I can see Haifa from my house.

Sarah Palin was photographed in Israel wearing her Star of David necklace this week. I don't know about you but I find it a little patronizing. If I visited Rome and wore a crucifix around my neck and sported a red beanie, I frankly think that people might talk. It is a slight bit tawdry to wear a religious symbol around your neck as a fashion accessory.

But she wouldn't be the first to do it. Years ago, a famous comedian's stepdaughter came into my shop. She was from Beverly Hills. She was looking at and ended up buying an overlarge William Spratling amethyst cross for a couple grand from me.

"But S------," I asked. "You're jewish."

"I know," she says, "but all of the other mothers are wearing them when they drop their kids off at school."

***

THE STRANGLERS - Midnight Summer Dream

Strange Days

The world seems to be getting a little uglier of late, in my little corner and on the big stage at large. Wars and rumors of wars, suicide bombings, giant moons destined to pull apart our tectonic plates and unleash a torrent of earthquakes, tsunamis and famines, all under the averted eye of an uncaring god.

The abuse at the coffee shop started months ago. I needed some gravy for the french dip. "Au jus for the jew" the owner yelled out. It got to be a little family joke with them, but a fairly one sided one. When I walked in the other day and the waitress loudly exclaimed, "I smell a jew in here" it was the final straw. I told her that when her crony did it I hated it and I didn't appreciate it with her either and the other waitress piped up, "Well, it's not like you're jewish or anything" and I got up and said that's it, over.

They stopped the sunday meetings of the Aryan Nations out on the patio a few years ago and I thought that we were headed for better times. But after thirty years of patronage I don't think I will be going back.

***

Today started out pretty nice before the rain hit. I saw this blue heron in the field down by the mailboxes, an unusual place for a heron, perhaps he was picking out some fat worms for his breakfast.

***

I had done the normal monday things, quick ineffectual workout, grabbed a danish and a milk at the doughnut shop and squeezed into the little blue plastic chair to try to read the ever thinner newspaper. Saw some folks that I haven't seen in literally thirty years. Dottie's second husband just died at 102. Chatted with the gunsmith and his wife. Left and made a bank deposit at my bank.

I paid the mortgage on the building at the other bank, the other outfit that was missing a necessary apostrophe in its name. "What are you, some kind of writer?" the cashier asked me when I brought it to his attention. Well, some kind, I guess...

***

I was sitting at my desk this afternoon in my darkened gallery when I looked over my left shoulder and saw a figure at the door. I got up and walked the forty or so feet to the entrance when I saw that a man was actually pissing through my mail slot. A man in his early thirties, white, with slicked back hair and prison tats on his hands and neck. My mind raced. I opened the door. "What the fuck are you doing?" I asked. "You're not going to call the cops are you, I'll clean it up?" I saw a huge puddle of pee both in and outside my door and on a persian carpet. I shut the door and locked it and thought about grabbing my .38 caliber revolver and shooting him. But it wouldn't be worth it. I opened the door. "Who the fuck are you and why would you do something like this?" I asked the man. His breath smelled strongly of booze and he had prison written all over him. "I'm Joey and I met you at a party the other night", he said.
"No", I contradicted him,"I've never seen you before in my life."

Joey or whoever the fuck he was made a crude "fuck you" gesture and went running down the street and around the corner. I stared at the gross pool of violation and wondered about a course of action. I am a bit of a soft target on Main St. with big expensive plate glass windows and I try to step around altercations that can be ultimately even more damaging to my life and property as much as possible. But I had been punked by an insane deviant.

The policewoman came, the same deputy who had taken my information after the Facebook scam. "White, about 170 lbs., early thirties, slicked back hair, black horned rims, heavy tats on his neck and arms, cream colored hoodie, not sure about the pants, don't know if he was armed..." Did I want to press charges? Yes.

I asked her if I should try to take him down if I saw him again and she handed me her card and said to call her instead. She left and I attached the hose to the bib out front and swept away the piss from inside and outside the shop. The rug will now have to be cleaned. I know one of the tattoo guys in the neighborhood, "C" and called his shop but he wasn't there. Seeing if they knew the guy. Could someone else have sent him? Someone with a vendetta? From the coffee shop? Was he armed? The guy on the phone said that C was out but that the guy didn't seem familiar and gave the "inked" a bad name. He said that if he saw him he would punch him in the face for me.

I sat in my chair and tried to write and collect my thoughts when the deputy showed back up about a half hour later. They caught the guy a few blocks away after he stole a car and tried to break into somebody's home. He was shorter and skinnier than I had described but not by much. The tattoos were on his neck and hands, in the split second I made my observation I must have seen hands and assumed arms. They might have been on his arms too, she didn't see them, her partner had picked him up. Didn't think he was from the area, probably wouldn't bother me again, but you know the criminal justice system, she said. She said that this type of perp was just methed out and totally random. It was my lucky day and my shop was the urinal. Lucky me. I feel violated and I think I will get out of here pretty soon and try to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.

The earth is eight feet off it's axis and the inhabitants have totally lost their bearings and there ain't no other place for us to go.

Ooh La La

A song by the late, great Ronnie Lane.

Kerry Vernon Johnson

My friend Kerry is a professional photographer who has lived in the Grand Canyon for the last twenty or so years. He sells more photographs than anyone I know, at National Parks all over America and through his South Rim Studio. Kerry knows and loves Native American land and slickrock country better than anyone I know.

Kerry and I painted together in college and have been hiking and photography buddies for many years, along with his lovely wife Jasmine, who is also a very accomplished photographer.

Kerry has a keen and sometimes perverse eye. His photos are often painterly, grand and eloquent snapshots of life and nature. He finally sent me a few snapshots for the blog.

Greg Lake

brett stokes

My buddy Brett is a very successful fine and commercial artist and maybe even a better photographer. Here are a few pictures of his that we showed recently in a local exhibition.

More from Thailand

Shawn sends more pics of strange asian bugs and wild pineapples from his nest in Thailand.

Split tone photography

Jon Harwood is a friend, teacher, photographer and reader of the blast. He came by yesterday while I was trying out some experimental techniques with my computer/printer and sent me this note. Jon has been working in gum bichromate and platinum processes for years and offers up an interesting example of split tone photography.

 Hi Robert,

I hope you had some luck with the split toned print.  The way convention photographers get split tones is usually with two toning baths.  Silenium toner applied heavily and followed with gold toner is a nice method giving red brown shadows and bluish highlights.

With a split toned gum print the shadows are printed with a heavy pigment load and a short exposure while the highlights are printed with light pigment and an extended exposure.

I suspect that any conventional technique can be replicated in the computer--consider the ersatz platinum prints with simulated brushed on borders.

I attached a split tone image that I conjured up with layers, transparency for the top layers.  A blue layer for shadows and a warm tan layer for highlights.  I used the curves control on and adjustment layer to throw the shadow densities up for the shadow layers and the highlight densities up for the highlights.

If you want the step by step process let me know.  This image is subtle, but you can get a more dramatic color effect easily.  This image will print conventionally, no double printing needed.
jh

Four Green Fields

The late, great Tommy Makem sings one of the most soulful songs that you will ever hear.

The Double Irish

Robert DeGoff sent over this link to an excellent NPR Fresh Air story, an interview with Bloomberg's Jesse Drucker entitled How Offshore Tax Havens Save Companies Billions. You can link to the audio as well. Drucker shows how companies like Google, Pfizer, Lilly, Oracle, Facebook and Microsoft use shady techniques like the "Dutch Sandwich" or "Double Irish" in order to shield profits from Uncle Sam.

"Drucker reported that Google had saved $3.1 billion in taxes in the past three years by shifting the majority of its foreign profits into accounts in Ireland, the Netherlands and Bermuda using financial techniques called "the Dutch Sandwich" and "the Double Irish" arrangement. Basically, he says, Google credited its Irish office with the majority of its non-U.S. sales revenue — and then shuttled that money through various subsidiaries located in Ireland and other countries to save billions in taxes."

***

An interesting story from Newsday's Peter Goldmark on Exxon and the tax avoidance game. Exxon made record multi billion dollar profits last year. Received 156 million dollars in U.S. government subsidies.  Paid little or no U.S. taxes.  Of course Texas Republican Representative Joe Barton was apoplectic recently regarding the prospect of cutting the 4 billion dollar annual U.S. subsidy to the energy giants.

***

General Electric made 10.3 billion in income in 2009. They paid nothing in income tax. How did they do it? Check out this article from Forbes, What The Top U.S. Companies Pay In Taxes, by Christopher Helman.

***

The majority talks a good game regarding jobs in this country, but time and time again, along with their cronies at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, they have come down on the side of outsourcing, job loss and fat corporate profits as opposed to employment for american workers.

***

NPR seems to be the latest ox to be gored and if the right succeeds in defunding and destroying it, it will be a sad day for america. Good bye Bert. Goodbye Ernie. Terry Gross. Talk of the Nation. All Things Considered. Prairie Home Companion. Car Talk. Classical Music. Morning Edition. Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Great stuff, mostly apolitical. They try a lot harder to play it straight than Roger Ailes' boys at Fox. It will really suck if the repubs are successful. I would sooner cut out subsidies for oil companies.

George Harrison - Beware Of Darkness

Bushido

From ABC News:

The Japanese have evacuated most of the reactor personnel from the Fukushima nuclear complex and are rotating teams of 50 workers through the facility in an attempt to cool it down.

"We are all-out urging the Japanese to get more people back in there to do emergency operation there, that the next 24 to 48 hours are critical," the official said. "Urgent efforts are needed on the part of the Japanese to restore emergency operations to cool" down the reactors' rods before they trigger a meltdown.

"They need to stop pulling out people—and step up with getting them back in the reactor to cool it. There is a recognition this is a suicide mission," the anonymous U.S. official said. 

It is hard for me to fathom the totality of the events in Japan. The devastation of earthquake and tsunami was on a scale seldom seen in history. If the fuel rods are exposed to the air, some very nasty things like cesium are going to be put in our biosphere. Particles that don't break down for a long, long time. And now the remediation is being called a suicide effort. Seppuku.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's chief claimed there is no water in one of the spent fuel pools at the Fukushima nuclear plant, which Japanese officials have denied. According to the AP, "If NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko is correct, this would mean there's nothing to stop the fuel rods from getting hotter and ultimately melting down." White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Wednesday that the situation in Japan is "deteriorating and fast-moving."

It is a terrible and ironic coincidence that the japanese people have been the recipients of the most devastating consequences of atomic energy. I hope that things quickly find stasis. And I have no doubt that there are many heroic acts being performed today in Japan. May the japanese people receive our wishes, blessings and prayers.

***

Ann Coulter thinks a little nuclear radiation is good for you.

***

And why nuclear plants in California don't have emergency response plans for earthquakes. (Thank you Antonin Scalia and Kenneth Starr.)

Out in the Woods/Leon Russell

Mangia!

There are two camps when it comes to food, the folks who eat to live and those other unfortunate swine who live to eat. Sadly, I fall into the latter subset, headed for a life's remainder full of those particular aches and pains reserved for the porcine and the gluttonous.

I have friends that will not eat at any restaurant beyond the culinary ceiling of Pick up Stix or Appleby's. One friend has the narrowest spectrum, nothing weird, nothing ethnic, no mexican, no spicy, nothing much beyond the narrow bandwidth of the grilled cheese sandwich on white. You know who you are... We all create our own relationship with food. For some it's fuel, for others an exercise in gustatory perception and an exalted sense of taste. To each his or her own.


I have noticed that there are regional differences in taste in regards to spicy foods in this country. I had dinner with a New Mexican woman last night, who eats a steady diet of green chile, who had a hard time handling habañero chile, a southern california staple.

When I traveled on the road, several decades ago, I was always amazed at the buttery blandness of the food in states like Maine and Pennsylvania. The lobster, the soup, the corn pie, everything was modulated and without much taste to this native San Diegan. Of course, we who live near the southern border may have merely burned our taste buds light out after a life of living at scoville's edge.

When I hang around my foodie friends, I get an appreciation that they may have a greater and more immediate relationship with life and pleasure than your ordinary muggle. It is almost like the ability to recognize a great painting. Some people reject their senses, others try to experience their universe with guns blazing and all sensory circuits wide open. We make choices in life. I am willing to suffer the occasional clogged artery for the perfect veal chop, call me the madman.

***

Yesterday I had business in the big city and the wife and I decided to enjoy lunch together at Cucina Urbana.  Cucina Urbana is a relatively new restaurant that sits on the same footprint as my favorite San Diego restaurant of the last few years, Laurel. It is located at 505 Laurel, on the corner of Fifth. Both places are the brainchild of one Tracy Borkum. Both have a surfeit of great food, beautiful people and an interesting decor. But Borkum did an amazing thing in this new italian restaurant, no entree is over twenty dollars!

This was our first time at Cucina Urbana and I can't wait to go back, maybe with a bunch of my regular food friends. We sat with our back to the front window, so that we could take the whole restaurant in. Our server, Tristan, brought over our menus and explained some of the more esoteric fare.

We started the meal with a vasi, or bread topping. We had a burrata, mozzarella and cream in a roasted garlic confit. It came in its own little swivel topped mason jar. Absolutely delicious, served with sourdough and a rustic wheat bread, the burrata stretching apart like congealed library paste.

Everything on the menu looked so interesting that it was really hard to make a decision. Leslie settled on a short rib pappardelle with mushrooms and large shavings of parmigiano. I ordered the daily grind, a pork and pistachio sausage served under a generous caponata topping, alongside fresh ricotta, on a crusty roll.

My dish was accompanied by a too generous serving of truffle fries, the amazing holdover from Laurel. They are the best I have ever had and I am so happy that they are still on the menu. Some of the other special ingredients on the lunch menu were guanciale, speck, porchetta and lemon ricotta. I asked a lot of questions and the server was helpful, patient and informative. I also looked at the dinner menu, which was a bit more involved and looked equally promising. Such exciting offerings as burnt brussel sprouts.

We didn't have drinks but they had a nice cocktail menu and  a cool and quirky wine selection. Very fun bar.

The food was marvelous. Leslie's papardelle would have been a perfect cold weather food, rich, hot and filling. My sandwich was exquisite. Strong flavors, definitely not for the timid, but perfectly balanced for my palette. We finished our entrees and decided to get one more item, another vasi of smoked trout and golden beet. I wasn't as wild about this item but Leslie loved it. It was not the fault of the dish but I should have had it first or perhaps at another time, it didn't flow with the rest of my meal.

Which reminds me of a time in Vancouver, at the greatest indian restaurant I have ever been, Vij's. The owner, Vikram came to talk to me about the menu and I asked for suggestions and he started asking me about what I had eaten for breakfast and lunch. He built a dinner around my previous meals and it not only was delicious but made sense. I think that that was one of the failings of the French Laundry, I do not think that the human body likes to ingest so many disparate types of meat, fowl and fish at the same sitting. It is a dining habit of french offshoot, I am sure, and popular in 19th century America. See Lincoln's inaugural feast.

We were presented dessert menus that looked tantalizing: blood orange and ricotta fregolata with pistachio bourbon gelato, a roasted pear and rum soaked currant crisp. We just couldn't eat another bite.

Cucina Urbana is not the type of restaurant to be enjoyed by the meek. Flavors are vivid and confident. If you decide to dine there and are seeking company it would be a shame to waste an invitation on someone who didn't really love food. You could always call me. It still may be my favorite restaurant in San Diego. I need to check it out again and soon.

***

Two more things on the food front. Try the cara cara orange available now at your supermarket. A hybrid between the  Washington navel and the Brazilian Bahia navel, it has a beautiful raspberry red flesh and a tangy taste. Best new citrus I have tasted in decades.

Also bought huge chilean cherries at the market last month that were incredibly sweet. At one time the south american fruit we received up here in the winter was dreadful and expensive. We bought the cherries at Henry's for $1.99 on special and they were as good as anything stateside.

***

We tooled our way up the coast after lunch, finally caught the King's Speech and met up with Bob and Terry, our cronies from New Mexico and Omaha. We stopped at 333 for drinks and calamari and then went to Bull Taco for dinner. I had never been to the Oceanside location and had a much larger menu than cardiff. Funky but amazing. I had duck, and a lobster, chorizo, bacon taco. Talk about food combining. Also one of the buck fifty carnitas tacos. They had quail tacos, fois gras tacos, abalone tacos, ox tail tacos, the place is just insane.

***

And finally, how to cook every part of the duck from bill to tail feathers. And end up with stock, confit, sausage, the whole megillah. Video quality not good but bearable.

Jefferson Airplane - Share A Little Joke

Billy's last stand

My friend Michael sent me this sad but eloquent testimonial for his friend Bill.


Robert
I want to share this story with you, I have attached picture of Billy H----- my
closest friend I had growing up in Daly City, we were inseparable from 12 years
old till 15 until  they (law) sent him away to CYO for beating up a teacher with
a chair . I spent every day with him either at his home or mine depending on
who's mother would supply the mustard sandwich on white bread and an unsmoked
Chesterfield, Herbert Tareyton or Pall Mall. We both came from big Irish type
families with too many siblings to count, he the youngest of 8 and me the oldest
of 8 Billy was the toughest guy I knew not big but never quit strong with a chip
on his shoulder. When he returned from the youth pen I was well on my way to the
Haight Ashbury, weed, black light posters and girls that didn't wear underwear.
We didn't hang out after that but always kind of kept track of each other thru
the grapevine. I received a call last week that Billy had colon cancer and it
was in everywhere throughout his body, he had a heart attack during exploratory
surgery and now although somewhat coherent he couldn't eat because the cancer
attacked the food and he no longer had a stomach. Billy is a well known barber,
has 5 kids, had 3 wives and and he was an accomplished martial artist having
reached the highest level of karate one can attain. I spent the last 4-5 days
going to the hospital and watched him when he was lucid tell the nurses to make
sure and shake it for him. Last night I was with him by myself at 9 p.m and he
said Mike I'm freezing so I went and got blankets, then he asked me to rub his
feet and then his stomach which was covered with bandages, tubes etc, I soon
went and got the nurse who gave him his morphine and I watched him go into a
stupor/sleep. I left at 930 p.m, today the doctor called the family and told
them to come as he was spitting blood .I am waiting for the call now to tell me
its over.
What kind of person would ask you if you are dying? who are we?
Michael

Great question. Out of my pay grade but great fucking question. Sincere thanks for sharing. Billy did things his way, will toast him at the next opportunity.
Robert

More Jefferson Airplane

The most dangerous governor in the nation?

A real life cautionary tale is playing itself out in the State of Pennsylvania. Governor Tom Corbett is ceding environmental controls in his state to the energy companies. He says that the state is hereby open for business.

According to a ProPublica report by Lisa Schwartz, Abraham Lustgarten, Nicholas Kusnetz, Joaquin Sapien and Liz Day:

Gov. Tom Corbett wants to hand authority over some of the state’s most critical environmental decisions to C. Alan Walker, a Pennsylvania energy executive with his own track record of running up against the state’s environmental regulations.

Walker, who has contributed $184,000 to Corbett’s campaign efforts since 2004, is CEO and owner of Bradford Energy Company and Bradford Coal, which was once among Pennsylvania’s largest coal mining companies. He also owns or has an interest in 12 other companies, including a trucking business and a central Pennsylvania oil and gas company. 

Walker was Corbett’s first appointee—he chose him to lead the Department of Community and Economic Development in December, before taking office. Now, as Corbett stakes much of the state’s economy on Marcellus Shale gas drilling, a paragraph tucked into the 1,184-page budget gives Walker unprecedented authority to “expedite any permit or action pending in any agency where the creation of jobs may be impacted.” That includes, presumably, coal, oil, gas and trucking.  

It’s not clear how Corbett can delegate such sweeping authority to the economic development office, which would be reorganized to focus on coordinating with corporate interests and creating job growth. It also isn’t clear how the state would address the legal conflicts that could arise if, for example, Walker pushed for approval of a permit that conflicted with the Clean Water Act or other federal laws. The governor’s office did not respond to repeated requests to clarify Walker’s role, and other state agencies deferred to the governor.

Environmental groups think Corbett will need to issue an executive order or some other legal clarification to allow Walker’s office to wield so much influence over regulations.

“I have never seen anybody give an economic development director the authority to tell every other agency in the state what to do with regard to its statutory responsibilities,” said Deborah Goldberg, an attorney with Earthjustice, an environmental group active on drilling issues. “The law requires that you not pollute the waters of Pennsylvania, and if he tries to speed up an application that makes it possible that that is going to happen then I think he is clearly operating outside of his authority.”

A spokesman for the economic development office said Walker will not speak publicly until his confirmation. But Walker did post a statement on the department’s website.

“The budget introduced today represents a completely new way of doing business for DCED and its economic development partners,” the statement said. “In a tough economic climate, we need to send a powerful message to the Pennsylvania Business Community that Pennsylvania is open for business.”

Walker’s ties to the energy industry are deep. He is listed on state disclosure forms as an executive of the Pennsylvania Coal Association and he has served as chairman of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry. He also has firsthand experience with the state’s environmental regulations, because his companies would likely have applied for permits similar to those the oil and gas industry is now pursuing in the Marcellus. And like many energy companies, his, too, have run into problems with the state.

In 2002, three of Walker’s coal companies notified Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection that they had run out of money and were going to stop treating the 173 million gallons of polluted water they produced each year and released into tributaries of the Susquehanna River. The state eventually got a court injunction to force them to continue treating the wastewater as required by state and federal law.

Corbett’s budget, which was introduced Tuesday, emphasizes job creation and proposes eliminating economic development hurdles by streamlining permitting processes in the DEP and the Department of Transportation.

“To address the length of time agencies take to act on permits and eliminate permit backlogs, PennDOT and DEP have begun auditing and assessing all of their permit processes to make them more responsive to the needs of job creators,” the budget says.

In the budget Corbett says drilling will bring Pennsylvania 200,000 jobs and $18 billion in economic benefit by the end of the decade. But the drilling industry’s explosive growth has also caused environmental problems and the budget raises questions about whether the DEP—which could lose nearly 20 percent of its funding—will be able to address them.

Private water wells have been contaminated with methane gas and other pollutants across the state, and in many cases the DEP has found that hasty or insufficient gas well construction was to blame. Several drilling site accidents have led to spills where wastewater, including from hydraulic fracturing, contaminated streams.

A 2009 ProPublica investigation [1] revealed that Pennsylvania’s sewage treatment plants were accepting millions of gallons of drilling wastewater, but lacked the technology to remove or treat many of the chemicals and pollutants the water contained. In 2008 people along one stretch of the Monongahela River were advised [2] to drink bottled water because the level of dissolved minerals and salts in the river was almost twice as high as the DEP considers safe.

The state has since more than doubled its workforce of inspectors and strengthened regulations for how gas wells are drilled, permitted and constructed. The DEP has installed additional water-quality monitors along the Monongahela and required drillers to report where they will take their wastewater after a well has been hydraulically fractured. The agency has also required that wastewater treatment plants be equipped to remove the minerals and salts. And it has received proposals for 24 new waste treatment plants that are now in permitting or review processes—the type of projects Walker could conceivably influence.

In January, the Associated Press found [3] that about 150 million gallons of Marcellus Shale wastewater—the majority of the wastewater for the period examined—had been dumped into rivers and streams after only partial treatment. A subsequent story [4] from the New York Times revealed that much of that wastewater was dangerously radioactive, and that drinking water facilities have not been testing their intake for this radioactivity.

On Monday the EPA leaned on Pennsylvania’s DEP to tighten its oversight of drilling waste disposal. The next day, Gov. Corbett released his budget, reducing DEP funding and stating that job creation should trump lengthy permitting delays.

“It’s an expression of a philosophy that doesn’t value environmental regulation,” said Jan Jarrett, president of PennFuture. “It seems to be the desire of the governor to have this guy be able to pick up the phone and expedite any program that might impact jobs.”

The Governor’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment about the policy shift, the role of the economic development office, or funding for the DEP. Spokespeople for both the DEP and the state Attorney General’s office also declined to comment, saying that only the Governor’s office could speak to the issue. 

While Corbett gives jobs, tax breaks and special deals for his favorite special interests, he screws the working men and women of his state by freezing all public salaries. He has also proposed cutting state college funding by 625 million or 52% of their entire budget. And significantly cut his own Department of Environmental Protection.

Pennsylvania is the only state not to levy a tax on natural gas extraction. Go figure. Interesting times.

Arabian Knights

©Ben Curtis A.P.

Ben Curtis, the A.P. photographer in Libya, has captured some really beautiful shots of late showing pro Gaddafi fighters in front of a burning oil refinery.

I couldn't help thinking of Maxfield Parrish's chroma and palette when looking at these gorgeous pictures.

What an excellent photographer!

When The Earth Moves Again

The earth belches and the plates shift, sending the planet careening off its axis and moving the japanese coast eight feet off its bearings. The cooling system fails at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, causing an explosion and an unspecified release of radiation.

A thousand lives are lost in the twinkling of an eye. The engineers with their standard calculations, antique slide rules and pocket protectors will throw their hands up and say, "don't blame us, it was a hundred year event of a magnitude that we could never comprehend, and besides these isotopes only have a radioactive half life of ten thousand years or so and then things should be pretty much back to normal."

We will mourn the dead and curse an uncaring creator. The only happy one might be the Colonel in Libya, whose air force can now shoot down his own citizens under cover of our short attention span, while the eyes of the world are averted by the distant carnage.

We are dealing with tools beyond our skill set and competence, both on the atomic and genetic level. We can't even conceive the magnitude of the upheaval that our earth is capable of. Worst case scenarios must be inputted into all of the design equations, because if we know anything, it is that sooner or later, the shit always hits the fan.

Marty Robbins - Big Iron

Fat heads, the angel of death and other strange phenomena

I had two people walk up to me and ask me if I was dying yesterday. One I knew, the other was a stranger. Apparently that is the word going around on the street. I told them that I felt fine, been fighting the bronchial thing lately, there seems to be a vicious respiratory bug going around but nothing fatal. Avelox busted it up pretty good. Don't know how these things get started in a small town. Kind of strange to get two such enquiries about my demise in one day.

I have been seeing a pulmonary specialist at Scripps. My childhood asthma has apparently come back. All stems from allergies. I got a cat scan the other day and my total whiteout acute sinusitis is now only chronic sinusitis. Yippee.

Anyway I say my chart on the wall and snapped a pic with my phone before the doctor walked in. It is sort of neat to see your skull inside what is certainly your head. Only one thing troubled me. That roll of fat behind my head. When in the hell did I get that and why didn't anyone tell me? A human never has a really good fix on what the back of their head looks like. Or what their voice actually sounds like. Ever jump at the sound of your voice on an answering machine? Because our own auditory equipment is somehow overwhelmed when it comes to hearing our own voices. Back to Heisenberg again.

Anyhow, I present my skull. No ten penny nails, no shrapnel, no strange paisley areas left over from my wayward LSD experimentations.

***

I submitted one of my short stories, A Cup of Joe , to a local writers group called Coyotes Howl a few months ago. Joe is the story of a chance meeting with the Angel of Death. They published an online anthology and may do a hard bound book of the whole collection. There are some pretty hard core writers in the group, poets, intellectuals, Pushcart Prize winners. I get a bit intimidated by intellectuals and mostly stay clear of readings and literary workshops. But last night, the group got together at Cafe Des' Artistes and did a reading. I read my story and it went reasonably well. Reading dialogue and trying to make two voices speak individually ain't really easy. I think next time I will do a bit better. I learned to make eye contact during the read and was as physical as I could be while still trying to read off my sheaf of papers.

There were a couple actors there and I watched how more proficient speakers set a rhythm in their speech. So I think that I learned something last night. And it was fun.

The reading had high school kids in attendance. The moderator asked that if anyone had anything to read that was erotic in nature that they wait until the young people left. The next speaker launched right in to a somewhat graphic lesbian tale of sapphic nestling and licking and the teacher and students boogied right out of the room. I don't know if people choose not to listen or just want to be in your face all the time?

A couple people with poems about Jesus. The christian poets are really into rhyming, heavy on the iambic pentameter. Tended to be very linear stuff. Takes all kinds.

I look forward to reading a few more of my pieces. People were non judgmental and appreciative. Want to get back to writing more short works of fiction.

***

Verizon is such a ripoff organization. I pay for three phones and they get over $250 a month from me. I went in the other day and found out that they have been charging me over eight bucks a month for insurance for the last two years when the fact is that I declined coverage. They admit I declined but say it was incumbent on me to check my bills and will only rebate me two months. Like oil drillers in the gulf who blame the government because they allowed them to spill the oil in the first place. My fault for pretending that they had ethics.

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Ever write someone an email and then see little ads on your screen that seem to respond to something that you have written. I believe that I have. We know that google or gmail reads every word we write. They know your habits better than you do. And they can sic the perfect advertisers on you. Is there an ethical question or a right to privacy that is being broken here?

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Are you ever tempted to ask the people with the NOTW "not of this world" t-shirts and bumper stickers what world they are really from?

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Speaking of other worlds, I had an interesting lunch with a very rational friend the other day and an interesting topic was broached. I mentioned that I have had strong physical "other worldly" events occur at critical junctures of my life. The kind of stuff that you don't really talk about with people lest they lump you in with the Roswell or Sedona crowd. It is almost embarrassing to divulge but here goes:

The night that I got together with my first wife, we we running through the hills on a late night jog, along with our friend Alex. In fact we were both courting my ex wife. This was "showdown" night. Relatively clear heads, if I remember correctly.  Anyhow, we are running through the mountains near my old home in Rainbow when a energy ball of fire appeared about three feet off the ground. The thing was about 12' in diameter. Hovering about two hundred feet away. We all looked at each other with a "this can't be happening" sense of disbelief. Immediately the thing shot away about 1000'. We actually collectively willed the thing back. Then it disappeared. It is hard to try to explain something so aberrant, but yet so real. I would say ball lightning but for the fact that it seemed sympathetic to our states of acceptance and consciousness. We went to the ex's and talked about our shared vision. Alex went home and I never left. Well for ten years anyway.

A few years later, I was reading a historical field guide for these mountains and saw that the same lightning ball events had been recorded in the late 19th century. The mountain range on the other side of Gavilan Mountain was even called the lights, De Luz. H-m-m-m.

My friend then recounted her story. Somewhat similar in it's otherworldly nature. She is very straight and won't even read fiction. She was married to F and J was working on her home. They were sitting next to each other when actual sparks flew off their collective bodies at each other. Very powerful. It was their signal and they were together after that. And I don't disbelieve it for a second.

I had another powerful experience when I met Leslie that I can not divulge but which seemed contrary to multiple laws of physics and laws of nature. But the strongest physical event of my life, and completely sober to boot.

And finally, when I was quite young I had an interaction with a hungarian sort of holy man who just had me look in his eyes and not blink. The resultant transmission was so powerful that it practically put me on the therapist's couch for a couple years. But the physical nature of the eyebeam event was very tangible and something that I once even repeated with A, my first girlfriend. Rays of light and a figure eight wrapping around their eyes.

I consider myself a fairly rational being. I weigh things with logic. Yet these episodes of power and heightened awareness were so real if you will, so tangible, and curiously seemed to happen during momentous times in my life, presaging important relationships. Could there be something else at work here? At this point a notion of a linear universe is like a flat earth. I now see the life experience more as a giant round of swiss cheese like wormholes. Too many miracles and synchronicity's blurring the lines of reality for me to reform. The kids today don't really seem as active in interstellar travel as my group. Wonder if there will be another great magic fungal revolution soon. Old guys like me will tell all of our war stories about the good old days.

Anybody ever experience anything similar? Or too ashamed to talk about it?

"Today I Started lovin' You Again"

Digging this country jag - stick with me a little longer.

Feathers and Wax

There's nothing that America loves more than a great train wreck. I confess to not being able to keep away from Lindsay's latest necklace caper or Charlie Sheen's most recent implosion. Sex, drugs and rock and roll, a tried and true combination since 5000 b.c.e.. Why do we derive so much satisfaction from a titanic fall from grace?

I have been around a few substance abusers in my time and Sheen is textbook. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle says that you can't ever truly observe anything without fundamentally changing it. You can't assess momentum and position at the same time. The toughest thing to know is yourself and in some ways, you have the worst seat in the house. Or to put it more simply, when you are strung out on hookers and coke and careening off into space, any thoughts of where the ground actually lies is a very abstract concept. You are spinning, and a clear assessment of your actual speed and mental position is impossible.

So your narcissism rises to the fore and in your bravado and with a quick prayer to the great god Thanatos you decide to submit to the impish urges and start feeding your manic beast. You are hurtling at a thousand miles an hour and you can either apply the air brakes or pour another bucket of dilythium crystals into the warp drive. And you do, because when you do it you're so damn cute. And maybe it's fun to play the bad boy or bad girl or the bad outlaw and if you are a celebrity you have surrounded yourself with a warm nest of sycophantic enablers who will soften the punch of any blowback.

And then you crash and burn, or die or have your complete mental breakdown. You are trapped in your own tunnel and any contact with the real world is merely a reverberation. And then maybe you hit bottom, try to get help, join a program, or confess and repent to the deity of your choice. Unless you can still convince yourself that you really are the first mortal with the ability to fly and that it only took a handful of feathers and wax.

conway twitty - hello darling

Smite them by proxy

I was thinking about the standoff in Wisconsin this afternoon and I had to ask myself a question. The dynamics of the schism seem to be conservatives who are angered by state deficits, union pensions and compulsory union membership against a liberal block that feels that the Republicans are union busting and trampling on the rights of teachers, firemen, police and other public workers.

I was wondering if there is not another significant sub narrative at work here. Could it be that public workers are being targeted because they are a group of people who are in contact with, and tend to aid the poor and the lower class, the real nemesis of the right? Perhaps they represent a bureaucracy that fails to administer enough tough love to those shiftless lazy bastards who they feel just want to lay around and have babies on the government dime? First salvo against the welfare state. Not to mention strike a blow against those individuals most apt to regulate the environment and impede the unrestrained free market for these obdurate masters.

Since it is politically inadvisable to declare open war on the underclass, it makes some sense to instead attack those on the frontline with them and hope for a little collateral damage.

This way they get to hurt the unions and dismantle social services at the same time. There could be some transference at work here.

***

Very interesting article on human social structures and commentary on same by Frances Fukuyama in today's NYT.

***

I am reading A pleasure to burn, a 2010 collection of Fahrenheit 451 stories by Ray Bradbury. Pillars of Fire was my favorite piece of adolescent science fiction in its original R is for Rocket publication. It is still great. I forgot what a brilliant writer he is, on a par with and equal to the titans. Great shit.

Chet Atkins & Earl Klugh- "Goodtime Charlie's Got The Blues"

March the seventh

I heard a very interesting interview on Terry Gross's Fresh Air today with ex CIA husband and wife Dayna and Robert Baer. They have just written the book The Company We Keep: A Husband-and-Wife True-Life Spy Story.  He has written several other books, one that became the basis of Syriana.

The Baer's had a very unusual perspective on the current situation in the middle east, actually a quite optimistic perspective. Robert says that he is rooting for "the street". Listen to the interview by following this link. He also has some very poignant comments about the corporatization of our Spy agencies through the use of independent contractors.

***

I spent a few hours this afternoon with my friends Lynne and Tracy. Lynne is a world class jeweler and wire bender who learned her craft in asia, africa and afghanistan in the 1960's. She incorporates Calder, native and her own unique vision and uses a panoply of material including precious gems and found objects. She is soon to have a major exhibit downtown. Lynne has taught all over the world and is just a magnificent artist.

Today we were talking and I mentioned that I thought I would write a sci fi, post apocalyptic story about a world where Harvard MBA's starve to death while the currency of normal joe's that can fix engines and create simple batteries and possess other primitive skills is off the charts. People who can weave functional baskets for instance.

We started talking about simple baskets. You can look at a three dollar basket and not realize that it is handmade by somebody in a third world country who might have a day or two in its production. And that the thought and execution inherent in its production can be quite brilliant. Lynne seconded my observation and said that she has had a lifelong appreciation of baskets and has in fact never seen one that was machine made. She pulled out a couple from her collection. People have talked about the concept of fair trade for third world commodities in recent years but I am afraid that we are far from seeing an equitable situation in regard to most third world goods and commodities.

I started thinking about the difference between the hippie and post hippie generation and it's predecessors and successors. My mother's generation had an aversion for tribal art that still continues with many today. There was something dirty about things made by primitive, dark skinned peoples. So they flocked to modern and space age. Decor that tended to coldness but was free from any third world influence.

The sixties and seventies saw my generation reaching out to the third world for design influences, something taboo for the older patrician class, still inculcated by the caste system, which tended to only appreciate western european design influences. On the other hand, every far off tribe was fair game for the hippies, from tibet to the walpi.

I know that some women avoid my wife's store because it offers that colorful "gypsy" clothing, steel art from haiti and other ethnic fare. Those women tend to be more comfortable in the shop across the way that tends to sell solid colors in petite sizes, but more offerings for the demure, conservative person. Something for everybody on the block, I suppose.

***

Tracy wants me to get back to more political writing. I tried to explain that it is getting harder and harder to write about things that I have written about so many times in the past. Things haven't changed and my views are pretty well known. I hate our current polarization and if I can find interesting things to write about that we can all agree on and mix it up, well, so much the better. But I won't neglect the political stuff either. I appreciate all of my readership, on the left and the right and am also proud that even into my fourth year, all of my commenters have remained basically civil to each other.

***

Fred D. sent over this interesting link. This is a picture from the 1474 megapixel Gigapan camera. If you zoom and double click or mouse wheel anywhere on the photo you will be able to pretty much discern every face in the crowd. Couple this with a rudimentary facial recognition system and big brother has a pretty nice tool in their arsenal. Of course this link is now two years older so it's probably already antiquated.

I Wasn't Born To Follow

Feast on the even toed ungulate.

Friday the National Pork Board decided to table their old "Pork - the other white meat" slogan for the new and trés catchy, "Pork - Be inspired." 

This sent my feeble brain into a bit of a loop, as I had never considered the inspirational quality inherent in this noble and apparently under appreciated beast.

Pork sales, which average about $117.00 per capita in America have been flat as a bacon strip of late and the folks at the National Pork Board don't intend to take the porcine doldrums sitting down. They plan on spending 11 million dollars in the next two months on their new ad campaign. There's even a new Pork - Be inspired website.

Americans eat approximately 50 lbs. of pork per year on average, compared to 61 lbs. of beef and 80 lbs. of chicken. Perhaps The National Porkers might have better followed Avis's advertising lead in looking at their poor third place finish with something like "Swine, we try harder." Or "Chicken dinner again? BORING!"

I am no advertising or promotional genius but I think that this new pork campaign is as ill fated as passing out pork chops at a Bar Mitzvah. Here's hoping that cooler hams prevail.

Tried so hard

Nice version of the old Gene Clark song by Gram and the Burritos.

Strangeworld

The world is getting stranger by the day. In Wisconsin, a resolution passed by the state Senate today orders the Sergeant at Arms, if the Dems don't show up by 4 p.m., to "take any and all necessary steps, with or without force, and with or without the assistance of law enforcement officers, by warrant or other legal process, as he may deem necessary in order to bring that senator to the Senate chambers so that the Senate may convene with a quorum of no less than 20 senators."

By force? Really? Last week, Gov. Walker admitted that the police he was sending to bring the gang of 14 back had no real power to do so. He was hoping to pressure them. Interesting now that they seem to think that the use of force against elected officials is now legal. What are they going to do, bullwhip them and throw them in irons?

***

The GOP came to power this cycle on the wings of a lot of anger, both their own and their constituents. Now they are elected and they are still angry. So angry that they are picking fights all over the country, from Scott in Florida to LePage in Maine, to Kasich and Walker. The partisan antics of Darryl Issa. They do not seem to have a handle on working with others, preferring to govern by ultimatum and fiat. This over reaching is destined to give them a quick trip out the door. Because they can't play nice. Now Walker says that if he doesn't have a quorum tomorrow, he is going to lay off 1500 teachers. A very pissy way to do business.

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A link to a video of Wisconsin State Representative Nick Milroy being tackled by police for the crime of trying to get clothes out of his office. Your kinder, gentler Republican party.

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In South Dakota the governor is on the verge of signing a new law that would force women that are seeking an abortion to wait 72 hours, get a sonogram and have all of their fetus's parts described to them in the most graphic detail and then go to a Pregnancy Resource Center, which tend to be totally anti abortion, for counseling. I guess I could see going to a neutral person, in the farthest stretch of my imagination, but a Christian pro life group, give me a break. Pregnancy and abortion is a decision that should be between a woman and her doctor, period. Talk about a nanny state, now the so called libertarians are trying to micromanage the womb.

***

Read somewhere recently and I can't for the life of me find the link, that one of the prairie states was considering a law that divorces would not be granted unless both parties agreed, a practice only practiced globally in some fundamentalist Islamic and jewish orthodox societies.  There is a woman in Israel going through absolute hell right now because she can not get a get from her husband. Another sick patriarchal attempt to oppress women. I believe that South Dakota has a bill pending that a couple must wait a year for a divorce proceeding if there are children involved. What if there is domestic abuse involved? Going to force people to stay with abusive spouses, as well?

***

So much for limited government.

Merle Haggard-Swinging Doors

Emmylou Harris, George Jones.

The end of this classic Harlan Howard song is also unfortunately cut...



A great tandem on this Rodney Crowell song.

Southern Hospitality

The neighbor really doesn't like you. You are a lesbian couple living in the south. She says, "I'm going to burn your house down, and I'm going to kill you." She decides to tell you a little joke. "What's better than one dead queer? Two dead queers. "

Trouble starts soon after you move into your dream house. Lug nuts are loosened on your trailer. Nails are strewn in your driveway. Your dog is poisoned, after the neighbor threatens to do just that. The neighbor, Janice Millsaps, allegedly enters their home while they are away repeatedly, according to the police complaint. She also allegedly makes the statement, "there’s bodies in these hills that no one will ever find,’... and that she "takes care of things the old-fashioned way, the Millsaps way."

Carol Ann and Laura Stutte install spotlights and security fencing. They file a report on the harassment with the Monroe County Sheriff last August.

The couple goes to Nashville for an anniversary dinner and get a call during dinner that their house is on fire. They return to find it burnt down, with the word Queers spray painted on the garage. They see the neighbor, who points to the burnt out site and laughs.

Their insurance company, American National Property & Casualty Company, refuses to make a payment or help them with living expenses, even though they have a policy which states "“If a loss covered under this section makes the residence premises uninhabitable, we cover any necessary increase in living expenses incurred by you so that your household can maintain its normal standard of living for up to 24 months.” They finally make them a total offer of six hundred bucks and change, five months later. Total.

Sheriff is still investigating and neither they or the FBI will call it a hate crime. "We really have not seen enough evidence yet to call it a hate crime," Sheriff Bill Bivens said. "There are indicators, don't get me wrong, although we are still investigating."

It is awful that people still have to go through this sort of thing in America. You can help the Stutte's by helping pressure their insurance company through this link on Change.org.