Most likely, every single one of you has seen this FIRST video. But I hadn't seen the others.
If for some reason you have not seen this technique, then you are in for a potentially life changing treat.
I am a follower. I got the idea for this post by going to Amanda's blog. Well, we all know that if we go to Amanda's blog, who else is going to be there, already having beaten the rest of us to the stalking punch?
Both Egan and Amanda seem to put a lot of thought into loading a dishwasher and doing laundry. Me? I just want the easy way out. I just want what any self-respecting bachelor wants. Not only that, but I want an easy way to fold a shirt and do the dishes.
How to load a dishwasher follows the folding tutorials:
ENGLISH VERSION (Female): (if you listen very carefully, you will hear the videographer actually say, "action" at the very beginning. Very cute.)
ENGLISH VERSION (Male):
ITALIAN VERSION: (questa versione รจ consacrata all'amanda ed a me)
Gjju Bhai: I have no idea what that means. Anybody? But this is International Shirt Folding Day, so....
SPANISH: (They try to figure it out by referring to the Japanese version)
What dreams have you had that you have made come true?
What dreams do you still have that you still believe you can make come true?
And the hardest question: What dreams did you once have, but have given up on?
Crap! I had originally posted Green Day's "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams" and even cut and pasted the lyrics. I wanted something about dreams, not a morose loner song. Sheesh! This one is much better:
*****NOTE: Had to repost every single picture, but it's worth having them back. There are two still missing that I will repost tonight. 022607/1702 hours PST
Okay, well....I had four YouTube videos to post for today, but for some reason they either didn't make it to upload land, or it just takes a long time until they can be viewed. In the mean, I'm posting some stills (without crosby, nash or young----you're welcome, Candace).
Danks Gott there was a break in the weather to permit a flight over to Corvallis yesterday. Lots of broken overcast, and some new snow to see along the way.
By car, the trip is 42 statute miles from my house to beautiful downtown Oregon State Beaver Land. The average speed over ground, in a motor vehicle, is about 42 statute mph. It almost always takes exactly one statute hour to get there.
----versus----
A 17 minute trip to the local airport, a 15 minute preflight and warmup time, and then another 17 minutes in the air to make the hike over the coast range. Not mention the fact that I then have to go to the FBO (Tell 'em what that is, Candace) and get the keys to the courtesy car. Yes, that's right. They have a car that you can just borrow. It don't cost nothin'. (Sorry to make your ears bleed, Logo.) I always put gas in the tank prior to returning it, along with three smoothies for the very appreciative office staff (No, Egan, I don't put the smoothies in the gas tank. Pay attention! I give them to the appreciative staff). Uncle Gawpo strikes again (Yeah, Egan, I can remember to do some things without having to go back there an hour later because I forgot something. Story of my life, though. As you know all too well).
So it's not like I save a bunch of time, but what I do save in not having to drive some incredibly windy road, deal with loaded log trucks spitttin' out mud like they get paid extra just to do that, and all the other "challenged" drivers out there, it more than makes up for it to fly. The view of other people's bumpers just doesn't compare to the scenery along the route from the air. Not to mention the sheer thrill of seeing 157 mph over ground on the GPS. Due to a headwind, I only got about 135 mph coming back. So sad. Do I need to call the WHAAAMBULANCE? Do ya feel my pain here, people?
So until I can get the videos up and running, here are some photos sponsored by my Verizon Razr and the HP Photosmart 707R......
I just love pitchers!
This is a bend in the Yaquina River, just after departure. That's where I'll be trolling for Chinook in September/October.
I love what shutter speeds do to the appearance of a spinning propeller.....
KCVO---Corvallis Municipal Airport
At this very moment, I was talking to Logophile on the cell phone. Cell reception is really good from an airplane up to about 3,000 ft. Then it's spotty, but still possible. You might think that a phone conversation would be distracting. And it would be if I weren't explaining in minute detail what I was doing in the process, which is what I would be doing anyway----yes out loud to myself with my big person voice----all the way to the ground. I announce to myself every step of the pre-landing checklist. She heard me say, pull off power to 1500, apply carbeurator heat, fuel seclector switch set on "both," pitch nose up to bleed off airspeed, at 100 mph add 20 degrees flaps, hold 70 mph, hold 70 miles per hour, rate of descent 500 feet, hold 70, hold 70, hold 'er off, hold 'er off, hold 'er off, hold 'er-----squeak. Too much below 70 mph in my particular make and model and the wings would stall. With the flaps on, the stall speed is well below 70, but that is the magic place. Learning how to hold 70 and make it all come together to land smoothly is an art.
After conducting business, I hop in the courtesy car, pour three smoothies into the gas tank, and head for lunch. I grab a nice, hot bowl of Pho. Here's the Pho (Fuh). You toss the small mountain of humongus bean sprouts in, break up the basil leaves and toss them in, then grab a chunk of meat with the sticks, swirl it in the "Cock Sauce" (big rooster on bottle) and Hoisin Sauce over there on the little dish, and bring it back to the spoon, preloaded with soup, and slurp it all up.
Mary's Peak is the highest hill in the Oregon coast range, weighing in (?) at about 4,150 feet. Wish I could have seen the summit yesterday. It is bald and quite striking in snow. Of course, if I struck it, I would also be in the snow...... That would be bad. Locals say that you should not plant your garden until all the snow is melted off the top of Mary's Peak. My lesbian friend, M.B., calls it Mary's Climax.
Here's one for just the heck of it...
Beginning with the instrument with the blue in it, go counter clockwise: Attitude Indicator (sometimes called an artificial horizon), Direction Indicator (or DG, or Directional Gyro), Airspeed Indicator, Altimeter, Turn And Bank Coordinator, and Vertical Speed Indicator. These are referred to as "the basic six." If for some reason I lost all references to horizon and ground, I could navigate solely by reading these instruments. If J.F.K., Jr. had had sufficient training, he could have survived. There is an 80% probability that a pilot without an instrument rating will get dead if he or she flies into instrument meterological conditions. That's what you call your IMC. Your IMC will get you dead far quicker than engine failure, even quicker than catastrophic engine failure when you can still see where you are going to set the airplane down. That's what you call your VMC. Your visual meterological conditions. The number one cause of engine failure is fuel starvation. The other way to put that is called "running out of gas." Kennedy didn't run out of gas. He ran out of reference to the horizon. Even though he is the one who got dead (along with his wife and sister-in-law) what kills ME is the fact that he had an autopilot and didn't use it.
What is it with me and dead Kennedys?
Anyways, have a look-see at some of the panel.....(without Dorothy Kilgallen, Peggy Cass or Orson Bean. You're welcome Joe.)
This was the return trip. 136 mph ain't too shabby......
Schnow...
Looking west over Yaquina Bay....
This is what greeted me just east and a bit north of Newport. Squalls were mending sky to ocean. It was beautiful, man.
El Piloto...
When I landed at the Toledo airport I went to put my trusty vessel in its bed, but a bolt failed on a tension spring and pulley assembly and the door won't work until that is repaired. So I called the FBO (Candace? You're up again, Honey....) over at Newport and they were kind enough to share their bed space. Sure looks purdy under the bright lights...... Ya know, she was gonna be an actress, and I was gonna learn to fly. She took off for the footlights; I took off for the sky....
THE HOMILY:
Yes, this is just a little walk down photograph lane. But it's also a view into the dish where sits a slice of the dream pie.
I always wanted to learn to fly. When I was little, my mother's cousin Richard took me up in a Piper Cub. The beginning of the living of my dream: desire. I couldn't have been more than four because I remember stuff vividly after five. This is one of those way back there memories. I remember looking down at the ground and Cousin Richard asking me if I could see my mother down there. I couldn't. But what I could see was all that stuff in the airplane. And of all the things in that airplane to catch my eye, it was the small hole in the floor through which I could see exactly what our situation was. Through that hole I could see reality as it was in the air, high above the ground. I remember seeing that little patch of "nothing between us and the ground." No airplane. Nothing. Here was this little hole and if I could have dropped a pebble through it, it would have hit the ground. Here was this little hole and if I could have become small enough to fit through it, I would be the one falling to the ground. But because more of the airplane was not a hole than it was, we could stay up there and defy everything our bodies ever knew about gravity. I loved that. It was unreal. That hole was an aperture into a dream. Picture that. I sure did. Now I can fly.
For me, holding 70 is kissing the dream. It is that precarious press of the lips against the glass where it all comes together; where, on the other side, the lover waits patiently. Too little pressure and you never get there. Too much and the glass breaks. But miraculously, the glass just disappears altogether when the wheels are on the ground. Just the sound of that, "the wheels on the ground." That is the kiss. That is the dream.
In her book, Pilgrim At Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard saw a mockingbird drop from the edge of a roof. The bird fell nearly to the ground and, just prior to colliding, opened its wings effortlessly at the very last second. She said it was at that point that she realized "all my life I had been a bell, but had never been struck." She talks about how she just happened to catch the bird's plummet out of the corner of her eye. Realizing how lucky she was, she said, "It seems to me that grace and beauty are performed whether or not we will or sense them; the least we can do is try to be there."
Turns out, after all, I finally do get to see my mother down there. She is earth and all earth's pulls. She is all this work---energy and life. The losses as well as the wins. She is love of others. She is love of self. She is waving. The least I can do is try to wave back.
Yes, there is more to life than applying the mechanics of flying. Yes, I would hope that, by the time I die, I will have become a human being. But I am not going to be pressing too hard on this side of the glass. I am on the glide slope. I have the runway in sight. I am maintaining the centerline. I am holding 70.
May we all strive to keep our dreams alive. They are all too easily awakened from. And whatever the dream, chances are it's not 16 Parkside Lane. Dream on my brothers and sisters. Enjoy the Pho out of life!
And now, here's Harry with a little message about dreams (pay close attention to the chording, Amanda). Remember the lead solo by that high-voiced female background singer? Boy, I sure do. But not any more. You'll see.....
I learned how to center clay on the wheel in 1977. I was at the time a monk. That is another post for another day. The person who taught me is currently the Abbott of the monastery. The person who taught him was also a monk, but of another monastery in Big Sur, California. We were all young then.
When I left the monastery in 1981, I found a job throwing pots here on the Oregon Coast. I also waited tables at a nearby resort. I was good at that job. I waited on Richard Avedon. That is my brush with celebrity there. I was affable. I was funny. We used to serve killer breads. Once, it was dill bread. I used to plunk it on the table, explain what it was, and ask my customers if they knew what they made that bread out of. They would shrug their shoulders and naively ask, "What?" "Dill dough," I would say. They would laugh.
Clay is not dirt. Clay is broken down rocks. Over millions of years, the rock is munched into tiny, flat platelets. They have ragged edges, but smooth surfaces. The presense of water lets them slide against each other. Billions of little tiles move when pressure from my hands exerts force. They go where I want them to go. When the water evaporates, they stick together. But it is only under the conditions of calcining that they fuse. All you have to do is bring the clay up to a red heat; when the pots glow, the clay becomes one. Forever. In this process chemically combined molecules of H2O are driven off. You can actually see the steam escaping in a tubular cloud through the upper vent hole of the kiln. Hold a piece of glass against the cloud and you will see water condensing. Also driven off are noxious sulphur gasses. It is never wise to fire off a load of pots in your kitchen.
The first fire is called the bisque, or bisquit fire. This process requires bringing the pots up to about 1900 degrees F. The pots are cooled, wax resist is applied to the foot of each pot, and then they are dipped in glaze. Glaze contains a goodly amount of different clays and fluxes such as borax, nephaline cyanite, gerstley borate, lithium carbonate, iron, copper, tin, iron chromate, koalin (which is where the word Kaopectate comes from---kaolin is the Chinese word for clay), and all manner of other possible ingredients that go into the glaze recipe. I created my own glaze recipies through lots of trial and tons more error. When dipped in the glaze, the wax resist repels it so that the pot won't fuse to the shelf during the firing.
My mentor from the "outside," Jeff Procter, used to say that the teapot is the ultimate example of a potter's abilities. He is correct. A teapot utilizes the cylinder, the fitted lid, a small bottle that turns into the spout, and attaching techniques with which are applied the handle and the spout. It's all there. Everything a potter can possibly do is carried out in a teapot. You can consider the lid a small plate or a shallow bowl.
The wall hanging platters are simply very large plates. I forgot to include my dinner plates, but they are simply small platters, right? The darker green platter measures 19 1/4 inches across; the pinkish one 18 1/4 inches.
The black bowls incorporate 30% local native clay from the banks of the Santiam River. Black iron oxide darkens the otherwise dark brown rendered by the iron rich native clay. These bowls are nearly all exactly the same size.
That floppy looking "art" bowl has a neat story. I botched a wide brimmed bowl and took it outside, set it on a stump and then shot it with my .22 Marlin target rifle. I have included two views. Can you tell which one shows where the bullet entered and which side it exited?
Every potter has his or her style bundled into the coffee mug. I am proud of this form. If you look closely, there are little notches excised with a cheesecutter along the lower edge, just above the foot. I like a deeply carved foot to raise the form off the table. Every one of my pots has a slight 45 degree bevel running along the circumference of the foot. This creates a shadow that visually prohibits the pot from becoming a part of the surface upon which it rests. Jeff taught me that. The swirl in the center of the pots is something you see in many, many potters' work. It is fun to see milk pooling in the troughs and breaking on the ridges of the swirl.
I like to make functional stoneware. Nothing pleases me more than knowing that people are going to be kissing my mugs, bringing refreshment to their lips and experiencing joy in their bodies.
I like to make tea bowls for the same reason.
I fire my pots to cone 8. Cone 6 is 2,194 degrees, so cone 8 is only slightly higher. Cone 10 is 2,350 degrees. So, it's somewhere in there. I fire in what is called an oxidation atmosphere as opposed to a reduction atmosphere. The latter involves a carbon based fuel such as wood or propane. During the glaze firing, the potter shuts off the flue, preventing the fire from escaping out the chimney and flooding the kiln space with carbon. This carbon actually enters on a molecular level the glazes and clay body themselves creating chemical reactions. A celedon, for instance, is simply a clear glaze with less than one half of one percent of iron oxide added. The reduction turns the glaze into a ghostly light green. A bright red is also created with about the same amount of iron, but in a slightly different glaze base. Blues are created by adding a similar amount of copper carbonate. In an oxidation atmosphere, there is no reduction at all. So the reddish, pinkish and blueish hues you are seeing are some magic that I had to work out chemically in the creation of my glazes.
There are these things called cones, hence, cone 6, cone 8, cone 10, etc. They are white, tapering triangular 3 inch towers made of composites designed to begin melting at exactly those temperatures desired by the potter. Three of them are placed, wide bottom first, into a pat of wet clay, then set on the shelf just inside a spy hole. The lead cone is called the guide cone, the middle, the target cone and the third, the guard cone. When the guide cone begins to bend, it is time to start paying close attention. I like to fire until the middle cone is touching the back of the guide cone, almost flat, and the guard cone is bowing its tip toward the group of two ahead of it. Perfect.
The temperature alone is not what makes the whole thing come together. The term is "heat work." This is temperature over time. And there is no cheating that part of the process. In life, it's the same. Some things require events over time.
As the kiln cools, you will hear pinging---the sound of the glaze shrinking beyond the shrinkage of the clay body. If a glaze does not fit the clay body properly it will sometimes just fall off the pot. Some crazing always occurs, but the clay body becomes vitreous to a less than 3 or 4 percent porosity. It holds water. The word "crazy" comes from this phenomenon. Too much tension and something has to give. You crack.
Once I found a mouse in my bucket of slurry. Poor thing couldn't get out and drowned. I encased it in slip, let it dry and then fired it off. That was cool.
Whelp, there ya have it.
I hope you enjoy the images, my friends.
(Sorry these don't enlarge when you click on them. I forgot that I used a zoon feature that reduces the pixel count. You can still figure out the bullet-shot bowl quiz though. G)
I Am Not Obssessed With Logo ("Oh, but you know you are!"---Logophile)
*****EDITED 022107*****
I have replaced the second video with a second, very short rendition of the first one.....Gawpo
Okay, it's true. I did call her today and left a song message. She didn't know what I was talking about. Yes, I said talking. Because the song I was leaving really isn't what you would call singing. You shall see what I mean in a moment. Not many would remember this "tune." Not even if you were born long enough ago to have had this song as a contemporary of your existence when it came out. If you were lucky enough to be alive back then, you were also hopefully lucky enough to have never heard this song. I love Lee Marvin. Don't get me wrong. But how this song ever charted is beyond me. "White Room" it is NOT. I was amazed that You Tube even had this musical critter. It still lives. It's ALLLIIIVVVVEEEE!!! Ever see "Paint Your Wagon?"
Wandering Star, Take Two:
Okay, now for some more Pope Pour Eee.....
You have seen Mr. Gawpo, Sr's lemon growing talent. Now check out his other citrus abilities. This, believe it or not, is a grapefruit (see the cordless?):
Not so long ago, Egan told us about Dungeness Spit. Well, this is what that low land promontory was named after. In Oregon the minimum size requirement for retaining a male is 5 3/4 inches. In Washington State, it's an even 6 inches. California requires the tossing back into the water, immediately and unharmed, any specimen under 6 1/4 inches. Okay, Candace---you're on. Let's see some good ones. I'm giving you a leg up on this one.
This is one of my pots. The body was thrown in three pieces, 25, 20 and 15 pounds of clay respectively, going from the bottom up. The top is also large. It was thrown in two pieces. This was taken back in January. All these pics are courtesy Razr by Verizon.
Today's dose of Lycopene and bovine lactation:
Mr. Logophile: "Uh, Honey? What did Gawpo mean when he said that he hoped you enjoyed his post as much as he enjoyed giving it to you?"
Mrs. Logophile: "Oh, nothing, Dear. Gawpo gives his post to everybody."
Happy Birthday To LogoPhile: I give my life to you
Yes, Logo. I dedicate my....uh....POST to you. For you are toit. Toit like a toiga. Toit like a garden roll from my favorite Vietnamese restaurant.
Being a true logophile, you know how to pronounce Pho (Fuh). I love to eat Pho. I will eat the Pho out of a bowl. Round, round, Pho around, I Pho around. It is always a pleasure to get the Pho outta there. Sorry I don't have an actual photo of the Pho I ate. Not very interesting. The owner explained that since the locals don't have a taste for the more exotic Pho ingredients, he no longer offers the tendon and tripe that I require of my Pho. Pho that, I said. He nodded politely.
I now introduce you to my dad. The Honorable Gawpo, Sr. Check out the cordless phone action. Mrs. Gawpo, Sr. has no need of spending extra on those vee neck t-shirts. Check out the size of that lemon. Yes, it's a lemon. (No, Katie, we are not from Texas.) The actual lemon that is buried under that Civil Defense approved layer of pith is about the size of an orange. But it is good and lemony. The fruit of this poor lemon is possible to eat. Check out the pan of Sicilian sausage (salsiccia) my father made. He bought a meat grinder from Cabela's and it works like a champ.
These are Scotch Bonnets. You don't wear them. You eat them. And then you die. Mr. Gawpo, Sr. grows these. They really, really work.
These are all cell phone pictures. This is me over the local estuary.
Argh.......From my night as a Pirate and Emcee of our County Extravaganza.
Logolicious has already seen this one. She sent me special coffee. The deal was that I had to wear heels for a week. It's been two weeks and I still have them on.
Logo, if you ever visit, I have party snacks set aside just for you.......
Now some shots of what I did this weekend......
Recognize these boots? They are made for bugging parents.
Speaking of bugs, here she is: cute as one, to be sure.
I will bring Betsy with me in March. Those eyes. Those lips. That lack of a body. GAWD, she's HAWGHT!!!!
This is my stupid human trick. I find that Sierra Mist goes well with my olive Mediterranean complexion (spelling is for Blue TSG). Photo courtesy of Tom through the sunroof of the family Vulva. I mean Volvo. Sorry. Cindra was sleeping.
We were in guitar heaven. We saw teency-weency Martin ukuleles no bigger than Tom's thumb. Okay, not really. But that was funny.
We felt as though we were touring the guitar section at the Smithsonian with Blue The Spa Girl. But we weren't. These guitars were all waiting for adoption. They looked at us with their lonely, longing stares. They promised us, if we would be so kind as to take them home, we could do so, no strings attached. As much as Tom and I struggled to make a choice, we just couldn't pick. We were beginning to fret. The red guitar on the left started strumming our pain with its fingerboard, but Tom and I felt so much tension that we said, "Nuts to this" and left.
Tres trees...........the first one has a nest.
Finally, I leave you with one of my favorite culinary inventions: Cherry tomatoes and milk. You can substitute the milk with half and half or condensed milk. Enjoy!
Happy Birthday, Dear Logo. I hope you have enjoyed my POST as much as I have enjoyed giving it to you.
Click here to see the card Cheen-Druh sent me for Valentine's Day!
WARNING: This Valentine contains subject matter some listeners may find wonderfully loving.
I just went ahead and added a few pics for the heck of it. They include Center Island in the San Juans. This is looking north after swinging around for final approach to the landing strip which you can see is unimproved grass and pebbles. The other flying shot was taken on the way up and I am just approaching the southern shore of Lopez Island. You can just barely see the top of Orcas Island in the way-off foreground and to the right. San Juan Island is off to the left. I love Friday Harbor! The dude with the pinchable cheeks is noneother than Gawpo. You can see that I fish. You can just barely see one of my favorite pots off my right shoulder. (At first I thought it was one of my Raku pieces, but when I enlarged---yeah, Candace, I said it! Sheesh---it, I could see it was a different bowl. I will post pots soon.) The antique decoy was my favorite uncle's. Carl. Carmelo.
My Favorite Emily D (as promised to Ps): An Ode To J.F.K.
The bustle in a house The morning after death Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon earth,
The sweeping up the heart, And putting love away We shall not want to use again Until eternity.
My very good friend and, at the time, confrere, Brother Claude Lane, O.S.B. gave me this poem as it was published on a commemorative card marking the 10th anniversary of the death of J.F.K. I was taken with the starkness and simplicity of the poem. In that card I remembered a special moment that I had experienced with my family. A moment that we, as a family, shared and which has always been a part of our great story together, a slice of our intimacy.
On the card was a photograph of the slain President. And husband. And father. And brother. And son. And veteran. And friend. His face represented so many things. Yeah, all the dirt came out eventually. The infidelities. The grave imperfections of one man that mark those of so many other men. But when you're the President, it's not supposed to happen. It matters more somehow. We choose to make it matter more somehow.
In that face, though, were confidences that I remember oh so very well. And I am delighted to say that I personally saw that face as it rode along in the motorcade down South State Street in Salt Lake City in 1963. It was cold because it was getting to be the middle of November. Twenty-two days into that month, of course, the motorcade was doing the same thing at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Waiting there in Texas were thousands of other faces, standing along the same sort of squeegeed street just as we had waited several days prior in Salt Lake City. All of them making their own small talk, meeting people, waiting for the very same moment I had. All of them expecting to come away with one of the greatest experiences an American can hope for: seeing the President of the United States. Alive.
I was nine.
We waited for nearly two hours along our Utah street to see the face with those confidences come riding by. With the passing of time, the excitement of the waiting crowd building, people were well into meeting each other. My father recognized a man from his Pharmacy School days, back when we had lived there the first time. Back when I got borned and moved away a year later. Now, eight years later, we were here for Law School. That's my dad. He introduced us to the pharmacy era man. And, shortly after that, the President's face introduced us to the magic we'd all been waiting for.
It was all over in less than five seconds. The speed of the motorcade robbed us of the lingering gazes we'd unknowingly been practicing when reading all those issues of Look and Life. We wanted to breathe the very puffs of steam exhaled by the President's warm body into the November chill. Both of them. My father to this very day, some fourty-three years later, always recounts the scenario thus: "He went around the corner on two wheels! All we got to say was, 'Hey! It's J.F.; we never got to say the K.'" Even so, we came away feeling happy and hopeful, proud and content.
In May of 1975 I took a cross country on a Honda 550 Four. I rode from Turlock, California, over Tioga Pass just east of Yosemite, dumped the bike at a stop sign in the snow, and continued on, feeling somewhat scathed, to my destination---noneother than Dealey Plaza. My anadromous journey had taken me to the redd of my lost innocence.
I stood at the spot. The very spot. November 22, 1963 was again. What happened here made Mrs. Ritzman, my fourth grade teacher, a Mormon, cry. What happened here made me, when I was only nine, cry. I remembered the tears of Walter Cronkeit when he announced the confirmation of death in black and white. What happened on this spot made Walter Cronkeit cry. I was standing on the epicenter of an event that shocked the world, an event that changed the entire course of history.
I looked up to the 6th floor window of the building located at 411 Elm Street. It was so close. I was so there. I walked up to the grassy knoll and surveyed the view any second gunman may have taken in. The fence was still there. It all looked so familiar. Like nothing had changed. It occurred to me that this was finally all the lingering gaze I would get. The gaze for which I had been consigned to settle. Not the one I had hoped for from the eyes of a nine year old boy. I stood on that spot and remembered my family. And then I thought of all those waiting Texan faces. I pictured the stunned contortions no one among that crowd in their wildest dreams had practiced for. I wept.
I was shedding tears on the very spot that had made my nine year old face join the contortions of the world on that early Texas afternoon. I cried for that boy who had waited with his family on another November day back in 1963, waited in the joyful expectation of gazing in person on the face of the President of the United States. "The last time I saw him," I thought, "he was still breathing." It struck me that those people who were standing where I was standing now could not say the same. So I wept for them as well.
A time of confidences.
I have never seen another President since.
Time it was, and what a time it was. It was, a time of innocence. A time of confidences. Long ago, it must be. I have that photograph. Preserve that memory. It's all that's left me.
I keep drifting back to Somewhere Joe, checking for a new post, scanning the great comments he elicits, taking another long visual drink of that beautiful commercial shot of the colorful condominiums that melt into the wavy reinterpretation of their oranges in the water. As soon as his page loads, I snap to, not yet quite habituated to the beautiful jazz piece that flicks me simultaneously on both earlobes. It is noneother than Bobby Short's "Satin Doll" from his Late Night At The Cafe Carlyle album, a five and a half minute slice of music heaven. Finding the artist, the song title and the album was nothing short a full blown garden party of my well honed investigative skills. I toast me: Tink. I am so good, in fact, that I have programmed Super New Blogger's comments section to track down the physical address of every contributor. Don't worry---I studied to be a priest and am ordained solely in my respect for confidentiality. I probably shouldn't tell you that I can also see what you are wearing. Snavy, for instance, is completely naked right now. But hey, so am I.
Back in the '80s I was throwing pots for a living. Please, no tetra9hydrocannabinol jokes. I've heard them all. I also waited tables. Please no fly in my soup jokes, either. What does being a table waiting potter have to do with this story, you ask? Well, there used to be a jazz happening at the resort where I waited tables. And I was introduced to jazz. Not only was I introduced to the medium, I was introduced to the people who made it happen.
Now a few not onlys:
Not only had I never heard of Joe Williams or Mike Melvoin or Pete Christleib or Ray Brown or Kenny Burrell and a host of others, I was not a jazz fan in the least. Until I saw them play. I am here to tell you, there IS a God and her name is Jazz.
Not only did these great artists, these very approachable people all take time to talk to "the help," they loved on every person who came to appreciate them and accept their personal love along with their love of the music they made.
And talk about being friendly. I will never forget walking out with my cork bus tray to take an order on the floor and running smack dab into Joe Williams himself. I grabbed his hand to steady myself. I held hands with the man. He laughed. He was so gracious. He gave me his room key and then winked. Okay, maybe I stretch the truth a bit. He didn't wink. But from that moment on, we were in each others' brains.
One person in particular was very special: Pianist Gene Harris. Gene and his wife, Janie were pure and simple and joyous. Promoters of the annual jazz happenings, Jim and Mary Brown always made sure that every person in the room felt welcomed and included in the family that each weekend became. I got to sit with Gene and his wife for a meal. We supped together. From that moment on we were in each others' brains.
Gene died in January 2000 of kidney failure. Born in 1933, he was younger when I met him than I am now as I sit here and remember him to you. So guess what happened when I found out that he passed from this world. That's right----I cried.
Joe Williams died the day before my birthday in 1999 in Las Vegas. Speaking of BET on Jazz, I bet he didn't see that coming. So guess what happened when I found out that the great Joe Williams had passed from this world to visit his old buddy, Gene----do I even need to say it?
Now here is how being a potter ties into this whole thing: My pottery went home with many of the artists. Mike Melvoin's wife loved my pots. No room key, but she did wink at me. The entire experience was just that----one great, big wink.
Thanks to Somewhere Joe for inspiring this. What happens here is amazing...
This is an itsy-bitsy picture of Janie who keeps the soul of her late husband going at the annual Gene Harris Jazz Festival, occurring this year in early April over in Boise.
Okay, well.....New Super Duper Blogger won't let me download an image right now. I will try to edit later.
In the meantime, here is one of me naked: (JUST KIDDING!!!! SHEESH, PEOPLE.)
Normally, I love Valentine's Day. LOVE Valentine's Day. Last year, I was loving Valentine's Day. This year, Valentine's Day is very much a pain-filled reminder of how hard it is to subscribe to "it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all." Difficult as it is, I still believe it. Did I really love? Damn straight I did. Did I really lose? There are no words to describe. Both the love and the loss are beyond word telling.
Okay, this is all just pure sap. But:
Next year I hope to be sending a dozen longstem roses. Next year will be intimate dining. Next year will be the prelude to many more happy (and happening) years to come...
Whatever the circumstance, if I ever meet a woman again who, rather early on in the relationship tells me, "Oh, by the way--- I don't cry," I'm cutting and running. I'm not putting anyone down who may not be able to cry. But I can tell you right here and now, I can never be with you.
I got the attached from Blue the Spa Girl. She got it from Pea. If I knew how to make links out of words, you would be able to just click on the Blue or the Pea and get there. Sorry, Dudes.
I just realized that you can click on the link provided at the bottom. Happy Valentine's Day to all.
Your Candy Heart Says "Hug Me"
A total sweetheart, you always have a lot of love to give out. Your heart is open to where ever love takes you!
Your ideal Valentine's Day date: a surprise romantic evening that you've planned out
Your flirting style: lots of listening and talking
What turns you off: fighting and conflict
Why you're hot: you're fearless about falling in love
If you go back and view my complete profile, you will see that I have worn many hats. Currently, I wear the hat of a Deputy Sheriff. But I don't work the road anymore. The following story will point up the fact that the events described therein are just one of the reasons I had lots of shooting dreams when I did work the road. I hated those dreams. But they were the work of my unconscious and I respected them as a sort of scenario training for my waking life.
So yesterday I drove down to South Of Town to deliver a check to my roofer/siding/car port dude. On my way back north, I saw a Local City P.D. officer stopped for the light on Hwy 101. He was the third car back and was in the curb, or "B" lane. I was in the "A" lane and would be the first vehicle to the light. As I pulled along side him, I rolled down my electric passenger window, peered over my glasses and made a silly face. My cop friend laughed and I then pulled forward up to the light.
I have a radio in my personal car, a white Ford Exploder. I was monitoring the police frequency as well as my amateur channels. All of a sudden a call went out over the police channel: "All units, just occurred at the blah-biddy-blah Mini Mart, two male subjects threatened to kill the clerk. Both subjects have fled the area and are currently running southbound on Hwy 101."
I knew that Cop Friend was going to light up traffic to get going to the call, so as soon as the light turned green, I shot ahead and pulled over to the curb to let him go by. I looked in my rearview and saw that he was stuck behind an unyielding passenger car who was slowing his response. So I says to myself, I says, "Shuck that fit!---I'm going to look for these guys." So I broke the speed laws just a tad and headed north on Hwy 101, then east on U.S. Hwy Every Coastal Town Has A Highway That Runs East And West Or We Wouldn't Be Able To Get Over To The Valley, went about two blocks east, turned north on N.E. B St, came to the stop sign and saw a car that had the right-of-way traveling east on N.E. 2nd St. Well, I just sort of a little bit cut them off, speeding ahead of them en route to where I thought the two dudes might pop out. Unfortunately, the car I cut off didn't cotton to me pulling out in front of them on that graveled portion of the street, didn't like the fact that they had to eat my dust, and they got on my tail to follow me and make their point. Now I'M THE ONE WHO IS BEING CHASED! At this moment in time, who decides to call my cell phone? None other than Cindra! Fut the wuck? I didn't answer, but thought: She sure has a good story coming when I call her back. Can't talk now! Get away! Get away!
I came to N.E. C St and then turned north onto C St from N.E. 2nd, the angered motorist in hot pursuit on my tail. I went north on C St past N.E. 3rd, N.E. 4th and turned west onto N.E. 5th St. where I slowed to look for the two dudes. As I pulled alongside the curb on N.E. 5th in the area of N.E. A St, the angry motorist pulled alongside my now opened window. A young female was driving and a young male was the passenger. This means only one thing to a cop: The guy is a passenger because he is suspended. This is true 90% of the time because guys normally drive and gals are the passenger. This thought took milliseconds to process. It wasn't a concern. I just had that thought. As the car pulled up to me, I opened my wallet, displayed my police I.D. and said, "Police Officer. We're looking for someone. Please go." They did. And that was that. I hated the fact that I had been rather rude, but I didn't have time to explain. I should have apologized. But: Can't talk now! Get away! Get away!
I looked northward and saw two young males walking southbound in my direction on N.E. A St toward N.E. 5th St. I got on the police frequency and advised dispatch of my location and said that I had two male subjects walking southbound on A St. I asked if one of the subjects had a red sweatshirt. Dispatch replied that a clothing description was not given.
Now the funny part. As I was glued on the two young men, this kid I hadn't even seen appears on my left, pushing a dirt bike. I look in his direction and he is saying, "Sir? Sir? I was just pushing it. I was just trying to start it. I wasn't riding it." I looked away from him and kept my eyes on the two young men, looking for any sign of weapons. They were my focus of concern. But the kid with the motorbike comes over to me to reiterate his innocence. So I assured him that as long as he didn't ride it, he would be fine. "Thank you, Sir! Thank you." And he finally split. Again, I am usually very much into spending time with young people. It can make or break how they feel about folks in my biz. I was very friendly, but rather curt. I felt bad. But: Can't talk now! Get away! Get away!
I saw a Local City P.D. unit approaching my location from the north and I drove up to him as the two young men walked past me. The kid with the bike had "made" me; had the two young men? Did they have weapons?
The cop who was approaching me turned out to be Cop Friend. I told him that the guy in the red sweatshirt was out of breath and had a cigarette tucked behind his left ear. The other kid was wearing dark Levis and was wearing a bright red and white hat. Turns out they were indeed the suspects. And yes, it felt good to once again help take a---CHOMP (a la McGruff)---bite outta crime.
So after three side shows (Cindra calling, the angry motorist and the guilty motorcycle kid), I finally got to do what I set out to accomplish.
What I just related didn't come anywhere close to the two videos you are about to see. But working the road taught me that there is no excuse for ever relaxing your guard. Ever. If the dudes in the above story had had guns, things might have turned out differently. Just keeping the expectation in the back of one's head that bullets might fly at any second is enough to give anyone shooting dreams. I'm sure not every street cop has such dreams, but I did. Now I don't. And I like that.
I have no use for smug, surly cops. They are a discredit to the profession just like bad priests or bad doctors. People in a position of power need to consider very profoundly the effects of their actions upon the citizenry. I hated writing tickets. I hated making arrests on folks who just made a mistake. There were some who were a pleasure to take to jail. But very few.
The first video just goes to show that there are some people who will kill you simply because you are a threat to their liberty. It is unfortunate that sometimes the cop doesn't even know he or she is a threat until it is too late.
The second video has to have taken place in another country. It's kind of funny. Not police procedure in the States. Maybe up in Canada? Spa Girl, care to comment?
(Cindra says I wear my heart on my sleeve and trust too easily---not a typical cop trait---and so I have edited this post to remove some blatant references to location. She says it's just what you do. So. The first five to comment have a free place to stay with your families at my house which is located at......CRAP! That was close.)
The third video has a familiar soundtrack. Only the players have been changed to protect the innocent:
ACCOMODATION: 1.The act of accommodating or the state of being accommodated; adjustment. 2.Something that meets a need; a convenience. 3. Accommodations 1. Room and board; lodgings. 2. A seat, compartment, or room on a public vehicle. 3. Reconciliation or settlement of opposing views. 4. Physiology. The automatic adjustment in the focal length of the lens of the eye to permit retinal focus of images of objects at varying distances.
Accomodation is how life can continue. As they say in Spanish: Mierda Pasa. I'll let Egan tell us how it would be said in French. But I know each and every one of us can wax eloquent on how it is said in our hearts.
Bended and distended (yeah, I said bended), somehow we don't break. And interesting things happen. Sometimes accomodating hurts. Sometimes it doesn't. But it always involves change. It involves keeping an open mind. Morphing.
Borrowing on the Hegelian dialectic, let's say you need a place to stay for the night (thesis). But you don't have a place to stay for the night because you are not at home (antithesis). So you drive up to the Motel 6 and, yes indeed, they have gone and left the light on (synthesis). You get your accommodations.
Let's say you are a hesychast. A hesychast, you ask? What's a hesychast, Gawpo? A hesychast lives in the here and now, usually quite austerely, although that is not the focus of their life. Normally a hesychast is also an ascete. An ascete is an ascetic person, a person who "goes into their closet to pray." These people (by all means not just from the Christian tradition) do the most with the very least. They do without so that they can expand their mind through spiritual vigilance. They accommodate greatly through austere means.
Hesychasts are associated with the continuous (some, even when they sleep) repetition of a single prayer. In the Christian tradition, this is normally what is known as "the Jesus prayer," an ancient and simple formula whose Ethiopian tradition is rendered thus: "My Lord Jesus, have mercy; I bless you Lord Jesus, save me." To fully appreciate the prayer, one must exercise caution against an eisegetical (reading meaning INTO a text, based on a contemporary understanding of a word) approach, and take some pains toward an exegetical (reading a meaning from the perspective of the time contemporary to the author--reading meaning OUT of the text) approach. Take for instance the word "mercy." As reflected in the Ugaritic texts, the word "mercy" simply meant something like "wow!" We're talking old, people. Ugarit goes back to the 14th century B.C. Lord have mercy, then, meant something akin to "holy cow," or as I like to say it, "Coly How!" It did not mean, "Oh Lord, please don't hurt me." The other one I love (i.e., hate) to hear is: "Yes, God is a loving God. But he is also a JUST God!" Along with the word mercy, the word justice meant simply "to make things level."
Expressions such as "Lord have mercy!" are known to older Catholics as "ejaculations." True story. Other popular ejaculations were, "Mary mother of Jesus!" and "Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" These ejaculations just sort of.....yeah....spurted out of the mouth of the faithful.
The problem with fundamentalism in any form is that it focuses on a narrow interpretation of a broader Truth. Fundamentalism does not accommodate; it does not stretch beyond the stubbornness of its self-defined boundaries. And life is just not like that. The hesychast (being an ascete) is fundamentally open minded, able to accomodate to the moment. They are the ones whose ejaculations might include, "Just keeping it real!"
As fellow accommodators, it would behoove us to encourage each other in the industry of our bendage. Below are a few examples of what you can do when you set your mind to staying open....
So, happy morphing my dear friends. May we continue to bend with the best of them and make beautiful what other tendencies might attempt to thwart.
