Supermoon 1.7 (1989-1990) Cherry Hill, NJ

                                  

                                   

    

    Over the Summer, I go on a few dates with a friendly Filipino soon-to-be junior named Rich Sanidad.  I had met his at a party where we danced to Somebody by Erasure, which is hands down, the most romantic song in the entire world.  I think it is a lot more serious than it really is, and am devastated when he tells me that he does not want me to be his girlfriend.  However, we continue on good terms, and I am absorbed into his little group of  friends.  By now, a few of the guys are driving, and we have great fun driving from one friend's house to another, or just around the mall parking lot.  Our favorite thing to do is to fill the car with as many of us as possible, so we are all sitting on each other's laps, slowly pull up behind some unsuspecting shopper outside of John Wannamakers or Strawbridge and Clothier, and yell "Ahhhh!!!!" in unison like we are out of control of the car. The shopper almost jumps out of their skin, and we drive off laughing so hard, our bellies hurt.  Rich's best friend is a fellow named Ed Hillman.  He proudly tells me he is going to be the punter on the football team, and I barely hear what he is saying because I am lost in his green eyes and long black lashes. 

My canine tooth is anchored way up high in my gums by baby teeth that refuse to dislodge, so I look like Dracula. It is the Summer before my sophomore year, and Mom takes me to the dentist who leverages himself with a foot on my patient chair and yanks out the baby teeth leaving a yawning hole in my grill. When I smile in the rear view mirror on the drive home, I tell my mother that I look like a homeless person. “You are not homeless,” she assures me.  "Homeless people do not get braces." A few weeks later, an orthodontist clads my teeth in thick metal bands and tightens the wire running through them with a pair of pliers. The tension is painful, and he loops them with rainbow colored rubber bands.  The braces will be on for at least two years.  When I smile at myself in the mirror on the way home, I can see barely any whiteness - just metal and the appalling colored rubber. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    It's Friday night, and we sit in Mom's room watching TV, like we have been doing for years.  It's different now, because it's Fred's room too now. We are glad Mom is married, but Fred seems like an oversized interloper - oddly out of place on the far side of the bed. We sit on the floor, so all we see of him are his big mottled feet jutting out from the sheets.  George Bush comes on screen in his first televised speech to the nation to declare his War on Drugs, and casually produces a bag full of "crack".  We know about alcohol because of my dad, and drugs because of Nancy Reagan, who was always going on and on about how you have to "Dare to say no", but we know nothing about crack and Fred's feet explain to us that it "a very bad thing", just like pot and booze.  

      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mom and Fred are taking us to his cabin in the Poconos.  We spend the day packing and I go out at night to a party at Rich Sanidad's house.  By now, he and I are ancient history, but 

    I am in study hall in the cafeteria. I sit at a table with a nice girl named Sharlene, who is a headbanger, and Darlene, who also happens to be a headbanger. They also choose to take a study hall instead of lunch. I do not know much about headbangers aside from their musical taste which includes Motley Crew, Black Sabbath, and Metallica.  Thick black eye liner and goopy mascara circles their eyes and their lips are bright and pasty. They wear tattered black metal-studded jeans with concert tees falling off their shoulders.  Although I am slightly intimidated at first, they have friendly personalities, and are also big fans of breaking the rules. We all identify as loaners, except I am a loaner by myself and they are loaners together. Since its hard to tell where Sharlene ends, and Darlene begins, I decide that this makes sense.  In study hall, we are not supposed to talk or eat, but we secretly share food squirreled deep in our book bags and and pass hilarious notes between us making fun of the study hall proctor whose only job is to shush us when we laugh.

                                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

        It seems that many of Mom Mom Marge's friends are dying.  When we arrive on Saturday, which we do each week due to dad's weekend custody, she covers us with an extra soupy round of face kisses and lists off this week's round of names of the newly deceased.  "Doris, Estelle, Estelle's ex-husband...", she exclaims dramatically.  We never know what to say and stand there looking forlorn, but she soon resumes her cleaning and cooking and doting on my Pop Pop who sits on the porch catonically staring at the treetops.  Dad watches football and drinks, so we are often left to our own devices.  Everything in the house seems old.  We entertain ourselves by going through Mom Mom and Pop Pop's medicine cabinet where we find stale-smelling lipsticks, creams, salves, and to our consternation, condoms that expired over ten years ago in wrappers that have become brittle with age. The refrigerator contains collections of condiment packages and overly ripe fruit which Mom Mom adds to her and Pop Pop's oatmeal.  She has a sewing room full of yellowing rolls of taffeta, crinoline, and lace that she uses to make her square-dancing costumes.  On the shelves, there are all kinds of wigs on styrofoam dummy heads adorned with fake birds - an aviary frozen in time.  When we ask her about the fake birds, she tells us it was once the style to wear them in your hair, and pins one to her own coif and smiles demurely as if this is the most attractive thing in the world. There are rows and rows of romance novels with long haired men pinning down fair maidens who pretend to get away.  I regularly sneak up to her bedroom where there is a dresser laden with dazzling costume jewelry.  It is nothing short of a treasure chest as far as I am concerned, and I open up the drawers one by one marveling at the glittering baubles and the occasional piece of racy lingerie which makes me wince. In the sunny living room, furniture is covered in plastic which only comes off when Mom mom and Pop Pop have one of their many parties - these are like a Far Side parade; seniors showing up from every corner of the east coast to gamble, drink, and tell dirty jokes.  On the mantle, there is an oversized goblet the size of a volleyball that holds little pieces of paper. When we ask her what the goblet holds, she explains that these are the obituaries of her dead friends, and we assume our forlorn expressions and weightily consider the contents of the glass vessel which stands beside a plastic Hula girl dashboard doll.  The smiling dancer wobbles mechanically when I nudge it with my finger. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    There is a new girl in my class, and her name is Amelia.  I meet her for the first time in study hall where she is assigned to my table with the Darlene and Sharlene, the headbangers.   She has pale blue eyes, blackish hair composed in an ice cream swirl on the side of her head, and gaps between her teeth.  She is hands down, the prettiest girl I have ever seen in my life, and I am flattered when she attaches herself to me for the next few weeks.   Her family has just moved from California, and she doesn't know a single soul at the school. Since she has no ideas of her own about what to do for fun, she willingly accompanies me on my own exploits which involves roaming the abandoned train tracks a few yards passed the football fields which are the outer limits of the school property.  It doesn't take long, however, before Amelia is absorbed into the highest social echelon, formerly composed of only two members, Ashley Greenfield and Heather Purtuit because they are that exclusive.  Amelia becomes their third official member, and from that point on is always flanked by one or both, but still sits with me and the headbangers at study hall.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    I have started visiting Anna Gregor's house a few times a week. However, I usually go before Anna gets home from her assorted extracurricular activities, because I go to spend time with her father, an accomplished Czechoslovakian oil painter.  We struck up a friendship when he discovered my interest in drawing, and offered to teach me how to paint with oils. Today, we work from a photograph of my mom, who is wearing a floral nightgown and has her chin resting on her hand beside a bouquet of flowers. Mr. Gregor teaches me to mix Prussian Blue with Burnt Sienna, and to create the underpainting with a wash of these colors and turpentine. This stage of the painting is exciting, as something comes from nothing, like magic. He teaches me how to mix flesh tone from different colors and how to build the painting from skinny to fat, which is when you gradually use more linseed oil and less turpentine.  This way, the painting will be developed in translucent layers which will create depth, and also be structurally resistant to cracking.  Mr. Gregor's wife is home, but we are left alone for hours at a time which pass like minutes as we get lost in the work. He paints effortlessly and silently and I stop my work occasionally to observe.  The walls of his studio are covered in landscapes, portraits, and several nudes.  There is one nude that sits just above the studio door which holds my attention.  She is painted in the same painterly strokes as Mr. Gregor's other paintings, but she has a distinguishing plastic look about her - maybe it is her pose which seems stiff, as she presents her body as if it is there for the taking and she stares out of the painting with a disconcerting seriousness.  I ask Mr. Gregor about the girl in the painting, and he says it is just one of his models. By now, I have learned about Picasso and his models, and have decided that the forbidden thing that goes on between an artist and his model is something that I find of great interest. Then I look at Mr. Gregor with his kind deeply creased face and wonder what he was like as a much younger man.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     I have a new friend.  Her name is Regina Breaux and she is an underwear model.  She is very tall and thin, and has an enormous nose, which is why she only models underwear.   I met her in our remedial algebra class.  At first, I am annoyed by her interest in passing notes, because I am sure that if I can figure out how to focus, I can be in a regular math class.  However, she wins me over when she falls all over herself when she sees my graffiti lettering.  I have not learned yet about flatterers and am easily won over and unfortunately suggestible. One day, after eating at McDonalds, she shows me how to make myself throw up, and we purge ourselves of our respective lunches. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    We wake up one morning to the sound of Mom screaming.  We go running into her bedroom and Fred is passed out on the bed while Mom frantically dials 911.  Fred has diabetes, along with an assortment of other health problems, and has gone into shock - his long body taught and retching . We watch in our own state of shock as an ambulance pulls into the driveway and several big men roll a gurney through the front door and down the hallway, and into the bedroom.  They take Fred away, but when he comes back later in the day, he is all smiles and far as he and Mom are concerned, it is like nothing at all happened. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~     

     I hate the way I look with the braces, and my clothing sits weird on my wide hips, and my face is always full of zits. I spend lots of time in front of the mirror staring at myself and wondering what it will be like some day when the braces are off, the fat is gone, and the acne has cleared up.  I make myself puke so much that I get nose bleeds. I lean over the toilet and let the blood fall out of my nose and watch the toilet water turn red.

Supermoon 1988-1989

   

     It is the Summer before Freshman year and I have been collecting discarded picture frames. They have been rescued from the bowels of our garage and various local middens. They are empty and beat up and I hang them from the drop ceiling in my new bedroom in the basement, suspending empty cans of Coke in their middles with fishing string I found in the garage.  A magazine called Adbusters referred to soft drinks as “mouth-coating syrupy sludge” - a statement which fueled the installation along with my disdain for waste, and deep suspicion of the advertising machine with its glorification of products with names like “Comet” and “Dawn”.  A few days later, I come down to my room to find them all removed. Mom has taken them down and thrown them away. “Frames do not belong on the ceiling.” she says.

  Mom has brought me to Wannamakers for school clothing.  The Guess and Esprit I choose are not on sale, and Mom hems and haws when she looks at the price tags and makes hurumphing noises as she pays.   Since I have worn only uniforms for the last 8 years, I am both excited and confused by the prospect of personal presentation.  The latest fashions are not flattering to my shape, as is nothing, as far as I am concerned.  Mom concedes to the sticker shock in an effort to appease my resentment over having short legs and wide hips. When we arrive home, I sequester myself down in my bedroom, trying on the two outfits in front of a full-length mirror. The way they hang on me looks nothing like the way they do on the emaciated mannequins at Wannamaker's. In a fit of desperation, I alter them in a way that involves scissors. It is not long before Mom discovers my handiwork, and she flies into an uncontrollable rage. The damage is done and all I can do is let her exasperation fizzle out into soundless red-faced hateful fuming.

Christina Martucci, my only friend from St. Peter Celestine, invites me out with some public school girls from her neighborhood. This is my tryout with the “in” crowd. I do not know it is a tryout until Christina tells me on the first day of class that I did not get in, which was when she took her place beside the wealthy elite. I do not know it yet, but she has an eating disorder, and will go on to sleep with most of the wrestling and football teams.

I am in my homeroom class at Cherry Hill West.  When I sit down at my desk, the other kids talk to each other while I work on the shading the graffiti letters on my textbook, mainly because I do not know anyone.  Someone passes me a note, and it says, “if you fuck me, I will be your boyfriend”.  It is from Mike Levitz, and when I look at him, he laughs and the other boys laugh with him.  I put the note inside my book and pretend nothing happened.  I do not know it yet, but he will create a video that pairs "On the Turning Away" by Pink Floyd to slow-motion footage of children playing, couples in love, and old people playing cards. It is stunningly lovely and it will make me wonder how ugly people can make beautiful things.

I am in Earth Sciences class with Heather Gallagher, my former best friend by default from Saint Peter Celestine. I notice one of the other kids put a piece of gum on her chair before she sits down.  I tell her to wait before sitting, and I remove the gum and say flatly to the girl who put it there, to leave her alone.  Heather falls all over herself thanking me and I tell her it's no big deal, and I feel triumphant and powerful for taking a stand on her behalf.    

It's Saturday and my mom is driving to the hardware store. She is playing Easy 101, and I ask her why she always listens to the same music. “Because I like it” she says. “But they are all love songs.” I say. “Well, I like love songs.” she says. At the hardware store, she gets advice from the friendly salesmen about plumbing, because the toilet in the basement has been backing up. I can tell that she really enjoys these visits to the hardware store. My brother, sister, and I entertain ourselves with machetes and plungers a few aisles over.

I have, very much to my utter consternation, made it onto the cheerleading squad. This makes no kind of sense due to my lack of physical coordination and antipathy regarding sports. I actually hate football but am tight lipped about this as I am introduced to Tiffany D'Amico, the captain. She congratulates me, and gives me a uniform to wear every Tuesday and Thursday. I adopt the latest hair style which is to hair spray your bangs high and stiff into the air, like cliffs. I am determined to be full of pep, like the Eagles cheerleaders on TV. I apply myself with great zeal, and learn the chants, one by one.  Go! Bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!!

I have registered for an art class. The teacher's name is Thelma Beer. She speaks in half-finished sentences that trail off in mumbles. She regards my cheerleading persona and hyperactive energy level with unhidden dismay.  There are three juniors in my class. Two of them are just like Allie Sheedie and Emelio Estvez in Breakfast club and I think they are the coolest people I have ever met in real life. The third junior’s name is Eric Shellac and he is quiet, brooding, with dark circles under his eyes. He sits alone in the back of the room. He is chagrined when I plant myself next to him and stare, bewitched, at his pencil drawing of a skillfully foreshortened ogre sleeping in a cave. He does not hide his irritation, but I am not dissuaded, and remain his neighbor.

     My brother and his three best friends always travel home in a pack, trailed by our little sister who is kind of like a little feather that drifts along in our direction. The three friends often come back to our  house, which has no meddlesome parents around and we are free to entertain ourselves in any sort of way.  We are in the garage and see that a brand new ladder has appeared on the wall, probably one of Fred's things which have started appearing all over the house.  After considering the ladder's possibilities, there is a joint decision to climb up to the roof. I go up first, then Patrick Pryor, then my brother, who for some reason has carried with him a dozen eggs, my sister who fumbles blindly up the ladder because her glasses have fallen off somewhere, and finally Andrew Svekla and Chris Rossini.  When we are all up admiring the view of the neighboring roofs, the well-manicured lawns, and the whisper quiet serenity of John's road, Chris Rossini fishes out and entire six pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon from his back pack, and pops one open, and empties it down his throat. I scoff at him over my shoulder, and we then commence to throwing eggs down to the street, making a competition of who can throw the farthest.  I think I have won when my egg sails past John McNulty's driveway, but Chris Rossini steals my thunder as his egg careens all the way to Lonnie The Invalid's front doorstep. We see a curtain move in her window, but before we can get down the ladder to clean up the random egg puddles, a police car whips around the corner and into our driveway, and to our utter horror, two uniformed officers amble over to the foot of the ladder.  

    "Hello kids," one of them says. 

     We weakly wave. "Hello officer" we say, as we have been taught.

     "Do you know why we are here?"

    "Because we are on the roof?" 

    "Yes. what else?"  

    We think that if we say nothing about the eggs that it will be overlooked.  What else? They ask again.  

    "Because we are drinking beer? Patrick offers.  

    We are made to get down from the roof and clean up the eggs, and the policemen tell us that we should be good kids and spend our time after school doing homework instead of throwing eggs at the neighbors’ houses. 

Mom has joined Matchmakers International.  She goes on one date which leaves her discouraged, so when the second man calls, she hides in her room while I try to put him off.  He draws me into conversation about photography and I convince her to go out to dinner with him.

I have won a Summer Art Scholarship to Tyler College of Art in Philadelphia.  I am lucky, because one of the other mothers agreed to drive me both ways, every Saturday throughout the Summer.  Class takes place just a short distance from the Philadelphia Art Museum, and we always draw outside by Eakins Oval, which is studded with an  impressive monument of Thomas Eakins. There is life everywhere. The Rodin Museum is halfway along the grand promenade to the museum entrance, and we stop to admire the The Burghers of Calais (1884–95), and our teacher tells us about Camille Claudel, Rodin’s assistant and mistress, who worked on the hands and feet of the unfortunate Burghers.  Rodin is fascinating, but I cannot wait to get to the arms and armor wing of the Philadelphia Art Museum, where I sit on the museum floor for hours drawing the mechanical reptilian forms and lustery patinas of the medieval armor.  

My brother and his friends have found a mannequin, and they bring it down to the blueroom as a gift for me. I delight in making plans for the mannequin, but before I can bedeckle it in any sort of way, my mom removes it from the blueroom. “Mannequins do not belong in bedrooms,” my mom tells me.

Megan McCloskey gives me a picture of herself from high school when I run into her at the mall.  She is now a tall beauty.  Her wispy dishwater-color hair is now white gold ringlets that spill down her back, and she is has filled out just enough to be womanly.  She tells me that she smokes pot now, which is confusing to me because I thought all the bad kids went to public school, and she goes to Catholic High School.  We go our separate ways for good.

    Mom and Fred have gone on two dates. He shows up one day with a gift for me. It is a Pentax 1000 camera, due to our first conversation on the phone. I set the camera up on a tripod and take pictures of myself nude, as I have been unsuccessful in getting my sister to pose nude for me.  I shoot a whole roll of film, but when I get the pictures back, they are fuzzy and lack detail, so I throw them away. A few days later, a neighborhood dog gets into our trash, and there are pictures of my nude body all over the sidewalk. My mom finds them and becomes...unglued.

     I am smitten by Philadelphia. I cut school and take the high-speed line to Center Station and walk to the museum. I stop on the way to talk to homeless people. Because I live in the suburbs, they are new to me, and I find their stories fascinating. I walk along the promenade and stop by the Bergers and think about Camile Claudel and working on their big hands and feet, before making my way to the shining armor inside the museum.

     I am in art class sitting next to Eric Shellac, whose level of distain for me has spiked, due to the cheerleading outfit. When I open my sketchbook and he sees my drawings of armor, shields, and swords, he warms to me and tells me about his interest in Dungeons and Dragons, which is where he gets the ogres that fill his own sketchbook. 

    Even though Mom and Fred have only been going out for 5 months, Fred proposes and she accepts.  They get married at St Peter Celestine Church and she is wearing a gold and lace dress with  matching veil.  The officiant opens his sermon by invoking the song, What's Love Got to Do with It, by Tina Turner.  He asks, “What does Love have to do with it?” After the wedding, we are all giddy with joy, and we all have the Little Princess feeling, because mom has found great love and we have never seen her so happy.  

Fred’s family is over for dinner.  They are all plump and unkempt and Fred’s daughter changes her baby’s diaper on the living room floor, leaving the dirty diapers there for us to deal with. My mom fumes about this later on and tells us this is “totally unacceptable”.  Everything about their marriage seems forced and we squirm under the weight of it.

     Eric Shellac from my art class, offers gives me a ride home from school because its raining.  The thrashing windshield wipers match his angst as he stares past the steering wheel. He is brooding more than usual and when I press him gently, he cries out that he is gay.  “Gay! I’m GAY!!” Twunk… thwunk….thwunk. I am speechless because I have never met a gay person before.   He is full of torment as he searches me for answers that I do not have. 

Supermoon 2011-2018

 2009-2013

   

    It's 2010, and I am at CBGB's.  They are featuring an art troupe known as "The Naked Poets".  When this is first announced, I am bewildered.  However, I knew for sure what they were talking about when the men marched in with swinging scrotums....

 It's 2011, and I am at the South Street Seaport. It is my sixth year of doing this and I am tired of the boring tourists and tired of drawing the New York skyline, which is what they usually ask for by way of theme. The clouds roll in and I am about to pack it in when my phone rings. It is Richie Falasca from Local 580 Ironworkers telling me that I have been accepted into the apprenticeship, which starts in September.

    It's 2012, and I am working at the World Trade Center as an apprentice. I am in the layout gang, which is just me and two other journeymen, who teach me everything they know about laying out lines for the installation of heavy steel panels that fly up on a crane hook. I am smitten with layout. I love snapping lines and measuring. I get to use my advanced math, which is basically 10^th grade geometry, but its challenging enough for me. It is cold, and my fingers lose the dexterity needed to operate the surveying equipment with its tiny dials.

    It's 2012, and I am getting the coffee order, which is something the apprentice always does. However, this job is unique, in that it has 40 men spread out over many floors, and it takes 2 different elevators to span the floors, due to the building’s height. I write down the orders with my frozen hand. Today, I will get the order right. The men think I hate them because I get lots of orders wrong, and it actually ruins their day. It takes another hour to go get the right sandwich or bottle of Gatorade. The stress this causes me is something no one understands, but I am red with anger that I am missing out on the “real work”.

    Its 2012, and I ask my foreman for a day off from work. He points at me and says, “You do not ask permission for a day off. You say, “I have something to do.” I am also told that there are no excuses, so do not bother explaining away lateness. I am coached on how “perception is everything” and coached how to carry myself so that I look like I know what I am doing, even when I do not.

    It's 2013, and I have graduated from the Local 580 Apprenticeship. I won 2^nd runner up for Apprentice of the Year, and have worked steadily, so my bank account is growing. I have a boss who commands my respect, and the confidence I feel from working side by side with the men is something foreign. The 580 guys and girls are serious about being brothers and sisters, and I am shown a level of patience and kindness that I did not expect from these surly men.

    It's 2014. I am working at the Whitney, where my coworkers’ eyes glaze over when I try to expound on the great fortune of working on a museum. They see my drawings, and ask me in complete earnestness, “What are you doing here?”

    It's 2015, and I am on the 63^rd floor of 30 Hudson Yards. We are working on the observation deck, which will be the highest in the city when it is complete. Most of the other workers have been sent to other jobs so I am alone most of the time, climbing around the inside of the observation deck platform tightening bolts and filling in gaps with caulk. Climbing around is my favorite thing to do, because I am good at it from a lifetime of climbing trees. It is a perfect Spring day, and there is a hole in the platform where I can stand looking out at the city. This is a secret spot where I will not get caught by the safety people without fall protection, which I am not wearing. I have seen a lot of great views in the last few years, but this one by far takes the cake. There is nothing between me and the city, and the soft sailing clouds above. I ruminate about the bizarre route that lead me to this spot. I think to myself that it just doesn’t get any better than this. Somehow that thought leads me to decide that its time to go to graduate school, which was the intent all along. I apply for the MFA program at Brooklyn College during the coming year.

    It's 2018, and I have been accepted into Brooklyn College. I quit my construction job, and just in time, as my body is in desperate need of a break after the intense rigor of trying to keep up with the men, many of which by this point are younger than me. I shake hands with my big bosses, who say, “Good job.”

Ode to Local 580

 

        Ode to Local 580, compiled in 2020. The following is inspired by my 11 years having the honor of working as an Ironworker mechanic. My cousin, who works in film, was the inspiration behind this document, and it was with her encouragement and guidance that it reached this stage. I fantasize about connecting with Torante Studios, creator of Bojack Horseman to bring this to fruition as an animation, shot like a first person video game, which to my knowledge has not been done before. 

     It was odd as hell imaging a show so closely based on me, as much as I love going on about my life in this blog.  It gave me great joy to revisit the wonderful personalities I encountered there.  

Johnny Penner, 2016 

Supermoon 2003 - 2009 South Street Seaport Caricature Kiosk

Lower Manahattan, August 20, 2021

    I make my way through the winding streets of lower Manhattan enroute to the Traffic Violations Bureau.  Running late as usual, I hasten to make my 8:30 hearing so I can plead 'not guilty' to a ticket received early in the pandemic while racing on my bike to a doctor's appointment.  I pass the newly built World Trade Center, Trinity Church, and The Wall Street Bull. Tourists scrambling for photos, taking turns standing beside the larger than life bronze beast. This neighborhood is one with which I have a history. I am tempted to say 'much' history but how much can one person in one lifetime really have?  I ask myself this as I walk amid the civic buildings punctuated by their Grecian columns and classic sculptures of strong-bellied bare-chested winged ladies holding hands with cherubic babies -  a simulacrum of those from the days of yore.  I make my way to the 10th floor of 17 Battery Place, and when my number flashes on the digital screen, a desk clerk informs me that the officer who gave me the ticket is sick, and I am rescheduled for January.  I take the elevator down to the street and wander across Broadway, eastward to the South Street Seaport, noting the the many changes that have taken place in the past years. 

     My history with the seaport began in 2003.  For six years, I owned and operated a caricature kiosk. From the middle of May until the end of September, I drew tourists by day, and locals by night.  For those months, along with the other seasonal workers, I kept hours through the lengthening shadows of the Summer into the chill of early Autumn, when the crowds disappeared.

 I was still very new to New York City, and had just moved on from a teaching position, which had proved to be a poor fit.   I approached the South Street Management, when I noticed a portrait artist drawing tourists in the center of Pier 17. He was only there occasionally I had observed, and I wondered if there was a way to join forces with him.  Seaport management explained that the Pier was the exclusive domain of the portrait artist, as it had been for years, but they would allow me to sign my own contract for a different location. They charged me a paltry $600 a month , the caveat being that I would be allowed no secure storage, only a spot in the mall building service hallway near the elevators.  Here I could keep my display cabinet, its contents locked inside, and my umbrella. The young woman representing the management said I would be positioned at the end of Fulton Street, where Water Street becomes Pearl.  

  I built the cabinet myself, modeling it heavily on those in use at the amusement parks where I trained as a caricature artist in Denver and then Sandusky, Ohio. I affixed framed demonstration drawings to its exterior - some based on celebrities and some from imagination.  Three doors opened to three cubbies, where I would keep my supplies and personal items.  Casters on its base would allow for easy rolling across the short block of cobblestones, to my designated location.  Back then, the Fulton Fish Market was still operating under the JFK where it had been for 180 years.  The busy merchants were mostly gone for the day when I began my own, but the smell of fish hung heavy in the air as I pushed my cabinet along rough hewn cobblestones, passed historic brick buildings to my designated spot on Water Street,  at the far end of the seaport property just beside a small monument.  Shaped like a lighthouse, this was a monument to the victims who perished on the Titanic in 1911.  I hoped that this not bode poorly for my enterprise. Water Street gets its name from the fact that beginning in 1626, when NYC was purchased from the Lenape Indians, builders and engineers created bulkheads from sunken ships, and then adding landfill which created new maritime borders for the rapidly growing city. Water Street became Pearl Street to the south of my location, this named after the many oysters found in this area in the 1600's.  

    Early on, I noticed that my day's beginning coincided with that of the hot dog vendor across the street.  I would see the stand being pushed along Pearl, its stainless shape glistening in the morning light.  The figure pushing the weighty wheeled structure was a small-statured lady built like the powerful wooden boats docked along the pier -her face red with effort and short grey hairs straining from beneath a baseball cap. I learned that her name is Sophia, and she has been selling hot dogs at Fulton and Water for 16 years.  She was of Greek descent and knew all the good Greek restaurants in Queens.  I could easily see my cabinet from Sophia's hot dog stand, and kept an eye on potential business while sitting on a crate, and speaking with her about our latest topic. I enjoyed her company, and sustained myself with a steady diet of hotdogs during those first months of business, which were meager, to say the least. I happened to be situated in a wind corridor created by the buildings rising vertiginously before me.  The windy days were murderous, causing me to chase my umbrella and struggle with flying paper. Rain came fast out of nowhere on some days, and I would need to pack it all in quickly, and push my cabinet back to its storage spot, with greater speed than I had ever anticipated. 

     In July of that year, I learned that the portrait artist had taken leave of the seaport.  His spot at the center of the pier was available and I could have it right away.  I was delighted to be free of the trip across the cobblestones as this was quickly destroying the casters on the bottom of my cabinet.   Now, the distance from my storage spot in the mall building to the center of the pier was only a few short feet.  When it rained, I could quickly and easily stow it away for a few hours or for the day.  

    The mall building, demolished in 2013 after getting badly damaged in hurricane Sandy,  had a reputation for being the largest corrugated steel building in the country.  In other words, it was a gigantic tough shed.  During rainstorms, the ceiling leaked and buckets would appear, situated in puddles catching drips.   Just outside the doors that lead to the pier were two stands selling jewelry and custom license plates operated by a Turkish family.  They played pop music from a small speaker.  We became friends over the years, leaning on each other to watch over each other's stand when a bathroom break was needed. 

      The seaport hosted a busker program, and throughout the day and into the evening, a rotating cast of street performers would appear, entertain, and disappear - creating a void for the next performance.   There was the Jamaican yogi, a waif of a man who fit himself into a 1'  box, drawing frenzied crowds with his energetic muscle-bound fluffers.  The early shifts brought several human statues.  A purple fairy held hands with tourists and twirled a parasol as onlookers took rapid fire snapshots - across the way, her boyfriend, clad in a metallic costume of his own creation, his face painted in silver, vocalized polyphonic electronic sounds of an exasperated robot, these becoming triumphant when a dollar landed in his jar.  They were both from Brazil. 

    One morning after pushing my cabinet out into the center of the pier, I was counting the singles I had acquired as change, when I heard the swooshing sounds of a burlap bag being dragged across the wooden planks in my direction. “Well,  hello Money Bags!” said Alan, the Balloonatic, a tall swarthy man,  hands on hips. The burlap sack he dragged behind him issued with elongated balloons which spilled from his rear like a peackock's tail.  He astonished me with his sales banter, which drew the tourists in like flies to the lamplight.  "Give with your heart, and not with your mind - and dig deep!"   He talked baseball with the men and made the ladies blush. He made his money quickly and effortlessly, but his balloon repertoire was somewhat limited. When asked to make a dragon or a ship, he would charismatically convince the child that what they really wanted was a sword or a flower.   Alan's Cheshire cat grin was accented by a false front tooth, which he removed with his tongue to show distain or shock.   He became my companion for the early parts of the days, as he fell into the habit of wallowing his downtime away in my guest chair.  He gave me laughter and I gave him shade.  Alan had been a member of the Street Performer Program for 15 years, and came and went as he pleased.  He knew all the security guards, bartenders, and other performers. He generally lingered and extra hour past his allotted time to make a little extra "gravy". 

    Alan generally left when Nancy, the evening balloon artist, appeared. Nancy was a diminutive big-blue-eyed lady who was known for being hawkish about her time slot on the pier.  Nancy had trained with Marcel Marceux, the famous mime,  in Paris where she spent her youth. She was well past 55, but still an uncommon beauty with high cheek bones and radiant skin.  Nancy had developed an act in Paris called "The Human Doll", which consisted of herself, dressed as a frilly-dressed doll, standing perfectly still in a ballet pose while imperceptibly turning herself, as if on a turnstile.  She retired this performance after getting harassed by groups of kids after moving to New York.  Unlike Alan, she could make anything out of a balloon, and she also painted faces.  When she talked about her past as a mime, her voice became wistful and haunted with lost desire. 

    In the evenings, the performances attuned themselves to the rhythms of the nighttime.  The boat tours ceased, and a large swath of pier, used in the daytime to corral tourists waiting for their ride on the Shark or the Clipper City became empty spaces surrounded by the the creaking sound of the floating boats.  The human statues disappeared, and a spotlight shone on a performer named Michael Shulman, who also went by "BlackWhite".  Of Eastern European descent, his long black hair fell backwards while he leaned into his electric violin playing sumptuous gypsy ballads.  Later in the season, there were tango lessons on the far side of the pier where patrons sipped margaritas and danced into the long hours of the night until they were all danced out and stumbling toward their taxis. My guests in the evenings were mainly locals and many of them were giddy from a day spent with their families and the romance of the beautiful Summer nights.  I was as well! I drew until the business ran out and rode my bike home, covered in marker ink.  

    The same street performers appeared year after year, with only a few exceptions.  Bethany Wild, a crystalline-voiced singer and song-writer, with bleached blond hair and a 1000 megavolt smile, worked the pier during the lunchtime hours.  With her overly loud speakers, heavily produced soundtrack, and a fluffy lapdog, Harrison, in arms, she swayed to her own songs and often included sizzling renditions of jazz standards, such as "Fever", popularized back in the day by Peggy Lee. A blanket at her feet displayed CDs, which she promoted between sets. Her music radiated positivity but she would make catty remarks in her microphone addressing the people who walked by without acknowledging her tip jar.   "Go ahead, everyone...just walk by that tip jar. Don't put in a single dollar,"  she said with her crystal voice.  Street performing is a tough racket, and managing feelings of invisibility is one of the biggest challenges.  Alan, sinking deep into my guest chair and smoking a cigarette said of Bethany, "She never did nothing for nobody." This made me laugh, as it hardly seemed deserved, but could possibly be true.  

    My third year, a new performer, a tall willowy mime strode out on the pier. Going by the name, 'Pearl',  she was costumed in flowing white garb accented with a red sash and a floppy red hat, she carried a small red box - her podium.  Alighting atop it, she stood perfectly still until the time was right to strike out in movement. She interacted with the adoring crowd with great warmth and endeared them with a blazing red painted smile that conveyed nothing except radiant love.  The iconic gag involving a dropped handkerchief she made cunningly new: dropping the small red silk square in front of a passerby, yearning for it from her podium as if trapped there, and the expression of glee once it was returned.  How people were beguiled by her kisses blown through the air and laughed at somersaults from which she rebounded with balletic grace!  She occupied her spot across from me during the day, and was usually gone before Nancy appeared.  Nancy, however, knew who she was, and was no fan.  "She's really good, if you are into baffoonery Nancy once commented sneeringly, regarding the beautiful young mime.  

    So many things happened during this time.  My cabinet got broken into twice.  I forged casual friendships with many of the performers.  Pearl became my friend and confided in me her Christian Southern roots, as well as a burgeoning romance with a much older gentleman.  Years later, I would receive a postcard from Pearl, sent from the Tate Museum, and saying simply, 'Thinking of you."  Sophia, the hot dog vendor, and I visited each other regularly, and I continued to eat way too many hot dogs.  More than once, while sitting in my guest chair, she lamented her woes regarding her young son with learning and behavioral difficulties.  Together we admired Pearl.  "She is sooo beautiful," Sophia swooned.   I was going through my own life problems, but was buoyed by my business, which seemed to get better every year.  The tourists were challenging at times.  The people who looked interesting to me usually did not want a caricature, but there was a never ending supply of cute little children.  I don't think I ever drew someone without putting my entire heart into it.  I reveled in the responsibilities involved with running my little business, and constantly experimented with new ways of increasing sales and visibility. I worked indoors one holiday season, and became acquainted with a tattered Santa Claus, who drifted among the buckets and puddles, and who was in the habit of pointing out that Santa Claus did not originate as the clean-looking red and white figure of which we often think.  The seaport came under new management and required me to paint my cabinet to match the new brand colors.  Alan and I became thick as thieves, and spent many an afternoon under my umbrella drinking and smoking away our tips.  We talked about the other performers, and he once quipped regarding the tension between Nancy and Pearl, "Did you hear about the two mimes who got into a fight?  They are not speaking!" Once, I cannot remember the details, but after getting overly excited about something, he pulled his pants down and then went running into the distance yelling, "I am like Tarzan! Swinging from tree to tree!!"  

    A new balloon artist named Brian appeared my last year.  An enormously humble man who created breathtaking sculptures from balloons in his down time, he was secretly proud of being a member of the family which had established America's oldest balloon company, Pioneer Balloons.  Though gentle and unassuming, he had a face that reflected a difficult life.  I went on to learn about his past as a heroin addict.  He occupied a spot on the pier not far from Nancy, and though she was known for being territorial, Alan and I observed her soften in the presence of this newcomer.  Before too long, they were working together as a team. Nancy, Brian, and I were often the last people to leave the pier at night.  After rolling my cabinet into the service hallway with my last bit of strength, I wheeled my bike toward where Water Street becomes Pearl, and just ahead, the two of them rolling their carts toward the train station. I could see their old bodies hunched over in fatigue, but their hands linked together, as they disappeared into the street lit distance.  

                                  

  

Summer Wanes 2021

 

  

      We are in the last throes of Summer, and the great leafy branches that gently sway outside my windows are showing their first splashes of orange.  The heat has been intolerable for several weeks.  Last weekend, I repeated my ritual of taking a bus to Fort Tilden Beach and spending the day floating, swimming, and reading.  After a week of suffering through my work days, I realized that I probably had sustained heat stroke, as I had all the symptoms, including dizzyness and confusion, profuse sweating, cramping and headaches.  I even felt like I was going to disappear behind my eyes and fall away into the dirt a few times. Because I am accustomed to muscling my way through discomfort, it was not until yesterday at work, a week later, that I realized something was wrong. I left early, likely creating confusion and maybe even irritation among the other workers.  

    About three months ago, I began working at this design shop.  The company is 4 years old and just moved into a new space - a sprawling panopticon where the boss watches us from his desk on the mezzanine when he is not mingling and facilitating projects.  I know him through friends, and was delighted when he hired me.  His staff is competent and talented, and I felt I could learn from them, be a useful part of the team, as well as eventually use the shop for my personal projects.  Anyone who knows me knows of my abiding love of metal, and unrealized desire to have a shop of my own. I made the decision to work there instead of going back to union construction, as it allows for more flexible hours, a later start to the day, and a chance to work with people with whom  I may have something in common. This rarely happened on union jobs and my loner tendencies were exasperated by conversations around baseball and strippers.  Being useful, but more importantly, feeling useful is not only important to me when it comes to my employment, it is absolutely necessary for me to retain stability.  At this stage of my life, I have zero patience for busy work.  I have paid those dues way too many times after a lifetime of working job after job after job. My (mostly non-paying) personal pursuits easily occupy all my waking hours and trying to look busy when there is nothing meaningful to do is tantamount to torture.  The paycheck barely matters, although I know it should.  In a way, my last Local 580 job spoiled me, as my foreman, Bobby, always kept me busy, and I learned something new every day about the things I love - reading the drawings, doing layout, figuring out mechanical problems, and of course, the many physical challenges of rigging, climbing, and balance. At times when there was nothing to do, Bobby would say, "Just play the game, Marlene."  I never learned to play the game.  When I would make statements to my union fellows about needing the work to be "meaningful", they would scoff and tell me I was in the wrong place. 

    When I started at the design company in May, I did what I always do, which is to do my best.  It does not take long for other people to detect my earnestness, as well as my ineptitude.  I will always try, and I fail often.  Within just a few days, I started feeling the crushing feelings of being useless and the time started to pass like molasses. Unbearable tension rose in my chest and spread throughout my limbs.   Also, I had a few paying art gigs come my way which I chose to prioritize, so I took leave for several months.  Additionally, beginning around this time, a situation with my family which had been a slow burn for several years reached a devastating crescendo, requiring all of my emotional strength. This left me enfeebled, and looking back, I am so glad I made that bizarre decision to leave a potentially highly beneficial situation.  There would have been no way for me to be a functional member of a team during this time.  However, one day about three weeks ago, I realized my gigs had dried up, and that it may be the wise thing to revisit this opportunity.  I called the boss, and asked him if he still had a spot for me.  He immediately replied that he did, and I felt a surge of hope and relief.  

    I graduated with my MFA last year.  This was a long-standing goal of mine, and the people with whom I interacted probably experienced something of an art monster.  There was no way for them to know what being in that program meant to me.  At the times when I was failing, not academically, but personally, I did not manage it well.  There was confusion for me about this degree ultimately being about expression, but over and over again meeting with situations where my ways of expressing myself were not only unfruitful, but backfired detrimentally.  Part of the feedback that I absorbed not outwardly but through the process of interpretation, was that I make my problems into other peoples problems.  This created a harrowing conendrum. How do you ask for help in a way that is productive?  How do you win people over when you are crumbling?  How can I be a true to my own expression when that expression is so often met with walls?  My art was not the problem.  I was told that I was "talented" repeatedly by my professors, and I think they meant it.  I was the problem.  Me.  Outside of my art, but this is enough to stop my art from progressing beyond a very small enclosure, preempting many types of practical success.  My people skills have always been poor, but the experience of being in graduate school highlighted them in a way that was so punishing and shocking.  I always thought I would blossom in such an environment, and I did!- in many ways.  My work and process expanded well beyond my expectations, and in surprising ways.  I took every piece of advice.  I ate slept and breathed my art and art history. I learned about contemporary artists with whom I had been unwittingly dialoging.  The happiest moments of my life took place within the walls of my graduate studio with its towering ceilings, great sun-emitting windows, concrete floors, and shitty partitions that I could destroy with my installation experiments.  My work with Local 580, technically an ironworkers union, was mainly involved in installation, and I acquired a great love of attaching things to other things in ways that are daring.  The coalescing of my drawing, paintings, sculpture, and construction knowledge created an indomitable feeling in my chest that spread to my limbs.  

    It was, however, the loneliest time in my life.  I liked my peers, but there were many divides.  We were a random group, I was older, and I did not touch alcohol at all which precluded me from many bonding activities.  I had put the kabosh on almost all of my New York City friendships when I realized that I was changing. There were always people to go out with on a Saturday night, but when I started to court my old friends as a different person, they seemed distant. The more I was reading and thinking about ideas that interested me, the less I had in common with people at parties and the less patience I had for small talk or being an audience.   At the end of my first year, after a profound feeling that I was failing personally, I called my Mom and cried my eyes out to her while sitting in my car.  She said that she wanted to make me "feel like a princess", and I yelled at her, "I don't want to be a fucking princess!"  My angst was caused by a growing awareness that the unpopularity I had experienced for much of my life was never going to change, even when I was at my best.  I slowly began to realize that I am just like everyone that I hate.  Angry. Conceited. Self-absorbed. Pathetic. This was a horrible feeling. I began making my way down a rabbit hole that lead more and more to the divide between myself and my mother, that is exemplified in her well-meaning desire to "make me feel like a princess."  We are two very different people, and I never questioned her greatness as a mother until that year. 

    This may sound like blame, but it is not strictly that.  It is a part of unfolding as an adult, experienced by some, wherein you may begin to objectively assess formative experiences and use new understanding (hopefully) as a tool toward progress.  I began writing down all my memories and I called this collection Supermoon.  I started asking a lot of questions of my family members so that I could create an accurate timeline of my life.  My brother has a strong intellect, a memory like a steel trap, and is an alcoholic and an addict.  I have rarely felt comfortable with him save for a few phone conversations where he was undoubtedly "up".  My sister is a nurse, a mother of three, and has a symbiotic and very sweet relationship with my mother, as they live down the street from each other in Colorado.  I pressed my mom with questions about my father and their relationship before I was born which made her bristle.  I asked specific questions about different events which generated more questions.  This questioning and some of the resultant realizations began to create a new picture of my life and a shroud began to lift.  However it was not light that flooded in, but darkness.  I noticed how threatened my family was by my questions.  I noticed the gaps in their own knowledge.  For instance, my brother and sister had no knowledge of the punishing bullying I had endured beginning with kindergarten or my selective mutism.  My mom was particularly threatened by questions about the not talking, and her responses would devolve into "you were just fine."  But I wasn't fine.  I was 5 years old, then I was 6, then I was 7...very often coming home waling because of something someone had said or not said.  I felt like the only kids who talked to me were the ones who felt sorry for me.  I had no recourse except for gravitating to other loners which never felt real.  It must have been very hard for my mom to see me that upset and I know that she tried to help.  I think it must have drained her to have no answers.  Overwhelmingly, I remember her huffing at me to "stop the theatrics."  This is one of my earliest memories. When I tried to lean on my brother or sister while revisiting those memories, they saw it as a criticism of my mom, which it kind of is.  She was a single mom working hard to support us, but her priority was always, very Irishly, food on the table and clothing on our backs.  Granted, I view parenting through a modern lens.  I see parents leaning down to their five year olds asking them to say what they are feeling and validating their every whim, and it makes me feel sad.  I had lots of whims which were fine when it was quietly drawing, but beyond that  I usually had to fight for and defend them - especially as I got older.  More than one of my older relatives has confirmed, "It was always tough between you and your mom."  This truth had become buried in the pile of woes that my poor mom endured as a single parent with an abusive baby daddy. These took center stage until a few years ago, when I decided to stop feeling sorry for her.  I began to realize that my own woes barely had room to exist under her own.  In the worst moments, I hated her for having children with an abusive ne'er-do-well alcoholic who we were taught to despise.  In my adulthood, even before my own battle with alcohol, I started to see my father not as just a drunk, but as a human - wounded and struggling like us all with good bits along with the bad bits.  I once told my mom that I felt like I wasn't given the opportunity to love him, and this was grounds for a good several months of silent treatment.  

    Another thing I remember my mom telling me is to "think before I talk."  I wanted to follow her advice, as I did seem to have a problem with saying the wrong thing.  But the advice was too abstract, and I did not know how to employ it.  After all, one must think before talking right?  Plus, a lot of people thought I was funny, and I began to live for this new kind of attention.  It was, as good, if not more, of a way to get attention than drawing well.  All it took was for someone to laugh at something I said, and I liked them.  However, a lot of this dynamic is bound up in coping mechanisms that worked very well for many years. It still works, sometimes!  However, the better coping mechanism, which I realize after all these years (good god, I am almost 47) is to simply, think before you talk.  Are you being kind?  Are you being honest? Are you feeding into what the person in front of your face wants from you?  Are you being yourself? These are the questions I ask myself now, and have reverted into a kind of selective mutism, as this is a lot of thinking to do before responding.  I usually am nodding my head to signal that I am listening, which must make me look like a bobblehead. 

    Shortly after crying in the car to my mom, I made a phone call to a "friend" who has seen me at my best and worst over the years, who never hid his disdain for me (certainly tainted by unwelcomed sexual advances), and who has a thorough understanding of people, especially women. I reasoned that if I am going to get an honest answer about what is up with me and people, this thing that I cannot see,  it is going to have to come from someone who will be brutally honest, my feelings notwithstanding.  He inhaled deeply and said, "Don't talk."  

"What?' 

"Don't talk.  What happens if you don't talk?"

"You listen."

"Right."  

Silence. 

"You do this thing where you ask for help when you don't need it..." and his voice trials off into a little huff of not wanting to explain. "And...uh.  I don't know."

"I say the wrong thing sometimes. "

Silence.  

"What if I realize afterward that I said the wrong thing, and I want to apologize?" 

"Don't."

"Thank you.  I knew that you would...I mean, I always thought..."

"Don't. Talk."

Silence. 

"You try, but you have to try harder.  Let the other person finish.  Let it get awkward."

Silence.

"You are very competent.  I have seen you reinvent yourself many times."

Silence.  

"You have a lot of potential. I am going to go now." Click.

    So I am reinventing myself again. It is a mature iteration and with it comes a voice that does not issue from my vocal chords, but from my actions. I am learning to be the quiet sensitive person that I am, who is secretly, really really funny. It is also someone who gives a lot less of a fuck, or at least whose fucks are reserved for select items.  One wonderful old friend, who I leaned on recently, comforted me.  "Everything you do...is guided by a sort of integrity."  It took me several weeks to take that in, and to accept it.  I did emerge from graduate school with a few strong important relationships.  These are based on sincerity, witnessing, and acceptance.  The feeling that what I do and how I do it are O.K. is like an uncomfortable bra that I keep plucking at leaving those weird indents between my tits. The dent will go away, and my chest will feel fine, and a feeling of fine will eventually spread to all my limbs. This is the hope! I hate clichés, but there is one to which I must submit: If we don't have hope, we have nothing!