yustyoking

 

I think I’m screwed. What I want so seldom aligns with what I get. Trained as a journalist, I’m always badgering Mario for work. He’s my BFF from my college years at dear old Moosegrave School of Journalism, Class of ’87. “Hail, hail, long live the gold and blue!” We couldn’t muster a football team worth squat, but we was really good at mouthin’ off. Mario now works in satellite radio in New York. Me, I am currently the Assistant Curator of Exhibitions at the Ethnicity Museum in Washington, DC. This entails a lot of traveling. You try setting up the same damn exhibit in 50 different cities and then wait around three days for the local school kiddies to view it before breaking camp and beginning all over again somewhere else. These are great exhibitions based on our American heritage:

“Cosa Nostra and the Italian Experience in New York.”

“I can get it for you wholesale: The Jews.”

“Albanian Contributions to the Orthodox Liturgy.”

Yeah, the museum is non-profit, but Exhibitions is a commercial venture: Contributors all over the country want to see what their charitable contribution hath wrought. Uncle Kevin shows up to put on a show!

What? It’s not my fault that I’m lonely and a lot of third grade teachers are 30-year-old women not yet joined in matrimony. How much HBO and Turner Classics am I expected to watch, sitting alone in a motel room off the Interstate? What else can U do in Cleveland, Ohio and El Paso, Texas but take an attractive woman out to din-din? I list it as “educational representation” on my expense account. During dinner, I’ll say things like “Sacco and Vanzetti, those Italians got a raw deal!” Or “Germans contributed a lot more to American culture than just beer, you know.” Educational, that makes it kosher with the accounting office.

Listen, I never said I was brilliant. Third grade teachers like their discourse on a par with their students. Gazing at me over melting wax candles in Chianti bottles and plastic red and white checkered tablecloths, they squirm in their seats. They can’t wait for the formalities to end and the main event to begin. Squirming in my seat, I’m the same way. These teachers are very nice to me. A stranger to the area, a guaranteed one-nighter, I am extremely grateful. But enough pornography!

I’m a lib. The “Take Back Antarctica” and “Help Stamp Out Penguins!” bumper stickers on my five-year-old Prius are meant to be ironic. (I’m mad about Tesla, but I can’t afford a $70,000 electric car.) Ask Chris Rock: The downside of irony is that occasionally someone reads you wrong and puts a nasty note under your windshield wiper. That should be the height of my troubles.

I speak Swedish, it’s one of my attributes. Mario cannot land me any work in satellite radio, they are already overstaffed with Swedes and bureaucrats. New Yawk, however, is the proverbial beehive of publishing and one day he telephones me to say, “Put on your après ski and snow boots, I got you a gig interviewing Sven-Gösta Magnusson in Stockholm.”

“Who pays?” I ask, right up front. First things first.

“Fairyland Magazine.”

Aha! Fairyland. “Okay!” I chirp. I know this women’s magazine. Not just another pretty concoction of beauty tips and photo spreads, Fairyland goes that extra five yards to provide culturally significant information for the digital age. Listicles. Web addresses. Gucci web addresses, in case you want to contact Gucci’s office in Bombay. “Thank you, Mario!” I gush. “Thank you, thank you, thank you—”

He’s hung up, but he texts me the particulars. I’ll be working for Elle Baxter, Fairyland’s Media Editor. Cool beans! Now who the hell is Sven-Gösta Magnusson? I google the dude. His Wikipedia page has all these annotations requiring verification, but basically he is an underground Swedish filmmaker, an oberoende filmskapare for want of a better title. Also, not to be confused with Swedish film director Leif Magnusson. I’m no movie critic, but I’m not about to tell Fairyland Magazine that. A yakker, I have inherited the gift of gab from my mom’s side of the family: I can interview barnyard animals and come away with a story, twelve column inches. I telephone and talk with Kathy, Elle Baxter’s executive assistant. Barely skimming over my credentials, she only has a single piece of advice: “Keep your pecker in your pants,” she tells me.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’ve talked with Mario. He says you use your position at a museum to troll for women.”

“Now wait a minute. That’s not fair.”

“Go to Stockholm, interview this dude Magnusson and come home. Jesus! Hasn’t the whole Julian Assange mess made any impact on you jerks? Apparently, if you sleep with a Swedish woman, you end up in hock to her for the rest of your life. Or seven years. Whichever comes first.”

“Kathy, that’s not true!” I plead. “It’s just that women’s rights are very well developed in Scandinavia.”

“Whatever,” she sighs and gives me an account number to which I may charge a limited number of expenses.

Hallelujah! I’se in business!

 

***MC***MC***MC***MC***MC****MC***MC***MC***

 

Amidst several hundred backpacking college students starting their summer-in-Europe vacations, I fly Icelandair from New York to Stockholm. Look at me! For once in my life, I’m in business class. The fuselage is padded in creamy white. Two seats across. Extra legroom. Complimentary pillow. Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat! The in-flight movie features Brad Pitt. The blond stewardesses are so drop-dead gorgeous, I never want to leave the airplane!

Flying into Stockholm-Arlanda, the place still feels like the sleepy airport of some provincial backwater. Only the uniformed police bearing automatic rifles adds a jarring note. I miss the Old Days when a glass display case from SKF, Svenska Kullagerfabriken, sat in a corridor of the terminal building, exhibiting an endless stream of bright, silver-colored steel ball bearings bouncing from one metal post to another in a mindless salute to Swedish precision engineering. Volvo and Hasselblad once ruled the world, folks! Such a glorious history. The Nazi war machine was armored with Swedish steel. German troops used the Swedish railroad to travel up to Norrland and fight the Winter War in Finland. As late as the 1980’s, a Soviet Navy Whiskey-class submarine of the Baltic Fleet ran aground in the Swedish archipelago, while rusty cans of Russian mosquito repellant washed ashore on Swedish beaches. Taggarna utåt, “Show your claws in every direction,” we schoolboys chanted in my youth in the university town of Uppsala, dragging our book bags in fits and starts of patriotic fervor.

Sweden’s Hollywood is in Trollhättan, outside Gothenburg, but financing still comes by way of the Swedish Film Institute in Stockholm. Rather than beard the beast unprepared, I figure I’ll get local background first before contacting herr Magnusson. It’s a longish hike from the subway stop at Gärdet to the Institute, but I tell myself I need to get in shape. The young lady behind glass in the lobby is cordial. Stunningly pretty, she listens attentively to my query and suggests having someone come downstairs to meet me. “You can sit over there,” she points out. Setting my tired ass in a Danish modern tubular armchair next to an elegant glass coffee table that wouldn’t be out of place at MOMA, I thumb through Swedish trade journals. Within minutes, a good-looking young man in black chinos, a white button-down shirt and brown penny loafers comes out of the elevator, approaches me and shakes my hand.

“Eric Andersson,” he says. I should have his blue eyes and thick brown head of hair!

“Kevin Feingold. I’m in Stockholm to meet this dude named Sven-Gösta Magnusson—” I explain, but the young man is already laughing in my face.

“I’m sorry,” he chortles. “Excuse me, I don’t mean to pry, but what do you want to see Magnusson about?”

“I’m supposed to interview him for a women’s fashion magazine Stateside.”

“Women’s fashion? Sven-Gösta Magnusson?” he asks, gaping.

“Yeah, I know, but it’s because of his cultural impact.”

“His actors all perform in the nude.”

“Huh? They do? Well, uh… I guess we’re interested in the cultural impact of that.”

 

***MC***MC***MC***MC***MC****MC***MC***MC***

 

Still recovering from shock, I return to my room at the Grand Hotel and go online to see how I could possibly have missed something like blatant nudity. Aha! There it is. That’s what “uninhibited” and “free expression” are meant to convey. They are code words, the basis for an R rating.

Not finding anything as gratuitously old-fashioned as a telephone catalog anywhere in my room, I call down to the desk and ask the male clerk for Sven-Gösta Magnusson’s telephone number. Long wait. “The Sven-Gösta Magnusson telephone number, this number is unlisted,” he tells me snootily.

“That’s why I am staying at the Grand Hotel and asking you,” I coax. “Surely you can do something about this small impasse.”

He does. He hangs up.

I call Eric Andersson at the Film Institute and apologize for bothering him again. I ask if he has Magnusson’s telephone number. “Hold on, Kevin” he replies breezily as if he has nothing better to do than rescue foreign journalists from their idiocies. A minute later, he calmly recites the number.

“Thank you, sir!”

“Good luck!” Eric replies, laughing.

With contact imminent, it occurs to me that this would be as good a time as any to acquaint myself with some of Sven-Gösta’s films. Up until now, I have held off, following the principle that once seen, it is well-nigh impossible to “unsee” a movie. Not wishing to muddy the waters of my enthusiasm, shall we say, I have avoided actually watching any of his artistic endeavors. That is no longer an option. There are links to some of his movies on his Wikipedia webpage, and it is there that I begin. Short films, they are heavy on mood. Lots of bass in the background music. Ominous skies.

A sampling:

The Parable of the Snake & the Apple (Ormen och äpplet, B & W, 60 seconds) Adam and Eve frolic in Paradise. Totally nude. The snake tempts them to eat the apple (of knowledge). Adam and Eve look at one another. The final scene shows them still in Paradise, still nude, roasting the snake on a spit over an open fire.

Samson, Delilah and the Temple of Doom (Shimshon, Dahlia och undergångstemplet, Color, 60 seconds) Night in the desert. A wild party in a Bedouin tent. Writhing like a cobra, the naked Dahlia (or Delilah) rubs up against a nude, grinning Samson (Shimshon in Hebrew). Cut to a nude Samson in chains in the temple of the Philistines. As naked Delilah waves a hot poker to put out his eyes, Samson says (B & W title card) “Make nice, bitch, or I’ll come back 2,000 years from now and whip your ass!”

 Jets vs Sharks, a West Side Story (Ungdomsgäng I City, Color, 60 seconds) Hard as nails, the inexplicably nude Jets come dancing up the alleyway, swinging nunchucks. Equally unclothed, the knife-wielding Sharks come dancing down the alleyway toward a confrontation. Close-up of Jets sneering at Sharks and Sharks taunting Jets. They dance by each other and continue in opposite directions.

The Barker (Hejaren, B & W, 60 seconds) In front of a tent on a boardwalk in a seaside resort, a naked barker shouts in accented English, “Yowza! Yowza! Yowza! Right this way! Step right up! Chance of a lifetime. You won’t believe the thrills, the chills, the naked adventure…” The nude people strolling by are either (1) deaf, (2) don’t speak English or (3) aren’t buying his spiel. He’s still there, alone, shouting, as the sun goes down.

Hamburger Helper (Hamburgarängeln, Color, 30 seconds) A head and shoulders view of a nude, breathtakingly beautiful blue-eyed blond teenage girl who stares into the camera, widens her eyes, giggles and presses us to “Huh hamburger! You know you want one, silly! A big, fat juicy hamburger! Think about it…! (staring) Think about it…! (staring) Think about it! (staring)… You know you wanna hamburger. Tee-hee-hee! You know you’d love a hamburger! You… can’t… help… yourself. Ahhh! Hamburger!!! Aw shucks!”

I can see why people watch his movies. They are both alien and familiar, innocent and jaded, ingenious and stupid, all at the same time. I’ve never considered making movies, I’m a writer, but on the levelly competitive playing field of online commerce, popular is as popular does. Clever people get followers and Sven-Gösta’s gimongously bad art is just weird enough to attract an audience.

 

***MC***MC***MC***MC***MC****MC***MC***MC***

 

When I get through to Magnusson, I get his answering machine. “Nej, men… här är det jag… Hi there, it’s me. Leave a message and I may answer… or maybe not. We’ll have to see. Hej!”

He calls me back within five minutes. “You are the one from the magazine,” he surmises in precise English. “I have told them a definite, maybe yes, maybe no, but first we must meet and a great many things must be made clear. You know the Sergelstorg?”

“I know Sergelstorg,” I tell him in Swedish. “You want to meet there?”

“On the steps.”

“On the steps?” I howl. “You mean where all the teenage girls sit?”

“All right, we’ll meet at the Central Railroad Station! At the hole in the floor,” he insists brusquely. I guess he didn’t like my crack about the lassies.

I head on over there. What a day! A balmy summer breeze under a sun-soaked sky. Black and white seagulls parade along the pavement, eyeing me with all the vigilance of traffic cops. I bop into a small refreshment shop on Klarabergsgatan to get rehydrated. I am shocked to find myself staring at Tove Lo, the pop singer. Or at least a Tove Lo look-alike. She is in the process of making a purchase, but the black-haired, brown-eyed Turkish proprietor interrupts her to ask if he can take a selfie. Which she graciously allows him to do. “You know, Tove,” I tease as she’s leaving, “no one ever asks to take a selfie with me.” I smile. I wink. I shrug. Tove Lo returns my smile and leaves. Bragging rights, I will be able to say forever after that I met Tove Lo! Or a Tove Lo look-alike who was too polite to disillusion me with the truth. Name-dropping is an established Swedish habit. It’s called jag mötte Lassie, “I met Lassie,” referring to the famous collie of books, film and TV.

(This fortuitous encounter took place prior to Tove’s Lady Wood Tour summer concert at Klub Stodoła in Warsaw, Poland. Follow Tove on Twitter.)

The shelves behind the counter are chock-a-block with flavored water. “Yeah? Which one ya want?” asks the proprietor, suddenly acting like a snot-nose. I expect him at any moment to charge me rent. Confronting a wide variety of unknowns, I stick with an old standby, VOSS Lemon Cucumber Sparkling Water from Norway. Good stuff, you could do worse than VOSS.

At the Central Station, Sven-Gösta picks me out of the crowd because of my bright red “Make America Suck Again” baseball cap. “So you are who you say you are,” he declares, glaring. Dressed in a purple turtleneck sweater, skinny black jeans and flying boots, he looks thoroughly mad. A carrot top mad scientist with piercing blue eyes and horrendous teeth. He could also use a shave.

“I thought national health included dental care,” I murmur. Appalled, I realize he heard me!

“I heard that! National health has not offered free dental care in over 30 years,” he bellows, drawing confused looks from other people lounging by the fence around the hole in the floor.

“Anyway, where shall we go for the interview?” I quickly interject. Anything to change the subject. I mean, skinny jeans??? What’s next, bell bottoms?

“There is a new event space that has now opened in Stockholm,” Sven-Gösta explains fulsomely. “It is called Artemis. We must go there for the interview.”

I understand that since he’s a full-fledged Swede, nobody ever gives him any trouble. Swedes are not so much arrogant as obtuse. Kinda clueless, but in a good way.

“Your suggestion sounds noisy,” I caution him. “I was thinking of the coffee shop at my hotel. I’m at the Grand. Great coffee shop overlooking the harbor. Nu?”

Sven-Gösta must be nervous, the way he paces back and forth, softly muttering to himself. He seems oblivious to the eye candy, bodacious teenage babes everywhere you look. Ogling the girls, I salivate like Niagara Falls. I also pull out my Duncan® Pulse Light Up Yo-Yo and put on a show. It draws the schoolgirls like bears to honey. “Oooh, let me try! Låt mig pröva! Let me try!” they squeal. Nothing succeeds like success.

I am rightly criticized for spending too much time with schoolgirls, but they make it so easy. The bar is set so low, every sensible sentence they speak is wondrous to behold: “Sneakers are okay, but I prefer high heels when I do dressy-uppy.” or “My parents and I are renting a camper this summer and driving around Italy.” and “Neither Facebook nor Twitter can compete with, you know, Instagram.” Where do they come up with such glorious syntax?!

“We meet at the event space or there will be no interview!” Magnusson exclaims, sounding like General Norman Schwarzkopf crossing the Tigris. “I will meet you there at 7 p.m. Also, I own a controlling interest in a DVD factory. Streaming wideo is killing the DVD. Perhaps you will buy this property from me, relieving economic pressure.”

“Perhaps I won’t!” I reply adamantly, shaking my head.

“Now you sound aggressive,” he complains.

This is either the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end for yours truly.

Back at my hotel, I google the event space, using the map function to track down exactly which tiny street I am looking for. The Old Town of Stockholm has many a tiny street. I eat a tasty dinner of biff à la Lindström— hamburger laced with beets— in the dining room of the hotel, floss and clean my teeth thoroughly, and then take a shower. I dress in Ralph Lauren evening leisure wear, add a Swatch for a personal accent, and slip into my Cole Haan Grandpro Black Sneakers. I also wear a button informing the world “Nadsat Spoken Here.” When U got it, flaunt it! Then I pack my Louis Vuitton clutch with the various journalistic tools of my trade. Gun not included.

I am most concerned about the visibility factor: if you don’t wear designer labels, culturally you cease to exist.

I take a taxi. The entrance to the building we want is up six steps of a red brick stoop. Two twenty-something dudes dressed entirely in black are guarding the door. Sven-Gösta arrives by bicycle. As he chains his machine to a traffic pole, I walk on over. “Those punks are punks,” he exclaims succinctly. “Money is not important to them. They live for the happening experience. Come!” Leading the way, he and I climb the stairs. “We are friends of Pelle,” he declares. “We are invited this evening to see his performance art.”

“Everyone is a friend of Pelle’s,” insists the one dude.

“A hundred crowns each,” adds the other dourly.

“Okay! He pays!” Sven-Gösta replies blithely, pointing at me. Dutifully, I hand over $25 in Swedish currency. The Social Democrats tried to get Sweden to join the Euro zone, but the Swedish public said “No way!” Maybe it was coincidence, but when a frustrated Serbian Swede named Mijailo Mijailovic stabbed Foreign Minister Anna Lindh at the NK department store in Stockholm in September of 2003, killing her, the government backed down. I crinkle the metallic bills invitingly.

Once inside, Sven-Gösta announces, “THOSE WERE NOT PUNKS!”

The performance space: Think half the IKEA catalog dumped into an empty aircraft hangar and you get the general idea. Even with track lighting everywhere, the place still looks murky to the touch. Rigged with some sort of clever amplification system, music blares from all four walls. “This is a song by Beyoncé Knowles,” Magnusson remarks, even as we sit down at a table knee-deep in straw. Before I can so much as shake my head in agreement, he is off and singing along. Apparently he knows every word. Just what I crossed the Atlantic Ocean to experience, Sven-Gösta Magnusson singing along to Beyoncé. Mercifully the song ends… followed by another! “This is Thomas Di Leva,” he explains grandly and again begins singing along.

“Never heard of him!” I grunt angrily.

“All right, so we talk,” decides Sven-Gösta grudgingly. “Take out your pen and paper.”

I put my recording device on the table and pin a mic to his collar, only to discover what I’d all along suspected: this locale is far too noisy to record a conversation. A pencil-pusher of the Old School, I look forward to writer’s cramp and many pages of nearly illegible notes. I ask the obvious first question in our day and age, “How many followers do you have online?”

“The number varies,” he replies.

“Give me a ballpark figure.”

“The number varies.”

Is he being coy? “What is the most number of followers you have had at any one time?” I suggest.

“Who wants to know?”

“Obviously, my readers want to know. I’m not an IRS accountant auditing your books, for God’s sake!”

“I find this line of questioning both intrusive and inane.”

Holy crap! If it’s going to be this hard to get a few straight answers, this interview is in trouble.

“In America,” I explain, “there’s a program called ‘Naked and Afraid’ on Discovery Channel —”

“Why are you telling me this?!” he interrupts.

“Upping the ante on survival shows, they stick a nude man and woman in a desolate location without food or water for 21 days,” I point out excitedly.

“Why would I want to know this?” he demands stolidly.

“They have to survive without the woman becoming preggies. Not only that, but they’re completely naked. You do see the connection, don’t you? Somebody owes somebody some money for copyright infringement.”

“I was there first,” Sven-Gösta declares, unperturbed. “It is I who has over twenty sixty-second films on YouTube, but I am getting tired of competing with vloggers who kill the medium.”

“Vloggers are solely into video.”

“I say, their clutter is killing YouTube… Fortunately for them, I am still a contributor! I am the virtuoso of the sixty-second movie. I like to grab great cinematic themes by the pussy!” he insists, almost petulant with anger.

By now I have sat through a half-hour of his short films. That’s damn near 30 movies! On an array of websites, some prestigious, some not so much. Viva cellphone cinema! Watching them, I realized that when he can’t get A-list or B-list, Magnusson has a disturbing tendency to go Z-list. U R left with a toothless, freaky homeless person as the star of his movie. Some star! Some movie! This is the unholy matchup of Bum Fights and Ingemar Bergman. No-talent meets pretentious art, but at 60 seconds, I applaud him for getting anybody to watch.

Of course, the younger generation with their short attention span posts six second looping clips on Vine, 15-second videos on Tout and 36-second videos on KEEK. They probably wonder what all the fuss is about. To them, sixty seconds is an eternity! These are the same young girls whom I see in front of the public library, cellphones held aloft, video filming their BFF classmates doing somersaults on the grass. Marshall McLuhan would be proud; the medium really has become the message. Unlike them, and as eclectic as Jean-Luc Godard, Sven-Gösta Magnusson is a throwback film director who also provides:

Flake-luster direction.

Less than amateur acting skills. (Meth addicts meet reality TV.)

Cellphone video production values.

“I can’t tell you how brilliant your films are—” I suggest.

“Oh, yes. I am very brilliant.”

“— because they’re not. Still, I’ll give you points for originality.”

“Oh, yes. I am very, how you say, origami.”

I understand Sven-Gösta’s problem. Ett original in Swedish translates to “an off-horse” with as many negative connotations as positive. Sorry about that, but there it is. Genius has its price. And I thought my life was a mess. Strange dude.

“My films shall knock the audience out of their seats, disrupting their sense of complacency!” he shouts from the barricades of his imagination.

“Well, yes, Sven-Gösta. I can agree with that in principle. A little earth-shaking cinema never hurt anybody.” Quietly, to myself, I’m thinking Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita or George Lucas’s Star Wars.

“I want to knock them for a loop! Knock their socks off!” he insists, practicing variations on the theme. “I want to knock them up!” he declares, jumping to his feet and sparring with an imaginary opponent.

“No, Sven-Gösta, you don’t want to knock them up,” I point out, correcting his use of idiom. “But I get your point.”

“Here, look at this short film I have just uploaded to YouTube,” he offers, shoving his laptop in my direction. A large green and white sticker across the back says, in broken English, “I R Film Maker to the Stars!” I put on the Beats headphones and watch several nude women mudwrestling. “Sylphs cavorting in nature,” he explains.

Let’s face it, these are nudie films. It’s a miracle any of them can be passed off as acceptable art on YouTube. “It looks like women mudwrestling,” I conclude.

“You have not understood my film!” Sven-Gösta screams, drawing worried looks from the patrons at other tables and the wait staff. Energized, one of the wait staff even comes over and offers to fetch us two cans of Three Towns, a standard Swedish brewski. Like the boys at the door, he is dressed all in black.

“You got any Tuborg?” I ask hopefully.

“Just Three Towns.”

“It is not a restaurant, it is a performance space,” Sven-Gösta hisses, beside himself with embarrassment.

“It’s been awhile,” I tell the waiter. “Can you ask if they have anything other than Three Towns?”

“We don’t,” he assures me. “In cans. Nine and a half million Swedes can’t be wrong. Drink a Three Towns.”

“Got any cups?”

“I’ll ask,” he mumbles, walking over to the makeshift bar in the corner to get us two cans of Three Towns. No cups. The beer isn’t even cold. Brother! Pelle’s act must sure be a showstopper to put up with this level of non-service.

“You should have been here on the first day of May,” exclaims Sven-Gösta. “We call it May Day. I staged a procession in Stockholm. University students dressed as medieval harlequins. You and I are the same height. I would have lent you my costume!”

“No, really, I’m good,” I assure him. “I’m not celebrating any socialist nonsense days.”

“You missed the most important moment in your life!” he presses, unable to let it go.

“I wasn’t here then,” I point out. “That moment was not part of my life, Sven-Gösta. I was busy on the other side of the pond.”

“Fool!” he declares. “But, all right, have it your way.”

Am I offended? Damn straight I am, but I let it go. Some people don’t know when they are being insulting.

“I am considering a summer blockbuster, a 90-second adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises,” he informs me. “As F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda called it, ‘Bullfighting, bull slinging and bullshitting.’ An epic production in the style of Ben-Hur, I intend to have a football field’s worth of extras dressed in bedsheets. 1800 thread count Egyptian cotton.”

“You’re going to clothe your performers?” I ask, amazed.

“Just for this one film. Due to the enormous cost of production, I am aiming for a PG-13 rating.”

“And you are looking for financial backing, I understand,” I deadpan.

“You’ll make back your investment tenfold,” he promises, waving his arms spasmodically. “And in any case, you will have secured a position on one of the most important 90-second films of our time! Spielberg himself couldn’t do it better…”

“Some sales pitch you got there, bub!” I tease. Bernie Madoff, he is not.

“Now you have become aggressive again!” he insists, bleating like a goat.

The real winners on the Internet are the boy geniuses who know how to monetize every little byte of data whether it be an app, a gif, fake news, an aggregate website or some mindboggling new invention we didn’t know we needed until it jumps up and smacks us in the face, totally indispensable. Like the latest meme, a week ago we’d never heard of it and now we can’t live without it.

“Do you get any ad revenue?” I query quietly. Softly, so as not to seem aggressively commercial.

“I don’t make any money, but my manager does,” he replies.

“YOU HAVE A MANAGER?!” I gasp, all but falling out of my chair.

“My wife. We’re separated, but we meet once a month at a bus stop downtown where she hands me a lunch bucket full of cash.”

One thing I have to say, Sven-Gösta sure does everything the hard way!

A Swedish Viking Mädchen— statuesque figure, six feet tall, upturned nose, locks and locks of flowing, curly blond hair— approaches our table. Pointing a hand in my direction, her stiletto red nails glitter like daggers. “I know what that bag is,” she declares in a throaty contralto. “That’s a Louis Vuitton.”

“Yes, that’s right,” I agree, totally distracted by her orange neon latex dress. The shoulder straps bite sadistically into her firm, tanned flesh. She has freckles everywhere. Her exceptionally long legs are clad in sheer lamé stockings. She sports Salvatore Ferragamo Essie Embellished Sella Brown Caged Sandals, with straps up to her ankles.

“Finally a man with a sense of style,” she smiles. “What’s your name?”

“Kevin.”

“Let me see your watch, Kevin. Oh, a Swatch!” she remarks, playfully unbuckling the strap and putting it on her own wrist. “French cuffs!” she cries. Unhooking one of my silver-plated monogram cuff links, she drops it down the cleavage between her lusciously plentiful breasts.

“Hello! Hello! Hello!” yelps Sven-Gösta, jumping up and down in his seat. “Look! My watch is a Breitling knock-off!”

Having chosen her target, our female guest ignores Sven-Gösta entirely. “Let’s dance!” she suggests defiantly, pulling me to my feet.

“What’s your name?!”

“Yvonne!”

We snake around among the tables, gyrating to the music. “My boyfriend works at a stock brokerage. What do you do?” she demands, bright as a Roman candle.

When a Swedish woman mentions the boyfriend (“min kille“), it’s a red flag. It means: You may look, but don’t touch.

“I write women’s fashion,” I tell her, which in a better life might actually come true.

“Oooh! Maybe you can get me some runway samples,” she coos enthusiastically. Caressing my neck with her scorpion red nails, she eats me alive with her hungry look.

“Can I get my Swatch and my cuff link back?”

“After I go to the loo and retrieve the cuff link,” she laughs gaily, thrusting up against me with her hips. “By now, I think the cuff link has slid down to my belly button. Wanna see? Vill du kolla?”

We understand each other so well. Relinquishing her to her group of friends, I rejoin Sven-Gösta, who’s morosely crouched over his second can of Three Towns.

“Why the underground filmmaker roll, Sven-Gösta?” I ask. “With the kind of small-scale budgets you employ, there are state subsidies available every day of the week at the Film Institute to finance your projects.”

“I shall not prostitute myself!” he declares, nose in the air. “You take their money, you are a slave to commerce. My films are strictly non-commercial. It will take ten years for people to understand my movies!” A bundle of loose energy, he drums his fingers neurotically on the table top.

“Whatever,” I sigh. Sven-Gösta Magnusson is turning out to be one of those divas, on a crusade all his own. He believes in what he is doing with all the fervor of a West Virginia snake handler. The main problem with handling rattlesnakes is that they bite and you could die. Self-defeating as sin.

The music stops. A blue spotlight clicks on with an audible thump. As the pool of light wanders languidly around the room, it finally fastens on a dude in a boa, a painted face and a faux tux. Sashaying into the center of the room, he sings a medley of classic show tunes, accompanied by some shadowy figure on the piano. Madly vamping, he prances this way and that.

“Nej, men… va’ fan!” people complain, the Swedish equivalent of WTF.

“That’s Pelle!” I exclaim. It seems obvious enough to me, but half the Swedes aren’t getting it.

“Är han bög?” they shout. Is he gay?

“It’s a show! He’s putting on a show.”

At the end, amid tepid applause, I am the only one who jumps to his feet and shouts “Bravo! Well done!”

Smiling ruefully, Pelle— whom I don’t know from Adam— comes over and kisses me primly on the cheek before disappearing in a cloud of talcum powder.

“I suppose you think that makes you someone special,” scolds Sven-Gösta Magnusson. “I said I would come to watch, I did not say I would applaud.”

“C’mon, be a little gracious.”

“I offered to put my actresses in panties and bras if H & M would sponsor my oeuvre,” Sven-Gösta explains with evident bitterness. “That was the one time I was willing to go commercial and they said ‘no’.”

“Like you say, it will take ten years for people to understand your films,” I murmur placatingly. Yak, yak, yak, Sven-Gösta’s talk is cheap and flamboyant, but online I see where the metric on YouTube indicates an alarming disparity between his delusions of grandeur and the hard numbers: Twelve views in the first 12 days of his new film does not a Cultural Revolution make, no matter how dedicated he may be to the teachings of Chairman Mao.

“I need loyalty. I expect loyalty,” he declares. “This you owe me. Loyalty, respect, economic compensation.”

I sit absolutely still, a blank expression on my face. We look at each other in silence. I… don’t… say… nothin’.

He shrugs, frowning. “Another masterpiece!” he announces, shoving the laptop once again in my direction. On some indie website I’ve never heard of named joyboyinferno34B.onion, I see a white rectangular screen surrounded by an ocean of aqua-marine blue, shimmering water. As the background shifts to red and then orange and finally green, I watch a short color film consisting of a fat, pink, naked man chasing an angry black mink across gray granite islands in the Stockholm archipelago. Here I am, viewing still another homegrown magnum opus! The cheeks of the man’s butt bounce comically. “This wild mink is a great camera hog,” Sven-Gösta explains. “We take a rowboat from one island to another, this hissing mink, he follows. So I get Björn, who acts in many of my films, to strip and chase this mink. Territorial, neither Björn nor the mink will give an inch. This is my longest film ever. Entitled ‘The Chase,’ it is my Spartacus, my Battleship Potemkin, my My Fair Lady. Naturally, I am proud of the naturalistic elements of this socialist narrative. The worker battles the cruel effects of nature for supremacy over the human condition. This film won a prize at the Saint Petersburg International Film Festival in Russia.”

“I’m sure it did.”

What seems revolutionary at age 20 pales slightly in the retelling by age 30. This same youthful enthusiasm seems hopelessly out-of-date by age 40. “You’re still just starting out?” I feel compelled to ask. “What have you been doing all these years? No Oscar nomination? No Golden Globe? No prize from the Berlin Film Festival? Especially since you claim to be a worldwide phenomenon.” These are the questions I ask.

“No prophet is accepted in his own country,” Sven-Gösta exclaims. Which, if I understand correctly, is a biblical reference pertaining to Jesus. This is not how I see herr Magnusson at all.

“I am under siege, you understand. I wish at this time to upgrade to 4K Ultra HD. We shall use your American credit card to purchase the necessary equipment, yes?”

“No! There should be no fuzz on this whatsoever. No means no.”

I head for the john and am standing at a urinal when Sven-Gösta appears by my side. “I expected more womens here tonight,” he declares didactically, taking a whiz. As I am washing my hands at the sink, he makes me nervous, peeling first one piece of wall art off the grime-encrusted wall and then another, shoving them under his shirt.

“I think they have those there for the ambiance,” I protest.

“Nonsense!” he insists. “Art wants to be free!

“Speaking of which,” he continues. “That magazine is paying you. You should give me half your wages from this story. I have opened my heart and given you everything, and what have I gotten in return? Two cans of warm beer. Checkbook journalism, for 50% of your salary— we go halvsies— I will give you the web addresses to all of my films, even the ones not listed on Google, Bing or Wikipedia. A coup, you’ll have access to those of my films located on darknets, the secret, sub-rosa, underground, half fascist websites on the dark web.

“Alternatively, get the magazine to use me in a photo spread, dressed in suits by Gucci, Prada and Brooks Brothers. Shirts by Dolce & Gabbarna and Valentino. Shoes by Joseph Abboud, John Lobb or Ermenegildo Zegna Couture. Ties by Trump. Photographs by Annie Leibovitz. Why does ISIS get the ink, when they never wear designer labels???” he rants.

I forgot they make brass balls in his size. So it’s not just Donald Trump. Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain.

 

***MC***MC***MC***MC***MC****MC***MC***MC***

 

I’m halfway out the front door of the club, following in Sven-Gösta’s wake, when Yvonne comes running. Zooom! “Kevin! Your watch! Your cuff link!” she shouts, all but bowling me over.

Oh, right. Maybe I’m still jet-lagged. Or suffering a minor aneurism. Or losing my marbles. Suffering from short term memory loss, anyone? On the other hand, I could just be a forgetful idiot.

“Now here’s this,” she instructs. Her hands all over me, Yvonne pushes my cuff link into my French cuff and fastens the clasp. “And this.” Strapping my Swatch onto my wrist, her face an inch from mine, the sensation of her— the smell of her hair, the heat of her body, the curve of her breast— feels amazingly intimate for a joke transaction. “And this,” she adds, rubbing up against me for a furtive little kiss on the lips.

Lost for words, I find her pressing her cellphone into my hand. “I told my boyfriend about you. He wants to speak with you.”

“Are we leaving or what?!” grouses Sven-Gösta, hanging in the doorway. “I know an after-hours club with superior Gevalia coffee. I have many business propositions to discuss with you.”

“Hello?” I say doubtfully into the cellphone.

“Is this Kevin?” a jovial voice greets me. “Hejsan, I am Hans-Åke. Yvonne’s main squeeze and fiancé. You are American, she tells me.”

“You’re engaged?” I sputter, ashamed about my lewd and carnal thoughts.

“I’ll never get Yvonne to admit it, but yeah, we’re engaged. Listen, what’s your last name? How long are you in town for? It’s summer. If you promise not to try to screw Yvonne even once, she and I want to invite you to my folks’ summer house. It’s on an island off the coast. I have a sailboat. I want to plumb your thoughts about moving to America.”

He’s laughing, I’m laughing. “Feingold. I’m Kevin Feingold. You’re kidding me, right?” I ask, even as Yvonne runs her nails around my neck in the shape of a noose and nibbles on an earlobe, seductively blowing her warm, steamy breath into my free ear.

“You’re too busy?” asks Hans-Åke, clearly disappointed.

“No. Yes! Let me get back to you on this,” I stammer, shoving the phone into Yvonne’s hand and charging out the door. My interview subject and the two bouncers look like they are playing King of the Mountain, exchanging blows and trying to push one another off the stoop. “WHOA! WHOA! WHOA!” I shout.

“These punks are not punks!” insists Sven-Gösta, taking a blow to the face.     KA-POW! He topples from view. I rush down the stairs, park my clutch and help him to his feet. “I am twice the man as they are!” he brags, dusting himself off. “He got in a lucky jab.”

“Yeah, okay, whatever.” Looking up, I see the angry faces of his assailants. I also see Yvonne in her neon orange dress, wrinkling her nose and chuckling. “Give me a minute,” I mumble, grabbing my clutch and hustling back up the stairs. The bouncers, misunderstanding my intent, ball their fists. I look at them like they are nuts and decorously pluck the cellphone from Yvonne’s waiting hand. “Yeah, hello…?” I sigh.

“Are you Jewish?”

“I’m sorry? Is the invitation dependent on my answer?” I ask, puzzled.

“No, no. I just googled your family name. It says it is Jewish.”

“As am I.”

“Yvonne says you’re staying at the Grand Hotel. That’s very… regal.”

He means expensive.

“The magazine I write for is paying.”

“Aha!”

So we make a date. I’ve got three more days until my flight home. Why not spend some of them soaking up local color?

 

***MC***MC***MC***MC***MC****MC***MC***MC***

 

Sven-Gösta’s idea of an after-hours club is an entire suite of offices on the second floor of a concrete and glass building in Slussen. We walk there. Swedes do a lot of walking. In America, you’d call a cab. Swedes hoof it. Summer in a northern latitude, the sun doesn’t set until 11 p.m. and it is light again by 3 a.m. There’s a crazed feeling in the air of an entire nation going without sleep. Sven-Gösta stops to push a “pie” of dry snuff under his upper lip. Talking a blue streak, his “swollen” lip makes him look like he’s just been punched by Muhammad Ali. Walking his bike, a good host, he regales me with tales of a misspent youth:

Hired by a British film team as a grip— a glorified porter, really— he accompanied them to the Eurovision Song Contest where they proceeded to interview that year’s winning pop group. At which point Sven-Gösta got into a tumultuous argument with the singer in the band over whether or not ABBA’s hit song “Waterloo” could be interpreted as a socialist anthem.

How as the over-zealous clapper on another film crew, he inadvertently sprinkled chalk dust on the pants of a sitting prime minister.

How as an excited assistant cinematographer (b-foto), he fell off a mountain into a stand of pine trees. The mountain was low and the trees were tall, so he got out of that one with only a single cracked rib and a total loss of dignity.

While filming an interview with King Carl XVI Gustaf at the castle in Stockholm, Sven-Gösta, a smoker, was intrigued by the aperitif glasses carefully placed around the room, each containing 10 cigarettes. As audio engineer, he wore a sports jacket and cavalierly swept a glassful of cigarettes into his jacket pocket. “We got paid for the day’s work, of course, but nothing compared to the sheer joy of inhaling royal smokes stolen from the castle!” he shouts into the night, howling with laughter.

Wandering around at night (att ströva nattåg) is a Swedish tradition, but in the heightened atmosphere of Europe under siege, a passing police car slows to a crawl while the two uniformed, stony-faced officers give us their detailed scrutiny. Especially my Louis Vuitton clutch, which is not your average zebra-striped bag. Sven-Gösta and his bicycle are such a Swedish archetype, however, the cops satisfy themselves with a longish once-over and a knowing nod from their car. Apparently, the terrorist profile in Sweden does not include ratty bikes and ribald laughter.

Listen, I know cultural diversity. After 40 years in government service as a personnel director, my dad retired, only to be hired as a consultant by the UN. His new work consisted of installing a job classification system for the governments of India, Thailand and Peru. Wanting the best jobs for their families and themselves, the local employees treated my dad like the Sun God. Being a jerk, his adventures consisted of getting physically mobbed in New Delhi, getting swindled on a $1,000 purchase of furniture in Thailand (he paid but got no furniture, not a scrap) and getting sick from the altitude in Machu Picchu, Peru. My mom, on the other hand, cornered the market on antique clocks in India. In Thailand, she played bridge with the royal family, getting dad golf dates with princes on golf courses hewn from Thai jungle. When a ball went off the fairway, they abandoned it rather than get attacked by tigers. (Or so I was told.) In Peru, the altitude sickness laid her as low as my dad. Were they “ugly imperialists” or Trotskyite missionaries? Hard to say. Svårt att säga.

We stop in a cobblestone square, looking up at a baroque rendition of the famous statue of St. George and the Dragon. “My films shall overthrow the world of cinema!” Sven-Gösta predicts grandly, literally stomping in a circle, glaring at the old-fashion streetlamp. “1800 Kelvin,” he decides, judging the color temperature of the illumination.

“You Americans,” he asks. “How could you elect a Donald Trump?”

“It’s a psychosis,” I assure him. “If you go to the rallies, you’ll see people wading through the floodwater of our discontent. Read us on Twitter. Anger distillated to 140 characters. You can’t even insult the Donald, he’s already a parody of a president, fighting with everybody. He makes that wild man Nixon look like a sea of tranquility. Trump’s election has turned America into a selfish, angry country where no one helps anyone else and all that matters is making an additional 15% profit on every transaction. We’ve always been a capitalist society where ‘money talks,’ but Trump has made moneymaking a gladiatorial undertaking. Today, it’s all about making money, saving money, earning money or getting money. The richest nation in the world, we think like a nation of paupers.”

Arriving in Slussen, Sven-Gösta parks and chains his bike before calling upstairs on his cellphone. A wild-looking goth youth, black hair standing straight up like a cock’s comb, comes downstairs and lets us in. Unsure what to expect, I am surprised by the subdued atmosphere. This is no disco: People dance in a haze of barbiturates or not at all. The dj spins discs at a music level that is pulsingly soft and intimate. The servers keep us supplied with steaming cups of espresso and donuts, an American affectation for sure in a country which many Swedes consider “the 51^st state.”

Coffee is a great perk-me-up, but I find I am just as incompetent with it as I am without it. Apparently, caffeine revs my engine but it doesn’t make my smart car any more intelligent.

Sven-Gösta begins our further discourse with a proclamation: “I am suffering from a temporary economic shortfall in cash inventory,” he mansplains, nervously licking his lips and rubbing his hands together in a virtual parody of Shylock. “The epic proportion of which limits my ability to concentrate on the project at hand.”

“You mean the interview?”

“Specifically, the interview,” he answers judiciously.

We all know where this is going! “Tell me about it! Who isn’t short of funds?” I answer, fuming. I slam my fist on the table. Loudly, vehemently, angrily.

“You are being aggressive again!”

“Maybe if you didn’t push my buttons, I wouldn’t lose my cool.”

“Ridiculous! I am fully within my rights to propose various scenarios. Filmmakers deal in scenarios all the time.”

“Duly noted,” I sigh.

Reconsidering, Sven-Gösta decides maybe he won’t ask me for a loan, after all.

I can employ the who, what, where, when, why and how of journalism school, but I doubt it would sell many magazines. “Down to business,” I suggest, setting up my equipment. “Get jiggy wit it.” At this location, I can actually hear myself recording a conversation. “Your Wikipedia page includes the following entry, and I quote: ‘Whenever faced with a plot twist, Magnusson shows either a close-up of a breast+nipple or a blond beaver. Even ignoring his unusual use of erotica, Magnusson’s constant return to the flesh leaves his storylines both fuzzy and opaque.’ Comments, Sven-Gösta?”

“I know who wrote that!” he growls. “That’s Svante Nytorp. He’s just jealous because I still get to express my opinions on Dagens Eko. While he is yesterday’s news. Svante always gives himself away by fixating on breasts, nipples and beavers. Just because I film them doesn’t mean he has to look!  FYI, porn websites are the gateway to most computer worms and viruses. Porn infects your mind and your computer.”

“I did not know that,” I admit.

“See!” he reasons. “I am the expert. That’s why you should cut me some slack.”

“Most Swedish women are terrified about showing up in a Danish porn flick,” I point out. “Yet you can get them to strip naked for the camera. How do you do it?”

“If I tell you my secret, anybody and everybody could do it. Better to remain a recluse of mystery.”

“O-kay,” I remark, wondering where to go from here.

“Off the record—?” Sven-Gösta suggests, winking conspiratorially. “I read to them from Thoughts of Chairman Mao and I pay them a boatload of money.”

So he is a Maoist! Don’t ask me how, but I can spot ’em from a mile away. Is it the slanty-eyed way they glare at anyone in a position of authority? “Who writes your dialog?” I ask.

“That’s proprietary.”

“Who composes your music?”

“Various individuals. Some are famous, some are not.”

“Okay… So who are your fave filmmakers?”

“That is like asking Andy Warhol which of his celebrity portraits is his favorite. The question would be unfair if it were not both trivial and irrelevant.”

“If your films can be likened to anyone,” I propose, “it would be Charlie Chaplin for the physical comedy and Kurosawa for the mordant tone.”

“My films,” Sven-Gösta replies, “cannot be compared to anyone.”

YIKES! Help! The deeper into the meat and potatoes of the interview we get, the more evasive and unresponsive Sven-Gösta becomes. He’s as uninformative as Attorney General Jeff Sessions testifying before a Senate Intelligence Committee! Why the vagueness? I realize that he is infomisering. Desperate to maintain control of the narrative, Sven-Gösta will only tell me what he wants me to hear. All the touchy subjects are verboten.

“What’s going on?” I ask. “Why the stonewalling?”

“You are not a socialist, you will never understand me,” he insists. “Long-suffering bastards of the world, unite! All you have to lose is your identity, your job, your savings, and you’ll find yourself standing on a street corner panhandling for small change. Capitalism rules! Karl Marx said that, and he didn’t mean it in a good way.”

“Hey! I’m from Virginia. It’s a blue state.”

“I feel blue almost all the time,” replies Sven-Gösta forlornly, lighting a cigarette, probably the most revealing moment in the entire interview.

“I’m sorry to hear that you are depressed,” I commiserate.

At this point, the only good thing about the evening is that it may yet come to an end. It suddenly occurs to me that this is the year of our 30^th College Reunion. I find myself fantasizing about the flirtatious young ladies I dated at Moosegrave, Judy and Penny, Pam and Margie. I was a mad and maddening lover. I had a beard, a blue beret, a little red sports car, a stash of Moroccan hash and an inability to commit. I would not have dated me. Now we’re all grown up and ready for… what? Reunions are freaky because suddenly you find yourself in a room where everyone is exactly the same age. At this gathering, we’ll all be 52 years old. Neither millennials nor baby boomers, we’re another Lost Generation in American life, too old to play like children, too young to kick back and enjoy ourselves. We work. (Don’t we all?) “We gotta get outta this place if it’s the last thing we ever do!” I quietly sing.

 

***MC***MC***MC***MC***MC****MC***MC***MC***

 

The School of Journalism at Moosegrave College was not for the meek of heart. An East Coast liberal arts college with an excellent renommé— for which none of us could ever account— tuition cost a bundle and everyone had an opinion. We would hear things like “Jackie Onassis graduated, Class of ’51” or “Charles Bronson made an endowment,” but we wasn’t buying. In the 1980’s, Uncle Ronnie ran the country. Private enterprise was the keynote of his administration. (“Privatize everything!” our Commander in Chief declared. “The scariest eleven words in the English language are ‘We are from the government and we are here to help.’ ”) Mario opened a record distribution company for freelance recording artists who had yet to sign with a major label. I went sniffing around for opportunities and opened a drug service company which I christened Cloverleaf, Esquire. For a nominal fee, gas money really, I or one of my associates would drive to your abode and smoke your dope, so you didn’t need to. Instead of lolling away the afternoon laughing hysterically, we did that for you. You were able to keep a clear head and get on with your life while we sat on your couch and exhibited a bad example.

When I got rooked on a dime bag full of unsmokable seeds and stems, I was so pissed off, I emptied the entire bag in my mom’s garden behind the carport. Soon, tall, scraggly plants began to appear among her mint. Being a devoted son, I took over the gardening chores, lest she start uprooting these “weeds.” Once the plants were harvested and dried, my friends and I enjoyed the bonus of menthol marijuana.

Judy was a horsewoman whose parents lived on a horse farm in Southern Virginia. A lot of northerners made fun of that and expected her to be stuck on herself, but she saw country life as pretty normal. “I’m not going to live in the city, for cryin’ out loud!” she announced. She took competitive riding seriously and had a room full of trophies. Clean and athletic, she expected Doper Kevin to clean up his act or ship out. Eventually, she rode off into the sunset, leaving me in the dust.

Penny was a hard-line Democrat during the Reagan years, which meant being a glutton for punishment. Every election, dressed in her rag mop sweater and designer jeans, she would exhort us to “Get off your lard asses and help pass out these leaflets, for God’s sake! The world isn’t gonna change itself, you know!” Her drug of choice was cocaine, which she snorted. I did not. One day she took a bus to a rally and just kept going. She came back in time to graduate, but she was all grown up by then and working fulltime on political campaigns while the rest of us were still focused on how to spend the summer. I’d like to say Penny changed the world, but you see the way things are: When you enter Reagan National Airport outside Washington, DC, you are greeted by a little brown statue of Ronnie, arms raised in welcome, like something out of Tajikistan. Of Penny, there isn’t a trace.

Pam’s dad was a U.S. Senator and staunch Republican. I loved Pam. I loved flying down to Florida with her family and going out on her dad’s yacht to fish for marlin. I loved accompanying Pam to Georgetown cocktail parties where we hobnobbed with senators, congressmen and their wives. Although I didn’t express an opinion about Iran or the Contras, I held forth loud and often regarding “The War on Drugs” and what a cockamamie mess it entailed. If the evening began to sag, the hostess would come over and discreetly beseech me, “Kevin, please, we all need a laugh! Do your rant about The War on Drugs!” Replete with imitation gunfire, my version of reality featured jive-talkin’ drug dealers and starchy federal agents: “Mr. Hieronymus Jones, you are under arrest for possession of one kilogram of crack cocaine. Your claim that this is fish food for your aquarium simply doesn’t hold water…” Eventually, Pam abandoned me for a commissioner at the Security and Exchange Commission, whom she later married.

I have left Margie for last, on purpose. Our blue-eyed blond bombshell, she broke the heart of every guy she ever dated, including several she married. Of Irish extraction, with a button nose, dimples and an ass to die for, she came on strong, making you feel like you were King of the World. Her body language, her flirting and her teasing made you accept that this was the real deal, true love, and each of us started making plans to marry her. Like, four guys at the same time! But the closer you got to making a commitment, the more she pulled away. Cooler, a little bitchy, she began, instead, to disappoint. At that juncture, most guys walked. If you didn’t, if you stayed, she reeled you in and threw you out for months at a time. “I’m always so nice to you boys, that you promise me the moon!” she complained to me plaintively. “And then when I show up to collect, I end up walking away empty-handed.” Life as disappointment, a pill-popper like her mom, Margie smoked herself to death.

 

***MC***MC***MC***MC***MC****MC***MC***MC***

 

I sit glued to my chair and miserable, pulling an all-nighter in Stockholm, Sweden, trying to rally my thoughts and get my assignment with filmmaker extraordinary Sven-Gösta Magnusson in the can. I would like to take a 10-minute jog around the neighborhood to clear my head, but now that I have this slippery fish in the kill zone, I dare not allow him to slip away. My imperative is to keep him talking and be done with it. Sven-Gösta has a very different agenda. He wants to drag out the proceedings, so he can press us for the best possible terms: An office in Manhattan, 10% of the magazine’s yearly income, his name on the masthead, financing for his film projects for the rest of his natural life. Stuff like that. Small, but vital.

“Geniuses are meant to suffer,” Sven-Gösta proclaims. “It feeds the creative process. Just look at Beethoven.”

“Well, okay then!” I exclaim. “As long as your mood motivates you and gets the creative juices flowing, that’s a good thing.”

“Yeah,” he growls, his face visibly darkening. “Maybe.”

What is with this guy? It’s like I am damned if I do, I’m damned if I don’t. He’s a classic contrarian. You say vanilla, he says milkshake.

“I am a walking example,” he assures me, “that you can make up for the lack of technical competence and high-tech equipment by having sufficient enthusiasm. It is a more painful creative process, but it is doable.”

Sure, but who would want to? I wonder. “Listen, Sven-Gösta, don’t feel bad. Even having topnotch equipment and network affiliation doesn’t guarantee success,” I explain. “As President Kennedy liked to say, ‘Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.’ In art, you have the concept and the execution. If the concept is flawed, even a humongous level of expertise in execution isn’t going to make the thing work. In July of 2014, VH1 began a dating reality TV show called ‘Dating Naked.’ Based on nudity.”

“Ha! In 2014, you say? Newbies! Late-comers! I have had people running around nude much longer!”

“They blurred the private parts. You really had to be desperately horny to watch, since it was a total bath in smudginess. Atop the awkwardness of puppy love between non-consenting adults, you just know all the best stuff got censored: The girls running, screaming, from their tents at night as lizards and centipedes crawled up their legs. Everyone scratching their butts nonstop thanks to mosquito bites. Throwing sticks to chase away the iguanas. No amount of lipstick was going to make that pig fly. I assume you’ve had similar experiences filming in the archipelago…?”

“My creations are the continuation of the arthouse film!” he assures me. “They require no further explanation.”

“Your movies seem less François Truffaut and more Stan Brakhage,” I counter suggestively. I am bluffing! My movie-crazy younger brother taught me the diff between French New Wave (Truffaut), arthouse (Warhol) and American underground (Brakhage). He even owned a green-covered copy of The Film-Makers’ Cooperative Directory from 1970’s New York, chock full of listings about 8mm and 16mm movies that the vast majority of filmgoers would never even see. At any moment, I expect my embarrassingly shallow wealth of cinematic knowledge to run dry. “Your films are as underground as Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising,” I add. A talisman— almost a figure of speech— everyone always refers to Kenneth Anger’s fetishistic, gay Nazi motorcycle movie from 1964, although I have yet to meet anyone else who has actually seen it. It’s on YouTube.

“Him I don’t know,” Sven-Gösta replies, taking refuge in Swedish bullheadedness. A small population in a geographically large country, almost everyone is provincial. Staring, Sven-Gösta’s eyeballs resemble glass marbles, with hardly a whiff of emotion.

Since his films are already out there, I feel marketing is a legitimate topic. Tie-ins. Product placement. Dreaming of billions of dollars from Burger King and Mickey D, I ask the purpose of, for example, Hamburger Girl. Sven-Gösta tutors me in the concept of eye bleach: “Sometimes I hire a beautiful person, man or woman, but pretty. I film them doing something inane as a way to clean away the retinal residue of so much mayhem and nudity. Use the pretty to drive out the ugly. You may turn off the sound, if you like. It’s a visual aid. Looking at a stunningly beautiful girl has a cleansing effect on the libido.”

He also explains that he is constantly approached from the opposite extreme: Young men want Sven-Gösta to produce violence porn in large quantities. “I would never do that. This would totally destroy my brand! I tread a fine line between gourmet dining and truck driver diner. I don’t serve slops.”

Which is good to know.

My turn. “I am nauseous to nitrous over the state of our world,” I point out. “Gaia, the planet, is dying while we scurry around like rats aboard a sinking abyss. Otherwise, everything is A-OK.”

“I still need money,” he announces crabbily.

“Let me guess. Because—”

“Because I wish to purchase a van.”

“Okay! That makes sense. You’ll be able to film at less accessible locations, like Sarek National Park in Norrland or the Western Woods.”

“My intent is to use this vehicle to drive into a crowd of Muslim immigrants! Payback is a bitch!”

“WHOA!” I complain. “Sven-Gösta, this is so not a good idea.”

“Hmmm,” he hums, considering. “You are right! I will need a dashboard camera to capture the cinematic quality of this event.”

“I’m not sure that… solves the problem,” I stammer.

“First let’s finance the van,” he proposes. “Then we’ll work out the details.”

It’s like conversing with a teenager: Daddy, daddy, buy me a car!

 

***MC***MC***MC***MC***MC****MC***MC***MC***

 

***Five Myths Regarding Sven-Gösta Magnusson***

 

1. All his ideas come from his executive assistant Felicity Karlsson.

Although apparently a good sport, Ms. Karlsson has released a written statement denying any legal responsibility for the works of Sven-Gösta Magnusson. Nor does she receive any royalties. Not having interviewed her, anything is possible, but the notion seems remote that anyone would freely give away each and every brainchild without some form of monetary compensation.

Perhaps as his muse, Ms. Karlsson is to Sven-Gösta Magnusson what Anita Pallenberg was to the Rolling Stones. The lady who knows everything and speaks five languages.

 

 2. Sven-Gösta is the legitimate heir to Ingemar Bergman.

Bergman? Interesting viewpoint. Although a vibrant self-promoter, the only two similarities Sven-Gösta possesses to the world-famous director are a fondness for nudity and an affinity for the Stockholm archipelago. Maybe he could be seen as an heir to World Heavyweight Champion Ingemar Johansson who acted in several B-movies later in his career.

 

3. Sven-Gösta is too tight-fisted to spring for wardrobe fees.

Much has been made of the nudity in Sven-Gösta’s films— a wish to return to the womb; a return to the purity of nature; a return to the pristine qualities of primitive man before his virtue was besmirched by society’s commercialism. “We came into the world naked,” claims Sven-Gösta in a Hänt i Veckan interview from 2003 in one of his few efforts to define himself. “Although you dress a pauper in riches, he remains a poor player strutting upon the stage. Dress a king in rags, on the other hand, and people think he’s right up there with Vivienne Westwood and her runway models.”

 

4. Sven-Gösta Magnusson is a third cousin by marriage to Woody Allen.

He wishes.

 

5. Sven-Gösta has a black belt in karate.

This is one of those urban legends that refuses to lie down and die. Magnusson is the last person I would expect to exhibit even a modicum of hipness. Although I do understand that he’s gotten in trouble with the TSA for tucking a pair of nunchucks into his carry-on luggage.

 

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I ask. He equivocates.

By 5 a.m., we’re both bleary-eyed, the donuts have grown stale and Sven-Gösta is almost entirely immersed in a blue-white cloud of cigarette smoke.

Some interview.

“Global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the solar panel and wind turbine industries,” he tells me. “Ask anyone! Check out @realDonaldTrump on Twitter! The Chinese are our enemy… except when they are our friends. North Korea is the next big market for independent films!”

It’s beyond late. Even if he won’t discuss his methods, he’s more forthcoming about geopolitics. “Finland was never happier than when it was part of Russia under the Czar,” he claims.

“The Grand Douchebag of Finland?” I joke.

“Something like that.”

“Seriously, how can you even say that?!”

“I just did.”

So much for political history!

“This latest influx of immigrants is a catastrophe for Sweden,” he explains, blinking his eyes to stay awake. “These wiolent Arabs rape our women and milk the Swedish economy for all it’s worth.”

“I cannot believe that is remotely true!” I protest, completely exasperated.

“You don’t live here. I do,” he lectures me stolidly, dismissing my opinion as uninformed. Statement by statement, Sven-Gösta Magnusson is revealing himself to be a xenophobic bellyacher. I can almost hear Rodney Dangerfield lamenting, “I don’t get no respect!” It would be funny if it didn’t seem so tragically unnecessary. You tell me, is Sven-Gösta a hero or a troll? Like most of us, he’s probably a combination of both, the good and the bad, the yin and the yang. A munvattenmänniska, a “mouthwash person,” he talks a great deal but underneath, there isn’t all that much there there.

“I can also recommend brewer’s yeast as a remedy for almost anything that ails you,” he says, giving me a crooked little grin.

Good grief! This sheds a whole new light on things. If Sven-Gösta is walking around with a fermenting vat for a large intestine, no wonder he seems perpetually woozy.

I build a case for my penultimate, semi-final question, which is: “Are you involved in famine relief in Africa and if not now, when do you intend to get involved? The Western Sahara beckons.”

Sven-Gösta sits as if stunned. He doesn’t seem to know what hit him. Needless to say, he finds this line of enquiry extremely annoying. (This Q was planted by the magazine, which has a deep emotional commitment to famine relief in the Western Sahara.)

Sven-Gösta is annoyed. NMP. Not. My. Problem.

My final question is “What are your thoughts regarding Ann-Margret Olsson, as a movie actress, as a cultural icon, pin-up girl and Las Vegas performer? Use as many superlatives as you like.”

“Who is this person and why should I have an opinion about her???” Sven-Gösta sulks.

Oops.

 

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A real “Summer with Monika” experience, I am crazy about the archipelago. Yvonne and Hans-Åke are good fun. We go skinny dipping and spend an inordinate amount of time on the island in the nude. Getting back into the swing of summer Sweden, I begin to understand Sven-Gösta’s oeuvre. Sun worshippers and children of nature, Swedes in summer embrace their natural state. Burning driftwood, we roast meat over an open fire in the evenings. Fortunately, my hosts have taken pity on my novice ways and brought an effective mosquito repellant. Otherwise, it is one blissful idyll, excepting the fact that Yvonne and Hans-Åke fornicate at the drop of a hat: In bed in the morning, once on the rocky shoreline at noon and once again at three, in the evening and again at night. Talk about horny! They’re worse than minks. Even I am impressed.

I get a voicemail: “This is Sven-Gösta Magnusson. Remember me??? I am at the lobby of your hotel. I have not heard from you. Many business proposals await, but the hotel says you are nowhere to be found. How can this be possible? Why are you hiding from me? What is your game? When I agreed to this interview, I felt certain we could do a deal, come to terms. Where is the loyalty I require? I have not yet signed a release form, so you cannot write anything without my permission. My lawyer is standing by. Don’t make me have you arrested. This is my final warning. Call and make a deal with me or you will be very, very sorry, my friend.”

Craziness.

I call and placate him, pointing out that I can write without a release form, but that Fairyland would really prefer it if we can avoid a confrontational situation. “I do want to take some photos of you for the article. I will need your written consent for the right to publish the photos,” I explain. “That gives you a certain amount of leverage. Although you should keep in mind that there are also archival photos of you at various photo bureaus around the world. So Fairyland could just use some old photos if you make impossible demands. It’s really your call.”

“What? What? Have I not given you everything?” he exclaims breathlessly over the phone. “Why do you treat me so shabbily when I have lain down before you like a peon?”

“Nobody asked you to lie down before me like a peon, Sven-Gösta. We had a standard interview and I am writing a standard cultural article. Neither a hatchet job nor a puff piece, obviously I assume you’ll enjoy the resultant publicity. My conscience is clear. The more you help me by cooperating, the better the article.”

“Gaaaah!” he groans. “You are killing me here.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some friends and a sailboat waiting for me. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“You go sailing without me!? I was a Sea Scout. I know more about sailing than anyone!”

“Thanks! Talk to you later,” I reply and hang up.

Jesus, give me a break!

When I get back to my hotel, the concierge— who is less than helpful at the best of times— is steaming mad because he had to call the police to get Sven-Gösta Magnusson forcibly ejected from the lobby of the Grand Hotel. Apparently Sven-Gösta intended to camp out there awaiting my return.

 

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Checking in with me, Eric Andersson provides an anecdote: “We at the Film Institute felt sorry for Sven-Gösta, seeing him struggle to raise money and still be forced to film on a shoestring budget. At a yearly meeting of the Board of Governors, someone suggested we make contact. We had just completed an inventory which indicated a massive backlog of used equipment, film, recording tape and video cassettes.

“I telephoned to ask Sven-Gösta what he was working on. He outlined two or three storylines. Thinking they showed promise, I asked, ‘What equipment do you need?’ There was a pause on the line. ‘As much as you can give me,’ he answered, which was understandable, but not a usable response.”

 

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Going for quality, I hire a pro photographer in Stockholm. I also make sure to get Sven-Gösta’s  Donald J. Trump on a release form before the photo shoot. We use Moderna Museet and the Gröna Lund amusement park as backdrops, plus some coy nudes of Sven-Gösta in the woods. “I feel I am being taken advantage of,” he grouses, playing the role of victim for all it’s worth. “You may write bad things about me. You may try to silence my voice and prevent me from being heard. But I know that my supporters wish me to succeed. Nothing the MSM, the mainstream media, can throw at me will ever stick. My rod and my staff are made of Teflon. Nothing sticks.” He also offers to get the photographer a good price on a 5″ x 7″ studio camera.

“I already have one, but thanks,” answers the photog who is named Max and a pleasure to work with. He offers to deliver the prints, a disc and a thumb drive to my hotel. Instead, I ask for an appointment at his studio, where we process screen shots from some of Sven-Gösta’s more controversial films.

Mission accomplished.

By the time I fly home, I have as complete a package as I am ever going to get.

 

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“Is he crazy?” asks Elle Baxter, taking a slug from a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup. My article and the photos are spread across her work table. Half the photos are black and white, half in color. Some of the screen shots are in a monochrome shade of blue. The dude from the Art Department, dressed entirely in paisley, handles these as if they are engravings by Leonardo da Vinci.

Even dressed in an Yves St Laurent trouser suit, Elle Baxter does not look happy.

“The Swedish film industry has let him carve out his own niche,” I suggest helpfully. “Sven-Gösta’s a maverick, all right. No doubt about it.”

Hey, I’m more than a little desperate here, folks! I’ve been counting on the magazine to publish. If they don’t, most of my salary goes out the window.

“Captions,” Elle decides. “ ‘A maverick, Sven-Gösta… yada, yada, yada.’ — ‘Having carved out his own niche in the Swedish world of film, he… yada, yada, yada.’ Like that.”

Kathy takes notes. Even I take notes.

“This one. And this one,” says the dude from the Art Department, pointing daintily at the photos, turning his head this way and that. His garb is straining my eyes: paisley shirt, paisley tie, paisley pants, paisley belt and canvas shoes… in paisley.

“Definitely!” I agree heartily. “Those photos most definitely.”

I’m not so much prostituting myself as single-handedly trying to bridge the gap, the cultural divide, between Stockholm and New York. Yes, I do keep asking myself why they chose this particular filmmaker if they don’t really want him, but that isn’t any business of mine. Maybe one of their stockholders has a thing for Sven-Gösta Magnusson’s films. What do I know?

 

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I receive a priority-flagged email plus attachment from one Svante Nytorp. Notified in passing by Filminstitutets Eric Andersson that something is afoot (Stockholm is a small town that way, everybody knows everybody else’s business), he, Svante, wants to inform me of certain particulars that otherwise might not reach my attention. This is pretty formal Swedish he is using, lending a certain amount of weight to the attached document. Which simply and categorically labels Sven-Gösta Magnusson as a Russian agent of influence. POW! Right in my kisser.

It seems Sven-Gösta’s first squeeze at Stockholm University was a Russian emigrée named, fittingly, Natasha. While she and her family were staunchly anti-Communist, her parents and uncles all having done time in the Gulag, she did frequent leftwing circles. Some less scrupulous acquaintance of hers— here labeled Recruiter X— is said to have coaxed a naïve and foolish young Sven-Gösta in his study of Marxist-Leninism, bypassing the mainstream SKP (Sveriges Kommunistiska Parti) and the toothless VPK (Vänsterpartiet Kommunisterna) and landing him smack dab in the middle of the now-defunct APK (Arbetarpartiet Kommunisterna).

I know this is a lot of Communists for the uninitiated to swallow. SKP, the Swedish Communist Party, are old-line Marxist-Leninists. VPK, the Leftist Party Communists are goody two-shoe Bolsheviks. Before their demise, APK, the Workers’ Party Communists, were rabidly pro-Soviet. In their eyes, Moscow could do no wrong.

According to Svante’s dossier on Magnusson, Sven-Gösta was recruited shortly thereafter as an “agent of influence” by his Russian handlers (en inflytelseagent). While not actively spying for the Russians, such agents are expected in their role as culturally significant individuals to constantly push the Russian party line. This is exactly the problem which America is having with the current occupant of the Oval Office. Whether these individuals are “useful idiots” (polezniye duraki) who blindly believe whatever they are told or active propagandists, their constant favoritism toward Russia at the cost of national security can cause a lot of trouble in their home country.

Holy shit! I call Mario pronto and book lunch. Over blintzes, kreplach and kugel, totally clogging our arteries, at Manhattan’s premier kosher deli, I pour out my grief, my anxiety, lethargy and excitement regarding the most extraordinary upheaval since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

“Kevin,” counsels Mario, chewing his food rhythmically, munch, munch, while checking out the occupants at adjacent tables. “Bury it!” A cooler head, he can keep his eye on the ball: “While fascinating, per se, that cloak and dagger file is not the story which Fairyland Magazine has hired you to write. There are plenty of men’s magazines that would love a rough, tough Russian spy exposé. Even one happening in such a far-off land as Sveden. Nieman, nyman, nobben, nomen, forget you ever saw that file and forget you ever talked to me about it! Now eat your blintzes like a good Jewish boy!”

So I go with the flow.

 

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Next chapter.

My BFF Mario can no longer be of any help since satellite radio is sending him to Turkey as a Foreign Correspondent. I guess the whole concept of BFF really depends on how you define “forever.” When I hear where he’s going, I have a mini-meltdown. “Turkey is as hot and dangerous as a war zone! Watch your butt,” I caution.

“If it wasn’t hot and dangerous, they wouldn’t be sending me there to report, now would they?” he replies.

Scheiße.

At our second editorial meeting in Elle’s office, Kathy interrupts us, exclaiming, “Oh… my… God! You won’t believe this.” Staring at her iPhone 7, she tells us, “I just got a text this very minute from Sven-Gösta Magnusson. The message reads: ‘U R witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history — led by some very bad and conflicted peoples!’ Jesus! What do we do now, Elle? Call legal?”

“Eh!” Elle scoffs. “What mishegoss is this? Nobody’s laid a finger on the man! He’s just retweeting Donald Trump.”

Stymied, we all stare at one another. Gloomsville.

An office boy, his hair standing on end, rushes into the room, hollering “It’s him! It’s him!”

“John! I’ve told you before. Cognitive behavior,” Elle admonishes him. “Organize your thoughts. Speak in full sentences. Build a cogent narrative. Now, was wollen sie? What are you trying to say?”

Gulping for air, eyeglasses fogged, he blurts, “We’ll have to move the article to the News Section. Frankie Hollywood, the paparazzo, telephoned from JFK. He says it’s him. He’s at the airport. Magnusson is at JFK.”

“Wait!” I interrupt, incredulous. “You’re telling me that Sven-Gösta Magnusson has followed me to the States?”

“Yes,” John confirms, turning his focus on me. “He’s been arrested at JFK.”

“Arrested?” I gasp. “On what possible charge? Invalid passport? Wrongly placed on a terrorist watch list? Communist affiliations? Bad dental hygiene?”

“No,” John tells me, lighting a joss stick for luck and sticking it in a small ceramic vase on Elle’s work table. “He’s been arrested for streaking.”

Streaking?! Why am I not surprised?

 

**************  Fin **************