Uncle John’s Log & Co.

March experiment—day twenty-seven— The morning began early, with Bruce needing to start his first Danville dialysis treatment at 6:30 am, but it was already obvious that the March Experiment was on life support. Whether I had it in me to shift from the grueling pace of the Indiana move to my ambitious studio checklist was up in the air. I was just about to declare to myself that the whole thing was “oh-vah,” but then thought I deserved one last effort at re-imposing the exercise, so I picked the most difficult thing I could think of to self-assign—complete my intimidating graphic interpretation of cornetist Vince DiMartino for the Band Festival merchandise. It’s a style of symbolic abstraction that is commonly seen, but often poorly executed. Although I’ve previously pulled it off with reasonable competency, to be honest, it’s a style I’ve never come close to mastering. Nevertheless, I attacked the demanding project, overcoming waves of doubt and discomfort, fighting computer crashes, and dealing with a steady stream of interruptions. And the result? Others will be the judge, but the Experiment is still alive, by Jove!

Today’s sight bite— The enormous black crow, perching high in our “Simon Kenton” maple—c-l-i-c-k—as I wonder if his rhythmic caw is laughter, mocking my insane pursuit, or a series of congratulatory salutes.

Tomorrow— Testing an invigorated schedule and the desire to persevere…

March experiment—day nineteenth— A big chunk of my day was devoted to The Salvation Army. We’re getting ready for our annual Appreciation Dinner, planned for the Tuesday after Easter. Our distinguished guest speaker will be General Paul Rader. Before retiring and making Kentucky his home, General Rader served as worldwide commander, the only American officer to lead The Salvation Army since its founding. We’ve been trying at least four or five years to bring him to Danville, and this time Captain Zach was able to pull it off. As a result of my activities on behalf of the Army, I didn’t get into the March rhythm today, but tomorrow I’ll begin again…

March experiment—day seventeen— Today has been a strange day, in a sense, full of subtle contrasts, not as I expected it to transpire, but the nets of artistic progress are full to the bursting point. I haven’t spent so many hours in a deeply intuitive mode for a very long time. The relentless momentum of decision making set the stage for many days of labor, and I was able to preserve that orientation, even though I took TV breaks to watch four different closing contests between men’s NCAA basketball teams, including one that almost went into triple overtime. All the way through this, I felt the tension born of knowing what I wasn’t doing, and, piled on that, the awareness of how odd a vein of aesthetic ore I’m mining, for God knows what reason. The more I get into this, the more I wonder what it’s all about, what part of myself I’m paying tribute to, what meaning or lack thereof I bring to others. On Saint Patrick’s Day, there isn’t a beer in the house, just the words of William Butler Yeats scratching at my soul—

The Choice

The intellect of man is forced to choose
Perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.

When all that story’s finished, what’s the news?
In luck or out the toil has left its mark:
That old perplexity an empty purse,
Or the day’s vanity, the night’s remorse.

March experiment—day fourteen— Various difficulties made for a challenging day. No cause for alarm; I just don’t have the energy to write about it tonight. On top of that, I’ve been worrying more than a bit about the quality of some of my ideas, and—wouldn’t you know it—I encounter this statement from one of the most successful artists of my lifetime…

“Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and work.”

— Chuck Close

March experiment—day ten— I had to battle with my “inner wimp” this morning to run five miles at daybreak. With as mild as it is outside, that should not have been necessary, and as soon as I was out the mud-room door I was grateful for the upper hand. It was just the first in a string of today’s reminders to myself about why I’m conducting this odd exercise in the first place. I revisited my piece for New Mexico and took on an ambitious compositional addition, inviting the risk that I might spoil the whole thing. That’s the sort of thing I do in March, but I want to become bold enough to do it all the time without even thinking about it. Inner wimp be damned—you don’t know what untapped capability I have! The decision put me behind schedule again, but I refuse to fret. No profit in it. The Strocks stopped by for lunch, and I loaned one of my dumbbells to Marty. Today is the twenty-ninth anniversary of our first date, so I’m taking Dana to hear Dawn Osborn perform tonight at the new Woody’s in Danville.

Today’s sight bite— Dried paint and pencil marks on a flat surface—c-l-i-c-k—the illusion of a pear results from coordination of mind, eye, hand—and will.

Tomorrow— Spring forward an hour, share the silence, and embrace the checklist…

March experiment—day four— Not much to report. Trying to get past that early sleep-dep hurdle without overdoing the caffeine. First half of today was invested with plotting the next few weeks of work at my collage station, and then we were in Lexington with our friends, the Simpsons, including dinner and a movie. Amazing Grace is worth the ticket price. Ioan’s impressive performance is what I would expect from him. I might say the same for Finney, but the truth is he knocked me out with his supporting role. If you are in England and he is performing anything on stage, go there—tonight!

Today’s sight bites— Reproductions of John Salminen’s watercolors, stopping me in my tracks—c-l-i-c-k—c-l-i-c-k—c-l-i-c-k—as I browsed the art magazines at Joseph-Beth.

Tomorrow— Time to put my rest break behind me and press on…

Early childhood accumulation is the most authentic form of collecting—that first little box or drawer with trinkets to stimulate the bud of imagination. Certain special shards of quartz from your “rock store” just couldn’t be carelessly tossed back into the driveway gravel, could they? When it came to postcards or match-packs, adults would facilitate, but most likely it wasn’t their idea at the outset. Not all children collect, but for many of us, the desire was innate. What was it about that hoard of popsicle sticks or milk-jug caps that gave us a tingle of satisfaction? It was only a small step of forward progress to coins, stamps, baseball cards, books, antique tools, vintage toys, etcetera. Or was it the opposite of progress? Some types of collections made you feel “big,” but now I am, and everywhere in the world of grownups are admonishments to clean up the mess, downsize, and banish your clutter. I caught a few minutes of Dr. Phil the other day, apparently a whole program about the dysfunctional pack-rat, in which the message was unequivocal—needing to keep all that junk is the latest fear-based personality disorder.

Well, maybe it is, but I was happy to recently discover the other side of the spectrum with In Flagrante Collecto, Professor Marilynn Gelfman Karp’s fascinating, richly illustrated treatise on our essential impulse to acquire—the rare, the strange, the unsung, and the incidental. How, as a life-long collector, she’s found the ability to survey the topic with such intelligent objectivity is quite remarkable to me. She defines six shared traits among all collectors:

1) Unquestionable Dominion • the total mastery of your self-defined territory.

2) Hands-On Gratification • the satisfying communion with your booty.

3) Empowerment by Delimitation • the boundaries and criteria of allowable desire.

4) Hunting and Gathering • the fulfillment of discernment plus the exhilaration of the quest.

5) Possession • the self-affirming ownership of historical era by osmosis.

6) Husbanding and Transference of Characteristics • the salient attributes of the collection which accrue to the collector.

Her bottom-line assessment is that “loving the unloved is the purest state of collecting from which all collectors’ motives may be deduced. An object of material culture is any object that a person deems worthy of collecting.”

I suppose most of us who face piles of stuff fall somewhere in the middle of the continuum between connoisseur and cripple. So the question remains—what do I do with all of it? Much has no intrinsic value and begs to be pitched (if it isn’t actually begging, then my patient mate surely is). To me, it’s an archival record of what has appealed to heart, head, and hand throughout my life. Ah, precisely… there’s the source of its abiding interest to me. It represents the creative opportunity to organize, process, synthesize, repurpose, and present to others a “culminating artifact” that maybe, just maybe, will achieve some level of extrinsic value greater than its inherent nature as a sum of overlooked ingredient elements.

Will that make it art? It’s worth a try…

Olden…

All weekend long I was thinking about describing the progress Dana and I were making on our conference room project, but then we decided to watch Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers tonight and the entire post that I had composed in my head just melted away. That’s what thinking about the Battle of Iwo Jima does to me…

There’s no doubt about it, Steve Carell is on a roll, especially with his upcoming “sequel” to Bruce Almighty and the feature remake of Get Smart. Dana and I make no secret that we’re huge fans of The Office and we can’t get enough of this guy. That’s why we watched The 40 Year Old Virgin tonight. I usually come down “Yay” or “Nay” on most movies I see, but can’t seem to swing one way or the other on “Virgin.” As much as I enjoyed Carell’s performance and in spite of my general amazement at the cast’s brilliant improv talents, the picture is just too vulgar for me to recommend. It brings me face-to-face with my inner prude, and I can’t deny the genuine discomfort. What can I say? Perhaps the profound lack of personal satisfaction which derives from indulging banality is the underlying point of the comedy, and, if so, I’ll give credit where it’s due, but I’m glad I inhabit this side of the fuzzy line. When the laughter was over and the credits rolled, I wanted to gargle or something. Nevertheless, the flick’s “Age of Aquarius” closing number is one of the most delightful cinematic “curtain calls” ever done—I’m so ready for this creative team to dare themselves to take their whole product up a big notch.

Sometimes these deadline experiences are like chuting down a pipeline—there’s no thought to doing anything but surrendering to the power of the flow, all the time hoping you make it to the end of the tunnel without a disaster. Mombo used to talk about when she was a kid, and they would play in a rain-swollen ditch, letting the water suck them into a storm-water culvert that ran under the street. Long ago that image got stuck in my mind when I realized I’d chosen a deadline-driven lifestyle. So, for what it’s worth, that’s what the suction of a deadline is like for me. (Her story also convinced me that my mother really was a tomboy, in case there’s any doubt about it.)

And, so I made it to the end of the latest chute today, presenting my study for a painting I’m developing to feature on this year’s poster for the Great American Brass Band Festival. The new executive director is delighted with my approach. The idea has a focus on the music makers. I want to illustrate the intensity of the performances with a montage composition. I don’t know why I always have to complicate things, rather than come up with a simple idea, other than the fact that “less is more” is easier said than done. I’m excited about the idea of including Vince prominently in the artwork. He’s always been the inspiration for much of my toil on behalf of the Festival.

Now, all I have to do is complete the final version by the end of the month without getting stuck in that darn storm pipe.

— A Mombonian Correction!

Issues having to do with an outrageous astronaut meltdown, in addition to George Will’s recent article about Chicago, are stimulating my libertarian streak today. Is it possible that NASA officials are using scarce resources for a public relations effort to portray Captain Lisa Nowak as a sympathetic figure, in order to safeguard its own institutional image? If a Mayor Daley can begin turning over government assets to the free market, maybe it’s time we privatize the whole bloody space program and finally get on with it.

Consider this— If LBJ had farmed it all out to Walt Disney back when I was in junior high, do you think we’d still be fiddling around with obsolete launch vehicles and half-built orbital tin cans almost 40 years after we landed on the moon?

A bit over halfway into Paul Watkin’s Archangel, the author has his crafted vessel of suspense filled to the brim. I have the strong sense that he’s about to spill it—like a container of ball bearings on a marble floor.

Unlike the other novels that I’ve read, which he weaves on a loom of first-person style, this story circulates through a number of carefully developed characters in an almost cinematic manner. I understand that some of his “fans” haven’t liked this book. It certainly lacks his usual touch of dry humor, and the ending always affects any reader’s opinion, so we’ll see what happens. If they weren’t prepared for the intensity, I can’t imagine they’ve read much Watkins. A full book devoted to his streak of dark adventure is really no surprise to me, especially when the subject is environmental terrorism.

Anyway, I’ve enjoyed “casting” it along the way . . .

Adam Gabriel— John Cusack

Madeleine Cody— Ashley Judd

Marcus Dodge— Aaron Eckhart

Noah Mackenzie— Chris Cooper

Alicia Mackenzie— Joan Allen

Coltrane— Matt Dillon

Ungaro— Ed Harris

Shelby— Matt Lanter

I think I understand why writers must write. It’s really no different than why sketchers must draw or why dancers must move, but why do we read? Why do we engage in this intensely self-centered activity with books? And what’s even more perplexing to me is why our society seems to exalt this particular kind of internal isolation, because, for the most part, it raises a collective eyebrow at meditators or deep, introspective thinkers. It wouldn’t be considered socially acceptable to spend much time playing golf by yourself, or going to movies by yourself, or drinking by yourself (certainly not), but almost all of us feel differently about reading.

My friend Danny would say we must read to train and develop the mind—to understand influences and work backward to the early sources, the original premises.

My “big sissy” is a librarian, so I asked her, and she said that reading makes us a more interesting person—reading may be solitary, but it’s not inherently selfish.

Watkins, Wolfe, Hammett, Hemingway, Twain . . . Why do I read their fiction? What am I looking for?

Every so often, I find myself listening to the lyrics of Eric, a talented friend. He writes:

You can seek your life to find

Answers that satisfy your mind,

But Jesus spared your life by giving his,

And, Brother— That’s all there is.

While at the library, I was mildly fascinated by a magazine interview with the creator of Deadwood—a television show I’ve never seen—about its connection to Red Harvest—by an author I’ve never read—so I decided to borrow the book itself and finally sample Dashiell Hammett for myself—to discover what all the fuss has been about.

As usual, I’m scratching along in my own analytical way, looking for “keys.” For me, that often involves attempts at integrating various “reality maps” I’ve encountered that make sense as individual systems. Numerology would be one example, but seems limited when I approach it in isolation. Feng Shui has appeal, but I haven’t totally bought into the premise. For a long time, Bruce has made references to Chinese medicine, but my investigation into Chinese thought has been confined to a study of the Book of Changes or I Ching.

Today I read a short magazine article by Mark Blessington. We must think along the same lines, because he’s made an impressive start at applying the principles of Chinese medicine to the relationships between money and people. There’s often a fine distinction between genuine insight and wacky diversion, I must admit, but I would say that Blessington’s ideas about achieving a balance in money elements deserves the benefit of the doubt.

And so we press on with our attempts to synthesize the unbridgeable gaps of knowledge and to learn the unknowable truths, like why you can’t find a missing object until you tell somebody else that you lost it. We’ll continue to look for the profound answers that elude us all, to understand why time always speeds up every Thursday night during NBC’s telecast of “The Office,” and to solve the many riddles of a mysterious universe.

— If you like Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth, and the “Golden Age of American Illustration,” Paul Giambarba has put together a smashing collection of biographical notes, artistic comments, and rarely seen images. I just love this handsome stuff, and tip my hat to anyone who would spend the personal time to compile such an extensive reference site.

— I grabbed a few moments of “mind time” in Harrodsburg while Dana got a haircut, thinking LJS would be a relatively quiet place at that time of day, but the music was a bit more electric-70s than I was expecting. I still haven’t given up on achieving a new level of organization, and it’s that time of year anyway. Business development remains priority one. Nevertheless, I find myself pulled continuously in a different direction with so many art deadlines and volunteer responsibilities demanding my attention. I have another milestone facing me within a week as part of my contractual obligation to the Band Festival as 2007 featured artist. And I must make steady progress on preparations for a one-man show in May at the Community Arts Center. If I don’t find a way to more successfully block out my time, there are some intense experiences that I won’t be able to avoid this year. One good new client would take much of the heat off our situation, and that has to be my focus, one way or another.

— We had a full house at the B.I.K.E. meeting tonight, including our newly sworn-in mayor. It was an important kick-off for the year, a discussion of our first major proposal to the city for infrastructure enhancements and repairs. If I didn’t have so many experienced community leaders at the table, I think I’d probably spin my wheels a lot, but they have a way of making sure I keep getting the traction we need (I don’t know if that pun was intentional or not).

— Dana and I continue to chip away at our three hours of P.J. O’Rourke on tape. He says he dislikes memoirs, and so I can only assume he’s never read the extraordinary Paul Watkins book, Stand Before Your God. He really doesn’t like bloggers either. According to him it’s like “what I did last summer” for adults, and he seems to detest the whole phenomenon. As far as this blog goes, it appears we have an every-other-day pattern of entries developing and that suits me fine. It’s half the level of blogging I was doing a year ago, arguably a more reasonable pace for my current situation. If you desire more than that, dear reader, all I can say it this: you must have way too much time on your hands.

V & S

Good Grief. I just read Keillor’s first syndicated column of the year. For somebody who got famous being humorous and touching at the same time, it’s painful to cringe through something with that much self-righteous venom. He’s far too good a writer to inflict that on a reader, but it was my choice to partake. It’s like deciding to sit in front of Meryl Streep and have her look directly at you and weep.

Looking for an antidote, I sat down to watch a few minutes of P.J. O’Rourke on “In Depth,” who was talking about how much writers dislike the act of writing. He said something very close to this: “No writer who I respect says they love the writing part. I suppose the only people who love writing are bloggers. Blogs are free—and worth it.”

Yow. One of those days. I’d better go accomplish something.

There you have it, Ian. You just got your money’s worth.

It sounds strange, but President Ford never seemed like an entirely substantial figure in my personal perceptions. I don’t mean in the sense of credibility or political weight, but in the literal sense of being a real person. I happened to have been living in Brussels as a student worker during the second half of 1974 and missed those supposedly multi-orgasmic constitutional spasms of the day that everyone else can usually describe in great detail. As a result, the culmination of the Watergate crisis has always felt to me like a hazy historical event, and, by extension, the 38th President like a big pretend creature from a B movie, as though one of Ian’s old Frankenstein drawings had been put in charge of the government.

They didn’t consider us “interns” back then. The term was reserved for medical trainees and I was called a “co-op,” just like Mombo was back in the early 40s. As I’ve probably described before, I remember listening to the Nixon resignation speech as it was piped by loudspeaker into the morning streets of Amsterdam, while I leaned sleepily from the open window of a youth hostel, during one of my weekend forays into that Dutch shrine of “70s-ness.” So when I returned to the States before Christmas and finally took stock of President Ford weeks later, it was like, “who the heck is this guy?”

Fast forward through the remaining two years of the Ford administration. Back then it didn’t take much to get me miffed about the national scene. I was still angry at Ford for endorsing mass inoculations to counter a Swine-Flu boogeyman, for his apparently feeble attempts to turn around the lousy economy that I faced as a university graduate, and his cold shoulder to the supreme Russian dissident of the century. I don’t remember what I thought about his pardon of Nixon—one more ghostly act from another dimension. I’d voted against Ford in ‘76 while living in Chicago. Not really in favor of Carter (it was hard for me to take Jimmy seriously), I’d lost my enthusiasm for the campaign after neither of my two favorites, Eugene McCarthy and Ronald Reagan, had managed to prevail into the home stretch. As unfocused as they were, you can tell that my political attitudes tended toward the radical, and that was the one thing Gerry Ford indisputably was not. When Carter began to “self-destruct in five seconds,” I took an odd measure of pride in the fact that Ford had carried Illinois.

Fast forward again to a newly minted 2007 with one less Former President. Clearly it’s time to reflect on his rightful place in history, and I’ve softened my viewpoint considerably. I should have liked him more. He deserved it. Nevertheless, I can’t help but think that all the kind and appreciative things being said about Gerald R. Ford would still be equally true if he had not sought to retain the Presidency beyond his short stewardship, and, as confirmation of his quintessential unselfishness and towering decency, had stepped aside with the same dignity with which he had taken office—to have recognized his unique distinction as Healer among our chief executives, to have recognized the ascendancy of national conservatism over his frayed brand of Republican establishmentarianism, and to have recognized it was time to decisively pave the way for the next necessary phase of post-Nixonian resurgence—a fresh and bold style of visionary leadership for America.

“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

With a strict focus on our most urgent priorities, I must temporarily devote myself to creating a stronger and more stable business posture.

Click the “Archives” and browse a few of my past entries— January 2005 to September 2006.

From time to time I’ll continue to record my thoughts in a private book, just as I have done since 1971, because I concur with Harlan Hubbard in that I have always kept a journal for “myself changed and at a later time,” and, to use his words again, I would hope that I can someday resume this log as “a kind of memorial to the passing days.”

Until then, please do a few things for me…

• Don’t neglect your creative self.

• Read any Paul Watkins book you can find.

• Ride a bicycle, just for fun.

• Visit Anacrusis, Monday through Friday.

• Treat your body as your best investment.

• Put in a good word for Dixon Design.

“The education of the will is the object of our existence.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Once a pirate, always a pirate.”

— Frank the Fisherman

Even though the viability of our old story (known at different times as “The Mutants” or “Benedict’s 9”) took a major hit with the success of “X-Men,” I continued to think it held some promise as a distinctive fictional idea. So much for that. Within the next month, two new television premieres will undoubtedly gouge deeper into the heart of our concept and kill it off for good: “The Nine,” which places a group of strangers into a high-stress scenario and then follows how their lives intertwine, and “Heroes,” a series about a professor who learns that ordinary people are developing extraordinary abilities (including an artist, a high schooler and an Asian guy—sound too familiar?). It reportedly has a group of sinister types pursuing them as their paths begin to cross. Good grief. Maybe somebody found our Web pages and stole our story. Hey, maybe we can sue if this takes off! Seriously, we sat on our treatment too long. Let’s hope someone else does it justice. I’m encouraged by the fact that Tim Kring was creatively involved in both “Crossing Jordan” and “Chicago Hope.” “Heroes,” will debut on Monday, September 25 at 9 pm, and a pilot for “The Nine,” is supposed to air on Wednesday, October 4 at 10 pm. Well, at least we can watch Tim Daly in a new show and see if he’s as good as he was in the ill-fated “Eyes.”

C-SPAN’s In Depth is the crown jewel of BookTV. Dana convinced me to tape it while we were in Ohio, and I’m glad I did. Only a three-hour interview can do justice to certain unique creative personalities. How else do you begin to comprehend the individualism of a pro-choice, Bush-defending, lesbian, anti-gun-control, feminist, death-penalty advocate like Tammy Bruce? Well, I guess I could also read her books, but the stack on my night stand is about to collapse as it is…

Mombo and Joan decided to travel with us, and we were in no hurry to make our way towards home. Yesterday was Uncle Bob’s 70th birthday, and I think that gave me the idea of our going to Yellow Springs and popping in on his son, Dan (not the type of thing you could do on a holiday with just anyone.) It turned out to be a wonderful experience, with an outdoor meal hot off the grill, and a rare opportunity to examine an extraordinary private art collection, including an astonishing series of wood engravings by Dearth. It was fun to talk to Elizabeth about her studies at U.C., and to wish Olivia well before she departs on her adventure to Spain. My magnanimous cousin gave me some pawpaw fruit as we were getting ready to leave, and he reminded me that nothing is more important than family. On the way south, we discussed the possibility of Darb’s relocation to the Blue Bank Farm, which, if approached with thoughtful planning and a bit of imagination, could be a win-win situation for her and the entire Clan.

Bruce spent most of the day resting. He wanted to leave for Indianapolis after tonight’s concert. Quite some time ago, as a 40th birthday present for her son, Dana got tickets for a rare Bruce Cockburn performance at the Kentucky Theatre. Lee and David decided to go, too, and the five of us drove to Lexington for dinner at Natasha’s before the show. We had a great meal and great seats. Bruce was clearly pleased with his gift. Early this morning on her way to work, Joan dropped off hers—an excellent copy of “Walden” that belonged to Joe Wood. At lunch, Bruce and I had a good talk about writing as a subtractive process, and the necessity of brutal self-editing (not unlike the practice of “design refinement” drilled into me as a university student). I’m finally beginning to fully appreciate Bruce’s artistic spirit. My anticipation for his creative output is a familiar craving with which I’ve learned to live. I respond to artists in one of three ways—indifference, inspiration, or demoralization. Although Bruce Cockburn’s sensibilities tend to fall a bit farther to the left than mine, he doesn’t fit the description of a stereotypical liberal musician. Experiencing his creative energy inspires me to my own art, and maybe that’s one more thing my son and I have come to share.

In Lexington this morning, a commuter jet crashed while trying to take off from the wrong runway, killing 49 of the 50 souls on board. I bicycled out to Shared Silence, and left for Kelley Ridge when I got home, to help Joan get her armoire to the upper floor. I didn’t find out about the accident until she told me. Jeffrey had to leave, but I stayed and had lunch with her, Caitlan, Josh, Pat, and Verla. Caitlan and I talked about her internship, and I also found out that Josh will be working full time as a screen printer for the 10th Planet. Joan sent me home with gifts, including Berry’s book on Harlan Hubbard and two of Joe’s old wooden boxes that will enable me to create assemblage under the influence of Joseph Cornell. She also loaned me a James McMullen book which totally throws open my thinking with respect to a concept for the Brass Band Festival poster. I worked outside when I got home, swept the driveway, and finished stacking my salvaged bricks. I got an email informing me that the son of a cycling pal (Martin V of Burgin) had died in a rock-climbing fall. I helped Dana finish her food preparations for Bruce’s visit, just as he arrived. It seemed so amazing to have him here after his first solo Interstate drive in a very long time. It was only a year ago that he was still in the thick of a battle against potentially deadly infections, so this marks another important milestone in his slow recovery. Jeannette and Ben stopped by to see him and have a bite to eat. Terie, Marty, Joan, and Caitlan paid him a visit, too. It’s been a happy evening, in a house not usually so full of life, but I’m acutely aware of the overwhelming sense of tragedy that so many other Central Kentucky families must be feeling tonight.

Kathleen invited me to collaborate on a collage that will become the featured artwork on gift cards for out-of-town artists participating in the “Connections” show. We produced it today and that turned out to be a delightful, informative experience. On top of it, she loaned me one of her favorite books, “Joseph Cornell: Shadowplay Eterniday.”

Last night I stayed in Tipp City with my chum Bill and we enjoyed our shared anticipation for a September fishing trip to Michigan. Even though I failed to reach him by phone and he was bone tired from a day in the sun (after clearing fallen trees from the Great Miami with a chain saw), he welcomed me with a bear hug and set his last Bud Light in front of me—that’s what I call a friend.

It took me ten hours to get home from Ohio today. The joint in my rear drive shaft broke south of Kenton County, but I was able to arrange a tow and successful repair before the end of the day. I felt like I’d sweated off a couple gallons, baking on the shoulder of I-75. It was almost the exact spot where years ago a state policeman pulled me over after the Cincinnati Marathon to test my sobriety. Old “Ned” continues to give me fits if I don’t keep spending money on him that I’d rather not. I’m glad this didn’t happen yesterday with Mike.

Crucial to getting out of my predicament: 1) Dana insisting on Monday that I carry a cellular phone. 2) Being able to talk through the details of the breakdown with my brother Jay, an expert truck mechanic. I was so focused on his long-distance analysis and advice that I completely forgot that today is his 45th birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my brother, “Bub.” I love you, forever…

Sitting for a long time at a garage in what barely passes as a “waiting room” can be a strange experience. I watched part of a “Gunsmoke” episode featuring Anthony Zerbe playing opposite himself in a split-screen double role, but my mind was on a personal crisis more critical than a broken pickup. I thought about the counsel of my best friends from youth. Each has his own brand of wisdom, having survived his own chapters of adversity. Both genuinely care about the particular challenges it’s my turn to face.

Dadbo once said to me after his buddy Joe died that a man is lucky to have one or two true friends in life, and now I know what he meant.

Mike’s mom is doing well. I took my small bicycle with me, so last night, Mike and I prepped his old ten-speed and did a short “shakedown” to see his brother Tom, a former apartment mate of mine from university days and in more recent years a client. During this visit, Mike’s been using space in Tom’s conference room to complete a book manuscript that’s due at the publisher on Friday.

Today we loaded the bikes in “Ned” (my truck) and set out to fulfill a mutual promise from the 1970s—to make a “pilgrimage” to the grave of frontiersman Simon Kenton in Urbana, Ohio. Our first stop was in West Liberty, where we bicycled out to the so-called Piatt Castles, built by two brothers of contrasting personalities on land their father settled after leaving Cincinnati in 1828. I hadn’t been out there in over 40 years. The adventurous risk taking that it represents became a metaphor for our day-long discussion about what we face in middle life as individuals and friends. Afterwards we had lunch at the small regional airport. Tom had recommended the little cafe beside the runway. There was a B-25 displayed on the tarmac, so Mike and I just let ourselves through the chain-link gate to nose around, almost as if the War on Terror hadn’t made it yet to this neck of the woods.

From the airport we drove to the campus of Urbana University and got back on bikes for our ride to the cemetery. Mike wanted to ask for directions. I knew we could find the grave-site on our own. A caretaker wasn’t around, but we had no difficulty locating the prominent location, with its impressive bronze sculpture and concentric rings of monuments and markers. I wish I could explain what it was like for me to be there—to sit at that spot and know it was my hero’s final physical destination, after a life that was too bold for fiction. To be honest, I don’t have the ability to record my impressions of the time we spent at the site, including the meeting of a goal that literally took a generation to fulfill. At some level we must have understood that the fullness of the graveside experience would first require a chunk of transpired lifetime. Perhaps that’s why we put it off for so long. Now I’m hoping for the inspiration that will enable me to transcend my verbal capacities and somehow capture the day’s insights.

— David and Lee scheduled an appointment to look at a house on the 400 block of West Broadway, so we tagged along. I had a bad feeling about this. Californians bought the house last summer, and it seems as though they had more money than good sense. Workers and dumpsters suddenly vanished a few weeks ago. Our look through the property confirmed my worst suspicions. One of Danville’s finest historic homes had been hung up and gutted like Duke Brian in “Gorky Park.” Reportedly, the owner can’t be located. To add a ludicrous element to the whole thing, a daughter is now asking prospective buyers to pay an even higher price than her mother paid for it—a perfectly livable home that was stripped, raped, and left for dead.

— Analysts are predicting that the demand for refurbishing Web formats may soon overtake the need for new site designs. Prices for domain names are dropping, a clear indication that the market for original sites is slowing down. Some agencies and firms are staffing specialized divisions devoted to economical “creative makeovers.” Deep within his Sanctum of Fortitude, Website Makeover™ Man is contemplating his fate.

— Watched a copy of “Broken Trail” last night, which Terie taped for us (before our vacation with Marty), because we no longer pay for channels like AMC. It was interesting to study the similarities and differences in Duvall’s performance, compared to “Open Range,” along with the contrasting directorial styles brought to similar subject matter. And speaking of contrasts, the radically different character that Church personifies, versus his memorable Jack in “Sideways,” is worth the viewing. As much as I liked “Broken Trail,” and as much as I admired its aura of authenticity, the screenplay does suffer unfortunately from what I’ll refer to as presentism. For the most part, in my opinion, Costner managed to avoid presentism when he made “Open Range,”—an impressive personal achievement, quite frankly, since his indulgent first western reeked of it. Nevertheless, who doesn’t like the entertaining “Dances,” in spite of its PC tone?

V & S

Despite the difficulties in punctuality I had pulling myself away from the Dixons of Broadwing Farm, we managed to arrive on time at our appointment with representatives of Lincoln Memorial University. Our primary goal was to follow up on Jerome’s prior contact with the dean of the new DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine, but due to understandable concerns about the comprehensive visual identity of the parent institution, other administrators wanted to sit in. We had no problem with that—it dovetailed with our own philosophy of image management and it gave us the opportunity to promote our creative services to a wider audience. The meeting seemed to go well. I’d never heard of LMU, but it’s a beautiful setting and progress on the new College is moving along rapidly. Faculty will be in place next winter and the first incoming students are scheduled to begin classes in the fall of 2007. Now is the time for them to invest in projecting a high level of graphic credibility. Dana and I are ideally suited for this work. Will they choose wisely?

After leaving LMU, we headed through the tunnel into Kentucky and found a decent Mexican lunch in Middlesboro. (Home of Lee Majors, who Brendan’s dad always liked and I still admire for his work long ago in “Will Penny.” He got his start, like my pal Andrew, at Pioneer Playhouse, here in Danville.) We decided to go through with our idea of making a cold call on the University of the Cumberlands. The weather was awful, pouring like a sonuvagun, and I was trying to safeguard the portfolio. All the time I wondered if the whole thing was a forlorn hope. Quite the contrary. The timing seemed almost perfect, and we sat down with the director of community relations just as he was thinking about severing ties to a big expensive outfit from Iowa (the same kind of specialized organization that nearly recruited Dana and me back in the 80s). That meeting seemed to go well, too, and I found myself getting more and more comfortable with that KY-TN border region as fertile ground for the graybeard prospector.

After being home from our trip some 36 hours or so, I finally found my house keys. One of those quantum warps in space or existential blind spots, I suppose. I was miffed to the point of near obsession, but discovered them at last, in a place I’d already searched three times. Madness…

I’ve also had an unsettled feeling all morning, wondering if maybe there was a Clan gathering yesterday that we missed. Nobody told us if the Council had been rescheduled or not, due to the cancelation of the Seitz family reunion. We got back pretty early Sunday morning and didn’t have much energy yesterday, but we would have made the effort to attend. I guess I should have inquired, but didn’t think of it until I found myself in the midst of a restless sleep.

I said I’d record some notes about the Tour de France, which could not have offered more interest to bicycle fans this year. Floyd Landis won the race after being declared out of contention, pulling off one of the greatest comebacks in sport so far this century. His Alpine performance on Thursday bordered on the superhuman, and he left no doubters concerning his place as Lance’s rightful successor.

When he first started to compete as a cyclist, my pal Brian (who gave me a nice pair of his pedals earlier this year) used to race against Landis, the Mountain Bike Cross Country National Champion at the time. In a recent article about the Tour, several of us local cyclists were asked to make a prediction about who would win the event. I hedged my bets, and the Advocate Messenger printed this quotation from me:

“With Armstrong’s top four challengers from 2005 out of the picture, predicting the victor this year will be harder than picking the winner of a Kentucky Derby. Team Gerolsteiner’s Levi Leipheimer, from the United States, may be the man to beat, but it’s hard not to like the chances of Aussie Cadel Evans or Phonak’s Floyd Landis, another American. However, my hopes are with one of the Discovery Channel cyclists—Ukrainian Yaroslav Popovych, Italian Paolo Savoldelli, or, if I had to pick a favorite, American George Hincapie. This is a team that knows how to produce a champion.”

In contrast, Brian didn’t beat around the bush, and he placed a single public bet on Floyd Landis with his own statement to the same reporter. It was a great call, the same kind of smart, gutsy, no-fear attitude he shows the rest of us every week, and that’s what it takes to be a competitor on two wheels.

It’s early. Marty and I are getting up to go perch fishing. Dana is kindly making pancakes for us. It just dawned on me that I have a Bicycle Commission conference call this morning which I may need to join by cell from out on the lake. That’s too wild for me—I don’t even typically carry a mobile telephone in my “day job!”

Speaking of wild, I had a dream last night about getting stuck in an unknown J.J. Abrams TV series (from when he was younger) called “Submission,” and it was a phantasmagoric mix of “Baron Munchhausen,” Twyla Tharp, William F. Cody, and “Alias.” I thought, “Wow. This guy is a damn genius!” I had to laugh at myself when I woke up and realized it was a dream.

Hubbard’s preferences notwithstanding, I want electricity! Nasty storms overnight caused an early morning power outage that lasted until almost 11 am. Lack of coffee stunted the day’s opening for me, but it didn’t take very long to get everything back in gear by afternoon. It got me thinking that I probably have too many objectives for one short vacation, especially when I have two other individuals with which to share my time. In situations like this, I realize I’ve made a mental to-do list as if I was on a solitary retreat. Oh well, it takes me a while to learn things, and now that I’ve got my head straight, I’ll do my best to balance attentiveness to everyone, including myself.

It also got me thinking that I probably need to cut back on the coffee.

Not too many things make me angry, but I must say that I hate to misplace things, and looking for a missing item is a fast track to the loss of harmony as well. I truly hate the entire dynamic, and it goes to the heart of my quirks about organization and a personal relationship with “stuff.”

Before long, we’ll complete our final preparations and leave for Michigan. If we can survive the packing.

It must not matter if you’re famous or anonymous, nor whether you have the means to buy almost anything once you arrive at a destination, there’s still something about packing for a trip that generates tension and the potential for conflict. When you add to that the frustration of locating misplaced items, the combination can be rather combustible.

Charlton Heston thought enough about this volatile phenomenon to include some observations in his excellent collection of journal entries called “The Actor’s Life.” He wrote about various pre-departure blow-ups. Later, he records that he and Lydia finally came to a workable resolution—henceforth, he would play no part at all in packing.

He never mentions it again.

On this point alone, Chuck is more man than I shall ever be.