Van Halen

I'm not a big fan of this band but I heard this on the radio today and thought it was pretty catchy and very well played. By the way, David Lee Roth's uncle Manny was a pretty cool guy.

View from across the pond

 Thanks to Michael for sending this over:

Our "rotting pumpkin idol..."

Free falling

I had a wild dream last night. Somehow I fell out of an airplane a mile up in the air. Something managed to break my fall somewhat along the way down  and I was able to walk away, albeit with sore feet, knees and hips.

Which is apropos because I do have sore feet, knees and hips right now as well as an ankle ligament sprain that just does not want to heal. My brain must have tried to make sense of the pain I am feeling and came up with a plausible scenario.

Still the dream got me to thinking. Could someone actually fall out of a plane and walk away?

I found this site, Highest falls survived without a parachute. 

It lists twenty two instances but not a lot of people walking away, many seriously broken bones and fractures.

Luke Aikens landed in a net, that is cheating. Kobayashi was on skis, nope.

Juliane gets a serious nod, hiked out of the Peruvian rain forest for eleven days with her broken collarbone. Props to her.

Respect for this guy who traveled 18,000' downwards and only twisted his knee.

Capello managed to walk away like I did in dreamstate but it was only a hundred foot fall. Big deal.

Vesna survived the highest fall without a parachute, 33,000', but life didn't get that much better for her after she hit the ground. The Beatles fan flight attendant was the victim of a briefcase bomb, she ended up in a coma, temporarily paralyzed with lots of broken stuff. Later got fired for taking part in an anti government demonstration.

Guess I got lucky.

Sands of Time

Religiosity

I saw a poll I found interesting, How religious is your state? What struck me was not the relative piety of my state, California, which logged in at 39th but the disparity between Iowa and Kansas. Kansas is #10, Iowa #43. Am I misreading the heartland?

The other thing I noted was the relative lack of religiosity in the northeast, which captures the bottom rung of the poll pretty well.

*

In other religious news, we may lose 15,000 churches this year as record numbers of people are terming themselves as religiously unaffiliated.

And there's this:

Don Randi at the Mission Theater

 

This should be a great show coming up in November in Fallbrook. Don Randi was a member of the Wrecking Crew, and one of the most legendary session keyboard players in history. I haven't seen the whole band play but I have heard the guitar player before and he is phenomenal. 

Randi opened up one of the greatest jazz clubs in history, the Baked Potato, and performed with the eponymous house band. 

The list of singles and albums he played on is too big to list. Here is the largest screen shot I could capture. Playing on the Laura Nyro cut is enough for me to canonize her.

I plan on going. 

You can buy tickets by scanning the QR code. 

Join me there and let's sell the joint out.

Norman Blake - Spanish Fandango

So Begins the Task/Hold On Tight (Demo)

Dreidelveis

Sometimes I get these crazy ideas. Can't sleep, mind racing. I was talking to my wife before bed last night when I came up with this brainstorm for a new screenplay. Ran it by my friend Barry today, who was once a big shot and who had a long career in show business. His daughter is a Hollywood screenwriter, might be able to help me sell the angle. Frankly, I think it is a shoe in.

19th century orthodox Jewish guy leaves the yeshiva in Poland. Can't take any more klezmer music. Seeking neutrality as well as a release from the cacophony he decides to set his somewhat myopic sights on the Swiss Alps.

He trades his clarinet in for an alpenhorn. Cows instantly swoon at the dulcet sound of his reverent hornblasts like he's the pied piper of Lodz...

"Dreidelveis, Dreidelveis..."

Honest to G-D, I can hear the tune right now in my head. Seriously, I don't think it can fail. We might have to braid those payos, add a few blond highlights. Maybe work in a local angle, a gorgeous shiksa milkmaid forbidden love interest. Perhaps he introduces bialies or chopped liver to the hinterland? Or kosher Chocolate?

Nu, what do you think? How can it miss?

Sad and Beautiful World

Not quite pinpoint accuracy

I start off every morning playing three games on the Linked In platform, Zip, Queens and Pinpoint. I am fairly proficient at all of them but the best on Queens for some reason.

Pinpoint gives you five clues and you have to come up with an answer. I think I have missed two or three out of the two hundred and ninety nine games I have played.

I failed once again last night. Difficult. These are the clues. See if you can figure it out. When you get the answer it seems so easy.

I hate losing.

Oy

I showed a couple friends the proposed Trump coin and they thought it was a joke. "Uh, no, this is real." Strange times we live in, to be sure. Not sure it is legal to put a living person's likeness on a coin but as they say at the White House, "legal shmeagal."

I saw a great illustration last week where Trump didn't just put his face on Mt. Rushmore, every face was his. Wish I had kept a screenshot.

There has never been so partisan an administration. Yesterday the USDA refused to brief Democratic Congress people after they briefed the Republicans. "Far left losers" or something like that. I wonder if it ever occurred to the GOP that they might find themselves in the minority position one day and get a taste of this sort of thing themselves?

Just might happen but it is a shitty way to run a government. Warfare.

I have a lot of friends on the right who tell me that Dems want to give illegals free medical care. Now this has been thoroughly debunked, in fact it is illegal for a non citizen to receive Medicare or Medicaid but many people are convinced that it is happening. If it happens it is extremely rare. And they want to use the money for transgender surgeries. 

The CBO has previously said it can’t tell how much of the $19 billion in emergency Medicaid spending from 2017 through 2023 actually went to “illegal aliens,” but the overall sum amounts to 1% of Medicaid spending during that time period.

It is true that illegals game emergency rooms, which have an edict to serve everybody. I was sitting in one once where a man was trying to get help for his fatal pancreatic cancer, which can't be fixed in an emergency room. But that is an entirely different story.

Of course, these workers also pick your crops and there might be some small benefit to keeping them alive.

I have friends on both sides of the political equation and they have one thing in common, they are both getting seriously triggered.

Many start the day with a grocery list of the other side's sins. I don't think this is really healthy, to be permanently bent and angry. That is one of the reasons I dialed down the blog this year, didn't need to raise my blood pressure.

I know what is going on, will try to foster intelligent discourse when necessary, but don't need to be pissed off continually. Try to laugh at the absurdity.

Get a hobby, take a walk, or perhaps a new tranquilizer script? Whatever it takes.

Soul Kitchen

Now that's a sandwich.

I'm not really a white bread guy, we called it balloon bread when I was a kid because of the way it stuck on your upper palette, but it does have its place.

Great way to make a beautiful old pair of Sioux moccasins pliable again! No mustard or mayo required.

Cool Cool Water

Close call

 

Rob's down there somewhere...

I dodged a bullet yesterday. Walked into the back of my shop and saw water on the floor. My plumbing is really old and I had a leaking angle stop in the back bathroom. Turns out that I had minor damage but nothing that would kill me.

Ray gave me a name of a great plumber, Jessie.

He showed up quickly. It took him about an hour to get things capped off and fixed temporarily. He was very cautious and fastidious, not to mention inexpensive.

If this had happened in another week, it could have been totally disastrous for my gallery. Wouldn't have seen the leak for a very long time and it would have been an economic calamity for me.

Yesterday must have been the day for it. My friend Rick had a water heater go out. Tom put an iron bar through his main line, while planting his plumeria. The problem with these sorts of things is that there is no early warning system, you know things are bad when you see water on the floor. Thank god I caught it early.

Lucinda Williams

Sierra Strother

If you have ordered or eaten at Bakin' it up, the bakery located across the street from my store, you have probably run into this young lady, Sierra Strother. The first thing you notice about her, apart from her obvious beauty and fitness, is her humility and sweet disposition.

I had no idea that she was also an athlete and performer until I saw her showing someone a snippet of her on Tik Tok the other day. She told me that she started out in dance. I think she is part of a circus troupe now. Pretty amazing.

When I went in for coffee and bread pudding today she told me I could find some demos of her on YouTube.

What an athlete. Incredible!

Dead Chroma

There's never been a rock and roll marketing machine like the Good Ol' Grateful Dead. Now they have branded the iconic Steal your Face colors with Pantone. Talk about squeezing the last drops of moisture from the sponge. 

I just find it sad and curious that a band with this kind of gelt cashes in continually while people like their long time workers like lighting engineer Candace Brightman and soundman Harry Popick are so broke they are forced to start go fund me sites for their serious medical issues. Steals your face right off your head.

Really?

 

https://www.reuters.com/world/italy-poll-finds-15-see-attacks-jewish-people-justifiable-2025-09-30/

https://www.algemeiner.com/2025/09/30/viral-video-jewish-tourists-assaulted-florence-sparks-outrage-surge-antisemitic-attacks-italy/

https://www.ynetnews.com/jewish-world/article/h1idgsikll