There she is! The Banana.

It is of no laughing matter when a friend from Berlin replied, after days of patiently letting him be, albeit the pressing matters at hand, and with great consternation, exclaimed: “There she is the banana!” I chuckled nervously and LOLed at him.

“What fuckin’ banana you idiot! Of course there is a banana! I’d like to quote the recent cliche but most of all make this as accessible as possible. I just painted over the David Bowie lightning bolt that supposed to be under the image’s left eye.” So I replied and pressed send, losing little by little my lofty academic ambitions after rereading my message and found 3 mispellings and the glaring poor syntax- which i have corrected here for me, or you, if you are reading.

The real question is when will this guy get his ass back. Fund is running low and I’m close to eating dog food just to save some money, if he doesn’t come back soon. It’s cold outside and talking the dog for a walk is out of the question. It’s been 3 weeks and this winter is killing me. Still, I am thankful for the lodging and the access to his art materials for my own use.

“This painting is my gift to you, Hombre! And yeah I watched the youtube Kandinsky. He can draw straight lines, yeah. Yellow for trumpets, deep blue for organ- got it!”

Of course this is the ongoing banter between him and me, him being a hardcore abstract painter and I taking the figurative painter stance. I just want to paint trees and leaves and faces of people I like- I tell him.

He replied. “Don’t even go there! LOL!”

“I wonder what color is for the tambourine. A triangle strike can be one glitter of white under a pinkish wash yeah? And the maraccas are browns and greens scattering all over like chick peas?”

DONT! LOL!

and with that he signed off again.

Three days later he knocks on the door of his NJ apartment 402 and within hours, I find myself on a plane to Siargao. A little r’nr, which is also the start of my research. This business of buying land in the cheap, on the hilly parts of the islands and selling to brokers in NY proved successful, and my friend, my patron, so he said, but not having bought any of my work yet, having given me a little comission and a new mission, bids me adieu. Catch you later!

Jose de Jesus was born in Albuquerque and is of Filipino/Mexican/Japanese descent. He studies art history and is currently doing research in the Philippines.

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