This ephemeral banquet
Diaphanous as it is
Is so fleeting translucent but good.

I refuse to smell like death even in death.
Bury me in the fragrance of life!
Our scent goes on forever.

A proper Eu-dogly! Or a Kaddsh for my dog! We had to assist my dog to cross over yesterday, after 16 years with us, many seasons, many people and much art- and see his sisters again.
We’ve had three border collies over the years, but this one kept herding til the end! I am working on his Eu-dog-ly today for those angels who were around when he crossed over:

Jakob our oldest and last standing dog is ready to cross over. He’s been a part of several art communities across continents and our hearts for some time!
He is a humorist who has traveled with us through many seasons of our life’s journey.
He is jewish having been born with a built in yarmulke.
As a clown, he has helped us laugh during these difficult times we all live in, and helped us never take ourselves too seriously.
He will be missed. Yet, hopefully he will get to hang out soon with his two border collie sisters who are by now herding angels!
He’s been a very bonded and faithful dog to me (and even traveled with us to Europe many times!), and put up with being in many of my silent films, as he was a perfect black and white silent film star.
I’ll miss my side kick. I sort of regret teaching him to play dead for my silly films. But now I hope he plays his way through death into his next. At the end he stared right through my eyes to Jesus’! A better shepherd than me I’m sure!
May, as my mentor said in his last years, we have to play or rehearse death before we die. Death is not the end, as Dylan sang, but more a crossing over into a great and kind unknown.
Where our names and purposes come clear. I’m sure he is already herding angels with his sisters on that other plane or dimension where there is only life.
Jakob also would sit with me in my art studio for a whole painting. Bored, but happy that I’m creating something. He sits with me often as a make art.
Had a dream this week, as I often do, when I must make a hard call, or pay attention to something well (ie in my innermost spirit), a few nights ago, where he came to me and said he was ready for his next adventure. No passports are required, he joked:)!
He said it, as in a silent film, without speaking or even barking. Like Buster Keaton, just let his presence tell the tale! Ok, buddy, I’ll help you cross over.
See you soon, to my Jewish dog-that built in Yarmulke gave him away at all the borders we crossed (although he was not kosher, loved pork!) who lived to nearly 16 years, outlasting all our other collies by a mile or so. And who stayed funny until the end!
He was a pure breed border collie from a ranching family up north (his sister was rescued from Hurricane Katrina, but he came to us with no previous traumas—outside of having to live with two artists, I’m sure he is fine!), and herded even squirrels til the end.
But at the very end, I’ve been herding him. He is ready to herd above, or in that other home just near us, where we all sort of already live, I’m passing him on to a better Shepherd I’m sure! Not sure what needs herding up there, but he’ll find it!
Lastly, his favorite music that I would play was gypsy music. He was nomadic like me, and had a circus spirit.
Alas, the merrymakers down here are getting fewer. But, I’m sure we will all return, and maybe they need them over there now. But, we could certainly use a few more clowns down here these days as well.
A clown exit is a difficult lament, in that it needs to be funny as well as sad. I’ve done lots of funerals as I grew up the son of a minister and a wedding director, and funerals are often more meaningful than weddings.
But, a clown’s funeral needs to lead to the type of laugher that makes one cry. Like life or Klezmer music—if you speed it up, it works at weddings, slow it down, at funerals. At least mine and Jakob’s have been, a type of Klezmer song.
God bless the merrymakers below and above! And may they all receive my dog Jakob in Love!
Each creature has a name and story, and we are blessed to share life with them, and as a friend always says, we don’t deserve dogs.
And that one upstaged me with his clownish humor. And taught me to be a better more humble and ready person, while here.
Blessed are the merrymakers, as Jeremiah told us. And bless Jakob as he joins the truly Big Top Circus above!
Even though he ate his own tail, which is another tale to tell at another time! But a true story.
The creatures are less interrupted in love than us. We are afraid of one another, afraid of life, defensive and at times, just rude.
He preached a different way. His trust shown through his David Bowie eyes (one blue one yellow gold) as he stared into mine into Christ’s, as he passed, proved it to me. Love overcomes death.
He just acquiesced as few people I’ve seen. He surrendered into Love. His last silent sermon was about trusting that we are all loved and named! Love continues, was his last sermon. And love is eternal, I’ll add as Jakob’s footnote.
See you soon friend!

Notes towards a Kaddish for my dog…..still circling around it, like him, a black and white border collie now herding in heaven….

My Jewish dog of many years, is crossing over tomorrow: A Kaddish for Jakob, the most clownish dog I’ve known and even ate his own tail!

Rest ,then run in Peace and adventure….an obituary for my dog: Thankful for each creature I get privileged to know. What a gift life is by itself, much less getting to know the creatures and co-tend (they us, us them) as we go….as my friend says, we don’t really deserve dogs!

Jakob our oldest and last standing dog is ready to cross over. He’s been a part of several art communities across continents and our hearts for some time!
He is a humorist who has traveled with us through many seasons of our life’s journey.
He is jewish having been born with a built in yarmulke.
As a clown, he has helped us laugh during these difficult times we all live in, and helped us never take ourselves too seriously.
He will be missed. Yet, hopefully he will get to hang out soon with his two border collie sisters who are by now herding angels!
He’s been a very bonded and faithful dog to me (and even traveled with us to Europe!), and put up with being in many of my silent films, as he was a perfect black and white silent film star.
I’ll miss my side kick. I sort of regret teaching him to play dead for my silly films. But now I hope he plays his way through death into his next. May, as my mentor said in his last years, we have to play or rehearse death before we die. Death is not the end, as Dylan sang, but more a crossing over into a great and kind unknown.
Jakob also can sit with me in my art studio for a whole painting. Bored, but happy that I’m creating something. He sits with me often as a make art.
Had a dream this week, as I often do, when I must make a hard call, or pay attention to something well (ie in my innermost spirit), a few nights ago, where he came to me and said he was ready for his next adventure.
He said it, as in a silent film, without speaking or even barking. Like Buster Keaton, just let his presence tell the tale! Ok, buddy, I’ll help you cross over.
See you soon, to my Jewish dog who lived to nearly 16 years, outlasting all our other collies by a mile or so. And who stayed funny until the end!
He was a pure breed border collie from a ranching family, and herded even squirrels til the end.
But at the very end, I’ve been herding him. He is ready to herd above, I’m sure. Not sure what needs herding up there, but he’ll find it!
Lastly, his favorite music that I would play was gypsy music. He was nomadic like me, and had a circus spirit.
Alas, the merrymakers down here are getting fewer. But, I’m sure we will all return, and maybe they need them over there now. But, we could certainly use a few more clowns down here these days as well.
A clown exit is a difficult lament, in that it needs to be funny as well as sad. I’ve done lots of funerals as I grew up the son of a minister and a wedding director, and funerals are often more meaningful than weddings. But, a clown’s funeral needs to lead to the type of laugher that makes one cry. Like life or Klezmer music—if you speed it up, it works at weddings, slow it down, at funerals. At least mine and Jakob’s have been, a type of Klezmer song.
God bless the merrymakers below and above! And may they all receive my dog Jakob in Love! He’s a clown worth keeping around! But it’s his time to move on to the Really Big Top! We have a pretty good one down here for the carneys and freaks and those who just want to be, but not as good or grand as that one above, I’m sure!
And for the record, this dog ate his own tail, which a whole other tale to tell.
But he literally ate his own tail. We still have the X-rays! The doctors were shocked. He was staying at a kennel which flooded at the time. He got anxious, and just chewed off his own tail. Not the best response, but a unique one!
I buried my first dog Frieda, but let me just say burying an animal in Texas soil is hard. This one will be cremated. May his ashes rise up from the earth in black and white and color, and bring us more Peace and Humor and a rainbow of hope, in hard times. He would want that.
And maybe, he will get back his tail for doing so well on earth!
Even Jeremiah, called forth the merrymakers! Jakob was one. Maybe he’ll meet Jeremiah!
Of course, there is a heaven for animals, but they slip in easier under Grace’s watch than most of us. He will steal the show, I’m sure! And get his tail back.

On what prayer and art see:

I’m tired, feel forged

But authentic

I’m sick but feel strangely well

I look out, and see the devastations-

The constellations of linguistic entropy and enmity…

While all is actually gathering into itself in Love.

But they, see them all simultaneously

Amended, made well, whole. Strange

To see things whole when they are

So clearly fragmented now. Prayer is

My best guess or wrist watch to wear. Or, real art,

for that matter

For all that follows.

For prayer and art see things more

For what they are

Despite the times.

And they both speak, accordingly.

I’m tired, feel forged
But authentic
I’m sick but feel strangely well
I look out, and see the devastations-
The constellations of entropy
While all is actually gathering into itself.
But see them all simultaneously
Amended, made well, whole. Strange
To see things whole when they are
So clearly fragmented. Prayer is
My best guess. Or, real art,
For all that follows.
For prayer sees things
For what they are
Despite the times.
And speaks accordingly.

I know her….

That corner in Antwerp, where you can see the last 100 years in one crossing of the street, just around pub time. Later afternoon, when people stop to have a beer before evening.
The crucifix in the shopping district as people eat their sandwiches at lunch, never looking up at Him. But feeling Him still there.
Sunday mornings, the only one’s out the Orthodox Jews who finally get a day off and want to look at the high stores.
In front of the opera, the few theater folks in the pub that only serves two beers and waits for Saturday market between the perfectly lined trees. The chickens and cheese at those open markets.
The rhythms of the week in Antwerp, as everyone stops at the eagle fountain to soak their feet and let their children jump in to what appears to be, the least of fountains ever, with a tourist waffle stand beside it. Still people sit and take their kids photos as the Meir walkers stream by.
The old folks pub near but not next to the cathedral, where they serve Orval at room temp, and rarely have Americans.
The writers pub down the street that still only hires artist and novelist gather daily, and serve yellow and green capped best beers in the world, and where you always end up talking art and life and the about the angels and angles of light that day which visited.
Even the old mall, where people gather earlier in the day, the upstairs cafe for the elderly and tech seekers.
The supermarket downstairs, with the best produce I’ve ever seen.
And then the tea garden and wealthy district where one can still hear Spanish spoken.
The coldness of the embassies with the warm of Jesuit square, mixed with a good French sandwich in winter, and that older pub that serves white Belgian ales, and caters to the old in evenings, and the Art academy students the rest of the day. Antwerp, my friend who I know.
To the smell of bookshops and the pleasure of long tables where everyone is welcomed. And to layering of fashion in gloomy rain.
Antwerp is my Jerusalem in my heart. And I know her by heart.
I know her past, I know her now, and who she may become! Curious friend and lover, Antwerp is to me. And a type of home while I am displaced in my own.
In know her, like I know my wife—all her moods and sunset and sunrises, and rest. And when she just rest in herself. I know her there.
I know her like a knew my grandmother’s hands. I traced them over and over, until I knew where she had come from, where she was in life, and where she might go next!

Journal notes from the……
Life of a post-modern nomad:

I’ve always needed to be part of many scenes. Even in high school, I needed to be with the theater kids, the athletes, and the musicians all at once. I liked being a part of many scenes. That hasn’t changed.
I had a dream recently, I was living in Berlin, Prague and somewhere in America, all at once, and bridging people together from all those local scenes, and being fully myself in each!
I had maps of all of them, and also knew each place by heart. So I could orient people from one place or city to another, and help haven them as they conversed.
The common language in the dream was art or creativity, but I myself, was tri-cultural. I knew each city like a friend, so could help my friends meet up and exchange and collaborate.
I’ve been like that since I was a kid. I knew each street of people in my neighborhood, which happened to be multi-racial where I grew up, and I would introduce the neighborhoods and often races of people to one another.
My “role” was to network and bridge them all; not just so they got along, but so they could collaborate creatively.
Like synovial fluid in the body helping all the parts get along and stay in dialogue!

Yet, there are challenges to living in many places at once. But it is the only life I’ve known.
Even in my real life, I left my hometown, and made many other places my hometown. I lived all over my country. And was not a tourist, but a local in each.
I have always felt like Johnny Depp in that movie Chocolate. Or like the movie Zelig—and outsider, insider, all my life.

Yes, a bit of a pirate or global photo-bomber, but more someone who goes from place to place and loves and hopefully adds to each with the same authentic gusto!

I remember once in south of France, being welcomed to a funeral of a local. They asked me to speak, and took me in afterwards. Again, in Croatia, as the first “American” in this small village, they put me on the front page of their local paper. I’m not sure why, other than the novelty of a stranger, or perhaps because I helped them pick up trash all weekend.

Once I saw a play about a man’s life. He showed each stage of his life all at once instead of linear. So you saw all the stages of his life simultaneously! I related to that play. Life, or at least mine, is a huge collage, or a great piece of street art! That has films made about it later.

Anyway, this play I saw in Brooklyn, had both vertical and horizontal stages and settings, all with different lighting and tone. But the audience could see them all at once. And could enter the story of his life at any stage it chose.
Like a collage or montage—that’s my life!
Or a cubist painting, where you can enter the same scene or identity from any angle and hear the echo of the same story.
All of us have narratives or pathways. Same identity, but many versions. The inner identity is the constant in each chapter or scene, but the costumes are entirely unique to each stage of life.
Same person, as a baby, teenager, adult and old age, but different nuances of expression.
Bob Dylan is the same person he was back then, but now, is expressing it through old age.

On needing to live in three places at once, but be present in all of them:

Most people have one scene they are a part of, and one stage to live it out on. I need at least three.
I need my other settings as well as this one. I need three scenes going on at once like the play I saw by Robert Wilson with music by Tom Waits. I need three projects of life happening at once.
Three plays in one, all occurring simultaneously.
Each with its own set, scene and lighting. But I can’t exist on only one stage like the modernist. I am more post-modern in that way. I have three plays happening at once in three places. Just the type of actor I am.
To live in Austin, San Fran, and Antwerp and Prague simultaneously. To have several scenes of which I am apart of, is my way.
I am ok with being a part of many scenes at once. As post-modernism has many eras in one building, and at its best is integrating them into one conversation.
Backwards and forwards through time, making each era reside in the present.
Like a great play does. And I want to be a great play.
One you can watch over and over and each time, get something new.
My life is a collage like that. From when I was a kid singing, “I’m not a boy, I’m Derek DeMonte” (a song I used to sing to myself through my father’s church hallways!), to now, where I make art, and try to encourage people to be themselves—as hard, at times, as that may be.
I’m into us being who we are, and I am someone who must live in many places at once. I’m ok with that. Hope it helps others.
Tri-cultural; ti-locational; same person in all of them. It doesn’t mean I’m not here; it means I’m in many “here’s”. To be a local everywhere, and to have many places on earth to be a local, has been my way. Derek, means way. This is my way. It’s not easy being Green, as Kermit the frog said, but it’s even tougher being green red and yellow. I’m trying to be a primary color!
Not everyone needs to be like me, but I am.
I now have friends, real friends, all over the world, due to my way. I’m most thankful for that. I can’t tour as often as when I was younger, but even Paris and the circus is inside me now. So I’ve learned to pray.
And when I dream, I could be anywhere in the world, and still be myself. It started as an adventure, and ended or started again, as internal cinema or a play about all the places I truly loved, and being myself in all of them.
Hope it’s a good play. So far, I’ve enjoyed the role! But, I’m a method actor, so I sort of become the role as I go!
(As for the only drawbacks: well you can’t be at everyone’s wedding, funeral, birthday or graduation; and your blood family, may get slightly neglected, but your spiritual family expands to include the stars, as they say!) Ad espera dia.
Each of us must become and live out our stories. I’m trying to live out and become mine. I’m a multiplex cinema studio, and God is the Projectionist, I pray!
My last dream, I will share here, is this: An older elderly father was filming me, as I filmed others. At one point, we looked at one another in mutual recognition. The Seer, watching a seer seeing. Like a Wim Wender’s film where he is beholding another artist. The whole dream, was also on an enormous stage. The Father had the lead role!
More to come from a person who must live in at least three places at once.
I’ll probably make this into a play one day, as soon as I find the right stages.