Upbeats Needed

I need to listen to something that makes me smile. This is a live version of Randy Crawford and The Crusaders live version of their disco anthem, Street Life.

I Have Been Here Many Times Before

Breathe Me, by SIA.

MovingColours: Spine Chilling

Time for a musical interlude. This is "Miss Sarajevo" by U2, with guest, Luciano Pavarotti. This was an incredibly moving piece when recorded in 1995, but today, with Pavarotti gone, it takes on even more gravitas and splendor. We still have so much war and strife and sadness and tragedy in this world. Who would have thought the world's greatest opera tenor could work so well with one of the world's greatest rock bands? They did, seamlessly. If only we could all learn the greater lesson here: We CAN all work together, we ARE all in this world together, we ARE all brothers and sisters under the skin, we MUST put aside our differences and appreciate our similarities.

With thanks to Sean, a grade school chum I have become reacquainted with on Facebook. He posted a link to this amazing piece today. I have a nagging feeling I may have posted this on the blog before, but it's certainly time to hear it again if I did.

The lyrics to Miss Sarajevo:

Is there a time for keeping your distance

A time to turn your eyes away
Is there a time for keeping your head down
For getting on with your day

Is there a time for kohl and lipstick
A time for curling hair
Is there a time for high street shopping
To find the right dress to wear

Here she comes
Heads turn around
Here she comes
To take her crown

Is there a time to run for cover
A time for kiss and tell
Is there a time for different colours
Different names you find it hard to spell

Is there a time for first communion
A time for East Seventeen
Is there a time to turn to Mecca
Is there time to be a beauty queen

Here she comes
Beauty plays the clown
Here she comes
Surreal in her crown

Dici che il fiume
Trova la via al mare
E come il fiume
Giungerai a me
Oltre i confini
E le terre assetate
Dici che come il fiume
Come il fiume...
L'amore giungerà
L'amore...
E non so più pregare
E nell'amore non so più sperare
E quell'amore non so più aspettare

[Translation of the above]
You say that the river
finds the way to the sea
and like the river
you will come to me
beyond the borders
and the dry lands
You say that like a river
like a river...
the love will come
the love...
And i don't know how to pray anymore
and in love i don't know how to hope anymore
and for that love i don't know how to wait anymore
[End of Translation]

Is there a time for tying ribbons
A time for Christmas trees
Is there a time for laying tables
And the night is set to freeze

O lijepa, o draga, o slatka slobodo,
[dar u kom sva blaga višnji nam bog je do...]

Memorial Day: Thank You

The growing "bouquet" of Veterans' Poppies on my bike.  

The retired uniformed veteran that sits outside my grocery store during May has told me that I don't need to donate each time I see him, but I do. When I think of the sacrifices that my father, and grandfather, and countless older generations in my family made, and when I see the sacrifices that people in the Service are making today, it's the least I can do. I wish it could be more. I hope we can find some answer besides war someday, and I hope that this country will rededicate itself to taking the best care of its returning veterans we possibly can, always and forever.

• Why has the poppy become the symbol of American Veterans? There's a great story behind it and this website has the details. It's fascinating and moving! Link here.

BTW:
One of my favorite pieces of "popular" music, "Heroes" by David Bowie, seems fitting today. This is a live performance in 1985 for the world-wide "Live-Aid" concert.

Dim All the Lights. Donna Summer Dead at 63

Another bit of my past is gone. Donna Summer, Disco Diva, has died of cancer at age 63. A quick rundown of her greatest hits reads like the first 10 years of my club life. Sure, she had her share of "bad press" through the years, may have made some anti-gay remarks at one point, but I didn't really care. Her music transcended any bitchiness or bad days on her part. Bad Girls, alone, will always make me smile with my Mona Lisa smile, remembering those afternoons folding sweaters and shirts over and over again trying to look busy at Ah Men's in West Hollywood, just waiting to hit the bars that night. I saw Ms Summer in concert in Connecticut once, and it was fairly unmemorable—hot in temperature and short in length. I remember that night more for my old friend Kevin and his Lincoln Mark VII LSC that brought us to the venue, er, um, swiftly, lol. But I also saw her in person once in Los Angeles. I was visiting a friend that worked at David Geffen's office on Sunset, and Ms Summer was walking out as I walked in. I glanced at her and said, "Love to love you, Baby," her first big hit. She looked at me and gave me the finger as she strode towards her awaiting Range Rover, lol. I just burst into laughter. It made my day, it made my night, and it made my month, actually—I was flipped off by Donna Summer!

For that 5 seconds locked in time, and for the soundtrack to my early adult life, I thank you, Donna. I wish you nothing but peace in your next journey. Dim All the Lights, it's our Last Dance, indeed.

You Know You Ought to Slow Down . . .

You Been Working Too Hard and That's a Fact!



The past couple of weeks I've been working on the production of a book in a series new to me. I've  been using a new iMac and a new version of the paging program I'm used to, CS InDesign 5.5. It's really been a strain on my old brain learning all of these new things throughout the 350 pages, lol! I'm down to just details now, and I need to wait until morning for a few answers before I can wrap it up and send it off via the electronic Pony Express.

As soon as I quit the program and switched to checking email, this old Disco song began playing in my mind. I haven't heard it for years, but it always put me in a good mood and I have no idea why it suddenly popped into my head. This dance song made me smile a long time ago hanging with my friends, and it makes me smile tonight. My friends may not be here next to me, but they're even closer now—they're inside me—young as we ever were, loud as we ever were, bright-eyed and bushy tailed as we ever were. Opening a Sam Adams Alpine Spring and gonna slow down tonight. Enjoy!

Take Your Time (Do It Right)
by the SOS Band

You know you ought to slow down,
You been working too hard,
And that's a fact.
Sit back and relax a while.
Take some time to laugh and smile.
Lay your heavy load down,
So we can stop and kick back.
It seems we never take the time to do
All the things we want to, yeah.

RIP Whitney Houston

One of the greatest singers of modern times has died, Ms. Whitney Houston. I rode in an elevator with her once back in the early '90s, at a posh New York hotel, the Parker Meridien. For all of perhaps two minutes, I was standing next to greatness. She was having a heated argument with a friend, lol. I was trying to pretend I wasn't there, but she was staying at the penthouse, and I was only one floor below. It was one of those New York Moments you don't forget. And just to say again, as I've been honest in this blog, with the life I've led, I really don't know why I'm still around and an equally troubled soul has left us. So sad. RIP.

Another Great Whitney Song

RIP Etta James, 1938-2012

It was just reported that Etta James has died. I was introduced to her music more than 25 years ago by my late friend, Andy, and have loved it ever since. Ms. James had a rough time of it with leukemia, dementia and other illnesses for several years. It's my wish that she and Andy are sitting on one of Saturn's rings right now, with all the rest of the fabulous people no longer among us, sitting and laughing, and singing, and at peace.

RIP Gentle Soul, Amy Winehouse

"Love is a Losing Game"
RIP, Amy Winehouse. I have no idea why some drug addicts die, and why others, like myself, reform and live to see another decade or three. We all have demons, we all cope with them the best we can. Some of us die young, others not so much. I'm never sure which is the better outcome. I could have died 5-6 times already, if not more. I've come "this" close...

Amy, if we had met in this world, I'm sure we would have laughed together more than we would have raised our voices in opposition! 

Talent is talent, and I thank you for sharing yours with us. You're in the next stage now—and I'm jealous—but then, you knew that already, didn't you? 

Tears Dry on their Own:

On the David Letterman show, 2007, with her hit "Rehab:"

Will You Still Love Me, Tomorrow?

Playing Around with Vintage Items—July 2011

Pretty as a picture. My vintage, plaid-painted, Kennedy porch rocker, and three-year old pink geranium, wintered-over in the attic. Front porch, July 2011. Click to enlarge. This might be a good photo for a book cover. The natural, shaded area at the top is a great place for white type to overlay the Salmon clapboards. The floor is a great place for an author line. I could also see it as outside Miss Kitty's home in Dodge City, of Gunsmoke fame, with its Wild West wooden sidewalks and porches, lol.

And Now a Musical Interlude. Where is our Champagne Lady?

Not exactly a video, lol, but a nice recording of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #1. I love all six of these works, and I've stood under Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, pictured below. Photo via Google Images, from a German travel site, watermark/website on image.

Ain't No Way It's Been So Long

R E M E M BR A N C E — I've loved Aretha Franklin since I was about 10 years old, which would have been 1967. I used to eat dinner and then go to my room and open up my little record player and spin Aretha and Motown 45-rpm records 'til it was time to put on my pajamas and brush my teeth. Much later, I shared this love for music with my late, best buddy, Andy. I loved Andy, as a kindred spirit and as the brother I should have had, from the minute I met him in 1978, a friend of a friend from Vassar. We ended up being roommates in West Hollywood for a short time, and remained best of best friends for the next 22 years. He bought us tickets for an Aretha show in Atlantic City for my 35th birthday, 1992, and Teddy Pendergrass was in the front row in his wheelchair. I can't believe it's been almost 20 years since that crazy, awesome, night. I can't believe Andy died more than 10 years ago, now. I can't believe his birthday would have been this month; we should have shared our "fabulous NOT Fifties," and our "seriously NOT Sixties," together. Ain't no way it's been that long. Ain't no way I'm the one left to meander this rocky Earth alone. Ain't no way.

It's not that much of a video, lol, but it's the best recording of the song by Aretha I found on YouTube.

For my new readers unfamiliar with my work, this is a portrait I did of Andy from a photograph taken ca 1980. It measures 24" x 24" and is now hanging in Andy's mother's home. We used to do The New York Times' crossword puzzles for hours on end, and we spent a lot of time on NYC's subways. This is an homage to those checkerboard puzzles, the intricate tilework in original NYC subway stations, and to the multi-colored rainbow ways we viewed the world and led our lives.

Wooden Ships On the Water—Or in a Box

A scale model wooden boat, battery powered, though there is no remote control of any kind. I guess this would be for a bathtub or very small pond, although I'm not sure I'd want to be in the bathtub with something electrical, lol. There is no date on the box or the little boat itself. The only type on the box is the "Wooden Scale Model Boats" cursive logo on the front overlaying the illustration. That illustration by the way, doesn't match the boat inside. There is also "2.98" in pencil on the front, which leads me to believe this was probably a purchase at the Army PX in Japan in the early 1950s. Other items I know were bought on-base also have simple penciled in prices on them. This toy boat measures approximately eleven inches long, and is in great condition, as is the original box.

Pencil drawing of a three-masted schooner. I don't know the story behind this illustration but it's framed and sealed on the back, and appears to be an original. There is no signature that I can see, but it's really nicely drawn. The ship appears larger than a typical New England whaling ship, but I really know nothing about boats. 

The lyrics to one of my favorite songs:

Wooden Ships
by David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Paul Kanter

If you smile at me, I will understand

'Cause that is something everybody everywhere does 
in the same language.
I can see by your coat, my friend,
you're from the other side,
There's just one thing I got to know,
Can you tell me please, who won?
Say, can I have some of your purple berries?
Yes, I've been eating them for six or seven weeks now,
haven't got sick once.

Probably keep us both alive.

Wooden ships on the water, very free and easy,
Easy, you know the way it's supposed to be,
Silver people on the shoreline, let us be,
Talkin' 'bout very free and easy...
Horror grips us as we watch you die,
All we can do is echo your anguished cries,
Stare as all human feelings die,
We are leaving - you don't need us.

Go, take your sister then, by the hand,
lead her away from this foreign land,
Far away, where we might laugh again,
We are leaving - you don't need us.

And it's a fair wind, blowin' warm,
Out of the south over my shoulder,
Guess I'll set a course and go...

• Wooden Ships by Crosby, Stills & Nash, live version from 1977.
• Or the original studio version here.

1965 Dodge Dart: Perfect Size for 2011?

I'm especially taken with this bright red GT hardtop coupe, with the black half vinyl roof, bottom. There is just enough chrome trim and detailing on it to make it stand out for all the right reasons. The black vinyl bucket seat interior is really fetching as well! The well-drawn proportions of the base models at the top illustrate how important it is to get the car "right" before you add any extra trim to it. Chrome accents and two- or three-tone paint can set a car off, but they can't be used to make a poorly proportioned vehicle "right."  The same holds true with so many disciplines in the creative world. When I was designing publications full time and leading an art department, I could never stress enough to my artists that they get the basic design of the page, or cover, correct, before they started adding details like shadows or colors. Many of them would try to "wow" me with typographic "tricks" right away before they got the layout right, and believe me, you really can't "save" a bad design with filigree or "pretty clutter!" Click to enlarge to full-screen.

M Y   C O L L E C T I O N — In 1965, Dodge's smallest car was the Dart, available in three series: Base, mid-level 270 and "luxury" GT. Body styles ran the full sixties gamut, from 2- and 4-door sedans, to 2 door pillarless coupes, convertibles and 4-door wagons. They were available with six- and eight-cylinder engines with ratings from 101 hp to 235 hp, 3- and 4-speed manuals or an automatic transmission. 

Though they seemed small back then, seen in today's light, their 111" wheelbase (106" on wagons, shared with the Plymouth Valiant) place them squarely in the mainstream of 21st century sedans. Their curb weights of approximately 2,800-3,000 lbs are much lighter than similar-sized cars of today, but that's largely the result of all of the added safety equipment and crash structures our cars must now possess. Though the '65 model's styling shown is credited to Elwood Engel, the basic chassis and proportions date back to Virgil Exner's sensational 1960 Valiant. 

Engel's philosophy was to "fill out the square" in both silhouette and plane views, but there is a humble honesty to these cars that's very appealing. The hood and trunk lengths are just about perfect, the greenhouse and roof shapes are attractive, and the chrome strip that wraps from the taillights up and over the rear window on the pillarless coupes is really well done. The half vinyl roof seems a bit flamboyant, almost Exner like, and wouldn't really catch on with the rest of the industry for several more years, becoming more of a seventies cliché. It's just about perfectly executed on this Dart GT.

One is lucky today if a car is available in anything but a 4-door sedan, and if it is, the additional body style is usually a tall wagon. With all the advancements in computer-aided design and electronic "robotic" construction, I just find it odd all we can seemingly come up with are sedans. To top it off they're usually painted gray with a gray interior. Even though this was Dodge's least expensive, and smallest car, it came in a full panoply of body styles and trim levels. Interiors came in several color choices, usually red, green, blue, beige, white and black, and in a choice of cloth or vinyl—we hadn't yet felt it necessary to skin a cow for every single car in the 1960s. 

"Those were the days, my friend, I thought they'd never end! We'd sing and dance, forever and a day!"

B T W :

I just remembered I've photoshopped one of these 1963-'66 Darts before. This is a 1963 Dart convertible in which I smoothed out the sides a bit, and added fender skirts for that proper "Cruiser" look. I chopped down the windshield a little to give the car a longer, lower appearance. I also dropped it closer to the ground a few inches and upped the wheel size, though I kept the sixties wheelcovers and white walls.

I Say Goodbye, You Say Hello

Veronny's Violets Finds New Home in Michigan

M Y   A R T — One of my pieces has found a home in a state far, far away from its humble beginnings, lol. Veronny's Violets, 22 x 16 inches on two joined pine boards, is an homage including my mother's eighth-grade portrait, my African violets and my love of all things striped, plaid and cacophonous. It was shipped last week and arrived safely yesterday in its new home in Michigan. 

My pieces have now found homes in six states besides Connecticut, which is pretty cool if you ask me. The best part is it now belongs to long-time loyal reader of this blog, and friend, PhantomX. I know it will be safe and happy in his new home, which is really important to me. I don't sell my pieces to just anyone! That hasn't proven to be the best business model, rofl, but I've never taken the easy road anywhere, and in my dotage, am not about to change. I hope he enjoys it as much as I've enjoyed bringing it into this world.

• Yes, I changed the lyrics from Hello/Goodbye, the classic Beatles' song for the title, but it fit the post better, lol. For an awesome YouTube video of this song, click here. I would like ALL of the clothes they wore in this video for my spring collection...

Where Did Twenty Years Go?

Click the link for the YouTube of the original MTV video of the Funky Bunch's Good Vibrations. I don't think I ever watched this video on TV back then, but it explains why fifteen year olds in 1991 turned thirty on their next birthday in 1992, lol. Good music, though!

Looking through a carton of old cassettes today, at least 500 of them, the majority with cracked plastic cases and missing tapes, this one literally flew out and landed in my lap: Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, Music for the People, from 1991. 

Yes, this funkalicious dance tape from the man that couldn't keep his pants pulled up, is now just about twenty years old. How can that be? I can distinctly remember hearing this song for the first time and being gobsmacked by its beats. Then I saw Marky Mark on a celebrity basketball game on TV and he spent at least as much time parading around in his tighty-whities as he did his clothes. I went out and bought the tape the next day. Obviously the kid needed money to buy a belt, lol!

Marky Mark, Boston-accented rapper, brother of Donnie Wahlberg of New Kids on the Block fame (and now on ABC's Blue Bloods), has become Mark Wahlberg, Calvin Klein underwear model and movie actor. I don't think I've ever actually seen any of his movies, but I hear he's not bad. He's married with several children now, according to his guest spots on talk shows, and he seems to have bought that belt.

• For some cool facts and trivia about MM and the Funky Bunch click here. I didn't know that he was in NKOTB for a short time before his older brother Donnie joined, and I didn't know that Dan Hartman, who wrote Loleata Hollway's Love Sensation in 1980, received royalties for that song's sampling in Good Vibrations. This link will bring you to that awesome '80 disco song. 

$1.19 Car of the Week #7—Aston Martin DBS!

M Y   C O L L E C T I O N — Oh yes I did! To complete my Aston Martin marathon, I just had to buy one! I found this Silver DBS with bright red "leather" interior today in my favorite grocery story toy aisle, for the now-standard $1.19. It was too perfect a coincidence to pass it up, and I don't even believe in coincidences! It was meant to be. I can only wonder when the real one will darken my doorstep, er, driveway. Whomever is listening, I wouldn't mind a silver/red version, but in a perfect world, I'd drive one that was Moss Green on the outside and dark Henna inside with Moss Green Alcantara inserts on the Nappa leather bucket seats. I don't even "need" the V12 DBS, the V8 Vantage will be good enough! hahahahahahaha! I crack myself up sometimes!

T H E   L O N G   A N D   W I N D I N G   R O A D 

N O T E :  I told myself that if I ever reached 100 posts in one month, I'd take the rest of the month off. Well, I made it, so I'm taking the entire rest of August off. Which means, I'll be back with a new post on Wednesday, September 1st. Which means I'm taking Tuesday off, lol. I need to rest my finger anyway, I slammed it again today. Funny how the one bum finger ALWAYS gets in the way even though there are nine good ones that could step up if they felt like it! 

I'd like to thank everyone that reads my blog for inspiring me to dig deeper each day and come up with new posts. If you look through this blog's history, I was only creating 30-40 posts a month until all of you started finding this blog earlier this summer. Because of your interest, your interesting lives, and your interesting comments, I've done more with this blog than I ever thought I would last February when I created casey/artandcolour. I'm humbled and excited at the same time. Hopefully this is only the beginning of a wild and windy drive with good friends down that long and winding [blog] road. A heartfelt "Thank You" to everyone.

See you Wednesday! : )

The Days are Getting Shorter

The dog days of summer are upon us. With less than three weeks before the school year starts, this young man was spending the day fishing at the town marina Tuesday. A small boat  motors by in the distance, and that long-empty beach cottage is waiting for a family that will never return to its wraparound porch on Grass Island. Shot at high tide on the East River, Long Island Sound is just to the right of this photo.

Listening to Annie Lennox tonight. I've never before heard this live version of Why, dating to 1995, but the song is one of my favorites.

Beating a Dead [Green] Horse

Apparently my Cyclone Hybrid's wings were clipped before it could fly into the 21st century. Click to see what might have been.

C H O P — Yes, Mercury is dead. I tried, I really tried to save the corporation, chopping nearly 40 separate Mercurys in the past 4 years, almost all of them Hybrids. 

It was my idea that Mercury would become the Green division for FoMoCo, the high-tech division, the leader for the company in all sorts of future drivetrains and electronic features. Lincoln could go after the luxury market in all of its forms, large and small. Ford could remain the bastion of family standards, what it has done best for more than one hundred years. Mercury, first introduced in 1939 as a more powerful, slightly larger and more upscale Ford, would remain an aspirational vehicle, but in the Green Movement. 

To that end, I created tiny hybrids, medium sized hybrids, large hybrids, crossover hybrids, and here, a supercar hybrid. This Cyclone, a phenomenal nameplate for an automobile slated to blow away the competition in every conceivable way, and a nameplate already possessed by FoMoCo, would have been built off the late Ford GT platform, retooled for hybrid duty. Think carbon-fiber body panels for ultra low weight, and a torque-rich electric-boosted drivetrain: 180mph top speed and a cool 60mpg at highway speeds due to the ultra low aero-tuned body. 

Cue Pink Floyd, Us and Them. "Them" won this time.

Us and Them

Us and Them,

And after all we're only ordinary men

Me, and you
God only knows it's not what we would choose to do

Forward he cried from the rear
and the front rank died
And the General sat, as the lines on the map
moved from side to side

Black and Blue
And who knows which is which and who is who

Up and Down
And in the end it's only round and round and round

Haven't you heard it's a battle of words
the poster bearer cried
Listen son, said the man with the gun
There's room for you inside

Down and Out
It can't be helped but there's a lot of it about

With, without
And who'll deny that's what the fightings all about

Get out of the way, it's a busy day
And I've got things on my mind
For want of the price of tea and a slice
The old man died 

—Roger Waters and Rick Wright, 1973

For a YouTube video of this peaceful, gentle, powerful song, click here.