Look at the Man

He's sitting on the steps of St. Dominics church in San Franciso. I love the way he filters Cali and the west coast and SF through his Irish sensibility. It helps me to see the place in a different way. I used to go to SF about once a month for work and hang about in the Irish bar that he would drop in to when he was back in town, so one of the places I really miss in Cali.

It’s funny how things are-you listen to an album for 30 years, over and over, and then, finally one day, you hear what the man is saying.

Everything on this outstanding album is worth listening to, but the best tracks are ‘Listen to the Lion’, ‘Almost Independence Day’, and the title track-‘Saint Dominic's Preview’. To me he’s saying something about the time when the bank account goes up and the sense of self begins to flounder, perhaps, as a result. The time when you’ve acquired the things you thought you wanted and it’s still not good enough…all you see before you is the abyss. His solution seems to be: go back to what really makes you fulfilled, everything else is vanity and crap--not bad advice eh?

Saint Dominic's Preview

Chamois cleaning all the windows,
Singing songs about Edith Piaf's soul.
And I hear blue strings of "no regredior"
Across the street from Cathedral Notre Dame.

Meanwhile back in San Francisco
I try hard to make this whole thing blend,
As we sit upon this jagged story block
With you my friend.

And it's a long way to Buffalo.
It's a long way to Belfast city too.
And I'm hoping that Joyce won't blow the hoist
'Cause this time, they bit off more than they can chew.

As we gaze out on, as we gaze out on
As we gaze out on, as we gaze out on
Saint Dominic's Preview
Saint Dominic's Preview
Saint Dominic's Preview

All the orange boxes are scattered
Against the Safeway Supermarket in the rain.
And everybody feels so determined
Not to feel anyone else's pain.

No one's making no commitments
To anybody but themselves,
Talkin' behind closed doorways,
Tryin' to get outside, get outside empty shells.

And for every cross-cuttin' country corner,
For every Hank Williams railroad train that cries,
And all the chains, badges, flags and emblems
And every strain on brain and every eye (?)

As we gaze out on, as we gaze out on
As we gaze out on, as we gaze out on
Saint Dominic's Preview
Saint Dominic's Preview
Saint Dominic's Preview.

And the restaurant tables are completely covered.
The record company has paid out for the wine.
You got everything in the world you ever wanted
Right about now your face should wear a smile.

That's the way it all should happen
When you're in, when you're in the state you're in;
Have you got your pen and notebook ready?
I think it's about time, time for us to begin.

And we're over in a 52nd Street apartment,
Socializing with the winos too,
Just to be hip and get wet with the jet set.
But they're flying too high to see my point of view.

As we gaze out on, as we gaze out on
As we gaze out on, as we gaze out on
Saint Dominic's Preview
Saint Dominic's Preview
Saint Dominic's Preview.

See them freedom marching,
Out on the street, freedom marching.
Saint Dominic's Preview.

The Walk to Pig Out

The annual 'Pig Out in the Park' was happening all last week. Only a few blocks away with lots of greasy food, pretty good music and so on--something to do for an evening.

Lourdes-those Catholics really know how to build a pretty church. I'm not catholic, much less religious but I still attend mass here occasionally as it pleaseth my soul.

Nordstrom: You want a sweet little $500 sweater for the fall season-get it here.

The ever popular ode to greasy carnival food and the myth of abundance: The Pig Out in the Park. I don’t eat much meat so the whole thing struck me as a bit repulsive (I occasionally eat chicken or fish when feeling especially saucy or when someone else is paying, but fish etc. don’t have feelings, so it’s OK, sort of). My biggest impression from the whole affair was the stench of about 20 separate flavors of spent fry oil mingling through the air...pretty vile and ironic considering that the smell of food cooking is usually delightful.

I had to escape from that unpleasant fried oil smell, so I here am with my son’s friend in the beer garden trying, rather successfully, to act like an idiot. I thought the hand signal was ‘cool’, something I must have seen in ‘Wayne’s World’ or something…little did I know, I was actually invoking Satan…check it out here.

Here is the son-Brendan. He’s standing in front of some public art on the border of Riverfront Park. Like most art specified by bureaucrats, pretty lame stuff, but someone had the brilliant idea of putting tags on the runners with names of local area kids killed in the Iraq war-now it all means something. I'm thankful that he's here and not on one of those tags.

The cabins

Trillium-I had the cabins painted to blend in to the surrounding forest-I guess it worked-it's one of my favourite places.

On the fridge in Trillium-apparently one of my kids has a sense of humor.

R.I.P: The original Das Boot.

If you look carefully in the foreground, you can see a rowboat-cum-flower pot. I‘m grateful it’s nowhere near the water. As you can see from the above and Das Boot II, we don't exactly break the bank when it comes to boating.

I remember being 4 years old or so, out on the water, while the ‘bailer’ was fast at work. Yes, this rowboat constantly leaked, a situation I couldn’t fathom. 'They' got me out on this thing at least once and I was duly terrified, as the survival instinct kicks in even at 4. All I could see was the boat sinking in front of my eyes, and the shoreline much too far away. This boat is where it belongs.

The other cabin-Honeysuckle. I prefer to keep things natural. Some of the trees are over 100 years old, so who I am to mess with that. I don't care for this 'defensible space' crap I see all around me. If the forest is so frightening that one is compelled to destroy it then perhaps a gated community in the surburbs is more appropriate. I'm not exactly a tree hugger; I like the term forest fascist.

The Dude

I love the scene from ‘The Big Lebowski’ where ‘the Dude’ is shopping at the local grocer, in his bathrobe, while he pinches a carton of milk, and then sidles up to the checker with milk all over his lips--perfect! He sums up…he is dudeness. Something way down inside me really admires this guy--his lack of guile, simplicity, and complete disregard for the façade we all show to one another.

At this point in time, it’s not a matter of what I’m going to be when I grow up, that’s already been settled, but who or what I will be. I guess I need to believe that is still up for grabs. So, ‘the Dude’ pretty much does it for me, gives me goose bumps every time I see that scene from the movie. I’m thinking a cross between or perhaps inhabiting the space between ‘the Dude’ and someone like Henry Gieger would be good.

Les Paul and Mary Ford

I always thought this guy made guitars or something…well, big surprise, I was a little off. He not only collaborated with Gibson on the most popular solid-body electric guitar design ever, a design that hasn’t changed much since 1952, he also sold over 20 million records in the early 50s with his wife, Mary Ford, and invented multi-track recording (for overdubbing and so on).

He is the only person to be in both the National Inventors Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Wow...he da man!

So, you can learn something from the tele, you just have to tune in to the right channel…see all about it here.

The Weathermakers…

…r us. This is a good intro into the science and issues surrounding global warming. Most books focus on climatology and are a little dry as a result. The author of The Weathermakers is a biologist from Australia and discusses global warming in terms of affected species impacts (well, all species are eventually impacted). Australia, New Guinea, and Tasmania are rife with unique fauna and flora and provide a persuasive backdrop to his story. He and other scientists have been noting species movement to cooler zones since the 70’s, a trend that is only accelerating and will led to (additional) extinctions regardless of what we do in the short term. That’s right; we’ve already bought the farm in terms of significant and probably irreversible impacts: Glacier Park in MT-gone, the snows of Kilimanjaro-gone, and so on. This is even if man-made releases of green house gases were to stop today.

This along with Global Warming: The Complete Briefing by John Houghton are the two most user friendly I've read and a good place to start.

Seksmisja

My kids frequent the movie library at the local university and come home with the wildest stuff.

Seksmisja is better known in these parts by the lurid and suggestive english title, Sexmission. This classic of Polish cinema is a weird combo of comedy and sci-fi and is, in fact, the most popular movie ever made in Poland (honest, it said so on the DVD cover).

Albert and Maksymilian agree to be frozen and returned to life after a period of three years as part of a science experiment. In the meantime, WWIII breaks out and they are forgotten until sometime in the future, when they are revived by the League of Women’s Lib. It turns out they are the only two men left on earth (the women have developed a form of parthenogenesis so men are unnecessary). So, these guys think they're going to get real lucky and some of the women seem interested, but the league eventually decides that, for them to live, they must dispense with their…uh…‘manhood’…all of it. Being two red blooded males in the prime of their lifes, they of course refuse…and escape…you’ll have to see the movie to discover what happens next (not a huge surprise, but why give it all away.

Personally, I was entralled during the entire film...you just never know.

Books

From the latest copy of The Inlander, here is an except from the commencment address David McCullough gave at UConn in 1999. This story could be almost be a mantra for my life, sort of.

"My message is in praise of the greatest of all avenues to learning, to wisdom, adventure, pleasure, insight, to understanding human nature, understanding ourselves and our world and our place in it.

I rise on this beautiful morning, here in this center of learning to sing again the old faith in books. In reading books. Reading for life, all your life.

Nothing ever invented provides such sustenance, such infinite reward for time spent as a good book.

Thomas Jefferson told John Adams he could not live without books. Adams, who through a long life read more even and more deeply than Jefferson and who spent what extra money he ever had on books, wrote to Jefferson at age 79 of a particular set of books he longed for on the lives of the saints, all 47 volumes.

... Once upon a time in the dead of winter in Dakota territory, with the temperature well below zero, young Theodore Roosevelt took off in a makeshift boat, accompanied by two of his ranch hands, downstream on the Little Missouri River in chase of a couple of thieves who had stolen his prized row boat. After days on the river, he caught up and got the draw on them with his trusty Winchester, at which point they surrendered. Then, after finding a man with a team and a wagon, Roosevelt set off again to haul the thieves cross-country to justice. He left the ranch hands behind to tend to the boat, and walked alone behind the wagon, his rifle at the ready. They were headed across the snow-covered wastes of the Badlands to the rail head at Dickinson, and Roosevelt walked the whole way, 40 miles. It was an astonishing feat, what might be called a defining moment in that eventful life. But what makes it especially memorable is that during that time, he managed to read all of Anna Karenina.

I often think of that when I hear people say they haven't time to read. "

So, next time you find that dusty and forlorn copy of Anna Karenina or its kind, no excuses.

Todd

Todd: I used to play this LP constantly when I was a teenager; so much so that my original copy is pretty much worn out. It's a great mix of, among other things, proto-electronica weirdness, Hendrix-esque guitar pieces, and lush ballads. On CD you can listen to the whole thing at once, as opposed to the double LP that necessitated a lot of flipping, so a big improvement. My favorites, then and now are the ballads, as sweet and sincere as they get. I mean, this was one sweet guy, the man who actually raised Liv Tyler and is still her ‘first’ dad to this day.

I Think You Know

The visitors were never seen
They missed my monologue between
But I think you know
The letters came, the letters went
The last reply was never sent
But I think you know
I cant explain whats in my brain
That tells me where to go
But I think you know

For I would draw a diagram
To signify the things I am
But I think you know
And in the end it all boils down
A useless bit of running round
cause I think you know
And love I send to you my friend
But never tell you so
But I think you know

His...and His Trucks

Actually, I’m told the vehicles are called pickups in these parts. The his and his thing; a joke that sounds about right for the occasion. It goes like this: since our mum’s went to school together, I’ve known Gavin since we were in diapers. Our lives have paralleled and diverged over the years and now they’re back on the parallel. We’ve been both divorced in the last few years, living and hanging out downtown, blah, blah blah…

So, I have my p/u in town and find out he’s moving to another place and I go over to help. I knew he had a junky yellow truck but never paid much attention to it until I got it alongside my junky blue truck. As you can see from the photo, they’re identical! Too funny--we haven’t come to a conclusion on which is in worse shape-almost a point of pride as trucks/pick-ups aren’t supposed to be pretty, after all. I dumped mine in a ditch a couple of weeks ago, got pulled out, and drove off with not a (noticeable) scratch, to the p/u that is.

Check out the great place he’s moving into. I used to walk by it almost every day as it’s around the corner and visible from the house I lived in-a place I’d rather forget. Gav keeps on saying he has too many memories here and it’s time to move on to Seattle or something. He may be right…

The good ole' days?

1956: In the fields near my hometown of Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley of California, a farm worker is forced to stand naked while being sprayed with DDT. The photographer was later arrested for 'documenting' such treatment.

Sweet Dreams, Sadie

Sadie had been dumped by someone near my place at Newman Lake and was sort of taken in by one of the neighbors. Eventually Sadie became the neighborhood dog and everyone fed her and so on. Unfortunately, no one took responsibility and she usually had no place to go on cold winter nights. When I was out at the lake, especially in winter, she would show up, eat, and stay for awhile and then leave, not seeming to mind the cold. Sadie seemed to do OK but as she got older I became concerned for her well-being. I would have brought her back to Spokane but at the time I traveled a lot and wasn’t home enough to care for her. So, when a friend mentioned that she wanted a dog I knew exactly what to do. We zoomed out to Newman. Sadie was waiting as usual, jumped into the car and laid down in the back. It was like she had been waiting to come home...at last...all this time...

The friend had a fence put up around her place and Sadie took to it and her instantly and vice a versa. Sadie seemed very relaxed and content in her new home, but oddly lethargic. Then one day, about 6 weeks after Sadie moved in, she collapsed and was taken to the clinic. Sadie was terminal, suffering from cancer that had metastasized throughout her body. My friend was devastated; I was also shocked but grateful that this kind and devoted creature had a few comfortable weeks at the end.

The vase

Another creation by Chris Kelsey; I particularly like the way he uses bone ash as the outer layer of glaze to achieve the wrinkly effect. It reminds of something really ancient; something you might find during an archeological dig. Pieces of this type always sell quickly so I asked if he could make more just like it. He informed me that the effect is not exactly reproducible and comes out differently each time, often disastrously, part of the charm I guess. Anyway, one day a friend and I were looking at a similar piece and she asked “what do you put in it…flowers?” He gave us this contemptuous look that read something like ‘you soulless philistines, how dare you presume to debase this work of art…’ but after a pause finally said “it’s fine the way it is, nothing goes in it”. Oops--and that settled that.

I had never cared much for pottery, always thought it kind of a lesser art. A while back I started frequenting the Trackside Studio where Mark Moore and Chris Kelsey create and display. Now…well…as you can see from the photo…pottery is way cool.

Indirect Reflection

Here is another painting by Tom the Artist; from his ‘Indirect Reflection’ series. He tries to explain to me how, what, and why he does what he does, and sometimes...I understand some of what he says-bonus!

Talkie Walkie and the Totem Arro

I scored a great deal on a pair of the waif-ish Totem Arros and started playing some of my favorite CDs. They all sounded pretty good as the Arros put out a huge soundstage, but then I got to Air’s Talkie Walkie from 2004. It had always sounded somewhat cutesy before, I mean, they’re French guys after all. But now, I’m totally floored…c’est fantastique! I finally realize why they named themselves Air. They throw out dense, swirling layers of sound that are at the same time totally ethereal; I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything quite like it. It is similar to what Roxy Music achieved with the 1982 release of Avalon but with significantly improved recording and playback technology that allows one to really hear the skill and craft these guys put into their music.

French Pop + French (Canadian) speakers = a sonic revelation...an aural ephiphany..."wonderful, wonderful, and yet again wonderful".

ArtFest/ElkFest

A piece from local potter Chris Kelsey's 'Origins' series. From the photo, you can't see the glazing inside the egg-like things but the piece is fantastic--this guy is good.

Public art on Riverside Ave.

My daughter Kerry and friend Tom, formerly known as 'The Artist'; neither cared for the raucous and overly crowded Elk. Actually, Tom IS a very fine artist (he did the fab Lake Painting and this gem). We both carried cameras and I was fascinated by his skill or talent in composing shots. That 'creative vision' thing again.

A Quote

I borrowed this from The Naked Soul (great blog, check it out) as it just kind of fit how I felt today-so here you go:

“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.”

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Do Si Do

Here is a photo of Gram (Caryl Byrne) and one of her good friends ‘Red’ doing what they did best. The local paper reprints old photos from their archive and this one happened to show up. I requested any other photos of my grandmother and father the paper may have and they found about 20; but they wanted $50 a pop for each photo-ouch! Anyway, I knew Red pretty well from my time living with gram as he would often visit with his partner ‘Frenchy’ and I though them both very distinguished, if a bit odd, gentlemen.

The Gav...

...does it again. So there I am at Huckleberry’s waiting for one of my best friends to show so we can have a talk and a ‘juice of the day’ (yea…we are really tough guys, so watch out) and he rolls up on this monstrous thing. Hello!...is it just a reaction to the mid-life crisis or a very shrewd move; only time will tell and I’m betting on the latter.

The Fish

My daughter gave me the fish and water plant for Christmas since she thought I should have 'something alive’ in my place. So OK, now I have a lovely fish that I dote on…really! Even though being confined to a vase seems cruel and unusual, the fish appears to be thriving. A friend who is also a vet told me that the fish would live two years at most and my thought was ‘it’s a miracle this thing is alive at all’ as I keep things a bit cool during the winter. Did I name my pet? Of course, its name is ‘The Fish’.

Tortillaphilia

Tortillaphilia-what will he think of next? Remi’s latest blog is all about the tortilla…in Spokane! Being an unrepentant tortillaphiliac myself, a site like this is manna from heaven. I grew up in Cali, so of course I have an excuse for being a tortilla junkie. Remi is from Norway and has no similar excuse; he is simply a genuine cosmopolite and absolutely correct about De Leon Foods-the revolution begins there.

Only in the USA

Where else do we obsessively stay the course…thumb our collective noses at global warming, etc?

Where else in the world can one see a fridge, in the middle of summer (almost), on a street corner, dispensing ‘the official soft drink of NASCAR’...nice touch, eh?

The hidden hand, the 'genius' of the marketplace at work I suppose, don’t really get it….but, hey…it’s been fun...

The KYRS Outhouse and Receiving Station

The juxtaposition of KYRS and an outhouse is in no way meant to demean a very fine community radio station. It’s just that I will do anything to receive the signal during weekends in the country. Note the antenna attached to the outhouse; in order to receive the weak 50 watt KYRS signal at Newman Lake in hi-fi, drastic measures must be taken...finally...the outhouse is good for something.

See the original post about KYRS for more info.

The Fast Runner...

...is the first and only film made in the Inuit language. Using an old Inuit folk tale as the basis for the plot, it is a stunning, almost surreal, and superbly crafted film about the lives and ancient culture of these incredible people. Popular culture has silly notions about the Eskimos and their existence on the ice and snow, but to see the reality is a shocker...I mean, where is the nearest Safeway? At times I have this conceit that my life is tough-what a joke…it’s just a game I play. The Inuit hardly seem miserable, quite the opposite, but they do lead very strenuous and difficult lives. Me--I go to the grocer and can’t decide what fruit or veggie to eat that day--the Inuit eat raw meat, when they’re lucky.

Imagine a life living in a house made of ice…impossible (for me at least)…watch this great film and see for the first time what it’s really like.

Herzog

Moses Herzog: Self-absorbed middle aged intellectual goes through mid-life crisis. Hey—that’s me!...with the exception of the intellectual part. No, really, this is a modern classic and a great book to discuss with friends (self-absorbed middle aged pseudo-intellectuals like myself...you know...birds of a feather etc). Anyway...Herzog ponders at length such weighty topics as 'how should a man live his life in the modern world'. Fair enough question, don’t you think?

Moshe spends his time writing letters he never sends, tries to exorcize the demon of a disastrous marriage to a beautiful, but uh…difficult woman, and finally finds himself (yea!) while at his wonderful, but semi-abandoned and derelict house in the country.

Wow! I think it’s time for a retreat, of sorts.

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Once you tire of the ‘coffee shops’ etc, try the Van Gogh Museum. When I used to think of Van Gogh, it was of his out of this world mature style-the sunflower series, Starry Night, self portraits. Until I visited the Van Gogh Museum, I had no idea how much effort went into developing the style that we’re all familiar with. This man was not just a nutty creative savant who whipped this stuff out …he worked his ass off! The process of how he arrived at his highly articulated creative vision is fascinating and all on display in more or less chronological order in the museum. In the span of 8 years of intense labor, he progressed through a multitude of differing styles, until arriving at Arles primed to create the masterpieces he is known for, just 2 years before the end of his life.

Started painting at 27, dead at 37. Perhaps prozac would have helped, then again, Starry Night may then have looked like something done by Thomas Kinkade.

Another monkey story

I look at this and ask myself…what were you thinking of? My normally discriminating taste in objets d’art was apparently absent the day I spied it. Well, the artist was a cool guy who was really putting it out there, something that should be encouraged, right? So, I wanted to support him in his quest and thought I should get something and the monkey pic was the least expensive painting he had on display. At the time I thought it was great...oy vey!

I suppose I’ll put it next to the family portraits at the lake place.

Mi Familia

Here is dad, the grandfather, sis, gram with doggie, my very lovely mum, and me at 10 or so (in a rare shot of manual labor). My little brother is missing as he hadn't been made yet.

My grandparents would plant a fruit tree for each of the grandchildren in their backyard. Mine was a cherry tree that was massacred by an over-zealous pruner when I was 20-haven’t felt the same since.

craigslist

craigslist, just a bulletin board…simple, direct, and utterly brilliant. You need to move to Amsterdam for six months-find an apartment here. You have a junk fetish-satisfy it here. My favorite section is the best of craigslist. Ranging from the hilarious to rants (…from a UPS driver), mawkish, I’ve so been there stories (The Perfect Craigslist Girl, Or So I Thought), oddities, lots of oddities (My Turtle Needs A Booty Call), and instruction guides (Advice to Young Men from an Old Man), all written by people far more clever than myself. The only downside is that it takes so long to update the best of list that I run out of things to read.

Only in Finland

A church built within a huge rock—wow! The Temppeliaukion Kirrko or ‘Rock Church’ was built in 1969 out of a block of solid granite. I’ve never been but now I know where to go if I should ever find myself in Helsinki. It’s suposed to have great acoustics-think Laser Floyd on an aurora borealis kind of night.