This week on RETRO 13 at DREAD CENTRAL, I’m celebrating my favorite movie actress in her one great performance as MS.45. CLICK THE IMAGE ABOVE to see the full tribute, along with some choice words about the lady herself. That lady is Zoe Tamerlis, whom I love deeply as a brilliant artist and a beautiful woman, and whose senseless death I often lament. Last year, I paid homage to my long-departed mother by creating a portrait of Zoe for her. I began the RETRO 13 series this year on my mother’s birthday, to continue that honor. AND . . . by an incredible coinkydink . . . this week’s installment also happens to fall on the one year anniversary of my near-fatal encounter with a speeding truck that left me scarred for life and crippled for a very long time. Actually, the anniversary was three days ago, this past Saturday. But it’s close enough. And there’s more. Keep reading.
For those who may be interested, I’m doing a lot better, after a year of learning how to walk again. This was a very lonely, determined time, in which I had to set many goals and reach them . . . or ELSE. My foot is still semi-paralyized. My bladder is still half-desroyed. But I can now walk more-or-less normally for short distances, although the limp still gives away my bionic leg most of the time. I still need my cane if I go for more than a few blocks. I used to love walking in my neighborhood. It’s really hurts now. But I’m hoping to reach a point in my healing in which those long walks are possible again, without any pain at all. For what I actually have achieved, I am truly, eternally grateful. I don’t take narcotics anymore. My mind still works. I am undefeated by this experience. I’m working harder than ever on many projects, including (of course) RETRO 13.
I had many friends helping me though this past year. One of them was a man named Robert Jacques. When I was lying in a hospital bed, zonked out of my mind on every drug known to man and battered beyond belief, Rob and his wife were trying to have a baby. I remember thinking how cool it would be to live long enough to see that baby with my own eyes. And guess what?
A year TO THE DAY of my accident, I visited the hospital–only five blocks from where that truck almost killed me–and I watched Rob’s wife Nitra cradle their newborn Charlie Graciela Jacques in her arms. She was born just one day before.
She is a beautiful baby.
My favorite baby.
All of this means something, I’m pretty sure. My anniversary. Charlie’s birth. Zoe’s death. My mother, somewhere in the mist of it all, looking back at our wild and crazy life together, even though ghosts don’t exist.
Yes, I know it means something.
It will be many years before I fully understand what that is.
Meanwhile, enjoy the art left behind by geniuses. Not my art, mind you. All the art. Everywhere. In the eyes of a beautiful woman asking questions. In the face of a newborn child, unable to know anything but her mother’s warmth. In just a few words, spoken by a complete random stranger. Enjoy it all. It’s a gift.
Thank you, Charlie, for being born.
Come see the world.
S