Things I’d like to know

Tonight I saw a shooting star zip through the sky. It quickly cut through the stars in front of the almost-full moon and then seemed to break up and disappear. It happened so fast. I wonder if it was a meteorite or a satellite trying to return home? These days I often feel as if I am trying to find my way home. I feel as if I took a wrong turn somewhere and wound up on some strange asteroid.

Where do pelicans sleep at night? At 2 AM the beach is incredibly quiet. Hardly a sound except for the crash of the waves and a wisp of the wind. It occurred to me that there were no birds anywhere. During the day there are thousands of them: terns, gulls, sandpipers, plovers and pelicans. Where do they sleep at night? Is there some kind of pelican hotel? The encyclopedia says that pelicans often sleep under docks and piers but I cannot see anything under the only pier in the area. Where do they go?

Speaking of wild animals, why does Tiger Woods have to tell the world the reason he had a car accident? No one else was hurt, it wasn’t a crime scene and the police determined that alcohol was not a factor. So why is every media outlet screaming that he must step forward to save his reputation? Could it be because they want a juicy story to feast upon? Really, who cares? I don’t hear people on the street too concerned about what really happened. It seems that the media, which has created and feeds the cult of celebrity just has to have its expose of the week, leveling Woods to the level of Danny Bonaducci. They never really liked him anyway: too, “uppity”, too arrogant, too independent. I don’t think the guy has to answer to anyone except his wife and kids and the corporate sponsors that pay him zillions, and he can do that in private. Someone yesterday told me that Tiger  HAD to fess up and speculated that he caught his wife in a lesbian affair. Now that’s something I would like to know. Are their forbidden Polaroids somewhere? Still, if I were Woods, with his money, his prestige, his golf swing – I would just say it’s nobody elses business and leave it at that.

I’d like to know why State Troopers think they are so bad. I was pulled over for speeding last week and the guy was a complete dick. Here’s the kicker – I wasn’t speeding (I know that everyone says that but I have no reason to lie here – I had the car on cruise control so I know exactly how fast I was going) and the cop was coming from the other direction. If he had clocked someone speeding it could have been anyone of the several cars that had passed me in the left lane and he was crossing the median to pull up behind me. I think that once he saw out-of-state plates he just figured he’d have an easy day and nail my ass. I was so surprised when he pulled up behind me with his blue flashers going off like Grucci fireworks that I almost slammed on the brakes. I thought he was kidding when he said I was speeding but when he said he clocked me doing 85 I knew it was bullshit and that I was just a notch on his quota belt. I will go to court on this one but I wonder if it’s worth the effort or the stress. I don’t think I deserve a $235 ticket for something I didn’t do but I have to question the sanity for taking a day off to have my day in court. In America you are innocent until proven guilty – except in traffic court. And this cop was such a dickhead I question my sanity in wanting to confront him, even in a court of law – afterall, this jerk carries a gun.

I want to know when Obama is going to close Guantanamo and when we will have a truly decent health care bill in Congress or when the rich, smarmy, self-aggrandized, butt-lickers in Congress will ever do the right thing by the working man. Is that too much to ask?

I hate reality TV – except the news which is really reality TV and I wonder what Vince Manze is doing these days. He was majorly responsible for much of the way we view TV today from his days as a VP at NBC, back when NBC was a network that people actually watched. Grant Tinker must really hate watching NBC and wonder what the hell ever happened. I know I do. Vince, my old buddy, are you kicking back on a tropical island laughing at the world you left behind or are you sitting in a desk in Hollywood creating evil reality shows that rot peoples minds? Just curious.

Oyster Catcher - crayon on paper

So where do the oystercatchers go at night? Do you think they ever worry about how to pay the rent?

 

Rejection

Pastel of Sunset on AMI

I sent some examples of my work to a couple of galleries in Sarasota this week and got back a couple of rejections. Sometimes I wonder why I do this. What do I see that others do not?  Rejection is always a bitter pill but the artist has to be thick-skinned. I guess I could just go out and take photographs and sell a ton of prints but that is not what I am about.

Well, my mother loves my work. I guess that’s something!

Great White

The White Pelican

 The magnificent White Pelicans on the Indian River.

By the way, we discovered some beautiful music at the Holmes Beach Art Fair on Sunday and we’ve been wearing out the CDs. Patchouli is the folk duo of Julie Patchouli and guitarist Bruce Hecksel. check them out at www.patchouli.net. You think that’s her real name?

Bird of the day!

Plover

Here on Anna Maria Island the Plovers, Terns, Gulls, Sandpipers and Herons walk along the beach with the tourists and the sunbathers. This is a peaceful place – good for reflection and regeneration. I did this drawing after watching this guy chase the waves on the beach for about a half hour. It was amazing just to watch him tear up and down the shoreline.

More and more people I know are suffering with health issues, economic issues, personal issues and career issues and there is really not much left to say. Whether you are flush or not, you are still affected by someone who doesn’t have it as well as you. We all need to go inside and start taking care of our inner selves so that we can be stronger and more focused in the ‘real’ world.

It’s good to pull back a bit, reflect and regroup. A little solitude can go a long way.

An Unwelcome Surprise

"White Flight" 2009

“Snowflake” 2009

 

"Sun God" 2009

My rejection at the A.E. Backus Museum Best of the Best Juried Show came as a bit of a shock. Seeing some of the work they have displayed there in the past and a few of the entries that were brought in while I was there I was certain that at least one of my pieces would be in the show. I’m scratching my head in disappointment. Not only did I think the work was good but I also submitted pieces that I thought were perfect for that audience. Either I am not the artist I think I am or I am really missing something here. I invite your comment. The three pieces above were done in pastel with India ink on Arches paper.

Rating Movies

Last night we went to the movies. Since I was a kid watching a film on the big screen has been one of my very favorite things to do. More than a concert, a play or the opera, I enjoy sitting in a dark theater for a couple of hours watching some tale of adventure, some sappy love story or some politically poignant drama unfold. I can turn off my mind and lose myself in the characters. I love movies.

Last night it was Julie & Julia and we loved Meryl Streep transforming into Julia Child. Very enjoyable. As is my practice, when I come home from a film I enter it into a small book I have been keeping for years, tracking the films I see, the date, director, primary players and bestowing upon it a simple rating system I have devised.

One * means the film has at least one thing about it that made the movie going experience worthwhile. Two ** means decent to pretty good. Three *** notes a film I perceived to be very good and recommendable. Four **** is excellent and I would go see that picture again. The very rare Five ***** can only mean that the film is magnificent, a classic to be and a must see for all.

Then there are films, too many of them, that receive an NG which, duh, means just plain No Good. And finally there is the dreaded YUCK which is a nice way of saying SUCK, as in that film really sucked and how the hell did they get anyone to finance that piece of crap?  I also designate if the film is foreign, what country it’s from and if animated note the studio that created it, such as Pixar.

I have been keeping this scorecard since November 12, 1997. I was having dinner with my friend Brian Keller when I noticed he was making entries into a diary he kept. We had been to the movies earlier and he was making note of the film and the director in his book. I thought that I it would be a great idea to keep a movie diary myself. Brian notated all the events of his day but I just wanted to keep track of films, in part because as a member of the Directors Guild I would vote every year for the DGA Best Director Award and this would be a great way to remember what I liked and didn’t. At that time in my life going to the movies was a regular occurrence. On average I’d see about 90 films year. Every Wednesday I’d go to the DGA and see 2 films and during the ‘voting season’ I’d see a movie almost every night of the week. I have to admit that I am one of those people for whom the multiplex was invented. I would often go to see an early film and then, instead of leaving the complex, I’d sneak into another theater for a double feature. The movie notebook made absolute sense.

And so it was that on November 12 I made my first entry: Mad City directed by Costa Gravas with Dustin Hoffman and John Travolta. I gave it three ***. Two nights later it was The Jackal with Richard Gere and Bruce Willis directed by Michael Caton-Jones and rated by me as NG.  Two nights later it was A Life Less Ordinary directed by William Boyd with Cameron Diaz and Ewan McGregor (***) and two nights after that L.A. Confidential by Curtis Hanson with Russell Crowe and Kim Basinger (only ** for what was to be a Best Picture Oscar nominee).

Since moving to Florida my movie going has dwindled down to 20 or 30 films a year tops. It’s just not as easy to get to a theater from where we live and frankly the movies they show at the multiplex here are not ones I am dying to drive a half hour to see. Hardly any foreign or small independent films ever make it here unless they catch on with mainstream audiences the way Little Miss Sunshine did (8/24/06 *** 1/2 directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris with Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin and Steve Carell – no mention in my notebook of Miss Sunshine herself, the soon to be household name Abagail Breslin) or Juno (a rousing ***** on 1/12/08 from director Jason Reitman with Ellen Page and Michale Cera).

Fortunately I would travel alot, mostly on business and whenever possible, especially on trips to New York or L.A. I would try to catch some films that I knew wouldn’t get to the mall at Vero Beach. That’s how I got to see some gems like Once (2/16/08 by John Carney – who also wrote the screenplay – from Ireland with Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova and ****) or The Wackness (8/15/08 by Jonathan Levine with Josh Peck and Sir Ben Kingsley ****). Every once in a blue moon a small interesting film does get down here and I always make an effort to see it, which is how I caught a film on May 11, 2008 by one of my favorite directors, Wan Kar Wei. That film, Blueberry Nights with Norah Jones and Jude Law and rated it ****.

There are a lot of ones *, twos **, and threes *** on my list of course and many fewer fours **** or fives *****. Surprisingly though, there are also fewer NG’s than you would think. Perhaps this is beacuse  as someone who considers himself sort of a film maker, I intentionally look for the craft and often find at least that one thing the director pulled off. I have to give him or her credit at least for that. And there are some films I just won’t go to see because I know that I am going to hate them. Going to the movies is a special experience for me and I am not going to intentionally waste it on something I know I will dislike but will probably wind up watching anyway on TV in 3 months.

I have only walked out of a film once as far as I can remember. That was Stepmom, with Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts by Chris Colombus (12/18/98 NG). I have sat through many stinkers but that one I just couldn’t take for another minute. Even though I hate the European Dogma movement, finding it pretentious and over-hyped, I have sat through The Celebration from Denmark (12/11/98 by Thomas Vinterberg *) but didn’t bother writing down the names of the actors. And I even stayed to the painful end of At First Sight (1/20/99 Director Griffin Dunne with Mira Sorvino and Val Kilmer NG). In that one Kilmer plays a blind guy and believe me that movie made me want to pluck my eyes out. In retrospect, I should have given it a YUCK. Even Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ (3/3/04 with Jim Cazaveizel, which I found appalling on several levels got  one * from me because he dared to shoot it in Aramaic.

Of course it’s all subjective but that’s what makes going to the movies with a friend so much fun: you can argue later over a bottle of vino. I fondly remember seeing Pretty Woman when it first came out with my friend Allison who was at the time the editor of now defunct SHOOTmagazine. She was appalled by the film and thought it objectified women. I liked it alot and saw it as an updated version of Pygmalion. I think we argued over two bottles and a great meal at LaCojou (pardon the possible misspelling but the restaurant doesn’t exist anymore either).

Looking back, here’s a list of the best and worst. Only my five ***** films followed by my absolute YUCKs.
*****s:
The Grey Zone by Tim Blake Nelson
Amadeus (director’s cut) by Milos Foreman
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring by Peter Jackson
A Girl With A Pearl Earring by Peter Weber
Whale Rider by Niki Caro
Farenheit 911 by Michael Moore
The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind by Micheal Gondry
Hotel Rwanda by Terry George
Vera Drake by Mike Leigh
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Tim Burton
Good Night and Good Luck by George Clooney
An Inconvenient Truth by David Guggenheim
Babel by Alejandro Gonzalez
Flags of Our Fathers by Clint Eastwood
Hairspray by Adam Shankman
Sicko by Michael Moore
Juno by Jason Reitman
Stop Loss by Kimberly Peirce
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Julien Schnabel
La Vie En Rose by Oliver Dahan
Gone Baby Gone by Ben Affleck
Wall-E by Andrew Stanton
Slumdog Millionaire by Danny Boyle

Yucks:
Waking the Dead by Keith Gordon
Save The Last Dance by Thomas Cater
The Wedding Planner by Adam Shankman
American Outlaws by Les Mayfield
Devine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood by Callie Khouri
8 Femmes by Francois Ozon
Gigli by Martin Brest
The Other by Brian Helgeland
Beyond Boarders by Martin Campbell
King Arthur by Antoine Fuqua
The Longest Yard by Peter Segal
Apocolypto by Mel Gibson
Stepbrothers by Adam McKay

I know there is a lot to argue with here and that’s the fun of it. Also, I know that some would argue that there are three docs, two by Michael Moore on my best list and how can you compare a doc to a feature? Well, I saw them all in the theater and they were significant enough to me that I gave the my highest rating. Also interesting is that Adam Shankman  made both lists, the only director to do so.

Sex got in the way

I recently heard from my old college girlfriend. She’s married and lives in Hawaii. She was a beautiful, sweet, fun, talented girl back in the day and I’m sure that she still is all of that. So I asked myself – how come she’s not married to me? It’s not that I am unhappy with my situation now – indeed just the opposite – but rather, what was it about myself then that when I had an opportunity for a lifelong relationship with a wonderful, seemingly perfect mate, who I really cared for, why did I walk away from that? And subsequently repeat that pattern in every relationship I’ve had since until now? The short answer is sex got in the way.

A couple of weeks ago I was speaking to a cousin and we briefly discussed another relative neither of us had seen in many, many years. Without going into the details, I was struck by a comment she made about this other woman’s ex-husband. She said that it was too bad that Patti was married to a sex addict. Sex addict? I didn’t know that. My first response was not empathy but rather I asked myself the question “Gee, what’s wrong with that?”

I always thought the problem was not getting enough as opposed to getting too much. In fact I’ve never heard of getting too much. What the hell is a sex addict? Aren’t we all sex addicts?

So I began to think about my college love affair and realized that we broke up because what I really desired more than a relationsip was to sleep with every girl at school. Now, this being the esteemed art school Pratt Institute and it was the early 1970’s, the idea of sleeping with every girl at school wasn’t that far fetched. I’m no Wilt Chamberlain and I cannot brag that I even came close but  assure you I did give it the old school try. And my girlfriend was pretty patient with me for a while but when she caught me in a lie she left me and that was that. I didn’t even make a decent effort to win her back. At the time I told myself that it would be no use but I think now that I really knew that I was sex obsessed and that I wouldn’t get any better at the boyfriend thing. As much as I cared for her, I just knew that it wasn’t going to work out. I knew I was not ready to settle down and I had plans to travel and see the world.

So I did. After graduation, I went off to see the world and while on the road I wanted to have sex with almost every girl I met. From Japan to India, from Hong Kong to Paris I spent about a year on the international chase of women. I also did some art, saw some sights, met some great people and learned a lot. I grew as a person and expanded my mind. I developed as a man. BUT, my main goal was still to have sex with as many women as possible – which means I was still just a boy.

Then I came back to New York and things changed a bit. I met the woman who was to become my wife. From the moment I laid eyes on her I just wanted to have sex with her – forever. But since she was unavailable I decided that it would be OK to continue to try having sex with almost every other woman I met.

I moved to Boston for a while and I was girl crazy there too. I even had sex with my best friends fiance. What a schmuck I was. But I couldn’t help it. I just loved sex. It wasn’t about the person, it was all about the event: the chase, the act, the afterglow and then getting out of there as fast as possible.

In a couple of years circumstances changed and the beautiful woman I fell in love with became available and I pursued her like I’d never pursued anything before. Nothing ever mattered that much. And it worked! Much to my surprise, she fell in love with me and, as I mentioned, we got married. She was a model and travelled alot for her work and while she was gone I could only think of one thing – sex. Temptation lurked everywhere I turned. It was the onset of the 80’s, before AIDS and at the end of the sexual revolution and I was participating in est, the quasi-cult self awareness group experience. If ever it was easy to get laid it was at est. The place was teeming with young, impressionable, open minded, hormonal people. It was hard but I restrained myself, more because I was afraid of the consequences of being caught than because I was intellectually monogamous.

Yet, when she was away I was also extremely jealous. I figured that if I was so sex obsessed than so was every other guy and if she was hanging out in the hot spots in Milan and Tokyo with movie stars and high rollers and if she was as hot as she was (and she was!) she probably be out there having sex and enjoying herself. I was wrong about that but I was making myself crazy.

The marriage lasted almost 2 years. After I got over the shock and depression of my matrimonial failure I decided that the best way to get over it was by screwing every girl I met. Do you start to see the pattern here? I was living in Manhattan, the setting of Sex and the City and I was looking for the Kim Catrall character around every corner. Actresses, models, secretaries, lawyers, decorators, producers, art directors, agents, nurses, doctors, artists, film directors, musicians, students and teachers. If they were attractive and had a vagina I was into them. I dated them all for very short periods of time. The longest relationship I had between 1982 and 1999 lasted about 2 years and it wasn’t a monogamous one either. Well, actually I did have one long standing relationship with a wonderful gal from Lubbock, Texas who had a similar approach to sex and we saw each other on and off for years, although we never really went out on a date. We’d just get together sometimes when one or the other was in the mood to call and have sex. That was a great relationship for me indeed! No responsibility and no guilt.

The thing was that I would go for long periods where there would be no one in my life and it would get very lonely. At those times it seemed like I couldn’t get a date if I called 1-800-call-girl. I was never into prostitution. I tried that in Bangkok once and it was creepy. And anyhow, it lacked the elements that made sex so rewarding – like the chase. Who wants a sure thing?

So I bounced around like this for years. Everything was about sex – my work, my art, the way I decorated my apartment, my activities were all about sex, at least below the surface. There’s this great little film called The Tao of Steve. I really related to parts of that film. To me all art is about sex. I know that if John Lennon were alive he’d argue that it’s all about love. But I say sex is the driver. Love is a mental disease. It makes people crazy and irrational. It’s emotional and conceptual. Different people can have different ideas of what love is. But sex is physical,primal,  immediate and when done well, fufilling. Sex is really the ideal – not love. Love is the fantasy, sex the reality. People write poems and sing songs and write pages about love but what they always portray is sex. Painting is not only about sex it’s a sexual act in itself.

The best artworks I ever produced were portraits of women. These were portraits of women I had slept with or wanted to sleep with. They were not sexually explicit but the theme was always sex. When I was young and went through a period of self evaluation that led me to abstract expressionistic paintings, even though you could not look at those paintings and see a specific concept, I could see sexuality in every one of them.

All advertising is about sex. Well, maybe not “Shamwow.” But sex sells because it is what we all want. If you can love something you probably want to have sex with it. I’m not talking about your poodle – well, not really – but I did know a girl who claims to have had sex with an Akita. People say they love their car. Well, I say what they love is the sex appeal of the car, it’s how the car makes them feel about themselves and how they believe the car will make them attractive to the opposite sex. The car you choose is reflective of the sexual image you have of yourself. Otherwise, it’s just transportation and your driving a Ford Focus. What does that say about Mini Cooper drivers? Who can really say.

There is spirituality in sex. Tantra has been around for centuries. There is regeneration in sex. But mostly there is instinct. Sex is the core of our existence, our most basic instinct and to deny that is to deny life. I’m 57 now and I think about sex all the time. I think I am finally beginning to understand Bukowski. Sex is like a drug, it’s better than booze and it can lead to nirvana! I still look at young woman and think in the back of my head that I could have sex with them if I really wanted to. That’s because that guy I see in the mirror every morning is not me. The guy with the gray beard and white hair, sagging circles under the eyes and a gut that makes me look 5 months pregnant is not the person that exists in my mind. The person I once was. I still think of myself as I did when I was 18, only I’ve accumulated more experience. But when I was 18 my primary focus was sex.

And the reality is that those young, seductive girls I see are looking back and seeing me – an old, paunchy, gray lecher! Not attractive….

Today I have to channel those sexual urges in another way, at least if I want to stay happily married. That young beauty I was so charged up about and married in my youth – somehow we found our way back to eachother 18 years later. It’s a different kind of relationship now and it’s very satisfying. But I don’t think she truly understands my sexual urges. She’s just glad that I still have them.

Impossible Pie

I am into making pie. I had never really baked until recently. I do love to cook and I learned to cook from a master – Joe Yaccarino of Joe’s Place, once a Brooklyn culinary institution. But baking has never been my thing. I think I tried to make bread once and it wasn’t too good. Back in my hippie days I made my own tofu but that’s got nothing to do with baking – I just thought I’d mention it to impress you. After all, who makes their own tofu?

I don’t know how the urge to bake came upon me but I’ve always loved a good slice of pie. Pecan is my fav. I was never big on the fruit pies except for the strawberry rhubarb they make at Briermere Farms in Riverhead, NY. That is one exceptional pie.  When I was a kid I always loved coconut custard pie and also those amazing strawberry cheese pies from Juniors, also in Brooklyn, and the place we would go to visit grandpa Sam when I was very young. Juniors is still crankin’ them out and they still rock.

So I got this jones for making pie and now I’m collecting recipes. I get them from friends, from the NY Times, from books, and even a few on-line. Lynn Cleare Goldman, my old college flame, has been kind enough to send me some of her mother’s recipes and they are terrific. We did a blind taste test with her mom’s pecan stacked up against the recipie from Juniors and mom’s won hands down. By the way, Lynn now lives on Big Island, HI and is doing some great art these days. Check her work out. That’s my plug for the day.

The difference between baking and cooking in general is precision. I’ve never been one for following instructions but in pie making I find you have to do just that. I always considered cooking to be like painting – mixing flavors was like mixing paints. But baking is more like architecture – leave out a brick or a beam and the whole damn thing is gonna collapse. So far, I’ve had a few collapses but also some impressive little houses going up! But there is one pie you can’t really screw up and that is the Impossible Pie. I got this recipe from my landlady Karen and it’s great. You take all the ingredients and put them in a blender. After mixing them up you toss everything in a greased pie pan and bake. That’s it. And it is delicious, creamy – real good. I have to come up with another name for this pie – Impossible just doesn’t do it. Should be Anything’s Possible Pie.

The Absurdity of it All

Life just seems more and more absurd everyday. We (our government) are spending trillions of dollars to stimulate an economy but nothing to change the culture that created the crisis. The entire world seems to be in need of Ritalin. Take these examples:

A high school in Newport Beach, CA bans a student production of “Rent” and the entire nation is freaking out about a play. Another school in LaGrande, Oregon bans “Picasso at Lapin Agile, ” a play by Steve Martin in which Picasso meets Einstein at a bar and shares a drink. I wonder if they would have objected if the students wore arrows on their heads, played the banjo and pretended to be mentally retarded? Probably not.

A group of Hindu activists protest the erection of a statue of Charlie Chaplin which is being made as a backdrop for a movie dance number. They think it’s bad to build a statue of a non-Hindu that is anywhere near their temple. Haven’t they heard that Chaplin was a secret Hindu? He never ate cow.

We need more art in our lives. I walked around the exhibits at the annual “Art Under The Oaks” art fair in Vero Beach, Florida in the warmth of the sun, taking in the art of greater and lesser quality. There were some amazingly talented artists represented as well as the usual share of questionable talent:jewelers, T-shirt hawkers and kitch creators. I really enjoyed speaking with some of those artists whose work really stood out. Had a great chat with Gary Barnes of North Carolina (www.barnesstudios.com), a fellow pastel artist and a very talented and unique woman named Farhana who did richly textured watercolors which achieved a classic Moghul appearance – really interesting original technique. Perhaps most interesting to me of all was a Japanese woman living in Christiansburg, VA, who painted in gouache, something you don’t see much of these days. Her work combined traditional Asian themes with European technique. I noticed Yumiko Ichikawa’s mission statement, which related that her life’s goal was to create a harmonious world in painting. That’s what we need, a more harmonious world and it is in the arts that we can best create that end. So why isn’t Congress spending a few extra shekels of stimulus on the arts?

The other day I went to see the Mets play the Nationals at an exhibition game in Port St. Lucie. It was a lousy game but we had good seats. It was around the 6th inning of a one run game in a half filled stadium – even the beer vendors were asleep – and the couple just behind us would not stop screaming. “Let’s Go Mets!,” “What’s that ump, are ya blind?” and so forth. No one else in the stadium seemed to be that interested in the game, forget yelling at players and umpires. But these folks had no qualms about standing, stomping, and shouting to the skies for their blue and orange clad heroes. I tried to appreciate their enthusiasm but all I could think was ’shut up you dorks and let everyone else enjoy the afternoon in the sun!’ If only they could be that excited about John Currin.

On the way home I saw a sign on a billboard that had a quote from George Carlin. It went something like this: “Ever notice how anyone driving slower than you is a moron and anyone driving faster than you is a maniac?” It was like a lightbulb went off in my head. Yes, that’s so true!

I noticed that Stuart, my compadre, had been driving in that middle ground of not too fast and not too slow and mentioned the billboard. He remarked that he never speeds, always goes at just the posted speed limit. “Never?” I asked? Never was his response. And he never has received a speeding ticket. Now I myself have a heavy foot and I have paid who-knows-how-many dollars over the years in fines. I just got a ticket a few weeks ago for going 12 miles over the limit – I thought I was getting screwed. How could they ticket me for only 12 measly miles on US 1? My theory is that anything within 12 miles of the speed limit is not speeding. I even set my cruise control at about 10 miles above the limit. I also believe that if you are going 5 miles under the limit and not in the extreme right lane you should be arrested for being a danger to society. I don’t know, maybe I need to reevaluate my theory? Maybe I need to follow the rules and play the game? That sounds sooooo boring and SLOW.

While I’m on the subject of speeding objects, last night I was sitting outside having a hamburger and beer with friends when someone said “Wow look, there goes the Space Shuttle!” We all turned to see the bright lights of the rockets burning through the sky at dusk. The smoke trail looked like a fantastic elongated white feather which then turned orange and white again with the changing reflection of the setting sun. As the sky faded to black, we watched the rockets separate and fall to earth while the Discovery soared toward it’s rendezvous with the Space Station somewhere out in the great beyond. It was quite stunning and magnificent. That was a work of art both Picasso and Einstein would have admired.

Marianni – go Brazilian!!!

If you enjoy the sultry sounds of Brazil and like to dance, if you’d love the sexy sound of a Brazilian beauty cooing in that breathy style made famous by the incomparable Astrud Gilberto, then sit back, hold on,  go to www.marianni.com and get a taste of Marianni Ebert. She’s beautiful, she’s talented and she’s… well, she’s about as hot as it gets.

My relationship with this astonishing talent goes back a few years. We met through a mutual friend and I was smitten at first glance. From the first time I saw her I knew she was special. The first time I heard her sing I was floored. We did manage to go out a few times but hanging out with Marianni meant you had to have on running shoes if you wanted to keep up with her. It was a seemingly endless stream of clubs to see her friends play or have her sit in for a spell. And then she’d be off to Brazil for 3 months! We did have some interesting and intimate conversations which made me realize that this was one relationship that would remain plutonic (for example – she is a devout Catholic and I am a devout athiest) but we developed a solid friendship and stayed in touch. Whenever she was in New York after a long stretch in Brazil I’d make an effort to see her perform. To catch her at the Zinc Bar is a mesmerizing experience. She redefines the word chanteuse.

You may know Marianni. She wrote and performed a song in Times Square for the big Millenium bash and she has appeared on TV here in the States as well as in Rio. I always wanted to put her in a commercial but nothing was ever a good fit when she was in New York. Marianni is a great reason to visit Brazil! I’d go see her anywhere.

So it was that Patricia and I, in the early stages of our second-time-around courtship, found ourselves having dinner at an East Side establishment that was featuring Friday night entertainment and, low and behold, out onto the stage walks Marianni. She was, as always, in superb form that night and her small combo was tight. Patricia was into the music and afterward we had the pleasure of Marianni’s company at our table. The girls hit it off and new friendships were created.

I was just looking over her new website and listening to some of her samples and decided that I just had to get the word out. I love Brazilian music. I have a small collection of CDs by the Gilberto’s (Astrud, Joao and Bebel) and other classics. I am looking forward to getting my copy of Marianni’s new CD to add to my collection. I am recommending her to the world.