I have known Ernie Palomino for over six years now, but it feels like we have been friends forever. We don't get together much and don't really correspond much, but when we are together I feel like I'm with a brother from another mother. You can see references to Ernie in other parts of this blog. He is an artist in many media and was a professor of art at Fresno State University until he retired. He is several years older than I and his life experiences are much different from mine, yet we are somehow connected at a very deep level. I had written Ernie early in the summer about my upcoming marriage in December of this year and invited him to come to be with us if he could. I knew that he doesn't travel much now, but wanted him to know we wanted him to be a part of this new episode in our lives. Ernie, like many of us, is dealing with changes inflicted on our bodies as we age; in his case, it was prostate cancer. You can see how he references it in his letter to me dated 7/20/15.
Dear Jim, Dr Morgan, Captain Morgan,
Your letters are always a welcome relief for my ego.
You bring about a sense of sanity to the world of robotic madness.
Once upon a time there was spiritual reality. You came upon the shores of North America and brought a change of ideas. The change to live longer, enjoy beauty of intellectual exchange.
I am living my life as a robotic savage. I live now at eighty with a robotic dick. It gets hard, but nothing comes out!
What this means--"big heart, old balls"? said the -Hindu--to the robotic T-shirt.
In Turkey and Tunisia, in China, Japan live spirits, still alive and well.
"The black woman cast a spell upon us and I need her so badly--" I got hit right between the eyes. I get the blues always three inspirational, compositional "speeches", televisional compensations, monthly payments, discount coupons and dollar store buys--and Donald Duck alias Donald Trump--.
Sending you enclosed not visual prints--but a "robotic, plastic disc" with a copy, by reading sheet music recorded on a machine which sounds (almost") like the real thing!! Thelonias Monk "Blue Monk" and Fats Waller, Jitter Bug Waltz--without further text, hand written, tattoed on paper!
God bless you we are in the same boat Captain Morgan.
Always hoist the mast. The Admiral, E.P.
--Ever Forward--
I asked Ernie if I could reprint his letter here. I found it so beautifully poetic and filled with those special kind of emotional shortcuts through language to the very essence of internal feelings and meaning. He graciously agreed to let me share the letter on my blog.
In the letter he referenced the connections we had made as friends, talked about places he had been that have left an impression on him, talked about personal relationships and losses with women, mentioned the plastic nature of life that he sees around him (including a person running for the office of President of the United States), and talked about giving me a gift of a CD he had recently made that embodies the essence of his musical self that he had reconnected to through learning a new way of expressing himself on a very sophisticated electronic keyboard. The CD is something that I will always treasure as a connection that Ernie has to something deep inside of him. He still produces visual arts and I think he has done some very good work lately. His music and his painting seem to swirl around that inner core that defines him yet cannot ever be fully expressed. I think the world has been bettered because he has tried and continues to try to see the core and show it to us.
I amhonored to call Ernie my brother and my friend.