Thinking Back

The older I get the more I discover "previously unused" sections of my brain. I'm glad I get to discover them before somebody else does. Then I can clear away the old cobwebs and see if there's something nice under there or just more dormant or dead brain cells that are better left untouched. This kind of "housework" sure beats sitting around in an old recliner drinking a glass of milk and biting the ears off discounted chocolate Easter bunnies, wishing they were a 16-oz. can of beer and a couple of chicken quesadillas instead.  

In this case, it's really not an unused section. I've used this section before. First in high school, and then I had to let it hide until the 1980s when I did some drawings and paintings with tangible media like chalk pastels, crayon pastels, charcoal, charcoal pens, pen & ink, canvas, canvas board, watercolor paper, cardboard, poster board and all kinds of paint brushes, bristle and foam rubber, using watercolors and acrylic paints.

Then this section of my brain went unused again until 1994 when I did a charcoal-and-brush self-portrait. I stowed that artwork away for a rainy day. Then I forgot all about that brain section until February 7, 2013 when I started painting with a regular computer mouse. There are still some cobwebs on that section of my brain but I try to clean house there on a regular basis now. There's no telling what I might find there. Which makes me kind of glad that this previously unused sections of my brain was just hiding and didn't go missing altogether.

Beatle-ing

The Beatles at 60's Rockelodean

Thinck Tank

If you're in a hurry or if you're a little wary or if you just need a hint, watch this video and you'll get a smattering of what the Thinck Tank blog is about.

My Kind of Guy

Robert D. Barry
E. T. Monitor Host

Back in the late 1980s I lived in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, where the summers were longer and hotter and the winters were shorter and milder than they are up here in Pennsylvania's Allegheny Plateau Region.

One of my favorite things to do on a Saturday night back in the Eighties was to stay up late and watch a really cool television show about UFOs, extraterrestrials, the solar system and outer space on a local TV station from neighboring York County.

This late-night TV show was called E. T. Monitor and its host was a guy named Robert D. Barry. The fact that this show wasn't broadcast from New York City or Philadelphia or Los Angeles or Chicago is what made it so appealing to me. It aired at midnight every Saturday night on WGCB Channel 49 from Red Lion, Pennsylvania. Only thirty or so miles from where I lived at the time.

Mr. Barry's show included prominent guests like Dr. Jack Kasher, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Nebraska and Bob Lazar, a physicist who claimed to have worked at the secret government installation S-4, near the infamous Area 51 UFO research center at Groom Lake, Nevada, and Dr. Stanton Friedman, the man who blew the lid off the 1947 Roswell conspiracy. In addition, Robert Barry took phone calls from anyone who wanted to talk about UFO sightings or their UFO experiences. Mr. Barry's wife, Lucy, manned the phones during these broadcasts.

I was watching E. T. Monitor one night when the broadcast was suddenly interrupted and never came back on. A couple of weeks later Mr. Barry told his audience about a warning the FBI had given him about keeping his mouth shut, a warning that was followed up by the mysterious "plug-pulling incident". Bob Barry died not long after that and his dedicated wife, Lucy, tried in vain to keep the show alive. E. T. Monitor died the same undeserved death that its host had succumbed to and some of us dedicated viewers smelled a big, government conspiracy rat.

But the most intriguing thing about E. T. Monitor was the host. Robert D. Barry was an unpretentious, intelligent, inquisitive and brave man who dared to ask the questions I'd been asking myself since I was a kid and he confronted the skeptics and the authorities who are always there when the truth is about to be uncovered. They come out of the woodwork like insects, debunking and denying their lying asses off in an effort to keep mankind in the dark and to uphold business-as-usual as the true law of the land.

This simple blog post is my tribute, then, to Robert D. Barry, whose memory is kept alive by a few dedicated people at YouTube. Here's an embedded video from YouTube, the first of a 5-part video feature about E. T. Monitor with Robert D. Barry. My kind of guy.

Author's note: The very second I finished writing this blog post in WordPerfect 12, and before I could save the document, the power went out here in Snow Shoe, Pennsylvania, and I had to write it all over again from memory and then post it to Blogger. Now, that's no coincidence. And, no, I never get used to this manipulative nonsense. The feds who work with the alien-controlled "New World Order" are nothing but traitors who think they're above the law. Personally, I think they're worse than that. I think they're unconscionable, unrepentant, traitorous, rat-bastard, lyin'-ass dogs who should be jailed for life and fed dog food for breakfast.

Moving Van Cliburn's Piano

The closest I ever came to show business in my entire life was helping to move a concert grand piano that Van Cliburn would be playing that night. Penn State University owned the piano and the concert was scheduled for Recreation Hall on Penn State's main campus. It must have been around 1975 or thereabouts. Bryce Jordan Center didn't exist then and Eisenhower Auditorium must have been booked up, I can't really recall.

It took about a dozen guys, one large box truck with a lift gate, a lot of heavily-padded tarps, rolls of nylon strapping with ratchets, several carpeted dollies, a couple Johnson Bars, assorted hand tools and about a half a day to transfer that magnificent instrument from Schwab Auditorium to Rec Hall.

At Schwab Auditorium we had to lay the monstrosity on its side and then remove the legs and reverse that process at Rec Hall. After three or four hours of grunting, swearing, name-calling and finger-pointing the job was done but, in the end, we were all "friends" again. Apparently, we didn't do any damage to that beautiful concert grand and that's probably because we handled it like it was the Ark of the Covenant.

Hell, I wish I had gotten to see Van Cliburn play that damn thing that night.