Cuckoo's Nest

I've never been the kind of fellah that likes to gloat. Rubs people the wrong way. Conduct your victories like funerals, as Confucius used to say. Besides all politicians sort of suck and I can't get real excited about the current regime either.

I live in a pretty conservative town and the Romney signs are still up in the tonier neighborhoods, sad beacons of tattered dreams. I try not to rub it in, people have a way of staying pissed off.

It was sort of crazy when I went to the gym at lunch after the veterans day parade was over and I was finally able to leave my parking space. I had gone to the ceremony and a VFW member brusquely pushed me aside on the crowded sidewalk so that a ribbon clad warrior could march through and give his speech to the crowd. I didn't stick around, Jesus always makes an appearance at the invocation and frankly if you've seen one of these things, you have seen them all.

Anyway I get to the gym and I start to hear this chirping. All of these undercover democrats started coming out of the woodwork. My god, you too, I thought. There was a time thirty years ago when I was one of ten in the Fallbrook Democratic Club. Avis and Cliff Stokes, Carlton Poling, Spence Hays, a couple more. You publicly proclaimed your party fealty at your peril in those days.  I kid you not, we were thought of as communists in those days, come to think of it, they still do. Now they talk openly about their party allegiance, without the fear of bodily harm, or figuring that we would protect each other if things came to a scrum.

We lost a lot of very colorful wack jobs in this last election, and I for one am going to miss them. Akin, Allan West, Mourdock, Joe Walsh. Future stars like Mia Love, ingloriously shunted out of office. (If you ask me, West could frankly go postal, the man is just not stable.)

Tin hat wearing, climate change denying, ovary legislating, birth questioning, red baiting scamps, all of them now sadly gone and they will be sorely missed by this scribe. No conspiracy theory was too outlandish, no truth unbended, no vile epitaph too left field for this group and now they are gone, gone like the hot desert wind.

But not all of them. Thankfully there are still plenty of legislators several bricks short of a full load. I put together a photo montage of some of the people we still have a chance to love and get to know and the looney base is still well covered, don't you worry. From plain venal and malevolent, McConnell and Gohmert, to stupid and psycho, I give you Steve King and Bachmann, and every shade of nutso in between.

We get all of these fine american representatives for at least a couple more years, mayan disaster preventing. I give you my faves from upper left; Nikki Haley, Texas ex Judge Louie Gohmert, Issa, evolution denying Paul Broun, science denying Tom Coburn from OK, the exorcist, Bobbie Jindal, your favorite martian, Rick Scott, Michelle Bachmann, Jim DeMint , Steve King and Uncle Mitch McConnell.

See, there are still enough inmates running the asylum to ensure us a hoot of a time, that is until the red states secede or the good lord comes back for his flock. They are rarin' for a fight. When you got right and principles on your side, you don't have to compromise. Get the popcorn ready, this is gonna be good, friends.

Rose Royce

Sunday Mailbag

Had dinner with Trace and Stan last night. Stan has been on a Roosevelt kick lately and sends me this clip. Lots of parallels with today's goings on and this immortal quote,"If Landon had given one more speech, Roosevelt would have carried Canada too." Dorothy Thompson

He also sent over this Move-on video which I can frankly take or leave. Several of their clips have been pretty unwatchable this election. Okay but a bit long and overdone.



Personally I find that watching the people gloat at MSNBC is almost as bad as listening to the Fox people dream up all their conspiracy theories for their recent defeat.

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An anonymous poster sends the Washington State Reefer fact sheet. And Jerry Brown wants Obama to back away from our bong.

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DeGoff sends this over,Volkswagen is supposedly getting an amazing car to market. Hudg sends this followup, 600 bucks very unlikely.

The Most Economic Car in the World will be on sale next year:

Better than Electric Car – 258 miles/gallon: IPO 2010 in Shanghai

This is a single-seat car.  From conception to production: 3 years and the company is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.  It will be selling for 4000 Yuan, equivalent to US $600.

    Gas tank capacity = 1.7 gallons

    Speed = 62 – 74.6 Miles/hour

    Fuel efficiency = 258 miles/gallon

    Travel distance with a full tank = 404 miles

This is not a joke!  This new car will sell for around $600.00, and they won’t be able to make them fast enough--good just to run around town.  Here's a car that will get you back and forth to work on the cheap ... at 258 miles per gallon.  It is a one-seat Volkswagen.

The aero design proved essential to getting the desired result.  The body is 3.47 meters long and just 1.25 meters wide, and a little over a meter high.  The prototype was made completely of carbon fiber and is not painted to save weight.  The power plant is a one cylinder diesel, positioned ahead of the rear axle and combined with an automatic shift controlled by a knob in the interior.  Safety was not compromised as the impact and roll-over protection is comparable to the GT racing cars.

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R´says I have to watch this Maher clip. And read Rebecca Solnit's essay on disasters.



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Kip and T both sent over this thoughtful Frank Rich piece from New York magazine that I had already read. Used to be one hell of a magazine once upon a time. Felker.

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Warren has been sermonizing on Petraeus of late, the latest bigwig to get caught with his dick in his hand. As I said yesterday, he needed a little more cloak and a little less dagger. Joins a long list, Slick, Weiner, Spicer, Edwards, that power stuff is sure intoxicating. Women just love it. Another good presbyterian has fallen, just the kind the devil tries to tempt. Unfortunate book title.

The General...."demanded bananas on his cereal every morning.......Wheaties I hope!!

I have a question that may appear to be a bit "fey" but when he would appear to testify before Congress he appeared to be wearing innumerable layers of medals........the proverbial "fruit salad".....was he ever in combat....if so Grenada does not really count.........is "camp"back in vogue....not mentioned and does my memory have it correct ....that I remember  he was quite adamant on not admitting Gays into the military and bed rocked that on a professed strong Christian faith.......the CIA is and has been a well kept secret of being a leaky faucet......remember some years ago when there was a high ranking Agency alcoholic selling names of our agents to the Russians.....excuse the pun........for $500,000 a "pop"....

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Met an interesting cat at dinner last night who sent me this stuff today. The CIA's worldwide GINI Income distribution hotsheet by country. Here it is worst to best, well depending if you are a king or a serf that is. We may not be Sweden but at least we ain't Namibia, know what I mean?

This index measures the degree of inequality in the distribution of family income in a country. The index is calculated from the Lorenz curve, in which cumulative family income is plotted against the number of families arranged from the poorest to the richest. The index is the ratio of (a) the area between a country's Lorenz curve and the 45 degree helping line to (b) the entire triangular area under the 45 degree line. The more nearly equal a country's income distribution, the closer its Lorenz curve to the 45 degree line and the lower its Gini index, e.g., a Scandinavian country with an index of 25. The more unequal a country's income distribution, the farther its Lorenz curve from the 45 degree line and the higher its Gini index, e.g., a Sub-Saharan country with an index of 50. If income were distributed with perfect equality, the Lorenz curve would coincide with the 45 degree line and the index would be zero; if income were distributed with perfect inequality, the Lorenz curve would coincide with the horizontal axis and the right vertical axis and the index would be 100.

Nice sunset in Cardiff last night, well probably every night.

From C&D :

But it's an old day now.

It was a new day yesterday...

They're certainly not taking this very well. All the models were wrong, they had miscalculated their strength and support, there were traitors in the midst, not to mention noncooperative tropical events. It was obviously not enough to hate a foreign, marxist president, who knew that it was America herself that bore the blame for her fall and transgression? - sheer ignorance from a class that would rather believe in Santa Claus and an entitlement state than time honored American traditions like work and self reliance. Americans are after all, nothing if not a misguided and ignorant electorate.

No sooner did the results come in than Wall Street started swooning and industrialists started laying off and terminating the workforce, battering up the storm windows to seal off the coming apocalypse. My GOP pals are tearing their shirts, sitting shiva for the late republic, end times clearly being nigh at hand.

I am reminded of two things, when considering the import of the shifting demographic everyone is discussing. I read a remarkable biography on Jesse James a few years ago that recast the man as a confederate soldier who couldn't give up the ghost for many years after the war, a crony of Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson. For some, the war truly never ends.

Did you ever see the Beverly Hillbillies episode where Granny takes the family to the beach to fight off the dreaded invasion of the enemy interlopers named the grunions? It was classic television.

We spend so much time demonizing the other guy that we make progress in this country very difficult. We do it with a compartmentalized news filter that shuns contrary views from the other side and merely reinforces our pre-existing individual precepts.

Losing sucks. We are confident in the integrity and  certainty of our belief systems and models. Now we find ourselves at a national standstill and clear and cool heads must prevail if we have any hope of getting out of our current morass. Or we wait another four years and do nothing but muck up the works.

I would advise everybody on the right to chill and get over it. There weren't as many of you as you thought and you will have to deal with it for at least two more years, when there are quite a few senate democrat seats opening up and four years to go for the big enchilada. Maybe they will buy it next time. With all the money Shelly and the Koch's threw at it, they just weren't buying.

America didn't care for what you were selling this time or at least 51% of us didn't and that's all it takes around these parts. We may have despised Bush and Reagan but I don't recall us getting so verklempt. So ease up and let's work together for a bit. That doesn't mean John Boehner can do a Lucy Van Pelt kick the football routine on Obama. The President's too smart and won't fall for that.

It's going to be real tax revenue, you lost the election, you don't get to do it your way this time. Coming to the center doesn't mean conceding position to the loser. It means let's meet in the true middle. You will have to give something up. Obama will give something up. We will show America that the thing can still work if we remember the lessons of kindergarten. It's not always going to go your way but you still shouldn't crap in the sandbox.

You got filthy rich before the tax rates were changed, you will get filthy rich again, believe me. I call it American exceptionalism. Just don't flip out. Crawl out from under the sheets, get out of bed and take a walk around. It might not turn out as bad as you imagined. Tomorrow brings a new day. We can make this work.

Sheila Chandra

Hive Gestalt

One of the most interesting visuals in the last several weeks was the footage of the people in New York surrounding the CNN truck which was charging their cell phones in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Dying to get turned back on.

These pictures are from a Greenpeace mobile unit that also provided free cell phone charging and solar power after the storm in Queens. People were frantically trying to get reconnected.

I was thinking about this earlier today and I am almost willing to bet that in our brave new connected world, people would pick communication over food if forced to make a choice. I don't know for sure but that's how I would bet. We all suffer from the same new disease of simply having to be in touch. Everybody wants to know whussup?

The people of Terra are pretty much connected 24/7 nowadays. My first impulse in the morning is to check the phone for emails when I wake up. Used to be the little light on the blackberry - you've got email! Like pavlov I can not wait to tune back in.

Then on to the blast, see if I have any comments, spam or whatnot. Texts, voicemails, the whole megillah. I don't do social media like Facebook, because that was way too much of an energy suck. Got enough on my hands. But a lot of people do.

Like Leslie. Lots of friends, I hear that she puts up a lot of interesting content. Must run in the family. Last week she got into a bit of a Facebook flame war with an old poopy high school acquaintance from Michigan. Unfriended. Heard about it from three different people that day before I got around to asking her about it. Everybody is aware of the slightest tremor in the cyberforce, the butterfly in Tokyo's flutter  nudging the bored housewife ironing her sheets in Covina.

Many of us are living in some kind of dual Walter Mitty cyberlife, tending an invisible global flock, that exists tangentially and remotely, in a corporeal foreign universe, sort of like Schrodinger's cat.

I used to be really on top of the news. Now when I find something interesting, my wife has usually seen it days earlier on Facebook. A powerful tool. The 24 hour cycle is definitely dead, we all need real time these days. And fast.

I don't use Facebook anymore, like I said. I'm too obsessive compulsive, not enough time to do anything else. This blog is plenty and more. I've heard from a couple people who admit to slightly gripping when I take a break. Interesting. When I get back I usually over compensate, so there is a fairly even stream of content.  Job doesn't pay real well and it has to be fun for all of us. Hell, I'm flattered. Got a compliment on the blog this morning. Newish reader said that it was really great. I said oh, you like the photography and she said it was the writing that impressed her. It made me feel really good. Waiting for a really big depression so that I can write some more fiction. Sort of how I roll. Scorpio thing.

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Theodore Sturgeon wrote a great book called More than Human in 1953 that grew out of his novella Baby is three, a book that I recently reread. The book deals with something along the lines of a gigantic "groupmind." Man, during his exalted period of "homo gestalt." A seminal book, I highly recommend it.

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I wrote this little story a few years ago, Lord of the Western Marches.

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Fascinating article at Floating Sheep. Folks mapped geocoded racist tweets after Obama's re-election. Alabama and Mississippi, you win again.

Beyond Here Lies Nothin

November 3, 2012 performance.

Buckeyes for governmental intrusion

Two days since the election, an election in which Ohioans indicated their majority support for women's reproductive rights and personal choice by a 56 to 39% margin. I never, or rarely ever name names but can't tell you how many of my republican cohorts have recently told me that the GOP wasn't about to try to halt either abortion or contraception. Forget the social issues, Robert. Why didn't I understand that the important thing today was the economy?

Today, the Ohio GOP introduced the so called Heartbeat Bill H.B. 125 in the State Senate. This bill is so extreme that even the pro life groups wouldn't initially endorse it, fearing it would get shot down in the Supreme Court. The bill would ban all abortions after the fetal heartbeat is detected, without exceptions for rape, incest or life of the mother. Ohio Senate President Tom Niehaus (R-New Richmond) told The Cincinnati Enquirer on Thursday that the Senate plans to reconsider the bill in a lame duck session that begins next week.

On Oct. 12th, Gov. John Kasich (R) appointed Ohio Right to Life board chair Marshall Pitchford to the committee in charge of choosing someone to fill a new vacancy on the Ohio Supreme Court, and he appointed Mike Gonidakis, the head of Ohio Right to Life, to the Ohio State Medical Board. There is also an ongoing effort in Ohio to defund Planned Parenthood.

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It will take more than pandering to hispanics to save the GOP. The party needs to stop trying to tell and legislate what other people can or can not do with their lives and bodies. So pardon my skepticism. As Bob Dylan once so famously said, I don't believe you.

The quintessential High Flying Bird - Judy Henske

Remember Me? I'm the One Who Loves You

The end of the world as we know it...

"Now the two Americas disagree, sharply. Government decisions enthuse one and enrage the other. The election may be over, but the two Americas are still not on speaking terms."
Michael Barone

As you probably know, I have friends and confidantes across the whole political bandwidth. I assume that most of you do too and I have a piece of advice for you.

Walk very softly around the Republicans for a couple days. Some of them are feeling quite aggrieved right now.

I called S this morning and thought that I would play the gracious victor and extend the olive branch, time to work together for the good of the nation, etc., etc. Guess what, he would have none of it. In their minds they are the party of ethics and principles, and any talk of bipartisanship can well, wait until hell freezes over, thank you.

They were sunk by a lamestream media in the left's and the President's pocket, minority voters who are the real racists, how come over 90% of blacks voted for the biracial president?, 47% of the population that are takers and not makers, not to mention those damn fact checkers. "We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers!" Rejecting advice to temper their message to respond to a changing electorate, instead they are set to move in the opposite, counterintuitive direction. "If only we had elected a real conservative" and "We are going to get that Chris Christie turncoat bastard."

Of course, as you would expect, some are calling the election a clear win for the right. Grover Nordquist basically did. McConnell and Will see it as a mandate for House Republicans hanging tough and the continuation of the status quo. "Americans put us here because they want gridlock and by god, we will give them gridlock."

America's favorite past time, well after football anyway, is watching crow being served and I acknowledge getting giddy on occasion post national re-set. Here are some of my favorite comments and tweets from the last several days.

"I've long believed that elections reflect which side voters hate more. To the extent that's true, 50 percent of Americans hate Republicans, and 48 percent hate Democrats."
Debra Saunders

“It has never made sense that my party, the party of individual freedom and personal responsibility, thinks the government should be involved in issues” like abortion. We are the party that trusts individuals to make their own decisions. That is one of the defining issues of the differences between Republicans and Democrats. So this is just bewildering to me.”
Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins

"People are suffering. The country is in disarray. If Mitt Romney cannot win in this economy, then the tipping point has been reached. We have more takers than makers and it's over. There is no hope. Mitt Romney was the president we needed right now, and I think it is so sad that we are going to be deprived of his brain power, of his skills in turning companies around, turning the Olympics around, his idea and his kindness for being able to push very conservative ideas on a country that no longer is interested in conservative ideas. It is interested in handouts."
Ann Coulter


Obama succeeded by suppressing the vote.
Karl Rove

Great nations and proud empires have always collapsed from within before they were conquered from without. President Obama's re-election mirrors the self-indulgent, greedy and envious nation we are rapidly becoming.

Cal Thomas

"There were two mandates last night. Speaker John Boehner and House Republicans got reelected in a very substantial way, and I think that Speaker Boehner can claim a mandate fully as much as the president. So the near future of this country, the next year or two, is going to be a question of how those two mandates work things out together, not how we assume that Obama has a blank check just for his single mandate."
Newt Gingrich

"I just cannot believe that the majority of Americans believe that incurring more debt is good for the economy, for our children's future, for job creators. I just cannot believe that the majority of Americans believe that it's OK to ignore the constitution and not have a budget. It's a perplexing time for many of us right now."
Sarah Palin


If, in celebrating his victory Obama wanted to give credit where credit is due, he might want to think about calling some of America's top journalists, since their favorable approach almost certainly made the difference between victory and defeat.
Fox News Editorial

In a country of children where the option is Santa Claus or work, what wins?
Rush Limbaugh

“Take your message of equality of achievement. … You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America.”
Allen West

We conservatives, we do not accept bipartisanship in the pursuit of tyranny. Period. We will not negotiate the terms of our economic and political servitude. Period. We will not abandon our child to a dark and bleak future. We will not accept a fate that is alien to the legacy we inherited from every single future generation in this country. We will not accept social engineering by politicians and bureaucrats who treat us like lab rats, rather than self-sufficient human beings. There are those in this country who choose tyranny over liberty. They do not speak for us, 57 million of us who voted against this yesterday, and they do not get to dictate to us under our Constitution. We are the alternative. We will resist. We're not going to surrender to this. We will not be passive, we will not be compliant in our demise. We're not good losers, you better believe we're sore losers! A good loser is a loser forever. Now I hear we're called 'purists.' Conservatives are called purists. The very people who keep nominating moderates, now call us purists the way the left calls us purists. Yeah, things like liberty, and property rights, individual sovereignty, and the Constitution, and capitalism. We're purists now. And we have to hear this crap from conservatives, or pseudo-conservatives, Republicans.
Mark Levin

TonyZ told me at coffee that the country needs to craft a center right party, so that we can have a competitive fight in the future. Not our job to fix them, Tony. They always say that if you are stuck in a hole, quit digging. But hey, feel free, dig away.

John Cipollina

This is sort of a guilty pleasure. I was at this and several other dead shows when John joined the dead on stage. I don't  remember if this one was Winterland or Oakland but you see Lee Oskar on harp as well as Keith and Donna. My favorite period for the band, especially 1977.

I was often backstage and can remember Cipollina nervously pacing back and forth like a tiger ready to pounce, so eager to get on stage and crank the sonic velocity up a notch. A master of the vibrato and one of the great psychedelic rock guitar players.

Coffee grounds

Bath of Diana - Alcazar, Seville

I am trying to sift through the dregs at the bottom of the post election coffee cup and would like to offer my take to anybody that is remotely interested.

This election actually gives me a little hope. No matter how much money rich guys (e.g. Sheldon Adelson, Koch brothers, Linda McMahon, etc.) throw at an election, it is not necessarily a guarantee that the american public won't see their way through it in the end. Perhaps the effects of the dastardly Citizens United case may not be as bad as once thought. Americans figure it out.

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Wacko is obviously out. Look at the losers in 2012, Akin, Walsh and Mourdock gone, Bachmann and Allan West are on the ropes. I see signs that the public is opting out of the fringe, electing more moderate people from both parties. Arizona has elected Republican Jeff Flake, a conservative with a high degree of integrity that often bucks the party line. Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, our first openly gay senator. If you look at the Senate, it is definitely going to be a more liberal body.

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I think that people figured out who the real radicals were, they got a sense of the imminent peril to a safety net and decided that it was an important part of our society that shouldn't be jeopardized. Not to say that with an aging boomer population, we can not afford to pretend that we can continue with the status quo. We can't. Perhaps it is raising the retirement age, means testing, we have to find a way to deal with a problem that won't go away.

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I believe that this election is the last hoorah for a society long dominated by an old guard of old white guys. The country will ignore the vote of minorities and women in the future at their peril. Our country looks different now. People will not bow to a calvinist overlord. Americans don't like to be told what they can and can not do, especially if it is private matter between consenting adults and their spouses, comrades and/or embryos.

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Rasmussen and Gallup were way off as many poll watchers suspected. Rasmussen says today on his blog that the days of telephone polling are over - that isn't how people communicate any more. Interesting.

This race was very likely the last presidential election of the telephone polling era. While the industry did an excellent job of projecting last night’s election, entirely new techniques will need to be developed before 2016. The central issue is that phone polling worked for decades because that was how people communicated. In the 21^st century, that is no longer true.

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Experts from both sides of the aisle agree that the so called upcoming "fiscal cliff" will be catastrophic if implemented. Wouldn't it be great if both sides would stop the bullshit and work on getting something fixed before its too late? Show the country that there are still grown-ups in the room. Get it done sooner rather than later and stop posing and preening for the cameras.

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I thought Romney's concession speech was forthright and heartfelt. I belief I even sensed a touch of relief. He was the only electable Republican and he gave a great fight to the best of his abilities. I think that he would have been an effective manager and much less ideological than supposed. He won't get the chance to show us. Having said, most of my friends left and right agree that the real nexus and prize is the Supreme Court and its composition is even more important for how we are going to shape our country's future than the legislature or even executive branch for that matter. This election had serious consequences as I suppose they all do.

Going more conservative will not help the Republicans, at least I don't think so. The undecideds tend to be more in the center than on the fringes.

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I don't want to sound too wonky but Nate Silver was accurate in 50 out of 50 predictions.

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Romney was certainly not helped by the hurricane. His supposed non political relief event in Ohio looked a bit far off the weather map. But I think that his words did more to hurt him, Can you imagine if private industry really did take care of disaster relief? "Sorry Pal, we aren't going to fix your city or town because there is just not enough profit in it."Disaster relief would quickly turn into its own disaster. There are certain things americans do for each other. It's what makes us such a great people.

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I happen to agree with Donald Trump regarding the popular vote and the need to do away with the electoral college. No matter who won.  A Wyoming shouldn't  be equal to six california votes. Every American should have an equal say. This has been a prescription for a form of rural tyranny that our founding fathers would have blanched at.

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Netanyahu did not help himself with his blatant support for Romney. In fact his blunt and crude style will hurt jews in this country, already accused in some circles of putting the needs of Israel over those of the United States. I don't think he will be on Obama's Chanukah card list anytime soon.

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Mitt Romney's Mormonism never became a major issue for either his allies or his opponents. I think that this is a credit to our country. Anybody of any faith could one day be elected to the hallowed office, that is unless they are an atheist, muslim, scientologist or jew. Might even get a woman one day.

Hallway, Alcazar

Rocky Mountain High

The voters have spoken and we have to respect their will. This will be a complicated process, but we intend to follow through. That said, federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug so don’t break out the Cheetos or gold fish too quickly.
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper

Every day on this side of the dirt is a good day.

I turned fifty five yesterday so I believe today signals my first day as an official senior citizen. Kind of weird. I don't really know what the whole thing exactly entails, guess I enter into a whole new level of status with AARP. Anyway for sure there will be a lot of new discounts to look forward to, as well as a whole bunch of new aches and pains.

On the topic, woke up with the left knee hurting so bad I could hardly walk, the left knee that has been meniscused, anterior cruciated and medial collateralized, not once but twice since the sad day in 1978 when I destroyed it the day after a ski trip. The kenpo karate didn't help either. Now that I am a senior, I can nod wisely at Shaw's sage statement that youth is wasted on the young. Growing old sure ain't for pussies. Everything hurts in the morning. Don't tell me that 55 is the new 35. I remember 35 and this isn't it by a long shot.

I would be interested in getting some readership input, from those few souls that still bother to occasionally comment, about the sweet deals and benefits to having reached this august plateau. I know that most movies will now cost seven bucks. The boys at coffee says that major market has some first of the month geriatric discount. Anything else I have to look forward to? Besides the obvious, goiters, bunions and incontinence and those kind of things.

Truth is, like most old farts say, I still feel like a kid and don't think I am ready to grow up quite yet. So don't expect any sudden flash of maturity and wisdom. Don't believe it's in the cards anytime soon. Take it from an old guy...

You can't always get what you want.

Patzcuaro

Cocucho artist

My friends Terry and Mike take excellent vacations. She has had a casa down south for many years. They sent me these shots earlier this week while on their trip to Patzcuaro, Mexico. Looks vibrant and stunning! Place I would like to check out. Haven't done a serious Mexico trip since the mid eighties.

New Toy

Standstill

I guess that I should finish up with the politics stuff. The race is incredibly close and anything could happen and whatever happens we are going to be miserable for the next four years. Or somebody is. Perhaps it would be better if Romney won, the repubs were so damn nasty and intransigent from day one of their defeat last time, vowing to obstruct and ultimately doing a great job of it. The Boehner/McConnell shuffle. The right couldn't bear ceding power so they mucked things up as good as they could.

They say that Obama was divisive but my recollection is that he didn't start the class war, he just helped bring it to a few people's attention. The other side did. And they have been winning most of the battles for several decades or at least since Reagan's tax law change.

We are at a standstill and it's no way to run a republic. Smack evenly divided. The nation waits with bated breath and the knowledge that like last time, if things get too close, the Supreme Court will step in and stop the vote count for the good of the nation and award the whole thing to Mitt. It has happened before. Get ready and don't be shocked. Of course karma and payback is a bitch and the dems will put the brakes on too when they get the chance. Heading for the fiscal cliff, or is it the mayan apocalypse?

Perfectly even is a terrible condition in this world. Symmetry is the bane of good composition, the golden section veering more towards thirds or .618 to 1. In paintings, evenly divided panels tend to fall apart in a visual sense.

In politics of course, it is even worse.

The ancient sage Fu Hsi brought us the divination oracle, the i ching. The i ching, a taoist and confucian book of wisdom, has some interesting text concerning times of standstill.

This hexagram is the opposite of the preceding one. Heaven is above, drawing farther and farther away, while the earth below sinks farther into the depths. The creative powers are not in relation. It is a time of standstill and decline. This hexagram is linked with the seventh month (August-September), when the year has passed its zenith and autumnal decay is setting in. 

 THE JUDGMENT

 STANDSTILL. Evil people do not further
 The perseverance of the superior man.
 The great departs; the small approaches.

Heaven and earth are out of communion and all things are benumbed. What 
is above has no relation to what is below, and on earth confusion and 
disorder prevail. The dark power is within, the light power is without. 
Weakness is within, harshness without. Within are the inferior, and 
without are the superior. The way of inferior people is in ascent; the way of 
superior people is on the decline. But the superior people do not allow 
themselves to be turned from their principles. If the possibility of exerting 
influence is closed to them, they nevertheless remain faithful to their 
principles and withdraw into seclusion.

 THE IMAGE

 Heaven and earth do not unite:
 The image of STANDSTILL.
 Thus the superior man falls back upon his inner worth 
 In order to escape the difficulties.
 He does not permit himself to be honored with revenue.

When, owing to the influence of inferior men, mutual mistrust prevails in 
public life, fruitful activity is rendered impossible, because the fundaments 
are wrong. Therefore the superior man knows what he must do under such 
circumstances; he does not allow himself to be tempted by dazzling offers to 
take part in public activities. This would only expose him to danger, since he 
cannot assent to the meanness of the others. He therefore hides his worth 
and withdraws into seclusion.

The two principal forces in taoism are heaven (chien) and earth (kun), the elementary trigrams of this hexagram, standstill. When heaven is below the earth, we have the hexagram #11, Tai, Peace. When heaven, whose natural direction is upward, is moving away from earth, we have the unfortunate and precarious position of standstill. The two sides are simply not communicating.

Charles Krauthammer, a brilliant psychiatrist turned democrat turned republican operative, was on O'Reilly last night and I was listening in the car. He had the temerity to say that Obama was the most partisan president in the last 50 years, with the reasoning that not one Republican voted for Obamacare. Hey Charles, name one law of Obama's that the House Republicans did vote for? The aim from the start, as Senator Mitch McConnell said, was to make the muslim from Kenya a one term president. And they were very effective in their thwarting. Boehner has just announced that he still won't flex on the revenue side, even if the President is re-elected.

Four more years of gridlock. Or we can vote for the other guy and rend and destroy entitlements and the safety net. Perhaps a dose of tough love might help the children, poor and the elderly get their miserable little act together. Romney can then "harvest" whatever's left of everything. Smite the apostates, outlaw contraception and  bomb whoever's available, all the while drilling our way back to, if not energy independence, at least major ducats in a few choice contributors pockets. Sunny Day.

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Anybody catch this one? Kansas conservatives are after poor Brandon Whipple because he doesn't have children. Heck, poor Brandon and his wife are trying to have them!

I live in a Suitcase

Leslie and I saw Thomas perform this in San Diego and it was one of the coolest concerts I have ever attended.

Double Nickels

I am back from a long trip. It is my birthday. I am tired. I think that by necessity this post will be a long, drawn out, loosely jointed affair.  Food, politics, business, intrigue. And whining, I promise. It just isn't the same for some of you if I'm not whining.

There is a lot to talk about. I will leave the politics to the end, so as not to offend those of you who are squeamish of such topics. I see that in my absence many of you have been checking in with regularity and I want to both thank you and apologize for being remiss in my duties. You see I am trying to make a living, a task that is increasingly difficult in this increasingly philistine age.

Which leads me to my first diversion, or second if you count the girl who just walked by. Can I be appointed an official spandex policeman? With the power to issue tickets and incarcerate, if necessary? I don't need to go into the tawdry, misogynist jokes about raccoons and potatoes.  Because this was a flagrant offender. No, no ladies, don't make me turn you in. Nobody but you thinks that is attractive. Please refrain.

Did I tell you it was my birthday. Fifty five today, double nickels  Sammy Hagar, the rootinest, shootinest, AARP ready, soon to be senior citizen you have ever read. I believe that this officially qualifies me for some special movie discount or something or other.

So I guess I should try to give you a brief update on my recent doings and whereabouts, for those of you that care about such things. I guess the week started when Leslie and I were on our way down the freeway to pick up the supercargo van at Miramar Truck to get the steed that would be bearing my effects to San Francisco. I just decided to give a courtesy phone call to make sure that they had kicked the spare tire and lubed the thing. I get Wayne on the phone and he tells me that there is no van and it doesn't matter that I had reserved it weeks ago, the monthly customers had it and I would just have to take something else. Which wouldn't work for me. It would have been nice of them to call.

 I ended up taking the new.old Dodge Caravan and packed up the blue dockers suitcase that I have been seemingly living out of for the last month. This has been a lot of road. Not complaining mind you.

I powered up the five, leaving quite early in the morning and found my way to the 46, the Lost Hills Highway where James Dean met his mortal decline. The Lost Hills is usually littered with cops, the scene of my last moving violation and its near double nickels for me the whole way across.

I drove to the actual castle of my friend and pride of the Volga, the eminent russian musicologist Vlad Smythe. Vlad recently did a two hundred mile walk across England with wife Natasha and I got to see some great pictures, pubs, blood pie and Abby Road. Beautiful Norman castles. They looked happy as hell, which is always a good sign.

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Missed my own photo opening this weekend, me and the boys at Fallbrook Shutters. I checked out the show today at Pinnell Gallery and it looked really good. Our third annual. But I digress.

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Vlad played some choice bits from his voluminous collection, we exchanged a bit of homespun t.v. trivia, Farmers Daughter, Forsythe Saga vintage and then I took my leave, having a prior assignation at the home of one KerryB. He suggested that I steer clear of the evening San Jose morass and I took the 1 all the way up to Half Moon Bay, passing Watsonville and Pescadero and all of these other amazing coastal towns as the fog rolled in from the nearby ocean and left patches of beautiful panorama to my left. So beautiful, not much longer if at all, I look forward to driving it again soon and taking my time, stopping to take more photos. I did make one stop at Pigeon Point Lighthouse and snap these shots which I offer to you here.

Felt like I should stop by and see Ida next time I was up there but didn't have her phone number on my phone. Got the ice cream sandwich update I realize that it didn't make me a bit happier, in fact with every technologic innovation comes an equal hydrostatic push back of dread and techno fatigue. At least in my case, having to relearn all these stupid new swipes and affectations. Do me a favor, call me when it's all finished.

Oh yeah, the second thing that crawled under my craw came courtesy of the television. "Gold Miners" that bring their sluice bins and D-8's to Alaska to rent, tear, bulldoze, mercurify and plain despoil the native earth and timber like Saruman's Orcs digging under Orthanc looking for gold. Is this what we have to look forward to in a Romney presidency? Very strange consciousness.

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I made a mistake and listened to advice from BigD on a shortcut off the 92 that would save me a lot of time on the cold, dark and wet night. When I saw the signs that showed I was heading towards San Jose I got the sense that something was very wrong. I swore that I wouldn't listen...

BigD was at Kerry's and we got to listen to some first class noise and sound. Many thanks.

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Made it to the show and found out that the cool old jewish lady who sold christmas ornaments next to me, Barbara Singer was very sick. barbara was a sweetheart and she ended up dying saturday. Great neighbor and lady for years. Didn't make a hell of a lot of gelt but made a living. I already miss her. I know I have taken a picture of her in her black top hat and will post it when I find it.

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The show was very slow, a drag, a lot of regulars never showed. Beautiful weekend, many would rather play. Bought some interesting things. Made some money, sold a painting to a client whose wife apparently had a stroke and we had some sort of buddhist transference looking at each other. I sensed that there was a cognitive short somewhere and we all talked about it a little bit and I commended him for his absolute stand up love and devotion.

Saw Robert's wife Irma, a wonderful lady and Españaphile and we talked about my trip. Bijou is a man of integrity and a stand up guy. We finally lost Vitanza a few weeks back, a guy I knew the whole of my art dealing life, an impish man who was excellent at his job and loved his family. I used to be one of the new guard and now I'm one of the old guard. When the hell did this happen? And check out all these people taking the final curtain.

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So I scratched and cobbled and made a show out of it, happy for what business did transpire, Not enough, but my own fault for having had such a great month traveling. Now the ticket is due.

Staying with my buddy Cam is always interesting. When we finally got the lady midget wrestlers out of the room it was amazing we had any energy to even function the next day. Actually mostly food and television, family guy, modern family (Romney and Obama's favorite show) and Robot Chicken. Extended and protracted contests of flatulence, some drinking and lots of laughter.

There were two strange groups meeting at the Hyatt, an urban fantasy con who's name escapes me and an estian conference on tranformative behavior something. Both groups brought out nearly the same slightly spaced characters, steampunk, ma and pa kettle and lots of guys in pirate hats with large sallow hippie, brood mares following dutifully a few paces back.

We were walked up on two of these guys at the elevator and after a pregnant pause, I said, "You did push the button didn't you?" at which point they looked at me like they had no knowledge of any speech from terra, our particular little planet. They had not. Lots of gamers some in need of emergency hygiene triage. "Ozium, Cam, and quick!"

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Not a lot memorable to report about the week. A couple decent meals, one great one at Bistro Aix, a friend of Bigd's. Brussels sprouts to kill for. Dave and Amy, Melissa and Gary. Radichio salad with slightly caramelized grilled pears and walnuts. Top sirloin and bernaise, great fries. Thought that they had split the plate and started devouring the meat as fast as I could before they came by and checked me and I realized that I was eating my friend's dinner, too.

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I love Edwin and he has always been good to me but Creola was a bit of a disappointment this time. He changed the menu. No more blue note salad. Only an onion dressing. No more red drum. The filet wasn't up to normal standards, the potato overdone. Even the normally outstanding beignets were somewhat lacking. I guess everybody can have a bad night.

Had a nice breakfast at Stacks. But their bagels have always sucked, rubbery and microwavey. How hard would it be to get a toaster? Mostly ate breakfast down the street at Christy's in Burlingame, my morning stop for years. Palestinian sisters, all sweethearts.

Cam and I went to Hong Kong Seafood Lounge in Milbrae one night. Fish looked better in the tanks and we had a really nice meal. This is an authentic place where there were only a few roundeyes. Things like jellyfish and goose webbing on the menu. I had won ton and braised beef, duck and brined ribs. Delightful.

We sent the Kaplan brothers over and they freaked and left. Don't think that they were hip to the real thing. Leslie and I once got freaked ourselves at a Congee Restaurant in Vancouver. Things can get too real sometimes.

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I accidentally left an expensive consignment at the show, an antique turkish silk rug. I think that I have located it this afternoon, thank goodness.

Wrapped things up Sunday night, drove up to a friend's in Marin, went out for a nice thai dinner with he and his new girlfriend, a great ex new yorker. We got fairly deep and talked late into the night.

Yesterday I drove to see my father in the nursing home. A hard day. He has ben acting out at the facility in some rather unpleasant ways which I need not describe. He didn't know my name this time. I talked about my life and his life and my brothers and sisters, searching for triggers, but not much fired.

The caregivers are fantastic, mostly filipino. What would we do without filipinos, the best and most caring nurses in the world?

He is starting to act like his father, still strong and willful and I suppose I will be the same one day.

He was a brilliant, accomplished man and I wonder where he is now journeying to inside that once powerful brain? That loved opera, sculpture, paintings and fine automobiles as well as numbers, economics and physics.

His daughter, my sister Amy, would have been 45 yesterday. She died 30 years ago next April, on a windy road in Rancho Santa Fe. Some of life's sorrows and pains fade very slowly.

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I am going to Vincent's tonight with Leslie and a couple close friends for dinner to celebrate my birthday.  I was thinking yesterday, and today for that matter at just how lucky I am that this incredible woman has chosen to share her life with me these last twenty three years. You talk about a blessing. Bye.

Fairport Convention

We report, you decide.

Well, I'm back. And itching to write. We got ourselves an election today, 'case nobody told you.  Since the Blue Heron Blast is an apolitical, bipartisan blog that does not make official endorsements, I will only comment on a couple things that have been percolating in my brain today and let you, or at least the 60% of you that actually vote, decide.

They say that you can judge a man by the company he keeps so I think it would be prudent to look at one of the most important election indices, of course I am talking about the celebrity endorsements for each candidate. I will stick to music in the interests of time and brevity and not get into the George Clooney, Chuck Norris thing. To each his own.

So who do we got?

Earlier this week, Romney secured the coveted Kid Rock endorsement. Rock, aka Robert Richie, is mostly known as a modern poster child for white skankiness, and as another musician who once 'boned' Pamela Anderson.

The Kid Rock nod is like frosting on the cake for Governor Romney, having earlier secured the affirmative shake of the head from none other than Meat Loaf.

You will have to forgive me for even realizing that the aging rocker was still alive. I couldn't exactly name one of his songs but do remember that he had a part in Rock Horror Picture Show and this should count for something among the "goth" crowd.

A cynical person would wonder if the "Loaf' really supports the Republican's policies, or is merely trying to reflag a long dead career and be saved from an endless tour of decrepit, bowling alley coffee shops and Howard Johnson cocktail lounges?

Yesterday Romney added southern rockers Marshall Tucker to his team, an important red state endorsement that should do wonders in battleground regions from Mobile to Tallahassee. Early on the Romney people decided to go for the uneducated. low income white vote so Marshall Tucker fits right into the old wheelhouse. Can't you, can't you see, what that woman...

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President Barack Obama hasn't been exactly asleep at the wheel himself while busy Mitt picks up the cream of the crop, he has his own crop of endorsees, maybe not on the level of Meatloaf and Ted Nugent but definitely comers.

Bob Dylan, you ever heard of him? How about the Boss, Bruce Springsteen? Right there in the President's corner.

That not enough for you. Kelly Clarkson? Hello, yesterday! And Bakersfield's favorite troubadour,  Merle Haggard. Yep.

I know that I haven't made things any easier for you. Kid Rock or Bob Dylan? Toughie.

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Doesn't really matter to me who you vote for. Just vote.