We had the Yippie! book’s presentation party at the Merlin theatre, on the 6th of June. I sent out about 400 invites via e-mail and called up a number of people, inviting them to the show. The theatre sent out a similar number of invites. We heavily advertised the event on the Web, and by flyers and posters too. In spite of our feverish PR activity very few people came, maybe a dozen or so. People, who have promised me on the phone that they will definitelly come did not show up. The show went very well. I opened me with my new hour long video documentary, ’Yippie Trilogy’, then with my co-writer Gabriella Schuller we proceeded to talk about the book for about 20 minutes. After this we held a party, accompanied by my earlier videos, ’American Dreams’, ’Free Tibet’ and ’The Land of Promises’. The wines, which my publisher Mr. Gábor Pados provided us with were exeptionally good. I had a very interesting conversation with Mona Danel, a writer for tranzit.hu, Viktor Vidó, who runs indymedia.hu and his friend, András Markó, the editor of Freee magazine. We talked about the ’60s-’70s America and present day Hungary. Mona Danel wants to write about the book for tranzit.hu, András Markó wants to make an interview with me for his magazine.
With Gabi Schuller we went to Vörösmarty square, where they held Könyvhét (Bookweek) bookfestival, on both June 6-7-8. We were supposed to sign the book for interested readers, but we were rained in on both days. Sold very few books. My other books were on sale too, the ’Downtown Blues’ and the ’Theremin’ sold much better than the ’Yippie’.
I’ve been trying to get some reviews about the new book. I contacted Szabolcs Benedek, a book critic for Élet és Irodalom (Life and Literature), the leading literature magazine in the country. I wrote a number of articles for the int he past and they have published reviews on both of my earlier books. This time they were not receptive at all. Mr. Benedek called them up and asked if they would publish his review on the ’Yippie!’ book. The answer was no. I had similar bad luck with the public television’s cultural programme and the Klub Radio, both of which interviewed me a lot of times in the past.
I spoke with Éva Almási, owner and chief editor of artportal.hu. I’ve been writing art related articles and did my AudioGuides for her portal for the past 5-6 years. The money I’ve earned from this job paid my rent. Now she told me the bad news: the portal ran out of money, so for the next months she can pay me only half of the amount which she paid me up until now. I have no idea how will I make it through the summer.
I’ve completed the ’From the library of Leopold Bloom’, a two volumes video book, which I will show on the coming Sunday (June 15, 2008), at the Irokéz Gallery, in Szombathely (a small town in the Western part of Hungary), as part of the local Bloomsday Festival. The video book contains the 'Bloom's Prayer', a five parts series of videos I created for my last year's Bloomsday performance with Anima Sound System, and also my new 'Yippie Trilogy'. They will pay me a miniscule honorarium for my video presentation, just enough to pay for my food during my three days stay in Szombathely.
I am totally bored of my long lasting, dire finantial situation. Can’t even afford to have a coffee or a drink in a restaurant. The past year was particularly bad, in terms of earnings, due to the economical crisis int he country. The Socialist government of young ex-communist billionaires screwed up the economy royally. I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. I called up everybody I know, asking for work, to no avail so far. I am trying to forget about my stupid situation, so dark thoughts won’t infect my body. I don’t have health insurance, can’t afford to get ill.
