"Canine Baptism" (April 30, 2007)

A silly painting for a silly ritual, this is: "Canine Baptism"18" x 24" Copperleaf and Acrylic on Canvas Silly too, TONY

Saturday Night Soup for the Soul (36)

'm a disco dancer But I've got no place to go. I have spent the past year brooding (and believe me, us Teutonic Aryans know how to brood), not knowing what to do with the rest of my life – if anything – or even if I wanted to live the rest of my life. I just did not know what to do. I am unsure where the answer came from, how it came, or even when it came. But one morning about three or four weeks ago (a bit after New Year’s) I decided that the meaning of life was “to live” – no more and no less – and that by that alone everything else would fall into place as it was meant to be. 'm a disco dancer, baby! And my feet won't touch the floor Either a fool’s errand, or an act of 100 percent faith. I've been looking for a dance to do I've been looking for some answers, too Now I'm back to change your mind Now I'm moving right in time In a world that's turned unkind I see what's going on behind my back     his past week has brought the end of a friendship. I let things build up, allowing things to go unanswered. And then came a straw that broke this camels back. And thus, the friend has gone off to seal themselves into the cult of the closed mind and smug soul.  How I dislike fucked up religions and the messed up peoples who go into them to spiritually die.  Gracias por todo. Adiós. I'm a disco dancer And I keep dancin' on and on (I'm a disco boy I'm a disco boy) Whoa no! I'm a disco dancer, baby But I think there's something's wrong! (I'm a disco boy I'm a disco boy) Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! I've been sleeping twenty years or more I remember a long time ago Now I'm back to change your mind Now I'm moving right in time In a world that's turned unkind I see what's going on behind my back R. wrote me asking: You spoke of this friend, was he/she a coworker or some sort? My reply: He - my PR friend across the street. His cycle appears to be: 1. Drinking too much. I have not observed ill effects here - personality wise or in ill judgment on his behalf - but his wife has mentioned it as being an issue and she is rock solid. And then 2. Repeatedly lurching into and out of repulsive religiosity, perhaps to stop drinking too much?. He is in the latter phase. He sent a junk email that was a call to "Hate for Jesus" and that was the straw that made me call him on his behavior,  which has ended the friendship. His junk mail  was factually and provably untrue with a 20 second Google search. However, he is intellectually lazy and lacking, so that was not going to occur on his end.   It debased the ACLU and I am a member of it. So, I chose to call him on it and did it with my usual intensity. Members of his family here lose his number when he is in this phase and he is oblivious to that fact.  So I chose the moment and timing of when to confront him. I have already come around to believing that this is what I was supposed to do and knew what the price to me (lost friend) would be. I suppose that I have a need to not be connected to him (and therefore on some level dependent upon him) at this time. There it is! How is that for self-enforced tough love? And I rememeber something offensive he said and did on a few months ago that I did not react to but it really did bother me for days afterwards.  I think one of the modern seven deadly sins is malformed deadly religiosity that is based on hate, division, and smugness. American establishment Christianity seems so full of it. Oh old school such as Methodist or Episcopalian isn’t. But, country club big money cult style is horrific and attracts and breeds the worst in humanity. There is not a church on earth that I would surrender to and join. Not one.  I am hungry; I hope you are too. Soup’s ready, so let us break bread together, and eat. 1. Sea Breezes A short intro by German Techno pioneers Kraftwerk introduces the first song, Sea Breezes by Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music. Roxy Music helped set the stage for the 1980’s rock scene with their pioneering use of synthesizers and contrarian suave and glamorous image, long before it became the norm. Physically, he resembled Anthony Perkins (yes, Psycho's Tony Perkins, pictured below) cum lounge singer. Bryan Ferry had an incredible and unique voice; he was sort of a wailing crooner. His voice is powerful and delicately nuanced all at once (yes, an oxymoron) perhaps a bit in the style of Anthony Newley. David Bowie was certainly influenced by Bryan Ferry in his Young Americans persona, not to mention the plague of limp pretty boy “haircut” bands that made the Reagan 1980’s so musically wonderful (or unbearable as it was to my tastes). Sea Breezes is an interesting song, almost being two separate songs. The main song contains a lilting melody tinged with sadness. It surrounds the middle song, whose lyrics bluntly describe a post break-up situation the the lyrics of the first song toy with. I had not thought of this song in years, and this past week it drifted into my mind seemingly out of nowhere. 2. Going, Going, Gone This track is by America’s vagabond poet Bobby Dylan, and is found on his 1974 Planet Waves (which was to originally be titled “Ceremonies of the Horsemen”) LP. The song has been described by some writers as a tale of “Suicide Averted”. His performance, backed by the Band, is powerful, and to the point, casting a most pointed and piercing mood that matches the lyrics. He and the Band went out on an astounding tour to promote the LP. The tour was the musical event of the entire year 1974 (I was there). This was the time when the incredibly corrupt Richard Milhous Nixon and his gang of henchmen were fighting to avoid having to answer for their crimes committed during Nixon’s Imperial Republican Presidency. Dylan became the symbol of the people’s will during that tour. This tour is where the custom of lighting matches or Bic lighters just before the artist hits the stage originated. These shows were truly tribal gatherings of the counter culture, who went on to force Nixon from office six months later (and later still to morph into the fat, bloated and gassy, intolerant and greedy, Country Club cult christians by the 1990's – but that story will have to wait for a later sermon) . 3. I'm Free 4. Tour de France 5. Disco Dancer 6. Sea Brezes All of this makes it's way into this week's soup. You can get your bowl of Saturday Night Soup by clicking the jukebox.

"LA City Hall Thru Haze"

I planned on painting something more abstract, but, as always, wanted something representational to base it on, so I chose L.A.'s City Hall. The haze is what makes it abstract to me, and could be seen as L.A.'s famous smog or my fading memory of L.A.'s most famous building. "L.A. City Hall Through A Haze" 18" x 24" Acrylic on Canvas My best to you TONY

"Shower Scene"

This is the last of my hexagon paintings, and I doubt I'll ever do another one. They were a challenge and fun to do, but the series of them has run its course. This is: "Shower Scene"36" x 36" Acrylic on Canvas TONY

Saturday Night Soup (37)

This week’s soup carries a sub-title of “To whom it may concern”. This past week I received a nice email from an apparent "Wunderkind" who is a university mathematics major. He is working on a paper whose subject ( I would roughly call it "Chaos Theory meets the I Ch’ing") is only tangentially related to what I am about to divulge . He told me that he enjoyed this blog, especially the signature “Saturday Night Soup” entries. He then asked me a question that I had not anticipated receiving (perhaps I believe myself to be too clever by half?) . He cut to the chase, wanting to know if I had encoded “secret messages” in the posts of that series. I know what those of you reading are likely thinking. I had the same two thoughts, either “oh oh – this person does what the voices in his head tell him to do” or "Uh, this person may have watched a few too many episodes of Blue's Clues" So I asked him to “Please explain how you found my encoded secret messages”. He laid out his cryptographically derived evidence for one of the posts in the series - Saturday Night Soup for the Soul (8). The methodology he has employed to “crack the code” was complex, based both upon the text where font size and colour sets it off for emphasis, and upon the music selections. As with the text where selected musical fragments are mixed together (as is prevalent in this particular Soup he chose as his example), he applied the same exact algorithm to the bits of lyrics and titles related to the fragments. The resulting message: uncannily accurate to the moment in time related to the post. So, returning back to his original question: “Have you encoded secret messages into the Saturday Night Soup blog entries?”. That is an EXCELLENT question. He goes to the head of the class. 1./2. John, I'm Only Dancing - David Bowie’s 1972 single is his homo-epic sung to his insecure and apparently jealous fictionalized boyfriend “John”, telling him to not worry about a girl he is hanging out with because they are “only dancing”. It was not released by the idiots running RCA because they felt it was a tad too something (could it be… homoerotic?). I have long fancied this song. Despite being 38 years old, it stands the test of time well. That, to me, is what great art is. Art that represents the best of its genre and time/place. Very little of popular culture stands that test of time. David recut the song in 1973 for the "Aladdin Sane" (a lad insane) LP. This version has more punch and drive than the original Joey comes on strong, Bet your life he's putting us on Oh lordy, oh lordy, you know I need some loving Oh move me, touch me.JOHN, I'M ONLY DANCING 3. John, Im Only Dancing (Again) - to be continued 4. Facination - to be continued 5. Hot Soup Jamming Fools - to be continued You can get your bowl of Saturday Night Soup for the Soul by clicking the jukebox. You asked what I am planning for my birthday om March 1st: Well - besides singing in the nude (do that all the time) I will probably walk across the street to Ricky’s and Andrew’s house. Andrew is his little boy whose b-day is the same day as mine. I will let myself have a 1.5 x 2 inch square piece of cake. No ice cream (may buy some Greek yogurt – or Geek yogurt - and call it ice cream). I will have a Dr. Appt on March 8th and do not want to eat a bunch of food and gain weight. Funniest damn thing – in December I gave away a TON of clothes - some with the tags still attached – that I thought I would never be able to wear again = to St. Vincent de Paul: Some truly beautiful stuff. And now, a month later, suddenly here I am. Somewhere in that action (giving away to the poor) and the reaction (something that seemed hopelessly impossible becomes easy) there is some cosmic or karmic hand at work. And I am just going with the flow while the river is full. Someday I am going to burn you a set of all the soup POD casts. You may find a piece of music hidden here at that that captures your heart and soul. I was wearing fricking 48's. Now they hang on me though still wearing 2 pairs that were cut smaller. But they are getting much too large. T'wuz 264 today at the dr.s office. I had him switch prescriptions from what he gave me last Thursday - these little round hard shell things I was supposed to cut in half. At one point one popped away as I tried to cut it with a knife on the bread board. I made a lunging grab for it and the entire open pill container went flying sending them all over the kitchen. That was Friday morning and I was not a happy camper for the rest of the day (frustrated). So I am now back to caps that are scored in the middle so they snap cleanly in half when you apply pressure. I think he is being investigated as being a pill pusher with vicodin (what he gave to me) so he is suddenly very reluctant to write a prescription which also horrified me as I am finally on the road and events appeared to want ot derail me (it’s a communist plot). About four years ago something terrible happened to a leg nerve during or after exercizing at the gym one night that was EXTREMELY painful when the nerve would suddenly sharply throb. I would almost fall over in pain (I fell into a desk credenza at work and nearly tipped the entire thing over). That was while my mom or sister was dying. Mourning their deaths, I did not exercise for a year, and then sat for two more years working 24/7 overtime on a major enterprise-wide software implementation. So now my leg and knee are really eff'ed up. It is probably the fifth lumbar of my spine. That is one of the MAJOR reason for doing this. Greatly reduce the amount of weight I carry. I will be disappointed in myself if I do not drop 80 pounds. That would put me at 200. I fricking look and feel great at 200. But I have it in my head to hit 179 which I LAST weighed in Junior High. Rick has four years of hideous pictures of me - all that I hate. These can be my "phatt and miserable" before set. I have not kept one of them. I hate them (but he has them all). I will take some intermediate ones when I lose about 20 more lbs (all my business suits will fit again). Luckily I have very good facial skin. Very smooth and clear. I drink a lot of H2O and use sun screen w/ hats as well. Sun ages one tremendously, as do bad foods, drugs, smoking, alcoholism, those insane and criminal tanning booths, excessive sexual indulgence, and having a generally bad and hateful soul. They always say that one ends up with the face one deserves - i.e. earned - meaning ugly souls end up ugly and beautiful and kind souls look wonderful even at 100. I truly have seen that in action. My mother looked so good up until the last 6 months. She had a golden soul. You would have loved her, had you visited. She would have been interested in you, your family, etc etc etc. She loved to laugh and loved people and just glowed. I hope I have inherited some of that from her, as it was a most attractive trait to my tastes in humanity. Thanks for dancing with me the past several weeks. Call on me any time you feel the urge. xoxx wr

"Already Gone"

I'm still not close to being physically gone from New Mexico, but I'm definitely mentally gone from here already. I feel like I'm in some sort of limbo purgatory place, not really here, and not really there. In the meantime, I just keep painting day and night and waiting. "Already Gone" 15" x 30" x 3" Copper, Silverleaf, Acrylic on Canvas Best wishes, wherever you are! TONY

"Flower Power"

The person in this painting is loosely based on someone I met here. The flowers are from memory, representing my anxious yearning for the arrival of spring. "Flower Power" 24" x 30" Acrylic on Canvas Glad January is Over, TONY

"Three With Callas"

This is the second painting I painted on top of an old one. The original, nine years old, was painted after I toured the old Lincoln Heights jail after being asked to create an art installation in one of the cells there. (I went and saw it, got creeped out, and never created one). The air of oppression in that jail overwhelmed me, but inspired me to create a painting of several prisoners in jail. It was a depressing image to me, and I was glad to finally let it go and be replaced with an image more uplifting that I wanted to move with me across country. I've just about got my home ready to be listed for sale, and as soon as it does, I'll be moving to Savannah, probably sometime this summer. I'm not happy about uprooting myself yet again and moving another 1,600 miles, but I know I'll be thrilled to get there and am looking forward to settling down for awhile and staying put. "Three With Callas" 17" x 45.5" Acrylic on Canvas Best wishes, TONY

"San Chortizo"

This is another in my series of Make Believe Saints, named after the Mexican sausage dish, Chorizo. "San Chorizo" 24" x 36"Silverleaf, Acrylic on Canvas Peace,Tony