Category: ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS

Out of Control

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

This week is on control, and losing it. You hear that phrase often enough, “she has control issues.” I’m not sure what that means. I don’t understand how a society of rules and regulations that delivers more commands every day is expected to produce a society without control issues. I lost control of my life and so I am getting in touch with “out of control.”
Bohemian living was always in my dreams, having been raised in a perfectly pressed pinafore and seated on fragile furniture. I am not really very gypsy like when it comes to home. Once upon a time I lived in a suitcase, but I have since been corrupted by the joy of controlling all the things that come into the house and find a place there.

Once faced with this alarming epiphany I vowed to give up control and accept the disorder and disruption. What I’ve rediscovered is that without a lot of stuff to organize the mind is free to think. The house chores are minimal, leaving more time to create and effect important things. Narcissism is sacrificed and replaced with more visceral reflections.

Once I place myself inside the double yellow line of society, I feel those controls closing in on me. Losing control is a replenishment of youthful spirit. It’s free and painless. Try it, take off the leash and run free.

Two days later I was in a hotel, preparing for a reunion, a day of shopping, and luxuries of a woman on the road, when the news broke.. How did you feel when you heard the news. John and I went silent, and drove two hours in more conscientious silence.

JAMMING UP HIP-HOP

~ LouLou ~ 2 Comments

Free your mind and the rest will follow; the words from EnVogue’s latest release played all day on the radio. Every time I got in the car to hunt up real estate listings, I heard that song.
I worked in an industrial building along an industrial highway in San Diego. I shared a warehouse with twelve men, eleven of them tall, weight trained football on Sunday guys, who ate at expensive restaurants amongst a club of commercial real estate agents, where they’d be noticed. They were pretty decent guys, except the partners who each had severe a case of ego malnutrition and competed for attention like two tottlers. Greg was the only short one in the bunch, and he wore a rug, manicured his nails, and surfed on the weekends. He was always talking about his Karate black belt, and how he knocked guys out. He rarely laughed and when he did he sounded like a chirping bird. Greg used to give me his wife’s unworn clothes and waited in my living room while I tried them on. It was sort of strange, but he never played the trump card and asked for anything in return.
One day in the summer of 1992 I called the office secretary.
“Gail, I’m not coming in for awhile. Will you forward my calls to my home?”
“Are you all-right?”
“Oh yea. I’m fine.”
“What should I tell Sam?”
“Tell him I’m on leave of absence.”
I lived in a little cottage house in North Park. It was all white with a picket fence and a squared grass yard where my dog played. The front room was small but the carpeting was new, so I could curl up on the rug and watch the clouds from the windows.
I threw my nylons and navy pumps in the garbage, and folded the business suits into boxes. I knew I wasn’t going back, but where I was headed was a throw of the dice.
Mornings I ran through Balboa Park before the crowds arrived, and got to see the zoo keepers feeding the animals, and the actors going into The Old Globe Theater. I filled my senses with virgin light and morning silence, unfamiliar sensations to office workers living with florescent lighting and partition walls. In the afternoon I lounged around in sweats watching music videos, reading magazines and dancing.

I watched some new music videos, maybe EnVogue or Bobby Brown, and tried to imitate the hip-hop moves on the carpet. It was like watching a cat in the snow. I called all the dance schools, and no one was teaching hip-hop. I didn’t know back then my mother was a dancer; so this impulsive and implausible scheme to start a dance troupe startled me as much as everyone I told.
The last lease deal I did was for a group of soccer players from Jamaica. They needed a space to open a reggae dance club. They told me they’d called other agents and no one would take their business. I found a disheveled warehouse and struck a deal for them. They fixed up the warehouse themselves, with colored lights, and some tables, but Rockers was really about the dancing. I walked into the club one night, and they were all doing their part; greeting customers, spinning vinyl, and serving drinks. I danced with Leroy, the leader of the group, and watched him unfold from the waist down. He danced so low to the floor, he appeared boneless.
“Leroy, I’m going to start a dance troupe. You guys inspired me.”
“What kind of dance?’
“Hip-Hop and jazz funk.”
Leroy covered his mouth with one hand and laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“You’re a business woman; I didn’t know you was a dancer.”
“Well, I took lessons a long time ago.”
“Hip Hop?”
“No, Jazz. I’m going to find the dancers to teach. I know there out there.”
“Yea, they out there all right; lots of them.”
“Well see! I’d like to use your space, pay rent of course, when you’re not open.”
“Well that’s all right. You don’t need to pay me.”
I hugged him, and he shook his head. “I don’t think there’s much money in teaching hip-hop.” he said.


At the community college I posted a sign for dancers, and observed some classes. When I got the call from Piper, he asked me to come see him teach at the Church on University Avenue. I drove over one night, and found Piper in a little room upstairs, teaching Jazz Funk to one woman. He was tall and lanky with a smile that creased his whole jaw. He came over, shook my hand, and said, ‘How you doing? I’m Piper.’ He wore an immaculate shield of confidence that defied his nineteen years, and moved at the intersection of Michael Jackson and James Brown. The groove spiraled through his body.
“I’ll help you get it started; if you’re not a trained dancer you need help.”
So Piper and I met every week and finally landed on a group that incorporated Jazz-Funk, Hip-hop and Afro-Cuban. I named the company United Steps Dance Productions, and the Jammers were the hip-hop troupe.


I’ll never forget the look on the partner’s faces when I told them I was starting a multicultural dance troupe. They just stared at me blankly. Then within weeks all five of my unclosed lease deals were signed at the same time. I walked out with enough money to live six months. That was real security in my mind.


Piper and I held our first audition at Rockers. When I opened the doors that morning, dancers were already lined up outside. They came dressed in street clothes; wearing scarves, baseball caps, loose pants, and tank tops. I watched them leap, kick, split, and turn inside out for the job. I knew that I was in the right spot.  One dancer walked out, stood still for a moment, and then leaped into a break-dance pop-lock routine that silenced the crowd. “Him Piper, definitely him.” He’s bad, yea he’s real bad.” At the end of the auditions, Piper mocked me.
“Lue, we can’t sign every dancer just cause they hip-hop. Anyone can do that.”
I can’t hip hop and it’s my company.”
“Yea, and you’re crazy. I swear, Lu you’re crazy.”
We agreed on pop-locker Vince-Master Jam, and Monique, a young Afro-Cuban dancer. That was the beginning.
When Vince and I met, he told me he lived in Escondido.
“But that’s an hour away.”
“It’s cool, I’ll be here. Just give me the chance.”
Vince showed up twice a week at night for his class. Many times, we sat in the cold damp club, listening to music and Vince tried to teach me to pop-lock. I apologized for not having students and he looked at me, and said, “ Don’t worry Lue, will get it going on.”


Our first performance was at the Red Lion Hotel. I hired a video tech to record the performance. We got a free dinner and a hundred dollars. We had a good crowd, and everyone loved them. Afterwards in the dining room, they were talking, laughing and elbowing each other. Piper was ranting about Monique taking too much time, and Vince was telling Piper to chill because Monique was so good. I sat there just listening, with a big smile on my face.
The Jammers belonged to the no smoking, no drinking, no drugs group. For the first few months, they taught on tiled floors under a leaky roof, without any heat. But they kept coming back to teach and their dedication moved me to find a better location. We relocated to a well-heeled Health Club downtown San Diego and the classes filled up with students, dancers, and office workers searching for a new lunch. They came from all different races; Asian, White, Hispanic and Black. I danced with the classes and promoted our troupe. The Jammers laughed at my attempt to be a soul sister, and I laughed with them. We were reviewed by KPBS magazine, and a photographer took pictures of us and featured us in the magazine.
Searching for gigs proved to be an exasperating struggle. I called department stores, festival producers, shopping centers, nightclubs, hotels and everyone had the same line, “I don’t think hip-hop is right for our clientele.”
When I ran out of money I took a job managing a condominium project, where I lived rent free. After a time of observing the Jammers self expression, I asked myself, what is mine? I still refused to get on stage. Vince used to bawl me out because I made Piper introduce the group.
After two years Piper moved to Los Angeles to launch his dancing career, and I let Vince take the troupe where he wanted it to go. He turned it around, adding twelve dancers and broke more ground in San Diego. Monique developed into a serious stage actress and we all lost touch. They were the sparklers in my life; like that star you think you’ll never hold. I left the Jammers a different woman. They put the rhythm back in my spirit and soul.
When I recently located Vincent on an Actors website, I called him right away. He is a missing link in the chain of my life. Without that adventure, I might still be imitating the kind of business woman I wasn’t. We met in Los Angeles, and watched Vince perform in a club. He kept his vision and now acts on television and video. “ Lue, now you have to find Piper.”
It was Piper, who said to me one day after reading some of my poetry, “ Lu, you’re not a dancer. You’re a writer.”
Any dice to throw Email: folliesls@aol.com

ADVENTURES IN EXPECTATIONS

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

“It has been a time of writing for me. The doctors have all decided that my crippled leg must be amputated. They cannot do it right away because the hospitals are so full. So, in the nights of glare I just cuss out the doctors for making me wait, and cuss out my leg for hurting. I have read Sarah Bernhardt and her superb gallantry and courage have comforted me.” From “Illumination & Night Glare” by Carson McCullers.

More on the adventure in expectations.
I wonder how all of us really accept this incongruity of life. If we experience continuous disappointment, our inner oars, the ones that carry us over the tidal waves, must be accessible so we can bash back at the unsettling news, the absence of truth, the winter storms, the lagging economy, the pain of puttering, and expectations unrealized.
At a window table of Il Piatto, a favorite Italian bistro in Santa Fe, my friend Baron, (www.fotobaron.com) John (no website) and I fervently discussed the state of the people. What we observe, think, fear, and ruminate over at home when the lights are out, the street silent as a meadow, and shadows from winds through the winter branches play like puppets on the walls.
“Baron, if something doesn’t break soon—I’m going to need anti-depressants, or heroin.”
“Have you ever tried it?”
“Heroin? No, never. I tried Prozac for a few weeks years ago. It was ineffective.”
“Look, things are tough everywhere; the shops are closing, and the restaurants empty– look around. This is weird. And where’s the god damn snow?”
“It’s in New York. Rudy was there for a few days.”
“What the hell for?”
“Court. And guess what? He flies across country on Monday, appears in court the next morning, and is asked, ‘Why are you here?’ So you can see Rudy standing there in a cotton zip-up jacket, his face flushed with snow and wind. The judge informs Rudy he didn’t have to come to court.”
“How’s business for you?” I asked.
“Terrible! I keep inventing new prints, new sizes, new shows, a book, you just gotta keep it going, LouLou.”
“I keep it going; but it is beginning to feel like neat little circles.”
John tipped his head, the tip of understanding between two writers whose fingers are bleeding, amongst a country of bloggers, Twitters, and Facebook fetish writing. We wait, as all writers and artists, and in these times, everyone must wait, until our soil is fertile, and the illumination returns.
“Any bites on the script?”
“Yes, we get them, and then you wait, you may wait two or three months to hear anything.”
“Let me explain,” John interjected. “ It’s because ninety-nine percent of the scripts submitted are passed on, and the reason for that is the executive of creative development puts his job on the line when he green lights a script, so it had better be good!”
“In the interim, I repurpose the house as a vacation rental.”
“Then where will you go?”
“I don’t know.”
“LouLou!”
We talked about Egypt, Fox News, CNN, Tunisia, mobsters, photographers, business strategy, and the next Gallery LouLou event, a work in progress. There is visceral nourishment when you congregate over the same obdurate situations. The singular frustration festering inside is softened when commingled. We lingered over coffee, still unloading the burdens of a questionable wintry month.
That night John and I rushed through the front door, seeking warmth. I was on my way upstairs when I noticed a man with long black hair seated at my porch table. I could see his whole upper body through the drapeless French windows. His hand seemed as close to the door knob as my fingers are to this laptop.
“JOHNNNNNNNNNNN, there’s a man on the porch!”
Five “hurry up’s” later, John came running into the living room.
He opened the front door and announced in his radio deep broadcast voice, “We’re closed.” John nodded several times, and closed the door.
“What were they doing?”
“Attempting to light your kerosene lamp.”
“Why?”
“They thought the porch was charming.”
A few days later, another man appeared on the porch, this one wandering back and forth. After all the times a wanderer has been loose on the porch, in the garden, at the front door asking where someone lived (they do that in Santa Fe), and then the night someone climbed on the porch and ripped off the Stratocaster guitar from the hook on the eaves (a rock n roll prop), I had to apply more caution than negligence. If someone wanted to assault me, my defense would be worthless. When all the girls started learning self-defense, and carrying tear gas in their purses, I started locking the doors. Though I am not expecting intruders and assaults, it feels like it is time to take responsibility for myself. The fear of being alone is more tormenting than loneliness.
“I brought the shot-gun. Are you ready to learn?”
“Yes.”
TO BE CONTINUED

THE SURFER AND BILL

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

Soaring Crow and Gavin

Smiley’s Dice
DEL MAR TIMES
The Surfer and Bill.

It begins in San Francisco, in the late fifties, in the section of San Francisco known as outer mission. A pencil thin surfer wandered the streets visiting surfer pals; like Tambi, Minor Lo, and Da Fly.
One day his friend George suggested they go to Hawaii, and being of surfer consciousness, they left that afternoon. During this trip, the surfer went out seeking work, and discovered he didn’t have much to offer. The epiphany broadened into an apprenticeship as a carpenter on the mainland. After a few months of instruction, he was ready for the Contractors State Board exam. He passed the test, and returned to San Francisco to pick up the license.
About this time, he met Bill, a man who owned a home in Sea Cliff. Bill was often seen puttering about his house, attempting to fix things that he didn’t know how to fix. Bill and the surfer became friends. Bill was happy to hear that the young man was carving another wave in his life. Bill was a sort of western style renaissance man, who chose people because of character, leaving behind details like, age, occupation, and all the other things that divide us.
He invited the surfer into his home and asked him if he could make some alterations to the fireplace. The surfer complied and began his first job in the trade of carpentry. Bill and his family liked the surfer, and it was a mutual friendship. After the fireplace was finished, the surfer began another job and another and soon, if you wanted to find the surfer, you had to ask Bill.
The surfer lingered around San Francisco, and the years ripened the friendship between the surfer and Bill, his wife Martha, his three sons, Carl, Gavin, and Walter, and his daughter Wendy. Now the surfer was of the age that falls between peer and pupil, and all of his friends belonged to the surfing colony. Bill once told me that the surfer told the most astonishing stories, and that he was loved like a part of the family.
One day, the surfer decided to leave San Francisco, and follow his girlfriend to Santa Barbara, where she was studying at the University. This didn’t work out the way the surfer thought it would, and so he returned to San Francisco. He went back to the old neighborhood where Bill lived. It happened that Bill decided to move to San Diego, and so the surfer was waving goodbye. A few more years pass while the surfer hung around his surfer friends down at Kelly’s Cove, and watched the city of San Francisco from the lap of the pacific. When he needed money, he worked for Tambi, carrying his ladder, or stirring cement, and then returned to the stillness of floating with the ocean.
One day the surfer received a phone call from Bill, asking for the surfers help. Bill bought a home and business in La Jolla and both needed renovating. The surfer knew the area as he had surfed the Pacific from San Francisco to Ensenada. Bill asked the surfer if he would move down to La Jolla for a while. Naturally, the surfer accepted this offer, and so Bill flew the surfer down to La Jolla. He paid his expenses and gave him a key to an ocean front hotel room at Capri By the Sea. The surfer hung over the terrace of his new post, watching the Board Walk and thought he was the luckiest man in the world. Bill introduced the surfer around La Jolla, and he began working and meeting Bill’s friends. The time fell into one long sunrise to sunset, of work, companionship, and surfing.
Now, we take a giant leap forward to the summer of 2007 and to Colorado Springs. It would be the first time that I would meet Gavin, one of Bill’s sons. It had been many years since the surfer, whom you may have guessed by now, is my best friend, who goes by the name of Soaring Crow, had seen Gavin. I had heard about him for so many years, from Bill and Martha, and from Soaring Crow. Gavin was the travel writer; he covered ski resorts, ranches and rodeos.
We drove up a tree-lined street and parked in front of an unpretentious Victorian house. A man galloped down the walkway, he was tall and broad, with an easy grin, and mercurial eyes. Gavin brought us into his home and placed our luggage in his bedroom.
“You guys sleep here, the sheets are clean.”
“Where will you sleep?” I asked.
“I’ll sleep outside, I do all the time.”
The welcome was expansive, as if I was about to go on a Ferris wheel, or ski lift. SC and Gavin had seen one another at a family wedding years ago, but this was the first get together. I adore these inevitable reunions tied to our past, and so I sat on the edge and mused their fellowship. We filed into the den, where Gavin picked up a pair of electric guitars and the two strummed away the years inside surf tunes. I poured wine, and took photographs. After dinner, the room was familiar and quiet. Gavin showed us a picture of Bill dressed in western gear next to a horse.”
“I never knew he was a cowboy?” I said.
“Well, he was. He grew up around horses.”
“And you’re a cowboy too?”
“Used to be a cowboy, not anymore. Once a cowboy stops riding, he stops being a cowboy.”
“You sound just like Bill.” I said.
“Everyone says that.”
We lingered around the table until late in the night, and stories rolled out from the heart. Gavin’s rooms had exploded with his story telling tools, piles of black and white photography were stacked on the ground, books, and records and sporting equipment. He raked through a stack and handed me a photograph of a rodeo rider.
“ I love that photograph, it’s wonderful.” I said.
“ Take it, take any of them you want.”
The next morning, we had breakfast at the Broadmore Hotel, surrounded by gardens and river walks. I exuded small bites of Gavin’s adventures, as a freelance journalist, columnist for the Rocky Mountain News, and traveling with the Rodeo. He was the sparkling image of Bill, authentic and understated.
After breakfast, we drove to the Valley of the Gods.
Gavin jumped out of the car and trotted ( he does not ever walk) to a spot overlooking the rugged insubordinate Valley.
“ This is where part of Bill rests, the other part is in the ocean, isn’t that neat.”
“ You can visit him all the time.”
“ Yep, I do.”

MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

I rose at 3:00 AM to turn the heat on, pick up my writing journal, and discern the week’s theme.

The house is unfamiliar at this time, as it is my first middle of the night experience here. I wonder for a moment if I should boil water for tea or coffee, and settle on decaf. Alice and Bugsy follow my footsteps, circle their feeding table, and then begin to cat play. Bugsy gallops around in circles and Alice watches. Their presence kindles the stark rooms. While the water boils, I step outside to the porch I hear the distant sound of pounding surf and sit down to listen. The moon is shaved from the fullness of the previous night, and reflects my own disposition.

The street is hollowed like a tunnel, the light of day is shining in some other distant country, and the sky is appears tinted with primer. Somewhere someone is dressing for work, breathing by the tick of the clock until he must report for work.

The draft of sleep lingers in my eyes, and my feet shuffle on the cold tiles, while I grind the beans and think through the remains of the week. There are themes to our lives. Sometimes a year, sometimes one single day launches the theme, or it may just tumble into our path unexpected and replace whatever we were holding on to dearly, and deliver something unpleasant, like sickness, or separation. The sensations leading up to my theme jilted my creativity, and the pages I wrote were jammed with contradictions, maybe they still are.

Thoughts begin to form and ruminate, what is important? The theme of my week began when I was informed a Frog’s member I knew only slightly died very suddenly. From that day on, conversations, books, and televisions shaped the theme.

I see what is in front of me, and I am dissatisfied with the surroundings. The temperature, color, textures and placement of furnishings is flawed, and I have abated good temperament, creativity, and affection. I have tried to replace my incompleteness with substitutes: new shoes, scarves, and half a dozen books. Ah Hah! I have caught the intruder, the inconsequential  arrangememt of new stuff.

Several more incidents aided my awakening. One came while reading Mark Twain’s “Following the Equator, A Journey Around the World.” It is a first person narrative of his lecturing trip on a sea voyage around the world bound for Australia and New Zealand. His diary pages are as powerful as water sprung from a fire hydrant; and I flowed into the adventure with him. A few days later while I was vacillating between reading and watching television I channeled onto a movie, “Shadows Over Tuscany.” Harvey Keitel emerged as a familiar character; a writer who has stopped writing. Along with the added irony of his resplendent surroundings in a villa over Tuscany, he still could not write.

I have settled into a corner of the sofa by the light, and now Alice is purring into my robe. Writing with pen is so different from keyboard, journaling is always with pen, but columns are on the keyboard. The next incident occurred in conversation with a woman who relayed her elated experience from meditating. She asked me about my own source. I understood that to mean what tranquilizes all the peripheral complaints, mental pains and wounds that lie dormant or at least manageable. Without thinking of the tormented hours, I thought of the comforts of exhibiting my life on paper.

The shallowness of that answer makes me uncomfortable. I return to the porch for one more gulp of landscape that I share with the stars.

The street is unfamiliar, a temporary scene like a bus stop, and I am merely waiting to move on. The neighbors are strangers, and stories do not blossom here. My desk is sealed into a corner of the bedroom, and too small to stack all my photographs, books, notepads, and dice mementos.

It is not the act of writing with pen and paper moving along at a steady rhythm; it’s the activation of the heart and mind, collaborating to unravel the relevant from the irrelevant. To reach this state of matrimony a writer needs not a Tuscan Villa, or a Moorish Castle, but experiences that flake off the skin, or recall of the experience that gives it relevance. A story is flickering at my source, asking to be written and I’m avoiding the introduction. Fear is shining like a spotlight on one end, and insecurity is the temperature that stifles my pen. It is not the cold tiled floor, and cramped desk.

I wrote a novel in a 99 square feet room that SC and I shared for a year and a half.

If I continue to roam around the task of writing this story, the intensity of irritation will escalate, my neck and shoulders will not loosen, my walk will be feigned, my smile forced, my heart longing for padding, my ego striving for recognition in the wrong places, and my soul roaming the hallways at 3:00 in the morning.

My spineless spirit that sends me out shopping for shoes, scarves, and earrings will finally halt. I will return to shopping for inspiration, courage and confidence that I can write the story.  folliesls@aol.com

MY HOODLUM SAINT- A COMPLETED SCREENPLAY

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

SCREENPLAY:  My Hoodlum Saint is the story of a woman whose survival is wedged between love and fear of her father. It exposes my struggle to survive adolescence while growing up in my father’s secret and terrifying world, where only family could be trusted.

For more information contact me: folliesls@aol.com

DREAMS OF A FLAMINGO HOTEL WEDDING

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

On Sunday afternoon, while I was sitting in the bridal room at Neiman Marcus, I was in a head on collision with the past and the present. I was not in the bridal room to buy a wedding dress; I was there to store my mink coat. While I waited for a sales clerk, I imagined myself in the chic trench coat with diamond buttons hanging from the rack. If I did have to choose a bridal gown, it would have to be something unconventional, like my mother chose. She wore navy blue taffeta to her wedding. If I did get married, I would have to save my coins for a long time to pay for the reception. Where would I get married? At one time, I dreamt of the Bel Air Hotel, but that was in the 1970s. With inflation, the wedding would cost no less than $100,000 today. By the time, I saved that much, I would be 100 years old! Besides the hotel is not the same. The last time I dropped by, I was chased out of the river walk for taking photographs of the swans. Just before my father took ill in 1982, he told me my wedding would be at the Flamingo in Las Vegas. I remember it, as if it was yesterday. We were walking together in Holmby Park, where he walked his five miles everyday. Very often, he stopped at the public phone booth and made a few calls. He whispered so I could not hear his conversation. I know now he was laying his bets for the day. I waited on the green lawn watching the older men and women playing Croquette. When my father returned from the phone booth, he looked perturbed. That meant he lost money on that day’s sporting event. We walked a long time in heavy silence until he decided to break it.

“You know, I’m very proud of you.” He said looking straight ahead.

“You are?” I was stunned.

“Of course I am! I hope you don’t think any different. I have not said it often, because I’m coaching you all the time, so you will be independent, and know how to look after yourself, after I’m gone. I don’t want you to fall into a rut with the wrong fellow, like so many women. It can ruin your whole life.”

“But I haven’t accomplished anything really great…. like you.”

“What the hell are you talking about!” he stopped in the middle of the path. “I made more mistakes than you ever could. Are you kidding sweetheart, I broke all the rules, and made some new ones, and I’ve paid. Like I’ve always said, you make your bed, and you lie in it. I’m proud of the career you made in real estate, without any help from me. Now you have to concentrate on the right fellow. When you do get around to finding the right one, we’ll have the wedding at the Flamingo.

“The Flamingo? Do you still know people there?” I asked timidly.

“Of course, I was a major stockholder … at one time.” Then he cleared his throat, and I wondered if he was choking on the memories. “That’s where Mommy and I had our wedding reception.” I thought of the photographs of Mommy cutting the white cake. It was the first time he ever mentioned my wedding. It was the first time, he seemed to say, okay find a fellow, and I’ll let you go. I sensed his detachment from everything around us except for me.

“I would like that. How long has it been since you were there?”

“I didn’t want to set foot in that place after Benny… (Benjamin Siegel) I didn’t care if the whole place burnt to the ground. There’s no reason why you can’t have your wedding there. I can still arrange a few things.”

The vision of father, my future husband, and me was an aberration without incident or purpose at that age. However, he was dreaming that the day would come soon. When the sales clerk finally appeared, I was glazed over, in some marbled state of melancholy, clutching the mink coat on my lap. The mink is the oldest garment in my closet. My father gave it to me in 1978.

It’s as if it happened yesterday. My father called one Saturday and asked me to meet him at Mannis Furs in Beverly Hills. When I arrived, my father was seated in a chair, facing a three-way mirror. Manny rushed over to greet me. “This is my daughter, Luellen, “Manny bowed and kissed my hand. In the other hand, he was holding a mink jacket. “Try it on for size,” my father ordered. I hesitated, and looked at him for explanation. It never occurred to me I would be trying on mink coats. He was always asking me to meet him in shops, and restaurants. He held meetings wherever he knew people, so I assumed he had a meeting with Manny.

“Go on—try it on. I didn’t say I was buying it, I just want to see what it looks like.” Manny tucked me into the mink coat, and pulled the waist sash through. He stroked the fur up and down, and then I did the same. The coat was solid, like a cloth wall that buried my body in warmth. I stood before the mirror and watched the transformation.

“Turn around, “my father ordered. I took a few steps in a half circle and slipped my hands into the pockets, and turned around slowly as I’d seen my mother do. Suddenly his eyes welled up with tears and he took out his handkerchief.

“If you dressed in a proper outfit and not those silly jeans all the time, you might look like something!” he barked.

“Well I didn’t know I’d be trying on minks today.”

“What the hell did you think you’d be trying on, pianos? For crying out loud! “I don’t know what you’re thinking sometimes. Take it off.” Manny untied the sash and took the coat. My father was in a mood, it was my fault again. I shouldn’t have worn jeans. Why did he start crying? Manny disappeared, and my father stood in front of the mirror to affirm his reflection. After he took off in his Cadillac, I stood in front of Manny’s and looked at the mink coats. He never mentioned it again, but I knew the coat was going to show up one day. Six or seven months after that first meeting at Mannis, the mink appeared at Chanukah.

“Daddy, this is so extravagant, I won’t have any where to wear it.”

“Oh yes you will! Just wait and see. If you quit going out with those misfits and find yourself a decent fella you’ll have numerous occasions. That’s the reason why I gave it to you, so don’t misuse it!”

When I left Neiman’s I was drenched in his memory. The mink coat has outlived all of my possessions. Every time I put it on, I’m reminded of his wisdom. It’s not the expense or signature status. When I put it on, I feel transformed. I discovered the bill of sale from Manny’s, and the balance due, after my father died. I called Manny and asked him for more time, to pay it off. He told me to forget about it, my father had brought in so much business to the store.

Last year I called Manny to see if I could have the coat remade into a vest; as the sleeves were too short.   ” It’ll cost you the same as the mink,”  he told me.  I had the holes repaired, and the coat glazed and will pack it in the suitcase for the trip to New York, now thrity two years later with a decent fella.

THE LISTS OF LIFE

Featured ~ LouLou ~ 1 Comment

WHAT ARE THESE LISTS...  the long list is the list you started as a youth, without even knowing you were making plans for your future. This is the list that does not have to be in writing, keyed in on a phone, Outlook, or posted on the calendar.

The long list is about cutting out, shocking the system, and coming back unharmed. It is an exceptional sensation of adventure we visualize while waiting for a flight at the airport, for the neighbor to turn off the leaf blower, for the light to turn green.

All of the things we monitor in our lives, like the need to have a cavity filled or checking the coolant level, are multiplying, and that short list is so long we rarely have time to consider the long list.  None of those items will make any difference in ten years, not one.

The short list is a big obstacle in the way of the long list. By the time we get to the long list, we may be crippled by fear, turned into a sofa shouting grumpy cynic or, worse than all the above, we may have forgotten what we wanted.

Waiting too long to start an adventure on the long list is staring me in the face. Then I realize, I’m in it!  

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THE MYSTERY OF HOME

~ LouLou ~ 2 Comments

Every morning I rise at dawn to sit in the parlor. Here I watch the sunlight illuminate the, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” movie board in the hearth, and drink a cup of coffee in silence. I feel at home. These are the most precious moments of the day, the moment of peace before throwing the dice.

I can see out the window to the street, and this morning a handful of eggplant leaves on the tree next door have been autumnized to a transparent sheen of bronzed gold. The silence following summer has descended down over the rooftops of the people that live on East High Avenue. The sky is seared with streaks of white, and bubblegum pink clouds drift just above the rising of the sun. The moment is a peaceful stroke to a summer that has been indeterminate, chancy and without design. We came here with the intention to sell the house, and we leave without any such idea.

In the moments SC awakes, I hear his footsteps on the creaking wood floor. I close the journal and go in the kitchen to make buttermilk pancakes. When we are in Solana Beach, we eat bran muffins, usually in short order, between telephone calls, and conversations about things that it is too early to discuss. These mornings he lingers on the porch and reads the paper, because he has the time. If my body is willing, I will run down to the stream by Kelly Park, and look for the blue heron. Along the way, I pass by the quiet man with the three beagles, and a mother walking with her children to the bus stop. I will pass the funeral parlor and look the other way, and when I see the Federal Express Truck, he will wave because he knows I am the woman that receives mail addressed to Soaring Crow.

The front porches I pass are the opening pages to the home stories of people inside. If there are children, the remains of their toys will be scattered about. If they are elderly, they will leave their gardening shoes by the back door, and if they are a young couple, they will be in the midst of home repairs, a roof that needs fixing or a new coat of paint. I have observed just one campaign poster board in the neighborhood. It seems to have gone out of style to post your politics on your car or in front of your house. In the front yard of one home, a banner is pitched in the ground that reads, “Remember our Troops.” I have not asked, but it is probable they have a son serving in Iraq. The hanging flower planters have been replaced with mums and corn stalks. Some scatter straw on the lawn. I used to giggle at this September tradition, now I am almost giddy about arranging my seasonal display in the yard.

The run back through town takes me by the high school, a brawny brick building that looks like the setting for a chapter from “Catcher in the Rye.” A teacher passes by, dressed in a conservative suit and pumps, and smiles. She looks wholesome as apple pie, and I wonder if I ever looked like that. On chilly mornings, the fireplaces may be smoking, a scent as perfect as my favorite perfume. Our own fireplace is inoperable until we reline the chimney, which explains why the movie poster is in the fireplace.

By 8:00 a.m. the yellow school buses are chugging up the street and the children, gathered at our corner; bob up and down in innocent bursts of energy celebrating the beginning of a new day. I arrive home about this time, and stop to watch the quaintness of the moment. The habitat of these surroundings strips me bare of my Hollywood entertainment, Southern California roots. I am nourished by quaint tradition and scenery, and that is one answer to this mystery I call home.

I eat cider donuts when I want and instead of working out three or four times a week, I take long walks, past the Sunny Side farms to see the young foals and mothers in the corral. I dress in style-less shoes and pants, whenever I feel like it, without fashion consciousness. I do not watch the television and prefer to go to bed early and read Carson McCullers novels. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I can sit on the porch and look at the hands of a storm forming in the sky.

People come to my house without notice, and sometimes just walk in and yell my name. My favorite Broadway hangout knows who I am, what kind of wine I like and that we like to sit on the patio. Sometimes I meet strangers who have heard of the Follies House, and I feel a twinge of acknowledgment.

It does not matter what everyone else calls home, it is simply the feeling of peace, security, and acceptance. That is how you know you are home.

JAMMERS PART TWO

~ LouLou ~ 1 Comment

ME AND MASTER JAM, AND RUDY IN LA
ME AND MASTER JAM, AND RUDY IN LA

San Diego was still into rage and rock and roll. The people I was calling for gigs didn’t know Hip-Hop yet.   That was too bad, because we were  having the greatest experience of our  life.  When I ran out of money I took a job managing a condominium project, where I lived rent free and had weekends and evenings for Jammers.  After a time of observing their self expression, I asked myself, where is mine?  I still refused to get on stage, Vince used to bawl me out because I made Piper introduce the group. We were good for each other, the three of us. After two years Piper moved to Los Angeles to launch his career, he had showmanship in the way he held his hands.  Vince took over the troupe and added twelve more dancers.  These two young men, they were the sparklers in my life, like that star you think you’ll never hold.  When I left the Jammers I was a different woman. They put the rhythm back in my spirit, and faith into my soul. I mean there are things a business career will never offer, you have to go into the arts for this kind of stuff.

THE JAMMERS LAUNCH

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

Free your mind and the rest will follow, the words from EnVogue’s latest release became a sort of mantra.

 It was a decision that came at a moment when everything else stopped making sense, except my happiness.  I tossed out the two-piece suits, and turned off the world outside. Insulated in my tiny North Park bungalow, I merged into  music and dance. During the hottest of summer days I was seated cross legged on the worn carpeting  watching MTV and flipping through magazines. 

       Imploded with music videos, magazines, and dancing;   Hip-Hop was the most exhilarating choreography around.  I watched the music videos over and over. When I searched the yellow pages for dance classes; no one was offering Hip-Hop.  With that, I thought why can’t I be the founder of a dance troupe?  

  I needed to find the  dancers to suit my concept of integrating  jazz funk, hip-hop, and Afro-Cuban  into a collage workshop.   

      Piper Jo was the first dancer to join. He came at me with everything he had; talent, faith, intelligence, and belief in this crazy white chick who wanted to hip-hop.  Piper played Miles Davis, emulated jazz-funk, and moved like Michael Jackson.  He was twenty years old and this was his first teaching job. When I asked him who taught him to dance he answered;

“Michael Jackson and James Brown. I danced in my living room every day. My mother couldn’t get me out of the house. God blessed me with this gift, and I want to share it. So if you put me in your dance troupe I guarantee, you won’t be sorry. NO, you won’t.”  

 At our first audition Piper said,  “How you expect to pick dancers, if you don’t know what to look for.  I swear Lue, you are crazy.  But don’t worry,  I’ll show you. And don’t be picking every guy out there cause he can Hip-Hop, there’s nothing to that. We want dancers with classical training.”  He was right.

“Vince Master Jam”  was a former break-dancer and studied classical dance. Vince was the coolest; he sat back and waited for his chance, unhurried, relaxed, but when the music came on, he flipped everyone out. He was thirty. Both of them belonged to the no smoking, no drinking, no drugs, group

At that first audition  I wanted to select half of the thirty some dancers that showed up.  They came dressed in street clothes, wearing scarves and bandannas.  I watched them leap, kick, split and turn inside out for the job.  I knew that I was in the right spot. Then we added Monique, a startling beauty with Afro-Cuban dance training, and a perpetual attitude of carefreeness. 

For the first few months, the Jammers taught classes under a leaky roof, on a tiled floor, without any heat.  Piper rode a bus from the other side of town to get to the building.  Vince drove an hour each way to teach one class at night. The first few months no one showed up for Vince’s Hip-Hop class.  But he kept coming back every week.  When I apologized, he said, “ That’s okay Lue. We get it going on,  they’ll show up soon– I’m sure.” 

They did show up and we moved into a well positioned Health Club downtown San Diego. The classes filled up with students, dancers, and working women looking for a new challenge. They came from all different races;  Asian, White, Hispanic and Black.  I danced with the classes and promoted our troupe. They laughed at my attempt to be a soul sister, and I laughed with them.  We were reviewed by KPBS magazine, and a photographer took photographs of us and featured the Jammers  in the magazine. People began to think I knew what I was doing. The Jammers thought I could take them places.  I pictured them on the front page of Variety, the problem was I was too early. 

THE JAMMERS KICK

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

In the fall of 1993, I was working for a king-sized jerk in his commercial real estate office.  Dirksen used every opportunity to remind me that I was not as successful as he was.

I was the only female in an office of twelve better suited men. My Chanel 5 was used sparingly and I dressed in navy-blue two piece suits and low-heeled pumps.  With a leather briefcase slung over my shoulder, and a HP calculator that I refused to master, I was a shrimp swimming with the sharks. On hot blue sky days I drove around San Diego searching for new listings, meeting prospects, and showing space. One eye was always drifting; scanning the horizon, museums, artists hang-outs.

I tossed out the two-piece suits, and turned off the world outside. In the next weeks my attention was drawn to music and dance. During the hottest of summer days I was seated cross legged on the worn carpeting of my little bungalow, watching MTV and flipping through magazines.

TO BE CONTINUED