Rebirthing

    Green man has been around for a while. He's thought to be a representative of a vegetative god, but he's shown up in many cultures over the centuries. He's come to represent re-birth, spring and renewal. Everybody can use a little renewal or spring tonic.
     A not so kind bug sidelined this writer for a few days but a benefit was attacking a stack of reading that had been building up. I'm referring to the kind of reading done in a comfortable chair. I read plenty each day, here on the screen but even the longer magazine pieces never seem to sink in like the reading done with magazine or book in hand. 

rumbles

conservative?

     One particularly long piece traced the mutation of the American conservative movement from Bill Buckley 's founding of the National Review in 1955 to the election of Donald Trump. Trump is the very kind charlatan Buckley devoted years to excising from the modern conservative movement. This president is the epitome of anti intellectualism. One wonders if Trump is really the new conservative.

religious?  

    As a backdrop to the executive order loosening restrictions on churches ability to partisan politic, there is the confounding support of Trump by white evangelical Christians, reported to be as high as 81%. Jim Wallis, author, theologian and president of Sojourners considers himself one of the 19% of white evangelicals who oppose trump. He wrote recently:
     "To many outside the white evangelical world, it seemed- and still seems-inconceivable that a thrice-married serial adulterer, ultimate materialist, casino owner, habitual liar, and unprincipled deal-maker could ever become the standard bearer for a group that professes to base their vote on "family values."
       Wallis attacks what he calls the racism of key evangelical 
Christian leaders including Jerry Falwell. He accuses them of being political operatives who have been "played" by right wing Republicans.
        It is that strain of self identified "Christian" who consider LGBTQ people unqualified for the ministry, who deny them communion or even consider them "sinful." Still, how that judgmental subset could endorse a sexual predator is beyond rationality. But it is that ilk that welcomes the ability to turn the Bible into a political weapon. Others argue that would be a dangerous and perverted use of the Judaic-Christian holy book, not unlike the fundamentalist terrorist's application of the Quran.

republican?

      One also wonders if Trump is the new Republican. Another long tome explored the political shenanigans of Trump loyalty and emerging Republicanism. 
      Most serious analysts hold out little hope for the House passed health care reform of getting anywhere. Senate Republican have their own ideas and they are better grounded in reality. As several have said the Trump-Ryan plan means people will die because money and politics trumps healing and well being. 
      What survived the house politicking is essentially a tax break for the wealthiest while everyone else divides up the pain--higher premiums, lost coverage, being out of luck. Rex Huppke of the Chicago Tribune wrote the plan is, "a big middle finger to anyone who needs help." Take that Trump voters. You believed him but you got Trumped. Will traditional Republicans let that stand? Or will the Ryan opportunists or the liberty caucus fanatics define Republican?

academic fascism

      With the first amendment and journalism under attack we also are watching the growing strain of fascism on college campuses. Intellectual freedom and freedom of speech are woven as a gospel of a free society. There is nothing that should be off limits in academia, but self righteous and narrow minded interests have attacked a researcher who proposed to study "transracialism."  It has all the hall marks of a totalitarian mentality. You can read about it here.

                                     back to nap time 

        All of this and the current manic drama draws me to note again we are in a spasm when celebrity is more important than intelligence, when thoughtfulness is eclipsed by emotion, when superficiality counts for more than history. It's almost enough to make you want crawl back under the covers.

 when size does not matter

    The perpetual mystery of the sleeping habits of Hemingway and Joy. Sometimes they share the box. On this night it doesn't matter that little Joy has room to spare, big Hemingway either chose or was banished to the little basket. Well, he curls well

      See you down the trail.

PEACE

  

     In that moment when Patti Smith missed a lyric, apologized, nervously began again and was met with a warm applause that grew even warmer upon completion of A Hard Rains A Gonna Fall at the Nobel literature presentation the love of this season was personified. Sincerity, compassion, tenderness, love and joy were all in that moment.

      The grand spiritual and philosophical architecture of this epoch of human habitation on this planet is constructed by singular acts, one at a time. They exist and in fact they abound if only we will see them, or create them.

      Regardless of your most intimate and deepest belief please allow me to wish you and yours Merriment at this Christmas season. May you all experience joy, peace and the light of love.

     See you down the trail. 

TALES AND TAILS

Flowing

  Creeks and waterways are beginning to resemble their old selves again. The vaunted El Nino has been producing rain in California, including on the drought stricken Central Coast.

 Driving in the rain in California is akin to driving in snow or on ice elsewhere. Since rain is about the only diversion from sunshine and blue skies in most of California, rain is a big story.

    But after four years of drought, every drop is a cause celeb.

   Here on the Central Coast, half way between LA and San Francisco, it looks as though we are in for a week of rain, with a few hours between cells that allow the ground to soak it up.

   Back in Indiana we never gave much thought to rain, unless it was ruining a picnic, ball game, wedding or etc. due in large part to the fact there is so much rain. Here it is a seasonal oddity and some people and most animals are frightened by it. Really!

THE CATS TALE

   So we begin with the end, before the tail, or tale.

 Joy, on the left and Hemingway are young enough to have missed what a California Central Coast winter is like. All they know is the abnormally warm and dry winters of the past couple of years. So this year, cooler temperatures and rain have them in a dither.
  Because of allergies, they spend their time on the deck and porch and in the garden on the hill. They sleep in the garage.

     To help them through their first real winter and recognizing their love for boxes, Lana made a Cat Condo. They've taken to it. The connecting "door" allows cuddling.

   Hemingway was perturbed I disturbed his nap for a photo op.

   Nighty night!

   See you down the trail.

WHEN MEMORIES BREAK LOOSE

 BALANCING THE YEAR

     Memories seem to escape when the brain is between taking balance of the past year and resolving for the new year, about to dawn.

      I think when we get to a certain age we need to just let them fly, enjoy what they bring and leave their significance to the Fates. Our threads are woven as they are.

     A raw damp chill had descended like a shroud over the city, locked in winter's bleakness, painted by dirty snow and dark gray skies. It made the old wood framed house with peeling paint and a tilting porch look more desperate. It was a neighborhood in decline. Once big old homes were now boarded, abandoned or cut into squalid apartments. We'd come to the right address.

     We were making a benevolence delivery. Weeks of food supplies, clothing and gifts for a matriarch, her grand children and her mostly absent daughter, fighting addiction. I heard commotion as I knocked on the door, some desperate voices then in a flash the front door opened and a tall, stout man-boy grunted something at me and ran off into the snow and street without  shoes, wearing only a t-shirt and underwear. 

    "Oh my God, he's running" a small and worn older woman yelled. "Get him, don't let him get away!" 

     A sad eyed little girl, our delivery sheet listed her as 7, looked out from behind the frantic woman standing in the doorway. "Please help!"

     Lana, standing by the car holding the first box to be delivered was startled as I ran down the steps and gave chase.

     The lad ran with a strange gait and yelled something guttural as he zig-zagged into the street then into piles of dirty snow. Not sure what to do, I caught up with him and found that standing in front of him caused him to turn and run back the other way.  

      "Hey, we've got presents for you. Let's get back inside" I chided as he loped. He stopped and I was able to put a hand on his shoulder and take an elbow to guide him back to the house.

      Grandmother was relieved but confessed as to how she could no longer handle him. I was concerned she was near collapse. Lana tended her and got her to sit. I stood by the front door and the man child went to a chair and sat looking at  the television.

      "He can't help himself" the sweet brown eyed girl said.

"He was born that way. He gets too excited sometimes." In that moment something deep inside convinced me she spoke with a wisdom that far surpassed her years. "Gramma does the best she can."

      We made the delivery, bringing in the other boxes and food. Handed out the gifts. Gramma made tea and offered us a cup as she related the heart breaking history that brought us all to this moment. The girl helped her brother open a gift. Calm returned and there was food and a modicum of cheer in the threadbare home.

      "Now we'll have a beautiful Christmas and this house will be happy" the little girl said as we departed. She hugged Lana and shook my hand.

      That precious child came to mind as I watched JOY the remarkable David Russell film starring Jennifer Lawrence as Joy Mangano who went from a tough beginning to being a successful inventor and entrepreneur. 

       Russell says he drew not only from Mangano's life but also from other extraordinary women. It's a powerful film and certainly the story of perseverance and overcoming. Mangano is pleased with the film. Even though creative liberties are taken, it hews closely to fact. 

       Jennifer Lawrence is again brilliant. She's on a path to be the Meryl Streep or Helen Mirren of her generation. Robert Di Niro, Diane Ladd as grandmother, Isabella Rossellini, Dascha Polanco as Joy's life long friend, Virginia Madsen, and Bradley Cooper are all wonderful in major roles.  Isabella Crovetti-Cramp as the young Joy makes a stirring debut.

      Joy is superbly entertaining, funny, poignant, informative and fresh.

     Michael Caine says his work in YOUTH is his best ever.

It could be. He is compelling in his every scene in Paolo Sorrentino's art film of finding meaning or significance regardless of age. This is not your typical movie. An Italian director, Sorrentino brings an artistic and creative tool set to the film. It is the best of a European sensitivity with Caine, Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz, Paul Dano and Jane Fonda. 

      This is not a film everyone will enjoy, but if you like creative and artistic uses of cinema and solid acting this is worth your time. Men of certain age will find some of the Caine and Keitel exchanges hilarious. 

     We found that seeing YOUTH which is really about age and hope, certainly appropriate as we approach the turn of the calendar. 

Time does fly

      Photo by Bruce Taylor aka Catalyst

A kid version of Lana and Tom 

    I've often spoken of perhaps the most beautiful snow fall. It was in Oak Creek Canyon, Arizona. The flakes dropped silently, peacefully as we drove into the canyon, covering the ground in a blanket and filling the pine and oak boughs without wind. It was all gentle and serene as though being in a snow globe. It was in the winter of 1973. When I touch that memory it seems as close as a couple of months ago, certainly not 42 years. A vivid moment of life.

    Ah, yes. The closing of a year when memories break loose.

Enjoy!

    See you down the trail.

     

WHEN YOU WALK THROUGH A STORM

IN A TENDER SEASON

   The Back Story

     Huddled together as a group of freshmen we thought it was an odd order. As new pledges we were told that in a few weeks we would be required to sing WHEN YOU WALK THROUGH A STORM. Really?  Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1965? The Beatles, Rolling Stones and 60's Rock was more our tune. But we learned it. We sang it and 50 years later those once reluctant college boys have repeatedly drawn strength from those lyrics.

When you walk through a storm

keep your chin up high

and don't be afraid of the dark.

At the end of a storm

is a golden sky

And the sweet silver song of a Lark.

Walk on through the wind,

Walk on through the rain

Though your dreams be tossed and blown,

Walk on

With hope in your heart

And you'll never walk alone,

You'll never walk alone.

THE APPLICATION

    This time of year is an emotional fountain. Difficult and taxing in the best of times and health, but crushing and bruising for those who struggle.

      Someone dear to us has suffered a horrible betrayal and a loss of dreams.  She hurts, so do we  and we know so do countless others for many reasons.  Loss, illness, change, devastation and fear also stalk this season of joy, merriment and memories.  

       As we usher in a season of light and hope, we offer these as an early gift and just maybe a guiding light.

  

 This year as we encounter realities we would not seek,

we find solace also in the continuum of life.

   One may draw from the quiet wisdom of age and stamina evident in nature.

   Moments of serenity and memory.

  Storms in nature and in human emotion pass, in time.

   On the other side are beginnings, buds of newness and often a renewal.

  Walk on, with hope in your heart.  You'll never walk alone.

  See you down the trail.

AFTER THE MEAL-A GOLD STAR

A STAR ON THE CHEEK

Archive Photo Courtesy of RMonseth

    It was a raw winter night, shortly after the first of the year in 1980 and New Orleans was in a post holiday slumber. We were there on assignment tracking drug smuggling and had checked into a hotel in the French Quarter. I asked the night manager if he could recommend a good local eating spot. He told us about a new place a few blocks away that he said was Cajun-Creole. That is when we found K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen, open for less than a year and not yet famous.

     Steve Starnes, one of the truly great photographers and I wondered in. There were only two other guests. We were greeted joyously. As the waitress-hostess explained the menu and the "special" quality of the food, the big man in the open kitchen asked if we'd like a Cajun martini, on the house. Hard offer to pass up. The big man brought us his concoction, pepper vodka, vermouth and a jalapeno pepper. He sat with us, sipped a drink and asked what we liked and what we knew about Cajun food. The big man was Paul Prudhomme, still unknown to the New York Times and the worlds food writers.

      We got a special creation, heaping plates full of everything he made. And we had another martini, which put a big smile on the big man's face.  We ate everything put before us including a couple of deserts. It was one of the great dining experiences in my life. The waitress-hostess, who it turned out was Kay Prudhomme, the K in K-Paul's, was actually stunned both plates were clean. She said "that never happens." She went to the hostess station and brought back two gold stars which she attached to our cheeks. "You boys keep these and remember us."

      About two years later I was back in New Orleans and for months had been thinking about getting back to K-Paul's. The hotel concierge said Prudhomme wasn't taking reservations since the Times and a few others had "discovered" the place.  He said you'll have to wait in line which could be up to two hours.  

      I was stunned by the number of people in cue and was told you needed to put in your name.  As I got to the check in I had a flash of brilliance. As Kay asked for my name, I opened my billfold where I had stuck the gold star and put tape over it.  Crazy, I know, but what a memory. Anyway I asked Kay, do you remember this. "Oh my, the clean plate and you kept that star? Honey you stand right there and as soon as that tables clears you're going to sit down."  With that she padded off to kitchen area, now busy with others and said something to Paul. He looked at me smiled and gave me a thumbs up.  When I was seated a waitress brought me a Cajun Martini.

      Paul Prudhomme who gained fame for his Creole-Cajun fusion food died this week at 75.  He many a lot of us smile.  

AFTER THE ROSE'

   I'm fascinated by the shape of wine bottles and especially those of French Rose'.

GOOD NIGHT KITTIE KIDS

  This week Joy and Hemingway have decided to bunk on the top of the washing machine! 

    See you down the trail.  

       

LIVING IN HENRY MILLER'S PARADISE and WHY ISIS CAN'T BE BEATEN

IT IS LIKE HENRY MILLER SAID

   There's a line in a commercial that says "California cows are contented cows." Why not, huh?

    Our "Heinz 57" Joy finds endless contentment in the garden.
    Author Henry Miller, who lived just a few miles north of our home said "I am constantly reminded that I am living in a virtual paradise."
     Amen to that!

   Spring's color wheel is at work on the coast,

  and on the hills and slopes.

WHY ISIS CAN'T BE BEATEN
Because they should be destroyed

    ISIS, a threat to the world, is a particularly challenging problem for Christians.

      Graeme Wood's What Isis Really Wants, in the March The Atlantic is an excellent examination of the menace and peril they pose and underscores why Christians are particularly challenged.  I've read and watched as much as I can, from a variety of sources and suggest Wood's article, even if you think you know all you need to about Isis.

      Followers of Jesus know that he taught to love your enemies, to forgive them, to pray for them. He admonished one of his closest followers who struck out at an enemy. He said to love your enemy is tantamount to pouring coals on their head. Nations do not live for salvation or redemption and their objectives are survival and not perfection or transcendence.

      One can advocate for a loving response and argue that  a measure beyond human justice will bear out the rightness. Some will disagree, but that is only coincidental. In a hard world of cultural and religious diversity, populated by a pastiche of beliefs, analysis, intellect and skepticism, a purely Christ like principle will not rise to the muscle of national strategic policy. This is a fully human dilemma, the kind of vile business that has been set before us in the former garden. And ISIS is a death cult, working to achieve its own religiously inspired belief they are agents of the Apocalypse.

      By civilized standards they are barbarians, ruthless with no respect for life, convinced of their "holy" mission and certain only they are right. They are a perversion of humanity, have twisted decency and justice and live as an evil strain.

      By idealized measure Christians should love them. Not to do so opens a calculus that becomes an entirely intimate equation and is for no human discussion. For those inclined it is a matter for regions of heart and soul and an accountability.  

      In this challenge, from this evil, in this time, in the practical realm of saving life, preventing destruction, stopping a lunatic movement, and destroying evil, ISIS should be eradicated. Their complete and total demise is the work of humanity, faithful or faithless, observant or atheist, contrite, convicted or contemptuous. All of us can then live with consequence, each according to our own. That is more than ISIS would ever permit.

     See you down the trail.

      

NO WET PAWS & WHY BOEHNER IS A BONE HEAD

NO WET PAWS, PLEASE

Neither Hemingway nor Joy like wet paws.

But Hemingway is especially reluctant. Our recent light rains gave him plenty of reason to stay on the chair.

EMERGING SPRING

BOEHNER IS A BONE HEAD

    Some of our founders must be spinning over the jack ass moves of John Boehner.

     The constitution gives exclusive powers to the President to receive ambassadors and public ministers of foreign governments. Boehner violated that historic and important principal by inviting Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu to address congress. His vindictive winner take all style of opposition politics might earn him applause from the far right and anti Obama forces, but it is dead wrong. It could be a disastrous precedent in an increasingly dangerous and complex world.

    The US Congress is an independent body of course, but historically partisan politics end at the shore. In foreign policy and diplomacy, the US has and must speak with a single voice. The reasons are obvious and borne out by history.  

   The US cannot deal with other nations with more than a single voice and intent. That is not to say we cannot have robust internal debate, but in bilateral relationships, only the Chief Executive has the power to engage foreign officials and especially heads of state. 

    Boehner is an inept Speaker and now he becomes an historic blunderer.  Even if you are a conservative, Republican, or not a fan of Barack Obama, you must still respect the institution and history of the Presidency and its exclusive role in bilateral relationships. Boehner is a fool and a mean spirited one at that.  His move on Netanyahu, meant to embarrass the President and to boost Netanyahu in his own political race, is wrong and indicative of how low the Republican party is stooping. As a matter of fact I suspect Ev Dirksen, John Foster Dulles, Teddy Roosevelt, William McKinley, Henry Clay, Robert Lafollete, Robert Taft and many other Republicans are spinning as well.

    Boehner should spend the remainder of this term of congress with a bright yellow A emblazoned on his forehead.

    See you down the trail.   

GETTING THE HAWK EYE-CAT AND THE BASKET-A CHRISTMAS REFRAIN LIKE NO OTHER-THE WEEKENDER

HAWK EYE

Photo by Kristin Cochrun

    Kristin, our eldest, surprised me many years ago when she asked if she could borrow my Nikon for a shot of a Water Lily in a fountain in Key West. She was very young and I was was a bit nervous as she held the camera over water, but she got a beautiful exposure and she's been a great shooter all her life.  She grabbed these shots of a hawk at Camp Ocean Pines in Cambria. 

Photo by Kristin Cochrun
 NAPS AND HIJINX

Hemingway wants to picnic

  There is no place where Hemingway is not comfortable, nor where his curiosity is not aroused.

POSES OF JOY

   She is of a oft mingled blood line, a bit of a mutt I suppose, but a sweet natured cat.  Her markings reflect her rich heritage, her coat is extraordinarily soft and for some reason her tail is always up and angled over her back.

   Unless she is perched in the bottle brush tree, where she spends a lot of time, probably watching birds.

WEEKENDER VIDEO

A LATE CHRISTMAS GIFT

This needs to be seen to be appreciated, perhaps.

See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER-WE NEED THIS

JOY

    There is nothing to remove the tragic sadness of Newtown Conn., but there is a dimension of humanity where actions prompt joy and spirits soar.

     This came in from several friends this week.  Here is a lift for us all.

    See you down the trail.

HE KNOWS WHO I AM

BEING THERE

    Joy in this season, or any other, is seeing parents or family members watching their kids in chorales, plays, skits, ballets, concerts and the other performances that make this season so merry.

       Love is modeled best whenever it happens and we get to absorb a large gift of it during the holidays. Seeing proud parents and those little communications from kid back to them is a heart-warming information loop. It's good for all of us.

DECEMBER FLIGHT AT MORRO BAY

CHRISTMAS GHOSTS

  Dickens demonstrated for us how Christmas ghosts play a role.  Don't you think memories morph into a kind of apparition?  I think of old stories as becoming a kind of ghost of times passed. 

THE GRIZZLED VET

     You may need a context for this.  

      

Bruce Taylor, a.k.a. CatalystDecember 10, 2012 5:22 PM

I would just like it recorded here that, in spite of my post recently, I have never known this man nor do I know him now.

A Story AS Response

        That goofy shot from the beach where swim suit and the beach chair matched the color of peppers on the grill prompted the above comment.  You would know this if you read the comments below the post.

        Despite the denunciation re-printed above, his recent post about our long friendship, renegade forays at political conventions and other carrying on is mostly true, as either of us remember those years of "pedal to the metal" television news.

         It started in radio.  My first day on the metro news staff of the 50 thousand watt "Voice of News" found me assigned to shadow the veteran Bruce Taylor.  It was the pre computer era and the old line station had truly been the Voice of News for the state capitol. Unimaginable today, our radio news staff was larger than one or two of the television stations in the city.  It competed with the  three, then two, daily newspapers to break stories.

         I had been hired to work 3PM to Midnight, starting my day by picking up city government and/or state house leads before sources left their office or the bars some retreated to. Then I moved into our cubicle at the "cop shop" to cover police, sheriff, fire and emergency news.  At some point in the evening I went back to the studio where I wrote and produced the 15 minute 10:00 PM news.  I was to learn that newscast had thousands of listeners, many of whom had listened for years.  Back then people would get what they needed from our cast and didn't need to wait up until the late local TV news.

        Taylor had been working that beat for a while. I'd heard him on the air.  He wrote great copy, used a lot sound in stories, had a very professional big market style. Here I was, the new kid from a smaller market getting my orientation from the old vet.

        He wore a pin stripped shirt, mint green as a I recall, and an orange patterned tie, loose at the neck, as he sauntered into the news room.  His jacket was on his finger over his shoulder, he carried a cup of coffee, a cigarette clamped in his teeth.  His face and eyes said this was a guy who you could not bull shit.

      Our boss, a legendary radio news man and ex sailor, who swore better than the best, said something about "glad he could make it!" 
      "It was one of those kind of nights,"  Taylor shot back. 
       He looked to me like a guy who probably was a veteran of those "kind of nights."   
      I was a year out of college and had worked radio news in a medium sized factory town.  I'd been around a little bit, but I knew this guy Taylor was from the major leagues in being around.  

      We'd been dispatched to a north side shopping mall where a works project had changed the flow of water and several shops had been flooded.  It's hard not to be impressed by a guy who smokes, drinks coffee, talks on the two way radio and drives like a bat out of hell simultaneously.  
       Heading to our first assignment I thought a couple of things; man, this new job is going to be a blast!  And what a cool dude Taylor is.  He even liked jazz. That was a start to a friendship that for many years existed in those famous letters he wrote of.

      So, let him deny knowing me now, but let me tell you this.  Lana and I showed up in Phoenix one year for our periodic visit.  I was surprised when Bruce met us at the airport.

        "I thought you had to work," I said.

        "I quit.  They didn't give me the weekend off, so screw em!"

         We had a wonderful weekend up in Zane Grey country and created another story or two, as we always seem to do.

        Some time we should tell you about the Democratic mid term convention in the Kansas City landmark Muehlebach Hotel.  Here's the teaser-Bruce, a friend who is now a respected broadcast executive, a woman who ran for congress and I find our way into the deep innards of the old hotel.  It was a portion of a floor that had been walled off and had not been remodeled as the rest of the hotel had been.  It was a kind of 1940's pastiche of old hotel in decline. We were in a Felliniesque scene. It looked like an old conference room, now a storage area of dated furniture and other discarded stuff on the way to being junk.  

         Cutting to the chase-Taylor is jamming away on an old piano, clunking out a version of Sentimental Journey. The lady is singing, someone is pounding on a chair bottom like a drum and someone is trying to modulate the blast of a fire extinguisher to ape a trumpet when we are suddenly interrupted in our dusty jam session, by a Secret Service contingent. The lead guy asks "Can you tell me what's going on here?"

         All of that was early in the evening. It gets more interesting when Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace work into our evening.

        Don't believe for a moment what he wrote above!

See you down the trail.

       

THE WEEKENDER-MAGIC

HOW DID HE DO THAT?

     Were you too a sucker for a magic show? Amateur or big production professional-it didn't matter.  Even after buying magic tricks at a local store I was always fascinated by the tricks.

      The Weekender provides this video and asks, how did he do it?

      And then it seems that Luke, Hemingway and little sister Joy are working on a variation of "how many clowns can you get in a car?"

Three cats in the Jade plant.

Perfect for your cat nap?

Have a good weekend.

See you down the trail.