Prick up your ears, installment 5

Ever wonder how to crack into so-called "World Music?" I have a hard time doing it because there are so many artists from so many countries, singing in so many languages. Some of it I just don't care for, and most of it I don't understand, but there is one artist I discovered many years ago, who just gets better and better: Youssou N'Dour from Senegal.

His newest album is just great! But also check out this album, which was the first of his that I bought. The track "Live Television" from this album is stunning, with him singing mostly in English.

Oh, and finally, check out this awesome video featuring Youssou and Neneh Cherry.

My dog, Spenser

Just in case you are wondering what my Border Terrier puppy looks like, here he is about a month ago. I know, I gotta take some more recent pictures, which I will do. Still you gotta admit he's pretty dang cute.

Prick up your ears, installment 4

Out today on a 3.5 mile walk by the San Francisco Bay with my dog. Killer views, mellow times. Listening to my Rhapsody player shuffling me a very nice deck as we walked -- old and new tunes. This killed me: Stevie Ray Vaughan -- "Life Without You." I was slow-bopping and groovin' and saluting the Monterey Pines, perhaps making bystanders (and my pup) think I was crazy, but Stevie Ray did that to me, and still does. May he rest in peace. Life is even better than good.

Ciao,

T.

Prick up your ears, installment 3

Unknown artist - "All I Ever Get for Christmas is Blue" -- I love it when I go to a small club or festival and hear a total "unknown" who kills me. It sort of happened here when I was surfing for new music and stumbled across this. Yeah, I realize I could go to "Over the Rhine" and find out who she really is and all the details, but I'd rather just take this girl home, with her exquisite bass man and piano guy, (if it's not her on the keyboard), as chaperons, and have her sing for me all night...

T.

Prick up your ears, installment 2

A couple of posts ago, I promised to pull your coats to the music I am discovering and loving as my life unfolds. I thought about a title to use to alert you to when I'm in that mode, so here it is: "Prick up your ears," will all due respect to Stephen Frears' great movie.

OK, here is installment #2:

Dion - "Son of Skip James" - A long, long, long way from the days with "The Belmonts." Please take the time read the entire allmusic.com review of this absolutely incredible blues set. Dion? Kill yourself if you don't dig this album.

T.

"Who's" Generation?

OK, my friend Dave Gilson forwarded this to me. Utterly charming. I'll be there all too soon on the front lines.

T.

There is no way I could have said this better...

Those who have been reading this blog know that I prize and admire good writing. Here is some of the best writing I have seen in a while on a subject that is of great concern to me. The writing is cogent, powerful, grammatically perfect, and impassioned. Please read it -- it's not that long. But here is a teaser:

Evangelical influence is all over the election of 2008. The debates are laden with questions about candidates' favorite Bible verses or how often and heartily they pray. The thought that a grown person -- the leader of the free world -- would actually sit down and hear voices to guide him in major decisions is blood-curdling mad. Listen to John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, or any of the other candidates and you'll hear a group of seemingly intelligent people sounding silly in order to placate lunacy. I'd like to hear a debate where the candidates are asked how quickly they are going to eliminate Bush's trash legislation called "the faith-based initiative.

"Placating lunacy" is my new watch phrase -- utterly brilliant.

~ tom of assisi

Religion -- Bah, Humbug!!

This blog from the Huffington Post is so "right on" I am going to pull you collective coats to it. I think the whole thing is just peachy, but this portion really caught my eye:

[W]atching Huckabee I thought of Aaron Altman, the great, perspiring fictional conscience of Broadcast News, when he proposed that the bland and warm and home spun-newscaster Bill Hurt was the devil. Altman, played gorgeously by Albert Brooks says, " What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he's around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. No. I'm semi-serious here. He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing... he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important."

This is why I love the Internet. I would never have remembered this from Broadcast News, but it's so obviously relevant that I must genuflect to Jon Robin Baitz. Oh, and by the way, this does not just apply to Huckabee -- all these presidential contenders, elephant and donkey alike, should just say [ala T0mmy Jefferson]: "What I believe about God is totally irrelevant to my being the the Prez. It's none of your bee's wax. Now if you'd like to hear what I think about: Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, France, England, Germany, Social Security, Global Warming, Education, The Deficit, The Housing Market Crisis, Abortion, Farm Policies, Taxes, or 'Birth of the Cool,' just fire away!"

Out,

~ tom

Dem backbone - a fiction

How did we get Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader? I sure had nothing to do with it. I am a very forgiving person, but I am fed up with this guy. It's like a relationship that turns bad. You all know what I'm talking about. A week before the "turning point" you can forgive or ignore your significant other's faults and foibles, but at some point a bright line is crossed and from then on everything becomes unforgivable.

I'm spoiling for a fight. The kind of fight where you go up against a guy who you know is gonna kick your ass and bloody your face, but it's a fight you NEED to fight to keep your self-respect and dignity. Harry slinks away from such a fight. Aside from having the personality and charisma of a sea slug, Reid has the same backbone as a sea slug -- none! I can't remember exactly what event it was, but a while back, Senator Jim Webb gave a rebuttal to some horse shit the the Prez put out in an address to us masses, and the dude just blew me away. He was oozing charisma, putting down unassailable arguments, but most importantly, he was righteously pissed, and it showed! I was fervently murmering, "replace Reid with this dude, ASAP." Or, I think of what would be happening if LBJ was majority leader now (forget his presidency), as he was for many years in the past -- there would be hell to pay.

Oh, and by the way... I'm not that pleased with Nancy Pelosi's performance in the house either.

~ tom

A new thang...

Today, I'm beginning a new, probably sporadic service: referring you to music that I think you may enjoy. I have had a Rhapsody subscription from way back, which allows me to listen to pretty much everything I want to, immediately and on demand. Lately, on the advice of my son, I expanded that membership to allow me to download anything I want to my MP3 player. The increase in cost was from $12.00/mo to $15.00/mo, more than well worth it. I download stuff that is favorably review and listen to it while doing housework, walking my puppy, and so on.

I'm not going to try to review these recommendations, except for a line or two. However, in each case, I also will give you a link to the "allmusic" website, the best music site on the Net IMHO.

So here we go:

"Raising Sand" - Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - I'm a hopeless wreck when it comes to Alison, and hearing her paired up with Plant is just sublime. I once read an article about the Everly Brothers, which contended that their voices melded better than any duo ever -- well just listen to "Through the Morning, Through the Night" on Raising Sand for a close second, if not a tie.

"Back to Black" [Explicit version] - Amy Winehouse - Great stuff! About half way though I realized I was hearing traces of Dinah Washington, especially "What a Difference a Day Makes." But don't get me wrong, this is hard-edge contemporary stuff making its own statement, but paying it respects to the likes of Dinah.

Ciao

~ tom

Fly on the wall? Nah, crab in the sand!

From the current issue of Rolling Stone from an article about Ornette Coleman:

"When I used to go out to L.A. back then, there was something I could do you couldn't do today," says [Sonny] Rollins. "I'd drive my car out toward Malibu, park it on the side of the road, and go down to the beach to practice. I invited Ornette to come with me and we'd play, just the two of us standing in the sand, putting our sound out over the ocean. I really liked what he was doing. A lot of established musicians didn't like his playing, they were doing things like walking out on him, but I liked him."

~ tom

A belated goodbye...

Mailer died on November 10th. I had a lot of stuff going on then and I really didn't think that much about it until today, in a belated reading of a special tribute to him in my November 23 issue of Entertainment Weekly. (Check out the great picture of him on a balcony in NYC in 1965).

It brought to mind Armies of the Night, which had a profound effect on me when I read it. It was truly revolutionary, written in the third person, which was a sheer stroke of genius. I remember being so enamored with it that for about a year all the letters I wrote to my friends were in the third person. Looking back, that was a really liberating exercise. For some reason, I was able to get outside of myself more, sort of like the spirit of a dying man looking down on his body.

I immediately had an urge to read something from "Armies of the Night," if not the whole thing. I can't remember whether I still have a copy around but it's a moot point because we are remodeling right now so all of our books are packed away. So, I went on the Amazon site and called up "Armies of the Night" and then clicked on "Search Inside," then chose "Excerpt." This brought up the first few pages of the book and it was like being with an old friend I had not seen for far too long. A definite literary contact high! I may have to go out and buy a used version because it may be a while before the books get unpacked and I may not have it anyway.

Well, here are a couple of quotes from the brawler himself:

The sickness of our times for me has been just this damn thing that everything has been getting smaller and smaller and less and less important, that the romantic spirit has dried up, that there is no shame today. We're all getting so mean and small and petty and ridiculous, and we all live under the threat of extermination.

Ultimately a hero is a man who would argue with the gods, and so awakens devils to contest his vision. The more a man can achieve, the more he may be certain that the devil will inhabit a part of his creation.

Ah, The Onion

Never forget to check in with The Onion from time to time. Here's one that's typical of their dark, up-to-the-edge humor.

~ tom

Horace, (but not the Roman poet)

"Jazz is not background music. You must concentrate upon it in order to get the most of it. You must absorb most of it. The harmonies within the music can relax, soothe, relax, and uplift the mind when you concentrate upon and absorb it. Jazz music
stimulates the minds and uplifts the souls of those who play it was well as of those who listen to immerse themselves in it. As the mind is stimulated and the soul uplifted, this is eventually reflected in the body"

~~ Horace Silver

Every time I listen to "Song For My Father" (which is at least a couple of times a year, often more), my mind is stimulated, my soul uplifted, and I'm shore 'nuff poppin' my fingers and bobbin' my head.

~ tom

Olberman rules

I was checking out Michael Lally's blog moments ago. His most recent post is a link to Keith Olbermann's latest rant, about which Michael said:

"Many friends have sent me either the text for this Keith Olberman editorial, or a link to various sites that feature it, so for those of you who haven't seen it: here it is."

Also, check out my comment to Michael's post on his blog.

~ Tom

Veggies rule

Just one of the many reasons why I dig the Internet...

~ Tom

Worth a long look...

There is a plethora of great photography on the net. But here's some that made me pause and admire, and then have melancholy thoughts about the ultimate fate of these wonderful, magical animals.

~ tom

Unconditional, lifelong comitments

"... until death do us part."

Sounds great and when we say it in the wedding vows, we really mean it, don't we. But down the road of life, stuff happens and we change. The break up comes, and somehow we move on.

But some commitments, with no vows or artifice attached, truly are unconditional and lifelong. What got me thinking about this was that our sweet 3-month-old puppy , Spenser, got hurt on Friday. I was playing tug-of-war with him as usual and I guess I got too rough, or bad luck rode in, because all of a sudden he yelped and then would not walk on his left hind leg. I took him to the Vet right away and they said they did not think it was a ligament tear or broken bone. They gave him a shot and sent us home.



He's still limping around today and we're going to see the Vet tomorrow, but I have been totally bummed out since the injury: I shouldn't have played so rough; why does this have to happen to him; he's so innocent; what if he has to have surgery, and so on.

All this in turn led me to remembrances of when my two wonderful children were growing up. Wenona, now an accomplished high-level manager at EPA and mother two wonderful grandkids, and Jesse, a senior analyst at Time Warner in Manhattan. I could give you pages and pages of times when they got hurt (Wen being attacked by a St. Bernard at age 6 and literally having part of her scalp ripped off, or Jesse being hit by an Oakland cop car in front of our house when he was about 8), but in all such instances, horrible to small, something primal and visceral happened to me. It was a feeling like "kill me Lord, rip out my guts, make me listen to Kenny G. for the rest of my life, but just let my child be OK." Same kinda deal with my little puppy the other day.

That got me further thinking about all the things my kids did that were pretty awful while they were growing up, which I will not mention here because my children deserve their privacy. But I'm sure that all of us who are parents know exactly what I'm talking about. But the cool thing, looking back, is even though I was ready to blow a gasket in most of those instances, I NEVER stopped loving them and forgiving them, and vice-versa, even though that was far from apparent in the throes of any given crisis. The same cannot be said for marriages, despite the opening line of this post. Why is that?

Even today, with Wen being almost 39 and Jesse being 34, I STILL worry about them all the time. It's burrowed in the back of my mind like some inevitable worm that keeps me from ever forgetting about them for very long.

So, I'm holding my puppy on my lap now, enjoying him licking and biting my hands when I pause to compose my thoughts in mind, and realizing that there really is a higher power in us all, isn't there.

Peace, out:

~ tom

The "mere Iraqi" defense?

Not many know that I was in the Army Judge Advocate General's Corps as an attorney from 1970 to 1974. Someday, I will tell that whole story, but for this Post, suffice it to say that I speak from first-hand knowledge, and not out of my ass.

I was reading this article a few moments ago and suddenly realized that it illustrates a modern-day application of the old "mere Gook" defense that used to crop up all the time in 'Nam era defenses. The crime is mitigated by the categorization of the victim. In the 1970's era, there is no doubt that the military "justice" system tacitly recognized the "mere Gook" defense. In retrospect, I'm not ashamed to say that if I was defending some Yahoo from Kansas (or New York to be fair) who had gotten all hot an bothered in a bar and blown away a Vietnamese citizen, I would at least try to mitigate the sentence, if not defend against the charges with the the mere Gook defense. I did not feel good about it by any means, but my sworn oath was to defend my client. Later, when I prosecuted, I vigorously pointed out that my "slimy opponent" had the audacity to even give the light of day to such a racist defense as the mere Gook defense.

Anyway, after reading the linked article above, it's clear to me that things don't change a bit. Now we have the "mere Irqai" defense, but what makes it worse is that it's being institutionalized and invoked not by fucked-up 18 year olds who were drafted in the 'Nam conflict, but by cold-hearted killers who are getting their rocks off on this whole scene. Shame on them and everyone involved.

My 2 cents worth...

Tom

The ruling class rules...

I know that public financing of all elections, with no outside contributions is a dream on my part, but the following excerpt from an article by Robert Reich, really brings it home for me. Oh, and as my good friend Michael Lally said many years ago: "The ruling class rules, and the working class works. What does the middle class do, middle? No, they work for the ruling class, just like the working class does."

The biggest emerging pay gap is actually within the top 1 percent of all earners. It's mainly a gap between corporate CEOs, on the one hand, and Wall Street financiers -- hedge-fund managers, private-equity managers (think Mitt Romney) and investment bankers -- on the other. According to a study by University of Chicago professors Steven Kaplan and Joshua Rauh, more than twice as many Wall Street financiers are in the top half of 1 percent of earners as are CEOs. The 25 highest-paid hedge-fund managers are earning more than the CEOs of the largest 500 companies in the Standard and Poor's 500 combined. While CEO pay is outrageous, hedge-fund and private-equity pay is way beyond outrageous. Several of these fund managers are taking home more than a billion dollars a year.

At the very least, you might think that Democrats would do something about the anomaly in the tax code that treats the earnings of private-equity and hedge-fund managers as capital gains rather than ordinary income, and thereby taxes them at 15 percent -- lower than the tax rate faced by many middle-class Americans. But Senate Democrats recently backed off a proposal to do just that. Why? It turns out that Democrats are getting more campaign contributions these days from hedge-fund and private-equity partners than Republicans are getting. In the run-up to the 2006 election, donations from hedge-fund employees were running better than 2-to-1 Democratic. The party doesn't want to bite the hands that feed.

Heeeeeeeeeeeres Johnny!

Making me chuckle, with thoughts of long-past better days.

~ Tom

Ah, Louis...

``There's some folks, that, if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.''

~ Louis Armstrong

Sweet Interlude - Tom's version

My friend Michael posted a link to a very trippy video. He titled his post "Sweet Interlude 2."

In the same spirit, here is my Sweet Interlude.

~ tom

The Smirking Chimp

I've been meaning to mention a web site that I check out routinely. When I mention it to others it seems most of them have never heard of it. To get you started check out this article and then poke around site. You can't help but love The Smirking Chimp if you are a member of the choir that is being preached to!

~ Tom

Belzer gives us Twain

All I can say is amen.

~ tom

Thinking of dead friends...

I was surfing around and found this wonderful, wonderful piece of music. I had never heard it before. I listened and watched it three times in a row, thinking of fallen friends who would have loved it, and getting pretty choked up in the process: Lee Lally, Sue Mahannah, Bill Mahannah, Ralph Dickey, Brian Sax, Linda Akulian, and Virginia Broder.

There are other friends who have passed who would have appreciated the song, but not loved it. The key here is that I am pretty positive that the folks I listed above would have played it three times in a row, just as I did. If you want to leave a comment listing your fallen friends who would have loved it, I would be honored.

T.

Still howling after 50 years

Please take the time to read the following article. Then go to the link mentioned in the article to hear a full show about Howl, which includes a reading of it from 1959 by Ginsberg himself.

Why is it we can allow all manner of truly obscene matter on the airwaves (Bush's lies and deceit being near the top), but an enduring stroke of pure genius is too much for us to be trusted to hear? As Lenny Bruce once said in an analogous context, "a knowledge of syphilis is not an instruction to get it."

After listening to a bit of the program I was staggered to find that there have been readings by the author of Howl on daytime TV in past years! This shows me that the current milieu is indeed draconian if not a full-blown fascist totalitarian regime.

Sigh.....

September snow!

Last weekend we went to our place at Tahoe/Donner to winterize it for the coming cold season. This mainly involves taking down outside watering system and turning off the main water valve to the house. When we go back up for skiing this winter we will turn main water back on, but the reason we turn it off is to prevent pipe freeze/break if the power goes out. Anyway, we got up there last Friday and went to bed, only to wake up to SNOW! the next morning. It wasn't a lot, but 2-3 inches in September is pretty rare. Here are some photos to prove that I was not hallucinating!

MJF Reflections

It would be impossible to convey what it is like to attend the Monterey Jazz Festival. This year's 50th rendition was wonderful in spite of rain on Friday night's show -- only the second time in the Festival's history that it rained. Here are some of my random thoughts about it, in no particular order:

** Come on, is there anyone cooler than Sonny Rollins? The man literally tore the place up as the last act of the Festival on Sunday night. He performed at the very first festival in 1958 and he's still going strong, now at age 77. It was a true honor to see and hear that set along with 10,000 savvy jazz fans.

** Gerald Wilson rules. At age 89, with band members who have been playing with him for 40 to 50 years, the man is so elegant it's as if he's ready to ascend into heaven at any moment. He composed "Monterey Moods" for this 50th festival, and I can only say his big band is the best I've heard in many years.

** The Otis Taylor Band is a force to be reckoned with, playing something they call "Trance Blues." I was totally wowed by Otis' 20-year-old daughter, Cassie, playing a truly mean bass and singing with a smoky voice beyond her years.

** Ornette Coleman - a quintet with three (count 'em) basses! Yep, Ornette is still Ornette.

** Hearing Terence Blanchard play is always heaven for me. But hearing him play many songs from his moving new album "A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina)" with the Monterey Jazz Festival Chamber Orchestra backing him up brought tears to my eyes.

** Getting to hear John Sayles talk about his new movie, with audience Q&A was so cool. We also got to see several clips from the film, "Honeydripper."

** John McLaughlin playing straight electric guitar ala Mahavishnu Orchestra days. The dude can still outplay just about any rock guitarist.

** Brubeck at 86. Still bringing it.

** Mort Sahl hosting the Sunday night show. "I heard Bush was born again. Why would anyone want to come back as George Bush?" Huge, huge cheer from the crowd.

I could go on, but you get the picture. Being at the Festival for three days is like going to another planet where all ages and races are mellow, intelligent, and just basically COOL.

~ Tom

P.S. Is there any sound cooler than trumpet and tenor sax playing together as the front line in a quintet?

Off to Monterey!

In a couple of hours we will be driving to Monterey for the 50th Monterey Jazz Festival!

A full report and review after I return.

Paul McCartney's latest...

I just finished a first-listen to Paul McCartney's new album, "Memory Almost Full." I had read many laudatory reviews, but I was prepared to be let down. To the contrary, this is certainly the best album Paul has made, sans the Beatles. Here is a review that says exactly what I would have to say on the subject.

The review is spot on about Paul's ruminations on his mortality and that of others. Here are the lyrics for the last track on the album "The End of the End." I'm sorry you can't hear the wonderful tune that Paul wrote for this, but "stories of old to be rode on like carpets that children have played on" should give you an idea of just how good it is.

At the end of the end
It's the start of the journey
To a much better place, and this wasn't bad
So a much better place would have to be special
No need to be sad

On the day that I die
I'd like jokes to be told
And stories of old to be rode on like carpets
That children have played on
And laid on while listening to stories of old

At the end of the end
It's the start of the journey
To a much better place, and this wasn't bad
So a much better place would have to be special
No reason to cry

On the day that I die
I'd like bells to be rung
And songs that were sung to be laid out like blankets
That lovers have played on and laid on
While listening to songs that were sung

At the end of the end
It's the start of the journey
To a much better place,
And a much better place would have to be special
No reason to cry
No need to be sad
At the end of the end

The other tracks are all terrific too. Wonderful song writing, super arrangements, kick-ass musicians and singers, and flawless engineering. Oh, and did I say that Paul's singing hasn't lost anything.

Tom gives this one a big thumbs up.

A dose of reality...

On September 1st I was at the football game between my beloved Cal Bears and Tennessee. The game was completely sold out, which meant that there were over 75,000 people in the stadium. While looking at this crowd, it made me think about how small it looked when I equated it to military troops. I thought "what if twice this number of soldiers had to conquer, pacify, and then hold THE ENTIRE STATE OF CALIFORNIA?!"

Thinking about it in those terms really brought the Iraq fiasco home for me. According to the World Atlas, Iraq consists of 166,859 square miles. The same source sizes California at 155,959, only slightly smaller than Iraq. I pictured a mere two stadiums full of guys having to take care of the entire state of California. Impossible! Sure we could send 100,000 heavily armed troops into Los Angeles and environs and quell unrest in that area, but then what happens if the insurgents conduct other operations in the San Francisco Bay area, or Sacramento, or they set up operations in the foothills around the cities ? We would only have less than a stadium full of guys around to deal with the entire state, because we would have a stadium-and-a-half of soldiers committed to Los Angeles.

Sound familiar?

~ Tom

Pat Buchanan on invading Iran

I've been into politics all my life. My late father followed politics avidly until his death in 2000 at age 80. One guy that he and I both liked, even though we disagreed with way more than half of what he espouses, is Pat Buchanan. We respected him because he is smart, loyal, and consistent in his beliefs, not to mention being a true fighting Irish Catholic. Dad was not Catholic, but I think he had a true respect for Catholics who "walked the walk" rather than just "talking the talk."

Anyway, I was watching last Friday's McLaughlin Group, (which I had TIVO'd), a show that Dad and I often watched together. Pat is a regular on that show. Pat pointed out that after the Petraeus testimony, the Democrats are not going to be able to do anything to really stop Bush and the neocons. Next, he predicted that near the end of the month, they will begin a huge push to attack Iran. You may not know or remember that Pat was one of the most vocal critics of the Iraq war, so his prediction on Iran was not coming from joy and support, but was coming out of true fear and concern that Bush, Cheney and the neocons are bound and determined to mix it up militarily with Iran while they still have the chance.

Coming from Buchanan, this is really scary. I truly believe that he knows what he is talking about. Eleanor Clift pretty much agreed with Pat, but pointed out that Bush would need a separate approval from Congress to do it. Pat countered by saying he did not believe that Bush believed he was constrained. Eleanor replied by noting that if Bush and his neocon hoard were stupid enough to bomb or invade Iran, impeachment was sure to follow. Pat was not given time to respond, but I could tell from the look on his face that he sincerely believes that these bozo's are going to have their way come hell or high water.

It could be that Pat is trying to prevent a move against Iran by firmly predicting it's going to happen, which of course sends guys like me into a frenzy. I'm really hoping that's his angle here.

~ tom

Quote for today...

Trickle-down economics results in a nation of "pee-on's"

~ Thom Hartman on his radio show this morning.

Eat your hearts out!

50th Monterey Jazz Festival coming soon!

The Lookout

I like movies that stick with you for a while -- especially ones that get better the next day as you think about them. "The Lookout" is one of those kind of flicks. Richard Roeper of Ebert & Roeper has picked it as his number one movie of the year so far.

Don't let it slip through the cracks. Rent the DVD and enjoy. It's worth it.

~ tom

A Draconian Secenario

I was just now listening to Marjorie Cohn on Thom Hartman's show - she is president of the National Lawyers Guild and has authored a book on the criminality of the Bush administration.

Anyway, she and Thom had each heard the following rumor within the past couple of hours:

Bush appoints Joe Lieberman as Attorney General. The Senate, which always confirms its own, confirms Joe.

The Connecticut Governor, who is a Republican gets to appoint a successor to Joe, who will no doubt be a Republican.

This tips the Senate back to the Republicans, which stops all these investigations and further investigations. It also puts in place an Attorney General who is a Bush lackey and who has stated that he thought Gonzalez was being too conservative when he said the Geneva Convention was "quaint."

Hmmmm...

~ tom

Motorcycle trip

I promised I would write a little about our motorcycle trip. We took off about noon on Thursday, August 16th and rode north up U.S. Highway 101 to Cloverdale and then northwest on State Highway 128 to Mendocino. The stretch from Cloverdale to Mendocino is a great ride, with lots of twisties going out of Cloverdale and over the hills, then through the beautiful Alexander Valley, which is rife with vineyards and wineries, and finally thorough a tall redwood stand to the coast.

We stayed at the Hotel Mendocino, which was established in 1872. We had a cottage room in the gardens behind. The next morning we literally walked across the street out to the bluffs and walked clear out to the point. The shots below show the old Menodcino hotel on Main Street, a shot out to the point of the bluffs and a shot from the point back into town. It was a gorgeous day as you can see.




Mendocino Hotel - Main Building

Across the street from the Mendocino Hotel

From the bluffs looking back into Mendocino

We left Mendocino about 11:00 and rode a part of Highway 1 that neither of us had ever been on before. It runs between Mendocino to Highway 101 at a tiny town called Legget. The ride was really challenging, with curve after curve, many 180 degree hairpins, and steep climbs and descents to boot. Our wonderful BMW R1200RT just ate that stuff up, although I will say that in all my miles of motocycle riding I have never gone so far and so long in first gear. Once we hooked up with 101, (at that point "The Redwood Highway"), we rode on north to the Avenue of the Giants, which parallels 101 and meanders through giant redwoods. It's no use trying to take pictures because there is no way to capture the scale. Besides, we just slowed down to about 30 mph, opened our face shields, and humbly dug the sight and smell of a world that has existed for thousands of years. It was a privilege.

We stayed Friday night in a cabin at the Redcrest Resort, which is on the north edge of the Avenue of the Giants. Below is a picture of the cabin and our trusty steed with its side bags removed to the cabin.

Our cabin at the Redcrest Resort

On Saturday, we rode south straight down 101, which is truly a beautiful drive. We stayed that night at Cloverdale. We got on the rode early the next morning, Sunday, and rode home. On the way we saw lots of hot air balloons floating down the Napa Valley.

Life is good.

~ tom

Random TV thoughts

We're back from the best motorcycle trip yet. More on that in a future post, with some pictures.

Some TV thoughts:

Big Love: I just watched the penultimate episode of "Big Love" yesterday and I was so blown away I have to plug it again for everyone. This season has been even better than the wonderful first season, but the most recent episode was deep, wrenching, exciting, poignant, and often funny as hell. And, introducing the great Ellen Burstyn as Barbara's mother was like a giant cherry on top of the worlds greatest sundae! I am counting the days until the final episode. If you haven't seen this show, do yourself a favor and rent/buy the first season and then get season two as soon as it comes out.

The Closer: Eileen's favorite show. I really like it too. Kyra Sedgwick is such a good actor, and the cast is top notch. The writing is sharp, and the plots often twisty.

Damages: One of my favorite shows now. After I believe 4 episodes I'm hopelessly hooked. Fabulous intricate plot lines with believable but totally shocking surprises, and a kick-ass cast including Ted Danson playing the bad guy to perfection. But the show triumphs on the shoulders of Glenn Close, who I can only describe as astonishing, and almost as much of a "bad guy" as Ted. If you don't have TIVO or some way to record the show so that you can skip the commercials, wait until it comes out on DVD later.

John from Cincy: I know I raved about this show a while back, but in the end, it disappointed me. I hung in there for all the episodes, but in the end I was wallowing around with the rest of the characters trying to figure out what the hell was going on, and why.

Rescue Me: Another favorite of Eileen and me. Sure, it has its flaws, but it's got heart, good writing, characters to care about, and Denis Leary trying to be a "Friend of Bill."

The 4400: Eileen and I part ways on this one -- she's not a fan. I've seen every episode from day one and I love the show. It's the sci-fi geek in me, I guess. Differt strokes, right?

Saving Grace: The jury is still out on this one. I like Holly Hunter a lot, but the show doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. Also, it's uncomfortably similar to that show (the name escapes me now) where Amber Tamblin talked with God, who appeared in various human forms.

Weeds: Hilarious.

~ Tom

Avenue of the Giants

We're taking off on another motorcycle trip tomorrow and getting back on Sunday. This time we are heading up to Mendocino tomorrow and staying overnight there. We're staying at the Mendocino Hotel and Gardens, mentioned favorably in this article.

Then on Friday we will head northwest, via Highway 1 to Legget, and north on Highway 101 to ride The Avenue of the Giants. I've done The Giants a couple of times in a car, but riding it in the open air on a motorcycle should be a religious experience. Well stay Friday night at the Redcrest Resort, a funky old place in the heart of the redwoods.

Saturday, it's back south on Highway 101 to Legget, continuing on through Laytonville (a pretty town in the foothills), to Cloverdale for a Saturday night stay. Up Sunday for the short ride back home.

I hope to have some pictures to post after we get back.

So, farewell for now,

~ Tom

Powell Agonistes

My latest fantasy. Wouldn't it be cool if Powell just let it all hang out? I realize the possibility is unlikely, but, as Sidney Blumenthal points out, it's by no means beyond the realm of possibility.

~ tom

Agitation

What a sad, sad difference 150 years makes. This would get all these guys wire tapped for sure today, if not worse.

Whitman was adopting the spirit of agitation popularized by reformers who were trying to arouse the moral conscience of the nation. The Brooklyn preacher he most admired, Henry Ward Beecher, declared in an antislavery speech of 1851: "Agitation? what have we got to work with but agitation? Agitation is the thing in these days for any good." The next year the abolitionist Wendell Phillips declared: "Only by unintermitted agitation can a people be kept sufficiently awake not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity . . . Republics exist only on the tenure of being constantly agitated." The antislavery leader Joshua Giddings used similar language: "Agitation is the great and mighty instrument for carrying forward . . . reforms. Agitation is necessary to purify the political atmosphere of this nation." And Whitman's correspondent and favorite speaker, John P. Hale, told the Senate: "I glory in the name of agitator. I wish the country could be agitated vastly more than it is."

Whitman was coming to think that that he, above all, was the one chosen to agitate the country. He wrote in his 1856 notebook: "Agitation is the test of the goodness and solidness of all politics and laws and institutions -- If they cannot stand it, there is no genuine life in them and shall die {sic}. He once declared, "I think agitation is the most important factor of all -- the most deeply important. To stir, to question, to suspect, to examine, to denounce!"

~ What Whitman's America, by David S. Reynolds, Vintage paperback edition, pp. 138-139.

A Karmic Trip

The trip we took to Silver Lake was truly one of those karmic events. The day before we were to leave, we looked at the weather reports for the Sierras and saw that there was a real possibility of thunder storms. Not wanting to get caught in such storms while on a motorcycle, we decided to take Eileen's Infiniti FX-35. We had a great drive up to Silver Lake (of course no thunder storms) and spent a very relaxing two days at the Kit Carson lodge. On Thursday we hiked into Granite Lake. It was just a little over a mile in, but worth the walk. I'm including pictures of Silver Lake and Granite Lake.

Silver Lake

Granite Lake

We then went to our place in Truckee, and on Saturday we went into Reno to look at the BMW X3, which Eileen was thinking about leasing to replace the FX-35, her lease ending in September. To make a long story short, we got a tremendous deal on an X3, including them buying out Eileen's lease so that we could take the X3 home and be done with the Infiniti (which was a great car, by the way).

Anyway, the point is that none of that would or could have happened if we had taken the motorcycle as originally planned. It's so weird and wonderful when that kind of stuff happens. When we left, we had absolutely no idea that we would be driving a brand new BMW home. Life is such a gas sometimes.

~ Tom

M. C. Escher quotes...

M. C. Escher has always been one of my favorites. When my children were each about six or seven, I showed them many Escher prints and watched with awe as the "child mind" grooved with M. C. on a level I was never going to get back to.

Here are some neat quotes from the master himself from the official website.

" To have peace with this peculiar life; to accept what we do not understand; to wait calmly for what awaits us, you have to be wiser than I am"

" I don't grow up. In me is the small child of my early days"

" So let us then try to climb the mountain, not by stepping on what is below us, but to pull us up at what is above us, for my part at the stars; amen"

See ya!

We're taking off tomorrow for a motorcycle jaunt up into the high sierras and won't be back until Sunday. We'll stay tomorrow night and Thursday night at the Kit Carson Lodge on Silver Lake. Then up on Friday to ride to our own place at Tahoe/Donner for a couple of nights. We'll take a nice long ride on Saturday using our place as a base. No computers and no blogging until Sunday at least.

~ Tom

It could happen!

The background, from Salon:

... it was reported that the Bush administration upped the ante in the ongoing executive privilege battle by warning that if Congress issued contempt citations, the White House would forbid the Justice Department from enforcing them.

My fantasy: Congress issues contempt citations against Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten and sends out their Sergeant at Arms to arrest them and bring them before Congress. Getting wind of this, Miers and Bolten flee to the White House. The Sergeant at Arms is denied entry and we have a very real Constitutional stand-off, if not a crisis.

Hmmm.

Watch what you say!

Here is Bush's latest executive order, which he tried to fly below the radar. However, people like Thom Hartman have brought it within anti-aircraft range. Be very, very, very careful about what you say about Iraq or you could lose your house, your bank accounts, your car, and anything else you own.

Even Orwell would have not believed this...

~ Tom

p.s. Since I posted this, I have read it more carefully. Don't be fooled by folks who might say "this requires and 'act of violence' or threat of violence." Check out this portion of the Order: "...or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order."

Now how in the hell are we supposed to know whose "property and interests in property are blocked?"

Ghosts of the Flatbush

We were on a 3-day motorcycle trip up the California coast, staying at The Inn of the Tides in Bodega Bay (where Hitchcock filmed "The Birds" many years ag0). The Inn had HBO, so I turned it on and got to see a great documentary: "The Brooklyn Dodgers, Ghosts of the Flatbush."

While I am a San Francisco Giants fan and hate the current Los Angeles Dodgers, I couldn't help but love the Brooklyn Dodgers by the end of the documentary. There is so much history outside actual baseball that is tied up in the story, of course Jackie Robinson and race being the foremost example. But I learned all sorts of other things that I did not know, being a "West-Coast Kid" my entire life -- such as this cat Robert Moses who was the dictatorial urban planner for all boroughs of NYC. Also I just loved the reminiscing of the fans, many of whom were kids at the time and who are now prominent like Lou Gossett, Jr. and Tom Oliphant. Plus, many of the Boys of Summer who are still alive give some great, often funny, insight.

I have good friends who grew up in New York who are always waxing nostalgic about the Dodgers, Jackie Robinson, and the whole scene at that time, but I really didn't get it. Now, having seen this fine documentary, I TOTALLY understand their unabashed love and passion.

I just checked the HBO schedule and see that the show is being re-run many times in the next couple of weeks and well as being available "On Demand." And, if you would like to read a good review of the program, check this out.

Even if you think you don't like baseball, I highly recommend that you check out "The Brooklyn Dodgers, Ghosts of the Flatbush" on HBO. My wife, who hates to watch sports or go to baseball games, watched the whole thing and really enjoyed it.

~ Tom says five stars.

Always love a nice chorale...

I have sung in a few choirs and a top-notch male chorus, and every once in a while I regret that I didn't keep it up.

Check this out for a very solid choral effort with a funny, yet ass-kicking message.

~ Tom

John From Cincinnati

My friends call me "gadget man" or the like because of my unabashed love of technological "toys." My wife Eileen kids me about it, but there is one gadget that we both embrace and would be hard-pressed to give up: our TIVO. (More on that and some of my other favorite gadgets in a coming post).

Anyway, I had a bunch of episodes of "John From Cincinnati" backed up on the TIVO and finally got around to watching them all in the space of a couple of days. The great thing about such a process is that unlike those viewing the episodes on a weekly basis where it literally takes "time" to find the riff and dig it, a TIVO orgy lets you get the groove with immediacy and clarity.

Anyway, hear this: John From Cincinnati is a great show. David Milch is truly a genius, and obviously a bit crazy in the good way. He has a great knack for "argot" (a specialized idiomatic vocabulary peculiar to a particular class or group of people, esp. that of an underworld group, devised for private communication and identification: a Restoration play rich in thieves' argot. ~ Dictionary.com), where he reached his zenith in Deadwood.

But in "John ..," he is certainly carrying the argot banner forward. I could give tons of examples, but one only has to TIVO back and forth over the dialog between Bill Jacks (played by Ed O'Neill) and his parrots to realize that Milch and his sterling writers are at it again in a different milieu. The cast is outstanding - too many for me to mention, but they're all spot-on, down to the smallest parts.

For the same reason this show "TIVO's" so well, it will be wonderful in a DVD release where those of you who don't have HBO can see it all unfold at your own pace. Tom says five stars.

P.S. My friend Michael Lally had a small part in Deadwood, and here is his early take on "John..." from his wonderful blog.

Olbermann rules...

Yeah, yeah. I know this is preaching to the choir, but God I love it.

We need a sure thing, not a morality play

I definitely worry about the 2008 presidential race, especially with the virtual certainty the new prez will make several U.S. Supreme Court nominations. Frankly, I'm worried about Hillary getting the nomination -- not because I don't think she would not make a good president, or that a woman should not gain the lofty office. No, I truly think that she cannot win. Consider the following from today's "War Room" on Salon, which sums up what I have been feeling in my bones these days:

____________________________________________________________

Hillary and the e-word

From the "Tell Us Again Why This Isn't a Problem" Department, a new national Mason-Dixon Poll finds 52 percent of Americans saying they wouldn't even consider voting for Hillary Clinton for president.

"Hillary's carrying a lot of baggage," explains Mason-Dixon's Larry Harris. "She's the only one that has a majority who say they can't vote for her."

While the poll does have a four-point margin of error, the "would you even think about it" numbers for Clinton are starkly different than they are for most of the other major candidates or near-candidates. More than 60 percent of the poll's respondents said they'd think about voting for Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson or Michael Bloomberg; 60 percent said they'd consider voting for Barack Obama; 59 percent said they'd consider voting for John Edwards; 58 percent said they'd think about John McCain; 57 percent said they'd consider Joe Biden, the same percentage that said they'd consider Bill Richardson; 56 percent said they'd consider Mike Huckabee; and 54 percent said they'd consider Mitt Romney. By contrast, only 48 percent said they'd consider voting for Clinton.

More bad news for Team Hillary: At 39 percent favorable to 42 percent unfavorable, Clinton is the only candidate or near-candidate to have a net-unfavorable rating in the poll.

-- Tim Grieve

_______________________________________________________________

The situation reminds me of when I was a kid and we would choose up teams for sandlot baseball, muddy football, hoops, or whatever. Because I was a good athlete and a leader, I would usually get to be one of the captains and inevitably my schoolyard rival would be the other captain. Even then, I had an empathy streak, and I'd see some kids who were not that "jocky" just dying for approval but not believing that they would ever get picked until last, so once in a while I would pick them ahead of guys who were good jocks just to see their faces light up and to make me feel better about myself. But guess what? The result wasn't "Hoosiers" or "Remember the Titans" or "Rudy." Even though the less-gifted guys would try like hell and play their asses off, we'd still lose.

Dang it, I want the Dems to nominate somebody who can win! I'm not sure who that is, but I'm almost positive it isn't Senator Clinton.

~ Tom

I'm a sucker for Big Love

One of the great rewards in life is taking some time to take a risk to try something that you think you are not going to enjoy.

Example: "Big Love" on HBO. When the series premiered, I read about it and thought, "Mormons, polygamy, Utah", wha? But because it was an HBO creation (Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Deadwood) and because of reviews from reviewers I trusted I started from episode 1 and have not missed one since.

I won't even try to explain how great this series is, but suffice it to say, it is character-driven, with a kick-ass plot. For you insiders, Jeanne Tripplehorn (Barbara) is so damn sexy that I can see why Bill Paxton (Bill) sneaked away to "have an affair with his own wife" last season. I absolutely love every character on this show, even the ones you love to hate (Roman, played with creepy effectiveness by the great Harry Dean Stanton) to the ones that constantly exasperate you (Nicolette, played so-so well by Chloë Sevigny), to the ones that just make you want to take them home with you (Margene, played by the little heart-breaker Ginnifer Goodwin).

After the season-ending episode last year where the family is outed when Barbara is about to receive the "Mother of the Year" award at the Governor's mansion, I really wondered how they were going to get further mileage out of the series concept. Not to worry. The first two episodes of the new season just riveted me, and were even better than last year as the writers obviously begin to truly inhabit the souls of their charges.

Another example of my " take a risk to try something that you think you are not going to enjoy" was Showtime's "Queer as Folk," which I consider one of THE best TV series ever made. I'm not gay, but I got so involved with all the characters and the wonderful writing that it didn't make any difference to me. Also, the series-ending episode was probably the best "ender" I've ever seen, with the "ender" of Six Feet Under" running a close second. Sorry Chase, but the "cut to black" ending, while interesting doesn't come close to Brian standing in the ruins of Babylon while the "beat goes on in his head" or Claire, driving into the future with Sia's great song "Breathe Me" played in its entirety.

Well, it's time to sign off and dream about Jeanne Tripplehorn.

~ Tom

John Burke pulls your coat to "Ace in the Hole"

My friend John Burke is one of those guys whose quirky knowledge never ceases to amaze me. He doesn't have a blog, but he has a list of friends he emails with great tidbits or links to really cool stuff. I'm privileged to be on that list. A couple of weeks ago, he sent out the following, which I have cut and pasted below. I remember seeing this movie on TV years ago and feeling the cynicism of which John speaks. I'd really like to see it again, uncut, restored and without the commercials.

John's link below indicates that the release will not be until early July, and Netflix does not have it in their listings yet.

Hi--

"Ace in the Hole" was also released under the title "The Big Carnival" but was known around Hollywood as "Ass in the Crack," because it was widely believed that Wilder had destroyed his career by making such a cynical movie, particularly in the second year of the Korean War. All the characters are repellent--either grasping and manipulative, or just suckers; US popular culture is depicted as an unbroken sea of commercial kitsch, and when the male lead (Kirk Douglas) asks the female lead (Jan Sterling) why she isn't going to church on Sunday morning, she says "Kneeling bags my nylons." Needless to say I love this movie and am thrilled to see that those wonderful people at Criterion are releasing it in a spiffy new DVD transfer, with commentary 'n stuff, within the next few weeks. Put it on your Netflix queue or buy one to keep at

http://tinyurl.com/yt6k7j

Still here....

Hi everybody:

Was working on a big project last week and was out of town for a 3-day weekend motorcycle trip up north. I'll be posting more often for the next couple of weeks. Hang in there with me.

Tom

30 from Jack

Here's something that made me think a lot and then smile. I found it using "Stumble Upon" -- "Stumbling" has become one of my favorite pastimes.

Fellow writers were always asking Kerouac how he did what he did. So Kerouac set down 30 essentials in something he called “Belief and Technique for Modern Prose.” These tips may or may not make sense to you, but that’s Kerouac, man:

---

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

Nexus

Two things:

1. My obsession with with this insane Iraq war. I read oodles about it in the press and online in blogs and e-zines. I have read Cobra II, Fiasco, The One Percent Solution, Nemesis, and other books.

2. My obsession with really fine writing. I taught writing and legal writing for over 25 years and am constantly lamenting the fact that no one understands when to use "which" and when to use "that" [restrictive and non-restrictive clauses?], or when to use the objective vs. subjective case, e.g. "he writes better then me [eek]."

Hence, I was blown away by this article from Salon, which is actually the commencement address that Mark Danner wrote and delivered to Department of Rhetoric at Zellerbach Hall, University of California at Berkeley, on May 10, 2007. The writing is masterful yet exquisite (I had to look up the word "synecdoche") and the content is one of the best summaries of the Iraq fiasco that I've ever read. It's a bit long, but take the time to check it out. Leave a comment with your thoughts.

A perfect nexus of two of my obsessions.

~ tom

Scary as hell, but not surprising

I heard about this quote on the radio, and tracked it down. It's from an article by Georgie Anne Geyer of the Dallas morning news:

But by all reports, President Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness.

Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated "I am the president!" He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of "our country's destiny."

The entire article is very good also, and you can read it here.

But by all reports, President Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness.

Friends of his from Texas were shocked

But by all reports, President Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness.

Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated "I am the president!" He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of "our country's destiny."z

recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated "I am the president!" He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of "our country's destiny."

Another cool free tool -- Line Break Remover

I don't know about all of you, but I am constantly using portions of emails that I receive to insert in other documents. When I cut and past them into a word processor, or add/delete text to the original message itself, the cursed line breaks from the original email are still embedded, which results in ragged lines of varying length. (Sound familiar?) This means that I have to manually find and delete each of the line breaks to get my word processor to format properly.

The other night I was editing a long email that I had received to send it to someone else, and of course by the time I got done, I had lines that were miles long or only a couple of words long. Faced with the prospect of yet again having to do the line-by-line delete, I said "there's gotta be some kind of tool that will do this in one key stroke." Well, I found it! Text Fixer - Remove Line Breaks. This little tool is a joy. I've used it a few times now and it's a god-send.

Check it out. Your welcome.

~ Tom

Things don't really change...

I was listening to Al Gore being interviewed by Keith Olbermann this evening on Countdown. Al was making the point that Bush manipulating and lying to get us into his long-desired war was bad enough, but that the really scary part is how the public, and especially the media, ignored the real facts and completely failed to employ any sort of critical reasoning. Keith (who I am really digging these days) wondered if there was any hope for the majority of this country. Can we do anything to get our countrymen to even read Al's book, let alone implement the ideas Al offers to save our democracy? I wonder the same thing -- it seems to me that the public conscience and discourse have descended from Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to American Idol and Britney Spears' cooter. That made me think about a quote that I haul out every once in a while, which pretty much illustrates what I'm getting at here:

Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a facist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger. It works the same in every country.

-Hermann Goering, Hitler's Reich-Marshal at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II.

Mourning the goats...

Here in the Bay Area we have a cool thing going on where they use goat herds to clear weeds on public lands (or private owners can also rent a herd for the job). I have run into the herds on hikes and always enjoy seeing them and sometimes being able to pet them.

Thus, I was horrified this morning when I opened my paper and read the following:

"Someone armed with a small-caliber gun shot and killed 15 goats early Tuesday that were part of a herd hired to graze on fire-hazardous underbrush and weeds in the Oakland hills, police said."

I immediately felt a huge sadness and melancholy. They were just innocent creatures. And what kind of mind would contemplate such an outrage, let alone execute it?

But then, I began to think of an interesting session I had years ago when I was in therapy. I asked Dave (my shrink) why I could feel such intense sadness over the death or abuse of "dumb" animals and yet could not feel the same over starving children or tortured/killed people throughout the world. I was really concerned about this, feeling that I was deeply flawed. He talked me through it and we came to the following conclusion: Such outrages against human beings are against my own species. Thus, I cannot LET myself feel the pain and sadness like I do with animals. The enormity (look that word up in your dictionary) of that reality is just too much to open myself up to. If I feel as horrible as I do when it involves innocent animals, something inside me knows that I will simply not be able to handle it when it involves my own kind. I wish I could change this, but maybe I really don't.

Anyway, I'm mourning the goats today, and wondering if I can risk summoning up the same visceral feelings with respect to all the incredible outrages being committed or allowed by my so-called representative government, and other evil persons, against innocent humanity.

P.S. After my initial post, I remembered that I had taken some pictures of a herd while on a hike in the summer of 2001.







~ T.

You'll smile and feel cheery...

Even if I didn't have a three-and-a-half year old granddaughter who never gets tired of hearing this, I would still play it just for myself every once and a while if only to smile and cheer myself up. I'm just a kid at heart.

~ Tom

Believing in nothing

I was just reading "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" by Shunryu Suzuki and came across this, which I now share with you:

Believing in Nothing "In our everyday life our thinking is ninety-nine percent self-centered. ' Why do I have suffering? Why do I have trouble?'"

I discovered that is is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something which has no form and no color -- something which exists before all forms and colors appear. This is a very important point. No matter what god or doctrine you believe in, if you become attached to it, your belief will be based more or less on a self-centered idea. You strive for a perfect faith in order to save yourself. But it will take time to attain such a perfect faith. You will be involved in an idealistic practice. In constantly seeking to actualize your ideal, you will have no time for composure. But if you are always prepared for accepting everything we see as something appearing from nothing, knowing that there is some reason why a phenomenal existence of such and such form or color appears, then at that moment you will have perfect composure.

Let's face it!

Here is something that is fun and addictive. If you have kids or grandkids, turn them loose on it. They will love it.

There are no instructions, so here are a couple of hints.

1. If you hold down your left mouse button, you can drag the selected facial feature to get it to line up exactly with other parts.

2. To use the scale tool click on the "X" in the middle and hold down your mouse button and then drag it around in the grid and you'll see the selected facial feature change scale.

3. The opacity tool is a simple slider. Just click, hold down mouse button and drag.

Post a comment to lemme know if you dig it. I find it really fascinating.

Ciao,

T.

P.S. Trying to create you own face is hard.

Cost of War

One of the things that makes me so angry, frustrated, and diminished is the cost of this insane Iraq war. I keep thinking of all the things that we could have spent the money for that would have advanced our country and mankind. Well, here is a great site that makes the point far better than I can. While you are visiting this site, poke around a bit. Really fascinating stuff.

~ Tom

Unmet and exceeded expectations

One of the things that makes life interesting is the matter of our expectations and how they are rarely just "met." In my own case, it seems as though my expectations are either unmet or exceeded. A perfect example is a couple of movies I recently watched on DVD.

Unmet: "Half Nelson" / I had read so much about this movie that I was almost salivating when I pulled it out of the Netflix envelope and popped it in the player. I was very disappointed. I found Gosling's character particularly annoying and unsympathetic. But I could have lived with that because there are plenty of great flicks with unlikable protagonists. The script was totally unbelievable -- there is no way the "real world" would have cut this guy that much slack. The most telling scene in that regard was the one where he took on the basketball referee and eventually threw the ball at the ref, hitting him in the back. Having been involved in coaching various youth sports, and refereeing soccer at high levels, I can tell you there is no way that he wouldn't have been banned from coaching for at least a year for that kind of conduct. Instead, he's back coaching as if nothing happened! And, most importantly, I did not buy the chemistry between him and the girl. What the hell did she see in this guy? It really seemed contrived to me, as opposed to the wonderful chemistry between Fishburne and the girl in "Akeela and the Bee" for instance.

Exceeded: "Sherrybaby" / This movie just knocked my socks off and I fell in love with Maggie Gyllenhaal. She is on screen for every moment of the flick and is simply amazing. I knew she was a good actress when I saw her as the "free-spirit" baker in "Stranger Than Fiction" (she stole the movie), but I was not ready for just how great she is. Sherrybaby has some squirmy moments (e.g. the scene near the end with her father), but they are not gratuitous.

When our expectations are unmet, we feel let down, chastened, and a bit embarrassed. But it all evens out with those joyous moments when our expectations are exceeded.

~ tom

Guns and "pro life?"

I heard about Elayne Boosler's recent blog entry and checked it out. The title is perfect: "We Are Tired of Prying Your Guns Out of Your Cold Dead Hand." Aside from the obvious reference to the NRA screed, it provides a more subtle point: These killers always kill themselves last, leaving the gun clutched in their literal cold dead hand, but dozens and dozens of innocents perish before then. I also dig Elayne's comparison of "right to life" with the stance of the conservatives on any sort of sane gun control. You go girl.

~ Tom

I demand gun control!

Damn it! Another massacre today, perpetrated by a nut case with tons of guns and ammo. The tired litany of the NRA that if we outlaw guns only outlaws will have guns is just bullshit. It might be true a few times out of hundreds, but I'm willing to bet that a huge percentage of senseless gun slayings, from mass killings to a wife shooting her hubby in the bedroom, would be prevented if guns of all sorts were banned. As my friend Michael Lally said once, "Ever hear of a drive-by knifing?"

I'm horrified and disgusted.

~ Tom

So long, Kurt

Today, another of the diminishing number of human giants left us. This excerpt from today's New York Times pretty well sums it up for me:

To Vonnegut, the only possible redemption for the madness and apparent meaninglessness of existence was human kindness. The title character in his 1965 novel, "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater," summed up his philosophy:

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies -- 'God damn it, you've got to be kind.' "

If you want to read a beautiful tribute that you won't find in the mainstream media, check out my friend Michael's post on his blog today. He actually knew Kurt.

~ Tom

A very different take on the "N" word

A wise and good friend of mine sent me this link.

http://www.youtube.com/v/wD-UpHlB9no

There is much more going on here than first meets the eye and ear.

~ Tom says a lotta stars.

A cool way to test your internet speed

I've tried many, many bandwidth meters and speed tests to see how fast my internet connection is running. Nothing comes even close to this one that I just discovered. Not only does it allow you to use a server near you, but it also gives you your upload speed as well as your download speed. Plus, it looks very sexy and is fun to watch. Use it to see if you're getting the performance that your ISP guarantees. It also saves all your previous tests and gives you neato graphs of past performance.

I'm lovin' my Comcast connection: 5,264 kb/s downstream and 355 kb/s upstream.

Tom says check it out.

The plot thickens...

Ever wonder why this US Attorney firing thing is such a big deal? I mean, if all the US attorneys are Bush appointments and Republicans, what's the big deal? Well, check out this article from Salon, then put on your thinking cap and put it all together.

Answer: As the general population gets browner, angrier, and more politically mobilized, Republicans are going to have less and less of a chance of holding on to their plutocracy, UNLESS THEY CAN FIGURE OUT HOW TO KEEP THE MASSES FROM VOTING, OR NOT COUNTING THEIR VOTES. Do you believe for one instant that these evil-doers would not implement a stiff poll tax if they thought they could get away with it. Well, next best thing, order all your US Attorneys to make so-called voter fraud their highest priority, and if they don't, fire them.

~ Tom

Jazz artists - photo treasure

I stumbled across these wonderful photos of some of my favorite jazz giants. Check it out.

~ Tom

"That's how the light gets in"

I am beginning to understand just how important it was for the Democrats to take over both houses of Congress. For the last few weeks I have been watching various hearings in both houses and realizing how great it feels to hear the truth coming out into the light. It reminds me of a line from the great Leonard Cohen song "Anthem:"

"There is a crack, a crack, in everything; that's how the light gets in."

That in turn got me thinking that before January 2007 it was like a situation where a guy would come by and take a big dump on my front porch every night. I'd report it to the police and they would say there was nothing they could do about it. I would have witnesses who would tell me who did it, but I was prevented from bringing those people forward to tell the truth. I would complain directly to the perpetrator but he would just laugh and say "prove it," or he would deny it with a smirk. Short of killing the guy (I'm a pacifist, not an assassin) there was literally nothing I could do except clean up the crap off my front porch every day.

Then things changed. All my neighbors banded together and staked out my front porch and took pictures of the guy with his pants down and circulated them on the internet. The cops then suddenly got interested, as well as the DA's office. The truth came out completely and suddenly there was no longer any crap on my front porch. Of course the bad guy is still out there, but at least he's not crapping on my front porch.

~ tom

Snowed in.

I promised a blog about being snowed in at at Tahoe place a couple of weeks ago. We drove up from our place in the Bay Area on Thursday evening, Feb. 22nd. We skied on Friday and Saturday. It started snowing as we were finishing our day on Saturday. Then the big storm hit. When we woke up on Sunday there was a couple of feet of snow, and it was still snowing hard, with high winds. We could not get out to go skiing, and besides, it was blowing so hard and snowing so hard at Squaw Valley that they did not open any of the lifts. We were supposed to drive home on Sunday night but Donner Pass was closed. On Monday morning we got all packed up and started home but it was snowing very hard and the traffic to get on the freeway was literal gridlock. We turned around and went back to our place. We got up on Tuesday to find a break in the weather, but we had to wait for the plow to come and dig us out. I've attached photos. The first is a shot our our front deck, which I dug out on Tuesday morning. Mind you, there are five steps UP to that level, so that should give you an idea of how deep it was. Next is a shot of the plow coming up the unplowed driveway. The final shot is the plow doing its thing right in front of our garage.

A very cool calculator application

I haven't had time to blog in the last week or so. We got snowed in at our place at Tahoe on the weekend of the 24th and 25th and could not get home until Tuesday the 27th. More on that in a blog to come, with cool pictures.

But for now, let me enthusiastically recommend a very, very nice web application called Instacalc Online Calculator. This baby is free, fun, powerful and easy to use. It is a "web app" so you don't have to download it. Instaclac is a fantastic blend of a calculator and a spreadsheet.

Tom says five out of five stars.

The Reluctant Messiah

When I was a know-it-all in my twenties I used to put down Richard Bach of "Johnathan Livingston Seagull" fame as being a media-created lightweight, etc. Many years later when I was in therapy for a while, my therapist who is really a cool guy gave me a copy of "Illusions - The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah" by Bach in which he (the therapist) wrote: "Tom. Just another level/way of looking at life/fantasy/illusions. Hope you can enjoy it. Dave."

Since then I have read the book, or parts of it, many times. I was just looking at it tonight, reading over one of my favorite parts in which Shimoda (the reluctant messiah) and Richard are sitting outside in the darkness talking. Shimoda says that "we are all free to do what we want to do." Richard corrects him saying that's OK as long as it doesn't hurt someone else. At that point a visitor appears who has a heavy Transylvanian accent. After some small-talk the visitor says to Richard, "you can help me. I need this very much or I would not ask. May I drink your blood? Just some? It is my food. I need human blood."

Richard freaks out, but the visitor persists, noting that he will die if Richard does not let him suck his blood. At this, Richard gets violent and threatens the visitor with physical harm. At that point the visitor "looked up at me and smiled, completely at ease, enjoying himself hugely, as an actor on stage when the show is over. 'I won't drink your blood, Richard,' he said in perfect friendly English, with no accent at all. As I watched, he faded as though he was turning out his own light ... in five seconds he had disappeared."

(Now the lesson from Shimoda)

"Richard in being so fierce toward my vampire, you were doing what you wanted to do, even though you thought it was going to hurt someone else. He even told you he'd be hurt if ..."

"He was going to suck my blood."

"Which is what we do to anyone when we tell them we'll be hurt if they don't live our way."

. . .

"The thing that puzzles you," he said, "is an accepted saying that happens to be impossible. The phrase is hurt somebody else. We choose, ourselves, to be hurt or not to be hurt, no matter what. Us who decides. Nobody else. My vampire told you he'd be hurt if you didn't let him? That's his decision to be hurt, that's his choice. What you do about it is your decision, your choice: give him blood; ignore him; tie him up; drive a stake of holly through his heart. If he doesn't want the holly stake, he's free to resit, in whatever way he wants. It goes on and on, choices, choices."

"Listen," he said, "it's important. We are all. Free. To do. Whatever. We want. To do."

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Dig it! The whole book is full of this kind of stuff. And, there are all these cool sayings from the Messiah's Handbook interspersed throughout. I'll leave you with a couple of them:

"Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness. Listen to it carefully."

"Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours."

Ciao for now,

~ Tom