Shame on Baltimore

For many years now, there has been the repetitive mantra "that's not the real Baltimore" in regards to any reviews or discussions about the very popular HBO television series "The Wire" and "Homicide" and even "The Corner". The reality is..........it's worse than is portrayed on those shows. The powers that be.....well.....they have a way of offering up obfuscation and misdirection to keep any focus away from the reality. 

I felt the need to write about this today after recent events here in Baltimore...........rioting......"protesting"......chaos......looting........and now the National Guard being deployed. I have watched the tv reports......mostly the national news stations.......and payed attention to the tv camera shots.....the background imagery when a reporter goes live on camera.........and you will not see images like the one shown in the above photo. The photo above shows some of the Fulton Avenue neighborhood which is the very same neighborhood considered ground zero this past week. There is no pride shown here. The picture above shows what it looks like on a "normal" day. I recommend that if you truly want to see what neighborhoods such as west Baltimore looks like, get on your Google Maps application and get the street view and virtually drive through these streets. See it for yourself.....with no editing or carefully selected camera angles. This is Baltimore.

Is all of Baltimore so terrible?...........of course not. But a huge chunk of it is. And this chunk has not been decreasing over the past 30 or 40 years.........in fact, it has been spreading from the west side to the east side. That's the reality. Likewise, aside from how things look, there's the crime and safety issues along for the ride. The solutions are not simple, the solutions require tough actions. Ever hear of the phrase "suffer for good"? The kind of suffering now in Baltimore is NOT good in any way shape or form. Misdirected anger, senseless destruction of businesses and home....cars.....etc.....makes me believe that a ridiculous proportion of the population have no good sense or focus. 

I realize that most of the problems cannot be fixed by legislation or money. I am sure that both can contribute to the cause........but.......the biggest fix would be if people would stop making excuses and targeting their anger on things and people that have nothing to do with the problems in this city. So where is the blame? Who is responsible?

It makes no sense to me that this recent chaos all started simply because a man named Freddie Gray ends up dead while in the custody of the police. Nonsense. How is it that there is no outrage....no large scale protests.......no nothing about the daily murders in these neighborhoods throughout the city. Oh......its okay as long as it wasn't the police that shot someone.........yeah, right. So this is not about just that Freddie Gray died one day in Baltimore.........nobody has asked how many murders occurred that week.....no outrage.
 Its hard to wrap your head around this bullcrap.

While watching the news reports, politician after politician came before the cameras.......some that represent that very district and born and raised in that neighborhood. As if all of a sudden, out of the blue, there is a problem............some even claiming to explain their presence there to get things back to "normal"........imagine that!    "NORMAL"!!!!!!........just like the normal as shown in the photo above!

The politicians........hmmmmm........these career politicians.......elected and re-elected year after year........."representing the people from their districts" .......their communities...........seems to me that they need to own up to being part of the problem.......what good have they done? They are all players in the game.....as much as the gangs and drug dealers. The politicians need to be the enemies of the bad not the enemies of the good. Throw these bums out! What have they done for Baltimore? This?

Back to the "pride" thing. People that live is these neighborhoods would obviously have difficulty having any pride in anything. Look at the picture. There is an old saying......."I may have holes in my pants, but they are at least clean holes." That would be a good start...... a place to begin...........get these neighborhoods cleaned up. And for those that intend to dirty it up.......well........fine them heavily........make people accountable.

Shame on these politicians.....shame on the Mayor and the city council........shame on Elijah Cummings......shame on Carl Stokes........shame on the President and the senators of Maryland.
Shame on the pastors of the communities........shame on the media...........shame on the "protestors".

Can this be fixed?.........yes it can.
I could go on and on about this. I love Baltimore and I hate to see this.

Vacation Is Over.......More Crab Shells.

I really wished I could have spent more time in the Riviera Maya. Although this was a brief trip for us this time, the time spent on the beach and in the water was therapeutic. I really needed it. Each day was as perfect as it could be and the beauty of this place has a place in my heart.............and we try to come back each year. I didn't think of crab shells, flea markets, or any of the things that consume my days at home. Nice!

Oh.......but good things must come to an end, for the time being, and there is much work to do. Since my return home, I have been busy filling custom orders and trying to get ahead of the game in preparation for the onslaught of Christmas shoppers. Everybody wants an egg from the golden goose............in my case, insert "crab shell".

Here are a few more pictures of my work:

And if that's not enough......here's some more:

As I have mentioned before on this blog, I set up at Northpoint Plaza Flea Market in Dundalk, MD. on Saturdays and Sundays. On Mondays you can find me at Hunter's Sale Barn near Rising Sun in Cecil County, MD. If you live in the area, stop on by and say hello!

I am usually busy painting away on a dozen of so crab shells, which you can watch me paint if you care to do so............... but if you have children with you, be sure to read the riot act to them or at least duct tape their hands together.......hehehe.......this stuff is fragile and nobody likes paying for a broken crab shell. :)

There's more to come................meanwhile, as I paint the crab shells, I'll be thinking about the days I spent on vacation...........and I will still have to say that I am the luckiest man on the planet.............

.......indeed I am.

I recently attended an Aberdeen Ironbirds game...........and yes......I sat there eating steamed crabs!
Me and Supernurse and a contingency of the Emergency Nurses Association.........and uh.......Mr Boh, of course. It was a great evening..........capped off with a fabulous display of fireworks. Cal Ripken built quite a complex and I recommend that you at least take one day and take in a game. You will not be disappointed.

All work and no play is never a good thing. As it happens though, I seem to get busier and busier with painting crab shells and it is a challenge to squeeze in some time away from that. The good news is that I have two trips coming up in October......one to Texas and one to the Riviera Maya.........and then back to Baltimore for the mayhem that is the Christmas shopping season.

Today, I figured I would post some photos of some of the custom orders that I made for people. Special requests sometimes are challenging........but I actually enjoy the challenge. As usual, the customers were very happy with the end results.

Many people like to have a shell personalized.

This one was to be a gift for the owners of a cafe in Bethany Beach, Delaware.

This one is self explanatory.

And there's more..............

This one was challenging.  A drummer for the prog-rock band Sonus Umbra asked if I could somehow do the cover of their album on a crab shell...........arrrrggghhhh..........I had to really think this one out.........but after scratching my head for a few hours, I managed to git 'r done.

Sometimes the requests are for display cases with shells. This six shell and two mallet custom box was put together in honor of the career of Zach Clark, pitcher in the Baltimore Orioles farm system. Each shell had each farm team logo and the dates Clark was with them. The center shell included his photo and date that he played his first game in the Majors as a big league Oriole reliever.

Another request was for a woman who is crazy about the Orioles center fielder Adam Jones.

That's it for now..........I have shells to paint.

Until next time..............by the way, if you want to see more photos, simply search the archives, there's tons of pictures.

Painted Crab Shells and Time

Yeah..........I know.........it has been a while since my last entry here on the ole blogosphere. Needless to say, putting stuff on the blog has not been a priority of mine. I suppose I will have to get around to making a more concerted effort at keeping pace here. I have been busy and time...... as time goes by........goes by quickly..........sometimes too quick.......the days blur together.......no real
differentiation of days. Lately, I seem to get into a funk easily......perhaps I am burning out......tired.

Having said all of that, I certainly have not given up the ship yet.....there is a long way to go hopefully. Many things have changed in my world recently.......things that occur that shut you down mentally and spiritually. Sometimes it is hard to focus and some of those things that you ordinarily think have importance and relevance in your world .....become just trivial and pointless.........at least in those moments.....ugh......even days or weeks where reality enters your world. Pretty deep eh?

My guess is that I do not need to elaborate on the above commentary........you can imagine and you will be correct at least on half of whatever you might be thinking I meant. Time marches on......precious as it is......and I need more time. There is never enough time. There are things to do.......lots of things.....and it requires time. Nobody ever told me about the frustration I would eventually have over time. Hah.....even that frustrates me.

There is much going on in the world around us and for the most part those things need our attention. It is also very frustrating knowing that your attention to such things may well never make any difference. We have to try. Nothing ventured...nothing gained.....right?

For the past several weeks, I have been hearing "You haven't updated your blog in a long time."
For the record. it has not been because there was nothing to say or share with everyone or anyone..
For the folks who come visit to look at the pictures of crab shells........all of the pictures are still here. You can just check all of the posts that pertain to crab shells. I promise to put up some photos of some of my recent work very soon........once again..........its a "time" issue.

Painted Crab Shells in Display Boxes

 I have so much to say that I will just have to store it all under my hat for a while. If you happened to have browsed through this blog's older entries, you surely know that I can be very opinionated..........and that has not changed. The reason that I spout off less these days is that I have been extremely busy painting..........YES!..........PAINTING.......crab shells.............and YES!..........WITH MY HANDS!  
I get asked the question "Do you paint these by hand?"..........and the other gem of a question "You do these by yourself?"............needless to say, my response has been to simply say "I tried using my feet byt they won't cooperate." and after I look around under my table "Yep,.........there are no midgets or little Mexicans under the table painting away."

Yes........I paint on crab shells........and I use real paint and real brushes, too :)
Oh yeah.......another big question I get is "How long does it take you to paint one?"  Well, I suppose this is a fair question to ask and I think it is a fair response to say "As long as it takes."  You see, not all shells have the same thing painted on them. Some are simple and some are complex. Some are downright difficult and some I tend to take longer to do because I might not enjoy doing that particular one. Actually, it is rare that I ever just sit down and paint just one at a time. I work in batches and paint them according to the method to my madness. If I am using red paint.......then I line up all of the various assorted shells that needs red paint. Then I move on to the next color, and so on. If I have music in my ears, I work faster and can pump out about 100 shells in a weeks time if I push myself. But normally I average about 35 to 40 shells per week. So there you have it..........its a huge amount of work and yes, I get tired of it and need to take breaks here and then.

Lately, I have been taking lots of special requests for custom painted shells and shells in display boxed. It is the start of that time of year when smart people plan ahead and place orders now for Christmas. Of course, some people place orders for birthday gifts, etc. Recently as last week, one repeat customer of mine requested a display box with two crab shells inside. They wanted one shell to have the Baltimore City flag and the other shell to have the Maryland flag,  They told me that it was a gift for the Mayor of Baltimore.

The Baltimore Flag shell.

The Maryland Flag shell.

The finished product.

Another customer had ordered a display box with his family name on a Scotland flag on a crab shell. Two weeks later he came back and requested another display box with five crab shells inside. This time I had to paint each crab with the first names of each member of his family.

The finished product.

If you would like a painted crab shell, or a painted crab shell in a display box.......or would like to order one for a gift this Christmas...........time is of the essence..........get on down to the North Point Plaza Flea Market and look over my wide selection of crab shells on display and put in your request for custom orders. You can even watch me paint :)  Without a doubt, Signtopia's Painted Crab Shells has the largest amount of painted shells available on any given day..........anywhere.

Also.....come see us at Hunter's Sale Barn on Mondays in Port Deposit, MD.

Triple shell box.

The Maryland Flag display box.

One of a kind and only one available,

 Busy.......busy.......busy. The crab shells have been taking up most of my time. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Here are a few of the latest painted crab shells. 

 Even number one son has taken up grabbing a brush and helping Ole Signtopia.

 Display cases. If you can find a better price and better quality........go for it.

 Baltimore, hon!

 This was another special request.

 If you like what you see here on the blog, come on down to the Northpoint Plaza Flea Market on Saturdays and Sundays. Also, come see us at Hunter's Sale Barn in Cecil County on Mondays from 3pm until dark.

 A small girl and her mother needed a gift for her schoolteacher........and here it is.

This shell on a plaque was made at the request of another girl and her mom. It was a Father's Day gift.

More photos and videos to come, so stay tuned!

Often copied......never equalled.

Signtopia