For all my whining, i’ve had an incredibly fortunate existence - good friends · not that many, but really good friends. When i was a young turk not yet living in Santa Ana, i threw in for a while with the Herrera Familia such that i was made godfather to Joseph Herrera’s 1st born son - Joseph Baldano Herrera. I haven’t seen the child since the age of one and have no idea where the Herreras are or who lives. Ernesto was the oldest son of Mr. Herrera, who with his wife were salt of the earth people. Joseph was the 2nd son, and for the 2 years that i knew the family was in prison more than not - though they were crazy days, i was not and knew it. It was around the same time i met, married and divorced my 1st wife and got 60 stitches in my right forearm, but i learned much more than pain. For one thing, when Ernesto after a day of drinking got it in his head “i can shoot an apple off the top of your head” no matter how many time he repeated, or how drunk i got - i still declined this too kind invitation from another “walking wounded Vietnam Vet; this refusal and the fact i was a guedo made me untrustworthy en los ojos de la familia, but more than worthwhile in mine. Ernesto’s father Senor Herrera worked 5 days out of the week, sober as a judge; supported his 8 children; and untold grandchildren and was wise. One example is when with with considerably patient enthusiasm he explained to me “when you die and you have as many friends as you have fingers on one hand - you were a lucky man” for emphasis he raised his right hand with his fingers splayed prominently displaying the missing middle finger of his right hand - they liked me, and for the better, they liked to laugh at me.
But this discussion isn’t about the Herrera family it’s about Dr. “Mac” Mac O’lash - my very best of friends, though i was no where around when he died. It is likely from his kindness toward me and patience with my confusion that i had the presence of mind to resist the very tempting invitation to have an apple shot off my head by a drunken Mexican. Dr. Mac knew me from a very young age and always had the coolest things. His garage was always open and if you ever needed anything for your bike - he had it, and more. One xmas my heart was set on a “sting ray” bicycle with the riser handlebars and banana seat - i got it, except it was a girl’s. I couldn’t look Mac in the face for months. His manner, no matter what kind of a snot-faced-spoiled kid you were, was the kind you find in stories; he reminded me of my Great Grandmother Munner - each possessing the most affirmative language i can remember anyone in my growing up years using; “how grand; isn’t that fine; take good care.” His daughter Carolyn, my older sister’s age is and was the most mysterious, fetching and alluring females i have ever known. Knock as i might - that door never opened. Mrs. Mac O’lash was a different story. Orange County being one of the cattiest of locales, in the cattiest of times, Mrs. Mac O’lash wasn’t cool enough, and her fussy ways made her the perfect target for the gossips that somehow could always be found drinking coffee at our house, before ma became liberated and went back to school. Many decades later and worlds away from that neighborhood, i would still be calling Mac, and on occasion got his wife Polly on the phone.
Over time, when Mac was not available, my conversations with Polly grew longer and i found Mrs. Mac O’lash to be one of the keenest minds i’ve known, with an uncommon generosity toward the world in general and abandoned cats in particular. As with most good things in life, she died shortly after we became friends by phone. As unfortunate this was for Mac, it was fortunate for me. I was better able to understand what the sudden loss of his wife to an aggressive brain tumor meant to my friend Mac. I’d like to have been as much help to him as he had been to me over the years - but that will have to remain one more regret. When i returned to California after conquering the Art World of NYC - a legend in my own mind · it was more than unsettling to find my success in NYC meant shit in California, and i would have start all over again on my climb to the top of the heap, though i hadn’t yet learned there is no top - just a big heap. Mac invited me to visit him in his office on Sundays which i did every Sunday for some years. By this time Mac had married me twice, once to the Cherokee propellor blade and then my 2nd wife, a younger woman and her child who had joined my aerospace coed softball team “Ma’s Marauders” sponsored by “Ma Spring ‘Em” Bail Bonds of Anaheim. We lost every game that season but one, but that one victory felt awful good. It was a very hard time for everyone involved, but mostly the 18 month old child who i couldn’t have loved more if she had been my own.
By this time, our Sundays had ceased because i felt my particular “crazy” required a more traditional approach, and Mac had retired from his role as Reverend at the State Hospital for “retarded, challenged, exceptional,” all those expression society uses to allay its discomfort with human beings who are different. I don’t know how many decades Mac was the reverend for this unique ministry, but i can say for certain there are human beings alive today whose lives are significantly improved from having known him - i know this because it is true for me. This doesn’t make me solipsistic, just aware. I worked for a time with that population that is so different from mainstream that people still do not know how to address them with the dignity that every living thing on the planet deserves. Are they “retarded, are the handicapped” - this language is no longer used to describe that population, and it is certainly in part because of the efforts of my very determined and very loving friend the RR Dr. “Mac” Mac O’lash. I know this because our conversations often had to do with perception and language. The modality he employed was long before self-help glommed onto the role of linguistics in changing people’s behavior simply by changing the language used to describe themselves or their relationship to others.
For example - the difference between “you are a fuck” and “you behave like a fuck” are vast and largely unconscious. In the first instance your statement depending on to whom you said it can be remarkably destructive - especially for a young child. The 2nd example, you are addressing a manageable component that is neutral “behave” and you are not diminishing the person you are addressing. And it gets more interesting, for example, if you preface either statement with “I feel” . . . you are immediately defusing a potentially volatile exchange by owning your own opinion and making it possible for the exchange to be a dialogue rather than an accusation. Dr. Mac lost the sight of one eye in a freak racketball accident at the age of 90. It is testimony of what right living can provide, for he lived another number of years after that because he was adaptable and rugged from a life of giving and encouragement to others. I’d like to have been built more like him, but my solitary pursuit of the creative life effectively prevented such generosity. I can hear his voice now, “bullshit” - he was a Taurus and could be quite point blank as the best often are. So i’ll employ one of my favorite quotes and keep trying to help the as i can using his “successive approximation” — Dr. Francis, “Mac Mac O’lash
“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” - Archimedes
jts 15/05/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
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