Texas to Taxco

Here are a few photos from my recent trip to San Antonio.

Bunny Bob does Hard Rock Cafe.

Bunny Bob came with me to San Antonio but once there he dumped me for my friend Katie. He's no fool. Purple is her favorite color. She always wears, or at the very least, has purple at hand... plus she's a costumer at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. With her he will have a steady supply of cool purple pants and a booth at the Oregon Country Fair. Actors. But I gave him my blessing because, in fact, Katie can give him a better life but I am going to get him the purple car. It's not that I'm trying to buy his love. No really.

What can I say? I love birds.

My kind of place.

Being vegetarian, I found the food in San Antonio atrocious. Actually it's a Texas thing. Anyway, their specialty, of course, is BBQ flesh followed closely by very greasy Mexican cuisine. The first night I had a supposedly grilled, but in fact drenched in oil, veggie casadilla. I gave most of it to the birds and poisoned myself with the greasy chips and yummy salsa instead. After that I lived on Subway sandwiches and Hard Rock Cafe veggie burgers and fries. Mmmmmm fries. Very bad. Anyway, the Animal Puppet Theater made up for all that. I spied it in a window below the sidewalk embedded in hand-chiseled stone wall along some metal stairs leading down to a very funky basement "souvenir" shop, the kind that seems a front for something else, perhaps the after hours voodoo market?

Now for three perfunctory Alamo art shots. You didn't think you'd get off that easy, did you?




And two perfunctory shots of San Antonio's River Walk.




Actually, the River Walk was really cool and, even better, it reminded me of Taxco, one of my all time favorite cities. If I ever run away from it all, Taxco is on my top three places to disappear into.

Taxco... my fantasy escape.

The dog on the top of the stairs is Martha, my friend from the restaurant.

You can't edit a blank page

I need a reader. This spring I finally dug up and printed out my now four-year-old NaNoWriMo manuscript and am currently halfway through the first read. Other than being determined to make the required word count, having had no expectations from the start is a good thing. The fact that I can read it at all is encouraging but it's a slow go. Thus far, I have managed only two sessions, months apart. I am surprised to find that it amuses me. This morning one particular section had me laughing out loud. Why can't that be enough? I said from the beginning that there would be no plot but, now that the manuscript exists, it needs one. Why does this all have to be so goddamn complicated? I read the funny part to Mr. Lee this morning but he wants a story goddammit. I'll read it when it has one. He's not a first draft kind of guy. That fucker would red pen a suicide note.


So I am half way through the first read and won't inflict it on anyone at the moment, but I need a reader. Okay. Okay. So that reader will have the same response as Mr. Lee, but WTF?! I have assembled 50,000, 12 pt. words on 197 double spaced, one inch margin pages. What else do you want from me? Blood? I know. A plot. And there is one, buried throughout the manuscript, like a dismembered body. Yes. Yes. I must sew my Frankenstein together but what the hell? That's work. Anyway, somewhere along the line I am going to need a reader, not a teacher, a reader. Doesn't every writer get a reader? I need a sounding board, someone to complete the loop between the ears, self to self, heart to head, someone who can help piece together the map of the story, the one I wrote in invisible ink, tore into tiny pieces and ate. Anyway, it's too soon for a reader. Just thinking out loud.

Harvey Pekar, RIP

RIP Harvey Pekar

Thanks for the memories. You're right. It matters anyway.

So... I dedicate today's inane Bird Park video to you. Baby crow had a good morning. In case you're wondering, the baby in this clip is the one flapping his wings and chasing after his mother with an open mouth. So whatever death is, I hope you had a good morning too.

Oh Oh Os!

Awhile ago I did a post slagging Trader Joe's for wimping out and turning their Joe's Os breakfast cereal into a mealy nothing, like all the other breakfast cereals. In fact, they did not. This afternoon, Mr. Lee pointed out to me that I had mistakenly purchased the regular Os, the version made for ordinary people. You see, Joe's sells two versions of Os, regular and the red box Fiber Os with extra fiber, lots and lots of fiber, with so much fiber that eating a bowlful feels like you're eating a bale of hay. I begin to wonder if I'll ever get to the bottom of the bowl. I chew and chew and chew so long I forget I'm chewing, and when I do remember again, I'm only half done. In fact, Joe's Fiber Os are so chewy that I sometimes fear my teeth will be ground to nubs before I finish breakfast. If you made a paste out of Os you could scrub oil stains off the driveway or use it to sand barnacles off a boat. I am delighted knowing that the world has not completely given into the sissies. So, as amends to the venerable Os, I share with you this video by Keith Haskel. I don't know if this is viral marketing or what but I don't care. I think it's just him having fun but, either way, he speaks the truth of the red box.

Saving Baby Q.

Remember those two quail families I wrote about the other day? There were some 15 babies between them. Well, all but one of the babies have disappeared. I don't blame the cats. They are following their nature but I am sad for the quail. They are innocent, really fun to watch and defenseless. I am, however, disgusted with our lazy, irresponsible neighbors. They could at least put bells on their little fat ass lions. WTF?


Anyway, Baby Q. is the only quail baby in the Bird Park right now and he had a near fatal accident the other day while walking on the edge of pool but, in the end, it turned out okay.

Police report

“Dogs believe they are human. Cats believe they are gods.” -Unknown

Again with the cats. This morning I chased two lunkers out of the Bird Park where they were hunkered down in Old Man Hills, planning their next kill. I was surprised... a) by how fat they are and... b) their flash response to my growls. The bastards were up and over the fence in a flat two seconds. It was a magpie who alerted me to their presence. Seems they consider me the Bird Park police.

Today's birthdays

Happy 103rd, Frida.

Source

Also, today is the
Dalai Lama's birthday.
He's 75.
Happy B-day, Dalai!