Painting Some Rooms and starting to come back to life

 It's been a tough few months with all the car and truck problems to resolve but I've turned the corner on that and picked up a small house painting job.It's hard going back into the workforce  at 73 years old but on another level it feels good to be productive again.This is just a small job but it has put me in a good place mentally .The other day I ran a wanted ad on this Yamaha forum looking for a 1965 Yamaha YJ1 (my 1st bike ) .I have one I picked up a few years ago but it's really a parts bike. Been looking for a better candidate to restore and this morning I got a response to my ad.Haven't seen any photos yet or talked with the owner,it's just a lead I'm running down but I'm hopeful .

Now that the Chevy S10 is running well and my wife's Pontiac Sun Fire is running and driving well I'm ready for a new long term  project. I have my friends motor in the basement to rebuild and a few other little jobs  but I need to get back into doing restoration work. I have all these bikes I can restore and lots of parts to work with . I finally started selling some with the nice little 1970 DS6C I sent to California and now it's time to move on to something new.I have the old 2002 Honda Accord for sale as a parts car .A couple guys have shown interest so we'll see.The 76 Dodge Aspen is finally gone and I think I'm going to list my 71 Chevy C 20 for sale soon too. So,now I wait for an answer to the email I sent to the guy with the YJ1 .Sure hope he wants to sell it and it's in my price range. It would be nice having my first bike again . Got out on my Moto Guzzi the other day.We have been having a mild winter so I ran it for a few hours. Also got out on the 71 Yamaha R5 .Riding the R5 is like hanging out with an old friend. I sure love that bike.Well as winter draws to a close I'll be riding and wrenching more.Who knows , I may even pick up some more small paint jobs . It seems like painting work is still pretty easy for me to do so I may as well keep working and keep active. Well,it's time to start my day.It's Saturday and I'm waiting on this guy who says he wants the Honda to get back.He's probably another dreamer on Craigslist so I'm not gonna wait too long.Gotta feed my tortoise and decide if I'm going to go paint a ceiling .It's cold and crappy here in New York today,may as well work.

AN UPDATE ! Now it's around an hour later.I went on Craigslist looking at tools just killing some time as I wait for this fool who will probably never show.While searching I found this incredible deal , an air powered bumper jack ! When I was building cars with my old friend Al we had one of these seen here with my 65 Valiant wagon on it some 30 years ago. 

The guy is asking 50 bucks for it so I called up and bought it .Here is a link to the ad :

https://longisland.craigslist.org/tls/d/west-babylon-gray-bumper-jack-air/7584117785.html

So it looks like I won't be painting today , nope I'll be heading down to the south shore to pick this up so Steve and I can start using it to do the resto on my 1965 Valiant Station Wagon. It never ceases to amaze me how the things I really need always just fall out of the sky and land on me at the right time .

Found Another Lost Post

 Looking around thru old files I came across another post I thought I had lost when I got hacked a few years back. I did lose a lot but what can you do.I learned my lesson and now back up everything on a flash drive. This post is from  January 2015

Finished My Painting

Yesterday I decided what I wanted to do with this painting so in the early afternoon I attacked ! I painted for a few hours and tweeked it this morning and here is the result.

I call it "Arizona Rust" It's oil on canvas 16x20 and for sale (not cheap but then I never sell any of my stuff cheap) Traveling out west this past October has inspired me to paint.This is the first of what I hope will be a whole series of paintings from the Southwest Desert.Now that it's winter I'll have time on my hands and use it as I bounce back & forth between paint and building motorcycles out in the garage. This week I'm going to start cleaning out the garage and getting ready to work on the 1988 BMW that my friend Tony threw my way back in November.Can't wait to attack this project.

Working on bikes sort of lights the creative fire in my head.I can't figure it out ,there is no connection between the two things other than that they both are real enjoyable for me but this is how it works. Yesterday I also listed the 1965 Commando 273 V8 motor I have on Craigslist. This particular motor is of historical significance because it is the first year and the first high performance small block Chrysler built.It's the predecessor of the 340 .A little screamer that winds right up to 6000 rpm's when you open up the 4 barrel .It was meant for my gold 65 Barracuda but I never got around to installing it 'cause the 318 I used when I built it never wore out so why change it.Well,the Cuda is history now and I like the 66 convertible and the 65 wagon with the 6 cylinders they have in them.From my perspective the 6 is easier to work on and cheaper to run .

Starting to get rid of stuff I'm not bringing to Arizona now. It could be yours for $1200. I also bought a transmission for use as a spare for my 66 Valiant convertible because two weeks ago I sold the one I had to my friend TA to replace his in his 1966 Dart Station wagon.He.s a good friend and needed to fix his ride so I helped him but then started to search for a replacement for my inventory.Gotta have spares when you drive fifty year old cars.The vert is coming to Arizona for sure.It will be great to have a convertible out there man. Ah,the life of a motorhead is the life I chose and I gotta say,I wouldn't change a thing.I'm independent ,don't have any stinking car payments,am not enslaved by the bank so fuck it all,I'm way better off than most.It will be a happy day when I finally am heading west in a truck full of my motorcycles and parts.I LOVE ARIZONA !

I know that once I get out there and set up shop there will be a 30's car in my future.I really like mid 30's cars,they are so fucking cool.Something like this 36 Plymouth that I just lifted off the internet is what I'm going to be looking for once I get out there. Well,I think I'll prep another canvas and start thinking about what I want to paint next.I have time on my hands and it's shitty out so I may as well paint today .I have some ideas,I brought home this yellow orange paint that I used on Pete's house for the shingles.The whole time I was painting that house I was thinking how that would be a good base color for a desert painting so I think I'll fool around with that.

Cars

 The 1976 Dodge Aspen was sold last week. I'm glad I was able to find a home for it rather than send it to the crusher. It served me well for 15 years and 160,000 miles . Here she is up at my camp in the driveway and out & about in Northern New York. This car never let me down.

Back in 2017 I drove her out to Michigan to go to a motorcycle event at the Gilmore Car Museum  to connect with a friend there and pick up this sweet little  1965 Yamaha 55 cc motorcycle. I had one of these when I was 16 , my first bike . I bought it new the day I got my license .It was this same exact motorcycle. Now it sits in my shop waiting on me to restore it. Here it is pictured with my friend Dan after we strapped it on to the rear bumper of that old Aspen for the 900 mile ride home .

 Lots of good memories from this ride.She will be missed but now that she's gone I'm focused on my wagon again. Yesterday I brought her back to life.Put in a new battery ,some fresh gas ,air in the tires ,gave it the once over and off I went.She started right up and ran like she was used an hour earlier. I have had this car laid up for most of the past two years.I did manage to get it going last summer after the problems I had with the transmission shifter and clutch.Even was able to get her inspected then so now I'm on the road again with my favorite car.

So ,today I'm going to take her down to my friend Steve's house and start to get set to do the body work on it. It's long over due . There is rust in all the fenders and quarter panels. I have all good replacement sheet metal that I had bought and took off parts cars I had years ago and saved for this job.I always knew this was the keeper car out of all my cars.It's just too cool to let it get away . The plan is to work the replacement parts off the car on the bench now in winter so when the spring rolls around we are ready to actually hang this stuff on the car ,grind the welds down and do all the filler work. If all go's well we'll have her in primer by the summer. A new chapter begins in the story of this wagon ! Meanwhile my wife's old 2002 Honda with the bad transmission is now on Craigslist as a parts car for 800 bucks .I'll be a happy camper when that thing is gone from my work space . Then there is motorcycle work . This is retirement and I'm loving it !

In A Dream

 In a dream it all became clear.For well over 50 years I have thought about the brightness that was  in my head on this acid trip I took way back in 1968. It was a life changing experience that I could never really explain in my mind. Even after all these years passing and the fact that I quit all drugs and alcohol way back in the mid 1970's it still remains fresh in my mind .Actually I think the psychedelics are where I got the strength to quit all drugs. This is how they helped me,they gave me an inner strength to do what I really wanted to do with my life . It seems now here in 2023 others are discovering the benefits of opening the door to your perception of this circus we call reality. Well, the other night I was dreaming and was in space .There was stars and emptiness everywhere but one star had a different kind of light .It was distant but shining brightly.As I slept I kept dreaming and this whole theory of how the entire universe is just pure energy came into my mind.Everything is energy and the energy field is infinite because energy can't be destroyed or created it can only be changed back and forth between kinetic energy and potential energy .Thinking deeper I concluded that the universe probably pulses back and forth between these two energy states and that's all there is , nothing more , no guy in the clouds passing judgment, no anything just the brightness.When the brightness was revealed to me thru psychedelics it actually absorbed me. I didn't experience it, it just was and I was it and it was me and everything all at the same time. It's just energy , that's all there is. No life or death , just a positive and a negative to everything .The energy that makes up us is not destroyed  or no longer in existence it just transforms into other forms as it merges with the surrounding energy field. It's an infinite process of back and forth. Then I woke up .It was a strange peacefulness that I was in and at that point I understood that it doesn't matter what I or anything  or anyone else does.It's totally random and without meaning .The energy just is and will always be . Sort of like reincarnation but not as something we can even begin to understand. It's not as if you are going to come back as a dog or a fly nope, the energy has endless possibilities in it's ever changing dimension that is way beyond us and our ability to comprehend . When I woke I thought how lucky I was to have made it thru that trip. It was so powerful and I was all alone. I am still figuring it out more than fifty years later. At the time I had no idea what I had experienced but now I'm understanding why native people in the jungles and deserts  and mountains used these drugs to guide then with visions . Now I'm reading about how people are using psychedelics to overcome health problems and failed therapy  . Here is a link to an AP article about this:

https://apnews.com/article/psychedelic-churches-ayahuasca-5101fe47fe9a6e28de686272ed96ff46/gallery/95df3a8b162b43769ee8094b2149ad9a

Very interesting read . I have a friend who went down to South America around 6 or 7 years ago to take this drug with shaman . His life changed  drastically for the better in his opinion. He  divorced ,left his life here in New York City behind  met a girl , moved to the Yucatan  and started a family. I do miss my friend and riding and working on motorcycles together but when I look at it objectively I think he's right , his life is better now than before because he's doing what really matters to him. It really is amazing what a full blown psychedelic experience can do. It can drive some totally mad but for others it shines a light on the path forward thru the darkness. It's good to see that this stuff is finally gaining some acceptance . When I do my digital art I kinda go towards that place I went in my mind all those years ago  but they never come close to the intensity of what was that night 50 some years ago. The one in the middle is sort of what was but not really.The brightness is something that can't be captured in art or with a camera but it is a source of inspiration for art. I began making art 10 years after this trip and have never stopped.

This is where it all comes from.