Drive way painting angels in the 21st century

I painted this one in a drive-way fully open outdoor studio, while living in my art-truck on the street.... I'd been evicted. Palo alto... in the 21st century... par for the course.

Study history, and you will see that each time these kinds of economic events occurred, largely caused by machinations of the ones holding power, economic or otherwise, they expected the poor folks to pay the price. they wanted to never face a change in their lifestyle.

Exactly the same, here in good ole enlightened Palo Alto...
I'd seen it before, in my early days in the meditation community of Fairfield.

Back then, I'd directed and edited a TM business video for drawing in out of town meditators to "colder than a witch's teat" Iowa. Yes, there were many honest meditaors... many, many, many. majority , in fact... but I was apalled to hear stories of folks that later became friends, who were hob-nobbed as soon as they were flwon in... as if it was one of those resort communities crossed with Emerald City. Enough to turn your gut.

Among the people, there are so many who will work for the common good beyond money, so eager to overlook traits of the greedy. there are a lot more reasons behind why people are happy with less. I always have been. I came from those kinds of people. It takes years to realize that the very small numbers of greedy rich will always nickel and dime us good hearted folks... they will even go so far as pretend they are on their last dollar to get a bargain. Happened inthe land of "Heaven on Earth" ... and when it did, I felt partly responsible because it was my vision as applied to those big Maharisihi dreams that was drawing in people from all around the globe... and every so often I heard a horror story. It seems that even among the most enlightened intentions, you will always find a few who will feed "off of new blood". The less inventive, the least common denomenator hiding behind old money... scenarios like that... over, and over.

It's not "all the rich folks"... but I still have yet to find a rich person who doesn't partially try to pretend they have the same aspirations of the good-hearted. I looked into the eyes of a billionaire recently and told him I was soon going to have to hit the road again... and that kid, in theory respects me in a very deep way.... He has no idea I see him backpeddling as if I am going to soon beg him for charity. Not on your life.

In any case. I learned about that a long time ago. It turns my stomach to realize I can search the web and find videos I helped design and produce, and realize that some of the folks associated with my creative flow have become millionaires. I tremble, especially now, when I fully understand I helped them into positions, and now hear about them walking past folks with no conscience or banking deals with no mention of my past influence on their success.

Par for the course. this is planet earth. Wow... right on...that explains everything. I must have taken a wrong turn at another solar system, bounced off a moon or two... and now I understand just what goes on here, having tracked back through history...yes, yes, yes. thisi is what they call "human nature". I just call it greed.

anyway... when the times got tough, it was bound to affect me sooner than later... and it sure did... it sure did.

.....so there I was, painting my paintings in a drive way of a new friend... but fully limited and held in check. I felt like the pet artist on display.... later on I found out I was the 3rd in a row... and those other folks all left that neighborhood feeling afraid of the next one... so there I was, feeling studied from windows all around me, while I painted this.

So... my landlord had his legal right to come after me... but it wasn't because of the rent...that was onlyhis cover story. read on.

As usual, I knew it would take a few years for reasonability to re-arrive in this town of wealthy rich folks. When it all started caving, they were still running around and taking it out on the folks who were trying to work with them. I was being too honest about my life with "the man" who owned the land where my studio never fully got launched. True, I was in a holding pattern, working on this wildly successful info-mercial for a friend, while developing a tv series that was our real project. During the internet/tech stocks feeding frenzy, my share ws being lost while I waited. I could feel it... but didn't find out for 3 years... So I was there trusting friendship.

never trust friendship when it involves a few hundred mill.

... I feel like the stupid one... but it takes survivng this kind of ordeal to know that for sure. Hindsight, as usual.

.... since I have been evicted now, almost 2 years.... that studio is STILL empty.

the guy was so fearful about the environmental hazards, I now think he thought i was dying of asbestos poinsoning... so he sold it and the building has been gutted... all evidence removed...wow. How greedy can you get?

When I was in the process of being evicted, rich associates (not friends), and well connected citizens who all enjoyed my local tv show... some even said it was ready for HBO... and even though I did all that out of my own pocket, they had the nerve to rub this boys pristine record for community service into the mud. the put that salt in my wounds... saying, "Face it... you were evicted because you couldn't pay rent". Well. that's only partly true.

Look at this painting. Enlarge it. Could a painting like this have been painted by a loser-freeloader, leach type of person?

Do you get something when you see a painting like this? When was the last time you heard an artist referred to in a respectful way? have we been fully convinced that artists are that unnecessary that they should live in dirt?

What really happened to me, my dreams, my studio and my future...is this, the woman in my life started to leave me when my business partner ran with my share of the cash. Women do this. I feel like an idiot to understand that my style of devotion to the path of enriching the world through creative process is a perfect reason for a woman to turn her love around.

There I was, trusint a friend I'd known to come back after he was king sh*t golden boy after our shared vison was launched. What was I thinking?

The idea that it was actually going that way was crippling me for 3 years running, but I still stayed loyal.

I told him, consider investing in high tech... then later I warned him to get the money out of those stocks..... he never lsitened. From the first day he was banking that kind of change, he was pretending to be strapped. Can you believe it? Within a week of the launch, he was a millionaire.
Haven't seen or hear from him since.

Let me tell you this.

It will really cause you to questing your belief in this world, when you see a frind you trust that much actually hire folks to piss you off so you will say something on his voicemail that he can claim infers you quit the deal. I never did. For almost 5 years I endured the scrutiny of folks who thought I was also super rich and hiding it to avoid taxes. No way. that guy probably had me surveiled as well. I'll tell you what, you really start to understand the hide and seek world of mistrutst whe nyou have an old frind try to turn you against him, just so he can write you off.

That's what I lived through. Try it, if you think it's been a joy ride.
He used to call me "the man who knows everything" and he signed a t-shirt saying those words... here it is... you can't see it, but it's here... 3d.

He wrote e-mails that supported my conclusions that trusting him was the right thing. A lot of promises... no performance. He was even given a Ferrari, that from what I hear, he has been too busy to drive til this day.

I would not want his world. If the money ever came, I'd use it for the people. Like always. he never will. I am sorry I ever helped him. I feel responsible for the ones he destroyed. Including the woman I was with who wanted to start a family with me. she doubted everything about me, everything that was real and true got truned inside out when my good old friend stopped the monthly expense checks...yeah... he paid part of the expense for me... along with a lot of lies... but the truth was, he made it damn hard for me to ever reach him and he made me work to get his attention... then he finally hired a person just to push me away. If you think about it, it walks the thin line of criminal....yeah I know it.

but I realized this;

on good intention, if my ship had come in, I would probably have done worse damage than he has.

really.

I found out, because he found that "revenge nerve " inside me. And I knew I had work to do, or I would die of bitterness.

So, I got busy inside. Cleaning house.

I have never gone after him.... at least not yet.... I still can in New Mexico... but who cares... I mean really... who cares? When he caved in on me... my woman started to leave me, and from there, I rode that bull until I was evicted. In the process, ilearned who not to become. I knew that kind of success was not for me.

Tthe woman I was with was soo deep with me, that I was in complete shock after I regained just enough balance to try to reach her deep again... She was laready gone, but never told me.

I though we were still together, and I "rewarded" her for believing in me and not leaving me by giving her the baby she dreamed about having with me. Before she even knew we were pregnant, she turned all our shared friends and her family against me... And me? I was finally explaining all this to my landlord in a letter and thanking him for his patience.

After he read my letter, during a phone call, I realized he thought I would be dead in that studio....here's what really happened... I think he was so freaked out to read all those details in that honest letter, that he feared he'd find me as a dead guy in my studio and have to clean up the mess. The truth is, he nearly did find me dead... my world was blown to smithereens that far and that wide that I could not figure out where I was.

Yet I produced great paintings..... paintings like this one. do you feel the mercy in this painting? I wonder if you can understand that I was reaching for it... and in part, it was paintings like this that kpet me from driving over the cliff.

Yeah, I thought Polly was the one who would ride that wave out with me... but she was followoing in the fottsteps of my ex-business-partner-trusted friends...she was selling me out at every turn and not even telling me. The one who promised never to leave me... Our rock was our love.gone... gone with the wind.

It changed me forever.

I am not the same person.

I may claim I am a better person for those experiences... but I'll have to see paintings like this continue to emerge from my heart. I'll have to see them ignite hope and promise in the eyes of others, especially women who are wanting true love someday. I will have to see them shifted towards believing they may find it... I will have to see people reflect that kind of beuaty and share it aroudn prints of this... before I can really be sure I am not gone forever.... believe it or not... I am still trying to figure out where I am... so sad... but now I know how those tsunami victims that survived feel. Here one day, all paradise... in a flash you find yourself in "death valley" everything good around you reminds you of what you may never know in your life again. With each passing day, you assume the best idea is First to survive.

If only this hadn't already happened in other forms, with other folks I trusted. ouch. It's a track record that seems to eclipse any art ever made, or any good song ever sung.

Who could survive being struck by lightning this many times?

I am so tired of retelling the overview.

Yet, it has to be told inlight of this much beauty.

Every person who walks up to me and says that seeing my art has changed them in a good way forever, encourages me to consider that I am not yet a fully lost cause.

But it's still tip toe, tip toe.... tip toe. I still get the chills when I see anything close to the depth of love I have already known in my life.

When you have this much to offer, and you've seen those vistas that many times... it's hard to believe you haven't used up all your chances.

so, why not set yourself aside and let hte flow through your own brushes and paint show you that grace is still all around.

Faith comes when you have no faith left.

All those preachers (and by the way I took those vows too, but I don't preach that way... I would rather build beauty than try to convert anybody!) All those preachers on tv, or in the churches... I can see how quickly they would be "dog meat" if htey ever got really challenged. But then again, how quickly they would actually make sense, if they truly srvived it. they, like me, would probably feel less inclined about assuming that bad things happen only to the ones God punishes. All things happen in all kinds of peoples lives.

It's not what you think you can do, or who you think you can change or if you can save the world in a tiny way. god/Goddess has that covered. What we CAN do, is try to find a way to walk with grace after we get shamed byu life and have to stand in the soup lines along with the ones we formerly judged.

yeah. yeah yeah.

anyway. back to the story. I gotta sleep. I got paintings waiting for me tomorrow.. I have to sleep to work.

I thought she loved me, yet she, and everyone who I knew as a friend (except just one or two) ran like hell.

So, I was scrambling not only to save my own life (because this had happened before to me... and I wasn't able to do it all this time around... I knew I was crippled... yeah yeah yeah). You never know just how vulnerable you really are until you lose everything including faith. so the landlord came after me. But halfway through him evicting me, I found out that he was giving the 3 other shops next to me all grace periods 3 to 4x as long as the one the one I was asking for (one tenant was 11 months behond and not evicted yet!)When I challenged the landlord about this, he went after the guy next to me who has a wife in a wheel chair and family. I felt responsible, so rather than save myself, I saved that guy and let the landlord rip me to shreds instead. Now all those other folks (including my former psuedo wife) are in the clear... 3 years later I am surprised to be breathing. As a salute to grace, I accepted a new friend's offer to paint in his driveway. I peed in a can, wasn't allowed indoors.. treated like a relative animal in many ways.. but at least I had a place to paint. And this was my offering to creator for helping me find a way not to drive off a cliff with my last gallon of gas. I'm still in my art truck. but a little clearer. I am still not so sure why I feel I failed. Certainly whil eall this was happening, I did what i could to recieve whatever has been offered. A free coffee... a place to upload this blog.... but more importantly I have been blessed with th eopportunity to "go to bat" for many people in my own anonymous way....maybe trying to earn my way back to the time when I get to hold that new baby... haven't even gotten a photo. And how many of you all think the life of somebody with this kind of talent is easy! If you secretly hope I suffer to match the price you feel you have had to pay to leave your art/music/potential behind.... thnk again! My truck has one more gallon of gas... be my guest. the cliffs are not far away!

Kenny Kolter and Joel Arant. My Studio on west lowe in Fairfiled, circa 1984. Kenny visits in earlier blogs... Joel will have to show up someday too... but not presurred into it, it may take a few years. Meantime, I am working on releasing a few more of Joel's genius songs in my version... don't worry, he'll get paid his share if they sell. Do I need to tell you that Joel ditched me more than a few times? Do I need to tell you that I stepped back from competing with Kenny over a woman that may have been the one that would have worked as a long-term wife? how can folks be this happy and still give each other a run for the money. Let's just say, "par for the course in the land of 3d" and leave it at that. I know I stirred things up by alluding to these items of import.... they also implicate me, in a sense, since as you can see my dirty laundry actually appears in this photo... Sometimes I hate the two pronged affect of memory... you get to remember the good and the indifferent.... but even the formerly labeled "bad parts" are actually beyond what we'd expect. Be active in your life... learn from it. Later you can chuckle as much as I do, when I watch the video of the discussions I had with Joel and others 20 years ago, wondering about whether or not to honor friendship over potential family... I really want to puke. God, I was looking good back then.... God, so were these guys.... maybe there were just too manyof us in one place. yeah yeah yeah. 

"Ancient Elder on fire". This chief/shaman is simultaneously in a dozen worlds, hence the illusion of being "on fire". Notice the deep peace. Notice you feel it soaring through him... sense that he allows it to roar and the intention of holding space in this world is so that folks like me can paint it later. Who says that time travelers are not real??? 

"Stolen Indian" .  

A Saint from another time. One of my favorite subjects for exploration os researching how the many Native American Leaders held/maintained such inner peace while killing invaders/destroyers of their world. Listen up. the dignity of warrior is real. Real today. real tomorrow, real back then. The warriors journeyed through ceremony before battle. Away from the women and children, they would gather the night before. they would acto out the next day, and grieve for their enemies with true tears and true grief. Nobody wants to live with themselves a s a killer. Our modern warriors face the same dilmna as all warriors ever did. How can you defend your family, tribe, nation and still remain true in your deepest heart? How do your actions reflect, on the battlefield, your compassion for your enemy? My dad cried like a baby on the deck of his air-craft-carrier in WWII pacific, he'd discovered a very faint blip of an enemy submarine so far away that everyone called him crazy and he had to personally wake up the captain to get their attention. They sent out a PT boat and depth charged the area, just as a manuever... nobody expected to see the body parts and life vests and blood that rose out of the water... In those days, a military staff did not give as much attention to the grief and trauma that comes form discovering that your actions caused the deaths of 85 enemy sailors. My dad wept while the captain poured the champagne. I never saw anyone give so much to the people as my parents did. My dad was driven to make up for his actions. He never forgave himself. Though, in theory he had done the right thing, he was haunted by the reality that those enemies were also his brothers.... and tha, is exactly the way the old tribal warriors also wept on the battlefileds of their fallen vistims. The Challenge of the in a battle on honorable levels requires that he present a most painless death to his enemy. It's not about winners or losers, it's about living with yourself and bringing peace forward faster with minimal pain. What else can you do? I get really happy when the macho savagery of the psuedo warriors gets eclipsed by the deep hearts of the real military leaders. I like to repeat the stories about how U.S.Grant grieved before sending another soldier into battle. Any real military leader knows the honor of their enemy and that their challenge is to maintain a space inside themselves, so that once they return home to their families and towns, they still are fully human. these are never tears of weakness, because you gain the intelligence and victory of true peace and your eyes send it forth.... nobody except fellow soldiers need to knw what it takes to keep that depth of heart safe... and anybody who learns for that level does everything they can to prevent more war... but is never afraid to risk their life for peace.  

Is this a t-shirt or what? 

Are my hands on an invisible steering wheel? Is this one of those secret Martial arts tricks I claim to know? Am I ready to fight or offering myslef for arrest? Or is this (really) a pose I struck to pretend I didn't want to be photographed, whenin truth, I was damn proud of everything that was growing in my life. Looking back, I understand why folks saw resource around me. Looking back, I understand I was a creative force that stirred angles/curves of thought that shifted otherfolks towards a richness. Sometimes you have to lose yourself in order to see yourself reflected ...in order to understand what to reclaim. Not dead yet. Not dead yet. the grace of living real, sometimes affords the chance to see with new eyes and to know that source of flow still awaits within. Some folks burn the past. I call them burners. A lot of hype swirls around us about "letting go" . I preached that myslef for years.It sure sounded good. Reality for me, I am an archivist among other things. Those aptitude tests I took for entering the military (oh boy, I was sure anxious to die in Vietnam to prove I was a man! I sure snapped out of that) suggested that I was a strong candidate for Journalism School, ready to help run a radio staion or magazine or film documentary segment on the front lines.... But I shuddered at the idea od "journalist" since it seemed so beneath being an "Artist" . Low and Behold,years later, through my archiving and documentation and (yes) radio interviews/tv shows I notice I am doing something damn close to what the military said they wanted me to volunteer to do. I wonder. If I hadn't shunned the title of journalist way back then, I might be a commentator on CNN or somewhere by now. God knows I have walked in and out of some spaces/places that match what journalists do. I also enjoy the potential beauty from being non-partisan and trying to showcase overviews that give the people a view and they can then choose later what it all means... beyond all this, I was raised a patirot, but not a blind one... Have youever wondered what could have/would have happened if you had actually joined up and participated? Would the owrld be a better place if I had done that rather than define myslef as artist-musicmaker-poet-archivist??? I think about this alot. Youcan tell, from this photo that I wasn't afraid of a fight... even though I had the martial arts training, I learned the wisdom of running. Even if you win, you end up in a bad place, most of the time... if not a hospital regretting that you culd have "pulled apunch" rather that take those few extra shots when your opponent was down for the count. My biggest criticism of the folks who fought wars and came back to become police officers (in all the various forms) is that they shoot folks in the heart, when they could just as easily shoot them in the knees.... I was smart enough to know that if I had entered a legal battlefield, i'd a liked the emergency of it too much. So, in a sense , this photo reveals that I am current with that dilemna at age 25.... I am here, wondering if I can be as harmless as the song I wrote back then entitled "harmless". yes.yes.yes. 

While attending The ART ACADEMY of CIncinnati, I helped manage a greenhouse in Mt. Healthy, my home town in Ohio. My grandparents had died a few years earlier... the patriarch and matriarch of the florist company where I worked were my surrogate grandparents... I'd never experienced that, but I knew it was so. One time Grandma wuest called me to her home for a private meeting, she tossed an envelope of money in my lap and cried, telling me she was grateful for all the work I did there... she knew I would inherit nothing, I was simply a laborer... but hse also knew that she felt like I was the grandsone she wished she had. That 800 dollar gift translated into me learning TM, buying backpacking gear, and skydiving to face my own death urges one on one. She told me "don't tell anyone about this, they will think I am crazy and take it back" ...So , I promised, and that 800 dollars saved my life. My two bosses were her son-in-laws. One was more a mentor than a boss, but I'd never heard the word back then.... He gave me this van. the other son-in-law also gave me his van a few years before. I ran them both into the ground (the vans... that is). In any case, after I left the greenhouse business, they closed the place down... couldn't afford my kind of worker for 2.75 han hour before... I suppose they all felt they owed me for the years we squeezed out of the business all together. I put myself through Art School on the money I earned selling flowers out of this van on Farmer's Market in cincinnati. Here I am riding the beast while launching my future as musician, artist, song-writer and vagabond. One of these trucks I road to Cincinnati with Joel and Kenny to visit my folks. While parked at the Art Academy of Cincinnati late one night, I painted zebra stripes with very liquid paint that dripped and created an "echo" all around the space where I'd parked. Some folks would call this vandalism. I call it performance art. They probably wondered which of their Alumni had painted those drips to dry overnite. This is the world of true artist... the instigator of joy and sweetness disquised as performance art. To me, it was a sacred ceremony. I did that there, because I was launching my life with that van... and I wanted to thank the Academy that I have a sense of my value for being true as artist in this world of non-risk-deception. 

Where in the world is Barbara Vas Dias?! She sure warmed up my sleeping bag right! This is my out-back room Studio in Fairfield Iowa. these were immensely happy times. My advice to anyone who is in simlar reality (this present day) ... do what you can to get ready to allow it to prosper and grow. See how happy she is? Doesn't this justify pulling teeth on my part to figure out a way to shelter that? Some say she went on to be a biologist.... maybe not even alive in these years... In so many ways, she and the other women were the true driving force behind our success. All us young warriors knew we were trying to earn a way to keep their faith and trust in us steady and justified. I suppose I was on the trail of sacrifice for my music, art, path... and (as usual) I did not like seeing her suffer on my behalf. so, thnking I was helping her by letting her go... I let her go. Silly, silly. silly... but (once again), it goes with the territory. I hope she has some good sotries to tell about me, the next time we meeet...wherever that is. Where in the world is Barbara Vas Dias? 

Steve Oliver, John Poole, Kenny Kolter, Tony Stenger aka Toe Knee Stanger. circa 84..... I was a fool not to beg Joel to re-join the band... oh well... live and learn. we did some great shows anyway! 

These days I often wonder, "have I collaborated to the best of my ability?" I ... I popped a video tape from "the Stanger Ranch" sessions in my vcr recently and I see myself as MC, showcasing others and putting my arms around shared performances. As life goes on, we tend to doubt ourselves if we do not have video evidence of our past reality. It's a double edged sword. In this case, I shared this design project with Christine. It's classic. The days, because of the years of focused solitude re-creating past success in various other forms, i forget I did collaborate well with others. At least, they claim I did. My reality has shifted to acknowledge that this, is indeed true. I see it for myself. I do jump in and greet others with open arms... however, I tend to protect my own work far more wisely before I turn it over for other input. It's a process.... does not require 20 years to recognize it's valididty. Measure it with applause in your next gig. We sure did roar through those years and folks danced in joy.what it took to manage that, was by default. As the time went by... did I learn anything? for example, can I choose my collaborators to match and better my past sahred outcomes? If so... then the proof is in the puddng.  

My logo design (early version) for Anxious eye. suitable for a t-shrt before the re-launch... you've been alerted. 

I really have to wonder why Joel and I did not have a few "Commander" meetings in regards to managing the various projects we jump started, including "Anxious Eye" and the "Makers" .... Music is a business, folks. You got to get it together, and keep it together.... this may mean that you have to bite the bullet and manage it like Safeway. Well, what do you expect? Bands are people too!  

Joel Arant, genius songwriter... search him on the web and listen to some of his songs... you WILL agree. In the background, on drums, Kenny the Kolter, looking too damn handsome to be a background guy. Sometimes I think the songs he sang were some of Anxious Eyes best... yeah yeah yeah. Meanwhile, Joel has a few definite (soon to be) recognizable hits... and i will do whatever I can to release versions of a few of his songs (if I have to ) to prove that is true. You haven't lived until you'v eheard "human Being", "Civilized life", "Christ Figure", "my last Lucky"  

I'd had many lunches with Joan Baez circa 93-96, Palo alto. Her idea. when the Highwayman Tour (Willie, Waylon, Johnny Cash, Kristofferson) came through Mountainview California, I went to record and interview with Kristofferson. Standing at the back gate, while passing my request to the road crew, Johnny Cash's bus pulled up. He and June Carter looked like anxious tourists, near the front . I waved, he waved back. I stepped aside, let the bus go by, because force never works... then comes Joan walking up with a huge boquet of flowers for Kris. She laughed, and I told her I'd calaled Willie Town down south and was waiting... they opened the gate and I respectfully hugged her knwoing I may not see her backstage. My friend Jean Michel was being very patient with me, waiting with me... then, a few minutes later, all the gates opened for us. I will never forget looking Johnny in th eeye and shaking his hand backstage, thanking him and June Carter for their life-long gifts.... I'd already thanked Joan , in person, over lunch many times. I'd learned from the inside out, that what they did was pure sacrifice, in many ways. And later, I got to thank Kristofferson. While he was in the john, on his bus, I confess... I stole one of his guitar picks... I know he noticed it... but he never busted me. He and Joan, and Mimi (her sister, God rest her soul... she founded bread and roses... passed away of breast cancer in in 2000, I think... while I am at it, I hope Johnny, June, Waylon are all at peace... they all made my world a better place with their talent). Anyway... Joan was dancing in Joy, as you see here. And , as you also see, she was happy to share it. Thanks Joan! The last time I saw her, crossing the Alley towards Country Sun foods, she asked me "where have you been?" . It was the week that both Mother Theresa and Princess Diana had passed away. I answered; "Joan, I have been everywhere, and nowhere"... she said... "I know what you mean, I know what you mean"... actually, I did see her at the Stanford Pow Wow with her mother. I have already shown that I consider these folks to have sacrificed a lot , especially their privacy to create something better for us. I don't take up their time trying to get them to listen or to view my own work. I give them some of my artifacts as gifts... and that's for them to re-frame, if they choose, not to get me anywhere. They have enough responsibilites trying to stay humanin this insane world. The last time I saw Johnny, he performed at the Frost Amphitheater on Stanford Campus. I knew he was facing something huge, I sensed it. I feel very, very , very moved by the way he laid his whole life open for us all... it's a tribute to his friends, these folks Imentioned, that he finished with honesty.... Contrary to what he said via that video and song "hurt", when I looked him in the eyes that day when this photo was taken, I saw a deep human presence of compassion inside him. the suggestion that he had lost a part of himself by embracing fame was his own illusion, and maybe there was a part he could have given beyond what he did... on the other hand, I think it is "par for the course", for a certain style of human to always wonder... "did I really do enough?"  

John Pool, of the Anxious Eye line-up rehearsing for a house party in my studio circa 1984  

Lucky Bazooka and the Adaptors before playing the big City. You know, every backstage is a slum of spewed phlegm. You see the artists on the stage, but don't realize they had to escape the rat hole in back from which their gear was being stolen while they performed. Only recently, somebody returned Bob Dylan's leather jacket. I heard U2 finally got a suitcase of songs returned. Me? Well, I lost some real colector's items... a few jackets, a couple of excellent hand-art-re-made guitars and suff I needed to calm me down for the ride back. I only said that to sound hip... but mostly true anyway. You work your whole life to bring it to the people, then your pick-up truck and a few boxes of master tapes get "lost" all while you are trying to stay cheerful and be one of the many who develops something that works. Here, I was using my security keys on Maharishi University Campus to use our video studio lights for promo pictures with a self-timer camera. Folks got really confused by the artist musicians that seemed to love each other too much to allow them to live (that), too free. Everyone of these folks posing with me has done a fair share of touring by now. Carol goes world-wide on occasion... folk festivals and such. Charlie, Joel, Kenny and I have continued to evolve through a range of showcased (various) indy bands. You can't stop us!  

The Early stages of a froce still to be reconned with. Lucky Bazooka and the Adaptors, formerly (still - in secret) the Buzzers... later, a version up-graded (first) as the Makers (the original and true makers), then Anxious Eye... and then later still emerging as the Authorities. Long before Interpol, we wwere writing tickets... yeah yeah yeah. 

They wander around in Orange robes... Used to be cautioned never to look a woamn in the eye, the temptation too great... yeah yeah yeah. this cat is fearless. He don't care. ready, willing and able. yeah. 

If you look in the shadow, you'll see a grin on this girl's face. Life was too simple. We'd all roar into Iowa City, play some toons in th eparks, wander around like new comers... the long drive through farmland was grounding. As usual, we had know clue.  

"He has the whole world in his hat". 

Before Leaving Cincinnati... I had a studio in the heart of Cincy  

Do I look frightened in this? Within the year of finishing this artwork, and meeting the new folks around that process, I was shipwrcked deeper in doo doo than ever thought possible. who'd a thunk it? I certainly do not know how anyone is ever able to maintain process and be honest simultaneously. Maybe my brand to straight thought, talk, ideal, reality is actually too raw fro most folks' bottom lines... whatever. 

Early in-store advertising circa 1985. 

Anxious Eye #1 available for purchase as a Cd soon, with added live tracts from the Olde Worlde Back room train track studio. yes . circa 1984