Artsy Partsy

If you want to see some very interesting works of art, allow me to recommend my favorite coffee shop – Old City Java in Knoxville. It is in one of my favorite parts of an old part of town. With a name like Old City Java, who would have guessed that one? As I sit here, enjoying a cup of fresh java (the coffee is fresh even if the city is old) the art on the walls captured my attention deficit dominated brain. For almost a minute, I looked around and pondered the meanings behind the art and gave them new names that seemed to better match what was on the canvas.

The first piece of art that jumped out at me, other than the ceiling painted like Van Gough’s Starry Night, was the dear head on the wall. You are probably wondering why a trendy place like Knoxville would have the redneck décor of a mounted animal head. If you are really wondering that, you have never been to Knoxville. This place is – believe it or not – a trendy place for Knoxville. The deer head on the wall is at artist’s interpretation of a deer head. I would not have chosen Play-Doh for my medium, but what do I know? I call it “Deer DOH!”

Glancing to my left, I see art that is reminiscent of absolutely nothing. It is the body of a runner and the head of double-trunked wooly mammoth riding on a skeletal three-headed dog that looks cranky. I have entitled this one, “Never Eat Tai Food Before Bed”.

There is another one that I call “Lines” that can best be described as a bunch of lines on a piece of paper. Did you notice that I never claimed my titles were creative? There is likely a deeper meaning related to the angst of the artist expressed in the intersecting of the lines which represents the cutting off of the creative process by the incorporation and commercialization of the art world thereby relegating the true artists to the coffee shops while the politically savvy artists can make lots of money. Either that or someone had a straight edge, a bunch of colored pencils and too much time on their hands. “Lines” seems like a good title regardless.

The last art I noticed looks like two funnels that are attached at the small ends that are sitting up making them look like filled in hourglasses. These orange sculptures are topped with a flat surface and are interspersed around the room. It feels like they are surrounding you, they are everywhere you look! I named them “Orange Invasion”. Those were really bugging me so I asked the guy who made my coffee what he calls them. He looked me in the eye, with a straight face said, “We call them ‘coffee tables’.” I like “Orange Invasion” better.

Let’s Get This Party Started

A friend of mine commented that I sometimes have an unusual way of looking at things. That comment was quite offensive to me since that person has never spent time looking at the world the way I do. If they had taken the time to carefully consider my perspective on the issues of the day, the word “sometimes” would have been replaces by “always”.

Since we are on the topic of painful words, it is high time the topic of the politics entered into our discussion. My dearly departed daddy told me never to discuss religion, politics or women. Since I have already broken two of those rules, I felt it was time to annoy the politically savvy amongst my blog readers. I’m sure both of you will be suitably offended by the time you finish this blog.

Let me go on record by telling you that I am a liberal conservative. Or is that a conservative liberal? Maybe a green constitutional libertarian? To be honest, like many of Generation-X, I am a registered, card-carrying independent. Granted, the card I carry is my Kroger discount card, but I carry it everywhere. When it comes time to vote, I go online and research each candidate, discovering where they stand on the key issues of the day. Looking at each candidate on the internet is a great source of information because we all know that there is never anything spin-doctored or misleading on a politician’s website. Simple truth: I find the one that annoys me the least and vote for them. Failing that, I do own a dartboard.

Knowing that my opinion about politics in general has been veiled among my deep thoughts, allow me to clarify. I am not a disenfranchised voter. You have to be franchised in the first place and that is not something for me. Looking at the word “politics”, can you blame me? Divide it up. “Poly” means many. “Tics” are blood sucking insects. Strangely appropriate words when you break it down, don’t you think?

Many of my politically active friends have called me names like “fence-sitter”, “non-conformist”, “lazy”, and “Bob”. In the past, I have thanked them for their accurate observations. “Bob” was given to me while discussing politics at the lake as I would go underwater when something was discussed that I found boring. That was the weekend I almost drowned.

Well, the time has come to take a stand since I have finally discovered something that I believe in and I am tired of holding my breath at the lake. It is with great pleasure that I announce the formation of a new political party: The Wine and Cheese Party. Our platform will be centered on the drinking of wine without the slightest judgment of others. We will be open to the wine enthusiast (snobs) and the wine guzzlers (slobs). You can be a drinker of sweet wines (no-pallet), semi-sweet wines (some-pallet) or dry wines (too-much-pallet). The red wine drinkers (rosy-lipped) will enjoy their fermented grape juice alongside the white wine drinkers (pucker-lipped). All will be welcomed.

Our debates will function with the following format: 1. Any member is allowed to state his or her opinion on any topic that is relevant to the party. 2. After considering the statement over a full glass of wine, another member can either agree or disagree by making a statement either for or against the topic. 3. Everyone must then drink another glass of wine while considered the statement made by the second person. Cheese is recommended on a nice sesame cracker at this point. 4. Another point can be made at as the glasses are refilled about the first person’s topic, the second person’s statement, or the quality of the brie. 5. Another glass of wine is consumed while eating more cheese. 6. By this point, everyone who has had four glasses of wine agrees that everyone else is right and that we need to use this method for the Middle East Peace Talks.

Our first meeting will be held at a winery as soon as I can find one with an auditorium, a sound system, and a wide variety of wine choices. It may take a while. There is a lot of free tasting… I mean prep work… involved in finding just the right place.

The Music Box

While trying to come up with a blog idea for something witty, silly or just one of my normal eclectic eccentric thoughts, I turned on Pandora to help me with the soothing sounds of classical guitar strings being plucked and played, creating a soothing symphony of sounds bathing me in a relaxing review of renditions relieving Romig into relaxation. Okay, so I dozed off. When I woke of thirty minutes later, the second thing I did was change the station on Pandora. The first thing I did was get more coffee. Hint: Don’t listen to soothing music when you just wake up unless you don’t want to stay awake.

Now that the Pandora station had been changed to something a little less relaxing – Skillet Radio – I was ready to write. But what to write about? You won’t believe this, but at first I thought about frying eggs and bacon,and flipping pancakes. You know, cooking things. At first I thought that the whole metal sound of Skillet was having an influence making me think of frying things. It was that combined with the fact I was hungry. But Skillet is one of my favorite bands, too.

After breakfast, I came back to the keyboard with John from Skillet singing about being Comatose. Oddly, it was the first station that did that to me. Then there was a song about Those Nights. I was really thinking someone was trying to tell me something. It seemed that the next Skillet song would tell me something important if the Universe was sending me some kind of hidden message. It was the Skillet song after the next one that game me the message that said Awake and Alive. The one before that had nothing to do with me as it proclaimed that sometimes the singer felt like a monster.

Or was the Universe telling me that on Those Nights I’m a Monster who was Comatose but is now Awake and Alive? Perhaps it is telling me I need to go see the new Frankenstein movie. Or maybe, just maybe, they are songs played in a random order that someone with an overactive imagination can make up meanings where there really is nothing. Nah. I’m gonna go with the whole Frankenstein movie thing. That was brilliant subliminal marketing.

Twice Upon a Time

Twice upon a time there were six bears. There was Momma Bear, Papa Bear, angst-ridden Thirteen-year-old daughter Bear, adolescent Third-cousin-once-removed Bear, Neighbor-kid who shows up every morning because he has thing for porridge Bear, and Baby Bear. One morning, after spending an hour preparing porridge for everyone including the brat neighbor bear who mooched off them every morning, Momma Bear suggested they all go for a walk to let the porridge cool. The real reason is that Thirteen-year-old daughter Bear was more angst-ridden than usual and it was either get out of the house or club her over the head with the porridge pan. Although there was whining and complaining about having to go outside before breakfast, Momma Bear made her case for fresh air and exercise while poking everyone with her new family motivation device she found at www.cattleprods.com. Papa Bear seemed to like the shocking just a little too much. While they were out for a walk, the family enjoyed nature while Momma Bear enjoyed zapping Third-cousin-once-removed Bear who kept getting distracted by things like bugs and honey and trees and the way Thirteen-year-old daughter bear would shake her thing.

During their absence, a pair of twin girls, Goldilocks and Goldibagels arrived at their door. Knocking once, they entered without initial felonious intent. Now the Goldi-girls were famished from hiking through the woods because, let’s face it, they were out of shape. Seeing the porridge cooling, they immediately helped themselves since they had not been raised right. Now the first porridge was too hot, but by blowing on it, Goldilocks was able to eat it with no real problem. The second bowl was a little on the cold side, but Goldibagels had a thing for cold porridge and sucked it down like a Hoover at a sawdust factory. Now the next one had some strawberry jam on it that, unknown to the girls, was a teenage-girl bear’s attempt to make it look like the famous bear heartthrob, Justin Bearbear. Without a thought to the amount of additional angst it would cause, Goldilocks ate the whole bowl, licking her lips at the sweet taste of the jam. The next bowl was messy and sticky as honey had been poured all over it. If Goldibagels had only known she was eating the porridge of the cousin who had tried to make a honey-sculpture of a bear boob, she may not have relished it quite as much. The next bowl was just a simple bowl of plain porridge Momma bear had given to Neighbor-kid bear which contained a secret bit of Momma bear armpit hair for that little freeloader. Goldilocks didn’t even notice the odd flavor. The last bowl that Goldibagels ate in two bites had Baby bear’s constipation medicine hidden within.

When the six bears returned home, they found their breakfast had been ravaged. Looking around they discovered two little girls in a hurting condition. Goldilocks was in baby bear’s bed, all swollen and covered in welts from her strawberry allergy. Goldibagels had locked herself in the toilet and refused to let anyone in there until after the effects of the constipation medicine had worn off.

The moral of the story: stealing other people’s porridge will only hurt you and is a crapping thing to do. Also, cattle prods are a good parenting tool.