DREAMS OF ESCAPE

Dreams of Escape was the title of my very first book of poetry, written in my early twenties and nearly forgotten until tonight when I found an old printed copy. The title is prophetically appropriate.

My entire life seems to have been a perpetual cycle (circle?) of escapes: from unpleasant experiences, bad situations, and - undoubtedly foremost - escape from myself.

Escape from oneself is, of course, an exercise in complete futility - - but I pursued it enthusiastically during my life-long course of discontent.

I don't want to get philosophical (mainly because I lack the qualifications). I'm merely thinking, remembering. Talking to myself.
You're merely an innocent eavesdropper.

I suppose my first great escape was when I left home and moved to Hollywood. I was nineteen - a late bloomer and greener than moldy cheese. I've previously written about this enough times for it to become trite and stale.

It happened after one of the worst (physical) blow-ups I had with my father. He won, hands down. Choked me into unconsciousness, knocked me through a plate glass door. It was weeks before I began to physically heal.

Before I left, I had planned to kill him. Got his revolver. Sneaked into his bedroom late one night (he was a very heavy sleeper). Stood there deciding whether or not to shoot him through the head. Weighed the pros and cons.
Decided to let the son-of-a-bitch live in his own misery.

The cold, seedy,  dangerously anonymous streets of Hollywood are about as far from Tinseltown glamor as anyone can get. I quickly learned about survival - and about sex, drugs, booze, and hardcore realms of escape that I never previously thought were possible.

It was a long and delicious escape - mainly because I became someone other than my real self:  mysterious, elusive, seductive,  dangerously reckless, unconcerned with consequences.....

I'm only scratching the surface of an incredible journey into self-destruction.

And suddenly I'm thinking of all my other attempts of escape, which - filtered through the sobering distance of time - seem as futile as they are ridiculous.

Escape from the heartbreaking end of my first sexual relationship. It lasted only three months. I was nineteen. The...other person...was a decade older and infinitely more experienced. It wasn't love. It was intense infatuation. But I was completely heartbroken. Packed my gear and left California. Spent the entire summer on the east coast.

Escape from another relationship - where intense jealousy (and possessiveness) reared its ugly head.
This.....other person.....was intent on pursuing me - and had enough cash and clout to do it.
I escaped to Mexico. Baja. Eventually Ensenada. Lived on the beach for a few weeks. I drank Tequila and Modelo Chelada and dug my bare toes into uncharted sands.

Juan

en la playa de Ensenada

I already (long ago) wrote a blog post about my escape from marriage. Or perhaps escape from a wedding....

Clara was the sister of one of my best friends, Anton. Their father was well-known and they were an extremely wealthy and refined family.

I was twenty-four. Clara was near thirty but looked much younger. She had been educated in Switzerland and spoke five languages.

I frequented their home, gave private piano concerts and poetry readings there. Sailed on their yacht in Newport Beach. Rode in their Rolls Royce. The entire family adored me (hard to believe, but true) and wanted me to marry Clara.

Clara and I had dated casually. Went to many events in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles. But I was extremely immature and hopelessly reckless. I definitely didn't want marriage (for more reasons than the one you think....). Serious relationships of any kind terrified me.

 Clara and I

at an event in Beverly Hills

a very faded glimpse into my past life...

There's an enormous amount more to this story, but I'll cut it short by saying that Clara eventually married someone she didn't love on the rebound of losing me.

She begged me to attend their wedding,

"for moral support".

As usual, my initial reaction was to escape from the situation. I went on a serious drinking spree, borrowed a boat from a friend, and sailed to Catalina Island where I stayed for a week in blissful inebriation. 

This blog post is getting too long and I've only mentioned a pitiful few of my many colorful escapes.

I still haven't told how I wound up living in poverty in a mountain shack in Tennessee.

If you aren't bored with this crap, I might (eventually) continue my adventures in escape.

EXOTIC MEMORIES

After a month of rain the sun appeared and the sky was blue and hot. The combination of unexpected sunshine and the escapism of reading Death on the Nile have put me in an exotic mood.

Most of us are occasionally smitten by exotic fantasies - whether we care to admit it or not. My current imaginative escape has transported me to Egypt in the 1920's. 

(I figured Cairo in the 1920's was probably more exotic than it is now)

I'm smooth, suave, deliciously young - -  dressed in white summer attire, a custom-made suit that would rival anything worn by Jay Gatsby. I look like a Leyendecker illustration in Collier's Magazine. I'm languishing in a cool corner of a Cairo cafe, sipping a karakadey, smoking a Caravellis cigarette. The distant smouldering sunset is merely a prelude to the erotic secrets of a sultry desert night.....

illustration by J.C.Leyendecker 

I've always been  fiercely attracted to exotic romanticism. When I was young I tried to incorporate it into my life. Now, I only dream about it and yearn for the past. There are times in my past that were intriguingly similar to my Cairo fantasy. I've never been to Cairo, but Southern California was a very reasonable facsimile.

I remember sultry summer nights in Los Angeles, when I played the piano in clandestine bars and cafes. I often wore all white back then (even my shoes), mostly to vainly emphasize my dark tan. I smoked Krakatoa clove cigarettes and sipped Madeira. I wasn't remotely suave but I gave an impressive illusion. Those were the nights when I seldom went home empty-handed......

Occasionally there would be weekend escapes to Palm Springs. At the time it seemed remote and exotic. It's a two-hour drive from L.A. - - considerably less if you're drunk and driving a Camaro.
My memory burns with the image of one spectacular moonless night, near Palm Springs, having a romantic escapade in a convertible, parked near a grove of date palms.

My spontaneous spitefulness sometimes unexpectedly turned into exotic episodes. Most often after the breakup of a torrid romance. 

I vividly recall throwing a volume of Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov at my soon-to-be-ex-lover and dramatically shouting "I'm leaving forever! You'll never see me again!"

Fortunately my aim was bad. Dostoyevsky hit the wall and shattered a framed document. If it had hit my intended victim, the blow would have probably been fatal.

I disappeared from L.A. and wound up on a beach in Baja, near Ensenada, where I lived for three weeks. That was an exotic odyssey - - at least I thought so.

 Baja

I have other exotic memories to share, but I don't want to overstay my welcome. Well not much, anyway.

Remind me to tell the incredible tale of what inspired me to sail a boat solo to Catalina Island with very little nautical experience (I've told this before on my old blog Lone Star Concerto but it's worth a rerun).

It's hard to believe that my life was once filled with romance and exotic adventures, when now - in the Tennessee wilderness - my biggest adventures consist of falling down the mountainside on my clumsy ass and chasing wayward 'possums out of the house.

Life is a bitch but the memories are sweet. 


link to my new photo blog Cabinet of Curios Treasures:
 
Beautiful Egypt 


 

NARROW ESCAPES

I've had one helluva dramatic (exciting?) life and have survived more than my share of harrowing experiences. Although I'm far from being inherently tough or courageous, I've learned to feign bravura and have become oblivious to most of my fears.

Sitting here long after midnight, in the usual company of insomnia and a potent cup of tea, I've taken a quick inventory of my close calls and narrow escapes. The more I think, the more I remember - - and the sheer volume of incidents has served to surprise even myself.

If I want to begin with minor childhood inconveniences, I should mention that at the age of six I was diagnosed with leukemia (by three doctors) and it was grimly predicted that I wouldn't live to be twelve.

There's a long story here that I'll (mercifully) skip over. Needless to say - for better or worse - I lived to see 20, and 30, and......40......and
Well hell, I'm starting to humiliate myself.

Let's just put it this way: if I had a dollar for every day I was over 50, I'd be a millionaire. 

Don't attempt to calculate. And I said millionaire, not billionaire.

I'll skip over most of my juvenile narrow escapes, and mention only a few that have randomly leaped (leapt?) into my mind. 

Like the time I was thirteen and two men attempted to break into our house. I locked the door and tried to hold them at bay while I called the police. They inevitably escaped and were never seen (in our neighborhood) again.

Or the time I was fourteen when my mother and I got lost in East Los Angeles late at night. We were accosted by a gang of Mexicans and mercilessly chased. The adventure climaxed as my Mom frantically raced down the freeway with the gang in hot pursuit in their hopped-up Chevy. We finally managed to ditch them by quickly taking an off-ramp and getting onto another freeway.

I have several harrowing runaway horse stories which I'll omit, for brevity's sake. And the time I was unconscious and almost died from a severe reaction to penicillin.

Randomly listing condensed versions of narrow escapes greatly diminishes their impact. You'd have to have been there, would be the appropriate adage for me to insert here. 

As I progressed into adulthood (or a reasonable facsimile) my harrowing adventures and narrow escapes dramatically increased. There's no possible way that I could put these in any logical order. I'm merely giving haphazard samples.

I survived a brutal fall down a long flight of stairs and a horrendous auto accident (not on the same day, of course). I was rudely knocked out of bed onto my ass by the 1971 Sylmar earthquake in California. A deadly Thanksgiving tornado in the Missouri Ozarks roared right by my house.

When I was a young security officer in Santa Ana, California, I was stalked by a murderer - who left one of his dead victims in a trash compactor right outside the door of my work office. This story is much more harrowing than you would ever believe. In fact just thinking about it scares the hell out of me. I wrote about it long ago on one of my old blogs. Someday I'll tell it again. It's actually worthy of a book.

On a lighter note (*smile*), I once slashed the hand of a thug with my switchblade when he tried to rob me late one night in downtown L.A.  

I've been physically threatened by angry lovers, angry ex's, even angry wives (not mine, of course - - use your imagination). I've previously told the story of the time I was in rehearsal with an orchestra and an angry husband stormed in and threatened to kill me - right in front of the entire ensemble. That's another story which is worth retelling.

Speaking of murder, my violent father tried to kill me numerous times (no exaggeration) and I've had serious death threats by irate and psychotic lovers (not to mention knock-down drag-out brawls).

I was shot at several times when I lived in Texas - - once accidentally and once deliberately by a drug-crazed neighbor.

I came face to face with a mountain lion one night while I was peeing in the Nevada mountains. I encountered a nest of angry rattlesnakes while hiking at Twin Buttes in Texas.

Okay, I'll reluctantly admit that this post is getting too long. Surprisingly, I've hardly scratched the surface. I can assure you that every one of these incidents is true. In retrospect, my close-call adventures are much more interesting than I initially realized.

I can't think of a suitable ending. I suppose I could mention that I once survived a live three-hour concert of music by Schoenberg and Stravinsky.
It was by far one of the most harrowing and brutal of my experiences.