Marina Del Rey Christmas
As Christmas approaches I find myself thinking
back to when I was nineteen. I just didn’t want to spend that Christmas
with my family, as I had done so many years before, 19 times to be exact.
No, I felt like striking out on my own, building my own fire and paying
my own bus ticket to Pickipsy.
You see, earlier that year I had built a boat,
an ocean going vessel, if you will, to live on in the newly built “Marina
Del Rey.” I don’t know what I was thinking when I built it. Oh, yeah,
now I remember. I had visions of sitting on the “bridge” with a bikini
clad girl on my arm named Ginger, or Beverly or any other name of a girl
that brings visions of a girl who knows how to fill out a bikini and hangs
well on ones arm, while I sat on the bridge sipping a martini. Yeah, that’s
what I was thinking when I built that ship, although the word ship may
be stretching it a bit. It was really a 22-foot cabin cruiser, and not
really an ocean going vessel, in fact it was a flat-bottomed lake boat,
not really suitable for the ocean at all. And, being homemade, not exactly
the kind of vessel one would find a Ginger or a Beverly aboard and well,
it had not really much of a bridge either. It did have a wet bar, although
some just thought it was just a leak.
But, I had my vision and visions can sometimes
be blinded by the sight or even the mere thought of a babe in a Bikini.
So I built my ship and lived on it in Marina Del Rey for 6 years.
But this year was to be my very first “Christmas”
on my own, having lived there now for nine months, it was sort of like
giving birth to a new idea. Others had apartments, friends of mine lived
at the fraternity house, but I had my boat. I also had a carton of
spaghetti. I had the fore thought to order it from the pizza place down
the street, as I new they would be closed Christmas day. I thought I’d
doctor it up with sliced olives, mushrooms and a bottle of Galliano Liquor,
an after dinner motif and partake of it Christmas afternoon, in place of
the usual holiday reverie that I had grown accustomed to growing up. Yes,
this would be the very first Christmas on my own alone. . . alone.
. . alone.
I also thought that I should have a turkey
but I only had a hot plate and a small toaster oven aboard. So, I bought
two turkey breasts and some turkey stuffing, sewed the two breasts together
and, well, stuffed it. Then, I threw it in the toaster oven at 500 degrees
for twenty minutes. When that didn’t work I hit it for another three hours
with a blowtorch, till it was juicy and as tender as a babies butt.
But I got ahead of myself. I awoke that Christmas
morning and noticed a strange cold and lonely feeling over the Marina.
Boats are a summer thing and the furthest thing on people’s minds, on Christmas
morning, (accept for the few rich people who lived on the really big boats
far up the docks from where I was moored), was going boating. In
fact, no one lived on a boat under 30 foot in the whole Marina.
I had a lot of time to kill after cooking
my succulent dinner way too early. So, I thought I would take a little
drive in the 53 Buick. Maybe I might find Ginger or Beverly along side
the road needing a ride somewhere. I didn’t realize then that a Ginger
or Beverly wouldn’t be caught dead in a 53 Buick in 1969. In 2003 they
would gladly jump in. I would think to myself much later, I was then just
30 years a head of my time, to bad Ginger wasn’t.
After visiting all my favorite surf spots
along the coast I ventured inland a little. I took a tour of the houses
of all the girlfriends I had dated to that point in my life. It only took
half an hour because I only had three. It would have taken ten minutes
but they all lived in different directions. I thought about that for awhile,
that they lived all over the city and thought, maybe that makes me a man
about town. Yeah, that’s it, I tried to convince myself, I’m a man about
town, and here I am driving about town. It’s Christmas day and I don’t
have to be anywhere. Then I noticed how cold and lonely it was out there.
As I drove I noticed all the houses and wondered
what was going on inside. Some seemed empty and lonely, I thought, maybe
they’re at someone else’s house. Maybe, I’m the only one driving around
with no place to go. Maybe, every one is at the same house wondering why
I haven’t shown up yet? Maybe, the invitation got lost in the mail? Maybe
I should just stop at some house at random and pretend I was invited!
To calm myself, I decided I should take a
tour of all the houses I had lived in since I was born. I started at the
“Hawthorne” house, which I was born in, which even by then was gone, replaced
by an apartment building. I remember the street that led to it because
there were train tracks paralleling that street. There were always three
tank cars parked on those tracks. And to that very day there were still
three tank cars parked on those tracks and they looked particularly lonely,
that day. I thought, maybe they were the same tank cars I saw when
I was a baby. Maybe the railroad had just for gotten about that particular
spur and those tank cars had just sat there for the last fifty years, alone
and forgotten.
I then went to the East Boulevard house in
Culver City, which was, at that time anyway, still there. It was still
painted the color my dad had painted it before we moved out some ten years
earlier, chartreuse and dark green. No one had ever repainted that house
till the day they tore it down. Sears Weather Beater, good paint. It was
also kind of sad. The new owners did not decorate for Christmas like we
had. I thought back to how my parents had done it up with dad’s home made
cement Santa on the roof and could almost see our relatives showing up
for one of dad’s famous Tom and Jerry’s and people milling around the 18
foot Christmas tree you could always see from the street.
I then drove to the McCune house, just above
Venice Boulevard. Boy that was one lonely house even then. That house was
built on someone else’s back yard facing the alley. I remember the first
Christmas there, dad just kept decorating and decorating, trying to cheer
the place up but to no avail, it was just one sad house and that’s all
I have to say about that. Dad didn’t like it much either and we moved three
years later to the Ashwood house where he died three years after that
He passed just nine days after he gave my sister away to her new husband
and only two months till Christmas. They were still on their honeymoon
and had to come home early to a funeral. It was a very strange occasion.
Two weeks earlier we celebrated with all these people at my sister’s marriage
and just nine days later we were having a wake with them putting dad away.
When Christmas approached that year I tried to decorate the house one
last time in dad’s memory but my mother would have nothing to do with it.
Not one string of lights in his honor. I thought it was a mistake, but
that year, the house that always was the most decorated on the block, remained
dark and lonely.
I thought about that as I drove back to the
marina and decided to pass by the fraternity house on the way back. I noticed
a car in front but I didn’t recognize who it belonged to, so I decided
to stop in and see who had arrived. Inside I found Rick Bowls, one
of the charter members, who had stopped by. He was partaking of eggnog,
rum and brandy, with a dash of nutmeg; in other words a pore mans Tom and
Jerry. He invited me to partake of this Christmas nourishment with him.
As I partook I could not help but think that my life had not begun yet,
really, and here he was, already divorced, spending his Christmas at the
frat house alone, that is accept for me and of course Tom and Jerry.
I couldn’t help wondering as we drank if I would end up this way to?
But it was not to be, although tempting. I
did not know it then and would not find out for thirteen more years. I
would meet my Ginger, although that would not be her name (although she
was quite good at filling out a bikini but that was not enough to keep
us together). No, I would end up a single parent and raise my daughter
alone. And she would have two kids of her own, and I would not spend Christmas
alone ever again. No matter how hard I tried.
The End William Czappa
Winter 2002 Czappa’s
Studio Journal
Circulation 345
************************************************************************
We have lots to report at the studio this year.
We had the highest ever in sales. We sold 5 and 6 pieces to two different
people, and a total of 16 works sold for the year. More art work
was again shipped out of the country and his international representative
Haichuan Zou visited China to show his work to the Shanghai Museum of Art,
the director for the committee for Shanghai Arts Festival and he also visited
the China Cultural Exchange office in Beigjing. He said, “The work was
well received by all.”
In January he will be in a group show at the Lankershim
Art Gallery in NO HO in the San Fernando Valley California. The opening
reception will be on January 9th from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM. The show will
be up until January 31st. Located at 5108 Lankershim Blvd.
In Valley Village (818)-766-0529.
His writing is doing well this year, the Tolucan
Newspaper has printed 3 stories with more expected before the end of the
year. And his booklet, “Holidaze” (a compilation of his short stories written
for his newsletters, the Burbank leader and the Tolucan) has now been copyrighted.
We are now on the second edition of this booklet and copies are still available.
The Wall Street Journal has rejected his article, “Why the Stock Market
and the Economy won’t be recovering”, no surprise there, but it will be
printed soon by another newspaper. That article can be read now on the
web site, on the publication’s page, for anyone interested in protecting
what investments they still have.
The Valley Business Journal recently did an interview of Bill at ARC,
his business and personal gallery. That article will be published
soon.
On the art production front, Bill is working on
one of his oldest ideas and largest art pieces to date, the “Howard Hughes”
piece. After its completion, early next year, he will be completing,
“Abstract Erectorism.” Perhaps the most complex and largest Erector set
display ever made as an abstract artwork.
In the last four months alone two new art pieces
were completed and one older piece, “The Long Way Home” has been reworked.
Stop by the website, (www.relaypoint.net/~arctv/art.html) photos of these
new works will be posted soon.
And finally Bill has discovered a new reason for making art this last
year. He realized that when all is said and done, the real reason
is, it’s just a good excuse to buy more tools. That’s all for now,
hope you enjoyed his latest short story.
Charmalee Magoon