junecleavage

So the year was 1993. I had decided to be married to my small town's golden boy hero for a spell ( a spell in June lingo = 6 months or so) and was eagerly seeking escape. I had gone to Temple University as a Journalism Major (Poli. Sci. minor) with a magazine writing focus (at the time I wanted to write for either SPIN or NEWSWEEK). I had accepted an internship with Rolling Stone magazine and had only intended to be gone a few months at most. I never looked back. Never went home - well not never - but I left the husband and the town (for like the tenth time) and the friends and the labels I immersed myself in for the life of the Venice Beach canals, the Hollywood music scene and the inability to meld myself into what all the "others" wanted me to be.
Again.
To live in my friend Blair's hovel on the dirty pretend canals with goats and poverty and booze and beatniks. To embrace what he had always told me we were destined for.
So that is the brief version.
And I suppose it is really only the mid-section of the June Chronicles.
Howevah - my long-time-many-years-we-go-through-it-all-no-matter-where-we-are-friend ALSO from a fore mentioned hometown and I always found each other in each place we resided.
Blair was beyond taken with the Beats.
And being a film maker, he ALWAYS carried a video camera with him.
He was obsessed with...
Their words, their experience, their entire life mantra. He was determined that we would find our own beat culture in early 90's Venice Beach California.
He was obsessed....
Obsessed with the immersion of oneself in art.
Obsessed with the ability to create and recreate oneself through art and words.
Obsessed with the redefining of life art can allow one.
Obsessed with the surrounding of oneself with like minded and talented people.
To the extent sometimes that I felt I was not an attentive lover to my art.
Not like he was.
He would sacrifice it all - and then remind me - THIS is really what we are here for.
Not this temporary bullshit we get sidetracked by.
THIS - ART - for the sake of ART - is what we are HERE for.
So...that being said..a little over 12 years ago...well into marriage #2 for me...Blair wrote me and told me he had bought a hotel on E-Bay for $10K and did I want to come and check it out.
I thought he was joking.
He moved his entire library, art and creative magnetism into this crazy fucking eerily and undeniably haunted hotel.
And he turned it into an artist's retreat.
I could go on and on and on about this.
But going on and on can be so tiresome.
Blair and I were the friends that knew no bounds.
In some respects we probably still are.
Point?
(I am terrible about getting to the point)
First... this awesome article about what he and his beauty queen Deanna (who goddamn is as beautiful as they come) have turned this hotel into ten years later:
Blair's Most Recent Hotel Write Up

Second...on the video front...here is what I just received from him last evening in various posts and messages on my phone and on Facebook:

Blair:
OH MY GOD! I just pulled out all these old unlabeled tapes from California. What a find! Tons of stuff of us with Manuel and goats! A DVD copy is coming your way in the mail!!

Blair:
I feel like I am watching home movies from the Doors movie.

Courtney: Don't park your rubber boat in my belly button.

I am beside myself expectantly waiting the arrival of my proof that GODDAMMIT I WAS COOL. (this is for my children's sake not yours) and there will be a screening party. Here. For those who have heard the stories. He has been talking about making this all into a documentary and screening it at the hotel with all the original "players."
THAT sounds terrifying.
But this beautiful version of what his mind's eye saw? I am looking forward to it. There were so many sideline stories going on, mine being the least interesting of most everyone's. Seriously.
This endless footage is like the goose's golden egg for me.
Thank you and good night.