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Gretchen, Gonzo, & Grucifixion
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March 28, 2005
Hunter threaded the (Sedan de Ville) between granite retaining walls and huge elms with 1/32 of an inch to spare, driving on the goddamn sidewalk. "Hunter, get back on the street! Every yuppie in these antebellum mansions is dialing 911. What will you say to the cops?" Hunter told me that I worry too much. - Bob Braudis, Pitkin County Sheriff on a trip to Louisville, KY where Hunter was honored with the key to the city
† Weird day. Woke up with this idea to frame a couple of Thompson's books in my collection antique knives, daggers, and one thrashed Bolivian machete, photograph it. next thing i know I'm building an entire mandala, like those buddhist sand paintings they do on the floor then blow away. I start hunting for photographs of Duke and any and all Hunter-related stuff I've got. Pretty soon the thing is too wide to photograph just standing over it where it's splayed out on the brick floor. Pretty soon I'm standing on milk crates and holding the camera at arms length overhead, lens pointed down, guessing. Then along comes Gretchen with a bag of ice to cool my beer and the portrait she did of me in oil, whipped off in a matter of minutes while I sat talking to her at the Pallet House the other day. Such talent never fails to amaze me. and then she says, "It's yours." Unbelievable. Yet not really, not down here in Bisbee where the talent is pandemic. Thunderhead thick it hangs over the town, a jazz monsoon ready to jam at any moment, no cover charge. Like that old Appalachian folk music "jug band" Lonesome Shack at the Copper Queen t'other night. Outstanding. I pore over the song names and sources in their CD jacket, and whaddya know but two songs are inspired by my brother Harrod's papa, from his film "A Well Spent Life." Uncanny. Les Blank. Bisbee. Appalachia. And now this portrait of me like some van Gogh with glasses by a pretty girl and power freak from my native Massachusetts. In the desert, you can't remember your name, cuz there ain't no one for to give you no urban gallery spin-cycle misconceptions of WHAT ART IS. Out here, alone 99% of the time, talking to myself and to you, I don't mind not hearing my name. Like a long gaze skyward into the Milky Way, it is humbling, peaceful. "In Project Mayhem, no one has a name. In death (however) a member of Project Mayhem has a name." [Fight Club] His name was Hunter Thompson. All day long, I do my usual dance with the Beemer and the inverter, the iBook and the mp3 player, draining down one, then switching to another. today somehow I managed to not run the car battery all the way down. And I didn't even drive anywhere. That makes two days out here without a town run. Yesterday and today. That's good. I need to separate myself from the world of gossip and expensive drink that is Old Bisbee. Yesterday I climbed the mountain to the northeast of me, leaving from here with naught but a fanny pack of water and my Leki poles. I walked seven miles in two hours, most of it straight up and straight down. Getting down off the mountain, I had to do some heavy bushwacking, which here in the desert can be deadly. Clad only in shorts, my legs looked like hamburger in the end, so terrifically lacerated I could have done body-double stand-in shots for Jesus in Mel's recent grucifixion film. Last night at sunset, when the warm sun was still on the desert, I bathed out behind the Pallet House with nothing but some lukewarm water heated on the stove, my shampoo, a towel, and the sun reflecting off the bright aqua-green of Gretchen's art house to keep me warm. Then I poured me a beer and sat swinging in her porch swing while the sun sank behind the mountains to the west.
I only wish Gretchen (pictured above) had stayed longer today. I was finishing my mandala when I heard and then saw her Lion Car dashing away down the dirt road. I had really wanted to visit with her. I like being alone out here, but I crave company in small doses, one visitor at a time would be great. Anyway, it's late. In addition to the transient HST piece, I edited another dozen pages of the 600 or so I've got to go on the book. I found out on the Internet the other day that some female writer has a "book in progress" called Paradoxical Undressing, my preferred title for the AT tome. Worse, she's got a copyright symbol beside the name. I'm not sure what the legalities are there, but I ain't liking it. Bitch. She stole my title! Why is it people always think up the same stuff at the same time like that? Well, whatever the title, my book's gonna kick her book's ass. I read today that 85% of the book buyers out there are middle aged women. Perfect. You, lovely ladies of your middle years, for whatever reason, have been the biggest slice of my Jigglebox audience for years now. So, I can't lose, right? I gotta believe it. Or it's punchin' the Beemer to 120 mph straight to Heaven out and over the edge of The Grand Canyon real soon. And if I do, I'll take every manuscript I've ever written, every hard drive and every backup disk with me to oblivion. Because you know what happens to an unpublished writer's shit when he/she dies before creating a market for their work? Nothing. Oblivion. Something's gotta break for me. And I AIN'T checking out until it does. Hmm. Have I contradicted myself there? Yes, I believe I have. Well, good. Perhaps that hardcover published, Library of Congress filed, professionally bound and in bookstores first book, that long overdue badge of accomplishment, perhaps that will be the mojo to beat Mr. Death. I'm trying Lord, I really am. -RSM |
Copyright 2005 Richard McKinney
All Rights Reserved
(Just ask & I'll likely let you reprint anything!)