Not an overly dramatic photo. Darkening, and cropping the lower portion would help. But here are the challenges of a class one railroad. Moving tonnes of freight over miles and miles of the United States of America as quickly as possible. Everyday. Heat, cold, rain, snow. Mountains. Physical breakdown of machinery. Government regulations. Labor union requirements for safety. Environmental restrictions. Public indifference. Past due account receivables... In about 20 minutes there will be another one. And then another... Cajon Pass is always busy.
Union Pacific 3755, a General Motors' Electro-Motive Division SD40-2 capable of 3000 horsepower is heading a mile long intermodal container train going to Chicago and eventually the East Coast. Running hard on the BNSF North track, there is still two miles of mountain before reaching the Summit and the High Desert of California beyond. Behind 3755 is UP 2401, a General Electric C30-7 (3000 hp). Then UP 4948 (ex-Southern Pacific), SD45T-2, (3600 hp). Lastly 3 UP 5000 series SD70Ms, each 4000 hp. 21,600 hp, lashed together, pulling...
Here comes a train.
Photos: UP 3755 • Cajon Pass, California
Bogus Slogan Record Release Party
The primary tracks for 14 new songs, were finished in February. In March & April, the group recorded the overdubs, re-tracks and mixed the new full length album, "A Little Heart."
The American debut record release party will be at the group's favorite hang-out, Prestos. Tickets will be available beginning May 1st from the Bogus Slogan fan club, Sloganeers. The album will be released in America on June 20th. Advance copies will be given to all who attend the party.
The first single, "Running Out of Nice," was inspired by a group member receiving a two page "Honey Do" list three days before last Fall's European Tour began.
Bogus Slogan Poster #26 - Inside View
Belisima Project Forum is a special showcase arts theartre, with a capacity of 1500, that Bogus Slogan likes to use for international fund raising events.
The theatre, oval in shape and with an opening in the roof was built through corruption and extortion over 100 years ago. One man, with vanity on his mind, converted, the money, time and resources of others to a personal vision of "public good." His private theatre of human depravity lasted only 2 years. He was assassinated by his second in command.
Though the origins were stained, the architect chosen was a master. Acoustics similar to the Greek and Roman outdoor amplitheaters made the need for a modern sound system unnecessary. For electric concerts, a long extention cord is run from a next door residence and the groups uses their practice amps to rock the house.
Bogus Slogan uses "Advertise in the First Amendment"™ as a moral underpinning for spreading the tools of free speech throughout the universe. The Belisima Project Forum is one of those tools.
Washes: Chunky Brand Style (2004)
Sunshine. On a cloudy day. The David Nagel's series 9 brushes paint a delicious squiggle - I chose multiple colors and the finished set can be seen in layer 1.
To make the "ribbon" float, a dark grey base layer (layer 2) is set below. Layer 3 shows the beginnings of the brown color swirls. The final brush strokes, bring a soft black "highlight" topping for a sense of dimension.
Mimi's cloudbrushes, a ZenithPointStudio favorite, builds up texture that confuses the vertical with the horizontal, and gives this 9' x 6' charming illusion its own style.
Bogus Slogan Poster #25 - Inside View
Girls. Girls. Girls.
Men's magazines focus on the many curves of a woman.
Bogus Slogan focuses on what the female is saying. How her lips move. How her eyes and facial expressions convey the multitude of human emotions.
Exploring a woman's feelings, in a candlelight dinner, can satisfy even - whoa - whoooaaa. Where's that real world.
Bogus Slogan cherishes it's large groupie collection. The perks of the rock star life is groupies and more groupies. As long as you can hold the stage for at least 45 minutes, some girl in the audience is going to throw her panties. She goes in the database. Whew! Feeling better now.
The Daisy Foundation, created by jewelry designer Roberta Kline, holds monthly fundraisers for their charitable medical research programs. This concert, at the Blades Lounge, was unique in that only invitations to women were made. And they were allowed to bring one guest, of course another female. Each of the supporting bands were all girl groups. Headliners, Bogus Slogan took home a record number of panties.
Expressions: Available for Parties (2004)
I would be somewhat unhappy if anyone looked at "Available for Parties" and began to talk about their high school chemistry class. Attraction of covalent bonding molecues. Suff like that. Please, let us gravitate toward seeing two distinct personalites at a cocktail party. There, much better.
With the photoshop brushes from David Nagel, I painted quick slashes of black and grey. A tighter nap brush with predominantly blues and yellow, looping on itself to create a "rope" effect, is used to build up the object on the right. A fan brush "dots" the span between the two.
Only twice was I ever called to my high school Principal's office. Badder living through chemistry was the reason for one of these requests.
James Mallord William Turner
The Fighting Temeraire, tugged to her last berth to be broken up (1838)
Because humankind has a consciousness, and has recorded its passage through history, we can "remember" time... by reading a book or watching a movie. However a painting must stand by itself (if you don't read its caption).
Imagine you are standing on a bluff, overlooking the river. It rained earlier, but the sun now sets as you watch one of those new steam contraption ships lead an obsolete, wood and sail man of war to her demise. Shortly, the wooden steam tug will be replaced by iron, then comes steel. History repeats. A "modern" man of war, the U.S.S. Missouri (BB 63) is towed across the Pacific Ocean to be permanently moored in Pearl Harbor as a museum. Tugs in space. Lunar salvage yards. - Just looking at a picture, painted some 170 years ago - remembering history - projecting a future. Pretty neat to be human?
A few years later, Turner painted rain so heavy that it obscured our vision - of a steam train crossing a bridge- into the beginning of abstract expressionism.These pictures can not recreate the magic of a great painting. Photographs can show our living world, but a "live" Van Gogh is magic. I think Turner is the same.
Art entertains by distracting you - from the realities outside - to let you use your imagination. Turner painting from his memory, his sketches or another artist's depiction, gave us a different way to remember.
And he had four names.
Bogus Slogan Poster #24 - Inside View
Live Rock n' Roll at its finest. Mister Smoothy and the Villains just tore up the crowd. Bogus Slogan hit the 18 foot x 6 foot stage by entering through the traditional Roc-Shak snake train. The snake train requires that at least half of crowd make room by leaving the Shak. From the parking lot, in comes the band, in comes the fans. Time to rock n' roll.
Ida's Shack-a-Delic lasted a full decade before the city government forbade gatherings greater than 15 customers. The record attendance for the Shak, was a Banters concert when an amazing 536 people truly filled (cubicly) the little building.
The Shak originally was a water turbine powerhouse that generated electricy for the local farms. Now it is a little cafe - with most of the tables outside. Directions are on the poster.
Photos: Farmhouse • Wheelock, ND
Outside of Wheelock, ND, probably west, is where this photo was taken. Shot from INSIDE an Amtrak "Empire Builder," at 60 miles an hour, this blur of an abandoned farm house might be my favorite photograph.
Grey overcast clouds, treeless prairie - travel by foot or wagon would have been long and uninteresting. Facing foward in the train, I saw this house coming, fast. A mad scramble for the camera bag, unzipping, putting the lens on the body, turning on the camera, unscrewing the circular polarizing filter and lens cap, throwing them on the seat, clicking the shutter halfway to set the focus, pressing the shutter to take the picture. One shot at f 5.6, Kodachrome 64, with an unknown shutter speed.
In a science fiction future, this land may become filled with human activity, but here it exits, with its single deserted occupant.
Bogus Slogan Poster #23 - Inside View
The Single Clerks turned into one of the great rock bands, the Fragging Dolls. When lead singer, Blandy Weathers entered rehab for the third time, Single Clerks finally broke up. Six months later, Weathers left the rehab facility and rejoined with bassist Boss Plumber to form Fragging Dolls with new guitarist, Moss. Their drum chair mimics the saga of Spinal Tap. The constant turnover is now written into their employment contracts for drummers. A fan favorite, the Fragging Dolls are constant tourers. When Neh•Na Records released the first album, "The Inner Mind Attacks" - the Frags became a legend.
Big Gun Productions, during the 70's, was THE promotion house in Orange County, California. When they tried to grow beyond CA, their affiliates mis-mangaged enough concerts that the parent company had to cease operations. This Bogus Slogan Concert in Balboa, California might have been BGP's first as promoter. The Rendezvous Ballroom was a 1930's icon and is probably gone only because it sat on land too valuable for public entertainment.
Also "Fleet Maneuvers at the Rendezvous" was one of the earliest BIG venues that Bogus Slogan played. A special double sized print (54" x 80") of the poster hangs behind the reception desk in the ZenithPointStudio lobby.
SysOps Notice 2006.04.01
Analog. Digital computers just do not know the joy of an inbetween state. Spinning the dial of my 1980's Sherwood receiver exposed a soft chaos of static soon replaced by the strong signal of a Los Angeles FM station. One fateful night, I spent 12 minutes going back and forth on the FM dial while recording the result to tape. The experience was as galvanizing as Jimi Hendrix's "same old explosion, goin’ through my mind" (Burning of the Midnight Lamp). I finally lost my nerve to continue, but the recording was a time capsule of American Culture. Of course, this artifact is lost - would you expect less. But it was so cool.
Everyday of your entire life, the media provides politicians and advertisers access to you. The politicians annoy me because they conceal their motives, but I like the commercial world. They spend money to convince me to spend money. They make goods and services and then try to convince me I need them. The less I buy the more I win. Yes, I know my conclusion is absurd.
Finally, we get to the Guitar Center. As a recording artist, GC, a Southern California music icon, has been a dream factory, where a credit card will get the next great version of a favorite musical toy. They also used to make the greatest radio commercials. Intense, end of the world. A driving music bed and a big voice narration. You had to buy, on sale for only 3 days. 50% off. And then next week there would be a new radio ad.
I loved the commercials so much that I began to record hours of FM radio to catch them. From that beginning, dubbing songs, snippets of dialogue and other commercials into a collage became a pastime. I played them while driving the highways.
I ended up with 330+ cassettes. At 102 minutes per cassette (Maxell made a cassette with 50+ minutes per side), that's over 550 hours. Who needs a life. Click on the button to download PopWorks 1a (51m). The link will be active for at least 30 days. More to come.The collage has one rule: Do not expect the sound you are hearing will continue - the collage reserves the right to change at any instant. Definitely abstract fidelity. Here is PopWorks 1b.
I never tried to make a second attempt with the Sherwood. I had no faith that I could catch that spirit again. And while the PopWorks series is edited, it was done in linear time. New elements were added to a "work tape" which, when filled, became the next collage tape.