entertainment – Page 13

Andy Warhol hoarding soup cans

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Saw this picture online titled, “Andy Warhol hoarding Campbell’s Soup Cans and Brillo Boxes.” I thought it was funny. I saw some of the Brillo boxes along with the paintings recently at the Whitney in NY.

I see he is in Gristede’s a NYC supermarket. I saw Carol Channing once in Gristede’s in NYC, it was years ago, on 59th Street near 5th Avenue, she was at the check out in front of me. The second she spoke she gave herself away – that voice!

Once Mary Wickes was in front of me in line in the supermarket here in Miami – I think it was at Grand Union. She commented on the Entenmann’s chocolate chip cookies I was buying. Her hair was snow white not like the jet black you know her as having.

Which brings me to Hello Dolly!, probably Carol Channing’s most famous roles, since I’m doing 6 degrees of everything – I saw Hello Dolly! a couple of summer’s ago, back in NY, with Bernadette Peters as Dolly.

I have been social distancing by staying home, but I did run out to get corned beef and cabbage at a local hang out. I got take-out, but I was quite surprised to see the place so full at lunch time. I thought the governor shut down restaurants and bars and only allowed take-out, but I guess that didn’t take place yet. The place was full of people, more than the allowable 50% and people were closer than 6 feet. I’m concerned as I want this freaking virus gone already – if we don’t stop infections it will never go away.

People need to stay at home to reduce the risk of spreading infection.

Art, food, music, friends and of course cucumber punch at Gifford Lane

Once a year, in our little village, we have what’s called the Gifford Lane Art Stroll – it’s about art, but it’s also about food, music and friends – it’s an old fashioned block party and it’s a place where everybody knows everybody else.

I took a Freebee over, it’s a little golf cart that drives people around town, and the driver told me, “The whole town is there!” And that’s the way it’s been for 21 years. It’s one of our favorite events of the year.

Money raised through the art, food and cucumber punch – the best part of the event, goes to two local charities.

My friend Dave and his wife Trina, who started the event so long ago, open their house to visitors. The green cucumber punch is ladled out in the kitchen and people stroll out back to their tropical back yard. It’s old Florida.

A funny thing is that Dave calls out to people as they obliviously walk by, “Thank you for coming! Take all the punch you want!” If I said it, that would be sarcastic, but he means it. And that’s part of the charm of the whole thing.

Pauline Goldsmith, a fantastic artist and friend and her friend Beverly Borland.

The tree-lined Gifford Land.

My friend Theresa does lots of exotic art.

The Solar Dogs perform

Lots of art, lots of friends.

Dogs are always a part of the Art Stroll.

My friend Sheri Friedman shows off her custom painted denim.

My friend Eileen Seitz shows off her tropical paintings.

This is the original art for this year’s poster.

Liz Gibson’s painted rocks.

Liz, Louis and Lana.

It’s the event of the season.

The cucumber punch is the hit of the event.

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More art shows filling the streets

This past weekend we had a couple of arts festivals in town. They were a lot of fun, I went all three days with different friends and family. There are a lot of art shows this time of year in Miami. We have a couple more coming up, I may go to the Street Painting Festival in Lake Worth next weekend, and then in March there is one final show, which is more of a block party. One of our favorite ones of the year.

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This is from 2008, a friend painted me at a local restaurant. I hadn’t seen this painting since back then, she gave it to me the other day. Love it.

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The rest of these photos are just some of this weekend’s art shows.

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The Porsche show

Went to a Porsche show in the City of South Miami today. A friend called and asked me to meet him there. As you know from my last post, I’m not really into cars, but it was a beautiful day and nice to walk around and hang out.

I didn’t stay long because when I texted my friend that I had arrived he texted back that he was at a local restaurant/bar with a couple of friends he ran into. I didn’t know them by their names (he mentioned the names in the text), so I wasn’t up to meeting new people. As I get older, the introverted side of me comes out more. It’s either that or I’m just not into making small talk. It’s not that I’m shy, I think I just don’t want to be bothered.

So I took a few pictures and came home.

It was quite an obstacle course getting out and getting home, the Miami Marathon was still going on from earlier in the morning and traffic was re-routed all different directions. You want to go north and they send you south.

Shameless

So this is sort of freaky. I started watching Shameless, the tv show in the 10th season. I did the same thing with Ray Donovan in the 6th season. I’m all caught up with Ray now, I ended up watching all of it from season 1 after my cousin read me the riot act. He couldn’t understand how I was happy watching the show in its 6th season without knowing what happened in the five seasons preceding that.

With Shameless, I watched all of season 10 without watching the previous nine seasons and when season 10 ended, I started watching from the start on Showtime on demand. And that’s the freaky part. The kids are the same kids but only 10 years younger. I barely recognize them!

Liam, who is about 11 or 12 now is a baby in season 1. All the other kids are 10 years younger, it’s like a time warp. One kid who is 20 now, Carl, is 10 then, Ian who is 21 now is 11. It’s so freaky!

I got right into it from the first episode, but I also got right into it from the first episode of season 10. Anyway, I’m now watching it all and hoping to watch all 9 seasons, and maybe season 10 again, before season 11, the final season, comes on this summer.

I keep binge watching it, I can’t stop. I love it. It’s up there with Breaking Bad. By the way, I never watched Breaking Bad when it was on for its regular run, after it ended I caught a marathon and fell in love with that. I started watching from the first episode ironically, it just popped on the tv one time, season 1, episode 1 and I watched it from there.

shameless1 — Three of the cast – then and now.

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It’s festival season

Art season has started in Miami. For the next few months there are lots of festivals and art shows. I attended two this weekend. Two old ones, they have both been around for years.

art1 — A scene on Ocean Drive, South Beach.

Today I was in South Beach for the Art Deco Festival and yesterday we went to the Beaux Arts Festival in Coral Gables. That festival is close to home, it’s on the University of Miami campus. I’ve been going to both festivals since I’m a kid. Yes, they’ve been around that long. It’s also Regatta season for the next six months, but I don’t really deal with that. I live on the water, but I’m not much of a boater.

art2 — Vintage cars lined Ocean Drive for Art Deco.

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I know a lot of the artists from over the years and from the neighborhood. They tend to go from festival to festival and so do I, so I guess I’ll see a lot of them this coming winter.

My favorite thing is to eat my way through the festivals. I love festival food and other great food and drinks. One of the festivals in February has an English tea room and for all three days of that festival I have tea and scones with friends. Whoever is around, I drag over with me and everyone enjoys that – English tea with scones with jelly and clotted cream! I go for three days because the festival is right in my neighborhood and it’s easy to just stay put for the weekend rather than deal with the traffic in and out of town. I’ll post pictures of that next month.

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Benilda

hal-and-high-water-benilda Benilda – that’s the name of Hal’s wife. In the first strip Benilda throws Hal out and that’s where her name is used. We don’t see her, but she’s a character. I’m sure we’ll see her in the future, but for now, she is talked about but not seen.

Where did I get the name Benilda? It’s the name of a client of mine, but I’ve never met her! She purchases office items from me, she orders online regularly and it all happens online, we’ve never met, never spoken on the phone, I’m not even sure if we’ have an email conversation. Orders come in, they are from Benilda, they are processed and shipped. She’s ordered for many years and every so often, there she is, her name pops up – an order from Benilda.

I can’t even think of her last name at the moment, but with a name like Benilda, you don’t need a last name, like Cher or Madonna or Prince.

I love the sound of Benilda and so I used it as the main woman in the Hal and High Water Strip – who is currently not seen!

NEXT BLOG POST: DRAWING BOATS – LOTS OF BOATS

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Drawing Hal

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This is the first panel of the first reincarnation of “Hal an High Water.” I started it yesterday.

hal I kept putting it off until the time was right, there were things that I was working out in my head and on paper and eventually digitally. I wasn’t happy with the Hal I had originally, his nose was too far from his head, it looked great in black and white, but when color was added it had a strange look. And his hair, I thought it was too much, too out there, he needed a haircut. This image here is the previous Hal.

I was also working on boats since boats and particularly sailboats are a big part of the strip.

I know it looked as if I wasn’t doing anything, but I was working it all out in my head and finally it all came together.

But once I felt things were right I got right into it. It’s taking about two hours for each strip to be done from start to final coloring. I need to get that down to an hour, which I will. But I’m into it. I really am enjoying Hal and the actual work. As I stated before, I prefer drawing single panel cartoons but decided at this time a comic strip was the way to go and it’s working out well.

For updates on the progress, you can follow me on social media here:
Hal and High Water Twitter: twitter.com/HalAndHighWater
Hal and High Water Instagram: instagram.com/HalAndHighWater
Hal and High Water Facebook: facebook.com/HalAndHighWater

Lots of super heroes at NY Comic Con

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I went back to NY Comic Con on Sunday, it was a bit gloomy on opening day, Thursday, I guess due to the rainy weather in NY, but on Sunday, it was really fun. There were thousands upon thousands of people there.

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And each year, the costumes and the co-play gets better and better. Spider-man seems to be the most popular and they all seem to congregate. This is only a few who were photographed together, before I took this photo, there were about a dozen or so.

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I try to capture the crowds, I posted videos on social media and it doesn’t do it justice, there are just so many people – all happy, all patient, you have to be in this crowd.

So another year has come to an end. Keep the NY Comic Con website handy and sign up for updates so you can get in on next year’s event: newyorkcomiccon.com. It comes up pretty fast.

Another wild year at New York Comic Con

I attended the first day of New York Comic Con, which opened today, October 3. It was a bit rainy after a day yesterday, of 91 degree temps, so the drizzle felt good in the cooler, 55 degree weather today.

The crowds were there as usual, it was a mess getting in and getting out. And this weekend of course will bring even more people.

I was disappointed to see that GoComics.com did not have their usual booth where you could meet and greet your favorite cartoonists every year, I always look forward to that and I think that is the reason I started going to comic con years ago. Instead it looked as if they had a promo for The Far Side comic, which seems like it’s coming back in January and I guess Andrews McMeel, the owner of Go Comics, wished to promote that, which was a smart idea, but all the same I miss meeting my favorite cartoonists as in previous years.