Naturally speaking.

I read a lot of stupid things that people write. There were two opinions in the San Diego Union this week that vie for the title of most imbecilic waste of ink. The first is Roger Hedgecock's moronic piece, Humans are the natural world too. If anything captures the full scope of the limited reach of the antediluvian mind, it is this article.

"All living organisms on this planet have an impact on all other living organisms. We live in an ecological system that is constantly changing as species interact with each other.

In other words, species come and species go. Do you really miss the carrier pigeon?  Or the dinosaurs?"

In a time that species are being lost at an incredible rate, and with the human species and all other lifeforms being so inextricably woven together, this type of primitive thinking encapsulates in a nutshell the problems that we face if we hope to survive on this planet.

*

The other article is by the Union's outdoor and horseracing writer Ed Zieralski. Z has been a longstanding apologist for those folks that get their kicks killing other animals for trophies for their walls. This article is titled Another possible blow against game management.

Once again, California’s politicians have caved to animal rights zealots and made a decision about game management that could impact the state’s wildlife in a negative way.On Monday, the California Senate voted 22-15 to end the legal use of dogs to hunt bears and bobcats, two of the state’s top predators. Just like mountain lions, which are protected, black bears and bobcats prey on young deer. Bobcats are stout enough to bring down mature bighorn sheep.Animal rights activists contend the use of dogs is “inhumane and unsporting,” according to Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.The legislation, co-authored by Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, will move to the state Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee.But what the politicians and the animal activists don’t get is that they’re taking away another very useful tool from California hunters, who, by their very nature and methods, help control the predation by bears and bobcats on other animals such as deer, bighorn sheep and game birds like turkeys, quail and pheasants. And what is overlooked is that hunters, by helping to control the population of these predators, also help in preventing these animals from venturing into neighborhoods to eat pets or cause problems. The bigger the population the more chance one of them will be kicked down to somewhere like Santa Monica, where a mountain lion was killed Tuesday morning on the corner of Second Street and Wilshire Boulevard.Let’s hope the California Assembly members have enough common sense to see through all the propaganda and defeat the bill. Let hunters, who pay big dollars for the right to take care of apex predators, help control these populations of bears and bobcats. Otherwise, the state will have the same problem it has now with mountain lions, and that’s having to pay state and federal hunters to kill them when populations expand to the point where they start showing up in folks’ backyards and eating their pets, or in the case of bears, raiding the garbage cans and threatening public safety.At least these animal rights activists haven’t gone after the right to hunt wild pigs with dogs. How that escaped them I don’t know. Wild pigs also eat young deer fawns and even cattle. And right now the ever-growing population of wild pigs in San Diego County is a lot more of a hot-button issue than bears (of which we don’t have any) and bobcats, of which we have thousands.At least these animal rights activists haven’t gone after the right to hunt wild pigs with dogs. How that escaped them I don’t know. Wild pigs also eat young deer fawns and even cattle. And right now the ever-growing population of wild pigs in San Diego County is a lot more of a hot-button issue than bears (of which we don’t have any) and bobcats, of which we have thousands.Hunting any predator or wild pig with dogs is a useful tool that allows a hunter to get close enough to make a quick, fatal shot at a mountain lion, bear or bobcat that has been treed or cornered. And it also allows the hunter to decide whether the animal is the right one to kill. If you don’t believe this, ask any federal or state hunter about the best way to hunt apex predators. They do their best hunting at night or with dogs during the day.Today, in the wake of this ill-advised move by the California Senate, one that, as usual, lacks any form of common sense, there are more fears, justifiably, among the state’s hunting advocacy groups that this is just another step by these animal rights zealots to end all hunting with dogs, including duck and upland bird hunting, in our once-great state. Eventually, their goal is to end all hunting in California, and judging by what they convinced the Senate to do, they’re getting there.

There was a great letter in the paper yesterday that probably answers Ed better than I can which I can't currently find online. I will try to dig it up. In Ed's way of thinking, the only animals that count are those game animals that hunters can kill. Zieralski has always been a fierce advocate and taken one sided stances on these issues, a strange position for a supposed journalist. He was a fierce defender of State Fish and Game Commission President Dan Richards' freebie trip to Idaho to kill a mountain lion for a mount.

I have lived in a wild place for most of my life and have never feared mountain lions or bobcats. There was a lion at the end of the road at Tanner's place two weeks ago and I see bobcats all the time. People might lose an occasional poodle, tragic but that's what it means to live in the country. I am not a hunter and have no problem with the hunting of deer and game but don't get people that get their jollies taking down bears or lions or little bobcats.

Apex predators have existed and have been killing game animals since time immemorial. It's called nature. They aren't mean or evil, they are serving a vital function in a complex ecological chain. We don't need to interfere or manage anything. Nature does a damn good job by itself and doesn't need our help, especially not the help of a bunch of testosterone addled yahoos chasing down poor wild animals with dogs.

“Today’s vote was about partisan politics.The Legislature is trying to restrict liberty and change the rural lifestyle of many Californians.”
State Senator Doug LaMalfa, California 4th District

Shanghai Noodle Factory

Race is on.

I posted a link the other day called evil google. I don't know if any of you checked it out or not. It is actually an AlterNet article by David Rosen titled The Terrifying Ways Google Is Destroying Your Privacy.


I know that I am somewhat old school at this point and you can call me a hopeless romantic but I am a big believer in all that privacy stuff. And the article is quite illustrative in the ways that human beings and their corporations are people too cousins manage to eventually sell their soul. Perhaps not entirely consciously.

Google is of course the perfect candidate for fallen angel in this narrative. They started out as the apostle of the hip generation's new paradigm of truth and righteousness. Their celebrated moniker was "Don't be evil." Have they gone over to the other side? Or is it ludicrous to expect any business to not be just as rotten and dirty as the next guy? Now he is wagging a puritanical finger in our collective face.

 "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." Google CEO Eric Schmidt, 2008

What a frightening statement. What are Schmidt, McNealy and Zuckerberg really telling us? That technology, especially really slick flashy technology, trumps personal privacy and the Bill of Rights? This is the modern day equivalent of "if you've got nothing to hide, what do you care if we paw through your underwear drawer?"

Of course, they are now working hand in hand with a government that vacuums up your whole information ball of wax and harvests it for who knows what? Every letter, every keystroke, every search request, all mined for some marker so that they can place you in some file labeled seditious in big stencil letters. A government that a few short years ago would never have dreamed of steaming your envelopes open to read your private mail without a warrant now has unlimited access to your every word and your physical GPS location as well. Oh, that's right, we're fighting a war on terror. Looks like terror won.

*

Abbie Hoffman was certainly never a large influence but I heard him say something once that I have appreciated for most of my life. He talked about how people manage to get co-opted. Maybe it's keeping up with the neighbors, possibly grabbing for the bagful of silver, maybe just a case of moral amnesia. But all of a sudden you find yourself batting for the other side and you don't remember how you got there.

I don't know Eric Schmidt. Google makes my life oh so much easier, gives me this sweet blogging platform, for nothing. They can't even advertise on it. I'm just not into it. They own real estate in every single strata of the information geological formation. Be more difficult to give up than coffee. So maybe I am sacrificing my own ethics by utilizing their services. Some of the photographers on my Fallbrook Shutters site want me to move the site off Google. They say that Google's fine print gives them the rights to reproduce all of their photography. I guess copyright is also now a thing of the past, joining its pal privacy.

Because I don't think that the whole world has a right to know my private business. Regardless of whatever Eric Schmidt thinks of my viewing habits, circle of friends or even my politics for that matter. Of course Eric is in the information business. He is going to want more outlets to sell information and more information to sell. To the police, to the advertisers, what have you.

Not much different than the timber barons, or the people that want to sell off Alaska and Utah, or mine right outside the national parks. Morality has a way of losing the contest with money, nine times out of ten. Bet on money every time. And people engaged in selfish, evil or otherwise despicable behavior have an innate capacity to suddenly see themselves as really doing god's work.

We have talked a lot about the legacy that we are leaving our heirs in this country, especially in regards to environmental devastation. Perhaps our surrender of our most basic civil liberties will be an even more tragic occurrence.

Love - Live And Let Live

Millard sent me this note this morning:

As noted in New York Times today, Wednesday, 'Forever Changes' to be included in the National Recording Registry, Library of Congress: 'included because it is culturally, historically or aesthetically significant'. Along with 24 other chosen works as diverse as Leonard Bernstein's 1st performance with the NY Phil, Grateful Dead, Booker T, Donna Summer, Bo Diddley, 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' and Prince.

Sweet!

Animal Farm

We have some new faces of late in the neighborhood. The kids next door are in 4H and I saw their cute yorkshire pigs scampering around the pasture on my way home from work the other day.

I had to patiently wait for this brown varient king snake to do his sideways slither across the canyon road yesterday. Speaking of king snakes, Renée shot this picture of one above her door last night. Fell to the ground quickly after the shot was taken.

And Brett was walking down at the end of Rainbow Creek when he came upon this little baby rattler, coiled up no bigger than your fist.

*

Of course, this time of year, I am really thinking a lot about birds. I have noticed that different areas of town are home to different species of hawks. My Santa Margarita River Valley is predominately red tailed hawks along with some smaller species like Swainsons. I rarely see red shouldered, who probably steer clear of their larger cousins.

Wilt and Gird and the south end of town is more red shouldered territory.

René has a red shouldered hawk living in her tree. We identified it both visually and through one of the many bird call identification sources on the web. Visit this link to hear its distinctive call.

Renée also thought that she had recognized the sound of the canyon wren on her sunday morning walks up Monserate Mountain. She had become familiar with the bird on her trips rafting down the Colorado. After listening to the clip she knew it was a positive match.

*

A story about birds at a dinner party the other night furnished me a new word for my vocabulary. Sharon told me that she lives near Wilt Rd. and heard an unfamiliar and piercing sound and battle in the middle of the night recently. The next morning she found a dead owl on the ground, probably a common barn owl. She went to a vet who told her that the owl had one enemy, a red tailed hawk, but that their paths rarely crossed, the owl being nocturnal and the hawk diurnal. What is the name for an animal that is active both day and night and the newest word in my arsenal? Cathemeral.

An animal that is primarily active at dawn and dusk is called crepuscular. Claude Levi Strauss called these animals twilight animals. Matutinal is a creature primarily active in the pre dawn, vespertine, dusk.

*

So with that I leave you with a few more bird shots from yesterday afternoon and this morning. The juvenile red tailed hawks are starting to venture over to the next valley, Brian saw one walking on the road near Riverview. Soon, if history proves correct, they will disappear from the valley entirely.

Top 10 new species - Arizona State.

You better find somebody to love

A new study from Cornell University published by lead researcher Anthony Ong in the journal Psychology and Aging shows that lonely hearts are aging hearts and that they increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. So get out there and love.

"I think it's helpful to distinguish the emotional pangs that are associated with acute loneliness from the more chronic feelings of distress that accompany perceived deficits in the quality of our social relationships," Ong said.


"Viewed from this perspective, acute loneliness may be seen as adaptive, signaling us to repair social connections. However, it is the persistence of loneliness over time that may set the stage for health problems in later life," Ong said. "I think one of the most important and life-affirming messages of this research is the reminder that we all desire and need meaningful social connections."

*

I am reading Pynchon, really for the first time. I had tried before but nothing clicked. Juggling Slow Learner, a compendium of early works that propelled him to his first novel E with a couple other books, Bourdain's A Cook's Tour, Melville's Encantadas and just revisited Hesse's Journey to the East.

Isn't it strange how books that I loved as a precocious punk kid can suck so bad in adulthood? Billy Budd was like that for me last week as was this Hesse book and Narcissus and Goldmund. What the hell was I thinking?

Anyway Pynchon is damn good and he brings something up in the introduction to this book that I found interesting. He says that science fiction and fantasy appeal mostly to a readership that has never come to grips with the concepts of death and mortality. So they invent a distant never ever land. Intriguing line of thought and inquiry. Writers seem to have a closer relationship with death than other artists. Think Plath or Brautigan. Musicians tend to drink or drug themselves to death, writers grab the bull by the horns.

*

I had such an incredible day today. In my professional duties I met a woman who happens to be the daughter of one of my greatest literary heroes. Unfortunately I don't believe that it would be appropriate to out her so I won't but her father was a brilliant writer and major influence for me. My New York book editor mother had corresponded with him when I was young and I talked to him on the phone once when he called our home.

I told his daughter that she had just met somebody who had carefully absorbed her father's every word and I believe that she was touched. It was so incredible for me to see the furniture he had made by hand, his photos and books and most of all to meet his daughter. Such a privilege. These are indeed special and magical times for me.

I have had the misfortune of meeting several of my heroes. Sometimes it is a letdown. I have never been let down in meeting a writer, one of the few crafts that can not be successfully constructed by the happy accidents that we occasionally see in music or painting. One of the most difficult and complex artforms, language.

Hug a scribe. It will do your heart some good.

The Sensational Nightingales - "Somewhere To Lay My Head"

Vets

Wheels, first variation

I got up at two in the morning Saturday night and drove to the Long Beach Flea Market to help my friend Kim. Her husband Pat tore his ACL and she needed a hand.

I had to pick up a few paintings anyway so it all worked out rather perfectly. Got a chance to see some of my old peeps. kibbitz with my pal, eat her really good egg salad and stretch my muscles a bit. Hot as hell, thermometer in the car said 97 on the way home.

Les and I cut our teeth on the hot pavement of Veterans Stadium  and on the rare occasion that I go up there it is like some old home week. Selling at the market, down and dirty, primal as it comes. You don't sell maybe you don't eat so good for a weekend or two. Get em next time.

Anyway I saw a lot of old friends, both vendors and buyers, all a part of the same crazy obsession, god bless them! All chasing the great score.

I like to take photographs at Long Beach. Have taken quite a few over the years. Very visually rich. It was so freaking hot yesterday, I didn't take too many and missed a couple gimmees but managed to snap a couple interesting people. The sweet little girl is Isabella.

An interesting hat is important. Alas, I did not have one.

Some people just love to pose.

Fallbrook Watchdog

There have been a couple of issues regarding Fallbrook in the news or on the periphery recently that I think are worthy of our review and discussion. The first issue is in regards to the Fallbrook Healthcare district. This is a column from the Union Tribune dated May 14th, 2012 titled Fallbrook, Grossmont health agencies oppose changes. Bill would mandate they spend 95 percent of tax revenue on programs and services.

If I may quote and paraphrase, the district collects about a million and a half dollars a year from taxpayers and then stockpiles the rest, and have now amassed a tidy little nest egg of about ten million dollars. They give about a third of the money out in grants every year, to some health oriented community groups and others who while worthy have no tangential relation to healthcare whatsoever. A new bill  A.B. 2418, would force them to spend 95% of the money they collect.

I would be lying if I pretended to know all of the facts or had all the answers but from the outside looking in, the district seems merely to be a landlord for a contracted, private medical concern with a very long lease and contractual obligation on the building. Representatives of the district maintain that the huge stash of cash is necessary in case anything goes sideways in the future.

Vi Dupre of the Fallbrook Healthcare District said asking a public agency to spend 95 percent of tax revenue on any specific purpose is shortsighted. The district tax revenue funds salaries, health insurance, office expenses and other costs, she said.
“It isn’t as though all we have is to give money into our grant program,” Dupre said. “If for any reason that contract were to be terminated, the district would have to take over management of the hospital. It is imperative that we have funds set aside in such a circumstance.”

As laudable as the grant program is, as a taxpayer I would frankly rather that the money stayed in my pocket. I think that in these times of economic distress, it is unconscionable that these kind of monies are being stored, with more to accrue, to guard against a hypothetical future collapse. If there are concerns about the company currently running the hospital, address them and don't use them as a straw dog to soak the taxpayers.

Is it really economically justifiable to set up a large bureaucracy for a group that essentially just deposits a tenant's check every month? If we are truly interested in slimming down bloated bureaucracies and giving taxpayers a break, wouldn't this be a great place to start? 

I would love to hear from my fellow Fallbrookians if my perspective is misguided or more important, factually incorrect regarding this issue.

*

I received this interesting anonymous email recently regarding the Fallbrook Public Utility District. To be on record, I think that it is one of the best run districts around, and have always been impressed with their competence, especially compared to Rainbow Water. Somebody obviously feels differently.  I have no idea as to the veracity of the comments but if true, they also raise interesting questions. A subsequent broadside from the emailer says that the conjunctive use agreement is also redundant, since Camp Pendleton already has first dibs rights to what comes out of the tap.

Robert,   $495,780.90 is spent annually to supply eight individuals transportation during work hours in addition to after hour accommodations to home and back.  Obviously, this includes fuel, maintenance and all other related expenses.  Fallbrook Public Utility District has also rehired past General Manager Keith Lewinger as a consultant at the annual salary of $177,000.  This is in order to see the Conjunctive Use Project with the Base through to fruition.  It seems to me to be a vote of no confidence for Brian Brady, the current General Manager.  Governor Brown has discontinued the State sponsored vehicle allowance, by the way, in order to try to eliminate budget and government waste.  Wouldn't it be nice if FPUD followed suit to lower rates for us beleaguered rate payers?  One other thing.  The additional rates that Metropolitan Water District is charging San Diego County Water Authority, of which we are a part of, for-now get this- delivery and transportation, was voted in with the help of Keith Lewinger who was and still is a current member of the Board of Metropolitan.  This was voted in while he was General Manager for FPUD.  This seems to be the definition of a breach of fiduciary duty to his own water district and the board who hired him.  He was also effectively double dipping incomes and vehicle allowances.

When the looter is the government.

It is a rare occasion when I find myself agreeing with George Will but he is spot on today.

Tales Of Brave Ulysses

Rotary Connection "Respect" (1969)

The incomparable late and very great Minnie Riperton puts her own twist on an R&B standard.

Valley Fort

Since I am well into my fourth decade living in the lovely hills of Fallbrook, I am quite aware of what the Valley Fort Restaurant means to the area. I have seen it pass through various incarnations, original Valley Fort, the catfish period, Cask and Cleaver, etc.

It was the draw that brought many people to town for the first time in the 1960's. Ron tells me that Rudy Vallee used to eat there, along with a lot of other famous people. Unfortunately it sat vacant for a long time and had fell into a sad state of disrepair.

I was really happy to hear that Hank and Patty Hornsveld had bought the property and were planning to reopen the restaurant because I knew that the place would be reincarnated in a first class manner. I still remember Hank's Dad telling me about his day's as a ship's carpenter at the old hardware store in Temecula, so many moons ago. I think that the family knows one way to do things, the right way.

Place opened up a few weeks ago and the things I was hearing were mixed. Bad service, cold food, expensive, the normal bellyaching when a new establishment is finding its way.

I decided to see for myself. I believe that I am a fairly critical person but try to be fair. Things happen, and it takes a little time to get it together, especially with a nascent operation. I never really enjoyed Cask and Cleaver as the steak was more of the western flavored variety and I prefer mine unadulterated and quite rare.

Accompanied by our friends Lev and Beth, we visited the place the night before last. The place was similar to the old days but felt tighter and more spic and span. We entered the voluminous bar and it looked like a very comfortable place to hang out and have a drink.

We were seated and met our server. It was her first day and she was accompanied by an experienced staffer. Ordered drinks and then dinner. It took quite a while to get our drinks.

I ordered a bone in rib eye. I had heard that prices were high but was shocked at actually how low they were. About twenty two bucks for the steak, if I remember correctly. The most expensive steak was the 16 oz. porterhouse that topped out at twenty five dollars. Very reasonable, especially compared to comparable steak houses in the county. Fallbrookians who grouse at the prices might need to get out a bit more and see what they are charging in the world at large. Could have easily been $38.00. And all the sides are free. Someone told me that one of the people that ran Donovan's is helping put the place together. The rest of the table ordered steaks as well, although you could get a wide assortment of fare including fish, lamb, chicken and pasta.

We also received sides and a salad with the entree. I ordered garlic mashed, fresh vegetables and a dinner salad. The rest of my mates went for the caesar.

I am happy to report that the meal was near perfect. A delicious steak, crisp and fresh salad, meal was hot, it really could not have been any better. The generous choice steak tasted like prime beef to me. Superior to the $68.00 steak I had at Wolfgang Puck's Cut in Las Vegas, by a large margin. I ordered it with a delicious bernaise but my table mates enjoyed the other sauces, which included two kinds of horseradish and traditional steak sauce, among others. If I had any complaint it would be that the bread, one of my culinary bugaboos, was not crusty enough, a bit wimpy. Good but wimpy.

We were too stuffed to try the dessert, which included bread pudding and an apple dessert but it all sounded good. We will be back, many times. To those people who have had an initial experience that was less than perfect, I recommend that you give them another shot while they are getting the kinks worked out. We had a very great experience. I think this place will be a great steakhouse. A first class meal. Hooray for the Hornsvelds!

J.B. Lenoir - Alabama Blues

Buteo jamaicensis

As I drove out of the valley early this morning I saw two of the three juvenile red tailed hawks sitting on a dead branch about twenty or thirty yards from the nest.

A moment later the third hawk, who I was starting to worry about, flew out of a distant branch back to the safety of the home sycamore.

They have gotten so beautiful and matured so quickly. I have not seen their parents for several days, perhaps nature's way of teaching her wild children to quickly fend for their selves.

We come in peace, earthlings

This fellow was walking around Encinitas the other day.

The Knight Riders

Kerry B sent me this recording of legendary California garage band The Knight Riders. A bit of a Sky Saxon sound.

Hey Robert,

Hope all is well in F-brook with y'all.

Here's a GREAT garage rock track from a 1968 Belmont band, The Knight Riders. They were one of the first, if not the first, racially integrated 'rock' bands and they featured the best garage rock drummer ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrChVOhvJOQ

And here's a link to a long post on The Knight Riders by one of the ex members. Santana drummer, Michael Shrieve, posted some stories there, one about learning drums from Mike Lentos and another about how Lentos was killed. Very interesting reading, nostalgic. 

http://ironleg.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/the-knight-riders-i/

'Jungle' ; another super obscure California garage band featured three ex-Knight Riders including Butch Daniels. 

" If you know the music of Jungle and ever wondered why the album has powerful, emotional soulful vocals which may only can be compared to Love in moments it is because the Knight Riders were one of the few racially integrated garage bands and singer Butch went on to be one of the two lead singers in Jungle. "

http://www.bompstore.com/servlet/Detail?no=13388

And this note he includes from Michael Shrieve, drum wunderkind from Santana:

Comment by Michael Shrieve on February 23, 2012 3:38 am

Wow, Nick! I DO remember!

Lydia’s performance at the Goodwin School Assembly is something I will never forget. In fact, right after that performance, in which she sang a Brenda Lee song, I think, “You Don’t Own Me”. It was so amazing that the whole student body went crazy. This was some beautiful singer girl, in the same school I went to!

So , what do I do?

I go up to her in the hallway, after the assembly, and I say to her, “I don’t believe that was you singing. Proove it to me me. She kind of looked at me like I was crazy, but with a smile, and started to sing. And there it was, the voice of Lydia Pence! That day, I walked her home to her house, which was directly on the way to my house. Lydia Pence and Cold Blood was one of the main soul/funk groups in the Bay Area in the 70′s, and their brand of funk lives on to this day.

Michael Shrieve

Comment by Michael Shrieve on June 11, 2008 12:18 am

The Knight Riders! Man, they were IT at that time in Redwood City. Going to the Cinnamon Tree was always a special treat when they were playing. I was a huge fan, and remember being awed by their singing, those harmonies, the tightness of the band and it’s vocals. It was always exciting when the Beatles came out with a new song, which was special enough, an event really, but then you’d go down and hear the Knight Riders play that song, like, the day it came out. And they’d play and sing it perfectly! One time I remember them playing “And Your Bird Can Sing” I believe and it was so perfect it was mind blowing. I believe they also had a Rickenbacker 12 string as well and used it on the Beatles tunes that used that guitar. I think they also played “Turn, Turn, Turn” by the Byrds as well, if memory serves. That great harmony stuff!

I learned to play drums on Mike Lentos’ drums and one of the Palladino boys drums. Remember Palladino Market on Woodside Road? I didn’t own any drums yet, couldn’t afford ‘em, but was learning from Mike, who lived around the corner from me. I lived on Maryland St. and he and Lydia Pense lived on Kensington St.
Mike was am amazing drummer. He do a left-handed roll. A roll with one hand! He added so much to the band. It’s true that a band is only as good as their drummer, and Mike showed that to us is spades. I looked up to all those guys; Jay, John, Ryan, Butch and Mike. I would sometimes try to hang out or watch them rehearse, but they were like gods and heroes to me at the time. To me they were so cool! And the music was really special.
Later I became the drummer of Santana, when I was just 18 years old, so I left the neighborhood, and saw Mike only occasionally. He went through some very hard times. He was somewhat delinquent even when we were kids, always getting in trouble one way or another. I remember him throwing a bucket of mud in the corner mailbox as a kid and laughing his ass off. He had a somewhat wicked laugh and sense of humor. And throwing mud in a mailbox is a Federal Offense! 

Later he had drug problems and was living in San Francisco basically on the street. He’d been through it and was hardened by that life, but we would still connect sometimes and I would try to help him the best I could. Later, I was living in London for awhile and one day I got an incredible pain in my stomach. It was so bad I had to leave the studio where I was recording and go home. The next day I found out that Mike was shot and killed by a policeman in a robbery situation in SF. I hope I have my facts right, I’m not certain. But I always felt that when I got that terrible pain in my stomach was when Mike got shot.

I’ll always be indebted to Mike for letting me play his drums and teaching me stuff, and to The Knight Riders for making such great music when I was growing up.
Thanks so much John and Jay for the great sounds and memories.
Thanks to Ironleg for bring back the memories and to Nick for turning me on to Ironleg.

Michael Shrieve

fecund and dangerous

What's the deal with the run on cops going after pregnant women? This hit the news last week, SS looking cop with a history of violent conduct kicks late term pregnant woman in the stomach.

Today I saw this one where the cops taser a woman three times for going 32 mph in a school zone. Rather old news, cops won the brutality case but they want to now take it to the supreme court. This cop tackled a pregnant woman in a hospital for running a red light.

I am not a psychiatrist, I just play one on the computer, but wonder about the roots of the misogyny evident in these cases. Do men that hate women enough to kick them in the stomach seek out positions of authority so that they can get their kicks banging on defenseless females? Is it not unbelievable that they are so often backed up by their superior officers?

Sake House

We had thrown around a few ideas for our anniversary dinner. Pampelmousse, 333, a few other places. My great pal Lena asked,"Why not try Sake House? That's where I would go. But get there at five. It's tiny and always packed and you will never get a seat if you get there late. Very hip."

We took Lena's advice and got there just as they were opening the doors. Sake House is not a sushi bar, think little japanese tapas and whole lot of sake. Located now in Hillcrest in addition to the six year tenure at 1246 N. Coast Highway in Encinitas this place was everything that she had promised and more. I illustrate with funky cell phone pictures.

Our great server Yuka, taught us the ropes about the dining experience at Sake House. Osaka street food style cuisine. Showed us to drink from both sides of the overflowing sake glass, a method that promised us future abundance.

I started with string beans in sesame paste. Leslie had seaweed salad. Both good, she scoffed at the idea that mine had any paste at all and I asked her to mind her own culinary business. I was liking it anyway.

We got a taster flight with three cups of the finest of the three grades of sake. All very flavorful and different, licorice gave way to melon. Yuka heard us talking about Hokkaido, the cool northern province that we wish to travel to one day and gave a cup from the region gratis. We also drank a cup from Hyogo prefecture, where one of my favorite mythical detectives, Inspector Otani, hails from.

We first ordered potato croquets with shrimp, quite wonderful, a new textural discovery on the first bite!

Next we ordered a takoyaki, a deep fried octopus ball with bonita flakes shimmering and dancing on the hot edges of the molten orb. Fantastic as well.

We followed that course with a broiled cod plate with kyoto miso that was delectable and had a nice piece of gobo on top..

Our sakes were Kan Chiku, flowery and smooth. Kame tsuru, with flavors of anise. Kubota Hekiju, Osaka Ja, all Jinmai Dai Ginjo, or the finest cut.

We also tried a lesser sake, Tsuru Kamen nigata, only fair. Tai satsu, from Hokkaido, named big snow, luscious and smooth.

We finished the meal, utterly happy and satisfied with a red bean mochi dessert. If we can, we are going back next week with friends. Lots more to discover!

small faces

Flame Flower

Talented Fallbrook Sculptor Michael Stutz yesterday celebrated the dedication of his mammoth new sculpture Flame Flower at the Westin Hotel in San Diego.

Michael is an artist with both vision and integrity, not to mention damn good taste in music. Congratulations to him for all of his recent and continued future success.

Midweek Amalgam

J called yesterday. He was uncomfortable with the Feeding Time cartoon that I posted by the Los Angeles Times'  brilliant opinion writer and political cartoonist, David Horsey. The cartoon depicts the gop suckling the teat of big business.

J wondered about the lack of balance I was showing. Where was the cartoon illustrating the pernicious influence of the unions on the democratic party and society in general?

When I posted the thing I just thought that it was really well done. I don't think that I need to take the middle line with every thing I post on this blog. And yes, I do think that on the heels of a wretched Citizens United ruling, the threat of big business interests now masquerading as "persons" is a greater threat to our country than evil teacher, fire and police unions, as bad as they maybe are.

J can't stand the president, it seems he is in good company with about half the electorate. He is an ex small businessman who is now an investor and he sees the president through that perspective. Everything is about business.

The problem is that the GOP ran a stealth campaign that was supposedly "it's about the economy" last time and it turned out to be bullshit. When they got the power we got anti gay and personhood  amendments and a full broadside in the culture war. Forgive me for thinking that the same thing will happen once again. You can't just look at only the future of business considering the radical social agenda of the right.

I don't care for Barack Obama. I think he lied if not misled us on a multitude of issues, endless war, medical marijuana, civil liberties, etc. Unfortunately it is now all about the Supreme Court. One more member of the evil axis of Scalitothomasrobertskennedy will further sink the Federalist Society dagger now poised above our nation's heart. Mitt, given the opportunity, will finish the job.  Bye Bye Roe. Hello, massive effort to turn us back into a religious society with no respect for any border between church and state and also a place where the poor take their permanent place as feudal serfs existing at the whim of the lucky one percent.

I worry about my good friends that can't look at the other issues besetting our country besides the economy. As important as it is, it just can't be the only thing. We agree to disagree. I know what the unions did in Vallejo and San Diego. And even Fallbrook, to some degree. But that is why they call it collective bargaining. Bargain.

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I won my battle with the ebay guy this morning. Called ebay and pled my case. The investigator agrees with me. He gets nothing. Unfortunately, she told me that he will now sully my perfect feedback record. In ebayland only buyers can leave feedback these days. I told her that I would wear my ignominious mark proudly, for taking a principled stand against a jerk who was trying to get something for nothing.

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Interesting article on Mitt and family re: Gay Marriage. Apparently Mitt, once extremely gay rights, found himself crossways with his wife Ann as well as his son and daughter in law, all who signed a 2002 Massachusetts petition that recommended denying gays domestic partner benefits. That's one of the things I hate about a large sector of the right, their mean spirited interference in other people's personal business. Like forcing the government to watch a poor woman's pap smear.

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We had a great anniversary yesterday. Fantastic dinner at Sake House in Leucadia and then Cirque de Soleil's Totem performance in Del Mar. It was really incredible. A juggler weaving seven balls in a cone. A pair of plains hoop dancers. Great aerials. The touring shows like totem rely less on gadgets on more on individual artistry. Two girls each pididdling four whirling scarves.  Great chinese unicycle team stacking cups. The show is playing for another week and you can get half price right before the performance. We were second row. An amazing time.

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Two paraplegics move robot arm with mind.

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Wells Fargo mistakenly forecloses, man commits suicide.

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The hawks were temporarily aloft, according to a neighbor who called me. The young hawks were walking on the road yesterday. Walk a little, fly a little...

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Ever get the urge to walk around the world in Roman times? Now you can with Orbis. The  Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World.

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Researchers discover a new atomic structure in metallic glasses.

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I dug the Avengers movie but a couple questions. Where in the hell was Ant-man, Hank Pym? Vision, The Black Panther, Scarlet Witch and Pietro? They sure take a lot of liberties.

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Don Bauder has written great economic columns for years. He nails it here on the stadium financing issue.
Did you know that stadiums have an economic life of about ten years? Leaving communities on the hook for decades, while the rich owners capitalize on sucker fan's atavistic team/clan bond to extract lucre from their wallets.

Vroom, vroom.

I got a chuckle reading the newspaper yesterday. Apparently BMW has put noise dampers on the powerful new M5 and its 560 horsepower, twin-scroll, twin-turbocharged V-8  engine.

To compensate they are piping prerecorded engine noise into the cab so that the alpha adolescents who require such a power steed can still feel like the baddest ass on the block. This simulated noise corresponds with the rpm and speed that you are driving, ostensibly so that you don't have to do anything so bourgeois as to actually roll down the window.

What happened to the old days when all it took was a few playing cards in the spokes? Kids and their toys...

Lose what you never had.

Muddy Waters with Michael Bloomfield, Duck Dunn, Paul Butterfield, Sam Lay and Otis Spann. Not sure about Sam Lay but the rest of these cats are now all sadly gone.

Personal Accounting

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
Abraham Lincoln 
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Leslie and I went to Temecula yesterday to see the Avengers movie (awesome!). The theater is next the mall and we had time to kill before the three o'clock 3-D showing so we took a stroll around the place. There is nothing like walking through a mall to give you a good idea of where you fit into the American social maelstrom. I kept looking around for a woman without an ankle tattoo but if they actually existed they were few and far between. I had the instant realization that America is suffering from some disease of terminal hipness. And of course when everybody is hip, nobody is hip, if you know what I mean?

We had dinner with a bunch of friends friday night, one of whom was enjoying time with her stepdaughter, fresh from rehab. She said that the younger generation was deathly afraid of not being hip enough, hence all the ink and alterations. Whatever, I have talked that stuff to death.

I ran into Helen from Guacamole Gulch at the mall, one of my favorite bloggers and all around nice person. She complimented Leslie's picture on the Blast (which my wife doesn't like) and made the observation that it was interesting to see somebody, me, that she knew everything about, thanks to this new medium, but seldom saw in the physical flesh.

Blogging, and maybe the Blast in particular, has to be one of the most narcissistic, self absorbed pursuits known to man. My worst nightmare is that some cave dweller in Bhutan is organizing a calorie counter this very minute with all of my last month's meals charted out on an excel spreadsheet. A daily blow by blow of a rather insignificant life.

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I just got off the blower with my dear mother, second day in a row, she was very upbeat and happy and wants to get a new cat. All of her children called yesterday, even Liz, her firstborn, the one who lives forty five minutes away from her in Maryland and has never taken the time to visit. We chitchatted a bit, she is apparently reading the blog every day but her location and name aren't being tracked so I suppose from now on I have to be on my very best behavior.

The conversation eventually drifted into something that resembled this: "You know, it seems like all your friends are getting sick, could it be from your horrible diet? I am sure that you know that pate de fois gras is all grease and fat..." I forget my stuttered retort but it was probably merely a weak backhand as I quickly changed the subject. Besides if there is anyone to blame for my gustatory indulgences, it is my dearest mother. While the other kids ate their waffles, we were the only ones on the block forced to eat calves' brains and eggs, tripe and quiche, before anyone else had even heard of the stuff. The only mom I knew who had her own table at Le Veau d'or.

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I, of course have a pretty good take on my list of deficiencies. I am a serial interrupter. Wanton exaggerator. I occasionally use my business card, if not my little finger, to dislodge the little bits of foodstuff caught between my teeth at the dinner table. I have been known after bathing to sit my wet ass down on the toilet seat, even after repeated warnings. I have limited facility with hand tools. I could no sooner fix a car than I could write the Magna Carta. My rule in life is buy nothing that you have to either fix or back up. I can't cook. Little tolerance for the mentally weak. My cursive writing is near impossible to decipher. I have gotten so fat that a sideways look in the mirror will send me into some sort of paralytic shock so I don't. Toenail trimming has also become exceedingly more difficult.

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I also possess some phobias, imperfect creature that I am. I don't like heights or driving on bridges. Hate driving next to the highway barricades known as k-rail. Abhor driving in low ceilinged parking garages. Obsessive about spelling or syntaxual errors, unless of course they are of my own making. ´and others say that my slow Mr. Magoo style of conservative driving reminds them of the motoring of an old lady.

I can't stand large crowds of people surrounding me, hence I can't go to estate sales or things like that. Always need to sit in a corner with my back to the wall in a restaurant. Can't drink scotch or gin. Never learned to dance properly. Horrible sense of rhythm. My glasses are always dirty. I snore. Continuously flatulent. Leslie says that I can even do both at the same time. Won't hang my own shirts up or put the cd's away.

I could go on and on but you get the idea. If Honest Abe was right and a multitude of vices are indeed a true measure of a man's good character, with my laundry list I rank right up there with MLK and Mother Theresa.

Yours in deficiency,

Robert

hand me down my walking cane

This is my buddy Arnold Briscoe. Arnold is an ex angeleno who besides being a good musician was a hell of a baseball player in his youth.

Arnold was in some cool Los Angeles bands in the 1960's, close friends with Arthur Lee, Pacific Gas and Electric and Little Feat's Paul Barrere. Couldn't meet a nicer human being.

Cardiac kid

I have been feeling a bit out of sorts the last couple days. I felt my heart rhythm do some strange things early one morning on the boat and have felt not only a general lack of energy but a  bit of discomfort in my chest. Since I have already had the experience of not only a heart attack but a murmur and a bad mitral valve requiring open heart surgery, I thought that the prudent thing to do would be to check with my cardiologist.  I'm not a hypochondriac but it had been a while since I have had things checked out so I went in yesterday.

Got some strange results back on my EKG. It is titled abnormal. While I have always fought atrial fibrillation and take a medicine to control it, I am now in a very odd but apparently harmless rhythm pattern called ectopic atrial rhythm with an unusual P axis. In layman's terms, where my baseline parabolas normally head south, now they are tending north or something like that. We compared this EKG with past graphs and I have never been in this rhythm before. Hopefully with more exercise in the coming months, sinus rhythm will take over again and I will feel better and have more energy.

My cardiologist, Neil, was frankly amazed that I could feel the subtle difference but I definitely could, sensitive sort that I am. Now I am scheduled for a bunch of blood work and baseline testing but it is nothing significant I can assure you. As you know I keep an immaculate regimen and am at the peak of physical condition. Might have to add more fat and heavy whipping cream to my diet.

This might be a good time for those of you who do not believe me to pony up for a little life insurance policy on me, just in case. But if it pays off, you owe me big time next incarnation, capiche?

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The picture you see is a picture of my nurse's unusual piercing. Being the nosy sort, I espied something odd when she was hooking the leads for the EKG and asked her about it. It is called a madison and she had it done when she was 24. Now it is healed over and can't be removed without serious lancing. I asked her what her mother thought about it and it was about what you would expect. I surmised that it must really help her get better reception and she laughed.

I have one of those horrible cultural taboos about piercing and tattoos but realize that it is my trip, the rest of the world awash in ink and self expression. Vive la differénce.

Summertime

Doc, David and Jack.

5.11.12

I have been thinking a bit about style of late. And fashion as it relates to the decorative arts. I am in a business where shifting tastes can put an ardent devotee on his or her own destitute deserted island, so it pays for us to keep on our toes and make the right bets. It is possible to misjudge the duration of a trend and end up swimming against the current in the stale detritus of a fading age.

When I was young the word antique summoned an image of something victorian. Victoriana became death in the market at some point and very difficult to sell. Before that empire, soon after that colonial revival and eastlake. The excess of victoriana was smacked right in the teeth by the revolution against ornamentation that was called by the colloquial expression mission or arts and crafts, a child of spanish mission style and 14th century dutch farmhouse furniture with its exposed keys and tenons. This whole design style had the briefest of days in the sun and was not to be revisited for another sixty odd years.

In regard to this aesthetic motif, material and workmanship became paramount, gaudy ornamentation verboten, adopting an aesthetic tempered by the fire of the guilds and decorative gods of England, Ruskin, Ashbee and Morris, championing the handwork of the individual against the insidious industrial machine. Which oddly found its own place later in the cubic sensibilities of bauhaus, itself a product of evil designs for malthusian working housing.

The rather heavy weight and machismo of arts and crafts eventually slimmed down a tad and got lighter on its feet with the work of the brilliant alcoholic designer Harvey Ellis, who worked for Stickley for a very short time before he slipped into eventual oblivion. Vertical elements were tapered and shrunk and his sometimes bowed stiles evoked a Fleischer like sense of humour under Harvey.

I remember reading a furniture book from the nineteens that snidely derided the arts and crafts movement as a bastard amalgamation of this and that. Ghetto trash. Next thing you know Barbara Streisand is spending millions on the stuff. The patrician mantique establishment hated the populist or egalitarian undertones of the movement. It's ascendence was preceded and sometimes segued into older nouveau movement which morphed into secessionism in Germany and Austria, also known as jugendstil as well as the more florid english arts and crafts movement.

Nouveau, with its sinewy tendrils and elegant line died a natural death both under its slight pretension and own weight and the ascendance of the next thing, which turned out to be art deco. Jazz, flappers, hip flasks, more fun. Suffragette city. Instead of a reliance on nature's forms for inspiration in deco its adherents now celebrated the machine and the new budding age of technology and motion.

Nouveau came back on the scene in the 1960's, in the work of Stanley Mouse and Bill Ogden and other members of the wonderful psychedelic schools. I was talking to a big  conventional poster dealer I know the other day and she says that she rarely sells any nouveau posters anymore, any Lautrecs, Cheret's or Mucha's, it just doesn't really resonate with the youth today. Things just don't stay hip for ever.

There is a great scene in Patrick Dennis's 1930's era book Auntie Mame where Mame is talking about those dreadful Tiffany lamps with all the bats and spiders on them. I always laughed at the passage. There was a definite departure in the thirties.Because these lamps that were selling for a million dollars a few years ago were being given away for peanuts for a large part of the last century. Now the market is getting tough again. Tastes change. And recycle, morphing slightly with each new rebirth and iteration.

I could do a scholarly dissertation and trace the lines of arts and crafts into its descendent modernism but will spare you. And finish up by once more invoking the supreme rule of the collecting business that I like to call Robert's rule since I came up with it in some long forgotten epiphany. The rule goes like this. People reject the art of their parents and embrace the art of their grandparents.

When I got an idea about what I thought design cool was, the people that were leaving this mortal coil did their collecting in the teens through the thirties, my grandfather's generation. A fertile time full of deco and the revivals, mediterranean, spanish, italianate, gothic, mission, WPA. There was a lot of great material. Lots of great paintings. They even paid artists to paint in the Works Progress times, hired them all over the place.

Now we run into a problem today. The mid century, for all the glamour bestowed upon it by madmen, was a pretty vacant period for the decorative arts. Unless melmac and banlon come back. And the truth is that we seem to be regurgitating the most godawful artifacts of the modern period, from Parzinger, Dickinson and Dunbar to boomerang tables. The truly great artists of the fifties and sixties work was and is exceedingly expensive, Nakashima, Esherick and Maloof to name a few. Most people's parents couldn't afford a Ruscha or a Diebenkorn or an Arneson, even if they were hip enough to know what one actually was.

I love all design periods but have to admit to being only a grudging modernist. It is a flavor of the week thing now at the modernism shows, horrific seventies now becoming hip, white shag and cork and  horrid lamps not fit for a Ramada Inn. Just because something was once created doesn't mean it's not an abomination and that it is worthy of eventual resuscitation. Some of the work is just plain terrible.

But modernism was a definite aesthetic departure. Sam Maloof used to buy Indian rugs from me that no one else wanted but he loved. Wide Ruins and Chinle's in dissonant and vulgar tones of pink and ochre and coral. He and Millard Sheets, his one time boss, and the Scripps artists had ventured into a radically different palette and rules of engagement and had made a conscious decision to leave the past behind. Took me a while to see what a genius and trailblazer he really was.

I also notice fewer and fewer kids and older and older dealers at the shows, as hand crafted work in metal, wood or painted canvas has less and less resonation with kids born in a world formed of plastic and metal and the latest electric toy. Antique shops are closing all over the country as ebay and horrible material and lack of interest take their toll. Ce'st la vie. A new generation born on over sweetened breakfast cereal and too much television that has the attention span of a hyperlink.

My trajectory has been in more of a classical direction the last five years, feeling more comfortable in the 18th and 19th century than a present I have to pretend to like or understand. Jarre wall sculptures and Nelson and all of this stuff that feels so synthetic and cold to me. But that's just me. I was talking about this general subject with a friend a few weeks ago and we came to the conclusion that there is no such thing as important art, high art or low art or antiques and objects d'art. In a certain sense, everything is visceral and everything is decorative at some level.

A couple in their twenties walked into my store the other day and started laughing at an old sony discman near my P.A. "My dad had one of those," he explained in wonder. The one thing they appreciated for being old and I didn't even realize what a find I really had in the old walkman. Only thing they could relate to. Could have cared less about the rest of the contents of my store. I guess I come from a different age.

I have watched a lot of collecting waves come and go in my years in the business. China, porcelain, sterling, Sascha Brastoff, Bauer, bakelite, the mexican silver boom, Fahrner, cookie jars, Loetz, Pillin, Rolex bubble backs, Griswold, Roycoft, Heinz, the list goes on and on. Each generation creates its own fads. So as dealers we sometimes find ourselves tying our rope to a specific dock only to untie our  rope when that boat maybe leaves the shore, maybe never to be seen again. Tying and untying, trying to stay a step ahead and keep food on the table. It can be a real problem, especially trying to read the future when you wake up one morning and maybe find out that everybody suddenly stopped caring.

So I guess the moral of the story for those of us hardy souls still in the business, is that make sure that you really like it when you buy it cause you just might have it for a very long time.

Bumble Bee

Here is the Searchers' take on Bumble Bee. LaVern Baker released the original version in 1960.

Golden State Gestapo

California Department of Fish and Game stormtroopers are at it again. Removing stuffed animals that have sat on a shelf in a bar for over fifty years. Thanks to reader Brent for sending this over.

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Another State Fish and Game story in the local paper today. Lindy O'Leary, a Poway area doctor, had to surrender the birds that she had rescued and was rehabilitating at her Wildlife Center of San Diego to authorities yesterday. If Fish and Game, who had concerns about her program, can not find homes for the raptors they will of course euthanize them, like they did after the last seizure in 2004. Sounds a bit screwy to me but what do I know?

"Veterinarian Jeffrey Jenkins, who has known O’Leary for about 20 years through his practice, the Avian & Exotic Animal Hospital in San Diego, knows first hand the medical condition of the birds O’Leary has cared for because he has provided avian checkups to the birds in her care, he said.
“Her animals have never been sick, except during the time they were taken by Fish and Game, when some of them died in the agency’s facility,” Jenkins said.
He added, “She just wants the animals to live out their lives in a place (the Wildlife Center in Poway) where they are comfortable.”