Where's Davy?

I’ll be the first one to admit I’m not up on the zeitgeist, particularly when it comes to music. I’m still stuck in the sixties and seventies, and it’s music from this era playing in the background as I write this. But I’ve recently noticed something peculiar going on. We baby boomers have become accustomed to corporations using our generation’s anthems to sell their products, like Ford cashing in on the Rolling Stones’ Start Me Up, or Beatles songs used to sell diapers at Target. But I’m referring to something far more sinister.

Back in 1973, Billy Joel produced the song that would become his hallmark—Piano Man. I can’t analyze music the way I can art so I can’t tell you if Piano Man is a good song or not, I just know I’ve been moved by it since the first time I heard Billy pound those piano keys.

And the waitress is practicing politics
As the businessman slowly gets stoned
Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness
But it's better than drinkin' alone

Still gets to me, but I’m a sentimental softy and unapologetic about it. So here’s my problem. As you might imagine, I know all the lyrics to this song, and several months ago when it aired on my RAV’s radio as I drove to my morning swim, I noticed something missing in the song. Surely it was my involvement with driving that caused me to miss one of my favorite passages, but a few days later there it was again, Piano Man blaring from my car radio. I tuned in closely for my favorite part, and again it was missing:

Now Paul is a real estate novelist
Who never had time for a wife
And he's talkin' with Davy, who's still in the Navy
And probably will be for life

Davy, who’s still in the Navy and probably will be for life, was conspicuously missing. Where had he gone? I’ve always sympathized with Davy. In my mind he never matures into a Dave or David, probably enlisted in the Navy when he was eighteen and now, like an institutionalized inmate, is terrified of release.

I realize that songs, like movies on TV, are often shortened and I don’t expect to hear the long version of ballads like Don McLean’s American Pie, but Piano Man isn’t a particularly long song. I mentioned this to Mrs. Chatterbox, who’s much more into the zeitgeist than I am, and at first she didn’t believe me when I said Davy was MIA.

But several days ago she came home from work and said, “Piano Man came on the air while I was driving home. I listened closely, and you’re right. No Davy!”

I was shocked. I’m not told very often that I’m right. But she did confirm my suspicions that Davy had disappeared. Was Davy a casualty of our wars to provide Homeland security? Were the lyrics considered anti-Navy, and thereby anti-military and unpatriotic? Is Davy no longer sitting at the bar listening to the Piano Man on your radio?

Davy—where are you?

Is Davy still hanging around your radio? Check for me the next time you hear Piano Man.

Monet's Garden

Walt Whitman said it best: “Very well then, I contradict myself.” When I started Chubby Chatterbox ten months ago I was determined that my blog would be different from those focused on photography, mostly because I’m not fond of my photographs and prefer painting my own pictures. Unlike me, many of you plant and nurture the flowers you photograph, and I have great respect for your accomplishments. Unfortunately, plants left in my care only receive death sentences.

But as I sit here in gloomy Portland, I feel the need to post something different from my usual self-deprecating adventures. In that vein, these are pictures I snapped in Monet’s garden at Giverny last year. At the time I wasn’t happy to be in Giverny, but our trip to Egypt had been cancelled because of political unrest. Perhaps it turned out for the best because I don’t think pictures of Egypt would cheer me up today as much as these flowers.

Monet was quite proud of his garden, the inspiration for many of his later paintings. More than once he claimed this garden as his greatest achievement. I know next to nothing about flowers so it would be great if some of you could identify these. I hope they brighten your day. Enjoy.

Have a great day!

A Princess And Stolen Gold

She was a real princess, an infanta of Spain, and I’d come thousands of miles to pay her homage. She wasn’t exactly pretty; she possessed those unfortunate characteristics that, had she lived a long life, would have twisted her sweetness into the grotesqueness so characteristic of her family. She was a Habsburg, and no one would remember her today were it not for the sublime brush of Velàzquez, her father’s famous painter. As I gazed upon her, I felt something peculiar happening…deep in my pants, a downward motion completely beyond my control. Princess or no princess, I was about to let loose!

I’d come to Madrid to fulfill a childhood fantasy: I’d grown up in California and had been raised on tales of Spanish chivalry and pirates of the Spanish Main. As an artist, Spain loomed large in my imagination for another reason: in Madrid, The Prado Museum contained the greatest collection of Italian and Spanish paintings on Earth. Velàzquez was one of the most accomplished painters who ever lived, and in my opinion the best portrait painter. His painting, Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor) was arguably the greatest picture ever painted. I’d come to check it out with my own eyes. But greed came between me and Velàzquez’ masterpiece.

I entered the Prado and stood in line to purchase my ticket. It was a chilly day in late winter and the queue in front of the ticket counter was uncharacteristically short. After handing over a dozen pesetas for my ticket (this was before Spain went on the Euro) I passed into a chamber with hooks on the walls for coats. An attendant, nose buried in a newspaper, was doing a poor job of guarding the coats. I noticed that one of my shoelaces had come undone. Plunking down on one of the empty benches, I leaned down to retie the shoelace and my eyes widened at what I saw—Spanish treasure.

Projecting from beneath my bench was a thick rubber mat with slots in it. These slots were filled with glinting Spanish coins, like a giant coin tray in a bank. Some of these coins were worth as much as five or ten US dollars. Thousands of tourists must have dropped them while struggling out of their coats. For a moment I felt like Edmond Dantès discovering the treasure of Monte Cristo.

I looked up. I could hear snoring coming from behind the attendant’s newspaper. I wish I could report that my Catholic upbringing had immunized me from such temptations but, unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. Before yielding to temptation, I glanced around the room for security cameras. When I saw none, I began plucking coins and shoving them into my pockets. I figured I’d stop in a minute or two when other tourists arrived, but none did. When my pockets could hold no more, I waddled out of the chamber, feeling rich as Midas as I sought out the little princess.

The coat chamber may have been empty, but there was a crowd gathered in front of Las Meninas. I pushed my way forward and got my first clear glimpse of her. The critics hadn’t lied. She was a miracle: Velàzquez had created Infanta Margarita and her entourage from a loose salad of brushstrokes that at a certain distance, like perfect pitch in music, transmogrified into the semblance of a living breathing person.

For those who haven’t looked closely at this painting, it’s worth the effort. Hundreds of years before the invention of the camera, Velàsquez defied convention by painting nearly everything slightly out of focus. The dog in the foreground being kicked by the dwarf is blurry up close, as is everything except for the face drawing the viewer’s eye to the center of the composition, the face of the little princess. And over on the left, Velàzquez has depicted himself standing before an enormous painting (Las Meninas?) palette in hand. But what is he painting? The little princess’ back is to him. And hanging on the wall in the background; is that a mirror? Reflected in it are the images of the princess’ parents, the King and Queen. Are they the subject of this painting, or are they standing in the doorway, an impromptu visit to their favorite painter’s studio as the artist prepares to paint their daughter? Art experts have been staring at this remarkable painting for hundreds of years, asking themselves the question: What the hell is going on here? What is this magical portal to seventeen century Spain all about?

I had come a great distance to study this painting, to take my turn at solving this mystery, but I was thwarted by greed, the sort that had roiled the blood of Spanish conquistadors. The princess’ eyes seemed to lock on me, and I was suddenly filled with unbearable shame. The ill-gotten treasure in my pockets seemed to burn through the fabric of my pants, branding my skin—a short-lived agony because at that moment the stitching in both pockets tore open and coins rained down my pant legs, a symphony of clinking and clattering on the marble floor as coins piled up at my feet.

Before bolting from the room as fast as I could, I caught one last glimpse of the little princess. Three hundred year old paint is brittle yet hard as cement, unchangeable, but in that fleeting moment I swear that long-dead little girl’s face had changed. She was laughing at me.