SHAME ON YOU, AMERICA

    THE LATEST News From Gainesville and Beyond.   August, '25

Building the cruelly-named "Alligator Alcatraz" immigrant prison this summer was more than shocking for most of us.  

My friends and I responded by erecting a smaller version, "Camp Cruelty" in Gainesville's roundabout on So. Main Street last August 9th.

   A dozen of us stood inside silently representing the 65,000 people now imprisoned across the country.  

 

We were joined by 150 protestors, hundreds of cars cars driving by, and the media. Reporters and photographers echoed our protest in print and on TV. 

     We'll be doing it again next month. We can't stay silent while the guys in Washington  tear our country apart. 

 

 

 

 

CHARLIE'S AFFORDABLE ART

    One of Gainesville's most remarkable artists is also a physician. Charles Williams currently has a collection of his etchings on view at the UCG 

 

Gallery on NW 5 Ave. 

 

 One of them (a numbered set of twelve) is offered for for just 25 cents each.  Such a treat it is to encounter affordable art now and then.  Thank you, Charlie!

 

 

 

KILLER SUITCASES

     Francesca and I flew to California last week. Waiting to de-plane in Atlanta we watch a careless young man pull his suitcase out of an

overhead compartment.
It slipped and hit the woman behind him on the head. He apologized.

 

   At the San Jose airport a woman rode up an escalator setting her large suitcase on the step behind her. As we started up ourselves

-twenty-feet below- i saw her suitcase tumbling down like a big, blue boulder. I yelled, shoved my wife to the side as it glanced off her leg. 

 

   She wasn't hurt. When we reached the top the woman apologized and explained, "This has never happened to me before". It was our first time too.

 

    I told a friend about this and she explained, "It seems everything is getting worse, even gravity."

 

 

AMAZING ARTIFACT

 

     While visiting Francesca's family in the Bay Area this week we discovered a 119-year-old hat. It had belonged to her great uncle, Joe Cusanovitch.

    Many of Francesca's relatives were in the1906 earthquake that destroyed most of San Francisco.  

     Uncle Joe, 28 at the time, survived but had to live in a tent camp. Everyone there was given the basics including a cotton hat. Joe drew pictures on his to describe the experience. The tall edifice you see, "the Call Building", was one of few left standing. 

     There is a drawing of Bob the dog, guards with guns, and "On April 23,1906, we slept on the step of St. Johns Church." That was five days after the historic quake.

 

    

 103 years after the hat art was created (2009)  I met Francesca's 106-year-old Uncle, John Violich. At the time he was one of the three remaining survivors of the horrific event. His voice was weak but he was able to share the biggest day of his life. If he was given a brown cotton hat, he didn't mention it.   

 

 

A LONG SILENCE 

 

    We all have friends we haven't heard from in a long time. Sometimes it's because they're dead and you don't know it.

 

     Today I wondered why my recent e-mail from Bob Ferreira had bounced back. Then, the Google gods told me he died last year.

      Bob made it to 85 which was darn good for my crotchety Coconut Grove former neighbor who loved to rant through missing teeth topped by a beat-up hat. 

    He and his wife, Maggie, were two of the most colorful characters I knew down south. They bought six adjoining houses on Kumquat Avenue to create  an artist compound. When my first marriage ended he sold me one. Their parties were terrific. It was a thrill to live on the edge of them.

 

    Bob and Maggie moved to North Georgia twenty years ago. When we visited in 2010 he told me in his salty Boston accent, "We're so lucky to have escaped f------g Miami. Our new home (Andrews, Ga.) isn't corrupt, it's safe and friendly. It takes me two hours to get city hall to do something that would take two months in Miami".  

     Good move, Bob. It took me 14 years to follow your lead.

 

 

READY TO BURN

 

Our umbrella'd "Bad Portrait Studio" delights thousands

     When my son, Ian, asked me to join him at Burning Man it was hard to refuse. A week at the sweltering,  desert party with one of my favorite people? A no-brainer.

It's easy to make new friends

Ian at our shaded camp, 2018 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We will head for the Nevada desert on Saturday. As they say, "You've gotta trust in the dust". 

    I'll tell you all about it next month.

-G