Pimp That Bird Home, by Corby Anderson

Seeing his construction business go haltingly from hectic to listless, the veteran contractor surveyed the still-vibrant Carmel art scene, and after seeing a high priced, shoddily crafted bird house passed off as Victorianesque, quickly realized that the skills which had allowed him to build showcase homes all over the nation could be useful on a much more intimate scale. And – bonus- it would get him out of the house, where he fidgeted so.

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Inside the new Pebble Beach: The Official Golf History by Neal Hotelling.

Arnold Palmer writes the foreword and tells of his legendary 1967 quadruple bogey, when he cursed, in all ways, a tree that stymied his attempt to keep up with Jack Nicklaus – that very same tree which Arney had hit with his ball not once, but twice earlier in the day – fell down in a furious storm during the night.

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The Grass is Always Greener for This Sharp Entrepreneur

On the corner lot of a once-pleasant, palm-studded neighborhood in East Salinas, an ash-colored tabby steps furtively across a dead and prickly lawn. Crouched low, triggered to pounce, he advances across a minefield of rotten newspaper bundles until he finds his prey. There, shaded from a vengeful sun by the T of a realtor’s cross, the four-legged feline vulture scrapes his raspy tongue across the carcass of a half-consumed lollipop.

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The Lady in the Locker Room: Flo Snyder Helped the Dodgers take to Los Angeles, and helped to break down baseball’s gender barrier

“It was just a different time. I’ve often wondered, ‘Do these guys have fun like we did in the good old days? Would they dare do to a secretary what they did to me?’

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Sparky’s Taps Pacific Grove Roots (mcw 9/09)

The rendezvous was an ominous one, straight out of a corporate espionage novel, Carol recounts. “It was a cold, dark, foggy night. We met in Compagno’s parking lot,” she says. “Danny took one sip and put the cap in his pocket. Then his eyes bugged out, and he turned up the whole 22-ounce bottle of Sparky’s and chugged it down. I thought, I guess he likes it!”

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Three Strange But True Real-World Dramas Play Out on Local Football Fields (mcw 9/09)

Football players are often unfairly mischaracterized as lumbering oafs. But one local plus-sized player is proof positive that his helmet is filled with potent synapses.

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When Roller Hockey Don’t Cut It, Don’t Let Fun Die – Diversify!

For the sleepless, disillusioned droves of would-be entrepreneurs who fear that the American Dream has morphed into some sort of bleak Kafkaesque corporate nightmare, affirmation can be found holding a hockey stick on an abandoned military base.

Mark Tanous, proprietor of Water City Roller Hockey and art minded hockey czar of the Monterey Peninsula, isn’t letting rough times force him to give up the dream that led him here in 1994. He’s merely adjusting it to include more players.

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Ranger Chuck Bancroft – The Watchful Ranger Who Never Left Point Lobos

Enter into his office, a small, simple building just inside the gates of the Preserve, and it is quickly evident that there is more to this Ranger than just maps and ticket books. A stuffed squirrel peaks out over top of his computer monitor, stalked by a hovering Osprey (similarly stuffed) and a Turkey Vulture. You are just as likely to find a first edition John Muir “Mountains of California” field guide as to find a Photoshop manual on his book shelve, fronted by a cartoonish mushroom and an Indiana Jones action figure. An inscription on an award that was presented to him in 2001 for being the Most Valuable Employee sums up Ranger Chuck perfectly. He is “the old time ranger that embraced the computer age”.

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The Unknown Legend of Captain Lingcod: David Allan’s Golden California

The ultra-blue waters off of Big Sur are bitterly frigid, rock strewn, difficult to access and unforgiving to those who do. They are also the place where David Allan goes to play and work. For eight months a year during fishing season, rain or shine, Captain Lingcod slogs his small steel skiff and all of his fishing tackle and bait overhead, Marine style, down the leg-breaking rocks of various Big Sur beaches and out into the ocean, where he rides out 15” + waves in gale winds, fishing for Rock Cod. “Some people say that we’re crazy!” Allan says. “I’ve been out in storm force, hurricane conditions. It’s wild, exciting.”

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Lord Toph: The Enigmatic Balance

The enigmatic balance: Darkness and illumination teeter in the works of the mysterious Lord Toph
By Corby Anderson
Monterey County Weekly
831 Section
2-27-09

In the old, arching stone-walled dining room tucked into the back of the Sardine Factory, Lord Toph snacks on an exquisite meal of battered squid and red wine. A candelabra flickers dim light at the end of the long table. Off in the bar, a pianist takes on Hotel California with unsettling timing.

He wants to take the wait staff home with him. People say cute things like this all of the time, but when Lord Toph says this in his mesmorizingly sensuous, hinting tone, one gets the sense that he might really mean it. A noted, prolific painter whose works are currently showing in Carmel, and popular Gothic musician and video director with hits piling up on Youtube and in the Underground music movement, Lord Toph the artist is ever more intriguing due to the fact Lord Toph, the person may, in fact, be a Vampire.

While he will not publicly discuss the obvious question as to whether or not he is indeed a Vampire, there are distinct aspects of his persona- his dark, Victorian era look, his revealing lyrics, and his admission of a sensitive condition that dictates that he “feed” on fresh blood, which indicate that this may well be the case. Because of his official vagueness on the subject, the real question with Lord Toph is where does the image end, and reality take hold?

His face reflects on the glass of the old Sea Captains painting that looms over the long, oaken table, and he does seem to be abnormally long in the tooth, nor does he repel at the presence of a steaming cauldron of garlic soaked snails that sit before him. But listen to the lyrics in his music, watch his videos, lull to the methodical pace of his voice and catch a certain glimmer in his eye in the low light, and the line between fantasy and reality begins to blur.

There is something altogether eerie about Lord Toph, an anomalous energy that one does not come across very often. He is calm and happy seeming (though not much of a grinner), while at once emitting neck hair singeing psychic queries to all around him. For seers who can pick up on such things, his aura takes on the form of an anti-aircraft barrage.

Lord Toph is a tall, elegantly attired (black on black suit coat, silk shirt, trousers) classicist who looks mildly like Jimi Hendrix from up close, and equal parts Prince and Martin Lawrence from afar. His art is multi-faceted, accomplished, and undeniably prolific. As a painter, his work covers ten careers worth of skill attainment along the gamut of Impressionism, Expressionism, and Cubist Abstractionism. His style is wide-ranging, curiously familiar, and yet original. He covers artistic styles attributed to many of the classics: Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet in borderline derivative similarity, except that he masters each style in such a way that it is impossible to ignore his overall talents and literal accomplishments. They are considered Masters because of the difficulty of their achievements within their particular style, whereas Lord Toph seems facile in his ability to straddle each style with equal prodigiousness.

Much of his painting is very bright and vividly colored, which is in direct contrast to the surreal, haunting dreamscapes of his music and the music videos that he produces. As a Gothic musician, Lord Toph is considered to be a burgeoning force, on the same early ascendancy as crossover successes such as Marilyn Manson, NIN, and the Cure. He is gifted with a knack for creating foreboding atmospheric soundscapes perpetuated with fear-seeding instruments that grind on under severe lyrics. Themes emerge of pervasively dark, forbidden passion, betrayal, and monstrous revenge. “The Vnbelievable” [sic] is his latest song and video creation. The title alludes to the unbelievably violent Jack the Ripper being stalked and dealt with by an even more unbelievable creature, one who cannot stand to see the victims sensuous beauty, and even more importantly, precious blood, wasted. “It is very filmic, grainy. Black and white. It shift between Jack the Ripper’s time and the current time, and you get the sense that this unbelievable (protagonist) is from both times. It is a great video.” He says with confidence. Watch enough Lord Toph on Youtube, and you start to get the idea that he is deeper into his genre than mere fetish. There is now a consistent canon of work to draw on for conclusions to be made about his artistic, and personal persuasions. Legitimacy begins to emerge from the shadow of doubt.

While he declines to publicly discuss much of his personal life, he lets on that he resides primarily in upstate New York, and that his legal name has been changed to Lord Toph, a name that originates from a title that he has been bestowed with. (By whom is not revealed) Along with working on his new music video and doing some writing, one of the reasons why Lord Toph is here is to visit the White Rabbit Gallery in Carmel, which currently displays and sells a collection of his paintings. He is also seeking a fine art representative who will expose his works to major collectors.

Don Herron is a local artist who works in the space that once barely contained the creative madness of Salvador Dali in the 40’s, and also co-owns the White Rabbit, which doubles as a gallery for his own Alice in Wonderland themed artwork. Herron thinks that the distinction between Lord Toph’s outwardly dark persona and fog-bound music and the levity and brightness of his artwork is artistic balance. “Dark personalities don’t necessarily want to make dark art.” He says, explaining that as artists mature, they often work in opposites. He believes that the multiple worlds of Lord Toph collide at the concept of Romance. “Goth came out of the Romantic Era. The artists were responding to nature, which was interpreted in a much more scary way at the time.”

*See Lord Toph’s artwork at the White Rabbit Design Studio in Carmel – Ocean Ave @ Monte Verde St.
(behind Portabella restaurant). 
(831) 624-5665, or online at www.thewhiterabbit.net. Lord Toph’s music videos, including the just released Vnbelievable can be seen on Youtube.com by searching for his name, and also at myspace.com/lordtoph.

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