Pan's Plethora

2009-09-05T10:53:00.004-04:00

The Harleys of 2009

Well, we knew it was coming. The metrics (Honda and Yamaha) got traded in this spring for Harley Davidsons. We acquired two softtails, a Heritage and a Deluxe. This has opened up a completely different world to us which has been our obsession for most of this summer, 2009.

The new power and range and comfort of the bigger bikes has made riding a real pleasure. Addeed to that has been the sudden acceptance into new circles of big bikers. Those secret hand waves along the highway pay off. Yes, there is definitely a different respect for those who seriously ride. The Harley mystique is alive and well. Women, too, are getting into the culture big time. It has been entertaining for me, if not irreverent, to watch how people posture and walk around looking at each others bikes and making all the appropriate comments and grunts. A kind of aloofness seems to be prerequisite to "getting to know you." Dogs come to mind.. :)

The wearing of leather also changes the role one plays in society. Leather has its own associations with toughness and endurance. Fact is it is your only protection against the environment of the rider, substituting for the hard shell of automobiles. So it is a necessity but as mentioned comes with a whole lot of social baggage. The styles with zippers and snaps and covered with badges and patches can present quite an intimidating image. How surprising to find that many of these scary tough characters who might cause you to role up you windows in traffic turn out to be incredibly polite and considerate persons.

So we get the new bikes and range far and wide and meet new people who invite you to go further and meet more people and pretty soon your whole circle seems to be bikers and your old friends are looking at you with a sort of, "What happened?" look and they are definitely not going to to there with you. It has been interesting to sit down with people who would never have given you the time of day and find them open to you. The motorcycle, like a puppy. opens new doors and seems to invite contact between like minded people.

Like minded? That's pretty broad. There are vast subcultures within the subculture. From solo and family riders to social groups. From a ride around the hills to big charity rides and rallies, finding our place has not been easy. Adhering to certain values of safety and health and seeking others who share the same concerns is a prime directive. We found a local Honey Farms mega gas station and Dunky Ds that provides some outdoor tables and every evening we descend upon the place with a cluster of other bikers. Sometimes we take off from there on small excursions but most often we sit around talking and waiting to see who else will show up. Because of the size and location of the complex, a steady stream of travelers come off the highway and often join in the conversation with their own stories of high adventure. Have met some great folks.

I love riding. I have put on almost 7000 miles since I got the Harley in early May. It's now early September. What I had thought would be an economical way to get around with triple the gas mileage of my van turned out to get ridden three times as much. You do the math.

I am at a place, now, where I want to define my own role in all of this and determine just how I want to integrate the bike into my creative life. A great deal of time has been spent on this new diversion and not much else has been accomplished. It's time to evaluate this new obsession. Get back to my arts. I have already found the I can just barely squeeze my openback-banjo case into the stock saddlebags that came with the Heritage Softail. Like a cork into a bottle. Twice now I have packed it off to a jam or gig. At present I am trying to organize some sort of art pack for the bike so I can use the bike as a low profile way to get out and do plein aire drawing and painting.

Fall is upon us. Western Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire have some of the best riding available anywhere. Our favorite excursion is to go from hilltown to hilltown, stopping in at the little country stores or pubs that serve each community.

Happy riding

2009-01-25T07:51:00.003-05:00

2008-2009

Yup, a couple of rice burners for the sake of MPG. We sure hate having to put them up for the winter, We will see what options offer themselves in the spring.

Meanwhile the ski slopes are seeing a lot of me this year, Wachusett is nearby and we have a small group willing to make the run several times a week.

Had a great trip out to San Francisco in the summer for the Jug Band Festival. There is some stuff on YouTube for the Kapakahi Jug Band from that festival.

2007-10-05T11:54:00.000-04:00

Into the Autumn of 07

What a summer. Full of music and travels. From Tennessee to Vermont. Plenty of banjo and parties.

But mostly a sense of getting my life back; of having the energy to get going again.
Really had to cut back and drop all the computer activity, or should I say inactivity. I really think there is something to the theory of needing to burn off the adrenalin that computer anxiety can send coursing through your system, whether from game playing or virtual socializing. Enough is enough.

So as of spring it was back to the woods. Back to the arts. back to creatively expressing myself and doing it in a physical context.

This fall I have returned to contra dancing. Something I did extensively in the past but had drifted away from since the creation of a family and raising of a young daughter. I remember dancing with her in a sling until she became too heavy. Then there was a time when she was 7 or so and she wanted to dance but because of her small size, men would pick her up during a swing. This just wouldn't do and she no longer wished to go. Well now she is close to 14 and can hold her own on the dance floor. It is the finest aerobic exercise I can think of.

2007-01-06T16:46:00.000-05:00

Nothing stops the plunker.

Neither rain nor storm nor falling snow. One meditates and melts a circle in the drift. Fear not, the day was warm but when the boughs let go there was still a running for cover.

"I traced her little footprints in the snow."

2006-05-15T09:23:00.000-04:00

A Band Reunion

There are all sorts of reunions in our lives. School reunions are probably the most commonly thought about but re connecting with old friends and places and communities also create reunion circumstances. I have the opportunity to look at the feelings as one such time approaches.

Playing in a band creates a unique bond between members. I'm not so much thinking of the professional band where members are thrown together in an extended family situation over a long period of time (like forever) but more the casual band where members gather for the sole purpose of a gig or two and return to their avocations. On the one hand we are all different people with our own lives and often great dissimilarities. Yet we find common ground and gather on occasion to share in that unique sphere of musical expression. For some reason, diverse peoples will share a common response or at least a common attraction to a type and style of music. The common attraction might be intuitive or historic, based on positive experiences in the past associated with a style and rhythm. Maybe it’s all just an innate ability to play in a certain style.

For my self, this common thread has been in the genre of Jug Band music. It's not that that it’s the only sort of music I like. In fact, it's not even my favorite music for normal listening but for reasons unknown, it is the music that came most easily to my guitar and banjo playing. I have always fallen in amongst people who shared an interest in this music. When called upon to contribute a tune, it would be along the old ragtime or early jazz style, altered to fit my abilities of course.

At some point in my history a group of musicians with the time to gather regularly gravitated together out in Honolulu. While some folks sat in and moved on, a core group formed out of those who always seemed to be there. Maybe they stuck together because of their residential permanence in the area or maybe it was their personal need to create a common shared expression. Music is always better and more exciting when you have others to bounce off of.

This group eventually became known as the Kapakahi Jug Band. Many casual gigs were played over the years in a wide variety of venues. It was never clear just how seriously various members took themselves in this but it got serious enough to keep records and to organize a sort of schedule. The monies involved were minimal but through a period there in the late 70s things could get hectic.

In 1981 the band decided to cut a vinyl album. It was self produced and sold hand to hand at gigs. It did help define a membership roster for the band and gave us a way of thinking about ourselves as an entity but by 1983 a general dispersal of this membership put the band back into the casual category of changing membership as new folks would fill in the voids.

Surprise of surprises, 20 some odd years later, the album gets reproduced on CD by a company in Japan called Buffalo Records. This project pulled the members from the eighties together again (bless that internet) and caused us all to look back and reflect upon what had been. It was great to see how a membership still identified with itself and could take itself seriously again raising all sorts of concerns and issues over this new release. A new bond was forming.

Well here we are in 2006 and as a result of all this excitement and reflection we are all cascading into Honolulu for a reunion this year. Not that this is the first time that we thought it would be good to get together again but almost with a life of its own, the band has committed to a time and place and made itself available.

August! What will happen in August? Can these people, whose expressions and musical development which has continued to evolve down new avenues since 1983, return to those thrilling days of yesteryear? ...to those memories frozen in time? I know for myself, that I no longer sing certain songs the same way or even in the same key yet I have a feeling that like riding a bicycle we will lapse easily into what once was.

Reunions are like that. Just as an adult who tells a story of their childhood will lapse into the jargon and manner of speech that was prevalent in the original setting of the story being told, we fall back into the time stamped upon our memories.

That said, it’s time to wash away any expectations and go forward into this as a new adventure. This reunion is a vast blank canvas, full of potential.

Like Bart once said during a partial gathering in 1999,
"It's just like old times, only we all know who we're going home with tonight."

The Album

The Kapakahi Jug Band

2006-05-04T23:41:00.000-04:00

Loss

How do we loose what we have never had? This year of 2006 has taken a strange toll on the emotional health of my family. On the surface of it all one would say that nothing so unexpected has occurred but through the eyes of my 12 year old daughter, the foundations of her life have been rocked. In January her grandmother who had been fumbling into dementia seemed to give up and begin to die. She was gone on Valentines day under a full moon. There was no great bond between them but the realization of impermanence struck home in the mind of a pre teen. She began to notice and think about the many deaths that stalk us on TV and in movies and literature.

In late march we all came down with a bout of flu. My wife was struck a bit harder than the rest of us and after a fainting episode, seemed to go into an imbalance that needed medical and emotional attention. The fainting spell and its consequences also placed a lasting fear of loss into the young ones mind.

Then again, the very friend portrayed in the image below playing saw left us very suddenly, taken by a stroke. My daughter did not remember meeting him some 7 years ago but she was well enough aware of the toll his death took on those of us who did know him.

So death has been flying about us and at a time when a young mind is trying to put it all in perspective. My family does not mask the reality of death with beliefs and theories but leaves it open and exposed to be what it is. There is evidence of truth all around us. Every flower that blooms and fades, every thing that forms and dissolves is evidence enough.

Yet it is a hard time for this young girl. The simple cutting of a tree can bring tears. But it is a time that will pass and hopefully leave a strength of character and an understanding of ones place in the greater flow of life.

2005-11-20T15:26:00.001-05:00

Banjo Man

My how time flys. There was a time when playing music nearly supported me. Weekly gigs and all. Like so many good things those times passed and I let the ball roll for a while.

In the 80s I moved from Hawaii to New England. I found a very different attitude toward music here. There was a strong sense of the right and wrong way to play certain songs. A sort of ingrown tradition. I did make an effort to find some where to plug in with my self taught style but over the course of 10 years I slowly faded out of performing and eventually stopped playing altogether. Picking up the guitar or banjo became an infrequent ocurance. The tunes seemed old and rut bound. I couldn't break out and I had lost the incentive.

This summer (2005) I was asked if I would be willing to put a few Shakesearian lyrics to the banjo for a production of "As You Like It" that was being set in the "summer of love." Because my daughter was to be in the production I agreed to give it a shot and found myself putting in quite a bit of practice and rehearsel time. The production went well but more than that, I was left with a new inertia and a new willingness to let new things happen in terms of sensativities.

I have been putting in a lot of time ever since the play in early September. New tunes and new approaches to playing some of my own standards have reawaken some of the excitement I used to get from playing. Even thinking of working up a set or two and going public again.

Playing Griselda on the old Vega Ranger

2005-11-08T20:11:00.000-05:00

Living in a Cave

revisited in 2006

revisited in 1992

In 1975 I returned to Hawaii after some time spent traveling on the continent. I found my resources were pretty well depleted and had an uncertainty as to just how I was going to re fit myself back into the old network. Initially I was staying with friends and trying to re establish old ties. I ran into a friend who was a follower of a guru in India. He had been staying in a cave in the mountains in the back of Honolulu. He had shown this place to me in the past. We often sat and spoke on various topics of truth and belief. He wore the monk garb of India and taught a class on Indian music at the University of Hawaii. When he made the decision to go to India to be with his chosen guru, I took the opportunity to take up residence in the cave.

At this time I had an informal association with a zendo then existent in Manoa Valley. I sometimes slept in their garage. It was a personal association and completely off the record but enough of a commitment to be the foundation of a personal practice. With images of meditating devotees I headed for the hills to experience solitude and the rantings of an unquiet mind. My few remaining things were carefully stored in various available garages and with a bag of rice and a broken cast pot I made my way into the mountains.

It goes without saying that if one were going to do such a thing, you could hardly beat Hawaii as an environment for a hermitage experiment. The area was in the midst of considerable wilderness and lent itself well to the scavenging of food. Many imported exotics are now wild in the islands so pear (avocado), macadamia nuts, mango, banana, lilikoi (passion fruit), and much more were easily found. It was a lesson to learn just how much a bunch of bananas can weigh. I would have to make multiple trips to the source to move the load. Civilization was never far away. Hikers would often pass within earshot of the cave and the risk of being discovered was ever present. I was never sure what the consequences might be if discovered so stealth became important, necessary or not.

Being in the forest was a darker and colder experience than one might think. There is a cold rawness to the mountains in Hawaii. I was often of a mind to climb into the canopy just to get some sun and warm up. Palms were woven to make a sleeping pad and at some point I wove a wall across the front of the cave to keep out the wind driven rains.

Meditation in the Zen form became regular for me. Morning and evening and whenever else I deemed it opportune I wouldsit zazen. I remember how loud the mind would get. A song stuck in your head would play forever with no knob for turning it off. I remember a whole day of Joplin singing, “When bobby sang the blues.” Various areas of the cave became physical locations for visualizations. The mind was often allowed to follow unexpected pathways to see what it might discover. I recall that there was a Bagdavagita left in the cave and a Bible. I had brought Suzuki’s text with me as well but in fact I don’t think I ever resorted to reading any of them. I just appreciated their company.

So there I was. Small evening fires to cook rice, and roast nuts, a head full of contemplation, and a routine of heading out to different locations each day in quest of a variety of foods, dodging and hiding from any sort of encounter with others. I can not begin to know how many days I would pass in this way, seeing no one. What stands out are the exceptions, the visits from others who either knew of the cave on their own or came seeking me and might call from the trail, knowing the area but not the place. I was not so reclusive not to appreciate and welcome someone to talk with. Visitors were few and far between but always welcome. Of those who came on their own I remember Kabir who guided the Sufis in their dancing. It was an honor to receive him and an affirmation of my commitment. There was also an art professor at the UH who blundered upon me, not knowing I was there but familiar with me from the UH campus. We spoke of deeper things and appreciations of the world. Some others unknown to me found me out. They were all pleasant enough and never caused any trouble. Oh, and there was also an unusual street woman who called herself Winebago. She wore vines in her hair and carried most of her belongings about with her. She came a couple of times and seemed very “put out” that I was there. She had known the previous resident.

Tea
The final access to the cave was pretty well hidden. to keep from wearing a path I had placed some stones a row which I could step on to approach the cave entrance. To get to these hidden stones you first had to first follow an occasionally used access trail to a small waterfall. This access required that you leave a main trail, descend a steep embankment, cross over the stream on a log, pass though head-high ginger, and climb a small ledge to the falls. It was quite indirect and meant that you wove back and forth below the unseen cave as you approached. On one occasion I was visited by a woman friend who had recently returned from the study of Tea in Japan. She waited on the main valley path across the ravine. I guided her across the stream to the falls where we paused and refreshed. Once the breath and hearts were quieted down, we went to the cave where I had prepared balls of rice and some fruit and nuts and, of course, hot water for tea. She later confided that she had been very intrigued over how the whole visit had followed the course of a tea ceremony about which I had no knowledge at the time. A sort of intuition to be polite and thoughtful had guided the visit and perhaps revealed the origins of a ritual.

Dogs
There was one early morning when I became aware of a general disturbance in the valley below, a loud and unusual rustling. I first suspected a large number of silently moving people but soon came to realize that there was a pack of dogs spread out and combing the valley floor for food. The pack mentality of wild dogs is legendary and I kept silent hoping they would just continue up the valley and leave me be. This appeared to be the case until a lone dog appeared above the cave and found its way down the ledge. It seemed full of fear but not so afraid as to stay away from my human presence. Cautious and wary though it was, it did receive and consume a bowl of rice I put out for it and then proceeded to fall asleep. I went off on my routine of gathering, choosing a direction other than the dogs had taken. I had much on my mind. I was full of inner questions about caring for the animal with my limited resources and wondering about the responsibility that comes from lending a hand. Also I thoght about the morality of leaving of things to their own fate without intervening. When I got back to the cave the dog had overturned the main rice pot. All the rice had been consumed and other stocksof food stuffs were torn apart and eaten. The dog was gone. When it returned a few days later I pulled some anger out of my pocket and told him to seek his karma elsewhere.

Tiki
I got to thinking about artifacts. I had found a nice round piece of lava stone and spent some time grinding a couple of shallow holes into it to create a sort of face. It was interesting to me how important this new presence became. Slowly a stack of stones became a body and I dressed it in a cape of ti leaves and small vines and twigs. In the absence of social activity, I empowered this being with personality and appropriate responses to imagined dialogue. How easy it was to set up this empowerment, the way children do with dolls. It was like the beginnings of idolatry, the empowering of inanimate objects. Well it made for good company and I went so far as to ensconce the character in a niche beside the nearby waterfall. It had been there for a week or more with me caring for it, keeping the niche clean and leaving it tidbits of food. I can’t really call it a ritual but it did become a pattern, mostly because it was fun but also because it was fulfilling some inner need to relate to something. So all was well until one afternoon when I heard what I must describe as a blood curdling scream. I really was imagining some horrible crime was occurring and I rushed to an overlook of the waterfall, only to see two figures hastening off through the ginger patch speaking lowly to each other. “Come on, we have to get out of here, I’ve heard for these things before” “We never should have come here.” “Come on, hurry” “This place is kapu, we shouldn’t be here”
With a smile, I brought the tiki back to the cave.

Notwone
I did no drawing or writing in all the time I spent up there. I did beat out rhythms with sticks and stones in the night. I found sticks of certain tones and notes and collected them. I spoke to things both animate and inanimate. Held monologues with the rats and mongooses that raided my bananas. The mouse who ate macadamia nut crumbs off my chest in the morning sun I called friend but I doubt he returned the concept. I did at some point scratch the word “NOTWONE” with charcoal on the cave wall. It had something to do with thinking about duality. Not two, one. I think I was seeking a personal mantra and I found great delight in this made up word. This became my poem from the cave.

Returning

revisited in 1992

After several months time, I began to wander out of the valley in the middle of the night. I would walk old familiar streets but see very little in the way of people. Usually, by daylight, I would head back into the valley. I was once asked directions and on another time had someone who knew me stop to ask if I was OK. I could not find my voice. Nor did I have the will to answer questions. The ability to speak or even to compose a response seemed exhausting. These folks departed with great concern. I recall another time, seeing someone with car troubles, I walked up to help push the car out of the intersection and then walked away without speaking a word. Looking back now, I can see how this must have appeared but I have the memory and the knowledge that everything was fine. I began staying out of the valley for longer periods of time. One of my first visits to a campus cafeteria was for an all you can eat buffet and, although I had never felt hungry, I gorged by self into discomfort. This truely surprised me.

I began to make contacts again and I found a gig playing banjo in a small restaurant for a meal and tips. Toward Christmas the owner offered to let me stay in the restaurant, closed for the season, and provide materials for me to paint a large mural on the wall. This memory reminds me that I was still without a formal place to live. I accepted and proceeded to work on three sheets of plywood to be hung in the restaurant. Now there was a monk walking around the UH in his robe and he had attracted my attention. People had mentioned to me that he was from Vietnam but I had neither met nor spoken to him. Out of curiousity I would sometimes follow him around to see what he was about. On one of these silent pursuits he went into a campus building and when I, following not too far behind, turned the corner…. no one was there. He had vanished. I went down the hall thinking he must have gone into a classroom and then at the end of the hall when I turned back, he was standing in plain sight with a grin on his face. So the gig was up. As we approached each other, he reached into his sleeve before any words were spoken and pulled out a small fan covered with Japanese characters. This he handed to me and then said something to the effect of. “Do you know tea ceremony?” “This is appropriate gift for tea ceremony.” “Hurry!” “Go now, there is tea ceremony in the garden” “Go! Go!” Then he bowed and walked away.

So off I go to the garden where there is an wonderful imported tea house from Japan and sure enough, there is a tea ceremony in progress being conducted by a well known master from Japan. A second group of students had gathered, obviously awaiting their turn and their instructor, being familiar with me and hearing of my recent encounter, invited me to join them. This was a wonderful and unexpected adventure. When the ceremony was over I went to the Master to offer my fan as a gift. He looked at it a bit puzzled and then told me how he had just given this to a monk in a saffron robe.

One day while I was working on the restaurant mural, the monk, whose name I had since learned was Tu, walked in. He raised his hands in a gesture indicating that I should not take notice of him and sat in a corner to watch my work. I don’t recall how long he was there this first time but he returned and eventually we got into conversations. This is when I learned his name. When we got around to speakng about the cave he was quite interested and asked to see it. He also told of how he had nearly died from mosquitos while in a cave in his native land. I offered to take him up to the cave and we did spend a day up there sharing stories.

So one day a bit later he arrives at the restaurant with a large object wrapped in a cloth and announces that it is for the cave. Inside the cloth is a large gold painted plaster Buddha. He also tells me he is leaving Hawaii. We set the Buddha up to watch the mural’s progress and I told Tu that I would take it to the cave when the painting was completed. Tu spent the rest of the day watching and then departed. I never saw him again. When the painting was finished, I packed the Buddha on my back and carried it to the cave where I left it on a platform in the back of the cave.

In 1992, I had a chance to return to Hawaii and revisit the cave. I found the Buddha and the books just as I had left them. Then in 1999 on another return visit to Hawaii, the Buddha and all signs of my stay there were gone though I did find the cast pot below in the woods. Strangely, I had word from a friend that they had found the broken head of a gold Buddha while hiking in that very valley. They knew about my having stayed in a cave but knew nothing with regards to where I had done this or where the cave was.

2005-11-08T08:53:00.000-05:00

Rennies

Rennies

Our involvment with "Rennies" began when the Shoestring Plyers were asked to perform "The Tempest" at the Rennaisance Festival in connecticut in 2004. My daughter had a bit part and so the whole family trucked on down and had a great time. We left home in concocted costumes and quickly realized how obvious our ruse was. We came home that fall all decked out in new costumng . The following spring, we headed out in our new and home crafted duds. Now to find roles.

2005-11-08T06:10:00.000-05:00

The Impediment of Old Work
Now it is true that work stored under the bed becomes a drag to progress. Five year old work can be displayed is if new to a new audience, (wink yourself). A large drawing on my wall was sold in the past and returned when the folks left this life. I havn't used a gallery since 1983, and I havn't done any large painting since 1997 when I did a 10 painting series for a show. Most of what sells has been the drawings, some done with ink wash.
Since my involvment with computer graphics and animation 15 years ago, the hands-on work has taken a back seat. My body has suffered and my exposure to the world and the real elements has diminished . This past year, 2005, has changed all of that as I began to let the computer work go and to think of myself as in retirement (sort of).
It's like, "time to go find your own feathers!"
Everything is an expression of some interpretation of the moment and of course, the viewer makes it their own.

On another note:
I have a great friend who has recently inherited an orchard north of Mt Hood and is in the process of moving there as we speak. Mt Hood? Parkdale? something like that, Anyway. Looks like a trip west next year could become a reality.

2005-11-04T19:38:00.000-05:00

A sudden interest in JPop, Japanese teen pop culture.

It started with an awarness brought on by the movie Wasabi. It stars the actress Ryoko Harosue who dresses in a very unco ordinated style with attitude. The missmatch of textures and fabric become an expression of their own. very flashy and against all the rules of fashion.

My daughter has been discovering her own personality in these pre teen years. She discovered her dad's "hippy" roots over the summer during our combined involvment in a preoduction of Shakespeare's "AS You Like It" The play was set in the 1960's and brought out lots of costume and social information of the era. I'm afraid my daughter got to discover just how deeply her dad had been involved in those times. On her own she seems to have embraced the look of those times and has begun to dress in tie-dyes and loose rennaisance clothing. She is doing this without any support group at school, setting herself up as an outsider. We have talked of this and I hope she will have the strength to stand against the sorts of peer pressure she is about to encounter.

In gathering images from the web showing the street wear of some of the more colorful teens in Japan we have become aware of a sort of division in the expression. There are the bright,, colorful mismatched, almost clownish, outfits. And these stand along side the gothic/lolita styles (fashion writers terms). The gothic seems to stress cuteness rather than morbidness or sexiness. It is clearly consumer oriented with highly crafted outfits available in specialized boutiques. the other, more poppish wear looks a bit more home spun but I may be wrong in this.

I inquired for an opinion from a friend living in Japan and got the following response:

"As far as I can say about the fashions of teenagers here, they do run
around wild in whatever they think cool (or hot?) beyond imaginations
of adults in the media for sure. From 60-70s influenced bell bottoms
or surfer? baggy pants barely hanging over their hip bones showing
off their panties, lacy skirts over jeans, and the most freaky ones
are with bonnets and petticoats with frills and flower prints. Their
shoes are of course with straps or laced up boots, and in their hands
carry parasols to complete their fashion. I once in a while run into
this group on weekends, and you think it is some kind of costume
parade. There must be a boutique somewhere that sells these stuffs to
these girls.
I think it has been for almost 20 years from when a whole bunch of
kids used to dance in the streets in kung-fu like fashion. I remember
once watching TV interviewer asking the kids if they had come out of
home in the costume, but the kids said they change clothes in public
bathrooms.
And then, there came girls hiking up their school uniform skirt just
enough to cover their bottoms, loose saggy sox around their ankles
and Burberry tartan check mufflers around their necks.
Then some years ago, there were girls in long bleached out hair
painting their face dark with bright eye shadows and heavy mascara.
Their skirts were short and jackets were fake fur. They were so
ugly. They have disappeared now.
I tried a quick search for some photos but could not find any on the
net.
Unlike 20 years ago, I think parents of today have no power over
these teenagers that they come straight out of home in whatever
fashion they please. It has a lot to do with media giving them the
carte blanche."

2005-11-04T18:27:00.000-05:00

Strange times upon us.
I find myself awash with the past. Age is such a nemisis.
I have begun a MoBlog for images on the web. Although it's nice to have an audience, I feel the need to get creative again. Posting past works just reveals how ones art can become an impediment to prorgress.