Late Sunday Night Love

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

I'm glad to see your photo this afternoon. It looks like you are having fun, as you say, working on the F2R video. Great to combine work and pleasure! As always, I've gotta remark on how amazing it is that things have worked out so well for you, so next year will only increase the awesomeness.  :)

I hope your Thanksgiving and birthday weekend was an overall success, and for your family as well.

In church, half our choir was missing (likely due to turkey hangovers), but that meant I got to take the lead voice and belt out today's anthem, "Prepare Ye (The Way Of The Lord)" which is fairly easy to sing. Harder was the practice afterward, once again with the director of the SFV Master Chorale. He sang with us this time, and I found that I could match up with him notewise, and in tone of voice, but the rise and fall of the counterpoint is a bit tougher. I only can read music - after a year of being in the choir - by following the pattern of the notes on the page (like ladders), so when it's really involved, like with chorale singing, it's easier if I can just memorise it, and to do that I need to hear it or sing it over and over about a thousand times, haha. But I can hit the notes, which I could not do when I first joined.

I was a little sad to see that Kobe Bryant has announced his retirement. Yeah - sports....I realise, but he was with the Lakers for such a long time that he seemed like a permanent fixture. And he was such a great player; if not the greatest ever, then certainly in the top five. We Laker fans loved the guy, and that's what is most important.

Now if I am not mistaken, tomorrow is the release of the Versus Me video. Do I have that correct? I am pretty sure I do. If so, I am looking forward to seeing it, and I know it's gonna be a big step in your success. I am pretty much "blind" on FB until they fix my news ticker, but I'll be keeping an eye out for the vid......  :)

That's all I know for tonight, Sweet Baby. See you in the morning! I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)

Saturday Night Love (powwow + gruesome + lights + choir)

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

I am back at Pearl's. All is quiet here. Super chilly outside, about 36, which as you know qualifies as L.A. Cold. :) I hope you had a nice day. Maybe still doing birthday stuff? Or maybe holiday weekend family stuff. I can't see any posts because of the doggone FB, so I hope you had a good day (and I'm sure you did).  :)

Today was the CSUN Powwow, as indicated by my FB post. I always go because I love Indian culture as you also know, and I especially like to see what they call The Grand Entry, which is a dance of members of all the different tribes as they come into the staging area. The dancers are in full garb, and the music is provided by men in a drum circle who also sing and chant. I actually looked up some powwow music on Amazon, cause I wanna get a cd of those chants. They're very hypnotic, and spiritual. So I made a couple trips over to see what was going on at the Powwow. It lasted all day, from 10am till 7:30pm.

I saw the first Christmas lights up tonight as I drove over here. I always love to see the houses lit up, and it goes with the cold, clear air. All the haze disappears at this time of year and the night sky is well defined, dark and sparkling with at least a few handfuls of stars and tonight a brilliant round Moon. Perfect for the colors of the Christmas lights.

I may have mentioned it yesterday, but I began Season Five of "The Walking Dead". I think it has reached the Pinnacle Of Gruesomeness by now. After seeing the first two episodes of this season, I can't see it getting worse from that standpoint......(my goodness, I guess "not for the squeamish" doesn't apply anymore, as this show is so popular).

Well, that was my day. Tomorrow will be church and a little bit extra at choir practice as we will be rehearsing again with the director from the SFV Master Chorale. I'll be around in the morning and then back at around 1:30pm.

Sweet Dreams, Sweet Baby! I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

It's Still Going (late night love and into the season)

Hi, my Darling,

I won't wish you a Happy Late Night just yet; that'll be in a little while. Right now I just wanted to check in to say that I hope you've had a fantastic birthday and a nice evening, too, and perhaps you did something for your birthday with family and friends and any combination of the two. Now, it's only 10:30 over here in L.A., so your b-day is still going for another hour and a half. The full 24 hours, y'know.  :)

As long as you had fun, that's the main thing. I didn't do a whole lot today, myself. I'm not much of a Black Friday person, although I did browse Amazon just to check dvd prices (which weren't all that different on the stuff I was looking at). Mostly I just chilled out at home & did the usual. Just finished my walk a few minutes ago, so now I will have a little snack and then come back to write some more in just a bit.

Happy Birthday once again, Sweet Baby. I Love You!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

(back in a few)

12:30am : Okay, now I can wish you a Happy Late Night. It is pretty chilly here - mid-40s - so I've got my heater cranked up full blast. Been reading my Tom Van Flandern book and have to pause every now and then to look up stuff such as gravitational lensing or the inverse square law. The book is written without much explanation of terminology - as if the reader has some background in astronomy - so it's a challenge but also fun to do a little brain-stretching.

You may have seen my post that the Japanese actress Setsuko Hara died. I am sure I must have mentioned her in blogs from last Spring, when we were doing the Yasujiro Ozu retrospective at CSUN. She was in many of his movies, and was a tremendous actress with a great capacity for portraying emotion on screen, though always with subtlety. Her films with Ozu are quiet and understated, but leave a lasting impression and are highly recommended. She was 95 years old.

Tomorrow I will be back at work, starting in the afternoon. Now we will head into the Christmas season, taking time in fast paced days to notice, in all the little details, what a wonderful time of year it is. I will be looking forward in particular to the music and the lights.......and the spirit.

See you in the morning, Elizabeth. I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Gobble Gobble (too funny!) (HBD24hr + Thanksgiving)

Good Morning, my Darling,

Okay.......:)........I just woke up, but I had to check in right away, because that is just too funny! :)!

I hope you don't wind up on the Thanksgiving dinner table. I will be back after my own Thanksgiving dinner to make sure....

Have a great day, Funny Lady. I Love You!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

12:40am : Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby, and because it is past midnight I can also wish you a Happy Birthday, too, so that you get the full 24 hour effect.

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth! I think the upcoming year is gonna be your best one yet! Just keep doing what you do, and have fun while doing it, and you can't go wrong.  :) Wow, this is the fourth birthday since I've known you. Pretty amazing, eh? And these are awesome years, your early 20s........  :)

I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving day as well, with your family. We had a nice dinner at Pearl's, with lots of good food, some wine, and several desserts (two pies and a cake). I put away quite a bit, and am full and happy as I write. The guys in our party watched a bit of football, too, cause it's traditional (and because we love football). The Kobester was pretty well behaved, considering how much food was being consumed around him. And he wound up getting a small bowl of turkey himself, just for being such a Good Boy.

Tomorrow perhaps another hike. We will see, after the sleep in. I hope you have an absolute blast on your birthday, and I will of course be back to wish you an HBD again tomorrow morn.

(but I had to start tonight because you've gotta get your 24 hours worth)

Sweet Dreams, my Baby. Today was a great day, and your picture was a classic. I will see you in the morning.........

I Love You!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

I hope you had a nice day and are looking forward to Thanksgiving tomorrow and then your birthday on Friday. And then you've got your new video coming out on Monday, so get ready for a great four day extended holiday weekend.

Because of the dumb FB situation I was only able to see one post, right after I woke up, and that was the one of James dancing at a concert. :) I had a good day, similar to yesterday with a hike - a big one at Santa Su - and my daily reading and watching shows & movies (i.e. "The Pacific" and "The Boogieman Will Get You" with Boris Karloff). At the park, I hiked all the way to the top of the Devil's Slide, pretty easy for me by now, and then wandered around some other trails as well. I did a ton of miles today, because of my regular walk as well.

Stopped at Marie Callendar's to pick up a pie my sister preordered, and then I stopped by our local Delicious Bakery (yes, that's the name, been there since 1960) to pick up a carrot cake that I picked out myself. We will be having Thanksgiving at Pearl's, as has been our tradition for many years.

I wish you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving. I will be home tomorrow night probably around 6-7pm, and I will write then.

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Refrigerator Zombie (plus hike & movie)

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

Too funny - I saw your post about pizza, and that is exactly what I was doing on my first two nights off, Sunday and yesterday. I had some leftover pizza in the fridge - and you know that leftover, cold pizza can be just as good if not better than "brand new" pizza, and so both nights I re-awoke about an hour after going to sleep to consume slices of pizza. I am a Refrigerator Zombie to begin with (I coined the term), almost guaranteed to wake up if I know something delectable is in there, but if it's pizza the guarantee is ironclad.

Now my pizza is all gone, and you are doing it too. Big time funny!  :)

I also saw your post for the I Prevail/Versus Me Holiday Run. Are you gonna go along, maybe to a few shows? Maybe the whole thing? I know you'll be at the Madison show, and you've got the video coming out in a few days, so all is good.

I had a nice hike up at Aliso Canyon this afternoon, the full length 3.5 miles. Did my walk too, later in the eve. Tonight I watched an absolute classic called "The Third Man", widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made. I saw it once before, with my Mom, about a dozen years ago, and tonight I am reminded why it is so excellent in so many respects. Director Carol Reed did not make a lot of films, but he did make some all time classics, including "Third Man", which features Orson Welles (which was why I got it at the library) and another called "Odd Man Out" with James Mason, which I wrote about a while back. Both movies have some of the greatest black and white photography I've ever seen, just one great shot after another.

So that was my day, similar to yesterday with lots of footwork including a hike, some reading and relaxing too, with a movie.

Refrigerator Zombie will be disappointed tonight cause the pizza is all gone.

Sweet Dreams, Sweet Baby. I will see you in the morning.

I Love You!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

News Ticker Gone Again + Love (Super Pro)

Hi, my Darling,

Well, if you saw my post on FB a few hours ago, you know that my news ticker is once again missing. Sigh.... :(  This time I actually saw it happen, and it was kinda weird. I was at home, checking FB in the early evening. I hit "refresh" cause I'd been at the store and it looked like it hadn't updated in a while. And when it refreshed, it buffered for a couple minutes, taking a very long time to reload. I didn't have a lot of windows open, but I closed Youtube and anything that I thought might be slowing it down. Usually my Chromebook is very fast, even with many windows open, and FB is almost always fast. Finally, it came back but with the entire chat sidebar missing - no news ticker, no chat names, nothing. Just a blank space.

So, I thought maybe that particular window was messed up. Running slow or crashed for some reason. So I closed that FB window and opened another to start FB fresh. This time that chat sidebar came back, with all the chat names on the bottom half, as usual, and just the beginning of a news ticker on top, just one or two of the most recent posts. Usually, the ticker fills the top half of the sidebar, and chat fills the bottom half. I let it sit for a few minutes, though, and finally the ticker filled up with new posts by various people.

Then all of a sudden, a minute or two later, it was like someone flipped a switch. The screen flickered on the chat bar column, and the news ticker just went off, and the whole column was just chat once again. No ticker. I went to click the little "gear" icon at the bottom that says "options", but I already knew that the option to "show ticker" would be missing, and it was.

It's like somebody took the code out of my FB page right before my eyes. I am no techie, as you know, but I do know that everything you see on a screen is there because of code. Like when I wanted to install a hit counter on my Myspace page many years ago, I had to copy a code from an unauthorised source and then paste it in between some other code on my Myspace profile. I can't remember how I accessed that profile code, but I think it was via the same unauthorised source where I got the code for the hit counter. But anyway, when I pasted the code in the proper place, I came back to look at my Myspace page, and I now had a hit counter. So I had altered my page, slightly, by adding code.

So the way this happened tonight, first by my FB taking forever to refresh, then coming back with no sidebar whatsoever, then coming back again with only a partial sidebar and barely a news ticker, and then finally blinking out completely right in front of my eyes, makes it seem like somebody was changing my code on me.

That was my thought the first time this happened, a few weeks ago. It just didn't feel right. And I don't mean you of course. I only even mention that because we've established long ago that you have some ability to see my FB via my Chromebook, but we have also established that - even though I'm not in favor of it - that I'm not mad about it. I know it's not you anyway, because why would you want to delete my news ticker - twice now - when it's the very thing that allows me to see your posts?

So I know it's not you and I only even mention it so you'll know that I know it's not you.

And I suppose it could be a legitimate technical glitch that has reoccured, even though it doesn't feel like that.

At any rate, I once again reported the problem right away, and FB fixed it once so I know they'll fix it again. We just have to wait, and I will look for your posts in "posts You like", even though it's nowhere as extensive as the news ticker. I just hope that when FB fixes it, that it stays fixed the next time.

I did see all your photos and posts from this morning, though, and I will be back after a quick snack to write some more.

I Love You and will be back in just a little bit!    xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

1am : Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby. Yes, as I said I did see your posts this morning, the one from Sam Hurd Photography of course I loved.  :):) Also, I always enjoy the photos you've posted of yourself at work on various video shoots, including this new one with Fall II Rise. You always look Super Pro in those shots. The director in control, focused and on top of it.  :)

You are a natural at filming I think, and I am always so glad to see you doing it and having fun.

About the freezing and the snowstorm part, I had read over the weekend that there was a humongous amount of snow in that area, and record snowfall in Chicago, so I figured you must have gotten at least some of it. I hope you are spared a deep freeze winter like the one a couple years ago, however.

Today of course a day off for me. I went on a few walks, to stores and on my CSUN loop. Whenever I have several days off in a row, on my first one I try to stay out of my car, as so much of my working days is spent driving in traffic. So today, a car-free day, and I enjoy being a pedestrian anyway. :)

I have a new Stephen King book from the library. It's called "Bazaar Of Bad Dreams" (gee, thanks Steve), and it is a collection of short stories. I read a few of those, watched another episode of "The Pacific", and then tonight I watched "Gone Girl", which came out a couple years ago and which you may or may not have seen. It's David Fincher, whom I usually like, at least for the most part. And this film I was really enjoying, for about 3/4 of the way through. It's a great mystery for much of the film, and the actress Rosamund Pike creates one of the most horrible characters in recent film, truly a scary woman. But then near the end, Fincher kind of changes gears and turns it into a Grand Guignol bloodbath, with Black Humor irony and a vague ending, which for me kind of took away from the film somewhat. It could have been an excellent movie, but the last half hour downgraded it, I think, to a merely good one. Still worth watching though, and definitely not for the squeamish.

Well, that's all for tonight. We will once again keep our fingers crossed for FB to fix my page, and hopefully for good this time. Meanwhile, I will hang in there and check for any posts I can find from you.

Sweet Dreams, and I will see you in the morning. I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Happy Sunday Night

Hi Elizabeth,

I hope you had a nice day. I only saw the one post on FB, for the upcoming Versus Me video, so I guess you weren't around much this weekend. I'm excited about the video and I know you are too. Next week will be awesome.  :)

Today at choir practice, we found out that we are gonna be singing with a larger group, The San Fernando Valley Master Chorale, on December 13 as part of a Christmas concert they are giving at the church that afternoon. In addition to our regular practice today, we also rehearsed a bit with the assistant director of the Chorale. It was really fun and encouraging, because they will be a fairly accomplished group of singers, and it will be a chance to see if we can hang in there with 'em. Their director seems to think so, and we will rehearse again next week with him.

I've just been hanging around since I got home, watching an episode of a WW2 miniseries called "The Pacific" which came out a few years ago. Later this eve, I also watched a classic early horror film from 1932, "Island Of Lost Souls" with Charles Laughton. Super weird and creepy! I remember seeing it on TV when I was about 10, and it left an impression that I never forgot. Seeing it all these years later, it has the same effect.

That's all for tonight. Hope to see you around tomorrow. I Love You.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Happy Late Night

Hi Elizabeth,

Happy Late Night. I am writing from home, as I now have a full week off. I didn't see you around today, on FB, so maybe you are busy with a video or maybe just enjoying your Saturday. I was just shopping with my sister Vickie, then was home most of the afternoon & evening, except for my walk. Reading & watching a movie, "House Of Dark Shadows", which was made in 1970 and based on the original TV series. It was a great vampire movie, for sure. Directed by a guy named Dan Curtis, who worked mostly in television but really knew how to work up an atmosphere. He created a series called "Kolchak: The Night Stalker", which ran in the mid-70s and was one of the scariest shows ever on the air.

Tomorrow is church & choir. We will be singing "Canticle Of Thanksgiving" by Dale Wood. I'll be back home after choir practice, at about 1:30pm.

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Happy Late Night Love

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

Not much to report for me today. I was mostly cleaning, here at Pearl's and also at home in advance of the upcoming inspections. Took Kobedoggie to Le Groomer, and then late this afternoon I took both Pearl and Kobe to Lake Balboa to watch the sunset, which was quite beautiful, turning the water to silver and copper. We saw a flock of about 15 geese (regular, not Canada) chowing down on the grass right next to the bench we like to sit at. They were eating dinner, I suppose, and they would really tug and pull with strong necks to uproot the grass. And they would hiss every time The Kobester got too close. He didn't seem impressed even though the geese could easily kick his butt......  :)

I saw your post, from Versus Me, so I am assuming that their upcoming video is your work. They say it's great, and of course I have no doubt, and I can't wait to see it. They seem to have a good following too, so that is great publicity for you as well.

I am off for a week, starting after tomorrow morning, so I'll get a chance to take some pictures myself. It is once again like Summer here in the Valley - today it was 85 degrees - so I will try to get a few hikes in, as well as a lot of relaxation.

That's all for tonight, my Baby. Sweet Dreams, and I will see you in the morning.

I Love You!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Movie & Sweet Babyism (Welles & WD)

Good Evening, Sweet Baby,

Just checking in real quick to say hi before I leave for the movie. Tonight we are gonna see Welles' "The Immortal Story", which was made for European TV. It's only about a hour long, so the professor is gonna show some excerpts from another unfinished Welles film to fill out the program. I should be back in the usual time frame, and I will write more when I get back here later on.

Loved the Sweet Baby picture! And I Love You, too.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

12:20am : Happy Late Night, my Darling. All is quiet on the western front here at Pearl's. KUSC on the radio as always. The combination of the late night quiet and the low volume sounds of the classical music is the perfect formula for relaxation & contemplation.

Tonight we had a short program at the CSUN Cinematheque. I mentioned that, in addition to the main film, we were gonna see excerpts from another one, but that didn't pan out. They had some technical problems with the dvd, and so we just saw "The Immortal Story" and that was all. The excerpts were going to be from Welles' "Don Quixote", and the professor said he will try to fix the problem and show it on the last night of the retrospective, which will be December 10. The Orson Welles series has been fantastic. Going in, I didn't know what to expect because I'd only seen "Citizen Kane" and "The Magnificent Ambersons", but every film has been great in one way or another, and I have especially loved the Welles presentations of Shakespeare. I imagine I will be watching them many times in the years to come. "The Immortal Story" was short and almost like a play, with just four actors. It's about a very wealthy man living in Macao (off China), who has no love in his life, and so he pays a woman to portray his non-existent wife and he pays a sailor to sleep with her in order that he have an offspring to leave his wealth to, and also so that an old story told through generations by sailors of just such an event will actually finally be true.

Kind of weird, yeah, but also philosophical and hypnotic and extremely well done, with superb direction of the actors and what almost appears to be candle-lit cinematography ala "Barry Lyndon" (a Stanley Kubrick movie that was famous for actually using candles to light certain scenes and the color tones that resulted). "The Immortal Story" has a similar look in certain scenes, and was made earlier, in 1968.

Then because the program was short, I came home and watched a "Walking Dead".

I couldn't resist, because it was the final episode to Season Four and I had to know what was gonna happen. You know how it was with "Downton Abbey", lol. You've gotta see what happens next! It's just like that with "Walking Dead", only super grim and gruesome..... ;)

But also extremely well done, or I wouldn't watch.

Well, that's all I know for tonight. I hope your day was good. Here we go into Thanksgiving week, somebody's birthday (!) and then the Christmas Season........I love this time of year.

Sweet Dreams and I will see you in the morning.

I Love You!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

It's Back! (agents of gravity + love)

Okay, Sweet Baby,

Just to let you know I have my news ticker back at FB. Now I can see what's going on, all is back to normal. I like your picture of Morgin; great lighting effects with the rainbows! I agree with what you said, too - you guys make a great team, and she is not only a good model for you but a good friend also. I am glad if she is back in Wisconsin.

I am gonna go for the daytime part of my walk in a few minutes, but I just wanted to check in and let you know that they fixed my news ticker.

I'll write more later on. Enjoy your day!

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

12:25am : Happy Late Night, my Darling. Hey, this is great. Now I can see your posts, like the album art just posted by Lantlos. It looks like you just "liked" it, too, because it's at the top of my news ticker. Much better now that I can see your posts! I like that painting too. I don't know why they call it "awful album art". It looks pretty cool to me.

So everything is back to normal, and I hope your day was good. Hope you're enjoying your new camera, too. I will try to go on a hike soon, and I was gonna go on Friday, but today there was a notice on all the doors of all the units in my building - they are gonna do the Official City Inspections in a couple weeks (which always irritates me because of the intrusion, though I understand why they've gotta do it), so I've gotta get The Pad straightened up, do some dusting and cleaning so I'll be rated as a solid citizen. The city inspection isn't until December 7, but the manager is gonna start coming around to the units on Friday, to check them himself, make repairs, etc.

So I will try to get a hike in, but not guaranteed. But after Saturday morn, I am off for a week. So that will be good for photos.

I am doing The Usual, watching "Walking Dead" - man, what a brutal and unrelentingly grim show (but great!), and I am also enjoying my book. One of the theories posited by Van Flandern is that gravity is caused by a "sea" of miniscule agents (particles), similar to an aether but in motion, that are constantly colliding with larger masses (planetary bodies, etc.) and thus acting as a force to push them toward one another. As the bodies become sufficiently close, they "shadow" each other on the inside, and so the colliding particles cannot affect those sides as they do the outside. There are other factors involved, but what he says makes sense, and as always for me it's a real mindblower.

A few years ago it occured to me - probably after reading a different book - "is gravity a "pull" or a "push"? We are naturally inclined to think it's a pull, because when we jump up as little kids, we are immediately "pulled" back to Earth. Or when an apple falls from a tree, as in Newton, it must fall because it has mass and is heavy (dense), and thus it is being "pulled". But neither Newton nor anyone else ever tried to explain the force of gravity, and in his book (which is well known in the alternative science community) Van Flandern makes his case, and a good one, for the Agents Of Gravity theory, based on a permeating sea of colliding particles, smaller than quanta.

So gravity may be a "push" after all. When you jump up, you are "pushed" back down by an imperceptible force of colliding particles, most of which sail right through the atoms of your body because they are so small. And meanwhile, the Earth - which you are falling toward, is also being pushed toward you (all atoms attract one another), and because it's surface is huge compared to yours, the outside of it's sphere is being collided with by a vastly greater number of particles than you are, and thus it is being pushed with greater force, and thus "attracting you". So you are being pushed toward it, from a particle force on the outside, and it is being pushed toward you, by an even greater particle force because of it's greater mass and surface layer, and thus all bodies attract, with the bigger ones having the most "pull", only it's really a push.

It's a mindboggler of a book, but super interesting. So that was my night, and listening to a cd I have by a modern composer named Geoffrey Burgon, an Englishman who passed away a few years ago. It's called "Merciless Beauty" and features the countertenor vocals of James Bowman, another Englishman and master singer.

So there you have it, Sweet Baby. The up-to-the-minute news.

Sweet Dreams, and I will see you in the morning.

I Love You!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxo  :):)

Hope All Is Well

Hi, my Darling,

Happy Late Night. I hope you had a nice day. I wasn't able to find any of your posts today (on "posts You like") so I hope you are still with me. Man, FB has made it so difficult lately. All I can do is hope they fix it. I hope everything is going good with your photography and video work. Right now, it's just almost impossible for me to see anything you post, except status updates, but I am trying to hang in there. I just don't know how you are doing, is all.

Facebook is so full of people's opinions about what happened in Paris, and there is so much vitriol and paranoia that I have actually had to limit the posts I see from a few people. As I've probably said before, I only actually know maybe two dozen out of my 131 FB friends, and many of the ones I don't know are just fans of one band or another who friended me for that reason. But there are a few who post relentlessly about politics and personal views - I mean just one post after another, all day long. That probably crowds out other posts, and anyway I get tired of all the ranting.

Anyway, I am doing my best to hang in there and keep writing. As always please let me know if there is any change in your life. I feel really cut off right now, and remote, but I am trying from my end.

I Love You, Elizabeth.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)

Happy Monday Love

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

Well, maybe some good news on the Facebook front. I got a somewhat better response from the Help department about the problem I reported (twice), i.e. that my news ticker wasn't working. If you remember, the only response I'd gotten previously was an automatic one, thanking me for reporting it. Well today I got an answer that's a little more involved, though it too may be automatic and not personally written by anyone at FB. Here's what it says : We received your report and appreciate your patience as we work to fix technical problems on Facebook. Though we can't update everyone who submits a report, we're using your feedback to improve the Facebook experience for everyone.

So, it sounds as if they're at least working on it. I hope so. I sure miss seeing your posts. The only one I saw today was the Man Bun post from James. 

Oh, man, Sweet Baby.......don't get me started on Man Buns, lol.  :)

And I am sure that's the way you meant it, too. I mean, you did, right? And probably even James means it that way. Because nobody really likes Man Buns, do they? Except for the guys who wear them on purpose?

Aww, jeez..........

The other thing I don't get - and it's all over campus at CSUN - is the Lumberjack Beard thing. Scrawny guys (usually scrawny, whether tall, short or medium) with big 'ol untrimmed beards, like a lumberjack or cave man. But then on top, they have these "fade" haircuts. What's the deal? Are you a Wild Man or are you not? What's with the haircut to go along with the out of control beard?

Good Lordy Moses, please ship in a supply of razors and shaving cream. Or tell these guys to stop with the buzz cuts and let their hair grow, because the combination looks absolutely ridiculous. Especially because the guys who have this style are not lumberjacks but scrawny students. 

Very few people look good with facial hair. A trim beard I can understand. But these biblical-sized things have gotta go. Along with the Man Bun.  :)

Now, your friend James actually has a cool and fairly original rock star hair style. So he should keep that, and make it a trademark look, at least for now. And he probably knows that anyway.  :)

Today was just a regular workday for me, not much to report. I watched a "Walking Dead" episode (Season Four) and I am very much enjoying my book by Tom Van Flandern.

I hope you had a good day and hope we can reconnect here soon. C'mon Facebook, please fix it!

I Love You and will see you in the morning.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

The Community Of Music

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

Sometimes it takes me a little longer to get situated here at Pearl's, when the crew (Pearl & Kobi) wants to stay up late and watch TV all night. At a certain point, I give up trying to suggest they get some sleep and let 'em stay up as late as they want to. That's why the hours get turned around backwards here, cause they become nocturnal. Anyhow, I've still gotta maintain some semblance of regular hours for myself, otherwise there'll be no one running the show.  :)

Today was church and choir as you know. An hour of choir practice afterward, getting ready for Christmas.

I hope your day was good. I only saw one of your posts (by searching "posts You like", the only way I can see anything anymore), and it was one for your friend Justin. That is really cool that his band opened for The Yardbirds. You may know that those guys are legendary on the order of The Rolling Stones; Jimmy Page formed Led Zeppelin after leaving the 'Birds, and their other guitarists were Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck.

You may have seen an FB "like" I posted. It was a photo from Dennis Dunaway of the Alice Cooper group, and it showed Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty reading Dunaway's book, "Snakes! Guillotines!", etc., which I have mentioned is a great rock n' roll book, as I have read it myself. I've read many rock biographies, and this is one of the very best, because there are so many great stories involved with the history of Alice Cooper (always meant in the group sense, not just Alice himself).

And one of the best stories, is of the first time they felt they'd hit it big. They were a club group, playing in Phoenix (they are from AZ), and they were just out of high school.

And they got a gig, opening for The Yardbirds. Almost 50 years ago.

And now tonight your friend and former band member is doing the same thing.

Pretty cool, eh?

They played tonight at The Canyon Club, where I've been several times, mostly to see Eric Johnson who plays there regularly, but also to see Opeth in 2013. It's a supper club, with tables, but a great venue overall, and it's out in Agoura, which is just outside The Valley, inland from Malibu.

It's a small world and it's full of coincidences (which may or may not exist). You may remember that I mentioned my friends from Gram Rabbit a couple months ago, because they were gonna play at High Noon Saloon with Eagles Of Death Metal. Jesika is of course from Wisconsin. Me and Grimsley went to many GR shows from about 2006 until 2013. We wanted to see them recently, when they toured with Eagles, but the show sold out quickly and we didn't make it. Gram Rabbit were not on the European tour.

Music is a community, as you well know. You can be a fan of a band for 40 years, like I have been with PFM, and you may never have seen them but then one day you do. It's a connection between fans and bands, and it forms that small musical world I am talking about, where you can meet somebody, or open for somebody, out of the blue.

It's a good thing to be part of, the community of music..........

I Love You and will see you in the morning. Sweet Dreams!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Protect The Spirit

Hi, Elizabeth,

I'll resume with my normal greeting soon enough, but right now it doesn't seem appropriate to start with Happy Late Night. I mean, I don't know, maybe it is appropriate, and maybe it should always be appropriate, but because we are all kind of in shock right now, and numb, I'll forgo it this time, though of course I always wish you happiness.

I only saw a single post from you today (and this business of having no news ticker is getting old, really screwing things up), and it was via your friend Sarah. "I hate humans". Was that from a Miyazaki? Anyhow, I can certainly understand the sentiment at the moment, if not in the literal sense, then certainly as a means to express the outrage felt.

I don't know exactly how you are feeling, meaning specifically, but all I will say in the long term sense, is to never let the horrors of the world damage your spirit.

You have a beautiful spirit, and the world needs beautiful spirits. Beautiful spirits exhibit the positive energy and good feeling the world relies on to keep turning, so to speak.

All it takes is a quick look at Facebook to see all of the opinions and emotions vented on all sides of the argument over what happened yesterday, to realise that some of us who are strong and stable must remain that way always.

I know you know all of this.

I often think of my parents' generation, and how they lived through the nightmare of World War Two, when thousands were killed on a daily basis, and on top of that was the Holocaust. It's a wonder the human race survived, but it did. 50 million people were killed in the four years of WW2. Think of that number in that short period of time. I myself was born into the Vietnam era, a twelve year war in which 52,000 guys died, and over a million Vietnamese. In America there was long term civil unrest.

The amount of people being killed was greater than today. And somehow we, as a Human Race, made it through.

Still, I totally understand the frustration and horror over current events. For one thing, and maybe most importantly, the violence is spilling over into the civilian sector. Terrorists - whom I, if President, would go after with a vengeance - now use tactics which are cruel, cowardly and ruthless. These acts are carried out, as yesterday, by young guys who have been brainwashed since they were kids, probably, and though they are indeed monsters, they don't even have the capacity or intelligence to comprehend what they are doing.

They are monsters, but there are greater monsters above them, middlemen in their own countries, and financiers in the first world, who wish to cause chaos and who also must be routed out.

To stop terrorism is a complex problem, but not so complex that it cannot be figured out and solved.

Part of why I think think the violence hits home emotionally nowdays, in such a strong manner, is because - in the computer age - the news of violence spreads rapidly, worldwide, in minutes really. And we are programmed by politics to "take sides".

And to be sure - the killers - young guys with double digit IQs and inflamed emotions - have taken a side. They hate, period, anyone they consider an "other". Now, it is also certain that in many cases, a person from the Middle East has lost someone close to them through warfare. What American military men and politicians call "collateral damage" is in reality dead or injured civilians, including babies. When we bomb in those countries, innocent people often get hurt. Not as often as the far left activists might have you believe - our military is not Pure Evil - but it does happen because that is the nature of war.

We shouldn't be in those countries in the first place. We are only there so that the oil industry can keep it's hold over the energy standard for as long as it can, until oil is phased out as an energy source. There may be other reasons we are there as well, but those have to do with esoteric historical subjects dealing with the history of mankind.

I am probably rambling off topic, as usual, but that is because I can think much faster than I can type, and I don't have a lot of patience when I am writing. I always wanna just talk, because I can express so many more ideas more cohesively, and in doing so I can make my point more clearly.

Suffice it to say for now, that it is important to never lose heart. Always remember that there are reasons for all of these rotten things that happen, and if the reasons can be understood - and not distorted by "taking sides" or vented through negative emotion - then we have a better chance at getting to the root of these problems.

Some think violence and war will always be with us, that it is part of human nature. I disagree, even though it is true that war has been part of the human condition throughout recorded history. But I disagree because I can feel that one day it won't be this way.

I know that day is not today, and I know that in the meantime we need immediate solutions which will not fix the problem. One of those immediate solutions is to go after terrorists with everything we've got. And that right there is an emotional response on my part. As I've said previously, if they'd take a 55 year old guy in the Army, I'd volunteer to go after ISIS or the Taliban myself.

But my spiritual side also speaks to me, and tells me that we humans will make it through this terrible period of violence, too. Just as we have survived World Wars. The key is for those of us who are strong in Positive Spirit never to give in to mass emotion without analysis. Instead we must protect, and project, that Spirit.

That's all I know for tonight. I love you and will see you in the morning, before church.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

PFM Concert Tonight (music more powerful than violence) ( a great concert)

Hi, Elizabeth,

The news out of France is horrifying, and knowing that you have friends over there, I hope they are all safe. I saw your friend Valnoir's post, so that's good that he is okay, and of course the guys in Alcest.

I just so happen to have a concert scheduled to attend for tonight, the Italian Progressive group PFM. It's at the Whiskey A Go-Go, on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood, and I am gonna go. Nothing is gonna happen and I have been looking forward to this show anyway, PFM are a legendary group from the 70s.

Nothing can stop the force of music, it's far more powerful than violence. The show is scheduled to start at 9pm and it's supposed to run two hours, so I should be back at Pearl's by Midnight, 12:30 at the latest.

I will write when I get back.

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

1:10am : I am back, Sweet Baby. I am a little late because my friend Mike B (he's on FB) was there with his girlfriend, and we were talking for a long time after the show. I've known Mike since 1970, and I talk to him on Facebook all the time, but I hadn't actually seen him since 1989. 26 years! So that was pretty amazing, and I knew he was gonna be at the show because we both bought tickets a while back.

The show itself was awesome. There are only two guys left from the original PFM, but they are the two founders, and every musician in the band is an incredible player. Italian Progressive Rock was a specific but small genre in the 70s, and it was some of the first music I got into once I started hanging out at College Records and "graduated" from Top 40. At the record store, they were playing bands like PFM and Le Orme and Banco, and "Photos Of Ghosts" by PFM was one of the first records I ever bought, when I was 13 years old. So to see these guys for the first time after all these years.........well, it's that Time Thing again. Just like seeing my friend Mike for the first time in a quarter century. It's like a long time has passed, but also no time at all.

Music has a lot to do with that. And friendship. Both are timeless.

The guys in PFM just steamrolled The Whiskey. Two hours of smokin' hot playing from start to finish. They did mention Paris - how could they not? - but the spirit of the music carried the night.

I have my own thoughts on terrorism and what to do about it, and it's a complex subject. Still, I hope France will shut these people down, by any means necessary.

Let's hope for better days ahead, and let's Thank God for all the good things in the world, one of the best of which is music.

I Love You and will see you in the morning.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

CSUN Movie + Love (Welles & Philthy)

Hi, Sweet Baby,

I just wanted to "say hey" before leaving for the CSUN movie, which tonight will be Welles' "Chimes At Midnight". It is said to be his own favorite of his films. The theater will no doubt be packed again. We've been filling the house for almost all the Welles films, something that has never happened before at any of our other retrospectives. It's a good thing that Professor Tim lets me and a few other long-time regulars in via a side entrance, before the rest of the crowd comes in. That way we are guaranteed a seat! :)

I hope you are having a nice evening, and I will see you when I get back here to Pearl's, which will be right around the usual time.

I Love You!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

12:35am : Happy Late Night, my Darling. It took me a little later to get situated tonight because it was a long movie, and also Pearl & The Kobester are up a little later than usual. The movie was excellent, though long. I am used to the 90 minute Shakespeare plays, and my favorites are the lighter themed ones at that : "As You Like It" is my favorite. "Chimes" which is Welles' version of "Falstaff" is all about wars and vengeance and double-crossing, and while that stuff makes good drama, too, the sheer amount of dialogue over two hours is enough to kind of wear down the viewer. Again, with Shakespeare - at least for me - it takes some repeat viewings to fully understand the plot, and I think if I saw this film again in a year or so, it might become one of my favorites by Welles, because it really is great in so many respects. The battle scenes, for instance, I think are up there with the best ever filmed, and in black and white with close camera action, making it look grim and yet like real warfare. So, to wrap up : a great film, but a bit wearing because of length and amount of rapid fire Shakespearean dialogue.

I hope your day was good, and I did see one post of yours : for the I Prevail/Versus Me Holiday Run. The subtitle is "Merry Christmas You Filthy Animal" which I know you must have seen and which was appropos for the day's news. I really used to love Motorhead back in the early 80s. In fact, when "Ace Of Spades" came out in 1981, I carved "Motorhead" in big letters into a newly poured concrete gutter in front of our home. "Philthy Animal" Taylor was the drummer on that album, and on all the best Motorhead albums. I really stopped following the band after Phil and Fast Eddie Clarke left. People think it was all about Lemmy, and he is great in his own crude, brute force way, but Motorhead was a band, not just one guy, and for me it was never the same when he got two replacement players for Phil Taylor and Eddie Clarke. The music was never as good.

But back then, in the era of "Ace Of Spades" and "Iron Fist", man oh man what a band!

Well, my Baby, I am still hoping they will fix my FB. I guess all I can do at this point is keep my fingers crossed. Probably it's an FB experiment, to cut a percentage of users off from news ticker for some stupid reason. I'm certain it's not just a glitch, because I've reported it twice and have gotten no response. So whatever was done was done on purpose, either as a new FB format for some stupid reason, or for some other reason unknown to me.

But, I am hanging in there, and am still able to find a post or two from you on most days.

I Love You and will see you in the morning. Sweet Dreams.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Late Wednesday Night Love (extra love, plus Walking Dead & Van Flandern)

Hi, my Darling,

It's an earlier-than-usual Late Night check in once again, just to say I Love You and see how you are doing. One bit of news on the Facebook front - my Friends List, which had been in alphabetical order since last Friday, is now back to listing them as, I assume, most popular. It seems like the ones you have the most contact with are always at the top of your friends list, right? Well, my list is back to being that way, as it always used to be before last week. So maybe that's a good sign, and maybe I will have my news ticker back soon as well. I miss being able to find all your posts!

I did find one post from you today, about Veteran's Day via Randy Hawke. Of course I couldn't agree more - God Bless All Veterans.

I did wind up going on a hike, out to El Scorpion Park in West Hills, which is about 10 miles southwest of Northridge, at the far west edge of the Valley. I've been there before, it where the Cave Of Munits is located, but I hadn't been out there in probably about a year, so I thought I'd go back. It's an easy hike, no steep hills except the one leading to the Cave itself, but I didn't go all the way up this time anyway. I guess because today was a holiday - no work or school - there were a lot of people on the trail. Usually I am the only one in the whole park, but this time there were several small groups of hikers. One of the best parts of my hikes is the stillness and the peace and quiet, just the sounds of nature. In the cave, though, sound echoes and reverberates, and the people inside were yakking nonstop, so instead of going up, I just kept going down the main trail until I got way out in the boonies, where it was nice and quiet once again.

I took a few pics, but nothing spectacular which is why I didn't post any. All in all, though, a good hike, and I did about three miles total. I hope your day was good, and I'll be back to write more in just a few minutes.

I Love You!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)

12:35am : I am back. Not much else to report from my day, except for my nightly "Walking Dead" episode. I am now halfway through Season Four, and things are about as brutal as then can possibly get. Good grief! Certainly not for the squeamish, but then it's one of the most popular shows on the air, so go figure. It's because the show is extremely well put together in every respect, so what would be just gross violence on a lesser show is secondary here to the story and the drama. The characters feel like real life people.

I am also starting a new book, which I got from Amazon the other day. It's called "Dark Matter, Missing Planets and New Comets" by Ton Van Flandern. This book is somewhat famous in context of the types of book I read. I found out about it because it was referenced by both Joe Farrell and Richard Hoagland in their books. It was written in 1994 by Van Flandern (who died in 2009), and he, as an astronomer for the U.S. Naval Observatory, proposed an alternative theory to the Big Bang for the creation of the Universe, and also most famously proposed the "exploded planet" theory to explain the asteroid belt, which is pretty obvious to anyone except mainstream science. So that's my new reading material, which should carry me into the next few weeks.

I trust all projects are coming along well, and I'm looking forward to whatever is coming next!

Hopefully Facebook will fix the problem, and fingers are crossed now that my Friends List has been corrected.

Sweet Dreams, my Baby. I Love You and will see you in the morning.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Kind And Beautiful (Mars & Sofronitsky)

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

I am once again checking in before being completely situated for the evening here at Pearl's, but I especially wanted to do so tonight because I saw your Taya Iv post a little while ago, and - assuming it was meant for me - I just had to tell you what a kind and beautiful thing it was of you to say. Those words really mean a lot to me, and they made me feel happy and lifted my spirit in the middle of what has been a frustrating situation with this Facebook deal.

So, thank you for those nice words and the beautiful sentiment, and I have to also reiterate that is has been just wonderful to watch what has happened in your life, and from my first-hand vantage point, too. Getting to see you do what you love to do, and to make it your profession, has been a joy to behold.

And especially because it's all seemed to have happened as if it was meant to......

Which of course it has been! And good things are gonna keep happening, too. That you can be sure of.

So I am gonna finish getting set up for the evening, and then I will be back a little after Midnight, as usual, to write some more.

I Love You!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

(back in a bit)

12:25am : I am back, Sweet Baby. I hope your day was good and maybe you were breaking in your new camera again. I am gonna try and go on a hike tomorrow, not sure where yet but I'll know when I get there. Today I finished my book "Dark Mission", which was one of the most mindblowing books I've ever read, especially at the end when writers Hoagland and Bara wrap up their case. It's just astonishing stuff.

And because I've been on a Sofronitsky kick, I did some Googling last night, and I found an obituary on him that I just have to share, just because of the passion, spiritual understanding and depth of feeling with which it is written, by a woman named Maria Yudina, a pianist herself who was a contemporary of Sofronitsky and also a classmate. The link is :  http://math.stanford.edu/~ryzhik/sofr.html

Of course you don't have to read it, but even a quick scan is worth it, just because of her understanding of who the man was. For me, there were a handful of pianists who transcended the format and even their own incredible technique and turned the piano into an unparalleled communication device of the composer's spirit.

Dinu Lipatti, Wilhelm Kempff, Alfred Cortot, Vladimir Sofronitsky.

There are many others I love, but those four just seem supernatural to me. And piano, above all instruments (for me, anyway) communicates the infinite nuances of musical feeling because of the riverlike flow of tones, and because of the in-line arrangement of keys.

What an instrument.  :)

That's all I know for tonight, my Baby. I wish you Sweet Dreams and a great day tomorrow, and I will see you in the morning! (hoping that they will fix my FB, too........)

I Love You!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Late Night Love (cameras & piano music)

Hi, my Darling,

Just checking in to say hi, and that I'm excited about your new camera! I know you are too. :) I am not current or well informed on all the different models of digital slrs, but you say this new Sony is a professional quality cam? Or rather it was inferred in your comment that your other Sony was consumer grade? Anyway, that's great, and I hope you got to keep your other camera as well (but you probably traded it in, I would guess?).

Either way, it's great all around, and I know you are excited to get it. Post some pics from your sunset hike if you feel like it.

I am still getting situated here at Pearl's, and still dealing with my screwed-up FB situation, but I will be back in just a few minutes to write more.Just wanted to say "yay" about your new cam.

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

(back in a few)

12:25am : I'm back. I saw one other post from you today, on "posts you like", which was a "like" of a Versus Me announcement for their new video, which I am assuming you directed. I'm looking forward to seeing it, as always. And I know you also have at least one other band video waiting for release, so bring 'em out, all you bands!

Another thing about your new camera - that's called investing right back into your company, which you obviously know, and it is no different than a band getting new equipment once they get a start and earn enough money to do so.

I have been wanting, on and off, to splurge and get an slr myself. That, and another acoustic guitar. I keep putting it off because I have wanted to save money, but maybe next year I will do both.

Last night I did buy myself a small present. There is a Russian pianist named Vladamir Sofronitsky who was born in 1901 and died in 1961, and to the public he was not as famous as someone like Horowitz because he had his whole career in the Soviet Union, behind the Iron Curtain. And he died young, at 60. But in the age of Youtube, everything is rediscovered. I discovered his playing a couple years ago, and now his cds, which were scarce until fairly recently, are more readily available. Sofronitsky was the ultimate player of Scriabin, whose piano music was romantic and mysterious, almost occult. Some, including other great pianists like Richter, say that he was the greatest pianist of all time, period. I've only heard his Scriabin, which is otherworldly, so he certainly is the greatest in that regard.

And so I ordered two of his cds, recorded in the 1950s, from the Denon company in Japan. I will be excited to get them.

As for the Facebook situation, I reported my problem again this morning, so that's twice since Saturday. All I've gotten so far is a robo-response, ala "thank you for reporting the problem". The whole thing is weird and ridiculous. I just hope they fix it.

Well, that's all I know for tonight, Sweet Baby. Tomorrow is Typical Tuesday schedule. I'll be checking FB to see what I can see, and I'll be around most of the day.

Sweet Dreams!

I Love You..........  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Hope Your Day Was Good (can't see posts)

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

I hope you had a nice day. Unfortunately, Facebook has completely ruined my viewing ability over there, and if you made any posts I wasn't able to see them. I still don't have a news ticker, and they have all my FB friends listed in alphabetical order. It's like they demoted me to a basic or brand new user. Freakin' ridiculous, and it makes me mad. All I have on Facebook now is the main news feed in the middle of the screen, and mine updates very slowly (unlike the ticker which is fast and constant). My news feed updates with people I never post with or check their site, while your posts never seem to show at all, and yet I have you on Close Friends and selected on "see first" on news feed.

What a bunch of baloney. I wonder sometimes if Facebook is messing with me.

So, Sweet Baby, unless they fix the problem, I dunno how we are gonna communicate. Today I tried the "posts You like" feature, and the same dozen posts come up over and over, mostly from years past. So they limit those, too. Yesterday there were a couple new ones, which I mentioned in last night's blog, but today - nothing.

So, I am really sorry, but I don't know what to do. I'd of course suggest direct communication, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards. All I can do is hope they fix the problem. It's like they have reduced my FB to nothing. I mean, I know that when I post something, like music or a photo, I am lucky if I get three "likes", so maybe I am seen as a "low frequency" user. But I try to hit the "like" button on other posts several times each day, and I comment on stuff and make regular posts of my own.

FB has messed with their site from the get-go, and have never left a good thing alone. If they don't fix it, my FB experience is basically caput. I will keep my fingers crossed. I reported it two days ago but have heard nothing back yet.

I will keep trying anyway, if you want me to. We have had a pretty amazing experience in the last 3 1/2 years.

Sigh..............my life, I tell ya.  :(

It was a good day in choir at least. Good singing and rehearsing. I am looking forward to our Christmas program. I hope all your projects are coming along well.

That's all I know for tonight. I will try my best in this current situation. I don't know how important it is to you, but try to find a way to communicate if you want to.

I Love You, Elizabeth. Sweet Dreams and let's hope they fix the problem at Facebook.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Saturday Night Love (night lights)

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

My news ticker is still missing at FB, but I did track down a couple of your posts earlier today on the "posts Elizabeth likes" feature. 95% of the posts on that feature are from 2012, and are "likes" of my posts from that time, and it keeps showing the same posts for weeks on end. But sometimes it shows a new "like" and today it did. This one was about a concert in Milwaukee, so maybe you were going to that. If you did, I hope you had a blast and got some good pics!

I have reported the missing ticker problem to FB, under the "report a problem" heading. I tried every means to fix it myself, by seeing the remedies of other users via the FB "help" section, but none of those remedies worked for me. So, hopefully, FB will read my "report a problem" post and put my ticker back. Right now, my FB had been reduced to just an almost static news feed. I don't know what I have to do to get higher priority for your posts - I mean, I've done everything : I listed you as "Close Friend", and there is another setting called "see first" under which posts you want to give priority to. You click a friend and list them as "see first", and then that person's posts are supposed to always come through at the top of the news feed. But even with all that, I still have to go searching for your posts. The ticker was the easiest way to find them, and I could find most if not all just by scrolling down. But until they put it back up (and I hope they do or my FB is ruined) we'll just have to find a way to make do.

Well, I wanted to let you know I was here. I will come back in just a few minutes with more.

I Love You! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

12:35am : I am back. Man, that light in the sky was really weird. You probably saw it on FB. I was out front with The Kobenstein at a few minutes after 6pm, and I saw this huge, soft white circular blur. At first I thought it was the Moon, hidden behind a cloud. Sometimes the Moon will form a halo under certain conditions. But then I noticed that there were no clouds, and there was also a horizontal blue streak extending leftward from the white circle. There was also something else : a white dot, like a star, moving steadily to the right, northward in the sky.

Because there was a v-shaped notch in the white circle, it did occur to me, vaguely, that it might be a rocket launch from Vandenberg AFB. Over the years we have all seen the squiggly colored smoke trails at sunset from test launches up there. Vandenberg is about 200 miles north of us. But this thing in the sky was making a huge light. The dot itself was as small as a star, but the corona was really big. I watched as the blue streak and white corona slowly faded, and the white dot moved northward. And then it too was gone.

As I'm sure you've read by now, it was a Trident missile test by a Naval submarine, shot from off the coast.

A little spooky that they would do that without telling the public in advance. I mean, I am generally pro-military (in the defensive sense, not the warmongering sense), and in the 60s we used to have things like air raid sirens tested once a month, and all kinds of rocket tests. We used to have Nike nuclear missile sites ringing the Valley. There was a huge military presence and awareness in those days. Then it all cooled off and went away. So this was the first Really Weird Thing In The Sky that I can remember seeing for a long time.

And of course, it was actually pretty cool looking too. They know that, and that's why they figure we won't mind.

Well, Sweet Baby, I sure hope this FB situation clears up soon. I wanted to take a step forward in our communication, and thanks to Facebook, I got a step backward.

But I am always here, and will always try to communicate from my end. I hope things are going well for you and I know they are. Tomorrow morn is church and choir. After that I will be going to Glendale to take my sister Sophie shopping, so it'll be go-go-go for me until about 3 or 3:30pm tomorrow. But I'll be around in the morn before church, and then after 3pm all day long.

Sleep well and have Sweet Dreams. I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxo :):)

My News Ticker Is Gone At FB (sigh + Sweet Dreams)

Hi, my Darling,

I'm still getting settled in here at Pearl's, but I wanted to check in to let you know that I don't have any news ticker at FB, so anything you've posted since about 2pm today I haven't been able to see. Doggone FB again. It seems every few months they do something to make it worse than it was before. You know what I mean by the news ticker, right? It's the column on the right hand side that also has the chat bar, which shows you who is online, and the news ticker is located just on top of that in the same right side column. The ticker shows you who just posted what. It's current.

It's also the only way I can find most of your posts, ever since they ruined the Close Friends feature by limiting it to profile updates. Since then, I've found your posts by scrolling the news ticker, and that way, even if you posted something a few hours earlier, I can still find it. But now - just this afternoon - they've taken my news ticker away, too. There is a little icon on the bottom of the right side column that looks like a wheel or a star, and when you hover on it, it says "options". And when you click it, one of the options has always been to "show ticker" or "hide ticker". It used to be that my news ticker was always shown, right when I logged on to my computer. Then in the last few months, maybe since the beginning of Summer, it has always been hidden when I logged on, and I would go to that "wheel" icon (options) and click "show ticker". And then it would show up. But now the news ticker is gone, and so is the "show"/"hide" option to put it up.

So now I can't put the ticker up, period. This really sucks, and I notified FB about it. Hopefully they are just doing maintenance or something, but I don't trust 'em because of what they've done in the past with "Close Friends", limiting it to updates only. "Close Friends" used to show every post you made, "likes" included. Then FB shut that down and now a post by you only shows up there if it's a personal update. This is not good. I hope the ticker comes back, because it's the only way I have to see what you are posting and respond.

Anyway, fingers crossed that it's only a maintenance glitch. Hopefully it'll be back up asap, or we'll have to come up with something new. FB drives me crazy sometimes............sigh.

Anyway, I am gonna finish getting settled here, and I'll be back in just a little bit, half an hour or so.

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

12:50am : Everything is still all messed up at FB. When I click my Friends list, they are all stacked up in alphabetical order instead of most popular (i.e. you and Ono and my bro and Bill Nelson, Joe Farrell are always at the top, and a few others. Now, it's A through Z.

FB screws things up again. For the life of me, I don't understand why they don't leave that site alone. Here you've got one of the biggest companies in world history, and you've gotta keep fucking with it (excuse my language but I'm upset). Do you see Coca Cola messing with their formula? Well, okay - you do. They have made mistakes in the past as well, and McDonald's too, the biggest companies in the world. But their screwups are occasional. FB messes with their site all the freaking time.

You never see Google mess with their site.

I think it's because Zuckerberg is ADD, which was indicated in "The Social Network". The guy is a coo-coo bird.

I had better sign off for the evening, cause I'm too mad to say anything constructive. Freakin' Facebook.

I hope you had a good day, though, of course. And I hope when I turn my computer on tomorrow morn, it will be back to what it was. The whole thing makes me long for the days of talking, by land line telephones.

Sigh.

Sweet Dreams, Elizabeth. I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Thursday Evening Love (weird movie + love)

Good Evening, Sweet Baby,

I'm just checking in before the CSUN movie, which tonight will be Welles' "The Trial", starring Anthony Perkins (of "Psycho" fame) and based on the book by Franz Kafka. As always I am looking forward to it. Everything we've seen so far by Orson Welles has been great. I hope you've had a good day and are enjoying your evening. I saw that James made sure to include your name in the photo this morning, along with the well-deserved superlative "talented".  :)

I will be back at Pearl's at the usual time and I will write more then. Enjoy the rest of your evening!

I Love You!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

12:20am : Happy Late Night, my Darling. Man, that was one Weird Movie. Really the word I'd use is "nervous" - the movie itself is nervous, everybody is talking at 100mph, the camera angle is low and off-putting, and the lighting is mostly chiaroscuro (high contrast), and the main location is an old abandoned hotel in France, nice and creepy. The film makes the viewer nervous, too.

Right off the bat I can't say I enjoyed it as much as the other Welles films we've seen, but by the same token it is no doubt a great film. I think I'll have to watch it again in the future. The movie is such an assault on the senses that it might be more enjoyable the second time around, when you already know what's coming. A great performance by Anthony Perkins in the lead role. Really weird stuff. Claustrophobic and persecutorial.

I see you were recommended for another job, so I hope you get it. Your Versus Me pics look great, and next year something will happen to get your name circulating in an even wider area, Chicago perhaps. That's my prediction!

Sweet Dreams and I will see you in the morning. I Love You.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)

More Great Shots! :) (update on the date) (Moon & Mars)

Good Evening, my Darling,

I am home and wanted to check in, say hi and see how you're doing. I saw James Milbrandt's post of the Versus Me portraits. I am guessing you did those, but there's no photo credit, so......I still think you are the photographer. It looks like your style, and I love the blue-hued close ups. That is a fantastic look, something different and gives a slightly mysterious look to the band members. If you are the photographer (and you must be) then I say : "credits, James, credits! Don't forget the photo credits".  :)

Again, Elizabeth, big, big congratulations and I just can't say enough about the work you are doing.  :)

I saw another post this morn, via Northwoods, and I thought it meant that maybe you were gonna go shoot some nature photos today. If you did I hope you had fun and got some good shots. I never did get out on a hike today, too much shopping to do, but I will do another one soon. Right now I am gonna finish off my Richard Hoagland book "Dark Mission" (which has taken me a while to read but it's awesome) and then I will go on my walk and come back and watch an "X-Files". Only 5 more episodes to go, then I am done with the whole 9 year series, which I think I started in 2011.

I hope you are enjoying your evening. Usual schedule for me, and I'll write more later on at Pearl's.

I Love You!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

7:25pm : Popping back in to say that I just noticed the dates on those blue shots : September 2014. Since you were in Italy at the time, I guess you couldn't have been the photographer. So, they're still good shots, but they'd have been even better if you'd done 'em! And I know for sure the new ones are yours.

Anyhow, now it doesn't matter if the credits are listed on the blue ones, lol. But make sure to list 'em on all the new ones, James! :)

12:30am : Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby. Another chilly evening in Reseda. We've got the heater going at Pearl's. KUSC in on the radio and all else is quiet. I hope your day was good. I didn't quite finish my book, but I did get to the section about Apollo 17 (the final Apollo mission) and a place called "Nansen" on the Moon, located on a geological (lunarlogical?) feature called the South Massif. "Nansen" is an opening into the South Massif, and it was there and at the nearby "Shorty" crater where astronauts Cernan and Schmitt found mechanical debris from a long-ago civilisation, likely the same one that inhabited Mars at one point and was probably solar system wide.

That civilisation was very likely human, or a "legacy" predecessor similar to us, who founded ancient Egypt as well.

It's all mindboggling stuff, but the photographic proof is available, and it will be readily known to future generations that this is our true history. Only when we accept it, and wrest control of the documented proof (mostly photographic) from the secret keepers at NASA, JPL and in the government and military, will we be able to move forward historically and away from the distractions of the news media and the 24/7 cyclic turnaround, which seeks to limit human knowledge and would like to slow down human potential.

Yeah, I know I'm on my soapbox again. But I get inspired and excited when I read a book like this, and see the photos (which are readily available). I grew up in the Space Age, during Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, and I think that the real information should be made public. But the way in which they are doing that isn't too bad, after all. It's a slow drip process, like osmosis. Just put photographs out and let people see for themselves what they can see. The only thing is that NASA/JPL had to be forced into doing even that much, from pressure by researchers like Hoagland, who is mostly responsible for the truth about Mars and the Moon.

I know it ain't exciting in the everyday sense to most people, but as I like to say, "if you ever wanna know why Life Is Huge (and mindblowing), just look up".

That's all you've gotta do.  :)

Sweet Dreams, my Baby, and I will see you in the morning.

I Love You!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Brrrrrrr! (chilly love)

Hi, my Darling,

Happy Late Night. Well, a change is in the air tonight, and as Grimsley said it's like someone flipped a switch. Saturday night - Halloween - was warm enough to be outdoors in a t-shirt at 10pm, no different than a Summer night, and now, just three night later, it's freezing and we have the heater on here at Pearl's. The L.A. Cold has returned.

"Nooooooooooooooooo"!............(me, echoing in the wind)

Those guys in the Finnish cough drop commercial would laugh at me, but then they are demonic Black Metallers who live outdoors in the icy mountains of Scandinavia......

I hope you had a good day. Typical Tuesday for me, Golden Agers, etc. I hope to get out on a hike tomorrow, we'll see what the weather is like.

That's all I know for tonight. Looking forward to see what is coming up next.

I Love You, Elizabeth. Sweet Dreams.......

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Late Monday Night Love (P.S.)

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

Today was a bit busy, with a lot of cleaning at Pearl's, just getting stuff done that got neglected over the Halloween weekend. Now everything is Spic & Span, as we used to say, i.e. squared away. I did find the time this afternoon to watch a classic old Boris Karloff movie called "The Haunted Strangler", which I got at the library. Some title, eh? But it was well done, made in England in 1958.

The weather finally changed today, got a bit stormy and cloudy, but ultimately didn't rain much, and I still only needed a light jacket on my walk.

I saw your posts this morning and it looks like you had a photo session with your friend Tristan and his band. I only saw the one pic that was posted of him and his girlfriend, but I imagine if it was an actual shoot, it probably involved the band, too.

So you are indeed becoming the Go To Photographer & Videographer for bands in Madison. Things are happening exactly as predicted! I am super happy about everything that is going on, very excited for you and proud of you. I just remind you every day (or almost) to have fun with it and enjoy the journey, and be fascinated with it so that you notice the details. Observe not just what is happening but also the way in which things are happening.

Observe the force behind it. And continue to project your Intent. The guys and gals in the bands you are working with see you as not just a professional, but someone with energy, ideas, and a creative persona of your own. So - this is important - they see you as a leader, someone who can help to shape their image.

I can see all of this from my perch, and I say - as always - just keep doing what you are doing.

Just make sure to stay tuned in to your muse, and to The Vibe, at all times.

Stay tuned in, and hold quiet confidence. That is the way to go.

That's all I know for tonight, my Darling. I wish you Sweet Dreams and I will see you in the morning.

I Love You!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

P.S. I just saw your late night post, and I say : Your Dream Is Coming True.  :)

Late Sunday Night Love

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

I hope you had a nice Sunday. Mine was usual, with church and choir, lots of singing. We really belted it out today. :) Kinda tired from being up late last night and then getting up early today. If it wasn't for turning the clocks back, I'd be toast right now, haha. 'Twas another Summer day, about 90 this afternoon on November 1st......

Gotta say again that you looked great for Halloween, and I hope you had fun last night.

I always miss October when it's over, and this year it was simply a great, great month, but I love November and December too, the Holiday months, and I will anticipate many wonderful experiences to come next in the days ahead.

See you in the morning, sweet dreams. I Love You!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxxoxoxoxo :):)