Writer's Corner

I’ve written myself into a corner and the smell of my burning brain is putrid.

(Clock rollback time)

Without the marvel of a lit cigarette in an ashtray simultaneously racing the smoke from the one dangling from my mouth to the ceiling, both pacifiers serving me well as indulgent crutches for more than fifteen years.

Today, my room’s lack of odor has no prevalence; it’s nothing more than a space with a corner. Nothing stale to stimulate the senses, nothing sweet, no bread or wine, and it’s far too early in the day for my wine replacement – a single malt scotch. Perhaps… some salami and cheese… no, can’t do it… she’s got me on a diet. Strawberries, blueberries, and mango sound so delightful, only if they’re toppings on a banana split ice-cream sundae.

But, this is not to be since these ultra-fine ingredients have found a temporary residence at the base of a very minor, individual serving of Yoplait. The carton’s contents are inhaled and, while I do feel somewhat pleased with my ability to have served myself without her help, I still remain vacant without a creative thought to share.

They say sleep deprivation will cause hallucinations.

I know! I’ll stay awake for three days. Sitting in one place for 72 hours will certainly conjure up the characters and devilish plot I’ve been hunting for: crazy people who kill other crazy people just for the mere joy of killing crazy people.

That stinks… Just not good writing is it?

Besides, I’ve tried staying up before; it doesn’t work for me. I fall asleep almost immediately and begin dreaming about this writer with writer’s block who concocts a plan to stay up for three days in order to hallucinate enough to create some characters worthwhile to kill.

I awake almost completely refreshed and raring to go.

Formula: Please choose one of the following.

1.         I hasten

(I don’t hasten)

2.         I jog

(Not indoors)

3.         I bound

(Only the Brits bound)

4.         In a flash

(I never flash)

Now you’re stuck for words, aren’t you? It’s not easy being a writer is it?

Do you have any sympathy for me or, are you like the people who say, “You made your bed, now lie in it?”

Here I am, seated before my trusty word processor. My ass is beginning to hurt beyond belief. I definitely have writer’s cramp but it’s in the wrong place. Maybe, if I stand I’ll be more creative than when I sit. The pain in my butt is dissipating but standing doesn’t help me with plot development.

What would Stephen King do in my place?

That’s it, Stephen King. I just finished reading his book “On Writing.”

Think Harv, think. What would Stephen King do in my place? Wait a minute. I’m not even close to being Stephen King. He’s possibly the most brilliant fiction writer I know. The audacity of me thinking I could do what he does...

Hold on now, the word audacity… King has audacity… why can’t I have some as well?

Ah ha! Now I’m on to something.

Stephen King said not to be Stephen King, or anyone else for that matter. Damn, it’s just like voice over or any other subjective art form. Forget about Stephen King. I’m sure there are people who think of him as a hack anyway. Well, maybe not a hack. Besides, he suggests taking a walk every day – an idea I can live with.

Of course, I must remember to be careful out there. On Stephen King’s last walk he was nearly killed after being hit by a car… On second thought, let’s save the walk for another time. Besides, there are ideas popping in my mind’s eye.

The word audacity remains right there in front of me. All the audacious characters I’ve met or read about in my lifetime come to me. The brazenness of those who succeed, seemingly at whatever they attempt to accomplish, haunt my thoughts.

I’ll write about men and women who operate with great chutzpa.

But where will I find the audacious explorers of the past and present – from our country and around the world?

“Houston, we have a problem!” Most of the explorers I’ve read about managed to discover something because they were lost.

“Lost and Audacious” sounds like some of our elected officials or a legal firm.

A Hurriedly Compiled List Of Helpful Word Supplements…

1.         Audaciousness

2.         Effrontery

3.         Brashness

4.         Brass

5.         Brassiness

6.         Cheek

7.         Cheekiness

8.         Chutzpah (also chutzpah or chutzpah)

9.         Crust

10.         Face

11.         Gall

12.         Nerve

13.         Nerviness

14.         Pertness

15.         Presumption (presumptuousness)

16.         Sauce

17.         Sauciness

18.         Temerity

Wait a second, aren’t these the same words we use in our voice over classes as an attitude cultivation tool? I wonder if there is a similarity between the two crafts: reading and writing?

Now comes a flicker of light. Both crafts require feelings and emotions, often at the very same time. Again my friend (we’ve never met but anyone who helps or offers to help me becomes my friend) Stephen King’s words enter my mind’s eye. “Read as much as you can as often as you can,” he advises. Many of the more renowned acting coaches advise us to keep doing, keep practicing our craft. Keep reading, writing, forever doing, assembling words and feelings, often as recklessly as they enter our comprehension or lack of it. Don’t aim at a target – feel and shoot. Take whatever list of words you’ve compiled and go free form.

I began in my writer’s corner with seemingly nothing to say. I took my walk and thought of solutions to my problem. Amazingly, my Stephen-King-inspired walk helped me with my barren brain deficits and, at the same time, lessened the pain in my butt.

By sharing with you what I had learned from a great writer, I have eased the burden of a burning brain.

Let’s see now, where was I?

There was this group of crazy people trying to get out of the United States. Another crazy guy, who wasn’t part of their group, came upon them. The leader of the crazy group told the single crazy guy he wasn’t welcome to join them because he was obviously crazier than they were. The single crazy guy was quite offended, to say the least. He brandished a pistol from inside his Speedo-turned-underwear and shot them all dead. He then shot himself in the head. The End.

That wasn’t very good was it?

I’ll be going back into my corner now.

Perhaps, I’ll write about the outcome of the presidential election. On second thought, I better not. I wouldn’t want to offend some crazy out there who might not agree with me. Make no mistake – I know there are a couple of them in existence. I can tell who they are. They’re the ones who write to me and don’t have the courage to sign their names.

As a matter of fact, they were the inspiration to my story about this group of crazies who were trying to get out of the United States.

The Faceless Paintings - Revisited

In my Thursday, August 2, 2012 post titled “The Faceless Paintings,” I called attention to what I thought was fact regarding our artist Tibor Jankay having never sold a painting in his lifetime. For those of you who read the story, you may recall he regarded his paintings as family. You may also recall how following his death at age 94 his paintings were willed to a museum in Hungary specifically dedicated to the display of his work. On many occasions through the years, I have had different prominent art dealers confirm the fact that there were no records of Tibor Jankay’s paintings ever being sold. In essence, what I had hanging prominently in the entry of our home was a pair of paintings with no monetary value.

In a few short days following the publishing of the Tibor and Irene Jankay’s love story, I received an extremely heartwarming email from a lady in Massachusetts. It turns out she had been in search of anything having to do with the artist named Tibor Jankay. I contacted her by telephone and was re-warmed as she told me her side of the Tibor Jankay epic.

As she grew up, her Father told her tales of his childhood best friend Tibor Jankay. At the time Tibor and Irene were separated and struggling to stay alive, the very same scenario was taking place for her Father. The same miraculous story, which I had related in my blog, had been partially told to her by her Father as well. She explained to me how her family had traveled to California to visit Tibor. She had been in the very same room in which I sat and listened to their story.

The emotions between two strangers poured out. What an amazing feeling for me, to be touched so deeply by a stranger who was thanking me for the words I had scribed. The lady had recently lost a loved one and felt much of whom they were came back to her through the story of the Faceless Paintings.

***

Last weekend, Cathy and I visited a prominent art dealer in Santa Barbara. Our purpose was to once again research our artist, Tibor Jankay. We never expected to uncover anything unknown to us.

When the gallery manager looked up from his computer and announced that there had been 21 recent sales of paintings by the Hungarian-born artist Tibor Jankay, my only words were, “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he responded. “The last painting sold in June of this year, at auction for twenty-four thousand dollars.”

So… it appears my two Faceless Paintings have much more than intrinsic and sentimental value.

I bet Irene and Tibor are smiling.

Thank God for palette knives.

***

A note: Auction houses usually sell paintings for less than dealers. However, when a vibrant market exists for an artist, the opposite most likely will apply. Usually the last known sale price on an artist’s work establishes the market value, but not always.

A Field Trip Tour Of My Business Life

This “white paper” was stimulated by an actor’s comments having to do with the Harvey and Catherine Kalmenson work ethic. The actor in question has known the two of us for many, many years. With an all-knowing sinister look decorating his very well known countenance, he extended his hand to mine, gripped it firmly, and overlapped both with his other hand in a gesture of meaningful affection. 

“So, who started your business for you and Cathy?” He asked.

For those of you not familiar with our President’s recent speech asserting his fervent belief that all businesses are started by people who have the help of others and that their individual efforts were not rewarded because of how smart they were or because of their entrepreneurial skills, but rather their success was brought on by way of the government.  During this same speech, the President pointed out that there were a great many smart people out there who could have accomplished similar success as Catherine Rose and Harvey Kalmenson had they received a helping hand.

***

It is not my intention to show my disagreement or contempt for what the current President’s beliefs happen to be. What follows, perhaps with noticeable indignation on my part, is an expression of my Constitutional right as an American Citizen.

In the Army of this great country, we soldiers took an oath of allegiance. While I was not a member of the service for long, believe it or not, I still carry within my heart and manner the very same oath of allegiance to my country that I did as a nineteen-year-old young man. I am not embarrassed to say it nor for the entire world to know it. Nor am I shy about displaying my disagreements with the President of the United States of America. 

What I heard as a little boy from my immigrant father was always the same: “It’s a free country. Say whatever you want as long as you’re not hurting anyone.”

A Short History of The Kalmensons and the Zukoskis

  

Catherine Rose Zukoski (my wife) worked at a market as a checker through most of her high school years. She has continued to work without hesitation ever since. Her grandparents on both sides came to the United States as immigrants. Her four brothers and sisters all share an identical work ethic. While raising five children, Dorothy (Cathy’s mom) completed her education and today continues her career as a Master Beekeeper for the City of Chicago. Ronald Zukoski’s (Cathy’s father) work ethic was as stalwart as God would allow. He made it to age forty-six. The wounds he received in the Korean War were ultimately responsible for ending this young Marine’s life. Dorothy still lives in the same house Ronald and she bought some fifty-five years ago. 

The hands of the Zukoski Clan have never been extended for the purpose of monetary support, even in the worst of times. As is the case in almost every life, they too had some large bumps in the road.

Harvey Kalmenson

My grandparents and parents on both sides of the family immigrated to the United States. The help they received was by way of God. All became American citizens as quickly as the government would allow. Without exception, they worshiped their new country and never looked back.

         

I was born in Brooklyn, New York to immigrant parents, Charles and Lillian Kalmenson. Early on, they became a patriotic World War Two household. My Mom was a stay-at-home (that is if you could ever find her not working) and my father owned and operated a women’s handbag factory in Jersey City, New Jersey. There were three kids in the family – two sisters and me. My older sister entered City College of New York at age sixteen. She married a returning highly decorated war hero who died around the age of ninety. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He too emanated from immigrant stock. What a story… from Ellis Island to Arlington National Cemetery. Hitler gave my brother-in-law a “helping hand” by placing him in a Stalag (Prisoner-of-War camp) following his capture after being shot down in a bombing raid. 

His Distinguished Flying Cross and Purple Heart are treasures. 

And then, there is yours truly, Harvey Kalmenson. After birth, it was only a short period of time before my Mother got through to me about how tough her pregnancy was. Each time she told the story, I became more convinced about how much pain and suffering I had caused. I was, however, not alone. My Italian and Irish friends all had mothers cut from the same cloth. 

At age ten, I had my first summer job. While it was in my father’s factory, don’t get any ideas that I received favoritism. My Dad was tougher on me than any stranger might have been. His premise was a simple one, “Some day you’ll be leading this show. You’d better know what it’s like to take orders before you have to give them.”

From age ten to present, I have never stopped working for a living. On many occasions, I had more than two jobs going at the same time.

During my two years in the United States Army, I did receive some minor accommodations but nothing resembling the well-deserved gratitudes for the sacrifices made by Cathy’s Dad, or my brother-in-law. The help I received during my stint in the service was singular; I thank God.

One day, just short of twenty years ago, Cathy and I decided to open our own casting and education business. Initially, because neither of us had any substantial sum of money, our home served as our administration office. We rented studio space for auditions on an hourly basis. Our work force consisted of Cathy and Harvey Kalmenson. The company name we chose remains Kalmenson & Kalmenson, Inc. – The Business of Voice Casting and Education. Counting our teachers, engineers, and in-house staff there are now twenty-two families deriving income by way of the Kalmensons. 

No banking organization gave us a helping hand other than placing us up to our eyeballs in debt. If we had failed, everything would have been lost. Every client we have was personally secured by our own personal efforts! On day number one, Cathy placed the phone to her ear and hasn’t stopped singing to date. (I mean she was actually soliciting advertising agencies by singing her “checking in” song to the theme music of The Lone Ranger more classically known as the “William Tell Overture.”)

Our staff enjoys the comfort of having medical insurance – they earn it – and the Kalmensons will continue to pay for it 100% if the government stays out of our way. The best hand any government can offer is the one that removes itself from our pockets.

Our plan is to keep growing by way of auditioning and teaching our educational methods to as many actors as we can. We offer our hand to all of you by extending our best wishes. 

And if you don’t mind, or even if you do, God Bless America!

Faceless Paintings

Yesterday was over fifty years ago. Two paintings that hang in the entry of our home act as my constant memory of a past lived by two people whose love was the force that allowed them to survive the depths of human indignity.

Whole families disappeared from neighborhoods. Driven by desperation, their will to survive a destiny that was chosen for them by a man so evil and unequalled in God’s eyes, they remained free to degauss whatever music might be left within the shredded fingers of their spirits.

Could it possibly be fifty years since that very special day? Each and every day as I leave and reenter my home, two people in two paintings continue to speak to me. I look at the faceless paintings on our wall and the memories come pouring back.

My era of laboring in a variety of unrewarding tasks as a manager for my Father’s factory, offered me nothing more than entrapment. The flow of my creative juices was difficult to maintain. It wasn’t the people around me, or even my Father, which created the stubborn stifling of my dreams. 

It was the necessity of obligation that provided a strangle hold on my will to leave. I found myself at the point where the daytime work for pay and the evening internships challenged my physical ability to continue on the same path. I wasn’t growing, or if I was, I certainly wasn’t moving in the right direction. It was a definite time of vulnerability. Deep down, I knew I wasn’t pursuing my life’s intended destiny.

Late one afternoon at the factory, as I more or less slowly went through the motions of semi-management, I found myself at the long line of forty sewing machine operators. They took up the full length of one wall of the building. It was procedure to periodically check all was moving well. Glancing form one operator to another, I was taken by the sound of a lady crying.

         “Are you okay Irene?” I asked.

Irene Jankay was my favorite lady at my Father’s factory. From the time I met her, I felt she didn’t belong; not in a bad way, but her own natural presence was of a woman who was above and beyond the calling with much more demand for her apparent academic background. The first time I saw her I remember thinking, “What is a lady like her doing in a factory working as a sewing machine operator?” Her walk and talk was so much more.

***

He never sold a painting during his lifetime. Not because he couldn’t have but because he treated his lifetime portfolio of work as his endearing family. Each of his paintings he had an obligation to complete. Regardless of his trials as a human being, when a painting was finished another was duty bound to begin. Painting was his found destiny.

What I am about to relate is a first hand account of a man and woman’s life together, most of which I became aware of as a young man of twenty one.

At first, I was unable to fathom the magnitude of their love for one another. Then, as time went by and my own maturity began to show, an understanding of what they had built together revealed to me the joy of the true love, which had nourished them during the harrowing and most unmitigated experiences dreamed possible for any human to endure.

During the many weeks following her crying incident, during breaks in the day and lunchtime, she revealed her story. A story I have not shared until this occasion. A story that helped encourage my pursuit of my own true destiny.        

Irene and Tibor Jankay had immigrated to the United States from Hungary following the end of World War Two. They met in their teens and began a love affair lasting a lifetime, a story rivaling Romeo and Juliet without self-destruction.

Tibor’s beginnings were meager while Irene was born into a wealthy family. Her family was against their relationship from the very beginning. They viewed Tibor as a man with little chance to succeed though he had been accepted early on to a prestigious art school and ultimately traveled many of the European roads while still a teenager. His demeanor was that of a gypsy artist.

Irene’s parents so vehemently objected to the ongoing relationship, the two of them began planning on her joining him in Paris where he was attending art school. That day never came. Instead, the onset of World War Two did.

It was at the same time the Germans occupied France that our young artist found himself in desperate straights. The Paris Artist’s Colony didn’t represent a safe haven for a young struggling and penniless Jewish artist. Tibor quickly decided on finding his way back to Irene who still lived in Hungary.
 

He was unaware that the Nazis had separated Irene from her family and stripped their home of all its art and jewelry. Irene’s family and their belonging’s exact whereabouts were never learned. 

The same end came for the Jankay family. Tibor’s Mother and Father, it was later discovered, fell victim to a similar fate as Irene’s parents. 

Both families were gone. 

Irene and Tibor ran for their lives separately, not knowing if they were destined to ever be together again.

In 1943, both Irene and Tibor were captured and imprisoned by the Nazis. It is not clear which concentration camps they were sent to.

While in camp, it was discovered that Irene was a marvelous clothing designer. The Nazi officer in charge quickly removed her from her regular camp duties and made her a seamstress and maid for the commander’s family. She spent the next few years, until war’s end, in domestic servitude.

From almost the very beginning, the Nazi officer gave her a choice. She could continue on at his house, serving as a housekeeper in addition to giving in to his sexual advances or she would be sent back to the camp. When the commanding officer returned from a six-week assignment in Berlin, Irene was nowhere to be found. The commander’s wife had assisted Irene with her escape.

With forged papers and a small amount of money, she was on her way to the United States. She reasoned that her multilingual skills would provide her with a fighting chance of survival. 

Her survival did become a reality, but not in America. Once again, Irene found herself working as a servant for the family of the mayor in a small city north of Budapest. Because the mayor was a Nazi sympathizer, the Germans never questioned Irene’s identity and it was never disclosed. The family was good to her and tried to help her find the whereabouts of Tibor. But it was not to be. Tibor had seemingly disappeared from existence.

When describing his years until war’s end, Tibor had a great deal of difficulty remembering the exact timeline transpiring between running from the Nazis, being captured, and ultimately making his way back to Budapest to begin his life anew.

  

I sat there in the home of Irene and Tibor Jankay and listened to a survival story not to be matched by anything I would become privy to during my lifetime. As they spoke, their hands clasped and remained together stimulating my admiration for their obvious love for one another. What existed in the household, void of children or pets, was the ever-present feeling of a love that never stopped growing. From floor to ceiling, every inch of their home was filled with what Tibor referred to as an endearment of their life together. He had depicted the minutes, hours, days, months, and years with nothing left out.

Often as they spoke, I was able to identify an abstraction of the moment being depicted. On occasion we shared a tear. I found myself growing stronger as our time together wore on. Never did they display resentment for what they had endured.

It was always the same. I entered their home and was greeted warmly as a friend coming to visit. I listened intently, rarely with a need to ask questions. One day, as my eyes wandered around the room, it became clear why Tibor resisted selling any of his work. Without using words, a diary of their trauma had been recorded in paint, charcoal, pen and ink, and metal and wood.

He had been taken by truck to a town he didn’t recognize. For three days he remained outdoors with a group of other Jews being readied for transport to a new location.

"It was during those days left out in the elements as if I were a homeless dog, I felt my will to live leaving me. Then, without warning the group moved towards the waiting trucks. We were literally pushed up and on and another eternity later again we were pushed down and off the trucks. 

"An unrelenting rain fell, hitting us and creating an odor I have not since experienced. As men, women, and children our mass was transposed into a barely recognizable commodity. The doors of the freight train rolled shut and we were in the dark, moving to what the German guards were overheard to say would be the Jews’ final destination. 

"The guards’ words somehow allowed for a germ of concentration to reenter my brain. I thought of my life, but it was no more than a fleeting memory of what was gone forever. 

"I was thinking more clearly, for whatever the reason, it didn’t matter. 

"Then in my mind’s eye, Irene’s beautiful face was there for me. And then, vividly living with the realization we were all heading towards certain extermination, a flicker of light entered through a small crack in the ceiling of the freight car. It was as if the light was a beacon on this desperate canvas.

"I must record this. 

"I searched my pockets hoping to find a piece of charcoal to draw with. Irene’s face stayed with me as I searched to no avail. My trousers were frayed and barely provided cover. I slapped at my sides hoping to jar loose something, anything to draw with. And as I was about to give up, through a hole in the torn breast pocket lining of my jacket it came slithering out. 

"Not a piece of charcoal, but the palette knife I thought I had lost months earlier. 

"At first, I was sad it wasn’t what I was looking for but then, sitting on the rough floor of the freight car, a sliver of wood pierced my skin. It wasn’t a large splinter but it did bring a degree of pain. 

“Good, I thought, I’m still alive. 

"I stood upright as close to the crack in the ceiling as I could get and began to use my palette knife as an instrument to remove the splinter. I had it just about removed when the knife fell from my hand and onto the dark floor.”

I leaned in closer in anticipation of what more Tibor had to say. It was the first time that day his dark complexion showed a shinning grin at the corner of his mouth. Irene joined in with her own version of a happy smile as Tibor relished the taste of fresh water from his glass in appreciation of what it was like to have it there anytime he wished.

"The knife had lodged itself well into a crack in the wooden floor. As I pulled it out, I also pulled a chunk of floor slat along with it.

"At first, I moved without a plan. I began digging into the floor faster and faster. To my surprise the wood gave way easier than I could have imagined. As I chipped away a plan began to take shape.  I was still a very strong young man in those days, almost like you. And like many young men, I was on the fearless side of the ledger.

"At the end of the second day I had burrowed into the bottom of the car allowing a space large enough to push my body through. The question was when would the train come to a halt long enough for me to escape?

"In the wee hours of the morning of the third day out I got the horrible premonition of the train not stopping until it reached its final destination.”

Tibor enjoyed leaving me hanging there. He once again sipped some water and displayed a look I hadn’t yet seen. Pride.

"My mind and nervous system finally allowed for the decision-making process to continue. I reasoned, if I remained on the train, I would never see Irene again. She would never become my wife. Our parents were gone as well as any resemblance of family or friends. Staying on the train guaranteed Irene and I would never be together again. I had to give it a chance. If Irene were alive, I would find her.

"Here I come Irene, my love.

"I slipped down through the hole in the floor, holding on to the edge of the opening as long as I could, and then let go, keeping my body as straight as I could.

"Oh my God, I thought in that instant.

"I hadn’t considered which direction the train was moving. God and Irene must have been with me; I had let myself down in the same direction the train was moving. I let my hands relax and felt my back slide to the ground as if I had practiced this jump all of my life. I was perfectly centered in the area between the wheels of the train. In a few minutes the beginning of my escape would come to and end, and so it did. 

"In the dark, looking up at the stars, there I was a young man in his twenties, lying on his back between railroad tracks someplace in Poland. No longer was I a prisoner of the Nazis. I was a free man on his way to find the love of his life.

"Believe it or not Harvey, I found myself smiling.  To this day, I never really figured out how far I had to travel between where I was in Poland, and where I might find Irene in Budapest.”

Tibor and Irene found each other a few miles from where they had first met as children. They became Mr. and Mrs. shortly after the war ended. After immigrating to the United States, both became American citizens. After completing his education, Tibor became the Head of the Art Department at Pepperdine University.

And along the way, Harvey Kalmenson became the proud recipient of two of Tibor Jankay’s most noteworthy Impressionist works. Both are rarities within their own right.

None of his work was ever sold.

Somewhere in Hungary a museum bearing the name Tibor Jankay has been devoted entirely to his lifetime achievement as a fine artist. 

The two of them remain within my heart as fine human beings.

The figures in both of my paintings are without facial expression. No tears would ever again be visible.