Biff to the Past!

I've received some snarky comments lately, and an in-my-face "I hope you go to hell" hissy fit the other night outside the Improv because of my decision to not feed the beast and sign Back To The Future junk, or talk about the movies in depth on my blog, or Facebook, Twitter, etc. I expected some flame, though I found the "I hope you die and go to God and He sends you to hell for not signing my poster!!!" pretty hysterical. Maybe I'll have more to say someday, but for now I'm done. I'm not signing the stuff, or nodding appreciatively as you tell me your idea for Back To The Future Parts 4, 5, and 6. I'll repeat here what I've said on other forums, on my website, and to many people I've met, who, it seems to me, don't really want to even make eye contact and say hello to a human being as much as collect a disembodied piece of their own treasure hunt:

"I've decided to do what I want to do in life, and follow my own path as an artist, so I've decided not to participate in any sort of nostalgia in which I'm marginalized as a pop icon of yesteryear. I no longer support in any way an insurmountable archetype, and now exclusively pursue the things that interest me."

Thanks!

Love from Wilson World,

Tom

Oh, Canada.

I'm back from Calgary, Alberta, where the show was great, and the Canadian Rockies are still covered with snow in June, you know, because of all the global warming and stuff. As I came into the big room for U.S. Customs, I was struck by the giant photo they use to represent the U.S.A. There are shots of the Statue of Liberty, of course, and New England churches and the vast Arizona desert. But the biggest photo as you enter the room is a little boy playing baseball at sunset. And that's all you need to know. You're back in the U.S.A.

Ain't that America? You and me, baby.

Love from Wilson World,

Tom

Rock and Relient K

Back from Kansas City, where the shows were great, and the camera went missing, so I'm using Mac's photobooth for pics now. We heard, saw, hung with, and wonderfully experienced the band Relient K last night in a hot, thumping club in Pomona, California. The music was fantastic, the guys were superb as always, and we even had some good barbecue before the show. Yes, I had to come back from KC to Pomona for some barbecue. After some BBQ and rockin', I'm headed to Calgary, Canada, to perform for a large group of Canadians in the town where I once performed a rock version of "Home On The Range" for a giant crowd of cowboys at the Calgary Stampede rodeo.

No kidding, I have had quite an adventure.

Love from Wilson World,

Tom 

Comedians

Most comedy clubs across the country are lined with old headshots of comedians who've performed there over the years, an increasingly humiliating collection of youth and foolishness. There is a grinning, over-eager shot of me in the entryway of the Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood that people still guffaw over, making sure to mention it the next time they see me. "What were you...thirteen years old?!" Yes, I was, thirteen. And a bad person with a gun forced me to wear that shirt, too.

I stopped in my tracks when I came upon the two guys above. Yes, that's Bill Hicks, and he's wearing a "Member's Only" jacket. Sorry, "trenchcoat mafia," Bill owned that jacket and wore it, before he took up chain smoking and speaking truth to power. In nightclubs where he got paid. Bill was a friend of mine a long time ago, and he's no longer here. Steve Oedekerk is here, though, and making many, many movies. I actually took that photograph of Steve, back when nobody had the money to pay photographers for pictures of themselves. We took it in my yard.

Just a little cloud of memories, as I stare at the wall between shows.

Love from Wilson World,

Tom

Dayton!

Just back from a bunch of shows in Dayton, Ohio, home of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and lots of Camaro Z28's with Air Force stickers on the windows. I stayed in a Holiday Inn that was close to an Arby's, so I've had plenty of roast beef in the past few days, and the hotel was hosting a big reunion of the Air Force Escape and Evasion Society. 

I thought the place was empty. I never saw a soul. Last Thursday I did see one of the ferns near the elevator rustle. Thanks, Dayton! Thanks Air Force! Thanks evasive escape guys!

Love form Wilson World,

Tom

Arizona!

I went to Tempe, Arizona recently to perform for the Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University. We had a great time there, and it was interesting that a school of mass communications couldn't find a microphone stand for me to use! My friend "Jonny Cool Rag" and I hopped over to Scottsdale to check out what's happening in the art galleries there. We were speaking passionately about a large painting, when a woman walked up to us. "You don't like art!" she blurted, without ever having met us, "You look like two construction workers! Macho guys don't like art!"

Okay, lady. You know, we were treated more nicely in Quartzite, Arizona, in the middle of the desert, where we saw a shrunken head from 1906. Trust me, the shrunken head was a lot better than most of the paintings.

Love from Wilson World,

Tom

Blue Boy, Zuma Beach

This painting is 30 x 40, a big challenge. Oddly, a human being is the hardest subject for a painting, since a half inch mistake wrecks the whole thing. As the master painter John Singer Sargent said; "A portrait is a picture where there's something wrong with the mouth." Well, there is plenty about this painting that could be improved, but it's a boy with his boogieboard at the Pacific Ocean, and it doesn't get much better than that. Cowabunga, dude.

Love from Wilson World,

Tom

Sister Corita!

Sister Corita Kent was a Nun in California in the sixties, and I was a boy in Catholic school in Philadelphia in the sixties, so I experienced the passion, and vibrancy, and color, and innovation of that time while wearing a suit and tie, taught by young Nuns, many of whom were exploding with the thrill and wonder of the kind of work that Sister Corita was creating - color splashed posters with lots of poetry and flower power. I saw an exhibition of Sister Corita's work yesterday and was transported back to that time, when Op art and Pop art and poetry were presented to kids as a completely rational and beautiful reaction to a time of great upheaval and fear. I'm really glad that in the fourth grade Sister Ruth had us making colorful collages about war, and joy, and Warhol soup cans, and I'm proud of the day that my grandfather put Pop art daisy stickers on the back of his car.

Thanks, Sister Corita,

Love from Wilson World,

Tom