It never made it above 94° today in Apache Junction. There has been some cloud cover, which probably accounts for that. I used the cool weather as an opportunity to do some roof work. We have a minor leak in the house during heavy, torrential downpours. I wanted to find the cause and fix it before Monsoon season.

In the desert, most houses have air conditioner units mounted on the roof. This prevents rattle snakes  from seeking them for nesting areas, and also prevents scorpions from seeking them for the moisture.  The main intake vent is rather large, and upon inspection I discovered the roof cement around the seams was dried and was lifting. I scraped off the old, and applied new roof cement around the seams. By June and July, the cement should be cured.

After that, I climbed onto the studio roof, and applied a five gallon bucket of silver Aluminum Coat. The reflective coating will reduce the heat inside to a certain extent. I still have to install the ceiling insulation, but that will be a two-person job.

While it was still daylight, I decided to add to the glass bottle wall I am constructing next to the studio, under the Palo Verde tree. I have enough mortar left to add another course of bottles, possibly tomorrow or Sunday.

Today I slashed prices on my painted sawblades - $9.99 a piece. There are dozens to chose from, and at that price you cannot afford not to buy one!

We bought Thor a kiddie pool today. It is not as big as the pool we used to have in New Jersey, but it is a hell of a lot easier to maintain! When he gets hot, he will wander over and stand in the water to cool off.

This coming Tuesday I have to drive to Florence for jury duty. They do not waste any time here. It’s a 35-freaking mile drive, but at least I am driving away from Phoenix. Normally I would not mind serving jury duty, but I am searching for a job and this really screws me up for a week. Florence is better than Phoenix – it is an easy drive. Phoenix you have to hit the 202 and I-10, both horrible roads during drive time.  You don’t realize how many people live here in the desert until all of them are on the same fucking road as you are, heading in the same direction. At least once a week there is a major (usually fatal) crash on I-10 – these people make it seem like people in Boston actually know how to drive.

I am looking at this photo I just posted of Thor and me in the pool – jeez my hair is turning silver.

Paws and Claws, the local animal shelter (and so much more, these people are the best) is having a yard sale/fundraiser on Saturday. Liz and I donated some stuff, we didn’t have anything really cool to give. But, we will be there to buy, I found out that there is a small MIG welder – it is 120 volt, more for a hobbyist than industrial use fer sure. But the price will be right, and the money goes to a good cause, and I will be able to teach myself to weld.

This week  (well, maybe not this week) I will begin putting in the ceiling to the studio so that it can be used in the summer. Between the insulated ceiling, and aluminum coating for the roof, the interior should be able to be maintained at a reasonable comfort level. It was 102° today, in a month we will be wishing for this cool weather! If you want to do any work here, you start early in the morning, relax during the day, and come out after sunset.

After the studio is complete, then I have to start on a storage shed. We need a solid 8′ x 8′ shed for camping gear, yard tools, power tools and winter clothes. I just need more open space in the studio to handle larger projects, and right now every corner is piled high with extraneous boxes of junk. All of the yard sale stuff will have to be moved, too – the season is just about over and done.

Well, I ain’t got no money, but I have plenty to keep me busy!

On Monday, for our hike, we chose trails closer to the Superstitions, yet still in Apache Junction proper. I am now taking the Saguaro for granted, and though I have taken plenty of photographs, none of the pics have expressed the sense of scale of these monsters. I had Liz take a pic of me in front of this old man. Every one foot section of cactus weighs in excess of 100 lbs. Each arm can weigh several tons. The roots go less than 18 inches deep. Just sayin’.

We discovered a local dive bar that might make it on our top five list. It is called Skies, and we went there Monday after the hike, for lunch. The hot wings are comparable to any of the best that I have had on the east coast, and lag just a little behind the wings at Fillie’s Roadhouse, which are my faves. The sandwiches and burgers, we all agreed, were the best that we have had anywhere.

Skies has music almost every night; Mondays they have bands that cover certain artists. Last Monday the band covered Roy Orbison – hey, when was the last time you saw that? This Monday the band will cover Patsy Cline.  I will be crying in my beer. I love Patsy Cline, yeah, go figure.

On Tuesday, Mike and I drove past Canyon Lake and set up camp for the night. We pitched camp next to a dried up gulch – this gulch was flowing with water a month ago. There wasn’t a damp spot anywhere. Mike splurged and bought a bottle of Absinthe after Liz and I sold him on the virtues.

We got to do some Arizona redneck stuff – I taught him how to shoot my .32 Walther. That’s a good handgun for a beginner, not much kick. And it was good to give a workout – the first three or four shots gave me stove-pipe jams. That’s not good in an emergency type of situation. I am going to have to take it out again and put about 50 rounds through it after a judicious cleaning, just to get it back into fighting form.

Liz, who has said she would never go camping, is now considering it. We will need to get a new tent. I used my expedition pup tent this last time, because the 6-person tent I have had since the 1980′s self destructed in the wind as I was erecting it. The wind caught it just right before I finished battening it down and twisted the aluminum poles into pretzels. Well, I have scrap for my next trip to the recycling yard.

Speaking of recycling yards… I hit the local job fair on Tuesday morning. I am getting a bit desperate – I need some steady income. Anything. I am now applying to retail stores – not just any, I do have some self respect. But any store that deals with power tools or lumber works for me! I thought I was making progress with a national discount tool retail chain – they accepted my resume and had me complete level two of their hiring process. So I showed up at the store to talk to the manager – I figured since they had my resume and application, it cannot hurt to show them I really want a job. The manager told me they are NOT hiring – they have seven more employees than they need, and will not be hiring until October. Right. Well, if seven people quit their job, I am next in line…

The good news is that one of the companies hiring is a temp agency that hires for construction and industrial type jobs. When the interviewer learned I have experience on Pulverizers and Metal Sorting Equipment, and know how to operate a skid loader, he told me he might have a job for me. So I am waiting, but not holding my breath. At this point I am not even able to get excited on what might happen – until I walk onto their property and they hand me my hard hat and safety vest…

I published and edited a newspaper for seven years. Inferno, no boundaries was an underground arts publication that beat all odds and became a mainstay of the arts community not only in and around the Glasstown Arts District, but also in Philadelphia and the NYC SoHo scene.  It was started with no capital, but a lot of enthusiasm. Most important, I caught the bug.

I am an ardent blogger, and when I am not blogging I am writing. If I am not writing, I am composing essays in my head. I own a Kindle, and I enjoy the thing – I can download books and have them instantly.  However, I do not like reading newspapers or magazines in an e-Zine format. Call me retro, call me old-fashioned, but I like the feel of paper in my hands. More satisfying than expressing my opinion on a blog or on an internet forum is having it in print – I like ink!

Last night I attended the board meeting of a local cultural alliance. Yeah, I know. Liz and I made a pact that we were not going to volunteer when we moved out here, that we were going to create. We were not here for a month when we met Jeff Danford, a local artist and art activist. He has been wearing us down; he has a cold-blooded intent to draw us into committees and onto boards. Last night, he won.

I sought his advice last week on the possibility of an art newspaper for the area. At a disadvantage in Arizona (I don’t have the professional contacts, nor do I have the creative contacts) I wanted to bounce the idea off of a native, or as close to a native as you get in the East Valley. He had a couple great ideas, but then finagled the conversation into an invite to the SACA board meeting. I have sat in on too many board meetings in my life – I have never enjoyed the process. I prefer to do, not talk about doing. If I am going to talk about doing, then I prefer to be in the back room of a smoky pub, were the creative juices can really begin to flow, and you are able to imagine outside of the confines of that cube shaped cardboard edifice.

The meting last night was an eye-opener. The meeting was not droll or boring; there didn’t seem to be any competition among the board members, but rather a warmth that one would not expect from a dais occupied by mostly professionals. After the normal business was over, Jeff encouraged me to make my presentation. I have to admit, it was not well thought out, and the only preparation I did was bring back issues of Inferno, and said I was testing the waters about starting a similar project here in AJ.

One of the members is a newspaper person. When I heard his occupation, I expected  a little bit of push-back. I was surprised when he was leafing through the back issues of Inferno, and trying to find negatives to the project before addressing the group and declaring that the area needs a publication such as this.

Oh, my other preparation was to come up with a concept and a name. Inferno has been done. It is history. You can still buy a compendium of the best articles on amazon.com for $19.99.  I fine-tuned my desktop publishing skills, even less so my editing skills. I know how to recruit talent, and enforce deadlines. And, I learned you need to have capital backing up the project to endure long-term downturns in revenue.

So today, beside wasting time on this blog, I have to sit down and seriously work on a business plan for OUTSIDER Newspaper.  I am sitting on my patio. It is 98° – far shy of the 101° Weather Underground predicted this weekend. There is a steady breeze, and virtually no humidity. And I am preparing my brain to consider everything involved in publishing a monthly, 32-page newspaper. In many ways Apache Junction is were Millville, NJ was 15 years ago. There are a handful of visionaries that see the potential of a vibrant arts community in a city that is scoffed at as an underdog by other, more affluent towns. There is a rather large population of artists that have no clue that they are part of a large community – there is a disconnect.  And I am in a position to create a publication that can bring many of them together.OUTSIDER, for those that don’t realize they can have a voice and a venue. And a wake up call to the staid and stagnant art centers in the more affluent areas, a trumpet blast informing them that the art world does not revolve around them.

I have procrastinated enough. I finished two pages of the business plan – the title page and the boiler-plate NDA page. Now I have to tap into that creative energy people say I have, and pen a tome that will bend people’s hearts and loosen their wallets so that this dream can become a reality.

We didn’t hike this week, and I am feeling withdrawal. Hopefully Monday morning we will get out. Pretty soon it will be too hot. We turned on the AC last night for the first time this year. We have it set at 82°.  The Sonoran Desert doesn’t cool off at night as you would expect – the Valley retains the heat throughout the day. Even the ceiling fan in the bedroom doesn’t cool one off at night, it just recirculates the 90° air. The humidity is so low that 82° is comfortable.

I am sitting on the patio tonight, in the shade of the overhang. The breeze is pleasant. I stepped into the Studio several times, glanced at the two blank canvasses on the easels, and exited, my mind just as blank.

Yesterday Liz and I took a day just for ourselves. In the early afternoon we drove to the Mesa Arts Center. The center is free to the public, and has four galleries. Their shows are always top notch, and we were not disappointed. We then drove to Tempe, to the ASU Art Center. The theme of four of the exhibits was “Copper”. Arizona has a lot of copper mines. The first gallery was interesting and even amusing. There was a large sculptural representation of the Elemental Table. On the wall was another representation. And one entire wall was covered with pennies – visitors were invited to stick their own pennies to the wall. I found this a little absurd, since 1982 the United States cent has been comprised mostly of zinc, with 2.5% copper. Prior to the civil war, the cent was 100% copper. It was made of various combinations including steel (with a zinc plating) in 1943, and used military brass in 1944 and 1945. On the table of the elements, some pasted a cent on the symbol for copper, and some wise-ass pasted a nickel on the symbol for nickel!

That exhibit also had a video of Tom Lehrer’s “The Element Song” running in a loop.

Another exhibit included a multi-media installation that showed diamond mining in Africa. There was a room devoted to the history of mining in Arizona, and seemed to have a little bit more of a political agenda, an anti-mining theme that was not so subtle.

This part of Arizona was settled due to the large amounts of precious metals and ores that could be extracted. I understand the sentiment, as mining is a destructive process. However, I am astounded by the environmentalist types that will jump on a bandwagon, decrying the destruction of the environment, as they jump in their Prius totally unaware of the many heavy metals necessary to build the batteries required for their “green” vehicle. Those components have to come from somewhere, and nothing comes without a price.

Oh well – from Tempe we drove to Scottsdale. Scottsdale has an arts district – every Thursday night the galleries are open from 7-9PM for an art walk. We pulled into Scottsdale at 5PM, so we walked around until we found a likely location for dinner. Cien Agaves is in the district – a small Tequila bar with excellent food.  For appetizers we selectedthe Ceviche and the home made guacamole. For dinner, Liz and I opted for their tacos. I had the Ahi Tuna Taco and the Tecate Fish Taco. Liz also ordered the Ahi, and had the Carnitas, I think. All the food was excellent. We ordered the house margaritas. They do not use bottled lime juice or sour mix – rather they opt for simple syrup and fresh squeezed limes, and every drink is made to order. Highly recommended!

Since we still had time to kill after dinner, we went next door to Patties, an excellent dive bar. I nursed an IPA until it was time to do the art walk. I can leave or take most of the galleries in Scottsdale – there is a lot of southwest art, and all of it is excellent. However, and I feel this way about the paintings I am doing of the desert, once you have seen one desert scene painting, you have seen them all. There are quite a few Russian galleries with very large examples of couch art. Everything is of very high calibre, but I like to see art that stretches the boundaries a bit. Fortunately, we were not disappointed.

All in all it was a nice night; we got out of Apache Junction, and didn’t spend a lot of money.

I had to climb on the roof of the Studio to get this shot. The Saguaro by the Studio is about 25-feet tall. The tips of the arms are around 15-feet up.

In a couple of months, after the blossoms have long gone, red fruit will ripen. The fruit is edible, but has to be harvested with long poles.  The local O’odham tribes made a fermented drink from the fruit to celebrate the rains. I am pretty certain that the Johnson/Nicklus tribe will make our own fermented drink from the fruit!

Liz and I have a special day planned. If we have $20 to spend at Jake’s on an evening every few weeks, that is a lot. We haven’t been eating out simply because money is a bit tight. Liz has been working evenings on weekends, but she has tonight off. We are going to visit the Mesa Art Center – entry is free. Then we are going to do the Scottsdale Art Walk – they have an art walk every Thursday. And we are going to treat ourselves out to a fancy dinner – which for us consists of draft craft beers and pub sandwiches.

The Apache Trail is forty miles of road that will take you several hours to navigate – and that is if you are in a hurry! Mike, Tami, Liz and I took the road trip on Monday. Mike and Tami are old pros, it was Liz and my first time.

We had been down some of the Trail – hell, we live a block off of the Trail. The Trail, for most of it’s path, is also State Highway 88. We take the Trail to Tortilla Flat, which is an actual town with a post office and an actual zip code – population 6.  Tortilla Flat boasts, beside the post office, a restaurant, museum, and gift shop. Back in the day it was a stage coach stop.

The Apache Trail was initially utilized by the – you guessed it – Apache tribe to navigate the Superstition Mountains and wilderness. It later became a stage coach route, as well as a Pony Express route. After you pass Tortilla Flat the macadam road turns to graded dirt. Many of the passages are wide enough for one vehicle, with numerous single-lane bridges that pass over dry gulches and ravines. There are very few guard rails, even though the drop down the side is sheer; the few guardrails that are there seem to only serve to alert you to the edge, and are not a preventive measure to keeps you from drifting over the precipice.

As you drive the winding road you will see afar a thin white ribbon – that ribbon is the road that you will eventually be on. Your ears will pop many times during the trip, and the short trails they have at the scenic overlooks will cause shortness of breath to those not used to the altitude.

When you think of the desert, you think dry and arid. It is that. The Sonoran Desert is probably one of the the most wet deserts, we get a few inches of rainfall annually.  I would guess that is why we have flora that is unique to the region, such as the Saguaro cactus. The trip along the Apache Trail belies the myth of eternal drought. Shortly after passing Tortilla Flat you reach the first lake, Canyon Lake. Did you know that Arizona ranks in first place for the number of boar registrations in the nation? Each lake is man-made, created by a dam along the Salt River. Canyon Lake was created in 1925 with the erection of the Mormon Flat Dam. Heh, heh – I said erection and Mormon in the same sentence.

Canyon Lake is a popular destination for boaters, with areas of the lake surrounded on two sides by towering rock face cliffs. Each lake has a resort area with boat ramp access, and parking for travel trailers and spartan amenities. As you progress along the Trail, the mountains change, and you realize a mountain is not a mountain. Every mountain and mesa takes on a personality all of its own. The tenacious flora growing out of pure rock continually astound.

The next lake is Apache Lake. Apache Lake was created with the construction of the Horse Mesa Dam in 1927. It is the second largest of the four lakes along the Salt River. The largest of the three lakes along the Apache Trail is Roosevelt Lake, created with the Roosevelt Dam. The fourth lake is Saguaro Lake, closer to Phoenix, and not part of this trip.

On the photos: the first photo is if the side of the road built up with local rocks to shore up a trail that would in short time disappear if not maintained. The next photo displays the awesome strata that makes up the fabric of the mountains and terrain.  The third shows the road we are traveling. As the road twists and meanders, we will eventually be on that little white strip as we drive the Trail. The fourth is the Roosevelt Dam, built under order of the good Roosevelt, Teddy. The entire damn was constructed of local rock quarried in the valley, and placed by way of winched, and blocks and tackle. Construction began in 1906, and was completed in 1911. At the time, it was the largest stone block dam in the world. It provides hydro-electric power to the East Valley. When it was built, the top of the dam was actually the road, part of the Apache Trail. In the 1970′s, the dam was renovated – is that a word they use for dams? – and a bridge was built across the Salt River to divert traffic from the dam. Past Roosevelt Dam, the road becomes macadam again. You then hit real highway, and pass through Miami, an old mining town. They are still mining gold and silver, and I think there might be some salt mines – yep, we are not Siberia, but how did you think the Salt River got its name? The fifth image is the dumper from one of the dump trucks used in the mining operations. it has a normal size dump truck parked inside to give you an idea of the immensity of the equipment they use. The last image is of the landscape on the drive home. You have to wonder how these rocks defy gravity and stay balanced on the earth beneath. It looks as if they are just looking for an excuse to topple.

I am working larger and larger with my studies of desert scenes – expanding my horizons, to make a pun. Hah, I kill myself!

I haven’t done any serious desert landscapes yet – every one of my studies has been an experimentation wit color and style. I suppose every one has been in my style, since that is how I paint, a twisted marriage of impressionism and expressionism.

As I look at my recent desert paintings,many of them remind me of a naive primitivism, although that was not my intention at the outset.  I am not trying to pretend to be an outsider artist, I simply pick up the brush and begin painting with little clear vision in mind, and make it all up as I go. Sure, I have various photographs posted near my easel for reference. However, no painting is intended to be a geographic representation, but rather an external expression of the imagery that is being burned into my soul on my regular hikes into the desert.

I am in a quandary, since the desert I have been documenting in my paintings is an anomaly. A particularly and uncommonly wet winter and spring have turned the shades of ochre and sienna into fields of green.  The peaks of the Superstition saw snow for the first time in three decades. By the time I figure out my color palette, I will have to begin again as spring hits us with full force.

I currently have two blank canvases on the easels in the studio. A blank canvas is the most intimidating thing in the world to me. I approach with trepidation every time. These two sisters have been in place for four days now. I still have no clue what I will paint, and likely will not until that first brush stroke hits the canvas.

Personal News:

Job hunting sucks. I have seven different resumés, each with a different focus. I have a resumé dedicated to my Desk Top publishing experience, which is quite extensive. I have more than ten years of experience in the publishing industry, from page layout to printing press. I chose that industry too late, at a time when paper is passe and digital reigns. I maintain a steady flow of income from book residuals, not much, a pittance really, but it will buy a 30-pack of swill beer once in a while.

I have a resumé concentrating on my writing experience. I applied for a job as a reporter for one of the local papers.  He was deluged with applicants. Our local papers are free, and are published weekly, the job would be part time, which suits me perfectly. I suspect my writing was a bit too colorful for a staid newspaper – although the editorials he pens can cut to the quick.

I have resumés for technical jobs, professional jobs, and even retail (which I really hope I do not have to take). Retail sucks because, even though most people are decent and respectable, the world has bred a lot of assholes. In retail you have to be nice to these people, even the ones that wouldn’t understand the sarcasm anyway.

Yesterday I applied with an iron foundry. The work is difficult, and the environment is dirty and hot – hot to the tune of 120 or so degrees. I am used to those temperatures, having worked in a glass factory, and after that at American Iron and Steel where my station consistently hit those numbers. But, it is not my idea of the ideal job. And, the job is through a temp agency, which means that it likely pays little over minimum wage for the privilege of working in horrific conditions. I suppose the temp agencies are standard practice these days; it allows employers to screen potential employees without the risk of having to go through the expense of hiring someone only to discover they are a lazy slob, or that lack common sense necessary to avoid dangerous accidents. If they don’t like someone, all it takes is a call to the agency to bring in another prospect.

So, yes, job hunting sucks – but what sucks worse is not having a steady source of income.

I have been toying with the concept of publishing my own newspaper. I would need backing, and I do not have the extensive network of talent that I had in New Jersey for Inferno. Even starting on a small scale, I need a talent pool and the ability to pay even a pittance for content. It is an idea that I continue to toss back and forth – a dream from when I was a child, a reality as an adult, shattered by a bad economy.  Speaking of economy, I have not lacked economy of words today. On that note, it is time to begn being productive today.

Spring has sprung
The flowers riz
The bell has rung
And here I is.

He wasn’t as poet, and the class did know it.

Anyhow, spring has sprung in the East Valley. The purple mountains majesty are clothed in olive drab and varying shades and hues of green. This study is oil on Masonite, 8″x10″. It is yours for $25.