In Hell On A Fast Jack

January 24, 2011

Nice weekend, although quite windy. I just had new canvases stretched and prepped by Bob Stienhilber. Had five of them stacked in the breezeway, outside my studio door when a strong burst of wind lifted three of them in the air and deposited them fifteen feet away. Big rips in two of them. That hurt. Paid $500 for the stretcher work, now need to have half of it redone.

It was Thomas Charles' 28th birthday on Sunday and the Radinas met us and the birthday boy and Pattarapan at Playa de Mariscos just below Roosevelt on 7th Street. It's T's new, fave Mexican food place. Great food, try the mocajetes dish, big steaming bowl of various meats bubbling in a hot red sauce. Excellent pintos (whole, rather than refried) and Tecate on draft. When asked what his favorite memory of growing up is, the Tom Bomb said, and I quote, "Family road trips." Ah, no doubt about it, that's my boy.

Worked this weekend on a half dozen studies. Got up this morning and finished one of them before I went into work. It's Mickey Free on a mammoth jack he can barely control, riding through an ashen maze of fire choked desert:

Hellish, I know, but it's getting late—as in late in the game, late in my life, late in the window of opportunity given to us by the success of True Grit. Speaking of which, it appears The Wild Bunch will be remade. Expect more, including, if the rumors are true, Shane and The Searchers.

"When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."—Samuel Johnson