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.

Bali Revisited

With DJ Shuriken and his girlfriend, Miss Moxy I went to see a Balinese dance and music performance at the Palace of Arts (Budapest, Hungary) last night. The ticket was a birthday present from my reclusive sister. A very nice present indeed. The performing musicians and dancers were not as good as those I've heard and seen on the islands of Bali and Java, yet they've brought back the memories of my travels to the magical islands of Indonesia, back in the 1990s. The music (gong kebiar), dance and wonderful costumes helped me forget - at least for a few hours - this Balkan bazaar/madhouse of a country I am presently wrestling with. About a year ago I started to translate my South East Asian travel journals into a book ('Malay Book' - the second volume of my 'The Southern Cross' trilogy) which seems to interest the Katalizator Publishers. If we can get some grant money they will publish the first volume of the trilogy - 'Caribean Book' - sometimes this year and hopefully the 'Malay Book' will follow it next year. The results of our grant application are due to come out in March, 2008. After some parts of it were very succesful on some popular internet portals (bahia.hu, korridor. hu - both of them has been shut down since) I've been trying to publish the 'Caribean Book' for many years. After much deliberations and stupid lying the manuscript was refused by a number of publishers (Enciklopédia, Magvető, Kalligram, Ulpius, Nyitott Könyvműhely, Index, Golyós Toll, etc.) so far. I hope that the book (and the whole trilogy - the third volume of it is titled 'The Book of Americas', it contains my experiences on the roads of the Americas) will eventually be published. Unfortunatelly these books are just too long and complex to be released in audio book format.

Karl-Heinz Koala

It's been over two weeks now since I've heard from Zsolt Prieger last time. After he let me down by not writing his part to the Yippie! book we still have one unfinished business: the 'Karl-Heinz Koala' audio book. It was about a year ago that we started to collaborate on this project. The idea was that Zsolt and his band the Anima Sound System will write music to my novel. Originally we planned to release the audio book through the publishing house of Mr. Gabor Pados and Zsolt Prieger, at the end of May, 2007 but the musicians could not complete the music by that time. Zsolt kept putting me off for months, always saying that the music is almost done, they just have to put a few more touches to it. Finally he gave me two CDs last September, saying that it is the finalized product. The stuff sounded wonderful. I was sure that our joint effort would be a big hit. I started to advertise the audio book right away. By that time Zsolt and Mr. Pados broke up, Zsolt left the label. I've also heard - not from Zsolt - that he broke up his great band too. Mr. Pados refused to fulfill his promise of publishing the audio book. No problem, said Zsolt (who did not want to deal with Mr. Pados either), he knows many record companies who'd be happy to release our work. He'll find a good deal in no time, he said. Months passed by without any results. At the end of last year I accidentally read an interview Zsolt gave to some publication. He is planning to give the audio book to one of the largest commercial news portal in the country, who will make it free to download, he said in the interview. I called him up right away, saying that I don't want to give away my work for free. He told me that they wouldn't ask any money for themselves from the portal (which wanted to use the audio book for their own promotion), but they will make it sure that they pay me some. He named a miniscule amount which I certainly wouldn't accept as a fair price for all my time and energy which went into the project. I forbade him to give away the stuff. We agreed that since he couldn't find a label which would pay a fair price and release the audio book I will try to find a publisher for it myself. A few weeks later a newly formed German portal (dedicated to popularize contemporary Hungarian culture worldwide) looked me up and offered to publish the audio book in a downloadable format. It took me a while bargaining for a fair share of the profit, but by last month I succeeded in cutting a reasonable (non exclusive) deal with them. I immediatelly contacted Zsolt and told him the good news. He wasn't too happy with it. He'd rather release the audio book through a Hungarian portal, he said. The Germans kept on asking me to sign the contract. Some weeks later I called Zsolt and asked him to make up his mind fast, otherwise this good deal would fall through. I also sent him an e-mail detailing the possibilities. In his answer he said that they still want to work more on the audio book, but they don't have the time to do so. But he's found a great Hungarian portal, who'd release the product and will give us the best deal possible. He'll send me their contract proposal right away. Because he did not send it I looked up the portal on the Net and wrote to them, asking for the contract proposal. They zapped it to me within an hour. They offered a good, non exlusive deal, which made it possible to sell the stuff on other portals, like the new German one too. I wrote to Zsolt and forwarded the contract proposal to him. I proposed to give the audio book to both portals right away. He must run now, but we'll talk about the matter soon, answered Zsolt. That was on the 6th of February, over two weeks ago. I haven't heard from him since. Bored of the stupid situation I have decided to redo the audio book with some musician friends myself, so I don't have to deal with Zsolt again. By yesterday I completed the recording of the text and hope that my friends will complete the music to it in a reasonable time. I also recorded the words of an other audio book, 'Balkan Nights', and started to work on the third one, 'DJ NoMore'. I am completly fed up with timesick, unreliable people. It says a lot about this time and place that I, at the age of 62 can work ten times faster than people many decades younger than I am. Also, I am always doing my best to keep my word, making it sure that I'd not miss deadlines.

Looking for a Co-Publisher

I've been looking for a co-publisher who'd share the publishing costs of the Yippie book with the original publisher, Mr. Gábor Pados and his Golyós Toll company. I did found such a collaborator, in the person of Mr. László Moldován, owner of the Katalizator Publishers. Yet it seems Mr. Pados is not too keen on making a deal with Mr. Moldován, he keeps on postponing a meeting, on which they could agree upon the conditions of their collaboration. I am rather sure that the reason of Mr. Pados's refusal to publish the book is not financial, but purely political. Just as he has mentioned to me on several occasions: he is simply afraid to publish a book on civil disobedience. He is in close contacts with the troubled ruling Socialist Party. He is afraid to state this reason openly, that's why first he came up with his financial difficulties (an obvious lie), and that's why he is now refusing to meet with a potential business partner. I can't do anything in this stupid situation. Even though I have a signed contract with Mr. Pados, which he is refusing to fulfill, I can't take him to court, because I don't have money to fill a claim and hire a lawyer.

Chaos Management

Just as Gabriella Schuller (my writer collaborator), Gaspar Baksa (the book's designer and printing editor) and I finished correcting the 'Yippie!' book's manuscript and we were about giving it to the printer we were told by the publisher, Mr. Gabor Pados that he doesn't have the money to publish the book. Mr. Pados is a rather wealthy man by Hungarian standards and the printing wouldn't cost that much, so I suspect something fishy's going on. Perhaps Mr. Pados is afraid to publish such honest and sincere book for political reasons, a definitelly not uncommon occurance in present day Hungary. I have a signed publishing contract with Mr. Pados, so I could sue him for breaching our agreement if I'd have the money to hire a lawyer. But I am poor as a church mouse and Mr. Pados knows it all too well. So presently I am trying to find another publisher, which is not an easy job anywhere, especially in this politically charged country. The Yippie! book is a far too independent minded project, equally offending to both two political sides. Just a few weeks ago my Caribbean travel journal and my techno novel 'DJ NoMore' was refused by the Kalligram publishers, after many months of cat and mouse games. Both writings are just as strongly independent as the Yippie! book is. So I decided to create only audio books in the future, which I'll be publishing in a downloadable format, via the Internet.

Zsolt Prieger leaves Yippie! book project

Yesterday I was notified by Zsolt Prieger, one of my collaborators on the 'Yippie!' book that he is leaving the project. My already finished part is so good and complete that he does not feel his work is needed in order to complete the book, he wrote. He gave a different reason to our publisher. To him Zsolt said that he does not like the book's cover, which I designed in tandem with Gaso, the designer of the book. The real reason is that in the past 3-4 months, since the work on the book started he couldn't produce a single page of writing, for he is too busy with his other projects and with his own private life. So I am now left with the task of writing about the music scene of the 1960-70s too, which would have been Zsolt's task. The strange thing is that the idea of writing a book on the yippies was originated by him. At the beginning he was proposing to hold brain storming sessions to help us find ideas and directions. Yet each time in the past months I asked him to meet and talk things over he's never had time to meet. First he went to Spain for a vacation with his girlfriend, after that he started up his DJ project, then came December, when Hungarians traditionally do not work. At the end of December he told me that he can not start the writing of his part before I'd complete mine. I've sent him my completed manuscript on the 2nd of January, after which he promised to me and to our publisher that he'll finish his essay by the end of the month. I kept on supplying him with English language source material and with ideas. Earlier he told me that he understand English, but a few days ago I've learned from our publisher, a childhood friend of his that Zsolt understands no English at all. I don't understand why did he lie to me. If he'd tell me that his English is too poor I'd gladly translate him any documents, interviews, etc, in order to help him complete his writing. So for the next days I'll be writing about the Grateful Dead, MC5, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Country Joe and the Fish, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground and so on, about all the music heroes of my youth. We'll have to submit the full, completed manuscript of the book to the designer by the end of January, because printing must be starting by mid February.

Course on Contemporary Theatre, in Kaposvar (Hungary)

I was invited by the students of the Kaposvar (Hungary) College of Theatre Arts to give a course on contemporary theatre. I stayed in this pretty, small town for a week, starting on the 3rd of January, 2008. .............. As a prelude of the course I presented my 'Theremin', 'Downtown Blues' and 'The Mistery of the House of Bloom' books, and gave a preview of the 'YIPPIE! - The Disobedient Citizen' book (to be published in Hungary, by Golyós Toll Kft., in March, 2008), on which I am collaborating with Zsolt Prieger and Gabriella Schuller. ............... As part of the theatre course we staged two of my plays - 'Block' and 'The Chekhovs' with the students. Both plays premiered on the night of 10th of January, 2008, at the College of Theatre Arts (Kaposvar, Hungary). ................ It was a revitalizing experience to work with such talented, creative kids. The highlight of 'The Chekhovs' show was a thundering, wet fart, created by one of the students, to accompany the painful monologue of the great Russian writer, Lev Tolstoy's neglected wife, Sophie. ............... After returning to Budapest (Hungary), with the designer Gaso I started to prepare the 'YIPPIE!...' book for printing. I still have to complete the illustrations for the book. .............. I am still waiting the word from the Kalligram publishing house, regarding the fate of two of my book projects: 'The Caribbean Book' (my Caribbean travel journals) and 'DJ NoMore' (a techno novel). I submitted both manuscripts last summer to the publisher. They promised an answer for last November, about if they would publish any or both of the books, but I haven't heard from them since. If properly advertised both books could bring a huge commercial success in my opinion, yet they were refused by a number of publishers in the past years. The main problem with the Hungarian publishers is that they are not interested in selling their products. They are entirely dependent on government grants, which cover their salaries and the printing of a few hundred copies of each book they publish. They don't like to work on the distribution of their books. They just let the printed copies collect the dust in their warehouses. None of the publishers of my previous books put much effort into the PR work. I had to organize promotion tours for the books myself, often conflicting with the publishers, who usually don't even bother to send the books to the country towns, where I do the multi-media (video projections, theremin concerts, lectures on the book's theme, etc.) promotion shows. They refuse to cover my PR expenses. All the publishers do is bitching about their "dire" financial situation and complain that my books don't make a fortune within weeks after they come out. They don't inform me about the actual sales numbers. ............ Besides writing books, doing art, video works, theremin concerts and theatre I am working as a journalist too. I write articles about the American art-scene and do monthly AudioGuides (small musical radio-plays, audio poems) on New York, for the artportal.hu. My English and Hungarian language CVs are updated regularly. My mixed language homepage is on freewebs, my Hungarian language homepage is on one of my publishers' server.

YIPPIE! manuscript completed

On New Year's Eve I've completed the manuscript of my contribution to the YIPPIE! The Disobedient Citizen book, which is due to come out in March, 2008 (Golyós Toll Kft., Budapest, Hungary). I would like to express my gratitude to IPUT, TGM, DJ Shuriken, Tibor Hajas, DJ Helmut Spiel!, Peter Halasz, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Paul Krassner, Stew Albert, William S. Kunstler, Ken Kesey, William Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, Paul Bowles, Robert Filliou, Brion Gysin, Jack Kerouac, Lenny Bruce, Attila Kotányi, Malcolm McLaren, David Bowie, Lou Read, Iggy Pop, Timothy Leary, Albert Hofmann, Aldous Huxley, Marshall McLuhan, James Joyce, Louis Ferdinand Céline, Knut Hamsun, Ezra Pound, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Francesco Clemente, Salvador Dalí, Leon Theremin, Julia Wallace, Anita Hoffman, Patti Smith, Nico, Uma Thurman, Allan McIntosh, Brian Briggs, Amanda Lear, Nina Hagen, Eminem, Marilyn Manson, John Lydon, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Captain Beefheart, Györgyi Orsós, Duane Eddy, Johnny Cash, Wilhelm Reich, Herbert Marcuse, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Géza Csáth, Béla Hamvas, Jenő Balaskó, Katalin Ladik, Béla Kósa, Bela Lugosi, Trent Reznor, Upchuck, Niki Nichols, the Dalai Lama, St. Thomas Aquinas, Zsolt Prieger, Gabi Schuller, Marina Abramovic, Otto Mühl, André Malraux, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, TS Elliot, Gerald Durell, Jean Dupuy, Titus, DJ Palotai, Jerry Garcia, John Lennon, The Rolling Stones, the Ramones, the Ultravox, Ian Dury, Napoleon XIII, Johnny & The Hurricanes, Elvis Presley, the Shadows, The Who, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Rammelzee, Tim Wright, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Cypress Hill, DEVO, Kraftwerk, Judas Priest, Bugs Bunney, Jules Verne, Joseph Conrad, Oscar Wilde, Louis Bunuel, Alan Kaprow, Damien Hirsh, Mata Hari, Madame Curie, Rabbi Jehuda Loeb, Jaroslav Hasek, Almodovar, Tarantino, Salma Hayek, and many more of my dear friends and relatives, for their continous support and irreplaceable contributions.

"Rise and abandon the creeping meatball!"

WordCitizen a.k.a. DJ NoMore

The Solution

In collaboration with Csonti, the sax player and thereminist of the Anima Sound System we started to work on 'The Solution', a digital travelogue, based on my 'The Southern Cross' travel journal trilogy. 'The Solution' is going to be released exclusively via the internet, in a downloadable format, which will include music video clips, printable cover art and excerpts from the books of 'The Southern Cross' trilogy. The music for the first clip is a remix of 'Dance The Newyork', a song I wrote in 1984 and recorded with Brian Briggs, Tony McMaster, Jean McAllister and Julia Wallace, at the Hell's Kitchen Studio, in New York City, in 1985. The song is from the album of the same title, which was released by iNteRNeTTo/Big Ear Record, in Budapest, Hungary, in 1998.

WordCitizen's Blog 108

YIPPIE!

In collaboration with Zsolt Prieger (journalist, leader of the band Anima Sound System), and with Gabriella Schuller (art-historian), I am writing a book on the history and ideas of the Yippie movement. The book is being written in Hungarian. There is very little known about the Yippies in this country, although the ideas of Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and other American civil rights radicals had a strong influence over the most important Hungarian neo-avantgarde artists, thinkers, in the 1970s. We are hoping to fill a long hiatus with this book. We are not in the business of putting together a collection of scholarly essays, we rather decided on writing a Yippie book, a true tribute to the heroes of counter culture, a vivid response to the challenges of our own chaotic time and age. The 'Yippie!' book is due to come out in the Spring of 2008, published by the Golyós Toll Kft. Parallel with writing the book I started up NewsRoom, an independent Hungarian language news portal, with the motto: "Steal This News!".

WordCitizen