Drew Haunts The Monica
by
John Presco
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
For several days I have been wrestling with the image of Shamus Dundon telling Bullhead City Detectives, that the reason he ran and hid from them, was because Drew’s side of the family…..
IS INSANE
How did the detective handle that one? Did she wonder if Shamus Dundon is inane, because he is more than willing to leave his cousin in an icebox at the morgue lest he come in contact with…
THE REAL CRAZY ONES
Did my nephew – fear for his life? I asked Drew’s ex if he found any of Drew’s art at the gruesome scene. He said there were about five print-outs of work she did on her coputer. One was the face of aa woman with very dark rings around her eyes, like the image of our kin…
LIZ TAYLOR
I did not hear from my daughter and grandson this Thanksgiving. Is Heather and Shamus in communication, they counting themselves
THE SANE ONES?
Are the Sane Ones – artists or actors? How about poets?
The Monica Theatre looks closed. I want to revive Art Movies for the third generation who don’t know how to relate. They don’t want to be in a Sanity Hearing the rest of their lives. They want to own a creative identity.
Below is an e-mail I sent earlier today. I got the title wrong. What I see is a Movie Presview App where I judge entries to show at….
THE MONICA
The Third Coming of Suzzanne will be my entry. It will be a remake, or, Part Two.
To: J. · Sun, Nov 30 at 11:37 AM
Message Body
I did a watercolor of the produce marker in Jack London Square in design class at Uni High while sitting next to Bryan MacLean, and across from Michael Barry, who made ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’. Bryan did drawing of surfer chics, that looked like a Rosamond. He titled me ‘Painter of Trucks’ after I titled him
“Drawer of Beach Bunnies’
I think Michael ripped off Cohen’s song. It is 1963. This is….The Genesis! Drew Benton is in that movie, she rendering her mother’s style at a asylum near where you grew up. She too is crucified like her mother, who dated Bryan and inspired ‘Alone Again’. I will repost. The Drew Benton Film Festival?
John Presco
Copyright
EXTRA! I just found this complex post.
I Have Lifted You From The Burn Pile
“On the top of the wall is heaped thorny brushwood as a further safeguard.”
Two days ago I gave Ivanna Drew Benton’s birthday so she can make a death certificate. I just found out I got it wrong after looking at my nieces Facebook that does not list any family members. Drew had no children. Did she run out of reasons for living?
If I had not discovered Raif took his life, I would not have delved deeper and discovered Christine and Garth’s daughter had taken her life, too If this discovery was not made, then Drew’s body would have remained on……THE BURN PILE! She would have been cremated all alone, without family knowing. A society would come and spread her ashes. They would not see a birthday. How close does this come to having never existed? In my ceremony I honor Drew’s wish to no longer exist.
Drew was born September 25, 1984. The passage “I have taken you out of the sheepcote.” came to mind. I discovered John the Baptist ate wasps and ants that found a home in the Acacia tree. First he would eat the wasp that burrowed into the bulb, and when the ants moved in, he came again, and ate them. He must have been very thin, and, he owned nothing. This is my answer to a great riddle about what John ate that I found in the empty space Drew left behind. Every death contains these spaces. If Drew were alive, we could make a computer animated film about John coming out of the wilderness to partake of insects. Then there is…..The King of Trees!
I told my sixteen year old daughter, and her stage mother, to stay away from incestuous family members. They ignored me, and, at seventeen years of age Heather disappeared from my life. Two years later, via Shamus Dundon, I found her. She had befriended Vicki Presco, and was pregnant. She was going name my grandchild, Lily-Rose, after my aunt Lillian, if it was a girl. Lillian betrayed me by giving Tom Snyder our family stories – behind my back. She gave me five hours of a recorded interview. Snyder, Scott Hale, and Lillian were close neighbors.
Vicki moved in with Vic, our father, who Rosemary said looked like Gene Barry. When I brought up the alleged rape of Shannon, Vicki said;
“Oh! That! She knew better than to drink with him. The same thing happened to Christine and I when we drank with him.”
In ‘When You Close Your Eyes’ Snyder said Christine began to drink after the rape of Shannon triggered the memory of childhood incest. This is wrong! The question is, why did my sister’s continue seeing our father after he got them drunk – and raped them? Bill Cosby is I court right now for the same thing. That they had become art partners with the monies our grandmother left her only child, suggests they were seeking a ‘Dark Advantage’, because Mark and I had been in Melba’s Will.
Michael Barry saw me do a watercolor of the Oakland Produce Market I did from memory. It was chosen to tour the world in a Red Cross art show when I was sixteen. Gene Barry plays Jack Sinclair in his son’s movie. Vic’s high school buddies worked atop the Pyramid Building in SF. They invited Vic to join them. Garth Benton’s great grandfather was the Master Freemason of Iowa, and saved Albert Pike’s Masonic Library.
I believe Heather’s family thought they could play my family and come away with Money&Fame. In the photo above I deliberately put Mount Tamalpius in back of my newfound daughter my angel delivered to me in a dream.
EXTRA! I just got off the phone with Chris. I told her about the suede jacket that I surmise Christine could not have had on when she ended up in the water, because it was not ruined. Chris told me about the Seinfeld episode where snow ruins his suede jacket. I have proven my family lied, and Tom Snyder lied. His book – is ruined! HaHa! I fucked your evil book up – but good!
Jon Presco
Copyright 2017
On their way out, they notice it is snowing. Jerry knows snow would ruin his suede jacket and asks Alton if they can take a cab, but Alton replies that it is only a few blocks away. George suggests that Jerry could turn the jacket inside out, but because of the candy stripe lining, Alton notices and tells him to turn it back, saying he looks “like a damn fool” and that he’s “not going to walk down the street with me and my daughter dressed like that.” George then reminds Jerry that the restaurant is only a few blocks away; Jerry, reluctantly, puts his jacket back to normal.
The next day Kramer notices Jerry’s jacket hanging in the bathroom, badly damaged by the snow. Kramer takes it.
https://rosamondpress.com/2016/06/07/the-suede-jacket-lie-2/
Golden Girls of the Corn Cob
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Drew Benton Is In Cold Storage
Two hours ago (8/13/24) Detective Hostrum called me and named the family members she tried to get a hold of, by relation, and not name. She had me call Arizona Affordable Funeral Home. I was told Drew Benton has been in cold storage since she took her life on July 23, 2024. Is this twenty-one days?
When I heard Drew Benton was dead, my first thought was to blame myself for not letting her know what a beautful soul her mother was, and what a greater soul we were, a brother and sister who brught beauty into the world – against all odds! My landlady saw the large seascape I did at 13th. Street when I was living with The Loading Zone, and said she would take it home as payment for the rent we owed her. We owed her four hundred dollars. If she only knew. She should be dead now. Christine Wandel fell in love with me while she watched me work on this masterpiece.
It is 10:51 A.M. and I still have not got a callback from Detective Hostrum. Rosemary told me Christine called her from the Getty mansion and said;
“I’m staying the night with the Gettys, and, I don’t know who I am anymre!”
Do the police know who Drew is? Her father did a mural for Gordon and Anne Getty, and is why they stayed the night. Garth sued his friends for later painting over it. Garth was furious. It was a historic part of his reseme’. He painted murals for Hollywood Stars. That ended the friendship with the largest collectors of art – in the world!
The Stuttmeister owned an estate on Berlin Road in Germany and were
Free-thinkers, also known as the Forty-Eighters.after the thousands
of Europeans who fled Europe after a revolt against royalty and the
Catholic church, failed. The Stuttmeisters fled to Chile and then
came to San Francisco where they would be listed in the `Who’s Who In
San Francisco’ and `San Francisco Pioneer Families’. Doctor
Stuttmeister married Auguste Janke, the daughter of the co-founder of
Belmont California, Carl (Charles) Janke who owned a theme park he
titled `Tanforan’. Belmont historians say Tanforan was a village in
Germany, but recent research suggests the Janke family allowed the
Turnverein Society to hold gymnastic events here on the weekends. A
citation in the Daughters of the American Revolution says Carl Janke
brought six portable houses around the Cape in 1850, and erected them
in Belmont in hope of selling them to Forty-Niners that had struck it
rich in the gold fields. Two of these portable homes were moved to
Delores Street in the Mission district, and are listed as the two
oldest homes in San Francisco. One of the homes was bought by Count
Leonetto Cipriani, a Italian Senator and a relative of Napoleon.
Anniversary of Getty Villa
Posted on June 16, 2024 by Royal Rosamond Press
Today is Father’s Day. I’m sure my niece, Drew Benton, misses her father, Garth Benton, who did the murals for the Getty Villa that is celebrating 50th. birthday. Two days ago I discovered John Moffitt helped my brother-in-law with the Getty murals, and many murals they did for Movie Stars.
John Presco
50 Years of the Getty Villa Museum
As it evolved from a private estate to a vibrant hub for antiquity, the Getty Villa Museum became a beloved Los Angeles institution
Topics
By Erin MigdolJan 30, 2024
50 Years of the Getty Villa Museum
Body Content
To the Los Angeles Times art critic, it was “an incredibly eccentric extravaganza.”
To visitors interviewed by a New York Times reporter, it was “gorgeous, just marvelous” and “an intellectual Disneyland.” But to founder J. Paul Getty, the Getty Villa was simply “what I felt a good museum should be, and it will have the character of a building that I would like to visit myself.”
Since opening to the public in 1974, the Villa has inspired passion—from visitors, who drive up Pacific Coast Highway to spend a day among its immersive architecture and artwork, and from staff, who enjoy its intimate, family-like atmosphere and commitment to bringing the ancient world alive. Where else in Los Angeles can you peruse treasures of the ancient world and gaze out at the shimmering ocean?
As the Villa celebrates its 50th anniversary, we journeyed back to its early days as a collector’s seaside retreat and traced some of the most memorable moments in its colorful history. Let’s raise a chalice to the next 50 years!
Here
23 April 2013
In Memoriam: Garth Benton
| Mural by Garth Benton in the Outer Peristyle at the Getty Villa, Malibu CA. via Flickr |
This week I was saddened to learn of the passing of a great muralist, Mr. Garth Benton, an internationally recognized artist who was well known for his stylish first-century style trompe l’oeil decoration of the magnificent Getty Villa in Malibu, California.
Mr. Benton “died a after with battle cancer” in May of 2012. I am surprised I did not see it reported anywhere and I only figured it out after I noticed that his website had gone down and began making inquiries. Being a pre-internet personality Mr. Benton was not widely mentioned on the web, but his work was nevertheless world-class, and very well-known in its day.
I had the pleasure of working on a project with Garth Benton many years ago when he came to San Francisco to paint some spectacular Chinoiserie murals in a private residence here. He had arrived in town with inexplicably blank wallpaper apparently intending to paint the murals on site, but with no help and nowhere near enough time. I got a desperate call from the wallpaper hanger (who knew I also paint in this style) and rather than ask what the heck had gone wrong, out of respect for this great master painter I put my nearly entire studio at Mr. Benton’s disposal – scaffolding, buckets, tarps, ladders, brushes, and as many assistants as I could round up – and we all learned a lot from him while helping him complete his commission, some of the crew often working until 3 AM or even all night, trying to meet the deadline. While we painted, we were regaled with entertaining stories about his many celebrity clients and amazing jobs he’d done over the years. It was exhausting and exciting and the job was truly beautiful.
A couple of years later Mr. Benton made headlines for suing his clients, Ann and Gordon Getty, for having painted over one of his older murals in their San Francisco home, which he had hoped to photograph for a glossy catalogue raisonné of his work. The mural had been painted on canvas and could easily have been removed, but the Gettys had not realized this when they redecorated, and had to settle a large amount of money on him for the error. While I felt deeply over the heartbreaking loss of the artwork, the case made me cringe: suing an otherwise supportive client likely didn’t help his future business. The mural is still gone and the book was never published.
We exchanged a few emails over the years, but regrettably never did get to meet again.
So I offer this short tribute to Mr. Garth Benton, to be remembered for his fine work, and his influence on a generation of muralists.
The Getty Family Tree
Posted on June 20, 2023 by Royal Rosamond Press
Gordon Getty and Gavin Newsom attend an event benefiting the UCSF Childrens Hospital in 2010. (Drew Altizer)
Here, is the Gavin Newsom connection to the Getty and Pelosi family;
You will find a genealogy that shows Michael Wilding, saying “Liz Taylor’s son” – and that’s it! Was this deliberate, or, are folks plain stupid? The Carl Janke family, who founded Belmont, are in the Getty tree. Founders of a swank city is a feather in the Getty cap. Two Gettys were Anglophiles. One was married to the actress, Talitha Getty, who I place next to Liz – and all the actors in her Rosy tree.
John Presco
Garth Benton
Posted on June 21, 2012 by Royal Rosamond Press
Garth Benton was married to Christine Rosamond Benton and they born, Drew Benton. The Benton family artwork is being shown at the Carmel Art Institute.
Christine Rosamond Limited Editions at Carmel Art Institute
When: Friday, June 1, 2012, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Where: Carmel Art Institute, Carmel
Cost: Not available
Age limit: Not available
Categories: Art (opening), Community
Rosamond images are displayed in a unique miniature format, along with work from the first collection of Artist Drew Benton, Christine’s daughter, and art by renowned muralist Garth Benton.
5-8pm opening; collection runs through June 23 11am-2pm Wed-Sat. Carmel Art Institute, 3728 The Barnyard, Carmel. RSVP. 309-0126,
Garth Benton, a Los Angeles native who moved to Carmel in 1981, studied art at UCLA and Art Center College of Design. He found his artistic niche when he saw an 18th-Century-style mural at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
“I was 22 at the time, and I knew that was what I wanted to do,” he says. “I’ve always loved art history, so it was perfect.”
Rather than pursue a trademark look of his own, he learned to emulate art of many different periods. “My style is not to have my own style. Instead, I assimilate characteristics of the period I’m depicting,” he says. “Here at the Getty, the murals are part of the ambience. Nobody is supposed to say they are better than the art in the museum.”
The Getty murals are re-creations of paintings discovered in a country house near Pompeii and now in the collection of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Norman Neuerberg, a scholar of Greek and Roman antiquities, researched the motifs, which Benton executed in acrylic paint on the plaster walls.
Water damage, concrete shrinkage and seismic movement have caused cracks and flaking in the murals over the past two decades. Returning to the Getty this past summer, Benton has filled fissures and repainted damaged areas of the most elaborately decorated garden wall. During the coming year he will refurbish remaining sections.
Repair work might seem to be a bit of a bore, but Benton is delighted with the project. “This is like going home,” he says.
Christine Rosamond Presco Benton
Posted on June 21, 2012 by Royal Rosamond Press
Christine was not aware she was related to Philip Boileau when she died in 1994, nor was anyone she knew. I came upon the ‘Painter of Fair Women’ when doing our family genealogy. What my discovery does is raise my sister out of the commercial morass her fledging gift was cast into by those who beheld dollar signs dancing around the heads of the beautiful women she rendered – like cherubs from hell!
Philip was the son of Susan Benton the sister of Jessie Benton. Both sisters lived in Paris. They held salons in this capital of European culture, and in Newark and San Francisco. If there is such a thing as a creative celestial salon for Artists and Poets who have left the planet, then here is a list of kindred souls who have left a great part of themselves behind.
Philip Boileau
Thomas Hart Benton
Christine Rosamond Benton
Garth Benton
Royal Rosamond
Shannon Rosamond, Drew Benton, and myself, are alive and rendering works of art and writing poetry. Being creative is the family strategy for survival. In the spriti of the Benton sisters, let us consider our kindred a living Benton salon where our children of the future will come for inspiration.
Yesterday, Jeremy Dundon, and his six year old daughter, Jasmine, came to my house for a visit. In compiling this slide show above, I noticed how much Jasmine looks like Muffy, our kindred on the Wieneke branch. There is a Rosamond titled ‘Jessie’ and ‘Bree’ the daughters of Garth Benton. ‘Garden Child’ is my nephew, Cean Presco, the son of my brother, Mark Presco.
A year ago my sister Vicki called me and wanted to make amends, and go forward. She told me our aunt Lillian had died, and Mark had disappeared himself. I conclude that this family disunity is just an illusion, because there exist a dichotomy in regards to all those who create, being, no matter how isolated, we are bid to show-off our creations. For family members who are not artists and poet, I suggest you look to the children you brought into the world as your finest work, and understand they are immortal, as they bare God’s Gifts into a creation greater then ourselves.
Then there are those artists (who are not our kindred) who were influenced by Rosamond’s beautiful women. Here is a family that has taken on a life of its own, and are captured in a beautiful family tree, forever.
Let all members of my family look upon their good influences, and own the courage to be happy.
Jon Presco
Copyright 2012
Christine Rosamond Benton was born in Vallejo California October 24,
1947. Christine is the second child of four born to Victor William
Presco, and Rosemary Rosamond, the granddaughter of the Back to the
Earth writer and Poet, Royal Rosamond.. Royal married Mary Magdalene
Wieneke and was the proprietor of Ventura’s first general store. The
beautiful Rosamond women grew up a hundreds yards from the Pacific
Ocean and can be titled the Quintessential California Girls.
Christine employed several family members as models, including her
young nephews.
Before Rosemary and her three sisters reached their teens, Royal
moved to the Ozarks (Eminence Missouri) to write about the Scotch-
Irish Hillbillies that would make the artist Thomas Hart Benton
famous. Christine would marry Thomas’s cousin, the artist and
muralist, Garth Benton. They would have one child, Drew Benton, who
is the child we see in Rosamond’s `Beach’ being led by Christine’s
artistic hand along the seashore. Here is the hand that drew, that
beckoned many women to take charge of their life, overcome all
obstacles, and realize their dreams. On March 24, 1994, Drew and
Christine were swept off a dramatic cliff at Rocky Point near Carmel.
In a heroic attempt to save her daughter, which she just managed to
do, this world famous artist was swept out to sea and drowned.
In 1953 Christine and her family moved into the Victorian home of
William Broderick located on the corner of 13th. Avenue, and East
29th. Street in Oakland. William had married Alice Stuttmeister, the
daughter of Doctor Frederick William Stuttmeister, a dentist who
lived (or had an office) at 315 Sutter Street.. This address is
listed in `Who’s Who in Art’ and is located in the heart of San
Francisco’s Gallery area.
The Stuttmeister owned an estate on Berlin Road in Germany and were
Free-thinkers, also known as the Forty-Eighters.after the thousands
of Europeans who fled Europe after a revolt against royalty and the
Catholic church, failed. The Stuttmeisters fled to Chile and then
came to San Francisco where they would be listed in the `Who’s Who In
San Francisco’ and `San Francisco Pioneer Families’. Doctor
Stuttmeister married Auguste Janke, the daughter of the co-founder of
Belmont California, Carl (Charles) Janke who owned a theme park he
titled `Tanforan’. Belmont historians say Tanforan was a village in
Germany, but recent research suggests the Janke family allowed the
Turnverein Society to hold gymnastic events here on the weekends. A
citation in the Daughters of the American Revolution says Carl Janke
brought six portable houses around the Cape in 1850, and erected them
in Belmont in hope of selling them to Forty-Niners that had struck it
rich in the gold fields. Two of these portable homes were moved to
Delores Street in the Mission district, and are listed as the two
oldest homes in San Francisco. One of the homes was bought by Count
Leonetto Cipriani, a Italian Senator and a relative of Napoleon.
The Count did some extensive additions, and in 1864, William
Ralston `The Man Who Built San Francisco’ purchased Cipriani’s villa,
and did further remodeling. Ralston Hall was titled `The White House
of the West’ and was the meeting place for many California artists
and writers. Mark Twain and Bret Hart were amongst the Bohemians who
found cultural sanctuary in a house put together with screws. William
Ralston was instrumental in founding the San Francisco Art
Association that was located on Pine Street overlooking the
California Stock exchange. Members of the Bohemian Club met in the
same building. Here one could find Joaquin Miller and Bret Hart who
was the discovery of Jesse Benton the wife of the Pathfinder, John
Fremont, whom the city of Fremont California was named after.
Joaquin Miller lived in the Oakland Hills above the Stuttmeister farm
and orchard located in the city of Fruitvale that would later be
incorporated into the city of Oakland. Miller was titled the `Poet of
the Sierras’. His farm was called `The Heights’ and was a Mecca for
California artists and poets. This eccentric Bohemian was friends of
William Broderick and would accompany Melba Charlotte Broderick, the
mother of Victor Presco, to San Francisco where Melba met her
husband, Hugo Presco, a professional gambler in the Barbary Coast.
Miller carried the infant father of Rosamond on these adventures that
proved too much for Melba who divorced Hugo when Victor, Melba’s only
child, was three years of age. Joaquin Miller was invited to England
by the Pre-Raphaelite poet and artist, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and
had dinner at his house with most of the Brotherhood present. The
four Presco children would converse with Miller’s daughter on the
phone, she calling herself `The White Witch’..
Victor Presco operated Acme Produce out of a Victorian warehouse
located at Fourth and Webster street in Jack London Square. His two
sons, Mark and Greg Presco, began to work the summers with their
father when they were eight and nine. Victor dreamed of becoming a
millionaire via a family owned business. He had turned down an offer
made by his Stuttmeister aunts who wanted Vic to run their family
owned moving company. Vic had gone to Oakland High School with the
two Jenson boys that Melba took into her home after their parents
died in a automobile accident. Jackie Jenson played for the New York
Yankees.
Victor emulated Jack London and modeled his life after London’s
novel `The Sea Wolf’. This is why Vic joined the Merchant Marines
after graduating from the San Francisco Naval Academy. While on
leave in Seattle, he met Rosemary Rosamond, who was in the Waves. Due
to her high I.Q. Rosemary worked in a code room spying on the
Russians. Rosemary had dated the Errol Flynn when she was eighteen.
Mary Rosamond chased Errol his friend out of the Rosamond house in
Ventura when they came serenading just before sunrise.
It was these romantic tales, along with the fine art and Victorian
furniture at the Broderick house, that gave Christine’s brother, Greg
Presco the clue that the Prescos were destined for something more
refined then being Lumpers in Oakland’s Produce Market. At eleven
John Gregory Presco showed talent as an artist. When he was twelve,
one of his paintings was chosen to tour the world in a Red Cross
show. Gregory’s watercolor of the produce marked was chosen for the
same show when he was sixteen. This creative gift was attributed to
Royal Rosamond who became estranged from his four beautiful daughters.
In Junior High School, Greg formed an alliance with his childhood
friend, Bill Arnold, who was an artist and playwright. These two
young Bohemians began to turn the Presco home into Art Colony, and
Bohemian Sanctuary after their heroes, Jack London, and George
Serling. Rosemary was raising her children on her own after she
divorced Vic. The house on San Sebastian street in Oakland became a
wonderland for children and many young teenage friends. Christine’s
oldest broth, Mark Presco, was the designated Parent in what could be
considered a commune.
After moving to West Los Angeles in 1962, Greg was determined to
become a famous artist so he could move his family back to San
Sebastian Avenue. Greg dropped out of High School and began to do
large canvases. When Christine would come home from school, Greg
would be waiting for her, they often sitting in the breakfast room
looking at art books. Christine would give Greg credit for her
overnight-success, she thanking him for showing what was good and bad
art.
After leaving his job at May Company, Greg went back up north. He had
gone to live in the Village in New York after seeing an article on
the first Hippies in Life magazine. In San Francisco he moved in with
his childhood friend, Nancy Van Brasch/Hamren who became a Merry
Prankster. Nancy would later work for the Kesey family and have a
yogurt named after her. When Nancy, Greg, and the daughters of the
famous Pasadena artist, Jryl Zorthian, founded the `Idle Hands’
commune in San Francisco, Christine came there to live for a few
months. Christine had dated Brian McLean of the group `Love’. while
attending University High School in W.L.A. Melinda Frank was
Christine’s good friend, she later becoming the subject of a
serigraph she rendered for the family partnership.
In 1971 Christine Rosamond Presco took up a pencil and brush and
began to put her beautiful woman out in the world. She was living in
Santa Monica, living on welfare and barely supporting her oldest
child, Shannon. Not able to get a job, or a babysitter, she looked at
the minor success of her brother Greg as a way to improve he lot in
life. Entering one of her first oil painting in the Westwood Art
Show, a art promoter took note when Priscilla Presley purchased it.
Signing her to a bad contract, Ira Cohen of Ira Roberts Gallery in
Hollywood did not tell Rosamond how famous she was, her renderings of
beautiful, hip, independent women, could be purchased all over the
world. Leaving Ira, Rosamond set out to take control of her art for
the first time.
In 1970, Rosamond’s brother had announced he was a Pre-Raphaelite
artist, and let his hair grow long in emulation of Rossettit and
Swineburn. While walking on the Venus pier with Christine and her
boyfriend, Michael Dundon, a extremely beautiful young woman came out
of a darkened doorway and asked if she could walk with them. It was
after 2:00 A.M. in the morning. Rena Christianson had come from
Nebraska with her boyfriend, but they had gotten separated on Venus
Beach. Rena’s three older sisters were models, and one of them
appeared on the cover of Look Magazine in a bikini. The article was
about the California Bikini craze. Rena became Greg’s cherished
model, and when he came to visit Rosemary and his family, he showed
photographs of the large painting he did of Rena. While Christine
looked over her brother’s shoulder, she wondered if she could do
better. Rena was their Muse.
In 1986 Rosamond married Garth Benton. In 1988 the Bentons formed a
partnership with Lawrence Chazen, a financial advisor for the Getty
family, and partner in the PlumpJack restaurants, along with the
Pelosis and Gavin Newsom. Garth would work on a mural at the old
Getty Museum in Malibu for nine months along with Shannon, who along
with Drew, inherited this important artistic legacy, and this
profound California family history.
Jon Presco
Copyright 2002
Laura’s Glance
Posted on June 10, 2012 by Royal Rosamond Press
Last night I read at Tsunami Books. No one told me it was going to be an erotic poetry slam. I brought Laura’s Glance and explained to the large audience that when I was growing up, when a couple got wet in black and white movies, it meant they were going to have sex. If they found shelter from a sudden storm under a pavilion, it meant they had achieved coitus. Then, came the kiss, the sound of a thousand strings, and they were in love!
Wow! I can’t wait!
Once I was off the stage a woman read her poem about lesbian sex with a dildo. Then a pro from Oakland took us where I did not care to go, and I left.
That is Izzy on stage, and Kenny Reed on drums. They left before the real naughty female exhibitionist took over. They would have made Lenny Bruce – blush!
Laura’s Glance
By
Jon Presco
Copyright 2011
More exciting then the sight
Of my dapple mare
running wild
in the spring grassy rain
near the crags of Londonderry
was the sight of my Laura
looking sideways at me
Like the warmth rising
from within my woolen coat
soaked through in a sudden
shower
are my feelings rising
for this Irish Lass
Who through the veil
of other lifetimes
ignored the patient attention
of her handsome suitors
Lining up to behold her
they showed me their profiles
like greyhounds
sensing someone outside
the hunt;
had caught her fancy
Their young lust made more noble
In the presence of her perfection
Laura’s animation
had cast a spell over our town
This shiny bright being
conducted this most ancient play
with eyes that danced and sparkled
Like beams of light
caught on a breaking wave
Or gems captured
in a brook that trickle
out of a dark shaded wood
There was a silver sheen
under her wide-set eyes
Her long lashes
were like banners
waving
Sending errant knights
on foreign crusades
For there could only be
one champion of her heart
Sensing my eyes
were upon her,
More then weighing her beauty
but her young womanly soul
She bid her long tapered arms
to dance
As playful as swans
who mate for life
She teased us all
with her promise
that one day
one of us would have her
But until that vow
little girls admired
the fine curls in her
dark brown hair
that framed
her joyful smile
that flirted with everything
that beat blood through
an Irish heart.
She was our drummer
our flute
and the setting sun that
Chose to break thru
The heavy ceiling
of our darkest clouds
no gray pall
Nor sorrow
ever cast a shadow
on our Laura
Some claim she
gave them a wondrous wink
But when she
turned that day
to look fully at me
There was no smile on her lips
no movement of her arms
that had fallen to her side
to allow me to see
I was the one
And never again would
my Lovely Laura
look sideways at me
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