Hollywood to Vienna. Donald Ellis Rothenberg

to someplace special!

      It’s a satirical, tongue in cheek story, sometimes including healthy erotic romance — a philosophical, even psychological reflection woven into vignettes of a variety of escapades in a variety of writing styles.

      A thank you to all of us who are making the attempt to help bring to fruition a bit of unconditional positive regard: compassion, through various creative outlets as we find ourselves witnessing the dramas of nationalism, religious dogma, politics, violence, the plight of the haves and have-nots, and problematic environmental manifestations while trying to live healthy, normal lives, raise our families, and give something tangible to our kin and our friends of all races, colors, and persuasions.

      We haven’t lost our idealism; hopefully we have matured along with our experiences on our various chosen paths with a certain Mindfulness, a spiritual sensibility and awareness that helps us cope and positively influence our “Global Village.”

      May we continue to find enjoyment and meaningfulness in our lives . . . Hallelujah!

       —Don Rothenberg

      All the names have been made up on the spot.

      I agree to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me G-d.

      “Who said that?” Ha ha ha, tra la la la.

      . . . L.A. was too much for the man . . . he’s leaving home.

      In twenty years, Europe will catch up with America.

      A consequence of a transformation of consciousness is the Transpersonal experience.

      1.

      In the Beginning . . .

      Jesse E Lasky (“E” for Edward) looked out his window and dreamed that he saw, or did in fact see, (whichever is more real), some squirrels chasing up a tree. The tree was newly green.

      It had been a long winter for the California lad, and he wasn’t sure just what he was looking at, since the day before, there was fresh snow.

      He thought, if someone were writing a book about this, they wouldn’t know just how to say it, so the reader is actually there in a “virtual reality” type of experience, so the reader wouldn’t automatically put it down and search for new computer games with lots of shooting and overkill, or turn on the television as if it were a long time ago and watch Soupy Sales, Howdy Doody with Buffalo Bob and Clarabelle the Clown, Ozzie and Harriet, Leave it to Beaver, Bonanza, Father Knows Best (Does he really?) Now he already misses the Terrapin Station file this friend had set up for him with the MP3 downloading and CD burner devices.

      He was at a Grateful Dead concert, and he and a friend spent the whole evening at Winterland, alongside, (within arms-reach, intimate conversation distance), all night with Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh in particular, and the whole band in general, which included Pig Pen. I mean just two feet or touching and talking distance, which he did during the breaks. He was the “Psychic Space-Man.” We felt the vibes!

      Jesse’s mind flashed back to his first Dead concert in 1970, backstage, under acid, tripping quite nicely as Bill Graham, dressed up as Grandfather Time/The Grim Reaper, flew down from the sky, in the air, above the shrieking countdown of the last seconds of the crowd, on a taut wire line, at the striking of midnight, bringing in the New Year.

      Hadn’t they gotten tickets from a friend, whose brother was in Columbia, supposedly supplying cocaine to the Dead family?

      What does all this have to do with the green trees, and Vienna, and a house occupied by a baby daughter, and the piano keys playing some classical melody out of tune in this city of classical music’s finest composers?

      The music changes with the scenery. Are these the 0000 years? Are we living in the millennium, intact? Is the ozone hole getting larger?

      The ice is beginning to melt up north. What about global warming?

      Are we still tripping? Is Armageddon arriving early, the Messiah coming in the guise of the Bal Shem Tov, the head Hasidic Rabbi? Wasn’t it Schneerson, and now we missed our chance?

      Who is asking these questions?

      2.

      Where Am I, Anyway . . .

      Jesse isn’t sure if he will be forty-eight going on thirty-five, or if he is still standing in front of Pinky Lee at the May Company in Los Angeles, on the “Miracle Mile,” wearing that black-and-white checkered hat (bowler style, but soft) and the shoes with the pink shoe laces and a pink shirt (heliotrope), a promotion for his father’s merchandising efforts. Hundreds or maybe thousands of kids are cheering and waiting. “Hooray, its me, my name is Pinky Lee,” is being sung live by none other than the real Pinky Lee, of television fame. He is rather short, dark hair, middle-aged.

      I used to visit him in his house, and he didn’t look as happy as he did on television. He did have a piano, and was without his make-up. He performed in the fifties, or what? Jesse and his older brother Harris were dancing to another beat.

      What does all this have to do with the little boy born in Hollywood one day, or should we say, early evening, just in time for dinner, not so long ago?

      This is a tale of nonsense and reflection, an ambitious, even ambivalent tale which can be imagined as true or only mistaken circumstances, serendipity-wise, at the whim of random computer keys. Going online in this arena has its drawbacks, and besides, almost fifty years have passed and what has happened in between? Jesse wonders. Is there any real sense in making meaning of life? Why not climb back inside that dark womb and go to sleep, wait it out a little bit in the quiet dark and warm waters where it’s safe? Rip Van Winkle waited for a thousand years or so, didn’t he?

      Jesse has already seen too much, and the rich are getting richer. The humanitarian values and ethics have gotten lost in politics and money. Here in Austria, they welcomed-in the Nazis, gave them shelter, Nazis who made some of their own neighbors sweep the streets, wash the streets on hands and knees, all the while taunting them, before they took everything from them, destroyed everything on Kristallnacht, killed them or sent them away to concentration camps, or they escaped to England, South America, USA, elsewhere.

      Some say that no such thing happened, and that the millions gassed, massacred in showers, never really happened. Those wearing mustaches now are prone to idolize the past and seek power through fantasy. Oops, that’s not me, only the Hitler-type of mustache.

      Anyway, this interesting mindset has all the makings of intrigue, and a memory file played out of key and lost somewhere in the computer directories abandoned along with the lost art, gold jewelry, gold from teeth, insurance policies, and confiscated property and businesses. The new technology has caught up with the thrill of living, and radiation threatens to spray over Europe, just as the big earthquake hits Tehachapi. Is that spelled right?

      So who is talking here? Yes, it’s me, Jesse, telling a tale that cannot be told only in first person, or third, or by following the rules.

      3.

      Lost Youth

      in America

      Sotheby’s just sold Jackie’s last negligee, and Jerry Garcia’s ties are going like hotcakes. Will Jesse ever return? No, he never returned, and he got lost somewhere on the Viennese U-Bahn heading for Floridsdorf or some god-forsaken place. He tried to seek asylum at the U.N., but the Atomic Energy Commission wouldn’t let him in, so he disguised himself as Amadaeus and brought his harpsichord along to the L.A. bus depot, downtown, and played a little tin pan alley.

      Jesse got lost somewhere between Hollywood and Vienna. Perhaps we can see him swimming across the Atlantic. So what? How irreverent Jesse is. A real “Rebel With a Cause.” Just what that is, we may find out. He’s a real borderline/narcissistic American with anxiety disorders-plus.