Redtree Times

Bradford County (1994)

Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you are no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn’t just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks loose. From this place the snow is less visible, even though closer. These are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It’s the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top. Here’s where things grow.

–Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974)

Finished my last round of radiation yesterday morning. I had been exhausted the day and night before, the steroids having little affect after Monday’s dose. I felt a bit better yesterday as we road down the highway towards the hospital, perhaps brightened a bit by the thought that a critical phase of my treatment was near to an end.

During the drive, we both were silent for most of the drive, more so than usual. Along the way, my gaze moved to the silhouette of the hills to my right. I do this every time we go the hospital.  These hills run east and west parallel to the New York/ Pennsylvania state line, at the south edge of the valley through which the Chemung River travels on its way to feed the Susquehanna, not far from the hospital.

As I always do, I focus on the high ridge of the hill that rises steeply above my childhood home. The PA line is just over the top it. I know that hill pretty well. Well, whether I really do anymore is a point of contention as memory fades.

Even so, I still think of it as mine.

It lives on in my mind in a Proustian manner. Each time I ride by it, the mere sight of it causes lashes of childhood experience to pass through my mind. The days spent alone wandering on it. It had a feel and a mood that often mirrored my own. Or perhaps it was the reverse– that I was its mirror.

I don’t know. It felt like we knew each other then. Now it simply stands there for me like an old friend, a silent repository of a little boy’s thoughts and imagination from many years ago.

Seeing it again reminds me of how children have an innate ability to live in the present, much like attitude Robert Pirsig advocates for us older folks in the passage at the top. The future, with few exceptions such as Christmas, seems like a distant land, out of sight and out of mind. The past is still close at hand but is quickly washed aside by the overwhelming raging river of all that is new and in front of them.

There was only the now for me then on that hillside.

Of course, that changed at some point, as it does for us all. The past accumulates and takes on a larger presence, one that often taps us on the shoulder and holds our attention for far too long. The future is now loudly beckoning us, loudly calling and waving its arms in a way that distracts us from where we are or what is in front of us.

When we are on that hillside now, we are now too often dwelling on how we got there or where we are headed. The past and the future have tight holds on us.

We no longer notice the feel or smell of the slippery soil on the upgrade. The coolness of the blue light shadows cast by the trees or the welcoming lower limbs of a massive hemlock that asks you to climb up on them and imagine things and people in a different time and place.

It’s funny that the past serves up such a dish whenever I see that hillside. You wouldn’t think the past would try to remind you to live in the now, would you? But it knows that you once knew that feeling of only being in the now, as a kid trudging quietly alone on that hillside.

I sometimes find little bits and pieces of that childhood feeling while walking in the forest around my studio. The hill is not as steep and the trees are not as old growth as those behind my childhood home, but it still provides moments where the past and future fade to nothingness. It gives me once more childlike joy in the now, much like that I experienced on that hillside I pass in silence on my way to the hospital.

It’s good to have an old friend like that, one who reminds you of your better self. To remind you that life is on that hillside, not where you’ve been or where you’re going. Where you are at this very moment.

Had no idea what I was going to say this morning. Glad I took the plunge here. It felt good to write this. This is not meant to be a Look Back post but the painting at the top is pertinent here. It is a very early painting that is my impression of an area just a few miles down that same line of hills where they slightly veer into Bradford County, Pennsylvania. I didn’t have that in mind when I painted this early watercolor back in 1994, but it immediately became the only way I saw it then and now.  I called this painting Bradford County.

For a piece of music, I am sharing a song from Grammy Award-winning guitarist Bill Mize. I was honored when he chose a painting of mine for his album Southwind a few years back. This is Lonesome Valley. It felt right for this post even though when I was on that hillside those many years back, I might have been alone but was never lonely.

I had my hill…

GC Myers- The Angst

Born under a bad sign
I’ve been down since I began to crawl
If it wasn’t for bad luck
I tell ya, I wouldn’t have no luck at all

 — Albert King, Born Under a Bad Sign

Aargh.

I just spent about an hour and a half in the early morning dark writing a post that I thought was pretty damn good. Then, with an absent-minded flick deleted the whole shebang. Not a word or trace of it remains except the title at the top of the page.

I sat here looking at the blank screen for several minutes. Could I redo it in the same way with the same impact I felt it had just a few minutes before?

Maybe. Probably not right now though.

I look at the clock and say screw it. I am angry at myself for my lack of awareness. It was my mistake for not saving it as I went along.

Just let it go and maybe try to revisit it later.

It might come out okay.

That’s my credo as of late– it might come out okay.

There are worse words to live by, I guess. And things usually do come out okay, for the most part.

Not always, of course. You’re just being argumentative now.

Things turn out as circumstances indicate they shall. Sometimes better, sometime not.

That’s the way the cookie crumbles.

I am hoping to serve you a whole cookie tomorrow, not just the crumbs.

A note on my treatment: I had my fourth dose of SBRT radiation yesterday and my final dose in tomorrow. Things are going well, thanks in great measure to the dexamethasone I take before each treatment. However, its effectiveness does seem to be waning as the radiation accumulates and outpaces the medication. Yesterday did not treat me to the same elative giddiness that I experienced last week.  A lot more fatigued.

But, hey, that’s not too big a deal in the great scheme of things.

Like I said, it might come out okay.

And a final note on the song lyric at the top. My morning was not bad luck. Mistakes are not bad luck. Mistakes are just that–mistakes. We often blame our misfortunes on bad luck, but it is often the result of our own actions. I think most of the less than great things that have taken place in my life can be attributed to my mistakes, misjudgments, and lack of attention.

But it is a great tune. And I can appreciate that without thinking it applies to me.

Beseech the Moons–At Principle Gallery

And you want to write a song about the moon
You want to write a spiritual tune
Then nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Presto, a song about the moon

If you want to write a song about the heart
Think about the moon before you start
Because the heart will howl like a dog in the moonlight
And the heart can explode like a pistol on a June night

— Paul Simon, Song About the Moon (1983)

Short on time as I prep for treatment this morning. Thought I’d share a song that just felt good to me this morning. I think we all could use something to make us feel a little better these days as so much seems designed to make us feel less than good.

Makes me want to get up on the roof most nights.

And when I see the faces of those eight moons looming back at me, I feel like I am being heard…

All I can ask.

Got to run. Have a hankering for a little radiation this morning.

Breakfast of champions…

Flow: Yin and Yang (2026) 16″ x 40″ on canvas

It is a silver morning like any other. I am at my desk. Then the phone rings, or someone raps at the door. I am deep in the machinery of my wits. Reluctantly I rise, I answer the phone or I open the door. And the thought which I had in hand, or almost in hand, is gone.

Creative work needs solitude. It needs concentration, without interruptions. It needs the whole sky to fly in, and no eye watching until it comes to that certainty which it aspires to, but does not necessarily have at once. Privacy, then. A place apart-a pace, to chew pencils, to scribble and erase and scribble again.

But just as often, if not more often, the interruption comes not from another but from the self itself, or some other self within the self, that whistles and pounds upon the door panels and tosses itself, splashing, into the pond of meditation. And What does it have to say? That you must phone the dentist, that you are out of mustard, that your uncle Stanley’s birthday is two weeks hence. You react, of course. Then you return to your work, only to find that the imps of idea have fled back into the mist.

It is this internal force – this intimate interrupter – whose tracks I would follow. The world sheds, in the energetic way of an open and communal place, its many greetings, as a world should. What quarrel can there be with that? But that the self can interrupt the self – and does – is a darker and more curious matter.

–Mary Oliver, Of Power and Time from Upstream: Selected Essays, 2016

In recent weeks, my time here in the studio has been fractured by things other than the creative urge. It is a constant stream of distractions, both physical and mental. Physically, there are doctor appointments by the handful, radiation treatments, and caring for three once-feral studio cats who have become solely indoor cats in the past week after one was attacked by a stray cat outside the studio which led to a couple of vet visits. Then there are the regular maintenance chores that once felt like small tasks that have grown into overwhelming burdens, and all sorts of unforeseen interruptions that pop up in all our lives.

Mentally, I find myself fully distracted by these things along with the constant concern and worry about my health and how well my treatment is going as well as how I am going to navigate the coming months leading up to my June show at the Principle Gallery. When my regular menu of worries and concerns is factored in, my onboard overthinking mechanism is thrown into overdrive.

And when that happens, the creative process sputters and stalls out. That, in itself, is an added strain.

Thank god for the dexamethasone that I take before each of radiation treatments. It is a fairly powerful steroid that is meant to stave off inflammation from the radiation to my bones. It is also no doubt the source of my recent burst of giddy elation– an almost hypomania– that I wrote about here in recent days. It has helped greatly in keeping my anxieties at bay. I only have a couple of more doses to go so I am going to try to ride their effects for the next week or two, if possible.

The last few days have consisted of surrounding myself with the few new pieces I’ve managed to produce in recent times along with older pieces from various periods of my work from the past 20 or 25 years. Part of this is in trying to select work for an upcoming preview of my Principle Gallery show in American Art Collector magazine.

Plus, I am just trying to get an idea of how this show will be put together and how it might flow as a whole. I am trying to form a visible line of continuum through the work. This is probably why I settled on Flow as the title for the exhibit. It has been taxing but ultimately satisfying as I assemble and consider the individual pieces. Though I am distracted and not painting at the moment, it feels like I am accomplishing something.

Even if it is a small step, anything that takes me forward would be a win right now.

Even so, I feel good about things. Maybe it’s the steroids. I don’t know and I don’t care at the moment. Just trying to milk this good feeling for a while longer while trying to find that bit of solitude needed to create, as the poet Mary Oliver described in the passage above from her essay On Power and Time:

Creative work needs solitude. It needs concentration, without interruptions. It needs the whole sky to fly in, and no eye watching until it comes to that certainty which it aspires to, but does not necessarily have at once. Privacy, then. A place apart-a pace, to chew pencils, to scribble and erase and scribble again.

The whole sky to fly in, and no eye watching until it comes to that certainty which it aspires to. Love that line.

Certainty is an elusive creature in the best of times for me and the certainty that I find in my work seems even more difficult to locate right now. But it is still there, somewhere. I know that as a fact. Years of wrestling with this in various forms has taught me that.

I don’t know why I wrote this today. It feels all too much like a diary entry. But I did say I was going to be transparent on this process so maybe that’s the reason. Maybe I just felt like I had to air it out?

As always, I don’t know. Thanks for bearing with my rambling on the way I do lately. Much appreciated.

Here’s a song for this week’s Sunday Morning Music. It came on while I was writing and it felt like it was a response to a cue coming from my mind. It is Ray LaMontaigne and his The Way Things Are. The verse below struck me as I considered this post and the new painting at the top, Flow: Yin and Yang :

Lay me down beside that stream a-flowing
Lay me down under that moon a-glowing
That’s the way things are (the way things are)
That’s the way they really are (the way things are)

Now, get out of here, you’re distracting the hell out of me…

The Yellow Guitar, 1994

I don’t understand why people think it’s so difficult to learn to play guitar. I found it incredibly easy. You just pick a chord, go twang, and you’ve got music.

–Sid Vicious, Sounds, 9 October 1976

Wasn’t planning on doing a Look Back piece this morning. Took forever to get to sleep with my mind racing last night. Too much wired for my tired, I guess.  I finally slept a couple hours, getting up later than usual, which left me running behind. I decided I simply wanted to play some guitar music from guitar wiz Tommy Emmanuel and call it a morning. But if I was going to share some music, I figured I might as well share a painting with a guitar and a quote or something about guitars.

The painting was easy. I have painted a number of pieces with guitars as the seeming object of the painting. Something about the shape of a guitar and desire to make music that pulls me in. I was never a player though I stumbled along in fits and starts with guitars for close to fifty years. The first loan I ever took out was to buy a guitar, a Yamaha folk guitar that hangs on the wall of my studio. Its decorative quality has outshone its musical quality in my hands.

For a few years beginning in 2018, I buckled down and, determined to learn to actually play rather than follow Sid Vicious’ admonition at the top, did play a lot and progressed quite well. I could play a number of songs and my hands easily moved up and down the fretboard. It was a thrill to feel that I was actually making music rather than treating the guitar like I was beating as an old mule, as the saying goes. For the record, I have never beat an old mule.

Then a couple of years ago, I simply stopped playing. I don’t really know why. I have four guitars within easy reach at this moment and could easily pick one up and play. Just the will to pay was gone.

The guitars have returned to their status as decorative elements for the time being.

Maybe I stopped because of the distraction and worry coming from the outside world. Or maybe it’s that I felt I should focus my dwindling time to work on art that I could share with the outside world rather than just for myself.  I don’t know. It doesn’t matter in the long run. I do sometimes pick up my Fender acoustic and play a bit just to remind myself that I can go back to it at some point and try to catch up with what has been lost in the last few years. It’s reassuring to feel my left hand go into position on the fretboard from what muscle memory remains.

I don’t remember much about the painting at the top from August of 1994. I must have liked it enough at one point to go ahead and sign it. It was at a point where I was close to having what I consider my Eureka! moment. I can see elements of the paint handling in this though the result was much different than what was to come. That’s probably why it never made it out of the studio, only getting glimpsed at briefly every year or two.

It is different than my regular work from then or at any point in my body of work. That might be its appeal to me. I like its somewhat sloppy feel. Suits me. It’s one of those pieces that I spend more time over now when I do take it out. I think that is the What if? factor. What if I had followed this style at that time? Would it have satisfied what I needed to get from my work? Would I be able to communicate fully in a way that came across in the same way as the work that I ultimately did create later?

The What If? game is tantalizing to play but is never satisfying. So, I just take what is there and what I know came after it and allow myself to simply enjoy the piece as it is, for better or worse.

Okay, let’s get to the guitar music from Tommy Emmanuel. Here’s his mashup/take on two favorite songs from the Beatles, Day Tripper and Lady Madonna. Good stuff to kick off a spring Saturday.

There are two ways of avoiding fear: one is by persuading ourselves that we are immune from disaster, and the other is by the practice of sheer courage. The latter is difficult, and to everybody becomes impossible at a certain point. The former has therefore always been more popular. Primitive magic has the purpose of securing safety, either by injuring enemies, or by protecting oneself by talismans, spells, or incantations.

–Bertrand Russell, Basic Writings, 1903-1959 (1961)

Strange day yesterday. A rest day between radiation treatments. I felt slept very well, very deeply. Even so, my body was tired, no doubt a result of the stress from the treatment which is to be expected. But though my body was very fatigued and my eyes felt heavy and deeply sunk into their sockets, my mind was abuzz with an almost giddy elation.

There was this strange disconnect between my physical and mental condition that lasted most of the day. I had a dental checkup in the morning and this giddiness didn’t fade a bit. I spoke incessantly with my hygienist, who had worked with me for over 20 years since she first came out of school, between her ultrasonically cleaning and poking and prodding around my teeth.

I am not used to such a feeling so it confounded me even as I enjoyed this elated bubble I was traveling in. Oh, I have felt very up before. It usually preceded a massive plunge that came in a manic-depressive pattern that I used to fall into. Real high. Real low.

You can see how this sudden burst of glee might make me worry about a sudden downturn.

But this feels different from those other times. There is nothing obvious taking place in my life that would merit such a giddy blaze. When you consider the illness and the shape of the world, it seems almost crazy to feel so good.

It’s most likely just a reaction taking place as a result from the potent combination of the hormonal changes that have been taking place from my ADT therapy, the inflammation from the radiation, and the stress of dealing with the whole thing. It is a kind of defense mechanism.

I read that this is sometimes called Tired but Wired.

That was certainly how it felt. Tired but wired.

I walked around the pond later, trying to move around a bit before the rain that was supposed to come arrived. I came across the single deer antler in the path around the top of pond, most likely shed by a buck sometime in the winter. I have found a number of them through the years around our property, and I always feel like I’ve found– no, been gifted– something precious.

It is sort of like the several times I’ve been able to witness a tall tree naturally falling in the forest, not being cut by man. There is something almost sacred in watching a tree that has stood and endured for 60, 80, 100 years suddenly succumb. It feels like a gift or an honor is being bestowed upon me in those rare moments.

In my giddy elation yesterday, it sure felt that way when I picked this antler up. As though it were a gift of a talisman of some sort, something that carried its own energy or mojo that cast a favorable pall over me.

Or maybe it was more of a message left for me. Perhaps one that was telling me that loss is a vital part of our cycle of life, that there are things that we must lose in order to grow and move forward. Perhaps the loss is that of our vanity. I don’t know the reality of this, but it seems to me that the loss of their antlers might be a humbling event for a buck whose identity and status is tied so tightly to them.

But as I said, I don’t really know. Just babbling now. Still giddy which surprises me. I thought that by this morning, with another round of radiation coming in a few hours, that it might have lost some of its steam. But, nope, still racing ahead. I’ll take this any day. Hey, it beats feeling like crap, right?

I know it is all probably a product of powerful hormones replacing other powerful hormones and my mind trying to put things into some kind of order that allows me to function. But for the moment, I am going to continue viewing this antler as a good sign, a powerful talisman.

A gift for me sent with purpose from the universe.

One that is small and insignificant but imbued with a natural beauty and grace. Like all things natural.

All I could ask.

Okay, got to get moving. Here’s a tune that has a little to do with talismans and superstition. This is a reworking of the Howlin’ Wolf song I Ain’t Superstitious from Jeff Beck. It features Rod Stewart on vocals and Ronnie Wood on bass.

Good vibe for the tired and wired of you out there.

Homefield – At Principle Gallery

Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don’t care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don’t win, it’s a shame.
For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out,
At the old ball game

—Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer, 1908

Woke up later than usual this morning. Had my second round of radiation yesterday and later in the day I began to feel dragged down. Slight burn on the spot on my pelvis that was one of the treated sites.  But I was able to stay up to see much of the first game of the Major League Baseball season between the Yankees and the Giants out in San Francisco.

The Yanks prevailed but just having the game back was a little reassuring, especially on an evening when I was being reminded of what was going on inside me as I was trying to shut out the absurdity of what was taking place in the outside world.

Baseball’s always been a safe haven of sorts for me as well as a classroom. It taught many lessons.

Humility for example. How to lose. How to win. Baseball is game of mostly failure and occasional redemption. Your flaws and strengths are out in the open for all to see.

It teaches you what you are capable of and what is beyond you and that the distance of the gulf between the two is dependent on how hard you are willing to work.

It taught me an appreciation for the natural beauty and grace in the arc of fly ball or of well-turned double play

It taught me that brute strength is not infallible. In a game based on subtle skills, strategy, and teamwork, the little guy, the underdog, can defeat the biggest guy. 

That’s probably the lesson we should all take from the game these days. The big guys seem intent on changing the game so that the little guy will never win again. I’m not talking about baseball here, folks. 

This was meant to be short and sweet since time is limited this morning but it rambles on. Below is a little more, if you have the will to go on, about my relationship with the game. I first shared it back in 2009.

Baseball has always held a special place for me. Oh, I was no more than an average player– decent bat, lousy arm. slow on the basepaths, and a so-so glove– but there was pure magic in seeing the heroes of my youth and hearing the stories of the early legends of the game.

I remember my grandmother telling me of heading with my grandfather to New York City on their honeymoon in 1921 and seeing Babe Ruth play with the Yankees. Ruth hit a double and a triple as she vividly recalled. If memory serves me, she said they sat along the third baseline at Yankees Stadium.

I remember sitting with my grandfather, the mythological Shank, so called as a stage manager in vaudeville before WWI for the holds he would apply to his opponent’s legs during his earlier time as a professional wrestler in the first decade off the 20th century, to watch the World Series in the afternoons of 1968. I had my tonsils out and was still recuperating and we watched the St. Louis Cardinals play the Detroit Tigers, who won the series. It was great watching with my grandfather plus I was introduced a player who became one of the heroes of my youth, Bob Gibson, the Cardinal’s pitching ace.

The Classic Bob Gibson Followthrough

Gibby was it for me. The toughest guy out there, one whose competitive fire was legendary. So, dominating as a pitcher that baseball changed the mound height because they felt the hitters needed help since he was practically unhittable. I read his early autobiography, From Ghetto to Glory, numerous times as a kid and that made him an even bigger hero to me. He was eloquent and college-educated, a rarity for ballplayers of that era, and his story was compelling, going from abject poverty onto college then a stint with the Harlem Globetrotters then on to baseball stardom.

He remains a hero out of myth for me.

Baseball was always played at our house. My dad was a pretty fair pitcher who had promise as a youth. In subsequent years, I have uncovered numerous news stories in old newspapers about his exploits on the mound and in the field. But later, as a dad, he would occasionally play catch with me and my friends. It was just easy toss but every so often he would unleash a fastball that made my friends ooh and ahh.

But the big moment always came when he would break out his knuckleball, a pitch he was known for in his younger days. It was practically uncatchable, having a spectacular drop that would appear to be entering your glove only to end up hitting you in the stomach. Or lower. I was never able to master the pitch but still appreciate the awkward grace and dance of a well thrown knuckler.

Other times, I would pitch to him in our large yard next to our house. out of myth for me and he would hit flies to my brother in the outfield. Periodically, he would hit hard liners back at me. They would bang off me or make me dive out of the way and he would cackle. I would then try to drill him with the next pitch, which would make him laugh even more because he had gotten my goat.

Payback was just part of the game. Tit for tat. Instant karma.

I would calm myself and wait until he would pitch to me, waiting for the perfect pitch when I could send a hard-hit line drive back at him, making him duck or dive. At such times, after having to jump out of the way or defend himself with his glove, he would yell out a Hey! and give me a harsh look. Then he would usually laugh because he knew that I was just paying him back for his earlier actions.

Like I said, payback was just part of the game.

Even my work has been somewhat affected by my experiences with the game. I remember the first time coming out of the mezzanine tunnel during a night game at Shea Stadium in the late 1960’s and seeing the field spread out before me. I was stunned by the richness and lushness of the colors under the warmth of the lights. It was a feeling that I think I wanted to replicate in some manner which ultimately led me to art. It certainly is the basis for my occasional baseball paintings.

Over the years baseball has become my calendar for the passing of the year and is a comforting friend on the days when the world seems ready to implode. I am still captive to the numbers and legends of baseball, one of those romantics who see poetry in a game based in tradition.

To that end, here is a wonderful version of Take Me Out to the Ballgame from Harpo Marx, played on I Love Lucy. It is delicate and graceful.  It’s the essence of the memory of baseball for me…

Prairie Edge– November 1994

Oh, God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
Abe said, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”
God said, “No” Abe say, “What?”
God say, “You can do what you want, Abe, but
The next time you see me comin’, you better run”
Well, Abe said, “Where d’you want this killin’ done?”
God said, “Out on Highway 61”

— Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

Another radiation morning so again a brief post. In my continuing series of looking back at some of my earlier work, I am sharing the smaller painting above, Prairie Edge. I guess there’s no need to describe it as small since all of my earliest work was fairly small. Coming in at about 4″X 8″ on paper, this was typical in size.

It is also typical in its composition. It is simply constructed with blocks of color above and below. One thing differentiating it from my other work was its lack of a narrow horizontal white line separating the sky and hills from the plains. I guess I compensated for this by leaving the road that same stark unpainted white.

The strong points of this painting, at least in my eyes, come in the color of the sky and in the ragged edge of the fields at the bottom. The sky is like a glorious bruise that has begun to recede, plum purple with hints of yellow faintly coming through.

Hurt and healing.

The story of survival in such remoteness.

And in life in general.

That ragged edge at the bottom is like fingers both reaching down to the earth as though they are seeking a firm hold out of the fear that the world’s spinning will fling them into that sky and out to me, beckoning to me to travel that bright road with the promise that the embrace these fields give to the road will be mine as well.

It’s an interesting dichotomy. The skies promising hurt and healing while the fields offer love and security.

Again, the story of our survival here on this third spinning stone from the sun.

Hey, I was able to get more in this than I thought. Let’s celebrate with a corresponding song.

I always thought that the Bob Dylan classic Highway 61 Revisited was about the northern section of the fabled road since it starts (or ends, depending on how you look at it) around Dylan’s birthplace and early stomping grounds of Duluth, Minnesota. However, the late, great Levon Helm linked the song while hosting a 1996 episode of the PBS series Great Drives to the southern reaches of as it heads towards its ending (or, again, its beginning) in New Orleans.

This song (and the album of the same name) has been a favorite for as long as I can remember. I don’t normally think of this song as being joyful, despite its rumbling pace but this all too short rendition from Levon is filled with joy.

Hurt and healing, folks…

Speaking Truth to Power — At West End Gallery

A lot of people aren’t encouraged. I’m sort of a patron saint of early losers.

Ya know: Fix your legs and your nose and your voice, and maybe you’ll be a little something.

Or I was told to give up and make room for the talented and beautiful people. I get letters from people who hear this. People walk up to me and ask for advice. I’ve narrowed down my response: Prove them wrong.

— Ruth Gordon, Interview with James Grissom, 1984

Man, I adore Ruth Gordon. Don’t know that there could be any better or more concise piece of advice.

Prove them wrong.

That thought has been one of the driving forces behind any success I have ever had. I may have talked about that here before. At the moment, I can’t recall. I know I have written about how I was affected by people walking by my work when I first publicly exhibited it without even glancing at it. How it pissed me off and I left telling myself that I would show them.

In retrospect, I realize I was actually angry at myself at that moment for not showing what I had in me. Their perceived snub was actually just what I needed– a challenge and a wakeup call. It spoke to my competitive nature, especially when the competition involves pushing me out of default position of inertia. A challenge always wakes me up.

I probably wouldn’t even got to that point had it not been an earlier encounter that turned into a challenge to me. Several years before I was at a low point in my life. My business had crashed and burned a few years earlier and I spent a couple of years after that in auto sales, something I was not suited for in so many ways. I was stumbling blindly in my early 30’s and was working as day laborer for my brother putting up swimming pools in the summer and building and cleaning chimneys in the fall.

One rainy fall day that had cut our workday short, I found myself at the home of a well-known psychic in the Syracuse area. He was known for his work at psychically locating lost children and abilities were spoken of in glowing terms. As I said, I was stumbling around at that point, looking for any sign, any direction, that might set me on a clear and singular path. Maybe this guy could help me? I wasn’t sure but I was up for anything.

I went into his place that afternoon in my work clothes wet and soot-covered from cleaning chimneys. I don’t remember much of the ‘reading‘ he gave me that day except for one short comment he made. At one point, he said, “Let’s see. What are you meant for? I sense that you have no artistic or musical talents so we can rule that out.”

The rest is a blur lost in my memory, but that comment remains. I had been quiet in dealing with him so as not to give him any verbal cues that he could run with. It felt to me that he wasn’t getting much from me and began to judge me and base his reading on what I was presenting him physically–a silent, wet, sad guy in grimy work clothes.

I left his place a short time, muttering, “Screw that guy. I’ll show him.”

I hadn’t thought of this in a while, but it came back to me recently. I never really thought of it as a source of inspiration but looking back, that moment as I left his place may have very well set me down the path I am currently on. It set off a series of seemingly unrelated events that ended up with me finally picking up a paint brush after being pretty banged up in a fall off a ladder a year or two after his ‘reading.’

Everything that followed that fall may not have happened at all without his offhand comment that made me determined to prove him wrong. I was firm in my desire to be the only person to determine who or what I was or was not. Not him nor some nebulous feeling that he got from the visual cues I presented him with on a wet rainy fall day.

Of course, there is an argument to be made that he was not wrong. Maybe the last thirty-plus years have been smoke and mirrors, a product of my sheer determination to prove him wrong. I have to admit there are down days when I think he was not totally wrong.

But just a reminder of that comment from him is enough to set me off again. Maybe, like Ruth says, I was an early loser up to that point. Maybe. It sure felt like it. But his trivial judgement set me free in a way.

I will go to my deathbed proving him wrong.

I don’t know how this going to come across. Guess it doesn’t matter. You may not relate to this, but I think many of you out there have been told what you are or aren’t too many times by people who only have a surface knowledge of your being, your desires, or your abilities.

If that applies to you, heed the advice from Ruth: Prove them wrong.

Here’s a favorite song from the Kinks that I’ve shared it several times in the past. It’s been about four years and it feels right for this post so here’s I’m Not Like Everybody Else.

By the way, my first fraction of radiation went well. I was told to not expect any real side effect until after the third or fourth fraction, at which point the effects will mount up for a few weeks before subsiding in a few more. Hey, good to have something to look forward to!