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I’m With Her

November 8, 2016 by redtreetimes

frances-perry-myers-college-yearbook-potsdam-normal-1918This is a photo that I came across online a few years back.  It is a shot of my grandmother, Frances Perry (Myers), from her yearbook at Potsdam Normal in 1918.  It would still be  two years before she could cast a vote in this country for any office.

The line written about her in that yearbook was that she was “the girl who always breaks the rules.”  I liked that.  It confirmed my belief that she was smart and tough.  A few years later she married my grandfather, a tough ex-pro wrestler/vaudeville stage manager, who was also a Democratic ward captain in the city of Elmira.  He was tasked with getting out the vote for the party in his neighborhoods.

They were big influences on my siblings and me.  Their son, my father, carries parts of both of them with him and in recent years he has been heard to say that he wanted to live long enough to see Hillary Clinton elected President of the United States.  My dad is not a touchy-feely, liberal feminist kind of guy.  He just thinks she is smart and tough.

So today with their blood in my veins, I will be casting my vote for Hillary Clinton.  I am pretty sure they would all be pleased and that later this evening my dad sees his wish fulfilled– that a smart and tough lady takes over the reins on this nation.

Get out and vote.

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Norman Rockwell and Our Elections

November 7, 2016 by redtreetimes

norman-rockwell-election-day Well, we’re finally nearing the end of our national nightmare.  With that in mind, I thought I would show a couple of paintings concerning our election process from Norman Rockwell who chronicled this country for many, many decades and often seemed to get to the core of things in his work.  At the bottom, I included a couple of his most famous paintings to show that our elections are something more than popularity contests.  They do indeed have consequences.  They do shape our view of and in the world.

Voting is our right, one that has been hard fought and bled for.  But more than that, it is an obligation.  We must play our part, to raise our singular voice in how our nation moves ahead.  Do not take this right and obligation lightly–vote.norman-rockwell-election-day-with-dognorman-rockwell-elect-casey
norman-rockwell-election-debate-october-9-1920norman-rockwell-the-obvious-choice-1948norman-rockwell-at-polls-368x448norman-rockwell-undecidednorman-rockwell-a-time-for-greatness norman-rockwell-golden-rulenorman-rockwell-the-right-to-know

norman-rockwell_the-problem-we-all-live-with

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Don’t Let Me Down

November 6, 2016 by redtreetimes

change_-masp-fotolia-com_-640x229I hear all the time that this election is about bringing change to our country. While that sounds pretty good for some folks, especially those who feel like they’ve somehow ended up with the short end of the stick, I want to speak a word of caution:

Be careful what you wish for.

You may get something in the bargain that you could never foresee and find yourself looking back at these past few years with fond recollections and a bit of nostalgia.

First of all, what is so absolutely awful that we need to change everything? Where is this hellscape that America has become? You know, the one Donald Trump so often points to in his rants on the campaign trail, the one where you get shot the moment you set foot out in the street?  I live in an area that is not booming economically and has one of the higher crime rates in NY state but it certainly doesn’t feel  much different than it did in decades past.

Despite the claims and misrepresentations of Donald Trump, violent crime and murder are at the lowest rates since the early 1960’s.

The stock market in the month or so after Barack Obama came into office was down to around 6500.  It now stands at over 18000.  If you have a 401k for your retirement, your investments have no doubt grown appreciably.

Unemployment was around 10%.  It is now under 5% and real wages are actually rising.  The demand for labor is now exceeding supply.  Plain and simple: We don’t have the people needed to fill the good jobs that are open now.  Even in my area with an economy that often underperforms on a state and national level, a large CVS warehouse/distribution center has turned to running television ads looking for 60 new employees with starting wages from $12-15/hour.  You would think there would be lines of people waiting to fill these jobs.

Interest rates are still near historic lows and the housing market is strengthening as we move away from the horror story of the Great Recession.

Gas prices have remained relatively low and we are closer to energy independence than ever before.  The USA is the largest producer of oil in the world and we are adding huge chunks of solar and wind capacity every year.

More people have health insurance than ever before with fewer people with chronic conditions being denied coverage or being forced into medical bankruptcies.  You’re probably thinking about the reported rate increases at this point.  Let me tell you, being self-employed, I have been buying my own health insurance for many years now and long before the ACA, rate increases such as these were the norm.  Obamacare or not, you are going to pay a steep price for health insurance until there is some sort of comprehensive reform that encompasses the whole of the medical, health insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

There are many other ways in which we are not doing so badly after all despite what Fox News tells us.  Perhaps we don’t need to burn the whole thing down after all.  Maybe we need to affect change in our own perceptions of the world and our reactions to it.  Say , for instance, that we looked at the positive job growth that has been taking place for the past 80 months or so as a good thing, something to build on, instead of perceiving it through partisan goggles as just not being good enough.

Maybe if we stop giving in to fears and those who try to play on them, those who try to push wedges between us.  Maybe if we pay a little more attention to the world outside our little spheres of self, we would see beyond partisan opinion and see truth wherever it might be in whatever form it might come.

The general situation of this country has been much, much worse in my lifetime. Okay, there are problems in this country that have to be addressed.  There always have been and there always will be problems.  To think otherwise is foolish.  But there is nothing so terrible that we can’t figure it out if we work together.

That has always been our answer as a nation when faced with adversity in the past– we work past the obstacle before us and on to the next.

And that is why, despite what conservatives might claim, we are a progressive nation.  We have never settled for what might be good enough in the present.  We always strive for better.  We only look back in time for guidance in moving forward– not as a place to which we can return.

So, don’t let me down– get out there and vote.  Vote for a future that takes what we have built as a nation and moves forward. Please don’t vote for stagnancy and obstruction. Vote for people that want to help us all move ahead, that don’t want to return to a past that is long gone because of a fear of the future.

The future is what we make it.

Okay, for this Sunday’s musical selection I have a Beatles double-header.  First, there is Don’t Let Me Down followed by Revolution.  Have a great Sunday and when you’re listening to Revolution, remember: Be careful what you wish for.


 

 

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Daylight Savings

November 5, 2016 by redtreetimes

alarm-clock-sm1My thought is that for just this year, instead of turning our clocks back an hour  for Daylight Savings tonight, we all move our clocks ahead by 96 hours.

See you Wednesday morning!

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Normalized

November 4, 2016 by redtreetimes

Believe me, this presidential race is not a fight I want to climb into.  It’s not one that leaves any of us feeling better and none of our minds will be swayed at this point by anything said by someone on the other side.

But I have to say my piece because I want to be able to say in the future that I tried, that maybe I swayed one mind or got one person to shake their complacency and vote.  So let me make my case:

In Central New York the landscape above the Finger Lakes between Syracuse and Rochester is a flat glacial plain with broad fields and not a hill in sight.  But around Seneca Falls there is one large green hill that has grown over the years to a point that you can’t miss it as you approach from the south.

It is a huge landfill.  A mountain of garbage standing tall amidst the flatness of the fields around it.

At first , the idea of it drove me crazy.  It seemed intolerable that this mound of rubbish dominated the view in this area.  But as time went by, this now grass covered hillock became normal, part of the place.

But inside it is still a pile of garbage.

That hill is Donald Trump.

This is a man who has so many faults, so many deficiencies, so many negative features that he has shown us over the past several decades that to stack them all would create a mighty mountain.  Any one or two of his flaws would easily disqualify any normal candidate but his lies, his misrepresentations, his misdeeds are so prodigious that as they pile up before us we become inured to the sheer number of them. You can’t keep up with the all the truckloads of his crap being dumped on the heap.

After the past 18 months of campaigning, he and his awful behavior have somehow become acceptable in our eyes.

Normalized.

He has normalized racism with his dog-whistle overtures to the white nationalists and organized racists who support him.  He has normalized anti-intellectualism with his constant trashing of the press and scientific norms.  He has normalized a lack of faith in our government with a constant stream of conspiracies.  He has normalized bullying, the idea that opposing views are not to be tolerated but shamed, humiliated and crushed.  He has normalized the idea that nuclear weapons are there to be used and that he, an intellectually lazy real estate guy, has something to teach our generals and military strategists.

He has normalized the idea of prosecuting your political opponents. He has normalized fear and the threat of violence as a motivating force.  He has normalized division among the races, religions and ethnicities of this country. He has normalized incivility among everyone.  He has normalized empty boasting, outright lying and the coarsening of our discourse.

He has normalized the acceptance of a man with 75 pending lawsuits including one for racketeering and one potentially for child-rape as as the next possible symbolic figurehead for our nation.

He has normalized the me-first mindset.

There is so much more crap in this heap that I could point out.  But what it comes down to is that before a single vote has been counted, whether he wins or loses, he has damaged our democracy.

You wanted change?  Be careful what you wish for…

If he wins, this is the new normal– a man/baby with the emotional maturity of a 16-year old lashing out at every perceived slight or threat as he deflects all blame to everyone but himself for anything that will go wrong.  And believe me –sorry for using one of his catchphrases– things will go wrong.  They always do.  That is the way of the world and reacting to those problems is part of being the leader of an entire nation.  The president’s reaction sets the tone for our response as a nation.

And even if all the ridiculous claims leveled against Hillary Clinton were improbably proved true, her pile of trash would still be but a tiny knoll next to Trump’s Everest of lies, brags and cons.

You might get used to that mountain of garbage.  But I know that no amount of grass (or gold-plating) will hide the fact that it is made of stinking trash.

Okay, I had my say.  Vote how you will but vote.

 

 

 

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A Series For the History Books

November 3, 2016 by redtreetimes

chicago_cubsWow– what a way to end a drought!

While I was rooting for the Cleveland Indians, I was thrilled to see the Chicago Cubs end over a century of futility as baseball’s lovable losers with their victory last night in the deciding seventh game of the World Series.

It was dramatic from the very first at-bat as the Cubs’ first hitter slammed a home run to set off the festivities.  The Cubs took a strong lead but the Indians fought back then tied the game in the 8th inning with a line drive home run that looked to set the Cubs back on their heels.  You could see the anxiety on their fans’ faces in the stands as it seemed as though the curse might rise up and bite them yet again.  It was a feeling they knew all too well.

But they persisted and fought to take the lead in the 10th inning.  They held on and the weight of a century of coming up short in every way for this team was lifted off the shoulders of the Chicago Cubs.

It was 1908–108 years– since they last felt this thrill.  Think about that.  108 years.  Multiple generations of Cubs fans came and went without seeing them win.

In 1908 the first Ford Model T rolled off the first auto assembly line in October.

In 1908 we were still a decade from the World War I and Communism had not yet overtaken Russia as Czar Nicholas II still ruled that country.

In 1908 the Wild West era was still alive in America.  Buffalo Bill Cody, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Annie Oakley and Geronimo were all alive.  Harriet Tubman was still alive (in nearby Auburn, NY!) when the Cubs last won the series.

In 1908 there was no television, movies were relatively new and silent, radio had yet to move into the home and telephones were just taking hold in homes.  The computer and the internet were generations away from even being imagined by early sci-fi writers.

In 1908 there was no NFL and NBA.  And in baseball, it was still nearly forty years away from the time when the first black man, Jackie Robinson, would be allowed to play in the major leagues.

In 1908 penicillin was still 20 years from being discovered.  In 1908 if you had any number of  medical conditions you were in pretty bad shape because cures, preventatives and treatments for them had yet to be developed– tuberculosis, polio, diabetes, typhus, malaria and on and on.  Vitamin D had yet to be discovered!

In 1908 Mark Twain, Tolstoy and Kipling were still alive.  So were Claude Monet, Degas and Renoir.

In 1908 Teddy Roosevelt was the president.  Mount Rushmore, featuring his face, was decades from being finished in 1941.

In 1908 Hillary Clinton could theoretically run for president but would not be able to cast a vote for herself for another 12 years.

Think about how much the world has changed since the last World Series banner flew for the Cubs.  The idea that fans of that team held on to hope for that long is amazing.  Next year’s spring training and season will be unlike any they have ever felt.  I hope they can truly savor it.

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Cramps Halloween Special?

October 31, 2016 by redtreetimes

teenage-werewolfFirst, let me extend thanks to everyone who came out to the show at the Kada Gallery on Saturday night.  It was great seeing some old friends and meeting some new ones.  And thanks to Kathy and Joe at the Kada for their longtime friendship and encouragement–you provided me with a wonderful night.  If you didn’t make it out there, you can still see the show as it hangs until December 3.

Now, today is yet another Halloween.  It doesn’t have the same impact on me now as it did when I was much younger but I still get a kick out of this  night and all the goofiness around it.  And I have to say that the imagery that swirls around this night was very influential to me when I was a kid.  You often see macabre imagery show itself in the work of student artists.

So in honor of this most hallowed evening, I thought I’d throw out some scary music but there isn’t a great selection of monster themed music.  Oh, there’s the Monster Mash but that gets played to death this time of the year, much like Grandma Got Ran Over By a Reindeer at Christmas.  And the Addams Family or Munsters themes are memorable but not what I’m looking for.

cramps-bad-music-for-bad-peopleBut there are the Cramps.

The Cramps emerged out of the NY punk scene of the 70’s with a distinct sound  that influenced by rockabilly and the B-Horror movies of the 50’s.  Two guitars and a small drum kit- no bassist- and a leader called Lux Interior and a girl guitarist/femme fatale named Poison Ivy, the Cramps’ music was often called psychobilly.  Many of their songs paid direct homage to old horror flicks, like Human Fly and the one I’m highlighting here, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, which starred  a very young Michael Landon in a pretty kitschy story.  It might not be high art but the Cramps created some high energy creep-tastic stuff, very appropriate for a most inappropriate night.

Below I Was a Teenage Werewolf I’ve included their even more creepy TV Set.  Give a listen and have yourself a very spooky night.

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Caravan

October 30, 2016 by redtreetimes

GC Myers- In the RhythmI can’t really tell you how my show went last night.  I wish I could but my psychic powers have been on the weak side lately.  Actually, I am writing this on Friday because I most likely won’t be back in the studio in time to put up my Sunday morning music and it is such a regular habit for me that it bothers me when I miss a week.

But I will go out on a limb and guess that last night I saw a lot of folks that I haven’t talked to in a while, that everyone at the Kada Gallery treated me great and that it was, all in all, a wonderful night.  Fortunately, with only a rare exception or two, most of my shows have followed that simple script.

I will let you know if there was any deviation from the norm in the next day or two.

Today’s music is a jazz classic, Caravan, composed by the great Duke Ellington in 1936 and performed by a wide spectrum of jazz artists.  There are over 350 recorded versions of this song from Ellington’s band alone.  But the version I chose is from the late jazz pianist Kenny Drew , Jr.  I think it’s a really impressive version.

To accompany it, I chose a painting, In the Rhythm, from the Kada show that I think has a rhythm and feel that matches that of the song.  So give a listen and have a great Sunday.

 

 

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“Part of the Plan” Opening Tonight!

October 29, 2016 by redtreetimes

GC Myers- The UpliftingA quick reminder that tonight is the opening for my new show, Part of the Plan, at the Kada Gallery in Erie.  It begins with a reception that runs from 6 PM until 9.

I have been anticipating this show for a while now and believe that it’s a very strong and cohesive group.  I am looking forward to seeing it hanging together in the gallery where I can step back and see how the different pieces play off one another.  That often reveals the show’s real truth.

I hope that if you are in the Erie area that you’ll stop into the Kada Gallery tonight and take a look for yourself and say hello.  I’ll be glad to see you there!

PS-  If you can’t make it to Erie and you’re in the vicinity of Alexandria VA, please stop in at the Principle Gallery this afternoon from 4-7 PM for the Artists Engaging Nepal gala.  The event is sponsored by the Soarway Foundation whose work I have spoke of  here on a number of different occasions.  There is a wonderful exhibit of art from artists in Nepal and Uganda with the proceeds from all sales going to further the work of the Soarway Foundation in their mission to aid in the restoration of Nepal after recent earthquakes as well as assist in preventing extensive damage in future earthquakes through better planning and design. Stop in today or take a look at the online catalog.

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Into the Clear Air

October 28, 2016 by redtreetimes

GC Myers-- Into the Clear AirI said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

―T.S. Eliot

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I’ve read these lines from T.S. Eliot before but it was only this morning that I equated them to the creative process.  Well, so far as I see it in my own experience.  You see, you can struggle to describe in words how things come about, how things finally appear.

You might describe an inner process of visualizations and intricate thought synthesis, of pulling deep emotions to the surface and so on.  Maybe that is so but I think it is not really part of the process but is rather an interpretation of what you believe happened.

I think the real creative aspect occurs in a way much like the words above describe– in the stillness and darkness of a meditative void.  The mind emptied and all thoughts of the past and the future are set aside.  No hopes or desires.  Just a quiet dark blankness that waits in endless patience for the first crackling of light to pierce through.

But there are times when the light doesn’t come and you lose patience in the waiting.  So you start without the light and occasionally, nearing the end of the process, you find that your mind has emptied and the light has caught up with you.  What you are looking at it something quite unlike what you thought it might be when you struggled to begin.

I know this all sounds pretty esoteric, pretty out there and maybe it won’t make a lick of sense to most who somehow slog through to this point. But really it comes down to the idea that you clear the mind and let it just happen.

If it happens at all.  Sometimes the light doesn’t find you.  But on those times when it does, it is like the freshest clear air has wafted over you and left you with a feeling of ethereal lightness. The clearest air.  And I guess that is why I keep doing this and probably will until the day I die.

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The painting above is a 16″ by 20″ canvas titled Into the Clear Air and is included in Part of the Plan, my show that opens tomorrow, Saturday, October 29, at the Kada Gallery in Erie.  The reception begins at 6 PM.  Hope you can make it!

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