Yeah, I remember getting this program you're showing in my high school years when one of the upper classman who I had met at boy scout camp, a gent who could have grown hair like ZZ Top (before ZZ Top possibly), and certainly a wonder like a hobbit who wandered down from the Appalachians. . . I mean in his Junior year this cat could go on a two week Easter holiday and come back to school with a full beard. . . but I digress. Anyway I was in awe of him because he was firmly planted in the counter culture and I was just becoming aware that it existed at all. Well, being as he could look the part and insinuate himself among the tribes of hip hugging, bell bottoming, beautiful and somewhat hairy Airstream dwelling musician folk, he had ample access to the devil weed. Yes. . . devil weed. . . and some other junk. . . but that's for another painting.
So in addition to the wonder species he belonged to, he was in possession of a color television console, belonging to his mum. . . who, as fate would have it, happened to be away a lot. . . leaving the color TV unattended. Understand I had no color TV until about a decade later. So this was all too much to resist.
Thus, as I was fumbling around changing channels trying to find something trippy, the switcher stuck between channels -- on this station that you painted -- a bombardment of arrays of colored electrons. . . Needless to say the sound went off forthwith and the stereo went on -- really loud. Understand that 2001 had just come out and imprinted itself on my blank slate of a psyche, and this was a Nantucket sleigh ride through our personal star gates.
We never really hung out because at that age he ran off to be with the older folk and I had 2 very changed years of high school and art classes thereafter. But when I did run into him years later, he told me he was never able to find that in-between nether world of a TV station again. . .
And there's a poetic justice in that because I never even saw his mom's or any other color TV set, like I said, for a decade or so.
I've come to realize that was the way of things, like you can never go back and get high for the first time again etc etc. . . run the list of firsts to which we're each entitled in our lifetimes.
So as an asides, when I finally did manage to buy a color TV, it was a console model, and I could stare at it for hours. It was compelling like a bona fide addiction. I could watch cartoons or wacky car salesmen. . . no matter. I had to have it. And by that time, so many years later, when they were playing the Star Spangled Banner at the end of the day's programming and I pulled myself up onto my bathroom sink, through my two bloodshot eyes that resembled rolled up pieces of lean bacon, I could see I too had grown a beard. I was at last hairy. We all find maturity or it finds us. . .
And your painting is brilliant. I love the colors, the textures, the lines, which on my TV always went horizontal, unless I had slipped on an old bag of Lays potato chips I didn't see in the flickering light of the set and was on my side. Awesome painting. And thank you Walt Disney. . . the world IS a carousel of color color color. . . wonderful, fabulous color color color. . .
And now the paintings are on the screen. . . that all had been so prophetic. . .
Go man go. . . and pick up some beer while you're out. . . there's a good lad. . . and some chips with no-slip packaging. . . and some ding dongs. . . and um. . . a couple burgers. . . and some Oreos. . . and some celery and peanut butter. . . Far out. . .
You would never know I haven't touched anything but color in decades, but it's a fun romp. . . like doing a foreign accent. . .
Last edited by D Akey; 05-18-2014 at 03:53 PM.
"Not a bit is wasted and the best is yet to come. . ." -- remembered from a dream
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