Saturday Night Soup for the Soup (25)

hen we left off last week, I had just crossed the bridge over the mighty Columbia at The Dalles and crossed back into Washington state. From there, i cranked a hard right turn and continued east. Waiting for me, on the other side of the bridge, was the star of the Columbia River Swim Team: that smooth and slippery, lickity split, seal boy you may have heard about, Number 17, and his handsome friend, Biffers. Here we see Columbia River Swim Team member Biffers trying to get into "the zone" before his event: the Cross River swim. Portland Flyboy Lewis is waiting on the other side to help him out of his postage stamp sized Speedo, and to towel him off. Lewis is a great athletics supporter... The rock is part of the largest basalt lava flow on earth comprising 40,000 cubic miles of layer upon layer of glowing molten goop. In Washington state near Vantage, the lava is the thickest of any lava flow on earth measuring in at an incredible one mile thick. The great ice age floods ripped through the gorge on their way to the ocean like a hot knife slicing through butter. And speaking of a pointy things sliding through hot butter... "The Couch by the Side of the Rock" (one man's discard is another man's treasure) I keep looking for a place to fit Where I can speak my mind I've been trying hard to find the people That I won't leave behind They say I got brains But they ain't doing me no good I wish they could I found a huge massive chunk of lava that juts out into the Columbia. Remarkably, it withstood the cataclysmic ice age floods, with waves 350 feet high that tore through everything else in its path. I stopped there are hiked out to the edge, admiring the drama of rock, wild flowers, and lichens. Luckily it was too early for rattlesnakes to be crawling around. "Cathy I'm lost" I said though I knew she was sleeping I'm empty and aching and I don't know why Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike They've all come to look for America All come to look for America All come to look for America Another digitally constructed wide angle shot with mismatched colours at the seam This Road Trip Diary mercifully ends next week at Stonehenge. 1. I Just Wasn't Made For These Times is another gem from Brian Wilson's masterpiece LP “Pet Sounds” . This song has become mythical and is often quoted in a myriad of places (If you do not believe me, Google it and see all the stuff you get that have notheing to do with Brian). It speaks of that unsettling feeling of not fitting into any recognizable mainstream in the time in the time and place in which you dwell. I know that feeling only too well. 2. America from Bookends by Simon and Garfunkel. Another one of those gems by Paul Simon. The lyrics use the metaphor of a bus trip across America, and snippets of scenes and bits of conversation with a fellow traveler (his Anima which is portrayed as a woman). This just fits my unsettled mood too well. It fits like a glove. 3. Bless You is John Lennon from 1974's Walls and Bridges. This is about changing relationships and the art of moving on with heart. Bless you wherever you are Windswept child on a shooting star Restless Spirits depart Still we're deep in each other's hearts Some people say it's over Now that we spread our wings But we know better darling The hollow ring is only last year's echo Bless you whoever you are Holding him now Be warm and kind hearted And remember though love is strange Now and forever our love will remain 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.

Signs of Spring (25-29)

Rhododendron Mrs Furnival Rhododendrons Mrs. Furnival and Yellow PippinRhododendron Wild Affaire Rhododendron Nelda Peach and Japonicum Rhododendron Imperial This is how I will always remember Spring, when all is young, still unblemished and oh so beautiful Rhopdodendrons Edwin O'Weber and Scintillation

"Virgen De Los Perritos"

Instead of the Virgin of Guadalupe, this is my made up "Virgen De Los Perritos"   "Virgin of the Little Dogs" 24" x 36" Copperleaf and Acrylic on Canvas The Big Dog, TONY   PS: I decided I'm going to singlehandedly canonize people I admire in my next few paintings. First up will be Saint Gavin Newsom of San Francisco. But here's the virgin painting...

"Family"

I guess the title says all it needs to say in showing how I feel about my two chihuahuas. Together, they're 20 pounds of pure love. "Family"  "20" x 24" Copperleaf and Acrylic on Canvas The Daddy,  TONY

"They're Watching"

If you've been in my home here in LA, you'll probably recognize this as my living room looking up towards my dining room. Maybe it's obvious, maybe it's not, that there are a couple of figures interwoven and lurking in this scene, just as I'm sometimes struck that someone or something is here lurking and watching me. A couple of times even my dogs have sensed something, growling and seemingly afraid of some unseen presence in these two rooms. Maybe it's just a part of me, unconsciously reflecting on what is going on here. Whatever it is......."They're Watching" Peace on Earth, Tony Click Jor-El and Lara as their only child Kal-El leaves for earth to read the story of Tony's "They're Watching" painting.

Temple Blessing Dream Number One

GEORGE HARRISON "Rising Sun" On the street of villains taken for a ride You can have the devil as a guide Crippled by the boundaries, programmed into guilt 'til your nervous system starts to tilt. And in the room of mirrors you can see for miles But everything that's there is in disguise Every word you've uttered and every thought you've had is all inside your file, the good and the bad. For in the rising sun you can feel your life begin Universe at play inside your DNA You're a billion years old today Oh the rising sun and the place it's coming from is inside of you and now your payment's overdue Oh the rising sun, oh the rising sun. On the avenue of sinners I have been employed Working there 'til I was near destroyed I was almost a statistic inside a doctor's case When I heard the messenger from inner space He was sending me a signal that so for long I had ignored But he held on to my umbilical cord Until the ghost of memory trapped in my body mind Came out of hiding to become alive. And in the rising sun you can hear your life begin And it's here and there nowhere and everywhere Though it's atmosphere is rare Oh the rising sun and the place that it's coming from Is inside of me and now I feel it constantly Oh the rising sun, oh the rising sun, oh the rising sun. But in the rising sun you can feel your life begin Universe at play inside your DNA You're a billion years old today Oh the rising sun and the place it's coming from Is inside of you and now your payment's overdue Oh the rising sun, oh the rising sun, oh the rising sun.

"Saint Harvey"

I wonder where this country would be without ambition. Without dreams, drive and inspiration. Without goals, hopes, and a vision for a better future, and a fairer tomorrow. I wonder where this country would be without the ambition of Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Thomas Edison, Franklin Roosevelt, Barack Obama and Gavin Newsom. I will answer my rhetorical question: it would be country filled with mediocre conservatives whose only hope is that nothing will ever change, whose only vision is to delay, obstruct and tear down. "Saint Harvey" 24" x 30" Goldleaf and Acrylic on Canvas Update: My painting "Saint Gavin" got totally trashed by FedEx, during a shipment to a beloved Palm Springs buyer. It was returned to me with a 24" gash down the center of it, the stretcher bars broken, and the outer box looking like it had been ripped in two. I painted "Saint Harvey Milk" as a replacement for the buyer, and never sent the image out. This is the first and only public display of "Saint Harvey". I vowed to never use FedEx again, and it's become a running joke with a couple of friends I told the story to. One of them emailed me a pic of a filthy FedEx truck they saw lumbering and stumbling down the streets of London Town. Actually, I sent TWO Fed Ex packages off the same week, and BOTH were damaged, but only "Gavin" was destroyed, as if one of their trucks ran over it and then back up over it. The other "Virgin de los Perritos" also arrived damaged, with holes in the boxes. The collector said the canvas had been pushed and had bumps in it, but no rips or holes. Oh! Did I forget to mention, when I dropped the two paintings off for shipment, FedEx said they no longer insure artwork and I'd have to get a private art insurance company? FUCK THEM AND THE DEAD HORSE THEY ROAD IN ON. THEY HAVE LOST MY BUISNESS.

Temple Blessing Dream Number Two

Tony de Carlo's Dinner with the Dead

Tony's Dinner with the Dead "Tony, which 11 dead souls from history would you invite for a dream dinner? The menu includes a one hour cocktail hour with vegan whore's ovaries, followed by a nine course dinner at 8 PM sharp. After dinner: cigars, brandy, and a floor show. Explain each choice. 1. Lee Harvey Oswald....Wanna hear his side of the story. 2. Marilyn Monroe......Wanna find out 1). Whether she was murdered and 2) If those Kennedy boys did it. 3. Jesus Christ....Wanna tell him what people have done in his name, and ask him to do what he can to show the world that today’s version of Christianity neither represents him, nor reflects what he taught humanity. 4. Jackie O.......I want all the dirt on JFK 5. Vincent van Gogh.....Wanna ask him for artistic criticism and let him know he didn't have to kill himself because he was a closet case. 6. Abe Lincoln.......I want him to confess he's always loved men and admit that he is sorry that he married that nutball Mary Todd. 7. Princess Di...Even if she doesn't eat because of her anorexia, she’d be good to look at and be competition for Marilyn. 8. Rock Hudson.....I want to ask who he thought he was ever fooling. 9. Ronald Reagan....I want to let him know he got what he deserved....his golden years spent in Pampers. 10. Hitler........What the hell, he'd be fun to make fun of. What a freak show he was. 11. Roy Cohn Wanna ask him what hell is like. Above: Here is Hell, where Hitler and Roy Cohn share a little bungalow. Unfortunately, Roy will not be able to join us for dinner due to other pressing engagements Who would you all invite to your "Dinner with the Dead? ".

Signs of Spring (4)

Rhododendron "Unique" She has pink buds, but when they open the pink evaporates into creamy white.

Saturday Night Soup for the Soul (44)

here is this round of dreams tracking my shattered personality (pretty sure it was shattered by trauma in childhood) that I have had – for YEARS now – a series of dreams where I live in multiple places – each sort of a compartment that exists in a fixed point in my life that I can jump between crossing time and space.   This decade’s long dream series that seem so real when I am having the dream. The first dream was a real feel good one in that I was at some professional conference with people I work with.  All the people I have ever worked with were unified and together.  It seemed so nice that some event had finally brought all of them together and I was very happy at this.  I remember that at one point a collection of Brits from Walker (software company in San Francisco that I worked for from 1984 to 1999) were getting Jolly on Brew and began singing rounds of Donavon songs.  One particular person, Neil Robertson, was especially full spirited.  He had a sort of “pudding basin” haircut in the dream.  His hair was strawberry blond.  He looked a bit daft in the haircut (a bit of Dumb and Dumber) even though in real life he is super smart.   My eyes caught his as he sang in joviality. It was nice to finally have the people – all the people – that I have ever worked with together. So last night (the second dream) saw me returning once again to a former home that in the dream, as always, I somehow still live in concurrently to all the other homes I still live in.  I was walking in late summer dry heat in a semi residential area along a road in a mythical place called “Guadalupe Del Sol Canyon” which was close to the Sunset District of San Francisco.  I was with someone named Marilyn - my oldest friend from age twelve and who I touched bases with in the past three months only to learn she is mentally ill.  We came to what I believed to be my house in San Francisco – address 1226 which is my current house number and was not my San Francisco house number. I opened a garage door that gave me access to an interior courtyard (in the dream, did not exist in real life).  Everything seemed repainted in bright enamel hues and changed.  Then I realized it was not my home after all – and that I still had a ways to go.  This house was now an inn with a restaurant and outdoor patio. People were seated drinking, eating lite lunches in the dry heat, overlooking a valley filled with shimmering golden grass.  Looked a bit like the Napa Valley.  Or Los Gatos where Marilyn once had a connection (her dad still lives there and I drove thru it last summer).  I went to the gate having to push through people who were trying to come into the establishment to do business. I walked across the valley and Marilyn could not keep up with me despite my trying to keep her with me and on track crossing the valley.  I wanted to guide her to safety.  However, I lost her.  I looked across the wide valley and saw others, but she was not among them.  Oh well…  Then I saw a man holding a dog that looked more like a large fox.  The dog had been bit by something.  I surmised that Rattlesnakes could be in the hot dry grass.  The man reached me.  His dog (no longer looking like a fox) was okay and had not been bit. He put the dog down to continue the same direction I was going to my San Francisco home. Gesturing to the vast valley before us (and the houses I had started the dream with on the far side) I told him “This valley was once a prehistoric lake bed” Bad news On a Tuesday night (Jan 22, 2013) I had a terrible pain in my left temple as I tried to go to sleep.  I have been battling this terrible cold that has spread up here that goes into your lungs (had that all last week – thought I would crack my ribs coughing) then up into you sinus area.  All day long I had had flashing pains throughout my teeth and jaw.  Have had that before and even TWICE gone to the dentist only to have nothing found in regards to my teeth.   So I thought that was it (sinusitis).   Yet something very odd was happening that I have never experienced before.  The area on the side of my face was both hot and cold at once. In the middle of the night I got up to pee.  I suddenly realized I had no balance and my legs were not responding correctly – notably the right one.  That woke me up big time fearing I could fall.  When I got up in the morning it seemed even worse.  Put in the morning eye drops which always feel cold (hold over from Lasik eye surgery is dry eyes).  The right eye was normal (felt cold).  But the left eye drops felt like hot water.  Was bizarre.  Sort of scary. Walking down stairs was weird.  It was as if my right leg was now six inches longer than it used to be and was therefore reaching the stair before it SHOULD have been reaching the stair.  I know that sounds crazy but that is as accurate a description as I can write.   I knew something was definitely wrong and not in a good way. Went to work wondering what I should do.   Mind was normal working on Excel VBA code and SQL.  At a late lunch I called a consulting nurse and said “I think I may either have a sinus infection or have had a mini stroke last night”.  After I told her what I wrote above and after 5 minutes of answering her questions she advised me to go to ER via ambulance immediately. She did not want me driving.  I DEFINITLY did not want to be in an ambulance so called my boss to see if she would take me (she was in a meeting) so called roommate.  He came and took me. Arrived during a total hospital lock down due to armed threat (husband or boyfriend of a nurse with a gun).  Got in.  Had EKG, blood, urine, mental and physical tests and Cat Scan.  All had normal results.  Blood pressure got down to 124/72 which is amazing considering I weigh 280.  My roommate kept complaining at what an imposition it was on his life to have to take me there and wait.  I told him to go home (I wish I had driven myself) and made a mental note about this for future reference. So they did a MRI scan which is a strange process.  Seven scans lasting from 2 to 7 minutes apiece where you have to be 100% motionless.  I sneezed during # 6 (2 minute one) and had to redo it.  Then comes an IV of some stuff that allows them to see leaks or blockages followed by  two more scans of 3.5 and 2 minutes respectively. Then came more waiting.  Heard an African America elderly mother or grand mother and her adult daughter/granddaughter in the waiting cube across from me.  The daughter had done something that related to her now being in ER.  She was told by someone on the ER Staff that she needed a counselor follow up.  Grandma agreed.  She had a test for cervix cancer (routine?).  I overheard the mother/grandma told her that “some family member had been talking to Satin”.  One of them kept flatulating very loudly, way wet and messy sounding. After that I rapidly started to get dressed as I wanted now to leave and be home.  Those people left, and a mother and a screaming baby came in.  She and someone else had each given the baby Tylenol and thought the baby may OD or die.   She was 16 (I overheard her birth date and the baby’s birthdate from late last year) and was 15 when the baby was born.   Hispanic.   The dose turns out was totally okay for the baby.  Thank god she came and it was okay. Finally my Doctor came in with MRI results.  No infection but a narrowing of an artery in my left temple area.  This one feeds brain area that controls body sensation of heat and cold (hence the HOT and COLD sensation at the same time and the HOT sensation of eye drops).  My cholesterol is good so this mini stroke event could be congenital (my dad had this) or a combination of factors. Next step I go to see a neurologist to see what he wants to advise me to do next.  Earliest available appointment is in April… In the mean time I have cut out anything bad from my diet, take an aspirin a day and stay active walking (they said that I have the worst job I could have – sitting and experiencing stress). Something I have not mentioned: Something has seemed off, not right, up in my head for about three years.  Hard to describe but I think I have felt something of this condition now for three years.  Stay tuned.   And if I die - goodbye and good luck to you all.    And now let us break bread and share Saturday Night Soup. 1. Chanting Buddha's Holy Name is what it says it is.  Thank you Robert Ho for once sending this to me.  I treasure your memory and miss you. 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.

Signs of Spring: 2010 Edition (2)

Rhododendron Grace Seabrook Rhododendron Gletschernacht (Glacier Night)