It's Me, I'm Here.

(papier mache, acrylic paint,  21" tall)

It's good to be just plain happy; it's a little better to know that you're happy; but to understand that you're happy and to know why and how, and still be happy, be happy in the being and the knowing, well, that is beyond happiness, that is bliss, and if you have any sense you ought to kill yourself on the spot and be done with it.

                                                                        Henry Miller

My Brave Face

                                                                                                      (Acrylic, repurposed wood approximately 3' x 1.5')

My Great Grandma back in Oklahoma was always commenting on someone's club foot, or their hair lip, or their deformed arm by saying, "sometimes God doesn't give with both hands."  I was nine at the time and I remember thinking, "I'm not sure I like this God guy."
                                                

   

Salesman

(Acrylic, suitcase handle, found board 14 x 16)

True newspaper headline of the week:  "Burlington Man Stabbed After Sign Language Mistaken for Gang Signs."

Possible Titles for Upcoming Art Show

Available for Weddings and Birthdays

Parked off  Sunset, playing Bird on a Wire by Leonard Cohen.  Maybe three dollars in his tip jar.   He told me his favorite artist was John Lennon  because he was inspired by Lennon's quote, "where there's life, there's hope. "  But then laughed and added that Lennon was shot dead a couple days later, so what did he know.    

Word to the Wise

     A friend of mine is an attorney who works with death row inmates.   This guy calls himself Blue Bird and he    made this card as a thank you for some canteen money. 

 (A leading mental health group, Mental Health America, makes a conservative estimate that five to ten percent of all death row inmates suffer from very severe mental illness.)  

Trout Fishing in Los Angeles

MacArthur Park from above.   Near 6th and Alvarado.  Looking East.

Cecil Solomon.  Originally from Oregon.    Retired from Five Star Parking three years ago.  (In charge of  cleaning and maintenance of parking lots all over the city.)    Morman, but prefers Latter Day Saint.

Power Bait.   A stinky paste made of krill and fish oil.  Similar to hatchery feed.

Medicine bottle full of quarters for parking.  "Them meter maids will gitcha."

Bread bag full of trout caught by Cecil.  Stocked by the Fish and Game Dept. two days earlier.

FYI.  The bottom of  MacArthur Park lake was repaved with asphalt in 1993 by the transit authority to stop leaks on the subway that runs underneath.   Since 1997, at least six bodies have been discovered in the lake. Many were members and/or victims of the 18th Street Gang.  A statistic I did not share with Cecil.