OOooooohhhh, Charlene!

Personal note: We just celebrated our dear friend, Tony Perrett's memorial. He was far too young, but he lived large and celebrated each moment. Today, I found his last email to me from 2007. Thank God I'm a pack rat, even with email. I'm also grateful we had spoken since then but this is our Tony (on the left) at his all time best.....the way he should be remembered. At the very least, he deserves an eternal spotlight on a world-wide blog. His partner Ryo is on the right; neighbors in the center. There is to be another memorial in New York March 19, 2010, one day after his 51st birthday. I'm sure he'll be there.

Anthony Craig "Tony" Perrett
March 18, 1959 - December 22, 2009

07-17-2007

Helllooooo Charlene-

Hope this finds you well and happy!!! I hear Dallas is now Seattle! Are you considering living on an ark? I see your home address is new? When did you move?

Not much to report here…I LOVE New York…and I still LOVE my job! I see lots of theatre-which you know makes me happy! I have new found passion too and that’s Opera…I guess it comes with age! (as you might have guessed, I’m pushing 50)…Can you believe 70% of the music on my Ipod is opera? Of course the rest is show tunes…some things never change!

We bought a condo last year and finally moved in this past April in Brooklyn…we love it! The view is spectacular and it’s ours! Much better than throwing that money away on outrageous New York rent!

This Thursday Ryo and I celebrate our 4 year Anniversary; can you believe he’s put up with my shit for that long? He’s a Saint!!!

Are you and Alvaro still together?

Seen any of our friends? Anyone we know?

We should get together some time when I am in Big D….

Kisses to ya!

Tony

PS. The photo is Ryo and I with our crazy new neighbors at my last work party! Ryo’s the one in the hat! I’m the old one!

My Brain: A Visual

Recent art piece...I say "recent" as in the last couple years. Try navigating in here. (points to head) UPDATE: It's now 2024. Things have calmed down. Life is simpler....somewhat!

Googie Art: Bowl-A-Rama Coffee Shop

Here's a link but don't stop there. Googie lovers, that is, people who love Mid-20th Century architecture and design, will love to take a walk down Retro Avenue and see what you've been missing. If you like it, you'll be there for hours, perhaps even days. Grab a snack now.

http://www.lileks.com/

The style of the 1950s and 60s has a look all its own. The cool thing is these roadside images were meant to be seen from your car. They had to be spectacles and you had to be overwhelmed with desire to stop. Before there were an insane numbers of chain restaurants, chain hotels, chain EVERYTHING, there were unique one-of-a-kind little eateries, which are now so rare.

By the late 60s, these places seem to disappear, although there still exist a few, across the USA, but especially in Southern California...but you have to be looking for that certain neon sign or crazy-angled rooftop.

Some time ago, I decided to make an attempt to preserve this style and create some googie art signs which I hope will be a respectful tribute and appreciation of our retro future past. I've gone crazy with my new love, named Googie.

Synesthesia Part 2

There are very distinct smells that go along with other childhood memories. Three favorite brand name smells are Crayola™ Crayons, grape Koolaid/ grape flavored candy, Hershey's chocolate.

A couple non-brand name  smells are Kindergarten class construction paper and tempera paint. At Six Flags, where I worked as a teenager, the smell of creosol  near the train tracks was somehow always a happy smell...at least on a cool day.

Last year I blogged about favorite smells and flavors at Christmas time. I remember we would stick our heads in our Christmas stockings and take a big whiff of all the mixed up smells. The olfactory combination contained oranges, peppermints, Hershey kisses (yeah...I LOVE chocolate), walnuts, Klondike bars, Junior Mints, small wrapped packages (cellophane tape?) and finally, the smell of the bright red flannel stocking itself.

Grapheme Synesthesia

For the longest time I can remember I have associated single digit numbers with colors. I don't know why this happened, but the colors for the numbers 0 through 9 have never changed since my childhood.

Imagine my surprise when a friend told me there was a name for it. Synesthesia, he said. Wow. There's a word for everything, even things that seem to be nonsense-nobody-else-experiences these things but me stuff.

So for the world to see...or at least a handful of followers, I've attached the image that I created following my personal synesthetic number-color arrangement.

0= White
1= Black
2= Red
3= Orange
4= Green
5= Yellow
6= Red -or- sometimes Maroon
7= Cobalt Blue -to- Violet
8= Caramel Brown (don't ask me why, but it is a certain hue of brown I see)
9= Maroon (the same as 6 which makes sense to me)

I also included certain colors which appear in my mind to alternate from time to time.
The most solid or consistent associations are 0, 1, 3, 4, 5, 8
My remaining wishy-washy color numbers are  6, 7, 9

Who else does this? Jiggins?

Wiki quote: definition for this type of synesthesia follows. See full link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

Grapheme → color synesthesia

Main article: Grapheme-color synesthesia

In one of the most common forms of synesthesia, grapheme → color synesthesia, individual letters of the alphabet and numbers (collectively referred to as graphemes), are "shaded" or "tinged" with a color. While different individuals usually do not report the same colors for all letters and numbers, studies with large numbers of synesthetes find some commonalities across letters (e.g., A is likely to be red).^[19][21]
As a child, Pat Duffy told her Dad, "I realized that to make an R all I had to do was first write a P and draw a line down from its loop. And I was so surprised that I could turn a yellow letter into an orange letter just by adding a line." Another grapheme synesthete says, "When I read, about five words around the exact one I'm reading are in color. It's also the only way I can spell. In elementary school I remember knowing how to spell the word 'priority' [with an "i" rather than an "e"] because ... an 'e' was out of place in that word because e's were yellow and didn't fit."^[26]
"

Jonny Quest Exotica

I just heard that Zac Efron will be playing the classic Hanna-Barbera character Jonny Quest. The first thing that comes to mind is how "pretty" young Mr. Efron is and how Jonny Quest the boy, let alone the concept, is anything but pretty.

In the early 1960s, Hanna-Barbera ventured into prime-time TV. The big deal was the adult following for shows like the Flintstones, The Jetsons and perhaps even Top Cat...PLUS they matched their adult audience by equally adult sponsors, such as cigarette companies who had Fred and Barney smoking with the likes of Lucy Ricardo ....business as usual.

These were obviously different times, but no way will we ever see Spongebob and Patrick smoking a Camel. I digress. Jonny Quest was designed for family viewing, but with a distinctly different approach than your average bear cartoon. Let me say this was a couple years before Gene Roddenberry followed suit incorporating likely sci-fi elements into his new Star Trek series. But Jonny Quest was an "all boy" adventure. No girls allowed.

Traveling the danger-filled globe with his father Benton Quest, his body guard and tutor, Roger "Race" Bannon, best friend Hadji and comic-relief canine, Bandit, we get a front row seat to Jonny's life as the home-schooled, privaledged youth. His story is clearly one which fit into the era in which it was produced. An unlikely boy's story for today. Which brings me full circle....Jonny Quest isn't pretty.

No matter. We're about to get an update and I wanted to give my 2 pennies on the subject.

First, if there is a director I would anme as "best-suited" for the job, my choice would be, Brad Bird (Iron Giant, The Incredibles). Hello? Talk about saving our jet-packed, retro futures, Bird has successfully recreated an updated "feel" for the past while keeping our 21st Century  gadgetry in the picture. It seems a natural choice too since we would not have had the Incredibles, without Jonny Quest. Am I the only 1960s geek who cares about this? Ummm...I doubt it. Zac Efron may work for an older Jonny, who knows. But give us our adventure with someone who respects the.....I hate this word......"property."

Hollywood is brutal. Taking classic concepts and recreating, that is, squeezing the life out of them is old hat. Everything is always about the next quick buck. Hollywood can give us a Zac Efron Jonny Quest. Quest fans may or may not get their jet packs, energy beasts and one-eyed spider spies snd it may not be too late to consider Brad Bird....but for God's sake, give us a decent story filled with as many Quest-isms as you can!

I guess that was more like 3 cents.

Hi Diddle Riddler

Just finished some art that has been floating around in my head for some time. Frank Gorshin is the Riddler, but in life he did so much more. Riddler was tough on his career but it was one of those things that probably also made it. This is my tribute to my favorite villain. But I have to admit, the big four all run hand-in-hand. Cesar Romero's Joker, Julie Newmar's AND Eartha Kitts Catwoman and nobody could top Burgess "Buzz" Meredith's Penguin.

All were top of their game.