I became familiar with Karl Benjamin's work last year at the Birth of Cool exhibit at the Blanton Museum. The above painting stood out among a stunning group of other abstract paintings in the exhibit. I love his work from the 50's but equally as exciting is more recent stuff from the 80's and 90's. Apparently the artist, who is now 84 now, stopped painting in 1995.
My life right now is like kind like really freakin' fantastic.
I have a lot of respect and for the woman I work for.
I live alone in a great little garage apartment.
I've fallen head over heels in love.
I'm young and healthy - and get this...I'm in a band.
But, even though things are pretty great, it doesn't always feel like wine and roses.
Sometimes work gets me down. I'm working for someone who I respect and want the absolute best for, but I'm not really making ends meet, and sometimes I feel way insecure about how best to do my job. Worse, at times I feel like I'm should be working to support my own artistic career (what ever that would be. sigh.) rather than someone elses.
Sometimes I am uncomfortable where I live because it's all one room and when I wake up I can see dirty dishes in my bedroom/kitchen. Sometimes I'm lazy and use my kitchen as a desk and my desk as my kitchen (and my bathroom as my bedroom, but that's another story).
Sometimes being head over heels in love is absolutely terrifying and makes me feel like I want to projectile vomit and then just die.
Sometimes I realize I'd feel younger and be more healthy if I'd drink and smoke less and consume more water and vitamins and eat and rest more. And that's sorta a "sobering" reality.
So...I'm in a band. And it's fantastic. Perfect. They don't seem to mind too much that I can't play, and it's just ridiculously silly fun. We're/they're called the karate kids and all the songs are, you guessed it, about the Karate Kid films. (I'm the 'next karate' kid a.k.a 'Swank'). I love love love it. My mates are all serious dorks in the best possible sense (but honestly, I don't know how to use the term 'dork' in anything but the best possible sense). We practice early because we're working professionals: professor, computer engineer, social worker, (well, and one college student and one recently unemployed) and it's all just silly relaxed fun.
My nature is to research til my heaad explodes, and I've had all kinds of fun researching karate kid tidbits. Esp. for some reason, Billy Zabka. So here you go, for better or worse, a few of my findings.
In 1984, Billy began his acting career playing the bad guy role of “Johnny” in "The Karate Kid".
While continuing to star in other feature films - “European Vacation,” “Back To School,” “Just One Of The Guys” – and a four year run on the CBS television series, “The Equalizer,” Billy studied screenwriting at UCLA - and film aesthetics under legendary cinematographer, Vilmos Zsigmond (see below).
In 2001, after acting in over 20 feature films, Billy began wrote and produced his first film, "Most,” a Czech language film shot entirely on location in Prague and Poland. "Most" premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and in 2004, received an Academy Award nomination for Best Live Action Short Film.
How cool to study under Vilmos Zsigmond, a DP who started out in the 60's making films like this:
I love a blonde 80's high school yuppie villian, and Billy Zabka has the rebellious bruiser element others like James Spader lacked. mmmmm...dreamy.
Check out the first frame of this youtube tribute to his character Johnny Lawrence.
