The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum

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Posted by pancho (Guest) - Monday, June 6 2005, 16:46:09 (CEST)
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...back in 2000, I sat upstairs in the squalid private office John Nimrod keeps for really secret meetings. On the worm eaten couch across from him sat Lincoln Tamraz, surely the model for Gainsborough`s "Boy In Blue"...next to him was Homer Simpson himself..I kid you not. John was casually lounging behind the desk and I was of to one side, on a chair...it was crowded in there...the building is one of the older ones on Clark St...a real eyesore I remembered vaguely from back in `58 when I spent a year around the corner on Greenleaf.

I was back in Chicago to work out the final details of the installation of the Shumirum Monument. Michael Lash, the director of Public Art for the city of Chicago had decided that summer that they`d given Nimrod enough time to suggest alternate locations for the Shumirum. John had rejected the one their curators chose..a block and a half from the Oriental Institute on the campus of the University of Chicago..a really wonderful site. John had objected to me in private that there were too many Blacks, though he didn`t use that exact term...in the area...which you`d apprecite more if you knew the illustrious slum his AUA inhabits. But I knew the real reason he`d delayed was to figure out some way to get the monument for himself..for his glory and credibility as the one who did something grand in Chicago.

I`d met the day before with the staff of the Arts Committee to go over details..like chairs...sound system, toilets and so on. We were planning on having the installation the weekend of the AANF convention so the people could be a part of it. Lash was excited about it...Assyrian art was his favorite he said. The city was going to pop for advertising...banners on busses..."The Queen Is Coming To Chicago" would be the lead...sort of like the big campaign I remember when I lived in Chicago..when Folger`s Coffee first came out...for weeks all we saw and read was, "The Captain Is Coming To Chcago"...then we found out there was a Captain Folger...and the coffee was named for him...clever device because the enire city was asking, "who is the captain"?

Someone had to tell John that the city was moving ahead without him..that they`d already waited three years..as had I..and since he hadn`t contacted them ONCE...asumed he was no longer intersted in alternate sites and would install the monument.

John Nimrod is a liar...that`s the main thing he is. His sister, Helen, had commissioned me to make $90,000 worth of scultpture just before she fell and broke her hip and entered a nursing home. I went ahead with the work, most of it was portraits of her family...herself and her first husband, Jerry James especially because they wanted to place the busts at a building at Northwestern University in Evanston the Jamses had donated quite a bit of money to.

When Helen took a turn for the worse I didn`t want to remind her of the next payment due, so I continued on my own, knowing she would make it up when she got better..and if by chance she didn`t, I felt I owed it to her to procede regardless and pin my hopes on her heirs...to make good on her commission. She had always paid promptly and without complaint. Helen was not a frivolous woman by any means..she was precise and generous too. In all, she had commissioned or purchased over $2oo,ooo worth of sculpture for her collection.

Helen died waiting for her brother to get out of the way and allow the Shumirum to be installed...I`d promised her that she would be the one to unveil it. After she died, John automatically became president of the AUA Foundation as well...which had been Helen`s position and the account from which she`d isued checks. John refused to honor Helen`s last wishes as to the portraits of her husband and two sons..he said he`d never heard her mention anything about it and that I was "out for money". So I got an Assyrian lawyer and I sued the son of a bitch.

Though he had one of the best law frims in Chicago at his disposal, with Helen`s two sons footing the bills..he caved in time and paid what was owing...he was forced to come clean, for him, because of a letter I produced which his wife, the lovely Inga, had handed to me persnally, after insisting she read it to me in the lobby of the hotel in Los Angeles where the convention was that year. The letter was in praise of my work and what it meant to her...a very kind woman indeed. In the letter she happens to mention that she had sent me photos of the Senator, as I`d asked...because Helen wanted a portrait of THAT skunk as well...but apologized for not being able to keep it secret from John..we wanted to surprise him...his wife said..."..and the Senator knows all about it and he approves".

When his lawyers saw a cerified copy of that letter they understood who they were dealing with and told the lying son of a bitch to pay up. But that hadn`t happened yet when we met at his office...we were still in the middle of the back and forth..he caved a few months later.

At our meeting I told John we were installing the monument in time for the convention (this was in June yet)...he lied some more and said he`d tied to get in touch with Lash etc..but we knew better. He also repeated his usual other lie.."I`ll have coffee with the mayor and settle the whole thing"...something he`d said so many times that Lash once blurted out, "WHICH mayor is he WAITING for!!!"

I told him that, as Helen was no longer here to unveil the monument, I wanted to ask children in the crowd that day to gather together and pull at the rope that would release the drape. His eyes narrowed...I knew I had the man by his short hairs..for he had wanted that privilege to be his...as the one who took over his sister`s foundation he`d become more convinced than ever that the monument was his..well, it belonged to all "Assyrians",,,but HE was going to take possession..and indeed he tried several times to get me to send it to him..even suggesting he`d pay up on the lawsuit if I agreed....for he had counter sued me, of course...which was just a knee JERK reaction...

I told him the unveiling was not to be an AUA festival..that he could speak BEFORE ME and confine his comments to his sister`s generosity and vision and the Shumirum itself and nothing more...no flogging his plans for Assyria and how everyone there should take a pledge to join him etc. His beady eyes got beadier...the Shumirum was slipping away from him...the fact was that $90,000 had been raised from other Assyrians before Helen and I ever met...and I had always said that the monument would be given to the CIITY from all of us, for them to decide on location..it was never in the works that at the last minute it would be handed over to John...he just felt sure he owned it because of the money his sister spent..he never gave a dime himself.

There were "words" spoken...Lincoln Tamraz had to excuse himself to the John a few times..where you could hear the flush each time, the walls were so thin. Simpson just sat wide-eyed, his yellow hair sort of turning green. I left, saying that he was most welcome to be a part of the ceremonies but it wasn`t essential.

When I returned to California I was informed by Lash that as much as they wanted to do it, their legal people had advised against it because Nimrod had immediately written a letter to Lash saying that he would be "forced" to include the city in his counter-suit of me over the unpaid commission...and he "wouldn`t want to cause legal problems for them"..so he suggested they NOT install the Shumirum...obviously, Lash could read. To this day Lash says they consider the Shumirum their`s..as a gift from the Assyrian people, donated through Helen`s foundation..now run into the ground by John..her brother.

And there it`s been since 2000...laying face down on the cement...and she will rise up on the ruined reputations of these people...our Queen watches over us yet.

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