Posted by panchmaster from pool0389.cvx24-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.211.134) on Monday, November 18, 2002 at 10:16AM :
It's conceivable that some time soon the doors to these kinds of functions will be closed when they see me coming. Aina shuttered itself...at beth they're hiding as well...my only consolation is that they've placed themselves in a league with the Gassbag...where they well deserve to be.
Jackie and Alphonse will construe my comments as lacking in due respect for "all they do for us". What they do for us is use us to advance themselves...something they wish you would think of me...because I MAKE MONEY off of being Assyrian...like James Levine does when he gets paid for conducting the Israeli Philharmonic...only I get a lot less when I conduct it.
I'll be seen as a troublemaker because I react to what I see. I know Jackie, know her well...have found myself in situations with her I seriously doubt any five of you ever have. She fawns on you all...but she never spent as much of her money on you as she did on me. You have to understand Jackie's relationship to money...what it means for that immense bottom line of her's, to appreciate how rejected she felt when I spurned her and her money. Had she tumbled her boobs out at me and had I turned and walked away, she could not have been more furious.
I hardly woke up one morning and decided to lambast Jackie
Bejan for the hell of it...or because she wouldn't buy my sculpture...hell she bought another one, a "teeny tiny one" weeks before I left for Mexico...and the message was clear that she would continue buying if I played it right.
I think it's significant that the Queen of Genocides...who sheds tears in public at the drop of a body count...would say what she did about this business in private to me...believing I must be as "saavy" as she is. See, the money thing trippped her up. from her standpoint she was expending gobs of money on a silly little artist...one who must have felt his good fortune, wanted to cherish it and keep the bucks flowing. She does indeed buy people...buys their "loyalty" and praises...Lincoln knows it's true and so does Jackie.
And what of Alphonse...that poet...who could have guessed! Isn't this Oompahpahtanaya the same one who told people at the convention they would hire an Italian to do the job...make the Hammurabi? Why an Italian...do they work for less than an Assyrian, are they better? Why not bring in Italian poets as well...why bother with Assyrians...especially if they have the gall to demand you show some sense, if not respect.
These people are posing...posturing for you all...and it hurts to see people so easily taken in...so desperate to have someone who drives three Benzes at the same time "recognize" them.
Narsai asked Jackie two years ago to help with something like the Ritz function. He asked her again when they started planning this one last year. I told him to forget it...told him there was no chance Jackie would "work" for anyone but Jackie. Her...spend hours and days to promote Narsai...to make Narsai shine??? That's the way she measures things...not by what needs to get done but by how much credit will accrue to the person doing it.
It was a touch dicey there when she told him she couldn't do it on account she was "cutting back" from all involvement...a sort of a way of saying, "I would have loved to have helped you but that asshole friend of yours has so devastated me that I simply can't". At three functions I've been to I've seen the same old Jackie sitting front row and center. She hasn't cut back on anything...just wasn't about to give Narsai a hand...money? yes, always with the money.
And there was Wilfred Alkhase. The guy had the nerve to ask Narsai to serve his own wine label at the dinner! The same guy who wouldn't allow us to put the truth about the lie Sarguis tried to smear Narsai with in his Zindalite. Turns out that not only Alphonse has hidden talents. Because Wilfred bought a table for the function he felt Narsai "owed" him something. Apparently Wilfred has a wine company slap his label on a generic bottle of cheap wine...whine is more fitting. So he asks Narsai if he'll serve this cheap shit at the Ritz dinner..."what does it matter"...right? hell, they're only a bunch of Assyrians...what do they know...what do they deserve...what difference does it make. And this is what Wilfred thinks to ask a man who owns vineyards himself, is a recognized expert on wines, regularly judges wines at tastings around the world, Food and Wine critic for CBS radio...author and host of his own televisions shows and specials, a man who had one of the ten best wine cellars in America, according to the New York Times...a man Wilfred Alkhase sashays up to and says, "Narsai, I bought a table for your function and feel I just bought YOU as well...so how's about serving my cheap shit in return?" Now Wilfred has no idea what he's just done...as Alphonse didn't know what an insult he'd dumped on the two poets. And me...I'm the one at fault because I use my god given mind to see and understand, where these nimnos can't.
Just like Alphonse ending the poetry reading by giving us his garbage because he had "done so much for us" that night...comes Wilfred to tell Narsai David..."serve my piss to the people...after all, the bottle DOES have an Assyrian label on it." What's the big deal, "Mr big shot wine expert". Just where are Wilfred and Jackie and Golani "big shots"? Right...nowhere...nowhere but where they can step into the limelight reserved for those who actually do the work.
Being the kind of guy who feels sorry for people, even ones like Wilfred, Narsai agreed to place a bottle of "Wilfred's Whine" on each table. Alphonse. Odishoo said in essence, 'what's the big deal, I write poetry too"...while at the other end of town Wilfred was saying, "Hey Narsai...I make wines too".
Alphonse, Wilfred, Sarguis, Bejan, Golani...these are people with no self-respect as Assyrians and not much as human beans. They come to the Heritage in order to cover their nakedness...to dress up their sagging souls...to add some polish where there is only dull sameness and not much glitter. They ride in on the coatails of others...seek some reflected glory and light and attention where they could command none on their own.
Without Yousip Bet Yousip and Ninos Aho...how would Alphonse dare read any of his poetry...without Narsai how would Wilfred get his bottled piss into the Ritz...without Menchavez where would Jackie get the sculpture to grace her convention with?
This event was sponsored by Jackie's club and the Berkeley Foundation. You can bet your sweet arse that Jackie will introduce a resolution to keep "disrespectful" Assyrians out of HER functions.
As long as these people set themselves up before us as examples of Assyrian whatevers...so long do they deserve scrutiny. They can scrutinize me all they want to...
-- panchmaster
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