Go away for a couple of days and see what happens…

So, took a break, my best friend of the past twenty years, whom I haven’t seen in the last four, came down, so there was lots of cleaning, organizing and prep to take care of..that and our server was down for a couple of days, but in the meantime lots of strange energy in this vortex I call a life… where to start…

Johnny Hart. Creator/writer/artist of 40-some-odd-year-old comic strip about cave-men died. Grew up reading his stuff, was never inspired by him, but he filled a spot on the comics page with B.C. as good as Bil Keane or Jim Davis, I guess. The last ten years or so, he kinda pissed me off, especially when he introduced two new characters, one a really disgusting caricature of a Roman Catholic, the other a disgusting caricature of a Native American. Notable because he lasted so long, and because he died at the drawing table (a feat I am envious of). I can’t say I’ll miss him. Or his work…

Peter O’Toole is going to star in a film based on Thomas Kinkade’s Life?!?!?! Well, if O’Toole is going to play the part of the alcoholic, misogynistic, and delusional “painter of light” Kinkade (who likes to heckle magicians in Vegas in his spare time) then he’s not really making much of a stretch, now is he.

Art Plagiarist caught!!! Todd Goldman has been accused of stealing material for a painting idea from artist Dave Kelley.- Nail him to the WALL, Dave!!!!

Went to see Grindhouse last Friday. The film was actually the impetus for a hastily arranged reunion of sorts between my long-time friend, Marion Beenur and myself. If you like pointless violence and take glee in the absurdity of exploitation flicks, this is your Movie!

I also found out one of my former professors passed. Kurt Westfall, Photography Instructor at Tallahassee Community College, MY first collegiate photo teacher, and one hell of a man, passed on March 30th. He earned my respect the first day when in response to a student who stated he would not have his camera until the second week of the semester, replied deadpan, “I can tell this is already not working out for you.” Within the hour the student disappeared from class never to rejoin us. He treated us like adults and expected us to act like it. A student of photographers Jerry Uelsmann and Robert Fichter, he advocated not just showing finished prints, but all the work related to the finished prints. Funny, a concept I hated in math, I loved about photo. A man who was enthusiatic and enlightened, Kurt Westfall was someone who gave his best to his students and expected the same in return. He will be missed.

Then this morning, I was woke from a sound sleep by a friend phoning from an airport terminal in Orlando to deliver the news that Kurt Vonnegut was dead at 84 years old. Kurt Vonnegut was the iconoclastic author of Slaughter House 5, Cat’s Cradle and much, much more. I have read many of his books (repeatedly) and have been a fan for years.
I could say a lot more about all of these things, it is a lot to digest, but think I’ll close with one of Vonnegut’s own lines when I say, “and so it goes“.