"Best Selfie Ever"

An original IBL photograph taken Sunday evening, October 2nd, 2016, Alison Leddy / Nathan Loya wedding, Stern Grove, San Francisco.

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"Selfie with Gin"

An original IBL photograph taken Saturday evening, October 22nd, 2016, at the bar at Ocean Star (formerly Sun Ya), Chinatown, Seattle.

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"Cross"

An original IBL photograph taken Thursday evening, September 15th, 2016, outside Linda's Tavern, Capitol Hill, Seattle. 

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"Photo of the Previous Cross That's So Much Better Than Just the Cross On Its Own"

An original IBL photograph taken Saturday afternoon, September 10th, 2016, 7700 block of Greenwood Avenue North, Greenwood, Seattle. 

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"Cross"

Pen, pencil, torn coaster and glue, 1.5 x 3/4 inches, August 27th, 2016, Greenwood, Seattle.

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"Calvary II - Mark 15:34, Not Mentioned in John"

Pen, pencil, chalk, glue and scoring on torn coaster and junk mail, 3 1/8 x 4 inches, August 13th, 2016, Greenwood, Seattle.

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"Calvary I - Matthew 27:46, Not Mentioned in Luke"

Pen, pencil, felt pen, water, glue and scoring on torn coaster and junk mail, 3 x 3.75 inches, August 13th, 2016, Greenwood, Seattle.

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(Untitled Original IBL Art)

Pen, pencil, felt pen and lipstick on coaster, 3 3/8 x 3 3/8 inches, July 28th, 2016, Metropolitan Grill, Seattle.

(Promised to Steve Horswill.)

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"Two Crosses With Frame"

Pen on cocktail napkin, 5 x 5 inches, August 6th, 2016, Hattie's Hat, Ballard.

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"Not So Much the Agnew Watch"

Photocopied page of DFW's Broom of the System and pen, 11 x 8.5 inches, June 8th, 2016, Metropolitan Grill, Seattle.

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"Lopsided Cross"

Sparkling wine wrapper and staples, 5.25 x 2.75 inches, August 13th, 2016, Greenwood, Seattle.

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A Taste of the Funny - In An Elevator

A very clever and funny thing to say, when you are in an elevator and you are headed down to the ground floor and the elevator stops over and over again - it seems like people are getting on and off at pretty  much every floor - well, then a very clever and funny thing to say when you have the chance and especially if it's quiet in the elevator car, a funny and clever thing to say is to wryly say, "Hey, I didn't mean to get on the local!" (or some variant of that), because the implication then is that you had a choice when you entered the elevator car, like with a bus, say, or maybe a subway route, to take EITHER a local or an express, and so then you'd be implying via this wry statement that, having it do over again or if you had your druthers etc., you'd have chosen to take an express rather than the "local" referenced in the wry statement, because the "local", of course, would have fewer stops and fewer people getting on and off and you would get to the ground floor faster, like an express bus, say, or maybe an express subway route would get you to your final destination faster.

See?

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Geoff Bankowski Sent Me a Cross...

... a lovely little cross he snapped at the Utica Avenue Station in BedStuy, Brooklyn, around March 16th, 2016.

Again, thanks to all, and keep those cards and crosses coming!

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Peeber Sent Me a Cross

People send me crosses on occasion, and photos of crosses.  Kayne Doumani has, for example, and Cat Howard/Gil Batzri.  Alice Rudolph has, and Nate McFadden.  You could too if you got a wild hair.

Sadly the identity of the original artist here is not known to us, but we do know that Peeber snapped this photo today on a hiking trail under a freeway overpass near Lafayette, California.  And we so thank him for this, we truly do.

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"Two Crosses"

Colored pencil on note paper, 8.5 x 5.5 inches, March 11th, 2016, Gainsbourg, Greenwood, Seattle.

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"Demure (with Child)"

Portion of torn matchbook on prayer card, 5 x 4 inches, March 12th, 2016, Seattle, WA.

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"Incognito"

Portion of torn matchbook on prayer card, 5 x 4 inches, March 12th, 2016, Seattle, WA.

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"The Great Despiser"

Pen on cocktail napkin, 4.75 x 4.75 inches, November 20th, 2015, Seattle, WA.

"It Is Finished" (2 of 2)

Pen on dinner napkin, 6.75 x 6.75 inches, November 14th, 2015, Bellingham, WA.


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"It Is Finished" (1 of 2)

Pen on dinner napkin, 6.75 x 6.75 inches, November 14th, 2015, Bellingham, WA.


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From A Suggestion By Robert Winant

From January 9th of this year - I had Robert Winant give me some topics for my special brand of cocktail napkins, and he came up with "Apocalypse Now".  And I came up with this as a first take and liked it enough I didn't even work out a second.  And then I sent it off to Robert to do with it what he wants.  (And if YOU want one for your very own it goes without saying if you send me a movie title, or a song, or whatever you like, I will make sure you receive one...)

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"Jenny" by Terry Kath

I was chatting with Peeber awhile back and randomly mentioned the song "The Night Chicago Died" by Paper Lace.  Not a good song but, at the time it came out, I bought the 45 (kids!).  Then I started thinking about all the other singles I bought in the early 1970s down at Record Town on the corner of Beach Boulevard and La Habra Boulevard in La Habra, California, and bringing them home and realizing there was a song on the back, which fascinated me to no end (I was 9, let's say).  They weren't played on AM radio (a few years later, when I switched to FM, I understood they were likely being played there all along, and other cuts from the originating albums, too), and I pretty much had no idea where they came from (I just didn't understand the concept of the album yet).  At any rate, for whatever reason, I tried to come up with the flip side of "The Night Chicago Died", which I couldn't (nor have I researched it since), and THEN I started thinking specifically about the first 45s I bought.  Why would I remember these? Why do we remember anything.  "The Night Chicago Died" was either the 7th or 8th single I bought; it gets blurry after that.  But I can tell you the first six -

• "Shambala" by Three Dog Night
• "Feelin' Stronger Every Day" by Chicago
• "Rock On" by David Essex
• "Seasons in the Sun" by Terry Jacks
• "Bennie and the Jets" by Elton John
• "The Show Must Go On" by Three Dog Night

So naturally I tried to remember the flip sides of these six singles and actually came up with five of them, but I'll spare you that except to mention the flip side of "Feelin' Stronger Every Day", which was "Jenny".  Now I happen to think "Feelin' Stronger Every Day" is a fine song, and you are likely aware of it if you are of a certain age.  But if you are NOT aware of "Jenny", written and sung by Chicago's original lead guitarist, Terry Kath, I wanted to change that.

(I still remember reading about his - let's be charitable and call it "accidental" - self-inflicted gunshot wound in the La Habra Daily Star Progress.  I was 15, he was all of 32.)

In any event, I think this is a pretty great song and, if you've not heard it, I hope you like it.  Oh, and those drums - well done, Danny Seraphine...

"Jenny", by Terry Kath


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"Cross"

An original IBL photograph taken Saturday afternoon, January 30th, 2016, 7700 block of Greenwood Avenue North, Greenwood, Seattle. 

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What You Might Not Know About Otis Redding

On Saturday evening, April 18th, 2015, I was sitting at the bar in the Smoke Shoppe in Ballard, Seattle, and the jukebox went quiet, so I thought I might put a couple of dollars in and play some Delbert McClinton, Texas Tornados and likely some Hank, because the Smoke Shoppe has a good jukebox like that.  But before I could push off my stool, the bartender, Marsha, pulled some money out of the register and gave it to a gentleman who was sitting alone at the end of the bar, and she asked him to play some songs, and that is what he did - "Eight Days a Week", Cocker's version of "With A Little Help From My Friends", "Dock of the Bay" among others.  In truth, I generally enjoyed his choices.

But what happened next was that the guy felt it was appropriate to talk about each song as it came on - mind you, not addressing anyone in particular - providing all sorts of useful trivia, such as - "When Cocker would hold that microphone sometimes it looked like he was giving it fellatio." (Not sure we'd heard him the first time, he repeated this.)  It should also be noted that (of course) he sang along with each song when he wasn't busy talking over them with important and informative liner notes.  (His lyric recall was maybe 60-40 to the good.)  But so anyway "Dock of the Bay" comes on and he sings along and when it's over, in the dead quiet of the bar as the jukebox was queuing up the next track, he says this -

" 'Dock of the Bay'.  You know that was the last song he ever sang? Yep.  Right after he sang that he committed suicide.  Right after that.  What a singer.  That's right.  He sang that song and then he killed himself.  He was at the San Francisco Bay Club and sang it and left the stage and committed suicide."

(Please believe me when I say I would never lie to you.)

Oddly, it wasn't the fact that this gentleman had horribly botched a fairly famous piece of American musical history (Otis Redding died in a plane crash, of course) that bothered me most, it was this "San Francisco Bay Club" reference.  Having lived in San Francisco for 18 years I was pretty sure there was no such place now or then (I subsequently did an on-line search and couldn't find a trace of it anywhere (though maybe if I'd added "Otis Redding -final show - suicide"...)).

Next, after a pause, Marsha, who is a good woman, said, "Oh yeah, that's right.  I forgot about that."

Later, he got into a verbal spat with two women sitting near him when he identified a Tommy Raye song as by Roy Orbison.  Fed up with him by then (and I'd seen this coming for awhile), they actually challenged him on this more minor mistake, to which he responded, "Well it sure sounds like Roy Orbison."  (To me it sounded like Buddy Holly.)  But the women ganged up on him and said, "What's wrong with you that sounds nothing like Roy Orbison."

And that was the end of the evening's bonhomie from the gentleman's point of view.  Miffed by the women's treatment, he spent the rest of his time in the bar (about 45 minutes) talking loudly on his cell phone so that no one could enjoy the music at all.


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"Cross"

An original IBL photograph taken Thursday afternoon, December 24th, 2015, in Pioneer Square, Seattle.  It is a close-up of a detail from a public piece of art titled "Night", by the artist Edgar Heap of Birds.  I do  not believe the smear of grime was part of the original sculpture.

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"We Begin Here; But, Then ..."

An original IBL photograph taken Thursday evening, December 24th, 2015, on the 5 Greenwood bus headed north out of downtown.

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"Robert Winant (Kubrick)"

An original IBL photograph taken Wednesday afternoon, December 23rd, 2015, @ the bar in Aunt Harriet's Room, Hattie's Hat, Ballard U.S.A.

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"Madonna and Child"

An original IBL photograph taken Friday night, January 29th, 2016, @ Gainsbourg, Greenwood, Seattle.

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"Paul Valenti"

Photograph by Danielle McArthur, Thursday, January 28th, 2016, Metropolitan Grill, Seattle.


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Why Is It You Would Have a Blog and Then Basically Not Post To It on a Regular Basis?

These and, hopefully, other questions answered right here at Infection By Light in 2016.


(Hopefully.)


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