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 This time I brought along my current-at-the-time-but-now-outdated Sony Mini-Dvd Cam, and I filmed a 30 min.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 :):)
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Monday, January 30, 2017
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 :):)
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 :):)
Sunday, January 29, 2017
"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 :):)
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 :):)
Saturday, January 28, 2017
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 :):)
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 :):)
Thursday, January 26, 2017
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 :):)
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 :):)
Monday, January 23, 2017
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 :):)
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 :):)
Sunday, January 22, 2017
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 :):)
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 :):)
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