The Show Must Go On

Next month's Rock and Blues Fest featuring Johnny Winter is now the Rock and Blues Fest, a Tribute to Johnny Winter, which means, the Fudge shall be seen! Here is another of my favorites by the Vanilla Fudge.

Sara

The beautiful Sara, another of my favorite models. As usual, this is a 25-minute pose done in black and white charcoal on gray Strathmore paper.

Trying To Smile

I was trying to smile, but I’m sure it did not come off looking that way. Though my cheeks were uplifted, my teeth were clenched tight and the words were slowly spat out of my mouth, “Nice to meet you Charlie.” He has a weird look in his eyes, well, he ought to. My body language, the fists at my side, say I am about to take Charlie’s fucking head off.

Who the fuck was Charlie and what was he doing with his arm around my girlfriend? I think I would have exploded on this guy if not for the look on Lynn’s face. It was half pleading for understanding and half stark fear. Fear of me? Fear of what I might do to Charlie’s face? Fear I wouldn’t understand what was going on here? Hell, I didn’t understand what was going on here. Lynn was my girlfriend and yet she shows up at our church youth fellowship meeting with this dickwad Charlie draped all over her and her friend Judith in tow, looking as frightened as Lynn is. Judith’s fear is masked by a fake smile as well, but while Lynn is standing there meekly, Judith is in motion.

“Hey David, good to see you again. I have a question for you, it’s personal. Can we take a walk?” Without waiting for an answer Judith is pushing me away from the happy fucking couple and whispering under her breath, “I’ll explain. This isn’t what it seems. Do everyone a favor and stay calm.”

We move around the building, “What the fuck is going on Judith?”

She is speaking rapidly, like she thinks I may go off at any minute if I don’t hear it all. “She met him last summer on vacation, before she ever met you. They had a summer thing, but that was all. It is over, only he showed up today, came out of his way to see her. She doesn’t want to hurt his feelings...”

“What about my fucking feelings?” My hands are aching my fists are clinched so tight.

 “She hopes you will understand. He gets to be with her tonight, in public, you get to be with her from now on. She picks you, she just hopes you understand the terrible spot he put her in by just showing up on her doorstep. She picks you. He leaves tomorrow and she will end it once he leaves, just…just don’t embarrass her tonight. Don’t embarrass him.” Judith grabbed the back of my head and pulled us together so our foreheads touched and our eyes were locked. “She thinks you are a great enough guy to help her through this…I think you are too.”

I backed up, shook my head “no,” that I didn’t quite get it. “She doesn’t seriously think I am going to sit here and watch the two of them carry on tonight, does she?”

“No, she thinks that would be too hard on both of you. She is hoping you will leave.” Judith could see I was not convinced at all. “She is just trying to not hurt this guy. She loves you.” She poked me in the chest. “You. You won.”

“It doesn’t feel like I won,” but my fists were unclenching.

“She says she will make it up to you tomorrow night.”

I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. I give Judith one of those Bogart-like taps on the chin, “Shit.”

I close my eyes, and center myself for the longest walk of my life. I step around the building and walk toward the crowd of friends. I see that Lynn and Charlie are holding hands now. She looks white as a ghost. As I approach I say to no one in particular, “Something has come up, I gotta run.” As I move past the crowd I look Lynn in the eyes and she looks relieved, but that is all. I don’t look at fucking Charlie at all.

As I get into my car I can hear him asking, “What’s up with that guy?” I think twice about getting out of the car and showing him what is up with this guy. As I peal out I slam my fist into the roof of my car and wish it was Charlie’s pasty fucking face.

Copyright 2014 Barry Keller. All rights reserved.

Johnny Winter R.I.P.

Sad news about Johnny Winter's passing. Not sure how this will affect the already purchased tickets to see him and Edgar and the Vanilla Fudge next month. Celebrating the joy that was Johnny with Mean Town Blues from Woodstock 1969.

Maude Redux

It is always a joy to draw the wonderful Maude. This is from my latest session with her. Black and white charcoal pencil on gray Strathmore paper.

Bloodbath Rising

This is another acrylic painting of Bloodbath, reimagining a scene from Mayhem #1. Bloodbath was Lester Connors, the "payload" for the first human teleportation experiment. During the experiment an earthquake sends Lester not only through space but through dimensions to the planet Marba, where magic still exists and people still settle their arguments with the sharp end of a sword.

Bloodbath

In the 1970s I did a couple issues of a comic book called Mayhem. My contribution besides a few full page illustrations was a strip called Bloodbath. Bloodbath was Lester Connors, the "payload" for the first human teleportation experiment. During the experiment an earthquake sends Lester not only through space but through dimensions to the planet Marba, where magic still exists and people still settle their arguments with the sharp end of a sword.

Lately I have been toying with acrylics and decided to do this representation of Bloodbath on both worlds. It is not 100% complete, but close enough.

Lovely Lisa

I have had the pleasure of drawing the lovely Lisa Davis off and on for almost 15 years now. This was the latest time, this past Sunday. She is one model I never tire of.

The Rockets' Red Glare

Pretty cool and what an advertisement for the Phantom 2 personal drone. I didn't know they existed but now I want one.

Jennifer Juniper

 

Jennifer, done last week. This is a 25-minute pose done with black and white charcoal pencils on a gray Strathmore paper.

It is Fudge Time!

So jazzed to say that I just bought tickets to see the Vanilla Fudge in August. They still sound amazing.

Loan Explorer Logo

Years ago, before they were taken over by the Feds, I worked for IndyMac Bank in their Construction Lending department. I worked on a piece of software called Loan Explorer, which managed big loans for construction companies. Blowing my own horn here, but Loan Explorer was the best Construction Loan processing system on the planet, and I was not the only one who thought that. When Fannie Mae was looking for a construction loan package, they went to all the banks to see what they were using. They ended up wanting to buy Loan Explorer; IndyMac didn't sell it to them. Anyway, as each new version of the product would arrive I would work on the code, the training docs, the help files, the manuals and yes, the logo. For my last version, Loan Explorer 5.0, I created this animated logo which was presented in a splash/logon page every time the program was loaded. I kind of like it.

The spinning numbers were created with Swift3D software from Electric Rain. That was then merged in CoffeeCup Firestarter to created the finished logo. For the final product I altered the colors and put it on a gray background, where it looked something like this:

The Carnival

I don’t know why I remember the carnival. I’d been to carnivals before, but this one had arisen from an empty lot in our neighborhood. That first day I went, the wild tangle of rides seemed like an unfathomable dirt maze to me. Everywhere I turned I saw something new. I felt disoriented and lost amid the spinning metal, flashing lights and the screams of young girls being pulled this way and that by the Scrambler, the Tilt-A-Whirl or the Whizzer.

 I remember wandering around in a daze in a cloud of dust kicked up by a hundred or more people. As I stumbled between the rides, the rich dusty aroma mixed with the sharp odors of the grease and diesel fuel that kept the rides running smoothly. The sweetness of cotton candy drifted through the air occasionally interrupted by the sour stench of vomit.

 There was a wall of large trucks that had transformed into the “Fun House” and the “House of Horrors,” with barkers outside enticing me to come in, “It’s only a quarter young man.” There was a shooting range with rows of mechanical ducks and bears and geese skittering across the booth at various speeds. Next to it was a booth with a pyramid of milk bottles, just asking to be knocked over with a softball, which I had been told to avoid, by someone I can’t now recall. There was a dunking booth with local girls in bathing suits waiting to be plunged into a tank of water by a precisely thrown baseball and a coin toss with highly oiled plates and poorly placed goblets.

 Wafting across the entire carnival was the delicious aroma of hamburgers on the grill. Not these thin, premade patties of today, but thick, handmade burgers, charred on the outside and pink on the inside, plump with fatty juice that oozed though your fingers and spattered the ground when you took a bite. My parents would take a turn at the food booth every day, which meant I would come back for all four days the carnival would be in town. It was in coming back the second day that I learned how easily one can get comfortable with the new and exciting.

 The carnival no longer seemed a maze of confusion; the layout was quite orderly and neat. I remember my second day there thinking that I had lost something, some sense of wonder that had been present the day before. The rides sparkled a bit less and, the music seemed a little drearier than before. I remember being startled at how fast the magic of the place had died for me.

Copyright 2014 Barry Keller. All rights reserved.

Oh Suzie Darling!

 

A week or so ago I was lucky enough to have the beautiful Suzie pose for me. This was the first time I had the opportunity to draw her and appreciated it much. This was a 25-minute pose utilizing black and white charcoal pencils on gray Strathmore paper. Drawn June 1, 2014. 

Ode to Billie Joe Day Once Again

It is the third of June, another sleepy, dusty delta day...

Greed

Thursday

We walked into the small bedroom in silence. The wall behind the headboard was adorned with cowboy hats, all wrapped in protective plastic. In the corner a beautiful oak display case was filled with expensive toy cars in pristine condition. The man on the bed had smooth skin of an almost translucent quality. His tousled white hair looked fine and silky and rested on a small pillow on top of a larger pillow. His chin rested on a rolled up green washcloth under which his ancient hands, covered with age spots and signs of recent bleeding, lay crossed. Paula bent down and touched his hands then ran her finger along the bridge of his nose. She began to cry again and I put my arms around her. I could feel her tremble. The room was littered with medical equipment, all quiet, as if sitting in silent respect for the man they once hummed and beeped and toiled in service of.

I could hear the labored breathing of Paula’s mother as she shuffled into the room, her oxygen hose trailing behind her, and stood by the other side of the bed. “He lived a good life.” She bent down and kissed his forehead.

“Yes mom, he lived a full life.” I held Paula tighter. She had stopped trembling. After a bit she started to cry and leaned back into me. I squeezed her and kissed the top of her head.

A tall man in blue scrubs walked into the room, just there to “pay my respects.” He was followed in by two women in bright maroon print scrubs who had come for the same purpose.

Eventually we walked back into the living room and sat waiting for the people from the mortuary to come for the body. It was the first time I can recall being in that room without the TV on.

Copyright 2014 Barry Keller. All rights reserved.

...You Know I Love You!

When IBM was selling its own windowing operating system, I always thought this should be their theme song in their commercials. Listen and just replace "Oh it's true" with "OS2" and you will see what I mean. And I'm sure they could have gotten Flo and Eddie to record it for them.

Shedding a Tear

I have a question: is there a statute of limitations for feeling ripped off? How long after you have been had is it no longer right to feel incensed by it, given the number of years that have passed since you was played? I'm trying to figure this out, 'cause I am feeling pretty damn used even though the "using" happened decades ago and I only found out today.

What has me in a tizzy? That guy in the clip from the PDA above. I watched these things for years; old Iron Eyes Cody shedding a tear for the pollution of nature at the hands of the white man. Only, that isn't Iron Eyes Cody. That is Espera Oscar de Corti, of Italian descent.  The guy is white. White!

I shed a tear for the innocence of my youth.

Oscar Season - Best Actress

Today we saw Philomena which features Judi Dench's Oscar nominated Best Actress performance. Dench's was the last Best Actress nominee for us to see, so I now feel I can give an opinion on this category.

I loved American Hustle and though Amy Adams was just wonderful, she is overshadowed by others even in that movie. A share really; in a different year this might have been enough to win. When you see these clips you realize how amazing she was:



I am a big Gravity fan, and thought Sandra Bullock's performance is the glue that binds that startling story together; the amount of time she is the only thing on the screen must have been frightening to consider. But, I needed a little bit more from her than I got. I'm not sure what that would have been, but just a little something more. Hard to find a clip that showcases Bullock's range in this film, but just know that the emotion you are getting in most of these scenes is transmitted through her eyes and her voice; nothing else is even real.



Judi Dench was spectacular as the real life Philomena and in a normal year, she might win for this amazing performance that is funny and poignant and vulnerable and all so real.



But through it all one performance kept pulling me back. Kate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine jut blew me away. As the widow of a Bernie Madoff type character who has lost everything, she is nothing short of spectacular:



So for me that was it, a slam dunk for Blanchett. And then I saw August: Osage County and Meryl Streep just killed it. Every time I think I have seen everything that Streep can give us, she gives us something new, something more. This is not the best scene in the film by far, but you can surely see here that she is on top of her game.



So my choice for Best Actress is the incomparable Meryl Streep.

Oscar Season - Supporting Actress

Oscar season is upon us and like every year, I like to be a well opinionated person. When I give an opinion of who or what should win, I like it to be based on knowledge of all nominees, not just one or two. So, this time of the year we see a lot of movies.

Last night it was 12 Years A Slave, up for nine Academy Awards:

Actor in a Leading Role
Actor in a Supporting Role
Actress in a Supporting Role
Best Picture
Costume Design
Directing
Film Editing
Production Design
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Yeah, it was pretty damn good. A little hard to watch, the inhumanity of slavery is just too much for my sensibilities, but a very good film. With this film, we have now seen all of the "Actress in a Supporting Role" nominees, so I can now venture an opinion on this award.  To me it is a close race between Julia Roberts for August: Osage County and Jennifer Lawrence for American Hustle. I would be happy with either winning, though I think I would vote for Jennifer Lawrence by a hair.

Both have extremely powerful scenes, worthy of an Oscar. When Julia Roberts says to her mother, "I'm fucking in charge!" she had me completely, but when Jennifer Lawrence admits, "I don't like change, It's really hard for me," in my opinion, she won the award. See what I mean:

A Long, Long Time Ago

Fifty-five years to be exact, that was the day the music died for a whole generation of rock and roll fans, the first generation of rock and roll fans.

I don't remember the year, but it was the early 60s and I was playing a stack of my brother's 45s as I was wont to do in those days. A lot of doo-wop, a taste of Del Vikings, a little Stagger Lee ("Oh the night was clear, and the moon was yellow...") and something I had never played before. It was a song called "Oh Boy" and I found it infectious.

When my brother came home later that day I asked him who the Crickets were and he looked at me and said, "Oh...that's Buddy Holly."

And I said, "I like these others Jack, but this is just the best. Do you have any of his recent records? I want to listen to them." And that's when he told me.

And I was shocked, because in my world only really old people died and this guy didn't sound old. And it changed me a bit. Buddy Holly taught me that anyone could die. But over the years he taught me that anyone could live on beyond their body's demise, 'cause the Beatles played Buddy Holly and the Rolling Stones played Buddy Holly and over the years lots of people played Buddy Holly. And even those who did not record Buddy's songs, were influenced by his music.

Thank you Buddy, I wish I could have known you.

If it Wasn't for Junk EMail...

...I wouldn't have no email at all. To paraphrase Mr. Ray Charles.

 

I am not sure who the spammers think I am, but every single day I get two emails for each of these products/services:

• Exotic Car Rental
• Luxury Yacht Rental
• Private Jet Rental

People, I make a good living, but not that good of a living.

The Bright Sunny Day

He lies there shivering on the soft grass covering the hard ground on this bright sunny day. If he could concentrate on the world around him, he might find some humor in that incongruity, but the outside world does not exist for him. All that exists is his pain…and his need.

On this pleasant day of early afternoon sun, of mild temperature and soft breeze, his is a world of gnawing ache and uncontrolled trembling. He holds himself tightly trying to comfort himself like an old friend, as the sweat pours down his face, drips from his oily hair, pools in the hollow of his neck. His clothes are so drenched with his bodily secretions that they stick to him in odd ways, like insects trapped and dying on brown curls of flypaper.

His head throbs, pounding like a jack hammer, so much so that his only relief, his only solace is the pauses between throbs, when the pounding doesn’t feel like it will crush his brain and splatter it against the inside of his skull. The rest of his body is a mass of contradictions: it seems all he is aches in unison, a glorious orgy of pain and suffering, but he can feel the goose pimples dotting his arms and feels the cold numbness grabbing at his fingers, toes and cock.

The thought comes to him: if he lives through this day, will he ever have sex again, or is something fundamental to his manliness being broken? For the first time in hours he laughs, for the answer is a startling, “Who cares?” Sexual gratification is not his addiction, not today anyway.

That’s not what he wants. Damn him, that’s not what he needs, not why he aches in this self-made hell.

When he had started, they all told him this day would come. Somehow, he thought it would be easier. He lies there shivering on the soft grass covering the hard ground on this bright sunny day.


Copyright 2014 Barry Keller. All rights reserved.

Panel Love

For a few years I did a blog called DC Comics 40 Years Ago, which displayed what comics you could buy from DC 40 years ago. As much as I would love to get back to doing that blog on a regular basis, it is just not in the cards right now. I am spending most of my free time in pursuits artistic. Almost every Sunday you can find me at William Stout's studio, where I join a collection of some of the nicest people you could ever want to meet, in the joys of drawing the naked female form. Back at my own studio I have been painting regularly for a bit now, in either pastels, acrylics or watercolors. I've also been toying with the idea of doing an online comic, though nothing has jelled in that department as of yet. You can find some of my artwork on my website, @ Source.

But I like to write. I have recently started updating this blog once again, am working on a novel and a couple other ideas. But I love comic books and I did so enjoy doing the DC 40 Years Ago blog; it was just the ever-present deadlines that took the fun away. So, I have started a new blog, one with no deadlines. In it I will revisit some of my favorite comic books, not just from DC, but from any publisher. Most of it will be new, but some of it will consist of repurposed and reedited entries from DC 40 Years Ago . It is called Panel Love and is just in its infancy. If you  have even a passing interest in comics, I think you will like Panel Love. It is just me, my opinions and some of the greatest comic books of all time.

It's Over!

I feel really old and out of it when I see a photo of a couple on the Internet with the headline "It's Over!" and I have no idea who either person is

Then There's Maude

Sometimes the gods look down upon you with something less than loathing and give you a gift. Sunday they gave me Maude and an amazing 25-minute pose of her remarkable backside. Backsides like Maude's are the reason we heap tributes to the gods. Girault pastels on a La Carte Pastel Card. Painted January 5, 2014.

Bowie

 

My son informed me last night that our family dog, Bowie, had to be put to sleep earlier this week and so my heart is filled with sadness for the loss of just a sweet little soul.

Bowie was a rescue dog and when we got him he was funny looking, having been completely shaved at the pound. I called him a "coiled python" because his big neck was solid muscle. At the pound they had called him Elvis, because he sang (howled) all the time. We knew he was a crooner, but my wife didn't want to keep the Elvis name, so we looked for others. I wanted to call him Torme, but my wife would not have it. Finally we settled on Bowie.

He was one of those happy dogs that loved people and his tail would wag so hard when you walked into a room that the whole back half of his body would move with it. Though he loved people, he was not so free with other dogs. It took a while for him to get used to Sophie when she joined our family. When we would take them both to the dog park, Sophie would run around and play with the other dogs and Bowie would scoot up next to us and cower.

He was just a sweet little dog and I loved him and I miss him. Rest in peace Bowie; you gave us so much love during your time with us that you deserve it my little friend.

This is a Man's World

So very jazzed that we will be seeing Trampled Under Foot in October on the Blues Cruise. This will be our first time taking the Blues Cruise and we can't wait.

FCINO!

For some odd reason here it is the day before Christmas and I am obsessing on my latest pet peeve: FCINO, or Famous Characters In Name Only. FCINO is the latest fad sweeping through Hollywood, mostly in TV but also in the movies. In fact, one FCINO is in both. Let's start there.

Robert Downey Jr. is a wonderful actor of incredible talent and more charm than any two men deserve to possess, but he is part of a FCINO franchise that just drives me up the wall. This would be his series of supposedly Sherlock Holmes movies. Sherlock Holmes never was and never will be an action star and yet, there he is as one in Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. I am not saying these aren't fun films to watch, just that these are not Sherlock Holmes films.

Neither is Elementary a TV show about Sherlock Holmes. Now I am not saying this is not an entertaining show or that Jonny Lee Miler is not excellent as the protagonist, I'm just saying that that protagonist, despite his name, is not Sherlock Holmes. And it has nothing to do with the show being set in modern times, Sherlock on PBS is a wonderful show set in modern times and Benedict Cumberbatch plays a character not only named Sherlock Holmes but who, in fact, is Sherlock Holmes. And do not get me started on Lucy Liu not being Watson.

But the phenomenon of FCINO is not limited to bright-minded detectives. There is a TV show called Sleepy Hollow which features a character named Ichabod Crane, who is not, in any way, Ichabod Crane. Now the producers of this show were not the first to bastardize the Legend of Sleepy Hollow; Tim Burton beat them to it by over a decade, but at least the story in that Sleepy Hollow retained some semblance of Washington Irving's plot-points and characters. TV's Sleepy Hollow is about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Entertaining? Perhaps, but Ichabod Crane in name only. 

This past summer one of the biggest box office bombs was a FCINO entitled The Lone Ranger. It probably did not help that the main character in the movie was Tonto, not the buy pretending to be The Lone Ranger.

The latest FCINO occurrence is on NBC and it is entitled Dracula. Not saying this is a bad show, but Jonathan Rhys Meyers is playing a famous character in name only. I loved Meyers in The Tudors, but that is not enough to keep me watching a title character that is not, well, the title character we all know.

Get Naked!

One of those ads they make knowing they will never get them on TV. "Come again!"

Better Things

I participated in a KickStarter campaign for the film Better Things: The Life and Choices of Jeffrey Catherine Jones and received the DVD, a book of artwork and some postcards in the mail yesterday. Last night we watched the film and I loved it. My only gripe is that they have a tendency to pan over Jeff's paintings rather than linger, so you get a taste of them, but with many, not the impact of them. If you loved Jeff's work or are a fan of fantasy or comic artwork, you will appreciate this film.

Besides dealing with Jeff's artistic history, it also delves deeply into his years as a cross-dresser and his eventual trans-gendering from Jeffrey to Catherine. Jeffrey Catherine Jones is no longer with us, but the amazing artwork that was produced in his lifetime will be with us forever.

The film really inspired me to paint again with a web medium, so much so that I gessoed a canvas this morning and am working out ideas for my first acrylic in 10 years or so. We will see how that turns out in later posts.

New Newton Painting

As you may know, I am the owner of the The Art of Don Newton website dedicated to the memory of the great comic book artist Don Newton. Don died in 1984 and in his early career painted quite a bit. As he took on the full-time job of comic book penciler, his production of paintings dropped off the almost zero. This painting was done in 1983 and may be one of the last he ever did. It was originally supposed to be the cover for the Overstreet Price Guide for 1983, but it was never used for that purpose. This year though Bob Overstreet published The Overstreet Guide To Collecting Comics #1 DC Heroes Edition, and used this as the cover. He subsequently put the painting up for auction and it is now one of the gems of my personal Newton art collection.

Adrian!

A 25-minute sketch of Adrian done today at Bill Stout's studio. This is black and white charcoal pencil on grey Strathmore paper.

Dive! Dive!

Us on the "deck" of the "submarine" on Catalina Island. I used the quotes as this thing never actually submerges. It was a beautiful day though.

Arrrr!

State Street Winery in Redlands held their first Halloween bash Saturday night and Paula reserved us a table. We had everything we needed except costumes. We decided to go as pirates, but when we got home from the costume shop, my pirate shirt did not fit me, so Paula went to the store, bought material and made my shirt, pants and our matching vests all on Saturday before the party. I think they turned out great and we won Best Couple's Costumes at State Street where we had a blast dancing the night away to Minor 6th.

 

Jungle Girl

A piece I did at Bill Stout's studio today, Jennifer in black and white charcoal pencil on gray Strathmore paper. A 25-minute sketch. She brought her own spear and outfit; Stout had the skull. Now normally the models at Stout's are nude, but Jennifer thought Bill would appreciate the outfit and she wore it all day long. It worked, we all enjoyed the change of pace.

My Alex Nino

Today at the San Diego Comic Fest I purchased this beautiful piece from the great Alex Nino. It was a thrill to meet the man and even more so to see the rich catalog of artwork he had for sale. This one is done in Prismacolor pencils on black paper and I am very happy to add it to my collection of wonderful fantasy artwork.

Batman

This is a page I did for the Kubert School Correspondence Courses group on Facebook. A number of people were each given one page of a Batman script to illustrate. The idea was that we would all show our pages and put them together into a PDF file, but only three people even finished their page so that never happened. Oh well, nice to practice.

Look! Up in the sky!

Yep, we are in Albuquerque. What did you expect to see?

Nobody's Inn

We checked in today at the Nobody's Inn in Durango, CO., so named because, well, nobody was in. We received a code in an email which got us in the door then upstairs we found the key to our room in the door. It was exhaustive carrying our luggage up the steep stairs to our room after spending the day at Mesa Verde. Had we known the door in the back of the hotel was on the upper floor that would have helped a lot. Anyway, very cute place and right downtown.

It Is Real!

We arrived at Monument Valley today and all that stuff you see in the movies, it's real! Not ashamed to admit it made me cry.

Another Sleepy, Dusty, Delta Day

It is the Third of June; Happy Ode to Billie Joe Day!

Almost Weekly Life Drawing

Most weekends I find myself at William Stout's studio for his weekly "Worshiping at the alter of feminine beauty." Most people might just call it a life drawing lab, but I like Bill's title better. These three illustrations are from last weekend. As with the vast majority of my work there, it is blank and white charcoal on grey Strathmore paper. These are all 25-minute poses.

Jack Berchman Keller

My father passed away at 3:10 this morning surrounded by the love of his family. He was one of the kindest people I have ever met.  He was 91 years old and had been in pain for much of the past two decades; he went quietly and peacefully in his sleep. I will miss you papa.

Surface Pro

Guess what I got on Thursday? So far I could not be happier. This is looking to be the best damn computer I have ever owned. This is a game changer for Microsoft. No wonder the Apple people were trying to piss on this before it came out; it... puts their products to shame. I can run over 40,000 Windows 8 apps, 675,000 Android apps (through Bluestack) and any Windows program I own all on one device. There is nothing on the market that comes close to this with a touch or keyboard interface and astonishing handwriting recognition. If it can read my scribbles (and it can) it can read anything.See More

 

The Happy Couple

This was taken at Paula's son's wedding. Thanks to Lucas and Samantha for providing us with an outlet to express our feelings.

Argo for Me

Every year I try to see all the Oscar nominated films, so that I can have an educated opinion of who should win in each category. Yesterday we saw Flight, DJango Unchained and Zero Dark Thirty. That finished off Best Picture, Sound Editing and Film Editing. I still think the best picture was Argo. Sound Editing is a tough one but I think I would vote for Life of Pi. I would almost go with Pi for Film Editing, but I think I would go for Argo instead. The market scenes the storming of the embassy and the tension at the end were all masterfully done.

Beginning Year Two of My Second Life

One year ago this minute I was a little over two hours away from the beginning of the end of my life. I didn't know it, had no idea it was coming, but that is the way life is. You never know what it has in store for you. In a little over two hours, a year ago, it had a heart attack waiting for me. Ten or fifteen years ago it might have killed me; one of my arteries was 100% blocked, but due to the miracle that is the modern cath lab, it didn't kill me. Only it did. It killed who I was; it killed the life I was living.

As I lay on the table in the cath lab and the miracle workers opened my blocked artery from the inside of the artery, there was that moment when I felt my heart jump in my chest and I didn't know if I had just died. And in that moment the regrets of my life, things I had never admitted to myself, flooded over me. And though I didn't physically die, the person I was, the life I was living, did die.

Within three weeks I would leave my wife and lose the respect of my son. I left the big house on the hill and wonderful neighborhood. I left the neighbors I called friends. But it wasn't all bad.

I found a new/old love; a woman who loves and respects me like I really don't deserve. I found a simpler life, of less things but richer moments. I found my new life.

And now in just a few hours, the first year of that new, second life will have been lived and the second year will begin. This first year has been a year of transitions and not everything from the old life has reached its completion, but they all soon will.

The world is not quite my oyster, not yet, but it has the possibility of being that and that is a beautiful thing.

Here's to new beginnings.

Turn and Face the Strain

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time

Yeah, my life is all about changes these days. Some painful changes and some quite the opposite, but changes none the less. When last we talked I confessed to having a heart attack, which seems like a real game-changer in the game of life, but in my case it was only the tip of the iceburg. Something happened to me that was unexpected as I lay on the table in the Cath Lab at Pomona Valley Hospital.

Like I said before I had an angiogram, angioplasty and three stents placed in my Left Anterior Descending artery during the hour and half procedure. I was awake through the entire thing and to be honest even through the wonderful morphine haze I was scared shitless. I knew as soon as I got on the table that I would be a different man when I was wheeled out, if I was wheeled out. As they cut open the artery in my groin and began pumping dye into my blood I knew with 100% certainty that I had put myself on that table, that the poor choices I had made in my life blocked my artery, though at the time I didn't know it was 100% blocked.

Something else happened that changed me as well. While I was laying there at one point I could feel them working inside my heart. It felt like my heart jumped and at that moment I did not know if something really good had just happened or if I had just died. So I held my breath and waited to see what the afterlife was like, if there was one. And while I was waiting I felt the deepest sense of regret for the way my life had gone, in particular for my marriage.

I've been married 26 years and neither my wife nor I are the same people who tied the knot lo those many years ago. We had drawn apart; where we had few common interests in the beginning, over time we had even fewer. For a number of years now my wife would tell me, once a month or so, how unhappy she was being with me, how I brought little joy into her life. With these changes came a decided lack of passion and desire in our relationship. Still, it wasn't deplorable, it was livable, hell it was comfortable and that was the problem. My wife was not happy and I was not really satisfied but it was a comfortable existence, so we stayed together even though we maybe should not have.

When the moment ended and I was still alive I knew that my life had really changed, that I could not live causing my wife pain and that I could not live the rest of my life longing for a passion that just no longer existed. So, while recovering from a heart attack, while my wife was being the sweetest to me she had been in years, I hurt her again, hopefully for the last time, because though I still love her deeply, it was no longer enough, and I moved out of our house and my comfortable existence and into the unknown.

When I try to make a list of the things I have lost in the past two weeks, it is scary, but I have to feel it is worth it. My wife will no longer be hurt by me and will have a chance at finding someone who doesn't make her unhappy, but instead fills her with joy. And I have, amazingly and unexpectedly, found the passion and desire I so missed. More on this next time.

M.I.A.

That's me,, missing in action. I have had quite an interesting threee weeks. First I had my gall bladdre surgery, which messed me up quite a bit. Then, while home recupterating from that I had a heart attck. Good one too. I had a 100% blockage of my LAD (Left Anterior Descending) artery.Through the absolute magic of the Cath Lab they wre able to repair my heart while the attack was occuring. My attach started just abert midnight and the blockage was cleared completely by 4:00 AM. I was awake through the entire proceeding as they broke up the plaque blocking the artery, expanded balloons and inserted three stents. I cannot even come close to describing how this all felt as I lay there on the table.

It was one of those life changing experiences, and more than that I cannot at this time say. As a nifty souvenier I did get these wonderful picture of by heart, before and after stents:

Concentration

Besides being an old TV game show hosted by Hugh Downs it is also something I totally lack since my operation. I thought I would be able to use all this "free time" I have on my hands, you know, while the holes in my body seal up, for posting to my blog and doing some painting and some writing and, shit, I just can't concentrate on anything other than how shitty I feel. What a wasted opportunity this is turning out to be.

It's Gettin' Real in the Hyundai Commercial

last month I saw this commercial making the rounds and something about it seemed familiar. Talented people get to do their thing:



If you are like, "Huh?" check out the Whole Foods Parking Lot video This one always creacks me up:

I'm Alive!

Well, I got that pesky gall bladder removed and as the Hollies say, "I'm Alive!" I'm in pain, but I'm alive. I don't know what I would feel like if it weren't for the Percocet. I have four new openings into my body, two of which rip right though my abs and make it frankly hard to pee. But things could have been worse and I thank everyone who was in the operating room on Wednesday and who helped me in my room that night and the next morning.

How Smart is This?

This has got to be the smartest commercial I have seen in years. Man I wish I had written this!

Just Hold Your Gall Bladder

So two weeks before Christmas I am driving home from work and I start to get this ache in my stomach, really high, just under the rib cage on the right side. My first thought is indigestion, though it is getting worse with every passing minute and so my second thought is pancreatitis. This nasty ailment is something I have had once before, about four years ago and it hurts like a, well, let's just say, it hurts. So is the pain I am having that day driving home. About a third of the way home it starts shooting through me like a knife drilling through my body and then the pain starts spreading across my back. I am waiting for it to begin shooting laterally across my stomach, like it did the time before, only it doesn't do that. So though it feels really reminiscent of pancreatitis, I'm just not sure.

I get home and my son says, "Go to the ER Dad. You can go now or the ambulance can come and take you later." Me, I don't like going to the ER, so I say I am going to give it another hour or so to get worse or get better. It does neither. So, at 9:00 that evening, we go to the ER. As soon as they get me in and into a bed, I start to feel better. Now I feel like a fool. Indigestion I think. They run battery of tests including an ultrasound, but find nothing and I get home around midnight, my insurance company now $4,000 the poorer.

A few days later I go to my doctor for a regularly scheduled check up and he pulls my records from that night and tells me they missed the gall stones when reading the ultrasound that night, but the guy whose job it is to read these things sees them the next morning, so my gall bladder has to come out.

I see a surgeon a week ago and he schedules me for the Wednesday with the pre-op visit today. I go in, spend over an hour waiting to be seen, I see the doctor, I see his assistant, I see the doctor again and the assistant then starts asking me questions. The last question she asks is when did I stop taking my daily aspirin. I say, "What do you mean stopped? I took it this morning."

Seems they forgot to mention that I had to stop taking the damn aspirin, so I am now scheduled to have my gall bladder removed a week from Wednesday. I'll let you know if it happens.

Slashed!

I had said a few days ago that I was able to remote access my Kindle Fire using Slashtop and that was true up to a point. The point where it was not true was when I left my internal wi-fi and went out into the wild blooming yonder of open access wi-fi. From there I could not get to my desktop. I searched the Kindle Fire Forum and found another app mentioned, TeamViewer and downloaded it.

Today, from my Dr.'s waiting room, I was able to access my home PC and work on my novel. Pretty cool. The problem I had with Slashtop was that it only saw my internalal IP address, not the external one being generated by FIOS. TeamViewer doesn't seem to have that issue.

All Fired Up!

I am all fired up, Kindle Fired up that is. My son bought me a Kindle Fire for Christmas and I have been giddy ever since. I've had it for over a week now but I am really just beginning to see the potential in the product.

Bezos should have come out singing, "I am the God of hell fire and I bring you FIRE!"

I bought a nice leather case for it with a stylus. That comes in handy when I want to use Autodesk Sketchbook Mobile. It will take some getting used to the stylus which is not nearly as easy to use as my Wacom Tablet on the PC, but will suffice for now.

It's Kindle, so all of my Kindle books are available to me for reading at my leisurere. Though not an e-Ink screen, I can still use the Fire as a reader while on the go.

I'm not really much of a gamer, never owned a gaming device, though I have played with my son's XBox 360 and Kinect a number of times, but I seem to be loading the internal memory with  games like Asphalt 6: Adrenaline, Back Stab and Madden 12, all of which play amazingly well on the Fire and for each of which I paid 99 cents. The graphics and the response of the machine are pretty damn amazing.

Video is another treat on the Fire. From YouTube to streaming full movies and TV episodes, the Fire is a smooth experience.

A few months ago I ripped all of my CDs to my PC and then moved all of them to the Amazon Music Cloud so that I could listen to them on my phone or at work. With the Fire I have access to my entire music collection.

A few months ago I gave my laptop to my step-son who needed it for work and so I went through November's NaNoWriMo without benifit of a way to go out and socialize while writing. I wrote my first novel using Scrivener for Windows and put my Scriverner data files into my Dropbox folder which allowed me to have access to them on my PC and my phone and anywhere else I had a Dropbox folder. Well, though not natively supported on the Fire, I was able to side load Dropbox onto the Fire, so my novel is now there as well. My problem is editing the files. The Fire does not have an editor for RTF (Rich Text Format) files, which is what Scrivener uses, so though I have access to them on my Fire, I still cannot edit them. Enter Slashtop!

Slashtop is a remote access app that allows me to have access to my PC desktop on my Fire. Utilizing Slashtop I have been able to work on my novel from my Fire. Not a perfect solution, but it does work and for the time being, that is enough for me.

So let's see if I can bottom-line this. I can surf the web, play amazing games, read my books, paint and draw, watch movies and TV, listen to my music and write my novel all from a $199 tablet, all for $300 less than the cheapest iPad. Only a complete fool would waste their money on the big Apple.

I am So Ashamed

I don't know what to say, I laughed. I really laughed at this. I don't know if this bodes well or bad for this new year.

LED Astray

For me, one of few stress relievers during the holiday season has always been to lay on the living room couch at night in the darkened room and spend some quality time gazing at the Christmas tree. I can lose myself in the reflections of the tree lights off of the glassy sheen of the ornaments. It induces a kind of hazy daydream effect that sort of washes over me, letting my troubles and the not inconsiderable stresses of the holidays float away in the soft glow of the lights. Or at least it used to.

This year I fought the strings of lights for about a half hour before giving up and telling my son to go buy some new ones. He did, only they were the new LED lights. "You and burn them all year Dad and they never get hot and they take about as much electricity to run them as a fart." he promised. OK, they are cost effective, they are safe, but they emit a harsh light that has totally ruined the one sure stress relieverer I had. I tried to lay down on the couch and lose myself in the tree, but those damn lights were burning holes in my eyes.

Oh soft glowing lights, why have you forsaken me?

One of the 36,774

Someday, and I swear it will be soon, I will stop talking about the NaNo. But today is not that day.

They released the stats this week for the National Novel Writing Month and they are pretty impressive:

• 256,618 participants, up roughly 28% from 2010’s total of 200,530 writers.
• We wrote a total of 3,074,068,446 words, up 7% from 2010’s collective word count of 2,872,682,109.
• This averaged out to 11,979 words per person!
• We had 36,774 winners, giving us a 14% win rate!

Happy to have been a part of it all. Of the 25 writing buddies I had this year, 13 of them completed the NaNo or 52%. Not too shabby for my friends.

Lessons Learned

This should give you an idea of how I managed my NaNoWriMo. Pay particular notice to the graph on the right and the long flat area starting about half-way through. In looking back at my first NaNo to see what it taught me, and hey, that is what all of us winners and loser are doing about now, I came to four lessons learned. They are as follows:

1. When the going gets tough, Barry takes nine days off.
2. Though I tend to complain about things quite a bit, they are usually problems that I have caused all on my own, and in actuality, I sort of get off on the drama, as it allows me more time for self-absorption.
3. Eventually I will rededicate myself, after I have waited the prerequisite amount of time to make the outcome once again somewhat in doubt (this also relieves me of any responsibility for how bad it might turn out as it is now crystal clear to all that I just don't have enough time to do it the right way).
4. I can do anything to which I set my mind.

3,073,176,540

National Novel Writing Month Total Collective Word Count for 2011:

3,073,176,540
 

The Truth About the Appleheads Among Us

I saw this first over the weekend as an in-theater ad shown before Melancholia and it cracked me up. These snooty, lame-ass, self-absorbed frauds and the perfect commentary on the army of unthinking iPhone users. Assholes standing in lines for hours to get a phone that looks just like the phone they already have and worried that people won't know they have the new phone, 'casue it is all about image and not at all about having a great phone, not even sure of the specs to the phone they are standing in line for hours to purchase. This is simply priceless.

I Came, I Saw, I Nano'ed!

That's write! I mean that's right! I Came, I Saw, I Nano'ed! You have no idea what a rush that was. Had I not taken nine days off it would have been a snap, but those nine days of 0 words made the last six days a little tense. My first NaNo, my first novel.

OK, confession time: my novel is not done. It needs maybe 10,000 more words in its rough draft form before I begin a serious edit. But the NaNoWriMo task is to write 50,000 words of your novel, and I beat that by 208 words.

So, to be clear: Is my novel done? No.

Did I win NaNoWriMo? Fuckin' A Bubba!

To NaNo or Not To NaNo

That is the question.

I had pretty much given up on my NaNo on November 16th. I was on track that day, having written over 27,000 words, but I was realizing I was no longer sure who my main character was or where she was going. So, I stopped writing and waited for divine inspiration to occur. Still waiting!

Then, yesterday I started thinking about the 10,000-Hour Rule and decided that though I am not going to end up with something very good, I can add to my practice of writing so that next year I will be more prepared for the task. So, I wrote almost 2,000 words last night and need to write about 14,000 in the next two days to "catch up." See ya later!

The Bird!

Yep, it's that time of year again; time for the unveiling of the LA Times Brine Bird!

We have been using this same recipe from the Los Angeles Times for, I think, six years now, and it results in the best turkey you ever ate. The best part about this is it comes out perfect every year and all it takes is maybe a half hour of preparation Monday morning. You clean it, salt it and bag it on Monday, turn it on Wednesday, unbag it Wednesday night and stuff and cook it Thursday morning. The result is the juiciest, tastiest bird you ever ate.

It's not complete though till you carve it. I take my carving instructions also from the LA Times.  The same year the LA Times put out the brine recipe, they put out a video on how to carve a turkey (you can still find it on line) and I started following it. This year's bird did not want to cooperate, but I managed. The result is a plate of meat that can't be beat. Instead of dry slices of meat, you get big juicy chunks; the perfect way to display and consume the brined bird.

The Kinect Effect

I saw this commercial on TV twice in the past day or so and had to share it. It moves me. Ah Microsoft, what a great commercial and what a great technology. The Kinect is surely the "big-titted hit" it deserves to be.

Oh No, WriMo!

While working on my NaNoWriMo novel I have been reading Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Them Go by Les Edgerton which I downloaded to my Kindle when Amazon put nine books on writing on sale for $0.00 in support of NaNoWriMo. The first time I got in a jam with my story, Hooked actually helped get me out of it, but for the most part the book has been a detriment to me writing. By the end of the first or second chapter I wanted to reorder the chapters in my book, something that would not be too difficult to do and I figured I would get to that either by the end of the month, or next month while editing.

When I hit my first blockage and was ready to chuck the book, I took my dogs for a walk and on that walk a new vision came to me and I saw where my book should be gong plot-wise. That got me back to writing and resulted in another 10,000 words or so. Things were looking good, then I did a really stupid thing; I kept reading Hooked. My problems really started with Chapter Three: The Inciting Incident, the Initial Surface Problem, and the Story-Worthy Problem. Although I had an Initial Surface Problem that I was going to move from Chapter 16 (my chapters are small) to Chapter 1, and I had a Story-Worthy Problem, introduced with an amazingly heavy hand in my original Chapter 3, I did not have an Inciting Incident for the Story-Worthy Problem.

And my writing ground to a halt four days ago and has been there ever since.

I don't know if it will start back up again. The lack of an  Inciting Incident for the Story-Worthy Problem made me realize how vague my Story-Worthy Problem really is, which has made me reconsider the whole thing. Also, the more I write the more my main character (MC) seemed to be shifting from that character I though was the protagonist to someone else and her story if even vaguer than my original MC. So, here I sit, broken-hearted...

Or not. The holiday is coming and five days off of work and yes, there are things to do during those days, lots of things to do actually, but should things come together in my mind and should 5,000 words a day spew out of my for three or four days, I would be back on schedule.

So there is hope! There is always hope. What there is not is an Inciting Incident for the Story-Worthy Problem. Crap!

A Time Lapse View of Earth From the ISS

The crew of expeditions 28 and 29 onboard the International Space Station took a series of time lapse photographs of earth from August to October, 2011. Here they are strung together in a video; an amazing look at our planet. Blow this up full screen and take five minutes to enjoy the world you live on.

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

NaNoWriMo is Here!

The Calendar above and to the right is supposed to show my progress in the NaNoWriMo, but so far it does not appear to be working correctly as it shows me behind on my writing every day, when I have in fact been ahead since day 5. Oh well, maybe it will start working corectly at some point. The word  count does appear to be working correctly at least.

NaNoWriMo is Coming!

Sounds like the name of a Stan Lee monster from the 50s, but it is actually National Novel Writing Month and I have decided to give it a try this year. I just finished up the F2K writing course online and a lot of the people there are now moving on to NaNo, which I had never heard of before. It takes place from November 1 to November 30 and to participate all you have to do is, 1) sign up at www.nanowrimo.org and 2) write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

This is not a finished novel, this is a rough, unedited first draft. In fact, editing is frowned upon as it usually results in less words and as it is you have to average 1,667 words a day for 30 days in order to "win" the contest. No one reads your novel, so you are on the honor system here, though you do have to upload it at the end of the month so the words can be counted by the nanowrimo software. If you do "win" your prize is a 50,000+ word novel and a PDF certificate proclaiming your victory over procrastination and writer's block.

According to the big clock on nanowrimo we have 10 days, 11 hours, 28 minutes and some change before the big event begins. Anyone want to join in the, uh, fun?

But What About the Other Guys?

Well, they got Kadafi. That only leaves Gaddafi, Gadhafi, Kaddafi and Qadhafi still out there causing trouble.

The Big "Easy"

Walter Mosley about to sign a copy of an Easy Rawlins novel for me.

It appears that NBC is bringing Walter Mosley's Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins to TV, and I'm not sure how I fell about that. I have loved every one of the "colorful" Easy Rawlins books, from The Devil in the Blue Dress to Blonde Faith, but how well will Easy translate to TV? The thing I loved about the books was the unique look into the world of a black man living in Los Angeles from 1948 to 1968, a time of massive social upheaval, some of which I lived through, but none of it as a black man. NBC says the TV show, co-written by Mosley, will take place in the 1960s, surely a time of social unrest, but a big part of Easy's transformation takes place in an earlier, and less forgiving time. I guess we will have to see.

Buddy! Buddy! Bud...

I saw Buddy Guy this weekend in Anaheim and it was a down right shame. I saw Buddy a year ago at the Hollywood Bowl with B. B. King and the contrast between the two men, health-wise, could not have been greater. B. B. had to be almost carried on and off the stage, sat in a chair and hardly moved, while Buddy, was, you know, Buddy! Up and alive, this dervish of energy, jumping off the stage and running up and down the aisles and never stopping. This weekend in Anaheim, Buddy stopped.

He played for only an hour and 10 minutes and of that, he was missing from the stage for a good 15 minutes as his band covered for him. After the first 10-minute departure he returned to sit on a stool and play acoustic. Buddy sitting? Buddy playing acoustic? At one point he said he wasn't feeling his best, and man did it show. I hope to god it was the flu and not something more serious. A world without Buddy Guy is something I don't want to even contemplate.  

Are You Ready for Pacific Gas and Electric?

I was recently updating a list of people I have seen live and came across this band. I don't think I realized this was a religious song back in the day. Of course I saw them at the Swing Auditorium in San Bernardino. Are You Ready for Pacific Gas and Electric?

The Story of Johnny Quest

One of the great joys of my life as meeting the late Doug Wildey at the San Diego Comic Convention sometime in the 80's or 90's (not quite sure when). Doug was an amazing artist but few people know of him. If they do, they know of him for Johnny. Sit back and relax, this takes a while. Here is the history of Doug Wildey's the Johnny Quest.

A Tale of Rings

I am really just blown away by this. Check it out, they are taking five years worth of photographs snapped by the Cassini space craft and crafting an IMAX flip-book of Saturn out of them. Everything in this video is real, No CGI, no models, nada. Amazing!

5.6k Saturn Cassini Photographic Animation from stephen v2 on Vimeo.

Roscoe's

Saturday night, after the Blues festival, we turned our attention to food and being in Long Beach, I suggested Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. I always get the Herb's Special #3, a full half a chicken and two waffles, which I smother with syrup.

Now I eat chicken most days than not, usually from El Polo Loco and after removing the skin, but I would not think of doing that at Roscoe's. I only eat here maybe once every two years or so and when I do, I don't what to spoil what is for me a real treat. I don't know where Rosco finds these chickens, but they are gigantic, the "Chesty Morgan" and "Watermelon Rose's" of chicken, with huge, juicy golden breasts you just can't wait to sink your teeth into. There is also something in their waffles, some spice, that makes them special and unique and the perfect companion to beautifully fried chicken.

I have a theory on why Roscoe's is so good, why chicken and waffles go together in an almost addicting fashion: chocolate. I know what you are thinking, "What do chicken and waffles have to do with chocolate?" Let me explain. Is there a more addicting food on the planet than chocolate? I don't think so, and the reason chocolate is so addicting is that it satisfies two cravings most people have; chocolate is both a fat and a sugar, wonderfully melded together into a tasty treat, but to our lower minds, our more primative selves, chocolate is fat and sweet and we can't get enough of either, but together it is like a drug.

And so is chicken and waffles, a wonderful mixture of plump and juicy chicken, coated in a light batter and covered in the remnants of the fat the brought it to golden perfection, and waffles, drenched in the sweetest, sugary, maple syrup. Like chocolate the combination is addicting. And since I try to always stay on top of those things which can take control of me, I imbibe rarely, but with gusto.

Ana Popovic

Spent last night at the KJazz Blues Bash in Long Beach and was completely blown awy by Ana Popovic, Hendrix with a vagina. Watch and enjoy!