Red Line "El" Leland and Broadway

Oil 9x12 panel
Local painting with friend Jason Seiler. We had the benefit of painting in the shade provided by an awning from the nearby building. A quick study of the "El" and the adjacent shops etc.

New Bride Magazine

A fitting image representing 21st century matrimony. I'll let the statistics talk for themselves (concerning marriage). I'm all for weddings and marriage as a function of free society.. but I think people owe it to themselves to take a close, sober look at getting hitched in the modern context of today's society. I read once a proposition advocating renewable 5 year contracts. I believe this arrangement moves in the right direction. As the American dream crumbles about us like a stale baguette and broken families pop up mushroom-like, where does one look for solutions? Where does the buck stop and the finger point?

No picnic

The middle class is no longer in the middle. I never thought I'd live long enough to see the 'American Dream' being raped as savagely as it's been done over the last few years. In one's sedentary comfort it is easy to forget what freedom really means. The wealthy have a tendency to rob... people, land, and thought for their own. Unless a system of checks and balances is maintained by the people, the powerful will systematically remove their (middle class) rights and transform them (the people) into personal hand servants. Have you ever wondered why a college education is so expensive these days? Do you think the powerful want an educated servant pool?

It all started on Belmont in Arlington Heights - well almost..

Belmont Street
I moved here when I was 2, our family stayed 4 more years till 1960. At an early age I discovered the true reason for living: Christmas, my birthday, and Halloween. I also learned the world had scary shit in it: scary people with their scary minds, and my bedroom after lights out. The spooky attic was a magical place and I can still remember the smell, the wood floors and looking out the dusty gabled window (see picture). More will be posted from past events, but the majority will come from things yet to come. BTW.. it was on this very spot from where the picture was taken I was hit by a car at about 5 years of age. I was smacked pretty good - rendered unconscious with cement burns, but returned a few hours later with no broken bones. I checked both ways this time before snapping the picture.

This is it - the transition post officially beginning Bill Moore's Chicago adventure, particularly after my move from Los Angeles, this coming April, '08.