Books, art, marble music, dog n’ slog July, searches for lost cities and people, hidden gem movie, more…

Doggie Days

 

Summer is officially here.

Foto by Freddie. These are the dogs of days, happy as only Aussies can be. Ya got treats? Pats? Good words?

Our female aussie lays on her back, feet in the air, eyes open staring into the middle of whatever she’s thinking, and she sighs now and then.

Her brother seeks the coolest tiles and flops, lays as flopped, and sleeps. Usually he uses one of their beds as a pillow for his head, but now he just drops like a sack of potatoes.

This happens after the “official” day summer starts. Dog Days. The half year mark. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Summer in Kansas has always been hot; mercilessly so. And it lasts well into September. Always has; global warming just ratchets it up. I will rejoice when that first flyover of geese talking honk, moves south. Sigh. That’s later each year.

The winter they stay is the winter no one wants. Not that we dislike geese; to the contrary. But if they stay it means perpetual summer and that carries a finality and a prognosis that has billionaires talking about moving to another planet.  

Maya de Vitry singing Working Man. I add her to my Gillian Welch and Nanci Griffith all-time faves pantheon…

Chickenskin Music

 That’s what Ry Cooder called it. Goosebump music. This Maya de Vitry singer/songwriter performs with pro chamber music ensembles, rock groups, by herself, all with little or no drama except what that echoing ghost called ancient backwoods talent brings to it.

I discovered her through WOODSONGS and, true to the nature of that outfit, the music therein is usually regional, bluegrass, appalachin, or front porch family (or all of that) issuing out of a holler in very rural Kentucky or Ozarks. Somewhere music is a basic food need.

Anyway she does “Working Man” here, (LINK) with video but she needs no video. Just that effortless goosebump voice. Banjo accompanied. Soft, unshowy banjo.

Here are the lyrics—a bit hard to catch on first listen but a great singalong after you have all the words…

[Verse 1]
There's a river made of gold and silver in the hills
There's a ladder if we find it, but we likely never will
There's water at the bottom, it trickles down the rungs
Drippin' to the tune of just enough to pay the bills

[Chorus]
Money fills canyons in the pockets of a few
That's the way it flows in the red, white, and blue
While every mile of railroad, all across the land
Is a long life of labor for a working man

[Verse 2]
It would surely be a wonder for a man to build alone
All the rails and steel and dig the oil that he owns
But the riches of the world are carried all along
On the back of every man who works to the bone

[Bridge]
As we try to make the mortgage, the bank gets the news
Of a check from the capitol, it's all theirs to use
Yes, it's always you and me and Uncle Sam pitchin' in
They just don't call 'em handouts when they're all wearin' suits

(That last line in the bridge is the reason for the suit-guys in the video—didn’t get that at first) After that, stick around for “Taking up Rock and Roll” (another de Vitry surprise) and more. With a great little band, I might add. Will be looking for more of these guys.)

 

Collage Art

So far, there are 132 of these one-of-a-kind 8” X 8” framed items photographed professionally, listed, numbered and named so you can go through them and pick out the ones you’d like to have with no difficulty. Or just cruise them for no reason. (Link)

I’ll be adding to the listing.  Andrea DeLong shot these—take a look at her people photos; they are her true oeuvre. (Link) 

It was a bookkeeping chore for me to list them all, but necessary. Some sold before I ever got a visual record of them, other than a blurry phone shot. Anyway, take a look, and thanks!

 

 

July quickies

Tayvis marriage @ MSG. Most unsecret secret wedding ever. Travis is taking Taylor’s surname. (?!) Hope he lives up to “swift” in his role with Chiefs.

Belgium booted USMT in KC. Mixed feelings as one side of my family came from Belgium. They were badass, too.

President thinks Iran on-off ceasefire is over. He says leadership is “scum.” A step up from what I think. Iranian people deserve better. Gas prices on the rise again.

Monkey see, monkey scrape. The Jane Goodall Institute is using AI to digitize 500k+ pages of handwritten field notes spanning five generations of chimpanzees in East Africa. Finally, a good use.

Coco Gauff, 22, outlasted Jessica Pegula to advance at Wimbledon where celebrities included Bad Bunny and Princess Kate looking right, looking left. (Update: she didn’t win but is one to watch)

My dogs use Lamb Chop squeaky toys to communicate with me. They bring them and squeak them fast and furious until they get at least 150 stroke pats. It always works.

Green tomatoes ripen sooner in a paper bag with a banana (exudes ethylene gas) says Martha Stewart. Keeping them inside once harvested speeds up the process. True. Thanks Martha.

Jermaine O. in GA won the most powerful Escalade ever made. Once again it wasn’t Guinotte W. in KS. Hope springs eternal. Maybe the Camino. I’d love to have a Camino again.

BIG IFs for Elon: Musk gets1 billion (??) shares of Spacex if the company reaches a market cap of $7.5 trillion and builds a Mars colony with at least 1 million inhabitants.

July Jewel Heist in France: this time they got $4m hot jewels at the Museum of René Lalique, the French glassmaker, in north-eastern France.

Here’s one with a (link): over 100 Seth Godin thoughts (he calls them riffs) like “Constraints aren’t the problem. Constraints create the conditions for creativity.”

 

Books. Let’s try this again

In June I shared books I was reading and it was a motley list of not great also rans. This list is also motley, though it contains two “lost” titles, but it’s all (to me) good reading.

 I get so tired of putting money out for a half-pound of typesetting, when what I want is something transportive; these are that.

PS, I wrote eight books and my biggest fear is that they were simply blah blah blah and self-deluding authorship. I have no way of knowing; do any of us? Some of it won awards, but that may be a crapshoot, maybe the judge got tired and just plucked a manuscript out of the slush and said “this is it, I’m done here, sheesh.” Pardon my nihilism, it comes and goes lately.

Back to the books.

Top of the stack, Leonard Cohen (Everyman’s Library, Pocket Poets). (Link) Pow! Talk about words in unusual and beautiful combinations. What a poet.

2. The Lost City of The Monkey God, Douglas Preston. (Link) Grand Central Publishing. I got this one due to Mayan mysteries that always caused an itch in the past. Also I read The Lost City of Z and was entranced. I’m halfway through this and must say it’s engaging. And scary. Jungle as adversary.

3. W.S.Merwin’s Flower & Hand, Poems 1977—1983, (Link) Copper Canyon Press. I’ve always liked Merwin, but have only read some of his latest poems; these are earlier and just as enthralling.

4. Nick Tosches, King of the Jews, Harper Collins. (Link) His Dante Netflix movie revived my interest in his stylistic powers; this one is about Arnold Rothstein (the model for Wolfsheim in The Great Gatsby, and the fixer of the 1919 World Series) and it gets all biblical on you. Powerful.

5. Lost, National Geographic, Rachel Hartigan. (Link) An Amelia Earhart search book of a different sort. It has my attention. I’m 3/4ths done with it and recommend it highly. It has pulled me away from the others for now. I feel I know more about Ms. Earhart, and I like and respect her immensely—a woman of substance. The chapters alternate between the island of Nikamororo and Earhart’s life. Rachel Hartigan, NatGeo staff writer, is quite good.

So, all positive. I didn’t waste money on any of these. They renew my faith in the written word and its skillful use. Breathtakingly skillful in some. High on the worthwhile scale in others.

Playing with marbles

The sculptural contraption shown above seems straight out of a Rube Goldberg cartoon yet it works, and works quite nicely. Is it AI? If it is it has considerably more charm and artisanship than any examples I’ve seen lately.

Take a look and a listen. (Link)

 

 

A hidden gem movie review

I don’t do these usually, as I see so few movies that affect me; the last one was True Detective #1 starring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConnaghy (superb writing, acting, cinematography, etc all 110%). The following True Detectives were also quite good, though lacking the special magic that occurred in the kickoff of the series.

Anyway, Old Henry. I sat down with a plate of dinner, picked up the remote. It was news time on the antenna channels, too early for PBS fare other than news, so I clicked on Netflix.

I slid some offerings across the screen, nope, nope, nope, then Old Henry came up. Western. Do I really want to see another western?

It said “Blood, gore” in the precis. I don’t like unnecessary stuff. Hate all those auto-gun rat-a-tats.

But something about the still said unusual. Old Henry wasn’t handsome and he had a lazy right eye. My food was getting cold; I clicked, began eating.

It was a fable. A good one. Biblical. No flashbacks, always moving forward. Henry is humorless, a hard-working farmer, his late teen son, querulous, wanting more than farm work, the miles-away philosophical neighbor, helping with the work, keeping a secret.

The landscape is a character as well, unpopulated, somehow a bit threatening. Long lens. Horses, people, when you saw them, often tiny, insignificant.

Then things began to happen.

Here’s a trailer. (Link)

Here’s another. (Link)

What. A. Movie.

I give it five round bales from Wise Acres. And a standing O.

 

 

Well, that, as they say is that. I got chores to do and scant wood to cook my supper. Thanks for looking in. Stay cool and hydrate a bunch. See you in August. XOXXX G-man.

AI BS, pointless Camel ads of yore, so-so books, fashion riots in 1943, return of the bathrobe jazz boys, a deeper dig into loren ipsum, maybe more, who knows?

 

My two cents about the latest AI BS

 A gallery, which I won’t name because they’ve already garnered far more publicity than they deserve, has adopted AI for all the wrong reasons (are there any right ones?); to make (ethically questionable) money, to create a cloud of controversy in order to elevate their image (that misfired), and because they could.

Should is a long, LONG distance from could in this instance.

I unsubscribed from their newsletter after reading their embarrassingly silly reasoning for what they did. I no longer care what they show or don’t show in their white cube; they are arts non grata in my mailbox, and, I hope, in many others.

This was Artificial Inanity at its zenith. So far. (shudder)

The following link will mention their besmirched name; so be it. Here’s the travesty. Link.  

 

A nutty 1935 ad full of dress-up folks

It’s the back cover of a 1935 Popular Science magazine from which I sometimes find ephemera for my collage work. (Take a look at (LINK) for about 100 of those 8” X 8” art pieces.) 

Anyway, these so-called outdoor people all luuuuve Camels; first, there’s a Hoot Gibson-like rider of the purple range who values the “Value!” He wears a Halloween outfit and holds a Camel in the same hand that appears to be harboring a huge blunt. He’s leaning as though falling, and smiling. Baked?

Then there’s Helene, horsewoman, who digs the “Mildness!” The hand holding the cig appears to be missing a pinky.

“Healthy Nerves!” shouts Bill Horn, former “gold cup winner.” He steers holding goggles in his steering hand, an odd choice. But hey, one hand is free to hold a Camel to steady those nerves.

And, finally, commanding half the ad’s real estate, is Erwin, who lauds Camel’s “Flavor!” when he’s tired after a day of engineering Boulder Dam. Note Erwin’s jodphurs and lace-up high boots, not de riguer for dam guys, but Erwin just likes getups, much like that lead-off rancher. Maybe he got ‘em from Helene.

I looked up the agency for this brilliance but could only find Ted Bates responsible for 1940’s items like “Camels got a nice ring to it,” after he left Bates, Dorland & Wood in 1939. Oddly enough I was at DFS Dorland for a short time, until they became someone else, taking me right along with them.

Disclaimer: my team never dressed people up in Halloween costumes. BTW, all of the outdoor people in this ad totally ignore the question asked them: “Is this fact important to you?” (“Fact” in the red box being that Camels are made from more expensive tobaccos.)

 

  Old books I’m reading, or no longer reading

Some good, some not. Better than paying new book prices for a collection of words. Where is the Great American Novel hiding?

 I’ve bought some new books but they seem like just words. It’s like their agent told them, it’s time you got back out there. Your plumbing needs updating. That’s what Marlon Brando’s agent told him when he sold him on his part in Missouri Breaks. An aside: Brando insisted on wearing white doe-skin in the movie.

The costume designer told Thomas McGuane, the screenwriter, “‘You tell your friend Brando that we’re in Montana, and any­thing that weighs 300 lbs and is covered in doe­-skin, they throw on the ground and brand.’”

The pile of old books. They aren’t stacking up so well. From the top (and I’ll just do one-or-two-liners on them) Some, I won’t get back to, some I’ve read before, some are new to me. All old.

1.   Tim O’Brien’s July, July. A reunion book. Not great—stopped reading when he brought in a dwarf as a device. I’ve nothing against little people; I just don’t think they should be ill-used.

2.   Klosterman’s A Decade of etc. Mostly music essays—I abandoned this one at toxic heavy metal. Not bad though.

3.   Dr. HST’s Hey Rube. Sportswriting by Hunter. He can write anything and it’s good, lively, kind of crazy. Dated by long ago sports events. Signature Gonzo, though.

4.   Proulx’s Bird Cloud. I found her Barkskins unreadable, same with Accordion Crimes. This better be more like her.

5.   Jim Harrison’s Collected Ghazals. Good—I just read 2, maybe 3 ghazals a sitting. Why ghazals I don’t know, but with that Harrison strength.

6.   DFW’s A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again. I didn’t read this back in the day—must say I’m glad it surfaced.

7.   Hersh’s Dark Side of Camelot. Pretty good, though I’m tiring of “background” filler and old pols. Let’s get to it, Seymour.

8.   Mark Arax, West of the West. Essays, well-written, mostly SoCal, mostly…okay.

 

  Zoot Suit Riots, June 1943

This is the old pachuco hand tattoo—it has since become more graphically intricate, but all signify la vida loca and a latino, latina brotherhood, sisterhood.(Link to explanation)

I was five and wouldn’t  have known a pachuco from a patchouli plant but encountered the former as a teen. Anyway, pachuco was both a gang name and a style for Mexican/American youth, a subculture often characterized by zoot suits, a flamboyant mode of dress featuring pegged pants that ballooned from the ankles and wide-shouldered, long sports coats (“drapes”) topped off by a porkpie-like hat with a much wider brim than most porkpies of the day.

Here’s a link that shows the style. Edward Olmos…vaya! Impresionante! Talk about style.

It was, and is, cool to the extreme. And it was outlawed in Los Angeles; the zoot ban remains on the books today. Why? Dumb old laws, go figure. You can buy a new custom zoot suit at (Link)

Long story but, some zoot suiters made fun of some sailors on shore leave. More sailors got together and attacked zoot suiters. Booze was involved (ain’t it always in mob-think?). Injuries ensued. The police arrested the zoot suiters. Racial deal. How could U.S. sailors do any wrong in war time? Etc. (BTW I dig sailors, my dad was one)

Anyway, it was never forgotten. Here’s a link to a recent zoot riot memorial cruise—no words just many fantastic Latino-made lowriders and rods. Again, vaya!

 

 

We called it Greeking

Back in the old days of yester when we did layouts by hand, we actually had to know how to draw. And the better the layout, the more realistic it had to look, like a finished ad.

We indicated type with lines but that didn’t quite fit with a well-rendered layout. So we laid in Greeking. Nonsense words that looked like type. Then, the press-type sheet people got wise and sold us sheets of different sized Loren Ipsum in a variety of faces. We’d lay that down on our nicely rendered layouts and it confused some clients at first. “What language is this?”

Anyway, if you’re interested in how Loren Ipsum got its start, here’s the link.

 

The Bathrobe Boys are back, better than ever

Kubla, the jazz guys who do covers like you’ve never heard.The last we saw of them (May blog) they were in shower gear, not sure why, but maybe to emphasize freshness. That they are. Here they are again, with a Marvin Gaye song in which the trumpet talks, actually talks. These guys are magic, each and every one. The Link is here.

 

That’s it for June. Happy World Cuppage (FIFA, why fleece your own?) Don’t dig soccer? UFL is worth watching, really is. And it’s baseball season. (I tried out for Folger’s back when they had an apostrophe, got cut doggone quick, too. Had to get a job that summer. I delivered groceries in the store’s new 1955 Ford station wagon with automatic trans. Not a bad job, that.)

Ooxxoo  G-Man

No tariffs on my art, website traffic is up, artflation is down, bathrobe funk at its best, a book, Amtrak rules, and much more—

 Traffic is way up on this site

 I attribute that to one thing: the relatively new collage art page. That’s good as I want folks to see the new art; beyond that I haven’t a clue as to how to sell it. So far, sales have happened through the comment box and those have been people I know and they send checks. (Thanks, people I know!)

The main site always gets a healthy bump when the blog comes out, and it’s always the same—the number of those who signed up for it and a few more who check it out due to Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.

Here’s the collage art link in case you haven’t been there or wish to return.

It’s lagging behind as I haven’t yet sent the newest batch over for still photography. Some are on 1950’s road maps, others have topo maps as backgrounds. Even a 1960’s era The Village Voice is the bottom layer of another. And a 1935 Popular Science provides the backgrounds for several, as do the current Cherokee weekly newspaper and a very old KC phone book.

I use coins, crypto, currency, stamps, tokens, old ephemera and photos on many, plus oils, acrylics, and dyes for what I call the energy signature, an ever-present personal abstract device that I hope gives each piece some drama and power, and a base for the coins and interest items that often make an ironic statement all their own. (BTW did you know that Bitcoin ATMs just declared bankruptcy and withdrew all those machines? Link That’s part of the narrative of some of these collages, technofads like NFT’s, Crypto, AI)

 

Music Break

 Bathrobe casual redefines relaxing yet very crisp jazz, a Stevie Wonder cover that just had a refreshing shower. The crowd is worth watching; the gent with the long pony tail is in an entrancing trance and the short-haired guy who just joined him has his own moves. Oddly, many folks in the crowd don’t seem to notice the band or anything else. But the band, I think you’ll agree, is so worth noticing. Wowsers. Enjoy. Here’s the link.

 

  And then there’s Deaf Man Vinyl

 Have you ever wanted to own a record store? Well, this gent tells you how in a very effortless, entertaining, easy-to-take way. I found myself hooked on this by happenstance, and watched all 25 minutes of it. I don’t do that often. Here’s his link.

Usually there’s far too much padding and BS in these things and I flee about a minute in. It made me wish this guy was closer than Georgia so I could just stroll in and say hi.

Oh, and if you have time or inclination, here’s another record guy with the 20 most requested records of all time. You might have some big money vinyl sitting around—take a look at (Link).          

And this: do you have this Elvis Costello record? Interesting story here. Link.

Booooooaaarrd!

 Train trip. Amtrak rules. (Yes, it does, and yes, there are some.) This is a fun few minutes that’ll prepare you for a low-stress trip in a long swaying view-tube that goes clickety-clack and shows you bucolic countryside like you rarely ever see it anymore. People wave as you pass. Cows look up, mid-chew. Some cars are reserved for quiet. Some for other stuff. Seats are wide. Leg room is abundant. Well, take a look. Here’s the link.

 

A book for the ages

Annie Proulx wrote it so you know it’s good. But it’s also, by turns of pages, sad, instructive, unflinching, embarrassing (but only if you’re human), scary as hell, and so important in these declining days of our taken-for-granted planet which shows unmistakable signs of imminent decrepitude and a few million years without human habitation. Or destruction.

Whew. Sobering and necessary, if, indeed, it’s not too late already. (It is, in some areas) Read Fen, Bog & Swamp, A short history of peatland destruction and its role in the Climate Crisis. (Link)

And this: Since 1950, the world’s population has increased 200%. What’s this mean for deforestation due to more cropland? For food? Raging wildfires? For drinkable water? For disease? For weather violence? Sorry, but it’s serious. Anyone glued to the tornado warnings in Kansas and Oklahoma the last couple nights might agree.

 

I leave you with The Stroll

I might just have to learn this. F won every dance contest she ever entered so I’ve got a heck of a teacher…could be a funny video coming up.

I mentioned strolling a couple of articles above and it stuck in my mind; here’s THE Stroll on American Bandstand, 1957. I was in college then, too old for such shenanigans, but we had our own versions. Alas, we were never this cool in Junior High. (Link)

(Caution) The Diamonds song, The Stroll, will stick to your brain’s innards like Gorilla Glue. I hum it daily. And that line about the candy store—anyone remember tiny waxlike coke bottles? You’d bite the top off and swallow the sugary liquid inside. I bought those things and smuggled them into class. Why? Who the heck knows. Awful stuff. Dentists loved ‘em.

 

 

See you in June, God willing and the creek don’t rise. Enjoy the rest of May. Stroll through summer and be kind to your planet—make a move, anything, to conserve or at least not deplete, to mitigate. Soften the shocks of change. How? Read Fen, Bog & Swamp. F and I are planting tomatoes. Seems like the right direction. That, and rethinking the giant carbon-and-CO2-emitting crypto mine planned for the north pasture. (Sorry, not that funny.)         

Xoxo, truly.  G-Man.

Silos are for farming, poetry month has its control freaks, dressing up for biking, what’s your OPS, take me into the ballgame and much more…

  Corporate Jargoneers

Circle back to this, low-hanging fruits…then leverage that dang silo, if you have the bandwidth…

It was a rant. A long one. I dumped it because who really cares. It contained all the circling back, leveraging, silos, swim lanes etc etc ad nauseum and I do mean nauseum. In the end I didn’t want to tire you with this perversion of communication—I want you to come back for the next blog, and the next one. You’re friends. Advertising, an otherwise decent profession, seems to attract these jargonistas and I wish I’d been ready for one who asked me if I had any bandwidth about 15 years ago;

“Oh, you mean the difference between the upper and lower frequencies in a continuous band of frequencies? If measured in units of hertz? I don’t think so. Have you consulted IT?”

But no. I just said “Huh?”

My great-grandfather was wont to say, I’m told, that if a person used profanity it simply meant that person was illiterate.

He might have modified that statement to include Corporate Jargoneers and their BS inventions as well.

  

Poetry Month

April. Stuff turning green out there. Overnight. Budding. I’ve spied bees on the warmer days. No hummingbirds yet.

Leaves me kinda breathless…

How the owls and squirrels made it through that horrible fifty below zero stretch I don’t know, but they did. The same squirrels that tease my dogs by acting as if they don’t notice them, then leap onto their tree at the last split second. Inspiration.

Poetry. Read some. Write some. I recommend Ada Limon. Kooser and Collins. I’m re-reading Leaves of Grass by grandmaster Whitman.

It has been suggested, to honor Poetry Month’s 30th day, that you carry a poem in your pocket, to share. Here’s a link with all the info on that. Warning: it’s gotten rather top-heavy but there are some fun ways to participate. For my part, I’ll recommend George Bilgere’s daily site which is now habit with me; he shares a poem he likes, daily, and then comments on it. I never miss his poem a day all year, mainly for his wry comments. (Link) Maybe it’ll become your habit, too.

Happy Poetry Month.

 

A Primer on Motorcycles

Dennis (I don’t know his last name) is a Morgan dealer in Colorado, and every now and then I get his latest offerings of new and reconstituted Morgans. Beauties. Unaffordable, I’m sure. But, this time he sent a couple of items on The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride, a cousin, no doubt, of TROG (The Race of Gentlemen).

First, I’ll share the style guide for this; it’s short and informative. (Link)

And, then, the ride itself which has raised millions for men’s health. 60M so far. There’s a fun video and info. (Link) The event is in May, and male or female, you are invited. It’s worldwide. Get them scooters tuned up and ready. Looks like a blast.

Then there’s TROG. Everyone should know about this. (Link)

 

Here’s some Life Advice

I chanced across this nugget a week ago and it lightened my day considerably. Lorem ipsum always does. I won’t say who did this “oops” because they are usually quite proper—and it wasn’t an April Fool’s item either. It was well after that date. So I googled it.

(“Based on available information, there is no evidence that (shall remain nameless) published "lorem ipsum" placeholder text as actual life advice on purpose.”)

But I loved it. And embrace it as wholeheartedly as I do all Internet Life Advice.

 

Speaking of Jargon

When did MLB sportscasters start using the term “OPS,” anyway? I heard it when F was driving me somewhere yesterday, and she quite nicely allowed me to listen to sports talk on 610. For once they weren’t assessing the trades and salary cap difficulties of the KC Chiefs, but discussing the Royals.

The guy kept mentioning the OPS of a certain player and I asked her to ask her phone what the heck that was. No intelligible answer from Siri.

I do listen to the occasional game on radio when in the car and am able to translate the sounds and the commentary into a pretty passable mind picture. I get into it. The lulls, the action, the broadcaster’s comments on the batter, always interesting. And there’s a quickening of pulse when I hear that unmistakable “Craack!” (Go, Salvy)

Anyway, OPS. I looked it up. It’s Lorem Ipsum to me, but here ya go: I’m sending you to Wikipedia (Link) because there are so many explanations out there that it’s kind of dizzying. OPS is a reachy initialism for On base Plus Slugging and it basically combines a player’s ability to reach base, with their power, with a league-average OPS usually between .700 and .750. Good luck. Bring a calculator.

 

  Gasoline downer

The price of gas has brought more lowlifes out of the woodwork; they are now drilling tanks and stealing gas (Link) creating a triple whammy; first, the empty reading on your gauge when you thought you had half a tank. Second, you’ve got just enough to get to the gas station, but when you fill, it runs all over the concrete. Third, insurance costs. IF they take care of it. But with deductible, probably not—there goes a grand for repair.

 

Lifeguard!

Didn’t mean to cause a funk with that gas item, just beware is all, and wary.

This’ll lift your spirits. Lifeguard stations with color and panache. A Miami architectural firm designed these delightfully quirky towers for your “Life’s a beach” pleasure. Let’s see; got a good book, sun block, RayBans, Yeti cooler. Think I’ll set up over by that magic mid-century little pastel house. (Link)

 

  Playing the slide shovel

And that’s it for April. I will leave you with music. My advice to myself, when all else is confusing, leave ‘em with music. Here’s the offering for now: it’s the video for the saying, “That guy could play a shovel.” Here’s the link. He’s got a handle on the slide action, too.

  May the rest of your April be blessed. And the year, too. XXOOO G-man

 

 

 

 

 

Typewriters, pivoting to paint and energy, who’ll stop the rain, card-carrying Cherokee, Gloriously Galloping, music, and much more…

Pivot: from welding back to paint and flat art

This one has a doge coin in it…

So far there are 36 pieces, (#36 above) all 8” X 8”and they pick up where I left off at art school some sixty-five years ago, when I coupled collage with energetic painting that seemed to complement one another. They still do. More at www.wisesculpture.com (click collage art)(Link)

I’m excited about this latest direction and hope to find a venue where dozens of pieces can compete for a viewer’s attention in a white cube setting. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know.

Due to the crossroads gallery closing (Hilliard) and the Santa Monica (Lambert) venue doing the same, I’m left to my own devices to present these pieces to a public here in KC. I have crappy pictures of all, taken on the fly with an iPhone; I’ll remedy this by obtaining professional services in-studio with proper lighting and attention to detail.

 

  Tipping Point: cheapo states.

 Ran across this Reader’s Digest article (Link) and was relieved not to be included statewise. You cheapskate states, (say that fast ten times) read and reap; dig a little deeper in those pockets. Tips were a main source of income for servers pre-covid, and even more important now.

When I was a busboy I chased down a diner who had left twenty cents by his plate (to the delight of his waitress) proclaiming in a loud voice, “Sir, you forgot your change!” Neither here nor there, it’s always fun to remember that Barbra Streisand is a rude, demanding diner with a reputation as a terrible tipper. Take a bow, New York state. In spite of that rep, she’s also known as a generous philanthropist.

 

  Cruising CCR brought back memories of the 60’s

 “Who’ll Stop The Rain” brought up a 70’s trailer of the movie by that name, (Link) starring Nick Nolte, who plays…Nick Nolte.

Still from “The Deep”…

I met the method actor in Omaha in the early 60’s’; he was doing soft time at home in an ankle bracelet after the FBI shut down his fake driver’s license operation and I was working on a bridge there. We had mutual friends. This was a year or so before he starred in “The Deep” with Jacqueline Bisset. I recall him as a charismatic and rather charming smartass.

That same summer I met my (now) wife’s father on the job in Ashland, Nebraska. He was a superintendant and a handsome devil, who, had he known I would later pursue his daughter, would have pitched me into the river. She deserved better than the likes of me, a common laborer. Still does.

Serendipity was high that summer. I married a neighbor/friend of Nolte’s for better or worse. Nolte movies laced in and out of the years; they still do. Anyway, here’s CCR’s “Proud Mary.” (Link)

The year of the Glorious Gallop

 Okay, I admit I don’t know exactly what Behance is (I first thought it was the uber-successful singer, but now I think it’s part of Adobe) nor do I quite get Glorious Gallop, but I really liked what I saw and read so far, and I think I want one (a GG set) even though it looks hard to play, like 3D chess, maybe. I don’t even recall where I saw this; I’m guessing a Communication Arts newsletter, for attribution? Maybe you can make heads or tails out of this cool article. (Link)

Card-carrying Cherokee

I covered up info that isn’t germane to this article…

 And a beauty at that, my wife.  Her dad was half, making her a quarter and, therefor eligible for the tribal rolls. It’s always been official, and now there’s picture I.D. so she can vote in tribal elections. A native Oklahoman by birth, her proud ancestry is a straight line back to Wilma Mankiller, the first female Cherokee chief.

When she drove over to Lawrence, KS with her papers, she met the present tribal chief, Chuck Hoskins, a progressive sort who has led with vision, strength and an eye to tribal sovereignty, focusing on healthcare and economic development. He was elected in 2019 and reelected in 2023. Proud heritage, laminated I.D.

 

The last word on typewriters

I love ‘em, so had to include this Link. I hope you find it as interesting as I did. (I have some antique typewriters gathering dust and no value or equity, plus a Selectric I used to write on in the days of White-out mistake cover up. Tom Hanks, Sam Shepherd and Dominic Scalise. (Scalise wrote this great Substack piece.) Thank you all. Clickety clack, dinngg!

 

So goes the March version of this windy blog; I hope you liked some of it.

See you in spring. XXOOO g-man