Caught between the blue and the grey
Do some research and check out the album that lyric comes from.
Damn good weekend for this guy. Hung out with my friend Johnny for a while on Friday night. Saw his band Foreign Islands drive all the kids crazy. After hanging with Johnny in Cambridge for a while I headed over to Fenway to hit up a fantastic establishment called Ramrod to meet up with Jenny and some of her friends that talk with lisps and crazy hand gestures.
That place is crazy. There’s a bar when you walk in, a room with a pool table just past that and then a partition made from 50 gallon drums with a very dark room on the other side of it. In that dark room there’s a swing made of leather. Of course I walked right over and reclined in it. It was comfortable. Then Jenny started stretching my legs back one by one like baseball players do before a game. This dude comes up and asks my name. He had a voice like Wolfman Jack.
“What’s your name?”
“Uh..Johnny”
“Hey can you do bowflex?”
I was perplexed. I started doing the butterfly machine motion with a bewildered look on my face.
“Bowflex? I guess so. My friend has one in his basement…”
“No… BOAF… LEGS”
“Oh. Both legs! No. No! Time to go back to the well-lit room.”
Saturday I worked on Walken more. Finally started putting his creepy goddam face on.
I also started putting the little canvases that litter my studio to use finally. I’m dedicating them to artists that I listen to pretty much nonstop this year. Here are the first two I’ve started on.
Anyone? It’s Levon Helm. Levon. The guy from the Band. This guy. The guy behind the drums.
And here’s one that should be a little more easily recognizable.
I’m going to crank out as many of these as I can before September 15-16th when me and Gary have another go at the SoWa market.
i want it. i can’t express enough how much i love that tom waits painting.
i feel a commission coming on.
It’s pretty small. I figured you’d love that one. I almost put it up Friday with you in mind but I wanted to finish the background.
Isn’t the first little canvas painting really Ulysses S. Grant?
i love, love, LOVE that one. he’s so good-looking, well done.
It does look a lot like Grant.
Al, let me know what you’d want for a commission. It’s fun painting portraits in this style.
Hey Allyson, back off - I want the Tom Waits!!
Errr - Hooker? Any resolution to this problem? Do you ship to Seattle?
woah there, agwiv, i don’t think you understand who you’re messing with!
hooker-i will be letting you know about a commission for sure.
Do a painting like that of “the man” and I’ll buy it. I think you know who I’m talking about.
Will you trade a toddler entering her terrible 2’s for that tom waits painting?
let me know.
The man who’s bday just happened?
That’s the one.
What era? Email me. Size, budget, any details.
I’ll get started tonight if you really want it.
Nothing too huge. I’m thinking FBD era. I’ll call you tonight.
Damn, you’re a funny, talented, and funny man, Hooker. Yeah, yeah, your paintings are OK (I’m grinning when I say that), but it’s your little quips of real-life that get me.
In Seattle, where I’m from (before moving to Strasbourg), there is a Ramrod too. I haven’t been in there personally (truth), but I know what one finds if they go, and it sounds close (perhaps more…uh…sinister) to yours: no windows, no light, lots of leather (generally chaps, but probably a swing, or a crop somewhere), and of course men with scary voices pointedly asking you things you might rather not want to be asked. Yeah, time to go back to the well-lit room indeed.
How much for the Tom Waits painting? And/or are you going to do prints of it? I really really want that. Thanks.
Tom Waits looks pretty good, but he’s no Walken. Dude, Walken looks awesome! I’m really excited about this painting. Phoebe’s pretty excited about getting naked in front of that thing.