The Summer of ‘22

 VI. Lonesome George 

It all started this summer. The Summer of ‘22 I’ll call it.  It was when I decided to return to my old hometown after forty-one years in the big cities across the country. I will say one thing for sure:  We were so much younger then, we’re older than that now. Or is it, I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now

Anyway, this trip it was different because I didn’t stay for just a week or a day. I packed up everything I owned lock, stock and barrel and headed back to the high prairie of Cheyenne for good. 

Among the many things I learned is that invariably, the more things change—the more they dang well change!

So the brick buildings stayed up all over town. The wood buildings came down, “The Hole” is still there. The bricklayers kept working, the carpenters learned new prefab building tricks. 

They put the traffic lights back in downtown with no “kitty corner” walking—or escalators, either. You see. Cheyenne, so goes the legend, was the first town in the world to have diagonal crossing upon green “walk” lights— along with the first electric street lights! And you heard about the Penney’s escalators going the way of the buggy whip. Though remaining only vestigially, Kemmerer-founded JCPenney too, for that matter. I heard a rumor that there is an escalator in Casper. 

My trip home was definitely a catharsis; a resurfacing of all the sweet childhood things that were there when I was last there. The streets were still named the same, though UW trained traffic engineers have made them nearly impossible for me to negotiate. 

The main drags had been meticulously paved; all roads leading to Frontier Park. Since there’s no state, federal or corporate tax in Wyoming, roads outside the city, in the county where the ragged people go, have not been. 

I found there are things in Cheyenne which are much different now. Other things aren’t. The lack of people and the religiously fierce independence of those folks who remain, for one. 

Most men wore beards. They were no doubt railing against Gillette’s New York-based advertising campaigns or any other effeminate taste-maker styling emanating from the East. 

Some under thirties (Gen-Z) seem to appreciate the low slung, hip-hop style pants which originated, by the way, in the beltless prisons and jails of New York City. The women with these men invariably wear tattoos. You’re not gonna want to see that in fifty years! Maybe they don’t think we’ll even be here then. 

If a photograph were taken of people at The Depot and developed in black-and-white, you wouldn’t see a difference between now and 100 years ago. And there were guns. Plenty of guns. People would hand them to me to show them off. Different than in New York where I walked in front them a couple times. This bellwether trend coincides with the Supreme Court’s recent concealed carry rulings, not only here but for New York City. 

There were trucks. In fact, the highest truck ownership ratio per capita in America. And the trucks had no mufflers, making my W. 42nd  Street Time’s Square apartment building seem like Central park at rush-hour in comparison— and that’s with the massive construction project going on outside my kitchen window. The Harley riders didn’t run mufflers, either. 

Top it off with with the people I call “The Walkers.” People with no money, no cars, no hope; walking zombie-like through the Cheyenne’s hi-ways and byways on their way to halfway houses, or meth houses. Some walkers even living right downtown a block from the most beautiful, old, iconic buildings in the city; the Plains Hotel for one. 

No wonder, Wyoming’s capital city lies as if a target at the bullseye of America, Interstates 80 and 25. This Bellwether County has captured the hearts of America with her politics. She has gathered those who did not know which way to go and held them. Same as it ever was, same as it ever was

The biggest change was in me. Like I said, the going is the easy part– it’s the coming back that’s hard. 

I had been planning my move back home to Wyoming for ten years or more.  My family worked for the railroad, Mom as a UP nurse, brother as a switchman-brakeman/conductor  Dad as an iceman. So the question to myself, and from everyone else was, why do you come back to Cheyenne when you’ve worked at every number one radio station in the largest markets in America from Los Angeles and Chicago to Nashville, Cleveland, Salt Lake, New York, Denver, and at all the major Fourth Estate (media) electronic outlets: ABC, NBC, and CBS? Or how do you compare Smith, Lansing and Lane (or it’s Cheyenne stand-in) with advertising agencies like Foote Cone and Belding, J Walter Thompson, and the others where I also worked. Or does working at major bank headquarters like Citibank, US trust, Chase Manhattan, Merrill Lynch, Morgan, CS First Boston and the like compare with Cheyenne Federal Savings and Loan? I temped at every network, major nonprofit, and miscellaneous company in New York during my forty-one years and I was still itching! But for what I didn’t know

I came here to be an actor. I was washing dishes at the Plains Hotel in the summer of 1981 when I saw and add in the Denver post to go to acting school in New York City. I had already worked all over the place in radio, so I said what the heck. StilI haven’t “done“ New York yet!

I hadn’t been here but three days when I got a job DJing the morning show at Viacom’s WMHK, the number one Country Western station in New York and thereby the nation. C&W was big then. 

After that I had the world by the tail on a downhill pull. Creatively, I got an agent at The William Morris Agency who hooked me up with former editor of Rolling Stone to create a motion picture about my great great uncle Buffalo Bill Cody. Oh yes Ive traded heavily on that familial name. 

I got to act, write music, and sing in a few movies. Ive been an integral part of my church, First Baptist, for thirty years, building dozens of stained glass windows, refurbishing the historic 125 year old woodwork and singing the greatest music ever written with full orchestras in our illustrious choir! Classical music led my singer wife (of 2 years!) and me into opera management with Metropolitan Opera-level talent at my own agency, George Wienbarg Artist Management. 

When I left my job as a dishwasher at the Plains back in 1981, originally setting foot in New York to began studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, etc where Robert Redford, among others studied, I have no idea I would instantly call within three days land the job at Viacom’s WLHK. 

Let me back up to before my springboard from Cheyenne. It was just a few months after having sold the Hollywood Sign. I know that sounds crazy but let me explain.  My buddy Hank Berger who had been living out in Los Angeles studying various get rich quick scheme‘s suddenly hit upon the bright idea to sell the Hollywood sign which I’ve just been removed from Mt. Lee a year or two before. Hank had reckoned we could cut it into pieces, frame them handsomely, then mount and sell the resultant 1 5/16 inch pieces from the original sign before anyone realized they were gone. The sign’s salvage had been languishing in an orange county self storage. So we got the keys from Bill Welsh at the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and grabbed about a half a ton of material the original letter H. The very same letter H the peg Entwistle “signed off” from in 1936. This is all happened after the revamped sign replaced “our” original in 1978. I did the publicity and garnered 1 billion advertising impressions placing Hank and me in articles in every newspaper and magazine in the English speaking world! From Time Magazine, to The LA Times, Washington Post, People and US —plus The London Times, to weeklies in Europe – Germany and Spain. It was also the summer of cocaine in America, and The Iran-Contra affair and our Hollywood sign project needed to be funded somehow. That’s when I skedaddled and got the job washing dishes at the Plains Hotel. I’m a good swimmer but that was over my head. 

I wrote for Rolling Stone when they publish a press release I had written but Jann Wenner, the publisher put another guy‘s name on. That’s when he and Jack Craciun I had a little letter writing tiff. But meanwhile I got another PR coup with the CBS TV Network, Tome Magazine again, Soldiers Weekly and lots of radio. Jack and me co-produced the first rock concert in the history of the U.S. military for America’s bi-centennial at Fort Campbell, Kentucky in 1975. It all emanated with my press releases out of Cleveland Ohio which we soon repackaged as the Rock ‘n’ Roll Capital of the World. The show, produced the month after the Vietnam war ended, starred Joe Cocker, Pure Prairie League, Rufus, the Earl Scruggs review and current Hugh Hefner eye candy, Barbi Benton. She’s still not bad for 71. She’s exactly my age, and we haven’t changed a bit. 

After making my decision to move back to my roots in the Magic City of the Plains this summer, I drove back across the country with a U-Haul containing every single thing I owned Dash plus the two suitcases and dobro that I started out with 41 years ago. 

Upon then arriving back in Cheyenne at beginning of July, I immediately secured a job driving the little buses for the Cheyenne Transit Program. The other very droll drivers who were “training” me, three police officers and an ex military dude, did not want to hear about any of the above adventures no matter how much I endeavored to tell them. In fact the idea that I was from New York and was voting for Liz Cheney was anathema and I was immediately persona non grata for the two week duration of my tenure there. In fact. As I left Cheyenne two months after I arrived, I was on the outs with them and practically everybody else I had ran (I was going to put “run” but decided to leave “ran” in deference to the language barrier there) into. Everyone made it quite apparent that I was not going to be “one of the boys/girls“. 

But then, as my “luck“ would have it, I secured job at KGWN Television as the weather/news/multimedia reporter right as I was making my decision to leave. The job paid $18 an hour—thirty-five cents an hour more than the city para-transit driver job. If you wondered why your local TV station sucks, that’s one reason. The jitney drivers are pretty good though!

In short, I loved seeing my old friends – the ones of us who were still living, and I think they loved seeing me. But after conversations of an hour or two we were ready to say goodbye and head out in our own separate ways for another 40 years—or to Facebook!

Like I said, the leaving was easy, it’s the coming back that was hard. 

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PS— There is lots more happening with now that I’m back here in New York! —AND Cheyenne both, all with contacts I made while back home there. So stay tuned! With my luck, this could get very exciting! One thing is for sure: the Internet has made our little town part of one very, very big one! GW

Ten Years After

At times in history there have been events as tragic as these. Throughout ten or twenty thousand years of written human history we know cities have been razed, peoples anhilated, swaths of barbarism, destruction and death in the remou. I cannot remember Pearl, or Auschwitz, or Wounded Knee but know they exist because we will never let ourselves forget. And we use them to fuel our hatred, feed fodder to our fires of hatred and distrust. Reading at church yesterday for the memorial service, from the Bible we know "that which is now has already been, and that which is to be already has been, and God seeks that which has passed by." In other words, history repeats itself. We can plan for that, knowing that it is true.

Sometimes to find truth, that illusive fact that will provide illumination to our lives as a society of people on earth, we go to the Bible. How wise are Solomon and David, with the benefit of their histories, and the seemingly direct, essential contact with God to write the texts which have guided us for another four thousand years. But do those words bind us? If no one wrote them would our collective memories be wiped clean, or would not humanity still vie with each other for land=money=power?

Pure and free, strong and brave we can begin to see the heart of humanity who ruled this continent before us seemingly untouched by the 'evils' of the continental humans. But there were still wars, fierce and bloody competition for land. Jealosy, anger—hate and indifference existed in them as in all of us. Do those from the continent bare responsibility for the barbarisim wrought before their arrival, or only after? It is the nature of elephants to rule their society gently, with strentgh; and dolphins to rule theirs swiftly, and free in the oceans.

It has been the nature of mankind from the beginning of time is excersise its nature as well. In the primordial miasma, the womb of our world, our seed fought to exist. Queen Esther preserved hers in the court of Xerxes in the Persian Empire. But, how many other races were left behind enabling ours to remain? The people with strange anthropological names who lived in uprightness over 3 million years ago, uncoverd by us today, leave no doubt about how it could have been us to survive. The reasons they passed away appear from the ether.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing but He can satisfy. He done it in such a way that we cannot find out from the beginning until the end what it was. Until the mystery is solved, I know that there is nothing better for them than to be glad to get and do for as long as they live."

Far Rockaway

While Far Rockaway is being edited I read Monster: Living Off the Big Screen by John Gregory Dunne. Is there the possibility of writing a similar book about what is going on with our film, Food for the Sun? If I am a writer then I had better because it isn't going away.

Maybe something like:

"Ivy Vahanian and I flew to Culebra two days before our scenes were to be shot. I had received the script two days before and we went over our lines on the plane to Puerto Rico forgetting for the moment we were on our way to shoot a big motion picture on a desert island with our best friends, and just being petrified of the script. It looked like it had been written in English by Spanish speaking people, which it was."

Or maybe...

"I had been working as a news anchor at 1010 WINS in New York. It was a radio job to die for but with the chance of a lifetime to star in a movie I packed in my radio career and packed up my snorkel and fins. Proudly with the script for Food for the Sun tucked under my arm I jumped on the plane with Ivy."

Two years later...

"In just another two years Ivy would be starring in Corum Boy at the Imperial Theatre on Broadway, but until that movie comes out I barely managed to work driving a jitney to New Jersey. After thumbing my nose at the industry with a voice and no picture I didn't feel good for much else. The only representation I had in the entertainment industry were time-coded scenes from Food for the Sun hustled into my web site and the hope that someday we would get the thing made. "

In the meantime, this little gem:
http://finyc.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-11-06T17%3A58%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=10

Updates from the George Jay Blogosphere

George Jay's Blog

it is Easter sunday, 2006. Friends from the Ivory Coast, Joe, Monique and their son —Christian friends, we spent 3 hours over lamb and cous cous talking about love and friendship and Islam.
At church earlier I discussed the stained glass windows with a couple of trustees. Seems they received another proposal from a stained glass firm that did a study like "Columbia University Students."
Meanwhile, my roommate is gone. my lovely roommate is as good as gone to Indiana, to rehearse the international tour of Blast the show, then to Japan. Blast is the reason.
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Well I had written a bunch of stuff about how great the sermon was Easter Sunday, and about how Pastor Robert Gage used the whole Bible for his exposition on the fact of resurrection. He talked about the 10 resurrections of The Bible but deleted it accidentally. You can't argue with logic like that.
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Tuesday, May 25.
I start back at CBS on Monday doing Internet policing for the network. Stay tuned!
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April 28
I have seen my friend Jan Kinberg in the past two days. Off to the movie One we went. Asking ourselves the time-honored questions of "Why are we here," and "What is the meaning of Life?" In the movie, a white kid in dreadlocks said that he wasn’t "even worthy" to comment when asked what he thought the meaning of life was.
Uma Thurman’s father said nothing, did nothing but stare into the camera in answer to the request to non-verbally show what condition the world is in. This is all has a touch of falderal to it, no? Of play made to look real? Unless you can get a handle on three billion years of evolution on earth then the answer to the question of life's meaning is nothing. Nothing. There doesn't have to be a meaning to life. The single biggest hoax perpetrated on modernity by “poseurs to enlightenment” Deepac Shopra, the Dali Lama, Joseph Campbell among them is that they have some insight into the world of un-knowledge, of the unknowable. Had Campbell continued exploring, he might have been able to actually open up new truly intellectual ground, as opposed to using the same old knowledge Jung revealed—to captivate his audience without being any more incisive than Jung—or even his younger self.
True enlightenment is knowing you are enlightened and sharing your wonderments to the world, or seeking enlightenment! Truthfully, Campbell may have known he was at the verge of something important. He knew about social anthropology but just sold out that knowledge because he chose to expound upon rather than to extrapolate his data into anything newer.
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We here in New York—in fact I, myself—have been the part of an intellectual, cultural and electronic revolution and the shock is just now being felt. I say electronic as opposed to technological because that revolution came after World War II. The entire world has experienced this Post Traumatic Stress because of this 60-year revolution. I think that we have also been blown away that our own drive gives us the ability to achieve what we imagine—individually, or if it’s a particularly good idea, collectively.

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Aha, the future is coming but soon….soon…Will it be radio? Travel? See, I like to live my life creatively!
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I want to go a couple of steps further about Carla Stovall, my roommate: She came to the Coqui House at the exact time she did or the purpose of finding some cheap, convenient housing. She left some very beautiful extras: Love, organization, ambition and determination. She inspired the idea of living in the present by actually living in the present—fully 100%—all the time, which she applied was working out, sleeping, eating, practicing, or playing. It was a celebration of a disciplined life every moment I was with her. Her gifts were so special! And her parents are responsible. Congratulations Carl and Gypsy. (if you want to know what secular love REALLY is, check this out www.mary.com)
She preached discipline through grace, freedom from jealousy. Carla made our lives beautiful. My apartment is clean—my life is beautiful, minimalist. Small enough to keep impeccably clean, my mind actually feels beautiful, too as a result.
Provocative though it seems, Carla and I were never an item. Nor have I been been an item in any fashion with anyone for longer than I can remember.
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Saturday the last day of the week
I am elated today! It is Spring! The problems about the trade deficit with China trade fade. The job CBS fades into a complimentary event that I can make into whatever I want.
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Wait! Stop the terabytes! I just had a profound awakening: As I got up to finish a previously procrastinated task, I happened to pick a dried philodendron leaf up off the the shelf over the sink and throw it from my upper floor window.
Because of its shape the leaf hovered in an updraft outside spinning in a spiral at my windowsill for several seconds before twirling away. It's not a really windy day, just a day when the wind blows from the south and from the north simultaneously. The leaf was in a spiral like Leonardo DiVinci's parachute and helicopter concept models might have been!
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This is a good day! www.weather.com
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Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!
http://www.geocities.com/memoriesofsweetcheyenne/index.htm Check out this view of my younger days back in Cheyenne. Mostly old friends are there.
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I loved this from John Rook's web site http://www.johnrook.com/. Obviously a master as radio programmer, check out these 'graphs about the President's new press secretary on his site, but also:
"Well schooled by the CFR, as White House Press Secretary Tony Snow should do the job in keeping President Bush focused on the path set down by the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group."
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7/31/2006
Pastor Gage that morning had preached the same sermon he preached 50 years ago, his first. It was like the sermon that lead me to Christ in September of 1963. Just As I Am was the song.
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Wed. August 2
Answered most of about 250 applications for the room in my apartment. Now THAT was interesting!
Hope you have a chance to check out the Hollywood Jammin' Jellies web site. Its coming right along: http://www.georgejay.com/hollywood/HollyWoodBrands_MainPage.html
Watch for the Boulevard East Tours Web Site next!
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Wednesday, August 9th, 2006

to Mrs. Keelan:

Cathy,
I am becoming more and more enamored at the perfection that is the nobel United States experiment!
Last night a young, what appeared to be tourist family of five (minus the father) was looking through in the window of the Kaufman’s Army Navy surplus store on the ground floor of my 42nd Street building . There are two 100 millimeter 1890 howitzer cannon on either side of his door and the oldest boy of about 11 put his hand on it. I was standing there drinking a beer, and being a tour guide in New York told them so proceeding to tell the story of the guns and how they were from the Spanish-American war of 1890, pointing down the the barrel at the rifling inside, “to make the bullet spin,” I said, “like a football.”
“To make it go longer and farther,” said the boy with very eagerly trying to show that he had seen rifling before, and knew a thing or two about guns as well.
“He knows,” said the mother encouragingly.
“Where are you from,” I asked. Their dark skin and features made them appear Indian, though I shouldn’t have assumed—even though sometimes religion does have facial boundaries as well as geographic.
“Pakistan.”
“I have many friends from Pakistan,” I told her shaking her hand. “I’m George.” My ex-roommate had been from there, a strikingly beautiful girl and I have struck up an acquaintance the people building a new deli down the street as well. “Wonderful people. Nice to meet you!” The boy hung back politely behind his three younger sisters, dark hair reaching down their backs. The mother had no head scarf. A modern, Pakistani with perfect diction, her children were just as lovely, each taking turns shaking my hand, starting with the boy right down to the girls who avoiding my eyes, each squeezed my hand with equal fervor, in a grip with all their might was no doubt coached by someone saying ‘Americans have firm hand shakes.’
I was proud to be an American. They were so eager to please, so slow to judge. No doubt Muslim, they were here on vacation like any other family, the father possibly off with his friends or on business and who would probably have been just as polite and engaging as the rest of his family.

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It is nearly the end of the month of August. Around here they say the summer ends then. I think they're right. To commemorate I have started driving the mini-buses between Boulevard East and Manhattan. Bus A98 at the moment. I think there may be a book in this somewhere. It may be titled, "Bumper to Bumper: Confessions of a New York Jitney Driver"
jitney One entry found for jitney.(from Webster's on-line)
Main Entry: jit·ney Pronunciation: 'jit-nEFunction: nounInflected Form(s): plural jitneysEtymology: origin unknown1 slang : NICKEL 2a(1)2 [from the original 5 cent fare] : BUS 1a; especially : a small bus that carries passengers over a regular route on a flexible schedule3 : an unlicensed taxicab
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The air is cool and fresh in New York tonight, as I a pause to write this before my 7:00 a.m. pickup. The Pan Aqua Diving school is having me drive them to Pennsylvania for a day-long foray into the shallow depths of wherever.
I smell the peanuts and hot dogs wafting up through my open window. This breeze, the first of the season, cools my tired body. The sound of cars passing, parking lot patrons talking from below unintelligible, just like Wesley said they would be.
I wonder if Inez new what he was doing. She was the one who mixed the 7-Up and Mogen David wine cooler for me. Mom had a conniption when she found out they had been letting me drink. It was my first taste of alcohol. It was about 8 or 10. Its why I couldn’t do my homework. Couldn’t concentrate on anything but what they were doing to me—what He was doing to me. in Church, in their basement, in the garage, the bedroom on camping trips, on vacations to Las Vegas.
He died a painful death, terrified, Dad said. But he wasn’t really satisfied Just matter of fact about it. That was 1994, the year before Dad died.
Goodness, and mercy and joy and peace and love.##
It is the 22nd of February, 2007. I have finished the restoration of ten, one hundred and sixteen year old leaded glass pieces at the First Baptist Church. I'll upload some video soon. they came out wonderfully. But one day, working down in the basement it came to my that my friend W. Michael Keelan might have gone on to the other side.
After suffering from ALS for 2 1/2 years, with his brother by his side Mike told Kevin that he was ready.
I can't imagine the pain and courage combined that it took for Kevin to grant his brother's last request. I think I just kind of bowled over it when he told me at Chile's what had happened that day three and a half weeks ago and with his eyes red, and his emotions high from 900 days of pain, Kevin told me what he had gone through with the family, with his own pain and with everything that happened afterwards.
Kevin had just sold his company, Orion Construction three years beforehand so he was able to be there through some providence of fate. Mike had been telling me of his brother's success in the fifth largest marine construction company in the world and was proud of him. So were we all, that he was there for everyone who loved Mike, the kids, the wife's their Mom and hundreds of friends he left. Thanks Kevin. You're my idea of a man and your kids and Denise, your wife and mother should be very proud.
I was honored to speak to his friends and neighbors at the service. The little brochure the funeral home gave out kind of took me by surprise. Because there on the back was a picture taken of my friend Mike, sitting on my brother's bed in our room in the basement back in Cheyenne. I have never been so honored in my entire life as I was this last weekend. The only one who I didn't have a chance to share it was with him.

W. Michael Keelan
July 17, 1951, Cheyenne, Wyoming -- January 28, 2007, Centennial, Colorado
Mike was my best friend, and I don't feel alone because he was a lot of people's best friend. Ever since I met him in the locker room in Jr. High in 1964 he has as been an enduring, loyal, caring, Best Friend. I was standing, using the urinal and Mike came up behind me and shook me by the shoulders and I sprayed all over the wall. I was so mad-but all he did was laugh. We have been close ever since. And I am sure that everyone remembers the exact time they met Mike if they think about it. I wish we still had those old "slam" books where everyone would write down what they thought of each other, because there was never a bad thing you could say about they guy. And what he said about anyone else they usually had it coming, but said it in such a way that it helped-never hurt. He was kind of like the ultimate supporter, the ultimate undergirder.
As he grew up he became even more supportive, understanding and kind. If there was an example of a person I wanted to be like it was Mike. He personified the Christian ideals of Counsel, Understanding, Courage, and Wisdom sometimes known as spiritual gifts. He had them naturally. He was a natural.
When you spend every day with someone for as long as we did you end up with a lot of stories. And I think back to some of the good times we all had, the stories we could tell each other. And I am sorry I can't be there to do that. There were the cars, some amazing, beautiful cars. The bar in Colorado (I'm just glad we were drinking 3.2 beer!) the dances at The Pavilion, school, KRAE. He was with us all throughout.
And as we all grew up, we each went through our separate trials and tribulations. For some reason, I started going through them a little earlier--getting very mixed up with the law. I think I lost almost every friend I ever had except for Mike. He stayed with me, never condemning, never criticizing...and supporting me not only by just being there, but with the most outrageous sense of humor-usually by poking fun at me and getting me to do the same at myself. But when if I ever felt lost and alone, it was Mike who was always right there to prop me up and send me off again, with out a question, and without doubting myself. He did that for everybody. He was never hurtful, never spiteful, always loyal. Good looking, smart. Strangers stayed out of his way because he was so confident in himself. But then, they didn't stay strangers for long, did they? Because Mike never met a stranger.
I think that if I had a Dad today, it might have been Mike. Kind of like a father, a brother and a friend all rolled into one. He was the guy I was always trying to make proud of me. In New York, it's a big lonely city. The only friend of mine who ever came and visited me was Mike. And his mom. (The mom we all wish we had.) Its no wonder he was the way he was. Because of Cathy and of course, if any of you ever knew Bill, him, too. But I think the reason I ever really accomplished as much as I did, and never gave up was because a few times a year I would hear Mike on the other end of the phone going, "What's up?" and I would make sure I had done something important enough to tell him about and I always figured out something.
He was proud of me, I know it. But he was proud of all his friends. He was especially proud of his family. His brother, His kids, His Mother. He was proud of us all, and we were very proud of him.
And if they say the good die young, that's just the way its supposed to be. Because this guy will go down as a legend. A personal hero-because he had his crosses to bear, too-and a legend. I'll see you again in glory, my friend.
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Here are some pictures of us in different times, including Mike:
The Memories of Sweet Cheyenne
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This is the e-mail I had wanted to send to everyone on my mailing list but didn’t. so I did an undelete and am sending you the unexpurgated version
Hey Everyone!
I just wanted you guys to be aware of this wonderful Christian comedy talent, Donna East.
DONNA EAST!I met Donna when I was going to the Christian actors group, Inter-mission at Calvary, (please check this out: http://www.inter-mission.net/about.html). It might be fun to have her come speak for us some time. She has a wonderful message and, needless to say is very funny!
INTER-MISSIONInter-mission is very interesting, and a wonderful blessing. My old friend Stan Blair headed it up here in NYC before and he is no longer here (though there was a rumor he might return.) I don’t know if they are meeting anywhere in New York now, but it would be great to get an affiliation going with them in some way even if it is just to be aware of their activities. http://calendar.inter-mission.net/cgi-bin/calendar.pl (J.C. Check out this calendar program! http://www.calendarscript.com/ )
AWESOME THURSDAY CELEBRATION SERVICEThe Thursday night service went very well last night. Jim Brotherton taught/spoke about Jesus and the Disciples in the storm. It was the second time I had heard the message by him. I asked him if he could please publish this message as I would like to be able to hear it again and after he leaves cause it may be a while. (Jim, have any others? This is a great publishing web site: www.iUniverse.com. Keep Pastor Matt in prayer. Turns out he caught pneumonia, not just a cold.
LEADED GLASS PROJECTIs complete. I just have one more to go, in Pastor Matt’s office as soon as we figure out how to do it. Possibly just a 1/2 restoration. (I sometimes equate stained glass to doing dentistry!) Let me know if you know someone who needs a stained glass piece done.
I am attempting to assimilate the Lord’s gracious power bestowed through me. I think I just figured that out. Or just go to my blog at http://www.georgejay.com/georgejaysblog/Georgejaysblog.htm (THAT'S HERE!)
His Servant,
George Wienbarg- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - -- - - - - - -- - - - - - -- - - - - - -- - - - - - -- - - - - - -- - - - - - -- - - - - - -- - - - - - -- - -
Dear David,
GOOD!!Whew! I was just thinking and thinking, and thinking, about what you said yesterday on the phone…and i came back to the computer to write a note to you and then got this note from you!! Whew, what a relief!
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AURTHUR SCHLESINGER WAS A DEMOCRATI just read something about Arthur Schlesinger who died this week. He was campaign manager for both Kennedys. he was a fervent, anti-communist Liberal.
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What you read in the papers is dis-information for those naïve enough to believe it. One does have to read between the lines, as I know you suspect, it is just a matter of having enough information to interpret the space that lies between with historical accuracy.
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I drove from 6:00 in the morning to about 9:00 at night with about an hour or two off in the middle of the day. two of our drivers got in a fight—a man and a woman! and thrown in jail. I found out that my license will probably be suspended in May. (it’s a long story due mainly to driving with a suspended license from New York.) This job is about the toughest lucrative thing I have ever done. just think it all started when I wasn’t given the stained glass project two Januarys ago. had I gotten that job then I might never have had to started driving!
I drive around all day thinking of the events of the past two months at church…Winston…Larry…the pastor and Mrs. Gage…and my heart is so heavy. the only saving grace has been that the Pastor and Mrs. Gage have the wonderful anointing of the Holy Spirit and it has been laid on me, through Matt, through the Choir…the windows were a bittersweet task at this point.
They want me to drive 7 days a week which I have told them 'no' to already, but I am still going to have to make 1200-1500 bucks this month before my other court date on the 28th (for my apartment) I don’t know why my life is so fraught with these court clashes (four this year already)…and for me, it all stemmed from not getting to do the stained glass work in the first place, and the construction job I did in my apartment building.
I remember coming back to church in January 2005 scared that I was going to be evicted. My girlfriend had left and I was by myself so I came to church to try and ease my stress and wondered about taking up my stained glass project where i had left it five years before. For nothing. It was then I realized they were considering paying someone to do it and I put in my bid. I had no idea that one of the Trustees who I had thought was my friend voted against me. His wife said I was not to be trusted. I don’t think he realized what effect he was having on my life. Not to mention what they may have told that woman who left the church—then blaming me for her leaving!
Meantime, the easter concert is coming together. Check out this amazing music Easter Concert

_________________

everyone's trying to get me. every one wants me to be on their side. I can't decide.
this one, that one all vying for my favors, but only one will get me in the end. my lord god. Jehovah gira. the holy one.
think of a new name, those are just a few . I don't think mohammed fit in there. or mary.

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A little lesson on Internet dating: don't.
gjwinc
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I just noticed. It is Easter Sunday, 2007. Pasqua Domingo, in the Spanish. It is one year since I began this blog.

As an obvious simile for the war in Iraq, Babel posts it's and the studio's message that the act of terrorism in 2001 against the WTC was an isolated act. It leads us to draw our own conclusions about the moral legality of prosecuting the war when the 911 was most likely perpetrated by an isolated cell of zealots and that the entire country of Iraq should not have been made to pay no matter how bad its leader, Saddam Hussein, was. That Saddam was possibly the only one to have been able to rule the country notwithstanding, given the diverse nature of his diverse populace, and that we have killed more people over there than he ever would have, we surely must stop and think about the personality of America in these types of situations. Just what can we be relied upon to do?
First of all our leaders are following the dictates of its people. Since our anti-war element has projected their own bellicose ideas on the Bush administration it is time to disabuse them of this misapprehension forthwith. Forgetting about Afghanistan for the moment, voted upon by both sides of the aisle the war in Iraq was this country's attempt to set forth the message that you better not mess with us, and you had better hold your fringe in check or the entire culture is going to pay.
Secondly, should we have needed provocation to assert ourselves in this important region of the world, this isolated act of terrorism would have been enough of one. We have been waiting since 1947 for the situation to either calm itself or become hostile enough to require the United States to step in and since neither case has ensued, it was time to step in. Isolationism is anachronism in today's world culture. Even the small village however realistically or not that it was portrayed in Babel still had a telephone, and busloads of tourists would surely have dropped more than a few of their corrupting pounds or dollars in their wake, culturally speaking. By the way, the rifle used in the movie was a Winchester .270, given by a Japanese to a Moroccan whose children used it to accidentally shoot an American tourist.
With the corruption of the soul of man comes the consequences. That the blame for the results of this corruption should be thrown onto George Bush personally in any way is ludicrous. I don't think you will see any of the upcoming Democratic candidates do it. I do think George W. gets a good night's sleep every night.
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In touch with so many dear friends from Cheyenne lately. Easter has brought us together again, as it did in the Easter Paegents of old back in the 1950s! How precious and fine the memories of Bill Kelly, Roger Cross, The Jacksons, The Jensons, The McIlvains, The Harpers..., the Luckriz's, the Hungates. My Most beloved friends. They are why I am who I am today! Bless them and Bless you all!
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This is a copy of a review in Variety by review in Variety by Todd McCarthy of "Grindhous" the Tarrantino/Rodriguez double feature:
"Due to some nasty business at a nearby military base, local residents are lurching around with pus-filled abscesses on their skin and unwholesome appetites. Human roadkill litters the highways and the hospital becomes overrun with disfigured and increasingly violent sickos."
This is the opening to my latest book, bumper to bumper: diary of a boulevard east jitney driver:
"I always knew driving was getting to me when I started to see dismembered arms and legs , reaching out of the storm sewers amd gutters or a weird purple glow around hip-hop cars. I start seeing them when I've been driving about twenty hours straight, usually late at night, after the drunks and druggies are sprawled out wherever they sprawl. And when the litter strewn streets are empty except for the odoriferous garbage trucks who pick up this subterfuge."
"The glows are no big deal. There's a house on boulevrd East where I drive by with an ultraviolet purple haze around it, and the reader for the easy passes is the same color. Just like the hip-hopper's cars with their eerie blue light radiating from underneath their Honda or Toyota chassis."
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A sumptuous new import from the British stage lives up to its pedigree. Coram Boy at the Imperial Theatre brings with it a feast for the senses, at once a Disneyland for grown-ups, a loving, ethereal, heavenly tribute to the theatre and a morality play with humor, power and grace. My friend Ivy Vahanian is its sensual, loving, whimsical, iconic star, The Angel. How can one 15 year-old girl in her Broadway debut tie a production together that brings with it the producers from Lion King, Color Purple and other of the most successful, entertaining shows on the Great White way? She is sexy, virtuous, brave, creative, brilliant and more than lives up to the potential her parents bestowed upon her with such authority and grace. How can this beautiful, radiant being captivate us with the hunger we have for true entertainment? Go see this show. You will know.
George Jay's Blog

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I am writing this on Saturday, March 12, 2007
Why do my eyes water? Why am I crying as I read the Book Review? they are small drops of tears. Maybe because I can understand what I read. Maybe because my story is equal to theirs.
Last week was Alfredo';s Fire. His brakes burned and the fire department came to put it out. the street was blocked off where my bus was parked across the street and the police gave me a ticket while my bus was stranded. they are crazy.
It is already 8:47 a.m. The others are out there driving, making money transporting people and I am still in bed, crying over the NY Times Book Review. I had better get my clothes out of the laundry--or would I be better off going to the garage to check on my bus?
There are books on typing, teenagers, rebels, drinking and smoking all of which are things I do but do not document. I am hungry. There is an article on that.
##
Tomorrow is mother's day and I will call as many mothers as I can today, as tomorrow may be to late.
maybe today I can get into my storage for some electronic stuff, maybe some files. Go to the farmer's market on 17th street. Maybe pay my back gym fees and buy a nice pen to write with.
why am I writing this?
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May 28, 2007
every thing i do seems to resonate. i paid off my apartment…my best friend gets a part on broadway. I come home after a party with them at my apartmento. we kiss. we part. I am at home.
rreading the poetry on the subway by Yeats. with a brunette who appreciate the use of the word commence and of flesh.
besides the after party…closing of the show…we sparked and fled.
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I had so much to say, walking home...about the beautiful people...the producer...of the show. "we should be in Hollywood," i said before he left. a rich man with a pretty face, the producer of the show. He was sorry (no more than anyone watching).
I am starting to wake up.
Alcohol is a stimulant only after being a depressant.
The asphault parking lot is half covered in obsidian pools undr the white bright light. but the ddin of the city echose ubiquitiousl as it does nist sunday nights.
Loraine never really thought much of me othe rthan I was outstanding. Like Kurt Weil siad, anyone who set out to flap his arms and exclaim was going to be sought atter.
Ivy's show was amazing. She led a multi million dollar production with such aplomb: the most expensive production on broqadway. Staged in the theatre made for Les Miz, Coram Boy was the stage.
It reminded me of the morning show I used to do with Tim Byrd. He engineered the show, i.e., he controlled the voloums of each mike. I always thought he used to turn mine down because he felt I souded better than him,
I almost want to cry that it was cancelled. the Director was so Brave...and so were the producers. Coram Boys was the priceless gem amomst 'em.
so doe's Ivy call. do I say "I was the reasoni it was cancelled? The other large-headed stars felt they were all the stars...when it was heavan above that was the determining factor.
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June 8, 2007
It was just three days ago that I received two tickets, one parking and one for making an illegal right hand turn. I ran into two cars accidentally, and nearly got myself into three fights. Such is a day in the life of a New York jitney driver.

November 12

It is it is just a few days before my birthday. It was only Friday that the "DOT" moved 70 of our buses off the road due to "safety violations."

I was elected to be on the nominating committee of the First Baptist Church in the City of New York. Now which has precidence.

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My Thoughts Turn Homeward the Place from Whence I Came and to Where I Can Never Return

New York--It was after the events of September 11, 2001 that my first thoughts turned to home. It had reminded me of the night collecting money as a Cheyenne Eagle paperboy that the Cuban Missile crisis had escalated pitching the country into readiness. It is now, six years later that I file this report.

Since many of you will ask what it is like in New York City now, I will tell you that it is much changed, economically for instance. Last year, New York's economic growth ranking was thirty-ninth among all states. By comparison, in 2006 Wyoming's was thirty-first. This year New York rose four tenths of a percentage point to #28 while Wyoming grew from 1.5 to 4.5 percent, which puts Wyoming #5 among all states in economic growth so far this year.

The financial impact has forced many New York businesses to close and has profoundly affected employment and thereby spending. New York lost a quarter of a million jobs immediately after 9-11 and is still working to regain them.

The City has suffered, but it is instructive that the indomitable human spirit has responded in ways that are natural and sometimes perplexing. Though many New Yorkers have "Not Forgotten" it seems some in New York have indeed lost sight of the Big Picture. Perhaps there, in Wyoming, as well. Because of its predominant Democratic bias more people in New York have turned virulently against the remedial military measures taking place in the Middle East and Afghanistan despite both state Senators, Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer voting and initially standing for military action. There are as many public opinions on the matter as there are people in the world it seems, none being held more strongly or backed up forcefully than by Wyoming's own Dick Cheney and his boss, President Bush.

Since I live on 42nd Street in Manhattan I pick up the pulse of the city very rapidly. A block away from my building, a card table advocate had set out placards and was handing out flyers advocating the impeachment of Dick Cheney. And while the fellow's sentiments are not exclusive to liberal states his position was more vociferous than those of similar feeling, say, there in Cheyenne.

In the other direction, a temporary, police anti-terrorism checkpoint had been set up on 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue just. New York City's Finest seemed to be casually chatting with each other while again manning barricades and the red blinking mobile semaphores which narrowed morning rush hour traffic to a one lane crawl, all vastly annoying until you realize the cause of the slow-down is ostensibly for our safety.

Liberals and jaded conservatives might well be wondering if the checkpoint is actually doing any good in a city which is daily swollen to about 9 million souls. The phalanx of New York City police officers added since 9-11 seems to see into the eyes of every, single one. The incident I saw later where black fellow with long dreadlocks was being stopped and questioned by a pair of foot patrolmen a few blocks away says even more. It was apparently moving day for him but his little square U-Haul truck had made the officers somehow wary.

Another development since the National Guardsmen with their loaded M-16s lowered their guard and again left their posts a the Port Authority Bus Terminal across from my Time's Square apartment building. For three years, long parades of police cruisers test their communications and tactical skills by converging on an imaginary target every week or so from across the city. This creates a parade of from fifty to one hundred wailing, flashing police cars. It is a spectacle, yes. It is a reminder. Something like this prior to 9-11 would have put the fear of God into us. Hopefully it is having an affect on those who may fear another god.

There was an unspoken sigh of relief after September 11th this year. No one said much about the anniversary. However, the construction workers on the new Bank of America building stopped work at a quarter to nine Tuesday. The hundred men and women took off their hard hats and flew a large flag of remembrance in the street at 42nd and Sixth Avenue. Many of them were at the fallen Twin Towers with emergency personnel helping dig through rubble for survivors.

Three days after anniversary of 9-11, we here in New York, across the country and around the world are acutely aware of what has happened to us since that terrible day. We have been changed more profoundly than the terrorists could have possibly dreamed. It reminded me of The American Indian wars at a certain point not only of the warnings that had come to Custer prior to the attack at Little Big Horn, but of the radar warnings of impending doom before Pearl Harbor and the Phoenix FBI memo before 9-11. The question should be, was there foreknowledge, or an "innocent," unconscious way to foment public support for the intensive military actions that followed? And imagining it was, was whatever it took to move the public to action enough, or more than enough?

This abiding view should be kept in perspective, I think, and for me this was made eminently clear in an interview I conducted last week with my Great Aunt, Alice Reneau in Independence, MO for Cody's Buffalo Bill Historical Center. At 106 next month, Aunt Alice is perhaps the oldest living relative of Col. William F. Cody, or Uncle Will, as he is known in the family.

During Aunt Alice's interview with me she recounted several important events in her life. She remembered fondly the thrill of accidentally jumping her horse over a barbed wire fence, then turning to do it again. She told me about the day her mother died, of her uncle, the great Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show and the superstitions of his wife, my Great-great Aunt, Louisa Frederici Cody.

Aunt Alice remembered a myriad of events that took place in her life as many as 100 years ago. And though the candidates running for president next year did not seem to fit into her own current world view(She has eighteen presidents under her belt) one thing she certainly did ask me was if I was in New York City "...when they ran a plane through those buildings?" When I told her I was, mentioning the Pentagon and Pennsylvania as well, she simply asked, "Why did they do that?" "Well, Aunt Alice I have to admit," I said, "Now that I think about it, I just don't know either." And I still don't.
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Sources: Monthly Economic and Financial Report , New York State Division of
the Budget Economic and Revenue Unit Expenditure Debt Unit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Berger (on How I sold the Hollywood
Sign) Also, Wyoming Eagle Tribune, Summer 1980.

www.georgejay.com