LYRICAL JIM MARSHALL

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JIM MARSHALL AT THE OPENING OF GALLERY LOULOU TAOS. 2006

“Americas ‘true romantics will be the jazz musicians and jazz writers, living by their lyrical emotions, senses.”

From The Diary of Anais Nin volume Six.”

The throw of the dice this week lands on mysteries of character. We all have our closet of masks that we reach for when we need to camouflage our fear, insecurity, disdain, or judgment.

I wore a mask the day I went to pick up Jim Marshall at the Albuquerque airport. I didn’t want to appear unprepared, inexperienced, or effusive. As soon as I recognized Jim taking his last step off the escalator, my mask cracked. I ran to him, hugged him, and clichés poured out of my mouth: I’m so happy to see you, how was the flight, welcome to New Mexico. He nodded, smiled with closed lips, and asked,

“How long does it take to get to Taos?”

“An hour and a half.” Jim’s lips tightened.

In the car, Rudy and I whisked up conversation, but the results were drippy. Jim stared out at the window. We were in the valley of lunar like scrub rush, broken down sheds, and absentee human life.

“WHERE THE FUCK ARE WE?” Jim growled

“We’re almost there, another half-hour.”

“WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE PEOPLE?”

I tried, unsuccessfully to assure Jim, there were lots of people in Taos.  I read his mind; why did he make the decision to exhibit his iconic rock and roll photography in a gallery in  boon-dust Taos. How much longer before he can unwind with a scotch, and call home for a taste of civility.  Who are these morons driving this car anyway?

Inside the B & B suite we’d rented for Jim, I breezed across to the adobe terrace, and opened the curtains, “You like it?”

“THERE’S NO FUCKING HAIR DRYER?”

“You can borrow mine.”

“Are you hungry Jim?”

“No.”

“I have a bottle of your favorite scotch.” He picked it up, and looked for a glass. I ran to the bathroom and brought him a glass.

“See you tomorrow. “ He growled.

“What time?”

“I’ll call.”

The next day, I waited for Jim’s call. Instead I heard from Dave Brolan, Jim’s operator to the world; friend, translator, mediator and stabilizer.

“Dave, is Jim all right?”

“He’ll be all right. He’s tired and cranky. He’ll be fine tomorrow night.

“What can I do anything?”

“No, just take care of your opening business. I take care of Jim.”

I sighed deeply, and returned to the chaotic events preceding the grand opening of our gallery. Jim agreed to exhibit along with Baron Wolman and Michael Zagaris, because they hadn’t been together in a long time. I was about to ease-drop on history, with three distinguished rock and roll photographers.

My heart raced ahead of me, until 6 o’clock when Jim and Dave walked into the gallery.

“How are you Jim?” I followed behind him as he viewed the exhibition.

“Looks good.” He said. Then he was swallowed up into a crowd of guests. He stood patiently for photographs, greeted strangers with a boyish smile and brotherly handshake. He sat down at my desk and began to sign books for a tickly line of buyers.  I filled his glass with scotch and he said, “Thanks sweetheart.” My heart returned to my chest. The evening transcended into a kinetic overture of rock n roll music, reminiscing of the sixties, and feverish excitement. Around midnight, after being the center of 250 to 300 Taosaneos, Jim said, “Let’s eat.” It was snowing and pitch black outside.

Our party of seven charged in and rearranged the vibe of the banal atmosphere. Once inside the dining room Michael Z, was exhibiting impersonations of Jim, while we all laughed. Marshall didn’t twitch, or sneer; he accepted being the force of raucous laughter.

A young professional looking man approached our table.

“I apologize for interrupting. When I got to the opening, you all were leaving.  I’m really sorry I missed it; I’m a huge fan of your work Jim.

“How did you know we were here? I interrupted.

“I followed you.” He said.

“Join us.”

That night and the next three nights, Jim was host to a crowd of fans that followed him around.  I watched the mystery of his character, revealed, untouched, in focus, on what the photographs brought back to him. He was anointed by their admiration, without becoming inflated.

At the airport, Jim took me into his arms, “You did good LouLou.”

Two Years later.

I am in Santa Fe, and my social life is Camus strange. While I try to sell my photographs and write, my life is stifled by the absence of friends and parties. Jim called one afternoon.

“Loulou, my friends just moved to Santa Fe. Take down their number and call them.”

I called these new friends of Jim’s, and a week later, a man drove up, and leaped out of his car.

“Hi LouLou, I’m Jock.”  He sat down, but his spirit was an unbolted kinetic burst of energy.

“I brought this for you.” He handed me a beautifully hand crafted book of his Cuban Series photographs.

A month or so later, I received a party invitation from Jock and his wife, Annaliese. The evening was lyrical, as friends circulated between the portals, while Jock mixed  molita’s and Annaliese served Cuban food. That night, I was introduced to their friends. Now, a year later, I consider them my friends.

I called Jim after the party.

“I called to thank you.”

“What for baby?”

“For introducing me to Jock and Annaliese. Now I have friends.” Jim chuckled.

Jim passed away March 23, 2010. He was a romantic and lived by lyrical emotions and senses.

THE HURT LOCKER

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For all of us that claim we honor support and appreciate the troops, take a look at what your supporting. For someone like me, who has never experienced combat, and known very few who did, I bow my head. This film is a book, a documentary, a closeup photograph and everything that it takes to get the point across.

Katherine Bigalow is right-on.

The

JAMMERS PART TWO

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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

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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

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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

 

CONFESSIONS OF A MOB KID

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SOME children are silenced. The pretense is protection against people and events more powerful than them. As the daughter of Allen Smiley, associate and friend to Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, I was raised in a family of secrets.

My father is not a household name like Siegel, partly because he wore a disguise, a veneer of respectability that fooled most.

It did not fool the government. My father came into the public eye the night of June 20, 1947, when Benjamin Siegel was murdered in his home in Beverly Hills. My dad was seated inches away from Siegel, on the sofa, and took three bullets through the sleeve of his jacket.

He was brought in as a suspect. His photograph was in all the newspapers. He was the only nonfamily member who had the guts to go to the funeral.

When I was exposed to the truth by way of a book, I kept the secret, too. I was 13. My parents divorced, and five years later, my mother died. In 1966, I went to live with my father in Hollywood.

I was forbidden to talk about our life: “Don’t discuss our family business with anyone, and listen very carefully to what I say from now on!”

But one night, he asked me to come into his room and he told me the story of the night Ben was murdered.

“When I was spared death, I made a vow to do everything in my power to reform, so that I could one day marry your mother.

“Ben was the best friend I ever had. You’re going to hear a lot of things about him in your life. Just remember what I am telling you; he’d take a bullet for a friend.”

After my father died, I remained silent, to avoid shame, embarrassment and questions. But 10 years later, in 1994, when I turned 40, I cracked the silence.

I read every book in print – and out of print – about the Mafia. Allen Smiley was in dozens. He was a Russian Jew, a criminal, Bugsy’s right-hand man, a dope peddler, pimp, a racetrack tout. I held close the memory of a benevolent father, wise counselor, and a man who worshipped me.

I made a Freedom of Information Act request and obtained his government files. The Immigration and Naturalization Service claimed he was one of the most dangerous criminals in the country. They said he was Benjamin Siegel’s assistant. They said he was poised to take over the rackets in Los Angeles. He didn’t; he sold out his interest in the Flamingo, and he went to Houston to strike oil.

I put the file away, and looked into the window of truth. How much more could I bear to hear?

Born in Kiev, Ukraine, my dad’s family immigrated to Canada. He stowed away to America at 16, and was eventually doggedly pursued for never having registered as an alien. He had multiple arrests – including one for bookmaking in 1944, and another for slicing off part of the actor John Hall’s nose in a fracas at Tommy Dorsey’s apartment.

He met my mother, Lucille Casey, at the Copacabana nightclub in 1943. She was onstage dancing (for $75 a week), and my father was in the audience, seated with Copa owner and mob boss Frank Costello.

“I took one look, and I knew it was her,” was all he had told me on many occasions.

On a trip to the Museum of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles, I was handed a large perfectly pristine manila envelope, and a pair of latex gloves with which to handle the file.

Inside were black and white glossy MGM studio photographs, press releases, and biographies of my mother’s career in film, including roles in “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” “Ziegfeld Follies of 1946,” “Meet Me in St. Louis” and “Harvey Girls.” She was written up in the columns, where later my father was identified as a “sportsman.”

The woman who pressed my clothes, washed my hair, and made my tuna sandwiches was an actress dancing in Judy Garland musicals, while her own life was draped with film noir drama.

My father wooed her, and after an MGM producer gave her an audition, he helped arrange for her and her family to move to Beverly Hills, where she had steady film work for five years. He was busy helping Siegel expand the Western Front of the Costello crime family and opening the Flamingo casino in Las Vegas.

They were engaged in 1946.

Still, the blank pages of my mother’s life did not begin to fill in until I met R.J. Gray. He found me through my newspaper column, “Smiley’s Dice.”

One day last year, R.J. sent me a book, “Images of America: The Copacabana,” by Kristin Baggelaar. There was my mother, captioned a “Copa-beauty.”

Kristin organized a Copa reunion in New York last September. I went in place of my mother, but all day I felt as if she was seated next to me. I fell asleep that night staring out the hotel window, feeling a part of Manhattan history.

Now, the silence is over.

I don’t hesitate to answer questions about my family. I have photographs of Ben Siegel in my home in Santa Fe, NM, just as my father did. Every few months I get e-mails from distant friends, or people who knew my dad.

It seems there is no end to the stories surrounding Ben and Al. I am not looking for closure. I’ve become too attached to the story.

 

A GREAT CAUSE

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SEE JIM MARSHALL’S OFFICIAL WEBSITE FOR ICONIC ROCK & ROLL COLLECTIBLES AND PHOTOGRAPHY AT AUCTION.

JIM’S A GREAT FRIEND.

ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE ROCK FOR MS FRIENDS BENEFIT.

DOUBLE VISION – 1998- FOR NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

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DOUBLE VISION

 

 

 

Neckties choking thin men with beepers

I want to strip the needles pricking inside their ambition

Stone the waxed smiles spitting false promises

Shatter the pointed arrogance

Wrapped in crisp bills

Inside brand wallets

Strapped on trendy trousers

Driven by rovers and jeeps

Never been on life’s edge

 

Save the artist

Who wears his life holy

Waiting for the moments to create

Starved from meat and wine

Sits on a ray of light

Enraptured

 

 

THE HAPPIEST MAN ALIVE

~ LouLou ~ 1 Comment

The throw of the dice this week is a continuation from last months column, which is too long a time for a continuation.

I left off, where I was about to stop by Maurice’s home. I’ve written about him several times over the years. Maurice was raised on a small modest farm in Iowa, where he used to race his horse across the open fields, when he wasn’t milking cows and picking corn. When he turned seventeen he left home, and hitchhiked to Solana Beach, where his girlfriend was working in a home in Rancho Santa Fe. Maurice worked on the ranches of Rancho Santa Fe, until he was drafted into the army. It was Christmas day, and the day after his wedding. When he returned to his wife three years later, they began a life in Solana Beach. He began living as the happiest man alive.

I had to wait a year or more before I could drive by his house in Solana Beach, knowing he wouldn’t be out in the garden, or fixing miniature furniture, or baking cinnamon rolls for all his girlfriends.  

I had to wait, because the little white house with the white picket fence without Maurice was like a flower without petals, or a child without a mother.

Maurice came into my life, in an almost fictional way. I can see him now; standing amongst the hundreds of Christmas lights he strung up every year across his lawn, over the roof, winding around the trees and over the garage all the way to the street. He even had one of those talking toys that sang, ‘Ho Ho Ho  Merry Christmas’ when you rang the door-bell. Inside the tiny living room, he filled every shelf and empty corner with ceramic glass or tin ornaments, a dedication to his wife who passed away ten years earlier, and their wedding anniversary.  

When Maurice opened his front door, he laughed out loud, when the mechanical voice, shrieked, Merry Christmas. Before he even said anything, his smile beamed as he waited for me to laugh with him. Then he led me to the sofa, in front of a coffee table covered with homemade powered sugar cookies and chocolate covered almonds and cashews, and said, “Go on, sit down and I’ll make some drinks.”  But that wasn’t the first time I met Maurice. The first time I met him; I was walking down the street at dusk, just taking a walk with a moon shadow following me.

     “How are you tonight?” We talked only a moment or so before he asked me inside for a drink.

     “Thank You. I’m going to take a rain check; I live right down the street.”  It was such an innocent invitation; I felt absolutely no fear other than that ground in nuisance fear that precedes any invitation from a man. 

     “I know where you live.”

     “Oh? I’m going to come back–really I am.”

     “I sure hope so. I love to have company.”

That was Christmas 1994.

The next night, I dragged Rudy with me to look at Maurice’s flickering Christmas lights. We didn’t get a chance to knock on the door, he must have seen us through the window, and he opened it.

     “Are you coming in this time?” 

     “Yes, I mean if it’s not a bad time.”

     “It’s never a bad time for friends.”

I clutched Rudy’s hand and we crossed over the reindeers seated in the flying red sleigh and magical little toys that glittered beside Santa Claus, and went inside.  I was already sure that this was going to save me from a mediocre Christmas, while Rudy was still quizzically observing Maurice’s easy behavior. Maurice was seventy-nine years old, cut lean and taught like a racehorse. His long white hair was combed straight back without a part, and he was dressed in faded Levi’s, Nikes, and a pressed bottom-up shirt.  

“Are you hungry?” He asked.

“Hell yes,” Rudy shouted. Maurice jetted out to the kitchen leaving us to sink into the worn cushions of his sofa, and listen to country western Christmas Carols. We stayed and laughed through an assortment of snacks, music, and Maurice dancing about as we hooted and howled like Iowan farmers.

When I stopped by a day or two later to thank him, he said.

  I’m the happiest man alive.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because I have so much to be thankful for, and I have such good good friends.”

  “Maurice, are you happy all the time?”

  “Oh yes-all the time. I get angry like everyone else, but I’m so lucky.”

  “Why?”

Then he told me the story of the three days he squatted along the beachhead at Buna, Australia within the confines of tropical diseases, rain, mud, and without water or food.  By the time the last Japanese positions had fallen, one thousand or more Americans lay dead, with thousands more wounded or sick.

  “They was much stronger and more equipped than us.  I made a vow with God, if he got me out alive, I would never ask for anything again and never complain about anything again. “

  “You kept your word.”

  “ I sure have. I watched my whole squadron die, almost all of them. They was such young boys, you just couldn’t believe it was happening.”

I went back to Maurice’s house almost every day, and asked him how he was. “I feel so good; I’ve never felt better in my life.”  Sometimes he’d alternate and say, “I’m the luckiest man alive.”  I never caught him complaining, or tilting forward with regret. He didn’t waste his time judging, avoiding, or renouncing change. He kept his old fashioned machinery, furnishings and style and let everyone else go crazy trying to be modern and chic. Every knick knack had some special meaning or story to go along with it. Like the corn husker he hung out in the garage, the same one he used when he was a kid. But what he loved most about that house was his orange tree. He always loaded me up with a grocery bag filled with oranges. “They make the best orange juice you ever had.”   

Over the next four years, I was at Maurice’s home, at least twice a week. I watched Rodeo with him, watched him plant tomatoes and cucumbers, cut sweet peas and roses for his friends, fry chicken, fix furniture, feed Bugsy the cat when he was only a day old, and dance in the front room while singing some country tune.  I recorded his whole story on tape, and then wrote a book about his life.  “I don’t think I’m that interesting, but if you think so, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”  I learned what it was like to grow up on a farm during the depression in middle America. His family lost the farm, and that’s when young Maurice put out his thumb on Highway 80, and hitchhiked to San Diego.

  “I was so lucky! I was picked up by a woman in a Cadillac who needed someone to drive her car.”

Then, when I wasn’t paying attention, Maurice grew distant, he turned down invitations to dinner, and he stopped inviting me. I didn’t ask him why, I just accepted it, which was where I went wrong.

I even passed him in the drugstore one day, and instead of confronting him, I darted out the front door. About six months later I got a phone call from his niece.

  “I’m calling because Maurice passed away.”

  “NO.”

  “Yes, he did. But he didn’t suffer, he went very quick.”

  “Was he at home?”

  “ Yes. Lynn found him under the orange tree.” 

I drove past his house, and had to keep on going. There was nothing left of the garden, and the new owners had placed those skinny tall poles signifying, a demolition for a new two-story house.  Maurice is still a part of my life. I realize I was lucky, to have met him and known his story. Any dice to throw email: folliesls@aol.com  

~ LouLou ~ 7 Comments

 

 

THE SUN RISES ON HARDSHIP

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 The throw of the dice this week falls on the sunrise of hardship, for all of us.

     In my home there is one staircase window that faces east. Each morning before I descend the stairs I stop at the landing, to watch the day begin. The sun must rise above an assortment of tree limbs and trunks, and up over the mountains. By the time I’ve had my coffee, the sun has risen above these obstructions. I am now jerked awake, like a slight nudge a parent might give you, ‘Come on–wake up! You have school.”  

I begin writing, but that shameless sunlight in my eyes and the dance of the birds are tempting me to step outdoors.  When you live in seasonal climate, summer days and nights lure you out of your wits; why stay inside when there’s moonlight, a sage brush breeze, and merriment across the street.

The gradual awakening unfolds layers of thoughts, beginning with the anxiety of the times. The impending hardship of thousands, my friends, and neighbors, oozes out like a bad smell. Everyone seems to be slanting in new directions; some are going home where they came from, others take on another job, or moving out and leasing their homes.    

 

Some mornings I can’t even look at the newspaper. The headlines read like Sunday’s promotional movie advertisements: BANKRUPT, FORECLOSURE, and SUICIDE. The shocking prick of national disaster is a surgical awakening of a disease untreated.  There’s no time to waste, no money to squander, it is a time of reduction and refusal.

     As minor calamities knock on my door, and creditors calling from India, I turn my head to the sunlight and resume what I have to do, and that is write. If you know me, then you know I’ve vanished. It’s the only way I can work, and I’m standing on my head happy that I have the solitude to do it. 

 Last week while I was upstairs, prone on the sofa figuring out a transition between two scenes, someone knocked at the door. Then they fiercely rang the bell. Oh what it is now I thought.   

     “Yes,” I asked the man standing outside. He stared at me while twirling a toothpick in his mouth.

“Are you all right? I’m from Safeguard Security we haven’t had any signal on your alarm.  We came to check on you.”

I stood there expressionless. I assured him I wasn’t held captive or about to throw myself out the window, but he didn’t seem convinced, he lingered and kept looking over my shoulder.  I hastily sent him on his way, and returned to the desk.  I’d been rude; I didn’t even thank the guy.  This is some kind of message, next time he’ll slam the door in my face.      

Later in the day, if I haven’t ventured outdoors yet, I take a walk around the Plaza, and muse over the herds of tourists. I look for revealing expressions and conversations.  I didn’t see panic and anxiety, I observed relief. Couples shuffled together, maybe holding hands, dragging shopping bags, and aiming directionless for a new snapshot. They stand gaping at the churches and shoot photographs while standing in the middle of the street. Vacation is bliss in the middle of discontent. 

When I return to my desk, it is time to print the days work. This is always a ritual of great expectation, filled with disappointments, surprise, and sometimes a whiff of elation.

 By now the sun has made its journey to the other side of the house. The back porch is like starched light, it burns the eyes and flesh, the immediate effect is callous. Now is the time to slouch in the chair, close my eyes, and rewind a few scenes back.

Hardship is like the sun, unmerciful when it is met face to face, and transforming when we are protected. The sunlight is absorbed into our bodies; the effect is invigorating when taken in increments. The light changes the color of the world, we see things differently, and so it is with hardship, we feel intensely, our senses are sharpened, and we appreciate the treats more so than in times of prosperity.

It all translates into less spending and more creating. 

While I lounge in this old house, one track of time keeps re-appearing. It was when my living space was limited to one tiny room, finances on a string as long as my finger and uncertainty a nightmare that turned into a lullaby. It is that time again; and what we all must do is keep the adventures above the circumstances. Any dice to throw:

Folliesls@aol.com 

ZIGZAGGIN WITH D.H. LAWRENCE

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The throw of the dice this week lands on an adventure with D.H. Lawrence. 

Our affair began in the winter of 1970, when the film “Women in Love” was released. 

            “ Let’s go see this movie, Alan Bates is in it.” Lizzie,  and I were madly in love with Alan Bates. Neither one of us had read the book, or had much knowledge of D.H. It was a film that explored sexual relations that interested us, and it was filmed in England.  Back in Junior High Lizzie sang musical songs while I taped her on a recorder.  Now in High School, she was singing Hey Jude, and I was reading the words from the record album.     

I remember sitting in the balcony of the Beverly Wilshire Theater, leaning forward in my seat  as I longed, with adolescent fixation, to be inside the story. I wanted to live in a studio like Gudren’s( the part played by Glenda Jackson) and toast my bread in front of fireplace and paint all day.  Gudren was the artist terrified of being tamed.  Her sister Ursula, who personified Lawrence’s wife Frieda, wished to make her life within a man’s.    

 “Your Gudren, and I’m Ursula,”  Lizzie claimed with clairvoyant assurance.  

 ”  No, I’m not all Gudren.” I protested.

 ” You are– you’ll see.”   Within  a year, Lizzie would be in-love in London, creating a life around a man, and I would be an art student at Sonoma State College.  

  

But on that lazy matinee afternoon,  we gasped, and squeezed each other’s hands, during particular erotic scenes that shocked our sensibility. It was an  awakening, of the abstraction of relationships. We’d discovered that friendships  were not as they seemed, and that love did not always have a happy ending.   It woke me to what possibilities lay ahead, and turned a defining fold in my growth.  Would I end up like Gudren?  At times the thought haunted me.

Over the last thirty years, I’ve  watched the film every time it screened on television.  It was the benchmark of my youth,   just before I wandered off into relationships with artists and bohemian living.  Several years ago I purchased a copy.  I was convinced there  was something I’d missed.   

 

Summer 2006 Taos, NM

 I move to Taos and Rudy gives me “Birds, Beast’s & Flowers” a collection of poems written by D.H. during his stay in Taos.   I journey out to Del Monte Ranch where D.H. and Frieda lived on and off for several years.  The ranch keepers took us on a private tour; oral and on foot.  I yearned to learn more.  Several days later I walked down the portal of Ranchos Plaza to see what new treasure books Robert had in his shop. 

   “What do you have by D.H. Robert?” 

   “Kangaroo, and Lorenzo in Search of The Sun,” it’s a biography about DH.

   “I’ll take them.” 

They were placed on the bookshelf in the bedroom and remained there unread.  By now,  I’d seen the famous stained glass window D.H.  painted in Mabel Dodge’s bathroom in Taos, and the sketchings on display at the La Fonda Hotel.  Still, I had not read any of his novels.  

Winter  2008. Santa Fe.

The down blanket is wrapped tightly around my shoulders on a snowy night.   I take “Lorenzo in Search of the Sun”  off the shelf and begin to read.  The book begins with his adventure in Taormina.     

    “I am so thankful to be back in the South, beyond the Straits of Messina, in the shadow of Etna, and with Ionian Sea in front: the lovely, lovely dawn-sea where the sun does nothing but rise toward Greece.”

 This first excerpt  leads me to chisel the cobwebs of memory to the  summer of 1972.  I left my sister in Barcelona, with a Spanish- lover, and took  a solo journey to Sicily. I don’t recall what precipitated my quest;  but the warnings and discouragement from my sister, and fellow travelers didn’t obstruct my vision. I had to go to Sicily. It turned out to be the bittersweet part of my European summer.  An  Italian hotelier rescued me, and put me up for a few weeks in his Taormina hotel; like he did with all the lost American hippie girls. 

Every night this winter, I huddled inside and read a few pages of the book, savoring them as I would a chocolate souffle. These descriptions of Italy, Mexico, and Taos infiltrated that clamping cold.   D.H mentions the Model T Lizzie in his chapters on the El Monte Ranch in  Taos.  I am reminded of my trip to the ranch.

This is an excerpt of the column I wrote about my visit to ranch in 2006.        

D.H and his wife Frieda moved to the Ranch in 1924.   Imagine that journey–there was no road to the Ranch, that came much later. They must have hiked up the hill or gone on horseback.  The ranch includes a small barn, and two cabins; they chose the larger Homesteader’s Cabin. It is so organic, as if spun together by weeds and timber chips, but actually is a mixture of pine logs, mud, straw and water.  The Homesteader was a man named John Craig. He claimed this property in the 1880’s, and built the cabins with the surrounding Ponderosa pine.  The pueblo Indians helped D.H restore the cabin and he moved in during the summer of 1924. 

I thought about this man sitting under the majestic beauty of the pines, and writing all day long.  The plateau of silence that envelopes this ranch is every writer’s dream.  Here he wrote some of his Taos poetry, “Birds, Beast’s & Flowers” he finished “St. Mawr,” a short novel, the novel “David,” and parts of  “The Plumed Serpent.”    D.H didn’t know how to type;   he left that task to Dorothy Brett, the artist that accompanied D.H and Frieda.  D.H invited Dorothy and several other friends to join him in Taos after his first visit in early 1924.  He was creating a Utopian society, he named Rananim.  Brett was the only artist to accept the offer.

I took a few photographs and then we trotted back to the entrance. Just as we were getting into the Van, a car pulled up. A woman got out, and called out a hello from across the way.   I yelled back that we were just leaving, and she yelled even louder, “I can’t hear you – I’m almost deaf.”  I got out of the car and went to meet her halfway. Immediately taken with her pioneering eyes, and up at dawn spirit, I yelled to Rudy to get out of the car.  

            “ I’m Mary and that’s Al over there, we’re the caretakers.  Al’s been here 50 years.”   I nodded to Al, standing a few feet behind her, watching us with a tinge of curiosity. I noticed his eyes, the color of faded denim, squirming with stories.  I tried not to ask too many questions too quickly;  Al was tired from a long journey so he took a seat on the porch.   

            “ Open up the cabin for them Mary.” He called out.

            Mary nodded and led us up the path to the D.H. cabin. 

Along the way, she talked about the ranch. There is a society named the Friend’s of D.H. Lawrence in Taos, and they want to build a big commercial visitor center on the ranch. Mary and Al think this is a bad idea, because the pines and silence are so happy, why mess up a beautiful memorial.  If you saw the ranch, you’d agree that a visitor center will look like a spaceship in this territory of natural beauty.  Mary opened the door to the cabin and showed us around. The first thing I noticed was the typewriter. 

            “ Is that where he typed? ” (She gave me printed literature that fills in the information I know now.)

            “ Nope,– but that’s the typewriter Dorothy typed on.”  The cabin is well maintained, simple and authentic.  After we examined everything Mary led us back to Al. We gathered around the porch and Al talked about the road that he cleared to the ranch, the typewriter he dug out of the dump, and the time he drove out from Chicago in his Tin Lizzie.  Rudy turned to the Model T in the parking lot.

      ” You drove that out here?”  He asked. 

      ”  Naw, that’s my brother’s. We‘re going to get it workin’ soon.  Go on in and take a look.”    Rudy jogged over and got inside.  I took photographs of him, and Al watched. 

    ” That’s how D.H. and Frieda got around Taos, they’s was great cars.”  

   

 Mary took me aside and told me that she was throwing a party for Al in a few weeks, and that we’d be welcome. It would be Al’s  90th birthday. I glanced over at him, petting his dog and looking very content.  I didn’t think he heard us, but he did.  “ I’ll be here until I’m 100.”  We exchanged good wishes, and many waves before leaving that afternoon.  

Was Al’s brother Gotzsche, who D.H. writes about and who toured them around in his Lizzie?   Further in my reading,  I discovered that Gudren, personified the author Katherine Mansfield.   I became more keenly acquainted with Katherine  in Saratoga Springs, when I attended a reading of her short stories at Yaddo Arts Colony. 

D.H.  is a puzzle that continues to zigzag around my  “adventures in livingness.”  He is also the author of that slogan.  I found the saying in Anais Nin writings, but in fact I think its origin is with Lawrence. 

Any dice to throw Email: folliesls@aol.com