Dumb Meme. New Work. 

Miniature billboard-like memes with their visual messages and antecdotes…usually pop-up-style intrusive, sometimes funny, predictable purveyors of excruciatingly bad grammar, some of them trying too hard to be profound and some actually succeeding.

I’ve been slack on writing the blog, keeping abreast of social media, and  this is because I’ve got 20 paintings that need to be completed (that means framed too) by this Thursday, when I deliver them to the college where I’ll be having the art show and book signing in early March…

Despite my incredibly poor physical health (great timing) I’ve been powering through.

37 pounds have been eradicated from my body, most of my paintings are through, the antibiotics are being taken and in the midst of my pull to be productive NO MATTER WHAT -(yesterday Al spotted me after a six hour painting session, my face in my hands, overcome with nausea. He wordlessly removed the canvases scattered around me, took away my brushes and paint pallette, water cups,…) –

I spotted this meme below (when I felt well enough to check my newsfeed). It’s a pretty stupid meme (no I don’t feel “old,” just broken or rundown like a toy with low batteries) but I thought it may encourage a blog. So here goes:

Guns N Roses was formed 31 years ago.

🆗 I used to think this was an excuse for a night out. Axl Rose would be entertaining. Then I saw the band in concert 6 years ago. But even though I’d bought my ticket, I almost didn’t see the concert. It was over an hour ride to get to the venue. After the opening band made their exit, there was an intermission that went on forever, and when it got to be ten thirty Axl finally sauntered onto stage with no swagger. No apologies. Dark glasses. Normally curfew (when they have to stop playing) is ten or eleven pm. They hadn’t started yet, I had a long ride home and had to get up early the next day. He should have been booed. Turns out he was there in the back the whole time and “didn’t feel” like coming on stage yet. It was one of the only concerts I left early.

I guess I should’ve researched his history. As stated in the article at the bottom of this page:

“Expect the band to take the stage comically late,” wrote Rolling Stone’s Andy Greene. Apparently, annoying most of the audience on a regular basis with his self important egotism is his ‘thing.’💩

Scooby Doo first aired 47 years ago.

🙈🙉🙊That puts me at Kindergarten age. The opening music drew you in. At the end of the show, you waited to see how many masks would be torn off before the perpetrator was revealed. Even a kid likes unraveling a mystery and being right: it was the caretaker! I knew it! Personally, I didn’t think the Scooby Doo movie was doing the original any justice and I don’t care for the new Scooby, with the ‘off’ voices and differently drawn characters. It makes me cringe. (Drawn? No. They seem like cookie cutter CGI.) Casey Kasem (RIP) is THE Shaggy voice I remember from Saturday morning cartoon day (anyone who followed him seems a poor imitation). At least original episodes can still be watched on Boomerang TV. 💨

E.T. was released 34 yrs. ago.

👽This was the first movie I took my oldest son to see (at its re-release in 1985.) It still holds up as relevant today, that movie. 👌

Cyndi Lauper is 63 this year.

💃Hmm, that means she was in her 30s when she first hit her heyday. I was a young mother with an only child then, living in a third floor apartment above a beauty parlor. Her hit song didn’t inspire me to “wanna have fu-un!” Because I was concerned with the serious business of making ends meet. She didn’t resonate with me and I didn’t appreciate her message then. 👏

CDs came out 34 years ago.

📼Yeah. I had a big collection of records (still have them in a box) and then I started buying music on 8-track. Even had them in a smart faux leather case. They were stolen from the car in the 80s. At some point I ended up in my cousin’s “upscale” boyfriend’s car. By upscale I mean his shoes were shiny and he was clean shaven with a hint of cologne. She rode in front and was bragging about his ‘cassette’ deck. I was firstly thankful for a ride to the park, but truly I really was impressed too. Not by the boyfriend or the clean modern car, but by the technology I had heard about and never seen before. I had never seen a cassette player. So after that, I started buying music in that format. It seems I no sooner developed a serious cassette collection (and had saved money to buy a cassette player to play them in of course) when CDs (compact discs… what is this fresh hell of yet more change???) became the “in” thing. Onward. I’ve a good CD collection now (I completely skipped the Walkman phase- never had one) and am now hesitant to move on to MP3 players, IPods and so forth… Although I do have Pandora. It’s handy to put my iphone in my pocket and listen to it when walking the trail or track. I do however watch a lot of PC videos of my favorite band in concert. 📞📠📻📺💾🎥💽

Laverne and Shirley started 40 yrs. ago.

⏳That sounds right! I would’ve been about 11 years old. I remember that it spun off from Happy Days, a program my father hated and I couldn’t get enough of. There’s a certain episode where the ladies divulge nicknames. Laverne is Gutsy. Shirley is Clutzy. My friend and I used to pretend we were Laverne and Shirley. Soon she was signing her notes Gutsy. And me, with my black cropped hair, I started signing off our notes as Klutzy. ⌛️

Hands Across America was 30 years ago.

🎤 I remember this well. I was working at a department store when I paused in front of the TVs in the electronics department. It was there that I saw (6.5 million?!) people chaining hands… I couldn’t resist singing along in the car (inside my head) to We Are The World and being in my early 20s felt quite inspired. 📰

PacMan was released 36 years ago.

🎮 Between the department store and the tiny corner consignment shop was a small alley. I would buy rubber balls at the department store’s gum ball machines and bounce them off the brick walls in the alley. Next to the second hand clothing shop was the bowling alley, (which eventually burned down) and next to that, a “pinball parlor” no bigger than my living room and bedroom combined. It had maybe 30 pinball machines and then suddenly a few arcade games too: Frogger, Centipede, PacMan and Ms. PacMan. I returned cans all week to save ten dollars to blow at the arcade. That’s 40 plays! And since these games let you have three lives, ten dollars went far. But the pinball place didn’t always have these games. In the beginning it was just pinball machines. The first PacMan I ever played was set up near the gum ball machines at the department store. There was always a long line to play which I was happy to wait in. That telltale sound of someone losing a turn meant one step closer to playing…👾

The first Walkmans were sold 37 years ago.

🎼Like I said, I skipped that entirely. 🎶

So there you have it. The meme has sparked a blog. Maybe you thought about where you were when these things took place.
And so, hopefully I’ll get in some painting today. Here a few things I finished for the show…be warned  some of these require turning your viewing screen sideways or even upside down…  I feel too overwhelmed to position the photos correctly…

This is “Old Age,” I thoroughly enjoyed pasting puzzle pieces in place to make this. I made a drawing first then sorted ten different puzzles for the colors I wanted. Like a vulture old age is looming here over middle age.

  This is (what else) Old age’s accompaniment “Youth.” Vultures I might add are necessary in the scheme of things…the painting below is ‘Trees Hugging Two’- I’ve previously sold

” hugging trees one  .”

The one below that is ‘Play of Shadows.’

And is upside down. 
  
  
 Some of these aren’t quite finished which is why I depart now to fetch paint supplies. Be well  🎨🎋🔆✏️🎴🎭😷🔙🔜🍌🌙
P.S. I may have mentioned that my eldest son goes on digs  —recently he took his nephew and my grandson found this in the woods. Isn’t it quite the treasure?

On Guns N Roses tardiness:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-11-14/entertainment/ct-ent-1115-late-shows-gnr-20111114_1_curfews-late-fees-concert-tickets