Hear that train a comin'

After two months of vacations, multiple shows and general neglect, my shop looks like a post nuclear dump. What else is new, you say? The shop that now, to the consternation of some of my better clients, is only open by appointment anyway?

Paintings are stacked in every corner, the bathroom needs a  hazardous waste unit and corridors have been shrunken so that navigation must be sometimes maintained by doing a sideways crab motion version of the hully gully.

The Blue Heron Gallery is known far and wide for its vaunted friday night parties, a curious mix of sterling and lace elegance coupled with Boone's farm style barnyard debauchery. I am afraid that they will be on hiatus for a while as there is simply too much inventory to make things work. Will let you know if I ever manage to narrow down the herd.

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All of this work really interferes with my writing, both in terms of finding my voice and in its quality. I end up coming up for a short breath and then lumping everything together in a general mixed grill of non sequiturs that leave neither author or reader ultimately satisfied. But as I said in my last post, what do you want for the price? Sometimes it has to be enough to just cover .

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I have been experiencing a minor epiphany of sorts, triggered by an event in San Francisco. I was having drinks in an italian restaurant with friend Dan and he said, "Robert, do you think you could say hello to my assistant Diana when you come up to the booth?" I was chagrined. First of all, I really like Diana and hadn't realized that I had been neglecting the basic human courtesies and pleasantries. I get so focussed on the deal and maybe I lose a little bit of manners on occasion.

I felt terrible and went out of my way to small talk the next day. Because a person is always the last to know. To see themselves as you are viewed by others. I thought about all the bit players in my life's movie that maybe I had given short shrift to in my evident haste.

The next day I was at the deli across the way I asked a girl, a girl who had been serving me for a freaking year at least, what her name was? She laughed at me after she gave me her name, said she had only been taking my order,  like forever. I had compartmentalized her, made judgements about her persona that turned out to be totally inaccurate upon closer inspection, and ultimately reinforced my far afield misperception, which had no bearing in reality.

It is well known among my confidantes that I give terrible phone, often hanging up mid sentence when I have judged that all relevant information has been exchanged.

I have a friend who criticizes me a lot. Hypercritical. I was thinking about cutting the friend out of the herd, or at least having a serious heart to heart about the constant complaining. I heard from a mutual friend the other day who was telling me about recently meeting this person, how much this person openly admits to loving me and realized that I could never cast this person away. Friends are supposed to put up with each other's shit. It's part of the deal.

I was very angry with a friend who broached an agreement with me last week. Snitty angry. And then the friend saved my ass, finding something that I had mistakenly left behind at a show, a consignment that would have cost a grand to replace. Almost told him off and then he goes and saves my ass...

Coming to grips and taking inventory of these deficiencies at my advanced age, I have been making an attempt to not be such an asshole in the last several weeks. Let me know how I'm doing.

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I have been on this age kick since I recently reached the 55 mark. The coffee shop breaks down on loose age lines. There is a middle age table and then you get shipped off to the older guys table.

After that you have a choice in Fallbrook of the Burger King, Denny's or Donut shop. One of the older guys asked me when I was going to grow up recently. A fair question. I never had to mature, not having progeny I needed to set any good example for.

Never had to do the pampers, bible study, cul de sac living, orthodonture, none of the other joys of parenthood.  Cultivated a cadre of similar non breeders. And left myself in a state of emotional retardation that keeps me flying around the warm stage lights - think Cathy Rigby doing Peter Pan. My immaturity is an immense source of pride.

Not really feeling like an adult yet, at a time when many of my peers are sporting grandchildren puts me in an interesting quandary. I had another profound moment at the show this weekend. An older couple walked into the booth looking at a particular painting. I mentioned that the canvas was created in 1958 and the guy brightened up. "Great year! I was born in 1958." My jaw fell and I winced. You mean to tell me that this old fossil is a year younger than I am? I was crestfallen. There was no way that I looked that old. Do I? My god, that guy looked old.

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I have been taking a lot of shit from Arizona of late. KJ told me yesterday that the blog has been just okay... So sorry to disappoint. Fresh out of profundity, trying to survive. Maybe I'm just not that good.

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National Fascist Headquarters - Italy 1934

Read Walter E. Williams over at Townhall, making his pitch against democracy and majority rule.

Let's not think so much about the election's outcome but instead ask: What's so good about democracy and majority rule?Democracy and majority rule give an aura of legitimacy and decency to acts that would otherwise be deemed tyranny...
The founders of our nation held a deep abhorrence for democracy and majority rule. The word democracy appears in neither of our founding documents: our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. In Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison wrote, "Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority."
John Adams predicted, "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

Is this how the insurrection starts? Or is it the fourth reich?

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We went to see Toots Hibbert and the Maytals at the Belly Up last night. Met D and N there. Simply amazing. Acoustic with his old band and great back up singers. Anders Osborne guesting on rhythm. Toots is like Willie Nelson, pure whisky and honey. The show started off nice and slow and then went ballistic with a firey Funky Kingston and 54 - 46 is my number. Even did the wonderful John Denver song Country Roads, Denver being an old friend of his. One more show on the tour and they go back to Jamaica. If you get a chance to see them one day, please take it. D shot the pic and video on his cell phone and sends it along.

Maytals music is a powerful message of love and we left feeling both blessed and invigorated. Toots shook our hands and blew Leslie a kiss.