A Poem I Wrote Tonight

I am a man, 51 years old. 

I was a babe, a babe born with a penis and testicles, my little twig and berries. I am a son and a brother.

As a boy I did not always enjoy this fact that I was a boy; girls were pretty, not so gross and mean. I wasn't like other little boys who punched me, buried me in sand, sat on me. My twin saved me and we escaped to our own world for a time.

Boys and men can be true brutes, their clever hands and simple minds responsible for much evil and suffering.

As a boy I was spanked by my father, my teachers, my coaches, my school principals. The coaches left marks. It wasn't so bad, hurt pride and ego more than anything.

Men kill, rape, and murder innocents more frequently than women do, and more easily. Some men can be base and brute. I'll do my best not to be one.

But don't tell me to understand you, think like you, or be like you. I am not you. You be you.

Don't tell me to take a pronoun of my choice. What's my pronoun? You know already. 

I am a man. 

I am a loving husband, and a loving father. I was a boy. Maybe I will become an old man, shriveled, bent and dried up. I have a penis, piddle pipe, wiener, john thomas, johnson, dick, trouser snake, cock. If I become very old I guess it will just be a forgotten, useless little thing. I have only entered into physical union with my wife. Despite our many days an nights of naked passion I restrained before marriage, was as gentle as she asked after. 

I am not a brute. I have raised my voice, yes, and screamed. I have thrown household objects at walls. I did spank my older daughter. It was not hard, left no visible marks. Three times. The last was many years ago because each time it accomplished nothing but hurt. I never thought to spank my younger daughter. I evolved. 

I am a man. 

I cannot fathom the actions of some men. I don't call women foul names, make a tally of women I've laid, brag about making women squirt. I don't stay out late to come home drunk. I don't know why some men horribly beat the women or children they say they love. I don't stick my finger up my ass then in someone's mouth and laugh.  I don't throw turtles in the air to watch them explode as they hit pavement. I don't shoot animals with glee or because I need a trophy head to prove I'm man enough. 

I was a boy. I was bullied by other boys. As a boy I learned to fight back. As a teenage boy I bullied. Finally I chased another teenage boy with a gang of teenage boys, cornered that boy on a rooftop. The gang yelled kick his ass, break his nose, and the man in the house came out and shouted firmly to leave the boy alone, go home, we were shameful. 

My father and my mother both taught me to be kind and work hard. My father taught me to save and be thrifty, my mother to give and be generous. They showed me love as my parents and showed me how a man and woman love and respect one another as a husband and a wife.

I am a man. 

I love quiet walks, sunsets, clouds, and the stillness of the dawn. I feel good with hard work and hard runs. I commune with the moon and talk to animals. I hate spiders and place them respectfully outside. The sound of pencil and pen drawing on paper makes me smile. My hands are not clever. Still, I can fix a few things. I try to clean my fingernails and scrub my hands before eating, tickling my kids, caressing my wife. Sometimes I shave. 

Do not tell me I am the problem, the privileged, the colonizer. You don't know me. 

Do not call me a chauvinist, an oppressor. Do not tell me I am a brute. That was not my last fight but it was the last time I bullied. 

My male anatomy is a scientific truth, and also millennia of human tradition and belief                    Belief in the importance of boys learning to become men, men learning to become fathers, providers, and protectors, men growing old and with time maybe finding wisdom to share with men, boys, families, communities.

I try to teach my daughters about boys and men, and also how to become women, as best as I can.

 I am a man.  

Limited Book Review and Rant - Can We All Be Feminists?

Can we All be Feminists? is a collection of 17 essays on the necessity of  the feminist movement to be intersectional and inclusive, to support women who are marginalized due to their race, alter-ability, and sexual orientation. The editor is June Eric-Udorie. I have not read the entirebook, only the editor's 27-page introduction, which is the focus of my response. 

Painting from Baltimore Air B&B

Why this book? First, I am staying in an AirB&B row house in Baltimore about fifteen minute's walk from my treatment at Johns Hopkins Medical Center. The home owner, who does not stay here, is clearly interested in feminism. The living room is decorated by her lovely paintings (one above and two below) which celebrate women and holds a collection of books on feminism. I'm open to reading new things. Second, I am married; my wife and I have two daughters. I am concerned that they have an equal place in society, that their voices are heard by authorities and that authorities are well represented by female voices. Finally, the title was intriguing. Was it asking if I, as a middle class white male, can be a feminist?  Quick answer: no. The book asks if white, middle and upper class trans-exclusionary, privileged feminism can welcome marginalized groups. The editor, Eric-Udorie, a bisexual, black woman from Nigeria with visual impairment who immigrated to the UK, hopes the answer is yes.  

Painting from Baltimore Air B&B

It's important to know my biases as I review Eric-Udorie's intro to the book. I'm not a big supporter of contemporary feminism, nor am I a supporter of LGBTQIA+ inclusion movements. I do not consider myself anti-trans or anti queer, or anti any of that growing alphabet soup. However, I firmly believe their minority causes should not/not flip the the social fabric of the majority on its head, especially when there is a wealth of evidence that the majority society in the USA has been ever more tolerant and inclusive of minorities and supportive of equal rights for women. Are there still major hurdles to be crossed and and glaring examples of backward progress for women? Yes. The average lifespan for women is decreasing. The lack of abortion rights of any kind in some U.S. states is extreme. No abortions for mothers' whose lives are endangered by the pregnancy? No abortions in cases of rape and incest? That is extreme. However, the overall arc has been one of improvement for women, in some important cases outgaining men. Women are now more likely to have high school diplomas, college degrees, and gainful employment than men are.

A few final items for note on my biases. I grew up in a largely progressive household and my mom considered herself a feminist. I was a bit of a radical by high school, existing well outside societal norms for American teens. I had long hair, listened to folk and indigenous music, refused to touch tabaco or alcohol, planned to remain celibate for life and wanted nothing to do with affection from my peers - no hugs or kisses, groping or fondling, no sex. I was agnostic, but only because I avoided conflict and could not imagine the consequences of nothing after death. I liked the idea of being a monk but it was not possible because I was agnostic, so living in a cave in nature seemed like a decent alternative. I was devastated when I learned that Henry David Thoreau only lived on Walden Pond for two years and that Walden Pond was in the town of Concord. There were no models for me to follow.  As I've grown older I have certainly become more conservative in my social norms and my politics. I love a good cuddle from my wife! 

Back to Eric-Udorie's introduction to Can We All Be Feminists? I was prepared to dismiss it the moment I saw her use LGBTQIA+. That the ever growing list of letters has already reached the point of absurdity in length is an essential proof of a flawed concept. That said, Eric-Udorie makes fair statements about the brutality and oppression women and the alphabet they face in the Nigerian context, which transfers to some communities in the United States. She makes fair statements that women of color, the alter-abled (or disabled), immigrants, and trans people are at a disadvantage in the UK and indeed in the USA. She writes powerfully about marginalized people's struggle for greater rights and inclusion. Intersectionality is a buzz word that drives me nuts, but Eric-Udorie does it justice when she writes; 

       Intersectionality matters. It has always mattered. Long before the word exited, it was the lived             experience for millions. And yet, current mainstream feminist politics still take a one size-fits all             approach...feminism aims to end sexist oppression for all. 

Painting from Baltimore Air B&B

My rant against the intro is as follows: Eric-Udorie speaks of women having blind spots, especially white, middle and upper income, straight, feminist women. These feminists do not appreciate or consider the struggles of the marginalized. My answer. They don't. They are not you and you realistically cannot expect them to be you.  If every progressive, feminist or otherwise, takes the stance of "my truth", you must appreciate me or at least think like me, then the movement turns on itself like a snake in an ever-tightening coil eating its tail. The reality is that the progressive movement from 2016 onwards has been doing just that: turning on each other for lack of purity, canceling and denouncing each other for this, that or another perceived micro-transgression. Beyond this, biological women are perfectly logical and have every right to not be lumped in with transgender people, or with non-binary men, or men who have chemically castrated themselves to become women, or men who feel themselves to be women. Leave aside progressive and feminist women. Traditional women have their own stories, their own legitimate culture, identity, and experiences just as Eric-Udorie does. Who is she to take away their right to be a biological woman? After all, women who believe that womanhood is essentially biological and physiological are the majority. The ever expanding alphabet of LGBTQIA+ will still remain the minority. (I imagine a person of unspecified gender saying where is my letter? How dare you oppress me and further marginalize me by assigning me to the +!) When a minority forces the majority to follow its norms, that is tyranny. 

I will conclude by writing that in a democratic republic the majority has the moral responsibility to protect the the central rights of the minority. In the USA those are the rights granted to us by the Constitution and, when possible, the right to life, liberty, and happiness.  I'm fine if an adult wants to change their gender. I'm fine calling a person they or another preferred pronoun. Moving beyond sex and gender identity issues, I want women to have equal access to leadership roles and the same pay for the same work. If a woman does not want to marry, not have kids, have kids with another woman, or join in a civil union with another woman, I am fine with that. I'll support her/his, they, its right to do so. If a woman wants to marry another woman in a religion with doctrine that allows it, then go for it. Call it a marriage and make sure they are supported with the same civil rights as heterosexual couples that marry in the dominant religions of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Confucianism, etc.

Eric-Udorie's call for recognizing, appreciating, understanding, and supporting every single marginalized person's truth becomes a contradiction in reality that ultimately erodes the fabric of a functional society. Ultimately a society functions when it organizes around accepted principals and norms.  These build community. I would be a miserable failure of a human if I had tried to live alone in a cave for years. We are a miserable, crumbling society when we all retreat to the caves of our own personal truths. I'm not religious, not Christian. Yet I have to admit that American society is healthier and functions better when we organize around the religious principles of family, marriage, and respect for elders while also protecting the Constitutional civil rights of minorities. That's my rant. 

Master Artist Part Two - Photos at the Frank Frazetta Museum in Stroudsburg

 Now that I have had the chance to go through the small number of photos I took at the Frank Frazetta museum located at his home in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, I need to do a second entry on the topic. In my previous post I mentioned my admiration of two little known paintings, a portrait Frazetta did of his mother, and a left handed painting of gorillas and a nude female which he did near the end of his life. It turns out I have photos of both, and did not think that was the case in my original post. 

Again I feel the need to thank Lori Frazetta for giving us a tour and spending time to answer many of my questions. She was informative, gracious, and shared some stories and thoughts that were on the personal side. Link to the museum website here. https://www.frazettamuseum.com/

Lori's grandkids instructed us not to take close up or detailed photos of any of the art work, so none of my photos here will be mind blowing. 

First, that portrait Frazetta did of his mother. You can see part of the nude painting Frank Frazetta did of his wife, Ellie, for a size comparison. What jumps out to me with his mother's portrait is an immediate sense of warmth, detail is on her eyes and smile. I mentioned previously that Frazetta rarely put details into eyes. Here are two paintings where he did, his mother and his wife. With most of Frazetta's sketches of women, and I think his paintings too, he does very little with the nose. It's part of the famous Frazetta girl esthetic. Here his mother has a wonderful nose full of detail. The overall composition is not standard portrait. There's a real sense of movement, of breath, of solidity and strength. You can collect all of Frazetta's drawings and paintings of women with blades and spears ready for combat and none look as strong as his mother. I do think this is one of Frank Frazetta's very best paintings. I love it. 

Portrait Frank Frazetta painted of his mother

Second, I mentioned previously that I was at first disappointed by Frazetta's post-stroke left-handed paintings. There are three in the museum. My feeling of disappointment changed to satisfaction that he also did mediocre work, and then to amazement that he did any of these paintings at all. He was, after all, old, crippled, and painting with his left hand after a stroke took away his ability to use his right hand, not being able to paint at all for several years. Of the three paintings, I felt one was quite beautiful. He titled it Gorillas. I could not find an image on the internet and did not think I took a photo, but I did. Here it is along with a photo of Frazetta drawing with his left hand. I hope I didn't take this at too close a distance. There is enough here to appreciate the detail beyond the composition and color. The gorillas and nude female still carry some of Frazetta's wicked and dynamic posturing, but are strictly in profile, which was very unusual in his pre-stroke drawings and paintings. 

 

Frazetta's left handed painting Gorillas

I mentioned I enjoyed seeing many rough prep sketches and water colors Frazetta did as he organized ideas and composition for his larger oil paintings. Below is Wild Ride along with the initial water color. I have read that Frazetta did not spent much time painting, my impression being that he completed one or two paintings a month in the space of one day per painting. Lori emphasized he did most of his painting at night in one long burner of a session, and I've read similar stories. He spent his ample free time with family and enjoying himself. Painting was work and it took up a small portion of each month. Still, I have the sense that he sketched frequently. He also spent time redoing his paintings. Look around the internet and in Frazetta art books and there are hundreds of pencil and ink sketches, and a good number of simple water color "sketches". I am sure he was drawing something virtually every day. My older daughter, Solveig, draws or doodles with most her free time. Frazetta's sketches are amazing. I enjoy them far more than his paintings. The dynamism he pulls from a modicum of lines is often genius. He gets so much story and fun out of such simple little things. There is a quote attributed to Frazetta that goes something along the lines of "Forget painting, drawing is everything." So, below are Wild Ride with the accompanying sketch, and some sketches Frazetta did as a boy of panthers, obviously a lifelong passion. Even as a youngster it's clear Frazetta was experimenting with movement composition. 

Frazetta's Wild Ride with a rough water color below for preparation

Frazetta, early pencil sketches of panthers

I'll have to do a separate post on nude figure drawing and gesture drawing. Frank Frazetta is one of  the all time greats in this regard, and the topic brings back interesting memories of when I was a nude art model. To end this post I'll add a few broader photos to give a better sense of the museum in hopes that other folks will make the visit. It's worth it! https://www.frazettamuseum.com/

Frazetta's easel with his painting of Satan and Hell that Ellie Frazetta despised and never allowed to leave the studio. It appears Frank worked on it at many different times. In the back are paintings he did of Maasai warriors for Ellie, who had a passion for African pieces. Lori explained that beside the large original painting of a single warrior is a smaller painting of the same theme, but it is only a small copy of the original (white dots in the corner of frames denote copies) which Frank sold in order to pay a bill without Ellie's knowledge. She was upset at the loss of a favorite painting, so Frank painted her a new one, same size and same theme. The differences between the two figures are very striking. The original warrior appears far more threatening, while the new warrior appears friendly. His red cape is also drawn aside, showing his full, large penis. The original warrior's groin is covered by his cape. I guess this change was an extra treat for Ellie's loss of the original painting. 

Death Dealer III Revised and copy of the unrevised original below, with Silver Warrior to the left and Barbarian with Axe to the right, both originals. 

Cat Girl, final revision, copy of original Cat Girl below, and to the left is a peak at The Huns, which is brilliant. In both of these paintings the colors must to be seen to be fully appreciated. I think that is the corner frame for Silver Warrior to the right, which literally pales in comparison to Cat Girl. That face and those eyes, even in shadow, trap the viewer. When not looking at Cat Girl in person, it's very obviously her breasts that stand out. In person it's her eyes. 

Both original paintings of Atlantis, the only other work for which Frazetta revised a painting by doing a completely new one, if the Maasai warrior is included. The differences are again very striking. Lori pointed out that the revised, second painting has the concealed image of a woman holding up the warrior. 

Frazetta's The Mammoth. I don't recall what is to the right and left. The mammoth's eyes are incredible. This is one of Frazetta's great masterpieces. 

In the foreground is a collection of paintings done by Frank's children, mostly Frank Jr. The image of Spider-Man is a copy. On the rear wall is a line of famous Frazetta paintings, including Night Stalker and Monster From Out of Time done on masonite boards. The much more famous Black Star is also there. It's an impressive painting collection.

Paintings Frazetta did in his youth. The lute he painted at age eight. He gave it to his aunt, Lori said perhaps because it wasn't very good. The metal horse appears in another painting he did later that year which is much better and the painting stayed with him. I don't recall at which age he did the upper two paintings. I believe he was already enrolled in the Brooklyn Academy of Fine Arts, so pre teen or teenager. The dog and lamb are a copy of another painting which Lori said his mother liked, so Frank painted her a copy. 

 

Master Artist - Visiting a Frank Frazetta Museum

I am still giddy from today's visit to the Frank Frazetta Museum in East Stroudsburg, PA. Lori Frazetta, Frank Frazetta's daughter-in-law, was a very generous and enthusiastic host to all of the museum's many visitors.  

A web link to the Frank Frazetta Museum and store is here. https://www.frazettamuseum.com/ The images in this post are not my own but come from a variety of sources on the internet. 

Icon. Legend. Master. Artist and illustrator Frank Frazetta turned the industry on it's head and exploded fantasy and sci fi art into American pop culture with his paintings that graced the covers of cheap paperback novels, most especially the Lancer edition printings of the Conan stories. The first was Conan, an anthology of stories by Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp, and Lin Carter published in 1967.  Is it hyperbole to write that all fantasy art after this is influenced by or derivative of Frank Frazetta? Maybe just a little hyperbole, maybe none at all.  The artists I knew and loved as a kid playing D&D - Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, Keith Parkinson, Clyde Caldwell, and Jim Holloway - all owed their careers to Frazetta and were all clearly influenced by or sometimes just copying Frazetta (I'm thinking of you, Caldwell).  That Frazetta moved from illustrator to renowned artist with paintings that are selling upwards of $20 million is due to his wife, muse, and promoter and business partner, Ellie Frazetta, who cannot be left out of the story.  

Ellie and Frank Frazetta in 1967. According to Lori, they staged this photo to celebrate making it big after Frank sold his first painting to a movie studio for a promotional poster,  earning several thousand dollars for the work instead of the several hundred that he made for novel covers. The movie was What's New Pussy Cat. 

On to the museum visit. The Stroudsburg museum has a decent collection of Frazetta's most iconic paintings, including his favorite, Cat Girl. One of my favorites, Silver Warrior is also there. Apparently his first ever crayon drawing is on display from age three, which he did for his grandmother who paid him a penny. I'll bet he made many more of those before the one for he did for his grandma but without being paid.  The collection ends with his last unfished painting, one of three present that he did left-handed due to a stroke. He died before completing the painting, titled Death Bringer VII. There are portraits of his mother, two sons, and other relatives, two of the four famous paintings of his wife, Ellie. The portrait of his mother was amazing. I'd never seen it before. Lori said it captures her mother-in-law's character and spirit perfectly. 

This is a visit I've been thinking about for almost 15 years. I hadn't done it because I couldn't go through dragging my wife and kids up there. They wouldn't understand. I made the seven-hour round trip drive  on a break from doing medical treatment at Johns Hopkins Medical Hospital while my wife and kids are in Mozambique. It was absolutely worth the drive. Here are some quick thoughts and observations before I forget. 

An unknown (to me) portrait: The portrait Frazetta did of his mother is beautiful, one of his very best paintings in my uneducated opinion. Apparently he didn't sign it because it's his mom, for his mom and family. Frazetta didn't do much with detail on eyes in his commercial paintings. For his mother's portrait they stand out and shine. It's odd that the painting doesn't even show up on the internet. 

Art prodigies: Looking at the collection of prodigy art from Frazetta's boyhood days reminded me of my own Dad, who was also a prodigy artist as a youngster. I've been looking though his old drawings and paintings and selected some to take back to Mozambique with me. The art bug skipped me, but landed with both of my daughters, whose many drawings and sketches I save with the silly dream that one or both of them will before famous artists in the future. 

Humble passion: I loved seeing Frazetta's work at the museum covering the entirety of his life. It's impressive. He was so gifted. Lori said that Frazetta was humble, recognized he had a gift with art, but frequently stated that everyone is gifted in one way or another. Lori also emphasized that art was not Frazetta's passion, it was his job. His passion was family above all else, but passions also included sports, movies, paling around with friends. 

Gestures as the essence of human form: The museum emphasizes Frazetta's paintings. I love Frazetta's ink and pencil drawings more, and the museum's collection is small. What draws me to these simpler black and white drawings? As a youngster my Dad took me to some of his art classes at Black Hills State College. I sat and  silently watched several figure drawing classes with nude models. During my teaching licensure at Colorado State University I worked as a nude art model for figure drawing and painting classes. The drawing classes always opened with gesture warm ups, which had me doing quick, dynamic poses of 20 seconds to one minute or so, and the students trying to quickly capture the essence of the pose, the gesture. As part of these lessons we saw many examples of gesture drawings from other artists, including Michelangelo. Gesture drawings try to capture movement in the human form, weight and balance, in a quick economy of lines. I was aware of Frank Frazetta at this time. I would have been around 27 and 28 and had picked up his Icon book several years earlier. As I started art modeling, it hit me almost instantly that Frazetta's "gesture" drawings, or or his quick and simple human figures, are examples of human artistic genius. It's not just human figures, but big cats, bears, horses, wolves. The feeling, mood, and dynamic forms he captures with a few lines, or a mess of quick lines, is genius. Lori and her son Frankie Jr. found a book for me, Frank Frazetta, the Living Legend, published in 1981, that contains nothing but his ink drawings. It's awesome. Even more amazing is the book Rough Work, published in 2007, which has hundreds of his sketches and gesture drawings. The museum had sold out of all but five of his signed copies, which also included original ink and water color sketches he'd done on the opening page, selling for $1,500. It's so tempting!

Frank Frazetta, untitled sketch 

Iconic works: The museum holds about 25 of Frazetta's most iconic paintings. I did my very best to follow instructions and not take close up photos of individual paintings and eventually found myself so engrossed with Lori's stories and the art that I didn't think of taking photos, or taking notes or even trying to do my own sketching. There are a lot of paintings to take in. Of these, my thoughts on two: Silver Warrior was not as impressive as I expected. First, it's small. The painting also features a lot of light colors. One of the joys of looking at genuine paintings is to see the true colors in the paint and the detail of the brush strokes. There's simply less of it in Silver Warrior. On the other hand, Cat Girl stands out as a captivating painting. In part it is the light illuminating the female figure. However, it is the eyes that snare the viewer. Cat Girl is one of the few Frazetta paintings which details and lingers on human eyes. In this one they are the focal point, absolutely drawing the viewer in and demanding attention. Or maybe it's the light drawing the viewer's gaze down to her breasts, but then catching on the eyes before being able to drop the gaze lower.  The light absolutely centers on her naked breasts, which are spectacular, but it's the eyes, which are in shadow, that are truly stunning. One must see the painting in person to feel the effect of the eyes. So, no image here. 

Frank Frazetta's Silver Warrior (1972)

Masonite: Now I understand what masonite board is. Lori explained Frazetta's first painting done on masonite was born out of desperation, trying to paint the cover for Neanderthal in one night after procrastinating for more than one month and realizing he had no canvas. He cut out several square feet of floor board in his home to reach the masonite board beneath, then cut that out to use for his painting. Neanderthal is there in the museum, I think. It may have been a copy. The image is mostly just the masonite surface, with essentially three other colors of paint applied sparingly. The masonite surface itself is smooth, rich tan and brown coloring with visual texture, not tactile texture. He loved the effect so much that he used masonite boards for many more paintings.  The most impressive on display in my eyes is Night Stalker, where Frazetta created a village in the distance with not much more than a few white points of light painted to the masonite that create the effect of lit windows at night. Horror is not a genre I like, so I'm not calling Night Stalker one of my favorites, but the technique is excellent. I decided to buy a cheap $25 print of one of Frazetta's paintings on display at the museum, taking several of my favorite prints of paintings over to the actual paintings to compare. There was just no comparison, only contrast. The cheap prints did not begin to do the originals justice. The one exception, which was the one I bought, is Monster From Out of Time, done on masonite and essentially all masonite for the background. The four figures in the print pop and reflect well on the original painting. It's a new favorite Frazetta painting of mine. Of note, a couple that arrived and left when I did, lingering until closing time and full of questions for Lori, also bought one print to take home and decorate their new home. It was Monster From Out Of Time. We didn't know we had selected the same print until leaving. Seriously, this painting leaves an impression. 

Frank Frzetta's Monster From Out of Time (1964)

Rough drafts: The museum displayed several smaller pencil and water color drawings Frazetta did to prep for his much larger oil paintings. These help show off Frazetta's attention to shape and composition, with some even showing where he initially planned to emphasize detail and lighting. Frazetta did an interview explaining these are the elements of the artist's craft - composition of shapes, choice of color and detail. The artistry comes from doing something new and original with these elements. A strong example in the museum of a mini-work setting the stage for the larger oil painting is Wild Ride. I love this painting. I wish I had asked Lori more about it. Lori did say that nearly all the nude females in Frazetta's works are Ellie, or Frank thinking of Ellie, seeing Ellie in his imagination. That is clearly the case in Wild Ride. I wish I could do this with my wife, as in create a work of art like this.  

Frank Frazetta's Wild Ride (1985)

Nude: Thinking of Ellie paintings, her somewhat famous nude painting (one of two well known) was very surprising. Not surprising in that it was there on display. Ellie seemed to appreciate Frank's love of the human form, which was passed on to their kids. They are not prudes about the nude human form. The surprise was that the painting is rather small, and the brush strokes are far more vigorous and less detailed than I had imagined. There is a dynamism and energy that I think come from the color palate. Ellie clearly is ready to move onto to something else. I feel like she wants to go back and look at what Frank has painted.  Anyhow, as a a former nude art model, I get the impression that Ellie only held this pose for a few minutes as Frank did the painting rather quickly.  It doesn't feel rushed. It feels vital. It's my educated guess that he spent relatively more time on Ellie's face after she finished posing.  

Frank Frazetta's painting of Ellie, I believe titled The Muse. 

Adapting the left hand: Finally, I have to comment on a stroke crippling Frazetta's dominant hand, his right, so that he was unable to paint for several years. Lori said his doctor drove it in to him that it was not the hand that created the art, but the mind, and he still had so much creativity to let out. So, Frank taught himself how to paint with this left hand. The museum has three paintings Frazetta did left handed. My first impression of these three paintings was disappointment. The skill is so diminished. Then my thinking changed to refreshing. It was refreshing to see that Frazetta was also just a man who did some mediocre work. Then amazement. He was old and feeble at this point.  He was crippled on the right side. He taught himself how to change his brain and body to produce real paintings with his left hand. Amazing. One is of a nude woman in repose looking at a leopard. It's not beautiful, but they are there, the images for which Frazetta was passionate - the nude female body and big cats. Then there is the piece left incomplete by his death - an ambitions scene of Death Dealer in a temple-like building battling nude green goblinoid females with a tentacled monster in the foreground. It's ambitious. Given more time it might have carried more force. But it is epic in the attempt. Finally there is a nude woman with two gorillas. The composition is eye catching and artistic. It is a beautiful painting and classic Frazetta in its vision if not execution. Amazing. I wish I had an image to include here, but it is another that is not circulating on the internet and I didn't have the presence of mind to get it in a photo. 

Frank Frazetta's Death Dealer VII

Work Coat - Dedicated to Mike and Oscar

 I'm not exactly sure what this post will be about. There is this phrase that comes back to me periodically, "work coat".

When we departed Virginia for my first assignment as a consular officer in Shanghai, China, the State Department still had a program of arranging observations with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). It made sense; State Department officers issuing visas abroad see their mistakes being correct by DHS colleagues in the USA. We flew from Dulles to San Francisco where I did my observations before boarding the big flight to Shanghai. One consultation was with a USCIS office who investigated suspicious immediate relative relationship immigrants, the IR category. The officer I visited was charged with ensuring marriages were real, as in Peter Weir's 1990 movie Green Card staring Gerard Depardieu and Andie MacDowell. This was my very first time wearing a suit and tie for actual work. I took a lunch break on my own. My older brother, Tor, flew to San Francisco to visit a former college professor and see me off to China. (I don't think he would have made the effort if it was just me. It's not that we aren't close. It's more that I get in the way or can't keep up.) We met on the sidewalk outside the USCIS office. I saw Tor walking towards me wearing his usual outdoorsy casual clothes. He looked right through me, didn't recognize me in the suit and tie. I had to shout "Tor!" as he was walking right past me. It was the first time he'd seen me in a suit and tie, the first time I wore a suit and tie for work. We were both a bit shaken. 

The suit pants and jacket, beige color, were tailor made in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, by an older Chinese Malaysian gentleman. His shop was called The Mandarin Tailor. The suit is hanging up in my closet at the office waiting to be donated to a Mozambican preparing for his first professional job interview. The fabric is a cheap polyester blend. It doesn't fit in the waist any more but is otherwise a nice looking suit. I'd wear it if it still fit. Oddly, I have a second suit made at the same time by the same tailor, blue, also polyester blend, and it still fits. They were both tailored in two fittings, but the measurements on the blue suit must be a little different, or the fabric more forgiving. I had two more suits tailor made in Shanghai, another tailor made in Hanoi, my Dad gave me one, and I bought a suit off the rack recently from an American department store before moving to my post in Mozambique. Tailor made suits are cheaper in Asia than suits off the rack in the USA. That said, the Chinese suits were crap. The Vietnamese suit was better but still fit wrong after three fittings. I like my Dad's suit, but I ripped the upper pant's thigh on a door frame the first time I wore it to work. The department store suit is okay. Those first two suits from Malaysia always fit me the best. Tailor made clothes should be made to fit. I don't know what the fuck I am doing with  tailor made anything, so I guess I just got lucky with those first two suits from Johor Bahru. 

I don't like suits. Two daily things I don't enjoy about my job. 1) Having to carry a cell phone constantly. 2) Supposedly having to wear suits. I mostly don't wear suits in Mozambique where I run my own small consular section.  

But this is not where the phrase "work coat" came into my life. That was much earlier, on my second or third fall/winter working at the YMCA of the Rockies just outside of Estes Park, Colorado, as a seasonal maintenance worker. My much older seasonal colleague, Michael Connelly, or "Irish Mike" as I thought of him, pushed it on me. "Work coat." He said it in his matter of fact manner, with a wry smile that implied I would be dumb or incompetent to refuse it. It was a demin jean jacket with fake wool fleece inner liner. It was a proper work coat for construction workers to replace the outdoor fleece zip up I wore. Mike had found the work coat discarded in one of the approximately one hundred cabins at the YMCA where we did maintenance work. 

Me (foreground), twin brother Leif, and older brother Tor (furthest back in cap) on top of Teddy's Teeth overlooking the YMCA of the Rockies just out of view to the lower left.

I'll never forget Irish Mike's smile and gravely voice. I'll never forget him as a person, or our senior citizen, seasonal colleague, Oscar. Mike and Oscar both had mustaches. They both were good with tools and had clever minds for fixing things. They were both kind, friendly. Mike was often brash and was always on the prowl for a good joke or opportunity for laughter. Oscar was quiet, calm. One thing about Mike that makes me smile: He told me how a contractor buddy of his would invite him down to his lakeshore home in Loveland, Colorado, to watch running races, which annually took good advantage of the location. Mike and his sometime boss would sit in beach chairs along the route drinking beers as the female runners went by and would hold up judges' numbers, one to ten. Scores were based on looks. Mike had such a good laugh sharing the story. I was somewhat appalled. But it was just in good fun. If people were offended, none was intended. Mike was a generous person, always ready to help others. "Loosen up man." Mike would tell me with an infectious smile. Oscar came down with cancer. We were all going to write him cards and wish him well with treatment. I didn't write one. I was waiting for the perfect words to write. They didn't come. "Loosen up man." I learned something about myself and connections between people. 

I was a college student who worked autumns at the YMCA to help pay my very limited college costs. Governor Zell Miller's Hope Grant ensured 100% of tuition, fees, and books were covered at the University of Georgia. Mike and Oscar were former construction workers, had high school diplomas, and molded my perspective of America and Americans.

I'm contrasting that work coat Mike gave me with my foreign service officer suits. I don't fit in either world, but I did love that work coat. 

The Janitor and The Diplomat

Nannies. House Keepers. Cooks. Free housing. Free utilities. Good health insurance. Pension. Free rest and relaxation flights (R&R). Paid home leave. Free moving services, including overseas air and sea freight. 

Do these sound attractive? Do they sound American? These are the primary benefits that attract "the best and brightest" people to the foreign service to act as diplomats on behalf of the United States. To the list of servants above we could add drivers, gardeners, dog walkers, pool cleaners. Granted, the range of servants are only free for Chiefs of Mission, who also have a free car. Because servants are paid out of salary they are generally only feasible in the developing countries of Africa, Asia, Central and South America. The same goes for R&R flights. 

I've been embarrassed to write or speak about these benefits. I don't think they sound very American, at least not my America. I hate having house help - cleaners and cooks. I didn't give birth to our girls so I don't begrudge my wife seeking help from nannies. We had two: Xiao Hu in Shanghai and Raquel in Rio. There is a complicated range of other benefits for foreign service officers as well, so complicated I don't bother with most of them. I admit the free hosing in exotic places abroad attracted me to the foreign service, and the R&R flights. My in-laws are in Malaysia. It had been a major financial planning hurdle budgeting travel to visit them once every year or so. 

Recently one of my Army colleagues (Defense Attaché Office in the Embassy) stopped to say hello on a run as I was leaving work for the evening. He said he would share an objective opinion with me: Foreign service officers are spoiled. The Army officer was an immigrant to the United States from Ivory Coast. He had a relatively well off upbringing. This was his first overseas tour at a U.S. Embassy. His wife, born in the USA, had joined a Facebook chat group for foreign service officer spouses called Trailing Houses. His objective opinion was based mostly from content in the Facebook group, which is mostly people complaining about not having this or that benefit. That's life though. No matter who you work for or what country you live in people complain about paychecks, benefits, social security, medical care, insurance...it's a never ending part of life. That's my subjective opinion. 

My friendly Army officer colleagues shared his objective opinion with me because he had just asked me what I did before joining the foreign service. I told him that I had a full life before starting this career with several previous careers and many different jobs. I've worked as a janitor three different times in my life, up to this point. I might be one again after leaving the foreign service. It's because I was a janitor that my friendly Army officer colleague shared his objective opinion. Now that I really think about it, there are probably not many foreign services officers who previously worked as janitors. I might be the only one who gave it a go three different times in my adult life. 

Boulder, Colorado, water sanitation plant where I started my second gig as a janitor. This place always smelled like shit. It was here and an office complex closer to town, both nice bicycle commutes. 

One advantage of moving often - easily cataloged memories

 I have two memories from before or around the time of my first birthday.  My younger daughter, Sage, has no memories of Brazil, where we lived until she was more than three and half years old, and no memories of China, where we lived until she was over a year old. 

Psychology Today, in an online article by PhD Vanessa LoBue, published April 11, 2022, states that it is impossible for me to have memories from my first year and a half of life; these memories are constructed from photos or stories of the older people around me. When I told my daughters that I thought it was odd that Sage had no memories from Brazil, my older daughter, Solveig, told me it is because babies' brains have not developed their hippocampus, the region of the brain that stores memories and creates a sense of time.  LoBue, our PhD psychologist from Rutgers University, explains in her article (which I looked up after Solveig told me about underdeveloped hippocampuses) that memories come in different types. Babies first develop recognition and procedural memory before they develop autobiographical memory. Autobiographical memory is generally tied to a sense of self and of time passing and comes around eighteen months of age. In addition, LoBue explains that memory, especially autobiographical memory, is not fixed. These memories are malleable, can change with time and under new circumstances, have the ability to be manipulated by outside forces. This is more true in children than in adults, but happens across all age groups. Interesting. 

I do plan to return to LoBue's conclusions when I write about an American prisoner case I dealt with as a vice consul in my first tour as a foreign service officer in Shanghai, China. The American, a first grade teacher at Shanghai's French School, was arrested and convicted of sexually abusing several of his students. For now, I'll just focused on memories in my family. Happily, they do not include child sexual abuse. 

My first memory is of falling off the porch of our home in Homer, Alaska. There was snow on the ground, which broke my fall. I can begin to place the relative age and date of this memory based on two items: Alaska and snow. I was born in Alaska, lived there until I was approximately sixteen months old. My Dad then moved us to Casterton, Australia, for a one-year teaching exchange program. I know I was a toddler, and that my twin brother and I were held back from our Mom, who was leaving the house, by an accordion style child's gate on our home's quasi second story porch. We were super connected to our Mom. I have vague memories of screaming at this particular separation, not being able to get past the child's gate, then the ground rushing up to meet me and being buried in the snow. My Mom talked about this event on occasion for the remainder of her life to illustrate how Leif and I were such mama's boys. Maybe I created the memory from her stories. I don't think so. I believe the memory of the ground rushing up, the confusion of struggling in the snow, is my memory, not part of the story she tells.

Photo from the same winter as the fall from the porch. This was the winter of 1975/76.

My second memory is of hitting a tree. Again it is in Alaska, and there is snow. We were on a sled going down a hill. We were supposed to roll out of the sled before it went into the trees. I can see my older brother, Tor, doing just that, explaining to us that's how to do. The next thing I remember is my face smashing into a pine tree trunk, the bark scratching my face, blood. The first part of the memory perhaps comes from stories from my Mom and Tor. The second part, my face hitting the tree, is all mine. I thought it was a memory form age three, but as an adult my Mom told me no, Leif and I were one. It happened before we moved to Australia, not after. Damn, that memory is so typical of us three brothers. Tor the talented adventurer. Leif and I the blundering boobs. 

Solveig's first memories are from Malaysia, probably close to her second birthday. I passed a Chinese language test for the State Department and was invited to join the 164th foreign service officer generalist class when we still lived in Malaysia. We travelled to Idaho and then Colorado just after Solveig's second birthday. Solveig remembers her grandfather in Malaysia, who she calls Gong-gong (this literally means paternal grandfather in Mandarin Chinese, which I encouraged because Gong-gong had no other grandchildren at the time) putting her in the the basket of his motorbike and giving her a ride around the neighborhood. This happened before Solveig's second birthday.

Sage has a variety of fun memories from Virginia, where we moved after our tour in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She was over three and a half years old then and says she has no earlier memories. I feel like Sage had a super happy-go-lucky life in Rio. She had an oldish nanny (baba) named Raquel who was big, gregarious, and loving and then moved on to a very loving, nurturing, and creative preschool up the hill from our apartment. The nanny and preschool were all very Rio-style; lush (or big-bosomed and big-assed in the case of Raquel), artistic, musical, joyful. Sage doesn't remember any of it. 

I thought one of the advantages of moving so often was to help with memory. I can categorize memories based on distinctive places I have lived, then place the memory in time. It works for me. It doesn't work for Sage. From birth to the age of thirteen I moved nine times to seven different towns: Homer, Casterton, Spearfish, Virginia City, Sandal, Alpine, and Valdosta. I generally feel this is a curse, but I'm trying to find some advantages in it. The most "stability" I had in my life was my six-years in Valdosta, Georgia. That is odd, because Leif and I were like ducks out of water there, never felt at home. Home is where the heart is.