You can appreciate why she needs the support, and I like to “spread the...The Gypsy’s Escape
Ξ April 4th, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Creativity, Music is Life, Slice of (Real) Life, Strange Phenomena |
“We’re gypsies Rob, we’ve always been.” Georges was speaking matter-of-fact, as if this was something he’d known to have always been true. I was struck with clarity the moment he’d uttered them. “We go to where we want to, when we want to, where the opportunities exist.” Damn, he was right…
I first met Georges around 1968. I was close friends with his sister Cathy, who later introduced me to Jimi Hendrix, Eric Burdon, Buddy Miles, and several other heroes of my youth. But hers is another long sad story, for another happier day; this one’s about Georges, and in particular, his words that day. In the intervening years between then and this meeting in 2005, we’d both moved around a lot, and had happened through serendipity to have relocated some fifteen miles apart, over twenty years since our last contact. He was researching a location to open up a new restaurant in the exact same town I’d been thinking of moving to. This in itself was remarkable enough of a coincidence, but the subject of that day was the chances of our meeting up again, the ways in which we arrived at that same place on the earth, and the various and vicarious means by which we got there.
We were gypsies. That made it all the more miraculous.
With Cathy’s assistance (and insistence no doubt) he got me my first job, at a little place called “Mori’s Kosher Style Delicatessen” located in San Francisco’s Financial District, in 1968, and run by a transplanted New Yorker named Mori Solomon. An older man and a funny, shrewd, and calculating Jew, I suppose he was something of a gypsy himself, having transplanted his successful and well-known eatery in N.Y.C. to the Bay Area of all places, anathema to an East-Coaster. His small establishment catered to the Montgomery Street business-and-Wall-Street types while being staffed by hippies, as unlikely a combination as you’d expect to find in those days of persecution. Mori was not a hippie. The above picture is an accurate snapshot of what kind of guy he really was. I think, in fact, that he might have been a fence. Beneath a huge trap door in the floor he had a cellar beneath the whole shop that was filled with everything you could imagine: televisions, toasters, disposable hypo needles, cameras, radios, you name it. And then there was his rooftop… He even, for those special occasions with special visitors, hauled out a kitchen sink for those who marvelled at the diversity of his collection, exclaiming with a mischievous snicker, “Everything AND the kitchen sink!” He was a character.
In the latter days of writing my novel Unbound when trying unsuccessfully to find a way to describe a story that was about so many things, I remembered Mori’s cellar and his sink. So I, in a moment of pique, threw in a scene where Will’s mom is washing dishes at their kitchen sink. And so began describing this indescribably deep, layered, and allegorical story simply as being “about everything.” Because, it is. About everything that a gypsy might come across or encounter in his travels; or a wanderer, a teller of tales, or even a Fool of the highest caliber…
With the lifeblood and essence ofthis Romantic’s Heart, this Poet’s Mind, and this Gypsy’s Soul pumping through my being, I would uproot myself at every opportunity as my fortunes and misfortunes changed. Once upon a time, when I was 17 or so and my father and I had had enough of our constant arguing and fighting ever since my decision to hang out on the Haight Street scene, and my oft-repeated vow that I’d move if I knew he wasn’t going to call the cops, he finally said, “Look, if you want to go that bad, fine; I won’t call them.” He then went off to shower.
In the twenty minutes that he was gone, I’d taken down my posters, packed up most of my stuff, called a nearby friend to pick me up, and I was gone, just like that. I was a runaway for about a month, living off the food I got from Mori’s. After a brief stay at a pair of cute strippers’ apartment off of Third Street I ended up sheltering at Georges’ place, which coincidentally was where Cathy and their family was renting from my grandmother, right down the street; in the same flat where I was born. After seeing the misery that my absence was causing my mother, I returned home, and we all made a truce of sorts; though my parents still disapproved of my lifestyle choice, they decided to trust in me, and I in them. This began the long road to our reconciliation, and also served to solidify my resolve to become (at that time) a Poet, and later, a Writer. Because they still supported me, in all my wild ways… and that is love.
And this is why Unbound is dedicated to their memory, with Love… for it’s not so much a love-story (though it is indeed just that), it’s a story about Love, in all its manifestations. Even a gypsy has a family, and more often than not, has a home… even though he’s oft absent from them. And always seeking, in one form or another, for one reason or another, that ever-elusive Love…
But I did move around a lot. Finally deciding to find a place wherein to concentrate solely upon the crafting of my manuscript, I moved for that purpose, for one last time. It was always for one last time, but it never was. Now, once again this gypsy is poised for escape, one step ahead of the sheriff’s men, who were to be evicting me in less than a month. But another reward for the investing of Faith (see posts below) has occurred; the property’s auction date has been postponed for another month, for God-knows-why. So now I’m two steps ahead, but still in need of that safe haven I’ve always sought, and have never found, from which to launch my writing Career. It will come; I have Faith that it will; that this Fool will find his way off the mountain, and not off its precipice into the Abyss…
I have Faith, I have Hope, and I have Love… these are all that I need except for a partner to share them with, and she will come to me, I am sure. All in due Time :-D
The title of this post is taken from the closing track from Arthur Brown’s Galactic Zoo Dossier album, of which the song “Sunrise” served as one of the spring-boards from which I jump-started this novel (see another post a ways below for it). Since “love” has always been the main thrust of the book, and Arthur a strong vocal proponent of it (listen to his “Love is a Spirit (That Will Never Die)” for proof of this), I’d always wanted this story to reflect and to strike deeply into the Reader with just as much force and feeling as this and other beloved artists delivered their own powerfully emotive works to their Listeners. Thus, the story’s structure and delivery is very musical, lyrical, and deep beneath the surface of its words, emotionally powerful.
In closing, I’ll leave you with a video of Arthur singing “Helen With the Sun”, another of his songs that I included on Unbound’s “soundtrack”. This is raw emotion, power, and a startling vocal range delivered through the talents of not only his voice but also that of his co-writer and guitarist Andy Dalby (who’s one of my favorite guitarists). Boost the volume, too and feel it as deeply as you can. Don’t be distracted by anything else, either; just Listen! And as for that false fadeout, keep on listening; the ending is wonderful. He has a presentation that is unreal!
“Love” is more than just another word…