11.14.11

I have had several letters from a few of you, some of you dear friends, gently prodding me about my health and being out of shape. And the alcohol consumption thing. I appreciate your concerns, I will be fine. Eventually. The sinus trigger the lungs, which toggled the asthma, which limits the cardio, etc. Which has been causing me to lose my cookies on a regular basis, graphic details of which I will not post, suffice it to say that corn beef quesadillas are something you only want to envisage on the way down. Happened night before last, the beer gave way to Jamison's, I drink the catholic whiskey, it was an experiment doomed to failure.

Everyone knows that jews don't drink. I am a decided lightweight. Anyway, for your information mr. you know who, vodka is not hard alcohol, they make it from potatoes. I am not much of a drinker but there are times you have to indulge in order to be neighborly. Last night I had a glass of a very special 2006 french Grand Cru something or other that was delicious courtesy of Jan and Jim.

The truth is, my back is in one of its annual, left sacral, L4 and 5 let's fuck with Robert moods again and I have been looking at life from the vantage of a medium baked bavarian pretzel. And it's not my spare tire, and its not the booze and its not my bad attitude, it is this;

My cheap office chair, my broken cheap office chair, my third in a year, this one a loaner from Renée. because I am too cheap to spring for something decent I have become a sore backed, ibuprofen laden, zombie and a shadow of my former self.

I dragged my tormented body out of my contorted position and drove to Temecula, to look at the chairs at Staples and hopefully solve my back problem. I sat in about 30 chairs from armless modernist numbers that look like they would break if you looked at them wrong, to backless zen like chairs that keep you in the perfect satori state, to the chair equivalent of the new camaro with racing stripes, massage chairs, the whole gamut. Really liked the Posturpedic chair but it was padded like grandma's sofa and had a floral print and looked kind of dowdy.  I ended up picking up a slightly more expensive cheap office chair. Hey, they all break anyway, right?

I did my best Festus impression and coaxed the box up to the register. The young checker asked me if I wanted to spend another $4.99 on the extended warranty? "Well how long is the implicit warranty," I asked? She said, "One year but you have to ship it back to the manufacturer and the shipping will cost more than the chair."

I stood there a bit dumbfounded and said, "What you're telling me is that the actual warranty is a scam and that Staples doesn't stand behind its products." I saw the cashier behind her nodding vigorously in assent. I went into a mini dissertation of the sadness of living in an age when such poorly made necessities are designed for built in obsolescence and to be throw aways and I saw a glazed look coming over her eyes, I had lost her.

"So you want the new warranty?"

I bit my lip and shuffled my tired self and my new chair out the door.

There's More Pretty Girls Than One---Hylo Brown

Rubberneckers

This whole Occupy movement is getting to be like that crazy, hippie drum circle down the street, pointless and aimless to be sure, largely unlistenable and destined to never get any better. I get that large groups of a multigenerational swath of America are justifiably unhappy. I know who they are pissed at. I agree with much of their anger and reasoning.

But a large amorphous blob of people without a clear unifying message, coherent set of demands, let alone potential solution or roadmap, sounds suspiciously like the Tea Party and in my opinion doomed. Every Tom, Dick and Mary anarchist wannabee can now hook themselves to the occupy bandwagon. Every act of violence, rape or craziness will be owned by the whole group. Kill the whole thing now. It can only get a whole lot worse and you will find yourselves continually apologizing for the few bad apples. Which the opposition will blame you for. Plus you are becoming a big nuisance and financial drain in terms of fire, police, cleanup, etc.  Company and fish, things are starting to stink.

The point has been made.

Several of my friends have had their business absolutely ruined due to their proximity to an occupy group. Don't hurt the small businessman right now, we are on the ropes already.

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One of my cohorts read my latin america/germany post the other day and mentioned that Volkswagon located their manufacturing facility in Puebla, the town with the largest native german population concentration in Mexico. I had never considered the tremendous german influence on the latin population until very recently. Damn you for that Banda music!

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Heard an interesting thing on NPR this morning about the"Bystander Effect." This is a term coined after the Kitty Genovese murder to describe why bystanders are oftentimes incapable of reacting when they see a violent or sordid crime being committed. Genovese, 28 years old, was stabbed to death on March 13, 1964 in New York before a reported 38 eyewitnesses who did nothing (a number that has been factuall disputed as excessive.)

People are piling on the Penn St. assistant coach for not going to the cops, an unfair target if you ask me, he has received multiple death threats. According to Wiki during the Bystander Effect "the probability of help has in the past been thought to be inversely related to the number of bystanders; in other words, the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help. The mere presence of other bystanders greatly decreases intervention. This happens because as the number of bystanders increases, any given bystander is less likely to interpret the incident as a problem, and less likely to assume responsibility for taking action."

According to the NPR spot, which I will try to find and link to, people say that they would always help in these situations and then don't. Researchers hired actors to create simulated violent scenes and the same people who pledged to help ended up doing nothing as well.

I was in a situation once in an airport, when I was young and strong and at the top of my martial arts game when I saw a man verbally abusing and pushing his wife around and I did nothing. I had remembered something I had heard or read about the danger of involving yourself in a domestic squabble, the possibility of being attacked by both parties. I felt bad for my lack of action for some time. Should have got a cop.

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President Obama is going into campaign phase with great vigor, woe that he doesn't approach his job with the same gleam in his eye. We thought we were electing a man with radical new ideas, we instead received an accommodator who wants to show everybody his willingness to meet his enemies halfway.

I think that the President is a very cynical man. He knows that because of Roe v. Wade I will be forced to hold my nose and vote for him. It's all about the Supreme Court, baby. But talk about a disappointment. So eager to take on the GOP, Romney may be right when he complains about Obama's  early election ranting and attacks. Stop apologizing for your ineptitude and stop campaigning and try leading this country.

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Another arch conservative, Fred Barnes at the Weekly Standard, has an interesting take on the President today Obama ♥ the Big Guys. Strange when the conservatives go after Wall Street.

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Was talking at dinner the other night about strange bedfellows and role reversals. My dinner companions were talking about how the Republican Party was the original party touting birth control, during the eugenics movement popular in the early twentieth century. Now they are the religious moralists. Somewhere along the line there was a shift.

Republicans like to tell you that they were the original emancipators and they are also largely correct. Lincoln and in the sixties, segregation was the battle cry for lots of southern democrats like Russell and Wallace. Need a scorecard to figure the whole thing out sometimes.

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Rich sends along a conservative blog, Gates of Vienna that gets it right occasionally and that you might want to peruse.

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Bravo to John McCain for not selling out. He bucked his GOP candidate cronies and went after them for their stance on waterboarding. I may rarely agree with the man but he is true to his convictions.

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Ron Paul called Elizabeth Warren a socialist the other day. When queried, he said that she supports public education. Like every other semi-rational candidate, Ron. I guess they are all commies, huh?

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My mom called today. I saw her on the phone but it was sort of an inconvenient time to talk to her. In another minute I heard the electronic sound announcing her voice mail pinging on the server. I looked at the google voice translation and it transliterated, "Bob, I have to talk to you." Shit, maybe it was serious, the family? So, I called her back.

"What's up, Mom?"

"You know, you are an incredible writer."

I was shocked and highly complimented. My mother is a writer and an ex high powered New York editor. She gave me a few more accolades that I am too embarrassed to divulge. She told me that she always loved my photography but thought me a better writer. She was a little bugged when I called her a hypochondriac.

So now my mother is reading the blog. Shit.

Power of Ten

Chilean March

Sousa on Mars.

Man Walking - Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904)

I had a nice dinner with E & D last night. E is a retired executive who was born in Chile. They are very hip and practice buddhism and both possess very facile minds. It was a great circuitous conversation that travelled here and there and landed on some very interesting turf which I will try to partially reconstruct.

E told me that Chile was largely constructed on a germanic model in the 1800's. Much of Chile's culture, political system and underpinnings was influenced by early immigration from the Rheinland. Readers of McCullough's John Adams will remember that America was caught in a tug of war thirty years earlier between a francophile model espoused by Jefferson and Franklin and the anglophile one that was favored by Adams. Things got so bad that Adams suggested that his cohorts were guilty of treason.

Anyway, I never realized that prussian culture had so permeated our latin neighbors, I knew that Paraguay and Argentina were favored spots for Nazis to relocate after the big war, all with the help of the OSS of course, in case they needed them to fight our new enemy, the reds. But I had never considered the early immigration and cultural exchange. They adopted all the tappings of der fatherland whole hog or should I say "whole shwein?"

"I wonder if that is why mexican and latin music has those horrible polka horns and accordions?" I said aloud. "That Banda music I dread so." D looked at E and then me and laughed. "E loves that martial music." I had put my foot in my mouth once again and looked for a quick recovery.

We started talking about marches. Do you realize that this music directly correlates to the average length of a human stride? A six foot tall male averages a 28.5" stride. Which also relates to the average length of the human femur, 18.9 inches. Of course gravity comes into place as well. The average specific gravity of the earth is 5.5 g/cm cubed. So our music is directly related to both our particular anatomy and our ability to ambulate. If you lived on neptune for instance, the specific gravity is about 1.19 times greater than earth's and your average salsa band number might sound more like a fugue. On Mercury, it is probably more apt to sound like gerbils huffing helium.

E took up the conversation. He told me that the average number of beats in a german march is 112 bpm. The French Foreign Legion march at 88 bpm. The French are always placed last in the parade because they slow everybody down. Further research I have undertaken tells me that the Scottish Highlanders are even slower, kilts and all, they roll at about 80 bpm.

I started reading up on marches and martial music this morning. An Australian named Joseph Jordania has written two thought provoking books about music and early man. From Wikipedia:

Jordania suggests that "the initial function of human music (in the form of loud rhythmic singing, coupled with stomping and drumming on external objects) was to induce a specific altered state of consciousness, battle trance, where early hominids and humans were losing individuality and were acquiring collective identity. In this state they did not feel fear and pain, and were religiously dedicated to the interests of group to the point of sacrificing themselves[1]. Apart from special military bands and orchestras, military personnel also often uses listening to loud rhythmic music in order to prepare themselves for the combat situations[2]."

Jordania wrote the book Why do People Sing? Music in Human Evolution in 2011. This is a continuation of his 2006 book Who Asked the First Question? Origins of Human Choral Singing, Intelligence, Language and Speech. He postulates that "the fundamental force behind the evolution of hominid/human morphology and behavior was the original non-contact defense strategy from predators, based on intimidation of predators and competitors through visual, audio and olfactory messages." 

Again from Wikipedia:

"Jordania notes an effect of the change of environment on hominid behavior, primarily after early hominids descended from the safer environment of tree branches to the ground. According to Jordania, singing is a dangerous activity, as it can attract predators. At the same time loud vocalization is used by many species to scare away predators and competitors. The three-dimensional nature of tree branches and the two-dimensional nature of the ground is discussed in the context of the absence of a singing species on the ground and the presence of over 5000 singing species living in tree branches all around the world. Jordania suggested that the central function of group singing was to organize the defense against big African ground predators. Similar idea of singing used as a tool for the defense from competitors and aggressors was expressed earlier by Thomas Geissmann."

According to Jordania, "early hominids were not using the most popular defense mechanisms used by most large mammals. They were very conspicuous with their upright posture to use crypsis, were too noisy to stay unheard, were very slow to run away from predators, could not use their teeth to fight back, and did not have a tough hide to withstand even a moderate predator offense. Instead, Jordania suggests that early hominids developed a non-contact form of defense and offense, AVID (Audio-Visual Intimidating Display, or AVOID – Audio-Visual-Olfactory Intimidating Display). Hominids were intimidating predators and competitors with their size, upright posture, loud united sound, and threatening movements."

Again according to Jordania, "early hominids became also masters of throwing rocks and other objects. Aimed throwing as a means of hunting has been proposed by William H. Calvin.[4] Jordania proposes that early hominids were using throwing primarily for defense, not hunting. He formulates several advantages of defense throwing against hunting throwing: (1) easier to aim at the object when it is running towards the thrower, (2) the distance is closer, (3) as the distance is closer, heavier rocks can be used (even thrown by two hands), (4) the rock more likely to hit the head of the attacking animal, (5) the speed of the attacking animal adds to the speed of the rock and thus the overall impact. Besides, if is widely known that defense throwing (but not hunting throwing) is used by African apes in the wild[5]."


The central adaptive function of music, according to Jordania, was to put hominids into a specific altered state of consciousness, which he calls the battle trance. In this neuro-chemically induced state humans do not feel fear and pain, do not question orders from the group leader, and act in the best interests of the group (even to the point of sacrificing their own lives). In this state humans lose individuality and are united in a shared collective identity. According to Jordania, this state was achieved by early hominids through vigorous group rhythmic singing and dancing sessions which were affecting hominid brain chemistry through chemical agents on a very deep emotional level. The state of battle trance was used in order to defend hominids and humans from predators, and to help them to obtain protein rich food via chasing away predators from their kill. Jordania proposed that preparation for the confrontation with lions and other big predators with the use of ritualized rhythmic dancing, body painting and group singing became the basis of the future religious ritual practices. The use of listening to heavy rhythmic music, and even singing and dancing in groups before going to combat missions by warriors is widely known from historical sources and tribal societies all the way through to contemporary Western military forces.[6] This phenomenon is regarded by Jordania as a direct descendant of the ancient function of music and the phenomenon of the battle trance."

Jordania also introduces the concept of aposematic defense. He proposes that "in order to look bigger early hominids started to use bipedal posture. Unlike temporary use of bipedal posture by many animal species when facing predators and competitors, hominids started using bipedalism habitually, gradually adopting an aposematic strategy of defense (bigger and more visible body, slow walking speed). Longer legs were also favored by natural selection in order to achieve higher body. Jordania also suggested that the primary function of long and tightly coiled human head hair was to increase the height of hominid body."

I find it fascinating to think how our particular atmosphere, gravity, heat and environmental conditions have conspired to give us this biped form. Whether music and singing evolved to keep the sabre tooths away is another matter entirely. It is a total interstellar conceit to think that other advanced life forms would have similar physiologic tendencies as hominids; bipeds, nostrils, hair. Might as well look like centipedes or amoebas or bacterium. Perhaps other beings run on some other gas besides oxygen and that consciousness can be imbued in beings that are not carbon based at all. It would be remarkable, even in an ever expanding infinite universe, for a life form to undergo an evolutionary flight plan that could summon martial music from it's particular ingredients. While our greeks wrote prose saluting "the rosy fingered dawn", paeans directed at five hundred degree solar storms have an entirely different cachet.

In any case it is evident that most of our creative endeavors will have a limited audience in interstellar space, resonating from our  physical evolutionary template whose conditions for creation are probably quite particular to our very unique status in the universe.

Just don't be expecting any horns or accordions.

Another brick in the wall

I know, enough already with the big brother is watching, paranoia stuff. This is the last one this week, okay, I promise. Hey, if you aren't doing anything wrong, you got nothing to worry about, right?

From today's a.p.:
Lancaster approves anti-crime surveillance plane

The Associated Press

Published: Friday, Nov. 11, 2011 - 11:27 am

Last Modified: Friday, Nov. 11, 2011 - 12:17 pm

LANCASTER, Calif. -- A surveillance plane that would cruise the skies over this Southern California desert city has been approved by city council members who believe it will help fight crime, but critics worry it could turn out to be a "1984"-style invasion of privacy.

The City Council on Tuesday voted for a $90,000-a-month program that would have a Cessna 172 equipped with infrared imaging and high-tech video gear roam the city 10 hours a day. The plane would cruise at 1,000 to 3,000 feet and send video to the local Los Angeles County sheriff's station.The so-called Law Enforcement Aerial Platform System, or LEAPS, could begin flying by May. It will cost $1.3 million to launch and $300 an hour to maintain.Supporters say the plane would act like a flying patrol car that could, for instance, spot a home invasion robbery and an accident.The plane's primary value is the ability "to see what's going on at the scene of a crime almost instantaneously," sheriff's Capt. Bob Jonsen of the Lancaster station told the Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/vcZgyd)."It's our goal to become the safest city in America," said Mayor R. Rex Parris, an enthusiastic supporter.The Mojave Desert city of 145,000 already is working toward that goal. The crime rate so far this year is down 16 percent from the same period in 2010; by year's end, it may have plunged 40 percent since 2007.The plane would not be part of the Sheriff Department's Aero Bureau, which does not use its helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft for long-term or general surveillance.Those aircraft mainly respond to aid calls from deputies for pursuits and crimes in progress. "They're bouncing from one call to another...responding to things that are actually happening in real time," Aero Bureau Sgt. Jon Brick told The Associated Press. "If we're doing a surveillance, it's for a specific problem. We do not randomly surveil."The idea of a plane roaming over the city worries civil rights groups and some citizens, who fear it may invade privacy or be used to target specific neighborhoods or people."I think we have a privacy problem, and I think the city is going to have a lot of lawsuits," resident Ed Galinda told the City Council on Tuesday.The U.S. Department of Justice announced in August that it was investigating claims that sheriff's deputies discriminated against blacks and Latinos in Lancaster and neighboring Palmdale, especially those living in subsidized housing.The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California has filed a state public records request to obtain information about the program, such as how long the video will be kept and whether the images will be public record."People who have done nothing wrong shouldn't have anything they do in their yards or homes subject to video surveillance from the sky," senior staff attorney Peter Bibring told the Times. "To the extent that it involves observing things which a typical pilot overhead might not be able to see, it raises serious constitutional questions."The video is supposed to be encrypted and only designated deputies - not the pilot or city officials - are supposed to see the recordings, authorities said."The system follows existing law enforcement and citizen privacy protocol, as already established by the Sheriff's Department," according to a statement issued last week by Aero View LLC. The Lancaster company designed and built the plane along with Lancaster-based Spiral Technology, Inc.The video could be kept for up to two years so that evidence could be available if an unreported crime is discovered later, Aero View said.

Infrared imaging? Nice.

Waiting for the Man

Scotus Hocus Pocus

Veterans Day procession, Fallbrook

I don't think I can be accused of hyperbole for calling the current bench of the Supreme Court the group most antagonistic to the civil and personal rights of the American citizen in history. From the Citizens United case that denoted personhood on corporations to Gonzales v. Raich (previously Ashcroft v. Raich), 545 U.S. 1 (2005) this court seems to be quite brazen about carrying water for their rich corporate allies. Read Hudson v. Michigan, Walmart v. Dukes or AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion and you will see the limbo dance the Roberts Court performs to screw the little guy and fellate their corporate cronies.

Because I expect the worst from this bunch on a daily basis, I was mildly shocked by two cases that came before the court this week. The first was the Antoine Jones case, in which the police attached a GPS tracking device on the defendant's Jeep Cherokee for a month, without a warrant, and used the resultant evidence to convict him of cocaine trafficking. At one time we had a fourth amendment in this country which protected us against unreasonable search and seizure.

Anyhow the United States Court of Appeals for D.C. overturned Jone's conviction and Obama's justice department appealed to SCOTUS. Michael R. Dreeben, United States Solicitor General says that there are no constitutional limits to the government's ability to track people's public movements. He said you can even bug someone's clothing without a warrant unless it broadcasts information from inside a home.

Justice Ginsburg asked and got confirmation from Dreeben that the "endpoint" to the government's argument was that the government could monitor whatever they wanted as long as a person was not at home. Justice Breyer told Dreeben that "if you win this case, then there is nothing to prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24 hours a day the public movement of every citizen of the United States.” And that, Justice Breyer said, “sounds like ‘1984.’ ”Mr. Dreeben said, “The court should address the so-called ‘1984’ scenarios if they come to pass, rather than using this case as a vehicle for doing so.” He noted that the government doesn't intend to engage in universal 1984 style snooping. Does anybody with a sound mind take them at their word?


Sotomayor joined in,“It wouldn’t take that much of a budget, local budget, to place a GPS on every car in the nation,” she said. Mr. Dreeben said law enforcement officials have used GPS tracking sparingly. At the federal level, he said, “It’s in the low thousands annually.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor suggested the government’s position went too far, especially in the age of “smart phones” that contain GPS tracking devices. “It would be OK to put a computer chip and put it on somebody’s overcoat?” she asked. Dreeben said Sotomayor was off base because her scenario would allow GPS monitoring inside a home. “That is off-limits,” he said. However, “a car parked in the garage,” he added, “does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

The fulcrum for the Obama Administration's argument in support of warrantless GPS tracking is the high court’s 1983 decision in United States v. Knotts, in which the justices said it was OK for the government to use beepers known as “bird dogs” to track a suspect’s vehicle without a warrant. The appeals court said the beacon in the 1983 case tracked a person, “from one place to another,” whereas the GPS device monitored Jones’ “movements 24 hours a day for 28 days.”

The issue now is if the government has a right to monitor us 24 hours a day, it is within the capabilities of our current technology to create a data map showing the location of every movement of every citizen  that owns a cellphone for any length of time. Since when did the right to unreasonable search only exist in the home anyway?

What I find mildly amusing was that the normally staid Chief Justice finally perked his ears when the conversation started to hit close to home:

Chief Justice John Roberts wondered aloud whether the government’s position was that it may secretly attach GPS devices to the cars of the nine members of the Supreme Court without a warrant.
“You think they are entitled to do that?” Roberts asked.
“The justices of the Supreme Court?” Dreeben replied.
“So your answer is, ‘yes,’ you could tomorrow decide that you put a GPS device on every one of our cars, follow us for a month; no problem under the Constitution?” the chief justice continued.
“Well, equally, Mr. Chief Justice, if the FBI wanted to it could put its team of surveillance agents around the clock on any individual and follow that individual’s movements as they went around on the public streets …, Dreeben replied.

No problem bugging the phones and cars of ordinary Americans but evidently the surveillance of justices is another matter. Those of you who expected more from this administration, well, get in line.

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A great article in the WSJ last week on the matter. A Magistrate in Texas, Stephen Smith, decided to say no and deny the government's cell phone tracking request. Apparently they get one approximately every fifteen minutes, over 30,000 per year.


The so-called magistrates' revolt traces its history to a 2005 opinion written by Magistrate Smith in Texas.


Magistrate Smith said he was puzzled by cellphone-tracking requests when he was new to the bench: he couldn't find a provision in the law allowing police to track a phone for as long as 60 days without a search warrant. To learn more, he visited the U.S. Marshals surveillance operation and quizzed lawyers at cellphone companies about government requests.


Prosecutors told him they had authority to track phones with a court order by combining two portions of the 1986 law: one allows collection of historical location data; the other allows the real-time collection of cellphone calling data but not location. Taken together, the government argued that it could track a cellphone's location without having to show probable cause.


On Oct. 14, 2005, Magistrate Smith denied a government request in an opinion that called the government's legal theory "undeniably creative." But "mixing and matching of statutory provisions," he said, would create a "new form of electronic surveillance" not envisioned by the law.


Within six months, nine other magistrates also denied tracking requests, relying in part on Magistrate Smith's reasoning. Other magistrates sided with the government, agreeing that cellphone locators weren't precise enough to require a search warrant.


The magistrate rebellion prompted changes in some jurisdictions. U.S. Attorneys in Los Angeles, for example, agreed to obtain search warrants for cellphone location information in federal cases.


The Justice Department recommended that prosecutors obtain search warrants when tracking phones using such "precise" technology as GPS or multiple cellphone towers, according to documents dated in 2007 obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union in a freedom-of-information request. The department continued to argue that less precise tracking of phones didn't require a warrant.


Interesting sleight of hand by the government in not having to show probable cause, if you ask me. Bets are off on how these justices handle this one.

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The other case this week that caught my eye was the justice's rebuke of the New Orleans District Attorney. I believe that this case involved Harry Connick Jr.'s dad, the then New Orleans D.A. They suppressed exculpatory evidence from the defense that could have cleared a criminal defendant in a murder trial.

Assistant D.A. Donna Andrieu tried to double down this week. Judge Sotomayor referenced the fact that the office had been continually cited for violating the 1963 decision Brady v. Maryland, a decision that requires prosecutors to turn over favorable evidence  to the defense. In the current case, Smith v. Cain, No.10 -8145, a man was convicted solely on testimony of a witness with no prints, DNA or other physical evidence. The witness said made a lot of conflicting statements to the police, which were kept from the defendant Smith's lawyers. In one of these statements, the witness said that he could not identify the assailants.

Andrieu said that the failure to turn over the statements to the defense did not violate the law because the jury would have discounted them. Quite prescient. The justices were reportedly not impressed.

Angel

The Wee Folkestra

Daily Dose

I shot this girl out of my car window last week on a bridge up in Oakland. Loved the shadows on her legs.

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Leslie is taking care of some of her late Aunt's affairs in Florida so me and the cat are batching it.

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I have a new blog for my business. I have been remiss in creating a new website so this will have to do for now.

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Hudgins sent this cool Vimeo link over. Sophie Clive's Murmeration. Stunningly beautiful.

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Shawn sent footage of the man riding the giant wave in Portugal.

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Robin Adler and her band Mutts of the Planet tore up Dizzy's. I can't wait to see the video they are producing of the concert, the playing of Joni Mitchell's Blue and Court and Spark in their entirety by a crack group of musicians. Read the incredible review in the Reader here.

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Pandora users might want to check out one of my stations, Rob's Psychedelic Buffet.

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Renée sends over this opinion by Annie Leonard, We're not broke.

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I look at the current state of Republican candidates and I have to cringe. Seriously, is this the best you can do? Is your party so bereft of sanity that you are reduced to this circus cast of characters? With the exception of the two reasonable candidates, who possessed of sanity can never get out of the shadows of the buffoons, Huntsman and Johnson, this is like something out of Cuckoos Nest. Romney will be the de facto candidate. A rich, uninspiring pablum of a candidate, the country can certainly do worse. Definitely dropped in my eyes last week when he absolutely signed on to the "Personhood Amendment" which thankfully went up in flames in Mississippi. Good on you Mississippi. Everyone, myself included, were sure that you were going to cast a vote back to the dark ages. Shows that we should not judge. Lot of top democrats were on board as well.

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Check out Brian Beutler's article in TPM on the Republican's plan to right the economy. Here is a neat couple of graphs. If you do not like to read graphs I will explain. Raise the taxes of everyone but the rich.

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The new red list is out on lost species and things aren't going so well. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has a detailed listing of over 61,900 plant and animal species. We just lost the Western Black Rhino in Africa. Forever. Twenty five percent of the mammals on the list are threatened. The IUCN also listed five out of eight tuna species as "threatened" or "near threatened," and added 26 recently discovered amphibians to the Red List, including the blessed poison frog. Check out the list, you can toggle between threatened and extinct.

Of course as Rush Limbaugh has intimated on occasion, not all species will live forever. If you can't hack it in this mean old world, you might as well just pull over.

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Read an interesting report yesterday that says that we are losing a language every two weeks on this planet.

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Looks like the Obama Administration is postponing the permitting of the Keystone Pipeline until after the election. You know, the pipeline that will allow Canadians to get rich shipping oil to China through our ports and threatens to despoil the high plains Ogallala aquifer. He can disappoint the environmentalists later, he can use their votes right now.

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You know that I am a genetics nut. Interesting posts from the recent conference in Texas at this woman Cece Moore's blogpost.  I learn that:

• Humans and chimps are 98.8% identical in their DNA

• Our species had at least 15 cousins. Only we remain.

• The immunity gene STAT2 is the first clear example of interbreeding advantage. It introgressed from Neandertal and is positively selected in Melanesians.

• Neandertal + Denisovan = ~8% of modern Melanesian genome. Chr 12 introgressed in Melanesians with a Denisova-like region.

• Neandertal sequence shares more variants with present day non-Africans than Africans. (Green 2010) 

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Old friend Ricardo sends this remarkable footage of an eagle owl over from his home in Thailand. I am lucky to have so many friendships reaching into their fourth decade!

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That is all.

You Gotta Walk That Road

Liar's Poker

It is certainly not news that politicians lie and cheat. The drive for political office surely masks some deep seated personality disorder. I am not a psychoanalyst, I only play one on the internet but my quick diagnosis is narcissistic megalomania with a pinch of sociopathic sadism for flavor. After all most of them started as lawyers.

I received this letter yesterday from Len, one of the Blast's east coast correspondants from Gotham:


Conrad Murray ✔ Guilty

Joe Paterno     ✔  Guilty

   

Herman Cain   ✔   Guilty

Why is it that people who are knowingly guilty of things and shown it

plainly, why is it that so many of them lie outright to the masses who

they've been empowered by in the first place ? We need a conceptual

editorial from 'blast' on the subject, Thanks & All Best Regards

Well Len, I can try to tackle this one but it might be beyond my pay grade. Let's take your question bit by bit. The first two fellas are not politicians but they have been in the public eye for a while so let's give them a shot.

I actually have a bit of sympathy for Murray. He was trying to save his ass at the end, yes, but he had a drug addled psycho for a client and I highly doubt that he is responsible for the gloved one's addiction. Rich people are different than you and I, they are surrounded by enablers who are paid to look the other way. Remember when Liz Taylor was making lame excuses for jocko's penchant for young pubescents.

The privileged and the powerful don't play by the same rules that we do. I remember a british barrister roommate I had once overseas who was dumbfounded when I suggested that the almighty cared as much about your average cockney urchin as the Queen. Shorted his circuits completely.

I don't blame Murray for succumbing to Jackson's creepy solicitations. He sounded like he lived in a crypt and freaked the poor doctor out. His house was in bankruptcy, his practice in shambles, the hand picked physician was making 150k per month and was probably easily swayed. If wacko jacko cacked, well it wasn't poor Conrad's problem. The splotchy crooner handpicked a doctor who was in trouble and would do what he was told. Rich addict trick.

The whole story on Jo Pa is not out yet but what we have heard is despicable, especially the Nittany Lion offering that he had met his legal obligation. How many young lives were destroyed while the the top brass looked away and played coverup? I read a Penn State fan's comment today that it was merely a case of minor abuse. It was a minor, reportedly at least one ten year old, and he was abused yes, but it was not minor abuse. You bugger a ten year old in the shower, you wake up on the other side of the dirt, at least where I am from. I hope that they have Sandusky on suicide watch because they don't take real kindly to child molesters in the big house.

Herman Cain is a serious piece of work and now has added considerable weight to the old narrative of the oversexed bbc having his way with the white women. Too many people had heard the same story, and told people way back when about his direct crotch grab shenanigans for there not to be a little fire amongst all that smoke. Of course, the Republicans are going back to the victim card, a poor black conservative being persecuted by the evil mainstream liberal media. I listened to Hannity today and all I heard was Bill Ayres, Bill Ayres. Because Barack Obama has got such a free pass from Fox News and Town Hall you know?

Politicians and people in power like to fuck around. FDR, Eisenhower, the poster boy JFK, Slick Willie, Gingrich, Spitzer,Weiner, the list goes on and on. Like Tiger Woods, their super powers derive from their considerable and oh so adorable libido. The most amazing thing about the Cain allegations is that he is married to a Democrat. Saintly woman. Cain has never impressed me intellectually but that is neither here nor there.Say what you want, he has the best singing voice of any candidate and his alleged behavior does not seem to have hurt him much with his base. Tonight at the debates, Cain mentions that there are thousands of women that he didn't molest. That surely counts for something.

You wonder how brilliant people like Clinton and Weiner can indulge themselves and destroy all their political capital in one sordid swoop. Because the truth always will out. Of course Clinton is now piping up about allowing Presidents to serve three terms. You had your shot Bill, go away. The American public doesn't like to be lied to by their leaders.

Monica walks into her dry cleaning store and tells the guy, "I've got another dress for you to clean."

Slightly hard of hearing, the clerk replies, "Come again?"

"No," says Monica. "Ice cream."


Which brings you to our current President, Barack Obama. I am not necessarily going to accuse him of outright deceit. Politics is after all, the art of the possible. You can't always get to do everything you talked about accomplishing when you were out there bullshitting everyone on the campaign trail, at least in your first term. I have talked about his worse than Bush record on privacy and wiretaps, mountaintop mining and his about face on decriminalization. You are all sick and tired of hearing about all that. But when Dick Cheney is throwing you kisses and compliments about your apparent conversion on renditions, tribunals, turning a blind eye to the  CIA and torture, lets just say you aren't exactly upsetting the old apple cart.

Two things recently have pissed me off. Obama made a campaign pledge about not taking contributions from lobbyists. He made a recent disclosure that at least 15 of his "bundlers" were also lobbyists, an abrogation of his pledge. David Axelrod made the most lame ass justification for his boss I have heard in some time;

David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Obama, told CNN on Sunday that it was the president's own practice of disclosing his bundlers' names that made the story possible. Republican candidates, who have not sworn off cash from registered lobbyists, are likely signing up bundlers from the same crowd, but voters won't be able to find out as long as they decline to disclose the information.
"Everyone should understand the reason why The New York Times can write that story is because the president is disclosing everyone who raises money for him. None of the Republican candidates are willing to do that," Axelrod said. 

Uh, David, he said he wouldn't take money from lobbyists (whether they are legally registered or not.) I for one am sick of leaders from either party pissing on my leg and telling me it's actually raining. His own Chief of Staff, Bill Daley is an ex lobbyist with JPMorgan Chase.

"So we can quibble about issues like this, but when you look at the substance of what he's done, he's gone so much farther than anybody has ever gone before. Is it perfect? It's not perfect, Candy. We are not in a perfect political system," Axelrod said. "So it is not a perfect system. But is he better than anybody has ever been before on this? Has he made a real difference on this? Absolutely."

I am a liar but at least I am better than those other guys. Our country of course deserves better. The other Obama guy who is obviously an ace prevaricator is Eric Holder. Forget the weed memo and backtrack, I am talking Fast and Furious. Holder told a congressional investigation in May that he had learned about the operation only a few weeks earlier.

Tuesday he admits that he knew about it much, much earlier. In the hearing, Holder says he first learned about Fast and Furious at the beginning of the year and should have said in May that his knowledge of the sting dated back a couple of months rather than weeks. During the hearing, Grassley also pointed to a letter dated Feb. 4 in which the Justice Department said the operation did not involve gun-walking and that "ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation to Mexico."

Holder admits that the letter contained erroneous information from ATF's Phoenix office but refused to accept blame.

But Grassley has five memos showing Holder knew about the ill fated venture back in 2010. Tell me the difference between erroneous information, a blunder and a lie again? Makes a fella hate politicians...

The American people deserve better, from both sides of the aisle.

Carl Perkins & The Judds

Chains

Bella Vista Redux

Bella Vista
(650) 851-1229
13451 Skyline Boulevard
Woodside, California 94062
Tue-Sat 5:00p.m.-11:30p.m.
Closed Sunday & Monday 

A few of the epicurious have asked me about my birthday dinner and I think that it is time to dish. I picked up Leslie from the airport after the show was finished saturday night, after we both realized that we were on different levels and got that straightened out. It was pouring buckets and quite dark. Rain was moving sideways in great drifts off the road surface and the twisting mountain road was barely visible in the rain and darkness.We traveled west slowly up Highway 92 to Skyline Blvd. and the finest view in the whole South Bay, the Bella Vista Restaurant.

The Bella Vista is a roadhouse that was built in 1927. Its neon martini glass peers out from the surrounding redwoods like a beacon. We were joined by Warmboe, Flynn and Millard, in from Santa Fe to prowl Alameda.

The BV is totally old school, big flambes, tuxedos, white linen, impeccable china. The fare is continental that your parents would love, and you probably do to, abalone, sole menieure, veal scaloppine. Nothing nouvelle here, rich sauces, lots of butter.

I had made reservations the day before and the owner, John Ward, called me personally and couldn't have been nicer. I wish that the night had been better, the view didn't exist when we arrived, trundling up and our of the car through the rain like characters in a scene from an old Bogart gangster flick.

We started with a Rombauer Zinfandel and good bread. I had a head start at the show drinking pinot noir with my new friend Pete and his lovely wife Kristen. Our waiter Gordon was fantastic and outrageous and could definitely get as crazy as we could.  We ordered salads and appetizers.

Leslie, Bill and Dan ordered the endive, bay shrimp salad, their favorite. Don't remember what Millard had. Somebody ordered a large shrimp cocktail. I started with tortellini stuffed with veal and something else I don't quite remember. Face it, I was already near drunk.

All of this stuff was delicious and adding up. Somewhere along the line I switched to greyhounds, my typical vodka drink. Dinner was great, company was great and conversation bawdy and hysterical. The clouds lifted and we saw the gorgeous view of the valley below. Priceless.

Our entrees arrived. I had Granadin de Boeuf a filet sauteed in brown sauce, topped with
bernaise and artichoke hearts. I don't know why I write about food. Kerry gets on my shit about my patrician eating habits and I never hear the end of it.

Leslie ordered the Tournedos de Rossini, medallions soaked in Madeira with fois gras and truffles.  Our server described the exact location of the cut, in situ as it were, just down a piece from the chateaubriand. Millard had the canard with a pinot lingonberry sauce. Bill and Dan split the surf and turf.

My entree was delicious. Leslie loved hers as well. I had a bite and almost fell over it was so intense with the truffle and gois gras. John was left slightly unimpressed by his duck, feeling that it had been fatally lingonberried. Somewhere along the line we got a sorbet cleanser. This was a power meal, the kind of meal John Boehner runs into at the exclusive golf clubs and along the corridors of power. Alpha, sort of male and intense. Older folks were slow dancing in the adjacent bar, swaying softly to the notes and distant memories.

Dessert was a small flotilla of souffles, chocolate and Grand Marnier.

The bill was the GDP of a small european principality. But once in a while you have have to throw caution to the wind and say fuck it. Thanks to all my mates, the Bella Vista, our server, my wife. It was a great night. If you want to go retro and celebrate a special occasion, try it. Old world, dated, bad for your heart. You will overorder, overeat and maybe feel lousy later but it could possibly be worth it.

Got A Lot On My Head

Bare facts

Fat Happy's

We hadn't seen the comely young widow in many moons when we found ourselves sitting right next to her, sharing the piscatorial comity of the local sushi bar, our eyes mere inches from the orange, red and coral colored slabs of raw, naked flesh.

We have had several friends lose their spouses suddenly and unexpectedly of late, succumbing to issues of heart, trauma, or undiagnosed illness that could never be foreseen. M's dropped dead of a heart attack. This couple was never one that we were particularly close to but always sort of friendly in our nodding acquaintance. We had heard some rumors of their curious penchant for nudism, which was neither here nor there for us.

Anyhow, we got to talking with M, wondering how she was making out. She either lived or worked at the popular "Sun Club" up the road, I never could figure it out. She spilled. The General Manager at the club had left and she was thinking of applying for the position. But what to wear? How does one apply for a senior job at a nudist colony? Always wanting to help, I made a suggestion. "How about just pearls and pumps," I offered?" "You will look both smart and competent. Make sure there's no tan lines, they'll throw you out on your kiester in a New York second." She was a little worried that these sun worshipers that had made her naked company for years would not be able to visualize her in a sometimes clothed leadership position. Had to look professional but not square. Talk about a quandary.

I saw her a couple weeks ago having a cup of joe at the klatch. She had not got the job but it gave me an opportunity to ask her a few questions about life amongst the unrobed. The first rule she said is to look at people in the eyes, conspicuous ogling a definite no-no. Of course she said, she was a human and had sexual feelings as most of us do, and confessed to taking note of a few particular attributes.

Although there were known swingers at the club, it was a distinct minority. And the place had white buttons around the place that when pushed, would summon management in the case of overt sexual weirdness that might cross the lines of propriety.

I must say, you go girl, whatever floats your boat. Our boys are fighting overseas for your right to let it all hang out nekkid in our fair country, if that is your particular want and desire, of course.

*

I had a mom who was a nudist. The family would traipse off to Summerland  and bare our butts on the Santa Barbara bluffs. On more than once occasion mom would walk into the family room of our home in her birthday suit when I had friends over, a real conversation stopper, I tell you. I can remember her sneering at one of my english friend's Mina, mouth agape, "Hippie kids huh, why so afraid of the human body?" Most of my pals left in a panic.

Her brother coincidentally, Uncle Norm, whom many of you are acquainted with thanks to his fabulous comments to the Blast, is also an avowed nudist, at the tender age of 85. He and his girlfriend take their vacations almost exclusively at spots where they can let it all hang out, if you will.

*

I think that we can divide the world up into two camps; those that look better with their clothes on and those that look better with their clothes off. And you just really don't know who fits which camp until that final unveiling. Humans can surprise you. But it is all academic at my age and with my super puritanical moral code so I just pretty much keep everything bundled up.

*

I lived above a nude beach in Encinitas in the flower of my youth. It was called Boneyard and was just north of Swamis in Encinitas. You could climb down to the beach from the bluffs on I street with a rope. Being a red blooded male, I took particular delight in watching the nude volleyball games.

I only saw one act of overt sexuality at Summerland, two hetero couples getting it on in the sand. I remember thinking that it was very disrespectful as their were a lot of kids around and they didn't seem to give a shit. I have heard that the gay beaches like Black's are more overtly sexual.

I lived in a place called Highbridge Park near Spokane, during one of my extended hippie periods in the seventies. One of the first Rainbow gatherings. Don't think anyone had a lick of clothes on for months. Lived on a bus full of musicians named gitty up go. We roamed east through Montana and Wyoming and down to Ashland and had all the fun a schoolbus full of thirteen naked musicians could ever have. Roamed the highways playing little nude improv games and skits, it was pretty riotous. One of the greatest extended adventures of my entire life.

*

One thing that I learned during my early forays sans garments was that sexuality usually left the equation fairly quickly. Naked people everywhere can have a quite nullifying quality. Nudity can be a real turn off some times. The pervs and the uptight could never figure this out. Little old men would perch on the cliffs at Highbridge with scopes and cameras. People would yell at them to come on down, disrobe and get in on the fun but it was always sexual for these repressed and they always remained on the periphery, ogling like sickos.

*

I never went in for strip clubs or lap dances or things like that. They made me very uncomfortable. The women had all the power and the males were quickly reduced to the rotten canines that reside at our core. But the cultural anthropologist in me always found something interesting during the few occasions that I stepped into a strip club. A performer would go through a whole teasing ritual, slowly disrobing, and then finally get naked, only to put her clothes all back on at the end, to start the process all over again. The element of sexuality was more connected to the act of unveiling than the naked, final product. Sort of strange. It bothered me that the men couldn't see that they were being gamed so.

*

When I was a kid, television was pretty tame, you couldn't even see navels. Rob and Laura Petrie slept in separate twin beds, with one foot on the floor to appease the censors. Nowadays it is awash in tits and butts, with little left to the imagination.  The most deviant forms of sexual expression are mere keystrokes away and becoming the new norm. De rigeur. Good thing I am not a parent. I would make my kids live in a makeshift amish prison with no electricity to protect them from the onslaught of filth.

*

Naked is different, the human body is beautiful. At least until you get to my age and have a huge paunch, omb, a hump on your side and hair sprouting from places it doesn't belong.

*

Men don't get that all of those super exciting parts of the female anatomy are in reality standard issue operating equipment, pretty well distributed amongst the population. Beasts that we are.

*

Why are the nudists so eager to parade around in their birthday attire? Are they indulging in a simple act of rebellion? Is it worth sand in the crotch and sunburned apparati? An act of narcissism, showing off their battles against gravity and father time or their pride in their natural or enhanced endowments? Are they still fighting their parents? Or are we, the clothed, the truly strange ones?

*

One of my coffee group told me last week that at his age, they damn better have the lights off when he and his wife made love.

*

Yours in skin.

Carol Doda

Blues stay away from me.

Death by Misadventure

As I peeled  the mandarin orange this morning and watched the juice gently pour down the front of the only shirt within reach for the balance of my day, I paused and considered just how I had offended god, the god I don't really believe in.

This was just one more pebble of foreboding in a week in which I had witnessed many such pebbles piling up and threatening an avalanche on the Sommers slope. Hows that old line go, when the almighty  says, "Sommers, something about you just pisses me off."

My despair started a few days ago when I pulled one of my more valuable paintings, which had just undergone a meticulous and expensive cleaning, out of the van only to find that it had somehow obtained a large quarter sized divot which had laid the canvas threadbare. I wet a rag, not having an available spray bottle and dampened the back of the painting and put it out in the sun to contract, an old art dealer's trick. The mountain lessened somewhat and thankfully it is in a fairly  inconspicuous region in the right foreground. Chalk it up to fate and keep on moving.

I bought some interesting material during setup and managed to sell a few things, a rare occurrence for me during setup, the dealers avoiding me like the plague as my business and demeanor is more calibrated towards the retail buyer.  I brought a bunch of junk and it sold. Wonder of wonders.

Fridays are pretty uneventful. The huge rain that was forecast never came, the one that I have seen turn the parking lot into a kiddie pool but we got some small tempests during the day. Temperature is supposed to drop by about twenty degrees from the balmy rapture that I encountered earlier in the week. I can feel the change.

Didn't sell a painting all day. The most interesting thing about the day occurred during a bathroom break, when I thought that I actually did hear a rain squall only to sadly discover that the sound I heard was me pissing on my own shirt tail. I walked over to the sink and gave it a good soak and stuffed it back in my jeans, ecstatic knowing that the pleasant odor would follow me around all day as a reminder of my poor aim and incompetence. Another dealer told me not to worry, he was once drunk and had done the same thing. Unzipping his fly and mistakenly grabbing his thumb, he ended up pissing his pants.

Disaster struck once more late in the day, not long before closing. I was yawning, snapping my head forward trying to stay awake when I heard the cacophonous sound of the paintings crashing down on the wall behind me. I always put them on the masonite walls with at least two screws and I played cute this time and thought I could get away with one. As I said, four paintings came toppling down, busting their wire hangars like gossamer webbing but miraculously surviving without any real damage. I couldn't even begin to deal with the repairs and stuck everything on the floor to await today's remediation efforts.

I have been fighting serious sinus problems for about five years. I had sinus surgery the first year, being in the state that is known as total whiteout, but unfortunately it didn't take. I wake up throwing up many days, not being able to breathe. I went to a pulmonary specialist at Scripps who stuck me in a glass chamber and asked me incredulously how long I had had my asthma and how it was possible that I could climb up a set of stairs with my 28% working lung capacity? His bills zoomed out of control, his fixes didn't, and I have been trying to deal for about the last six months.

I had a doctor I know write me a script for Leviquim and it largely cleared it up way back when. I saw her again last week and she refused to give me another script, or should I say strongly suggested that I do the Sambucol elderberry stuff instead. Apparently the Leviquim stays in your liver forever and causes serious tendon damage. All of my aches in my heel, wrist and knee suddenly made sense and I had the sudden epiphany that I was morphing into my hypochondriac mother.

Anyway I was throwing up this morning and unfortunately it happened once while I was driving fast on a busy street and I could neither stop or spit and just sat there driving looking like Dizzy Gillespie with my puffy cheeks, ignominiously holding back the torrent of bile like a gourami with the ick. Really a class act.

If I had better sense I would go back to my crappy Holiday Inn and just hide under the covers for the rest of the weekend but I have this sick compulsion that wants to know which shoe is going to drop next. Leslie is flying up for my birthday dinner and we are going to the classy and swank restaurant on Skyline Drive, the Bella Vista in Woodside with a few friends including Millard, Warmboe, Flynn and maybe BigD.

Had some wonderful friends and sometime customers come by the booth yesterday. One of them is an atheist. Asked him a question I had heard recently. Could an atheist sue their insurance company, in good conscience, to recover damages attributed to "acts of god?" Quite the epistemological quandary.

Have a great weekend, wherever you are. I have a lot of thoughts about the current political situation bubbling around and will write something, hopefully of substance, as soon as I am able.

Flowers in your hair

I took off a day earlier than usual for my trip north this week. I wanted to spend a little more quality time with some of the great old friends I have up in the Central Coast and bay area.

My first stop was Vlad Smythe's pad in Monterey. Vlad and his lovely wife, Natasha have been my friends for many decades. He has put together the finest music library I have ever had the pleasure of encountering.  We stayed up late listening to tunes and reciting some of the favorite television commercials of our youth in New York. From Red Buttons to the Polovtsian Dances by Borodin, we had them all committed to our young memories.

Got up early to drive to the city and see BigD. As I have mentioned before, my old pal is facing a serious showdown with his large B cell lymphoma.  Wanted to spend a day hanging out.

My friend BigD has been undergoing chemo but the doctors feel that they need to go to a much more rigorous chemo regimen, a 96 hour picline and whatever that entails. My pal is not looking forward to it and I don't blame him one bit.

Big D had a kidney transplant a few years ago. One of the results in transplant patients taking anti rejection drugs is a much higher increase in cancer's and lymphoma like my friend has had to endure.

We hopped into his spiffy M5 and bopped over to Japantown for udon and an after lunch crepe, than drove over to the Palace of Fine Arts to simply chill. The weather has been picture perfect, that is until this evening. D, an expert and very fast driver, whipsawed me over the bridge and up to the Marin Headlands. We walked over the large cistern which held the large gun placement at the top of the hill which once protected our shore.

Afterwards we drove down to Rodeo Beach and watched some pretty decent surf. Awesome day spent with one of my best and oldest friends.

I drove over to Berkeley to see my pal, the great chef Melissa and her beau Gary. We drove over to my friend Denis's home, who has just paid off a painting he bought from me, one of the most beautiful canvases I have ever sold. Melissa made a great pork shoulder dinner and they gave me a room to spend the night.

The rest of the week has been standard setup work for the show and a couple of great visits with an old friend from painting classes in college, KerryB. Show starts tomorrow, big cold front and rain forecast on the horizon. Ciao.

The Pioneers-Papa Was a Rolling Stone

Welfare mommies

My building is right in front of the County welfare building, the place where people come to pick up their monthly checks. I have watched the process for several years and must admit to be a little dumbfounded. You would not believe how many young women, of all colors, are pushing three and four babies around with them, often with another soon to pop out, fresh from the oven. No job, no father, no problem. The county will give you money and provide you with free medical care. The cars that are in and out of the parking lot, Escalades, Chrysler 300's, the indigent have a lot better ride than I am sporting, I can tell you that. People are definitely gaming the system.

If I was on welfare and could not support myself without assistance I would think long and hard about having one, let alone a whole brood of brats on the public dole. I was talking to a friend about this yesterday and he said that the more kids they have, the more money they could get so the welfare moms like to keep a continual hatch going.

It pisses me off that I have to pay for these irresponsible families with my taxes. If you can't do an adequate job of raising one kid, having a string of little tykes just ain't going to make the whole thing any better. And if god has told you that you are free to multiply, make sure that he is going to cover the bill for your living gesture of faith. Because I certainly don't want to.

I am not a breeder so my information might be a little suspect but it appears to me that the wrong people are having the babies these days. And they do it seemingly without a care in the world. Because somebody else is going to foot the bill. If you can not afford to raise a child, do me, the child and yourself a favor, don't.

River

Robin Adler Trio

Last night I went to the Hilltop Center and caught the Robin Adler Trio. Robin is a jazz singer who happens to be married to my guitar teacher, Dave Blackburn. This trio includes the incredible keyboardist and vocalist Nathan Fry.

The show was very well performed, a lot of standards, from Gershwin to Sinatra, with a Leon Russell tune thrown in for good measure.

Both Robin and Nathan are very agile vocalists and had a lot of fun singing duets on the material. A lot of crooning, Nathan even did a Bobby Darin song. I would be lying if I said that this was necessarily my bag but have to admit that I really enjoyed myself. Fry is a superb keyboardist, with a whole symphony somehow hidden away in his keyboard. Dave is a crack drummer and it was a pleasure to see the whole group perform. Robin's voice was emotive and wonderful as usual.

Dave and Robin are perhaps best known for their work on Joni Mitchell material. Next week they have quite the show planned for the night of November 6th (which happens to be my birthday) at Dizzy's. Their band, Mutts of the Planet, are playing the albums  Court and Spark and Blue in their entirety to celebrate the eve of Joni's 68th birthday. The Mutts are an incredible band, Barnaby Finch who played with Benson, Dave Curtis, Peggy Watson, Danny Campbell, Barry Cahill, Robin, Dave and for this show, Joni's bass player on the original two albums (and many more), Max Bennett, one of the founding members of the L.A. Express.

I will unfortunately be out of town and have to miss this one but encourage you to catch the show if you are a fan of this splendid music. They do a remarkable job.

John Mclaughlin Jonas Hellborg

Patriotic barn in smogbank, Fresno CA.

I shot this coming back from Yosemite last month. Stuck the camera out of the car window at 60 mph. Wish I had had more time.

A woman stuck her head into the door at the Monochrome show today and inquired about getting in next year. Said that she was better than anyone there. I tell you, she is off to one hell of a start.

I was thinking a bit about the process of creating art, be it painting, writing, acting, music, what have you. In photography I see that there are two defined schools and an occasional middle ground. On end of the graph are the people who structure their work, pose everything according to plan. On the other end are the people like me who are on the hunt for "happy accidents." Both approaches are valid, if they are valid for you. All a matter of taste I suppose. Humans seem to be evolving in regards to the creative process, or devolving, depending on your point of view.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, it was normal for artists to paint in museums, making what is known as "academic copies" of old masters. It was a corollary, I suppose, of playing compositional music, but probably lacking somewhat in terms of scratching one's own creative itch. Like me trying to write another Steinbeck.

Listen to John McLaughlin above. Peerless musician. Fast as they come, consummate tasteful gun slinger. Does he ever jam? As great as he is, he is locked in an idiom that may not leave that much room for improvisation.

I was amazed a few years ago when I was interviewing classical musicians for an art opening. I ended up hiring a cellist with the Redlands Symphony. I told her to just groove and have fun and she was horrified. She was unable to create on her instrument without a score.

I remember an interview on NPR with Mitch Miller. Might have been Fresh Air. Mitch Miller was so good that he did two albums with Charlie Parker. But would not, could not improvise. Told Charlie to write it down and he would play it. These people almost become technicians, albeit masterful technicians. And improvisation usually works best when one actually has something to say.

I always think that the universe is going to throw some inspiration my way greater than my own ability to conceive. It usually does.

Janis Joplin - Ball and Chain

Janis's first major public performance. 1967 at Monterey Pop.