Just To Say Hi

Hi Elizabeth,

Just checking in to see how you're doing. I did see a post, via James from Stitched Up Heart, that said "Today was a good day", so maybe that's the same for you. I hope so.  :)

I've had the thought that maybe you haven't been reading this blog like you used to, and so maybe the perceived communication problem is all in my mind. It's weird - in a good way - that this blog has been based, in part, on intuition all along. It's also been based on our unique communication style, but without intuition it would not have worked. And way back in early 2013, I intuited that some of the FB posts you were making were meant for me. This was after our direct messaging stopped in Fall 2012. But back then (in 2013) your posts were very specific, and there were a lot of them, and I didn't even need strong intuition to understand that those posts were meant for me. That's why I started writing to you via the blog. I just thought, "hmmm, can't use the FB instant message anymore, so let's try it this way". And it worked. And for a long time, the communication was easy to interpret, and there was no doubt you were reading. These days, though, it's harder to tell. I am guessing you still read, at least occasionally, because when you posted your  brilliant Red Gown pictures last month, I wrote about them and when you posted the next one in the series, you worded your comments in such a way that I knew you had read what I wrote. But anyhow, maybe you don't read all the time anymore. That would be understandable, given your work schedule and life in general.

I really enjoy writing to you. I love talking about the various projects you are working on, especially your music, and I also like writing about my own day-to-day life (much of which is "ho-hum" I realise).

As to my comments about your move to Chicago, I was just being straightforward. I just wanted to know if I should keep writing, or if you had a new relationship. That's a fair question, right? I mean, I know we don't have a regular "in person" relationship, and as I wrote at the beginning of this blog, what we have is unique - based on intuition and symbolism, and my writing. But that would be nothing in comparison if you were moving to Chicago, besides for professional reasons, to be near someone.

And if that were the case, it would be something I would not want to intrude on. That's all I was saying.

But because you don't post much anymore, in general (not even close to what  it was in 2013-2015 or so, but especially since the beginning of this year) I have wondered if maybe you aren't even reading what I write these days. I don't wanna keep writing all of these apologetic and explanatory blogs, but I don't wanna just stop writing to you, either. So if you are reading, and you want to respond, I hope you will. I love to talk to you about anything and everything, as you know. But if you don't have time or aren't interested, all you have to do is say so. If there is some other issue I am not aware of, please say so. I am being straightforward and have no hidden agenda.

I've been with you since the beginning, not just with "Autre Temps" but also with the first version of your song "The Hours" that you posted when you were still in the dorm at UW.

Well anyway, let me know what you think, if you are still reading.

Thanks.

7am (long day?) + Jonesy + "The Mountain"

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

I hope you had a nice day. I saw one post from you, via an FB friend named Edgar, about "getting up at 7am and not even having a nap all day", so I took that to mean that you had a similar long day and were tired. It's possible you did not mean the post in that way, or as information for me, but I thought you might have, just because Edgar is not a person I have seen you post regular "likes" for, so maybe you used his post as a communication device.

If you did have a long day, I hope it was of the good kind, like working on a project, rather than the "trying" kind. I am betting on the former.  :)

Anyhow, I'm glad you posted. Maybe you can post more tomorrow if you get the chance.  :)

Our heat wave cooled down today, it was only 95, lol. No hikes, as it was Golden Agers day, but I did almost finish my Steve Jones book, "Lonely Boy". He was the guitarist for the Sex Pistols (which I probably mentioned) and he now has a radio show here in L.A. which is really great because he plays all the music from the 70s, all the Glam and Progressive stuff, that my friends and I grew up on. But boy, has he ever had a messed up life. Or at least he did until the early 90s. Typical rock n' roll tale of multiple severe addictions, and in Jonesy's case, he was a major-league thief as well. He stole all kinds of musical equipment from famous bands, stole clothing, purses and wallets, anything he could get his hands on. He even did this after he became famous. But he got sober in 1992, and has come out of the tunnel, and has tried to make amends to all the people he ripped off. It's one hell of a rock n' roll tale, and I think if it was anybody but Jonesy as the protaganist, readers would have little sympathy. But because he is such an open and engaging person now, even on his radio show, you can feel for him. I was never a big Sex Pistols fan because I hated the punk movement in 1977. I didn't hate The Pistols, because they were the original, and I still have my 45rpm single of "God Save The Queen", but that was as far as I went (besides The Ramones). But Steve Jones transcends punk because he has been through so much. It's like he has lived five or six lives in one. I don't generally read a lot of rock biographies, but this was a good one.

No movie tonight, but last night I watched a film from 1956 called "The Mountain" with Spencer Tracy and Robert Wagner as a pair of brothers (supposed to be German, but played with American accents haha) who decide to climb a high and difficult mountain in the Alps to search for survivors of a plane crash. Younger brother Wagner is a sociopath who only wants to go up there for the perceived loot. He figures that the passengers will have had enough cash and jewelry with them to make the climb worthwhile. Older brother Tracy is against all of this, but as a master mountain climber he feels he mustn't let his kid brother make the ascent alone. He feels he can stop Wagner's plot somewhere along the way, and perhaps talk him out of it.

All kinds of adventure ensues, and a lot of time and suspense is expended on the climb itself. It is a tribute to the acting of Spencer Tracy (one of the greatest of all time) that he is mainly convincing in his role, including in some impossible spots on the side of a frozen mountaintop, given that he looks very elderly. He was only 56 at the time, a year younger than Yours Truly, but he looks 75. Still, he pulls it off, and the movie - though slow in parts, with a slightly above average script - is overall pretty good.

I had never heard of it before I did a search for the films of director Edward Dymytryk, so I guess it's pretty obscure too. But worth a view for a movie hound like myself.  :)

Well, my girl, that's all for tonight. Post more if you can. I am thinking of you.

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

Chicago

Happy Late Night, SB,

Congratulations on your upcoming move to Chicago. That will be an exciting time for you, being on your own, but at least you will not be too far from your family and friends if you want to visit back home. I imagine you will have some good professional prospects there, and it's interesting (and kinda neat, in a "prediction" kind of way) because I remember mentioning, way back when you got out of Art School and were gonna turn pro, that you could "conquer the scene in Madison" first and then move outward. It was kind of an obvious prediction, I realise, haha, but I did make it!  :)

And now you are doing it.

Well......I guess I have to ask the next question. Don't get mad; I'm just askin'. 

Does moving to Chicago have anything to do with Johan (John)? I'm just wondering, because I know you and he are close friends, and have worked together, and he has visited you many times in Wisconsin.

If the answer is "Yes", please let me know and I will understand. I just need to know if I am toast or not, and also because it would not be right for me to write to you if Johan is your boyfriend.

I know he will probably be around a lot once you move there in any event. On his Facebook, the only posts or photos I can see all have to do with you, so maybe the writing is on the wall, I dunno. To be honest, it does seem that way.

But I won't know unless you tell me, so I hope you will. I know I'm just a guy on FB, but I have been writing to you all this time - most days for five years - and it has meant a lot to me (to again state, or understate, the obvious), and I hope you have gotten something out of it too.

If I have in any way contributed something positive and worthwhile to your life, then I am happy.

Still, please let me know, because this time it seems for real.

No matter what happens, I think you are awesome, and I have had a blast watching you develop your artistry and your many talents.

Post if you can, just to let me know. Thanks, Elizabeth.

I Love You in any case, either way.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Good Singin' + Super Hot + Liquid Plumbr + "The Night Of The Following Day"

Happy Late Night, SB,

Super tired tonight, from getting up early for church and then going straight out to Burbank to take my sister Sophie shopping. T'was 110 degrees - good for me but not so good for Sophie - but we managed to get through it relatively unscathed. Then it was back to Pearl's at 4:30 with a bottle of Liquid Plumbr (actual spelling) to try and unclog both bathroom sinks, which share a main drain pipe through the wall. Both sinks have had standing water in them since Thursday (gross, I know), and after using a plunger yesterday and getting no result, the Liquid Plumbr was to be a last resort before calling an actual Plumbr, which would have been tomorrow and would have been a Huge Hassle because you've gotta Wait Around From 8am to 5pm (or whenever) until the Plumbr Gets There.

But thank God that will not have to happen, because Liquid Plumbr cleared the drains! Just as advertised on the bottle. So, while I hate to use harsh chemicals in any given situation, this time it was necessary to avoid the aforementioned Huge Hassle and also to save Pearl a couple hundred bucks.

Anyhow, I've been At It all day (going non-stop), but I did take time out this eve to watch a movie : the somewhat obscure kidnap drama "The Night Of The Following Day" (1969), which I discovered from putting "Richard Boone" into the L.A. City Library search engine. I was looking for Boone Stuff because he is so great in "Have Gun Will Travel". He is totally demonic in this movie, however, playing one member of a team of kidnappers who trick a young girl (Pamela Franklin of "Legend Of Hell House" fame) into getting into a car after she deplanes at a Paris airport. A stewardess (Rita Moreno) is in on the scheme, as is her boyfriend (Marlon Brando), who pretends to be the chauffeur of the car she gets into. The kidnappers have plotted their crime, they know the girl's Dad is rich. But now that they've got her, they begin to argue amongst themselves about proper strategy, and the scheme begins to fall apart.

It's a pretty good movie, nowhere near as great as the last two films I've seen (which had perfect scripts), but certainly worth seeing. The problem with this film is it gets bogged down for about fifteen minutes at the end of the first half by a lot of psychological mumbo jumbo involving Brando and his girl Moreno. She is a heroin addict, and the film slows to a crawl and diverts from the plot to show the trials of her addiciton and the way it affects Brando, who responds with some similarly tortured Method Acting. But then the plot picks up nicely for the last 45 minutes or so, redeeming the film entirely.

Richard Boone is the real star here, overtaking Brando, who is great in some sections but Hams It Up in others. You don't see a lot of thrillers from the late 60s, however - a time when existentialist films, and those depicting the counterculture, many of which are of dubious quality - were in vogue. I am not generally a fan of late-60s era films, though there are exceptions, and I'd say overall that "The Night Of The Following Day" falls into that category. It is generally well made and acted, even if the direction is a bit shaky and the script goes off the track for a quarter hour. Shot on location in France, with local actors in several supporting roles.  ////

I saw a post today via Steve of The Fine Constant, about what I am guessing is (or was) a birthday bash for him at a club tonight. I am assuming you went, and I hope you had a good time & took some pix. I also saw your own post about the Homer Simpson meme created with your photo, which is Super Cool.

But it also makes me think that at some point, as a Professional Photographer, you may want to think about "watermarking" your photographs. It is indeed nice when someone chooses your photo for their own use (and flattering too), but because you are a Pro, you may want to consider it somewhere down the line.

Well, that's all I know for tonight. I am Beyond Megatired but hopefully some sleep will remedy the situation.

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

Happy Saturday + Thoughts + "City Of Fear"

Well, SB, I did see two posts this morning. One was the pic of Sarah and Drewsif and the other one was one of the guys from Dreamhouse. I don't know if those posts were meant for me, but in each photo there was one person with an arm around the other, so maybe you did mean it that way.

If that was the theme, then thanks (and see how observant I am, lol?). Just to reiterate, despite my comments yesterday, I wasn't mad at you, just hoping for communication. It was great in the days when I had an FB "news ticker" that continually scrolled all the "likes" and comments everybody was making. Back then, I would see all kinds of stuff from you over the course of a day. That was when you were still in school and not working, I know, but when they took my news ticker away, it made it much harder to communicate. I know I've mentioned this before, too.

I'm a guy a who loves to write, to communicate, to talk about all kinds of stuff. Pretty much any subject except dumb stuff and politics. For me, it's been hard because I've been alone for such a long time. I know I have whined about that, too, but it really is hard as you approach 60. I definitely do not recommend it. I think for me, my natural born shyness has had quite an effect on my life, and my inability to "break the ice" in meeting people. And yet I met you - over the Internet, yes - but it was still a meeting.

It's really the "heading towards 60" part that is affecting me nowdays, just not wanting to be single anymore.

I have a lot to give, and I really want to share life with someone. :):)
To be alone all the time is not easy.

Well anyway, enough complaining. Tonight I watched another excellent movie, totally different from "The Prisoner Of Zenda" but still great. It was a Noir called "City Of Fear" (1959) starring Vince Edwards of "Ben Casey" fame as a convicted killer who escapes from San Quentin with a stolen container of what he believes is pure heroin. He is under the impression that the prison officials were doing drug experiments on the inmates (shades of the CIA), when in reality the experiment was with a highly radioactive substance called Cobalt 60. Even more nefarious; to see what dosage the inmates could withstand (total CIA). At any rate, Edwards drives south to Los Angeles with the container of "heroin", which he plans to sell for a million bucks. He has a connection to help him, and is planning to take the money and move to another country with his girlfriend.

But what happens instead is that he begins to get sick from the radiation. The steel container is not strong enough to prevent leakage (only lead will do that), and at first he thinks he has the flu. But in a subplot, the cops know what is really happening. They know about the Cobalt 60 but have to keep it a secret from the Mayor and the public, due to fear of mass panic, because Cobalt 60 is so deadly it could kill off a whole city if released into the atmosphere.

So : Wow! There you have one hell of a plot, and the movie has one hell of a script and great direction. Once again I must Tirade about what can be accomplished in a short time, 75 minutes in this case. Modern directors should study, study, study.......and then study some more, the screenwriting from the 30s through the 50s, to see that every scene and every sentence counts. Everything is meant to Drive The Movie Forward. And in movies with good to great scripts, like "City Of Fear" or last night's five star "Prisoner Of Zenda", this is exactly what happens, because of a Succinct, Smart Script.

That's basically all for tonight. I hope all projects are going well. Tomorrow is church, and a well known Gospel song : "Shall We Gather At The River". Our director has drilled us that we are not to pronounce the "R" at the end of "River", because it sounds........nerdy. Not Gospel.

Instead, we are to sing it as "Riv-ah", and I concur wholeheartedly. We have sung this one a few times and I really enjoy singing it.  :)

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

"The Prisoner Of Zenda"

I guess for the time being I will just write the blog as if I am writing to myself, because I do wanna keep the blog going. But, SB, you basically don't post on FB anymore, or even when you do, there are always long stretches when you don't. I know you are busy, and I'm not mad at you or being critical. It's just that I really have no idea - and I am trying to be honest here - if you want to communicate with me anymore. I still support you even if you don't, because I am a fan of everything you do, but it's just become very difficult to keep asking you if you want to communicate, and then getting no response.

I mean, I suppose you could be posting and I am just not seeing the posts because of the stupid FB logarithms, I dunno. All I know is that (as I've said before), I've got you set first in every possible FB setting of posts that should come up first on my newsfeed, and I still see nothing, and more often than not lately I see nothing in "posts You like" either.

I know you have strong privacy settings, but my point is that I just wanna know where I stand. But I am just gonna go, for tonight anyway, and then on a day by day basis, on the assumption that you do not place a high priority on communicating with me, and so I will just write the blog to myself, and then on days when you post, if it looks like it has something to do with me, I will respond.

In a relationship, even one that exists online, a person has to want to communicate. And even the busiest person - if they want to communicate with another person - can find time to do so. I am beyond busy in my life, but I make time for things that are important to me (like writing to you).

Well, anyhow, I had a nice hike today at O'Melveny, and then tonight I watched a great movie called "The Prisoner Of Zenda" from 1937, starring Ronald Coleman, the great Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Madeleine Carroll. If anybody ever wanted to know what was so great about the Golden Age Of Hollywood, I would point 'em straight to this movie. I am too tired to describe the plot, and my enthusiasm for writing is not at a peak tonight, which would overcome the Tiredness Factor otherwise. But it's a great, great movie - 5 Stars - and it shows that Hollywood, in it's early days, was a Magic Factory indeed.

I will keep looking for you on FB. Hope all is well.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Happy Late Night + It's Hard To Keep This Blog Going

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

I hope you had a nice day. I saw your post earlier today, via Jenni from Ultrea, about taking a road trip to see the Fireflies, so maybe you were (or are) out doing something like that. Man, I would love to see Fireflies, but we don't have any out here. My Dad used to say that, as a kid in Northern Indiana, he and his friends would catch 'em in jars. They called 'em Lightning Bugs. Dad said they were everywhere.

No hike for me today, but I did join Pearl at the hair salon and got my hair cut. I'm keeping it a little shorter these days, just because it gets too wavy and curly and crazy if it gets too long, and also because it gets too frizzy. Easier just to keep it at short-but-not-super-short length.

Well anyhow, that's really all I have to report. I'm not sure how much you are able to/ want to communicate with me any more. I'm still here, it's just that I rarely see you on FB. If you have reached a point where you feel you do not want to communicate with me anymore, or don't have time to, you can say so. It's just hard for me to sustain this blog, is all.

Anyhow, I will see you tomorrow.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

King Crimson at The Greek Theater

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

I'm glad to see you back on FB! It seems like you disappeared for a while there. ;) That's why I didn't post a blog yesterday, but anyway, I hope things have been going well and I hope you had a nice day. I just got back a couple hours ago from the King Crimson concert at the Greek Theater, which is near a famous L.A. Park called Griffith Park, the biggest park in Los Angeles. It's near Hollywood. Anyhow, I hadn't been to The Greek since 1986, when I went there to see Emerson Lake and Powell (as in Cozy Powell, who had replaced Carl Palmer for one album). It's an outdoor amphitheater built into a hillside, and seats about 5000. King Crimson may have overestimated their draw, because the place was only about 3/4ths full, but the 3750 people who were there had their minds blown.

Including yours truly.

There isn't much one can say about a concert like this unless one feels like writing a dissertation, which I do not at the present time because it's late and I have to be up fairly early to take Pearl to the hair salon tomorrow, and to get my own hair cut too.

The thing about KC is that it's very unusual music, extremely heavy for the most part and even chaotic, though there are interludes that are softer and traditionally melodic. I think there is probably not much inbetween for music fans : folks either like 'em or they don't. Or if they do like 'em, they prefer one particular incarnation. That's another thing about King Crimson : every time bandleader/guitarist/musical genius Robert Fripp has broken up and reformed KC over the past 48 years, he has brought it back each time with some different players and a slightly different sound. So I know people who really "love King Crimson", but when they say that, they often only mean one era, such as the very popular "Discipline" era of the early 1980s, with Adrian Belew. I myself love all eras of King Crimson, and tonight the band, which played a 3 hour set with 20 minutes intermission, was featuring music from their earlier eras, mostly stuff from 1969 to 1974, including a lot of material off the classic "Red" album. I will have to go back and check the setlist online to see exactly how much they played from each record, but the thing is :

I don't see how anyone can play like that. That kind of ensemble playing, I mean.

There are 8 musicians in the band : three (!) drummers (Gavin Harrison, Jeremy Stacey and Pat Mastelotto), bass (Tony Levin), guitar (Fripp), vocals and second guitar (Jakko Jakskyk), a keyboardist (Bill Rieflin) and the incredible Mel Collins on Saxes and Woodwinds.

And it all fits together with the precision of a classical orchestra, but with rock sound and power.

I'm sure I mentioned all of this in Fall 2014, the last time I saw them. Before that, I had only seen KC in a club - The Roxy, where I saw Alcest last February. The KC show at The Roxy was back in 1981, and back then they had a traditional rock band structure, just four musicians, including Adrian Belew on guitar. That was the "Discipline" tour, and it was phenomenal, but this latest incarnation is a whole different ballgame. It's now The King Crimson Orchestra. The fun thing is that there is so much going on with each musician that your eyes are constantly moving from one player to the next, not only to watch how they all interact with each other but because the music itself, and the mix of the music, has arrangements that draw out a certain instrument in a constantly changing tapestry where each thread weaves over and around and also in tandem with the others. It's quite incredible to watch and hear, especially the trio of powerhouse drummers. KC is the only major band I have ever seen that has no light show, other than static overhead colored lights, and no other visuals whatsoever. It's just music, which in this case is more than enough.

Well, anyway, that's my short King Crimson review.  :)

I knew you were back today, because after searching fruitlessly for several days on "posts You like", I finally saw one. Well, two actually. I saw the Taya Iv photo, looking very mysterious, and then I saw the other post, where your friends have gotten married.

Of course I have already written about my feelings on the subject.

I am of course all for marriage.

In fact, I'd like to be the one being written about rather than the one writing about it.  :)

Whatcha think, SB?  :):)

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

Happy Monday + Hawk

Happy Late Night, Elizabeth,

I'm just checking in to say hi. Haven't seen you on FB much, as previously noted. I did see one post today about your friend Joel's birthday, which was more of a business oriented post than a birthday post, but anyway............I'm just trying to make conversation. No worries if you are too busy.

It was cool to see that Hawk in Aliso Canyon today. I see the Red Tails quite frequently on my hikes, but always way up in the air, circling around and riding the drafts. This particular guy flew just overhead suddenly and landed in a tree. He might have been looking for his dinner, or just taking a break from flying. In the area where I spotted him, the canyon and creek are enclosed by a wide canopy of spreading trees (oaks mostly), so it's like an "indoors" version of the outdoors. That was mostly why it was unusual to see the Hawk, because he was inside this shadowy canopy instead of out in the sun and blue sky, where you would usually see him and other Red Tails. I'm glad he sat still long enough for me to get a few pics!

That's really all the news for the day. It is heating up out here, 97 today and gonna get up over 100 for the next few days. Me : "Yippie"!

See you tomorrow.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Happy Sunday + The Moody Blues

Hi Elizabeth,

Happy Sunday Night. I guess you have been busy the past few days cause I haven't seen you on FB. I did see one post this evening, the pic with the drummer from Stitched Up Heart. Anyhow, I hope all is well and that your film with Aaron is coming along as planned. :)

I am back at Pearl's. Earlier this eve I went to Warner Park in Woodland Hills to see Ticket To Ride, the Beatles tribute band. As you know, I see them several times a year, and always at Warner Park in the Summer (or close to it). They always draw a good crowd, and it was also timely because today is Paul McCartney's 75th birthday. Man, who ever thought a Beatle could be 75?  :)

Last night I went to the Hollywood Bowl to see The Moody Blues. It was a first for me; I had never seen The Moodies before, and I might not have gone had Ono (from FB) not asked me. It's not that the band are not good, or that I don't like them : they are of course legendary, and they had a very famous seven album "run" in the late 60s to mid 70s that is among the greatest creative periods by any group in rock history. It's just that, in the 80s and 90s, they kind of recreated themselves into a Platinum Pop Rock act, making middle of the road Top 40 music. Which is what they were known for in the last few decades.

But : in the 60s and 70s, they were as great as it gets. In 1967, they made an album called "Days Of Future Passed", which was recorded with an orchestra, and many observers consider it to be the first true progressive rock album. I'd say it's neck and neck with "Sgt. Pepper", which is still great company. If you've ever heard the songs "Tuesday Afternoon" or "Nights In White Satin", they are from that album.

Anyhow, that's why I went : because it is now the 50th Anniversary of "Days Of Future Passed", and the band was gonna be playing the album all the way through, with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and it was also gonna be a Premier - the first time they had ever played it this way live.

So I'm glad Ono asked me, and I'm glad I went. They did two sets, as many bands do nowdays, and the first set was indeed mostly filled with their material from the 80s, very commercial sounding. Out of nine songs, only two were from the classic era. So the first set was so-so.

But then they came back out and did "Days" in it's entirety, with the orchestra, and a psychedelic light show.............and it was pretty mindblowing, with a big fireworks show at the end.

It's just amazing to think that certain classic albums are now a half century old, and certain classic rock stars are now 75. The drummer for The Moody Blues, Graeme Edge, is 76, so he even "out olds" Paul McCartney!  :)

That's basically all the news for the past couple days. Now it's back to the grindstone.

Post if you get a chance, and if you wanna.

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo    :):)

Project Looks Awesome + L.A. Mixup + Beware Anything "New Age"

Happy Late Thursday Night, Sweet Baby,

That looks like an awesome project you are working on - very expressive to have the dancer interpret the natural surroundings. You are calling it a "passion project", so I guess you are doing it for yourself, or as your own client, but I am sure you will be entering it into showcases or festivals as you have with other of your personal works. :)

I guess I got the L.A. thing mixed up or just plain wrong. Sorry about that. I know sometimes people on FB "tag" a person (or a person "tags" themself) at a certain location for reasons besides that person actually being at the location. Sometimes I guess it's for business reasons, like that's where they work from, and when I checked the tagged pic of you, from your friend Katie, it had a different look to it from the other shots she posted as being located in L.A. The other shots looked like they were done outside an apartment complex, maybe in the general Santa Monica/Westside area (or anywhere "over the Hill", as we say), but the models were shot all in the same locale. Your pic was a close up, framed by leaves, so it was maybe done when you were in Colorado, I am guessing, and then she just tagged it as "L.A." for reasons of business uniformity, as in "I am a Los Angeles based photographer".

Well anyway, it was a nice photo of you.

Today was a hot one, not quite 100 degrees but close, so I went up to Aliso for a full length hike.

No movie tonight, but I did finish my Secret Space Program book by Michael Salla. A very strange book indeed : on the one hand, a lot of interesting and mostly verifiable (though previously known by me via other books) stuff about the Vril Society in Germany and the Nazi UFO program during WW2. It's pretty clear by now that a lot of the UFOs seen in the 50s were of German origin, or of German design that was brought over to America at the end of the war and then created at places like Area 51. So it's coming to light that the original UFO sightings were mostly of human and not alien origin.

But then the book is also filled with all of this hogwash by Corey Goode and other so-called "whistleblowers", which is so ridiculous that it reads like a sci-fi novel written by a fan of "Stargate".

The book obviously has an agenda, which is in part to send disinformation, but I can't quite figure out what the agenda is. There seems to be a connection to a "New Age" Alien Guru named David Wilcock, who is also a Trump fan (lol) and is completely full of B.S.

Well anyway, it was partially an interesting read, and partially a complete joke.

Beware anything New Age, SB. It's all a bunch of baloney, designed to make money off of things like "Alien Disclosure In The Desert"! : tickets 300 bucks for the whole weekend! Featuring speakers such as (name your phoney baloney speakers, haha)......

And of course there never is any disclosure. It's just another industry, and that's what anything "New Age" is as well.

Well, that's all for tonight. See you in the morning.

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Los Angeles? + Mega Hike At Santa Su

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

SB, are you here in Los Angeles? I saw a post earlier today, maybe around Noon or 1pm, in which you were tagged. It was via your friend Katie and I am pretty sure the tagged location was Los Angeles. Well, if you are here, I hope you are enjoying our city! The only other post I saw was a nice pic of the mountains with beautiful white clouds above them, but that one was from Spokane, Washington. Well, anyway............if you are here, and you wanna say hi......well, you know.  :)

I have said you are in the driver's seat on that score, and I don't wanna put you on the spot or put any pressure on you. I mentioned your post from a few days ago, the one I said was "food for thought" (I think that blog was just a couple days ago), and that post had some comments about one of your friends moving to L.A., so I recognised the L.A. reference.

So, yeah........wow!

Well, if you are here, have a blast. You came at the right time for heat, cause we are heading into the triple digit territory (depending on the area; the beaches and Westside can be 20 degrees cooler).

I am off through Saturday.

But no pressure, as I say. I will keep an eye on FB, though, just in case.  :)

Today I went on the most mega hike I have ever been on at Santa Susana. Being off work, I was able to take my time, and so I went to the top of The Devil's Slide as I usually do, but this time I kept going to the Lilac Lane trailhead about another 1/4 mile down, and then past that to the trail that leads to the former site of Spahn Ranch, of Manson fame. All that's there now is a flat dirt plateau, but I have always wanted to hike there just to say I did it. At a certain point, though, the trail got a bit steep, and I had already done about 1000 feet of elevation gain (like climbing the stairs in the Empire State Building), so I figured "well, I will try it another time from the Lilac Lane entrance, where I can just go straight to this part of the trail".

So I turned back, and when I got back to Lilac Lane (at the top of The Slide), I noticed another trail that I'd never seen before. It led due North, over a hill - not too steep - and so I followed it, and it led down about a half mile all the way to the 118 Freeway! Holy Smokes! The 118 runs just North of Santa Susana Pass Road, which was the route to Simi Valley before the freeway was built. All of a sudden I was looking across the freeway at the trailhead for Rocky Peak, which I have hiked and photographed in years past. So on this new trail I had come all the way to the Spahn Ranch side, but ended up North of Spahn at Rocky Peak.

I kind of blew my mind on that one.  :)

The mileage wasn't as far as you'd think : I'd guess about 4 to 4.25 for the round trip. But the elevation gain all told, after the final hill climb, was probably around 1100 ft, so it was One Heck Of A Hike. And, I wound up on the Spahn Side, which I've never done before. So that was Mega.

The rest of my day was The Usual : reading several books and watching shows, tonight Part One of an awesome two-part "Outer Limits" called "The Inheritors", starring the great Robert Duvall.

I hope you had a great day, wherever you may be. I imagine you are probably working on a project with Katie, too, so I trust that is going well.

Anyway..........well, you know. :)

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

The Great Wall (Reseda, not China) + Aliso + "The Brothers Rico"

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

I hope you had a nice day, as always. Mine was busy again. My sister Vickie came over and we went to lunch with Pearl and her daughter Helen at a semi-famous Chinese restaurant in Reseda called The Great Wall. It is located just a couple doors down from the hair salon I take Pearl to every Thursday. We used to take my Dad there a lot, and this was kind of a belated Mother's Day lunch for Pearl, who also loves the place and has been going there for many years. We had a ton of food - Szechwan Beef for me, which I enjoyed with hot Chinese mustard and Sriracha chili sauce, different from their regular hot sauce and also super delicious. The Great Wall is semi-famous because there have been some TV shows shot there, and a movie from a few years ago called "Drive" w/Ryan Gosling. In the movie, Albert Brooks calls him and actually tells him : "Meet me at The Great Wall in Reseda", or something very close to that, and when they are finished eating (spoiler alert!), he kills Gosling in the parking lot, just a few rows back from where I park for Pearl on hair salon days, haha.

Well anyway, that's a bit of Reseda trivia for you.  :)

After lunch, I chilled out back at home for a while and then went up to Aliso at 6pm for a full length walk : 4 miles (two each way). I don't usually get to go at that time of the evening, so it is nice to see the change in atmosphere when it is enveloped in shadow and the frogs begin to "ribbit". And the bunnies come out, too. Ribbits and Rabbits.........(aw, c'mon Ad - bad pun. But I didn't plan it in advance, really SB)

Tonight I watched an excellent Film Noir called "The Brothers Rico" (1957). Richard Conte plays the eldest brother, a former Mob accountant who has gone straight and now owns a thriving laundry business. He has a wife and they are adopting a baby, an angle you don't usually see in crime movies. But he also has two younger brothers who are still in the Mob, and who have recently pulled off a contract "hit". The brothers are On The Lam, worried about being eliminated themselves now that they've got the job done, and Conte - the "honest" brother - is caught between a rock and a hard place because his former Mob cohorts want him to track down his brothers so that they can be confronted over their unexplained absence (i.e. killed).

Once again, I must go on a Brief Tirade about the importance of the screenwriter in the creation of a film. "The Brothers Rico" runs a standard (for a Noir) 90 minutes, but so much story is packed into that time period that it feels like an epic, like a modern movie that is 2 1/2 hours. And that's because great screenwriters in the old days didn't waste time. Instead, they filled it. Every scene counted, and every word of dialogue. It also doesn't hurt when you are working off a book by Georges Simenon, the famous French mystery writer of "Maigret" fame. But this is much more Hard Boiled.

A great movie, I give it Five Stars.

The rest of the day, in between, was The Usual Reading (including Steve Jones' book "Lonely Boy". "Jonesey" was the guitarist in The Sex Pistols and now has a radio show here in L.A. Grim read his book and recommended it to me) and also The Usual CSUN walk for a total of seven miles for the day.

I saw two posts, one for The Fine Constant's tour with Marty Friedman. That is awesome for Sarah and Steve. The other post was a pair of socks (!) advertising Summerfest 50, which I imagine you will be going to.

I trust all projects are going well, and your own music too. I love this time of year, as Spring heads into Summer.......

See you in the morning!

I Love You.  xoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Happy Monday + Limekiln Coyote + Only Sports + Goodboyism

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

I'm writing from home once again, hence the slightly later hour. I hope you had a nice day, and I imagine you are working on one project or another, something very creative for certain.  :)

I had a good day myself. Slept in til 11:30, lol. But it felt great because I don't usually get 8 hours sleep. I took my time getting going, too, just because I could. Straightened up The Pad a bit, got it Nice & Neat. Then at 3:30 I headed up to Limekiln for a nice hike. It's actually more of a walk, like it's sister canyon Aliso, although Limekiln has some steep parts. I saw a coyote while I was there! It was beyond cool, because he was down below the trail by the creek, and he didn't see me, so I got to watch him walk all down the canyon till I couldn't see him anymore. At Limekiln, there are parts of the trail that are way above the creek, 40 or 50 feet. He was moving too fast to get a picture, and was in and out of the underbrush, but just to see him in his natural habitat was so cool. Man, those coyotes are all so skinny! When I first saw him, I thought, "wow, a fox"!.....but then I thought, "wait a minute, we don't have foxes here". But anyway - another coyote sighting! One day I will get lucky and get a photo.

That was the main event of the day, though I also did a CSUN walk this eve, during which I took the pic of the music building that I posted on FB. I liked it cause I got some nice positioning of lights, and the contrast between that and the black sections made for a decent composition.

In the earlier evening, I watched part of game 5 of the NBA Finals, just because.......well, you know.

I don't care about Golden State, just wanted to make sure they weren't gonna choke and hand the championship over to You Know Who once again. But they didn't, and so all is well even though it's only sports.

Do you know why sports are "only sports"? It's because once the game is over - or at least by the next day - you aren't sweating it anymore. At least when you are an adult. As a kid, if UCLA didn't win a basketball game it would bother me for a long time, and I cried in the car on the way home in November 1969 when they lost to USC in the annual football game. When I was a kid, a sports loss by my team would affect me for at least a week or two. But when I got to be an adult, any bad feeling was over by the next morning. So it's really weird, to get Totally Worked Up while a game is in progress, which I still do and I suppose I always will, unless it's two teams I don't care about, but then to lose all emotional interest by the next day. I suppose that's the adult realisation that it's "only sports".

Although I'd still prefer it if LeBron, Tom Brady, Serena and the Yankees never won any more championships.

I also watched a great episode of "Rawhide". Now "Rawhide" will stay with you, even past the next morning.....   :)

Read my books, too, of course. I could not go a day without reading any more than without breathing.

I really liked your post, via your friend Aaron, about his doggie, who was pictured in a big field. His comment was a wonderful tribute to his dog, and of course it made me think of Kobi, who I am crazy about. He isn't even my dog, but I have been with him every day for over seven years now, and he means so much to me. He has a Ph.D in Goodboyism. I don't know if I've mentioned that before, but it's true.

Nowdays, I have to pick Kobi up a lot, to take him outside to go pee, or to put him in his bed at night, because he can't walk so great anymore and he can't see too well. But he is always so noble and he has such a calm, Good Guy demeanor. There is something so steadying about him. When he is riding next to me in the car, sitting in the passenger seat, I feel like I could go anywhere in the world. That is the influence of a Good Dog. Anyone who has one knows what I mean, and I believe all dogs are good dogs.

I have said to Pearl, sometimes when I am holding Kobi, "it's a man/dog love affair".

And it's true. So I really could relate to Aaron's picture and comments.  :)

That's all I know for tonight, SB. I Love You.

See you in the morning.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Happy Sunday + Good Singin' + "Gorgo" + Food For Thought

Happy Late Sunday Night, Sweet Baby,

I am writing from home, my first night off. We had good singin' and practicing in church this morn. I got to sing an interesting harmony part on our anthem, which was a variation on the hymn "Oh How He Loves Me". A lot of my melody line was static; just singing the same note on the refrain "Oh-How-He-Loves-You, Oh-How-He-Loves-Me", but the effect was really neat when combined with the fluid melody lines for the other singers. It had a Barbershop Quartet feel, which I liked because I love vocal harmonies. I'd like to try some really complex harmonies one of these days.

I had a nice walk this evening, and then I've just been relaxing & reading my Secret Space Program book, which is weird because it seems to contain a lot of legit info, but also this fantasy stuff from Corey Goode, which is presented almost as if it is supposed to be taken as fantasy, or perhaps as an allegory for something more "real world". It is not always easy to tell in the world of disinformation, in which it can be difficult to discern truth from fiction.

But I will tell you what is easy to discern : the awesomeness of the movie I watched tonight.

"Gorgo"! (I added the exclamation point because Gorgo deserved it). "Gorgo" is the story of a Monster who is brought from the bottom of the ocean to the surface by an undersea volcano. A group on a salvage ship manage to capture him in a giant net. They then tranquilize him and transport him to London, where they make a nice profit selling him to a circus promoter, who names him "Gorgo".

Shades of "King Kong", I hear you say. And it's true. But it's done really well, and not a ripoff.

"Gorgo" is a dinosaur. Why he lives in the ocean is not clear, but anyhow, he is now in the circus and hating every moment. He is captive, held in a cement basin, and people pay to stare and laugh at him.

He has one supporter, a little Irish kid. The movie is a British MGM production.

At any rate, a local paleontologist makes a startling announcement : "Gorgo" is not a full grown behemoth but only an infant. A full grown version of the species would be 200 feet tall.

Well, sure enough, as if on cue, here comes Gorgo's Mom, all 200 feet of her, out of the ocean to rescue her boy. In the process she tramples and destroys London in what has got to be one of the greatest special effects model setups in movie history. The filmmakers made a huge model city, replete with all the landmarks like Big Ben and Picadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, etc.

Momma Gorgo crushes them all. This set piece lasts for the final 15 minutes of the film and is extremely impressive for 1960. The movie was shot in Technicolor, and normally I would prefer b&w for Monster Movies as you know, but in this case, the color is fantastic because of the gaudy lighting in downtown London. It's really spectacular. The movie has a sweet ending, too. Instead of killing both Gorgos (which the military has been called out to do) the writers have Momma surviving the attempt and then rescuing Baby Gorgo from the circus enclosure, and then heading back out to sea with him, as the little Irish boy looks on.

It's a pro-Monster monster movie! Man, was it great....and apparently it was a box-office smash when it was originally released.

Only a slight problem with the print quality. If I were Criterion I would restore it. Fingers crossed.  :)

I saw your post via your friend who has quit his day job to make touring his priority. He says he is flying to L.A. tomorrow.

There is a lot of food for thought in that post, as it relates to the way we communicate, and I suppose some things could be interpreted by me to pertain to what we were talking about in last night's blog.

:):)

When I read a post like that, I guess I interpret it in an overall psychic way, and the key words here seem to be "L.A." and then some other very exciting things that he mentioned about visiting with friends and catching up.

But as it pertains to last night's subject, I certainly understand what you mean, SB.

And I like it and I agree.  :):)

You are in the driver's seat in such a situation - which we have talked about because of the age difference - so all I will say for the moment is that I am here, and I am listening.

In the meantime, just keep Doing What You Do, because you are having an amazing year, with "Notepainting" and the "Red Gown" photographs, among other projects. So just keep doing what you are doing, and I am right here, and I am listening. That's the best way I can put it.  :):)

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

Happy Saturday + Thoughts About....Well, You Know.

Happy Late Saturday Night, my Darling,

I hope you had a good day. I was busy shopping for my week off, cleaning here at Pearl's, all the stuff I usually do just before I finish a work cycle. My Dad trained me as a little kid to always leave a place looking "military style", and it got ingrained in me I suppose. Although the Tiny Apartment definitely does not look Military Style at the moment, haha. Stuff is stacked and strewn about. Drawings and books, mostly. It's not a pack rat situation or a case of me being a slob, but rather that the Apartment Is So Tiny that I don't have anywhere left to put stuff. I'm a good Organiser Of Space, however, and during my week off I will somehow square everything away.

I still managed to squeeze in a nice Aliso walk, and then went back to Pearl's and took The Crew straight to Lake Balboa, stopping at In-N-Out on the way, at the suggestion of The Pinscher. He offered to pay, and I was not about to turn down a free double cheeseburger.

This evening I watched yet another episode of "The Loner", featuring the superior writing of Uncle Rod. I am trying to jam-pack a whole bunch of shows into my off-hours, including "Rawhide", "The Prisoner", "Outer Limits", "One Step Beyond" and "The Loner", and I am also trying to watch Monster Movies in between, and also read several books. I have to Ingest Entertainment And Information, SB! I am compelled to do so......  :)

I also worked on one of my goofy drawings while listening to Mike Oldfield's "Return To Ommadawn", an absolute masterpiece.

Now, SB........I saw a post.......about a young lady who is getting married. There was a photo, with a decoration that said "Bride To Be".

That is an incredibly beautiful sentiment, and I don't know if I should be so presumptuous to think it refers in any way to me. We've had this discussion before - sort of - but if I should be so presumptuous, then it is a heart-melting message indeed.

But I could only turn the question around, if it was meant that way, and ask, "did you mean me"?

Would you want to get married, one day? 

I'm just askin'. I would want to know what you want.

And of course we would have to actually begin talking to one another in real life.

But I don't mean to put you on the spot in any way. I am just responding to your post, on the chance that you meant it for me.

I have always tried, and will always try, to be a gentleman in writing to you, because of our age difference and because you deserve it, and because that's my nature anyway. That's why I don't force any issues (except for encouraging good communication), and so........as far as marriage goes.....

Let's see what happens. There is plenty of time.

But we would have to start talking at some point....  :):)

Tomorrow is an easy song in church, then back to Pearl's after choir practice until 4pm, then I will be off until June 18th.

See you in the morning!

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Happy Friday + Varg & Other Black Metal Nutcases

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

I hope your weekend is off to a good start. As usual, not much to report from me. I took The Doberman to the groomer. He is All Goodboyed Out as a result. :) Starting Sunday night, I will have a week off, and I am just gonna chill and relax because I am mega-tired, just from my job being the way it is nowdays. I don't get a lot of sleep. But a full week should recharge my batteries, I think. Especially if I watch some more Monster Movies.

I did not watch a movie tonight, but I did watch an episode of "The Loner", written by Rod Serling, and I listened to the new Bill Nelson album, "Luxury Wonder Moments", which I just got in the mail yesterday.

I saw a comment by you on FB, to a friend's post, about Varg Vikernes. I remember when I was really immersing myself in Black Metal (second wave Black Metal to be precise) in 2011, and I started listening to bands like Dissection and Burzum, and a whole bunch of others whose names escape me at the moment because I really don't listen to a lot of that stuff anymore. I read all about Varg in a book called "Lords Of Chaos", about the Scandinavian Black Metal scene in the 90s, with it's burning of churches and stuff. The thing with Varg - besides his "philosophy" - is that his music is, at best, okay. In my opinion anyway. I mean, Mayhem was really bad when compared with great first wave Black Metal like Venom or Celtic Frost. Burzum has some good stuff, but it did not stick with me, not when there were bands of major talent like Opeth and Alcest. Dissection was a similar story, although they were actually a very powerful band, musically more along the lines of traditional metal. But their leader, Jon Nodtveidt, was a very troubled guy, into "Satanism" (whatever that means) who wound up participating in the murder of a gay man. Later on, he killed himself.

I actually still listen to my Dissection albums once in a while, simply because the music is so powerful. But Jon was a nutcase, and a killer, and so is Varg. The guy Varg killed was no prince, either. There are lowlifes in Scandinavia, just like here at home or anywhere in the world.

Tom G. Warrior, who invented the Black Metal vocal style along with Chronos from Venom, has got it all over most of these bands. His band Tryptikon is heavier and more brutal than any "Satanic" band, and more intelligent too. He could blow those guys off the stage. And of course Celtic Frost was legendary, and took Black Metal into art rock territory.

I guess I say all of this just cause Varg is really nothing more than a very disturbed guy with a modicum of musical talent. I am sure you already know this, however.

Speaking of Alcest, I think Kodama is the heaviest record they have ever made, and those screaming vocals he does on several songs are the most powerful of that style that I have ever heard. But besides just being heavy, he is also very musical, as we know.

Well, anyhow, the music you like best will stick with you in the long run, throughout your life, and you will find yourself always coming back to it.

In Other News : LeBron James and the Cavs destroyed Golden State tonight, so now my LeBron Anxiety has been reawakened. I just know he will win the next three games to pull off the biggest comeback in NBA history. And Golden State will do an even bigger choke than they did last year. They will lose four straight games.

I mean, they won't really lose four straight......right? Or will they?

I wish I didn't care about sports, and the funny thing is : I don't. 

I loved sports as a kid, and I loved it when it was "for fun" and not all about big bucks and big egos.

I hope all projects are going well, and that your duets composition is progressing also.  :)

See you in the morning. I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Dreamhouse Tour? + "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms"

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

I hope you had a nice day as always. I only saw one post, but it was for Dreamhouse and a tour they are gonna do in Texas next month. Are you gonna go with 'em? If so, totally awesome! And even if not, I know you will have other stuff coming up. But I hope you get to go....  :)

Nothing to report from me, just cause it was Thursday which means Hair Salon. I did do a little shopping at the Super King produce market, and bought kale, spinach, radishes, broccoli, bananas, a white onion (my favorite, even more than red), ginger, carrots, plums and nectarines. And a couple cans of tuna.

Oh Boy!

I do love my fruits & veggies, though I hate the time consuming (and boring) chore of washing 'em and chopping 'em up into the Nightly Salad (just the veggies, not the fruits, which are eaten in the afternoon). But preparing veggies is like tying shoes, something you've gotta do every day but which is total drudgery.

But watching Monster Movies is not Total Drudgery, and tonight's movie was a five-star classic : "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms". There's another "Headline Grabbing" title for ya, as seen in recent sci-fi films I've reported on. Now, I don't know the measurement of a fathom, so I have no way of proving or disproving the depth in the title, but there definitely was A Beast, and he was no mere Man In A Rubber Suit! This time, the effects were by the legendary Ray Harryhausen, who pioneered the use of stop-motion for the movement of "model" Monsters, and who also utilised miniature cities and buildings and all kinds of other effects of lighting and staging to create "realistic" sci-fi and fantasy scenarios onscreen. For my money, he's got it all over today's CGI effects, even though the CGI looks smoother and his look rickety by comparison. But what Harryhausen had was craft, he was a special effects artist, and the love for his art shows up in his work, which was stellar for the 1950s.

The movie is part "The Thing From Another World" and part "Jurassic Park". It opens in Antarctica, where scientists are conducting an atomic bomb test, blowing apart the ice cap. But holy smokes, they made a big mistake, because in blowing up the ice, they also uncovered a Humongous Angry Dinosaur that was flash frozen 100 million years ago, down at the bottom of an ocean canyon. After some fishing boats encounter him, the scientists send a diving bell to the bottom to search for him.

Then all hell breaks loose. :)

This is my kind of sci-fi, and I saw a few minutes of this movie on TCM at Pearl's a couple weeks ago, which led me to seek it out in the library system. And they had it. Now I will look for more Ray Harryhausen films, because I am on a 1950s Sci-Fi Monster Movie Kick, SB! Big time! And I need monsters, be they in Rubber Suits, or in stop-motion, or if they come from The Bottom Of The Sea or from Beyond Space.

Just as long as they are from the 1950s........or maybe up to about '62 or so. No color ones, please, just black and white.  :)

Well, that's all for today. Looks like the Warriors are gonna win the NBA Championship for sure this time, so I am not undergoing the usual LeBron Anguish I face every year at this time. Of course, they could always do a Major Choke like they did last year (meaning Golden State), but this time it looks to be in the bag.

Yeah, sports......I know. :)

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

New Trail Search + NASA Disinformation

Happy Late Night, my Darling,

I hope your day was a good one, whether in Colorado, Wisconsin or in between. :) I went in search of a new trail this afternoon. I saw a picture that someone had posted on the Santa Susana Field Lab Facebook page, of what looked like an Indian cave. It had a bunch of graffiti inside, which was gross, but whoever posted it commented that it was located on a trail in Dayton Canyon, at the end of Roscoe Boulevard, which would put it about two miles south of Santa Susana State Park. I had never heard of Dayton Canyon, and had never been down to the end of Roscoe because it doesn't look accessible. It just trails off into what looks like an old, single lane private road. Having passed it over the years, I always figured it led to someone's ranch or something. But I checked Google Street View today, and that road does indeed widen out as it goes over a hill, and it becomes a residential street like any other, a public street. And that's where the trailhead to Dayton Canyon is.

So I drove out there.........and couldn't access it because the road was closed. They are building a new housing development there, and so it will probably be closed for a while.

Oh well. The housing development bugs me more than the road closure. I am not a fan of developers, as you know, and I thank God that the Santa Susana site is apparently protected by the State of California, and also by a strong Chumash Indian lobby, or the developers would probably be razing it to the ground as well. Anyhow, I kept driving another couple of miles and ended up at El Scorpion Open Space, home of the Cave of Munitz, and had a short but very nice hike there. Man, that place is Bee Central! You can hear that omnipresent hummmmmmm throughout the park. Good thing I'm no longer terrified of bees......  :)

That was my day, except for the usual reading and shows, tonight an episode of "The Loner". I am not too sure about my Michael Salla "Secret Space Program" books, one of which I bought and one of which I got from The Libe. I think I mentioned that his main source for info, in the first book anyway, is a guy named Corey Goode. Reading about his supposed exploits, I was thinking "this guy is a disinformation artist". For the record, I do believe there is a secret space program, and that there is stuff on the moon we haven't been told about by NASA, and it's quite obvious from NASA photos alone that there are anomalies on Mars that cannot be "explained away". There is a lot of fantastic stuff out there, in other words, and NASA knows about it and won't share it. But Corey Goode talks about Reptilians (ala David Icke), and that he was "an empath" for a secret government group that had him "time travel" to "other star systems"..........and that's where I get off the boat.

There is a lot of good info in the Michael Salla books, especially about the Nazi effort to build UFOs in the 1930s & 40s, which is well documented elsewhere. But the Corey Goode stuff is pure fantasy, designed to sell to (and fool) the New Age crowd, of which I am not a member. Those are all the people who - every one of them - has been abducted and implanted by Aliens, and have been "given a message" of some sort or another. They are a dime a dozen, and all phoney baloney.

A real story, like what happened here in September 1989, doesn't even get acknowledged, much less talked about.

But anyhow.....

I saw one post today, about "it's insane how much life has changed in one year", and there is no doubt about it! And that's because you drove down the road with the sign marked "Artist - this way --->".

And on that road, there is no turning back, only forward.  :)

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

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Excellent Work Once Again!

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

I hope your day was good. Are you still in Colorado? If so, you are no doubt having a blast and taking many pics. Remember to take pics "on the road" during your journeys - pics on the way to each destination - so that you can compile a kind of lifelong travelogue. That is something I would love to do one day, just drive on backroads all over America, and take photos of Stuff That Strikes My Eye. Make my own American Album so to speak.  :)

Your video for Anna was excellent, with a lot of nice motion shots, one in particular of the camera following her in a circle around a flower bush. And the high speed "rewind" at the end was a nice touch too. She seems to be a natural in front of the camera, and you say it was her first time acting. Perhaps you contributed to that also. You have a knack with your subjects in still photography, so it carries over into your video work as well. With Anna, you got her to relax, and brought out her personality. You are very good with people, the #1 skill a director must have (though some old time Hollywood directors might not agree, lol, as some were tyrants....)

Today being Tuesday, no hike was had. Hopefully I will go on one tomorrow. I am finding, with the Smudge Cam (my Lumix), that I do not notice the dust smudge so much in landscape pics, which have a lot of varied textures in the imagery. Those kinds of pics mask the smudge very well. Also, depending on the zoom length and the degree of Sunlight, the smudge can almost disappear. In other cases it becomes a hard, dark shape. Anyhow, I can apparently keep using my cam for the time being, though I am still gonna get a new one fairly soon. But I am glad I will still be able to use my original one for certain pics. It's funny, because I am not a very materialistic person, and yet certain things can acquire a great sentimental value for me, like my five year old little point and shoot, just because it has been with me from the beginning on all my hiking adventures, and has been the source of every photo I've taken since 2012. So I am just glad I won't have to discard it.  :)

That's all the news for today. No movie tonight, but one episode of "The Loner" and one of "One Step Beyond", a half hour each. And I started a new drawing. I've gotta get some fixative spray for pencil and pastel drawings so that I can stack some of 'em without smudging........there's that word again, haha. But I've had to lay out all my drawings separately thus far, laying them flat or standing them up mounted all over The Tiny Apartment, which is becoming difficult as I continue to draw, due to lack of space. Because my skull is thick, as previously noted, I only discovered a spray (made by Krylon) in recent days. But now I must buy some, so I can seal my drawings up.....so I can stack 'em and they won't smudge.  :)

Have fun in Colorado if you are still there!

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

Rocky Mountain High + Red Gown + East Canyon

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

Ahh, now I understand what you meant by your post a couple days ago of the guy with his head sticking out the car window : "road trip". :)

Sometimes I don't understand the message the way it is intended, lol, because I don't always know if the text is the message or the picture is the message. And on top of that, I've got a thick skull.  :)

But yeah......"road trip" it is. Did you drive all the way to Colorado? I guess maybe it isn't all that far from Wisconsin. Well, anyway, I hope you are having a blast. Your photo was once again awesome and you caught yourself in a very dramatic pose - almost balletic - shoulders back, arms straight down, head turned. And there must have been a breeze, which worked in your favor too because the Red Gown is blowing out in front of you, creating a nice sloping angle which works well in the composition.

The Red Gown Gets Around!  :)

That is such a great setting with the snowy peaks in the background. You must be up around 10,000 feet to sustain snow in June. Still, a warm day for a Wisconsinite as you say.  :)

I had a nice day, and was able to get out to Rice Canyon in Santa Clarita. I am gonna try super hard, through Extreme Time Management, to create space for hikes this Summer, because I've been missing my parks and trails. This time, the trail at Rice became somewhat eroded and a little too narrow for my liking at about 3/4 of a mile in. It was passable (sort of), but there was enough of a drop off (ten feet or so) to twist an ankle if I slipped, so I figured "why mess with it" and I backtracked. And I was glad I did, because I rediscovered East Canyon. East Canyon and Rice Canyon split off from the main entrance trail, and I've almost always taken the Rice trail because it's so peaceful and picturesque. It's like being in a Tolken world, just like Aliso Canyon. But this time, because of the trail erosion (likely due to the storms of Winter) I went back to East Canyon and re-discovered that it, too, is magical. East is a bit more rugged and out in the Sun. It doesn't have any alcoves like Rice does. It is more like being on a mountain climb, but because it is in the Sun, there were a lot of wildflowers, and I got a good photo of some of the purple ones.

I also saw my first snake in 3+ years of hiking.

He was only a little foot-and-a-half garter snake (thank goodness) but I doggone near stepped on him after I left the purple flowers. I was just looking around at the scenery and noticed motion out of the corner of my eye, and I kind of hopped over the guy as my foot was about to come down on him. He likewise moved quickly and slithered away into the grass. I was surprised to see just how fast a snake can move, and I was once again glad he was a harmless garter.

So that was my hike, and it was wonderful to be back at one of my favorite trails again, and to rediscover East Canyon. I must reiterate that each trail and each place has it's own specific vibe. You can just feel how each one is different and it's like the birds know, too, and the lizards, and even the shadows......each place knows it's own vibe, and it shares it with you, especially when you are in there by yourself.

When I got back to Pearl's I took her and The Doberman straight to Lake Balboa. I want to keep everybody active and enjoying the places we like to go, and the stimulus of all the people and doggies at the lake is good for The Crew, too.

Other than that, I am reading my new book by Michael Salla : "Insiders Reveal Secret Space Programs & Extraterrestrial Alliances". It is a good read, though some of the info I am already familiar with.

No movie tonight, but I watched Episode One of the classic 1967 series "The Prisoner", starring Patrick McGoohan. I have the whole series on dvd and have watched it a few times, every couple years. It's only 17 episodes, so I will watch it here and there through the Summer, when I am not watching "Rawhide" or "The Outer Limits", haha.

Enjoy your time in Colorado! I don't know if you went there strictly for "art's sake" - and for fun - or if you are also working on a project, but whatever the case, have a blast. Post more pix when you've got 'em.  :)

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

Happy Sunday

Happy Sunday Night, SB,

Just checking in to say hi. It was Your Basic Sunday for me, though with good singing in church and a good rehearsal, which is always nice. I saw your photo of James - great work once again, capturing his serious side :), and also highlighting his hair, which is what they used to call "blue-black", like Elvis's, meaning "so black that it's blue-black". James should hurry up and patent that haircut. It's original.

That's really all the news for today. This evening I watched a great episode of "Outer Limits" called "I, Robot". The robot's name was Adam, but no resemblance was noted........

See you tomorrow. I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Happy Saturday + Santa Su

Happy Saturday Late Night, SB,

I hope you had a nice day. I was sure glad to get out to Santa Susana this afternoon. I had the whole place to myself, and it really helped me to de-stress. My job is not easy these days and the hikes have been hard to come by (as reported a million times, I realise), but today I made it all the way to the top of The Slide, and I even took a few pics in the process. I am getting better at hiding The Smudge, lol, and I only barely notice it in all the pics I took........but I am still gonna get a new cam before the end of the month. Maybe the upcoming Lumix model ZS70, or maybe one of the mid-priced G-series mirrorless cams. I am reading about those and they sound pretty good for my purposes.  :)

After I left Santa Su I went right back to Pearl's and took The Crew to Lake Balboa, so it was an active day. This evening I chilled out with a new book : "Insiders Reveal Secret Space Programs & Extraterrestrial Alliances" by Michael Salla. I have already read much about a secret space program, hidden behind the public face of NASA, and I believe it to be true, based on a lot of evidence. This new book has a lot of interesting things going for it, including a lot of information about San Diego Naval Air Station, which Dad took me to several times as a kid, and which I have always been fascinated by. There is definitely "something up" with that place, just as there is with Edwards and China Lake. But anyhow (I know all this qualifies as "weird stuff" and possibly as "boring stuff" too, haha), I am enjoying the book.

I also watched an episode of "Rawhide", which definitely does not qualify as Weird or Boring Stuff!

Everybody loves"Rawhide"!  (right?)

Well, everybody loves Clint Eastwood at least, and Eric Fleming too, if they know who he was.

That's all I know for tonight, SB. I saw one post, a pic of Lee from Versus Me.  :)

Church in the morning; a very easy song.

Hope all is well.

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

God Bless All Dogs + Echogram + "The Loner" (western TV series)

Happy Late Friday Night, my Darling,

I hope you had a nice day and that everything is going well. I haven't seen you on FB much since you got back from Porcupine State Park, but I imagine you are probably working on one thing or another. I did see a post today about a doggie. I think he had passed away (not sure), but the post said he was 14 years old. He is a beautiful dog, pictured in the snow. Maybe you knew him? If so, I am sorry (or even if you did not know him; either way). We are so blessed here at Pearl's to have The Kobester still with us at 17 and a half. He is kind of a miracle, and even though he sleeps a lot now and is not very ambulatory, he still seems like he might be with us for a while. Every day with him is precious.....

I love the guy, and seeing the beautiful dog in your post (and reading the owners' words) made me think of all the places I've gone with Kobi, especially back in 2014 when I was discovering all my hiking spots for the first time. Often, I would bring him along, to places like Vasquez Rocks and San Francisquito Canyon, Corriganville and Santa Susana, and even though he couldn't go far, it was still so special just to have him along for the ride. There is something very calming and inspiring about the presence of a dog riding next to you, in a car. It's like you can go anywhere and do anything......  :)

So God Bless All Doggies, and All Dogs Are Good Dogs.

Today I took Pearl to an imaging center to get an echocardiogram. I am not a big fan of doctors ordering such tests for a lady in her 90s, but I am merely the caregiver. I believe, at a certain point, just let a person live their life, you know? But anyway, Pearl was able to get situated for the test, which took about 45 minutes, and from what I could see, her heart looks pretty good.

So that was the main activity for the day. No movie tonight, but I finished my RFK book and I watched the first episode of a new Western series I just got in the mail from Amazon. It is called "The Loner" (1965), so the series itself is not new, just the dvd release, and I bought it because I love Westerns, and this one was created by Rod Serling of "Twilight Zone" fame. I had not known about this show, and it was cancelled after only one season, but the IMDB reviews were good and the price for the whole series was only 15 bucks, so I bought it. It stars Lloyd Bridges (Jeff's Dad) and the first episode tonight was excellent. With Rod, you always get top notch writing.

Well, that's all I know for today. I hope to see you on FB. I saw one other post this evening that said "don't let anyone slow you down". It was a picture of your friend with his head out of a car window. I don't know if that had any significance or not........but I hope everything is going okay.  :)

I am thinking about you and will see you in the morning.

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Happy Wednesday + "The Monster That Challenged The World"

Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,

Not much to report, except for taking The Pinsch to the vet. He got a good checkup, and they renewed his meds, which was the purpose of the visit.

Tonight's movie was "The Monster That Challenged The World" (1957), which turned out to be every bit as awesome as "It! The Terror From Beyond Space", though like that movie the title was a bit deceptive. The Monster did not actually Challenge "The World", per se, but he did Challenge some Navy divers and scientists, and beachgoers at the Salton Sea in Imperial County, down near San Diego. In fact, he was kicking some major butt for a while until a weird museum guy showed up late in the film with a map of underground rivers, which helped the divers to locate not only The Monster, but also his buddies and their eggs. The Monster(s) turned out to be Giant Mollusks, snails basically, but with some big claws and a monstrous appetite.

The Monster in this one was even better than the one in "It!", at least from a Rubber Suit perspective. This creature was not played by a man, but was built by the special effects department, and was pretty well done for 1957. Had I seen it as a seven year old, it would have Scared The Bejeezus Out Of Me.

Which would have been awesome, of course. Seeing it for the first time at 57, I must pretend to have The Bejeezus Scared Out Of Me, but it's all in good fun, and the movie had all kinds of great location shooting, including at the now stagnant and dead Salton Sea, and at Malibu and perhaps either Pt. Mugu Naval Air Station or San Diego Naval Air Station. The bottom line is that it is as classic as 1950s sci-fi can be. In black and white, of course.  :)

Now I need to find more! Maybe "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms", but only if the title is an exaggeration (i.e. he is really only from 3000 fathoms, or something along those lines). If the title is sensational, or exaggerated, it only adds to the classic status of the movie!

Well, that was all the news for today, except for reading my RFK book. While it is pretty clear there was a second gunman in the pantry, I don't think it was the security guard, Thane Eugene Cesar, who many think was the real killer instead of Sirhan Sirhan. But the evidence does not stack up against him with certainty.....

I hope your day was good. I didn't see any posts, but I trust all is well, and that all projects are coming along to your satisfaction.  :)

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