Found Poetry

                    

Tighty Whitey

INSTANT NOSTALGIA:

                                  1.  Write down the first telephone number you memorized as a child. 

                                  2.  Stare at the number.  

 

(acrylic on board 10 x 10)

  

Lovell Moore

That Girl

Truth be beauty,
ugly as well.
Found in heaven,
found in hell.
                                                               -- Sir Ernest Gunderson

  (10x15 acrylic on wooden drawer)

Pooperhero

                                                                                 With apologies to Dr. Seuss.

What would J. C. say? (Joseph Campbell audio)

“Life is without meaning.  You bring the meaning to it.  The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be.  Being alive is the meaning. "   ― Joseph Campbell

Proper Fruit

Donnie, Wayne, Bob, Martin and Tom
(15"x 30" Acrylic on canvas)

      A lot of men seem to live up to their given name.   It suits them we say.   How many guys named

     "Daryl" turn out to be highway patrolmen, or operate backhoes?   A huge percentage according to 

      national statistics.  

     
      Likewise, there are few "Larrys" in the United State's Senate.   A Lawrence will sneak in on    

      occasion.   But you can bet, ever since they were young, they went by Lawrence -- never the   
      easier (and less ambitious) Larry as in "Hey Larry, did you eat all my chips?"  

      Rocky Coop and Doyce Plunk, two guys I grew up with, both lived up to their full names.             
      You instantly regretted messing with those two, as their names clearly indicate. 
   
       One exception back then was Butch Wolfe.   Thin with glasses, Butch was much more into Mad 
       Magazine than kicking ass.   A shameful disappointment to his Marine father, Richard.  Who,
       supporting my theory, preferred to be called Dick. 
        
      

Smokin' Joe

    

       Joe Frazier (January 12, 1944 – November 7, 2011)

Go Dog Go

The world seemed to stand still, or did not exist.   The only reality was the next two hundred yards of track under my feet.    I felt at that moment that it was my chance to do one thing supremely well.   I drove on, impelled by a combination of fear and pride.    

                                                 -- Roger Bannister on breaking the four minute mile.

(acrylic on wood plank 40" x 12")

I'll Follow the Sun

A distinguishing quality of the sunflower is that its flowering head tracks the sun’s movement. This occurrence is known as "heliotropism."
                                                     (36"x48" oil, acrylic on canvas)

Get Happy

The only happy people I know are the ones who are working well at something they consider important.  - Abraham Maslow

Use Your Gift

     INT. CARNIVAL CARAVAN - NIGHT

     The Carnival barker, JUDGE STERNBULL, 50, sits in his unkempt trailer across from the wrestler HIRAM SKOVE, 20.

                                                                                    JUDGE STERNBULL

                                            Are you possessed of any religious constrictions, son?

                                            Because I believe the Supreme Bean gives every man one gift. 

                                                      (lifting his patch; peering closely with a milky eye)

                                            And you’ve sure-tainly been given yours.   But you must use it,

                                            or you’ll pay dearly.

                 

                                                                                             HIRAM

                                            Pay dearly? 

                                                                                     JUDGE STERNBULL

                                            With your very soul.  Gets eaten away bit by bit, if you don’t use your gift. 

                                             I use mine.   And Edward uses his... 

            IN THE CORNER, sits the SHE BEAST without make-up.  The She Beast, it  turns out, is a MAN named Edward 

            who is combing his long lustrous hair.

                                                                                   JUDGE STERNBULL

                                           Disfortunately, Ed’s not the man he once was.   Nor the woman.

                                                            (off Hiram’s stare)

                                           Don't be so gawk-eyed.   Ed’s what you call a “Her-n-him-frodite” with both

                                           penist and vaginny.    Which I showed to great interest in Kansas City... 

                                           before they shut me down.

           Dialogue from "The Magnificent Scuffler",  my screenplay about the advent of professional wrestling in the 1930's

 (Acrylic on board 22"x 22")

Thoughts of the Motel Manager

He studied the darkened neon with a look of disappointment and resignation.
Disappointment that it remained burned out and resignation that he would never fix it.
 It was the same look he gave himself each morning.
(oil on canvas 16" x 24")

SCARED STRAIGHT!

When I was thirteen I went to a fundamentalist church camp back in Oklahoma.  With hormones raging and bibles banging, the campers there were a manic mix of Christian purity one moment and teenage horniness the next.

My cousin Tom also attended Burnt Cabin Bible Camp and we always sat in the back row during the nightly services called devos.  (A clever, hipper name for Devotionals).   Here we sang acapella songs that were much more "with it" then the ancient church hymns back home.   And we listened to an impassioned youth minister (maybe 23) who'd "been there, guys."   He had experienced drugs and alcohol and the temptation of sex just like us.   He knew how tough it was to love Jesus when you were a teenager.    I think his name was Rick.   They were always named Rick.    

The devo would end with a heart wrenching plea to come forward to confess our sins and be baptized.   There was an emotional "invitation song" and the explicit threat that if you weren't baptized you'd burn in hell for all eternity.   "Don't die in your sleep and never know heaven," was a popular refrain from sunburned Rick.   This had a lot of campers marching to the front of the mess hall.    Especially teary-eyed girls who had been felt up for the first time earlier that afternoon behind the snack shack.

But cousin Tom and I always rolled our eyes during this nightly parade.  We were way too cool for this crowd.   They couldn't get to us.   Besides most of these people were hypocrites.   (I was very proud of my use of the word hypocrite back then and I used it a lot.)

But Friday night, after a solid week of songs,  prayers and the continual threat of a vindictive God, we were starting to crack.   Tom was singing along to "Jesus is Lord" with  real enthusiasm, not the mocking tone I was used to.   And he definitely wasn't using our own special lyrics, "Jesus is Bored."   I knew he was ready to break.   And to be honest,  I was weakening as well.  

It wasn't the actual physical torment of hell that scared me, it was the threat of eternity.   I just couldn't wrap my head around the "forever and forever" of it all.   The thought of no escape truly frightened me.

I elbowed Tom in the ribs to get him back on track as a couple of sobbing girls marched to the front along with this pimply kid who just that day had let us listen to his A.C./D.C. tapes.   But Tom didn't roll his eyes.   Nope.   He wiped them.   He was crying.   He was really crying.   And suddenly he was up and headed to the front.  

And the next thing I knew,  I was up and following him.   I wasn't going to hell alone.   No way.   At the front we were met with big hugs from Rick -- a knowing smile on his glowing, red face.  It was both embarrassing and a huge relief.

It gets hazy after that.   It was dark and I remember stumbling down to the lake with Tom and the other sinners.   We wore some kind of smock over our bathing suits still wet from the after lunch "free swim".    There were weeds and brambles that poked at my feet from the mud as we waded out.    My teeth chattered as I waited my turn.   Both from the cold water and the gravity of the ceremony.

An older preacher,  the camp administrator,  cupped the back of my head and held my hands to my chest as he lowered me into the murky waters of Fort Gibson Lake.   When he pulled me up I knew I was different.   I was saved.

The next day, before my parents picked us up,  I was playing softball when I suddenly took the Lord's name in vain because I  bobbled a grounder.   I felt terrible.  What a hypocrite.

                                                              (acrylic on 14" x 24" found board) 

A-Roo-Gah

"One distinct difference between the sexes is that men
 tend to be more easily stimulated by visuals."
-- Dr. Alfred Kinsey  (biologist, professor of zoology/entomology, and noted leg man)

(Acrylic on found board 20"x26")

Here Comes Monday

                                     All you need in this world is ignorance and confidence and success is sure.
                                                                                                                                                                 Mark Twain
                                                                                         (acrylic, water color on paper 12" x18")

Some with a fountain pen

If you'll gather 'round me, children, A story I will tell 'Bout Pretty Boy Floyd, an outlaw, Oklahoma knew him well. It was in the town of Shawnee, A Saturday afternoon, His wife beside him in his wagon As into town they rode. There a deputy sheriff approached him In a manner rather rude, Vulgar words of anger, An' his wife she overheard. Pretty Boy grabbed a log chain, And the deputy grabbed his gun; In the fight that followed He laid that deputy down. Then he took to the trees and timber To live a life of shame; Every crime in Oklahoma Was added to his name. But a many a starving farmer The same old story told How the outlaw paid their mortgage And saved their little homes. Others tell you 'bout a stranger That come to beg a meal, Underneath his napkin Left a thousand dollar bill. It was in Oklahoma City, It was on a Christmas Day, There was a whole car load of groceries Come with a note to say: Well, you say that I'm an outlaw, You say that I'm a thief. Here's a Christmas dinner For the families on relief. Yes, as through this world I've wandered I've seen lots of funny men; Some will rob you with a six-gun, And some with a fountain pen. And as through your life you travel, Yes, as through your life you roam, You won't never see an outlaw Drive a family from their home. © Pretty Boy Floyd Copyright 1958 by Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc.   (10"x10" acrylic on canvas)

It's Nothing Personal...

                                                  
                                                              

                                                                                      
                                                                        ... but Hollywood wants to destroy you. 
                                                                                                                           (acrylic,  wood,  found real estate sign)

Monkey X

My Old Man kept his sense of humor right to the end.
On his deathbed he beckoned me close and whispered with his dying breath, "I forgive you".

 For the next eighteen years I was racked with guilt, yet completely perplexed by his last words until
 my mother, on her deathbed, drew me close as well and whispered, "he was kidding."

I didn't say it was a great sense of humor, I just said he kept it.

(Acrylic and oil on board, 8" x 10")

The Old Man and the Road

I'm driving on I-40, past Santa Rosa, NM, feeling pretty good about my little hero's journey when a I pass this old man puttering along on a Vespa.   He's topping out at maybe 45 miles per hour, buffeted by hot winds and huge semi trucks roaring past only inches from him.    

We pull over at the same motel and I ask him what the heck he's doing.   He says he's on his way to Chicago from Los Angeles, trying to take as many side roads as he can, but sometimes he has to get on the interstate.   The guy's 74 years old and he's taken his mighty scooter across every continent.  

He says he  doesn't like to plan too much -- he just gets as far as he gets.   When he feels like stopping, he stops.   He says that's how treats every day, even when he's not traveling. 

Get Your Kicks

I'm traveling this week on a location scout in New Mexico.  This is the Blue Swallow on Route 66 in Tucumcari.    The angry skies in the background only talked a good game.

G.G.

Old Deacon Johnson was a preaching man

the black sky pilot of old dixie land

Had never missed a Sunday rain or shine

was always in the pulpit right on time

One day a dark-skin damsel blow'd in town 

Somebody started scan-da-la-tion ‘round

Next Sunday morn they found

 the church door locked,

and the only words the deacon left his flock:

 It takes a long, tall brown-skin gal 

to a make a preacher

 lay his bible down.

                         Words by Marshall Walker from the 1917 song "It Takes A Long Tall Brown-Skin Gal."

(18' X 12" Acrylic on canvas)

The Bird who Thought too much

You have to be always drunk. 
That's all there is to it—it's the only way. 
So as not to feel the horrible burden of time
 that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, 
you have to be continually drunk.
But on what? 
Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish.
 But be drunk.  

(excerpt from "Be Drunk" by Charles Baudelaire)
(Notebook page, watercolor)

The Big Terrific

Mexican Wrestler "La Gran Fabuloso" did not go quietly after his untimely death during the Estadio Olimpica's main event on July 28th, 1962.

Approximately nine minutes into the bout, a  folding chair crashed into Fabulosa and he fell against a  poorly padded turnbuckle that seriously gashed his forehead.   The greatest champion Lucha Libra had ever known bled to death screaming to the uncomprehending crowd,  "Estoy herido!  Estoy muy lastimado!"   "I am hurt!  I am really hurt!"

A month later, as matches were again to be held, arena workers discovered a reddish liquid that kept seeping up from the corner of the ring.    No matter how much they scrubbed, the peculiar substance always returned. 

A local priest was summoned and after making a thorough examination he stated that he believed it was Fabuloso's blood, and that it still ran red from the turnbuckle that took his life.  

As word spread,  fans from all over Mexico flocked to the arena to see and touch the blood of  their fallen hero.   But even with the Priest's statement and hundreds of eyewitness accounts, the Catholic Church dismissed the happening -- blaming an unscrupulous promotor with swabbing the corner with chicken blood just to up ticket sales.

Years later, long after the the promotor had been jailed and most everyone had forgotten about La Gran Fabulosa, something very odd happened.    The Olimpico was being demolished to make way for a new arena when construction workers, using a crane, pulled up a turnbuckle post and suddenly gallons of blood  began to spew from the moorings.    

In reports forensic experts concluded the blood was indeed human but could not verify where it had come from.  

                                                            (water color, acrylic on board  12" x 22")

  

Dream Operator

Here's some stuff that's been floating through my dreams the last few nights.   This weekend I painted them up and glued them together. 

 

Better to paint it than to tell  it.

If you doubt how boring your dreams are, just listen to someone talk about theirs. 

(Acrylic paint, scrap wood, paint can lid, Elmer's glue, aprox. 16"x 22")

Catch as Catch Can

A PRAYER TO FARMER BURNS
 (the last Amateur wrestler)

Kneeling at your blessed feet and grabbing your blessed collar and elbow, we beseech you Oh Farmer
to grant us your singleness of purpose and indifference to the opinions of others.

As you so lived, let us keep our aim true while honestly and without effort
 not give one shit to what others may think.

May this grace be granted by the power of your scissor lock,
the wisdom of your full nelson and the virtue of your arm bar.

Amen 
(15"x30" oil, acrylic, tempera on board)

The Joys of Childhood

At the grocery store I walked past a sweaty, little kid (eight; dirt rings around his neck) staring at the candy shelf maybe fifteen feet behind his huge Mom who was shopping up ahead.   Suddenly she stomps back down the aisle, yanks him hard by the arm and yells, "Do you wanna get stolen!?"

I swear it looked like he wanted to say yes.


(sketchbook page)

John Quincy Adams

I was hiking last week in Griffith park when I saw a kindly looking older man pulling a metal detector out of  his car. To be social and because I was curious,  I stopped and asked him what was the best thing he'd ever found.   He immediately wheeled and angrily barked, "I don't want to get into it!"  Then spit on the ground in disgust and marched away with his equipment.  

As I backed away slowly I remembered this sixty-something guy in Yoga warning me, "from forty on you have to work like hell every day not to become an angry old fuck." 

 I think he's absolutely right.

                                                            (Private collection of  Thomas D. Hird.  10x15 Acrylic, board)

                                                 

   

Hello, my name is...

The "Dunning-Kruger Effect" states that our incompetence masks our ability to recognize our incompetences, or, in layman's terms, why dumbasses think they're so smart.  It also completely explains politicians.

(Acrylic on board 30 x 30)

Another quote from Grand Exalted Potentate Ernie Gunderson, Sandusky, Ohio
(tempera on paper)

The Trophy

I had to shoot the beast, he came at me with a knife.
(Papier mache, acrylic paint, two sticks)

White Bread

The first Playboys I got to really enjoy (not some hurried glance off the Git-n-Go shelves), were from this preacher's kid named Phillip Bickford.   He had taken them from the house of his recently deceased Uncle who'd been hit by lightning working construction.

I felt guilty that we were perusing a dead man's stack of nudies, but Phillip said to get over it.  He made the analogy of Christ dying so that others could live.  Phillip had a minister's son's sense of humor.   

But some things just stick with you.  Maybe it was the amazement of seeing my first centerfold, or Phillip invoking Jesus -- whatever it was, to this day whenever I see a lightning strike,  I immediately associate it with beautiful, naked women... nailed to crosses. 

                                                                            (30 x 30 acrylic, oil stick, tempera on board 

                                                                                                                  Private collection of Mr. Rob and Leslie Grdic)

The Magnificent Scuffler

               INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - DAY 

               The amateur wrestler Hiram Skove lays in the bed.   He looks like he's been in a car wreck.  

               The Orderly enters.

                          

                                                                              ORDERLY

                                 Still among us living? 

                                                                                 HIRAM

                                 When will I be able to breathe normal?

                                                                               ORDERLY

                                 Don't know.   Bonnie Bob cracked two of your ribs and punctured  

                                 a lung.   And you can forget about using that arm for a while too.  

                                                                         (opening the window)

                                 The paper said it sounded like cereal box elves, only the snap came

                                 came after the crackle and pop... them paperboys can sure be funny.                                     

                 

 Dialogue from "The Magnificent Scuffler",  my screenplay about the advent of professional wrestling in the 1930's.

(Acrylic on vintage wallpaper 18"x 24")

The Sweet Science

Tommy "Black Cat" Boyle, the pride of Orange, New Jersey, was a fierce middleweight contender in the early Sixties. His "never back down" style was attributed to his father Tommy Sr., who would make the young golden glover wear his sister's dresses if he lost a bout -- a highly motivational tool the nine-year-old would never forget.  

In forty-one professional fights, the Black Cat gave almost as good as he got.   Almost.   Though he was never champ, it was roundly noted that Tommy Boyle did not know the meaning of the word quit.  Later in life, and this time literally, he again did not know the meaning of the word quit... as well as plenty of other words for that matter.

"Punch Drunk" is what the old timers call it.  Latins like "dementia pugilistica".   Whatever you prefer, Tommy Boyle's melon had been well and thoroughly mushed.   So it was no great surprise that he went missing for over a week last October, having wandered away from his adult care facility.  

What was more interesting is that he had "wandered" over a thousand miles, from Florida to Madison Square Garden, and that when found he was wearing a pleated chiffon skirt, reportedly shoplifted from a Miami area J.C. Penney's. 

(24" x 40" oil on board, private collection of Mr. Jerome Collins)

Sign my Yearbook (close up)

                                                     Ted "Steady Teddy" Stanton & Charles R. Murray
                                                                                      (for full picture look below)

Sign my Yearbook

Hair so combed,
Dreams so true.
We're the class of
'72.

                         Seniors from Thomas Jefferson High School in Sandusky Ohio who are no longer living.

                     Please note, like most of us most of the time, they tried their best -- especially considering

                     what they were given to work with.

                                                 

                                                                             (28" x 30" board, text book pages, acrylic)

Blue Puma

Quote attributed to Ken Kesey (One Flew Over a Cuckoo's Nest, Sometimes a Great Notion)
(Design for T-shirt/poster)

Hey, where the hell is Parker?

During the performance John Parker, the policeman assigned to Lincoln,
left his post outside the presidential box either to have a drink
 in the Star Saloon next door or to find a better seat to watch
 the play -- something the president had encouraged him to do.

Frank Hebblethwaite, Lincoln Historian
”(8" by 10" scratch board)

Blast from the Past

In the Eighties, when I was a smart ass teen, my Mom told me
 that at her age (40's), you just don't have a blast anymore.
"Oh, you can have a good time, but you just don't have a blast."

I totally dismissed her, saying
that if that were true it was her own damn fault.
This upset her, but I wouldn't take it back.

That argument has always bothered me, so last week I finally called to apologize.
 I said I got it now, and although I still have plenty of good times, "blasts",
in the strictest teenage sense, might be over.

My Mom graciously accepted my apology and we chuckled about the incident.
Then, just before she hung up, she added that at 60
 I could forget about even the good times.

(Acrylic, oil, crayon on 22" x 24" board)

Bomba Pop

 Near Beverly and Virgil (in an industrial area of midtown L.A.),
an old man used to push his ice cream cart past my art studio.
The tinkle of the bell fastened to his cart always signaling
his unhurried arrival.

 One day as he approached three shots were fired
 on the street -- BAP, BAP, BAP!
 And his bell went suddenly silent.

I froze, thinking the worst.  But a second later
 the old man whipped past my window at a full sprint,
 completely abandoning his cart.

Later, as I finished my second ice cream sandwich,
I pondered these two somehow inextricably linked truths:
1.   The frailty of our existence.
   2.   The tastiness of free ice cream.

(18" x 24" Acrylic, oil stick on wood)

POW!

When I was fourteen I worked in a firework warehouse with a kid named Terry Hewitt.  
Once we taped some skyrockets, roman candles and shells together to make a giant super-rocket.
 It rose about ten feet, leveled off then traveled three hundred yards before exploding
and starting a grass fire in the pasture of  an adjoining farm.  
It was the only time I ever saw Terry Hewitt scared.  
Not about the fire, or our boss, but about what his old man would do if he ever found out.

(36" x 48" Oil, Acrylic on board)

The original Golden Boy

And in this corner, with only one defeat....

12"x18" oil, acrylic on canvas
(Private collection of Chris and Maureen Donovan)

Cutting/Pasting

                           

                          The term collage derives from the French "coller" meaning "glue".

                       This term was coined by both Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso in the 

               beginning of the 20th century when collage became a distinctive part of modern art.

                   (Sketchbook Cover.  Drawings, photos, magazine clippings, vintage wallpaper, construction paper.)

Alive!

Two Headed Shetland Pony / Ape-raham Lincoln

(24"x36" acrylic on vintage wall paper)

Four angels carry Hank Williams to heaven

One of Hank Williams' most overtly religious hits, "I  saw the Light" 

was not in fact inspired by biblical visions.

According to biographers, Hank was passed out in the back of a limo

when he raised up out of his drunken stupor and literally saw the light...

the beacon light of a local airport near his home.  

(24" x 36" Acrylic, oil stick on canvas)
(Private collection of Cindy Caponera; Pete Decoste)

As he got older, George became less and less curious.

"Not So Curious George"
The Sunny Day Apartments
Dec. 10, 2004  Los Angeles, CA
Sometime after 2:00 p.m.
(10"x12" acrylic on board)

THE SPIN BACK THEN (same as it ever was)

The day is almost done, when look!
 Heaven now defend him, the charm of his life is broken,
 for Custer has fallen; a bullet cleaves a pathway through his side,
and as he falters another strikes his noble breast.
He is the last to succumb to death.
 And dies, too, with the glory of accomplished duty
and the benediction of a grateful country. 

Excerpt from the book "Heroes of the Plains" by J.W. Buel  -- 1881

(24" x 30" Oil on canvas)

Nothing I have done before foretells what I will do today

On February 11, 1990, in Tokyo Japan,
James "Buster" Douglass defeated Mike Tyson
for the heavyweight championship of the world.
  As a 35 to 1 underdog,
many consider his victory
one of the greatest upsets in boxing history.

(Fictional self-help pamphlet.   India ink on cardstock)