Capturing Beauty
Chapter One
Capturing The Lone Monterey Cypress
“To date, Trattner and Hotelling agree, Pebble Beach Company has never sued an artist or photographer over pictures of the Lone Cypress.”
Last night I talked to Marilyn Reed on the phone about the article I read about the Lone Cypress, and the Pebble Beach Company who owns it in so many perplexing ways. They threatened to sue an artist they caught with his easel doing a plein air painting of the most recognized object in the world after the Mona Lisa. A billion earthlings have fallen in love with this beautiful tree perched on a outcropping of dramatic rocks at the edge of the Pacific Ocean. This is a ‘Last Stand’ – a theatrical scene! This Majestic Cypress has escaped the ugliness in America, ran to the edge, and threatened to take her life if anyone come near to defile her.
Well, she has been defiled. A group of rich dudes – who are not artists – now own her, and only have an interest in making a buck. These are pimps. The Cypress is their Star Whore. I am reminded of my late sister, the famous Carmel Artist, Rosamond, who drowned in the ocean in 1994 after being swept off other dramatic rocks at Rocky Point by a “rogue wave”. Rogue means “lone”. as in rogue wolf. Rogue Tree.
Marilyn is my childhood sweetheart. She told me she rented the movie ‘Big Eyes’ the night before. We compared this movie to Rosamond’s success. Christine Rosamond Benton rendered these beautiful Bohemian women with large eyes suspended in her infamous “empty space” that three rival biographers, and countless blogs, read much into. They spied with their little eyes, so much, but, they had next to nothing to say. Not one of them are artists. I was reviled, even threatened with attorneys if I did not sign the Exclusive Rights Contract one author sent me that would have legally forbid me to write a word about my late sister that emerged from the same womb I did.
I told Marilyn I was having trouble exploiting myself, and, after starting several novels I have yet to finish, I concluded I was a blogger.
“Every day I blog. This is what I love to do. I am not a poet, a artist, a theologian, a architect, a hippie, a novelist. I am the Man Captured in the Gideon Computer. There have never been men like me. We are twenty years old. This is the end of my life.”
This morning I arose, went to my computer, and searched for the owners of the Lone Cypress. I am – AMAZED! Alas, I am at the epicenter of Rosamond’s Labyrinth.
One of the owners is Arnold Palmer whom I caught checking out Marilyn’s sixteen year old ass at her friend Cathy’s house. Our eyes met, and he blushed. Cathy was dating a announcer for ABC Golf. He might have done that new show that began that year at Pebble Beach. WHAT!!!!
Now hold your horses! Another owner of the Rogue Tree, is – Clint Eastwood! GET OUT OF TOWN!
Clint was present when Rosamond presented he portrait of Jimmy Stuart to this famous actor. Clint was the Mayor of Carmel at the time. Christine Rosamond had two galleries in Carmel. Her partner in the first gallery was a financial advisor for the Getty family. My friend, Paul Drake, met with Clint, alone, and was hired to star as Mick in ‘Sudden Impact’. Clint’s wife, Susan Lockley stars in this Detective flick. She is an artist and moves into a famous house where she does a self-portrait that looks like a combination of Mick and herself. I brought this up with Paul, saying Mick was consuming her soul, she now a serial-killer. Paul was spooked. He thought he was a actor playing a bad guy, and was in control. Now he has been sucked into a twisted psychological Art Game, where life does imitate art. Indeed, Paul Drake, the actor, appears to be the creation of the great recluse, Thomas Pynchon, who my ex was married to, and lived in Mexico with him, if you call that living.
It was my ex-wife, Mary Ann Tharaldsen, who encouraged Paul to try acting, she saying he looked like Stacey Keach. She had given Paul a tour of her artwork on the wall. My friend had stared at the infamous ‘Pig Man’ that Thomas Pynchon believed was a portrait of him, big teeth and all. I think he looks like Paul and Mick. Pynchon’s movie ‘Inherent Vice’ is a BUST! It is a Dirty Hairy Hippie flick. In another chapter I will make a case for Eastwood’s movies being Art Movies because he is a closeted Bohemian, a ‘Hippie Killer’ on the outside in denial of his roots. Also, I will make a case that America is divided into two camps, the Pynchonites, and the Clintonians. Together they sustain the Great and Lost American Exaggeration.
I am also going to author a detective story called ‘Ten Old Duffers’ based upon ‘Ten Little Indians’. It is about ten golfing greats that are over the hill, but, they can not retire because they purchased a old golf course they thought would take off due to the owner’s fame. But, this was not to be. They will never break even. Now a rogue fan is creeping up on them and knocking them off, putting them out of their misery before they can destroy the reputation of golf. Clint, if you want my story, send me an e-mail.
duffer
: a person who plays golf without much skill
: a clumsy or awkward person
What is really strange, Clint owned a famous house that was designed by the architect who built the house at Rocky Point where Rosamond was invited to stay the night by a fan who I can not find the name of. It was Paul who turned me onto Anton Wilson and his Net of Coincidence. My friend Bryan McLean was invited to the Tate home the night Manson showed up. Bryan was an artist who dated Christine in High School. Pynchon and Eastwood dance around the hell-fire that Manson’s Women fueled out in the desert wilderness. I watched the opening of ‘The Dead Pool’ last night. Pynchon is in my FAMILY TREE, as is Mel Lyman who allegedly admired Charlie.
https://rosamondpress.com/2014/07/06/pynchon-connects-with-manson/
In the Monterey Superior Court are filed papers wherein I say our family history and creative legacy should not be sold to outsiders, who will exploit and ruin it, but instead should be preserved for talented and created members of my family for generations to come. I did a plein air painting of the sea at Malibu during a rain-shower! I was half-mad after Marilyn and I broke up. I was having a identity crisis. At seventeen, my life was over. I was dying of a broken heart.
“You see, Marilyn. I am alone. I have set my easel up before the Lone Cypress. Everyone I know, but you, are on the other side of that tree, hanging five with the Big Buck Boys! I will never realize any money from my art.”
When I read Tom Snyder’s biography I learned for the first time members of my family, and some of our friends, looted Christine’s house after the funeral. It was a ‘Home Invasion’. I asked my friend, Michael Harkins to go with me because this is par for the course. Michael was a Private Detective, and a good friend of Jim Morrison, and the Beat Poet, Michael McClure. Stone’s people wanted my good friends to contribute his movie. Pynchon’s hip detective, is pure fiction.
“Before the service, Vicki had taken the trouble to go through Christine’s bedroom, putting her jewelry and intimate belongings out of sight. As matters tunrned out, it did little good. For the funeral was not long over before family members and others were ravaging Christine’s house, taking whatever could be carted away. The artist’s closet – a veritable mother lode – took the worst beating. World-class spender that Chrsitne had been, much of the clothing had never been worn. So whatever still bore price tags was hauled off to be exhanged for money. Jewelry disapeared, as well as other personal belongings. Gallery employees and close friends of the family, along with Vicki, were doing their best to staunch the flow –the estate had not been inventories – but to little avail.”
“Carted away.” I love this term. I see a cart with wooden wheels being pilled down the cobbled road, it filled to the brim with booty, taken from the monastery by Viking Raiders, or, from the Palace Versailles by uncultured ragamuffins who are getting their revenge on the “World-class spender”. How about golf carts? Did one of Stone’s script-readers gaze upon the strangest paragraph in history, in wonderment, then, toss it on the Read Pile? I mean, to render this artist a immortal, her whole family had to be thrown into the vain bomb-fire. Why?
“Protection of your material from later use for improper, or sensational purposes.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Versailles
Around high noon, I read that Palmer and Eastwood (and others) are about $600 million dollars in debt, and will die that way. They will never pay off the loan. This tree is in theory, in DEFAULT, and the investors, insolvent. But, you can’t do that to these good ol’ boys, do what was done to my beautiful sister just before she died. She was pushed to the brink of economic disaster. This tree………..is my sister!
I don’t owe a soul a dime. The executor of Christine’s estate gave permission for the outsider who came to own everything, to author a biography, and make a movie deal.in order to increase waning sales of the Rosamond Women. It was suggested Eastwood make a movie from the book ‘The Kingdom of Golf’ in order to attract more visitors to Pebble Beach. Someone else made Clint’s movie.
http://golfinthekingdommovie.com/
A couple of years ago I made a video to promote the golf game I invented. It cost me nothing to make this video in Blue River Oregon surrounded by beautiful trees. The star of my golf movie, is Michael Dundon. Our nephew was out at Rocky Point. When Michael learned the couple downstairs from Rose Dundon had slipped Christine a Micky Fynn, and filmed her while they raped her, he came after them. He kicked down their and found the wife hiding in the closet, pointing a gun at him. He snatched it from here hand. This did not get Tom Snyder’s or Julie Lynch’s biography of Rosamond. The lie that was told to sell more of Rosamond’s art was eluded to in a gallery bio, is retold. Lynch claimed Christine hid in the closet in order to render works of art as a child, because, Rosemary only wanted me to be a world famous artist. This was lifted from ‘Mommy Dearest’ that had just come out. This is why Rosamond is titled a “closeted artist”. I was four when I caught ‘The Sneaky One’ and ran and got my Mommy.
Michael bought my sister her first art supplies in 1972. Nothing bad ever happened to Eastwood, but the terrible deal he made when he came to own the Pebble Beach Golf Course. So, he takes it out on all the artists who render an image of his tree. Consider the movie ‘Paint Your Wagon’.
https://goquette.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/play-goquette/
Christine Rosamond Benton’s first biographer quit the project after I pointed out to the Court appointed Executor, Sydney Morris, Faulkner’s interviews and notes belong to my two nieces. My surviving sister showed me the 276 autobiography Christine had begun, that has disappeared. Below is a legal letter Morris filed with the Probate in response to Shannon Rosamond Benton’s attempt to take charge of the Artistic Legacy her mother Willed to her and her half-sister, Drew Benton who was eight when her mother died.
“Over the intervening years, Respondent kept the estate open in hope that there would be a surge of interest in the descendant’s work. A biography of the decedant was written, and efforts continue to negotiate the movie rights to the inventory, pay creditors, and have something left for distribution to Petitioner and her sister. Because the Petitioner has a history of erratic behavior and instability Respondent felt that keeping the estate open as a vehicle for preserving and managing the estate assets in the hope their value would increase, was a prudent decision.”
While Christine was being raped downstairs, three year old Shannon was upstairs with Rose. I came to Shannon’s defense as my family and the outsiders they blessed, knew I would. This is why I was not invited to the meeting held at Christine’s house in Pacific Grove the day after she drowned. These un-gifted parasites wanted to believe the waning interest in Rosamond’s women would “surge” after she was “killed” by a huge wave that is associated with a Tsunami. In a letter to Morris, I said he better produce several art critics to testify to Rosamond’s standing in the Art World. Rosamond was a Commercial Artist, and, her Commercialism should have died when she did, because, she painted for the money – for herself!
Clint Eastwood does not give a rat’s ass about that Lone Cypress. In the article below the author suggests there were Big Egos involved. Was Clint incensed that a Jap had come to own a symbol of Right-wing America?
“When contemplating ownership of Pebble Beach, the intangibles of ego must blur the bottom line of return on investment.
How else can one explain the $820 million paid by actor/director Clint Eastwood, golfer Arnold Palmer, former Major League Baseball Commissioner and 1984 Los Angeles Olympics Chairman Peter Ueberroth and former United Air Lines CEO Richard Ferris and a slew of limited partners–including top execs of GE, stockbroker Charles Schwab and lender Bank of America?
Much like when Minoru Isutani”s Cosmo World Inc. bought Pebble Beach in September 1990 for $841 million, the new owners apparently haven”t thought about return on investment as much as they”ve inflated their egos.”
One has to wonder if the Rosamond Consortium of Bad – but sane – Business People, rather than admit they are such, concluded the only way to rejuvenate the waning sales of Rosamond’s Beautiful Women, was to kill the erratic artist. Sydney Morris seems to be applying the legal terms of this capitalist adventure. In our only conversation, on the phone, after I told him there is no real death scene, he asked if I read the book ‘Murder By Accident’ that is about a local man who took a huge policy out on his wife, and then took her to see the big sea, and the pounding waves.
“Are you sure that’s the last rogue wave of the day, Charles?”
I sent the ACLU a long and eloquent letter wherein I made the case that my dead sister was being used as a whore by those who purchased our family history. Indeed, all members of my family were being used – after Morris declared my niece too mentally ill to handle the legacy her mother left her. In their fake biography, Christine is rendered mentally ill. When my sixteen year old daughter I did not know I had, came into my life, she declared in writing – I was extremely mentally ill. Her stage-mother took her to a gallery opening in order to get her Star into the Rosamond bio. Because the outsiders still wanted my story, they told these strangers they had best tell me – I have a daughter! Her aunt demanded I get a blood test because a close relative raped her when she was a child – and I might be an imposter! Heather told me her aunt was a ‘Gold Digger’.
Christine, Shannon, myself, and Drew Benton, are the family artists. Vicki Presco – a non-artist – tried to get Drew on SSI because she too is mentally ill, and broke! Vicki dropped out as No.1 named Executor in Rosamond’s Will.
“If you”re a lone artist out there, you”d be taking a big risk,” Burns says. “There”s a deterrent effect.” And while a First Amendment group might be willing to take such a case on a pro-bono basis, she doesn”t hold out much hope of that happening. “It”s a very political battle,” she points out. “Firms may be unwilling to touch it because of that.”
The legal angle I might pursue, is, that all this Creative Business Insanity might be O.K. if it had worked, if at least one person got any money. After all, this has to be WHY Shannon’s legacy was rested from her in a probate court – to make money!
For sure the Pebble Beach Company investors will not be realizing any profits – for a coon’s age. And there it sit, just of the coast like an Angry Whirlpool, a Rogue Vortex, like the one that sucked in all members of my family. Ignoring the WARNING, here they come, one brave Business Gallahad after another, they convinced they are worthy to pull the sword from the stone.
“New sources of revenue could include corporate sponsorships at the Open next year, an increase of such partnerships as American Express, Cadillac (they provide the Pebble Beach limousines) and maybe a new tournament in addition to the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.”
Is Mother Nature getting her revenge? Consider Helen of Troy, and the face that launched a thousand ships – Japanese ships coming to America to launder Crime Money? Below is an article that claims Minoru Isutani, the former owner of Pebble Beach, is a crime boss who is using country clubs to launder money. There was another Japanese firm, Lone Pine Company. There is a Vegas connection. In a letter to the Attorney General of California I suggest Rosamond prints were being used for a illegal tax right-off. My father was laundering drug money in Mexico, and had his last wife smuggled over the border in a Marijuana shipment. Looks like a job for Harry Hallahan, but, he is a fictional character. Can you see why they don’t want me to do a literary sketch of sister? I am all alone in my investigation. Is nothing……sacred?
Yesterday, two killers associated with ISIS died of expert head-shots when they showed up to slaughter a roomful of cartoonists who were being used by a rabid right-wing Zionist to further her anti-Islamic Crusade. Like goats tethered to a stake, she baited the tiger. Harry, is that you?
http://articles.latimes.com/1993-03-16/news/mn-463_1_high-roller-s-past
Below is a photograph of Marilyn Reed, taken at Malibu Beach by the famous fashion photographer, Steven Silverstein, six years after we broke up in 1963. I did a painting of this image. Christine took up art when she was twenty-four after seeing the painting I did of Rena Easton.
Jon Presco
Copyright 2015
“Maybe Eastwood will film Golf in the Kingdom, based on Michael Murphy”s book, at Pebble Beach, thus increasing visitorship. Eastwood bought the book”s film rights a couple of years ago.”
http://www.silversteinphotography.net/
A JAPANESE LAUNDRY WORTH $1 BILLION?
He remains a legend in Las Vegas. Flying in from Tokyo on his private DC-9, often accompanied by dozens of his friends, Ken Mizuno would hit the baccarat pits at the glittery Mirage Hotel & Casino, at times dropping $100,000 on a single hand. Local officials estimate that over a three-year period, Mizuno lost as much as $60 million at the tables. The problem was, law-enforcement officials in the U.S. and Japan now believe, the cash wasn’t his to spend.
Mizuno himself was arrested in Tokyo last summer and has pleaded not guilty to fraud and tax evasion; his attorney did not return BUSINESS WEEK’s telephone calls. But officials on both sides of the Pacific are convinced that the property developer is one of dozens of money-laundering foot soldiers working for Japan’s powerful yakuza organized-crime networks. “There’s more money-laundering activity by them than drug trafficking” in the U.S., says Jim E. Moody, chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s erganized-crime and drug section. In all, other FBI officials estimate, upwards of $1 billion in illicit money was channeled to the U.S. as Japanese mobsters joined in the real estate boom of the 1980s.
COMMON TARGETS. U.S. Customs and FBI officials are said to be looking into the $108 million purchase in 1988 of the famed Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles by a construction company owned by Kaneno and Noboru Watanabe, a father-son team with alleged ties to Shin Kanemaru. Kanemaru, the longtime power broker of Japanese politics, resigned from the Diet last autumn after the discovery that he had accepted an illegal campaign donation from the head of a delivery service with yakuza ties.
The Watanabes, in a letter to Riviera members, denied a May 2 Los Angeles Times report that they and their company used dirty money to buy the club, although they admit knowing Kanemaru. “Mr. Noboru Watanabe has advised us that there is no ground for the allegations,” Riviera General Manager Peter J. Pino wrote in the May 4 letter. BUSINESS WEEK did not reach Kanemaru for comment.
The Riviera is just the kind of investment Japanese crime families might covet. The networks earn an estimated $10 billion a year from drugs, prostitution, and other illegal activities, according to the Japanese National Police. They pour much of the proceeds into investment companies, which “systematically infiltrate” cash-churning U.S. and Japanese businesses “to launder their illegal funds,” according to an FBI report. Golf clubs have been common targets (table).
There are several ways the money could travel. Mizuno is charged with overselling by about 20 times memberships in his Ibaraki Country Club, two hours north of Tokyo, then funneling the excess cash into U.S. investments–notably two golf clubs that now have been seized by U.S. Customs as security for his Japanese debts. But organized-crime leaders also infiltrated Japanese banking institutions, helping to secure loans for front companies they established, the FBI says.
Such activity has been widely assumed in Japan but was not well-known in the U.S. until last August, when an informant with ties to the yakuza told a Senate subcommittee that he had firsthand knowledge of at least 50 transactions to buy properties in Hawaii alone. The witness–known only as “Mr. Bully”–told the subcommittee that Pebble Beach Golf Links was purchased by Japanese executive Minoru Isutani in 1990 with loans from a Tokyo bank’s development unit with links to the yakuza.
MONEY TRAIL. Isutani, who had hoped to sell Pebble Beach memberships in Japan for up to $740,000 apiece, sold the club at a $340 million loss in 1992, after local officials blocked development plans. Isutani says he was visited by FBI agents in Tokyo in 1991, but no action was taken. “I am clear of these allegations,” he told the San Francisco Examiner last year.
The FBI has active investigations into yakuza money laundering in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Honolulu, and Palm Springs, Calif. Worried that the money-laundering activities could be the first step toward drug and prostitution operations, the bureau is looking as well at Japanese investments in such cash-generating activities as pachinko pinball parlors and karaoke bars. But FBI efforts have been stymied by the absence of money-laundering laws in Japan.
Until tougher laws are written, FBI and Customs officials will continue to follow the money. One favorite target is Vegas, where casinos have traditionally catered to cash-rich Asians. That’s where agents ran across the late Ginji Yasuda, whose 1988 attempt to get a license to run the Aladdin Hotel & Casino failed after an investigation into his possible mob connections. And that’s where they got their first look at Ken Mizuno, the man with money to burn.DIRTY GREEN
ON THE GREENS
How the Japanese allegedly use Ameri-
can country clubs to launder cash
1 Investors lend illegally obtained money to a private investment company
2 Investment company uses new cash to buy a golf club or resort in the U.S.
3 The resort property collects huge fees for new members
4 Resort fees–the “clean” money–are funneled back to original investors
5 Eventually, the investment company sells its properties, sometimes at a loss
blog
1. a website containing a writer’s or group of writers’ own experiences, observations, opinions, etc., and often having images and links to other websites.
2. a single entry or post on such a website:
This house is somewhat famous for the area. It is the only house on the ocean side of West Cliff Drive. It was also used in the Clint Eastwood movie “Sudden Impact” as the house Sondra Locke’s character had rented while she was staying in the town to commit her revenge murders.
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1307-W-Cliff-Dr-Santa-Cruz-CA-95060/16103770_zpid/
“If you”re a lone artist out there, you”d be taking a big risk,” Burns says. “There”s a deterrent effect.” And while a First Amendment group might be willing to take such a case on a pro-bono basis, she doesn”t hold out much hope of that happening. “It”s a very political battle,” she points out. “Firms may be unwilling to touch it because of that.”
Under the title of “limited partners,” the Big Four of Eastwood, Ueberroth, Palmer and Ferris has already sold its memberships and the accompanying, still-unknown perks–quite the opposite of Isutani”s ill-fated plan. Thus, the debt service has been whittled down to about $600 million. With annual revenues probably now in the $150 million range, the mortgage can be paid to Bank of America and GE Pension Trust, but other than “privileges” the limited partners may not see any return on investment for a long, long time. The Billionaire Guys Club (and I do mean guys; have any women been approached or named as investors?) are likely to get little more than inflated egos out of this and more chances to bounce Titleists off the rocks at Pebble. Don”t count on inflated greens fees (though price resistance is not an issue at Pebble, just look above for that evidence).
The Lone Monterey Cypress has been captured
Jack Solomon and Steven Speilberg were in a legal battle over a Norman Rockwell painting titled ‘Russian Schoolroom’ that was stolen by someone mixed up in the assassination of Martin Luther King.
I believe it was around 1980 that my late sister, Christine Rosamond Benton, began doing lithographs and showing them at the Circle Gallery that was located on Maiden Lane in San Francisco, and was owned by Jack Solomon. One of Rosamond’s biographers says she was thinking of going back with Circle Gallery just before she died in 1994. This appears to be the case, she having shows in Denver, New York, and other major cities. Stacy Pierrot says she came back to Carmel from one of these shows the day Christine drowned. At her funeral, Stacey approached my mother and I in the courtyard in front of the gallery, and told us Rosamond’s career was being revitalized by these shows. She then got down on one knee, took Rosemary’s hand, and made this plea;
“Don’t let the dream die!”
There now ensued a nightmarish fight over Rosamond’s creative legacy, and, the reopening of the Rosamond Gallery. I wondered what became of the deal with Circle Galleries. Why pay $5,000 dollars a month to rent this gallery (at the expense of my nieces) when Jack Solomon has gathered together his old stable of artists, and was back in business? In looking at the list of these artists, there is no mention of Rosamond. I wonder why?
Today I discovered Jack is dead. I had tried to contact him back in 1997, but he never returned my call. My aunt Lillian told me Jack and his wife had become her close friends. When I asked her to put me in touch with Jack, she changed the subject.
What I came to suspect was Christine committed suicide. Did Pierrot return to Carmel bringing bad news, such as, Jack let her boss go? Christine hated doing shows. Jack would want her at these shows. Did he conclude Pierrot was not a worthy replacement, and thus, my sister violated her contract? A week after her daughter drowned, Rosemary made one remark about this alleged accident;
“Like Virginia Wolfe, she walked into the water.”
The famed author put stones in her pocket and drowned herself. If Christine did the same, then Jack would not want this revealed because people would ask why? Fellow artists might rebel and leave enmass because Christine’s success is a litany of exploitation. Jack was running a high class art factory, and many famous artists knew it. They went along with this, breeding of sure winners, because they needed the money.
In 1974 Christine offered to teach me her style so I can be famous and rich, too. I turned this offer down because I wanted to be a real artist, verses a commercial artist. Christine them told me she does not feel like a real artist, and asked me to help her achieve this. However, the thuroghbred was out of the gate and winning another purse. Hence, it was hard to get a word out Rosamond about her success. At art shows, they lined up, and grilled her! They wanted simple answers to simple questions, and never got them.
Above is a serigraph by Rosamond titled ‘Lena and her Sisters’. Lena was our maid. This image looks like a Rockwell who rendered a Cold War scene that is susposed to be chilling. It depicts the forced worship of a Lenin, who has replaced the All American worship of Jesus, a Jew. Note the roses on the Lenin altar. Consider the Roza Mira prophecy.
Spielberg is a Jew who became famous for depicting the new middle class ambience from a child’s perspective. Steven is worth three billion dollars and has been knighted. Has Steven addressed the fact there are millions of blacks living in his American landscape, that millions believe don’t belong there? Steven does Lincoln – and washes his hands?
Note the girl in pigtails. Have we seen her before? Is Norman suggesting these is an American Schoolhouse – in dangers of being transformed by the Red Menace?
Well, thanks to Putin, the Cold War is back. Putin is a devout Christian, so gone is the bust of Lenin! Both Steven and Norman have employed their art to make propaganda which was the magical ingredient Jack Solomon used to make and break gifted people. Jack was a Capitalist that put Circle Galleries on the Stock Market. And then the Art Market crashed. There are stock actors. Slave owners treated their slaves like stock. Lenis was out to stop the exploitation of human beings. This black girl no longer has value to southern men who shame her and threaten her with violence because she wants to go to school.
When are the smoke and mirrors are gone, and the last of the rogue waves have had their way, the truth nears, and, indeed is here……Jack Solomon threw Rosamond away because she wasn’t selling anymore, wasn’t making money for him so he could pay off his debts he acquired via art speculating.
Christine Rosamond Benton, who is kin to John and Jessie Fremont who were backed by Radical Republicans, no longer had value. What is truly frightening, many southern men back Putin because he is a Christian, and, there are not black people in his landscapes. Not so in America! That Russian boy looking wistfully out the window, may want to be the President of Russian come day!
Consider the movie ‘Monuments Men’ and Rosamond’s autobiography that was disappeared. Was it a tell-all from a business perspective? What else was there really to talk about. Christine had an affair with a master printer.
https://rosamondpress.com/2015/02/18/del-monte-aviation-buck-inst/
Robert Buck owns the law firm that stepped into to be the Special Executor of Rosamond’s creative legacy after Vicki Presco refused to serve. Robert is connected to the Buck Trust and Institute that is right out of a science fiction novel in regards for searching for the Fountain of Youth. Robert also owns Del Monte Aviation that flies in professional golfers to play at Pebble Beach. This beats anything Thomas Pynchon could dream up. This is what Heather, the sixteen year old daughter ‘The Gold Digger’, was after, Fame, Fortune, and an unending fountain of booze. Heather’s ambition was the be the Most Popular Girl in the World. This is why Linda Comstock told my minor child to un-invite me to her High School graduation. Linda and Flip had major plans for this minor.
I kept telling my daughter; “All’s well, that ends well!” As it turns out the Buck Trust established Alcohol Justice because the Buck family suffered from alcoholism. In Rosamond’s probate are pleas to Morris to respect the family miracle of sobriety, thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous.
The end of Christine and my story is Flip toasting Tyler Hunt in a bar.
“Truth is stranger than fiction!”
Keep in mind there exist a 276 page autobiography that Christine Rosamond wrote, that has been closeted – disappeared. Any movie based upon Christine’s words would belong to my two nieces, and the outsiders would not get any money. Outsiders did not want my nieces, or myself, to author a biography for the same reason. They were not in Christine’s Will. Consider what Walter Keane did to Margaret Keane in the movie ‘Big Eyes’. This is IDENTITY THEFT!
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/big-eyes-and-the-eye-opening-story-of-margaret-keane/
Julie Lynch is the third ghost writer, my late sister’s, Evil Double, hired. Stacey Pierrot is “desperate” to make the Rosamond Movie come true. It is “the dream” she spoke of outside the Rosamond gallery, while down on one knee, grasping my mother’s hand;
“Don’t let the dream die!”
Rosemary’s Daughter is being whisked away to the oven to be turned into ashes, while her fans were being fed flaccid broccoli someone got a deal on. As the eyes of the famous Rosamond POPPED in the furnace. Pierrot rises from her knee, and goes looking for someone else to lay her Evil Vision on. Michael Harkins heard Peirrot utter her famous line to others who filled the Rosamond gallery in Carmel, that should have been sealed. Pierrot, and her three holy art ghosts, really do a job on my dead mother – after she blesses ‘The Dream’.
What Lynch, Faulkner & Snyder did not know, and thus did not include in their lying biographies, is that Rosemary Rosanond Presco made porno movies for the only verified Mafia boss on the west coast, Big Bone’s Remmer. She also did some high-class hooking at the Beverley Hills Hotel, after she fled Oakland to escape being prosecuted, going to jail, and her four children taken from her and put in a orphanage.
Like her mother, Mary Magdalene Rosamond, Rosemary was the Godmother of the Rosamond/Wieneke children. I suspect Mary resorted to prostitution at times to keep her six hungry children fed. Consider Mary’s name? I am now going to DEFEND my mother, and all the Rosamond Women. Anyone got a problem with that?
Let us begin with this statement by Lynch;
“In a moment of vulnerability, Christine reconnected with Rosemary and allowed her mother to introduce her to actor Rick Partlow.”
After vilifying my mother and I, Lynch has to go by what Snyder wrote before her. There is a concordiance of lies here. The truth is, Rosemary liked to drink at the Balboa Loundge, and meet men to have casual sex with. Rosemary was a real sexpot. Rick was her bartender. Rosemary hooked Rick up with Rosamond. Rick hired Rosemary to be ‘The Secretary’. My mother once held the world speed-typing record. She worked for the artist she allegedly whipped with a coat hanger after catching her drawing in a closet with a flashlight. Rosemary $10,000 dollars in back wages. Rosemary told me the Partlows did up $250,000 dollare of cocaine that year. When I asked Christine, who once gave me full credit for her successs, for a $50 dollar loan for food, she said this;
“You’ll never see a dime from my art!”
Lynch contradicts Pierrot’s attempt to use her ghost writer’s art, and put Rosamond’s name to it.
“In an attempt to elevate her work from mass merchandise to fine art, Christine started making lithographs for Jack Solomon and found herself falling for a fine art printer who was married.”
Pierrot is saying she will put Rosamond’s Rosamond Women on throw pillows. Christine sued her promoter Ira Cohen to stop him from doing just that. Lynch gives Ira the name “Ira Kaplan”. The only oppressed, and sexually abused artist – is me! I am having a major Identity Crisis, because Christine acquired one shortly after Priscilla Presley bought one of her first works at a art show in Westwood.
Below is a photo of my ex-lover, Karen Holly, who met Rosemary. The fell in love and would have been best friends if she did not have to go to detox, because, I believe she was pregnant with my son. She gave birth to a boy, that she named Billy. My mother came close to beholding a grandchild that I sired. Rosemary and Karen were very smart. But, in their hearts, they were Scowtown Women.
Note there are nine men lusting after my mother. Men can spot a Scowtown Woman, a mile off! These men are some of the brightest minds in the world. They helped put men in space. They designed and built space hydraulics. My ex-wife got Thomas Pynchon a job working for Lockheed. Is Tom more likely to read Lynch’s lies, or, my truths?
“Trying to support four children with only a high school education and little help from her alcoholic husband, Rosemary was often enraged.”
Mary Ann Tharaldsen still is a Scowtown Women, who are not to be confused with Sexy Skidrow Winos, like the fictional drunken masturbator born of Lynch’s Sexpot mind! Mary Ann and I should have built a Shanty Boat and lived in Jack London Square where I would write London knockoffs to pay the bills. I could have written a series, and painted a whole bunch of Scowtown Women – with normal eyes – and a BIG APPITITE for sex!
If Karen is still alive, I want her to play Grandma Rosemary in my movie – withholding her blessing employing real brutal Tugboat Anny words. Karen and her father are artists.
“It ain’t over till the fat lady sings!”
I drove down to Carmel to attend Christine’s funeral with Michael Harkins. Michael was a Private Detective, trained by Bill Lindhart, who was hired by Cayrl Chessman. Michael had done detective work for Bruce Perlowin ‘The King of Pot’. He was married to Bruce’s ex-wife. Oliver Stone’s people wanted Michael’s antidotes about his good friend, Jim Morrison. Michael was a good friend of the Beat Poet, Michael McLure who befriended Jim. Micahael was a big pot smoker, like the fictional character.
Michael offered to police the big party Mary Anny Tharaldsen and I had at her house after we got married. Shannon Benton met Mary Ann at my brother’s house, after our wedding. Shannon, was set up for an arrest. As we drove to Carmel, Michael was on the job. Pynchon’s movie ‘Inherent Vice’ will be out in two days. Above is the affidavit that Shannon’s aunt Vicki filed. Garth’s attorney, Robin Beare, suggested my niece be kept in jail to teach her a lesson. Michael helped find a buyer for Vic Presco’s family partnership prints. When Vic called Beare, she was shocked to learn he existed – and the 8,000 Rosamond prints produced for the three family partners, Vic, Vicki, and Christine.
What we are beholding here folks is a MAJOR FAMILY ART IDENTITY CRISIS, more profound then the identity crisis the Keane family had. With the success of the movie ‘Big Eye’, I can hear the rustle of the wings of the Gallery Gargoyles, as they swooooooooooop down to conduct another feeding frenzy.
Three weeks after my sister, the world famous artist ‘Rosamond’ drowned, the adult heir is arrested for trespassing and removed from her mother’s home in Pebble Beach. After Shannon Rosamond demanded her mother’s cremated remains, Garth Benton, set his ex-wife’s ashes out on the stoop, and slammed the door. There was a restraining order forbidding Garth to get near Christine who accused him of stalking and harassing her. Above is the affidavit Vicki signed.
On January 27, 2014, a deputy sheriff in Montana, told me my must, Rena Easton filed stalking charges against me. I was told I could be arrested if I make contact with an old girlfriend I had not seen in forty-four years. Rena red my blog where I nominated her as the must of famous sister – too! I was Christine’s teacher, and am her biographer who has put together some incredible history that enhances Rosamond’s fame, and the fame of our muse. Why would the Hier of the Rosamond creativity, and the Family Biographer have j
On May 4, 2005 I had some very disturbing news from Mrs. Barbara Layne who resided next door to the home at Rocky Point where Christine Benton was a guest at when she drowned. Barbara talked to Vicki Presco just after our sister was taken away in a ambulance. Ms. Presco told her Christine and her husband, Garth Benton, were invited to stay the weekend at this seaside home, by their friend, Alan Fox, in order to bring about a reconciliation of their marriage. Ms. Presco told Ms. Layne Mr.Fox wanted them to spend the weekend in his home, and perhaps in a romantic setting they could repair the terrible riff in their relationship that had become very volatile, they both filing restraining orders against each other. Ms, Layne was shocked to learn I had not heard of this attempt.
So was I.
Mrs. Layne then told me Alan Fox was in a awful hurry to sell his Rocky Point home, and did so within a month of Christine’s death. The new owners told Ms. Layne they were amazed at what a good deal they had gotten. This is important as my sister refused to tell me who the owner was when I asked a month after our sisters death. She asked me why I wanted to know. I told her I was going out to Rocky Point and wanted to talk to them while I was there. Vicki said it did not matter, as they were only there temporarily and had moved out. This is when I had a falling out with my surviving sister.. Mrs. Jacci Belford, Ms. Pierrot, also stopped talking to me.
After this conversation with Vicki, Ms. Layne left the part of the home where Vicki, he son, Shamus Dundon, and Drew were staying, and encountered Garth Benton who had just drove up and got out of the car. Mrs. Layne asked him is he was the “reconciling husband” and Garth said he was.
I asked Mrs. Layne if anyone else got out of the car, or was sitting in the car. Ms. Layne was; “No”. This contradicts the testimony that Mr. Benton gave Tom Snyder in Pierrots commissioned biography where we read how sorry Mr. Benton was when he made this comment to his girlfriend sitting next to him, just after the ambulance carrying Christine passed them going the other way into town; “Were’ free, and Drew is saved”
“It was Christine’s weekend to have Drew, Garth says. “And we drove over on Friday, I think it was. Drew got in the car, I said goodbye, and off they went. Next day, the phone rang sometime before noon. It was Drew. ‘Dad, Dad’ she said, ‘you’ve got to come and get me. Mommy went into the ocean and they’re fishing her out now. And Daddy…she looks very ill and she’s cold’. I told Drew to get Vicki, who was by then nearly hysterical, and we’d be there. “I called a beauty shop where Nina was having her hair done, and said, ‘Christine has drowned. She’s dead’. No one had told me that, I just knew.”
A few minutes later, on the way down toward Rocky Point, I had a reaction in the car with Nina that I feel so terrible about, and I’ll tell you. We were almost there, when an ambulance passed us, going the other way. We both realized it was carrying Christine. My mind flashed back over the last last few months and years, and all the anguish for Nina and Drew and me, even for Christine. I was crying, and I turned to Nian – this is what I am ashamed of – and I said, ‘We’re free. And drew is saved.”
https://rosamondpress.com/2014/07/15/beauty-dies-at-the-bohemian-house/
In 1985 I visited my friend, Nancy Hamren, at the Kesey family creamery here in Springfield where I now reside. We had gone to lunch and talked about living at the ‘Idle Hands’ commune in San Francisco that was funded by Betty Zorthian the heir of William’s Shave. Nancy suggested I author the history of the Hippies because I could recall so much. A year later I began my first novel ‘The Gideon Computer’. It is about the ‘Last Hippie of the Future’. Thanks to the computer and the World Wide Web, that future has come to pass. You could say I have found God, and God is Me. We are one, and we are on the Internet.
In beginning my critique of my ex-wife’s art work, I discovered that the Loading Zone was there in the beginning, at the Open Theatre on College where Stewart Brand lurked, the publisher of the Whole Earth Catalogue that historians claim is the written Biblenet. Stewart was the compatriot of Lloyd Khan who published ‘Shelter’ and George Brook-Kothlow, who built the house Clint Eastwood lived in and the house my sister stayed in just before she left the planet. Christine signed her images of beautiful women ‘Rosamond’. The Rose of the World.
Like her brother, Christine Rosamond Benton became a Bohemian. Not only did my sister love me, she was in love with me. I was her ideal. She followed in my footsteps. I had an Eye for Beauty that I put aside when I headed back to Oakland with all my paintings strapped to the top of my 1957 Ford Fairlane my aunt June gave me. This Eye would reemerge and lead some to believe I was God, the Acid Messiah, a title laid on Ken Kesey, who died of alcoholism according to Mark Christensen. Is this why Ken let me on the bus just after I graduated from the New Hope program at Serenity Lane?
I made eye-contact with Ken in front of Autzen Stadium where we entered to hear the Grateful Dead. Ken had stopped writing, and I had stopped painting. I got sober so I could live long enough to finish the two science fiction novels I began. I would go with Nancy to hear the reading of Ken’s book he co-wrote for his class. I think Nancy told her friend about my sobriety, and perhaps suggested I had something he wanted. No one has written Ken’s biography.
I discussed with my friend and neighbor as to why Allan Fox sold his Bohemian House at Rocky Point where Christine was going to celebrate her first sober birthday. Her art had suffered with her disease. If Allan was fond of my sister, then it would be hard for him to look out his big glass window at the sea and behold her fifty minute struggle as she clung to the rocks trying to pull herself out of what she feared the most in her life, the sea with large waves. Gone is the beauty, replaced by ‘The Nightmare’.
When I was twelve I struggled with a major decision whether to be an architect, or be an artist. I had talent for both. Art became my major, and I did architecture on the side. I made a model of a house on the edge of the sea when I was sixteen. For the last 20 years I render floor-plans of homes while watching television. Above is my latest, a 340 square foot apartment above a garage.
Folks are asking why a 80 year old Eastwood is building a 80 million dollar house he might not live in – for long. Allan invested 58 million in Writer’s Square in Denver there talk about building a glass pyramid like the one we see at the entrance of the Louvre. These men are God-like wanna-be Bohemians. Now add Pynchon’s movie to the mix starring Reese Withersppon who is kin to Sam Farr, who Clint helped get reelected. Sam is kin to William Sharon the partner of William Ralston ‘The Man who built San Francisco’.
When Christine married into the Benton family she we became kin to the foremost Family Tree in America, where evangelicals worship Ayn Rand and her fictional architect, Howard Roarke, who is God-like, in a safe, fictional, way. If I wasn’t God, I would anoint that other dude from Oakland seen coming out of his Bohemian Home at Big Sur.
What is truly astounding, is, my ugly ungifted sister, Vicki Presco, did a child-like drawing of the Bohemian House, she playing God when she lied and told me our niece, Drew Benton, did this drawing. Indeed, Vicki played God quite a lot after she dropped out as the named Executor. You can say Vicki wrote Tom Snyder’s biography. This led me to suspect there was a hidden person behind Vicki, a ‘Puppet Master’ pulling the strings.
But, what is truly frightening, is, Vicki is ‘The God of the Nobodies’ that dull-minded collective, that drags the Co-Creators back down to Earth, and feeds on them like vultures.
Vicki started taking LSD when she was thirteen. She was the youngest of the four, and always felt she shared an equal portion. My brother, Mark Presco, designed computer systems at Hugh’s Aircraft. Today, anyone with access to a computer, can be God-like. Murderers play God. Consider Jesus dying on the cross.
https://rosamondpress.com/2014/07/14/brook-kothlow-allan-fox-house/
I just discovered the house my late sister was invited to at Rocky Point was designed by the famous architect, Brook-Kothlow, for Allan Fox, who sold this house in a hurry shortly after Christine Rosamond Benton was allegedly swept from the rocks below this house that plays a prominent role in the counterculture and the development of the World Wide Web.
Brook-Kothlow was inspired by the ideas of Khan and Brand Stewart, who put on the Tripps Festivals, and published The Whole Earth Catalogue which was the model for the Internet. Stewart was at the Open Theatre with the Loading Zone. Clint Eastwood owned another famous house by Brook-Kothlow. These houses are considered HISTORIC works of Art and Philosophy. Why would Alan Fox sell one of these very unique homes built JUST FOR HIM? He had to know Eastwood owned one. According to Donald Layne and his wife, who I talked to on the phone;
“Allan was in a awful hurry to sell that home, and did so at a great loss.”
Why was Mr. Fox in such a hurry to sell a home that he knew would go up in value. Fox is a big real estate investor. Sound’s like a bad business to me. Could it be I asked my surviving sister, Vicki Presco, who owned that house?
“Why do you want to know?” Vicki spat.
“I want to go there and talk to them.”
“I’ll get back to you.” my little lying sister said. Fifteen minutes later.
“They moved!”
“Can I have their names?”
“What difference does it make? They are gone!”
This is when my investigation began in ernest. Michael Harkins helped me for a while, and then taught me how to investigate. I sent my report to the Coroner with this quote from Harkins;
“Now that you know for sure you have been lied to, you must assume everything is a lie, until proven otherwise, and, you have to consider anything could have happened, including murder.”
When my family read “murder” they used that word as their defense, being, I was insane and mentally ill, I wanting to conclude that off the top. What I was looking for, was the motive for the owner of a famous house concealing his identity. Fearing a Wrongful Death Lawsuit, would be one motive. Allan Fox is a multi-millionaire, and thus susceptible to a suit. Did his attorneys suggest he sell that infamous home that Drew Benton allegedly did a drawing of? Drew is the daughter of two famous artists and is a member of the Historic Benton Family.
The second question I had, was why would Christine allow her daughter down at this extremely dangerous place when the wind was howling? Christine had nightmares about dying via a huge wave. Huge waves carved the bowl you see just below the Fox house. Not the stairs others have built to get down near the sea that is very deep. I saw plumes of water shooting thirty feet into the air when I was there during a mild day. At first, my nephew admitted to seeing huge plumes of water going high into the air – from the house! Surely Christine saw these plumes from the huge windows. I’m sure this is why Fox wanted a house built there, these plumes a means to impress his friends. Did Allan warn Christine about going down to the water’s edge?
Jon Presco
And so with his first project, Brook-Kothlow had made a name for himself. For the better part of the next 15 or so years, the architect was in high demand, all the while repeatedly drawing from that Duncans Mills timber stash and outdoing himself, it must be said, with each new project. In ’69, it was the Staude House, his first radial design and the first project to come directly from the Hill of the Hawk work. In ’71, there was Coker Studio. In ’74, he did the Kemnitz House. In ’78, he was building his own house and studio. In the ’80s, there were houses for Michael Trotter and Allen Fox. A few of these are visible from Highway One, and they would have caught your attention. The zenith, though, is the house you’ll never see during a drive and won’t find on the Internet: The Clint Eastwood residence, ’75, in Pebble Beach. Clint, too, had seen the LA Times’s Home magazine piece on Hill of the Hawk.
“In the seasonal moment, an artist known worldwide as Rosamond is considering a guest-house invitation. Patrons had frequently made such offers, and they had always been graciously, yet uniformly refused. But, on a brisk March day in 1994, Christine Rosamond uncharacteristically accepts one such offer. She is feeling more buoyant and happy then she has in years. As chilling winter fogs disperse, it seems a grand time for an outing..”
My niece, Shannon Rosamond, told me it was Sande Green who invited Christine to stay at the house at Rocky Point. Sande’s un-named husband would fly his private jet to Monterey on occasions. Did they rent the house at Rocky Point when they were in town, or, were they frequent guests of the owner?
In Snyder’s biography, Sande says Christine was intimidated by her husband’s wealth. Sande also tells how she got Christine drunk and up in the air paragliding over the Gulf. She says she was trying to overcome Christine’s fear of the water.
While my mother and I stood together outside the Rosamond Gallery in Carmel, a well-dressed man approached, paid his respects to Rosemary, and, gave me a dirty look without shaking my hand.
“Did you see the look he just gave you?” my mother asks.
“How could I miss it.” I replied.
“He’s a very wealthy and powerful man.” Rosemary told me.
I would wonder if he owned Rocky Point, and had power over my family, and saw me as a threat. Was this Sande Green’s husband? After seeing a photo of Alan C. Fox, this guy was not Fox.
When I and my friend arrived for the funeral, Michael pointed out an extremely beautiful blonde getting out of a limousine. Snyder met Sande and went gaga. Below are e-mails wherein I demand Shamus tell me the name of the owner of that house. He refused! Did Sande try to get Garth and Christine to mend their union?
Did you notice Snyder used the word “brisk”. This means it was cold. Why isn’t Christine wearing her down jacket the one she went fishing in? Surely having lived on the coast for years, she knew it would be “brisk” in March. The Ides of March had come and gone, but, it was still the season of prophecy.
What I mean by this, is, Vicki and Snyder are saying Christine did not die due to a plain ol accident (and thus no one is to blame) but died because this is how the Art God (or Goddess) makes artists – immortal. My sister is dead via an act of the Art Goddess. Who would dare demean this divine idea by wanting mere facts? Was this why that rich dude gave me a hard look? Was that – The Art God? If so, then Rosamond is to blame because she wanted to be famous – an immortal in the Art World. You got to pay the Piper!
When people with tons of money get in trouble, the first thing they do is call their Attorney. Why?
When poor people with no mney get in trouble, they might try consulting their Tarot Card Reader. Snyder interviewed Khara Bromily, whose husband conducted the services at Paul’s mortuary. The Death card came up for Christine! What else do you got to know! Case closed!
“Was there any indication to Khara in her vision, or the cards themselves, of death or impending doom? Did Christine have any concerns in that regard?
“My work is about health and foregiviness and self-worth. A death pronouncement can work against all that. But, if you are asking is a Death card came up, then the answer is yes?’”
Reminds me of Dragnet, or, an Art Movie.
As for Christine not having anything to record about herself, Sandra Faulkner was helping Christine with her 250 page autobiogrpahy that disapeared. Sandra quit the project? Vicki Presco showed me this biogrpahy she took from the estate a week after Christne was dead. Carrie Fisher (my kindred) wrote a screenplay.
“On occasion, Christine speaks for herself – these passages are included and italicized – from scattered pages of autobiographical notes, a few brief interviews, unfinished letters, and personal meanderings. These passages are all more striking for being so sparce. For Chrsitne was not a journal keeper so much as one who reached for clarity of mind by writing. The bulk of her comments, however, consists of scattered thoughts and the ideation of a woman who was not well at the time she wrote them down.”
Snyder has a seance up in Khara’s room where they hear waves break in the distance. It must have been………The Season of the Witch? Khara is not sick, but owns well ideas. Snyder lies about Christine never accepting an invite from a patron. Sande flew Christine down to the Gulf. She spent the night at the Getty mansion. This lie is made to show how Christine broke one cardinal rule after another – thus she deserved what she got! It was in the cards! What an alibi! Now, if she plunged to her death while paragliding that day, then, other witches might have had to be summoned, and more folks with money, hidden from view.
Snyder says my sister was “feeling buoyant”. Was there some kind ot test being conducted out at Rocky Point? Was Christine – a witch?
Some professional has got to talk to Sandra Faulkner!
https://rosamondpress.com/2012/09/02/in-like-clint/
Our President said he is a huge Eastwood fan, and is not offended by the Republican Soap Opera Series Docu-drama puppet show that put “go fuck yourself” in the party founded by my kindred, John Fremont, who was a good friend of Kit Carson, and other real cowboys.
On June 12, 2012 I made several posts on the real Oakland Bad Boys, and the series ‘Mrs. Eastwood’. The Romney famiy is doing ‘Fresno’ employing the Republican party in their rich folks should rule as a dynasty ditty. Obama has seen my friend Paul Drake who played Roach on Fresno, and Mick in Sudden Impact. When I caught Paul in bed with my girl, and told him to come outside and take his ass-whoopin like a man, twenty Oakland cops showed up to protect Drake from the wrath of Handsome Oakland Johnny.
Our President said he is a huge Eastwood fan, and is not offended by the Republican Soap Opera Series Docu-drama puppet show that put “go fuck yourself” in the party founded by my kindred, John Fremont, who was a good friend of Kit Carson, and other real cowboys.
On June 12, 2012 I made several posts on the real Oakland Bad Boys, and the series ‘Mrs. Eastwood’. The Romney famiy is doing ‘Fresno’ employing the Republican party in their rich folks should rule as a dynasty ditty. Obama has seen my friend Paul Drake who played Roach on Fresno, and Mick in Sudden Impact. When I caught Paul in bed with my girl, and told him to come outside and take his ass-whoopin like a man, twenty Oakland cops showed up to protect Drake from the wrath of Handsome Oakland Johnny.
https://rosamondpress.com/2013/11/25/the-taylor-getty-and-rosamond-children/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_plein_air
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Six
En plein air (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃ plɛn ɛʁ]) is a French expression which means “in the open air” and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors, which is also called peinture sur le motif (“painting of the object(s) or what the eye actually sees”) in French. In painting, “sur le motif” reproduces the actual visual conditions seen at the time of the painting. This contrasts with painting according to studio or academic rules, which creates a per-determined look. “En plein air” can also be used to describe other activities where a person partakes in an outdoor environment.
Artists have long painted outdoors, but in the mid-19th century working in natural light became particularly important to the Barbizon school, the Hudson River School and Impressionism. The popularity of painting en plein air increased in the 1840s with the introduction of paints in tubes (resembling modern toothpaste tubes). Previously, painters made their own paints by grinding and mixing dry pigment powders with linseed oil. The Newlyn School in England is considered another major proponent of the technique in the latter 19th century.[1]
Few regions rival the magnificence of California’s Monterey Peninsula. This beauty, together with a mild climate, rich history, and simplicity of lifestyle, encouraged the development of one of the nation’s foremost art colonies. From 1875 to the first years of the twentieth century, artists were drawn to the towns of Monterey, Pacific Grove, and then Carmel. Artists at Continent’s End is the first in-depth examination of the importance of the Monterey Peninsula, which during this period came to epitomize California art. Beautifully illustrated with a wealth of images, including many never before published, this book tells the fascinating story of eight principal protagonists—Jules Tavernier, William Keith, Charles Rollo Peters, Arthur Mathews, Evelyn McCormick, Francis McComas, Gottardo Piazzoni, and photographer Arnold Genthe—and a host of secondary players who together established an enduring artistic legacy.
Most previous accounts claim that the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire were the reason that artists began to gather on the Monterey Peninsula. Shields challenges this view by demonstrating that the colony began much earlier—and in Monterey, not Carmel, as often asserted. In an absorbing narrative that combines art and social history, Shields describes how, beginning with Jules Tavernier’s arrival in 1875, art produced on the peninsula broke from its East and West Coast antecedents to become increasingly subjective, meditative, and simple. He maintains that, by the turn of the century, the majority of the artists in the region had arrived at a tonal style featuring moody atmospheric effects. Some went one step farther, producing canvases reductive in color and form; others practiced a more colorful impressionism. Created to accompany a major traveling exhibition of works of the Monterey Peninsula Art Colony, Artists at Continent’s End places the movement in its art-historical context, comparing its achievement with other approaches including the Barbizon style, art nouveau, arts-and-crafts, and impressionism.
https://www.sbma.net/exhibitions/archive/2006.web
While Tavernier may have been a spirited character, other artists who came later followed a spiritual bent. This pristine environment attracted a number of Swedenborgians, adherents of the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, who believed that the physical world was a manifestation of the divine design behind it.
Consequently, many of Shields’ selections evidence a strong sense of spirituality and reverence. Then again, in Charles Dickman’s dramatic “Cypress Point, Monterey,” a small, gnarled cypress reportedly reminded early viewers of a witch. A bit far-fetched, but in this virtual forest of cypress paintings, this one stands out nonetheless.
Charles Rollo Peters did not earn the sobriquet “Prince of Darkness” because of otherworldly affiliations but through his spectacular skill at painting nocturnal tableaux. “Moonlit Landscape” and a dramatically lit view of his home/studio become even more astounding after one learns that Peters went out at night and took copious notes on what he saw and then produced his masterpieces during daylight.
http://religiondispatches.org/the-invention-of-a-corporate-christian-America/
Posted: Thursday, January 14, 1999 12:00 am | Updated: 2:24 am, Sat May 18, 2013.
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.”
–Joyce Kilmer, “Trees”
One Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1997, Carmel artist Paxton Mobley drove out to 17 Mile Drive to sketch the Lone Cypress Tree. The City of Monterey had invited him to mount a solo show at the Monterey Conference Center, and he felt a painting of the Lone Cypress would perfectly capture the show”s theme, “Dreaming of Monterey.”
“My painting showed a cypress tree used as a table, with a brandy glass on top of it,” Mobley says. “I called it ”Happy Hour at the Lone Cypress.” I did it as a parody. I had no idea there was a problem.”
But alas, there was a problem. It seems that the Pebble Beach Co., which owns the Lone Cypress, and all the land around it, and which has registered the tree as its trademark, doesn”t take kindly to folks using its tree for commercial purposes. A sign at the top of the stairs leading down to the tree reads, “Photographs or art renderings of the Lone Cypress for commercial or promotional purposes cannot be taken or created without written permission from Pebble Beach Company.”
Meanwhile, Mobley liked his Lone Cypress painting so much, he had postcards of it printed up and sent out as invitations to his show. A week before his Aug. 1 opening, he got a call from Neal Hotelling, director of corporate affairs for Pebble Beach Co. “He told me I was in trademark infringement,” Mobley says. “I had to sign away my rights to use the painting, or face a lawsuit.”
Mobley was stumped. “This was a week before the show. I had to sit down and think, do I want to fight a lawsuit? With Pebble Beach Company?” The answer was no. “My lawyer was ready to fight it, but I decided I didn”t have the money,” Mobley says.
In the ensuing days, Mobley and Hotelling spoke several times in what both describe as friendly fashion. Mobley caved in. “I signed a contract saying I”d never use their image of the cypress, or any Pebble Beach logo, again in any work, and I could not use this particular painting again,” Mobley says. “I can no longer go onto Pebble Beach property, take pictures of the tree, or paint it. I”ve signed away my rights to any of that.”
Although he has no complaints with Hotelling”s personal treatment of him, Mobley is incensed at the terms of the agreement he says he had “no choice” but to sign. “It frustrates me that this is a living entity, a tree, on the Monterey Peninsula, an inspiring image,” he says. “And people can”t use it.”
That”s right, they can”t–at least as far as the Pebble Beach Co. is concerned. The company is very attached to its Lone Cypress. Images of the tree have appeared on company documents since 1919, and over the years, Hotelling says, the Lone Cypress has become synonymous in people”s minds with Pebble Beach itself. “It”s our signature,” he explains.
In May 1990, the company officially registered the Lone Cypress as its trademark. Soon afterwards, the signs restricting commercial artistic renderings of the tree were posted. Today, the company has no problem with folks snapping pictures of the Lone Cypress, and pasting those photos in their scrapbooks. “We welcome it,” Hotelling states.
Just don”t try selling those photographs, or you risk the billion-dollar wrath of the Pebble Beach Co. And it”s not just photographs: The restrictions extend to paintings, sketches, and all other artistic renderings of the tree, as well. “An artist can paint the tree and hang it on their wall, but if they sell it, it becomes a problem,” Hotelling says. “The rules apply to both photographers and artists.”
Pebble Beach Co. takes violations of that restriction very seriously, and expends considerable efforts to enforce it. The company even scours local galleries to see who”s selling unauthorized pictures of the Lone Cypress. “We have 1,500 employees, and they keep their eyes open,” Hotelling says. “We search the Web constantly. We have an outside agency that searches, too.”
Once an offending artist is found, Hotelling either makes a phone call or sends a letter, informing them they”re in violation of trademark law. He estimates “just a few” new offenses are uncovered each month. “I try to resolve as many situations as I can with a friendly phone call or letter,” he says. “We send them a letter to sign, acknowledging that they won”t make any further infringement on our mark. Most people, when you let them know about it, are pretty good about signing.”
I bet they are, says attorney Robert Turkell. “What are you going to do, if you”re a little Carmel artist, and Pebble Beach sends their attorneys down to talk to you?” he asks. “How many people can go against a company that has nothing to lose? Even if the court says, this lawsuit against ”Mr. Smith” is frivolous, and they have to pay court costs and lawyers” fees, what”s it to them?”
Turkell says the company has “been very aggressive the past two or three years” about enforcing its position. “After ”92, they started sending out people to hawk the Carmel galleries for reproductions of the tree,” Turkell says. “In lieu of being sued, artists signed agreements to never paint the tree again.”
Enforcement is difficult, Hotelling says. Particularly with the advent of the Internet as a worldwide marketing mechanism, it”s impossible for the company to track down every single artistic reproduction of its tree. And Hotelling says he”s not trying to go overboard. “If somebody has an art piece in a second-hand store, that”s really hard for me to enforce,” he says. “As long as it”s not being done on a mass scale, I don”t worry about it.
“We”re not trying to be bullies,” Hotelling maintains. “But if we don”t enforce our marks, we”ll lost the right to do it.”
Why should they care? Because, Hotelling explains, when people see a picture of the Lone Cypress, it spells “Pebble Beach” to them. “It”s important to us, how we are perceived by the public,” he says. “The trademark of a company is its signature. Our concern is that when it”s before the public, it”s in a way we have controlled. So it doesn”t show up in Hustler magazine, for example.”
The tree is also, he points out, a revenue source for the company. That scrawny, twisted, 250-year-old cypress tree clinging to a rocky promontory in Carmel Bay brings plenty of tourists to Pebble Beach. They pay the gate fee, they buy T-shirts and souvenirs sporting the Lone Cypress image. That translates into a lot of dough. Artists who sell their own renditions of the tree are cutting into Pebble Beach Co. profits. “We”ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars maintaining that tree, and we should share in the commercial gain,” Hotelling says.
The Pebble Beach Co. restricts artistic reproductions of its tree on two grounds. First, the Lone Cypress is on company-owned land. Turkell explains that when you pay your $7.25 to enter Pebble Beach, you are agreeing to a “limited trespass,” thus giving your implied consent to the rules and regulations stipulated by the property”s owner. One of those rules prohibits making commercial or promotional use of the Lone Cypress. “They own that property,” Turkell says. “If they place a restriction that you agree to by paying the $7.25, you have to abide by that. It”s like me inviting you into my backyard to see something I own, and I charge you [$7.25]. You can”t make money on it, or I can sue you for infringing on my economic gain.”
That covers artistic works created while the artist is standing in front of the tree. But what about art created without trespassing on company property, such as painters sitting at home with an easel, or photographers hanging out of a helicopter hovering 100 feet above the tree? For those cases, says Pebble Beach Co.”s trademark attorney Stephen Trattner, the company stands behind trademark law.
Go ahead and take a photo or paint a picture of the tree, and hang it in your living room, he says. But if you sell it, or use it to promote your business, you”re using something that belongs to Pebble Beach Co. “If the Lone Cypress tree dominates the picture or the photograph, and is clearly the reason people are buying it, then it does serve as a source identifier. And when it serves as a source identifier, as a matter of law it functions as a trademark,” Trattner explains. “If that”s the reason for the sale, if that”s what motivates the sale…then it serves as a trademark, and the unauthorized use of that clearly violates the law.” And it”s something Pebble Beach Co. takes seriously, Trattner says; “For years, we”ve stopped unauthorized reproductions of the Lone Cypress tree very successfully.”
But what is it exactly that Pebble Beach Co. has trademarked? Trattner says they”ve trademarked the living tree itself. Any artistic reproduction or interpretation of the tree would thereby constitute trademark infringement.
Hogwash, says attorney Terry Francke, general counsel for the California First Amendment Coalition in Sacramento. You can”t claim a trademark in a living thing. “A trademark is just that, a mark,” he explains. “It”s a symbol, a design made by human beings. It is unique, made by somebody at some given point.
“A tree is not a mark. It”s a plant. It”s not a work of man. It”s missing the whole point of trademark law to think the plant itself is a trademark. It is arrogating to a corporation what only God can do. According to that logic, a company could trademark all images of the sun, the coastline, deserts. It”s just silly. I wouldn”t expect them to get very far in court.”
Intellectual property attorney Stephanie Burns, with the Portland, Oregon law offices of Davis, Wright, Tremaine, agrees. What Pebble Beach Co. has rights over is any unauthorized reproduction of the particular image of the Lone Cypress it submitted to the government trademark office in 1989.
“They did not obtain protection for the tree itself,” Burns opines. “They obtained protection for their image of the tree.”
There are precedents, Trattner maintains, for claiming a trademark in a living entity. The Prudential Company claims a trademark in the Rock of Gibraltar, which it uses as its company logo. Celebrities regularly claim a trademark in their image, which cannot be reproduced without their consent. “People couldn”t go and reproduce the copies of Clint Eastwood [photographs] and sell it,” Trattner argues. “He”s a living person. There”s no difference between a living person and a living tree.”
“It”s very different,” counters Burns. “That”s your own personal likeness, an invasion of privacy claim, where someone misappropriates your likeness for commercial advantage.”
Trademark law aside, Francke says, Pebble Beach Co.”s restrictions on artists and photographers could be fought on First Amendment grounds, as a violation of freedom of expression. “If they attempt to enforce this in court, there”s a defense both on First Amendment grounds and regarding trademark law,” Francke argues.
“They own the property,” Turkell admits readily. “But a man sitting down and painting a picture from memory, anyone who thinks they can transgress on his right to do that would be dead wrong. If you want to paint that tree from a picture, or from memory, you”d get into First Amendment issues.”
Francke doesn”t even believe Pebble Beach Co. could prevent photography of the tree on grounds of limited trespass, because, he says, the laws of trespass were set up to protect actual damage to real property. “Trespass is not a part of intellectual property law,” he says. “There”s no such thing as intellectual trespass.” And even if the company could convince a court that an artist had caused real property damage, “the damages awarded would be trivial,” he says.
Burns, who specializes in intellectual property law, believes the company would have a hard time bringing a case of trademark infringement against an artist depicting its tree. The company might have a better case on the basis of trademark dilution, she says, if the company could “prove the artist willfully intended to trade on Pebble Beach”s reputation or to cause dilution of its famous mark,” but even then, she says, “normally, the only recovery is an injunction on the artist not to sell it anymore.”
A law is only a law until someone challenges it successfully. And the amazing thing about Pebble Beach Company”s restrictions on artistic reproductions of the Lone Cypress is that the company has managed to enforce its claim–a claim that lawyers interviewed here feel would not stand up in court–without a single legal challenge.
The company sues folks all the time for trademark infringement. But those suits deal with commercial reproductions of the Pebble Beach logo, or the Pebble Beach name, or a hole on the Pebble Beach golf course. They deal with man-made reproductions of man-made things.
To date, Trattner and Hotelling agree, Pebble Beach Company has never sued an artist or photographer over pictures of the Lone Cypress.
On the other hand, no artists or photographers have taken Pebble Beach Company to court to challenge its claim. So the claim stands.
Trademark law is a quickly changing field, based on constantly changing case law. “There are new trademark rulings every day,” says Hotelling. And when it comes to original paintings of the Lone Cypress, that”s an area where the company isn”t as quick to enforce its claims. “Our position is that this is barred under commercialization of our trademark,” Hotelling says. “If an artist does an original oil painting and doesn”t try to commercialize or mass-produce it, I”m not going to be overly concerned about it.”
But a court challenge takes courage, political will, and a hell of a lot of money. Paxton Mobley says he would have had to put up $50,000 up front to have a lawyer represent him against Pebble Beach Co. And anything an artist might gain from a court victory–profits realized from the sale of the painting, and perhaps the pleasure of seeing one”s face on the front cover of People–pales before the tremendous financial and professional loss that a court defeat would entail. As Turkell puts it, “$50,000 is nothing to the Pebble Beach Co.”
“If you”re a lone artist out there, you”d be taking a big risk,” Burns says. “There”s a deterrent effect.” And while a First Amendment group might be willing to take such a case on a pro-bono basis, she doesn”t hold out much hope of that happening. “It”s a very political battle,” she points out. “Firms may be unwilling to touch it because of that.”
When contemplating ownership of Pebble Beach, the intangibles of ego must blur the bottom line of return on investment.
How else can one explain the $820 million paid by actor/director Clint Eastwood, golfer Arnold Palmer, former Major League Baseball Commissioner and 1984 Los Angeles Olympics Chairman Peter Ueberroth and former United Air Lines CEO Richard Ferris and a slew of limited partners–including top execs of GE, stockbroker Charles Schwab and lender Bank of America?
Much like when Minoru Isutani”s Cosmo World Inc. bought Pebble Beach in September 1990 for $841 million, the new owners apparently haven”t thought about return on investment as much as they”ve inflated their egos.
In the nine years following the burst of Japan”s economic bubble, the Japanese buyers of stakes in Rockefeller Center, Tiffany, MCA and trophy properties much like Pebble Beach not only had their egos deflated but their pockets picked as they eventually sold at prices 40 to 60 percent off.
Isutani retreated from Pebble Beach with a bruised ego seven years ago after seeing his plan to sell high-priced memberships shot down by opponents waving the American flag and even refighting Pearl Harbor. It wasn”t a pretty battle, and it sank Isutani”s only short-term strategy to raise money to pay his short-term loans. The annual revenues at Pebble Beach at the time were not enough to pay off conventional financing.
Now, seven years later, the revenues still don”t appear to provide enough to pay off conventional financing.
Based on Pebble Beach Co.”s hotel room tax paid to Monterey County, sales tax, estimated greens fees from its four golf courses, gate fees to its 17 Mile Drive and licensing and trademark fees, the company has been generating an annual revenue of about $150 million.
Assuming a generous profit margin of 30 percent, or $45 million, the net revenue is far below the funds needed to pay conventional loans on the $820 million. It depends on how much the investors are initially putting into the company and their expectations of return on their investment.
Eastwood himself said in a KSBW television interview that he and his partners didn”t buy Pebble Beach to make a profit. Even so, one wonders just how philanthropic actuaries and loan analysts at GE Pension Trust and Bank of America–which are participating in the purchase and financing–will remain. Aren”t their investors expecting a return on the loan or investment in Pebble Beach?
Although planned projects–including the Casa Palmero spa next to The Lodge at Pebble Beach, a proposed new golf course and the sale of 300 lots and condos if approved–will help increase the company”s annual cash flow to about $180 million, it”s still not enough to justify an $820 million price tag.
The key question is what will the new owners do to satisfy their investors” and lenders” wishes. Will Corporate America fare any better than Japan, Inc., did seven years ago?
Without seeing the loan documents, it must be assumed that the general and limited partners are guaranteeing to their lender/investment bankers more than the annual revenues of the company to pay their debt.
Unable to meet his loan commitments, Isutani was forced to sell to Sumitomo Bank-backed Taiheiyo Club Inc., one of Japan”s largest golf course operators, and Sumitomo Credit Services for approximately $500 million in 1992. Sumitomo bankers were dispatched to Pebble Beach to wipe away the black clouds of the short-lived (17 months) and controversial Isutani ownership and, as they said, “polish the jewel” of Pebble Beach and eventually sell it to local residents. A rainbow literally stretched over Pebble Beach, but where was the pot of gold and when would it be found?
In the seven years of the Sumitomo regime, an estimated $100 million was allocated to capital improvements at Pebble Beach, a U.S. Open was successfully held and preparations were made for this year”s U.S. Amateur and next year”s Open Championship. A residential lot development plan, originated in the 1980s under the American partnership headed by Denver oilman Marvin Davis, was downsized from more than 800 lots to just over 300, a golf course proposal was modified, and the location moved to meet environmental concerns.
In short, the bankers didn”t act like they were merely custodians of REO (real estate owned). Nor did they jump at “fire sale” offers made by, of all people, Davis, and other “Barbarians at the Gate,” like takeover giants Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts.
No, The Lone Cypress Co. bided its time and, finally, found an offer it couldn”t refuse.
As a Japanese business professor at a prestigious Tokyo university said when told of the sale price, “Unbelievable.but apparently Sumitomo wants to focus on its core banking business.and develop Internet banking.”
The $820 million returned to Japan gives Sumitomo and its subsidiaries the opportunity to concentrate on other ventures.
But what about the new ownership group, operating under Ueberroth”s Contrarian holding company? What will they do?
Under the title of “limited partners,” the Big Four of Eastwood, Ueberroth, Palmer and Ferris has already sold its memberships and the accompanying, still-unknown perks–quite the opposite of Isutani”s ill-fated plan. Thus, the debt service has been whittled down to about $600 million. With annual revenues probably now in the $150 million range, the mortgage can be paid to Bank of America and GE Pension Trust, but other than “privileges” the limited partners may not see any return on investment for a long, long time. The Billionaire Guys Club (and I do mean guys; have any women been approached or named as investors?) are likely to get little more than inflated egos out of this and more chances to bounce Titleists off the rocks at Pebble. Don”t count on inflated greens fees (though price resistance is not an issue at Pebble, just look above for that evidence).
New sources of revenue could include corporate sponsorships at the Open next year, an increase of such partnerships as American Express, Cadillac (they provide the Pebble Beach limousines) and maybe a new tournament in addition to the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.
Eastwood is already chairman of the foundation that runs the annual AT&T tournament (formerly Bing Crosby”s Clambake) and his limited partners all play roles in the AT&T. I would speculate some changes in the AT&T, too. Maybe more corporate “limited partners” will play in the annual tournament each winter in Pebble Beach.
Maybe Eastwood will film Golf in the Kingdom, based on Michael Murphy”s book, at Pebble Beach, thus increasing visitorship. Eastwood bought the book”s film rights a couple of years ago.
And the new owners still have county and state approval battles on a new golf course and residential lots, considered by the Japanese ownership as worth about $150 million in asset valuation. There are no guarantees that development will be approved in a forest already congested by development and a county starved for water supply. Ultimately, it may be as tough for the new owners to prevail over environmentalists as it was for Isutani to refight a war resolved long ago.
One can only wonder what Marvin Davis thinks of the deal. He gained Pebble Beach Co. in the early 1980s in a movie company spin-off for practically nothing and sold it for $841 million. Or what about longtime Palmer friendly rival Jack Nicklaus, who redesigned Pebble Beach for Isutani and the new fifth hole for the Sumitomo group? Nicklaus had a chance to buy Pebble Beach Co. for less than $80 million in the 1970s. Even adjusted for inflation, it was truly a diamond in the rough. Now, it”s the crown jewel of the golf kingdom under new custodianship.
Or maybe it”s just a very expensive pet rock for those who can afford to buy a piece of the pebble.
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