Hogback Heaven, 1994
If you surveyed a hundred typical middle-aged Americans, I bet you’d find that only two of them could tell you their blood types, but every last one of them would know the theme song from the Beverly Hillbillies.
–Dave Barry, Turning 40
Things to do this morning but thought I’d replay an old post that first ran back in 2011. One note: The Hogback in the title refers to a road that usually runs along the ridge of a hill or mountain. We have one locally and I have found that it is one of those road names that appear all over. Well, al least, where there are hills. And yes, I have known all the words to the Beverly Hillbillies’ theme song nearly all my life. It’s one of those things that crowds out the much more useful info that should occupy my brain.
Looking through some old work, most of which was done early on while I was still forming my technique and style and before I showed my work publicly, I came across this oddity that I noted as Hogback Heaven. It’s a goofy little scene of a roughhewn home and hardscrabble yard somewhere out on a dirt road in the country, the kind of place that I often passed years ago in my treks on the backroads around my home area. All that is missing here from my memories of those places are a couple of barking hounds and a toddler in a sagging diaper playing in the gravel of the driveway. Maybe a goat, as well.
Whenever I come across this piece, I have to smile. I don’t know if it’s the subject or the crazy electric feel of the cobalt blue sky and hills and the red neon outlines of the house and ground. I’m still trying to figure out where that color came from. Maybe it’s a smile of embarrassment that this little painting is hovering in my past. But there’s something in it that makes me want to keep it around.
I wanted to set this post to some fitting music and in my search came across this other sort of oddity. Called Yiddish Hillbillies, it’s a vintage 40’s era cartoon that has had the soundtrack replaced ( in a very clever and coordinated way) with a song from Mickey Katz. Katz was a comedian who specialized in Jewish humor, with Yiddish-tinged song parodies of contemporary songs of the time being his specialty. Think Borscht Riders in the Sky or Sixteen Tons (of Latkes). While much of the Yiddish-tinged wording goes over my head I do enjoy the klezmer feel here. A note on Mickey Katz: His son is actor Joel Grey which makes him the grandfather of actress Jennifer Grey.
Redtree Times 