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Archive for the ‘Television’ Category

Getting Close Now- Work In Progress

Posted in Neat Stuff, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, Television, tagged , , on October 2, 2009| 6 Comments »

GC Myers 2009 adding BlueWell, this painting, a 42″ by 60″ canvas, is closing in on what may be its final appearance, at least in my head.  I have the sky close to where I see it finishing, the village only needs some highlights here and there  and the landscape is basically set in place.

My next move is to move into the last large area that needs paint- the waterway and the land on either side of it.  I first go in with a manganese blue, a rich color that I can play off as I move along.  I often use blue for water even though it seldom appears that way in nature.  There seems to be a childish element that allows us to imagine or see blue as water.  For me, it goes back to how the color plays off the other colors.  The harmony produced is more important to me.  I also start adding color to the bridge at this point, although I see it changing in color over the rest of the process.

GC Myers 2009 Nearing the Finish LineFrom there it’s on to putting some color into the lower segment of landscape around the waterway and the structures.  I start with a dark Hunter green which actually darkens this space with a real earthy almost black green tone.  I like the way this sets everything off but am feeling it’s a little too deep and dark, almost flat in dimension.  I think that I probably lighten this soon but I first transition back into the water where I start laying in a lighter blue over the darker manganese underneath.  There is a bit of violet mixed with the blue I’m using which warms the blue just a bit.  I feel like I’m close to where I want this to be at this point but there is still a little work ahead, especially on the water and the bridge.

I start by lightening the bridge so that it has more contrast against the blue of the water.  I want contrast but not so much that the eye settles there.  I next begin adding a little depth in the green of the landscape with a mix of cadmium orange and yellow, once more put on with a light, dryish brush.  The  technique with the brush is as though I’m dusting something off the canvas with short, quick strokes, leaving only a residual of pigment.  This little bit of color atop the green makes a huge difference and I take this same color and technique into the water, really lightening the color so that it has a violet-slatey color, much less blue than it started.  Here’s where I am:

DSC_0106 smallSo I’m near the end and I really like the feel so far with this painting- but…  There’s always a but.

But I really feel it needs one more element beyond the village to bring it all together.  A real object of focus.  Like the tree or trees I mentioned in yesterday’s update.  Or I could take one of the larger, centrally located structures and put even more highlight, more brightness on it.

I’m leaning toward the tree but this is the part of the process where the painting sits for a while in the studio and I look at it over the next several days.  I’m consciously weighing all the elements in the painting to see if there is balance in the structure.  Does it hold together as a composition and do all the elements and lines make sense, not make me stop and wonder why this is here or that is over there?  As it stands, does it convey a wholly realized emotional feeling?  Lots of questions.

So, I’m at a terminus and just have to put in some mind time.  Soon it will be done…

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Just Dropped In

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Television, Video, tagged , , , , , on September 27, 2009| 2 Comments »

big lebowski multiI was looking for a video on YouTube and came across some old Smothers Brothers things from their 1960’s show.  Time has kind of faded the notoriety they had at that time in America.  Most people, especially those under 40, think of the Smothers Brothers and think of a couple of older, very straight looking guys in tuxes performing skits with the Boston Pops or Tommy Smothers doing his YoYo Man act.  Hardly anything controversial there.

But in the late 60’s their Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was a huge hit on CBS, bringing political irreverence  and protest along with the best music of  that era’s youth to a wide audience.  They were cancelled at the peak of their popularity in 1969 in a dispute with CBS over censorship, an action that they later filed suit and won against CBS.

I loved the show when I was a kid.  It was funny and smart and said the things that the news coverage of the time refused to say, particularly about the war in Viet Nam.  You have to realize how much narrower the options were at that time for hearing something out of the mainstream.

I especially liked the music.  Pete Townsend of the Who claims to have lost his hearing in one ear when Keith Moon exploded his drum set  during a performance on the show.  Pete Seeger had a famous appearance singing Waist Deep In the Big Muddy as a protest against the war.  So much great stuff.

I happened across this segment featuring Kenny Rogers and the First Edition doing their hit Just Dropped In ( To See What Condition My Condition Was In), a song that most young people will no doubt associate with its part in The Big Lebowski‘s dream sequence with The Dude, as shown above.  This video with Kenny Rogers in his pre-Gambler days has pretty much the same feel, in that 1960’s goofy TV psychedelic effect way.  Take a look…

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A Face In The Crowd

Posted in At the Movies, Favorite Things, Television, Video, tagged , , , , , , on September 25, 2009| 2 Comments »

A Face In the CrowdIt’s funny sometimes how the truth behind a satire from another time seems to come to bear in the present.

This past weekend, I watched part of  A Face In The Crowd, the classic film that I’ve seen many times from 1957 starring Andy Griffith as slimy Lonesome Rhodes, a drunken Southern drifter who by virtue of circumstance becomes a media darling and mouthpiece for conservative populism a la Glenn Beck of today. It’s a great film, one that always provokes a strong reaction and always seems, even in its dated setting, to have something that we can see in our own circumstances today.  It was a tour de force performance from Griffith and a far cry from the gentle, wise Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry.  Lonesome Rhodes was the type of character that would have had Barney Fife pretty nervous.

Lonesome Rhodes knows how to manipulate the people, spark them into a fiery force, yet has nothing but contempt for them.   He has a natural ability, like many cons, of being able to read people, sense their drives and triggers while ingratiating himself at the same time.   He is all charisma.  But beneath this patina of charm and folksy wisdom lies a core of anger, sex and violence- a dangerous timebomb who strives to shape the public opinion into his vision.

It’s a great depiction of how the public reacts to a man of the people, even when he may be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  There is always talk of remaking this film and I always cringe at the thought.  Like most remakes of great films, it would probably lose that intangible spark that makes the original blaze, be it a stellar performance and natural charm like  that of Andy Griffith, a great supporting cast featuring Patricia Neal and Walter Matthau, or the sharp, angular storytelling from director Elia Kazan, a controversial figure himself.  I really hope that they choose to leave this one alone.

Anyway, if you like social satire check out this film.  Good stuff.  Here’s the original trailer-

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Ripping Yarns

Posted in Favorite Things, Television, Video, tagged , , , , on August 1, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Tomkinsons SchooldaysA few weeks back I came across the old film, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, the one from 1939 with Robert Donat, not the later awful musical version with Peter O’Toole.  It’s a very sweet chronicle of a schoolmaster’s life at a British upper crust boarding school, the type of film that would never be made today.  Watching it, however, reminded me of another such story.

In the 1970’s Michael Palin, in his post-Monty Python days, did a short series for the BBC that consisted of half hour episodes, each a different story with him as the main character in each.  It was called Ripping Yarns.  Seeing Mr. Chips reminded of one such episode called Tomkinson’s Schooldays which tells of a young student’s trials and tribulations in such a school.  

I remember seeing it 30 years ago or so and laughing very hard and still use references from it.  I have been wanting to revisit it all these many years and I always look for it but it never seems to resurface.  But of course, I hadn’t checked Youtube.  With a few clicks, there it was, in several parts.  

It was as funny as I remembered.  Here is the first part of Tomkinson’s Schooldays and for those of you who enjoy Python-like humor, you can see the rest on Youtube. 

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What’s My Line?

Posted in Favorite Things, Television, Video, tagged , , , , , on March 6, 2009| Leave a Comment »

What's My Line? PanelI always find old television shows , particularly old game shows, fascinating to watch if only for the snapshot they provide of the time in which they were produced. The language, the clothing, the personas, all create a sense of how the world was and how it has changed.

One of my favorites is What’s My Line? which still airs on the Game Show Network in the middle of the night. Normal people and celebrities would come out and sign in then the panel would try to guess their occupation. For celebs, the panel would be blindfolded.

The panel was famed columnist and tragic Kennedy conspiracy-theorist Dorothy Kilgallen, actress Arlene Francis, humorist/publisher Bennett Cerf and a male guest panelist, usually a famous personality. The host was the affable John Charles Daly who was also a well-respected news anchor/ journalist. Their banter was witty and urbane, their clothing dapper and when they would often question guests after their identities were uncovered, their conversation was serious with sometimes probing questions. But often it was just intelligent fun with legendary performers and people with odd ball jobs. They make you want to be in NYC in the ’50’s.

The range of the celebrities that appeared was amazing. From the biggest names in sports, movies, theatre, TV to military leaders and icons such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Salvador Dali, whose entertaining clip I’m showing here.

It was a different time and it’s always a pleasure to see a bit of it in the form of these short time capsules…

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Archaeology: The New Dawn

Posted in Television, Video on February 28, 2009| 3 Comments »

Archaeology: The New DawnAnother Saturday and I thought I’d show a painting from last year’s Archaeology series, The New Dawn.  This was one of the first of the series and one of the most dynamic.

I’m showing this as a sort of segue into a film clip I stumbled on.  I figured archaeology and digging around in the past would match up well for a goofy bit from my memory.

In my teens. The Gong Show was popular viewing with Chuck Barris, the Unknown Comic, Gene-Gene the Dancing Machine, a rotating cast of obnoxious celebrities(does JP Morgan really qualify?) and an endless supply of forgettable, and often downright sad, acts.

It was not Masterpiece Theatre certainly but when you’re fourteen, loud and obnoxious will suffice.

Anyway, I have this embedded memory of a group of costumed guys pulsing around the stage to The Immigrant Song from Led Zeppelin, one of those memories that you are pretty sure are less than they seem.  The kind of thing that makes you question the judgement of your brain’s selective trigger- why is thing occupying space here?  Well, on a whim I looked it up and sure enough, there it was.  Just goes to show that you can, indeed, find anything on YouTube.  I’m still not sure that’s a good thing but here is my memory.  Have a good Saturday…

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Elvis Presley Blues

Posted in Biographical, Favorite Things, Influences, Television, Video, tagged , on January 8, 2009| 1 Comment »

Today is the birthday of Elvis Presley.Early Elvis

I’m not going to wax rhapsodic about the man or what he has meant to so many people.  Everyone knows the facts:

Elvis was and is big.

For me, it’s memories of going with my sister and cousin to the movies to see his films.  I was 5 or 6 years old but even then, Elvis’ charisma was unavoidable even in those sometimes awful films.

I remember sitting in front of the TV with my dad in’68 when Elvis made his comeback special.  We both sat mesmerized as we watched,  which struck me because my dad was not one to show much obvious interest in a lot of things.  It was an amazing thing to watch.  Elvis had the air of absolute desperation around him, as if everything in the world hung on  him pleasing us and gaining our love and approval.

 It seemed to be, to quote an Elvis hit, now or never.

It was a mythic performance, obvious to even a 9 year old.

But like many mythic beings, intermingled with greatness there was the aura of tragedy and sadness.  That’s how I think of Elvis.  A simple man elevated to myth and burdened with a talent and charisma with which few are equipped to handle.

Here’s another Gillian Welch song, Elvis Presley Blues,  which kind of sums up that feeling.

Happy birthday, E…

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Happy Rockin’ New Year

Posted in Neat Stuff, Television, Video, tagged , , , on January 1, 2009| Leave a Comment »

fausts-guitarWell, we’re finally out of 2008 and hopefully it will recede calmly in our rearview mirror and not re-emerge, Terminator-style, to hunt us down.

Put the pedal to the metal and let’s get into 2009.

I thought on this first day of a new year we could use a little lightness.  Maybe a goofy juxtaposition.  How about some more surf music, the venerable Pipeline by the Chantays ?   Here they are, of all places, on the Lawrence Welk Show.  Check out the choreography and ride the pipeline into ’09.

Yee haa…

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Christmas Time

Posted in Favorite Things, Television, Video, tagged , , on November 28, 2008| 2 Comments »

I am a product of television and pop culture, having spent innumerable hours as a child glued to the tube.  It was in many ways a classroom where I picked up many details about the outside world that didn’t seem to exist in my world at the time.  That may be a sad commentary but luckily, when I was growing up, many shows had moral compasses and had lessons to teach through their humor.  Shows like The Andy Griffith Show come to mind.

Well, a great part of TV watching as a kid were the Christmas specials and since today marks the start of the season I thought I’d show a clip from one of my favorites, one that started when I was a kid and one that I try to catch every year.  Great music, great story and the greatest characters– It’s a Charlie Brown Christmas.

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