Same ol' story, kind of... busy busy busy. It gets rather boring to just say that. Anyone still reading out there? Work, Xmas, painting painting painting, making a flyer for a SCRAP fundraiser, writing a new song or two, social gatherings hither and yon. I have a show of (mostly) new paintings opening this Thursday 12/30 at Everyday Wine, NE Alberta and 16th, 6-9 PM. It will be up thru most of January. I have been working like a madman on new paintings. I hadn't painted in ages and it was exhilirating to start in again. The downsides include lack of sleep and perpetually paint stained hands. Whether the pieces are good or not I do not know, but come have a gander and say hi. They are not worldshaking in content but they express an energy. They are about life. Or something.
Mark your calendars now for Jan 20 and Feb 17.
Thursday Jan 20 (otherwise Inaugaration Day) at Nocturnal, 18th and E. Burnside: a benefit show for S.C.R.A.P. called "SCRAP: the Regime." Several bands/performers on the bill including a musical version of me. For a couple songs worth anyway. I havn't figured it all out yet. I have a huge catalog of songs to draw from but these ones will fit the occasion in some form or fashion. I just wrote a new one for it. We'll see.
At this moment we still do not know who the "headliner" will be, and since I am creating a flyer for distribution ASAP, I made up a group called the Mudbone Orchestra. In my imagination they are sort of a combination of a scaled down March Fourth/Infernal Noise Brigade type marching corps with a barbershop quartet and a flugelhorn carried by maidens in silver gowns.
The real performers so far are: the Pheramones, Trash Mountain Boys, Show Me the Pink, and the Sprockettes.
Further ahead, I will probably be singing a country song (Marty Robbins' "They're Hanging Me Tonight) at a big huge musical birthday bash and the public debut of the Drizzletown Jubilee, Thursday Feb. 17 at the Missisippi Pizza Pub. It's a great place for a show and this one is gonna be a doozy. More details later. It is Debbie DeRose's birthday and she's pulling out all the stops.
I'm super busy. I would say *too* busy but hey, its way better than having nothing to do. In fact everything is beautiful, wonderful, and splendid. Except those nagging thoughts about the impending doom of civilization. But all the more reason to whoop it up. Responsibly of course.
Well, it's a cliche anymore for me to say that I had a busy weekend. I won't run down a list. The best news of all (aside from all the wonderful encounters with splendid people) is that I began an oil painting. It has been a *very* long time. When people ask me how long it takes me to do a painting there is really no way to answer. The brush on the canvas part is the shortest bit. The subterranean process that gets me there is another thing entirely. And in this case, an overcoming of a huge inner resistance. The why and wherefore of this resistance is complex, and the art that comes forth now in its erasure may not even be any good. But I can't not do it. I'd sooner give up, well, practically everything else. I don't think anymore that I have to though, and that is good.
I took a quasi-impromptu trip to Seattle and picked up almost all the rest of the paintings I've been storing at my folks' house, plus several that have been in my old friend David Mello's storage locker for, oh, about 10 years. So now I have an apartment overflowing with old paintings, some good, many just sort of so-so developmental pieces. Interesting to see them again though. I'm putting several on the walls of the PPC common unit (as chosen by my co-housers.) The rest, well... any takers? I'll cut ya a sweet deal. Actually i'll probably take them off the stretcher bars and reuse those. In the meantime I will probably lay them out side by side in the secret attic "loft" above my apartment. My most special friends can come over for a private showing and aperitif.
I'm in an art mode. I'm always in in an art mode but now I really am. I mean the mode where I start working and then a little while later I look at the clock and 6 hours have passed. And I havn't even started painting yet, I'm still in my sketchbook, but I'm bringing color into it (Tombo brush pens,) and in fact depending on what avenues I take in the next few weeks, these smaller "developmental" pieces may be what my Last Thursday show at Everyday Wine (Thurs 12/30) consists of. I don't know. I can't really judge them yet but they seem very preliminary. Like the "real thing" is yet to come. But they're fun to do too. I've been avoiding my oil paints for quite some time. But there is something in the process of exploding out of me. It has a lot to do with fire. It may or may not be any good as art. It's not that original, in the sense that flames and fire and trees and the other common elements of my work are hardly new. But whatever.
A new element (for me) is a bird, the falcon. I've written two songs about it now (as a sort of invented mythological creator figure) and it demands to be in my visual art too.
Between this and starting a new job next week I will not have as much time to be social. So take warning, dear friends, you may not see me much. Oh, you'll still see me. I'm always looking for that perfect balance. Part of me is stongly reclusive, introverted, and misanthropic. Another part is avidly social. Someday (maybe in this lifetime?) i'll figure it all out.