Am I looking for a partner?

Well I have had better day that's for sure. But not to fret, I will survive. I know I am looking for someone. I am not sure what the makeup of this person is. Is it a partner as I had when I had a Mid-Century Modern store in the 80's? I do so much better teaming up with someone. I feed off that person using their strengths and make sure I overextend myself to fit into their scheme also so there is no overlap. I am a seller during the day in my regular work selling millions of dollars of specialized manufactured items a year. I have that down with no problem. It's second nature and I do it with pleasure.

But in the world of Vintage in which I live I am a buyer, purveyor and extractor of this period to enrich my life with not letting it govern me. I purchase, receive, experience and allow it to enrich my life living in the now surrounded by the past. I am not a seller. Plain fact! I am not a hoarder! I do not have this pile of possibly unwanted or junk stuff. I have carefully selected the items I want, not need. This was and is my personal entertainment, not hobby. I purposely purchased these items knowing the value of the items way exceeded the purchase price to eventually sell them. I could live in minimalism with no possessions and it would not effect me one bit. The most important things in life are the ones I love. Some people around me do not understand this, but then, they really don't know me. There is a time and place for everything and it is another one of those times in my life to move forward.

But will this person be a partner, or am I looking for a soul mate? Is it love that I require? I am not sure. Many things i am positive of, but I am ready to live alone in my life and if it happens with a woman who appreciates me as I will her, then it will happen. Am I looking for this? Am I lying to myself saying that I can do without? For sure this is a question that can be such a variable,  for it will be, when and if it happens,  dependent on the complete whole woman that chooses me. So many possibilities? What the hell it has countless difficulties and a tremendous upside.What is a man to do?

I do apologize to all, or none, for my rambling and childish grammar (I think) for this is just flowing out and I post away without a second glance. Yes apologize, I am far from faultless in this world

Self reflection in the city and the Vintage Clothes which come from Detroit

I spent the day in the city and the evening with two old friends until late just talking and having wine and coffee. The day was as always as it is in Detroit with me searching for clothing furniture and decorative art. The people in Detroit are so friendly and open to me and I am the old white one of the bunch. Everyone overly extends them selves to make eye contact, say a smiling greeting and spark a conversation. There is nothing like being in a closed intimate setting having discussions on the city, life in general and their feelings listening to Curtis Mayfield's "Freddie's Dead" from Superfly. People move while they talk to the music and I cannot help myself also from grooving to the sounds and discussing what they were doing when it came out. Handshakes, hugs, offering some of their food, discussing their "1970's walk and clothes they were their favorite and what the hell happening to this place now is common in most my encounters. From there I discuss my loves, likes and experiences in Detroit (My first home was in Detroit). They open their homes and I normally end up purchasing some small vintage item as in furniture, art or clothing. Seventies clothing which sometimes they just pass on to me is prevalent with most visits and the wonderful the story's which goes with the clothing. I have hundreds and hundreds of vintage men's suits, shirt, pants,sweaters, shoes and ties. Ties. Damn I have a lot of ties. Thousands of the finest ties from hand painted, silk designs, thin 1960's and 1970's to the wild wide ties of the the disco era I have boxed and boxed over the years. All this stuff and what am I to do with them now?

The Ultimate Hippie Leather (a gift to me)

When they made shirts that were in motion

Just A few, and I mean a few of my ties

Detroit in Ruin the Vanity Ballroom

I am watching history go down piece by piece with the seasons and neglect. For years I have been going to what is left of the Vanity Ballroom in Detroit. I saw many shows there and the last was in the 1980's with George Clinton, Bootsy Collins and the Parliament-Funkadelics-Brides of Funkenstine. An incredible Aztec Revival Structure and sister venue to the Historic Grande Ballroom opening 1929 it's just falling apart. Big Bands like Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Louis Prima, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey and Cab Callow performed there as well as in the 1970's Bands like the Stooges, MC-5 and The Velvet Underground. It's in total ruin now and the water pouring through the roof has opened up the dance floor showing there were springs in the floor for the Ballroom Dancing. There is that saying "the last person to leave Detroit please turn out the lights"

The Art of Falling Apart

How is it when an oppressive leadership is falling apart it does not submit to the will of its people. It stays, it dies with it's all the foolish followers who blindly follow it to its grave only to be a smear and a lesson to future generations of what not to do. It is happening now in Syria; it happened in Germany in the 1940's and happened in here in with the British in America with our revolution. These so called leaders cannot "see the forest through the trees" and escalate the suffering of the oppressed with escalating fear, brutality and destruction all the way until the end. Many leaders die with their cause, some never die, they just go into exile to a country with leaders who blindly absolve them of their crimes and extends them an extravagant life style. They want to leave a wake of hell upon their country and I mean THEIR COUNTRY as they see it. It's not the people’s country in these leaders’ minds, but a possession, a false god's, an ego, or whatever possesses them to feel they are chosen to lead the future of all with a direction only they know.

I live in a city which this art has been carried out for years.  Detroit is in ruins. There are such wonderful, caring and intelligent citizens who are stuck in a city which creates a haven for the few who wish to feed on the masses. The government is full of inadequate ignorant elected officials. Most everyone has given up with the proper vision as the political money machine is behind the candidates. They elect those who are not capable of making a single decision which benefits the people of the city, has long term impact and is fiscally responsible. How can this city survive with 14 Billion in unfunded dept and not elect officials who can at least stop the bleeding, begin the process for a new beginning and slowly have an effect on the safety of the people left.

I spend an inordinate time in the city. It draws me, sucks me in, just captivates and consoles me. I don’t know why, but is it that I am mastering the art of falling apart in my own life? I am optimist, no doubt, but it’s in a room of darkness around me. I am getting very comfortable most the time with not talking or seeing anyone outside my work. Very strange but true.

Detroit 2013

Something happened

I was a great day with me cleaning out an old bed room at the lake house (not where I am staying) and redesigning for my daughter as an extra room. It went well and with a couple of sixties couches I had purchased them fro  a inner city church store a couple of years ago. They originally came from from Englander Triangle, a great modern interior design store. Then all hell broke loose with the return from a trip out of town from my soon to be ex wife. I guess something internally snapped in me with her statements to me.I just came over wrong from her and in front of the children. I did not loose my cool as I am a greatly respectful person and do have control. But something happened. Inside everything scrabbled. I just was appalled with her statements and thankless attitude toward me for everything I had had just recently done to help her with things. These were things I did not have to do, but the giver I am I offered and did without need or wanting for her to show appreciation. I feel like I am falling, vertigo, and I am without reason. I wanted to argue me point, with great vigor, but it would help nothing. Instead I left drove around for more than a while, got a bottle of Sake and started to loose my composure. I can not wait to be free completely again. It's really not free I need as I love. Love for the unknown and known, the sharing of all and comfort of a warm lover.
I almost drove into a wall tonight when I was driving and I can't tell you why. I hope this passes. I will spend the day in the inner city, yes the ghetto in Detroit as I provides me with the comfort of the post modern destruction. It how I feel right now, still standing but horribly burned on the inside

Here is a little taste of my trip last week giving you a view of what is left and not left here in Detroit.

I hope this feeling goes away

 I was digging through stuff and wanted to share this with you, or if there is not you, for my pleasure. This large vase is by Edwin and Mary Scheier from the 1950's some time. A great piece with beautiful faces of wonderment around the perimeter. Approximately 15" high it is one of my favorite pieces I own. As teachers at the League of New Hampshire Arts and Crafts they have pieces in many museums including the MOMA in New York

Easter is coming

It's Good Friday. Really, it's a great Friday! The clouds in my mind are starting to part and the real sun outside helps. I had a crazy request today from a Rasta worker in my shop who wants me to be in a "Jamaican Gangsta"  movie they are making. I say they are because they are identical twins rapping Jamaican like crazy and they are shooting a movie, with what money I do not know and want me in it. Normally I am not for public display. As gregarious as I am, I am also very shy. There are very few women I have actually asked out. Normally throughout my life I have been chased down and succumb to a pretty woman and that's that. But a Gangsta Rap movie! Well I said yes for what reason I do not know except it is very quiet around me and this for sure not going to be quiet! It's nuts I know, but what ever direction the world holds for me now, I am ready to explore it to the fullest. (well let's stay away from breaking the law)

The love of Ceramics

It's a beautiful day in Michigan and the ice is starting to melt on the lake. The Scupltures below are by Marcello Fantoni from 1953ish. I love "ishing"! When you collect items from the past it is very rare to have a complete history on the items. Most people bullshit on who owned it and where it came from. These are from a old woman at a flea market who bought them from a woman, who bought them during her travels to Italy in the early 1950's. So it's the best I know, but it allows me to "ish" on the date and give by hand me down twist to the story. Nothing is fact unless you have seen it in person with your own eyes. Time changes all, but it does not heal all. Time clouds the past with bright jets of sunlight through the clouds with the part of the truth you need to hold onto or with dark clouds which hang over a period not allowing the sunlight in.

These are a cornerstone of my love from Ceramics and how they ended up with me is a wild journey which I will never truly know.

It's a cold and drab day today. I was very busy with my work, plodding on in a forward direction. It's the only direction I know. Spending time this evening reading about the items I have collected. Drifting back through 1950's interior design books of which I have a very large collection. I cherish my books the most out of all my items as they are what adds to the need information I require. Information input, mandatory in my life. Years ago at the end of the seventies, I dated the most logical and independent minded woman of my life. She was older than me and recognized my thirst for knowledge. I always loved reading and particularly books on Russian and French literature. She was a giver like me and and amazingly gave to me first, which go under my skin as no one had ever beat me to the giving punch. I had just started buying Vintage Clothes, furniture and art.The gift was three decorative design books of the fifties period. I was captivated by them but most of all amazed at the wonderful gift. She explained there were millions of Vintage items out there and I had to refine my taste or the possibilities were endless and you can't buy everything. She explained how to research items and identify whatever I saw, but mostly buy inexpensive unless the item is either a fabulous items or one that is in your design books. Over the years I have bought over a thousand books including art, design, interior decoration, vintage clothing, illustrated art books, history and biographies. In these books I was swept away into a Vintage world and came to appreciate the simplicity or complexity of what every I bought. Sitting next to me why I read today is a large Marcello Fantoni vase which is not one of his more figurative pieces, of which I have many, buy reflecting on the simplicity of the day.

Stig Lindberg

Well I guess now that I broke the shell on the egg, I can just let me flow out. I'm sure now I will move forward. Off to the unknown, but it's a new adventure! So what do I do? What do I love? What should I bring along on this continuing journey what should I leave?
Well why am I a Vintage man. It's not the I want to be the "1950's devoted and beloved husband" that's for sure. It's the world I surround myself in and the the select thoughts, learning, items and interest from the experiences in life that make me a Vintage Man. I started collecting in 1978 and over the years have refined to what I like. I am a Ghetto junker. I almost never buy not from sales, auctions, vintage or antique stores. I like the city people I meet and the homes over the years I have visited. That brings the complete circle complete when I get the story with the item. It makes me Cherish the items and moments more. The only persons I have ever taken with me when I go are my very, very close lovers or my wife.
I need to say wives, my first wife, if worth mentioning was a extremely good looking model who turned into a drug addict. Buy the time I got her straight, there was nothing left of her or our marriage.So what I love in objects comes next:

Just a few pieces from my Stig Lindberg Karneval Pottery collection. 

Revelation #1

Last night I had a visit from a friend from London who I had not seen in 20 years. With another great friend who use to live in New York we spent the day together talking. With that wonderful afternoon and with a great dinner, I had the best day a have had in a very long time. She and I are both at a turning point in our lives and our reconnection and thoughtful unselfish thoughts opened up my mind to what I need deep in my heart.

I thought I can easily live alone the rest of my life, but I was wrong. I need that best friend, not a platonic best friend, but a partner in life.

Wow what a weakness! The thought that I would need someone so much brought me down to a new level. I am so self sufficient. I take care of everyone else in my life and ask for nothing. All this time, it was just a normal mechanism for me to not ask for any reciprocal giving or maybe even accept from others all these years. I have had other old friends who bring this up to me that I give too much and ask for nothing. I have defiantly agreed, it's so easy to see, but knowing that not just that I was not asking for more, but need more internally was jaw dropping to admit.

All my life I thought that I have been working together with my lovers, but a one way street of giving and not requiring any receiving alienates my lover from my heart.

What a revelation.

It's march 22nd again

It’s 6:30 on March 22 again in my life. It’s not so good but surely, not so bad.  I don’t live in memory. I create memories.  I have a great job, paid extremely well, but I am extremely good at what I do. And I do at working only part time. I find myself in the quiet. I have a good amount of time off and I spend it alone. No, by quiet I don’t mean in a solitary room looking at the ceiling for hours, I mean the world of conversation during this time is blank. I talk all day am crazy nuts, always making people laugh, on the phone or in person  talking to and around business people around the world, but when it’s over and I am done there is quiet. I love quiet and reading a book or listening to music (I am a huge lover and collector of all types of music), but I am alone and the quiet of personal life just sucks me in. I have and have had tons of friend of which many have and do call me their best friends, but I am ready for a new.

I am separated from a young wife who is trying to find herself. I have let her go and do this, and she is finding herself, but without me. As I have accomplished so much in my life, it intimidates her for some reason and she would ask a person on the street for their conversation or advice before. She is a good woman and a great mother, she just lovers her career and possible opportunities in life more than me now. We don’t fight, we have a couple of teenage kids who are very intelligent and dare I say this, have NEVER done anything wrong. No kidding, never anything you could call out and say “what are you doing, or you did what”. Very hi IQ’s and act like it. It’s a wonderful thing to participate and watch them go forward, of which they are doing all the time.

Divorce is for sure. There is fighting or haggling. I will take care of her more than a lawyer would ask for and we are both in total agreement on almost every subject. It’s just the difference from being in love and just saying”I love you” because you have been together for 15 years.

I give and rarely take, it’s just me. I ask for nothing, but there is a line as I am a man that would not stay there in hope and pain. I have way too much to give to just be in a holding pattern.

So the quiet is where I am. I am fine here, but hardly satisfied. I almost left, but it would be cruel to some, and I am not cruel. So I am a Vintage Man. I could walk away and screw her and deal with courts, child support, arguments and pain given and taken. But that’s not what a real man does. I will take care of more than my due and stay faithful till it’s over which is soon. I have never cheated on anyone, girlfriend or wife, for I believe that if you want to have relations with another,  break up or get divorced as you never do that to another.

So it’s time for a new, and to do this, I gather everything from my wits to my collected possessions and pull it tightly to my heart. It’s amazing I can function through this I think. I dance around like I am half my age, dress in vintage clothes all the time, sing to people out loud when some strange sound enters my head from an old vintage recording and wonder what will come next. What will it be? Not when will it be.

I am listening to 1961 King Curtis on vinyl. (Of course on vinyl!) I am sitting in a Pierre Paulin chair from the sixties, drinking Sake and talking her to myself or anyone who happens on this, if they ever do. It’s interesting that this is accessible to the world, but maybe nobody will ever view it. Charming thought don’t you think? I know none of you and of course you don’t know me and I don’t even know how this all works in a blog, I am just doing it.

Does anyone have this problem that they think 5 times faster than they can write or speak, all the time? I guess that is why I cannot sit here and go over my writing in this blog looking for spelling, punctuation, sentence structure or incomplete thought. I incomplete thought a lot people must think. It’s not that it’s just my mind thinking so fast I have solved whatever I was thinking of, placed in my head the possible alternatives and continued on later taking out the internal part of my thought process. I hope that made sense!

It’s a new open slate for me. It’s no different that when I was forty and started my last relationship with my wife. I mean it! I don’t feel older; everyone says I don’t look my age. I have boundless energy. I don’t want stay at a certain thought pattern while the world goes around me. I invent, I explore, and I challenge life and seize the day, every day! I find myself watching other nap while I do things. I only sleep 6 hours maybe on a special day 7 hours, but I could lay with someone all day, if they were someone that is. I am in my starting blocks and ready to go, but I am settled and would be satisfied if I never left them. For I have had an incredible life so far and if this is it and I am to meet my maker it would not be with regret or fear.

Most people think days are short and time passes quickly. I do not. I believe in using my senses. I listen to everything from nature to small sounds of the mechanical or artificial world around me. I love touch! I love the outdoors! I cannot garden with gloves on as I must touch the dirt and plants with my hands. I think of how I was taught by my grandfather and it is how I proceed. Slowly with many of the tools I have from him. I am in awe of the world around me. The items I have seen and the detail of it all is art in life. I completely understand this even more as my mother at 87 is blind from treatment from a brain tumor.

It is here where I am the vintage man. The items I have collected from many eras gone by. The direct stories I have slithered my way into by talking to anyone, especially the ones most would not dare to!

I think of responsibility, honor, caring and compassion and live my life as free as possible. Learn from the past, reflect on the past, touch it, adhere to the good of the past, but live in the now.

here it starts

I'm 55 and have been Lost in a Vintage Life for as far as I can remember. It's everywhere around me. From running a family business dating back to 1918 for over 25 years, to part owning a Mid-Century Modern Store in the 1980's to a co-owning a Women's Vintage Store now. I have bought more Lingerie and dresses than 10 women will buy in their lifetime. (no, I have not worn any!)

I guess this is my point of beginning to explain myself to myself. 
I am an old school man in many parts of my mind. That means I respect women and have the internal honor and respect for them. I respect all no matter of their sex, preferences, color, abilities or disabilities. In that way I leave that old Vintage man behind to wither and die in the desert.

I have a problem. I like to buy things. No don't go there. I can afford them!
I am surrounded by Vintage items to go with my Vintage mind. 
I have collected piles and piles of Books, Clothes, Records, Paintings, Art Glass, Pottery, Furniture, Photos, Cars, Memorabilia and more.
It's not stupid stuff, it's really extremely collectible items from the last 100 years as I have been at it since the late 1970's. 

I have another problem. I have boundless energy. I do more in a day than most do in 3 days. my mind is faster than that, but we will let that problem for another day, if and when I do.

This may never be read by anyone, although it is accessible to the complete world if they have access to the web. It's really not my intent to expose myself, but it is very silent around me now and I have no outlet. It has been a long life filled with adventure and disaster. I have many faults, as we all do, but I have a uncanny ability to rise above both my disappointments and life's many challenges. 
I am internally optimistic and happy. I don't know why. Asking this puzzling question with what I have come through, sometimes haunts me.
I have never done anything like this, so it is a challenge. My grammar, spelling and writing skills have never been my strong skills. I may ramble on making no sense to anyone but myself, but then again this is for me.
Numbers (Fibonacci numbers in nature, art, geometry, architecture, music), impossible challenges, adventure, love and caring for others are my strong skills.

And with this I start