This is the latest in my series of made-up and make-believe saints, which have included Saint Chihuahua, San Homo, and The Patron Saint of Ants, among others.
This is:
"San Corazon" (Saint Heart)
20" x30" Silverleaf and Acrylic on Canvas
No Saint By Any Means, TONY
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Last week, out of the blue, a 90 year old lady I knew when I lived in Hawaii, sent me an unexpected package filled with all sorts of gifts from Hawaii. An aloha shirt, short sleeve and long sleeve T-shirts, macademia nuts, a 2009 calendar of Hawaiian flowers, Kona coffee and guava jam. It made me a little homesick for Hawaii, and undoubtly inspired me to start work on this painting. I know I wouldn't have painted it had I not received that package. This is how I envision that little old lady as having looked, many years ago.
"Island Girl"
24" x 24" Acrylic on Birch Wood
Aloha, TONY
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   he summer is here, and this weekly column (but not the entire blog) goes on summer break.
I started a long string of summer tasks today (a complete head to toe physical) and had good news: negative on one of two big "C" tests (the up-the-butt periscope). Good now for ten years (or so they say). Now I am waiting for the PSA test. Prostate cancer does run in the family so that is the more worrisome. Blood chemestry was off on a few key indicators (not bad, but not good). I will deal with that this summer.
 Open your heart, open your mindA train is leaving all day A wonderful trip through our time And laughter is all U pay
Around the world in a day
Around the world in a day
Around the world in a day
 I will be in classes all summer (computer stuff) so that will be sucking a lot of my brain out. I have TONS of cleaning and tossing to do here and a whole series of landscaping chores to tend to. Putting on a new roof. Want to get new rugs but doubt I'll have the energy for that. Now dig Loneliness already knows U There ain't no reason 2 stay Come here and take my hand, I'll show U I think I know a better way, y'all Around the world in a day (listen 2 me, babe) Around the world in a day (all the babies sing it now)  The little 1 will escort U 2 places within your mind The former is red, white, and blue The ladder is purple, come on and climb Around the world in a dayAround the world in a day come on, sing Around the world in a day Say papa, I think I wanna dance
I will be building a monster PC this summer (4 gig, quad processor). I will be answering my backlog of 150 emails. If you want to contact me, email me (addr is on my profile) and I will answer. Until September, Tony will keep this blog alive by posting his paintings.
Here is the last bowl of soup until September (or until a guest
 chef, or myself if time allows, cooks up another). Yes, this pot like most is loaded with a subcurrent of deep personal meaning.
1. Bookends Theme is the opening track of Simon and Garfunkle’s LP of the same name. My placing this bit here as an overture will make thematic sense about 20 bowls of soup from now. Benjamin Levi Rides again. Take it Tony. Calling all cryptographers.
2. Around the World in a Day is title track from this Prince LP of the same  name. Think psychedelic meets James Brown. Very underrated. I love the lyrics, and what they speak of. A journey around the world as a metaphor for an inner journey of change, and of transition. This describes what I am also doing with my summer in the non-material realm. This piece brings back a lot of memories of living in San Francisco in the mid 1980's. Last night I had a pleasent dream about Kelly and his cat Butch, someone I knew back then. 3. Underture is from the Who's wonderful "rock opera" Tommy. This is a soaring instrumental which fits into the "astral journey" theme I am striking. When you try to breach the gravitational pull of earth, you must reach a sufficiently high velocity to enter space. This music closes in on that escape velocity.
4.
Mumbo and 5. Higher Mumbo occupy special places in my heart. The first is from Paul McCartney's first Wings LP: Wildlife. Having recovered from his Beatles breakup breakdown, he decided to rebuild his career from the ground floor: from a band of relative unknowns (as opposed to a pack of bloated so called superstars resting on their laurels), and to gig at randomly picked pubs and student union buildings by funky bus and van with the kids and the dogs. They would arrive unannounced and with zero fanfare.
Mumbo starts with Paul yelling "take it Tony" just as the engineer engages the record button on the tape. The song as such is little more than a live rehearsal jam, with Paul screaming nonsensical bits of syllables that occasionally sound like mumbled words. A funky beginning to his band that followed the Beatles. The “start from scratch” aspect appeals to my own artistic instincts.
In 2005 he authorized The Freelance Hellraiser to remix some of his back catalog into a potent mash up. It was released as Twin Freaks. Mumbo is one of the standouts of this project for me. This is hyper high energy cardo workout material in free of earth’s gravitational chains and in orbit. Hell yes!
All of this makes it's way into this week's soup. You can get your bowl of Saturday Night Soul for the Soul
by clicking the jukebox. |
 
This is a conglomeration of images from my past, from the Virgin to my friends and family, to part of the Hollywood sign to the Spanish Moss-draped oak trees I'm surrounded by today.
"Virgin of Hollywood"
24" x 30" Acrylic on Canvas
Peace to all, TONY
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This is based on the park I walk my dogs through every other day, with a simplified version of Savannah’s most famous landmark in the background, the fountain. I’m not really sure what I’ve portrayed these people doing, or why there’s a fish in a bowl on the ground….but there they are. Just like most of the people I see in that park, I’m not sure why they’re there or what they’re doing, but there they are.
“Park Encounter”
24” x 30” Acrylic on Canvas Close Encounters of the Park Kind, TONY |
  week of subtle consequence. We approach the fateful moment when the grand coronation of Sir All Omnipotent Darkness is to be held, and his first proclamation is the banishment of all that is light, as the destiny fanfare of his new reign heralds the age of darkness.But the best laid plans can, and do go awry. At this very heart of this black apex, lie the resurrection of light, and therefore the seeds of destruction of darkness. This week's countdown to the winter solstice brings the dawn of the age of mammals, modestly existing in the margins of the last days of the Terrible Lizards who spoil the earth. This I witnessed: In a self created artificial atmosphere of Sturm und Drang, Tyrannosaurus Rex Junior continued to stomp and skulk about the landscape, destined to never possess the one intangible that his heart most longs for in this world. But all this has already faded away to inconsequence. The age of dinosaurs vanishes in the rear view mirror of history, and the age of mammals is already begun.  "I've got new eyes, everything looks far away"
We had two terrible storms here on the northern pacific coast of the American continent. Trees upended, wires down, decks blow off, windows blown in, fences blown down, trees uprooted. My own home suffered minor to moderate roof damage. And in this storm, not one, but two voices from the past arrived, unexpectedly rentering the story line.
Young Eric. A friend from the past. Friendship ruptured by me. Good reasons? Yes...and no. Worth the cost? In retrospect, I think not worth it, but I cannot really say. He appeared in a vivid dream last Sunday night. In this dream, Young Eric asked me why I had never called him. "The shadow in the mist could have been anyone."
I had tried to email him, last summer, but I used an old inactive address and my words went off into techno void. I had not realized that I had his phone number until the next night following the dream, when I searched and found that I did indeed posses an old number.
So I called and am glad that I did.
But I said that there were two voices. There were. Charles sent a Christmas card. No return address, of course . Hum...
All of this makes it's way into this weeks soup. You can get your bowl of Saturday Night Soup for the Soul by clicking the jukebox.
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A neighbor gave me some citrus trees earlier this year and
I planted the orange tree he gave me outside my studio window. It is the
subject of this painting. I bought a framed poster at a local auction earlier
this year, so I could remove the poster and use the frame. I then cut a sheet
of masonite before painting this, to fit the frame.
“Oranges”
20” x 36”
Acrylic on Masonite
Forward,
Tony
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 his was to be a totally different Soup. One friend has a detail draft (the "Facebook" draft). Another has the link to the music that was to be ("Be Grateful" et al.) Before I could refine this, the ground began to shift beneath my feet.
First, it morphed in my imagination to the phrase "If you cannot bring Good News, then don't bring any". and the song that lyric comes from.
  I won't even tell you what the news is - in words that is. I am far too shy to ever do that. However, I will say it all, in image and music. And those who possess special eyes in their heart will understand it all.But first...   I could not decide which picture to use, so created a collage with elements of four pictures taken from my back yard this week, In it you see two daffs, red rhododendron strigillosum, rhododendron April Rose, a but if Mugo Pine, and my Flowering Plum. 
Above is another spring favorite: the Hyacinth. There few that you see here, fill one half of my back yard with a heavenly sweetness on a warm spring day, as we had on Monday.
 And lastly, what is SPRING without Cherry Blossom Pink.
In my previous Soup, I wrote:.
In the deepest darkness, the brightest light is found.
And so it has come to pass.
This week's soup comes from a single piece of music. A song, which is really a medley of four songs, connected. In the final song, the other three songs are reintroduced so that all four are playing simultaneously.
The piece of music closes the 1973 Wings LP Red Rose Speedway. This is the moment where Paul got his mojo back, following the deep depression he sank into following the demise of another band that he used to be a member of, named the Beatles. It was released in April 1973, and is filled with the explosive energy of Spring. It is an extremely happy LP, and was a sign of great and even happier things that lie just around the next bend of the road of life.
The four songs that make up this piece of music are:
There are secret messages behind some of the songs on this LP, including a secret message in this music, which becomes apparent if you know how to listen in "Power Cut". Even the back of the LP contains a Braille secret message reading "Stevie We Love You" referring to Stevie Wonder.
And that is all that I am going to say. Anyway, the music says it all, making words unnecessary.
All of this makes it's way into this week's soup. You can get your 15.2 Mb bowl of Saturday Night Soup by clicking the jukebox.
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