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Jan-Feb 2015

So far so good! Sun and storm, snow and rain, smiles and tears, laughs and frowns, ups/downs.

Earl Buys, Alexis Savino friends indeed!

Sandy Jordon, David Capurso, Herbert Fox!

Sister Beth, Brother Jim: Alive and living in America.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/george.wienbarg

May 1–22, 2014

Its May Day.

The "State of the Art" is the condition of an art or it's current permutation; the art's most recent, viable iteration.

-----Dreamers take Manhattan Copyright 2014 by Mojo Mendiola

In the field of digital art, Mojo Mendiola proves a transformative, independent—and, yes, incendiary character.

Mendiola's works contain elements of the fine arts from whence they emanate— and from which Mendiola himself seems to have been born. Furthermore the pieces scream of his equipment's scientific and logical architecture in that it allows for his creative expression.

Electronic Creative Expressionism is validated in Mendiola by his background in art criticism/creation. His is a pedigreed imersion into the craft. His ensuing proficiency as a digital artist is evinced by his pedigree in photography which, for over thirty years, has given us thousands of published photos of subjects in live concert and on-location venues along with acompanying written word. Philologism..

Thus have his thoughtful and socially relevant creations evolved. Ironically, the gestalt of a given genre is defined, quantified and qualified by critics. Those whose observations have been acknowledged as sentient by others in the "universe" in which these and other creations like them eminate. So when the esteemed New York poet and "pilologist" Bob Holman acknowledged in a recent conversation that Mendiola is "...a surrealist all the way!" it is an essential observation by one whose background is of the same essential universe from which they both observe art as reality.

And this is the "State of the Art." In the world of digital art Mendiola is its State. As a point in fact, Mendiola's pieces—especially like "The Donkey Knows How", "Don't Think Twice", "Liberty In A Small Boat" and particularly Mendiola's most recent, "Dreamers take Manhattan" have blown me away. Want to mention more?
http://www.mendio-l-art.com/index1.php

Approximate Translation into the German:

Der "state of the art" ist der Zustand einer Kunst oder ihre gerade stattfindende Neuordnung, ihre jüngste lebensfähige Wiederholung.
In seiner Arbeit mit digitaler Kunst erweist sich Mojo Mendiola als umwandelnde, umgestaltende und unabhängige Persönlichkeit. Mendiolas Arbeiten enthalten Elemente aus den bildenden Künsten, aus denen sie ihren Ursprung nehmen und aus denen auch Mendiola geboren zu sein scheint. Außerdem verraten die Arbeiten viel über die wissenschaftliche und logische Architektur der Mittel, die es ihm ermöglichen, diese kreative Ausdruckskraft zu erzielen.
Mendiolas elektronisch-kreativer Expressionismus beweist sich vor seinem Background aus Kunstkritik und Kunstschaffen. Man erkennt in ihnen das vorbehaltlose Eintauchen in seine Handwerke – dreißig Jahre Fotografie und tausende veröffentlichter Konzert- und Location-Fotos einerseits und das geschriebene Wort andererseits, die Philologie – und die daraus folgende Tüchtigkeit. So haben sich wohl durchdachte und gesellschaftlich relevante Schöpfungen entwickelt.
Ironischerweise wird die Gestalt eines gegebenen Genres von denjenigen definiert und bewertet, deren Kritik ihrerseits Anerkennung fand bei anderen im selben kreativen Universum. Als z. B. der angesehene New Yorker Dichter und Philologe Bob Holman unlängst in einem Gespräch mit Hochachtung feststellte: "... Mendiola ist Surrealist durch und durch!", war dies eine wesentliche Beobachtung von einem, der aus demselben philologischen Background stammt wie Mendiola, sodass beide aus demselben Universum heraus auf die Realität Kunst schauen.
Dies ist der "state of the art", und in der Welt der digitalen Kunst ist Mendiola ihr Stand. Bilder wie "Der Esel weiß wie", "Don't Think Twice", "Freiheit in kleinem Boot" ......... noch einen Titel einfügen?............... haben mich zutiefst beeindruckt.
bloggte George Jay Wienbarg III, Autor und Sprecher für diverse New Yorker Medien (Rolling Stone, Christian Post, CNN, WYNY FM, WKHK FM ect.) über Mendiola's Ausstellung in Brooklyn, New York, 14. April 2014

http://www.mendio-l-art.com/

##

August 27, 2013

I haven't been posting much here, though I see on my weekly stats my blog is being accessed, so will continue below:

I had an enlightening if unsettling conversation with a friend from Alexandria, Egypt just now (Tuesday night, Aug. 27) and he answered the questions I posed to him succinctly from the standpoint of not only a Coptic (Christian) Egyptian, but from people throughout the Mideast.

My friend has a Greek last name, it sounds like when he pronounces it. An accountant before coming to the US, Gamile is now a citizen here. But in asking him about the situation in his home country he was much more strident than usual in placing his alliances.

First of all he excoriated our president for even considering entering the civil war in Syria. Usually he berates the Muslim Brotherhood, but today he was firmly entrenched against the American position of taking retribution against Assad and that while in saying, "The Brotherhood" supports Assad.

Gamile's reasoning is that We—this includes Israel—are attempting to "get to" Iran through Syria, even though Syria has a 74% Sunni majority, Iran 90% Shi'a. Gamile also said that not only is Egypt taking a stand against the US—in the midst of Egypt's"troubles", but so is Saudi Arabia, Jordan and practically the entire League of Arab States. (This goes against what I had understood about Saudi Arabia's allegiance, by the way.) I mentioned Russia and Gamile agreed, of course, that Russia is against any action in Syria.

But referring back to Egypt he and another Egyptian standing nearby, —this guy a Muslim—said that Egypt would close the Suez Canal to American goods should we enter the conflict.

Gamile then said that America is "creating this scenario", meaning that we are supporting the Muslim Brotherhood simply to make an even more definitive move into the Mideast along with Israel .

Usually Gamile is more circumspect but tonight he went on to say that Obama's half-brother in Kenya, Africa is the head of the Muslim Brotherhood there. This may technically insignificant, but the fact is going to cause big trouble for Obama's White House. Gamile was vitriolic suggesting any number of conspiracy theories regarding the situation there in the Mideast, Egypt in Particular. "why is Obama sticking his nose in there?" His friend piped in, "For the Oil. If America enters into Syria, Egypt will close the canal and you will have no more lights, no more cars," he said, pointing to the lights in the skyscrapers along Forty-Second Street where we stood.

I know many Americans are rabid conspiratorialists. But our conspircy theorists are office gossips compared to these people, where a rumor can spread like a fusee and wreak havoc when it finally explodes.

Many Americans are against any further conflicts in that part of the world. Their sentiments would echo those of Gamile and my other friends from Tunis, Jordan, Egypt, and Palestine. I imagine that the sentiments across the United States would be similar: Don't do it!

The next 48-hours will be telling. But it might indeed be the time to focus our attention on something more substantial than what the Mousketeers have become.

##

November 9, 2012

Notes Post Sandy, post election:

I was right on both counts: Sandy was not a hurricane when it landed in NY, NJ, CT. Never was above a Cat I. The election was a bust. First one in which I have not voted since 1982.

Predictions of faulty infrastructure have come since 2005. Emergency preparedness on the part of fire, police and emt, as usual, heroic and exemplary.

August 16, 2012

There are very few major accomplishments of my own that I cannot attribute directly or indirectly to Tom Bauman. Since Tom Bauman was the first person to give me a job at his radio station when I was but a strapping 16 year old kid still in high school, and I have pursued that field of endeavor successfully for 45 years.

Tom was doing a story in the East High cafeteria one day and my job as the announcer for the daily bulletin at East gave me the courage to walk up to this most famous of Cheyenne celebrities and ask for a job. I had never heard his voice in person before, but he shook me when he said, “Come down to the station tomorrow.” or something equally as profound. He was one of the most naturally gifted announcers I have every known and his voice sounded the same as I remembered on the radio. It melted everyone who heard it on the air or in person.

There at KRAE Tom had the forsight to hire some of the most brilliant radio personalities in the country, and we were fortunate to have them in Cheyenne—I being blessed by God himself to work and learn from geniuses such as Rodger “Mac” McDaniel, “Uncle” Mike McKewin, Paul Harbison, and others.

The first radio news person I had ever known personally was a black guy by the name of John Gillenwater. Gentle, brilliant, dedicated, John was the news director under Tom long before black was cool. John ate, drank and breathed news just as Tom did, just as we all did at that radio station from the DJs to the sales people everyone was focused on news, from blizzards and road closings in I-80 or I-25 to any other crazy weather that could—and did—hit at any time! Tom is the reason I ended up in radio news for the most of my career starting with KIMN in Denver and then on to Chicago as the youngest major market news director in the country at 20, on to LA and finally here to New York where I worked for the #1 all news station in the country, 1010 WINS. The link to Tom Bauman is irrefutably and deeply embedded for me and so many others.

I know Tom was from Nebraska. From his name, German, as is my family. Probably farmers or merchants, I know that he was born in Chadron, went to college and was in the military… But where he got the skill, perception and heart to program KRAE into one of the greatest small-market stations in America can only be attributed to his faith, his upbringing, and his family. KRAE was the #1 station in the city for years because of this insight. But more importantly, his staff cultivated the sense of community that Mr. Bauman himself had nurtured.

Back in the 1960s, community was the reason for media, rather than the other way around where public media seems just a political tool. For me, Tom—and those like him such as Paul Harvey, Arthur Godfrey, Edward R. Murrow and their ilk—is the intrinsic link of radio to its community. Whether in Cheyenne, Denver or New York, Tom Bauman would have been possessed of the same leadership qualities he had here in his chosen home. He would have been the Rudolf Giuliani, or the Jerry Brown, or the Cory Booker in whatever market he was in. But it was Cheyenne where Tom made his home, and it was to Cheyenne that Tom gave his heart. To Cheyenne, and to his wife Deanna and children who walked with him in his every step in his strength and determination.

It was Tom’s vision that created LCCC and saw the project through and everyone who was around back then knew this. It was Tom Bauman who saw what lay in the future, and it was for that reason that Tom did so much of the work in seeing LCCC become reality. I’m not saying others didn’t, but Tom Bauman saw a vision and he knew that if he built it they would come!

My last image of Tom is back in 1969 which is when I left KRAE for a summer job before returning for college at the U of W. To me now Tom is the tall, stately, dulcet-toned personae he was in my youth. With straight, sandy blonde hair always parted just so, his piercing blue eyes shot fire when he was angry or sternly soothed a bruised ego. Tom was the epitome of leadership and mentorship. Through him I learned the leadership qualities of loyalty, perseverance, strength of character, honor and service.

I’ll never forget the time that one of the giant rectifier tubes on the final amplifier had gone out at the KRAE transmitter. I had inherited the tool kit of an electronics engineer relative. The station was off the air in the middle of the day, so we drove the swamp where the KRAE transmitter was situated with some urgency in the famous KRAE Mobile Unit. I was amazed that this little shack could house a voice that could move an entire city. Under Tom’s guidance as a First Class FCC license-holder, I swapped the burnt out device for the new one and we back on the air!

This was just one example of many where Tom buoyed my confidence and set me lose on the world. What I learned in two years at KRAE I couldn’t have learned in any college, though I did go on to speak at several across the country, based on the basic precepts I know now learned from Tom Bauman: 1) honesty in everything with no compromise and 2) responsibility to community.

Many mentors have influenced me since 1967 when Tom Bauman first saw a wide-eyed kid who didn’t know anything that day in the East High cafeteria. None of those individuals would have given me the time of day if Tom Bauman had not given me a special, magic gift.

Tom’s gift filled in where my intelligence was short, provided me talent to speak where there was no voice before, gave me a sense of my self and the knowledge of how I fit into whatever situation in whatever city I found myself. This gift has taken me to the greatest markets in the nation, introduced me to some of the world’s most important people, and now in his passing—brings me closer to my God, for where else could all this flood of talent have come from?

Tom Bauman was my first glimpse of what celebrity is meant to be: service of your country, community, family and only then, yourself.

Thank you Tom Bauman!

February 21, 2012

Looking at my computer screen
A blank square of white
Words slowly appear
Telling a story.

It began long ago
Some 40 50 years
In the land of Spanish Leather
Where the rabbits played and made
Others like themselves.

And we tumbled over end to find
What we didn’t know
We would soon find out
My friend.

We learned rhymes and rhythums,
Lines and how laughter comes
From deep in some,
And scratches the skin of others.

How much we bare has naught to do
With how much others give
But how God decided we should bend
To the winds of friendship and family change
Fidelity and mishaps that create us.

Lord give me the strength to know how much I can stand
Before I burst like a balloon and my waters break
Drenching all below me
Them standing bravely as the night gives way to light and that
To darkness sternly altering our perception of it.

Give me the light to live for thee for me for them
Who in this hour of sad, loneliness grant me the peace to thrive
Live joy peace comfort still my soul my rampant heart of hearts
Torn out by my heart of iron, a man and woman cast upon your
Flailing earth to survive another billion years of treachery and demise.

Give us heart to look at those of us with everything we want
Knowing we have what they desire: our light lives love longing,
Past lingering, souls figuring, where we will meet again?
If not forever then where, and why and who?

This white screen lasts longer than I do,
So I give it back to whence it came.
A plastic game of choice among fellow beings—
Of the deep, of the wood of our loins and heart and hood.

February 21, 2012

Whew! been a long time since I blogged...

Bus Driving Again! Yikes!

Though my first day adventures as a bus operator with New York Airporter were probably not anything out of the ordinary in the grand schema, they may I hope, prove to be amusing in some obtuse, bukowskian way.

Let’s see… How to begin without boring myself. Difficult, as I have already lived this and I am actually doing it to stay alive. Possibly my first mistake. I should be doing this for the money. Make note to self:

The day yesterday, my first driving a forty-foot long, motor home-like truck with thirty three seats and a wheelchair lift. At eleven feet, five inches high, it is short enough to go through all the overpasses along the Grand Central and Van Wyke Expressways unless you get too close to the arched roof of the Grand Central Parkway at which point your bus will be about 9 feet high…

The logistics of this endeavor required that I get up at 2:00 a.m. in order to make public transportation connections to Building 4 at John F. Kennedy Airport by subway, then bus in varying combinations depending on which subways are running that particular day. Monday they were running sporadically on the A line which is what I decided to take. Who knew? With stops due to a sick passenger that cost us about 20 minutes for the ambulance to arrive at the station before us at 14th Street we proceeded onward at about 10-15 miles an hour all the way to the Air Tran, the JFK'S verson of a monorail. (Funny referring to Jack Kennedy as a monorail.).

The Air Tran will be going down for a month next month so they can work on it. But since I have been taking it—I need it. But since people will have no other way to get to the airport but by our bus, I am happy. I know, I will life at the airport.

Since I had driven the Boulevard East jitnies through the Lincoln Tunnel on and off for a couple of years, I was relatively nonplussed about the idea of this driving adventure, per se, other than it would be a different clientele. Rather than just learning Spanish I would have the opportunity to learn the hundred and twenty-five languages spoken in New York! I knew my parents would be proud of me now—except that they are dead. So just I'm just pleasing myself—and my landlord Nate Korn who popped in unexpectedly to enquire about any repairs I needed on my apartment, and which he said would be effected as soon as I paid my back rent!

I didn’t really just write that did I? Oh, well, its my blog and I’ll write what I want to, write what I want to, write what I want to. You would write to if it happened to you : )

So back to the story.

I picked up my bus at about 4:50 a.m., thirty minutes late. My heartbeat didn’t even go up. I grabbed one of the twenty vehicles in the lot and headed out—then headed back in when the beeping engine light on 3212 wouldn’t quit, grabbed another bus, did my pre-trip inspection walk-around pretending I was an airline pilot for the hulking 747 at the KAL cargo terminal there where we park, reminding me that, in fact, I am “only a bus driver.” (A passenger on my Blvd. East bus had said that to me a few years ago.)

Bus 3224 performed flawlessly. It even got me to the city from the bus parking lot which I had never done before. I do not know how I got from there to the City, I presume it was Zen and the art of bus driving, because in all our training we had never been shown that particular route.

So not wanting to appear stupid, I somehow found my way around that airport all day long and, using alternate routes airport routes (I'll tell you in a minute), driving where no Wyoming cowboy had ever driven before, indeed, including the Bronx, by mere intuition and bus 3224's calming influence.

Once in Manhattan due to the late trains and recalcitrant equipment, I had about 5 minutes to get to the first pickup spot at Penn Station on the corner of 31st Street and 7th Avenue. I know that was the pickup because it had been drilled into me for three weeks and with a bus full of passengers the dispatcher announced over my intercom that I would be suspended for parking anywhere else. Which I didn’t, and wouldn’t, but the passengers could have noted that I may be liable for suspension by the way the dispatcher phrased the admonition, leading me to believe that the passengers somehow knew this is the first time I had driven passengers in four years...

Boulevard East buses are owned by Egyptian friends who grew the company as a result of carrying neighbors in their car every day to their store in the garment district to a hundred buses and a multi-million dollar business. I made almost thirteen thousand dollars there in four and a half months—working twenty hours a day—but it was enough to get myself out of the last rent debate I was in with Nate Korn four years ago. Some people never learn. I also half way believe I yearned to meet new people and explore new cultures!

This is going to be boring, isn’t it? Oh God, help me to make this as exciting and interesting as Bruce Finley said it might be when he suggested I write about my day…

As I approached 31st Street on Sixth Avenue a truck shot out of nowhere and exploded into a taxi crossing about 150 yards in front of me, spinng the cab around, his plastic bumper slid across the street as I curved blithely around it, the shattered glass and red plastic from me to the wrecked vehicles. Because it was dark, it was President’s day, and there were but one or two other vehicles on the road—Nate Korn predominantly on my mind, I made up my mind to carry on to the stop, not passing Go or collecting $200 dollars or a fine for leaving the scene, something I would not have done when I was working for pleasure instead of money.

There were no people at Penn Station, and it was on to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, a behomth 5-deck building as large as a city block where giant buses drive around the building heading to everywhere in America. The PA, coincidentally, sits directly in front of my apartment building on 42nd Street and 8th Avenue.

Owned by Nate’s brother Jimmy Korn, Kaufman’s Army Navy is only a ghost of Sergeant’s Army Navy back home in Cheyenne, but it is the last surviving store of its kind in this city of 8 million. I live there on a cot in the back. heh heh! Not really. I live in a two bedroom rent-controlled apartment right above it for which I pay half of its market value, about fourteen hundred dollars at present. And the Korns and I have been locked in bitter court battles over it on and off for nearly 5 years as he tries to wrangle me out. Though he and his wife, two attornies originally from NYC now living in Albuquerque have done what they could, they gave up after remodeling the building with me in it over the course of the past two years. It looks great. The apartments rent for $3,500. I had never wanted to be there in the first place! My second wife, Sandra (or was it third?, no fourth!) had me installed in another apartment in the building with an opera singer friend of hers in 1995, two weeks before Christmas, 8 months after my dad died. Otherwise I would still be living in my East Village studio. So given the choice, I am happy with the move I made ten years ago that landed me here in the heart of Times Square! Thanks Sandra!

I went to my apartment, grabbed my fingerless gloves, and used the restroom at Mikes deli downstairs so I didn't have to walk in the apt with my street shoes on. The fingerless gloves made me feel more like a race driver. Then it was on to Grand Central Terminal for the final pickup of the run then off to JFK.

Happily 3224 made it with no problems at all and it was a gorgeous day filled with generous passengers, responsive to my radio voice and tour of the City, and I proceeded onward to the last stop at Jet Blue at JFK Terminal 5 where I have a half hour layover, gayly chatting the winsome 23 year old dispatcher before taking on passengers at each terminal and heading back to the City.

I could not believe how smoothly my first pickup went, due, no doubt to the excellent training of one Mr. Doodnaugh Thompson originally from Guiana, but now from New York. "Thompson", as he is known, taught me how to soak raw organic oatmeal overnight and cook it with milk, white Mideastern raisins and cinnamon sticks to have during your first break, a banana on the second trip and a fancy peanut butter sandwich on the third, as the famous ukuleleist Jessica Latshaw would have it.

Listen, at this point it becomes all about the LITTLE things, as you will hear…

Tipping is the only reason I took this job, so it got to the point by the end of the day that I would stand by the person who was going to stiff me with a hand full of bills until he coughed up. I used to see the movie doormen on old black and white films do this till the stingy things would put down their bags, reached reluctantly into their billfold, and get out a dollar or two for me. ME the man who had just had their lives solely in his hands through arguable the most treacherous traffic in the U.S., the people with the second highest insurance and second worst driving records of any state—other than their jealous neighbors from New Jersey—New York! Me, with no on-board computers, fancy gauges or radios telling me where I was. One guy even gave me a quarter, two dimes and a nickel. Another driver told me he tells people like that, "You look like a nice peson. Why don't you take that home and put it in your piggy bank, and the next time you see me you can give me a tip." I said thank you, thinking it quaint to offer a tip from 1980..

On my next trip from the Port Authority I was reaching my stride, just ready to pull off out of the PA, when a rather sizable woman with a miniature boy in tow appeared. Now I see two porters in front of her with two carts piled to the gunnels with perhaps the largest suitcases I have ever seen, large enough in which to place two or three children the size of her son. She began to maneuver the bags—about fifteen or twenty of them, filled with what I could only imagine was stock for a store she was opening in Africa, or belongings accrued over an extended shopping spree in New York or all the possessions from the failed marriage to an expatriated African king or prince of which I understand their continent has an abundance.

It makes sense. My friend Mike Dare from Nigeria said his grandfather, a Nigerian King, had thirty wives!

I could barely fit the luggage into the huge luggage compartment of the bus. I still had one more stop to make at Grand Central Terminal. For the first time all day I was getting a bit panicked. The guys she had hired at the Port Authority had helped her and I load. They complained voiciferously at the amount of the tip she had given them. At Grand Central I would have a couple of ticket agents to help me, but at the airport I would be on my own—and I am telling you these cases weighed in at at least eighty pounds; some more!

Just as I thought, President’s Day held a full compliment of people heading back to their respective countries, all departing from one of the most famous international airports in the world. JFK. It is a marvel. This airport makes New York ‘gateway to the United States’ and is the nation's 'busiest' in that regard. It is a maze of roads, cargo areas, cargo roads, trucks terminals, turnpikes, frontage and service roads, upper and lower departure and arrival gates, taxies by the tens of thousands, and a seeming breeding ground for the absolute worst drivers in the world.

Drivers miss exits and regularly—three times yesterday for me alone—and not wanting to be rethrust onto the Van Wyke Expressway, back right up on busy roads as if they were immune to destruction. One driver miscalculated on that account, my first day.

At about 11:00 in the morning a full double tanker truck rolled over the top of a car and driver who missed the JFK Airport and exit ramp attempted to cut in front of the fuel truck to the exit. That mistake probably cost the driver and anyone with him their lives. All it cost cost me two hours of lost driving time getting to the airport on my second run from the city. So exactly how do I get thirty-three passengers, including one African boy whose well-baggaged mother is apparently torturing him to tears the entire trip as they consume what I later found out from the remnants in 3224 to be an entire fried chicken and crackers? Very carefully. First, I would not cross that woman, and no one else on the bus would either. She slung those bags around with the best of us able-bodied luggage slingers, and embodied what my Nigerian friend told me of the women of those countries; they are big. She was not so tall as she was just plain broad—and she was darn mean. She put everyone on the defense with a curled lip and a no-nonsense attitude that gave you the feeling she would make the toughest American cage fighter cry for his mother.

It was the same trip.

After getting through the traffic jam, the EPA hazmat team, the Port Authority Police, NYPD, the ambulances, the body bags—though I personally found the use of body bags unlikely, the other drivers swore there were some, but I didn’t choose to look. I was driving past the carnage to Terminal 4. Terminal 7 is usually first, but I had decided to go off route in order to get her bags off and anyone else’s who was going to there since it is supposedly the International terminal. I got most the bags off with her hounding me for hers the whole time. It was about now I figured out she planned on stiffing me for the tip.

I had figured out a couple of techniques for getting paid without coming out and asking, such as the old “doorman trick” But some people just didn’t want to give any money. There is a polite sign in the bus a tip cup "We appreciate your tips" or something and a nice clear tip box—which I keep empty, simply putting the bills in my hand and waving in front of them if necessary, point to their bags with it, or just not giving the person their baggage if they don’t have a bill or two already their hand. But with that lady, I had to follow her to the curb, and ask her if she had any change, which she didn’t. She whipped out a twenty and said to keep three. I was just greatful to be rid of her, so I wished her a good trip and said goodby. That little tiny boy walking around with her was so darn cute…

That’s just about it. I made a couple more trips, the dispatcher threatening me with suspension over the radio speaker, in full hearing range of my passengers. I met tightwad Germans who I had to teach some manners to through polite ESP lessons and other incidents that seemed minor compared to those above. But, essentially that was it. I think my OWN tipping habits are about to change as a result since I have never worked for this sort of remuneration before in my life..

Oh, one other thing happened: I was on my way back to New York on my first trip …

…and nightmare of nightmares occurred: I took a wrong turn heading back to the city and ended up in the Bronx. 3224 had apparently decided I could do it on my own, no doubt. I was reveling in the use of my radio voice—25 years on the air has left me with a distinct radio voice that leads people “conversating” with me to remark “you have a nice voice” or “did you used to work in radio?” or “you certainly pronounce words well, I can actually understand you”. But tips being the majority of this job, I was plying whatever tools and tricks I could to wheedle a nickel, dime quarter or bill out of passengers who have already spent the better part of what they own and giving tours, the weather and whatever else I could come up with when I stopped recognizing the landmarks. And I couldn't see the city any more. I had driven almost all the way to Westchester County above the Bronx!!

This excursion occured on my first trip back. For it I boarded a woman and her daughter. The lady asked me if there was a discount for airline personnel. At this point she seemed to turn on a switch. From a regular middle-aged woman she became this gloriously beautiful woman-girl. She flashed these amazingly white teeth at me. She flipped on her perfect hair so subtly it almost knocked me out. Her daughter flipped a switch of her own and suddenly became a 14 year vixon whose development I had seen only in the likes of tabloid personages such as Jessica or Jennifer or Trisha or whoever .

I couldn’t believe how beautiful this woman was—or how able she was to turn on some sort of magic when she was asking for something, but how normal she seemed before. I had honestly not even taken note of her. An American flight attendant, I asked Diane if all flight attendants were movie stars or models just working for the airlines. She appreciated this acknowledgment of her obvious good looks, something she already knew: she was a beautiful woman with a special job, and there was no one or nothing she needed or wanted in this life she could not get. So surprised by her, I turned “it” up a little too, so much so that she agreed at the airport to let me show the two of them around a little bit back in the city as she was staying at the Westin across the street from my apartment. The ring on her left hand looked like it could have been wedding ring, but it might not have been, too. I thought while getting lost that I had just met the reason I took this job in the first place: a chance to try and replace something I had lost and may never see again.

The bus 3224 and I proceeded on taking her and my other 33 passengers on an hour and a half joy ride through the Bronx, down the new Second Avenue subway line, all the way from 178th Street, back to Grand Central. I found my way by following an express bus I had sometimes seen at 23rd street. But he was flying and I could barely keep up with him without letting on I had no idea in the city where I was. I didn't recognize a sign or an exit on this freeway to hades. By the time Diane and her daughter got off, I was so rattled, it was all I could do to accept the 2 bucks she handed me an ask her her name. I left my mojo back in Westchester County somewhere. I know that since this is an American Airlines hub, Diane flies here all the time. And she knew I was just plain lost—in more ways than one.

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May 12 11

This is the second Resonator video with pictures is just below it, above the picture of me at the window! I love! Dedicated to everone in these pictures. I will try and send you copies of it as I can. Sheila, you are the first because you played such a great roll in it, Gene, you got the second invitation! This is my facebook...

May sometime...

Havn't blogged for a while and man, did time fly! The reason I am writing is so that I have a place to put my experimental dobro album called The Resinator Project 5-1-11. Its the first thing I have ever recoreded on the guitar. Here it is: The Resonator Project There are two sessions, the first is audio.

The Resinator Project 5/1/11 (5:50)

January 14, 2011

As an afterword to the story below, I can say that this experience changed both the lives of Sheila and I--and Snickers, too, but she doesn't know how hers will be changed–yet!. I am actively seeking work in Portland today. Since I blogged on The Seventh, below, the Chief of Police in Sheila's little town, 55 year old Ralph Painter died when a deranged 21-year old pulled out a gun and shot him in the face just a few blocks from Sheila's home. That was three days before the shootings by another deranged 21 year old in Tuscon, Arizona left 20 dead or wounded. After suffering with schizophrenia for almost 40 years, my brother in Cheyenne, Wyoming had been writing letters to his congress people in Wyoming, the White house and others regarding an invention he had been trying to promote. The letters were so aggressive, that because he had copied his family on them, recipients were able to contact our sister and I for assistance in heading off what they saw as a tragedy waiting to happen. Though he isn't aggressive, as a mental disorder schizophrenia has been known to cause violence against others or self-harm in up to 20% of the victims. Thankfully, the letters–up to about 40 of them–have stopped. I pray my dear, sweet-hearted brother drew the aweful connection other surely must have who were aware of his actions. That story continues...

In the days or so after our second blizzard of the season, I fell hard on the ice on the perpetually unshoved walks in front of our 42nd Street Dwayne Reed Store. I had been talking to my cousin Daniel in Denver. Our dear cousin, Kaiko had passed on just the previous morning. I am amazed that I was not injured any more than a a bump on the left rump. Daniel on the cell phone flying from one hand, some gift martini glasses flying from the other–all this in about point-three seconds. I was able to catch my fall in what I believe is my body's way of telling me it is in ridiculously good shape for one of 60 years. I feel pulled muscles resulting from twisting like a cat to catch myself and make a perfect four-point landing on my right arm, left hand, right leg and bum without breaking so much as a sweat. I wasn't even embarrased when several passers-by asked me the condition of my 6'4" body from slamming down with a giant "Oof" eminating from it. I learned that it can all be over in the fraction of an instant for the first time that day. There would be another.

Suffice it to say, that, when talking to my beloved Sheila on her way to the bank that same day the spell of some sort she suffered from and the realization after we were able to get her to the hospital--saved by a fuzzy white Labradoodle name Snickers, was that sometimes, some people are not as lucky. That was the second time in a day we both realized it takes a tenth of a second for things to get out of control. (That story appears below) As the result of all this, my mind has begun to form new pathways, not the least of which is the one leading me out of New York. Nonetheless, as comfortable as my flat is, and as I look out upon the snowy whiteness of a New York January morn from my living room window, cup of hot peach tea nearby, I feel the readiness tinged with sadness as the "New York Experience" from which I have been longing for a break for 20 years, indeed comes to an end.

In passing, I must recite one of the stories of my Grandfather George that my dad used to tell: One day while cutting hair off the Governor, or the mayor or whichever other dignitary he had lured into his barber chairs near the State Capital building–Grandpa spotted one of the many to whom he had loaned money or provided services crossing to the other side of the street to avoid the generous man's wave and smile as the impecunious patron slinked conspicuously by. To my debtors I say, fare thee well. Live well and prosper. If I see my recompense, I will gladly take it. If not, I am sure you will not forget me, as I am now you.

GW

1/11/11

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January 6, 2011

I read with interest Mr. Kent Burkhart's blog a minute ago.www.kentburkhart.com Here is my e-mail to him in response:

Dear Kent,

It was great catching up a bit with what is going on in radio at Kent Bukhart.com. I have been working in film of late and missing communicating from the other side of the microphone.

You know, I was inches away from some of the greatest broadcasters in history, including yourself (at KIMN), Lee Abrams, Curt Gowdy (at KFBC), J. Paul Emerson and others—and as I was putting together the George Jay Wienbarg web page at www.georgejay.com just a minute ago my eyes welled up being reminded of all the amazing times I have had in this magical business; one where you never get to see the person, but you know you like ‘em! Kind of like Stevie Wonder or Ray Charles in reverse or any of the others whose vision extended far beyond their eyesight. There were so many true geniuses…

I have worked at some of the greatest radio stations in the country, and it all started with KIMN back in 1970. Growing up in Cheyenne I listened to everyone there from Pogo Poge to Mike McKewan after he left Cheyenne. I never really thought I was good enough for Denver, but after getting fired from KVWO for smoking pot (thank you Bill Hart!), I got in my 240 Z with the amazing TV engineer Brian Wood, then my chief engineer—he was 16, and headed to the Big D where Gary Cruz hired me on the spot. I loved Denver especially working at that radio station—and especially when J. Paul Emerson arrived directly from George Wilson’s WOKY.

J. Paul taught me how to write a news story in short story format, and John Bayliss agreed that it was the most revolutionary way he had ever heard to do radio news. They bought us a big billboard and busboard campaign that touted SUPER NEWS DUDES and the numbers soared. That is the first time I think a big station used the news department to mount a campaign. Working afternoons with Scott Shannon, me as his afternoon “People News” man, our ratings went form an 18 to a 24 in one book, making up three newscasts an hour, J. Paul powered Bill Steven’s morning show from a 6 or something to a 13 share, keeping true to the science of heavier fragmented afternoon numbers on AM. We were NAB Station of the Year that year, 1972 and the rest, for me, was history. I jumped out of an airplane, drove a Ferreri, became a fireman for 24-hours with J. Paul—broadcasting it all—everything, even as the Denver FD saved three lives while we were recording. It all when into J. Paul’s show, Dimension 72. He interviewed the musicians, I went out ad did movie and restaurant reviews. It was the most powerful radio I had ever heard.

Lee had wanted J. Paul to come to launch WICV but true to his guns, J. Paul didn’t want to leave Bayliss in the lurch, so he sent me and it launched my career—a bit to easily, I might add. I was in Cheyenne just 4 months before becoming the youngest major market news director in America at 21. Hired by Lee Abrams, set to do mornings with Gary Gears, Jim Chennault in afternoons, and M.G. Kelley at night, Tommy Kramer in midday’s, the station was blocked the day before we were to go on the air by a citizens committee preventing the station from switching from the oldest classical station in the nation, WEFM, to the most amazing rock and roll radio station in the history of broadcasting!

I turned 22 in Chicago high above Lake Michigan on the 22nd floor of Eugenie Square, right across the street from Bill Trout’s office. We never went on the air but had fun killing time throwing fireworks out the window. General Cinema Corporation didn’t want to waste us, so we all—except for Gary—traveled 500 miles to the east and lit WGCL. It was #1 in a month. We went to New Orleans, Raleigh, and then split up. Sonny Foxx hit the scene from KFI and we all scattered. I took morning news with Gary Bryan at WDHL and handed my shift off to W.D. Sanderford so I could go back to Cleveland and help Hank LoConti and Jack Craciun III set the groundwork for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, producing rock shows that indeed made Cleveland the Rock and Roll Capital of the World.

Then I went to Nashville. You sent me there. I adored my time at WLAC AM. We still ran Randy’s Record Mart for my first month and then Pat and Dick grabbed the morning reigns, with me harnessed into the news desk. We were #1 so solid, with numbers so high I could hardly breath, especially when I flew to Greg Almonds, Makin Bacon in Macon party with Cher and he, flying co-pilot in his Mitsubishi MU-2 turbo prop.

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. That was 40 years ago, and it hasn’t stopped. I just wanted to say thanks to everybody who helped make www.georgejay.com possible. Let me know if you come up with any jobs. I don’t want to have to resort to what Ted Williams did—and don’t really think I will. But it makes a great story!

Blessings!

December 20, 2010

Just as an aside here, everything in the October 30 blog occured in the future just as it had in the present. Making a good case that what you anticipate, happens. Just not like you think it will. : )

November 1, 2010

My friend, David Capurso, has just released his fourth film this year. With or without me in it, I must kindly grant Against the Wall space in my blog because of how incredible he is and it is and because of how iconoclastic his film-making has turned out to be even as my career languishes. (Just kidding, David. Our friend Ari Taub has cast me in his new outing, '79 Parts starring Aiden Redmond, and featuring Sandra Bullock, Johnny Solo, Mike Rutkoski, and Walter Michael DeForrest. Dr. Stanley Taub has me shooting an infomercial for him this Wednesday for his In the Groove invention! So don't worry about it—I'm kidding! :-)

Against the Wall features David's wife, also my friend, the amazing Sara Ahlgren! Together the two have created a spooky reality somewhere in the future present (as opposed to future perfect, past present, or future perfect present) that speaks to us culturally and artistically.

A synchophantic review in Film Threat is enough for now without me chiming in, so I will leave it to them. (Click for Film Threat review) Suffice it to say, this tasty little gem of a short, along with Russ Spiegel's Das Boots, starring Gene Farber, and Sara — and Psycho Babble (click here for Big Apple Film Festival times and location) starring writer-producer-actor John Ramaine and Sara — all directed by David Capurso — will spring this man wife team team into the "feature perfect." As John said in his e-mail to David last week, "The Fake is in good hands." What that may be, we will all learn in good time, my friends. In good time~.

Russ Ruso in David Capurso's Against the Wall

10-30-10

Taking time to blog: Because when it rains it pours...

My brother has written me for the fifth time in 3 years and stimulated my thought with his. I MUST write to him.

My fiance is flying home to SFO with a condition: working a 14.5 hour flight as a flight attendant that I pray she will complete without medical assistance.

I am working thoughtfully on the largest proposal I have ever done for the church: An emergency stripping of the 150-some pews in the church auditorium while thinking of and writing the copy for an infomercial in which I have just been cast for Dr. Stan Taub's "In the Groove" invention for television which shoots on Wednesday.

Ari's Halloween party is tonight which I feel I will be helping to host. I am the stalwart and noble detective and will be arresting, killing, and imprisoning assorted monsters for his annual Holloween Gala.

Meeting with Deb Vahanian tomorrow, whose store in Erie will (hopefully) be carrying our line of jewelry. My Love went all the way to Bejing to pick stuff up for her. I also will read scripture in church, file unemployment, turn in a bill to begin work on remodeling the pastor's study beginning Monday (while shooting and writing Stan's infomercial).

Crews are jackhammering the ever-lovin' life out of the sidwalk outside my window in the parking lot as I turn up Eva Cassidy's Pandora channel to hide the pulsing, throbbing, machine-gun fire of the confounded machine.

This must all occur in the next 24 hours.

10/24/10

Dr. Matthew C. Hoskinson is living up to the expectations of the congregation. In a sermon today, continuing with his recurrent theme on the Nature of God, he surprised many with his oratorical finess--channeling the Holy Spirit through the use of The Bible to point out the depths of of each of our souls' depraved nature.

After spending an hour or so with one of our congregants, a choir memeber and friend, Clifford Jones who is recovering from a nearly mortal bout of urinary tract infection, confustion and age--and as I approach my 60th birthday--I began to realize the finite nature of this life and the importance of having everything organized with the man upstairs.

I didn't mean for this to turn into a solioquy, so will stop. This is all to say that my Pastor, The Preacher, the shepard of our little flock at the First Baptist Church in the City of New York, reached down and touched something in my heart as no one has been able to do for a very long time. Praise God for our afflictions! If only I were Lazaurus brought back from the dead by Jesus himself, I would have thanked God to have died!

Let me past the link in for the October 17, 2010 service for now and I will post today's when it goes up: click for sermon

9/30/2010

I had the pleasure of a beautiful conversation with our long-awaited pastor, Dr. Matthew Hoskinson today. He bought me lunch of pizza and Coke and am thankful to him for that.

Prior to our meeting, I had typed up a personal testimony, which follows below:

George Wienbarg Testimony

Born in 1950, I was Saved by the Blood of the Lamb at the age of 12 and came forward to the strains of Just As I Am during a revival at the First Baptist Church of Cheyenne, Wyoming. I was encouraged by my mother, a registered nurse, and my father who had been educated in both law and medicine—and though a singer and actor, worked as an insurance investigator in several states. He was a Trustee and helped the Lord grow every church he belonged to except the one in Phoenix where he lived prior to his death. He went be with the Lord in 1995. My mother followed in 2002. Led by the Holy Spirit, I attended church never missing more than two Sundays a year, and received my 13 year attendance pin before graduating high school.

I had already been accompanying my father to the First Baptist Church’s Radio Broadcast on Saturday mornings at KFBC in Cheyenne where I learned to be a radio announcer. At 16 had my own commercial radio show and over the years performed all station tasks from production director at the award-winning KVWO AM & FM to station manager at the small Christian KSHY also in Cheyenne.

At 20, I made my first motion picture starring the late Redd Harper. The 40 minute film was produced and directed by the prolific Christian filmmaker, Ken Anderson at a ranch near Gillette, Wyoming. The previous summer I had quit my first radio job at KRAE, Cheyenne, and worked as a boilermaker making Pacific Fruit Express box cars in Renton, Washington. Having spent summers on the family farm in Nebraska, since very young, I was already familiar with mechanical work and had spent many hours in fields by myself operating farming equipment. I read prodigiously, was proficient in dark room techniques, played violin and bass violin in the school orchestra and was an accomplished school athlete in track winning 3rd in state in the high hurdles my senior year and coming in with a broad jump of 20’ 6” as a 13 year old. My college years at the University of Wyoming in Laramie were unremarkable, majoring in political science and geology, but did include promoting many college sorority and fraternity dances, working at two radio stations in town at the same time. Even now I hold an FCC First Class Radiotelephone, (General)(radio engineer), license, NY State Commercial Driver license, and am a member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

At 21, I moved to Denver after attaining a job at KIMN as the afternoon drive news anchor. It was the national NAB station of the year, and one of the most lauded stations in the country. I and then moved on to Chicago as America’s youngest major-market news director at the classical station, #1 WEFM FM in Chicago. Later, as named national News Director for General Cinema Corporation’s Lee Abrams I took on similar duties for three other radio stations in Cleveland, Raleigh, North Carolina and New Orleans, Louisiana. I was not yet 24 and had authored one unpublished book, and was a regular columnist in Bob Hamilton’s Radio magazine. As a radio news director, reporter, writer and anchor I wrote and broadcast thousands of pages of news, and produced many, many commercials—all while keeping my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

In 1974 after a hiatus in Cheyenne, Wyoming I moved to Cleveland for what would be the 2nd time and was named Vice President of two companies, Rock Concerts, Inc. and Craciun III Productions, Inc. where I co-produced television programs with Hank LoConti for the Agora Clubs of Ohio in the city that would later host the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. My extensive news and music promotion experience gave me entre as the chief publicist for this group where our extensive promotion of Cleveland as the Rock and Roll Capitol of the World contributed to that imprimatur being formalized in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I would later promote another outlandish product by buying and selling pieces of the original Hollywood Sign, attaining multiple articles in top world and national publications such as People and US, the Times of London, and other global publications. Later, in New York I would attain the trademark for the sign and create a clothing line with its imprimatur, cutting, making and trimming thousands of garments that sold the world over—again, utilizing my publicity efforts, attaining multiple articles in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the LA Times, People, etc..

In 1981 after two more trips back to Cheyenne, between radio jobs, during which I took interim jobs as a store-front installer at Powers Builders Supply, and a sign installer at the esteemed Prairie Advertisers, I moved to New York to attend acting school at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Before completing my first week there, I attained a job a morning drive disk jockey at WKHK FM in New York, and proceeded to work at every top 10 radio station in New York over the course of the next 15 years. By exclusively freelancing (I still am) I was also able to be hired as a founding writer for CNN concurrent with my duties as a news anchor at WCBS AM & FM, New York. At at the then CNN headquarters at the World Trade Center, I wrote the evening news for Mary Alice Williams and Ellen Fleisher among others, in the first year of its operation.

I attended FBC of New York first in 1988 and began attending regularly in 1992 after transferring my membership from First Baptist of Cheyenne. I had become stymied over a book I was writing about an infamous 1992 East Village, New York, murder. During the course of the past several years I have appeared in five independent motion pictures as an actor and am set to appear in the upcoming Ari Taub film, ’79 Parts with principal photography having begun in September of 2010.

My life has been lived for the Lord, and I have given my life to Him. He guides me in my daily walk. For these reasons, I believe that is why this summer I was blessed to meet the woman he has had in mind for me since the beginning of time. I have a girlfriend! She was raised 40 miles south of our Cheyenne, Wyoming family home in Loveland, Colorado and has interests and a background similar in successes to mine, only as a flight attendant for United Airlines. She is a three-diamond employee with 25 years of exemplary service. She is an avid horse-owner, amateur geologist and athlete. She has four, successful grown children who are all Christians. She and have committed our lives to each other. Raised in a conservative Christian home in Loveland by her grandmother, She is and always has been a popular and beautiful person. She grew up well-liked and has led a life exemplified by her love of Jesus Christ. I am at a loss as to what I have done to deserve such a woman, but it is clear in our getting to know each other while I have been on another work hiatus this past summer, that it must have been something! Amen

9/2/2010

Its time to set the record straight: This is absolutely one of the best summers, and the best years, in one of the most awesome cities ever! Thank you God for giving me the chance to perform theatre and be in movies in New York, fall in love with the most spectacular women I have ever met in my life, and reside right smack dab in the middle of Times Square with one of the most awesome roommates ever... Well, I gush--and I could go on!

The only other summer I remember as being as fine as this one was the summer of 1967, the summer before I got into radio that fall, at KRAE in Cheyenne with Roger McDaniel, Mike McCuen, Paul Harbison, and Tom Bauman. as Program Director/General Manager. The summer that year held a special meaning because Roger Shanor, Jim Beahm and I got jobs at the Boice Brothers PO Ranch outside of Cheyenne as "hands," meaning we wrangled, built fence, stacked hay and played stooges to the six-foot, nine-inch 260 pound Freddie Boice the owner's lovable, if wild, heir apparent. Good gracious we had fun on that ranch. Waking up at six in the morning, it was the year of California Dreamin', Red Rubber Ball, Do You Believe in Magic and about a million songs that ushered us into puberty. It was also the summer of my debut at the Cheyenne Melodrama!

As Seargent Rocky Springs (a take-off on Rock Springs, Wyoming, opposite director, Jim Rolf's beautiful future wife, the actress and director Darlene Rolf as Annie--I danced, sang did olio acts (one in drag pantomiming Alice’s Blue Gown) and acted that whole summer long--with some of the prettiest girls in Cheyenne. Peggy Smyth, Janelle Anderson, Pattie Gruber, Pattie Moppin, among others, but I will tell you this: Nineteen sixty-seven was the summer of my contentment. And I will tell you something else: the impetus from those amazing activities that summer propelled me into that career in radio I was talking about,which started due to the kindness of Tom Bauman, which propelled me into a career in movies in New York.

I can't ever forget that old Atlas Theatre in '67. The old handbills from vaudeville, opera and various traveling shows that performed at the venue pasted back stage by the curtain. The dressing rooms in the basement full of bustling can-can girls and olio artists vying for mirror space while we applied our own makeup for the glaring stage lights. They had filed the felt off the piano hammers, so when Jeannie hit the keys on that thing tinkled like you had died and gone back in time to cowboy heaven. And when the beer flowed, and jokes started coming, it was a night no one who ever went to one of the old shows will ever forget!

Afterwards, we were pretty tired, but not too tired to go out and find a beer or two ourselves with one of the can-can girls. Perched in my car on some cliff overlooking Cheyenne, we looked down at the town as the tourists found their motel and hotel rooms and the place known as Hell on Wheels, Wyoming percolated down from a Frontier Days boil, ready to sleep then wake up again for free pancakes, a parade, rodeo and night on the town all over again.

My Dad had found a white 1961 Oldsmobile convertible with a black rag top through his work and had fixed it up for me. He seemed to know how to make everything happen: he sang at Lion's Park with the City Band at night and adjusted claims for Aetna Casualty and Surety by day to support his budding acting family! My brother, sister and I would all get up before the footlights at one time or another. He would sing songs like Begin the Beguine, If Ever I Would Leave You--songs from musicals, operettas and movies, he sang 'em all along with Miss Celeste Leveque, and her two sisters, mom sitting on the grass in front of the bandstand while the musicians played, while Dad sang right to her—the 35-piece band decked out in their red city band cowboy shirts, or city band blazers. Oh my, what a summer it was! And all I have to do to be there again tonight, while the sirens yelp, and the revelers hoot outside my 43rd Street window, is close my eyes, and there I am again. Its 1967. There are no losers, there are no winners—there is no good, there is no bad—no rich, no poor. There is love and there is no hate, and the finest people in the world doing what they love to do, entertain and be entertained; and the description above is just a taste.

8/5/2010

Its no surprise that Last Letters of Monte Rosa the wonderfully staged narrative on the end of World War II in Italy, is so eminently worth watching. The real surprise is that it Director Ari Taub shot it--except for one Italian scene—primarily Brooklyn. And to film a period war film set in Germany and Italia and then brilliantly allow us to convince ourselves that we are in the forests of Italy as the insurgent German Army is bombed and beaten back with them for under a million dollars is nothing short of genius. (The Brooklyn filmmaker is doing it again with the film ‘79 Parts to begin filming in New York this month.)

Last Letters is a truly great story about a mailbag of letters presumably written at the end of WWII and found in 1995, fifty years later. We must imagine that whosever letters these are, their story was told in Director Ari Taub’s story. It is a heart wrenching story of Italy’s three war time components: war-time’s petty Italian criminals, its heroes, and Mussolini’s sorry Italian regulars who were consigned by Hitler into the futile fight against the liberating American Army.

The back story to making the film is just as beautiful as the film’s: Director Ari Taub began making films with his father when he was young. This making of this epic is a precious glimpse into the intimate relationship between Ari and his profoundly talented father, Stanley, the executive producer of Last Letters of Monte Rosa. Manhattan plastic surgeon, improvisational concert pianist, working sculptor and stained and stained glass artist, Dr. Stanley Taub is also a ventriloquist who makes his wooden wards come to life with several patented inventions. This description doesn’t actually include his filmmaker son but I’ll come to that. As a ventriloquist Stanley’s inventions include drone puppets he maneuvers by remote control, an animated suitcase in which his puppet resides when not “living” with his exquisitely made "friends." It would be a tough act for any son to follow.

Dr. Taub is a rare breed of talent, who had so much of it, (talent, that is) that he now lives a vicarious life as a filmmaker through his son, Ari, who graduated from the famed NYU Film School in 1989. Ari's prodigious foray comes in no small part from Stanley, as Dr. Taub is known among their very large circle of friends, me included! As with many of New York’s independent filmmakers, Ari has created literally hundreds of well-received shorts, features, and co-productions features including the balmy Stanley Cuba starring Melissa Silverwood, for which I was auditioned, the German-produced, Far Rockaway actually featuring this writer, and many other shorts, longs and in-betweens.

These are a three-tiered case of personal and professional friends that reach deeply into the modern independent movement. One is the Aching Dogs Theatre Company, into which the Taub’s have thrown their support and from which the lovely Walter Michael Deforest and Bill Rutkowski two other Taub acolytes have just performed their, A Guy Walks Into A Bar at the off-off Broadway Producers Club. Deforest, who had been a model and actor in New York for ten years before jumping headlong into acting, and Bill Rutkowsi who had lived in Los Angeles for eight years are both making some progress. Bill’s younger brother Michael has quickly moved quickly through the ranks to inner circle of both Aching Dogs and Taub’s Brooklyn Independent Studios, and the two frequent each other's company, many times heading up to Mike Rutkoski's upstate farm. This January, Bill's brother will be covering some of the same ground his brother did five years before by hitting the shores of Los Angeles himself along with Walter Michael Deforest. With decade of agents, auditions, training--ye gads is there training. Between film or stage appearances he is at AA meetings and his psychiatrist. Frenetic, is what I would say of his off stage persona. Neurotic would be another word to use though the on stage persona was much more contained and decidedly in the moment. His Don Creedle play, Guy Walks into a Bar was well received by critics and audiences. Their latest joint effort was a VisionFest Film Festival special entry--which is where Ari and his father really begin to take to the fore in Brooklyn's Indy film business.

Of the five short film entrants at VisionFest 2010 short film competition, Hit and Run Productions, the Taub's production arm, managed a portion of the production on three of the VisionFest films--each thanking Ari publicly during the awards ceremony in June at the TriBeCa Cinemas. That here is the space where New York's foremost Indy film festival is held every year is fortuitous for the Taub's and, they hope, providential. For just as the Obies present awards for the best off-Broadway show pointing the way to the Tony Awards, Bruno Derlin’s VisionFest Awards lead the way to the major film festivals. For instance, this year a winning film was plucked straight out of the Sundance Festival lending not only credibility to VisionFest but firmly establishing the pipeline to big festivals like Vienna, Florida and Canne putting the dream of national distribution finally and firmly within grasp for all. And if a distribution deal is cut the prospect of a payoff is not far off. That's right, so far no one is making enough to pay the rent, but it is the most highly creative and productive environment any will likely see after they are able!

The Taub's first special entry was a short--8 minute--entry titled Faeries Fatal featuring Walter Michael Deforest and two "engines" from the Taub's stable, Meredith Edwards and Lisa Peart. Though both are winsome and the picture of socially aware twenty-something sensibility, Lisa recreates the vulnerable artist persona while Meredith becomes the demanding starlet. Hilarity ensues when Walter, as the bumbling, egotistical boom guy, begins to mug at the faeries on an independent film set leading the director, played by Ari himself, to have a conversation for following Meredith's character into the restroom and attempting to help her fix a "wardrobe malfunction."

A second short mimicking a Chaplain silent shot features Elizabeth Dilly, Mike Rutkoski, Evgenia Radilova and another guy. All funny, all wonderfully shot and greenscreened, the method of utilizing a green background that can be replaced by whatever images are chosen, in this case, footage of the two neighborhoods where the featured peccadilloes can take place undiscovered. Referential and symbolic. Love on the other Side of town and Faeries were experimental but both exhibit a clear potential vision for syndication, the ultimate goal for any self-respecting independent film producer. Did we say film?

Most all of today's Independent "films" are actually captured on video. With no processing, portability, ease of adding sound to magnetic tape, excellent end-quality, digital recording is the standard for today's independent filmmaker. What might have cost $5,000 to shoot on film might now cost in the neighborhood of $100 not including editing. Which brings us to the point of ancillary services. Lights, sound, music and makeup are normally provided by professionals between jobs Or amateurs wishing to get a foot in the door in exchange for their avocational services, overseen by all the more experienced people on the shoot.

All this distills into an entertaining, visually appealing piece with major production values, and easily palatable story line. Most of all though is that these shows cost much less to make than HBO’s but are equally entertaining. So how are the Taub's films financed?

To produce a short The Taub's reach out to members of the cast, interested friends, friends of friends, themselves and anyone else who would like to enter the magical world of film. How would you do it?

But I digress…

COME SEE THIS FILM (all the dope is on this link)

7/4/2010

Just back from Boston and the 2010 Balikatan Conference. (I hope the following explains BUT ALSO entertains:)

My Day!

Hello Bruce!

Yes! Made it back in fine time with Venus and her iphone GPS at my right hand guiding me all the way.

All in all an amazing time with some of the purest-hearted, smartest well-adjusted people I have ever had the pleasure of being with. And for this, breakfast, lunch and dinner for three days, the company of extremely winsome Fillipine ladies—and a half dozen or so with no less gentlemanly and refined husbands…. and I am to do it again on the 10th to Philly. How charming! I will fill you in more later, but suffice to say I was charmed beyond belief to be taken in by this cadre of magicians and made to feel one of them. I was nearly subsumed with love and generosity.

Will start on Gano today.

Best,

George

The pictures:

It was Friday when me and thirteen of my favorite Filipine friends set out for the Balikatan Converence near Boston, when I ran into the back end of this truck; a five foot platform invisibly sticking out fro the rear end (as you can see here--you can't see here!!)

Balikatan Concerfence near Boston. Hosted by TaTa

This was the first of three incredible lectures by the wonderful Otto Koning from The Netherlands. Everyone loved this former missionary to Paupoa, New Guinea and his stories amongs the headhunters there in the early 1960s

Thanks for the picture with the Super Truper Otto!

This is the most amazing photgraph taken of me. The gazebo behind me has a huge cast brass bell in it.

Isn't this the most perfect vision of a church?! It's right there on the campus.

Humbled in front of these precious women of God!

The Ugnion choir director, Phillip Brainard. Good conductor!

Part of the Ugnion choir.

I really seem to have a peaceful look in my eyes here. I liked this picture of me. I left the ones I like large.

Rosie is handing someone some music while her husband Phil Brainard conducts. We passed Brainard, Conn. on the way back. Oh. Their name is Brainard, cooincidentally, a town we passed through on the way.

This is a picture of Venus Salay and myself.

Me, Tata, Phil and Rosie outside the Ken Olson Science Center on the Gordon College campus. Olson pretty much invented the original ferrite core computer and then founded Digital Equipment Corp. He loves Jesus, too. How do you like that? One of the richest, smartest, nicest people in the world loves Jesus! Thanks for that amazing center, Ken!.

The choir performed in between scenes of this little play about a young couple who goes to the city, gets "lost" and finds Jesus!

The title of this picture is "Who's the Boss?"!

This one, too!

Fireworks. There were lots! And you could see them from the roof of my house! (big building in the way, though : )

Natural light iPhone photo of a girl visiting a neighbor next door. Bianca is one of the most charming young women I have met in quite some time. She is a photo retoucher/beauty.

Ditto. Bianca and another pose/I, blown away by her beauty.

And that was pretty much my fourth of July weekend. I left on Friday morning at 6:00 and got back at 7 or 8 on Sunday night, dropping as many of my new friends as I could off along the way. Everybody living in Manhattan.

I should have eaten the cooked half-developed duck egg, balote, that I was offered, but we were worried I might be sick to drive them home! I drove them the whole way. Say, I ought to get a bus and take their show on the road--or better yet, get a hall to broadcast them from. These people are extremely, talened and entertaining. And I would recommend them charachter-wise, as a group (though it was a small group. maybe that would be stereotyping). They were really nice people. (is even just mentioning "stereo-typing", stereo-typing?)

Best till next time,

George

7/4/2010

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Well, I managed to get an acting reel put together, thanks to the profound help of one Carlos Friere and NYATNIGHT. Click here: George Wienbarg III 2009 Actor's Reel

2/21/10

Well, I managed to get an acting reel put together, thanks to the profound help of one Carlos Friere and NYATNIGHT. Click here: George Wienbarg III 2009 Actor's Reel

1/23/10

There is a new movie coming out, Far Rockaway. Michael Schurger directs. There is a video for it: Broken Before, by Stephanie Lynn. It's cool.

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this from the Internet:

From a Recon Marine in Afghanistan:

From the Sand Pit It's freezing here. I'm sitting on hard, cold dirt between rocks and shrubs at the base of the Hindu Kush Mountains , along the Dar 'yoi Pomir River , watching a hole that leads to a tunnel that leads to a cave. Stake out, my friend, and no pizza delivery for thousands of miles.

I also glance at the area around my ass every ten to fifteen seconds to avoid another scorpion sting. I've actually given up battling the chiggers and sand fleas, but them scorpions give a jolt like a cattle prod. Hurts like a bastard. The antidote tastes like transmission fluid, but God bless the Marine Corps for the five vials of it in my pack.

The one truth the Taliban cannot escape is that, believe it or not, they are human beings, which means they have to eat food and drink water.. That requires couriers and that's where an old bounty hunter like me comes in handy. I track the couriers, locate the tunnel entrances and storage facilities, type the info into the handheld, shoot the coordinates up to the satellite link that tells the air commanders where to drop the hardware. We bash some heads for a while, then I track and record the new movement.

It's all about intelligence. We haven't even brought in the snipers yet. These scurrying rats have no idea what they're in for. We are but days away from cutting off supply lines and allowing the eradication to begin.

I dream of bin Laden waking up to find me standing over him with m y boot on his throat as I spit into his face and plunge my nickel-plated Bowie knife through his frontal lobe. But you know me, I'm a romantic. I've said it before and I'll say it again: This country blows, man. It's not even a country. There are no roads, there's no infrastructure, there's no government. This is an inhospitable, rock pit shit hole ruled by eleventh century warring tribes. There are no jobs here like we know jobs.
Afghanistan offers two ways for a man to support his family: join the opium trade or join the army. That's it. Those are your options. Oh, I forgot, you can also live in a refugee camp and eat plum-sweetened, crushed beetle paste and squirt mud like a goose with stomach flu, if that's your idea of a party. But the smell alone of those 'tent cities of the walking dead' is enough to hurl you into the poppy fields to cheerfully scrape bulbs for eighteen hours a day.

I've been living with these Tajiks and Uzbeks, and Turkmen and even a couple of Pushtuns, for over a month-and-a-half now, and this much I can say for sure: These guys, all of 'em, are Huns... Actual, living Huns.. They LIVE to fight. It's what they do. It's ALL they do.. They have no respect for anything, not for their families, nor for each other, nor for themselves. They claw at one another as a way of life. They play polo with dead calves and force their five-year-old sons into human cockfights to defend the family honor. Huns, roaming packs of savage, heartless beasts who feed on each other's barbarism. Cavemen with AK-47's. Then again, maybe I'm just cranky.

I'm freezing my ass off on this stupid hill because my lap warmer is running out of juice, and I can't recharge it until the sun comes up in a few hours. Oh yeah! You like to write letters, right? Do me a favor, Bizarre. Write a letter to CNN and tell Wolf and Anderson and that awful, sneering, pompous Aaron Brown to stop calling the Taliban 'smart..' They are not smart. I suggest CNN invest in a dictionary because the word they are looking for is 'cunning.' The Taliban are cunning, like jackals and hyenas and wolverines..They are sneaky and ruthless, and when confronted, cowardly. They are hateful, malevolent parasites who create nothing and destroy everything else. Smart.. Pfft. Yeah, they're real smart.

They've spent their entire lives reading only one book (and not a very good one, as books go) and consider hygiene and indoor plumbing to be products of the devil. They're still figuring out how to work a Bic lighter. Talking to a Taliban warrior about improving his quality of life is like trying to teach an ape how to hold a pen; eventually he just gets frustrated and sticks you in the eye with it.

OK, enough. Snuffle will be up soon, so I have to get back to my hole. Covering my tracks in the snow takes a lot of practice, but I'm good at it.

Please, I tell you and my fellow Americans to turn off the TV sets and move on with your lives. The story line you are getting from CNN and other news agencies is utter bullshit and designed not to deliver truth but rather to keep you glued to the screen through the commercials. We've got this one under control The worst thing you guys can do right now is sit around analyzing what we're doing over here, because you have no idea what we're doing, and really, you don't want to know. We are your military, and we are doing what you sent us here to do.
You wanna help? Buy Bonds America .

Signed,

Saucy Jack
Recon Marine in Afghanistan
Semper Fi
"Freedom is not free...but the U.S. Marine Corps will pay most of your share

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What do YOU think? Write back at information@georgejay.com

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This blog begins at the end with the new stuff at the beginning instead of the end, but that is just the first piece. I got that from being an old newsguy; you learn how to read the copy off the wire machines backwards. the newest stuff is hot of the wire....since I am typing backwards but reading forwards! The next story goes back to the oldest but you can hit end (control end) to get to the begining... : ))

October 17th, 2009

There were about 400 people at this concert. It was one of the best attended First Baptist Church in the City of New York events I have ever seen. I think neighbors are attracted to our homey little church filled with God’s people, etc.

I can’t figure out whether I liked the way the donation was requested or not. I think Donna Stephenson could have made the most heart-felt, effective plea for money that anyone they have ever seen. But she didn’t. It was very classy.

I don’t know how much money we collected but that fact is secondary to the effect the concert had on those who attended—as well as on those who had to attend, like me. Winston, and Maria and I got out of there at 10:30.

As for the concert itself: The sound system wasn’t available, so the speakers all had to project. It was actually very thrilling. Especially since I had just mentioned to Donna that morning I thought the speaking—as well as the organ should be all acoustic, or no amplification. All speaking done without microphones. Sure enough, Donna, Wendy, Dr. Bill Martin (the Bob Jones friend of Pastor Berke), and I –- all being thespians –more than held out own by just speaking out loud. Well the church was designed acoustically perfect, to boot. I figured it was all acoustic with the organ being essentially a wind instrument and all… Well It was just beautiful. I read Three Psalms. 150, 98, and 30. Wendy read from the Bible, then Bill—between organists, each with a lovely Psalm or reading. Donna had opened the evening with a wonderful speech, she always does well. She read about 3 pages in her own handwriting. Charming!

The choir sang an opening piece and a closing piece with the organ. Our humble, simple little choir singing those two pieces to His praise—only some of the people in the choir can’t even sing! The organists who performed there, all of whom you know, performed very difficult pieces. Meg Willhoite: Her piece was wonderful, soulful. Eric Birk, former choir director and music director played a very melodic and brilliantly spiritual piece very esoteric and complicated… as was Leon Reid’s piece. Kevin Estes was the last former music director to play and what he did I think in many interesting ways was more deeply melodic, mature with feeling, no bravura. The other two musicians, Bernadette Hoke, Eric’s Birk’s wife with a very interesting, extremely complicated piece and Andy Yeargin, an organ virtuoso at a very young age. Donna went to music college in North Carolina with Andrew's father, so they are all old friends. Nice friends to have!

##

it is Easter sunday, 2006. Friends from the Ivory Coast, Joe, Monique and their son —Christian friends, we spent 3 hours over lamb and cous cous talking about love and friendship and Islam.

At church earlier I discussed the stained glass windows with a couple of trustees. Seems they received another proposal from a stained glass firm that did a study like "Columbia University Students."

Meanwhile, my roommate is gone. my lovely roommate is as good as gone to Indiana, to rehearse the international tour of Blast the show, then to Japan. Blast is the reason.

##

Well I had written a bunch of stuff about how great the sermon was Easter Sunday, and about how Pastor Robert Gage used the whole Bible for his exposition on the fact of resurrection. He talked about the 10 resurrections of The Bible but deleted it accidentally. You can't argue with logic like that.

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Tuesday, May 25.

I start back at CBS on Monday doing Internet policing for the network. Stay tuned!

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April 28

I have seen my friend Jan Kinberg in the past two days. Off to the movie One we went. Asking ourselves the time-honored questions of "Why are we here," and "What is the meaning of Life?" In the movie, a white kid in dreadlocks said that he wasn’t "even worthy" to comment when asked what he thought the meaning of life was.

Uma Thurman’s father said nothing, did nothing but stare into the camera in answer to the request to non-verbally show what condition the world is in. This is all has a touch of falderal to it, no? Of play made to look real? Unless you can get a handle on three billion years of evolution on earth then the answer to the question of life's meaning is nothing. Nothing. There doesn't have to be a meaning to life. The single biggest hoax perpetrated on modernity by “poseurs to enlightenment” Deepac Shopra, the Dali Lama, Joseph Campbell among them is that they have some insight into the world of un-knowledge, of the unknowable. Had Campbell continued exploring, he might have been able to actually open up new truly intellectual ground, as opposed to using the same old knowledge Jung revealed—to captivate his audience without being any more incisive than Jung—or even his younger self.

True enlightenment is knowing you are enlightened and sharing your wonderments to the world, or seeking enlightenment! Truthfully, Campbell may have known he was at the verge of something important. He knew about social anthropology but just sold out that knowledge because he chose to expound upon rather than to extrapolate his data into anything newer.

##

We here in New York—in fact I, myself—have been the part of an intellectual, cultural and electronic revolution and the shock is just now being felt. I say electronic as opposed to technological because that revolution came after World War II. The entire world has experienced this Post Traumatic Stress because of this 60-year revolution. I think that we have also been blown away that our own drive gives us the ability to achieve what we imagine—individually, or if it’s a particularly good idea, collectively.

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Aha, the future is coming but soon….soon…Will it be radio? Travel? See, I like to live my life creatively!

##

I want to go a couple of steps further about Carla Stovall, my roommate: She came to the Coqui House at the exact time she did or the purpose of finding some cheap, convenient housing. She left some very beautiful extras: Love, organization, ambition and determination. She inspired the idea of living in the present by actually living in the present—fully 100%—all the time, which she applied was working out, sleeping, eating, practicing, or playing. It was a celebration of a disciplined life every moment I was with her. Her gifts were so special! And her parents are responsible. Congratulations Carl and Gypsy. (if you want to know what secular love REALLY is, check this out www.mary.com)

She preached discipline through grace, freedom from jealousy. Carla made our lives beautiful. My apartment is clean—my life is beautiful, minimalist. Small enough to keep impeccably clean, my mind actually feels beautiful, too as a result.

Provocative though it seems, Carla and I were never an item. Nor have I been been an item in any fashion with anyone for longer than I can remember.

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Saturday the last day of the week

I am elated today! It is Spring! The problems about the trade deficit with China trade fade. The job CBS fades into a complimentary event that I can make into whatever I want.

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Wait! Stop the terabytes! I just had a profound awakening: As I got up to finish a previously procrastinated task, I happened to pick a dried philodendron leaf up off the the shelf over the sink and throw it from my upper floor window.

Because of its shape the leaf hovered in an updraft outside spinning in a spiral at my windowsill for several seconds before twirling away. It's not a really windy day, just a day when the wind blows from the south and from the north simultaneously. The leaf was in a spiral like Leonardo DiVinci's parachute and helicopter concept models might have been!

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This is a good day! www.weather.com

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Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

http://www.geocities.com/memoriesofsweetcheyenne/index.htm Check out this view of my younger days back in Cheyenne. Mostly old friends are there.

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I loved this from John Rook's web site http://www.johnrook.com/. Obviously a master as radio programmer, check out these 'graphs about the President's new press secretary on his site, but also:

"Well schooled by the CFR, as White House Press Secretary Tony Snow should do the job in keeping President Bush focused on the path set down by the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group."

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7/31/2006

Pastor Gage that morning had preached the same sermon he preached 50 years ago, his first. It was like the sermon that lead me to Christ in September of 1963. Just As I Am was the song.

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Wed. August 2

Answered most of about 250 applications for the room in my apartment. Now THAT was interesting!

Hope you have a chance to check out the Hollywood Jammin' Jellies web site. Its coming right along: http://www.georgejay.com/hollywood/HollyWoodBrands_MainPage.html

Watch for the Boulevard East Tours Web Site next!

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Wednesday, August 9th, 2006

to Mrs. Keelan:

Cathy,

I am becoming more and more enamored at the perfection that is the nobel United States experiment!

Last night a young, what appeared to be tourist family of five (minus the father) was looking through in the window of the Kaufman’s Army Navy surplus store on the ground floor of my 42nd Street building . There are two 100 millimeter 1890 howitzer cannon on either side of his door and the oldest boy of about 11 put his hand on it. I was standing there drinking a beer, and being a tour guide in New York told them so proceeding to tell the story of the guns and how they were from the Spanish-American war of 1890, pointing down the the barrel at the rifling inside, “to make the bullet spin,” I said, “like a football.”

“To make it go longer and farther,” said the boy with very eagerly trying to show that he had seen rifling before, and knew a thing or two about guns as well.

“He knows,” said the mother encouragingly.

“Where are you from,” I asked. Their dark skin and features made them appear Indian, though I shouldn’t have assumed—even though sometimes religion does have facial boundaries as well as geographic.

“Pakistan.”

“I have many friends from Pakistan,” I told her shaking her hand. “I’m George.” My ex-roommate had been from there, a strikingly beautiful girl and I have struck up an acquaintance the people building a new deli down the street as well. “Wonderful people. Nice to meet you!” The boy hung back politely behind his three younger sisters, dark hair reaching down their backs. The mother had no head scarf. A modern, Pakistani with perfect diction, her children were just as lovely, each taking turns shaking my hand, starting with the boy right down to the girls who avoiding my eyes, each squeezed my hand with equal fervor, in a grip with all their might was no doubt coached by someone saying ‘Americans have firm hand shakes.’

I was proud to be an American. They were so eager to please, so slow to judge. No doubt Muslim, they were here on vacation like any other family, the father possibly off with his friends or on business and who would probably have been just as polite and engaging as the rest of his family.

##

It is nearly the end of the month of August. Around here they say the summer ends then. I think they're right. To commemorate I have started driving the mini-buses between Boulevard East and Manhattan. Bus A98 at the moment. I think there may be a book in this somewhere. It may be titled, "Bumper to Bumper: Confessions of a New York Jitney Driver"

jitney
One entry found for jitney.
(from Webster's on-line)

Main Entry: jit·ney
Pronunciation: 'jit-nE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural jitneys
Etymology: origin unknown
1 slang : NICKEL 2a(1)
2 [from the original 5 cent fare] : BUS 1a; especially : a small bus that carries passengers over a regular route on a flexible schedule
3 : an unlicensed taxicab

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The air is cool and fresh in New York tonight, as I a pause to write this before my 7:00 a.m. pickup. The Pan Aqua Diving school is having me drive them to Pennsylvania for a day-long foray into the shallow depths of wherever.

I smell the peanuts and hot dogs wafting up through my open window. This breeze, the first of the season, cools my tired body. The sound of cars passing, parking lot patrons talking from below unintelligible, just like Wesley said they would be.

I wonder if Inez new what he was doing. She was the one who mixed the 7-Up and Mogen David wine cooler for me. Mom had a conniption when she found out they had been letting me drink. It was my first taste of alcohol. It was about 8 or 10. Its why I couldn’t do my homework. Couldn’t concentrate on anything but what they were doing to me—what He was doing to me. in Church, in their basement, in the garage, the bedroom on camping trips, on vacations to Las Vegas.

He died a painful death, terrified, Dad said. But he wasn’t really satisfied Just matter of fact about it. That was 1994, the year before Dad died.

Goodness, and mercy and joy and peace and love.

W. Michael Keelan

July 17, 1951, Cheyenne, Wyoming -- January 28, 2007, Centennial, Colorado

Mike was my best friend, and I don't feel alone because he was a lot of people's best friend. Ever since I met him in the locker room in Jr. High in 1964 he has as been an enduring, loyal, caring, Best Friend. I was standing, using the urinal and Mike came up behind me and shook me by the shoulders and I sprayed all over the wall. I was so mad-but all he did was laugh. We have been close ever since. And I am sure that everyone remembers the exact time they met Mike if they think about it. I wish we still had those old "slam" books where everyone would write down what they thought of each other, because there was never a bad thing you could say about they guy. And what he said about anyone else they usually had it coming, but said it in such a way that it helped-never hurt. He was kind of like the ultimate supporter, the ultimate undergirder.

As he grew up he became even more supportive, understanding and kind. If there was an example of a person I wanted to be like it was Mike. He personified the Christian ideals of Counsel, Understanding, Courage, and Wisdom sometimes known as spiritual gifts. He had them naturally. He was a natural.

When you spend every day with someone for as long as we did you end up with a lot of stories. And I think back to some of the good times we all had, the stories we could tell each other. And I am sorry I can't be there to do that. There were the cars, some amazing, beautiful cars. The bar in Colorado (I'm just glad we were drinking 3.2 beer!) the dances at The Pavilion, school, KRAE. He was with us all throughout.

And as we all grew up, we each went through our separate trials and tribulations. For some reason, I started going through them a little earlier--getting very mixed up with the law. I think I lost almost every friend I ever had except for Mike. He stayed with me, never condemning, never criticizing...and supporting me not only by just being there, but with the most outrageous sense of humor-usually by poking fun at me and getting me to do the same at myself. But when if I ever felt lost and alone, it was Mike who was always right there to prop me up and send me off again, with out a question, and without doubting myself. He did that for everybody. He was never hurtful, never spiteful, always loyal. Good looking, smart. Strangers stayed out of his way because he was so confident in himself. But then, they didn't stay strangers for long, did they? Because Mike never met a stranger.

I think that if I had a Dad today, it might have been Mike. Kind of like a father, a brother and a friend all rolled into one. He was the guy I was always trying to make proud of me. In New York, it's a big lonely city. The only friend of mine who ever came and visited me was Mike. And his mom. (The mom we all wish we had.) Its no wonder he was the way he was. Because of Cathy and of course, if any of you ever knew Bill, him, too. But I think the reason I ever really accomplished as much as I did, and never gave up was because a few times a year I would hear Mike on the other end of the phone going, "What's up?" and I would make sure I had done something important enough to tell him about and I always figured out something.

He was proud of me, I know it. But he was proud of all his friends. He was especially proud of his family. His brother, His kids, His Mother. He was proud of us all, and we were very proud of him.

And if they say the good die young, that's just the way its supposed to be. Because this guy will go down as a legend. A personal hero-because he had his crosses to bear, too-and a legend. I'll see you again in glory, my friend.

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Here are some pictures of us in different times, including Mike:

The Memories of Sweet Cheyenne

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This is the e-mail I had wanted to send to everyone on my mailing list but didn’t. so I did an undelete and am sending you the unexpurgated version

Hey Everyone!

I just wanted you guys to be aware of this wonderful Christian comedy talent, Donna East.

DONNA EAST!
I met Donna when I was going to the Christian actors group, Inter-mission at Calvary, (please check this out: http://www.inter-mission.net/about.html). It might be fun to have her come speak for us some time. She has a wonderful message and, needless to say is very funny!

INTER-MISSION
Inter-mission is very interesting, and a wonderful blessing. My old friend Stan Blair headed it up here in NYC before and he is no longer here (though there was a rumor he might return.) I don’t know if they are meeting anywhere in New York now, but it would be great to get an affiliation going with them in some way even if it is just to be aware of their activities. http://calendar.inter-mission.net/cgi-bin/calendar.pl (J.C. Check out this calendar program! http://www.calendarscript.com/ )

AWESOME THURSDAY CELEBRATION SERVICE
The Thursday night service went very well last night. Jim Brotherton taught/spoke about Jesus and the Disciples in the storm. It was the second time I had heard the message by him. I asked him if he could please publish this message as I would like to be able to hear it again and after he leaves cause it may be a while. (Jim, have any others? This is a great publishing web site: www.iUniverse.com. Keep Pastor Matt in prayer. Turns out he caught pneumonia, not just a cold.

LEADED GLASS PROJECT
Is complete. I just have one more to go, in Pastor Matt’s office as soon as we figure out how to do it. Possibly just a 1/2 restoration. (I sometimes equate stained glass to doing dentistry!) Let me know if you know someone who needs a stained glass piece done.

I am attempting to assimilate the Lord’s gracious power bestowed through me. I think I just figured that out. Or just go to my blog at http://www.georgejay.com/georgejaysblog/Georgejaysblog.htm (THAT'S HERE!)

His Servant,

George Wienbarg
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Dear David,

GOOD!!
Whew! I was just thinking and thinking, and thinking, about what you said yesterday on the phone…and i came back to the computer to write a note to you and then got this note from you!! Whew, what a relief!

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I AM NOT A REPUBLICAN!
I just wanted to tell you that I am not an American Republican. I am a registered Independent, which means I don’t affiliate with any party at all. You might have me mixed up with someone else, like your grandparents, just because I have true Belief. (I just feel truly blessed that I even have a religion.) I am a conservative libertarian, politically, are you? (Check this out for a definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republitarianism) If one is a communist or even a socialist they need to talk with Mikhail Gorbachev or Margaret Thatcher or their friend Ronald Reagan, but he’s dead (or maybe Idi Amin, Stalin or Pol Pot)!

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AURTHUR SCHLESINGER WAS A DEMOCRAT
I just read something about Arthur Schlesinger who died this week. He was campaign manager for both Kennedys. he was a fervent, anti-communist Liberal.

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THE IRAQ WAR WAS AGREED UPON IN THE BACK ROOMS OF THE WHOLE WORLD
One other thing, if I may: Iraq was not a unilateral action undertaken by “George Bush”. It was undertaken by the entire free world all of whom you know hate the Arabs and are jealous of their wonderful culture—and oil. This war was used by all of them to go in and take retribution, (read: oil, land, power) on the Arabs. Think Kosovo, the Moors…we are still living the history of 500 years ago!

What you read in the papers is dis-information for those naïve enough to believe it. One does have to read between the lines, as I know you suspect, it is just a matter of having enough information to interpret the space that lies between with historical accuracy.

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I HAVE WORK, TOO!
I am going up to the pastor’s house this weekend to help him paint. his house was flooded last Spring. that will be one day of work, anyway.

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I drove from 6:00 in the morning to about 9:00 at night with about an hour or two off in the middle of the day. two of our drivers got in a fight—a man and a woman! and thrown in jail. I found out that my license will probably be suspended in May. (it’s a long story due mainly to driving with a suspended license from New York.) This job is about the toughest lucrative thing I have ever done. just think it all started when I wasn’t given the stained glass project two Januarys ago. had I gotten that job then I might never have had to started driving!

I drive around all day thinking of the events of the past two months at church…Winston…Larry…the pastor and Mrs. Gage…and my heart is so heavy. the only saving grace has been that the Pastor and Mrs. Gage have the wonderful anointing of the Holy Spirit and it has been laid on me, through Matt, through the Choir…the windows were a bittersweet task at this point.

They want me to drive 7 days a week which I have told them 'no' to already, but I am still going to have to make 1200-1500 bucks this month before my other court date on the 28th (for my apartment) I don’t know why my life is so fraught with these court clashes (four this year already)…and for me, it all stemmed from not getting to do the stained glass work in the first place, and the construction job I did in my apartment building.

I remember coming back to church in January 2005 scared that I was going to be evicted. My girlfriend had left and I was by myself so I came to church to try and ease my stress and wondered about taking up my stained glass project where i had left it five years before. For nothing. It was then I realized they were considering paying someone to do it and I put in my bid. I had no idea that one of the Trustees who I had thought was my friend voted against me. His wife said I was not to be trusted. I don’t think he realized what effect he was having on my life. Not to mention what they may have told that woman who left the church—then blaming me for her leaving!

Meantime, the easter concert is coming together. Check out this amazing music Easter Concert

_________________

everyone's trying to get me. every one wants me to be on their side. I can't decide.

this one, that one all vying for my favors, but only one will get me in the end. my lord god. Jehovah gira. the holy one.

think of a new name, those are just a few . I don't think mohammed fit in there. or mary.

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A little lesson on Internet dating: don't.

gjwinc

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I just noticed. It is Easter Sunday, 2007. Pasqua Domingo, in the Spanish. It is one year since I began this blog.

As an obvious simile for the war in Iraq, Babel posts it's and the studio's message that the act of terrorism in 2001 against the WTC was an isolated act. It leads us to draw our own conclusions about the moral legality of prosecuting the war when the 911 was most likely perpetrated by an isolated cell of zealots and that the entire country of Iraq should not have been made to pay no matter how bad its leader, Saddam Hussein, was. That Saddam was possibly the only one to have been able to rule the country notwithstanding, given the diverse nature of his diverse populace, and that we have killed more people over there than he ever would have, we surely must stop and think about the personality of America in these types of situations. Just what can we be relied upon to do?

First of all our leaders are following the dictates of its people. Since our anti-war element has projected their own bellicose ideas on the Bush administration it is time to disabuse them of this misapprehension forthwith. Forgetting about Afghanistan for the moment, voted upon by both sides of the aisle the war in Iraq was this country's attempt to set forth the message that you better not mess with us, and you had better hold your fringe in check or the entire culture is going to pay.

Secondly, should we have needed provocation to assert ourselves in this important region of the world, this isolated act of terrorism would have been enough of one. We have been waiting since 1947 for the situation to either calm itself or become hostile enough to require the United States to step in and since neither case has ensued, it was time to step in. Isolationism is anachronism in today's world culture. Even the small village however realistically or not that it was portrayed in Babel still had a telephone, and busloads of tourists would surely have dropped more than a few of their corrupting pounds or dollars in their wake, culturally speaking. By the way, the rifle used in the movie was a Winchester .270, given by a Japanese to a Moroccan whose children used it to accidentally shoot an American tourist.

With the corruption of the soul of man comes the consequences. That the blame for the results of this corruption should be thrown onto George Bush personally in any way is ludicrous. I don't think you will see any of the upcoming Democratic candidates do it. I do think George W. gets a good night's sleep every night.

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In touch with so many dear friends from Cheyenne lately. Easter has brought us together again, as it did in the Easter Paegents of old back in the 1950s! How precious and fine the memories of Bill Kelly, Roger Cross, The Jacksons, The Jensons, The McIlvains, The Harpers..., the Luckriz's, the Hungates. My Most beloved friends. They are why I am who I am today! Bless them and Bless you all!

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This is a copy of a review in Variety by review in Variety by Todd McCarthy of "Grindhous" the Tarrantino/Rodriguez double feature:

"Due to some nasty business at a nearby military base, local residents are lurching around with pus-filled abscesses on their skin and unwholesome appetites. Human roadkill litters the highways and the hospital becomes overrun with disfigured and increasingly violent sickos."

This is the opening to my latest book, bumper to bumper: diary of a boulevard east jitney driver:

"I always knew driving was getting to me when I started to see dismembered arms and legs , reaching out of the storm sewers amd gutters or a weird purple glow around hip-hop cars. I start seeing them when I've been driving about twenty hours straight, usually late at night, after the drunks and druggies are sprawled out wherever they sprawl. And when the litter strewn streets are empty except for the odoriferous garbage trucks who pick up this subterfuge."

"The glows are no big deal. There's a house on boulevrd East where I drive by with an ultraviolet purple haze around it, and the reader for the easy passes is the same color. Just like the hip-hopper's cars with their eerie blue light radiating from underneath their Honda or Toyota chassis."

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A sumptuous new import from the British stage lives up to its pedigree. Coram Boy at the Imperial Theatre brings with it a feast for the senses, at once a Disneyland for grown-ups, a loving, ethereal, heavenly tribute to the theatre and a morality play with humor, power and grace. My friend Ivy Vahanian is its sensual, loving, whimsical, iconic star, The Angel. How can one 15 year-old girl in her Broadway debut tie a production together that brings with it the producers from Lion King, Color Purple and other of the most successful, entertaining shows on the Great White way? She is sexy, virtuous, brave, creative, brilliant and more than lives up to the potential her parents bestowed upon her with such authority and grace. How can this beautiful, radiant being captivate us with the hunger we have for true entertainment? Go see this show. You will know.

George Jay's Blog

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I am writing this on Saturday, March 12, 2007

Why do my eyes water? Why am I crying as I read the Book Review? they are small drops of tears. Maybe because I can understand what I read. Maybe because my story is equal to theirs.

Last week was Alfredo';s Fire. His brakes burned and the fire department came to put it out. the street was blocked off where my bus was parked across the street and the police gave me a ticket while my bus was stranded. they are crazy.

It is already 8:47 a.m. The others are out there driving, making money transporting people and I am still in bed, crying over the NY Times Book Review. I had better get my clothes out of the laundry--or would I be better off going to the garage to check on my bus?

There are books on typing, teenagers, rebels, drinking and smoking all of which are things I do but do not document. I am hungry. There is an article on that.

##

Tomorrow is mother's day and I will call as many mothers as I can today, as tomorrow may be to late.

maybe today I can get into my storage for some electronic stuff, maybe some files. Go to the farmer's market on 17th street. Maybe pay my back gym fees and buy a nice pen to write with.

why am I writing this?

##

May 28, 2007

every thing i do seems to resonate. i paid off my apartment…my best friend gets a part on broadway. I come home after a party with them at my apartmento. we kiss. we part. I am at home.

rreading the poetry on the subway by Yeats. with a brunette who appreciate the use of the word commence and of flesh.

besides the after party…closing of the show…we sparked and fled.

###

I had so much to say, walking home...about the beautiful people...the producer...of the show. "we should be in Hollywood," i said before he left. a rich man with a pretty face, the producer of the show. He was sorry (no more than anyone watching).

I am starting to wake up.

Alcohol is a stimulant only after being a depressant.

The asphault parking lot is half covered in obsidian pools undr the white bright light. but the ddin of the city echose ubiquitiousl as it does nist sunday nights.

Loraine never really thought much of me othe rthan I was outstanding. Like Kurt Weil siad, anyone who set out to flap his arms and exclaim was going to be sought atter.

Ivy's show was amazing. She led a multi million dollar production with such aplomb: the most expensive production on broqadway. Staged in the theatre made for Les Miz, Coram Boy was the stage.

It reminded me of the morning show I used to do with Tim Byrd. He engineered the show, i.e., he controlled the voloums of each mike. I always thought he used to turn mine down because he felt I souded better than him,

I almost want to cry that it was cancelled. the Director was so Brave...and so were the producers. Coram Boys was the priceless gem amomst 'em.

so doe's Ivy call. do I say "I was the reasoni it was cancelled? The other large-headed stars felt they were all the stars...when it was heavan above that was the determining factor.

##

June 8, 2007

It was just three days ago that I received two tickets, one parking and one for making an illegal right hand turn. I ran into two cars accidentally, and nearly got myself into three fights. Such is a day in the life of a New York jitney driver.

November 12

It is it is just a few days before my birthday. It was only Friday that the "DOT" moved 70 of our buses off the road due to "safety violations."

I was elected to be on the nominating committee of the First Baptist Church in the City of New York. Now which has precidence.

##

April 25, 2008

i found myself wiping my hands on the money after cleaning the bathroom. Its part linen, there wasn't anything else handly, and I needed to count--not to mention the fact that I had just cleaned the bathroom.

but the realization came to me as I was counting the take fromt the day's bus driving that the reality of it contains one of two possibilities: 1) that I am not submitting myself to or anyone else but God. And God is telling me not to do this. Also, Jack is paying some people, he sure well can pay me.

but the clarity became palpable when I realized this at the same time as I counted the money correctly.

Believing in a dream. I waffle. waffle isn’t the word!!!!!!!!!!

Thoughtfully now: Julia may think … that I might have portrayed the type of individual who is meek and compliant. And I have tried to be a man. But this is more than anyone could possibly bear, especially with comments like “at this rate I won’t have to pay rent for the rest of the year.” in reaction to her comment that my breath smelled…and mine that she would not have to pay rent next month because of her inciciveness--her retort was that at that rate with, and other helpful comments in the future she could forgo rent the entire coming year!

The Story of Antar the Egyptian

Antar’s path and mine have crossed in negative ways only in the past few weeks. I guess it makes the time go by quicker to have an “enemy” but because we were such good “friends” I’m surprised at the ease in which the congenial relationship of the past had degenerated into antipathy. I had been coming down in front of the bus all the way from the circle in Ridgefield, New Jersey. Antar said it had been his turn and it was his choice whether or not to go with the bus. I had the choice of relinquishing my turn, by virtue of being in front of the bus, to him. Both of us knew it would be an unbelievable turn. Keeping my friend, or taking the turn myself, giving up the friendship was the question I had to answer. I picked up two passengers as he, seeing me pass Anderson Avenue, rushed futily to the first stop. I immediately made the latter choice in the time it take his cell phone call pleading for me to give way. I have many more 66-dollar friends here.

Like Jack, with his one-hundred, twenty thousand-dollar friends all over the world. it is a big market for scamming and caniving. It makes it easy, or should I say, makes the answer to whether or not to get involved easy.

The answer that Julia gave (after I almost dumped her computer in the bathtub by means of catching the cord on the bottom of the bedroom door as I opened it.) when I asked her about Jack was if I should do this or not she replied have you ever gotten anything out of it before, I said no. And I now think, (an hour and a couple of drinks later) that, hey, you kneed to stick with it. (need to make some apple dumplings for the bake sale on Saturday. [Wendy seems to think that I am either not interested, or incapable because of time constraints. Does this ported a distinct pattern for future involvment at church?]

NOW ON TO MY DAY

First incident: the manager of the building yells at me for going around the circle to get behind the bus behind me—rather than, as he said, pull to the side, let the other bus come around me then back up into position behind the other bus. This is at 7:40 a.m. There were no other vehicles even near the circle wishing to come in. I waited momentarily (:45 seconds) for the other bus to pull out and I moved smoothly into position where it had been. But it irked me being yelled at. Jay was clearly wrong, but he felt himself in need of castigating me in front of the entire building (literally!) I have never “liked” the man. Politicially, I suppose. In any number of other situations he would be a good friend, I am sure. I just am not remotely close to any situation in which Jay would be sanguine.

I pulled out to 42nd Street, nicely pausing briefly for a cement mixer to pull in after the flagman gave me a thumbs up. I see the big irish and talk to him every now and then. He either salutes the bus and people—and I him, or I watch for the heavy (16-ton) bucket of cement.

After the crane accident of last month, I am more wary than ever of what is hovering our bus. There are currently seven major construction projects going on around us. Ten have died during the same period. There are anti terrorist checkpoints throughout 42nd Street—especially the snaking fifty police-car convoys used to convey power to any terrorists (notice I didn’t use the words ‘would-be’ terrorist). The drill involves cars converging from precincts throughout the city to a central location or multiple locations and they do it with burst sirens and lights. It is interesting to see how traffic reacts. Luckily it reacts with due diligence as opposed to how the majority of commercial taxies, liveries, and buses who have now subsumed the road do. The traffic used to reacts to the convoy of police cars with a certain curiosity. It is now with deference as vehicles pull aside or create a worm hole of space from avenue to avenue like they do for ambulances.

Driving on 42nd Street definitely takes a certain savvy, or savoir fair. The hierarchies during morning rush hour include Dumptrucks excavating foundations—sometimes one hundred feet or more deep, empty—or full flatbeds delivering steel to projects further along. The New York Times building was, since it was completed the middle phase of the Time’s Square restoration. because the project was so massive six-hundred million dollars outfitted with a curtainwall of energy-conserving ceramic rods that change color throughout the day, though not completely LEED certified the building still has a skeleton of completely fireproofed one and a quarter inch thick steel lashed together, bridge-like to form a structure I guage will be there long after civilization has ceased to exist. (And it will cease to exist) I supposed we should devise a plan where by the fortification of a structure should be timed and determined with the probable lifespan of mankind on the earth. I-beams driven fifty to eighty feet into bedrock and set in cement, 52-stories the building is the most significant building on the New York Skyline since the Time Warner building was completed in the space left by the demolished New York Colleseum in Columbus Circle.

Anyway, on to the day:

On to the real excitement of the day:

Got two parking tickets, went to Manhattan Midtown Community Court to be tried for excessive exhaust along side a marijuana smoker in the park who ended up being convicted of the lesser crime of littering his roach. This pretty dear old black man who was enjoying his life was arrested for thowing a marijuana cigarette on the ground. The other court, in North Bergen, New Jersey was for missing a trial for my alleged stop sign running.

That morning had I hit a taxicab who pulled up on the left of me as I pulled out of the left lane to yield to an ambulance like I was taught in driving school. The cab on the other hand, trying to squeeze me out of my place in the fast lane by pulling up on my left got a taste of what bad driving is like when he pulled even tighter on my left up on my left. The tail of my bus swung around and took a nice dent out of his front fender. The taxi should have stayed out of the box in the first place.

I went to inspect the bumper a half a block down after trying to escape. Seeing the cab paralyzed at Lexington in the middle of the intersection I stopped in the bus lane on the right to inspect damage. The bumper, dangling on a thread, broke the instant I touched it and landed square on the little toe. Half my left foot swelled up and turned deep purple. Police came. The two officers were nice for once. I ended up leaving the scene of the accident 25 minutes later, having missed my last run.

Then, later, after I arrived back at 319 a scooter officer who had just ticketed the bus in front of me for no reason, saw me pull in and dashed over from his three-wheeled scooter. I had already gotton out to buy a can of soda and saw the balding officer as he saw me. We both began racing to the bus. Foot aching, I hobbled as quickly as I could, splitting pain in my foot. I jumped in ahead of the cop and tried to escape by turning sharply to the left, stepped in front of the bus without looking up from his ticket pad. When I saw my bus being ticketed I immediately jumped out and yelled, “This is my house! I was moving by the time you started writing!” I continued to yell. Come on. Give me a break.” Feeling my anger management lessons tossed out the window, the officer at this pioint asked me to produce my driver’s license from which he copied the information onto the ticket he was writing.

“I might have if you hadn’t come out here yelling like that instead of trying to confront me.” I knew he would have written the ticket no matter what. Besides, he had just ticketed the bus in front of me for STANDING in his own bus stop. This guy was going to give me a ticket no matter what.

The next ticket I got that day was while loading my passengers in our space in front of the Berger King. That is three doors down from my apartment in Kaufman’s Army Navy Store.

The day digresses, but it is normal.

##

2008, April 26.

I kind of feel like a miniature Hugh Hefner. Here I am with these two beautiful girls laughing and giggling in the kitchen, pretend-smoking as they talk intimately, about me, about their lives with each other, futures and so forth.

I love them both for their chutzpah and smarts—and for the sound they make laughing in the kitchen as they talk about everything from sex to eating. I mean what else would two girls who are crazy enough to live with me talk about? I think that’s another reason why I like them living with me. Because they actually do it.

Julia now wants to go to film school to be a director. The first think I thought is. “Shit, do I want to be directed by her?” The next think I thought was what a beautiful eye she has for the shutter—from the other side of the lens. She has a way of directing the photographer through the eyepiece. Suzanne wants to go back to Holland and get her degree, but I know she will be back.

##

In response to my statement to Enrique about taking Machete to my table and feeding him, doing good turns for him by calling the power company and so forth, he said: “This is the problem. When you give something to Georgie (referring to the street person who drinks Georgi Vodka all day who is charming but otherwise worse than a bum) he says thank you. When you don’t give him anything he says 'fuck you,’ Enrique, comparing Machete to that person.

-----Original Message-----
From: George Jay Wienbarg [mailto:gwienbarg@nyc.rr.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2008 9:47 PM
To: Hatim
Subject: the story of how machete cut me today...and what I learned from it.

it was the one thing I was not understanding: the true comraderie, no matter what of The club

Let me back up. Today, my 'friend,'Machete slept, cut, let the bus go. It must have been very important for him to do that. the necessity rose to the top of need. desperation must have predominated. or else he was trying to get a game going where we work together. He features himself a spy, encroaching on the white man's secrets with no consequence.

there is love between us. I just didn’t understand its true depth or its depravity until he put his arm around my shoulder (which was difficult for him because he's only 5'4' and I am 6'4").

##

Today, May 1st, 2008

The fare on the Blvd. East Bus went to 2.50.

##

"This American guy is gonna self destruct," they are probably thinking back at the garage. And in fact it is rather inconceivable to ponder one of their drivers getting in an accident–or two a week! Today was not an acident. But a 6'6" goon giving proof to the addage that there is always someone bigger than you are.

The baboon in a Verizon truck had aggressively squeezed me in at the Times Square busstop with all the people from 12th Avenue on board. After I had let off my passengers out, when pulling out I tweeked his mirror. Now he was angry in the first place because he said I cut him off earlier, but since I am a bus, after all, with the rightofway and need to pull over to disembark passengers, it wasn't a cutoff.

I have to admit, the choice I made to careen helter skelter up 42nd street trying to kill him, him hanging on my mirror, screaming police! police! may not have been the best one. But keep in mind I live in movies. I had no idea that Iwas actually trying to pry him off my bus with every delivery truck and taxi cab on the way to the new Bank of America Tower at 42nd amd Sixth.

When we got there, two cops on the corner listened to his wild-eyed story as I sat in the bus with what remained of my passengers, Francis and the nice lady in the yellow raincoat who was trying to take pictures of the incident. I was kind of amused by the whole goings on except when I realized I had actually been in a fight–with a guy who pitted himself against my entire bus. I had tried to dislodge him at 42nd street as he stood in front of us, calling out to passer's-by to illustrate my depravity, "See that, see that?!".

The question is, would police or passersby either one, reacted the same to him if he would have been white. And, would he have still done what he did--had he been white? After he had relayed his story to the officers there the police asked me if I wanted to press charges against. I guess you could call that caucasian self-loathing.

Even though I had defended my passengers against muggers and madmen, someone called the building office and complained against me. Even tho' I was vilified in the end, I did not press charges. But I have all weekend to think about it. How I sprained my finger. I am thinking it may have been when I tried to open the door he was grasping onto, to force him off the running board and the side of my bus, but my instincts tell me otherwise. It was probably when he slammed me against the bus. We were both yelling, spitting on each other yet, when it came to brute force, he outweighed me by 75 or 80 pounds. He jumped in front and tried to block the bus and I pushed him asside with my bus. That's when he jumped on my left running board for the ride of his life up 42nd Street. The police did the right thing. The passenger who reported me to the office, didn't.

I look at my hands, at the right ring finger. Spraigned and hurting I couldn't detect swelling...but I do see the hands of someone who is finally getting old. But let me add, getting old gracefully. They are beautiful, Paul Newman hands.

##

Friday Night, May 2, 2008

Later that clear, cool spring night, after the incident:

May 15, 2008

This has been a crazy day. It's something in the air. I woke feeling refreshed and ready to rock--new haircut and all--picked up the bus and the people at Riverplace 1 delivering them handily. But when I got back to the building after a walk to the bank where all my girls complimented my new doo there was a man lying on his side with his head on the cement step, this side of the Holy Cross church basement gate, his plastic bag of new bananas at his head, hands tucked between his legs. Passed out. One of the three cars full of policepeople who had been summoned chased me and my bus away twice, with the admonition that he would be my conscience since I had not seen automatically that he needed two bus positions at our busstop for the ambulance.

When the ambulance did arive 1/2 hour later they rousted the man and loaded him on a stretcher as we watched civilians on 42nd street watched dispassionately. It was odd that several months ago, another cop said to me "If we (possibly meaning the judicial system) don't punish civilians, who will?" it was after the release of some police officers for killing some citizen or something.

Well, from there it digressed into a mirror scraping incident with a truck, and another panel truck hitting my bus as I sat in the middle of the street waiting to move. Two accidents in one day, combined with the dismally slow business made me a bit prickly when it came time to move down the boulevard towards the City. I approached the Boulevard three times before actually going down full in my turn, bantering and talking with the passengers the entire way. I had one big bus pushing me, but I held him back until I could let the passengrs see me...and then he whizzed by me and was gone. Luckily there was another one coming behind that one and I held him back as well to make the trip to the last stop nearly full.

There was a column of big buses taking the long way around the helix and I passed them on the left, making the illegal right turn I had got a ticket dismissed for when I first started, then edged my way in for the second right for the final run to the helix into the toll and tunnel. I'm sure that the passengers were impressed by my driving, but, like on my first trip where people were jumping ship because of the time it took to load, I wanted to impress them with my driving skills so they would know they made the right decision to stick with us little buses.

At any rate, I had passed every bus in the column but when we got to the tunel it looked like a sewer sucking down the buses--there must have been 100 of them trying to get into Manhattan, all congeling from six or seven lanes into one. It is always daunting but the technique I have alwasy used worked again. Get behind a big bus and stay about six inches on his bumper, following him in like a puppy dog. The final trick of the trade is crossing the double white line somewhere past the middle of the tunnel--after you get into the New York side--in case they've routed traffic down to no-man's land around 34th Street, which can take you an additional 12 minutes to make it back up to 42nd Street to load again.

I got a call from the garage that Fernando needed a jump, so not only did I have to go to the garage and get screwed up on my diesel because my bus takes enough of the stuff to power a floatilla, but then they made me go and start this joker who I have jumped no less than three times. That doesn't sound like a lot until you realize that I have also started most of our other buses at least once, taking away from time I could be up in my apartment sleeping, waiting for the next call for a run, like a fireman. That's when I got in the second wreck of the day when a guy with the NY licence plate number 57431AL ran into me as I was stopped across three lanes of traffic trying to turn right from the far left hand lane, a maneuver I would not recommend in an automobile at rush hour, much less a thirty-five foot bus. But I was stopped and the idiot ran right into me. I would deal with the garage later on that.

On the way back from jumping Fernando, who has never once helped me, or given me any advice or relinquished any passengers behind his tortoise-like behavior on the road I picked up a young woman wanting to go to Boulevard East who, when I told her that it had been a rather strange day she told me, "Yes. The people in my office and I were having the same discussion." Its catching.

Next day...

I forgot to say that I found a wanted poster on the building yesterday. Someone had ripped off another one, and I took this one off the wall. He had been staying with one of the neighbors.

What a day.

Later the next day:

Ivy and I went to a presentation by the Ngqoko Cultural Group composed of 6 women and 1 man. What follows is my account of it to Ivy's mom:

This was really, really amazing. There was no music to speak of…and as the only male in the group said: 'there was no beat, no notes' either. This was not like anything I had ever really heard or heard of before.

Not Black Mombazzo, but rather a combination of lullaby’s (Kivah loved them), mating songs, “prayers” and celebrations! all played with their bodies, handed down for eons. Interestingly the instruments were all attached to their bodies from the mouth bow, to the mic'ed drum that lay on the floor. it seemed to amplify their foot sounds, which by the way, were all in sync. even when the mouth sounds werent'--even when their feet weren't making any sounds.

They did a kind of ritualistic two-tone sound with the backs of their throats that sounded very primordial. They did it kind of spontaneously and it seemed what speaking in tongues might be like (but I’ve never heard). They broke into these spontaneous-seeming body movements, particularly the way they would shake their full shoulders rapidly back and forth. a couple of the women in the audience did it with them. I think the audience was transported the ancient Africa visualizing ourselves out on the verandas so. Africa, giraffes and elephants not far away in the jungles, etc.

Ivey was good. I am so enjoying Kivah already and he’s only 7.5 months old! We had Japanese food afterwards, sans sushi for Ivy. It was so reasonable and the perfect end to a most magical special evening! (as all days and evenings are with her and Kivah).

Look's like I'm having another baby!

##

The baby came out fine. I got a job offer, and accepted it, to go to Qatar. Then declined. Read two staged screenplays for live audiences. Went into talks about the second. Drove the bus.

How can I describe this vortex of activity in the light of my dear sister's ill health, or my brother... It has been too long since I enjoyed the company of ...

Yet, in the light of this beautiful music, and the details of the above, upon which I shall illucidate later, all seems well. The gym has been sustaining my emotional health for the past three months now, and I feel as if the ten pounds I have lost/converted were feeding me.

As the cool summer breeze rummages the leaves outside and I prepare myself for another soujurn to boulevard east all seems well.

Oh, the details of my declined acceptance to go to Qatar:

Dear Sirs:

Good day and thank you for your swift response to my request.

This is a difficult letter to write in view of the time and effort we have both invested in making arrangements for my arrival, however I am going to have to postpone my decision to go to Qatar.

There are several factors that prevent me from being able to honestly accept the proposal at this time:

1. My lawyer today advised me that I may be in for a drawn-out legal battle regarding the court case I spoke about.

2. I have received another proposal locally that I have decided to pursue involving the motion picture industry in addition to another project which I had already begun.

3. The amount of money necessary for me to maintain my valuable apartment and pay bills here in New York would be preclusive.

4. Additionally, I have medical insurance here currently which you did not include as a benefit in your package, although I am assuming the state of Qatar has insurance available.

For these reasons, I deeply regret being unable to follow through at this time. Though, if I may, your initial suggestion to wait until after Ramadan is a good one, and I will be back in touch should you be able to attain a Visa after I have had a chance to wrap up these lose ends.

This is a wonderfully exciting time in my life, and with many opportunities I look forward to working with you at some point in the future.

I have known your family for almost 4 years now, and they have proven to be loyal friends who I have depended on for advice and friendship during that time.

Here I must say, I appreciate YOUR flexibility and patience and my heart-felt appologies for any inconvenience this has caused. Your kindness is most appreciated and hopefully at some time in the future I will have the opportunity to show you the American Spirit and just how effective Americans can be in this type of endeavor.

Again, thank you for your consideration and time. Great good luck in this endeavor and I look forward to speaking to you after Holy Ramadan.

Best regards,

George Wienbarg

PS-I will be calling you during the day today to make sure you have received all information properly. gw

###

Yeah. So I didn't to go Qatar. They left the door open, as I found out last week. But I still don't want to go knowing that I could be eaten alive in the mideast--like said would happen to me here in New York.

Now there are more exciting, more amazing things in the offing, like a movie deal for the reading I did two weeks ago. The e-mail to Henry Reisch at William Morris:

Dear Henry,

Hope this finds you well! It’s so great you are still with William Morris!\

Three weeks ago I had the pleasure and privilege of hosting and narrating the reading of an amazing screenplay with a wonderfully talented cast. Tentatively titled, The Immigrant, it is about the murdered Greek entrepreneur, Gus Boulis who had started the famous SunCruz, ‘cruises-to-nowhere’ type gambling business in Florida a few years ago.

Kostas Angeloudis his childhood friend, now a producer and screenwriter, was with Gus Boulis during this rise to power and tells one heck of a story!

It begins with Gus and Kostas’ coming-of-age adventures on the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece and escape from a Turkish prison—through Gus’ precocious rise to riches and power at only 24—ending in Boulis’ involvement with businessman Adam Kidan, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, jailed US Congressman Tom Delay (R-TX) and their eventual campaign contributions to George W. Bush. I think this is a really HOT treatment!

Police were unable to tie Kidden into the gangland-style killing of Boulis or to the three men who were eventually convicted of the crime. However, this screenplay does corroborate Kidden links to organized crime, the convicted Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay and documents their contributions to President Bush’s presidential campaign, propelling this story into the largest White House scandal since Watergate. There are currently some 200-million dollars at stake, money tied up in court since Gus’s passing which could be released to the Boulis family’s favor—upon Kosta’s successful telling of this true story.

Please take time to meet Kostas and take a look at his piece. If I may, I would like to have Kostas call on you. He has entrusted me to bring exclusively it to you and no one else for possible packaging.

Thank you very much for your consideration, Henry. After all this time has past it is so wonderful to be able to contact you once again with such a great project!

Regards,

George Wienbarg

www.georgejay.com

PS-- Please take a look my web site Henry! Anchoring at 1010 WINS plus a starring role in a new movie! GW

##

Now about the feud:

Magdy Abdullah and Emad are at it again. The two who had loved each other like brothers now each want to kill the other. Emad just told me to go over to Fuji, the other bus company and I would earn 100-bucks a day. Magdy had called me this morning wantig to offer me the world, but all I want to do is get out of there intact--thought it does make for an interesting story. It would go somthing like this.

WET LIKE ME

"During the past three years that I have imersed myself ito a world that more likens itself to one occupied by first generation immegrants and reprobates. I have worked as a as the first--the only--white, upper middle class professional jitney driver on John F. Kennedy Boulavard. East buses. Not that you could call them buses in the classic sense. Most passengers refer to them as vans. They evolved into buses, actually retro-looking vehicles that resemble breadboxes with windows on a truck body.

In the thrree years since I have been here the family of one Coptic driver was murdered in a three-day kidnapping and robbery The New York Times initially had pinned on on Muslim factions. Two other people affiliated with the garage have committed suicide, four have had heart attacks, and one woman was killed as she crossed a street in Englewood on the far reaches of the route. I do not know if the mob is involved but I do know that there are millions of dollars a year at stake in this high price, in your face scam. Some seven million dollars annual is generated on Boulevard East alone, with a comparable amount on the less lucrative Berganline route three blocks away.

"Is it acceptable to evade taxes" I ask rhetorically? Should people be allowed to ruin lives and destroy familys as these companies have done?

The question is, would I be willing to go to jail for writing this story? Because I surely have not been blameless when it comes to evading taxes, driving without proper licensure, and operating unsafe vehicles. But, am I to keep it to myself? Should I continue to risk the lives of my passengers?

True, this feud has caused the buses to be upgraded, the business and the people in it to become responsibe for their actions, but since in the beginning, the operation wasn't founded in high ideals, those keep us impervious to criticism and immune from attack it remains a target of not only legal action public derision.

But has no legal action been. We operate on West 42nd Street where the company has access to a single bus stop granted by the city, state and federal departments of transportation. There are sometimes as many as twelve buses waiting to pick up the one load of the ten thousand passengers a day who take them. The lines can stretch from one end of the block to the other come rain or come shine. The answer must be in one word: payoffs. Someone is getting greased. After numerous complaints from the neighborhood residents, the Holy Cross Church and businesses the only logical

The other question that begs to be answered is how many passengers a day the New Jersey Transit buses take with them. The huge, fourty-nine passenger MCI Commuter buses from four, separate NJT depots run sometimes five coaches at a time, end to end trying to compete with the little jitney's that could. And no matter how they try NJT cannot upend the private jitneys.

One reason has to be the loyalty to the rebel beginnings of the jitneys. Begun in 1988 by the Egyptian garment store owner, Magdy Abdullah, "the van's" have grown into a thirteen-million dollar a year business. After transporting neighbors and friends to New York via the cargo van he used to stock his store Abdullah added human cargo at 1.00 per head to his bill of lading. Finding there was a demand for cheap, quick and reliable service--meaning day in and day out--the business grew to a fleet of vans, then mini-buses, then thirty-three passenger commuter buses. The rest is history.

Ok, so what if people work without proper work documentation, or driver's licenses? I would have no way of knowing one way or the other. What I do know is that I have eaten, paid the rent and clothed myself from the work I have done on the Boulevard East jitneys. I have also met some life long friends I would not have met otherwise. Let the war begin.

##

On cutting: anyone can cut. It is just a matter of if they will let you cut. If they let you cut, you have to sell the cut. You have to be diplomatic: "Oh, I have to get to New York." or, "Someone cut me and I am going candella with them."

Today was another one of those remarkably beautiful New York days that started cool and Sunny and ended up cool and kinda cloudy. By cool I mean so quintessentially pleasant that you just want to take your clothes off. But, since I never know what the weather is going to be like by waking up and looking at the building 10 feet out my window I have to go to the kitchen and look out over my fortuitously placed parking lot to the east where I can then see if it is sunny and see the rays streaming into my kitchen or living room.

By this afternoon when driving my minibus in from Blvd East I saw the high clouds wedging onto the city from the West. And by the time I got the bus parked and was able to get back up here to the apartment to the computer they were a mottled grey and white ceiling over Manhattan a thousand feet above the buildings. So, with the warmish Indian summer air flowing in from open windows I write.

A remarkable day in that after a weekend of fretting because by calling the security guard at the Berger King ugly, and blamed it on his mother (he had just shown me the bullet wound to his stomach and informed me that he was actually a criminal walking on the dark side) actually screaming it at him in front of the passengers, business owners and everyone was more like it--I wrote him a nice card this morning appologizing and offering my phone number to him if he ever needed to reach me.

Edwin Walker is a former cop who somehow got tangled up in the bad side of his Puerto Rican upbringing and landed himself in prison for four years, shot and unable to get anything other than security work afterwards. I really like the guy but he scared me after he brought a couple of female prison friends to threaten Albert's "wife," Sandra, an innocent caught up with Albert's astonishingly good Cuban looks and his forceful Latin demeanor. They called her "The Nun."

Albert and Edwin got along fine until Edwin started standing on the step of the Burger King preciding over 'our' street. I say 'ou'r because my tenement house is just four doors down on 42nd Street: You know, The Deuce, Quarenta e Duece, Quarenta e Dos, The Street.

I live here, I work here every day buttonholing Jersey commuters to come ride the jitneys we run between here and Weehawken. That would be the same Weekawken where Alexander Hamilton defended his manhood against Vice President and ended up getting blown away by him. That's right, the Vice President of the United States of America. What a country! So through the Lincoln Tunnel I drive with my thirty-three jitney passengers, praying every time I take off that I don't get stopped by the police--either NYPD, Port Authority or NYPD Traffic, lest the warrent the No. Bergan police have out for my arrest gets enforced and I end up back in jail for the fourth time in three years!

Brave souls they are, those thirty-three, risking their necks along with me through the snaky path of the Lincoln tubes, no doubt praying along with me that the bus doesn't break down, that there is no accident--especially one involving us, hoping no drunk New Jersey Transit passengers who can't get on their buses doesn't start anything with me. I have nerly killed two of them for doing just that. Anyway, my thirty-three want to get home to change clothes and come back to party in New York. The Thirty-Three are a hearty bunch.

The Boulevard East commute is just twenty minutes or so each way, closer than Brooklyn, closer than Queens closer than anywhere in New York City but they come and go to all corners of the metropolis. Most people around here have no idea Blvd. East exists, unaware the most spectacularly breathtaking views of New York are just two-fifty. New Yorkers don't know about it even though around ten thousand people a day line up in front of my house to get to Boulevard East, which is how I got started in this mess in the first place.

But back to Albert and Edwin. I don't know how it started but like in prison a turf war broke out. Now I believe I am the most popular guy on The Duce. I know everyone by name, I smile and wave to the police who know me by name--if not social security number, I help little old ladies across the street and offer directions to tourists. The tourist thing can be daunting since every day an estimated two point seven million people pass by the corner of West 42nd Street and 8th Avenue and a good many of them are from Europe. Its fun talking to these guests, trying to figure out which country they are from and making fun of their uncanny ability to copy the American way of dress even though they are always just about a month or two behind. I mean think about it almost three million people a day walking by your front door! Talk about being in the center of things. And this is supposed to be Hell's Kitchen. A neighborhood is a place where the averatge person can raise their kids, take them to a school like The Holy Cross next door, go to church or partake of the wonders of the fish and fine food markets around the corner. This neighborhood is truly a miracle.

I hear the sound of the huge ocean liner's horn as it pulls out in the New York harbor three blocks away. I could see it from Boulevard East even though no one else has much of an idea about it unless they run along the Hudson River greenway that stretches up the the George Washington Bridge. Albert and Edwin certainly have no idea about how beautiful this area is: how I can leave the windows upen through November because the harbor moderates the temperature, or the sound of the hooves pulling the carraiges back to their barns by the river. They know gangs, and they know blood and they know hatred and war and fighting and darkness. Which is why I am so surprised I got caught so wholly up into it, captivated as if I were held hostage by the need to survive or die. Either way I would need to establish my own turf.

At six-four I needed to do that for some inexplicable reason. It was as if I were called from my father the wrestler and boxer and fraternity guy, by his father, the immigrant's son who fought his own family, or his German father-in-law who fought the church, and his grandfather who fought the Kaiser, and their grandfather's grandfathers grandfathers who fought and died and bled and lived through me until now so that I could fight and die and kill on 42nd street five miles from where they came to this land in the harbor of New Amsterdam.

So I appologized to Edwin for berating his mother, calling him ugly and damning him to hell. And as he stood there looking at me, watching me curiously as I screamed like a madman. He watched me curiously as a man who had been shot through the stomach at close range could do. As only a man who told me he could have his gang friends in Bently's here in minutes accepted my hand, and the card I had written my number on. This guy who had seen his brother die and who lived in prison accepted my appology and is forgiving me. The ship's horn sounds. Ask not for whom that horn sounds...

##

September 24

A Day of Days

Wake up at precisely, 4:40 a.m. Can't get back to sleep. The roommate is sleeping. I wait till 5:00 to get out of bed. My bus is behind the building on 43rd Street, down near the corner of 9th Ave. I get up, make eggs with bacon bits in the microwave while I take a shower and shave. I had washed my feet last night because the bottoms of them looked like a homeless person. I thought of Albert's legs the night he had come over. The skin on them looked like a homeless person's. He is being kept by the woman, Sandra who loves him. She doesn't know it is totally hopeless and the only outcome for Albert is on the street or in an institution. This evening he stared at himself in the bus window as I was loading.

Now come to think of it, I believe he was acting. Since he was drunk and possibly stoned. Anyway, he was trying to look freaked out to get attention for himself; all dressed up in black; shirt, jeans and pinstriped jacket.

So, leaving along with a cup of coffee in the espresso machine, I grabbed my eggs and walked down to 9th Avenue through the parking lot with my nuclear eggs and bacon, hacking out the pieces of it I had aspirated along the way. It is 5:50 a.m. I found from Martinez that a couple of people aren't working so I set out to Blvd. East with high hopes of raking in some cash, of panning some gold.

By the time I get up there to 90th Street on the boulevard I found out the guy I thought wasn't going to be there was just driving a different bus--that is after I had got about half the way down. Arelis said to wait, that a couple of other people had their buses confiscated by the DOT so just wait and go down behind her. I did. I went full and went back to New Jersey to mine some more gold, the only thing is when I got there most of the people who go down at 7:00 were waiting their turns, and, passing me, even though I found a big bus to go in front of, the jag-off said it was "his time" and passed me. So I passed him, and he passed me--and I him, etc.

By the time I got to The Tunnel ahead of him the PA police had put cones blocking the HOV lane. So what the heck did I do??? Ran right over them, with the red lights flashing right behind me. Ten minutes later, with all the other buses--including the Jagoff's, passing me while the police wrote out the ticket I was on my way into the city.

I had told the son of a buck that I had a job interview but he didn't care. I equate the Equadorian drivers to a family that has a pie left over at the end of Thanksgiving, but is so greedy that rather than give it to their hungry neighbors they throw it away. Read: Let the big buses or anyone else take the passengers.

At any rate, I get the people off, park the bus back on 43rd Street and put on my interview suit, hoping that I will get the job that has been poffered by Essex Temporaries. By the time I get their for my 10:00 a.m. appointment I am cool, calm and collected. I am wearing my 1600 Georgio Armani suit, I also have two portfolios with stunning pictures of me in them and a half billion advertising impressions of press clippings. The girl that greets me, Jacquline, has on a pair of tight black pants and a tight little sweater that accentuated a perfect 23 year old body.

It was only in the interview after four hours of evil testing with antiquated soft and hardware, when I mentioned the job in the ad for which I come, that Jacquiline--before saying the job had been filled--stuttered and said it would be filled in October. It was at this point she began showing me other positions for which she thought I might qualify, then parading me in front of the recruiters who were all on the phone in their cubicles as she spoke, announced my name and what I could do. After I had mentioned the migration project I worked on where Citibank migrated 1.2 million credit cards to its bank from American Express credit cards, one of the recruiters--a man with deformed eyes ended his phone call and yelled up, "And then after you saved the world what did you do?" After telling me to go sit down in the hallway, one of the recruiters, a large young woman by the name of Laura said that she had a position at a non-profit for twelve dollars an hour. This, despite a four-page resume containing the recruitment of Yale, Harvard, and the Naval Academy into one of my programs, in addition to four pages of detailed extraordinary work, offered me twelve dollars an hour to manage an office, support a staff of non-profiteers, their president and everyone else from whom they were able to elicit monies.

When I got back home out of my Armani, chomped the rest of the BBQ'd roast I had prepared on Sunday and headed back out to the road, I had fully five tickets on my bus! Two of them I saw and three more were discovered by the other drivers when I pulled up in front of my apartment building to load. Since I wasn't going to pay them anyway, I wasn't that upset but realized on the other hand that in addition to all those tickets, Sphinx was assigning tickets to me that weren't probably not even mine. They doctored the books to make it look like I was the one driving the bus when it could have been anyone.

Well, that was about it. After this beautiful sunshiny day in North Bergan, I headed back to the barn with about seven people on board, e-mailing The Roommate I would be back and desired nothing more than a nice, quiet epsom salt bath. Fat chance. Not only is her buddy there on the couch with her, but they are watching television she never pays for, eating food she has never paid for, laughing (she has a really phony laugh. So sad.) with her emasculated boy friend. The path to my computer was blocked, and with the racket--my bath was out of the question. Oh, you're going to a movie. It was 9:00 before they were finally out of here so I could write this. I'm like, where do you get off??!

##

Ap. 3

It is almost a year later since my last entry. In reading it I find myself decidedly negative. But I feel better now. In short, this has been one of the best days of my life!

The Clerk of the court said my last conviction did not amount to a crime. I had applied to a job at NYU Medical Center that I know I could do: Commuications Coordinator at the Child Study Center. Perfection. But the first question they asked was if I had ever been conviced of a crime. Which I had to admit, since driving a bus, I had been. The court disposition said the crime, after the plea, did not amout to a crime. (why was I convicted of something that did not amount to a crime you aske? Well they have given me the opportunity to protest, to gain a partial 'seal' on my case. I am glad about that.

There is the aspect of Linda Badgett coming into my life, that's for sure. There is the reality that I have got myself a job after four trecherous years of driving the mini-bus to NJ (it has been nearly 8 blissful months, after four of the most horrific years)

Today the court clerk told me that I had been convicted of a crime that was not a crime. Since I had plead guilty, the arrest, conviction and community service would not consititute a criminal conviction in the esteemed New York courts. I am happy about that. The previous case of losing my temper would not be held against me either if the probation office, the judge and their mothers said that I did not constitute a threat to society. I was again happy, since I could actually have killed either of the people with which I was involved in the repsective altercations, though no one knew that...and that I was actually right in both cases. Funny thing about the courts. They turn out being right.

Anyway, here I am back at my apartment listening to my favorite roommate of all times i-pod. Katie Roper is a person with whom I have fallen in love with her music over the course of the past several days. She lives with me in utter harmony, being a person of the west and of the free. She and I cook for each other, we love India, we grew up in different cultures together, we landed in our home together...

An editor and filmmaker, she is one of the most sensual and loving beings I have ever met.After speaking at her school on PR and communications, I surmized it a sign that I was to actually obtain the communications job I had applied for at the NYU Langone Medical Center Child Study Center. There is no 'perfect' job for me in the outside world but these signs led me to believe that I am their man, not because of being able to communicate intra scholastically, but "out There" as well.

Very happy for the chance. That's where my "criminal record" comes in. But I hesitate to go into it in too much detail as I am listening to Katie's Books, Food for Thought album. with, among others "Getting the Job Done." on it. There are 7,000 songs on this ipod, but I will say that it is one of the most muscially enlightening experiences I have ever had, not to mention uplifiting, educational, entertaining--freaking mindblowing experiences. It is simply phenomenal! The bass, the precussion, that guy's unbelievable voice... the synthecisors . Phenomenal.

I am nearly headed for bed, but I dout I have been able to transmit why I am so elated to you. Let me transfer:

The Holy City of Jeruselem, etc.

anyway, I got to get going.I am happy...;but feeling a little drained.

MORE ON THIS LATERB

##

Is Mrs. Dickerson is trying to kill the chuch?

I want to know if Mrs. Dickerson is trying to kill the church or save the church! Her carrott cake is something to behold! It is the moistest, lightest, richest carrott cakes I have ever eaten. I was raised on a farm in North Platte, Nebraska by a McCoy, married to a Wilson. Edith Wilson was my mother ever summer from the time I was about 8 or 10 till I was 13 when I earned my first paycheck there. $150 bucks for one month. Pretty good considering all the equipment I messed up

##

October 17th, 2009

There were about 400 people at this concert. It was one of the best attended First Baptist Church in the City of New York events I have ever seen. I think neighbors are attracted to our homey little church filled with God’s people, etc.

I can’t figure out whether I liked the way the donation was requested or not. I think Donna Stephenson could have made the most heart-felt, effective plea for money that anyone they have ever seen. But she didn’t. It was very classy.

I don’t know how much money we collected but that fact is secondary to the effect the concert had on those who attended—as well as on those who had to attend, like me. Winston, and Maria and I got out of there at 10:30.

As for the concert itself: The sound system wasn’t available, so the speakers all had to project. It was actually very thrilling. Especially since I had just mentioned to Donna that morning I thought the speaking—as well as the organ should be all acoustic, or no amplification. All speaking done without microphones. Sure enough, Donna, Wendy, Dr. Bill Martin (the Bob Jones friend of Pastor Berke), and I –- all being thespians –more than held out own by just speaking out loud. Well the church was designed acoustically perfect, to boot. I figured it was all acoustic with the organ being essentially a wind instrument and all… Well It was just beautiful. I read Three Psalms. 150, 98, and 30. Wendy read from the Bible, then Bill—between organists, each with a lovely Psalm or reading. Donna had opened the evening with a wonderful speech, she always does well. She read about 3 pages in her own handwriting. Charming!

The choir sang an opening piece and a closing piece with the organ. Our humble, simple little choir singing those two pieces to His praise—only some of the people in the choir can’t even sing! The organists who performed there, all of whom you know, performed very difficult pieces. Meg Willhoite: Her piece was wonderful, soulful. Eric Birk, former choir director and music director played a very melodic and brilliantly spiritual piece very esoteric and complicated… as was Leon Reid’s piece. Kevin Estes was the last former music director to play and what he did I think in many interesting ways was more deeply melodic, mature with feeling, no bravura. The other two musicians, Bernadette Hoke, Eric’s Birk’s wife with a very interesting, extremely complicated piece and Andy Yeargin, an organ virtuoso at a very young age. Donna went to music college in North Carolina with Andrew's father, so they are all old friends. Nice friends to have!

##