An Artist's Garden

I used to have a beautiful house in Vallejo built by an Asian architect and a backyard filled with shrubs. It was a bit overgrown but I liked it that way. If ever I wanted to escape my mother all I had to do was lose myself in trees. I wonder how it's doing now with the new owner?




I never should have sold this house. My mom and I live in a condo that is completely paid for in Las Vegas, but the HOA dues are nearly as high as the mortgage on our Vallejo house. I The house was falling apart, but it would've been mine. It was in an economically depressed area, but Napa was only a half hour away. Oh the country drives to the pear and peach orchard that sold delicious fresh pies for $4 in Fairfield! I regret selling "Tiffany" most of all, because I later found out that my mom has no problem keeping a roof over her head. It is I who has trouble paying for a place to rest my head. Poor Pasha should've been able to rest her head there until she died.
I could've stayed in my artist house, with every room painted a different color and an extra room for my library. I would've painted it copenhagen blue with a white ceiling with stars! My only consolation is that at least the house went to another artist. She's an art teacher with San Francisco's school district. I wonder of she works for SOTA? I also wonder if the house is up for sale again. With the budget cuts and next no art jobs in the Bay Area. Wouldn't it be great if I could re-purchase my house where I can be a happy cartoonist with my quinces, magnolia tree and most since annual pumpkin patch in the world.

Michael Jackson: friend, animator, Peter Pan

I just listened to David Edelstein's review of Michael Jackson's This is it and it brought tears to my eyes. It's not just the fact that Michael is gone, I'm sad because I feel like a traitor.
I outgrew Michael Jackson. I was also still reeling from the O.J. Simpson trial, which destroyed all the great work Bill Cosby did for the Black image in the 80's. Therefore, by the time the pedophile scandals hit in 1997-98 I didn't care to defend Michael. He became another one of "us" who got into trouble, hence an irresponsible embarrassment. I remember I was at Disney and the circle of animators discussed the scandal. What we concluded was: So that's his sexual orientation. Hmmm.... I argued that in ancient Rome such behavior would be normal and an Israeli colleague vehemently stated that this is not ancient Rome and it's just plain wrong. Oh yeah, it was the ancient Hebrews that demonized homosexuality in defiance of Hellenistic (Greek) lifestyle in the first place, huh?

Personally, I secretly thought Michael was like myself: asexual. I didn't know their was an official term for my orientation at the time much less had knowledge that their were others like me, especially those so famous. Recently, I was pleased to find out that many people are asexual and they are workaholics with a quest to realize some ethereal-impossible goal like myself. Morrissey, Leonardo Da Vinci, Sir Issac Newton and our Michael Jackson to name a few.

People can't seem to believe that a person can exist without a libido and like so many adults, can think of little else and are motivated by the urge to mate. Micheal's affinity for children was an escape from this mentality. Children can talk about so many great things for the world is still fascinating to them: where to go, what does this do, how does that work? The average adult conversation falls into 2 categories: Money and Who's dating who?

Not all adults are machines of course. However, it's hard as grapenuts to find people who do speak of other things. It's tough to find your clique. My clique turned out to be the artist community, but even then it's tough to find people who are driven by their art. Michael Jackson wanted to be an artist and like Elizabeth Montgomery of Bewitched, he wanted to work for Disney. being an animator would've been the perfect venue for Michael Jackson! He could be Peter Pan for the rest of his life, for it's an animators job to think like a child.

Michael would not have escaped the social demands of adulthood completely in the animation community. At Cal Arts the animation students were obsessed with finding girlfriends due to the disproportionate ratio of males in the program. The opposite was true of the dance department, but why would such desirable girls date underdeveloped animators when there's a department filled with hunky musicians and sexy fine artists to marry? Getting back to the point, Michael still would've found more people to relate to had he become an animator, for at least they would have shared his passion for fantasy. Furthermore, being an animator would've kept him away from parasitic modern day courtiers.

Michael had a lot toxic people in his life, starting with his father. I think his father pigeon holed him into the music industry to the extent that Michael could not have changed careers of he wanted to. The Pepsi accident would've been the perfect time to fade into a life behind the camera. No one cares what you look like as an animator. An audience just cares about what an animator produces. The circle of friends was a mixed bag Liz is alright, but creep-O's like that shady malpractice doctor was a problem. Then came the experimental operations. I wonder who put the idea into his head that he had to look like Prince to be successful?

If he had left the performance art industry to live a life behind the camera, I doubt that Michael would have made such a drastic change. I am not insulted that he chose to become a light skin Black with a shaved nose, but gosh, I can't help but think of what tortures his psyche to do such a thing. If he were part of the visual arts community, I can could see a healthier reason to undergo the change. It would be out of curiosity. Who else could afford such a treatment? Perhaps if he set a precedent the prosedure would become less expensive and benefit other burn victims who developed the same pigment disease. However, I suspect life in the South is what diminished Micheal's sense of self-worth. The light-skinned Black lives in the best ( ad worst) of both world's and it's an enviable color to be. Just look at how Prince and Lisa Bonet soared to superstardom largely based on their beauty. Prince is a fantastic, extraordinary, stupendous song writer but he is an average performer compared to Michael. I bet that weighed heavily on Michael's mind, so he changed himself to survive.

I still wonder what would've changed if Micheal and I had met and became friends when I became a Warner Bros. animation artist in 1995. The animation division was located in Sherman Oaks, just 20 minutes from Micheal's family home in Encino. I used to fantasize about running into him on my lunch hour at Barnes and Noble, or other Encino hangouts, but I never saw him. In me, he would've found kindred sprit. In him I would've found another asexual I could be close to. We could've talked about cartoons and comics for hours and days. It would've been so fun to have him come comic book shopping every Wednesday with the Warner crew after got our paychecks. He would be part of a clique who would have fed in his need of fantasy who never would've found his strange for having so many toys. Bruce Timm, who has the most ornate office filled to the ceiling with Batman toys could probably match Micheal's toy obsession. Can you imagine the Toys R Us trips those two would have? Whatta trip!

Aw, Michael. I'm sad that you are gone. Perhaps the nest go 'round you can return to Earth to kinder parents and less agonizing fame. You live the life of an animator and be celebrated as a genius who makes millions of people happy just like Glen Keane, James Baxter, Jim Henson and Chuck Jones. Except this time you'll be able to enjoy the world without body guards, and perhaps nurture an echoing secondary talent left over from your previous life with an evening dance class:)

Senator Kennedy Died

An emotional free write:

I know he was suffering from his illness, but it is still sad to see him go. He's had his regrettable moments in life, but be darned if he didn't repent for them. He more than made up for his mistakes with his stalwart public service. What a sweetheart of a man.

All I can do is cry now. Are there any more Kennedy's left? I don't know much about the Kennedy family. I do believe Teddy was the last boy of that generation. Who will step in Ted's shoes and speak up for middle class and the striving poor? I know there are people out there, but who do we have left with that much power. Sure Mr. Obama is president, but a president can only have so much influence on the details of the American life.

Ted Kennedy's passing makes me think of all the people who gave my scholarships to go to college. Eugene Hill, Donn Tatum. If I had siblings I would've gotten a Pell. Mr Pell died at the beginning of this year. I love you all and thank you all. This is one Black woman who did not turn out to be statistic. Yes, I said it. Thanks to my mentors and benefactors I did not become a statistic, the worst of my race.
I wonder who is need of a scholarship to go to Cal Arts, Sheridan or any other school they wish to attend? Will there still be commercials feature prominent minorities in non-entertainment fields like the physicist in the Chevron commercials that ran during 2008 Olympics? It's about time I found out who else is holding the door for little guy to get ahead, now the possibly the last 60's era Kennedy is gone. It's time to find the mentors and benefactors on a municipal level. Are there still Mrs. Pannone's, Russ Betancourts, Adrienne Scroggies, Rachel Sterns and Robert Calliers in the world. How many teachers out there really like their jobs? How many will go the extra mile to promote their students to college recruiters so they can win scholarships like Marsha Pannone and Frank Lilleth did?
If you judge by the listlessness of visible residents of the Harlem neighborhood I spent the summer, then I would say not enough, but not for long. I am a teacher now. And I will make sure my students will not fall through the cracks. People can stray on a college level too. I know I'm going to cry all night over Senator Kennedy, but when I wake up in the morning I'm going to do my part to to help lift the huge torch he left behind.

Pleasant journey, Mr. Kennedy:*(

Cooking with Leeks

Cooking with Leaks
I got the idea of cooking with leaks from an anime called Fruits Basket. Tohru the young heroine seen as a matriarch in a household of men, made vegetable dishes. that were most yummy. The family of guys loved her Hestian skills so much, that she was given room and board in exchange.

Every time I watch that cartoon I get hungry and start jonesing for the kitchen. Ranma 1/2 has the same effect on me every time Kasumi sends Akane out for ingredients. I lived in Chinatown when I lived in San Francisco, so I got in the habit of shopping daily for fresh ingredients for my evening meals. In contrast I grew up on of stocked up on packaged food method of meal preparation. Not only does food spoil ( mom liked to leave the groceries untouched for a a few days so she can look at them and dream we will always have plenty), but it was downright not good or you. A Stouffer's lasagna will expand your waistline considerably.

As an artist in a feat or famine industry, I have to get the most bang for my buck nutrition wise. Therefore I eat more veggies as a daily staple and I prepare meat about once a week on Friday night and prepare it with the utmost care.

My latest recipe is Chicken Tohru because of the leeks:

2 Chicken Breast cooked on medium heat in a uncovered pan in olive oil.
when the chicken is halfway done, add leeks.
Let them cook and converse until the leeks are just pliable enough to swim happily in the broth the chicken and olive oil have made.



Enjoy with a freezing cold glass of water.


Me tested. Cat approved.

How to Lose 25 Pounds in NYC

Eat your treats ( milk and cookie and cold cereal) on the weekends and live on creative veggie recipes during the week! I survived on a $15 a week grocery allowance. I was on a liquid tea and coffee diet at work and ate veggie curry dishes and invented the yummy recipe below from the left overs:)

Sweet Potatoes, Oilive Oil Stir Fry


One half large sweet potato chopped into "steaks"

Chopped white onion and green onion

Stir fry over medium heat and sprinkle with brown sugar.

You can add white potatoes too if you can afford them.


Enjoy!



Fried eggs and chardonnay are good pairings.


Top Ramen with green onion..mmmmmm. However, ramen contains so much salt that it's not good to eat over an extended period of time. I usually eat it when I have a salt craving ( that time of the month) which really means: I want iron. A single meal of a thick steak with spinach and turnips usually cures that.


Another way to live on small grocery budget is to shop in Chinatown. When I had a $25 budget, I would buy chopped ham and snow peas which are really cheap there, and make a stir fry with olive oil. Chinatown is great for a straight meat and veggie diet. You can go to a big chain store for your Oreos and Cheezits if you have an uncontrollable craving for comfort food. For cheaper, healthier alternatives to American standard comfort food, ginger preserves from Trader Joes makes the ground pork and snow pea stir fry dish extra yummy and it quells your cravings for sweets!


Oh, and don't forget the $3 buck Chuck Chaddonay and a $6 Ruby port with \Caramellos. Save those two treats for your menstrual cycle girls. Drinking screws up your metabolism and you'll never work off the weight!

Last but not least, sprinkle Trader Joes trail mix (without chocolate bits) on any of the recipes above for yumerific texture!

Good Appetite!

A Boy's First King Cobra

This is a cartoon quickie I drew inspired by the charming SFGATE article featured below:
Reptile wrangler lives to save beloved snakes
Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, July 6, 2009

(07-05) 18:03 PDT -- Al Wolf's cell phone rings. He listens. He nods. He hangs up.

"Rattlesnake at Bishop Ranch," he tells his assistant, Laurie Osborne. "I'll get this one."

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He grabs the snake stick and keys to his pickup.

"Weather's heating up; they're starting to come out. Oh, but first we gotta get the monitor out of the truck," he says, then adds an afterthought: "He's a little aggressive."

So Wolf grabs the monitor - a fat, 4-foot-long, wildly flailing lizard - and sticks him, under great protest, in a wooden box. But the pair of rattlesnakes already in the backseat? They can come along for the ride.

Wolf, a retired San Francisco Zoo manager, has devoted his life to saving reptiles, most recently through his nonprofit Sonoma County Reptile Rescue.

At no charge, he contracts with 15 Northern California counties, most in the Bay Area, to take in pythons, corn snakes, turtles and other cold-blooded critters in need of rescuing. He finds new homes for nearly all of them, although at any given time his rural Sebastopol house contains hundreds of slithering, hissing, spitting reptiles awaiting their destiny.

"I love rattlesnakes," Wolf said as he drove along Sonoma County's winding country roads to Bishop's Ranch, a rural retreat near Healdsburg, on the rattlesnake call. "To me, they're so majestic. So poised. They have so much control when they hunt, when they move."

He sighed, listening to the chilling hum of rattles in the backseat.

"They're a very special animal."

Animal shelters often deliver reptiles to him or ask his assistance in rescuing stubborn, cranky or unusually large specimens. He also receives a dozen or so frantic calls a day from people who find rattlesnakes in their yards and want Wolf to make them gone.

Each week, Wolf rustles up 30 to 40 unwanted rattlesnakes and releases them on a remote, unpopulated hillside in northern Sonoma County.

That's the destination for the very irritated rattlesnake Wolf finds at Bishop's Ranch. A quick-witted gardener had found the snake next to a building an hour or so earlier and used a stick to herd it into a plastic garbage bin. By the time Wolf arrived, a small crowd had gathered at the bin to watch the excitement.

Wolf grabbed it with his two-pronged snake stick and got a close look. Very close. The snake lashed its forked tongue at him, spitting venom while trying to writhe free from the clamp.

"Yeah, he needs to settle down a few days," Wolf said. "Then we'll release him."

Bishop's Ranch Director Sean Swift was happy to see the rattler head down the hill in Wolf's pickup.

"We love snakes here, but we don't want rattlesnakes near where people go," he said. "He'll find a good home for it."

Wolf has been a snakeophile since he was a kid in Fairfax. King snakes, gopher snakes, garter snakes - all found a home with him.

But then he discovered big snakes. Snakes that can kill people. Snakes that live in jungles. Snakes you order by the foot from reptile magazines.

That's how he obtained his finest reptile, a 13-foot king cobra that arrived in the mail C.O.D. and with his parents' blessing when he was about 10.

"That thing came out of the box and rose up as tall as me," he said. "I fell in love instantly."

Wolf has worked at animal rescue organizations throughout his career, retiring from the San Francisco Zoo in 2001, and devoting himself full time to reptile recovery.

Sonoma County Reptile Rescue has 11 volunteers and a board that raises about $3,000 a year, covering only 10 percent or so of the cost of feeding and transporting Wolf's menagerie.

The rest comes out of his pocket - money he said he's happy to spend on the animals with whom he shares his home.

As of last week, that list includes 150 snakes, 130 spiders, 500 mice and rats, 100 turtles and tortoises, four parrots, 20 quail, two buffalo, two dogs and one llama. He even had a partridge (but no pear tree).

Wolf has endured 11 rattlesnake bites, each of which has sent him to the hospital for three or four days; has been gored by Maynard, one of the buffalo; and mauled by a bobcat.

"It's Maynard who's going to get him someday," said Osborne, a former Marine World trainer. "I don't worry about the snakes."

Maynard didn't intend to send Wolf to the hospital with a gaping hole in his cheek a few months ago; he was just being playful, Wolf said.

Late last month, when Wolf approached the buffalo pasture, Maynard trotted across like a love-struck Labrador.

Wolf scratched Maynard's head affectionately.

"I've got to watch it with this guy. He likes to pull me and push me," Wolf said. "He's like a cow but a little bit more aggressive."

He tossed Maynard a few corn husks before surveying the tortoises, the pythons and the cranky monitor from his pickup.

"I love this job," he said.

E-mail Carolyn Jones at carolynjones@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

NYC People Watching: Chelsea, Tribeca and The West Village

More greetings from Central Park's Phoenix...at least I think this is Phoenix. This horse is probably saying, "I'm not Phoenix, ask my driver for my name, foo!" "Now, where's my apple?"

"Pet me!"


Anyhoo, all kidding aside, to me, NYC gets more interesting as you cross 23rd street heading downtown. It's where all the students and bohemians are! Or at least all the Bohos converge there. These riders started out of Harlem but everyone departs between the 23rd Street and Canal stations on the A and 1 lines.


23rd is the heart of Chelsea. An up and coming neighborhood full of artists and galleries.



Gasp! What's this?! A NYC grocery store with aisles wide enough to stoop over and pick up items in. Your shoulder bag will fit down the aisles too! You don't have to play bowling for strollers in the Garden of Eden grocery shop:)

Chelsea also has the Burlington coat factory within it's borders! Cheap SOCKS!


The famous Hotel Chelsea which sheltered many a great writer.

Back on the train to Tribeca..

NYU summer students. One with a cute Italian greyhound:)


A Lisa Bonet type student who got off at West 4th street at the heart of Greenwich Village and Washington Square park as predicted.


I wanted to do the Flahdance "maniasc dance" when I saw these lofts, but I restrained my enthusiasm for the benefit of those around me.


It's difficult to know when you're in TriBeCa. It's mainly a neighborhood of converted warehouses. I have yet to find the main drag with all the shops. So, I just wandered around Washington street, the Hudson River hwy and up to Greenwich Blvd and walked towards the lights of what I believed to be the main drag, but perhaps it was really the outskirts of Greenwich Village. I hit Bleecker, so that may be so.





The Biography Bookshop marks the transition to Greenwich Village I think. It's difficult for me to tell what is Tribeca and what is Greenwich at this point. I'll get better with practice. I actually just reviewed my guidebook and the commerce center of Tribeca is closer to World Trade Center's Ground Zero. I'm afraid to go there. Too many sad ghosts. However, 23rd street and below is my favorite part of Manhattan, so I will have many chances to sharpen my NYC navigation skills and tip toe around lower Tribeca with the greatest possible respect I can muster.

Charming couple on the A train back to Harlem/Morningside.