When I started this little blog thing, I promised that I would never speak of my children. My wife and I have raised our children outside of the glaring spotlight of my art career and would never willingly submit them to its burning heat.

The anniversary of our marriage is coming up soon. My wife reminded me of this today as we were heading home, walking up a steep hill after enjoying a well earned afternoon of liquor at dog beach. With our 14 year old dog's leash in one hand and about 4 pounds of dog shit wrapped in a plastic Wal-Mart bag in the other, I asked "What day is that? September 13th?". She remained silent.

For about a third of a second, I thought that I was gonna catch hell for not remembering our wedding date. "September 18th?" I blurted out. She still remained silent.

"September 28th?", I asked. She remained silent and I knew the jig was up. She had no fucking idea when we were married. I had no idea either but that was not the point. "You don't know when we were married, do you?", I asked her.

"Well, it was at the end of September I think", she said.

Our wedding day is like my wedding ring. Lost in the sands of time. Yep, I have no fucking idea where I put my wedding ring. I used to leave it in the empty ashtray of my Chevy Caprice, but I haven't driven that car since 1999. I looked a couple of years ago and the ashtray is empty.

Oh well, I don't hate my wife for not remembering when our wedding anniversary is. Nope, not at all. Because it really doesn't matter, every night is still like our wedding night. She is usually found naked and throwing up in the bathroom while I still can't seem to maintain an erection. It's all good.

My oh my, what a week I have had. I apologize for not posting and leaving you hanging, but life gets in the way.

So when I last left you, I had set up my first appointment with my "Art Klan" to paint out in the great wide open. It was quite a task to get Kay, Bob and Susan to all agree to a date and time but we all settled that we would meet for lunch on the third Saturday at the Mr. Quick on Airport road in Norton Shores.

Klan Rally?

I was so excited the night before our excursion that I may have drank a little too much. My wife found me around 3 am asleep in the spare bedroom in my underpants rambling about Hooter's. She woke me up with a tender slap and guided me to our bed. In four hours I was up again to let the dogs out to pee. It was impossible to get back to sleep. So I dressed, had a little bit of the hair of the dog that bit me and watched that infomercial for a chicken cooker that uses cyclonic hot air and is small enough to fit on your kitchen counter top. New technology is fucking amazing.

A few Maker's Marks and water later, I learned that the chicken air cooker could be had for 5 easy payments. A morning well spent. The wife was getting up and I did not want to be around her while she gave me a sermon on drinking too much, so off to Mr. Quick's I journeyed to begin my day of painting with my new friends. It was early, but a small breakfast at Mr. Quick would muffle the percolating in my stomach.

The Mr. Quick's on Airport road is also a gas station. So, after topping of the gas tank in my van, I ordered up three of the finest breakfast sandwiches that our dear Mr. Quick could offer. My excitement told me to get my breakfast to go, that way I could sit in the parking lot eating them and still see all the cars coming in. The thought of missing our paint date because I was stuffing my face would not be cool at all. I moved my van to the back corner of the parking lot and backed in. I could now see and be seen by everyone driving into the gas station while I ate my breakfast. I love it when a plan comes together and Mr. Quick breakfast sandwiches. The idea of pacing myself and savoring them came to me about two thirds the way through my third sandwich. Damn it, about two and a half hours still separated me from our scheduled meeting. I thought that I could probably take a little snooze to kill the time, so I crawled onto the steel floor of my van and relaxed. Hand to God, it felt like I had just shut my eyes when I was awakened by a tapping on the side of my van. The rush of adrenaline snapped me to attention and out the driver's side door. It was Bob.

Bob was one of those men who's telephone voice did not match his body. On the phone, Bob sounded like a very gentle effeminate man. His voice had a tone to it that made you think he was wispy and slight. But in person, he was a man of ordinary height but suffering from a small weight problem and in dire need of a clean shirt. A life probably spent without dental insurance had left a crooked brownish gap between his two chipped front teeth and the tarnishing copper solder on the nose bridge of his eye glasses was turning a small dimple near his right eye green. "Sorry, am I early?" Bob's cherub like voice chimed, "Did I wake you?". Looking at the time, I realized that I had been asleep for over two hours. "No. Not at all." I said wiping the sleep from my eyes, "I was just laying down.". We shook hands and I thanked him for coming. He let me know how excited he was to be able to paint and we continued with some small talk. It was at this time, Bob  reiterated that he was a "closet artist" and loved the opportunity to "spread his wings". The awkward silence was thankfully broken by a muffler-less Oldsmobile Cutlass bouncing into the parking lot careening towards us. It was Kay and her son Wayne.

A very rusty hinge on the driver's side door of the Cutlass announced Wayne's exit out of the car. "You the painting dude?" He mumbled. Welcoming him with a hand to shake, "Yes, I'm Topher Crowder" I stated. Ignoring my outstretched hand, Wayne turned towards the Cutlass and yelled, "Yea Mom, It's them!". The same rusty squeal came from the passenger side door as Kay lept out of the car.  Kay moved very fast towards us and when she was close enough, Bob and I found out that she was a "hugger". Kay also had an odor to her that became apparent when she hugged me. It was not a pleasant odor.

Kay was a woman who looked to be in her late sixties. Her son Wayne had to be in his mid forties. Kay was wearing a bright cotton sundress that was way too big for her, yet she still was able to fill it nicely, and dirty white cotton tennis shoes. Her shoes were those slip on tennis shoes that had a beige gum rubber soul and had no form what so ever. Wayne wore his graying mullet with pride and I would be willing to wager that the dirt beneath his fingernails had become a permanent fixture of his mid-western working class attire. Kay's excitement towards our scheduled day of painting was matched by her son's snide contempt for our planned endeavor. Every comment Kay made about wanting to paint, Wayne matched by grunting "Yea right" or "That's stupid". I was determined to not allow Wayne to ruin our day and suggested that if he didn't want to stick around he could leave Kay with us and pick her up later when we are done. "I aint going fucking anywhere!", He snapped. Kay then announced that her son would be our fourth and that he looked forward to painting as much as she did. I highly doubted that, but the more the merrier. Wayne then took his mother into the Mr. Quick to use the restroom.

The day began to look even brighter as an older tan Ford Taurus pulled up next to Wayne's rusty Cutlass. I sincerely hoped that it was Susan. Walking towards the opened window of the Taurus, "Hi, are you Susan?", I asked. "Are you Topher?", she asked. I told her yes and while she exited her car I introduced her to Bob.  Susan was a small older woman with short curly white hair and gold wire rimmed glasses. She was dressed comfortably in jeans and a pale yellow polo shirt. We were soon joined again by Kay and Wayne. I introduced them to Susan and stated that we should get going. Everyone was comfortable with me driving and loaded their art supplies into my van. "SHOTGUN", Wayne belched. I reminded him that my van only has one passenger seat and that his elderly mother may be more comfortable there than on the hard floor of my van. "That's BULLSHIT. I CALLED SHOTGUN", He reminded me. I thought it may be best to just let this go and we all climbed into the van. We were soon on the road.

About ten miles east of Muskegon on I-96 there is some wonderful farmland. I thought that a nice golden corn or emerald soybean field may be a wonderful first painting for our group. The back of my van was a twitter with light conversation while up front, Wayne and I sat mute, watching the road. In no time we had found our freeway exit and were cruising on a stretch of two lane blacktop that cut through western Michigan's farm belt. Our spot lay just ahead. I had been here before while driving around looking for things to paint but I had never stopped. Today would be a very good day for painting.

The spot I had chosen was the center of a fork where three country roads converged. I parked on an empty patch of grass and we all tumbled out of the van. West of our group was a wide amber corn field lined with tall trees. East and south was an overgrown field of colorful weeds backed by a small forest and to the north lay rolling hills of soybeans with a rust red barn stationed at it's center. We all had an ample amount of scenes we could capture and spread out to set up our easels. Kay and her son chose the corn field to paint while Bob and Susan both worked on the soybean field. I thought it would be a nice challenge to paint the wild thicket of weeds to the east. Everyone had a varying amount of proper art supplies. Susan had a nice wooden box filled with a number of quality oils and a small store bought pre-stretched canvas. Kay and her son shared what looked like a set of newly purchased inexpensive set of oil paints and a pair of canvas boards. Bob's supplies worried me. He had collection of both acrylic and oil paints and the majority looked to be the same yellow and ultramarine blue hues. I explained to Bob quietly that he may not want to mix acrylic and oil colors and he thanked me for the advice.

The first hour past so quickly. Everyone was working quietly and intently on their canvases. Each painting was really special. It was so refreshing to see new work from other artists. Once in a while, someone would take a break and walk behind another artist to admire the painting they were wrestling with. Even Kay's son Wayne left the snide remarks behind and worked feverishly on his on work. I was also very surprised at the amount of color Bob was able to eek out using only yellow and blue. Bob's landscape had become a very interesting work. My own landscape had become a very ornery child that thick layers of paint was not able to tame. Mind you, I don't like to quit a painting once I start it. But, had I been alone, this painting would have been shit-canned long ago. I stuck at it though as a way to save face in the presence of new friends. This day was more about enjoying the company of new friends than about painting.

It may have been the evening imbibing a substantial amount of Maker's Mark, or the hearty breakfast of Mr. Quick's sausage, egg and cheese biscuits, but what happened next put a small damper on what had been a very nice afternoon. I shit my pants. It was not on purpose, i would never shit my pants on purpose. As I was painting, I realized that the earlier bubbling in my stomach had turned to what felt like an expanding pocket of red hot gas. I swear to god, I thought it was a fart brewing. I was painting alone and stealthily reached my left hand down over my pants to spread my ass cheeks apart to quietly release what I thought would be a silent but stinky pocket of painful gas. It was neither silent or gas. From my ass came a sound that I had only heard on Belle Isle in Detroit when the geese were mating. It was a long wet quack. The warmth that followed was not billowing air warmed to core body temperature, but a hot flowing river of pure hell. I could feel my underpants fill and tried my best to hold it in with my free hand but the war was lost. It felt as if a small army were rolling down the back of my legs under my pants and to the freedom of my sandals.

"What the hell was that?" I saw Susan turn and ask. Our eyes met as my hand was still trying desperately to stem the tide of fowl hell that was flowing from my ass. "Are you OK?" Bob chimed in. I told them it must have been the breakfast sandwiches I had at Mr. Quick's. That's when Wayne broke out in cackling laughter, "You shit your pants!". I really felt like crying as Kay did her best to give me a loose armed hug and not soil herself with my filth. Although, I could smell her over my own shit.

I so ROCKED this look!

Luckily, as per my instruction, everyone brought a combination of rags and paper towels as art supplies. Collecting the rags and a roll of generic paper towels from my fellow artists, I left for the southern woods to clean myself the best I could. There would be no salvaging my pants, sandals or underpants. After doing my best to wipe away my embarrassment, I was able to fashion a sarong from a couple of Bob's t-shirt rags and re-entered our group. I was going to finish my painting God damn it. I had come this far and was not going to let a little shit ruin my day. So I painted quietly after reassuring my new friends that I was all right. We only painted for maybe a half hour more. I could tell that my little adventure kind of took the wind from everyone's sails. Besides, no one had any rags or paper towels left. So we packed up and left. Not before Wayne called "Shotgun" again.

The ride was silent and the van was filled with the mixed aroma of turpentine and feces. Back at the Mr. Quick parking lot, I promised everyone that I would replace all the rags and paper towels I had ruined. Everyone was so nice and told me to forget about it. Then something amazing happened. Wayne asked if we  were going to meet again at the same time next week. Bob backed that up saying that his Saturdays are now reserved for painting with us. Susan and Kay were also warm to meeting again next Saturday, so I agreed that it was a date and we would all meet up at the same time. But, next week I would skip breakfast and that got a laugh from all. It was a good day.