People That Help Others. Maybe Not As Rare As We Think.

Tomas and I are lucky. For anyone who has been following this, you are well aware that there have been daily hurdles, caused by many people, and we are boxed in everywhere we turn.

However, we would like to acknowledge the human beings who are just as stressed and frazzled as we are, and are taking the time to work with us, or just talk to us, so we do not turn on the gas and call it a day.

THE PROFESSIONALS:

Dr. Phillip J. Bowman, M.D. M.P.H. of Beverly Hills, California.

Lawyer Steve White, of Reseda, California.

Dennis Dreith, John Burke, Guy Hubbard, and the rest of the crew at the Film Musicians Secondary Markets Fund, of Studio City, Ca.

Jo-Anne McGettrick, manager of the Recording Artists Royalties Fund.

THE FRIENDS:

Marsha Sorce and Pete Evans of Pagosa Springs, Colorado.

Doug and Sue Lee of Erie, Pennsylvania.

Robert Madigan, of Morro Bay, California.

“Jonsey” of Napa, California.

Renee Tracy and Rod Springer, of Long Beach, California.

Judy Fromm, of Hollywood, California.

Bill Rayman of Santa Monica, California.

Bob and Margaret Gremore of Los Angeles, California.

Carol Johnson of Hollywood, California.

FAMILY:

The Hartsky Family, of Hermitage, Pennsylvania, and Sharpsville, Pennsylvania.

This was written in the spirit of ending a hopeless day by taking note of all of the help, love, and support you have all given us for years.

Thank you.

Goodnight.

Is This Funny? I Just Do Not Know.

Tomas three days of passing kidney stones, slumlord/lady sneaking up at six-thirty a.m. taping 3 Day or Quit on door as Tomas is vomiting in the sink.

Mail last three days with post office  stamp from slumlady/lord, all say same thing except her idea of what we owe is not consistent. Hmm.

Yesterday we manage to move despite pain, (band aid meds - no painkillers in house), and drive to Kinko’s, print out response countering monies owed.

This morning, at around seven a.m., I look out onto lawn and see that someone or something has knocked her “for Rent” sign down.

I try to get it back up, fix with tape, hope it stays up.  Why?  I do not know.

If I had the energy, I would sing, “I…Love A Parade”

That Time Of Year

I know I am not alone on this holiday issue.  I used to let people’s reactions to my dislike of the holidays make me feel like an oddball, but I am starting to think that I am not alone by a long shot.  Not unique in thinking about the past -  people, friends, family, dead and alive, the “if only” and “what ifs” - I wonder if so many people start going insane around the holidays with all of the decorations and the shopping so they don’t have to sit with their private thoughts.

I wonder, if I had a ton of money, would I shop myself into a frenzy also? I have done it before, would I do it again?

I want peace and quiet without sliding into thoughts and sadness or depression, just quiet, no screaming mimi’s in my head or out on the road.

I am in the mood to see the film “I am Legend” - from what I can gather, the last man on earth is not alone.

Wonder what’s dogging him?

Is it real, or just in his head?

Maybe it is just the same thing every year - as people, we all want to be loved unconditionally, and be able to love unconditionally back.  And none of us seem able to do that on a consistent basis.

We all have our moments, though.  Even if it is with only one person.  Even if it is just in our heads.

De-Motivated

In the usual manner of needing to have an answer, I am trying to figure out why I have absolutely no desire to write, talk, eat, smoke, sit down, stand up, stay awake, go to sleep.

I am, as our friend Pete calls it, “De-motivated”.

Yesterday we were bursting with creative juice, today I am foggy. This morning I had to drive to the Mid-Wilshire district to do an errand, and in Los Angeles, when one is stuck in the West Valley, going ‘over the hill’ down to Mid-Wilshire, which is just below Hollywood, it is a bit of a trek. With the traffic in Los Angeles hitting critical mass, that jaunt is now a raging, hurtling, snarled up, take-your-life-in-your-hands undertaking that can take hours.

Today it was not, and as I set out at 11:30 a.m., I was marveling at the breezy flow of the notoriously gridlocked 405 freeway, ditto for the 101. It was almost too nice, I felt like I was eight years old again, sitting in the backseat, never being stopped on the freeway, just zipping right along.

I do not think one should feel like an eight-year-old when they are forty-five and they are operating the vehicle. WAY too easy to daydream, and forget that it is Mid November 2007, and driving in Los Angeles is a vehicular was zone.

War. That is what smacked my face. It was Veteran’s Day, and the traffic was light. All sense of the day shaping up to be efficient and creative and good was gone in that moment. To think of the lost lives in the horrible, unnecessary war, the grieving families, to have this enormous sense of sadness and loss for people I never met and never will, stayed with me for the rest of the day.

All of the passions, all of the local and global events, all of my own personal creativity, personal angst - gone. Just left with a numbing sadness that we will call “De-Motivated”.

I think it is just fine to not be driving myself in any fashion, to not be thinking of myself at all, for once.

It is neither a day off or a day on, it is a day that does not belong to me - it belongs to those directly hurt by this administration’s ghastly choice to have young men and women die for their country, while the politicians rape and pillage both America and Iraq.

It is a day for the soldiers, a day for the innocent casualties, it is a day where I do not have a personal complaint or triumph about a goddamn thing.

There is no wishing it were different, there is no praying to be done, there is no one to pray to.

There is only silence today. Nothing I say can pierce what I do not know firsthand, and any tears shed are not for me.

The Day Of The Dead

As many people know, the day after Halloween is a Mexican celebration called “Day of the Dead.” Actually, it is a three day celebration, some say it starts on October 31, then November 1st is “All Saints Day”, and November 2nd is the official “Day of the Dead”. I am by no means an expert, but if you go to my web site Kelly Mahan Jaramillo I have put up a few links on the home page that are bursting with information.

Eileen Nelson, director of “American Dumpling”, the documentary Tomas is composing the music to, was very interested in this old Mexican tradition. Her producer, Darrell Hanzelik was also intrigued, and we wound up talking about it for quite some time today. Eileen is Jewish, and when I asked her if Jewish people had a ceremony or ritual of remembrance, she told me they lit a candle on the day the person died, every year. Some started it the night before. She and her mother Marie, who has a few scenes in “American Dumpling” (and she is a crack up, but not like you might think) had just done it for Eileen’s father, Sam Nelson, in October.

I am fascinated with all different cultures rituals, especially concerning the dead. Not from a morbid standpoint, but from comfort, and a celebration of their life, that they are not forgotten.

Eileen and Darrell, who is of Czechoslovak descent, and most likely Catholic, both decided they were going to learn more about “Day of the Dead”, and have a mixed Jewish and Catholic ceremony today and tomorrow.

Although I am Irish, we were not Catholic, nor Protestant. I do not even know if I was baptized! I have no one to ask, partly my choice, as the few living members of my family seem alien to me, and I am pretty sure they feel the same way. So, we do not stay in touch at all.
All I remember is my father, Bill, believing in “something” - not the good old wrathful judgmental God that so many in this country embrace. (Their choice, I have no problem with it, until the hate and intolerance reaches the breaking point.) However, he felt there was something bigger, and that is where I float around. I often refer to myself as a ‘lazy wiccan’.

Anyway, to wrap this up, the three of us, Eileen, Darrell, and I are having our own versions of remembering our loved ones, human and animal.

Eileen is remembering her father Sam, her cats Loretta, Liba, and Vaska, and Darrell’s deceased wife Jessy.

Darrell is remembering his cats Vaska and Liba, and his first wife Jessy.

I am remembering my second husband Abel Jaramillo, my father Bill, my cats Ratty and Monkey, and a long ago friend named Tracy Proctor.

It really did bring a sense of peace and closeness, and for the first time, no sadness, regret or guilt.

It was a very good day.

Vinnie Finds the Ghost

As every day is anything but boring, today in the West Valley it is overcast and drizzly. Thank heavens for the fires close by, I am hoping the drastic weather changes are happening all over, containing some of this horror. I have not had time to check the news, I am just keeping my fingers crossed.

However, the day after the last post about my brother and the dream and our cat Vinnie being even more weird than usual, I had almost managed to stop trying to logic out what felt supernatural and get on with things.

Then Vinnie started up again. Normally he is a Daddy’s boy, but those last two days he was focusing on me, running up to me, beeping and hopping about, this time he was focused on the open door of my bathroom.

We have a Rabbit, birth name Ze Bull, nickname Wullith. He lives in my bathroom, and since we don’t want him to feel lonely, have a barrier up so that he can hear the comings and goings of everyone and feel part of things. He is getting old and a bit portly, when he was younger he would have chewed through the barrier in 3 seconds flat.

So, Vinnie is at the barrier, focused on the corner of the floor where the door opens, and there is NOTHING THERE. He is clicking and tweaking and Tomas and I are completely flummoxed. We go from the supernatural to “what the hell is living under the house?”, which takes me back to being a kid and watching a movie called “crawlspace” that has stayed with me for 40 years. Deep Breath and a bit of sanity are required at this point. I manage the breath, but my sanity is being stretched a bit, even for me.

Gathering some faux bravado from God-knows-where, I start to move the barrier, as Wullith is out in the yard, kicking back in the dirt under the ficus tree. The barrier is a large square window fan, squeezed next to a pile of hardcover books and an empty Corona light box. It’s about 6 degrees below thrift shop chic. I believe that falls into the category of ugly, but sometimes things just have to be utilitarian, and one has to give up any semblance of decent taste.

I digress.

Vinnie is now in a state of electric shock, when we see it - a salamander whips out into the hallway. Tomas grabs Vinnie, and I grab the salamander, remembering not to grab his tail but up by his neck, gently. He is a wild little guy, and manages to nip my thumb, but after much chaos, we get him out into a tree, Vinnie has a fit that we did not let him torture and kill it, and I feel utterly foolish at my complete conviction that Vinnie was seeing my brother, or my father, or our recently passed cat Monkeyman.

Tomas goes back to his computer, and I try to sigh away the flop sweat of superstition run wild, when Tomas calls me into the studio.

Hey, this is weird,” he says, pointing to the computer screen. He had looked up the word salamander, and found this link.

Yesterday was my second day driving after re-injuring my back, I was in my old Volvo, and glancing up, saw the plastic salamander that I had affixed to the rearview window over ten years ago. It has never fallen, and it has been there so long it is just not something I notice anymore.

So guess what? We’re back to being convinced that my father is sending signals from beyond - don’t stop writing.

Vinnie has calmed down, it is starting to lightly rain, and Tomas is working on the last cue in “American Dumpling”.

It is a nice day. As always, we send our thoughts to the people who have been in the fires, and also send our sorrow that the 9th ward in New Orleans didn’t get the same wonderful treatment as the evacuees in the wealthy areas of Malibu and San Diego.

The anger at that issue will be howled from my main page in the politics section “No Fear…” at Kelly Mahan Jaramillo.

For me, it is often difficult to enjoy the rare moment of peace while others are suffering. Does that happen to you?

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

Very strange happenings going on right now. Half of Southern California is on fire, for starters. Yesterday, Tomas and I woke up after the night of wild winds, to see a HUGE dark brown and yellow cloud just to the north. A few days before the winds began, I casually mentioned to Tomas that, living in the west Valley, we are quite protected from fires - the whole city would have to be on fire first. Van Nuys would be the last to go. I do not know why that popped into my head, but two days later, fires everywhere.

And here they are. The dreaded Santa Ana’s. I am worried about my biography subject, Warren King, as he lies in Santa Clarita, and I have written him twice, no response. I am edgy.

What does this have to do with my brother Kerrigan Mahan? This morning I had a very vivid, short dream about him. I was in the laundry room, throwing in a load of laundry, when I heard someone behind me. Tomas was due home, but I did not hear the door. I turned around, startled, ready to sock him on his arm for sneaking up on me, and it was not Tomas. it was my brother. I have not spoken to or seen my brother in over three years. I will expound on this on the memoirs page on my web site, as it is long and complicated. I was surprised, but very glad to see him. We hugged, and he told me that he and his wife Melanie, (more on her in memoirs - the little time I spent with her, well, I think she is a very cool woman) were moving to Canada and just wanted to say goodbye. I started to ask if it was because this country had gone to hell in a handbasket, but then woke up. Okay.

However, all day our little white cat Vinnie has been sitting and staring at the exact spot where I was standing in the dream. At first Tomas and I thought it was a mouse, we (well, he) tilted both the washer and dryer up while I looked under them for a mouse or rat or whatever. Nothing. Dust bunnies hugging the usual horrifying mixture that grows under big appliances, where after a few years there is a small city under there.

We shrugged and went about our business. But Vinnie would not leave. All day, when I have gone into the kitchen, he is staring intently, then he beeps at me, as if he is saying, “Hi! Aren’t you going to say hi to your brother?”

He is not acting stimulated, like he would if there were something alive, he is not acting freaked out, if the winds or the fires were upsetting him, and just now I quietly went into the kitchen and watched him. He is lying down, ears erect, paws out, and he slowly gazed across the washer and dryer, then looked up, exactly how he looks up at a person.

Maybe it is me, but I have a gut feeling he is seeing something I cannot see, he is alert but relaxed, and all I can think of is that my brother has died.

Our friend Pete Evans believes that souls only hang around for three days. I disagree, but none of know, we all have our own experiences with something that may challenge our senses, and we desperately need to make sense of it.

My father, Bill Mahan, has been dead for over five years, but I have had many bizarre happenings concerning him in those five years. Of course, when he was dying, I made him promise to haunt me. He got a real kick out of that, and believe me, he has. He is having a grand time gaslighting me. I knew he would but LORD!

I told him he could rearrange the furniture, make good light bulbs go out, just have fun. He has, and continues to. He liked to have fun. Just look at him! Little Billy Mahan. So Pete and I have different theories on the afterlife.

But Pete’s theory has stayed with me, and today, between the dream and Vinnie’s completely out of character behavior, has my mind and heart spinning. Logic and emotion are in a headlock. I want to call or e-mail my brother, as it is the only way I would find out - I have dropped off the radar with my family. Obviously, I am easy to find via the internet, but…..let’s just say it is not for certain anyone would make the effort. Again, more detail on the web page.

For now, a note to Kerrigan, the only blood relative I have feelings for -
I love you, and I am so sorry we just cannot seem to work it out. It is not all you, it is not all me, maybe we are just too much alike, and where we are different does not get along at all. I wish I were enlightened enough to accept the whole package, but I cannot. Especially since you are so tight with the other two. I am sorry.

Next life maybe?

I still have a small wish that in this life, you show up at the door, and we have found a common ground. But I have made it hard, because I figure at this point, I need the reality of if you want to find me, you will make an effort. I probably sound like an asshole, a princess, but I know my life, and I am tired of making the first move. Maybe I am an asshole.

I digress.

Ker, I just hope you are happy.

It is almost six o’clock p.m. on Monday, and Vinnie has still not left his post.

Bobby the Crow is sitting beside me, playing with Bills old fishing sinkers, and I have work to do.

I think that may include talking to a ghost.

Although, it just occurred to me, it could be the Monkey-man……who died on Bill’s birthday, and Vinnie misses him terribly. As sad as that is, I hope that is the case, because if something happened to you, dear bro, it would hurt more than you will ever believe.

Oh brother, where art thou?

Writing - can’t live with it, can’t live without it

My husband, Tomas Hradcky, is an Independent film composer. I am a struggling writer. In other words, we are broke. It is difficult to shut out the anxieties of too much to pay out, too little coming in. It is not conducive to creativity.

I used to use writing as an escape, instead of focusing on my real life problems, and before I knew it, I had four almost finished novels in my computer, about a zillion short stories, and future ideas in a folder. I started wondering if I should take this seriously and perhaps try to make it a career. After all, I came from a writing family - both of my parents and my Aunt had published books, my father wrote a syndicated column…..

I started taking it seriously, buying more writing books than I needed, and forcing myself to write every day.

That is when it became absolutely no fun. It was not an escape anymore, it was a chore, and I started hating it, avoiding it, considering going back to my old escape, the downtown sibling of Sister Morphine, because I was depressed! Where had the fun gone?

So I stopped, and got even more depressed. I was constantly pulled back to something I had written, kind of liked it, and would spend the whole day writing, feeling great. Normally, my addictive personality says, if it feels great, do it all the time.

Not this time.

Perhaps it is the serious case of arrested development colliding with a serious desire to be a little more responsible. Or perhaps we are trained that when we hear the word “work” it is synonymous with “hard and miserable”.

So, for the hundreds of dollars spent on hundreds of writing books where all of the authors insist that you sit down and write every day, I am doing just that, in the form of this web page and blogs. I am going to have a blog for almost every mood, be terribly self-absorbed and self-indulgent, and if someday I make a little chicken with writing, that will be the icing on the cake.

If nobody reads it, who cares. I am enjoying myself again, and for a suicidal type like myself, that beats the hell out of making money.

Although I do like to eat, too…..

Back in WHAT day, Embryo?

Warning:
If you are one of the few remaining people on the road who drives a car with no air conditioning and manual windows, DO NOT roll them down. It would be better to be dripping sweat than pull up next to a young caucasian man who looks to have just obtained his drivers license, vroom-vroom-ing in his little silver zoom-zoom, his rap music causing your car to shake, cell phone plastered to his ear, yelling,

“I know dude, totally, I know. I’m telling you dude, I know. Back in the day, man, you know, back in the day….”

For once I was actually sorry the light changed, as I was frozen in horror, yet insanely curious as to what “back in the day” meant to this kid who had been born AFTER Spandex died.

Back in the day of…..what? When all you could do was talk on a cell phone and it didn’t take pictures?

Two months ago when you broke up with your eighth girlfriend after dating for a week?

Back in the day when you no longer received nutrition out of a bottle and were eating with a spoon?

Back in the day when you were floating in nice warm salt water?

I must know, embryo.

Okay, what kind of airline is God running, here?

Okay, from the last post, I went through the extremely odd feeling of reading Susan Gordon Lydon’s autobiography, I am halfway through, and the twenty-four hour span of reading her one night, fully confident that I was going to find her web page, to discovering she had died, was a surreal reading experience. Now I keep calculating out her age as she recounts what was going on when she was thirty, and thinking that she had no idea her life was already half over. (She died of cancer at age 61).

I have always maintained that I would have handled my life so much better if I had been given a death date. It seems a little bit like the good old creator of this schizophrenic mish-mash we call living forgot that little addition. We all know we are born alone, and die alone, and our parents get our arrival date, but we get no departure date!

So I ask you - what the hell kind of airline is God running? Do you think he/she/it/ is up there, pounding his palm on his forehead and saying, “Damn, damn DAMN! I cannot believe I forgot to include the death date! And I cannot fix it, too many of them think I am all powerful and if I let on that I made this hideous mistake, I’ll stop getting all of this positive attention and I just don’t know if I can handle that. Oh, Me, I just feel terrible!”

Personally, I hope God feels guilty as hell. Most of the religions out there, should one subscribe, pump us full of guilt for just about everything we say or do.

Well, uh-uh. Girlfriend ain’t having none of that noise. God should feel guilty, not us.

We’re all stranded without a return ticket, just knowing that ka-bang, we’re gonna be leaving……..at some point.

Consequently, we are all slightly insane somewhere underneath our veneer of normalcy, however thick or thin one happens to have been able to make their shellac.

And God has the nerve to try to make US feel guilty.

I. Don’t. Think. So.