Super Tuesday Eve

Tomorrow is Super Tuesday, meaning that if you're reading this, you probably already know the results and I am likely to sound like a doofus for saying things that won't turn out to happen. But that's never stopped me before ... being a doofus is, unfortunately, a natural state of affairs for me. So here's my thoughts on the political events so far.

First off, I've basically ignored political reporting on TV and the net and everywhere else for several weeks now. The reason is that politics is being treated like a sport, right alongside the NFL playoffs. It's all polls and little substance. The evening news comes on TV and I wander off into the kitchen to see if there's anything interesting in the fridge. Seeing green algae growing on an old loaf of bread is far more entertaining than listening to George Stephanopolous pontificating for the 2,347th time.

But a few interesting things have happened. I was greatly pleased by the wisdom of the Florida voters in sending Rudy back home to his (third) wife. Any man who builds his wealth and fame on the deaths of the 9/11 victims is not morally qualified to hold any public office.

Fred Thompson has gone back to pretending to be a politician on TV rather than pretending to be one in real life.

Dennis Kucinich has gone home to canoodle with that hot babe wife of his. I'll miss seeing the wife.

John Edwards stepped out of the race, too. Of all the candidates, he was the one with the most highly developed set of ideas and proposals. I wasn't confident of his abilities to carry them out, which is why he was only my #3 choice, but hope he'll continue to be involved in developing the Democratic platform.

The Republican party is in big-time turmoil and it's hilarious to watch. Rush Limbaugh is apoplectic over the prospect of John McCain becoming the Republican nominee. I stay away from his show (it ranks with the insides of septic systems on my list of favorite things), but have heard snippets on news reports here and there. And Ann Coulter even said she'd campaign for Hillary if it came down to a contest between Clinton and McCain! Holy moly, what a concept. I figure, anybody that is hated by Limbaugh and Coulter has gotta be a pretty sharp cookie.

In the South Carolina primary, Bill Clinton really stuck his foot in it. The guy never met a TV camera or microphone that he didn't like, but in SC he got pretty nasty. All that reminded me of what it was like in the latter part of the Years of Bill, and frankly, it wasn't pleasant. I really, really do not want to go back to that.

So here, on Super Tuesday Eve, are my picks of Prez, listed in order:
1. Obama.
2. McCain.
3. Clinton.
4. Bloomberg.

Yes, that's right, McCain is #2. He's been a dipshit over Iraq, but then, so has Hillary, and McCain at least knows a thing or two about war. And my #3 and #4 listings could easily trade places, depending on what I hear.

Surprise Painting

Yesterday I got a call from a former student of mine. Kate Condon wanted to come by the studio because she had something for me. This was a BIG surprise, since I hadn't heard from Kate in two or maybe three years. When she came to the studio later, she gave me this painting. What a wonderful surprise! I had not seen this before ... I remember her taking some photos, but never got to see what she was working on. Bigger surprise: this was her first time painting a person! I'm completely blown away. Kate did a beautiful job - it's a good likeness of me, and the fact that I can tell which dog is which shows her attention to detail. My studio partner, Christine, and I also appreciated how Kate "cleaned up" our studio for us ... I can only wish it was that pristine.

Anyway, this was a heartwarming highlight to my week. Many many many thanks to Kate!

Happy Grandson

A Bit of This and That

Y'know how it is when you clean out your junk drawer, and you have a lot of nitnoid stuff that doesn't fall into any one category? Well, that's today's blog post.

I'm adding a new link to my "Links and Blogs" list for a discussion blog called "Sellout". This is a new site that's dedicated to the business side of being an artist. The more I read, the more I find that's worth reading. Lots of good discussions in here about all different facets of being a struggling working artist.

A few weeks ago, I decided to find out what all the fuss is about "social networking" sites. So I signed up for three: FaceBook, Art Scuttlebutt (hosted by Art Calendar magazine), and LinkedIn. Now that I've played with them a bit, I've developed some thoughts.
- First, I am not impressed with FaceBook. It isn't as open as I thought it would be. There's too much time and space on useless stuff (Example: every time I log in, it asks the question "What are you doing now?" What kinda question is that? What the hell do you think I'm doing? I'm on the FRICKIN' COMPUTER!). And when the first "discussion" entry I see reads (and I'm quoting here) "yo foodlion skatepark rocks yo" ... well, let's just say that I passed the skateboarding age quite a few decades ago.
- Art Scuttlebutt is okay. It lets you get your work out in front of other artists. I've only seen one non-artist on there ... meaning that it might be good for general discussion, but if you're looking to drive business to your web site, you've probably got a long wait. There are a few very interesting artists there. Think of it as an unjuried group show at a nationwide local arts council and you'll have a pretty good idea of what to expect.
- LinkedIn has proven to be a surprise. This is a networking site for executives. There are very few fine artists enrolled, so I seem to be a bit of an oddity (well, that's nothing new ...). The surprise is that it has already become the #2 source of referrals to my web site. I initially put up a half-assed profile that didn't say a lot, but then started seeing more and more LinkedIn referrals showing up on my Google stat counter, so I spent some time polishing my profile into something respectable. And when I started building my own network on there, I found quite a few old Navy buddies plus some of my art-world friends. I figure that if I keep getting looks from all these execs, sooner or later, somebody will have some kind of project for me. Let's hope! Overall, LinkedIn is a very good professional networking site.

George Bush's final State of the Union address comes on in just a little bit. The best thing about it is that it will be his final State of the Union address.

We saw a good movie over the weekend. "The Hunting Party" stars Richard Gere and Terrence Howard as a couple of journalists in Bosnia in 2000. They're trying to find an accused Serbian war criminal (based on Radovan Karadzic), ostensibly for an interview, only they get mistaken for a CIA hit squad. The story is loosely based on the true experiences of a group of five reporters. Much of the movie was filmed in Sarajevo, and it was really cool for me to see how the city has developed since I was there as part of the peacekeeping forces in 1996. I thought the flick was highly entertaining ... not an Oscar-winner by any means, but certainly better than most.

One political note about Bosnia. An unanswered question raised in the movie was why the UN, NATO, and all other forces had not gone after accused war criminals like Karadzic and others (like Ratko Mladic). There were a few conspiracy-theory ideas bandied about, like Karadzic had the goods on some US people, so he was allowed to live as long as he was quiet. Well, that's not true. When the peacekeeping forces went into Bosnia in 1996, the NATO leader was Admiral Smith. His idea was that we were there to build peace. Everything else was secondary. But the cease-fire between the Serbs, Bozniaks, and Croats was extremely tenuous. At one point, a low-level Serb general literally took a wrong turn on the road, wound up at a NATO checkpoint, and was arrested. The Serbs went ballistic and the whole peace process damn near fell apart. It was that close. But even in spite of that, there were calls from all over the world for us to go after Karadzic and Mladic. ADM Smith said no. He stuck to his policy of building peace first and worrying about bringing K&M to justice later. It made sense then. Now that we're twelve years on, it probably still makes sense. Peace in Bosnia is balanced on a knife edge. Do you want to have people getting on with their lives while K&M wander around Serb territory? Or would you rather have a resumption of civil war while K&M go through a war crimes trial in the Hague for ten years? I don't think K&M are worth it.

New Oil Sketch

I've finally been able to spend some time in the studio doing some painting. This is an oil sketch titled "Jennifer" from our life drawing/painting session tonight, a two-hour session.

Jackson and the Hooters Girls

My grandson went to Hooters ... I'm so jealous ...

Grumble, Grumble

So last night I went to a meeting of the River District Artists. The really good thing about these meetings for me is that I don't have to run them anymore. I was the Prez for three years and we made a lot of progress, but then last year I was able to railroad ... er, persuade ... somebody else to take the job. But I kept my fingers in the pie a bit. This year we have another new Prez who's going to do a great job and I see my involvement scaling back even more. This is a Good Thing for both me and for RDA. The reason it's good for RDA is that it is much less personality dependent now than it was several years ago. Back then there were only a few of us who were really active. Now we have a lot more people, which means more people willing to volunteer, which means the jobs don't necessarily have to be the near-full-time ventures they once were. And it means that the organization is taking on a life of its own now. I feel good for having helped get it to this point.

But anyway, sometime during/after the meeting last night, one of my good gloves disappeared. I spent a good hour looking for it last night with nothing to show for it. So I was pretty grumpy. Then when J got home, the garage door opener made a funny noise and quit working. I opened it up today and one of the gears inside (made of nylon ... now, I mean, who the hell makes load-bearing gears out of nylon??) had shredded itself into something closely resembling grated parmesan cheese. Wonderful. Instead of spending the day doing studio stuff, I get to spend it buying and installing a new opener. As if I had a spare $200 lying around doing nothing, anyway.

So there I am, sitting there with my cuppa joe, getting all pissed off at the world (or at least garage door openers in general and my missing glove in particular) when Soozee sits down at my feet and gently paws my leg. She didn't want anything more than to sit in my lap for a few minutes and be held.

So much for being pissed off.

Looking at Artists

I'm going through my new issue of "Art in America". I gave it a once-over and flagged some artists that I thought looked interesting. Now it's time to look 'em up on the net and see what I think.

One that caught my eye is a Chinese artist named Yang Shewei. There was only one real hit for him: the chengdoo.com website that features just one of his works. This one is very witty: a rather angry-looking official in authoritative uniform wearing a cheerful mask, the kind that Japanese and Chinese people use to prevent the spread of germs during cold season. How ferocious can somebody be when they've got a brightly smiling cartoon bear on their face? What a great way to disarm the suposedly powerful. This painting, and the one on page 69 in Art in America, show somebody who's a very good draftsman with a sharp wit and something to say. I just wish there was more of his work that I could look at.

Next up was a small ad for Billy Shire Fine Arts in Culver City, California. I bookmarked this gallery just now - he has quite a few artists that I really like. This painting, for example, is by Joe Sorren, who does exquisitely crafted paintings of these strangely stylized people, usually in very carefully and realistically rendered landscapes or spaces. To me, the mixture is unsettling, almost nightmarish, but very powerful. The gallery has images from its past shows on the web site, and they're all exceptional. Check out Carrie Ann Baade, Nicola Verlato, Gary Baseman (previously written up in Art in America, I believe), David Anderle ... heck, check 'em all out. This is a good gallery.


The final one I found was another Chinese artist, this one named Wei Dong. He's represented by Stefan Stux Gallery. Wei's paintings are filled with luscious, often bald, women, wearing fabulously textured clothing worthy of European royalty. They're usually in ambiguous situations that tell a story, but you can't quite figure out what ... but it's fun trying. I browsed around the gallery and there was a lot of good work there. For example, look at the "Chinese Relativity 2" exhibit, which is a group show of Chinese artists. I focused on the painters, and these guys can paint. The works are conceptually gripping, well composed, and extremely well painted. I'm in awe.

And sadly, those were about the only things I found worth looking at in this issue. I had a few other pages flagged, but after looking up the artists, I didn't care for what I saw. Seemed to me to be mixtures of poor concept, poor execution, no substance, too much hype, or any combination of those traits. So in the spirit of "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all", I'll keep quiet.

But the ones I wrote about above are good. Go take a look.

An Opening in Marshall

On Friday evening, we had an opening reception for my "Meditation on War" series in the Madison County Arts Center in Marshall, NC. There was a really good turnout - it was much more crowded than this picture suggests, and because I wound up talking all night with different people, this was the only picture of the event I could take. Getting my paintings up on somebody else's wall is always a good thing and this one is no exception. We had a lot of fun. Madison County has a lot of interesting people and it seems they all showed up on Friday.

This week ought to see me getting back to normal in the studio. About time, too. The holidays threw a monkey wrench into my painting schedule and this past week was taken up with getting the Marshall show prepared and hung. Tomorrow (Monday) I need to do a road trip over to Knoxville to retrieve a painting from a juried exhibition. But after that it'll be back to painting. I have several works in mind and I'm eager to get started.

I just read an interesting article on CNN/Money about the economic cost of the Iraq war. It was written by Lawrence Lindsey, who was the chief economic advisor to President Bush until he told a reporter (in 2002) that the cost of the Iraq war could be as high as $200B. Since that was four times the amount being advertised by the Pentagon, he was forced out. As it turns out, Lindsey was more or less right about the ongoing cost of the war ($100B per year) but not about its length. Still, he thinks the war was worth it. I disagree most strongly about this position, but found the article to be surprisingly objective in its consideration of true economic costs and their impact on the economy. You can read the article here.

Jackson

As promised, here are some pictures of Jackson. He's already starting his professional career as a model in San Diego.






Granny Ro and the GrandJacks!

Politics Again

Okay, I promise, just this one post about politics and then I'll get back to the important stuff, like posting pictures of my grandson. I had a very witty entry written last night for this blog that had some brilliant insight and wicked skewers of some egos, but my connection burped and all my comments were lost. Sigh. And, of course, I'm not feeling very witty right now (some say I never am anyway), but I'm overdue for a posting, so here it is.

With Iowa and New Hampshire now behind us, it's clear that the front-runners are pretty much the same ones we had before Iowa and New Hampshire. Actually, I was very encouraged by Iowa, where the caucuses for both parties clearly went for change. Obama and Huckabee are very much outsiders with a very different message than what we've been hearing out of Washington for the past too many years. So I was pretty excited. New Hampshire, tho, went for the status quo. Clinton and McCain have both been around a long time in one fashion or another and had a hand in making the mess we're in right now. So Iowa says "CHANGE!" and New Hampshire says "STAY THE COURSE!" I vote for change.

I'm getting really really really sick of Romney. His ads have been running on our local TV stations because their broadcasts go into South Carolina. They're the worst mash of pablum and distortions I've ever heard. Romney in general bothered me, but I couldn't really put my finger on it, but then heard the Huckabee comment where he told Leno "People are looking for a presidential candidate who reminds them more of the guy they work with rather than the guy that laid them off." Right on target. I see Romney stickers on Cadillacs around here, probably the folks who live in the gated communities, while it's the pickups with "We Still Pray" stuck on 'em that have the Huckabee bumper stickers.

Huckabee also slammed Romney for his refusal to issue a pardon to a decorated Iraq vet who wanted to pursue a career as a security guard or policeman. He'd supposedly shot a classmate with a BB gun when he was 13 and wound up with a childhood felony. I thought, no way, this can't be true. Well, yes, it is. You can read the full story here. The guy really did shoot a classmate with a BB gun, got a record for it, went to Iraq many years later and earned a Bronze Star (that means a high degree of bravery in combat), and now can't get a permit to carry a weapon because of that BB gun incident. And Romney refused to pardon him. So I say, let's send Romney back wherever the hell he came from. He doesn't deserve this job.

Okay, I'll shut up now. Next post will be something much more fun. I promise!

The Presidential Race

We're FINALLY down to the last few hours before the Iowa caucuses. I'm getting really tired of the general mainstream media reporting, both from real news stations and from the Fox propaganda machine. The only things the media reports are (a) poll results and (b) gaffes. They may as well put it on their sports reports, since they're only reporting on the race, not the substance. And only eleven more months of this to go, too.

The other day I watched one of the Big Three evening news programs. Their headline was the Iowa race, with latest poll results, pundits, a few interviews, and other human interest stories. Then they went into some human-interest end-of-year reporting. Basically, they wasted their half hour on non-news. Then I switched over to the BBC. What a difference! They reported on things like the violence in Kenya over the stolen election (a very big deal for the African continent and our interests there), some substantive new information about the Bhutto assassination and what it means for Pakistan, and how 2000 people were stranded in Colorado due to a blizzard ... none of which was mentioned by the American mainstream media ... and then they had a few words about Iowa, not one word of which was "poll". Good stuff.

Now that we're about into the first contest of the election year, I wanted to go on record with my picks and pans. This is how I like them, not how I think they'll do in the elections. So here goes:
1. I like Obama. Yes, he's light on experience, but the past seven years has proven that experience is vastly overrated. Obama has a positive, unifying message that is inclusive in nature and reaches out. He's a little short on details, but then, as President, he doesn't pass laws, he only suggests and then implements after Congress is done mucking around with it. He's been beaten up a bit during the campaign over the past year and has come out of it looking strong, steady, upbeat, pretty honest, and a good leader.
2. My number 2 pick goes to Edwards. If you want details, look at his plans: he was first to spell out the nitty-gritty of what he would do, and I like what he says. I also like his populism, the fact that he is campaigning for the little guys against the big guys, and his concern about the growing shift in wealth from the middle and lower classes to the richest. On the negative side, he had the worst attendance record of any Senator and didn't really accomplish anything. And his mega-million damage awards he won as a trial lawyer have upped insurance premiums for businesses across the country.
3. My number 3 pick is Hillary. She's smart and knows her way around Washington. Of all the candidates, she best knows how to get things done between the White House and Congress. Her biggest issue is her last name, which automatically sparks rabid hatred from the right-wing loonies. I'm tired of that sort of thing, and this country desperately needs to put the Bush-Clinton-Bush years of partisan extremism behind it. If she's elected, she'll do a good job as President, but the Republicans will have you believe she's Satan incarnate, regardless of what she accomplishes.
4. Bill Richardson comes in next. Every time I've heard him talk, or read something he says, he's made sense ... note that I certainly haven't heard all that much simply because the media doesn't give the second-tier candidates any coverage.
5. Any of the other Democrat candidates would be my #5 choice.

Note that I haven't mentioned any Republicans yet. None of 'em have said anything that would make me vote for any of them even if they were the only ones in the race. Although they claim to have a "big tent", in reality their whole platform is built on exclusivity and Nancy Reaganism "just say no". You want to immigrate into this country? No. You want a peaceful resolution to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, Israel/Palestine, Pakistan, or Sudan? No, bomb the crap out of 'em. You want to work with the rest of the world, instead of ordering them around? No. You want to work for a cleaner environment? No. You want to reduce our crippling budget deficit? No. You want to make sure our health care system reaches everybody? No.

And look at the things the Republicans are for: banning gay marriage, building a wall across our borders (they're not really doing anything about the root causes, or improving port security, or any of that stuff; they're just handing out big contracts to build a frickin' wall), handing out monstrous no-bid contracts in the name of "downsizing" the government, and staying the course in Iraq. Any of that make sense? No.

The candidates themselves are frightening. John McCain would've had my vote seven years ago, but now he's older than even Ronnie Reagan was (and Reagan was probably going senile during his last couple of years in office) and he's wedded to the Iraq fiasco. Rudy is a nutcase, a certifiable loonie, who ran New York like a capo runs a mob family and on September 10, 2001, was about the least popular man in the city. Romney will say and do anything to get elected and all I've heard out of him is pandering to the right, which is not exactly my direction of choice. Huckabee seems like a nice guy, but when you dig deeper into his personal beliefs, things get alarming. Anybody who believes that the earth is only a few thousand years old, as he does, should be barred from the post. And then there's Fred "I'm not a politician but I play one on TV" Thompson, who might or might not be actually running a campaign.

So there ya go. For me it's clear: any Democratic candidate is better than any Republican candidate, hands down. At least this year.

You want real change? How about Dennis Kucinich versus Ron Paul? Wouldn't that be fun?

Happy New Year!

Happy new year to all! Despite the tone of some of these posts, I am a very happy man. There is so much to be grateful for ...

... like my wife Janis ...

... my two spirited "daughters", Indy (left) and Soozee (right) ...

... my grandson Jackson, who's the most photogenic kid ever born ...

... thanks to his parents Rick and Julie.


And I'm also grateful for my sister Robin, her husband Terry, and their three kids Blaine, Holly, and Gabe ... and since my sister rarely sends any pictures, I only have this one of Blaine and Holly ...

... and then there are all of our other family and friends here scattered around the world. May 2008 be a wonderful year for you all!

New Painting

New Flower Shop, oil on canvas, 18"x24"

This is based on memories of a flower shop that I saw in Sarajevo in 1996.

Flags of Our Fathers

I was watching the movie "Flags of Our Fathers" earlier tonight. This is the movie that Clint Eastwood made about the American soldiers who raised the second flag on Mount Suribachi, who were then in the famous photograph, and then sent back to the States to help sell war bonds. It's a companion piece to "Letters to Iwo Jima", which told the Japanese side of the story.

Frankly, I was disappointed. I was really looking forward to the movie, too. But it seemed to be too didactic. The characters were more like caricatures and stereotypes. They didn't have much depth and didn't elicit much sympathy from me. And the story seemed to lose a lot in the display of moviemaking techniques. In "Saving Private Ryan", the raw display of violence, explosions, and death were shocking. This time around, they seemed to be expected. "Okay, here's a war scene, so we gotta trot out all the "Saving Private Ryan" stuff or nobody will watch". All the "shocking" scenes were, well, expected. It was as if they said, "Here's a scene of bodybags, you know what you're supposed to feel, go feel it."

I turned it off about halfway through. Bummer. I know Eastwood's heart was in the right place, but the execution of this movie missed the mark.

Which makes me think about my own work, since I'm doing something along the same lines in paint that Eastwood wanted to do with the film. My work, too, punches some of the same buttons. "Here's a picture of a soldier with no legs. You know what you're supposed to feel, go feel it." I worry that my paintings are too obvious, too didactic. But when I see people walk right by one that is more subtle, where they obviously don't get it nor even spend the time to think about it for a moment, then I feel I have to take a sledgehammer to get their attention. "Dammit, this is important! Look at it! Think about it!"

I dunno. I'm going to show Lament, You Don't Understand, and Warrior again soon, and will watch the reactions of viewers to all three. And if you have a comment, let me know. All three can be seen at www.skiprohde.com/war.html

Musical Musings

Last week, I wrote about my experiments with my new iPod and old sound systems. Since then I've re-recorded all my CD's at the higher quality setting. And I got a new cartridge for my turntable, replacing the 20-something year old one. Even though I'm not a big audiophile and have an annoying case of tinnitis (a constant, high-pitched tone in my left ear), I can still tell the difference that these changes made. And that's a good thing.

Another Good Thing is the iPod. It still amazes me: here's this hunka metal that's smaller than my billfold, yet it holds and plays my entire CD collection more than three times over. It's easy to use, puts out good sound, and has a nice legible screen to boot. Class act, Apple.

I junked the Apple ear buds, though. They didn't even begin to fit in my ears. I got a set of Koss earbuds and they sound okay. But then I discovered that I just don't care for ear buds or headphones. When I'm using them, the sound seems to be coming from right in the middle of my head. That's fine when all I'm doing is concentrating on the music, but that's rare. Usually, I've got the music running as background while I'm doing other stuff, like driving or painting, and I need to have most of my limited mental abilities focused on my primary task. It's hard to think about driving, for instance, when T-Bone Walker is wailing in the center of my skull. It's not the volume that's distracting, it's the fact that it's in my head, and by definition, whatever's going on inside your head takes precedence over anything going on outside. So I got one of those FM transmitter thingermajigs and now can play my iPod through my iFord door speakers. Much less distracting, much more enjoyable. Sound quality isn't top notch, but ya know, ya can't have everything. Around the house or the studio, it's plugged into my regular stereo system. My earbuds are gathering dust.

I made another discovery this week. I've downloaded two albums, one from iTunes and one from Amazon. It appears that both of them were highly-compressed, low quality versions. The reason, probably, is that the high-quality recordings are about 2.5 times as big, meaning a lotta time spent waiting for the download. But why pay $10 per album when all you get is lower quality and no cover art, lyrics, or anything else? It's the Wal-Mart approach: it's cheap and it's crap. I'm going to stick with CD's. And I discovered something else: you can buy almost any CD you want off Amazon, used, and probably pay less than the download would cost, anyway. (Okay, I can buy almost any CD that I want, simply because I'm an old fart and most of my music was recorded years ago and I'm probably the only guy in the universe still looking for it. "Oh, look, a new Mantovani CD!" My parents liked Mantovani, if that's any indication of how current he is.) Anyway, bottom line is that I'm probably not going to download any more music if it's at all available in CD.

A Bad Day

This morning we heard that Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister of Pakistan and current candidate for the post again, was assassinated in Rawalpindi. This is bad, bad news for Pakistan and for the world.

Bhutto was no saint. Her administrations were marred by widespread corruption. It appears that she herself wasn't involved, but her administrators certainly were, from the top down to the local levels. This is what galvanized Musharaf to seize power in his coup. He believed that an imposed dictatorship was better than democratically-elected corruption. And unfortunately, that's about the only choice that the people of Pakistan have. But even though Bhutto was no saint, she was at least trying to make a difference.

This assassination only serves the ends of the Islamic extremists. It is an act typical of their beliefs: kill anyone who disagrees with you, and the more violently, the better. I just can't understand it. There is absolutely no redeeming value in this sort of extreme intolerance. None. It's a cancer to the life of this entire world.

I encountered death today on a more personal level. I stopped in at the veterinarian to pick up some HeartGuard for my dogs and overheard the doctor explaining to a distressed couple that their beloved dog was dying. The dog's kidneys had failed and there was nothing he could do about it except make her as comfortable as possible.

It's one thing to hear about the death of a person you've never met halfway around the world. It's another to hear somebody tell of their pet's passing. And it's still another to actually hear it happen.

Not a good day.

"Top Ten" List

I've been a bachelor for the past week while Janis has been in San Diego visiting family and friends. I discovered quite a few things that I enjoy about this situation. So here's my "Top Ten Reasons to Enjoy Being A Temporary Bachelor":

10. All your friends assume your culinary skills are limited to opening the refrigerator door, so they invite you over for home-cooked meals to keep you from starving.
9. You can have wild parties with the pole dancers from Excapades … provided you actually know any pole dancers from Excapades and that they’d even consider talking to you if you weren’t stuffing $10 bills in their G-strings.
8. You don’t have to take out the trash as often – whether that’s because you create less trash or have a higher tolerance for full wastebaskets is a matter of debate.
7. The dogs might give you a bit more room in your bed at night. Then again, they might not.
6. Dr. Phil and Oprah are banished from your TV.
5. You get to drive the good car. Just don’t break it like I did …
4. There are no unmentionables drip-drying in the bathroom … just your bath towel that hasn’t been washed in two weeks.
3. You don’t have to wash the dishes in the sink just because they’ve been there for five days.
2. You can crank up the stereo volume until all the neighborhood dogs are howling.

And the number 1 reason to enjoy being a temporary bachelor:
1. The toilet seat can stay up.

Pictures, Pictures

Indy (left) and Soozee (right) went to the beauty parlor today and bought themselves some beauty!

Christmas in the Kane household, San Diego.

Janis and Jackson playing a mean game of ... well, something.

Rick, Julie, and Jackson.

Christmas is too much fun!

A Luddite Joins the New Millenium - Take Two

I was reading the new issue of Rolling Stone magazine last night. There was an interesting article about how music is going low-fi: that the MP3 format doesn't have the detail that CD's have, and that music producers are compressing the music so much that the quality is shoddy. I got to wondering just how good the quality of my ancient turntable, old CD player, and new iPod were. So I ran a test.

I chose one of the few albums that I had in vinyl, CD, and MP3: Led Zeppelin's first. I played "Good Times/Bad Times" and "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" on the turntable. Then I plugged my iPod into the amp and played the same two songs again. The iPod beat the hell out of the turntable: it was much clearer and sharper. The turntable just sounded fuzzy. Well, it's going on thirty years old and I remember replacing the cartridge once ... about two decades ago. Tonight I ordered a new cartridge and will do a re-test when it's installed.

Then I compared the sound of the iPod's ear buds to that from the stereo. No contest: the stereo was much better. My bookshelf speakers aren't high quality, but they put out some pretty good sound. The ear buds sounded overworked and compressed. Which they are: they have one tiny little speaker stuck in your ear that has to do the work of several large speakers that share the load in a regular stereo.

We have a Bose system at home. I played the same two songs on the Bose CD player and again off the iPod plugged into the aux jack. The CD was tops: very clear with a wide range, it could play quiet and loud, high and low, equally well. The iPod, by comparison, sounded clipped, like bits of it were getting cut out.

The Rolling Stone article said that, to get the best sound out of an iPod, you should set your bit sample rate as high as it would go. I dug around in iTunes until I found that mine was set (by default) to the lowest setting. So I reset it, then erased the album and re-recorded it at the higher bit rate. I checked the file sizes afterward and they were twice as big as previously. Then I compared the same two songs. The iPod was much better, almost as good as the CD and I couldn't really tell you what the difference was.

Great. So now I gotta re-record all my CD's onto my iPod. Gee, thanks, Rolling Stone!

Portrait Study

Here's a portrait study in oils that I did last week. Titled Jennifer, it's on a linen-covered archival panel, size 20x16.

Jackson and His Grandma

Janis is out in San Diego, visiting Rick, Julie, and the mighty Jackson ... so here she and Jackson were earlier today ... Christmas is for families, isn't it?

Back in Court

I was back in court today, working for WLOS as a courtroom artist. Today three of the four primary defendents were formally read the charges, pled "not guilty", and requested a jury trial. The news teams all thought it would be over pretty quick, a 10-min process for each one. NOT! The first one, Bobby Medford, went for about an hour and a half. The next two were considerably quicker, about 45 min each. Fortunately for me, the judge allowed me and the other artist (for the local newspaper) to sit in the jury box, so we had good views of all the principals. Here are a few of the drawings that made it onto the evening news:

This is Bobby Medford (center), the former Sheriff, along with two of his attorneys.

Johnny Harrison (right), a former police lieutenant ...

"Butch" Davis (right), another former police lieutenant.

I've used pastels in court before, but this time decided to go with watercolor. I'm better with a pen and pencil than I am with pastel, and you gotta have all your pastels out, which is a hassle. So I worked on getting a reasonably good drawing in the courtroom, then went outside and laid on the watercolor.

Oh, and today's outcome? All three remain in jail without bail. The judge said that, since they were police officers when these crimes were committed, he couldn't give them any restriction that they hadn't already violated. So in the slammer they go. The trials will probably occur around the March timeframe.

Courtroom Artist

On Thursday, I got a call from our WLOS, our local ABC TV station, asking me if I could be their courtroom artist that afternoon. I've worked with them before as a courtroom artist and it has always been interesting. This time was no exception.

Bobby Medford, the former Sheriff of Buncombe County (where Asheville is located) was arrested that morning and indicted on multiple counts of extortion, involvement in illegal poker machine gambling, using law enforcement officers to collect protection money, and some other things. This is a really big deal around here - he was just defeated in his re-election bid last year and was a pretty popular sheriff. But he's also got some other investigations against him that are working their way along, such as a lot of missing stuff from the evidence locker. So he's facing a world of trouble.

Thursday afternoon was his first appearance in federal court. He and a number of co-defendents were basically told of the charges against them and then whisked off to jail for the weekend. The reporter and I were in the peanut gallery - she was listening to the proceedings and I was madly sketching away. Unfortunately for me, the judge wouldn't let me sit in the jury box this time and instead ordered me into the fourth row! Bummer. About all I got to see was the back of the defendents' heads. But I got some sketches done and, when the proceedings were over, went outside and sharpened them up with watercolor. They came out fairly reasonably well. Sorry I can't post any images right now as WLOS has the drawings, but I might be able to get some soon.

On Monday morning, we're back in court again. This time they'll do the formal "here's the charges, how do you plead?" "Innocent, your honor." "Fine. Court date is (fill in a date here). Next." He'll probably be there ten minutes.

It's an interesting feeling, being a courtroom artist. One part is the kinda gleeful voyeurism that we all experience watching Judge Judy or whatever. On the professional side, I've gotta draw like a madman to try to get some images that can be used for the upcoming news report, so I can't really listen to what's being said. The subjects are always moving around, people are getting in the way, and I can only see the backs of their heads. And then there's the "vulture" factor: here are all the reporters inside and cameramen outside who are scrambling to get something on the accused and their lawyers that they can use in a report. Get one of the principals in the case out on the street and he/she will have a crowd of cameramen and reporters moving right along with 'em. That part is very comical.

So on Monday, I'll be back in court. And then again sometime next year, I'll probably be there for the actual case. I'll try to post some of the drawings here when I can.

Drawings

Not long ago, I mentioned that I'd been looking at the drawings of Helen Gotlib. I realized that my own drawings from life had gotten way too stiff and tight and that it was time to loosen up. So in last week's session, I used a pen and just let the whole arm go free. Over the next few days, I hit the drawings with washes of watercolor, scrubbed some of 'em out, and generally beat 'em up. Here are some of the results.

Al Gore

This morning, I got up, stumbled into the kitchen, made myself a cup of coffee, and (bleary-eyed) sat down to see the news on CNN. Instead of the usual commercial for some kind of pharmaceuticals, there was Al Gore. He was just starting his acceptance speech for his Nobel Prize. He was, as usual these days, a moving, passionate, and incredibly intelligent speaker. (Why our country passed him over for a bumbling idiot is still a mystery to me.)

Gore's speech was a call to action. A powerful one. Read the full text here.

A Mighty Heart

Last night we watched the movie "A Mighty Heart". I call it a mighty movie. It's about the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl. It's told from the perspective of his wife, Marianne (played by Angelina Jolie) - how things were normal until Daniel didn't come home and wouldn't answer his cell phone ... then the Pakistani police became involved, along with the US embassy, the State Department, hundreds of journalists, and millions of newswatchers.

This is one of the most sensitive portrayals of a crisis I've seen. All the actors, including Angelina Jolie, made their characters real. They weren't perfect, like so many movies make their heroes: they had flaws and weaknesses and strengths and were really just regular people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. In Hollywood, the characters are always making fantastic decisions and complicated plans and racing around in their Hummer and finding the culprits just in time to wrap it up before the next drama starts at the top of the hour. In this film, they did have some advanced skills, but nothing that competent journalists or police officers wouldn't have in real life, and they spent a lot of time having to wait for the phone to ring. Very realistic. Very lifelike. And very well done. And Jolie should get the Oscar just for the scene in which Marianne hears that Daniel is dead.

What was most surprising, for me, was that it's not a vengeful movie at all. Yes, terrible things were done to Daniel Pearl, but the movie doesn't dwell on the evil forces that killed him. Instead it brought a humanity to all the people involved, even the suspects rounded up in the often violent search. Marianne Pearl, who served as a consultant to the film, is Buddhist, and that religion's sensitivities could be felt throughout the story.

A wonderful movie. See it.

New Painting and a Few Links

I just finished this new painting in my "Meditation on War" series. This one is titled "Madonna of the Shell Casings". I see it as a comment on how life continues even in a war zone ... your interpretation may be different and just as valid. The painting is 24"x18" in oil on canvas. You can see the whole series here.

An artist friend of mine, Constance Humphries (who does beautiful abstract work that you can see here) sent me an interesting link this evening. She found a blog entry of somebody who had attended a workshop by Odd Nerdrum. She took some pretty good notes and posted them online. Quite some time ago, I wrote about my poor attempts to copy some Nerdrum paintings in order to learn something of his technique and hopefully improve my own. One of the things I learned from this blog is that Nerdrum uses some really strange colors - mostly off-the-wall earth tones, a fugitive red ("fugitive" to a painter means that it fades quickly), and a white tinted with blue. If you're interested, you can find the blog entry here.

And finally a thought on figure drawing. A while back, I came across the website of an artist named Helen Gotlib. I think her drawings of figures and plants are fabulous. She has a wonderful line quality - very light, almost dancing, searching yet accurate. Her drawings are done in pen and ink on tan watercolor paper, then she hits them with washes of watercolor and ink. The result is very lively; her figures are real living people, and done in a very beautiful manner. Take a look at her web site and I think you'll like what you see.

A Slight Correction ... from the White House?

Today the White House press secretary had a correction to Bush's previous announcement that he had been told in August that there was some new information on Iran, but that he wasn't told what it was. Now they're saying he was told that the new information would probably change the intelligence community's assessment on Iran.

The White House says this isn't a big deal. Umm, excuse me, yes it is. Bush has been focused on Iran for a long time now, and he was ostensibly basing this focus on the intel assessments that said they were trying to build, develop, or acquire nuke weapons. (Right. And he invaded Iraq because intel assessments said there were weapons of mass destruction. Gimme a break.) Anyway, in August, Mike McConnell tells Bush that they got some hot new intel that would have a big impact on the community assessment of Iran. Do you really think he just left it at that? No way. There's not a boss in the world that would let an underling give him a teaser like that without demanding to know a bit more. And there's not an intel guy in the world that would do such a thing, particularly to the President. And McConnell is a damn good intel guy.

So Bush knew in August that there was at least a good possibility that Iran had stopped its nuke program in 2003. Yet he went ahead with his bellicosity anyway, including his now-infamous comment about World War III.

Was it stupidity? Or irresponsibility? Or both?

Just business as usual in the White House these days.

Bush and Iran

The news channels are all abuzz with the news yesterday of the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) about Iran, and also about Bush's response today. I just read the NIE (you can find it here). As a former intel professional, I understood the nuances of all the "probably" and "with high confidence" and other such terms. I was amazed at what I read for a couple of reasons. One, things like this didn't normally turn up in unclassified forums like the internet. Yes, this is a stripped-down version with all the classified stuff pulled out or hidden, but still, there's a lot of information there. Two, and this is extremely encouraging, this is the straight scoop, unfettered with neocon ideology. Unlike the "intel" that came out of the intel world during the Rumsfeld era, there's no bending the facts to fit the preconceived end. The intelligence world has re-asserted itself and is doing what it's supposed to do: provide its best guesstimate about a particular problem. God, you don't know how good that makes me feel. Admiral McConnell is my hero. He and the rest of the intel wienies have stood up to Bush and told him, and the rest of us, the truth. After seven years, it's a breath of fresh air.

Bush is completely flummoxed. Here he and Dickie have been rattling their sabers as hard as they can, trying to drum up yet another war, and suddenly the rug has been pulled out from under him. And being the dweeb he is, he can't admit it. So there he was today in the press conference, saying that the NIE doesn't really change anything, that Iran is still dangerous and that all options are still on the table. So I'm still scared that he may push the "war" button just because that's what he's wanted to do for years.

Okay, so let's go back to the NIE for a second. What does it say, really? Well, it says that Iran had a program to develop nuclear weapons, but that it halted the program in 2003 because of international exposure and pressure. Iran is still interested in nukes and is still active in some projects that are peripherally associated with them. But they're not actively pursuing the capability. If they reactivated the program and hit full speed tomorrow, they might be able to have a weapon by 2009. But since the program is shut down, the acquisition date is more likely 2013-2015, and that's if they restart the program.

What the NIE doesn't address is why the Iranians shut it all down. Well, it wasn't because of George Bush, that's for sure. In 2003, he was busy invading Iraq. He didn't start threatening Iran until last year, three years after the Iranians closed up the nuke weapon shop. No, it was the Europeans who were the ones patiently pressuring and negotiating with Iran. And their efforts have paid off. Iran is still interested in nukes, but they've backed off developing them, for the time being at least. International pressure, international opinion, and international sanctions really do have an influence on nations that want to play in the international arena. Which Iran does.

A while back, I wrote letters to my senators and congressman about preventing Bush from launching another war. I got a response back from Elizabeth Dole's office, with a nice stamped signature, in which she said that Iran doesn't respond to negotiations and that the only way to stop a nuclear threat was to have military force "available". Well, Libby, you were wrong.

One more thought and I'll stop. Bush said today that he was told in August that there was some new information about Iran and that the intel analysts were looking at it. But he didn't get the full story until last week. Joe Biden (Democratic presidential wannabe and chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee) was flabbergasted. "Are you telling me a president that's briefed every single morning, who's fixated on Iran, is not told back in August that the tentative conclusion of 16 intelligence agencies in the U.S. government said they had abandoned their effort for a nuclear weapon in '03? I refuse to believe that. If that's true, he has the most incompetent staff in modern American history, and he's one of the most incompetent presidents in modern American history."

You go, Joe.

Phamily Photos

Haven't posted many photos lately, so here goes.

We got all dressed up tonight to go to a reception at Bella Vista Art Gallery, which carries some of my etchings and drawings. And whenever you get dressed up, there's a rule that says you gotta take a picture. So here 'tis - Janis, me, and The Girls.

Speaking of The Girls, here's Soozee, who was trying to snooze but I was annoying her with the camera.

And our grandson, Jackson, all boy (can't ya tell from all the blue?)

Art Mutterings

I had all kinds of things I was going to write about today, but all of them were political rants and, y'know, I just don't want to spend Thanksgiving bitching about Bush again. So, instead, I'll share some thoughts on art and artists. Much more enjoyable to everybody who cares ... all two of you ...

When I get my new issue of Art in America magazine in the mail each month, I'll go through it and flag pages that show something worth taking a look at. Most are gallery ads, occasionally there might be an article. Actually, their articles are usually blather about installations in Shanghai or the tone of ArtBasel Miami or other such things that have absolutely no connection to me or my work, so I rarely read much. No, in the current issue, I have a total of ten pages flagged, out of 240. Here's what grabbed my attention.


Ben Brown Fine Arts, in London, has an interesting painting by Martin Mull. A quick Google check revealed that he's also the actor/comic who's been on TV and in the movies for several decades. Normally I'd be quick to dismiss anybody who's famous in one field for thinking they can produce quality work in a completely different one. But Martin actually does good work. You can see his "The Pursuit of Happiness" show here. He takes a photorealist's approach to painting: even in the low-quality jpegs, you can almost see the grain of the original photograph, even though it's in oil on linen. But the photos are juxtaposed in startling, disturbing, ironic, and funny ways. Going through the online images made me think of how I can use some of that creative combination in my own work. Yes, I've done it before (like in Pleasantville and the rest of the Bush League series), but mine are about as subtle as a sledge hammer. Mull's have more ambiguity that give you a lot to think about. This show is one I'll go back and spend some time with.

Next up: Kim Jones at Zeno-X Gallery in Belgium. Another Google search showed that he's active in a lot of different types of art, including performance work. This show, though, is 2-D. There are a lot of drawings on paper or photos. This one is Untitled (War Drawing) in acrylic and ink on canvas. The image on the web site is much clearer, and in person I bet I could stand there for ages, soaking it all in. These works are like maps with the insides of buildings and mazes shown. This one has what looks like depictions of firefights, with troops moving around and places getting destroyed. Reminds me of some of the drawings I used to do in about third grade: I'd draw cutaways of multistory underground bunkers with stick figures charging around shooting at each other ... then I'd erase parts of it and move the action on to another area, then erase that part and keep going until the whole bunker was destroyed and everybody was dead. So that's probably why I like this work, too. Actually, it reminds me a bit of Cy Twombly's work. I'd always thought his scribbles were crap until I saw an exhibition in Italy that just knocked me out. This work looks to be on the same level. What can I take out of this for my own paintings? Probably nothing. But I think it's cool, just the same.

A few pages later is an ad for Ann Strassman at Kidder Smith Gallery in Boston. This image of Abe Lincoln caught my eye - it reminds me of Larry Rivers' work. So I looked at the web site, and it was composed of a bunch of oversize portraits of iconic faces (Jack Nicholson, Dick Cheney, George Washington, Muhammed Ali, and so on), most of which are painted on used, flattened cardboard boxes. The boxes still have their labels for whatever was shipped in them (like refrigerators), plus old shipping labels. Strassman has a bravura style of painting: very loose, with slashing paint strokes that give a lot of vitality. But the more I looked, the more the whole thing bothered me. For one thing, her use of famous faces ... Andy Warhol used Liz Taylor and Marilyn Monroe, but he was making a statement about their commodification. Strassman's not doing that. Her use of familiar faces reminds me more of sidewalk portrait artists who post Sly Stallone pictures to show what they can do. And while the collage work underneath the Lincoln portrait was interesting, it wasn't repeated anywhere else. After about the third painting on old cardboard boxes, it seemed like she found herself a gimmick rather than something that added meaning to the works. So to me, the famous faces said nothing, the use of cardboard said nothing, and all I was left with was an impression that she can paint pretty well. All in all, a disappointment.

On page 64, an ad for Leonard Dufresne at OK Harris caught my eye. There were only a few paintings on the website, but they're jewels. He struck me as a cross between Wallace & Gromit and Edward Hopper: suburban scenes with an unaccountable tension, done in a kind of claymation appearance. And they're small: 11"x14" or so, with some studies on the 4x5 inch range. I mean, the image on my screen was bigger than the original painting! The guy must use a magnifying glass and a brush with only one hair. I really like his work. Edward Hopper was one of my big influences, and Dufresne has certainly caught something of Hopper's themes of isolation and sexual tension here. And I think the small size adds a lot: it's like whispering, which makes people lean in and listen.


One more artist and then I'll stop. On page 92, there was an image of a painting by Hassan Musa, a Sudanese artist who now lives in France. It's great to see some brilliant satire get some recognition. Musa took a provocative figure from a Francois Boucher painting (which was really just a soft-core porn image for the French aristocracy in the 18th century) and combined it with the head of Osama bin Laden. The flag image comes from any number of flag paintings (Jasper Johns, for example). And the title comes from a Tom Wesselman painting. I love this work. Often, I'll use an old (or new) master painting as a jumping-off point ... for example, my Pachydermian Portrait of King George II, Pope Karl, and Lord Cheney had its origins in An Equestrian Portrait of King Philip by Velasquez. I find that it often adds a lot of depth to the piece, or a certain twist. Musa did a great job with this one: it's funny, biting, and extremely well done.

Okay, that's enough for now. This is pretty much how I go thru my art magazines and discover new (to me) artists. I just wish I could find more than ten per issue.

Change of Plans?

I've got some big irons in the fire right now. I've applied for several positions with the State Department for one-year tours in Iraq or Afghanistan. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you probably think I've lost my marbles ... hell, even if this is your first time here, you probably think I've lost my marbles. But I don't think so.

This wild hair got its start about three weeks ago, when the news was filled with stories about State Department employees nearly rioting over possibly being ordered to posts in Iraq. I didn't have any sympathy with them whatsoever. They're in the frickin' foreign service, for cryin' out loud ... do they think they're going to get stationed in London or Paris all the time? Just like in the military, sometimes you gotta go where they need you, regardless of whether you want to or not. If I was still in the service, I'd be over there, even though invading Iraq is the stupidest blunder this country has ever made.

And when I had that last thought, a light bulb went off over my head. (It's a dim bulb, maybe one for a night light, but a light bulb nonetheless.) I did some quick searches online and found where the State Department has their Iraq job vacancies posted. I found several that I think I qualify for, so they've got my applications now. And there are other organizations that may have possibilities: the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the US Institute of Peace, and the Army Corps of Engineers, to name a few.

I'm not at all interested in the contractors. Yes, they probably pay more, but I don't trust a contractor in Iraq any further than I can throw an IED.

So why am I doing this? Three reasons, really. One is that they need people, I have a skill set that can be put to use, and it's in a position that makes a difference. These jobs are all oriented toward rebuilding Iraq, and I have thought for a long time that this is where our attention needs to be focused. Another reason is that my series of paintings based on Bosnia has pretty much reached a dead end. I've been basing these paintings on experiences and memories from eleven years ago. Going to Iraq would provide a huge reservoir of experiences, especially if I go there with the idea of finding inspirations for future artworks. A third reason is financial: these jobs pay pretty well, and I could pay off my bills and build up my savings again.

It appears now that things are beginning to calm down in Iraq. The Sunni and Shi'a leaders are finally sitting down together and starting to bring the violence under control. I don't believe the American military surge is the reason, although Bush will certainly say so. No, the Iraqis are finally starting to take control of their own country on a very local level. That, to me, is a sign that they've turned a corner and are ready to start rebuilding. And rebuilding Iraq, regardless of your politics, is a "must do". So I'm ready to go.

Life around the home front was pretty interesting when I first talked about this with Janis. At first, she thought it was dumb. Then she liked it. Then she didn't like it again (this after I already had a couple of applications in.) And finally, she's come around to liking it again.

Personnel offices, especially government ones, are the very definition of "black holes". You send something in and it disappears, with no indication of anything. Then you might get a reject notice (already got one of those) or a phone call late one afternoon asking if you can be there first thing in the morning ("umm, I'm 500 miles from there ..."). You'll read about my further misadventures right here.

Catching Up Again

It's been a busy couple of weeks. Every time I sit down at the computer to get caught up, I realize that I gotta write a humongous entry ... which I don't do, so then a few days later, there's even more to write about. So screw it. I'll just start putting in a few things this time and gradually catch up. Or not.


We had our fall Studio Stroll last weekend. Almost all my new work is in the show at Tennessee Tech, so I dug out a buncha older ones. Not that it really made any difference: as usual, my sales were almost nothing. I got used to that a long time ago and just view these events as a form of advertising or community outreach. Things do come out of these Strolls, just not during the weekend - I've had things come through months or even years later. So while it's a bit frustrating to talk to other artists later and hear about the thousands of dollars they made at the event, I know that things will work out for me in a different way sometime later. Usually when I least expect it.


This week I finally got back in the studio and spent some time trying to get started making art again. It had been over three weeks since I'd done anything - no drawing, no painting, just all the other things. Prepped the show for Tennessee Tech, took it out there, hung it, did the gallery presentation, did a bunch of house projects that had been on hold, did the Studio Stroll, did a two-day road trip to DC, and lotsa other nitnoid things. Man, I was rusty. It'll probably be sometime next week before I get back up to speed again.


The pictures of the grandson have slowed down a bit, but here's one from sometime within the past couple of days:


And that'll do for tonight.

Pakistan

The news this morning from Pakistan is that Musharraf has declared a "state of emergency", meaning martial law. This is very bad news. For years, I've felt that Pakistan was the biggest problem in that part of the world, and we might be seeing it spiral out of control right now.

Pakistan has had a big problem with its leadership. Either the rulers have been fairly corrupt and highly repressive military leaders, like Musharraf, or they've been extremely corrupt elected officials, like Bhutto. The two have alternated in power, and both have left the vast majority of the population frustrated and angry. This has led to the rise of Islamic fanaticism, particularly in the lawless border region with Afghanistan. People are looking for a new type of leader, and since neither of the traditional sides is providing it, they're turning to extremism. Which is extremely dangerous since Pakistan has nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, Nero is fiddling while Rome burns. Bush/Cheney are trying to hype the "Iran" threat. Now, really, guys: Iran is a problem, but they're in a big downward economic spiral, Ahmadinajad is barely tolerated by the mullahs (primarily since he's deflecting attention from them), and they won't have a nuclear capability for years at the earliest. Meanwhile, Pakistan is the petrie dish that created Islamic fascism, they could easily descend into civil war, and THEY ALREADY HAVE THE BOMB! Bin Laden won't ever get a nuke weapon from Iraq or Iran, but he very easily could get one from Pakistan in the near future.

So which one do you think is the real problem?

Solo Exhibit at Tennessee Tech

I just got back from a trip to Cookeville, Tennessee, to hang and open a solo show of my "Meditation on War" paintings at Tennessee Tech. This was a big thrill for me. One reason, of course, is that it's always good to get a solo show of your work, particularly in a primo location like a university. Another reason is that I'm a Tennessee Tech alumnus: I got a mechanical engineering degree from there in 1977. Way back then, I spent a good bit of time in that very gallery and saw pretty much every show. Never thought that one day my own paintings would hang there! I gave a gallery talk on Tuesday afternoon and we had a really good turnout, with a very interested crowd that asked a lot of very good questions. Very enjoyable.

While in Cookeville, I got to see some old friends. Art and Wanda were close friends from our sports car club days and don't seem to have changed a bit - they're a hoot and we laughed our butts off at old and new stories. Then Filomena showed up at the gallery talk. She also doesn't seem to have changed much - maybe a bit of very distinguished gray in her hair, but otherwise the same look, the same voice, the same ol' Fil. Except she came armed with incriminating photos of me from the mid-70's! It was really great to see Art, Wanda, and Fil again after too many years.

Another thing I did there was wander around the town and see what's different. I finally decided that Cookeville hasn't changed much. It's grown, especially around the interstate exits, but once you're away from there, it seemed to be pretty much the same place. And I found that memory is a funny thing. I'd be driving along and would see something and it would trigger a memory of something that happened there. And for those of you who wear glasses, you've probably had the experience of having your glasses a bit wonky, and how that confuses your brain as it tries to sort out conflicting information from your two eyes. Well, the same experience happens when you're looking at something after two or three decades, and what you're seeing doesn't quite match up with what's stored away in your memory banks. There were times when I'd be looking at something and simultaneously seeing the way it was thirty years ago ... maybe pretty much the same, maybe significantly different. An odd sensation, but it was good to see the places again.

As I drove around, I also realized that some of my best experiences from back then were from just driving around. I was always way out in the countryside, exploring back roads and gravel roads. I even had the county road maps, the ones the road crews used to find their way around, so that I could find even the most hidden and remote gravel roads. There's some beautiful country around Cookeville that's very unspoiled, and I loved being out in it. So when I was driving around over the past couple of days, I was a bit surprised at how much came back. At one point I was heading out a road that wound around and over the hills and suddenly knew exactly where it was going and what it would do around the next few bends. Quite a moment.

And roads in that area are wonderful to drive. They have a relaxed rhythm back and forth, with smooth transitions from left to right and back again, over hills and through valleys. You can run along at a pretty good clip without straining or getting bored. You can look at the scenery or "become one with the road", whichever you want. It's rare to find that quality.

So, anyway. My show at Tennesee Tech will be up until November 27. My "Pachydermian Portrait of King George II" will be in a juried show in Knoxville immediately afterward. It'll run from Dec 14 to Jan 11. I'm going to have another solo show of the War series in January. This time it'll be in the Madison County Arts Council's new exhibition space in Marshall. That show will open on January 4.

A Word to the Wise

Guys: Never give your wife a big hug and sing "Happy anniversary to yooouuuu ..." when the damn anniversary is still two days away. Never. Trust me on this one.

San Diego Fires

Fires are raging in southern California as I write this, particularly around San Diego. Rick, Julie, and the mighty Jackson (our grandson) have had to evacuate. They're safe for now, but there's no telling if their apartment will still exist when they return. We've been watching the news channels and found live streaming video from one of the San Diego TV stations. Our fingers are crossed and we're all hoping for the best.