Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Favorite Things’ Category

Nature Boy

Posted in Favorite Things, Neat Stuff, Video, tagged , , on November 1, 2009| 2 Comments »

eden ahbez with cowboy jack pattonSometimes when you look behind something that’s been in front of you for years you find out things you would have never imagined otherwise.  Such is the case with the song, Nature Boy.

Nature Boy, as recorded by the great Nat King Cole,  has long been one of  my favorite songs.  It has a wonderful haunting melody and tells the story of a “strange enchanted boy” and his search to find love.  It always has had a sort of mystical feel to me, a real oddity in the world of popular music in 1948 when Nat King Cole recorded and had a huge hit with it, staying at #1 on the charts for eight weeks.

I was going to just have a short post and put up a YouTube video of Cole’s version but in doing so I saw the name of the songwriter, eden ahbez, and was intrigued.  Doing a little research I came across some photos of him such as the one above, from the late 40’s sitting with Cowboy Jack Patton ( who wrote Ghost Riders in the Sky) and a spaniel.  I’ll let you figure out who is who in the photo.  ahbez’s long hair and attire seemed really out of place for me in thinking of 1948 so I read on.

eden ahbezeden ahbez was a real one of a kind character in the world of music and in general.  You could probably guess that from the name which he adopted and wrote only in lower case letters.   Born in 1908, he is regarded as the first hippie by many, a long-haired and bearded wanderer who crisscrossed the country on foot, wearing robes and sandals, maintained a vegetarian lifestyle and slept out under the stars.  In fact, when Nature Boy hit the charts he and his wife were living under the first L on the Hollywood sign, which stoked a bit of a media frenzy around ahbez.  He worked in and frequented a vegetarian restaurant (that’s where he met Cowboy Jack Patton, another interesting character) in 1940’s Los Angeles whose German owners preached the gospel of natural and raw foods.  Their followers became known as the Nature Boys.

Not really what I was expecting from a pop songwriter in 1940’s LA. ahbez died in 1995 from injuries sustained in an auto accident.  He was 87.  His was a truly unique life, just waiting for a biographer to tell the story, and reading the little I discovered makes me find the song even more interesting.  Hope you’ll do the same now that you know a bit more about eden ahbez…

Read Full Post »

Monster Movie Matinee

Posted in At the Movies, Biographical, Favorite Things, Neat Stuff, Television, tagged , , , on October 31, 2009| 19 Comments »

Dr. Witty on Monster Movie MatineeWith Halloween falling on a Saturday this year, my mind switches back to past Halloweens and all the things that go with them.  Part of my normal Saturday routine growing up was to be in front of the TV at 1 o’clock to watch Monster Movie Matinee, a show out of Syracuse that ran for a couple of decades and showed classic ( and not so classic, as the years went by) horror and sci-fi movies.

It was a great kitschy broadcast.  It would start with the camera panning in over an obvious model of an haunted-type mansion on a hill as eerie monster movie music played.  It was hosted by Dr. E. Nick Witty (I think this is supposed to be funny but it eludes me) and his assistant, the wretched Epal. Epal on Monster Movie Matinee You never saw anything of Dr. Witty but his long emotive fingers.  His voice was kind of a bad Bela Lugosi copy that played perfectly for this type of show.  Epal, played by the station’s longtime weatherman who also played other characters (his character, Salty Sam, introduced me to Popeye cartoons) on a number of other shows, was covered in rough-edged scars and wore an eyepatch.  He seemed to constantly erode as the years passed.

They had storylines that they used as they introduced the films, little vignettes that ran from week to week.  Goofy stuff but fun.  They let the movies they showed be the real stars and I saw most of the greats through them.  All the Frankenstein, Dracula and Wolfman movies were in regular rotation in the early years mixed in with a plethora of lower quality, monstery B-movies, which kind of took over in the later years.

215px-Creature_from_the_Black_Lagoon_posterI remember one wet and dark Halloween Saturday back then spending the afternoon watching one of my favorites with Dr. Witty and Epal.  It was The Creature From the Black Lagoon.  It was a movie that was shown at least a few times a year so it became part of the kid memory bank.  It was the story of a group of geological researchers sent to explore a fossilized skeletal claw-like hand found up the Amazon where they encounter the Creature, a rubber-clad Gill-Man who makes repeated attacks on the research vessel, finally abducting the babe girlfriend of the main scientist.

Originally in 3-D in the theaters, was a pretty stylish 50’s monster movie.  Pretty good quality, actually.  The Creature was a great costume, very sleek and somewhat believable- at least to the kid sitting on the couch with the Fig Newtons.  It had nice underwater photography of the Creature gliding after his prey and also had great sound and music that really enhanced the story.  It wasn’t the scariest but it kept you involved with the story.   I always felt more of a connection with the Creature than I did with the crew of researchers and actually felt myself kind of rooting for him at times.  Much like King Kong, he seemed sadly alone.

That wet and dark Saturday many years ago seems to come to life now whenever I think of the Creature or Halloween, for that matter.  I remember the light.  The smell of that living room. Funny how certain things, even the smallest trivialities, imprint on the memory  when coupled with something important, as Halloween was to a kid.

Today I’m thinking of that day and that lonely Gill-Man and Dr. Witty…

Read Full Post »

No Goats. No Glory.

Posted in At the Movies, Favorite Things, tagged , , , on October 29, 2009| 3 Comments »

clooney-staring-at-goatsThere are a few movies that I’ve been looking forward to and am finally seeing some ads for on the tube.  One is The Men Who Stare at Goats starring George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor and Kevin Spacey. It’s based on the 2004 Jon Ronson book of the same name that was an accompaniment to a BBC documentary on some of the odder aspects of US military intelligence.  Things like psychic warfare and mind control.

It looks like a very funny flick.  Clooney and Bridges have both shown great comedic chops in the past, particularly in Coen Brothers’ films, and look to do the same here.

Another film that I am looking forward to seeing is The Road.  Well, I guess I’m looking forward to seeing it.  Dreading it may actually be the better description to how well I really want to see this film, based on Cormac McCarthy‘s sparse, bleak tale of a father and his young son trying to find warmth and safety in an end of the world scenario.  It’s a dark story that plays on primal fears with little room for hope.  Like much of McCarthy’s work.

Like many books being translated into film, The Road could very well be a bust as a film.  I am afraid they will clutter the story with too much backstory instead of focusing on the simple father-son relationship of the two main characters.  McCarthy told the story with beautifully pared down prose that said everything but not too much.  He lets you fill in your own nightmare.  If you’ve read some of his other work ( No Country For Old Men and the Hieronymous Bosch-like Blood  Meridien leap to mind) you’ll know what I mean.

So, of the two I expect one to make me laugh and one to depress me, either from disappointment or from its portrayal of the abyss of hopelessness.  Now that’s good stuff…

Read Full Post »

Tower of Song

Posted in Favorite Things, Video, tagged , on October 27, 2009| 10 Comments »

GC Myers 2001Running a little late this morning, getting work ready to be delivered next week, and I check the stats for this blog to find that it’s hit and passed the 500,000 hits mark for this year alone.  I’m kind of stunned because when I started this blog last year I was struggling to get 100 hits in a day and the idea of a half million views seemed kind of ridiculous.

Now, I realize that all of these hits are not real readers.  I do submit, on a daily basis, to a blog-surfing engine, Alphainventions, that generates tremendous traffic from all over the world.  Many of these folks have never heard of my work or blog and simply stop because they are attracted to the images at the top of the post, which is a good thing for someone whose work is based on visual imagery.  Many will only stop once or twice but many become regular readers.

So, what does it mean, this 500,000 number?  I don’t really know.  I guess there is a certain validation of the power of the visual image.  I can get a pretty good idea of the reactive power of a painting by how many people respond to it on the blog, so in that way it’s useful to me.

But beyond that, it’s probably just another number, albeit a fairly large one.  I’m going to think about this today while I plug along in the studio but first I think I’ll listen to a little Leonard Cohen.  Here’s his Tower of Song…

Read Full Post »

The Day I Got My Finger Stuck In My Nose

Posted in Favorite Things, Neat Stuff on October 25, 2009| Leave a Comment »

the_queens_noseThe Day I Got My Finger Stuck In My Nose


When I got my finger stuck up my nose

I went to a doctor, who said,

“Nothing like this has happened before,

We will have to chop off your head.”


“It’s only my finger stuck up my nose,

It’s only my finger!” I said.

“I see what it is,” the doctor replied,

“But we’ll still have to chop off your head.”


He went to the cabinet and took out an axe.

I watched with considerable dread.

“But it’s only my finger stuck up my nose.

It’s only a finger!” I said.


“Perhaps we can yank it out with a hook

Tied to some surgical thread.

Maybe we can try that,” he replied

“Rather than chop off your head.”


“I’m never going to pick it again.

I’ve now learned my lesson,” I said.

“I won’t stick my finger up my nose –

I’ll stick it in my ear instead.”


—Brian Patten

Read Full Post »

The Smell of Pomade

Posted in Favorite Things, Television, tagged , , , on October 24, 2009| 1 Comment »

TV JohnI was taking a shower yesterday when a scent filled my nose.  It was an odd yet familiar smell, a bit like gunpowder wafting from the barrel of a gun.  It wasn’t something that I had anticipated and I don’t know where it came from but I was suddenly reminded of TV John McKeever, a character from the BBC series Hamish MacBeth that ran several years back.  That’s him in the photo.  The show was the story of a quirky,small Scottish village and its constable, Hamish MacBeth (played by Robert Carlyle.)  It reminded me of a Highland version of Northern Exposure except that it had more drama and mystery, a whodunit with a bit of humor.

One of the main characters was TV John McKeever,  so named for having been the first in town with a TV, who was more or less MacBeth’s deputy.  He was a tall, mysterious character with a bit of clairvoyance.  He had experienced a premonition of his own death and knew that his death would be imminent when he would smell  a particular scent of pomade, which is a hair gel of sorts.  Think of the Dapper Dan cans in O Brother Where Art Thou? This was a recurring plot point in the series.

So there I was in the shower, thinking of TV John and the smell of pomade that would be to him the smell of death, and I began to wonder, “What if this scent I now smelled was my smell of pomade?”

What if today were to be my last day on this earth?  How would I live it?  If I were able to scan back through this last day, as though the day were a movie viewed through my eyes, what would I see?  Would today be a good day to carry with me as my last day, filled with images that meant something to me?

All this was within a flash of seconds and I found myself realizing that I was taking so much for granted around me.  I was not stopping, if only for a moment, to take in the way things really appear around me.  To take in the grandeur of the trees of the forest that I walked through every day.  To look up at the stars on a cold autumn night and see the way the stars and planets change position in the sky.  To see how a squirrel races through the limbs of the hickories around my house.

Simple things.  Things that I simply forget to take notice of on a regular basis.  But things that give texture and depth to my life, things of which I would want to take notice on that day when the smell of pomade wafted into my nostrils…


Read Full Post »

The Great Conrad Veidt

Posted in At the Movies, Favorite Things, tagged , , , , , on October 20, 2009| 3 Comments »

Conrad Veidt as Major Strasser in CasablancaI’ve mentioned before that I really enjoy old movies and probably one of the reasons is the many great character actors who really embellished any story.  One of my favorites is the great character actor, Conrad Veidt, who made his fame as a star in German cinema before fleeing the Nazi regime in 1933.   Probably most of you out there don’t know the name very well, if at all.  But you are no doubt aware of many of the films and characters he has influenced, well past his death in 1943, only a year after his most famous part as the soon to be stereotypical Nazi, Major Strasser, in Casablanca.

Many of the characters he played became stereotypes or  prototypes in the movies after his death.  The haughty, cruel arrogance of Major Strasser became the way to play Nazis in the film world. conrad veidt themanwholaughsThen you have the charming fellow with the lovely smile shown here.  It’s a character, Gwynplaine, he played in American silent film The Man Who Laughs, based on the Victor Hugo book, in 1928.  The cartoonists responsible for the Batman comic book series were so taken with Veidt’s character that they used him as the basis for the Joker, many years pre-Heath Ledger.

Before that Veidt had been a star in post-WW I Germany, starring in the classic  The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. It is one of the gems of German Expressionist filmmaking and one of the most influential films of all time, conrad veidt caligari posterpaving the way for  future horror films as well as film noir.   Veidt’s character may have even influenced the Goth look of today’s youth.  He played Cesare, the murderous sideshow attraction of Dr Caligari.  Cesare was pretty Goth looking for the time, all dressed in black with darkened eyes and jet black hair.

The image of Viedt’s Cesare was one that I saw many times as kid and a horror movie fan.  I didn’t know who Conrad Veidt was but I recognized his character in the books and magazines I read that traced the history of monster and horror films.  Actually, it wasn’t until I was well into my adult life that I realized that Cesare and Major Strasser were the same man.  That speaks to the versatility of Conrad Veidt.

His influence is also seen in one of the most popular animated films of all time , Disney’s 1992 Aladdin, which is based on the film, The Thief of Bagdad.  Viedt’s character was Jafar, the villainous Grand Vizier.  As in all of his roles he made a huge impression in his characterization that it came to be the gold standard for such roles.  You can even see it in the pure physical similarity.

jaffarJafar-and-Iago-aladdin-270913_445_266As I said, character actors like Veidt, along with the likes of Charles Coburn, Ward Bond, William Demarest and hundreds of others, have really given great texture to many of the best films of all time and their influence lives on today.  The next time you’re watching and enjoying an old movie, keep an eye out for these  wonderful actors.  No doubt they will be there.

Read Full Post »

Red Clay Halo

Posted in Favorite Things, Painting, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged on October 19, 2009| 2 Comments »

994-305 Given to the Wind

I came across this piece in my archives from several years back with a title, Given to the Wind,  that I’ve used on a couple of paintings over the years.  The composition is also similar in it’s basic design to a number of pieces of mine, particularly from the time that this piece was completed, around 2004.

I’ve overlooked this painting a number of times when I’ve been scanning my records, not giving it  much mind.  Maybe the shape and ratio of it in my thumbnails didn’t allow me to see it as well as I would like.  But yesterday when I came across this, it was like seeing it for the first time, which for me is an odd thing.  I was really pleased with it, really felt it had a fullness, a sense of completion in all ways.  It was one of those pieces that didn’t stand out in my memory and didn’t live with me very long, having sold very quickly at a gallery, yet when I saw it made me very proud to call it my work.

I don’t know what I’m trying to say with this.  Sometimes I stumble upon something I’ve forgotten and am pleased to discover that it’s mine, pleased that it’s out there somewhere in someone else’s life.  I hope they are as pleased with this as I am.

Given that there is a guitar in this piece, I suppose I’ll have a little Monday music.  This is Red Clay Halo from one of my favorites, Gillian Welch. As she says, it’s a song about dirt.  I’ve always fancied myself a dirt man so this fits, although the clay around here is stony gray.

Read Full Post »

Baseball and Humility

Posted in Current Events, Favorite Things, Influences, tagged , , , on October 18, 2009| 4 Comments »

Walk-Off WinI’m up surprisingly early this morning, after watching about a 5 1/2 hour Yankees/Angels playoff game last night, one that ended well after 1 AM.

It was a classic with everything that a fan could want.  Great performances.  Drama.  Heroics.  Sheer elation.

And humility.

Yeah, that’s right.  Humility.  I’m not talking about the “Aw, shucks, it weren’t nothing, Ma’am …”  kind of humility.  I’m talking about the built in humility of the game.  This a game where you will fail nearly every game in a game that is played nearly every day, often in crucial moments.  If you only fail as a hitter 70% of the time you could very well end up in Cooperstown, in the Hall of Fame.  As a fielder, there will inevitably be moments where, even if you are the best,  you will fail, making an error.  As a pitcher,  you are an ace if you only give up 3 or 4 runs a game.

Yet with all this failure, there is still the possibility of victory.  Take for instance, the night Derek Jeter had last night.  The Yankee captain started the scoring early with a home run.

Top of the world, ma, to quote Jimmy Cagney.

But as the game progressed he struck out a couple of times, hit into a costly double-play  and made an error in the field that could have been disastrous.  Yet, through all of this failure, his team emerged victorious.  That’s what I like about baseball.  It’s not about physical dominance but is most often about consistency and persistence, slogging forward despite the failures.  Shrugging them off and looking forward to the next at-bat, not as a chance to again fail, but as an opportunity to succeed.

There’s a life lesson for us all in there somewhere.  The most successful players in baseball have the ability to sweep away the memory of the last failure and move on to the next opportunity.  They try to learn from their failures.  Adjust.  And dare to fail again.  Something we should all remember.

That’s the humility in baseball.

Go, Yanks…

Read Full Post »

London Calling

Posted in Favorite Things, Video, tagged , , , , on October 17, 2009| Leave a Comment »

ClashCame into the studio this morning and when I sat down to write something for the blog, I kept having the chorus from London Calling , the great song from the Clash, running through my head.  It’s not what I normally experience early in the morning so I figured it must be from catching part of a documentary on the life of the late Clash frontman Joe Strummer recently.

Interesting life.  Interesting guy.

The documentary really captured the spirit that drove 70’s British punk and has had me revisiting Clash music all week in my head.  I generally focus on m favorites from the album London Calling.  It was a grand album with wide and varied subject matter and sound.  And a great cover that was based on one of the classic Elvis albums of the 50’s except with the photo above in place of the King.  Just good stuff.

I’m showing two clips of two of my favorites from the LP today.  The first is The Right Profile which is about the late actor Montgomery Clift and Spanish Bombs which concerns itself with the Spanish civil war of the 1930’s.  They never wrote just simple love songs…

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »