Give me your music, your art, your huddled masses of words and rhythms yearning to breathe free.
She asks me why I’m just a hairy guy. I’m hairy noon and night. Hair that’s a fright. I’m hairy high and low. Don’t ask me why. Don’t know. Those words from the Broadway musical “Hair” pretty much summed up the let it all hang out, let it all hang long philosophy of the ’60s. … Read more
My mom was washing dishes and I was drying them when we heard the news on TV that Elvis died – August 18, 1977. Like the day President Kennedy was assassinated, you always remember where you were and what you were doing the day the King left the throne. (Actually, he had fallen off the … Read more
Happy birthday, Andy Warhol! Pittsburgh’s most famous native son would have been 86 today. He coined the word “superstar” – and within the art world, he was one of the silvery-shiniest. We’ve seen his iconic paintings of Marilyn, Elvis, Brillo boxes, and soup cans, but did you know he designed as many as 50 album … Read more
Those of us who embrace the adage “vanity trumps sanity” know it’s often necessary to suffer for beauty. But who among the world’s leading fashionistas would or could endure the discomfort of performing in an outfit that weighs 200 pounds? Flamboyant pianist-showman Władziu Valentino Liberace, of course. His famous, weighty King Neptune ensemble was one … Read more
This article appeard in the September 2006 issue of the County of Westmoreland Mac User Group (CowMug) newsletter. Die Nasty. Dream Orphans. Beat My Guest. Highway to Heck. No, these aren’t names of punk rock groups or titles of angst-ridden, teen-penned poems. They’re names of fonts. Four evocatively named fonts that co-exist among the hundreds … Read more