tinker toy molecule no.1

tinker toy molecule no.1, 2012

12-in. x 12-in.

oil on cradled panel


The tinker toy set is really kind of cool. This is the 1957 version with the different colored "sticks" as opposed to them being all red.

That's not the cool part.

The cool part is that the set is inspired by the Pythagorean theorem, and the sizes of the sticks increase relative to the holes on the spools to equal the square root of 2. This enables you to make right triangles that consist of two 45° sides and a 90° one!

I feel a little sad for the 21st century kid. Many have stupid names ( and we all know what I'm talking about...), and are stylized by mommy and daddy like some kind of accessory item in order to make mommy and daddy appear like "the cool parents"... which, sadly, they are not.

Seriously, does every 9-year-old boy need to look like he's a member of Blind Melon?

That's not the sad part.

The sad part is that the 21st century kid's toys, quite frankly, kinda blow. They don't really have any toys that foster any level of creativity or imagination. Lincoln Logs, Legos, and primary-colored building blocks cannot eclipse the blinding radiance of the Nintendo 3DS. Even that dumb-ass Vincent Price Shrunken Head Apple Sculpture-thing got you to carve an apple into a creepy little head!

I'm not saying I didn't log-in a few thousand hours playing Snafu on the Intellivision, but I occasionally picked up a crayon too.



Actually, now that I think of it, why would the game Snafu have held my attention for thousands of hours? The Nintendo 3Ds IS way cooler!

Litany for the City

My painting Songbirds is the cover art for the book Litany for the City by Ryan Teitman and is available for pre-order on Amazon.

Yes, this would be a poetry book.

Admittedly, most of the poetry that I'm au courant with is typically five lines, and often includes words like "Nantucket", "Lunt", or "Frick".

Here's a little part of one of my most favorite poetic works by Joseph Elliot:

You got the peaches, I got the cream
Sweet to taste, saccharine
'Cause I'm hot, so hot, sticky sweet
(Hot!)
From my head, my head to my feet
(Head!)
Do you take sugar, one lump or two?

I've pondered this very passage for more hours than I can recall. I think that the emphasis of "Hot!" and more importantly "Head!" truly explicates the primitive human impetus for male boosterism. It also forces one to delve deep into our very essence and ask the vital questions that we have ALL asked ourselves at some point in our lives:

Do you take sugar?

If you do, is it one lump...

or is it two?

1971 or... when I was one ( year old)... "it was a very good year".

1971, 2011

24-in. x 18-in.

oil on cradled panel

The 1971 Coca-Cola can was stainless steel AND aluminum ( pronounced AL-oo-min-U-um, right? ). 1971 also means...

-dumb little hat?

-fighting crime in a Santa Suit?

-watching Roy Scheider smoke 8000 cigarettes ( and look cool doing it!)?



1971 means The French Connection, baby!






1971 might also mean...

-shooting a guy with a mouth full of food?

-having pseudo-porn style hair... and still being a cop?

-elevating being a smart-ass to an artform?

"I know what you're thinkin'...", 1971 also means Dirty Harry!




Oh, and 1971 also means one of the greatest albums of all time!!



Only YES can get away with an eleven minute "single".



1971=Awesome!

You can beat me up, and I'll still end up looking good!

I'm in a group show at Mason Murer Fine Art this month called "The Real Thing" commemorating the 125th anniversary of Coca-Cola.



You can beat me up, and I'll still end up looking good!, 2011

40-in. x 30-in.

oil on cradled panel

This can is a 1960's-early 70's "swirl" version that is aluminum AND steel. This is why part of the can is really rusty and the body is in nice shape. This also has a pop top as opposed to the push-pull-flippy thing we have now.

I had a pal named Mike give me the alternate title 12oz. of Awesome!, but I was more focused on the fact that the Coca-Cola logo is so strong that even when you break it down it still looks beautiful ( and even more importantly, identifiable).

Believe it or not, I have my own fairly rigid little method to my own Coke drinking. I like it in a glass with ice, BUT... I like it in a particular way. The glass must be a heavy weight short tumbler or lowball glass. The ( ice cold, NEVER room temperature or warm) Coke should be poured into the glass to roughly the 3/5ths mark. Then, three square ice cubes should be added to the drink, and NEVER the other way around. Enjoy!

FUN FACT: Coca-Cola WILL NOT, I repeat, WILL NOT revive a dead hooker! It will, however, do the following:

-Remove blood stains from clothing!

-Cure nausea! A flat Coke will help you get through the task at hand!

-Dissolve teeth ( AKA evidence!)

-Tan your skin, AND curl straight hair. After all, you might need to quickly change your appearance for that "unexpected" flight you'll be making to Brazil... forever!

Okay, enough of that nonsense. Honestly, I really just put that little part in to see if anyone is actually reading these.

Hey, I've got an idea! Let's watch David Nelson get treated rudely by an insane, and aptly titled, "soda jerk"!

Red Zeppelin I - part two

I finished the second part of my Red Zeppelin I painting movie. I'll "touch up" the background a little ( okay, a lot) before moving on to the actual zeppelin part. I used Gamblin Oil Colors and Galkyd for this painting. The paint is loaded with pigment, and the medium "levels" nicely. In the background ( noise, not the painting), you can hear Frank Lovejoy in Nightbeat. I've got a link to all of the episodes on the side there, and it's pretty good ( and funny) to listen to while you work. Oh, William "Cannon" Conrad usually shows up as either a punch-drunk boxer, effeminate lawyer, or gravel-throated "heavy".

Nightbeat, Dragnet, and Philip Marlowe are don't hold a candle to the greatest private-eye show ever. It might just be a little 30 minute gem from the 1959-60 television season called... Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer.



Darren "Carl Kolchak" McGavin plays basically... Carl Kolchak with a gun, a cooler car, and a giant set of balls ( he might even have three!). He narrates the show... just like in Kolchak: The Nightstalker, and it looks great! Every scene is a German Expressionistic black and white treat. All of chicks are super-hot, and all of the bad guys usually get humiliated before he beats them up and/or kills them. There's a vague suggestion of a Bob Hope-I-know-I'm-just-a-character-in-a-T.V-show-but-nobody-else-knows-thing going on too.



"Yeah, alright! Tough-guy and all that. Let me finish my sandwich first!".



Do real men drink Daiquiris?

"They do if I say they do!" - Darren McGavin

atomic disintegrator part II

Atomic Disintegrator Part II

18" x 24"

oil on panel

The 30's and 40's were pretty optimistic about how super slick our lives would be around... now. Donald Fagen had a similar idea with the flying car that made organic food and was so fast it took "ninety minutes from New York to Paris". Nobody would really have to work, and our lives would be filled with super-saturated color. All of our problems would be solved through technology.



We would have jet-packs and flying cars! We would wear super cool jumpsuits like Barbara Bain and Barry Morse in Space 1999.



So... things didn't really work out that way. No jump suits, but we do have Spanx for men. No awesome Dick Tracy wrist-communicators, but we do have awkwardly large cellular phones that are too big to fit in your pocket ( unless you wear some sort of "cargo shorts" which, quite frankly, NEED TO GO!). C'mon! Can you really see Cary Grant or Steve McQueen in a pair of these things?

Wait! What was I saying? Oh yeah, the phones. They also annoy the shit out of you every 30 seconds, break if you drop them once, and don't really work well as a telephone.

I guess I'm being narrow-minded when I whine about the fact that the general public is NEVER going to be allowed to have access to a jet-pack or a flying car.



These are WAY better, right?

Sorry, I know this one was a little ranty. I'm currently in a cargo-short "tolerance program", and I know with your support... I'll make it!

atomic disintegrator part I

Atomic Disintegrator Part I

18" x 24"

oil on panel

The Buck Roger's Atomic Disintegrator XZ-38 version was made by Daisy ( the B.B. gun people) in 1935, and is essentially a "pop" gun. It has a little flint in the top that sparks, and the piston drives an arm up to make a popping sound.

A really, really LOUD popping sound.

It is the KING of all toy space guns. The Wyandotte and the Hubley are really cool, but this is the quintessential icon of heroic inter-planetary defense weapons. It's super annoying and... super awesome!

I got pulled over by the local cop once. Actually, he flashed his lights at me and then I instinctively pulled over. He drove up behind me and said he was "just sayin' Hey!". I half-ass remembered that it was some sort of law to tell the cops that you had a gun in the car. I pulled out my XZ-38 and he looked at it, gave me a funny look, and he indicated that this didn't really "qualify" as a gun.

Whatever, dude! It's super annoying and... super awesome!



This is one of the actual patents for the Atomic Disintegrator. It's kind of a work of art in itself.

bing bang theory

bing bang theory

24" x 24"

oil on cradled panel

I had originally been thinking of the Big Bang singularity and the many theories revolving around the consistency of the rate of expansion. I think it's, quite frankly, fascinating:



I'm now kind of leaning a little towards the fact that this is a great example of Chaos theory where the random pattern is the most natural state. Right?



big bang theory ( detail)

You know, like, to make a consistent effort to continually "tidy up" your workspace is going against nature. I'm not talking about half-eaten sandwiches and a rusty hubcap on your dining room table or anything, but running around like Felix Unger ain't where it's at either, baby!