Stick Figure Cartoon's
Posted by Victor Della Barba
……….I always wanted to do a cartoon strip but never could find a unique style. A few years ago I did a poster for an event with a crowd of stick figures. I thought I could develop it into something special. The challenge was to give “shape” and personality to stick figures and tell a quick, real storiy that really happened to me.
Stick 1
Stick 2
Stick 3
Stick 4
1956 Nash Metropolitan
To learn more about Michael Furman’s car photography, log on to www.CoachBuiltPress.com.
Alejandra Guerrero
AVN: Adult Actress Of The Year, 2010
………More to follow about Kimberly Kane in upcoming posts!
Wall Street
Posted by Orville Robertson
……….This was Wall Street when the workers were allowed to go out and get lunch. Now I suppose they chain them to their desks to squeeze out the last drop of blood profit.
To learn more about Orville Robertson’s work log on to www.newyorkstreetphotography.com.
Posted by John Grant
Why you can’t call a spade a spade in this country
An op-ed in the New York Times deals with one of the most vitally important issues Americans could get their minds around — the difference between an Empire and a Republic and just who are we as a people as we deal with two foreign wars and a job-devouring recession caused by financial delusion and chicanery. Unfortunately the topic is not treated totally seriously, and the notion of an American Empire is ridiculed. I’ve encountered this attitude in a running dialogue on the topic I had with Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky. Stu sneers at the notion we’re an “empire.” He’s a decent guy, and I reduce his argument with me to: “OK, if we’re supposed to be this empire, where’s the emperor in a toga?” I may be obsessive, but I think it’s a good topic for serious discussion. It’s way too easy in the dumbed-down climate of debate in this nation to ridicule the notion of Empire and, thus, of course, avoid dealing with all the real historical and political decisions that lead to the real dynamics of our current reality that suck so much of the oxygen out of our capacity to solve neglected problems. The list is long; for starters there’s a loss of jobs, a lessening of competitiveness due to shortcomings in our education system, crumbling infrastructure and an over-dependency on oil versus developing alternative, green energies — all things we should have been investing more in for the past 40 years. Now, as we are funding two on-going wars, a Global War On Terror and a dismally failed Drug War, these neglected investments at home are coming home to roost. and unless we change, it will only get worse in the future.
Exhibition Announcement
……….I just got back from Silicon Gallery to see the prints that are going to be hanging at PENN starting on Thursday, February 18, 2010, opening reception from 4 to 7. Charles Hall put one hell of show together. I recommend that everyone should stop by the opening if your in town. Various associates of the Studio will be there……
The Kandy Project
Camden, New Jersey 2010
Posted by John Gialuco
……….Part 1 – My mother, Evelyn Gialuco, hired Whitey, a painter and his dog Mugsy, to paint our home because she wanted to sell it and move back to Camden with her sister Sistina. Whitey owned a large Winnebago and would often park and sleep in our driveway at night. Well Whitey had been painting for a month or so and mom would often cook and feed Whitey and Mugsy when he stayed over. So as time passed I noticed that she and Whitey were becoming an item. My father, her husband, had died the previous year and mom was feeling a bit lonely. How I knew they were getting more than chummy was because I would come home late on a Friday or Saturday night and Whitey’s Winnebago would be rocking and bouncing back and forth just like in Cheech and Chong ’s movie, ‘Up in Smoke’ with their trailer scene. Well anyway, Whitey had this wonderful dog Mugsy. Mugsy was never trained, he was the smartest dog I ever knew, and he never had a bath except when he went swimming at the lake or the ocean. The only time I saw Mugsy get washed was right after he was sprayed by a skunk at 3 am in the morning. Mom and Whitey had to wash him with tomato juice for about an hour and everyone went back to bed. A year later Whitey died in my mother’s arms from cancer. I should add that my father also died in my mother’s arms as well. Subsequently whenever my mother wanted to give me a hug because I was going away for a few days I usually declined mom’s hug’s. Well you understand. So a year later Mugsy became very ill and mom couldn’t watch him suffer any longer so she asked me to take him to the vet and put him to sleep.
Part 2 – When the vet called us a week later and asked us to pick up the ashes, Mom admonished me to not bring Mugsy back into the house. She needed time to adjust to her loss, but to bring him back into our shed which was in the rear of the property. As I left the house mom screamed “Do not leave his ashes in your car, put him in back…did you HEAR me?”…yes mom. So I picked Mugsy up at the vet and since I had never seen ashes from a cremation before, I opened the lid of this beautiful oriental embossed tin container which very much reminded me of a red picnic basket. Well the ashes were a pure white powder with small clumps of ash which looked like bits of hard salt. So I put Mugsy and his new home in back of the trunk of my 1987 Volvo and that was it. When I walked into the house mom asked me if I had put Mugsy in the shed and of course I said I did. Not.
Part 3 – Some months later I was hosting a talk and video on how to learn about the unlawful aspects of the IRS with about 20 interested people. Since a friend was letting us use her apartment in West Philly I threw some material in the Volvo’s trunk for demonstration reasons. After carrying the last load up to Catherine’s apartment I apparently left the key in the trunk of the Volvo. So after a rocking good IRS party, 5 hours later, I left to go home and guess what? The Volvo had been stolen! It is one of the worst feelings you will ever have, when you finally admit that your car has been stolen after tortuous hours of crawling through every surrounding street looking for your car. It’s like your parents just revealed to you that you were adopted at the very moment you are about to blow out the birthday candles to celebratie your 21st birthday. When I finally got home and told my mother that the car was stolen in Philly, the first words out of her mouth was, “WHERE”S MUGSY? I distinctly remember the last thoughts I had as I was rapidly fleeing the back door of the house and being pursued by a well aimed broom, which my mother hurled at me with the accuracy of a South American forest head hunter’s blow gun. My mother had honed her throwing abilities through the fine art of cleaning and vacuuming for nearly 70 years. In her day she could have faced any Samurai with her well made corn broom, scorn and not show a bit of fear. I returned days later to a calmer mom.
Mugsy
Part 4 – 43 days later I got a call from the Philadelphia police telling me that my car was found up in the Bronx, NYC. As I was leaving the house to take a train to NY my mother told me to make sure that Mugsy was to be the first thing coming through the garage door when I returned…Yes Mom. Upon arriving at Grand Central station I boarded a subway going uptown to the Bronx. Riding from Midtown NY to the Bronx was a super lesson in paranoia. As the subway left upper Manhattan into Harlem, I notice that the folks who have laptops, jewelery and better clothes began to leave the car at each stop. As we entered Harlem the hip hop, goths, mental escapees and such, started boarding the subway to continue the ride uptown. Once we got into the lower Bronx near the Bronx Zoo those folks began to get off the train and replaced with the hard core human beings, The Warlocks, Saurons, Melkors, Borg types and an occasional Gollum and Hannibal Lecter.
Part 5 – After 40 minutes of this amusement ride I found out that I took the wrong train! Instead of getting on the East Bronx train I took the West Bronx train. So now I had to go back down to Grand Central and start all over again with that now familiar paranoia I obtained on the West side ride. On one stop in Harlem about 75 cops and security people boarded the cars and this made me feel much better and I relaxed my hand off the back of my ass which I was using to protect my wallet. As we rolled into the Bronx, small packs of cops disembarked at various stops along the way to go to work. Upon arriving at my stop, around 180th street, I had to walk some 10 blocks or so to a street that was lined with junk yard after junk yard after junk yard. When I finally found my junk yard and entered the office, I noticed that behind the long counter was a couple of shelves with hundreds of car radios which were for sale. I intuitively knew that my thoughtfully chosen and expensive Volvo radio was once up on those shelves never to be heard from again.
Final Part – So I found my car parked amongst hundreds of other stolen and junked vehicles, and after clearing the front seat of at least 40 parking tickets, which the Manhattan police kindly kept throwing into the unlocked car for the month or so, I started the engine with no problem. I immediately checked the glove compartment for my stuff and saw that everything but a Norelco razor was still there. I quickly went back to the Volvo trunk and saw that everything was in place … EXCEPT…. Mugsy and his newly occupied red tin dog house. While driving back home for 90 miles I was thinking about my fears, my fears and pain of facing Mom as I prepared to tell her t Mugsy was gone forever. I also realized that whoever stole my Volvo, I figured it was probably a bunch of kids having a joy ride, and that they eventually found Mugsy in the trunk, his ashes and believed they had found a large stash of Cocaine. So as any upright carjackers would do they started snorting Mugsy. I am sure at the days end somewhere in NYC a group of young men could be seen pissing on trees with one leg raised in the air so as to leave their marks while Howling at the full Moon.
Mr John
The Fairy Of Pirate's Alley
Posted by Charlene Lanzel
……….I was living in New Orleans’ French Quarter for the winter season in 2007. I fell in love with the city and its past, and became curious of the history of Exchange Alley where I was living. My husband (Ronnie Magri) and I decided to do some research, and headed over to the Historical Society on Chartres Street. What we found was that the infamous painter Edgar Degas had once owned property across the alley from our building. I began studying Degas’ life and discovered he was an avid drinker of Absinthe. I had heard many tales of the mysterious wormwood elixir and longed to try it. After all, it seemed to be the official drink of some of history’s greatest artists!
The Devil Drinks Absinthe
Absinthe is said to evoke the spirit of “La Fee Verte” or “The Green Fairy”. I learned that Absinthe was being served at The Pirate’s Alley Cafe, just a few blocks away. So, my husband and I headed over for my first taste. These two painting’s, “The Devil Drinks Absinthe” and “The Fairy of Pirate’s Alley” are the documentation of that night. They are portraits of myself an my husband, sitting across the table from each other in Pirate’s Alley, experiencing the effects of the notorious drink. We have since become Absinthe snobs and enjoy trying different brands from around the world.
……….To learn more about Charlene Lanzel’s work log on to www.CharleneLanzel.com.
Posted by John Grant
I was just reading an 1898 essay by Leo Tolstoy on the Spanish American War in which he satirizes the United States for defeating the “decrepit and doting old man” that was the Spanish Empire and, as “a young man in full possession of his strengths,” taking over Spain’s imperial role in Cuba and, especially, in the Philippines. The US beats this “decrepit old man” (known for his cruelty) and “knocks out his teeth, breaks his ribs, and then ecstatically tells his exploits to a vast public of just such young men as he is, and this public rejoices and praises the hero who has maimed an old man.” This from a writer who saw real bloody combat in several places and wrote War And Peace. This is late Tolstoy, when, in the eyes of many, he had gone off the deep end to preach Christian pacifism. War to him at this stage is organized “murder.” He is disgusted with governments who tell their citizens their wars are undertaken to protect them. “What you (governments) say of the threatening danger and of your concern about protecting us against it is a deception.” Sounds familiar, given the past nine years, when our leaders launched two major wars, one of which we are escalating in spite of opposing popular opinion — a war our military commanders have begun assuring the occupied Afghans is about “protecting the Afghan people.”
Now we must absorb the idea of assassination orders for US citizens. Our leaders now openly declare the right to murder American citizens deemed “enemy combatants” — or some such label worked out by PR-savvy lawyers aware of the post-9/11 fear and the lynch mob state of mind in parts of America. First we were worried about warrant-less wiretapping of citizens. Then, it was the three-year “slow torture” of a US citizen in a brig in South Carolina. Now we have graduated to warrant-less assassinations. The President says it’s OK, so sit back on the couch and watch the rest of Hitman4. And the current Supreme Court is probably fine with assassination hits of anybody as long as they are in the pursuit of American Power & Wealth.
The target dejure is the US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemini Muslim cleric who had conversations with both the Fort Hood shooter and the underpants bomber. US intelligence has him pegged as Satan’s child, but, let’s be honest, US intelligence is not the most reliable arbiter of truth and they have been good at providing popular fodder for demonization campaigns. Al-Awlaki has told reliable Arab journalists he did not encourage either of the above to commit the acts they did, though, after the fact, he said what they did was honorable. Al-Awlaki is currently in hiding for his life, but he seems to argue he was a sympathetic ear to these disturbed men, not their instigator. Like the many people involved in some fashion with the loosely confederated global insurgency we are currently engaged with, al-Awlaki is clearly angry at our invasions and on-going occupations of Muslim lands, our support of Israel for its occupation of Palestine and a perceived general war against Islam. The argument for assassinating people like al-Awlaki is the exact same reasoning used in the Phoenix Program to assassinate nationalist Vietnamese leaders opposed to the US occupation of Viet Nam. The difference is the current war is being played out in a globalized context and our assassinations are done by the CIA or by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the hunter-killer teams commanded so well by General Stanley McChrystal and now operating in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. They currently favor the use of drones directed by some operator in Arizona with a Diet Pepsi on the console next to him to assassinate people by taking out entire buildings. Of course, no one gets a trial; guilt is established in secret by … well, no one is sure.
It’s becoming easier to understand why Tolstoy ended up where he did relinquishing literary and commercial success to take on the war powers of his day. Think back to the 1980s and the outrage in the nation over “war off the books” by Oliver North and his patriotic warriors during the Reagan years. One’s head spins at the moral distance we have traveled since those innocent days. Thanks to rapid technological advances and stagnant human morality, the notion of war off the books is now beyond steroids as a metaphor and approaching some kind of secret robot dystopia in which the soma of the age is a popular culture where The Killer reigns supreme as an iconic figure of comedy and romance.
It’s been 112 years since Tolstoy wrote about how the US employed a campaign of “murder” to supplant the Spanish and create its own fledgling empire out of the spoils. That empire is now in full plumage and its leaders are ordering the assassination of people around the world based on their motivational influence. That our imperial wars are the prime motivational element in these speaker’s arguments is rarely mentioned. Given the distance we have come in the past 20 years, it’s interesting to imagine where things might go in the next 20 years.
John Grant
