Glistening Glaze

I'm going to put the story of my world-wide quest for love here, soon.

In the meantime, here is a chapter of my localized, grocery store quest for love...

Written to a French girl (thus the thoughts about the reader not understanding subtleties of English, and with the original capitalization - ie., it's an email I decided not to send to the French girl, afterall, as it might insult her (to speak of other girls!) - here it is, though, for anyone who might stumble across it...)

yesterday, in a shop - a huge, chaotic crowd - as if the martians were coming, or something (just a blizzard, really) - maybe 50 people in the queue for each till - and i was going to be in one queue, but this lady and i decided another would be quicker

as always happens with me, i was now two people behind the most extraordinary girl. she was tall, blonde-ish, in a cool way - she looked like a snowboarding girl who had liberal tendencies, but not extreme.

as fate would have it, or as would be in most people's lives only seen in a movie, she decided to break from the queue and get a croissant or something from the bakery section of the shop...leaving her basked of stuff on the ground...

the perfect opportunity, you see? only in movies...and in austino's magical existence...

she didn't check behind her as she negotiated with the baker, so as the queue inched forward, i took her basked of stuff with me. not really such a big deal, and pretty much the obvious thing to do...

it was just the angle of her body, when she was standing there. i am probably better at picking up on subtle queues than anyone on earth. she was totally cool, i promise you

anyway, when i  - when she saw i'd "had her back", as it were, she said something like "thank you - that's so kind of you."

it's the most infinitely small linguistic thing - you could never understand it - but most people would say "nice".  what it conveyed, in such a subtle way you could never understand, is that she was educated, but also had a larger vocabulary for good deeds than would most people. but she wasn't some prissy do-gooder, either. and to have a larger vocabulary of words is to have a larger vocabulary of thought...meaning, she must think about being good. which, granted, mengele might, also, but as something to defeat. i imagined - and could tell - it was something, for her, to promote. but again, not in an obnoxious way. i could just tell. and i know i was right.

she was just cool.

anyway, i saw her trying to catch my eye, and I avoided it. finally she did, and she said, and again a minute later, things about how goddamned wonderful i was or something.

i did something really stupid, though - it's like, i didn't want her to think i had done something kind because she was a babe - and she wasn't REALLY a babe - she was more - good looking the way a snowboarding girl would be good looking, if you know what i mean. maybe...max - 3? % more testosterone than a prissy girl - enough to subtly make her cooler, without taking away from...it was just the way she stood. her body language. she was SO cool...

she also had these normal sweat pants on, except the bottom of one leg of them - not both, just one - had, maybe 5 stripes of vaguely, but not overly, rainbow colours. as if, she was also, maybe...2-3% the descendant of some liberal 60s activist or something, but just so subtle. where could you even get normal sweatpants with a 3 percent nod to the new hampshire rugged libertarian vaguely 1960s inspired ethos?

nowhere on this planet, or the planet most people inhabit - but in my planet, all things coalesce in an awesome pattern...

anyway, at least three times she gave me the opportunity to strike up a conversation - and truthfully, had she been ugly, I would have done...

but I didn't.

normally, if something like that happens, i'll regret it for a few hours.

in paris, once - omg, this girl - it was magic - i regret it to this day...

the thing is, i'm SO accustomed to being at a place like Ox, where it's best to just spread the magic as a glistening glaze across the university, so that girls start talking to each other about who that magic boy must be.

it doesn't work in the big city.

you'll never see the person again.

i've got to learn this lesson, man...

disclaimer - this was written for a friend, and the "magic boy" comment was for my friend, who, of course, being my friend, thinks i'm a magic boy (so she says...!) it doesn't mean i think that - that would be arrogant! :D

Michael Jackson

January 1

Before I start the story, a little about Michael Jackson.

I offered to give my autographed copy of Thriller to a friend - for a year - (wouldn't give a thing like that away forever!) - for Christmas...

She thought I meant it was a printed signature...

So, that got me to thinking about MJ this morning, and in response to her asking me what I remembered...here are the 3 letters I sent...[English is her third language, thus the language explanations....]

1

ok, this is a MUCH better story to tell, but I'll try to write it

my friend - well, first -

camera dollys (dollies?) look like simple things - like shopping carts, kind of - on which you put a movie camera, when there's a "tracking" shot. it's like a wagon, on which you put a movie camera. Except, because there are all sorts of fancy hydraulics and god knows what, one is worth about a hundred thousand dollars...

anyway, it was slightly odd - it was - that he always had a friend who was twelve, in that - when the friend got older, he really wouldn't hang out with him any more. So it was kind of like he was friends with the age, not the person? which one could argue is kind of using people. not deliberately, not consciously, but..

anyway, he and his friend were in a sound stage (at a movie studio - a sound stage means like a big warehouse type building, in which they film movies), just the two of them, when my friend walked in. i don't know if he wanted something from m, or if he needed something from the soundstage and happened to walk in.

and michael and his friend - one was pushing, the other riding - were racing around the sound stage with the camera dolly, and m was going "

WheeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!"

He suddenly saw my friend, and said: "X - don't tell, okay. Please don't tell." (i've X'd my friend's name out!)

You have to speak English to understand that, really - "don't tell" is short for "don't tell on me", and it's something you would never say - never - after you were 12, and probably not after you were 5 or 6. And he was totally serious.

And my friend thought, but didn't say " You're f***ing Michael Jackson!!! :0 Who the fuck am I going to tell?!? :0 :D"

You understand, it wasn't like don't tell the press or something - that wouldn't have even been a vague issue, that wasn't what he meant. Just like - don't tell...the grown up in charge, basically.

Except, he was Michael Jackson - he WAS the person in charge.

But he didn't see it that way - he totally, honestly, and sincerely didn't.

That was what he genuinely was, and it is tragic, tragic, that there never was an adult who had his best interests at heart to take care of him, to allow him to do what he did best, without fucking all the rest of it up as he really honestly was still a child, always...

I thought about it, and then wrote this a half hour later...


2

i will say one other thing, while I think of it...

michael jackson could never have become michael jackson tdoay.

today, everyone in la - every shop assistant - knows the phone number of paparazzi, and knows they'll get a hundred dollars or something if they tip them off when anyone famous is nearby.

his whole fame came from a kind of mystique. that couldn't happen today..

before I knew someone who knew him - which is how I spent most of those times in his vicinity - I used to run into him ALL the time one year. Like, I was afraid he recognised me and thought I was some obsessed kid following him around (I don't really think he thought that!)....

the first time, it was a school day, but for some reason (!) i was in the shopping mall. It was morning...on a weekday...totally deserted...

And m [Michael Jackson] came by with one of his friends (who was also not in school!), going to the toy store. that was the first time I ever spoke to him, and he kept asking me questions about myself, but I was too shy, and kind of said something stupid, and sort of ran away...

but my point is - I saw him enough times, especially at the movie studio, that I absolutely to this day could recognise his driver, who acted also as a kind of body guard. Yet when I saw him that first time, at least, it was just him and his friend (and me!), in a totally deserted mall...

not in a million years could someone build fame around a mystique today...it couldn't happen in the mainstream media...

Then I wrote this...less than an hour later...


3

i'm suddenly getting really wistful about that...

just, like, there was something so innocent...i mean, i was just a kid, but so was he (even though he wasn't!)...and he looked relatively normal, y'know (i don't recall staring at his face, but why would I?)

he was just some kid, playing his game in a way that got the world's attention...

i think what happened to me recently, that I told you about...that really evil person going terrible things to me - I just...I mean, if you think about it, that's what destroyed mj - he was a genuinely and sincerely innocent and sweet person, just - i mean, I heard interviews where he referred to himself this way - christ like - haha -but, y'know...

and the bad thoughts and bad ideas of the world killed him...he had no...no guidance, and was ultimately just a child. I heard Paul McCartney referring to him, after he died last summer, as a ...child, or a boy, or something - and then corrected himself,and said, well - not precisely, but he was...

i've never thought any of this through, before. i've never even told anyone about seeing him in the toy store since the week it happened...

but there is something really tragic about innocence lost...adults call it growing up...and they call innocence naive, and growing up...um..acting adult, I guess.

but just because something comes after, doesn't make it better.

people have always said that about me - that i'm kind of...not...um...corrupt, or whatever...like a kid, always...

m-----[my friend] - but you don't know him - in [city in France] said that once, when I leapt over a fence, rather than walking around it, as everyone else did! (M----- was in his first year of high school, but he walked around the fence!)

m [Michael Jackson] seems to have been the fool...it DOES appear that it is sophisticated "grown up" people who win.

Charlie Chaplin, y'know, was thrown out of the United States, and lived in exile (he was English, so he could be thrown out) - he was thrown out for going to a communist rally - but the point is - he sincerely believed in something...and was punished for it....i don't know...

it's funny, to remember so clearly - I do remember, I remember what he was wearing...to have an image in my mind so clear...of, really, the most famous person on earth! (i remember the other occasions, too, of course...)

but - it just touches me, somehow, as it never did before...it was just some weekday morning, and....

and it DOES make me sad that...he didn't get good advice about how to handle his problems...

Where in the World is Love?!?

So, last February, my friend JC had a brilliant idea, which I kind of expounded on. Basically, it was to travel the world, talking to people - and filming them - about love...(my idea was the subject - he thought I should do it about...something!)

Unfortunately, and sadly, after getting three really cool interviews - really cool - as in, they made me happy just to watch - one in particular, just makes me smile - life took over my dreams, and I had to hang my hat in the shed (?!? sorry, it's late, not sure that makes sense!) - no, but - I had to help out with a sick relative and all sorts of stuff, and have been stuck, away from my friends and dreams, since May, pretty much.

I'm gonna start putting up the story here, though - the interviews, how I got where I got and met the people I met....and music and songs about...well, life, and love, and stuff like that...

I hope soon to hit the highways, flyways, and byways of the world, to add more! But, it'll take me a few months just to find the best bits of what I've got so far...so, anyway, here we go...

CU Thanks...

Where in the World is Love?!? Film, Music, TV Show, and More...

First, let's set the blog thingie up...!