Brave, Stupid Roxy

May 6, 2016February 24, 2017 / David / Leave a comment

We have the bravest and stupidest dog on the planet.

Roxy likes to run. She especially likes to run out on the hiking/off-roading trails north of our house. She likes it when I let her off the leash and she can run this way and that, sniffing anything she likes, peeing on anything she thinks needs peeing on, chasing rabbits and squirrels and even deer.

Last night we took one of our favorite routes. It loops up through a new subdivision, then down across the creek. From there it winds up and around through the hills, providing a challenging seven-mile run and giving Roxy lots of things to sniff and pee on and chase.

She did just great—disappearing for a few minutes at a time and then showing up next to me again, trotting along and wagging her tail. We began the long two-mile descent that takes us past some cow paddocks (Roxy loves barking at cows), over a hill and through a gate and then across a flat section that takes us back home.

We passed the cow corral, but the cows were gone. As we made our way across the hill toward the gate, we started seeing cows up on the hill. Roxy gave them the eye, but for some reason didn’t run off barking.

Then we crested the hill and down below, between us and the (suddenly padlocked) gate, were two huge black bulls. Note that we hadn’t gone through any gates to get to this point. We just ran along the trails.

I gave the bulls a wide berth, heading straight for the gate. Roxy refused to listen when I called whistled for her again and again. Stupidly, and characteristically, she ran at the bulls and started circling around and around them, barking her stupid little head off.

I jumped the gate and began calling her. I screamed myself hoarse, actually, and whistled again and again. She usually responds when I do this. Last night … yeah, no.

Around and around the bulls. Yap yap yap yap. The monstrous animals began getting agitated, butting each other in the head and pawing at the ground. As they churned up the dust, I got seriously worried about the little mutt. She danced all around and between them, yapping the whole time. I was standing on the other side of the gate, screaming at her. The group of deer watching from the hills to the east may have heard a few bad words. Sorry, deer.

Somehow—and I still can’t believe this happened—Roxy managed to separate the bulls. She chased one of them down the hill toward me, and “herded” the other bull up and over the hill. Just like that, the bull trotted off with Roxy behind her. Couldn’t really blame him, with Roxy on his heels. The other bull stayed put, just on the other side of the gate, ready to stomp me if I ventured behind the fence.

There may have been a few more bad words as I waited for her to reappear. I can neither confirm nor deny. Only the deer know, and they’re not telling.

I kept calling and whistling. The one bull kept looking at me with its evil eyes.

After ten or twelve minutes, here comes Roxy, tearing down the hill. She raced past the prairie dog burrows and past the still-grunting bull, ducked under the fence and fell in beside me. We ran the final two miles home. I let her know—in pretty certain terms—that she was not a good dog.

She did not get a treat last night. Not from me.

Stupid dog.

Poor Man’s Copyright – My Copyright Box

April 7, 2016April 7, 2016 / David / 2 Comments

There’s this box sitting in my basement. I’ve been carrying it around for 22 years.

It’s a white media box, sealed with paper tape which some helpful post office worker stamped like crazy with his date seal. I was living with my aunt and uncle when I originally sent it, and both the TO and FROM addresses point to the same address in Tempe, Arizona. The meter is postmarked April 20, 1994—just when Ace of Base’s “The Sign” was getting a lot of initial airplay and The Hudsucker Proxy was still in theaters:

Every once in a while, I look at the box and think, “Why haven’t I opened this thing after all these years?”

Good question.

Poor Man’s Copyright

Someone told me once, a long time ago, that the best way to protect creative materials is to seal them up and send them to yourself, then keep them unopened.

The idea, I guess, is that if Sneaky McStealer happened to find one of my masterpieces, ripped them off and turned them into a major motion picture blockbuster or a New York Times bestseller, I could take McStealer to court for infringement of intellectual property.

How It’s Supposed to Work

I can just see it now. My lawyer gets McStealer on the stand and asks him where he came up with the idea for “his” movie. He lies through is teeth and says it was his original idea. Then plaintiff’s attorney brings in this battered box and sets it on the railing in front of the defendant. I can see it now…

Attorney: Mr. McStealer, what is the postmark on the box in front of you?

McStealer: Looks like April 20, 1994. It was a Wednesday, I recall…

Attorney: Please, just answer the questions, sir. And does this box show any evidence of having been opened?

McStealer: (glaring suspiciously across the courtroom) Uh, no, I guess it doesn’t.

Attorney: (producing an X-acto knife.) Would you please open that box, Mr. McStealer?

Sneaky McStealer slits open the paper tape and opens the box. With his back to the defendent, plaintiff’s counsel asks the next question.

Attorney: And can you tell the court, Mr. McStealer, what’s inside that box?

McStealer: It’s a copy of that screenplay I st— I mean, I wrote.

Attorney: Can you please tell us, sir, how it is that the screenplay you supposedly wrote in 2016 happens to be inside a box sent to David S. Baker in 1994?

Music hit: Dum dum DUUUUMMMM!

The slimy rip-off artist opens the box and—voila!—sitting inside is the novel that made him millions. Sneaky swallows. He looks at the judge. He looks at me, then slowly raises his hands.

McStealer: Okay, okay! I admit it! I snuck into his house and stole that old novel and claimed the story as my own. I’m sorry, Mr. Baker, I really am. I’ll dedicate my life to making sure you get the credit for your brilliance!

It Doesn’t Really Work

I guess that’s what I was thinking, anyway. The problem is, it doesn’t really work. According to copyright.gov:

I’ve heard about a “poor man’s copyright.” What is it?

The practice of sending a copy of your own work to yourself is sometimes called a “poor man’s copyright.” There is no provision in the copyright law regarding any such type of protection, and it is not a substitute for registration.

Of course, that’s from the government. What the heck do they know? But even Snopes.com, Internet debunkers extraordinaire, have weighed in on the topic:

Mailing one’s works to oneself and keeping the unopened, postmarked envelope as proof of right of ownership to them (a practice known as the “poor man’s copyright”) has no substantive legal effect in the U.S. We’ve yet to locate a case of its use where an author’s copyright was established and successfully defended in a court of law by this method. At best, such mailings might serve to establish how long the author has been asserting ownership of the work, but since the postmarked-and-sealed envelope “proof” could be so easily circumvented, it is doubtful courts of law would regard such evidence as reliable.

Oh.

Rats.

Copyright Basics

The thing is, anything you or I write today is automatically copyright. It might not be registered, but it’s automatically protected from the moment of its creation until 70 years after you or I die.

We don’t even have to write “Copyright 2016” and try to remember the weird Windows Alt-code for the copyright symbol (or the HTML character entity, if we’re working on the web). But for the record, in Windows you hold down the Alt key and type “0169.” If you have a Mac, it’s Alt-G. In HTML, it’s “©” or “©.”

What’s in the Box?

Here’s the funny part. I have no idea what’s actually in that box. I honestly can’t remember. I have to guess it contains the screenplay I wrote that year (the one that’s already been made into a movie). My one-act play Inside Al might be in there even though it’s already registered with the copyright office, plus several other plays I wrote as a high schooler and colleger. The two novels I wrote in my teens, one of which won an honorable mention for the Avon Flare Young Novelist contest, may be in the box as well.

What else? Essays from my early years? Poetry, heaven forbid? What else is in that darned box?

Still Unopened

I don’t have any idea … and I won’t likely know for a long time, because I can’t bring myself to open it. Don’t ask me why.

So here’s my commitment. I’ll open the box on the day I get my first novel published—the day I go into a bookstore and find a book I’ve written sitting on the shelf. When that finally happens (and I think I’m getting closer) I’ll get a camera rolling and do an “open box video” of my little time capsule of sad literary output.

Stay tuned…

Vivint Wireless Internet … Tech Support?

November 30, 2015 / David / Leave a comment

I switched from cable Internet to Vivint wireless Internet on the advice of a friend. He really liked the speed and the price. However, after the last several months, I’m beginning to wonder whether that was a good decision.

The first warning sign was when they changed their service hours. I only found out about this by accident a few months ago. I’d been gone Thursday and Friday night, arriving back at home on Sunday morning. My home network was working fine, but it didn’t have a connection to the outside world. I power-cycled all of the obvious things, but nothing worked. Then I contacted Vivint customer support…

…only to find that they don’t provide any tech support on Sundays. Like none. I called and left messages and they weren’t returned. I called their security system department and spoke to someone who confirmed that their wireless Internet techs weren’t around on Sundays.

Seriously? Who would sign up for Internet service where you’re told, essentially, “If you get this recording on Sunday morning, wait until 8:00 tomorrow and then call again.”

Unconscionable. Unbelievable. Unacceptable.

We had yet another outage last night, Sunday night. I knew there would be nobody to help, so I waited until Monday morning to call. I called at 7:30, hoping I could fix the problem before leaving for work. Nope—turns out they don’t begin providing “service” until 8:00 a.m. In other words, I can’t get help for my home connection until I’m at work. Because that totally makes sense, right?

So I left a message and went to work. Did anyone call back? Nope. So around 9:40 I went onto Vivint’s website, clicked over to their support page and initiated a chat with tech support. I’ll tell you how that went in a moment. First, just in case some executive from Vivint happens to stumble on this blog post, let’s do a quick round of HOW NOT TO PISS OFF YOUR CUSTOMER.

How Not to Piss Off Your Customer

OK, Mr. Vivint Executive (or Ms. Vivint Executive … we want to be inclusive), to start this off, why don’t you visit your own website? Seriously, let’s do this. I’ll wait.

Just in case you haven’t checked it out in a while, here’s what it looks like:

Note that I’ve highlighted the support link in red. (You can click on the image to see the full-sized image.) Now step one of HOW NOT TO PISS OFF YOUR CUSTOMER would go something like this:

Provide service that never goes down.

Okay, so we know that one didn’t happen. It’s probably unrealistic to expect five nines from a consumer service. So step two would be:

Provide 24/7 support on the off chance that your service breaks down.

Okay, you failed again. That’s two strikes against you, Mr./Ms. Vivint Executive. Let’s clue you in on a crucial third step of HOW NOT TO PISS OFF YOUR CUSTOMER:

Don’t encourage your customers to use support options that don’t actually exist.

So if you click the “Support” link on the Vivint wireless Internet page above, you get to the Vivint Internet support page. Here, for your convenience, is a screenshot of that page:

If you look at the red boxes, you’ll see that the helpful sabbath-day observers at Vivint provide not one but two links to live chat support. Great! I love chat support—especially if your support staff doesn’t get in until 8:00, when I’m already at work.

The problem, though, is that these links go to the Automation/Security support team—who don’t take Sundays off (just sayin’), and who can’t do jack diddly squat about my wireless Internet problems.

Here’s how my “support chat” went this morning:

So there you go Mr./Ms. Vivint Executive. Three guiding principles on HOW NOT TO PISS OFF YOUR CUSTOMER. Sadly, you were tested and found severely lacking. Any chance there might be somebody at Vivint who actually, you know, gives a crap?

Casting Complications

November 19, 2015 / David / 1 Comment

Please note that the opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own, and do not represent the views of my spouse, my children, my employer, my religious faith, or any one else someone might wish to complain about or to. The views are entirely mine. My own. My … precious.

When I first posted this commentary on casting, all hell broke loose. Before I say anything further, let me restate my initial point:

The crucial consideration in casting musicals is fitting the best available voice to each part.

This axiom especially applies with lead roles. I stand by this assertion, and I’m adding this epilogue to underscore that assertion.

Almost as soon as I published the post, I began receiving comments—some never published, others since removed—that speculated on specific examples I used to illustrate my point. The first comment was an off-the-handle reaction from a student at our local high school. The comment began:

“This is not okay, in my opinion. Particularly the last section….”

Based on the rambling comment, it was clear the person leaving it had jumped to a whole bunch of conclusions based on very little evidence. Here’s more:

“You all need to respect who was chosen for the parts, and, though it’s okay to be hurt, it is not okay to hate on and disrespect our cast and entire show. And I sincerely hope that your teenagers do not act the way you do when you get a part you don’t want (a ‘non-singing’ role, as you say.). I hope they don’t learn to be ungrateful and rude and turn down parts for petty reasons like, ‘it was a non-singing’ or ‘estenially [sic] an ensemble part.'”

First of all, nothing in the original post was critical of the actors actually being cast (or mis-cast) in roles. Anyone who’s ever done theater knows that it’s a crap shoot every time you audition for something. Like Forrest Gump’s chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get. But whether an actor is perfect for a specific role or just completely wrong in every way, that’s never a reflection on the actor. It’s a reflection on the person (or people) doing the casting.

Nobody blames Russell Crowe for making corned beef hash out of the role of Javert. He obviously did the best he could with his meager musical talents. Instead, we blame Tom Hooper (who directed the movie version of Les Misérables) and Nina Gold (credited for casting the show) and assorted producers for giving Crowe the role in the first place.

Believe it or not, this even happens on Broadway! My wife and I witnessed a casting disaster several years ago when we saw the Elton John/Tim Rice musical Aida on the Great White Way. Overall the actor-role fit was excellent (if somewhat racially motivated)—with a single exception. Someone had decided it would be a great idea to place aging Monkee Mickey Dolenz in the role of Zozer, father of Radames. Vocally, he was the weakest link in the cast. An unknown actor with an actual singing voice would have been far superior to a rock ‘n’ roll has-been.

Second of all, I had to chuckle at the tone this teenager takes with regard to what I “need to respect” and what I don’t. Leave it to a member of today’s “participation trophy generation” to instruct an adult about what he should and shouldn’t post on a personal blog. Does the school need to teach a refresher course in fundamental rights, perhaps? Maybe lessons in manners? Do a few in this rising generation need someone to explain that respect is earned … and not demanded?

Here’s my public response to the comment:

I mentioned no names or even names of specific shows in here. There is no hate in here, just a discussion of general principles. I have theater friends all around the country, and was curious to know whether I was alone in my belief that singing should be the primary factor in casting a musical. I take it you disagree with that, but I’m sure there are plenty who agree.

We saw a high school show in the Salt Lake area a few years ago that had this exact problem. One of the female leads was an amazing dancer and fine actor, but literally couldn’t sing a note. Her voice cracked and she was a quarter step flat during the entire show. You could hear an audible groan in the audience every time she opened her mouth. It was an extreme example, but one that is repeated again and again on junior high and high school stages around the country.

Speaking in general, casting someone who can’t hit the notes required for a particular part, who can’t even hear the key the song is in, is a disservice to the audience. So is casting based on who “needs” a role more. If a person can’t be found who can perform a particular role satisfactorily, then maybe the director has chosen the wrong show for the group. If better singers are passed over in favor of more popular or attractive kids (or whatever) who can’t sing as well, I see that as a problem. There is plenty of opportunity to learn and grow in a theater program. For those who have more room to learn and grow, much of that learning and growing should happen in class or workshops and not in front of an audience.

Again, I’m speaking in generalities, but theater is a giant time commitment. When I or anyone else auditions for a part, there is no guarantee that I or anyone else will get the part we wanted. We can accept the part we’re offered or we can say “Thanks, but no thanks.” Directors expect this. In fact, most put a checkbox on the audition sheet that asks, “Would you accept any part offered?” There’s no obligation to check “Yes.”

Regardless of who gets cast in a particular role, volunteer work is exactly that: volunteer. If I don’t believe a show is worth the investment of my evenings and weekends, I’m under no obligation to do it.

I should also point out that it’s not necessarily about the best voice, but about the best voice for the role. Casting an amazing alto in a part that requires a soprano range, or an amazing tenor in a part that requires low bass notes, would also be a problem. The alto may have a beautiful voice, but if she can’t hit the high soprano notes she’s not the best fit for the part.

I know that, in both school and community theater productions, it’s common to change the gender of a role (usually to allow a female actor to play a part written for a male). This sometimes works just fine, but if the female actor’s voice doesn’t fit the part as written—requiring her to jump up and down in the octaves—this can get very distracting for audiences.

The next comment was posted by the parent of an actor. Just like the student, this parent made some big assumptions and reacted to those misconceptions rather than reacting to my actual post:

“Although I see your point in some of what you have to say, you have in my opinion so inappropriately slandered many in your community. Even though you ‘mention no names or even names of specific shows.'”

Whoa. Sensitive much?

First of all, to slander is “making a false spoken statement damaging to a person’s reputation.” I think the parent actually meant to falsely accuse me of libel, which is “a published false statement that is damaging to a person’s reputation; a written defamation.” Regardless, the accusation is utterly groundless. What specific person or persons did I slander or libel? Which example matches which show?

According to someone who actually knows the rules regarding slander and libel:

“To be successful in a defamation claim, you must show that the defamatory comment in question was unambiguous about both its meaning and the individual who was the target of the comment. In addition, truth is always a defense to a defamation claim.”

I actually went out of my way to obscure the identities of actors and the specifics of particular productions in my examples—in some cases changing details to protect those who might have delicate lilac-scented feelings. Collectively, the members of my family have been in several dozen shows, and very few of them have been in this particular community. To say I committed slander or libel is ridiculous. It wouldn’t hold up in court, and it doesn’t work in the court of public opinion either.

The comment continued:

“High School and Community Theater [sic] should be open to those who are working on developing talent. Allow growth to all Youth [sic], not just the ones who already have fully developed talent. That is what SCHOOL is all about. High School Musicals [sic] and plays are not professional productions.”

Aye, there’s the rub. This is the very mindset that all theater people need to fight against. The idea that high school and community theater should have different standards than professional theater groups is ludicrous. Sure, the budgets are different, and the actors in pro shows are paid. But the basic principles should be the same. To reiterate: when it comes to musical theater, the quality of the actor’s singing voice should be the primary consideration when casting lead singing roles. Minor roles and the chorus or ensemble are the correct place for those who are “working on developing talent.”

I replied to this parent in private and in great detail, but the parent didn’t bother to respond. I think part of my public response is extremely relevant:

I wonder if people would say the same thing regarding high school athletics? Say you have a drama kid who decides to go out (audition?) for football. Somehow he makes the team. He’s never played football before, and he doesn’t even really know the rules, but he loves playing and spends the season learning the game and developing his skills. He has a lot of heart, but not a whole lot of natural talent. Even if the kid is super-popular or from an influential family, it’s pretty likely that this student won’t get nearly as much playing time as more talented, more experienced athletes.

Now imagine: how do you think the spectators would react if the coach benches his star quarterback and subs in the newbie during the fourth quarter of the championship game? Let’s say the kid has had limited playing time on special teams, but has never taken a snap in his life. Would it be appropriate to allow this kid to “develop his talent” during a critical game? This isn’t professional football, after all. It’s SCHOOL football. Shouldn’t ALL players have the same opportunities that the star quarterback and running backs have?

If a high school football coach did something like that, the spectators would boo him off the field. They would complain to the administration, loudly and in public. Yet somehow, when a high school drama teacher does the same thing, it’s mean and unfair to point it out.

Coaches are expected to play the best athletes they have–especially during important games and clutch plays. And they don’t play someone in a position that doesn’t make sense. What coach in his right mind would sub in a talented but undersized kicker to play on the defensive line? Nobody would do that.

Why should the performing arts be any different? Why are directors so willing to place actors into roles that are outside of their physical abilities? It does a disservice to the audience, as well as to the other actors.

The final bit of feedback I received came via email from a high school principal. Now, why a high school principal would feel the need to respond to a post on my personal blog is beyond me. You’d think a school administrator would have lots of more pressing issues to deal with. However, he voiced his concern that I was “railing on the students” who had been cast in a particular show, even though I hadn’t (of course) mentioned any specific students or specific shows. After I explained my position in detail, he wrote:

“Thanks for sharing the comments from your blog. The only one that concerns me or is relevant to the school is the comment from the student. Regardless of how many readers do not know that you are referencing [a specific show], the readers that do and connect the blog to your children and our students are a concern.

“The students, and parents, that read the blog and perceive that you are referencing them are my concern. Perception is their reality, particularly in the world of a high school student.”

He was referring, of course, to the comment from Little Miss Entitlement, excerpted above. My response to the principal, in brief:

Sadly, I have no control over the perceptions of others.

This whole episode is baffling to me. My goal in writing the original piece was to call attention to the curious phenomenon whereby directors (or casting committees) put other factors above vocal quality in making casting decisions for musicals. The whole show suffers—that’s obvious. Even worse, I’ve seen directors try to make up for their bad casting decisions by cutting out songs or sections of songs that turned out to be (surprise! surprise!) way out of the range of the actors they’ve miscast in various roles.

This isn’t just a terrible cop-out (not to mention an admission of poor casting decisions). It’s also a breach of contract and a violation of copyright. This is no joke. Note the following, from MTI’s performance license:

When you are granted a performance license, by law the show you license must be performed “as is.” You have no right to make any changes at all unless you have obtained prior written permission from us to do so. Otherwise, any changes violate the authors’ rights under federal copyright law. Without prior permission from MTI, your actions may subject you to liability – not only to the authors, but also to us – for breaching the terms of your license agreement, which clearly forbids you to make any changes or deletions.

So if a director in a high school or community theater program decides to alter a show to account for his or her bad choices, that decision can actually lead to the director, the program or the school being sued by Music Theatre International and/or by the author of the show. An even more likely outcome would be that MTI or some other licensing company might decline to license the next show at the school or theater.

Again … casting has consequences.

I have to emphasize again that the blame is not on the actor, but entirely on the person directing the show. If a director has more female than male actors, for example, and casts a girl in a role written for a boy, nobody blames the girl if she can’t (a) sing the notes in the written register, or (b) sing them up an octave. The only possible ways to deal with this curious result of bad casting would be to (1) transpose the entire song, including all vocal and orchestra parts, (2) assign someone else to sing part or all of the song, (3) cut all or parts of the song, or (4) force the actor to sing out of register. Options 1, 2 and 3 are all license/copyright violations. And option 4 is audience (and actor) abuse.

The blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the director who refused to consider vocal range and quality when casting the show.

So let’s recap. What exactly happens when directors commit this casting offense?

The audience suffers. Listening to someone sing outside his or her range can be painful—not to mention awkward, uncomfortable and depressing.
The cast suffers. When a lead part is poorly cast, everyone else still has to do their best, and often make accommodations for the leads who can’t cut it.
Ticket sales suffer. High school or community theater that consistently put on amazing shows draw huge crowds. The ones that put on shows with poorly cast leads … not so much.
The program suffers. If you’re a talented “triple threat” (singer/dancer/actor) and your local high school or community theater often puts on shows with obviously miscast leads, are you going to want to participate? No—you’ll find shows somewhere else that are worth your time.
The program is liable. When changes are made to a show and MTI finds out, who is responsible for the resulting sanctions or lawsuit? (And by the way, this is not theoretical.)

My high school alma mater is nationally known as a football powerhouse—so much so that it’s not unheard of for a family to move into the district from out of state specifically so their boys can play football for the program. The players get recruited by the big universities, and lots of players receive scholarship offers and all the rest. Many of them go on to the NFL. That’s the power of a strong program with good coaching.

The arts are no different. If a school has a great theater program, parents will move heaven and earth to get their kids into the program. On the other hand, if a school has a theater department with a teacher (or teachers) who tragically miscast show after show after show, is that school going to attract great singers and actors, or is it going to hemorrhage talent and get worse and worse as its program goes down the tubes?

Again … casting has consequences.

Post-Impressionist All-Stars (The Bizarre Nexus of Painting and Podiatry)

October 16, 2015 / David / Leave a comment

I’ve been painting shoes since high school. Yeah, weird. I know. It all started as kind of an accident.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I had these old blue Vans that were all stained and gross from marching in the mud. Being an idiot, I decided to bleach them in the washer. Thing was, I most likely used too much bleach and probably left them in for way too long, because they turned super white but also kind of disintegrated. After taping them back together, I painted designs on the shoes because what else was I gonna do with them?

The thing was, I thought they were cool, and other people did too.

High School Shoes

Two weeks later, I threw that first pair of Vans in the garbage and picked up some new ones. I painted these on brand-new canvas. If I remember correctly, I used a flag motif. Flags from all nations—the more colorful, the better. If memory serves, I even included a Nazi flag as well as the Confederate battle flag. Not politically correct, for sure. But a mismatched pair of conversation pieces.

And so, painted shoes became a thing—my thing. I painted shoes for friends and for cousins who wanted them. I painted a few to order. When I was a senior, I made a deal with my playwriting teacher: let me drive your brand-new 1987 Honda CRX to the prom and I’ll paint you a pair of shoes. Done.

Exit question: would you let some high-schooler drive your sports car in exchange for a pair of hand-painted shoes? Discuss.

I painted and wore out two or three pairs of shoes during my senior year. Right before graduation, I decided to paint a pair of shoes that would kind of represent my life at that time. And guess what?! I still have them. The paint’s pretty stiff, but otherwise they’re in near-perfect shape. They were kind of a collage of all the things that made me tick way back in 1987.

Two pieces of the collage stand out. One is on the toe of the left shoe: a tilted rendition of George Seurat’s L’après-midi dimanche sur l’Île de la Grande Jatte (or A Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte). I first became aware of this work via the great art historian John Hughes, who featured the piece in his own magnum opus, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

Here’s my version:

Note also that I included portions of Picasso’s Guernica on this senior-year masterpiece:

College Shoes: The Lost Works

So I got busy in college, but I wasn’t too busy to paint a pair of shoes. I can’t prove it now, but in college I painted some shoes with Beatles album covers. I have some blurry photos of those somewhere, but can’t put my hands on them at the moment. I wish I knew what happened to them. Probably wore them out. If I ever find the photos I’ll scan them and upload them here.

One of the highlights of my undergraduate experience was a trip I got to take to Chicago, thanks to winning a contest sponsored by the Alpha Chi academic society. My project won me a trip to attend the national convention, where I was able to see A Sunday Afternoon up close and person. Here’s my “Cameron moment” from 1993:

Post-Impressionism 1994

After I finished my undergraduate degrees and got real job, I had a revelation. I realized I had completely ignored the ultimate in podiatric canvases: Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars. These storied high-top sneakers have been in production since 1917. Unlike Vans or Keds, which have the largest amount of paintable canvas on the toes of the shoes, All-Stars feature two triangular-ish sections of canvas that are large enough to really have fun with.

I painted my first pair of All-Stars during the summer of 1994. Since I literally had nothing better to do, I decided I would attempt my most ambitious design to date, covering the shoes with the works of some of my favorite post-impressionist painters. Featured prominently around the left heel is a familiar work: Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon. (Picasso makes an appearance as well, with Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.)

Another benefit of Chucks—one I didn’t realize until two decades later—is that they last a lot longer than Keds or Vans. Seriously. I wore this particular pair for … ever. Sadly, after over 20 years of service, these shoes finally wore out. Not the canvas, mind you. The painted parts are still pretty vibrant. But the rubber sole on the left shoe cracked. I can still wear them, but if it happens to be raining (or if there’s snow on the ground), my socks get wet. No bueno.

Post-Impressionism 2015

After much soul-searching, last month I decided it was finally time to replace the old Chucks with a new pair. The thing was, I really liked the theme of the previous shoes. I like mixing familiar pieces with others that people might not know as well. I decided that I wanted to do just three major works on each shoe: one on each side, and a simpler painting on each tongue. That meant I needed to pick pieces that (A) were landscape in aspect, rather than portrait, (B) had a composition that would allow a more-or-less triangular slice represent the whole. This limited my options somewhat.

But guess what worked? Two of my old friends: A Sunday Afternoon and Guernica. Adding Van Gogh’s The Starry Night and that left just one panel to fill. I wanted a challenge—something that would require some tricky technique to try to simulate an “oil painting” feel with the acrylic paints I use. I ended up choosing one of Marc Chagall’s few landscape-oriented paintings, The Blue Circus.

For the tongues, I needed two simpler portrait compositions that were either tall or could be extended up and down to fill the tongues. I picked The Tree of Life by Gustav Klimt (of The Kiss fame) and Son of Man by Belgian surrealist René Magritte.