Life is Good in the Hood . . April Fools Day 2011

It's Summertime in Montecito. Things are mellow as per they should be. Round a bout Beer Thirty we sit back at Piatti and enjoy the last glow of the Sunset over the Old Montecito Fire House

It's Surreally a great place to live.

The Corpse Flower, Hotel Jerome; Rm 210 March 31 2011

Hunting Hunter Thompson's Spirit in Aspen this weekend for our Surreal Bouncers T.V. show, we stayed in the Victorian era Jerome Hotel. Asking for the most haunted room in the house, the Hotel Management put me in Room 210. This is the room at the end of the hall, seen in the photo. I didn't need to stay in the room, but Eringer insisted. He wouldn't do it, (I thought to myself). Who knows, he said, "something might happen!"

Down the hall outside the door, there was a faint, wafting smell; like something had died. Now for someone like me who has an active imagination, every creaking sound or bump in the night, made me wish that I had at least brought some ear plugs. That smell greeted me every time I walked up to the door.

Settling in to Aspen and 210, I took a bath. Just when I began to relax and unwind in the tub of steamy Rocky Mountain High soft water, there came a knock at the door and muffled voice along with it. Efforting to get out of the tub and find a robe, trying not to slip and fall on my ass, and yelling, "Hold on, I'm coming!" I finally get to the door, and asked, Who is it? Peeping through the fish eye view peep hole, I saw nothing there. I unlatched and opened the door,and same thing, nobody there. I listened for a moment to the sound of silence. Strangely, there was still that faint odor, smelling like decaying flesh.

I don't know, maybe someone had a Corpse flower blooming in their room.Everything was cool with this room, though, (beside the fact that it was freezing). This was O.K. with me. I could bundle up.

Whenever I felt I was being watched, the hairs on the back of my head would stand up, I would talk to that presence, and welcome it. Saying, "I know you are here, and that's cool-- hang out if you want!"But what put me over the edge the most and kept me away from my valuable slumber that night, was when something pulled my hair; (what little I have left), while I was laying in bed with one eye open.

The Room 210 Ghost Story: a hundred years ago the parents of a little boy (all staying together in this room) told him to go for a swim, unsupervised, in the hotel's pool. Unfortunately, he drowned.

Over the years, guests staying in room 210 have reported that this child comes back into the room at night, crying, looking for his parents.

Sad story. Spooky!

I don't know what's scarier, the thought of this little kid,jumping up and down on me in the middle of the night as I lay there, or the ghost of a Nurse that has been seen for years roaming through the corridors of the Hotel Jerome; coming through my door (or wall for that matter) in the middle of the night.

Fortunately during my stay, I didn't see the kid or the nurse, but my camera caught some Orbs hovering above and below my bed.

Enough said.

Hotel Jerome
Aspen Colorado

Dawn in Paradise March 30, 2011

If one doesn't see the sunset, then sunrises in Santa Barbara can prove to be a close second.

Whistler Moon March 29, 2011

Hunter S. Thompson: "I need beaches, and blackness, and moonlit nakedness."

At the moment, Robert Eringer and I are unraveling Hunter S. Thompson. I am staying at the Hotel Jerome where HST use to frequent (the Bar, anyway).

The hotel's only haunted room, Room 210, was available, so I grabbed it. Yes there are Orbs, and things that go bump in the night...but what's troubling is what grabbed my hair as I lay asleep...

Whistler Moon
16x12 oil, 2006
Demonstration Painting for my Moonlight Painting workshop.
American Artist Workshops Magazine Fall 2006

Winter Sunset, Santa Barbara March 28,2011

Most of the time one can count on the weather in Santa Barbara to put on a good show at sunset. Fortunately, every sunset is different.

Painted from Butterfly Beach, across the street from my Gallery at the Four Seasons Biltmore.

Winter Sunset, Santa Barbara
9x9 oil/panel 2008
Private collection