Month: September 2024

Will Somebody Answer That Page?

jono55

The Israeli government has shown us something new this past week. That they were willing to cross a line in the sand and load hundreds of explosive charges into everyday handheld devices. It was done by infiltrating the supply chain at the company that produced them. In this way very many Hezbollah were harmed, as well as anyone unfortunate enough to be standing near them.

Think for a moment. If the Israelis are able do it, so are we. And so are our adversaries.

Our phones, our computers, even our automobiles could be weaponized and there you are driving down the road and your car swerves into oncoming traffic. Or your phone explodes and maims you and the child you are holding in your lap. Or your toaster starts to fling sourdough shuriken at you.

About that crossed line. Perhaps we should thank Mr. Netanyahu and his gang for bringing us up to date on just how vulnerable we all are. Quite a bloody demonstration, though, with all those bystanders hurt or killed and everything.

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Five years ago when I renewed my driver’s license, the photograph that was taken was awful. It was washed out, grim, and totally unrepresentative of my vibrant and devilishly attractive self. This year I had to renew that license, and now the photo is even more grotesque. I look like a startled corpse.

You know how in a horror movie when the camera moves forward and down into the coffin and then suddenly the eyes snap open? – that’s me in my official ID photo!

Fortunately very few people will get to see that photograph, and I am certainly not going to publish it here. After all, there may be children looking over your shoulder and their little psyches could be permanently scarred.

BTW, if any of you are wondering whether I should still be driving, calm thyselves. For some reason Nature has blessed me and I am still one of the most capable drivers ever seen in Paradise. And whatever you may have heard about that time last week when I crossed the median downtown and drove for three blocks into oncoming traffic, I have a perfectly logical explanation. A squirrel.

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I am disappointed when the fact-checkers of the world find that a member of the “Blue Team” is telling fibs. Doubly disappointed when they repeat the same mistruth the next day.

I can understand how it could happen when you are asked to spew thousands of words a week in rallies, interviews, sound bites, scripted moments, etc. But even though it is a lot to expect, striving for honesty and admitting when you’re wrong … I don’t think it’s too much to ask.

I am just so tired of being lied to. Really tired of that whole shabby business. If someone is promoting themselves as an agent of change, talking straight would be a good place to start. I hope Harris and Walz will keep their focus and clean up their speeches. The Republicans supply more than enough reasons for criticism without them needing to make stuff up.

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Not Too Much To Ask, by Mary Chapin Carpenter

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One morning this week a large sign blossomed on our next-door neighbor’s garage.

The subtitle of the sign is “Make Liberals Cry Again.” That makes me sad. These are two decent people who have been hoodwinked by a charlatan. Cluck is not a conservative but an unprincipled opportunist. These neighbors are strongly “pro-life” and that makes it hard for them not to react viscerally to the Democratic platform, with its emphasis on reproductive freedom. I get that. What I don’t get is single-issue voting.

If liberals are crying it is because they see clearly the harm this orange-tinted crook has already done, and blatantly promises to keep doing if re-elected.

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Can’t Find My Way Home, by Stevie Winwood

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Frank Bruni is a good man and a very thoughtful columnist. Thursday’s posting in the Times I thought was worth linking to. Sort of summarizes where a lot of folks stand re: the two campaigners. (At least a lot of folks on the left, which means the right side of history.)

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The movie “Reagan” has been in town now for several weeks. Apparently there are enough local people interested in a time when Republicans were only (forgivably) mistaken in their politics, and had not yet become the gaggle of lunatics and criminals we see on television. Nostalgia for a dimly remembered past, I guess.

The film stars Dennis Quaid as Ronald Reagan. Quaid has recently revealed himself to be a Cluck supporter, which I’m thinking … is there anything that would cause Reagan to spin faster in his grave than knowing this bit of irony?

But Dennis’ coming out hasn’t bothered me like you’d think it would, because he is not the Quaid brother I respect the most. That honor falls to Randy, seen at right in the tasteful “the shitter’s full” scene from the movie A Christmas Vacation.

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The Road, by Euphoria

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Memento Mori: Maggie Smith (1934-2024)

For me, Maggie Smith was given the best lines in the series Downton Abbey. The rest of the cast played characters who were still trying to achieve something or other, but the grande dame Violet Crawley had already achieved it all, seen it all, and was not enamored of modern life.

Her specialty was the verbal dagger thrust, sometimes in and out before the person even knew they’d been wounded, and who were left wondering where all that blood on their shirtfront was coming from.

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Seen on a drive toward Telluride on Saturday.

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Brontosaurus medicus

jono55

We have two veterinary clinics in Paradise. We’ve used them both in our time here. In the past two years each of them has sent notices that they would not be available for after hours or weekend emergencies, but recommended that we take our ailing friends to a veterinary emergency room in Grand Junction, which is a 75 minute drive. And that is in the summertime. There will be times in winter when it will be impossible.

My reaction to both announcements has been the same. I was steamed. WTF! That is absolutely not okay! What sort of dismal dedication is this? They are assuming little more professional responsibility than a clerk in a C-store.

If I had tried such a move when I was working as a pediatrician, this morning I would still be scraping off some of the tar and feathers that the parents in my practice would rightfully have applied to me decades ago.

I realize that my way of looking at how a doctor should provide care, whether that is for animals or humans, makes me a relic, a dinosaur. Other members of my generation of doctors feel much the same way as I do, but we are steadily becoming extinct.

Soon there will be no one who remembers that at one time in our history if you became ill after hours, there was a good chance your own physician would answer the call. Or at the very least, someone you knew.

Got a sick pet here in Paradise after 5:00 PM? Get in the car and don’t forget to fill up the tank on your way out of town.

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I Don’t Need No Doctor, by Ray Charles

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From The New Yorker

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Robin and I are signing up to do phone banks for Harris/Walz. We are also attending a meetup online to educate us on Project 2025. We are also contacting our precinct chair regarding “How can we help?”

Doing what we can to avoid waking up on November 6 feeling pole-axed and guilt-ridden with four more years of you-know-who in front of us.

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Rereading Lonesome Dove for the … I don’t know … fourth time. Never gets old. Renews my connection with a fascinating part of western history, with Larry McMurtry’s extraordinary portraits of ordinary people doing what today would be considered heroic deeds, but in their time were just life. I am reading it at a measured pace, savoring the writing and the story.

It’s the book that has caused me to annoy many, many people because I can’t keep myself from urging them to read it. Most of those I have thus leaned on have totally ignored me, sniffing that “it’s a cowboy book.” (Well, yeah, like the Old Testament is only a Hebrew travelogue.) It’s all in how the tale is told, and this is McMurtry’s masterpiece.

As a bonus, when you finish it you can watch the television series made from the book, which was one of the best miniseries ever. Nominated for eighteen Emmys and won seven.

No less an actor than Robert Duvall considers Augustus McCrae his favorite of all the roles he’s played. But I’m not going to beg you to read the book. That would be annoying.

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From The New Yorker

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Daily I try to find sane and thoughtful voices in the clamor that is today’s world. If I take CNN’s headlines at face value we are facing several Armageddons at once, it’s only a matter of chance which of them inevitably crushes us under its hammerblows. The New York Times tries to be more restrained, but is always a day behind, when a news cycle lasts 20 minutes.

It is dizzying. I really don’t want to go back, even in my imagination, to the days when news traveled slowly enough that you might miss Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train going by if you weren’t paying attention. But something between that and this morning’s clamor would be nice.

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Here’s a tune for the elephants of the Middle East, the Israeli and Arab leadership, who are trampling on the lives of their peoples. Who are using their ingenuity and power to kill and maim in both ancient and novel ways.

Masters of War, by The Staple Singers

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This post is too heavy by far, so far. How about a bit of Swedish vs Norwegian humor?

Sweden and Norway were playing a soccer match.
About 20 minutes into the game a train rolled by and blew its whistle.
The Swedes thought it was half time and left the field.
The Norwegians scored 5 minutes later.

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“Out of the minds of babes oft times come gems.”

An old saw with much truth tucked inside. I thought of this when listening yesterday to a Neil Young song from 1974 entitled On The Beach. One perfect line went “Though my problems are meaningless, that don’t make them go away.”

My situation exactly.

On The Beach, by Neil Young

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Good Guys Finish Last

jono55

Poor Tupperware. All they wanted to do was make durable little boxes for us to put our stuff in, and they did this awfully well for 78 years. When they started out, plastic was our bright and shiny new friend. But now … Chapter 11 bankruptcy is coming for the company.

There have been rumors for years that the company was in trouble. Plastic in any form has been a no-no for environmental reasons for quite a while, but when those micro-particles began showing up in male genitalia I knew that the handwriting was definitely on the wall.

After all, no matter how well those lids will seal or those containers stack, who wants to trade convenient food storage for a polystyrene penis?

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Every Day Is A Winding Road, by Sheryl Crow

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From The New Yorker

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It’s pretty obvious that Cluck and mini-Cluck don’t talk much. After the recent affair at the golf course, Vance went to work accusing Democrats of using inflammatory words like fascist and thereby inciting these unbalanced assassins. All the while Cluck is out there repeatedly calling Harris “fascist and communist.”

I’m not a very good political scholar but I’m not even sure you can be a fascist and a communist at the same time. However, making sense has never been Cluck’s strong suit, has it?

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Salvador Sanchez, by Mark Kozelek

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A serious note. Yet another study reporting the Times on Thursday about alcohol’s strong links with various cancers, especially bowel and liver. Yet nearly every month we have a wine and cheese something or other here in Paradise. Every fund-raising organizer makes sure that the alcohol supplies don’t run low or who will come to their event?

As a society we have come to grips with tobacco, another potent carcinogen, and life is better for having done so. We’ve only started with alcohol, but the present social modeling certainly isn’t being helpful. (In how many photos taken at “galas” do the celebrants not have a drink in their hands?)

So far we’ve only really dealt with one obvious negative consequence of drinking, which is driving while intoxicated. We need to get serious about alcohol’s other public health impacts with the same energy that we brought to those of tobacco.

The famous social experiment that was Prohibition was an utter disaster. But education and enlightened leadership could be the way forward.

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Still none of those beautiful overflights by Canada geese and sandhill cranes. The leaves of the trees, however, have definitely received the message that Fall is here. Our evening lows are all in the 40s and the mornings are crisp and cool. It’s nice to shiver ever so slightly when you step out on the deck in your bathrobe with a coffee cup in hand. Life can be good.

I tried to make a quiche the other day, including making the crust from scratch. The recipe indicated that the crust be called “savory” rather than “flaky,” and that was exactly the case. What the recipe left out, however, was that the crust was also nearly hard enough to use to level uneven table legs.

This episode reminds me of the time when I tried to bake unleavened bread. Lord knows why I was even interested, but my attempts to follow the Israelites’ recipe didn’t turn out as planned.

I mixed up the dough, and then as instructed I left it out in the room for a day or two to gather yeasts from the air. At the end of that time there was no evidence that the loaf had risen. Not at all. But being an optimistic sort I put it in the oven for the prescribed length of time, and out came a nice brown loaf.

What happened next was this. I wanted a slice of the bread to eat while it was still warm enough to melt the butter. But the loaf was so rock-hard that I could not cut it. First I used a slicing knife, then a serrated blade … nothing doing. I tried to stab it with a dagger without even making a dent. In desperation I got out an ice pick, which turned out to be yet one more useless thing to do.

So the loaf sat there unmoved by my efforts, all the while still looking like food, which by now I had concluded it was not. Once this brick was cool enough, I tossed it out into the back yard, where I kept two healthy husky dogs. Nice big dogs with nice big teeth. They were able to eat it, but it took the two of them three days to gnaw it down. How Moses and those Israelites made it through the desert was now even more of a mystery to me than it had been.

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If It Makes You Happy, by Sheryl Crow

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From The New Yorker

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Everyone’s A Target

jono55

Let’s just begin by clearly stating my position. I hate waiting for call-backs. At this moment I have five of them pending.

  • When will the people come to put the lawn sprinkler system to bed for the year?
  • Where is my replacement tent fly?
  • When will the technician show up to fix my internet battery backup?
  • Where is the refund for a piece of clothing that was ordered and does not fit?
  • When will the stump grinder show up to remove the eyesore from in front of the house?

In each case I am in someone else’s hands, and they have the power to irritate, stonewall, or infuriate me. Or they can make me happy, grateful, and singing their praises to the heavens. But the point is … I am expected to be content with “we’ll get back to you” even when I think that they have completely forgotten me. In the case of the tent fly, my entreaties are almost certainly falling on ears that have long ago lost interest.

When I was a working stiff I (or my staff) dealt with 50-100 phone calls every day. Our aim was to be as clear and decisive on each occasion so that we didn’t turn one call into two or three. Also, when people were calling for advice about sick children, for some reason they wanted help now rather than in three business days.

To avoid delays in being called back, I have begun to try to make myself more memorable, thinking that if I am not quite as anonymous as the other 500 callers that day that perhaps my pleas will make it to the front of the line or top of the heap. So far I have found that flattery seems to work the best.

For instance if I begin a phone call with any of these phrases I usually get nowhere.

  • you idiot!
  • where the hell is my _____?
  • I’m calling my lawyer!
  • are you really that incompetent?
  • I know where you live

But if I say one of the following that seems to fit the situation my chances of getting what I need are improved.

  • you have a lovely telephone voice
  • are you calling from India? Is it awfully hot there today? I hope you are working in an air-conditioned room, you deserve it.
  • thank you so much for understanding
  • you have been very helpful
  • I have never had better service than you provided today
  • I think I love you

I only use this last one sparingly, since one never really knows who one is talking to, and they actually do know where I live.

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Stand By Me, by Tracy Chapman

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It is more than a bit ironic that the man who almost daily stokes or threatens violence of all sorts has now been the quarry of two different men with rifles. Despite his bluster, he must be just the slightest bit nervous. At least I would be if I were in his shoes.

I deplore this violence against him just as I deplore the threats and violent language he has used against others. Ever since the assassination of John F. Kennedy I react to news like today’s with nausea. It’s a physical reaction, like a blow to the gut.

Realistically I know that with all the guns out there and all the mental screws that are loose in our large population it is probably going to happen again and again, but try to tell that to my mid-section. All it knows is to tighten into a fist.

The idea of settling affairs with a gun is such a persistent and deep-seated one with Americans. Boundary disputes, marital problems, disagreements with a teacher, disobedient children, need a little extra cash? Why, just get that ol’ AR -15 down from the wall and blow your troubles away. Instant resolution. If you need inspiration all you need to do is watch the John Wick movies or the old Death Wish series of films.

Every single day there are multiple shootings in this country. And we only read about the worst ones, not the near occasions as in the golf course incident involving the ex-president. If this hadn’t happened to Trump we’d never have heard about it.

As a retired pediatrician I was shocked the first time that I heard that guns were the number one cause of death in school-aged kids. Number one. It’s really not to be believed. The second amendment cannot remain absolute, as it is presently interpreted. Either reconcile it with modern realities, or repeal it altogether.

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I’ll Be Seeing You, by Vera Lynn

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Robin and I are still watching the series The Good Wife, which stars Julianna Margulies, formerly of ER fame. The show is a very well-done soaper about lawyers which reveals them to be conniving, amoral, jealous, dishonest, backbiting, and narcissistic. Reality TV, some might say.

It’s hard to cheer for any one of the characters in the series because they all take their turn in the wicked and nasty role, and that includes Alicia, the heroine of the title. But no one gets away with things forever, and much of the fun comes with the comeuppances that arrive, often cleverly done.

We are hooked. Margulies is great. The rest of the cast is first-rate. A steamy and sinful stew of smarm. IMHO.

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Lawyers, Guns, and Money, by Warren Zevon

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Be Cool, Fool

jono55

Well, it’s all over now. Might as well start shopping for a good Oval Office chair for Kamala Harris, because she’ll be needing it in January. How can I be so confident? Because Taylor Swift has spoken.

We’ve never before thought of her as a Queen-maker, but here we are. The speakers of my television set had barely stopped reverberating from the Harris/Cluck debate when Swift posted her endorsement of Harris on Instagram. Now surely it will be only days before the Cluck campaign implodes altogether, and we can be rid of His Imperial Orangeness for a while.

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Take Five, by Dave Brubeck

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Our skies are not showing their own particular signs of Fall. The hummingbirds are still fussing at one another at our feeders and there have been no big overflights by Canada geese or the sandhill cranes. Quiet up there so far.

We’ve really come to appreciate those hummingbirds close up. If you are sitting outside at the table, which is about six feet from the feeders, every so often one of the birds will come right over to you, hover for a second or two, then buzz off. Like they are curious and want a closer look. Sometimes they actually come uncomfortably close to your face, and those pointy little beaks now look like potential threats.

Nearly all of the birds we see here at our home are the black-chinned variety, with a rufous hummingbird sighted occasionally. You can see by the graphic that the black chins are not among the birds who make those unbelievable migratory journeys. When ours take off they might end up in southern Mexico, but that’s about it.

Actually, that’s a pretty awesome trip for a few grams of bird, now that I think more about it.

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Black-chinned hummingbirds, male and female >

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Poinciana, by Ahmad Jamal

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There was a time in the past when I was really starting to get knowledgeable about folk music and just beginning to learn about jazz, when rock came along and while it didn’t kill them off altogether, they couldn’t compete either in the marketplace or in my highly suggestible mind.

Occasionally today I will encounter an article about jazz which provokes that old interest, but usually damps it down at the same time. So many of those writers choose to discuss the intricate mechanics of the music itself, while I, a non-musician, have little appreciation for meter or key or phrasing or any of the ways that the cognoscenti can look at a composition. I am yet one more case of “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.”

But and however. Over a lifetime I have accumulated some favorites from that genre, and the tiniest bit of lore. I’ve sprinkled a few of them into this post. Dave Brubeck’s big hit was Take Five, a song that was huge in colleges in 1959. There was a bar and grill called the Big Ten just off campus at the University of Minnesota that had a jukebox with a decent set of speakers and it seemed that I never had a beer there without that song playing in the background.

The other selections are by Ahmad Jamal, Cannonball Adderley, the Johnny Smith Quintet, and Melody Gardot. All hold high places in the regard of this codger who, admittedly, doesn’t know much about music.

[An anecdote. When I was a senior in high school, there was a member of the junior class who played jazz piano well enough to sit in with musicians in local clubs. He did this even though he wasn’t nearly old enough to legally drink. It was rumored, but never proven, that he indulged in (gasp, wheeze, recoil in horror) marijuana.]

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Mercy, Mercy, Mercy by the Cannonball Adderley Quintet

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Who Will Comfort Me, by Melody Gardot

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Moonlight In Vermont, by the Johnny Smith Quintet

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Ahhh, the Pope recently commented on the US elections. He says that the best we can do is to select “the lesser of two evils,” and must be guided by our consciences when we vote. Whatta guy, to take time out from his busy schedule to comment on our politics. I am reminded, though, of the oft-quoted Bible verse, which might apply here:

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

New International Version of the Bible; Matthew 7, 3-5

I think that the Pope and the church he represents have had a serious plank problem for decades now and which never gets resolved because of ecclesiastical chicanery and stonewalling. I would suggest that he allow us to work out our messy political processes on our own, and devote a lot more time to cleaning up the Augean situation in his own house.

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Floaters

jono55

The barbarity and perversity of the human enterprise known as war was again displayed openly on Saturday last when there were two news items published on CNN online. The first was a video purportedly of three Ukrainian soldiers being executed after they had surrendered. The second was an announcement that the Ukrainians are using drones to rain thermite, which is molten metal, on Russian positions as shown in this photograph.

I’ve never quite understood how they came up with some of the accepted practices of war. One moment ago you and your opponents are doing your level best to kill one another. But once a group of enemy combatants surrenders, you are directed to feed and house those people without using violence toward them of any kind. But let them try to escape and you are once again encouraged to shoot at them. The whole business is horrible. Having rules governing how we can legally slaughter one another is insane. Raining molten metal on other humans is evil.

We’ve already agreed not to use chemical weapons in war, why not go through the entire arsenal and keep on banning one item after another? There have been nuclear treaties to reduce the likelihood of one particular type of calamity. Much progress has been made in ridding the world of antipersonnel land mines, a project which most countries in the world are signed onto. Let’s not stop there, but keep shrinking the tools and means to make war until we get to war itself.

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Masters of War, by Odetta

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I’m not a fan of the Cheney family of Wyoming, especially Darth Dick, but I absolutely agree with Liz this one time, when she produced a quote worth remembering. Cheney made a statement on July 21, 2022, during her closing remarks at a public hearing of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. As the vice chair of the committee, Cheney addressed those Republicans who continued to defend former President Donald Trump despite evidence presented regarding his role in the events leading up to and during the attack.

Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.

Liz Cheney

Amen, Sister!

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I saw this cartoon in the New Yorker, and an old memory popped into my head immediately. You will soon learn why.

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When I was about eight years old, I organized an urban fishing adventure and led a trio of boys of the same age into misbehavior. Yes, I admit it, I was the kid that your parents told you not to hang around with. Instead of going to the Saturday movie matinee as we did nearly every week, we planned instead to take a side trip to a nearby lake in Minneapolis. Of course we would not tell our parents of the change in plans, since we knew that they would not approve. Deception and mendacity were skills we had obviously learned early in life.

I rounded up the following materials that I thought we would need on the journey.

  • about ten feet of stout braided fishing line (we would not have a fishing rod because there was no way we could see to conceal it)
  • two lead sinkers
  • one bobber
  • several hooks of suitable size
  • a pocket knife
  • some matches
  • several earthworms
  • an empty butternut coffee can

Off we went, first taking the direction we would ordinarily use to go to the theater, but then doubling back and heading out to Lake Harriet, which was a mile or two away.

After some time we reached the lake, and after rigging our single line and tossing it into the water, we waited for the action to begin. When a half an hour had passed and nothing was happening, our spirits began to flag somewhat. After an hour we were becoming desperate. To have planned all this, to have taken the risks involved, and now to be denied the fruits of our disobedience seemed unfair.

And then we saw it. A small yellow perch, floating dead in the water. To us it still looked a pretty shade of bright green, not faded as fish will do when dead in the water for a long time. So after some discussion and by mutual agreement, we scooped up the fish, scaled and cleaned it with our knife. A small fire was built of available twigs, and when it seemed hot enough, we began to fry the deceased creature in the coffee can.

Turns out that we were about as proficient as cooks as we had been as fishermen. We learned that frying a perch in a coffee can without a lubricant of any kind can only lead to disappointments. The fish stuck to the hot metal, everywhere. Trying to turn it using more sticks was a minor disaster.

But the lesson here is never to underestimate the grit and determination of eight year-old boys who have already lied to their parents, walked a couple of miles, failed to catch a legitimate fish, and needed to leave in ten minutes to get home on time and avoid discovery. At some point we declared that our meal was cooked, distributed the set of fish fragments that had resulted from the cooking process, and ate them.

After stuffing ourselves on our diminutive “catch,” we returned home at what was our planned ETA. Looking back if I was to score our adventure honestly I would do it this way: Fishing = F, Cooking = F, being conniving little delinquents = A+.

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Fishing, by Widespread Panic

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Last night’s presidential debate was a balm to my psyche. As sweet as the wine of the gods. VP Harris was in charge the entire evening, as she prodded what’s his name into one furious falsehood after another. She looked confident and comfortable up there, smiling or laughing a good deal of the time. He squinted, fumed, ranted, lied profusely and continuously, and looked ancient.

I admit to being highly prejudiced but I would score it this way: Harris = presidential material, Cluck = malignant fool. I grant that the MAGA universe has the right to vote as they wish, but I do not respect anyone who will vote to turn this country over to the “leadership” of such a man.

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Keep Comin’ Back …

jono55

Everybody knows that when the Dalai Lama gets on in years and finally checks out that there is a search for the person who is his reincarnation that goes on until a child is found that meets the criteria, whatever they are. Then that child becomes the Dalai Lama until … and so it goes. I don’t know how much of this mysticism that I believe but I am happy that it seems to have worked for Tibetan Buddhists for a long time now. And I don’t know of a nicer human being than the present incarnation of the Dalai Lama, whose answer to the question about characterizing his faith was “My religion is kindness.”

Ghost of Your Guitar Solo, by MJ Lenderman

But today I read an article in the Times of New York about a possible reincarnation occurring in rock and roll. It was all about a singer/songwriter/guitarist named MJ Lenderman.

Neil Young hasn’t passed away, and is still coming out with new stuff, but he is definitely an older gentleman and we all flame out one day. As I listened to an album of Lenderman’s, I kept thinking … this music would be the carrying on of a tradition of whatever it is that Young has been doing for about 200 years now. There was even a post-music-video comment that I came across that went “My dad had Neil Young, now I’ve got Lenderman.”

Reincarnation prior to passing away. I like the concept. Less jarring. They could even get together and jam.

Heartbreak Blues, by MJ Lenderman

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From The New Yorker

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This might not be of help to any of you, but I’m passing it along anyway. Robin and I use Osprey Packs when cycling, hiking, backpacking, sometimes as luggage. They are well designed, attractive, and reliable. But they do wear out, at least some of ours have. When they do, Osprey has a program of repairing the pack for free, or if unrepairable replacing it with a similar model, again for free. Forever!

Twice in the past I had problems with two packs after several years, where all of the nylon straps were disintegrating. I sent the packs back to Osprey and received two completely new packs without meeting any resistance at all from the company. You send them the pack and if they can’t repair it, they decide on the replacement. The new pack comes to your door and suddenly it’s Christmas!

Now Robin’s Osprey Cirrus 24 has developed the same fraying strap problem. It is no longer a pack that can be relied on. One could easily end up carrying it in your arms on a longer hike which is really missing the point of having a backpack in the first place.

I will box it up and mail it to Osprey HQ which is located in Cortez CO. Mailing it to them is my only expense, from here on there will be no charge for anything. It’s really a heckuva program because if you like their stuff you will never have to buy another pack. (And we have happily used this old pack for more than a decade.)

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In just a couple of days we will be presented with the first Harris/Trump debate. At least it’s scheduled that way as of this writing. In general, I have not watched the bulk of the “presidential debates” since Kennedy/Nixon. The ones I did watch were for the most part shout-fests filled with sniping, griping, one-upping, and non-edifying balderdash. Also they are a nationally televised opportunity for telling lies on a grand scale. But, I don’t know, I might watch this one. With the same expectation that I would bring to being a spectator at a cage match.

Nixon “lost” his debates because he wasn’t schooled in how to look good on black and white television. What he actually said was as thoughtful as anything that came out of John Kennedy’s mouth, but Jack looked better and that was that.

You could describe the debates as improvisational theater. The announcers toss out questions that are thoughtful for the most part. And then the candidates attack the helpless question as if it were the shuttlecock in a bad game of badminton. Sometimes they answer it. Sometimes they ignore the question altogether. Oh, my, the suspense of it all.

But on the other hand, I do want to see how VP Harris carries herself against Mr. Respectful of Nothing and No One. Cluck is not the only rancid guy in this world, but he is definitely one of them.

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From The New Yorker

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The signs of autumn are all around us here in Paradise. The butterflies have largely packed up and gone. It’s been at least a month since I’ve seen one of those beautiful swallowtails floating past. Some of the trees are doing their Fall thing. Our next door neighbor is putting out Halloween decorations already. Fall is a favorite season for a lot of folks and I am one of them. Its beauties, its brevity, its aromas, its poignant reminders of change and inevitability.

I love the fruits of the season. The peaches from Palisade (which are what Nature intended when she made a peach in the first place) are starting to fade from the markets and roadside stands. This year’s apples will soon show up and a local apple festival in Cedaredge will pull us in as it does most years. Try to imagine wandering in a small town’s public park and having your sense of smell flooded with the scent of competing apple pies and cobblers being served at the booths? Excuse me for a moment … I seem to be drooling on my keyboard.

This is the month that I begin looking for where I put my snow shovels at the end of last winter. Not that I need them often, but better prepared than not, I say. With such a small home and limited storage facilities it is a wonder how long it can take to find something. Even something as large as a shovel. I fully anticipate the morning when I turn to Robin and say: “Dear, I know that I put the car away last night but do you have any idea where that might have been, by any chance?”

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September Song, by Thomas Dutronc

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Think Small

jono55

There was an article in the Times recently about how the original Volkswagen Beetles are alive and thriving in Mexico, even though they have nearly disappeared from the rest of the world. The article warmed my heart.

My first new car was a 1964 VW sedan and it was red. I loved that car. It cost me a dollar a pound ($1600) and was worth every cent.

It had its foibles, the major one being an inability to keep the cabin temperature warm enough to support life on anything approaching a cold winter day.

In snow it would plow straight ahead and was nearly unstoppable. But if the engine being over the rear wheels gave it great traction it left the front end a bit light. Translated: you could always GO but you couldn’t always TURN.

I did have one time where I was alone and stuck in a bit of snow, so I put it into low, got out of the car to push it from behind while the wheels turned slowly in low gear, then ran alongside to hop back into the driver’s seat once I had it out of the drift. (Try that maneuver with your Land Rover!)

For a long time I was a fan of the brand, owning two beetles, one squareback sedan, two regular minivans, and one camper at various times. Then the cars’ engineering and quality control began to falter, the dealers disappeared one by one, and eventually I quit Volkswagen altogether.

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In the ‘60s and ‘70s VW had the very best ad campaign. A sampling follows.

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Former president Bonespurs has stepped in it again. File this under “Rules, Schmules! Those are for suckers.” I’m talking about the recent incident at Arlington National Cemetery.

All that was asked of him and his entourage was that they respect the part of the cemetery that they were visiting and not take photos or videos to be used politically. They couldn’t manage this simple request. It was not possible for them to be thoughtful and respectful for even a few moments.

No surprises here. Gang of Thugs, n’est-ce pas?.

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I found this beautiful image in a YouTube video slideshow about the battle at Little Big Horn. Nothing about where it came from or who produced it was identified. I couldn’t let it go. I thought it deserved to be shared.

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Our recreation center (the “gym”) has been closed for nine days now for its annual cleaning and doing repairs. The managers seem to be doing a first rate job, and during the rest of the year if something breaks it is fixed within a day or two. It is also a very clean space and somehow … in some magical way .. it doesn’t smell of sweat. It’s like there are several hundred hidden bottles of Febreeze firing off on a regular basis.

Of course, the building being closed means that all of my conditioning has gone to hell and my body is returning to its default appearance, which is much like that of this famous character from Star Wars.

One of the truths of aging is that once you reach your body’s own tipping point the numbers become sort of awkward. On a hard workout day you might improve 0.5% in strength and/or aerobic capacity. Take a day off and you drop 75%. I know, depressing, isn’t it? It’s Sisyphus and his rock all over again.

(The statistics quoted here are my own, made up by my very own imagination and although they may actually be true, that would be unlikely)

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BREAKING NEWS THIS VERY LABOR DAY ABOUT THE VERY THING I ALREADY TALKED ABOUT

Because of a tougher market for their vehicles, especially EVs, it is possible that Volkswagen may need to close some of its plants in … not the UK … not France … not the USA … but Germany! This has never occurred before, not in all of VWs 87 year history.

I have a message for the company: Bring back the 1964 Beetle at $1600 and I will be the first in line at the showroom. I don’t care if my feet freeze in the winter and electric tricycles are passing me on the highway. I want to go retro in my auto choices.

Give me a car:

  • Where I can’t see the hood at all when I’m driving.
  • Where there is little or no room for luggage.
  • Where A/C doesn’t exist and never has
  • Where I sit so low I can peer under semi-trailers from the driver’s seat

And, dammit, I want a car that floats!

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There was a period of time, from 1969-1971, when I did all that I could to win the war in Viet Nam. I was largely unsuccessful, and at least part of the difficulty was being stationed in Omaha, Nebraska, which was 8557 miles from Saigon. Some of my frustrations led me into bad habits, like listening over and over to this Creedence Clearwater Revival tune with the volume knob turned toward what the room and my inner ears should not have been asked to bear.

Fortunate Son, by Creedence Clearwater Revival

A righteous tune for sure, and at the time it seemed written for me. I took some comfort there.

The Boxer, by Simon and Garfunkel

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Tougher Than The Rest

jono55

Let’s think of the present political season as opera, shall we? It makes some sense that way. The participants are given to warbling daily arias that mostly involve loud vocalizations with small content. Every word of one person’s utterances is attacked by the opposite side who respond with their own attacks on everything from grammar to logic to underlying sinister meanings.

While we don’t have the “fat lady”singing as in the old jest, we do have the overweight and orange-tinted man, who is never given anything to sing that has an extended set of lyrics, because of his short attention-span. His companion is a man of darkness and twisted sense of humor who thinks nothing of resurrecting an old video that once nearly cost a young woman her life, as a joke.

On the other side we have our heroine, who is saying just as little as she can, having found that a picture (or a video) is truly worth a thousand words. Her sidekick is a wise and amiable dispenser of homespun truths who has already coined two words or phrases that have resonated with the electorate – “weird,” and “mind your own damn business.” Not bad for a Minnesotan, but then, no one knows what to expect from these denizens of a land where winter lasts eleven months and residents wear peat moss.

We’re still in the first act of this musical drama, and who knows what is to come? One of the problems with finding music for the Dark Side is that no first-rate musician wants to lend their tunes to them, leaving only Kid Rock to help with the score.

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On a walk yesterday we saw two Cedar Waxwings high in a bare tree. Just the two. It’s a very pretty little bird, always looking very well groomed. They were chatting away up there, too far away for us to hear what they were saying.

(Admission: This pic is not mine, but was pilfered from the internet.)

Their natty appearance is striking in comparison with the crow, for instance, which often looks as if it just got out of bed and hasn’t checked out its look in a mirror yet.

Actually, the bird in the photo closely resembles me this morning, when I found my mirror image especially unkempt. My hair was so vaguely directed that the only way I could orient myself as to front vs back was to look for my eyes.

(This pic isn’t mine, either)

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When my kids were in their teens the original and only true version of MTV was on screen in our home as soon as the sun came up. I couldn’t avoid being somewhat up to date on pop musical trends because the station was always there playing in the background to educate me. Life was good, but then MTV lost its mind and never came back.

Music videos are still out there, of course, but you have to go looking for them instead of having them curated for you and served up with a golden spoon. (Sigh). Once in a while one comes along than is really moving, like this anti-war and reflective tune by the group Green Day, 21 Guns.

The title refers to the salute given by an honor guard, as at a funeral. When the group’s album American Idiot went to Broadway as a musical it didn’t do so well, and was shelved after a run of just about a year. This is that Broadway cast, doing the best song of the bunch. On a video where these beautiful people will always sound just as good and will never age.

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My ear worm this morning is not a song, but a poem. It is Invictus, written by William Ernest Henley. It was one of those short writings that I was encouraged (forced, cajoled, pressed, threatened) to learn by rote and later to regurgitate in front of the class. Which I did. Rote memory and regurgitation were specialties of mine back then.

At the time I thought the poem overblown. “Who talks like that, anyway?” But I have been tenderized by life and find that I am more susceptible to things of the spirit because I have had ample opportunity to observe their importance. Or, more to the point, what their absence can mean to the soul of a person or of a nation.

Rather than blow any further smoke, I present Invictus to you. There is no need for you to memorize it. No test looms next Friday. It’s just a handful of words that I have carried in my head for a very long time.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears.
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

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Today I think that it is a pretty awesome piece of overblown. If I am not the captain of my soul, I think that I am at least a deckhand. Let me add this song by Bruce Springsteen, who I think is basically echoing some of the sentiments of Mr. Henley. I could be wrong about that but I’ll let The Boss tell the story.

Tougher Than The Rest, by Bruce Springsteen

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Amy Tan has written a book which is a journal that she kept of the birds she saw in her backyard. At the time she was a novice birder, and she decided to learn the art of sketching those birds as she journaled.

Since I have the drawing skills of a moribund slug, I am envious. It all takes me back to second grade, where the best artist (far and a-way)among my classmates was Geraldine Hong. I never handed a paper in if it was going to immediately follow one of Geraldine’s. Dreadful were the comparisons back then, and my talents haven’t improved in 77 years. When I finish a drawing even I can’t tell what it is.

The book is a delightful read, the illustrations showing the improvement in her artistic skills over the several months that the journal covers.

Now, if you are Amy Tan, an accomplished writer and you travel in elevated creative circles, you do get help along the way from scientists, artists, and the author of the Sibley Field Guide to Birds, David Allan Sibley. Not too shabby.

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From The New Yorker. A subversive cartoon.

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