This is it. It has been ALMOST ten years since our wonderful mother has passed. Seems like yesterday right? As I write this it is almost exactly ten years ago that she happened upon a paper and pen and wrote what is now the very front (index) page of the family web site.
Also this week it has been two years since they took me in the office in New York at Apple Digital Graphics and told me “It was nice, but it’s over.” The most I remember of that was the very blurry and surreal ten block walk to the early (at least today it was) long bus ride home. “So…here I am again. Looking for work.” and I always think of those lucky bastards that always have a way to not punch the clock, yet they make it through life. Or the other lucky bastards that put in an application for ONE job. Get it. Then work it for twenty-thirty years and retire and go home. They never have any clue of what it is like to be standing in the cold begging for a job.
A very somber photo of a woman who had a tough life.
So in those two years since my NYC layoff I’m thinking-I don’t miss that art community at all-nor do I have any faith or love for any art community for that matter. They are all self-centered selfish jerks that are so totally absorbed in their own crap and are constantly fishing for compliments. Once I went into a Barnes and Noble Book store with an “artist” (many years ago” and I was excited to look at art magazines with this person to get ideas, inspiration etc etc. But this person, you see, refused. “I don’t look at other peoples art, I’m too involved with my own.” (buzzer sound) Guess what “artist”??? wrong fucking selfish answer!! I don’t know why I am constantly measuring time. And I measure time by years. And a year is alot. Ten years since my mother died. Ten years since I got fired at Lucent Technologies, two years since the Apple Digital Graphics layoff. Almost ten years since 9/11 terrorist attack. Ten years since my divorce. In the last two years all the disastrous dates, fumbled relationships, sleeping in my car, collecting unemployment, living in the woods in upstate NY somewhere, the interviews, the “under-the-table” weedwhacking job in the ninety degree Summer days. The bouts of severe depression, staying sober through it, feeling a million years from my children. Then the art teacher and another art community and her layoff . Throwing on a dress shirt in the parking lot of the Parsippany Hilton for yet ANOTHER job interview. By now, well versed and confident (I have been in this hot seat of questions way too many times to not be nervous anymore. The English guy called me the next day (while I was working at a sign design shop in New City New York, sleeping in my car) and told me that I got the job but I already knew that by the way he was eyeing me in the interview. I’m not afraid anymore after these two years. I’ve been through so much shit that I have become a very wise man. When I met Cat, I was Dog.
I was still sunburned from cutting the lawns and weedwhacking in Central New Jersey. I was late for the first date. I was sleeping in my office. I was living one day at a time. A little while after that, the British guy told me to meet him at Ruths Chris Steak House for dinner and as I was chewing on a $50 dollar steak, my boss from New York called and wanted me back. I made a fool outta myself, the phone slipping out of my hands from the garlic butter and I couldn’t turn the ring tone off. The British guy gave me a 10 grand raise and a year later after that a $5,000 dollar after Christmas bonus. For what? For becoming a total extension of this new job. For living, eating and sleeping graphics. For pretty much performing miracles of 60-70 hour work weeks. In this time I met Mike who was married to Joanna who was my girlfriends sister. She quit a nice salaried job to go back to school at the Visual Arts in NYC by special invite. Mike is an extremely talented puppet creator who sides as a Saturday Nightmares convention maker. He ran into a little trouble making puppets on ebay with some sesame street copyright infringement bullshit but now has a way around it. Joanna was handed a brand new guitar on the first day of a second semester class (with 18 others) and was told to pretty much create something from it. Based on a musician and her/his charity. So I guess most famous people with alot of money have charity’s sincere or not-basically to make them feel less guilty for being richer than God and it always works nice as a TAX WRITE-OFF. So my girlfriends EX has a job where he builds floats for parades. I never knew that could be a real job, let alone a year-round full time job. I thought the puppet making job was pretty cool but building parade floats is right up there. Meanwhile down in Florida the property that is in my name is slowly deteriorating but my very talented wood-working brothers, Grant and Gary are going to fix it up and rent it out. I have fallen behind on the taxes and the property insurance has expired. The only neighbor that lives there, Tim (the same first name as my British boss) told my crafty brothers that he caught a man with a pick-up truck trying to steal my refrigerator from the property. This is a disturbing thing, when something 2,000 miles away from you is being taken. Talk about feeling helpless. I wasn’t even sure how old the refrigerator is so I asked my brothers and they said “pretty new” so now that pissed me off. If it was really old, maybe I wouldn’t care if he took it, the fucking thieving bastard. My girlfriend creates many different kinds of art
Seven chakra jewelry
and recently sold something to someone in Belgium. Now THAT is how powerful the WEB has become. I used to love my job but now, I don’t know. It has sucked all my creative energy into a ball and thrown it away. I have been on my hands and kness looking for it. Egypt is so far away, I don’t care. Since Tim has become my boss, slowly but surely, all my crazy bills have gotten paid off. I can buy books and magazines for myself again. I go out to eat in strange nice places. I have lived in the THREE New Jerseys in my life. South. Central and now this wild jungle called North Jersey. There are alot of nice neighborhoods up here. Here, in the shadows of New York. I have found myself in strongly -knit Poish communities, waiting in line for pork and bread. Listening for hours to Polocks speaking Polish. Thinking that maybe old school Communism is gonna be ok.
Garfield, little Poland as seen from Botany Villiage
Here in Botany Village the melting pot of the north Jersey. Here in the depths of the year 2011, on a rainy cold night in the beginnig of March. In between Winter and Spring, Easter and rolling black clouds. I miss my family, I miss dancing with my brothers in my bedroom to the Grateful Dead, I miss being alone, I miss someone “liking” what I took a photo of. I miss being heard, I’m a little tired of listening, to all my employees, to my two boys, to my close friends and all their new endeavors and the exciting things going on. If I keep listening long enough I will learn another language. I could weed whack the McMansions of the rich people using no hands. If that butterfly guitar that opens from Africa ever gets into the view of Madonna, there would be a slight chance that I could meet her. We could smoke cigarettes together and sip long glasses of brandy. Joanna the designer, Merick the contractor, Mke the puppet and convention creator, Halina the nurse and Jack the float builder, Krystina the art teacher, Charles the guitar player, Anna the singer, Josh and Jonathan, my long lost dad, my mother would all be there. My mom would be writing letters, half in the bag, scribbling memories of her short life, spent one third of it pregnant, watching John Wayne movies….and sleeping in the room downstairs that used to be our garage. You will walk through life and meet all kinds of people. We all do this….and enjoy your life, with Gods help we can all be together again. (great advice mom)
_The effects of the moon-
February's full moon-2011
