Tuesday, August 31st

Ahhh...

Hello family, what's coming down in your world? Not much here...had another crazy dream like the one I talked about in an earlier blog, but didn't quite grasp it much except it left me troubled...Oh well, time to flow on, shall we? I took a little creative break away from my blog for about a week to focus on some art vibes I was feeling instead of the usual mindless yik-yak I spew out on my blog. I added a few new images to my mini-gallery link too so check a flow out when you get a moment, yes? Other than that, notta lotta gotta holla....Oh, on second thought...

Help me to understand sum’, my dear friends..
The following is a brief conversation between me and "Person A"
(Person A is commenting to me about my artwork after viewing my website for the first time)

Person A: You have a very nice website.
Me: Thank you, it took a lot of hard work.

Person A: Who did the artwork on your site?
Me: *dead* Uh..I did. The name says it all (chuckling)

Person A: *about 5 seconds of silence*You drew that? *with doubting tone*
Me: Yeah...(knowing where this is going) Yep I draw all my stuff. It's digital art that I draw on the PC.

Person A: *another 5 seconds of silence* Do you do Black art?
Me: Black art? What is that?

Person A: Black Art. You know, art that black people buy.
Me: You tell me what kind of art that black people buy because I don't know.

Person A: *feeling nervous that their ignorance showed* I didn't mean anything by that, I was just saying that none of your pieces of art can be called ethnic art or black art...
Me: *feeling a bit defensive* My friend, I do art according to what moves me, not by trying to appeal to a certain group of people. Art is universal, it is the universal language, there is no such thing as black art or white art in my book. There may be certain styles or types of artwork that may appeal to one group or another but to label it as black art or white art for that matter is silly. So what are you saying, that my art isn't "black" enough?

Person A: *hurriedly* Oh no..no. You do wonderful art, and black people like your work, but as a 'black' artist, you don’t have..*pause*..
Me: *interrupting* Bye A.

Person A: (??? look on face)
Me: *more forcefully* Bye, perhaps another time another place….(ending conversation)

Now my brothers and sisters, help me to understand that convo...particularly whether or not you share that view also. Is there such a thing as Black art? Or White art? What is ethnic art? Was I wrong to get all defensive over being accused of not being more "ethnic" in my art? As if that is something that I can turn on and off...whatever that is.

Have a great week!

Artist Greggy on 08.31.04 @ 12:06 AM EST
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Monday, August 23rd

Dangerously close to the end of summer...

Well...seeing as how it's dangerously close to the end of summer, my thoughts are once again coming more and more haphazard...more off the wall. perhaps I'm mentally preparing myself for the coming winter doldrums... As I sit here on a chill mission, just letting random greggy thoughts marinate and fade away, here are a few of the random bits of greymatter that I plucked for scrutiny...

Suppose it really is a vast right wing conspiracy after all? And all this time I thought chickens were left-winged..duhhh.

I have one very sobering thought: "where the %#@&$ did summer go?"

Wouldn't it be nice if they let work off in June for a 3 month vacation like they do school?

Can you even begin to imagine the ish that will happen if they frink up the vote in Flahda again this election?

Random observation from the Olympics: my peoples be running fast than a mofo, ya hurd?

Why doesn't someone invent something to prevent me from stubbing my big toe on the table downstairs one more time and do it quickly, then rush it to me via airmail, ok?

Is it really safe or maybe even a crime to eat more than 4 Krispy Kremes at a time? At a time that is, not at a sitting, but at the same time :o)

Nothing but respect for those Olympic divers...how the heck do they know when to straighten out to enter the water? Especially the ones who flipped 3 or 4 times first...I'd have a belly smack attack every time for sure!

Why are hamburgers called hamburgers? Are they made from ham?

I remember one time when my grandson and I were wrestling around and acting goofy. He said: "Pop-Pop...you fun!"...that made my day.

If these walls could speak...you'd best believe I'd be getting my axe up out of heah!! A brother don't play stuff like that. Talking walls, bad enough my floors are singing now, whats next?..hmffftp! LMAO

And with that..I'm going to take a little break from my blog for a few to wind down the last few days of summer.
Y'all take care and enjoy yourselves!
I'm history!


Artist Greggy on 08.23.04 @ 11:55 PM EST
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Saturday, August 21st

The story of Thing and Thang.

Recently a lot of my friends have been blogging about personal issues and personal relationships, so I may as well open up with something personal too
(all names have been changed to protect the guilty)

Me and “THING”
Several months ago I decided to change my style up some, get a new attitude, knamean? I decided, the frink with it, if I'm going to do, then I'm going to do it. I'm going to stop being so …so…status quo. I had gradually been getting tired of "THING". Sure over the years I had developed a sort of love / hate relationship with “THING”. In fact, my wife even accused me of loving “THING” more than I loved her on several occasions. I tried explaining to her that I spent so much time and attention on “THING” because it made me feel like I could do anything, like I was somebody…But as all good things do, I knew it was all eventually going to end. I mean the feeling that I got when I was able to get “THING” to open up to me without having to coax and beg was incomparable, but I yearned for so much more, something fresher and exciting. I was afraid to let "THING" go because I wasn't ready to realize my own potential at that time. I had become resigned to the way "THING" would sometimes freeze up on me at the slightest touch. Often my repeated attempts to coax “THING” into doing what I wanted ended with me frustrated and “THING” unresponsive. That was so dam annoying and made me want to get into a new groove even more. The straw that broke the camels back for me so to speak, came one night early this year. I had spent the entire evening getting deep inside of “THING”, everything just seemed to be clicking…the mood, the atmosphere…the whole ambience of the moment held me in it’s grip. I was feeling very much like I was on the verge of a major breakthrough. I had spent at least six hours giving it my everything, (yeah I gots stamina) every ounce of me was in the effort. This was going to be the culmination of every dream of mine…Then at the most critical stage of what I was doing, “THING” just frinkin quit on me. Yep, shut down on me completely. Left me hanging. Greggy don’t like to be left hanging like that. I hate being clowned, knamean? So as far as I was concerned it was over, time to move on.

Me and “THANG”
Shortly after that I heard about "THANG". It was through another friend of mine...It was love at first heard...LOL. “THANG” wasn’t cheap though. In fact, I lie to you not, me axe just plain couldn't afford it...at the time, that is. But by then I had worked so much out of "THING" that it was time to move on, or risk becoming stagnant and dull. I had to find a way to accept that although "THING" had been very good to me, in fact was always there for me even until the end, "THANG" was willing, ready and able to step in to fill the bill for this need I was searching and longing for. After doing some good ole detective work and establishing that 'THANG" could be had by me and although it would still cost m a brother, I had decided to flip the script on "THING" and go get what should have been mines from the get go. I scraped together the loot that I knew it was going to set me back and when the time was right I made my move. I am so glad that I did. Since then and to this day everything is new to me, everything has changed, I can see clearly now the rain is gone...and I don't even hold and anger or hate towrds "THING".

But after much thought, a brother feels rotten for his deeds and seeing as how I hate keeping awful secrets or participating in cover-ups, I have to expose the names of those involved…

You see boys and girls, "THING" was my CORELDRAW Version8 graphics software that I was working to death, or rather was working me to death, and "THANG" is my COREL GRAPHICS SUITE Version12 that I'm flowing with now....and indeed all is good.

what?..huh? My brothers and sisters, *looking shocked* I think you were expecting something scandalous weren't you?
Y'all some reality show freaks fa sure!….LMAO!
Have a great wknd everyone!


Artist Greggy on 08.21.04 @ 01:40 PM EST
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Tuesday, August 17th

Thank you...

Good Morning my peoples...I've been doing a lot of inside looking lately, partly from the fact that I have been reading a lot of you guys blogs and journals and I can see so much of what you're going through or experienced, or even still undergoing now to this day in my own personal life in one way, shape or another. I congratulate all of you who have moved on and past hateful or deceiving relationships, who've had the courage to continue on while battling hostile conditions at work or in the home. By reading the traumas and trubulations that my family deals with it actually allows me to examine who I am as a person. I know I'm not and angel or a saint by any stretch of the imagination, but I sure aint no scumbag or axehole either though! From reading all of you guys posts, I've been able to target specific areas in my life that need to be ..shall we say "adjusted" and/ or "improved upon", so that I can continue on my life's journey a better man for it. So to those of you, especially you and you, who have recently blogged about a more personal aspect of your life experiences in your writings, I thank you for also inadvertently giving me a better look at myself through your life experiences.

With that said...I'm going to start approaching and dealing with some things in my life in a new light, a different kind of groove...
Thank you for being my friend

Artist Greggy on 08.17.04 @ 07:15 AM EST
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Friday, August 13th

Happy weekend!

Happy Friday and a very good weekend to everyone! I'll be straight up with y'all, the boy has just been plain blog lazy this past week. And I most definitely don't want to leave the last post up over another weekend. Basically this past week I've been taking care of some medical issues, while at the same time it's also been a pretty hectic pace at work as I prepare to move to an expanded facility on a new floor. Plus of course I've been doing some art which I'll be showing soon. I do hope you guys like some of my stuff that I show, if you ever do get a vibe from something I do let me know. I'd love to know which pieces I do have the greatest impact on my viewers.

Also, to any of you in harms way from those hurricanes or tropical storms, please be safe! Other than that, everyone have a safe and fulfilling weekend! Treat yourself to something good this weekend!


Take care of yourself...and each other.
Artist Greggy on 08.13.04 @ 07:20 AM EST
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Monday, August 9th

A quickie...

Well I'm sure you guys know how Monday's usually start out so why shall we even bother with the doldrum's? To keep it short, my weekend flowed sum' like this: I had fun, I ate, I surfed around, I slept, I ate some more, I slept a lot more, I lost track of time, I did some work around the house, I had fun, I ate, I slept some, I did some art, lost track of time again, I slept a lot and dayummmm...it's now Monday.

Actually this is just a quick scribble to let the few of my web pardners who were having "tecnological" issues whenever they entered my site know that I have moved my welcome page slideshow applet (My Digital Gallery) to an inside link so that my site doesn't cause your PC to crash, freeze, pause, or exhibit any other strange and disturbing behaviour. Plus, I didn't want nobody coming up this way from ATL or DC or parts wherever to cut me either, aight? LMAO You probably will still have issues viewing that link unless your Java permissions etc., are updated or set properly. All in all, if you were having issues before, hopefully you can pause over here now a bit longer before fleeing!...LMAO

Now that's some tough love for ya, huh?...LOLY'all B Good!
Artist Greggy on 08.09.04 @ 07:10 AM EST
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Friday, August 6th

These frickin dreams of mine…

Most of the time when I dream it is about stuff that makes no sense whatsoever, at least at the time when I am dreaming. Many times when I am dreaming, the details of the dream are all jumbled up but not so much as to the point where I can’t tell what I am dreaming about. For example I could be dreaming of events that took place during my childhood but the house in the dream is my current house that I live in now as an adult or perhaps I will dream that I’m upstairs in my sisters house but when I walk down the stairs in the dream it’s my mother’s house or some other weird criss-crossing of times and places. When I was younger, I used to dream that I was flying in the air like a superhero or something or that I could do impossible things like jumping off buildings and whatnot.

Last night I dreamed some pretty weird stuff that made no amount of sense whatsoever…The dream started out with me walking through a very crowded downtown Baltimore but somehow it really wasn’t Baltimore, although some of the buildings were from here it appeared to be a different city. I had the impression that I was in Baltimore although some of the signs indicated that I was in a place called Carrolton, Carolton, or Carlton, I cannot remember the exact spelling. Everyone in my dream seemed to be speaking a foreign language though, or at least I had a hard time understanding what the heck they were saying. At one point in the dream, I found myself in a shop that seemed to specialize in selling local souvenirs that a tourist would buy when visiting a different city, such as keychains, magnets, postcards etc. The clerk behind the counter was telling me that I should get something to take home with me and I kept telling him I was already home, already in Baltimore. This went back and forth for a few moments and feeling agitated, I ended up not buying anything, As I was leaving the shop, I turned to say good-bye to the clerk but somehow the shop had transformed into some sort of school and instead of a clerk, there now were three female soldiers at the counter. The first soldier who appeared to be of Caucasian descent, was speaking English but with a very heavy and distinct southern drawl and was holding a map in her right hand that had a whole lot of cities circled in red ink, and in her left hand was a wilted flower. She said her name was “Past”. The second soldier who appeared to be of Asian descent, and spoke what I took to be Chinese, carried in her right hand a small statue of a dog and in her left hand she held something that was so bright it was hard to look at. She said her name was “Present”. The third soldier appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent, and was speaking Arabic, or at least that’s what I took it for in the dream. In her right hand she held a sword with flames coming from the tip, and in her left hand was a blank slip of paper. She said her name was “Future”. As I moved towards them to introduce myself they all began speaking at the same time but for some reason I could understand all of them simultaneously as they spoke. They all seemed to be friendly and knew who I was already. I felt no fear whatsoever except for the fact that I couldn’t seem to speak. Every time I opened my mouth to talk, nothing came out. I was told to leave at once for home and prepare for a great feast. As I was leaving the school the dream “shifted” scenes and I found myself right where I started in the dream, walking through downtown Baltimore. This time however the streets were deserted and I was alone. Feeling apprehensive now I tried waking myself up as I usually do whenever I feel a nightmare coming on. Once awoke I laid there in bed trying to figure out what the heck I had just dreamed. So there you have it folks…please refrain from the usual “this man is crazy” isht and tell me what your take on this whack dream is.
scratching my head...in Baltimore (hopefully)

Artist Greggy on 08.06.04 @ 07:23 AM EST
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Monday, August 2nd

Monday Madness...

For some reason or other I spent the better part of the past weekend just sleeping my butt off. As a result I think I might have short circuited my blogging fuse since at the current moment I can not think of one single redeeming thing to blog about. So...bear with me as I just let whatever comes to my slumbering brain cells flow out any which way...

I can remember a time when you were a young child growing up and it seemed that the world was falling in all around me and you were afraid of life and I knew it was you there beside me holding your hand talking to me comforting you holding me close to your heart while I went on with your life all along pretending to be strong but we were weaker than you thought I could hold on but we let go only to realize that what you were missing was never lost or found out that my reality was just a figment of someone else’s imagination running away with us on a peaceful journey into the shadows of a time long ago or was it a time yet to happen the way it did kind of reminded me that life is to love as love is to life without purpose is nothing to live for means eternity holds the promise of a better day….

Now, if that don't make some of you raise your eyebrows, shake your heads and/or reach for the X in the upper right hand corner then you're just as bad off as my sorry axe! Now let me go dig around in my old albums for "The Brothers Johnson" so I can reminisce some...
mentally spent in Baltimore
Artist Greggy on 08.02.04 @ 06:39 PM EST
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