mlk

"I say to you today even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream that is deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed."

It's only befitting that I include Martin Luther King Jr. in a post today.  Having not grown up during the Civil Rights Movement, or even been alive, I'll claim ignorance to what kind of environment and time he lived, fought and died in.  I can say, however, that it was without a doubt due to his and his colleagues' efforts that I grew up without prejudice in my home and schooling.  I didn't realize it when I was young, but today I think about how great a thing it truly was to not grow up looking on people of different race, creed or religion with prejudice and hatred.

The sad fact is, not everyone thinks this way.  People seem to find more ways to hate then to love, care or unite.   

belated birthday

I have no idea why I never published the following back in October.  My guess is I was being critical of my writing.  Well, here it is now with a few edits:

Only a few days ago I logged in another full year of life.  My dad, in his dad ways, dad tone and dad corniness made the comment,"You're catching up to me in age!".  Then I realized that someday I'd be that dad making that dad-esque comment to my child, with my child then rolling their eyes and thinking,"I'll never be that corny when I'm his age!". 

Every time I dare think about how I'm at a period in my life when pacifiers should be drying in the dish rack, I start thinking about the things I want to do before that becomes reality.  No, I'm not scared (not terrified either), I don't hate kids, I just know the same facts spat out from every parent I've talked to about being parent.

This weekend I'll be helping out at a Haunted Trail.  That is to say I'll be daunting torn up clothing, splattering myself with fake blood and scaring the bajeezes out of the following: selfish, text-messaging teens, drunken parents (yes, nothing like a half-lit adult around kids!), fried potheads, too-cool-for-school thugs, and of course the poor little ones that get drug along the trail kicking and screaming from the get-go.  It's almost therapeutic.  "Take that: guy who probably cut me off the other day! the woman who wouldn't just pay for her damn groceries!  the child who just had to touch everything in Target!". 

So the way I see it, if I do have children in the near future this trail might just be my outlet.  Or I'll just randomly pull out a ghoul mask in the grocery store on a random day of a random month. 

icing on the cake

I started writing one thing but found it had no legs what-so-ever.  So, I thought about what makes me happy and away I went.



Deli
Wayne Thiebaud



I didn't discover the LA artist Wayne Thiebaud until college, luckily early in college, via the Art Conservation Club.  We took a trip to DC for the sole purpose of gallery hopping.  I'm not sure if it was coincidental or had a reason,but three different galleries had works by Thiebaud:  The Corcoran, The Phillips Collection and another one I can't recall to save my life.  Funny thing is, I almost didn't go on the trip due to the "narrow scope" of seeking out only this one artist's work that I've never seen and didn't know a thing about.   

Thankfully some divine intervention put me in the van on its way to DC, the lone male (someone had to be) and lone freshman.  The only thing I had to go on of what to expect was the president of the club's description, "he painted what he loved and what made him happy".  So as long as what made him happy wasn't a pile of poo, it couldn't be too bad.    

Well, not much has to be said for what came from the trip.  I became an instant admirer, for one and got an itch to explore more galleries, experience more artists I never heard of.  I had been such a strict realist with my artwork that I dismissed too many artists, especially those modernists (psh).  Now I have a calendar from MoMA on my office wall.  We also visited the National Gallery of Art and the Renwick Gallery of Art; it was at the Renwick I discovered a piece I've talked about ever since visiting:

Ghost Clock
1985 Wendell Castle
Smithsonian American Art Museum
1989.68

Change can bring happiness and snatch people out of the ruts in the road. 

the great american

Right now I'm thinking of the many Christmas seasons when my parents bundled my brother and I up and headed out to Hershey Park.  Yes, Hershey (a usual summer destination, with roller coasters, etc.) Park in 30 degree or below temps.  Every year, since I can remember, the park turned their entrance "village", stands and vendor areas into a glowing, sparkling, semi-chocolate-induced Christmas wonderland.  We'd make our way from the parking lot, into the toasty, chocolate scented "Chocolate World", humming the "Hershey Song" between chattering teeth.  I don't ever recall there being a charge to enter, but of course they got ya with hot chocolate, cookies and all the "Hersheyana" you can stand.  My parents weren't as hesitant to satiate our nagging for it either, as I'm pretty sure they liked it as much as we did.   

It was only a few years ago that the Hershey Company closed its factory in Reading, PA.  This is where York Peppermint Patties, Zagnut, Jolly Ranchers and 5th Avenue bars were made for 23 years.  Next time you go to tear into the wrapper of one notice "Made in Mexico".  This jaded me more then I thought it might.  While my chocolate dipped memories are still intact they can be personified by the lost chocolate bar  in the back of the refrigerator or cupboard, found when the craving for it came, opened up to a disappointingly white, chalky film formed on the outside.  Bottom line, "Damn it!  Why'd they have to go and spoil it for me!".
 
Two years ago my mom asked if we wanted to go out to the Christmas Village at Hershey.  She was feeling nostalgic and suddenly I was 8 again.  I didn't think a minute about the factories or the workers who lost their jobs.  I sank into the dreamland that made me smile ear to ear, wanting, more then anything, to share this with my wife.  We went and it really was a great time, very much like remember, just smaller feeling.   

So it wasn't until I sat and thought about it about a day ago that I got into a quandary of "Wow, Hershey sucks for doing what they did, but I have fun when I'm at their Park!", up against the fact that they now may move the whole production out of Hershey, PA, if the union can't strike a deal, keeping a new facility nearby.  The need for the new facility makes sense, the idea that the workers and the people of the town of Hershey come a distant second, feels like a low-blow to an ailing economy.   

Kind of feels like deciding to shoot Old Yeller.

turn...and face the strain

A lot can happen in a week's time.  No sooner do I sit down then change occurs yet again.  The inevitability of change is both inviting and scary to me, especially thinking about it over the holidays when family and friends surround me holding trays of cookies and turkey.  I try NOT to think of change; my grandmother's eventual death, people moving away, people getting divorces, the holidays ending.  All the more reason to get lost in every little moment you can.  I can be both good and bad at this.  If it's not something I want to be doing I get lost in the thought of being somewhere else!  Yes, that human nature thing that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.  I've gotten better at being content with the turf I'm on, even the crab grass.   

I had to take a moment to write before getting going on my workday.  I try not to do this just because it is work, the paramount reason I am able to do what I do outside of the place (IE recreation, buying food, ability to go to a doctor and not sell my car to do so).  I've found taking things off my mind early in the day much better then going through the day with it.  So there ya have it.

haiku

autumnal leaves dash
carried wayward on smokey winds
memories float

I don't recall the last time I wrote one, so it's been too long.

shutter island

Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody.

-Franklin P. Adams (1881 - 1960), Nods and Becks, 1944

I'm going to choose not to go into a rant on politics, including the outcome of yesterday's voting (even though, as of now, I believe Alaska is still counting).  I want to stick to the rules of cocktail party etiquette in not talking about two things in my blog:  politics and religion.  Hey, I figure out the next new party's name, the "Cocktail Party"!  Huh, it's funny but with a hint of possibility.  Allow me to shutter. 

where's the fire?

The hurrier I go
The behinder I get

My mom had this cross-stitched onto one of those corkboard/chalkboard message holder things in her kitchen when I was growing up.  One of "Mom's Mantra" which planted itself in my subconscious.  It stirred up randomly the other morning when I realized that while I'd like to use this as an excuse for myself, I can't.  I hate hurrying, running around like a nut-job, as if it helps a situation.  However I know many of that type, who spin their wheels in the thick, muddy slurry that is their work, their duties and their commitments with the wishful thinking that it will get them to their goals.  By days end they are physically and mentally spent, their tasks not much farther along then when they started.

Call it lack of dedication or pride, but I choose to consciously leave my work at work.  Yes, I gripe about it, pull a little hair out from time to time because of it, but I refuse to sit and analyze it.  Everytime I do my mind is driving that 40 minutes back to work, away from a tasty beer, a cozy sofa and mowing the lawn (maybe that last one isn't so bad to drive away from).

I prefer the Army soldiers' saying, "Hurry up and wait".