Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

At 70 years old, having lived mostly in sunny climates, I feel blessed to have only undergone two Mohs surgeries in my lifetime. I underwent the second Mohs Surgery on August 1, 2025. I am usually a calm patient who recovers quickly from both injuries and medical procedures. The one exception for me was the removal of a skin cancer on my left ear, in 2018. It was my first cancer scare of any sort. Ultimately, it involved 3 hours of surgery at the Medical University of South Carolina. Doctor Joel Cook, and his team were positively magnificent. Literally, half my ear was surgically removed. The healing process involved a few months of living and working as a history tour guide with a Van Gogh style bandage on my ear. The bandage had to be reapplied daily, after meticulous wound dressing. For six months I made bi-weekly four-hour round trips from home in Savannah, Georgia back to the clinic in Charleston, South Carolina. Eventually, I learned to enjoy those solitary trips alone with my thoughts, the silence of the miles across mysteriously beautiful low country, or rip-snorting across vast expanses of surreal salt marsh scenery set to a soundtrack of jazz and rock music. The entire ordeal left an indelible impression that art is long, and life is short.

So yesterday morning, as I lay on the table in the glare of a surgical lamp waiting for my doctor to begin my second Mohs surgery procedure, a dark wave of fear suddenly swept over me. I remembered the excruciating pain in my left ear when I woke up alone in a hotel room in Charleston. I recalled the bottle of oxycontin dancing like a femme fatale in a film noir flick on the nightstand a short reach away from a newly sober alcoholic and addict who had to just say no. I drove dark unfamiliar streets in pouring rain to find a drug store. A red neon sign flickered in a black puddle of a cold wet Sav On parking lot as I swallowed a fistful of uber strength Ibuprofen with a bottle of water I wished was full barrel of Irish Whisky.

The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, South Carolina

I thought about a school friend who bought my art calendars every year, visited me in Santa Monica a few short months ago, never uttered a word about his own desperate struggles, and just died of cancer. I thought about several Facebook friends in the midst of life and death battles with their own grave health challenges. I remembered Mom’s loving smile and the wave of her frail bony fist as she waved goodbye the last time I saw her alive. I thought of my feisty German Irish Pops coughing as he cheered for his beloved Pirates on a hospital TV as he lay dying from the same cancer that took Mom. Mom lived a wonderfully full life until the ripe old age of 91. Dad died at the tender age of 72. I turned 70 six months ago.

So I was naturally overjoyed when this time around, my Mohs procedure was a breeze. No additional cancer cells were discovered lurking in my tissue to wreak havoc later. I am delighted to report that this morning, I woke up at the crack of dawn to the love song of Mourning Doves in the pepper trees outside my bedroom window. After a steaming mug of French Roast or three, I felt chipper enough to strap on my trusty biker helmet, hop on my VEO scooter, roll along the cliffs above the Pacific Coast Highway to do my deal as an unofficial Route 66 Historian, greeting international travelers along the Mother Road at my weekend gig on Santa Monica Pier. So far today I’ve chatted up visitors from Shanghai, Barcelona, Rome, Moscow, a delightful mother-son duo from Austin, Texas, a pair of New Zealand farm folk astonished by vast and zany LA and itching to visit Venice Beach.

A New Dawn on Retro Canal on the sets of ABC's sitcom Blackish

As I recovered from surgery yesterday, I did some writing and thinking about my highs and lows as both a thriving and a starving artist for 40 years at my humble little studio adjacent to the historic Venice Canals. While digging for Venice related docs and pics tucked in half-forgotten files on my trusty Mac I chanced upon a folder that caught my attention. and brought back memories of my days in Georgia. Back in August, 2020, I flopped down exhausted but happy after a long day driving and narrating three 90-minute history tours in the sweltering Summer heat and humidity of Savannah. Out of the wild blue I got an email from a lady who discovered my artwork online and had a question. Her name was Destiny!

The email was titled: Artwork on ABC’s Blackish. The brief email read: “My name is Destiny and I am reaching out today because I came across your artwork and would love to feature it on the show. Please let me know if you are interested and I can go further in detail. Looking forward to hearing from you.” Naturally, I replied as fast as my pudgy fingers can type. In a few days, Destiny, and I reached a mutually satisfactory agreement. Just like that, I was humming the tune “Relax” by a band called Frankie goes to Hollywood. Live those dreams. Scheme those schemes Got to hit me, hit me, hit me with those laser beams.

Curiously, the two images Destiny used on the sets of Blackish were both prints of Venice Canal paintings I created in August1994. That memorable year, I often took long profoundly thoughtful strolls along the Venice Canals as my father slowly succumbed to cancer, which naturally inspired the two paintings. During this reflective and somber period, I painted during the day and walked at twilight when the canals were mostly silent but for the soothing rhythm of crickets, and gently rippling waters. Most of my works depict sunny landscapes. These were both night scenes, with a hint of setting sunlight.

Evening Light on. Retro Canal on the sets of Blackish

During this reflective time, every day, I read a bittersweet poem, Dylan Thomas wrote about his own father dying, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night." My Pops was a feisty German-Irish working class hero from Pittsburgh. He survived a broken home with an alcoholic dad who split during the Great Depression. He survived service to his country on a Navy battleship in the Pacific during Word War II. He survived 1984 working with me as his unruly apprentice in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. But Dad finally met his match in Cancer.

I feel there’s a certain symbolism in Destiny choosing two paintings inspired by my Dad’s passing to be immortalized or at least honored with an appearance on television. It also seems significant or at least curious that I was reminded of this life experience and the tale of two paintings while taking a day off to ponder my own minor encounters with cancer, and the tale of those two paintings. Having moved three times in the past ten years, twice cross country, it’s tricky keeping track of where things like art are stored now. Poking around in a closet I found both of the two framed prints from the Blackish sets which, I received as part of my deal with Destiny, when Blackish concluded their eight season run in April, 2022.

Now it is time to let them go. I’ll be putting them up for sale on my website in the next few days. If anyone is interested in owning one, or both of the framed prints. Feel free to reach out and we can negotiate a deal. Thanks again for all of your kind thoughts and prayers. In the end, I feel in the depth of my bones that my Dad did not go gentle into that good night.