David Michael Jackson

Facebook Poem

by

and and and
everybody is an artist and
everybody has a webpage
and and and
everybody is in a band and
everybody has a song and
everybody
everybody
likes some things
that are safe
and and and
it’s a sharing world where
everybody is
special
and and and
everybody shares and likes everyone
but listens to a few
and and and
maybe he didn’t read it but
he pressed that button
because he’s my friend
and I like him
and I like her
and and and
I like everybody
and and and
everything

teddy bear-01
teddy bear

david michael jackson

Google’s First Dog?

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dog pics
dog pics

This is Schmutt. He was the Google “dog pic” for a period that was certainly “Early Google”. Artvilla.com was formed in 1998 which was nearly the same year as Google. We were in Yahoo and I suddenly started to see these requests coming in from this new site called Google. People were asking for “dog pics” or “dog pic”. They were coming to Dog Pics

I visited this new place and found Schmutt sitting there as the first entry on the first page for “dog pic”. As Google grew, Schmutt stayed there for six years! In early Artvilla, Schmutt and one poem WERE our traffic. He held his position for so long that he had a fan club. He really did! You have to remember that Google Images was not there in those years.

Schmutt was named by my wife Janet. She was good at naming things and finding great nick names for family. In our early days I put up other Schmutt material. Like Schmutt takes a bath You can really see how small he was.
The early internet is very different than the one we have today. Schmutt’s picture would take twenty seconds to load, videos were out of the question, music took thirty minutes to “download”, streaming was non existent. Facebook was not a factor then. To post your dog’s picture took technical know how. It’s still true on the internet. In Facebook I think “in here” and “out there”. Out there requires technical savvy, in here does not.
In the modern internet, everyone can show their dog. That’s wonderful. In this day Schmutt would be sitting there with a lot of “likes”. Schmutt had a window for his limited fame. His day in the sun came and went.
He was killed by a crow in 2006. I lost Janet later that year. I don’t have a dog to show on Facebook so I’ve decide to show Schmutt..
Google doesn’t know about Schmutt. Only I know now. When I visit Google I think of Schmutt and the early days of the internet and how we were there. There aren’t too many of these old ineternet sites left now. This one is hanging on.
I’ve sent Schmutt along on his way with this post. I labeled the photos “dog pics”. Good luck little buddy. We’ll look for you in Google Images.
Maybe you’ll have another day in the sun, dear one.

dog pics
dog pics

david michael jackson

He Stretches the Line Poem

by

red abstract painting
He stretches the line
too thin
it may break
leaving me falling
falling into the nothingness
of having nothing to say

so say the blood is red as it flows
and it makes the tongue red
and her lips
as they play with the spoon

he stretches the line too thin
it breaks
and her lips are lost
as he falls

and the spoon is left
lying there on the table
and the reflections
of the room
flicker on the surface

he stretches the line too thin
end the poem fool
end the poem
you said the blood is red

david michael jackson

There is a Bull in the Road Part 1 and now 2

by
abstract bull painting
Bull

“There is a bull in the road.”
“What?”
It was too early for a problem thought Johnson. What now? I have to go to work.
“There is a bull in the road.”. She was standing at the door. Her feet were bare. She was holding the door open and hiding behind it.
Johnson went to the door. The bull was clacking around on the road. There were children in the yards. Now Johnson, you see, was a farmer’s son. It was just another cow out to him. A cow had almost killed Johnson’s grandfather but generally the animals can be “rounded up”.
Johnson quickly put on his jeans and shoes.
“You going out there?, she said. Her round face tilted as she spoke.
“It’s a bull.”, he said. “There are children.”
Johnson went to the porch down the stairs and to the road. There was a field on the other side of the road. The barbed wire fence was down in one area. Johnson found a gate. A gate in a barbed wire fence is a pole with three strands of barbed wire tied to it. Johnson pulled the pole out of the loops and layed the gate open.
The bull meanwhile was still standing lazily in the road. Johnson crossed the road and confronted the bull.

….to be continued

abstract bull painting
Bull

Johnson noted the children down the road but they did not concern him. He had spent his youth on the creek, in the “hollow” rounding the cows up every evening. His grandfather could call the hogs and they would come. Soo pig. Soooeee.  
Cows were different. The cows would wander up the creek and this meant a round up every day. Every farm boy had a rounding call for cows. A “heeaa” to get the creatures moving. You don’t lead cows, you drive cows. Cows have a healthy respect for Isaac Newton and resist motion. Johnson had a call to get a cow moving too. He used it now on the bull.

“Heeaar….heeaa…heaaa now cow….come up there”, he yelled.

The bull, seeing that Johnson was a man of experience in these matters took it in the manner expected and turned slowly toward the fence.The jig was up. Move toward the fence slowly and give in to the small creature who seems to know his stuff.
Johnson and the bull did the I’m going this way, oh no you are not for awhile and the bull was slowly directed through the gate and back into the field.

Johnson then went to the part of the fence that was down. He pulled and positioned the fallen post until it temporarily did the job. This left a few strands of barbed wire to crudely wrap around things to form a barrier that might last until the fence was repaired. As Johnson was grabbing the last strand the end of it let loose and, swoosh, gained velocity. Johnson’s head jerked to one side to avoid the rapier like strand of loose wire hell.
“Whoo that almost got me”
Johnson corralled the last strand and conquered it quickly but something was not right. His hand went to the side of his head and came back red. There was something wrong with his ear. He crossed the road quickly with his hand over his ear and could see the bus coming down the road as he climbed the steps.
She opened the door.
“”Oh my! You are bleeding.”
“I’ve hurt myself”, he said

……..to be continued

david michael jackson

Pac Man Abstract Painting

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Pac Man Abstract Painting

I don’t think of him as a painting. When he comes up he’s just “Pac Man”. He has his own identity. He actually was painted circa 1993 in oils. Sometimes you are just slinging paint. In order to paint there has to be no fear and it has to be worth nothing, an experiment, it doesn’t count, it’s just extra materials, this one doesn’t count, I’m just doing one for fun.

The key to my art is lots of materials. I wish I had Theo to support me completely and buy me all of those materials. Where is my Theo? Vince you never knew what you had or you wouldn’t have pulled the trigger.

Every now and then the songwriter catches those notes or those words out of thin air. The painter does too….sometimes the paint seems to fall on the canvas like it was falling from the sky. The creative process in of itself is almost mystical. The act of creating any thought is mystical. Pac Man didn’t come from the game, he came from what I thought were random motions of my hand.

With any art, music, writing you sometimes get Pac Man and wonder why you don’t nail it every time. I once did the Pollock thing and poured paint onto canvas. Two out of ten were really neat. I didn’t like those odds but I wonder why the “tried hard on these” percentages are somewhat the same. Did Van Gogh flip through them and think, “Starry Night. What was I thinking?”

Pac Man, “What was I thinking?”

 

Many discovered artists do their best work before the discovery. Real discovery is that painting you discarded last year but suddenly looks like someone else painted it.

From the collection of Ralph (Abe) White

 

david michael jackson   again…..send pretty rocks and shells and sticks