>>> THE TRUTH ABOUT THIS BOG OR BLOG POST, is that I agreed to write something new for Puerto Vallarta Writers Group this week, and this anecdote has been on my mind for a long time -- it dating to 2010.
"Shamilton" is not Colin's last name, but a case of mis-divided previously-conjoined name-parts to the left side of the @ sign in his email address, and I just love EVERYTHING to do with all definitions of "sham". Call me a bed-decorator, but don't stop there.
And let me throw in this bit of wisdom, then commence to tell the story:
And let me throw in this bit of wisdom, then commence to tell the story:
I arrived to Puerto Vallarta in early summer 2010, after a six-weeks detour in Colima, where my claimed Mexican husband-to-be, Alfredo, had managed to trick me out of nearly all the proceeds of liquidating my nearly paid for four-bedroom house, and art collection, etc., in Stone Mountain, Georgia, then dropped me at an apartment on Calle Vienna, which rained inside everywhere in all three rooms -- except for a place for my slow-leak air mattress and a table for computer. I had money to pay two months rent (which I didn't yet realize had been more than doubled by a Drug Mafia intermediary), and pocket money for about the same amount of time.
After helping me move all in, Alfredo said, "I have to leave now because there are so many warrants out for my arrest in Jalisco, I've got to get out of state before dawn." He drove off in the ten-year-old Ford ultra-loaded van I had bought him (then quickly having to replace the motor and then the transmission) -- never to be heard of again.
I immediately joined the Puerto Vallarta Writers Group, which still contains some of the same members. At that time, Colin sat quietly through all the meetings, only once openly commenting that I remember -- but he threw out, under his breath, many semi-acidic bon mots, and he was CLEARLY British and had had something to do with the BBC.
I really hadn't paid him that much attention, until the day came that he took an interest in me, but it was not what you might be thinking. My money ran out completely, and I had begun begging for food and gasoline for my car (which I soon mostly lived in except when held hostage by local Drug Mafia), to scrounge by. I began my weight slide from 295 to the 205 pounds I weighed when I eventually found way to return to the USA.
But I was not yet showing -- and I have ALWAYS believed that one must "keep up appearances" -- indeed, I had several shirts in my possession that had cost upward of $300.00 USD, that I had bought for the successful tour of my book and its being made into a movie. I wasn't wearing them, but I had lots of good clothes.
My agent had shown me the emails of three producers who had looked at my manuscript and they included the producers of all the Harry Potter films and even legendary Scott Rudin, so I was SURE I could sell both -- even though Alyson Books (the largest gay publisher in the world), had cancelled the hard-cover-first publication a few months before, and my position as the top featured book of 30 to be released that spring.
So with the 20-peso (about $1.50 USD), suggested donation per meeting, I figured that being a DONATION, that when too broke to eat, I would be allowed to stay without paying. Colin did NOT agree with that idea, and the last two meetings I attended made a point of shaking the donation box in my face while bon-motting, quietly, to the crowd.
An example of a bon mot.
Very quickly, my then inescapable and unknown-yet-to-me ties to the Drug Mafia and CIA distracted me so much it was impossible to continue to meetings, and I did not again, until after I had returned to Puerto Vallarta and lived here for more than a year -- early this year. My circumstances had improved considerably -- but Colin was Head of the Group -- OH MY!!!
I'm too lazy to reconstruct how I learned Colin was NOT a BBC Censor for the Conservative side of government (which I had assumed) -- and he mostly agreed with my politics, or at least the angry, frustrated gist of them. I've learned what a valuable friend he can actually be.
But getting to the point of all of this, WHITE people seem all fundamentally flawed (spoiled rotten by wealth, racial assumptions, and privilege -- even many of the best of them), like no other group that I've known. The black folks in Wilmington, North Carolina ALWAYS searched for at least something to give me when I was homeless there -- just like Mexicans in Mexico (I ran across nearly none in Wilmington). But white people saw I was dressed well and simply did not believe I could need to beg -- I'm WHITE!!!
And in fairness to the Puerto Vallarta Writers Group, I never disclosed my plight -- except generally (out of Pride). And this was more than DOUBLE TRUE for the membership of First Presbyterian Church in Wilmington -- especially those in our Discovery discussion group, who KNEW I had no home but loved my verbal contribution -- never offering me one red cent or to buy me a meal. There are a couple of exceptions to that, including Rev. Ernie Thompson (who eventually gave me at least $2,000.00 of church funds that were meant for such things), Rev. Pete Brown (who gave me $10.00 from his own wallet after I asked for money for a good meal), and Lou Orlando and his wife, who spontaneously gave me $40.00 one day when I ran into them at the riverfront -- right where I smoked pot with Danny Sinatra and "Confederate" Dollar, his father-in-law -- LOL!!!
So what I LEARNED from all of this is to BE DIRECT with people -- and NEVER dismiss someone because of an early bad incident. Colin is now the best example of how even the sniveling English (or Rhodesians, to be precise -- at least the bon-motters), are really God's jewels.
A-the heck-MEN!!!
Scott
This line is on Tennessee's tombstone in St. Louis, but no image of it is readable.
This image is actually from a Latin American desert -- and those are only violet-colored flowers.
We all do the best we can.
.
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