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Like I wrote in my last post, I was in the Highlandtown area of Baltimore to attend Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, which is being held for the last time at the Creative Alliance. (The organizers have decided to look for a new venue for Dr. Sketchy’s and they are taking the summer off from running any new Dr. Sketchy’s events while making such a search.)
Since I don’t know if or when I’ll ever get to Highlandtown again, I decided to arrive to the area early so I could use the opportunity to simultaneously shoot enough footage for two new episodes of my ongoing web series The Baltimore-Washington, DC That Tourists Rarely See. The biggest challenge about going to Baltimore that day was the fact that the entire Baltimore-Washington DC region was on high alert for air quality due to the fact that the smoke from the Canadian wildfires had drifted southward. I had originally planned on making a full day excursion to Baltimore while shooting potential footage for my web series but I had to shorten it to just two hours before Dr. Sketchy’s began because of the smoke. There were times when I had to pause and cough while I was walking along the streets because the smoke had gotten bad.
So I ended up shooting two new episodes for my ongoing web series. One is devoted to the Frank Zappa Memorial, which I first wrote about last year.
You can see that video on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
The other episode I shot was about the historic Patterson Theater, which houses the Creative Alliance and, for the past few years, had also served as a venue for the Baltimore chapter of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School. I always thought that the Patterson Theater was a neat building so I shot some footage of both the exterior and interior of the theater. A few days later I did some online research about the place and learned about its very interesting history, which I thought would be perfect as an episode of my series. I uploaded that episode on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
I finally made my first trip to Baltimore in 2022. Sometimes life happens and it was one of those times when I didn’t make it to that city until I was almost halfway into the new year. I was there to attend my first Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School since last November. (I wasn’t able to make it to the others for many reasons that are too numerous to mention here.) I arrived in the Highlandtown area a bit early so I could leisurely walk around the area, where I took a few random pictures.
I stopped by the Frank Zappa Memorial, which is located outside of the Southeast Anchor Library. (Frank Zappa was born in Baltimore and he spent parts of his childhood in Maryland.)
The day was cloudy yet very mild in that it was neither too hot nor too cold. The days were also getting longer, which was nice. I discovered that the Southeast Anchor Library has a garden in the back of the building called the Reading Garden, which has benches and looks very inviting to the general public.
I decided to have a picnic dinner in the Reading Garden. I went to the Royal Farms store that was located around the corner from the garden where I ordered a fried chicken dinner for myself with a bottle of diet soda, walked back to the Reading Garden, and ate my dinner in the cloudy yet nice outdoor weather. After dinner I took a few more photos of the Reading Garden.
I have a feeling that buying fried chicken from Royal Farms and eating it in the Reading Garden will be a regular thing with me whenever I go to Highlandtown for the latest Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School event. At least it will be a regular thing with me when the weather is warm and it stays light outside much later. (There’s no way in hell I would do this in the winter.)
After dinner I went inside of the library where I did some web surfing using my smartphone. I found an area of the library that has a free charging station for laptops, smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices. That’s a good thing to know for future reference.
I basically stayed in the library until it was close to the starting time for Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School. I’ll provide more details about that event in my next entry.
Last November I decided to attend the Baltimore chapter of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School for the first time since December, 2017. I know it’s been a long time but tight finances got in the way. Thanks to my recent job at the Census Bureau I was able to afford to go to Baltimore.
Since my last appearance at that event Dr. Sketchy’s longtime venue The Wind-Up Space closed for good last year. The good news was that Dr. Sketchy’s found a new venue in a brand new neighborhood—Highlandtown.
My family used to go to Highlandtown about once or twice a year when I was growing up because there used to be this restaurant in that area known as Hausner’s. The family that owned that place had two big passions—food and art. Not only was the food excellent (I still have fond memories of when I used to eat hasenpfeffer) but every square inch of wall space was filled with a sculpture or painting of some kind. It was literally like dining in the middle of an art museum. I used to look everywhere while we were waiting for our meal to arrive because there was so much to look at.
I went to Hausner’s only twice as an adult. Once was when my then-husband and I went on a date early in our marriage (after I kept on telling him so much about Hausner’s that he was curious enough to see what it was like). The other time was when my husband and I went with a group of friends from our church congregation and they were all impressed with both the art and the food.
About a year or two after I went with my husband and friends to that restaurant, Hausner’s went out of business for good. It was a case of the current generation who was running the restaurant had gotten older and they were ready to retire but they couldn’t find anyone among the younger generation who were willing to take the business over so they closed it. If you want to get an idea of what you’ve missed, I suggest looking at the Wikipedia.
Getting back to the present, I decided to arrive in the area a few hours early since it has been so long since the last time I had even set foot in that area. I also took a bunch of photos of the area.
The next photo shows the new location of the Baltimore chapter of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School—the Creative Alliance, which makes it home in the historic Patterson Theater.
Since Dr. Sketchy’s wasn’t going to begin for the next few hours, I decided to just walk around the area while taking pictures. The one thing I noticed is that there is a number of murals, sculptures, and other types of art all around the area. I don’t remember Highlandtown being this artsy when my family used to go to Hausner’s.
There is even a portion of Eastern Avenue (which is one of the main thoroughfares through Highlandtown) named after the late Frank Zappa.
One of the murals is a giant map of the Highlandtown area.
I found this chicken-shaped mailbox outside of a Royal Farms store, which is appropriate since it serves up some really excellent fried chicken and western fries for prices starting at $6. In fact I purchased a chicken dinner box for myself at this store.
After I purchased my chicken dinner I walked around the area some more. I found the Southwest Anchor Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library. I decided to take a break from braving the cold outside (it was a typical cold November day in Baltimore) and check out the library.
I found it to be a pretty nice library. It had books (of course) but it also had a computer lab and STEM activities available for people of all ages.
There was an all-ages activity where people could draw special turkey hands. (I visited just a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving Day.)
The top level of the library had this really cool glass art suspended from the ceiling that also faced the windows.
The library also had an atrium on the lower level where people could eat and drink. I ate my Royal Farms chicken meal while I was there.
By the time I left the library the sun had set. I took a couple of photos of some Christmas lights that were strung across Eastern Avenue near the Patterson Theater.
I’m going to write my next blog post about Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School since I’ve already posted so many pictures here.
As everybody knows, today is Inauguration Day where Donald Trump gets officially sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. Rather than focus on that event, I’d rather talk about dolls instead.
First of all, I want to announce that I no longer own the Talking Donald Trump Action Figure.
I sold it last month on eBay. When I first purchased it years ago (which was sometime during either the first or second season of The Apprentice), I bought it as a gag gift for my then-husband. We both became hooked on that show because it was so hilarious and campy to watch. (This was a guy who was giving business advice on that show despite the fact that he had gone through multiple bankruptcies.) I figured that it was no big deal to buy a doll/action figure based on someone who was basically a buffoon but was essentially harmless as far as I was concerned. (Granted he wasn’t harmless to anyone who actually did business with him but to everyone else who had nothing to do with that guy, he was harmless.)
When my husband left me, he left the doll behind. It was no big deal because he was only 12 inches tall so I kept him among the other small dolls I own (such as Barbie, Volks Dollie Plus, Monster High and, Ever After High).
But then there was the initial flirtation of running for president back in 2011 and he did so by catering to the birthers who were questioning President Obama’s U.S. citizenship and contending that he was really born in Kenya. I felt that what he did was so reprehensible that I no longer could stand to watch his reality show after he decided against running and just continue with his reality TV career. I also began to ignore the doll. I would press the button in his back to hear him speak every now and then but I basically didn’t bother with it much.
When Trump decided to really run in the 2016 elections while saying horrible things that were racist, sexist, and anti-Islamic, I began to rue the day I actually bought that action figure as a gag gift. I finally decided to sell the doll on eBay because I just didn’t want it around my house anymore. I like dolls that make me feel happy and put me in a good mood and that Donald Trump action figure made me feel the opposite. I didn’t get a lot of money for the doll (I only had one bidder who was willing to pay the $20 minimum bid and I didn’t get that bid until the third and final week that I ran the auction) but I felt relieved to finally get it out of my house.
At least I’ll have these two videos to remember the doll by. The first is my “Trump” poem that I wrote for a local poetry reading event in 2011 and I later made a video featuring the Donald Trump doll. The other is my demonstration video of the Donald Trump doll that I made when I was preparing to sell it on eBay.
Now I’m going to switch gears a bit and talk some more about some other dolls that I have.
I recently came across this campaign on Instagram, known as #westandwithalldolls, where American Girl doll owners were urged to post pictures of their dolls (especially dolls of color) in solidarity with all women and minorities who are currently being maligned and even attacked by Donald Trump and his supporters. I chipped in with the cause by uploading pictures of my three American Girl dolls.
First, here’s Addy Walker holding a sign this quote from Martin Luther King.
“Again we have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifice. The fact is that capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor, both black and white, both here and abroad.”
Here’s Ivy Ling holding a sign with this quote from Confucius.
“To put the world right in order, we must put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.”
Even though the #westandwithalldolls campaign specifically requested that everyone post pictures of dolls of color, I decided to use my one white American Girl doll, Julie Albright, because I found this one quote from the late Frank Zappa that pretty much says it all about race relations, especially among whites who aren’t bigoted towards people of color or anyone else who’s different from them.
“Hey, you know something people? I’m not black. But there’s a whole lots of times I wish I could say I’m not white.”
I got that quote from the lyrics to the song “Trouble Every Day,” whose video you can watch below.
Here’s one group photo of all three of my dolls with their signs.
If you want to contribute to that Instagram campaign, or see all the photos that have been uploaded so far, check out the hashtag #westandwithalldolls.
A few months ago I sent this photo of a doll known as Piper Starling that I saw at Target to one of my friends on social media because she has a daughter named Piper.
More recently I saw the books that are part of a line that Disney has just put out about a group of girls known as Star Darlings. I noticed the authors of the books and I realized that they are the son and daughter-in-law of the late rock musician Frank Zappa. That’s cool! Maybe I check the books out of the library at some point and see if they are any good. I shot this book and sent it to my friend. If her daughter Piper ever finds out about the existence of both the book and the doll… (LOL!) 
Previous entries in the Occupy the Dollhouse series can be found right here.
The dolls and their allies continue their fight for equal justice for all by staging a die-in at American Girl Place.
A few American Girl dolls currently on sale decide to raise their hands in solidarity with the protesters.
This protest was one of many that have been taking place all over the United States as a protest against police killing unarmed African Americans. The largest one to date took place at the Mall of America (a.k.a. the biggest shopping mall in the United States) on the last Saturday before Christmas.
Earlier this year Davy Jones of The Monkees passed away at 66. A few months ago I featured a clip from The Monkees’ first and only movie Head that showcased Jones’ talent as a singer and dancer. I found a slightly longer version of the same video that features an appearance by Frank Zappa towards the end. So, once again, here’s Davy Jones’ performance of "Daddy’s Song."
The woman who is briefly seen dancing with Davy Jones in the above clip is Toni Basil, who would later gain her own fame for her only hit song "Mickey."
Sagittarius Dolly 
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