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| Jack Spiegelman curses at the wind as it blows another one of his paintings face down onto the ground. He is standing behind a table that is covered with his artwork, squinting into the wind as curious customers browse his stuff at the Montrose Farmer’s Market. His eyes are dark and his brow is furrowed. There’s a constant look of judgment on his face. He says, “This fucking wind!” Spiegelman graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in English. He says, “I’m a writer that paints.” He has been painting for 15 years on and off, and says that he has only really gotten busy with it the past four or five years. Spiegelman grew up in Buffalo, New York and now lives in Southern California where he writes, paints, and teaches ESL classes part-time for three hours a day. He has been a cab driver in San Francisco, worked in the advertising business, and been in construction. Spiegelman eyes a man with a camera around his neck who is flipping through his smaller prints that are in a box on the table. The man finally notices Spiegelman looking at him and asks, “These by you?” Which he answers with a short, “Yeah.” Either he’s not trying to sell his work, or he thinks this guy isn’t worth the effort. Either way, the cameraman takes off muttering, “They’re nice” to himself. Spiegelman has a New York accent and a look that he gives people that seems to say, “You really just ask that? What are ya some kinda dumbshit?” His eyes bore into people when he isnt looking away or at the ground and he speaks with a matter-of-fact tone. He laughs at some of his customers. One woman comes up to his table and frowns as she says, “These people look so sad” (referring to the paintings). Spiegelman says: "They arent sad--they're depressed". Spiegelman said in a fake Esquire interview that he wrote, “Its better to be completely wrong than right in a half-assed way.” He’s after honesty in his writing. He says, “The best material, hands down, comes from your family and friends.” This is also the most difficult to write about, though. He says, “They don’t want you to write about them but write about them you must. It’s the writers curse”. Spiegelman says he lost a good friend because of a story he published in LA Weekly. He says, “It was a good story—flattering. She was a painter. I said it was only when it came to men that her instincts betrayed her. Whats so bad about that?” Spiegelman teaches ESL because it allows him plenty of time to write and paint. When he talks about the advantages of teaching ESL he says, “Its stimulating, its creative, its fun. The students are great. Its the perfect job for a writer". He also likes the diversity of the class. “It gives him something to react to and write about,” says Lisa Skylar, a friend of Spiegelman. Spiegelman is busy trying to share himself with the world using writing and painting as his media. Skylar describes his writing as “very personal.” “He likes to be outside of the norm,” she says. “He wants people to read his work and be surprised because they’ve never read anything like it.” She describes Spiegelman as, “very Jack.” Skylar says, “Jack is a real individual with a strong sense of self. He’s very set in his ways.” She says that this is why he is such a strong writer, because he is stubborn and transfers his voice so well into his writing. Spiegelman writes in an abrupt frenzy. He has no time for apostrophes and long words. Maybe it’s that they get in the way of what he’s trying to say to his readers. Unnecessary clutter. In an essay he did about the “ad biz” he writes, Into Steves office. Steve also had a nice office. Here the view was west across midtown with the Empire State bldg poking up like a giant mechanical pencil. Spiegelman writes with periods, not commas. Earlier in the same piece, he writes, I drove a cab…It wasn’t bad. I drove nites in San Francisco. I got to know the city and encountered some wacky people. I was not bored. There was one problem. It was a job that the day you started was as far as you would get. Even his artwork displays an abbreviated signature, “Spieg”, which is usually scrawled in black. Spiegelman is gruff at first glance, and underneath his tough shell there is a coarse comic side. In one of his pieces, Spiegelman wrote, The most hideous torture, hands down, is being locked in a room listening to mariachi music. Threaten me with that one and I would turn in my Grandmother. Skylar says, “He is like an uncle to our family. He is great with kids.” Spiegelman once blew up his old driver’s license picture, in which Skylar says he looked like an ex-con, and gave it to one of her children. “He makes them laugh, and he loves the attention…He even writes fake reviews for his books and essays,” Skylar says. Spiegelman is also a cook and a golfer. Skylar says that Spiegelman shows skill and patience in the kitchen. “I love working with him when we cook. Not many people have the amount of patience that Jack does in the kitchen,” says Skylar. As people shuffle past his table, Spiegelman greets them with short hellos. The ones who don’t try too hard to make conversation don’t stay for long, but the persistent ones do stop for a while. He converses with fellow artists and workers at the market. One thing remains constant in the visits, the people all leave with smiles on their faces. |
| I got an email from Tyler Colville—someone I don’t know. Says he is a student at Occidental College enrolled in a journalism class taught by Bob Sipchen—someone I do know. Bob is a friend and for many years a writer/editor over at the Times (also a winner of the Pulitzer prize) Tyler says he has an assignment—to interview an interesting person. But, as he explained to “Professor” Sipchen, he doesnt know an interesting person. So Bob gives him my name, says this may suffice. Thus the email. I invited the kid to visit me at Montrose—the farmers market event on Sunday where I peddle my paintings and prints. He shows up and we do the interview. I liked the kid, seems like a good kid, smart and, very important, well behaved—manners. Some days later I get another request—to interview a friend or friends. Why not? At my age I have nothing (or almost nothing) to hide. My only concern is the quality of the writing. I would rather have a good writer write an unflattering piece than vice versa. He writes the piece, emails it along and I was impressed and thought all the many devoted readers of bflowriter.com would enjoy it as well. |