Want a sneak peek at an in-progress yard sign in my studio right now? Feast your eyes on this (first-coat) primed sheet of plywood!

In animation, they say good character design is a figure you can recognize by its silhouette. So I probably don't have to tell you who that will eventually be a painting of.

Speaking of design, I was often asked in art school why I would bother doing so much prep work before I painted, as if suggesting there was no point in painting something if I already knew how the finished product would look. (I was also told my work was often "clever in a bad way," whatever that means.) Maybe the finished work of abstract expressionists reveals deep truths about, er, something to its creators, but even if that's true, maybe I just don't like surprises or, as the inimitable Bob Ross would call them, "happy accidents."

I have a good friend from college who still believes that my work is craftsmanship, not art. To be fair, he doesn't mean that as an insult. We both have nothing but respect for great craftsmen. I once knew a very impressive young draftsman at J.C. Booth Junior High School who could recreate freehand anything he could see at any size. He was a craftsman, and I still think his work was pretty darn good.

I'd define craftsmanship as the ability to execute a plan skillfully. But someone has to create the plan in the first place, and the ability to visualize that plan is what makes someone an artist. The greatest artists lie in the Venn Diagram intersection of craftsmen and artists. Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, Bob Ross... they could all think up a great idea and execute it. That kid in junior high lamented he couldn't draw anything from imagination. I hope he kept trying. I happen to believe that while not everyone has the natural tools to be a craftsman, anyone with an idea can be an artist.

I don't mean to suggest that I'm the equal of Bob Ross, and maybe I do tend to overthink (and underexecute) my pieces, but I will insist I'm an artist.

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A quick search reveals that I've never explicitly mentioned here on the blog that I have long owned the same two cars. I have the 1995 Jeep, which is the last year the YJ model was available. You've met it; I love and brag my Jeep about frequently. But I also own a 2002 Oldsmobile Intrigue. Two-thousand two also happens to be the final year of Intrigue production. (I'm a niche collector!) As my previous silence about it should indicate, I do not love the Olds.

True story: it was my father's Oldsmobile. Briefly. It was actually purchased by my father's father, who bragged that he got a great deal on it. As I mentioned above, 2002 was the final year this car was made, and the reason it was a great deal is because the electrical systems of Intrigues are famously... sorry, I was trying to think of a diplomatic way of saying "crappy," but no, it doesn't deserve diplomacy; it's just crappy.

When my grandfather was no longer able to drive (I forget when, exactly, but 2009/10-ish), my father took the car. The one condition that my grandfather tried to impose was that under no circumstances was Dad to give the car to me. So now maybe you can understand my template for how to treat a father.

Anyway, it may have taken 22 years, but at long last, my very temperamental Oldsmobile has successfully reached 100,000 miles!

And it's only cost me $1,360.93 in repairs in the past 4 months! And it needs a new set of tires, so cut me a little slack about that "low washer fluid" idiot light. Car ownership is expensive.

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57/2368. American Graffiti (1973)
I avoided this movie for years in part because I expected it to be the worst kind of nostalgia trip. It is indeed what I thought it was, but it also has a truly great cast, and the soundtrack is even better than advertised. I've got to give it to George Lucas, he really knows how to give audiences what they want when he wants to. (Which makes those later Star Wars movies even more baffling.)

Coke note: For a movie built on pure, distilled 1950s Americana, Coca-Cola is conspicuously hard to find. It only appears in a mini-golf snack shop intentionally obscured from the camera because it was obviously part of the actual snack shop and not paid product placement. (The "Frozen Coca-Cola" logo dates to 1969, an anachronism in a movie that takes place in 1962. Obviously.) What, did Coke want a cut of the box office?

58/2369. Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
Clearly the wrong lessons were learned from Ragnarok. The key theme of both the the A and B plots in this film are squarely focused on death, or more specifically, how to come to terms with surviving the death of loved ones. I think this is what makes the incessant, juvenile antics of Thor and company land so badly. There's just too much happening that's too heavy for the audience to enjoy casually tossed-off punchlines (mostly about destruction) and a badly underrealized visit to God City (which should be a movie in itself).

59/2370. The Hateful Eight (2015)
When I reviewed Django Unchained, I mentioned that it felt plodding. This movie moves half as fast, but since it is set up like a horror film (wearing the skin a Western), the slow pace is actually its strongest asset. (Perhaps because of Kurt Russell's presence, it becomes clear pretty quickly that John Carpenter's The Thing is the style template here.) The overriding theme in Tarantino's best work is the fluid state between trust and betrayal (the guy must have issues), and all roads lead here. Very good, I'd say; among Tarantino's best.

60/2371. MoviePass, MovieCrash (2024)
This is a documentary about how a company germinated by a good idea was killed by greed. It is a very American story, but it's clear even the filmmakers don't think anyone will learn any lessons from it.

61/2372. Scott Joplin (1977)
Billy Dee Williams plays the King of Ragtime in a period piece biography heavy on the syphilis. The movie is not great -- the director is unable to rise above its made-for-television feel -- but Billy Dee is.

More to come.

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My father called this evening to tell me that he received an unsolicited group text in which recipients were invited to visit a URL where they can fill out documentation to apply to be paid $600 a month for having a Purel hand sanitizer advertising decal attached to their cars. He thought it might be an opportunity worth pursuing. Hey, free money!

Hopefully, dear reader, I don't have to tell you this is a scam. The FTC has been warning about it for years. If you don't trust the government, you can get the same warnings from both the BBB and AARP. Yet, obviously, the scam still works or the scammers wouldn't still be running it.

Now, my father is, in theory, an intelligent man. (In fact, he gets really angry if anyone dares to question that intelligence. I hate to admit it, but I am certainly a chip off that block.) So how is it he could fail to recognize all the red flags? It's not like he needs the money. (Seriously. I do his taxes.) I think he just wants something for nothing.

I mention all this not to denigrate my father. (That's just a bonus.) I mention it because I think it's the key to understanding why so many people, like my father, support that orange-faced fellow who accepted his party's nomination for president today. They don't care about the red flags like, say, his previous, well-documented attempt to subvert a federal election for his own personal benefit; they just want to believe him when he tells them he's going to give them something they want for free, like lower taxes and fewer colored people. While I wish those people could see the fallacy in where they've chosen to put their trust, I have to concede there's nothing you can say to someone to make them stop wanting the things they want.

I want free money, too. I guess I'm just jealous no one is offering to pay to put decals on my Jeep.

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