Small World Connections : Justin/MIke Mangan/Keith Emerson/Me & Grim + "Jackie"

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

I hope your day was good. I saw a post via Patrick of Versus Me and Alesana about getting ready for a tour, so maybe you are gonna go out on a few dates, too? I know I am always guessing at these things, lol. As always, I will just wait and see what transpires. :)

I saw your post of the pic from Justin as well, the photo of the Hammond Organ. Hammonds rule, of course, but what was really a trip about that post was that I noticed one of the "likes", and also a comment, was from a guy named Mike Mangan. I tell ya, SB, it really is a small world. Mike Mangan is an FB friend of mine. I don't know him, but back in 2008 Grimsley discovered a local band called Big Organ Trio, and hounded me to go see them with him. They were soon playing at a pub in Santa Monica, so we went, and they were incredible. The tunes were long and somewhat improvisational. It was just Hammond organ, bass and drums, and the guy playing the organ was Mike Mangan. Hard to believe it was nine years ago already! Anyway, after that, we went back to the same pub to see them play again. This time I brought along my current-at-the-time-but-now-outdated Sony Mini-Dvd Cam, and I filmed a 30 min. mini-disc of Big Organ Trio jamming, and it came out really good. Mike Mangan was an amazing player, and it turned out that he had jammed with Keith Emerson! Holy Smokes!

I'd seen pictures of them jamming at the same pub, because I'd Googled Mike Mangan. He was that good, and I was interested in who he was. Well anyhow, I knew Keith Emerson lived in Santa Monica, so, being a Google Master and an Internet Sleuth, I tracked down his address.

And it turned out he lived in an apartment only one block up the street from the pub where Big Organ Trio had played. I was surprised that Keith Emerson of world famous and once enormous ELP was living in an apartment, and Grimsley himself didn't believe it. "C'mon, he's worth millions". But Grim didn't take into account the passage of time, and the way the finances of the rock industry once worked.

Anyhow, we knew about the Emerson address when we went to see Big Organ Trio play the second time, so after the show was over, at 2am, we decided to walk up the street to see if Keith really lived in that apartment complex. All I had in mind was to check the names on the mailboxes, if they were not behind a locked lobby door.

Grimsley was walking ahead of me, and as I got close to the building I heard him call out : "Hey Adam, come over here! It's Keith Emerson"!

Sometimes in life, the timing and the circumstances are Too Weird to be a coincidence. Here it was 2 O'Clock in the morning, and all we were gonna do is look at a mailbox to see if his name was on it, and there was Keith Emerson - in the parking garage of the apartment complex - having just that minute gotten home from a promotional video he was shooting out in the Mojave Desert for his final album by The Keith Emerson Band. He told us he'd just gotten home, and we marveled later at the timing.

Wayyyy too weird, man! Because of the whole Mike Mangan/local pub/apartment connection. It was weird indeed, one of the weirder Meetings With Rock Stars that I've had, but Keith was very nice and even talked with us for about five minutes, tired as he was.

He of course passed away in that same apartment last year, and everyone was stunned, including his jamming friend Mike Mangan. We were all very sad for his longtime girlfriend Mari, who is also an FB friend of mine, though I don't know her either.

But it sure is a small world, where your friend and former bandmate Justin comes out here and winds up apparently friends in real life with Mike Mangan, who is without a doubt one of the greatest organ players you could ever see. I am talking Rock Organ, not church or ancient organ, though he could no doubt play those styles too.

It's a trip, SB, the connections in this world. And that is pretty cool that Justin got his own Hammond, and that he is doing well in Los Angeles.  /////

Today I went to see the movie "Jackie", again at Grimsley's insistence. When Grim starts hounding you about something, you can only hold out for so long, haha. I had not known the story of the film, but it follows the immediate aftermath of the assassination to show what Mrs. Kennedy went through. The movie is really a horror story in the purest sense, and Natalie Portman's performance is both dignified and harrowing. I'd be surprised if she doesn't get an Oscar, though I haven't seen the other contender's films. "Jackie" is a tremendous film that reminds us of what could have been, had JFK not been killed, and how once upon a time (when I was little) America had a leader, and a family, that it could look up to and admire, and that inspired great hope for the future. The early 60s were a wonderful time in this country as a result of the Kennedys having been in the White House, and Jackie was the epitome of class. A big thumbs up from me for this film, though a hankie or Kleenex is required for the viewing.

That's all for tonight. I hope all projects are coming along well!

See you in the morning. I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Happy Sunday Night

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

I am back at Pearl's. Everything is good, KUSC on the radio, The Crew are all asleep. I am tired myself, having been up late last night at home and then waking early for church, singing an hour at rehearsal and then driving out to Burbank to take Sophie shopping directly afterwards. And wouldn't you know it.....today was fairly hot! I don't mean hot by my standards, but it was low 80s today, straight after a full week of rain, then wind, and sub-zero temperatures. So we went from freezing to Summer in the space of 24 hours. It's cool out tonight, and still windy, and I think it's gonna go back down to the 60s tomorrow, but we finally had one of those Summery January Days I was talking about, and it came right out of the blue.

I saw a few posts today. Some to do with your video for Sarah and HeadRush, and others to do with bands, one playing on a Cruise Ship. That would be incredible if you get to go on that! I hope you had a good day and a good weekend, as always.

The country seems to be going crazy, although I must admit I didn't expect this level of uprising against Trump. Perhaps I underestimated the animosity toward him, which I share, although I explicitly do not want to take part in any of the back-and-forth hate filled vitriol that is permeating cyberspace at the moment. That is not where it's at for me. I dislike Trump as much as any thinking person or concerned  and it onlyAmerican, but I believe he will do himself in as far as his so-called presidency goes. I just wasn't expecting it to collapse this fast! But as I have said many times before, I detest the crude and vicious low-level name calling of the Left. I know people in their 50s who are using language of 8th graders to describe Trump. Pure emotion, pure hate, and it only adds to the Overall Poisoning Of America.

Don't get me wrong; I can't stand the guy. He is crazy and as close to a Nazi or a dictator as this country has ever had. But I would tell people "don't play his game". The protests are the way to go. Masses of people, showing up to silently denounce and reject him. But not the crudity and pure hatred as seen on social media.

Anyhow, my motto remains the same : "Trump Is Toast". He will hoist himself by his own petard, as they say.

That's all I know for tonight. See you in the morning.

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxo  :):)

"Space Oddity" + Chord Structure and Vocal Lines + "The Kentuckian" + Gale Force

Happy Late Saturday Night, Sweet Baby,

Today was my day off for this month, so I am writing from home. We are still experiencing Gale Force Winds, so I didn't do much but go to the store for some supplies. I learned the chords to "Space Oddity" by David Bowie, so that was fun. On days off, for the past year or so, I have been learning songs (Beatles mostly but others too) and having a blast because I finally developed the dualistic timing to be able to sing and play. That is a direct result of becoming a choir member in 2014, and because my voice has developed through choir singing, it has been a motivating factor in wanting to learn songs. Now that I know I can sing 'em, I wanted to learn to play and sing at the same time, which I only ever did 25 years ago, as a member of a friend's band, and then I was only singing a few backing vocals. Now it's a whole lot more fun. :)

The other thing is - and I have to go on a brief tirade about this, lol - is that I am noticing, as I see the chord patterns for these songs, just how expert some of these guys are (or were) at songwriting. The first thing I notice is the simplicity. There are only so many melodic chord changes to work with in the rock format, and people like Bowie and The Beatles used many of the same changes more than once. On a side note, I also learned Mike Oldfield's "Moonlight Shadow", a song so catchy you can't get it out of your head for days, and it is as simple a progression as you can get. But - and I have been harping on this - what I notice is that the vocal line takes the lead in forming the song. The chord changes form the background, the basic structure, but in all these great pop songs it is the vocal line which really gives a song it's melodic vibrance and fluency. In a song like "Space Oddity", which has some minor 7ths and other compound chords, you can see that Bowie added these slight changes to go with his vocal, and either : a) he really knew his music theory and chord patterns, or b) he wrote the song on piano, where the notes are all in a row. I don't know what the answer is, but I do know The Beatles did it that way often, and that when you see a lot of melodic "stepping stones" in a song, like majors into minor 7ths, then into a combination chord, etc., that it often means the song was written on a piano. A piano has all the notes in a row, and so the chording is structurally more intuitive to follow. In the same way, with the human voice, the notes are once again "all in a row". And so the "stepping stones" of melodic ascent and descent are naturally intuitive to follow.

Tonight's movie was another Western, "The Kentuckian" starring Burt Lancaster, or if you are spelling it in the phonetics of his own voice, as if you were imitating him (which I do, haha) : "Burt Lahn-cass-tah"!

So Burt Lahn-cass-tah it is, and he was great in this movie, the Technicolor and Cinemascope story of a Davey Crockett-type Frontiersman who lives off the land with his young son and their dog. But of course Civilisation comes calling, in the form of Burt's successful and more worldly brother, who wants to clean him up and settle him down. It works for a while, because Burt is a quick learner, but his heart is in the countryside, to which he yearns to return. All kinds of plot and storyline play through, including a stint on a Mississippi Riverboat, and I love all the Western landscape and cultural nostalgia which was probably instilled in me by going to Disneyland and watching Disney movies as a small boy. I have said I should have been born in the 1930s or 40s, but on the other hand I should have been born in the 1870s so I could've lived through Western times.....   :)

Anyhow, that was all the news for today. I saw a couple of post by you, one was a photography project by your longtime photographer friend Sarah - which had a beautiful message as to it's meaning - and the other was of one of the guys from Stitched Up Heart, so maybe you are working on something for those guys, given that you were just in Florida with them?

At any rate, I hope all projects are coming along well.

Tomorrow after church I am gonna drive to Burbank to take my sister Sophie shopping, but I will be around in the early morning (8am) and then again in the afternoon by 4:30.

See you then. I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Hope All Is Well + "Shadows" by Cassavettes + "The Elephant Man" & Metrocolor

Hi Elizabeth,

I just thought I'd check in, even though I don't have much to report as usual. I hope all is well (and I'm sure it is), you are probably working on a video or maybe your album, or practicing the viola, or maybe all of those things.  :)

I hope you got to go to Alcest! And if you did I also hope you took some photos.

We started a new retrospective last night at the CSUN Cinematheque, the films of John Cassavettes, the director who really jump started independent filmmaking in America. He was a big name in the '60s. I remember my parents talking about him, and they would go see his films, and listening to them as a kid, the name stuck because it was unusual sounding. John Cassa-vet-ees.

Well anyhow, we saw his first film last night, called "Shadows". Man, I don't even know what to say about this movie except to call it high energy and very creative. It is free form; a caption at the end proclaims it to be entirely improvised. The version we saw (from 1959) actually was not, it was a scripted and more professional version of the 1957 improvised version, but the improvisational feel remains. It is the story of three siblings : two black musicians and their light skinned sister (played by a white Italian actress). She has a boyfriend who doesn't know she's black, and when he meets her brothers he is immediately turned off to her. This was the 1950s, so race was a big deal then, and probably still is, though now it is not as overt.

The film is only loosely about this storyline, however. The overall story is all over the place, and really just follows this gang of people around New York City, in nightclubs and apartments and bars. You can totally see where Martin Scorcese got his style. Cassavettes must have been a huge influence on him. But I have never seen a movie quite like "Shadows". It is somewhat chaotic, like a Jean-Luc Godard film, but like Godard, Cassavettes not only pulls it off, but makes a low-budget classic of American cinema. The key is the professionalism behind the cinematic anarchy. If everyone involved wasn't as talented as they are, the movie would have been terrible. But because they are all so good, the chaos becomes pure creativity and it not only holds the viewer but keeps him or her riveted. You can't take your eyes off this movie. I give it a Big Thumbs Up, and I am looking forward to more of the Cassavettes retrospective.  :)

This evening I saw that the actor John Hurt had passed away, and it took me back to what feels like another lifetime, to my days at Metrocolor, which was MGM Studios film laboratory as I have mentioned. I worked there from 1979 through 1981, and for much of that time I ran the old black and white processing machine through which reels of film were developed. These were the positive reels that, when dried and finished, would be shipped to movie theaters all over the country and around the world. By the 1980s, no one was shooting in black and white anymore, so almost all the films I was processing were oldies. And it was a real trip running that machine, because it was situated in a room away from the main lab where the color machines were located, and so I felt I was "back in time", as the machine itself was probably built in the 1920s or early '30s, and the films I was processing were from the Golden Age.

But then in 1980, we began the run of prints for "The Elephant Man" by David Lynch, which he shot in black and white. I had become a fan of Lynch two years earlier, in 1977 when his landmark debut "Eraserhead" was released. That too was B&W, and wow what a weird and genius movie....

But back to "The Elephant Man", well, it is a small claim to fame for me that I processed most of the prints for that film, the reels of film that were shown in theaters. It was also a huge thrill for me, because I got to see, by holding the 35mm film up to my eyes, the images of the Elephant Man character himself, as played by John Hurt, who today passed away. I will always remember how shocked I was to see what he looked like in that makeup. It was frightening, actually, and very shocking when you see the film, but I was seeing it before it was ever in a theater......

I was such a fan of David Lynch, and the images of John Hurt as The Elephant Man were so awesome looking to me, that I snipped a few frames from a damaged reel and took them home as a souvenier, which I still have today - a snippet of 35mm frames from that film.

It seems like another lifetime, and I did not always appreciate my job when I had it (though looking back it was a pretty awesome job), but it will always be a big honor for me to have run the black and white processing machine at Metrocolor, and to have done the prints for "The Elephant Man". If you have never seen the movie, I cannot recommend it highly enough, though I would suggest holding on to a handkerchief as you watch.  :)

Well, SB, that's all I know for tonight. I hope all is well. Post if you get a chance, and if you want to.

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Alcest? + Sunny But Freezing + LBJ And Trump Are Both Psychos + "3 Godfathers"

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

Sorry about not writing for the past two days. It's just the usual reason/excuse, that I didn't see you on FB (except for a post about watching 1990s music videos) and I had nothing of note to report on for myself. This morning, I did see your post, though, via James with the little girl playing the Xylophone. I took that to be a "Sweet Baby" post......  :) And then tonight, I am sure you must have gone to see Alcest in Chicago. In fact, I'll bet you went to the record store to see the acoustic set this afternoon. They did one there on the last tour, too, am I right?

Well anyway, I hope you had a blast, and you are probably either still on your way back home or have just recently arrived. I will of course be seeing them in a couple weeks, at The Roxy on The Sunset Strip.

Not much going on other than freezing. We've had the Sun out for two days now, but I still had to wear a sweatshirt and heavy jacket to go on my "quickie" hike at Aliso today. Last night it got down into the 30s, and tonight too. For you, that qualifies as no big deal; for us, brrrrrrrrr........turning into popcicles.

I have started two new books : "LBJ - From Mastermind To Colossus" by Phillip F. Nelson. This is the sequel to Nelson's 2014 masterpiece in which he proved, as far as I am concerned, that LBJ not only masterminded the Kennedy assassination but was also a certifiable psychotic who had many other people killed too, during his long political career, in addition to engaging in behavior, day in and day out, that would make even Trump blush.

Don't take that last line as me letting Trump off the hook. He is the worst President since LBJ, and only four days in.......in fact, we don't have free speech anymore, or at least the Environmental Protection Agency does not. They are no longer allowed to post about Climate Change.

Check that for good measure : an issue on which the scientific community is almost in unison is not to be reported on by the agency that is in place to regulate the protection of our environment. Unfreakingbelieveable.

But LBJ was an even bigger psycho - a serial murderer (though he had others do his killing), and it all just shows where we have been for a while now, unfortunately. Trump, however, is so inept that he will go down in flames.....

On a lighter and more fascinating note, I have also begun reading a book I have been interested in for several years now, and have only recently purchased : the two volume "Temple Of Man" by R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz, a comprehensive study of the occult sciences, mathematics and symbology of Ancient Egypt. It's 1000 pages, so it will take a few months to finish, but I am sure it will be a mindboggler.  :)

Tonight I finally watched another movie : "3 Godfathers", starring John Wayne and directed by the great John Ford. It is the story of three bank robbers (Wayne, Harry Carey Jr and Pedro Armendariz) who flee into into the desert after pulling a job in a small Arizona town. As they search for water and endure sandstorms, and are relentlessly pursued by the town's sheriff and posse, they finally run across a covered wagon with a dying woman inside. She is pregnant and they help deliver her baby, and with her final breaths she makes them promise to bring him to safety. The movie turns into a biblical metaphor for the Three Wise Men after that, with a Sweet Baby in tow.

It's not quite a classic - though very good - and because it's John Ford it's a sentimental Western, but my goodness does it ever look awesome. It was shot on location in the Alabama Hills about 200 miles north of L.A., and that location has been used for several Westerns. It looks amazing, so desolate and unusual, like you are on the moon. I keep saying I have gotta get out there myself, and I hope to one of these days.

The movie was shot in Technicolor, but instead of being lurid, which would not have worked for this film, the cinematographer created a pastel look to everything. It's one of the best looking Westerns I've seen, and, you can never go wrong with John Wayne. He was The Man, in every movie he was ever in.

Well, that's all I know for tonight. I hope you had a great time at the concert and that things are going well.

Post if you get a chance. See you in the morn. I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

All Day Rain But Made It To Church Anyway + Stayed Inside After That

Happy Late Sunday Night, my Darling,

Well, today was as good (or bad) as advertised in The Torrential Downpour Department. It pretty much started raining about 20 hours ago and it hasn't stopped yet. Right now it's only a light rain, but this morn it was a deluge. I remember back in 1992 we had a similar rainy Winter, and during one storm they showed an area down by Lake Balboa, which is in the lowest part of the Valley, and a street sign was just about a foot above the water. That's probably what it's like down there today at the same intersection.

There was once a hit song in the early 70s called "It Never Rains In Southern California" by Albert Hammond. He was right about the title, because it doesn't rain very much, sometimes even for five years like the drought we just had. But then he has an ironic twist to his lyric : "It never rains in California, but Girl, don't they warn ya, it pours, man it pours". The lyrics were metaphorical, describing something else, but he was also being literal about the rain here. It never rains, but when it does it pours.

It's supposed to be over by midday tomorrow, so Yippee for that! And we might even have a 70 degree day by Thursday, so fingers are crossed for that too.

We made it to church and the singin' was good, though not many people were there. The rest of my day was spent indoors, watching the playoffs (sorry about The Pack) and reading (naturally). I even Googled "Rain" by The Beatles, lol, and learned to play it in about two seconds, cause it's just G/C/D back and forth, and easy to sing over the chords.

I only saw one post today, about NAMM, another of your friends who was there. One of these years you will go yourself, maybe even next year! And one of these years I would like to go, too. 

And speaking of which (i.e. Anaheim), I have gotta get back to Disneyland fairly soon, or I may not be able to hang on much longer.

I'm strugglin'! I need to go - I haven't been there since Halloween 2011.....

All I need is someone to go with, cause my sister won't go anymore and D-Land is the one place you can't go solo. I'll bet George Michael could have testified to that...

So that's all I know for today. Hoping for a break in the weather tomorrow.

See you in the morn. I hope you had a good weekend.

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Limekiln, Lipatti, Basically Waiting For Winter To Be Over :)

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

I hope you had a good Saturday. I saw your post of the pic of Randy from Stitched Up, and that is super cool that he is at NAMM. Now it says on their tour schedule that they have a show in Atlanta tomorrow night, so he must have had to fly out there asap. That's a lot of activity for all of you guys - you and the band - starting in Florida last week. King's X was doing a live show at NAMM tonight too. I wish it was closer to home, but I don't travel out to Anaheim very often for shows (though I'd love to go to NAMM one day).

We had a break in the weather today, so I went for a Quickie Hike (45 min.) up at Limekiln, the "sister" canyon to Aliso. If you saw my pic on FB, you can see that the creek has a lot of water in it, for the first time since I've been going there. And there was also that sound, of rushing water that I love, it's so soothing and besides that it just plain sounds great, lol. It must be a primal thing. Everything is green up there now and the ground is saturated. Tomorrow we are gonna get pounded by yet another storm. At least we are not in danger of running out of water any more.

Today in the mail arrived a 7 cd set of the recordings of the great pianist Dinu Lipatti. He only lived to be 33, so the box set comprises pretty much everything he ever recorded. Tonight's "album for the day" was cd #1 from the set, with Lipatti playing Bach, Mozart and Chopin. The style in the 20th century was mostly to play the repertoire clean, without flash and embellishment or histrionics, which is why the pianists of that era are gods to me. They did have their various styles and interpretations, and if you take my three favorites you could say that Lipatti was perfectionist and ultra-clean, Sofronitsky was mystical, and Kempff was contemplative. But all of them played with a purity that you don't often hear nowdays. So, I will be enjoying my new cd set for many listens to come.

Tomorrow, hoping to make it to church but the rain will probably do the deciding for us. They have said it will be torrential, but that may come later in the afternoon. Our song is easy, more of a hymn than an anthem : "Holy Spirit, Faithful Guide", an organ piece that had words added to it.

Everything else is good. The Kobedog's front feet are lifting off the ground when he barks, always a good sign. He's the Shot Caller around here; I just do what he tells me......  :)

That's all I know for tonight. Assuming we make it to church, I will be back at the usual time, 1pm.

See you in the morn. I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Eric Johnson at The Canyon Club

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

Tonight I went to see Eric Johnson at The Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, which is southwest of the Valley on the way to the beach but still inland. I love going there because it's close, only about 17 miles from Reseda, and there's no traffic on the way, and it's a great venue with excellent sound.

What can I even say about Eric Johnson? I have seen him at least a dozen times now, maybe 15 total, going back to 1990 when he first became well known, and over that time he has become one of my most special artists, whose music has meant so much to me because it's been like a soundtrack to my life. Eric is all time Top Ten for me, and as a guitarist he's second to none, but this was the first time I've ever seen him play an acoustic show, and all by himself, with no band. On stage was just him, three acoustic guitars and a Yamaha grand piano. He is also an excellent pianist. We were lucky to see this show because he had been sick and the shows right up to last night had been cancelled. Eric joked about his voice sounding like Kermit The Frog, but he actually sounded fine if a tad rough, and he sipped hot tea throughout the performance.

About his songs and musicianship, I haven't the words, except to talk about color, feeling and meaning. The guy plays guitar about as well as it can be played, and it's amazing to watch - all the constantly changing chord positions, the picking hand that seems to have a life of it's own. He uses the whole guitar, knows every structure on the neck, and so the sound coming out of the instrument is full of color. It's like a kaleidoscope, constantly changing, though not without a strong melodic framework. And that's the main thing, that EJ is such a great songwriter, which is always the goal. The musicianship is there to serve the song, and the lyrics are there to add emotion and to tell a story, and the vocal accentuates all of that, and Eric is also once of my favorite singers as well as guitarists.

But what he does that is most important is that he takes all the talents at his disposal - musicianship, songwriting ability, vocal talent - and uses them all to create meaning.

Music that is heartfelt - and well crafted - creates meaning for the listener, so that he or she will always relate an indescribable feeling to a piece of music that has touched him or her in this way. Such a piece of music will bring nostalgia and remind one of a time in one's life, but it will also do more. It will create a feeling that only can be understood emotionally, but not mentally, and cannot be articulated.

That's what Eric Johnson's music does for me, and it was so fantastic to see him tonight, especially to offset what happened this morning to our country, which I did not watch and will not acknowledge.

No politics were mentioned at the concert. The crowd was smaller than it would be for EJ's electric shows with full band, so I got to stand close, just 15 feet away. The weather was also a factor; he thanked the crowd for "coming out to see me in this Antarctic weather". So you know I'm not kidding about the L.A. Cold, haha.........

The concert ended at 10:42. I was back at the car by 10:44 (yes I check these things!), and back to Pearl's by 11:08. Awesome! That's my kind of concert.

This morning and early afternoon was rain and more rain, some of it torrential. We may slide into the ocean soon, if it doesn't stop....  :)

I saw your post this morning from the gal here in L.A. (a photographer) who was going to a march with her pet goat! I don't know if you meant that you yourself were also going to a march, but if you did then You Rule (which you do anyway, but....well, you know, extra bonus points for marching against that horrible person). And your friend rules too. I think our big marches all start tomorrow....

I will always remember the wonderful concert I experienced on this day.

And it was also David Lynch's birthday, too.  :)

I hope you had a great day, march or no march, and I hope your music is coming along well, and all other projects too, of course.

That's all for tonight, SB. I Love You and will see you in the morning.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Album? (maybe some viola, too?) + Bill Nelson + Trump Is Toast (#resist)

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

I hope you had a nice day and played a little viola, in addition to any other endeavors you are currently pursuing! Maybe shooting a Selfie or two.  :) I saw the post about the Starset album, and I know you are a fan and have also photographed them, but because the post announced that their album is completed, I wonder if you meant the same for your album, too? Because sometimes you use posts to be synonymous to what you are doing. Well, I suppose I shall find out soon enough!  :)

Today, your basic Thursday with Pearl's hair appointment. Cold and overcast today, but no rain yet. It's supposed to start late tonight and continue through tomorrow. My album for the afternoon was "The Years" by Bill Nelson, an all-instrumental album that plays like a pastoral soundtrack, as if you were travelling through the English countryside and taking in the sights, a tour through Bill's life and memories set to music. He is one of the most creative artists I know of, constantly putting out albums, and for me "The Years" is one of his best in recent "Years". Every song, every melody just fits right into the next, so once again it is what I call "all-of-a-piece". I think it is so important for albums to hold a mood or feel throughout, which is why song order is so important. In fact, that's why albums came about in the first place. Once, people only bought singles - 45s, they were called (as in rpm) - but as rock became more artistic, bands wanted to put out full albums to dig deeper into the emotion and structure of their music, to really develop their songwriting, as opposed to simply putting out Hit Singles. Anyhow, a guy like Bill Nelson - who began in the legendary Be Bop Deluxe in the 70s - has been around so long and progressed so far in his abilities that every album he puts out is like a part of his spiritual life experience.

On the non-spiritual side, I hate to acknowledge it, but of course I have to, that by tomorrow morning we will have, as the American President, the biggest jerk in the history of this country. I know a few people who will be marching tomorrow in protests. Trump is gonna begin his Presidency with the lowest approval rating in history, and it's only gonna get worse for him, especially when Putin starts blackmailing him or when the CIA decides to retaliate for the things he's said about The Agency.

So he's finished before he starts. I think he will last two years, max. But still, let's all hang on and band together until he is gone. My motto is, as always, "Trump Is Toast". He makes Nixon look honest and Bush look like a genius........so let's be rid of him as soon as possible.

Tomorrow, maybe a hike if it doesn't rain all day.

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

Viola! + Time Management + O'Melveney

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

Well, I've gotta say Wow once again. Are you ready? Okay, here goes : Wow! I am of course talking about your New Year's Goal of playing the Viola. At first, I thought you meant it was a goal for the future, an upcoming goal to be undertaken at some point this year. But then I realised, hey wait a minute : that's a viola in the picture; she's already got one! And then I saw in your comments that you have been practicing for a couple weeks. That is awesome, Elizabeth. Man, oh Man......

I think there must be two of you, lol. One minute you're in Miami with Stitched Up Heart, and then I am assuming you are back home because of the viola photo and post. How do you do it all, lol? And also, did you purchase the viola, or borrow it? It is a beautiful instrument as you said yourself, the wood is gorgeous. And the tones from a viola, so rich and colorful. How did you come to choose it? Now I have a million questions, haha. But wow again - it will add a whole new dimension to your music, and you have a natural aptitude as a musician, which is why - as you noted - you are picking it up quickly.

Now I am gonna go listen to some string quartets, so please excuse me for a few minutes....... :)

The whole thing is awesome. Now, though, you are really gonna have to be into Time Management like I am. When you have A Whole Bunch Of Things You Like To Do, and in your case your profession is a Huge Part of Those Things, you are gonna have to Mega Time Manage to fit everything in. But if you are like me, you will find that it's doable, as long as you maintain your discipline. A 16 to 18 hour waking day actually affords a lot of time to do many things. The key, I think, is to keep a schedule and say "at such-and-such time I will do this, followed by that". I am not rigid about it, or I'd stress out, but in a relaxed way I say to myself, "well, I wanna read from all my books today (four at the moment), and I wanna go on a hike (and bring a camera in case of good pics), and I wanna work on my drawing, and I also wanna maybe watch a movie and play my guitar". And I don't really have to think about it anymore because I have become such a Time Manager that it is now second nature.

But the bottom line is that it is Super Cool that you are learning to play the viola, and your goal will be a success.

My record for this afternoon was inspired by your post : "Ives Sonatas" by Hilary Hahn and Valentina Lisitsa. This is another one I hadn't heard in a while but it was perfect for yet another freezing cold, overcast and drizzly (but not yet pouring) day. The music of Charles Ives is very abstract, though woven through with recognisable strains of American historical melodies from the 19th century, and these sonatas meander to many different places, with piano sometimes leading the way, other times violin. Just the two instruments, creating all kinds of moods. I think Ives' music is fantastic, though it takes some getting used to.

No movie tonight, but movies will be back soon. I did go on a Quickie Hike, however (meaning 45 minutes), up to O'Melveney Park for the first time in 2017. The whole place was green, green, green. Best of all was the sound of rushing water in the creek, which just like Aliso was the first time I'd seen it that way. But that sound.......that bubbling, rushing sound of water streaming over rocks......is........

Incredibly Peaceful is what it is. What a great sound, the softly rushing water.

So that was a nice addition to the hike. 

Well, SB, that's all I know for tonight! I guess you are back home, and if so I hope you had a great time in Florida. Meanwhile, congrats on the viola!

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

Your Basic Tuesday + Peter Hammill + Quake Anniversary

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

Are you still in Florida? I only saw one post today, about Sarah's stress-related Fruit By The Foot addiction, lol. But I am guessing you must still be there, after all, you probably wouldn't have driven/flown down there just for one gig. I hope everything is rockin' and that you are having fun.

Today's afternoon album was "Other World", a collaboration between the great Peter Hammill (singer/songwriter for Van Der Graaf Generator) and an experimental guitarist named Gary Lucas, who once played for Captain Beefheart, a one-of-a-kind- and very weird! - artist who I had the good fortune to see live in 1975, when I was 15 years old. I played this album a few times when I got it back in 2014, and listening to it today I would say that it's not as great as Hammill's solo work (and not nearly on the level of the legendary VDGG), but it does feel "all-of-a-piece" as in the way that one song fits into the next all through the album. It is dreamy and spacey, with a lot of guitar effects. You can't beat Peter Hammill, an average album by him is better than 99% of most stuff out there. He invented what I call The Shakespearean Vocal - he sounds like a stage actor reciting lines when he sings, and he has been a huge influence on many artists, including David Bowie, since making the first VDGG album in 1969. And he's still doing it today at almost 70 years old.

The Hammill/Lucas album was good enough to cause me to purchase the new Van Der Graaf album from Amazon, and I also bought the latest Vangelis album, "Rosetta", of which the samples sounded tremendous.

Today was the 23rd anniversary of the Northridge Earthquake. Few events can be said to be truly Life Changing, but the Quake was one such event. In fact, I think of my life as Before Quake and After Quake, not so much because of the quake itself, but because of the circumstances that were present at the time it hit. My memories of 1989 began to come back in October 1993, and then the quake hit in January 1994, just a couple months later. And with all that was happening both mentally and physically it was like the whole world was topsy-turvy, but also like something amazing was about to happen. I felt like I was on the verge of an Incredible Discovery, like an explorer. And all of that had to do with my emerging memories. One day I will write a book about that time, with the Great Earthquake as the dividing line between the Old Me and the New Me.......I gained Self-Awareness and learned a lot about life.

That was all the news today. Still freezing, working, etc.

See you in the morn. I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

I'm A Winter Wimp, Bring On The Heat Already :)

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

I hope you and the band had a great show tonight! I see you have two more dates in Florida this weekend before moving to Atlanta on Sunday. Are you still gonna be with 'em then? Well anyway, I hope you are enjoying Miami.  :)

I got a big kick out of your post, via Steve, about the weather report for California. I don't know what region that forecast came from, but it very well could have come from the L.A. area, because we are due for yet another rainstorm lasting several days and predicted to start on Thursday. Oh joy! So that was a riot that he said "get ready for the California Sun" cause there ain't gonna be none, lol. There hasn't been much Sun since early December, and I for one am ready to move to Florida, or any place else where I am not getting constantly rained on and freezing to death.

We aren't supposed to have Winters here! What happened? I am gonna throw a tantrum now, cause I'm a Winter Wimp, and more specifically a Weather Wimp. :) 
I liked our drought, as evidenced by my many photos in recent years of golden colored straw grass on trails and hillsides of various parks where I hike......

Well anyway, sorry about the No Sun to Steve & Sarah. Tell them to come back in July or August and I guarantee they won't be disappointed. As for me, all I wanna do is roast. Bring on the 113 degrees already....  :)

Or at least 75? Right now I'll settle for it.

This morning it wasn't too bad outside, actually, about 65 degrees and clear, not a cloud in the sky, so I took Pearl and The Koberman Pinscher to Lake Balboa. It was jam packed because of the holiday, but that is nice because of all the activity everywhere, which is good stimulus for Pearl. Kobi can't walk as far as he used to, so I carry him a lot when we are walking around the lake, but he had a blast too. He pounded a bowl of Dog Food tonight (gotta capitalise Dog Food), and he thinks it's the greatest stuff ever invented. He thinks all food should be Dog Food - even for Humans - and that it should be eaten as fast as possible.

The rest of the day was The Usual Of Late. My album of the day was "Opera Sauvage", again by Vangelis. It was created as a soundtrack to a French nature documentary in 1979. I haven't seen the movie, but the album is good, if not in the same league as "El Greco".

That's all for tonight. I will see you in the morning. I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

On Tour = Awesome! + Good Singing As Usual + "El Greco"

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

So, you are in Florida with Stitched Up Heart? That is super cool! I just now did some Googling, and I see that their tour starts tomorrow night in Miami, so that is beyond awesome Elizabeth. How far are you gonna go? I see the tour lasts til Valentine's Day, almost a month. Well, once again big congratulations are in order, and what ever you do, have a blast and take a ton of pics to document your experience. I don't know if you took the pic of the Drag Queen Crossing, but that was very funny in any event. And the Stitched Up guy was wearing shorts in January. I'm jealous, because as a Californian we can very often do that in Winter - but certainly not this Winter, and I am tired of freezing already!

But yeah, I think it's great that you are back out there with those guys (and gal) and I hope you all have a great time and some excellent shows.  :)

Today was good singing in church. Pearl was too sleepy to go, so I went by myself. We only had five choir members, but we did a nice job on the anthem.

The rest of the day was shopping at the produce mart (bought tomatillos and other ingredients to make Salsa Verde), and reading as usual and working on my latest drawing.

My "Album For The Afternoon" was "El Greco" by Vangelis. My goodness, SB....I have had this cd since about 2004 or so, and I used to listen to it a lot back around that time, but I hadn't listened to it in a few years.

There aren't a whole lot of albums that I'd call a "Ten", that are just tremendous start to finish....but this is one. Now, it ain't rock n' roll - it's Vangelis, and so it's keyboard driven but very, very atmospheric, almost ambient in places......but it's also very dynamic and dramatic, like a good movie soundtrack. There is so much feel on this album that it blows me away. It's a quiet feeling, but oh so powerful. So here's to "El Greco" and Vangelis.

That was all the news for today. I saw your other post about "working from home" and I had to concur, because even though I don't work at my home, the things in that cartoon can sometimes apply to me, haha, especially when I am running on overload capacity.....but it's nice to have the relative perks, like having cat and dog as co-workers, haha, as I do here at Pearl's.....or having sweats for a uniform. Especially when it's freezing!

That's all I know for tonight. Best wishes for tomorrow; you guys will go out and destroy some shows.

See you in the morning. I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxo  :):)

Florida! + Finally Some Nice Weather + Santa Susana & Coyote

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

Wow, Florida eh? That's awesome! I am assuming it is in conjunction with your work. That was a great photo this morning, with the palm trees, the gazebo, the stormy sky and.....is that a pier on the right? Well anyway, the whole pic is very Floridian! So where are you? Palm Beach? Boca Raton? St. Petersburg? I guess I will find out, but in the meantime I hope that you are having a great time there, and I wish you success on the project, whatever it may be.  :) I am also glad that you are in warmer temps, as you reported. I don't think southern Florida ever gets really cold, and so you are in the right place.

We actually had a fairly nice day here. The Gale Force winds died down around Noon, and left us with 99% blue sky, and by the early afternoon the temps were in the upper 50s, so Sub-Zero was gone too, at least for the moment. I took the opportunity to go to Santa Susana for the first time in a couple months. The whole park was very green, and I had a nice hike up a trail called the Waterfall Trail, which I usually haven't climbed in previous years because during the drought, when the ground was bare or dry weeds all over the park, the Waterfall Trail had some sections that were very narrow and right next to a significant drop-off. I always stay away from that kind of stuff, but today I went up, because all the recent rain has caused a ton of growth on the Waterfall Trail, which has buttressed the narrow parts. So you don't feel like you are gonna fall off a cliff when you pass them, at least for now. When I got to the top, I was walking along, and I came around a bend and whammo - all of a sudden a Coyote. He was perhaps twenty feet away, and he took off running within a second or two of seeing me. This being my third or fourth Coyote sighting, I am discovering that they are timid or even scared of humans, but still, I did not proceed any further down the trail. You don't want to corner a wild animal, no matter how timid. He (or she) had been trying to catch a bird in the shrubbery, and having seen these guys a few times now, I have come to kind of feel sorry for them, because they are always on their own, and they look thin (though with rusty colors in their coats, almost calico), and in a way they seem humble, like the raccoons I see at CSUN. One day I hope to get a picture of both Coyote and Raccoon, though with Raccoon it would have to be at night, and with Coyote it would have to be if I discovered him from a distance, then snuck up on him silently. Otherwise he'd run away.

But I never ever wanna run into any kind of Big Cat. No thanks! That would be way too scary for me, lol.

No movie tonight, my friend Dave F. came over for a CSUN walk instead, and after that I was drawing and listening to music : "Exotic Creatures Of The Deep" by Sparks.

Tomorrow's song is one I have sung before, but have never before sung well because it has some high reaching notes with lots of sustain, but this time it will be a piece of cake. It is called "You Are The Salt Of The Earth".

You will probably be asleep when I post this, cause you are on East Coast time, but at any rate I will see you in the morn and then again after choir practice, at about 1pm.

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxo  :):)

No Rain but : Gale Force/Sub Zero + Music On New Stereo & New Style Of Drawing

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

Happy Friday the 13th, too, always a good day indeed. On the same subject I saw your post via James a little while ago, and he always cracks me up, a natural born comedian. :)
 Today the rain stopped (yippee!) so I took Pearl and The Kobermeister to Lake Balboa. I wanted Pearl to get some exercise after being cooped up for so long, and we walked quite a ways along the path. Kobi rebelled after a while though, and I had to carry him. He's an old guy now, but even in his younger days it was usually a "dog pull" instead of a "dog walk" with him. He just doesn't like being on a leash, I think. We all had a blast, though, and it was great to get outside.

Tonight, still no rain, but Gale Force Winds are back (oh boy!......not) and Sub-Zero remains.

No movie tonight, just reading and music. I think I mentioned that I set up my little Sony mini-stereo a couple weeks ago, on the cabinet where my trusty Aiwa blaster used to sit. I always used to listen on headphones for many years, but this new system sounds great even at low volume. In my building the sound goes right through the walls, which I am all too familiar with due to several obnoxious neighbors over the years, so I do not want to be like them. In an apartment, if you are not an obnoxious person you have two options, listen on headphones or play music at lower volume on speakers. I am now choosing the latter with my new system, and it sounds good, especially in the afternoon when most residents are not home. Today's albums were "Music Of The Spheres" by Mike Oldfield and "Xenuphobe 2" by Xenuphobe (an ambient music project by Ty Tabor of King's X and Wally Farkas of Galactic Cowboys). Both albums are awesome........  :)

I also began my first drawing of 2017. I started with just pencil this time, inspired by Fursy, who has posted some of his recent drawings on FB. Now - I am about .00000001% of Fursy's talent (if that) and I have never been able to draw representative art. I had no training, can't draw perspective, etc. But I am gonna nevertheless try this year to draw scenarios, even if they come out looking like kindergarten drawings. I am gonna draw "scenes of weird stuff", just from dreams and memories, and I am gonna use only pencil to start with - to build a framework of a scene - and then I will finish each drawing with dashes of one or two colors and some abstract, "automatic writing-style" fill-in art, which is my natural style, and which is the style I drew in all of last year, when I finished 11 drawings. Last year was all abstract and very colorful, this year I want to hone it down a bit, and actually try to draw scenes, even if they come out looking rudimentary. I want it all to be channeled from my subconscious too, as always.......  :)

No movie tonight, but I have some coming from The Libe, so maybe tomorrow.

I hope you had a great day.

Maybe a hike tomorrow, if the weather holds up.

See you in the morning, SB. I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Rain/Sub Zero (oh boy!) + Lens Flare Trademark + "The Big Red One"

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

Well, today was.......can you guess it?.......another day of rain (oh boy!). Are we sick of it yet, lol? Well anyway, we are supposed to get a break tomorrow and maybe for the weekend too before the another big storm rolls in next week. Sub-Zero is back tonight, too, with the clearing sky, and so we have the heat turned up here at Pearl's. On the plus side, we haven't seen this many green lawns in years, and there is green everywhere. Might be snow on the tops of the San Gabriels, too, after tonight.

All of this will of course cause me to savor even more the Days Of Summer ahead, and the attendant 113 degree temps....   :)

But wow, we are really getting a lot of water, which is how it always works in California. We never get it - and then we get it all at once.

I liked your photo of Sarah this afternoon, and in this case the lens flare acts like a frame within the frame. It isolates her with her guitar and once again the look of concentration. You can turn your Lens Flare Addiction into a trademark! Just keep experimenting with it, and try all kinds of angles and leverages to get all kinds of flares and artifacts. As I've said, I myself was very big on that, when I was shooting film and using an SLR. One of these days I will get another SLR, but also - I have gotta shoot more film. It takes some willpower to do so, because digital has made things so easy, but I am gonna resolve right here to shoot at least......(how many should I say?)........well, let's say at least three rolls of film this year. I know that's not many, but it's better than zero, and if I do three, then I will advance on it next year.

Today, same schedule as in recent rainy days. Tonight's movie was "The Big Red One", as in the numeral "1", which was a major WW2 film released in 1980 and directed by Samuel Fuller, of whom I have been on a recent kick. This movie was one of the last big budget, expansive WW2 films made. At the time, war films were transitioning into Vietnam, and in 1979 "Apocalypse Now" had come out and blown everyone off the map, especially myself, so when "Big Red" came out a year later - by a director I hadn't heard of at the time - I figured it was just a throwback to the earlier style, and I never saw it, even though it got a lot of critical acclaim.

But, as I've been on a Sam Fuller kick, I finally had to see it, and it was quite good, almost a masterpiece in it's way, as a slog through the entire timeline of combat of the European Theater in WW2. The action follows a single unit, mainly four soldiers who have a knack for not getting killed, and their grizzled Sergeant played by the great Lee Marvin. The acting has remnants of the cliched semi-cheesiness of war films made in the 40s and 50s, and there are scenes of soldierly heroics that are Hollywoodized and therefore not realistic. War films would get extremely realistic later in the 1980s with "Platoon" especially, but all in all I would put "The Big Red One" up there with the better WW2 films I've seen, mostly for it's epic narrative and for Lee Marvin's great performance. Not as classic as "The Longest Day" or "Battle Of The Bulge", but still very well done, and I am glad I finally saw it. Now I've gotta find more WW2 films that I haven't seen!

Yeah, I know........War Movies.

It's kind of a Guy Thing, I suppose. In my case, my Dad was involved in the Allied Invasion of Europe, and he came up through North Africa - Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia - and then across the Mediterranean into Sicily and then Italy, just like in the movie. Dad was not in combat, but was part of a Radar Unit protecting the Air Force, but as a kid I heard all about his travels with the military through these countries during the war, and it has fascinated me ever since.

But anyhow......

I trust that your work on your music is coming along well, and all other projects too.

I saw a pic on FB of the Strandberg guy (Ola?) with a guitarist named Alex Machachek. He is a fairly well known jazz/progressive guitarist who plays regularly here in LA at a famous jazz club called The Baked Potato. I guess he plays a Strandberg too.

And I suppose that's all I know for today.  :)

I will see you in the morning, SB. I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Fingers crossed for Sun.

Same Type Of Day + Belief System Tirade (lol) + "The Shallows" + :):)

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

I hope your day was good and I hope you guys are getting notice for your excellent promotional video. I haven't a whole lot to report today, just more of the same : rain, work, reading and movies. And my walk of course. I always have a lot to think about, however, and when physical activity and being outdoors is limited by the weather, there is always the activity of the mind. Right now, I am very much involved with my book on Orthodox Christianity, and their take (specifically that of Fr. Seraphim) on the origins of the world and mankind. I realise that this is not a subject of interest to most people, so I keep it to myself, but I must say that this is one of the most mind-blowing books I have ever read, because it presents an extremely articulate, well thought out and highly educated case for an entirely different history of our planet than the one we were all taught in school.

You know me, SB. I don't believe much in the standard view of too many things. I don't take such a stance simply to be contrary - not at all, because that would only be an emotional response - but I do it, in certain cases (like with evolution) because I have made a lifetime of study on my own terms. I did not go to college, and I left high school not by graduating but with an equivalency degree. So I have done most of my learning on my own, using my own intellect as a guide, rather than what someone has told me. Now, that is not a critique on schooling in general, because so much can be learned in the schools we are all part of in our lives (for me, K-12).

But in my case, because of my life experiences, I have wanted to know more about the "history of things", the "what, where, why, how and when" of the world, and in that respect my curiosity has been insatiable, and.........this is the aspect that will seem to put me out of touch with modern society: I don't believe that science holds all the answers. Not hardly, not even close.

The Big Bang? There is no proof, and really no evidence. It's all just a guess, but in today's world it is presented as fact. That's why I reject it. If it's not a fact, do not present it as such. The same with evolution; not a fact, but just a theory that is presented as fact. I don't buy that one either.

I won't go off on a tirade (lol), but I just like thinking about stuff, the mysteries of the world, and that's why I am finding this book so fascinating. It's not something I would talk about unless asked to, because of the topic of "religion" and what is considered to be religion and Christianity in this day and age : a superstitious and simplistic belief system based on an ancient book, with no thinking behind it, only rote acceptance.

Well, that's not my Christianity, nor my way of believing.

Mine comes from a very deep place, and from a deep need to know.

I never "needed" to believe. That was built in to me as a child. I was born believing, even though I rejected it in my youth.

Nowdays, it's a personal quest, just to know the Truth Of Things.

The truth of wars. The truth of politics. The truth of histories. All kinds of truth, because what you discover as you go along is that - while there can only be one Truth in any given area - there are different versions in most areas. And many of the versions that are generally accepted, like Big Bang and Evolution, I don't buy, because I have read other versions that make more sense to me.

Well, anyway........I just like to read, but if I am gonna read for knowledge, and not just pleasure as in my horror reading, then it's gotta be something very interesting written by a very intelligent author. And that is exactly what this book is.

End of tirade, haha.  :)

I think that the real truth of the world and human history is so mind-boggling that it would be scarcely comprehended if revealed to the public......

Tonight's movie was "The Shallows", a recent movie starring Blake Lively. Pretty simple story : woman vs. shark. She goes surfing at a remote Mexican beach, shark shows up, terror ensues.

It was okay as these things go, but not as good as "Open Water", the scary shark movie from about ten years ago. And "Jaws" is of course the standard. I think I'll stay out of the water in any case, just to be on the safe side.

I saw your post about the musician who was thanking his Mom for her support. His words were very heartfelt, and as always I say that your Mom is awesome for her support of you......

but just in case......if the words were meant for me as well......then all I can say is thanks.

And also : I Love You. :):)

And I will see you in the morning.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

What A Great Video! + Non-Stop Rain + "The Naked Kiss"

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

Well, upon seeing the video again for the HeadRush pedal board, I have gotta say "wow" again because it is fantastic work. I do see that you got several shots of the Opera House in there, and overall your editing is top notch. You are able to get many "looks" that tell a story in 54 seconds, and you have also maintained a visual flow throughout. It's perfect looking. You got one shot of Sarah, which is (I think) toward the end, which is a shot of her face, playing in concentration with her eyes closed, which just cements the whole video, I think. That shot nails it down, because at the beginning she is playing those arpeggiated notes, and the sound just jumps out at you. It is very impressive. And then near the end you show the concentration on her face. It's very, very impressive work, like a TV commercial, but with your distinctive style. As for Sarah, I must say that I am impressed with her musicality in whatever piece of music those opening notes are part of. That sounds like progressive music from the 70s, like something UK might have played. They were a band with Allan Holdsworth, Eddie Jobson, John Wetton and Bill Bruford, some of the best musicians in rock history, but it was their songwriting and musicality that stood out. It seems like Sarah is really developing her musicality, rather than just shredding, or to be more specific, using her technical ability to further the music, rather than the other way around. Let everybody else shred; instead, play great music like the best progressive musicians.

You guys knocked it out of the park with that video, and you are gonna get a lot of notice on that one, so big time congrats once again.

Here in Southern California the constant rain continues. It is raining as I write. Much book reading in the afternoons of late, while listening to music. Today's albums were "1313" by Univers Zero and "Flood" (an appropriate title) by Jocelyn Pook.

Tonight's movie was really weird and a bit cheesy, but also really good for what would have qualified as a C-Grade flick at the time. It was called "The Naked Kiss" (Criterion, believe it or not) by director Samuel Fuller, whose "Fixed Bayonets" I just saw the other night. That film was far more "studio" and professional, perhaps he had a minimal budget for "Naked Kiss", but anyway, it is the story of a prostitute (soap star Constance Towers) who arrives in a small town under the guise of a "champagne saleswoman". She immediately hits on a handsome guy who turns out to be a detective. He falls for her, but she winds up falling for the richest man in town, whose ancestor the town is named after. Meanwhile, she leaves prostitution behind and does a complete 180 : training as a nurse so that she can work with disabled children. How's that for an unusual plot, and from the look of it, they used actual kids in an orthopedic ward for the film. So anyway, she's now trying to do good with her life, but then lo and behold, she discovers that her husband-to-be is a child molester, and she kills him.

Good Lordy Moses, SB. This is what you call a "potboiler"! I can see what Fuller was trying to do, because at the time, in the early 60s, many subjects were taboo, among them prostitution and certainly child molestation. Both subjects were broached in earlier cinematic eras, but the topics were only alluded to in those days. You could not come right out and "say things". But in this movie they do, and it gets very Hard Boiled. I guess you could call it a Noir, but it is also one of those low budget, raw yet inventive and stylish, but also trashy early 60s films that John Waters or Quentin Tarantino would love.....

It had a great plot, with many things happening, and first-rate acting from Constance Towers, and it had a great message. But boy was it weird, and ultra-low budget.....

I am glad I saw it, to add to my cinematic education, but I am also glad I have some more Westerns and A&B grade Noirs on call from the Libe.....

I hope the rain stops, too, cause I've had enough, thanks.  :)

That's all for tonight, Congrats again on the video. It's really great! :)

See you in the morn. I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Great Video Clip + Finally A Hike + "The River's Edge"

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

That was an excellent clip you posted this morning for Sarah's pedal endorsement. Now, is that just a snippet from what will be a longer video for the product, or was that the whole thing? Just curious, because you mentioned the Opera House (which you also posted a photo of a couple weeks ago), and I am guessing that if the video is longer, you will show more Opera House, even though obviously the focus is on the product and Sarah's use of it through her playing (which was also quite good). But anyway, great job as always, and it is super cool that you are adding musical equipment clients to your resume. From that angle could come other jobs too.  :)

I was lucky to get a hike in yesterday, at Aliso. My first hike of the year, and maybe my only one for the next few days, due to the continuing rain that is forecast. I had expected Aliso Canyon to be one big mud puddle but it wasn't too bad, maybe because the ground had been so dry for so long that it absorbed most of the water. Got a few pics too, mostly of the stormy sky and the Moon, which was unexpectedly bright and large in the afternoon sky.

Today, just a typical workday. After visiting Northridge Libe, I went on a Dave Grohl Studio walk which I often do when I am at the Libe, just to get a quick mile in.

Tonight's movie was "The River's Edge" (1957), a crime thriller with a Western setting starring Ray Milland, Anthony Quinn and Debra Paget. Quinn is a rancher out in the middle of nowhere (maybe New Mexico); Paget is his bored wife, whom he bailed out of jail to marry. Milland is her former boyfriend, a criminal who is the reason she was in jail in the first place. He shows up at their ranch with a suitcase full of money, looking for her, and all sorts of plot points emerge. It turns into a hostage situation and an escape through rugged mountains for Milland, who forces Quinn at gunpoint to lead the way.

I'd give the film a 7 overall, mostly due to the acting and script, and the tight pace of the editing. I love 90 minute movies, because I think that is the optimum length to tell a cinematic story (though of course there are myriad exceptions). The letdown was the direction. Allan Dwan was a legendary Hollywood director, but he didn't seem to have his heart in this one. The tension wasn't there in what could have been a very nerve wracking situation. Still, it looked great, in Cinemascope and Color By Deluxe. And, I love old movies and am thus back on track, having begun the year on a roll.

That's all I know for today. Hope you had a good day and that all current projects are going well.

See you in the morn. I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Memorial Service + "One Step Beyond" + Schoenberg

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

Just checking in to say hi, I know you are working on the album. Not much to report today, though we did go to the memorial service for Principal Sanders. The church was almost full, as I had expected, and the service, though brief (only 30 minutes) was both powerful and poignant. Mr. Sanders was one of those larger-than-life people; it seemed everybody knew him and everybody liked him.

This evening my friend Dave F. came over for a CSUN walk. The overcast clouds were back; we had rain last night, and though we aren't supposed to have any tomorrow, by Monday morn we are gonna have a lot. On and off for all of next week.

My movie streak was broken tonight because of the walk with Mr. F and subsequent hang-out, but I did squeeze in an episode of "One Step Beyond" in which eerie child star Patty McCormack (from "The Bad Seed") played a young farm girl who could read minds, much to the horror of her parents, played by Leo Penn and Eileen Ryan, the real life parents of Sean Penn, who was not yet born when his future parents made this episode. See how weird "One Step Beyond" is? A great episode of an excellent show.

On a musical note, it's funny, because a couple nights ago I posted a video of Maurizio Pollini playing Arnold Schoenberg's "Piano Music". It was Pollini's birthday (he is in his 80s now) and he is one of the greatest pianists ever, and I happen to love the "Piano Pieces" album, though I know that Schoenberg isn't for everybody. He is atonal, 12 note, cyclic music, totally abstract and devoid - mostly - of melody. You either love him or hate him. I happen to love him, because he was great at what he did. Other abstract composers are not so successful. But anyway, just a day or so later, Dr. Farrell made a post saying that Schoenberg (and his ilk) is a "trashmeister", a musical charlatan with no talent except for cacaphony.

I will bet a nickle he made that post in reaction to my post. I often post organ music; Dr. Farrell is himself an organist, and a composer, so perhaps he has seen my organ posts before. Now maybe he saw my Schoenberg post and saw fit to deem it "trash". I am not offended, because for one I think The Doc is a genius researcher and writer and an extremely intelligent man, and I have read almost all of his books (and will have completed them all soon). But I still must get in another post, just as a slight "jab", because I do know my music, and I do think Schoenberg was great, in his own way, as was Alban Berg and many other abstract composers. Just as all rock and roll doesn't have to be "one thing", one style, neither does classical music. So I will post a little more Schoenberg later on tonight, haha.

That's all for tonight, SB. Tomorrow morn, an easy song : "Seek Ye First", which I've sung several times in the past two years and could sing in my sleep, so no problem for tomorrow.

See you in the morn and then after church. Hope all is going well.

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

A Beautiful Sunny Day, Hooray! + "Enemy" (with small tirade)

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

Well, today we finally had a day of sunshine, and semi-warmth (72 degrees). It was actually very beautiful outside, so I took The Crew (Pearl & The 'Ster) to Lake Balboa. I think that many others were feeling the same urge to enjoy the sunshine, which has been in short supply for the past month, because the park was crammed with dog walkers, seniors on benches, joggers, and loads of kids on the playground. In the trees you could hear the continuous and permeating sound of bird chatter, all kinds of cheeps, chirps and the original kind of tweets, pre-computer. It was great to get out, even moreso for Pearl & Kobe, both of whom were in need of exercise.

Having said that, it looks like more rain is in store. They are reporting something called an "atmospheric river" that is supposed to hit Northern California tomorrow, the biggest storm in ten years. They are gonna get creamed. Thankfully, we will only get the tail end of it down here. But, it looks like it will be more rain, on and off, for the next week.

Tonight's movie was called "Enemy" (2013), starring Jake Gyllenhaal, and directed by Denis Villeneuve, with whom Jake worked on the excellent "Prisoners" (2014) and who also directed the art-house alien flick "Arrival" from this past Fall. Villenuve, a Canadian, is an interesting director. He has all the technical ability of the best in the business. He knows how to direct actors to maximum potential. He can build plot and tension like Hitchcock. He can set a mood through use of color and setting. He's got all the tools. I loved "Prisoners", which was ultra-dark, and I liked "Arrival", which was really good though a bit murky in it's story. "Enemy" I had not heard of, but since I found it at the Libe, and since it starred Jake (one of my favorite actors), and since it was directed again by Villeneuve, I figured I'd give it a try.

It is the story of a college professor who, because a friend suggests a movie to him, watches that movie, sees an actor who looks exactly like him, and through investigating the actor, discovers he has a doppleganger. The man is him, in all respects. Thus is set off an engrossing mystery, as he contacts and finally meets the actor. All manner of intrigue and suspense ensue, also involving the girlfriend and wife, respectively, of Jake and the actor. It is a weird, weird movie, almost Lynch-like, and because Gyllenhaal is so good, and because Villeneuve is such a talented director, it grips you from the start and doesn't let go. You are hooked.

Unfortunately, all movies have to have an ending, and nowdays, the state of screenwriting being what it is, a great many modern movies are let down by a crummy script, or a tacked-on crummy ending, or both. This movie was excellent on all counts, except for an especially tacked-on and crummy ending, which took it from a "10" down to a "7" in my book. But worse, it made you wonder why you bothered watching to begin with.

I won't reveal any spoilers, because it still gets a Thumbs Up from me, but it could have been a great film were it not for the ending. And that, SB, is why I love, love, love old movies from the Golden Era over most movies being made nowdays (note I said "most" and not "all" because there are many great modern movies), but it is because there used to be a desire to tell a complete story. Every movie back then, even if it was B-grade, had a good plot and story, often with a few sub-plots. There was always so much going on in those films. Nowdays, a director thinks he can get cute, or just plain lazy, and leave it up to the audience to figure out what the hell happened. I don't think laziness is the case here, just a screenwriter who couldn't come up with an ending, and SB, if you don't have an ending, you basically don't have a movie.

Sorry for the tirade, but "Enemy" was so well done, and then "boom", it just collapsed at the end. Oh well, I've got a whole bunch of old classics on order from the Libe, so all is well.

I hope your day was good. I didn't see any posts, but no doubt you are working on your music, and probably other things too. :)

Tomorrow at 1pm we will be going to a memorial service for a long-time church member who just happened to be my old High School Principal as well. He was 93. When I first started working with Pearl back in 2010, on one of the very first times I took her to church, I recognised this gentleman and said, "you're Principal Sanders, aren't you"? He said he was, and he was very friendly to me, and in fact he once sent me a card of congratulations during my tenure at Cleveland High School, after a photo I took at CSUN was published in the L.A. Times (and I think I've mentioned that before). I may have already mentioned Principal Sanders' passing as well, but anyhow, the service is tomorrow. I imagine it will be jam packed, as he was a well liked man, and very well known in the community.

I will be around in the morning, though, until about 12:30, and then again in the afternoon, probably by 3pm.

See you in the morn.

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Recording (you) + Rainy (me) + "Fixed Bayonets"

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

I hope you had a nice day, and I just now saw your post, via Sarah, where she says her solo album is in full swing, so I suppose you might mean that the same applies to you! You are probably working hard on finishing it, I imagine. If you have it on cd, I will be able to listen to it while reading at night, like I do with my other piano music cds. :) As for Sarah, good for her that she is at NAMM, and for her album too.

Still raining today, though for now we have a break in the clouds. I will be excited to see what all the trails and parks will look like with all the new growth they will have from the rain. I have only ever seen them in "drought mode", a little bit green in the Spring maybe, but basically in the Dry State you see in all my pics, with the golden dry grass (which I love as you know). But when Spring hits this year, we should have a lot of new wildflowers and maybe types of greenery I haven't seen before on my hikes. So I look forward to going, but we are gonna need some sun and warmth so the trails can dry up. It would be a mudslide right now.

As such, I continue to hibernate except for my CSUN walk. In the afternoons of late, it's just read and listen to music, play guitar also.

And watch movies at night. Tonight's film was not romantic; it was a War Movie, which is very exciting for me to watch, but probably not so exciting to read about for you. Still, a brief review is in order, as I am on a roll with movies lately, and have been reviewing each one. This was called "Fixed Bayonets", a macho title if there ever was one, and so it had to be directed by the macho Sam Fuller, who also wrote the excellent and real-sounding script. It's the story of a platoon of infantrymen fighting in the snowy mountains of Korea during that war. It's freezing cold out, they are vastly outnumbered, and they have to use trickery to make the Chinese, who actually fought on the Korean side, think they are a larger force. Luckily they have a cave to hide in, and they are led by two battle tested sergeants who know their stuff. The plot centers around Richard Basehart, as an up-and-coming Corporal. He has courage to burn, except in a most important respect: he can't bring himself to kill an enemy soldier.

Because Samuel Fuller wrote the script, this aspect - of the psychology of war - is explored : how ordinary men can be turned into soldiers and then can "learn" how to kill. It is crazy stuff when you think about it, which is why I said at the beginning "interesting for me but perhaps not for you". War has always been a Man Thing. Women neither start wars or - basically - fight in them (though I know they do now, somewhat, but it is still against their nature).

I think it is against man's nature too, as in male.

I am reading all about The Fall Of Man in my book "Genesis, Creation and Early Man" by Fr. Seraphim Rose, and according to him, man lived in an exalted state - along with all of the animals too - before the Fall. There was no violence, not even among the animals, and all creatures, man and animal, were plant eaters.

But I digress. In my lifetime, I was brought up on war movies, because my Dad was in a war, and so I must say that while I hate war, I do love the movies they made about all the various wars that have been fought. So to finish up, "Fixed Bayonets" was a top notch, very realistic look at a close knit band of soldiers trying to hang in there, in one of the worst situations they could be in, high in snowy mountains in freezing cold.

There were no wasted scenes, the action moved from start to finish, and it was shot in outstanding Black & White, using the "day for night" technique of shaded filters over the lens to create an unusual nighttime effect.

I love movies, SB. Mostly old movies these days, but I love 'em. I love that era.

See you in the morning.

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Kobester Groomer + "Broken Arrow" + "The Temple Of Man" by Schwaller de Lubicz

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

Another drizzy day here, steady rain since afternoon. Didn't do much but take The Kobester to the groomer. I think I mentioned a few months ago the unusual coincidence that his new groomer is located right across the street from the legendary homestead at 9032 Rathburn, or simply 9032 for short. That is where I lived from 1970-95. The quake blew the house up and we had to move, and I think I've mentioned all this before, but anyhow, that's where Dr. von Kobermeister's groomer is located, directly across the street from 9032.

Kobe was there for quite a while, almost three hours. She said she had to go real slow with him because he was stressing out big time, and she is aware that he had a seizure one year ago that was likely groomer related. He is on anti-seizure meds since then, and he was okay today. He has to at least get his nails cut every couple months and his eyes cleaned. At his age I might not subject him to stresses if he were my dog, but anyhow. He looks beautiful and the groomer did a good job.

I got my walk in despite the rain, thanks to the invention of the umbrella, and then I watched tonight's movie, "Broken Arrow" from 1950, a classic Western starring James Stewart, Jeff Chandler and Debra Paget. Man, what a great movie. I am on a roll lately, SB, one great movie after another, and this one has got to be one of the best Westerns I have ever seen. Jimmy Stewart plays an ex-Army officer who now prospects for gold and silver in Apache country in Arizona in the 1870s. The character was apparently a real person, and in the movie he decides he wants to meet Cochise, the legendary leader of the Apache tribe, so he can attempt to negotiate a peace treaty, in order to stop the endless cycle of killing between the Americans and the Indians.

The story is all about the friendship he forms with Cochise, and their mutual attempt to forge a peace treaty, in the face of opposition of both other Apaches and American ranchers who don't want peace. Jeff Chandler was fantastic as Cochise. I had not seen a lot of his work, and I knew he was yet another of Hollywood's "tragic" actors who died young, but he deserved the Academy Award nomination he got for this portrayal. And Jimmy Stewart.......well there is a reason he is probably my all-time favorite actor, and that's because he is great every single time, in every movie he is in. This time, while in Cochise's Stronghold (an actual piece of land in Arizona) he meets and falls in love with a young Indian maiden (Debra Paget), who he then intends to marry. This forms another piece of the plot, and I am sorry to say it ends in tragedy. But the love story is so beautifully told that the tragedy is transformed into a spiritual uplifting.

"Broken Arrow" - which I was surprised not to have heard of until a week ago - was truly great. From what I read at IMDB, it was also one of the first movies to depict Indians in a positive light (and yes, it's okay to call them Indians, they call themselves that at the CSUN Powwow). I give the movie a 10/10, and it is also beautifully shot in Technicolor on location in Arizona, directed by the great Delmer Daves.

Well, this blog continues to be the Movie Report for the time being. If it ever stops raining and freezing then I can get back outside. I did order a book yesterday that I am super excited about : "The Temple Of Man" by esoteric Egyptologist R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz. I heard of the book and the author via Dr. Farrell, who has referred to de Lubicz many times in his own books. "The Temple Of Man" runs over 1000 pages and is supposed to be a masterwork of examination of the symbols, heiroglyphics and physical works (pyramids, etal) of the Egyptian civilisation, from the alternative viewpoint of de Lubicz, a scholar of the first degree who proposed that the symbols of ancient Egypt were placed everywhere (in writings, on buildings and in mathematics of archetecture) to remind human beings of a forgotten legacy. That Egypt was a Legacy Civilisation, left to the Egyptians by a highly advanced, departed culture that no one knows the origins of.

As I am always In Search Of Answers and Don't Subscribe Much To Standard Issue Ancient History, I can't wait to receive this book. It wasn't cheap, but I was aided in my purchase by an Amazon gift card given to me as a Christmas present, so super cool all the way around.

I hope your day was good, and you are no doubt working on one aspect of your album or another. I only saw one post, from Sarah, a pic that looked like it was from NAMM. Perhaps she will be at this year's as well.

That's all I know for tonight. See you in the morn.

I Love You.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Mega-Wow! + Looking Forward To It + "The Rains Came"

Okay Elizabeth........

Of course I wish you the usual Happy Late Night and all, and as usual I hope you had a nice day.

But I only have one word to say at the moment : Wow!

Sometimes that's all you can say, right?

So I repeat : Wow. And now I have much more to say. First of all - and you don't need me to tell you this because it's obvious, but - that painting looks great! Great as in fantastic. Your friend nailed it, and I don't even wanna ask how much time it took, or anything like that. It looks amazing, and as others remarked, your eyes stand out beautifully against the paint.

The second thing is : what a great idea for an album cover! I mean, I didn't even know you were making an album, but now that I know, I think that is an ingenious idea to make your face the canvas for the artwork. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone doing that before. Big time kudos to you and Annalisa.

The third thing is, as I just mentioned, it's a surprise to hear that you are recording an album! I know you were planning one, way back a few years ago, but then a ton of other things happened. So it's exciting to hear about it now. Because you mention an album cover, I am guessing you are gonna make some CDs, as in physical copies? That would be great if you do. I will be excited to get a copy.  :)

Well........ wow, again. That was a stunner to see the face/artwork photo this morn.  :) I look forward to hearing your music!

Today a typical Tuesday Golden Agers day. Did some New Year-inspired straightening up of The Pad. Tonight's movie was called "The Rains Came" (1939) with Myrna Loy, George Brent and Tyrone Power. Brent plays an aristocratic though devil-may-care artist living in India, post independence from British rule. He is a Brit himself, who gets invited to a party thrown by the Maharisha (female leader) played by the great character actress Maria Ouspenskya. At the party, he meets Myrna Loy, also English, who he had once had a fling with. She is now Lady So-and-So, an aristocrat herself. The film is actually an adventure story, and so what happens next is a monsoon and humongous earthquake, and I must say that the special effects for the quake were downright incredible for a movie made almost 80 years ago. Following the disaster, all the rich folks have to "get real", as they are now on the same footing as everyone else. Loy volunteers to work at a hospital, treating the wounded, and there she falls in love with the ultra handsome Ty Power. George Brent finds himself at the attention of a young lady (Brenda Joyce), who idol worships him, and from there the various romances play out, amidst the tragedy of the natural disaster.

It was a great movie, and I have gotta say that Myrna Loy is one of the great Movie Stars of the Golden Era. Pure class, intelligence and ability. Looks, too. There is so much to be said for movies (and Movie Stars) from that time, and though the films were stylised, and photographed in a glamourous way, there was always a story to be told, and the scripts in those days were so full of themes and threads. There was rarely a wasted moment. And the acting was excellent, too.

I've been on a roll with my movie watching of late, and I will try to keep going. But I've also gotta keep up on my reading, too. And my music listening. And, I've gotta start my new drawings for 2017; one per month, just like last year. I am tellin' ya, SB, I have gotta get a bigger place to live. I've got so much stuff in The Tiny Apartment that I can barely move. Well anyhow.........it's gonna be a great year!

See you in the morn. I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Rose Parade + Sub-Zero + "A Taste Of Honey" + Energy/Time/Money

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

I hope you had a nice day and that all is well heading into the new year. Today was technically the January 1st holiday, so we watched the Rose Parade as we always do here at Pearl's. Most often we have bright blue skies to show on TV, but today it was overcast with heavy clouds, and continuing sub-zero temps. The Parade was great as always, though we missed the presence of long time hosts Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards, who retired last year.

The rest of the day was low key. I'll be glad when the days get longer and the weather warms up so I feel like my Outdoor Self again.

Tonight's movie was "A Taste Of Honey" (1961) from Criterion, directed by Tony Richardson. Like last night's film, this is again a realistic look at the lives of working class people, in Northern England this time, and it all looks kind of grim. Rita Tushingham (again) is a teenager still in school, living with her neglectful mother, who frequents bars and chases men. They don't have money for rent and have to move. In doing so, she meets a young sailor and has a brief fling with him before he sets out to sea. He is black, and this film caused quite a sensation at the time because of the black/white relationship. The story focuses on outcasts, and so, after Rita gets a job at a shoe store and moves out on her own, the next man she meets is gay (played by the brilliant Murray Melvin, who was in "Barry Lyndon" by Stanley Kubrick, and a bunch of other movies). She and the gay man move in together, and she finds out she is pregnant. Not by Murray Melvin, but by the black sailor who departed earlier.

There are all kinds of class and social issues in this film, just as in "The Catered Affair". The late 50s to early 60s were a time to explore all kinds of issues not previously discussed in movies. Director Richardson was known for his realistic look at English life after WW2, and from the location shooting in Manchester in 1961, it looks pretty grim. Old brick buildings and cramped living quarters, cities that look like tentaments, just like New York at that time. Very industrial looking. But Richardson always adds a lighthearted touch. Tushingham's character is depressed, but can snap out of it at any moment and find happiness in any spoken thought of bit of conversation. This is another case where I can truly say "they don't make movies like this anymore", and in this case they can't, because life isn't like this anymore - it doesn't even look the same.

The movie looks like someone took a camera and filmed real people in a real period in time, early 1960s economically depressed England. And it's a lost time, and a lost look, all of which makes a movie like this a real treasure. Shot in Fantastic Black & White, it's a small classic all the way, especially for an Anglophile like myself. I will be looking for more by Tony Richardson, and Rita Tushingham. The song I posted on FB tonight was also from the movie.  :):)

I saw your post about "Time/Money/Energy" via Joel Wanasek. Though the punchline to that graphic was about the life of a music producer, lol, the other stuff could apply to things we have long talked about.

Just from my own perspective - and because it's my own, it doesn't fit everybody - I would say, after years of experience, that energy is the #1 thing you want to have a lot of when you get to be My Age (Man, I hate when people My Age use that phrase, which is why I capitalised it, but in this case I had to use it!).

I had to go on a tangent, because it's really weird, SB. Here's what's weird : when you get to be My Age, you still feel like you're Your Age. I mean.....you do! It's really weird. You don't think of numbers, or How A Person Is "Supposed" To Feel At A Given Age. You just plain Feel Like Yourself, as you always felt. Ever since you were Your Age.

Except : you do get tired easier, which is why I put "Energy" as my #1 criteria. Without energy, you got nothin'. And it doesn't matter if you've got all the time in the world, without energy.

So, to finish up, Energy is #1 for me, followed very closely by Time at #2. You've gotta have Time, and it's gotta be Your Own Time. Of course we have discussed the need to pay bills and all of that. But think about it, SB.........time.

Think about that. It's really all we've got, the most precious commodity.

Energy surpasses time from a personal standpoint, only because you cannot enjoy your time, nor make the best use of it, without good energy. This is the reason to take care of yourself both physically and mentally.

But Time is a commodity, something that is limited and runs out eventually, and so it "Trumps" money on the list of the three things in that post.

Again, this is my viewpoint only, but I am glad that I literally was born without a materialistic gene. This doesn't mean I don't like or appreciate nice things. But I have been able, as I grew into my life, to realise things for what they are. A car is a car, for instance. If a car gets me where I want to go, it has done it's job. And a house is a house. If it provides shelter and privacy, and comfort, it has done it's job.

Would I rather have a Ferrari than a jalopy? Certainly. And I'd probably prefer something in the middle. Just like I wouldn't want a Mansion vs. The Tiny Apartment, but rather a nice house in between.

But my point is that I do not - and cannot, by my nature - focus on materialism, because my mind and heart and spirit are all focused on the non-material side of life, and the questions that lie therein.

We have been over many of these questions : What it means to Be Human, most importantly. And I won't belabor them tonight.

But definitely, as to your post : Energy > Time > Money.

That's all I know for tonight. I will see you in the morn.

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Singin' + Chillin' + Readin' + "The Catered Affair" + The Only Way

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

And Happy New Year once again. So how's your year been going, SB? Yeah, I could try to work a few more "New Year/Time Flies" jokes into the blog, but I will thankfully let the opportunity pass, haha. But only til next New Year's Eve! Then, I won't be able to resist.  :)

We had good singing in church this morn, despite having only five choir members present. We sang a vocal harmony piece by a guy named Ralph Carmichael, who worked with Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald and a bunch of others, and also wrote music for TV Shows, and then became a leading composer of Christian music. The song we sang, "A Quiet Place", normally would sound best with perhaps 8 to 10 singers, but we pulled off an admirable job I thought.

This afternoon was just spent chillin'. I was tired because of Up Very Late Last Night and then Up Very Early This Morning, but I managed to read a chapter of "The Andreasson Affair Phase Two", which is the sequel to the first book. I dunno if I mentioned that I am reading Phase Two, but anyway, it is gonna be even weirder than the first, which I like (naturally).

This evening, my friend Mr. Freedy (seen on FB) came over with his daughter for a Supremely Chilly walk, almost down to the duck pond and back. Sub-Zero temps are back (though no Gale Force Winds, thank goodness), and it would be safe to venture a guess that the duck pond might have been a solid block of ice with ducks, turtles and Koi frozen in mid-swim, had we finished the distance to see it.  :)

After the walk, I returned to my apt. to watch The First Film Of The Year, "The Catered Affair", written by the great Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Richard Brooks. Chayefsky wrote social commentary into his scripts (most famously in "Network" in 1977), and in "The Catered Affair" it is all about love, marriage and the struggle of living within one's means for lower-middle class New Yorkers. Ernest Borgnine plays a cab driver who is married to Bette Davis, a practical woman of lowered expectations whose marriage to Borgnine was fixed by her father. Her own daughter - Debbie Reynolds again - is about to get married, so Davis, who was simply an Incredible Actress (she steals the movie) want to give her a lavish wedding, even though her husband Borgnine can scarcely afford it. The plot of the film revolves almost entirely around the attempt to force the expensive wedding to happen, and in that way it is a thin story, but the social commentary - about class differences and the deadening effect of a loveless marriage - fills in the gaps. The acting is what takes the story over the top, and here you have a Best Actor and Best Actress winner (Borgnine and Davis) and one who was nominated several time (Reynolds). It is the type of gritty New York drama, featuring crowded apartment or tenament lifestyles that they made quite a few of in the 50s and early 60s. This one has a comedic touch, and while all actors excel, it is Bette Davis who runs away with it. She was one of the greatest actresses of all time.

So that was the extent of the day for me.

I saw your post, via Joel Wanasek, about "not having a 'real job' " for 11 years. He nailed the whole issue right on the head, and as we have seen - and as we have talked about and as we have shown long ago, there is no such thing as a "Real Job", which is your friend's point.

We nailed the issue from the Get-Go, right where it counts, at the heart of the matter.

The Heart Of The Matter is that is Has Always Been Imperative To Do With Your Life What Your Heart And Soul Call You To Do.

That is Imperative, and no other pathway will suffice.

We discussed, from the get-go, that the only neccessity for achieving This Imperative is for a person to have their Basic Bills Paid. Once that is achieved, everything else is gravy. The success is in The Doing. The money, after the bills are paid, is secondary, a treat. But the fulfillment is in The Doing, and in Living One's Life One's Own Way.

In his case, your friend also mentions something that stuck home with me. He says that he initially set out to be a lead guitarist in a big rock band. That was me at 21, 1000%.

A lot of factors prevented me from even coming close to that goal, many of which were of my own making. But still, I had already made the most important decision - not to do something with my life that I did not want to do. I could not have made it without help from a few other people, my parents most of all, but in the long run I found that my sense of having another, different purpose in life, could not have been more on the money.

I knew my life was different from normal ever since I was a little kid.

I wanted also to be a lead guitarist when I was 21, but it didn't crush me when that didn't pan out.

Because I found out that something even bigger was in store.

And it was all because I trusted what I felt inside, starting at about 17 years old, when I graduated high school. That was when I was supposed to get a Real Job, which I did (and which was a good experience as well, for a time). But I knew that Real Jobs were not my destiny, and I am glad I followed my instincts, and in my case, followed The Lord, who Has Never Failed To Show Me The Way.

It's the Only Way.

That's all I know for tonight! See you in the morn, SB. I Love You.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)