Welcome to the Bureau of Arts and Culture's New Monthly Interactive Magazine. DOWNLOAD A COPY BY TAPING THE LINKS ON THE LEFT

Welcome to the Bureau of Arts and Culture's New Monthly Interactive Magazine. DOWNLOAD A COPY BY TAPING THE LINKS ON THE LEFT.We suggest you view the magazine as a two page layout as some articles have a centerfold photographic design. Many of the features are extended on line in audio, simply tap the links & logos to visit and view images related to the Article. We went door to door with a paper edition last year in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, since then we have added sites in New York City, San Francisco, San Diego and Santa Barbara plus the New National Literature site celebrating all things Literary. Last month, we were proud to have BOB MARLEY on The Cover with a featured Interview with Dennis Morris. This month, we have the Legendary Animator & Artist Jules Engel as our Official Guest Illustrator. Jules Engel transformed animation while working for Walt Disney on the ground breaking film: FANTASIA. Also, Exclusive Interviews with Photographers: Andrew Moore, Matt Schwartz and James Gabbard. We also bring you 10 questions with Filmmaker Tom Donahue, Book Store Owner Dennis Wills And Sculptor Colin Sherrell. We invite you backstage with Mark Murphy at REDCAT, Celebrate Miles Davis' 88Th Birthday, give an excerpt from The 'Chapter-A-Day' Novel: " They Call It The City Of Angels ". Plus a 24 Image Essay, Interviews with Tobey C. Moss & Tony Fitzpatrick,  Jack Kerouac's Letters, John Coltrane's Influence at Impulse and Elmer Bernstein's Classic Music for: To Kill A Mockingbird. Tap The Images & Links To Visit Some Of The Institutes. Many of The Ads and Images Are Live Links, so you must be On Line. Send Us an E Mail and You May Win A Complimentary Film From One of Our Advertising Sponsors: FIRST RUN FEATURES. We are also proudly welcoming back INDIE  Printing as an Official Advertising Sponsor for The Coming  Season.        

                                                                                 

A Reminder: Every Ad / Logo is a Live Link so tap & enjoy   - Joshua A. Triliegi  Editor - in - Chief



NEW FICTION:" They Call It The City of Angels "  
Chapter Eleven: Louis Junior / An Excerpt from Part One



The day you get out of the joint, they bring you into a room, and bust out a bag of things that were in your possession the day you got arrested. Fifteen plus years was a long time. He didn't even recognize the things they pulled out of the bag, kids stuff. Some cash, the keys to his car, the key to his Mom's old house, a leather belt with his name inlaid, a pack of smokes, they didn't even make that brand anymore, a wallet with a velcro strap along the top, inside it, a picture of his car, his mom and a school picture I.D. card of Josie. He looked  at the wallet, tossed it back in the bag: F*%#. He walked outside and was waiting for a feeling of relief, some moment of freedom, but nothing happened. He looked at the sky and for the first time in a decade, he felt safe enough to cry, so he did. That was his freedom, the ability to show his feelings and not care who saw him. Junior had built up his armor,  he was untouchable,  nobody could get to him. He had been tested at every level. He'd been betrayed, robbed, beat up, stabbed, lied to, yelled at, locked in the hole, stripped naked, reprimanded, punished and poisoned, but he had passed every test that came his way. 


He learned about loyalty, strength, inner silence, concentration, focus & to some degree, friendship. During the first few years, people entered and left, that was difficult. He later realized that the only people worth getting to know were those who were doing as much time or more, than you were. They'd always be there. You had to bond with someone dependable. Not that you could ever really depend on someone, but, having a connection in the kitchen or laundry or yard helped out. Most of the stuff couldn't even be understood by anyone on the outside. He had become an animal in a human zoo. It took him a couple hours to get use to the fact that no one was watching him, no doors were shutting in front of , and or,  behind him.  It didn't matter what time it was anymore. He  had  lived  a life of clockwork: bells, alarms, shouts and announcements on a p.a. system from the nineteen - thirties. It was now hard to fathom that he could do whatever he pleased.


Louis Junior had not been the first or only member of his family to do time. Many of his Uncles and cousins had done a few years, here and there. But nobody had ever spent more than a decade. The first day in prison, he remembered a story that his Uncle Ray had told him about spending time in prison. "The first guy who even looks at you sideways, or calls you out, no matter what color, no matter how big, no matter how crazy, no matter if he's a prisoner or a guard, no matter what, you have to beat the living shit out of the guy, no matter what."  So, that is what he did. It worked. Everyone left him alone, for a while. He eventually gave his mom permission to sell the car when she needed some money, as long as she promised to send him a few dollars, every now and then. A guy needed things and you had to pay someone sometimes just to get by.                                                     

Years past where he wouldn't even hear from anyone on the outside. Not even his dad, after Juniors Mom had a stroke, things were hard for Louis Senior, when he recovered, they began to write each other regularly and Junior would find that the old man had deposited a few dollars in his account. Which meant he could buy paper, stamps, a candy bar, this type of thing. Junior had been someone who really loved women. He had always loved his Grandmother, his Aunts, his Mom & of course Josie. During his stretch in the joint, it was the worst thing in the world to not spend time with a woman or a girl. All those years deprived of the basic & simple touch of a woman's hand, the sound of her voice, the smell of her clothes. Junior built up a world in his mind that was like a television show or a film or movie that he  could  repeat  over  and  over:  " The Summer of Junior and Josie ". Not unlike one he saw in school during a social studies class, the teacher wheeled out a television and everyone watched a show that had been produced for boston public television, he never forgot it, it was called, "James at 16", where this kid is trying to get through life and he's in love with this girl. One night, unbeknownst, they steal away and spend the night together out in the wild. 

He and Josie had done that, they'd gone swimming, they'd gone to see The Shylites, they'd seen Fernando pitch for the Dodgers, they even went to a freaky punk rock concert at a burnt out church in Hermosa beach one night. So, in his mind, he just relived it all, night after night, day after day, month after month, year after year. It was like a regular show with different episodes, a mix between "Chico and the Man", "The Partridge Family"  and  "James at 16". That was how he survived it all. There were about a dozen or so episodes and he just watched them over and over again. Of course there was that tragic last episode and unfortunately, he was forced to watch that one just as many times as the rest.


The one thing he realized right away was the fact that he had no friends, knew nobody and nobody really knew him. Alone. He had his dad, but that was not very solid. He had his sister and now she had three girls, but, all they had heard of him, was probably tainted. People feared ex-prisoners, mistrusted them,  were  suspicious  and  often  blamed  them  for whatever went wrong in their lives. He  had  heard  a thousand different stories through the years about guys returning home and coming right back due to some family member who dropped a dime because something had gone wrong. A valuable item had been misplaced or any number of things. He promised himself that he would never, ever go back, no way, no how, no, no, no. So as soon as he hit the street, he headed straight over to the outreach where he had been receiving letters from a priest. It took him half the day to get over there by bus and the other half to get back down to the harbor where his Dad, sister and little nieces lived.  The priest had explained that they needed guys like Junior. Everything on the streets of Los Angeles was changing. There had been a truce between several rival gangs and guys like Junior had a place in the church. "All right Father", he had said. " We have work for you, come back and see me tomorrow morning, we have a lot of work to do." The Father gave him five dollars for bus fair home, they shook hands and Junior walked back out into the street, a bit blinded by the light. He'd been living in dark grey hallways and closed quarters for years now, all this sunlight and open sky was new. 


Junior wasn't ready to see his old man and hadn't seen the old neighborhood where they had grown up, so he made it a point to check it out. When he got there, the house was gone, in fact the entire block was gone, it had been razed by the city and nothing at all had been built on it, just a chain link fence. Then he remembered hearing about how the local chemical factory had been polluting the fields directly behind their home and had to pack it in. They bought out anyone who could prove that they or their property had been damaged. Their family  had never even owned the property and by the time his mother found out she had ddt in her blood, a year had passed and it was too late to collect. She had been visiting a sister in Texas when it all went down, never even heard about it until after the fact. "Mom", he said out loud. He stared at the open field and looked up. A red tailed hawk circled overhead several times, it landed on the only tree in the entire field and screeched directly at him several times. 

The bus dropped him off in the harbor well after dark, he had been given the address and knew it was blocks away from where his Mother was buried. His old man had written that he      walked to her grave site daily. When Junior found their house, it was fully lit. A big house out of an old movie. He could see the table set for dinner through the windows & what must have been his niece's bicycles and toys splayed across the front yard. Music could be heard from the house next door and then he saw his sister Celia in a white cotton dress & what must have been her new husband, carrying  food from the kitchen into the living room. The house glowed with a picturesque energy that looked like something he couldn't relate to. It was almost too perfect to the point where, it seemed fake to him. He became scared that maybe he would say the wrong thing. What did he have to talk about ? Junior realized all of this was happening too soon, he wasn't ready for this at all. He walked back down  the  street  toward  the  waterfront and stared at the water for the next few hours.  When it got past midnight, he strolled back up the hill, opened the front gate and found a lawn chair under the tree in the backyard. He didn't really sleep anymore, so he just rested, looked at the stars & wondered what he would do with his life. After all the planning and scheming to stay alive and out of trouble while inside, Junior hadn't had much time to plan what to do when he finally got out. Well, he had his appointment with the Father tomorrow morning, guess he'd just take it one day at a time, as those dudes in the program say. Then, he couldn't help it, just like clockwork, he decided to watch another episode from "The Summer of Junior and Josie". The one where she can't stop laughing at his stupid jokes and they end up asleep in each others arms. When Junior awoke, it was morning, his brother in law handed him a cup of coffee in a big white mug that said, ' Support Your Local Police ', he looked kind of familiar.
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