Pursuing Frank Romero

March 27, 2017

Home » Commentary » Pursuing Frank Romero

On a recent Saturday afternoon, enjoying paintings at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, I hear a security guard say, “Sir, you didn’t pay,” and turn to see him walk fast toward a man in a suit who draws his wallet and says, “Detective Jones, LAPD.”

“How can we help you, sir?”

“I’m looking for Frank Romero,” whose works currently adorn the gallery walls.

“He’s not here.”

“Where is he?”

“No idea.”

“I’ll have a look around.”

“That’ll be ten dollars.”

“This is police business,” he says, entering a gallery where he soon stops to study Freeway Wars. “Please come here.”

The security guard has followed and is only a few feet away.

“I think I’ve found Frank Romero,” says the detective.

“You’re loco.”

“Look.”

They examine a yellow sedan in the right freeway lane. From the back seat a man in red shirt extends his left arm and fires a pistol shot into the front fender of the red car in the next lane. Simultaneously, a right arm aims, fires, and hits the yellow car a little in front of the driver.

“Frank, you’re under arrest.”

“I’m going to have you committed,” says the guard.

“Don’t move,” says the detective, pulling his jacket back to reveal a gun. “Frank Romero’s left-handed, just like the first shooter.”

“How do you know who’s first?”

“I know.” He tries to grab the shooter’s left arm.

“Don’t touch the artwork.”

“No excuses for Romero. We’ve caught him in the act. Let’s see what else he’s done. Over here.”

In The Closing of Whittier Blvd. six policemen wearing cemetery sunglasses at night stand shoulder to shoulder, two hands each on long batons, looking over three barricades. To their right the lead officer, mounted high on a crazed horse, carries a lance long to the ground. They’re blocking a street of kaleidoscopic cars and one pickup.

“Look” says the detective. “No one’s in any of the vehicles.”

“That’s the point.”

“If you helped Romero escape, you’re going to jail.”

“Relax. I can help. This way.”

The guard leads the detective to MacArthur Park, the Arrest of the Taco Wagon, an Attack on Culture. Next to the Tacos El Carnal yellow trailer being towed away stands the owner holding both hands high as two policemen aim.

“That’s Frank Romero?”

“Yes,” says the guard.

“Good job, boys. Book him.”

Notes: Chicano art is underpublicized, and Los Angeles artist Frank Romero is the first painter from the United States to have a major exhibition in the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach. Freeway Wars and The Closing of Whittier Blvd. are two of the finest paintings I’ve seen and can hang in any museum in the world.

Freeway Wars

The Closing of Whittier Blvd.

George Thomas Clark is the author of nine books including Paint it Blue

George Thomas Clark

George Thomas Clark is the author of Hitler Here, a biographical novel published in India and the Czech Republic as well as the United States. His commentaries for GeorgeThomasClark.com are read in more than 50 countries a month.

Recent Commentary

Books

History Enhanced - George Thomas Clark
George Thomas Clark combines history and creative writing to enliven stories about fascinating people and events. In Hollywood Heartache, talented but disturbed actor Robert Walker is brilliant in front of the camera but tormented in his private life, and beautiful Joan Bennett is a popular actress until her film career is destroyed by scandal, Mass…
See More
HITLER HERE is a well researched and lyrically written biographical novel offering first-person stories by the Fuehrer and a variety of other characters. This intimate approach invites the reader to peer into Hitler’s mind, talk to Eva Braun, joust with Goering, Goebbels, and Himmler, debate with the generals, fight on land and at sea and…
See More
Art history and fiction merge to reveal the lives and emotions of great painters Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, William H. Johnson, Lee Krasner, and many others.
See More
This fast-moving collection blends fiction and movie history to illuminate the stimulating lives and careers of noted actors, actresses, and directors. Stars of this book include Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis, Alfred Hitchcock, Clint Eastwood, Cate Blanchett, and Spike Lee.
See More
In this collection of thirty-eight chiseled short stories, George Thomas Clark introduces readers to actors, alcoholics, addicts, writers famous and unknown, a general, a lovelorn farmer, a family besieged by cancer, extraterrestrials threatening the world, a couple time traveling back to a critical battle, a deranged husband chasing his wife, and many more memorable people…
See More
Anne Frank On Tour and Other Stories
This lively collection offers literary short stories founded on History, Love, Need, Excess, and Final Acts.
See More
In lucid prose author George Thomas Clark recalls the challenges of growing up in a family beset by divorce, depression, and alcoholism, and battling similar problems as an adult.
See More
Let’s invite many of the greatest boxers and their contemporaries to tell their own stories, some true, others tales based on history. The result is a fascinating look into the lives and battles of those who thrilled millions but often ruined themselves while so doing.
See More
In a rousing trip through the worlds of basketball and football, George Thomas Clark explores the professional basketball league in Mexico, the Herculean talents of Wilt Chamberlain, the artistry of LeBron James, the brilliance of Bill Walsh, and lots more. Half the stories are nonfiction and others are satirical pieces guided by the unwavering hand of an inspired storyteller.
See More
Get on board this collection of satirical stories, based on news, about the entertaining but absurd and often quite dangerous events following the election of President Donald J. Trump in November 2016 until January 6, 2021, shortly after his loss to Joe Biden.
See More
Join Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush and other notables on a raucous ride into a fictional world infused with facts from one of the roughest political races in modern U.S. history.
See More
History and literary fiction enliven the Barack Obama phenomenon from the African roots of his father and grandfather to the United States where young Obama struggles to control vices and establish his racial identity. Soon, the young politician is soaring but under fire from a variety of adversaries including Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh.
See More
These satirical columns allow startlingly candid Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush to explain their need to control the destinies of countries, regions, and, ultimately, the world. Osama bin Laden, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Karl Rove, and other notables, not all famous, also demand part of the stage.
See More
Where Will We Sleep
Determined to learn more about those who fate did not favor, the author toured tattered, handmade refuges of those without homes and interviewed them on the streets and in homeless shelters, and conversed with the poor in the United States, Mexico, Ecuador, and Spain, and on occasion wrote composite stories to illuminate their difficult lives.
See More
In search of stimulating stories, the author interviewed prostitutes in Madrid, Mexico City, Havana, and Managua and on many boulevards in the United States, and he talked to detectives and rode the rough roads of social workers who deal with human trafficking, which is contemporary slavery, and sometimes used several lives to create stories, and everywhere he ventured he witnessed struggles of those whose lives are bound In Other Hands.
See More
In compressed language Clark presents a compilation of short stories and creative columns about relationships between men and women.
See More
Political Satire for Progressives
Available now in a single digital-only volume of four books: Echoes from Saddam Hussein, Obama on Edge, King Donald, and Down Goes Trump. In his signature style, George Thomas Clark combines satire and creative writing to illuminate many historic developments this century. Echoes from Saddam Hussein – Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush candidly explain their need to control the…
See More