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When I first arrived in New York, many years ago, with a little sack the color of a mildewed aquarium as my full set of luggage, I didn’t have even a shadow of a coin in my pocket.
In an attempt to remedy the sad state of affairs, my Hawaiian sweetheart organized an “open studio” for the artists of our loft building in “Hell’s Kitchen”, which is the Manhattan neighborhood where we lived. During the event a guy came up to me, he was highly impressed and said that he had store next to his movie theater in a little beach town called Sag Harbor far out on Long Island, three hours from New York City; he proposed that we open an art gallery for the summer.Without hesitating we said yes.
We descended on the little village: my darling Puanani, her Amazonian parrot and yours truly; we as excited as fleas on a warm dog. The only problem was that we had no money and nowhere to stay; so we slept in the gallery and brushed our teeth in movie theatre.
A local guy took pity on us and offered to let us use his attic, on one condition; “No noise! My wife can’t know that your are up there and we sleep directly under your bed!”
It was very difficult for us young lovers, devoted as we were to nocturnal exchanges of fluids; but silence was a question of survival. So, we forced ourselves to frolic silently, like in silent movies.
The question of eating quickly became an issue.
Of course there was no question of eating in restaurants; neither of buying food at the local markets. Only one solution presented itself… everyday we passed our time counting flies at the “gallery”, but at five o’clock I grabbed my fishing rod and headed for the little bay on the other side of the port. It was a delicious spot with a small deserted beach that was protected from the wind. Fly fishing? Don’t even think about it! I had never heard of such a thing! Nope. Just a vulgar rod, the cheapest that I could unearth in the local Salvation Army and a little spoon that turned in the water when I reeled it in…
That little spoon worked like a charm. The number of baby bluefish that I caught every day… well, it was quite enough to fill the stomach of my darling and her favorite lover boy (me, of course!). To balance the menu Puanani bought two or three ears of corn and everyday we would grill everything on the barbecue beside the public boathouse at the port (which is where we took our showers). 
Sometimes, when I managed to sell one of my drawings, we would spring for a bottle of the infamous “Partager” wine; a horror that had probably never seen a shadow of a bunch of grapes, but it made it all very “festive”. And those meals of “bluefish, corn and “Partager” were moments of infinite happiness. The two of us stretched out on the grass, contemplating the sunsets that were so colorful they was almost vulgar.
Then on the last day of the season, the owner of a contemporary art gallery walked in, looked at my work and said: “Here’s my card, when you return to Manhattan come and see me.”
Two or three months later the Louvre Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, the Hermitage of Saint-Petersburg, the Prado Museum… there were so many I’ll pass on them all; anyway, there they were, lining up in front of my studio to buy my paintings at high prices.
We didn’t know where to stash the gold bars. The cellar was full. We ate caviar and lobsters in restaurants where obsequious waiters wore Louis XV wigs.
But let me tell you one thing. Nothing has ever been as perfect, romantic and memorable… as the baby bluefish, the corn on the cob and the “Partager” of Sag Harbor.
