Steve Forbert

Sagebrush sooey

There are a lot of issues getting me steamed these days but the vibe has been so good around here that I haven't wanted to kill the buzz and get pissy. I think the Bundy clans' seizure of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon is something worth writing about. 

If you have been hiding under a rock somewhere, lounging around in deep space or are just getting out of rehab, let me do a little reboot for you: If my math is correct we are now in day 14 of a standoff where armed militants have taken over a National Wildlife Refuge, ostensibly protesting excessive federal land
ownership and regulation.

They have managed to piss off the local townspeople, the neighborhood ranchers, the sheriff, birders, the Paiute Indians, archaeologists, the feds, undoubtably some bureaucrats and many more of the rest of us.

This article today put me over the edge.

Thousands of archaeological artifacts — and maps detailing where more can be found — are kept inside the national wildlife refuge buildings currently being held by an armed group of protestors angry over federal land policy.
Ryan Bundy, one of the leaders of the group occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon, says they have no real interest in the antiquities. Still, their access to the artifacts and maps has some worried that looters could take advantage of the situation. Bundy said people interested in archeology are welcome to explore the refuge, but that cattle ranchers and loggers should have priority when it comes to land use."Before white man came, so to speak, there was nothing to keep cattle from tromping on those things," Bundy said. Though some countries had domesticated cattle 10,000 years ago, the animals came to the United States with European settlers.

"We also recognize that the Native Americans had the claim to the land, but they lost that claim," Bundy said. "There are things to learn from cultures of the past, but the current culture is the most important."

Let me say this. You have no respect for anybody and are an embarrassment to our country. Your inflated sense of entitlement is curious and sorely misplaced. It is federal land especially to protect it from, you people, the locals that think that they have some special divine right to use and exploit it. Too many rural communities view the federal land of the United States as their own personal piggy bank. It belongs to all of us.

I saw what happened in Utah when Clinton gave protected status to the Paria Escalante. The locals had a shit fit. Thank god he did what he did, or it would be a big coal mine right now, despoiling and creating a filthy, outdated, unnecessary  product under the guise of bringing jobs to the locals.

I am tired of rural folk getting sweetheart deals to graze on land that belongs to us all, mining companies that pay next to no royalties to extract coal and fossil fuels. The Hammonds, the principal protagonists in the early part of this drama, purportedly set fire to 127 acres of federal land to cover up for a deer poaching operation. They got a sweetheart deal and then a judge upped the ante and all hell broke loose.

I think that this type of vigilante operation can only hurt any legitimate gripe people might have over federal overreaching.  I have seen what happens when the locals are running the asylum, witness the worst sections of Wyoming and West Texas, the parts that have become stinky cesspools and superfund sites. When it is a choice between protecting the environment and putting money in Bubba's pocket, money wins every time.

The reason it is federal land is to protect it from you people. Get it? You don't own it, we all do.

Otis Clay - Piece Of My Heart

Petey

photo : Village News

I was pretty bummed when I heard that Petey Stevens had died. Bummed at myself mostly for not keeping our relationship alive. Hadn't heard from her in ages, and I hadn't reached out. I should have. Petey was part of one of my earliest coffee klatches, at the Garden Center Cafe. We started our days together every morning for years. Guess things went to hell when Nancy died. I saw Mark the other day at the Post Office, spry and sharp as a tack at 94. My god, 94. How can I have several pals that age or older? Now Petey is gone too. The old gang...

Petey got Parkinsons and maybe something else. I heard that she had moved to Murrietta. But that's no excuse for my letting our friendship lay fallow. So I felt bad when she died, with me having no idea of the seriousness of her predicament.

Her good friend Connie came by the store the other day. She said that she wanted to tell me that Petey always spoke highly of me and her love for me. It meant a lot to me to hear this, feeling slightly ashamed for being remiss.

Turned out that she was a faithful blog lurker, that she followed me, I had no idea. I am happy that she kept in touch. I will miss her. What a smile, what a kind heart and great sense of humor.

Counting my winnings.

It's been kind of a tough morning. You see I bought a Powerball ticket yesterday and I am worried about how things will evolve when all those ducats come rolling in.

And don't give me all that bullshit about 240 million to one odds. That sucker has my name written all over it.

Do you think a billion and half will change me or my life? Heck no. I will always be the same old guy, even when I have a large household staff and multiple undisclosed residences.

But there will have to be some necessary changes made to keep things copacetic and on the up and up.

First rule, no new friends. I had a few remoras attach to me my last brush with wealth and it was like shedding a nasty parasitic worm with a couple of them. You didn't like the poor Robert, you don't get to eat truffles with the rich bastard.

Two, I don't quit my job. It's not like the door is ever open anyway.

Three, no extravagances. Short of a quick hopover to Patagonia, Antarctica and the Orinoco with a minor detour to Florence, Milan and Porto, of course. I might buy a Rav4 too, probably a barely used one. They have a lot of oversized cup holders, which fit a multitude of camera lenses. Speaking of which, an 800mm Nikon prime telephoto isn't a luxury, it's a necessity.

Four, no nubile personal assistant. The nannies always bring these guys down. I love my wife and we are going to share our newfound fortune with each other and with our ever decreasing social milieu. 

You may have a hard time getting in touch with us but we will write eventually, don't fret. It is important when you win these things that you sort of drop out of existence for a while, so your family and friends don't think that they have a permanent new meal ticket. Don't worry, we will call you.

Aladdin Sane

"I guess it's flattering that everyone believed I was those characters, but it also is dehumanizing. I meet people all the time and I can see the mistrust in their eyes, like calculation is my middle name."
David Bowie

I had the fortune of seeing David Bowie twice, once on the Glass Spider tour and once on Broadway. Andrea Harmon and I scored a third or fifth row ticket for like no money (which was it Andrea?), and got to see him play the lead in the Elephant Man. What a masterful performer! A brilliant man.

But he was nothing if not calculating. I have never felt as manipulated by a performer as I did during the aforementioned concert performance when he pulled the blushing girl out of the audience and it turned out that she was a professional plant. When you are gamed like that, you start looking around with a bit more suspicion. Tull did something similar once.

I came up in the early seventies blue jean era of Dead, Band and Allman Brothers and when Glam hit we were all a bit bewildered. But it was hard for even us hardened hippies not to acknowledge Bowie's brilliance and the chops of the fantastic late Mick Ronson.

I had a high school classmate who was so infatuated with the thin white duke that he changed his name to Star Man and lived in an airstream.

I had no idea that Bowie was suffering from cancer. I have heard two songs from the new album Blackstar, Lazarus and Sue (Or in a season of crime.) They are powerful and as a cancer experiencer myself, I can relate to the potency of the message. Heavy shit as they say.

David Bowie largely created his own genre, with a unique message and his art rarely failed to inspire. He will be missed.

For the birds

People often ask me if I soup up my photographs. Honestly at times I do play around with them, make them more graphic, all sorts of things. Truth be told there is no such thing as an "original" digital photograph when you are shooting RAW files as I do because certain things get sharpened and altered innately in the processor before I even get my hands on them.

But there are times when nature supplies it all and you don't have to do anything as in the shot of the Anna's hummingbird I took at Lena's yesterday. No vibrance, no saturation added and it looks chromatically impossible. Nature provides all the required pyrotechnic effects necessary.

Vermilion flycatcher

I played hookey today and went back to the San Jacinto Wildlife Area with Beth and PJ, two experienced birders.

Black necked stilt

Ruddy duck

Greater yellow legs

Birding with these two started at Davis road. Many of the identifications were made by sound and behavior. They were calling things into ebird and being professional, at a much slower pace than I am used to. What a help to learn from these two!

Avocet? Willet? I forget...

Meadowlark

Loggerhead shrike

It was kind of a slow day at the wildlife area, no geese or herons, some northern shovelers, ruddy ducks and the odd bufflehead, skittish teal, not a whole lot of variety. I learned a lot more about shorebirds and of course got my fill of beautiful raptors.

An old friend asked me when I got so into birds and I didn't know what to say.

You live among the hawks for thirty six years and you develop a love for them and most all of the wonders of nature.

I still find their beauty indescribably gorgeous and riveting.

And my photography pursuit leads me to wondrous places of unspoiled solitude. Today snow capped San Gorgonio and San Jacinto provided my artistic backdrop.

We saw red tailed and red shouldered hawks, kestrels and marsh hawks, the graceful and low flying harriers now maybe my favorite of them all.

We took a long walk and espied two golden eagles on a distant tree. I got as close as I could and snapped a few pictures.

Not in ideal range but you get the idea.

Golden Eagle

As always, I can't wait to go back.

Kestrel

Even saw a roadrunner. My new bird guide tells me that it is actually in the cuckoo family.

Guess I'm getting a little cuckoo too!

Thanks girls. It was a very nice day.

Hope that you all enjoy the pictures of my many feathered friends.

I Know You By Heart

Autumn Leaves

Calibrate your monitor.

f13,  four seconds ND4

I went to the beach last night with Ken and Mike to grab some sunset shots. I received my new Vivitar neutral density filter in the mail yesterday and wanted to check it out. Normally with a ND8 filter you are sort of traveling blind because they are too dark to focus through.

With the variable filter you can open it up, focus and then redial it in to shoot, which saves a lot of hassle and unscrewing. Neutral density filters allow a photographer to take long exposures and stop movement. This one is not quite as dark at max as my others but will work fine.

We grabbed a bite of food at Carlitos on the way back and I needed to use the bathroom so I stopped at the shop, did my bidness and processed the evening's work. Not bad. Will be fun to play with this filter. I got a size that would fit my intermediate zoom, my other ND filters fit my wide angle and they are hard to focus with this type of usage.

Anyway I posted a couple shots to Google+ that I was reasonably happy with. I sent them to my photomates and both felt that they were too dark. Fair enough. I favor the dark side.

f9, 10 seconds ND8

Which is all a preamble to today's topic, the subjectivity and unique nature of individual perception. A little over a year ago I had my cataracts removed and found out that I had been seeing the world through a yellow tone. My natural born lenses had lost clarity and color cast. Getting older is fun kids, wait until you try it!

In any case that was the first whammy. It had never occurred to me that we all experience color and vision differently, that there was no true base line. As my ophthalmologist explained to me, vision is 10% eyes and 90% brain and our collective hominid hardware and physiology is not all the same. What looks good to you may not look good to me.

f16, three seconds ND8

I bought a new printer last week, an Epson P800. My old printer, an Epson 3800, was continually breaking down and I couldn't put another penny into it. Mike bought the new one and his results were simply breathtaking.

I did some test prints after I set it up and the results were not what I hoped for. Ken asked me if I had calibrated by iMac monitor and I never had. I had calibrated my old display but not this one with a Spyder that I had borrowed from Jerry K.

Ken brought his, found out that my display was way, way too bright. I forget the numbers but I had kicked the thing far out of the recommended brightness range. Because it looked good to me. But what I failed to consider was that my pictures might look like crap to people with more carefully calibrated screens.

And Ken mentioned that my colors looked muddy and washed out. Afterwards I looked at some of my published work and Ken was right, as hard as it was to admit. Not going to redo everything but I apologize.Your screen was not getting what I was seeing on mine. So all you photogs out there, calibrate your monitor!

f9, 30 seconds ND8

I own an art gallery. I take pictures for fun, I sell brightly and not so brightly colored canvases for a living. I have a fiercely critical eye. With all the attendant prejudices of perception.

I noticed on the Borrego star photography trip that my pictures looked better to me a bit darker. My pals' work was lighter. In my artistic scorecard perhaps color and dynamics slightly trump detail, lightness and clarity, I don't know. Maybe its a scorpio thing, we are supposedly quite moody.

Due to health reasons, I can't paint anymore but I still think my approach is more painterly and a bit more abstract than many of my cohorts, an artist masquerading as a photographer. Every way works!

There are people that love your work and people that loathe your work and you can't please everybody and still please yourself. So don't even try.

Hallelujah

Gavilan laughs

The river coursed and screamed

like a hundred angry stallions

the recent storms

filling its muddy chalice

with the 

collective fruit and power
of a hundred earthly streams.

It has been many years since the Santa Margarita roared

back in '93 for sure

we are reminded of its immense strength

during wonderful weeks such as this one
still a comparative whisper

The trees leaves have turned a burnt brown, the tall sycamores once again
 succumbing

 to the inevitable near monochrome of winter. Nature, lacking chlorophyl

 looks toasted
yet 

vivid and wet, hyper attenuated

imbued with the magical

power

of repeated thunder and storm.

The hawks are starting to reappear

at distinctly new vantages, a signal of a new cycle, priming,

listening for a quiet distant chime

waiting to begin the familiar baillar de primavera 
yet one more time again.

Saw two Cooper hawks together on the phone wire yesterday 

and let me tell you
that's rare.

I feel this land's particular brand of magic, 
I can see it in the early morning air,
 I smell it in the mold of decaying leaves, 
I hear it in the rush of the Santa Margarita,
 I taste it in the evening chill.

The nights were cold and frosty

before the rains

the fields by the mailbox

covered with bright icy crystals

as I drove out of the winding river valley at dawn.

Now it's just wet.
El Niño. The capricious child.

Got hailed on today in Carlsbad.

Thankfully the rain keeps the bitterest cold out of our fair valley.

The mockingbird sat under the palm by our window

this morning

after the deluge

smart and now out of the rain

repeating all sorts of petty gossip

most certainly better left unsaid.

The weightless little birds scamper too

 along the yard

once grass, long dirt

turning up little burnt offerings

left by last night's soaking.

It is a new year

and while things can always get worse

they can also get better

and so we hope, a vision of victory defeating a strategy of disaster approximately 83% of the time
at least according to the best available experts.

Good luck to you my friends

my fair and able shipmates

together we will navigate

and conquer any storm,

rupture or personal failing.

And even should the worst occur
please know
it will still look splendid in our life's biography
once polished and shaped up
 by a nimble and decent editor.

Best wishes this new year. Good health and good cheer.

Robert Sommers

Bosque tree

The Velvet Underground - Ocean

End of the trail

So, where was I? That's right, Saguaro National Park, East.  We walked the loop and took some shots. I don't know that I got anything particularly outstanding. Of course I can make a turd look good if you give me enough time. But I didn't set the place on fire with my virtuosity that night.

I talked to my brother. I had a faint recollection of being in the park about fifty years ago which he confirmed.

Saguaros are certainly cool. Ken mentioned that we humans had the tendency to anthropomorphize everything, right before I said I liked the saguaros that looked like their arms were in human positions.

But there's not a lot to say. People start looking at you funny if you start waxing about your favorite saguaros.

Don't get the idea I'm a cactus hater or anything. You know how word gets around.

*
We went back to the Super8, (which are really nice now that Wyndham has refurbished them) and hit the hay. Next morning up at sunrise, this time in the large west section of Saguaro National Park.

The sunrise certainly had its charms.

Saguaros are incredibly ancient organisms. It takes 75 years for one to branch and a hundred and fifty to be full grown.

But eventually, like any other life form, entropy sets in and you get a skeletal remain of structure like the guy above. All things must pass. We need to respect 150 year old life forms.

Saw this guy out there. Is he a type of flicker? Birders? northern flicker

We met Tiffany and her husband Dave at the Desert View Tower and these locals turned us on to a really great valley view that we would never have found on our own. She was kind enough to let me snap her pic.

We managed to get through the desert unscathed. Cholla are sharp, no? Lost my glasses but found them again. No serious injuries to report.

This cactus is a crested saguaro. One in 10,000 get the mutation. Just like a particular breed of human. This fellow has photographed 760 of them at last count. And they are very rare so good for him.

Not much else. We stopped in Gila Bend for lunch and I had to snap a pick of one of my favorite hotels on the planet, the old space age. Les and I stayed there decades ago.

We saw Harris hawks and snow geese in the fields west of Gila Bend. Motored on home.