Friday, December 28, 2007

Me and Precious


Apparently a Gibson Les Paul is a different beast altogether. I spent some time with her last night and she is unlike the other girls. She brings out a much more aggressive and harsh side of me; impersonal and technical. The pickup selector is in a weird place and I hit it a lot unintentionally producing strange sounding results. The fixed bridge and low action results in much faster, more in tune and precise sounding soloing and I find myself using my right hand on the neck a lot more than I normally would. I predict she will inspire a whole new style of music in me.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Favorite HNT 2007





For the 2nd time this year I'm actually in sync with the theme! I think the shower pix were my hottest this year. My personal fave was Keyser in Hell for artistic content and I'll give you a new one as well. This recent pic from my gig at 169 Bar in NYC highlights Grace, my Olympic white Fender stratocaster and my awesome "Pin Up" shirt drawn by Jon Rosenberg, the artist who draws the sublimely funny and weird GOATS comic strip. This was taken by the super sexy Zoely and shows me metaphorically naked; just me and Grace. Finally, a picture of my "new" 1992 Gibson Les Paul freshly named "Precious" to go with "Grace". HHNY Y'all!

Hurricane season almost over


In certain circles the end of the year is referred to as "hurricane season" because of the triple threat of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve. There's all the stress of family obligations, relationship struggles, financial worries, travel, friends, parties...all these expectations of it being all warm, loving, happy and joyous when in reality it's a hellish time of year. Everyone feels it but it's especially hard on people trying to stay away from alcohol and drugs. I went to a party on Christmas eve and the hostess' sister and bro-in-law got stumbling drunk on wine and then proceeded to drive their two cars home with their two young children in tow. I was horrified. I managed to say something quietly to the host who got them to hang around another hour or so and drink some coffee but they were in NO SHAPE to be driving anywhere, much less on Christmas eve with their kids. What do you do? I felt bad about it for so many reasons. Who am I to point fingers after all the drunken miles I logged? They're not MY family or MY kids...but if anything had happened how would I live with myself? Would saying "Well, I tried." really cut it? I think not. And if I had caused a scene? Would my friends really be asking me back to their family celebrations? Should I just have stayed home and denied myself their company knowing alcohol as involved? Life was much simpler when I didn't give a shit about anyone but myself. How the heck did I wind up trying to arbitrate moral dilemma? It's a party. People get drunk and then drive home, right? Drat. In no way am I immune from these predations. MANY times in the last 30 days I have been sorely tempted to tie one on but with the help of God and good friends I've managed to hold the beast at bay. I've been thinking about smoking a joint with the idea is that it would be enjoyable but the reality is I haven't smoked AT ALL since July. Drawing hot smoke into my lungs would be painful and I'd cough and choke and it would make my throat sore. In all likelihood I'd get sick from it. And then there's the feeling of being so-called "high". Ugh. I vividly remember the sensation last time and how much I hated every second of it and couldn't wait to come down. Apparently my career as a drunkard and a druggie is effectively over. Thank God! I can't wait for New Year's Eve to be done with so I can get back on my diet and back to the daily gym routine. I hope y'all had a very merry Christmas. Despite my whining all of my family and travel stress was really at a minimum and things went fine.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Merry Christmas everybody


'Tis a quiet Christmas season seemingly. The visit to the folks in VA went well. I got a new ipod among many other good gifts. I bought nice gifts for everyone even though I couldn't really afford it. Came home and did a gig Saturday night that went OK. Slept all day yesterday. Back at work today. Off to Dad's in Albany for Christmas tomorrow (or maybe tonight). I hope everyone is having a happy/merry.

And now a brief history of Christmas:
Brief History of ChristmasBy JOHN STEELE GORDON
Christmas famously "comes but once a year." In fact, however, it comes twice. The Christmas of the Nativity, the manger and Christ child, the wise men and the star of Bethlehem, "Silent Night" and "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" is one holiday. The Christmas of parties, Santa Claus, evergreens, presents, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Jingle Bells" is quite another.
But because both celebrations fall on Dec. 25, the two are constantly confused. Religious Christians condemn taking "the Christ out of Christmas," while First Amendment absolutists see a threat to the separation of church and state in every poinsettia on public property and school dramatization of "A Christmas Carol."
A little history can clear things up.
The Christmas of parties and presents is far older than the Nativity. Most ancient cultures celebrated the winter solstice, when the sun reaches its lowest point and begins to climb once more in the sky. In ancient Rome, this festival was called the Saturnalia and ran from Dec. 17 to Dec. 24. During that week, no work was done, and the time was spent in parties, games, gift giving and decorating the houses with evergreens. (Sound familiar?) It was, needless to say, a very popular holiday.
In its earliest days, Christianity did not celebrate the Nativity at all. Only two of the four Gospels even mention it. Instead, the Church calendar was centered on Easter, still by far the most important day in the Christian year. The Last Supper was a Seder, celebrating Passover, which falls on the day of the full moon in the first month of spring in the Hebrew calendar. So in A.D. 325, the Council of Nicea decided that Easter should fall on the Sunday following the first full moon of spring. That's why Easter and its associated days, such as Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, are "moveable feasts," moving about the calendar at the whim of the moon.
It is a mark of how late Christmas came to the Christian calendar that it is not a moveable feast, but a fixed one, determined by the solar calendar established by Julius Caesar and still in use today (although slightly tweaked in the 16th century).
By the time of the Council of Nicea, the Christian Church was making converts by the thousands and, in hopes of still more converts, in 354 Pope Liberius decided to add the Nativity to the church calendar. He also decided to celebrate it on Dec. 25. It was, frankly, a marketing ploy with a little political savvy thrown in.
History does not tell us exactly when in the year Christ was born, but according to the Gospel of St. Luke, "shepherds were abiding in the field and keeping watch over their flocks by night." This would imply a date in the spring or summer when the flocks were up in the hills and needed to be guarded. In winter they were kept safely in corrals.
So Dec. 25 must have been chosen for other reasons. It is hard to escape the idea that by making Christmas fall immediately after the Saturnalia, the Pope invited converts to still enjoy the fun and games of the ancient holiday and just call it Christmas. Also, Dec. 25 was the day of the sun god, Sol Invictus, associated with the emperor. By using that date, the church tied itself to the imperial system.
By the high Middle Ages, Christmas was a rowdy, bawdy time, often inside the church as well as outside it. In France, many parishes celebrated the Feast of the Ass, supposedly honoring the donkey that had brought Mary to Bethlehem. Donkeys were brought into the church and the mass ended with priests and parishioners alike making donkey noises. In the so-called Feast of Fools, the lower clergy would elect a "bishop of fools" to temporarily run the diocese and make fun of church ceremonial and discipline. With this sort of thing going on inside the church to celebrate the Nativity, one can easily imagine the drunken and sexual revelries going on outside it to celebrate what was in all but name the Saturnalia.
With the Reformation, Protestants tried to rid the church of practices unknown in its earliest days and get back to Christian roots. Most Protestant sects abolished priestly celibacy (and often the priesthood itself), the cult of the Virgin Mary, relics, confession and . . . Christmas.
In the English-speaking world, Christmas was abolished in Scotland in 1563 and in England after the Puritans took power in the 1640s. It returned with the Restoration in 1660, but the celebrations never regained their medieval and Elizabethan abandon.
There was still no Christmas in Puritan New England, where Dec. 25 was just another working day. In the South, where the Church of England predominated, Christmas was celebrated as in England. In the middle colonies, matters were mixed. In polyglot New York, the Dutch Reformed Church did not celebrate Christmas. The Anglicans and Catholics did.
It was New York and its early 19th century literary establishment that created the modern American form of the old Saturnalia. It was a much more family -- and especially child -- centered holiday than the community-wide celebrations of earlier times.
St. Nicolas is the patron saint of New York (the first church built in the city was named for him), and Washington Irving wrote in his "Diedrich Knickerbocker's History of New York" how Sinterklaes, soon anglicized to Santa Claus, rode through the sky in a horse and wagon and went down chimneys to deliver presents to children.
The writer George Pintard added the idea that only good children got presents, and a book dating to 1821 changed the horse and wagon to reindeer and sleigh. Clement Clarke Moore in 1823 made the number of reindeer eight and gave them their names. Moore's famous poem, "A Visit from St. Nicholas," is entirely secular. It is about "visions of sugar plums" with nary a wise man or a Christ child in sight. In 1828, the American Ambassador Joel Roberts Poinsett, brought the poinsettia back from Mexico. It became associated with Christmas because that's the time of year when it blooms.
In the 1840s, Dickens wrote "A Christmas Carol," which does not even mention the religious holiday (the word church appears in the story just twice, in passing, the word Nativity never). Prince Albert introduced the German custom of the Christmas tree to the English-speaking world.
In the 1860s, the great American cartoonist Thomas Nast set the modern image of Santa Claus as a jolly, bearded fat man in a fur-trimmed cap. (The color red became standard only in the 20th century, thanks to Coca-Cola ads showing Santa Claus that way.)
Merchants began to emphasize Christmas, decorating stores and pushing the idea of Christmas presents for reasons having nothing whatever to do with religion, except, perhaps, the worship of mammon.
With the increased mobility provided by railroads and increasing immigration from Europe, people who celebrated Christmas began settling near those who did not. It was not long before the children of the latter began putting pressure on their parents to celebrate Christmas as well. "The O'Reilly kids down the street are getting presents, why aren't we?!" is not an argument parents have much defense against.
By the middle of the 19th century, most Protestant churches were, once again, celebrating Christmas as a religious holiday. The reason, again, had more to do with marketing than theology: They were afraid of losing congregants to other Christmas-celebrating denominations.
In 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signed into law a bill making the secular Christmas a civil holiday because its celebration had become universal in this country. It is now celebrated in countries all over the world, including many where Christians are few, such as Japan.
So for those worried about the First Amendment, there's a very easy way to distinguish between the two Christmases. If it isn't mentioned in the Gospels of Luke and Mark, then it is not part of the Christian holiday. Or we could just change the name of the secular holiday back to what it was 2000 years ago.
Merry Saturnalia, everyone!

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

The Keyser Plays NYC tonight HNT

I'll be playing a rare solo acoustic set TONIGHT Thursday Dec 20th at Bar 169 in NYC at 8 PM sharp. It's at 169 East BroadwayCross Streets: Rutgers St and East Broadway (Essex & Canal st)Directions: Take the F train to East Broadway exit.Tel: 212-473-8866 www.169barnyc.com/
Please come and check it out? I'd be much obliged! There'll be a bunch of other bands so come out, have a holiday cocktail and hang out! Hope to see you there!
Since I can't follow directions I'm going to gift ALL of you with THIS:


Yoram Rannan

This gentleman's Awesome Art was brought to my attention by the beautiful wonderful and talented Winterswan. Chappy Channukah Chica! And Merry Christmas, Happy Ramadan, Kool Kwanzaa and most of all a happy, joyous and free New Year to us all. HHNT!



Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Whoops, I did it again...




Yes, I bought another guitar. Here she is, a fine example of a 1992 Gibson Les Paul Classic 1960 model. Under the influence of The Right Reverend Billy F. Gibbons, vocalist and guitarist for Z.Z. Top, I realized I had to have a Les Paul. His '59 LP, affectionately named Pearly Gates, has beeen seen here on numerous occasions. I had planned to buy a 1959 Custom Shop '59 reissue for $5000 but they weren't that great and I prefer the thinner '60 neck. Anyway I recently played a ton of these in their various models, Standard (new and old), Classic, Custom, etc... and these sounded and played the best for me. They're $2200 new including tax, etc. but I got this one for about 2/3ds of that on eBay. She needs a name. I'm thinking her name needs to be "Precious" to go with "Grace" my white strat. Precious and Grace is a favorite ZZ tune.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Girl With The Pearl Earring




I wanted to show you my progress on this copy of Vermeer's Girl With The Pearl Earring. The top is the original, the next is my recent work and the bottom was my first try. I was SO frustrated with this for SO LONG! Even though I'm still miles away on the skin color and shading as well as the eyes, ear, jawline and earring this looks pretty good to me now. I've been working from a printout in which the skin tone looks much more like mine (i.e. almost white!). I was dismayed when I looked at the original online and realized how much darker it is. Also I see from the wiki link that although my canvas is nearly the same size I inadvertently enlarged her quite a bit. If you look at the full size pic of the original you'll see a LOT of cracks in the texture since the natural based oil paint has been drying out for 400 years or so. Most importantly however, I actually put some paint on canvas. That's something I haven't done since...summer 2006? Sad. Oh well, you can't force it and I DID make a record in the interim. Hopefully my creative pursuits will get easier with time. 427 days sober and 97 days without a cigarette. Why does time take so long?

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Unforgiven Pianist


“Hey, Clint? I’m only the piano player, OK? Now piss off while you still got the legs to carry you.” See how he's sweating and I'm all cool as a cucumber like? Pansy.

Here I am again in fistful of dollars. I've been having a bit of fun 'shopping myself into things but there's a dearth of good source images out there to work with so inevitably they look like this; almost there but not quite. Since I'm never satisfied I give up whenever I get "close enough"; if I think I can't do any better or I get tired or bored I quit. I really need to work on that.

BIG NEWS! I finally picked up the paintbrush and worked on my Vermeer copy Girl With A Pearl Earring. I'll post a new pic soon. The original version was, again, close but no cigar. 'Tis much improved if I say so myself.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Me N My Tree HNT


My friend made me this lovely tree of Christmas music paper. A little Christmas magic and "ViolĂ !" ♪ It goes from Tabletop to taking up the whole room! I can even pose wit it! Yay!
I did the theme!!!!!!!!! Note the eagle circling above. Eagle. NOT vulture. Eagle.
HO HO HO HNT!

Crack is Wack


More art stuff today. Keith Haring's Mural in Harlem.
Here's the opposite side of the hand ball wall:
Of course these days I struggle with my stance on drugs. I drank beer and smoked cigarettes every day for 25 years give of take a month here and there. I've done lots of other drugs over the years. I never developed the insane obsession for them that I did with alcohol but I've seen a lot of people completely destroy their lives even to the point of death with heroin and cocaine in their various forms. Marijuana and Tobacco generally take a lot longer to mess you up physically and mentally but there's no doubt in my mind that they do even excluding cancer. Breathing is a pretty important part of life. I've always been a fan of the psychoactives but beyond very occasional use I don't recommend it and it's not for everyone. I've seen people really wig out hard although I never have. I don't know where I'm going with this. I haven't been one tenth as productive creatively in the year that I've been sober. Performance-wise it's like night and day though. I sing and play ten times better than ever before. I just wish that the channel to God through which my writing and painting flow into me was open. I never learned to open it without alcohol. Now I don't know how. Maybe I'll chew some valerian root. Any sober creative types got any ideas?

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

The Things You Love


The Things You Love Will Destroy You by Luke Cheuh
I make it a habit to showcase artists and musicians that I like here. I do it for no other reason than to share with my friends that which I think is great. I never profit from any of it, nor would it occur to me to try to do so. I barely make any profit from my own friggin work, why would I try to steal someone else's? There are lots of really great artists and musicians out there. I hope I help some of them. Maybe someday some of them will help ME!
I suddenly realized that a good friend is an artist and I never even noticed it. Her work is so much a part of her and her life. It's not something she aspires to make a living at so much as something she just DOES. I think we might all take a little lesson from that, hmm? Anyway this piece is speaking to me today and it's saying "Some days you da rabbit, somedays you da po' wigga unna da rabbit foot." Yeah.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Les Paul Classic


Well I have overwhelming guitar lust again. After playing about 40 different Les Pauls of various models I decided that the Les Paul Classic had the best sound and feel for my particular style. The tobacco sunburst in the pic is a favorite look although I'm also partial to the black and gold top versions. There are about $1900 brand new. I can't decide if playing the ACTUAL guitar is more imprtant than saving the significant sales tax. ALSO buying used on eBay seems like a good way to go but again I want to play the actual guitar. In other news I started playing through a Fender amp (instead of my Marshall) and the white guitar (Grace) jumped past red (Sonya) in playability and sound. I think that means it's time to get a tune up on red. Time to visit my guitar guy anyway. Whatever. This is a nothing sort of Monday post. I'm SUPERSONICALLY horny latey for some reason. Even more than usual which is saying something. I don't know why that is but anyway...

Saturday, December 8, 2007

She said...


She said "Girls like musicians because they think you'll bring the same intensity you display on stage into the bedroom." to which I replied "I guess it IS kind of the same because in both cases I spend a lot of time hoping I'm going to hit the right note just the right way." Music and sex are both about tension and release so that makes a lot of sense. When giving head I often "hear" a kind of "music" in my head in which the tempo and tension rises and falls until it climaxes in her orgasm. I've never tried to capture that music in the audio realm because it would be much too distracting to try to do so and besides it's really different every time. It's a very cerebral thing. Photo by Z. Manipulation by A.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Madam I'm Adam


I realized somewhat belatedly that this image works MUCH better with me as Adam. Saint Sebastian was BOUND to a tree and shot full of arrows. He didn't just stand there. Plus I realized there was a certain defiance in the look which seemed out of place on Sebastian's face. I can't help but laugh every time I look at this image. "Come On! One little bite!" I did a MUCH better job integrating the images this time. I'm learning!

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Saint Sebastien HNT



Well, I'm not back on the diet nor hitting the gym so no new pic. I had planned to do a Saint Sebastien HNT a while back but instead went with "The Keyser In Hell" Here's what I intended to do but I got tired before it looked quite right. I also failed to back up my work so I could correct it later. Crap. You can see what I was going for though, right? I should take a class. It takes me forever to do these 'cause I'm clueless. Notice they got me right in the tattoo? Ouch! HHNT!
Update: I spent the morning looking at all the famous images of this guy and for a change I feel good about my art. If I fix the arrows and the blood this really works! I mean it hangs with serious religious art! I'm pleased with myself! That's rare.

Repeal Day


On today, Dec 5th 1933Prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States officially ended when the Twenty-first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. YAY BEER! I propose we all drink heavily to celebrate the occasion. Except me of course. I don't drink.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

The Lime Interview


Lime recently did an interview at her place and like a fool I asked for interview questions so now I have to answer. That'll teach me to be sociable. So here are her questions and my response.
1. You play many instruments. what you listen to for the respective moods angry, sad, elated, pensive, frisky, and at peace. This is a harder question than it looks. The answers change all the time but here are some random picks. Angry:NIN, Sad: Tori Amos, Elated: Stevie Ray or ZZ Top, Pensive: Jeff Beck, Frisky: Depends on who I'm getting frisky with, At Peace: Music does not soothe me. It excites.
2. You write, draw and paint. did you have a lot of encouragement in fostering your creative talents as you were growing up or have you gone agasint the grain as you pursued these creative outlets? My parents considered me God's gift to creativity and pushed me relentlessly to pursue such things with mixed effects on my sanity and general mental health.
2a. What is it in each of those three areas that speaks to your soul and drives you?
This is a seperate question but in the spirit of openness I'll answer. I don't know. It used to be alcohol. Now? I don't do much anymore. Sad but true. My creatvitiy is dead.
3. You recently introduced us to your sister and said the two of you were close in spite of being pushed in that direction. would you elaborate a bit? how did the relationship develop, especially given the vast age difference. We bonded over our family's insanity. Somehow we turned out not too screwed up except maybe in the area of relationships. That's all I have to say about that.
4. There is a movie of your life to be filmed. cast the major roles and tell us why you chose each actor. I guess I'll have Matt Damon play me. He just got voted sexiest man alive and that's how I want to be viewed. If you want REALISM then I should be played by either Robin Williams or Jack Nicholson but it wouldn't be a movie. It's a one man, one act play and it ends in tragedy. God, I'm fuckin tickle-me-Emo today!
5. You and i are forming a new band called 'ferikked, ferhoodled, and feraikled.' what sort of music will we play and what do we wear? oh yeah, and since i have a singing voice that peels paint and i suck with a guitar, what is my part in said band? who else is in the band with us? (You can pick ANYONE)
Well it would have to be punk rock. Then you could play guitar AND sing because punk rock is MEANT to peel paint. I'd play drums and so I guess we'd need a GOOD bass player. Maybe Lemmy Kilmeister or Flea. I want to be Ferikked so you and Flea will have to fight it out as to who is Feraikled and who is Ferhoodled. Let that be a lesson to you. Don't be interviewed by Lime. She asks the hard hitting questions.

6 questions


This Image Is For X...
I was reading a book until late last night and I came across these 6 questions. They seemed kind of pertinent to life so I thought I'd share.

Where would you prefer to be right now?
With whom?
Doing what?
With whose money?
What next?
What about next month?
Answers in the comments please?

Monday, December 3, 2007

Childhood Nightmares

I was in Boston over the weekend driving through many areas I haven't been in a very long time indeed. Over the course of the weekend I had flashes of the recurring nightmares I used to have growing up. Bear in mind I haven't even thought about these in decades. They happened a lot between ages 3 and 6 or 7. I woke up sceaming a lot as a kid. 20 years later my sister did the same thing. Small wonder I should think but anyway...

The Lion - I'm in my grandmother's basement near the foot of the stairs. It's dark and the bottom half of the stairs are gone, broken off halfway down. Escape is impossible. On the wall facing the stairs is the head of a lion, like a hunting trophy, but it is alive. Below it's mouth are two rusty oil drums filled with blood and what look like body parts floating in it. There is a hunter complete with pith helment overseeing the ceremony or whatever it is. My uncle and my grandmother are there and he is hysterically begging the man in the pith helmet for mercy. "Kill me, but please don't soak me in it!" They start to feed him to the lion and I'm so scared I wake up screaming and crying.

The Spider - I'm lying in my bed at night and on the ceiling above the bed is a spider with a body the size of my head. At first it isn't moving and it looks trussed up in it's own web but then it begins to move and slowly descend towards my face. I am unable to move and I'm so scared my screams come out like a whisper. As I try harder and harder to scream loud enough for someone to hear me I wake myself up screaming and crying at the top of my lungs.

The Wolf - I'm in the large, dark and empty library of the house where my mom used to babysit. It was a creepy place at the best of times. The bookshelves all had backs so you couldn't see between the stacks and the books all looked more or less the same. Thus it was a huge scary maze to someone 3 feet tall. Anyway I'm in there alone and the wolf from Disney's Peter and the Wolf is in there with me. I still think that wolf is WAY too scary for a 3 year old. Anyway in the dream I'm trying to hide from him but eventually he finds me and traps me under a desk. As he slowly approaches clearly intent on eating me again I try harder and harder to scream loud enough for someone to hear me and again I wake myself up screaming and crying at the top of my lungs.

Anyone want to share their childhood nightmares?