Let’s see, Rocky was a boxer who refused to fall down in his first championship fight, despite a terrific pounding, because he wanted to be the first ever to go the distance with Apollo Creed. Van Gogh was a painter who cut off part of his ear over a prostitute. Or for some other reason having to do with the demons in his head.

Rocky was a loser who wanted to prove himself. Then became a winner, for awhile, at least. Van Gogh was a loser who wanted to prove himself, and never did. Instead, in 1890, at the age of 37, he walked out into a field of wheat and shot himself in the chest with a revolver. And survived. Only to die of an infection caused by the wound 29 hours later.

Van Gogh’s final words, “The sadness will last forever.”

Then he became famous. While he was alive he sold one painting. Now his paintings sell for millions of dollars.

Van Gogh was real. Rocky was fiction created by Sylvester Stallone and vaguely based on the life of Chuck Wepner, a rugged white boxer, who once put Muhammad Ali on his ass.

When you think of Rocky you think of him bloody and battered and shouting, “Adrian.” Or you think of him with his arms raised at the top of the steps in front of The Philadelphia Museum of Art while the Rocky theme blares. When you think of Van Gogh, you think of tulips and thick gobs of paint, of color, and insane genius, and the incident with the ear. Rocky drank raw eggs. Van Gogh smoked a pipe.

And here’s the connection. Beginning on February 1st, you can walk up the steps that Rocky made famous, you can enter the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and you can find Vincent Van Gogh. Better yet, you can travel to Philadelphia with your friends and find Van Gogh together.

The Carroll County Arts Council is hosting a bus trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Thursday, April 19, 2012 to see “Van Gogh, Up Close.” So consider yourself duly warned in advance. You don’t want to miss it.

The exhibit includes over 40 Van Gogh landscapes, flowers and still lifes painted during his last five years. Here’s what the Philadelphia Museum of Art has to say about Van Gogh, Up Close.

Vincent van Gogh was an artist of exceptional intensity, not only in his use of color and exuberant application of paint, but also in his personal life. Drawn powerfully to nature, his works–particularly those created in the years just before he took his own life–engage the viewer with the strength of his emotions. This exhibition focuses on these tumultuous years, a period of feverish artistic experimentation that began when van Gogh left Antwerp for Paris in 1886 and continued until his death in Auvers in 1890.

Radically altering and often outright abandoning traditional painting techniques, van Gogh created still lifes and landscapes unlike anything that had ever been seen before. He experimented with depth of field and focus. He used shifting perspectives and brought familiar objects “up close” into the foreground. And he produced some of the most original works of his career; works that dramatically altered the course of modern painting.

Through some 40 masterpieces borrowed from collections around the world, Van Gogh Up Close is the first exhibition to explore the reasons and means by which this impassioned artist made such unusual changes to his painting style in the final years of his life.

They don’t talk that way about Rocky.

You can take in the exhibit at your own pace with an audio tour, and you’ll have time to tour the rest of the museum and eat lunch before heading back to Carroll County. Be sure to pose on the steps. Maybe you’ll run into Rocky.

For more information, contact:  Susan Williamson – Susan@CarrollCountyArtsCouncil.org – 410/848-7272.

Oh yeah, the bus leaves Westminster at 8 am and returns at 5:00 pm. Advance reservations are required. Tickets are $65 or $60 for Arts Council Members & Seniors. The price includes motor coach transportation, museum admission, audio tour, light snack and driver gratuity.

Can you really sing about peas and get away with it? Sarah Palin yes, but peas? Well Tom Chapin intends to try. He’s coming to sing for us.

He’s the brother of the famous Harry Chapin, who died over 30 years ago. Tom’s coming to Westminster at the Carroll Arts Center on January 7 from 8 to 10.

Oh, that’s 2012, by the way. And pm.

Like his brother, Tom Chapin cares about things, like feeding people, and has a new album called Give Peas a Chance.

Well, okay, Tom. But I draw the line at lima beans.

Oh, he has a message for Sarah Palin. It’s funny, but you know, she just won’t listen.

Imagine an album described this way.

14 brand new songs about Good Food and the Green Earth,
including locally grown and eaten food, Farmer’s Markets,
school lunches, the joy of slow food, junk food, picky eating,
home gardening, honey bees, the food chain, hunger.

So Give Peas a Chance is sort of a concept album.

Here’s young Harry Chapin singing his greatest song a long time ago.

You see, she was gonna be an actress
And I was gonna learn to fly.
She took off to find the footlights,
And I took off for the sky.
And here, she’s acting happy,
Inside her handsome home.
And me, I’m flying in my taxi,
Taking tips, and getting stoned,
I go flying so high, when I’m stoned.

Harry Chapin died in 1981. He was in a car wreck, possibly caused by a fatal heart attack.

As you know this blog is the Sykesville Snallygaster. So I wanted to do one more blog post to round out the day, and my Facebook stream had a link to Maryland Magazine, and I clicked it and started reading about a couple guys who created something called “The Swinging Bridge,” when suddenly I noticed some small print that said, “Beware the Snallygaster.”

I thought, holy smokes, how do they know I’m here? This is so weird. But they didn’t. It turns out that the Snallygaster is a Frederick thing, and I had just clicked a link to a story about it in Maryland Life Magazine. Well, not necessarily a story about the Snallygaster, but a story about someone who had written a story about someone who was trying to get to the bottom of the story of the Snallygaster. I think, but here, you decide for yourself.

The article starts this way:

For generations, the people of Middletown Valley have told tales of the Snallygaster – a mysterious creature that dwells deep in the caves of South Mountain. Some say it’s a myth. Some say it’s real. But this Halloween, best friends Holly and Peter are finally going to get to the truth behind the legend…if it doesn’t get to them first!

In Beware, the Snallygaster, a children’s chapter book by Patrick Boyton, eleven year-old Middletown Middle School students Holly Cooper and Peter Henderson work to uncover the mystery of a giant winged creature reportedly sighted in their small town. Although Boyton’s Halloween storybook is entirely fictional, the author has spent many years researching the very real history and folklore of Maryland’s Snallygaster monster.

I was also shocked to read this:

Just in time for Halloween, Beware, the Snallygaster is available for loan at all Frederick County Public Libraries, and for purchase at Snallygaster Gifts in Middletown and Turn the Page in Boonsboro. It can also be ordered online at Amazon.com.

Snallygaster Gifts? Wow. What kind of gift would you give the Snallygaster. And are there more than one Snallygasters? Well, I think, I hope, the answers might lie here: http://bewarethesnallygaster.wordpress.com.

When Brian Rayford took some picture’s for our article on James Sykes he told me that he’s tried, but he’s never gotten the timing just right. Oh, I’d asked him if he’d ever caught a train going through the tunnel to Sykesville. You know the tunnel, right, the old one with the missing letters in the name of the town?

Well, just a few days later, he got it, man.

Rayford lives on Kalorama in Sykesville and runs M5Signs. They make signs. Among other things. And Brian takes pictures of trains. Among other things. You can see a couple more at Sykesville Online, but these are my favorites.

How’s that sound? Are you one of them? Actually they’re not, as far as I know. Disappearing that is. It’s a fairy tale, you see, sort of, and set in Sykesville.

And better yet, the author was born in Philly, always a plus, but she grew up here. Her name is Sang Kromah. She’s got her own dark and beautiful website, she’s got her own blog, she’s got her own book. She’s got her own look.

The Book’s called “Concealed.” It’s intended for young adults, and like the Snallygaster, it’s dark, and it does indeed take place in Sykesville.

The Barnes & Noble website describes it this way:

Kromah stages the story in modern-day Sykesville, Maryland in a quiet suburb. She weaves an account of an unusual sixteen-year-old orphan, Bijou Fitzroy, and the dark world of the Djinn that normal human eyes cannot see. Bijou is different, however, with an intuition that lets her feel other’s emotions and eyes so unusual that they make many uneasy to meet her gaze.

Upon Bijou’s arrival in the sleepy town of Sykesville with her nomadic grandmother, the local inhabitants begin disappearing. Bijou also has dreams at night of a mysterious faceless boy. Gradually, her true identity is revealed and she finds herself at the center of a war that she never knew was being fought.

Did you get that part? The local inhabitants start disappearing. Cool! Although I wouldn’t necessarily describe Sykesville as sleepy (then again, if you’ve ever walked down Main Street on a late Saturday night), but there are definitely some inhabitants I wish would disappear.

Kromah, who attended Sykesville Middle, has unfortunately also disappeared. From Sykesville that is. She lives in New York now and sounds like someone who’s probably going to stay there. You can learn more about her at the Eldersburg Patch site where she says:

In seventh grade I had a Language Arts teacher at Sykesville Middle School, who encouraged me so much and I think that’s when I knew that I could actually become a writer, because someone who wasn’t related to me believed in me almost as much as my Mom did.

From sleepy Sykesville Middle School to New York.

Okay, so it’s summer, the kids are bored, maybe driving you nuts. What’s that have to do with this dude and the balloon?

Well the balloon has a mind, you see. Still not getting it?

Okay, then you need to be at Carroll Arts Center Wednesday, July 27 at 10:30 am or 1 pm. where they’ll introduce you to “The Miraculous Magical Balloon.”

It’s a play, you see, by the Synetic Theatre Company, which is a professional pantomime troupe. And how often do you see one of those?

Now as far as the balloon, I’m pretty sure it’s a real balloon, not an actor, but the thing is, the balloon can think. Which is odd. And your kids might think this is entertaining. You might, too.

Tickets are $8 for adults and $6 for CCAC Members, Students Under 18 and Seniors 60+. For more information, or to purchase tickets in advance with a credit card, call 410/848-7272 or visit www.CarrollCountyArtsCouncil.org

The Carroll Arts Center is located at 91 West Main Street in downtown Westminster.

So who’s heard of Joey Dundore? Or Mr. Dundore, as my daughter calls him. Well, he teaches music at Piney Ridge Elementary and he’s got a rock band, I mean rock orchestra, and they’ll be at Century High this Saturday, June 11th from 7 to 9. (Don’t show up at 7 a.m. now.)

Yep, the Joey D Cares Rock Orchestra is finally coming to Eldersburg. And my word, do they sound like Chicago, or what?

They have a CD coming out, which is why they’re putting on the show, but they’re not trying to get rich. In fact their main purpose is to raise money for charity, and in the case of this show, the charity is the Joe D Cares Rock Orchestra. They need equipment.

The band includes 35 students from Piney Ridge Elementary, Sykesville Middle, Oklahoma Road Middle, and Liberty High.

If you want to talk to Joey D himself, you can email him, right here: jrdundo@carrollk12.org

And oh, Joey D can dance. Check out his audition for America’s Got Talent. Sadly, he wasn’t chosen.

He plays even better when he’s not dancing.

Teenagers Crossfire recently recorded a nice video in Sykesville, but they’re not the first. Oh no. That honor goes to Claude Jones, who way back when, wearing a cowboy hat and a big mustache, recorded “Sykesville.” And boy is it fun. There sure weren’t no Baldwin’s station in those days.

Let the cold wind blow, now let the cold wind blow
When you ain’t got nothing. You ain’t got nothing at all.
They took me out to Sykesville. They put me in a cage.

Now Claude isn’t actually a guy, he’s a band, and they recorded Sykesville for Sweet Breeze records.

Check out their site and photo gallery. Alas, no more shots of Sykesville.

It might be a little early to get excited about this, but if you like sculptures, or wood carvings, or whatever the heck this is, of men with green eyes, bow ties, and birds on their tongues, then I’ve got good news.

It’s coming to Westminster. The show’s called “The Art is Inside You.” But actually, the art will be inside the Tevis Gallery at the Carroll Arts Center from June 17 through August 13. (Like I said, I’m a little early, but I just really wanted to get that picture on the blog.)

Here’s the contact stuff: Susan Williamson, Susan@CarrollCountyArtsCouncil.org, 410/848-7272.

Did I mention it was visionary art? And did you just say, “What the heck is visionary art?”

Well, the guy with the bow tie is an example. Basically it’s art that includes guys with bow ties and birds on their tongues. No, I’m being stupid. Actually, if you want a definition, you can travel on over to the awesome American Visionary Art Museum website (the museum is in Baltimore, which you knew, right?) where they will tell you this about visionary art:

Like love, you know it when you see it. But here’s the longer definition, straight out of our Mission Statement: “Visionary art as defined for the purposes of the American Visionary Art Museum refers to art produced by self-taught individuals, usually without formal training, whose works arise from an innate personal vision that revels foremost in the creative act itself.” In short, visionary art begins by listening to the inner voices of the soul, and often may not even be thought of as ‘art’ by its creator.

Did that help? Here’s what the Carroll Arts Council says.

Visionary artists are generally self-taught without formal training but they can be trained artists as well. These artists find inspiration from mystical, magical and spiritual experiences, mythological symbols and a profound sense of the creative act. Visionary art is deeply imaginative and comes from a place deep inside the soul of the artist.

Oh come on. It’s just fun, weird, funny, strange, sometimes terrible, sometimes great, stuff.

Here’s the artist list.

Joel Cohen, Baltimore, MD; Danny Doughty, Cambridge, MD; David Evans, Taneytown, MD; Brian Dowdall, South Carolina; Tim McAvoy, Buffalo, NY; Joyce Ritz, Cambridge, MD; Tom Steck, Fallston, MD and more.

The bird-on-tongue guy is by Tom Steck.

There’s going to be a murder at Baldwin’s Station. Trust me. I see the future, and I definitely see dead people at Baldwin’s Station in Sykesville. Or at least one.

Weird, huh? I know exactly when it’s happening, too.

Someone will die sometime after 7 p.m. on Friday, April 29. Maybe even with this knife, but I’m fuzzy on that part.

And you can watch it happen. Seriously. Here’s the evidence. And if you want more, call this number, 410-795-1041, but don’t mention my name.