FROM A TABLE ON AVENUE ‘C’ The care and feeding of angels
AUSTIN JOHN MARSHALL
In the spirit of Arthur Schnitzler, fin-de-siecle
Viennese boulvardier, my vantage point is on the corner of Avenue C and East
7th St at Zum Schneider, New York’s downtown Bavarian Beergarden. Here,
sporting my father’s RAF insignia on my cap but receiving no challenge from
21st century Luftwaffekinder, I can throw a little tarot, sell some erotische
bilder and flirt with Evalyna.
Ach… Evalyna. My latest model, drop-dead
Garbo lookalike — possessed of an Omeingottkoepe (OhmyGod!body).
This is the new frontier of the Lower East
Side of Manhattan. Ten years ago the only tables out on Avenue C would have been
for the old Hispanics to play dominoes, paid by the local crackolistas to watch
for the cops. Now the strip from 7th to 10th is solid eurobabes every Friday
and Saturday. From here I have a fine view across the Ave of my last remaining
neighborhood mural, the Jazz Flag on the Alphabet Lounge.
But the angel on my mind is not the one
darting gracefully to and fro with foaming steins of Schneider’s special
brew. I’m thinking of a financial ‘angel,’ ready to sponsor a
Charlie Parker Memorial bronze in Tompkins Square.
When some guy you just met offers you $400,000
it gets your attention, right?
In another lifetime… my youthful, year-long
Dublin ad agency gig in the mid-70s (during which I wrote the core of a musical)
hadn’t prepared me for vicious big-city corporate ad politics back in London.
I was impatient with the protocol and avoided the alcoholics. In two months I
was canned. At that time, my long-suffering headhunters were two really hip and
funny ladies. “We shouldn’t have sent you to that soul-grinder,”
they explained in consolation. “You’re crazy and we love you, but now
they think we’re crazy for sending you. We’re not going to bust our
butts anymore trying to fit you into corporate. We recommend a dramatic change
of career path.” I was all but drooling. “We have a backer for you
who’s in redemption mode after a near-fatal bout with alcoholism. He needs
to invest in creative projects; buck himself up. Weren’t you trying to write
a musical in Dublin? Maybe he’d back your show.”
Their ‘angel’ was a suave, beefy
young uppercrust fresh out of rehab, hiding out from his wife with a trophy blonde
in a cheap Kensington: “Love the script, old bean…”
“I didn’t get severance from the agency. I’d be delighted
if you wanted to back my show, but that’s going to take months of contracts,
legal stuff etc. How about putting a goodwill sum on the table right now?”
“Six hundred quid okay?” He signed, tore off and held out a cheque
with a low-key flourish like he did this a dozen times a day. I was impressed.
But not when it bounced.
Hardly the Medici, but things panned out;
his marriage repaired itself, and heroic support from this one patron led in
‘82 to an award-nomination for ‘The Great Smudge’ show I’d
sweated over in Dublin, and adapted for radio when I’m in NY.
In our fifteen-year association he only
threatened to have my knees broken once (over a trans-atlantic phone bill); and
he bankrolled The NY Living Jazz Fest in ‘89 at the Living Theatre when
it was on East 3rd St. Everybody got paid.
Why do they do it?
My only advice is try to persuade sponsors and
clients too, that they are collaborators, whilst keeping the creative process
close to the vest. Actually I’ve had a lot more trouble — from screaming
matches to outright rip-offs, even death threats, etc. — from collaborators
than from sponsors. Keep that old ace in the hole. Right?
So about three months ago I was pulling
an all-nighter in Kinko’s; there’s only me and my spiritual advisor
(an Aztec-style goddess behind the counter) and a babyface guy working the computers.
We both finish our work at the same time (around 6.00am) and meet up at the counter,
cashing up with Aztec Queen. He’s blinking and shaking his head. “I’ve
been trading dollar/euro margins all night and I’ve just made more millions
than I can count. I don’t know what to do.” He’s twenty years
old.
“So sponsor this, for a mere $324,000.” I pulled out of my portfolio
an early rendering of my Charlie Parker Memorial Bronze design.
“How about $400,000? You can only spend 200g’s on the statue.
Spread the rest around and find someone to make up the slack. Look, just so you
believe I’m not just a rich kid”
He had Shelley’s Ozymandias written
on a folded-up legal sheet.
I met a traveller from an antique land Who said
‘Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on
the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip,
and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which
yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things The hand that mocked them, and
the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: “My name is
Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and
bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.’
I ran into Robert George, the devilishly
handsome sculptor from North Carolina with an interesting limp, a Southern Gothic
Family from hell and an alcohol habit to match whose work puts me in mind of
Giacometti on steroids. George knows a Serbian armature-and-mould guy who can
shave the number. Calling Mr Ozymandias.
So my current stint at the tiny table is particularly
exquisite. I shift my weight on the Siamese pipe and cut the cards. Up comes
the High Priestess and Evalyna winks at me.
