Meanderings and Musings of a Cluttered Mind

Ted Master learned photography the old-fashioned way -- with an all-manual camera. He used a manual camera and then PhotoShop to create "Inside Out," which took first place in the photography category and Best of Show. BY GARY  J. KUNICH It’s a door to somewhere that appears out of nowhere. It is a staircase that goes up into something, but no place in particular. It’s there, but it’s really not. It is a hole ripped in the gauze of temporal reality, creating a universe imagined by Ted Master for his Gold Medal-winning photograph, “Inside Out.” The image, created and photographed on a farm field in the middle of Goochland, Virginia, then brought to life with PhotoShop and Master’s imagination, also took “Best of Show” at this year’s competition. And it almost never would have happened had Master not taken that route home from school that day and saw an advertisement for the Art Institute of Atlanta. “I’ve had all kinds of jobs,” the 69-year-old Mas

In all my fantasies of multi-million-dollar Lotto wins, in all my dreams of all the homes I'll buy -- one in a secluded lakeside cabin, another in a snowy Italian ski chalet and yet one more that kisses the white, foamy ocean in Key West, Florida, there remains a constant in the ever-changing scenery inside my mind. It still looks cooler than an iPad. Each place comes with a special room all to my own, with a large window to gaze at the lake, the mountains, the ocean or maybe nothing and everything. And in each room there will be a typewriter in the corner -- the black, manual Royal machine my wife bought me as a gift a few year's back. And just below the window, a desk with a computer and keyboard where I can sit and write. Even with all the millions in the bank, all the property owned, and no need to get up to an alarm or count down to retirement, there is one thing I can't give up -- the option to stare at a screen, and tap a keyboard that strings letters into

Jessica Herrera works on a pastel portrait of her father, who passed away six years ago. She said he was her biggest supporter and stood by her as she recovered from an illness that cut her military career short. BY GARY J. KUNICH She found her voice in her paintings and pastels, and silenced the other voices that filled her head with despair. Air Force Veteran Jessica Herrera, is the first place winner in the special recognition category at this year's National Veterans Creative Arts Festival for her portrait, “Trading in My Heels for Combat Boots." She said her artwork gave her life purpose after her military career was cut short because of schizophrenia. Herrera was 23 and stationed at Misawa Air Base, Japan, when it started back in 2004. At first, she couldn’t understand what was happening because it all seemed so real. “My whole family was proud of me for joining the Air Force, and they were excited for me,” she said. “I had a good time, made a lot of friend

At 91, George is our oldest veteran in this year's National Veterans Creative Arts Festival. BY GARY J. KUNICH “We were so young when we went off to war … none of us were heroes, we just did what we were told …” -        From the poem, “Veterans.” The young man who wrote those words has hair that long ago turned gray. A stroke a few months back slowed and slurred his speech, but come Sunday in Durham, North Carolina, he'll take his place on a stage he knows all too well. George Farr, 91, can be considered Veteran Performer Emeritus -- it’s his 12th year at the festival and he holds the distinction of being the oldest in the show. He’s been working hard at his speech therapy and other exercises to hold his own with the young whippersnappers in their 80s and younger. “I’m not walking as vigorously as I was. If I could run a marathon, I would. I know my speech is a little peculiar. The secret is to speak slow. But I’m ready. I’ve been looking forwar

Here's everything you need to know about the debate, start to finish, whether you watched it or not ... - Lincoln Chaffee should have come out dressed like Abe Lincoln. Bernie should have had crazy hair. - Who the hell are they waving at? Ain't nobody waving at them in the audience. They are doing that to make people watching THINK there are people waving at them. As in, "Oh, I wasn't going to vote for Hillary, but she's waving to people! She sure is friendly. I'm gonna vote for her ... " - The six presidential candidates: Martin O'Malley, Lincoln Chaffee, Hillary, Bernie, someone else and Sheryl Crow's hot leather pants. - Did you see Lincoln's eye twitch and almost explode when Sheryl hit that high note that wasn't quite right? Wait a second, was there a National Anthem before the Republican debate? - CNN's graphics have really gone downhill since their "War in the Gulf" stuff from Desert Storm. - Jim Webb is

Happy Ass-Hat Day! Or, as we like to call it in America, the great country he didn't discover, Columbus Day. This would be well and good if Chris did, indeed, sail the seas so blue in fourten-hundred-and-ninety-two to discover a new land. But if history is any indication, the guy we name parks and federal holidays after more or less stumbled upon some land he thought was something different ... and he was a supremo ass-hat. He wrote about enslaving, raping and killing hundreds, if not thousands, of people and even dismembering his own crew for insubordination. I don't remember any poems about that in elementary school, but in defense of white-washed history, it really is hard to find something that rhymes with "dismemberment." This is all very true. You can believe me, because I read it on Facebook today. As the story goes (and if you can't believe everything on Facebook, what can you believe?), Queen Isabella -- the real queen, not the future name of on