Living it up, Vegas style

 Plaza hotel parking lot, Las Vegas.

So tomorrow we go to Vegas. It's been awhile. M. Lee's mom is taking us to see the Cirque du Soleil at the Bellagio. The show is billed as an "aquatic masterpiece of surrealism and theatrical romance". Naturally, I'm conflicted. How can it be otherwise? Las Vegas squanders water at the expense of all surrounding natural life. It's beyond frivolous. It's insane. Too bad it's not a crime. Someday it probably will be. After the water wars. Plus, I don't have clothes for an event like this. But I'll enjoy it, even in jeans. I suppose that makes me a hypocrite. But still I will go. And anyway, how can I turn down my dear mother-in-outlaw? They say the show is really fabulous. A "life changing event". I'm sure the wild mountain lion cubs living 50 miles due north of the stage would agree.

Vegas 2005

Squirrel Appreciation Day

The Shipping Squirrel enjoying Squirrel Appreciation Day.

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day
and Inauguration Day for the President of the United States
but let's not forget the little people.
Today is also
National Squirrel Appreciation Day.
So get a bag of nuts and head over the your local park.
Time to spread the love!

Frida Kahlo the Squirrel appreciating a peanut

Calving season and Paper Floor Update

Mr. Fancy Pants dining on a less fortunate member of the Bird Park

Word is out about the Bird Park. Mr. Fancy Pants must be talking. Lately a new hawk drops by to see what's on the menu nearly everyday. It's calving season and hawks come from all around for all the tasty afterbirth. In about two months they'll be gone though I suspect Mr. Fancy Pants is a local. He was here before the season started.

Bag 'o' floor.
Raw material for our new paper floor,
this and a whole lot of polyurethane.

I took three short videos of him devouring one the quail the other day but none are worth posting. They are all irritatingly shaky which irritates me all the more. Starting at the head, he ate the whole bird. One of the three videos jerks up and away just as he's pulling what looks like an organ out of the body. By the time he was done there was nothing left but feathers. About an hour later a covey of quail grazed through the scene but didn't seem to notice the carnage. However, since then, the quail have, for the most part, stayed away. Better they do for now but I miss them. The little birds still drop but don't stay long either. Without them, the bare trees outside my window look harsh and forlorn.

Emerging studio floor, formerly known as the living room

Inside the house is a different matter. M. Lee is plowing on with Project Paper Floor. It is the indoor fabulous Event of the Season. Currently, I am land locked in my office as he's papering the hallway and front entrance. If I want to get to the kitchen I have to go out the garage and around the house through the crunchy frozen snow, being careful not to walk on the door of the tool shed. Its three-sided shell still lays frozen to the ground across the yard where it was blown during the last wind storm. Redoing every floor in the entire house, including the closets, is a huge undertaking but it's looking great! And I have started dismantling my office, it being the Final Frontier. It is so overwhelming but little by little, right?

Studio done. Now on to the hall and entrance

Ashes and Snow by Gregory Colbert

Need a break? Get your coffee, tea or whatever, pull up a chair, turn on the speakers and, for the next 11 minutes, float away to earth.


Ashes and Snow by Gregory Colbert from Gregory Colbert on Vimeo.
.

RIP, Aaron Swartz

God damn it! Aaron Swartz committed suicide yesterday. Among his many accomplishments, we especially owe him a huge debt for all that he did in his short 26 years to protect Internet Freedom. Now, more than ever, it is up to us.

Never heard of him? Full article here.



RIP, Aaron

To the extent possible under law, Cory Doctorow has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to "RIP, Aaron Swartz."

God save the people

Graffiti on New Oxford St., London 2012

Just by way of rolling the front page on, here's a photo I took last summer during our stay in London.

Bret Lockett, Hero for the New B'ak'tun

Happy New Year, b'ak'tun or however you mark time moving future to past. We're back from Christmas in Oregon (photos soon), the paper floor still looks great (updates coming) and I am finally beginning to feel like we're home for awhile.

I am currently following the dreadful, heartbreaking events in New Delhi and in America's own pathetic, prima donna football brat worshiping small town of Steubenville, Ohio. Michael Nodianos, words cannot convey how disgusting you and your buddies are. In contrast to these shit-for-brains psycho morons, NFL player Bret Lockett is a beacon of sanity, light, hope and fresh air and it doesn't hurt that he has the body of a god. Thanks Bret and PETA! We are much in need of real men to step up and do it right.  

My new year's resolution: practice listening with my heart.

Happy Winter Solstice & end of the 13th B'ak'tun

Gotta go. It's going to be snowing in the mountains today and we have to get over the pass.

Put a log on the fire.  Time to celebrate the end of the 13th b'ak'tun and...

Happy Winter Solstice!

Michigan H. Frog & paper floor update

Even as the days grow colder, Michigan H. Frog, aka Henry, is still alive outside my window croaking. I'm amazed. God, I wish I could find the poor fellow and bring him in. He'd have to live in a terrarium but I'd make it comfy and he'd be warm.

We will be spending a couple of weeks in Oregon with the family. Thea Bella, being three years-old now and quite expert on her balance bike, gets a real bike this year. Amazon already delivered it but M. Lee will put it together when we get there. Mr. Leo, being two, is still working on his balance bike so we have some other new toys and warm duds for him and we have some stylish new threads for Baby Frank. As for the floor, the bedroom is done and looks great. We won't put the room back together until we get back. Then on to another section of the house. This is M. Lee's winter project. In the end, the front room will be an art studio which we will share. It's definitely worth the mess and wait.

Paper floor update. The first room is done and looks great.

Oh, and happy last day of the 13th b'ak'tun.

Bathtub Bass, the rest of the story and paper floor update

Thea and G'pa's flute and bass jam

Remember that bass in my bathtub? It's finally gone. We sold it when we were in Portland this fall. With all that was going on with my granddaughter, I forgot to mention it  She's doing better now, btw. She's living at her mom's, has a new boyfriend and a job so we are keeping a good thought from here in the background. Growing up is hard and, I didn't realize it then but, oh man, the 20s suck!

Thea examining bass before sale

So, back to the bass. We sold it to a guy named Pete in Portland, Pete of Pete's Upright Bass Shop on S.E. Boise Street. Pete was the perfect guy to buy bass. We couldn't be happier. He's a musician in the full sense of the word. Music, and in particular the bass, is his love and way of life. So this is the end of long journey for the bass. M. Lee's dad bought it in Portland. We inherited it when he bought a smaller one and, after a couple of unsuccessful attempts to find a buyer, it lived in our bathtub for a number of years. Finally, and to our great relief, it's time in the desert has come to an end.

Testing testing testing

As for Project Paper Floor. It's going just fine, punctuated by occasional moments of, how do I say, great uncertainty. After all, he's not just slapping down tile or rolling out linoleum. Doing a paper floor is more like doing a life-size art installation. There is only so much anyone can read and trust me, M. Lee has read it all, before one has to take the inevitable leap off the cliff. Of course, he did a lot of tests first on plywood scraps to figure a few things out, proportions, which color paper to use, methods for applying the glue, whether or not to crumple the paper before dipping it in glue or just dip it. He pre-crumples.

The test case was our bathroom. It's the smallest room in the house but turned out to be the hardest due to all the angles. But it's done, including the 12 coats of polyurethane. It looks fantastic. Now he's working on the rest of the bathroom, bedroom and closet. So far so good. It's papered but not without some redoing to break up a couple of seams that developed due to laying paper on two separate days. That took some juggling but he fixed it. Today he'll polyurethane that, beginning with the closet where he'll experiment with using the roller. Applying 12 coats of urethane throughout the entire house with a paint bursh is just not something one does unless one has to. But hey. No matter what, the fucking carpet is gone! Okay. Gotta go. I'm mired in a solstice/xmas card project that I made waaaaaaaaay too complicated. I'm even making the envelopes. Madness! But they must go out today.

First room done and beautiful

12.12.12 paper floor report

Mayan calendar

Happy 12.12.12.

The inter-tubes are strangely quiet these days about the upcoming End of the Mayan Calendar a.k.a. End of the World, Friday December 21, 2012. I guess people are a bit burnt out after all the uproar last year when May 21, 2011, otherwise known as Judgement Day, came and went. It was a huge letdown for the evangelical community who assured the world that the "Bible Guarantees It" . We saw the billboards all through Texas advertising it. Anyway, today being the only day this century that gets to be triple 12s, I had to post something so here's what's happening in my neck of the desert.

We are currently in an uproar here. M. Lee is in the process of tearing up all the carpet and all the linoleum in the house and replacing it with paper. Yes. Paper. As in découpage, papier-mâché aka paper mache. Mon Dieu! Paper? How is that possible?! No problemo. It will be under 12 coats of polyurethane.

Ingredients.

Quail taxi

Henry update

I heard from a couple more scientists regarding Henry the frog but without a photo and a recording of his peculiar croaking no one is convinced he's a member of the endangered Rana sierrae and, even if he were, I don't know what they'd do besides add him to the footnotes. One guy from UCSB Life Sciences was pretty dismissive about the whole thing. Why write me at all? I don't think it's good science but that's his problem. Anyway, I heard Henry again today and sadly it seems he's growing weak. I went out again determined, again, to find him but I could not. I would give him a home indoors out of the cold but it looks like it's not to be.

Sad story of my life these days

I haven't taken up Instagram yet but I photograph everything. It's bad.

CollegeHumor's Favorite Funny Videos

Henry the frog and the gangster cats

At this point, 95% of the Rana sierrae have died off.

To their credit, a couple of the scientists I contacted the other night about Henry the frog immediately wrote back. Of course, both asked for a photo but I don't have one so, for now anyway, that's that. I did see him once last spring. He looked just like the Rana sierrae in the photo and he sure sounds like one. But if he is, he's a ways from home. The Rana sierrae generally live in mountain ponds above 6000 feet but Henry is down here in the valley at 5000 ft. in my desert dirt back yard. And thanks for asking, Roy. If Henry resurfaces, you'll be among the first to know.

The gangster cats have left the building

But I do have some really GREAT NEWS. The gangster cats, scourge of the Bird Park, those furry assholes who ate baby quail like they were popcorn...are GONE. Their family finally finally loaded their crap up and moved away. A repair crew has been over there for the last week gutting and repairing the place. If the broken blinds in the front window and the perpetual mess they had in the front yard and on the porch are any indication, they must have left the house a wreck.

Henry, the Sierra Nevada Yellow-legged Frog

Poor Henry is croaking outside my window tonight. I was stunned when I heard him earlier today. He's the little frog who took up residence somewhere just outside my window last spring. When we left on our 10 week trip last March I thought the hawk, Mr. Fancy Pants, would surely get him over the summer or a crow, or the gangster cats who live next door and hunt in the Bird Park, aka my backyard. I'm delighted he's still around even though I don't see how it can be a good life for him here.

My question is, how in the world did a frog manage to wind up in this dry corner of nowhere? The Bird Park is on dry desert dirt. Does he live in the covering for the air conditioner? Perhaps he's burrowed out a cozy home under its concrete slab. I just read some types of frogs hibernate. Maybe he's one. That could be nice. All I know is that I nearly stepped on him one day last spring as I stepped outside. One tiny little frog, or toad. I'm not sure which but, after listening to recorded sounds of both online just now, I'd say he's definitely a frog. In fact, after another quick search, I'm almost certain that Henry is a Sierra Nevada Yellow-legged Frog which is an endangered species. Yikes! After another search, I dug up some addresses and emailed several people interested in preserving these fellows. Now what? Now I wait. G'night, Henry. Sweet dreams.

Note to self, good ideas

Blue state-red state divorce? I'm all for it!

Hey Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina and the rest of the Confederacy!

Ya'll want to secede from the US? I'm all for it! 'N' ya'll lucky Abe Lincoln ain't 'round ta kick ya in yer wide white confederate ass. Jus' sayin'.

Paul VanDevelder lays out terms for the divorce in this recent article posted at the LA Times. Check it out. He's not only spot on, he's hilarious.

Paul VanDevelder is a journalist, screenwriter and the author, most recently, of "Savages and Scoundrels: The Untold Story of America's Road to Empire through Indian Territory."

Charles River and Reno Vegans

An Infinite Number Of Monkeys

After all the Shakespeare, the book

of poems they type is the saddest

in history.

But before they can finish it,

they have to wait for that Someone

who is always

looking to look away. Only then

can they strike the million

keys that spell

humiliation and grief, which are

the great subjects of Monkey

Literature

and not, as some people still

believe, the banana

and the tire.

~Ronald Koertge

Photos from the protest yesterday organized by Reno Vegans at Charles River, the world's largest supplier of animals for experiments or, as they say on their website, "essential research products". Charles River carefully conceals information about dogs and monkeys but their use and cruelty is documented and ongoing.

Charles River Lab on Longley Lane in Reno, Nevada.

Are those chimneys from a crematorium? Any animal who manages to survive an in-house experiment at a Charles River lab is killed shortly afterwards. Photographs obtained from the USDA through the Freedom of Information Act in 2008 revealed cramped and barren conditions at this facility "with the potential to cause madness".

At this point, most of the group is out doing a walkabout.

Seems Charles River sent one of their goons to intimidate us. Unknowingly, I parked right next to him as he sat across the street doing a video of the whole event from the cab of his black truck.

He immediately turned his camera on me so I took out my camera and took several photos of the bastard. No surprise he was there. Billion dollar corporations like Charles River employ countless goons, including platoons of lawyers, to guard their gates.

The turnout was small, as these things generally are. There were two main elements, a group of young people in black wearing black bandanas over their faces and about an equal number of older people dressed in regular clothes.  But, whatever our difference, we all feel strongly about animal rights and are glad to protest multinational merchants of death like Charles River, aka the "General Motors of the laboratory animal industry".

"There are dogs in there too.
You do care, don't you?" ~ Martha

DITL + Charles River Labs protest

We're back. It's been a month since we took off to Portland to lend support after our 20 year-old granddaughter attempted suicide. I'm hoping that's behind us now. She has now moved back to her mom's in Grants Pass where she will continue counseling, get a job and chill for awhile.

This morning it's party time in the Bird Park. Remember, I've been gone for a month but never fear. Good old Seven showed up at 7:22 with a friend. Not only did she find the usual peanuts and puppy kibble, but the delicious pumpkin pie I'd put the freezer when we left, thinking we'd be back in a week. I'm sure it's fine but M. Lee won't touch it. So far, Seven only gave it a peck but she'll check it out later, after she's done stashing the peanuts.

And, yay, a couple of quail just showed up. Excellent. Now the Bird Park is officially open.

 

So today I'm going to Reno to participate in the Reno Vegans protest against the Charles River Labs. In case you haven't heard, Charles River Labs is a notorious contract animal testing business and the world's largest supplier of animals for lab experiments in the world. Although animal testing has been replaced by humane, more accurate methods, Charles River Labs continues to conduct  painful, live experiments on any animal for a price. These poor innocent beings needlessly suffer torturous lives full of pain, fear, suffering and misery. And any who manage to survive an experiment at Charles River Labs are killed shortly afterwards. This needs to end.
 
So, have a good day.

"I know of no achievement through vivisection, no scientific discovery, that could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty. The whole thing is evil."
—Charles Mayo, Founder of the Mayo Clinic, c. 1930.

All in all

After a second, shorter stay in the psych ward my granddaughter is doing better and in a few days she's returning to So. Oregon to stay with her mom for awhile. After nearly a month in Portland this was our cue to exit. We're headed back to Nevada.

I am not comfortable writing about personal matters. That's why I'm doing it.

Autumn leaves

I laid down to rest when the sun was still illuminating the red curtains and I could see summer's last tomatoes on the vine just outside the window. It's dark now, no glowing color, no tomatoes. I have the hacking crud that's going around and can barely talk today. I feel better after a nap but still prefer to lay here than join the family in the front room.

I've lost track of exactly how long we've been in Portland. Since LA,whenever that was. We came here to support the family after our 20 year-old granddaughter attempted suicide. She's a great kid in a very dark place. I don't know if everyone has to stand at that cross-road at some point in their life. I did. Perhaps you did too. She's seems to be reclaiming herself. God, I hope she decides to stick around, see how the story turns out. I'd sure miss her.

I just got called to dinner...roasted veggies, french bread, brie, fire in the fireplace.

Loneliest whale in the world

The 52-Hertz Whale's song
is just higher than the lowest note on a tuba.

"This song is the only one of its kind detected anywhere. Because of this, the animal has been called loneliest whale in the world."  -Wikipedia

Chalkboard

This evening M. Lee mentioned that I am like a person writing on a chalkboard with one hand while erasing with the other. How true.

Election night

FANTASTIC that Barack won!

Ps. Fuck off, Karl Rove..

Happy Election Day

So much is going on. I haven't even had time to post a photo. I am surrounded by spinning worlds. We are still in Portland and it's raining. It's election day. If you haven't voted today be sure and VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA.

It's GLOBAL WARMING, stupid!

via Huffingtonpost

Happy Halloween

Remember kiddes, when your out and about tonight
Watch out for the Monster Bridge!

Diane Keaton at the Getty Villa

Diane Keaton got in the elevator at the Getty Villa the other day and after it began its descent to the parking garage she turned to me and said, "You have great hair".  I was on the phone but smiled and said "Thank you". "No. I mean it", she said. "You have really... great ... hair."  Trust me. She knows how to make a point. I told her I thought she looked great herself, all around, clothes, hair, hat, face... everything.

Earlier that afternoon I'd noticed her in the gallery, not because she was Diane Keaton, M. Lee's mom told me that later, but because she was someone over 40 who was simultaneously eccentric, youthful, hip, elegant and, most importantly, unpretentious.

She said something else, I don't remember exactly, but then I joked about how she had made my day because now I had a Diane Keaton story I could tell my friends. I regretted letting on that I knew who she was. It just wasn't the point.

LA outtakes for the last three days

Arrival

LA at night

We didn't leave Nevada until nearly four in the afternoon
on Sunday. We drove so we got into LA pretty late.
Minerva loved it but we were pretty rummy by the time we arrived.

Home for the next week. 

The Piccadilly is right in the middle of downtown but
was built in 1928 and embodies the charm of old Hollywood.
We have a top (7th) floor, two bedroom apartment.

His mom joined us from Oregon.

M. Lee found the place on AirBnB. It's way nicer and cheaper
than a motel would be, plus it's really interesting staying in a stranger's home.

Norton Simon Museum

The Mulberry Tree by Vincent van Gogh (1889)

Van Gogh did this painting shortly after entering the asylum near Arles.
Less than eight months after completing it, he committed suicide.

Venice Beach

The Green Doctors of Venice Beach

Whatever anyone thinks about the "morality of marijuana",
growing pot and selling pot legally in the US is not only good medicine
and a good business, it castrates the cartels by gutting their profits.