Stone The Crows

Dueling Deities

I saw a funny letter in the San Diego Reader this week.

It's a cult people
I see the religious order known as the Hare Krishna back in the Reader dated March 1 ("Sheep and Goats"). It seems that nobody understands how bad these people really are and how they try to tell us that they have a connection with this evil god known as Lord Krishna.
Jesus Christ is far above that so-called Lord Krishna that these zombied-out people chant out to. They are really a dangerous cult and should be avoided even on our streets in San Diego.

Name Withheld

 by request

via email

Now this letter gave me a chuckle and I could really give you my two cents but don't think that I will. I would prefer to hear from you regarding this type of reasoning if any of you are willing. I shall say that the "my god can kick your god's ass" argument has always been one of my favorites. I even wrote a short story tangentially on the subject once; Fight Night on Mr. Olympus. If you are in the mood you might give it another read.

Good call from the other side

Both Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich expressed reservations today about continued U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. Kudos to them, for once I agree with them both. I don't understand our policy in the region since 9/11, $750 million dollar embassies, an surfeit of cranial injuries, deaths and amputees, ill conceived goals and an absence of a coherent end game strategy notwithstanding.

What do we hope to accomplish in the region again? With friends like the Pakistanis, Afghans and Iraqis, we couldn't be among greater friends, could we?

Compared to What

Lost Weekend

My batting average in the Los Angeles environs remains dismal. I could have pulled two grand out of my pocket and just burned it, saving a lot of gas money and road wear on my new ride. I saw a lot of old faces that I remember from way back when and they still aren't buying.

There was a time when I was in the minor leagues that I actually did pretty well up there but when the door slammed shut it really slammed shut.

The promoter suggested that I show a bit more enthusiasm and I tried, standing on my head and giving them the whole seal act but they just weren't having any.

Someone suggested that the people had a lot of money but were extremely insecure and that I would need to convince them to buy but it has really never been my style to separate people from their lucre that way. If you love it and can afford it, buy it but I won't arm twist and rarely push. And so I sit here feeling rather broke on a monday morning.

Of course, the paradigm may have fell off the tipping point, my model may no longer resonate in an urban environment. The world is trending cool tone modern and I am more of an amber classicist. It happens. Maybe angeleños sense my underlying antipathy for their vulgar city. If you have to live in a city at least make it a real city like New York for god's sakes. Los Angeles, where banality is an art form.

Uneventful weekend. Car handled nicely on the way up but the new van feels heavier and a bit more sluggish off the block than its predecessor. Stayed at the dumpy Glendale Hilton, next time the Red Roof. Exorbitant parking, no internet, crappy bathrooms and tiny television. My Verizon modem decided to die so I spent the weekend disconnected, probably a good thing.

On the television I watched thousands of shrieking southerners cheering for bass fishermen at a bass tourney in Shreveport. It was like championship wrestling. When did fishing become a spectator sport and where was I?

Ate at La Cabanita twice, a definite high point, got an earful of Hanoi and Cuba from Dermot. I leave there shaking my head and feeling decidedly conservative. Tampiqueno the first night, with chewy, limey tortillas that are the best anywhere and chuletas con pasilla the next. Heaven.

Jill and Byron came by and we had our first long talk in ages, which was really great. Exceptionally bright and interesting couple. The promoters did a wonderful job, great music the whole show, a New Orleans band marching the crowd in at the opening, moon pies and rice crispy treats for the dealers on set up. A beautiful show, some people did really well, just not my turn. It seemed to be a decorative and object crowd rather than art collectors. I am happy I gave it a shot and thank those involved in its production. Ran like a top.

Conway Twitty - It's Only Make Believe

One of the greatest pure singers of all time. Conway always gave it his all.

Prairie Hasids

Have you been following the Amish hair cutting trial? To refresh your memory, a renegade Ohio Amish sect was running around cutting off fellow Amish people's beards and hair against their will. The haircuttees were not practicing the proper tenets of the creed, according to the assailants.

Now I don't claim to be an expert on the fancy dutch but this case is getting kind of interesting. Yesterday the indicted men's lawyer said that the case should be dismissed because the hate crimes law is unconstitutional. According to the lawyer's “the alleged intra-religious actions between private individuals do not fall within the statute or federal authority. The actions are not alleged to have been taken out of prejudice or hatred against the Amish religion. Rather, the alleged acts are doctrine-based Old Order Amish beliefs.”

“The [Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009] is not to be applied in a manner that interferes with the practice of religion or speech under the First Amendment,” the motion says. “Therefore, the statute on its face, or as applied here, violates the federalism principles of the Tenth Amendment, which bars Congress from regulating an area historically left to the States.”

Now I would think that the fundamentalists in this country would be all over this and lend their support to the hirsute defendants. Isn't this just like Bob Jones University not allowing coloreds into the college because G-D cursed the sons of Ham, or denying your employees birth control coverage at Catholic universities, even if they are not of the faith? We get this overturned and you can not rent to gays, or serve jews in your restaurant or employ blacks if you don't want to or a million other cool things. Hell, you could probably come up with some bible language that would give you the right to shoot a cannon at your wife. Damn government, messing with our religious liberty again.

This is the slippery slope of allowing theology, of any stripe, to insert its hairy paw into the American system of governance. Because god can tell you to do all sorts of nasty shit and then you can flee back to your bibles for cover.  Stop with the involuntary haircuts already.

Happy Three Thousand!

According to the good folks at Google, who provide me with a free blogger platform for the Blue Heron Blast, without allowing them to advertise for that matter, this is blogpost #3000. Whoopee, calls for some sort of celebration. Raise a glass to the blog at your next possible opportunity.

*

Speaking of celebration and milestones I think that we should all give serious consideration to this December 21, 2012 business. End of the world as we know it, mayan calendar, rapture, blah, blah, blah. Now I don't really cotton to the idea but had some respect for some that did, like Terrence McKenna and Jerry Garcia to name two. So just in case I think that we all should start planning just how we really want to spend such a pivotal day,maybe one of the most critical days in our existence, if the wild assertions have any plausibility whatsoever.

Now my plan is to find a power spot. I have canvassed a few suitable friends, of whom I would like to share such an apocryphal day and sought opinions on where we should take off from. I have heard Haleakala, Chichen Itza, Kauai, Two Bunch and a few other spots. Maybe Chaco, Kathmandu, Crater Lake or Machu Picchu. The Mayan thing is the natural call but might be a bit crowded. Was there for the festival of the feathered serpent once on March 23, me and my closest 25 thousand mayan friends, that is. Find a place that you are comfortable and try to levitate ourselves and the planet right into another orbit, just for a lark, just because we can.

I do think that you old time psychedelic warriors who maybe haven't shaken the cobwebs out for thirty or forty years or so might consider getting fungal for such an occasion. Tap into the homo gestalt groupmind. Old times sake and all. Put yourself in a space to just walk off the planet and straight into the cosmos, on the rainbow bridge to Valhalla or Asgard. Kapow. Be all that you can be, just like the boy scouts.

Just a thought.

Let Me Roll It

ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS (1985) - Man From The South

Superb John Huston version.

Candi Staton - He Called Me Baby

This is one of the last songs that Patsy Cline ever recorded. A song by Harlan Howard, country western scribe without peer. Staton's version is quite different from Cline's but very credible nonetheless.

Power Felt

Imagine wearing a piece of your clothing that will also charge your cellphone. The technology is here. Check out this link from the Wake Forest Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials. It is called PowerFelt and the thermalelectric device converts body heat to electrical current. Very interesting link.

I'm So Afraid

In the matter of Paul Degaston

California and Western Medicine Vol. 45, No. 5, c. 1936

Tracy sent me a note this morning.

So, do you still think that "they" could be the same man?  I am doing a family tree for a friend right now and finding the same confusion in records.  Will it help to see the 1940 census....it will be released soon.
T

My answer at this point is that I just don't know. I am no closer to wrapping my head around this matter than I was at the beginning of the pursuit, a mere 10 days ago. And hey, I am new at this cybersleuthing business. KJ has always accused me of writing like Mickey Spillane and now I have my very own Damon Runyan mystery.

What do we know to date? A man or possibly two men, one or both philanderers with many wives and a penchant for using multiple identities. Both with multiple birth dates. Both married to a woman named Violet. One still a principal suspect in the Elizabeth Short murder. One married to Leona, the other Cleona. Both artists. One might have taught at the art center and possesses very advanced skill in printmaking. One has a social security number, with  roots in China, Los Angeles and Washington State, the other New Jersey, San Francisco, Hawaii and elsewhere.

Percy DeGaston's book - Library of Congress No. DS721.D38

One man serves time as a german sympathizer. One is a stoolie who may have upset some very powerful people. And on and on, you can read the previous posts.

I have been leading to think that we were definitely talking about two different men, one a man with a bit of a darkside, Paul Robert and the other a mere artist. Now I am really not so sure. While they may be in fact two different people, they both appear to have a similar dark mien.

I followed a link back to one of Percy DeGaston's great grandsons and he mentioned that the man was not only a serial philanderer but a pedophiliac. I thought that that was strange, having no knowledge of anything like that in my limited research. He also says that he was on the FBI's 10 most wanted list. I believe that he is confusing him with Paul Robert DeGaston, something admittedly easy to do.

I have seen a picture of one of the DeGaston's on Degaston.com but never a picture of the other, a shame.

Paul DeGaston Photograph circa 1920's.

I received a note from a different family member yesterday discussing the molestation of a young relative by Paul Percy and the cheating and subsequent divorce. So it is true. I am not going to post the letter, there are people still alive with direct knowledge of events and I want to respect their privacy. This is real and sensitive. But now I know that both men were involved in some nefarious, if not evil business. Leaving aside the big question of the day, of course.

But the writer also made mention of Percy dying in 1958. Now, that is strange, death records say 1963. The other DeGaston, Paul Robert, supposedly died in 1956, closer to the 1958 date. Paul Robert having not one but two children named Paul De Gaston doesn't make matters easier. But it still leads me to ask myself a question:

Are we talking about one or two men?

Man known as Paul Robert DeGaston in World War II internment camp c. 1943-4.

Junior Wells - Use Me!

King Barrie

I think that Barack Obama has been a decent president, he has done a fair job with a very crappy hand. He has disappointed me on various fronts but he is after all, a politician and they are very crafty animals, usually lacking ethics and always checking the direction of the popular wind.

Obama is weak on civil liberties, weak on keeping certain campaign promises but strong in certain other areas as well. I hate to say it but one thing he seems to be really good at is the sport of politics, he loves to campaign and is now licking his chops at the sticky brambles that the opposition has managed to get themselves into. Old Barack is starting to get into form, not that great at getting things handled or managing any sort of bipartisan consensus with the GOP, at least not with this GOP, but who knew, maybe a strategic genious at this politics business.

Anyway I liked how he has been going after people of late, the "I won't be punked Barack." He went after a Fox News guy today who had happened to ask a really stupid question, at least of a politician.

I also like how he did not allow himself to be punked by the Israelis this week amongst the war clamor for unilateral offensive action against the Persians. I have read some Israeli officials remarks that the government actually doesn't think that the Iranians are that close to a bomb at this point. I liked the I do not bluff comment. I don't believe he does and I don't think he rightfully needs to be worked by Netanyahu either. I also think that deep down the Israelis respect that, especially in the light of some of the pandering that goes on in certain circles.

If Obama can keep his "mean on", he may end up becoming a really good president in his second term.

Bonnie Raitt

Shameless Self Promotion

I have some nice new paintings and prints that I will be exhibiting this weekend in Glendale at the Antiques and Objects Show. Please look at a few of the nice things in the gallery.

Eddy Arnold - You Don't Know Me

3.6.12

I got a few beautiful notes from the DeGaston family today that I can not exactly divulge. But I thank them all for the messages and am happy to help shine a little light in my limited way. It is a neat story that we haven't quite solved or gotten to the bottom of yet.

Peace,

Robert

Still A Fool

Hasta la vista, baby.

The great sage once noted that life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans. This was going to be the spring we went to Spain, tracing my sephardic heritage through Cordoba and Sevilla and peering upon Cadiz and the shores of Morocco. But the old Chrysler van said, "Nay Robert, not so fast..." And after this week, I will be lucky to scrape up enough pesetas for a café au lait.

My Chrysler has a hard 162,000 miles on it. It has been a noble steed and forced to go on many a march beyond its pedigree and any semblance of good judgement on my part. But it has endured with nary a complaint. Lately I have been getting the distinct feeling that it has finally had enough.

I could see the writing on the wall, if I wanted to continue to date the old gal, things were going to start to get expensive. On the heel of last month's pads and rotors I was now looking at a head gasket, broken motor mount, broken manifold screw, possibly warped head, a three thousand dollar transmission module, inoperable left turn signal, power doors that stopped working, etc., etc.. The final straw was the little check engine light that brightened my morning the other day.

Gary, my mechanic delivered me the bad news. Catalytic converter. Chrysler still hadn't released the aftermarket specs. Over a grand without the labor, dealer item. The die was cast. She had been great but she was now long in the tooth and it was time for me to find a new ride. I wasn't putting another four k into this tired old beast, no matter what good times we may have once shared.

*

I got on line. This model van, with its stow and go seat technology is a must for my business. The Dodge packages were about 5k under their commensurate Chrysler counterparts so I started looking in that direction.

Color was a factor. Living way out on a dirt road, I was not going to do blue again. I get enough crap about having Fallbrook's dirtiest car. I thought about a gold or tan color. Well guess what the worm has turned, Rip Van Winkle. Today's vast color palette offers you a choice of carbon, graphite, charcoal, silver or basic gray. Plus one or two others quite inconsequential. Gold is outré passé. Who knew?

I found a car I thought I wanted at Bob Baker in Carlsbad, about 4 g's under the competition and started crunching numbers with Kurt. Sorry, he tells me, no rebates on the AVP or American Value Package which stands for totally stripped down. The Sx ( read sex?) package has a nifty minivan trade in and another dealer rebate bringing the thing down another $2250.00. We shaved a bit more off and I bought the upgrade with the power doors and other more worldly accoutrements befitting a man in my position. Hope they last longer than the last one.

Truth be told I didn't like how the AVP car drove, seemed to pull and tug a bit. The battery was dead in my car so I couldn't get it until this morning, like the way it drives, nice bluetooth and Sirius package, bit nicer than the Chrysler and a tad more headroom. Engine and tranny supposed to be better as well.

*

I asked the man about the absence of the cassette deck and the eight track and he laughed at me. He told me that CD's are on their way out as well, this is probably the last ride. Now it is a USB plug in in the glove box and find a twelve year old to explain how it all works. Sigh. Still not totally up on the ipod thing. Have one and never use it.

*

So when you decide to ask me about the trip to Spain, don't look at me strange when I point to this silver soccer mom wagon on the curb, there's my trip to Spain. Adios. And if you need a Dodge or Chrysler, don't hesitate to ask for Kurt. Pretty square egg and a painless deal.

It makes no difference

I had a dream last night that I was on stage with the Band. We were playing on a balcony of an ornate two story building in the French Quarter of New Orleans. I was sandwiched in between the microphone stands.

I distinctly remember making serious eye contact with Robbie in the dream, he is looking at me like "what the hell is this guy doing on stage?" Also recall Danko and Levon, no Garth or Richard, at least in dreamland. A great concert, maybe I can get an encore tonight when I fall once again to sleep.

Grand Old Problem

It would be an understatement to say that things weren't going too swimmingly up in the Grand Old Party's ivory tower.

Ira T. Wagstaff coughed into his embroidered hankie and set his steely eyes on his compatriots in the roomy board room. "Gentleman, let's get down to brass tacks. We have got ourselves a problem with a capitol p."

All eyes were at flinty attention as I.T. spoke.

"The party is in a serious mess," the rheumatic banker bellowed. "Frankly fellows, we don't know who to hate anymore."

The board fidgeted and eyed their chairmen, fidgeting, some incessantly twirling their french cuffs.

"Do we go after the heretics, the poor or the women? I tell you, we got ourselves a real conundrum here."

"Well Ira, why don't we just round up the usual suspects?" offered one of the nameless party operatives. "You know, the unions, the liberals at the colleges, the activist judges."

"Or those damn cultural elites that think a guy has to finish high school to be somebody. Snobs, I tell you."

"I say we go after the women, boss," said another.""It all started to go to hell when women insisted on working on the job instead of staying home and homeschooling their children about intelligent design while poppa worked his fingers to the bone on the assembly line." "Never should have given them the vote if you ask me. You know what it says in the good book? Nobody wants to say it but we were a hell of a lot better off when we kept them baking cookies in the kitchen where they belong."

"I agree, I.T. . Look at all the whining and crying about Rush. These women just want to have free birth control so that they can engage in indiscriminate sex. Like men do. A woman isn't supposed to enjoy sex, for christ sakes. They're supposed to grit their teeth and get it over with and then pop out a family, like the good lord intended."

Amongst a chorus of assents another man offered, "I think its the damn working class that's the problem. We treated them too good for too damn long. Things went to hell with all of this minimum wage, forty hour work week crap. "There will always be sheep and shepherds and damnit we are the wolves that keep this barnyard soap opera moving. Got to have predators for the system to work. Read your Darwin."

"That's right I.T.. We need another tax cut so that we can create more jobs. In Sri Lanka. Sumbitches will come crawling back to us with their hats in their hands. If they haven't tried to eat them first."

"I don't care, Romney shouldn't have let on about driving the cadillacs. People don't want it rubbed in their faces. Make a note, next ad, we film him in a Ford Escort."

The room shook with bellicose laughter as the fat cats slapped their corpulent armani covered thighs in approval.

Wagstaff shook his fat finger at his underlings. "Well we better figure this damn thing out posthaste. You got Santorum running like it's a Pentecostal revival meeting and pissing off the women, Romney has got all the pizzazz of a big eight actuary, Gingrich won't stop apologizing for all those marriages with that "failed sinner" crap and Paul wanting to take us back to the good old days of Jim Crow and American isolationism. If these guys don't stop shooting at each other there ain't going to be a body left in the barnyard by election day.

"Get Roger Ailes on the phone. The people at Fox have to start talking about the Republican big tent again before the whole thing is in shambles. We have to remember the one thing that defines us as a party."

'What's that, boss?"

"We hate Obama."

Crazy Horse - I Don't Want To Talk About It

Continuing Story of Paul De Gaston

Paul De Gaston - River Nile

The tale continues:

I got this letter the other day:


Regarding My Grandfather, Paul DeGaston, your enigmatic artist!


About My Grandfather, Paul DeGaston – Photographer and Artist

Dear Robert,

Well, we have quite a story to tell you and would love to talk with to clarify the life and history of my grandfather, Paul DeGaston, the photographer and artist.  I am preparing my own fine art photography website and asked my wife to find some of my grandfather’s photos on her computer and in the process she Goggled my grandfather’s name once again and found your website and story/questions about my Grandfather and his art.

The bottom line is my Grandfather made his living as a professional photographer and traveled as you said all over, especially to Hawaii, lived in San Francisco for a while and also had a studio in La Jolla—hence the Escondido connection.  The Black Dahlia DeGaston/abortionist is a different person which we discovered in doing our own background research on my Grandfather about two years ago. (What are the odds that we would see your blog about Paul DeGaston, asking about who he is, 4 days after you wrote it? That’s synchronicity for you.  I guess we “heard” your “call!”

We’re going to call you tomorrow, Thursday, March 1st and hopefully connect with you in person.  I’ll be happy to tell you everything I know about him.

With our best regards,

G

I wrote him back:


Thank you guys, it will be a pleasure to speak with you. Call me after 10 at 7xx-xxx-xxxx.


The nexus for me was that according to the ship's documents, I believe that the Paul De Gaston going to Hawaii had a spouse named Leona. The Black Dahlia man had a spouse named Cleona. With all of the subterfuge I figured slam dunk. But strange coincidences do occur occasionally in an infinite universe! In any case, my blog readership has been enthralled with the whole story so far so now we can tie a nice bow around it. (That is, unless your grandfather fooled you, too...)


Yours,


Robert


They called me yesterday and we talked. We filled each other in on information that the other did not have. He told me that DeGaston authored a book, I told him about a magazine article I had found. He says that his relative lived in La Jolla for a period of time. and never to his knowledge in the state of Washington. Friend of Ansel Adams. We agreed to continue to share information.


And I am still not totally convinced. There are so many strange oddities in the matrix. 
  

1925 S.F. City Directory

* He tells me that this grandfather, who he never met, had eight wives. The other DeGaston also had many multiple marriages.  We have Ruby, Leona, Cleona, Grace, Violet, Helen and who knows who else, so far...Could we have one of those cases of a man living with multiple identities, leading a double life?

From DeGaston.com (Black Dahlia)

* He says that his DeGaston's middle name was Percy. But Percy used multiple different middle names as well, including the initial f. Here is a San Diego directory from 1943 where Paul F, a photographer is with Violet, the name of the woman the other DeGaston was first married to and who he marries again 15 years later! It is all so confusing...Paul Robert is known as Paul R.T.B. DeGaston as well as the other known aliases. The DeGaston website says that Violet was his first wife, but this was prior to 1931. Why do we have a marriage certificate to Violet from 1958? Did he remarry a childhood flame, his first wife and love? Not to mention the fact that it was was two years after he was officially dead. (Figured this out. Gaston had two sons named Paul Robert DeGaston, first one killed in war, second one also married a woman named Violet. That's three Paul DeGaston's married to three women named Violet, in case you are scoring at home.)

World War 1 Draft Card

* Both men, if there were two men, were dissemblers about their age, using at various times, 1877, 1879, 1880, 1890, 1891, 1892, 1902 and 1904. The question begs to be asked, why the obfuscation on the part of both of these men, if in fact they were two separate people?
Why the multiple names?

*  The Black Dahlia DeGaston supposedly died in 1956. The second man, in Riverside in 1963. But the first one never had a social security number! Tell me, how can you live and work in this country for fifty years without one? And why is there a Nevada marriage license for Paul R DeGaston to Violet, two years after he had supposedly died? Curiouser and curiouser.

May 17, 1929 Passenger list to Honolulu - Sonoma

*The time lines certainly work. His DeGaston was supposedly born in Trenton, New Jersey, on November 27th, with a mother's maiden name of Presber. Black Dahlia, Nazi DeGaston's mother's maiden name was listed as Bach as was his german alias but his son's website says that her name was actually Anna Maria Hermann. The FBI papers say that DeGaston's real name is Teodore Hermann Bach.


My correspondent tells me that the names of a daughter or sister in both families were identical when they talked to Black Dahlia DeGaston's family. Perhaps it was Julia or Gloria, I forgot to jot it down. DeGaston the artist works in Hawaii in the mid thirties, Black Dahlia picked up by the FBI and incarcerated for unspecified period in 1942, Black Dahlia affair around 1946...H-m-m-m, it could all conceivably work for one individual.

Oakland Directory c. 1924

Could this whole thing be an OSS witness protection, cover scenario that I have stumbled upon? They provided sanctuary to a lot of sordid people with checkered pasts after the war.


I guess that my biggest question is why is there no record of Paul Robert DeGaston anywhere until he is picked up by the FBI and then later jailed in the Black Dahlia case. No social security, no war record (he claimed to have been in World War I), no city directory listings like we see with this other individual. A man who is said by his descendants to have lived a fairly normal life, even playing music in the Glendale Symphony but no records anywhere. How could he have not left any footprint? So who was he, really?

I am going through lots of records on Ancestry.com and elsewhere and will try to fill in the dots wherever they may lead. Feel free to pitch in.


*
Postscript 3/3/12


Found this blurb on Percy - apparently an innovator in the technology of night photography:

First Night Photography:

September 5, 1914:  Percy DeGaston, cameraman at Balboa, devised a new compound, providing enough actinic light to film night scenes.  The Balboa film, An Eye for an Eye, copyrighted January 1915, was the first movie in the world to use night photography successfully.

and

Percy De Gaston, inventor of the new chemical compound and apparatus
which furnish enough actinic light to film scenes at night, is a camera man
at the Balboa studios.  When a scene is being photographed at night, the
country is illuminated for several hundred feet distant, the violet-white
flame burning steadily for two minutes.
     Director (William) Taylor filmed seven camp-fire scenes by the new light, and is
said to have obtained excellent results.

Three new alias's for Paul R. DeGaston, Hoisch, Baker and Marsh. Apparently C.J. Morris was not an alias but a partner in the abortion clinic.

Mike Finnigan and The Serfs

Kansas and the slop wallow

Far be it for me to bag on Kansas. The state gave us Dennis Hopper, Elvira and Charlie Parker, amongst many other fine citizens. Ethel Mertz was from Cherryvale. S. Clay Wilson went to school in Lawrence. Many of my closest buddies have roots in Dodge City, including Steve and Sue, Ken Seals and the late Avis Stokes.

But I am awful glad that I don't live in the Sunflower State. And I am sure that Kansans feel the same way about me. Because the state skews to the right of Attila the Hun.

This week the Kansas House of Representatives passed a bill making it allright for a doctor to lie to a patient about procedures that could potentially be life threatening to her, if it meant saving a baby from being aborted. Doctor's will not be able to be sued for malpractice if any of these tragic events occur.

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback was asked about the sixty nine page bill, which he said that he intends to sign if it crosses his desk and his retort was that he hadn't read it. Didn't intend to. He says that he ran on a pro life platform and had pledged to sign any pro life bill that crosses his desk, apparently having read it or not.

"I am pro-life," Brownback said. "When I campaigned I said that if a pro-life bill got to my desk, I will sign it. I am not backing away from that."

Now I have to wonder about the competency and intelligence of any government official who is willing to sign anything that he has not read but then again, I don't live in Kansas. And I wonder why Dorothy ever wanted to go back?

From Huffpo:

Among the provisions is one which would exempt doctors from malpractice suits if they withhold information -- in order to prevent an abortion -- that could have prevented a health problem for the mother or child. A wrongful death suit could be filed in the event of the death of the mother.


Other provisions include requiring women to hear the fetal heartbeat prior to an abortion, taking away tax credits for abortion providers and removing tax deductions for abortion-related insurance. The bill also requires that women be told that abortions would increase the risk of breast cancer, a controversial theory that the World Health Organization, the National Cancer Institute and gynecological groups in the United States and the United Kingdom have said is incorrect.

So the state once again puts itself right square in between a doctor and a patient, requires the dissemination of debunked scientific information and shows us once again why governing and theology are such a lethal mix.

*
"What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic] who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex -- what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute," Limbaugh said. "She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex."

In the continuing GOP war against women, Rush Limbaugh is taking fire, even from some in his own party for calling Georgetown student Sandra Fluke a slut who should broadcast her casual sexscapades on Youtube. Unfortunately the bilious one never bothered to actually listen to Fluke's story, which Rep. Darrell Issa never let her deliver to his House Committee on Religious Liberty.

Fluke was describing the travails of a classmate, who needed contraception to prevent the continual regrowth of ovarian cysts.

This thing is getting beaten to death but I have a question? Why is the girl a slut? What about the male participant in a sexual interaction? Boys will be boys? They have no responsibility? Limbaugh offers to buy aspirins for the girls to put between their legs a la Foster Freeze.

"A Georgetown coed told Nancy Pelosi's hearing that the women in her law school program are having so much sex they're going broke, so you and I should have to pay for their birth control. So what would you call that? I called it what it is," he said. "So, I'm offering a compromise today: I will buy all of the women at Georgetown University as much aspirin to put between their knees as they want.""So Miss Fluke and the rest of you feminazis, here's the deal," he said. "If we are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch."

It will be interesting how this all plays out in November with the women of America. The Republicans have certainly got the troglodyte, misogynist pig vote buttoned down.

Cisco Houston - Saint James Infirmary

Empire strikes back

The Syrian regime has circled the rebel city of Homs today and will soon make operational its plans to destroy the city. The word "cleanse" was used by the authorities today, with all the nasty and brutish comparisons to the Khmer Rouge killing fields and other similar places of genocide. Like Hama. The Syrian deathstar has been shelling the city for weeks and now will try for the final "cleanup." They have been remarkably effective at killing their people in the past.

Hamas pulled its agents out of Syria this week. One time recipients of the Alawite dictatorship's largesse, the political heat reached a tipping point and it suddenly looked greener on the other side.

The United Nations has once again been shown to be a largely impotent and corrupt body, useless really, unless the target is something everyone can pretty much agree upon, like censoring the evil zionist state or protecting Islamic warlords in the Sudan. Stopping genocide, they're not so good at.

They have been of course, neutered by those two august members of the Security Council, China and Russia, whose vetos have paved the way for their Syrian friends to kill first and ask questions later.

I was thinking how interesting it is that the countries in our world borne of revolution like China and Russia and in some cases the United States, have all created political systems that do their utmost to guard against it ever happening again. I thought communism celebrated revolution but it instead tends to celebrate the totalitarian status quo. Witness the brutal suppression in both Chechnya and Tibet, not to mention the Uighur population.

The same thing occurs of course in latin america where all too often the people's champions ultimately become presidents for life. Capitalism for all of its faults, is still a cut or two above the available competition.

The situation in Syria is very dire. Rebels smuggled a British photographer and a Spanish reporter out of the country today. Like Warsaw, one hopes that there will be somebody there at the end to bear final witness.

What country do we live in again?

A judge in Mechanicsburg, PA, Mark Martin, rules that a muslim man has the right to attack another man who insults the prophet Muhammad. And now the judge is threatening the victim with contempt for posting the audio of the transcript. The judge, an Iraq veteran, may or may not be an Islamic convert. He says that he is muslim in the transcript and then later apparently denies it.

Read the whole twisted story in Law Professor Jonathan Turley's blog. Turley brings up the point that your cultural peccadillos don't trump my right to free speech in this country.

Barry Goldberg Reunion

Barry is an old friend who I haven't seen in ages.  This song was written by the late Danny Whitten of Crazy Horse.

Monday Pastiche

It is raining pretty hard outside. I thought about going home but if I do I will just eat and play on the computer so I might as well write something.

I always find reaction to the blog interesting. Two very good, long time blast readers, Bob Degoff and Sanoguy told me recently that they were uncomfortable with my recent angst ridden childhood biography. Bob said that it was incredibly narcissistic and Sano simply said "too much information." Bob and Sano both like the political stuff. Bob says that he can't send out the blog to his friends because the more personal stuff might tweak his friends who are only tuned in to the political. Don't want to weird anyone out, now.

Other readers of mine like the more personal stories, Tracy and Linda and some others. (actually Linda likes the ranting) While I often feel that spilling my guts on a daily basis is excessively self absorbed, Ida, who is bedridden with bad knees, says that she gets to travel to foreign places and vicariously eat great meals through the Blast. So I find that I can't please everybody. Some love the fiction, some abhor the fiction. KJ hates the food. A guy can't win.

Warren, a quite conservative and very intelligent latter day saint friend and reader came by the other day for lunch. We almost never agree but both appreciate each other's willingness to defend our respective beliefs and the other's intellectual integrity. I am glad that I can look Warren in the eye, and he in mine and it never devolves into anything stupid.

I get sick of the politics because it is so fractious and divisive. I am guaranteed to piss off close to 50% of my readership, no matter what I say. I have been a little more circumspect of late, only getting political when I really feel compelled. We all merely seek out information that will support our existing worldview anyway, people rarely if ever actually changing their minds anyway. Probably genetic or something...


This political season is so stupid that I could get reactionary and just full scale rant every day and I don't want to. Rick Santorum is a daily billboard. The Michelle Bachmann of his time. Just makes the stuff up as he sees fit. So frigging stupid that Michigan Dems are crossing over to vote for him, since he is so much more beatable that the Mittster. No wait got the story screwed up, Santorum has launched a robocall courting the so called Reagan Dems. Good luck...And you catch the congressional doofus from Ft. Wayne who thinks that the Girl Scouts are a commie, homo front group? Epic!


Obama is no prize, his agents are currently ruining the detante in Mendocino, but we can't afford another Scalia, Roberts, Alito, Thomas or sometimes Kennedy up there in Scotusland. I follow the Dems on platform and principals, certainly not the cult of personalities.

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Two very fine men that I knew died this month, Dr. Richard Pyne and Dr. Howard Benedict. Both very smart and very kind. Howard was my longtime dentist in Leucadia. Howard was called the "surfing dentist" due to his late hours but in truth this waterman was a world class free diver and spear fisherman. A great dentist, a beautiful man, will be missed by many.

Richard Pyne was my veterinarian, he succumbed to cancer. An irishman, he had a genuine concern for his patients, was both knowledgable and reasonable. We spent many an afternoon hoisting an ale together at the Moose lodge. He had ironclad ethics, refused to engage in certain procedures that crossed his moral boundaries. Will miss him a lot both as a vet and a lodge brother.

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Ron and Lena are in Thailand still on the way to Bali today. Everyday is paradise, I think that I would go crazy.

Melissa and Gary are down in Yelapa in their own piece of paradise. She sends this pic.

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A friend's son took his life this week. He was facing another stretch in prison and he just couldn't take the thought of it. A tragedy, a talented man who got off on the wrong track and could never find his way. Shame.

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My friend Kent took me to the Aztec basketball game on Saturday. We went and had deli at D.Z. Akins first and then took the trolley. We sat right next to the student section, they were fun and loud as hell. Darth Vader and Zorro and hot dog man and viking guy, it was raucous and insane. Aztecs win their twenty second but won't go far in the tournament with four guards and not much else that works.

Padres should be equally pathetic as last year if not worse. We need to raise up more minor leaguers so that we can eventually trade them away for nothing.

Miss Scott Kaplan and Billy Ray Smith on the morning drive. Scott really screwed up.

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Interesting headline today. Rich people like to lie, steal and break the law. Or so says study from University of Toronto.

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Buy an electronic drum shirt. Or don't.

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Why the Keystone Pipeline would boost gas prices.

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My friend Brett and his stepson saw a rattlesnake at their place yesterday. Very unusual for a cold, late february in Fallbrook.

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Paid my property taxes on the building this week. If nothing else of any consequence occurs this month, I still feel very good about this and hereby give myself a hearty pat on the back.

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Leslie's bell turned out really nicely. Shell forms and dragonflies. She is finishing it up today and I will post a picture of the finished product in a couple of days.

IT TAKES TIME

Bad Joke

This was a comment on Huffpo today. I obviously don't agree but still think it is kind of funny.

The Creation - If I Stay Too Long

"I Will Always Love You" Jorgenson and Jarvis

Ringolevio

Leslie, my beloved spousal unit, is taking a bell making class at the Fallbrook School of the Arts foundry this weekend. She is working under the tutelage of instructor Brandon Roy. ´ is also taking the class.  Here is a picture someone just sent me of Leslie assisting in the bronze pour this afternoon.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

The Past behind me- a new day. Paul DeGaston

The two sisters called me yesterday morning. A dealer in Escondido had recommended that I appraise a collection of prints that they had stored in their garage since time immemorial. Their parents had received them somehow, but the how, why, who and wherefore's had all slid into faded history.

They brought them up yesterday, in an old wood and copper box. There were fourteen of them, mostly drypoint, but some very competent aquatints as well. I suggested that they go get a coffee or go next door to Leslie's while I did some preliminary investigation work.

I have sold prints and works on paper, along with paintings, since the late 1970's. My first company was called El Flechador Del Sol and concentrated on works on paper. I am in no way one of the high echelon print dealers but I have been fortunate enough to have some very fine examples of printmaking pass though my hands over the years; Baumann's and Kloss's, Capps, Diebenkorn, Martin Lewis, Whistler, Rembrandt, Durer and many others. I was instrumentally involved in creating a few major print exhibitions and I would like to believe that I can recognize a certain level of quality when I see it. Even have tried my hand at aquatints myself. Enough of my bona fides.

Yoshida - Paul De Gaston

That is why I found it curious that I could find nothing about this particular artist, Paul De Gaston. Anywhere. I checked Artprice and AskArt. Nothing. Googled him, found one aquatint of the Nile that sold at some obscure auction for peanuts and a WWAR reference to an Ainu print pulled by the artist at the turn of the century.

It is highly unusual to find an artist this competent with such a paucity of historical record.

I called my friend Steve in Phoenix, a very well respected and versed print dealer and he didn't have a clue. Couldn't get a hold of Roger Genser. I started focussing on the name and not the artist and wasn't prepared for what I found next.

The first reference I found for a Paul De Gaston was for an abortionist connected with the infamous Black Dahlia murder case.


(17) Dr. Paul De Gaston:
DeCaston was identified as an abortionist who practiced under the alias, Dr. C. J. Morris in downtown Los Angeles. He was tried for murder in 1934 and served time for performing abortions. His name and address were found in Elizabeth Short's address book after her murder.


The next thing I found was a website written by DeGaston's son that threw a bit of light on his father:

Paul Robert De Gaston - Born June 28, 1902, Pakhoi (now Beihai), Kwangsi-Chuang (now Guangxi), China
Died December 12, 1956, Sunset Strip, Los Angeles County, California



    My father was a very sensitive, intelligent, musical, and handsome man. He was strong, and as a young man engaged in boxing. He was an artist, musician (even played violin with the Glendale Symphony Orchestra), part-time movie actor, and a pioneer in performing abortions. He loved and knew classical music and could play the violin very well, the flute well, and the piano OK. Unfortunately he used his abilities often in a selfish way to the hurt of others, and very much of himself too. At times he was quite generous. He did want to make his family in his third marriage with my mother work. That was a difficult task as mother was very headstrong though she loved him, and no man was good enough after my Dad. But my Dad could not keep an even temper, losing his temper at times, and going too far in corporeal punishment. This finally resulted in my parents divorcing.


    My Father was interred duing World War II, having been "denounced", but never proven [not even a trial], as having pro-German sympathies, in various concentration camps including North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, and finally Terminal Island in Los Angeles Harbor. While my father was at Terminal Island mother took me and sometimes Cami to visit him. We used to ride the Red Car from the elevated terminal in downtown Los Angeles to San Pedro, and then take a ferry to Terminal Island. The Red Car was a real electric train, and went at speeds in excess of 60 miles per hour down the right-of-way through south LA, Compton, and Watts which paralled and was next to Alameda Boulevard. While in concentration camp, my father met and became friends with a famous Austrian artist, Hovanetz. Hovanetz taught my father to paint. Some time later after the war, Hovanetz returned to Vienna because he was offered a commission to paint the dome (as I recall) of some important and/or historic building.


...It did seem improbable that Father was only 4 years and 11 months older than my mother. He looked a lot older. He "lied" that he had served in the World War I serving in France, and that war was from 1914-18 (for America it was 1917-18). My father had to have been at least 18, and probably more...as we might gather from the picture included below showing him boxing while still in China (but maybe that pic was post-China?  My mother was 49 at the time of Father's death. She didn't have a grey hair. My grandmother, Anna de Gaston, at 82 or so years of age still had partly almost black hair mixed with her grey hair. I don't believe that there was any premature greying in the de Gaston line, but my father lying in his coffin (whom I had not seen for years) had about 50 per cent grey hairs in the top of his scalp, and mustach, and the sideburns were predominantly grey.  I was rather taken aback. Father had always played games as exactly how old he was because he looked young for the age that he claimed, and liked to fool people. 

Old China, Chinese Mother 2/10 Paul DeGaston

The Supplicant - Sun worshipper - Paul DeGaston

Mending Nets, Old China - Paul De Gaston

Now, I am thinking this is probably the same guy. An artist, and born in China. Several of the prints have chinese themes. But where did he get his training in printmaking? Was he a student of the great Hiroshi Yoshida? I find reference to a 1934 National Geographic article on China written by a Paul DeGaston.

"My Father standing in his medical office in Seattle, Washington, about 1940.  My Dad was an entrepreneur, and quite intelligent as he did this without formal medical training, and specialized in abortions."

His son's website had this interesting picture of father in the abortion clinic. A doctor with no medical training? Very strange to say the least. 

I continued digging and found this government document from World War II authorizing the apprehension of DeGaston or whoever he really was. A nazi spy perhaps, with a string of alias's. Was he Teodore Herman Bach, the german alien sympathizer or agent from Washington? Or just an innocent artist with a string of pseudonyms wrongly fingered by the government? 

This has to be the strangest appraisal I have ever undertaken and has all the makings of a great George Smiley whodunit. I am going to do a little more searching and see what turns up. I have taken the prints on consignment. If you have any more information on De Gaston I would love to hear from you. I include pictures of the rest of the prints for your inspection. Paul Robert DeGaston, or whoever he actually was, was an enigma, but through all the intrigue and deception he was nonetheless a very talented printmaker whose artistic footprint seems to have largely vanished from this earth.

Great Dane 6/25 - Paul DeGaston

London Fog - Paul DeGaston

At Bay - Paul De Gaston

Aquatint sailboat - Paul DeGaston

Untitled - Paul DeGaston

Untitled - Paul DeGaston

Anti- aircraft, aquatint 1 of 5 - Paul DeGaston 

Cowboy Race - 5 of 25 - Paul De Gaston

From Douglas Frazer Fine Art- Bellevue, WA

My friend Doug Frazer at frazerfineart.com tells me that he has photographs of Huc M. Luquiens shot and signed by De Gaston and once owned a painting by the artist as well. 

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10:44 p.m. 2/25/12

I got on Ancestry.com tonight and found a plethora of information on DeGaston and his several wives, Violet, Ruby, Leona. Birth dates always different but definitely maybe, probably not the same man. (See, The continuing story of Paul De Gaston and discover Paul Percy Degaston)  If you can figure the darn thing out, please let me know. Death cert shows him born in 1877, although he most often claimed 1891. His mother's maiden name was Bach so the FBI alias strikes a chord.  Worked for a period of time in San Francisco as a photographer. Lots of trips to Hawaii. I have reviewed the manifests. For some reason he engaged in a lot of misdirection, sometimes claiming to have been born in New Jersey and giving out the wrong middle name on occasion. Paul DeGaston was an artist, an abortionist, a photographer, a possible axis sympathizer and definitely a very complicated man.

I will keep looking.

Read Part II.