Pictish Nation finds a home after 14 years!

"Pictish Nation" c. 2003 F. Lennox Campello Charcoal on Paper 15x41 inches
In a private collection in New York City

Over a decade ago, I had a solo show at the original Fraser Gallery in Georgetown in which I focused all my work on my interest on the original people of Scotland before the Celts arrived from Spain (via Ireland). The show was titled Pictish Nation and was widely reviewed by multiple local newspapers (ahhh... the halcyon days of DMV mainstream media reviews, see some of them here, and here, and here...).


"This legion, which curbs the savage Scot and studies the designs marked with iron on the face of the dying Pict," are the written words of the Roman poet Claudian that give the only insight as to the name given by Rome to the untamed Britannic tribes living North of Hadrian's Walls and one of history's nearly forgotten Dark Ages people: The Picts.

Perhaps the greatest mystery of Scottish or even European history is the people who once inhabited the lands north of Roman England, as far north as the Shetlands. Who were these fiercely independent people? Where did the come from? Which language did they speak? What did they call themselves? We first hear of them in the third century from a Roman writer in Spain, who describes their fierceness and battle skills of both men and women. The writer Eumenius, writes about them 200 years after Rome has been in Britain, and the name associated with the Pict is forever coined. To this day, we do not know if this is truly as in "pictus" (the Latin for "painted") or a Latin form of a native name. Because of the isolation of northern Scotland, history yields little, and the Roman Empire's expeditions into the north ended in little gains.

"We, the most distant dwellers upon the earth, the last of the free, have been shielded...by our remoteness and by the obscurity which has shrouded our name...Beyond us lies no nation, nothing but waves and rocks"...The above words by the Pictish chief Calgacus are recorded by the Roman enemy in the words of Tacitus and are a perfect example of the obscurity and legendary status held by the Picts almost 2,000 years ago.

In "Pictish Nation," I married my interest in history (I am one of the world's earliest and leading Pictologists) with art. The show consisted of two dozen charcoal drawings that interpreted and delivered my vision of how Pictish men and women, and their tattooed bodies, may have appeared.

Borrowing from the designs in the unique Pictish standing stones that dot the Scottish countryside, I re-created, for the first time in nearly 1200 years (The Picts ceased to exist as an independent people in 845 AD, when Kenneth MacAlpin, Scottish by father and Pictish by Mother, usurped the throne of the Picts and Scots and proceeded to erase all traces of Pictish culture from Scotland), the unique Pictish designs of animals, objects and imaginary beasts.

Most of the show sold, and it completely sold out over the years, except for the key central piece (Pictish Nation depicted above). I kept this work for my own, and in 2004 I had Old Town Editions in Alexandria do a small Gyclee edition of 10 reproductions of the work - all of which also sold.

Last year I decided to sell the drawing.

It has now found a home with a well-known collector in New York.

How do I start collecting art?

I am often asked, usually by friends outside the art cabal, and by people who become interested in collecting art, but have never collected artwork, what they should “collect.” 

"What should I buy Lenster?" "How do I start?"

Many years ago, I formed an opinion based on empirical observations, that there are really only two basic rules to start an art collection:

1. Collect what you like, and
2. Whenever possible, buy the original. 

That’s clear, right?

Buy and collect only what you like, what attracts your eyes, and what interests you personally, and is within your economic means. If you like the work of a particular artist, or a specific kind of prints (like Japanese woodcuts), or drawings (such as figurative drawings), then focus your collection in those areas.  This also comes with a caveat, as a lot of excessive attention is often placed on a "focused" collection. A diverse collection may make less sense to some than a focused one, but it only has to make sense to you! After all, it is your collection.

It has also been my experience, that the more affluent a “beginning collector” is, the higher the probability that he/she will get swindled into spending a lot of money for wall décor and fancy frames. Since most of us are not affluent, the high end of the commodified art market is not where I’m focusing this post.

For those affluent folks: if the "gallery" has large realistic paintings of cigars resting on wine glasses, or the artwork comes with an "option" for a rococo frame, run for your lives!

The DMV offers an immense variety, and multiple, loads of, tons, mucho, a lot, beaucoup, diverse sources to begin an art collection.

The key to most of that statement is the number of art schools, art leagues, art centers, and reputable commercial art galleries that exist in our area. Add to that the number of independent artists’ studios, and you have the perfect mix for starting an art collection.

Let start with the schools; nearly all art schools and universities put together student shows. Usually these are Master of Fine Arts (MFA) shows – the graduation show for MFA program students.  American, Catholic, George Mason, George Washington, Maryland, Montgomery Community College, Northern Virginia, and others are but a sampling of some excellent places to troll for student artwork.

Buying student artwork generally equals buying an artist early on his/her career.

Buying an artist early in his/her career is the “golden nugget” of most art collectors’ hopes.  That puppy crossed my road a few times in my life.

In 1989 I stood in front of an original oil painting by Scottish painter Jack Vettriano at the Royal Scottish Academy in Glasgow... I loved it! 


I think that it was Vettriano’s first ever show (it was a group show; actually a painting competition or was it the Royal Scottish Academy annual show?), and there were two of his early paintings (all done as I recall, at his first - and only - art class).

It was on sale for 300 British pounds, which at the time for me might as well have been 300 million pounds, since my US Navy Lieutenant’s salary barely covered expenses in Scotland, which is where I was stationed at the time.  That painting sold for 300 pounds. .. 300 pounds at the time was around $500 dollars.

Today, although he is despised by the art critics and the British arts establishment, he is adored by the public and by some very important collectors, and his works, if you are lucky enough to get on the waiting list for one, ranges in the hundreds of thousands of pounds.

And that early one that I passed on? Sold at Sotheby’s a few years ago for a lot more... a LOT more pounds. Beginning art collectors can find their own early Vettrianos at art competitions, MFA shows, outdoor art festivals, open studios, etc.

I will discuss open studios in our region later on.

Under the knife

I'll be out of commission today, going under the knife for a major, somewhat urgent and quite unexpected surgery procedure with a substantial recovery period. Surgery starts at 0730; as I type this the main worry in my mind is getting from my house to the hospital (arrival time 0530) with all the ice still all over my neighborhood's twisty and windy streets.

Not looking forward to the next 2-3 weeks. But like Clint Eastwood once famously said: "Hog's breath is better than no breath at all..."

There are lots of things that I am afraid of, but weirdly enough, death is not one of them. I think that the fact that if I were to croak today I'd still be leaving behind around ten thousand pieces of artwork which have been sold, traded, given away, left in hotel rooms, inserted into Goodwill stores and/or otherwise left to leave an artistic footprint, is rather a calming feeling.

This is a major, multi-hour, robot-not-a-human-in-charge operation, which I am told has an 80% success rate where the John Doe doesn't bite the bucket (and frankly, I picked the robot over the human, because of something called "tremors" when it comes to a surgical scalpel), soooooooooo.... If I do bite the bucket, I'd like a tombstone that looks like a Pictish Stone, sort of like this one that I did in Scotland in 1989:

Clach Biorach Pictish Standing Stone
Edderton, Ross, Scotland
circa 1989 by F. Lennox Campello
Pen and Ink wash on paper, 9.5 x 6.5 inches

What Dan Zak did

Over the years, decades really, I've been complaining about the way in which the Washington Post treats its own visual arts backyard. If you go back to the very beginnings of this blog, well over a decade ago, you'll find it hard to see a week's worth of postings where I'm not complaining or bitching about something that the WaPo did, or most often didn't do, about our visual arts scene, galleries and artists.

When I first came to the DMV in the late 1980s (1987-1989) it was as a young Lieutenant in the Navy, and in those years I spent most of my summers sailing in the Arctic off the then Soviet mainland at the top of the world, I started reading the WaPo regularly. Back then, the WaPo had a daily section titled The Arts, which covered art galleries, museums, regional visual artists, etc., in addition to all the other genres of the arts.

I left the area for a few years, and lived in Scotland, and then in Sonoma, CA. I returned to the DC area in late 1993, and by then the precipitous decline in the WaPo's coverage of its city's visual art scene was just beginning.

I then began writing about the DMV visual arts scene for a lot of local, regional and national magazines, in the process becoming deeply immersed in the scene itself. In those latter years of the 1990s, the WaPo's Arts Editor was a nice, kind man named John Pancake. I developed a professional relationship with him, and every once in a while we'd meet for coffee and discuss the area's visual arts. It was he who once described deciding to open an art gallery as a "heroic undertaking."

In those years the paper still had multiple columns covering the visual arts, which included the usual Wednesday Galleries column, then authored by Ferdinand Protzman, as well as other ad hoc gallery and museum reviews by Paul Richards. It also included a weekly Wednesday column titled Arts Beat, then authored by Michael O'Sullivan, who as I recall held the title of Assistant Arts Editor. Arts Beat reflected the interests of its author, and essentially augmented the paper's coverage of the DC area visual arts scene.

By the end of the 90s, things began to unravel.

Almost against the will of the WaPo's leadership (as related to me back then by one of the editors of the WaPo Online), the newspaper went on a major expansion of its online presence and also an associated expansion of its printed paper coverage. This included the visual arts, and I was hired, along with Jessica Dawson and others, as freelancers to cover gallery shows for the paper's online site (I wonder where all those reviews are now - have they ever been archived and preserved by the WaPo?).

I can't remember exactly when Richards retired, but his retirement (to Scotland I think) caused all kinds of minor waves for the DC art scene. First, Protzman quit, some say because he was upset that he didn't get "promoted" to Richards' job. Instead, the WaPo began a hiring process and eventually brought Blake Gopnik from his Canadian newspaper to take over as the paper's chief art critic (my titling).

Protzman's departure also brought a need for a regular freelancer to do the Galleries column, and several of those of us who were doing online reviews about Galleries were interviewed. I declined the position once we got deep into it - at the time, as some of you may recall, I was also part of the Fraser Gallery, and didn't think that being a gallery co-owner and a regular Wednesday critic for the paper would pass the smell test with some; but the real victims would be the gallery's artists, as clearly they could never get at WaPo reviews.

Around 2000, Dawson (who had been writing art reviews for the Washington City Paper) was then hired as the freelancer to cover galleries and subsequently Gopnik was hired to cover all the visual arts. 

A few years later Pancake retired, and by the mid 2000s the Wednesday coverage shrunk significantly when Arts Beat was demoted to a twice-monthly column, refocused to cover all the arts, and then eventually terminated. Most of the damage to the visual arts coverage was started by then Style Section editor Eugene Robinson.

It was Robinson who began the process to let Blake Gopnik get away with only reviewing (with one or two very rare exceptions) museums, thus having the nation's only art critic too good to review his city's artists and art galleries. On July 6, 2006, Steve Reiss (the Style section's Asst. Editor) stated online: "As for Blake Gopnik, he is a prolific writer and I find it hard to argue that we should be giving up reviews of major museum shows so he can write more about galleries that have a much smaller audience."

When Robinson left, under the new editor Deborah Heard, the coverage got even worse, with Galleries being reduced to twice a month. That added up to around 25 columns a year to review the thousand or so gallery shows that the DC area gallery art scene had to offer in those days.

A few years ago, when Dawson quit the WaPo (2011) to go to work for the Hirshhorn and in the interim, the WaPo experimented with using a couple more freelancers, but both experiments ended badly from both sides. Eventually they hired Mark Jenkins, who is their current Galleries critic, and who (in my opinion) is the best from all the names mentioned here so far.

What is a constant over all these years and memories, is the miserly coverage of DMV artists and galleries by the world's second most influential newspaper.

And then this past weekend, WaPo writer Dan Zak showed us a brilliant glint of what this coverage could be, if the WaPo "got it."

Zak's The Polaroids of the Cowboy Poet is perhaps the best article that I have ever read on an artist.

Chris Earnshaw is an odd and brilliant and sloppy man who vibrates with great joy and grand melancholy. For decades he has ambled through bandstands, major motion pictures and demolition sites, searching for prestige and permanence, all while being ignored on the gray streets of a humdrum capital.

This work has Pulitzer written all over it, but more importantly, this article is exactly the sort of coverage of the DMV visual artists and galleries, that we've always clamored from the WaPo to do 2-3 times a year - as they do when some celebrity visits the city.

Dan Zak: Well Done! You've not only delivered a brilliant article, but also shown the WaPo and Washington, DC, and the DMV visual arts scene, how it is done.

Vintage Campello at auction

Since several of you (mostly fellow Americans who were lucky enough to have spent part of our life in Scotland) have asked me about these Scottish watercolors... 

This one is on Ebay right now at a great price... 

These vintage pieces have been appraised for as much as $5000 (much larger pieces)... someone in Las Vegas is offering this one starting for under $200!

Scotland!!!!!

Yoani Sánchez to talk at GMU

Yoani Sánchez is an acclaimed Cuban blogger, journalist and founder of 14ymedio, Cuba’s first independent daily digital news outlet. She is currently the Yahoo! Fellow at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

A University of Havana graduate in Philology, she emigrated to Switzerland in 2002 to build a new life for herself and her family. Two years later, she returned to Havana, promising herself to live there as a free person. In 2007, she began Generation Y, her personal blog about daily life in Cuba. She has been arrested and detained by the Cuban government for starting her activities.

In 2009 U.S. President Barack Obama wrote that her blog “provides the world a unique window into the realities of daily life in Cuba” and applauded her efforts to “empower fellow Cubans to express themselves through the use of technology.” TIME magazine listed her as one of the World’s 100 Most Influential People, stating that “under the nose of a regime that has never tolerated dissent, Sánchez has practiced what paper-bound journalists in her country cannot: freedom of speech.” Foreign Policy magazine has named her one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers.  

She will be speaking at GMU on Tuesday, march 17, 2015 from 4:30pm - 6:15pm. RSVP here. 

I will be there to listen to a true hero, who can teach some lessons here in the US to some wanna-be "victims."

I also plan to give her a gift of a watercolor that I did in 1977 while I was a student at the University of Washington School of Art in Seattle, Washington. This piece was the second in a series of works all focused around the island of Cuba as a prison. It has followed me all over the planet and lived in Seattle, San Diego (CA), Spain, Monterey (CA), Bowie (MD) twice, Scotland, Sonoma (CA), Dumfries (VA), Media (PA), and Potomac (MD) thrice.
 

"Isla Prisión" (Prison Island)
Watercolor on Paper by F. Lennox Campello, c. 1977
2x4 inches

Hopefully, she will accept it and it will then live with a real life hero. 

Campello watercolor at auction

At auction here is a 1994 original watercolor starting at a decent price, as original works from this vintage and style have sold/been appraised as high as $5,000. Although I returned from Scotland back to the US in 1992, I went back to visit Scotland on a yearly basis through the early 2000s, so this piece is probably a Scottish-inspired skyscape.

Check it out here.

1990s artwork

Between 1992-1994 I lived in Sonoma, California (great place!!!) and at that time I was still serving in the US Navy as the Executive Officer (XO) of NSGA Skaggs Island.

Prior to that, destiny had given me the opportunity to be stationed at NSGA Edzell, in Scotland... easily one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

While in Scotland I worked with a model named Fleur, took some shots of her and then, and later on, using the photos while living in Sonoma, created some watercolors based on the images.

At the time a local Sonoma gallery (Presidio Gallery) picked me up and gave me two great solo shows... one was an incredible solo aimed at raising funds for the Sonoma Ballet Conservatory - that story deserves a post of its own - and the other was a show of assorted artwork.

And then, thanks to the amazing connectivity of Al Gore's Interwebs, I get an email from the person who bought two of the Fleur watercolors.

And for the first time since 1993... here they are!

"Fleur" circa 1993, watercolor 10x8 inches by F. Lennox Campello

When in Scotland - Part II

As I noted earlier, I was fortunate to have lived in gorgeous Scotland, perhaps the most beautiful country on planet Earth, from 1989-1992 (although I had been visiting it regularly several times a year starting in 1987).

This spectacular nation is an artist's dream come true, especially if you are a landscape artist (which I wasn't), but the sheer beauty of the Scottish landscape turned me into one... and over the years I produced hundreds of Scottish watercolors, pastels and drawings (and some etchings) which celebrated not only the Scottish landscape, but also all the "stuff" around me (I lived in a farmhouse built in 1532), such as sheep, horses, cows, Highland games, fish, and the brilliant Scottish people.

See some of my Scottish sheep pieces here, and enjoy the below art homages to Scotland.

North Sea, near Stonehaven, Angus, Scotland
8x10 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1989.
In a private collection in Aberdeen, Scotland

Loch Ness, Scotland
11x14 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1991.
In a private collection in Montrose, Scotland

Two Deer, near Little Keithock Farmhouse, Brechin Road, Angus, Scotland
28x40 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1991.
In a private collection in Brechin, Scotland

Snowfall, near Braemar, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
16x40 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1989.
In a private collection in Braemar, Scotland

Back Road, near Little Keithock Farmhouse, Angus, Scotland
30x40 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1992.
In a private collection in Norfolk, Virginia

Seagulls Following the Plow, near Edzell, Angus, Scotland
40x32 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1992.
In a private collection in Boise, Idaho

Road to Cairn O'Mount Pass, near Fettercairn, Angus, Scotland
30x40 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1990.
In a private collection in Banchory, Scotland

Seagulls following the plow, near Stonehaven, Angus, Scotland
8x10 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1989.
In a private collection in Aberdeen, Scotland

Back Road, near Little Keithock Farmhouse, Angus, Scotland
30x40 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1992.
In a private collection in San Diego, California

Back road, near Battledykes, Angus, Scotland
8x10 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1991.
In a private collection in Aberdeen, Scotland

Northern Lights, Back Road, near Little Keithock Farmhouse, Angus, Scotland
30x40 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1992.
In a private collection in Seattle, Washington

Just Before Trinity Fields, Enroute Brechin, Angus, Scotland
6x10 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1992.
In a private collection in Dundee, Scotland

Back Road near Smiddie Wood, near Stracathro and Careston Estates, Angus, Scotland
12x40 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1992.
In a private collection in Brechin, Scotland

River South Esk, near Brechin, Angus, Scotland
30x40 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1991.
In the Collection of the Earl of Southesk

View of the Highlands, near Edzell, Angus, Scotland
10x14 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1992.
In a private collection in Fresno, California

Back Road, near Little Keithock Farmhouse, Trinity, Angus, Scotland
18x36 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1990.
In a private collection in San Francisco, California

North Sea, near Stonehaven, Angus, Scotland
8x10 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1989.
In a private collection in St. Cyrus, Scotland

Road near Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland, where my daughters would take horse riding lessons
8x10 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1992.
In the Collection of the Earl of Southesk

Back road near Laurencekirk, Angus, Scotland
7x10 inches. Ink wash on paper, c. 1990.
In a private collection in Brechin, Scotland

Taking the walk behind the Blue Door, The Burns, near Edzell, Angus, Scotland
8x10 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1991
In a private collection in the United States

View from Little Keithock Farmhouse, near Fettercairn, Angus, Scotland
28x40 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1992.
In a private collection in Glasgow, Scotland

View of the Highlands, near Maryculter, Angus, Scotland
30x40 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1990.
In a private collection in Montrose, Scotland

When in Rome... I mean Scotland...

I was fortunate to have lived in gorgeous Scotland, perhaps the most beautiful country on planet Earth, from 1989-1992 (although I had been visiting it regularly several times a year starting in 1987).

This spectacular nation is an artist's dream come true, especially if you are a landscape artist (which I wasn't), but the sheer beauty of the Scottish landscape turned me into one... and over the years I produced hundreds of Scottish watercolors, pastels and drawings (and some etchings) which celebrated not only the Scottish landscape, but also all the "stuff" around me (I lived in a farmhouse built in 1532), such as sheep, horses, cows, Highland games, fish, and the brilliant Scottish people.

Here are some of the hundreds of pieces that I did on sheep, which were essentially everywhere!

Sheep in a field near Fettercairn, Angus, Scotland

26 x 40 inches, Pastel on paper, c. 1989

In a private collection in Edzell, Scotland

View from Little Keithock Farmhouse, near Fettercairn, Angus, Scotland

30x40 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1990.

In a private collection in Montrose, Scotland

Field off the A90, near Fettercairn, Angus, Scotland
12x40 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1990.
In a private collection in Brooklyn, New York

Blackface Highlanders, near Inverbervie, Angus, Scotland
12x40 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1990.
In a private collection in Arbroath, Scotland

View from Little Keithock Farmhouse, near Fettercairn, Angus, Scotland
28x40 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1992.
In a private collection in Glasgow, Scotland

Blackface Highlanders (Near Edzell, Angus, Scotland)
8x10 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1992
In a private collection in the U.S.

Blackface Highlanders, near Glamis Castle, Forfar, Angus, Scotland
20x40 inches. Pen and ink wash on paper, c. 1992
In a private collection in Banff, Scotland

Blackface Highlander, near Dunnottar Castle, Angus, Scotland
28x40 inches. Pen and ink on paper, c. 1991
In a private collection in Stonehaven, Scotland

Blackface Highlanders, near Little Keithock Farmhouse, Brechin Road, Angus, Scotland
30x30 inches. Pen and ink wash on paper, c. 1990
In a private collection in St. Andrews, Scotland

Burns Night

Burns Night is celebrated each year in Scotland (and around the world) on or around January 25. It is in celebration to commemorate the life of the bard (poet) Robert Burns, who was born on January 25, 1759. It is also a great excuse for Scots and people of Scottish ancestry around the world (where the one-drop rule applies) to get together and drink single malt, and eat haggis, and drink single malt.

I lived in a 307-year-old farmhouse in Scotland from 1989-1992. The farmhouse, which had a fireplace in almost every room, and two in the bathroom and two in the huge kitchen, was named Little Keithock Farmhouse and was full of ghosts, as my two daughters, Vanessa and Elise can testify to. That's my drawing of the house to the left.

My landlord (Mr. Stewart) was a really nice guy and a big wig in the nearest town, which was the most ancient village of Brechin, and in 1991 he invited me to the village's Burns Night and not only that, but also to its greatest honor: to deliver the Burns' ode to the haggis and then stab the beast... in case you don't know, the whole focus of the evening centers on the entrance of the haggis on a large platter to the haunting sounds of a piper playing bagpipes. As soon as the haggis is on the table, the host (in this case me) reads the "Address to a Haggis." 

This is Robert Burns' ode written to that succulent Scottish dish. At the end of the reading, the haggis is ceremonially stabbed and sliced into two pieces and the meal begins.

This is what I was supposed to memorize and deliver:

Address to a Haggis

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin'-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye worthy o' a grace
As lang's my arm.
The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o need,
While thro your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.
His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An cut you up wi ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!
Then, horn for horn, they stretch an strive:
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
The auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
'Bethankit' hums.
Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi perfect scunner,
Looks down wi sneering, scornfu view
On sic a dinner?
Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither'd rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!
But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.
Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies:
But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer,
Gie her a Haggis

As you can see, it is not written (nor delivered) in English, but in Old Scots language.

Being the amazing Renaissance man that I am, I took the challenge, and for about three months, I practiced my Scottish accent, with the help of Vanessa and Elise's local Scottish babysitter. 

I practiced and practiced, and she damned near died laughing most of the times... but towards the end she told me that I was pretty good and that I sounded like someone "from the Orkneys..."

On Burns' Night I arrived at the magnificent Victorian building that is the Brechin's Mechanics Hall, wearing my official US Navy kilt with the official US Navy tartan, ready for Freddy and confident about the challenge ahead. 

And yes, my babysitter had advised me (as all Scots do to newbies just to screw with them) that I was supposed to go commando under the tartan, which I did, and which caused a nightmarish next-morning shower event worth of its own story).

Scots are some of the friendliest people on this planet and Scotland is easily the most beautiful land on that same planet, and as a key part of the Night, everyone wanted to treat me to a drink.

That where the problem started.

I got there on an empty stomach about 7PM, you see... and to make things worse, I don't really like Scotch, single malt or otherwise... I know, I know... heresy.

But as a good guest, I accepted the dozens of Scotches delivered to me by the region's nicest gentlemen, and of course, everyone had a toast, and so... ahhh, I drank a lot of Scotland's best-known product.

The only issue to my spectacular abilities to hold my booze was the fact that the haggis wasn't actually delivered until 11PM, and by then I was three sheets to the wind and as drunk as I have ever been but a hundred times worse!

I actually like haggis and whenever it is on the menu (here or there) I usually order it... most of you would gag if you knew what it is... cough, cough... so that's not the storyline here.

Anyway, around 11PM, I was tipped that the haggis was being delivered... the bagpipes began to cry that spectacular sound of the Celtic world, and the huge platter arrived.

I walked unsteadily towards it, grabbed the large, sharp knife, and as protocol calls for, began waving it around while I started, in my best Scottish accent, to pay homage to the haggis while at the same time trying not to slice off my ears.

The hall was silent, and a couple of hundred people followed my every word and movement of the knife, sculpting invisible shapes in the air.

And then, as called for, I stabbed the beast and cut it in two.

The hall exploded in applause and I walked back to my table... so far so good... other than the unexplained laughter.

Mr. Stewart, who was sitting next to me, was standing and clapping furiously, as was everyone else. This by itself, my addled brain registered, was curious, as Scots are great people, but rather reserved. To my slight alarm, I also noted that he was laughing really, really, really hard.

So hard, in fact, that tears were running down his face.

Oh, oh....

He slapped my back as he hugged me and continued to laugh, and placed yet another single malt on my hand.

"That was great!" (sounds like "gret" in Scottish) he shouted above the din, as tears ran down his handsome face, "We've never heard 'Address to a Haggis' recited in a Japanese accent before!"

"What a gret ideee!"

Put yourself in my place for a moment here... there are a couple of hundred Scots thinking that I just pulled a comedy routine on their sacred ode, and they're laughing their ass off, so it must have worked... right???

"I practiced like crazy," I said, suddenly quite sober.

And that's the story of how this guy delivered on a Burns' Night in Brechin, Scotland, got drunk on his ass, made a lot of really good, decent Scottish men laugh, and had a most memorable night.

The story of how I got home, as I clearly couldn't and didn't drive, is a story for another day... suffice it to say that thistles usually grow on the side of most Scottish back roads and that if you brush against them, you are really fucked for a while. 

Scotch and thistles don't mix well on a really dark night in the Scottish country side.