Staying Up Late Translating Doodle Portals

I asked my 7-year-old daughter what she thought about this picture and she gave me a 15-minute, in-depth explanation that was as good as any I could have come up with myself. I suspect putting off bedtime was the primary reason her story was so extensive, but she had some great insights that helped me see my picture beyond my own interpretation. Part of her description had to do with the person in the picture seeing a portal in the sky that was lifting people out of the sand, and this person is starting to form into another body, but that other body isn't real. I had never thought of the spirals that are inside and outside of the figure as "portals," but she recognized them immediately thanks to all of the spiraling portals spinning around the characters on Cartoon Network these days. I like her concept of portals and I think it nicely describes the stuff being conjured in this picture. It reminds me how much I like the idea of personal translation as it applies to art and how many ideas can come out of a few simple lines.

Possessed by Funk

I've been traveling around the United States lately, namely the southern and eastern parts, and have been enjoying some mighty fine music everywhere I turn the radio dial. The funny thing is that I have unintentionally found myself drawn to things I have heard and things I thought I had heard, but they have all taken on new meaning and nuances in my life that are making them more exciting than ever. For example, I thought I knew Sly and the Family Stone, but I was wrong. Now, I knew that he took everyone higher at Woodstock, which was a funkified feat unto itself, but his recorded music is deeper than I imagined. That man and his group of hipsters could funk it up before we knew we needed funking! I found an old Greatest Hits album and Stand! at the local Goodwill and they've been staying in heavy rotation on my basement turntable where I listen to albums in quadraphonic sound while I paint. I like the part in the song "Stand" where he says something like, "There's a midget standing tall, while the giant above him is about to fall." The political incorrectness of the "midget" remark shows how long ago Sly was singing about the rights of little people, and I have to admit that it made me laugh out loud when I first heard it, but I love the sentiment that runs through all of the songs on these records (even if they occasionally digress to goofy pop ballads). Sly was all about bringing people together and having a good vibration for all, regardless of differences. I especially love all of the vocal effects the many singers create with their nonsense words and pulsing rhythms (in stereo). Nobody has done it as well as Sly since (sorry Prince). Where would Michael Jackson or Prince or Bob Marley or Missy Elliott be without Sly's guidance so long ago. And where would Sly be without James Brown.

I read a fantastic article about James Brown in a recent Rolling Stone that takes the reader behind the scenes of a James Brown recording session, The James Brown Show, and the man himself. The story describes a powerful musician who remains the living embodiment of innovation and groove despite his fame and insecurities. The wonderfully written story left me inspired to hear more, so James Brown Live at the Apollo has stayed inside my car's CD player for a week and refuses to get old. After reading the story in RS, I feel like I can see the show before my eyes, with James making cryptic hand signals to the Flames as they race around his plethora of hits. Without peer, Brown is the greatest screamer who ever belted out his soul to everyone within earshot. What a great record and testiment to his genius!

My whole dive into the funk began when I stuck a Meters record (Second Street Strut) on my turntable before heading down to New Orleans for a few days. Although they make chicken clucking sounds on one song, and sing a little on a couple of others, the funk is mostly instrumental, creating some of the grooviest tunes ever heard. The euphoria they bring me makes me feel slightly cheated by a childhood and young adulthood of nothing but "The Home of Rock and Roll" and its ilk playing nothing but whitebread for me until I finally moved away to the West Coast to hear the true colors that real radio can bring. I found that even the south has a more diverse selection of music on its radio stations than here in the northeast. Why was I kept from the beauty of Funkadelic and Parliament on WMMR and WYSP while I was in middle and high school? Eddie Hazel's guitar riffs are just as ripping as those of Hendrix, Page and Clapton, but somehow I think there was a blatant racism and closed-mindedness that kept his genius segregated from my ears. Seek out the funk my friends, and let the seizures begin! (And long live Syd Barrett!)

Some Simple Symbols to Sample
Meditating on the idea of meditating, I realized how much I like to meditate. Does a nap count as meditation? (Mmm siesta!) When I'm drawing these twisted, squiggly worlds, it takes me to a groovy place in my psyche where everything is growing, whirling and supernatural. It's a sea-monkey world of infinite possibilities. I started this drawing in an Alex Grey workshop last summer. I'm still working on it because I never know when to quit.

Let the Man Dance!

I watched with fascination as the scene on the dance floor unfolded before my eyes. I was watching The Barons (whose picture is on the left) play and enjoying their show from various angles of the room at Mojo 13. (That's the hip little dive-bar-gone-punk-rock venue that has brought music to my ears for a couple of months now.) I found myself standing by a sitting mustachioed man in a plain white T-shirt drinking his beer and secretly smoking a cigarette (despite Delaware's recent ban). He was friendly enough to make small talk with me as we both watched the band rip through their set. Appearing to be around my age, which is a rising 39, he motioned to the low-key audience that stood about 20 feet back from the foot-high stage. He mentioned the fact that the 50-odd people were relatively motionless even though the band was kicking out some high-speed, world-class punk rock. "They're barely bopping their heads," I replied.

Although the music drowned out the conversation where we stood five feet from the corner of the stage, I heard him say he had some history with punk rock. He shouted, "Dare me to show ..." The rest was overpowered by The Barons' raucous assault and the damaged cilia in my right ear. He gave me a mischievous grin and flew from his seat, bouncing around the wide open space on the dance floor in front of the stage while the band continued to tear it up. In old-school pogo style, he bounced on his feet about six time, with a bottle of beer sloshing in one hand and his cigarette glowing in the other. (A regular seizureman!) On about his seventh bounce, one of the larger, younger fellows in the front row, apparently annoyed by this older concertgoer's recklessness, gave him a hearty shove that literally decked the bouncing man. In a flash, he hit the wooden floor hard with his head and back. His cigarette flared up in a big puff of smoke and sparks, and his beer gurgled onto the floor. Stunned by this sudden turn of events, he lay motionless for several seconds, staring dumbfoundedly at the ceiling.

When he regained his wits, he looked to the man who had flattened him with an inquisitive but forgiving look and reached up his hand with man-to-man, mosh pit camaraderie. I was disheartened to see the initial disgust and denial on the face of the fellow who had provided the bouncing dancer with the flattening blow. Perhaps he had been splashed by the beer, or disapproved of his cigarette, but the extended hesitation before he begrudgingly hoisted his fellow music fan to his feet spoke huge volumes about the unnecessary chasm between people who have more in common than differences, and the missed opportunities for shared fun, dancing and music. My heart went out to the guy who had the bravado to pogo in the face of the complacent audience, and I was disappointed by his defeat at their hands. Dancing was unofficially banished for the night at the moment his head hit the floor, never to reappear for the rest of the evening.

Once the bouncing man was back on his feet, he made his way to the bar in the next room. Minutes later, he was nowhere to be seen again, undoubtedly sporting a hefty new lump on the back of his noggin.

Then I remembered a strange thing: There was a similar incident earlier in the evening on the dance floor that had passed right by me until I found I had something else to compare it to.

While watching the speedcore intensity of Prone to Violence, a band (whose picture is below) that reminds me of FEAR on speed (with a much better guitar player), two lively fellows stepped onto the dance floor between the audience's standing and the band's thrashing, and individually banged their heads frantically while stomping around trying to spark a mosh. Their acts of controlled aggressive behavior went barely noticed by the audience and subsided after the song ended. Since I was holding a pint of fresh draft, I was happy that the belly-butting and body flinging didn't spill a drop. Although this first move to charge up the dance floor at Mojo 13 with some activity failed to produce more than two sweaty rowdies, it was a valiant try. (Better luck next time my seizureman brethren.) Shortly after the band finished its set, I noticed one of the headbangers standing outside of the club chatting with his friends. Although he seemed to be pleasantly conversing, a fresh spattering of blood was strewn across the front of his T-shirt. Could he have been the first victim of the anti-dance vigilantes?

Perhaps I have it all wrong and this bloggy talk of rigged elections and dubious excuses for war has my mind swirling in a conspiratorial blur. But, beyond their mutual affection for dancing at punk rock shows, I noticed another commonality between the two victims of pain I witnessed that night: Both wore plain white T-shirts. Hmmm. Was it the dancing that singled them out for injury, or could it have been their logolessness?

Do you have the strength to buck convention? Do you have the courage to go undefined while all the rest sport emblems to mark their identities? Are you brave enough to dance while others stand still? It was only a few months ago when I saw an innovative skinhead at Bankshots (another Wilmington live music venue) dare to add karate kicks to slam dancing as his own personal statement, so don't believe it when the timid tell you that Delawareans don't dance.

Good luck fellow seizuremen and seizurewomen. May the pogo be with you.

Dreaming and drifting baby! This blogworld freaks me out! Some of those folks out there are blowing my mind with their super smarts and sweet ass jobs typing away at the cosmos. Tickity tacking with their brains laid bare and their giant naked egos swaying in the breeze. I was trying to follow some of the gaming banter and the Lost clues, but wowza! Reading the personal diary stuff of families and common folk warms my heart, and I am proud of that Chasing Ghosts vet. He has nothing but love for our boys overseas and works to get more support for veterans from their president, as Bush rarely mentions them in speeches and all that. I almost warmed up to his perspective completely, and all of his heart, but I say we end that fiasco as fast as possible to save our sons. We can try to democratize those people when our regime starts to set a better example. It's embarrassing what we do overseas. What's this about the CIA and secret torture chambers in Romania and Poland? Did we expect any less? I need some good tunes from Rowan University's student radio station, Rowan Radio, to clear these images from my head.

I noticed folks talking about that great article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the new Rolling Stone. What a great piece of journalism! I saw that some folks took shots at his belief in exit polls, but I say those same experts and statistics should be well regarded. We all knew there was funny business going on with the past couple of elections, but it wasn't ha ha. It was that peculiar stench kind of funny that reminds you why surrealism says so much. We're in Dali days baby. Things are dripping and exploding in the strangest of places. The article's illustration by Matt Mahurin was sad, spooky and ominous. Kennedy says that the 2004 election was so fraught with fraud that we are truly hailing to the wrong chief. I believe every word of it.

By the way, that DVD by The Residents is called Icky Flix. I hear they have a Web site at www.residents.com, but I haven't been there yet. I'll report back once these seizures subside.

That's Dusty (below) from The Barons singing about beer (as usual). If you are near Wilmington on Friday, June 9th, be sure to catch them at Mojo 13 with Tube Dutch. Both bands feature former members of Marcus Hook, so you know they rock the Kasbah!

(Ee-gad! I am so lame about writing regularly, but I'm trying to improve because I dig getting those responses from out in the blogosphere. I appreciated that comment from Boston about dreading the sound of chainsaws in the neighborhood. Mmmm support!)

Not only do I love trees, but music makes me feel all tingly as well. I was watching a new DVD by The Residents (those men and women wearing the big eyeballs as heads) I picked up at the New Castle County Library (here in Wilmington, Delaware) and I was inspired to work toward adding more random imagery in my life. The video, which is a collection of all many of their older and somewhat newer video pieces, was sometimes hard to watch, other times it was downright captivating. When it got redundant, I pushed the search button. My favorite part was at the beginning when the band (although art ensemble is probably a better word) was dressed in hoods made out of what look like newspapers, in a room covered completely with newspapers, and they bounced around like spastic, hooded, drum-beating machines. What a trip! I saw The Residents perform a few years ago in Amsterdam at the Milky Way (also called the Melkvekt, or some such Dutch translation), and it was awesome. I am so glad I finally saw them perform live because I never really got into their CDs and records that have come out over the years. Once I saw them live, I realized why they have continued to be a phenomenon. They are actually a theater troupe that plays music on guitars, drums and synthesizers, while acting out their songs, usually hidden beneath bizarre masks and costumes. Their songs are actually wonderful stories that come together when the theater portion ties up all the stray images bouncing around in their freaky, sometimes-spoken tunes. Anyway, I was amazed that Delaware's libraries are carrying such subversive stuff. The Residents' one-minute movies on the DVD were also quite freakish and somewhat provocative. They make me want to pull out the video camera and compose some of my own wacky undulations!

OK, there's more than trees growing in my mind these days. I am truly digging the new club up the street in Claymont. Mojo 13. Nice digs. What was once called Sneaky Pete's and The Brandywine Tavern before that and what is often refered to as Nick's or some other personalized moniker, is now a tavern that features regular live bands and even all-ages shows for kids on weekend days. What a timely rise to the occasion! After the Barn Door closed a year or two back, live music has been hard to come by in Wilmington, even though there are some interesting places featuring live, original bands on a regular basis, such as Bank Shots and whatnot, but they are a little farther away, and Mojo 13 is within walking distance. Perhaps I might even pull out my electric scooter and zip over there for a drink tonight! It's a peaceful ride home too, on Philadelphia Pike, with the Delaware River shining on one side and Bellevue State Park rustling on the other. Some of the bands I've seen at Mojo 13 have been excellent. Tube Dutch from around Baltimore. The Barons from Claymont. Even Toothless George from Philly was great for about 5 songs while playing with a spur-of-the-minute ensemble. And the Bionic Crayons (or is it Bionic Crayon) were a breath of fresh air. How about those Coffin Lids! They rocked the house! OK, that's what I've got to say for now about the place. I'm hoping to see Eph Tradition there on Saturday. Hopefully DJ will perform his famous beer bong stunts! Watch out front row! I've heard they are playing with a Philly band called Bitchslicer. Sounds spooky. My guess is that it's NOT a punk rock girl band of cutters, and perhaps a death metal band from Philly, but I could be wrong.

To quote a famous song by Absense of Authority, "It's only a spasm momma, I can't help it. I'm Seizureman."

I'll admit that I become dumbfounded and deranged when I see my neighbors here in Delaware cut down their old trees. Inevitably they cut down a fine strand of old growth hardwoods, and then move to New Jersey within a year. The natural areas in Delaware are drying up and becoming developments of McMansions. The old neighborhood where I live is lucky to have the rich canopy of 75-year-old trees protecting us from wind and rain, but the chopping continues unabated. The ignorance is staggering.

For the past three years I've been priding myself on my ability to let all of the trees that naturally plant themselves around my house grow as big as they can, leaving them unravaged by my lawnmower. Over the last two months, many of these trees that are nearing six to 10 feet in height started to develop some kind of yellow blight. The leaves of some are so gnarled they look like seed pods. Almost every leaf is spotted with yellow dots and some branches are ringed by a fuzzy yellow corrosion. I thought I might wait it out and let the trees fight the infection off and maybe next year they'll grow back big and strong and blight free. But then I reconsidered. I took a small saw and cut every last infected sapling down and stuffed them all into my big green garbage can. I love trees like a tree-hugging hippy, but those nasty saplings had to go. I was afraid they might somehow infect their giant parent tree above them all. Considering that most of their stems had been cut in the past, I know they'll be back next year. I might even let them grow up and see if the blight is gone. If so, let it grow. But if it's nasty, with that yellow fuzz spreading across its surface, I'll tear it limb from limb. - Seizureman