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Elvis Guided Me

24 Elvis Guided Me'Elvis guided me'A Bandon man was a $54 1.50 winner in last Saturday's Mega Bucks Oregon Lottery drawing.Bernard DalMazzo, a local sculptor who has lived in the area for number of years, picked five out of six needed numbers on a ticket purchased at Ray's Sentry. Dal Mazzo said he believes his win was guided by an unseen force."As I was playing the Mega Bucks last Thursday, I noticed a reflection on the screen," DalMazzo said. "Al first I thought it was somebody standing behind me, but I turned and there was no one there. But I could still see an image of a white jacket with sequins. I thought it might be Liberace, but then I saw that the sideburns were darker. After that my hands were guided."DalMazzo added that he is a firm "Elvis is Alive" believer. When asked what he would do with his money, he said he was going to "buy Alcatraz and make it into a tourist attraction."All joking aside, DalMazzo said he was delighted with his win and thinks most folks in Bandon are "too serious." - Bernie DalMazzoFrom 'the world newspaper' 1989

podcast: 

Bernie works on a bronze table sculpture

Stay away from Brasso or other metal cleaners... stick with very small amounts of mineral or olive oil apply with a hanky. The more you rub the bronzes the more depth and color you'll get.

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The Rock Garden - Coast Magazine July, 1979

From Vol. 1 No. 10 Coast Magazine July, 1979.  A writeup of Bernie Dalmazzo's Shop in Bandon Oregon. - Article in PDF

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The Rock Garden

Crafts "non-shop" in Bandon

Text and Photos by
Kathy Moritz

 

The Breuer building, now owned by the Hannas, was built in 1904, and housed Michael Breuer's men's clothing store and shoe shop through the 1940's, surviving both of Bandon's disastrous fires unscathed. Its recent metamorphosis began in the early seventies, when Bernie Dalmazzo, a bronze sculptor, opened Gentle Visions, a representation of over forty local artists, expanding into the lean-to with a candle shop, a leather works, and a silver shop.

"When I first came, in 1974," recalls Gary Ekker, a potter who now shares the building with Bernie, "I would notice things for months that I hadn't noticed before; the place was floor-to-ceiling shelves. But it wasn't chaotic; if somebody had moved something, put it back in a different spot, you could see it right away."

"It seems to me that I came alive in the sixties," Bernie recalls. "People were becoming more involved with the things they were using. They were looking around, and it seemed we were surrounded with plastics. People started working with natural materials, and a craft shop came out of this. We always managed to keep a free and easy spirit, and there was a lot of energy." But nothing remains unchanged, and Gentle Visions, in its time, became past. "People are still asking me, 'Why did you change the name?. Because the place isn't "Gentle Visions" anymore, not at all. We're doing a completely different thing now. Anyway, I'm not a merchant. I didn't have time for my own work, I was so busy talking about everybody else's. And by that time, the crafts world had become the McDonald's of the hippie generation.

Man sees face of Elvis on barbecued chicken

 

 

10 Man sees face of Elvis on barbecued chicken
Hundreds of curious spectators lined the deli case of Ray's Sentry in Ban­don, Oregon Friday after a local resi­dent claimed he saw the face of Elvis Presley on piece of barbecued chicken he bought there. However, the man, Bernard DalMazzo, a Port of Bandon employee, could not produce the said "bizarre phenomenon" be­cause he ate the evidence. "I was hungry," the amazed DalMazzo said, "but I swear it was Elvis -- he looked a lot older and wrinkled, but it was him, I'm sure of it." Da/Mazzo said he bought the chicken thigh along with 10 other pieces to bring back to fellow port employees. "Yeah, we sent Bernie to pick up some chicken for lunch," Harbor Master Wayne Strong said. "He came back all excited, waving a piece ofchicken in his hand and yelling some­thing about Elvis, but when he showed us the thigh, it had a huge bite right out of the middle of it. "I could just barely make out what seemed half a nose and some black sideburus," Strong added. Strong said the other pieces "ap­peared normal." "It's a miracle," DalMazzo said, "and no one will believe me. I'm sure it's a sign—Elvis is alive and living on a chicken ranch somewhere, and I'm going to find him, if it takes the rest of my life." Meanwhile, Sentry employees stopped cooking chicken because of the unruly crowds it attracted to the deli case. "Thighs were going like hotcakes," Manager Robin Davis said. "But we had to stop cooking them becausepeople were getting violent and grab­bing chicken pieces from helpless children and blind senior citizens. It was hell." Friends are questioning DalMazzo's sanity, while others say he Just needs a rest. "Bernie's always been so sensible," Port Manager Alex Linke said. "This is unlike him, and it worries me. I think he needs some time off." "Bernie's always been strange," DalMazzo's girlfriend Pam disagreed. "Just last week he saw Jesus' face on a piece of T-bone steak. He doesn't need a rest — he needs a lobotomy." DalMazzo sticks to his story, though, and says this is not the last of signs from Elvis. • "He'll make another appearance soon -- maybe at McKays," he said.

Working on Bernies site

We finally got off our asses and started making Bernie a site.   Pam and Bernie were prime influences on me growing up and it's nice to try to give something back.  Since I was a little kid running around with Athena at the Shop in Bandon.  More about that later   4

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