Fortune Favors The Bold

David Wilson

2012-02-13T12:01:00.000-08:00

I saw this drawing of a hillside in Northern California by David Wilson in a glossy, nicely designed local magazine called First Person. He takes my three favorite things (landscape, found paper and drawing) and creates these lovely portraits of the local hillsides and seashores, elegantly solving the problem of scaling such an expanse on one sheet of paper by fastening together paper record album sleeves or the pages of moleskin sketchbooks. He does the drawings on location over a series of days, weeks and months, resulting in creases, water stains and and yellowed edges which only add to the feeling that these are well worn maps of a beloved countryside.

art:21 blog has a great 2 part interview with him you can read here andhere

Grains of Sand

2012-01-29T05:00:00.000-08:00

These delicate breathtaking images are individual grains of sand photographed by artist and inventor, Dr. Gary Greenberg. Using acupuncture needles, Professor Greenberg searches through thousands of grains to find the best specimens. He then carefully arranges and photographs them at over 250 times original size, not just once, but over and over from many angles and points of focus and where they are finally combined using software to produce the images you see here. Each miniature particle is revealed to be fragments of shells and crystals, bits of volcanic rock and gem like minerals, coral fragments all washed and tumbled down to sea by rivers and streams.

Dr. Gary Greenberg lives and works in Haiku, Hawaii. He invented a high-definition three-dimensional light microscope with which he takes photos of sand grains, flowers and food,

His website contains many more images as well as links for where to purchase his books.

Fear Typology

2012-01-27T05:00:00.000-08:00

Los Angeles based illustrator Brian Rea

found him at we love typology and originally found at FastCompany

Captured: America in Color from 1939-1943 – Plog Photo Blog

2012-01-25T05:00:00.000-08:00

In July of 2010 the Denver Post shared these photos on their photo blog. I think the power these photos have over me is the color. I'm used to seeing pre '60's historical photos in black and white. These color photos make that time more real for me and I appreciate that the Denver Post has left them up for me to go back and admire over the years. There is a book available from the exhibit and as soon as I rustle up a hundred bucks I am going to add this treasure to my collection.

Russell Lee and Jack Delano were the main photographers, and at the time worked for the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information The locations of the photos range from New Mexico to Texas to Massachusetts to Maine and "are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations. The photographs and captions are the property of the Library of Congress and were included in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color."

see more at Captured: America in Color from 1939-1943

Todd Freeman

2012-01-23T05:00:00.000-08:00

Todd Freeman, a printmaker based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, references natural history manuals and museum dioramas, hydrological and geological survey maps from previous centuries, nets, traps and snares, taxonomy engravings and etchings, and of course, the paranormal!
more at his flickr page

Sretan Bor

2012-01-21T18:17:00.000-08:00

Sretan Bor aka Mario Kolaric, an illustrator working out of Croatia, using just simple lines and a few bright colors creates rich, atmospheric worlds and the creatures that inhabit them. If this is not enough you can immerse yourself in more of his work on his flickr page

Bailey White

2011-12-01T21:10:00.001-08:00

I miss living in the south, except for the fact that it is impossible to find bagels or fresh baked bread in the store and that talk of Jesus is more frequent than I like. And listening to Bailey White and her beautiful voice telling stories of small towns and little old ladies getting stuck in their backyards when they fall and can't get up, making the best of it by watching the beautiful harvest moon all night long...well, it makes me want to move back home.

Hear Bailey's lovely Southern voice reading her story here on NPR. Or read the transcript below.

An original story for Thanksgiving called "A Kind of Love" by Bailey White.

It was midnight on the first of day of fall, a moonlit night. On the little lawn in the backyard of a ramshackle house on Crawford Street, two old ladies lay flat on their backs, looking up at the full harvest moon. They'd been lying there for five hours. They couldn't get up. The older of the two ladies, Belle, had slipped going out to get the laundry off the line. She had called her sister Daisy for help. And while trying to pull Belle up, Daisy fell down. They weren't hurt, they just couldn't get up.

For the first few hours, they'd tried all sorts of things. Get up like a cow, Belle said, bottom first. So they stuck their bottoms up in the air. But then what? There was nothing to grab onto. Daisy tried walking her hands up Belle's back and then tottering to stand, but it wasn't enough. Her legs wouldn't raise her up. Belle tried holding herself up by a sheet on the clothesline but the clothes pins turned loose.

About dusk, their discomfort rose above their pride and they thought about calling for help. But their neighborhood was not what it used to be. What if the people from Ethel van Landingham's house come to help? Daisy asked. Ethel van Landingham had died years ago. Her house had been sold and was now rented out as a duplex. People came and went at all hours, and cars pulled in and out all day and night, parking every which way on what used to be Ethel van Landingham's nice lawn.
So they did not call for help. Without saying anything about it, after dark, they began to whisper. I know what, said Daisy. In the morning, when we hear Clyde rattle the mailbox door, we'll both call out as loud as we can. Having a plan made them able to relax. About 9:00, the moon came up from behind the (unintelligible) hedge. It was a special moon, they've read in the newspaper, the full harvest moon on the first day of fall. It would be 19 years before that happened again. We'll never see this moon again, said Daisy.

They dozed off and woke up about midnight. The moon was high in the sky. They almost had to squint. We can read by this moon, said Daisy. If we had something to read, said Belle. About 4:00 in the morning, they woke up damp and cold. Belle remembered the sheet on the line and they pulled it over them. The smell of that clean sheet took Daisy back to what seems like long ago, almost a different life, the life they've had before they fell down in the backyard. And in a way, that was true, because their lives did change forever after that moonlit night.

But what if it happens again, said Monica. It was two days later. Belle and Daisy had told the whole story, first to the mailman then to the butcher at the RGA(ph) then to Mr. Rice at the bird seed store. They love telling it and they were good at it, each one adding her own little details. Now, they were telling it to their niece, Monica, who had come for her Wednesday afternoon tea. We lay out there so long, the lizard started crawling over us, said Belle. The moon was absolutely gorgeous, said Daisy. Lucky we didn't land in the far ant bed, said Belle.

They didn't tell the bad parts. The way they would lie so still when the car lights from Ethel van Landingham's house swept across the yard. Daisy didn't say that she'd almost cried. Belle didn't tell about the sharp pain in her hip that she still felt twinges of a week later. They didn't tell about the helpless desperation they had felt before they remembered that the mailman would come as usual at 10:00. The look on Clyde's face, said Belle. I've never been so glad to see anybody in my life, said Daisy.

But Monica was horrified. She'd been a fool all these months, years. These little old aunts had tricked her with their sturdy rituals and unvarying habits: Fresh biscuits every Monday for biscuit toast; with Wednesday, tea. Every September, crab apple jelly; every other week, turning the fern. Belle's weekly apple, Daisy's spring flower bed.

She'd been lulled into thinking that everything would always stay the same as it always had been. They had been like magicians putting on an act, and she like an innocent child who had just been watching the show. Now, she's gotten a peek behind the screen. It could have been worse, she said, much worse. Something will have to be done, she thought, and she went to work on it right away.
Within a week, Belle and Daisy had been to three doctors. Their teeth were scraped, their bellies prodded, their ears poked into, air was puffed at their eyes, Belle was fitted with a hearing aid, and several skin cancers were burned off Daisy. A carpenter came and built a ramp and a railing right through the (unintelligible) branches. And a man from Plantation Security crept around the edges of the house wiring the windows for an alarm system.

Monica came not just on Wednesday, when she was invited for tea, but every day - hallooing from the front door and going in and out of rooms that have been closed off for years. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? A little voice screeched from the lifeline. And you have violated a protected area, a manly voiced boomed from the burglar alarm. Even on the dark of the moon, their room was lit up by the eerie blue glow of the cell phone on its charger.
Is this fern water day, asked Daisy on Thursday. For years there had been a leak in the kitchen sink trap. And in five days, exactly the right amount of water dripped into the coffee can under the drain to water the fern. But Monica had plumbers all over the house. And there was no more fern water. I can't even remember fern water day, said Belle.

In the backyard, crab apple started to fall. Daisy got out the jelly pot and scalded the jars, but the carpenter had torn the steps off. And before the ramp was finished, crab apples were rotting under the tree with yellow jackets swarming over them. What we will give away at Christmas, asked Daisy.
The pain in Belle's hip got worse. It would catch her up at unexpected moments. Monica took away her dragon-headed walking stick with the little ruby eyes and brought her an aluminum walker with wheels and a basket. It got to be too much to make biscuits on Monday.

And one day, Belle, looking out the window down Crawford Street, said, as soon as mother gets here, we'll ride out to see (unintelligible). After a few minutes, she came back to her senses. But every day or so, it would happen again. Johnny will be here at noon - when Johnny had been dead for 30 years.
One day, she looked out the window and her whole face lit up. Oh, Daisy, look at the white pearls, she said. But white pearls were a daffodil that blooms in March, and it was October. When it happened in front of Monica, Daisy tried to cover for Belle. That's just her way of remembering things from long ago, said Daisy.

But Monica went to work. And the next week, she showed up on the front porch with a cute little fat young woman. She's going to stay with you for a while, said Monica, just to help out with things. This is Daisy, she said to the young woman. And Belle is the older sister, she added blinking significantly.

They began hauling bags and boxes into the old, unused middle room, what had been called the box room. Monica cleared it out, put up a bed and had the sink hooked back up. Daisy and Belle watched as they brought in a bag of kitty litter and a puffy dog bed. Would you like, said Daisy, could we? But there was nothing they could do to help.

Now, I want you to meet my family, said the woman. And one by one she brought animals into the house. A tailless white cat, a little beagle hound and a flying squirrel in a birdcage. Up the steps, across the porch, through the front door and into the house they came. She set the bird cage on a chair and dropped a dog bed in the corner.

Now, said the young woman brightly - she sat down on the dog crate and slapped her knees with delight - let's get to know each other. She introduced the animals first, then herself, Audrey. She was a student at the vocational school in geriatric studies with a specialty in pet therapy.
It's incredible what daily interaction with animals can do for geriatric welfare, she said. From the litter box, they heard a rhythmic scrunch, scrunch.

Audrey was fun to look at. She had bright little chinkapin(ph) eyes, a tiny, insignificant nose and a busy mouth. Her hair was a mess, the parting as crooked as if she'd done it with a rake, with lots of little glitter and grabbers snarled up in it.

Her clothes were all the wrong size: too long, too short, too tight. A ruffled shirt tail hung out from under a little sweater that seemed to bind under her arms. Tiny gold slippers clung to the edges of her cute, little feet.

She had started talking about dietary needs, and Daisy tried to listen, but she saw Belle begin to fidget, and she worried that Belle might reach out and tweak up the rucked-up sweater down over a fat little hip.

Now this is a hazard, Audrey said, poking at the curled-up corner of the rug. Then she briskly switched herself all over the house, looking into every room.

If I'd only known, Daisy thought, I would have straightened up, and sure enough, Audrey's bright, little eyes didn't miss a thing. This is not the best way, she sang out from the kitchen, throwing open cupboard doors. Lots of room for improvement. That's what I'm here for. Do you have trouble getting up off the toilet?

Who is that girl, Belle asked? Is that Henry's child? Audrey was a hard worker. She never slowed down. In just one day, she installed pull-out shelves in the kitchen, a grab-bar by the bathtub and a raised toilet seat. She flattened out the rug corner and put a non-slip plastic mat over it. She threw out all the salty food and stocked the kitchen with cartoons of Boost. She was always cheerful and friendly.

Belle and Daisy quickly got used to it. Everything became so easy. Daisy's hand went right to the grab-bar, as if it had always been there, and there were no more awkward struggles in the bathroom. The new toilet seat seemed like a gracious hostess, welcoming her and making departure so graceful.
Cool weather came, but there was no need to worry. Audrey saw to the furnace. Leaves piled up on the new ramp, but they never had to go out to the clothesline. Audrey sent the laundry out and brought it back dried and folded.

Monica came to see them, but they had not made biscuits and couldn't offer her tea. She didn't seem to expect it. She looked around at everything. I'm so relieved, she said.

Audrey was right about another thing, too: The animals were a delight. After just a few days, the beagle hound took to Daisy. It woke her up every morning, poking its nose at the bedcovers. When she sat up, it would tear around the house, overcome with delight at the sight of her and then dash back and slide to sit at her feet, crooning with joy.

Daisy stroked its velvet ears, and it would skootch closer to sit right on her slippered feet and lean against her legs. Audrey declared that petting an animal lowered blood pressure, and Daisy did feel a lazy peace steal over her, gazing into the dog's adoring, yellow eyes.

Belle loved the flying squirrel. She would hold it in her lap for hours, stroking its fur with her thumb and curling its toes over her finger. It was the sweetest little sleeper, rolled up in a ball with its head tucked under its tail.

The fur on its belly was a beautiful, rosy tan, the softest thing in the world, its webbed flap scalloping along the edge. Sometimes Belle would tuck it under her chin, a nest of warmth, and sometimes she'd cup her hands full of flying squirrel under her nose. It smelled like pine mast and sweetgum leaves, like her Uncle Henry used to smell, coming in from the woods.

Sometimes Belle would sit too long, enthralled to the flying squirrel, and Audrey would have to coax her up to go to the bathroom or take a stretch. Put that squirrel down, Miss Belle. You're going to stiffen up, Audrey said.

But Belle was always in a hurry to get back to her rocking chair and scoot the little thing out of its leafy nest and onto her lap. You just never know, Audrey said to Monica. Some people think the squirrel is just like a rat and loves a cat. I've seen them go all moony over a goldfish. But Miss Belle just took to that flying squirrel. Come on, Miss Belle, get up. Come see Monica.

Monica could not be more pleased. I never worry now, she said. Look at Belle, she said to Daisy. She's just blissful.

But Daisy noticed other things. It was hard to get Belle to talk or pay attention. She didn't take an interest in any of the daily and seasonal rituals of their lives. Let's dust off the Eisenhower turkey, Daisy said in Thanksgiving week. This was an old, stuffed turkey they got out and stood up on a special pedestal on the half-round table in the hall for Thanksgiving. It was a fine specimen of a turkey, with iridescent feathers and a magnificent beard their uncle Henry had shot in the 1950s, when President Eisenhower had visited.

The Eisenhower turkey always meant so much, the sure end of hot weather, the beginning of a new season, the bustle of the holidays. After the Eisenhower turkey came the Christmas parade, right down Crawford Street. Belle and Daisy always sat on the front porch and waved.

But Belle wasn't interested in the Eisenhower turkey. She didn't care about what they had in the pantry, how they could fix it and what they would serve it on. She was happy to sit in a rocking chair with the flying squirrel and slurp Boost out of a red, plastic bottle.

It was hard to get the flying squirrel away from her. Now Miss Belle, Audrey would say at bedtime, squatting in front of the chair. She would quickly sneak the flying squirrel into its cage and help Belle to the bathroom and then to bed.

But there was no bedtime for that flying squirrel. At nighttime, it turned into a different creature. At first dark, its eyes popped open round and wide, and it went wild, shoving off from one side of its cage and bouncing off the other, scrambling and scampering all night long.
Miss Belle just loved that squirrel, Audrey said. But what kind of love is that, Daisy wondered, lying awake at night listening to the frantic flying squirrel in the box room and Belle's peaceful snoring beside her?

One night, Daisy woke up after midnight. It's Thanksgiving, she said. And without thinking about it, she got up out of bed and turned the flying squirrel loose. She just slid open the wire door of its cage and stood back.

The flying squirrel made three dashes around the cage and then darted out. He scampered across the floor, up to the top of the curtain, and without a pause, he soared, his little scalloped flaps spread tight, across the room and landed on the transom of the opposite door.

From there, he soared again, all the way down the long hall to the transom of the kitchen door, then back again. He flew and flew. It was just gliding, Daisy knew that, but the grace and joy of it gave it all the glory of flight.

Daisy went back to bed peaceful. She knew its habits. At daybreak, it would go to sleep somewhere. She would find it and put it back in its cage. Audrey need never know about this night of Thanksgiving.

It was cold the morning of Thanksgiving Day. Daisy got up at sunrise, and in her furry slippers, she padded through every room. She looked behind the refrigerator, under the beds, behind the sofa. She shook the curtains and the cushions. At seven, she heard Audrey's alarm clock, the stomp of her little feet, the flush, running water, then a scream and wailing. Oh, oh.

The door flew open, and there stood Audrey. Behind her, Daisy saw on her tumbled bed, the white cat licking down its legs with long, vigorous strokes, and on Audrey's pillow, the little, flat tail of the flying squirrel. I just wanted it to have a chance to fly, said Daisy.

Thanksgiving was a miserable day. Audrey sat Belle in a rocking and dropped a fleece (unintelligible) from MacDonald's in her lap. But Belle ignored it, and it got lost behind a cushion. Audrey had fixed Thanksgiving dinner and served it on paper plates. They sat together at the dining room table, dutifully chewing and swallowing dry turkey from the grocery store deli. Nobody said a word all day.
Daisy's only comfort was the little beagle hound. He didn't leave her side but leaned up against her and gazed up at her with his little, worried face.

As soon as it was dark, Audrey put Belle to bed, turned on the nightlight in the bathroom, and as soon as Daisy was in bed, she stood in the doorway and made a speech.
She said: It's not healthy to keep feelings pent up inside. So I'll just say I'm hurt and very, very angry. Then she walked stiffly to her room and closed the door.

Daisy couldn't sleep. The whole inside of the house seemed to press on her. Finally, she got up and put on her robe. From the high closet shelf, she pulled down the eiderdown quilt and a heavy wool blanket. She woke Belle up and took her to the bathroom. Together, they crept down the dark hall, out the back door, down the ramp and into the yard.

The moon was past full, but the stars were bright. Daisy spread the blanket out on the lawn. She helped Belle lie down on it and then lay down beside her. She pulled the quilt over them, and they lay on their backs, looking up at the night sky.

I think that's Orion, said Daisy. I think it is, too, said Belle.

grids

2011-03-06T13:52:00.000-08:00

"Designed by Thomas Gaskin. Creative direction by Hugh Dubberly. Algorithms by Patrick Kessler. Patent belongs to William Drenttel + Jessica Helfand.
This poster illustrates a change in design practice. Computation-based design—that is, the use of algorithms to compute options—is becoming more practical and more common. Design tools are becoming more computation-based; designers are working more closely with programmers; and designers are taking up programming ..."

Amazing and unusual places in Google Earth

2011-03-05T06:36:00.000-08:00

AirTraffic Worldwide

2011-03-04T06:45:00.000-08:00

Citizens of the World

2011-02-12T11:54:00.000-08:00

I came home for running some errands yesterday afternoon and began emptying out the front seat of my truck of all of the miscellaneous hardware and personal mail and other bits I had gathered during the day. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a young Mission hipster couple walking on the sidewalk towards me a few houses away. My dead end street has a pretty spectacular view of the East Bay, Mission, Bay Bridge and downtown San Francisco so there are often many people out for a stroll enjoying the sights and then usually wandering down a block to the park to join their friends. I thought nothing of it and continued loading crap into my arms to carry inside. That is, until I heard a loud cracking and snapping sound which made me look up in alarm.

At first, I could not quite figure out what the sound was and then I saw the woman standing in my elderly neighbor's tiny little flowery weed patch out in front of the house. She had her arm buried shoulder deep in the Meyer lemon tree and the cracking sound was a branch heavy with fruit snapping off in her hands. Admittedly, the tree is about 2 inches from the sidewalk and the fruit was covering every square inch in a very tantalizing manner. But to stride through a stranger's flower garden crushing the plants below to break off a large branch of a tree to get to fruit that does not belong to you seemed like more than just innocent enjoyment of nature. And beyond trespassing. It pissed me off so quickly and thoroughly before I really had a chance to think things out, I called out to her. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Startled, she whirled around and in a move I have seen guilty teenagers and drug users employ when caught red-handed with the goods, stared straight at me and quickly threw the branch behind her and back into the crushed flowers as if nothing had ever happened.

She stood there frozen in her little black hipster outfit, 500 dollar skinny black jeans and 500 dollar haircut caught stealing fruit from an old lady and not sure what to do or what was about to happen to her. I took the opportunity to continued on with my speech. "Those lemons belong to a little old lady. She planted that tree and comes out every morning to pick one to use in her tea. She gives them to her grandchildren and neighbors as gifts. And now you are breaking off half the tree so you can have some of her lemons. I am pretty sure she did not plant that tree for you to walk by today and fuck it up. What's the MATTER with you?"

Unimpressed with my moving story and no longer afraid of me she continued to stare, her expression shifting from embarrassment to anger and defiance. Her boyfriend stood there unaffected and chewing on an apple looking back and forth between her and me. I could see that all she wanted was for me to go away and let her move on but I was not going to just let it slide. She was going to have to walk past me and listen to me for a little bit in order to get to the park and tell the story to her other hipster friends waiting on blankets in their skinny jeans ironically sipping PBRs.

Realizing this, she stiffly began walking down the sidewalk, her boyfriend following meekly not making eye contact with anything but his apple. As she drew closer, in her hand I could see one remaining lemon she was planning on taking home.

I continued to stare at her and then at the lemon and back at her waiting for some kind of apology or some sign that she was sorry or perhaps even human.

"It's just one lousy lemon. I DOUBT she'll even miss it, " she said in a snotty voice, glaring at me with a hatred that nearly singed my eyebrows right off.

And that is when I blew my gasket.

My hands shook, I felt the blood rush up my neck and into my temples, heart pounding. My mouth opened and out poured the grumpy old man speech that had been simmering in there for decades and just now found a proper target. "See, the thing is, it's NOT just one lousy lemon. You know how many people walk past here and want a lemon off this tree every single fucking day? If they all took one she'd have no lemons. It's people like you that make this world a shitty place to live in. You walk around thinking that you can have anything you want. You see it and want it, so you just walk up and fucking take it like the whole world owes you this free fucking ride. No respect for anyone, just greedy spoiled brats taking it all for themselves. It's not one lousy lemon. It's your fucking attitude. You just fucking wanted it. So you took it. And when someone calls you on it you rear up with that ugly mean face and act so surprised and indignant that someone actually has the audacity to tell you you can't have it. How about being polite and asking? Or maybe BUYING a lemon at the store. Or maybe planting your own god damned tree, planting it a pot in your fucking loft. Fucking spoiled brats walking around taking what they want and never lifting a finger...pathetic. And it wrecks it for the rest of us who have to live with you."

And then my final statement I wish I could retract. "Totally. Not. Cool."

By this time they were well on their way down the sidewalk laughing and mocking the uptight old guy who guards the little old lady's lemon tree with talk of politeness and community spirit and being a good neighbor and world citizen. They probably had not changed. The world was still the same. And I was well on my way to having my first heart attack.

Little People Bowling

2010-12-19T18:17:00.000-08:00

I'm in the middle of a chicken coop building project so all I am doing right now is talking chickens. My dad spent the first 13 or so years of his life on a farm in Iowa in the 40's so he had some chicken advice for me. He got so excited that I was interested in something he has experience with he even called his brother who still lives in Iowa, though he no longer has chickens, to get some more detailed information since Joe is older than him and would remember better.

He gave me some good stuff, how to feed them, what diseases to watch out for, how to make them into soup when they stop laying. He hates talking on the phone but he was on fire about this topic so I was glad we were having some nice father son phone time. One of the points was to build the hen house so it is easy to get in to clean it out and retrieve the eggs. Since I am not building a giant hen house, mine is not going to be set up so you can walk in, as he and his brother suggested. I told him mine would be about 4 feet tall, wide and long so no way could I stand in it. He paused for a moment and I could hear the gears turning in his head. Then he started chuckling and told me I could hire some little people to get in there and clean it for me. I had just mentioned that the little French kids next door were going to be helping with the chickens so I thought he was talking about them and agreed heartily that some little people would really come in handy for that job. But this being my Dad, no way was it going to be something so innocuous as the neighbor children.

"Oh, I'm awful", he said, laughing in that way he does when he says something off color, knows it perfectly well, but wants you to overlook it and laugh along with him at his naughty un-PC joke. And sometimes I can't help but laugh because his laugh is infectious and what he says out loud is so horrifying I can't help myself. More often I lose my temper with him for being insensitive or racist or homophobic or whatever, and then I start to see red. And then we start yelling at each other. And then mom has to intervene. It is a dangerous game, talking to my Dad.

"Oh, that reminds me of a bar I used to go to in downtown Milwaukee where they had this event on Friday nights called Little People Bowling." Now I am realizing he is not talking about the neighbor kids but it is too late, he is off and running with his story and there is no turning back now. God knows where this is going to go.

"I asked your cousin, Nora, about it but she says she's never heard of a bar like that so they must not do it anymore."

"I would think not," I say under my breath. And then take in a deep breath to prepare myself for the worst, all the while imagining my poor cousin, Nora, politely listening to my Dad tell a story about bowling with midgets at some family gathering.

"It was an Irish bar somewhere near Marquette University, you know, where Nora went to school."

"Right," I say, being as noncommittal as possible in case I am later implicated in what could turn out to be a terrible family story.

"On the weekend," he continues, "a group of little people would show up and you could just grab one and pitch him down an alley at some pins they had set up at the other end of the bar." He pauses for effect and then says with a flourish, "Bowling with Little People!"

"WHAT?! I say my voice sliding up an octave.

"Well, for a FEE," he clarified. "It wasn't free. I mean, you had to pay the guys." The tone of his voice implies he is hurt his son would think he such a jerk as to bowl a person down a bar floor without first compensating him with cash. His laughter implies I have stepped right into it.

"Wait, Dad, you are telling me you used to pick up little people, pay them money and then throw them at bowling pins for fun?"

"Well, they had on helmets," he said in his defense. "And they wore some leather thing that was like a handle on their back so we could pick them up easier. So...Yeah." He is now giggling but trying to maintain legitimacy.

I take the bait.

"Helmets. And a handle. On a person. That you paid. To throw across a bar at bowling pins."

"Honest to God truth," he says, which throws the whole story into doubt. "Before the cops put a stop to it, that is. I mean, no one got hurt," he assures me. "Those little people...they made out!" he exclaims, "they took that money, said thank you very much, put it in their pocket and went home to wash off the vegetable oil."

Pause.

"The vegetable oil?"

See, this is the thing about his stories. There is the initial hook introduced as a tangent to whatever conversation you think you were having with him. Then there is a juicy piece of information that leaves you wanting more detail but afraid to ask since you have been down this road with him before. Lots of pauses, build-ups, reveals and deadpan clarifications of ridiculous situations and then the final hook before he drops the punchline, in this case, the vegetable oil remark, casually revealed without fanfare. And finally, the realization that you have been set up from well before the moment you thought the story started.

Now he is actually laughing in a way that sounds like "Hee hee hee hee hee." I can imagine his shoulders shrugging up and down around his neck and his eyes filling with tears as he cracks himself up at the thought of bowling a small man dressed in a leather bowling ball outfit across a barroom floor oiled with vegetable oil...for a small fee. It is at this point I realize the apple did not fall very far from the tree.

Ginger blooming and the view from my house

2010-09-05T20:20:00.000-07:00

Scary text photo

2010-08-31T20:09:00.000-07:00

So I get this text from an unknown number and my first thought is that my adorable nephew has been abducted and this is the ransom picture. Because I go to the dark place right away sometimes.

Trying to keep it cool I call my brother and ask how things are. And he says, "Did you get my text?"

"Yes! What the hell?"

"Four words," he says, "Dancing in the shower."

Helpful Neighbors

2010-07-20T17:25:00.000-07:00

I found a little red Volvo parked in front of my house today taking up two spots. Parking is at a premium in this city and those who take up two spots are not viewed kindly. I am pretty territorial about the spot in front of my house since my truck is 20 feet long and it is really one of the only places I can park it on my street. But I also am realistic. It's not really MY spot. Everyone who lives on this block has THEIR spot and we all respect that but strangers from outside the bubble of the 4000 block of 20th Street don't know about these neighborly agreements. Well, they know, since on their blocks they have neighborly agreements of their own, but here, on another block it is easier to pretend like street parking is a free for all.

I walked around the car and tried to figure out who it belonged to. Iowa license plates. Aha. Out of town. They for sure have no idea about parking in a city. A city of steep hills. I put my irritation in check and noticed that they had not curbed their wheels. For those of you who live in the flatter areas of the country, curbing your wheels on hills is a safety precaution. You turn your wheels to aim to the driver's side of the car and away from the curb on an uphill spot and to the passenger side and into the curb if you are facing downhill. That way if your brakes give out or you somehow forget to put the emergency brake on your car will not roll away and crash into another car, person, tree or house.

The city gives pretty hefty parking tickets if you do not curb your wheels on even the gentlest of slopes. This poor Iowan was gonna get one.

I had a ton of groceries and other crap to carry into my house so on the first trip I stopped at my desk and composed a helpful passive aggressive note to slip under their windshield complete with diagrams and advice and a smiley face at the bottom.

When I got out there to put it under the windshield someone walking by had already left them a much more elegant and to the point message.

I hope they put them in their scrapbook along with their muni tickets and Alcatraz passes and family photos on the fogged in Golden Gate Bridge. And I hope one day I might find the author of the other note because I want to hire them as my editor.

Pyramid of Capitalist System

2010-07-13T18:51:00.001-07:00

Pyramid of Capitalist System, originally uploaded by A Journey Round My Skull.

best personal ad EVER

2010-03-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

Now Accepting Applications!!

20-30 henchmen needed for moderately-sized supervillain organization with large expansion potential (fortresses built into geological structures, corruption of government officials, possible genesis of 'nemesis' vigilante). Electrical theme.

Applicants must be willing to learn new skills, including but not limited to operation of specialized 'lightning guns'. Applicants will also be required to wear specialized uniform when at work (functional rubber suits with my logo on front), except in cases where deception is required (posing as hostages in order to ambush vigilantes, etc).

Desired (but not necessarily required) in applicants:

-interesting deformations/obsessions/powers(?) giving rise to interesting nicknames (e.g. Claws, Pyro, Buzzsaw, and similar)
-unwavering loyalty
-being a corruptible government official
-ability to work as part of a close-knit team (unless interesting obsession is of the 'lone wolf' variety)
-grudge against any well-known vigilante
-flexible moral code

Equal opportunities employer. Both henchmen and femmes fatales absolutely welcome.

Great promotion opportunities - right-hand-man position constantly being unexpectedly opened. Would look good on any future supervillain resume/CV.

Send an email with details of any prior henchman work, or details of what is driving you to join the ranks of a supervillian organization. Will reply to all serious applicants. Hope to hear from you, and with luck, welcome you into a rewarding and promising career!

***********************************************************
age: √40 = √4 X 10 = √4 X √10 = 2√10 (that's like, DEAD in gay years!)
5'11 (in heels)
185 (after a week of starvation and several blood draws)
Non-Smoker (unless I'm on fire)
Brown/blue (blue hair, brown eyes?)
Top (unless you're extraordinarily rich, REALLY cute and have a teeny-tiny weenier that doesn't hurt..then we can negotiate...maybe..if I'm drunk)
Not quite a bear...not quite a cub...I must be a curb!

Spring has Sprung

2010-03-13T07:56:00.000-08:00

via Cute Overload

Poets Ranked by Beard Weight

2010-02-15T05:23:00.000-08:00

I cannot get away from this site, Journey Round My Skull and hope you also enjoy this post on such a very important topic.

"Poets Ranked by Beard Weight is the centerpiece of Underwood's estimable, if fetish-fueled treatise on pogonology, or the study of whiskers and associated lore. First published in England on the eve of The Great War, this quaint publication takes the reader on a fascinating excursion through such topics as False Beards, Merkins, and Capillamenta (chin wigs); Effusions of the Scalp and Face; Celebrated Chaetognaths (chaetognathous = hairy-jawed); and even includes an affectionate mini-essay about the wooly mammoth! Poets Ranked by Beard Weight forms a special section devoted to bewhiskered bards."

Happy Valentine's Day

2010-02-14T10:56:00.000-08:00

I made this Valentine last week in a Gocco printer class.

I have a bunch of them but I have already missed the

New Year's Letter window and now Valentine's Day is here,

so I guess I will send them out next year.

A friend of mine used to make me funny cards when we were younger.

I saved all of them. I loved this one.

Note scary face on redhot mushroom cloud.

I made this Valentine in 1997. It is called "Looking For Love"

I made this Red Hot Mama at the same time.

I had a friend who worked at Kinko's

and if I showed up after the manager went home

she let me make an infinity of color copies.

This one is from a sew on patch.

I just copied it. It is called "Sometimes Love is Messy."

Another friend always sends me lovely Valentine's cards.

This one is a photo of a hand beaded Haitian Vodun flag
that invokes Erzulie Freda,

the Haitian spirit of love and beauty.

One of my favorite commercially made cards.

I think it is from a company called Pomegranate Press.

Yummy falling pinwheels.

A lovely screen printed flaming heart.

Oh, Mishka.

I made this Valentine in honor of one of

the most loving and annoying cats I ever lived with.

It is called "Demand Love."

Meh.

Last year I took a short letterpress class.

We collectively made a series of Valentines.

The "I chicken You" was a very popular design.

I did not think and of the ladies in the class

would have a weird enough sense of humor to go for it,

but I was delightfully surprised.

Bing Maps: New Spatial Streetside Photos w/ Flickr

2010-02-12T20:25:00.001-08:00

Welcome to the World of the Future

Your business card is CRAP!

2010-02-12T16:26:00.001-08:00

Gocco Valentine Class

2010-02-10T12:48:00.000-08:00

Look what I made!!!!!! Success!
Great teacher, fun students. One of them gave me a sewing machine for free, though I think she wanted a date out of it. I deftly sidestepped that matter by not leaving my contact info when I picked it up from the lobby of her apartment. I did leave a very nice thank you note and a jar of honey so I am not all bad.

I found a Gocco printer on Craigslist and met a nice guy in Palo Alto who offered to help me with any screen printing questions I have later. He likes silk screening better than the gocco. Plus it is no longer made and the supplies are hard to come by. I got some bulbs and inks online and hope to crank out some nice stuff over the next few months.

Letterpress

2010-02-08T06:00:00.000-08:00

My gay uncle runs a metal sign stamping company in Chicago. We used to go there as kids and play with all the logos and letters and probably mess it all up for his employees. He had a cool loft above the shop where he lived. Ultimate bachelor pad with 70's waterbed with silver shiny sheets, lava lamps, black light posters of stallions and naked beefcakes on a deck of playing cards stuffed into the headboard along with some racy porn mags. We were scandalized and electrified when we found those and knew better than to tell mom about it when we got home or she would never let us hang out at his shop again. But back to the presses. Now his shop is all computerized. He gave me a bunch of the stamps when they were getting rid of all those old machines and the trays of fonts and stamps that went with them. I hope some artist or school got them.

I love the look of letterpress cards and broadsides and figured I could get a closer look by taking an intro letterpress "make your own business card" class. Plus, I was out of business cards. If I enjoyed the process maybe I would save up for the more in depth classes. And at the very worst, I would have fifty cool business cards to hand out.

This business card from The Mandate Press blows me away every time I see it.
And I love every single thing Hammerpress in Kansas City makes. I can't believe I missed this calender before it sold out. Aggg. But after my intro class I am sure I can whip something like this out in a few hours, right?

The San Francisco Center for the Book requires that you take a series of three expensive 10 hour classes in order to get certified to rent time on the presses in their studio. Since the Vander Cook press we were using can weigh up to 1000 pounds and the heavy lead types and stamps take up a lot of space, not many artists have the money or studio space for such impressive printing options. Having access to the types and the presses is a great opportunity for artists and, apparently, judging from the people in the class, those who wish to make their own wedding invitations. Because having a wedding is not enough work, so what makes a ton of sense is to add on the extra task of making your own invitations using a painstaking process that involves giant presses, toxic inks and tiny upside down and backwards letters that are hard to see with the naked eye and even harder to pick up with the naked hand. I think it is a fine pre-marital tool which can accurately measure of how the two of you are going to hold up under the pressures of day to day married life. Actually, the state should require couples to take this class before they set a date. It might save on later costs of divorce. If you break up in the letterpress class, be thankful you found out you were not meant for each other before you have kids and joint bank accounts.

As you will remember, the class was rescheduled due to the teacher barfing during her introduction the previous week. The night of the second try at having the class I got there early, staked out my spot and then poked through the drawers of fonts and stamps to see if I could get a head start on finding a good one. I am so finicky I figured I should get the selection process going so I would not feel pressured when all the other people in the class were milling around me making me feel competitive and panicked. Two of of my finest traits. The other is impatience.

The teacher arrived a little after the class was supposed to start, and instead of starting the class she talked about her sudden illness, wearing eyeglasses vs. contact lenses, the crown that fell out of her tooth yesterday, her baby daughter, other classes she has taught, her letterpress card and calender company. After about 20 minutes of this I was wondering if the actual class was ever going to get started. The SFCB is hit or miss with teachers. This night was a miss. She was perfectly nice and clearly knew how to do letterpress art, but nice does not a teacher make.

I don't expect much from an intro class. They are just what the name implies: an introduction. I am not going to be an expert typesetter after three hours. But I do expect to be taught something in a recognizable format. I got a good intro to the process of setting type, but it was more learn the hard way by myself kind of class. The teacher started out by vaguely rambling about a few items on the instruction sheet she passed out and telling us about some books we might want to look at. Then she wandered around the studio trying to find the stuff she needed while poo-pooing safety precautions like tying your hair back or not wearing dangly jewelry while operating the press. She waved her hand and told us you can easily pull your hair out before you get yanked under the rollers. And if you are wearing open toed shoes just jump aside if you drop something heavy. No worries. (From personal experience working in a health food restaurant, I did not find this to be true for the hippie girl who dropped the big pot of boiling garbanzos on her Birkenstocks.)

I have little patience (see above) with unprepared instructors so I was starting to get that feeling in the pit of my stomach, the one where I know I am going to regret wasting precious hours of my short time here on earth in a room with someone who does not value time as much as I do. I can't get this time back, you know? Once it is spent it is gone forever except in memory. The least you can do as a teacher of a short three hour class is to get there on time and have your shit together on the table that you are going to need. Like, at least a PEN.

After some wandering and musings about where the studio might keep these items essential to the class, she finally got what she needed and showed us how to lay out type on this diabolical thing called a composing stick, a smaller version of that metal thing they use to measure your feet in a shoe store (if they even do that anymore). You hold it in your left hand and then pick out the letters you need from the tray and place them in some mysterious order that I could not quite gather from the instructions. Then you fill in the empty spaces with metal and wooden spacers to hold your type in place. To be fair, I do not learn from words. I have to see it being done. Oh wait, she was right there with all the stuff she needed but did not lay out a sample for us to look at.

After her halfhearted confusing verbal instructions she set us loose to pick out fonts and start loading the stick, but not before she announced that she gets bored during this part and would be doing her own thing in another part of the studio until it was time to print. What this amounted to was a class full of confused people bumping into each other and asking ourselves questions instead of the instructor.

I picked a font drawer that had roughly the right size and shape I wanted and made sure it had plenty of e's and i's and a's. I got almost to the end of the first line only to find that the plentiful vowels had been mis-sorted and were not in my font at all so I had to put everything back in the right slots and go get another font and start over. The type is microscopic and it is really hard to tell what it is exactly. The trays are not in alphabetical order, but in some typesetter order. You have to search the chart for the right slot to put the letter or number back into, so the process of taking the type apart and putting it back in the tray is incredibly time consuming.

I found the same lack of vowel problem in a few more drawers so I just gave up and decided to make this card for fun and not for work since I could not spell out both Eli Wadley Fine Garden Care and have my email address PLUS they did not have an @ sign in the right size or an underscore in any size at all so I could not do my email anyway. Aggg. The other people in the class were facing similar issues and we were all wondering why the teacher had not figured out what drawers we should have chosen from before the class.

Letterpress is freaking hard. Setting type is like playing with a mean bitter puzzle. You are no match for it. It will always win. And it will gloat. I have a little dyslexia, especially under pressure in front of an audience, so I was having a hard time seeing the letters correctly. The lead type is upside down and backwards but you lay it out as if it was reading left to right as usual. This messed with my mind a little. I wanted my stuff in the lower right corner and an image on the left.

I finally got my first line set and was starting on my second, but decided to have the teacher confirm that it was right before I stacked more infernal letters on top of these. She stared at it, mumbled a little to herself, and got all flustered because she realized she told me the wrong thing earlier and made all sorts of excuses and really, I did not care but I swore I would not take a class there again because their teachers are so inexperienced. She probably knows exactly what she is doing but is not a good teacher, though she did tell us a story about how she has a card company and she misspelled one of the months on a calender (my guess is February) she made and sold and has to give refunds, so her expertise was slightly in question.

I started over AGAIN! I was not too fussed about it by this time and figured I was learning how to set type and how it was not going to be perfect the first time so no worries. Unfortunately, everyone else in the class seemed to be counting on having cool cards to hand out, and since we were printing with a partner, the pressure was on. By the time we all got our type set it was about 9:45. Almost three hours of work and we had not even printed yet.

Like most things, the prep takes the longest and the actual print takes just the wink of an eye. We got out at 11:30. all frustrated.

I know now that I will not be taking the 800 dollar four day class series that allows you to then rent studio time on the presses to make your own projects. I think I will try the class I found at another place where you set up your design in photoshop, send it off to a place that makes a polymer plate of the whole damned thing and THEN you print it on the presses. No little lead type to deal with.

I can see the charm of the lead typesetting but maybe I could find another place to fool around with it because that place is frustrating. I still love letterpress and have even more respect for the stuff I see around town.

K'naan - T.I.A.

2010-02-05T08:22:00.001-08:00

Classy

2010-02-01T06:20:00.000-08:00

I get really classy in the rainy season. Unfortunately, my letterpress class was canceled the other night. I got to class 10 minutes early and not a soul seemed to be around except a woman at the center work table flopped over, head buried in her folded arms apparently napping. I quietly tiptoed around her and sat at the other end of the table and looked around at all the cool art of the wall. I was starting to worry I was there on the wrong night, but 5 minutes after the class was supposed to start two more people showed up, which woke up the sleeping woman, who turned out to be the teacher. She lifted her head and I recoiled in horror at the look of nausea and the sheen of clammy sweat on her pale waxen greenish face. She explained, while holding her hand over her mouth and making dry heave sounds, that she thought she caught some kind of stomach flu from her kid and would be teaching the class from way across the table so we did not catch it. Then she slumped down, tried to get herself together and made a sudden run for the bathroom, stopped, curled over into a U shape, head hanging down and groaned, straightened and continued her dash to the bathroom. The class sat stunned and mildly alarmed for a few minutes and then someone came out from the office and explained that we would probably have to reschedule. Everyone fully supported this plan.

So much for letterpress. Next up: Sewing 101

I hand sew sometimes and I used to be pretty good at it. As a kid I would freak my little sister out by sewing my fingers together. Man, I still think that is funny. After college when I was super broke I would make my own pillowcases out of sheets I found at goodwill. I guess it was cheaper than buying pillowcases, but now that I think about it that seems kind of weird. Maybe I just liked using old sheets till they fell apart. I hemmed my pants and shirts, sewed patches on my jeans, fixes holes in my upholstery, made curtains, stuff like that.

I bought a few machines at thrift stores over the years and goofed around with them but I think they were broken because I could never get them to work right. Anything I tried to sew ended up with a tremendous snarl of thread firmly attached somewhere, usually right where it was most visible. Friends say they will help you learn on their machines, but no one really has the time. I need to fix Parker's harness, my living room needs new curtains, I have a bunch of stuff in a bag I want to alter or put patches on so I figured this was the year to learn for reals.

I took my first official sewing class today at a place called Craft Haven Collective. There used to be this awesome place in Hayes Valley called Stitch Lounge where you could take classes and rent time on machines and use their tables and stuff. I went in there once with Jennifer to help her with her Burning Man pink fake fur vest. The cute sewing boy and cute sewing girl working there descended on me like vultures on fresh road kill and I think Jennifer was a bit miffed that I was swept away for a free "sewing and flirting lesson" while she struggled with her giant bolt of fake fur alone. But soon after my "lesson" the place closed up and I regretted not going in there sooner...both for the flattering attention from the hot staff and to learn how to sew. Luckily, two of the women who worked at Stitch opened up their own version and I read about it in the paper in a stupid article about how hipsters who have been laid off can entertain themselves for cheap. How about entertaining yourselves by looking for a JOB?

As I expected, I was the only dude in the class. The other students were all younger than me, which surprised me, for along with being the only dude in classes like this I am also usually the youngest person, the classes traditionally being populated by women in their 50's and 60's who are retired or whose last kid just left for college. It always amazes me how there are certain consistent types of students in every class. (Teachers, bear with me, or feel free to add to the list.) The one who laughs at all the teacher's jokes and asks lots of ass kissing questions, the interrupter who displays their expansive knowledge of the subject (so why are you in the class again?), the one who jiggles the entire floor and table and desks with their coffee fueled nervous leg or tapping foot (Stop or I will smack you. I will. I am serious. Stop.) , the sigher and clock watcher, the one who takes every word down in a notebook, the competitive take no prisoners don't get in my way when it is time to sign up or use a tool or pick a material bitch on wheels, the one who has no earthly idea what is going on and slows the class down (wait, now what?), the one who studies each and every person in the room and reduces them to types. Oh wait, that's me.

We had all those people in the class along with two completely adorable sisters who looked like Molly Ringwold from Breakfast Club days had a baby with Annie Hall and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie. They probably were in high school, small and timid, both wearing black knitted berets over tightly braided hair, A-line dresses with schoolmarm black and white polka dotted prints and giant bows, cardigan sweaters, big clunky black shoes. They seemed like they could be twins by the way they stuck close to each other and communicated somehow without making any sounds. I saw them pull up in an old wine colored Volvo station wagon with Biodiesel stickers all over it while I was waiting out front for the doors to open. I had to wipe away a tear watching their Berkeley biker mom and dad fuss over them and make sure they knew where to catch the bus after class. Bikers plus Berkeley equals two librarian daughters. They were there to learn to make their own clothes. I wanted to know, where was Ducky?

In the website photo, the teacher, Kelly, was all made up in that severe ass kicking alternative craft DIY mean girl drag. Medusa braids, severe eye make-up, beauty mark and plucked brows, giant ear plugs and nose ring. She had a sweet face, but I tend to woory and pre-judge based on appearance. Will she be a Burner with that annoying cool kid attitude. I do not suffer Burners very gracefully. They bug me. But Kelly was in her Saturday morning comfort outfit and was not wearing a wig or night on the town make-up. She was warm and welcoming, had tea ready for everyone, and took charge of the class in a way that the herd appreciates. She was very clear and direct and I learned more from her in 3 hours than I did from years of experimentation and book learning.

The first thing we did was learn to do the bobbin thing where you get the thread to magically move from the spool to the bobbin. This is my favorite part. I could probably happily work in a bobbin factory for the rest of my life.

Then we learned how to thread the machine. I think my years of respooling the effing endlessly aggravating weed wacker made me good at this portion of the lesson. I was told my threading job was amazingly fast, accurate and, in fact, PERFECT. Not sure how that could be possible since I could not even see the eye of the needle with my aging eyeballs, but I must have a knack for doing it blind.

Then we made a practice square using three stitches, a back stitch, a straight stitch and a pivot. I think I am intimidated by the back stitch and pretty freaking good at staying in a straight line. Probably because I am so naturally straight. No really. I am so good at straight lines. I can do them without a ruler. See. Art classes paid off, man. I also am awesome at seeing if something is level or not. With my bare eyeballs. I do not need a level except to prove to you haters that I am right, it is level.

Then we learned three seams, pictured below: The Standard seam on the right that any moron can do, including me. The French seam, the one in the middle, was kind of hard because, well, why did god invent fractions and english measurements. I was never good at fractions and then the teacher kept talking about ten eighths, which I do know is 1 1/4 so why was she calling it 10/8. Anyway, I just copied the woman next to me and figure I will do the math someday but not today. And finally, the Flat Fell, the cool looking one on the left. Also math with fractions, some ironing, and a tiny flap of frayed fabric that kept jumping away from the approaching needle. The teacher wowed us by revealing that this is the seam used in parachutes, that is how strong it is. We were all suitably impressed, however I will not be using any parachutes sewn by me.

The photo above shows my clumpy backstitch and also a problem with the tension on the machine, (those cute little loop de loops) which the teacher assured me was the machine and not me. Of course.

And then LOOK AT THE CUTE BAG I MADE!
Looks like you all know what you're getting for your birthdays this year.

Pugs for Peace

2010-01-30T22:52:00.000-08:00

My thumb is so green grass grows out of the windshield of my truck.

...and in the back seat.

My Eyes Have Been Opened

2010-01-27T04:22:00.000-08:00

I went to a gigantic high school located in high school sports capital of Indiana, or so the sign proudly stated at the city limits. You can imagine how well I fit in there, A dorky bookworm, queer as the day is long but absolutely clueless, dressed by mom, uncoordinated and gawky and not the least bit interested in P.E. class or the mandatory weekly pep rallies worshiping the pantheon of young, good looking athletes and cheerleaders that populated my school. I attracted much unwanted attention from superfan students and teachers alike. Memories of my time there alternate between nauseating anxiety of when I might be be shoved into my locker and then actually being shoved into my locker everyday by that meat slab of a football player with the curly black hair and a name something like Verne. Yeah, it was Verne. Oh where are you now, Verne? My mom tried to tell me it was because he did not know how to show his feelings for me, that actually bullies just want to be your friend. Hmmm. Good after school special theory, but I think she was a little off target. I thought he was doing a pretty good job, actually, of showing his feelings to me.

I hate you, you are not a jock, so I must destroy you.

To be fair, occasionally, the athletes were kind to me. Usually the ones who were also on the honor roll, as academic excellence somehow translates into a touch of humanity. To be safe, though, I mostly kept my head down and did not make eye contact in the halls or in class and counted the seconds to the moment I could get the hell out of there and go somewhere ANYWHERE besides this stinking town.

I did have friends. We were all in the orchestra. Enough said.

The city had and still has a reputation for being wealthy and pampered. When people ask me where I am from I usually answer in as vague a way as possible so I do not tarnish my street cred. You know, North of Indianapolis. If you are from there you immediately know where I am talking about, you frown and move away. Oh. Rich kid. Our high school had a planetarium. I hear now they have a dome over their football stadium. As for diversity? As far as I could remember, the ethnic minority was a black boy and a Jewish girl. The majority of the student body was white, wealthy and always on the way to or recently back from an exotic vacation in Aspen or Daytona. I guess Hoosiers in the 80's did not leave the country for spring break. I know my family always went to a hotel by the freeway in St. Louis that was near some cool waterslides, so who am I to judge.

I do remember an incident that helped me understand the world better. A friend of mine was roughed up by a few of the members of the football team for being a fag. We, the orchestra friends, went as a group to file a complaint with the principle's office. The principle, also the head football coach, laughed, told us we were (using air quotes) "a minority" and we should get used to being treated like a minority. And that was that.

I escaped from there and never went back. I went to a small alternative liberal arts college in South Florida where even if I am very specific about its name and location no one has any idea what I am talking about. Which is OK. As far as I could tell my new environment was devoid of the taint of athletics, unless you count narcotics and hallucinogens as a sport. People read books, talked about ideas, did not wear shoes, some wore floor length velvet capes and tried in every way they could think of the be as weird as they couldn't be in high school. It was heaven. On Earth.

Time goes by. I've managed to come out fairly well adjusted and only hold a slight resentment towards my formative years in the high school sports capital, despite the vitriol of the previous few paragraphs. It wasn't all bad there. I have some fond memories. It was not Shangra La, but I guess it could have been a lot worse. All those athletic championships and the high property taxes from all those rich kids' houses funneled big bucks into the academic programs and I got one of the very best public school educations offered in the country. I think it was in the top ten at the time I was enrolled. And that allowed me to get into one of the top whatever public colleges in the country, so thanks jocks, you made my dreams reality.

And now, to wrap this all up and get to the point I meant to get to about an hour ago...Facebook happens. And sometimes it is best to let the past stay in the past. Other times, seeing the past through fresh eyes can be quite enlightening. Due to my special secret condition, I have the constraint (though often I think of it as a luxurious freedom) of not being motivated enough to contact old acquaintances and go through the long explanation and possible annoying rejection that most other Facebook users do not have to deal with. So today I spent a delicious evening scrolling through all the names in the Carmel High School list trying to remember who these people were. They were so familiar and yet I could not place the majority of them without getting out my yearbooks. (Yes I still have them, no I did not get them out for reference, not this time.)

The first thing that struck me was the last names. Garcia, Chan, Nguyan, Chandrakant, Gutangyap, Perez, Masai, Ali. These are not names of a solidly white Protestant population I had remembered. Who were these kids? Why did I not see them. Or if I did see them, why did I make them invisible over the years and rewrite my memory of the place. That says way more about me than the culture of the high school I went to. How did I leave there thinking I had attended an all white high school? Well, there was that mean Iranian girl. But I was scared of her, so I guess I tried to forget about her.

I flipped through family photos of people I knew 20 years ago but was not friends with. I saw their husbands and wives and kids and vacations they took. I scanned the signifiers Facebook allows: Political Views and Religion. Republican, Republican, Christian, Republican, Republican, "never thought I would "marry ethnic" but I love it. Whoa. What? That from a cheerleader who forever shaped my type...all American girl next door, ponytail and hooded sweatshirt, deep throaty laugh, jeans and boots, and then the occasional short skirt and high kick or triple back handspring.

I was struck by how so many of my classmates looked so much older than me. Dare I say haggard? Others looked exactly like they did in high school but with better eyebrows. Some I did not recognize at all. Other faces welded me to the chair they were so heart wrenchingly familiar.

I was relieved to see the sweet girl with diabetes was still alive and looked well. And the nerdy skinny girl with tiny lopsided glasses is now some kind of knock out sci fi porn star. That was a surprise. Oh look, there was that racist girl from South Africa. She said some stuff about black South Africans at the lunch table once that practically singed off my eyebrows. Oh, there is the poor guy who had to be my swimming partner in the lifesaving course I somehow qualified for. I thought he took an unusual amount of pleasure in the part where you drag your "unconscious" victim by the hair. Oh man, there is that super mean girl who scared me to death with her sharp tongue and flair for public humiliation. I laughed out loud that her profile picture was of her with red face paint and dressed as the devil. Perfect. That juggling guy I always liked because he never seemed to give a flip what people thought of him. Still seems to be the case. Aw, that nice guy, David, is a landcape architect in Colorado. Kindred spirits. Oh jeezus, Kristin, with the white blond hair. So blond it turned green in the summer from the chlorine in the pool. We were friends for a while in elementary school. I had a crush on her older sister. All her siblings had white hair, barely visible eyebrows and eyelashes, pale pale skin. They still do, apparently. Something about her and her family and their house completely soaked into my psyche even though after about the 5th grade we were perfect strangers. I still to this day have intense dreams about their house and meeting her in various places and being reunited. Not sure what that is about. Somthing from a past life, no doubt. But her picture gave me the chills. There was this one cheerleader, Dianne, who always sat next to me in all the classes we had together because of the alphabetical thing. So did Verne, unfortunately. She was always so nice to me, I was suspicious of her for years and kept my cards held close to my chest, because I was sure it was a set-up for some humiliation class gag thing. It took me a long time to trust that she was genuinely interested in being my friend. Again, that says way more about me than it does about the culture I thought I grew up in. Her photos show a tan woman with the same wide set eyes and smile, though I would not have recognized her if I passed her on the street. She has a handsome successful husband and three sweet looking sons. But she still has that same look in her eye of mildly searching, mildly disappointed, mildly hopeful.

It's funny looking at all these people and feeling drawn to some and indifferent to others. I know some of the people I passed over were probably friends of mine, but not compelling enough to remember. Then there are people like white blond Kristen or the"ethnically married" cheerleader I still think about and wonder how they turned out. Why are they so important? Were we actually sort of friends and I was too insecure to realize it? Did I feel safer in the identity of a terrorized nerd than in the role of friend to all kinds of people, not just other nerds like me? I know that the social strata and food chain of high school is a brutal reality, but was it really as bad as I remember? If I was not challenged by my special secret condition would I write them a note, see if they remembered me? Maybe. Thankfully, I don't have to. But I appreciate their online presence because in their faces and in their stories I learn a little more about the memory of the past in the cold hard light of the present and a little more about myself.

Funniest word in the whole world...

2010-01-27T03:38:00.000-08:00

The rain-a-thon has come to a temporary close so Parker and I finally got out of the house and up to her favorite park. Probably my favorite park. Every park is her favorite park. She is a dog, after all. I thought I'd liven things up a little and walk our route in reverse, see how we liked starting where we finish and finishing where we start. As we headed up the rocky slope a father and his 10 year old daughter came down the hill. She was chattering on and he was walking fast and seemed preoccupied and barely listening. As they passed by me she tugged on his jacket and made him stop for a second. "Dad, I mean, what do you think is the FUNNIEST word in the ENTIRE world?" She looked up expectantly, practically bursting to tell him what she thought it might be.

"Hmmmm?" He turned to face her but still was not paying attention.

"The funniest word in the whole world," she repeated.

I had already thought of about 3: Cheese. Kerfuffle. Rear.

He paused and looked down.

Cheeks. Duties. Discombobulate. Muffin.
Groin. Noodle. Gubernatorial.

Irritated, she went on with her game even though he was clearly not able to play along due to some pressing and totally boring adult concern.

Uvula.

"OK, Dad. Ready?"

"Sure, honey." He was starting to come to.

Pickle.

I waited in anticipation, draggin my feet and trying not to be too obvious that I was eavesdropping. It's gonna be pickle. She is the right age for it. Pickle. Pickle. Pickle. God, It's even funnier when you say it a bunch of times in a row. Just like Banana. Banana. Banana.

"OK," she said with a flourish, "here it is: the funniest word in the ENTIRE world." She stood directly in front of him and waved her arms like a magician pulling that hysterical word out of her hat. Obstetrican.

"The funniest word in the entire world is...." I played a drum roll for her in my mind. "Hyphen."

Thud. Crickets. That honky music they play when someone makes a groaner. Bwah Bwah Bwah. Bwah.

Her dad stared at her and did not move a muscle in his face.

"Yeah, that's a pretty funny word, honey." And turned and started back on his walk.

Poor kid. Someday she will find her people. If they wouldn't have thought I was creepy I would have laughed right along with her and let her know that her people are closer than she thinks. In fact, we are everywhere.

Puffy. God, that work cracks me up. Crack. That one, too.

It might be getting to me

2010-01-25T08:19:00.000-08:00

Last fall I heard it was supposed to be a really rainy winter this year. People shook their heads and sighed, "Well, we really do need it..." they said, resigned to an expanse of damp days, soggy shoes and inside-out umbrellas. All I could think about were the deliciously long stretches of time I would have to myself. Gardeners don't get a lot done outside when it is raining. For us it is like a treasured snow day. You watch the weather and check every few hours to see if you are going to have to cancel the work day. In the morning you wake up like it is Christmas and hope that Santa brought you heavy rain.

I have a birdbath positioned right outside my bedroom window so all I have to do it roll over and groggily squint out at the surface of the water. If I see drops I cancel. I also have a tarp over my shed so it amplifies the sound of raindrops. Even a light drizzle sounds to me like I should call off the day. That may be unfairly stacking the deck in favor of the rain day, but we do what we gotta do.

So far it has rained hard for eight days in a row. Maybe nine, I can't remember now. Legitimate, work stopping rain. Not the drizzle or light rain San Francisco gardeners think of as just your everyday atmosphere. Glorious non stop roof pounding, tree lashing rain complete with thunder and lightening. I have not worked outside in a garden since the 14th of January. I have, however, thoroughly cleaned every square inch of my house (including the baseboards and lintels, almost completed my taxes (which, as you know, I usually savor until the absolute last second, as in 10 minutes till 5 on October 15th). I have burned through 1/3rd of my to do list of annoying little things not important enough to do on a regular busy day but important enough that I want to someday get them done. I have also made two giant piles for the thrift store by clearing out an entire drawer of clothes I won't wear ever again. I made all kinds of soups and cookies, rearranged my kitchen shelves, tore apart the oven and cleaned inside it. I sat on the couch in the living room, my least used part of the house, and built a fire a few times and read a giant book and stared out the window. Then I sat in one chair and did the same thing. The next day I tried out the other chair. They are all pretty comfy. I got caught up on Ugly Betty and 30 Rock. I watched my netflix movies that had been sitting on my desk for two months. It has been an amazing gift from Mother Nature. I feel more relaxed and rested than I have in years.

I know it depresses and annoys some people but rainy weather is my favorite, which is funny considering that if it rains I do not get paid one cent. And that I always say I won't move to Portland because it rains too much there. I love the look of it, the sound of the rain on the roof and against the windows. I like feeling cozy indoors while it blows outside. I get more productive and creative during long rainy spells. The air smells better, leaves are greener, the light is beautiful, dark and diffused. The city is quieter, parks and streets are empty. No one wants to go out. It feels like the world is mine alone. When the sun comes out after a nice rain storm it feels intrusive, like someone turned on a light while I was sitting on the porch at night enjoying the stars.

So I have been enjoying the hell out of this past week of nonstop rain.

But all good things must come to an end. I had stopped checking the weather a few days ago but vaguely recalled that the rain was clearing up at the beginning of the week. My heart sank a little to see those sunny yellow icons instead of the comforting clouds with blue lines shooting out. So, with heart heavy, I reworked the upcoming week's schedule to see if I could cram two weeks of maintenance into one four days. I do like the time off, but I actually do need to get paid this month. Then I checked the weather on all 5 weather websites.

Rain.
Hard rain all night and all day.

A big part of me jumped for joy YAY another day off!!! and the tiny part that thinks about responsibility and bills and bankruptcy and living in a cardboard box under the freeway started worriedly wringing his hands.

This morning I woke from a dream where I had moved into a new house with my family someplace remote and unexpected. My room was downstairs in the back of the house overlooking the neighbor's homemade lake. A stagnant shallow greenish lake with a cement bottom which sluggishly lapped halfway up my window and seeped in to the windowsill and down to the floor onto the soggy mossy green shag carpet. I could see fish and turtles swimming under the water like I was in an aquarium. It was raining and the level of the lake was inching up the window. I was not pleased.

I think the rain might even be getting to me, now.

for the weather basics, when you just wanna know the facts: the effing weather
and for when you want every bit of information vagely related to the weather: intellicast

kitchensidecar

2010-01-25T05:39:00.000-08:00

You like food? Eating it and reading about it? Looking at pictures of it?

check this blog out:
kitchensidecar

"Let's narrow in on the matter of emulsions... the unlikely marriage of fat and water. This phenomenon occurs when water and oil get together under the generosity of the globular proteins.

As a review, water and oil regard each other with equal contempt. Think of them as republicans and democrats - shit-slingers. Now think of proteins as these large globular masses that appeal to each side - money, power, and the senate. Begrudgingly, they must unite under the bi-partisanship of the legislative senate to make progressive changes like healthcare reform -- errr -- all the while able to sleep with their lady lovers on the side. **Caution: disturb the balance, by throwing in too many republicans or democrats and the house falls down.

That, my friends is an emulsion. "

you can suck it

2010-01-19T04:36:00.000-08:00

Dear Credit Card Company:

I am closing my account and taking you up on your generous offer to "opt out" of your change in annual percentage rates before you re-institute debter's prison. I, too, am facing a "challenging environment". Last year my environment became challenged by greedy fuckers who took us all for a wild ride and left us in a world economic crisis. Unlike you, though, I do not have the option to fasten my suckers onto some unfortunate passer by and drain their bank account to fill up mine. I face hard times by working extra hours and cutting back on expenses and by extricating myself from the clutches of predatory lenders.

I have been a customer for 10 years. I have made no late payments. Ever. Yet you are comfortable jacking my rate from prime plus 12%, which I thought was pretty high in the first place, to prime plus 19.99%. At that rate I may never pay this freaking debt off. Maybe that is your plan: permanent customer. Or perhaps you are trying to scrape the bottom feeders like me off your shoe. I don't make a ton of money, I borrow what I can pay back.

But why should I have to pay for mistakes that others have made. Like your bank, for example, which probably extended credit to people who could not afford it. (like me.) And now you are panicking because you are out of money. Aside from being predatory, that is just stupid. Of course they can't pay you back. You gave them access to more credit than they earn in a year. I am not a financier, but even I know the basics. (I also know you make a shit ton of money by writing off bad debt, so even if I don't pay you a cent, you'll still make a killing.)

At some point, you'll have all of us on our knees, desperate to find some way, any way, to get out of debt. I sort of hope for a good old fashioned peasant revolt with pitchforks and torches. But I suppose a more practical solution is to have Congress slap you down like the assholes you are and cap the credit card interest rates at a reasonable level.

In the meantime, I will not be participating in gold plating your toilets or paying for your personal jets. And if you pressure me any more than you already have I will simply disappear. You won't see a penny of it. I have no problem living on cash. I've done it before and I will do it again if I have to.

And, as the cab driver said to me when I balked at his high rate, "If you don't like it, you can suck it."

Best Regards,

Eli

2010-01-14T06:03:00.000-08:00

This beeing-- is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
-rumi.

Tick Key

2010-01-13T05:37:00.000-08:00

I am scared of leeches and ticks. Unreasonably afraid. Frozen in fear, jump and scream if something lightly touches me in tick or leech country. No ticks that I know of in San Francisco gardens. But I've been on my friend's farm south of here during high tick season, had them run all over me, but none have ever attached. Thank you, whoever you thank for such blessings. When I headed home, they warned me to shower right away and wash everything with a washcloth to make sure I get the baby ones off me. The ones you can't see. The ones that carry Lymes disease. Shudder.

On the drive home I happened to look up into the rear view mirror while driving up Highway 1 and saw an enormous tick skitter over my baseball hat, rappel down onto my sideburns, then wiggle through my beard and drop down onto my neck to feast. I did not feel a thing, but I sure as hell saw it. My body surged into immediate full on panic alert mode. A TICK IS ON ME! Some thrashing and arm waving and manly screaming may have occurred.

Highway One is a narrow two lane highway that runs alongside some of the most rugged and beautiful cliffs and crashing ocean in California. There are really no pullouts or places to stop and get a tick off you. But no way was I going to sit in the truck for an hour and calmly drive while I confirmed tick sighting had been made. I kept one eye on the winding twisting road and the other on the tick, who had nestled on the neck of my t-shirt for the moment, catching its breath after its wild dash. I strategically rolled down the window in case I could maneuver it out of the truck. Sensing my intention, the tick started to run across my t-shirt heading for my armpit. I slammed my thumb down on top of it and held it in place on my chest. I could feel it wiggling under my thumb and I died a thousand deaths. I drove like that for another 30 minutes until I found a safe place to pull off the road and in one balletic, graceful, fear driven movement, opened the door, released the seatbelt and flung the tick out onto the gravel below.

I do not remember the rest of the drive home. But when I got there I left every single item I brought with me outside in the driveway until I could wash it. My mind provided me with the image of 1000 ticks swarming into the nooks and crannies of the cab of my truck. No way was I bringing ticks in the house. Even imaginary ones. Then I held my tiny dog down and went over her with a fine toothed comb, small propane torch at the ready in case I needed to incinerate any that I found. I wondered if the tiny ones would drop off and populate my front yard. Another shudder.

I did not find any big ones but I thought I saw a bunch of tiny gray ones under her armpits. Heart racing, I swallowed nervously, brandished the tweezers and attempted to pluck them out, head and all. They were stubborn little buggers. The dog squirmed. The tick tightened its grip. I pulled harder. The dog yelped. The tick came free. I fell backwards. Then I burned the holy bajeezus out of it on the sidewalk. A passing jogger looked at me in alarm. I waved back calmly. Just another day on the job as tick hunter. Nothing to worry about.

I inspected the dog's armpit, looked a little closer and saw that I had plucked a little skin polyp off of my poor little dog, not a baby tick at all. In shame I pocketed the tweezers, put the torch back in the shed and called the dog in for a bath and a lot of treats for putting up with my tick-o-phobia.

Found this intriguing item at REI. Once I bought it I stopped worrying about ticks. My mind is at peace. Now, if I get a tick (which I never have and hopefully, never will) I do not have to touch the tick with my bare hands when pulling it out of my ankle skin.

Wait, but then does it fling the tick through the air and into the underbrush so it can lurk there in wait of your tender flesh? Or does its pointy little head get stuck in the tick key until you release it into the toilet and flush? This is my most recent concern.

No rest for the wicked.

The precious card is from my friend and her son. Homemade. Just like I like em.

Out with the Old, In With the New

2010-01-11T14:21:00.000-08:00

I am a list kind of guy. If I don't write something down the important task or idea or detail will vanish into thin air. I am visual and tactile...not aural. Tell me something without letting me write it down, including your name, and I will forget it right away. Once I write it down and look at the words I usually don't even have to refer to the list. Something about the act of writing and seeing the words on the paper permanently inscribes it into my brain. But I still cherish the moment when I get to cross something off. Ahhh, so satisfying.

Problem is, I think I might be part hamster. I like paper. I like writing on it, rustling through it, ordering the scattered pieces into coherent files and stacks and piles. I find the object of the list itself, its arc from beginning to end, to be beautiful. It starts off on crisp paper, neat handwriting, orderly columns. Comprehensive, pragmatic, sometimes compulsive, totally doable. Over the days it is in use it becomes crumpled and stained and torn. The corners curl. Ink smears and bleeds. Items are crossed off, others added. Priorities surface. Previously important items linger unfinished. The paper takes on a softer texture, comforting to the hand. Scribbles and circles, arrows and asterisks add layers. Finally, most of the list is finished. Only a few things remain on the paper, circled, underlined. Don't forget. Then the new list forms, old items from previous lists transcribed, or not, onto the new along with the next flurry of planned activity. Sometimes I hate to throw them away after I have completed them because they are a coded diary of events and thoughts, what was important to me in the second week of January 2010.

I used to use a small clipboard and scrap paper cut into 4 pieces. A rubberband held it all together, sometimes one of those big black plastic triangle shaped clips. Now I have a little black moleskin book that holds all my lists of important things to do, projects to start, music I want to get, stuff for the house, work lists, grocery lists, phone numbers and addresses, websites, gift ideas, things I need to fix or order parts for, books I want to buy, camera equipment I might need. God forbid if I ever lose that thing. I would have a nervous breakdown, probably. Funny thing is I don't even write in the moleskin. I just stick all my lists into it and use it as a folder.

It is already halfway through January, so time to get organized for 2010 before it is suddenly 2011. In about 30 minutes I transformed a year's worth of scraps and crumpled pieces of paper into one small orderly magnificent list to begin my new year.

from numerous scraps to one small list

detail of scrap list

I tried to use my iPhone this year to keep lists but tapping on a tiny keyboard on fake electronic yellow lined paper just does not have the same impact as writing a list on the back of my old phone bill and carrying it around in my pocket for 365 days. And a friend of mine makes his own monthly calender organizers on teeny pieces of white card stock. By the end of the month they are a work of art.

last year's final magnificent list as it appears after one full year of use

2010 final magnificent list

New Year's Soups

2010-01-03T16:18:00.000-08:00

I am pretending that today is New Years' Day. I was too tired on the 1st and the 2nd to do any of my planned activities to celebrate. I cooked cornbread and some soup today, two soups, in fact. I started with the clear broth vegetable soup with ginger and kale, turnips and parsnips. Then, right before I added the ginger, I realized I could add the Pie Ranch dry farmed tomatos from my canning extravaganza this summer and also make minestrone soup. Double the pleasure. I had cooked some cranberry beans and some flageolets (cute little light green french beans) a few days ago and added them to the soup along with the tomato and some of Eduardo's Stortini pasta (tiny little elbow macaroni). Both soups had tons of fresh garlic and onions and not a lot of salt. I really can't deal with salty food. Makes the blood vessels in my neck feel like they are about to pop with every beat of my heart. The kale and onions came from my garden. Today for lunch I ate the minestrone, some cornbread, applesauce and a blood orange. The soup was so good I ate a second helping. I froze the rest so I will have some for the next few weeks.

Last year around this time I went crazy and bought a bunch of dried beans, jarred them up and placed them on top of the fridge in an attractive display with the intention of actually cooking them. I didn't. Because I am a lazy bum in the kitchen. I worked for years and years in food service and, frankly, I am over it. I make quick food. Healthy, but quick. Over the years the healthy part started fading out into the rich and sugary and creamy...less of the greens and fresh veggies and more of the pastas and breads and cheeses. And hello, what do you know, I now have high cholesterol. So back to the hippie cooking of yesteryear with the idea of updating the "brown" food and raw food recipes to something a spoiled San Franciscan could enjoy.

I am surrounded by a bounty of great food here, in restaurants already prepared for me and in farmers markets and the Bi-Rite and Rainbow Grocery if I am going to cook it myself. I have no excuse for not making yummy healthy fresh food daily. Except the lazy bum thing. I remember something that my friend, Michele G. told me when she was doing some kind of athletic training, not exactly recalling the details at the moment, but she said that you have to incorporate it slowly into your life and not all at once or you would get overwhelmed and give up. So I am starting with soups and beans and rice. Totally doable.

On New Years' Day I climbed up on a chair and cleaned off the top of my fridge and cooked those old dried cracked beans from last year. I hate throwing anything away. They tasted fine, no worse for the wear after a year in a jar. I even bought the dreaded rice and other grains. I really do not like rice. I have been ruined by bread. It is the only form of grain I want to eat, but I gotta get over that and eat some complete proteins and get some of those important amino acids forming in my body. Or I might be toast.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T14:18:00.000-08:00

This morning I was in Kansas City and it was 12 degrees and covered in snow. Four hours later I am in San Francisco and picking greens and lettuce out of my garden for Hoppin' John and walking around the neighborhood admiring all the things that are blooming and watching the bees fly from flower to flower. It is so warm and pretty here it does not seem real.

The trip home was fantastic. I actually enjoyed the snow since I knew that I would be leaving it behind soon enough. It was beautiful coming down gently outside the window on the pine trees and the bare oak branches. I shoveled the sidewalk and driveway for exercise and to be a good nephew, I made a snow angel, skidded on my boots along icy tire tracks on my parents' gravel road, discovered that a pile of fresh dog poop will freeze solid to the sidewalk in the time it takes to run in to get a poop bag. Who knew? Parker made her first yellow snow. It was great! (the fun not the yellow snow.)

I am not sure what I was thinking when I packed a book and two magazines and some garden invoicing. There was not one moment for reading or working. This was all about eating brownies and cookies, dodging plastic swords and tiny colorful rubber disks shot out of screechingly loud robot toys. The twins crawled around and reorganized all the cupboards and were generally as cute as you could imagine. The older boys were very animated and giggling all over the house and shrieking and livening things up. At one point one of the twins somehow jammed his finger up Logan's nose and gave him a nosebleed. That was festive. We sang Christmas carols as a family around the tree and then went for a drive to admire the Christmas House and the Enchanted Village of Lights that my mom and dad put up every year in the little town where they live...and this year I enjoyed it. I must be getting old.

And old in another way. Turns out the high cholesterol my doctor saw in my last routine check up was not just a product of the homemade ice cream and Bi-Rite Mac and Cheese dinner diet. I cut that out for a month and was really careful about my intake and I am still at 225 of the bad fats and low on the good fats. So now I have to really make some changes in what I eat. Which is funny, because I have been drinking filtered water and eating organic fresh food for 20 years now. I have not had red meat or fast food or any processed junk food in about the same amount of time. But I love me some butter and rich desserts and fancy cheese and bread. And high cholesterol must be genetic.

While I was home my middle sister showed me a skin condition she developed after her health crisis a few years ago. She always had a little bit of it behind her ears like I do, dry skin and a little dandruff, more if we are stressed out. But now she has it all over her back and on the soft skin on her forearms. It looks like it hurts but she says it just itches. The dermatologists were shooting her up with steroids and giving her medicinal creams and nothing was working. One doctor would not even touch her he found her condition so disturbing. Nice. I took her to the health food store that opened up there a few years ago and bought her some flax seed oil caps and some calendula gel and some other stuff that might give her some relief.

Then my other little sister and I went online to research psoriasis, which is what we think this might be. Much to my middle sister's dismay, the most helpful things she could do for her skin were dietary changes...the usual, no sugar, white bready things, junk food, fried food, processed food, and then add more raw foods. So both of us are in for a very different year of eating. I have it easy compared to her. I can just switch what I eat and suffer a little by not eating the rich food I love. She has all these dietary complications from having a tracheotomy and her gall bladder removed and lord knows what else they did to her insides while she was in intensive care for 9 months. I am pretty sure some of that has caused this inflammation and skin thing. But she can't eat so many foods already I hated to make that list for her that was going to cut out most of the things she can prepare easily herself.

But if she can do it, I can do it.

I am back, it is the new year, I am making black eyed peas and rice, collards and cornbread for dinner and for good luck in the new year. Tomorrow I clean the house and make some soups for work next week. Slowly I'll recover from the super fun trip to the winter wonderland and get back into the swing of gardening in the city.

I wish everyone a very happy new year.

Christmas with out PEE WEE? NEVER!

2009-12-16T13:36:00.000-08:00

My dad HATED it that this was my little sister's favorite TV show. The guy was a perv, he said. The botanical garden I worked at in Sarasota, FL, Pee-Wee's home town, had to remove the hibiscus that bore his name because of outrage about the porn movie house scandal. My roommate lost his virginity in Pee-Wee's parents house while he was house sitting for them.

And this might be the finest Christmas special on earth.
click on the link and then look for the the pink TV in the lower left corner.
His xmas special is streaming there for all to enjoy.

Official Website for Pee-wee's Playhouse and Pee-wee Herman

Blogging Etiquette

2009-12-06T18:11:00.000-08:00

I am so sick. I had a headache Friday night that kept me awake all night and Saturday morning I thought I was going to throw up from the pain or pass out. Instead I took two advil and went back to bed until 3pm. The headache was gone. I rejoiced. Two hours later I got a cold. I lost my voice, my throat is sore, I have a dry cough and I think someone is sitting on my chest. My eyes feel like they are on fire. I have a fever of 99.7 which is high because my usual body temp is 97.3 (just like the radio station) I ache like I have been sleeping on a bed of rocks.

And in the meantime I have been catching up on my blog by retroactively dating my entries so they are in the proper chronological order. This means that probably no one will ever see or read them unless they know to go back and look for them. Now you know. Go back and look at them. They are about bees and my trip to Yosemite and also my two other camping trips last month. And pictures of my dog.

I don't know what the etiquette is for this sort of thing, but I am a Virgo and I have to do it this way or it will drive me crazy. better you than me. I realize that my facebook friends are going to get spammed by my one million posts but at least I don't send them karma gifts, right? or do that farmville thing.

Techno Chicken

2009-11-29T16:09:00.001-08:00

I guess if you have too much time on your hands this is an OK way to spend it.

Yosemite

2009-11-29T15:14:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving in Yosemite...a success! Heated tents are super warm! Food at the restaurants is overpriced and not very delicious, bring your own if you can. Snow pants rule! Friends are priceless. Nature on this scale is healing and awe inspiring.

FUCK THE AMERICAN MUSTACHE INSTITUTE

2009-11-23T18:31:00.001-08:00

I wanted to be a member of this organization, too, but after seeing this video I feel the same way about now it as this guy does. I spit my beverage out while watching it, but maybe it's just me that thinks this is funny.

No-no

2009-11-19T21:51:00.000-08:00

Dock Ellis & The LSD No-No from NoMasTV

Camping at Salt Point

2009-11-10T05:55:00.000-08:00

I was still wallowing in my self pity but rallied enough to follow them down the highway to our next destination, the sun quickly going down. A destination that was completely unknown. I had left my books at home. I had NO IDEA what this place had to offer. Were there toilets? running water? Was it going to be swarming with RV's or poison oak or loud girl scout groups? All this OCD worry vanished as we followed the Russian River out to the sea. The drive was beautiful and as we approached the coast I could see several enormous tooth-like rocks jutting out of the beach right where the river emptied out into the Pacific.

After 40 minutes of cliffside hairpin turns on Highway 1 in rapidly fading early November light we reached the campsite, had vegan carrot cake to celebrate Leslie's birthday, a late dinner around a fire and then a warm comfy nights sleep, me in my tent and fluffy comforter and the two of them in their heated camper van, the sound of the crashing ocean just down the ridge.

Oops, right before we headed off to sleep we heard the high plaintive sound of a hungry kitten. We shined the flashlights into the underbrush and a little fat silky teenager hopped out of the underbrush and rubbed up against us. This kitty was not feral and it was well fed and healthy. But was it lost? I am edging towards getting another cat. Gardener has been gone for over a year and I miss that asshole cat energy. Was this my new kitty? I petted it and sweet talked it and gave it some food and then thought I might pick it up and cuddle it. It thought differently and sliced open my thumb with his little precious claw. So I put it down and it scampered off into the shadows.

In the morning we had breakfast of oatmeal with fresh pomegranates, dried fruit and maple syrup, bread and jam, tea and orange slices. The sun was out and it was going to be a lovely day. The campsite was amazing. More than I ever could have hoped for. It was set off the main road out of earshot of the passing traffic and on a grassy ridge right above the beach. A large ring of Monterey cypress blocked the wind and gave us some light shade. The ocean was visible from our site! The center of the campground had a small building with flush toilets and a sink. All the sites were really nice and private. It was perfect!

We took a little hike down a grassy hill and then further down to the crashing ocean where we saw seaweed that looked like tiny little palm trees floating in the water and giant waves crashing over boulders the size of my two story apartment building. Paul noticed that if you looked closely you could see the heads of seals bobbing in that ferocious surf like it was no big deal to be in 40 degree water being hurled against jagged rocks.

I started to need an afternoon nap so we headed back to the site where I set up my hammock. I ended up napping in the tent with my pug snuggled into the sleeping bag just for some alone time, if sleeping with a pug counts as alone time. When I woke up I looked in my activity bag and rustled past the watercolors and charcoal pencils and notebook for the slim book by Alexander Theroux about Edward Gorey. Great little book. I got it as a gift years ago and just now got around to reading it. The descriptions of his life made me want to get my pens out and start drawing again after however many years it has been. I took up photography 5 or 6 years ago because it was the only artistic thing I had time for. I didn't want to lose myself to work but I did not have the time to paint or draw anymore. Photos are quick. My drawing eye is so out of practice now. It is hard to start back up again. I want to be able to draw the way I did when I was doing it every day. But I want to draw, and you have to start somewhere, so I had loaded down my little duffle bag with all sorts of fun stuff to play with.

When I emerged for the tent we had tea and lunch and went for another longer walk. We met an older couple driving down the coast from Washington in the same kind of van Leslie and Paul were driving so they got to talking. The guy was an army vet and right away started talking about missiles and defense systems and I was a bit put off by the whole interaction but tried to stay politely focused. The woman pulled him off us a bit and changed the subject...to ticks. Not much better so I excused myself and wandered around on the coast a little.

After dinner we sat out under the stars and chatted watched the Milky Way come out. Leslie and I finished off my bottle of single malt scotch whiskey that I bought when I moved into my apartment 4 years ago. I don't drink much, obviously. But I love the taste of it. After they headed off to bed I grabbed my sleeping bag and climbed into the hammock and watched the stars for about an hour. I was really warm and was happy I had a good sleeping bag. That night was heaven on earth.

campingcampingcamping

2009-11-08T21:16:00.001-08:00

I started off my day with a 50 dollar street cleaning ticket and a steadily increasing cold drizzle. Not the most auspicious way to begin a camping weekend, but I was so hyped to get out into nature nothing was going to slow me down. Nothing, that is, except the 30 or so odd errands I had to run before I left the city, all located so that there was no reasonable way to get them done in an orderly way. I would be criss crossing the city 40 times before I got on the freeway to freedom.

The truck was packed to the gills with down comforters and yummy food and a large bag of fun activities like books, magazines, watercolors and sketch pads and pencils and fancy pens, binoculars, bird books, natural history books and playing cards. I had stowed a bag of sweatshirts, hats of all sorts, long underwear, warm jammies and thick socks in with the comforters. There was a stack of firewood tucked under a tarp in the back of the truck along with the camp chairs and tent and burlap for under the tent. I even brought a beautiful red dahlia and a vase and a nice old flowered tablecloth for the picnic table since it was Leslie's birthday. I suppose it would have been a shorter list if I told you what I didn't bring. Basically, my entire house was in the truck waiting to hit the road. I nearly went mad trying to get through the rainy day traffic looking for a parking spot. When it rains everybody drives.

By the time I was finished with my errands it was way past lunch time and I was starving. Anyone who knows me knows that this is a dangerous situation. The hungrier I get the longer it takes my brain to figure out where to get food and the more cranky I become. In full on hunger hysteria I drove through neighborhood after neighborhood scanning for parking and food sources. Just as I had given up hope and was planning how to eat the dog while driving I remembered a cute little cafe called Angelina's where I could get a fantastic sandwich and chocolate chip cookie. No parking, so I double parked, reasoning that I could not get two parking tickets in one day. While I waited for my food I kept one eye on the lookout for meter maids and one eye on the counter. Since the sandwich maker was flirting with her boyfriend and not making headway on the long line of orders on the board I called my online video game buddy in Florida who was very disappointed that I was abandoning her for stupid nature. I explained my exciting plans for the weekend and this was her reply:

You're going camping? In the rain? With VEGANS!?!

Hmmmm. Put in that light it did sound a little questionable. Which is when I remembered I forgot to pack the eggs and the cheese. Crap. I guess I would be a vegan this weekend as well, because I was not going to make one more freaking stop to get cheese. I had to get ON THE ROAD. I grabbed my sandwich, fired up the truck and sailed myself over the Golden Gate Bridge and into freedom. Well, into bumper to bumper traffic for an hour and a half with everyone else trying to get out of the city on probably the last nice weekend before the rain and cold weather arrived for winter.

I had thought I might stop at a few antique stores on the way up and at the Beekeeping shop in Sebastopol. But when I looked on the map for this antique mall a friend had raved about that was on the way to Guerneville I saw that Ferndale was up in Humboldt County. So it is on the way if you are coming from freaking Canada! I do remember him saying he and his girlfriend had a hard time finding it the last time they were in Guerneville. Hmmmmm. I guess they did not drive four hours north or for sure they would have run across it. Eh, I don't need more crap in my house anyway, but I do like to look at old stuff. Although, I have been finding some things from my childhood in these antique stores lately and that can be alarming.

In Sebastopol, I stopped at the beekeeping shop, called BeeKind, to pick up some hive entrance reducers. Keeps them warm during winter. Really I stopped so Parker and I could use the bathroom. She had been standing in her seat and giving me meaningful stares for the last hour and I figured she needed a break. But she didn't, so I locked her in the truck and went in to get what I needed.

Sebastopol is this half loathsome and half cute town that has all this gross yuppie new age Northern California crap and then a bunch of 50's style signs and drive-in fast food joints like the twistie freeze with awesome signage. I really go nuts for cool old signs, rusting warehouses and crumbling brick. Not so much on the wind chimes and natural fabric flowy northern California rich lady stores and new sprawling shopping malls that snarl traffic down to a crawl. I got what I needed at the bee store and headed back to the truck to find Parker very involved in eating my chocolate chip cookie. I got to her just in time. Her entire fat head was in the bag and she was waving it around trying to get the cookie to fall into her open mouth.

I escaped Sebastopol and the rain had completely stopped, the sky was even blue and the sun had come out. I swerved my way on the winding mountain roads to the campsite. I had spent a lot of time looking at the park online and reading about it in my camping books. God forbid I should be surprised. It was really two parks right next to each other. One was called Armstrong Woods and it was a day use only park that was mostly redwoods. Not my favorite. It is always so cold and damp and dark in there. Right next to that was Austin Creek State Recreation Area. It was up a 2 mile one lane rutted hairpin turn mountain road and was on top of a 1000 foot tall mountain ridge. Redwoods on one side, rolling grassy hills on the other. Views to the ocean, views of the rolling surrounding hills. Wildlife, trees, nature. The campground was next to a pond called Bullfrog Pond. There were creeks and ponds and horse trails and hiking trails and it just sounded wonderful. I was so looking forward to it. Leslie and Paul were already there and had picked out the best site for us and would probably be cooking our vegan dinner right this second. What a great way to celebrate a birthday. Camping in the beautiful park with friends!

Parker was still standing in her bed staring at me with pleading eyes, but I had no idea what she wanted. It was making me anxious, this little thing staring at me. I petted her, gave her a treat, straightened her bed, let her sit on my lap. Nothing made her relax. What do you want.....We were almost there so at least she would soon be running around in circles sniffing everything and peeing on every single blade of grass instead of staring at me. Sometimes having a dog is a pain.

Just outside the park entrance three dorks on Segways buzzed by wearing bike helmets and fanny packs. Lord. Lazy bums. Drive or ride a bike. sheesh. Though I cannot count the number of times I have wished for a Segway rental shack at the bottom of my steep hill when I am walking home. In that situation I'd ride one for sure, but they just look so stupid. I saw an old airport cop at 2am at the Dallas airport once riding one around and lording over all the janitorial staff. He looked like the hugest dork ever, whizzing around making lazy figure eights. He had a cowboy hat on. But I secretly coveted his ridiculous toy. I still laugh when I think about George Bush falling off one when he and his father were testing them out. And how at San Francisco City Hall they were trying to convince the city to make them sidewalk legal (instead of street only) so they got all these seniors in to test them out. The concern was that they were so quiet pedestrians would not hear them coming and would not know to scatter when lazy bums on Segways were careening down the sidewalk. And that they were really heavy and hard to stop quickly and therefore dangerous to pedestrians. So all these old folks were riding them around demonstrating for lawmakers how safe they were. Swerving and skimming around the grand marble spaces of city hall and one guy tried to stop on a dime and cracked the heavy thing into a wall. The crack is still there and Segways are not allowed on the sidewalk.

At last, the entrance to the park. The ranger kiosk, the road beyond curving up through the woods. The giant orange sawhorses, the huge heavy chain across the road, the huge CLOSED sign. The cry of despair. GOVERNATOR!!!!! YOU HAVE CLOSED MY PARK so a-holes in SUV's don't have to pay higher registration fees. THANK YOU FOR RUINING MY WEEKEND!!!!!

That's right. The park was closed due to budget cuts until June 30th. No camping. No nature. No nothing. I was sinking down into self pity when Leslie and Paul walked up from the parking lot to inform me that they had located another place to camp that was a 40 minute drive up the coastal Highway 1.

To Bee Continued...

Jonathan Richman

2009-11-07T04:53:00.000-08:00

When I was in college my roommate, Leon, played Jonathan Richman all the time. He LOVED him. I did not love him. In fact, his nasal voice and silly song topics (insects, dinosaurs, favorite t-shirts and summertime feelings) worked my nerves. Leon and I lived in a one room garage apartment with a bedsheet dividing it in half. My side had the sink. His had the window. There were many many times I would have liked to have been able to shut the door and block out the sound of Hey There Little Insect, but the sheet was what we had to work with. The lack of privacy and the oppressive heat and Book of Revelations style insect infestations of that place may not have worked in favor of me softening to the sounds of Jonathan's guitar and vocal stylings.

Later, in my twenties, I was coerced by a cute girl to see him play at the college venue in town, a crappy little weirdly shaped cafe where you could hardly see the stage. He rocked. I was taken completely by surprise that he was so great. Once I saw his act his loopy songs and sweet sense of humor really made a lot more sense than it ever did in that loathsome pit of an apartment. And turns out his music is an aphrodisiac on dates with cute girls.

Me and my new make out lady went up to the stage after the show where we got his autograph. He is a friendly guy and comes out into the crowd to talk to his audience after the shows. He gave me the pencil he had been using to hold while he posed for a picture and then told me to keep it. I was so out of my mind excited to send it as a present to Leon, certain that he would love to have this memento from one of his favorite performers. Leon was not quite as impressed with the pencil touched by Jonathan Richman as I was, but he was gleeful and gloating about how his good taste finally sank in to my thick head. I went to see him about three more times in Tallahassee and loved every show.

A few years ago I attended the birthday party of an acquaintance and local musician, Ralph Carney. I like him and I like his friends so off I went to celebrate his 50th. I was in the brightly lit kitchen by the food table. If you ever need to find me at a party, that is usually where I am. I heard a Jonathan Richman song start up in the next room. It was one I had heard before but not this version. It sounded like a live album. So I went in the living room to see if I could figure out what record it was on because it was so lively and funny and I wanted a copy. I turned the corner and there, on the piano bench, guitar on his lap, was Jonathan Richman himself. Cause he is friends with my friend. And he came to his party, too.

This is the same party, by the way, where I made a gay person in a mainly straight party faux pas. These are terrible gaffes where the room goes totally silent and no one laughs. We, the gays, all know that straight people have no sense of humor. Or at least they do not laugh at the same things that people of the gay persuasion laugh at. It is best, at straight parties, to just try to blend in and talk about serious stuff like jobs and lawns and pre-schools. And whatever you do, do NOT compliment the male host on his beautiful sparkly shirt by touching his arm and saying "Work it, girlfriend."

So my wife at the time was a filmmaker and she had just got some gossip that Julie Andrews was so gay and had a girlfriend while they were filming, oh, I don't know, let's say the Sound of Music or Victor/Victoria. I was feverishly burning up with this confirmation of a deeply held belief that all the celebrities I loved as a child who made me gay were probably gay themselves. The news was in me and it had to come out. So as we were all sitting around the table chatting about... OK, I am going to give these straight people a break because they are all musicians and artists and were not talking about boring stuff at all, and this is probably what led to the faux pas in the first place...you know, I felt all comfy and at home I let my guard down. It was time to break out what, at a queer party, would be a lively conversation starter. So I waited for my moment, introduced the topic, delivered the exciting news...and the room went silent. Even my wife looked away. Wrong crowd.

This leads me to the whole point of this post. A month and a half late. A few days before my own birthday in September I went to celebrate another friend's birthday by seeing Jonathan Richman. And conveniently he was playing at a bar where my good friend is a bartender so I got on the guest list. Yay! Happy Birthday me! Thanks Stacey!

websites

2009-11-06T05:46:00.000-08:00

After much agony, hair pulling and late night retina burning html sessions, a friend just completed a website for her film and editing work. It launched this week and she was talking about how when she googles the site it does not show up. A concern. That made me wonder if my honeybee website that I never do anything with shows up on a google search.

so I typed in MysteriousBeesSF and google asked me if I meant Mysterious Beef.

I don't know. Now I am curious. Maybe I DO mean Mysterious Beef.

Gracie's site is here by the way. And that photo up there is from her website. How do you stop people from being able to snag images off your site?

Happy Birthday Nephews!

2009-11-05T05:06:00.000-08:00

My twin nephews turned one year old today. Marcus and Graydon: November 4th, 2008. What a great day that was. In the afternoon I became an uncle to twin boys and later that night Obama was elected. Big celebration!

Today I was on the phone with my sister at the exact second they were born. We wished them each a happy birthday at 3:15 and 3:29 respectively. Tonight I celebrated by carving their names in some wet cement in the sidewalk on the way home from Taco Wednesday. I thought about how cool it would be when they came to visit their uncle when they were older how I could take them to my favorite taqueria (La Taqueria at Mission and 25th) for a burrito. They would be amazed by the murals and the music and how cheap and delicious the food is. And we would order a fresa and they would think that smooshed strawberries, crushed ice and sugar were the best drink EVER. Then we would cross the street and I would show them their names and birthday I had carved into the cement on their first birthday ever. I was so happy to be able to do something so permanent and cool for them.

Right as I got done, the owner of the house, who had been over petting my cute pug dog walked by and saw what I was doing and with dismay said, "Oh no, we just had this redone." She was a young woman with a sweet face and I felt bad for messing up maybe the one nice thing in front of her house. This part of the Mission is not exactly a nice neighborhood. Lots of trash and gross street stuff, graffiti, half dead plants and lots of dog and people poop.

"I'm so sorry. It is my twin nephews' first birthday today and I wanted to do something cool for them to see when they are older." I stood up and smiled at her. "Let me take a picture of it then I'll smooth it back out again. "

She looked relieved, congratulated me on my luck at having twin nephews, and then I snapped a photo and wiped their names back out. This week I'll be on the lookout for other freshly laid sidewalk where some little boys' names won't bother anyone. But how cool that for a second they were immortalized in the city streets. I'll always remember that they were there with me at 25th and Mission under a eucalyptus tree in front of that nice lady's house.

Persimmon Surprise

2009-11-04T15:39:00.000-08:00

There may be nothing more delightful than coming home to a mailbox full of freshly picked persimmons. My neighbor has two trees on a property up in Healdsburg...one of the crunchy shorter variety that you can eat like an apple (Fuyu) and one of the softer heart shaped one (Hachiya) that you have to wait till it gets really squishy before you eat it or it will take all the moisture out of your mouth instantaneously. These are the squishy ones. She tied them all together with twine and dumped them on my porch. I styled them and hung them on the mailbox for this picture. She also has a kiwi vine and I think I am about to get a pile of them.

Have you ever seen a persimmon tree? It fruits in fall after all the leaves have fallen from the tree. All you see is beautiful golden orange globes shining against a bright blue autumn sky. It will take your breath away.

I found a small photo of one on a cool little blog called Natural Japan

More about Scott Walker

2009-10-26T20:21:00.001-07:00

The sounds of Scott Walker's music are fading a little now. It's been a few days. The image of one of the musicians punching a huge slab of meat to get the right sound for part of one of his songs is still lodged in my brain. Not sure when that will go away. Today, unlike the past few days, I do not feel like I am awake in a dream, or feel compelled to look over my shoulder for the source of that disturbing rustling sound, or is it crying? Or the wind?

It has been difficult to articulate why his music hooked me even though the sound of it grated on my nerves. I feel compelled to talk about it, though. And to encourage people to rent what I think is a really well made documentary. I wandered around the past few days chewing on the images and sounds and his serious quick voice explaining the process of making his music. With quiet, confident and humble intensity he reveals bit by bit how his mind works on a problem expressed and solved through the creation of these songs. He works on a piece for years. Excruciatingly living it. Records it. Listens to it once at a high volume in the studio and then never again.

I think about a young, sensitive serious person, a musician, thrown into superstardom. The effect it would have on this person when thousands of screaming fans throng around the tour van he and his band are in and turn it upside down in their hysteria. It takes a lot of police to rescue them. The violence of stardom. The fear of being torn to shreds by his fans. "They did not come to hear the music, they came to scream. And that is what they did." I think about a man who becomes a recluse for 20 years after being so in the public eye and wonder if he started out mad or if the madness overtook him while he was being eaten alive by his public. Insomnia, obsessive perfectionism, paranoia, nightmares every night. I shy away from the mad genius trope. Too easy.

But his songs sound like they come from a parallel universe, familiar but slightly off. Guitar, drum, bass, keyboard, singer. Some little sound off in the back there that settles over you like a bad dream. What is that sound? Can't quite make it out or what it sounds like but I can hear it. I think. Is it real? Am I awake? His recent stuff is not even trying to be pop anymore. It is an opera, an exorcism.

Sometimes when I am alone for long periods of time I start hearing a sound in my head that I imagine looks like a swirling pulsing vortex. Doppler sounds spiraling downward. Kind of a low ringing in my ears. The pen on paper scratches loudly and the keyboard clicks with ear shattering sounds. That's when I know it's time to go outside for a walk. Shake off the introverted inward looking headspace and clear out the room of my brain's energy. Cabin fever.

For a while as a kid I had mini nightmares each time I fell asleep and I would fall out of bed. As I was falling asleep I would be in a theater with dark, rich and velvety multi-colored floor to ceiling curtains on the walls all lit gently from below. I would look at the curtains and try to see which part was shadow and which part was fabric. As I strained to see what was real and what was a trick of light the curtains would begin to stretch up the walls and extend into what looked like infinity. At the same time a sound would start, a ringing, a tone like the late night TV test pattern. The colors and lights would spiral upwards at a tremendous speed and the ringing tone would get louder and louder and louder and just when I could take it no more it would all stop suddenly like whiplash. And I would wake up on the floor confused and frightened by the silence and the dark.

Sometimes still, when I am sleeping particularly hard, my dreams are so loud that when I wake up, the silence of not dreaming is absolutely deafening. I think of that (un)sound as the sound of my subconscious...or is it the unconscious? A rushing humming buzz of blood racing through vessels and neurons firing and whatever else goes on in there. On those days I am barely certain that I am not still sleeping and that everything I am experiencing may still be a dream.

I think Scott Walker spends a lot of time in that disconcerting disturbing dream world and not by choice. I won't buy his records but I will tell you to see the movie. It changed me.

Fun Theory

2009-10-26T04:00:00.000-07:00

I thought I invented this theory, but I guess other people are also thinking along the same lines... which is GOOD NEWS for the world. Thanks to my sister, Kori, for sending this to me.

Scott Walker: 30 Century Man

2009-10-24T11:04:00.000-07:00

I have been having a crappy week. Even the mighty optimist happy guy gets crushed to a sobbing puddle of despair when the bank, for no reason other than covering the greedy bastards who sucked all the cash out of our economy last year, raises his interest rates for the second time in three months...so high that the end of his debt is now nowhere in sight. I pay twice the minimum payment and never had a late payment. Why are they raising my interest rates? Twice? This is the same week that the triple hit of vet dentist + truck breakdown + second emergency vet bill vaporizes his tiny bank account. That is when happy guy feels like he is a loser and made all the wrong choices at critical moments in his development. No savings, no retirement, lots of debt and now no money in the bank. Zero. Back to square one. The kind of week where everything is terrible and nothing goes right and even little tiny problems get magnified to huge proportions.

Perfect time to watch some bubble headed comedy or tv sitcoms for a few hours and wait for all the bad feelings to just drift away. A friend on Facebook had posted a clip from Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense...the part where David Byrne and Tina Weymouth are onstage alone singing the song Heaven. That sounded like a nice way to pass the time, a good concert movie of one of my favorite bands when I was a wee thing.

Netflix didn't have it on instant view but they did have a movie I'd been meaning to watch for a while called Scott Walker" 30 Century man. I dragged the laptop over to the couch and put on some headphones and waited for my troubles to just wash away in the music and magical story of fame and genius and success.

Well. I guess I should have done a little research first.

It starts out as the traditional story of teen idols: screaming fans, lots of press and then the band breaks up and he goes solo successfully for three albums and all of a sudden, poof! his fans dump him and he becomes a recluse. Twenty years later he re-emerges and puts out two albums ten years apart. They are not pop. At all. They are dark and scary and atmospheric.

The Walker Brothers, at one time right up there with the Beatles in popularity, made that music in the Sixties that to me sounds like elevator music. String laden pop ballads with obscure, beatnic poet lyrics combined with the echoey wall of sound. The kind of serious and self important music tall skinny dudes in tight narrow jeans, turtle necks, teased mod hair and dark sunglasses like to make. To me it sounds like Pat Boone. But to thousands of screaming fans, it sounded pretty hot. Scott Walker's solo albums took that sound even more to the extreme.

As the film follows his musical trajectory I started to understand that something was different about this guy. There was something dark and intense and legitimately serious about him. He seemed more like a composer than a pop musician, more interested in sounds and atmosphere than in dippy love songs tossed off for top 40 record sales. He can sing, but something in his voice is off, tormented. And it is the kind of music that makes me uncomfortable and embarrassed for the singer. Like I am hearing something personal, not meant to be heard by a stranger. There is a lot of dissonance and in the background, atonal tense sounding strings.

There is this great part in the movie where they are talking about how the Walker Brothers reunited in the late 70's for three albums and as their record company went under they just went balls out and made the record they wanted to make. Called Nite Flights. The sound of a song called The Electrician hit my ears and and it did something to me. Not something good. I felt like I had just descended into madness. A bad acid trip of death and blood and skulls and paranoia. But how can a guy with a voice like Tony Bennett backed by sickly sweet strings make me feel like I am on drugs? I got goosebumps and I felt scared in my own house. Jumpy. Like I was about to see a ghost. Or that there was a monster under my bed.

His two most recent albums just let go altogether and gave up trying to stay within the framework of a pop song. Pulsing, oozing atmospheric darkness and distress, but not in a goth kind of way, or in oh, I don't even know how to describe it. An isolated apocalyptic personal nightmare. This guy is intense and driven and intelligent and he is working out some kind of inner struggle musically and not in a self indulgent navel gazing way. He seems like he might be deeply disturbed, confessing to having terrible nightmares every night his whole life. His eyes are black like a shark and his skin is shiny and tight. Yet somehow, it is not the darkness I am drawn to. It is the struggle to free himself of it that interests me. And in the mean time his music scares the hell out of me.

I was hooked. Listening to his songs I started to hear how much he influenced people like David Bowie, Richard Hawley, The Smiths, Brian Eno, Antony and the Johnsons. And how dark and disturbing his music really is. And beautiful. Even though I really don't like it. But it does something to me and now I am all over the internet trying to hear more of it. Trying to figure out what is happening in these songs, wanting to talk to people about it. I think I might join the cult.

So see the movie. You'll for sure forget all your troubles.

Crash

2009-10-22T08:31:00.000-07:00

Starting in June my life at work and at play becomes so busy, full and exciting I almost can't stand it. In August things really start ramping up to a hysterical fever pitch and I feel like I am the last person on the crack the whip conga line. By September I am like a grinning glassy eyed kid who has stayed up too late eating funnel cakes and being spun around on the Zipper. Right around now I start the sugar crash portion of my year. I am exhausted and cranky and praying for rain so I can take a break and spend some quality time in my house alone in the quiet.

This is my lame way of explaining why there has not been a single post here in weeks even though there have been plenty of reasons to sit down and write about amazing rapturously interesting things I have seen or thought about or gotten bent out of shape about.

But I'm back now, ready to keep you amazed and amused.

This is how my soul gets sucked right out of my body

2009-10-04T17:42:00.000-07:00

I have an awesome job. I am my own boss, I get to work outside in a mild climate with the beautiful city of San Francisco as a backdrop. My assistants are smart and interesting and fun to spend time with. I get to play with hoses, climb around on trees and high fences and retaining walls, scale ladders, drive a giant truck and use tools. And I get to work with plants. I am lucky.

Sometimes, though...sometimes this job sucks the life right out of me.

I have a garden that is shared by two owners, well three, really. One owner is a couple, the other is a single woman in her 50's. During the installation of their very contemporary and sleek rear garden an old camellia tree was transplanted into the front. It was not done correctly and the tree was slowly dying. After months of holding their hands about it we removed the tree and sent it off to its new life as compost. Now, after the appropriate mourning period, it was time to find a suitable replacement to screen the exposed corner. I suggested a third olive tree to match the other two they already had. Simple, elegant and in keeping with their desire to keep costs down since eventually the front garden would also be transformed into a sleek contemporary garden like the one in the rear of the house.

Not so fast, mister. One half of the couple hates olive trees and can barely tolerate the two existing trees. No way will there be a third. OK. There are other trees out there. More fish in the sea. The space is narrow and the tree must serve the dual purpose of looking pretty and lightly screening the corner window without blocking out too much light or growing up to the second floor window or blocking the sidewalk. Options are limited, at least in my mind. I sent a list with photos for them to consider and asked them to walk around their neighborhood to see if they saw anything they might like. Three months later there had been no walking around looking for likely candidates, nor was there a decision. What there was plenty of, though, was pressure on me to find them a tree. Something about feng shui and the energy of the passing car and foot traffic coming into the house and the lack of a tree causing the energy in the house to be weird. I can get behind that. I call it privacy, but weird energy is also a fine description for when passing strangers are able to stare at you while you scramble your eggs in the morning. Thing is, I can't plant a tree till you pick one.

So I sent more photos. Mind you, this takes a long freaking time. I have to study local plant books for ideas, narrow it down to the ones that will work in that spot, find decent online images and collect them all into an email with exciting descriptions and also find out if the nursery even has them and if so how much do they cost. My second wave of suggestions was met with more disappointment. This one is too tall, that one is too wide, I don't like the leaves on this one, is there one that flowers all year round, what about a fruit tree? Oh it loses it's leaves in winter...hmmmm.

I study humans as a hobby. Humans in groups are even more interesting because we act so weird. And, groups of people together tend to lead toward gossip, which is fun. I like to be on the edge observing. It is a thinly veiled self esteem problem, but is tends to serve me well in my line of work. It helps to be able to "get where people are coming from" and then give them exactly what they want in their garden. What I was "getting" from this group is that someone was being difficult, maybe two of them. Someone did not care that much and was going along with it, someone else just wanted it done and was willing to compromise on the selection just to have it completed. Someone wore the pants and had the final say. I also was getting the idea that someone did not want a tree there at all and was stalling the process and maybe hoping it would all blow over. The thing is, because we are in California and no one wants to say how they really feel out loud and because, due to conflicting schedules, I could never see them all at once and watch their body language, I could not tell who was who and therefore how to move forward and get this stupid simple job taken care of.

After the third batch of trees was rejected I was running out of suggestions. Finally, by some small miracle, they all agreed on a smoke tree, big purple leaves, lovely pink smoky haze of blooms in spring, not a speck of leaves in the fall and winter. To me it did not fit within the parameters they had set for me. It was going to block out light with it's giant leaves 3/4 of the year and then offer no privacy at all in winter. It is a sprawling and unruly tree and I was going to have to be on top of the pruning or it would take over the space in seconds, but I did not care. They picked a tree together and I was going to get it in the ground.

Two of the owners were home as the tree was unveiled and they oohed and ahhed. I dusted off my hands. patted myself on the back and thought, "They're happy. I'm happy. The tree will be happy. My work here is done."

A week later I get an email about how they had been thinking about it and well, the tree is just not going to work out in their garden. Can I come over, take it out, dig out one of the existing old olive trees and put it in the spot they are trying to fill and then help them find a tree to fill the newly created empty space with entirely new conditions and specifications. I reread the email and sort of felt like I was in one of those dreams where the hall stretches out with endless doors on and on and on and on into infinity and you are running and running but making no progress. I also got the sense that they felt like I had somehow conned them into taking this imperfect tree, but that may have been my own sense of FAILURE to please Crazytown. Yes, that is the new name of this garden. Crazytown. Naming it this is one of the ways I cope with stress.

Since the email arrived technically on a weekend, and my birthday weekend, to boot, I did not answer it right away. By Monday I had received a flurry of emails from Crazytown with several conflicting "final" decisions on how to handle the tree along with a description of a location in the city where there were some trees they liked and could I go look at them and tell them if they would work in that spot.

Back to square one. With 75% less enthusiasm.

I decided that the only way to handle this was to quit, and you already know I won't do that, or force Crazytown to make meeting together a priority before I go off on another wild goose chase to get a tree they will make me dig right back out again. If I could get them all in one place and see where my problem was, I was sure I could crack this nut. Meanwhile, I drove by the trees in question, the ones they liked and wondered if they could be "The Ones". 30 feet tall feathery purple acacias. No way to keep them at 7 feet. But I got the idea of the basic kind of look Crazytown was interested in. Dr. Suess. No surprise there. (By the way, I love Dr. Suess.)

A few mornings later I met with them all together and went over their options. Then I let them have a discussion about their options. I tried to stay bright and alert and acting like I cared at this point. But really, I was just there to find out who was the obstacle and how to overcome it. It became immediately clear that the real problem is one guy who has "opinions and good taste". He wants the tree to be special even though it is a temporary tree. And he is slowing everything down. The woman loved the smoke tree. His boyfriend loved the smoke tree. He hated it. And the olives. And everything else I suggested. He knew what he wanted the tree to look like but it might not exist anywhere but in his mind.

I was formulating a solution to finding this elusive Dr. Suess tree when he turns to me like he is in a musical and says "you know what I really think we should have here..."

And I'm waiting for it. Waiting for him to burst into a peppy song about trees, tall trees, short trees, red trees green trees. Trees Trees Trees. What we need here is a tree. But instead of a song, he turns and gestures to the empty space like he is making a movie and wants to make the tree a movie star.

Wouldn't it be so wonderful and whimsical if there was a topiary here in the shape of a...

HIPPOPOTAMUS!

I was so stunned I could not even react. The woman's jaw dropped and eyes bugged out and she looked at me pleadingly as if to say "see what I have been dealing with?"

NO WONDER no suggestions sounded right to him. How on earth would I have EVER GUESSED that a tree in the shape of a hippo would be what he wanted. Not even the savviest of human observers could have guessed he was going to pull that one out of his ass. And with all due respect, what an AWESOME IDEA!!!

But before I could fully recover both the woman and the man's boyfriend turned on him and simultaneously gave him their unedited reactions, not California style at all. He was soundly outvoted and to add insult to injury, they decided that a third olive tree, the one he hates, was indeed what they were going to have me plant there and there would be no more talk of animal topiaries until the landscape architect was hired to redo the front garden. And maybe not even then.

I do not envy whoever they hire, but I cannot freaking WAIT to be the gardener who takes care of that Crazytown house with the hippo, the monkey and the T-Rex out front.

always finding the best spot

2009-09-23T05:00:00.000-07:00

UFO's Beware

2009-09-22T05:57:00.000-07:00

stickbugs

2009-09-21T05:34:00.000-07:00

One of the joys of having an outdoor job is seeing all the wildlife that lives in the city. One of my gardens has recently become a home to some large brown stickbugs. They are so well camouflaged I often have to stop myself right before I am about to prune them in half.

Their texture is soft and sort of warm, or skin-like.

I have planted many gardens with the idea of feeding bees and butterflies and other pollinators. last year I decided I wanted Monarch butterflies to be in the gardens so I planted about a million orange and yellow milkweed plants. You can tell the Monarchs are in the garden when your plants start looking like they are getting chewed up and stripy caterpillars are everywhere. No luck last year, but yesterday I was heading back to the front yard when I saw a Monarch fluttering from the west and headed right into the blooming milkweeds My heart soared as I watched my garden attract the butterfly I loved as a child. It flitted here and there and got closer and closer to it's favorite food and then, as I held my breath in anticipation...landed on the giant pink flowered escalonia hedge instead. And there it stayed, happily feeding on escalonia nectar until it was full. Then it flew away. No interest whatsoever in the milkweed.

Pollarding results

2009-09-20T05:30:00.000-07:00

Before:

After:

why do we do this? Who knows.
Except that I get paid a lot of money to make them look this way.

Madcat Film Festival

2009-09-19T05:46:00.000-07:00

Wednesday night Gracie and I went to the Madcat Women's International Film Festival at El Rio...one of the only bars in town with a really large nice back patio. I love this event because it happens OUTSIDE! With live bands accompanying some of the films. The independent experimental films are all directed or co-directed by women filmmakers. Our friends who organize it moved to gol durned Brooklyn last year so now it is only one night. The good news is that they are expanding their reach by taking the show on the road this year. Check out the website for the touring schedule or to see if you can get them to come to your town.

I love me some experimental film. And this program did not disappoint.

Aubergine

2009-09-18T12:14:00.000-07:00

I planted some gunnera in a garden last year. It is that giant prickly leaved plant that some people call Dinosaur Lettuce. The leaves can be 4-5 feet tall and wide and now look at what a pretty flower it makes. The striped leaves in the background are phormiums and not the gunnera. I need to go back with my good camera and catch some better shots. This is from my iPhone.

and what a cute little eggplant. Too bad it makes my tongue blister. Dang deadly nightshades.

Power to the Peaceful

2009-09-13T19:11:00.000-07:00

So my friend Stacey invited me to bike to Golden Gate Park this Saturday with our friend Ali to check out a free concert. The weather has been beautiful and I figured I could use the exercise so I said yes. Then I looked it up on the world wide internets and realized I had just agreed to attend a gigantic patchouli/hemp/weed fest in the park. Oh Dear. Not my scene anymore, I'm afraid. Well, I figured since I had already said yes I should go ahead and go and at the very least there would be some good people watching. And if I hated it I could just bike off to the museum or Conservatory of Flowers or something.

Saturday morning at 5a.m. I awakened to an enormous thunderclap and the very strange sound of hard rain in September. See, here in California it stops raining in April and does not start again till November. Totally dry for 6 months. Not a drop of rain. And thunderstorms? very very rare. But there is always one thunderstorm in September. I like to think of it as my birthday storm.

It rained for a few hours and there was lightning and thunder and I wondered how bummed out the promoters of the festival were feeling right now. But by one it had cleared to a cool mist and we decided to go ahead out there to see what we could see. I was relieved I was not going to have to slather myself with sunscreen. I burn fast. We took the Wiggle (a nice flat route from my house to the park that zigzags in between giant hills) and rolled into Speedway Meadow to the Bike Coalition's free bike valet area...very nice service...zero chance your bike will be stolen.

As we entered the gates I spied a skinny bearded man in army fatigues holding his hand in front of his face and twirling around in place as fast as he could twirl, never taking his eyes off his hand while a DJ spun crazy trippy techno music on a small stage. A gaggle of curly haired hippie nymphs rushed past us, each one with a special symbol painted on her face. Three scraggly barefoot men crawled around a collection of branches, tree stumps, flower petals and moss putting the finishing touches on their nature altar. I thought I might have seen a puppet out of the corner of my eye. Right away it became clear that this was going to be a challenge for me. Crowds. On Drugs. Spinning. The hair on my arms and back of my neck went up. Oh Crap. Contact High. But what's that I see off in the distance? The bright yellow sign of a food vendor advertising Cajun food? Stacey and Ali and I locked panicked eyes and then made a beeline for the beignets. Nothing better to deal with an unwanted contact high than the quintessential festival food...fried dough and powdered sugar.

We slowly wandered through the food vendors and planned the rest of our meal for the day. SF always has pretty good stuff at the street and park festivals. Not just chicken on a stick and corndogs. You can get that too, but you also can find stir-fry, vegan food, wraps, fancy chocolate and desserts, ice cream, indian food...I even saw a guy with a beautiful set of copper chocolate truffle pots and he was hand dipping truffles and selling them fresh.

The food tents gave way to the trinket and clothes vendors...beaded and flowy natural fibers and bracelets and amulets, sparkly baubles, lots and lots of hemp, plenty of independent entrepreneurs selling various homemade cookies and brownies. Man, if I was 19 I would have been going ape-shit over all the nature t-shirts and medallions on leather strings. I did see a pretty cool shirt that had the state of California on it and then at the bottom roots were coming out. So I must still have a little of the hippie in me somewhere. Plenty of legalize marijuana booths, lots of social justice organizations, you know the drill.

Now passing the rows of blue portable toilets and here we go...INTO THE MASSES.

I am old and grouchy so I am just gonna say it out loud and get it out of the way. Thank god it was not hot or sunny because I think the combo smell-o-rama of pot smoke, B.O. and patchouli would have sent me packing. Instead, I just smelled the fresh foggy ocean air, the eucalyptus trees, and Stacey's coffee. Sly and Robbie were playing on stage and for some reason we were threading faster and faster through the crowd to get to the front. Stacey moves effortlessly through the crowd, unlike me, who catches his backpack on dreadlocks, dreamcatchers and indian skits. I crushed a teenager's bare toes with my work boots. I bonked into a cosmic couple making a baby in the middle of the path. I am startled by the sudden appearance of a fat old man with a giant white beard sitting off the path in the blackberry brambles smiling widely and smoking a giant bong. Finally, we reached the front and Stacey tells us to wait a second and disappears into the crowd towards some white tents. When she returns she is holding three sparkly red wristbands.

Backstage passes.

So before I know it, we were whisked into the VIP area behind the giant stage and giving big hugs to Stacey's roommate who is the ORGANIZER of this event. I forgot that she manages the headlining band, Spearhead, and I guess this huge thing, too. She is the opposite of all the people I just pushed through to get here. I think it is funny that someone so tough and smart and hard ass organized is in charge of this squishy festival of love and peace. And, as I imagined this morning, the organizer WAS very bummed about the weather and was watching the tens of thousands of dollars they spend on the event about to be washed down the drain by the storm.

But peace won out over bad weather and 50,000 people showed up to dance and paint their faces and eat yummy chicken on a stick. So there I was, Mr. grouchy ex-hippie surrounded by crowds of happy baked youth and crusty baked old guys, including Wavy Gravy, wondering how on earth this could have happened to my Saturday. But once I saw the world's largest dreamcatcher made of old cans and recycled plastic stuff I just gave up being cynical and jaded. What so the point? Everyone was so happy and having so much fun.

The music was good, the people watching was off the charts amazing. I got to see tiny bits of Alanis Morrisette's face.

And then, somehow, when Spearhead took the stage, got dragged onstage in front of 50,000 screaming fans and right next to the shirtless capoiera guys who were flying all over the stage, the tiny bouncing man in parachute pants, and my shy and startled friends.

Not that anyone was looking at me. Except a few people in front wondering what that stiff nervous looking white dude was doing up there.

So turns out Spearhead is a pretty good live band. Funky reggae, Jamaican sounding call and response dance music. And after 15 years of being underground he has finally cracked the top 40 with this song.

As we left the park we passed two white kids in their twenties lying on the ground about ten feet apart. One was on his side and twisted into a strange position with one arm straight up and staring at the grass. The other was on her back and staring cosmically at the sky, hopefully not at the sun because she is going to need her retinas later, probably. I remembered that feeling. I sort of envied them for a second. Then I remembered how they were going to feel tomorrow and happily got onto my bike and pedaled home for a nice long Saturday afternoon nap in grown up land.

New TV and two good Movies

2009-08-31T06:29:00.000-07:00

I saw two movies this week on my "new" giant TV I got from a client who was throwing all her non-HD tv's out. The TV is huge, the biggest one I have ever had in my house. I am amazed that now I can actually read the credits. My old TV was so small the words were just a fuzzy blur and I would have to look everything up on the internet afterward. I have never actually purchased a TV. I always find them or get them when people are moving. I love trash piles. It will be a cold day in hell before I spend money on a brand new TV even though I am dazzled by the clarity of the image on the new ones. Maybe someday I will get a thrown out fancy HD, but for now I can enjoy this fancy "old"one. I think it is 4 years old.

I saw Todd Haynes' flick I'm Not There and a really good documentary about James Nachtwey, the photojournalist who specializes in documenting war zones and the effects of war, called War Photographer.

Just about any horrifying and depressing image you have seen that depicts the starving, the dead, the massacred, the grieving, the wounded, the displaced, the disfigured, the brutal, the enslaved, the rubble, the burning landscape, the piles of bodies...he probably took that photo.

The movie is hard to watch at first and I was angry at him in the beginning for being right up in the faces of a wailing group of women in Kosovo who were burying their sons. But as the film progressed I realized he is a humble and gentle man who is driven to bring these images to view so that we can DO something about the cause of their grief. His photos are as gorgeous as they are difficult to look at. Footage from an opening night party of a retrospective of his work in New York has the crowd standing in silence holding untouched wine. Some are crying, others shake their heads, others stare, stunned at the unrelenting images of suffering and horror. The conditions that people can live under left me speechless and not so smug and self satisfied about my own "simple living". Free TV. Who cares? These people don't have homes. They live on cardboard. Not in cardboard. ON it. in the open. on train tracks as train after train raors past blowing grit and debris onto them. They work in steaming smoking sulfur mines wearing flip flops. Their families are dead. Hacked to pieces by machetes. Unimaginable horror and violence. His images remind me of another photographer, the Brazilian Sebastiao Selgado.

The footage of Nachtwey in the war zones is amazing. He is RIGHT THERE in the middle of it all, his eyes burning from tear gas, a fellow photographer shot dead right next to him, running from artillery fire as buildings explode. There is a particularly moving scene where he talks about how he deals with the horror he sees, why he goes back over and over to photograph the misery and destruction. He says that it needs to be witnessed and shown to the world so that it can be prevented. So we DO something about it. Because if we don't, who will? he asks. Then he reads letters from people who have seen his photos. One American woman writes that, though she is living on of a social security payment of $330 a month and barely making it, after seeing the images of the family in Jakarta who live on a piece of cardboard in between two sets of train tracks (Image above of man bathing his children. He lost one arm and one leg when he was run over by a train.) she would like for the photographer to forward the family the $20 a month she will be sending him as long as she is able. See it, but not for light entertainment. You'll probably feel devastated and quiet and thoughtful for a few days after. And you will never be the same.
You can see many of his photos on his website found here.

I'll tell you about the Bob Dylan flick tomorrow.

Irish Blessing

2009-08-28T15:12:00.001-07:00

I have heard this before but never the second stanza. I love the Irish.

May the road rise up to meet you,
may the wind be ever at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face
and the rain fall softly on your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.

And, may those who love you, love you;
and those who don't love you, may God turn their hearts;
and if He doesn't turn their hearts,
may he turn their ankles so we'll know them by their limping.

Cool things I saw at the Nelson Atkins Museum

2009-08-21T05:54:00.000-07:00

I wandered around this museum for a while before I really got hooked into anything (aside from the bookstore, which is always my first stop in a museum). I like the modern and contemporary art wing partly because of an amazing art history class I took at New College with Chris Hassold. I like to see if I can still remember the artists 11 years later. She did a good job drilling them into my head and telling interesting stories about the artists and movements and styles. No matter how hard I try, though, I cannot appreciate Claes Oldenburg's stuff. I like other Pop artists but this guy just bugs me. I think I might have seen a video interview with him and maybe at the time I thought he seemed like a jerk. The Nelson Atkins has a bunch of his giant shuttlecocks (badmitten birdies) all over the lawn, 18 feet tall, 2.5 tons, big sculptures. You would think this kind of hugely whimsical installation would appeal to me. I mean, I like restaurant signs made to look like 4 story tall cowboy hats. But 2.5 ton shuttlecocks? Nope. I inspected a room filled with drawings and renderings of the shuttlecock from different angles and followed his process in conceptualizing the project. I admired some of his drawings and by the end I was sort of changing my mind about the artist. I mean, he can draw, at least. And he is Swedish. Gotta love that, right? I guess when the sculptures went up in Kansas City there was a media uproar that they were in bad taste and should not be considered art. I would not go that far. I just think they are kind of stupid. I really dislike the Cupid's Bow and Arrow in San Francisco...but that's just me.

Anyway, my two aunts were completely absorbed in the Southeast Asia wing and were carefully studying each and every tiny carved clay and stone object one by one by one.

I told them I was going to move on and would meet them at the bookstore in an hour. I aimlessly passed through a few more rooms of carved heads and animal figurines without really seeing anything I cared that much about. Then I found this amazing black stone coffin for some queen somewhere or other. I stared at it for about 30 minutes, going back and forth over it trying to memorize how they drew the trees. Then I remembered my phone could take pictures. That's why I paid big money for it. So now you can stare at the trees, too.

Once I was hooked into the art vibe I started find all kinds of treasures to admire, like this bird head from Greece or Rome. You can tell I am not a reader...well, I read, but I do not retain.

I had to include two photos of this sweet lady, one for the dress and one for her facial expression. Something about her reminds me of my friend, Christine, who I often refer to here on FFB. I see her everywhere. I like to think she is visiting me by surprise in all these random places.

Knights in shining armor. You can never go wrong with these.

I loved this prissy cleric and his strangely foreshortened arms.

Makes me want to get out there and WORK.

Another Roman bird with me and my favorite green shirt in the background.

from my family's farm in Northern Missouri

2009-08-20T05:51:00.000-07:00

On The Mysterious Working of Grace

2009-08-19T08:13:00.000-07:00

"One works and works and works at something, which then happens of its own accord: it would not have happened without all the prior work, true, but its happening cannot be said to have resulted from all that work, the way effects are said to result from a series of causes. There is all that work, which is preparation, preparation for receptivity, but then there is something beyond that which is gratis, for free."
-Lawrence Weschler

pictures from Kansas City

2009-08-19T06:35:00.000-07:00

As soon as I unlock the secret of what happened to my photos (25,000 of them) from the day before these were taken I will post more of my trip to Kansas City. These are what I have available.

In this photo I discovered that I have crap inside my lens. You can see it in every single photo where there is a nice flat unbroken color...like blue sky. Ag. WHY CAN'T I HAVE ANYTHING NICE?????

My Aunt Linda flashing gang signs? while Alf plays on TV in background. I think TV's should be outlawed in restaurants.

OK. Not fair, I know, I can't really spell either ever since I took Spanish and French classes.

random shots from my special life

2009-08-18T06:21:00.000-07:00

Life is stranger than fiction.

This needs to be a t-shirt. Anyone?

This is going to be included in my cool truck museum when I have tons of money and land.

The only picture I took at Robin Kirkpatrick's b-day party.

my garden is making lots of things

2009-08-17T08:35:00.000-07:00

The garden is working out a lot better this year. This is what I picked this morning. red sails lettuce, scarlet runner beans, a bunch of different tomatoes (I think I have about 14 plants crammed into my front garden) and some blackberries. And I cannot forget the microscopic carrots.

I've also been working on a series of photos of spent flowers. These I left in water in my kitchen while I was away in Missouri for ten days. The color of the water was spectacular. The one below is a group of roses called Cinco de mayo. The lower one is a crimson dahlia. I really dig how the mold looks.

I have a bunch of other photos of stuff from the garden but I messed up my computer, of course, so I can't get to them right now. I think I can find the blueberry one, though.

YAY. here it is. Blueberries! In my front yard! Heaven on earth.

from childhood

2009-08-14T15:50:00.001-07:00

Mom let us go through her old baking pans and holiday party decorations while we were all home. Since I was on a plane I decided just to take the little cake decorations. (Plus most of the cake pans were Disney themed so it was pretty easy to pass them up.) My favorites are the little Halloween figures. Mom put on a pretty amazing Halloween party every year for the neighborhood kids. It included a haunted house in our garage, bobbing for apples, and her famous Spook Cakes, made spooky by the scary chocolate chips that would jump out and surprise you when you bit into the moist white cupcake. The tiny devils and witches and scarecrows stuck right in the top of the chocolate frosting, some of which still have ancient dried crusts of that frosting sticking to their feet. When I showed them to my assistants the more germ conscious of the two picked one up tentatively and noted that probably it was covered in child saliva. Yep. Maybe even mine.

Another great personal ad from craigslist

2009-08-14T06:15:00.000-07:00

San Francisco Twinks School and Bullying Academy -

Two nasty minded big bad bullies are looking for some pretty young men for our bullying academy, you be 18 through mid 20s, cute thin wimpy with a tendency to whimper nicely when abused. The sort of pretty boys bullies can't resist tormenting. Taboo, nasty, dirty, painful, filthy and degrading bullying awaits the lucky students accepted to our academy. Do you need continuing education in swirlies, wedgies, nuggies, and thick sticky cum facials? Does your cock twitch at the thought of big bad bullies doing nasty things to you?

Candidates will submit an essay along with picture.

"Why would I be a good candidate for the bullying academy?"

"When a man fills my underwear with bananas and gives me an atomic wedgy, I feel:"

Radiate Disapproval

2009-08-12T18:21:00.000-07:00

As you know I was in Missouri visiting my family for a week. I had a great time and did not want to leave when the trip was coming to a close. You also may know that I have been getting bored with my job after 17 years in the gardening business. I still like being outside and working with plants but the thrill of owning a business is sort of fading and what is left is piles of irritating paperwork, slow paying clients and ...um...boredom.

Every few months or so I try to fall in love with it all again so that I do not have to figure out a new career. The thought of working for someone else is about as appealing as poking my eyes out with a stick...as is the idea of starting a new business. I hope I never have to do that again. It was hard and I was so poor for so many years. Ideally, I will magically become independently wealthy and only have to work if I want to. Barring that, I just try to keep the love alive and hope that this job is good to me till the day I die. Lucky for me the job is pretty amazing so all I have to do is remind myself of that in a convincing way every so often.

Upon my very reluctant return from my midwestern family dream vacation I really really had to rev up the work romance trick because I was not feeling one bit like heading out of the house to work in someone else's garden. All I wanted to do was nap and eat and surf the internet and close my eyes and pretend I was hanging out on the lake with my family. Yesterday was overcast and gross and I can't even remember what I did at work. I know I was very happy to get home and shower and sleep. But today the weather was beautiful and I had a fun project planned for the day that would be challenging and probably tiring but very satisfying upon completion. And then a quick ride a few blocks away to mow two lawns at the end of the day.

Out we went into the sunshine and built a new pathway through my 90 year old neighbor's garden so she would not trip over the rocks and dips in the existing path. Actually, I am the one who trips, she is fine. She runs through that garden like a young mountain goat or a gazelle. I take one step an my ankle goes out to the side or I trip over a tipped up flagstone. In fact, we worry that now she is going to fall since it is so flat and smooth. The work was hot and it was dusty, but it was great to see the finished product. At 3pm we headed off to the two lawns that needed to be mowed. We weeded, we mowed, we played with Sparky the 100 year old Jack Russell werewolf terrier, we chatted with the chatty neighbor. All was well in garden land.

Then we went to the final garden to mow the lawn. We go here every Wednesday and mow the lawn and hope against hope that the owners are not home. They can deflate a good mood in about 1 second with their off-putting personalities. Even their garden is happier when they are gone. They have been out of town for two months and everything has been blooming and growing and looking spectacular. Whenever they are home they glare balefully at the plants and cause them to wither.

I dread going to this garden. But I go there every week because I have another one right next door and I am too chicken to quit knowing I would still have to see them twice a month when I go take care of the good garden where Sparky lives and happiness abounds. We call them Their Majesties because they only speak to me from two floors up on their balcony with the sun behind them so I am blinded by their countenances. Or they speak to me on the ground floor but never take off their sunglasses so I cannot see their royal eyes. One of them is very tall, wears his jeans up high above his waist and tucks in his shirts always. His tennis shoes have springs on the heels. The other is younger and vaguely more hip, but seems to be so clean and white and glistening no matter what he has on. Their discomfort and barely concealed anticipation of constant disappointment puts me so on edge my nervous vibrations could shatter glass. When they are home we can feel them watching out the windows waiting for us to make a mistake. It is nervewracking. They are never happy with anything in their garden and have never once told me that it looks good. Or thank you. They always seem mildly unhappy or uncomfortable and often make a face like there is a bad taste in their mouths. And there is. It is called bitterness. I guess I sort of loathe them. And I should quit. But I can't.

But today they were not home and all was well. In fact, maybe they were still out of town. The sun was shining. The grass was filling in from where they had stared it to death. We watered the lovely young lemon tree and admired the new fragrant blossoms that had miraculously returned after they had been singed off by the radiation of disapproval when it did not bloom and fruit right away. I swept up the flagstone path and prepared to head home but stopped for one last look at the magnificent sweep of lawn and cascading California Lilac, the Breath of Heaven lining the path blowing in the afternoon wind, the roses and lemon trees, the hydrangeas and camelias. Another great day in the gardens. I was in love again.

I happily turned to walk out the gate and nearly crashed into the one who wears glistening white tennis shorts and white polo shirts, the one who looks like constipation is a daily cross to bear. My heart sank but I quickly recovered, smiled and welcomed him back to town. We stood uncomfortably for a moment and then I tried to squeeze past him to get out the gate. Instead of letting me pass, he started a conversation about maybe me wanting to put the debris in the free city green can in the garage instead of taking it away and charging him for it. I reminded him that the garage was alarmed (and so was I, come to think of it, since this conversation looked like it was headed into an already difficult area...alarms...and I will tell you why in a minute) and that it might complicate things. But that I was happy to use the green can if he wanted to give me the code to the alarm again. I took out my notebook and prepared to write down the code. He stood there behind his reflective 1000 dollar sunglasses and did not say anything. I looked up expectantly. He sighed. And these words came out of his mouth:

"Well, actually, I do not have the fullest confidence in your mastery of the alarm."

OH MY GOD. REALLY?

So I have to pause here before I fly off the handle and give you some back story.

Settle in, this might take a while.

I have worked for these guys for about 6 years. Every freaking Wednesday. Six years. And still the effing alarm incident is in the forefront of their concept of me as a effective, competent gardener. Here is what happened. You be the judge. Should they give me the code? Or should I quit the job?

I had been working for them for about 2 months when they went on their yearly summer vacation. It starts in May and ends in the middle of August. While they were away their Houseboy (housekeeper, errand boy, maintenance man, car washer, etc.) would be doing some interior painting and repairs. He would be in and out of the house, setting and resetting the alarm. I needed to be sure to always set the alarm if he was not there. No problem. I have keys and codes to some of the most amazing and special homes in the city. I did not even blink. It comes with the job. You make sure the doors are locked and the alarm is on. Simple. Right?

They have a "Smart House". This means that everything inside and outside their house is controlled by a computer located in their utility room under the house. Including the garden irrigation, which is particularly irritating to a gardener. This smart house turns the lights on and off, controls the climate of the house, the temperature of the water heater, makes phone calls, fills up the bath tub, turns on the TV, whatever you can imagine, this house does it for you. It also is connected to the more elaborate than usual alarm system. This alarm has the usual setting of perimeter only (doors and windows) for when you are home and then you can also set it to alarm the floors for when you are away. This fancy alarm also has the ability to set the alarm for the existing configuration of the house...like the upstairs window is open, the lower door is open and everything else is closed and locked. After the alarm is activated if you close the open window or door the alarm goes off. Not sure what that is good for, but who cares? I won't ever need to use it. Or so I thought.

So the Houseboy has been working on the house for a few days while I am installing some plants. He is friendly and busy and everything is going smoothly. We have been coordinating on the alarm and locks and no problems have come up. Because it is not rocket science. One Friday I arrived as usual and saw that the utility room door was open a little and the Houseboy's painting supplies were out drying on the walkway. I poked my head in to say hi but he must have been in the house working. It was lunchtime so I sat at the patio table and ate my lunch facing the garden and the gate and the utility room door. While I sat there a fluffy striped cat sauntered across the yard (they have two giant poodles so this cat must have been living it up while the dogs were away because I had not seen it in the yard before) and when it saw me in the yard it freaked out and bolted straight into the open door of the utility room.

And the alarm went off.

And I had sixty seconds to run to the truck, get the code out of my notebook, run back up the stairs and disarm the system. I did not make it. So the alarm sirens went off. I kept punching the code in over and over trying to get it to disarm but nothing was working. Then the police arrived with their hands on their holsters. I explained to them that I was the gardener, told them what happened with the cat and the open ALARMED door. They nodded and explained that they still had to call the owners and that it was going to cost them $200 for the service. Awesome. Meanwhile, the alarm company had already contacted the owners and they had called the Houseboy, who for some reason was not at the house that day, though the door was open to the utility room, the very room that housed the BRAIN of the smart house.

The Houseboy showed up and saw me and the cops and asked what was going on. I told him about the open door, the cat running in, and that he must have left the door open and set the alarm from the garage thinking all the doors were closed. By the way, this utility room door had a way of popping open if you did not lock it just right, so maybe that is what happened, I said, trying to give him a graceful way out of the complete responsibility of leaving the door open.

He looked right at me and asked the cop if he could talk to the owner who I could hear yelling on the cell phone. He picked up the cop's cell phone and I heard the Houseboy explain that it was OK that the new gardener had left the door open and set off the alarm.

NO, I said, realizing I was about to take a big hit for the Houseboy's mistake, that is NOT what happened at all. YOU left the door open or it popped open after you left (but did not set off the alarm?) and then that CAT ran in there....

Houseboy laughed and told the owner that I was trying to blame a CAT for the alarm going off (the cat, by the way, was never seen again and no one to this day believes there even was one.) and then he reassured them that everything was OK, he would take care of it and handed the phone back to the cop. Who hung up before I could talk to the owners.

The cops were satisfied I was not a criminal and left, the Houseboy shook his head and left, and I stood there feeling like a big turd. The next day the owners came home and requested to talk to me. I was eager to clear my name and explain what had happened. But they did not want to hear about the open door, the painting supplies, the cat. Instead, they wanted to register their deep disappointment in how I handled the incident. They then informed me that they would be building a shed for the garden tools and that after it was built I would no longer have access to the house or need for the alarm code, which they would be changing. This, they said, would cost them quite a lot of money and inconvenience, but since I was obviously incapable of working the alarm, they felt that this would be the best solution. I was too stunned to protest. I wish I had quit right then.

Instead, I vowed to win back their confidence and right the injustice. I also wanted to crush the Houseboy, but decided that it was enough of a punishment to BE the Houseboy, so he was spared. I am a very competitive person. I like to be the best at what I do. I like to be able to solve and conquer all difficult problems that arise, especially those that have to to with human interaction and misunderstanding. I like to make the murky become clear. I like to fix what is broken. I pride myself on being a good communicator. I accepted the challenge. And screwed myself royally.

So for six years I have been "winning back their confidence"and making zero progress. And all they can think about is how I am too stupid to use an alarm. And meanwhile they are just unpleasant and weird people. None of my people skills or charm works on them. They are unhappy and disgruntled and poison to their garden. And I spend way too much time trying to figure out how to make them happy.

So back to today.

"Well, actually, I do not have the fullest confidence in your mastery of the alarm."

OH MY GOD. REALLY?

I accidentally let out a very harsh laugh and said, "You're never are going to let that go, are you?"

Oh, shit, here we go. Now I can't turn back. How to salvage this when I am so steamed about all the condescension, the disapproval, the frustration of being wrongly accused.

His sunglasses gleamed.

I dove in.

"I take care of a lot of gardens in this city and every one of them has an alarm. No one but you has a problem with me. I think it is time to set the reset button on your attitude towards me. It is making it really hard to work here. I don't need the code, I don't need the green can. I am perfectly happy charging you 20 bucks a week to haul away what the city could haul away for free. But I am not happy with the impression you have of me. I work hard for you. And I do a good job and I do not make many mistakes. The mistakes I do make I fix, usually before you even notice. Let's just agree to start over."

Pause.

Sunglasses gleam.

And he replies in his touchy feely condescending tone, "I understand why you feel that way, but I still don't feel comfortable giving you the garage code."

Sigh. Fine. I said. See you next week.

I SHOULD QUIT BEFORE I GIVE MORE OF MY SOUL TO THIS DOUCHBAG.
Or worse...before he FIRES me.

This is the part of my job that squeezes the joy right out of it. Difficult people who are chronically unhappy. And maybe a little mean. I like to make gardens for people who are happy, who enjoy their life and who treat other people with respect and kindness. I am probably going to eat my heart out about this for another few months before I get up the courage to quit. I should have quit years ago. But I am chicken. And I hate to give up on even the most lost of causes.

Thanks for letting me vent. And if you got all the way to the bottom of this you are a trouper!

I hate leaving

2009-07-29T20:15:00.000-07:00

I love to be in fun new locations but I hate the part about leaving my house. I love my house and love being in it and looking out the window at the garden and hearing my dog snore.

I am headed off to Missouri to visit my super fun family and I am going to have a great time. I also splurged and bought noise canceling headphones so i am hoping my flight will be relaxing and peaceful. But I am looking around the house at all the projects I want to get to, at the soft bed with down pillows and comforters, at all the bright colors and beautiful art on the walls and thinking I would rather vacation at home.

The garden is going off like firecrackers. Blackberries and blueberries are ripe now, same with some cherry tomatoes and some sweet young lettuce. My stargazer lily bloomed this week, the passionflower is covering the palm out front.

I leave tomorrow morning. And this is what I am leaving behind.

harvesting and bolting

2009-07-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

I have figured out that I am good at growing lettuce and tomatoes and not much else as far as food gardening goes. But I am really good at enjoying the life cycle of the plant. I am out there every day watching them sprout and grow and leaf out and finally to go to seed and be harvested or yanked out and composted. I have half dried out roots, seed pods and potatoes with 2 inch eyes sproinging out all over my kitchen counters waiting to be photographed. I have hired someone come to clean my house a few times in the last few months and she has thrown out a lot of my treasures before I have fully documented their cycle. I am trying to figure out how to explain to her that I want the potatoes to grow leaves in the basket before I throw them into the compost. And that I am doing a photo series of dried out flower arrangements so please leave them in their vase even though they are brown and drooping. I know she thinks I am a poor helpless bachelor who does not know when his food has gone bad and it sort of tickles me to think of trying to explain it all to someone whose job it is to make a house clean. I am the anti-clean. And I like it that way. No wait, I like a clean house, I just tend to collect crusty stuff to photograph and decorate the house.

I am sure as soon as I figure out how to get her to stop using bleach everywhere I will come to an epiphany for how to convince her to save my rotting food.

More Plum Jam Than I Know What To Do With

2009-07-21T22:50:00.000-07:00

My friend Tree at the Free Farm Stand gave me about 7 gallons of soft Santa Rosa plums a few weeks ago and I made about four gallons of jam for him to give away. It was a huge operation, messy, satisfying and aggravating all in one.

Goats and Tidepools

2009-07-20T22:16:00.000-07:00

After we left Pie Ranch, Kristen and Gracie and I headed into Pescadero for some hot garlic and artichoke bread to complete our total carb overload. This little general store puts out hot loaves of bread every 15 minutes. The town was crowded and it was hard to get used to all the people and cars after our 24 hours of farm bliss. Half of the crowd were bikers on their way to listen to an outdoor local band play what Kristen accurately described as California Sunday afternoon music...maybe Van Morrison? We picked up a loaf and then headed to Harley Farms...goat cheese!

Dede told us to look for a sign with a lady pointing and then to take a left. We passed fields full of goats and llamas and then wound up through sweet rural area but saw no lady pointing. After 15 minutes we turned around and decided that probably the goat farm was where we saw all the goats. Duh. Carb on the brain. We then took the only left, now a right, and finally saw the lady pointing...way off the road and half hidden in the grass.

She has no eyes and this made Kristen nervous. As in, maybe she is going to take our eyes if we follow the sign, just like in the fairy tales. But then we got distracted by this sign.

and this sign...

which led us to the goats and the little herb garden and the cheese shop where I officially crashed from lack of protein and sleep. Hopefully, Kristen will detail the cheese shop in her blog the urban field guide because it was all a blur to me.

Our last stop was the tidepools right below the Pigeon Point Lighthouse. We found a whale bone...more likely a bleached tree stump...wedged between two huge rocks.

Parker was a good sport even though she was cold and tired and just wanted to sleep in the truck.

You can see she is getting fed up here. Right after this she fell into a tide pool up to her neck. Pugs do not swim. They sink. Something about their lung to muscle ratio. Look at that face.

The tidepools were full of anemones and bright green seaweed and lovely shells.

Pie Ranch Day Two

2009-07-19T21:42:00.000-07:00

In the morning we helped harvest strawberries and raspberries, milk the cow, feed the calf, and load everything onto the truck to take down to the farm stand.

The day before they all harvested the wheat and stacked it to dry. Sorry I missed that.

When most of the work was done we ate a huge breakfast of carb...pancakes, cornbread, jam, maple syrup, strawberries... I was too busy eating to take pictures.

Pie Ranch Day One

2009-07-18T21:26:00.000-07:00

Somehow I was able to convince Gracie and Kristen to come down to the Pie Ranch this weekend even though they had heard me tell horror stories of the tick storms I'd weathered the last few times I'd been there. I picked them up in Oakland and we loaded up my truck with food and camping gear and the pug and headed off. The views from the San Mateo Bridge were particularly beautiful and then the last bit on Highway One with the ocean and the golden hills rolling right up to the very edge of the continent let us know we were in for a lovely weekend.

This is who we met as we drove in! A baby cow that ran at us like a happy deer.

We set up our tents in the field and then headed down with our food to the dinner and barn dance. Somehow we missed all the good food and ended up scraping at some bowls for the last bits. Then the dance started and we all dosey-doed and swung our partners to a live bluegrass band for a few hours.

I made chocolate ice cream with crunched up oreos the day before and brought it down in a cooler so we had that to eat after the dance. Yum! We could see zillions of stars and hear the ocean and night animals as we walked to the tents. Parker's snored lulled me to a sweet sleep.

message from god

2009-07-18T09:04:00.000-07:00

First New

2009-07-13T11:58:00.000-07:00

I do not buy many new things. I am cheap, I like the challenge of finding things in thrift stores and on the side of the road, and I think we, as a culture, waste a lot of perfectly good things when we buy new. So buying new, aside from socks and underwear, is something infrequent and usually memorable.

I remember buying my first new mattress in 1998. Before that I had always slept on lumpy old futons. I did buy a new futon my first year in college and lugged its dead weight from the mailbox to my dorm room across the crisp dying grass in bare feet through the 100 degree Florida heat. But after that all the futons I owned came from friends who moved away. I felt like such a grown up with my new mattress and frame.

A year later I bought my first brand new vehicle, a white 2000 Ford Ranger pick-up. Previous to that I had owned:

one rusted yellow 1976 Nova Supersport, purchased in 1984 without my parents knowledge for 400 bucks and parked at the end of the street so they would not see me driving it. They saw me driving it and tried to make me sell it back to the scary guy out in the country I had bought it from.

one blue Pacer purchased for $50 my second year of college from the school librarian whose husband had bought her a fiero. She killed herself a year later. I kept the car alive and running in her honor. No one else could start it but me. I cried when I came back from a summer in Maine and it would not start at all. I could not watch as it was towed to the junkyard.

one forest green fiat spider convertible with wooden dashboard and leather seats, a completely rusted frame and exhaust system and a broken top with feeble brakes. The $400 dollars spent on that joyride was well worth it, though my girlfriend said I had "bent over" to the frat boys who sold it to me.

one 1981 silver Honda Civic wagon I got for 1000 bucks from a strangely fair used car dealer down the street from my house who gave me $500 for the undriveable Fiat. That car lasted me for years and I loved it like it was my best friend. On the day I knew it was to make its last long trip I was hit by a drunken student pulling out of the entrance to the college I had returned to ten years later to finish my degree. He totaled my car. I yelled at him,. He begged me to not call the cops as this was his 3rd DUI, he would lose his insurance and license and go to jail. Then he offered to take me to the ATM and get out as much money as I wanted. I angrily considered his offer, made him push my precious car to the side of the road and got in the car with a drunk 19 year old. I made him take out the full amount on all his credit cards. With this money I paid for a year of college, some rent and living expenses and bought...

One 1977 white Ford F100 stepside pick-up truck with a V8 engine. I drove this truck to California and was run off the road by two semi trucks trying to kill me for some reason, perhaps related to the amount of speed they were doing to stay awake. It was totaled and I spent three days and 800 dollars getting it drivable so I could make it to my new home. I drove it for a year but the accident had rattled so many things loose it just never was the same.

That is when I decided I was going to buy a new truck. I researched and studied and practiced doing quick math in my head so I would not get ripped off by the dealer. I bought the truck, got ripped off because I cannot do quick math in my head even when I practice for months. But it was mine, all mine. Brand new. I sold my old ford to a strange gypsy like man named John who showed up one day from a construction site on the next block. He wanted to buy the truck with money he had gotten from some undisclosed "treasure" he had found while digging out the foundation of the house. He was very happy and very drunk and as he drove away in my old truck he let out a long "yee haw".

A few months later I got a notice from the city towing service that my truck was impounded and I owed $1200 in towing and storage fees. I sorted out the misunderstanding and they sold it at an auction. A year later I saw it abandoned down by the shipyard.

A year or so into owning my new truck the brakes stopped working and I discovered that my truck was a lemon. The man at the dealership who did my warranty paperwork whispered to me that I should sell it now because the problem was going to reoccur every few years and when the warranty was up it would cost me several thousand dollars to fix it each time. I was crushed.

Right around the same time, the woman who had loaned me the down payment for the new truck died suddenly of liver cancer. Her daughter agreed to sell me her truck, a 1991 Toyota, for $2000. I still owed $4000 on my new truck. I bought my friend's old truck and put a for sale sign on my lemon the day before two planes were flown into the Twin Towers. Then we went to war in Iraq. No one was in the mood to buy anything. For 6 months I moved both trucks around to not get parking tickets on street cleaning and paid insurance on both. The truck would not sell. I lowered and lowered the price and still nothing.

Then one day I saw a man come out of the same house that had been under construction where the gypsy had been working. It was being renovated again and he was a painter named John. He had been looking at my truck for months and wondered if I would sell it to him for $6000 instead of $8000. Yes. Yes I will. A loss, but exactly the amount I needed to pay off the truck and reimburse myself for the new truck. So yes. Absolutely. I told him that the last person I sold a truck to also worked on that house and was also named John and wasn't that a funny coincidence. He smiled and nodded and handed me the cash. When he drove away he let out a happy yell. Not a yee haw, but a version of that sound of car owning joy.

A few months later I got a notice from a city south of here that my old lemon was impounded for unpaid parking tickets. I called and sorted out the misunderstanding in ownership.

The Toyota was an accident magnet. I was hit by a lexus at an intersection and awarded over $10,000 for damages. I was not injured so I used the money to buy my first new computer, a new digital camera and to pay the $2000 vet bill when my pug had her eye punctured. The new computer blew up in a big burst of smoke and blue sparks within the first 10 minutes I owned it and the camera also had manufacturing problems but both companies provided me with adequate customer care and I still own them, though I am not convinced of the benefits of buying new. The dog can barely see out of one eye but she does not seem to mind. A year later the truck was riddled with bullet holes during a drive by shooting. And finally, when my wife was leaving me and I was out of town she parked it somewhere unusual and it was hit on all four sections of the drivers side. It looked like someone with a big butt had sat down on it.

Somehow, even though it was a hit and run and no one could be sued for the damages, my insurance company gave me $4000 for it, twice what I had paid and enough to make a down payment on my current truck, a gigantic 1998 Ford F250 diesel that I ran on biodiesel for two years until it dissolved my fuel pump and I had to go back to dino diesel. The day I paid off the loan I was hit while parked and now I can't open my driver's side door.

Yesterday, I received another in a long chain of letters from various California city agencies informing me that my 2000 For Ranger was impounded and for $400 I could get it out. This prompted me into a reverie about the past, about my weird luck with money and car crashes, about buying new and finding used and about the different ways people treat the things they pay good money for. Sometimes I feel like I have unruly teens and they keep getting into trouble. I am the tough love parent who will not bail them out. Other times I feel like I have orphaned them and they are being treated badly because I abandoned them when they were young. I wonder what they look like now, what new scars and dents they have. I wonder if I should buy them back and park my fleet of battered white trucks somewhere safe. I wonder if my parents feel the same way about me as I feel about all my cars. Mostly I wonder when the next crash is going to happen and what my next truck will look like. I am pretty sure it is not going to be new.

Too Bored to Move Away From the Computer

2009-07-04T08:56:00.001-07:00

I am feeling a bit lazy this week. Not doing anything productive. Well, I guess I had an excuse since I was on crutches. I can walk now and the toe is mostly healed up. I spent the week online looking at youtube, facebook and playing world of warcraft. Now it is an actual holiday weekend and I am bored with relaxing. I hate sitting still. But I am too bored to think of anything to do besides look at videos of pugs wrestling, snoring, moonwalking and chasing a laser pointer.

feeling a little lazy with the blorg this week.

Movies and some feelings. Day Three.

2009-06-22T13:37:00.000-07:00

I started day three with a program of short films called Calling All Nerds and Art Freaks.

The first film, 575 Castro Street by local SF filmmaker, Jenni Olson, was a beautiful meditation of light and memory. The film is a series of subtle static images of the recreation of Harvey Milk's camera shop for the Gus Van Sant film Milk and provides a backdrop for the recording Harvey Milk made and asked to be played in the event that he was assassinated. The afternoon light plays over the windows and for a moment you feel like you might be sitting in the store on the couch on a lazy afternoon hanging out with the locals listening to Harvey talk. Such a beautiful spirit extinguished, so eloquent and moving, a true leader. I wish we had a leader like that now. Sorry, Obama. Milk would be a better president. He tended to keep his word. And he did not leave anyone behind.

I remember walking past this store and getting all excited that a new camera shop that actually sold FILM and old cameras was opening up in the neighborhood. Then I realized it was the set of Harvey's camera shop for the movie. It was weird to walk through the neighborhood with all the old signs and cars and people dressed like it was 1970. I think I might prefer the aesthetic of the pre -70's. Something about modern decor and signs and marketing makes me feel tired and assaulted. And it is often so ugly. So for a few months while they were filming I could pretend I was living in the Castro back then.

For those of you uncertain about who the heck Harvey Milk was...he was a vibrant, intelligent and articulate gay activist in the 70's who was the first openly gay man elected to public office in the US. He successfuly fought the 70's version of Prop 8, the Brigg's Initiative, which would have banned gays and lesbians and people who supported their rights from working in schools. It was expected to win by a landslide but the queer community organized by coming out to friends and families and in their work place, speaking in community centers, churches and school....instead it lost by one million votes, supposedly the largest shift of public opinion ever recorded in such a short time.

He served for ten months on the Board of Supervisors, receiving more and more violent death threats. He continued his progresive work on the board despite the threats. Milk was assassinated by another member of the Board of Supervisors who also killed the Mayor. This guy got off with voluntary manslaughter instead of first degree murder because he said he had been eating only Twinkies and his blood sugar was low and was making him have moodswings. The city erupted in riots at the announcement of the verdict, police cars were overturned and burned and they set City Hall on fire. For real. Gay people were sick of it.

The second film in the program was a short documentary from the UK called Decoding Alan Turing by director Christopher Racster. It was a great little movie and it had that A HA moment for me when I figured out the apple logo thing...read on.

Alan Turing was a mathematician and cryptoanalyst and some would say the father of the modern computer. He broke the Nazi's Enigma code using electronically calculated algorithms and was instrumental in winning the war. He did not hide his homosexuality even though it was illegal. In 1952 he was convicted of "gross indecency" and sentenced to either imprisonment or chemical castration...he chose the year long estrogen injections. In 1954 he was found dead in his home, a half eaten apple beside his bed. He died of cyanide poisoning. Suicide? Accident? Assassination? Urban legend has it that the Apple computer logo is an homage to Alan Turing.

The third film, General Idea: Art AIDS and the Fin de Siecle, by Canadian director Annette Mangaard, was my favorite of the four. In 1969, a trio of Canadian artists formed a collective in 1969, GENERAL IDEA, and produced playful and clever art that targeted and mimicked media, consumerism and celebrity.

In the 1980s GENERAL IDEA responded to the new "gay plague" that was killing off the art world by making art that addressed the devastating spread of the disease and its impact on their community. Unfortunately, their muse also ended the lives of two of the three members of the collective. Lots of archival footage of their performance pieces and installations intercut with interviews with AA Bronson, the sole survivor of the trio, make this movie both heartbreaking and joyful to watch.

The last film in the program was another Quintin Crisp film, Uncle Denis?, this one made by his great nephew, Adrian Goycoolea. I loved the archival footage of Crisp and the interviews with relatives.

I stuck around the theater to see the next program, NightFliers, a sweet little coming of age story I'd been wanting to see for four years. Made by my ex wife. So it was a little loaded being there. She came up and said hello and that went fine. I was not thrilled to see her new girlfriend there since that is who she having an affair with while we were still married. Or that they have a BABY. Since I wanted kids and she didn't and that was supposedly one of the reasons we ended our marriage, my relentless talk of having kids. And now she has one. And I don't. Not bitter. Not me.

I worked on parts of the movie with her and lived with it for a year. I helped decorate some of the sets, shopped for the wardrobe, drove stuff around in my truck and tried to support it as much as I could even when I felt that it was crushing our finances and our marriage. I had heard that she ran out of money and had to improvise and rewrite the end since the kids in the film hit puberty so fast. I wanted to see how it turned out. Hoped it was not a train wreck.

It is a sweet story and there is some good humor in it. I liked it a lot. A lot of my t-shirts had starring roles and my truck is in a few scenes. I felt strangely proud of it, like that film was our baby. But a baby I could not publicly claim. The new girlfriend got to be the one standing there with her while she got applause and her big moment. It made me sad and sort of contorted inside. And it made me miss her in a way I have not felt in a long time. It was weird to walk out of there without being part of the celebration.

Divorce has all these sad time bombs that go off when least expected. I know, I know, I went to a film premiere of a movie made by my ex while we were divorcing. I expected to feel some stuff, just not the things I felt. Like how sad I still am that I will probably not have a kid of my own. And how proud I would be of the completed project even though I played a minor role in getting it done. Or how I can still feel warm feelings towards someone who screwed me over so royally I should have stood up during the Q&A and asked her if it was worth sacrificing her marriage to make a good film. Just for the shock value.

Anyway. Gay film.

Still more movies

2009-06-21T21:09:00.001-07:00

I just got home from three back to back screenings and I feel like I have been run over by a truck. A big gay truck. It is nine pm and I left the house at noon. Let's see. Now I can't even remember what I saw. Let's see now...

First it was Maggots and Men, director Cary Cronenwett's "...utopian revisioning of the Kronstadt Uprising of 1921." He wanted to make a film with sailors and this is what he came up with. I had some concerns when I saw the trailer that it might be a little too experimental for my taste, maybe too surreal or absurd..or worse. I know a lot of people who worked on it or starred in it and they all said it was great, but they would have to, wouldn't they? I am so glad I went to see it. It was beautifully shot in black and white, grainy and rich. Some haunting images of the battle in the snow. Fun sailor images. Just a beautiful and intelligent film.

photo by andrew wingler

Then I saw two films about sports.The first one, Claiming the Title: Gay Olympics on Trial was about the lawsuit that went to the Supreme Court when the U.S. Olympic Committee sued the Gay Olympics and made it illegal for them to use the word Olympic in their event. Even though they continued to allow the use of the word in other events like the Rat Olympics and the Puke Olympics. The Gay Olympics lost and now is called the Gay Games.

The other film, Training Rules, was about the women's basketball coach at Penn State, Rene Portland, who for 25 years openly and systematically harassed women on the team she believed to be lesbian. She had three rules: No drinking, no drugs, no lesbians. These women lost scholarships, got kicked off the team, were threatened with being outed to their families and friends and many of them lost potential careers the basketball scholarships were supporting. By the way, this only just ended in 2006 when she retired, so this is not one of those "oh I can't believe people had to live like that back then" stories. Finally, one player, with the support of her family, sued the school for discrimination. The case was settled out of court and the player was not allowed to discuss the case with the film makers. But it seems to have resulted in the school being more supportive of its minority students and might have had something to do with Portland's retirement. About ten of the athletes interviewed in the film were present at the screening and they got a thundering standing ovation.

The last movie I saw was a documentary about George and Mike Kuchar called It Came From Kuchar. I'd heard the name and knew they made underground films that inspired John Waters so I figured I would not really be into the films themselves since I am not a huge fan of puke or poop or other kinds of depravity in films. However, I do LOVE to hear what John Waters has to say about poop and puke and sex and depravity as it relates to our current culture so the chance that I would like to meet these two weirdo brothers was pretty high. And I was right. They are delightfully kooky and smart and very strange. And their super 8's about UFO's and robot love and gorilla to sister marriage and murder and monsters and giant purple spiders attacking are beautiful and hilarious.

More Movies

2009-06-20T18:30:00.000-07:00

Last night I saw an awesome documentary about a local drag queen named Vicki Marlene called Forever's Gonna Start Tonight. It was sold out and the rush line to get in was as long as the line of ticket holders. They should have put it at a bigger venue. It was unfortunately accompanied by a long and tedious recording of a performance in England somewhere that was verty provincial, out of date and painfully thespian. Aside from the hissing, SF audiences are very supportive and forgiving, but not even the loving gays of SF could find it in their hearts to treat this film with patience. I think it all fell apart when the least talented of the troups' performers got up and did a 10 minute interpretive goth dance to some random dance song. It was exactly like accidentally walking in on a teenager having a dance moment in their bedroom when they think they are alone. Except teens usually stop when exposed doing personal dances in their bedrooms. This person, well past being a teen, chose to perform the private bedroom dance on stage, record it, and send it overseas so we could be tortured by it here in the Bay Area. It was excruciating and it went on forever and I was embarrassed for them even though they were not in the audience. Somewhere, far away, their ears were burning. People actually got up and left the theater it was so bad.

But the Vicki Marlene film? Amazing and funny and inspiring. She is in her 70's now and has been performing since she was in her 20's. She worked as a carny side show act, in fancy clubs all over the country and now works at a little dive bar in the Tenderloin every Saturday night. I've been a few times to see her and her entourage and, well, I love me some drag (except for the part where they invariably are drawn over to the most introverted and easily mortified person in the room...me...to say something raunchy and suggestive while running long red talons down my back or face or leg.) My favorite part of the film was when she was being heckled in the doorway by a thick skulled dude who was about to come into the bar to see the show and then realized it was being filmed and his reaction was to start spouting off homophobic and ageist hateful remarks...funny, since he was headed in there with full knowledge of what kind of show it was... and then all of a sudden decided he should act all straight and horrified.

They sass back and forth at each other for a while, she is totally unafraid of him and it is throwing him off so he pulls out his big guns and tells her she looks old and wrinkly and what's her problem. She responds by telling him to eff off and of course she looks old and wrinkly, she's 71 years old.

Plum Jam

2009-06-20T05:35:00.000-07:00

I processed about 3 gallons of the plums I picked off the street tree the other day and cooked them down into spicy plum jam. I was able to wash them, get the pits out, cook and jar everything up in the same amount of time it took me to listen to 2 episodes of This American Life. Good company, that show.

My only mishap was putting the hot cooked plums into the blender and having it spew out in volcanic fashion and burning the living crap out of my wrist. I meant to take a picture of the hot steaming plum guts everywhere but was busy getting ice and aloe on the burn.

Plum jam is really easy to make. (burns notwithstanding)

Just wash and pit the plums. I set up the plums in a colander, the pits go into a large bowl and the flesh goes into the non-aluminum pot I plan on cooking them in. I just stand there and squeeze the pits out by hand. My kitchen gets a little bit squirted with juice but it is easy to clean up after.

If the plums are really juicy you do not need to add any water. Just turn the heat on medium and get them bubbling....careful not to scorch the bottom of the pan, so stir it often. If it seems like it is going to stick add a little water. If you do scorch it, get the unburnt stuff out of there quick or your whole batch will taste burnt. Start over more slowly in another clean pan. Cook the plums down till they are all mushy.

I had about 10 quarts of cooked plum and then added a cup of lemon juice, a tablespoon of ginger and a teaspoon of clove and maybe about 4 cups of sugar. I like this jam to be a bit tart so depending on how sweet your plums are to start out with determines how much sugar you add. I cook it all on low heat for about 30 minutes and then put it in a blender to puree the skins.

Then boil your mason jars and lids, fill the jars with the still hot cooked jam, screw the lids on tight, careful not to touch the inside of the lid with your grubby hands so it stays sterile.

Last year I used metal tongs but this year I bought some official canning tongs and they are a lot easier to use. No burns! Turn the jars upside down on the counter so they seal and let them cool.