Road Tumbler

I woke up yesterday morning around 6:30am with the Queen song “39” going over and over in my head, so I couldn’t go back to sleep. “39” is on the short list of my very favorite songs from Queen. A lot of fair weather Queen fans may not even be familiar with the song as it was the B side to “You’re My Best Friend” as well as a deeper cut on “A Night at the Opera.” When I first heard the song back…

From my Art Studio Blog

Life as an Extrovert

It seems these days we see lots of memes and funny videos about the world of introverts. Most of my favorite people are introverts. We like to make jokes about the sticky situations introverts find themselves in when they are caught with their back to the wall in social situations. Often these memes give us insight on what is going on in their minds when it seems the outside world just doesn’t…

How many of us take a moment to ask ourselves who we really are? Is who we were once who we really are now, or are we the person we are trying to become? Are we both? Are we neither? Maybe the only person we really are is in this exact moment. We are not who we were and we are not who we are about to become. Yet there is another reality we can consider. Each one of us are hundreds, or even…

Diary of an Intrepid Teapot

12 December, the year of our Lord, two-thousand and twenty-two  Dear Diary, I find myself on a strange voyage and I am uncertain of my destination. Honestly, I have no idea of what or where I might call home. I was born in Thailand into a British family, but it wasn’t long after that I was sold into captivity and trafficked to a holding camp in the United States in a place called Colorado. I…

Sometimes just existing in the art world can take a lot of patience. There are no rules to how anyone may enter into the world of art and call themselves an “artist.” There is no baseline of talent required. From much of what I see, role playing as an artists is much more popular than trying to actually be an accomplished artist. I mostly blame the late 20th century university system on that…

My War with Autumn

MUSIC UNDER: Single, lonely violin playing 25 November, the year of our Lord, two thousand and twenty-two. Dear Diary, I am blessed to be here to write this, for today I blew leaves across one quarter acre of hostile territory. I do thank my Lord and savior Jesus Christ that I did not die upon that patch of land today. Sitting here my arms weigh on me as heavy balloons filled with suffering.…

When Christlikeness Has Nothing To Do With Christianity

Betty White and a New Year

Like so many of us today, the first thing I thought when I heard the news of Betty White’s passing I was sad. Here on the last day of 2021 it seemed to be just one more stab in the gut from an already difficult year. But then I let some things sink in. Betty was only 18 days short of turning 100 years old. Few people are so lucky in life, not only to live so long, but to live that long and be…

Karen, C. Martin Croker, Ricky Patrick – Six Flags Over Georgia Airbrush Studio, 1979 I remember one important day in a February long ago like it was yesterday. It was the day I began training and then screening all the new airbrush artist applicants for the 1979 season. On that day I didn’t just pick the best artists from the room, but I ended up picking quite a number of lifelong friends. I…

My father and I shooting in the Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge Being raised as my father’s only son I received membership to a certain world my sisters tended to have less access to. Although folks like me from the Deep South don’t particularly like the stereotypes the outside world tends to use when portraying us in entertainment media there are definitely traditions and practices unique to…

So, yesterday I went to Kroger to pick up my meds and some milk. As I pulled away from the house I realized I left my mobile. At that instant every stoplight became pregnant with disaster just waiting to happen. What if I had a crash? Every little thing I passed on the road was full of foreboding drama. What if I was abducted by aliens? How could I warn Pam and leave some clue to help her and the…

As of this writing I am 10 weeks and two days into my recovery from open heart surgery. Needless to say this has been a rough road both physically and mentally. Fortunately I’m far enough along to where I’m feeling pretty close to normal, physically at least. The mental game seems to be much more complicated. The first mental hurdle is trying to get your head around what just happened, along…

Working Towards a More Perfect Union

Here on this day when we celebrate the life and works of Dr. King I thought I would share this message. My current health condition along with the pandemic prevents me from going out and actively doing something today physically to honor Dr. King’s legacy, so the best I can do is to share this with you from my heart: Here in Atlanta we are very fortunate to not only live in the birthplace of Dr.…

My Heart is Broken

My heart is broken. I’m not sure when it really started, but this year has been heart breaking in so many ways. However, my heart was breaking long before COVID-19. Watching how horrible we treat each other on social media has frankly been rather devastating to me, and I’ve seen it leak into real life in the last few months as well. Things really took a dark turn only a few weeks ago. On the…

Dixie’s Golden Calf

First, I want to start out by addressing the main thing we hear constantly when issues on the Confederate battle flag or Confederate monuments comes up, and that is the call for preserving history, or rather the accusation that somehow those who want to get rid of that flag or those monuments are trying to “erase history,” as they say.

So, if that is the argument then lets talk about real history…