looking glass ...

"there's big money in cynicism - it's a career opportunity ..."

David Bowie

as night ...

its always been about -

diving, dying, climbing, and falling;

not being good enough ...

or being far enough away to not care,

too busy to think,

or deep enough in love to forget ...

dream no. 6 ...

"Never underestimate the power of early indoctrination".

Robert Hughes

links ...

"All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together."

Jack Kerouac

images of what ?...

wish i knew - bubbles from the subconscious i guess ...

so what's up with the little drawings/paintings that have begun to debut during the month of March ?... no titles, no descriptions; nothing ?...

I've had a few inquiries ...

for anyone that knows me - i bounce from project to project since most things require drying time or objectivity which only distance provides ...

if i take a cig or coffee break, its usually in my office or drafting room where i have my notebooks, resource materials, and computers - and during the break i either jot down some notes or doodle about preoccupations ...

as an exercise, i decided to post the results of day-long doodles throughout the month to see how the nonchalance appears in quantity - there's not much forethought or direction since i have enough of that kind of discipline and respect for the vocation in other projects ...

i was thinking of including these in a slide show or animation accompanied by a piece of music I've been laboring over called "Nero's Melody", we'll see ...

doodling while fiddling ...

moving forward ...

little to say today except that things are moving forward on all fronts: the chapel designs, developing the foundation and resources, investigating studio options for a new season of painting production, art garb development, articles on modern art, scanning images for web page up-dates, commissions, gallery paintings, music composition, packing out-dated materials, meditation, reading, and daily administration ...

plus the smell of spring and change in the air ...

wunderland ...

i admit, I'm still a bit of a late night news junkie - at one point, about twenty years ago, i either had to rid myself of the TV or do an Elvis on it ... I've improved with a reasonable amount of discipline and sometimes by simply turning the volume off and watching the people - particularly the politicians caught in the crossfire of partisanship - some of these guys give me the creeps in the same way as when i had long hair in the 60's and would wonder into the wrong place or the wrong town ... my antennae picks up the weirdness, and its been a great survival tool ...

so i look at some of these pasty skinned, paunchy, snake-eyed, smiling through their teeth politicians who probably haven't had to do a hard days labor their entire life - and wonder how it is that they've become the representatives for the majority of people in this country ...

i know the real answers, but i can crank up the cynicism - especially when i feel I'm being deceived - and i do, even without the sound ...

so far, I've had a lifetime of depreciating faith in these guys - most of whom i see as manipulative scoundrels and the rest as evil, self-centered and hypocritical bigots; and of course, it's the later I'm compelled to appraise ... because someone once said: "know thy enemy" ... [i know how the rest of the quote reads, so please forgive my indulgence] ...

history affords us hindsight, so it's easier to understand at a distance what happened during McCarthyism, the civil rights, woman's rights, hippies, and the peace movement, etc. - but being there and living through it was more than a bit confusing and scary at times, to say the least ...

so it makes me wonder what "IT" is right now, as i watch these caricatures of responsible government weave us into some web of futile misinformation - for instance, what would happen to the G.O.P.'s chance at elections if they lose the support of campaign contributions from affiliations with the health care industry - they've already been publicly accused of "being a wholly owned subsidiary" - without denial i might add - and if they prolong passage of the health care reform bill till mid-term elections, they at least have a fighting chance to capture some money and seats while riling up angry mobs in charades of opposition to reform ...

what depth of mean-spirited-ness are these shifty characters capable of if:

* at a time when millions of people are in desperate need of assistance as a result of the mismanaged collapsing of businesses and economic institutions they oppose benefits based on political principle rather than moral responsibility ...

* they deny the passing of legislation that will benefit millions without health care ...

* they undermine, beyond political tolerance, the office of president and his authority by antagonizing people to demand seeing his birth certificate and question his citizenship ...

[not to mention disparagingly accusing him of belonging to one of the world's most devout and respected religions with negative implication] ...

what i see from their behavior is cruelty, heartlessness, veiled bigotry, and disrespect - and my question is how would people like this behave if they were desperate our in control ? - probably to an extreme we haven't yet experienced in this escalation of power struggles ...

my guess is that they see things like homelessness, unemployed and unemployable, the sick with pre-existing conditions, the rising obesity levels, increasing heart disease and diabetes, increase in high school drop-outs, and poverty in general that effects millions - not as symptomatic of a society in deterioration resulting from decades of special interest favoritism - but rather, they see an expendable liability - that if removed from statistics, they'll be back into profit margins - and the best way to obliterate liability is to not endorse entitlement programs, health care, and the humanities while beefing up security forces and unreasonable laws to protect themselves from the rising dissension ... sound familiar - who's fascist now? - and did the confederacy ever go away? - and do you know the real meaning of confederate? who's really in charge of the death squads? - i wonder ...

so in lieu of having an all out, sustainable war - which is good for business, population control, party line patriotism, and moral re-centering; they probably figure more covert tactics need to be applied - some of which you can catch on the evening news - even without the sound ...

lions and lambs ...

don't know where the expression came from; "in like a lion, out like a lamb", with reference to what are commonly called March winds here in the northeast - probably the same guy that said "April showers bring May flowers" - and i hope he's on Obama's environmental advisory board and prepared to make revisions about global weather maladjustments ...

anyway, since i was a kid I'd look forward to the 1st to see what Mom Nature would deliver - and more often than not, it brought cold howling winds out of the north - today was no exception - how does it do that, because it wasn't howling yesterday? Man, if i were pagan and less scientific, i could easily develop a mythology about this ensconced with gargoyles of Rush Limbaugh and other skeptics of climatology facts - but I'm not, so I'll just marvel in the synchronicity of it all ...

more on mammals: "only in art will the lion lie down with the lamb, and the rose grow without thorn" [martin amis - you can tell he's from Europe, because here in America we have stampedes, tea-baggers, and government regulated pesticides] ...

andrew ...

my son Andrew [by marriage not blood], turns twenty today ...

i use the 'blood' reference as a reason to justify our differences - because Lord knows, at twenty, i was everything my father expected me to be - yeah, right ...

he came to America from Paris with his mother when he was ten - leaving the only thing he knew up to that point; a culture that was more conducive to the subtleties and finery's of life, as European metropolitan existence is - a language, education, and social system that is unique even by European standards - and his friends, routines, and strains of his father's estrangement to join me and my family here in somewhat rural Pennsylvania ...

and though love flows with abundance from my family, and i live a relatively cultured life with his mother, it's still nothing similar to what is bred into his genetic code or even familiarity with urban living - it's still more like the wild west than Paris - even NYC, which has its own brand of urban aggressiveness and shallow history - all a bit intimidating and difficult to adjust to - but he embraced it with a 'can do' spirit that his mom instilled in him that i always admired ...

for me, at that time nearly fifty, i had no fathering skills - only vague, and often romanticized memories of growing up and management tools which were often viewed as overly assertive, even among my peers - but what i did have is the stability of my father's unwavering presence, direction, and support - and knowledge of what that generation of fathers did to prepare you for manhood ...

so you teach what you know ...

needless-to-say, my methodology was often met with resistance - which in my kingdom, moved from a dictatorship to democracy in a matter of months - quite an adjustment for all concerned - and a learning experience indeed ...

then we had 9/11, and him being French - he was alienated from peers as much as me being a hippie, musician, artist when i was growing up - only more so i suppose, because of the hypocrisies of the American dream of inclusion and the apparent 'zero tolerance' enforced by rednecks - you can always change your profession but not your blood ... fact is, i empathised and apologized and even thought about re-locating to my wife's origins of Scotland, but the task was greater than our will ...

anyway, we all managed through some horribly tough times; but my heart goes out to Andrew and so many like him of his generation and the challenges they have to adapt to ...

despite the difficulties of our union, i'm grateful for the enriching experiences - but i still go back to some of my father's advice; "if you work hard, long, and smart - things work out" ...

today, we still have disagreements as i expect we always will - and frankly, i'd be disappointed if we didn't - especially with him coming from such a rich heritage of debate ...

but i do realize how overwhelming life can be - i admire his victories but recognize that laurels make a bad foundation, and i understand the trials and disappointments ...

it's all a work in progress - the rest has to do with encouraging commitment, hard work, friendship, communication, spirituality, and dreams ...

a little love improves the journey ...

carpe diem and happiness everyday ...