She wrote the book on book covers
Her latest book, which comes out this month. So does “Chickens One Day, Feathers The Next.” She designed that cover, too.
I use McGuane’s apt description of life for an epigraph—you’ll see why. Cover design: Jessica Bell.
"Best omelette I could make with a chainsaw" Thomas McGuane. Available for pre-order.
The title story could make a whole book.
But it won’t; aside from a couple of essays on art and a book review or two, this book took 84 years to write. The title comes from how a very good friend looked at death. Captain A. Rudolph Green, USMC. Rudy. I miss you, brother, but what times we had. Other good friends, brothers, pop up in “Chickens,” as do some strong women. I dash about being ten years old on one page, forty-seven on another. Some memories are fresh as yesterday, some are clouded. But I’ve presented them the best I can, and after seven books, I do believe I’m getting better at this. I’ve relived a lot on these pages. I don’t think you’ll be bored. Pre-order it here, if you’re the pre-ordering kind.
Believing is seeing.
An aspect I must mention here, is visualizing. It comes up more than once in “Chickens,” and is the subject of one piece entirely. I won’t get all mystic on you here, but there are perfectly natural universal forces out there you can gather in order to propel you to another level. Napoleon Hill touched on it; his original, unchanged, books are well worth reading. Maxwell Maltz. Viktor Frankl. Others. When one is in the groove, one feels it. Things break your way. Again, not to be occult, Tommy Chong put it this way: “When you hit a groove, it’s not you; it’s the spirit world.” That’s his way of saying things line up, break good. When they don’t, when things confound you, you’re fighting those forces and, chimerical as they are, they’ll simply go elsewhere. Maybe where they’re more welcome.
The example in the piece titled “Visualizing: Not a Woo-Woo Science” is about the best bull ride of my life. The universe was with me, my ligaments weren’t. It ended with no buckle, a trip to the ER, and a stay at an LA hospital. But I felt it, unmistakably. The forces did what they could, as did my preparation, and my allowing those chimerical forces to help. Some call it faith. Here endeth the lesson, as the pastor used to intone.
For Labor Day holiday I waxed black vehicles. With paste wax. Duh.
I don’t recommend it, not in muggy humidity and sizzling temperatures. You have to keep moving the vehicle into shaded areas and waiting for it to cool off some. BUT I discovered a wonder product for removing bug and tree sap; Krud Kutter. Wow. Of all the snake oil and elixirs out there, this works! And it’s reasonably priced, even in this inflationary economy. Ever tried to get tree sap off a black vehicle roof? Spray Krud Kutter on, and wipe it off. (I am not paid for this rec) Then I tried some $40 wax called Torque, but ended up using good old Turtle paste wax in a can. Again, reasonably priced. For rags, I use old fleece sweat shirts, cut up, for the first go-round, and microfiber cloths from Walmart for the second and third elbow-grease powered wipe-off. And, wollah, two old vehicles look like somebody loves ‘em. Could be my imagination but I think they perform better after a wax job. I cussed some; wait for cooler weather is my final word.
Best for last, speaking of visualization.
Freddie, as many of you know, is a silversmith. Which is like saying Patrick Mahomes is a football player. She was putting some pieces out for display in an upcoming show and I grabbed just a few and took a quick pic, which doesn’t do them justice. Her work is truly museum quality and it’s a crime that so few ever get to see them. She does them for family and on commission. The pieces shown here are things she did for her sister and mother, and herself. These are cuff bracelets and necklaces made with semi-precious stones, gold, silver and copper. (The pendant at lower left features some rough turquoise and several diamonds.) When we get better pictures, I’m sure she could get coastal representation; all she needs is a little time to do the work. She has done one-of-a-kind diamond wedding rings for friends and all of them were personalized designs. Stunning and breathtaking are words with brand new meaning when one first sees a Freddie Wise jewelry creation. Like the silversmith herself, they are exceptional.
(I am not being paid for this rec). We wish you a happy and creative September. xo Here’s Sarah Vaughn’s September in the Rain, which is a pretty nice note on which to end this blog and a sweltering August.
Idealism spoken here...
We are you…
This is the cover of the chapbook; the name being what the sign says. (The sign on the buffalo, not the sign on the shed.)
The piece above inspired a poem that I can’t display here because I felt it was strong enough to enter in a $15k poetry contest. Therefore I can’t publish it, even in a blog, because that would disqualify it and I can use the cash; our yacht has barnacles and needs a good scrubbing. That ain’t cheap in Monaco.
The photo and poem were originally to be a center spread in a chapbook by Holy & Intoxicated Press (UK) but chaps are, by definition, slim, and I opted to have two pieces of art in the middle of the book, accompanied by two poems instead of just one.
The art and poetry chapbook is to be published this month and I’m very honored to have been contacted by the creator of H&I Press, poet and publisher John D. Robinson, to have both my sculpture and my poetry as the subject(s) of one of his gemlike limited editions.
Here’s an interview I found that will introduce you to John, his poetry, and thoughts, if you’re not already familiar with him and his work; strong words, strong talent, no punches pulled.
In the spirit of Crazyhorse and a whole lot more…
See the note at left? It was in this book and it’s not my printing; it says, “WAKE UP.” I use it as a bookmark.
This book review is a little different; so’s the book. I recommend it to anyone who has ever wondered if, just maybe, certain groups have been treated unfairly. Blacks, Indians, Asians, Hispanics, anyone other than white cisgendered males. And we’re only okay as long as we shut up and play along. This book is here to tell you things that are, in a word, flabbergasting. Truth is often just that, and often not welcome. I’m gonna bet the FBI and the BIA and the DOJ and several governors, prosecutors, judges and presidents didn’t push this book at cocktail parties; “Oh it’s a must-read, simply breathtaking!”
Well, it is breathtaking. And well-written, by bestseller Peter Matthiessen (The Snow Leopard, Killing Mr. Watson, Shadow Country) but if you’ve not read it here’s what it’ll do: fill you with disgust, anger and fear. Not much of a sales pitch, right? Truth hurts.
I read it back when I thought I could still make a difference and I tried to do some things toward that end. I still think that way to a degree but more realistically; now I can use certain skills to perhaps bring attention to things that need to stay in the collective consciousness. (Here’s one about Peltier and AIM I wrote) Like the 400 plus broken treaties with the people who were here before Columbus, before Custer, before uranium and gold and oil and rich pasture were discovered in the Black Hills, before big ranches impinged upon reservations so they could use the grazing land, before…well, the originals, the inhabitants, the Indians.
That’s it. I won’t go on. But if ever there was a must-read, this is it. When they stop whitewashing history, maybe it’ll be in those courses in schools. Guess that’s all for this blog—missed July but that was a brutal month of heat waves and disease. This week I get to go to the DMV and renew my license—I will wear a mask (sigh). I’m taking a cool course from Stage 32 about how to package and sell a limited series pilot. I’ve got this idea, see…
Anyway, enjoy your August and maybe some cooler weather. Maybe. Speaking of cool weather, here’s Joe Williams at Newport in 1963. Nice.
xo GW
Unforgettable image from the Sandinista/Contra conflict: Eugene Hasenfus downed and captured.
We’ll always have Managua.
We (Americans) seem to have a fascination with dangerous times, past, present and future. And it could be that all times have been dangerous. Are, and will be dangerous. All times.
The Year of Living Dangerously, a 1983 Mel Gibson film about Sukarno’s Indonesia comes immediately to mind. Great atmospherics and Linda Hunt (everyone’s favorite badass shadowy leader of NCIS Los Angeles) who won an Oscar for her portrayal of a streetwise (male) photographer in the Gibson film. Mel, Sigourney, Linda, story, intrigue, technicolor noir. I recommend it. Not that it’s streaming anywhere; you may have to get the DVD.
VICE (2018) is on Netflix. It’s weird. Of course so were the real people, Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld et al. Dangerous times again. Portrayed in almost comic book fashion. One rather clumsy (to me) pairing of scenes that tried hard for some kind of visual symbolism took me out of the movie completely; one scene showed Bush’s ankle and foot moving like a sugared-up teen’s, and that scene suddenly changed to a family in Iraq under a dining room table during the “shock and awe” attack, and zoomed into a closeup of the man’s foot and ankle moving the same way, though obviously in terror. See it for Carrell’s hilarious portrayal of Donald Rumsfeld—it’s great. Or to watch Bales’s chin-on-his-chest Cheney. Pretty good.
And, a more recent ‘dangerous times’ movie, The Stars At Noon, deals with the 1980’s Contra/Sandinista/CIA mess in Nicaragua. I’ve not seen this much-lauded movie but have to note a couple of odd synchronisms: Claire Denis is screenwriter/director. Denis Johnson, also with one s, wrote the book in 1986 and the Vintage Contemporary version of it resides in my shelf of VC books, a valued collection of sorts. I pulled it the other day and found I’d not ever read it. Well-written, of course, because Denis Johnson. But I got impatient with it. A prostitute (with bad teeth, she keeps telling the reader) posing as a journalist (or vice-versa) gets involved with a dorky Englishman. Both are stricken soporific with the heat, filth, and bureaucracy of their surroundings and they make a series of dumb moves when they move at all. That’s the book. I imagine the film will be somewhat more Hollywood-palatable. Good teeth, less sweat, less dorkage for the main love-interest guy, and the female will be a beautiful stranded journalist. A leftist periodista. Just a guess, no spoilers.
But I’d like to share this; one of the loveliest songs to come out of that Reagen-years saga. It’s by Bruce Cockburn who was, as they say, on the ground in Nicaragua. Give it a listen here. The lyrics are below.
Battered buses jammed up to the roof
Dust and diesel the prevailing themes
Farmer sleeping on the truck in front
Feet trailing over like he's trolling for dreams
Smiling girl directing traffic flow
.45 strapped over cotton print dress
Marimba-brown and graceful limbs
Give me a moment of loneliness
Dust and diesel
Rise like incense from the road
Smoke of offering
For the revolution morning
Headlights pick out a fallen sack of corn
One lone tarantula standing guard
We pull up and stop and she ambles off
Discretion much the better part of cars
Rodrigo the government driver jumps out
He's got chickens who can use the feed
We sweep the asphalt on our hands and knees
Fill up his trunk with dusty yellow seeds
Dust and diesel
Rise like incense from the road
Smoke of offering
For the revolution morning
Guitars and rifles in blue moonlight
Soldiers stretched out on sparkling grass
Engine broke down -- they took us in
now we make music for the time to pass
Tired men and women raise their voice to the night
Hope the fragile bloom they've grown will last
Pride and passion and love and fear
Burning hearts burning boats of the past
Dust and diesel
Rise like incense from the road
Smoke of offering
For the revolution morning
The album, Stealing Fire, is full of revolutionary songs that are as fascinating as they are musical and poetic. Some are angry. All are well-produced and listenable. I recommend it without reservation, here. Coincidentally, one of songs is “Lovers in a Dangerous Time.”
And one more book. They say to start peddling your book months before it comes out. Here goes. It’s been in the works for a couple of years—covid and coastal fires did the first publisher in. Then I found another publisher who liked it, and I finished galley edits, first round, yesterday. It’s called Chickens One Day, Feathers The Next, and here’s its new cover, by Jessica Bell. She’s a singer/songwriter, artist, all around marketing person and talent-whirlwind.
“Chickens” is a book of essays and memoir pieces, and, as one of the blurbs says, “a rollicking Harley ride down a vibrant Route 66 of American culture.” It should be available in October, 2022. It’s had a long journey; are we there yet? Almost.
And I wish for us all, less dangerous times, more laughs, joy and fine fettle. (That’s either a skateboard or Croatian soup) xo G.
Above the Fray?
This wonderful vintage drawing is available at Swann Auction Galleries, Illustration department. The wingsitters and pilot are boyhood pals of mine. It’s a bit vertiginous for those of us affected by height, but that’s part of its unsettling magic.
Above the fray? Not really. It would be strange not to mention the dark turns our world has taken but so much has been said about the criminal war, the horrors of Buffalo and Uvalde, the resurgent pandemic, runaway inflation and all the other revulsions that I won’t add to it here. But I’m certainly not above the fray; I, like you, am affected and saddened. I, like you, do what I can.
That’s “Mr. XL’s Excellent Test Pattern” on an old Sylvania that may actually work…
The ”Hell Yeah” Wise Work show opened June 3rd at The Hilliard Gallery, and the new work was well-received. Much of it is a departure for me; hopefully it’s progress and even maturation. Some of the work addresses current events and it’s raw. Some digs up matter from the 60’s. Some of it told me exactly what to do with materials that spoke to me and has nothing to do with anything but the piece itself. It’ll be at the gallery for a month, then pieces of it will be on display in the upper and back rooms for a time. So far, the most important art critics (you) have been kind, even enthusiastic.
Hot Cold Heavy Light, and Crews’s memoir—talk about diverse…
I’d like to recommend a book on the subject of art criticism; it’s thoroughly enjoyable reading and nicely educational along the way. It’s by Peter Schjeldahl, the delightful and authoritative art critic of The New Yorker for the past couple of decades, and I call it “learning without pain.” The title, Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light, 100 Art Writings 1988-2018 refers to its divisions, ie: Andy Warhol, Pollack, Basquiat, De Kooning and a bunch of others are in the “Hot” section, while “Cold” includes such variants as Shepard Fairey and Francisco Goya. I’m glad I bought this fine book. Here’s a link.
Books. Harry Crews, A Childhood. If you’re a Crews fan, I’d say it’s a must. If you don’t know HC, well, it’s…gritty. There are a couple of mind-pictures in there I’d rather not have, but probably no more so than an overly graphic crime story. And Crews can write, so that’s the draw here. (Link)
And here’s a mug with my mug on it. Soon some will go out to those who have won them. Be patient; I have to box, schlep to the post office and mail ‘em. They’re at the gallery, too. First person to leave a comment below wins one. Just think, you can look at my mug on this substantial coffee vessel—that’ll wake you up in the a.m. It does me. Sing it with me: The best part of wakin’ up, is Gman on your cup.
Last, and least: The oil barons are getting rich(er) but this check (below) I got from the dregs of an inheritance that was pillaged and sacked by some (sort of) relatives will emphasize what’s left for…the rest of us, when all is said and fracked. The frackers. One fracking cent. Talk about trickle down. Anyway that’s all for now. Just remember, it ain’t me making money on your high gas bills. Cheers to all of you—may the second half of 2022 be much much better! G
A penny for my thoughts? Nah, you really don’t want to know…