politics – Little Home In The Valley

Dorchester

August 9, 2026August 9, 2026jono55

Dorchester, Colorado would be a ghost town if there were still a town, but except for a single building all traces of what once was a community of 1000 people involved in mining have vanished. The single building eventually became a forest service guard station.

The Dorchester Guard Station is one of only two original Forest Service Guard Stations remaining in Gunnison County. It represents a unique Rocky Mountain style cabin construction and remains the only structure of the old town of Dorchester. The cabin is a one-room log cabin, originally built in 1905, in a remote area of Taylor Park. It was adjacent to the stagecoach road from Tincup to Aspen. Postal service was initiated for Dorchester on August 2, 1900 and the new cabin was designated the Post Office after its construction until July 31, 1912 when the post office was discontinued. During this time period the building also functioned as a general store, stage stop, and Forest Service phone point. By 1920, the town of Dorchester was abandoned. The land and associated structures, including the cabin, have reverted back to the U.S. Forest Service.

Gunnison County.org

The Guard Station now stands at the entry to a road to the Dorchester Campground, where Robin, Allyson, Kyle and I spent two days this past week. As campgrounds go, it fits the description of “primitive” fairly well. There are carved out camping sites, picnic tables, and two privies, one of them pleasant and the other one dreadful. But there is no electricity, no water, no trash service (pack it out is their motto), and no helpful camp host.

What there is instead is some of the more beautiful scenery in a state that specializes in it. Here is the view from our campsite.

Daytime temperatures were near 80, and the nights went as low as 37 degrees. I found that my body and my old sleeping bag had a combined comfort level of 50 degrees, so there was some rolling into the tightest ball possible during the night.

It is rugged country, especially the last 15 miles of the highway leading to the campground entry which were moderately unpleasant. A road where top speeds of 15-20 mph were definitely called for. The road surface is coarse rock on a rock bed which makes it jarring and hazardous to one’s serenity.

The Taylor River runs near the campground, a classic mountain stream with its crystal clear waters. At times it is broken up into a flowage by the biggest collection of beaver dams I’ve ever encountered. After a time each flowage again becomes the river proper.

One delightful factoid. The Taylor River is long and gorgeous, the Taylor Park (valley) is huge and beautiful, and all of this is named after Jim Taylor, a miner who staked a claim out there in 1859. He was not a general, not a politician, not an oligarch. Just plain ol’ Jim. Love that.

Here’s smattering of pix from our visit. It’s the kind of scenery that a small camera in my unskilled hands cannot do justice.

******

The smoke in the air is unusually heavy again this morning. Who knows from which of the many western fires? Today it is intense enough to cause some coughing and eye irritation. I can’t say for certain how long, but we’ve had smoky air for at least two months now. There have been five deaths among firefighters in our area, and all of the local communities are grateful for the help these courageous men and women provide. It’s been a long bad fire season so far.

The needs for help have climbed, while the supply of men and women to fight these fires is coming up short. Fatigue and burnout are very real when too few have too much work. Add to this the fact that pay for doing this hard and dangerous work is often feeble.

******

******

I have a long and carefully curated love for the music of Tom Waits. When I want to listen to it, I set aside the time because I would rather not be interrupted. And I leave one foot on the floor beside the bed to take my leave when I begin to feel too drawn into it. Because in his catalog there is enough melancholy to drown in if one is a weak swimmer and incautious enough to go out past their depth. There’s also quite a bit of it that is bonkers, as if being shouted out by a series of bipolar carnival barkers.

My favorite song in his ouevre? Can’t pick one. But today, just because of where my heart is … Looking for the Heart of Saturday Night comes pretty close.

I think that there are perfect moments in life … perfectly happy … perfectly sad … perfectly angry … . Those memories are the framework, the skeleton for a life, and lesser moments fill in the gaps between. This song is perfectly disquieting when one is rummaging through one’s back tapes and albums. I never had an Oldsmobile, but I did have a Ford …

Looking for the Heart of Saturday Night, by Tom Waits

******

I heard a new conspiracy theory recently. It was that Cluck was already dead, and that a stand-in is being paraded at public functions by the wealthy cabal that bankrolls the political right wing. It works because his supporters are already past caring about the content of anything he says or does, accepting the entire dismal catalog without question. Who, after all, has the temerity to question God?

Interesting thought. My own response is – don’t buy it. Although there is a long history of dictators having such lookalikes represent them, especially in dangerous situations, to have someone play the role continuously would be a stretch.

******

Joey, by Peggy Lee

******

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

Thomas Jefferson

******

Lonesome Buddha

July 29, 2026jono55

I’ve read the book five times, seen the television series four times, and referred to the story enough times to make my friends gag at its mention and run to their cars for trips to town on errands they suddenly recalled. The book and series are Lonesome Dove. Robert Duvall has had a long and productive life as an actor, and the role he played in Lonesome Dove is his favorite of them all.

Today I found myself thinking about how a real Buddhist (not a half-assed one like myself) would approach our nation’s troubles. For sure the painful straitjacket presently stretching across America would not give him pause. After all, the Buddha lived 2500 years ago, and if you have been paying attention you could not have missed that there has been quite a lot of nasty stuff that happened during that time.

The perspective that such a person might have would inform him that change is inevitable, that even the sturdiest dictators have largely come to bad ends. No, this thoughtful person would remember where his roots were, where reliable happiness was to be found, how to deal with life in the chaos.

Sooo, Gus McCrae, the character played by Duvall in Lonesome Dove, was not a Buddhist, but I think he could easily have been grandfathered in. Here’s Gus talking with Lori about disappointments, and the suffering we cause ourselves.

I’m not too enamored with buttermilk, but today I bought a cantaloupe at the market after carefully tapping it to check on its ripeness. Once home, I grabbed a long thin-bladed knife and first cut it in half, then sliced one of those halves into slender crescents. As I raised one slice to my mouth its aroma preceded it, and there was no disappointment when I bit in. Suc-cu-lence!

In a small way it was like an exercise that Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh used in teaching mindfulness meditation, where he made use of a single raisin. It is summarized as follows. (this following bit of text is by AI, not me)

The Practice Steps

Hold the raisin: Place one raisin in your palm. Look at it closely as if you have never seen one before, noticing its color, folds, and ridges.
Touch and smell: Roll it between your fingers to feel the texture. Hold it under your nose to inhale its scent.
Place in the mouth: Put it on your tongue without chewing yet. Notice how it feels in your mouth.
Chew slowly: Take one or two deliberate chews. Notice the release of flavor and how the texture changes.
Swallow consciously: Feel the intention to swallow, and follow the small piece as it moves down into your body.

Contemplating Interbeing

See the origins: Reflect on how the raisin came to be. See the sunshine, the rain, the earth, and the clouds within the fruit.
Acknowledge others: Recognize the labor of the farmworkers who picked the grapes, the people who dried and packaged them, and those who brought them to the store.
Cultivate gratitude: Realize that without this vast web of life and cooperation, the single raisin would not exist, generating deep thankfulness for the present moment.

******

July has been a seemingly unending series of ninety-degree days, looking forward and back. The countryside is baked hard. For the most part the good citizens of Paradise stay indoors during the day, leaving the tennis and pickleball courts uninhabited. Hydrate … hydrate … hydrate is the mantra.

Our cat, Willow, has met the outdoor smelter with a simple course of action. Don’t go there. Not until the sun goes down, that is. And then stay out most of the night. So from sunup to sundown we find her in her favorite indoor sleeping places, of which there are four in regular rotation. After supper she pads over to the cat portal, assesses what is beyond it, and then takes off.

******

I have a new game to add to those being played in Washington D.C. called Where’s Mitch? Since that singular person has been missing for a month, imaginations have run wild. Not everybody thinks he is still among the living, but without proof one way or another all anyone can do is guess.

Below is a gallery of sightings that were reported as suspicious but eventually proved not to be McConnell.

******

It all started with my reading a post on Substack on that old cradle-robber, Jerry Lee Lewis. His career toileted when he married his seriously underage cousin.

So times were hard in 1964, and here was Lewis playing a seedy club in Hamburg, Germany with a back-up band assembled at the last minute. The recording of that concert “stacks up well with any hard-line rock album before or since,” says the author of the piece. I hadn’t heard it before but it is vintage Jerry Lee, which means quite a lot.

The album contains only 8 songs and the total running time is only 22 minutes. It takes me longer to soak my feet some mornings. I provide one cut, a kickbutt of a version of Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.

******

Unhinged

July 22, 2026jono55

There are two life lessons that I have to pass along this morning. I have others are others that I could mention, but these two are crucial for me to keep in mind, I think.

#1: There is more kindness in the world than I ever imagined.

#2: There is more cruelty in the world than I ever suspected.

Why have such a somber opening in today’s posting? Mostly because my country is presently exemplifying the latter of the two lessons listed above. At almost every turn and in nearly every aspect of our domestic and foreign policies you find there is both dangerous stupidity and the basest sort of malignity that are operative to a degree which is nearly blinding in its brazenness.

If I didn’t firmly believe what Lesson #1 provides, I don’t know how I would manage the daily dung-stream that rolls down my computer screen and into my eyes. What has been for me the most painful thing of all is realizing how many of my neighbors accept cruelty as a normal way of conducting our nation’s affairs.

******

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

The Dalai Lama

******

It’s best that we mortals not try to predict the future and leave such things to the gods. For instance, I can easily imagine back on some sunny day in 1975 that Zeus took a long look at this guy and said:

“I think that when he gets to be an old fart, we could pair him with one of the best female country singers on the planet and they would make two peerless albums of duets.”

And so Robert Plant and Alison Krauss got together in the studio to make the album Raising Sand. Fourteen years later they made Raise the Roof. I really doubt that an ordinary human could have seen that coming.

Please Read the Letter, by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss

******

We are all just walking each other home.

Ram Dass

******

Robin and I are watching a three-part series about Abraham Lincoln. It’s one of those creatures called docu-dramas, and has quite a cast of commentators, former President Obama being one of them. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin is another. Look for it on Netflix.

Just as there is not a day that passes without new and odious revelations about our 47th president, I have never watched or read anything about Mr. Lincoln that did not improve my views on humanity and make me feel better about my membership in the species. We are capable of such great and good things, and there is no shortage of leaders, past and present, to provide us guidance toward a world where justice and kindness prevail.

We may have to look for them, they are often the quieter ones in the back of the room rather than one of those people who are scrambling to get to the microphone.

******

Killing the Blues, by Alison Krauss & Robert Plant

******

The tedium of balancing the checkbook or reconciling the checking account software over an adult lifetime has been almost stultifying. Every month of every year and the only thing you find to break the monotony is a rare check that you forgot to record . And the bank never makes a mistake. I had almost decided to give it up as a complete waste of energy.

Until this week, when the printed log of my account revealed a photocopy of a withdrawal check signed by a complete stranger, from an account whose number was not at all similar to ours. The check was for five hundred dollars.

When I took the document to the bank, the teller’s pupils dilated and she immediately told me to take a seat, while she notified someone higher up the chain of command . When that esteemed person came over with the paper now firmly in her hand, she took great pains to tell me how an error like this might have occurred. It was obvious that she was embarrassed for the institution and wanted me to know that stuff like this simply didn’t happen at the Bank of Colorado.

The Bank manager and the teller, in my fervid imagination.

I didn’t care. I wanted my five hundred dollars back. Exactly how it had been taken away was of no interest to me and was their issue. But … now I can never think of quitting with doing these boring reconciliations. Bleah.

******

Sweet Jane

July 19, 2026July 19, 2026jono55

In 1988 the Cowboy Junkies brought out an album which was melancholic enough that I adopted it in toto. It was a grand fit for the chaos in my life at the time, and was in constant replay all of that year and the next. The album was called The Trinity Sessions, and was a breakthrough recording for the group.

One cut on the album was their interpretation of the Lou Reed song Sweet Jane, which by now everybody that ever lived has probably heard somewhere. Hypnotic, doleful, haunting. You might think that the song had been just waiting for Margo Timmins’ quiet voice.

Sweet Jane, by Cowboy Junkies

******

As America continues to stumble through these grotesque days I know that eventually some idiot is going to say “You know, one day we’ll look back on this and laugh.” At that moment I will raise my ancient fist and smack him alongside the head. I am not ordinarily a violent person, but that would just be too much.

Of course this would almost certainly be instantly followed by my receiving a severe pummeling, but a guy has to do what a guy has to do.

******

At an AA meeting this week I happened to mention one of my favorite quotations by Mark Twain.

Nothing so focuses the mind as the prospect of being hanged.

Mark Twain

It must have caught their fancy because everyone in the room but Robin reached for their pen and made a note to themselves to look it up. Robin, of course, has heard everything I have in my head several times by now and hardly notices when my lips start flapping, and therefore her hands remained quietly in her lap.

That’s one problem with living with me. I have only a few things to say but that doesn’t stop me from repeating them endlessly. My first wife lasted twenty-five years before she ran screaming down the street one day and never came back. Through some miracle of fortitude Robin has made it to thirty-four years, but I keep my eye on that large suitcase of hers out in the garage just in case I ever find it packed and ready to go at a time when we have no trip planned.

******

Cluck gave one of his signature wanderlogues on television this past week, but of the major networks only CBS carried it, while ABC, CNN, and NBC passed. We have come to expect nothing less from CBS, which climbed into bed with Cluck when he raised the edge of the coverlet a trifle and made room for them. It’s one more phase of the sad downslide for a network that once was perhaps the most reliable of them all, certainly during the Walter Cronkite days they stood for something other than a being a gaggle of lackeys.

As an aside, when something like sanity returns to American political life, it would seem a good time for the trustbusters to take a long hard look at recent media mergers. At some point, bigger becomes a real problem, and we’ve got it already.

******

Can’t talk about Sweet Jane without bringing in the man who wrote the song, from the live album Rock and Roll Animal.

Two guitarists, Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, play a long and famous introduction to Reed’s appearance on stage, and then they dig in hard when he shows up. It’s a one-act play for the ears.

Intro/Sweet Jane, by Lou Reed

******

“Nicholas Dale, a 56-year-old helicopter pilot from British Columbia, Canada, died on July 12, 2026, when his K-MAX helicopter crashed into the Silver Jack Reservoir in western Colorado while fighting the Gold Mountain fire. The fatal crash is currently being investigated by the NTSB and the FAA.”

“Hundreds of local residents, including public servants and first responders in Montrose County, lined U.S. Highway 50 to honor Dale and pay tribute to his ultimate sacrifice. His remains were recovered by the Montrose County Sheriff’s Office dive team shortly after the aircraft went down.“

Various news sources

Our local wildfires have claimed one more firefighter. The reservoir cited above is only an hour’s drive from us. We’ve visited it several times. This brings the sad total of lives lost in this fire season in Paradise to four.

******

Bridges

July 8, 2026July 8, 2026jono55

There is one positive thing about being surrounded by wildfires in that there are some of the prettiest sunrises and sunsets as the color red comes to the fore in both of them. We’ve had about two weeks now of poor air quality due to smoke. Even the teensy version of asthma that I have has been provoked by it.

Robin and I cancelled on walking with Indivisible in the local parade on the 4th of July. We decided that if we were going to be taking a chance on sunstroke or smoke inhalation or both, ’twas time to bow out. Fair weather rebels, we.

The smoke is heavy enough that you can begin to see a faint haze between you and any object more than twenty feet away. Our friends on oxygen are staying home, eating what’s left in the pantry before they venture to the grocery store. We volunteer to run those errands but they are stubborn folk and insist on doing it themselves.

Just to reassure, Robin and I are in no danger. None of the fires are close enough or in the right location to threaten Montrose.

******

The image of the masked “patriots” on the bus tells a story, doesn’t it? A young black woman surrounded by a gaggle of MOLC (Men Of Little Courage) on public transportation.

The men, of course, are on their way to a white nationalist demonstration, where they will do their best to get that woman to her proper place in the back of the bus once again. These cowardly dipsticks have nowhere to swim but upstream, although it seems that they haven’t the wit to realize it.

******

The Way It Is, by Bruce Hornsby and the Range

******

The header image today is of the famous painting by Norman Rockwell entitled the The Problem We All Live With. It portrays a six year-old girl named Ruby Bridges being escorted to school by federal marshals in 1960. She was, all by her small self, integrating a New Orleans school.

My imagination falls short each time I hear this story. The courage of that family, to send their child through the hate-filled mob each day. Who has courage like that?

The mob that came together to threaten and hurl imprecations at a six year-old girl. What is wrong with people who could do that to a child?

Here’s a video with some of Ruby’s story.

******

Bridge Over Troubled Water, by Simon and Garfunkel

******

Today’s button image is worn by a group of citizens who attend and monitor the Montrose City Council meetings. At present the council is 60% MAGA … ’nuff said?

******

Fire In The Hole

July 1, 2026July 1, 2026jono55

This past week we took a tour of the Old Hundred Mine, located near Silverton CO. At $29 per person, it was by far the most expensive such tour we’d ever encountered. By a factor of at least two. But I think it was worth it. First we were loaded into tram cars and then we were whistled straight into a mountain for three miles, in nearly complete darkness.

When we reached the turning around point, the tram stopped and we disembarked and gathered around the leader/spokesperson. We learned about the history of mining drills and drilling, and the demonstrations of those implements were dramatic and deafening. Next he covered how miners communicated through visual signals, since the environment was often a very noisy one. We also heard about ore handling, the history of lighting in mines, and some differences between hard rock mining and coal mining.

What made this all more meaningful was that this man was a lifelong resident of Silverton, and had worked for two decades at the same job he was telling us about, with its rewards and dangers. The takeaway impressions of our little group were almost unanimous. We were:

fascinated by the information he provided
repelled by some of the tragic stories of injury and death that he shared, of people he had known personally
appreciative of the humor woven throughout his presentation
absolutely grateful that we had never been put into a situation where working as a miner was asked of us, because we would have bolted immediately

One sidebar. At one place outside the mine if you looked up you could see the remains of the famous Old Hundred Boarding House very near the top of the mountain. Since back in the day the trip up to that level was by mule and was both slow and hazardous, a boarding house was built at the top. It was bolted to the mountain itself, and had a front deck that was pretty dramatic.

While trying to sleep in a building that had to be fastened to a mountain to keep it from sliding off into the abyss would have likely been impossible for an acrophobic like myself, I can easily recognize that it saved hours and hours of travel time to and from the ground thousands of feet below. Here’s a small boarding house gallery to give you a better idea of what I’m talking about.

So that $29 ticket price … pretty high but worth it for the realistic scenes and the colorful word painting by our tour guide.

******

My personal journey in non-violence greatly intensified the day that John F. Kennedy was shot. Like so many of us I was staggered by that event, going from disbelief to grief to anger and back to disbelief countless times in the succeeding hours and days. We know now that he was far from a perfect man, but at the time he and his wife represented courage and possibility and brought out the vision of a shining America of which we could be proud. So how could a single bullet take all of that away?

That’s the problem with death. There is no reprieve, no walking it back. No second chances or do-overs. In those golden but bloody years when Kennedy and Martin Luther King and Medgar Evers and Bobby Kennedy walked the earth and were then murdered my revulsion at political violence only strengthened. It is why even though Cluck is the loathsome creature that he is and even though he is harming our country almost with every in-breath and out-breath, I don’t want some yahoo with a rifle to make him a tawdry martyr.

Make no mistake, I want him gone, and if given the opportunity I would happily volunteer to drive the van carrying him to prison, but if humans are going to make lasting progress, violence in all spheres needs to be dialed back to as close to zero as we can get it.

******

In 1976 Tom Waits was becoming the kind of alcoholic that I had hoped to become when I grew up. One that wandered smoky bars and midnight avenues in the company of colorful characters. An artist sacrificing his body to follow his muse and then perishing while mourners filled all the barstools but the one held empty in his honor.

Only problem was that while I was capable of bending my elbow with the best (or worst) of them I wasn’t an artist. I was just another doofus who didn’t know when to stop and then found that he couldn’t.

Waits came up with a new album that year, Small Change, and this was the song that led it off.

Tom Traubert’s Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen), by Tom Waits

******

Saturday evening the smoke blew in, coming from southwest Colorado and southeastern Utah. Enough to irritate the eyes, trigger a cough of two. The aroma of a campfire was everywhere.

On the map, Montrose would be located just south of Delta.

On last Saturday three firefighters lost their lives near the Colorado-Utah border. A tragic loss. There are times when fires are burning nearer to us that I see members of firefighting crews in town, usually shopping for groceries or grabbing coffees at a Starbuck’s. They are all young and fit and there is such an obvious camaraderie present it is a joy to watch.

They are one more bunch of people in uniforms that keep us safe by doing work that is dangerous and they know it but they still go out there. Such courage is a rare commodity, something never to be wasted.

******

Song to the Siren, by Nobody’s Wolf Child

******

Much Ado About Something

June 28, 2026jono55

This is a confession. Supposedly doing it is good for the soul, cleansing and renewal and all that … we will see. There have certainly been times in my life when I confessed one thing or another and it didn’t turn out well for me at all, but let’s not go into that, okay? My present admission of wrongdoing is that I am using ChatGPT to muck about with my own photographs, and having quite a bit of fun doing it.

An example is today’s header image of the White River. I took a perfectly good photo, loaded it into ChatGPT, and told the program to make the pic into something on the order of a plein air painting, and you can see the result. I liked it enough to use it for today’s blog entry. Here is the whole deal in a nutshell:

there is nothing that the program can do that a skilled user of any high-quality photo editing program, like Photoshop, hasn’t been able to do for ages
I am not a skilled photo editor user, being actually embarrassingly incompetent at it
all that was required of me in this instance is that I told my AI co-conspirator what to do, in the simplest of terms
the result made me happy, so I am likely to repeat the offense and the resultant deception of the viewer
I have no conscience twinges at all about this manipulation
this is the last time I will ever mention it, from here on in I will take full credit for having talents that I do not in the slightest possess

******

So. Central Rain (I/m Sorry), by R.E.M.

******

I created something in the food department this past week. Earlier I had made another dish that required caramelized onions as an ingredient, and as I was sampling them I thought … you know, I bet these would taste awfully good in that home-made hummus that I brew up periodically. I did a quick web search and found that there are few hummus-making companies that make such a product. Apparently cooking those onions takes time and doesn’t fit well into an industrial model.

So I tried it and voila! ‘Twas delicious! My appreciation for the sweet/savory dish that is caramelized onions is easy to trace. Back in the 1940s my mother would cook liver and onions for our family, and by the time everything was ready to serve those onions were black/brown, crispy, and addictive. We had this tasty stuff rather frequently for a couple of reasons, the first being economy. Organ meats were cheap and available, even in a time of wartime rationing.

The second reason was that every member of our family liked it. As a quasi-cook myself, I know that having something to serve that everyone likes is just too seductive. Such a dish will show up on the table way more often than food that produces grimaces and revulsion.

So, if you are ever served my onion-flavored hummus, know that you are on my A-list. Because making it is some trouble, after all.

******

There are some small fires burning here on the Western Slope, and Wednesday morning here’s what our sun looked like through smoke drifting past us.

The fires are in remote areas and not threatening lives or buildings, so don’t get much attention in the media even locally. With so little rain this year, tinder is basically everywhere.

Today I remembered the lines from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner as I walked out onto the now creaking wooden deck in the backyard:

“Water, water, everywhere
And all the boards did shrink”

Yep, shrunk and creaking they are.

******

It wouldn’t be a giant leap to call me an escapist. From reality, that is. I like movies and I love music, and both of them provide moments when my thoughts are completely diverted from where I am and what I am doing and what is going on about me. I am escaping. As a card-carrying geezer now I take time to look backward at my life and try to make sense of it, usually failing. It’s a haphazard script with no distinct plot line, but it’s what I have to work with.

Movies hold a special place in that retrospective. From the time I took my 17 cent allowance and walked to a Saturday matinee at the Nokomis Theater in Minneapolis right up to today, I have noticed one continuous thread. When I would leave the theater as a nine year-old, for about an hour or two I would take on the characteristics of the hero of the film, acting like him or talking like him. I was taller, smarter, stronger than everyone else, who were now boring creatures that I was doomed to deal with. I absolutely reeked with suavity and savoir-faire.

Jump forward to 1969 as I was leaving the theater after viewing “The Godfather” along with several friends. This time I felt those same stirrings, but this time I felt guilty about them. I recognized that I had seen something more than an entertainment, I had witnessed a great movie. But what was it about? A bunch of fascinating people who killed other people without a thought. They had a sort of code that they lived and died by, which only meant that while women and children were not to be touched, it was open season on any adult male who stood in their way. So now I walked and talked like an amalgam of Al Pacino and Marlon Brando, but I felt very very uneasy about what had just happened to me. I recognized that I had been completely manipulated. All of that evening’s “heroes” were murderers, and I cared what happened to them.

And here comes Thursday’s NYTimes to shine some light on my personal murk. A film writer (another geezer) has written a book about movies and it touches on exactly those sort of transformations.

“You could argue that ‘The Godfather’ is the key film,” Thomson said. “It did everything the medium is meant to do. It had a gang of absolutely brilliant people. That film brought together talents of an incredible nature.” In addition to Coppola and a cast that included Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall and a parade of first-rate character actors, the movie owes its place in the canon to people like Dean Tavoularis, the production designer; the cinematographer Gordon Willis; and the sound editor Walter Murch.

“It was a smash hit,” Thomson went on. “It won all the prizes, and yet what is not talked about very much is what the film is about. For me what the film is about is persuading men that they want to be in the gang and in the family, and they want to do the terrible things the guys do and they want to shut the women out of the room.”

NYTimes: Did Movies Ruin Everything?

But here’s the question that still rankles. Why in the world would I want to emulate anything at all, if only for a nanosecond, about this guy?

(Nice suit, though.)

******

On Wednesday something unusual happened in our corner of the universe. Around 2:45 in the afternoon there was a 15 minute downpour of much needed rain. Only a quarter of an inch fell, but it caused one significant disturbance here in Paradise.

For the past several months our local City Market grocery store has been undergoing a large restructuring and renovation, and the end is still not in sight. When that rain poured down it found flaws in the workmen’s planning, and water began to pour into the store from one end to the other. At first the management tried to deal with it by closing first this aisle and then that aisle, but they finally gave up and closed the store completely at 3:00 PM.

It was a case of much ado and you can bet there will be finger-pointing of the first magnitude.

******

In Defense Of Odd Ducks

June 24, 2026jono55

I started out the day reading one of those NYTimes obituaries called “Overlooked No More,” where the subject died long ago, this time in 1986. This one was about of one of the great loners of life, a man named Robbie Basho. Guitar player, singer, lifelong celibate, spiritual seeker forever on the road.

The piece made him sound desperately lonely. Living life on the margins and having to be supported by his father well into adulthood, making music that rather deliberately goes its own idiosyncratic way, it would be tempting to give him a diagnosis of mental illness of some sort. To try to find some DSM shoebox to put him in.

There was a book published back in the sixties written by Thomas Szasz called “The Myth of Mental Illness” which had a lasting effect on my thinking about the labeling that we do today, and have always done, of those whose minds spend less time in the mainstream than our own. It helps to remember than until 1973, psychiatry officially defined homosexuality as a mental illness.

DSM-IV accepts that no definition adequately specifies precise boundaries for the concept of mental disorder. This concept, like many others in medicine and science, lacks a consistent operational definition that covers all situations. Because mental disorders are a heterogenous category of disorders, no single definition captures the entire range of conditions that are currently included in this term.

Psychiatric Times

The obituary made it sound as if his music might be hard to find, but Apple Music offers quite a lot of it to us. The tenor vocals are not your everyday stuff, sounding like something from another age, certainly another culture. Many resemble medieval ballads. The instrumentals were the most interesting to me, with their novel tunings and rhythms. I listened to many of those cuts in today’s early hours, and there were those that were haunting, like the one that follows.

Rocky Mountain Raga, by Robbie Basho

******

Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in the desert.

Khalil Gibran

******

Here in Paradise we are one mile closer to the sun than those that live at sea level. You’d think that being 93,000,000 miles away from that precious star of ours a single mile wouldn’t make a difference, but at least in my imagination it does. At midday when the temperature is in the 90s on a cloudless afternoon the sun is merciless. Your skin can turn a lovely shade of red much quicker up here, making sunscreens a vital need.

The sunlight leaches the color from everything it can reach. Signs and automobiles seem especially vulnerable. You can easily tell which cars have been garaged and which had to face old Sol all day long. Some retail establishments who perhaps saved a dollar or two on the sign that is their advertisement to the world come to regret it when after only a very few years that ad looks ancient, becomes almost illegible.

Some retail establishments who perhaps saved a dollar or two on the sign that is their gateway come to regret it when after only a very few years that ad looks ancient, becomes almost illegible.

This June it has been warm enough to set records many times. In the middle of the day there is no one out and about in our little housing development. We are all hunkered behind drawn drapes and waiting for the afternoon shadows to lengthen and provide a protective cover. When I lived in Buffalo NY, a cloudy sky was the norm, and whenever the sun broke through it was reason for celebration. Not so much here in Paradise.

So far this year, we’ve had 2.6 inches of rain here in Montrose, which is less than half of normal. Even that normal amount of rain produces what is termed a semi-arid climate. At the 50% level, we are that much closer to being a Mojave Desert suburb. Local municipal water costs are high enough that only the more affluent have those lush green lawns that are so (foolishly?) admired. Everyone else’s yards are half-brown, the grass stressed and tired, hanging in there and waiting for the coolness of Fall.

But one saving grace of living in Paradise is that we have only to take an hour’s drive to the north, south, or west to escape the furnace. A visit to Silverton at 9,000 feet takes away nearly ten to twenty degrees from those record temperatures. Like a splash of cool water.

******

Cool Water, by Fleetwood Mac

******

What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

******

Going to spend Thursday night in a rental cabin with the Hurleys. The cabin is small, with no electricity, running water only in summer, and limited cooking facilities. It’s a 50th birthday for Amy. When the children are AARP material it becomes even more difficult to maintain those mental myths of being middle-aged.

The cabin is located along the road to Silverton, and back far enough in the woods that it is not visible from the highway. Hiking is possible, a stream runs right by the place, and there is a grand view from the wooden deck. (Robin and I scoped it out a couple of weeks ago). Looks like fun to me.

I am in charge of cooking supper on Thursday, so of course I initially overthought the whole thing and brought myself to the fingernail-chewing point as a result. The menu that has evolved is almost bulletproof, needs only primitive help from the primitive gas stove and oven, and can be kept warm for hours if need be. So I am very near being relaxed and may even enjoy myself.

I do have a clear memory of one camping episode where I was responsible for the supper and had prepared a white chili ahead of time. I thought that, too, was a bulletproof arrangement. Just before serving it to our fellow campers I managed to dump the whole kettle-full onto the ground, where it mixed with the forest duff at the campsite. You might want to make a note of this, but combining beaucoup dirt and a few cups of pine needles with a white chili makes for quite an unattractive entrée. I scooped the mess up, tossed it into the trash, and off we went to a nearby town for pizza.

******

Plus ça change …

June 21, 2026jono55

It was a different time but everything is still the same. The novel and the film made from John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath have been almost sacred documents for me. I don’t remember the moment when I first saw the movie but it made an impression that I never got over. Maybe I was looking through the slats of my crib when I saw it, but who cares anyway? There is so much in it, so many lessons to learn. The acting is superb, the cinematography an excellent black and white.

Toward the end of the story there is a speech for the ages, and Henry Fonda does it full justice. Riveting.

And what parts of that speech, filmed in 1940, do not apply today? Hunger, violence against working people, homelessness, poverty, greedy politicians, police brutality … all set in a country beset by drought and near-famine.

We don’t have a Dust Bowl to point to, but we do have an overheated planet on our hands, and a loooong-lasting drought here in the West. We have the thugs of ICE sent out by our own President to beat us up, kidnap us, and kill us. We have bankers, politicians, and plutocrats to suck up the money that could save tens of thousands of lives. We have an epidemic of homelessness, one that is even more durable than that of the refugees in Steinbeck’s story.

A French man coined a phrase in 1849 that goes something like this (actually, it goes exactly like this): Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose . Translation: The more things change, the more they are the same.

******

Hold On, by Tom Waits

******

Here’s a few stills from the movie Grapes of Wrath. Just the act of selecting them gets me stirred up and means I’ll have to watch the movie again soon.

******

In general, Americans are not a people who plan long-term. At least our political leaders don’t. It is rare for them to look beyond the next election cycle. While this is an understandable thing for selfish men and women of limited wit to do, it is not good for the big business that is the US. Because it means that we are forever using Band-aids to cover the leaks in the dike, rather than getting a good stonemason out there to effect a more durable fix. Whiplash, carom, ping-pong and ricochet are words that could describe our domestic policies and programs way too often.

I long to see grownups in office. I believe that there are more of them out there, but perhaps that is too much to ask. Perhaps talented adults look at the gigantic squalling daycare that is Congress and say “Not me, buddy, no way am I going in there. Spending (two, four, six) years getting nothing done but changing their diapers is not the life for me.”

Or … who knows? Using the celestial imagery that I grew up with, there are way too many days when it looks to me that Satan is in charge while God has tired of us and has pulled back for a well-deserved rest from our unceasing babble.

We’re on our own, folks, and I wonder if we’re up to it. But hey, it’s time for me to make a new sign and carry it down to the public square. There is always fun to be had in pissing off the yahoo contingent in town.

******

There’s A Bright Side Somewhere, by Ry Cooder

******

This is a marvelous little tale about a ballet production in Turkey. The kind of accidental happening that warms the heart. Title of the Piece: In Its Tragic Finale, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ Is Interrupted by a Cat. We can all use a good cat story once in a while, and this one fills that bill nicely.

******

Looking For The Heart of Saturday Night, by Tom Waits

******

And now, in the slightly creepy department, a recounting of my latest adventure in AI.

In the early morning hours of Thursday I had posed a question to ChatGPT, and had received a helpful answer. The interesting thing is that at one point the text read: “there are many choices but what I would recommend in your situation is …”

Notice that pronoun? It said “I”.

I immediately shut down the computer. I have no idea who “I” is, and I was not in a mood to receive visitors. Then, as I stared at the empty screen I realized that I had no way of knowing whether the machine was still looking at and listening to me. My confidence in the On/Off switch has been shaken.

******

Horsepower

June 17, 2026jono55

On Sunday evening Robin and I attended an event at a local BnB which was sponsored by our local Indivisible chapter. This was a social occasion rather than a strategizing occasion, which was sorely needed by the working members. So good to just have some time to hang out and enjoy one another’s company.

The first half hour consisted of mingling and the next two hours we spent watching a television broadcast of the Rise Up: Sing Out! concert that was taking place in New York City and being viewed all across the USA. There were stirring speeches and stirring songs and a lot of beautiful people saying things we needed to hear. Jane Fonda was there, as was Bette Midler.

Robert De Niro even got up to speak and to give his assessment of what we can answer whenever we hear Trump open his mouth. According to him all we need to say is: Shut the fuck up. For the next minute the audience enjoyed a call and response thing where De Niro would make a statement and we would answer with that same pithy phrase. Clearing out the cobwebs, so to speak.

Robin even won a door prize, so the evening was a total success.

One of the last songs of the evening was The People Have The Power, written and sung by Patti Smith, from her 1988 album. The song was long and loud and brash and was a perfect fit for the evening.

The People Have The Power, by Patti Smith

******

I hope that you can forgive an old Minnesota boy for having completely missed Patti Smith. Singer, songwriter, poet, photographer, author of twenty books. Whew! Right by me. What a waste of space I have been. The case could be made for just putting me to sleep and making an end to the whole sorry thing.

On the other hand, if you recall these words of Jesus imagine what a good day they are having in Heaven right now.

I say unto you that likewise more joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance.

Luke 15:7, King James Bible

My first attempt at repentance was to read the Wikipedia biographic entry on Patti Smith, and by the time I was done with even that abbreviated bit of prose I was exhausted. And in awe. She is such a creative person that she makes the gap between her and we ordinary mortals depressingly obvious . When Bob Dylan couldn’t make it to Oslo to pick up his Nobel Prize for poetry, who do you think went in his stead? Yep, it was Patti Smith.

I’d love to see a PET scan of her brain at work, I’ll bet you could light an entire room with the glow.

She is regarded as one of the earliest punk performers, and the album Horses is listed among Rolling Stones’ 100 Greatest Albums. But in my listening this week I found that she has a tender and lyrical side as well. Here’s the lullaby “The Jackson Song” from Dream of Life. It was written for her two-year old son. Prepare to be beguiled.

The Jackson Song, by Patti Smith

***

Lyrics to: The Jackson Song

***

Patti Smith yesterday and today.

******

Coming back from the grocery store I was listening to our local station which is KVNF. It’s the kind of station where the absence of corporate ownership means a lack of the sterility you find generally in music radio. Definitely old school. Local DJs play what they want, and between the bunch of them they cover pretty much all of musical genres except for classical. Today one was playing a version of Bruce Springsteen’s The Ghost of Tom Joad. It was a live performance and was both electrified and rock-ified. Tom Morello sings along with Bruce. Good cover. Enough passion for a multitude.

The Ghost of Tom Joad, by Bruce Springsteen and Tom Morello

******

I’ll See Your Rheingold and Raise You a Valkyrie …

June 14, 2026June 14, 2026jono55

As we approach the version of Götterdämmerung that the downfall of Cluck and his henchmen might produce, it has to be with a mixture of joy and apprehension. We don’t know exactly what will come after, do we? Whenever one of the people on “our side” says about a progressive candidate: “As long as he’s opposed to Trump, we can tolerate almost anything,” it does provoke a twinge or two. That’s probably what the Republicans said a few years back, and look how that turned out.

Thing is, I do care. And we need to realize that until we have shored up the damaged places where our country’s support systems that were supposed to keep us safe have failed, there will be all kinds of people coming forward to stake claims. For a while you and I may have odd bedfellows indeed, perhaps some that give us that fingernails-on-the-blackboard sort of feeling. Perhaps we will find down the road that there is more to them than the rough cobs they seem today, perhaps not. But today we need more men and women like AOC, like Bernie Sanders, like Graham Plattner. Because whatever their flaws or past mistakes they are comrades in arms.

One big lesson we have borrowed from the past and that will be most helpful in the future is trust but verify, trust but verify, trust but verify, trust but verify. Did I mention trust but verify? Good. As we try to assemble a government from the dysfunctional mess that Cluck has created, we may have to ask each one of us to empty our pockets and our lunchpails as we walk through the company gate at day’s end, until we find ourselves on a better track again.

All of this somehow reminds me of the Russian story about men and wheelbarrows.

There was a man who had worked at a factory for twenty years. Every night when he left the plant, he would push a wheelbarrow full of straw to the guard at the gate.The guard would look through the straw, and finding nothing he would pass the man through.

On the day of his retirement the man came to the guard at the gate as usual but without the wheelbarrow. Having become friends over the years, the guard asked him, “Boris, I’ve seen you walk out of here every night for twenty years. I know you’ve been stealing something. Now that you’re retired, tell me what it is. It’s driving me crazy.”

Boris simply smiled and replied, “I’ve been stealing wheelbarrows!”

Cluck hasn’t been stealing wheelbarrows. He’s been stealing from the people’s treasury, the people’s reputations, the people’s national security, and the people’s public health. He has undermined organizations devoted to keeping us safe, dismantled our agencies of scientific inquiry, assaulted the purity of our air and water … my fingers tire of typing out his many sins, at the thoughts of the hurt he and his people have caused.

Götterdämmerung … Twilight of the Gods … indeed. Some gods these guys have been … false as the day is long. Bringing them down to their proper size will probably take time and some bleeding of the body public.

Let those who are able resolve to protect our most vulnerable ones until this tumult has passed.

******

Gray autumn morning
Poco and I side by side
Each on his own chair

******

We are still watching the soaper Nashville, and the plots and subplots have all of the characters’ hearts aflutter all of the time. Five episodes ago a new member of the cast playing a talented singer was revealed to have an ex-husband, when the man shows up after five years to threaten her, and ends up punching her in the face. The singer then buys a gun.

Since then the errant ex has been portrayed as just the nastiest piece of work, and he has made the woman absolutely miserable. He even successfully sued her for a chunk of her earnings. It’s seemingly win, win, win for this sweatstain on the face of the earth. But Robin and I know something he doesn’t, which is that the Principle of Chekhov’s Gun has been invoked, which goes like this:

If you show a gun in the first act, you must fire it by the third act.

Our message to the ex-husband’s character: One of these days, you arrogant blaggard, you will get your due. Somewhere out of the camera’s view and nearly forgotten there is a doom that awaits you, and we stand ready to chortle when it comes. We take our soap operas seriously here at BaseCamp.

******

Near the end of the South Rim Road at Black Canyon National Park there is a pullout at a scenic spot called Sunset Point. At some time in the past someone had the foresight to see that this would be a great place to hang out and watch the sun go down. So the Park Service created a safe space that little children couldn’t easily fall from and gave it a name.

On the evening of 6/12/26 there was, as there often is, a small group of folks from around the country waiting there on the first cloudless twilight in weeks. The sun did not disappoint and went down one more time, perfectly on schedule. Somehow this is always a moment. Strangers sharing a place and time, talking quietly in subdued voices. Like in church, actually.

******

Taking It Slow

June 10, 2026June 10, 2026jono55

When an alcoholic walks in out of the swamp that is addiction and is looking for a chance at a new life, one of the first things they are told is that they must stop drinking. That without taking that all-important step nothing else they do will matter. The addict looks down the road at the rest of their life and groans, “Never? Forever?” And that’s when some very wise advice comes wafting in through the haze of a hangover: “Don’t worry about forever … stay sober just for today.” Break obstacles down into small enough chunks and now they begin to look … possible.

That’s the advice we can give ourselves when we wake up each morning and look out at our country’s plight. “But there’s so much wrong … how will it ever be made right.” The answer is that we don’t have to do it all at that moment, we only need to do what we can and then rest, even if briefly, gathering our strength for the next challenge. But in this particular present moment, we just need to do the next right thing. All of those “next right things” done by all those other outraged souls will add up to the change we want.

I’ve decided that Robert Reich must be writing even while he is eating and using the bathroom. There is no other way he could continue to turn out the volume of material that he does. His Sunday essay on Substack: The Coming Revival of America, was one of his best yet. The thesis? That America had been heading in several wrong directions for a good long while before the Clown King came along, and that we the people needed more than a gentle wake-up call to see that.

The clarity of Reich’s opinion makes one want to hit their own forehead with an open hand and cry Yes, yes, of course you’re right! How could I have missed that? One possible answer is that as long as we weren’t the victim, directly, perhaps we didn’t care as much as we should have.

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Martin Niemoller

He does not underplay the dangers and the national trauma that beset us daily. We can still be rounded up and imprisoned without cause by a masked army of thugs, our government has been subverted and may well be used against us even further. These realities may not vanish overnight but Cluck has definitely turned over the rock and shown us where things need to be fixed.

Maybe we needed this horrific wakeup call in order to get back on the road we should have been on. We needed to see how fragile the institutions of self-government are in order to know why we must strengthen them. We needed to be reminded of what America is all about — what it should be about — in order to revive it — and reclaim it, for and by the people.

Robert Reich, Substack

Good man, Reich. At four feet eleven inches he stands taller than the thousands of sycophants and toadies who have either caused or enabled our present sea of misfortunes.

BTW. Reading this piece made me realize that it is not really this country that I love. What I love is this country’s ideals. I am not even certain, after the past several years, what this country is today. Is it still a democracy? Or is it a fascist fever dream? Or is it only the playpen of the unimaginably rich? Or is it something so malleable that at any given moment it is what the people who care most want it to be?

For the past couple of decades or so, it was the MAGA-leaning crowd that were excited, who suited up and showed up with their wrecking bars and their disdain for almost everything that people like me thought was good about America. They walked right in and took the prize and immediately began tearing it apart in order to reassemble it in their own special way. A way involving white supremacy, cruelty, and bigotry. They covered the floor of their birdcages with copies of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

But we are awake now. WE being a beast that roars and remembers. WE can see clearly what we’ve lost, what we’ve given away to these charlatans and mountebanks. WE are the ones who helped beat back tyranny in WWII. WE are the ones who marched on Selma, who were beaten and hosed and arrested by thugs in uniforms and thrown into jails. WE are the citizens of Minneapolis who took care of one another when ICE came with their masks and guns and lawlessness. WE read those two precious documents that constitute a the libretto of an opera of freedom that works when enough of us sing it together.

******

Blowin’ In The Wind, by Peter, Paul and Mary

******

We were promised a windy day on Tuesday, and we got one. We were also promised a warm one. Paradise is dry as tinder and a space where one spark could do much damage. At times like this we don’t need human error to produce a fire. Last year there were half a dozen fires started here on the Western Slope in a single night of lightning strikes, including the one that did its work in Black Canyon National Park.

I recall conditions like this several years ago, when Robin and I were in Santa Fe during a prolonged dry spell and it had been made illegal in that city to smoke outdoors. Not just campers out there in the boonies, everybody.

******

Where Have All The Flowers Gone, by Peter, Paul and Mary

******

Okay. I wasn’t going to mention this thing, but really, I have to. This is the Corvette ZR1X. It is a hybrid. Believe it or not, at almost a quarter of a million dollars as its sticker price it is by far the cheapest entry in the supercar category of automobiles.

Here are the numbers.

Zero to sixty mph = 1.7 seconds (at 1.9 seconds my head would snap off and roll about the cockpit, leaving my torso with some hard choices)
Top speed = 233 mph (I have never had a reflex anywhere in my entire body that was quick enough to cope with this)
Horsepower = 1250 (my Subaru has 182 of these)
Price = starts at $207,000 (A Maserati or a Ferrari in this category would cost several times as much, so don’t complain)
Gas mileage = completely irrelevant to buyers
Usefulness in hauling groceries = nil
Coolness factor just sitting there on the asphalt = killer to dudes of a certain age

******

Robin and I awarded ourselves an all-expense paid trip to the local Dairy Queen this week, and as we were spooning frozen delights into our mouths I happened to notice a couple of images on the wall. One was an abbreviated history of Dairy Queen itself, and the other of the beverage chain Orange Julius.

I thus learned that the beverage Orange Julius got its name from the fact that in 1926 “Julius Freed and his partner Bill Hamlin opened an orange juice stand in Los Angeles.” Apparently Bill didn’t feel the need to have his name included. Either that or Julius was just plain evil.

More interesting were the two items listed below.

1938: Americans discover McCullough’s new, softer and tastier kind of ice cream called “soft serve.”

1940: “The Cone With The Curl On Top” lights up for the first time in Joliet, Illinois.

Why interesting to me? Because if that image were more complete, there would be an entry right in the middle that read like this.

1939: Jon Flom born in Faribault MN, a man destined to be one of DQ’s most devoted and notorious customers

End of story.

******

The accident of the timing of my birth meant that I have been privileged to be surrounded by some of the best music ever written, pop and otherwise, as I grew up and grew older. The big bands were still playing concerts in Minneapolis when I was a teenager, even as rock and the folk revival took the stage from them in the sixties. R&B was everywhere stitched into that rich fabric, and the blues … under it all and above it all.

I don’t really claim a favorite genre, as all of them have meant something different and important to me. But I have to admit that the one that grabs at my heart each time one of its songs comes on the air is folk music. It’s a big tent, and nobody ever did it better, IMHO, than Peter, Paul and Mary.

500 Miles, by Peter, Paul and Mary

******

Up a Tree

June 6, 2026June 6, 2026jono55

A couple of weeks ago, on a single day, 274 people summited Mount Everest, a new record. The average cost of such a trip is around $70,000. What kind of extraordinary accomplishment can it be if 274 persons do it in one 24 hour period? It has become little more than an entertainment for the very wealthy, as the risks have been systematically reduced and the mental and physical fitness required are less than they once were.

I’ve never understood the attraction of climbing mountains, and thought the recurring phrase “I conquered the mountain” more than a little overblown. The mountain was there before being “conquered,” and was still there unchanged afterward, caring little for the specks of humanity crawling around on its surface. But I have had respect for the effort, planning, and risks involved in such ventures. Now it is becoming a matter of writing a check, putting on the new outfit you bought for the occasion, and joining the throng in line.

******

America, by Simon and Garfunkel

******

As I was typing this early on a Thursday morning something really disappointing happened. Willow and I were sharing the futon in the unused bedroom that I call my office when we heard unmistakable munching noises coming from the kitchen. I leapt to my feet and rushed to find a half-grown raccoon making its exit. I pursued the beast into the back yard, calling out silent imprecations so as not to rouse the neighbors. It simply climbed twelve feet up the ash tree and looked down at me impassively.

The villain. The interloper. The masked mammal from Hell sent to perplex the faithful and the well-intentioned.

After a minute or so of us staring at one another the raccoon carefully descended and took off running toward the west and over the fence to safety (at least from me). Imagine my chagrin when now that I had the chance to think about the matter I realized that it had marched right past my flashing red intruder alarm as if it were nothing. Aiieeeee! One more unhappy discovery. One more bright idea come to naught. It’s back to square one, at least where this species is concerned.

I think these critters are rather cute when on the proper side of my kitchen door. But only there.

******

The last cartoon in the set above pretty much summarizes why many rank and file Democrats are seeking more aggressive leadership.

******

Across The Borderline, by Ry Cooder with Harry Dean Stanton

******

After a couple of rejections, I once again had a Letter to the Editor published in our local paper. The rejections I completely understand and sometimes even agree with. I can be a bit of a smart-ass when I write (which I know comes as a great shock to you) and there are moments when immediately after I push the button “Submit” which sends the letter off to the Montrose Daily Press that I wish I could get it back.

Anyway, here’s what I said.

I had the pleasure once again of attending the Montrose City Council meeting on June 2. The mayor opened the proceedings by using the time worn technique of trying to put lipstick on a pig when he read a self-congratulatory statement describing how fair and balanced a guy he was. The “pig” on this occasion was his refusal to issue a traditional proclamation naming June as Pride Month.

Where was the pleasure? That came from when one citizen after another walked up to the microphone to give heartfelt, moving, and sometimes blistering testimony on the importance of showing that marginalized groups like the LGBTQ+ community are accepted and valued in Montrose.

When we should be taking every opportunity to deplore the violence, bigotry, and exclusion that we can see being visited upon these citizens on a regular basis, it is unacceptable when elected officials hold back on any form of support they can provide. Their mean-spiritedness makes Montrose look small indeed to observers.

BTW, even though the MAGA faction on the City Council wishes the whole subject of non-heterosexuality would just go away, the third annual Pride Festival took place on Saturday and was a great success.

******

To RLF in 2011

There may be time to be away in Winter
But not in Springtime
Then I will need you here

To watch the stars gather
To walk the path up to the point
To listen to the whip-poor-wills at night
To watch herons hunting in the channel
To paddle silently across the lake at twilight
To share the feeling of the wind blowing through the bedroom window

******

And I Am Still Searching, by Pete Seeger

******

Next!

June 3, 2026jono55

I was reading yet another news item about the ongoing furor over bathroom safety for women when a neuron way back there … probably in a dusty corner of the hippocampus … woke up and made a contribution.

When the Minnesota Twins came to town, they did so at the new stadium in Bloomington, which quickly became noted for having inadequate bathroom facilities for women. There was always a continuous line of patrons stretching from the bathroom itself, out the facility door, and down the corridor. Women might miss entire innings or multiples of the same before their needs could be met due to this situation.

When that stadium was eventually torn down the mistake was at least partially rectified in its replacement. But while the old structure was still there, my brother and I took our father to a game. I was taking advantage of the seventh-inning stretch when I went to ease the pressure that drinking a couple of cups of beer had produced.

I was standing at one of a line of perhaps a dozen urinals attending to matters when a young woman came through the door, walked past that line of twelve men who now were leaning dangerously forward and trying their best to become invisible, and entered one of the stalls with a competent door on it. A minute or two later she came out and without a word left the room.

Now this was when I was still at a Neanderthal stage where women’s issues were concerned, but as she passed the line, I thought to myself – Brava! You go, girl! Such chutzpah! Problem solved!

As I washed up, I felt privileged to have been present at that little blow struck for equality.

******

When Robin and I were living in Yankton, South Dakota, which is a smallish town of about 15,000 souls, we were fortunate enough to see the musical group Brulé, a Native American band of musicians. They played several times at local summer celebrations, and also put on wonderful Christmas concerts.

The origin story of the group is really interesting, in that its founder Paul LaRoche grew up in a southern Minnesota town as an adopted son of a farm family. When his parents were asked about where he came from, they said, “Well, he’s darker skinned because he’s Canadian.” Once his parents had both passed away, Paul was going through their papers, trying to put things in order, and discovered that he was not Canadian at all, but Lakota, and that he’d been born on the Brule Reservation in western South Dakota.

Paul then went out to the reservation town of Brule, South Dakota, where he found that he had living relatives. It wasn’t long before he moved his family there. He had been a rock musician up until this point, but now he began to incorporate Native American themes and rhythms into his music, and thus the group Brulé was born.

Robin and I became fans long ago, and I’ve chosen this video to exemplify the kind of music that they played, which often incorporated native dancers and could be quite thrilling. Paul plays keyboard, and two of Paul’s children are in the video as well, Nicole on flute and Shane on guitar. The drummer with the group in this video is Moses Brings Plenty, who has since made acting a career. Recently he was seen on Netflix in the two-part series, “Sitting Bull,” playing the title role.

******

There are a few of the Tesla cybertrucks here in Paradise, perhaps three or four. Both Robin and I find them ridiculous looking and actually offensive to the eye. Like finding an automotive turd at the curb. So when I came across a piece on Substack I was interested enough to read it.

Most of the piece was describing the chicanery Elon Musk has been guilty of in trying to mask the failure of the truck in terms of sales, but it was the line below that made me chuckle. Robin and I have always wondered who buys this ugly thing, and now we have some clues.

Considering its only target market is sci-fi-illiterate, emasculated, deeply sexually frustrated, doomsday-prepping divorced dads, its sales have been utterly woeful.

Substack

******

You may have looked at the very cool header photograph (which is not my own) and thought … WTF … this guy probably never got on a skateboard in his entire life … and you’d be right. And I am not trying to do some underhanded cultural appropriation, either. But there was an article in the June 1 issue of the Times on a skateboarding location in London that was so interesting that I had to share it. It’s about an area called the “undercroft” which is a sort of skaters Mecca, inviting pilgrims from around the world.

It’s of no matter that I haven’t been on a board and never will be. If I were to start out now I am certain it would bring on the dreaded Humpty Dumpty Syndrome, where no one could put me together again. But I possess a very special facility. I can daydream blissfully about a past that I never had.

******

Cool Water

May 30, 2026jono55

It’s one a.m. and the night air still carries some of the day’s warmth with it. There is enough of a breeze that the branches of the ash tree in the back yard are doing their dipping and bowing thing, which has awakened the wind chime from a three-day slumber. All is well out there.

So much branch activity is also triggering my motion detector alarm continuously, so I turned it off for the rest of the night. This means of course that we are now vulnerable to footpads, pillagers, cutpurses, and bandits of all stripes. Such is my faith in this bit of technology’s ability to scare off any sort of intruders that I wonder if I’ll be able to go back to sleep, knowing that the proverbial door is open.

You scoff? A simple blinking red light is no barrier to a resourceful highwayman or 700 pound Siberian tiger, you say? I beg to differ. In the twelve years we’ve lived here, in spite of all the things out there that go bump in the night, we’ve never once been ransacked or ravished.

No, friend, when you invest $29.95 in a security system you expect and get the best.

******

My rec center playlist served up a song I hadn’t heard in the longest time, Change, by Big Thief. When I use such lists during exercise I am never quite certain that what I remember hearing is accurate, being short of oxygen and all that. But these were pretty thoughtful lyrics and they’ve stayed with me. The chorus reminds me of a theme that shows up often in films and literature, which is that if we could live forever, we would face an unending series of losses as all those we knew and met and loved would die while we persisted. Forever.

Would you live forever, never die
While everything around passes?
Would you smile forever, never cry
While everything you know passes?

I think in such a situation I believe that I might take the same defensive position that men often do in wartime when on the front lines … not become attached to the new guys because you know that many of them were destined not to make it. Altogether I think that it would be too sad, too lonely a place to be.

Can I talk about vampires for a moment? Anne Rice wrote some of what might be the most intelligent stories about them in her series of books, and there are moments in those narratives when exactly these same thoughts are expressed. The loneliness of never dying, of having retained the ability to care while knowing you will forever be the survivor, and that each of your beloveds will eventually be taken from you.

Nope, don’t think I’d like it very much. Not at all. The present cosmic arrangement has quite a few unknowns in it, and a glitch or two besides, but all in all it seems preferable to me.

Change, by Big Thief

******

As we stumble through the present fetid morass that is our public life toward the day when the reins of government are wrenched from the hands of the fascists, it might be helpful to give thought to what a handful of others have thought about power. We could start with that maxim of Lord Acton’s: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority.” Sounds good enough, and might help to explain the tumor that is Cluckism and its allies.

But Frank Herbert, the author of Dune, flips that on its head when he says: “All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.” I like this latter explanation better. For me, that is where the light goes on in the cranium.

But, anyway, here’s a smattering of other people’s thought on the matter.

“If you want to find out what a man is to the bottom, give him power. Any man can stand adversity — only a great man can stand prosperity. ”
― Robert Ingersoll

“The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“They joined hands.
So the world ended.
And the next one began.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Queen of Shadows

“Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. ”
― Paulo Freire

“We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
― Frederick Douglass

******

Here’s a story for you. The classic country-western song Cool Water was written as a poem by Bob Nolan in 1936, when he was still in high school. He went on to form the musical group Sons of the Pioneers, where he put music to the poem and recorded it in 1941. For me, the tune has always been around, because as soon as I was old enough to appreciate music, Cool Water was there.

While it tells the story of a parched man traveling a wasteland tormented by mirages and talking to his mule, it could also be taken as a metaphor for a traveler seeking truth and enlightenment in a world seemingly filled with dishonesty. Either way, hope is offered to the desperate.

Cool Water, by the Sons of the Pioneers

******

Turistas

May 27, 2026May 30, 2026jono55

Robin and I haven’t been everywhere in the world, but in the part that we have explored, it is obvious to us that putting an image of a chile pepper on the license plate of New Mexico is no empty boast.

Everywhere we went this past weekend we were given chances to take a shot at one fiery dish after another, starting with the free chips and salsa offered many places. Those salsas all had more authority than we find here in Paradise, where they seem to tone things down for the gringos.

Being a card-carrying gringo myself, I really don’t mind being cosseted in this way, it has probably saved my stomach lining on countless occasions. My Nordic genes came from people who had never seen a chile in their lives, and thus had no opportunity for evolution to prepare their bodies for such onslaughts.

All this heat in all those peppers comes from capsaicin, and at full strength it is something awesome to deal with, no matter where one is from. But even this killer substance pales before a Moroccan cactus.

The hottest natural substance known to man is resiniferatoxin, a chemical found in the sap of the Moroccan cactus Euphorbia resinifera. While pure capsaicin measures 16 million Scoville Heat Units (SHU), Resiniferatoxin clocks in at 16 billion SHU—making it roughly 1,000 times hotter than pure capsaicin.

Wikipedia

Now that cactus would make a salsa that could walk itself right to your table with no need for a waiter. Each serving would come with a burner cell phone with its speed dial already set to call a nearby hospital.

******

One of the most striking of commemoratives to fallen soldiers is the Viet Nam Memorial Wall. It is stark, black, and 493.5 feet long, containing the names of 58,318 U.S. service members who died or remain missing. Iris DeMent offered this moving song about the wall, in 1996. The song goes a long way toward explaining why visiting that site and reaching out to touch the name of someone dear is enough to bring tears.

Each time I look back on that war, I wonder how such a thing was allowed to happen. We deserved so much better from our leaders. Ahhhhhhh, what folly, what a criminal waste of those lives.

******

There are moments when the headlines get me down, especially when I contemplate the appalling ignorance and hateful behavior of the MAGA side of the political spectrum. And the ugliness of the Trump faction. And the craven cowardice of most of the Republican Party. But this morning it occurs to me that there is no reason to be surprised by any of this.

Let’s take a look at myself, for instance. Most of the time I act in a civilized manner, am kind to animals and small children, respectful of my elders, and always remember to zip my fly before going outdoors. But there have been times when I behaved quite differently. When I forgot or ignored not just the Ten Commandments but my own personal commandments as well (and there is quite a list of those, way more than ten).

And yet that less moral person co-existed with another more moral one in this same body, and I must prudently assume that he is still in there somewhere waiting to see if he gets another turn one sunny day. What I see as my assignment is to be vigilant and aware, to recognize each time he puts his boots on or asks to take the podium and deny him that access.

I have learned along the way that there are others who have this same struggle. Perhaps not you, dear reader, but it appears that it is not only me who has a Mr. Hyde as part of his makeup.

In fact let’s take a look at America, land of the free and home of the brave. Studying our history reveals this same sort of dichotomy. We have much to be proud of and much to regret. Right now we are in a regret-filled moment. Our national Mr. Hyde is at the helm and we can easily see what a mess that has made of things. But we forgot that he was in there, didn’t we? We assumed that normality and decency would keep him in check but it didn’t. When we finally get the upper hand again one of the first things we will have to do is strengthen our resolve that he not be allowed out in public ever again, while never assuming that he won’t try.

It’s not a one and done thing, this political and personal life of ours. But if we can keep our heads clear, we will soon be able to pick up the bag and pointed stick and go out to clean things up.

Shoot, if a possum can do it, why not us?

******

In 1958 a tune called Rumble was launched, and is still one of the best rock instrumentals … ever. It was originally done by Link Wray, and here he is all decked out in perfect rock and roll swagger in 1974, playing it live.

(For some unfathomable reason once Wray is done playing another video starts up. Feel free to quit at that point.)

******

Got them ol’ can’t find it blues …

May 24, 2026jono55

At an AA meeting this past week, I started out using one of my favorite quotations and was dismayed to have it finished for me by another member of the group. Shocking. Impertinent. How dare that addict step on my line? Screwed up my timing and my composure all at once. What was the saying, you ask? It was one that originated in the very early days of Buddhism:

“Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”

I asked that modern oracle ChatGPT about it, and got little more than this dry comment:

This proverb carries a profound philosophical lesson. Enlightenment or personal growth does not exempt you from the basic responsibilities and physical realities of human life. The chores, bills, and everyday mundane tasks will always be there. Before enlightenment, you might perform these tasks grudgingly, wishing you were doing something else. After enlightenment, you perform them with total presence, peace, and mindfulness, finding the same value in folding laundry or doing dishes as you would in profound spiritual reflection.

It was information, but not exactly what I was looking for. So my next stop was an article from Plum Village, the monastery where Thich Nhat Hanh spent the last years of his life, in exile. The title of the piece was HOW TO/ The Zen of Dishwashing. It was lively, witty, and amusing. It was also spot on and my search was ended.

But I now knew that the wisdom expressed in the proverb was not exclusively mine, not if that dimwit across the table from me could quote from it as well. Going to have to use it very sparingly, I thought, and never when he’s at the same meeting.

I am nothing if not petty.

******

I’m Not Feeling It Anymore, by Van Morrison

******

This has been a very windy Spring so far, reminding me of my first few years in South Dakota, where there were long stretches when I couldn’t launch my canoe even on the small lakes around Yankton. I have never loved it when the water would slosh over the gunwales of that boat. I am an okay canoeist, but not a great one. There are definitely times when I should not leave the cabin, but play another few games of solitaire instead of going paddling. I have always tried to be mindful of this acquired wisdom, and it is one of the reasons that I am still alive and here to beguile or bedevil you.

We’ve got a couple of strings of prayer flags out in the back, strung from the ash tree to the board fence. They flutter at the faintest suggestion of a breeze, giving us fair warning about what the day holds and allow us to plan the morning’s activities with accuracy. When the flags stand straight out from the line we do not venture far from home, thus avoiding much spitting out of airborne sand and other grit. (Actually, when the wind blows like that, I don’t even like to think too much about what the air might be carrying and I might be breathing in or swallowing.)

What these blustery days are really good for is drying clothes outdoors. Low humidity and a stiff breeze are nature’s tumble dryer. I put up one of these racks several years ago, and any day it is not raining is fair game for Dame Robin and her sturdy wooden clothespins.

******

On Hyndford Street, by Van Morrison

******

A couple of weeks ago, Robin returned from church and opened a conversation that went like this: “You should write down everything you do and where you put everything that’s important in case you die.” It’s the sort of tête-à-tête that senior citizens have from time to time, and while I gave her only one point for tact, I had to award two points for it being a good idea. ‘Twas something I had neglected to do.

Anyway, I am now engaged in writing everything down and placing it in a 3-ring binder. There is no real system that I have for where I put stuff. Sometimes it simply comes down to a space that was available in a drawer in the house or garage and that’s it. Many of those hiding places were so good that even I can’t find them now. God help my descendants.

******

Our drive to Santa Fe from Montrose takes 5 1/2 hours, but from beginning to end it is such a lovely trip that you hardly notice the time passing. Until you stop the car and find that your bottom half is stiff and does not want to get out and go anywhere. The scenery is constantly changing, deserts … mountains … forests … valleys … canyons … it never stops, not until you hit Santa Fe itself when it becomes a less exciting urban landscape. For us the charms of the city are near the Plaza, the oldest part of town.

We first visited this town in 1995, and at that time stayed in a quaint BnB named Inn of the Animal Tracks. It afforded a great room, a short walking distance to the Plaza, was not too costly, and served excellent breakfasts and afternoon teas that were provided by a woman who came in just to cook for us. That’s the good news. The bad news is that today it has become some sort of Urgent Care Center, even the front entrance is greatly altered.

Bah. Humbug.

But we did find something that is unchanged from that first trip through Santa Fe, and that is a restaurant named The Shed. The atmosphere is delightful and much of the food was the kind of stuff of the genre that you can’t get back home. I know that something named The Shed sounds a little unpromising but if you take a chance on your next visit here you may like it … a lot. I include a few photos taken there, including one of a life-sized sculpture of a wolf that I couldn’t stop looking at. A startling piece that looked real for a fraction of a second before my brain had time to process it.

******

On Saturday we discovered Museum Hill, where there was so much to be seen and done that I don’t understand how we ever missed it. It’s just a mile and a half from the Plaza, but you do need a map or GPS to find it. At least I did, because it is in the boonies. What’s up there?

Museum of Indian Arts & Culture
Museum of International Folk Art
Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian
Museum of Spanish Colonial Art
Santa Fe Botanical Garden
Milner Plaza Labyrinth

Here are a few children playing in the labyrinth. If you could somehow shoo these critters out of there, walking it would be a serene thing to do.

My excuse for overlooking this wondrous collection art and culture is that Santa Fe has so much to see downtown and around the Plaza area that I never looked elsewhere.

******

Whooo? Me? Cubist?

May 20, 2026jono55

I had the good fortune this past week to attend a lecture/presentation by a polymath. Yes, a polymath, and I know what I’m talking about because I just looked up the word and now I am allowed to call myself an expert.*

A polymath is a person who knows a lot about a lot of subjects. If your friend is not only a brilliant physics student but has also published a poetry collection and won prizes at political debates, you can describe her as a polymath.

Vocabulary.com

Robin and I had been invited to a talk about small owls in Colorado by our friends, the Evanses. The local chapter of the Audubon Society was sponsoring the evening’s program. The speaker, Scott Rashid, was a slender middle-aged man in a baseball-style cap, plaid shirt, and the sort of pants one wears when camping or hiking. He seemed eager to get started, so was handed the microphone and a remote control, and off he went.

What followed might have been the single best Powerpoint I’ve seen, and I have seen hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, mostly of the stunningly boring kind, each image stuffed beyond measure with more information than one human being should ever have to bear. This presentation was smoothly constructed and filled with imaginatively arranged images that appeared without fail due to his mastery of the remote control. His knowledge of the four owl species that collectively made up his topic seemed encyclopedic to this rank amateur. I don’t believe he took a breath during the entire hour, keeping oxygenated somehow by absorbing gas through his skin.

Why do I call him a polymath?

Great fund of knowledge of his subject and related birds
Has created an organization dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation, and release of injured and orphaned birds (CARRI)
Author of several books
Skilled wildlife photographer
And the killer is this – he is a gifted artist who paints scenes which combine principles of cubism and wildlife painting

Yep, you heard me, cubism. And the paintings are beautiful, like nothing I’ve even seen, combining several views of the same bird, for instance, in a single portrait. Like this one of the northern pygmy owl.

This art is for sale in several forms, and the proceeds help to support his work.

You might be interested in a short video about Rashid and need a link to his website, so here it is. Once there, take a look at his art work. It is extraordinary.

*When I was in pediatric residency training, the working definition of an “expert” was: an SOB from out of town with slides.

******

Ladies and gentlemen, the Heartless Bastards play Gates of Dawn for your listening and dancing pleasure. Cranking the volume is allowed.

(As an aside, is this the best name for a rock band or what? Seriously!)

******

Water warm as blood
Drips along the paddle shaft
Ducklings hide in reeds

******

This next weekend Robin and I are driving down to Santa Fe for the weekend. The occasion is our 34th wedding anniversary. It’s the second marriage for both of us.

During the years immediately after our divorces, we both sought counseling at times. The counselor who Robin was seeing wasn’t sure about her re-marrying relatively soon after going through such a traumatic period, and expressed the view that she and I getting together was probably only a “transitional relationship.” Meaning that once she came to her senses and took a good long look at me she would toss an “Adios” back over her shoulder as she moved on to the real thing.

Well, the “transition” will be starting on its 35th year next Sunday, so either he was wrong or Robin is really slow at making up her mind. Either way, I am a clear winner.

(Here we are on that excellent day in 1992. I can hear you thinking and you are quite right … I definitely married out of my league.)

***

We’ve visited Santa Fe several times before, and have enjoyed ourselves each time. For us, the town has such a pleasing vibe. Art galleries and museums galore, the Santa Fe Opera, the historic plaza, the presence of adobe buildings everywhere you look. Good restaurants, great food.

There is also the important connection with Los Alamos during the years when the Manhattan Project was operating. The small but busy office that managed access to Los Alamos and everything that was going on up there was at 109 East Palace, in Santa Fe. Before you took that rough mountain road and drove 33 miles to your new home you had to walk through that doorway. There is a bronze plaque that reads:

109 EAST PALACE
1943 SANTA FE OFFICE 1963
LOS ALAMOS SCIENTIFIC LABORATORY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
All the men and women who made the first atomic
bomb passed through this portal to their secret
mission at Los Alamos. Their creation in 27 months
of the weapons that ended World War II was one of
the greatest scientific achievements of all time.

***

Santa Fe, by Tough Country

******

My Man Cuco

May 17, 2026May 17, 2026jono55

Awright class, put away the phones and listen up. Today we’re covering a genre of Mexican music known as the rancheras. So here is a definition:

Ranchera, or canción ranchera, is a traditional Mexican music genre that emerged before the Mexican revolution, deeply tied to national identity and rural roots. Known for its emotive, passionate, and theatrical style, it features themes of love, nature, and patriotism, heavily influenced by mariachi music.

I’ve told this story before, but when I was sixteen I came across an album by a guy named Cuco Sanchez. In spite of being the poor and starving student that I was, I bought it when I could have had one by Elvis Presley or Chuck Berry instead. I’d never heard of Sanchez, had no idea of his importance (major) in Mexican music, and I didn’t know a ranchera from a quesadilla. (Actually, at that point in my life I didn’t know what a quesadilla was, either.)

But I fell in love with the album, and here I am sitting out on the backyard deck on a ninety degree day in May with an iced coffee on the table and Cuco Sanchez playing on my excellent Bose music system*. Cuco and I have a relationship that has lasted a loooooong time now, even with him having had the poor grace to pass away 26 years ago. That original vinyl album is long gone, but there are all these other ways to listen …

*The excellent Bose music system. Weighs only a pound, goes anywhere I go if I so choose, and reproduces most of the notes played by the musicians, I think.

I bought it refurbished several years ago and it looks like it is going to outlast me and become someone else’s treasure.

******

Since every song Sanchez sang is done in a foreign language (bother), I will take this opportunity to reveal the lyrics of one of my favorites, Arrieros Somos.

Arrieros somos y en el camino andamos
Y cada quien tendrá su merecido
Ya lo verás que al fin de tu camino
Renegarás hasta de haber nacido

Si todo el mundo salimos de la nada
Y a la nada por Dios que volveremos
Me rio del mundo que al fin ni él es eterno
Por esta vida nomás nomás pasamos

Tú me pediste amor y yo te quise
Tú me pediste mi vida y te la di
Si al fin de cuentas te vas, pues anda vete
Que la tristeza te lleve igual que a mí

Arrieros somos y en el camino andamos

Oh, you want it translated? Sheesh. Who cuts up your meat for you?

We are muleteers
And we walk along the way
Everyone will have what they deserve
You’ll see that at the end of your path
You will deny even having been born

If we all came out of nowhere
And to nothing by God we will return
I laugh at the world that in the end not even it is eternal
For this life no more, no more we will pass

You asked me for love and I loved you
You asked me for my life and I gave it to you
If at the end of the day you leave, then go
May sadness take you the same as it does me

We are muleteers
And we walk along the way

Cheerful little ditty, no? I give it a ten for philosophical meandering, but a zero for danceability. Never mind the details, I’m a fan.

******

Arrieros Somos, by Cuco Sanchez

******

Cuco Sanchez, circa 1956. Both he and I have changed quite a bit since then.

******

******

Friday morning I threw away several hours of my life and took the Subaru in for some scheduled service. At 90,000 miles, every “scheduled service” seems to cost a thousand dollars and take three hours. While that might be appropriate for a transmission flush, I really wonder if changing the rear window wiper blade is that involved. But I am not a mechanic, and don’t understand such things very well. It’s all a gamble, isn’t it … you pays your money and you takes your chances.

I recall reading an article decades ago that when It came to car service you only had a 30% chance of getting what was needed properly done. For myself, the high (or low) point was a long time ago when I took a new Volkswagen in for its first dealer service. The mechanic saved a little time by draining the old oil but not putting any new stuff in. When I left the dealership I turned almost immediately onto the freeway, and that was when I noted the warning light on the dash board. By the time I could safely pull over, the engine was toast. Morte.

However, there is always something interesting happening in the waiting room. Across from me is an old dude wearing a cap advertising a Belizean beer. Obviously that brew holds some special significance for him, although in the thousands of beers I put away when I was misbehaving in the alcohol department, I can’t recall one that would cause me to buy a hat to celebrate it.

On the other side of the room there was an elderly lady who was receiving a speech from the service representative regarding her latest car inspection. One thing after another was mentioned as not crucial at the moment, but which needed attention very soon. As the sixth or seventh item was read, she began to laugh softly. You could tell that she had reached the point at which any further listing of automotive needs and woes was a waste of time because the part of her brain that dealt with cars was completely full and could accept no new data.

All the way across the lobby is a younger man who is wearing a tie-dyed tee shirt along with what looks like a pajama bottom whose design I can only imagine was created by a person coming down from a seriously bad trip.

But I am serene. I cannot be shaken by problems that are beyond my comprehension. I simply take them as Divine Judgement, and am grateful that they are not more harsh than they are. It is possible, even likely, that I deserve quite a bit more.

******

A great Pink Floyd tune, Fearless, here covered by Billy Strings. Respect + imagination + musicianship = good music. Crank it up.

******

Things to be grateful for can sometimes be nasty things indeed. For instance, we can thank the Cluck administration for making no attempt to hide its rampant corruption, making it easier for prosecutors down the road. We can thank the Supreme Court for making it absolutely clear that it is little more than a modern version of the Reich Supreme Court that became a tool of Nazi Germany. We can thank the gallery of incompetents that is our Justice and Homeland Security Departments for revealing themselves to anyone with a perfusing brain that they are neither about justice nor homeland security, but intimidation.

So when it comes time to choose, it will be an easier thing to do. This November we have our first real chance to begin remaking our republic, following the guidelines provided by our Constitution and Declaration of Independence. We can fire those Republican (and a few Democrats) toadies, and rethink how a healthier Supreme Court would look. We can start the process of removing Cluck’s fingers from the buttons that count.

******

True Or False: The Sky Is Falling

May 13, 2026May 13, 2026jono55

It has become increasingly hard to decide whether the sky is falling or not. The bewailings of my newsfeed plus the profuse clamor in my messaging app makes it appear as if the world is composed of mostly people of the Henny Penny variety. You remember Henny Penny … right? Well, for those who don’t or who have never heard the classic European folk tale, it goes like this:

The inciting incident: Henny Penny is hit on the head by a falling acorn and panics, believing the sky is falling.

The journey: She sets off to tell the king, gathering other farm animals (Cocky Locky, Ducky Lucky, Goosey Lucy, Turkey Lurky) who join her quest.

The trick: They meet Foxy Locky, who offers to show them a shortcut to the king’s palace.

The ending: The group follows the fox into his den, where they are never seen again, and the king never hears their warning.

There it is, simple and plain and perfectly appropriate to our times. Our problem is not a lack of warnings, it is the din of their profusion.

******

Memphis In The Meantime, by John Hiatt

******

It is something very close to Summer here in Paradise. Once this past winter’s not-very-hard grip on our lives had relaxed we have been seeing record warm temperatures. This week everything is in the 80s, and it is only May. Oh well …

Tomorrow’s weather forecast is: windy, hot, and dry. There is a possibility of “dry thunderstorms” as well. This is not a term that I have heard before. Is it possible that the weathermen and weatherwomen of the world have become totally bored saying the same old stuff from day to day and so they get together to coin new words and phrases to make their lives more tolerable?

When I was a lad we did just fine with the words fair, rain, windy, cold, and stormy. There were no polar vortices or dry thunderstorms or bomb cyclones back then, nossir. We made do with the simple terminology that we had and were glad to have it. My mother never sent me off to elementary school with the words “Now put your mittens in your pockets and wear those overshoes like I told you, there is a chance of thundersnow this afternoon and you want to be ready for it.”

******

It’s nearly two a.m. and I have the back door open to let in some cool night air. There is a great horned owl out there in the dark who is excited about something and is letting us know about it. Some of my favorite creatures, owls. Endlessly interesting. Cruising silently in the blackness only to drop down on some unlucky small critter who never knew what hit it. Those eerie calls … the variety of habitats they occupy … just have a look at this gallery.

From upper left they are great gray owl, barn owl, boreal owl, great horned owl, and snowy owl. If I could wish for one of their attributes it would be the ability to turn my head around nearly 180 degrees to check out what’s behind me. It would be an immense help while driving my car, for one thing. And just think if you were going to try to sneak up on me from behind to cover my eyes and say “Guess who?” and suddenly there I was staring you right in the face. Unnerving, eh?

******

Lipstick Sunset, by John Hiatt

******

That little blue dot button over there in the sidebar may need an explanation. In the 2024 election year Democrats in the Omaha area came up with this simple image that says volumes. They were surrounded by Republicans and the idea that they were a blue oasis in a highly red district caught on.

I like the idea enough to have stolen it from the Nebraskans to apply it to our own situation here in Paradise. Two-thirds of the votes cast here in Montrose County were for a criminal for president in 2024. Two thirds. My, my, my.

******

Dia De Las Madres

May 10, 2026jono55

Well, if I needed another reason to not go on a cruise, I found one this past week, when hantivirus was added to the number of things that a person can catch on one of those floating Petri dishes. An infected ship found itself anchored off Cape Verde, with nowhere to go. The people on the mainland didn’t want to take a chance by letting any of the passengers come ashore, so those poor sick souls were restricted to the kinds of medical care that one can find on a pleasure voyage.

Three passengers have died and several others have been sickened by hantavirus on board the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius cruise ship. Hantavirus usually spreads by inhaling contaminated rodent droppings

AP News

I am pretty sure that none of the passengers was warned of the possibility of inhaling rodent droppings as they slurped and chewed their way across the Atlantic, but this is just a guess. It might be time to revive the tradition of having a ship’s cat on board. Maybe two of them.

******

Mother’s Day is nearly upon us, and for once I am totally ready. When it comes to some of these “special” days, I tend to be a little bit Scrooge-y, since it is my firm belief that they were invented by the Hallmark company to prop up sagging card sales. But honoring the mothers of the world … I can easily get behind that.

Without those brave souls who were willing to put their bodies (and sometimes minds) on the line the human race would have pretty much come to naught 300,000 years ago, as the first pair of homo sapiens would have been the last. There is not a doubt in my mind that if men had been appointed to bear the children we wouldn’t be anywhere in the fossil record.

Nope, the job of bearing children was given to the right people, that’s for certain. And this year I will gratefully honor the mom who lives with me. My own mother has been gone for nearly forty years, but on Sunday I will raise a salute to her as well.

We owe the mothers of the world. Big time.

¡Feliz día de las madres!

******

When I was a medical student rotating through the clerkships, I had the chance to observe some really amazing people of the genre that we were taught to refer to as “patients.”

There was the young gentleman who managed to acquire a case of gonorrhea while up in double traction for two broken femurs. There was another young man who conversed in a lively manner with us as we were interviewing him in the Emergency Room, although there was a knife sticking out of his chest which we knew from the x-ray was in his heart.

But there was one young woman, a child really, that I remember today. She was only sixteen and at term, scheduled for a Cesarean section for reasons that I have forgotten. Cesareans were not as commonplace at that time as they are now.

Her surgeon was the head of OB/GYN at the University of Minnesota at the time, and he was both quite old and a misogynist as well. He had chosen to do the operation under local anesthesia, but the injected lidocaine did not work well and the girl screamed all through the procedure. When her baby was finally delivered she slipped into semi-consciousness from exhaustion as her wounds were repaired.

I was standing outside the operating room as she was wheeled out past our group of students and the surgeon who had performed the operation. She looked up at him as she passed, lying on the gurney, and gave him what I can only describe as a take-charge smile when she said:

“See you next year, Doc.”

******

I rarely use this blog to express opinions, and I am rarely dogmatic when I do (long pause while snickering subsides). But on this tenth of May 2026 I can say without qualification that the world is better off for having cheese in it. What prompted this declaration was the slow savoring of a bit of Jarlsberg as part of my lunch.

I know that there are perfectly nice people who don’t eat cheese for a variety of reasons and I am sorry for their loss. When I try to imagine a planet without the following necessities of life I begin to weep uncontrollably.

~~Mac N’ Cheese~~
~~Cheeseburgers~~
~~Grilled cheese sandwiches~~
~~Cheetos~~
~~Cheese fondue~~
~~Cheddar biscuits at Red Lobster~~
~~Cheezits crackers~~
~~Veal parmesan~~
~~Potatoes au gratin~~
~~Quesadillas~~
~~Cheesecake~~
~~Philly cheesesteak~~
~~Fettuccine Alfredo~~
~~Pizza~~

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera … can’t go on …

******

One of the names for a group of weasels is a sneak. This pretty well describes our present government and the national Republican Party as well.

Here is an unretouched photograph of one such sneak, which includes Cluck and several members of his cabinet.

They are, quite simply, not to be trusted with anything that is dear to us.

******

Zombie News

May 6, 2026May 6, 2026jono55

If you drive twenty miles east from Montrose on Highway 50, then make a right turn at the sign indicating the route to Silver Jack Reservoir and drive another 15 miles on a fairly good gravel road, you will come to Big Cimarron State Park. As parks go it is fairly small, with only a dozen or so campsites, but many of those campsites are along the Cimarron River and that makes all the difference.

Now, if you walk to the last campsite on the south end of the park and keep going on the narrow path you will find there, in a short while you come to one of those magical places, where the river leaves the woods and tumbles noisily past you as it makes its way toward its eventual union with the Gunnison River. There’s a pool that might as well have a sign posted in front of it declaring “Trout Present.”

******

Just a couple of miles south of this campground is another one, on a small body of water called Beaver Lake. There are another dozen sites or so here that overlook the lake.

******

And …. a couple of miles further along the road places you in the Silver Jack Campground, which is the largest of the three, on high ground looking down on Silver Jack Reservoir.

On the many visits we’ve made to this lovely area, there were always many campsites available, even on the busiest summer weekends. Really, these locations taken together constitute a treasure. And I haven’t even mentioned nearby Rowdy Lake, accessible on a short but rough road, and beyond that is Clear Lake which requires that you actually get out of your vehicle and walk a few hundred yards.

On our way back to Montrose we came upon a herd of elk grazing in a patch of open forest. About forty of them, big and healthy-looking and what can I say … majestic. Robin and I are always struck by the beauty of these animals whenever we are lucky enough to find them in the wild.

******

Found this photograph on Substack, and thought there should be some sort of a medal that could be awarded this young woman for pluck and wit.

I suspect that the mastophobics who couldn’t bear to be in the presence of a visible breast were not mollified by her response.

******

I have great respect for zombies. From what I’ve seen of them in movies, they are not to be trifled with, and can be surprisingly resourceful at times. They are never a force for good, being basically one of the forms that evil can take on Planet Earth.

So when I say that the Cluck administration is a zombie government I don’t dismiss at all the possibility that it can still do a great deal of harm before all of its members and their adherents are successfully neutralized. But they will be corralled, they will be removed from public office, and we will then be able to go back to ordinary legislative chicanery, which is unlovely but we know how to deal with it.

Unfortunately, while we have been stewing here in our zombie universe, the rest of the free world has moved on without us. We are already so untrustworthy that intelligence services of our former allies won’t tell us anything important because we can’t be counted on to keep a secret. On nearly every front we have moved backward while the world is going forward. Climate change? Human rights? Encouraging young democracies? Useful collaboration with governments that aren’t dictatorships? There really is not an end to this sad story.

Taking into consideration all of the harm Cluck has done to our republic, and all of the sycophantic enabling of him that the Republicans in Congress have done, is there a label that will better fit this whole unseemly gaggle other than traitors? And zombie traitors at that?

******

(Periodically I will have what I have called a brain fart. Where a dormant group of neurons awakens for no apparent reason and provides me with a memory. Yesterday that recollection was of a joke which I used to tell often but it has been decades since the last time I did that. Before those unreliable nerve cells go dormant again, I will share it with you. What you have to imagine is that the Scottish Regimental Sergeant-Major speaks with a heavy brogue.)

A Scottish Regimental Sergeant-Major comes into a pharmacy carrying a small box. Finding the pharmacist he opens the box, revealing a smaller one inside. Inside that box is yet another one and inside that one is a very bedraggled condom which he unrolls for the benefit of the pharmacist.

“How much for a new one,” says the Scottish Regimental Sergeant-Major

“Twenty shillings,” was the response.

“How much for repair?” says the soldier.

The druggist is a bit taken aback but answers: “That would be ten shillings,” came the response.

The Scottish Regimental Sergeant-Major then rolls up the condom, places it carefully in the smallest box, then the next one, and finally into the largest of the three containers. He leaves the store.

The next day the soldier returns, calls the druggist over, and after opening all the boxes he takes out the condom, unrolls it, and declares: ‘The regiment votes for repair.”

******

Trail Legs

May 3, 2026jono55

Sooo … there is this genre of videos on YouTube that go like this: “If you are a senior and you do these ten exercises pretty much everything will be just great. You will look better, run faster, be unbelievably attractive to the opposite sex, and Army recruiters may mistake you for an 18 year-old.”

Or it may be five exercises, or something that requires a kettlebell or learning how to do Pilates on the wall. But all of them agree – if you don’t do something starting right now you might as well pick out your casket tomorrow and save your relatives the trouble of doing so later on.

There was one Asian gentleman who absolutely swore that if I do 50 of these and 50 of those and 50 … at this point I switched away from the guy because if there is one thing that is certain in this otherwise uncertain world it is that I will never follow any regimen that requires that I do 50 of anything.

One video did catch my eye, and I might actually follow up on it. It is called the medicine ball slam.

While there may be many excellent physiological results, like core strengthening and improved flexibility, what I can see immediately is how good it will be for the days when the world seems composed of two parts cowflop and one part thistles. Slamming that thing into the earth or the driveway … oh baby … I can already feel my spirit rising just thinking about it, tension and aggression slipping off my shoulders like raindrops on a tin roof.

******

Tracy Chapman is a charter member of the good part of the human race, one of those rare people out there whose lives illuminate and support our own. Since her first album in 1988 that won all the prizes, she has created a body of work that is remarkable for its insistence on the value of each and every one of us, telling stories and raising consciousness all along her way.

This first clip is from 2015, with Chapman performing Stand By Me on late night television with a respectful David Letterman strewing compliments in her path.

The next video is from 1988, with the 24 year-old Chapman showing what all the fuss was about. Timeless and heartfelt and beautiful.

******

We have now had a chance to see what happens when the Supreme Court of the land becomes completely corrupt and subservient to external power. Honor, rectitude, and a little thing called justice fly out the window and are nowhere to be found in their decisions. Except for the opinions of the minority, who came to the court believing in its role and obligations and have not lost their way.

Since most of the members of this august body have decided not to police themselves, to have even the teensiest idea of what good behavior might be, reforming the Court should be one of the first tasks of the post-Cluck era. As a first step, let’s get rid of those lifetime appointments. They are invitations to the Court becoming the festering mess we have today. Ten years … twenty years … some number that accepts the possibility that we might have made serious errors in the original selections.

Why saddle our republic with a Roberts or a Thomas or an Alito for generations? If we can’t completely stop their grift, let them take their motor homes and the stink of their decisions and ride off into an ignominious sunset. At the very least it would give us a chance to recover between bad apples.

******

Fawn walks past our home
No comprehension of the
pleasure it provides

******

On May first Robin and I joined in a small demonstration of “Workers over oligarchs.” Perfect day for signs and placards except for a sometimes vigorous breeze. At one one a driver pulled over and drove slowly past us shouting angrily: “Fuck You … Fuck You … Fuck You.”

Little he knew the satisfaction that it gave us knowing that our little signs were ruining his afternoon?

******

Took our first hike on the burned-over area at the Black Canyon on Saturday. Perfect day for it. Interesting to be able to see so far ahead, because before the fire the Gambel oaks would have blocked our view. in most places. They were not tall plants, mostly under ten feet high, but quite bushy and leafy.

We brought our lunch with us and enjoyed a picnic at the Pulpit Rock overlook. Most people are familiar with the phrase “getting one’s sea legs,” where a person slowly becomes accustomed to the pitching and rolling of a marine vessel. There is something analogous in hiking, called “trail legs.” In this case it is the irregularity of the trail surfaces, the changing angles and composition of the earth beneath your feet. During the cold weather months most of our walking is on the smoother surfaces of the treadmills at the rec center or the trail systems of the city parks.

******

Taking Names

April 29, 2026April 29, 2026jono55

“They are fighting with Jesus.”

Comedian John Fugelsang came up with an awfully good shtick recently regarding the hypocrisy of Cluck, JD Vance, and Mike Johnson arguing that the Pope should stick to popery and let the three of them interpret the Bible. Here’s a couple of quotes from an interview published in Good Faith Media recently.

Fugelsang believes the U.S. media frames recent social media skirmishes between the pope, President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and House Speaker Mike Johnson in an unhelpful way.

“I don’t think [the pope] is fighting them,” he said to attendees in Alexandria, Virginia. “He’s showing us all calmly and with no anger or visible outrage how to delegitimize and expose these frauds. He’s making them fight Jesus.”

and

Fugelsang also noted the challenge of what to call those who use Christianity for authoritarian goals, whether “conservative Christians,” “fundamentalists,” or “Christian nationalists.” He said he prefers the simpler term: “fake Christians.”

Couldn’t have said it better my own self.

******

If you’ve been wasting your time reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I am a fan of Richard Thompson. Based on nothing, really, except that the man is capable of some of the best songwriting and guitar playing available on the planet.

I was late to join his fan club, because I hadn’t paid any attention at all to him until I read a review of the album Shoot Out The Lights back in 1982. The review made it sound interesting and when I sought out and listened to the music … I was gone, daddy, gone. I never came back.

There is a large selection of playlists that I listen to when I am involved in that most absolutely boring of activities – walking on the treadmill at the rec center. All of the music on those lists is from stuff that I own, but once in a while a piece comes on that I never actually heard before. I had bought an album for a particular cut or cuts and totally ignored the rest. I have no excuse for this reprehensible behavior but there you are. Mea culpa.

This happened just the other day, when the tune Her Love Was Meant For Me penetrated the standing fog in my brain as I was going into minute 22 of a 30 minute slog at incline #12 on the treadmill at 3 miles per hour. Whoa, said I, what kind of a fan can I be when a song this great is news to me? Especially since I own it? (Rhetorical question)

Here, take a listen, just to see what I’d overlooked.

Her Love Was Meant For Me

So what does all of this mean in the scheme of things? For dolts like myself? I dip into the past for the answer.

******

When John F. Kennedy was murdered I didn’t know what to do with such horrific news. For days I was running on half my cylinders trying to make some sense of a world where one of its most important people could simply be blotted out by a nobody with a scoped rifle. Lots of water has flowed under that particular bridge since then, so when I learn that yesterday another bozo with a gun invaded a White House party I don’t miss a beat and continue eating my cereal. Life goes on, at least on the surface.

But deep down in there somewhere in my own personal dark web there is a pool of anger, cold as death. If I could learn about the murder of 20 children at Sandy Hook and still do what was required of me the next day I can certainly do the same when a group of celebrities and politicians are briefly menaced. But that lake just deepened, even with this relatively minor episode. Numb? Don’t think so. Furious? Absolutely.

If the moment comes during my lifetime when we realize we don’t have to allow this particular insanity to continue and that we have the power to stop it whatever the difficulties may be, I plan to march while carrying my end of the banner in one hand and a taser in the other. You may have heard that there are men going ’round taking names … well, some of them are ancient souls. Like me, for instance.

******

Taking Names, by Josh White

******

The Orcs Of Congress

April 26, 2026April 26, 2026jono55

A preface to this post. One of my personal mythic/reality/dreaming/challenging places is the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota. One puts a canoe in the water, steps into it and away from the land, and all is changed. You are on your own, responsible for your own life in a way that is restorative to the worn and tattered thing that urban living makes of your soul. If something breaks … there is no one to fix it but you. I have been lucky enough to visit this beautiful area more than thirty times. It is as close as I have ever gotten to the numinous.

So I am definitely taking this next affront personally. The Republicans just voted to overturn a ban on mining near the Boundary Waters. It’s another one of those billionaires versus the public good scenarios. This time it’s a Chilean conglomerate whose operation would threaten this area, whose beauty I frequently exploit to brighten the pages of this often colorless and meandering blog.

So this is a kind of particular mine that is a copper sulfide mine, and what happens is copper sulfur rock is brought up to the surface, hundreds and hundreds of millions of tons of it. And when sulfur is exposed to air and oxygen – oxygen and water, which we have a lot of in northern Minnesota, it basically turns into sulfuric acid, and then it flows into the watershed. This mine is literally a mile or so from water that drains directly into the Boundary Waters and then into Voyageurs National Park.

NPR All Things Considered: Newly approved mining in Minnesota may threaten waterways of a beloved nature preserve

I will repeat a challenge here that I made more than a year ago. When was the last time anyone heard or read about a mining company who did not damage the environment no matter what they might have said in order to be permitted to do their work? Basically it is a sad but oft repeated story, trite in its details. Rape and run. Do the damage and then let the people try to get satisfaction in order to repair the harm.

This next paragraph is for those who have read (or seen the movies) of the Lord of the Rings saga. In my view the Republicans have made themselves into Orcs wearing tailored suits. Manifestations of the worst of human impulses, seemingly no longer capable of doing anything resembling good works.

Too strong a statement, you say? Too melodramatic? Just answer this question: where is your data? I certainly have mine in abundance. Like I said at the beginning, this is personal for me. In this instance it is the GOP taking the baby out of the rear-facing car seat and tying it to the front bumper. Little good can come from such a maneuver.

******

Her Love Was Meant For Me, by Richard Thompson

******

All of the trails on the South Rim of the Black Canyon National Park are now open to hikers. We are cautioned not to leave the paths and tramp around on what has always been a fragile landscape and is now even more so as it is attempting to recover from last year’s fire. No problem for us. We’ve always respected those rules. If the large numbers of human visitors were allowed to roam everywhere they wanted to it wouldn’t take long for a great deal of the beauty of those trails to vanish underfoot. This trail system is moderately strenuous for us in a few places, but overall is just a great workout in a dramatic setting. We are eager to add those hikes to our attempts at maintaining something like fitness.

Really, when I hit the pillow at night I can almost hear my aerobic capacity falling away. There is nothing for me to gain by avoiding exercise but to acquire more than a passing resemblance to Jabba the Hutt.

Speaking of his Abominable Huttness, I remember what a large deal it was when the first Star Wars film was released. Among the hordes that went to see it were son Jonnie and I. I think we went three times, and the following Christmas there were several Star Wars gifts with his name on them. It was a moment for him. One of Jonnie’s traits was that when he liked something, he dove in headfirst. Star Wars, the Lord of the Rings books, and the rock groups Kiss and Led Zeppelin were all recipients of his interest and devotion. If he was a fan of something you did, he bought all your stuff.

Jabba was one of the major heavies in that first movie, where his nasty physical appearance and poor personal hygiene were contrasted with Princess Leia’s lightly-clad attractiveness in several scenes.

***

Buckle up and get ready for a two-minute assault on your memory. The unforgettable theme music.

******

Someone came to the White House Correspondents Dinner last evening and fired shots, killing no one. He has been apprehended. As of this morning we don’t actually know who might have been his target, at such a dinner there are so many who have that potential. It could have been Cluck, a member of his cabinet, or a reporter who incensed the assailant for reasons obvious or obscure.

Deciding to go up against the Secret Service at a black tie event is not the hallmark of a mentally stable person. Perhaps he was sticking his head out of the metaphoric window, as Howard Beale suggests in the video below, and it didn’t make any difference to him who he killed or injured. Just to do something … . The world we occupy today tends to bring out the crazy in a person.

******

Shoot Out The Lights, by Richard Thompson

******

Profiles

April 22, 2026April 22, 2026jono55

Travel along the South Rim Road of the Black Canyon National Park is now permitted. Each year the Park Service closes it from November to mid-April. Most winters it can then be used as a cross-country ski trail, but this past year the shortage of snow afforded limited opportunity for skiing. We were eager to see what is happening in the burned-over areas of the park, and there is a short hiking path at the very end called the Warner Point Trail that is a good workout as well as offering some great views of the canyon.

Our daytime temperatures for the next two weeks will be in the seventies, which is perfect for these seasoned bodies we’ve inherited, which tend to wilt when the temperatures rise into the eighties and above. At those times if we want to exercise outdoors we do it mid-morning.

Robin and I drove the road on Monday morning and hiked the Warner Point Trail. The lack of rain showed up in a dearth of flowers and the shriveled leaves of some usually showy plants. There are no water sources up on the top of the mesa, so the resident deer have to descend half a mile to the Gunnison River to get a drink. Although the plants on the mesa are tough and hardy, they don’t waste their resources in times of drought. No water … well, let’s just wait before we toss out those blossoms, shall we?

The burned areas are starting their recovery with grasses, so that monotonous blackened landscape is becoming a greener one. The dark skeletons of the Gambel Oaks are the most obvious reminders of what happened here last year. They appear as twisted and ghostly shapes, little more than brittle stalks of charcoal that snap off at ground level.

******

Hasten Down The Wind, by Linda Ronstadt with Don Henley

******

The Spring brings out black
reminders of where trees had
stood for centuries

******

If there is a Satan, a personification of the worst that life has to offer, his grating chuckle must be everywhere in the White House these days. Decay and rot are everywhere you look. Cabinet officers tumble like dominoes and are replaced with unskilled nobodies. The weaknesses of government by tweet can no longer be covered up. The lies pile up in the corridors as stacked obstacles to any chance of progress or redemption. The only successes, if one wants to call them that, are the fortunes being amassed by the greediest of us all.

Here’s a photo of the dust cover of a famous book, written by John F. Kennedy. It told the stories of a handful of people in politics who made very hard choices, sometimes costing them their political lives. Choices always resolved matters in favor of the common good.

If Kennedy were to write it today, the dust cover might look like this.

Unless the cancer that is Cluck and his administration is removed, there is only one destructive direction that America can move in. The past year of one disaster after another has shown us what we must do.

Who will be the courageous ones who step forward to lead? Where will they come from? How will they preserve their integrity in the melée that is to come?

******

Blue Bayou, by Linda Ronstadt

******

I watched the most touching documentary on Sunday evening. It covered the life of singer Linda Ronstadt. A life devoted to music. A woman who, rather than climb over the bodies of competitors, enabled their successes time after time. Someone who was given a gift of voice and then disease took it from her. Talent. Generosity. Courage. What’s not to love and admire?

The name of the video is Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice. It is available on Amazon Prime Video. Here’s a trailer to whet your appetite.

******

You’re No Good, by Linda Ronstadt

******

Over the years my thinking about how to handle feelings has undergone evolution and devolution. Growing up in a culture of men don’t cry or show emotion it was a natural fit to emulate the John Wayne approach. Stuff ’em was the watchword. At some point I was introduced to the concept that embracing anger and grief and being softer rather than hard were preferable stances to take in life. Life provided a set of tableaux providing ample opportunity to practice whatever I thought I should be doing at any given moment..

But I was never able to completely shake the idea that sometimes, if one was going to be a professional,* you just had to stand up and wade through whatever was presenting itself. To allow oneself to melt down when there was work yet to be done … I could never fully go there. Someone had to “be strong,” and if the need arrived, I saw myself as that someone. Firemen do go into burning buildings. Physicians do face situations that are stressful and injurious to their souls. Parents do need, on occasion, to be the grownups in the room.

I have made a lot of mistakes in the past and there’s little reason to believe that I won’t continue to do so. My heart literally aches when I think back on some of those episodes, and I wish that I could say that I have learned from each one, but nope, that ain’t true. In so many of them, the teacher appeared, but the student wasn’t ready.

*professional: give it any definition you care to

******

Can’t Find The Snow For The Fog

April 19, 2026April 19, 2026jono55

We’re going through a very chilly spell right now. here in Paradise, with freezing nighttime temperatures for several days. It’s not a predicted trend, so I’m not panicking. Spring is definitely here, although these cold evenings could be trouble for some of the prematurely blooming trees and plants around town and in the beautiful orchards around Palisade CO. Local lifelong residents tell me that this is just a normal spring for a mountain town, with these variations in temperatures the rule, rather than the exception.

Over our years together, Robin and I have evolved into two completely different creatures as far as preferred room temperatures. Robin definitely likes a cool room, while I will position myself near any radiant heat source that’s available. Our Subaru has separate temperature controls for the right and left sides of the car, which I think is a little silly in a room that’s only five feet wide. But there we go, Robin choosing 67 degrees and me pushing my button up to 74. I think it may be a placebo effect, but we’re both happier when we see such numbers on the dashboard.

******

I think that our cat Willow may be coming out of her sad times since the loss of her companion, Poco. Hard to tell, it’s been just a month. Robin and I have been petting and brushing the poor thing within an inch of her life in our attempts to help her adjust to this new reality. It’s a wonder she has any fur left at all. She is spending more time outdoors now once again, and has resumed her old habits of being more active at night and sleeping most of the day.

It has been ten years since she came to live with us as a kitten and Poco was already here when she arrived, so this is quite a change for her. We aren’t looking to add any more pets to our household, so it looks like it will be two humans and one feline from here on out.

I think we’ll do just fine.

Grieving is such an irregular thing, for me. You’re walking along, you seem to have a grip on things then suddenly you’re just knocked over by a wave that came out of nowhere. And that wave just sucks the oxygen right out of your lungs. I’m dealing with the loss of a dear pet right now, but there was another dear pet years ago who died an awful death after having gotten into something she should not have. I took her body home from the vet, put her in a small cardboard box, and then buried her out in the backyard. We lived out in the countryside at the time, where such things were easily done.

Robin was away at the time and I sat on the edge of the wooden deck that evening with one song playing on repeat for hours. It doesn’t seem like it would fit, but that night it was a perfect accompaniment to the feelings I was struggling with. I was caught in one of those waves, one that battered hard and would not let go.

All Mixed Up, by Red House Painters

Honest to God, I don’t think I would have made it this far in this life without the support that music has provided. I’ve often joked when talking with others that one of the tragedies of real life as opposed to the movies was that there wasn’t a soundtrack. At a distance and looking back I can see now that there was one. But in each instance it had to be slapped together, rough as a cob and on the spot.

******

Friday morning it began to snow and this continued until lunchtime, only dropping an inch or so, but hey – it’s water! By one o’clock, Robin and I were already getting cabin fever, so we bundled ourselves into the Subaru and took off driving south on Highway 550. We had planned to go to Ouray to walk around town and look at the fresh whiteness at 8,000 feet, but we had to pause at Ridgway and turn around because a combination of fog and snow produced such poor visibility. It was still a good trip, good to be out of the house.

Robin and I celebrated that day with purchased cheesecake. We may be cautious about snowstorms, but we fear no dessert.

******

Lonely Girls, by Lucinda Williams

******

We saw our first Hummingbirds of the year only three days ago. And that very night, the temperatures plunged down into the low 20s, which was the first of three such nights. I had wondered – how do these little birds survive such cold evenings when they return from their migration sooner than they should? So I asked the question of Google, and back came this answer, which I have now corroborated with recognizable sources.

“Hummingbirds survive freezing spring temperatures (20s°F) By entering torpor, a state of deep hibernation like sleep that lowers their metabolism by up to 95% to conserve energy. Their body temperatures plummet from over 100𝐹 to near air temperature, allowing them to survive cold nights. Yes, they can survive, if they find food quickly in the morning.”

RIght now, hummingbird food is to be found everywhere, with the early flowers and the blossoming trees, so I will relax and let Nature do the worrying. But I like the concept of torpor, which sounds a lot like what happens to me when I find myself trapped in conversations with excruciatingly boring people. I don’t know if my body temperature plummets, but the rest all seems quite familiar.

******

Some Day Soon, by Ian and Sylvia

******

Scratching On Rocks

April 15, 2026April 15, 2026jono55

There is a CNN article which is calling this a “freakishly dry spring” in Colorado. Here in Paradise so far this year we’ve had 1.6 inches, which is less than half of normal, and our “normal” is already on the dry side. We are tentatively watering our brown lawns and hoping for the best. Unless a drastic change occurs I am looking for water restrictions by early summer.

But of course this has nothing to do with climate change, which is a well-known hoax, according to our clodpoll of a leader. He encourages us to use more petroleum products, turn our air conditioners way down until ice forms on the glassware in the kitchen cabinets, and in general behave in a way which all but guarantees that next year will be worse.

******

No Expectations, by Jim Campilongo

******

I’ve been reading Tracing Time, a book about the rock art of the Colorado Plateau, written by Craig Childs. While I thought that I knew a little about the subject, it is by now obvious that I am little more than a tabula rasa where such drawings are concerned. The excitement of acquiring new knowledge is in the room every time I pick it up, and that doesn’t happen every day.

All of the books I’ve read by this author are collections of stories, rather than learned recitations. He puts what he wants you to know into some character’s mouth as that person is talking to him over a low fire on a winter campout in the middle of a mountain. And after you are done shivering at the thought of sleeping on bare rock in freezing weather you realize that now you have an answer to a question that only an hour ago you didn’t know enough to ask.

Where we live here in Paradise is on the edge of a treasure trove of such art. The Fort Knox of pictographs and petroglyphs, if you will. Robin and I have explored a few of the closer collections and it only makes us curious about others. On one of our hikes that we’ve taken several times, the turnaround point is a boulder covered with such markings that is right on the trail. Unfortunately its accessibility means that some of the art is stuff like: “Rhonda + Derek.” I’ve made the assumption that such carvings are not ancient and indigenous in origin, but I suppose that there could have been a romantically inclined couple back in the year 1000 with those names, although I strongly doubt it.

One of the recurring images found in these treasuries is that of handprints. The artist dips a hand in the paint and presses it to the stone. Like a signature saying I am here. I am always moved by these. Even more than by the drawings of warriors or mountain goats. I am here.

My answer is Yes, I know you.

******

My plea to anyone out there in Washington DC with an ounce of courage and patriotism is to push the damn button. Push it hard right now.

******

If it weren’t for the fact that people are dying and the huge amount of physical destruction involved as well as the economic disruption worldwide, the Iran War That Is or Isn’t A War could almost have been written by Gilbert and Sullivan as one of their comic operas. It is being conducted through whims and tweets and asides at press conferences by a draft-dodging coward and a puffed-up religious dimbulb who was once a minor officer in the National Guard. A horrible joke of a war, but a joke nevertheless.

Any member of our armed forces who dies in this conflict is a life that has been wasted. The billions of dollars that have been spent already – thrown away. When you put buffoons in charge this is what you get.

Even if we toss Cluck out tomorrow and are able to put an end to this tragic chapter in American history, there is no overnight getting back our national honor, prestige, or claims to leadership. We have allowed ourselves to become a murderous third-rate country in the eyes of the world. Or perhaps fourth-rate, who knows? Post-Cluck we will have to start at the bottom and work our way up for a generation before anyone can begin to trust us again.

******

Each of us
one face in the crowd
One nose pressed
against the window
One body marching
Watching

One witness out of millions
who say Enough!
We place ourselves
Between the helpless
And the oppressors
We are implacable

******

You can find much written about the origins and meaning of this beautiful song. But when you listen you will probably find your own message, as I do. And that message may change from one moment to another. Because when you listen the second time you are not the same person as the on the first audition.

There is that very old saying that “No man ever steps in the same river twice.” When I first heard it, I thought yes, of course, the water flows past and changes constantly. Later on I realized that the man changes as well.

******

East Wind From The Abattoir

April 12, 2026April 12, 2026jono55

I am presently re-exploring the delicious satisfactions of eating bagels. For quite a few years now they found no place in our pantry, being one of those high carb foods discarded way back when we were doing the keto thing. The keto thing went away, but for some reason bagels remained on the no-no list.

Now anyone looking at a map showing Montrose CO can see that we are about as far from a bagel-producing powerhouse as one could be, and the only choices here in Paradise are the dense things, fresh or frozen, that you can either eat or put under uneven table legs. Pale imitations, I know, of what one might find at a New York delicatessen.

But you can only eat what is in front of you, and pining for what you can’t have is lost time you won’t get back. Because even the bagels sold locally are tasty enough when you toast them up, and most of the fillings used in Gotham City are available locally.

So here I go, chomping away. I am a little puzzled about the variety called the “everything bagel,” which seems to be designed for people who are unable to make up their mind which bagel they really want. They can eat this thing and tell themselves that what they truly desire is in there somewhere.

******

At an Indivisible social event this week the question was raised “Why does everybody in this room have the same color hair?” The reference to the omnipresent gray hair was completely apropos. Everyone in the group was over fifty years old, most were over sixty. One member of this pleasant gaggle mentioned a documentary he’d watched recently about the Viet Nam War protests, and everybody at those events was in their twenties. He wondered aloud “Where are the younger people today?”

It wasn’t the sort of venue in which to have a longer discussion, partly because the poor acoustics made listening difficult. But since I was marching back in 1969 and now I am marching in 2026 I can give you at least a partial “Why?”

During the troubled years of that Asian war a twenty-year old had a lot on his mind. He was learning that the government had been telling lies about the justification and the conduct of the war. He saw that thousands of men his age were being killed or damaged by being tossed into the meat grinder that is war.

And most important of all, he saw that he very well could be next one to go. That at almost any moment his body could be snatched up, suited up, and sent off to someplace with a name he couldn’t pronounce properly. He saw the unfairness of the draft, where rich white boys were often not being loaded onto those transport buses and ships, while everyone else had to take their turn. He learned not to trust authorities, finding that their goals and his were not always in synchrony.

So when the call came to take to the streets, his motives for showing up and burning that draft card or carrying that sign were not just for some lofty antiwar concept, they were self-preservative.

Now think about today’s twenty year-old. These people have never seen an American government that wasn’t openly venal, cynical, dishonest, or power-hungry above all things. Why should they believe that one could exist because some white-haired and arthritic dude says so?

I can hear some of you saying “Hey, wait just a minute, how about _______, he/she was a good one.” You’re right. There have been solid and trustworthy individuals, but the overall mass of it smells to high heaven. Reminds me of my childhood when a pungent and putrid aroma surrounded us when the wind blew in from the slaughterhouses ten miles east of our home.

Obama keeps coming up as an example of the good in government, and I mostly agree with that assessment. But when it came time for him to appoint a Supreme Court Justice, which was his right and duty to do, he was unable to get it accomplished because the Republican leadership had the power to completely block it. To not even let it come up for discussion. And this was not some singular or unusual event, but part of a standing pattern.

So how to get younger people involved? Heck of a question. What would be my first suggestion? Get rid of Citizens United. Reduce as much as possible the influence of those unimaginably large fortunes. Make it possible for someone to hold office for the laudable reason of wanting to truly serve the people they directly represent, and the larger body politic as well. To elevate the influence of character, rather than connections.

******

Transcendental Blues, by Steve Earle

******

This week my blog got a “like” from Edge of Humanity Magazine. I wandered over there and found all sorts of artistic treasures. One of its recent posts was a photo essay entitled “The Seduction of the Invisible.”

The essay’s theme is the particular beauty and mystery that fog brings to a scene, where the edges of what one can see blend into something resembling infinity. Worth a read, and the photos are lovely.

I am into fogs, except when I am driving, when they make me acutely uneasy. I am way more worried about who is behind me than ahead.

******

Who You Are, by Pearl Jam

******

Friday evening Robin and I drove an hour to Cedaredge CO, a lovely mountain town of 2300 souls which is located in the foothills of the Grand Mesa.

We were attending the Fifth Annual Grand Mesa Arts and Event Center Film Festival. Only short films are shown, and those with some connection to the state of Colorado. That connection could be the theme of the film or one of the people responsible for making it.

We were motivated to burn some of our expensive Cluck Gas and make the drive because one of the movies being shown had been submitted by grandson Aiden. It ended up receiving the People’s Choice award on this evening. Son-in-law Neil had also come to Cedaredge for the showing, and we had supper with him at a really good Mexican restaurant in town, La Familia.

Some of the other showings were enjoyable, some were puzzling, some were just odd. But none of them were boring. Totally fun evening, but for one sobering artistic display.

And that was composed of 168 pairs of used children’s shoes arranged in a circle. They represented the 168 young people that our military, led by incompetents and madmen, killed at the start of the Iran war. The reporting on that tragedy has already vanished from the news cycle, but it should be the preface for any article written about the senseless Cluckian conflict we are still wading through. A war completely absent a rational plan. We should be seeing interviews with the grieving parents . We should be seeing biographies of the hundred and sixty-eight lives that were lost to no purpose. We should not be allowed to so easily forget what we have done.

Their deaths are yet more blood on the hands of Cluck and Hegseth. Our men in Washington.

******

Illusions

April 8, 2026jono55

Easter Sunday was a beautiful day here in Paradise. Amy, Neil, and Claire were here for a quick visit and we all took a walk around Lake Chipeta, a small body of water just on the edge of our metropolis. There were several fishermen and one fisherwoman working the water, mostly staring at quiet lines. We saw hundreds of trout swimming in the clear water who showed no interest at all in what the anglers were doing.

I had mentioned before we got to the lake that if we were lucky the pair of ospreys who sometimes hunt there would be around, and there they were! Such handsome birds. We were treated to the sight of one of them diving into the water and coming up with dinner in its talons.

******

This morning I was thinking back on some old trials and as I remembered the healing that came from writing poetry I realized that I was not making present-day use of what had helped me in the past. I’m sorry, but it’s possible that my coping strategy may become your burden.

A life entwined with ours
And now it is returning
To its spirit home

******

There is much to grieve these days as more and more Americans come to grips with the knowledge that their country is not and perhaps never was what they thought it was. It’s silly to think of someone my age suffering from a loss of innocence, but how else can I describe it? I thought at heart we were a good people, dedicated to the principles outlined in the Constitution and its amendments. I believed that racism, our most serious flaw, was slowly being diminished, an abscess in the body politic that was steadily being drained.

Now I am not so sure. The very fact that enough of my countrymen were vicious or dumb enough to elect someone like Cluck means that I was too much living in La La Land. But I believe that there are more than enough people who share my version of governmental and social naiveté and who can together face down this ugliness. The growing turnouts across the country in the No Kings rallies attests to that. The amazing strength that was and is Minneapolis when they braced the evil that ICE has become attests to that. But I harbor fewer illusions that this will be easy.

******

No One Said It Would Be Easy, by Sheryl Crow

******

A true tale. There was a very old and confused woman who had been hospitalized for weeks because she was so severely constipated. This was back in a day when someone could be admitted to hospital “for a rest.” At any rate, enemas and laxatives and the full force and variety of nursing and physician skills had been brought to bear over many days without much to show for it. Until on one momentous evening the lady, with a great deal of howling and many many curses, finally produced a monumental bowel movement.

The nurses were exhausted. The patient was exhausted. Suddenly the old woman spoke, not with her usual low-pitched murmuring, but in the loud and clear voice of a Shakespearean actor on stage:

Next time let HIM bear the child!

******

Theme from Southern Comfort, by Ry Cooder

******

Last evening Robin and I attended a lecture/performance by Craig Childs here in Montrose. The auditorium seats 602 souls and it was packed. He is a very popular author out here in Paradise, and has written several books on science, archeology, and the natural world. As he spoke there were photos and videos projected behind him on a large screen, all dealing with his most recent book subject, The Wild Dark.

There has been a ton published in recent decades on light pollution and the importance of holding on to all of our dark places around the globe. His talk illustrated that through the mechanism of two men bicycling out an abandoned road into the Mojave Desert on a course straight out from Las Vegas. Each night they would take readings on some sort of specialized meter, and they had to journey almost 160 miles before the lights of that city were no longer a factor.

The good news is that we are aware of this form of damage to our earth and the rhythms of our lives, and the world is slowly but steadily getting darker. Who knew? Humans capable of rational thought and action … c’est incroyable!

******