SHAVINGS FROM MY HEAD

everything is a consideration for the recycle bin….

…I have nothing to say right now…

…..just shop talk.

Why I love southern California……

The world is a Disco Ball.

Turning,

catching,

then rearranging,

light.

Manipulating it into fractions of life,

our geometry lesson

on perspective and movement.

Bopping days,

Boogie nights,

rehearsing a lifetime of numbers

we comprehend flexibility,

become bendable.

Dancing,

repeating our steps,

we follow the light

hoping for the perfect moves,

the right song,

the ideal partner:

Someone pliable.

Not just a poser.

As of late he’d been sad, and creatively hurtin’….

…..as if trapped underneath, a gloomy black curtain.

Then he entered the halls, of a place they call LACMAaaa….

….when that feeling first swirled, to bring him back aaagh.

First the darkness got darker, but the figures grew bright….

….as the sketches gave his darkness, a feeling of might.

At first he was scared, but his mind began flirtin’….

….cuz’ the shadows felt right, as he drew in Tim Burton.

From the man who drew darkness, back into the light….

….the swirling went faster felt, his creative took flight.

“I’m in love with this man, and of what I am seeing”….

….”there are others like me, who question their being!”

Still he worried that his thoughts, might no longer be grand….

…then a view of the glove, with the scissors on hand.

“Has my sentence in life, made creative a dead word?”…

…but he cut out such thoughts, as he looked to Edward.

Such a showing of dark, killed his feeling of wary….

…he’d found life could be perfect, and a little bit scary!

Though still scared of the darkness, he knew one thing for certain….

….that his darkness drew life, off a visit with Burton!

Go see it! Amazing!

The Dead-End!

Big wheel keep on turnin’….

….proud “fairy” keep on burnin’….

….rollin’….rollin’, rollin like a giver…..

Happy Pride!

For many a year, came a memorial haze…

…before don’t ask, don’t tell, became the craze.

Now out are we, us military gays…

…as God and country, begin a new phase…

…marking harmonious change, in our military ways.

The silent are gone, but remembering their days…

…as we proudly march forward, us military gays.

During the summer of 1951, shortly after Doris moved to the sleepy beach town of Mar Vista…she met Agnes. Their speak began with a spike in a spoke. A bent bicycle spoke to be exact.

*******************************

“Agnes, get out and get some fresh air” her grandmother nagged, grabbing the book from between Agnes’s fingers before shoving it into the pocket of her housedress.

“It’s a beautiful day out! And here, you, are!…buried in that book, again! It’s like Sleepy Hallow in here!”

Agnes stared at her vacant hand where the confiscated book once sat, then back at Nanna. The prospect of outdoor recreation versus vanishing further into the pages of The Secret Garden, brought nothing but disdainful thoughts. The bothered expression on her face reflected back at Agnes from the toe of her patent leather shoe—dangling listlessly from the edge of the daybed. She fanned the glossy mary jane, causing her features to expand then diminish—each distortion framed by the hedge of white lace that sprouted from her ankle sock.

Defeated, she exited the family room and then the bungalow—with a kick at the screen door—before mounting her bike to escape.

“Doris Hollingsworth! Don’t you go riding off before those boxes are unpacked!” her mother barked, the shrill proclamation fading into the depths of the house as Doris coasted away on her bike.

The daughter of a longshoreman, Doris, along with her mother and 2 older brothers, was required, without protest, to relocate from the eastern shore of Maryland to southern California, to Mar Vista.

Until that sun-drenched afternoon she met Agnes; everything about the move, about her life, had left Doris feeling broken.

*****************************************

Frustrated, Agnes tugged at the bent bicycle spoke, while the harsh California sun burned at the back of her legs and neck. Then, as if someone had thrown her in closet, the glaring rays abruptly vanished. The shadowy respite was followed by a gravelly voice that sounded like the sailors who lived in the neighborhood—the men who smoked cigarettes and repaired cars all day in their driveways’.

“Looks like you need some help with that?” declared the voice.

When Agnes turned, the shadow moved, causing the sun to knock a glare into her eyes. All she could make out was a head of curls haloed by the sun, and a bellybutton that pushed outward and into her face.

Dusty and annoyed, Agnes gave in to the stranger with the gravelly voice.

“Sure. Um..that would be great” she replied to the bellybutton. “Thanks.”

“I’m Doris,” said the gravelly voice, before knocking the kickstand into place and stepping off her bike.

“Hi I’m Agnes,” she replied, standing and turning to meet Doris face-to-face.

Doris bent down and took several tugs at the bike wheel.

“Gimme your shoe” Doris said.

Agnes removed her mary jane and handed it to Doris.

Doris took a few whacks at the bike before locking the spoke back into place then securing it with the piece of chewing gum she extracted from her mouth.

Her job done, Doris returned the shoe, then stood up then gave Agnes the once-over, tip-to-toe like a prison yard searchlight, before mounting her bike again.

“How can you ride your bike in those shoes?” Doris asked, coasting around Agnes in circles like a wagon train.

“I’m only wearing them so I can ruin them” Agnes replied, matter-of-factly while refastening the ankle strap. “My mother makes me wear them, and I hate them! Every time I wear a skirt, they reflect my underwear and, and…then all the boys bother me for the entire day!”

“Really? They try to see your underwear? That’s retarded.”

“Well..what do you expect from boys?” Agnes answered, admiring her reflection from the toe of her right shoe.

“True” said Doris, shrugging her shoulders in agreement.

“But this is how I make it stop. This is how I make them go away. Watch!” Agnes announced, before taking off down Marblehead Road on her newly-restored bicycle. Once her bike had gained speed, Agnes raised her shoes off the pedals, and then lowered the tips of her mary janes’ to the concrete pavement—causing them to drag along behind her as her bike sped down Marblehead Road. Even though Nanna would be mad, it always made Agnes laugh out loud; she knew she would be free of boys.

Doris trailed behind, thrilled by Agnes’ outlandish act. When the two girls reached the intersection of Delanty and Marblehead, they both stopped to survey the results. The once shiny mary janes’ were now dull and marked—their reflections creating a mangled Picasso-like result.

“Wanna ride to the park?” asked Agnes, still giggling at the sight of her shoes.

“Sure” said Doris, excited to have a new friend.

“Thanks for fixing my bike.”

“Sure.”

“I’ve never seen you before. Do you live here?” asked Agnes, while simultaneously peddling and readjusting the elastic on her tube-top.

“My family just moved here a few days ago from the east coast…from Maryland. We had to move for my Dad’s job.”

“Oh.”

The girls rode for a while in silence, the brush of the palm trees rustling above them like dancing angels in taffeta petticoats, the Santa Ana winds mangling their curls into untidy nests.

“Do you like boys?” Doris asked, breaking the silence, as they rode by the Laundromat on Woodhurst Avenue.

“Naw’ “said Agnes. Boys are stupid. All they want to do is fight. Or steal the dessert off my lunch tray. Or..or, kiss me…or try and look up my dress.”

“Yeah…I know what you mean”, said Doris. “Life would be so much easier if there were no boys!”

Agnes nodded, pushing the hair off her face as she looked over at her new friend Doris.

Eventually the girls stopped near an empty corner of the park.

“I wonder what the big deal is?” Doris asked.

“Beats me”

“Wanna try? Wanna see what a kiss is like?”

Agnes looked around. There was no one else around the vacant lot; the only sign of life, of movement, was the sway of the oleander bushes being pushed about by the breeze. It was just the two of them and their bikes.

“Sure”

And the last thing Anges remembered before closing her eyes, before feeling the cushiony pads of Doris mouth brush into hers, was the birthmark on Doris’s forehead.

**********************************

Amid the rough-n-tumble mob of lesbian bikers—all clad in combat boots and leather jackets—the pair of patent leather boots stood out like a puddle of oil that had been spilled onto velvet. Doris followed their shiny tips, scaling up the denim legs and past the sweatshirt before landing at the helmeted face.

They could only belong to one person, she thought. They could only belong to Agnes.

“Agnes?….Agnes Griggs? Is that you?” Doris asked, abandoning her Harley and walking toward the patent leather boots.

“Do I know?” asked the helmet.

“It’s me!” said the gravely voice, from underneath the approaching helmet.

That voice could only belong to one person, she thought. It could only belong to Doris.

“It’s Doris! Doris Hollingsworth from Mar Vista!” said the voice, while removing her helmet.

And then she saw the birthmark.

“Oh. My. God! I don’t believe it!” And before Agnes could say another word, Doris reached in and pressed her mouth against the supple lips of the young girl she’d fallen in love with decades earlier.

The sway of the trees came alive and the gaggle of lesbians around them hollered a series of banshee-like sounds, as if they were being surrounded by tribe of rowdy indians.

“Your breath smells like peanut butter,” said Doris, after puling her mouth away while trying to regain her composure; not believing she’d finally found Agnes. “What have you been eating?”

Pulling a fist from the pocket of her sweatshirt, Agnes opened her hand it to expose a palm of wrapped candies.

“Mary Janes” she said, smiling. “They keep the boys away.”

**************************************

Strap On…..

….dating from the early 1900s, the original Mary Jane shoe—worn primarily by young girls—was a low-heeled, round-toed slipper with a strap across the instep of the foot and typically made of shiny black patent leather. Today, Mary Janes are still popular as formal shoes for young girls, though have also been adapted as informal footwear for adult women.

The most widely accepted theory is that Mary Jane was a character in the Buster Brown comic series, created in 1902. Depending on the story, Mary Jane starred as Buster Brown’s sister or love interest.

Eventually the style of shoe worn by both Buster (boy) and Mary (girl) became known in popular culture as Mary Janes.

Though Mary Janes have proved popular since their introduction, their origins may be largely forgotten, yet the shoe’s influence remains strong.

He considered me from several angles

before I asked.

“It’s a long story” he shot back.

“Can we just shoot the shit?”

According to Bill Cunningham, “the best fashion show is on the street”…
….on the New York City streets anyway.
Just went to see Bill Cunningham New York, the documentary film chronicling the life of the legendary New York street/fashion photographer.
As expected—amazing.
At 80—still soaring through the streets of Manhattan via bike—the film follows his au courant antics, snapping the trends from club kids, to society matrons to Anna Wintor.
To view such a person/film; someone who has never sold out, left me in awe of his dedication, while at the same time wondering if, in today’s world, that sort of dedication looks a little crazy?
As far as Bill is concerned, “Fashion is the armor to survive the reality of everyday life”
I couldn’t agree more….if you want to feel inspired…go see it….