Fact or Fiction …
My parents met in post war Europe while my dad was stationed in Trieste, then an International City. They’d met in a bar under somewhat dubious circumstances. Mom played the piano and dad was an adjunct to the postmaster general. The rest is our family story. They re-settled in Chicago, IL. USA I was adopted in 1950 after mom had more than one miscarriage. At least they never gave up. I have a sister (2/’53 ~11/’23) and a brother, Marc, who are the actual children of my parents. Thanks be to Ancestry.com!
Growing up on the Westside of Chicago was no laughing matter. Fights, stitches, playing baseball in the alley, breaking garage windows, all part of the 1950’s etiquette. We threw bottles at each other for fun or dares. Messed up for sure!
Once on vacation on a lake in Wisconsin I tried to inadvertently drown my brother by holding the underside of a raft and telling him it wasn’t deep. As he jumped in and sank like a stone, mouth open and taking in water, I’ll never forget my mom yelling at me to “go and get your brother!” I could swim pretty good so it wasn’t difficult. As I bought him to shore, spitting water out of every pore of his body, I’ll always remember the look on his face. Totally shocked and traumatized into moms awaiting arms he goes and she yelling at me, “never again Gregory.” I realized somewhat later that I might be prone to deviant tendencies. My brother to this day still can’t swim and is uncomfortable with going over his head in the water. I became a W.S.I. in high school…
I’m living more than once during this lifetime. When I was 19 my heart stopped while riding my motorcycle and in the subsequent crash started up again. I woke up in the arms of a Navy Corpsman who was on leave from Great Lakes Naval Station. Just lucky I guess. This was followed several years later in the Grand Canyon while taking a brief catch your breath rest on the North Rim trail, someone on the ridge above me set off a rock slide and a huge 40 lb. rock landed on my backpack which only a moment prior had my head rested. Next came a bardo experience while camping on a bike trip outside of A-dam. I’d swallowed a rock of hashish shortly before the border to W. Germany and went into a coma. In a Bardo vision my friend Mukunda Kristal snapped me by the toe as I was headed into ‘Om Mani Padme Hung’ thunder, lightening and all territory and I came to, face first in the grass. The last time was on a porch in Bremen, waiting for my friend Russell who had just moved there with his German girlfriend (having lost a coin toss in Mexico City while sightseeing with a group of German tourists). A gargoyle some 20’ above me was struck by lightening and landed where I’d been sitting only a moment before. I’d been subsequently blown by the force some twenty feet into the shrubs without a scratch, but shaking and still breathing. Exhilarating to say the least. I’ve also been married twice which is a miracle I’ve survived.
As an adolescent I went to a Roman Catholic Seminary. I was suspended a week before graduation for cutting classes with my pal Craig. We rode our motorcycles to Starved Rock State Park to reserve campsites for our Senior Class Weekend. When the ArchBishop handed me my not diploma casing, he simply ’tsked’ and looked me straight in the eyes announcing my name. I was 78th out of a class of 83. I’ll never forget it.
Also during my time at the Seminary, in my Senior year, we had an underground home mass, which was a really radical thing, but because of the Ecumenical Movement it wasn’t unheard of. It was a mixed mass, that being four seminarians and four girls from one of the all girl Catholic high schools attended. One of our instructors from the Seminary, Fr. Matt, celebrated the liturgy. We used guitars and sang contemporary songs like Suzanne by Leonard Cohen, and made up tunes for the Kyrie Eleison, Sanctus, Agnus Dei and added ‘Hosannas’ to tambourines and harmonies. I was so turned on, I couldn’t sleep afterwards. I still remember the feeling of Spirit, an alive sense of worship and how fortunate the early Christians must have been to have lived like that. I was also really proud of my parents for letting us host this celebration of liturgy in our home. Kudos mom and dad!
Did I mention: I was in a band, I sorta played guitar and sometimes bass, I sucked basically, not in musicianship but in bandmanship. Once at a sock hop gig my dad showed up and I tried to hustle him for some scratch to buy a better amp. His response was something like, “ oh, you think that just because you’re up on stage I should front you some cash…” I guess after the sucker punch of my wanting to play the piano when I was eight or nine years old, he’d had enough of my musical pursuits. I still love to play piano, just not the sheet music.
I became radicalized* at the 1968 Democratic Convention. I cut my teeth with guerrilla tactics of throwing shit at the cops from the Grant Park bushes and retreating into the park while being assaulted by Mr. John Law and Order. There were six of us in that cadre. It was urban warfare meets street theatre before we knew it. Power to the People. I did meet Abby Hoffman and Mark Rudd, as well as Jessie Jackson, who was very inspired at the time. (Abby had F-ck written on his forehead, I’ll never forget it, he said it was to keep his face off television).
* I don’t know about this other than as my own experience of being crystallized in a moment. That moment occurred watching the 1968 Chicago National Democratic Convention on the late evening news. I remember seeing the riot footage and protests getting violent. An inner voice exclaimed “they’re beating the kids!” And that was it. Radicalized. Everything in my life changed at that moment. The issues of the day which so passionately were a discussion in the Seminary became the badge of courage in my heart. I live that stuff still today. Those issues are my touchstone to a better, ethical living. To thy own self be true,(thank’s Augustine) was echoed at the family table but nobody, myself included was ready for this…
After dodging the draft and living in an ashram for two years, I applied for a Conscientious Objector status and was awarded one in abstentia. Later I was re-categorized 1-H as they didn’t know what to do with the growing resistance movement as the war was winding down. This was around the time of the Paris Peace Conference. It was also the first time I remember thinking that there was such a thing in life as miracles.
I have a ‘love child’ who is 39 and lives in Seattle, Wa.
I used to ride motorcycles, my favorite was a 305 Honda SuperHawk, it is another miracle that I’m still alive. I fell off that dam bike so many times, and got up and kept riding. Ah youth, little do we know what we will pay for later.
Growing up my dad always called me a beachcomber, maybe he was right….
He also would drag me around with him to all of his extra curricular Church activities, like the St Vincent de Paul Society. These guys would go and paint poor parishioners flats or get groceries etc. I guess he wanted me to see men together doing charitable work, or being of service to the poor. Certainly it made the impression he’d intended. Later on there was a retreat movement called the Cursio which he was quite engaged with. I remember his St Vincent pals coming to the retreat end to celebrate my ‘initiation’ as it were. Those guys were really a bunch, so supportive and proud of me… what a gift to a kid who really didn’t know up from down. I’ll never forget you guys.
There were three of us in The Black Hand (all of Yugoslav descent). We egg bombed the ROTC building and locked people out of the Main Campus Center during the Kent State protest days at the De Paul University Campus in Lincoln Park. Somehow the radical idea of locking people out captured our imaginations. They closed the Uni for three days of moratorium so in the end our act was more a symbol than of consequence.
In 1989 I became an ‘honorary Citizen of Berlin West’ as an artist performing “Aktion Kunst” in ‘Crossroads’ along with Fountainhead e.v. and the Nina Shinaflug’s Chicago Moving Company. There were over 800 people in the audience each performance. Toi Toi Toi! Auf die Kunst!
I taught art in prison and with kids at risk in lock up detention as a guest artist in residency during the first decade of the 2000’s. We also had an extremely successful exhibit at a non profit gallery in downtown Salt Lake City ( the guys couldn’t attend unfortunately ). There as even a Fox TV interview… There are so many lost communities within our cities, it was a privilege to serve them in such a creative activity. We all need to do better when it comes to our marginalized populations…
I was a founding member of the November Gruppe, five ex-pat artists living in Berlin West. Mott McCampbell came up with the tag: The Holy Brethren of St. Francis of Assisi -Painters. The rest is history, or our story…
Alex, I’m so sorry for the mess we made of things. I wish it had turned out better.
I am S.A.L.A. #4 Berlin West sector (61).
Mediterraneano Auguri! una faccia una rassa.
I re-claimed our family name in 2000, in court the judge asked me if I was evading outstanding warrants, taxes or criminal proceedings, what a question, who would say yes to that! I had a good friend who was a lawyer with the AG office with me and as the judge entered the courtroom he nodded to him and I knew I’d made my Nono (grandfather) proud. It is all about who you know.
Shenanigans aside, I live a relatively secluded and quiet contemplative lifestyle, with occasional forays into the madness of Being, alive in a time of uncertainty and mystery, and my own quiet joys…
“Billy the Kid did what he did and he died”…Why?
I love that line, I wish I’d written it.
“All men are little boys with holes in their socks”
I did write that line.
Thanks Elio for the ‘grino inspiration. Liam and Lucy for everything and ms. Indra Belle.
It’s really really hard to find a Muse who will stick around these days,
Inspiration isn’t what it used to be I guess…
(My Inspiration: Don’t Take the Money ~ Beachers)
Shout out to Vincent G, Andre Derain, Jorge Luis Borges, and of course Joe Hill, Jesse Fraiser, Mott and Hugh.
… and then there’s Robert Pleasants, Scott Moore, Karel Apel, Louise Nevelson and the Kids next door!
I have exhibited under pseudonyms more than once both overseas (Germany & Austria) and here in U-tah (modeled after the Japanese tradition of mid career name changes for artisans, to keep ‘em honest I guess). Besides having used the Ellis Is. family name of Perri early on in my painting career, one of my favorites was Lot 47.
Atelier/gp