Well, gee, golly gosh darn. Look what I found. From the Dane County Jail. The NGB wrote me a poem. And it's a nice poem. It's not a good poem, exactly. But it is a very nice poem. I will spare you the details. Except for this: "Out in the mountains where no one goes, I found a beautiful woman, as sweet as a rose..." And more along that vein. He didn't find me in the mountains where no one goes. He found me in a biker bar. A year later, he turned into a headbanging guy. And I in no way exonerate him. But he thought about me in ways I never thought about him (well, who would call him "sweet as a rose"?), but you get the drift. He was in love. I was just going along for the ride. Can't be completely sorry. Except for the pain. On both sides.
Saturday, June 28, 2003
Friday, June 27, 2003
An invitation to a wedding, Friday June 15 (my son's birthday) 1984 (he would have been 18 that year). I don't remember if I went to the wedding. It was for a guy I used to work with at the pressure washer business next door to where I lived, run by a guy popularly known as Sleezy Jim Giese. It was his mechanic Jim's wedding. Mechanic Jim was a great guy. I liked him lot. Very down to earth. Good people. A specific memory doesn't pop right up. He was just a nice guy. "Softly, as the colors of a Rainbow Our lives are touched by Love". The front of the invite. A rainbow with daisies. Hope the marriage worked.
Ah - now for something refreshingly different. My friend Gilbert, still a friend - I even know where he is - sends me a "memo" from someplace in one of the Carolina's, I think, where he at a summer philosophy seminar - whether teaching or attending, I do not remember. 30 July 1984. He took his motorcycle out there, and complains, "Bar time here is 2:00 am, and the police are worse than flies on hamburger ... Put you through a routine (recite alphabet standing/hopping on one foot touching your nose alternately with different fingers) worthy of Monty Python - if you giggle they bust you."
This may be the same place where he rented a small one-room cottage that he could drive his bke into (much too paranoid to just park it outside, Gilbert's bike lived with him), and coming home drunk one night, he got caught in the doorway just long enough for the bike to lean against one of his calves on the muffler side inflicting horrible (don't know what degree) burns, a memory I'm glad I don't have, sharing his memory of that event hurts just thinking about it. Doesn't seem as if it has happened as of this memo.
I guess I had written him and chided him about not sending a card. He ends with, "Well, even if you never got a post card, at least you got a memo."
This may be the same place where he rented a small one-room cottage that he could drive his bke into (much too paranoid to just park it outside, Gilbert's bike lived with him), and coming home drunk one night, he got caught in the doorway just long enough for the bike to lean against one of his calves on the muffler side inflicting horrible (don't know what degree) burns, a memory I'm glad I don't have, sharing his memory of that event hurts just thinking about it. Doesn't seem as if it has happened as of this memo.
I guess I had written him and chided him about not sending a card. He ends with, "Well, even if you never got a post card, at least you got a memo."
Thursday, June 26, 2003
Before I go on, the term for Kerista's method of confrontation was called "gestalt". If there seemed to be a problem, they would "gestalt" you. From where I sat, it looked pretty ugly and manipulative. Others, I guess, didn't think so.
Zipping ahead a few years, I pull out a promotional picture for a stripper named Champaine Biege. It is a beautiful picture, and she is a beautiful woman. Unfortunately, a picture here is not worth a thousand words, although it is signed to me and my then NGB, "with love, Champaine."
I met Champaine when "Grampa" got out of prison. I don't even know Grampa's story - or if I ever did, I've forgotten it now. There was a "Grandma" - an older woman who hung out at the local biker bar, and when Grampa got out of prison, there was a huge party. Grandma was right there at the center of it, the good 'ol lady standing by her ol' man.
Grampa immediately took up with Champaine. They were heroin addicts. I bet Grandma was too, but I didn't see too much of her after that. I only saw Grampa and Champaine because for some reason or other, they were hanging out with the bikers I knew, even though I don't think he was originally with our club. I have one clear memory and one clear bone to pick from that short era. The one clear memory was drinking with them in a bar in some small town somewhere in the summertime, sometime when winter had decided to be gone for good from northern Wisconsin, and we all turned out in t-tops. I think we'd all ridden out to T's dad's bar. Suddenly, Champaine grabbed my arm, and held it out to Grampa. "Look at this, Gramps! It's a virgin!" And then she smiled this way too brilliant smile, and asked if she could borrow my arm. It was a vampire moment.
The bone is my camera. She and Grampa came over to my apartment one afternoon when I was at the store and my nine-year-old daughter was holding down the fort. They let themselves in, and rambled around, putting my records on the stereo (remember records? remember stereos?), and dancing to Janis Joplin at top volume. Caroline (the daughter) was extremely pissed off, and finally she went in and turned on the TV, turned it up really loud, and told them they had to turn off the stereo and leave. To give them some credit, they did. Of course, even now folks tend to do what Caroline wants them to do. To take away that credit, they also took away my 35 mm. camera. The only good camera I've ever owned. I could never prove it, of course, and it's long hocked and sucked up their anything-but-virgin arms anyway. But it still rankles.
I remember Champaine wanting us (any of us in the club) to give a party, so she could dance for everybody. I didn't want to. Not too many of the other women did, either. But finally there was one. I didn't go, but even the guys I talked to said she couldn't dance. It was a little embarassing, in fact. She was too high, too drunk. She was probably high on my camera.
Zipping ahead a few years, I pull out a promotional picture for a stripper named Champaine Biege. It is a beautiful picture, and she is a beautiful woman. Unfortunately, a picture here is not worth a thousand words, although it is signed to me and my then NGB, "with love, Champaine."
I met Champaine when "Grampa" got out of prison. I don't even know Grampa's story - or if I ever did, I've forgotten it now. There was a "Grandma" - an older woman who hung out at the local biker bar, and when Grampa got out of prison, there was a huge party. Grandma was right there at the center of it, the good 'ol lady standing by her ol' man.
Grampa immediately took up with Champaine. They were heroin addicts. I bet Grandma was too, but I didn't see too much of her after that. I only saw Grampa and Champaine because for some reason or other, they were hanging out with the bikers I knew, even though I don't think he was originally with our club. I have one clear memory and one clear bone to pick from that short era. The one clear memory was drinking with them in a bar in some small town somewhere in the summertime, sometime when winter had decided to be gone for good from northern Wisconsin, and we all turned out in t-tops. I think we'd all ridden out to T's dad's bar. Suddenly, Champaine grabbed my arm, and held it out to Grampa. "Look at this, Gramps! It's a virgin!" And then she smiled this way too brilliant smile, and asked if she could borrow my arm. It was a vampire moment.
The bone is my camera. She and Grampa came over to my apartment one afternoon when I was at the store and my nine-year-old daughter was holding down the fort. They let themselves in, and rambled around, putting my records on the stereo (remember records? remember stereos?), and dancing to Janis Joplin at top volume. Caroline (the daughter) was extremely pissed off, and finally she went in and turned on the TV, turned it up really loud, and told them they had to turn off the stereo and leave. To give them some credit, they did. Of course, even now folks tend to do what Caroline wants them to do. To take away that credit, they also took away my 35 mm. camera. The only good camera I've ever owned. I could never prove it, of course, and it's long hocked and sucked up their anything-but-virgin arms anyway. But it still rankles.
I remember Champaine wanting us (any of us in the club) to give a party, so she could dance for everybody. I didn't want to. Not too many of the other women did, either. But finally there was one. I didn't go, but even the guys I talked to said she couldn't dance. It was a little embarassing, in fact. She was too high, too drunk. She was probably high on my camera.
Monday, June 23, 2003
Before I lose them again, here are two URL's:
http://www.mithrilstar.org/imladris/kerista.htm
http://www.toryfolliard.com/profiles.asp?artist=Munch
The first one is an article about an old San Francisco commune called Kerista and the second one MIGHT be examples of my friend Charles' art - the style looks similar.
About Kerista - Mary's last letter mentioned it, because C&J were trying to talk her into joining. I remember they came to C&J's house for a recruitment meeting. All of our little Door County counterculture group was there. I remember Brother Jud. All I could think at the time was, what a con man. He had a beard and very piercing eyes, and practiced some kind of confrontational psychology - there was a term for it and I can't remember it - it's in the Kerista article, and if I go there now, I'll lose what I've written so far here - but, as the author of the article says, another word for it is haranging (sp?). The whole thing looked like a very scary proposition to me. There was the idea of polyamory - but you had little or no choice about whom you would sleep with - it had to be a different person in your little group every night. There was little or no individuality. It was an experiment in group mind. The group would make most if not all of one's decisions for them. Several folks were interested. My ex-husband and I were definitely not. I don't know if anything got off the ground in Door County. We sold the farm and left them and each other not too much later. I remember beginning to question some of their ideas, and was immediately told that I was being negative and was not a good influence in the group. I thought that was good. I left.
http://www.mithrilstar.org/imladris/kerista.htm
http://www.toryfolliard.com/profiles.asp?artist=Munch
The first one is an article about an old San Francisco commune called Kerista and the second one MIGHT be examples of my friend Charles' art - the style looks similar.
About Kerista - Mary's last letter mentioned it, because C&J were trying to talk her into joining. I remember they came to C&J's house for a recruitment meeting. All of our little Door County counterculture group was there. I remember Brother Jud. All I could think at the time was, what a con man. He had a beard and very piercing eyes, and practiced some kind of confrontational psychology - there was a term for it and I can't remember it - it's in the Kerista article, and if I go there now, I'll lose what I've written so far here - but, as the author of the article says, another word for it is haranging (sp?). The whole thing looked like a very scary proposition to me. There was the idea of polyamory - but you had little or no choice about whom you would sleep with - it had to be a different person in your little group every night. There was little or no individuality. It was an experiment in group mind. The group would make most if not all of one's decisions for them. Several folks were interested. My ex-husband and I were definitely not. I don't know if anything got off the ground in Door County. We sold the farm and left them and each other not too much later. I remember beginning to question some of their ideas, and was immediately told that I was being negative and was not a good influence in the group. I thought that was good. I left.
