COOL BEANS

I didn't want to go to Brooklyn. I didn't think I'd make it.

I emailed Taliah... "I'll be there (maybe)".

But I believe in putting one foot in front of the other.

Ignore the fear until it's unavoidable. See how you feel when you get there!

(This credo has led me to auditions I wasn't prepared for, to apartment buildings, where I would wait to go inside to a party or gathering, repressing my fear 'til the last minute, and then the fear would triumph, and I'd shuffle home another sad, lonely human on the planet).

The day I was to meet Taliah,  I was worried about biking over the Williamsburg Bridge.

When I lived in Brooklyn (years ago), the Brooklyn Bridge was a mess of signs and stairs and off ramps. But when I arrive at the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge (at Delancey Street) it's like the entrance to Oz.

It's so easy to get on the bridge, and the bridge is so scenic and accommodating!

New York is quaint and unpolluted!

When did New York become so damn easy and user-friendly?

I really feel cheated because when I was in my twenties I suffered a daily run through the Meat Packing District where there were still homeless people gathered round burning ash cans. These (new) New Yorkers have no idea.

The Williamsburg bridge is great. It has pink rails and happy, healthy people who look like they're from Seattle. This bridge is ideal.

Taliah's artist's loft is right over the bridge.

I take a right down Broadway.  As  I unseat myself from my bike, Talliah calls out...

"Charlie!"

She's been waiting for me (outside).  That was nice of her. She knows I may need help. I sent her a link to this blog.

I'm glad to see her.  I have a giddy, emotional disposition (these days) like I've just recovered from a state of shock from some great war... and look at me now! I'm alive! I made it and so did you!
It's a sad, warm affirmation that we're together in the present (right now) but OH! That moment just slipped away. (hug, hug)

Taliah is warm and earthy and shy and young.

She wears a zipper down sweatshirt with "B R O OK L Y N" embroidered across the front,

like she was costumed for a TV program.  (When I met her a second time, she was wearing the same BROOKLYN sweatshirt).

She guides me to a freight elevator on the other side of the large old brick building.

I debate whether to bring my bike up to her loft or lock it up outside,  but Talliah lifts the bike up the stoop and puts on the freight elevator and we are intimate and chatty and on our way.

We enter an immense loft lousy with art and couches, paintings, painting supplies and is oh so cozy and bohemian and real and not real. It's an ideal location for a cool indi film. It has the warmth and intricacy of Santa's Workshop. That's right, if Santa was a Brooklyn dude, this would be "Brooklyn Santa's Workshop".

We make our way to her part of the loft and through my (living space envy) I breathlessly an talk about lost real estate opportunities. We trade New York Real Estate stories.

I tell her I used to own a tiny box of an apartment in Chelsea.

I had thought it would never grow in value.

Talliah is unphased by this, to my confession. She gave up a three story brownstone for $1500 a month (the entire brownstone).

Yep! the city has really changed.

I love this loft (just for the the visuals) and would like to wander all over it with my camera snapping pictures, but I don't.

I don't because it would be rude and greedy, and also because it's not why I'm here.

I'm here to discuss her art, not to hungrily create my own. So after getting permission to take a few photos, I stop and focus.

"I saw your paintings hanging in Flat Iron District a couple of years ago, in a restaurant or was it an art supply store?  Normally, being an actor, never knowing when my next check will come ... I'd never indulge in commissioning a painting like this...

but I want beautiful things around me... and not to be morbid, but if I die, I'd like to leave some things behind that are beautiful and that might remind people of me. The Schwinn is a connection to me because it really rescued me."

"Oh, that's really great."

"I mean I think I'll be fine, I plan on being fine, I just .... you know."

"sure".

We talk details.

Taliah tells me she gets commissions, but she also paints for friends. Sometimes she paints just to paint. She paints on canvas, paper, and board or canvas stretched over board.

I ask which one she likes best and she says she likes all of them but right now it's paper because it's easier to store.

I ask her if its hard to just stick to bikes. (Taliah only paints bicycles).

"Do you ever veer from the path? I feel like I've always had a hard time with focus, (as a creative type)."

"Not really, I love bikes. I was living in Cobble hill in the early 90s and just happened to buy a really great little bike and I started biking everywhere and I've always biked since.  I've met some great people through the biking world. I just love how a bike can bring you places, you can see things that you wouldn't see on the subway or on foot. It's been really cool, really good."

"I agree, it's a great invention. It turns the city into a small, little town (for me)."

We turn to her latest work.

Her current model (posing center stage on a table in the center of her studio) is a gorgeous, vintage, British, racing bike. The tire rims are wood! The paint (mustard yellow) has been worn to a thin, exquisite, painterly layer that reminds me of the painterliness of any of the great Impressionists. The handle bars are expertly bent (from years of use). They're tired, but still look masterful and strong, like this bike was designed for greatness, to last for centuries. This bike may exceed the beauty of any painting Talliah paints of it.

Realizing the beauty of this bike, I think of my own less aesthetically inspired bike, an orange Schwinn from the sixties, gaffers tape holding the seat together.

I tell Taliah,  "I don't want a sad painting. My bike is tired but I don't want it to be like...  say ... a Wyeth. I'm not sure which Wyeth, but you know those paintings that look like sad black and white photographs? I grew up with those, I never cared for those... the peeling New England doors, the hanging dead ducks, the dirty hunting dogs... super beautiful, super real... super depressing."

"No, I see bikes as a positive thing. Bikes are energy.  Friends often offer to bring me decapitated bikes, ruined bikes, abandoned bikes from the street. They think that would be cool, that I would like to paint these derelict bikes, but I have no interest in that."

(My bike is such a sad little beater... I wonder how she'll get around it).

I need water, my tongue feels like I'm going to swallow it.

"Flat or bubble?"

"Flat"

She brings me a glass of water with ice cubes.

It's time for me to go.

On our way down I ask about the building.

"It's from the 19th century and was used to make things for the Civil War. When I moved in (years ago) there were sweat shops on the other floors and people would knock on my door looking for work."

" I used to rehearse children's theatre in the Garment district. The building we rehearsed in also had sweat shops. The elevators were packed with nervous immigrants.  Now Anderson Cooper lives there."

We make our way onto the street.

She helps me down to the curb and I start to cramp up but it goes away.

"Thank you Taliah, I'll call you in the next few days and we'll make plans" and Taliah says,

 "cool beans".