Doin' My Time - Flatt & Scruggs

Daily Laughs

Jonathan Hill sent these over, some great ones. There were a ton of them, I sort of culled it down. Thanks, Jonathan!

If I had a dollar for every girl that found me unattractive, they'd eventually find me attractive. 

I find it ironic that the colors red, white, and blue stand for 
freedom, until they're flashing behind you.

Today a man knocked on my door and asked for a small donation towards the local swimming pool, so I gave him a glass of water.

I changed my password to "incorrect" so whenever I forget it the computer will say, "Your password is incorrect."

Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

My wife and I were happy for twenty years; then we met.

I hate it when people use big words just to make themselves sound perspicacious.

Hospitality is the art of making guests feel like they're at home when you wish they were.

I bought a vacuum cleaner six months ago and so far all it's been doing is gathering dust.

Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes.

He who laughs last thinks slowest.

Is it wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly?

The grass may be greener on the other side but at least you don't have mow it.

I like long walks, especially when they're taken by people who annoy me. 

I was going to wear my camouflage shirt today, but I couldn't find it.

The Petersens

Roger Miller

Impeachment dies another death.

A lot of people are transfixed on today's Mueller hearings. Not me. Nothing is going to change. He could have pictures of Trump tromboning Putin in his Volga dachau and it wouldn't bother the faithful one bit. People's minds are long past changing and no facts or explanations are going to get in the way at this point. Sick of people from either side, screaming, proclaiming victory.

I decided to check out National Review, one of the better and more sober conservative publications I read on a regular basis and read a spot on article regarding today's hearing, Today, Impeachment died another death, by David French.

...In fact, even the Democratic hope of highlighting damaging elements of the Mueller report for a public that likely hadn’t even read a page was frustrated and interrupted by Republicans who used their time to attack the credibility of the investigation itself. Each side emerged with more red meat for the base. Neither side discovered truly meaningful new facts.
The simple truth is that by the time the Mueller report emerged, enough Americans had already absorbed and evaluated each new damaging revelation about Trump’s misconduct or his team’s Russian contacts. Each new indictment and each new revelation represented only a marginal new addition to the argument against Trump. Even if collectively the contacts paint a damaging portrait, the slow, steady pace of charges and reports worked more to harden hearts against Trump than to change minds.
And, make no mistake, impeachment requires changed minds. It requires changing Democratic minds about the political wisdom of attempting to remove Trump, and changing Republican minds about the wisdom of defending him. Politically, impeachment requires a bombshell. It requires a “moment.” It needs its own Nixon tapes or Lewinsky dress. Instead, America got a legal brief Wednesday. And no one reads legal briefs.
I say this not to argue that this is the way things should be. I’m on record saying that Mueller’s findings should shock our conscience. Campaign officials and allies had repeated contacts with Russians or Russian operatives during the course of the campaign and lied about those contacts. Indeed, the report reveals a staggering, mind-numbing number of lies — to the point where no American can trust a single word that comes from this president or this White House absent compelling substantiating evidence.

Can't say it makes me feel any better but I think he is correct on all counts.  And this is a conservative publication. More damning to me than the failure to impeach is to grasp what future Americans will now deem to be acceptable behavior and levels of dishonesty from its elected leaders. Hell of a way to run a country.

Mr. Natural - Robert Crumb

For the good times

Nobody could hold a candle to Dean for singing with honesty and emotion.

McNally Company

I talked to Connie McNally last week. I was sad to hear that they have recently closed the shop in Rancho Santa Fe. I hear the landlord was getting usurious, and not just with her, don't blame her a bit for closing. She is going to continue to work but no longer have a retail shop.

McNally was, and I say this with total respect, the Grand Dame of local area antique dealers. The quality of her material and her dedication to quality made her shop by far the best in San Diego and probably Los Angeles too for that matter. She and husband Bill were legendary for great material, both European and domestic. I learned a lot from her and their establishment and offerings were always stunningly beautiful, a visual feast for the eyes.

They were dedicated to fine silver, long being the publishers of Silver Magazine. In fact they were kind enough to hire me to write for them on several occasions. I appreciate that very much, the articles helped me both expand my academic knowledge and meet important people in the world of silver, people like the late Allan Adler.

People in the field of decorative arts tend to follow one of two paths, they can offer the purely visceral and decorative or they can emphasize an object or painting's historical place or pedigree. I think that it is fair to say that both Connie and I took the latter path, although her merchandise was still gorgeous.  And our choice is becoming less and less effective in a world where people are more historically ignorant and culturally illiterate than ever. But I don't need to start that shpiel again.

I will say that it is sad that such a wonderful shop has closed and wish them both well in the future.

Kim and Don

I won't mention it again

The devil made me do it.

Cesar Sayoc

Serial bomber Cesar Sayoc's lawyers are pointing the finger at what they believe is the cause of his criminal behavior, Trump and Fox News.

Sayoc was an avid follower of Trump's Twitter account and his federal public defenders point to Trump throughout the filing. New defense filings in the case of admitted serial bomber Cesar Sayoc paint a grim picture of a man who "lost everything in the Great Recession," had "cognitive limitations and severe learning disabilities" and was "abandoned by his father and sexually abused by a teacher at his Catholic school.""In this darkness," his defense counsel wrote, "Mr. Sayoc found light in Donald J. Trump."

Anthony Comello

In Staten Island, Mob Boss killer Anthony Comello's defense team has a similar explanation.

A 24-year-old man who has been charged with shooting to death a reputed New York mob boss earlier this year thought he was under the influence of QAnon, pro-Trump Internet postings about the president supposedly battling a cabal of liberal elites, his lawyer wrote in a recent submission to New York state court.
Prosecutors have charged Anthony Comello with murder over the fatal shooting Francesco Cali, the alleged leader of the Gambino crime family who was gunned down outside of his Staten Island home in March.
But in a new court filing, Comello's attorney argues that he became so engrossed with unsupported QAnon theories that on the night of Cali's death, he was acting under a delusion, which included that Democratic politicians, celebrities and people associated with organized crime were part of the "deep state," according to Comello's lawyer. He wrote that his client believed he was on a mission "to save the American way of life."
"Beginning with the election of President Trump in November 2016, Anthony Comello's family began to notice changes to his personality," attorney Robert Gottlieb wrote. "Mr. Comello's support for QAnon went beyond mere participation in a radical political organization, it evolved into a delusional obsession."

 *

Andrew Anglin

Trump said there was nothing racist about his tweets referring to the four minority congresswomen. White supremacists apparently feel differently:

Andrew Anglin again praised the President, writing on the Daily Stormer the day after the rally: “Telling those women to go back to their countries is by far the most racist thing he’s ever said – especially since one of them was a black American, descended from slaves. And by refusing to apologize, he has effectively normalized the opinion among the masses of goyim that you can believe that America is a white country, for white people – and that brown people are our guests and if they don’t like being guests then they have to go home.”

So the President may not think he is racist, but racists think he is racist, so whatever he thinks is moot, his message is getting to the troops, people like Sayoc, Comello and Anglin. Charlottesville, Pittsburgh and Poway.

Neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin was apparently thrilled by the tweets, posting on his popular Daily Stormer website: “Man, President Trump’s Twitter account has been pure fire lately. This might be the funniest thing he’s ever tweeted. This is the kind of WHITE NATIONALISM we elected him for. And we’re obviously seeing it only because there’s another election coming up. But I’ll tell you, even knowing that, it still feels so good.”

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. Does the president bear any responsibility for the misguided acts of his followers? You tell me.

40k headmen

This man says artificial intelligence will kill us.

Thanks to Abby for sending this Ted talk with Jay Tuck over. And how dangerous is Microsoft AI, better than humans at everything?

Weimar Presidency

Many historians have looked back at pre war Germany and asked themselves how a man like Hitler ever came to power? These were not an awful people, certainly no worse than any other people.

The Weimar Republic is the name for an unofficial period that lasted from 1918 to 1933. Weimar is the name of the town where Germany's constitutional assembly first took place.

In November of 1918 Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated the German and Prussian thrones. There was no succession agreement in place and in February of 1919 the new position of President of Germany was created at the Assembly. Paul von Hindenburg was elected President. Germany was resentful at the time of its duties to pay reparations after the Treaty of Versailles and suffering from hyperinflation.

The great worldwide depression made things even worse. Germany fought record unemployment at the time. In 1933, Hindenburg appointed a man named Adolf Hitler as Chancellor. The Nazi Party became part of a coalition government, filling two of the ten cabinet seats. Hitler had publicly advocated for the removal of all of the jews in Germany since at least 1919.

Things changed almost immediately. A fire in the Reichstag gave Hitler all the cover he needed to whip the people into a frenzy and suspend civil rights. The Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933 declared a state of emergency, instantly wiping out the constitution and civil liberties. These were the final nails in the coffin of a free Germany. Later at the Nuremberg trials, General Halder testified that Goering told him he himself had started the fire.

Reichstag Fire Decree

Hitler became Fuhrer in 1934. He was allowed to govern without legislative participation. This doomed the Republic, democracy imploded and collapsed and the nascent one party state began the new Nazi regime.

His first six years in power resulted in a rapid economic recovery from the Great Depression, the abrogation of restrictions imposed on Germany after World War I, and the annexation of territories inhabited by millions of ethnic Germans, which gave him wide popular support. Juice the economy and the people will follow.

*

President Trump launched a few more salvos at the press yesterday. He wants to change the libel laws so he can punish his journalistic enemies in court.

He has floated the idea of serving for more than the two terms currently allowed by our constitution.

He has refused to allow many of his aides to respond to congressional queries and legal subpoenas and flouted the checks and balances that have long characterized our democratic process.

He has engaged in blatant racist demagoguery and vilified hispanic judges and politicians and referred to latinos as criminals and rapists. Ditto Muslims. His opponents are all called stupid, he tends to pick on minorities and females the most.

He has flouted emoluments laws and engaged in self enrichment schemes while on the job and scorned laws like the Hatch Act which limit the ability of government officials to engage in blatant political activity while on the job.

Of course these actions have been enabled by a see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil GOP and many willing accomplices in the judiciary.

Whatever Sinclair Lewis said...

I am definitely not saying Trump is Hitler but you can certainly see his bunker from here, on the eve of the seventy fifth anniversary of the assassination attempt on the Fuhrer by suitcase bomb.

And also can see how easily a people will go along with a Hitler, Duterte, Orban, Stalin or even a Trump if their bellies are full and they can be mobilized against a real or fictitious "enemy."

Seems to be easier than one would think.

Interesting article at the New Yorker, The Weaponization of National Belonging, from Nazi Germany to Trump.  Many are starting to compare and see the similarity in the two leaders. Check out this article at Salon by Lucien K. Truscott IV, This is the week it became accurate to compare Trump to Hitler.

He has a good chance of winning again. 50/50? Perhaps. Is it too outlandish to think that we are on the brink of dictatorship? Will we let it happen? And who shall we blame if it occurs and finally what is to stop it?

Stephen Miller was on the talk show circuit yesterday trying to run cover for his boss on the recent racism tweets.

A week ago the administration, at his urging, proposed changing the allowable refugee admission numbers next year to zero. He is on record as saying he would be happy if we never let another refugee in.

Interesting article last year by Miller's uncle, Stephen Miller Is an Immigration Hypocrite. I Know Because I’m His Uncle. If my nephew’s ideas on immigration had been in force a century ago, our family would have been wiped out, who explained how his jewish refugee grandparents came in 1903, desperately fleeing pogroms in Belarus.

You wonder about a man like Miller, who would dishonor his family and their history so by becoming such a pig? He is a perfect Goering or Himmler for Trump.

Rest in peace, Paul Krassner

Paul was one of my early literary role model heroes, a legend in the underground scene.

He was a really sharp and witty writer. Paul published The Realist for 43 years. He helped found the Yippies, was always on the radical front lines, but did it with a wonderful sense of humor. Here's a good Krassner interview at Reason.

I congratulate him on a life well lived. The world could use a few more Paul Krassners.

Shirley Bassey - History Repeating

Village Idiots

In search of non binary gender inclusivity the Berkeley City Council declares we shall no longer refer to manholes as manholes. They are now officially "maintenance holes." In case any female maintenance holes have been previously offended...

In the brave new world, manpower is termed "human effort." Brother and sister are out too, now the appropriate word is sibling. No more manicures either, instead try non binary keratinous cuticle disassociation.

The ordinance includes a list of gendered terms in existing city code and the new gender-neutral terms that can be used to replace them."Bondsman" will now be "bonds-person," "firemen" and "firewomen" will now both be referred to as "firefighters," and "manpower" will be replaced with "human effort" or "workforce." Sororities and fraternities will now go by "Collegiate Greek system residence" and a pregnant woman will be referred to as a "pregnant employee."

Such heavy handed attempts from left or right, to manipulate and regulate common language seem very Stalinist and Orwellian to me.  Oh wait, did I say man-ipulate? That will have to go, once I find out the newly favored and approved sobriquet.

This political correctness is getting so ludicrous. Next they will be coming for your mandibles and manzanita. This is what happens when the inmates run the asylum. And you want to know why I'm a centrist.

Mod Squad

Erin Scott - Reuters

Trump went after the "squad" again, his four horsewoman of the apocalypse. The ones he wants to go back where they came from.

He said the freshman congresswomen needed to apologize to America and Israel. Said they hated our country.

"I don’t believe the four Congresswomen are capable of loving our Country. They should apologize to America (and Israel) for the horrible (hateful) things they have said. They are destroying the Democrat Party, but are weak & insecure people who can never destroy our great Nation!" Donald Trump

Now I can not personally stand the policy positions of three of the four, AOC, Tlaib and Omar.

Ayanna Pressley seems pretty good, I don't think the voting age should be dropped down to sixteen personally but we have a little generational war going on in this country right now. Wild in the streets.

These newcomers have an out sized, almost giddy view about the limits of their own power and it would behoove them to listen to their elders and chill for a while until they get the hang of the place. Don't lead with your horns, or elbows, like the President does. After all, its what you learn after you know it all that counts.

But as much as I agree or disagree with their policies, or three of the four anyway, do I think they hate their country? No way. Do they need to apologize to it? No. Do they need to apologize to Israel? Are you kidding? Since when did that become a litmus test on U.S. citizenship? Total cheap pandering and political opportunism on the part of President Trump.

It has started...

I would be remiss for failing to mention that Elon Musk is ready to put a chip in your brain. Now how long ago did I call that?

Speaking on Tuesday, the CEO of Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX said his Neuralink devices will consist of a tiny chip connected to 1,000 wires measuring one-tenth the width of a human hair.The chip features a USB-C port, the same adapter used by Apple's (AAPL) Macbooks, and connects via Bluebooth to a small computer worn over the ear and to a smartphone, Musk said."If you're going to stick something in a brain, you want it not to be large," Musk said, playing up the device's diminutive size. Neuralink, a startup founded by Musk, says the devices can be used by those seeking a memory boost or by stroke victims, cancer patients, quadriplegics or others with congenital defects.The company says up to 10 units can be placed in a patient's brain. The chips will connect to an iPhone app that the user can control.The devices will be installed by a robot built by the startup. Musk said the robot, when operated by a surgeon, will drill 2 millimeter holes in a person's skull. The chip part of the device will plug the hole in the patient's skull."The interface to the chip is wireless, so you have no wires poking out of your head. That's very important," Musk added.

This is how it starts and then it slowly morphs. It will program the ambient temperature in your room and suggest songs to hum. I know your radio reception will be incredible and you will be able to process much more information than the average human. Google will now be able to run ads directly inside your head. You can probably now change the channel on your television with a mere blink.

But as the article points out, who will own the brain data harvested from your skull? It says it can be controlled by an iphone but tell me, who has control of the iphone? Fears of outside forces commandeering your nervous system are surely extremely overblown, aren't they? But did you know Medtronic recently found out that their cardiac pacemakers could be hacked. And of course be prepared for twenty four hour surveillance and tracking. Kill switch? 🕱

I am sure that these chips will soon be all the rage but I am pretty sure I pass... How long before Elon sticks you in Ludicrous™ mode?

Moebius (Jean Giraud)

Delirius

Les and I went out with friends last night to see the Claypool Lennon Delirium in San Diego. We had bought the tickets to the Music Box before she had won the free tickets in Anaheim. Stopped off at Spicy City first for great Chinese food.

I dogged them a little bit last time I wrote about them, they were much better last night, in fact really great. All four members of the band are pretty amazing musicians.

They are not a jam or improvisational band but what they do play takes consummate musicianship. Heavy emphasis on British psych.

Extra long set last night, pretty intense music at times, we were treated to a nice Boris the Spider cover. Even though I was not personally "kissing the skies" I felt it pretty strongly.

Didn't get back home until two o'clock.

The venue was pretty cool, neat light show, we had side seats way up front. But the place was so oversold it was terrible, couldn't even stand without beefing with someone, it was so compressed. We met some very devoted followers of the band, nice couple from San Bernardino drove down, this was their tenth time seeing the band.

Our friends asked me why they sang so nasally when they spoke so normally and I had to explain that they were merely affecting an early British psychedelic patois. Not going to go off on that again. That Les Claypool can play the freaking bass!

I Scare Myself

This is one of the great Dan Hicks songs, later covered by the excellent Thomas Dolby. I just found this video of them playing it together. Wasn't aware of it. Shaky in a couple spots, but wonderful. The late great Dan succumbed a couple years ago after a tough battle with cancer. Song starts about 5:10. Nice loping Evening Breeze at the end.

Dershbag

I can't stand Alan Dershowitz. What a phony. Think he lied about not seeing naked pics at Epstein's pad. They were up on the walls everywhere I hear.

What else is the self righteous, walking colostomy bag lying about?

I have no way of knowing if he shtupped those little girls or not but my fervent hope is they find disturbing pictures of his naked butt being paddled by a butch nun in some wanton bdsm dungeon. Or in corpus delicti with Sheldon Adelson.

That would make my day.

Guy has had his kneepads on for Trump for the last two years.

Lets nail all of Epstein's lawyers, including that pompous ass Ken Starr. And the enablers like Cy Vance. But start with this septic sicko.

Whenever these guys get in trouble, you start hearing about their love for Israel. They use the country like a cheap whore. When it's convenient, or the ultra orthodox Israel anyway. The duplicitous eretz, the one that welshes on its commitments and takes whatever it wants.

The one that is harassing the cuchin and its native gay population and naming cities for Donald Trump. The one that makes deals with people like Viktor Orban and Guatemalan death squads. That is ceding all its power to the ultra right haredi. The one that has lost its jewish heart.

Of course Israel has little need for liberal American jews. Because it has the American evangelicals. Have a wonderful life together.

Robben Ford - Earthquake

Eric the Redstein

A funny thing happened on the way to the pillage...

As you probably know, I study genetics pretty closely. Was intrigued yesterday when I heard about this new study, Population Genomics of the Viking World.

They sequenced the genomes of 442 unearthed Viking skeletons and guess what? They found what I have heard is a L-791  individual, my people. A genetic Y ancestor of Napoleon. A member of a very small haplogroup, by the way. Branch of E-M34.

Notated as E1b1b1b2a1a4 . L-792 is an endogamous jewish clade, this particular individual purportedly autosomally characteristic of a Pole, the Y-DNA suggests a yid from my genetic line. Boy, did he wander off.

Found in Sweden, around 900 to 1050 ce.

Here's the abstract:

The Viking maritime expansion from Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) marks one of the swiftest and most far-flung cultural transformations in global history. During this time (c. 750 to 1050 CE), the Vikings reached most of western Eurasia, Greenland, and North America, and left a cultural legacy that persists till today. To understand the genetic structure and influence of the Viking expansion, we sequenced the genomes of 442 ancient humans from across Europe and Greenland ranging from the Bronze Age (c. 2400 BC) to the early Modern period (c. 1600 CE), with particular emphasis on the Viking Age. We find that the period preceding the Viking Age was accompanied by foreign gene flow into Scandinavia from the south and east: spreading from Denmark and eastern Sweden to the rest of Scandinavia. Despite the close linguistic similarities of modern Scandinavian languages, we observe genetic structure within Scandinavia, suggesting that regional population differences were already present 1,000 years ago. We find evidence for a majority of Danish Viking presence in England, Swedish Viking presence in the Baltic, and Norwegian Viking presence in Ireland, Iceland, and Greenland. Additionally, we see substantial foreign European ancestry entering Scandinavia during the Viking Age. We also find that several of the members of the only archaeologically well-attested Viking expedition were close family members. By comparing Viking Scandinavian genomes with present-day Scandinavian genomes, we find that pigmentation-associated loci have undergone strong population differentiation during the last millennia. Finally, we are able to trace the allele frequency dynamics of positively selected loci with unprecedented detail, including the lactase persistence allele and various alleles associated with the immune response. We conclude that the Viking diaspora was characterized by substantial foreign engagement: distinct Viking populations influenced the genomic makeup of different regions of Europe, while Scandinavia also experienced increased contact with the rest of the continent.

Sample   Y_haplogroup   Laboratory_ID   Country   MajorDivision   MinorDivision   Finer_age   AvgDepth(X)   Sex   mtDNA_haplogroup

VK474   E1b1b1b2a1a4   Gotland_Kopparsvik-137   Sweden   Gotland   Kopparsvik   900-1050 CE   1.591   Male   J1d

Maybe they needed a tailor? Maybe he came for the whitefish? I hear they also called him Eric the Kvetch. Studied talmud between plundering...

Mona

Marvin Joseph - Washington Post

Mona Charen is a conservative writer at National Review that wrote an excellent piece today, False Racism Accusations Don’t Excuse the Real Thing.

Every Republican who is reflexively defensive of Trump’s blatant nativism and racism should put him or herself in the shoes of immigrants and minorities. How can they not feel frightened when he is willing to stoke such ugly flames? How can they avoid remembering the Chinese Exclusion Act, the internment of Japanese Americans, and going back to pre–Civil War days, the repeated efforts to deport African Americans through colonization?
That is part of what Trump has dredged up. It seems that he is out to prove that there is no bottom to what Republicans will accept.

I rarely agree with Mona but I think she hits it out of the park here. Her opinion is both objective and courageous and I am sure she will be lambasted for it by those on the right. Liberals need to stop calling out everything as racist in such a kneejerk fashion and conservatives need to cop to it when it actually occurs.

Collateral Damage

Alexandra Dapolito Dunn

The EPA announced yesterday that it would not ban the poison chlorpyrifos, Trump administration won't ban pesticide tied to childhood brain damage.

I was bored last night. I read the entire report. It is a document riddled with twisting and wiggling, the administration doing everything possible not to honestly address the existing scientific studies and warnings regarding the pesticide. They kicked the can down the road a little ways.

I have written about chlorpyrifos several times before. Not going to rehash it. Study after study points to it being extremely damaging to childrens' nervous and endocrine systems. But Dow, now named Corteva, is a big contributor, what are you going to do?

I noticed that the announcement was signed by Alexandra Dapolito Dunn, Assistant Administrator, Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. I looked her up.

What do you know, the EPA administrator is not a scientist at all but was a lawyer and political scientist who was once counsel for the American Chemistry Council. What a shock! Bought and paid for, as they say...

El Chapo

Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, better known as El Chapo, is complaining that his accommodations in prison are inhumane. The President of Mexico agrees.

The powerful drug lord said incarceration was "physical, emotional and mental torture" and "the most inhumane situation I have lived in my entire life."

Guzman's legal team has filed requests for better prison conditions at the MCC, where he is kept in solitary confinement 23 hours a day in his 10 x 8 cell. His attorneys say that since he was brought to the US he has spent more than two years without any access to fresh air or natural light, adding that he must sleep with the light on in his cell, conditions that attorneys say are "psychologically scarring." He also asked for two hours of outdoor exercise a week. The judge denied Guzman's requests for improved prison conditions.

Now this is coming from a guy who used to personally shoot his drug couriers in the head if they were late.

He once offed a Roman Catholic Cardinal, Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo. In 2014 he claimed to have killed between two and three thousand people. During his trial witnesses said that he liked to murder people in creative ways — such as blowing them up with grenades or burying them alive.

According to his secretary, Guzman used a woman known only as “Comadre Maria” who sent Mr. Guzmán photographs of girls as young as 13 for him to choose from. For a $5,000 fee, Mr. Cifuentes said, the kingpin and members of his entourage had the girls brought into the mountains to rape them.

Mr. Guzmán considered the youngest of the girls to be “his vitamins” because raping them gave him “life,” according to court documents.

And he is complaining that the windows in his cell are too small and that he is psychologically scarred? Wow.

Sad and deep as you

Truths and half truths

My buddy Brett Stokes is having a show at Cafe des Artistes on Saturday. Bunch of new paintings. Mostly abstraction I think. Wish him well. Sell lots.

I asked him to send me a picture for the blog and he did. I am not sure if the iphone frame is part of the act or not.

Michael does an incredible job there with such a little kitchen. Some of the tastiest soups in town, always fabulous.

Cafe Primo / Espresso Lounge / Geds/ Brooktown, you know the place. It sold again. Going to get a new name, which is good, Brooktown seemed a little too hip hop to me.

I met the new owner and told her how bad the coffee was and she has quickly changed it for the better. Hope she can do something about the food, the morning stuff in the case is pretty inedible.

I thought Cuban would be tough in Fallbrook and frankly the entrees were skimpy. God, I miss Jim Tudor. Dude came in and made us s.o.s. (shit on a shingle) on New Year's Day...

Some say that talking about the best food in Fallbrook is like talking about the prettiest pig in the barnyard. But you can eat here pretty well if you pick your spots.

Scampi / Servianos / Village Inn is also rising from the ashes as La Cucina. Just what we need, another Mexican restaurant.  I miss Charlie and Brigitta's German apple pancakes. Maybe they need to paint it pink again?

postscript: Kathie Morris-Mathieu tells me, not Mexican, Italian. Great.

I talked to Robert from Le Bistro about eight months ago. Still alive, or was then. Another place I miss. Pork Normandy. Beef Wellington. And what a guy.

Can't even go into the old La Caseta any more, really bad last time I tried it.

Winchells is moving into the old Radio Shack. We have a great donut shop in Fallbrook, Donut Pantry near Major Market. Killer apple fritters and raisin rings. Winchells has to be nuts to want to compete with them. There is another donut shop too, near Don Vincents, used to have great macaroons. Haven't stopped there in years. Think we'd be better off with a Radio Shack.

I miss Aydees, the Guatemalan joint across from El Toro that moved to Vista. The replacement can't hold a tortilla to Robertitos. Which by the way, has the best fish taco deal in town. Better than Pedros and it's open all night.

Bruce Taylor told me that he had tortilla soup at El Jardin the other day that was incredible. I have to try it.

Delos has really invigorated the menu at Firehouse Que and Brew.

Leslie and I hardly ever go to 127 but we had an excellent fennel sausage pizza made by Faro the other night.

Still haven't made it back to Smalltown. Need to, want to support them.

New Yumi Sushi near Major is really good. I think the fish quality is superior to the other place in town. Now if they only sold Bimbimbap... So many Koreans around who have no problem pretending they are Japanese but won't serve Korean food, which I love...

Rosas is still my favorite Mexican food in town but they have really raised their prices significantly.

Dominicks is still purring like a top. His spaghetti and large meatball is not a bad way to go for lunch. Good deal. Some of the prettiest counter girls in town too.

Haven't hit Oink and Moo for a while. Jonesing for their gorgonzola stuffed pork chop.

Thai Thai is still great but Jennie is so busy opening new restaurants that we never see her anymore. Try the mango and sticky rice dessert sometime.

I hear that the purple building that housed El Meson may be reborn as a steak house. Cool, we could use one.

My current favorite sandwich in Fallbrook is Harry's grilled cheese with bacon and a fried egg on top.

I am addicted to the fresa paletas at El Toro. But what happened to the fried chicken drumettes?

Peanut butter stuffed deep fried jalapeños with raspberry dipping sauce at Pala Mesa still the most disgusting culinary offering in town.

Chris at Main St. Cafe had a birthday yesterday. Wish him well. I love that guy. 💕Try his gyros or beefeater sandwich. Exceptional. A place to see real Fallbrookians. Like Big Dave and Larry Sinclair. And Sue Price. Great breakfasts too.

Brunch wasn't as good as dinner at Finch in Wildomar.

Alex says that there is an amazing Banh Minh sandwich takeout on Oceanside and College with a bakery next door that makes the bread perfect.

Had a terrible tri tip sandwich at Phils in San Marcos. Don't waste your time.

Leslie and I both got sick at the same time on Northgate carnitas. Cuidado.

You newcomers probably don't know this but Fallbrook's nickname for many of us used to be Frogbutt. Would be a great name for a restaurant. This is my fortieth year here, but who's counting?

If you could have any new restaurant open in this town, what cuisine would you pick? I think a nice continental establishment like the Packing House or Grandmas would be a good addition. Not too trendy or progressive. Comfortable for all demographics. And if you say what or where it means you really haven't been here that long.

You think we have a homeless, indigent problem in Fallbrook? Try Temecula. I went to Valero to gas up the other night on the 79. Young people with tombstones in their eyes, as Steppenwolf once sang. ☠ Feral.  Souls extinguished. They are living right there in the creek. Scary. Make our street people here look like Salvation Army carolers.

Richie Furay

I saw yesterday that Richie Furay and Dave Mason are touring and playing in El Cajon in October. I really love both performers. I saw Richie play at the Buffalo Springfield reunion and he still sings and plays beautifully. It takes a lot for me to go see music but this might do it. They are also playing at the Fox Performing Arts Center in Riverside two days earlier. That might be just as cool.

Dave Mason and Richie Furay
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
8:00 PM  9:00 PM
The Magnolia Performing Arts Center
210 E Main St, El Cajon, CA 92020

I've been loving you too long

America and Trent

I bought an interesting painting this week, an older man was moving out of town and he just wanted to get rid of the thing. No longer had room for it in his life for some reason.

What I found intriguing was that it pictured a ship and a dirigible in the same painting. Not something you see every day.

The painting is in a beautiful original frame and there is a placard on the bottom that says America and Trent.

A few things struck me about the canvas. The owner told me that he had once had it restored and the work around the edges is truly awful. May have also been put on a new stretcher.

I need my ace restorer Gary Hulbert to take a look at it.

I love these early marine paintings because they open a little window to history. My mother was a history teacher for a time and I am always fascinated in the subject.

This one captures a rare moment of time, when man was attempting to travel and circumnavigate in airships prior to plane and jet travel.

Marine artists, especially in the era before photography was dominant, were very exact in their eye and attention to detail. They had to be, because they were essentially documentarians. This was painted before the major advent of impressionism, at least in America. Most good boat paintings from the era are representational and historically correct.

So back to the painting at hand. I don't know the artist but I have a scant clue or two. I will deal with that in a moment. Almost immaterial. It is what it is. Not by a major marine painter, a Buttersworth, Salmon or Jacobson so would not be a painting for the autograph hounds who are only interested in big names.

So what exactly does it depict? What were the America and Trent?

The America was the first airship to attempt an Atlantic crossing. It was piloted by two men, Walter Wellman and Melvin Vaniman, who helped comprise a crew of six. The dirigible left Atlantic City, New Jersey on October 15, 1910. The crew abandoned both the flight and the airship after 72 hours and were rescued by a passing steamship, the Trent.

Wellman (1858-1934) was a journalist and newspaper man from Nebraska. Previous to this incident he attempted three polar expeditions by land, in 1894, 1898, and 1899. He failed each time and decided to try with an airship that he had commissioned and built in France instead.

America being towed in Denmark after ill fated Polar try. 

Tried three times, but it didn't work. There was one problem after another. The ship was forced down on the last go after only forty miles.

He shipped the airship back to America on the freighter Oceanic and gave up on his dreams of getting to the pole. He would cross the Atlantic instead.

At a speed of 20 miles per hour it was expected that the airship could cross the Atlantic in six days, but just four hours after departure one of the ship’s two engines failed, likely due to the lack of a flywheel to dampen vibrations. The crew decided to proceed with just the remaining engine but additional problems soon became obvious; when the darkness of Saturday night fell it became apparent, for the first time, that the hydrogen airship’s engine threw significant sparks. Because the ship had been traveling through a thick fog the fabric of its envelope was wet, reducing the danger of fire, but the hazard was obvious.
America made reasonable progress for the first two days of its flight, eventually reaching a point northeast of Cape Cod by Sunday afternoon, but as the flight progressed it became necessary to jettison gasoline to reduce weight and when the cool air of Sunday night shrank the gas inside the envelope it became necessary to drop even more fuel, along with the damaged engine, just to stay aloft.
On Monday morning the hot sun warmed and expanded the airship, causing it to ruse. According to Wellman’s account, Vaniman accidentally valved air rather than hydrogen, causing the ship to rise even more rapidly to 3,000 feet, with the ultimate loss of 1/17th the ship’s hydrogen.
The wind then changed direction and strengthened, and with only one engine the airship was pushed southward, off course, toward a point south of where it had departed.
It became obvious that the flight could not be continued: Even if the airship survived the next day, when the cool air of Tuesday night contacted the airship’s hydrogen it would not be able to stay aloft.

Vaniman and Kiddo

They sent out a distress call on Monday night, the first radio distress call ever sent from an aircraft. They also used a Morse lamp to signal their duress.

On Tuesday they attracted the attention of a British steamer on its way to Bermuda from New York, the S.S. Trent. The Ship sent out a lifeboat and rescued the men and the ship's mascot and cat, Kiddo.

Explosion of the Akron

The aviator Vaniman (1866-1912) was also known as the "acrobatic photographer." Born in Illinois, he specialized in airborne panoramas. He unfortunately lost his life in the explosion of the airship Akron in 1912.

*
As I said, I am not sure of my painting's author. The frame and style lead me to believe that it was painted around the time of the crossing. The name I discern is Carr with another letter in front of it, possibly a J.

There is a Connecticut marine painter named J. Gordon Carr. But he didn't paint this well, wasn't born until 1907 and conjoined the J with the C on his signature. So this might remain a mystery.

A cool painting in any case, irrespective of the painter's identity and more importantly for me, a portal to the past that I was totally unfamiliar with. Perhaps it is new for you as well.

A request

You can start me up.

I had my titration study for my sleep apnea last night in Temecula. I showed up at 8:30. A girl leads you into a very nice and clean suite and starts attaching sensors all over you.

You get fitted with a variety of masks in hoping finding one that you can live with or at least sleep with.

I went through about five or six different ones in the course of the night.

They continually increase your oxygen level until you land in the safe zone. I evidently suffer from hypoxemia amongst other things.

It was a difficult night. I have allergies and got very congested with the nose breather.

Then I got very dry. The study assistant is on call for any noise in the room. Get this thing off me, I need water!

She adjusted the gear but I never found anything that really worked or that I think I could live with through the normal night.

They release you at five in the morning. I have a client coming in in twenty minutes to look at a painting so it has been a long day, a day that I have spent with an awful  lot of adhesive residue in my hair. Can't wait to get home and get a shower. And hopefully a decent night's sleep.

She said I was in deep rem sleep for much of the night and I should feel refreshed. I don't.

Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band

Birding San Luis Rey

I went out birding with Ken Weaver and four other birders including my friend Beth yesterday morning. Ken is one of the most expert birders around and a very nice man. He often helps me identify birds, as does Beth. A retired science teacher, he is both patient and helpful. It was an honor to be with him in his native element.

We birded the old and defunct San Luis Rey golf course property which is now owned by the County of San Diego. We met early in front of Major Market and piled into Ken's van. It was a gray morning, not real conducive to photography. I brought my slower zoom and it unfortunately needs light to operate.

I had wrenched my knee the day before trying to do something in my yard. While my knee felt okay on our excursion, due to compensation, my back was killing me. It got a little grueling in the end.

It was of course, lovely to be out in nature in the early morning, before things start to get really hot, which they eventually did on this four hour trek. Lots of nice oak, sycamore, cottonwood and riparian habitats.

All of the birders were far more expert than I. Beth and Ken have a remarkable auditory memory, they each know hundreds of bird calls and can quite easily identify an incredible number of species by sound and song. I can't begin to do that.

I was surprised how many birds we saw and heard, 54 species, according to Beth's Ebird report. Definitely helps to bird with the pros.

San Luis Rey River Park--Bonsall area, San Diego, California, US Jul 15, 2019 6:51 AM - 3:42 PM
Protocol: Traveling
2.8 mile(s)
54 species

Mallard  10
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)  13
Eurasian Collared-Dove  4
Mourning Dove  20
Anna's Hummingbird  3
Allen's Hummingbird  3
Virginia Rail  1
Great Egret  2
Snowy Egret  1
Cattle Egret  12
White-faced Ibis  4
Turkey Vulture  1
Cooper's Hawk  1
Red-shouldered Hawk  3
Red-tailed Hawk  3
Acorn Woodpecker  1
Nuttall's Woodpecker  8
Northern Flicker  2
American Kestrel  3
Pacific-slope Flycatcher  2
Black Phoebe  12
Vermilion Flycatcher  5
Ash-throated Flycatcher  3
Cassin's Kingbird  4
Bell's Vireo (Least)  6
Hutton's Vireo  1
California Scrub-Jay  1
American Crow  1
Common Raven  3
Northern Rough-winged Swallow  3
Cliff Swallow  25
Bushtit  10
White-breasted Nuthatch  4
House Wren  1
Bewick's Wren  5
Wrentit  4
Western Bluebird  19
Northern Mockingbird  10
European Starling  27
Phainopepla  3
House Finch  12
Lesser Goldfinch  14
Lark Sparrow  1
Song Sparrow  13
California Towhee  3
Spotted Towhee  2
Yellow-breasted Chat  4
Hooded Oriole  22
Red-winged Blackbird  21
Common Yellowthroat  10
Yellow Warbler  2
Black-headed Grosbeak  3
Blue Grosbeak  6
Scaly-breasted Munia  4

I am used to shooting with my big lens and forgot the lesser quality of the 600mm in less than optimal light. Hard to get focus. Lots of dumb operator error too.

Not very happy with my pictures. The avian highlights for me were the vermilion flycatcher and the blue grosbeak. Lots of hooded orioles around but they have been everywhere this year.

Here's a few pictures of our excursion. Thanks to Beth and Ken for inviting me. Hope to go out again.