"Inside The Jack-In-The-Box"

This friday (December 4th) is the opening for the December show "Inside The Jack-In-The-Box" at the Tim Faulkner Gallery. Some of my paintings will be among the fantastic work on display and for sale.

Here is the official announcement:

"Tim Faulkner Gallery will be marking it's 2nd anniversary with "Inside The Jack-In-The-Box", a Xmas group show. To celebrate this holiday season, I have gotten together with some of the city's top artists and they've produced smaller works that will be very affordable and make great Xmas presents. This will be an opportunity to own works by artists such as Steven Gilberts, Quincy Owens, Terry Tapp, Barbara Crawford, Margaret Spivey, and Jeremy Dixon at a more than reasonable cost. Please plan on attending and supporting the local arts. This should prove to be our biggest show of the year, so needless to say you don't want to miss it!"


Date: Friday, December 4, 2009
Time: 5:00pm - 11:00pm
Location: Tim Faulkner Gallery

The show will be up through December, so even if you cannot make it for the opening I hope you will be able to drop in sometime this month.

And don't forget, the gallery has moved. The new address is:

632 E. Market St. Ste. 1
Louisville, KY 40202

and the phone number is (502) 381-1314.

Ghosts and Toasts

We had a blast this past weekend.

Saturday night we hung out with the great folks of "The Old Dark Clubhouse" gang at the Wonderfest reunion. As the level of a $100 bottle of special Woodford Reserve steadily decreased the conversation ran from episodes of SCTV to old movies (I've got to see Stairway to Heaven) to tales of the fortean. At everyone's urging Troy Guinn broke out his guitar and regaled us with music from his old band The Secret Commonwealth. Later in the evening he sang a tribute song to the late, great, Jack Hunter Daves that he and Linda Wylie co-wrote which was followed by a toast in memory of Jack. There was not a dry eye in the house. Thanks again Dave and Randy for inviting us.

Sunday found us at the monthly Sunday Salon at The Tim Faulkner Gallery. The current show is Shoe Gazer Dream Pop, a showing of recent work by phenomenal artist Jen Goodell. It was good crowd. I brought some work for the upcoming December show and had my ego boosted with wonderful plaudits. And thank you again Margaret for giving me the moniker "Mystic Steve".

Among the scary subjects discussed Saturday night were ghosts, and among the scary subjects discussed Sunday was health insurance. The insurance conversation was by far the scariest of the weekend.

In other news, Perilous Press is running the NOVEMBER COPPING SQUID SWEEPSTAKES! .

Here is the info from the Perilous Press site: "STEVEN GILBERTS showered a treasure trove of darksome COPPING SQUID art upon us, and we're passing it on to you. Everyone who purchases an exclusive limited edition COPPING SQUID by MICHAEL SHEA from our site between now and Thanksgiving Day, 2009 will be entered to win a full-color, signed, limited (#1 of 500) print of eye-popping Copping Squid art by the phenomenal Steve Gilberts. The lucky winner will be notified by e-mail, and receive their print early enough to decide not to give it away for Xmas.

If you've already pre-ordered a copy, you're already entered to win. If you haven't, ORDER NOW! The limited edition of COPPING SQUID has been delayed by printing complications, but to make up for it and cover everyone who didn't win a print, we're throwing in an 11X17 poster print of OCEAN'S DAUGHTER, a Gilberts masterpiece painted for the trade edition cover, with every order.

And CONGRATULATIONS to ZAK JARVIS, the winner of our first Steve Gilberts drawing, at the World Fantasy Convention."*

Well, back to the easel. I'm still getting acclimated to my new studio, but it is great having everything in one place. Now if I can just solve the mysteries of Photoshop CS4 my life will be complete.

-Insert Witty Title Here-

Good gosh what a hectic October. Among our recent misadventures was the aforementioned repair of our rain damaged bedroom ceiling. They had to pull down all the plaster from the ceiling and replace it with drywall. Fortunately all of the wood was intact (and the bare lathe strips looked pretty neat). Mark Robinson of Robinson LTD did an excellent job of renovation.



This past Saturday Becky and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary. The weather was bright and sunny just like the day we were married. The afternoon was spent getting our bedroom back in order, but we made up for it that evening by going to one of our favorite restaurants, Jeeves and Company, for a superb gourmet dinner. As we dined we watched the setting sun illuminate the fall foliage of the court house trees across the street to fiery reds and oranges. Couldn't ask for a better day.

In other news I've restored two online galleries lost in the January server crash and also added a new one.

You can find my cover art and interiors for David Lee Summers' "Vampires of the Scarlet Order" here.

My gallery for the cover art and interiors for Simon Clark's "Butterfly" is at this address.

And this is the home for the new gallery of my cover and interior art for Michael Shea's anthology "Copping Squid and other Mythos Tales".

Goodbye September, Hello October.

Sorry for ducking under the radar as of late. September has consisted of home owner dilemmas, starting with the bottom of the house (some plumbing issues) and finishing with the top of the house (multiple leaks in a two year old roof). The roofing issue created damage to our bedroom ceiling, so that will be our October adventure.

Fortunately the roof is under warranty and has now been (hopefully) repaired, insurance (sans the deductible) will cover our bedroom ceiling repairs, and in looking over our homeowners policy we discovered some gaps in coverage that have now been corrected. Whew!

So on to other news. This weekend Cody Goodfellow, Michael Shea, and S. T. Joshi will be attending the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon to promote Copping Squid. A great start for October (and much more fun than home repairs).


Cover art for the limited edition of Copping Squid.

Off and running for September

Becky and I attended Context this past weekend and had a blast! The main reason I attended was for the release party of Gene O'Neill's Taste of the Tenderloin from Apex Book Company, but I also participated in the big Shroud Publications-Meadow Hawk Press extravaganza.

Meeting Gene O'Neill and his son Gavin in person was the highlight of the convention. We also had the pleasure of meeting such wonderful folks as Gord Rollo, Gary Braunbeck, Michael Knost, D. Harlen Wilson, Sheldon Higdon, and Danny Evarts, along with reuniting with the Broaddus family, the Larsons, Tim Deal, the Gambor family, Michael West, Chris Golden, Brian Hatcher, and Grace Welch (of course this is an incomplete list).

I'm not attending Dragoncon, but some of my artwork will be there via World of Strange. They will be in the Artist's Alley at Bob Burden's booth. Of course they will also be featuring the work of such greats as Billy Tackett, Donato Giancola, and William Stout to name a few. Please drop by and purchase some shirts.

That is all I have time to write for now. I have to take our Honda in for a driver's side airbag recall, attempt to replace the wax ring on our toilet, and finish three paintings. What doesn't kill me will make me stronger (and perhaps a little smelly).

I'm Awake!

The roofers that have been working on the house of our neighbor up on the corner got an early start this morning, so as consequence I got an early start also.

A reminder to all, I'll be a guest at Context this coming weekend. The Apex Book Company's release party for Gene O'Neill's "Taste of Tenderloin" will be at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday.

Work is progressing on the Michael Shea project. The Perilous Press site has been updated, and this link will take you directly to the page for "Copping Squid and Other Mythos Tales"


Wee, my work is on the cover of a Robert Bloch anthology! Chaosium.com now has the reissue of Robert Bloch's "The Mysteries of the Worm available. Ordering information is available here.


And now I'm off for a ride on the exercise bike before locking myself into the studio.

August Mayhem.

I'm hopefully moving towards the end of a nasty summer flu bug. It has made for some sleepless nights, but on a positive note being awake at 1:00 a.m. means I've been able to catch up on my Venture Brothers episodes.

In other news, first up is my latest cover. Here is my painting for "Copping Squid and Other Mythos Tales" an anthology of World Fantasy Award Winner Michael Shea's mythos stories.

This will be available from Perilous Press this October. Cody Goodfellow presented me with the intriguing concept and I took it from there. I'm in the process of finishing up the interior art for the project.


My art is now wearable! At this years Hypericon I had the great fortune to meet Ben and Tracy Eller. Ben and Tracy run World of Strange Fantastic Apparel and asked me if they could offer my work on their attire. Of course I said yes. Click here to see my page on their site, and by all means buy something. Also available thru their site is apparel sporting the fantastic art of such artistic luminaries as Michael Whelan, Donato Giancola, Billy Tackett, William Stout, and Cyril van der Haegen. Suffice it to say I'm stoked about being listed along with these folks.

I've updated my shopping site finally. Thank you very much Deborah Jones for creating the tutorial for me. Please drop by to see what I've added (and of course to buy something). For some reason the site takes a few moments to load, so my apologies on the wait.

Last but not least, I'll be attending Context 22 in Columbus Ohio for the release party of Gene O'Neill's "Taste of Tenderloin", published by Apex Book Company. I'll also be doing some book signing for Shroud Publishing. I hope to see you there.

Dilation Exercise for August 2009

So this is the Dilation Exercise for August 2009.

I hope this will be a fun work out for your imagination and I encourage you to participate with comments. If you come back to the blog and can't find this post, look for it in the "Dilation Contest" category.

Please look at the picture and imagine for it a one sentence caption of dialog and a one sentence caption of narrative. Write these down and transmit the sentences to me via the comments option at the bottom of this post. Try to produce captions that compliment the image without overly defining what's going on in the picture. It helps if the captions suggest something beyond the picture plane. For examples of these captioned images and more information about this project and contest, go to Imagination Work Out and Contest.



The title of this painting is not important here. More important is what happens in your imagination when you view the image. What's going on here?

I will choose my favorite of the captions offered for the August '09 Dilation Exercise and declare a winner on or about the 31st of August, 2009. The winner will have the image with his or her caption and name entered into the “Dilation Exercise” album in the coppermine gallery on my web site. The winner will win an 8" x 10" matted print of the contest image. It will be necessary to have the winner's shipping address in order to deliver the print. Sorry, but the print prize will only be delivered to an address within the continental United States.

For examples of captioned images and more information about this project and contest, go to Imagination Work Out and Contest.

Ouch! Stop! It Hertz!

I'll start out on the positive. Necon was wonderful as always. This was our five year anniversary and Necon 29 was every bit as fun as Necon 25. We reunited with old friends, made new friends, and I received great feedback on my paintings. Next year's Necon 30 is going to be like Necon 25 where past Guests of Honor are invited to return, so that will be blast. And there will be some interesting things in store at Necon 31.




And now to the title of the blog. Since 2006 Becky and I have been driving to New York City for the first day of our Necon journey. We stay at Jill Bauman's apartment overnight and the following day the three of us drive up to Rhode Island. This year was no different in that respect, but what an obstacle course we had to traverse.

There is always road construction of course. It's summer. But this year New Jersey proved to be quite a bear. Bumper to bumper mile upon mile. We finally made it to the George Washington Bridge and thought our troubles were over.

How naive we were.

We went to the upper deck because we thought that would be quicker. When we got to the toll booth the traffic was nearly at a standstill. We crawled through the booth and then came to a complete stop on the other side. Six or seven lanes of traffic was being condensed into three lanes.

There was a solid wall of semi-trucks on either side of us. As we sat there the wall of trucks slowly began to move, right towards us! We were in an automotive trash compactor! As our lives flashed before our eyes I made a desperate crawl towards an opening that suddenly appeared. Somehow we made it through in time and unbelievably the traffic all began to move. The traffic thinned out so abruptly that I wondered if maybe we had been crushed to death (the whole Jacob's Ladder, Owl Creek Bridge thing you know).

We made it to Jill's without too much further trouble. Jill was able to get us a spot right in front of her building. We thought that was great.

During the night the flashing lights of a police car caught our attention. I looked out to see that the constables had stopped a woman for some nefarious traffic violation. Silly New Yorkers always breaking the law. She had pulled in right behind our car. After she pulled away the police car, with its lights shining upon our Hertz rental car, sat. And sat. And sat. Not a wheel budged. We assumed that the gentlemen were simply doing their paperwork for the traffic ticket. Eventually they moved on.

The next morning we got everything packed and ready to go. I had been putting things in the trunk and right rear seat, so it was not until we were ready to go that I saw the envelope sticking out from the drivers door. Ah ha, now I knew why the determined officers had been so long in departing. Miscreant that I am, I had crossed the boundary from law abiding citizen to common criminal. But how you might ask?

It was a parking citation of course. Correction. A $65 parking citation. So I must have been blocking a driveway. No. Perhaps I was blocking a hydrant? No, this was where Jill usually parked. Out of state plates are illegal in New York City? Of course not, but we're getting warmer.

Seems the citation was for parking overnight in a residential area with a commercial license plate. A commercial license plate? Yes, sure enough our trustworthy Hertz office in Clarksville IN had provided us with a car with commercial license plates. In all the years we have been renting from Hertz we had never been given a car with commercial plates, and had the woman not parked behind us the officers would probably have been none the wiser about the transgression on parking laws of New York. Obviously though, this was an error on the part of Hertz and they would take care of a loyal customer of 14 years.

Right?

We immediately called the Clarksville office about the problem. The manager told us that we would have to call the 1-800 Hertz Customer Service number. About four hours later as we were nearing our destination in Rhode Island my wife was finally able to talk to a customer service representative. The representative explained that we would have to take the matter up with the office that we had rented the car from. Yes, this is were the story is going.

Despite reassurances by our friends that Hertz would take care of this, I was apprehensive. The specter of our AT&T misadventure still clung to my mind like cat piss odor in carpet (quick side note, when we got home there was yet another junk letter for the mysterious Gary Stevens who seems to reside with us at our address). But as I mulled over the whole situation it became obvious that Hertz would not throw away 14 years of customer loyalty for $65 dollar error on their part.

"Huh, I've never encountered this before and everyone I've talked to is just as baffled. But it is not our fault. We only have to check to make sure the plates are up to date. We get cars from all over the country so we don't know what kind of plate is going to actually be on our cars".

That is what we were told when we returned the car to the Clarksville IN location. The office manager said he would look into the matter and see what he could find out, but consistently reiterated that Hertz was not at fault for what plates are on their cars. I finally had to say "so if it is not the fault of Hertz Car Rental, than you are saying it is our fault". "No no", he said. "It is not your fault, but it is not our fault either. Maybe the police made a mistake".

Thank goodness we had established that nobody except maybe the police were at fault. I could sleep easy now.

But wait a minute, there was still the 2000 lb. $65 parking citation sitting in the room.

Nobody within "The Hertz Corporation, a subsidiary of Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: HTZ), the world's largest general use car rental brand, operating from approximately 8,000 locations in 147 countries worldwide" knew how to handle this problem. It had just never happened before. Ever. Never. Not in the history of all mankind. This just couldn't be. But maybe somehow someway someone within the lofty Hertz hierarchy would deign to call the Clarksville office to answer the burning question, (and maybe even provide the answer to the meaning of life). The manager had me write down my name and phone number on a tiny Post-it note and said he would be in touch.

Now I know it is just $65. You are thinking "you cranky old fart, why not just pay the damn thing and be done with it?". But it is the principle of the situation that is so frustrating. Since 1995 we have been using Hertz. We've never had a problem. But when we did have a problem instead of hearing "Mr. Gilberts, you are a valued customer and we will get this problem resolved" we basically hear, "now that's weird, but it's your problem, not ours".

The citation was not given because I had been using the car in an illegal manner. It was given because the company I trusted to provide us with a safe and legal automobile had in fact not. And we were given absolutely no reason by Hertz as to why they have cars with commercial plates. Obviously there is not any kind of a discount for using a car with them (and obviously it was costing us more to have them).

As we were leaving the office we did finally get a "sorry for the inconvenience this has caused", and later in the day the manager did call us. He said The Hertz Corporation hierarchy was not returning his inquires, but a regional manager had given him permission to deduct the $65 from our rental bill. A quick fix as he put it. Not exactly the response I was looking for, but probably the best we were going to get. I called the manager the following day and inquired if it would be okay if my wife stopped by on her lunch break to get a receipt for the corrected amount. In a dispassionate tone he said that would be fine but we would be receiving a receipt in the mail within a few days.

I did file an online complaint through the Hertz website the same day. Oddly enough they did not respond.

So mind you, I'm quite aware that I'm on a rant. But use my rant for your own benefit. When you are renting a car, check the plates to make sure you don't qualify for a "winning ticket" when you get up the next morning.

Check your phone bills for unusual charges.

Drink your Ovaltine.

And keep watching the skis. I mean skies.

Dilation Exercise for July 2009

So this is the Dilation Exercise for July 2009.

I hope this will be a fun work out for your imagination and I encourage you to participate with comments. If you come back to the blog and can't find this post, look for it in the "Dilation Contest" category.

Please look at the picture and imagine for it a one sentence caption of dialog and a one sentence caption of narrative. Write these down and transmit the sentences to me via the comments option at the bottom of this post. Try to produce captions that compliment the image without overly defining what's going on in the picture. It helps if the captions suggest something beyond the picture plane. For examples of these captioned images and more information about this project and contest, go to Imagination Work Out and Contest.



The title of this painting is not important here. More important is what happens in your imagination when you view the image. What's going on here?

I will choose my favorite of the captions offered for the July '09 Dilation Exercise and declare a winner on or about the 31st of July, 2009. The winner will have the image with his or her caption and name entered into the “Dilation Exercise” album in the coppermine gallery on my web site. The winner will win an 8" x 10" matted print of the contest image. It will be necessary to have the winner's shipping address in order to deliver the print. Sorry, but the print prize will only be delivered to an address within the continental United States.

For examples of captioned images and more information about this project and contest, go to Imagination Work Out and Contest.

My 30 Minutes of fame.

Becky and I had a fantastic time at Hyperion 5 / DeepSouthCon 47. We were able to meet up with old friends and made some new ones as well (I'm not about to name off folks because I know I'll forget someone and feel like a cad).

The art show run by Jamie Herron was stellar as always, and the art demo by Melissa Gay, Deena Warner, Judi Davidson, Sarah Frary, Scott Webb (who needs to get another website!) and myself went swimmingly.

And because I'm pooped out from doing yard work and digging up the backyard for a garden / photo prop (more on that later if my idea works), I'll let some of our photos from the convention do the rest of the talking.

Dilation Exercise for June 2009

So this is the Dilation Exercise for June 2009.

I hope this will be a fun work out for your imagination and I encourage you to participate with comments. If you come back to the blog and can't find this post, look for it in the "Dilation Contest" category.

Please look at the picture and imagine for it a one sentence caption of dialog and a one sentence caption of narrative. Write these down and transmit the sentences to me via the comments option at the bottom of this post. Try to produce captions that compliment the image without overly defining what's going on in the picture. It helps if the captions suggest something beyond the picture plane. For examples of these captioned images and more information about this project and contest, go to Imagination Work Out and Contest.



The title of this painting is not important here. More important is what happens in your imagination when you view the image. What's going on here?

As Alan does with his contest, I will choose my favorite of the captions offered for the May '09 Dilation Exercise and declare a winner on or about the 30th of June, 2009. The winner will have the image with his or her caption and name entered into the “Dilation Exercise” album in the coppermine gallery on my web site. The winner will win an 8" x 10" matted print of the contest image. It will be necessary to have the winner's shipping address in order to deliver the print. Sorry, but the print prize will only be delivered to an address within the continental United States.

For examples of captioned images and more information about this project and contest, go to Imagination Work Out and Contest.

Countdown to HyperiCon

First up, as a result of all the fun and great times we had with AT&T, we are now with Insight Cable. As consequence there was no need to continue with Earthlink, so my old email address is no more. My new one is steve@stevengilberts.com. At some point I promise to recount our exploits with the communications giant. What a convoluted mess. Of course we still haven't received our final bill from them, so it ain't over till the corpulent female intones. And we continue to receive junk mail for the ubiquitous Gary Stevens.

Mo*Con was a blast! Thanks again to Maurice and Sally Broaddus for being the ultimate host and hostess. We had the honor of meeting Tom Piccirilli and his wife Michelle Scalise, Wrath James White. We also reunited with our Necon pals Linda Addison and Gerard Houarner. The panels were wonderful and on Saturday night we were treated to a reading of the epic murder mystery CLOWN courtesy of Doug Warrick.

HyperiCon is a week away. Aside from running off a few additional prints I'm all packed and ready. That does not happen often. We look forward to seeing all our convention and Nashville buddies. If you are attending please stop by on Saturday to watch the art demo by me and the other artists.

My friend Mike Morris snapped some shots of me in my native habitat last week. Despite the subject they turned out great. Here are a few of the pics.




All photos © 2009 Michael R Morris

And this is my cover illustration for Gene O'Neill's upcoming anthology from Apex Publications, Taste of Tenderloin.

Putting the joy of AT&T aside for a moment, I thought I'd go to my happy place and remind folks about my two upcoming 15 minutes of fame (a whole half hour if you can believe it).

Next week of course I'm Artist Guest of Honor at Mo*Con.

And June 5th thru the 7th will find me as Artist Guest of Honor at Hypericon 5 (DeepSouthCon 47.

Adding color to this blog entry, here are two of my recent cover projects.

I was given the distinction of providing the cover for the summer issue of Space & Time Magazine. There were some very nice comments about my painting in the Editor's Blog.


And this is my illustration for the cover of Devil's Marionette by Maurice Broaddus and published by Shroud Publishing. It is a remarkably fascinating and disturbing tale.


I'll be back to regaling you about my telecommunication woes within short order. The recent turn of events have been nothing less than a journey into the bizarre.

A Terrible Thing

A Terrible Thing. ATT. Yes, this is a followup to my previous blog about the joy of being a customer of AT&T.

As I've said before, I'm sorry to use my blog as a complaint forum. I prefer to keep my posts on a positive note. But friends have pointed out that it is a good thing to let people know what is going on. Kind of a "duty to warn" situation I suppose.

If you know a copperhead snake is in the backyard you have the responsibility to warn those who might be walking there.

Actually I shouldn't malign copperhead snakes.

If you have just seen a drunk person urinate in a pool, you have a responsibility to warn the kids that are getting ready to jump in. Right? Though maybe it would depend on if they were the same kids that toilet papered your yard, but I digress.

Anyway, last Friday I received an envelope in the mail for a "Gary Stevens". The name seemed familiar. A neighbor perhaps? The address was ours though. Then I remembered something I'd heard over the phone about a month ago, "the account was opened by Gary Stevens and he must have punched in your phone number by mistake". Residential Email LLC had once again reared their ugly head.

The envelope turned out to be stuffed with items that an email spam filter would block in a second. Viagra advertisements, pyramid schemes, pleas from millionaires from Ethiopia. Unfortunately having no postal spam filter, I suppose I'll have this kind of crap to look forward too from now on. Thanks AT&T.

But this was just the beginning of a delightful weekend. On Saturday our AT&T statement arrived, and as usual it did not disappoint.

Now, the problem with the Residential Email LLC charges had actually been resolved during April after I'd threatened to report AT&T to the proper authorities. Supposedly, we even now had the elusive "Third Party Billing Block" whose existence was spoken of in hushed whispers.

Indeed the the credit for the $14.95 charge shined like a beacon of hope from the statement.

But the Past Due Charge of 35.02 shined even brighter.

Yes, in addition to the current bill we were also being charged the amount for the last statement (sans the 14.95 credit) plus a $7.10 late charge. AT&T was saying that we had not sent them our last payment.

What were we thinking not sending in our payment? How could we do something so vile and despicable to a company whose only thought was to provide us with safe and efficient communications services?

Or perhaps we did send the payment in on time, and there were witnesses?

Be sure to drink your Ovaltine and tune in for the next installment of my adventures with AT&T, The Strange Case of the Purloined Payment.

Dilation Exercise for May 2009

My apologies for skipping the April Dilation Exercise. What a month April was.

So this is the Dilation Exercise for May 2009.

I hope this will be a fun work out for your imagination and I encourage you to participate with comments. If you come back to the blog and can't find this post, look for it in the "Dilation Contest" category.

Please look at the picture and imagine for it a one sentence caption of dialog and a one sentence caption of narrative. Write these down and transmit the sentences to me via the comments option at the bottom of this post. Try to produce captions that compliment the image without overly defining what's going on in the picture. It helps if the captions suggest something beyond the picture plane. For examples of these captioned images and more information about this project and contest, go to Imagination Work Out and Contest.



The title of this painting is not important here. More important is what happens in your imagination when you view the image. What's going on here?

As Alan does with his contest, I will choose my favorite of the captions offered for the March '09 Dilation Exercise and declare a winner on or about the 31st of March, 2009. The winner will have the image with his or her caption and name entered into the “Dilation Exercise” album in the coppermine gallery on my web site. The winner will win an 8" x 10" matted print of the contest image. It will be necessary to have the winner's shipping address in order to deliver the print. Sorry, but the print prize will only be delivered to an address within the continental United States.

For examples of captioned images and more information about this project and contest, go to Imagination Work Out and Contest.

Mo*Con IV

March and April have been quite the whirlwind for me. In addition to my duties with my March art show I had doctor appointments (check-ups with plenty of probing and stabbing), AT&T misadventures, and assorted odd weather events. With all the confusion I failed to mention that I'll be the Artist Guest of Honor for Mo*Con IV this coming May! Hurrah!

And what is Mo*Con? I refer you to this description from the blog of horror writer extraordinaire Maurice Broaddus:

"Brought to you by the Indiana Horror Writers, Mo*Con is a friendly convention focused on conversations revolving around horror literature and spirituality (two great tastes that taste great together!). If you enjoy writing, horror, fantasy, poetry, and food, you’ll find plenty to enjoy at this convention."

For more info please go to Maurice's blog, The Pontifications of the Sinister Minister.

And you can find out more about the Indiana Horror Writers Association at IndianaHorror.org

Enhanced Services Billing, Residential Email LLC and AT&T

I was originally going to title this blog "you're sh**ting in my mouth and telling me it's a sundae" (thank you Mr. Show), but I wanted to ensure that Enhanced Services Billing Inc, Residential Email LLC and AT&T show up on Google searches. Before I go any further, I want to encourage all who read this to contact your phone service provider and ask them what the procedure is for "third party billing charges" blocking.

So what is this all about? Last week we received our monthly statement from AT&T. I always dread reading our statement because often there are rate increases of some sort. This bill did not disappoint in that department. We had a whopping increase of $14.95!

It was not actually a rate increase though. It was a charge from a company called Enhanced Services Billing for an email account from a company called Residential Email LLC. I called AT&T to question this charge and was told by the AT&T customer rep "Fernando" that it was not their problem. I would have to call the "third party" billing to dispute the charge.

So I called Enhanced Services Billing Inc. and was routed to Residential Email LLC where I talked to "Jennie". "Jennie" told me that perhaps someone in my household had set up the account. When I explained that this was not the case she changed her story and said that a person by the name of "Gary Stevens" had set up the account and mistakenly entered our phone number. She then asked me for my home address and email address so she could send an account cancellation notice.

I called AT&T back and got "Fernando" again (lucky me). I asked him how I should handle the third party charge since it had been a mistake on Residential Email LLC's part. Would AT&T send a new bill minus the amount or should we just deduct it?

I was informed that I would still be responsible for the charge. What?!!!

Yes that is what I was told by "Fernando" and at least three other AT&T representatives over the course of two days. The charges are the responsibility of the customer to dispute. And this gets even better.

Turns out Enhanced Services Billing Inc. (hereafter known as ESBI) has a long record of fraudulent billing, and Residential Email LLC is just one of the many "companies" that use ESBI to submit fraudulent charges. Topping this off is that AT&T knows all about this. Two of their agents that I spoke with confirmed that they regularly handled complaints about ESBI and Residential Email LLC, but they along with the other agents I spoke with recited the mantra "the FCC forces us to do this".

So can we the customers that pay these companies on a monthly basis block fraudulent businesses from charging us for bogus accounts and services? Depends on who you talk with.

"Yes Mr. Gilberts, you can block third party charges from appearing on your bill. But it can only be done by filling out forms which we will mail to you. Would you like us to mail you these forms?" This is what I heard from three different reps on April 2. "Yes", I replied, " by all means send me the forms".

The following day I called to see if there was a way to find out if there are any new charges on our account for the April billing cycle. The first rep, Eric, said he would put me on hold while he checked on this, then hung up me. The second rep (you would not believe me if I told you his name) I talked with seemed to be hosting a raucous party. As the cacophony raged in the background of his apartment, the AT&T rep told me " I'm not allowed to access your billing records until the 25th of April, but I can send you forms to fill out to block third party charges". Pretty interesting response since I did not mention the situation of the previous day. Maybe one of his guests were privy to my situation. Anyway, I told the fellow a request had already been made for the forms, but asked if he could verify that they had been mailed. He told me " No they have not, but they will be mailed out first thing on Monday, April 6 and I should receive them by Thursday.

I think you can see where this is going.

Here we are on Thursday. No forms in the mail. I call AT&T to inquire about the tardy documents. After getting the usual runaround I finally talk with "Walkell". She puts me on hold for about five minutes, than informs me that they might have been mailed yesterday ( April 8th). She confirms that I did request the forms on April 2nd. And no, I will not have "Third Party Blocking" until those forms are signed, mailed back, and processed, end of story!

Now unbeknownst to "Walkell" I had alerted other AT&T (and related companies) customers to my situation. Some of these folks called AT&T to inquire about this problem and were told that by simply making the call they now had third party blocking. Now why was I not given that same assurance? Perhaps, and I know this is pure speculation, but perhaps this most noblest of phone companies did not give me the same deal because they had already fed my account to the jackals. And perhaps, and again this is speculation, they have already allowed new charges to be added to our account. Blocking applied last week would have prevented charges from being added on April 6th, a month after the first charges were applied. That would have proven to be a sticky situation for them come May when our next statement arrives with an even larger charge.

Well, sorry for this long posting. I admit it is a bit of a rant to purge my anger, a catharses for a man who tends to be quiet and unassuming. But friends I have discussed this problem with have thanked me for alerting them and advised that I pass the word along so that others can protect themselves. It is not just a simple $14.95 problem. This can damage a person's credit rating. Bad enough in a stable economy, but under the current conditions this can mean a financial disaster.

The criminals that applied the charges were just doing what you expect criminals to do. They steal. But a company that should know better not only allowed this to happen, but also made the victim of the crime contact the perpetrators himself thereby opening himself for further damage. My email is now known to them, and there are possibly recordings of me saying "yes" to various prompts and questions (a favorite tele-marketer trick). I didn't know these companies were crooked until after I had looked them up on a Google search. Because surely AT&T would not put a loyal customer in danger, now would they?

It has been a long week of worry, and I don't imagine things are going to get any better given AT&T's behavior. Have any of you ever seen Terry Gilliam's movie Brazil?

And please go over your monthly phone statements with a fine toothed comb.

"The Audactiy of Bubblegum Mechanics"

The closing for my show "The Audacity of Bubblegum Mechanics" and Joshua Vance's show "Louisville Portraits" will be this coming Friday. If you missed the opening, I hope you can make it to the closing of my 15 minutes of fame in Louisville. :-) And of course you are more than welcome to drop by the gallery during regular business hours. For more info please go to The Tim Faulkner Gallery.

Tim put together a video featuring mine and Joshua's work. If I imbedded the code correctly you should be able to view it below.

Dilation Exercise for March 2009

As I mentioned in a previous blog, Alan Clark is running the monthly Dilation Exercise Contests. This month I will be joining him with my own Dilation Exercise. I hope this will be a fun work out for your imagination and I encourage you to participate with comments. If you come back to the blog and can't find this post, look for it in the "Dilation Contest" label.  

Please look at the picture and imagine for it a one sentence caption of dialog and a one sentence caption of narrative.  Write these down and transmit the sentences to me via the comments option at the bottom of this post.  Try to produce captions that compliment the image without overly defining what's going on in the picture.  It helps if the captions suggest something beyond the picture plane.  For examples of these captioned images and more information about this project  and contest, go to Imagination Work Out and Contest.




The title of this painting  is not important here.  More important is what happens in your imagination when you view the image.  What's going on here?

As Alan does with his contest, I will choose my favorite of the captions offered for the March '09 Dilation Exercise and declare a winner on or about the 31st of March, 2009. The winner will have the image with his or her caption and name entered into the “Dilation Exercise” album in the coppermine gallery on my web site. The winner will win an 8" x 10" matted print of the contest image.  It will be necessary to have the winner's shipping address in order to deliver the print.  Sorry, but the print prize will only be delivered to an address within the continental United States.

For examples of captioned images and more information about this project  and contest, go to Imagination Work Out and Contest.

HYPERICON 5-DEEPSOUTHCON 47

Things are going swimmingly at the present.

My show opening at The Tim Faulkner Gallery (my first extended gallery showing in Louisville) is less than two weeks away.

I have my online gallery re-established (albeit sans the image info).

My online shop is now good to go (thank you again Deborah!).

And to top everything off, I'm going to be the Artist Guest of Honor for Hypericon 5!

This year Hypericon 5 is also DeepSouthCon 47, so by proxy I'm Artist Guest of Honor for two conventions at once. Not bad for this bucolic little country mouse. With all of the wonderful talent out there to choose from I'm sure selecting a guest artist was not an easy task, so I'd like to again thank Hypericon chairmen Fred Grimm for according me this tremendous honor.

Hypericon is an extraordinary convention. The fans are wonderful and the roster of professional talent that attends is growing yearly. Last year I participated in a painting demonstration with Guest of Honor Alex McVey and the multi-talented Deena Warner. This year we hope to once again provide a demonstration/workshop. I'll keep you posted on the details.

Living in the Dead of Winter

Whew, what a month. I have my site (sans the Coppermine Gallery pages) back up. My online shop met its demise in the server crash, but is in the process of being created once again by the talented Deborah Jones (thanks again Deborah!).

2008 was a turbulent year but finished on a high note. In November I took a chance and approached Tim Faulkner, owner of the Tim Faulkner Gallery (TimFaulknerGallery.com) with a portfolio of my recent work. He liked what he saw and is now featuring my paintings among the works of other Louisville talents such as Terry Tapp, Jen Goodell and Joshua Vance.

Tim was kind of enough to write up a piece about me on his blog at Louisville Mojo. You can read it here.

During the month of March he will be hosting a show of my work and Joshua's. The show will open on March 6th. Please drop in and have a look.

In other news of the New Year, Alan M. Clark has devised an online project which I will be a part of.

The goal of the project is to bring the viewer into the creative process by encouraging him or her to devise captions and dialogue for a featured piece of work. You can read more about it at The Imagination Fully Dilated Blog.

Back to the internet drawing board. I'm going to once again attempt to set up the Coppermine Gallery. Wish me luck.

Technical Difficulties

My website is currently down due to a massive server crash. As the wreckage is sifted for remains of life I am frantically, well at least concernedly, working to get things set up at a new server. Fear not. I shall return shortly.

And a belated Happy New Year!