conversation with Narsai.... |
Posted by
parhad
(Guest)
- Wednesday, October 27 2004, 1:40:02 (CEST) from 66.126.171.71 - adsl-66-126-171-71.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net Network - Windows XP - Mozilla Website: Website title: |
never begin to change....just came back from having coffee with Narsai...it was a tense meeting but the public location made me feel safe enough. I'd made the call the day before but he needed 24 hours to think about whether we should meet...I knew we would. The owner of the Monterey foundry doesn't know what hit him....he's caught amidst screaming, hair pulling, cursing, libellous Assyrians and can't see which way to turn. He finally told me that with Narsai, Nimrod AND me circling around him looking for an openning..he really felt he wasn't to blame and maybe the rest of us could resolve the issue so he'd know whether to melt the Shumirum...as I want him to do....put a lein on it against Narsai...or throw it away...or just maybe install it...which is the ONE thing Narsai and Nimrod don't want. As we got into it, with Narsai accusing me of once agaian trying to "use" him...I think he was a paper towel in his previous life...I told him he wasn't doing me any favors by removing his threat to sue everybody and his mother...but it seemed to me that the foundry owner had a point...as long as we're storing the Shumirum monument in his foundry waiting for Nomrod or Narsai now to die...why not let him INSTALL it...store it upright, if you will, in the sculpture garden 50 FEET from his foundry? Seems reasonable to me. Then...when the two of them die...we can move it to where it belongs. See...we ARE the only "enemies" we have. Only Assyrians and one half breed Armenian, have tried to block installation...every American or other person WANTS it to go up! Even ARABS and Muslims and TURKS and KURDS want it up... I said the other option was to place a mechanic's lein, or something, against him for unpaid bills...seeing as how he claims to be the one who owns the statue now. At that he bristled and said he'd like to see us try and that he'd just have to sue...I said he knew he wasn't going to sue anybody..that it was a foolish thing to say..he said , "oh yeah"?,,,,I said, "yeah!" and three children next to us giggled. I said he wouldn't sue the owner cause I'd be right there. This exchange came after he told me that people in Chicago told him I was "action-proof"...or something like that...they mean it isn't worth anyone's while to sue me cause I'm broke...well hooray for that says I..there has to be some compensation for being a poor artist....he got all moral on me and said how it was just like me to be a sneak and "use" my poverty....I said so long as wealthy people, like that bitch Jackie, use their wealth to harrass poor people...I didn't see any harm in a poor person evening up the score a little. Besides which...says I drawing myself up to my full height from which Assyrians seem even shorter...my defense always was that I was telling the truth and could prove it to the satisfaction of a jury...so it wasn't slander anyway...and as far as Dadeeshoo..or Narsai for that matter...simply because they had the money...didn't mean they were right...just because they can BUY more lawyers than yoors trooli can...it's a dog eat dog world out there....ruff! He alluded (and I ducked) to my comments about how his AIDS society wasn't helping anyone in Iraq but themselves...at the expense of those people...you'd be surprised how many people AREN'T reading over here...that got him real red. He said it wasn't his fault there was a war on...that there are 400,000 Christians...he likes to call them Assyrians too...in Iraq...what was he supposed to do...bring ALL of them HERE??? I asked him how his parents got out...he said that was an "individual thing"...I said..."then bring them out individually"! In all other points I was willing to keep a soft tone...let Narsai have his say...you sort of have to cause if you oppose him at all he says something like they all do..."well, I guess you don't want to listen...I'm LEAVING". Last conversation like this we had, at a restaurant, he got up to leave before ordering...he got up to leave twice more before the food came...then during the meal he made another effort to get up and leave...and while I sipped coffee afterwards and listenned to a barrage of what can best be described as..."why does everyone take advantsge of me"....he shot up twice more...I guess I'm supposed to keep still so he doesn't "go"..and I was getting a little sea sick what with him bobbing up and down like a hairy cork...but we made it through to the end with him "almost leaving" twenty times....but never leaving till after he paid the check...something I was adamant about. So anyway...I'm not keeping silent when it comes to what America is doing to Iraq so I let him know if he wanted to have it out right then and there and have me tell him what I really think of his AIDS society...that they were merely assuaging their own guilt feelings...that they were setting the people up again...like happened every time before...that to send billions in bombs and ten cents worth of bandaids was assinine..that Iraq didn't NEED his piddling school till America blew their's all up...that Iraq didn't need anything from Narsai till America beggared it and though no one expected any of them to singlehandedly stop the war..not a ONE of them ever protested it AND that he and several others actually BELIEVED Bushcrap...whether they REALLY believed or found it easier if they believed, I can't say...I said anyone wanting to help those people..and not himself...would get them OUT of there...that several have been languishing in camps outside for years..and this insistence on "helping" the few remain in dear old Betnahrain was nothing more than THEIR determination to keep an "Assyrian" presence there, even if only in the cemetary...there was more but somewhere along the way he rapidly changed the subject so he could go back to bullying...and me just listenning. There was more...but without his permission I don't want to go into it. Just to add that Danny is NOT in jail...I heard from three different people that he was...the sentencing part has been postponed in light of new and favorable developments. I hope it goes well for Danny...he's a great person...extremely gifted at many things...and from what I heard it seems that he really was the more naive of the two...with his "friend"..who got him into the scheme and assured him all was legal if clever...turned against him and ratted him out to the prosecutors...but, oh sweet justice, when the DA heard the ratfinks "confession" it so clearly implicated HIM that they withdrew their offer and decided to try THAT fucker as well! And that's only one postive development. I despise almost every form of abstract art.....painting OR sculpture. I'm not a spectator to be easily impresseed...there is no "mystery" to Art...I KNOW what it takes and I know the vast majority of these skunks are one trick ponies...they get "discovered" and used for a season..like any jacket or sweater...and the gallery owners go looking for the next "in" thing after that..it isn't THEIR fault there are no skillful artists out there...and they don't plan on closing their businesses down for a lack of them....so they MAKE over whomever comes close...as this year's "sensation"...and which of them do you remember? This was all by way of saying that Danny has a style all his own....and while I'll admit it pays no homage to the old painful ways of learning a skill slowly and surely...it DOES have that mad dash of genuius...you know that if this kid had apprenticed at the age of six in a Renaissance atelier he would have done outstanding work...there's that spark...it's unmistakable and if I can see it...it HAS to be there cause I smell these rats in an instant. Narsai is a very artistic fellow...half savage...but talented as well with his hands...and I don't mean dicing and slicing... But he's out of his league against me and he knows it...not because of ability or smarts..but because he's yet another dreary amateur at being "Assyrian" and I'm professionsl...like I'd come off rather lame if I went up against him at cooking...at least in the upper categories...I make better humous than he ever will! I've poured my life and work and thoughts into this Assyrian thing...and that level of committment makes the difference..and he knows it too...though he hates to admit it...like Atour "Down Here" Golani insisting he too can weld my sculpture...what's the big deal. All these guys...ALL of them are desperate to keep "Assyrian" an amateur thing...a hobby...something you do in your spare time and never EVER risk anything over...while at the same time making a BIG DEAL of whatever you do "from your heart"...because that excuses somehow the appaling lack of any HEAD. Narsai is a more polished version of our Volcano...but it's the same naivte...the same insistance that what he does for a half hour every few days...culminating in his own PR festival...is really all that CAN be done. That's absurd of course...but part of the reason I'm so strange to him and the rest of them, is that I AM strange to them...but not to anyone else who knows what it is to be a professional...and our ditzy Christians don't yet know that. So, we left it at that...Narsai is going to think about it and see if he wants to sue the foundry...and Nimrod will see if he wants to sue Chicago...meanwhile the monument of Shumirum has been a gift to us all because it's been the vehicle by which we've gained an invaluable peek into "Assyria"...and it ain't a pretty sight...but if we don't at least begin to see...we can --------------------- |
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