Call for horses - S. 1915

Please take a minute and help pass a permanent ban on the business of selling American's mustangs for slaughter. There is only a few days left for the Senate to pass the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (H.R. 503/S. 1915)! The House of Representatives passed their vote against this dreadful practice in September (H.R. 503). Now the Senate must pass S. 1915, their version of the same bill before it becomes law. Help flood Senate offices with phone calls urging them to vote for S. 1915.

You can find your Senator's phone number here.

Please call. It only takes a minute but it is a matter of life or death for horses. Help save America's wild horses.

Let them stay wild and free!

Here's a script from the American Humane Society if you're at a loss for words:

"I am a constituent and I am calling to ask that my Senator immediately protect our horses from slaughter and cosponsor S. 1915, the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act. I am very concerned about American horses and I don't want them slaughtered."

save wild horses Senate bill S. 1915 mustang

Poetry notebook update

I recently added several poems to the notebook section of my website. I also posted some other of my writings a little harder to categorize that loosely falls into the catch all category, flash fiction. I put them under the heading Fourth Wall. I'm always torn between posting work online before I've tried submitting it to a few print journals. So many publications only want unpublished work but I decided to do it anyway. Journals that are willing to use already published material have the right idea. Share and share alike.








poetry writing fourth wall

Crow stop

I shouldn't be fiddling with my blog right now. I have to catch up on my word count after yesterday's slump so this has to be quick. I just put some goodies out in the Bird Park and almost instantly ten crows dropped out of the sky for an afternoon snack. Must be a sentry posted in the crow's nest today. News traveled suspiciously fast. I tried to get a photo but they don't like their picture taken. This is the best I could do because I gotta go.







Bye-bye. Off to NaNo land.

Don't shoot the piano player!

Piano serenade, Comma Coffee in the morning

Friday was a long day in NaNoWriMo land. I met some friends in the morning at the Comma for a NaNo write and stayed until 4:30. Susan did about 3500 words but I didn't even break a thousand. I don't work well mixing writing time with a social event. I didn't go to the Reno write yesterday for the same reason. Rasabhasa. In general though the Comma is a fine place to write, surf, read, meet friends, day dream, study, people watch, give a poetry reading, oh and get a cup of coffee or have a few drinks. It's directly across the street from the Nevada State Legislature and in the middle of the legal district, even the Governor lives a few blocks away so on any given day you might see politicians, skate boarders, lawyers, outlaws, old ladies playing Mahjong, the cat, or geeks on laptops wiling away the hours together. This morning some guy cranked out a couple of saloon tunes to nobody in particular on the tin-voiced piano. If you listen carefully to the video, you can hear snippets in the background of a conversation a couple of women are having with an 82 year old man about the politics of "messin' around." Nevada. Ya gotta love it.

NaNo9

So far the denizens of NaNoWriMo have churned out nearly 300 million word since the beginning of the month and just over 18,000 of them mine ... screamin', eyes closed, seat of the pants BAD writing but it's all about the word count, babee. It's madness but as I've gotten through the first week and am still on the word track I decided to dig in deeper by posting the NaNo participant badge in the sidebar. Now my neck is really on the block. Yikes! Okay. Gotta run. I'm going to a Reno write-in tonight and lots to do before then.

Hug someone

If you haven't seen this video about free hugs do yourself a favor and watch it. If it doesn't make you smile, even chuckle, you need a hug yourself. Go on. Even if you've already seen it, give it a look. You'll feel better even if you already feel good.

FREE HUGS!

November days and mercy for piggies

Okay then. Thanks to everybody in the Great Blue Wave. Bush Boy got a real spanking, as did Karl the Cheat, the Rummy Devil and the rest of the smarmy minions infesting our government. It occurred to me (again) last night just how fond I am of hating George W. Bush and Co.. It gives a certain clarity and snap to things but it's sick. I've got better things to do than focus on these assholes. They are, at best, a measure for corruption, greed, immorality and ineptitude. We'll be digging out of the pit they dumped us in for generations.




Plus, though they got a beating in the polls last night, these fascist bastards have no intention of throwing in the towel. The "price of freedom" is the same as it was in Jefferson's day, "eternal vigilance". With this election we backed them into a corner but they will exploit our every weakness and moment of inattention. The work of reinstating our Constitution and resuscitating our Democracy has only just begun.




But there is one election victory I am especially celebrateing today. Arizonans voted for humane treatment of farm animals. They passed Proposition 204 which bans gestation crates for breeding pigs and veal crates for young calves. Agribusiness and other special interests spent $2.5 million to defeat Proposition 204. Arizona is the second state in the nation to ban gestation crates and the first state to ban veal crates. The vote was 61 percent in favor and only 39 percent opposed. YEAH! Compassion wins the vote! That is world changing news.




But enough of this madness, at least for the moment. It's November, NaNoWriMo time. I've got just over 15,000 words to date and nothing yesterday. I've got to get to work. I'm headed back to Comma Coffee. At home, I'm glued to the election results andyet another blog post. At the Comma I can escape these distractions and write all day on one cup of coffee. June has power strips everywhere and lots of interesting furniture and things to blend in with. I've got to get there before someone else claims my favorite corner. Here's a few photos from Comma Coffee that I took the other day. That's it for now.












election blue streak animal rights

Call for Change

Grinding about the way things are but don't want to "work" for change? Here's the perfect thing for even the most retiring armchair analyst. MoveOn's Call for Change program. Come on. The Republican party is so crooked, so extreme our very Democracy is at stake. The Senate and Congress is controlled by men on the Bush family payroll, FASCIST BASTARDS who have got to go! Even I am calling to encourage people to get out and vote against them. Now MoveOn.org has made it even easier. You can call from your own home.


Do it.

What's to lose?

Everything.

VOTE Democratic today!

FREEDOM

Had enough yet?
Help kick these f*cking BUSH BUMS OUT!

Polling place locater.

VIDEO THE VOTE.

Carson City Friday nanowrite

I am meeting a couple of other people at Comma Coffee this Friday for a NaNo write-in. We'll be there from 10:30 in the morning until whenever. Join us if you can.


NaNoWriMo is madness and I love/hate it but whatever I think about it, I have currently written over 11,000 word because of it. I even wake up in the morning with the silly little NaNoWriMo song running through my head:

It's November. Here we go again.
NaNoWriMo. Here we go again.
I'll be writin' fifty thousand words.
I may go crazy before the end.

Mr. Lee is even infected with it. Hahaha!


Note to the Inner Critic: FUCK OFF! It's all about the word count babeee.

Chillin'

Things are pretty mellow around here right now. After his stunning Halloween performance last night Lucky Pete is basking in the whole troupe's admiration. In fact he has been hanging out with Monsieur La Chance all day, who has taken him under his wing and been trying to convince him to give up, as he says, that bastard version of his fine French name. It is his opinion, of course, that form is everything but we shall see. Lucky Pete, or Pierre as the case may be, is a proud fellow even in a clown suit and obviously not one to be controlled by other people's or cat's opinions.

As for me, I wrote 2955 words on this, the first day of NaNoWriMo. PURE CRAP! TERRIBLE STUFF! I'd rather throw myself off a cliff and into the thrashing sea than let anyone read it but hey, it's all about the word count. When I was done my head felt like a blob of sour, warm meat. Well that's it from this outpost border crossing. Now I'm off to Otherland. G'night.

Halloween and NaNoWriMo eve

Tonight marks two distinct, but not wholly dissimilar, events. Grito and Lucky Pete (as he calls himself these days) have been outside waiting since this afternoon but trick or treaters didn't appear until after dark.




After the children are gone and the streets are completely given over to the spirits of the underworld the second phase of the night begins. Then my friend Susan and I are going to meet at a nearby casino coffee shop to await the final stroke of midnight. Then the dead return to the nether regions. Then the mad soul of NaNoWriMo rises in the infernal dark. Then the writing begins.

Halloween

Beginning's end

nanowrimo deadline

Early Halloween

Early trick or treaters, Seymour and Sierra. They got cheese.

Pine Nuts to Ash Canyon

Here are a few photos from our drive in the Pine Nuts the other day. Naturally the Swami wanted to come. None of us have been out for a long time so it was a big deal. We only took trailer as far as Crow Stone Road. The hitch currently has an extender to clear the spare which makes the connection a bit vulnerable. The road gets pretty rough past that point and we didn't want to loosen anything. In case you're wondering, that white rack on the top of the trailer is the Maggiolina, our crank up tent.



We went as far as this collapsed cabin. The stone work was nothing like we've seen in the old miner cabins further out in the Great Basin. Those places were built by Europeans who knew how to work with stone. The walls and foundations they did are still standing, well into their second century. Whoever built this place didn't know what they were doing. The stones are small, unmatched, and unworked. The only thing that held them together at all was great gobs of mortar. I doubt it lasted more than 50 years. They used a few nice stones in the hearth but most of the hearth stones were also small and glued together.




I took the stone to return to the crows but came home with it instead. Mr. Lee reminded me that they only loaned it for a year. I'll get around to it one of these days, maybe.





I went to Ash Canyon after we got back. I believe it's been nearly a year since I went last. I'm glad I did. It was nice seeing the group again, plus it was Susan's birthday (R). She was co-editor on the first issue of Driftwork (submissions are open for the next issue, btw). I didn't have anything new to read. I've been working on one poem for months and it's still no closer to being done. If I stick with NaNoWriMo for even a week it will a colossal kick in the ass. Those are witches fingers on the plate.

Bush moves closer to martial law

On October 17th, 2006, in a stealth ceremony in the Oval Office, the same day he legalized torture (anyone - anywhere - no trial), Bush signed a second bill giving himself the power to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities. The Republicans have now given themselves full power and authority to suppress all dissent, by any means, without any accountability. Where does it end?


This is a very disturbing article but read it anyway. Mirror site here.








martial law torture republican dictatorship Bush

Saturday at the Roxy - 10.

Welcome to the matinee.

As this is Halloween weekend, today's videos tend towards the macabre, nothing heart stopping but in the spirit. This may be it for the Roxy for a while. I decided to give NaNoWriMo a shot which, if I stick with it, will severly limit my time. At any rate enjoy the show.

Happy Halloween!

Dylan Moran's

TELL IT TO THE FISHES

00:41

CAT WITH HANDS

03:33

Be careful.
Be very, very careful. The mind is
a very powerful thing. Ask
VINCENT

05:52

Watch out!
Shaye St. John
wants to wish you a
TRASHY HALLOWEEN

02:33

Test run, Poe and the Crow Stone

Now that the trailer is done we're taking it out to the Pine Nuts this afternoon for a test drive. Perhaps we'll get a glimpse of the little band of mustangs I saw last spring. The babies should be pretty big by now and it would be fun seeing them again before winter sets in. Even if we don't it's a cloudless day, perfect for a drive.

I guess it's also time to return the Crow Stone. I've grown very attached to it but the crows only loaned it to me while I was recuperating from knee surgery. I'm doing better now so it's up to me to work on it in the gym. They were very kind sharing a little of their mojo in the first place and I don't want to take advantage of their generosity. One must be very respectful of crows and ravens. Remember what happend to poor old Poe.

Letters from home

... home in this case being my little brother. It's one of those letters that meandered into some fanciful territory so I thought I'd post it here for the hell of it. It started out with a note from my brother. Naturally I have changed the names to protect the innocent but otherwise spared no details.

Dear sister,

I just donated some money to the Democrat Party to throw the bums out. Makes the day a little better to know I did something worthwhile. Last night we had my graduate students over for dinner. It is quite an eclectic crowd.

KA starting a MS degree is from Bombay. His parents were born in Pakistan. JG starting a Ph.D. is from Toronto. Her parents were from Vietnam. TL second year M.S. is from China. Her parents work for the government so they are communist. GH fifth year Ph.D. is from Pittsburgh. His father is a professor at Case Western. He was conceived in the Ukraine where his parents were from. He was born in Jerusalem and grew up in Cleveland. EZ Second year Ph.D. is from Hobart. His father was a Boeing engineer, who lives up in the Cascades off the electrical grid.
GF second year Ph.D. is from San Francisco or Modesto. He is doing a Ph.D. in from Sweden and I am his U.S. representative.

Needless to say telling stories to each other eating and drinking fine wine made it one of those magical evenings.

To which I answered:

And you from a village. Very exotic! Sounds like a great evening.

Glad to hear you threw some money in the ring. I did too. What bastards!

He replied:

Actually I trace my roots back to North Dakota, a place so strange I have this reoccurring vision about being a very old man living in a run down shack on the prairie. The only lights at night the Sirius and his friends rising. I am very old and everyone is gone except me. My memory is fading and I spend evenings talking to the west wind, recalling a family, sisters, wife and wonderful dogs, I only remember the dogs clearly because a stray dog comes to my back door, the one facing south, and curls up there on warm nights. This last winter he finally came in the house and after several circles and scratches dropped with a thud on the floor by the pantry door and watched me with intense suspicion. I sleep much and have strange dreams of the tropical ocean, mathematical equations, congress with golden angels in the ceiling. I don't know whose memories they are. After the stroke it all comes at me from the shadows. Approaches just to the penumbra of somebody's past and waits. And this old dog, there he lays, his chin on his crossed paws watching me with one eye. I am not dead yet you old hound. Is that what you here for? You are too old to eat me … heh heh. But he closes his eye and I have the distinct feeling that he knows the path through the prairie grass to the north where the lights dance in the sky.

Oops! Where did that come from? See. Just thinking of North Dakota does strange things to me.