dusty forgotten town filled with freaks and the hopeless. A mother with her retarded son played cards with her parents. A old man in a tattered yellow and red outfit which included matching two tone shoes sat with an elderly blind dog in his arms. I asked the fat woman at the bar who had a face like a sunburned Wayne Newton "where are we"?
"A la Frontera" "At the Frontier". I couldn't imagine what she meant. We were in Spain, miles from any border that I knew of, but apparently here in the mountains the people of Andaluicia consider Alicante another country.
The next stop was at a super sleek ultra-contemporary place called Autogrill. Perfectly modern with modern graphics and food content. The parking lot was filled with hundreds of Gypsies, all of their belongings roped onto the hoods of their cars. They were sleeping, covered in ornate fabrics, on the pavement next to them. One felt as if these people had been passing through this way for thousands of years and that something had always been in this spot, but instead of being able to get figs and flat bread, water, one could now get pasta with pesto and orange Fanta. And Sangre de Torro, but you could always get Sangre de Torro.
At last I got to Barcelona. Someone from the bus helped me with the train. I found Daniellas place which by the way is on d'Estruc 12. It is very cozy here. I slept for fourteen hours straight. Today Anabelle comes and I will get to do some fucking.
Monday, August 19, 2002
Marbella
I want to live in spain. In a town, not too big, not too small. A place like Granada with its narrow twisting streets opening into secret plazas. I would get a little room in the old town and eat figs and oranges for breakfast. I would do yoga under a palm tree. In the afternoon, when its too hot to go outside I would close all the shutters and peck away at my laptop.
We are in Marbella now. Shatzie and Tunte are at the beach. We never call Neshta,"Neshta", we call him "Shatzie" and he in return calls everybody Shatzie except for Barolio. "Shatzie" is something like "darling" in Deutch."Tunte" is more like faggot. We call Barolio "Tunte" when he does things like forget where he left the car keys and we have to take his bag away from him and dump the entire contents into the street.
I decided to stick with the boys. I was going to go to Sevilla and then on to Barcelona. But I will stay with them and go to Africa tommorow. Just for the day. We will take a ferry to Moroco and see something really different. Besides Barolio knows an Italian girl in Barcelona who rents rooms and he is trying to arrange something for me. She is in Milan right now but they are trying to figure something out. Cell phones make everything possible. They fly back to Hamburg on Sunday and then from Malaga I will take the night train north.
We were lucky to get a room in the old quater. Three beds crammed into this tiny little space. There are no real windows, they all open up onto tiny shafts that look directly into the other rooms, or like our bathroom window which opens up back into our room. It is run by this fat old gay named Juan. Juan has an overgrown nose as brown and as wrinkled as the mountains that surround this village. His legs are covered with little sores. He had a special offer for me. He said I could stay with him in his apartment for 12euro per night. I said no, its ok. He said if I wanted to I could also come down and watch TV with him.I told him thanks. Still, everything is clean and its cheap.
There are many beautiful men and ladies in this town. They lie near naked on the beach during the day, then dressed in white, promenade the town in the evenings. Everything is opulent casual. There is so much money here that one central park, filled with tropical trees and plants, is entirely paved in white marble. Shatzie, of course, loves it.
We are in Marbella now. Shatzie and Tunte are at the beach. We never call Neshta,"Neshta", we call him "Shatzie" and he in return calls everybody Shatzie except for Barolio. "Shatzie" is something like "darling" in Deutch."Tunte" is more like faggot. We call Barolio "Tunte" when he does things like forget where he left the car keys and we have to take his bag away from him and dump the entire contents into the street.
I decided to stick with the boys. I was going to go to Sevilla and then on to Barcelona. But I will stay with them and go to Africa tommorow. Just for the day. We will take a ferry to Moroco and see something really different. Besides Barolio knows an Italian girl in Barcelona who rents rooms and he is trying to arrange something for me. She is in Milan right now but they are trying to figure something out. Cell phones make everything possible. They fly back to Hamburg on Sunday and then from Malaga I will take the night train north.
We were lucky to get a room in the old quater. Three beds crammed into this tiny little space. There are no real windows, they all open up onto tiny shafts that look directly into the other rooms, or like our bathroom window which opens up back into our room. It is run by this fat old gay named Juan. Juan has an overgrown nose as brown and as wrinkled as the mountains that surround this village. His legs are covered with little sores. He had a special offer for me. He said I could stay with him in his apartment for 12euro per night. I said no, its ok. He said if I wanted to I could also come down and watch TV with him.I told him thanks. Still, everything is clean and its cheap.
There are many beautiful men and ladies in this town. They lie near naked on the beach during the day, then dressed in white, promenade the town in the evenings. Everything is opulent casual. There is so much money here that one central park, filled with tropical trees and plants, is entirely paved in white marble. Shatzie, of course, loves it.
Saturday, August 17, 2002
Schatzie
You always see him with a cigarette dangling from his lips. He is over six feet tall. Even at night he wears black sunglasses. You can tell he was once muscular but his white skin is now slightly pudgy with fat. He has been walking around without a shirt for days now, the crack of his ass showing above his black italian pants. His skin is completely burnt red from the waist up.
We have been roaring around aduluisia for days now in this shitty little fiat that never seems to burn any gas. We have wound round the treacherous mountain roads to Ronda, a town so pristene in its ancient Spanish Morocan style that standing on Puento Nuevo you fell like you have been captured in a painting. We have eaten tapas next to an unending row of Dali statues, girded by palm trees, on a marble plaza in Marbella, a town so grossly rich it would embarrass the citizens of Las Vegas. We have darted in an out of the narrow streets of Granada, we have seen mountains and vistas and moorish castels. We have eaten sunripened figs off the tree, we have seen bulls, blood pounding high off thier black hides, slaughtered by prancing toredors dressed completely in pink and still, he never takes off his sunglasses.
The other day as we sat on our balcony, with Barolio singing, smoking hash he had copped from some Turk in a DJ bar for the international set in Benalmadena he squinted at me and said "Rene, we ave to find you a voman, dis life for you vithout a voman is no good¨"
Barolo just rolled his eyes...
"Shatzie, Rene can take care of himself"
But I was already gone, in a haze of wine and hash, half dreaming, half laughing, listening to Salsa on the porno channel and slipping away.
besos
rene
We have been roaring around aduluisia for days now in this shitty little fiat that never seems to burn any gas. We have wound round the treacherous mountain roads to Ronda, a town so pristene in its ancient Spanish Morocan style that standing on Puento Nuevo you fell like you have been captured in a painting. We have eaten tapas next to an unending row of Dali statues, girded by palm trees, on a marble plaza in Marbella, a town so grossly rich it would embarrass the citizens of Las Vegas. We have darted in an out of the narrow streets of Granada, we have seen mountains and vistas and moorish castels. We have eaten sunripened figs off the tree, we have seen bulls, blood pounding high off thier black hides, slaughtered by prancing toredors dressed completely in pink and still, he never takes off his sunglasses.
The other day as we sat on our balcony, with Barolio singing, smoking hash he had copped from some Turk in a DJ bar for the international set in Benalmadena he squinted at me and said "Rene, we ave to find you a voman, dis life for you vithout a voman is no good¨"
Barolo just rolled his eyes...
"Shatzie, Rene can take care of himself"
But I was already gone, in a haze of wine and hash, half dreaming, half laughing, listening to Salsa on the porno channel and slipping away.
besos
rene
Thursday, August 15, 2002
La Blanca
Hey
We decided to call her La Blanca. She was brown and wirey and had long black hair. She wore a traditional flamenco dress, all in white. It pressed against her breasts revealing a faint discription of her areolas, hung on her slender waist for quite a while before itflared around her long legs. There was a single blood red rose in her hair. Best of all, she rode to and from work on a little yellow motorized scooter.
When she danced, she danced with all of her heart and you could feel it. We stayed there for hours in this little beachside restaurant surrounded by palm trees, listening to the ocean and the castenets and the sorrowful singing of the guitarist. We drank three pitchers of sangria. We watched the moon rise above the jagged cliffs. Barolo said that he might cry. I was on the verge myself. I don't get the feeling that Neshta cries much.
Earilier, when Barolo and I were by ourselves, he told me that Neshta had been raised in a very wealthy family in Sarajevo. When the war started soilders had forced their way into his parents house and cut his mothers throat in front of him. His father and sister survived. So when he gets a little moody we don´t bother him.
Barolo is Brazillian, he never gets moody. In the mornings when we have dark arabian coffee with hot milk in a cafe, he sings to us, just under his breath, while I try to read spanish newspapers and Neshta keeps an eye out for interesting men.
We met in Torre del Mar. When I got to the airport in Malaga they told me that because of the Feria there were no rooms anywhere at all within 30km of the city. Malaga is a great hidious mass of a city. It is as if someone took 100 Miami´s, piled them on top of each other and dumped them along a narrow strip of land between the oceans and the mountains. I found my way to the bus station and got out of town. I ended up 25km north of there in a tourist office where they were listening to the same story I had been hearing all day. Completo, there is nothing, go away. They lived in Hamburg and so we all spoke german. We decided our fates were no less miserable alone than seperate and besides I spoke better spanish, and they had a car.
We drove for hours going to town after town, twisting through narrow medieval streets looking for tiny pensions which we hoped sombody had forgotten about. I spoke with old ladies who sat in doorways, who greeted us like lost friends and wanted to know our histories. I petted their cats, tickled babies feet and still at midnight we had nothing. "Maybe tommorow" they said. I was thinking the beach might be our only friend.
We decided to head back to Malaga and from there north to Sevilla. We ate fresh, whole fried fish, drank wine in some little town, and had our first taste the rich black coffee that we would all come to love so dearly in the following days. Somewhere on the outskirts I saw a hotel and said to Barolo lets give it one more try. Neshta chain smoked cigarettes and looked out the window. I talked to the old man inside. He told me no right off. I asked him if he knew of anything anywhere. I told him we had been looking all day. He asked me where I was from. I told him and he bent a little. He said he could give us two rooms for one night only.
The next day we went back to Torre del Mar to see if any of our tommorow possibilites might materialize. I talked with this girl in a hotel for half an hour, told her my life story, complemented her english, her dress, her hair, her mother. The old lady interupted. She knew of an apartment in town, not one of her´s but a friends. We were in luck.
Our place has two little balconies and a kitchen. Barolo and Neshta are in one room and I in the other. We are a short walk to the beach.
We took a day trip to a place farther up the coast and found a paradise. Nurja. It is an old city completely painted white to fight off the fierceness of the sun. There is lush palm vegetation and the mountains come right up to the azure ocean. The beach is filled with the brown and the naked and at night, if you walk along the carterellas, you can watch La Blanca dance.
Besos
Rene
We decided to call her La Blanca. She was brown and wirey and had long black hair. She wore a traditional flamenco dress, all in white. It pressed against her breasts revealing a faint discription of her areolas, hung on her slender waist for quite a while before itflared around her long legs. There was a single blood red rose in her hair. Best of all, she rode to and from work on a little yellow motorized scooter.
When she danced, she danced with all of her heart and you could feel it. We stayed there for hours in this little beachside restaurant surrounded by palm trees, listening to the ocean and the castenets and the sorrowful singing of the guitarist. We drank three pitchers of sangria. We watched the moon rise above the jagged cliffs. Barolo said that he might cry. I was on the verge myself. I don't get the feeling that Neshta cries much.
Earilier, when Barolo and I were by ourselves, he told me that Neshta had been raised in a very wealthy family in Sarajevo. When the war started soilders had forced their way into his parents house and cut his mothers throat in front of him. His father and sister survived. So when he gets a little moody we don´t bother him.
Barolo is Brazillian, he never gets moody. In the mornings when we have dark arabian coffee with hot milk in a cafe, he sings to us, just under his breath, while I try to read spanish newspapers and Neshta keeps an eye out for interesting men.
We met in Torre del Mar. When I got to the airport in Malaga they told me that because of the Feria there were no rooms anywhere at all within 30km of the city. Malaga is a great hidious mass of a city. It is as if someone took 100 Miami´s, piled them on top of each other and dumped them along a narrow strip of land between the oceans and the mountains. I found my way to the bus station and got out of town. I ended up 25km north of there in a tourist office where they were listening to the same story I had been hearing all day. Completo, there is nothing, go away. They lived in Hamburg and so we all spoke german. We decided our fates were no less miserable alone than seperate and besides I spoke better spanish, and they had a car.
We drove for hours going to town after town, twisting through narrow medieval streets looking for tiny pensions which we hoped sombody had forgotten about. I spoke with old ladies who sat in doorways, who greeted us like lost friends and wanted to know our histories. I petted their cats, tickled babies feet and still at midnight we had nothing. "Maybe tommorow" they said. I was thinking the beach might be our only friend.
We decided to head back to Malaga and from there north to Sevilla. We ate fresh, whole fried fish, drank wine in some little town, and had our first taste the rich black coffee that we would all come to love so dearly in the following days. Somewhere on the outskirts I saw a hotel and said to Barolo lets give it one more try. Neshta chain smoked cigarettes and looked out the window. I talked to the old man inside. He told me no right off. I asked him if he knew of anything anywhere. I told him we had been looking all day. He asked me where I was from. I told him and he bent a little. He said he could give us two rooms for one night only.
The next day we went back to Torre del Mar to see if any of our tommorow possibilites might materialize. I talked with this girl in a hotel for half an hour, told her my life story, complemented her english, her dress, her hair, her mother. The old lady interupted. She knew of an apartment in town, not one of her´s but a friends. We were in luck.
Our place has two little balconies and a kitchen. Barolo and Neshta are in one room and I in the other. We are a short walk to the beach.
We took a day trip to a place farther up the coast and found a paradise. Nurja. It is an old city completely painted white to fight off the fierceness of the sun. There is lush palm vegetation and the mountains come right up to the azure ocean. The beach is filled with the brown and the naked and at night, if you walk along the carterellas, you can watch La Blanca dance.
Besos
Rene
Monday, August 05, 2002
Berlin Beat
The Berlin Beat or The Berlin Bang or Berlin Bang Bang, something like
that.
While I have been here in Berlin I have met an unusually high number of people working on music projects. There are lots of educated, artistically oriented people here who have no jobs. The unemployment rate is 17%. They still have access to computers purchased in better days. In the last two years there has been a spate of new software that allows anybody to have a home recording studio with an array of synthesized instrumentation. Being Berliners and basically anti-social they don't mind cracking the codes and freely distributing this software. They have already accepted "techno" culturally, unlike the US. They have a techno-club infrastructure and audience already established. They are many good engineers and media strategists. They are highly competitive. There is lots of rain and crappy weather and they love to work.
There are so many projects going on that I think there will be a big bang in Berlin. Naturally out of all these people there will be a small percentage that will be good and an even smaller percentage that will be great. Still the numbers from what I see must be so big that this will still be significant.
If you are interested I could give you many phone numbers to get you
started.
ok?
rene
that.
While I have been here in Berlin I have met an unusually high number of people working on music projects. There are lots of educated, artistically oriented people here who have no jobs. The unemployment rate is 17%. They still have access to computers purchased in better days. In the last two years there has been a spate of new software that allows anybody to have a home recording studio with an array of synthesized instrumentation. Being Berliners and basically anti-social they don't mind cracking the codes and freely distributing this software. They have already accepted "techno" culturally, unlike the US. They have a techno-club infrastructure and audience already established. They are many good engineers and media strategists. They are highly competitive. There is lots of rain and crappy weather and they love to work.
There are so many projects going on that I think there will be a big bang in Berlin. Naturally out of all these people there will be a small percentage that will be good and an even smaller percentage that will be great. Still the numbers from what I see must be so big that this will still be significant.
If you are interested I could give you many phone numbers to get you
started.
ok?
rene
Tuesday, July 30, 2002
hairydancers
Ive settled in here nicely now. I am taking german lessons twice weekly. Its almost as painful as being your own dentist.
Mostly lots of swimming in nice lakes. Johannes has a dacha in the country that we go to. I always thought of a dacha as some place that you flee to when there is a coup, but actually its a cottage on a lake. Almost everyone in the former east had access to one. Now they are selling them to people in the former West. They are actually quite happy to be rid of them. They want to vacation in Vegas. My music projekt with Johannes goes slowly, but I have written some nice tunes.
I saw an old musikkomodie on tv yesterday. It was made in technicolor on a wide screen format in 1961. The soundtrack was just like an Elvis Presley film only in German with a German sensibility. Of course there were lots of cool cars and girls in beehives and bikinis. Except for the language difference the big giveaway was that whenever there was a big dance number and one of these 1960 girls wearing frosted lipstick raised their arms they had hairy pits. Often much darker than the hair on their heads.
I head to Malaga next week. Not much money left and I dont know
anybody. The perfect combination for adventure.
Hope you are having a great summer.
Rene
Mostly lots of swimming in nice lakes. Johannes has a dacha in the country that we go to. I always thought of a dacha as some place that you flee to when there is a coup, but actually its a cottage on a lake. Almost everyone in the former east had access to one. Now they are selling them to people in the former West. They are actually quite happy to be rid of them. They want to vacation in Vegas. My music projekt with Johannes goes slowly, but I have written some nice tunes.
I saw an old musikkomodie on tv yesterday. It was made in technicolor on a wide screen format in 1961. The soundtrack was just like an Elvis Presley film only in German with a German sensibility. Of course there were lots of cool cars and girls in beehives and bikinis. Except for the language difference the big giveaway was that whenever there was a big dance number and one of these 1960 girls wearing frosted lipstick raised their arms they had hairy pits. Often much darker than the hair on their heads.
I head to Malaga next week. Not much money left and I dont know
anybody. The perfect combination for adventure.
Hope you are having a great summer.
Rene
Saturday, July 20, 2002
Schmetterlingen
There were butterflies in the hallway today.
It rained everyday last week in Berlin. I held on to my New York warmth for a day or two, but then it got me, this shivering, bone tingling, chill. People here were wondering if it was the end of summer, or the end of the world.
There was no point in even looking at this dissappointing sun and so it was avoided. Like everyone I stayed out all night. Berlin time is essentially New York time, you just slide on over. One gets home at six am, which is midnight back home and then sleeps until two which is eight, normal.
There were rumors all week that summer would come back sometime late Friday. It did. There were so many party opportunities for Saturday it was hard to choose. I went to look for one a DJ friend had organised in Monbijou Park, a little green near Hackesher Markt. They had started playing at noon and had promised to go through the night. The party was held in this swimming park, with a very modern low slung white building and a nice grey plaza. there was green and trees and little candles in paperbags every where. You could see the Ferhnsee Turm between the trees reflecting in the glitter blue of pool. The DJ was playing very cooling summery music. There was a grill and a bar and lots of pretty Berliners. In the distance, down by the river you could hear music and screaming, something wild was going on down there.
I tried to talk to a few people but the atmosphere was too cool, too hip. Finally I went to this one really freaky looking girl covered in tatoos and piercings who nobody else was also talking to. We tried to get the dancing started but nobody joined us. I complained to her that I couldnt find my friends.
"You know, she said, there´s another party going on by the spree, maybe that´s where they are."
I split thinking she might be right. She was. I met Ellen and her friends there on a blanket. There were no bathrooms. There were bottles everywhere. A completely haphazard array of candles. People making out. The wild party. It was free, and all different kinds of people were dancing, dancing very hard by this murky green canal. We made it until dawn, until 5, until 6, until the DJs gave up. This party wasnt getting any smaller, as people left other clubs, it grew and the dancing got harder.
Ellen and I rode bikes home. I slept until two and then fled the city to my friends dacha in Brandenburg. After the train I had to bicycle 24km on bad eastern roads to get there through arbored streets and cobblestone villages. I didnt know the way. I had to ask, but I made it. I went for a swim on a pretty little lake, had a barbecue. Talked, had great inspirations and slept.
The next day we swam again across the lake and back. I made my way to the train, this time on a longer but better route. I rode down the magnificent Karl Marx Allee, the Fernsee Turm again, farther, more silvery, pointing towards the kosmos. I had dinner on Simon Dach Str. In the grimness of the week before it had been empty. Now the cafe tables were full up and down. On a Monday. People were smiling, loosening up, phone numbers were exchanged.
This morning I did the wash. On my way out there were butterflies fluttering in the hallway. Rusty, yellow, black green and brown making it, fufilling it, and then dying on the sunlit windowsills.
Finnally, summer in Berlin
Rene
It rained everyday last week in Berlin. I held on to my New York warmth for a day or two, but then it got me, this shivering, bone tingling, chill. People here were wondering if it was the end of summer, or the end of the world.
There was no point in even looking at this dissappointing sun and so it was avoided. Like everyone I stayed out all night. Berlin time is essentially New York time, you just slide on over. One gets home at six am, which is midnight back home and then sleeps until two which is eight, normal.
There were rumors all week that summer would come back sometime late Friday. It did. There were so many party opportunities for Saturday it was hard to choose. I went to look for one a DJ friend had organised in Monbijou Park, a little green near Hackesher Markt. They had started playing at noon and had promised to go through the night. The party was held in this swimming park, with a very modern low slung white building and a nice grey plaza. there was green and trees and little candles in paperbags every where. You could see the Ferhnsee Turm between the trees reflecting in the glitter blue of pool. The DJ was playing very cooling summery music. There was a grill and a bar and lots of pretty Berliners. In the distance, down by the river you could hear music and screaming, something wild was going on down there.
I tried to talk to a few people but the atmosphere was too cool, too hip. Finally I went to this one really freaky looking girl covered in tatoos and piercings who nobody else was also talking to. We tried to get the dancing started but nobody joined us. I complained to her that I couldnt find my friends.
"You know, she said, there´s another party going on by the spree, maybe that´s where they are."
I split thinking she might be right. She was. I met Ellen and her friends there on a blanket. There were no bathrooms. There were bottles everywhere. A completely haphazard array of candles. People making out. The wild party. It was free, and all different kinds of people were dancing, dancing very hard by this murky green canal. We made it until dawn, until 5, until 6, until the DJs gave up. This party wasnt getting any smaller, as people left other clubs, it grew and the dancing got harder.
Ellen and I rode bikes home. I slept until two and then fled the city to my friends dacha in Brandenburg. After the train I had to bicycle 24km on bad eastern roads to get there through arbored streets and cobblestone villages. I didnt know the way. I had to ask, but I made it. I went for a swim on a pretty little lake, had a barbecue. Talked, had great inspirations and slept.
The next day we swam again across the lake and back. I made my way to the train, this time on a longer but better route. I rode down the magnificent Karl Marx Allee, the Fernsee Turm again, farther, more silvery, pointing towards the kosmos. I had dinner on Simon Dach Str. In the grimness of the week before it had been empty. Now the cafe tables were full up and down. On a Monday. People were smiling, loosening up, phone numbers were exchanged.
This morning I did the wash. On my way out there were butterflies fluttering in the hallway. Rusty, yellow, black green and brown making it, fufilling it, and then dying on the sunlit windowsills.
Finnally, summer in Berlin
Rene
Monday, July 15, 2002
Prenzlauerberg
I am here in Berlin. The plane was half full and still nobody died. The flight was actually quite wonderful. Air France really knows how to do it. Everyone has one of those little interactive active matrix screens. There were several movies to pick from, all kinds of music, games and shopping.
I watched The Majestic first, a movie that died in the theaters so fast they had to put it in a ditch and throw lime on it. I figured if the French had chosen it there must be something to it. I loved it. No, I really loved it. Jim Carrey turned in his first top to bottom solid serious performance. I always thought that in the hands of the right director he could be a great actor. The cimematography and art direction worked flawlessly together. I think that the 50s will be Americas touchstone period. It is the age that defines us, like Victorian England or Medieval France. The script held no surprises but was expertly written with lots of poetic flourishes. The dialog was genuine and workable. I cried four or five times.
Then I watched most of Charolette Gray. It was ok. Fantastic locations, south of France... cant be beaten, well told story, good acting. I just wasnt really in the mood.
The dinner was two or three notches above the usual 3 mile high fare. What makes it all work is the style in which it is presented. They have the nicest plastic ware I have ever seen. The glasses say to you, "I'm not crystal, but let me remind you of the beauty of real glass." There was a decent selection of wines, champagne. I put on a mild buzz, listened to a dicerning selection of Jazz and did the crossword in The Herald Tribune.
Charles De Galle 2 is the modern architecture equivalent of a peoples palace. It has soaring glass and steel ceilings that float skyward. Everything is clean, moving foward and into the future. My connection to Berlin was turned back because of bad weather.You cant fly nowadays without god or terrorists trying to kill you.
I finnally made it. All is gemuetlich in my Prenzlauerberg flat.
More to come
Rene
I watched The Majestic first, a movie that died in the theaters so fast they had to put it in a ditch and throw lime on it. I figured if the French had chosen it there must be something to it. I loved it. No, I really loved it. Jim Carrey turned in his first top to bottom solid serious performance. I always thought that in the hands of the right director he could be a great actor. The cimematography and art direction worked flawlessly together. I think that the 50s will be Americas touchstone period. It is the age that defines us, like Victorian England or Medieval France. The script held no surprises but was expertly written with lots of poetic flourishes. The dialog was genuine and workable. I cried four or five times.
Then I watched most of Charolette Gray. It was ok. Fantastic locations, south of France... cant be beaten, well told story, good acting. I just wasnt really in the mood.
The dinner was two or three notches above the usual 3 mile high fare. What makes it all work is the style in which it is presented. They have the nicest plastic ware I have ever seen. The glasses say to you, "I'm not crystal, but let me remind you of the beauty of real glass." There was a decent selection of wines, champagne. I put on a mild buzz, listened to a dicerning selection of Jazz and did the crossword in The Herald Tribune.
Charles De Galle 2 is the modern architecture equivalent of a peoples palace. It has soaring glass and steel ceilings that float skyward. Everything is clean, moving foward and into the future. My connection to Berlin was turned back because of bad weather.You cant fly nowadays without god or terrorists trying to kill you.
I finnally made it. All is gemuetlich in my Prenzlauerberg flat.
More to come
Rene
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
The day after the world changed
It is eerily quiet here in harlem. There are no cars on the streets. There are few ambulances. All of the bridges and tunnels have been closed. I went for a rollerblade in the park. It is sunny and mild. The sky is a clear blue. There is a feeling of great sadness everywhere. We still can see the smoke in the distance. Everybody will know someone who is dead. There is nothing to do but wait.
There was a dance festival this week at the Twin Towers base. In Ten days they were presenting ten world class dance companies. All for free. I had gone there several times already. After one concert I had a drink with a friend at the top. Afterwards we wandered around the plaza. The weather had been hot and crisp, perfect summer days. After the Ballet Trocadero I had sushi with friends there along the hudson. We looked out at the yachts and into the lives of the very rich.
Having worked at the World Trade Center many times I had never liked it. I used to call them the twin towers of world hatred and greed. But, the more I traveled the more I realized how special they were. Venice has it’s Riva degli Schiavoni. Paris it's Eiffel tower. Rome has Constantine's Arch . Here in New York we had these magnificent skyscrapers. The will it must have took to build something like that. All last week I was telling my friends. "You have to go there. This dance festival is really something special and the location is unbelievable. You turn your head up and you can barely see the top." The day before yesterday the weather turned stormy. That evenings show was canceled. I went down anyways. I don’t know why. I rode the A train downtown and stood there at the base. I looked up at them in the rain and thunder. Then I went home.
I used to be a food worker there years ago. We had to be there at seven thirty in the morning. The kitchen staff had to be there at six. Most of us were actors, dancers, musicians, painters, you know, the type of people who never have a serious job. People who didn't really fit in anywhere. Besides us, most of the people there that early in the morning were black and latino, maintenance workers, cleaning people and the like. In fact the whole building was filled with shitty jobs. And thusly filled with so-called "minorities" to do them. I know people who work there. Nobody close, but I can see their faces. They are people who were just trying to make enough money to live.
Just last year I was working at 1 WTC on the 89th floor. I quit that job because the boss was an asshole. He never showed up until ten. The rest of them, they had to be in by nine, they are most likely dead. They tell us not to be afraid. But we are afraid. They tell us not to be angry. But we are angry. They tell us that life must go on as if everything were normal. But it is not normal. Nothing is normal. The towers are gone. A great shadow remains. They have won something. The question is, what?
There was a dance festival this week at the Twin Towers base. In Ten days they were presenting ten world class dance companies. All for free. I had gone there several times already. After one concert I had a drink with a friend at the top. Afterwards we wandered around the plaza. The weather had been hot and crisp, perfect summer days. After the Ballet Trocadero I had sushi with friends there along the hudson. We looked out at the yachts and into the lives of the very rich.
Having worked at the World Trade Center many times I had never liked it. I used to call them the twin towers of world hatred and greed. But, the more I traveled the more I realized how special they were. Venice has it’s Riva degli Schiavoni. Paris it's Eiffel tower. Rome has Constantine's Arch . Here in New York we had these magnificent skyscrapers. The will it must have took to build something like that. All last week I was telling my friends. "You have to go there. This dance festival is really something special and the location is unbelievable. You turn your head up and you can barely see the top." The day before yesterday the weather turned stormy. That evenings show was canceled. I went down anyways. I don’t know why. I rode the A train downtown and stood there at the base. I looked up at them in the rain and thunder. Then I went home.
I used to be a food worker there years ago. We had to be there at seven thirty in the morning. The kitchen staff had to be there at six. Most of us were actors, dancers, musicians, painters, you know, the type of people who never have a serious job. People who didn't really fit in anywhere. Besides us, most of the people there that early in the morning were black and latino, maintenance workers, cleaning people and the like. In fact the whole building was filled with shitty jobs. And thusly filled with so-called "minorities" to do them. I know people who work there. Nobody close, but I can see their faces. They are people who were just trying to make enough money to live.
Just last year I was working at 1 WTC on the 89th floor. I quit that job because the boss was an asshole. He never showed up until ten. The rest of them, they had to be in by nine, they are most likely dead. They tell us not to be afraid. But we are afraid. They tell us not to be angry. But we are angry. They tell us that life must go on as if everything were normal. But it is not normal. Nothing is normal. The towers are gone. A great shadow remains. They have won something. The question is, what?
Wednesday, August 22, 2001
Gasping
I flew to berlin yesterday. I flew in the prettiest little jet you have ever seen. A really cute, curvy fat little plane. This happy little chubette soared above the clouds and into the sunshine. I had a short stop-over in Stockholm. Both Helsinki and Stockholm have very small, calm, clean, ultra-modern airports. People drink espressos and read the paper in stylish cafes of glass, metal, pressed wood and fabric. It is a big change from the grim filth of New York.
I went swimming at the olympic stadium before I left. There is a big sauna there. There was a sauna at the corner bar too. This is Finnland. Fathers come into the saunas with their daughters. Sometimes they are toddlers, sometimes they are as old as seven or eight. On Sundays especially, slippery little naked tow-heads are running around everywhere. The attendant in the men's changing room is a woman. Yesterday there were two twenty-something year old women in there with us nude men. They were leading a pack of about fifteen 5-6 year old boys. Nobody was raped, nobody was murdered, nobody was arrested.
The Nordic peoples have this gasping thing. Especially the women, but sometimes the men too. Instead of saying yeah, or uh-huh, or mmm, they gasp. For an American like me this was very disconcerting. I kept thinking I had, through mis-speaking, altered a word into something really offensive. I kept looking around to see if something bad was happening just over my shoulder.
I went on one last boat ride. Pia-lissa took me around to see the parks she has designed. They are building new cities all over Helsinki. It is so tiny that there was never really that much there. If almost anyone moves there they have to build a new building. Then we took a ferry out to suommolinna. a little island fortress in the mouth of the harbor. we sat on rocks, watching the big boats come in, reading the paper. then dinner in town. now i am back for a final week. here in berlin.
I went swimming at the olympic stadium before I left. There is a big sauna there. There was a sauna at the corner bar too. This is Finnland. Fathers come into the saunas with their daughters. Sometimes they are toddlers, sometimes they are as old as seven or eight. On Sundays especially, slippery little naked tow-heads are running around everywhere. The attendant in the men's changing room is a woman. Yesterday there were two twenty-something year old women in there with us nude men. They were leading a pack of about fifteen 5-6 year old boys. Nobody was raped, nobody was murdered, nobody was arrested.
The Nordic peoples have this gasping thing. Especially the women, but sometimes the men too. Instead of saying yeah, or uh-huh, or mmm, they gasp. For an American like me this was very disconcerting. I kept thinking I had, through mis-speaking, altered a word into something really offensive. I kept looking around to see if something bad was happening just over my shoulder.
I went on one last boat ride. Pia-lissa took me around to see the parks she has designed. They are building new cities all over Helsinki. It is so tiny that there was never really that much there. If almost anyone moves there they have to build a new building. Then we took a ferry out to suommolinna. a little island fortress in the mouth of the harbor. we sat on rocks, watching the big boats come in, reading the paper. then dinner in town. now i am back for a final week. here in berlin.
Friday, August 17, 2001
Delicious Herrings
I am in helsinki now, staying at my friend pia-lissa's apartment. i met her in paris two years ago. she is a tall curvy very sophisticated finn. too bad she is engaged to be married.
She is staying with her fiance and the only thing that keeps me from tearing apart her room to look for dirty underware to sniff is all the other pia-lissoids strutting around in the hot helsinki summer bake-off.
I have to make a definate plan to be here next midsummer, the solstice. that is high mating season for finns.
I had a nice little affair in with a doe-eyed russian from oddessa that i met in a salsa club in copenhagen and another with a museum guard/gym enthusiast i met at the palace in stockholm. but still no fish in helsiki. the danes call them 'delicious herrings'.
She is staying with her fiance and the only thing that keeps me from tearing apart her room to look for dirty underware to sniff is all the other pia-lissoids strutting around in the hot helsinki summer bake-off.
I have to make a definate plan to be here next midsummer, the solstice. that is high mating season for finns.
I had a nice little affair in with a doe-eyed russian from oddessa that i met in a salsa club in copenhagen and another with a museum guard/gym enthusiast i met at the palace in stockholm. but still no fish in helsiki. the danes call them 'delicious herrings'.
Thursday, August 16, 2001
Attack
I have been appalled to read in the International press about a recent poll undertaken by the American media. This poll through the doubtless manipulation of data purports that the American public believes that 30 days is too long for a vacation.
thinly disguised as an attack on george bush this meritless besmirchment of the 'rene calvo philosophy' has not gone unnoticed.
wouldn't it be a nicer world if we all said 'no' to august? we have only one life. in that life we have perhaps 100 summers. how many of those are gone already? how many are left? a very finite number.
let the business men close the coffers. let the soldiers lay down their arms. let the children run naked on the seacoast. let us all breathe in the richness of life.
helsinki, finnland
thinly disguised as an attack on george bush this meritless besmirchment of the 'rene calvo philosophy' has not gone unnoticed.
wouldn't it be a nicer world if we all said 'no' to august? we have only one life. in that life we have perhaps 100 summers. how many of those are gone already? how many are left? a very finite number.
let the business men close the coffers. let the soldiers lay down their arms. let the children run naked on the seacoast. let us all breathe in the richness of life.
helsinki, finnland
Saturday, August 04, 2001
Thunder Flies
I was covered with tiny black flies on my way into Ketteminde the other day. I had to stop my bike and dive into the near freezing ocean to rid myself of this creepy pests. The farmers call them thunder flies. They say that they are a sure sign of heavy weather. They were right. By morning it was pouring.
Later the sun came out. We drove to the south of Fyn (foonin) the middle island in the Dansk archipelago. There we visited a castle owned by some young lord. He needed the money so anybody could go. He has a picture of himself in full armor on top of a 1910 Harley. He is no historian. He had hundreds of vintage cars in his barn. There was a real moat. It wasnt too interesting. It was just another castle. He did have a maze in his garden that was truly baffling. We cheated to get out. There was a tower in the middle. People were yelling directions to their friends who were hopelessly lost in that green tangle. When I got up there I realised it wasnt high enough to give anybody any real perspective. Their instructions, which sounded so convincing while I was wandering below, were actually meaningless. So I started yelling random instructions. Keep turing left and you'll have it! The key is to make a left turn at the right place! Turn right when there are no turns left! Like rats, they obeyed the tune of the pipers.
The best thing is the beach. There is a museum here in Ketteminde called the Johannes Larsen Museet. There is a new wing that is ok. The best though is his house and studio. It is one of the most beautifully cozy houses I have ever been in. The walls are covered with paintings. Every stick of furniture, every book, every pot every pan every glass are like an interlocking piece in a picture of warm refinement. His studio, where the larger works are hung, has the most lovingly rendered portraits of this tiny fishing town. Nudes wander the beaches in the dazzle of an eternal summer sun glittering against the waves.
Life is so peacful here. As I raced home trying to beat the setting sun, I passed a blazing barley field. There are flowers everywhere.
Wednesday, August 01, 2001
Shooting monkies in a barrel
I am in Denmark right now. Denmark is a bunch of islands on the Baltic. Who knew? I am on the middle one called Ulan or something like that. I am staying in a farmhouse with the thatched roof and sheep and all that. We are surrounded by barley fields. During the day the farmers burn them.
There is a beach resort nearby called Ketteminde. Minde is a big word around here. It means memory. So this place is a kind of romantic recollection of Kette whoever he was. There are a lot of towns around here with minde for an ending. Oddly enough the most familiar danish expression in America is 'Husker Du', which means 'do you remember'.
The girls are friendly enough but they are mostly teenagers. Its a family resort. So no pussy here. I did have a nice affair in Copenhagen with a Russian woman I met at a Salsa club. I was the mambo king there (sadly enough). There was a horde of blondes there with hungry looks on their faces. It was like shooting monkies in a barrel.
Getting to Copenhagen was kind of a disaster. I got a ride with mitfahrtzentral. I drove with this old former-east german who looked like a Tolkien character. He worked at the Berlin Wasserbetrieb, This place is so obviously an old Nazi building. They had replaced the swastika which hung over the grim entrance with an upbeat eco-friendly symbol. when I asked him about it he said 'What?' I said you know the Nazionale Socialists, the NAZI party, HITLER. He gave me this blank look and said 'I dont know anything about that'.
When we were well on the way this guy told me, 'by the way, im not going to Copenhagen'. Now it was my turn to say 'What?' 'Yeah' he said and explained he was going to this little town in the north of Denmark where his sister had a beach house. Then in a grand display of generosity he offered to swing by the outer edges of Copenhagen and let me off in some one goat town. There he shook my hand and wished me luck.
The guy in the gas station in Bellerop tried to help me get some money so I could get on the train. He said to just buy some gum or something and he would give me as much cash back as i needed. this town was so far out of the world economic system that the machine didnt recognise master card. He told me to chance it on the train. If I see men in black shirts 'take off!'
Luckily they are still not going crasy with checking for tickets up here. I got into town dog tired and managed to find a hotel without too much problem.
So after a few days there I made my way out here, the middle of nowhere. I am just having some beach days and doing a lot of biking. The days are long and warm. There are barley fields everywhere. The water is ice cold. The danish tits are out. Life is good.
There is a beach resort nearby called Ketteminde. Minde is a big word around here. It means memory. So this place is a kind of romantic recollection of Kette whoever he was. There are a lot of towns around here with minde for an ending. Oddly enough the most familiar danish expression in America is 'Husker Du', which means 'do you remember'.
The girls are friendly enough but they are mostly teenagers. Its a family resort. So no pussy here. I did have a nice affair in Copenhagen with a Russian woman I met at a Salsa club. I was the mambo king there (sadly enough). There was a horde of blondes there with hungry looks on their faces. It was like shooting monkies in a barrel.
Getting to Copenhagen was kind of a disaster. I got a ride with mitfahrtzentral. I drove with this old former-east german who looked like a Tolkien character. He worked at the Berlin Wasserbetrieb, This place is so obviously an old Nazi building. They had replaced the swastika which hung over the grim entrance with an upbeat eco-friendly symbol. when I asked him about it he said 'What?' I said you know the Nazionale Socialists, the NAZI party, HITLER. He gave me this blank look and said 'I dont know anything about that'.
When we were well on the way this guy told me, 'by the way, im not going to Copenhagen'. Now it was my turn to say 'What?' 'Yeah' he said and explained he was going to this little town in the north of Denmark where his sister had a beach house. Then in a grand display of generosity he offered to swing by the outer edges of Copenhagen and let me off in some one goat town. There he shook my hand and wished me luck.
The guy in the gas station in Bellerop tried to help me get some money so I could get on the train. He said to just buy some gum or something and he would give me as much cash back as i needed. this town was so far out of the world economic system that the machine didnt recognise master card. He told me to chance it on the train. If I see men in black shirts 'take off!'
Luckily they are still not going crasy with checking for tickets up here. I got into town dog tired and managed to find a hotel without too much problem.
So after a few days there I made my way out here, the middle of nowhere. I am just having some beach days and doing a lot of biking. The days are long and warm. There are barley fields everywhere. The water is ice cold. The danish tits are out. Life is good.
Wednesday, November 01, 2000
The Name Game
We sit in our cubicles. We face our monitors. We see no one and no one sees us, but we hear. Periodically we hear a smoke scarred voice over the intercom. It's a name. A name with no face, no history and no meaning. And so we invent meaning. These are the names and these are their stories.
Violet Swinton, midwestern American poetess circa 1980's. Noted progenitor of the "House Wife Rage" movement. Currently friend and trend analyst for the Hillary Clinton senate campaign.
Solvig Johnson, Olympic ski champion, suffered devastating injury during the 1972 pre-trials in Munich, went on to win gold, silver and three bronzes, imortalized by director Werner Herzog in his short film *Blood and Snow*, never walked again.
Linda Ciccarelli, Fifth and youngest Marx brother, Left the team in 1938 (during a bitter split) to pursue a Broadway theatrical career. Claimed the talkies were a *fad* and would ultimately degrade the act. Died, unknown, from liver faliure in 1983.
Seville Vazquez, little known surrealist juggler, Attended the Acacemy of Beauxs Arts in Paris along with contemporaries Luis Bunnel, Salvador Dali, and Garcia Lorca. Died in 1968, of smoke inhlation during a fire at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City
Nadi Hadir, failed assassin of Indira Ghandi at a 1978 political rally, was torn apart by the crowd within minutes, wrote several anti-religious polemics denouncing India's rigid caste system, subject of a small bronze sculpture in Moscow's Red Square.
Eric Dickman, 80's porn star, aka Eric Cockman, Dick Swainfold, Vlad Porkster and Heavy Juicyshlong, frequent actor in Russ Meyer features, killed when his Porche 900 roadster errupted in flames at a Las Vegas parking lot during a coke deal gone badDominic Viola, assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seji Ozawa, mimimalist composer, thrilled audiences and enraged critics during a Bartok festival in Budapest when a small pebble taken from his shoe *sang* for an uninterupted 9 hours.
Michael Roberts, highly decorated WWII naval officer, credited with planning the unexecuted Operation Shoestring, a brutal scorch and burn invasion of Greenland, suffered an anuerism on VJ Day during the formalities of the Japaneese unconditional surrender aboard the USS Missouri and was unable to afix his signature, a Universal bio pic, starring Tom Hanks is slated for December release, 2006
Ahmed Gh'rael, Born Richard Smith, obscure jazz drummer and small time drug dealer, In 1957 he converted to Islam while doing time in Joliet. Was tragically murdered in the prison laundry three weeks prior to his release.
Su Yung Chen, 14th century Manchurian philosipher, first among the ancients to propose that seemingly arbitrary and brutal acts of God were, although somewhat misguided, intended as benevolent, was repeatedly struck by lightning during her decent into insanity.
Violet Swinton, midwestern American poetess circa 1980's. Noted progenitor of the "House Wife Rage" movement. Currently friend and trend analyst for the Hillary Clinton senate campaign.
Solvig Johnson, Olympic ski champion, suffered devastating injury during the 1972 pre-trials in Munich, went on to win gold, silver and three bronzes, imortalized by director Werner Herzog in his short film *Blood and Snow*, never walked again.
Linda Ciccarelli, Fifth and youngest Marx brother, Left the team in 1938 (during a bitter split) to pursue a Broadway theatrical career. Claimed the talkies were a *fad* and would ultimately degrade the act. Died, unknown, from liver faliure in 1983.
Seville Vazquez, little known surrealist juggler, Attended the Acacemy of Beauxs Arts in Paris along with contemporaries Luis Bunnel, Salvador Dali, and Garcia Lorca. Died in 1968, of smoke inhlation during a fire at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City
Nadi Hadir, failed assassin of Indira Ghandi at a 1978 political rally, was torn apart by the crowd within minutes, wrote several anti-religious polemics denouncing India's rigid caste system, subject of a small bronze sculpture in Moscow's Red Square.
Eric Dickman, 80's porn star, aka Eric Cockman, Dick Swainfold, Vlad Porkster and Heavy Juicyshlong, frequent actor in Russ Meyer features, killed when his Porche 900 roadster errupted in flames at a Las Vegas parking lot during a coke deal gone badDominic Viola, assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seji Ozawa, mimimalist composer, thrilled audiences and enraged critics during a Bartok festival in Budapest when a small pebble taken from his shoe *sang* for an uninterupted 9 hours.
Michael Roberts, highly decorated WWII naval officer, credited with planning the unexecuted Operation Shoestring, a brutal scorch and burn invasion of Greenland, suffered an anuerism on VJ Day during the formalities of the Japaneese unconditional surrender aboard the USS Missouri and was unable to afix his signature, a Universal bio pic, starring Tom Hanks is slated for December release, 2006
Ahmed Gh'rael, Born Richard Smith, obscure jazz drummer and small time drug dealer, In 1957 he converted to Islam while doing time in Joliet. Was tragically murdered in the prison laundry three weeks prior to his release.
Su Yung Chen, 14th century Manchurian philosipher, first among the ancients to propose that seemingly arbitrary and brutal acts of God were, although somewhat misguided, intended as benevolent, was repeatedly struck by lightning during her decent into insanity.
Friday, September 01, 2000
My Cellar
Last night I dreamed I was in Paris. Maybe because I was watching this movie "The Man in the Iron Mask" with Leonardo DiCaprio. I got it at the library for free (my lowest possible watching category). Stunk.
My dream, wasn't a story dream. It was more like a collection of images and objects. A nocturnal knick-knack shop. I was floating in the middle of it, this face, that cafe, The pool in the Latin quarter, The globe at La'Villette, and of course, Celeste, surrounded in her atelier by the giant nudes she had painted of herself. Paris.
I awoke snug, in my four-poster bed. I was warm. I was cosy. I was mildly aroused. Then a distant odor made its way to my nose. It all came flooding back into my consciousness. The basement. There was a very bad smell down there. I pulled my beloved down comforter up over my head.
I can verify that my basement has not been cleaned since the 1890s. I have made photographs in case there is ever a legal inquiry. I found farming implements down there. I found a horse's bridle. The ancient putrid detritus that filled the corners was over six inches deep. For decades rain had been seeping in through the back wall. Everything that wasn't rusting was rotting. At one point some zealot, in a deranged effort to contain that growing horror, had boarded up the windows. Now the breakdown of all matter could continue unabated.
And yet there was life down there.
If you gazed heavenward, there was a forest of green-grey fungi, clinging to the ceiling looking like a still from a Mariner fly-by. Dancing in a feat of arial mastery, thousands of vicious red spiders had spun their webs. In an attempt to clear them I went to pick up an axe and the handle disintegrated in my hand. I was the last person to see it in its original form, and I was the first to see the mother creature, who had brooded inside, scurry off. Life festered underfoot too. In one corner was a pile of creosote panels. The top few crumbled, the bottom six had been turned into earth by a swarm of white worms.
We have rats up here which, when they perish, will leave behind larger skeletons then those displayed in the dinosaur wing of the Museum of Natural History. One of the buildings behind me is being cleaned out by the city. They are trying to get rid of these rats. Great black men, who can find no other employment, do the work. They play cards and fight and curse each other in my back yard thicket. Above them, numerous birds sing.
The other morning, I approached them. I stood around for awhile sizing them up. They can©ˆt be making much. Their shoes looked like they had been made in a Chinese prison. I pitched them an offer. "How'd you like to make a little side money?" I said. "$100 bucks to empty out my cellar." They sent the little squat one down to check it out. The one who never gets to sit at the table. The one with a sour face, always standing by the broken Ailanthus stump. I showed him the way. We came back and he told the big one the job was "ok". The big one wiped his mouth, wiped it on his greasy green shirt and squinted at his cards. "After I finish this hand we'll do it" he grunted, his impossible girth leaned back, straining the tiny, child's chair which bore his huge black ass.
They tore through that mess. They were rushing in an effort to beat out the foreman©ˆs return. So of course, something went wrong. Someone, somebody, must have banged into the live feed on the boiler. Water came pouring out the back and from every radiator up and down the house. I must have run those stairs a thousand times. Rescue Plumbing? They don©ˆt rescue people in Harlem. I called everyone I knew. Nobody, nobody, nobody could help. Finally I just had to start shutting things down. I turned every knob I could find in that jerry-rigged maze of pipe. As the water crested my shoes, it stopped.
After awhile the plumber showed up. He explained to me what was going on. I began to service the boiler regularly, emptying the rusted gunk that had built up inside the system for god knows how long. I had unboarded-up the windows, stopped the leaks and shoveled out bags and bags of rubble. I was starting to feel on top. Then the oilman came.
It was getting cold and I needed oil. The gage was on empty. I called the oilman. He figured that I had a 275 tank (everyone has a 275 tank) so I could take 200. He figured wrong. A big part of an oilmans job, it seems, is directing irate drivers around his truck. While he was busy doing this he missed the whistle. Gallons of oil flooded into my basement. Oil. Have you ever noticed that most detergents only promise to "fight" oil? they never say anything about winning.
For weeks, the house reeked of oil. If you stood still long enough, you could taste it.
Still, things are slowly shaping up. There's air down there now and when the sun is pointed right, light. The mold is dying. The stench of fuel has dissipated. I©ˆm still running around fixing radiators as they burble up brown goo, but you can hang out on the ground floor now, without having a fatal allergy attack.
For now, everything is ok.
My dream, wasn't a story dream. It was more like a collection of images and objects. A nocturnal knick-knack shop. I was floating in the middle of it, this face, that cafe, The pool in the Latin quarter, The globe at La'Villette, and of course, Celeste, surrounded in her atelier by the giant nudes she had painted of herself. Paris.
I awoke snug, in my four-poster bed. I was warm. I was cosy. I was mildly aroused. Then a distant odor made its way to my nose. It all came flooding back into my consciousness. The basement. There was a very bad smell down there. I pulled my beloved down comforter up over my head.
I can verify that my basement has not been cleaned since the 1890s. I have made photographs in case there is ever a legal inquiry. I found farming implements down there. I found a horse's bridle. The ancient putrid detritus that filled the corners was over six inches deep. For decades rain had been seeping in through the back wall. Everything that wasn't rusting was rotting. At one point some zealot, in a deranged effort to contain that growing horror, had boarded up the windows. Now the breakdown of all matter could continue unabated.
And yet there was life down there.
If you gazed heavenward, there was a forest of green-grey fungi, clinging to the ceiling looking like a still from a Mariner fly-by. Dancing in a feat of arial mastery, thousands of vicious red spiders had spun their webs. In an attempt to clear them I went to pick up an axe and the handle disintegrated in my hand. I was the last person to see it in its original form, and I was the first to see the mother creature, who had brooded inside, scurry off. Life festered underfoot too. In one corner was a pile of creosote panels. The top few crumbled, the bottom six had been turned into earth by a swarm of white worms.
We have rats up here which, when they perish, will leave behind larger skeletons then those displayed in the dinosaur wing of the Museum of Natural History. One of the buildings behind me is being cleaned out by the city. They are trying to get rid of these rats. Great black men, who can find no other employment, do the work. They play cards and fight and curse each other in my back yard thicket. Above them, numerous birds sing.
The other morning, I approached them. I stood around for awhile sizing them up. They can©ˆt be making much. Their shoes looked like they had been made in a Chinese prison. I pitched them an offer. "How'd you like to make a little side money?" I said. "$100 bucks to empty out my cellar." They sent the little squat one down to check it out. The one who never gets to sit at the table. The one with a sour face, always standing by the broken Ailanthus stump. I showed him the way. We came back and he told the big one the job was "ok". The big one wiped his mouth, wiped it on his greasy green shirt and squinted at his cards. "After I finish this hand we'll do it" he grunted, his impossible girth leaned back, straining the tiny, child's chair which bore his huge black ass.
They tore through that mess. They were rushing in an effort to beat out the foreman©ˆs return. So of course, something went wrong. Someone, somebody, must have banged into the live feed on the boiler. Water came pouring out the back and from every radiator up and down the house. I must have run those stairs a thousand times. Rescue Plumbing? They don©ˆt rescue people in Harlem. I called everyone I knew. Nobody, nobody, nobody could help. Finally I just had to start shutting things down. I turned every knob I could find in that jerry-rigged maze of pipe. As the water crested my shoes, it stopped.
After awhile the plumber showed up. He explained to me what was going on. I began to service the boiler regularly, emptying the rusted gunk that had built up inside the system for god knows how long. I had unboarded-up the windows, stopped the leaks and shoveled out bags and bags of rubble. I was starting to feel on top. Then the oilman came.
It was getting cold and I needed oil. The gage was on empty. I called the oilman. He figured that I had a 275 tank (everyone has a 275 tank) so I could take 200. He figured wrong. A big part of an oilmans job, it seems, is directing irate drivers around his truck. While he was busy doing this he missed the whistle. Gallons of oil flooded into my basement. Oil. Have you ever noticed that most detergents only promise to "fight" oil? they never say anything about winning.
For weeks, the house reeked of oil. If you stood still long enough, you could taste it.
Still, things are slowly shaping up. There's air down there now and when the sun is pointed right, light. The mold is dying. The stench of fuel has dissipated. I©ˆm still running around fixing radiators as they burble up brown goo, but you can hang out on the ground floor now, without having a fatal allergy attack.
For now, everything is ok.
Sunday, December 01, 1996
Letter to Xenia
My Dearest Xenia:
Or should I say “The Fabulous Miss Xenia” as Stephan calls you (remember him? he was the one who let me stay in the “monks bunk”). I am not sure why he refers to you in this way. I guess you made a big impression on him. Stephan and I are in constant touch via E-mail. It’s a great way to keep up because it is totally effortless. No stamps, no post office, you just push a button and it returns itself to the person who sent it, like an electronic homing pigeon. now we are trying to rig our computers so that we can talk and see each other live. It is called C-U C-Me technology.
So your sister has arrived. You should get a big African tribal mask. Then if she has any boyfriends over that you don’t like, you can frighten them off in the morning.
Things have been Ok here. I don't have many plans for Christmas. I have a few invitations for New Years and that should be good. I am mainly working and trying to get my video project off the ground.
We experienced another set back this week. The guy I was negotiating with for the space turned out to be a total fraud. He was stringing me along hoping to get me to commit to producing his project. I am the king of getting people to work for free and I guess he figured that out. The thing is I only get people to work for free, for me. Me Me Me!!! When push came to shove he had no authority to lend out the space. I am now dealing with the person who is really in charge. Unfortunately we have to cancel the shoot until late January at the earliest. I also started hunting around for some other options and have had one good meeting so far.
I went to Massachusetts for Thanksgiving. My intention was to go to Chelmsford, the town where I grew up. I got a “knock knock” from my best friend in the forth grade a few weeks ago. We hadn't talked in over ten years. He found me on the internet and we started e-mailing each other and had made plans to meet up again this past weekend at our 20 year high school reunion. I took a bus up north, they have movies on the busses now, an excellent innovation. I stopped over in boston on the way and spent a night at a friends apartment. The next day I came down with a really bad case of the flu. I was so sick and weak and crazy that I couldn't go anywhere and had to cancel all my appointments. I didn't even make it to the reunion.
It was pretty much the worst Thanksgiving I ever had. A four and a half hour bus trip to nowhere... to a porcelain banquet table. Yes, it's just a little cough now, but one week ago this microscopic invader had me on my knees.
I did have some interesting fever induced delusions. I wrote some of them down.
1. My body is the crashed jet liner from "The Lord of The Flies" Each aching muscle is the complaining voice of a child passenger. The real torment begins when they started arguing with each other.
2. I have to get up. I have to escape. I Rene Calvo alone know the secret to the Kennedy assassination. There were 3 Lee Harvey Oswalds! How else can you explain the contradictory sightings prior to Dallas? The triangulation crossfire in Deely plaza? A small highly trained contingent from the legion of Oswalds being bred by ex-nazi scientist in Brazil. Why? Kennedy would have given the Israelis jet fighters. the Israelis would have bombed Cairo where an ancient order of Egyptian masons that funded Hitler are headquartered. They would stop at nothing to keep their cabal intact. even... poison. I can't move!!!
3. I am a toy. a plastic toy. but it's OK, it's good plastic.
These are the memories I will
treasure from the Thanksgiving
of “96”.* *Available on video cassette
Johannes was here for a visit in October. It’s always fun when he’s in town because he is like
a guy who has just gotten out of prison. He runs around calling people, going to parties, chasing girls and staying out all night. He was never home once before 3 am and he got up every day with me at nine. I bet he is still sleeping back in Germany. He bought tons of corny shit (and a few good tapes and CD’s). On my birthday I celebrated “Pesto Fete 96”. I took all the basil from my
garden and made a quadruple batch of Pesto. I invited over a few close friends and we drank wine, ate pesto and cake and talked until late.
Johannes and I went roller-blading in
central park a lot. There were some rainy days but they never lasted. It was nice skating in the fall. The park is empty and the road is clear. You can really zoom along. The air was a little cool so you didn’t get over heated. Johannes also helped me fix my skates. Now they’re like rockets. I still go to the park now when it’s sunny. But it’s impossible to find
anyone who wants to go along.
During Johannes visit Halloween came and went. We attended two parties also went to the Greenwich Village Parade. I made my own costume. Here in America they used to put pictures of lost children on the side of milk cartons. They had headlines like “if you see this child call 1800-MISSING”. I designed a big milk carton on my computer and pasted it to poster board. Then I cut a hole where the face of the child went, so that when I put it over my head, my face showed. I got great reactions. I got so bold that I jumped over the police barricade and joined the parade. I would go from policeman to policeman looking lost, making a little play. People were laughing like crazy.
I have been working the last two weeks in a new place, Merrill Lynch, a big financial corporation. The graphics are really boring. We call it the “Name Badge Institute of America”, since most of the time we get stuck making name badges. There are however 3 good things about this job. 1. They have huge windows facing New York Harbor and there is a beautiful sunset behind the Statue of Liberty every day. 2. They have a really great cafeteria, with international cuisine and low low prices. 3. The people there are pretty nice and they all love me and want me to work here forever.
Why do they love me?
I worked here for a week over a year ago. There was this woman, Michelle, who was complaining all the time about how boring her job was and how her life was in a rut. Well, it happened to be leap day. That extra day you get during leap year. (We call it Sadie Hawkins Day) On this day you’re supposed to do something out of the ordinary. So I asked her “What would you do, if you could do anything”? She replied that she would like to be an apprentice at Milton Glaser’s studio. So I said that didn’t sound so hard. I picked up the phone and dialed information and got the number. Then I called and asked to speak to the studio manager. When the manager got on I handed the phone to her and said, “Go ahead, ask”. Her face had turned bright red and she could barely speak but she managed to make an appointment. A year goes by and when I return to this job I’m like some kind of local hero. I’m the guy who changed Michelle’s life. Everyone I meet there says “Oh, so you’re René, we’ve heard all about you!”. They look at me hopefully, tell me their problems, like maybe I have some magical power to change their boring lives.
The good thing is that I can do no wrong (within reason, I suppose murder is out). I come in late every day. I’m lazy. I talk on the phone and still they don’t fire me. So I guess I have to hang out here for a while.
anyways. I guess it serves my purposes for now. I spend a lot of time here working on scripts and making phone calls and using the facilities to make brochure type stuff. I hope all is well with you and you are healthy and happy. Anytime you want to visit New York give me a call. I think you would love this city, especially the dance scene. I’ll give you a call so we can work out the fax thing.
Love René XXXOOO
Or should I say “The Fabulous Miss Xenia” as Stephan calls you (remember him? he was the one who let me stay in the “monks bunk”). I am not sure why he refers to you in this way. I guess you made a big impression on him. Stephan and I are in constant touch via E-mail. It’s a great way to keep up because it is totally effortless. No stamps, no post office, you just push a button and it returns itself to the person who sent it, like an electronic homing pigeon. now we are trying to rig our computers so that we can talk and see each other live. It is called C-U C-Me technology.
So your sister has arrived. You should get a big African tribal mask. Then if she has any boyfriends over that you don’t like, you can frighten them off in the morning.
Things have been Ok here. I don't have many plans for Christmas. I have a few invitations for New Years and that should be good. I am mainly working and trying to get my video project off the ground.
We experienced another set back this week. The guy I was negotiating with for the space turned out to be a total fraud. He was stringing me along hoping to get me to commit to producing his project. I am the king of getting people to work for free and I guess he figured that out. The thing is I only get people to work for free, for me. Me Me Me!!! When push came to shove he had no authority to lend out the space. I am now dealing with the person who is really in charge. Unfortunately we have to cancel the shoot until late January at the earliest. I also started hunting around for some other options and have had one good meeting so far.
I went to Massachusetts for Thanksgiving. My intention was to go to Chelmsford, the town where I grew up. I got a “knock knock” from my best friend in the forth grade a few weeks ago. We hadn't talked in over ten years. He found me on the internet and we started e-mailing each other and had made plans to meet up again this past weekend at our 20 year high school reunion. I took a bus up north, they have movies on the busses now, an excellent innovation. I stopped over in boston on the way and spent a night at a friends apartment. The next day I came down with a really bad case of the flu. I was so sick and weak and crazy that I couldn't go anywhere and had to cancel all my appointments. I didn't even make it to the reunion.
It was pretty much the worst Thanksgiving I ever had. A four and a half hour bus trip to nowhere... to a porcelain banquet table. Yes, it's just a little cough now, but one week ago this microscopic invader had me on my knees.
I did have some interesting fever induced delusions. I wrote some of them down.
1. My body is the crashed jet liner from "The Lord of The Flies" Each aching muscle is the complaining voice of a child passenger. The real torment begins when they started arguing with each other.
2. I have to get up. I have to escape. I Rene Calvo alone know the secret to the Kennedy assassination. There were 3 Lee Harvey Oswalds! How else can you explain the contradictory sightings prior to Dallas? The triangulation crossfire in Deely plaza? A small highly trained contingent from the legion of Oswalds being bred by ex-nazi scientist in Brazil. Why? Kennedy would have given the Israelis jet fighters. the Israelis would have bombed Cairo where an ancient order of Egyptian masons that funded Hitler are headquartered. They would stop at nothing to keep their cabal intact. even... poison. I can't move!!!
3. I am a toy. a plastic toy. but it's OK, it's good plastic.
These are the memories I will
treasure from the Thanksgiving
of “96”.* *Available on video cassette
Johannes was here for a visit in October. It’s always fun when he’s in town because he is like
a guy who has just gotten out of prison. He runs around calling people, going to parties, chasing girls and staying out all night. He was never home once before 3 am and he got up every day with me at nine. I bet he is still sleeping back in Germany. He bought tons of corny shit (and a few good tapes and CD’s). On my birthday I celebrated “Pesto Fete 96”. I took all the basil from my
garden and made a quadruple batch of Pesto. I invited over a few close friends and we drank wine, ate pesto and cake and talked until late.
Johannes and I went roller-blading in
central park a lot. There were some rainy days but they never lasted. It was nice skating in the fall. The park is empty and the road is clear. You can really zoom along. The air was a little cool so you didn’t get over heated. Johannes also helped me fix my skates. Now they’re like rockets. I still go to the park now when it’s sunny. But it’s impossible to find
anyone who wants to go along.
During Johannes visit Halloween came and went. We attended two parties also went to the Greenwich Village Parade. I made my own costume. Here in America they used to put pictures of lost children on the side of milk cartons. They had headlines like “if you see this child call 1800-MISSING”. I designed a big milk carton on my computer and pasted it to poster board. Then I cut a hole where the face of the child went, so that when I put it over my head, my face showed. I got great reactions. I got so bold that I jumped over the police barricade and joined the parade. I would go from policeman to policeman looking lost, making a little play. People were laughing like crazy.
I have been working the last two weeks in a new place, Merrill Lynch, a big financial corporation. The graphics are really boring. We call it the “Name Badge Institute of America”, since most of the time we get stuck making name badges. There are however 3 good things about this job. 1. They have huge windows facing New York Harbor and there is a beautiful sunset behind the Statue of Liberty every day. 2. They have a really great cafeteria, with international cuisine and low low prices. 3. The people there are pretty nice and they all love me and want me to work here forever.
Why do they love me?
I worked here for a week over a year ago. There was this woman, Michelle, who was complaining all the time about how boring her job was and how her life was in a rut. Well, it happened to be leap day. That extra day you get during leap year. (We call it Sadie Hawkins Day) On this day you’re supposed to do something out of the ordinary. So I asked her “What would you do, if you could do anything”? She replied that she would like to be an apprentice at Milton Glaser’s studio. So I said that didn’t sound so hard. I picked up the phone and dialed information and got the number. Then I called and asked to speak to the studio manager. When the manager got on I handed the phone to her and said, “Go ahead, ask”. Her face had turned bright red and she could barely speak but she managed to make an appointment. A year goes by and when I return to this job I’m like some kind of local hero. I’m the guy who changed Michelle’s life. Everyone I meet there says “Oh, so you’re René, we’ve heard all about you!”. They look at me hopefully, tell me their problems, like maybe I have some magical power to change their boring lives.
The good thing is that I can do no wrong (within reason, I suppose murder is out). I come in late every day. I’m lazy. I talk on the phone and still they don’t fire me. So I guess I have to hang out here for a while.
anyways. I guess it serves my purposes for now. I spend a lot of time here working on scripts and making phone calls and using the facilities to make brochure type stuff. I hope all is well with you and you are healthy and happy. Anytime you want to visit New York give me a call. I think you would love this city, especially the dance scene. I’ll give you a call so we can work out the fax thing.
Love René XXXOOO
Friday, September 27, 1996
Letter to Jutta
Hey
Thank you for the tour of Germany 96 postcards. I have a little expo on my wall. All famous sites. Here is the latest.
On the way back to New York the plane from PIA, Pakistani International Airlines, hit turbulance caused by hurricane Hortense. So I gripped my seat (some uncontrollable instinct believing that would save me) and breathed like an expectantant mother. In. Out. If I had grown up in another era, I might of prayed. Instead, I remember to breath.
It’s not that I am afraid of flying. People always say in wonder “You’re afraid to fly?!” I’m not. Flying is actually quite nice. What I am afraid of is the sound of shredding metal as Saudi surface to air missles tear into the helpless belly of a commercial airliner. What I am afraid of is a suspicious package of chocolates exploding beneath my seat and sending me screaming into the stratosphere. What I am afraid of is that the complicated machinery beneath me will choke on some misplaced metal fragment like a chicken bone, convulsing in the air as it tailspins into the frozen artic waters. That’s what I am afraid of. Flying? No, the flying part is nice.
I am making lentil soup now. The aroma fills my apartment and drifts up the stair well. It is full of fresh herbs from my garden. Fresh Oregano, Thyme, and Rosemary. I have enough Basil to make a couple of gallons of Pesto. The summer was wet here in New York and when I returned home my garden was approching rain forest status. When I go out back to weed or water people yell from nearby windows. “You have a beautiful garden”. It’s really a good feeling to plant stuff and see it grow. Even if my little Rosemary is a tiny being compared with the huge hedges we saw in the south of France. This is New York, where anything that suvives is considered a miracle.
I have been working for a phamacutical advertising company. It is in a big sky scraper in mid town. There are no windows where I work and the air is processed by huge machines that think humans require refrigeration, like meat. On the sunniest day you have to wear a sweater. The people there have yellow skin from working long hours under florescent lights. But the cash is good and soon I will escape.
There are a two different galleries here in New York with shows of the art work of people who claim to have been abducted by aliens. I visited them in the pouring rain today. What can I say? Cool.
I turn on the TV and am amazed. There is absolutely nothing on. This is supposed to be a form of entertainment? Education!? The good thing is that it inspires me to work on my indie-sitcom! Yes it’s unheard of, it’s new, it’s completely insane. My show is to be called, Pefectly Frank. It features a completely unredeemable working class lout, Frank O’Brien. He will be played in drag by my good friend Rita Ashdale. The show will also feature a demented laugh track. I want to take the genre of sit-com (situation comedy) and smash it into a thousand pieces.
I hope all is well with you and that school is O.K.. Take care.
Love
René
XXXXX OOOOOO
Thank you for the tour of Germany 96 postcards. I have a little expo on my wall. All famous sites. Here is the latest.
On the way back to New York the plane from PIA, Pakistani International Airlines, hit turbulance caused by hurricane Hortense. So I gripped my seat (some uncontrollable instinct believing that would save me) and breathed like an expectantant mother. In. Out. If I had grown up in another era, I might of prayed. Instead, I remember to breath.
It’s not that I am afraid of flying. People always say in wonder “You’re afraid to fly?!” I’m not. Flying is actually quite nice. What I am afraid of is the sound of shredding metal as Saudi surface to air missles tear into the helpless belly of a commercial airliner. What I am afraid of is a suspicious package of chocolates exploding beneath my seat and sending me screaming into the stratosphere. What I am afraid of is that the complicated machinery beneath me will choke on some misplaced metal fragment like a chicken bone, convulsing in the air as it tailspins into the frozen artic waters. That’s what I am afraid of. Flying? No, the flying part is nice.
I am making lentil soup now. The aroma fills my apartment and drifts up the stair well. It is full of fresh herbs from my garden. Fresh Oregano, Thyme, and Rosemary. I have enough Basil to make a couple of gallons of Pesto. The summer was wet here in New York and when I returned home my garden was approching rain forest status. When I go out back to weed or water people yell from nearby windows. “You have a beautiful garden”. It’s really a good feeling to plant stuff and see it grow. Even if my little Rosemary is a tiny being compared with the huge hedges we saw in the south of France. This is New York, where anything that suvives is considered a miracle.
I have been working for a phamacutical advertising company. It is in a big sky scraper in mid town. There are no windows where I work and the air is processed by huge machines that think humans require refrigeration, like meat. On the sunniest day you have to wear a sweater. The people there have yellow skin from working long hours under florescent lights. But the cash is good and soon I will escape.
There are a two different galleries here in New York with shows of the art work of people who claim to have been abducted by aliens. I visited them in the pouring rain today. What can I say? Cool.
I turn on the TV and am amazed. There is absolutely nothing on. This is supposed to be a form of entertainment? Education!? The good thing is that it inspires me to work on my indie-sitcom! Yes it’s unheard of, it’s new, it’s completely insane. My show is to be called, Pefectly Frank. It features a completely unredeemable working class lout, Frank O’Brien. He will be played in drag by my good friend Rita Ashdale. The show will also feature a demented laugh track. I want to take the genre of sit-com (situation comedy) and smash it into a thousand pieces.
I hope all is well with you and that school is O.K.. Take care.
Love
René
XXXXX OOOOOO
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