Posted by pancho from pool0022.cvx25-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.216.22) on Monday, December 02, 2002 at 9:35AM :
The comment will go round that I just cheated some people again...got nine people to buy Lamasus on the promise that I was going to build the monument.
Give me a break.
I could always gather up all the money first...but you know how that would be. On a project costing $125,000...if I made it to the $80,000 mark and still had nothing to show, just came around asking for MORE munny...people would get to thinking, "how much money did he say he has already"? Then it would be, "he's got enough...just wants more cause he's a greedy crook".
It's a shakey way to start an open ended project...the Shumirum took 13 years. But I don't see an alternative. You get some money...you build as much of it as you can...so people will see you spent it on somehting...then you get a little more and go a little further...
The risk you run is that a Nimrod or Bejan and Golani will screw up the works...throw a monkey wrench out there and stop the sales. People who bought the Lamasus and know Jackie all asked me not to "tell anyone",
I can't continue beyond a certain point...and I reached it even faster than with the Hammurabi,
There isn't anything I wanted to do more than build monuments and I risked everything to do it. The notion that I only wanted a bit of money off the top...or didn't really want to do the work...or ruined it all by myself is ridiculous.
The people who bought a Lamasu have a sculpture they all wanted...worth the price. And they'll have a conversation piece on top of it. They can always say that the same person who built that Ashurbanipal in San Francisco, who tried to get a Shumrium and a Hammurabi built too... quit after trying one last time with the Lamasu you can see in their home. This was his last attempt. A few people have models of all four monument tries...one out of four ain't bad...you try it.
In the end it's fitting and makes perfect sense that the only monument we completed was the first one...before the long knives came out and Nimrod and Golani and Bejan saw what could be gained by controlling the project.
Then too, the only monument to make it went up in San Francisco...arguably the world's favorite American city...and the one major city to have the LEAST Assyrians in it. Must be a connection there.
-- pancho
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