Yes

It’s not tomorrows long forever,
nownever, or a yesterday’s thought
that made this live, what ever,
there it stood saying: “Look
at me, I am beauty, look at
me, am I not something you
have felt, feeling while
maybe trying to live, living,
giving.” I feel my paint soul
saying look at me, beauty
painted

This all I could understand
though I cupped my hand to my ear
and listened. I moved closer, but
soon my very nearness seemed to make
it much softer a harder to hear
and in not being able to understand,
came fear, frightening me. I ran, running
to someone, something to help me in
my understanding the fear of not knowing.

I passed past memories in my flight.
Fright stopped me from asking them for
their help in my not knowing.
Pride stopped me from showing
my need to understand. It kept
coming back to me: “I am beauty
living, I feel my painted soul,
my paint of beauty.”

I passed a river of scarlet fishes.
I softly sang to them: “Can
you not feel its painted beauty?
Or does your cold wet home
not let you know of other's
love for their own beauty?”
They but swam up stream and
did not even answer or
at least I did not understand
if they did. It made me feel
alone, lonely. So much in fear
I ran fast, harder, on and on
for they seemed not to care
if this beauty existed for
its eternity. So run, ran,
running the winds caught my
moving mane wrapping it
about my face in a fears lace

blinding me to all I passed in my
race to find the silent sound I
so wanted to know, the secret
understanding of this beauty painted
soul, that quench my thirst could,
this blind pace of fear would STOP,
fright of the unknown, darkest
night cold alone, all tears blinding
be stopped. Stop unknowing. I stood
relistening, through my hair mane
glistening came a morning light.
My fear chase was run, now shown
the sun giving its light, warmth
to the scarlet fish flowing river
song. They knew singing, it is
beauty. Didn’t you know?


So now I return to the place
I began, came the voice soft on
the wind. I listened, it said: “I
am beauty, am I not, look at me and
love. Look at me, am I not something
you have felt, feeling my painted
souls saying yes. I am all beauty and
yes to you I do give it.”

It said very softly
Yes.

Story by Tony Mafia, 1974. Yes to you I give it.

Nureyev

Dave Q.T. Betts about Nureyev and the drawing: I have always been a lover of the ballet,being raised on it having an elder sister who was a professional dancer. After the death of Rudolph Nureyev from aids,I wrote a song dedicated to him called "Dancing Man". Any way, I was staying with Ann Marie and Tony at the Lage Weg and asked Tony to listen to this new song. Tony was sitting on the sofa and behind me was a part started picture he was working on. So I started to sing "Dancing Man" it was going well,when Tony suddenly jumped up !! picked up the picture from the easel and turned it upside down and started to work frantically on it,saying "can't you see it,can't you see it ????" He finished the picture and presented it to me as a gift. Don't know if you can make it out,but in the center is a dancer pirouetting on a stage withe audience in the foreground and the stage lights and drapes framing him. The inscription reads "David Betts Nureyev dances and death - Tony Mafia 94. Here's a little after story about the song. I was staying with a friend Kurt Uhler near San Diego and he had heard the song and asked would I go with him to sing it for a friend ?? I said sure. We went down some back alleys and reached a house belonging to his landlady. Kurt knocked on the door and a little face peered out at us from behind the metal security gate."Yes what do you want"asked the old lady ? Would you please listen to this song my friend from England has written,asked Kurt. I didn't know what was happening so I start to sing to this strange lady on her back porch. Bye the time I finish,she is sobbing with tears pouring down her face ??? She was a Russian ballet teacher,had worked with many visiting ballets in San Diego and had been a personal friend of Nureyev !!!!

Ballance

Tony was often in delicate balance. A breeze, an impression, the suggestion of an attitude, could make him angry. Yesterday I was reminded of the day Tony met a colleague of mine: a nice, civilized man. He remembered after looking at the blog that the one and only time he and Tony met, within seconds it seemed, Tony got pretty upset. None of us remember what had triggered this. Tony could make friends for life in half a minute and often I would add an enemy in half a second. So this is why I show a painting where he is trying for balance. He kept going over and over it. Yes, all our lives are a delicate balance and Tony certainly was hypersensitive but he kept looking for beauty and honesty in his work. He used to say "My work is better than I am. I am just the asshole you know."

The sequel

Dave wrote: Second sketch.Not sure which bar this was,think it was in the red light area.inscription reads "Conversation cries,driving in England,Sweden was good for it or so the baird breathed,it,s not that simple.Still the baird,still the baird.

When Tony did these pen and ink drawings in a café, they were usually 'situational'. It would be the café, the drinkers and women. This one in the text refers to Dave's life, the places, the singing and finding him unchanged. He has given away countless napkins, we even once organized a napkin exhibition in Hoboken.

Bar art

Story to go with pictures.-------I knew Tony from the late sixties in Antwerpen,Belgium, we were good buddies then, always play fighting verbally and teasing each other about our language differences,(he was still trying to master English !) anyway we lost contact over the next more than twenty years and only met up again in 1991 in dear old Antwerpen.It was like we had never parted!!The war of words and wills continued,but in the best of humor (usually)This first sketch was done when we were out on the town doing the bars,on that day of reunion.It was drawn in the "Pelikan" bar on the corner opposite the "Muse".The bearded character is Montana Bob, no longer with us and that's his daughter with him.As per usual there is a Tony inscription on it,that reads "Love,time and not many left in a bar of forgotten memories,this is the trouble"

This is a Dave Q.T. Redheart F. Betts memory of Tony, more to come.

Three women

I want to warn you all that I am a wanderer, often on the road, like these three lovely ladies in this small canvas Tony painted in Chloride. See their boots? See the turquoise they wear? Turquoise is a good, healing and protective stone and the Navajo say it is a piece of the sky you are wearing. Tony was partial to turquoise, often wore rings, his concho belt and of course cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. The big pale blue sky is so Arizona, as is the wide expanse, the summer desert. The looseness of this painting is its charm: two stick flowers, a stripe for a bracelet, a dot for a ring... Yet it is all there.

What is, is always

I tend to smile a lot,when I think of Tony,
We used to keep each other sane.
Somtimes just as mean as sin,sometimes lost and lonely,
Shining like a black sun in the rain.

Chorus. Hoboken in the rain,Chloride in the sun.
We'd sit and shoot the breeze,till the day was done.
It just won't be the same,goodbye silver hair.
Mohave take him home,I wish that I was there.

Like a maniac at times,fighting with the colours,
Dancing with a paintbrush in his mouth.
In the middle of the night restless as a demon,
Searching for the truth despite his health.

Chorus.

Onondaga Cherokee,of Irish dancing mother,
Cowboy of the sea and desert wind.
Out of time flamenco mind,voyeur of the spirit,
Standing on the outside looking in.

Chorus.

He would stand rod in hand,fishing for an answer,
Fishing helped to keep the dark away.
Casino lights and Vegas nights,kept his mind distracted,
Helped to keep his shadow land at bay.

Chorus.

We would often sit in silence,staring into nothing,
No need to speak,no words to say.
Then he'd just look at me and raise his eyebrows lightly,
Saying "What the hell we going to do today".

Chorus.

Words and music David F Betts, May 1999. Click on the link and you can hear other songs by Dave as well. Picture of Tony in his forties.

What stands behind

It is a good thing we don't know What stands behind. Yet when it is such beauty as in this drawing I wonder whether the fear is less of the unknown is less. Or would the joy be greater because of desasters not yet happened, dignity not yet lost. Life and living to the fullest is the message here before the last betrayal in accepting the silver coins. Tony painted this in 1984 in Antwerp. Well maybe the guy is just a heavy tipper, like Tony was when he had money.

Unaware
he put the money
in her apron
Buying a smile
and gratitude
a moment’s understanding
a rapport
a touch of black and silk
a spark of youth

Unaware
she took the money
and surprised
she sold her
smile

Monsters

I was gently rebuked about Tony's dark episodes. His friend is right: Tony always seemed happy and bubbly; but exhaustion, not feeling well and general disgruntlement with the world would take over as it tends to do with us all. In his happy moments he painted on everything and when the decor no longer suited him he would change it, paint it over. Although he was mortified when some else painted over a piece of work in their place. This animal started crawling on the bathroomwall on a happy day... more of those excepts of murals, existing and non existing are to come. Obvious a lizard is an Indian symbol for water and purity and growth.
Well this one could be a Gila monster, living in the Mojave desert, are pretty but poisonous making his way on a wall in Hoboken.

Mother

This particular drawing, mixed media on paper, was done in 1991 when Tony learned in Antwerp that his mother had passed away in Nevada. She was had been a very pretty woman en had been a dancer till her early fifties in the old Thunderbird Casino in Las Vegas. He thought the world of her and cared about the painting, so it happened he gave it to his friend the veterinarian for safe keeping. Do you see the stained glass windows of the cathedral? The right one is a crucifixion. The text reads: A lady of deepest love has passed I cry...