December 22, 2009
Charlie Waters' birthday today. Called him at 7:15 A.M. and woke up Linda, his wife. Charlie was asleep as well. Turns out it was 6:15 in Vegas. Ouch! I told him this was de ja Vegas: in 1962 me and Rick Ridenour were in Vegas with my parents and we stayed up late (we twisted on the stage with Chubby Checker at the Sands earlier, then took a cab and tried to find call girls—we were 15 but we did have ties on—and the cabbie just laughed at us and dropped us off at Ripley's Carnival where we drove bumper cars) and, later, back at the Hacienda Hotel (my dad got a free room for handing out brochures in his gas station) we decided to call Charlie from our room (my parents were at a show). Mr. Waters (Charlie's dad) answered and when we asked for Charlie he said, "God-d--it, do you know what time it is?" We admitted we didn't know. It was two in the morning. How did we know? There are no clocks in Vegas. So, anyway, that was in 1962, and here I was calling Charles Richard Waters in Vegas to wish him a happy birthday. How old is he? He's 62. See, it's de ja Vegas all over again.

Got some rain this afternoon. Chopped some wood and started a fire in the studio stove and settled in to do some dust storm studies:

Yes, that's the Mickster riding towards us in a thick dust cover. Very subtle effects and quite hard to do. Still working on it. Here's a master shot, called "Dusty Dawn":

And here's another dusty desert scene:

Nice color selection. I especially like the rippling heatwave just under the distant escarpment. Almost a dry lake effect. Sweet. Meanwhile, for something completely different, here's a cave scene with the title "She Beckoned From The Opening":

I wish I could say this is the image I had in my head when I started but it's not. Like the cave paintings, or the hint of them, but the maiden? Well, let's just say she's not quite as fetching as the one in my head. Gee, I wonder what ol' Jenny Holzer has to say about this:

“If you are an artist and you are honest, you are never good enough.”
—Jenny Holzer