Is That All You Got?!?*

When I was in the 6th grade, I got a bicycle for Christmas...a ten speed bicycle. Yeah that turned out to be a disaster.

It's not because I was uncoordinated. Please. I played golf...played football, arm-wrastled grown men and entered my self into dog fights. I wore a cobra snake for a neck tie...My parents used me for alligator bait and I washed my face in a frying pan...OK?

Let's face it, I was a bad a**! Still am. Deal with it Haters!

But...but, as those of you who know me personally can attest, I was, and have always been, wholly unequipped to deal with any kind of machine or gadget. In this case, a gear box for a ten speed bike.

After a couple of passes through the neighborhood, I figured out that high gears were good for going up hill..it was easier to pedal. Then I discovered that the low gears could be used to gain traction going down hill...meaning I could go faster than gravity.

Can y'all see where I'm going with this?

I came up with a plan to break the Truck Route up-hill land speed record. I'd start on the top of one hill using the low gears to pick up maximum down hill speed. Once I reached the bottom of the bowl I'd shift into high gear and pick up a blinding rpm for the up turn. All very logical...how could it fail?

It failed at about 55 miles an hour, as I flipped the gear switch to first. The failure was almost immediate and it was complete. The pedals, now spinning without resistance, picked up enough speed to bust an atom. My feet were flung off the bike and for a second it vibrated but continued to pick up speed...then there was a wobble and a flash and piercing, head caving, pain.

I don't remember anything between that moment and opening my eyes onto the ceiling of our back deck. I'd been moved there by my mother and the Sister...who was about five at the time. Santy Clause had brought her a plastic doctor's kit for Christmas. Thankfully she was able to fit me into her schedule.




She wasn't nearly as busy back then.

I had ripped the skin on my right knee down to the cap, left a hunk of my shoulder on the asphalt and knocked halfa front tooth out. I still have big nasty scars on my knee and shoulder. For thirty years, up until last week, my broken tooth had been capped. That was before I had the temerity to bite into a soggy spring roll last Wednesday night.

Sexy? Like a mole on a super model maybe?

 So, it's off to the dentist for me where I will get high as Cooter Brown on gas and listen to Roxy Music. They'll give me some hillbilly heroin on the way out the door.

Unless y'all think I should leave it.

Up Next...The Special Needs Relationship: Part Two, Can't Get Back There From Here

*The title actually has nothing to do with this post...it was intended for another. Sue me.

I Shoulda Stayed at the Bus Station.

Found a box of old pictures and articles.

You wouldn't believe the trouble a stupid little picture like this could cause...especially in the Midwest. 

Let's get one thing straight at the start...I was not looking for trouble. I didn't care enough about the art class or school in general to be causing trouble. It was my senior year and I was getting enough hassle at home over my grades and coming home late. I wasn't some kinda rebel...I was bored.

When I say bored, I don't mean a kind of romantic teenage boredom...motivated by a restless intellect chaffing against the restraints of High School. No. I was just plain bored. I hated sitting in a room for six or seven hours a day when I could be chasing a golf ball...or girls.

*

I can only remember one place in school where I felt unfairly restrained...and that was on the football field. One afternoon, we were running scrimmages toward the end of practice. First team offense...second team on defense. I was playing corner and assigned to a wide-out. This kid was at least a foot taller than me. They kept trying to throw him screen passes and I kept busting up the play. I could see it in his eyes...every time his number was called. Worst poker face ever.

"Bartlam! We can't practice the play if you keep breaking it up!"

You don't have to know what a screen pass is or anything about football to understand just how absurd...how utterly absurd an approach to practice this is. So, I just stood around the rest of the afternoon thinking to myself..."no wonder you people suck at this game." With crap like that...culminating in an incident where I only just kept my Daddy from confronting one of these idiot coaches...I decided not to play anymore.** As the next summer ended I was courted by these clowns but, I'd had it with 'em. I spent the football season working so I could buy some new golf clubs.

"You'll always be able to play golf but, the days you can strap on pads and hit somebody are numbered."

"No not really...they sell that stuff at sporting goods stores. I could suit up and execute perfect cross-blocks on shoppers at the grocery store." No...I didn't say that...out loud.

I had kept my grades up enough to play football and golf. By my senior year, even golf couldn't keep me in the chair. Along with the artwork, I found an article about the golf team playing in the 1990 State Championship. I was in the picture but, listed as absent due to sickness. That was nice of coach Wyatt but, the truth is, I had failed geometry. I didn't know he'd done that until a week later when a friend's mother asked if I was feeling better. Ha.

I was even starting to lose my grip on the read and retain classes. I could still retain absolutely everything I read but it's hard to retain what you don't read. I've still got a note written by one of my English teachers in big red letters..."Erik. I'm at a loss with you. Not only was your paper late but, you quoted something you read on a McDonald's place mat."

I didn't care but, don't mistake my disinterest for ethos. This was no protest. I just didn't have any idea what I wanted to do with my life. It's not that I couldn't figure it out. I never contemplated the question. What? Like a career? Get real!

The least vague notion I had was of maybe going to Art School. I did OK in Art Class or, as you might guess by now, I had done OK in there. Things started to come undone in the first semester of my last year. We were turned loose to pursue our own projects. Mine was hanging out. It was so easy to do...there was a radio in there.

I don't remember the first time I got the construction paper and poster paint out but, I do know that I had no intention of turning these things in. I liked 'em. I still do...the one above, strikes me as especially cohesive and evocative. I don't know.

I was just goofing around...which is the first reason, the art teacher, Mr Duncan?, Doogan?, Deedlebell? hated them.*** I wasn't spending enough...meaning any...time on my assigned projects. That was a reasonable point. It was a class after all.

"Stop the nonsense and get back to work on your project...whatever that it is."

I fully intended to get back on my project once I figured out what it was...maybe another mountainous valley painted entirely with shades of purple. I could take a mulligan on the assignment involving our favorite colour..."reveal something about your character." Boooooring. Where's the construction paper...just while I think about it.

Coupla day's later Mr Dundard walks by, sees the slide there...and goes berserk. At first I'm thinking...it's his class...he told me to stop...I should've done a better job of hiding them...then he pissed me off.

"I'm not gonna have this pseudo-intellectual crap coming out of my class!"

Pseudo Intellectual? They're stick figures and bright colours! They offer nothing to the intellect. They're anti-intellectual you nob. I was pissed sideways by Mr Dolt's naming and assessing my motivations. Nevermind he was butchering them. It was his trespass and violation of the most precious piece of private property a person owns...that between their ears. This is what's going through my mind when he snatches up another Slide painting...this one on canvas board.

"These are my materials, my canvas board and I wont have it wasted." Then he ripped it in two. Ha Ha What? He was wired for sound y'all...was I about to get the horns? It was hilarious.

The thing you have to understand about Mr.Dellder...he painted trees.Trees that were meant to look like trees in the winter, summer, spring.....fall. Sometimes they were on hills. No matter the season or elevation there was always a small red bird perched on a limb.

Mr. Dabdag had studied Art on a Baseball Scholarship. The school's mascot was a Cardinal. The Art College at Ball State University is not Savanna College of Art and Design but, it's still an art school. You can image how well his trees were received by the cool kids in the Quad. How it stung when he saw the grades of those who were doing pieces that "anybody could do....you can't even tell what it is."

Maybe I had accidentally opened a few wounds. Whatever. They were doodles...good doodles...they were not a hill I intended to die on. I wasn't even turning them in for the love of cup cakes. I gathered up the survivors and shoved them in my bag.

That would've been the end of it if Mr.Dobbins had done a better job gettin' rid of the rent painting but, he'd had his catharsis. He was spent. He just tossed the pieces on the table and left.  One of the other kids in the room, an anxious trouble maker, gathered up the pieces and left.

It wasn't until the next morning, headed to my locker, that I saw, in the otherwise empty trophy  cabinet, my picture on display...in two pieces. Hah. It was funny and I appreciated it but, on the other hand, all I could see was hassle. Mr Duderdoo couldn't help himself from lashing out at the fruity art, and my buddy couldn't resist a cause. I'm sure he would rather have been running a pirate radio station but, you take what you can get in a small town. I didn't care what Mr Doodoo thought of the doodles and I had no interest in some kinda corny high school protest. If I'd just stopped doodling when was told to.

The three of us ended up in the Principals office to hash it out. How stupid is that?

I didn't go to Art School.



* The Teenage Martha...fine, fine, fiiiine as frog hair.
* * During a similar incident, where I had refused similarly stupid instructions..a coach said I was "dumb as horse." This from somebody in sans-a-belt shorts, who continuously tried to run bubble screens without the bubble.
*** It's amazing how my brain has a ridiculous capacity to remember things and how my mind, for reasons unknown, will scrub it clean in parts...I wish I could control it like a Super Power.

Mirror in a Dark Room

I'm not really what you'd call an open minded person. The door is definitely shut.

 I don't make up my mind lightly. It is possible that I sometimes confuse exhausting mental debate, which is actually the product of a maddening compulsion, with thoroughness.

 That's why the door's locked but not dead-bolted. If one knocks loud enough, long enough...looks in the window...lays on the door bell, honks the car horn. I might peak through the curtains long enough to give you the finger and mouth "Go Home! I'm calling the cops and loading my shotgun."

 No..I'm kidding. Really.

Of course, locks can be picked...just as surely as an analogy can be taken too far and become annoying.

Look at this.... This is a photograph taken by Amy Bartlam. She is a professional photographer in England but, this was just a casual instagram post. I found Amy's blog for the obvious reason. She's a Bartlam. I've never talked to a Bartlam that wasn't a sibling or a parent of some kind. I was curious.

 -Adam and I have this running conversation about people's names in these parts...Metcalfe, Shackleford, Vickers, Shaws of every kind, etc. Nine times out of ten* people will tell you they're Irish or Scottish when, in fact, they just have peculiar English names. Somehow, despite being surrounded by Lamberts and Hadleys, Bartlam is a real problem for people to get their tongues around...you should see the spellings my boss comes up with. My last name tag read Erin Barthelam. That's respect. Anyway...there aren't very many of us over here.- 

Turned out...she was a really good photographer. There were hip wedding pictures and interior shots that were very...well, professional. She's a professional.. Then she started posting these instagram things. I think that's what you call 'em. I'm neither hip nor hip to these app things...technology. They were these abstract photographs (see we've encountered our first problem right there)...or, abstracts from photographs.

It's gorgeous. A warm pinkish background with frosted streaks, stains and hints of geometric shapes to give it texture. It does...or seems to do arrrrrgghhh...what abstract paintings do best, present beauty as beauty without the mental hindrance of objects.

Then the trick...the stark black steak across the surface is a shadow and the cord or rope that's causing it. This ineffable (except of course it's a *&*%*(&^ photograph) expression is captured...like a song only stationary. With a jolt it's pinned down in time and space.

Maybe I'm just a functioning idiot (can it Adam) but, it knocked me out.

There's a problem though. Up to this point I was absolutely certain that a photograph could not possibly be considered a work of Art...capital A Art. High Art.** It might be possible to manipulate or doctor a photograph into a piece of Art...but, for all practical purposes that's painting. The problem is that a photograph can't help but present an image as is...as image. It's like holding up a mirror to something you could plainly see for yourself at the right time and place.

It's not that objects can't be presented as Art but they ought to have what Arthur C. Danto described as "transfiguration of the commonplace."

Flowers from Botticelli's Primavera

If you've ever seen a flower you recognize these as flowers but....come the &*^%& on! Have the flowers in your back yard (garden for the bar-b-quers) ever struck you like that?  The whole painting puts a fluttering pit in my stomach. There's a hint of anxiety because the world I see is not that beautiful. There's sheer awe mixed with joy and hope that somebody has.

Hope. The hope that the world might actually be this beautiful...more beautiful even. That the problem is with us...with the circumstance we have found ourselves in..*** If that's the case...if the hope is for a realization of a more beautiful reality, why can't the photographer provide a glimpse of how beautiful the world might actually be?  Forcing you to look at an object as is to demonstrate the beauty of ordinary things. That's quite a feat.

So I'm sticking my head out the door and declaring, as quietly and quickly as I can.."photographycanbeArt." And slamming that *&^*& shut again. Click. Go away.

:)

*That tenth person is indeed going to be of Irish or Scottish decent and have a McPreposterous name. I saw a McStreet sign the other day that I wish I'd written down. Indecipherable.

** I'm trying to separate High Art from art...enjoyable images, etc., whatever. It's not a value judgement but a classification. Much of what I enjoy and surround myself with would hardly be considered fine art.

***WARNING Religious Connotations! WARNING! WARNING! :)

Yee Haw! Enter the 80's.

Look what I found yesterday... I'm almost certain I got this as a present for my 7th birthday. That was the only real birthday party I had as a little kid. It's still got a lot of the pieces too. Stuuuupid cops. One of the clearest memories I have from early childhood is seeing a commercial for the premiere of Dukes of Hazzard. There's a couple of reasons it sticks out...one, I was at a friends house. He had a toy spaceship from Battle Star Galactica. It was an early one that shot plastic missiles. Recently a kid had choked to death on one of these missiles and the toy had been taken out of production. This was the horrific discussion, stamped forever into my six year old brain, that our parents were having when the commercial came on. The commercial momentarily wiped that out...and we come to the other reason why this moment sticks out...and replaced it with sever disappointment. I had heard there was going to be a show called Dukes of Hazzard and I had convinced myself that it was going to be a show with Knights and archers like Robin Hood. Crushed. It didn't take long to get over it though and of course, I loved the show. How could you not? I Am Somebody! I found this in the same box...Ha. It had to be from a few years later...but, it's definitely early 80's. This is the flippin elementary education I received. Understand, I don't have a problem with Jesse. He's a con artist...and you can't hate the player. If individuals and corporations allow themselves to get got...that's on them. In full disclosure, I should point out that I have shaken the man's hand. It was in Indianapolis. It was in a hospital where Maze's mother worked and Jesse was going through the halls shaking hands.* "Mahh Frrrriendah"...that's what he said as he reached out to grab my hand. Sweetest of all...I was wearin' an Elvis T-Shirt that had a Confederate Battle Flag as a background. I bought the shirt at a leftwing hangout...a punk rock record shop...obviously a different time. Blueeeeeeee.....Orrrrrrrrrrrrange...Blueeeeee.....Orrrrrrrrrange! Then there was this...my true obsession then as now... If you look closely you can see a Bulldog being swept up in a Blue and Orange tornado. It's hard to explain just how much I hated the Georgia Bulldogs at this time in my life...almost as much as the Seminoles but, the Gators were beating FSU like a drum at this time. Georgia made clowns of 'em every year. Obviously that was long time ago...b****es. The only actual art teacher I ever had was at Sable Palm Elementary. I'm not positive but I think her name was Ms. Robertson. She had red curly hair and glasses. She was always in a checked shirt and faded jeans...and nike tennis shoes. She was cool and even at that age I remember thinking she was young..and she was compared to the other teachers I had. She had a turn table in the class...always the Lovin' Spoonful. I actually learned things in that class...at least I remember things I was told in the class. For instance, did you know that the reason why many portraits from early American history are so goofy lookin is because they were done by house painters trying to stay busy in the winter? I don't know if it's true or not...but, I remember it. She was great and like I said...the only real art teacher I ever had. Anyway... *This was the same week that Mike Tyson was charged with raping a lady in Indianapolis...there was a Black Expo or something going on there that week. I'll fix the pictures later. If anybody knows why the new blogger won't recognize paragraphs that would be helpful too.

This is Still Not an Art Blog.

This is what happens when I'm left alone on a Friday night...with the ipod, and some cheap canvas board...



...during a thunderstorm.

A Showing. A Happening!

I think you've all earned a treat.

I know how desperately you've all been clammering...on the inside...for another masterwork. I am nothing if not sensitive to the needs and wants of my readers and, considering the artistic importance of my work, those of humanity as a whole.

I am a humanitarian...bearing a gift. A new Masterpeice...a reason to party.


Check the weeble wobble action from Frank Black...watching him play the guitar is almost as fun as listening.

First a retrospective...Allan 1 - 4.



That's Allan 3 and 4...along with a Peter Halley and a Jonathan Lasker...the edge of a Rothko.


The Cat Lady's son.




Allan 1,2 and 3.



A close up of Allan 3...my greatest, perhaps the greatest, work to date.



And now for the latest Masterpeice...



I call it Ronnie and Allan.*

You're all very welcome.

*Actually I hate this one...it's been sitting in there for months.

Waffle House - Ephemera and Detritus

High Street Waffle House.

After the closing of Tastee Donuts in Fondern, and before the need for wi-fi, I lived there. Waffle House is a Southern Institution...you wouldn't pass it up if you were in these parts.

A couple of weeks ago, I stopped at a gas station in Poplarville to get a cup of coffee. As I leaned on the hood smoking a cigarette two cars pulled up and out poured 10 kids from Birmingham England. They were on their way from New Orleans to Memphis. Best I could tell they had been having the time of their life.

Two things they were most excited about at the moment...one, the Mug Shot papers. You'll find 'em in every gas station. It's just a little paper magazine that reprints the county mug shoots, booking photos, for that month.

"Ohhhh...somebody be'd going to jail over this back home."

And the food..."Waffle House...yeah Waffle House," it kinda echoed around the nodding group.

It wasn't uncommon for Brits to show up at High St. on their way to New Orleans. It was right off the interstate.

"How much farther?"

"Three hours maybe"

Slumped shoulders and a look of total defeat.

The food is scrumptious...when they're clean enough to eat in. Usually the first six months they're fine...then the retired hookers, drug dealers, etc. are moved in and it's a steady decent. Most of the clientele don't care...truckers, cops, working girls and students.

The place is open 24 hours...that's all you really need to know.

High St. was where I got through school and met half the people in my life...and this was my view.



I was sitting in that very spot the night that David Allan Coe asked if he and a very young, very Asian, very stoned woman could have the booth.



It's also the place where I met Allan...our Allan. I was there preparing to start at Millsaps. He was already a superstar there....preparing for a senior year that would end with three Oral and Written comprehensive exams. He left the place with a degree in History, Philosophy and Religious Studies. He would go on to receive a PhD in Philosophy and is now warping young minds in Mobile Alabama. He is most famous for holding the position of non-contributing Philosopher here at Flimsy Cups.



I also met Matt M. there...and for the next four years we spent hours there almost every day. Talking (mostly music and his lady troubles), smoking and drinking as much coffee as they could make. About $1.09 for a bottomless cup back then.



Matt's at Princeton now studying music.

There was Brannon...a kind of brooding figure that delivered papers in the morning and pizzas at night during his last year of high school. He had calculated every dime it would take to pay rent and buy groceries for four years of college. He'd have a hasbrown...but, no smother or cover. That 75 cents might be the difference between having a tube of toothpaste in March or brushing with baking soda.

He was also brilliant and, last I heard, a PhD candidate at Harvard...probably done by now.




The help were ambiguous about our presence. They'd clown with us sometimes...ask for rides home, try to sell us dope...growl about having to make another pot of coffee.

They had their own problems...bail bondsmen, the poleese, ex girlfriends.



What really makes a Waffle House besides never closing and the ash trays...is the sound. Stainless steel constantly banging and scraping on cast iron, the ring of plates spinning on linoleum, shouted orders, metal spoons pinging against ceramic coffee cups.

For someone who can't concentrate when it's quiet it was the best possible place to study...and I worked my way through school in that place. That and I doodled.



Sometimes both.

I have stacks of these little tablets...occasionally there are notes but, mostly just doodles and misc. thoughts.

Somehow it all worked out.

We aren't done with the Waffle House.

Mark it Off The List

Before anything else, I've gotta be a parent here for a second. I had my proudest moment as a Daddy last weekend.



For the first time I was able to completely unload one my chores...on The Boy. Everybody said there would be moments like this...times when as a parent you are overcome with joy and anticipation for the future.

Last weekend was that moment for me.

Boy started his swimmin lessons this week too...



Our biggest problem with him is that he has NO fear of anything except being made to take a break.

"You're going to have to watch him." the instructor said without smiling.

I spent my last day on the road for June today...it's 1:02am. Mark it off the list Clowns.

Six Months Without a speeding Ticket!!! Them cops probably think I'm dead.


(The coolest sign I've ever seen)

Ate it for dinner...wore it all after noon. I'm gonna have to start carrying extra shirts...and britches.

Anyway..we're outta here tomorrow. Headed to Gulf Shores, Alabama.



First trip to the beach since nucklehead showed up.

If you need anything just contact Mary-Cathcart...she'll be lookin' after the place while we're gone.



And so you'll all have something to hate on amongst yourselves...I leave you with another masterpiece.*



I think that's everything. I'll probably be checkin' in from time to time.

Y'all have a good one.

EDIT: I finished this thing last night and have been staring at it all morning. I think this is absolutely my favorite so far (even counting the box). I don't know if it holds up balance wise, etc. (we have an actual Painter that follows the blog now...maybe he can sort that out) but I love this thing. Suggestion of objects and all.

Booger Loves Sissy

I want our resident expert on the anthropology of emotions to explain this expression of Love as anything but Mystery and Truth.

Satartia, Mississippi is a collection of houses around a cotton gin in the Delta. There's a couple of churches and a Grocery...


(These are the places that The Shed with it's Christmas lights and license plates is trying to emulate. You can buy some staples and honeybuns, bait, and cokecolas in these places but, they're more like social halls. They serve meals and coffee...local musicians will play outside or in if there's a dance floor...pool tables, etc. .)

The place is owned by a woman that seemed perfectly sane but run by two young women who are crazy as outhouse rats (they insisted that they were Booger and Sissy)...I barely got out of that place without a mark.

It was one of the funnest calls I've been on in a long time.

Before you get to Satartia, comin' from Jackson, you gotta pass by Bentonia...



Home of the Blue Front Cafe and Skip James...



I wish I'd gotten a picture of the two convicts being hauled up to the top of a flag pole to change light bulbs...in the bucket of an excavator.

I spent the rest of the day gettin' further into The Delta...


(Allan II)

Holly Bluff, Delta Grocery...where the owner has a cast iron cross from a Confederate grave that must be almost 150 years old. It was surrounded by rattlers that had been taken off snakes he'd killed.

A Grocery in Mayerville with a shag Budweiser rug nailed to wall over the dance floor.

Glen Allen on Lake Washington...where things are slow goin'.



My last stop was in Leland. It's home to it's share of Blues players but, it's also the birthplace of...



Time to start day two...Greenwood, Ita Bena, Morehead, Indianola, etc.

The Title has been fixed...as ISBW keenly observed "who calls themselves bogger?" :)

At first I thought it was a typo...but I did it twice.

Y'all Go On Get The Haterade Out...

It's another Masterpiece.



I call this one...Allan.

Rejection!

Martha hates my artwork.

This weekend she was telling me we needed something to balance out the cabinet that sits on the left side of the couch along a big wall in our living room.

I offered to do a painting...for free.

"It'd really have to be a big one honey."

"It's no problem Sugar...I'll just get a big canvas."

"Well...I really don't get your artwork."

Uh huh...don't get it? I've told her 5,000 times there's nothing to get.

"What...just look at it?"

Yeah...you just look at it. There's nothing to get.

So she knows that's a cop-out and a thinly veiled way of saying..."I hate that **** and it is not going on my living room wall."



Really?

This Is Not An Art Blog

but, I couldn't not post this one. I would stop flipping pages on this one...cut it out and find an old frame to put it in. If I quit now my career as a painter would have to be considered an unqualified flash of genius in the history of the universe. If you look close you'll see a bag of chips. I'm almost afraid to attempt another.

'Course, Allan hates it...and that's not speculation. Martha gave it a quick glance and in her best Stepford wife, "Oh is this another one of your masterpieces?" She stopped short of calling me darling but, the glazed look in her eyes said it all. I don't even have to ask Adam...The Sister is more certain now in her suspicions that I've completely lost my mind...and whatever Nat has to say will only make her more sure of her stance on my mental health.

Don't care haters...don't care.

I know it's better than this...



I was gonna be less hateful about Haring but, I been thinking about it today...I just can't get down with his cartoons. I watched the Universe of Kieth Haring this weekend. Obviously his work's not garbage but, I just do not like it. Too deliberate I guess. One of the interviewees talked about artists having a strong hand..."all you have to see is a couple of lines and you know it's Keith." Well yeah...it's the same male cartoon over and over again.

Have any of y'all seen the story boards he did, I guess, as a way of releasing the guilt he felt over racism...even though on the inside he supposedly "never really felt white". You let me know your reaction when you get to the panel of the white man raping the black man. This is what happens in the minds of people who grow up in lily white northern towns when they think about race. Bizarre!

Strong hand maybe but, an identity that in some ways was as weak and foul as stagnant water.

He's from the same scene as Basquiat, the no wave crowd, Fab Five Freddy and them...New York in the early 80's but, I just don't dig it...at all.

Blogger Hates My Art Works

Blogger hated my last masterpiece so much they shut down the whole network to erase it.



Take that Blogger.

Acrylic Paint and Bristles on Canvas

or Cheap Brushes.

Sketchy

meischair

Idiot Flickr has changed it's sharing function...and this is the result. A random picture on my blog...well, it isn't exactly random. It is from my account and it is another MS Paint Masterpiece.

meischair, a photo by jtemperence on Flickr.

It's probably a better post than the one I was trying to stick it in anyway.

MS Art Works

For those of you that don't care anything about the game...we offer these masterpieces for your contemplation.

I am real...really I am

I just got back from the Sister's. We get together for supper every Thursday.

I'm standin' in her kitchen wonderin' why we're havin' chicken when she promised me this morning we'd be havin' breakfast for supper....I'm thinkin' about grits when she says to me...

"Where did you find that hideous painting?"

"I painted it."

"You painted it?"

"Yeah...so it's hideous huh?"

"No..NO...No...it's good...I just you know..I thought it was a real painting."

"It is a real painting."

"You know what I mean."

"I'm sure that I don't."

"Like it was painted by a real person."

"I am real."

Well what to think about that?

Evidently I've created something real...which is nice even if it is really hideous.

On the other hand...it's realness is exactly what caused her to think I hadn't done it.

hmmmmmmmmmmm

"Hideous? Really?"

"Well no...I just..I thought it was a real picture you know? Seriously."

Tid Bit 1 1/2

I went running with the Sister this morning.

She say's I've gotta get that picture of the devils hand puppet off the front page... "Nobody wants to see that."

That's just her way of saying..."Erik I can't bare to think of life without you and every time I read that story, every time I think about how close we came to losing you..I have a panic attack."

Because I am nothing if not a loving brother...I'll do my best to bump it down.

Here's something pleasant to ponder.



It's not nearly flat enough....I'm gonna keep painting this over and over again until it's a couple of triangles and circles...party with the paint brush like it's 1910.