9 in. X 12 in., acrylic on canvas. One of my latest pieces is "The Lonesome Beetnik". First of all I realize that beatnik is spelled wrong. For all of you youngsters beatniks in the '50's were the forerunners to the hippies of the 60's which I experienced firsthand. My favorite example of a beatnik was Maynard G. Krebs, a bongo playing, unemployed, hipster played by Bob Denver (Gilligan) on the Dobie Gillis Show. The name for my painting comes from an Firesign Theatre album called We're All Bozos on This Bus. The recording was a theatrical performance in audio about an out-of-work guy in the future who takes a special bus ride to a theme park called The Future Fair. There are characters that appear outside the bus whenever it stops. They speak and sing in order to induce people to get on the bus. They are also found in the park wandering around greeting the guests. Unlike the Disney characters at Disneyland these characters are holographic projections that look like giant vegetables. They have names like Arty Choke, the Whispering Squash, and the Lonesome Beet. Although I've listened to the album several times I thought the character was saying that his name was The Lonesome Beatnik. As I was working on this image certain figural aspects began to emerge, and began to focus on the character that I discribed above. Since I have used The Lonesome Beetnik as a screen name in chat rooms it has a certain self-portrait quality for me.
