acrylic on canvas

Marty Finestone, 2006

Back to paitings

- Women love a Sean Connery impersonation
- Some friends you eventually out grow
- A middle child is the one that either divides a family or keeps it together
- There once was a point to professional wrestling
- Once a mistake has happened, there is no sense dwelling over it // What’s done is done. Fix it and/or just move on.
- Discretion is a lost art form
- There is no such thing as good customer service
- Hotels are one of life’s most underappreciated/unused resources:
need a clean bathroom, find a hotel; want information, find a hotel;
need something like a safety pin, pen or breath mint, find a hotel.
- There is no shame in knowing how to make a cheesecake
- You’ll know that she loves you, even before she says it for the first time
- Green onions make grilled cheese taste seven times as good
- Mary Hart was born in 1950

(this page is inspired by the Esquire magazine segment)

Planet in a jar, vexed
and swallowed in a dripping coat of molasses.
Through the side - in or out.
It goes where it needs to.

Sound; sound; sound:

Focused, narrow muted vibrations;
acting on impulse.
Collision; tremor and swirl
continue on from the physical

Sight; sight; sight:

Triumph of the swelling, collecting
around the core.
Sealing up tight against the limits
of axis spin.

Taste; taste; taste:

On the tips it dances: teasing.
A boundary of bitterness ensues;
Encapsulating sweet entropy
for a greater good.

Smell; smell; smell:

Potent delights smothered.
Dwindling mass and bulging volume
collide in the center of this
Planet in a jar.

(C) Copyright 2006, Marty Finestone

She waits under the overpass
Pigtails
And eyes of glass

Shine like a dog star
Flash
Some leg for a passing car

Hop in for the big ride
Always
On the passenger side

Buckle up for trip
Soon
Circumstances will flip

A gleam of stainless steel
Shakes
Blue shirt man behind the wheel

The drive comes to a halt
She
Tells him it’s not his fault

Not going be a girlfriend
Take
What’s hers in the end

Jumps out into the bush
Time
To score a push

Needle is brought out
Veins
And lips pout

So good to spin
Euphoria
Under her skin

Got what she needed
In
A life all too heated

(C) Copyright 2006, Marty Finestone

Skyscrapers reach the heavens
Billboards are scattered like rocks
Stadiums are built like temples
Ambition litters the parking lots

Madison Avenue built a utopia
Wall Street composed the Earth’s swan song
The monorails flow about
Performance art marches strong

Golden Arches, Gaps, and Virgins
Cluster and clutter the city
The dollar has become our slave
And time is what we crave

Fiber optics lie under the streets like sewers
Pixels, transistors, and semi-conductors
Remote control our homes
and pleasure-domes

Fashion is like a religion
Love comes in flavours
Joy is just a click away
This is something to savor

(C) Copyright 2006, Marty Finestone

Your love I shared with the night.
The clichés, your satin dress,
Heart shaped candy, car crashes
And all the rest.

Simple is my devotion,
Reassure your emotions.
Was it a tango in your heart?
Or a walk through a lonely park?

Cherry blossom
In the city sky.
I was being topsy turvy.
On a slow day’s morning.

The moon glimmered like a mirror ball,
Desire took me by the hand.
I turned out the light
And I whispered a name.

I didn’t want to be out there that day.
Like the deaf listening for the dead,
With a roll of the dice
It all just slipped away.

Almost like clockwork,
Knowing there would be hurt
I let the sun burn my wings
And look what it’s wrought.

I was messed up with
airplane in my head.
In the here and now it doesn’t need to be gone.
I was never far from your sight passing time.

Moving on, moving back,
I’m here at your door,
It’s hard to leave what’s behind
ignore the crest of broken promises

Your love I shared with the night.
The clichés, your satin dress
Heart shaped candy, car crashes
And all the rest.

(C) Copyright 2006, Marty Finestone

Bubble gum chewing
Sky is bluing
Hot sand under my feet
Bathing suit girl looking for a seat

Nothing’s doing
Arguments are brewing
Models sassing
Sands of time passing
What time do we have to go?
It’s all too poetic for a photo

Sand-pail kids
Egos and ids
Kick back for a tan
Wonder how it all began

Frisbee in the air
Emotional despair
Lovers in the sand
And a cold drink in my hand

Waves are stirring
Rhymes occurring
Happiness all around
Jocks muscle bound

Life’s just a beach

(C) Copyright 2006, Marty Finestone

Gloria. She was the ground beneath my feet. She was my air and she was my tormentor. She swept into my life and took over. She became my passion, my worship, and my days. Looking back at the blur that we called love, I can’t tell what was up or what was down. Did she truly love or was I the lover.

Who would have thought that a simple tickle in the wind would have triggered this flood of memories and feelings? It was this tickle that drove me to seek out the crumbling cigar box filled with tokens of our intertwined time together. Gloria. She gave me pictures, she wrote me letters. She wrote of New York, icicles, flesh, blood and Paris. She whispered when she wrote. She used her camera not as a work of art but as a medium to enter her mind. She was my ground. Her images were so vivid, so daring - so her. Now these words and images haunt me. Why do I still keep them here resting atop of my closet?

The papers of her letters still carry a scent that reminds me of our times beneath the sheets and above the people. It only now just struck me that we always made love above the Earth; not once in a street level room. We rarely kissed on the street. Her letters often spoke of streets and of death, cemeteries and tombs. It was not until the climax of her downward spiral that I realized what these overbearing themes meant; though they were never cries for help.

“Tears melting into wax”, were the last words I got from her before she went away. I still don’t’ know their true meaning or destination. Were they the words of ideal love, true sorrow, or a fragile grasp on reality?

When did it become obsession? Was it obsession from the start? After all, she found me; she found me near my home. She didn’t seem to be full of corruption in the sweet early days. She was full of wonder and beauty. She came to me with desire and friendship and I took at face value. When she started sending letters, I felt closer to her. Her time away from me while we were together made me miss her more that I thought I could. Now, I know she intended this. Everything about her now feels like premeditation.

She was always obsession. Her interests would fade, wind up and down. She never had any addictions, only obsession. From the start I saw the ripples of her obsessions: her snowglobe collection, her photography and her need for chaos. Wait, her need for chaos was not an obsession, it was a way of life - it just happened.

What I am left here to wonder is, why she wanted me? When did she start spying on me? When did I become an object of affection? When did I become the focal point for her camera’s lens? When did that woman who lived the streets of Madrid and Paris, live me?

(C) Copyright 2006, Marty Finestone

The elevator doors closed and Sam began to tremble with fear as he realized that was standing next to him was Buffalo Jake, the notorious clown/pharmacist. Today Buffalo Jake was dressed in his clown outfit. Sam just stood in the corner of the elevator car clutching his briefcase and pressed it against his own legs. The elevator started to move and the humming sound made Sam begin to sweat bayonets.

After they passed the third floor, Buffalo Jake turned to Sam and asked him if he wanted to smell his flower. Sam turned to face the man and Buffalo Jake looked back at him smiling. Sam stood in his spot trembling, neglecting to answer Jake’s question. Buffalo repeated his question, this time with the sound of rechargeable batteries in his voice.

“I, I,” was all Sam was able to mutter. Buffalo Jake sneered at his inaction and then shoved the flower that was located on his lapel straight into Sam’s face.

“Here, smell it!” Buffalo Jake commanded. Sam began to sob. “Hush,” was Buffalo’s response. He then squeezed a plastic bulb in his jacket pocket, which made the flower squirt water. The liquid drenched Sam. He recoiled back against the mirrored wall of the elevator. Sam looked up at the ceiling and noticed a video camera in the corner and slid down to the floor. Buffalo Jake extended his hand out to help Sam up. Sam reluctantly accepted the help and grabbed Buffalo Jake’s hand. Upon making contact with the joybuzzer, Sam flew off of the floor. Buffalo Jake began laughing uncontrollably. Sam just lay on the floor.

When the elevator slowed to a stop at the 52nd floor, Buffalo Jake stowed his laughter and said to Sam. “Thanks for the laugh, here’s a present”. Buffalo Jake tossed a Canadian hundred dollar bill onto Sam’s leg. Buffalo Jake walked out of the elevator and into the board room. Sam continued riding the elevator and arrived at the penthouse and was greeted by an irritated flamingo.

(C) 2006, Marty Finestone

Sven Yorgenblum enjoyed his life. It was simple and gave him pleasure on a every other day basis. Something that few who bathe in powder could say. His life was his work and his life was his passion. If this was a math equation, it could be said that his work was passion. Sven owned and operated a small pylon production company. The company produced orange pylons that are used on roads and in schools. One of the joys that Sven had was in knowing that his products went to assist people in their lives. It also didn’t hurt that a nice profit was made from this.

One day, Sven was biting into a red delicious apple when an idea struck him like the sockeye salmon on his knee. All these years he had made only orange pylons. He had never deviated into producing other colours. Sinking his false teeth into the apple gave him the idea to expand his business. He would produce pylons in several different colours and aim to sell them at the home consumer market. He envisioned selling white ones for use around the kitchen. Blue, black and red pylons for bedrooms and green for the backyard.

In this plethora of excitement, Sven leapt up from his desk, ran out of his office and headed to his Think Tank. Turning a corner, Sven’s foot made contact with the puddle of water. He flew up into the air and came crashing down onto the hard concrete floor. His fall made the sound of twelve swans protesting the popularity of interior decorating. Had Sven noticed the prototype transparent pylons, which was an idea he conceived of the previous week, that were surrounding the puddle he might still be alive today.

(C) 2006, Marty Finestone

It was Lydia who first pleaded the nation’s objections to Tyler’s use of scotch tape. She insinuated with the force of a lost tourist in Kuala Lumpur, that either a cold or grief, not genius, had struck Tyler. Tyler claimed otherwise.

The greater federal populous enlisted the aid of Tyler’s best friend since reformed finishing fishing school, Damien S. Bows. Damien was an eternalist who only believed in working on days that ended with the letter y and didn’t have 1’s in the dates. He perceived them as too upright. The ones that is.

Damien stood in front of Tyler’s apartment and knocked on the door. Damien was relieved to find that the door was locked and free of lint. The door opened and Damien waved to the camera before entering.

Tyler greeted Damien with great fan-fare, offering coupons redeemable upon his next visit. Damien graciously declined the coupons fearing that by taking them, Tyler might feel that he was taking his life away. The two then sat on the floor next to the radiator with their socks tied around their wrists, as was the custom in Tyler’s upbringing. Damien always meant to ask Tyler about the history of this custom but never quite found the proper amount of appropriate time to ask.

Tyler began the conversation by introducing a new angle into their ongoing argument of if a possum was properly trained, could it win public office. Damien reviewed his friend’s rhetoric and conceited defeat in the argument. Tyler realizing that this part of their friendship was over, decided that there was no other reason for the two to remain friends who went to bull fights. As a result, Tyler’s pile of rice cakes was thrown at Damien. Damien, unaware of his friend’s true intentions became caught up in the momentum of the evening began to phonetically recite Beethoven’s 5^th backwards.

“Liar!” Tyler screamed to break the flexing.

“Pocket watch,” replied Damien.

“Dickens!” Tyler exclaimed.

“Dynamic?” came Damien’s reply.

“Exactly,” Tyler said as he calmed down by placing his left hand in a jar of mayonnaise. “This is why I want to purchase a dictionary and put my picture next to the word dynamic. So every time a person were to look up that word in my dictionary, they would see my face next to it,”

Damien read Tyler’s subtitles and spoke to Tyler in a mousetrapped voice. “You can’t do that. It’s not right. You would be taking away purpose and meaning away from a meaningful purpose.”

“No, I wouldn’t. I would be adding a scintillating and tenacious sense of unobstruction,”

Damien started to feel ill at the sound of Tyler’s words bouncing through the springtime air without having brushed their teeth. He had conceited defeat in their prior argument and vowed that he would not lose this one. “Yes,” shouted Damien.

“No,”

“Yes,”

“No,”

“Yes, yes,”

“No, no,” Their child-like bickering carried on for anther five minutes. Meanwhile the price of rubber rose as the nation waited to find out if all was well in the East.

“Yes,”

“No”

“No,” said Damien attempting to lure Tyler into his trap.

“Yes,” answered Tyler, falling for the rouse.

“See, even you, agree,” Damien stuffed. Tyler began to shake and call for pancakes.

“You are right, I was a fool to think it would work. I am so ashamed. Please leave me,” Damien respected his friend’s wishes and left.

Upon the announcement of the outcome, Mayor Bohr decided not to pursue a romantic affair with a Marylyn Monroe look-a-like’s sister. Tyler sold his apartment and quite his job as a hat blocker and moved to Denver to wash carpets for a marble flooring company.

(C) 2006, Marty Finestone

Whether by grace of God or cosmic force of nature he’s directed and trapped in a liquid life.

These words rang through David’s mind. He couldn’t get that so-called run-on sentence out of his head. No matter what he did, the words could not escape him. He tried thinking of such questions as if one could be fit as a whistle, then why are whistle dogs so unhealthy? Then his right brain observational skills mocked him, denouncing his query as too masochistically commercial. He wept.

David Schultz turned the corner down Paper Street and felt a chill as if a penguin had just signed an autograph at a zoo in Phoenix. He wept. David continued walking down Paper Street until he reached the concrete steps of the plastics factory. He was looking for a sign. He thought to himself if he were to taunt a man with a derby who said he knew God, would the doors in front of him open and then he would be forced to remove his clothing and join them for cake. Then David saw a sign, it read “Since 1956”. David wept.

As a result of a gift-wrapping incident at the age of nine, David always jumps backward off a flight of stairs that have an odd count. This time was no exception. After picking himself up, the sentence that was haunting him all day shot through his mind with a pink glow. David then thought he heard a laugh. That thought quickly disappeared as he remembered that it was soup night at Sardies. He wept.

David looked back up at the numbers 1956. He felt he was owed an explanation for the numbers being in red and yellow. In David’s mind those two colours when combined, were associated with the Soviet flag and the Ketchard product invented by his uncle Stacy in honour of the New York World’s Fair. David shuffled sideways up the stairs and stormed through the open doors and looked to his left and then to his right.

Upon David seeing a corridor, which lead to a closed door, unknown professional boxer Junior Caesar purchases a Harlequin novel. David wept. He followed the corridor, which then lead to a door that had “T.R. Bule – Manager” written on the door.

“Come in,” came from a beefy and fresh voice inside the office. David Schultz’s mind went blank but was soon filled with thoughts of vacation luggage as he realized that a childhood premonition of his English Setter had come true. He would one day meet trouble.

(C) 2006, Marty Finestone