Music plays a pivotal role in my existence---always has

I'd rather listen to music than play X-Box 360 or watch television, and I often play soft classical pieces while I read. It serves as a backdrop to my thoughts in and about whatever I'm reading at the time---fiction or non-fiction. I've played drums since I was a teen buck out to rule the world---full of confidence and dedicated to improbable dreams and impassioned goals I intended to rope and wrangle--do or die. Of course my talents coupled with opportunities and fate took me in other more practical directions, yet I still enjoy releasing my demons sitting behind a kit/particularly after a stressful day.

Inspired by the iconic Grunge sounds and imagery of Alice in Chains. this piece conveys the grace under pressure style that Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell created with their ghostly harmonies echoing one another like twins that finish each others thoughts. It's heavy metal with a passionate sensitivity contrasted to emphasize the extreme poles and how both are so different yet paradoxically the same.

I love music like I love painting and writing. It's a part of me like my toes or my nipples. And the drums are my passion when I hit the stage. It's easy to relax once I've beat the hell out of the drum heads for thirty minutes or so. I always wear my safety goggles now when I practice or play a show after nearly loosing an eye to a broken stick popping off my snare and into my face while we were on stage at Max's Kansas City one night]. Safety first I've learned the hard way, lol. When I'm at home I practice almost naked for the freedom of movement, plus it feels really sexy and empowers me for some reason. I generally wear a jock [usually black with loose nylon gym trunks if people are there to watch]. Sometimes I like to strap on a studded leather harness with a spiked collar. It crisscrosses my chest and looks tough as hell with my spiked Mohawk bleached and tinted with green or blue. I always wear a pair of black Nike high-tops signed by Bun E. Carlos from the band Cheap Trick/my pride and joy. 

So there I am, violently kicking the bass drum beater twice every forth beat of the hi-hat release and alternating snap on the snare all the while envisioning myself in the frozen hot spotlights behind Ozzy Osbourne on the main stage at Ozzfest, passionately hammering the savagely quick paced eight count beat to Black Sabbath's classic masterpiece, Paranoid as the old rocker, worn but determined, paces sluggishly back and forth like Rain Man as the smoke detector blares down. With a gruff voice and red tips on his long black hair and wearing a white/gold deaths head belt-buckle and custom orthopedic biker boots he sings a handful of simple rhymes he must have performed tens of thousands of times prior...

I can dream!

I painted this after discovering a stack of concert flyers of famous classical composers I admired. Though most of the posters are now hidden in the twisted threads of abstract paint I still relate it to the sounds of Mozart, Dvorak and Tchaikovsky I listened to as I painted it over ten tears ago.

I saw Natalie Portman in Black Swan a couple months back and I was mesmerized at her performance. I have a new love of ballet and the tremendous sacrifice many of these dancer make for their art even at the cost of their health and well being.