Unseen Frazetta

I've spent a large chunk of today writing a story about a trip I took with some friends to New York City in May of 2005, but seeing as how it's not quite finished yet, and I feel like I want to post something, I'll put this up instead. It has been just over a year since legendary fantasy artist Frank Frazetta died. I have several art books devoted to the man, as well as prints and posters of his adorning the walls...I've even got a jigsaw puzzle of one of his paintings.

A documentary film about him came out in 2004, and I wrote up a review of the beautiful 2 DVD set for Unseen Films last October. Since the most viewed post on my blog was one about Frazetta, and with the anniversary of his death, this seems like as good a time as any to put my piece for Unseen Films up here.

Frank Frazetta, who died this past May, was an incredibly talented artist who probably gained most of his notoriety from his paintings of Conan for paperback book covers in the 1960's and 1970's. He did many other fantasy bookcovers, paintings for movie posters, covers for horror magazines, comics, and even had an animated movie based on his art directed by Ralph Bakshi (Fire And Ice, which came out in 1983). But it is an interesting treat to see what artists have to say about Frazetta's art, and indeed hear what Frazetta has to say about the subject as well.

The documentary is a splicing of clips from interviews with contemporary fantasy and comic artists, along with a biography of Frazetta. Frazetta himself is one of the interview subjects, along with members of his family. Many of Frazetta's peers are interviewed as well, and there are also scenes of him wandering around Brooklyn reminiscing about the days of yore with some of them. We even follow him into his mother's home in Brooklyn.

A diverse range of people comprise the interview subjects, from actress Bo Derek, to musician Glenn Danzig, to the creator of The Rocketeer (and the man responsible for the late 20th Century revival of interest in 1950's pin-up model Bettie Page), Dave Stevens. Each relates their own personal way in which either the art, or the man, or both, affected their lives. It's an interesting testament to see how one man had such an effect on a broad range of talented human beings.

The Collector's Edition 2 DVD Set version that this review is based on comes with a large amount of bonus material on the second disc. There are many deleted scenes, outtakes, and additional stories to be told that were cut out of the actual feature to make it flow better. The first disc includes many extended interview segments as bonus material as well. But perhaps the most unique extra feature is at the beginning of the second disc, which shows Frazetta drawing a panther left-handed. After a series of strokes left him unable to draw right-handed, as he had naturally done all his life, he just taught himself how to do it with his other hand...a truly stunning achievement, especially when you consider he was in his 70's when he re-learned how to draw, and could still do it amazingly well.

Again, this review is based on the 2 disc version of Frazetta: Painting With Fire. There is a 2 disc Special Edition of the movie based on his art, Fire And Ice, which comes with the Painting With Fire main feature as the biggest bonus on the second disc...but then you don't get any of these great extras in this set. If the thought of a documentary of perhaps the greatest artist of the second half of the 20th Century seems interesting, you may as well go all out and get the version with all the goodies, and get Fire And Ice as a separate purchase.

House Cleaning & Baseball Memories

What with working way too much last year, and the Christmas season being nuts for the post office, and then all of my time off recently involving trips somewhere (either short or long), I really have made quite a cluttered mess of my house over the last few months. I have a lot of stuff, so in order to be able to find anything, I have to know exactly where it is. A place for everything, and everything in its place, so to speak. This hasn't been the case lately, and it has bothered me to some degree. I finally have a weekend where I'm not going anywhere; not going to any hockey games, not going to any concerts, nothing involving even leaving the house since getting home from work Saturday afternoon. Aaaaahhhhhh.....

What this means is, I can finally tackle some of the "putting things away" task that I've been sorely neglecting for far too long. For example, in going thru one of many piles of books and papers, I came across all the ticket stubs from my Pacific Northwest vacation that I took with my Mom in March of 2010 (yes, that's nearly a year ago already...I told you it's been far too long since I did this...). Which reminds me, I never wrote THAT trip up on this site...something else to put in the mental rolodex for a future write-up here...

In putting the ticket stubs away in a binder that I have for just such things, I started to look thru the entire binder, which contains ticket stubs from nearly every event I've ever gone to in my life. I'm not talking about movie stubs, but concerts, sporting events, museums, things like that. And all my brain needs is that small piece of paper to trigger a whole series of memories relating to that event. One of the ones that really caught my eye last night was 2 stubs to a New York Mets baseball game from September 18, 1981. It was the second Major League Baseball game I ever went to. I was a couple months past my 10th birthday, and baseball was the biggest thing in my life. That year involved a strike that lasted nearly 2 months, which must have been devastating for me.

The biggest memories those ticket stubs bring up are the weeks of anticipation I had, knowing I was going to an actual game. Even though I lived less than a 10 minute drive from Shea Stadium, going to games just wasn't something my family did. We used to go to my grandmother's house in College Point every Sunday, and on the drive to and from our house in Whitestone, you could see Shea Stadium exactly 2 miles off to the southwest as we drove in the car along 20th Avenue. It seemed like it was an eternity away. I used to wish that Shea Stadium was at the southeast corner of 14th Avenue & 127th Street, because every time we stopped at the light at that 5 corners intersection, it just seemed like the perfect place for the park to be. And then I would be able to experience the sights and smells of the game up close and personal at least once a week. I don't remember exactly when it was official that I would be going to that game in September with my Dad, but I do remember it seemed like FOREVER until that day came...time passes so much more slowly when you're a kid.

The other thing that really struck my mind instantly upon seeing those ticket stubs was the feeling I got when I first walked thru the tunnel out to the field level seating area, and the way I felt when I first was able to lay my eyes on a field of grass that was the greenest green I had ever seen. I'd been watching games on TV for several years at that point already, despite my young age. I was more of a Yankees fan than a Mets fan, but I still rooted for the Mets, and watched every telecast I could. This was back in the days when almost every game would have been on a local non-cable channel (WPIX Channel 11 for the Yankees, and WWOR Channel 9 for the Mets). Those announcers for both teams became like friends for me, seeing as I got to listen to them for endless hours during my childhood years. Phil Rizzuto, Bill White, and Frank Messer for the Yankees, and Ralph Kiner and Bob Murphy for the Mets were voices I heard probably more often than my parents when I was growing up.

However, watching games on TV did nothing to prepare me for actually walking into the seating area and seeing the field laid out before me. I'd been playing little league baseball for a while by this time, and hanging out in local parks playing games, so I was used to dirty and dusty fields, which had grass that seemed fine to me. But it paled in comparison to the vast field of lushness that greeted my eyes. I had been to a Yankee game 3 years earlier (my 7th birthday, matter of fact), but that had been a day game. This game had an 8:05PM start time, so seeing the glow of the artificial lights illuminate the pristine playing surface laid out before me was truly breathtaking. Again, picture this thru the eyes of a baseball-enamored 10 year old boy; I'd pretty much gone to heaven.

I don't really remember anything about the game itself, but that's not the point. The memories I do have from that night and the experience in general are ones that I will treasure forever, and no matter what picture I try to find online of Shea Stadium, nothing will compare with the images on the mental projector that are sparked by those 2 ticket stubs.

Thanks, Dad.


Blog Post Soundtrack; Led Zeppelin, Liz Phair, Black Flag, Traditional Japanese, Refused, AC/DC, The Misfits (live covering Black Flag), Fu Manchu, Pearl Jam (live), Paul Simon, ZZ Top, Nirvana, Monty Python, Deftones, Pantera, The Chenical Brothers, Skeleton Key, Helmet, Desert Sessions, Mr. Bungle, Queens Of The Stone Age (live), Primus (live), Eric Burdon & War

OK, Where Was I... (NYC Trip Part III)

When last we were discussing the not-so-recent-anymore trip I took back to New York City (I was born and grew up there; lived in Queens, just east of Manhattan and Brooklyn, and just south of Da Bronx, until I was 25), I had covered my day spent at Old Westbury Gardens on Long Island, just 15 minutes or so southeast of my parents home. As much as I enjoyed the peaceful day of tranquility, it was time to get back into the running around portion of the vacation (which was about 90% of it...nuts, but I loved every minute...). And I certainly hit the ground running on this day, and didn't stop for quite some time.

This was Thursday, October 7, 2010, for those interested in keeping track of times
and dates and things like that (which would be me...). Mom and I were heading into Manhattan this day, with the ultimate destination (a phrase that would drive George Carlin nuts) being the American Museum Of Natural History. Located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, it's front door overlooks Central Park at about 79th Street. This is the institution that was featured in the film Night At The Museum with Ben Stiller and Robin Williams, which actually was pretty decent (and I don't often say that about recent major Hollywood productions). However, that was not my reason for going there this time around.


I have very fond memories of going to that museum many times as a youngster, either on day trips to Manhattan with my Mom, or on class trips for school. Certain things are vividly imbedded in the mental rolodex, such as the giant blue whale on the lower level, the dinosaurs throughout the museum, and of course the immense and amazingly beautiful building itself. But as I say, this was the ultimate destination...the getting there was going to be half the fun...

My Mom, now in her mid 60's (not sure how this is possible, for, as we all know, no woman on the planet is over the age of 29), is not one for doing trips to Manhattan on her own. She'll go in occasionally as part of a bus trip with a local ladies' association, or with a friend from her volunteer work, but that happens maybe 3 or 4 times a year, and they have specific destinations to get to, and a bit of a rigid time schedule, which doesn't allow for much in the way of meandering and sightseeing. Since I hadn't been back to New York in about 2 and a half years at this point (and I'm really not sure when I'll be making it there again), I wanted to wander and absorb the fun of just being in Manhattan. And since I'm familiar with many more areas of it then Mom, she was looking forward to being toured thru sections of it unfamiliar to her.

Since she lives in Yentaville (my "loving" way of referring to Long Island), we had to take the Long Island RailRoad (LIRR) in. It's a pleasant roughly 45 minute train ride from my folks' house, taking you thru some of the more interesting areas of Long Island and Queens (do you know anyone who lives RIGHT NEXT TO the train tracks and has a REALLY NICE house?). The LIRR, if you're not on your way to the daily grind of work, is almost like getting a little tour of the suburbs of NYC. It's a very vital part of the commuting line of NYC, as many work-a-day people spend a couple hours each day getting to and from their chosen profession via it. When you're doing the same trip every day, it just becomes a place to read, have breakfast, sleep, catch up on e-mail or whatever, but when you're just visiting, it's a nice train ride.

The LIRR lets you out at Penn Station, located underneath Madison Square Garden, and just a couple blocks west of the Empire State Building. And, as a special treat for me, seeing as how I've been a mailman for over 15 years now, directly across 8th
Avenue from the Garden (the side we chose to emerge from) is THE main branch of the United States Postal Service. On vacation, and I STILL can't get away from it...Kidding aside, it is a magnificent building to behold, even amongst the many that Manhattan has to offer. The building occupies an entire city block...the real estate alone is worth untold millions of dollars, and the building that sits upon it, regardless of what it's for, is a priceless gem as well. The mammoth pillars that line the front are almost awe inspiring. 20 of them, each about 60 feet high and roughly 7 or 8 feet wide. And up above, running the entire length of the building, is the motto of the USPS; "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

As a roundabout way of getting to the museum (remember, the front door is about 79th Street, and we emerged from the LIRR at 34th...20 NYC blocks is 1 mile, and we were gonna walk the whole thing...and not in a straight line, either), we were going to head over to the West Side, uncharted territory for the female parental unit. We turned north upon hitting the southern edge of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, which would play a major role in the upcoming weekend portion of my
vacation. Continuing north up 11th Avenue, we turned left on 41st Street, and stumbled upon one of the cooler playgrounds I've ever seen in my life. The slide you see pictured here is a functional piece of artwork called Playground by an artist named Tom Otterness. It made me want to be a kid again, as it was vastly superior to the slides I had in growing up in my neighborhood in Queens. I don't know if those kids will someday realize just how lucky they are, or how good they have it...I hope so.


Wandering thru the playground, we then made it over to the West Side Highway (which officially now has the designation of the Joe DiMaggio Highway, but it'll always be the West Side Highway to me and millions of other New Yorkers), hitting it just south of the Intrepid Sea, Air And Space Museum. Another museum that I've been to several times (again, school trips, and most recently in 2005 when I played tour guide for a now retired co-worker and his wife...and seeing as how he is an actual Vietnam Veteran, the Intrepid visit was an emotional experience for him), it's very unique as the museum is the actual aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, used during World War II. While we weren't going there this day, just seeing it from the street is still something special.


We now turned back right at 51st Street, and made our way over to 9th Avenue, directly in the heart of Hell's Kitchen. In the 1970's and early 1980's, you wouldn't be caught dead in Hell's Kitchen...well, actually, if you WERE caught there, odds are you WOULD be dead. But it underwent a major revival, and is now a very trendy, upscale place to live. It also has lots of funky looking buildings in it, and is almost the embodiment of what Manhattan dwelling looks like. We just slowly but steadily made our way uptown, enjoying Manhattan on an absolutely beautiful sunlit day. Nothing else like it.


Eventually we decided to take a break, grabbed a snack and a drink, and sat in Dante Park, right across from Lincoln Center. While Mom sat and watched the world go by, I went across the street and took a few pictures of the fountain in front of the Metropolitan Opera House, always a good photo subject. It was now 10AM, and we'd emerged from the depths of Penn Station at about 8:30. We'd already walked (in a bit of a zig-zag fashion) probably 2 miles in NYC, plus a mile early in the AM to get to the LIRR station from the folks' house. We knew we had much museum walking to do, and still another slightly more than half-a-mile to go to get there, so we figured we'd best get a move on.


Traversing up Central Park West was the quickest, and most interesting, way to complete the rest of the journey to the museum. Surrounded by the beautiful park on the right and stunning architecture on the left, plus the hustle and bustle of the sidewalks and Central Park West (8th Avenue), you can't get any more New York than this. I was grinning ear to ear doing nothing but walking, talking with my Mom, and taking pictures.


One of the beautiful buildings we passed on the way was The Dakota, the apartment complex that John Lennon lived in when he was murdered. Seeing as it was October 7, 2010, what would have been his 70th birthday was only 2 days away, so there were even more people than there normally would be congreating around the building, as well as at Strawberry Fields in the park right across the street. I've never been the biggest Lennon fan in the world, but I can appreciate his talent, and certainly the impact that he had on countless millions of people around the world.

Look how long this entry is, and we're only just getting to the museum now. To be continued...



Blog Post Soundtrack; Pearl Jam (live), Queens Of The Stone Age (live), Prong, The Raconteurs, The Crystal Method, The Who, James Brown, Anthrax, Pantera, Mike Patton, Orange Goblin, Suicidal Tendencies, Portishead, Muddy Waters, Johann Strauss, Björk, Black Sabbath, John Lee Hooker, Faith No More (covering The Dead Kennedys), Stevie Ray Vaughan, Rollins Band, Black Flag, Fu Manchu, New York Dolls (kind of appropriate, huh?), Kyuss, Foo Fighters, Eddie Izzard, Bill Cosby, Helmet, John Frusciante, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica (live with Cliff), Audioslave, White Zombie, Vangelis, George Carlin

Air Conditioning

I live in the desert. The American Southwest, to be more precise. The desert is hot. No great revelation there. But it isn't until you live in it that you can really appreciate just how hot that is. I've been out here for over 10 years now, and while I still enjoy it, that first week when summer REALLY starts to hit is always a bit of a shock. Sort of like being in a nice REM sleep when that alarm comes crashing in with it's loud annoying noise to jar you out of the state of comfort you're in, and the realization sets in that, yes, THIS is what it's really like.

This has been the first week of the year when I've actually had to use the air conditioning in my house. Air conditioning in the desert is like water for fish. It is completely necessary for survival. To be able to get to June without having to really turn the thing on is amazing out here. For instance, I have very vivid memories of May 1, 2007. We hit a high of over 100 degrees that day for the first time all year...and we didn't have a day with a high of UNDER 100 degrees until sometime in October, quite possibly November. I only WISH I was exaggerating. So the fact that this is now the 3rd consecutive year that we've been able to get this far with really nice weather is wonderful, amazing, fantastic, and all sorts of other positive adjectives. I really do try to enjoy and appreciate the wonderful weather as often as I can, especially seeing as I spend much of my day outdoors, being a mailman and all.

You know that old joke, "Oh, but it's a DRY heat"? Well, there actually is something to that. I lived in New York for nearly 30 years, and I'd much rather take the desert heat. New York summers could be brutal. An average July day would see the temperature go to the upper 80, maybe low 90's, but combine that with humidity of nearly the same numbers, and you would just turn to a puddle without doing anything. There was almost no point in showering, as all you had to do was open the door, and go stand outside. Without doing anything to physically exert yourself, you would start dripping in sweat in less than a New York minute.

In contrast, the American Southwest, while getting hot, is incredibly dry. An average day in the winter sees the humidity at 10% or less, which can actually cause some problems in the other direction (lotsa skin lotion around the house...). In the summer, those numbers rise, but even a really bad day sees the humidity under 50%. There are a few weeks in late July and early August where it gets a little higher, and combined with an average high temperature over 110 degrees, yeah, it gets a little rough. I find myself taking some headache medicine at least once a week during that period.

The only thing the heat does to me is make me sleepy. If I sit still for too long, even on a normal day, I start to doze. Once you start factoring in excessive temperatures, sitting still for "too long" becomes something resembling that New York minute again. I've had dreams at traffic lights. Some of the lights are kinda long out here (they stay red for up to 2 full minutes at a time), so I've gotten to the point where I just put my vehicle in park at them now. And more than once I've snapped to, with the same vehicles around me, and I realize I've just had a dream, meaning for some brief period, I was unconscious.

What sparked this whole piece was while sitting and watching "Like, Totally" by Dylan Moran (for a future write-up on Unseen Films), I was enjoying the air conditioning unit cycling on and off, blowing nice cool air thru the house. And it sparked very vivid memories of growing up in Whitestone, New York. We weren't rich by any stretch, and we were frugal. A little went a long way. We didn't have central air, or a roof unit, or anything like that. We had one little window unit air conditioner for the whole house, and we rarely used it. Frankly, I'm not sure how we survived some of those New York summertimes without using it more.

Anyway, it was a real treat on the days when it got to be too unbearable that it was decided that we would turn the little unit on. In an effort to make it work more efficiently, we would close the doors to the bedrooms and the bathroom, so that only the living room and dining room areas would receive the joys of cool air. It seemed like heaven. I didn't even have to do anything. I would just lie on the floor in the living room and enjoy the feeling of...comfort. I used to love New York summers. I'd play outside for hours, probably losing many pounds a day in body weight strictly in fluid that I'd sweat out. But on those rare air conditioning days, I would revel in the strange feeling of...cool.

And that memory just hit me like a ton of bricks a while ago, so much so that all of this just got written in under 45 minutes. And all the while I've been enjoying the air conditioning.


Blog Post Soundtrack; Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rollins Band, MC5, Corrosion Of Conformity, Fu Manchu, Clutch, Prong, Fatso Jetson, The Blues Brothers, The White Stripes, The 5, 6, 7, 8's (covering The Ikettes), Joy Division, White Zombie

Vlad's Paintings

I suppose this MAY have something to do with the impending approach of Father's Day, but I've never been much of a believer in holidays. If you need a holiday to remind you to tell somebody how much you care about them, or to thank them for the things they've done for you, does that make it okay to take them for granted the other 364 days of the year? Not to mention the whole corporate greed aspect of holidays. Corporations prey upon the guilt and insecurities built into the average human, making them feel like they are worthless scum unless they buy cards, flowers, candy, etc., on made up "holidays" devoted to Father's, Mother's, Valentine's, and other such nonsense. This is starting to sound like I've gotten on a soapbox, but isn't that basically what a blog is, an electronic soapbox? Anyway, back to the point...

In my recent post about Frank Frazetta & My Father, I mentioned my father's painting. He did many oil paintings over the years, a number of which hang on the walls of their home in Long Island, New York, and one of which hangs on the wall in my home in Henderson, Nevada. But I thought I'd take the opportunity to show everybody a couple more that he did, as I realized I've got pictures of many of them on my computer. I'd forgotten he had me take pictures of them the last time I visited (over 2 years ago already), so that he could e-mail images to his step-sister who lives somewhere in Southern California.

Many of the paintings that he does are his own versions of classic paintings by many of the masters (I know there's a Picasso, a Hopper, maybe even a Monet). But he also used to randomly see a photo in a magazine here or there that just struck him as something he wanted to paint. The elephant painting shown here I believe came from a photo from a National Geographic magazine. This was done in 1988, and I remember this hanging on the walls of our house in Whitestone, NY for many years. There was sort of a running joke about the painting that, once you knew it, you were completely incapable of seeing the painting the same way ever again. Nothing major, but it does change your perspective about it enough that you really can't see it any other way anymore.

As I said before, he would also do his own renditions of classic paintings. This was his rendition of Edward Hopper's Early Sunday Morning, and I'm turning over the next part of the story to my Mom here, as I can't really improve on what she said in an e-mail; "Dad painted “Early Sunday Morning” at my request. It is hanging in the dining room where I can see it when we eat there. He did a terrific job on it. He modified it a bit but he captured the essence of the painting and my reason for liking it. Dad’s painting shows two thirds of the width of Hopper’s painting encompassing two plus stores including the barber pole. The store on the left in Dad’s painting would have represented the butcher store my grandfather owned, but was already closed when I was a kid (because my grandfather had retired by then). We played in the empty store as kids. The walk-in meat locker was still there, complete with a window to the inside of the store and a counter below the window, plus a large handled pull-down lock on both sides of the entry door. The store itself still had the counter and old cash register. None of this is visible in the painting but those are the memories it brings back to me. Next door even in real life was a barber shop – it may still be today but I am not sure. It had the barber pole also. One summer on Sunday mornings I walked from home to meet my aunt to go to church with her. She lived upstairs in the front apartment above the closed butcher store. Dad painted his version in 2006. Ode to nostalgia!"


Blog Post Soundtrack; Leadbelly, Joy Division, Kyuss (covering Black Sabbath), Monster Magnet, Prong, Queens Of The Stone Age, Unida, Bjork, Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple, The Police, Minutemen

Frank Frazetta & My Father

One of the greatest artists of this era passed away on May 10. Frank Frazetta was responsible for so many fantastic pieces of fantasy art, there have already been 3 major art books collecting just his painting in that genre, as well as many other books, catalogs, prints, posters, etc, reproducing his work in all areas. I've been a fan of his work probably since before I even realized it. When I was a young teenager, I used to enjoy reading Conan novels, and many of his amazing paintings have graced the cover of those books. His Conan is the definitive version, filled with power, emotion, action, and almost always at least one voluptuous babe.

Frazetta is often put in the same category as Boris Vallejo, but I have always been of the opinion that Frazetta is vastly superior. Vallejo's work always revolves around a perfectly posed person, in an obvious fake position (that no one in whatever situation the painting involves would find themselves in) to better flex the perfectly smooth oiled muscles. No one in Vallejo's paintings ever has anything wrong with them, and that's precisely what's wrong with the paintings. The people have no character, no history...no interest. They were obviously just muscle bound models posing for a painting. Kinda boring.

Frazetta’s subjects, on the other hand, all have interesting characteristics about them. For one thing, his paintings are completely out of his head. No models posing, no photographic reference, nothing of the sort. No woman in any of his paintings would ever be caught on the cover of a modern fashion magazine, because they've all got some meat on them, dammit! They've all got curves that are amazing, and are giving stunning, sultry looks, and they are all beautiful. The creatures that are often the protagonists in his paintings are the stuff of nightmares, which you obviously couldn’t have photographic reference for. And as for the men, whether it be Conan or Tarzan or some random adventure hero, they have all obviously lived a life before the moment of that painting. They've got scars, they've got hair flying all over the place, they’ve got gritted teeth, they've got emotion...they've got life!

Frazetta’s paintings, while not photo-realistic, are as real as real life for one big reason; they’re not perfect. They aren’t overly polished. They have a rough, dirty quality to them that makes them look as if, however fantastic the situation being depicted may be, that you could step into the world in that painting. It’s easier to accept something that isn’t perfect, because, obviously, neither is the world we live in, nor ourselves.

Frazetta, the man, also has another meaning for me on a completely personal level. There is a definite resemblance to the younger Frazetta (from the 1950’s; the picture below is a 25 year old Frazetta in 1953), to my father from roughly the same time. Frazetta, born in 1928, was 6 years older than my father, who is still alive. I have an image burned in my mind of a photo of my father from probably the early 1960’s, when he would have been in his late 20’s, and I see a great similarity to Frazetta of about the same age and era. They both had the James Dean quality of good looks going for them. Young, trim, athletic. My mom has the picture in question somewhere in their home in New York. I’ll have to make a point of finding it when I go back for my next visit.

Also, my father has been an artist, strictly as a hobby, for pretty much all his life, and his specialty, much like Frazetta, was oil painting. He’s worked in all mediums, but his oil paintings were what he concentrated most on, and produced his best work in. My favorite painting of his, a tiger that he saw in a magazine ad somewhere, is the one painting I asked to take with me when I moved out here to Las Vegas over 10 years ago. It’s been hanging proudly on the wall over the fireplace since I first moved into my house back in July 2001. There are also several Frazetta prints on the walls around the house, and I think it’s rather special that both Frazetta and my father share some of the same space.



Thanks to frankfrazetta.org for the images, except the tiger painting, which I took a picture of with my iPhone...


Blog Post Soundtrack; ZZ Top, Fugazi, Primus, Queens Of The Stone Age, No Doubt, Desert Sessions, Brant Bjork, Van Halen, Bjork, Metallica, Infectious Grooves, Pearl Jam, John Connelly Theory, Iron Maiden, Zeke, The Misfits, Jimi Hendrix