Orange is the new crazy...

     

40 years ago I went to Art Center School in Los Angeles, CA.
Our school color and logo and mascot was a big... ORANGE DOT.
All students were issued an "orange dot" decal
for their car windshield as a parking pass.
Maybe due to the academic pressure...
but I was certain that orange was the INSANE color!
Personally I could not tolerate orange shirts, jackets
even orange cars with orange dots trying to a find parking space at school.
Now many years matured, I love orange!
I have several orange shirts and an orange jacket...
occasionally finding myself flipping through the AutoTrader...
just to see anything orange catches my eye.
There coming to take me away... Hi Ho.

As I mature I have become very good at
forgiving and forgetting.
Especially the forgetting part.

I am so very thankful...

Another Thanksgiving Day and my mind is listing all that I am thankful for... my work, my country, my art, my terrific kids, all my friends and my sweet wife Connie who fills my life and me with love.
...and thanks to God!

big bad Bruce...

I have been Bruce all of my life.

My mother used to say with a smile
if I had been a girl, my name would be Nancy

Through my early years no one that I knew...
had the name Bruce

I was not ashamed but not at all proud

sometime during my high school years
a song called “Big Bad Bruce” hit the radio
not even fully understanding the implications of this ballad

I would sing along... for this was a song about Bruce

now... since Springsteen, Lee and Willis
I have matured some and Bruce aint so bad!

Chapter 1, Page 1 of my first of many mystery novels...

"Sunday Brunch at Eb and Flo's"

It's early yet, but the day has promise... to be a hot one.
Boogie boards and coolers in territorial piles at the side of the road.
Anxious, sandy-foot diners line up, contemplating hotcakes or waffles with berry syrups.
The smell of coffee and bacon co-mingle with the early morning salty breeze.
The long diner looks like a space ship... crashed by the side of the road.
It’s one of those bulbous aluminum looking things with windows along the length and a well-weathered deck in front, lined with bright yellow umbrellas shading each table.
The sun is just climbing over the large neon sign above the entrance.
Red-orange and blue paint pealing off.
Eight slow bongs ring out from the church tower down the road.  It’s eight o’clock.
Doors open at eight on Sunday.  Closed Monday and Tuesday. Six A.M. the rest of the week.
The line of hungry citizens scurry in, to procure a coveted table by the window.
So that the food and the ocean view can be feasted upon... simultaneously.
Out from behind the counter, Flo belts out with a grin “Welcome to a NEW day, world!”
as Eb grumbles from the grill “Yeah, welcome to ANOTHER day in my world”.

This... is Eb and Flo’s.
There is no... NO SHIRT NO SHOES NO SERVICE sign at this establishment.
But there is a CASH ONLY sign by the register and a TIPPING IS NOT A CITY IN CHINA badge proudly worn on Flo’s blouse and there is a HAVE A NICE DAY sign on the way out.
Eb does all the cooking for the diners limited menu.
Flo does all the waiting on tables... but there is no waiting in her day.  It’s non-stop.
The breakfast menu starts with, the a-fore mentioned pancakes, waffles and berry syrups.  Bacon or sausage. Toast. Eggs fried sunny-side up, over easy, over hard or scrambled. Then there is Eb’s home fries... Diner Taters as he calls them, “Cuz I don’t make ‘em at home”.

The after-church crowd is lining up now and they are just as hungry as the sandy-feet folks but they dress-up the queue.  In the distance the weekly morning drum circle is pounding down on the sand.

Ebeneser Bodai and Florance Willow were married in 1969 at the spur of a moment on top of a hill in Woodstock, NY surrounded by 500,000 music aficionados.


Stay tuned for many exciting pages to follow!

a quote from Art'istotle...

So much is accidental over time... 

so little, deliberate in the moment.
-Art'istotle

      "Art Poses for Leonardo"  by Bruce Burr

Proud to be a dad...

My daughter Ani is graduating today with a
nursing degree and more honors than I have fingers
and I am so proud of her accomplishments!

cinco de mayo
4:47am
fifth of may
another child born
into this world
my child
into my world
a little baby girl
pride and joy
big smiles and cooing
soon crawling
walking
then talking and talking
mama, papa, MILK
pre school, grade school, middle and high
summer camp
swimming
running some
drawing, painting, writing
too soon driving
this girl
my girl
becomes a woman
smart with honors
hardworking
now a nurse
a life all her own
to share with another man
full of love and hope
her future is to come
now many seasons have passed
cinco de mayo
fifth of may
pride and joy

-LovePops

a calendar, a camera, No... it's my new cell phone!

... and in the future you won't call it a cell phone. You will call it a PHONE.
You don't call your car a road vehicle... unless of coarse it's an off-road vehicle.
The phone has evolved (in the last 23 minutes) into so much more than a phone.
It's a map, a compass, weather station, restaurant guide, a moon phase caculator
and with 100,000 apps that do everything... almost!
Unless you are a Luddite you know all this.

I'm in business as a photographer and my phone is my #1 tool.
My road vehicle is #2 and my camera #3... go figure.

Proof of intelligent life!

This is a photograph taken of the surface of Mars by NASA that looks like a human face.

Some people think it shows that there is intelligent life on Mars.

This is a photograph I took of a stone that I found on a California beach.

I think it shows there just might be... intelligent life right here on Earth.

Stepp'n out... of my comfort zone

I have wanted to write for a long time.
Aah... to be a writer.
I have a million ideas but very poor memory. Poof.

Then along came this blogging thing.  Aah... technology.

For now, I will stick to first hand experience stuff
wrapped up in my personal point of view.

I’ll extol my life adventures
with the many thousands of colorful words
that the English language has to offer
and then I’ll throw in a few "action words"
just to get you excited.

I too, will become a great writer.
Look out Mr. Hemingway!

After some time and some more writing,
I have found that their is thin line the size of the Grand Canyon
long, deep and very wide
between having the idea and writing it down with some semblance of interest.

from a long line of Burrs

My father liked to say, when he could get my brothers and I to listen, that the we came from a long line of Burrs.

Our family crossed the Atlantic from England on a ship called the “John and Mary" in 1630.  Both his ancestors and the ones from my mothers side were unknowingly on the same ship.  My father and mother met thirteen generations later on a ski slope near Buffalo, New York.

He would say that our family was two-fifths English, two-fifths Irish and then pause with a smile and exclaim… and a fifth of SCOTCH!
It took adding two and two together, then actually drinking that fifth, to see his humor.

I suffer from GPDD

Yes, GPDD.  I have been diagnosed... and with several second opinions.

It can be very serious and in my case it is.  The symptoms show up daily.
"Geo Positional Dissatisfaction Disorder"

This is not the old... "Where ever you go, there you are".

No, this is where ever you are, you wish you were somewhere else and you wish you were doing something different.
 If I'm sweeping leaves off the roof or the sidewalk, working at the office, even while I'm talking to people (not my wife, my kids or any one I know that might be reading this), my mind is off traveling to some exotic destination, like walking on a beach, hiking in the mountains, thinking of imagery to create a new photograph.

This is not so unusual.  It's called daydreaming.

Where this disorder creeps into my life is when I'm actually on vacation, or I'm actually walking on the beach or hiking in the mountains... my mind is chunking about all the things I have to do back at the office.  Oh... and all those leaves I need to sweep.  I need a vacation to free-up my mind.

The doctor says, there is no treatment for GPDD.  HiHo

If I were king!

There was a time in the early 70's some of my closest friends called me "The Burger King".

Certainly not for any regal qualities that I possessed, but for my love of hamburgers.

I worked for Jim Miller Studios in Hollywood.

He photographed those HUGE burgers on the billboards all over town.

After each photo shoot I would take home a case of patties, a case of buns, cheese, pickles, relish, onions, and all the secret sauce.

I would always grill burgers when I could get anyone to come for a meal.

I WAS the burger king.

For years since, much to the chagrin of my family, I would exclaim

"Things will be different, when I am king!"

If I really had the royal authority to rule over others lives... look out!

I decree, NO boom-boxes and no RAP music for that matter.

Car alarms would be outlawed across the land.

Noisy car and loud motorcycle owners, DEAD!

Their mothers and their mechanics... DEAD!

You get the picture.

Well I am only KING in my own little world...

and there is enough trouble involved with that.