My Talents?

Trying to figure out how to make sense

First off, I missed posting last week. Things happen, what can I do? I could probably write a post every other day because there is always something going on although what I think is worth spending the time to write about isn’t always worth it. I’m always asking myself, “why would anyone read this?” For the pictures I hope!

My friend Dean Haspiel. I’ve known Dean for a good 20 years. He’s been one of those guys that you want to be best friends with and constantly be in his orbit. I think I’m in a more elliptical orbit with him since we both have many friends and it’s the rare individual that you can tool around the solar system with year round. I don’t think that’s me. I live with my GF and we aren’t year round!. Dean and I have conjunctions on occasion and it’s always wonderful. We run in to each other irregularly at a play called “It’s getting tired Mildred” that runs once a month. My review of that play is “All thumb’s up!” Dean has a Kickstarter I hope everyone can support. It’s called Covid Cop. and he has his own Substack you can follow as well.

Backstage at “It’s getting tired Mildred”. I don’t have those shoes anymore.

I want to say around 336 East 73rd St in Manhattan’s upper Eastside I did a mural once upon a time. It was for a year membership at the Manhattan Classic Car Club. I enjoyed the club and making the 75 foot mural. You might be able to catch a glimpse from the sidewalk if you are in the area!

This is about six or seven feet of wall just inside the entrance to the garage.

Currently working on a comic book. Horror story with demon possession and death.

I know I mention this every time but it’s also true every time, you can ask about any art you see here or on my website for purchase. Thank you to everyone who already has!

Illustration for a business magazine that I can’t remember and people who I don’t know.

I first tried to creatively write in high school inspired by a bunch of different things at the time. I had decided to quit wrestling because I was going to be an artist when I grew up. One influential thing were these traveling multimedia shows in the early 80’s that used the latest tech, projected short video clips, stills, pop music, and live actors, to perform some kind of cheerleading function. The shows would tour the region stopping in various schools and I never really understood their purpose. My school would give us a half day devoted to it. We usually had one once a semester and I don’t think I ever walked out of one knowing anything new or thinking about the world in a different way.

My high school had a talent show every year. I had just heard of Brother Theodore. I read “On the road”. I was getting into Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan, and Jack Kerouac, poetry/lyrics. I read the first page of “Howl”. I wanted to do something for the talent show but what???

I started writing. My idea started to resemble the multi media shows we were assaulted with every semester. But, only in my head. There were kernels of hope, seeds of maybe, nuts of mayhem, germs of possibilities, and probably some virus nuggets of ideas. Teenage Fred had several goals and this talent show will be the vehicle to express all that teenage turbulent wisdom bouncing around inside to come out and say hello. The problem was I didn’t know anything. I could barely regurgitate the stuff I had just read! That should have been the actual show, what I wrote and the material I pulled up was what a dumb teenager who just read “On the Road” without any critical reflection might have done.

My tryout for the talent show was a complete embarrassing disaster. Mercifully, there wasn’t an entire audience of all my classmates watching this slow motion train wreck fueled with irritating angsty teen poetry. Some details: 120lb me on stage in my men’s bikini briefs that I bought from Spencer gifts reading a story that went nowhere with way too much alliteration. I convinced a guy who owned an electric guitar to play random noise on the stage to my left. Two more guys fake wrestled on my right. And one nice girl walking around the empty aisles of the auditorium repeating various phrases at her discretion after I said them. I was not organized, or articulate enough to describe what I was going for. It was too weird for any of the judges to let me in the show. The people that helped me out remained confused at what they had just taken part in, but seemed happy that they did. I grew up and became an artist.

Michelle Shocked portrait done for my friend Tom. Michelle is really cool and so is Tom! Gouache on paper.