The ides...

The ides of October—Our Time.

Mercury is in retrograde until October 18th. This retro thing of planets meant nothing to me until this year—I don’t read horoscopes or any of that stuff, but Mercury has my attention, sort of like “earthquake weather” in California did. Santa Anas. An uptick in freeway shootings.

Raymond Chandler said, in Red Wind, “There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.”

That’s how I feel lately. Except with the added Kansas negative of humidity. It reminded me of an article I clipped years ago heralding October as a dangerous month in California. I went to my voluminous files and looked it up. While I was searching for it I got lost in files titled “Neat Stuff” and the year. This article came from “Neat Stuff,1982 on.” The files hold stacks of great ads, wonderful copy, outstanding articles—but I’ll get back to that in another blog some day. I’ll just say the stuff kicks copy and writing ass over what’s being churned out these days, my recent natterings included. Note to self: get back to work and rework. Start trying again.

My journal last week—that guy yowling, sharks circling, is how I felt that day…

This is about my summer of discontent. What a godawful time to prepare for a sculpture show. (It opened October 1st in KC’s Hilliard Gallery.) Sweat streamed into the eyes under the hot, baking welding helmet. I cussed a lot. Hydrated.

That article goes on about how the tourists disappear, the Santa Anas start and October is a hot electric disruption in a blur of splendid months. The good old days before firestorms ate half the state. Before...well, everything as we all know it now. Still, a dangerous time.

I was out walking and it’s hot and humid.  My journal is full of complaints about The Weather. I looked up the hottest year in KC—turns out it was a record in 1936, unbroken since, with temperatures as high as 113. No AC back then, not even in department stores. I told myself waahh waahh, quit yer damn snivelling. Those folks put block ice in tubs in front of fans. If they had them. It was The Depression.

So what’s this Mercury thing? Planets move from east to west around the sun—during the retrophase, Mercury appears to move backwards and that brings out Murphy’s Law of astrology. If you believe in that sort of stuff. All I know is our rural internet went to hell, and is sloooowww. I’ve signed up for Starlink but Elon is fresh out of semiconductors right now and no telling when that situation will improve. It affects everything made with electronics; pickups, computers, games, appliances. Meanwhile, Hughes, Dish Network, Viasat, Gotw3, and the rest of the Covid profiteers have us by the rurales. I wish them only ill. I will drop Gotw3 like a dirty shirt when the chips come in (when the whip comes down) and Starlink delivers.

Like I said, I don’t read horoscopes. But one weird night many years ago an ouija board told me a Belgian parfumeur who claimed to be a relative was talking to me. Well, my forebearers on one side are from Belgium but nobody at the table knew that. I still haven’t found the fortitude to see if any perfume makers are among the ancestors. And I don’t mess with ouija boards.

Well, shoot. Enough whining for now. As the French Belgian parfumeurs and cops say, bonne journee. XO, G.

 PS: To end this on a much higher note (you’ll see what I did there) here’s a video of my favorite graffiti artist, Futura, laid back, way, way back, (link here) on The Bowery in NYC.

Rattlecan Alley

I love the smell of spray paint in the morning.

The WiseAcres welding shack is no stranger to rattlecans, but I’m beefing up on colors and acrylic plastic squirt bottles since I took a MasterClass with Futura, (link) the godfather of graffiti. What an engaging, informative guy. Freddie gave me MasterClass this Christmas and last, and I have enjoyed some very fine in-depth classes with the likes of Billy Collins and Dan Brown, and will soon be diving into a Roxane Gay course. But I happened upon the Futura class while cruising the new stuff, and I’m so glad I did. I’ve already mixed the hard-edged metal of welding with the fresh action feel of subwaylike graffiti writing and I’m liking some of the results. Not all, but some.

Futura is kinetic; lots of Jackson Pollock-like moves while he’s painting, and he’s always experimenting. For instance in this video, he paints small, light clouds of color on the walls, then covers the walls completely with a long handled roller drenched in the same color; he gives himself latitude for change. The light clouds weren’t sparking anything but the color was. Bold moves characterize his work, and he’s taken graffiti art into an abstract expressionist feel, without losing the street aspect.

 His moves are fluid, unhesitating. My first tries reveal a tremor of intent; later attempts are stronger. I picked up something I call “squeeching” from Futura--you plop a blob of pure color on the surface and “squeeche” it, fast, with the edge of a flat surface; plastic, cardboard, a wide brush. You’d better do it quickly, in a straight line or an arc, for it to accomplish that Futura/Franz Kline strength.  

 Not all graffiti writing relies on paint; Bob Swearengin alerted me to this piece that popped up on the corner of a building at 19th and McGee in Kansas City, just down the street from The Hilliard Gallery. It hearkens back to Adam Cost’s message posters, but incorporates ceramic tiles in the background and the word, “LOVE.” It’s about 4” X 10” and looks to be affixed to the building with Liquid Nails or a similar adhesive. To me this is rather charming guerrilla art. Bob says there are several with different (positive) messaging around The Crossroads.

 Anyway, for the October First Friday show at The Hilliard Gallery, I’ll have a few pieces that attempt to incorporate Futura’s aesthetic, and that of street art.  

It’s been called the happiest photo ever taken. What price happiness? An Eisenstadt print: $38,000.

 Change of subject. Back in the 50’s and 60’s BC (before computers and we actually had to draw for comp layouts) art directors kept reference files; “tear sheets” from magazines. I still have some of those old files. Two pieces, a magical, unposed Eisenstadt photo of a full-dress drum major practicing on an empty football field, and his enthusiastic following, and Sonny Liston talking on a delicate French phone engulfed by his large, dangerous hand, are two of my very favorites. In fact they both inspired, and appear in, a G-poem titled “Sonny Liston Looking Vulnerable.” That poem will be in Third Wednesday, I’m happy to say, a top publication. Other poetry and essays will be forthcoming in Drunk Monkeys, Sledgehammer Review, Eclectica and Words & Whispers. It’s been a busy year and it’s only a little more than half over. I’ve got a lot more rejections coming, maybe a few more acceptances.

 And finally, I can’t ignore this second pandemic. May we make it through. Vaccinations are available here, unlike some other countries. Did you know most of us have had ten (or more) vaccinations by the time we were 18?  They were, are, mandatory in all 50 states in order to attend public school as kids. (No federally mandated laws) Thanks to vaccinations, we don’t have to worry about polio—and that was a scary sonofa...gun when I was young. It didn’t quite kill you—it just paralyzed you. Picture kids laying around in big tubelike machines called Iron Lungs. The machine helped them to breathe. There was a mirror so you could look at your face. That was it. Nightmarish. Thank God and Jonas Salk for that vaccine.

 The more people who get the covid vax, any of the three available, the sooner we can get through this thing. Thanks to those who have, those who will, and those who are considering it. Be careful everyone.

 Happy August.

PS: here’s a shot at a piece incorporating some Futura-ism…

 

 

 

Surfing on a paper airplane

This sculpture by Gary Lee Price, “Journeys of the Imagination,” personifies our attitude when we moved here. And now, as well. Freddie and I saw it in Santa Fe and, with very little fanfare, grabbed it. It’s Price’s son, who he photographed one day playing super hero and leaping off boulders with a towel cape. It made us feel good then and now, as we are both caped and goggled paper airplane surfers.

 When we first moved out here to Resume Speed, Kansas, a noted farmer from the area asked me if I was going to farm. I told him, no, I couldn’t stand the hours or the learning curve. He laughed and said, “I sure hear that.” The feed store owner merely asked, “Are you lost?” every time I’d venture in there. After thirty plus years I get to ask that question of others who are usually looking for the winery store or folk art. The town hasn’t grown much in the years we’ve been here, but it’s acquired a veneer. Artisanal?  Artist + anal I guess is the etymology of that word.

 I sold my hot rod cruiser to Buck Ballou who has trimmed the trees at Wise Acres for years. He was taken by its chopped lines and ‘88 Mercury powerhouse. I had traded him an unused Sasser saddle for some tree work and the hot rod caught his eye that day. The basketweave patterned Sasser was made in Greenville Texas and gathered dust on a saddle rack I bought in California. My using saddle was, is, an old ranch work saddle that Harley and Lopez and several others found comfortable. Percy, a wonderful horse I had 50 years ago liked it too. I still have it but I doubt I’ll ever sit it again. Not so much my age, but no more horses, thanks. They are just too hard to lose.

 Buck had one day of cruising in the 1949 Ford lead sled, and from an account I heard, thoroughly enjoyed it. Vintage hot rods that run well have a way of bringing past years and old songs up to now in a nice way. Sadly, Buck passed away some weeks later. He’s a legend and he is missed. He was 86.

 F gave me a Fitbit a couple birthdays ago and it says I’ve walked over 12 million steps, averaging 11,000+ a day. Thousands of miles. My resting heart rate is 57; it was 67 when I started; not bad but better now. She walks, too. A lot faster than I do, though I slow jog to get my heart rate up to 120 or so. Walking requires no gym membership and it’s something just about anyone can do anywhere. It’s cheap and effective. End of commercial.

Cut this out and surf it…no telling where it’ll take you…

 Paper airplane surfing; did some after covid interrupted a novel that was showing some promise (fun to write often results in fun to read) as it was contemporary and I couldn’t just put masks on everyone and blithely sail forward. What I did was corner a producer about the prospects of an earlier novel becoming a streaming episodic deal. That’s all I’ll say for now. Will have to do a pilot and some synopses, see where it goes.

 Had a fun interview by Suanne Shaeffer, a writer of bestsellers and a force in the lit world. Here’s the link, if you care to pursue.

 And this from Jessie Krebs, a trailer from her Masterclass on survival. I have the MC series so will probably audit this one if not actually go out in the wild and face off with grizzlies and avalanches. She is a former Air Force SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, and escape) instructor, and a cool lady. As she says in the trailer, make your exhales longer than your inhales.

 And surf the paper airplane once in awhile. Oh, the places it’ll take you!

"The stuff dreams are made of..."

Years later, the Horus birds are home in Kansas…

 A couple of weeks after moving to Los Angeles I found myself in Westwood in a small but prosperous-looking Egyptology shop. One half expected Kasper Gutman, Sydney Greenstreet’s character in The Maltese Falcon, to pop out of the back room offering unctuous assistance. Instead, a handsome fiftyish lady walked up next to me as I eyed a pair of large, gold painted Horus falcons. They were well over three feet tall and imposing in a 1930’s Art Moderne or Deco design. Between the legs of each bird was a Rameses-like figure, a typical Egyptian soldier or warrior.“Those birds were in Cecil B. DeMille’s Cleopatra,” she said, “The 30’s film”

“They’re beautiful,” I said. “What are they made of?”

“Plaster, I’m sure. Most of the props of the day were Plaster of Paris. Take them home. Specially priced today.”

The real thing…

I really don’t recall exactly how much they were but the price was surprisingly reasonable, I felt, especially when she threw in a proof of authenticity from Paramount’s prop department, and the name of the art director who had them cast. I bought them with a credit card. I had no job at the time, no prospects, but enough to live on while enrolled in a McKee screenwriting class; we were studying Chinatown. Like thousands of others in L.A. I knew, just knew I had it in me to write that novel or that script that would take Hollywood by storm. Balanced by doubt, and the thought, What am I doing buying these things when I could end up sleeping in my car?

They were portents and they spoke to me. I couldn’t leave without them. We loaded them carefully in my trunk. I still have them. Before very long I had gone from dicey freelance work to a creative group head position at a large agency, so perhaps the birds were good luck. My circumstances certainly improved after acquiring the birds.

My own little piece of the mystery…

A year later, on one of my habitual pilgrimages to Venice Beach’s colorful shops, another bird landed in my collection; this time it was The Maltese Falcon. It has none of the grace of the Horus falcons; in fact it’s kind of klunky. The classic noir movie deserves a better leading bird for such a superb cast and script. But this was what Warner Bros. prop department came up with and it flew. Now I had my own replica of the bird to sit in my living room looking broodingly at the two sleekly designed Egyptian birds flanking a marble-topped bar.

I looked in vain for a pawned Oscar statuette as a placeholder for when I won best screenplay. Something about L.A.’s ozone perpetuates these dreams (and irritates the eyeballs on smog days—or at least it did back then). Anyway the bird grows on you. I began to hear rumors of high-dollar birds. I checked mine but, alas, it was not one of these. The mystery is alive and well today, with some of these squat homely birds commanding upwards of four million dollars. (This sentence is a link to Vanity Fair’s fascinating 2016 article about it.) The story even peripherally involves the famous Black Dahlia unsolved murder, in that the bird prop artist was a suspect. Leo DiCaprio is a player. If you find the right one, you can quit your day job. And, apparently, there are several black birds out there worth serious money.

My own Maltese bird was seventeen bucks. But it keeps the dream alive. Like Bogart’s Sam Spade told the cop who asked him what the bird statuette was, in the final scene, “The stuff that dreams are made of.”

Happy, prosperous, healthy June to all of you. G.

 

 

           

           

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Verbs vs. Nouns, Tacos, Roses and Bieber’s New Ride

Fun book to read, not all lectury and school teacherish…

“Be the verb, not the noun” is an admonishment from the highly successful motivational writer Austin Kleon (over a million books sold—the verb here is write, and did he ever) who wraps a lot of pithiness and, yes, cliches, in an entertaining, hand-scrawled format, caught my eye. Am I a sculptor, or do I surpass the passive and actually sculpt? Am I a writer, or do I sit my derriere down and write my butt off? I prefer to think of myself as a verb in those departments. But there are, admittedly, days when I become a mouth-breathing, sighing noun. For those times, this little book might just be the spark. Open it to any page and get some go. Thanks, Austin. Enough of that, This ain’t a Ted Talk.

 The L.A. Taco, a gazette of the gastronomic plus street news, is in the throes of a never-ending quest; to find the best taco in the city of angels. I have some pretty good burnt meat memories of the delicacy from street vendors and sit-down joints where the real sizzling deal was served. I’m guessing that KC’s hispanic community could go mano a mano and place high in the rankings out there, but I’m no judge; I liked airline food back when they served it. Hospital food too. But my tastes go from bland to grand. MD 2020 to Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1984. Well, that’s stretching it a bit—I never had either one. Just grapes, right?

 But this intercity rivalry (Taco Madness) has now reached such proportions it has its own bracket. Serious stuff. And the L.A. Taco’s readership exceeds the NYT and WaPo combined. I don’t make this stuff up. Anyway, may the best mano/taco win. Here’s a checkable fact: 400,000 Norwegians eat tacos every Friday. That’s 8.2% of the country.

 In other heavily researched and fact-checked news, I saw this with my own eyes: a 1967 Shelby Cobra beat a new Dodge Challenger Hellcat decisively in a drag race. The footage is awful, but no mistaking the 50-year old Ford’s win. Even the baseline Hellcat has about 700 horsepower. Maybe s/he missed his/her shift. Ford, by the way, may be reviving its “Lightning” name for its electric F-150. There’s so much car/truck news going on that it’s rather overwhelming. Especially if you have a hundred thousand or so burning a hole in your phone wallet.

 Or $330k which is what Justin Bieber’s new custom Wraith cost him. Holy Molybdenum. Get your own one of a kind from West Coast Customs. Here a link to their Bieber build. A standing ovation from Resume Speed, Kansas.

 And in honor of Reno Pete, my gambler uncle, and the recent Kentucky Derby, an aptly named book, and a couple of observations. Freddie kept us in the money with her across-the-board bet on Medina Spirit, and I had a bunch of also-rans, but one WPS bet on Hot Rod Charlie which paid a few bucks to show. The bets were placed on TwinSpires, and the winnings and original amount will now go to the Preakness.

 The book’s title is “The Greatest Gambling Story Ever Told” and it’s an interesting read. Part of it takes place at The 1988 Kentucky Derby and some of it happens in Tijuana’s Agua Caliente track. My uncle was at Caliente daily for years, making the trip from San Diego, and, finally, moving to Tijuana for the remainder of his life. A former Army Air Corps pilot and adventurer, his life would make a pretty good book. His final thirty years or so were spent gambling on the ponies. It was his only job. My grandmother used to say, “Pete has an interesting circle of friends.” Right out of Damon Runyon. He was, of course, my favorite uncle.

 The book is by a colorful gambler nicknamed Miami Paul, and it concerns a filly named Winning Colors, trainer D. Wayne Lukas, and the Mexican cartel among its cast. Three gamblers (Miami Paul, Dino Mateo and Big Bernie) bet a 50-1 shot (a year before the Derby) to win the Derby. If I did such a thing through TwinSpires, my odds would remain the same on Derby Day even though the horse might start at 8-1 or less. IF they would even take such a bet. Las Vegas wouldn’t, back then, and there were no online betting sources. Tijuana was their only avenue for such an audacious bet. And if they won they might be killed. Caliente was in shaky financial shape. How would they get the money (a million bucks) out of Mexico even if they survived?

 Great thriller to read in the days leading up to the Run for the Roses. Or anytime. Reno Pete would have approved.

 And they’re off!