Texas School Book Depository

Prouder Than a Tumescent Pubescent

I once toyed with becoming a Country Music songwriter. Listen to the lyrics, how hard could it be.

It’s the only art form that openly celebrates ignorance. Being the village idiot is worn as a badge of honor. When couched in a down-home, aw-shucks delivery, the singer’s lovability goes through the roof. The perfect country hit would be titled “Gosh, We’re Stupid.”

Another one could be a ballad, “Swallow My Pride.” Couple destined for eternal bliss, she suddenly bolts for another man. Blindsided, he does the manly thing, swallows his pride and gets on with life. She eventually comes back for forgiveness. He says under one condition: it’s now her turn to swallow his pride. Corny gimmickry, petty vengeance coupled with sexually combative undertones–this is what will make America great again.

I’ve had an issue with pride all of my life. I’m uncomfortable with the emotion and distrust others who express it in me. I blame my Calvinist upbringing. It forced me to bury my ego in a reserved and self-effacing manner and to not draw attention to myself. Some lessons were learned better than others.

With Dale in DC 1974. Discussing the Houdin Show at the National Gallery.

The term Gay Pride specifically has caused me problems. Living through its inception I understood the need for being open and unashamed. Which I was. But pride has such a defensive quality. It was a reaction to society’s hatred. The idea was to not buy into it,  feel good about yourself instead. It was a nice starting off point but somehow it stuck.

In life’s third act I’ve had to let go of many issues from my youth. Like this one. I doubt the name “Accepted Gays Parade” will ever catch on anyway.

Given Dale’s disdain for pets we were all praying for that cat. Provincetown, 1972.

With this reservoir of conflicted feelings, I digested the announcement this week that my friend Dale will be Grand Marshal of Boston’s 2019 Gay Pride Parade. We attended Indiana University together where he was active in student politics and participated in founding the national Gay Liberation Movement. He then moved to Boston and has spent his life working on LGBT issues. In recent years he’s gained recognition for raising the visibility of older LGBT adults.

Dale was at my first Gay Lib meeting in 1971. It was a dreary, procedural affair. Then this cute, blonde hippie in tank top and denim cutoffs appeared enveloped by his entourage and a cloying cloud of patchouli oil. He spoke about feminism and how we should be allied with their movement. Of writers we should read and the destructive role of sexual stereotypes in our patriarchal society. Convincing and articulate, I felt this gay thing was going to be easy: they all think like me.

I soon discovered our ideas were in the minority. But Dale and a few other kindred spirits became good friends then and have remained so throughout my life.

In solidarity with Jackie at the eternal flame.

People from that era don’t buy the softer, wiser version of me I peddle today. They want in your face,  kill ’em if they don’t fight back attitudes from the Bloomington years.

When I called to congratulate Dale yesterday he was uneasy with my sincerity. Sometimes it’s just better to give the audience what they want. So I let the other penny drop with a profound thunder.

Since this honor was the result of an election, I seriously questioned its validity. Dale hung out with some radical people in college, this title reeks of his Russian Commie friends doing a “Hillary” on Gay Boston’s ass.

We talked of updating his look for the parade and bringing leftist imagery into the 21st Century. Obviously his model should be Kim Jong-un. What could be hotter than a shirtless 70 year-old in a cheap, bowl cut-gone-wrong toupee?

Then I got down to brass tacks. I wasn’t hearing “me” in any of this, what’s my role? Dale was not forthcoming. I volunteered if there was a building along the parade route resembling the Texas School Book Depository, I’d do a piece of performance art the town will never forget. He was reticent until I assured him I won’t use live ammo. (As if I could tell the difference.)

Dale laughed at our exchange and knows I’m happy for him. And proud of him too. If we add the Prince of Wales qualifier, whatever “proud”  means.

In Provincetown, later that same decade.

Low Jackie

Bonhams is only taking some of the higher end items from my collection, less than 5% of the total. They have no interest in the kitschy weirdo things, which are the lifeblood of the collection to me. But there is no money in heart and soul so at the end of the day I’m still going to have to come up with a way to divest myself of all this quirkiness.

I’ ve always been fascinated by the kitsch because it was such a contradiction to how she was brought up. She was a child of privilege, attended the Sorbonne and studied with Bernard Berenson. She became a refined and intelligent woman who was told by her father in law that, in order to win the presidency,  she and her husband were going to be sold  “like a box of soap flakes.” I think of her embarrassment and disgust whenever I see her mawkish image on one of these carnival giveaway quality tchotchkes.

One of my friend Marilyn’s husbands (there have been so many I can’t remember them all) was a pilot for UPS. When he had layovers in San Francisco in the 1980’s he would stay with me. There were two things that intrigued him about my apartment: the lack of a television and the perversity of my Jackie collection.

He did contribute, however, in the form of a cigarette lighter from the 60’s. When he was in the New Zealand Air Force he and his buddies would buy these lighters thinking they were Jackie. It’s not the usual America’s Widow image we’re used to. Still I think we have to accept his word that he thought he was buying Jackie.

I’ve always given it a central spot in the display case. His intent was pure even though his thoughts might not have been.

When I went to the preview of Jackie’s auction at Sotheby’s I was surprised that she and I didn’t have more things in common. In fact, this is the only item we both owned.
The official lighter of the New Zealand Air Force in the 1960’s.
Jackie wine bottle stoppers.
Melmac Jackie. A horrendous rendering of the First Lady. To make things worse there’s also a poem, To The Beautiful Heroine in Pink. One of the low points of Western Civilization.
Big eyes. Not Keane but his Parade Magazine mail order archrival, Medeiros.
Creepy porcelain heads either for dolls or maybe puppets.
A stacked deck
Park your butts on the Kennedys. The ashtray.
About a year before he died Onassis wanted a divorce and he was scheming to sully his wife’s reputation. He alerted the paparazzi of the times she sun bathed nude and had his security allow them close range so they could get their shots. Nothing came of it except a commemorative calendar for Screw Magazine.
We were antiquing on Cape Cod and came across this lithograph of the iconic swearing in photo. LBJ autographed it with his best wishes to the artist. My friend Dale said he was surprised he hadn’t inscribed it “on the happiest day of my life.”
Plastic molds for something, not sure what.They seem too flimsy for pottery. Jello perhaps?
No Jackie collection would be complete without a replica of the convertible.
Trivets make wonderful collectibles especially when associated with someone like Jackie who loved to cook. She would always be up first thing Sunday mornings to rustle up a skillet of sausage gravy for Jack and the kids.
“The Speeches of Jaccqueline Kennedy at Home and Abroad.” The title of this record album is a little misleading because 40% of it is orchestral filler, 58% is a man narrating the story of her life and 2% is her speaking. When children in India hand her some drawings she responds “they’re absolutely lovely.” That’s about it. Pericles she was not.
A vintage Halloween mask. Spooky, scary.
An early 70’s charicature. America’s widow had fallen off her pedestal by marrying Onassis. Most of the country saw her as a money grubbing chatelaine even though they didn’t actually know what a chatelaine was.
In the late 20th Century Boym Partners started creating tabletop architectural miniatures of tragic sites. The series was called “Buildings of Disaster” and included things like Chernobyl, The Oklahoma City Federal Building, Neverland Ranch and the World Trade Center. This is their version of the Texas School Book Depository. Collecting truly can be a fun hobby for the whole family.
The salt and pepper shakers that started the whole collection.

 

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The Jackie Obsession