Bill Fay - I Hear you Calling

See You Later, I'm Gone - Robert Lester Folsom

I Am the Light of this World

And where it falls, nobody knows...

You could be minding your own business, having the best day ever, suddenly you look up in the sky. 

What is that thing hurtling down at supersonic speed, so quickly and unannounced? Chinese rocket flotsam? Do tell...

Was reading about the guy who managed to survive the Mexico City rail line collapse the other day. "Wasn't his time," he said.

Is there a moral here or a larger message? I suppose there is. Keep your head up, tell your loved one's that you love them every day, wear clean underwear, sign your trust, the usual stuff.

You just never really know when your number's coming up, do you?

Tension

 

I obtained this 

pencil study from my friend Ken in Palm Springs a few weeks ago to put in my auction. He bought it years ago in Atlanta but did not know the artist. I didn't either but it had a great look so I took it.

I had decided to only put 200 lots in on this inaugural auction. I could put a thousand lots in with all my inventory, believe me, but you have to stop somewhere.

On a whim, I sent this picture to four art dealer friends and an auction house to see if anybody recognized the signature.

Three did immediately. Steve Stoops was first.

It is the work of Peterpaul Ott (1895-1982.)

You can see a bio for Ott on Spencer Helfen's excellent website. And this from Artprice.

So I saw that Ott was a sculptor and this confirmed my initial feeling that it was a study drawing for a sculpture. So dimensional. But initial feelings are often wrong. And I was on this occasion.

It is actually the study for a 1935 WPA print called Tension.  

I love the WPA era, one of my very favorites. I found the print online while searching for Ott imagery. Prints are reversed on the block so that is why you see the image flipped.

The print is referenced behind a paywall of the December 8, 1935 Indianapolis Star newspaper. 

People don't believe me but honestly the research and sleuthing is the most rewarding part of my job. Intellectually rewarding, in any case.

I broke my self imposed limit of 200 lots. It will be interesting to see what it does in my auction. Lot #300.

*

Postscript: Thom Gianetto from Edenhurst Gallery informs me that Tension was shown at least twice. 

New York, Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Sculpture, Watercolors, Drawings and

> Prints, Whitney Museum of American Art, March 8 - April 10, 1938, no. 31 in catalogue

> Laguna Beach, California, Pageant of The Masters, Irvine Bowl, July 30 - August 14, 1949, program A - no. 15 and program c - no. 12 

Thanks Thom!

North River Fiasco

Two thirds of the voters in Oceanside voted against a new housing project, North River Farms. The developer took the referendum to court and the judge is now thwarting the will of the people.

The result of a ballot measure in which more than two-thirds of Oceanside voters rejected the construction of up to 585 homes in South Morro Hills appears to be jeopardized by a tentative ruling last week in San Diego Superior Court.

If upheld, the ruling would be a victory for Integral Communities, the developer seeking to build the North River Farms project in an agricultural area of northeastern Oceanside. Integral filed the suit in January 2020 alleging that the citizen-led referendum violates state law.

Judge Richard S. Whitney said in his tentative ruling released Friday that the referendum was “preempted” by the California Legislature’s efforts in Government Code section 66300 “to maximize the development of housing within this state.”

“While the referendum did not outright ban housing development, the referendum has the effect of limiting housing development on a portion of the jurisdiction of the affected city,” Whitney said in the ruling. “If the opposition’s position were accepted, referendums could endlessly be passed to effectively disallow any housing development.”

This idea of maximizing housing in a state with severe water shortages in a time of drought is ridiculous. Not to mention the environmental effects of ceaseless development. The judge has now apparently finalized last week's ruling. 

A Superior Court Judge has ruled that Oceanside’s Nov. 3 referendum on the North River Farms project proposed for South Morro Hills is invalid and that the 585-home Integral Communities development can proceed “assuming other pending litigation does not prevent it.”

The Legislature clearly intended to preempt referendums designed to restrict “development of housing within this state” under Government Code 66300, which was passed in 2019 to address the state housing shortage, said Judge Richard S. Whitney in the final ruling Thursday afternoon.

I feel sorry for the people that live in Morro Hills and the neighboring communities. Rural areas are facing an onslaught of growth and some people won't be happy until California is one big wall to wall housing tract.

You don't like California? Fine, leave. You may have heard, we don't have enough water. At least you won't have to watch it get totally destroyed. Some democracy.

Eric Henderson plays Pipeline

We put the holes in the poles.

It is 7:12 8:45. I am tired. I told my wife I would be home for dinner two hours ago. I have to call it a day. I have been supplementing photographs and fixing descriptions on the auction all day. Can't work late like I used to, start making mistakes in my feeble dotage.

A third of the way through my task, with a break I will be done in two days. People are messaging me from around the world asking why I don't have this or that?

I have been under the gun and can only do so much. But you can't really say that to them so I am trudging forward as best as I can.

I hate to say it but I am not really cut out for data entry. There is something so robotic about the whole deal, inputting line after line on the spreadsheet, and me being a noob having to do so much manually. My father and sister were both CPA's and have no problem with it but for me it is a bit soul sucking.

I don't know if it is my add but repetitive work drives me nuts. In 1990 when I was living in Israel during the war, I had a job in a plastic factory for two weeks. I grabbed these long trays off an assembly line and sent them over to the cutter, again and again, over and over.

Inside I was screaming, it was so awful and boring. And yet there were people there who were cheerfully putting the same nut on the same bolt and were happy to do so, even after a twenty year stretch.

Not me.

So I quit and went out and worked in the banana fields. Very hard work, maybe the hardest I have ever done but infinitely better than being on the dehumanizing line.

Eric Von Schmidt

Xiaoma meets the Dineh

Owl Shot

 

I was quite pleased to hear that The Fallbrook Sourcebook used one of my photographs on their front cover this year. 

I just walked over and scored a copy after Debbie Ramsey clued me in.

I want to thank Julie Reeder for putting the great horned owl shot up, the competition was really great, loved the competing butterfly shot but they went with mine for some reason. Might have fit the page better.

She also paid me a handsome check, which I was not expecting, and a bunch of great packages and tickets to things, whole thing just way beyond my expectations, which were nil.

Thank you Julie, Lucette, all the people at the Village News and the Fallbrook Sourcebook. You are so kind. I really appreciate it and feel quite honored.

Happy With You

A nice, somewhat pollyanish song from one of the most optimistic, not to mention greatest of songwriters, Paul McCartney.

Finally!

Mountains through the trees - F. Grayson Sayre

I finally went live this morning with my preview of my first live auction on live auctioneers. I still have a lot of tweaking to do to dial it in but you can't imagine the work just getting it this far!

I need to tighten up my titles and descriptions and add secondary photos but I think I have time.

Anyway, please follow and bid even if something grabs you. Spread the word and please keep your fingers crossed for me and my consignors! I hope this initial one is a success.

Check out the auction here.

Romeo Had Juliette

Blues on the Ceiling

There's dumb and then there's Florida dumb.

And back in Florida, Governor DeSantis is suspending all local Covid restrictions as well as vaccine passports. 

It seems more than a little shortsighted, it is not as if people don't continue to get Covid 19 and die back there. 3916 new cases in Florida yesterday. But now they are going to tie their local government's hands, for political expediency and so that it will make Governor DeSantis future presidential resume look a little better to the GOP.

Pardon me, but I can't help but notice that the great majority of both the anti maskers and the anti vaccine people are from the right hand side of the political equation. Is this a death wish, are the lemmings heading straight over the cliff?

How many interviews have we all seen in the last year of virus naysayers drawing their last breaths in the hospital and wishing they had taken it more seriously? Double down on stupid, Florida.

Rosebud

Karen Dalton - Green Rocky Road

They called Karen Dalton (1937-1993) the "Hillbilly Holiday" but she said Bessie Smith was actually a bigger influence. An early fixture in Greenwich Village, she had a singular voice and presence. Overcame a heroin and alcohol addiction, eventually died of AIDS. This tune was recorded at her home in 1962.

I was thinking today, I sure do like beatnik music. Would have been nice to be snapping my fingers in the village listening to Fred Neil, Eric Von Schmidt, Sebastian, Ramblin Jack, Dylan, Van Ronk and Karen Dalton. A small scene but an intensely beautiful one artistically.

Sunday wrap up.

I thought that I would be able to button up the first phase of my auction preparation today but I couldn't. I am down to about ten watercolors and prints behind glass. Except for these ten, all the objects and paintings in my sale are now photographed and cataloged. One hundred ninety down, ten to go.

It is very difficult to shoot something reflective. The secret is putting it in full sun and taking the shot from a shaded vantage. But that positioning is very difficult to find sometimes. There was no sun today and the glare outside was terrible anyway.

I tried to illuminate the works with my Smith Victor floods but they are too bright and it looked awful too. Natural light is best. Hopefully I will have better luck tomorrow. Worse comes to worse I will take them all out of frame. That would be the best optimal thing but it requires a lot time and I don't have a lot of time right now.

I have been working a little less this week. More ten and eleven hour days, not fourteen like last week. I found I was making too many mistakes when I was fried after a long day. So I took a small step back.

This is one of my newest acquisitions that will be in the auction. This oil on board is a 13 x 19" work by Franz Bischoff. I was told that its name is Cloud cover under the San Gabriels but it is not visibly titled. 

It was sold to a private party that I bought it from by the ex director of the Laguna Beach Art Museum, Tom Enman back in 1983.

I really like it. Bischoff had a flair with strong color and light that is perhaps unmatched by his Southern California impressionist peers.

*

I left early in the morning and noticed that my Yucca Rostrata is now throwing a nascent spike.

It has been several years since it has done so and they are breathtaking when in bloom if you are into that sort of thing. 

Of course there is talk that my plant is not a true rostrata specimen but instead a tissue culture frankenstein conceived by a mad scientist up on Gavilan. 

Who knows?

No matter its true origins and parentage, the plant is a joy in my garden.

*

I want to thank Jeff for digging up the clivea for me. Planted this afternoon when I got home, along with a purple bottlebrush.

I am looking for a couple nice climbing roses for my front fence. 

I want a red orange one and a purple. I had the former for the longest time but it succumbed to entropy and age.

Anyone have any suggestions? I already have a large Cecil Brunner/Banksia climbing rose that is fifty  years old and don't need anymore pink.

I don't even know where to go to get a climbing rose now that Tropic World is gone and the Moonies have taken over. Hunters in Lemon Grove is rather far.

You know a place?

*

I am not sure why but the blog readership is blowing up again, 2700 views yesterday, 3098 today. This is about double normal and I am not sure what is driving it, perhaps it is a bot. It would be too delusional to think that my brilliance is starting to be recognized and that one day I could become a real life influencer in this world of ours.

dave guard & the whiskeyhill singers

I never knew that the great Judy Henske was in this band until a minute ago. Most underappreciated female vocalist in the world.

Dancing Barefoot

Pull Up To The Bumper

Ya baby!

 

What do you give the newly woke man who has everything? RoxAnne brought over a nice card today with a token to the old Bulldog Bathhouse on Turk St in the Tenderloin of San Francisco. Sweet. Might take me a while for these tenderloins to get up there.

*

I saw a very good friend and awfully sweet person today who has been a longtime blog reader and follower.

She was nice and honest enough to tell me that some of my profane language made her cringe. I get it, Mr. Pottymouth might need a big timeout.

But honestly she admitted that she was bothered when I reacted to my troll with foul language. And she is right, I do let it go on the guy, probably because I don't like the idea of a guy teeing off on me like I'm a piñata when I can't go after the anonymous person because they won't divulge their identity.

I can't forget that many people read me, of every political persuasion and religious creed and I want everyone to be comfortable. I will try not to be so reactive and nasty and hopefully keep my cool next time it happens.

I appreciate her honesty. Will attempt to restrain myself.

Steppenwolf

Purple Reign

 

Recently Leslie started carrying some work by a local studio potter who creates ceramic busts in her store, Caravan. The woman's work is whimsical and quite good. I am not exactly quite sure of what her name is but Juleen thinks it is something like Dea Koepfle.

Dea brought this one in recently and I had to chuckle. It bears a striking resemblance to a purple haired woman I know. I like it and its subject very much. Might have to buy it.

Fibonacci meets Edelbrock

 

I was hanging around with my car buds at coffee this morning when one of them mentioned my Fibonacci t-shirt.

"That's cool," he said. "What's a Fibonacci?"

I explained that Fibonacci was actually a mathematician philosopher in Italy who hailed from Pisa and who lived in the late twelfth and early thirteenth century. 

He developed an important number sequence that greatly affected our knowledge of proportional relationships.

I noted that this number sequence was instrumental in the philosophy of harmonic proportions and in the development of the golden section, an important tool for understanding composition. 

In fact Renaissance artists like Leonardo and Vermeer used the number .618 derived from Fibonacci in the creation of their masterpieces and it was also used in music.

I explained that the number sequence was built on a group of numbers starting at 0 and 1 that built on the sum of the preceding two numbers. So;

and

$${\displaystyle F_{n}=F_{n-1}+F_{n-2}}$$

for n > 1.

Thus: 

It was at this point where I may have stepped over the line. In fact I am pretty sure that their eyes were glazing over and that I had lost them. Ray stopped me cold and looking me straight in the eye, said, "I thought it was like a Ferrari." He pointed to his chest.

"My shirt says Edelbrock. It is an intake manifold. There is no philosophy about it. Edelbrock is Edelbrock. We keep it simple."

I took the hint and shut up.

Love - Live And Let Live

Strange bird

You live in a place for a long time you get to know the familiar sounds. First thing you notice here are the frogs and coyotes at night, I guess. We wake up with the mockingbirds, I love them, some don't. Orioles are fine singers. It is a real symphony.

You also notice when something different is about. The huge bobcat we saw last week. They sighted a mountain lion at the end of our road recently. My giant ringtail.

Last night Leslie and I both woke up at 3:30. There was a bird very close in a tree making a call neither of us had ever heard before. We got up and talked about it, I have no idea what it was but it was big. There are now peacocks in the valley but it was not a peacock.

My friend Joel lives about two miles down river away from me on Riverview. I saw him at coffee this morning and he starts to tell me about the weird  bird sound he heard at 3:30 last night. Thing must have flown down river.

*

I have been so busy I am out of all my old routines. The hawks are getting huge in the nest and I don't have the time to stop and get a shot. I have been working fourteen hour days on my auction, up at six and back after nine.

Have so much work, it has been freaking me out but I think I have finally hit my stride. Making progress every day, taking bites out of it and just pushing forward. After a near nervous breakdown yesterday I am okay again, I think in about three or four more days the material will be sent in to publish.

I had no idea it would be this much work, frankly. Big Dave told me not to give up, to keep pushing. I threw the i ching hexagram before completion. If the fox almost crosses the river but gets his tail wet at the last second it is all for naught. I am on guard and giving it my best shot.

Da Fook

When I heard that there was a stampede in Israel that killed a bunch of people my first thought was that it was at the Dome of the Rock. Similar stuff seems to happen during the haj every year on the trip to mecca.

Then I had a thought. "Wow, what if it is a bunch of crazy orthodox jews? No, way, right?"

Bingo. 

45 people killed, 150 wounded after a heated session of stag kosher partying up on Mt. Meron. Unfortunately a bunch of kids were also killed in the chaos.

Honestly, I have the same affinity for these people that I do the Moonies or Mormons. They are as bat shit crazy as any other fundamentalist sect and apart from being Jewish I share little in common with them. 

But I have to admit, they managed to get a free ride from a country I used to love, getting the government to subsidize their heavy prayer schedule and acting like your basic free loaders, looking like the Amish period Boy Georges, all the while seriously skewing the political balance to the extreme right. 

Not to mention causing serious problems with the Palestinians, who happened to own the olive groves in the country before the meshuginas decided that God commanded that it was really theirs.

Anyway don't get me started, couldn't see reform jews rioting like that, unless maybe they ran out of whitefish salad at Nate and Al's or something drastic like that. In any case, it would be rare.

There's a great word in hebrew that expresses total lunacy - da fook. Crazy, idiotic. And this stampede was an excellent example. One bright spot in all the tragedy:

One act of kindness caught local media attention: Despite the Muslim fast for Ramadan, residents of a Palestinian Arab town in the area set up food and drink for Jewish participants evacuating the pilgrimage site.

*

Bill told a joke this morning that I thought was funny. Rather than repeat it verbatim from memory I looked it up on the internet and found a close rendition.

Now why do I think that is funny? I was talking to a friend about holocaust survivors the other day and I recalled seeing a number on someone's arm for the first time. It was at a delicatessen in Cardiff in the early seventies, on Santa Fe Avenue. Next to Jerry Hall's parent's children's store. Was the owner's name Katz? I forget...I do remember his first name was David. 

Guy was really funny, always happy, always cracking jokes. Amazing man, to escape the ovens and still keep his sense of humor, really. I guess you either move forward under such weight or you perish and he moved forward. He has to be long gone now.

Eric Burdon & The Animals - To Love Somebody - 1968

I am not a huge Animals fan but damn this is good! Andy Summers on guitar, Zoot Money on piano.

Polarity shift

I think there is something, well a bit "cockeyed" going on with my Google algorithm. 

Somebody signed me up for a Match.com site that I think caters to like minded eligible young men. Sent me a bunch of pictures of eligible suitors. Nice gents but honestly, nothing really clicked. I have tried to unsubscribe three times but Match won't take no for an answer. Hey, no means no!

Thanks whomever, but it doesn't really puff the air up under my skirts. I thought maybe Cam was goofing on me but he says that he had nothing to do with it. Not that there is anything wrong with it, just not the way I happen to roll. But the algorithm won't stop trying to hook me up with a fresh guy.

This morning I got a Google advertisement for a nice Gaycation. 

Now that definitely sounds like a lot of fun but I have a lot on my plate right and unfortunately I am going to have to pass on that one too.

Google thinks I am gay and I am all right with that. Might even redecorate.

Scott Walker

Morning Dew

What a guitar solo around 3:40. Guy wants to tear it up.

Car problems

I know everybody has probably seen this but me but I couldn't stop laughing when it came across my phone yesterday.

Dave Van Ronk - Green, Green Rocky Road

Another Time and Place - Laura

A nice version of one of my favorite Dave Van Ronk songs. I think Dave would be happy. She has a very pretty voice. I could only find one other version of the tune, wonder why it has not been covered more? This song makes me think about measuring our lifespan by the people we have been lucky enough to love deeply along the way. 

Turnabout's fair

 

Three golfing partners died in a car wreck and went to heaven..

Upon arrival, they discover the most beautiful golf course they have ever seen.

St. Peter tells them that they are all welcome to play the course, but he cautions them that there is only one rule:  "Don't hit the ducks during your first three months here."

The men all have blank expressions, and finally one of them asks, "The ducks?

"Yes", St. Peter replies, "There are thousands of ducks walking around the course, and if one gets hit, he quacks, then the one next to him quacks and soon they're all quacking to beat the band.  It really breaks the tranquility, and if you hit one of the ducks, you'll be punished.  Otherwise everything is yours to enjoy.”

Upon entering the course, the men noted that there were indeed large numbers of ducks everywhere.  Within fifteen minutes, one of the guys hit a duck.  The duck quacks, the one next to it quacked and soon here was a deafening roar of duck quacks.

St. Peter walked up with an extremely homely woman in tow and asks, "Who hit the duck?”  The guy who had done it admitted, "I did.”  St. Peter immediately pulled out a pair of handcuffs and cuffed the man's right hand to the homely woman's left hand.  "I told you not to hit the ducks,", he said. Now you'll be handcuffed together for eternity.”

The other two men were very cautious not to hit any ducks, but a couple of weeks later, one of them accidentally did.  The quacks were as deafening as before, and within minutes St. Peter walked up with an even uglier woman.

He cuffed the man's right hand to the homely woman's left hand. "I told you not to hit the ducks," he said; "Now you'll be handcuffed together for eternity.”

The third man was extremely careful. Some days he wouldn't even play for fear of even nudging a duck. After three months, he still hadn't hit a duck.

St. Peter walked up to the man at the end of the three months, and had with him a knock-out, gorgeous woman - the most beautiful woman the man had ever seen.  St. Peter smiled at the man and then, without a word, handcuffed him to the beautiful woman and walked off.

The man, knowing that he would be handcuffed to this woman for eternity, let out a contented sigh and said aloud, "I wonder what I did to deserve this?

The woman responds, "I don't know about you, but I hit a duck."

Need some help

This double sided botanical illustration was painted by the great San Diego artist Albert Valentien.

It was part of a group of paintings of Southern California wildflowers painted for Ellen Browning Scripps.

It was exhibited at the Cincinnati Exhibition Albert Valentien; The California Years in the year 2000. 

It is #8 in the catalogue.

Can any of you plant types tell me what either of these two wildflowers or weeds are? 

I am going to be putting it in my auction next month and would like to label it properly.

It would be very helpful if I knew. Perhaps the one of the back is buckwheat?

Thank you,

Robert Sommers

*****************************************************************

postscript: Shawn thinks it might be Rosey Allium.

*

Good morning Robert

My girlfriend Emma Reece, who identifies plants as part of her work reckons the top painting might be Silene latifolia and the other one might indeed be Allium roseum...

Px

Mahavishnu Orchestra

Got my chips cashed in...

Mike sent this over today, it was printed on a t-shirt. Love it!

Progress?

It was kind of sad when they uprooted the three nice old trees on Main Avenue this week, just up from my shop. Guess the roots were messing with the concrete.  But can you explain putting their bushy replacements square in the middle of the sidewalk right of way?

Two people can no longer walk down the sidewalk next to these trees abreast. In fact it will be hard enough for even one. What were they thinking? At least they could have offset the trees in the holes and pushed them out to the curb. I don't get it. Please explain...

Loose lips

News today that John Kerry was ratting out the Israelis to the Iranians during the Obama administration, while acting as Secretary of State. Not surprising, his animosity to Israel is palpable and legendary. The question is if this was done at the behest of his boss or not, which also would not exactly surprise me.

Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif claimed in recently leaked audio that John Kerry, when he was serving as Secretary of State during the Obama administration, informed him of more than 200 Israeli operations in Syria.

Kerry has previously been accused of colluding with Iranian leaders to undermine the Trump administration. Kerry is now a part of the Biden administration and has a seat on the National Security Council as the special presidential envoy for climate.

Like Israel or not, and I am not a big fan of this particular Israeli government, they were an ostensible ally of ours at the time and the disclosure of over two hundred actions in Syria seems intemperate to me. And I certainly do not like or trust the Iranian regime in any way. We know what they want to do, they have been quite honest about it.

Kerry is currently serving on the NSC. What else will he be disclosing to the Iranians? I hope that Biden tries to have a more evenhanded approach to Israel and Iran than Obama did.

Judy Henske & Jerry Yester - Farewell Aldebaran

Fallbrook Sedgewynd gave to Nancy
Ringnecks for her coachmen's fancy
Eggs and emeralds, shocking garters
Devilled prunes to stop and start her
Nancy gave to Fallbrook Sedgewynd
Neither nods nor time of day
Love is nasty, love is so blind
Love shall make us all go snowblind

Fallbrook Sedgewynd gave to Rosie
Twenty sonnets bound in gold
Daily by her cot he'd mosey
Rosie with her stockings rolled
Rosie gave to Fallbrook Sedgewynd
Neither hugs nor cozy chats
Love is nasty, love is so blind
Love shall make us all go snowblind

Love is nasty, love is so blind
Love shall make us all go snowblind

Fallbrook Sedgewynd saved his money
Bought a bear and fed it honey
A bear has little fear of Hades
So he ate the luckless ladies, yeah!
Love is nasty, love is so blind
Love shall make us all go snowblind
Love is nasty, love is so blind
Love shall make us all go snowblind

Late Morning Rays, Disney Hall

 

Feedburner

That was my nipple, Ralph.

I got word recently that Google is doing away with feedburner, its follower gadget. Google likes to drop things mid stride, they are famous for it. 

Anyway those of you that follow by email might nor receive the blog anymore.

Not sure what the solution is but make sure you save my url and check from time to time, I am pretty prolific. 

You can also email me privately and I will put you on a list and try to send the blog to you manually.

Bruce Cockburn

Really?

 

You honestly think that your "rights" to infect loved ones and total strangers with covid equates to the struggles black people faced when forced to sit at the back of the bus? Unbelievable. Jessica Alexander is a real beaut.

Alexander, a business owner, ex-New York Police Department officer and Marine Corps veteran, was elected in November to the council’s District 2 seat, which represents central Temecula.

She helped organize a protest Nov. 1 at City Hall that featured discussion on topics such as “family, education, abortion, dehumanization, false social fear, defending the police, Socialism, Marxism, and Communism followed by prayer vigil,” a protest news release stated.

Covid 19 is still infecting people and it is still killing people. New deadly variants are emerging. This is not the time for grandiose self delusion or to soapbox about your personal liberties being abridged. I would appreciate you not infecting me.

*

I wasn't feeling well post second covid shot and went home early yesterday. I made a big mistake. I started watching Karen videos. Like this one. Or this. or even this. I watched a bunch more but then felt even sicker and decided I had to stop. Some of these people are downright psycho. 

But there is a recurrent theme, we are sovereign citizens, we will also decide which laws apply to us and we are really stupid, not to mention foul mouthed. I presume this anti masker, sovereign citizen movement has to be coming from the evangelical church. And they also don't seem to respect the rights of private businesses to set rules inside their establishments.

I will say it again, if you want to get covid and don't care, have at it, but unfortunately you don't know if you are a carrier until it is too late and then it is my rights and person that are being abridged.

*

My troll wrote that Trump was living in my head, why do I continue to post articles like the EPA article I posted a few days ago that show his despicable policies in hiding toxic pollution data or talk about five dollar ladders scaling billion dollar border walls?

The reason is accountability. It is not about attacking Trump, it is about challenging the people that voted for him to take ownership of the consequences of his policies. We have to live with the results of many of his horrible decisions. You own it.

And if Biden caves on Iran or his progressive wing and does a bunch of stupid stuff I will own it. That is the way it works.

The Zombies - I Love You

Serves me right

It was a big ugly print. I had bought it as a side note in an estate sale about seven or eight years ago and was tempted to toss it in the trash several times. Just not my thing.

And so I was a bit befuddled and pleasantly surprised when I saw an image of said print on a website yesterday and found out that it was actually a David Hockney aquatint and etching from 1969. The Lake.

I went through my catacombs this afternoon and found the large godawful thing. Bingo, same image. Unfortunately I am not sure if it is an eighteen hundred dollar print or a ten thousand dollar print and won't know until I open it up at my framers on Tuesday. See which edition it is from, the signed or the open?

In any case, it is found money. I misplaced a Georg Jensen brooch this week and this will ease the hurt a little bit. I am good with whatever comes down, I assure you. Grateful even.

I got my second shot last night and was feeling pooped. Made good progress on the auction spreadsheet today but finally had nothing left. So I went home.

But I got to thinking about Hockney and the people that buy them. Rich people that want to be in a certain group. I don't think much of either his line or brush work, I like D.J. Hall's pool paintings much better but who asked me?

Anyway a Hockney story:

Many years ago I was invited to Lucinda Watson's birthday party at a tony retreat in Marin. My friend was her personal chef at the time. Watson was the IBM heiress. I am seated next to a couple at the dinner and told them that I was an art dealer.

"We are looking for a Hockney," they proclaimed in a throaty, regal tone. "Well, you have come to the right place," I said. "I was just offered a great early landscape (ed: when he was good) and I can let you have it for $80,000." This was a chunk of change but cheap for a Hockney. And I had been offered a very salable painting the day before.

The woman looked at me and sniffed like I had stabbed her. "We are going to spend at least a half a million." She wouldn't say another word to me the whole night because I had insulted her by trying to give her a good deal on a painting. Didn't even want to look at an image. Horrors and egads. She wanted to spend big money, probably because her friends had. I guess I learned something. It's not about the artwork, it is about the country club obviously.

On second thought

A nice, calm, and respectable lady went into the pharmacy, walked up to the pharmacist, looked straight into his eyes, and said, "I would like to buy some cyanide." 

The pharmacist asked, "Why in the world do you need cyanide?"

The lady replied, "I need it to poison my husband."

The pharmacist's eyes got big and he exclaimed, "Lord have mercy! I can't give you cyanide to kill your husband. Absolutely not! You CANNOT have any cyanide!" 

The lady reached into her purse and pulled out a picture of her husband in bed with the pharmacist's wife.

The pharmacist looked at the picture and said, "You didn't tell me you had a prescription.

Los Reno - Te quiero (1966, Peerless Records)

Foxconn Debacle

Remember the plant that Trump funded in Wisconsin that was going to bring 13,000 jobs to the state? The one that they had to bulldoze 75 houses for?

Well, oops. 

Hampton Grease Band - Halifax

Bad Diet and Hair Cartoons

 Harwood sent this over. The Crumbs are at it again. Or they were last year anyway. Very good.

Ruby's

 

When we were out on the whalewatching boat somebody mentioned how strange it was not to see Ruby's at the end of the pier. An Oceanside landmark for many years, they gave up the ghost recently.

I always liked this shot of the two Ruby's girls on the pier that I took in 2015 for some reason. Candy stripers.

Fred Neil

Happy birthday Joel

 

My coffee buddy Joel had a birthday today. His sweet wife Laurel surprised him with a cake which he shared with his pals. 

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McDaniels brought a tractor in and mowed the fields at my house yesterday, something that happens annually. Glad to see it. I always feel better when I see the place looking tidier. Here is a pre mow shot from the back. As you can see, my old greenhouse is in pretty sad shape.

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Sprinkled last night. Garden is happy. Here are some shots including another shot of the shorter flower spike on the variegated agave.

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I saw a huge bobcat the day before yesterday jump off the road into the brush. Maybe the largest I have ever seen. A hundred yards away comes walking Beth and her poodle puppy. I rolled the car window down and told her to be careful but she trudged ahead. I saw her yesterday and she said her husband Charlie, who jogs on the road, saw the bobcat too and said it was the largest he had ever seen. This one was very light in color. She said that her dog was sniffing the ground at the spot where I saw it. The young hawks continue to grow up. I am so busy with work I don't even have time to stop and take a shot.

Although I will get my second covid shot this evening. Make time for that.

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