LIKE A CHILD

It was an experiment asking, "Will people buy paintings from an artist (me) if he paints like a ten-year-old?".

As an elementary school art teacher, I know the style well. After being in three art shows these last two weeks the answer is more or less,"No".

Yes, I sold a few but most of my customers were ten. Apparently their parents had given them a little spendin' money.

Maybe I've been around kids too long but part of me enjoys their refusal to follow my directions like, "Stop putting the eyes where the hair should be!".

Despite my instructions, many first graders think of the human form as a smiling potato with stick-like appendages.

Whatever. This year I went with the flow.

Picasso once said, "I wish I could paint like a child again", but if he had he might have gone broke.

By the end of the Gifford Lane Art Show I had sold six ten-dollar paintings and one didgeridoo. Many

people enjoyed playing with my hula-hoops but none of them bought one.

By the end of the day I had made enough money to pay the show's entry fee and buy lunch.

I'm not complaining. Creating these forty pieces on plywood was a joy and the social interactions at these gatherings, priceless.

At the March 18th show several people told me,

"You're booth makes me happy".

And that should be enough.

NAME THAT BONE

When my wife's father died we inherited a few things including a baby elephant tusk.

Francesca and I didn't know quite what to do with it.

Unless you're a son of Donald Trump (his two boys went on an African killing spree last week), shooting elephants isn't the coolest thing.

Neither is possessing the body parts.

Still, there is a beautiful piece of ivory hiding on a low shelf in our living room.

Today a zoologist friend and his wife stopped by for ice cream. He spotted the tusk and quickly let us know that it was not African at all. He told Francesca, "You've got is a walrus tusk and your dad may have found it on a beach!".

We were elated, our sins washed away.

Phil also let us know my trophy "sea turtle bone" is actually a gill plate from a refrigerator-size Ocean Perch.

WHALE OF A TALE

We went on a beach walk

this morning, south of

Santa Cruz. Here are a few of the pictures I took.

The night before we had dinner with former Miamian, Adam Steckley.

He works for the O’Neil Foundation which teaches oceanography to kids.

Five days a week school children board his 65-foot catamaran sailboat for the trip of a lifetime.

As they cruise Monterrey Bay many confess they have never been on a boat or even seen the ocean.

We learned that last month was amazing. For three weeks humpback whales crowded into Santa Cruz harbor to feed.

“They just weren’t surfacing for air," said Adam, “These were huge animals leaping out of the water, gulping millions of tiny fish at a time. Try teaching an ecology lesson with these swimming school buses crashing around you!”

As you might expect, the whales became his lesson.

WIth on office on the beach, it seems to be the perfect job for our young surfer friend.

It's understood that when the waves are good, almost everyone in Santa Cruz manages to paddle out.

STRANGE FRUIT

We are the Bay Area this week. Walking in the Berkeley hills we spied a lemon tree from Mars. Its owner let us take a few.

At the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art we gazed at these two busts, one made of chocolate and the other, soap. The artist calls them, “Lick and Lather”.

It was the first time I ever had the urge to eat a statue.

Since televisions are flat now, we sometimes see them on walls as art.

This one had a quiet interior tableau where nothing moved...except

rising cigarette smoke.

We wondered, “How’d they stay so still?”.

If you stared long enough you'd notice an occasional blink or or hand movement.

We thought the smiling woman had the toughest position. She held that grin so well.

It took about ten minutes for the cigarette ash to reach the filter and drop.

When it did, the video looped back then started again.

PAINTING PRIMITIVE

The Gifford Lane Art Stroll will pop up for the 14th time on Sunday, March 18, from noon to five pm. It's the best little art festival in South Florida.

Residents of the Center Grove street barricade their block for an afternoon of art, music, and refreshment. Seventy artists,

including me, will show their stuff.

Many give away cookies.

I will be selling my usual collection of didgeridoos and hula hoops.
I will also be exhibiting a new series of visual creations. Painted on plywood, most reflect the artistic styles I see every day as an elementary art teacher. Prices start at five bucks.

Gifford Lane is one block east of SW 32 Ave. and two blocks north of Grand, just across the street from the tennis courts.

The Stroll is always lots of fun. We hope to see you there.

VULTURES EATING CARS

You first notice the warning signs in the Everglades National Park and wonder, "How can a bird hurt a car?". Then, you see the big black vultures perched on parked vehicles ripping the rubber that seals the windows shut.

We had arrived at Nine-Mile Pond last month to go on one of the park's free canoe adventures. As Francesca and I watched the birds in action, it didn't seem like such a great deal if, while we were paddling,

vultures were dining on our Toyota.

I did my best to scare them off. They just flapped to the side and waited for me to leave. They know that humans eventually go away.

Francesca and I noticed many people had tied plastic bags to their cars to scare the

birds. The thin plastic bounced around in the breeze. Having no such bags, we spread a blanket over our

van, tied it down, and paddled off.

Our guide led us on a three-mile tour. As we made our way through mangrove tunnels and searched for crocodiles I

kept thinking about how this "free" adventure might cost us hundreds in car repairs. Thankfully, at some point I forgot about the vultures and actually enjoyed myself.

After three hours we rounded the last turn home. I grabbed the binoculars and saw our camper intact, still somewhat protected by our flapping picnic blanket. The birds were eating a Chevy Silverado nearby.

Detroit rubber is mm-mm good.

Earlier our ranger guide explained that the vultures rip rubber out of boredom, "They're adolescents, too young to hang

with the big guys, so they do this to pass the time".

There was no rubber left on ranger's truck. She seemed okay with it as it was owned by the government.

The daily canoe trips are great fun provided to you by the American taxpayer. You may want to try it before the

mosquitoes the over in May. Reservations can be made by calling (239) 695-2945.

Last weekend a friend of mine took the

guided tour. She reported that there were no big birds hanging around the parking lot.

Apparently they've gone north for the season. South Florida's turkey vultures

summer in Ohio.

I'm calling my friends in Columbus to warn them now.

CRITICAL MASS MIAMI

Maybe you shouldn't come on the next

Critical Mass bike ride. So many enjoy this popular monthly event the bureaucrats may try to shut it down.

Over 1000 bike lovers now participate the wild ride that swoops and zooms all over Miami. They come in all shapes, sizes, on all kinds of bikes.

Very few are lycra-clad racers.

A remarkable number blast their own sound systems. We heard hip-hop, reggae, salsa, and son as we rolled on the evening's journey.

It begins, as always, at Government Center. The number of riders gathering there on the last Friday of the month have almost reached a "critical mass" (sometimes defined as "the minimal amount of fissionable material

that can sustain a nuclear reaction"). None of us wants this great event to explode, implode, or get regulated to death because it is too popular.

Friday night's affair was just right.

At 7 pm one of the organizers stood on top of a light post and asked us to ride safe. He reminded us of Aaron Cohen, last

week's fatality. The father of two was cycling with a friend on the Rickenbacker Causeway when he was cut down by a hit-and-run driver. Many of us wore white in his memory.

At 7:16 someone blew a whistle and the rolling mass slowly headed west.

The lights of downtown Miami were spectacular atop the Flagler Street Bridge. I would have taken a picture except for the ride's main rule, "Don't stop".

On 17th Ave. we headed north and passed the glistening new baseball stadium. I tried to appreciate it's amazingness despite it making our city so broke.

Turning east on 36th took us through Wynwood, the Design District, and Little Haiti. Ten miles into our trip it was time to head south down Biscayne Blvd. In the process we saw a slices of Miami you could only see on a CM ride.

I imagined it might be similar if we were riding on a magic bus a half-mile long. Our ride would have no roof, no walls and travel at just 12 m.p.h. We'd be enjoying the sights and sounds of our city plus the new friends around us. To keep our bus' momentum we would blow

through every stop sign and red light in sight (with friends temporarily blocking the traffic...a little like a presidential motorcade).

That's how it was, a wild, rolling party. It continued past the end when we gathered at The Filling Station to drink beer.

Riding in big groups like this feels too fun to be legal. Florida law actually allows bicycle groups to take up a full lane of traffic. "Share the road" and "Be considerate" are other important rules.

In a little over an hour we had plowed through pieces of Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and a few other countries.

I had no idea so many barbershops were open for business in Friday night.

One customer ran out wearing his haircut gown to cheer us on. The Full Gospel Church was having a service right next to the Temptation Bar. Lit up past the glass you could see it all.

Only a handful of drivers cursed us, upset by blocked traffic, their lives put on hold for five minutes. When one man yelled, "Get the f--- out of the road!" hundreds laughed back.

99% of the people I saw cheered us on.

As we finally glided to a stop by the big blue bank my first-time friends smiled in disbelief. Who knew a bike could be this much fun?

BYE-BYE BERNICE

It's a lot harder to eat at Bernice's since

they put a 6-foot fence around it. It'll be even harder tomorrow when they bulldoze the tiny West Grove cafe.

The City of Coral Gables bought the 20,000

sq. ft. property to build a warehouse to maintain its "trolleys" (actually motorhomes with a lot of seats and windows). The City of Miami wants it to also be a "trolley station" (actually a bus stop).

Either one would be a good thing for Coconut Grove which has not had a new commercial building erected in years.

If nothing else, it would bring some jobs to a neighborhood with high unemployment. Bernice's usually had just one employee and you can probably guess her name.