World AIDs Day – Dec. 1, 2007

Billy Joel sings “Only the good die young” and that at times is how we would like to view the world that is dressed in the costume of disappointments and unanswered prayers. My lover’s ex-lover’s older brother was swiftly killed in a car accident. The ex-lover was shattered inwardly over this happenstance moment in time and built and kept building on the top of the family piano, shipped here to Southern California from Minnesota from his parents house, a memorial to this lost brother. Three months after my brother Michael was put to the earth my brother Steven and I talked of putting together a quilt square for Tony and our intentions were good but we did not do it. The gathered goods that we culled from his house are in a brown paper bag out in the garage. I had great ambitions. When I found out my brother was ill I had even greater ambitions, but I have over the years come to know that all that those ambitions were not fulfilled. He told me during one of our last conversations that he forgave me all the things I asked him to forgive. He said he truly loved me. I must admit that over the years those words – spoke to me through the trembling plates of magnets and electricity over long distant miles do not so much ring true. I did not want to build a monument to him. He was not a saint. He was not a bad man. He had his quirks. He could be very quarrelsome. He had good heart. He at times was lost in this world that no one can prepare us for. I know he felt abandoned. He felt wretched. He told me he knew that his God loved him. He loved his mother and father, his sister and two brothers. He had a special smile. His smile…I see it every time I think of him. God he had horrible habits. He smoked like a fiend. He could run like the wind. He was a cat man. He wanted to be known as Tony. All the many friends that showed up to his memorial called him Tony. This is my quilt square. My brother Michael Anthony Jones was born a Christmas Eve baby, 12/24/55, to Arline and Gerald Jones in Sacramento, CA and left this plane of existence March 23, 1991 one of the many millions who contracted the HIV virus and succumbed after a valiant fight to the disease that made him only another statistic. He is not a statistic to me nor to the other’s in his family. He was a baptized Christian, something he searched out and investigated with great care during his teen years. Our discussions during that time must have been very off-kilter. My own spiritual dilemmas during that period had me quoting from Allen Watts the Protestant turned Buddhist and from the Bhagtvita – the tales of Krishna and Arjuna while my brother gave me his proselytizing sermons from a very stilted new testament/old testament slant. We were really two whacked out teens who had felt the influence of a very religious culture my father and mother had moved us into during our teen years. We were living in Idaho Falls, Idaho at the time. The main attraction in the city up until my senior year in high school had been the white phallic splendor tower of the Mormon temple looking out over the falls of the Snake River. During the years that followed Tony would slip in and out of his religious stance – his life filled him with great dilemma – reconciliation with his life in Christ and his life disposition did not tally correctly. Most of our childhood was spent on Vale Drive in Carmichael, California where my parents bought a small three bedroom house and then added on a bath, two bedrooms and a large family room, an endeavor that brought my dad and uncle Larry to a great friendship. My brother Mike and I lived in the newly built removed to the back of the house bedrooms. From our bedrooms we could go quickly outside through sliding glass doors to the backyard pool. One of my fondest memories from childhood were from this time – Michael and I stood at that glass sliding door holding hands in great anticipation of the sleigh we may see in the dark night. We didn’t say anything and I never asked him if he remembered that moment but to me it is one of those moments in my life I remember vividly, the feel of his hand in mine, the cold floor under our feet, the anticipation. My brother was quiet and taciturn. He was the younger of us two and being his older brother I teased him unmercifully. We would turn the evening dishwashing chore into a bickering tease fight that often turned into fistfights. This not only caused us to fight but also drove our parent crazy. I know I pushed Mike too hard once to often when he came back at me wielding a butcher knife. He had had enough and I knew it. I never teased him after that. Michael had the heavy weight of being compared to me. I had made an easy time of fooling teachers that I was a good student those early years and my brother was unfortunately compared to me by those idiot women disguised as educators – today I most likely would think they could not have passed the teacher requirement courses. Although my parents felt Mike was not meeting his potential Mike was adamant that he was and he was put to test. He somehow lost his stature in my parent’s eyes and they did not stand behind him. They believed the teachers and ridiculed my brother. They held him back one year in school. This ongoing battle between Mike, my parents and the teacher caused many fights that spilled over into our life. Mike kept this problematic year stored away in his psyche…it scared him and his relationship with his parents and with his sister and two brothers for many years. There were times later on in his adult life when these old scars would make their way to the surface and Mike would be very difficult to understand and be sympathetic too. Michael liked Glenn Campbell, Peter Frampton and Simon and Garfunkel. During his last year I introduced him to the Smiths which he seemed to really enjoy. Tony enjoyed the outdoors. He loved to go camping by himself well not really by himself he would take his cats or sometimes he would take Sue and Timmy along with him. Sue was a woman with whom he had a special relationship. Sue had a young boy named Tim whom my brother acted as a surrogate father too. I think Mike/Tony would be proud to know today that Tim is a father and that Sue is doing well. I don’t know if Tony would have been a great dad but I know he would have tried if the opportunity had arisen. The years has swiftly gone by our lives have changed immensely, nothing seems like the same thing anymore, and yet just thinking for a moment back on the sharing of my life with my brother I feel right there again, enjoying his quirky sense of humor, his way of smiling with a smirk, his ever blinking eyes, his always smoking cigarettes. Dec. 1 seems like a good day to post this, not a number, not a statistic, not a memorial – just a sweet memory.

Les Rita Mitsouko “Mêne Si”

One of the great things about travel is that new musical artist come into your radar. Last year it was Nouvelle Vague, Pauline Ester, Pascal Parisot and Amel Bent – this year we found the music of Les Rita Mitsouko – their music is exciting and playful – well see for yourself. Watch the video of their newest release:

LINKS: RITA MITSOUKO: http://www.ritamitsouko.com/ NOUVELLE VAGUE: http://www.nouvellesvagues.com/

PASCAL PARISOT: http://www.myspace.com/pascalparisot AMEL BENT: http://www.amelbent.com/

PAULINE ESTER: http://www.paulinester.com/

An added note while in New York City last spring ran into these four guys in Central Park and had to buy their CD – this is great fun music: Tin Pan Blues Band http://www.tinpanbluesband.com/

—————- Make sure to visit FRIENDS OF PUBLIC ART and help save the Rainmaker fountain in Palm Springs. We need your help. Now playing: Les Rita Mitsouko – L’Ami Ennemi via FoxyTunes