MacDries says, "Well, not quite, but close."
Winter Waltz

Heat Wave
It's a balmy 55 degrees @ 7:30 this morning and I have no complaints knowing it can't last.
And, no, this will not turn into the weather report.

MacDries says, "Guess Bernie will just have to retire on the 8-10 million $US he's made since he left office and try to stay clean."
In Case You Missed This...
Don't blame me. I'm just passing on the news. Even if the charade has continued for 4 More Years.
Holiday Greetings
Go HERE if you didn't get our Seasons Greetings.
Doh! Of The Day
Martha Stewart says food is bad in prison.
Stewart has dropped 10 lbs. since her prison sentence began in October. She has done some cooking in prison, including making her crab-apple jelly, but Stewart complains the prison store contains too few ingredients.

MacDries lays an open wager that the store doesn't stock an ounce of fois gras.
Penultimate Painting of Y2K4
Basic Fundamentals- 14" x 15 3/4"
I think I might have one more in me before Y2K5.
A Few Left Over Gifts
Going shopping. It's the American way.
One of the gifts I'm guessing someone will give me is: Bob Dylan's Chronicles
I'll announce it here on Xmas Day when I'm proved right.
In Keeping...
...with the frigid weather, I'm re-reading The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks by Robertson Davies; a hillarious account of an erudite Canadian curmudgeon's struggle to stay warm.
Davies writes great long novels, usually trilogies perfect for long winters nights.
Time for my early morning nap.

MacDries says, "Yeah, right. What's a missing limb or two when Democracy is at stake?"
The Buck Stops @ Bush
Evidence has been uncovered by the ACLU which indicates that The Shrub directly authorized the torture of POWs. Go HERE.
19 Degrees
Geez, what is this, Minnesota? I'm going back to bed until it gets above freezing.

MacDries says, "Talk about selling your cake and eating it too."

Tom Otterness: a far better sculptor did a Bear (part Pooh) which was down there as well for a time.

Don't know where it is today.
14 Meager Degrees This Morning
And this is one of those days when I get to walk Emma to school. As much as I love my little sparkler's company it is a cup I'd as soon pass on to some Nordic type who relishes sub-tropical weather.

MacDries recalls liking The Donna Reed Show as a boy but nothing like this. Kate and Emma have absorbed their total sex education via Ross, Rachel, Chandler and Monica. Joey is a joke, which they get, and Phoebe is not "really" real if you, like, nomesain.

To be sure the Cuervo is of the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink.
Turn on the electric mixer. Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl.
Add one teaspoon of sugar. Beat again.
At this point it's best to make sure the Cuervo is still OK. Try another cup, just in case.
Turn off the mixerer thingy. Break 2 leggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit. Pick the fruit off floor. Mix on the turner. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers just pry it loose with a drewscriver. Sample the Cuervo to check for tonsisticity.
Next, sift two cups of salt, or something. Check the Jose Cuervo. Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one table. Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink. Whatever you can find.
Greash the oven.
Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over. Don't forget to beat off the turner. Finally, throw the bowl through the window, finish the Cose Juervo and make sure to put the stove in the dishwasher.
CHERRY MISTMAS!
*Thanks to Wm. J. Reynolds

MacDries says, "RIP Laci. I would still prefer he spend his eternal days suffering the slings and arrows of his fellow inmates. Pretty boy that he is."
Genius
Who invented the trash compactor? I hope whoever the genius was profited well. Personally, I can smash my own trash and then throw it out, so someone else can dump it into a landfill and compact it even more with a huge bulldozer. I don't need a machine, fitted with a plastic condom, to smash it down for me so I can take that mini-bundle to the dump.
But we have one of those gadgets in our new country house. If I could figure out how to dump our trash compactor into our trash compactor, I surely would.
It reminds me of a Lilly Tomlin routine: "I went to the store and bought a wastebasket. They put it into a plastic bag and I took it home. When I got home I took it out of the bag and put the plastic bag into the wastebasket."
The followup would then be, she later took the contents of the wastebasket and put it into a plastic bag and put that bag into the garbage can or on the street.
And then a big truck came along and miraculously "disappeared it".
No mention of incinerators or toxic seepage into the water table from endless landfill.
We are so asleep it gives me a headache.
Making The Rounds
A tourist walked into a curio shop in San Francisco. Looking around at the exotica, he noticed a very realistic, life-sized bronze statue of a rat. It had no price tag but was so striking he decided he must have it. He took it to the owner and asked, "How much for this bronze rat?"
"Twelve dollars for the rat. One hundred dollars for the story,"said the owner.
The tourist gave the man twelve dollars and said, "I'll just take the rat, you can keep the story."
As he walked down the street carrying his bronze rat, he noticed that a few real rats had crawled out of the alleys and sewers and began following him down the street. This was disconcerting so he began walking faster.
Within a couple of blocks the herd of rats behind him had grown to hundreds, and they began squealing. He began to trot toward the bay, looking around to see that the rats now numbered in the millions, and were squealing and coming toward him fast. Scared, he ran to the edge of the water and threw the bronze rat as far out into the bay as he could. Amazingly, the millions of rats all jumped into the bay after it, and all were drowned.
The man walked back to the curio shop. "Ah ha," said the owner, "You have come back for the story?"
"No," said the man. "I came back to see if you have a bronze Republican."

MacDries says, "No doubt the Republicans have their own version."
Donkeys @ Disneyworld
The race for 2008 has already begun. Hillary (hilarious) and McCain (& able) are the front runners as The Dems meet in Orlando. Apparently they don't remember that Florida went Republican twice now and Eisner is a Bush supporter and in the process of being fired, slowly.
Who is the bigger loser?

MacDries says, "OK, guys and gals, any of you who harbor political aspirations, hire American citizens to Nanny your kids. This is not the first time this has come up. Ya got yer Zoe Baird and her follow-up under Clinton. Then you had Linda Chavez under The Shrub. It ain't legal and lawmakers and law enforcement dewds ought to know that. Got it? This will be on the exam!!! Everyone does it is not a legal defense."
You Ain't No Sponge Bob

MacDries says, "As with much information on the internet it is best to be a bit skeptical. If it sounds too wild, politcal or unbelievable, it probably is. In this case what was the point?"

MacDries adds, "But since Powell is not Italian, his gestures lack a certain specificity.
RAND Corp. Predicts
In 1954, Popular Mechanics Magazine showed this prediction of how a home computer would look in 2004. They said, however, that the necessary tecnology would not be economiocally feasible for the average family. Though with a teletype interface and Fortran language it will be easy to use.

MacDries says, "What about CoBol? And the steering wheel, what the hell is that? 1954. Guess those scientists didn't foresee Steve, Woz & Andy and then along came Bill and that Allen dewd.
Oh, Those Liberal Canadians
TORONTO Dec 9, 2004 ‹ Canada's highest court said Thursday the government can redefine marriage to include same-sex couples, but it added that religious officials cannot be forced to perform unions against their beliefs.
Watch those borders, eh.
Wasting Away In Margaritaville
Xmas shopping. Ho hum. Returning defective merchandize is so much fun.
It's all uphill.

I didn't tell Dave that our 18th was coming soon too and that my baby Emma will be 12 tomorrow. I got off at Fulton Street and so did Wizard. Guess we're neighbors.
Country Life
So, I'm at my car dealer and this overweight country gal is chatting with the owner about cars, etc. As she turns to leave she looks at me and says, "I cain't even sleep with that guy anymore, he's just twitchin' around all night and mumblin' 'I got a truck, I got a truck'."
The Cavanaugh Bros. & Son
I hired Mark Cavanaugh to move tons of art & storage stuff up to the country on the recomendation of my contractor, Paul VanAmburgh, a righteous dewd. He said they moved his whole house of stuff up to his new farm. Mark said he had a 17 foot truck with an over the cab addition and worked with his brother Sean. I said it looked to me like a 24 foot pile of junk and he assured me he could pack a truck better than anyone.
I'm usually pretty cool about most things but I was anxious all week waiting for moving day because we've been spending a pile of money in the last few weeks.
Mark & Sean & Mark's 15 year old son arrived on time; 3 prime Irish/Italian pit-bulls. I looked at his truck (a 15 footer, not 17) and Mark took a look at my pile of stuff. I was very skeptical but Mark was quite matter-of-fact about the job despite the fact that there were two flights of stairs on this end.
They began and I muttered to Ann that they'll never get it all and we were in for a second trip and a second bill for moving all this. She pooh-poohed me all along even though she had no idea what was involved.
Ann moved into the loft in 1987 with a couch, a TV, a butcher block table, four chairs and 13 boxes of stuff. Plus a trunk of her journals that she dragged cross country in 1978.
These were not mere boxes after boxes that could be neatly stacked in a volume. This was a couple rooms full of irregularly shaped paintings and sculptures with protrusions plus various furniture and oddments of solid and fragile garbage. Many boxes, I might add, which will never be opened again, at least in my lifetime. The lifetime accumulation of useless tschotchkes too precious to be put in a dumpster.
I should add that there are tubes of rolled canvasses painted in Rome in 1969 that still have the Belle Arte lead seals on them; never stretched and no doubt never-to-be-stretched and never to be seen again canvasses.
I couldn't bear to look at the truck filling up as the trio began trudging up and down. After an hour I had to peek; expecting to see the truck filled to bulging with narry a dent in the upstairs pile. Well, long story short, they got all essentials in. All that was left were a few smaller paintings and a few last minute garbage decisons. That white box was packed and the last rag-rug holding the door ajar was stuffed in the last nook or cranny.
Now I was muttering, over and over, "You guys are amazing. You guys are amazing. You guys are amazing. Awesome.
Need movers? Call me, I'll give you their number.

MacDries says, "I agree, plus, all sexual conquests should be ruled invalid if drugs or alcohol was inviolved, all children conceived under such circumstances ought to be aborted or at least declared bastards; all art, literature and music created or conceived of while intoxicated ought to be destroyed, all politcal decisions decided while anyone was inebriated should be reversed and anyone's vote which was cast while a bit tiddled ought to be declared null and void.
We need to clean up this drug-addled world."
RIP Mona Van Duyn
UNIVERSITY CITY, Missouri- Mona Van Duyn, the nation's first female poet laureate and a Pulitzer Prize winner, died Thursday morning at her home from bone cancer. She was 83.

MacDries says, "You could waste a few hours at bedtime reading The New Yorker or fall into peaceful sleep reading my fellow Iowan, old neighbor and colleague from Washington University."
Bird Watching
©Fred Engel.
Previous owner of our new house is a nature photographer named Fred Engel. Go HERE to see more of his photos.
So now I'm taking it up too. First sighting was a Blue Jay and then a Tufted Titmouse.
Fred claims they look a bit like mice. Don't know who took this photo; downloaded it via Google.
If Women Ruled The world
As if they didn't.
Just Like Rolling Stone

Like A Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan was recently named the greatest rock 'n' roll song of all time by Rolling Stone Magazine. And who would deny it?
Unless it was Rolling Stone by Muddy Waters. Or Sweet Little 16 by Chuck Berry. Or Tuttie Fruitie by Little Richard. Or Hound Dog by Big Mama Thornton. Or Great Balls Of Fire by Jerry Lee Lewis. Or...
Yeah, Right Barry
Barry Bonds testified to a grand jury that he used a clear substance and a cream given to him by a trainer who was indicted in a steroid-distribution ring, but said he didn't know they were steroids, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday.

MacDries recalls, "Janis Joplin was reputed to have said, 'Sure man, I'll try it, what is it?' It's the San Francisco way."

MacDries says, "Everyboby loves a fun gal. And the father of her child, the fun-meister-at-large, is now serving time too. Hope he gets guards as humane as himself"
Packing Stuff...
for storage up country. Good time for bargains in New and Used Art. One less piece of art to move is a good thing.

I once had an idea to franchise Used Art Lots around Universe; the idea was that Art was expensive when new (like cars) but less so as it ages. It never caught on. Here's an old one.

It's called Wampumpeag and is not upside down like Fountain and is not nearly this small @ 12 x 41 feet, silkscreened and painted in enamel on anodized aluminum. If you have a large wall, it's for sale.

Go HERE to see it a bit larger.
Urinal Named As Most Influencial Art
A poll of 500 arts figures ranked French surrealist Marcel Duchamp's 1917 piece "Fountain" an ordinary white, porcelain urinal more influential than Pablo Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon," Andy Warhol's screen prints of Marilyn Monroe and "Guernica," Picasso's searing depiction of the devastation of war.

MacDries wonders what "Fountain" would garner on the open market, compared to Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.

MacDries says, "Sounds like the old Rub your tummy, pat your head bizness. Some people can, some people can't."
Sexual Politics
Here's a little scene. I know the females of the species are reputed to be the generous and gentle gender but tell that to the white-tail deer at our house.
I put out a shovel of corn for the supplicant doe and soon a young buck with skinny little 6 inch antlers came prancing up to share a bit of largess. Not so quick, mother doe says and chases him off. Three other does of various sizes soon arrive and mother doe lets them all lap up the corn equally.
I'm thinking this may be a white-tail version of birth control or perhaps just blatant control.
Hillarious SPAM (sic)
Dear Comrade,
Good day to you. I have the pleasure to write, intimating you on a loudable business proposal I will want you to conclude on my behalf.
First, introducing myself, I am Mr. KWOK WING FU a citizen of Hong Kong based in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as a chattered accountant with a construction firm. During the political crises in that country (DRC), I was priviledged and opportuned to re-direct the sum of USD $45,000,000.00 to a security company in Holland through its affiliate company here in the Democratic Republic of Congo for safe keeping by a diplomatic courrier means, though the consignment was not disclosed as money but rather was disguised as jewelries contained in the boxes. This volume of money was handed over to me by the finance minister of that country in the Governement of President Joseph Lauren Kabila to secure for him. Meanwhile, the finance minister is no way to be found while I and some top foreign officials including some governement officials are being arrested and placed under house arrest with heavy security survellence mounted on us with only little facilities like Radio,Tv and computer internet left for us to use indoors and hence I am opportuned to reach you through the internet, soliciting for this noble assistance as our freedom is still being negotiated.
I however decided to use a foreigner like you for this assistance instead of a relation,friends or close associate for not being exposed.
I was notified by the security company not too long ago to come over and claim my consignment as it will soon ruin into dumorage,hence I am contacting and soliciting for your assistnace in this regard to claiming the consignment on my behalf and take proper custodian of it for possible investment in your country until my freedom is visible and I'll meet with you for proper take off of our business.
I have decided to let you have 40% of this business if you can claim and handle this money with the business very prudently on my behalf and use it to run a viable establishment that will yeild great turnover.
I shall send to you the certificate of deposit if ready and I will be oblige to forward to you my international passport to have my confidence and a letter of authority from me enabling you to claim the consignment from the security company on my behalf, but you must assure me that my legal official documents will be kept absolutely confidential with you.
If you accept to my proposal,I therefore implore you to forward to me your telephone and fax numbers including your state of Origin and your passport photograph and presently what business you do.
I will however want you to educate me more on how well we can invest this amount very prudently and on what kind of business that will be progressive in your country.
Thanking you for your noble cooperation while waiting to hear from you very urgently.
You may also contact me on my private email address kwkwingfu@operamail.com for more discussions towards the conclusion of this transaction.
Good bye
Kwok Wing Fu
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MacDries says, "Don't know about you but I'm damned tempted to fleece this sucker. Take the money and run. Whaddyou think?

Back at'cha Shrub. You little twerp!
Go HERE to see the whole tape.

For The Latest Dries Art GO HERE
For The Latest CyberToonz GO HERE
I've never actually watched an episode of The Simpsons (I'm more of a Pixar kind of guy) butt...
*Dislaimer

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