11.15.98
Didja miss me baby? It has been a week chock full o'terror and intrigue. Well, not really, but it sounds really good, doesn't it?
Perhaps you have noticed that thing that occasionally jumps off the screen at you and asks you to go off to "gaynet" or apply for more credit than you can ever need. I just can't handle it. Really. The idea of posting a page on a server such as Tripod or Geocities is really tempting, because of the ease in doing it. Hey, it worked for me. A couple of months ago, I couldn't tell you what a HTML tag was. I still can't, but I now do have an idea of what they do for me.
The just of this story is that the reason that I have not been updating this page as frequently as I have in the past is cuz it's being prepped for a move somewhere. My ISP is quite responsive to the idea (it's a teeny tiny company with great customer service) and they don't seem to have any qualms about content, provided I don't do anything illegal. I think I can handle that. Unfortunately, I think they also mean nudity in their definition of legality, so I won't be posting and nudie pix of myself lounging in the pool with a bottle of lubricant.
But, that's okay. We can amuse ourselves with photos of me in Moloka'i on the 'Phalic' rock. I've noticed that a funny thing happens when my image hits photographic emulsion. I don't look like myself anymore. I look at myself in the mirror and see one thing; look thru the eye of a camera, and quite a different thing comes out. Therefore, only a couple of the pix are worth sharing. The rest of them don't reflect my extreme physical beauty (koff, koff) The gallery is coming up eventually. (I don't suggest retaining a breath, though...)
Well, enough of my photographic prowess. There have been several things that have happened in my life recently, and some that I would actually like to discuss. There was much depression and sadness over this last week, and I would rather move above and beyond it.
I'll tell you a story about my auntie (A pause...in local parlance, an auntie is any female that is older than your peers. Only occasionally are they related.)
Once upon a time, there was a hunting lodge owned by a powerful king, who was the owner of a successful hotel, which he appropriately named the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. (Hmmm!) and so it continued to be, until boom! a less popular king introduced the unpopular concept of private land ownership, known as the "Great Mahele." The place, called "Wailele" or jumping water, after the waterfall and swimming hole, was later purchased by a daughter of a terribly powerful (yet benign) man named Gay (of the Gay-Robinson family who own Niihau)
are you lost yet? Mebbe it will become clearer soon. Bear with the history lesson.
Well, this woman, Lillie, happened to be interested in art, so she took palette in one hand and a biiiiig glass of bourbon in the other and set forth painting flowers in the early part of this century. Since Wailele was so remote and so pretty, they built a grand estate on the stream overlooking the waterfall in 1911.
Enter into this story a VERY popular portrait painter, George Burroughs Torrey (His claim to fame is the official portrait of President Taft in the White House) He was quite a naughty fellow, and while they were courting, George painted a VERY naughty portrait of Lillie (for 1911) which caused an immediate divorce from her present hubby.
That was ok, though, because George was an excellent, and fairly well known artist of the day, and they were soon married, and kept Lillie in diamonds and bourbon. He also lightened up her somewhat obnoxious flower paintings and made them, uhh, less expressionistic?
Guess it's time to get to auntie now. Shortly after W.W.II, my auntie and her husband, a very bright and ambitious physician moved to Wailele to nurse and care for a now old and crumpled Lillie. Upon her death, they purchased the estate, and became conservators. In the 1950s, the main house burned, and was replaced with a structure that is a museum of kitsch unto itself. However, the 1911 gallery and studio with an even older chunk of thatched breezeway still remain. It is an amazing place, and I am touched every time I see it. Mr. Torrey painted two life size portraits that stand at one end of the gallery; Lillie and a self portrait. You'd swear they were John Singer Sargent portraits if you didn't know. He was that good. (Trust me...JSSargent is the one artist that makes this kid creem in his jeans.)
Now, damn it, auntie is nearly 80, and her kids just don't care about what she and her late husband cared so passionately about. Most likely, the property (which is very large by Hawaii standards at 5 acres) will be sold and bulldozed, and I'll have a field day buying cheap old flower pictures, which depresses me.
That's all there is to my story. I just wanted to spout on about some of the history in this place. I was going to expound about the Hawaiian monarchy, and the recent death of Poomai Kawananakoa, but we'll save the Hawaiian experience for another time.
Perhaps you have noticed that thing that occasionally jumps off the screen at you and asks you to go off to "gaynet" or apply for more credit than you can ever need. I just can't handle it. Really. The idea of posting a page on a server such as Tripod or Geocities is really tempting, because of the ease in doing it. Hey, it worked for me. A couple of months ago, I couldn't tell you what a HTML tag was. I still can't, but I now do have an idea of what they do for me.
The just of this story is that the reason that I have not been updating this page as frequently as I have in the past is cuz it's being prepped for a move somewhere. My ISP is quite responsive to the idea (it's a teeny tiny company with great customer service) and they don't seem to have any qualms about content, provided I don't do anything illegal. I think I can handle that. Unfortunately, I think they also mean nudity in their definition of legality, so I won't be posting and nudie pix of myself lounging in the pool with a bottle of lubricant.
But, that's okay. We can amuse ourselves with photos of me in Moloka'i on the 'Phalic' rock. I've noticed that a funny thing happens when my image hits photographic emulsion. I don't look like myself anymore. I look at myself in the mirror and see one thing; look thru the eye of a camera, and quite a different thing comes out. Therefore, only a couple of the pix are worth sharing. The rest of them don't reflect my extreme physical beauty (koff, koff) The gallery is coming up eventually. (I don't suggest retaining a breath, though...)
Well, enough of my photographic prowess. There have been several things that have happened in my life recently, and some that I would actually like to discuss. There was much depression and sadness over this last week, and I would rather move above and beyond it.
I'll tell you a story about my auntie (A pause...in local parlance, an auntie is any female that is older than your peers. Only occasionally are they related.)
Once upon a time, there was a hunting lodge owned by a powerful king, who was the owner of a successful hotel, which he appropriately named the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. (Hmmm!) and so it continued to be, until boom! a less popular king introduced the unpopular concept of private land ownership, known as the "Great Mahele." The place, called "Wailele" or jumping water, after the waterfall and swimming hole, was later purchased by a daughter of a terribly powerful (yet benign) man named Gay (of the Gay-Robinson family who own Niihau)
are you lost yet? Mebbe it will become clearer soon. Bear with the history lesson.
Well, this woman, Lillie, happened to be interested in art, so she took palette in one hand and a biiiiig glass of bourbon in the other and set forth painting flowers in the early part of this century. Since Wailele was so remote and so pretty, they built a grand estate on the stream overlooking the waterfall in 1911.
Enter into this story a VERY popular portrait painter, George Burroughs Torrey (His claim to fame is the official portrait of President Taft in the White House) He was quite a naughty fellow, and while they were courting, George painted a VERY naughty portrait of Lillie (for 1911) which caused an immediate divorce from her present hubby.
That was ok, though, because George was an excellent, and fairly well known artist of the day, and they were soon married, and kept Lillie in diamonds and bourbon. He also lightened up her somewhat obnoxious flower paintings and made them, uhh, less expressionistic?
Guess it's time to get to auntie now. Shortly after W.W.II, my auntie and her husband, a very bright and ambitious physician moved to Wailele to nurse and care for a now old and crumpled Lillie. Upon her death, they purchased the estate, and became conservators. In the 1950s, the main house burned, and was replaced with a structure that is a museum of kitsch unto itself. However, the 1911 gallery and studio with an even older chunk of thatched breezeway still remain. It is an amazing place, and I am touched every time I see it. Mr. Torrey painted two life size portraits that stand at one end of the gallery; Lillie and a self portrait. You'd swear they were John Singer Sargent portraits if you didn't know. He was that good. (Trust me...JSSargent is the one artist that makes this kid creem in his jeans.)
Now, damn it, auntie is nearly 80, and her kids just don't care about what she and her late husband cared so passionately about. Most likely, the property (which is very large by Hawaii standards at 5 acres) will be sold and bulldozed, and I'll have a field day buying cheap old flower pictures, which depresses me.
That's all there is to my story. I just wanted to spout on about some of the history in this place. I was going to expound about the Hawaiian monarchy, and the recent death of Poomai Kawananakoa, but we'll save the Hawaiian experience for another time.
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