douglas brent smith

  87th Street, Oak Lawn, IL For a little while, I lived in Oak Lawn, IL. This picture is probably from right after I moved in. I had a small room with a single bed, a black and white TV that relied on its built-in antenna for coverage, a Fender Vibrosonic amplifier (one powerful 15 inch speaker), a borrowed Fender Telecaster, and for some reason a cat carrier. Oh, and a top hat. Not much else. Wonderful things happened in the short six months that I lived in the Chicago area for the first time. Weird things, too. Wait -- this could not have been right after I moved in because I painted that painting on the wall in that condo. That painting no longer exists (as far as I know) because I do not have it.  Memories. -- douglas brent smith

My ever so humble home office. I like how the sun is shining thru the door on the wall just above three of my collages.

Do You Think This is Up to Code?

At Table Indulgence - photo by doug smith

Under the Hood I wanted to be a gear-head. I just never had the tools or the chops for it. But cars have always been fun and I've usually been a Chevy guy. Oh, I've wandered into lots of interesting cars and owned a few. What was your first car? Did you name it? This 1966 Chevy Impala SuperSport was my first car. I'm sure that I paid too much for it because I paid what the guy was asking. I didn't know any better and I really wanted that car. It was fast. It was sporty. And, gasp - it had an 8-track stereo. You have to imagine the joys of listening to "Dark Side of The Moon" on an 8-track that had to fade-out and click-thru to the next track even if the song wasn't finished. Not the medium for Pink Floyd, that's for sure. But Elton John and Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck sounded just great, tooling down the road. I've had other great cars, too: 1966 Volkswagen Beetle (this was my dad's but he was willing to trade cars wh...

Seriously, some of this is funny.

doug working on a song