Slide show - Dulary's arrival

There is now a slide show of Dulary's arrival in her diary. Great pics. If your heart needs a little warming, check it out.

Dulary update update

Dulary and Tarra get to know one another.

May 1, update
Meanwhile, back at the Elephant Sanctuary, after 41 years of confinement, it only took Dulary a little over 4 hours to decide at that it was okay to step out of the trailer and meet her new sisters Tarra, Delhi and Misty who stood nearby the whole time eagerly waiting to show her around. An elephant in the wild can easily take a hundred mile stroll before breakfast so what a thrill it must be for her, after a lifetime of concrete, bars, and leg chains, to walk freely with friends along the lovely, lovely, rolling miles of soft, sweet dirt elephant trails. I can't wait to hear about Dulary finding the lake. She is water bug. I would love to work at the sanctuary. Full report at Dulary's Diary.

Commander Guy

"I am the

Commander Guy".

Just for the record, here is an excerpt from The Caucus reporting this newest, mind-boggling display of Bush's hubris and stupidity. Unfortunately, Commander Guy is so delusional and self-centered that he will probably never grasp just what an asshole we think he is. Too bad. It would be some, small satisfaction, if not comfort, to know he is capable of shame. As it is, Commander Guy, aka The Decider, is a really scary man.

The Caucus
Political blogging from The New York Times
May 2, 2007, 5:11 pm
Bush: ‘I’m the Commander Guy’


By Sheryl Gay Stolberg

WASHINGTON, May 2 – And you thought he was still “the decider.”

President Bush has coined a new nickname for himself — ‘’the commander guy” — on Wednesday, as he criticized Congressional Democrats in a speech to the annual gathering of the Associated General Contractors of America, a construction industry trade group.

The man who last year proclaimed “I’m the decider,’’ in response to a question about whether he would fire Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary, came up with this latest moniker in explaining why he vetoed an Iraq war spending bill that dictated a timeline for troops to withdraw from Iraq.

“The question is, ‘Who ought to make that decision, the Congress or the commanders?,’’ Mr. Bush said. “As you know, my position is clear – I’m the commander guy.”

commander guy bush the decider idiot

Dulary update

In happier news, Dulary arrived at the Elephant Sanctuary today. Here is a clip from her diary at elephants.com.

May 1, 2007

5:37 p.m.
As Dulary was backing out of the trailer, Tarra came up to see what was happening -- Dulary was a little uncertain about that, but after she realized that Tarra just wanted some of her food, everything was OK. Dulary followed Tarra and they have been playing ever since!

2:30 p.m.
Dulary has arrived, safe and sound. She took a bath in the trailer where she remains, enjoying the sights and sounds of her new home. She is munching on lots of hay and 3 of her new sisters wait anxiously -- Misty, Delhi, and Tarra.

7:30 AM
Dulary is on her final leg of her journey home.

Mission NOT accomplished

George W. Bush is a disgrace to this country. And a menace to the world. On this, the 4th anniversary of his bullshit "Mission Accomplished" photo opp and speech on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, there are 3351 American soldiers dead and 4 more pending DoD confirmation. Dead, Mr. Flight Suit. Dead. Because of your phony "war". And a country in ruins, countless citizens dead, maimed, homeless, outraged. Their civil war is on you Poster Boy, and your fascist buddies Darth Cheney, Crazy Rummy, Condie Baby (your ever-adoring war wife), Bill Kristol and the rest of the neoconservative elites who pull your strings, the religious freaks you duped and the corporations you serve. Happy Anniversary, asshole.

Propaganda wars


mission accomplished Bush Iraq veto

Surfing dog

Here's a video I think will bring a smile to your lips. This guy just loves to have fun.

Surfing dog

Dulary's journey

Today Dulary the elephant is en route from the Philadelphia Zoo, where she has lived for the last 41 years, to the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. Big Day! Zoo officials have a great attitude about sending her and I think this kid does a good job of summing up the attitude for most of the locals in this CBS video.

You can leave a message for Dulary here. You may think, "Why bother? She's an elephant, for chrissake." Naturally, I think it makes a difference. There is more than one way of hearing.

Bass in the bathtub updade

The bass speaks

The bass is out of the bathtub. The other day we had a buyer. It was love a first sight. He bought it, half up front and years to pay, no interest, but when he got it home he freaked out. He plays for the Reno Philharmonic and it turned out that it wasn't as loud as his current bass, which was a deciding factor. Plus, I think he decided that he couldn't afford it. The poor guy recently moved to a double wide in the valley after his divorce. His wife got the house in Tahoe. As he put it, she got the gold, he got the shaft. Anyway, of course we refunded his dough but crap. But now that the fiddle is out of the tub, neither of us have the heart to put it there again. It just seems wrong. It has such a heartbreakingly beautiful sound. Now we have to find it a home. We were going to take it to LA as Bonhams and Butterfields will be there doing appraisals next month, but decided against it. We wouldn't do a consignment with them anyway. Brad (the musician) gave us a San Francisco contact who seems better suited to our needs. At this point, we are not sure what to ask for it, eight to ten thousand was always the upper end. You know how these things are. You get what you pay for but you also only get what people are willing to pay. Either way, it is a beautiful instrument, perhaps as much as two hundred years old, solid, hand-crafted wood and in great shape, but Lee's x-dirty beatnik bebop bass player dad, heavily modified the neck. It is ... at this point in it's star-crossed life, after 50 years in someone's basement, or was that good fortune? ... a jazz bass. Want to buy a great bass? We will make you a sweeeeeeet deal.

Strange days

I have been too swamped the last few days to spend any time on line, but I always have my camera with me so here are a few strange things I came upon in recent days.

I can't imagine how hanging strips of toilet paper from the supermarket ceiling is suppose to be attractive to people but obviously the manager at the local Raley's finds it so. To me it merely underscores the obvious connection between eating and shitting.

The Salvation Army had this neat item for sale. No. I didn't buy it. The Raley offered enough virtual reality for my "taste" this week, thank you.

As I do from time to time, I visited the grave of the unknown baby boy who died in the '60s. There is no name on his marker and he only lived a couple of days. I'm not the only one in town who looks in on him. The cartoon drawn on the scrap of wood is new since my last visit but I was alarmed to see tire tracks across the lower, right edge of his tiny resting place. The images came out very bleached and over exposed which seems to fit the melancholy shrouding his little grave.

Victory for horses!

Here's a happy update...



Last Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly (277-137) to restore a 34-year-old ban on the commercial sale and slaughter of America's wild horses and burros (H.R. 503 - the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act). On Wednesday, the bill to ban the sale and transport to slaughter of all American horses cleared a critical Senate committee by a decisive 15-7 vote. There is more work ahead but these victories move us even closer to banning horse slaughter in the United States permanently.

Thank you.

H.R. 503 horses slaughter ban

Frenzy

I have been way too busy lately and feel half crazy from the frenzy. Things are finally beginning to wind down but I have no energy tonight to anything more than check in. Doing graphics and editing makes me crazy after a certain point, and over the last week, I went past that certain point.

Among other things, I have been working with some friends to put a show together. We call ourselves the 5th Night Company. We are planning to do three shows this year, each one of the 5th Friday of the month. As there are only four this year, a 5th Friday is something like a blue moon. The first 5th Friday of the year was on March 30th but we started too late to catch it. The next 5th Friday falls on June 29th. That's the one we're shooting for, then August 31st and November 30th. As I can only maintain my marginal sanity if I take things one day at a time, this kind of thinking can quickly become just too much but we shall see.

Naturally the event will be at Comma Coffee. Thanks to June, the place is becoming the hub of Carson City's scene. Woo. But kidding aside, she is a one woman, downtown arts renovation project. So what is 5th Friday you might ask? It is a performance opportunity for actors, poets, musicians, dancers, comics, puppeteers, anyone who dares to be interesting.

So that's it. Now_I_must_rest.

Wednesday snow

No wonder there was such a frenzy in the Bird Park last night. They knew it was going to snow and wanted to fuel up for the cold night ahead. This morning, I made sure there was enough for everyone but this crow didn't think so.

Magpie and crow

00:30

Tuesday Blue Plate Special

The 7 o'clock magpie is early tonight. I guess she noticed that a couple of starlings have been vacuuming up the goodies at 6:30. Actually 2 more magpie just showed up so I'm not sure any of them are the 7 0'clock magpie. After all, it is only 6:43. Perhaps she isn't even here yet. Whoever it is, they are hoovering up the peanuts and drilling the apples. One of them just stashed a slice under a clump of dirt for later. It's a feeding frenzy out there. I think it's the wind. It's been a fury all day and that sets everyone on edge. The magpies are hopping and lunging around, hurling themselves through the gusts to get to a peanut, jetting off in a wobble, then are back for more and the pot bellied quail are running in every direction scooping up what they can before the wind sweeps them and the seeds away.

Roy asked about the photo in last night's post, No. I did not take the original. I just happen to really dig diners. Somewhere in the dark-rooted ganglia of my brain an inviolable connect exists between poetry, sleazy roadside diners and cheap hotel rooms so a while ago I hunted a diner image down on the web and have been playing around with it ever since. These things are something of my personal mythology I guess you could say, as is the coyote, the crow and others too numerous to mention. I apologize for using the little lemur. He is rather famous. I should swap him out for one of my own but ... mañana.

(Note: As is their style, Blogger ate the photos once posted here but here's the idea.)

Also, in keeping with last night's post, here's another jumble of words I stumbled across today while I was rummaging around in my files. I had forgotten I'd written it. I'm not sure I like it all and may end up just deleting it, but for the moment I'm including it in a draft called Book of Images. Posting it tonight might be in bad taste because of the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech. It is not my intention. I wrote this sometime ago. You might say it is a portrait of the world from a vegetarian point of view.

Dinner party
excerpt from Book of Images

I sit at the table of the living before a living feast; hearts, eyes, livers, backs, spleens, ribs, dreams marinated in their own juices; blood, sperm, milk, bile, tears. A quartet plays music behind a velvet curtain. They are blind. The cello sobs. Blood is dripping from my elbows. The woman on my right is dining on breaded fingers, spaghetti and eyeballs. The man on my left is slicing into a breast, colostrum oozing from the nipple and greasing his lips. There is a live fish on my plate laying on a pile of sautéed brains that pop like blisters when I stick my fork into them. They splatter fluid on the woman but she does not seem to notice. She stabs an eye, drags it through the sauce then pops it into her mouth. I look back at my plate. The fish is nibbling the brains. I press my fork into its scaly skin and it excretes a black pearl. I hurriedly snatch the pearl and tuck it into my pocket. The music stops. All the eaters turn in unison and look at me. They thump their utensils on the table making a fiendish racket then suddenly quit and the room is completely silent. The fish takes a tiny violin out of his hat and begins to play a heart rendering solo. The man slowly runs the prongs of his fork up and down my arm. He smiles dragging his tongue over bloody lips, burps loudly then resumes eating. Everyone resumes eating. I stand, slowly withdraw the pearl from my pocket and place it into the fish's hat. He continues playing. I exit the building and find myself standing in a giant, noisy, congested stockyard. After a pause to get my bearings, I push through the herd of people pressing eagerly forward toward the feast.

-asha

Peace please

The chickens have had enough but are the rabbits
fighting or playing?

Vonnegut, last words

Kurt Vonnegut's last book, “A Man Without a Country”, was a collection of biographical essays. It concludes with his poem "Requiem" and so, in a public sense, these could be considered his last words.

on Comedy Central
excerpt from New York Times Book section

closing lines from....
Requiem
by Kurt Vonnegut

When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
“It is done.”
People did not like it here.

Kurt Vonnegut dies Vonnegut last words