Thoughts of a Displaced New Yorker

Sunday, March 14, 2010: First Entry

I would start by asking, “What makes a New Yorker?”, is it just the simple act of living in the big apple, scratching and surviving in the midst of down town Manhattan, or living the supple suburban life of Long Island? Well, I would think that it is much more than that, as Billy Joel said, “New York is a State of Mind”

I moved to California in 1990 for what was supposed to be a short period to care for my mother who was ill, she moved to California just 4 years prior, once out here I found myself feeling lost and without my tether to reality, the pace of living is slow and without depth, the people, albeit nice, were without solid measure, in New York, you could tell what a person was thinking, the tone and inflection of voice and body language spoke volumes and there was a sense of familiarity, you knew your neighbors, often by name, and you knew who you could trust. I would like to think that I am not just being melancholy but realistic in my memories.

To me, being a New Yorker means being a part of something bigger than yourself, a community of souls that move in and around each other in a surreal and flawless dance of expressionism. New Yorkers have that special something that makes them unique and tangible, I am going to, over a period of time try to decipher what it is that makes us what we are. I am not one to think that I am all knowing or extensively witty in my writing style, if that is what a style is these days, but I am a writer, of sorts and I will write to you this text based imagery of my life as a misplaced / displaced New Yorker, I am going to write this serial of opinion pieces, submitting them to you, via the internet for your reading and vexing.

I encourage those of you who read these entries to leave comment on my blogs http://josephtimmons.blogspot.com and http://www.rantbabble.wordpress.com after each entry, and please don’t just leave comments like “I love your work” or “Puppies and Kittens are cute” , I want real discussion and notes of what you think, and if you, like me are a displaced New Yorker, please leave a comment about your experiences.

My entries will be dated and at least one complete thought, once you see what I write about and how I write, you will see what I mean, I think you will enjoy being part of my experiment in Ranting. I am also in the process of taking these entries and responses to create articles to submit to “The New Yorker” and “The New York Times”, if I include your responses, you will be credited, however I offer no compensation, you are part of an experiment in self exposure and communications across the rift of time and space.

I will be putting together Video pieces on my YouTube site http://www.youtube.com/user/CCVisualArt , these video parts will be verbal blog entries and response to comments, I may also ask other writers to add to the mix, these writers will be displaced new Yorkers and resident new Yorkers who may give some additional insight to the idea of “ you can take the New Yorker out of New York, but you cannot take the New York out of the New Yorker” but no matter which, you can make them drink.

Until the next entry, stay east coast real.

Joseph Timmons

Artist, Writer and New Yorker.

What’s Been Going On,….

 

Well, here is my update, as you may have noticed I have not been posting recently, I have not been on my Facebook or Social Pages and I have been a bit reclusive, you see my life has fallen apart and I am trying to get the pieces back together and I am quickly running out of super-glue. So I will fill you in and hopefully you will not desire to jump off the roof in sympathetic depression.

P.S.. Yes i am Still Not taking meds for my depression, I am holding firm to my belief that I can survive without them.

 

 

On December 4th I flew out to NY for the funeral of my nephew who passed from cancer, The next day, on the 5th, while I was in NY, my son Alexander, 13 yrs old, whom has been suffering form ADHD and some Mental Health Issues had a psychotic break and attacked my wife, his stepmother, with a knife, slashing at her and disfiguring her hands, she was able to fend him off and snap him out of it just before the police arrived and he does not remember any of the event, he is in Juvenal hall, where he as been now since December 5th and has still to be placed in a mental health facility, he turned 14 in Juvenal hall and it is breaking my heart.

My 3 sisters blame my wife, as if she asked to be attacked and we are not on speaking terms, we have had to move, the landlord of the hose we were in did not appreciate or situation and asked us to move.

My wife and I are trying to get things back on track, we are all taking this time to try to heal, and yes, therapists are involved, for what is is worth, not that they are giving us any definitive advice, just allot of “how does that make you feel”, we have learned whom are true friends are, those of our friends whom have been there for us and have supported us, thanks, and for those whom have not been, I hope you fare well, for this is farewell and do not call me again.

Many of my friends from High School and College, some whom are following my exploits on Facebook have helped financially, when I was run off the road on Highway 154 in San Yenez and my car was damaged, costing 5,400.00 to fix, many of them helped and sent money to help, which was greatly apreciated.

Recently went to the Museum of Art in Santa Barbara, was very impressed with the resident art exhibits as well as some of the special displays.

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I enjoy finding new art exhibits and visiting museums, I am still planning to re-do and upgrade my website http://www.ccvisiualart.com, but it is getting hard for me to find the time to do so, but I think I will fid some time this summer and by September my new site version will be up and running.

 

My wife is healing and is getting back the use of her hands and will be working on her cross-stitch work and may either go back to school or work, but we are still working on it. My wife is working on a new project “Celtic Lady- Summer”

I think it is coming along very nicely :)

Her Blog http://www.astitchingtime.blogspot.com, it has some of her recent postings as well as pictures of her recent work and a link to her Etsy Shop.

 

Recently, the local Cafe Monet was sold to new owners and is now called Cafe’ Noir, and I have secured gallery space and will have my paintings on exhibit for the next several months,Cafe Noir is located at 1555 South Broadway in Santa Maria, California, if you want to check them out it is a nice cafe and the new owners are very interested in community functions and serving the public, they roast their own coffee beans and baked goods.

I am a little distracted right now, if you know the Actor Corey Haim died recently at 38, I am 44, only 6 years older, I remember him from many movies I liked when I was younger and I have sort of been following what has been going on with him and Corey Feldman, Corey’s blog has a post about Corey Haim ( http://coreyfeldman.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/r-i-p-corey-ian-haim-1971-2009/ ) and he, from my point of view is really holding back emotion, so if you get a chance, let him know he is supported, we have all lost a loved one from time to time and it never gets easier, Cory Feldman has had it hard and has had troubles that we would never want to ever have, Hollywood has not been kind to him, nor kind to Corey Haim, so give them a hand, if you could.

Work is going well and I am secure in the knowledge that as long as I do my job well, I get to keep it, so I make sure that I follow all the rules and do as expected, I like working for Microsoft and I want to keep working for them. I am going to be in Orlando Florida in April, so I will blog an entry from there.

I am going to be mirroring this post on all of my blogs, I am now using Live writer to put together my Blog Posts and it sends the exact same thing to all my Blogs and twitter posts, so I'm liking that, makes it easy to post. Well I must go now, will be back soon to annoy you again… Late !

Joseph Timmons

Artist and Author, all around stranger in general