Redtree Times

In the High Country– At the Principle Gallery

The height of the pinnacle is determined by the breadth of the base.

–Ralph Waldo Emerson

Just a couple of quick hits here this morning. First, last night Aaron Judge finally broke the Major League Home Run record down in Arlington, TX. It was his 62nd blast, breaking the 61 year old record held by the late Roger Maris.

I laid out the reasoning in an earlier post why I believe that this is the true record. The others who have had more home runs all did so in a window of time that had juiced baseballs, juiced players and possibly juiced bats, for those of you who remember the Sammy Sosa broken bat incident. At that time, it was not unusual for a player who had never been a prodigious slugger in their career to suddenly hit 50 or more homers.

It was fun to watch at the time. But for baseball traditionalists, the numbers rang hollow. It would be like being a basketball fan and they suddenly lowered the rim while at the same time making it larger. The records after that change would certainly be regarded with some suspicion.

The beauty of Judge is that he exemplifies the qualities one hopes for in their heroes. Sure, he’s huge and powerful. But he’s also exceedingly humble, hard-working, disciplined, and team oriented. When he hits a 450-foot home run that would have others flipping their bats and striking poses as they make their way to first base, Judge simply puts his head down and trots the bases quickly. I’ve watched many hundreds of Yankees games with Judge playing and you can see how well regarded and liked he is by his interactions with the players from the other teams. Even with the bitterest of rivals, there is always a lot of smiles and joking around.

Nice to see a good guy who does things in the right way reach the pinnacle.

Next, country great Loretta Lynn passed away at the age of 90. I wrote about the Queen of Country a couple of times here. She had an air of authenticity that couldn’t be faked or manufactured. I think that’s why when she her attempt at reinvention with her 2004 Grammy Award-winning album Van Lear Rose, a collaboration with rocker Jack White, was such a success– even though it was a stylistic departure, her authenticity burned through it.

It was still all her. Another real person at a pinnacle.

So, here are two tracks from Van Lear Rose. I was tempted to play some of her earlier tracks like Fist City or Rated X but these fit better this morning. Both are true Loretta Lynn songs, the autobiographical High on a Moutain Top and Mrs. Leroy Brown, a hard charging country stomper with a guitar sound that would make Jerry Reed proud. RIP, Loretta.

I’m awfully tired of the same old business
Kiss the babies, make ’em cry
I’m only lookin’ for one good woman
Cross my heart and hope to die
Stick a needle in my eye, eye, eye

–John Prine, Stick a Needle In My Eye

A John Prine song came on early this morning in the studio, one that I hadn’t heard in a while. But while I haven’t actually heard it in my ears, it’s one of those songs that is in my head a lot. When things are going poorly, usually of my own doing due to my sheer stupidity or carelessness, its short chorus inevitably finds its way to my mind:

Stick a needle in my eye, eye, eye

Usually makes me chuckle. And that’s a good thing at those low moments. I always figured that if I had taken some sort of a beating and could still laugh about it, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I knew then that I was going to get through it and be okay.

I’ve had some very good laughs on some very bad days.

Better to laugh than cry but sometimes it comes down to laughing while crying.

Stick a needle in my eye, eye, eye

Funny how a song or image or a few words can trigger so many memories, good and bad. Hearing this song made me think of this little painting at the top, one that I did a number of years ago. It was done on a quick whim at one of those moments when things weren’t going so well all the way around. It was meant for just me and I knocked it out in 15 or 20 minutes. It’s not much but it served a great purpose for me, much like that short chorus.

I showed this little painting here a couple of years back in a post about the Power of Hopelessness, which remains a personal favorite of mine. I think that essay and this painting and song all link together in a way. I think it’s all about how one reacts to adversity. You can give up or you can laugh in its face then get to work at somehow climbing out of whatever hole you’re in.

Ain’t much but it’s all I got…

Stick a needle in my eye, eye, eye

Solitary Song— At the Principle Gallery, Alexandria, VA

“And what, you ask, does writing teach us?

First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation.

So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all.”

― Ray Bradbury, The October Country

Sunday morning and it’s still dark here as I write.

A cool and sleepy autumn morning in October.

The perils of the world seem far removed on such a morning. It’s a welcome respite, this time each morning when I devote a small bit of my day to music and words and art.

Maybe that is the revitalization that Ray Bradbury refers to in the passage above. It certainly lends a small sense of purpose, maybe one that allows me to pay back Life for its given gift.

I don’t know. Maybe.

Anyway, I’ve been sitting here for a while listening to music and now the clouded light is starting to filter in through the trees around the studio. It’s time to take this bit of regained vitality and face the world again. Here’s a song, a favorite from Neil Young that I thought I had played recently but discovered that it has been eight years since it last played here.

Time creeps away, don’t it?

Here’s Neil and his Harvest Moon from a performance from some time back at the venerable Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Good stuff.

Babe Ruth Picasso

Van Gogh Baseball Player

Since baseball time is measured only in outs, all you have to do is succeed utterly; keep hitting, keep the rally alive, and you have defeated time. You remain forever young.

–Roger Angell, Once More Around the Park: A Baseball Reader

Just wanted to share a drone tour of Wrigley Field, the fabled home of the Chicago Cubs, that was released yesterday. The team produced this video as an end-of-season gift to their fans and it gives every fan an intimate and fascinating view of the park, inside and out. I would have to believe that this required a tremendous amount of planning and expertise to produce such great results.

It’s a fun watch for even non-baseball fans.

I thought I might try my hand at generating some AI (Artificial Intelligence) images through one of the free online generators. These were from deepai.org. You basically type in a short description of what you would like to see, and they pop up moments later. Sometimes the results surprise you.

I made two requests, one a Picasso painting of Babe Ruth and the other a baseball player in a Van Gogh landscape. I’m kind of partial to the Van Gogh ballplayer.

Anyway, take a tour of old Wrigley this morning.

We’re coming up on two years since my dad died and watching the coverage of Hurricane Ian brings back a lot of memories. The last place he lived was in Fort Myers Beach, about a mile down San Carlos Blvd. from the Sanibel Island Causeway that was totally devastated by the storm. I look for images that might show his old home there but it’s so hard to determine what is what in the massive destruction shown.

I found one mention of the park in which he lived that said that, early into the storm, the water was up on to the roofs of the homes there. I can only imagine that it is gone or, if not, will soon be as it would be unlivable and most likely beyond repair.

I also can imagine that some of the people in that same park refused to leave.

Though I wasn’t fond of that place or the reasons for being there several years back when we had to go down to bring hm back to this area as his Alzheimer’s worsened, this makes me a little sad. Just another example of how traces of people are wiped away.

And now the storm is headed up to the Charleston, SC area where my parents also lived for a couple of years. Maybe they lived in those places just so their family would be reminded of them whenever the inevitable natural disasters struck these vulnerable areas?

I kind of doubt that factored into their decisions.

But seeing these images of these places I somewhat know being so decimated is striking on a human level. I can’t imagine having to try to rebuild a life in those places. I am tired now as it is.

But it will be done in some form. People somehow persevere.

It’s all we can do.

I have a piece of music to share that might seem out of place and irreverent to the tragedy taking place. If you are offended, I apologize. However, coming across it this morning made me smile and people need to be able to do that if they are to persevere. This is an old clip from the Cher show in 1975 that has Cher, Tina Turner and Anthony Newley performing a medley of songs including The Resurrection Shuffle, in a revival tent-type setting. It’s a classic example of kitschy, overdone variety TV that ruled the early 1970’s. 

It’s so bad it’s good.

Again, sorry if this seems out of place but, hey, they’re going to need this kind of energy for their own resurrection.

Solitude and Reverence

Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone, and the only one who seeks out another. His nature – if that word can be used in reference to man, who has ‘invented’ himself by saying ‘no’ to nature – consists in his longing to realize himself in another. Man is nostalgia and a search for communion. Therefore, when he is aware of himself he is aware of his lack of another, that is, of his solitude.

–-Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950)

I am in the midst of getting ready for a solo show at the Kada Gallery that opens on November 4. I am thrilled to have another show at this gallery that has represented my work since 1996 and this will be my first there since 2019, just before the pandemic.

I am eager to put together a super strong show and have about a month to finish up the new work for this show. So, time (and solitude) is once again a limited and valuable commodity.

Saving a little time here this morning, I am sharing a favorite painting of mine from several years back, Solitude and Reverence. It’s one of those pieces that speaks to me so strongly and personally that I find myself mystified, even a bit offended, that it never found a home. But that is the nature of art and I have truly enjoyed having it here over the past few years. Maybe this is the home it deserves.

Continuing the theme of solitude, I have included the words of Octavio Paz on the nature of solitude as he sees it along with a classical violin piece from contemporary composer John Harbison. This is Song 2 from his 1985 work, Songs of Solitude.

Logo of the Welsh National Football Team

Instruction does much, but encouragement everything.

–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Letter to A. F. Oeser, 1768

I am not a huge soccer fan, so I don’t know much about its history or the intricacies and subtleties of the strategy of the game. But I do like watching the game very much. There’s a flow and rhythm to the game that attracts me. When it is played at its highest level, with great speed and precision in the ball movement, there is a grace and beauty that is hard to beat.

I guess that accounts for it being called The Beautiful Game.

In November the World Cup, which is played every four years, begins and this year the national team from Wales has qualified for the first time since 1958.

Welsh folks my age have never seen a team wearing the Red Dragon of their national flag in the ultimate tournament. So, it is understandably a big deal in that part of the world.

I thought I would share a clip of Welsh actor Michael Sheen in a recent appearance on a popular British sports quiz show, A League of Their Own, which was originally hosted by James Corden for quite some time. Sheen is asked what he might say to the team in the locker room to motivate before their matches. In the tradition of the other great Welsh actors, such as Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins and so many more, Sheen does not disappoint.

It has me rooting for those Red Dragons in the Cup. Go, Dragons!

Between Order and Chaos– At the West End Gallery

True stability results when presumed order and presumed disorder are balanced. A truly stable system expects the unexpected, is prepared to be disrupted, waits to be transformed.

—Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

I like this definition of stability from author Tom Robbins. I think it can be applied to any sort of system– political, economic, societal, environmental, etc.

Even our personal psychology.

In any system, to have this balance between order and chaos results in a stability that can absorb the blows and hardships that inevitably come to every being, as well as being able to adapt and change in response to that which is new.

Balance keeps the world spinning on its axis.

And when it is out of balance, the world wobbles then struggles to regain that balance, that stability.

A lot of wobbling taking place in this world right now in a lot of ways. The question remains: How can balance be found again?

As someone who has wobbled more than once in my life, I wish I had an answer to that question for everyone. But I don’t and don’t believe anyone else truly has that magic one-size-fits-all answer.

I might offer: Be Kind and Honest with others and yourself.

I find that this works in most situations. Kindness softens the blows and honesty enables the insight needed to adapt and transform.

Beats a stick in the eye, right?

Anyway, to complete today’s triad on stability, here’s a song, No Rain, from Blind Melon. It’s hard to believe this song is about 30 years old. Released in 1993, it was written about the songwriter’s girlfriend who struggled with depression, sleeping through the sunshine and complaining when it didn’t rain. The video here brought the featured tapdancing Bee Girl a bit of fame. Her search for acceptance and a place to fit in connected with a lot of people.

Maybe that’s the answer– just keep those feet moving.

Jules Breton- Le Soir, 1880, Arnot Art Museum

I have always had a passion for the beautiful. If the man in me is often a pessimist, the artist, on the contrary, is pre-eminently an optimist.

—Jules Breton

This quote from painter Jules Breton (1827-1906) is a favorite which pleases me since the painting of his above, Le Soir (The Evening), was also a favorite of mine growing up.

It hung in our local museum, the Arnot Art Museum, and I would often stand in front of it after school when I was in the junior high school just several blocks away. The painting, with its wide beckoning horizon, has a glow and depth in its sky that isn’t captured in this photo. It always pulled me in.

As for his words, I certainly find some association with them. While I sometimes see myself as a bit cynical and misanthropic, my work is usually more aspirational and forward facing. 

Maybe it has to be that way in order to balance things out. Otherwise, I might not get out of bed in the morning. 

And I’m not ready for that…

The Homecoming– At the West End Gallery

Obsessed by a fairy tale, we spend our lives searching for a magic door and a lost kingdom of peace.

—Eugene O’Neill, More Stately Mansions

There are so many things we seek to understand.

Answers to long held questions.

It can be maddening but we always hold out hope that answers will be somehow revealed to us but at some point, we realize that might not happen. Oh, you still keep an eye out for a hint at some sort of illuminating evidence. But it as rare as a winning lottery ticket so you resign yourself to dealing with what is at hand, those things you do know.

Or so they say.

I can’t say that this is the right or wrong way to live one’s life. To each his own.

But maybe it’s that hope for understanding that keeps us alive, that gives our sometimes-drab lives purpose.

However, I do think we need something to live for and the search for some sort of understanding is as good as many others. Hopefully, someday we might find understanding of our existence.

But, as this week’s Sunday Morning Music points out, someday may never come. This is Someday Never Comes from Creedence Clearwater Revival.