So Sylvie

Stick with me here. It's a tangled yarn. This has been a morning where the message is "outsider art". First I went to "visit" Victoria over at sfgirlbybay and she had this excellent post on the film Beautiful Losers, a documentary about underground American artists (still trying to find out how to see it).

Then I received an email from my Maman telling me about Craig Cramer's blog, Ellis Hollow, because she thought I might like his post with music videos, and audios. Oui Maman! He includes one of Gogol Bordello, the gypsy punk band (coincidentally, I just watched the documentary on the Ukrainian  lead singer, Eugene Hutz; The Pied Piper of Hutzovina.)

Ellis also has a video of Manu Chao, a Parisian Spaniard, who I saw at the Roxy in L.A. (Madonna was there, sitting on Warren Beatty's lap). That was around 1990 when he was fronting Mano Negra. Believe it or not, you can see this brilliant band in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park on August 22nd at the Outside Lands Festival!!

Ellis also had a Loudon Wainwright III video, stay with me now, that led me to discover this artist from Chicago: John Kline, a.k.a. Johnny Smooth.

His bio on Etsy:
"John Kline was
born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. His mom was an artist and his
dad was a policeman. He has one older brother.
His mom gave him art
materials at an early age, so he would leave her alone. He drew and
drew and drew a lot of naughty pictures.
He currently resides in Chicago.  He belongs to a street gang. Male, born on August 17"

I could go on with many more degrees of separation that would fascinate you! But it's not morning anymore and my tummy is calling….lunch time. In closing, please consider this: indulge in outsider music, outsider art, outsider activities…outside the box! I'm going to do like the guy in the trailer for Beautiful Losers and walk backwards today, into a youthful and unscripted state of mind. Ciao!