blasterrataterragrata

“The few who understand the system will either be so interested in its profits or be so dependent upon its favours that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests.”
The Rothschild brothers of London writing to associates in New York, 1863.

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Have you noticed how so many young people in the service industry reflexively say "no problem" over and over again to a myriad of requests. Naturally when I hear somebody constantly telling me that there is no problem, I get to thinking maybe there is one...

I believe that this is a relatively new phenomenon and sign of a deeper disconnect. I think that the no problem reply is largely heard in situations where the recipient is old, that is, over 30.

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A lot of very nice well meaning people I know that I like very much are linking to me and endorsing me and doing all sorts of nice stuff for me on linked in. Thank you folks. I just don't see the purpose in the whole artificially "networked up" Linked In thing. Has anybody ever actually done anything constructive or make a profitable nexus there? Why does it seem like a total waste of time to me?

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Is there a woman in San Diego that has not had Bob Filner's hand on her tuchas? Please step forward.


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Ed sent me this quote from R.D. Laing:

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Frogs dig dudes that can multitask.

In a study of gray tree frogs, a team of University of Minnesota researchers discovered that females prefer males whose calls reflect the ability to multitask effectively.  In this species (Hyla chrysoscelis) males produce "trilled" mating calls that consist of a string of pulses.
Typical calls can range in duration from 20-40 pulses per call and occur between 5-15 calls per minute. Males face a trade-off between call duration and call rate, but females preferred calls that are longer and more frequent, which is no simple task.
The findings were published in August issue of Animal Behavior.
"It’s kind of like singing and dancing at the same time," says Jessica Ward, a postdoctoral researcher who is lead author for the study.

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Puffer fish in Japan are the mysterious artisans who create these beautiful underwater sculptures. Interesting concept, fellow sentient creatures creating art for the purpose of attraction.

From Decoded Science:

In what must feel like a herculean task, building the nest takes about 7 to 9 days and follows a strict plan, as if male pufferfish have detailed construction drawings. During the first few days, males use their fins to set up the basic shape of the nest. With ingenious and meticulous finning, they create an intricate pattern of ‘ups’ and ‘downs’, forming valleys and peaks on the outside of the nest. The central zone, in contrast, needs to be flat. For this, males swim frantically backwards and forwards in this area, to stir up the sand.
Not happy with the result, males often return to the outside area to perfect every single peak and valley, ensuring that they’re clearly defined and identical. The fact that they spend a few days doing this shows how important it is.

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29% of Republicans in Louisiana blame President Obama for the government's Katrina response. Only problem? He wasn't in Presidential office yet. In the words of Emily Litella, never mind.

Twenty-eight percent said they think former President George W. Bush, who was in office at the time, was more responsible for the poor federal response while 29 percent said Obama, who was still a freshman U.S. Senator when the storm battered the Gulf Coast in 2005, was more responsible. Nearly half of Louisiana Republicans — 44 percent — said they aren't sure who to blame.

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"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion"- Albert Camus

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If everybody is hip, is anybody hip? (me, calculating belly button piercings poolside at the trump) 

A million miles away

Right to Privacy?

Brandeis

I was way out of my league arguing constitutional law with the two high powered lawyers but hey, somebody had to do it. They were trying to tell me that there was no actual constitutional right to privacy, it was a substandard or what they termed a "cobbled together" right and I should just stfu.

I was admittedly out of my depth but decided to go to the source, the constitution itself. Luckily my pal Bradford had a copy in the Airstream.

I didn't find anything specifically regarding privacy but did chance on something called the fourth amendment to the Bill of Rights. Here is the text of said fourth amendment, introduced in Congress in 1789 by James Madison and adopted on March 1, 1792.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Doesn't mention privacy per sé but the framer's intentions were fairly clear, at least to my unlearned noggin. In truth an actual right to privacy wasn't mentioned until way forward in 1890 by the brilliant future Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in his article The Right to Privacy in the December 15, 1890 issue of the Harvard Law Review, co written by attorney Samuel D. Warren. Brandeis wrote that the right to privacy was the right to be let alone.

Brandeis wrote a famous dissent in Olmstead vs. the United States (1928) where he argued that the protections offered by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments are broad and that wholesale intrusions by the government on the privacy of individuals can be construed as a violation of these protections. In 1934 Congress passed a law severely restricting and outlawing the use of wiretapping.

Nowadays of course, the government has surrendered any belief in letting people alone, the right to privacy or the fourth amendment. They will park a drone over your house, swab your DNA, read your mail, listen to your phone calls, track your location, do pretty much anything they feel like, without a warrant or probable cause. That constitution stuff is so outdated. But no worry, because as soon as we beat that bad guy named terrorism, things should get back to normal.

*

The thing that caught my eye this time reading the constitution was not an amendment or clause but a curious name. A name that I don't recall seeing before; the signature of Dan of St. Thomas Jenifer. What kind of name is this to sign our founding document? A first name and a place of business?

Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer (1723-1790) was a delegate from Maryland. Jenifer was a son of a planter, born in Coates Retirement, Maryland. He deeply resented British interference in colonial affairs and fought to keep Maryland from becoming a Royal colony. One of the oldest delegates, he represented Maryland in the Continental Congress. A close friend of Franklin, it is said that he was a man of great humor. Certainly he possessed one of the most interesting names of our forefathers.

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Amendment I
(Privacy of Beliefs)
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment III
(Privacy of the Home)
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV
(Privacy of the Person and Possessions)
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment IX
(More General Protection for Privacy?)
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Liberty Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
No State shall... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law.

Hamar Promenade

OddBall

Sculpture in progress - © Michael Stutz

I woke up the first morning in Santa Fe in fits of sheer terror. Hurtling towards the hotel walls, like a ship broke free of its moorings and caught in the wake of a giant wave, I had completely lost my equilibrium. The physical distress was compounded by the grim realization that I had a job to do and a show to set up in a couple of hours.

I pounded electrolytes and muttered an agnostic prayer and after what seemed like an interminable interlude finally managed to get my sea legs back, a bit later in the day. I can not ever remember experiencing such a terrifying loss of bearings except on one other occasion, I was eleven years old, in a funky dutch gable garret back in Syosset.

The first of two times on this trip that I hearkened back to Helen McHargue's beautiful ode to age and balance.

OddBall

Walking straight.

A challenge? Who would guess?

The brilliance of our gyroscope -

Its praises unsung, is a quiet miracle.

I stagger now and list left-wise.

Loopily, my destinations reached.

But I see eyebrows raised…

My aura broadcasts “Oddball”

Aging brings gifts in its wrinkled basket.

Becoming invisible was an unexpected pleasure.

Different again - I’m sticking out.

Looking crazy, looking drunk.

What did you say? I can’t hear you either.

Whisper something in the good ear.

Something kind.

© Helen Branch McHargue 2013

Bradford

tainted love

Smell a rat?

No one should be surprised by the recent disclosure that the NSA had made 2776 illegal searches on American citizens in calendar year 2012 alone. If you had been paying attention you would have smelled a rat long ago.

The NSA compliance officer says that the number is actually really minuscule in the big picture since they make 20 million such queries a month. Methinks what it really shows is the utter contempt and disregard that they hold for the constitution and the fourth amendment.

Now the rodentia and spy apologists are starting to jump off the lifeboats. FISA Judge Reggie Walker admits that the court can't do their job if the reports they get have been minimized. Congressional leaders are aghast that they have not been provided key intelligence documents as legally required. All of the cheerleader in chief's reassurance and protestations about checks, balances and oversight turns out to be pure caca de toro.

Does it really matter if these illegal intrusions are willful or not? When once you have been stuck on a database list, you are there for ever? Give the spooks enough time and I can assure you, we will all be in a database somewhere, if not on our way to the gulag. It is foolish to think that these agencies will ever adequately police themselves and can be trusted with this kind of power.

There is a great article at the Electronic Frontier Foundation that details the semantical wordplay and sophistry that the spymasters use to lie and dissemble their machinations. Trevor Timm's A Guide to the Deceptions, Misinformation, and Word Games Officials Use to Mislead the Public About NSA Surveillance. Check it out.

"Another tried and true technique in the NSA obfuscation playbook is to deny it does one invasive thing or another “under this program.” When it’s later revealed the NSA actually does do the spying it said it didn’t, officials can claim it was just part of another program not referred to in the initial answer.
This was the Bush administration’s strategy for the “Terrorist Surveillance Program”: The term “TSP” ended up being a meaningless label, created by administration officials after the much larger warrantless surveillance program was exposed by the New York Times in 2005. They used it to give the misleading impression that the NSA’s spying program was narrow and aimed only at intercepting the communications of terrorists. In fact, the larger program affected all Americans.
Now we’re likely seeing it as part of the telephone records collection debate when administration officials repeat over and over that they aren’t collecting location data “under this program.” Sen. Ron Wyden has strongly suggested this might not be the whole story." 

Tall Rocks

I am starting to seriously go through last week's shots. Call me a sucker, but I just can't get enough of the tall red rocks.

Happy birthday, King

Late night binge

I had a late night craving for something sweet. Needed cheesecake in the worst way. I am holed up ensconced in a sort of weird neighborhood but I saw that my two options were either the Walmart that might still be open or Basha's supermarket.

I settled on Basha's. The late owner Eddie was a good guy, looked and pretended to be a Chicago tough but actually a sweetheart. He bought a Sam Maloof dining set from me once and helped to pay the mortgage and electric bill for several months. Besides I wanted a New York cheesecake, not a Chinese cheesecake and figured that the Basha's version would be closer to Brooklyn.

Lots of college kids in Flagstaff, boy do they look young. Guy in front of me got i.d.'d, barely made the cut but managed to score whiskey and some god awful wine, is that what they are drinking these days?

I couldn't help but notice that the very young little waif behind me, with the requisite nose stud and body by Olive Oyl was buying an interesting combination of the giant twizzlers pack and the industrial size liquid k.y.jelly. I don't want to even begin to surmise what kind of lubrication problems would necessitate such a purchase but I am sure that the college experience can be both difficult and quite drying. I was more interested in the twizzlers, arguably the most goddawful candy ever invented.

"You actually like those things? When you can buy real licorice? They taste so synthetic, like somebody made them with a home chemistry set."

"I love them because you can peel them," she says.""I like the texture."

Just no accounting for taste these days. Kids, they just don't listen. Good luck with all of your purchases. After you get all the squeaks out, you better take the time for a little studying, young lady.

Steve Goodman

8.14.13

I am on the last leg of my protracted southwest roadie, holed up in Flagstaff, back in my own bed tomorrow night. Yea! It has been a good trip, certainly not lucrative by past standards, but enough gelt to keep the wolves from the door. I was able to spend time with some of my favorite friends, dealers and clients and on balance am happy with the whole excursion. As I am constantly reminded by many of you, I've got a pretty good life.

I'm tired and think that I will try to lay down a scattergun summary of the last week or so. Last we spoke I was heading out of Albuquerque and the Bosque towards Santa Fe. I rolled into town and had a pretty miserable meal at Tiny's. Place used to be great but this was the second disaster in a row and I am now officially through with the joint. No flavor to the once incredible chicken tacos - from the sublime to the ridiculous.

I checked into my hotel stopped off to check in with John Morris at the Museo and then met Stoops at the Plaza Cafe for dinner. I had my compulsory cashew chicken mole enchilada and sopapilla that are always terrific. There was an emoish cowboy singer crooning away at the bandshell that didn't sound terribly interesting.

Had a two day setup, then a five day show, which is uncharacteristically long and now pretty much a blur. My first time at this particular show and it may have been reflected in my fairly dismal sales. Slow but steady. Perhaps I just didn't have the right merchandise, aging demographic, aging dealer, luck of the draw, who the hell knows about these things?

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Sold my Wallace Rodeo china set to a charming woman named Rebecca, Schenck's girlfriend. We got into an interesting conversation. She said that after 50 a woman largely turns invisible to the world.

Which is funny because Helen McHargue wrote a great poem about the very same subject a few years ago that I would like to put my hands on again. Wonder if there is a gender based double standard? Maybe we all get invisible? Although I think that women are judged differently, unfortunately. What do I know? I'm no psychiatrist, I just play one on the internet.

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I was driving one morning on Cerrillos Rd. and stopped and rolled my window down to get a newspaper from one of those guys who I assume is in drug rehab and now is hawking local fishwraps in the morning in traffic. How much I asked the guy? Seventy five cents, he says. I handed him a buck and he gave me a funny look and walked away.

I thought for a second about asking him where my quarter was but the look from the guy said, hey pal, you look like you are doing all right and as you can see my life is fucking hell so let's just call it even and not talk about the quarter and I capiched and didn't say a word.

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I was going to La Fonda one morning to buy my new york times and ran into my friend, rockstar native american painter Tony Abeyta working on a new mural at the hotel. Tony is a fantastic artist and a great guy. We were both friends of Sam Maloof. We reminisced a bit about our late friend and a bunch of other stuff. Tony bought me breakfast. Really glad that he is doing so well. Nice to catch up.

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I, of course, ate like a swine all week. Big veal chop at the Bullring, Zia Diner, Osteria, it is all sort of a blur right now. Steve and Mitzi had us over for a great meal. Definitely the best public meal I had was at Santa Cafe, probably the most consistent fare in town. John and Luzanne invited me to join their dinner.

Rounding out the table  was Monique, Mira Nakashima, the famous furniture maker, her friend John and Mike Runnels, the ex D.A. and Lieutenant Governor of the Land of en/disenchantment. We got into a very spirited discussion about all manner of topics. Was afraid I had been a bit too demonstrative but John said that everybody enjoyed the evening and I definitely did. I have always been such a fan of Mira and her father George's work and it was a real privilege to make her acquaintance.

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Attended two great parties last wednesday, Jan Duggan's opening of the Art of Smoke show at Two Star and the Sandroni's annual soirée. Both wonderful affairs. Had a chance to meet Joe and Linda's great kids at the latter and really enjoyed them.

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Read an article the other day about the ten worst computer passwords. The worst was pet names. (Damn.) But they also said that you should give a fake mother's maiden name for a secret question because it is too easy for schmucky hackers to look up your mother's actual maiden name on the web.

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Stopped by and saw Les Perhacs's show at the Gerald Peters Gallery. Very impressive looking. I hope that he kicks ass.

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I bought a very cool and early Fritz Scholder collage painting that I like very much at the show. Come by the gallery and take a look.

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Longtime psychedelic poster artist Dennis Larkins stopped by the booth and shared some of the fantastic work he is doing for the band Moonalice with me. Top notch stuff.

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NY Stan sent me this quite unusual link on William Kentridge. Give it a chance.

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Mark Zaplin came by the booth one day. Mark has been fighting the big C for a couple years but he both looked great and had a great attitude. Incredible strength of spirit. I am really rooting for him and a recovery.

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Dawn at the water hole © Bill Schenck 2013

I detoured to Bill Schenck's wonderful ranch today and ordered a small commission. Very exciting. Bill signed his new book and gave me a copy. He is a good guy, very talented cowboy pop artist and I frankly can't wait for my painting.

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Tooled on down to Albuquerque afterwards and checked on the status of a large rug I am having restored at Textival. Might have to ship it to Turkey for some reweaving but it will one day be gorgeous.

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I finally made it the 40 west. Exhausted. I was pretty beat driving today. I turned north at Winslow and tried cruising up to the Homolovi ruins but the gate was shut. I took this picture there last year.

Instead I decided to try to catch the sunset from Meteor Crater. I had never been there. Sixteen bucks. Nice big impact crater.

Pretty cool spot, snagged some great sunset shots. Dawn of creation type sunset.

I finally made it to Flag. Exhausted, this is all I think I can muster. Good night.

Leroy Van Dyke

Me and my uncle

The original.

Good Laydown

I was walking around the antique show the other day when I overheard a dealer sort of bragging to another dealer. "I paid $1500 for the thing and I just sold it for a thousand. Best move I ever made."

Being in a business where you make a whole lot of moves, I understand completely. Not everything you do is going to pay off and sometimes the smart money is to cut your losses. Of course a steady diet of mistakes will leave you flat busted.

Hopefully we gain wisdom somewhere along the way. Put the mistakes behind you and wait for the bigger kills that amble into our lives every so often if your eyes are open.

I am not a poker player, I am a black jack player, in fact a quite competent black jack player but that is another story for another day. I do understand the rudiments of poker and one of the most interesting facets to me is the concept of a good lay down.

A good lay down is when you fold a very good hand because you get the feeling that the other player has an even better hand. Poker lore is full of stories of people folding pairs of aces and sets, wisely conserving their seed corn when their opponent hits his flush or straight.

My favorite Bowery Boys episode is when Satch and Mugs get caught in a rigged draw poker game against some sharpies and Huntz Hall folds four kings because he knows that somewhere in the deck there lie four aces, which turn out to be the next four cards.

Sometimes in life there is nothing to do but sit back and wait for the wind to change. Can't do much winning in the long run until you run into some good cards. And there's times we just got to lay it down.

Mike Dawes

Animal Zoo

I got booth number 22 for this show. I don't pay a lot of attention to numerology but in a strange coincidence, the i ching application on my android phone offered up a hexagram changing into No. 22, Grace. Confucius was said to be very worried when he drew this hexagram because it celebrates the superficial beauty of form. Then again, it is right down your average antique or art dealer's wheelhouse.

My friend Steve helped me set up for the show. When he saw the number 22, he was relieved. "At least you didn't get 24,"he tells me. You see, Steve lived for many years in Brazil. In Brazil, the number 24 is associated with homosexuality. Soccer players and other athletes avoid the jersey number like the plague. People born on the 24th of the month are ridiculed.

I had a brazilian man who happens to be in a long term gay partnership come into my booth and asked him to explain. The 24 is gay thing comes from a popular game called Jogo do Bicho. The number represents the deer in the gambling game. The word viado (a misspelling of veado, deer in Portuguese) is a slang for a homosexual.

So what is this game, Jogo Do Bicho? From Wikipedia:

Jogo do Bicho ("the animal game") is an illegal gambling game in Brazil, prohibited by federal law since 1946. Very popular throughout the country, the "game" is actually a lottery-type drawing operated on a regional basis by mobsters known as contraventores (who commit misdemeanors), bicheiros or banqueiros ("bankers"). Unlike most state-operated lotteries, in Jogo do Bicho you can bet any amount of money, even a cent. Despite its popularity (and being more or less tolerated, especially in Rio de Janeiro), it is still illegal in 25 of the 26 states of Brazil and those involved may be prosecuted. Paraíba is the only state where the game is legal and regulated by the state, even though according to a federal law this activity is prohibited. In other northeastern states the game is tolerated by the government.

Here are the rest of the numbers in the game and their associated animals:

Certain animals have come to represent certain omens in Brazilian culture. The horse, 11, represents a naked woman, the elephant, death. The zebra augers an upset.

The game is actually fairly old. In 1888 João Batista, the Baron of Drummond, opened a zoo in Rio de Janeiro. In order to encourage business he printed the likeness of animals on the tickets and hoisted a flag displaying one at the end of each day. A ticket printed with the right beast paid out 20 times its price. Locals soon started to place side bets without bothering to visit the zoo. By the mid-1890s jogo do bicho aka the animal game had "escaped from the zoo."

A silly superstition. By the way, my favorite number is Urso, the bear.

Townes

Basking at the Bosque

I had been waiting for a bit of divine inspiration before I resumed the daily, public blow by blow of my life and travels. Having failed to secure anything approaching poignancy I think I had better engage in some routine maintenance duties before memory gets too fuzzy and this stuff all blows away. Been a long trip, hair is a long tousled nest and I am officially out of socks and underwear.

The Albuquerque show was passably good, not quite as good as last year but managed to buy and sell a few things and get a couple of good stories out of Ron Munn.

We had a dealers meeting and remembered the comrades we had lost in the last year, Reggie and W.T.. Gypsy traders tend to die with their boots on. Dealer's meetings usually suck but this one was pretty good, if a little blubbery.

Shows in New Mexico are real good for people watching. Cowboys and cowgirls of all ages like to shamelessly dress up and put on the dog, strutting like peacocks and hens at sunday cotillion.

I had some very good meals in Albuquerque, carefully hand selected burnt brisket ends at Rudy's, upscale duck at Artichoke, a Cosmos tapas feed that was not nearly as good as the year before but did offer up a great steak topped with an egg. Maybe my trip to Spain put these tapas things in true perspective?

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I also had one truly fantastic meal. Jennifer James 101. As good as it gets. One of my favorite dining experiences in memory. Perhaps it had something to do with the great company. Five of us ordered every item on the menu with the exception of the chicken entrée. All the appetizers, all the desserts.

The owner used to cook at a hidden little place called Chef du Jour, now sadly defunct. Lou and I would eat there every single night when we could.

I will try to not bore you and only recount some of the many highlights in a meal full of them. Started off the meal with the lusty monk, deviled eggs topped with sweet and spicy pork. At a buck and a half, maybe the greatest appetizer deal in the whole country. I also sampled an ahi, watermelon salad with basil and pine nuts that was simply sublime. We shared everything, including chick pea fries with a tangy dipping sauce that were just brilliant and off the charts.

For my entrée I chose the bacon steak, a thick chunk of braised pork belly served with grilled romaine, chipotle and blue cheese. Michael ordered the Wagyu flank steak with wrinkled beans and fried potato salad. Heidi had the tomato gnocchi. All dishes were equally fantastic.

Jennifer James 101 could dominate the culinary landscape in any locale in the country. I can't stop raving about it.

Dessert was awesome as well. I was particularly impressed with the lime tart, topped with toasted swiss meringue, whatever that is? The white nectarine and berry cobbler was pretty yummy too. Check the place out. Truly awesome.

*

I usually take a major side trip every year between the Albuquerque and Santa Fe shows, explore the back roads. This year I decided to take it easy and just chill. My buddy Mike, owner of the Pecos River Barbecue let me stay in the muy comfortable Airstream trailer parked in his backyard. Had a good time hanging.

He invited the gang over for a feast, secured massive chunks of steak, salmon and turkey at Kellman's and whipped up a feast for a king on his Santa Maria grill. I made a rather clumsy salad, not being much of a cook but more of an end user.  He also took me to Bruno's where I happily devoured an awesome sopapilla stuffed with cheese, beef and green chile.

*

The last day of the break I headed down to Socorro and Bosque Del Apache with my pal Steve Saylor to see if we could turn up a few birds. Steve, an Ohio native, is an experienced birder, who has recently moved to the area from Oceanside. I took it upon myself to show him around the state.

Things were pretty quiet at the Bosque, the Rufous necked wood rail now long out of sight, not having been seen since July 18th. That was fine, we had the whole place to ourselves and had a great time slowly tooling around the roads and marshes. A blue heron soared quietly overhead. Saw a peregrine falcon and rushed a gorgeous glossy ibis out of the tules.

We took the long hike around the marsh and got separated. It was hot and Steve didn't make it out for a long time. Thought he might have ended up in a mountain lion's belly. Turns out he ran into some artifacts.

Afterwards we decided to drive into the storm, past the picturesque old town of Magdelena and farther on to the Very Large Array. Such a fascinating place, each of the many track mounted radio telescopes bigger than the largest optical telescope in the world.

I wish that I had more time to shoot there. Photography is a solitary affair for me and it was late and rainy.

Would have liked to catch a rainbow and I am sure it was only a matter of time but we had to get back on the road.

I drove back to Mike's to spend one last night, get my gear and thank my gracious host for his hospitality. Always nice to get better acquainted with a friend. Then I drove up to Santa Fe and started unloading for the show. I am midstream right now, long haul, two more days to go at the show and I don't want to hex anything. So I will be back at you all later. Don't have a lot of complaints - good people, beautiful clouds and skies and the occasional afternoon monsoon rain. Everything is okay. To be continued...

Grackle, Bosque del Apache

Who was John?

I do believe that yesterday August 9th, was the eighteenth anniversary of Jerry Garcia's passing. God, has it really been that long? Left a big hole in many lives, including mine. Big footsteps, too big to fill...

I suppose that I should write but I believe that I have momentarily lost my inclination to speak. Haven't put the brakes on for a long time and I am enjoying the interlude. Things are going reasonably well, woke up one day with a bad case of vertigo, bumped into a wall or two but I have managed to find my sea legs again. All is well.

Save It for Later

Texas cops institute full cavity searches

Lone star state strikes again. Perverted cops cop a free feel. Gloves were not changed between anal and vaginal probes, nor were they changed between women. Now women sue. Let's hope they win. Why in the hell would cops assume that they are using those particular spaces for illicit storage when they had no idea that they would get pulled over?

Mississippi John Hurt

Missed the international blues day the other day so here's some Mississippi John Hurt for you to make up.

Interception deception and parallel construction

“There are no recordings of phone calls. There are no dossiers. They do not record your e-mails. None of that was happening, none of it — I mean, zero.” Face the Nation Rep. Mike Rogers 7/28/13

The United States government is on high alert regarding alleged terrorist threats directed at our outposts around the world. While I guess we should assume that these threats are real and founded,  I have this sniggling little doubt that this could be a carefully orchestrated production designed to quell doubts about the PRISM allegations so that they can ramp up the total surveillance state.

For weeks the Rep. Mike Rogers of this world, the Marc Thiessens, all kinds of surveillance apologists and talking heads, were telling us that phone calls could not be listened to, emails could not be read, it was all about metadata content, who called whom. Then the Guardian drops another Snowden bomb regarding yet another unknown data program, XKEYSCORE and it turns out that they can and actually do all these things. Xkeyscore and DNI  sees all that you do in real time. And then the tune changes, well we can, but we don't or at least not very often. Just trust us.

"I, sitting at my desk," said Snowden, could "wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email".
US officials vehemently denied this specific claim. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said of Snowden's assertion: "He's lying. It's impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do."
But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed.

And the problem is that many of us just don't trust them anymore. How could we? After the initial revelations broke, the NSA and administration should have laid out exactly what they were doing to the american public so we don't get it every other week in dribs and drabs and we don't have to hear the lies and bullshit. Oh, that program. That one is different.

Today there is a new revelation. From Reuters. The DEA has a special operations division (SOD) that grabs the data, builds domestic drug cases, and then lies to judges and defendants about its source. This may prove problematic as earlier this year a federal judge ruled in the Adel Daoud case that the true source of criminal information must be disclosed to defendants so that they can contest its legality.

WASHINGTON, Aug 5 (Reuters) - A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.
Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.
The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant's Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don't know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.
"I have never heard of anything like this at all," said Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor who served as a federal judge from 1994 to 2011. Gertner and other legal experts said the program sounds more troubling than recent disclosures that the National Security Agency has been collecting domestic phone records. The NSA effort is geared toward stopping terrorists; the DEA program targets common criminals, primarily drug dealers.
"It is one thing to create special rules for national security," Gertner said. "Ordinary crime is entirely different. It sounds like they are phonying up investigations.'THE SPECIAL OPERATIONS DIVISIONThe unit of the DEA that distributes the information is called the Special Operations Division, or SOD. Two dozen partner agencies comprise the unit, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security. It was created in 1994 to combat Latin American drug cartels and has grown from several dozen employees to several hundreds.Today, much of the SOD's work is classified, and officials asked that its precise location in Virginia not be revealed. The documents reviewed by Reuters are marked "Law Enforcement Sensitive," a government categorization that is meant to keep them confidential."Remember that the utilization of SOD cannot be revealed or discussed in any investigative function," a document presented to agents reads. The document specifically directs agents to omit the SOD's involvement from investigative reports, affidavits, discussions with prosecutors and courtroom testimony. Agents are instructed to then use "normal investigative techniques to recreate the information provided by SOD."

A spokesman with the Department of Justice, which oversees the DEA, declined to comment.
But two senior DEA officials defended the program, and said trying to "recreate" an investigative trail is not only legal but a technique that is used almost daily.
A former federal agent in the northeastern United States who received such tips from SOD described the process. "You'd be told only, 'Be at a certain truck stop at a certain time and look for a certain vehicle.' And so we'd alert the state police to find an excuse to stop that vehicle, and then have a drug dog search it," the agent said.
"PARALLEL CONSTRUCTION"
After an arrest was made, agents then pretended that their investigation began with the traffic stop, not with the SOD tip, the former agent said. The training document reviewed by Reuters refers to this process as "parallel construction."
The two senior DEA officials, who spoke on behalf of the agency but only on condition of anonymity, said the process is kept secret to protect sources and investigative methods. "Parallel construction is a law enforcement technique we use every day," one official said. "It's decades old, a bedrock concept."
A dozen current or former federal agents interviewed by Reuters confirmed they had used parallel construction during their careers. Most defended the practice; some said they understood why those outside law enforcement might be concerned.
"It's just like laundering money - you work it backwards to make it clean," said Finn Selander, a DEA agent from 1991 to 2008 and now a member of a group called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which advocates legalizing and regulating narcotics.
Some defense lawyers and former prosecutors said that using "parallel construction" may be legal to establish probable cause for an arrest. But they said employing the practice as a means of disguising how an investigation began may violate pretrial discovery rules by burying evidence that could prove useful to criminal defendants.
A QUESTION OF CONSTITUTIONALITY
"That's outrageous," said Tampa attorney James Felman, a vice chairman of the criminal justice section of the American Bar Association. "It strikes me as indefensible."
Lawrence Lustberg, a New Jersey defense lawyer, said any systematic government effort to conceal the circumstances under which cases begin "would not only be alarming but pretty blatantly unconstitutional."
Lustberg and others said the government's use of the SOD program skirts established court procedures by which judges privately examine sensitive information, such as an informant's identity or classified evidence, to determine whether the information is relevant to the defense.
"You can't game the system," said former federal prosecutor Henry E. Hockeimer Jr. "You can't create this subterfuge. These are drug crimes, not national security cases. If you don't draw the line here, where do you draw it?"
Some lawyers say there can be legitimate reasons for not revealing sources. Robert Spelke, a former prosecutor who spent seven years as a senior DEA lawyer, said some sources are classified. But he also said there are few reasons why unclassified evidence should be concealed at trial.
"It's a balancing act, and they've doing it this way for years," Spelke said. "Do I think it's a good way to do it? No, because now that I'm a defense lawyer, I see how difficult it is to challenge."
CONCEALING A TIP
One current federal prosecutor learned how agents were using SOD tips after a drug agent misled him, the prosecutor told Reuters. In a Florida drug case he was handling, the prosecutor said, a DEA agent told him the investigation of a U.S. citizen began with a tip from an informant. When the prosecutor pressed for more information, he said, a DEA supervisor intervened and revealed that the tip had actually come through the SOD and from an NSA intercept.
"I was pissed," the prosecutor said. "Lying about where the information came from is a bad start if you're trying to comply with the law because it can lead to all kinds of problems with discovery and candor to the court." The prosecutor never filed charges in the case because he lost confidence in the investigation, he said.
A senior DEA official said he was not aware of the case but said the agent should not have misled the prosecutor. How often such misdirection occurs is unknown, even to the government; the DEA official said the agency does not track what happens with tips after the SOD sends them to agents in the field.
The SOD's role providing information to agents isn't itself a secret. It is briefly mentioned by the DEA in budget documents, albeit without any reference to how that information is used or represented when cases go to court.
The DEA has long publicly touted the SOD's role in multi-jurisdictional and international investigations, connecting agents in separate cities who may be unwittingly investigating the same target and making sure undercover agents don't accidentally try to arrest each other.
SOD'S BIG SUCCESSES
The unit also played a major role in a 2008 DEA sting in Thailand against Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout; he was sentenced in 2011 to 25 years in prison on charges of conspiring to sell weapons to the Colombian rebel group FARC. The SOD also recently coordinated Project Synergy, a crackdown against manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers of synthetic designer drugs that spanned 35 states and resulted in 227 arrests.
Since its inception, the SOD's mandate has expanded to include narco-terrorism, organized crime and gangs. A DEA spokesman declined to comment on the unit's annual budget. A recent LinkedIn posting on the personal page of a senior SOD official estimated it to be $125 million.
Today, the SOD offers at least three services to federal, state and local law enforcement agents: coordinating international investigations such as the Bout case; distributing tips from overseas NSA intercepts, informants, foreign law enforcement partners and domestic wiretaps; and circulating tips from a massive database known as DICE.
The DICE database contains about 1 billion records, the senior DEA officials said. The majority of the records consist of phone log and Internet data gathered legally by the DEA through subpoenas, arrests and search warrants nationwide. Records are kept for about a year and then purged, the DEA officials said.
About 10,000 federal, state and local law enforcement agents have access to the DICE database, records show. They can query it to try to link otherwise disparate clues. Recently, one of the DEA officials said, DICE linked a man who tried to smuggle $100,000 over the U.S. southwest border to a major drug case on the East Coast.
"We use it to connect the dots," the official said.
"AN AMAZING TOOL"
Wiretap tips forwarded by the SOD usually come from foreign governments, U.S. intelligence agencies or court-authorized domestic phone recordings. Because warrantless eavesdropping on Americans is illegal, tips from intelligence agencies are generally not forwarded to the SOD until a caller's citizenship can be verified, according to one senior law enforcement official and one former U.S. military intelligence analyst.
"They do a pretty good job of screening, but it can be a struggle to know for sure whether the person on a wiretap is American," the senior law enforcement official said.
Tips from domestic wiretaps typically occur when agents use information gleaned from a court-ordered wiretap in one case to start a second investigation.
As a practical matter, law enforcement agents said they usually don't worry that SOD's involvement will be exposed in court. That's because most drug-trafficking defendants plead guilty before trial and therefore never request to see the evidence against them. If cases did go to trial, current and former agents said, charges were sometimes dropped to avoid the risk of exposing SOD involvement.
Current and former federal agents said SOD tips aren't always helpful - one estimated their accuracy at 60 percent. But current and former agents said tips have enabled them to catch drug smugglers who might have gotten away.
"It was an amazing tool," said one recently retired federal agent. "Our big fear was that it wouldn't stay secret."
DEA officials said that the SOD process has been reviewed internally. They declined to provide Reuters with a copy of their most recent review. (Edited by Blake Morrison)

I have written in the past and furnished quotes by retired NSA people like Bill Binney who have stated that there is a huge domestic component to the NSA snooping. Legitimate terrorism threats are overshadowed by what amounts to a giant information phishing expedition by the DEA, FBI and Justice Department. The Patriot act has allowed the government to institute what has quickly devolved into what is basically an Orwellian state, where the targets are American citizens. And all the information in the world, on every one of this nation's citizens, will be stored in a big concrete box somewhere in Utah, in case they need to build a case against us sometime in the future.

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I do not view Bradley Manning as a hero and loathe Julian Assange. I think Manning received a fair punishment. They released covert information that may have well gotten people killed. But I do view Snowden as a hero. Somebody had to pull the covers back on the breadth of the police state and he did, sacrificing his life and freedom to do it. I am glad that Putin told Obama to piss off and I find the administrations whiney threats and heavy handed attitude towards both the Russians and latin american countries somewhat ridiculous.

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Glenn Greenwald published a new article out yesterday regarding even our members of congress being denied information about the NSA programs. Great oversight.

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But hey, maybe if we get people scared about Al Qaeda again they will stop worrying about all this spook business?

Note from the front

I left early wednesday as planned for my annual trek to New Mexico. I had packed for the trip for several days and thought that I had all my bases covered but no sooner did I hit the highway before I started realizing some of the critical things that I had forgotten. Like my table covering. Damn. I called Kim and she agreed to ship me one of her covers express over night. Add to the list rope, tape, my cardholder and a bunch of other sniggling little items and it becomes obvious that I have had my head up my ass of late.

My plan the first day was to drive to Sedona. My old hiking buddies Kerry and Jasmine had a condo for a week on a golf course and had invited me up. The ride out east was long and tiring. Never fun to drive through sweltering Phoenix in 106 degree heat. I was hungry and bushed and stopped at a McDonalds at the Cottonwood turnoff where I met some nice Burmese buddhist monks and got my eyes off the road for a few minutes.

The ride was hot and overlong and I had to pull off at a couple of rest stops to try to recoup. All the bustle and hurry of the previous weeks was starting to catch up to me in an overwhelming rush.

I finally made it to Sedona and the breathtaking views of the red cliffs were magically revitalizing. I had forgotten the raw beauty.

Unfortunately my companions had been chomping at the bit waiting for me all day and decided that it was now time for a hike up a mountain. We have hiked together for over 30 years, done some serious stuff before in Paria, the upper Kolob and several other wonderful places in the southwest and even though I was exhausted from the eight hour ride I decided to play along. Mistake.

Halfway up a mountain trail that they had found that started in a residential neighborhood, I started to feel all of my age, cardiac fitness and a whole bunch more assorted real and imagined ailments. My asthma has been pretty bad of late and I am sure that didn't help. I felt nauseous and slightly heat stroke, actually pretty fucking miserable but I trudged ahead and got some decent shots with my camera. Tried not to imagine myself having a heart attack and going into full scale cardiac arrest.

Sedona is such a strange town. One of the most beautiful places you could imagine, it is a great example of what happens when you don't have any adequate planning and people are allowed to do and build whatever the hell they want. Houses built on scenic ridges, houses crammed against natural monuments, sprawl run amok in the most beautiful of settings. Lot of places should have been off limits to humans, at least in my opinion.

I have often said that there is nothing about Sedona that you couldn't fix with a couple days and a D-8 bulldozer and still pretty much feel that way. We saw a little rainbow at the end of our walk and came off the hill and our magnificent view of the coffeepot and the teacups and hungrily went looking for a place to eat.

We settled on pizza. Sedona is known as a center of new age mumbo jumbo, they literally peddle it by the pound, but truth be told the crystal vortex healing shops are almost outnumbered by the pizza restaurants. The one that we chanced into, the art of pizza, was actually pretty good. It was just hard for me to eat, really feeling the after effects of the mild heat stroke.

I gave them a little photography production lesson and we finally hit the hay. We rose again the next morning and hiked up the trail area known as Back and Beyond. Felt great the next day, regaining my energy and hiking feet somehow. A hiker walked by me wearing a handgun, something I have never felt necessary to carry on the trail. Welcome to Arizona.

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Said my goodbyes and beat it on down the line after Jasmine made us a fine breakfast. Shan't bore you. Reached Albuquerque after minimal rain around four in the afternoon and packed my stuff in to the show. Today is the second day and I will give you a run down after the fat lady sings. Started off like gangbusters and then slowed to a parched trickle. Such is life. Maybe tomorrow?

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Last year the hotel had the tattoo convention. The noise was horrible. They are gone for some reason but the place is still loud. Have had a good meal and a great meal which I will expound upon when I have the energy.

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Yesterday morning I went to the Starbucks kiosk in the lobby and asked for a coffee. "What size," the young man asked? "Regular," I replied. "Do you mean vente," he asked? "No, I mean regular, sorry I don't speak Starbucks." "Whatever man," he looked hurt and more than a little miffed.

The whole confrontation repeated itself at the very same kiosk this morning, only a different guy. "What size do you want?" Regular. "Vente?" Regular."Do you mean this size," he asked pointing to the cup in the middle? Yes, the average size, the one that you call normal on your planet in the language we call english, the receptacle that fits on the volume chart somewhere between small and big. Capiche? Only in the magical world of starbucksland and a couple of departments of the United States government do we reach the place where tall actually means small.

It is so exasperating when vendors insist that you engage in their own private language. Like something out of EST or Scientology. I knew a Gurdjeffian named Tom once who was equally irksome, he liked to refer to himself in the third person. Tom is going for a walk today, Tom is happy, Tom is sad, aarghh!

Dan Ariely in his brilliant book, The Guide to Predictable Irrationality unmasks the whole Starbucks marketing plan and gimmick. It was necessary to create a new lexicon in order to charge five times what everybody else does for coffee. Hence the vente and barista bullshit. Pardon me if I don't buy into it. Ban me from Starbucks, see if I give a fuck. Coffee is too strong anyway and they don't seem to want to speak english, or at least any commonly accepted variant that I am familiar with.

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I have a lot of spaces to still fill in for you and foresee it probably happening early in the next week.

best,

R

Superstar

Karen Carpenter was a consumate professional who possessed a voice like an angel and perfect pitch. No less an expert than Buddy Rich identified her as his favorite drummer. While this pop song might be too shmaltzy for some, it is interesting to consider the lyrics in light of the singer's apparent isolation and emotional frailty that led to her ultimate defeat in her fatal battle with anorexia.

The Carpenters were so unhip in their time, in the wake of acid rock and the like. Human emotion was not really in favor. The square Carpenters were out. Yet these were extremely talented artists who I believe deserve to be reevaluated more fairly, especially after this passage of time. A guilty pleasure.

Probably a lip synch but the drums appear live. Obviously the horns and strings were piped in. A very beautiful song.