Thirty-One Days in July

I've actually managed to stay committed to this thing for five months.  I just might see it through for the whole year afterall.  Catch up on this little project of mine at the links below if you're new to the blog.

Thirty-One Days in March (Part 1)

Thirty-One Days in March (Part 2)
Thirty Days in April

Thirty-One Days in May

Thirty Days in June

Monday – 01 July 2013

Today I found a new distraction from my Savannah obligations in the form of the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge.  I'll be cutting meetings short all summer to steal some time around here, I do believe. 

Song of the Day: Legend of Wooley Swamp - Charlie Daniels Band

Tuesday – 02 July 2013

Potential.

Song of the Day: Don't Change - INXS 

Wednesday – 03 July 2013

I would love to be a canoe or a leaf or a twig slicing through the fog along the glass surface of the Chattahoochee.  Peaceful morning, but the rain is coming (they say).    

Song of the Day: Small Price - Angel City 

Thursday – 04 July 2013

Nearly constant thunderstorms.  History Channel overdose, golf, baseball, hot dog eating contest on TV.  Naps with the pups.  Pizza.  Cold beer.  Free fireworks display from my pyromaniac neighbors.  Best Fourth of July on record.

Song of the Day: Yankee Rose - David Lee Roth 

Friday – 05 July 2013

Walking Dead marathon 1 – Productivity 0.  It's still raining so I guess I'm okay with that.

Song of the Day: Whatever - Godsmack

Saturday – 06 July 2013

Luckily, I didn't pull what I thought were weeds earlier this spring or I never would have seen these beauties – respite from a stormy afternoon. 

Song of the Day: Throwing Rocks at the Moon - The Backsliders   

Sunday – 07 July 2013 

Maynard is even sick of all this rain (and he sleeps twenty + hours a day!).  Maybe tomorrow little man.

Song of the Day: Cumbersome - Seven Mary Three

Monday – 08 July 2013 

Good to see you again old friend.

Song of the Day: Feels So Good - 311

Tuesday – 09 July 2013 

Good sky. 

Song of the Day: Funk #49 - James Gang

Wednesday – 10 July 2013 

Ball time in the tall grass before more rain.

Song of the Day: All Hands on The Bad One - Sleater-Kinney 

Thursday – 11 July 2013 

The "Hooch was outside its banks at lunch, much to the delight of this gaggle.

Song of the Day: Goodbye Lorraine - Frank Black

Friday – 12 July 2013 

After taking Maynard for his monthly mani/pedi this morning, I noticed this lovely lady in front of Village Garage.  I feel like she would be more comfortable on my block.

Song of the Day: Thunder Kiss '65 - White Zombie 

Saturday – 13 July 2013 

Speaking of needing a new home!  I covet the Corvair.

Song of the Day: Be My Monster - Sleeper Agent

Sunday – 14 July 2013 

Pantry Surprise!

Song of the Day: Bang Go The Bells - Babylon A.D.

Monday – 15 July 2013 

Epic.

Song of the Day: Low Rider - War

Tuesday – 16 July 2013 

Final walked one of our projects down near Hogansville this morning.  Took a detour through Grantville on the way back to check out some sets from The Walking Dead.  Good day.

Song of the Day: Bloodletting - Concrete Blonde 

Wednesday – 17 July 2013 

Flash flood on the west side prior to a networking event at Monday Night Brewing.  Will def go back in good weather – big fan of the Fu Man Brew. 

Song of the Day: Only Happy When It Rains - Garbage

Thursday – 18 July 2013 

Random ATL.

Song of the Day: Walkin' Shoes - Tora Tora

Friday – 19 July 2013 

Awesome show.  Vernon Reid is still a freaking amazing guitar player.

Song of the Day: Whiskey in the Jar - Metallica 

Saturday – 20 July 2013 

Doc Chey's. Peace. Love. Noodles. (and dumplings!)

Song of the Day: Blueside - Rooney

Sunday – 21 July 2013 

British Open, Sunday paper and a curious pup = a nearly perfect morning.

Song of the Day:  Little Wing - Jimi Hendrix

Monday – 22 July 2013 

In Houston, Texas this afternoon for a site visit tomorrow in Katy. With time to kill, I took a self-guided tour around the back roads of the small towns in the area.  Brookshire has a decided Friday Night Lights feel about it. 

Song of the Day: Ten Boots - Dangerous Toys 

Tuesday – 23 July 2013 

After the site visit, some delicious fish tacos and an unsuccessful negotiation with the local Fire Marshal, I took a minute to take in the rest of the local.  Katy, Texas is not unlike entirely the small town I grew up in.   

Song of the Day: Rain On The Scarecrow - John Mellencamp

Wednesday – 24 July 2013 

I was sure happy to see this crazy face tonight.  She got an extra bath, a rubdown and a fancy pink bandanna for having to endure boarding for a couple of nights – she's special.

Song of the Day: The Underdog - Spoon 

Thursday – 25 July 2013 

Today is Maynard's fourteenth birthday – that's (98) years if you're scoring at home.  Happy Birthday old man!  Tonight he had all the T'Bonz and peanut butter he wanted PLUS smoked his pipe, drank loads of cognac and listened to old jazz records.

Song of the Day: My Favorite Things - John Coltrane

Friday – 26 July 2013 

I was up in Cartersville for a site visit this morning – I love rebar.  

Song of the Day: Heavy Things - Phish

Saturday – 27 July 2013 

A very productive day concluded with my return to the studio.  Full story here.

Song of the Day: Click Click Boom - Saliva

Sunday – 28 July 2013 

Yahtzee!

Song of the Day: Watching The Wheels - John Lennon

Monday – 29 July 2013 

Distraction from the obvious.

Song of the Day: Someday - Cracker 

Tuesday – 30 July 2013 

Maynard came home from the hospital tonight having finally gotten together enough to take the first of his shots.  He's sore and exhausted and pissed off about the big needle and the resultant bald patch but he's okay...still a little anxious though (me too).  The extra treats and morphine make it better for the little guy. 

      
Song of the Day: Handle With Care - Traveling Wilburys 

Wednesday – 31 July 2013 

I find it highly entertaining to witness the chaotic ballet of early morning airport minutia as I choke down a rubber, egg and cheese bagel. It never gets old.  A solid bowl of soup, a productive meeting with the usual suspects and a sprinkle of team building with the standard SAV-ATL delay chaser made for a good day.

Song of the Day: You're Gonna Go Far Kid - The Offspring 

Surface

I finally got back in the studio yesterday.  I guess my last show left more of a mark on my confidence than I thought it had.  Three weeks back or more, I bought a couple of big canvases and a bunch of paints – trying to trick myself into feeling creative.  It didn’t take and the paints and the canvases stood impotent, locked behind the studio door until yesterday’s unexpected productivity windfall pushed the door open. In bed early Friday night, out of bed early Saturday morning, yard work done by noon, laundry shortly after – I even practiced my chip shot in the back yard for a little while and watched an entire (ridiculously uneventful) Braves game for the first time this year.  Now what?

I hadn’t tackled a big blank in a long time and in hindsight I probably should’ve banged out a couple of little pieces to get the juices flowing again.  I had a vision when I stood up to paint but the conclusion was light years away from the start when I sat down at the end of the night.  I’ve said before that art happens when you least expect it and I’ve never believed that more than I did last night.  I’ve forced canvases that have sold for a lot of dollars and most of them weren't that good and hardly any reached my expectation of what could have been.  I’ve never been aware of what the best thing might look like until after the fact.  That’s not to say that I think that anything I’ve ever done or ever might do is or will be great.  Seeing the difference is the most difficult part – the trouble is always the seeing, right?

I painted for five, six hours and hated every move, I hated everything I saw unfolding on the canvas. After much debate, I decided to scrap it all and start again fresh this morning.  For an artist of any stripe this is equivalent to a walk of shame.  I scraped down the canvas, defeated.  As I did I began to see what I hadn’t seen prior.  I saw what I had second-guessed for the entirety of the night.  I saw the possibility in what I had perceived as a mistake and discovered an unlikely vehicle through which I could share it.  I found that the beauty of what I was trying to say was lying dormant beneath the surface of the layers and layers of nonsense I had heaped on top.

The lesson, if there is one is that one shouldn’t look only at the surface.  Let the underneath reveal itself.  When it does, embrace it.  You never know when the surface might fracture or where those cracks might lead you if you follow.  I’ve written before that art is everything that you see.  As it turns out, it’s also what you don’t see sometimes.  Who knew?

I call this one surface. 

  

surface

30" x 30"

07.27.2013

The School House Rock Correlation

One late night last week, I got sucked into a Lewis and Clark documentary on PBS.  Ken Burns makes any subject fascinating and this is already a compelling and often overlooked story in American history – I really had no choice.  We are or at least should be aware of the debt we as Americans owe these two but it doesn’t stick out in my memory as having been made important in most of my History classes.  That’s a narrative for another day I suppose.  What does stick out in my memory is where I first learned about Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea and a million other nuggets of knowledge – School House Rock. 

If you don’t remember this little jewel of the 1970s, let me be the first to offer you my condolences.  Few things left as dramatic a mark on my young psyche as these (3) minute vignettes sandwiched between Super Friends and Hong Kong Phooey, or Johnny Quest and Scooby-Doo every Saturday morning.  In fact, I can draw a nearly straight line between who I became as an adult and the lessons and values and simple knowledge I gained from these cartoons.  That’s probably a bit of an overstatement, but maybe not entirely.  To this day, I can recite The Preamble to the Constitution and will never forget that the 19^th Amendment gave women the right to vote.  It’s probably the first place I was ever exposed to other cultures and how important ethnic diversity was to the founding and vitality of this country.  It kick started my obsession with history, politics, gave me a life-long love of language, grammar and even informed my musical tastes.  I truly don’t think I would be who I am today if I had not been introduced to and so enamored with these short films at such a young age.  Whether or not that is true is debatable, but I sure have enjoyed this stroll down memory lane.

For your edification, and nearly certain amusement I’ve included my personal top ten favorites below.  

(10)  The Shot Heard 'Round The World

This is the first one I remember.  It presents an extremely complex reality – the American fight for independence in a way that a child can understand it.  This was fascinating beyond belief to six-year-old me.

(9) The Great American Melting Pot

This one is unabashedly idealistic, but isn't that exactly what the first Americans were?  I think too many of us could use a reminder of this fact. 

(8) No More Kings

The lesson here is that George III was a tool.  Again, extremely idealistic, but the colonists' defiance is refreshing and their disdain for the English is comical.

(7) Elbow Room

Absolute gold.  Dig that vocal!

(6) Three Is A Magic Number

This a version that Blind Melon recorded in the '90s – the images are the originals.  It is a permanent staple on my iPod. 

(5) Lolly, Lolly, Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here

If you've ever read anything I've ever written, you know that I clearly love adverbs.  I still whistle this tune, on the daily. 

(4) Verb! That’s What’s Happening

This is by far, the funkiest SHR episode.  I think even as a kid, I got how powerful (and unusual) it was that the African-American community was being painted as a positive in this piece.  

(3) Sufferin’ Till Suffrage

Essra Mohawk's vocal on this track is incredible.  (She would go on to work with Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention.)  Great song.  Conservatives decried this short as liberal propaganda at the time – can you imagine?

(2) Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla

I believe this proves that almost everyone was in fact on drugs in the 1970s.  Love it.

(1) The Tale Of Mr. Morton

Far and away, my favorite.  "Hello cat, you look good."  Hilarious.  Sure it's educational, but it's really just a perfect wonderful love story.  

I don't know what children are watching these days, but I can only hope that it's half as entertaining and remarkable as School House Rock was and still is.  No, it wasn't always factually or historically accurate and their are huge swaths of American history and culture omitted (Native Americans, Civil Rights etc.) but it wasn't supposed to be or do anymore than it was or did.  It was intended to spark the imagination of young minds and for me it did exactly that.  That wonder and excitement of seeing and hearing new things is forever tattooed on my memory and I feel fortunate to have experienced it firsthand back in the day.    

What Art Is

What exactly is obscene?  Since the early 1960s, they’ve told us that you know it when you see it.  That’s the definition of obscenity that we’ve all become accustomed to in post-Reagan-era America. For the most part we have accepted it – rightfully so in most cases, I might add.  (It’s the same answer that my college art teachers regurgitated to me when I asked what art is, by the way.)  Most people do not want to or can’t appreciate what others see.  Others make art, right?  That in a nutshell is what separates art from pornography or any other media or idea or perception really.  The seeing is why art is wonderful.    

The best art makes us uncomfortable though, doesn’t it?  Agreed, there is a fine line between art and pornography in some cases and Helmut Newton danced along its edge more prolifically than any photographer before or since.  A much more productive writer than I once said of Newton’s work, The magic of his art is its complete elusiveness, its cunning refusal to admit the true nature of its subject matter: the failure of reality juxtaposed against the triumph of desire. Only a genius can see nearly the exact same reality as every other nobody and express it as art.  That was Helmut Newton’s genius. That’s what art is.

Trent Reznor once famously wrote my whole existence is flawed... The preceding lines of Closer have gained much more notoriety but these are the words I was always more clued into.  Not because I identify with them in the pure sense but because I think I understand what he was trying to say.  By verbalizing the opposite of what he truly felt, he shined a light on our collective (uncomfortable) view of sex, at least our public acknowledgement of it.  At some level and maybe this is a Judeo-Christian hang-up (maybe even more so than just a Southern hang-up as I’ve always thought) we are ashamed of our most basic desires.  When Trent sang I want to f*@k you like an animal, he may well have been verbalizing the emotional connection that he felt with his partner but more likely it was to shock you into listening to what he didn’t think he could say.  My whole existence is flawed?  Yes.  It is flawed because you do not play the same game as the rest of the world.  (I didn’t write the rules but I am very aware of them.)  I believe that Reznor’s acceptance of his supposed depravity is in his own weird way an effort to make the rest of us accept (again) the uncomfortable actuality that we are all depraved on some level, at specific times.  Art is taking the obvious and turning it on its ear to see it more clearly in a way that forces everyone else to see it too, from a different perspective.  That’s why it’s important.

F*@k you, I won’t do what ya tell me…f*@k you, I won’t do what ya tell me…Zach de la Rocha isn’t anyone’s bitch and he made that explicitly clear with every lyric.  He believed in the possibility of this country, its citizens and was justifiably pissed off that it / we did not square with his expectations of that prospect.  He was so committed and assured in his disdain for what he saw as an American ideal, more so a human ideal, that he left Rage Against the Machine – possibly the most important political band ever.  He freaking walked away from the ultimate holy grail of being a rock star to stand with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, a revolutionary leftist group in Southern Mexico.  At the height of his career, his individual confidence in personal freedom and expected justice and definitive autonomy insisted that he turn his back on the fame and the stardom and the public acclaim he had garnered through his inimitable talent and concentrate on what he saw as the principal dilemma in the world – he could not resist the call of his own deeply-held conviction to social obligation: he couldn’t not offer a hand up to those less fortunate.  Do you want to know what art is? There it is.  To his devoted fans, this did not come as a surprise – to everyone else in the world, it didn’t even register as having had occurred.  Since jump, I’ve wished for the balls this guy has – the fortitude to believe in anything the way that he does. 

She emerged from the creative Mecca that was the San Francisco Bay Area punk / art scene in 1977.  She shared stages with Jello Biafra early and Supreme Court cases against Jesse Helms as a member of the NEA Four later.  Karen Finley is a performance artist, writer, director, extreme feminist – a lightning rod of controversy.  Upon hearing the news that a 16-year-old girl who had recently been found alive in a garbage bag covered in her own feces but was being accused of staging the incident, Finley took to the stage; naked, smeared in chocolate so as to expose the injustice she saw being perpetrated against young American females.  Her work touches on every single aspect of life that we don’t want to talk about: abuse, sex, disenfranchisement, suicide, politics.  Yes, she exists on the very far reaches of even the NYC art community and only in another galaxy to most people.  (Her writing has made me blush.)  Why should that matter?  Though decidedly extreme, is her brand of art less artistic than any other?  In a world where what’s shocking has become commonplace, I’m surprised that more artists haven’t followed her lead – how else can you expect to get a reaction?  She once squeezed milk from her own swollen breasts to paint a black canvas.  Does that make her more an artist or less a mother?  Should there be a difference?

I saw a video recently of a young lady recounting why her old man rocks.  It was spoken word across the canvas of a single image.  The photograph was of her dad asleep with her oldest sister.  Her sister is (25) years old but has the cognitive ability of a small child.  Pops hates his job but never complains.  Every night he comes home, cooks, eats dinner and watches TV with his little girl curled up against him in her favorite chair until they both fall asleep because that’s what she wants to do.  He’s been a single parent for (13) years.  If that’s not art, I don’t know what is.

Frank Lloyd Wright said to me a thousand years ago in a dream, that space is the breath of art.  I’m not sure I understood it then and I may not yet.  I sure do like the sound of it though.  That statement embodies everything you need to know about anything.  Aristotle had spoken to him prior to our encounter and had relayed this bit of insight; The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.  And then music happened and I heard words like, I don’t believe in the existence of angels…but looking at you I wonder if that’s true…and I knew that Nick Cave must also be art.  I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel; you were talking so brave and so sweet.  Giving me head on the unmade bed, while the limousines wait in the street.  If I ever get old, I hope that I’m half the bad ass artist that Leonard Cohen is.  The first time I saw Kahn’s Kimball Art Museum, I cried.  At Rowan Oak when I was a kid I heard Faulkner whisper, Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries…try to be better than yourself.”  That is art. 

Art is everything I’ve written to this point but it is so much more than that too.  Art is the crack of a wooden bat breaking the stifling stillness of a smoldering summer day and the resultant eruption of the crowd.  It’s not only paint on a canvas but also the firmness of your handshake and what that handshake means.  It’s looking a person in the eye or juggling the mania of getting your kids to a piano recital and ballet class and soccer practice all at the same time, on time.  Art is sunsets and dawns and tall grass blowing in autumn wind and early frosts and cricket chirps and the gentle crash a beer can makes when it’s opened.  Art is the feel of sand beneath your feet or the smell of freshly cut grass and the love you feel for your parents and the crush you had on that girl in third grade or last week and every song ever written about anything.  It’s a warm bed on a cold night, the other side of the pillow on a hot one, clean sheets and naps with your dogs or kids on Sunday afternoon.  Art is getting your hands dirty and waking up late and hitting your deadlines, taking care of you and what’s yours.  It’s being stopped in your tracks by simple beauty or your memories of yesterday or whatever it is that stares back at you from the bottom of an empty glass.  It’s the form and function of your life; the silence and the cacophony.  Am I an artist just because I did a bang-up job of mowing my lawn?  No.  But the lawn having been mowed is a wonderful reality that is unequivocally full of art.  Art is possibility; hope for a better tomorrow and a strong belief in the power of yesterday.  It’s a lover’s touch but also the distance between.  Art is whatever is happening to you at this very moment.

Right this second, you are art. 

I may live for only a minute longer than I write this.  If that is fact or I have another summer or another fifty years of summers I will always marvel at art because I see it as life.  My heroes can’t tell me anymore than they already have, can they?  Did Newton and Reznor and Wright or any other human know more about what art / life is than I do, more than you do?  Of course not.  What we do on the regular is a fascinating, unequaled thing. 

If you’ve read this far, chances are better than average that you’ve done so only to see what kind of a mess I would make of this conversation.  We are sadly, trained to expect a negative.  The period at the end of this sentence is a series of question marks.  Are you art?  Would you know the difference?  What do you see when you look at your reflection in the mirror?  Do you want to be anything other than you are?  Who is stopping you?  No matter the answer on a personal level, the answer in the greater sense will always be art. 

If you have any desire to understand what art is, open your eyes – art is everything that you see.

I guess you do know it when you see it after all, eh?

I love art.