For anyone who may read this blog I am in a group show in Oakland, CA this month and next month, July 13 - August 28.
The Many Faces of Frida.
It will be held at the Craft & Cultural Arts Gallery, State of California Office Building - Artrium.
1515 Clay, Oakland, CA 94612.

After almost 4 years I have officially moved out of my San Rafael studio and back into my home studio. Part of the reason I was in San Rafael to begin with was because the home studio had someone living in it.

Now, the home studio has been remodeled (slightly) and painted, etc. I will begin unpacking it today and hopefully I’ll be back in full production by tomorrow.

The only downside to being here again is missing all of the nice people I have made friends with in SR. I’ll miss my breaks (walks) for coffee and chatting with everyone. Naturally I’ll be able to go back and visit on occasion as I’m only a town away but with work schedules and all it would require extra time. I’ll try to show up once a month or so for lunch, etc.

In the mean time I have to get back to work.

The frenzy over Michael Jackson’s death is of no surprise. He was undeniably huge in his global popularity. I remember when the Jackson 5 first came on the scene in the very late 1960’s and how all of us kid’s in the neighborhood were excited (yeah, I’m that old).

I admit that the J5 were a small influence on my musical career but I actually lost interest in Michael Jackson’s music sometime after his solo album, Off the Wall (which is still an excellent record). I suppose I'm a pre-Thriller fan.
This all sort of reminds me of when Elvis died back in 1977 and the subsequent frenzy over his passing.

Now, I don’t want to blather on critically about the guy’s music and his bizarre lifestyle. I have respect for his passing.
That being said, I can’t help but feel a bit sad about Farrah Fawcett’s passing as well and even more so because her passing has become quite overshadowed after Jackson’s death.

It feels just like when Robert Mitchum passed away and then the very next day, Jimmy Stewart died and for a week that’s all you heard about was Stewart's death and Mitchum (one of my favorite actors) was almost totally forgotten.

Typical of mainstream media, the protests in Iran, the war(s) in Iraq and Afghanistan and the state budget woes, etc. are all taking a back seat to the (self-proclaimed) King of Pops demise. In fact, I don't think that they're even in the same car at this point.
And so it goes.

I have a little ritual where every morning upon coming down stairs (unless I go surfing that day) I drink my coffee as I watch a little bit of the local morning news mainly to get the weather info before I start my day.
Naturally, I sit through about 10 minutes, or so of whatever stories they are covering while waiting for the weather. This means that I generally space out or think about my agenda for the day.
However, this morning a story caught my attention, or more to the point, the reaction of individuals in the story is what caught my attention.

The (quick) back story is this, last year two road cyclists where training in the hills of the Cupertino area and were tragically struck and killed by a Sheriff’s deputy who had fallen asleep at the wheel of his patrol car while driving.
This is obviously a terrible incident to be sure. Now, a year later family and friends of the fallen cyclists are outraged that the officer isn’t being “punished sufficiently enough” for the accident.
Now, myself having lost far too many family members since I was a young boy I can totally relate to the anguish and frustration of the family and friends of the cyclists, but I am sympathetic to both parties.

Upon seeing and hearing one of the family/friends of the fallen cyclists interviewed for the segment and how he angrily spat to the interviewer that, “the officer was basically on a paid vacation for the past year…” saddened me. The guy was so angry and the hate in his eyes was so deep that he was blinded to the whole picture. I couldn’t help but shake my head and think of the officer who will have to live with this tragedy for the rest of his life! We forget that it was an ACCIDENT. I’m pretty sure he didn’t set out that day on his shift hoping to kill some one with his patrol car. Perhaps there is more to this tragedy but that’s all the information that I got.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine how it would be to have to shoulder this tragedy for the rest of my days AND to have a large group of people just hating me for it on top of it all. You try to go on and live a "normal" life after that. I don't really know if that would be possible.

No matter how much this guy is “punished” it will NEVER bring back the cyclists.
I can’t help but feel that the world is losing more and more compassion and sensitivity every day not to mention just plain old critical thinking.

There are more than two victims in this ordeal. I hope the family and friends of the cyclists realize this soon and just try to move on and let this tragedy try to heal with time.

Here's a little drawing I made about two weeks ago. It's (sort of) a tribute to my skateboarding past in Sacramento, California circa the mid-1970's. I even used the N-men logo on the skate deck. The bee was originally drawn by Walt Disney himself back in the 1930's for the Sacramento Bee newspaper. Disney was commissioned by the McClatchy family. The bee was/is named "Scoopy." There is also a television bee, "TeeVee" and a radio bee whose name escapes me at the moment. Basically they are ALL the same bee but representing the three different media holdings of the McClatchy empire. I think I'll call my bee "Bite Me."
Ah, I can hear the McClatchy corporate lawyers now....

I like to read and I like to write. I like to correspond too. Emails are good. I read ‘em and I write ‘em. It’s nice to keep in touch, let others know you care about them and that you are still out there plugging away.

That being said, Facebook, on the other hand is a total time vampire. Yep, I’m on there but I really limit my time with that thing. Why? Because I really couldn’t care less what party you’re going to, what you ate this morning for breakfast or that you have to go to the store for more toilet paper. So f&%king what!? I wouldn’t subject you to that so why should you subject the rest of us?
It’s difficult enough to try and communicate with these little electronic boxes using words and such and even more difficult to truly express what we really mean when doing this activity but GEEZ, are we circling the drain with this technology or what?

It has become such a pandemic that we now have had to have laws put in place because of our addiction (yeah, I said it) with these contraptions so we won’t drive our 2000+ pounds of motorized steel into other folks while we are talking/texting pointless information concerning pointless lifestyles.

And here I sit writing this using a computer and posting it to a blog that will never be read. Ah, the irony.

Here’s a question that I have been wondering about more and more lately.
Why are more and more white people (European-Americans, Anglos, gringos, gabachos, gueros… feel free to pick one and apply it) celebrating Cinco de Mayo?
I have in-laws in Michigan and North Carolina who were recently on Facebook announcing that they were in the midst of gearing up to get tore up for Cinco de Mayo. I read this and wondered aloud, “why?”
You see, none of my in-laws are Mexican, Mexican-American, Chicano, Latino, and Hispanic (feel free to pick one and apply it). In fact, some of them have never been to Mexico. There are even a couple who are overtly anti-Mexican and feel that Latinos are “taking over the country.” Funny, I’m the ONLY Mexican-American (I like to refer to myself as Chicano) that they have ever come in contact with at any time. Maybe they are anti- me!? I digress.
By-the-way, In May 5, 1862 the Mexican army along with other Mexican troops defeated the French near the town of Puebla and defeated that stumpy punk-ass Napoleon III and sent what few French that were still standing packing. It is said that Napoleon claimed that once the French were successful in capturing Mexico that they would, in-turn help the Confederacy defeat the Union army in the then raging American civil war.
That didn’t quite pan out.
Also, Cinco de Mayo is NOT the Mexican Independence day. That would be September 16. It was also won 52 years earlier (1810) freeing Mexico from Spain.
Still the question remains. Hmmmm.... Well, my thought is this; Non-Latinos like to celebrate Cinco de Mayo because they are drunks.