18/01/2004

The Story of Plonk

The fence in back is lined with crows but Plonk and his girlfriend haven't been around for the last few days. They were here a few days ago but she wasn't doing to well. But before I go any further, I'd better tell you who Plonk is.

I first saw him staggering around in circles in Carson City in the middle of one of it's busiest intersections where Hwy 50 comes into Hwy 395. Now, Hwy 50 in itself can be very dangerous. In its early days, people sometimes had to disassemble their vehicles in order to carry them over difficult parts of the road, or kill and eat their dogs, drink water from the stomachs of dead buffalo or blood from the ears of their mules just to survive the journey. The day Plonk ended up there wasn't so lucky either. Sure the road is paved now but hardly tamed. It's swarming with vulture politicians. The state capitol buildings are only a few blocks away. But the day I first saw Plonk, no one seemed interested in eating him. On the other hand, they didn't seem too concerned about running over him either. It was about noon and cars were bumper to bumper. I stopped. No one honked. I waved at the cars behind me, ran out and grabbed the pigeon and carried him to shelter at the base of a roadside tree. On my way home, I decided to check if the bird was still there. He was and he was still spinning, this time in the parking lot behind a building. I put him in my car and took him home. In the backyard, he continued spinning but more slowly and showed no interest food and water I set out for him.

Lee warned me Plonk would probably be dead by morning but I cut some air vents in a big box, put it over him, weighted the flaps down with rocks so the neighbor cat, Clarence, wouldn't make a mid-night snack out of him and called it night. In the morning I peaked in and Plonk was standing there. Not spinning and not dead. I took the box off and after a minute or two he flew onto the fence and sat. When I got home later that morning, he was gone. He's been coming back ever since. It's been a year and a half. In the spring, he often dropped by with a girlfriend, always the same one.

Earlier this week she came by several times on her own and hung around in the backyard for hours, hardly eating. At first I thought it was just because she felt safe there, or because maybe she was pregnant but then the neighbor found her nesting in his cat's drinking bowl and she let him pick her up. She flew away after he put her out of reach of his cat and I've only seen them once since then so I'm hoping she's okay.

My mother's death

Yesterday was the anniversary of my mother's death. My sister Cc'd my brother and me a reminder, accompanied with an old family photo. I lit a candle. But all day it lingered in the back of my mind just how different I look from the rest of my family. It's certainly occurred to me before but the photo reminded me. I look more like an Iranian exchange student with a cryptic smirk than a cheery American suburbanite. My brother provides a bit of balance with his pork chop sideburns, but I definitely look like an outsider. Since I woke up this morning, I've been speculating on who my father might have been. If it wasn't dear old dad, it probably was Pat Deeny, the swarthy, loud mouthed, comic reading drunk who lived up the hill from where mom and dad were living when I was born. Or maybe it was the soldier with the pet monkey my mom used to tell me about. She'd laugh about how much the monkey liked me and would jump on my shoulder when ever it saw me. I wonder what dear old mom and the soldier were doing after they let the monkey loose on me. It's taken me a long time to learn to like monkeys.

14/01/2004

Crow's breakfast

The crows had a nice breakfast of quiche this morning. They have a way of chirping and whistling that I interpret as meaning something like, "Hey... lookie here now!" The closest I came in a quick search to finding anything resembling this delightful chatter is called Crow: 72K wav file. If you want to give it a listen, it's near the top of the page . It comes at the end of a recording. Anyway, this particular conversation tells me they've found something in the Bird Park that's especially tasty. They really liked the quiche with it's greasy pie crust. I put it out this morning and it hadn't frozen by the time they arrived, so pickin was easy. They gobbled it in about a half an hour even though they looked up and scaned the sky in between bites. Death from above. They're experts on it. By the time the magpies showed up only crumbs were left. Too bad. I really like the magpies too. I first heard about them in stories my mother read to me, and ever since carried the impression they were magical but I never saw a live magpie until I moved to Nevada. Funny. I'd never thought of magpies as a desert bird but there's plenty of them around here. They are lovely, striking in fact in those black and white feathers. Real lookers.

You might be thinking that feeding quiche to crows is vulgar, a tasteless act of insolent wealth. I assure you, it's merely a matter of circumstantial good fortune on both our parts, the birds and mine. A shake of the glass and we change places with people and birds that are eyeing one another as breakfast instead of sharing a quiche. The whole bare dirt area outside the window is my Bird Park. There are two feeders about 50 feet apart hanging from the fence filled with black sunflower seeds. These are for the mid-sized birds. Then I scatter the ground with a variety of seeds on the ground for the rest. The little show out there that revolves through the day is great, low key entertainment.

I have to lean forward over the key board and look out the window to the left to see the area where this morning's feast took place. I keep a pair of binoculars near by for these special occasions. They are a pain in the ass to use but it's worth the effort just to see a crow's wonderful claws up close as they clutch a catch. I swear some of these fellows have a spread that's nearly equal to the reach of my hand. Then there's the beaks themselves... long as a finger, pointed and accurate, good for pecking out anything from eyes to bits of hamburger bun caught in mustard smeared crinkles of abandon wrappers. I have to stand, lean over the printer which sits in front of the window then twist to the left to get in position for the binoculars to work. Then I have to tilt them up a bit so that the magnified image floats into view. You'd think these glasses were complete crap if you didn't know the technique. But I've seen plenty through them, rattlesnakes, wild horses, unsuspecting people picking their nose while waiting at a San Francisco traffic light.

09/01/2004

The desert, at last. Home again. What a relief to get back to its strange miles and miles opening in the round, it's pyramid hills and indifferent voices.

01/01/2004

Happy New Year!

We're currently stuck in Oregon waiting out the weather. Mr. Lee's in a funk because of the gloomy skies and we're both restless and eager to get back home. It's impossible to get enough computer time here. But what the hell? A couple of days ago some friends were stranded in the mountains and slept in their car for 2 days because of the snow so waiting for this latest series of storms to pass is not such a big deal. In fact, tonight life is good. It's the first, fresh hours of 2004. Earlier this evening we finally managed to access a neighborhood wireless network and the Sci-Fi channel is playing ancient black and white episodes of Twilight Zone in the background. They're hilarious. In one, a young William Shatner, playing a distraught husband just out of the mental hospital, tries to convince his wife there's a monster (a guy in a fuzzy monkey suit) on the airplane's wing. In another an old man cries out, "There's magic in the world. I know there is". What I especially savor about all this is that not a second has passed in geologic time. That comforts me.

20/12/2003

Winter Solstice

In a few more moments the solstice will be exact. Woo-hoo. That means tomorrow there will be one second more light in the day. Other than that, there's a new entry in the Cockroach Diary. I'm leaving tomorrow for a week or two. It's just past 11pm and I still haven't packed. Instead I sit here fiddling on the computer. ARG! Back to work.

15/12/2003

The Readable Theatre event on Saturday night at Comma Coffee went really well. The material ranged from the profound, to the nitty-gritty down and dirty, the silly, heartwarming and hilarious. People were asking when we were going to do it again. Poetry on a Saturday night. Ya gotta love that. I don't think I'll be able to put together another one before we leave in February so it will probably be spring at the earliest. Then I'd like to do a reading of another one act I'm working on called Sunday Feast . This one's a little more complicated than Ghostwriter but will still do well in a reader's theatre format.

08/12/2003

I've added a new winner to the DeadBeat Gallery, renamed the page and moved it to a different folder. Sorry but the only constant in this world, after all, IS change. Anyway, here's the new address for The DeadBeat Gallery JPG Parisite Page. BTW, I just learned that this leech technique is called hotlinking. Now, his hotlink links to a butt shot. Thanks Lars.

05/12/2003

Finally, I can see The Cat! Here's the stunning conclusion to the mystery of the missing Cat for everyone who helped me with the problem.

It's been about a month since I changed webhosts, and it took until yesterday for me to see The Cat. I must be the last person on Earth to see my website at its new location! The Cat was the special sign distinguishing the new site from the old. The problem had to be with my ISP, although they denied it to the very end. It's a wireless, broadband service and they claim they don't use proxy servers but they had to have a secret cache somewhere they weren't willing to clear. So, thanks again everyone for the help.

As for Wildhorse, I'm still getting a few hits from him, so it looks like he didn't completely clear the photo he's been leeching from me. Oh well.

03/12/2003

Well, ol' WildHorse got wise to the swap so now, he's leeching off of someone else. It was fun while it lasted.

01/12/2003

December 1st and still no Cat. That illustrates just how lazy I can be. However, in my defense, I've been busy. This week I've got to dump this DNS problem back on my ISP. They have got to have some hidden cache somewhere that's preventing me from seeing my website at it's new location.
December 1st and still no Cat. That illustrates just how lazy I can be. However, in my defense, I've been busy. This week I've got to dump this DNS problem back on my ISP. They have got to have some hidden cache somewhere that's preventing me from seeing my website at it's new location.

19/11/2003

It's not a cache problem after all. I purged my computer and the network and still no cat. Damn. So now I have a call into my ISP. Fun. My webhost suggested that I change my ISP. Fat chance. We live on the edge as it is. There isn't much in the way of options. So now I'm waiting for Tech Support to get back to me.

16/11/2003

The Cat. At least when when I'm viewing my site anonymously. Guess I didn't completely clear the cache. So, off to the coal mines.
Many thanks to everyone who emailed about whether or not they can see the cat on my website. At this point, seems I'm the only one who can't. I still don't know why.

Yes, I've flushed the cache, installed a different browser...no Cat. As I'm writing this, I'm downloading a little cloaking program from Anonymizer.com. If I can see the cat while I'm in anonymous mode then it's my problem.

13/11/2003

So, it's a week later and I'm still waiting for this server change to finish resolving. What can be a simple thing, has become a huge pain in the ass. I've been obsessed for the last week with all this crap. In order to know when the DNS has fully propagated, I put a red, smiley cat face on my new home page. The old site is sans cat. I still see the old site, sans cat, but am assured by my new web host that the new site is up and running. If you don't mind doing me a favor, I'd appreciate it if you'd check out my site and tell me whether or not you see the cat. Remember: cat = new location / no cat = old location. The address is http://www.ashabot.com. My email address on on the front page. Thanks.

06/11/2003

So, at last I've changed DNS servers. If you can't reach my website at the moment it should be just a temporary thing. It takes a few days for the new setting to propagate over the entire web.

29/10/2003

I'm finally back. It's good to be home.

27/10/2003

What was supposed to be a weekend trip starting Friday the 10th has turned into nearly three weeks and, three thousand miles later, I'm still not home. At this point, I'm just hoping to get back and change servers before my current web host goes away. Procrastination sucks. If my site shuts down for a day or two, don't worry about it. I'll get it up and running again as soon as I get home. It's been a good trip though, other than the fact that I only packed enough clothes for three days. We went to Southern Oregon, then up to Montana, over to Portland then back down to Southern Oregon, where we are now.

08/10/2003

I'm out of orbit today, stalled on everything. Here are my notes from Sunday. Morning, with all its possibilities, looms before me, then rushes past. Mid-morning. Ideas bob along the horizon like marker buoys in choppy waters. Noon. I'm completely lost, surrounded by a flat, endless horizon towards which I row my boat in widening circles. This has not been a very productive week. I haven't decided on a server and, more than that, I dread making the switch. Up until now, a friend has hosted the Ashabot for free. He set up it up. I have no idea what I'm getting into now. Probably it's no big deal, but thinking about it is making me nuts. Also, I haven't finished reformatting an issue of my zine that needs to get done yesterday. Bad. Very bad. On the up side, I did find a place to present my one act play, Ghostwriter. It's the Comma Cafe in Carson City. The place has a great little stage, a very comfortable atmosphere and comes at a price I can afford, free. When I asked the proprietor what the space costs she said, "Nothing. It's people helping people". She makes it on the refreshments. So, here's a little fun a friend sent me. Try it out. While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles with it. Now, while doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction. See if you can do both actions without a change of direction. If you can't, you know how I'm feeling tonight.

02/10/2003

I'm going to be switching servers for the Ashabot next week. I hope it will be seamless but if the site is down for a while, it shouldn't be long. I'm not looking forward to doing this but, as the saying goes, "circumstances beyond my control"....

26/09/2003

We're back

. . . but I can't say I'm particularly happy about stuffing myself into an indoor routine. In spite of some hard miles in the Nevada outback over (a few particularly bad) dirt roads (part of the fun after all), it was a great trip. We saw mountain lion cubs, wild horses and burros, a big, fat, lazy rattlesnake, and we found half-billion year old trilobites in the Wheeler Shale of Western Utah. After we spent a couple of hours at a U-Dig place, for $6 an hour, we struck out on our own and found more for free. For the most part, the shale is on public land. What amazes me the most is that when the trilobites swamed the earth, the Utah of today was located near the equator and covered by a shallow, warm sea! Oddly, a perfect end for all this was poking around Las Vegas for a few days on the cheap.

As soon as we got into Vegas we went to the public library and got on line. While I was fiddling around with my blog and email, Lee went to Cheapo Vegas and found an internet coupon for the Plaza Hotel for $20 a night (great room), plus 2 coupons for their breakfast buffet at the Chop Chop Chinese Restaurant (pretty grim). There was also 2 free nights in December thrown in, which we're planning to take them up on it. As neither of us gambles or drinks, it was an especially great deal.

Vegas Cowgirl

Of course we all know Las Vegas is really just a bowl of smoke with a very dark underbelly, but it is also a very seductive bowl of smoke especially on the strip. Some of the hotels there are completely over the top. Usually we gravitate to the downtown aka Fremont District or "Glitter Gulch". A while ago it was renovated to compete with the strip but Glitter Gulch of old (that's our hotel at the end of the Gutch) is the Vegas you see in the old movies with the rearing palomino horse and the cowgirl living it up under the stars. It's casual (seedy) so basically more our style.

This trip we made a point of checking out the big hotels on the strip. In fact, we spent so much time sitting in the lobby of the Bellagio Hotel people watching, that the security guards started watching us. We moved on. When we passed through the lobby a bit later, they were discretely tossing out some guy who had passed out on the couch where we'd been sitting. His head had dropped way back and his mouth was gaping open.

If you want to read more about adventures in the Nevada Outback, a place few visit and even fewer write about, email me. I may be able to come up a copy of Dirt Roads to Nowhere.

21/09/2003

Outback

I never thought the first mountain lions I'd ever see would be 50 miles out of Las Vegas, but there they were…three fat, tawny spotted, beautiful lion cubs in the most dry and forlorn mountains I've ever visited. It was in the afternoon, two days ago. We were scouting for a camp when Lee noticed something larger than a jack rabbit move in the underbrush growing on the slop below a bluff. Mama must have been out hunting because they were on their own, three children torn between curiosity and caution. We stopped the jeep, pulled out our binoculars and watched them watch us. They looked awhile then, yielding to caution, climbed a little further up the hill, weaving in and our of various caves at the base of the butte. At points they'd sit again and stare at us. Finally they settled down behind some sagebrush and stayed there. We camped not too far down the road but never saw them again. We’re in Las Vegas now, at the public library. This is a much stranger place if you ask me, but kind of fun if you're a human.

18/09/2003

We're in Caliente NV at the moment, using the computers at community computer lab located in the old train station. Great place. All new machines, T1 connection, flat screens. We have the place to ourselves. We've been in this area before but it's worth many return trips. There are lots of Indian artifacts and incredible scenery. We found a couple habitat caves this morning. One even had what was probably a thousand year old pottery shard in it (which we left there). We're off to the White Rock range today for a few days, then south to the Mohave desert, then off to Las Vegas for a couple of days. After nine days out, the contrast will be really jarring, which is the point.

11/09/2003

Half billion year old neighbors

The Jeep is finally ready so we're leaving in the morning for about ten days in the mountains along the Nevada/Utah border. We'll be at about eight to twelve thousand feet so if it's too cold at night, we'll just head south. If we stay north, we'll have a chance to look for trilobites which are suppose to be fairly abundant in that area. I'd love to do that. It would great to find some. They lived about a half a billion years ago when the Great Basin (Nevada) was a warm, shallow inland sea under the equator.

Cockroach pyramid of happiness
L. to R. Ha'Penny, Nugget & La Delicata

Also, I updated the Cockroach Diary today, something I haven't done since last April. I didn't have time to note all the important changes. I'll finish that when I get back. Tonight, they are happily tucked in after the trauma of the bedding change. It's a sweet little scene in there right now. They're all snuggled up together on the end of the terracotta pot. They must love it when we're gone. At night the house is quiet and dark.

07/09/2003

I'm planning to do a Reader's Theatre presentation of "Ghostwriter" in conjunction with the Indie Writers Group sometime this fall. At the urging of my brother, I began this script in 1992 for the National Ten-Minute Play Contest hosted by Actors Theatre of Louisville. I wrote a few pages, missed their deadline and put it aside but the idea stayed in the back of my mind. Finally, last winter, I dragged the script out, dusted it off and finished it.

I say finished but, more realistically, Ghostwriter is a work in progress because it seems to hold together in a few different formats and I've only played around with it in one. First off, it's an easy read so it's a short story in dialogue form. I've already published it as such in the third issue of my zine Reddog Review, available this fall at Tower Records. However, because it requires no props or set, it can also be done as a staged reading or radio play. If I do manage to pull off this staged reading, I'm sure the script will change, however slightly, in rehearsal. And, if it does make it to a audience, it will undoubtedly change even further because a live audience adds it's own dimension to things. Lastly, add a minimal set and a few props and it's a one act. I'm sure, if I ever got that far with it, it would change even further.

06/09/2003

We were supposed to leave today for a week in eastern Nevada but the jeep needs some minor work so we won't be leaving until the first part of next week. It will be cold in the mountains at night but still warm during the day. If its too uncomfortable, we'll just head south until we hit a warmer zone.

04/09/2003

It raining like a bitch. Odd for Nevada. The dolls, latest refugees here at the Ashabot, are sitting out in it. I photographed them but the rain doesn't show. I don't know if they're staying around here or not. They're kind of huge and a bit strange. On the other hand, I do need a proof reader. I doubt any one of them would do a worse job than me.
Never mind.

01/09/2003

Another nice day. The birds are still at the seeds. I'm in a shit mood, though. I could list a bunch of reasons but it wouldn't change the way I feel. Oh well. Soon it will be dark. A relief, however simple. Here's a curious thing. Birds are everywhere but where are the dead ones? With as many birds as there are, you think you'd see them all over the place. I almost never see dead birds. It's a bit odd.