The Rollout (2020). Acrylic and ink on paper. From my book, Another Political Bestiary, available at Amazon Books. Artwork and text copyright Danny Grosso.
Continuing the expeditions of Jeff MacNelly, James Kilpatrick, and Eugene McCarthy, with apologies.
The Rollout
Wide but severely contained; prone to colorful language, but lacking intellectual depth, the Rollout is often conceived in fertile seasons when policy wonks become aroused by blooms of receptive political polling data. It is often presented to society with much fanfare – a savior baby befitting visitation by rich men, mostly lobbyists. Its uncoiling during its lifetime provides the illusion of length, but the Rollout is finite, short lived and stunted, a pale impression of what is to come. Indeed, this first blush of impression is often so misleading that Rollouts are mocked with the passing of time: think healthcare in 1993, or infrastructure week in some recent years.
-Danny Grosso
Instagram @artispolitics
My Amazon author’s page: amazon.com/author/dannygrosso
Spanish Avenue (2020). Acrylic on board. From my book Out in the Street, available at Amazon Books. Artwork and text copyright Danny Grosso.
Latin lovers flash in and out of the doorways in open shirts and Cuban heels. The place reeks of food and bad-girl perfume and when the sun sets everything just gets more pungent. The subtle messages here now resound against the colors of the neon and the setting sun. Love and hate, the staccato stutter of the signage, and the glint of stiletto metal. Someone calls across the gangway in a stifled moan. Not a victim of violence, it is the ache of longing, across the ages. The Italians and Puerto Ricans that live here understand it without regard to language. It is the lament of existence borne of the choices we all make and the ones we don’t. You love who you love. Can’t stop that. Love and hate beckon from opposite sides of the avenue and yet we ride up the middle, in the danger zone, where we’ll likely be run over.
At night the windows open and the moaning continues, in chorus now – those who chose to deny their love, and those who chose not to. A concert choir’s nightly rendition of dissonant voices, finding harmony, somehow, in the space between love and hate.
-Danny Grosso
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Paris (2021). Acrylic on mounted photographic print. From my book Holograms and Long Tweeds, available at Amazon Books.
Excerpt: The technology introduced itself, unannounced, and soon everyone was floating above the city. In time, the tech was outlawed among civilians, but the authorities kept it and refined it, and there were cops and federal agents flying about like pigeons.
The company that had perfected the anti-gravity implant that had enabled the floaters was rumored to be Chinese, but there was no way for civilians to know that for sure. The corporations that made the stuff that makes the world had gotten so big over the first half of the 21st century that the influence that all garnered bought them a lot of secrecy, and government complicity. They really had to pose a danger to order, not safety, but order, to generate adverse regulation. The floaters peering into the windows of the ivory towers accomplished the fear of disorder, and besides, governments would become the biggest consumers of this technology anyway, so the regulation, or the deal, was implemented.
But for a few weeks in between, the life above the rooftops was wonderful.
From my story Paris, from my book Holograms and Long Tweeds.
My amazon author’s page: amazon.com/author/dannygrosso
Koni (2022). Acrylic on wood. From my book, Holograms and Long Tweeds, available at Amazon Books. Artwork and text copyright Danny Grosso.
Excerpt: Blink. That’s what the light did, blink, the one that was supposed to remain steady. Also, it was red, not green, which meant that this alternate powered vehicle was not starting up again any time soon.
They called this the neon district, because a century and a half ago it had gas-illuminated tubes announcing the identities of shopkeepers. Now the lights were new energy, and blanketed the night streets with color. As he exited the vehicle, the pallor changed from violet to orange. The chip in his hand had signaled is favorite color. The mist in the air from the passing showers gave the district some extra humidity, and the cafeteria to his left seeped its cold moisture onto the window panes. It had been doing so for a while, it seemed – some of the sludge had greened.
He crept out slowly. Modern vehicles didn’t give out meekly, and this could be a trap. His reinforced collar was up to protect against a neck attack. and he had some jacket plates, but he knew how many vulnerable targets he presented on his person, especially to some of the new micro weaponry. At least he wouldn’t feel it – they say the jab was so small, the victims are unaware of the wounding.
Around him swam the iridescent babyflies and vapor gauzes, products of climate-driven rapid evolution. His grandfather, negotiating these same streets, would never have known these beings. He’d turned and scanned enough now, and stepping forward, he heard a crash. From his quick-held crouch, he saw that the noise was one the old man might have recognized. And old metal can crashing onto the pavement. Most of those receptacles had been long ago confiscated for upselling. He rose and stepped out, into the wet, into the steam, into the colored lights that went tangerine as he passed.
So much had changed since the old man’s days here, yet, like the geezer, he still carried a hand-held weapon. He grabbed it from its holster at the small of his back, and ducked into a dark alley. At the end of it was a door the color of a verdant meadow, like the natural spaces that once thrived outside of the city. It was lit by a single light cell, so that the base of the door was obscured, but he could make out a figure laying low on the landing. Now his weapon pulled him along. Making his way forward against a black painted wall, stepping and re-setting, one foot forward and then the other pulled even, he made a slow approach. Perhaps a bit too slow.
When he reached the doorway, the figure had disappeared, as often happened in this time of disappearances, holographic, and otherwise. He only hoped that the men that now appeared in the darkness behind him would have the same unsatisfactory visual experience.
–Danny Grosso
Excerpted from my story, Blink, from my book, Holograms and Long Tweeds.
My Amazon author’s page: amazon.com/author/dannygrosso
From the Dream (2014). Oil on canvas. Artwork and text copyright Danny Grosso. From my book, Holograms and Long Tweeds, available at Amazon Books.
Excerpt: We passed through some thing, or just were dragged into this low altitude somehow. Either way, everything changed, perspective-wise, meaning the way we saw things, or what we saw. I still can’t tell. We went in low across a flat beach, where three identical beings, humanoid, I think, were running beneath us. Coats, hair, trot, everything matched. I made me wonder whether I had seen only one of them, and that the atmosphere had done the rest, faceting and kaleidoscoping the one into three, or more, really, I couldn’t see what was coming up behind them. The light was Vegas bright, and it was really quite beautiful for a moment, but then…
I couldn’t tell if they were running from or to something. Also, they were running close to the speed of our craft, which was impossible for any being we’ve ever encountered. Beneath our craft, where our shadow should have enveloped the turquoise shimmer in darkness, the shadow instead, almost transparent, portrayed a huge humanoid being, long and skinny, winged and gliding along behind the runners. There was a curved bank up ahead crowned by some greenery, and we determined to head out for that but the target never got any nearer, while the same scene below played out as if in a loop. “Punch it Freddy, ” I said to my crewmate, and he said he did, but nothing changed, though suddenly he sang out the lyrics to an ancient song about all reality emanating from some guy’s dreams. I was looking around for another reference point in the distance, and finding none, I let my gaze sink to the winged shadow beneath us. Its pinions were moving now, but instead of proceeding ahead of us the shadow seemed to be moving higher, growing as it got closer to us. I hit the synthporter and was placed for a few safe seconds in the app, down among the runners. They were really moving, the wind in my face was g-force. I looked up to see that there was nothing between our triangular vessel and the beach. And then I was back up there again. In my seat the vista ahead was tranquil, even as a golden light enveloped the scene. It turned white after a moment, and erased everything before us. We were suspended for a few seconds, like an old time bomber among the clouds.
A second later we were back in orbit outside of the rock’s atmosphere. I couldn’t tell if I had been asleep, Fred didn’t know either, regarding either of us. I was left bewildered, but with the inexplicable desire to head for darkness, in one of the inner chambers, to ruminate. I remembered Fred’s singing, “From the dream… comes the vision…”. Perhaps something must come from this moment.
–Danny Grosso
Instagram @artispolitics
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Untitled (2010). Charcoal on Board. From my book Club Kids. Available at Amazon Books. Artwork and text copyright Danny Grosso.
The pros, they would make it look like ballet; all about the line, you know. Each time you stole a glance over there it would look like a Skrebneski photo – the arabesques and flourishes completely in balance, the look so classic it seemed to be rendered in black and white. Under the gaze of amateurs they moved confidently, measured even in facial expression, dressed professionally, pure poise. They generally were partners in life in some other way, this kind of symbiosis develops only through shared experienced and some affection, and they came and left together, often in mystery. One might reasonably think that, in the morning, they gathered their things and went to the museum, searching for Bernini sculptures upon which to model their movements. Gazing upon the marble they’d posit their ultimate destiny. Perhaps their memorials would be carved in stone and, if they’d deliberated in the mirror and chosen the right pose, the piece would be celebratory. The hard thump of House Music might be piped into the mausoleum, a perfect Skrebneski-esque counterbalance to the soft touch and beautiful line of their time together.
-Danny Grosso
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Donegal Blanket (2022). cut paper and acrylic paint. From the book Barefoot and Other Stories, available at Amazon Books. Artwork and text copyright Danny Grosso.
The thing was so big he thought he could wrap it around himself twice. Indeed, he was glad the belt had extra length to accommodate the bulk of crumpled fabric when he tied it at his waist. Like a giant robe, or a great donegal tweed blanket, the thing enveloped him, and carved out a new shape to be set against the silver clouds of winter. “If we get lost on the Great Plains, we could make that thing into a teepee,” she said, upon seeing him drape himself in the thing for this first time. It was true that it was oversized, and maybe even ostentatious, with its wide lapels and near-duster length, but it fit well over the layers he wore in winter as he slogged through his day in the city. A dressed up warming device, was how he thought of it, and he wore it often, even while he was looking for a salt and pepper cap to pair with it. When, after disrobing, he threw it onto a sofa, it made a substantial sound that he quite liked, as if the noise attested to his accomplishment of undergirding that woolen mantle all day. He often had to wear it over a suit but he secretly liked it best when he could wear it over thick, dark sweaters and jeans that were tucked into his black, 18 eye Dr. Martens. On those nights you could see him running through the alleys, sloshing through the snow, those long coat tails aloft behind him like some great speckled bird.
-Danny Grosso
Instagram @artispolitics
Buy books! My Amazon author’s page: amazon.com/author/dannygrosso
Untitled (State Street, 2007). Oil on canvas. Artwork and text copyright Danny Grosso. From my book, Out in the Street, available at Amazon Books.
In the springtime, the afternoon shadows would conspire with the lake breeze to divide State Street in two, with the shady side ten degrees colder. Prematurely optimistic girls in airy white blouses would navigate the hot-cold, hot-cold walk to the train beside guys in leather jackets, bundled up for the shadows and bounding out of the alleys. The boisterousness of the season would get the best of some of them, and they’d jump around on parked cars like children on playground sets. Unwittingly, they were creating diversions for the real shadow people of the city, who were filling white vans with burgled goods in quiet, workmanlike fashion. They’d finish quickly and dissolve into traffic, losing themselves within another hundred white vans, chasing the sunset down the Kennedy.
-Danny Grosso
Instagram @artispolitics
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Glare (2012). Watercolor on paper. From my book, Opening Acts and Other Stories, available at Amazon Books.
Excerpt – Happens every year. That first sunny and warm day in February, that false spring, is the one that captivates enough to distract everyone from the reality that this thaw is fleeting. Office workers head to lunch in shirtsleeves.College boys run to class in shorts.Dapper men of ambiguous means, unwilling to disrobe, unbutton their topcoats as they make thier rounds.
Carlo turned from an alleyway onto the sidewalk.The sun coming from the west blinded him. This happens often when a city’s street grid lines up just so. But no one ever gets used to the several seconds of sightlessness and glare, all while moving with and against the flow of pedestrian traffic. Shoulders bounce off one another, folded umbrelas get caught in briefcase handles, packages get knocked to the pavement.Sunglesses might help, but Carlo won’t wear them because they hide his green eyes. Of ambiguous utility is the shield of the gloved hand, which just exposes the elbow, and a strangers head, to damage. Still, the sun is welcomed in winter by everyone, and some tempt fate by closing their eyes and tilting their heads up, as if to catch a quick walking tan.
Carlo had only taken a few steps from the alley, so he was still blind when he heard the POP!
It was a backfire, some old car, but Carlo was jumpy. He’d had threats all week from the family of his ex. Now he remembered how one of her brothers used to make a sound like that backfire in grade school, by stomping on a closed but empty carton of cafeteria milk.
Carlo had started up with her for the same reason he chased the others – blinded by beauty. She was a stunner. He disregarded the instant notion that the exit from this one might be a little sticky. In addition to her clinginess, he has been shilling for the legit side of a guy that was opposed to her family, and her brothers knew this. Could get ugly.
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