Fonda Fest

I hugged Jane Fonda last night. Even better, Jane Fonda hugged me. And not in some dream or fantasy. No sir, she reached out, stepped up and wrapped her strong arms around me to bestow an all out, full frontal embrace free of artifice, reserve and don’t-hold-me-too-long-or-too-close back patting. This was no Hollywood party, air-kissing torso bump. It was genuine. It was surprising. And it was so very, very good. I mean, it was Jane fucking Fonda!

This cultural icon has been on my radar since Tall Story in 1960. (Clearly she’s stunning, but it was her voice, always the voice.) I’ve been trying to meet her for twenty-seven years, beginning with a fruitless trip to Bikram’s L.A. sweatbox once in 1980 just because I heard she went there to do yoga. Her eyes never left mine as I confessed this to her. Then she laughed and said, “I only went there twice.” Hey, those were good enough odds for me. And then—be still my beating heart—she chucked me on the chin. Dare I think it…were Barbarella, Bree and Cat flirting with me?! Roger, Tom, Ted and now, Foster? I should be so lucky.

I floated back to my group to babble about my incredibly good fortune, and my friend Peggy Pfeiffer asked, “Did you tell her you’d written the ad and the tag line?” The only reason I was in this jam-packed room was because of Peggy, the owner of BadDog Design. She asked me to contribute my creative marketing skills to her firm’s promotional efforts in behalf of this event—a fundraising concert for Las Cumbres, Ms. Fonda’s adopted New Mexico charity.

Las Cumbres fosters recognition, prevention and treatment of mental disorders in infants. It’s a big problem in a poor state with low incomes, low education and poor parenting skills. For my efforts I was given a ticket to the event’s big draw—a concert at Santa Fe’s Lensic Theatre that featured an appearance by Rob Reiner and a performance by James Taylor. Of course I looked forward to meeting them too. (When I told Mr. Reiner my age he spritzed, “Get outta here!” Nice.) My eyes, however, were on one prize only.

So I fought my way back through the crowd to tell Jane of my contribution—truth be told, mainly to have a picture taken with her and to bask yet a little longer in her palpable magnetism—but she seemed more interested in my Yellowman Yakuza tattoo shirt. The picture was taken, there were last words, and I reluctantly yielded to the crush of humanity that awaited their own brief moment of celebrity contact.

Yes, I hugged Jane Fonda last night, and I can still feel it. Her gesture wasn’t for the cameras or the crowd. It was just for me…a thank you of sorts. It was because I said, “I’m a Viet Nam veteran, and I want you to know it’s an honor to meet you.” Both are true. But I’m here to tell you I’ve never had a response like that upon revealing myself as a vet. And I can assure you that I never will again. Still, maybe I should try it more often.

I hadn’t given any thought to what her response would be to my statement. Surely she’s heard it many times before. But probably not enough. There was a brief flare in her eye, a quick set of her jaw as I spoke my first five words. She was, I assume, instinctively steeling herself for what far too often comes next. But with the rest of my declaration came the exquisite gift of her open-hearted offering that I would never have dreamed of putting in the script. And I have written scripts.

What she has heard mostly, I imagine, is scorn and derision heaped by angry men and women who can’t let it go. Who just can’t move on. Who, like our delusional president, can’t acknowledge their participation in, and support of, a mistake. Who look to castigate any and all who would remind them of it. And who can’t acknowledge those who tried, however naïvely, to end that mistake on their behalf. Perhaps Jane Fonda protested not too wisely, but too well. At any rate, I forgave her for it long ago. Not that she ever needed my forgiveness.

Many of us are more than a little puzzled by her Christian conversion. But my guess is that she doesn’t wear it on her sleeve. My guess is that it gives her grounding, centering and comfort in the September of a lifetime awash with familial dysfunction, marital volatility and the glare of publicity. And my biggest guess is that it’s absolutely none of my business. Namaste, Jane.

The last thing she said to me before turning away was, “I’m glad you’re all right.” After that hug, Ms. Fonda, I’ve never been all righter.

What's Good for the Goose

I don't understand the fascination that fascist dictators (and Muslim fundamentalists) have with goose stepping troops. Apparently no self-respecting tyrant or mullah can be satisfied that his legions are truly combat ready until they can kick up their heels like Rockettes and strut like drum majors. The military benefit of this particular skill remains a mystery to me. Stomping grapes, yes. Slogging through rice paddies or sand dunes, no. Maybe it's their version of an end zone celebration dance. Or lacking wind-up toy soldiers as children these wackos in chief are compensating now.

I for one would love to see competitive marching in some sort of formal setting. Say the Goose Games. Let's see who's really got the stuff for world domination. Forget about WMDs and IEDs…show us your moves, by God. Or Allah. Granted, it wouldn't be a true championship without the Nazis, but we'd just have to make do with the Russians, North Koreans, Chinese, Hezbollah and various South American and eastern European countries I'm sure I've overlooked. The winners get to strut their stuff in the losers' Squares. Maybe these countries would start putting their energies into the marching and forget about the madness. One big step for a soldier, one truly giant leap for mankind.

Farewell, Caliche

We’re all taught from birth, more or less—at least, we should be—that death is a part of life. A natural part. And for most of us our first exposure to this is through the death of pets and/or distant relatives. Of course great-grandad doesn’t get flushed down the toilet like Midas, the goldfish, but the effect is pretty much the same.
However, I don’t believe the unmyelinated brain of a child can make the deep, spiritual connection with an animal that an adult can. And so the death of a pet later in life is not the temporal shock or pain of say, learning the harsh truth about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. It can be a gut wrenching, devastating loss. Especially if the animal is an intimate friend who has cheered and comforted you through the lowest point of your life, and been your constant companion for eighteen years.
I’m sure everyone thinks their pet—just like their child—is unique and special and somehow just a little bit superior to all others of their ilk. I certainly do. But in this instance I just happen to be correct. My Caliche was as sweet an animal as ever soft-padded across the earth. She was playful, affectionate, friendly to one and all, a hunter extraordinaire, never a picky eater, never a trash diver, and even though declawed, only sharpened her imaginary hooks on an old wooden crate, never fabric.
As I write this we have just passed the Fourth of July weekend of 2006—a long, four-day break this year on which families got a much deserved reprieve from the day-to-day grind. Unfortunately, my vets took their own reprieve at a time when Caliche was on death watch. Her kidneys had been failing for some time, and her elevated creatinine levels—6, with 1.3 being normal—made removal of a cancerous tumor on her jaw moot. The anesthetic alone would probably have killed her.
To make matters worse, my love, Beth, was in England at Wimbledon, so we weren’t speaking every night per usual. I was on my own. And I was afraid the Fourth—which for the past forty years has marked the day I crossed the equator on the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVA-42) on the way to Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin—would now take on additional, equally somber gravitas. I dreaded the thought of having to take her to the animal hospital, breaking the promise I had made to her that she could die at home…sparing her the trauma of the dreaded carrying box that invariably caused her to empty her bladder.
Thankfully Caliche fought gamely on through the holiday and could have hung on longer, but I couldn’t bear to watch her increasing lethargy and disinterest in food. Too late I realized that I could spoon-feed her a soupy reduction of her renal cat food, pulverized in my vintage Osterizer, but it wouldn’t have stopped her slow decline. To watch my spirited, delightful animal retreating into her shell beneath the bed was devastating.
First thing Wednesday morning I called the clinic to arrange for her vet to come to the house the next day…Thursday, July 6, 2006. It is a date I shall never forget. (One that unfortunatley coincides with George W. Bush's birthday.) They would have preferred to wait until Friday, but I insisted. It was time. I then made arrangements with Best Friends cremation services and set about to make the most of the final hours I would have with my beloved friend.
Kind neighbors came to pay their last respects that last night—thankfully Patti, who cared lovingly for Caliche so many times for me when I was away. They knew her well, and could see how tired and de-energized she had become. Their support of my decision was extremely helpful, but nothing was going to make me feel better about any of this.
Caliche awoke Thursday still motivated enough to follow Cisco—my huge tom—and I into the kitchen to participate in our morning feeding routine. But she only licked her food a little. The tumor had become so large that it interfered with her chewing and swallowing. Between my tears and sobs I continued to sing her favorite little tunes to her, and made the soft whistling and clicking sounds that always seemed to comfort and soothe her. ("I like the soft music," she had told the pet psychic during our visit the week before. Don't laugh…the lady came up with some interesting observations.)
As she slowly withdrew over the past few weeks, she wasn’t herself anymore: she didn’t enjoy being held as much; she stopped crawling onto my chest in bed and wrapping around my ankles when I walked; she no longer hopped onto my lap during my morning constitutional or cried impatiently for her food. I knew she was failing. But she perked up when I took her outside after lunch for a final farewell.
Caliche ruled the woods of Austin, the canyons of Topanga and the alleys of Albuquerque in her day, but she had been an indoor cat for the past five years. I just didn’t want to subject her to more shots than absolutely necessary. She was a little wobbly—down to a mere four pounds—but I could see the old instincts kick in. She had one last pee in the pine needles next door and a tour of our yard before walking over and wrapping around my ankles. I totally lost it, but rejoiced in that brief moment of recaptured connection and—I’d like to think—gratitude.
We stayed out as long as prudent—interrupted briefly by a caring call from Beth, now back in Manhattan—then retired indoors to await the doctor, who arrived promptly at 2:00 with a technician. I had arranged a place on one of Caliche’s favorite perches—the kitchen table where sushine bathed her in the morning hours. I gave her one last hug and kiss and set her down gently for the last time, continuing to hold her face between my hands. Continuing to make gentle sounds as best I could. It took the doctor a poke or two to find a vein in her wee leg, and then with a shudder she was still, and the light went out of her eyes. A faint heartbeat was still detectable so we carefully turned her onto her other side and administered more of the lethal juice. And then she was gone. With the fick of a switch the animal love of my life was no more. And eighteen years of memories flooded me like a breeched levee in New Orleans.
The vet and her tech offered their condolences and left quickly, leaving me alone with Caliche’s body. I took her into my arms, sat down on the kitchen floor and rocked back and forth as I wailed and keened. Such pain…such hurt… such indescribable loss. I put her down and called Cisco over so he could inspect her. I believe at some level they know what’s going on.
I had allowed an hour before the Best Friends people came so I could take my time with her. I suddenly wanted to draw her (I’ve been drawing self-portraits regularly as of late), not in any morbid way, but only to look at her with the focus and concentration that would require. And after all these years I noticed for the first time delightful little things such as how the hair on her belly curled back on itself where it met the hair on her chest. And how the little tufts sprouted differently from each ear.
I made only a quick sketch—not wanting to lose precious minutes so removed from her. Then I took her outside and sat on the porch, cradling her in my arms to await her pickup. I held her tightly and caressed her in an annoying manner she would never have tolerated when her spirit still resided there, knowing I would never hold her again. Only in my heart. It was a calm, soothing moment, and of inordinate comfort to me. It also helped that the white-haired man from Best Friends seemed a gentle, sweet soul. When he assured me he would take good care of her I believed him.
He was patient, in no hurry, and indulged me when I removed her from the padded carrying cloth to stroke and kiss her one absolute, final time. Then I sagged in my doorway, shattering into small pieces, and watched him carry my heart away and place it gently in the back of a cheery, red truck.

Postscript
I wanted so desperately—and selfishly—for Caliche to maintain quality of life until August. That’s the month she came into my life in Austin, and it might have provided us with some full-circle closure to our life together. Plus Beth is coming for a visit then and could have said goodbye too. Not to mention hold my hand through this. Of course, this could all just be the scriptwriter in me looking for some softer ending. But there would never have been a soft separation from Caliche for me, no matter how well I could have directed it. She was there as I struggled back from the brink of professional and financial ruin in Austin. She was there for my milestone birthdays of 50 and 60 and 65. She was there for my development as an artist. She was there in Texas and California and New Mexico. She was there for my first five years with Beth. She was by my side and in my lap for some of the most significant years of my life, and was the only link to all of them.
I can not imagine my life without her. And yet I will continue. This too shall pass, and my tears will gradually turn to smiles warmed by sweet memories. I am blessed and honored to have had her in my life. I wish you the safest of journeys, beloved Caliche. I wish you fields of bunnies and lizards and snakes to play with. I wish you endless cans of tuna to lick. I wish you a warm spot in the sunshine. But most of all I wish you were here.

Take Me Out to The Blah Game

From February to August each year I believe I should be entitled to a reduction in my newspaper subscription, as I don't bother looking at the sports section. What's the point? It's just crammed with statistics and breathless gushing over one blah game after another—basketblah, baseblah and golf. And while a puck isn't technically a ball, hockey is just as blah. This year we were even treated to the World Cup—the rest of the world's footblah. God, it's tedious to watch.
I know, I know. Everyone gets to play, and all the little nippers learn teamwork. But that doesn't make it entertaining. Call me a snob, but I can't get into a sport that seems to be unplayable without riots and stampedes and deaths. Soccer is all they've got in most of those dreary little towns around the world, so winning and losing become life and death struggles. But we in America don't live in those dreary little towns, and have other sporting events to watch. Ones in which teams actually have an offense and score points.
American football has its fanatics and lunatic fringe—the painted faces and bare skin in freezing weather—but I don't recall bloody mayhem on the level of soccer and hockey…America's answer to bullfighting. (The most frightened I've ever been in my life was at a Ranger game in Madison Square Garden in 1969. And I was in Viet Nam in 1966.) Football is a game invented for TV, where most of us get our sports craving sated. Every replay shows a different skirmish in the overall battle, interesting facets of the larger picture. How many times can you watch a pop up being caught? Yawn.
And is there an IQ cap on baseblah players? They seem to be the most ignorant, racist, stupid athletes on the planet. A dugout full of steroid riddled honyocks, yahoos and rednecks scratching their balls, hocking on their shoes and chewing wads of gum, tobacco and God only knows what.
And does anyone really think the hardest thing to do in sports is hit a fast ball? It ain't easy. But please. A tenth-grade drop out throws a ball with only a general idea of where its going, and it’s swung at and missed or hit by another tenth-grade drop out who also has no idea where it’s going. This compares with hitting a tight end 30 yards down field two inches from the side line? I don't get it.
Basketblah is only marginally better. And then only at the college level. The NBA season is just one long slam dunk competition. I say if you have to go to a game do the following: make the food and drinks better, show NFL highlight reels for an hour, then bring out the seven-footers, start them at 90 points each and go right into OT.
No, sports fans, football has it all over the rest of them. It's the only sport with true sportsmanship. When have you ever seen baseblah or basketblah players from different teams hanging out together after the game? Never happened, never will. Football has its prima donnas for sure, but for every Terrell Owens there are five Latrell Sprewells. These punks have no honor, only talent. And that's not enough for me.

Yeah, but is it art?

I have been making art off and on for most of my life—seriously for the past 15 years. It's not how I make a living, nor have I ever attempted to do so. It was strictly a hobby for years, and I have only recently begun to answer the question, "Are you an artist?" with a yes. It's a bit of a leap for me, as I have zero formal training, no pedigree, etc. All I have is wit, raw talent, a sure hand and a style all unto my own. (Plus good taste and a good eye that tell me much of the work that is shown is crap.) One would think that might be enough to be given consideration by a gallery. But one would be wrong.

I don't know much about the gallery world or the business of art—although I have friends who do. Artists and dealers and
artist/dealers whose entire lives are invested in the moving of expensive paintings and prints from one wall to another. They like my work—they have even traded pieces with me or asked me to make pieces for their homes—but they can't help me.

I labor along with countless talented artists and artisans in New Mexico, a state locked in a perpetual dead heat race with Mississippi for the dubious distinction of being the nation's poorest. Only the concentrated wealth of Santa Fe and Los Alamos keep us from winning in a walk. Santa Fe has become a self-styled art Mecca, striving mightily to gain recognition for itself as a legitimate market. One to be mentioned in the same breath as New York, L.A. and Chicago. It's all high end stuff—some great, some not—so there's no room for entry level work that doesn't fit the mold.

When Elaine Horowitz was still alive—before her gallery morphed into the oh so tony LewAllen Gallery—she devoted one room to offbeat, funky pieces priced well below the grander work in the main space. I think she might have hung my work. But there is no more room for such work, commitment to the lesser tier of talent. No, every square inch of wall space must be devoted to wringing the highest amount possible out of the deep pockets of the part-time residents with third and fourth homes here.

So I am stuck in between—work apparently too refined to be considered truly outsider, yet too outside to gain access into the inner circles. A gringo working in the Hispanic genres of tin and papel picado. I submit slides for show entries to no avail, and refer people to my three-year-old web site (http://www.fosterhurley.com/flash.html) that has produced nary a nibble. Fortunately I have achieved considerable success as a writer/producer in the advertising/design arena, and have sold a screenplay to Paramount. I know I have talent and have been professionally validated. But not where it would mean the most.

"They" tell me my work just isn't right, that it doesn't fit into their buyers' profile. Well, I'll be the judge of that.

Boomermania

I, for one, have had it with Boomers.

Not so much them, but what is made of them by the media. The endless fawning over how THEY are changing this and THEY are redefining that. THEY are changing and redefining nothing. MY generation—their big brothers and sisters born before and during WWII in 1940-42—blew the doors off everything for the Boomlets to waltz through. We did the work and they get the credit.

My dander is no doubt enhanced by the mixed feelings I have about noting the first direct deposit of my first social security payment. But I digress. I initiate my column here with the opening passages of my recently completed memoirs.



Excuse me, but I seem to have misplaced my generation. Has anyone seen it? Or heard it? High school class of ’59, speak up! Man, we’re so far below the radar we could have nuked Laputa with Slim Pickins. Marketers, the media and Congress give us no voice at all. Bob Dylan’s reportedly my age—although I have inside info which skews him a tad older—but the Boomers think he speaks for them. Tom Brokaw’s in my generation—just one year older—and all he talks about is his parents’! What the hell’s up with that? Traitors. America would have us believe that no births of cultural significance occurred again until 1946. In their book Generations, William Strauss and Neil Howe call those of us born in and around 1941 part of the Silent generation. Google dismisses us as pre-Boomer. Give me a fucking break. I refuse to be defined by a younger generation whose only manifest superiority is in numbers.

How does one ignore a three-year span that produced Richard Pryor, Terry Gilliam, Jesse Jackson, Sam Waterston, Al Pacino, Harrison Ford, Charlie Rose, Barney Frank, Bruce Lee, Tim McGovern, Peter Benchley, Barbara Boxer, Donna Shalala, Michael Bloomberg, Joe Lieberman, Roger Staubach, Jack Nicklaus, Bobby Knight, Bill Parcells, Muhammad Ali, Chuck Mangione, Ricky Nelson, Paul Simon, Paul Anka, Jimi Hendrix, Plácido Domingo, Ann-Margret, Julie Christie, Barbra Streisand, Steve Wynn, Paul Prudhomme, Delbert McClinton, Aaron Neville, Wilson Pickett, Carole King, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and John Lennon? And only a year later came Mick Jagger, Joe Namath and God only knows whom else. Attention must be paid to such men and women! [Unfortunately, I also have to include John Gotti, Gary Gilmore, Richard Speck, Charles Whitman, Ted Kaczynski, Pete Rose, Brian De Palma, Helen Reddy, Neil Diamond, Martha Stewart, Ken Lay, Trent Lott and Dick Cheney. But hey, no generation’s perfect.]

We were born on the cusp, my pre-war babies and me—betwixt and between the bust and the boom. But the early 40s spawned heroes without anthems…rebels without a cause. A mere fluke of historical timing granted those born four and five years later an opportunity they would co-opt and death-grip as their cause—that would enable them to believe they had truly changed the world. I don’t blame them. If we’d had more than goldfish to swallow and phone booths to cram and panties to raid, we would have grabbed it. But even though we didn’t, the times they were a changing well before Master Zimmerman took notice. There would have been no Chicago or Kent State if there hadn’t been Eisenhower. No, my little flower children, it takes a hell of a lot more cojones to lash out at the enemies you can’t see or touch—breaking through layer upon layer of the generational dronedom of doing what you were told, going into your father’s business, doing your honorable time in the military, going all the way with girls who did it and marrying the ones who didn’t—conquering the unbearably oppressive ennui of the 50s. Any impressionable twit can go out in the street and protest a war a million miles away. I fail to see how it ennobled a generation enjoying the first youth fares to Europe to speak out against immorality and unconscionable government actions only after the first guys to lay their asses on the line—my guys—came home to tell that generation that we were indeed participating in immorality and unconscionable actions.

We didn’t get the glory—in fact, we got the shame. But we made it all possible. We who had stumbled through our Wonder Years—those years when a child attains most of his/her adult height, according to the preposterous Wonder Bread commercials of the 50s—with nothing to unite us save one glorious gift. We who had stayed up late at night to catch the waves—not from Malibu, but from Nashville. Those stratospheric-bounced radio beams from Randy’s Record Shop arrived like visitors from another planet, another world. The doors opened and we had our first close encounter with alien intelligence. Forget Gort and Michael Rennie…behold Little Richard, the original E.T. Receive the holy word made true from the Spiders, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, Chuck Berry, Todd Rhodes…The Gospel delivered uncut…the real, the original, the one and only Rock and Roll. Free at last, free at last from the bondage of Patti Paige and the Mills Brothers. Everything that has followed is simplistic, derivative homage. [More or less.]



I won't entertain you with all my radio recollections just now, though they are many and rich. I'm curious to see how all this works…who I'll hear from, if anyone. I hear blogging is great fun and an essential form of communication in the new millennium. Well, dear reader, I'll be the judge of that.