August 22, 2004
I’ve had a good weekend working on artwork. Got some good scratchboards going (6 or 7), including a Japanese gangster, Buffalo Bill Jr. and my Victorian sweeper. Also worked quite a bit on experimental color, aping Andy Warhol, trying to discover his color secrets. He was really a Color Master. Took his Marilyn Monroe series and played with his green color scheme, ending up with something I call “Marilyn’s Apache Envie.”

Last night Kathy and I picked up Boston Market take-out and drove it over to Grandma Betty’s. She wanted meatloaf and gravy so we stopped at Thunderbird and 59th Ave. and got a big order ($18 something, house account). Nice talking to Betty. She’s getting around better with her healing hip.

At eight we met Deena at Deer Valley 30 to see Napoleon Dynamite, the movie both my kids have been raving about ($17 cash, plus $6.80 for popcorn and water). It’s an Indie breakout hit, filmed in, of all places, Pocatello, Idaho. A fabulously fearless and funny take on a small-town high school nerd extraordinaire. I loved this movie! It was so Kingmanesque, and I related to virtually all of Napoleon’s goofiness: he drew stupid pictures to impress girls (ditto), he made a complete ass of himself in high school assembly dancing like a nitwit (ditto), he was still playing with action figures in high school (thank God we didn’t have ‘em), he blurted out inappropriate comments 24/7 (still do). Raved about it all the way home. Called Tomcat in Flagstaff and told him when he comes home we’ve all got to go see it together. Robert Chenal answered T-Bell’s cell and told me he has seen it twice. If you go see it, you have to wait until the very end of the credits for the epilogue. Virtually two thirds of the audience left and there’s a cool surprise involving Napoleon barely riding a stallion (ditto).

“Make it a point to rid your speech and thoughts of all forms of negative self-talk.”
—Karl Albrechtü