THE WEEKENDER-CAPTURING THE MOOD

UNDER THE STARS

    As the sun dropped from the painted sky it pulled in thousands of stars on jet blackness over Harmony California.

    Jim Conroy and the Mystery Brothers sweetened the air, a further desert at the Harmony Cafe, alfresco.

     It was a CD release party and the California Irishman logged in stories behind the songs he wrote-Gypsies by the Sea, Celtic Cactus, Walking Down the High Road, Universal Prayer, Mystery of Life and more including the haunting Volcano Lullaby. 

     Conroy's music is accomplished, deep, rich in texture, mood and life.  And like his stories, his creations evoke images.  He finished telling of driving hours in the Baja desert, crossing a ridge with a volcano to the right when suddenly the peaceful blue bay comes into view, as though singing to the smoking volcano.  

     A September night on the California coast, minstrels casting a spell as the quiet Santa Lucia Mountains slumber in the moon light and the Pacific roars its own lullaby.

Harmony indeed.

     See you down the trail.

KNOWING AND OPTIMISM & THE ALMOST EATEN BY A WHALE VIDEO

REASONS FOR OPTIMISM

    Tools, advances and new research are coming rapidly now in the area of brain science.  Discoveries in the last couple of years are astounding but because they are technical and complex they have not been widely reported nor understood by the public.

      PBS presenter and host Charlie Rose with Nobel Winning neuroscientist Dr. Erik Kandel have presented 14 programs over the last two years that can provide a breathtaking and mind charging survey of this extraordinary new science of understanding. 

       Here are a couple of ways to learn more or gain access to the series.

 LearnOutLoud 

(this links to the full series and program descriptions)

Charlie Rose watch

(the final program in the series-looking at the new federal Brain Initiative)

     This is fascinating and informative television with special relevance to an aging boomer population.

A JULY SEA SIDE WALK
PACIFIC LULLABY

Napping seals without memory foam.

SOME KIND OF NEAR MISS

   Posting a video here that was shot just down the coast. It captures a moment where a couple of snorkelers come precariously close to being whale food.  They are swimming with a school of small fish when something happens they'll never forget.

     Whew!!!

     See you down the trail.

A GAY SLUR? AND GETTING AWAY FROM PEOPLE

WORDS

CUTTING BOTH WAYS

     Teaching us diplomacy and providing a way to keep us out of continual scrapes, fights and altercations, mom taught us the childhood adage

      "sticks and stones may break my bones-

       but words will never hurt me."

     How I wish that were still true.  Maybe it would be if only we all lived that reality.  But words have power and the meaning can hurt.

      An NBA star is in trouble and has been fined for something he said.  The phrase "no homo" derives from a black idiom, complicated by African American attitudes about gay life, but has mutated in use to where in the macho world of professional athletes it meant to imply something else and was not meant in disrespect, though it could be offensive to some.  No harm intended, but offense could be taken.  Such is the tyranny of political correctness especially in the hyper amplified world where big name stardom and social media meet. 

       I don't know if it is an improvement that we now are more aware of our language skills and word choices and sensitive to their impact, or if we have just netted ourselves in a time and place where, despite intent, a word or phrase can lead to a knee jerk type of social persecution.

      I'm inclined to think we must indeed be wise in our word choice, but still there was so much wisdom-and hassle avoidance, in that old childhood retort.

SO LET'S JUST GET AWAY FROM PEOPLE

Big Sur-Lime Kiln Canyon-One of the world's special places

    A simple pleasure is to hike from where water falls out of the mountains to where it runs into the Pacific.

  Here, words and language seem secondary.

  See you down the trail.

REMEMBERING WES & PACIFIC ART

THAT CAT CAN PLAY

     Jazz radio hosts are remembering the great Wes Montgomery on this the 90th anniversary of his birth. Even though I'm a Caucasian with no musical talent I feel a kinship to the guitarist from Indianapolis.

     First,  there is the hometown connection. Then several years ago I worked with Wes's brother, Buddy, a great player in his own right in trying to develop a documentary on Wes.  We couldn't get a buyer, but the time working with Buddy and hearing tales was a thrill.

     I got hooked on jazz when I was a high school kid who'd listen to rhythm & blues and jazz radio.  I had to be in the minority of whites, especially young whites, who listened.

     I was working in the mid-town area at an FM station known for it's classical and semi classical play list, but I'd listen to a small station that played jazz.  My station was in the heart of the city, in an old hotel that at the time was known as a place for hookers, working out of the marbled bar and lobby. The jazz station was further east, in what had become an industrial neighborhood, near the giant RCA plant. I'd drive through that area on the way into my Saturday and Sunday shifts, from noon to 1:00 AM. One day I had filled in for a regular staff guy and on the way home decided to stop in at the jazz station.

      I knew the Dearborn Hotel, because I played in a basketball league that played in the famous little gym there. I punched the elevator button for the top floor and passed through levels of aroma.  There was stale smoke smell of the lobby, the gym smell, food and what I call old hotel aromas.  There was a buzzer on a door at the end of the hall that displayed the station's call letters. I was about to leave after a couple of punches when a black man with slicked backed hair, a goatee and wearing a white shirt and tie asked "What can I do for you sunny?"

      I explained my mission, told him of my love of jazz and he bid me entry into a small office, stacked full of records and a couple of desks cluttered with broadcast logs-records of the music and commercials played.  We sat in the studio over looking the neighborhood, toward the downtown and chatted.  He was a jazz player too. He'd played with Wes and the great JJ Johnson among others.  

      I think he was amazed to count among his listeners a white suburban high school boy, but he seemed thrilled just to know the music "crossed over."  

     I was struck by a comment about Wes.  

     "He is one fine negro gentleman, and man that cat can play."

     That was back in the early 60's.  From that era here are a couple of videos of the great Wes Montgomery.

     The first tune is an original-Jingles

Here he is with a couple of other legends.

    Man, that cat can play!

PACIFIC BLUFF ART

 

    See you down the trail.

THE LETHAL ANCHORMAN

ABSURDITY REIGNS 

     OK, District of Columbia police are stating the law, maybe even doing their job well, but, hey!!!

      NBC News and Meet the Press anchor David Gregory being in a hot spot because he held an automatic weapon ammo clip on the air while Americans own and use such things is a snapshot of how absurdly silly this complex nation is becoming.

      School children die when a "legal" weapon is used against them, but hold a clip in a studio and be the object of an investigation?!  Should we laugh, or cry?

SCROOGE

      Frank Raiter played the best Scrooge I have seen.

      I struggled to remember his name last week, as I noted the great performance in Tom Haas's adaptation of the Christmas Carol at the IRT a couple of decades ago. 

      My thanks to those of you who suggested other names, and while I know some of them and they were indeed very worthy, Raiter played old Ebenezer better than any I've seen, on stage, film or television.

      Frank's name popped into mind over the weekend as I devoured any thing Christmas Carol on the air, DVR or On Demand. One more Christmas ghost, jarred loose.  I don't think Raiter's performance was captured on film or tape so like many other good stage performances, it lives on in memory only.

WHEN THE TIDE IS OUT

  See you down the trail.

REPUBLICANS SHOULD HEAR THIS & THE KING IS HERE

AN EXTRAORDINARY FAREWELL

    Words, important for all Americans to hear, have been inscribed now into the historic record of the US Senate, but first they should be heeded. What Senator Richard Lugar said in his farewell to the Senate is counsel and wisdom to this generation and to the future.
     Lugar is the most senior Republican in the senate and has served there 30 years.  He is widely considered to be one of the most intelligent Senators in history. 

Link here to see Lugar's farewell on the Senate floor.

     Lugar's 15 minute farewell could well save this nation years of acrimony and heartbreak. 

     He cautioned his own party.

     "...Republicans must be willing to suspend reflexive opposition that serves no purpose but to limit their own role in strategic questions and render cooperation impossible." 

      Lugar is one of the nation's leading thinkers on foreign policy. He chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has advised Presidents.

    "All parties should recognize the need for unity in the coming year when events in Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, North Korea and other locations may test American national security in extreme ways."

     Americans are fortunate Lugar will continue to work on nuclear non proliferation and the cooperative threat reduction program that he and former Senator Sam Nunn started after the fall of the Soviet Union. They deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.  Their work to stabilize and control nuclear and chemical/biological weapons is one of the great chapters in world history.
     I wrote earlier about Lugar's impact and my history of covering him. You can link to that post here.
     If you have any interest in the state of American politics, I urge you to see the C-SPAN file on his farewell.

THE KING TIDE

 It's called the King Tide and indeed it is.  

   It is the rare cosmological and natural phenomena where the tide is so high, the beach disappears.

   Here are a few frames of the same beach, before the King Tide.

   See the difference in boulder before and after- 

       See you down the trail.                                      

EXPLORATION

PUSHING BOUNDARIES

     Here's some context.  Jimmy Carter was in the White House, Magic Johnson was at Michigan State, Stephen King released The Shining, Tom Watson won the Masters and Apple released their new color logo. 
     35 years ago today one of this planet's greatest accomplishments was launched. Voyager 1 began the journey that today has taken it 11 Billion miles and to the edge of our solar system.  Voyager 1 and companion Voyager 2, now some 9.3 Billion miles in another direction, continue to mine data of deep space, soon to be interstellar space. Voyager has gone the farthest human kind has reached.
     On board are those gold discs containing sounds, data and renderings of human life, in case an intelligence encounters our sub-compact car sized "human offspring" wandering beyond our knowledge base.
     Alicia Chang of the Associated Press reports each Voyager "has only 68 kilobytes of computer memory.  To put that in perspective, the smallest iPod-an 8 gigabyte Nano-is 100,000 times more powerful. Each also has an eight-track tape recorder."
     Mind bending isn't it?

THE OTHER BOUNDARY

      Jack Kerouac's cult classic On The Road was published by Viking Press on this day in 1957.

From back cover of ON THE ROAD

       The original manuscript, a long continuous roll of type written script, now belongs to Jimmy Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts.  

        A few years ago the late George Plimpton told me he was in an office as the On The Road manuscript roll was being read and considered.  He said while it may be revered now on that particular day, people in the office were having  fun unrolling it across the floor and back, like a kid's toy.

Photo from mountholly-lamano.com

DAY FILE

GARDEN NOTES

      We've got a "volunteer" and "mystery" squash growing
down the back hill side.  

     Not sure what it is-something like a butternut or summer squash.  We've had a few and it bakes and sautés nicely and is great in a casserole.  I decided to pick a few when they were smaller.  One that had "hidden" beneath a slope side leaf grew to the size of a small pumpkin. That "prize" went home with a stone mason working on a neighbor's fire pit. He was delighted.

     A tomato update.  The "beautiful" greenhouse continues to endure evening breezes and winds and the crop inside flourishes. It ain't pretty, but the crop is.

      It continues to amaze us that we can grow tomatoes in this climate near the Pacific fed by the cooler than 
hot and humid mid-west conditions which favor tomatoes.

See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER :) IT IS WONDERFUL

IMMERSE YOURSELF

    I can't help myself.  When I see a solitary boat in a cove

my mind starts leaping through, where did it sail from, where is it bound, how did they choose this berth and those

all lead to the perpetual question, what would it have been like to sail into a new land for the first time?

    BTW sailing this part of the California coast is tricky and dangerous, so anyone putting into San Simeon has navigated   some difficult water and shoals.

SPEAKING OF THE WATER

   A dear friend visited from the Washington DC area recently.  Before coming he inquired about swimming in the Pacific. He and I have both shared the Atlantic chill, but when I told him the average water temperature was mid to high 50's he opted out.   Hey Frank-look at these guys-

 --they are either too young to know better or from some 

northern clime, where 59 degree water feels good!!!!

  My thanks to the BBC and several friends who suggested

this video would make a great WEEKENDER :) treat.

IT REALLY IS A WONDERFUL WORLD

Thanks to Sir David as well.

Enjoy the weekend.

See you down the trail.