Yippie! book's next chapter

Mr. Gábor Pados, owner of Golyós Toll Publishers called yesterday. If he can sell his Irokéz office supplies company in the next few days he'll publish the Yippie! book by the end of May, 2008 he said. We shall see if his promise will come true this time. Even if the book will come out by the beginning of Summer it is going to be very difficult to sell it. Earlier I was invited by several schools and universities to give lectures on the book's subjects, but the school year will end in June, so there is no chance that these invitations will still be valid in that time. Also, the Szépírok Társasága (a writers' association) - which I am a member of - ran out of money, so they won't be able to sponsor the promotion of the book. I know that - just as it happened in the case of my previous book (A Blum-ház rejtélye - The Mystery of the House of Bloom) - Mr. Pados won't invest any effort or money to promote the Yippie! book. .................Mr. Pados's other promise was that he'll buy my 'talking statue' 'Peace' soon. First time he came up with this idea was 4 years ago, in 2004. We agreed on the price of the sculpture and he promised to pay me within 2 months. Then he has disappeared for a half a year. At the next time when I managed to get hold of him he said that he has no money right now, but will have some soon. He popped up with a new promise in each year since. 'Flimsy' is the right word to describe his type. The funny thing is that he always forgets about what he just said a few minutes ago: while he keeps on complaining that he has no money he is telling me about his new acquisitions, paintings, land, etc. ....................I completed three new articles - 'Rococo'; 'Whitney Biennal 2008' and 'Holy Hip-Hop: New Paintings by Alex Melamid' (not yet posted) for artportal.hu and started to work on a new video piece 'Free Tibet', with which I want to open my new WordCitizen show on april 3, 2008, at the Merlin International Theatre.

WordCitizen 1 - 'American Dreams'

Henry David Thoreau

I had my first monthly WordCitizen show at the Merlin International Theatre (Budapest, Hungary). I opened with two recently created video pieces – 'American Dreams' (the music of which can be found as an AudioGuide, on artportal.hu) and ‘Peter Halasz Overture’ (set to music from my 'Downtown Blues' CD) – then proceeded with free talk about Peter Halasz and the ongoing saga of the 'Yippie!' book. I gave an overview on the history of civil disobedience (from Henry David Thoreau to Abbie Hoffman) in America. I talked about the beats (William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Paul Bowles, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, Ken Kesey), about the birth of the hippie generation, about the yippies, the gentrification of New York and the conservativism of the new generations. I detailed the parallel history of Hungary in the 1960-70s and referred to the current situation, both local and global. I talked for about 90 minutes. The audience (about 2 dozen people) consisted mostly of old and new friends, there were only about 3-4 people I did not know personally. The show was not publicized well enough, which explains why so few people came. It was partly my fault: I promoted the show as part of a series, instead of saying that it is going to be a unique event, which gave people a good excuse for saying that they will rather attend the next performance instead of the current one. I could not avoid the usual very Hungarian type technical catastrophe: the stage lights did not work, so I talked in semi darkness, only the video projector and a small candle provided some light. Nevertheless, the audience liked the show. Today afternoon I am going to give an interview to the Hungarian public radio about the project.

WordCitizen - The 'Yippie!' Book's Saga Continues

I’ve just completed a new AudioGuide – ’American Dreams’ – for artportal.hu. I have been doing this rather successful series for the past couple of years. After submitting the piece to the portal, I kept on working on it, adding new tracks to the vocals. Then I made a VideoGuide out of it, a 6 minutes long video work. It is the fifth chapter of my ‘TIMEBOOK – Life and Times of DJ NoMore’ video book series, which I started last year. I will show the piece at the Merlin International Theatre, on March 6. It is going to open my monthly (March, April, May) 'WordCitizen' show. It is going to be a free style show (unrehearsed, non imitational, non representational theatre) of talking about actual events, which include arts, literature, religion and politix. I will also talk about my travel experiences in the Americas, Europe, the Caribbean and South East Asia. The "the thinking man's living theatre" - as I call this series of events - is a suitable occasion to talk about my works and current projects also. If I can fill the studio theatre of Merlin (it seats about 80 people) on each Thursday the management is willing to continue with the show into the next season. ............. Mr. László Moldován, the owner of Katalizator Publishers called me with a bad news today evening. He is getting out of the Yippie! book deal with Mr. Gábor Pados (of Golyós Toll Publishers), he said, for he cannot foot the printing costs of about $ 2 500, for the first thousand copies of the book. I am clueless of what to do with the Yippie! book project. Mr. Pados, the original publisher won’t communicate with me. I have not heard from him since he stopped the publishing process some weeks ago. I do not have the money to cover the printing costs. I know many wealthy people, but none of them would sponsor such a project. There are no John Lennon type angels around anymore. Along with William Burroughs he was a generous supporter of the Yippie cause, back in the 1970s.