From a series of surreal nudes (destroyed), oil on canvas, circa 1990

The Underground

Shit Happens

It's been roughly three months since I updated this blog—and a rough three months it's been.  As the saying goes, "shit happens." In this case, my mother suffered a massive heart attack in California while I was visiting my son in Alaska. I spent the next few weeks monitoring her decline in the hospital until she passed away. Afterwards, I made another trip from Virginia to California to sort out the estate. At this point I'm numb. As Vonnegut wrote, "so it goes."

Hip shirt by Waffo

A couple years ago some cool people who have an alternative clothing business in San Diego emailed me about creating a t-shirt based on a linocut of mine they'd seen somewhere on the internet. The result was a really great shirt they've been selling ever since.

Check out their store and other hip designs at www.waffo.com.

There's even a fashion show at: http://waffoclothing.blogspot.com

Film Project

Here's a sample of the short films I've been making. Some are more narrative than others. Most are black and white, though some use color. Some have sound and others, like this one, are silent... Eventually they will form a larger feature.

Father Goose: Nursery Rhymes for Dirty Old Men

Here are some nursery rhymes I've attributed to the fictional "Tidewriter" Karl Schitz. They are part of an (again fictional) anthology of Tidewriter writings. These samples are some of the "cleaner" ones...



ROSES

Roses are dead
Violets are too
And everything else
Is in the queue




MY DAMNED OLD LADY

My damned old lady moved us into a shoe
I told her it would stink, but what could I do?
She was the one who paid the rent
So I smelled like dirty feet wherever I went




BARTENDER, BARTENDER

Bartender, Bartender
Mix me a drink
Make it a double
So I can't think
Shake it and pour it
Then let it be
Slap it on the zinc
For thirsty me




THERE WAS A CROOKED MAN

There was a crooked man and he had a crooked mind
He robbed a crooked bank and he did some crooked time
He filtched some crooked cheese and he caught a crooked mouse
And they lived with all the crooks in the crooked Big House




A CAT CAME STUMBLING

A cat came stumbling out of a bar
Walked into the street, got hit by a car
He died right away and so it goes...
They washed off the blood with a fire hose

The Angel Tree

The many acres of ancient oak trees at Los Osos Oaks State Reserve in California provided the inspiration for my as yet unpublished and un-produced film treatment in the form of a novel entitled "The Angel Tree." The story of a young artist—a photographer—and his innocent folk-singer girlfriend, "The Angel Tree" is an allegory about the consequences of unbridled ambition. I took the photograph here as a sample of a mythological space—the kind of place my protagonist seeks in his attempts to "capture the world that exists behind the one we see." Below is a brief excerpt from the novel [forthcoming when I get time to type it out].