"Not Really, I Just Like The Color!"

 

Good "bottom of the ninth" Monday, y'all.

So funny. A few days ago, I happen to pass by a dude headed into the Covington City Hall ostensibly to pay a bill. He looked at me and I looked back at him, nodded and said, "Good Morning!"

We both stopped momentarily in the parking lot as if one of us was gonna say something important.

Looking at his retro Cincinnati baseball cap, I said, "You a Reds fan?"

"No, I just like the color."

"From that part of the world?" I asked.

"No man, I'm from Bogalusa," he said with a smile.

The dude had the baseball cap placed on his head kinda off to the side. I could tell he wasn't much into the sport by the brim of his cap. The brim was flat like if he had to catch a fly ball, the cap would certainly not help him.

He was wearing an untucked, collared white shirt with loose fitting red basketball shorts that stopped at the knees. The rest of the look included white calf length socks and bright red Nikes.

"Don't watch baseball much?"

"No... I just like the look!" he said with a bigger smile.

We then just stood there... in the parking lot... with nothing else to say.

"Well, I said as I was slowly walking toward the car, "Have a good day!"

But then, a thought popped into my head that I just had to convey. Besides,"Have a good day?" Really?

With a smile, I turned back around and said, "Well, you really look like the ultimate Cincinnati Reds fan. Did you know that they are the oldest franchise in baseball?"

" I didn't know that!"

"Yeh, I said. They were formed back in 1881 as the Cincinnati Red Stockings!"

After another momentarily awkward brain freeze, he said, "Cool, I didn't know that, but...

"I just like the color!"

Copyright 2021/Ben Bensen III

"Odiferous!"

 

Good Sunday Morning, y'all.

The rains from the night before not only washed away the last vestige of pollen from off of the cars, but in the misty morning also cleared out the air. The catbird is back and just in time to inspect the progress of my and our neighbor's blueberries. It's an annual event!

About a month or so ago, when I'd take Pierre for his morning constitutional, I would commune with all the sights, sounds and smells of the dawn.

But the dawn didn't always smell so great. Usually, I send the dog out in my shorts and tee shirt. I read somewhere that as a part of that partnership with nature one should walk barefoot on the lawn... It's kinda an Indian thing!

Still, something very subtle but unmistakably in the air surrounded me. It wasn't the dog's pee or his poop. It wasn't the night jasmine on the trellis next to the bird bath. It wasn't the smell of the grass I cut days before. It didn't seem to be from somewhere. It kinda seemed to follow me as I "went American Indian" all over the yard.

I smelled my shirt and smelled my shorts. I'm no longer flexible enough to smell my feet but for certain their was a dis-stink order coming from me... Every day.

It never dawned on me that my diet was the culprit. For a week or more, I was eating a combination of roasted garlic hummus and a garlic cheese that I mistakenly bought at Whole Foods. The unforgivable morning odor disappeared when, over time, I finished consuming both aromatic snacks. A week or so later I finally figured it all out.

It reminds me of a receptionist at a local CPA firm where my wife worked as an assistant to one of the partners. The woman used to pop cloves of garlic like candy and no one could place where the odor came from until one of the partners saw her chomping down on a clove or two. It was like seeping through her pores.

I don't remember if the receptionist was fired, asked to refrain from such a snack and by doing so was attacked by a blood sucking Transylvanian, or sent downstairs into bowels of the building to file tax returns forever. Funny...

Guess you are what you eat... and drink!

Second cup, y'all...

Copyright 2021/ Ben Bensen III

"It Just Doesn't Make Any Sense... Does it?"

One of many photos I shot using Mark as a model.

On Sunday, about one month ago, CBS's "60minutes" aired a segment about UFO's. I was intrigued when a female pilot along with her wingman sighted and documented with radar and a gun camera an alien spacecraft. The first thing I thought about, with a chuckle, was that McCandlish is at it again. As has been lately her habit, my wife followed the added information about UFO's and the government's stance on such things. 

Naturally, Area 51 came into her view on the laptop which took her a step further that just shocked her and me. Mark McCandlish was found dead from a shotgun blast to the head. Preliminary report say suicide in his home in Redding, CA. That just didn't make any sense.  

I first met Mark in Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. We didn't spend much time together because he was majoring in car design and I was majoring in illustration. Graduating a year or so earlier than Mark did, I met him again as a fellow employee working as a designer and tech illustrator at General Dynamics/ Pomona Division. Apparently, he became disenchanted with the career opportunities afforded him in Detroit. 

We worked on a few projects together. One was an involved cutaway I started of the Phalanx Defense System. While I enjoyed doing cutaways, Mark reveled in it. Eventually, I was taken off the project to work another brochure. Here's the revised version of the one we worked on.

"R2D2" with a 20mm Gatlin gun!

Mark was working on another gun system cutaway when I left GD for the freelance world. I believe he only stayed for two years. I believe a year after he quit, in 1983, the Electronics Division left for San Diego creating the breakup of the graphics group. Because he lived in South Pasadena, where I also lived, we'd carpool the long trip from there to Pomona. After he quit, Mark would come by my studio and hang. On occasion, I'd ask him to pose for me for a storyboard I was working on. We did try working together on a project or two, but I knew it would not workout because Mark was so meticulous to the point of actually trying too hard and in the presentation art business speed is of the utmost.

Mark loved working with the technical engineers making change after change!

Over the years, we seldom communicated especially after he moved to Redding, CA. I got a call from him talking about his UFO discoveries and Area 51 sometime around the mid nineties.  I don't really have a specific timeline on these phone conversations except to say that I was mildly interested and I suppose Mark could sense that. I do remember being "anchored" to the ground by Little Leaguers. I now feel rather guilty for not entertaining Mark's findings, but he was always kinda nerdy trying to be some part of a group or philosophy but was just not quite fitting in. He was a very good illustrator especially when it came to the nuts and bolts of some design. Mark really had an understanding about how things worked and if he didn't, he sure as hell would look it up. I did follow his many illustrative Popular Science covers until the computer changed all that. 

In 2001, we moved back to Louisiana, and heard some things about him getting in the hair of the powers that be asking questions and finding parts to the puzzle that were ignored or hidden from the view of the general public. Therein, lays the many conspiracy theories that abound. Apparently, Mark felt certain that this whole UFO phenomenon was "a carefully protected technology co-opted by an as-yet-unknown group, and the sequestration of this technology has provided that organization tremendous leverage in world politics, finance and international conflicts over the past five decades."

Skeptics are suspicious of the fact that Mark offered to give testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee and contacted Senator Marco Rubio on this just prior to his death… His potential testimony along with his obsession with building the ARV (ALIEN REPRODUCTION VEHICLE) probably got him killed.

"Americans’ long-running fascination with U.F.O.s has intensified in recent weeks in anticipation of the release of the government report, expected to be released to Congress by June 25th."

It's kinda hard to wrap my head around all of these conspiracies nowadays. It is especially hard being an old friend and fellow artist and Art Center Alum. I have lost so many friends by suicide the first thing I think is, "That's impossible...not her... not him. It just doesn't make any sense!"

Does it?

Copyright 2021/Ben Bensen III