A view of inside the Dixon Gallery and Gardens
Well I left off talking about the rev. Doctor and getting all mushy.
But how can i not talk about the venue that made this all possible
the Dixon Gallery and Gardens
(The Dixon front view)
I am getting ahead of myself
So, let talk about the food the music, and the great people of Memphis.
Jazz, rock, blues, bb Elvis, rap if you can imagine all of this playing at once
you get Memphis.
My host and the person who invited me, Margarita
is the head of education at The Dixon gallery and Gardens
She is a beautiful woman who happens to be Columbian.
Margarita
She has a really interesting story, some of which i will tell some parts of,
Later on in this letter.
ok lets get beale St
over with
The first day i went out, and walked to beale St, I was simply amazed at the amount
of music and food.
It is hard to describe it except to say its a little New Orleans.
Anyway............... every place you walked past
had it own band, and people were dancing in the streets.
Dancing in the streets
The Black kids would dance in the streets for money, flipping, krunking.......it was some thing to see, if you could get close enough to see it.
They were drinking these giant colored drinks, partying every where. And i didn't noticed any problems either.
The first thing i did when walking up to Beale St was to sign in with the cops stationed there. We got into a great conversation about New York and new jersey, Big boys these cops.
anyway
I love these carriages,
ok i love the trolleys too
so i would have to decorate my trolley with these lights
and it would be perfect
I met the coolest guy and his wife, (they owned the store pictured below)
I actually spent allot of time in this store.
It attracted me because of all of the old and dead things in the window.
I walked in and the owner was a big red headed guy from Kentucky, who moved to Memphis.
He and i bonded immediately and I spent hours over the course of the next two days.
talking to him and his wife. What nice people and he was a artist in his own right to boot.
Anyway , i decided after a short while to walk beyond beale St.
So I walked towards a large park,
this guy in a wheel chair came up to me.
He said brother stop, don't go down there ........the projects are down there and you will get killed.
I was looking for cigs, cigs are like 2-3 dollars a pack in Memphis if you can believe it.
anyway he said ill take you there......... ill look out for ya.
I looked at him with no legs and one arm and thought better of it.
I had found Newark and now i was in my element again.
Hell no we wont go.
anyway
I left the wheel chair guy
and walked around the fringes of Beale St.
Of course i wanted to see more, The other Memphis.
And low and behold,
This black guy who i kept running into....... appeared again, as if my magic.
More like crack head radar..........but
He was about 45 a drinker and down on his luck.
Ok perfect.
A instant friendship developed cemented by me buying him.
a dollar beer every half and hour or so.
he took me to some of the surrounding areas.
and we actually wound up hanging out a few times a day.
I wanted the scoop how are the jobs.
what do people do when they aren't around beale St
you know the non-tourist news
Memphis is rough
it reminded me of Newark in in its heart and in the poor sections.
Newark with a view, the same as poor can be the same but still different.
anyway .
I cant walk around all of Newark either.
Memphis is a beautiful town a very big town.
I can go into The city of Memphis but every one reading this knows this all already.
So Ill move onto the lecture that i was giving at Dixon house.
and Back to Margarita.
Firstly let me say we (Margarita and i established a almost instant like of each other.
At least on my part............she probably thought i was Shriek for at least a instant.
But she said that I reminded her of her father . He drinks coffee obsessively and smokes cigarettes just like me.
Her father and I also shared many of our comments about the people of Memphis, including how big every one was.
We didn't’t get to hang out too much until the day of the lecture.
Let me describe Dixon gallery and gardens
beautiful
and the work that hangs inside this place was amazing
i got special permission to photograph inside the gallery
i whined and cried until the head of the place let me
I got to know all of the black female security guards and they actually gave me a great guided tour.
Look at this work...........wow
The work of the masters.......damn
Paul Cézanne
Marc Chagall
Jean-Louis Forain
Here i was hanging in the room next too these Guys
The show ancestry and innovation was presented really well. It looked great in the space.
Here is One of my sculptures "Mother Oatmen" Dedicated to my best friends grandmother, the head of the church Mothers at the Pentecostal church "Holy Temple" In Elizabeth New Jersey where I sang in the choir at in my youth
so long ago
(Mother Oatmen)
But i couldn't get over what was hanging the rooms next to me.
I mean the work in the show can more than stand up to any thing.
But here i was a ex-cop from Newark Hobnobbing with the masters
onto the lecture.
A view of the show
another
Mararita is a very very bight woman and had every thing ready.
Her intern was a lovely young lady from Mississippi.
anyway the lecture
folks started showing up and it had a nice crowd including the director.
and you know
i can talk and talk .
so thats never a problem
interestingly .........i spoke of the changing world and how obama
will bring about change
i expected applause, but got silence.
I was in tenn and that still didn't click.
Until the lecture was over and this nice couple walked up to me.
They could have been the new Yorkers i was used too, but they were from Seattle originally,
before moving here.
We got into a long discussion about Obama and politics.
and they told me that they keep their love for obama very very quiet
this is mccain country after all
who knew
anyway afterwards
mararita took me to another section of Memphis
for coffee she and i had a love for coffee and hamburgers
perfect.
we stopped at this beautiful section
that was almost a throwback to the 1960's i felt like i was with hippies again
and it was relaxed and cool with out being trendy
margatita by the way
some of her story
she is from Bogota
so i picked her brain as i do about race and Columbia and every thing else
but interestingly she told me that her father, had made her and her siblings
learn french at a early age.
he then moved the family to Haiti where she lived until her early teens
she said she loved Haiti and its people
you could see it in her eyes.
the love of Haiti its people and the art
she was so well traveled that she told me of the many places that she had lived
during her life
a fascinating woman this one
then she took me to a place with the best hamburgers in Memphis
and i sat there stunned by the good company and food
what a lovely place
The take a straw and shoot match sticks into the ceiling
but after two packs a day and my pipe
i cant blow out a candle let alone hit the ceiling
i wish there were more time
but it was time to return
so Margarita drove me to the plane
we talked and talked what easy person to talk too
I told Margarita that she has to stop in the gallery and talk to shari and Randall
about Haiti
i told her of my friends Reynolds and Nancy and their love of that place
what is it about Haiti
that makes so many love it so
in any case
the trip was over
sniff sniff
it was time to return to Newark
shown below
to dirty dishes and a house full of men
yucky pooh
well on the way down there i took a tranquilizer
so it was pretty easy getting on the plane
you know
i don't like to fly
but now i had no traq's but i got on the plane
and it wasn't so bad
except for all of the turbulence
remember the storm had just tore up Texas
this was the same weekend
but Memphis remained sunny windy and nice
these lectures are enhancing me in ways
i cant quite figure
America is such a beautiful place
i know i will be one of the old guys driving
a mobile home throughout the country
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