Admiral William Fallon Resigns

Today the news came out that Admiral William Fallon, who is (or was) Conmmander in Chief of Central Command (CINCENT, which for all you civilians, is pronounced "sink cent"), has resigned. CINCENT is the guy who's in overall charge of all operations in the Middle East, including Iraq, Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean. He's General Petraeus's direct boss. In other words, it's a pretty potent position. And the news that he has suddenly resigned is very disturbing. Most of the civilian talking heads that I've heard today don't really understand what it might mean, and they're focusing on things that really aren't that important. So, as an ex-military guy, here's my take.

ADM Fallon is quite an accomplished military officer. He was a naval flight officer (NFO) and flew combat missions in Vietnam. He's commanded a jet squadron, a carrier air wing, a carrier battle group (meaning an aircraft carrier, all its planes, and all its associated ships), and served as Commander Second Fleet, Commander in Chief Atlantic Fleet, Vice Chief of Naval Operations and Commander in Chief, Pacific. In other words, he rocks.

He's also, by some accounts, a bit arrogant and abrasive. Hey, he's a naval aviator, what the hell did you expect? But he's also a strategic thinker who knows how the international game is played. I'd put his real knowledge of international relations at several levels above that of Condoleeza Rice. While she was polishing her doctorate in a university, he was learning by doing. And, most critical to this particular story, he speaks his mind. No bullshit here: what he says is what he thinks. Old-school Navy.

Which is what got him in trouble. While our idiot President has kept trying to drum up another war, this time with Iran, ADM Fallon let his thoughts become public knowledge. And his thoughts weren't in line with Bush's. ADM Fallon thought, for example, that it was a good idea to talk with the Iranians, to negotiate with them, rather than attack them. Heresy! Now you and I can say this all we want, and nobody gives a rat's ass. But ADM Fallon is a heavyweight in international relations, especially in the most volatile part of the world, and what he says carries the weight of US official policy. So when the most recent Esquire magazine carried an article that claimed that ADM Fallon is the only one standing between Bush and a war with Iran, that was the kiss of death.

One of the things that distinguishes the United States from countries such as, for example, Pakistan or Panama, is that we have civilian control over the military. It's ground into our military officers from Day One. No upstart Admiral or General would even think of trying to take over leadership of the country while still on active duty. Civilians set the policy, the military carries it out. That's it. So while ADM Fallon wears the uniform and (especially) occupies the position of power, he has to do what the Prez says. Even if the Prez is a certified lunatic, such as our current one. If the Prez starts down a road that ADM Fallon (or any other officer) thinks is wrong, he has two choices: salute smartly and carry out his orders, or resign. Criticizing the orders in public is not an option.

Over the past few years, many civilians have wondered about the generals who served in Iraq or wherever, then retired and started bad-mouthing Bush. Why, they wonder, didn't the generals speak up when they were on active duty? Well, re-read the above paragraph. Military officers may or may not have an input to their orders. If so, it's behind closed doors. When the decision is made, we march off and do it. Or resign.

Which is why today's news is disturbing. Admiral Fallon is probably the most capable individual to serve in that critical position in recent memory. His track record of speaking his mind, and the Esquire article, might be the cause of his resignation, as both he and the Administration are saying. I doubt that's the full story. I haven't read the article yet (you can see it here), but the suddenness of his resignation indicates to me a high degree of possibility that Bush is moving ahead with his plans to attack Iran, and that Fallon took the honorable step of resigning rather than carry out insane orders.

All the TV pundits are talking about the Governor Spitzer sex scandal. They're missing the real and important story: Admiral Fallon's resignation and what might be going on in Iran. YOU should be concerned, too.

New Painting

Ma Petit Femme, oil on canvas, 24"x18"

I just finished and signed this painting today. I'm going in a new direction with my paintings about war. The idea is, if we in the USA had to put up with the violence that's plaguing Iraq, Afghanistan, and dozens of other places, what would it look like here? Well, being devout capitalists, we'd capitalize on it, of course! So here's what an ad for fine leather accessories might look like. (And for those who forgot their high-school French, "ma petit femme" means "my little woman" ... now, are you gonna say that to an elegant lady toting an automatic rifle? Me neither.)

The Democratic Race

I gotta say something about the way the Democrats are handling the presidential race. Now, granted, political races are not for the faint of heart, particularly the race for the very tip top dog. However, you gotta draw the line somewhere. Ronnie Reagan, as much as I don't like him, said something important. His "eleventh commandment" was "thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican". It got him into the White House twice. Evidently Hillary never heard that message. She's been slandering Obama as much as the Republicans have, if not more. And I think it's counterproductive. Okay, she's a fighter. Okay, she's pretty smart and tenacious. But getting into a slime match when there's still one race to go is not the answer. Save the slime for the Big One.

Her now-famous "3 a.m." ad is a loser. I mean, if you want somebody with lots of experience to answer the phone, it's John McCain. If you want somebody who knows what war is about, it's John McCain. If you want somebody who thinks for himself, it's John McCain. If you want a leader who can inspire people, it's Barack Obama. But if all you need is a fairly competent manager, well, it might be Hillary ... or lots of others. There are lots of managers on Monster.com - pick one.

I'm still an Obama man. He really does represent a break from the past, which is sorely needed at this point. Both McCain and Clinton (actually, both Clintons) are responsible for the mess we're in, and I'm not talking about just Iraq. There's been sub-zero leadership from them on climate change, the deficit is unbelievable and getting worse, our relations with the rest of the world have tanked, the health care situation is approaching a crisis, nothing has been done to shore up Social Security, nothing real has been done to improve border security, our military troops are overtasked, their equipment is falling apart, and John McCain and the Clintons were three of the people most involved in creating the mess. Time for some new leadership. We know what Clinton and McCain have done; Obama can't screw up as bad as they have.

Whitney Biennial

The Whitney Biennial is widely celebrated as the Superbowl of the American art world. Only the best of the best are even considered for inclusion, or so they say, and of those, only the most elite of the elite get in. The current Biennial just opened yesterday and I took a look at the website a few minutes ago.

Pardon me if I'm not impressed. As with any group of "the elite of the elite", this exhibition seems to have little or no relation to reality. I saw a few artists whose work I might look at for a few minutes, but not one piece made me say "Wow". Actually, I'd be hard pressed to even come up with a "hmmm". I got the impression that the artists were all striving to outdo each other in making "ART" that was geared towards a small circle of those who were clued-in. And if you're at all baffled by any of it, you'd better not say anything, or else you'll be labeled a RUBE and banished forever from art society.

Odd Nerdrum, who as a Norwegian isn't eligible for the Whitney, labels his works "kitsch" ... by which he means that he wants his works to be looked at, understood, and appreciated by everyday people and not just the art establishment. I find that I agree with that idea more and more.

Years ago, when I was taking continuing-ed courses at Maryland Institute College of Art, I went to one of their big student exhibits. It was in the gallery located in what had been a train station, and the adjacent tracks are still in use. Anyway, I walked through the exhibit and didn't see anything that appealed to me. It was all arty, not real. Finally I left and headed off to class. Next to the art building was a diesel locomotive, idling away and almost invisible in the darkness. Its rumble echoed off the stone walls and was eerie, threatening, and reassuring all at the same time. It was real in a sense that nothing in the gallery was, it had a conceptual power that nothing in there had, and to me it was art.

What was true then is true today. Give me a common diesel locomotive over anything in the Whitney.

Stuff from the past week

Well, it's been a busy week here in Lake Woebegone ... ooops, that's somebody else's line ... I keep meaning to get this blog caught up but stuff keeps piling up and I don't, so it piles up higher, so I still don't, you get the picture.



Last week I hung my exhibit of the "Old Times" paintings at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville. The show looks pretty good. It's so nice to get these pieces off my racks and onto somebody else's wall where they can be seen. There will be a reception next week (Friday, March 14, 6-8 pm), along with an artist talk (also known as me blabbering incoherently about the works), so if you're in the Knoxville area next week, you're invited to stop in. In the meantime, you can see 'em on my web site. All the "Old Times" paintings are in Knoxville except three that have been sold, one that's in my Chapel Hill gallery, and one that was a bit too risque for a church.

I've been able to spend a good bit of time in the studio this past week, which is exhilarating. Got one painting that's close to being done, another that's about halfway there, and will start a third tomorrow. All of these are a bit different from most of my previous works. The underlying subject is still war, but not overtly so. My satirical side is coming out again, so these new works are along the lines of "Pleasantville": funny musings on what American life might be like if combat was as normal in this country as it is in, say, Baghdad. No, I don't have any photos of them yet, so I'll shut up for now and let you wonder what in the hell I'm talking about.

In my non-art world, this has been an eventful week. For the past three years, I've been doing a courier run for Sun Trust Bank here in Asheville. It's a pretty skate job: run bags around to our various clients, shmooze a bit, run the bags back to the branch. Took about an hour a day and it paid my studio rent and utilities in the months when my art income didn't ... which is about 10 months out of the year. But last Friday, I was told that Sun Trust corporate headquarters had decided to terminate the contract ... and since I'm just a sub-contractor, that was my last day. Bummer, but in the big scheme of things, not a big deal.

Then my truck started acting up. Kept getting a "chirp" noise from the engine compartment at medium to high engine speed. Thought it was the serpentine belt, which was worn so we replaced it, but then yesterday it did it again and then the "check engine" light came on and the truck started running rough. Uh-oh. So $700 later, the dealer had it fixed. Bummer again ... I had big plans for that $700, mostly involving lots of likker and wimmen ... yeah, right!

A couple of days ago, we had a big storm blow through here. Big winds, too ... enough to blow down a 40-foot maple tree right in front of our house. I mean RIGHT in front of our house. Fortunately, it fell sideways and didn't hit anything, not even a bush. Poor ol' tree, it's had a rough decade. When this house was built nine years ago, they dumped a lot of dirt over half the tree's root system. And if that wasn't bad enough, they gouged a big chunk out of the bark. So the tree's been struggling and frankly losing out a bit more each year, to the point where it might have died last fall. Well, it's certainly dead now. And the vultures are circling. We've got several neighbors hitting it with their chain saws and building up their stocks of firewood. They hauled off about a third of it today. Makes my cleanup job easier, that's for sure.

So if you're wondering why I haven't written in the past week, there ya go.

SellOut Is Gone

I just deleted the link to the SellOut blog. Had to. After only a couple of months online, Deborah Fisher, the owner, closed it down. SellOut was a blog about the business side of being a fine artist. There were a lot of really good discussions on there, and I liked the fact that it was oriented towards those of us creating artworks because we have to, not because they sell. Evidently a lot of artists felt that way, because readership and input took off. Deborah went from being an artist with a business blog on the side to being a blogger who couldn't keep up with all the traffic. So, to keep her sanity, she closed it down.

Good for her. Sad for the rest of us. I'll miss SellOut. But I'd do the same thing if I were in her shoes. And since almost nobody reads this blog, I don't have to worry about it!

Looking at Artists Again

I'm going to try this again. Earlier this evening, I got out my current issue of Art in America magazine and went through it, commenting on the various artists who caught my eye. Unfortunately, when I hit the "publish" button, Blogger dumped the whole thing. An hour's worth of exceptionally creative and absolutely brilliant art critique was lost forever. Well, okay, that's overstating things a tiny bit, but you get the idea. I was on a roll and now it's lost.

To set the stage: when I first go through the magazine, I flag pages where there's some interesting artwork. Later I'll go look up the artists on the internet to see more of their work. Sometimes I find some really great artists (see the list "Artists I Like" on the right). Other times the initial positive impression doesn't last. That's life, isn't it?

I wrote about a bunch of artists earlier this evening, but in this recreation of the Lost Blog Post, I'll only talk about three.


David Shevlino had a full-page ad for his show at DFN Gallery in New York. David's work is a soft abstraction on a photo image. He's much more concerned with the image's formal elements of color, shape, line, tone, and composition than with the image's subject matter. This image, for example, isn't really about cars at dusk (although that's the painting's title). It's about the color of the background, the lines, the geometric elements, and the spots of bright color. It has much more to do with Piet Mondrian than with landscapes. This approach carries over into his work with figures, too. They are not specific individuals, they're interesting human shapes in a geometric setting. It looks like David can really paint: I like the quality that I see, he pays attention to edges and how one layer of paint sits on top of another layer. His approach is very different from mine. I take my cue more from Lucien Freud and Alice Neel ... not that I'm in their class, but I need my people and places to be specific and recognizable. David doesn't give a hoot about that, which makes it very interesting and enjoyable for me to look at his work.


Kim Cogan had a full-page ad for his show at Gallery Henoch in New York. His approach is, on the surface, very similar to Shevlino's. Kim paints cityscapes, but they're very bleak and devoid of human presence. It's as if they came from one of those disaster movies where all the people have died but left their lights on. His drawing is superb and his compositions very dramatic, with sharp light/dark contrasts and strong diagonals. Unlike Shevlino's works, Kim's scenes are very specific locations. I really like the feelings I get from the images. As an artist, I'm always interested in process, and Kim is both brave and courteous enough to have a succession of still images showing the development of one of his paintings. It didn't develop at all like I'd have thought, and not at all like I would have done it ... which is probably why he's in Gallery Henoch and I'm not. Kim is a good painter. Go take a look.


The third artist was Robert Selwyn, who was featured in a review of his show at DFN Gallery (yes, the same gallery I mentioned above). The magazine had an image of a suburban house distorted as if seen through water. The web site showed that the paintings were of two very different groups. One group consisted of these suburban houses seen through water, and the other was paintings apparently of a still from a TV newscast. Frankly, once I looked through them all, I was disappointed. With the houses, it seemed as if he'd found an interesting gimmick and then repeated it over and over. I can see one or two interesting conceptual foundations for these: the idea that the houses aren't really as perfect as they seem on the outside, or with the current mortgage crisis, that they're on shaky ground. But saying the same thing six times was overkill. With the newscasters, they were all the same, too: female newscaster staring straight at you, mouth partly open while she's saying something, with something disastrous happening on the screen behind her. Again, saying it once might be interesting; saying it six times isn't.

Afghanistan Article

My last post was about Iraq, where the situation is a bit improved over the past six months. Afghanistan is a different matter. Read this incredible article from the New York Times. This is the real war. And it's ugly.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/magazine/24afghanistan-t.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

Thoughts on Iraq

Have you noticed that none of the candidates for President are talking about Iraq anymore? Well, McCain is occasionally, mostly to denounce the Democrats for wanting to "lose". But Iraq certainly isn't on the front pages any more.

Half of the credit for this goes to General Petraeus. We finally put a guy in charge of things over there who knows how to do things the right way. The Republicans want you to believe that "the surge worked", but that's not quite right. If lots of troops aren't being used well, then adding more troops just means you have lots+more not being used well, which means more troops getting shot at and killed for no good reason. But Petraeus shook things up and started putting the troops where they'd do the most good. The "surge" let him do the most good in a few more places.

The other half of the credit goes to the Iraqi city and tribal leaders who finally got sick of all the killing. The Sunnis turned against Al Qaeda and the Shi'ites reined in their death squads. This past week, Muqtada al-Sadr announced that his Mehti Army would stand by their cease-fire for at least another six months. Good on 'em. Iraq certainly isn't a Sandals resort yet, but at least the death tolls are way down. Progress is finally being made.

Which may be good news for me, personally. Back in November, I started applying for some one-year jobs with the State Department in Iraq. (Take a look at my Nov 19 entry for the mention). This past week, they finally contacted me about one of them. And they're being pretty aggressive about it, too. Which indicates to me that I'm on a very short list of potential candidates ... which means that I may actually be in Iraq before too much longer. And I'm pretty excited about it, too. We screwed everything up with the Bush/Rumsfeld invasion, we have to put things as right as we can, and I want to do my part.

Aaron Hughes and the "Warrior Writers" Book

Aaron Hughes is a young man with a lot of talent and a lot to say. He did a 15-month tour in Iraq with the Army National Guard in 2003-4. Subsequently, he earned a BFA in painting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Since then he's been very active in the anti-war movement, using his art to speak his mind and make a difference. This image showed up in my "in" box, announcing a closing reception for his show "Shifting Memories". It was a collaboration between Aaron and Drew Cameron and was published in the book "Warrior Writers". It just blew me away.

In life, there are those who talk and those who do. Aaron is a doer. I've added his web site to my list of favorite artists. Take a look.

Ups and Downs

What a roller-coaster of a day. We had a great weekend - got a lot of stuff done, I got to watch the Daytona 500 which had a really good finish and a really good guy won it. Got started on an interesting new painting yesterday. Today the news reported that Castro was resigning (yay!), and the Pakistani elections went off well and Musharaf got beat (a very very important yay!). Then I got a phone call from a dear old friend of mine. He has inoperable pancreatic cancer. Doctors give him four to six months to live.

Damn.

News like this just takes all the wind out of your sails. We all have to go sometime, but most of us don't know how soon. So we all go about our lives as if we have unlimited time left. Some of us, though, do find out how long they have left. This isn't a comforting feeling. In six more months, a man that taught me a lot about art will (probably) no longer be here.

And what is it with cancer lately? I've now had four friends come down with different versions in the past fifteen months. Two caught it early and are well on the road to recovery, thank God. One died. And Gary, unfortunately, is going to leave us as well.

But Gary isn't moping. He's still his ornery self, determined to pack as much in as he can. So I'm not going to write his obituary in this blog. Not yet. Not as long as the sumbitch is still planning a trip to Paris!

New Oil Paintings

Flag Waver, oil on canvas, 24"x18"

Veteran, oil on canvas, 24"x18"

I finished these two paintings last week. Both are part of my "Meditation on War" series. Flag Waver can also be part of the satirical "Bush League" series. Both of these are dark in theme and color, but I have four paintings in the planning/workup stages that will not only be a lot cheerier but also even more satirical. Somehow I think my gallery will not be amused.

Watercolor Sketches

Krista #5

Krista #6

Krista #7

Krista #8

All of these watercolor sketches came from last week's life drawing session in the studio. The figures were all quickly drawn with an artist's pen on watercolor paper. Over the next few days, I went back in on them with layers of watercolor, just playing around to see what happened. These are a lot of fun to do. Unlike my "serious" paintings, these have no underlying message, they're just exercise and play. I've got a couple more in development from last night's session with a different model and might post them here in a few days. Let me know what you think.

Non-Political Ramblings

Wednesday night we had our regular life drawing session in my studio. Since I'm a figure painter, I need to work from the figure on a regular basis. In our recent sessions, I did portrait studies in oil. This time we had the model doing shorter 20-minute poses and I worked in charcoal for the first time since before Christmas. It felt good to get the ol' drawing mindset going again. Here's one of the drawings:


Yesterday we got a new batch of photos of Jackson. Here's one of them. Evidently his dad has dreams of Jacks being a future Tiger Woods and supporting Dad with all his winnings!

Y'know how a minor project can grow all out of control? I'm still trying to work through a "project" from over a week ago. Janis had spotted a stain in the ceiling in the office, meaning a water leak somewhere. I found the source: a vent pipe was right over the stain, and the sealer around it was pretty much gone. It didn't take much to fix it: a run to Lowe's and some time on the roof and it was done. But in checking out the source, I had to get up into the attic ... and on this side of the house, there's only one access hatch, a tiny little thing in the top of the closet in the office. So everything in the closet had to come out. And here's where it became a Frankenproject: I thought, hey, it's dumb to just put everything back, I bet there's a lotta crap in there that should be thrown out. Boy, was I right. There were all my old military records and stacks and stacks of old bank and credit card statements dating back to (I kid you not) 1990. Yes. Seventeen years worth of statements. And do you think you can just throw this stuff away? No, mon chere, you can not. The military thought that my name was not officially my name without my SSN tacked onto the end, so every bit of official correspondence had it prominently displayed. And bank statements ... well, they're bank statements, with account numbers and all that. So I've spent lotsa hours this past week hunched over the shredder, feeding it a page at a time. And meanwhile we've been tracking little bits of shredded paper all over the house. You'd have thunk it snowed, only the stuff didn't melt. But I've just got a few pages to go now (I'm taking a break to let the shredder cool down) and it'll be done.

And you'll be happy to know that my roof repairs don't leak.

News and Stuff

So John McCain now has the Republican nomination all locked up. Mitt Romney packed it in today. No big loss. I've seen a few Romney bumper stickers around here and every single one - I'm not kidding - has been on a late-model Cadillac with an old white guy driving it. And yes, they were all different Cadillacs. We don't need a Prez who only represents the gated-community set. Goodbye Mitt, so long Mitt, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

The south got hit hard the other day with lots of tornados. Ever been through one? I have. Back in the mid-1970's, I used to work in a company in Olive Branch, Mississippi, which is just south of the TN-MS border at Memphis, the same area that got hit Tuesday. Our building was a big 4-story box, with two walls being brick and two walls being glass. One day somebody yelled that there was a tornado outside. So what did we do? We all ran over to the window to watch! Yessir, we sure did. I was standing there watching stuff flying around and then this big sheet of steel came flying through the air and sliced through the roof of the company president's car, like it wasn't even there. I turned around and went back to the middle of the room and hid under my desk until it was over. Afterwards, all the power was out, so we were sent home, and the devastation was amazing: houses demolished, trees down, cars upside down, trailer parks obliterated. Never want to see that again.

Speaking of stuff I never want to see again, I just read an article in Newsweek magazine that horrified me. Back in February, 2003, three US contractors were taken captive by the FARC guerrilla group in Colombia when their single-engine plane went down. Two other men in the plane, one American and one Colombian, were executed. Since then, President Bush has mentioned the three men exactly one time in public, when he was asked about it at a news conference. That seems to be the extent of American efforts to get the men back. There has been no negotiation between the US and the FARC, and no effort to work with any countries who could be an intermediary, even though at least three (France, Spain, and Switzerland) are available. This is obscene. The men are Americans, they are under contract with an American company, to the American government, and the American government is doing diddly squat to get 'em back. You can read all the details here. I urge you to write your Senators and Congressman to put pressure on the Administration to get their ass in gear. (My Senators won't: they're mindless Republican footsoldiers who march in lockstep to whatever George tells 'em, but you gotta tell 'em to do it, anyway.)

Tomorrow I'll post some cheerier thoughts. Promise.

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.