Archive for January 2022
For most of my life I’ve been an aspiring artist with my share of successes and failures. It’s really not about being successful or being a failure, it’s having the ability to create something that others find interesting. Regardless of a person’s ability, be it good or bad, there’s always a bevy of critics to look at your work, and then spend a great deal of time and effort cutting it to pieces with little or no concern about the work itself, or the effort and concentration you spent during its creation. I’m not really complaining about the critics because they’re a fact of life no matter what you do artistically or otherwise. Today I’ll offer up some blurbs made by some relatively famous critics about other artists and their work. They’re a bit sarcastic and a little nasty at times but that’s life. Here they are. . .
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
‘Still life with the Bulls Head’ “My little granddaughter of six could do as well.” Norman Rockwell
“If I met Picasso in the street, I would kick him in the pants.” Sir Alfred Munnings 1949
“Picasso finding new ways of avoiding maturity.” Clive James 1984
Michelangelo (1475-1564)
“If Michelangelo had been a heterosexual, the Sistine Chapel would have been painted basic white and with a roller.” Rita Mae Brown 1988
“He was a good man, but he did not know how to paint.” El Greco
Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
“Faced with a virtual complete record of the old phony’s unswerving bathos, it was impossible not to burst out in yawning . . . the uproar of banality numbed the mind.” Clive James 1984
“Senor Dali, more than delirious, considers it folly to be serious.” Phyllis McGinley 1960
“The naked truth about me is to the naked truth about Salvador Dali as an old ukulele in the attic is to a piano in a tree, and I mean piano with breasts.” James Thurber 1945
Andy Warhol (1930-1980)
“The most famous living artist in America is Andrew Warhol, unfortunately.” John Heilpern 1979
“Warhol’s art belongs less to the history of painting than to the history of publicity.” Hilton Kramer
“The only genius with an IQ of 60.” Gore Vidal
As you can see, even the most famous artists have people lined up to ridicule their art and everything else about them. I guess if you want to be famous, this is the price you must pay, listening to a bunch of jealous and envious critics. Even a chump like me has been criticized for virtually everything I’ve ever done artistically and truthfully that’s part of the fun for me.
I JUST LOVE IRRITATING PEOPLE
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Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures
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Marion Shepilov Barry was an American politician who served as the second and fourth mayor of the District of Columbia from 1979 to 1991 and 1995 to 1999.
Who is the dumbest? This might be the stupidest question ever asked by anyone including myself. There is so much dumb going around in recent years, it would take me forever to put a coherent list together of the worst of them. I’ve been alive a long time and I’ve seen dumb, heard dumb, and on occasion spoke dumb myself. It’s only right that I’ve chosen to honor former mayor Marion Barry of Washington D.C. fame. He had problems putting together an eight-word sentence and if you don’t believe me, read on. His dumbness was also all too obvious when it came to hookers and crack cocaine. Someone at his level of stupid deserves to be memorialized by me, today and here are his tidbits of wisdom . . .
- “I am providing you with a copulation of answers to several questions raised . . .”
- “What we have here is an egregemous miscarriagement of taxitude.”
- “The contagious people of Washington have stood firm against adversity during this long period of increment weather.”
- “I promise you a police car on every sidewalk.”
- “I am making this trip to Africa because Washington is an international city, just like Tokyo, Nigeria, or Israel. As mayor, I am an international symbol, can you deny that Africa?”
- “What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because they deem it necessary?”
- “Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.”
- “People blame me because these water mains break, but I ask you, if the water mains didn’t break, would it be my responsibility to fix them than? Would it?”
- “There are two kinds of truth. There are real truths, and there are made up truths.”
- “I am a great mayor, I am an upstanding Christian man, I am an intelligent man, I am a deeply educated man, and I’m a humble man.”
How could we possibly go wrong when this is the standard someone has to meet to be elected in the nation’s capitol. Is it any wonder Washington D.C. and Congress are eternally screwed up? Instead of firing and prosecuting Mayor Barry, we should have elected him President, it worked so well for Bill Clinton, so why not. I shouldn’t complain, I guess. If all politicians were actually what they claimed to be I wouldn’t have anything to write about.
IT’S TOO BAD ABOUT BARRY, BUT HE WAS NO DAN QUAYLE
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“Between two evils, I always pick
the one I never tried before.”
Mae West (August 17, 1893 – November 22, 1980) was an American actress who worked in vaudeville and later in movies. She is best remembered for her dirty jokes and comedy movies. Her name when she was born was Mary Jane West. She was born in Brooklyn, New York City, and died in Hollywood, California.
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Let’s have a little fun today. While I’m not the greatest sports fan who’s ever lived, I have a deep and abiding passion for baseball. Not listening to or watching games on television (other than the Little League World Series) but actual playing at it for many years. I find watching sports these days is as much fun as watching paint dry. They’re not the same games as they were when I was growing up. All that being said there are certain things about sports that are universal and forever and one of those is the words of wisdom spoken by Yogi Berra. He was a great ballplayer, but his little tidbits of wisdom made him more famous than baseball. I’ve picked up a few of them here and there over the years and then I discovered a gold mine of them in recent weeks. These are the ones I like the best and here they are for your enjoyment. Let’s go…
- “This is like déjà vu all over again.”
- “You got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”
- In reference to movie star Steve Queen, “He must’ve made that movie before he died.”
- When asked what he would do if he found $1 million, he stated, “I’d find the fellow who lost it and if he was poor, I’d return it.”
- “Baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical.”
- “A nickel isn’t worth a dime today.”
- When asked for the time, he stated, “Do you mean now?”
- “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
- “I never blame myself when I’m not hitting. I just blame the bat, and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it wasn’t my fault that I’m not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?”
- “It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility.”
- When asked about his hat size he stated, ” I don’t know. I’m not in shape yet.”
- “You should always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise, they won’t come to yours.”
- “I take a two-hour nap, from one o’clock to four.”
- “You give 100% in the first half of the game, and if that isn’t enough, in the second half you give what’s left.”
- “I didn’t really say everything I said.”
Well, there you have it folks. The sport of baseball hasn’t been the same since Yogi retired and passed away. We need more like him in all of today’s sports to keep us aware that it’s just a game for kids. That’s how it was before it became nothing but agents, money, negotiations, social media, media interviews, and a few hundred talking heads who think they have all the answers. They’ve all done their best to ruin “Americas Pastime” and it’s a damn shame.
STRIKE 1, STRIKE 2, STRIKE 3
YOUR OUT!
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Eat Well, Stay Fit, Die Anyway
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“A diplomat is a man who thinks
twice before saying nothing.”
Frederick Adolphus Sawyer (December 12, 1822 – July 31, 1891) was a United States Senator from South Carolina. Born in Bolton, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1844. On the night of April 14, 1865, Sawyer was at Ford’s Theater in Washington D.C. and witnessed the assassination of President Lincoln.
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Police Find Crack in Man’s Buttocks
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Today’s the day for another somewhat gross and disgusting posting in line with my Crime and Punishment post from a few days ago. I’m not trying to be morbid, but exploring the human condition is interesting. In these days of Islamic terrorism where 10% of Muslims (rough estimate) want to kill us, I thought a historical review of torture techniques might be in order.
There was such an uproar made about the United States allowing waterboarding a few years back that the following list of torture techniques might have some of those terrorists praying for waterboarding. I’m a firm believer if somebody’s out kill you it is within your rights to do anything (and I mean anything) to protect yourself and an absolute requirement that you kill them back. If waterboarding helps keep me and mine safe, so be it. This list should let everyone know that things could be a helluva lot worse.
- Foot Roasting – Victim immobilized on a frame and his bare soles coated with lard or oil and roasted over an open fire.
- Pitch Capping – Boiling hot tar is poured into a bowl, which is then poured onto the bound victim. This boils the scalp. Then when the cap is ripped off it brings the scalp with it.
- Denailing – Finger and toenails are ripped off by forcing flaming skewers tipped with sulphur under them.
- The Rack – The victim is stretched over a rack with ropes ties to the hands and feet. The body is slowly stretched until the cords cut through the flesh of the arms.
- Water Cure – Using a funnel the victim is forced to drink large quantities of water or nastier liquids. This causes great pain and vomiting when the stomach is distended. It is repeated as often as necessary.
- Foot Beating – Beating the soles of the feet with a metal bar or stick.
And last but not least for the more liberal of our citizens and preapproved by the Democratic Party, intense tickling till they scream and a serious threat of calling their mother, should keep those terrorists awake nights. Brutal but necessary.
I ALWAYS LIKED THAT INTENSE TICKLING
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1941
There’s an oversexed lady named Whyte
Who insists on a dozen a night?
A fellow named Cheddar
Had the brashness to wed her,
His chance of survival is slight.
1946
It’s only human nature after all
If a fellow puts a girl against the wall
And his inclination
Into her accommodation
To increase the population
Of the rising generation –
Why, it’s only human nature after all.
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