One of my dreams was to visit Austin Texas, and I did! You have 6th Street, Congress and Red River in Austin, where on any given day just grab your copy of the Austin Chronicle and you can find music of your choice. Walking the streets of Austin you could feel the energy of guitar players and musicians, current day and past.

One of my son’s dreams has always been to own a Johnson Resonator guitar, he is still working on the owning part, but in one of the vintage music stores that we found on South Lamar, he sat himself down in his worn out old Chuck Taylor Nike hi-tops and played for over an hour.

Walking the streets of Austin and finding off beat record stores, guitar stores and pawn shops was a daily activity. Winding down Congress Avenue and seeing a sign for a used Record store, we fell right in, turning the corner, walking the alley, up the sidewalk, down the flight of stairs, and into an old basement warehouse, to a little hidden LP haven, with boxes and boxes of great old LP’s, such as Pacific Gas & Electric, Box of Frogs, Ry Cooder – The Slide Era, Uriah Heep-Innocent Victim and “IF” Silver Cover.

Traveling to Austin, gave me a bountiful amount of energy, but yet the early morning hours were spent reflecting on one of our greatest guitar master’s that in my opinion ever hit the stage. Stevie Ray Vaughan, stoked ‘em, smoked ‘em and kicked America into a blue’s frenzy not like many others before him. No matter what venue he played his steamy and throaty licks on his ’59 beat up, un-beautified Stratocaster, people would come to life and begin a relationship with the Blues. He was living his dream, sharing his music.  Austin is full of artists, musicians and just interesting folks, Keep Austin Weird is seen on T-shirts & billboards alike.

I morphed Jake’s picture of him playing the Johnson in that back alley guitar store, into a drawing of one of the many Johnson Resonator Guitars that he salivates over. Capturing in time, a dream for my son, a memory he will not forget and a dream to strive for, this one’s going on his wall. Keeping him focused on living his dream.

~ Delve into your dreams and desires, and come out with your destiny! sdk 2008

Bird Poo Facials, really now - who thought this up?

Before I go on a tangent here about this latest and greatest salon Au Jus, I have to share a story why this headline captured my attention.

Some time ago, my son at around age 5, could not stop the tears of laughter coming out of that little body when my niece uttered the words “bird poo,” since that is what splattered all over the windshield, this has been an ongoing family catch phrase for going on 11 years now.

No matter the mood of either one of them, if you sputter the words, “bird poo” and each one of them will break out into a fit of laughter. Sort of like my brother-in-law when he tells the snail joke.

What did the snail say to the turtle when he got a ride on his back? Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, who, by the way just broke out laughing when I called to verify the joke.

Dumb, I know, but still and all, we must find laughter where we can.

Bird Poo facials, now let’s think about this for a moment, would you be comfortable with this? At around $200.00 a pop, or would that be a plop?

It makes me wonder, who was the first one who drank a cow’s milk, or ate that first chicken egg? Say silk, silk, silk.. now tell me what does a cow drink? ……………if you said milk.. think again - a cow drinks water! Oh the mind games these days!

What would prompt someone to splatter bird poo on their mugs? How do they get the bird poo? Is this collected in an aviary? Would you want that job? How much does that job pay? Do you collect it in tupperware or a plastic baggie? Is fresh bird poo better or are they freezing it like they do embryo’s? Is bird poo from an eagle better than that of a hawk? What about the little birds, house wrens let’s say, how much bird poo does it take to create an entire facial from them?

Should we compensate the birds somehow? Or do we just think of them as bird brains? If it was a human, you know somehow they would want to be paid.

The questions just keep coming, I just can’t believe that the old brainiac mind of mine didn’t come up with this little ditty way back when the splatter hit the windshield.

A day late - and $200.00 a plop shorter, what will the next big seller be?

Post Script - the drawing accompanying this crazy post was done in all charcoals

With their bobbles, bracelets, braids, and a record breaking about of tattoo’s among them, we have seen them come to life on screen.

Captain Jack Sparrow & Captain Barbosa captivated audiences and created a spur of eclectic dress and dreadlocks.

There are a variety of pirate ranks, I’d like to focus on the captain, they are either elected or rule by force.

Captains had to keep a sensible order, and if they failed, the punishment for the one’s that were elected was not nearly as devastating as that of the one that ruled by force.

Sensible order - what is that in this day & age?

We need to be our own Captains. “ Captain of My Life by Dillinger“

I found myself loosing control of sensible order when I became quite detached from the basics of life, while I was trying to figure out a situation that was beyond my control, a situation that was beyond my scope of rational thinking, the bottom line, was there were no answers for me. I didn’t control the situation, I was only in the mix and I needed to regain my position as Captain of My Life.

If you find yourself on that sinking pirate ship, grab your life raft, it’s a simple vessel, which are the basics of life, love, happiness, harmony & trust. It could be a hand that is reaching out to you, that you can’t see through the fog, or someone’s words of encouragement that are getting lost in the choppy waters.

If there is no sensible order in your life, remember - you are your own captain.

I sketched this sexy woman pirate on an old recycled wine box that my husband found on his recycle run. This was done with both graphite and paint, first I sketched in the sexy pirate, and added the colors of the sea behind her. I left the upper left section with it’s natural wood grain to give the effect of the sky next to the sunset.

It’s a treasure box for any pirate fan!

When we have a passion for something that we love some may call it an addiction.  It got me thinking while I was drawing this sketch of Stevie Ray and his beloved Number One Guitar.  You can’t watch Stevie playing guitar without seeing the feeling and emotion he had for it.

Cradling his ‘59 Strat as if she was a fine woman, I believe it was his passion for the sound and the feeling that he created with every pick of the 13 gauge strings.

Passion = Strong feeling or emotion
Passion =  the emotion of felling very strongly about a    subject
Passion = any object of warm affection or devotion

Addiction = A chronic relapsing disease
Addiction = Physiological & Psychological compulsion
Addiction = Uncontrollable craving, seeking and use of substance

When we do something that we enjoy, I have heard it referenced before that it is an addiction? Are we crossing an imaginary bridge when moderation goes out the window?

Whether it’s drawing, playing guitar, blogging, gardening or just sitting quietly reading a book, why is it that the guilt can set in? What has driven us to the point of stereotyping our desires to think that they could be an addiction?

I suppose this is where the term guilty-pleasures was born, but why?  Why is it that we should have guilt? If we continue to do something we enjoy, we continue to grow, learn & are able to educate others by our example.

It was the many guitar players before Stevie that drove his desire to play and furthered his success.  We all have someone we look up to or aspire to, with out their passion for what they did, wouldn’t we be left in a teach less environment?

We are all teachers and we are all students, we never know what can be created if we don’t continue to learn about our passions and express them in whatever form they come in.  Keeping a positive attitude is essential in reaching our success.  When we begin to feel guilty the negativity creeps in, and that can stifle your potential.  I will say that there are circumstances that our pleasures can consume us, and the boundaries between  passion and addiction become blurred, moderation is the key.

Sitting on the famous steps that Rocky trained on in front of The Philadelphia Museum of Art, sits a blogger by the name of Ty Hurd, I first ran across him on the Entrecard forums, reading his blog from time to time and picking up some great pointers.

I would also stumble upon him as well, and we got to chatting back and forth and he sent me a link to The Top Affiliate Challenge, where he is a contestant for the web’s first real time reality show, which will be starting to film in July.

Ty’s story of the how, what and why he joined this challenge inspired me to morph him into a place he belonged, he wanted something, and has gone after it.

Being an avid reader of John Chow he opened his feedreader one morning….and read about the Top Affiliate Challenge, a point where he pondered what he wanted to really do with his blog, be content with it as it was, or take it to the next level.
Well, as you can see he decided he was going to climb those stairs, and get to that next level, I get the impression, there are no stairs to steep to climb for this guy.

He did a few auditions, and they went extremely well, but his latest one, a Spoof on Mythbusters video, has as of this morning given him a score of 79.10, which is 10 points higher than the 2nd place runner up.

Ty’s excitement to work with the man that actually inspired him to begin blogging has been a driving force behind the great video’s that he has used as auditions.

“Receiving the highest score from the producers of over 150 other video’s was an accomplishment in itself” said Ty.

Staying in the top 10 to become a contestant Ty is continuing to strive for success.  With dedication and flare, this is one guy that deserves to be heard.  Check out his latest audition clip and while your there, hit the number 10 and vote,  give him some kudo’s for seeing what it was he wanted, and going for it.

A phrase you will see often in Ty’s blog is…”just take action and see where it takes you“