Gotta have balls

This weekend was a good one. Friday night I played a show. Saturday I slept in (till 10. weee) and had a lovely day of errands and last minute painting. Saturday night was poker and Basil Hayden whiskey. Today was a beautiful day with a balmy temperature around the high 30's. I didn't even need a sweatshirt under my jacket.

I headed over to the Red Dot gallery and dropped off all my pieces for the art show. A weight was lifted from my mind. I can focus on the few commissions I have left for this month as well as some pieces I've just been meaning to do for myself.

After dinner (taco night... bonus!) my friend Liz stopped by and brought me a gift for picking her up at the airport at midnight one night last week. Here it is:



Take a guess.

Nope.

It's a dog ball. A doberman ball.

Liz is a vet tech.



I have a history of asking for and randomly receiving strange gifts.

Years ago when my stepmother went to Ireland she asked what I wanted. I had no idea. What does Ireland make? I ended up asking for a shilelagh. She-lay-lee. Walking stick. It rules.

Couple years ago my buddy Shawn grabbed me THIS little gem when the record shop he worked at closed their doors for good....




Fantastic.

Last Christmas while hanging out with my mom in NC we ended up going to a huge huge huge outdoorsy hunting emporium. I told her I wanted an elk call. She shook her head in disbelief while the guy rang up my sweet elk call Christmas gift.

So a week or so ago while Liz was talking about her job I blurted "can you get me a dog ball?"

I have no idea what the hell I'm going to do with this thing, but I bet you don't have one on your desk. I'm sure my mom is shaking her head while reading this.

New trucks

It's getting down to the wire. I have to finish everything within 24 or so hours or I can't hang it this weekend. The opening is one week away and I told the gallery I'd have my pieces ready this weekend. Last night my friends Dave and Suzanne came by after I got out of work and picked up their triptych. We caught up a bit, reminisced about highschool... it was a good time. After they took off I started finishing the latest Truck Wars installment. Working till 3 a.m. Resumed at 9 a.m. Here's a sneak peak of it....



If you want to see it in person, you can starting next Friday at the Red Dot Gallery in Lower Mills.

You know the deal by now right?

Have a good weekend, everyone. Try to keep warm. I have a feeling when I go outside today my nose is going to fall off and shatter on the ground.

Pangs of loss

I was on craigslist today looking at Triumphs for sale when it hit. My first phantom motorcycle ride. You ever go swimming all day at the beach and when you lie down for sleep at the end of the day you can still feel the waves crashing and tossing you around? I had that feeling today, but it was the rumble of starting the bike up, clicking into first gear and taking off.

It's going to be like a high of 9 tomorrow. I'm glad the bike's safe and sound in a garage. I'm pissed that I forgot my sweet sweet flannel hat my mom got me years ago, pictured below.



I wear this thing even in the house. I have no idea how I forgot it today when I left for work.

Oh well.

SCYTHE OF DOOM

Scythe is one of the coolest words ever. It's almost vowel-less. It's sexy. It takes some skill to say. Short. To the point. And I found a goddam huge one while walking home from the train last week after work. It was like four doors down from my house. Just hanging out on the sidewalk. Someone was throwing out this totally awesome huge scythe. Wait. Dammit. It has an E. I had to go back and add those E's.

Well here. Here look at my sickle. Scythe is so much better than sickle.

And lo, there's another peek at one of the new pieces that will be up in my first proper gallery art show bonanza.




This post is for banjeroo.

Enjoy. And look out for that package soon.

My first gallery show!

The Lower Mills section Dorchester, MA is a pretty cool area.



See?

Friday, February 2nd I'll be showing brand new paintings there. It's not a solo show, of course. There are other artists, and wine, and cheese, and probably at least one dude wearing a beret. I'm excited though. They emailed me a few weeks ago and I got to work right away on new pieces. It's a nice thing to work towards. If anyone wants to come down for the opening night I'd love to hang out with you. Hope to see you there. I'll be reminding people about it from now until show time.

Here's a flyer:

Woke up confused.

Worked on a painting last night titled "Hey, that guy has a cannon for a head" from 11 to about 3:00. Set my alarm for 9:30 just to get an extra half hour. Woke up at 8:45 with the thought screaming in my head "I graduated high school 9 years ago. That's almost ten. Nine years ago. When is the reunion? Where will it be? Who will be there?" I had to get up and shake my head loose of the fog and waddled out, confused as hell, to the kitchen.

I was still half asleep for about ten minutes after waking. My brain screams at me between sleep and consciousness. Sometimes I am nearly asleep and the thought "You'll die some day. No really though, not now, but at some point it will be happening" will blast through my head. Then I have to sit up, take a deep breath and finally drift off to sleep.

Today was the same frantic manner of thought, but with the fact that I graduated high school nearly ten years ago.

Shut, up brain. How about screaming something useful for a change?

I wasn't gonna post the painting until it was done, but here's the progress so far. This was a blank canvas last night when I started....



It's going to be one of the pieces in the show I'm in at the Red Dot Gallery in Dorchester's Lower Mills. www.reddotgallery.org

ENJOY THE WEEKEND.

Back in khakis

So today I suited up in my khakis and button down office garb. Begrudgingly. Wow. Is that how that word is spelled? I have to research this... one sec..

Wow. What an ugly word.

Bleh. I've been waking up around 8:30 or 9 this week. Trying to get into a rythm. The rhythm was broken today by the dog who was frantically barking in the living room at 7:00 a.m. I walked out to find her doing her usual blank stare into space. I had her follow me upstairs and ushered her to her dog bed where she slept once again, safe from whatever the hell she was barking at.

She's either retarded or some scene out of a Japanese horror film where the dog goes bat-shit crazy at the ghost of a seven year old girl with a severe head wound standing unnoticed behind the master imploring his pet to calm down happened earlier today in my goddam living room.


I painted for a bit and called the garage again about my still-broken van. Then I packed my lunch and backpack and suited up in the khakis that unbeknownst to me until I got on the train, have a foot long rip up the outside right seam. They look like half belbottoms.

Work is status-quo. Bleh. Time for a green tea. The one thing I missed about this place.

Freedom

So yesterday was the beginning of the Tuesday and Wednesdays off from work. I woke up about 8:30 and grabbed a quick breakfast and then started painting. I finished the triptych I was working on.




After painting for a while I emailed back and forth with a guy who wants to buy a painting from me. We met up at a restaurant near my house and talked about doing a show at a shop he owns on the south shore this summer. I'll have more details on that as it's a ways off. This guy is a well-known clothier in Boston. Exciting.

I have to grab more canvas for the upcoming Dorchester show at the Red Dot Gallery.

Gah what else... hmmm.

OH. Jesus. A while ago I stumbled upon the artwork of Counsel Langley

I emailed her with a painting-trade proposition and somehow she was interested in doing a trade with me. Painting for a painting. Amazing. While I was away in NYC I got a text from Jenny freaking out about the painting which was posted on my myspace page. I scrambled to get to a computer and checked it out and was blown away.



I get to have this!

Off to the post office soon. I have to go try to ship Vigo to Ohio. Don't worry there will be prints of him.

I'm off.

NYC

Well I'm home. I'll just give a list of pros and cons about the trip.

Pro: Seeing my friend Xavier and his recently-impregnated wife at their awesome house in Brooklyn.

Con: Getting a dead fish handshake from his English landlord.

Pro: Seeing X's brother Ryan at the bar he owns on Bowery.

Pro: Free shots of Jameson with our Guinness.

Con: Free shots of Jameson with our Guinness.

Pro: The bartender taking a liking to me at Edwards. All the free Patron I can stomach.

Con: Bartender at Edwards is a dude.

Pro: Being able to hang out at the bar well after last call.

Con: Waking up with one of the worst hangovers of my life on Sunday.

Pro: Pats, baby.

Con: Indy, dammit.

Pro: Singing "Tonight I Celebrate My Love For You" by Roberta Flack and Peabo Bryson with a black girl who almost sang better than Roberta herself at a kareoke bar.

Con: Getting aggresively hit on by a dude who looked like Fred from the B-52's at the kareoke bar.

Pro: Chinatown at 3 a.m.

Con: Realizing after the trip came to a close that I don't attract women. Only gay dudes. I am a boner magnet. Oh that and I look like the Geico cave man.

New landscape, new photo of me.

I hope everyone likes it.

I also hope everyone likes my new blouse. Father Christmas brought it for me.


I'm off to NYC this weekend. Just a random trip.

Quick news: I have a show coming up on February 2nd. It's a Friday. I'll give you full details next week. Excited.

I'm going to finally get off my ass with prints soon.

You should check out David Stoupakis.

I saw his stuff in Juxtapoz magazine this month and it took a while to realize but a friend of mine had a couple huge paintings of his in her house years ago. Very cool seeing them without having to push through a crowd at a gallery. He's from the area and it's a small world.

I'm off to Somerville to finally let my motorcycle hibernate for the winter. I'll miss you, Admiral.



In happier days.

Maine getaway

My aunt works for a very large law firm in Boston. My corporate white guy office job does quarterly reports for said firm. It's all one big happy family. She, unlike me, enjoys the company of and does nice things for her coworkers. Last year before Christmas she asked if I could draw a house for a guy she works with. He's building this small place way the hell up in Nowhere, ME and is very passionate about his getaway house. It's his refuge from the grind of working for a florptastically successful law firm in a major US city.

My aunt asked me about the drawing just before I left for NC in the middle of the month so I didn't get to it until last last last minute, but I ended up getting it done for her. She said she had it framed and gave it to him the next day. I guess he was pretty touched by it. That was nice to hear. Anyways... here's the drawing I did for Maine house dude.




On an unrelated topic... if you have a roomate that considers making fried eggs once or twice a month and eating canned soup "cooking for himself"... don't be surprised if you wake up to find a skillet over flame with nothing in it, a bottle of vegetable oil with the cap off beside the smoking skillet and his car gone from the driveway one morning.

The teeth cleaning swan song

Next week it's official: I'll be working part time at my job so I can concentrate more on art and music. I can't believe I didn't try this before. I've been at this job so long. My boss and his boss were very cool about the whole thing. I'm willingly giving up health and dental benefits and almost half my paycheck, but it'll be worth it. I figure I'm going to be storing the motorcycle soon so that takes a pretty big risk out during my no-benefits time.

I'll be taking Tuesdays and Wednesdays off from here until... who knows when. If I can maintain focus and use my time wisely, I should be able to achieve a lot of the goals I've had set forever now.

Tomorrow I'm going in for the final teeth cleaning, then I'm done. Any doctors want to trade a painting for a checkup?

In triptych news, I worked on it for a while last night and also today after I woke up. Here's the latest progress.




Dave, I hope you and wife are as excited about it as I'm starting to be.


Hooker Media

Tryptich? Triptych?

Hang on. I've been spelling this different ways for too long. Let me www.m-w.com it.

Ok it's "triptych".

Whew.

Now that the holidays are over I'm working on new paintings. Another Joe Strummer painting, this time for one of my oldest clients, Mark Lind, buyer of the Joan Jett.

I've started sketches for front and back album covers for my good friend Peet Golan. This one will be interesting. The concept he gave me to work with is cool as hell. More to come.

I'm also working on, you guessed it, a triptych for a couple friends of mine from highschool. They were married recently and need some new decoration for their home.

Just like last time with my friend Dara, my friends had no idea what they wanted, they just new they wanted one of my paintings. So I went about it the same way I did before. I had them send me a list of nouns, adjectives, verbs... whatever came to mind... just as long as it was things they enjoyed. It worked pretty well for Dara and hopefully it'll work for Dave and Sue.


Here's Dara's painting to refresh your memory...



And here are the progress photos over the last week of Dave and Sue's triptych to be...







It's funny how both lists from completely different people had quite a few of the same things on them. I'm sure me putting both lists through my ringer had a part in the similarities.

Regardless, I enjoy doing these stream of consciousness paintings. It's a cool way to manifest someone's thoughts. Acting like a visual mouthpiece.

If anyone wants to send me a list... you know where to find me.

Hooker Media

Horrible horrible memory

I went to NC in the middle of December. The Friday night I was there I went out to a bar with a couple friends of mine and we had ourselves a good ol' barhopping night.

I'm not really into the scene that downtown Charlotte had to offer. The first bar was full of beautiful girls and dudes all dressed the same in designer jeans and button down shirts with the first two buttons undone. Then the cover band fired up and the hits started filling my poor ears. Third Eye Blind. Sublime. Sister Hazel. AH! Thank god I always carry earplugs with me! I put them in as conspicuously in front of the band members as possible.

We moved on to a few other places before settling at some huge two story bar with a small line out front. The guy in front of us was a dork dressed in the same aforementioned clothing, but he was about 15 years older than everyone around him. He started boasting to us unprovoked about how he did more drugs, more chicks and saw cooler concerts than us. Great. Good work, dude. We stared at him puzzled.

My friend Will just told me about a song he was listening to earlier today. "Play" by David Banner. I'll spare you the lyrics, but it describes in great detail, one man's quest to pleasure his woman on a dance floor.

That sparked the horrible horrible memory from that night in mid December in Charlotte.

An hour or so after getting to that bar where brodude one-upped us in every aspect of awesome dude life, I caught up with him later on. He and his woman were standing with their backs to the bar. He was in front of her with a drink in his hand. He blurted something to me over the loud music and I kind of nodded and smiled and ignored him. I had no idea what he said. As I reached out to pay the bartender for my beer I noticed he had his left arm crammed down the woman's pants. He looked so proud of himself. I got the hell out of there as quick as I could.

Boiling oil

Last night was pretty sweet. We played in Portland, ME. My "real" band. Not the cover band. We're about two hours from Portland so the drive wasn't bad. The club, Genos, was pretty cool. The stage looked like a diarama. We played pretty well since we had a show the previous night here in Boston. The crowd was kind of small and I bummed out on that, but when we played everyone in the entire place was paying attention. The bartender stopped what she was doing to watch, the doormen stuck their heads into the room to see what the hell was going on.

After the show we headed a few miles south to a cheap hotel room and shared a 30 rack of Bud and a thousand potty stories that kept us all in good spirits.

We headed out this morning and hit Denny's for some pre-road diarrhea. We made it back to Quincy. The day was beautiful and apocalyptically warm. Don't get me wrong, I love nice 70 degree sunny days, but not here. Not in January. I'm kind of scared.

Anyways, we get about two miles from my house and as we drive by a house with a few teenagers on the porch I notice them staring at our van as we drive by. One of them points to the underside of it in amazement. I was the only one who saw this and told Andy to pull over. I get out and look to see smoke starting to billow from the engine's underside. Then everyone gets out in time to see our beloved Ford E-350 diarrhea her now-boiling oil out onto the street below her. Yes we used diarrhea as a verb. It was the only thing to keep us from total depression. Talk about poop jokes.

Long story already long, our van is now in a lot in Braintree, awaiting her diagnosis. I am without a means of transporting band equipment, the huge Vigo painting that has to come down this weekend, the weight set I've been wanting to buy and the screen printing press I've been saving up for.

I'm sorry I took you for granted, sweet E-350.

I hope you'll be alright.

Ong Bak - Donkey Fist Rap

Last year I read about some movie called Ong Bak - Muay Thai Warrior starring a dude named Tony Jaa, a martial artist who prided himself in never using wires for aerial stunts. This was on my way into work. I picked up a Metro off the floor of the train and saw a little sidebar blurb on the movie.

For some odd reason I went to see it after work by myself later on that night. I go to the movies maybe once, twice a year. Friends always find it odd when I turn down offers to go see awesome movies with them and there I was by myself near Boston Common watching sweaty Thai people squawk, florp and fleep their odd language while kicking eachother's asses.

All in all the movie was meh. Cool stunts, but I'd rather watch Tony Jaa do his thing in some sort of competition rather than a crappy movie.

So today I went to youtube and watched some videos of just that.

Then things went sour.



This made Jipjep, Thai goddess of music weep a river of warm tears from her trunk.

It sort of reminds me of a video I was obsessed with a few months ago:

Criminal G!



I love his dietchpossition. Such shwaggurtz. Such bollzen.

Dust and bones

I work shitty hours. 2:30 to 10:30. Well... I've worked every shift imaginable and whether it's over night, early morning or mid day... any hours in an office are shitty hours, but the previous statement still stands. I work shitty hours. 2:30 to 10:30.

So when I do get around to showering it's around 1:00 pm and I usually dry off in beams of afternoon sunlight that shine into my room like spotlights from heaven.

"Why the hell does he dry off in his room" you may ask. Well recently I started a practice that just may be one of the few rights of passage into manhood I have left to experience: The face towel... and the separate grundle towel.

That's right. Two towels. One for above the belt. One for below. I had heard of this practice over a decade ago when a friend told me of his father employing the face/grundel towels. I couldn't believe it. How decadent. How wasteful.

They said I'd like broccoli someday. And now I do. Never would have thought I'd be shoveling broccoli in with glee and using separate towels for my upper body and my (jingling bell noises).

But back to the part where I dry off in beams of light. You know how much crap flies off your body and your towel when you dry off?

Little dust particles. Dead skin. Once a girl left some lotion on my nightstand.



This stuff.

Instead of using some of the lotion on my dry ass New Englander skin, I thought it'd be cute to scratch the "Oce" off the label.

I'm still clutching the doorjamb leading to manhood as tightly as I can while the rest of the world is trying to drag me in.

Tai chi, chai tea....etc.

Anyone ever tried Tai Chi? Learning from books and dvd's is rough. I wish someone would get it right and film themselves from behind. I'm starting to get it though.

Qigong, a cousin of tai chi, is really really simple if you break it down to individual exercises but putting them together makes my head explode.

Oh yeah, happy new years. I played a show on NYE. What did everyone do?



Two hours worth of 80's covers. I never want to learn another cover song again.

The show was a really good time though.

Anyone have any new years resolutions? Me neither. Cept maybe take a tai chi class from a live human.

New Paintings Here