Portfolio Selection 1. Departures from Drawings to Paintings. 2012.

Desert Journey by Alejandro Betancourt

A Story:

The dry and unfruitful journey almost entirely absorbed his strength. His body became absorbed in the wind, his mind in failure, his spirit in hopelessness. Until he reached safety, security, and rest; he regarded every step as a reward to fuel his happiness.

"Happiness is not tomorrow," he said. "Happiness is now. It is in every step that I take."

Many times he believed that he had reached his destination, but he was wrong, and he was obligated to continue. When he finally reached what appeared to be his destination, he felt relieved for finding protection and comfort, but he did not feel any more or less of the happiness that he felt with every step that he took to get him there.

"Happiness is now," he said. "I won't let it wait until tomorrow. Happiness is always now."

try this link:

http://www.las-elc.org/factsheets/paydays.html

currently there are not enough funds to cover the check.

While I am working on a larger body of writing, a book about art direction, I am involved in a stupid relationship with this cafe and myself.

My former employer, Thierry Perez, owner of L'EPICERIE, issues me paychecks that have no funds.

Unfortunately, he does this to many of his employees, but they remained bullied.

This is action that law says must comply from this weblink:

file://localhost/Users/augustc/Desktop/Paydays-Late%20Pay-Bounced%20Paychecks%20%7C%20Employee%20Rights%20Fact%20Sheet.webloc

Your employer is required to have enough money in the bank (or a credit arrangement) to cover your paycheck for 30 days after the date it is issued. If your employer’s check bounced, and you attempted to cash or deposit the check within 30 days of receiving it, you can collect a penalty from your employer. If your employer doesn’t pay you the owed wages immediately after the check bounces, it will owe you an extra day of wages for each and every day you remain unpaid(in addition to the amount of the paycheck itself). This penalty begins on the day you present the check to your bank for deposit and accrues until your employer pays you or for 30 days, whichever is shorter.

Your employer may be able to avoid paying the penalty by showing that the mistake with your check was unintentional. In order to receive this penalty you must file a claim with the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE).

You may have the right to additional (or different) penalties if you file a claim in civil court rather than filing a claim with the DLSE. You should consult a private attorney about filing a claim in civil court.

Finally, if your employer does not have enough money to pay you, it has committed a misdemeanor and may have to pay a criminal penalty.

A Man At Work: The Restaurant Kitchen Expediter

THE EXPEDITER: A Thorough Job Description Of The Heart of the Restaurant Business

by Alejandro Betancourt

Alejandro Betancourt as Chef for Tiffany's Catering in Syracuse, NY

Restaurants cannot operate properly without the middleman who exists between the kitchen and the dining room.
His name is Expeditor.

This is the lay definition to fellow diners and kitchen crew members who don’t know who I am talking about:

Expeditor: The gatekeeper in the window who yells at the kitchen, while getting yelled at by servers; then yells at the servers, continues to yell at the kitchen; and is otherwise in a deep spell driven to a super speed by perfection and timing to push the perfect plate of food out to your table.

To the individual preparing to take on this job, I have a program to follow that may change your life:

I am going to start with the short list of what it takes to expedite. Then, I will describe in more detail how to excel at managing this crucial aspect of the restaurant business.

The short list:

1. Proper Introduction: You must be introduced by owners, kitchen manager, and any other restaurant figures of authority as the new expeditor. Your kitchen staff will have attitude, and they need to respect and to trust you from the start as their leader.

2. Speed: No matter what your experience is, you must quickly learn the kitchen’s set up, the system’s tickets, and the handling of all menu items.

3. Organization: you must keep your tickets and plates organized by tables or any other logical system.

4. Demands: you must succeed at always getting what you want.

5. Communication: you must find the language that works best to express your demands without any concern for the discomfort it causes anyone.

The Push:

You are in control of the product. You must understand an order as it is printed on a ticket and expect it at a certain time.
Your copy of the ticket has four crucial items to read in this order of importance:
1. dine in or take out
2. menu items
3. time on the ticket
4. table number or order name

Dine in or Take Out
Number 1 may not apply much to your kitchen. If so, you are a blessed expeditor because many restaurants depend heavily on take out and dine in items during peak times, and organizing both is a lot of extra work. Depending on your food containers, the kitchen may give you these items wrapped and contained in a way that you can’t inspect them. You must use a language with the kitchen where items are verbally called or marked clearly. You need to know exactly which item it is and for which ticket. It is your job to remind the kitchen of any extra sides or modifications for every take out item before it is packaged and sent out.
It is a good practice to mark off or delete take out and dine in items from large orders as they are handed to you. When the order is completed, request the kitchen’s copy of the ticket or enforce a system where the kitchen’s copy is deleted to avoid duplicate items or any possible confusion.
If the kitchen makes a mistake and hands you a take out item that should be a dine in item (or vice versa), send it back immediately and have them correct the mistake.
If you inspect quickly and find any mistakes in any items, hand them back to the line and have them correct it on the fly.

Menu Items
Number 2 always applies to you and excites you too, because as soon as you read a ticket item, you envision the sight, smell, and taste of whatever menu item is about to fire from your window. You must identify each item as it is named on the menu and abbreviated on the ticket. You must know all of the ingredients in all of the items and how they are presented. You must also know the time that it takes to prepare each item. When you read the ticket, it is good practice to call out any items that require lengthy prep time or special preparation.
When you receive the item, inspect it for presentation and ingredients. If necessary, taste it. The item must match the item on the ticket you are looking at. Be very careful to look for modifications and special preparations, including sauces and ingredients on the side.

Ticket Time & Table Number
Number 3, the ticket time, must be read and organized with Number 4, the table number. They belong together because you will be sure that your entire table is served the proper courses at the same time.
Organize your tickets by table numbers by pinning the ticket directly near the counter space that you make available for all of your table’s plates.
Pay attention to the cooking line and anticipate the items that you will soon be given. If you are working in courses, prepare to move easier plates such as cold salads out the window, to your server’s hands, as they are handed to you after a quick but sharp inspection.
Ticket time becomes most important with hot appetizers and all courses considered entrees for the table. Memorize cooking times for all items and anticipate which items will be handed first, and which items will follow. When you collect half of your table’s hot items, call out for the status of any following items, especially those with longer prep times.
You will be given items for several tables at the same time. It is your job to organize these items according to their tables. It is your job to watch the time on each ticket and anticipate which table will be served first.
If you are given an item that exists on more than one ticket, ask the line to tell you which ticket the item is for. The line should be keeping track of each ticket, each item that they give you and items that will take longer time to prepare.
If a ticket is near completion, call out for the status of any remaining items. If they are on their way, begin firing them out your window to your server, and make sure your server knows which table to serve.
If they are not on the way, check the ticket time and call out to the kitchen to also check the ticket time for items that you are expecting. Tell them to make the items that you need according to ticket times and tables that are very near ready to serve. If an item is still taking too long and you need it to complete service for the rest of a table whose hot plates are beginning to cool, demand that it is made on the fly.

The kitchen is a machine with very specialized parts made of people who should stay focused on one or a limited amount of stations during service.
Exploded, each individual will hardly complete a plate. Together, they produce meals for hundreds.
During peak times, the individuals in your kitchen machine will not slow down the pace. If you allow a ticket to go through, they will work on it.
It is your job to pace the kitchen, and pace yourself.
When you hear tickets coming in, there is no doubt in your mind that you will read that ticket soon. But you must not allow the flow of tickets to overwhelm anyone. If you are working at maximum capacity, it is your job to complete orders before you allow the kitchen to begin working on new ones.
When you know that most of your items are on their way, send tickets through and allow your kitchen to stay on pace and on time.

At peak times, it is good practice to ask for assistance with dine in sides and take out packaging. But you must not surrender control of your position. As a leader, you must call out to your assistant which item to help you with and for which ticket.
Tickets will almost always be organized by time. But smaller tables will be completed before larger ones.
If necessary, help your assistant identify where you need help by calling out a description of the order, such as “large table with steak special.”
Maintain control of tickets as they come in, counter space as you organize it, kitchen and window as you push out dine ins and take outs, and pace of service.

It is your job to call for any sides and garnishes that you are running low on. As service slows down, it is your job to replenish or 86 any item.

You will not need assistance as service slows down, and you will begin to close your station.
Keep your kitchen well-paced until the last ticket is completed. Always regard ticket time and always inspect every item that you push out the window.

Mr. Runner Up - Series on Male Body Image.4.

"Mr. Runner Up" is a series of images and short essays about male body image and male pageantry.

Image by Alejandro Betancourt

Words edited by Alejandro Betancourt from menstuff.org:

http://www.menstuff.org/issues/byissue/bodyimage.html

Excerpts from: Body Image Problems Not Just in Women

"Millions of boys and men today harbor a secret obsession about their looks and are endangering their health by engaging in excessive exercise, bingeing and purging rituals, steroid abuse, and overuse of nutritional and dietary [products]."

Those at particular risk: men who constantly seek instant results from workouts and frequently check their progress in mirrors or on scales.

 - Katherine A. Beals, PhD, Ball State University, RD; from March/April issue of ACSM's Health & Fitness Journal, published by the American College of Sports Medicine.

Therapists report seeing 50% more men for evaluation and treatment for eating disorders than they did in the 1990s.

And the root of this trend may be a new type of disorder -- an obsession for six-pack abs and bulging biceps that seems especially common in athletes and other fitness enthusiasts.

Though statistics show that about 10% of men suffer from the two best-known eating disorders -- anorexia and bulimia -- a growing body of evidence suggests that men may be especially vulnerable to muscle dysmorphia, a condition in which one obsesses about lacking muscle definition and mass, even with a muscular body.

-British Medical Journal

"As far as we know, all men are prone to these types of issues…The reasons why haven't been well studied, but one factor may be the availability of anabolic steroids, which are potentially dangerous but can make men become much more muscular than Mother Nature ever intended."

"Perhaps this is the one domain left where men can feel like men, since women can do everything that men can do, except they can't bench-press hundreds of pounds," Phillips tells WebMD.

"What has happened over the years is there's an increasing emphasis on men's appearance, and in particular on looking muscular, and it coincides very nicely with the increasing equality women have attained in society."

- Katharine Phillips, MD, director of the Body Image Program at Brown University's Butler Hospital and author of several books on men's body image problems, including The Adonis Complex: The Secret Crisis of Male Body Obsession.

Even boys and teens -- especially those who are overweight -- are suffering emotional trauma in their quest for bigger muscles, and setting themselves for possible future medical problems. "They may try to eat lot of protein but limit fat, and they often develop a fear of foods and an anxiety that results from restrictive eating," Loomis tells WebMD.

- Catherine Loomis, PhD, psychologist at the Eating Disorders Center at Rogers Memorial Hospital in Oconomowoc, Wis., one of the nation's few treatment centers that specifically treats men with eating disorder and body image problems.

Sources: By Sid Kirchheimer. ACSM's Health & Fitness Journal, March/April 2003. British Medical Journal, Nov. 3, 2001. Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders, Inc. Katharine Phillips, MD, director, Body Image Program, Butler Hospital; associate professor of psychiatry, Brown University, Providence, R.I. Catherine Loomis, PhD, psychologist, Eating Disorders Center, Rogers Memorial Hospital, Oconomowoc, Wis. Roberto Olivardia, PhD, clinical instructor of psychology, McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston. aolsvc.health.webmd.aol.com/content/article/62/71549.html

Mr. Runner Up - Series on Male Body Image.3.

"Mr. Runner Up" is a series of images and short essays about male body image and male pageantry.

Image and Words By Alejandro Betancourt

In the year 2007, I became a bachelor again and I decided to get real lean. I wanted to look like a Greyhound. I thought of the lean build of a Doberman Pincher.

I thought of those dogs in my mind every morning and woke up to a running course that included a track on the top of a hill. To get to the top I ran 150 uneven brick steps. At the track, I ran 5 laps and did 100 crunches. When I returned to the bottom of the hill I did it all over again.

It didn’t take long to change my body shape and not only look lean, but also feel mentally and physically faster. My diet consisted mostly of beer and bachelor snacks. My attitude became overly aggressive and careless of others.

I wanted to show myself off, like some show dog. I shaved my head and wore muscle shirts when I went out. My dates were young and cute. I got laid all the time.

In 2008, I modeled for Syracuse University’s art department and gained access to one of the best gyms I have ever been privileged to use. I began lifting weights and eating a lot. I became meaner looking and thought of Rottweilers. My arms got huge and I stopped messing with little dates.

Soon I set a goal to leave Syracuse and return to LA. That is where I am now.

Mr. Runner Up - Series on Male Body Image.1.

"Mr. Runner Up" is a series of images and short essays about male body image and male pageantry.

Image and Words By Alejandro Betancourt

I used to tuck in my white uniform shirt into my fat husky gray chords and pull my belt tight at the waist, then pull my shirt out just right so it made me look boxy. I was a fat kid, but smart enough to try a stocky look.

Like an illusionist, the fat spare around my mid-section would disappear, but the tight belt was painful and left scarring. The pain was worth it as a 10-year-old boy who only began to learn the rules of the image game.

I began to gag myself after dinner and throw up in the toilet to lose weight. My mother worked as a maid and I worried that she would catch me, so I tried to keep it quiet and clean.

But one of my mother’s clients was bulimic, and she knew about places to clean that I did not. The splatter under the rim gave me away and I was busted.

Throughout my youth, I occasionally threw up when I felt fat until I discovered the gym and began to work out on my own. Sports were not always an option, but that was ok. I thought the sport of looking good had better rewards.

Mr. Runner Up - Series on Male Body Image.1.

"Mr. Runner Up" is a series of images and short essays about male body image and male pageantry.

Image and Words By Alejandro Betancourt

The mattress was on the floor with pizza boxes and empty 2-liters of soda, ash trays, candy wrappers, little empty baggies and straws next to his bedside.

When he was skinny, he bought nice furniture and antique Japanese ox blood vases. Fresh flowers from the flower market filled them at 4 am, and a new orchid was added to his collection.

He used to take care of everything that he owned and polish up his body, his face, and his hair before he chose slim pants and a shirt that made him look like a stylish young man of distinction.

When he got fat, the poor guy just turned into a slob. He said he weighed around 230, but he looked heavier than that. At least 250. I never humiliated him by asking.

Even during our worst fights, I tried not to call him fat. Before that, I remember we had a mild argument, and when I did so, he quietly said, “Don’t call me that, it hurts my feelings.”

We were just kids and it didn’t work out. In the end I lost all respect for him and called him a fatass all the time.   

CONFIDE - Secrets Men Tell: Hugo Acosta

TELLING THE NEWS

Hugo Acosta, owner of CNY Latino newspapers http://www.cnylatino.com/

Hugo Acosta is the first man I photographed for the Confide essays. At the time, he was the most popular Latino in Syracuse, NY. This short, energetic Venezuelan runs the largest Latino newspaper in Central New York while owning a computer consultation business, attending to his family, and representing the Latino community in almost every public function. 

CNY Latino media was expanding into a larger group in 2008, when I left Syracuse. At that time, he was beginning a radio broadcast and beefing up his website. I was already writing for him, and would have begun a bilingual broadcast for his radio show if I hadn't left.

Hugo answered the phone when I first picked up a copy of CNY Latino and called for information about contributing stories. I had prior bilingual writing experience, but he didn't care about that as much as he cared about meeting more Latinos in Syracuse. It was something we both had in common. We both used a professional edge to meet Latinos and create a better community for ourselves.

We met and had lunch at the only authentic Mexican restaurant in town called El Canelo. Neither of us knew what that name meant, and we were both curious enough to ask the waiter, who told us that Canelo was the name of someone's horse. So we laughed and began to really talk about getting in touch with the Latinos in town. Like him, I wanted to get to know them and their place among so many predominately white people.

Today, Syracuse still appears as a young city that is in need of development. Its downtown area of reference is full of empty buildings. It has been that way since 2004, when my former boss, Eli Hadad, bought at least half a dozen downtown skyrises and then simply stopped developing them. He just left town, owing taxes, and leaving buildings such as the historic Hotel Syracuse non-operative because of leins on the property.

However, the Hotel Syracuse's elaborate banquet halls functioned, and Hugo danced there in a public fundraiser called "Dancing With Our Stars." He is a star; and naturally displays charisma and engages you and the audience when he speaks.

I sat with him during one of his live radio shows on the Wednesday night before a Thanksgiving. The show ran from eight to ten pm on station WVOA, 98.3 FM. This was a public station with Christian programming that allowed him a time slot. The shows he recorded there were going to sell to ClearChannel. 

WVOA operated in a trailer North-East of Syracuse. It was full of old equipment that was outfitted just enough to simply work with anything new. Hugo was working with his voice, music cds he burned, and more cds with recorded data. His show was called CNY Latino, and he broadcast live while only referring to some notes and a rough outline.

It looked easy to me. I sat in for a half an hour that night before I received some very bad news. A friend of mine who agreed to let me move into his apartment withdrew the offer a day before the holiday. I told Hugo the news, and we gave each other the "now what?" look.

It was heavy news for me, but telling him made things easier because of that quick look of understanding, followed by his get-back-to-business attitude. He knew I would survive, anything was possible; after all we were broadcasting out of a trailer in the middle of nowhere in the snow the day before Thanksgiving.

From the beginning of our friendship, Hugo always came across as a man with a cause who I could have a solid conversation with. Our emails were brief, but our face to face meetings always went on for a long time because to me, he was a real talker and thinker who would repeatedly put his ideas into action. We shared the ambition to develop the Latino community in Syracuse by all means possible, and we both had the ability to connect to a wide variety of personalities.

I left Syracuse in December of 2008, but remained connected to Hugo and the paper. For the December issue of CNY Latino, I decided to submit something very personal for his readers. It was a letter that my mother wrote to me earlier that year, where she spoke to me about dealing with abuse while she was pregnant with me, self-help therapy, forgiveness, and  the importance of personal growth and peace. He ran the story without any comments or changes.

CONFIDE - Secrets Men Tell: Kirby DarDar

Secret Talents

His name alone gets enough attention. Kirby DarDar: Former NFL running back for the Miami Dolphins. The Kirby DarDar KIDS WIN! Football Camp. DarDar, board member of organizations such as Syracuse University Athletics and Catholic Charities.


Kirby and I first met when I stepped into his cubicle at HSBC to discuss my first business account. I got as far as telling him that I researched grants as part of my business when our conversation and relationship took a friendlier direction.


DarDar was a good artist when he was young who never got the opportunity to develop his own abilities. He told me that he was too busy being a star athlete in his track and football days at SU. Those took him on to play pro football in Florida.


But he loved art and part of my business was art representation. A.B. Resource was my business name, and the idea was an arts agency / event planning company that had room to grow into a production company. I not only wanted to represent artists for gallery sales, but also provide them with grants opportunities and teach them how to persue that kind of funding.


And DarDar was looking for a grant writer. We got our things together and moved our meeting to an empty floor of unused administrative HSBC space. Our new meeting lasted over an hour.


Kirby not only had a love for football and kids, but of the opportunities provided through grants that NFL youth football camps could bring to the Syracuse locals. He showed me his business plan before I even got to mine.

He was linked to Catholic Charities and made a name for himself that way too, in tv and print. What he saw between he and I was such an obvious opportunity that I could not help to begin spinning my own wheels about it.


I remember telling him that I would help him with our first grant project for free, as a friend. After that, he reeled me in with a 20% cut of all grants I would ever write thereafter. It was too good to be true. Any grant worth writing would bring in two hundred easily. Three grants a week would not be a bad income for a single guy in Syracuse. 


Later I found out that none of it would be legal. But I liked hearing this guy talk to me about money in a private floor of the bank he represented. I also liked the ideas he was developing. All of this coming from the former pro player who was now sustaining his family as head of all Syracuse business accounts.


He told me that he developed the downtown courthouse himself; which was also a grants project. The courthouse was unique because it enforced community service instead of fines. It used the idea of rehabilitation over punishment.


The man had a great public conscious. Many months passed before we worked on something solid, but I always remember that spontaneous meeting and the personal things that we so easily trusted each other with. 

CONFIDE - Secrets Men Tell: Rick Destito

FOR THE SAKE OF ART

The Gear Factory, Artist Studios and Rehearsal Space. Owned by Rick Destito.
Facebook The Gear Factory Syracuse

I only write about my friends. In 2008, I began submitting stories to publishers about friends who were demonstrating leadership in businesses, city cultural affairs, politics and the arts. That's real news to me, and during that time, Rick Destito was a real man who was involved and invested in city developments in Syracuse, NY. 

Rick is a young, very good-looking and ambitious developer with his own construction company named Vibrant Spaces. He is not rich, yet owns property including a five-story warehouse that he is slowly converting into artist studios/rehearsal spaces. He is an artist who has produced large welded works in metal and who appreciates all art styles, especially graffiti and the cooler guy stuff.

The warehouse he owns is now called Gear Factory. I wrote about a very unique website that he set up for it, where anyone who is invited to join can drop ideas about how to finance, design and promote the place. Every so often a real meeting is held at the factory and better developed ideas are voted on so that the place really moves forward and those who are involved can become a real part of the development process.

Rick and I met at Redfield's, a hotel restaurant, and ordered the same lunch special - lobster bisque and filet minon open faced sandwich for ten bucks. And we talked about developing different neighborhoods and areas of the city. Then I interviewed him about the GF site.

In that interview, Rick told me that he spent every last penny he had when he purchased the building at auction. When it came down to him and only one other bidder, he gave the other guy the look of death that scared him away. So Rick won the bid.

The article appeared in the City Eagle soon after. It was a beautiful full-pager with a photo of a rendering of the finished GF location, created by a designer who contributed to the whole GF project. The actual warehouse at the time still looked undeveloped from the outside, with windows sealed up by cinder blocks and a sign that read something like "studio space available" and Rick's cell number.

People noticed the building but hardly ever brought it up. So I brought it up, and when I did, I mentioned Rick. He's not a guy who smiles a whole lot, but he's super nice, smart and vibrant in his drive to work together and accomplish great things. He has a stutter. 

In the summer of 2007, I met him while preparing a corner installation for a large group show in a huge exhibit space. He was helping Andrea Audi - as in Stickley/Audi furniture, who was producing shows named Floating Galleries in unused public spaces. 

We had our show, and then the work just hung there for a long time. So I called Rick and Andrea to complain about how all of the contributing artists, especially the young ones, were just being used and that nobody was trying to sell or represent them. I thought they were taken advantage of, for the sake of the producers, and not because anyone really cared about them. That wasn't the point of the show, but we all have our causes.

They both responded that the purpose of that show was to promote empty downtown buildings in order to make them appear useful to renters and buyers. And the art was just a very attractive way of doing that, but they weren't functioning as a retail operation. So I backed off, because I saw the bigger picture, and appreciated trying to help your whole city maintain its integrity. Currently, Los Angeles is full of dead store fronts and buildings in every neighborhood. It hurts to see your city that way. What they did was responsible and special.

Rick invited me to check out the Gear Factory that summer. I met Brian, one of his renters, a graf artist we called Boots who was full of ink and looked at you with huge angel eyes and mad energy. Boots was not sleeping for a week while cranking out yards of canvas for a group show that was to take place at GF. I exhibited at that show with dozens of other artists, and got kicked out of that party for being too drunk. In fact, Rick asked Boots to 86 me because we had become friends. Soon, Boots left Syracuse and I never saw him again.

But I saw Rick still. I rented the entire second floor from him in the summer of 2008. And one nite I got completely fucked up and pissed him off. He approached me and asked me for my key back. He was already a daddy then, but didn't know it yet. I remember him telling me that I was usually 90% awesome, but still 10% screwed up. After considering that I would leave soon, after a large exhibit that I was preparing for, he let me stay.

About a month later, I bumped into him during a public park meeting held at my rep's gallery. Lipe Art Park was having a new show and in the concept, they were going to use mannequins in the public park. Except they didn't have any dummies, so I offered to help them in that department. The meeting ended but Rick stayed with Mel (owner of OrangeLine Gallery) and I for a while. 

We talked about how slowly cities develop. When we thought about who was really responsible, Rick blamed it on bullshit and politics. "But who exactly?" I kept asking. None of us knew who, so we finally just guessed that the mayor was to blame. Later that week, I told him to x the mannequin idea and make silhouettes out of plywood instead. And that was the last of my friendship with Rick, because I left Syracuse and returned to LA.

We had a common cause. Art and city developments were topics we could go on about all day. He produced a show at Lipe Art Park where he used graf on a temporary installation to be provocative about street art. He liked to push buttons like I did. 

What I loved about Rick was that when we did talk, it was always to the point. I gave many people his phone number and trusted he could help in his way better than anyone else in Syracuse. That's how we were friends. He liked the article that I wrote about him and GF. I shook his hand and told him he had big hands and he said thank you.

MEN'S FRIENDS - I Can't handle You This Way, Man

WE"RE NOT GOOD FRIENDS ANYMORE BECAUSE YOU CHANGED

Eros - artist in studio

Eros performing at Encuentro

It's hard to handle big changes in your friends' lives. Dating, marriage, new group of friends, shift in attitude, financial states - there are some hard changes men try to stay away from when meeting up with other male friends for their usual buddy time. A quick, "so how's the new job/wife/thing you were doing.." is enough to demonstrate that you are aware, but really just want to see you to hang out like we always do.

Eros during our film project - overnite graf artist

My friend Eros is artistic, eccentric, passionate and very talented as a painter and performer. I was so impressed by him that I made a short film about him.

But he changed his personality too much for me during our shoot, and it really pissed me off. Was he just putting on a performance? Was he joking with me? Was he going through an artistic crisis and needed to force himself to work in some other direction?

The admirable and unique artist who I knew and thought I had a connection with, decided on the night of our shoot; after he saw and approved the script I spent time on, after we scheduled time and had a perfect location set, after I made my way miles to meet him with equipment; after all this careful pre-production and genuine concern for the project, decides to be a graffitti artist all of a sudden who wants me to tape him tagging on the streets and talking about the streets dressed a-la-hip-hop-artist hanging out by some other real graf.

"I have warrants," is all I thought, while he started climbing up a street pole in the busy evening expecting me to get it on tape. I don't think he could name a single graf artist and as he proceeded stubbornly to continue this act, my heart just broke for the real artist who I knew that was so interesting just the way he was, and would have given a perfectly inspiring interview in his own studio.

Eros Obregon is an exotic talent waiting to be discovered. He has been discovered by some local collectors, but his real ship hasn't come in yet.

I still must love him for his talent and for his charm. I saw his innocence when he pulled this stunt on me. But I knew at that point that I couldn't continue being friends with him anymore.

"Conquistador" by Eros

 However, I still would promote every scrap of drawing or even doodle he ever made if I could represent him.

Here is his website, review it yourself:

http://www.artedeeros.com/

The thread that keeps men's friendships together breaks easily when too many changes occur. I've seen this happen before, not just with me, but with other men who can't invest more than they already have in getting to know another person who keeps changing and expecting you to follow. It becomes a game, and then the game gets old.

Eros came from Mexico, and I was always sensitive to the kind of identity searching he must have been confronted with, living in Hollywood. He spoke to me in Spanish and cooked me Mexican food that my Mexican mom never made me. His work was very Mexican to me, in the sense that it was rough but natural, colorful and flavorful, dreamlike and confrontational. I really saw him in his work, but could not see him in front of a camera.

Everybody changes when you point a camera at them. I shouldn't be so upset. The movie was a school project and I aced it. If I meet him around town, I'm sure he is the same go-with-the-flow bohemian fella I met over a year ago. Maybe I'm too bossy. I don't need to talk about me.

My friend changed for the last time and I will always want to know him the way I liked to know him. Otherwise, we can't be friends.

CONFIDE - Secrets Men Tell: Benjamin

THE ONLY MAN FROM SYRACUSE WHO I MISS WAS NOT SO NICE

Howard Benjamin: Owner of Tiffany's Catering Company, specializing in pig roasts and more..
                               http://www.tiffanyscatering.com/

I left Syracuse in 2005 and then returned in 2006 to try to save an old marriage that was dying a slow, painful death. I responded to an ad for a catering job located right around the corner from my little love nest and Howard Benjamin hired me on the spot as head of sales. "I just want a job in the kitchen. Prepping would be fine," I said. There was too much personal stuff going on in my life and I just needed to lose myself in food all day and make some money. But Howard looked at my resume and decided something else for me.

My office was what used to be a meat locker of a former grocery store. I had a phone book, a phone, and regular mail to work with. My computer was an old PC, the printer was noisy and shook a lot. I made many connections but not a lot of bookings. Howard threw me leads but they never amounted to much.

He was very fat and spoke slowly, with a lisp. But he was full of energy. Howard threw the biggest fits and scared the hell out of all his workers; sometimes right on location in the middle of a job - like a wedding with 200 guests. When he yelled he was so loud and rude that everyone feared him.

I was nervous around him at first, but that all went away by 2008. He trusted me by then to chef and manage small parties with my own crew. I did three or four pig roasts and a fancy political fundraiser. I was comfortable around him all the time, despite his fits, and joked with him in his office.

He was a funny man. Howard was hilarious sometimes. He told me that I reminded him of Lionel Richie. We joked about a girl that told him he looked like Jaba the Hut. And he did!

The man could be such a crowd pleaser sometimes. He really was a great party planner. He was the type of salesman who told you what you wanted - not to take advantage of you, but to take care of you. I trusted him, and that summer of 2008 he really trusted me too. He told me that I was really good at that job, and looked at me with a sincerity I can never forget.

I even had his back when it came down to his workers slacking too much or talking trash about him. And Howard was very much a prick to his men, but I still took his side. Labor cost, food cost, doing things his way was important to me.

Once he asked me to get him a hot philly steak sandwich from Subway, with mushrooms. Well they didn't have any mushrooms and I remember getting so upset because I wanted him to eat a good lunch. Another time I remember we cooked six or eight pork butts for a big job the next day. They cooked for hours in our ovens and created an aroma that surrounded you like air and made you breathe flavor. I think there were four large ovens and over a dozen burners. When the pork was done and sitting out to cool, he picked at some of it and told me "there's nothing like that." There's nothing like that pork hot and juicy right out of the oven. He let one of the female hands take some home to her family. Sometimes he was so generous. But it didn't matter because people stole from him all the time anyway.

His office was light blue and small. He would roll around in an office chair back and forth from his computer desk to his paperwork desk. Howard never gave cash advances, even on days already worked when I was hard for cash and couldn't wait for the check. We all got paid after three o'clock on Mondays. If I ever asked for a front he would say something prickly like, "Do you even need to ask?"

It rubbed off on me because when I went on jobs I never cared about workers whining over shit. "Get to it" was my attitude, and pointing out their mistakes became easy.

Many times I told people that he was the only person I would miss when I left Syracuse. I guess I still think of him enough. I still use him as a work reference for food/bev jobs. I trust he'll say something positive enough about me.

The Best Book About Today's Men: A CHOICE OF HEROS

Mark Gerzon wrote A Choice of Heros in 1984, but I found it accidentally in 2008. I thought it was much more recent work, because it includes essays that sound like they could come from the pages of Esquire magazine, except they are even more daring and contemporary in their take on how today's man thinks and feels.

Gerzon's essays sound casual and told in an easy, conversational tone. Compared to other books in Men's/Masculinity Studies, this one is less of a Sociology textbook and more of a disclosure of secrets that he and other men in his life can finally reveal.


http://www.amazon.com/CHOICE-HEROES-92-Mark-Gerzon/dp/0395611520

The stories are best explained for what they are:
A member of his college Crew team they called Hulk because of his size suddenly disappeared from campus and years later found skinny and unhealthy-looking. What happened? He suffered from so much loneliness at school, apart from his girlfriend and family, that it physically changed him, and he never regained his strength.
A war veteran takes his sons to veteran support groups so they could hear real stories told by war survivors and make more informed decisions about enlisting.

They are brief essays that awaken a sensibility about real men today that confront tough experiences and then talk about them as a part of our history. Gerzon's stories are shameless because they are so honest and responsible to young men who need to access an example of that honesty.

I wish I could find more books like his. In the meantime, I will blog this month about men who have influenced my life with their stories.