1971 or... when I was one ( year old)... "it was a very good year".

1971, 2011

24-in. x 18-in.

oil on cradled panel

The 1971 Coca-Cola can was stainless steel AND aluminum ( pronounced AL-oo-min-U-um, right? ). 1971 also means...

-dumb little hat?

-fighting crime in a Santa Suit?

-watching Roy Scheider smoke 8000 cigarettes ( and look cool doing it!)?



1971 means The French Connection, baby!






1971 might also mean...

-shooting a guy with a mouth full of food?

-having pseudo-porn style hair... and still being a cop?

-elevating being a smart-ass to an artform?

"I know what you're thinkin'...", 1971 also means Dirty Harry!




Oh, and 1971 also means one of the greatest albums of all time!!



Only YES can get away with an eleven minute "single".



1971=Awesome! Pin It Now!

You can beat me up, and I'll still end up looking good!

I'm in a group show at Mason Murer Fine Art this month called "The Real Thing" commemorating the 125th anniversary of Coca-Cola.



You can beat me up, and I'll still end up looking good!, 2011

40-in. x 30-in.

oil on cradled panel

This can is a 1960's-early 70's "swirl" version that is aluminum AND steel. This is why part of the can is really rusty and the body is in nice shape. This also has a pop top as opposed to the push-pull-flippy thing we have now.

I had a pal named Mike give me the alternate title 12oz. of Awesome!, but I was more focused on the fact that the Coca-Cola logo is so strong that even when you break it down it still looks beautiful ( and even more importantly, identifiable).

Believe it or not, I have my own fairly rigid little method to my own Coke drinking. I like it in a glass with ice, BUT... I like it in a particular way. The glass must be a heavy weight short tumbler or lowball glass. The ( ice cold, NEVER room temperature or warm) Coke should be poured into the glass to roughly the 3/5ths mark. Then, three square ice cubes should be added to the drink, and NEVER the other way around. Enjoy!

FUN FACT: Coca-Cola WILL NOT, I repeat, WILL NOT revive a dead hooker! It will, however, do the following:

-Remove blood stains from clothing!

-Cure nausea! A flat Coke will help you get through the task at hand!

-Dissolve teeth ( AKA evidence!)

-Tan your skin, AND curl straight hair. After all, you might need to quickly change your appearance for that "unexpected" flight you'll be making to Brazil... forever!

Okay, enough of that nonsense. Honestly, I really just put that little part in to see if anyone is actually reading these.

Hey, I've got an idea! Let's watch David Nelson get treated rudely by an insane, and aptly titled, "soda jerk"!

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Red Zeppelin I - part two

I finished the second part of my Red Zeppelin I painting movie. I'll "touch up" the background a little ( okay, a lot) before moving on to the actual zeppelin part. I used Gamblin Oil Colors and Galkyd for this painting. The paint is loaded with pigment, and the medium "levels" nicely. In the background ( noise, not the painting), you can hear Frank Lovejoy in Nightbeat. I've got a link to all of the episodes on the side there, and it's pretty good ( and funny) to listen to while you work. Oh, William "Cannon" Conrad usually shows up as either a punch-drunk boxer, effeminate lawyer, or gravel-throated "heavy".

Nightbeat, Dragnet, and Philip Marlowe are don't hold a candle to the greatest private-eye show ever. It might just be a little 30 minute gem from the 1959-60 television season called... Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer.



Darren "Carl Kolchak" McGavin plays basically... Carl Kolchak with a gun, a cooler car, and a giant set of balls ( he might even have three!). He narrates the show... just like in Kolchak: The Nightstalker, and it looks great! Every scene is a German Expressionistic black and white treat. All of chicks are super-hot, and all of the bad guys usually get humiliated before he beats them up and/or kills them. There's a vague suggestion of a Bob Hope-I-know-I'm-just-a-character-in-a-T.V-show-but-nobody-else-knows-thing going on too.



"Yeah, alright! Tough-guy and all that. Let me finish my sandwich first!".



Do real men drink Daiquiris?

"They do if I say they do!" - Darren McGavin Pin It Now!

atomic disintegrator part II

Atomic Disintegrator Part II

18" x 24"

oil on panel

The 30's and 40's were pretty optimistic about how super slick our lives would be around... now. Donald Fagen had a similar idea with the flying car that made organic food and was so fast it took "ninety minutes from New York to Paris". Nobody would really have to work, and our lives would be filled with super-saturated color. All of our problems would be solved through technology.



We would have jet-packs and flying cars! We would wear super cool jumpsuits like Barbara Bain and Barry Morse in Space 1999.



So... things didn't really work out that way. No jump suits, but we do have Spanx for men. No awesome Dick Tracy wrist-communicators, but we do have awkwardly large cellular phones that are too big to fit in your pocket ( unless you wear some sort of "cargo shorts" which, quite frankly, NEED TO GO!). C'mon! Can you really see Cary Grant or Steve McQueen in a pair of these things?

Wait! What was I saying? Oh yeah, the phones. They also annoy the shit out of you every 30 seconds, break if you drop them once, and don't really work well as a telephone.

I guess I'm being narrow-minded when I whine about the fact that the general public is NEVER going to be allowed to have access to a jet-pack or a flying car.



These are WAY better, right?

Sorry, I know this one was a little ranty. I'm currently in a cargo-short "tolerance program", and I know with your support... I'll make it! Pin It Now!

atomic disintegrator part I

Atomic Disintegrator Part I

18" x 24"

oil on panel

The Buck Roger's Atomic Disintegrator XZ-38 version was made by Daisy ( the B.B. gun people) in 1935, and is essentially a "pop" gun. It has a little flint in the top that sparks, and the piston drives an arm up to make a popping sound.

A really, really LOUD popping sound.

It is the KING of all toy space guns. The Wyandotte and the Hubley are really cool, but this is the quintessential icon of heroic inter-planetary defense weapons. It's super annoying and... super awesome!

I got pulled over by the local cop once. Actually, he flashed his lights at me and then I instinctively pulled over. He drove up behind me and said he was "just sayin' Hey!". I half-ass remembered that it was some sort of law to tell the cops that you had a gun in the car. I pulled out my XZ-38 and he looked at it, gave me a funny look, and he indicated that this didn't really "qualify" as a gun.

Whatever, dude! It's super annoying and... super awesome!



This is one of the actual patents for the Atomic Disintegrator. It's kind of a work of art in itself. Pin It Now!

bing bang theory

bing bang theory

24" x 24"

oil on cradled panel

I had originally been thinking of the Big Bang singularity and the many theories revolving around the consistency of the rate of expansion. I think it's, quite frankly, fascinating:



I'm now kind of leaning a little towards the fact that this is a great example of Chaos theory where the random pattern is the most natural state. Right?



big bang theory ( detail)

You know, like, to make a consistent effort to continually "tidy up" your workspace is going against nature. I'm not talking about half-eaten sandwiches and a rusty hubcap on your dining room table or anything, but running around like Felix Unger ain't where it's at either, baby! Pin It Now!

Red Zeppelin I

I've been thinking about doing a series of these for years. I like lobby cards and commercial illustration from the 30's and 40's. One of my favorite paintings of all time is a conceptual piece of Superman ( for the radio show) by H.J. Ward from the early 1940's. This hung in one of the board rooms of DC comics until the 1980's. The colors are rich golds and violets that seemed to be a little better than "real life". Hey, dig where this thing turned up!



Superman, 1940

60" x 45", oil on panel

Apparently standing off the coast of Honolulu or Oz or something?

I'm working on the second part of Red Zeppelin I right now, but here's where I am at up to the end of the first sitting. I used a mix of Burnt Umber and Burnt Sienna with no medium. Fat over Lean, baby! As I add more layers, I'll use more and more medium which in this case will be Galkyd from Gamblin. It's a rich honey in color and consistency, and it levels beautifully! It's also very, very quick drying.



Red Zeppelin I, 2011

30" x 40", oil on cradled panel Pin It Now!