Bert Jansch - Angie

Innovation and derivation

Bert Jansch

I have had some discussions in the last year that have got me to thinking about art and music. I went out to dinner a while back with three musician friends. A question was posed, "Who is your favorite fingerstyle guitar player?" It was a tough question for me, I have seen so many great players, including Doc Watson in his prime, Jorma, Paul Simon, Joan Baez, Tony Rice and more. Who was better than Chet Atkins or Merle Travis? I even was able to watch Elizabeth Cotton perform and she was incredible.

At the end I sputtered out, "Bert Jansch." The Pentangle guitar player seemed to do things in the sixties that nobody else came close to for me. He took the work of Davy Graham and really pushed it forward and made it more beautiful. Love a lot of the early people, Fahey, Sandy Bull, many of them long forgotten.

Another person said Ralph Towner, a fine selection. The question is so subjective and everybody is, of course, entitled to their personal opinion. He also expressed his admiration for the wonderful Tommy Emmanuel.

Interestingly, I read an interview with Jimmy Page not that long ago where he claimed that Jansch was his favorite fingerstylist too so I guess that I am in good company.

Anyway I mentioned that to my friend and he said that there were dozens of people that could play that well today.

Really?

Who?

Conversely, we were talking about drummers and I mentioned what a huge fan I was of Elvin Jones. I love Elvin and his bands as well as Tony Williams and DeJohnette. There was something there in the days of hard bop and early fusion that I never heard later on. Downhill ever since.

My buddy is also a drummer and told me that similarly, there were a surfeit of players today that could match or surpass Elvin, he might have mentioned Dennis Chambers, I don't remember...

I thought a lot about our discussion these last few months and had another thought.

I don't think so...

Ten Elvin Jones alive today? Blakeys? In my way of thinking, I will always go with the innovator, the person on the original cutting edge who coined the style, seemingly out of thin air and not the people who are the great imitators, the derivative Johnny come late-lies. Hendrix over Frank Marino, Gary Moore and Trower, Billy Cobham and not Neal Peart, McLaughlin over practically everybody. Roy Buchanan instead of Jeff Beck, sorry, at least with the knob twisting. Django and Charlie Christian over their imitators. Listen to how sparing and efficient Muddy Waters played compared to the later blues players. Old school wins everytime.

Of course people do come along with their own style that do match or arguably surpass their predecessors, think Stewart Copeland and Jaco. But innovators are few and far between.

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I have sold at the modernism shows for about thirty years or more. I try to sell vintage artworks by innovators of the time period while the people next to me are selling current and perfect knockoffs. I suppose that you can make the argument that these latter day Diebenkorn or Pollack imitators are an improvement or on par or as good as the original, but I don't think so. But they sell really well and have made it very hard for me to make a living when a well executed copy is enough for most people to hang in their home.

As for me, I think the true artists are the people who create the original style or movement, the people selling the copycat look or sound are just poachers in my book and rarely rise to the level of the giants. 

A Day In The Life (Takes 1, 2, 6 And Orchestra)

Happy Ten Million Views!

I'm not really sure why I am so fascinated with round numbers but the blog reached the 10 million view milestone this morning. Yippee!

Thanks to all of my readers, the newcomers, the occasionals, the bots, the lurkers and especially those of you who have been with me from the start, eighteen years ago. 

Thanks to those of you who agree with me and also to those that disagree. Keeps it fun.

And thanks to those that were part of the inception but split or died or got lost somewhere, people like KJ, Grumpy, Martin, Window Dancer, Stan, MMWB. You made it real.

I doubt we will get another ten million but we can still have fun on the way.

Poland turns the screws on China

Love this. China is the one country that can get Russia to modify its bad behavior,

Brewer and Shipley

One of the great singing duos of the early seventies. Sadly the last surviving member, Tom Shipley, passed earlier this month.

A friend and associate of mine, Chuck Moreanstern, had to be their number one fan. If memory serves they came and played at his sixtieth birthday party. He was very devoted to their music.

This was a wonderful album, Jerry Garcia played pedal steel on Oh Mommy.

They played beautifully and harmonized like angels. Godspeed.

Stutz

I visited the artist Michael Stutz the other day. I hadn't seen him in a long time. He has been very busy and quite successful, landing public art commissions at several universities and elsewhere, showing in Lucca, Italy for what I think is the third time and more.

He was putting the patina on this metal sculpture of Quincy Jones that when completed, is heading to Bremerton, Washington.

Michael created a technique and unique look some years ago. I think he has perfected it over time, this piece was really great. I enjoyed looking at the moquettes. 

I think he has a series of pieces going to UTEP next. Will try to stay in touch.

Cat's Squirrel

The great Mick Abrahams on guitar.

One more cup of coffee before I go...

“I won on groceries. Very simple word, groceries. When you buy apples, when you buy bacon, when you buy eggs, they would double and triple the price over a short period of time, and I won an election based on that. We’re going to bring those prices way down.” Donald Trump

I was reading NextDoor the other day when I saw this post:

I thought, five bucks for a cup of coffee, that does seem a little extreme. Didn't the great leader tell us that grocery prices were going down, down, down?

“When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on day one.” Donald Trump

I know that it is an upside down world these days but grocery and commodity prices are not going down, in fact they are going up.

A lot.

Coffee prices surged by 3.6% last month, the largest one-month increase since 2011, according to the latest Consumer Price Index. Coffee prices are up 20.9% so far this year, a near-record annual increase. The US gets most of its coffee from Brazil, and Brazilian imports – including coffee – began facing 50% tariffs last month.

It’s not just your cup of joe. America is highly dependent on other countries for most of its fresh fruit and vegetables. Imports make up 60% of fresh fruit and 38% of fresh vegetables in the United States, according to the Agriculture Department.

Prices on these items are rising. Last month, apple prices increased 3.5%, lettuce 3.5% and bananas 2.1% from the month prior, the index showed.

Tomato prices were up 4.5%. The United States depends on Mexico for a variety of fresh tomatoes, most of which began facing 17% tariffs in July after a nearly three-decade-old trade agreement expired.

From HuffPo:

Perhaps the most extreme example of tariff-induced price hikes thus far is coffee, which is experiencing a 63% annualized inflation rate thanks in large part to Trump’s 50% import tax on major coffee exporter Brazil, a response to that country’s prosecution of Trump’s friend and fellow coup-attempter Jair Bolsonaro.

Presidents not kings?

50% tariff on coffee?  Like drinking liquid gold and not the fake gold plated stuff that now adorns most of the White House like some tawdry Clampett wet dream, I mean the real stuff. 

Soon the only people that will be able to afford to drink the stuff will be the Prez and his assorted grifter robber barons.

Of course, it is not just coffee getting hit, it is pretty much everything, including electricity.

In the four months since he announced his so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs on goods from the rest of the world, inflation on groceries is running at 3.1% on an annualized basis, according to a HuffPost analysis of federal government statistics. In Biden’s final year, grocery prices increased 1.8%.

The inflation rate for electricity over the past four months is running at 15.7% – more than four times what it was in Biden’s final year.

The overall inflation rate is now also higher than it was in Biden’s last 12 months in office: 3.1% on an annualized basis, compared to 2.8%.

“This is what economists warned would happen,” said University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers. “Trump promised these prices would fall. While one could quibble about the rate at which these prices are rising, there’s no question that he hasn’t delivered.”

But wait, didn't the great one tell us that Americans wouldn't pay for tariffs, that they would be absorbed by the other exporting countries?

'Fraid not. The five dollar coffees are getting borne by you and I, American consumers. 

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There is nothing that red staters hate worse than the specter of communism creeping into American life. But it is funny, it is okay to keep handing out fat checks to American corporate farmers after a catastrophe, even if it is one of the administration's making like the tariff fiasco.

We have killed corn and soybean markets. This is mostly the fault of Trump but also the fault of pig headed farmers who followed the GMO and pesticide train, even after consumers said that they were not interested.

China, Europe and Canada now want certifications on every bin and a guarantee of less than lethal ppm pesticide residue. And we can't deliver. I was reading an interview with an Arkansas farmer and he was asked what the administration could now do about the market crash and he said that they could write him a big fat check.

And you know that they ultimately will. Everybody can fail except the red state base, they get to suck on the government tit and they get to win every time.

We have screwed our farmers over by playing hardball with Canada, which is now shutting us out of their potash supply, which is absolutely necessary for plants and food to grow. Couple that with an immigration policy that has left very few to work the fields and you have yourself a food disaster.

“We will pry open foreign markets and break down foreign trade barriers and, ultimately, more production at home will mean stronger competition and lower prices for consumers,” he promised. “This will be indeed the golden age of America.”Instead of lowering costs, though, tariffs have brought higher prices, both because of the tax American importers pay for finished goods but also because U.S. manufacturers rely on so many foreign raw materials and intermediary parts.“Donald Trump promised he’d bring costs down on ‘day one,’ but eight months into his term, inflation remains high, and now, it’s getting harder and harder to find a job as hiring slows to a near standstill and unemployment rises,” said Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin. “Americans aren’t being ‘liberated,’ they’re being robbed by Trump’s chaotic billionaire-first economic agenda.”

We haven't done such a good job at prying open foreign markets with our trade practices and tariff ineptitude, we have instead broke long standing supply chains and bred resentment. And I have to wonder if we will ever get them back? 

People don't like to negotiate with bullies who have a gun to their head. That is not the way friends and allies are supposed to behave.

I would tell you that I would buy you a coffee and discuss this, but frankly I can't afford one. 

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If you are looking for recent inflation numbers, don't bother.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday postponed the release of a key annual report central to future inflation data.

Why it matters: The BLS — charged with collecting critical data on employment, prices and more — did not explain the reasoning for the delay or when it might ultimately be released.

My guess is that the numbers weren't too charitable. In Trumpworld that means that statistics get squashed and somebody gets fired.

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We are cancelling our Disney + subscription. Not much left to see there anyway. 

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Did you see this? And when have we seen it before?

GOP Lawmakers push to build Charlie Kirk Memorials on public campuses in Red States

Lenin or Stalin?

Teddy Bears' Picnic

Bear facts

A fellow on NextDoor this week named Bill said that his neighbors saw a bear recently in Champagne Crest, a community here in Fallbrook.

Allegedly, one neighbor saw tracks, the other had it on camera.

Many people on the social media site were quite skeptical but not me. I have seen a lot of strange stuff wander into Fallbrook, including two bighorn rams back in 1983 that I could have reached out and touched. Just last week we had a huge buck mule deer in the yard.

And last year my friend Jeff's son emphatically said that he saw a bear in Bonsall, on the old San Luis Rey Golf Course. And he grew up in Alaska and the family has been around bears their whole life.

I remember hearing a few years ago about a dead black bear found on the road near Lake Henshaw. Rangers confirmed it. I remember hearing a biologist say that when black bears finally discovered the avocado we would get eight hundred lb. black bears for the first time.

I decided to do a little digging on the subject of bears this week.

Anyone who has read Tom Hudson's Thousand years in the Temecula Valley knows that this was once prime grizzly area, which actually reached far down into Mexico.  During the Spanish land grant time, men would go up to Palomar, took five men to rope a bear and then bring them down to Temecula on Sundays and stage bull and bear fights.

It was said that an average bear would dispatch four or five bulls before succumbing to its own mortal injuries.

In 1866, the largest grizzly ever dispatched in California was killed in Valley Center, weighing in at 2200 lbs.  Back then they called the area Bear Valley.

The last grizzly bear ever killed in the area was actually taken in San Diego at a locale called Los Vallecitos, near San Mateo Creek. It was shot in 1899 by a rancher named Henry Stewart. The bear had taken to pilfering Fallbrook beehives.

San Mateo Creek runs into Tenaja, at our northern San Diego County boundary. 

Interestingly enough, biologists say that the black bear was never indigenous here, just the grizzly. But sometime around World War I a bunch of servicemen brought them to both Campo and Cuyamaca.

The website https://tchester.org/sd/lists/bears.html is out of date but does chronicle earlier San Diego bear sightings.

In 1933, 28 black bears were relocated from Yosemite to the San Bernardino Mountains, with another 11 relocated to the San Gabriel Mountains. The population in each area gradually expanded to somewhere between 150 and 500 in each region, the maximum carrying capacity. For many years, the bears stayed north of I-10, with only an occasional individual being sighted south of I-10.

In the past few years, there have been an increased number of sightings of black bears south of I-10, including ~10 in San Diego County 30-70 miles south of I-10. One possible explanation for the sightings in San Diego County is that somewhere around 1997, a population south of I-10 became established in the San Jacinto and perhaps the Santa Rosa Mountains. From this base, black bears are now frequently sighted in San Diego County. However, this explanation is by no means yet a clear fact. It will require at least several more years to establish whether there is an established population south of I-10, or if the observed bears were transients caused by some infrequent event in the population north of I-10.

Chester lists 10 local bear sightings between 1996 and 2000, when his article was published. Who knows how many have occurred since?

• In 1917-1919, a group of servicemen introduced bears to the Cuyamaca Mountains and Campo.
• A mother black bear with cub was reported at Camp Pendleton in 1973 (San Diego: An Introduction to the Region, Third Edition, p. 47)
• In 1976, bears were sighted in the Lake Henshaw/Palomar Mountain area and at Buckman Springs.
• A bear was seen at Cuyamaca State Park in the 1970s (David Holt's Black Bears in San Diego County)
• A single bear was sighted in the Agua Tibia Wilderness at Palomar Mountain in 1985, and also in 1987 on the north slope of Palomar Mountain.
• A female cinnamon colored black bear confirmed near Highway 76, Lake Henshaw, and the San Luis Rey picnic area in 1994.
• In Summer 1999, there were black bear sightings on Palomar Mountain (a sow and her two cubs were spotted numerous times at the La Jolla Reservation Campground off Highway 76 northwest of Lake Henshaw), Vulcan Mountain, and in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park (6/24/99). (SDUT 8/24/99, B1; 11/9/99, B5, B8)
• In September 1999, there was a confirmed sighting and photograph of a brown colored black bear at Fry Creek on Palomar Mountain.
• A 200 pound black bear was sighted on Cedar Summit Drive in Ramona about 1 p.m. on 11/7/99. (SDUT 11/9/99, B5, B8)
• A single bear took up residence in Heise Park in 1999 (Black Bears in San Diego County).
• In December 1999, there was a confirmed report of treed bear in Ramona.
• In January 2000, a brown-colored black bear was sighted in the Palomar Mountain area.
• In May 2000, two black bears were reported on Palomar Mountain.
• A 200 pound male black bear was killed in the Ballena Valley nine miles east of Ramona on 5/15/00 at ~ 6 p.m. after it entered David Benson's yard and approached their sheep and pigs. David and his wife Nancy tried to scare it away, but it turned toward them and stood up. David fired a warning shot into the air, to no effect, and then shot the bear in the head.
• There have been three reports of a bear breaking into coolers and a shed in the Julian and Ramona areas. (SDUT 5/17/00)

I vividly remember when a black bear was seen behind the store on the road up to Palomar about twenty years ago. Last year, two bears were observed on Palomar, one near the observatory and one near the general store.

Not too big a stretch for a bear to wander down the 76 and get to Bonsall, then move up Gird to Champagne Crest. 

I, for one, am a believer.

Bring Back Hep B!

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, whose members recommend vaccination policy to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are set to meet on Thursday and Friday to review recommendations for three childhood vaccines: those for Covid-19, hepatitis B and measles, mumps, rubella and varicella. 

Indications are that they will recommend against vaccinating children until the age of four.

For more than 30 years, the CDC has advised that infants get the first of three shots of the hepatitis B vaccine at birth. In that time, the potentially fatal disease has been virtually eradicated among American children. Between 1990 and 2022, case rates plummeted 99 percent among people age 19 and younger.

Pediatricians warn that waiting until age 4 to begin vaccination opens the door to more children contracting the virus.

"Age four makes zero sense," said pediatrician Eric Ball, who practices in Orange County, California. "We recommend a universal approach to prevent those cases where a test might be incorrect or a mother might have unknowingly contracted hepatitis. It's really the best way to keep our entire population healthy."

Senator Bill Cassidy, the Republican from Louisiana, spoke up. 

He is also a physician and liver specialist. 

He is seemingly aghast at the new direction. 

He thinks that the once respected body is completely losing credibility.

Yesterday he noted that vaccinating newborns against hepatitis B had brought the number of children with liver disease from 20,000 cases annually down to around 20.

Andrew G. Nixon, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, rejected the idea that the advisory committee would rework the vaccine recommendations without sound evidence.

He said that any decision would be approved by the acting C.D.C. director, Jim O’Neill, and “be based on the latest available science.”

Mr. O’Neill was brought in after Dr. Monarez was fired. A former Silicon Valley executive, Mr. O’Neill has no medical or scientific training.

What a conundrum! 

In an email, a Health and Human Services spokesman, Andrew Nixon, wrote, "ACIP exists to ensure that vaccine policy is guided by the best available evidence and open scientific deliberation. Any updates to recommendations will be made transparently with gold standard science."

Now who are you supposed to believe to provide you with "Gold standard science?" Career physicians, medical researchers and scientists or handpicked businessmen and political partisans with no training in science or medicine?

You tell me.

Wish me luck.

I bought this painting in Texas earlier this year for a very reasonable price. Loved it on sight. I sent it to New York for auction, it goes off tomorrow. Not sure how it will do but there is good early bidding.

Samuel Halpert (1884-1930) is an interesting fellow. His ex wife had one of the most important galleries in New York, he died very young. I think that he may have influenced Hopper but it is only a guess. The painting bears remnants of a Downtown Gallery label verso but Swann's neglects to mention that for some reason.

Not sure why it resonates with me but I spent a lot of formative years living on the lower East Side (24th and Third) and my maternal grandparents lived in the now destroyed Gashouse district on E. 20th during the early twentieth century. Wish I knew which street my painting depicts?

I should mention that I am biased but like it as much as any of his work.  Reminds me of Thiebaud, a cityscape rendered into simple shapes, colors and tonal values.

And there's that tribal thing. I have Halpert relatives and Bialystok isn't all that far from my native Wyszkove, 138 km.

Once upon a time his New York scenes brought serious money. We shall see how mine does...

Here are brief bios from AskArt:

Samuel Halpert was born in Russia, December 25th, 1884, and was brought to the United States as a young child.  His early artistic talent was recognized and encouraged by teachers Jacob Epstein and Henry McBride at the Educational Alliance in New York City.  After three years of traditional study at the National Academy of Design, he traveled to Paris to work with Leon Bonnet (1883 -1922) at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.  While in France, Halpert was strongly influenced by his exposure to the works of the French modernists, especially Paul Cézanne (1839 -1906) and Henri Matisse (1869 -1954), and by his colleagues Fernand Léger (1881 -1955) and Jean Metzinger (1883 -1957).

From 1905, which coincided with the first favorable review of the Fauvists' daring use of color, until 1911, Halpert participated in the annual Salon d'Automne in Paris, one of few Americans to be so recognized.

His signature use of solid, thickly outlined block-like forms, as evidenced in this composition, reflects his Paris experiences.  He was known for genre, landscapes, farms, citys, Paris, interiors, lakes and coast.  Halpert was also influenced by the bright colors of Ogunquit Maine where he took up summer residence for many years.

He was a member of the New Society of Artists; (pres.) Society of Independent Artists of Detroit; Societare Salon d'Automne, Paris.

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Born in Bialystok, Russia, (now northeastern Poland) Samuel Halpert emigrated to the United States in 1890 with his parents when he was age five.  He was raised in the Lower East Side tenement area with other East European Jewish immigrants. One of his adult friends at that time was sculptor Jacob Epstein who took him to art museums, and encouraged his artistic talents and interests.

During the 1890s, he lived on and off in Paris.  He studied at the National Academy of Design in New York with J Carroll Beckwith, who raised funds to send Halpert to Paris where he studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts with Leon Bonnet.  He also studied at the Academie Julian with Jean Paul Laurens, but left the school to "learn on the streets of Paris" and from the Old Masters in the Louvre.

He exhibited at the Salon d'Automne, a venue for modernist works.  However, at this point in his career, he considered himself an impressionist combining influences of French Impressionism, James Whistler, Childe Hassam, and John Twachtmann.

Halpert became a pioneer of modern art in America, having been in Paris at a revolutionary time in the art world during the first decade of the 20th century.  His painting was influenced by Paul Cezanne and the French avant-garde, and in adapting the French culture, he had an edge in that he, unlike most American artists, spoke and wrote French fluently.  He formed close friendships with modernists Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Fernand Leger, Jean Metsinger, and some of the older artists including Henri Rousseau and Henri Matisse.

After about three years in Paris, he returned to New York, where he met Alfred Stieglitz and became exposed to the avant-garde activities of Stieglitz's Little Galleries of the Succession (291).  He stayed in New York for less than a year before returning to Paris where he developed his own style that embodied Post-Impressionism and Fauvism.

He returned to New York City during 1911 to 1914, the time of the 1913 Armory Show that had such a profound modernist impact on American art.  Although he lived and painted in the city, he also painted extensively in the countryside.  He exhibited in the Armory Show and encouraged other artists towards modernism including Marsden Hartley.  He became close friends and mentor with Man Ray, whose work went towards Dadaism, something Halpert did not embrace.

From 1914 to 1916, he was in Paris and then returned to New York.  In 1918, he married Edith Fein, an art student and very adept businesswoman.  They lived both in and out of the city, with him painting both landscapes and city scenes.  He also painted numerous interior scenes, often with Edith posed as a figure subject. However, his income was minimal, and to supplement, he did mural painting.

The marriage became strained, major factors being that Halpert had constant ringing in his ears and that he felt diminished by her ability to earn much more money than he.  It was thought that the ringing in his ears was psychosomatic, but towards the end of his life, they learned it was the result of childhood meningitis.

They spent time in France trying to maintain their relationship, and then returned to New York.  In 1926, Edith founded the Downtown Gallery, a very successful venture.  In 1927, he became head of the painting department at the Society of Arts and crafts in Detroit, having been recommended by John Sloan.  This position brought him some financial success.  He stayed in touch with New York family and friends; Edith's Gallery represented him, and although the marriage broke up, he and Edith remained friends with her as his art dealer.

Just as his finances were strengthening as well as his reputation, the stock market crash of 1929 hit.  Halpert died the next year in Detroit at age 45.

Maybe it moves, maybe it sits, we shall see and everything is cool either way.

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Postscript - went for 10k, was hoping for more but I did fine.

Blackwashing

Newsflash:

The Trump administration has ordered the National Park Service to remove multiple exhibits, signs and materials linked to slavery from its sites, including a photograph of a formerly enslaved man with scars on his back that became a defining image of the Civil War era, according to multiple outlets.

The move follows a Trump executive order from March that directed the Department of the Interior to ensure national parks don’t contain content that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living” in a push to focus on the country’s “greatness” instead.

This is a photograph of a man named Peter Gordon. 

The photo is known as "the scourged back."

Gordon has been whipped and heavily scarred by his former owners or captors.

He was an enslaved man who had escaped from Mississippi and reached a Union Army camp in Louisiana in 1863. 

The photograph is attributed to two photographers, McPherson and Oliver, who were in the camp at the time.

But this photo, and many others like it that show a window into the darker past of our country's history, will no longer be accessible at public sites.

Because it makes certain white people feel bad about our legacy and we can't have that, can we?

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I look at the palpable hatred on the white faces during the earliest stages of desegregation and think that perhaps a certain amount of shame is indeed appropriate.

Or better yet, let's sweep it under the rug instead and pretend it never happened.

Wouldn't want to upset anybody.

Beware

Kim sent me this email solicitation. 

If you get anything like this from me, don't open it. Viral spam.

Just saw this for the first time...

John interviewed me earlier this year in Texas. I didn't know that he posted this. Cuts rather quickly at the end.

Dimming Of The Day

Please forget you knew my name, my darling, sugaree...

I got a text last night that gave me pause:

Checking in. Everything good there, after the "event" ? Hope you are not getting any threats. ss

I had to think about this for a second. Which event and what kind of threats? And then I figured it out. The event must be the shooting of the recently canonized Charlie Kirk and the threats are because I have written a mostly liberal blog for the last eighteen years with almost 10 million views today.

Word is that they are sending the dogs out.

Now I have been mostly apolitical this year, when the coming kristallnacht arrives, will I get a dispensation for that? And exactly how far back do they check before they send the folks out with the torches and pitchforks? 

Asking for a friend...

Mixed message

South Korea got pretty rattled when 475 of their nationals were arrested at the construction site of an electric vehicle battery factory, operated by Hyundai-LG, in Georgia on  September 4th. ICE officials alleged South Koreans had overstayed their visas or held permits that didn’t allow them to perform manual labor. Some of these people had proper visas but had a prior traffic ticket.

They were handcuffed and jailed, causing great consternation among foreign investors.

The South Korean president, Lee Jae Myung, called the raid “bewildering” and warned on Thursday that the raid could discourage future investment. 

Trump had an interesting post on Truth Social:

Talk about walking a tightrope! In order to satisfy his xenophobic, anti immigrant, globalist base and yet not antagonize the foreign people that are actually funding development projects in this country, here's the message, we will let your people in, for the amount of time it takes for you to build our factories and train us to do their job and then we will boot your ass out again as soon as possible.

If LG and Hyundai are smart, they will tell us where to go stick it. Why would you want to have partners like us?

The Fugs - Wide Wide River

the good old thought police...

Interesting article at the Intercept, a new bill that could grant the government the power to revoke passports of American citizens because of what they think or say. * Anybody believe that the Venezuelan boat incident where we killed eleven people might not have a thing to do with drugs or terrorism? Anybody see a shred of evidence? Or does that mean anything anymore? I personally don't believe a word that comes out of this administration's lips.* Lindsey Graham wants to go after social media companies now after the Charlie Kirk shooting, to repeal Section 230 which shields companies from liability for what users post. Where has he been the last ten years, when Twitter, X, Gab and 4chan users have run amok promoting hate and violence against the left?* Red State farmers whine * Where were the tears from the right when Melissa Hortman was killed? * Rightwing taking over media companies and strangling press freedom. * Fox News host wants to kill the homeless and mentally ill. * Farewell, Issa? Trump tries to make nice with the South Koreans now.* RFK gone wild.* Numbers problem. Millions of Americans expected to lose health coverage over the next decade.

Our Town

Grilled Persian Chicken

I felt like having chicken and I was in the mood to grill tonight. I went to Grocery Outlet and bought organic chicken thighs and drumsticks this morning. But I didn't want the normal, I wanted to try something entirely different.

I found this Persian chicken marinade recipe online. It is entirely different than anything I have ever made before. 

Yogurt based, it is spiced with cloves, turmeric, cayenne, cumin, salt, pepper, cinnamon and lime zest. 

In Iran, the last ingredient would be substituted with dried lime or sumac.

Few of these spices are in my day to day flavor palette. 

Would I like it? We would see...

I don't have a lot of experience with Persian food but at times it is cloyingly sweet to me and a bit off-putting.

I mixed the yogurt and spices and let the marinade and chicken sit in the fridge for about five hours.

But I made a few changes to the recipe. 

I added six cloves of garlic. 

I bloomed a bit of saffron in a small cup of warm water and added that too. 

I added the juice of half a lemon. A touch of onion powder.

And once on the grill I sprayed it with a liberal dose of duckfat. 

See if I could crisp up the skin.

The Weber was running pretty hot, even with the grates dampened down. 

After fifteen minutes of indirect I individually seared each piece of chicken for about thirty seconds a side on the still blazing fire. 

I have noticed that a lot of middle eastern cooking they go for a real char but I did not want to go there. 

With all that yogurt, it was certainly susceptible so you have to stay on it and watch for flareups.

About forty minutes back on the indirect side and it finally came up to temp around 175 degrees.

Leslie made cilantro basmati rice and we served the dinner on the pretty new plates Lena gave us.

The taste of this chicken is just beyond good. 

I will definitely be making this again. 

Came out super moist and fragrantly delicious.

Leslie thought that the introduction of the expensive saffron was superfluous and unnecessary. 

She might be right. 

I also would cut the salt in half next time.

Give this recipe a try if you are tired of your boring old chicken marinade. I think it will knock you out.

Shuggie Otis - Sweet Thang

Midnight-Moonlight

Do the hustle

I have been working since I was eleven years old. Never got an allowance, did a lot of shit jobs, some even legal. 

Cleaned out apartments, groomed horses, carried concrete forms, washed out storm drains with a firehose, got up at three in the morning to bread chicken for a fast food restaurant, the stinking smell of the breading is still fresh in my mind, fifty years later. 

Made a dollar and a nickel an hour, got fired when I asked for a dollar and a dime.

I did what I had to do to survive, like most of us. Painted signs, built houses, ran a financial research firm for a little while. All sorts of crap.

And since about 1990 I have exclusively hustled paintings and antiques, was never exactly easy and there were a lot of times when it was next to impossible, but I managed to soldier on and survive while watching a great many cohorts bite the dust and exit the arena. Hooray for me. Last man standing.

I like the job, there's no boss, a lot of freedom and only one person to praise or to blame when it goes upside down, me. Plus you meet a lot of nice folks.

I figure I will try to hold out for seven more years, until I am 75. Several of my cronies have made it to 80 but it gets harder as you get older, especially the long hours driving. 

The grand plan, if I make it that long, is to cash in whatever chips I have left in 2032. Hopefully have a few years to mess around and have fun before some orderly starts feeding me gruel in the old age home and wheels me off to the bingo game.

*

I mention this because I am running into a weird phenomenon. I have friends who did everything right and got the cush corporate job or public gig and retired early. They retired when people are supposed to, in their mid sixties. Now they knock on my door or call me up and ask me when we can go play? Of course, they did everything right and I engaged in a different sort of play and fucked around and continually shot myself in the foot. Should have stayed on the straight and narrow.

My bad.

I have to explain that I can't go out and have fun, can't really get off the hamster wheel. It may not look like I am working but I am. Can't take a vacation and haven't in years. Money pours out like a sieve in this life, my insurance bills alone on home and shop would send most into a catatonic state. 

I really can't take a break. I travel for shows or business, or deaths in the family. That is about it.

I have to keep pushing the pedal to the metal and crossing my fingers or the house of cards collapses. Happily, tragedy has been averted so far, but only narrowly. Perhaps that is why it is easier to congregate with people on a similar income level? 

A buddy was flabbergasted the other day when he found out that I didn't have a Roth or 401 k plan. Actually, I put what little money I have left over into inventory, it is how most of my ilk survives. Frightening, isn't it?

No trust fund, no inheritance, just an eye, a mind and a decent ability to communicate with people. What does that get you? Not a lodge in Wisconsin or a second home in Kennebunk, I can assure you.

Was probably a fool's errand from day one but it was the path I chose and the horse I picked to ride. Never said I was all that smart. So don't ask me to come out to play because I honestly can't. I've got too much shit to do. Enjoy your retirement. Have fun. But don't hold my seat. And I'm not saying I don't enjoy life along the way. I do.

*

Had a friend who married well and never worked much. I don't hear from him anymore, never calls except for a postcard once or twice a year from an exotic locale. Bora Bora, New Zealand, wherever. I am honestly happy for them but can't help but feel like my nose is getting rubbed in it. He wants me to know that he is living the great life for some reason but he no longer wants to talk to me. Well, good for him.

I know another man whose father was a prominent national architect. The family decided to ride out the great depression by circumnavigating the globe a couple times on the queen whatever. 

I was a prep school student in New York Coty, on scholarship. Knew a fellow whose family had a gigantic floor in the Dakota. You rarely see a green persian carpet but this antique one on the floor was a hundred foot long if it was a foot. Took my breath away.

He had three names, Harding Winthrop something or other. Another family that was setting out to go round the world for a year or two on the family skiff.

Toodleoo! A neat fellow honestly and one who lived in a part of the world that I would never encounter.

Beautiful, the rich get to skate, I get it. Not my fate.

* 

I drove seven hours yesterday, three and a half hours each way to Chatsworth in terrible traffic. Lawyer fellow told me that thirty years ago I had promised to handle his estate at a fraction of my normal rate. Don't exactly remember that but, as a man of my word, thought I would come up for a look see.

Spent all day giving free appraisals to the couple, took two minor paintings home.

I wrote up a rough and honest appraisal today. They just got back to me, bring the two paintings back, they paid more back when. It was honestly a little test on my part.  The cost benefit equation did not favor me whatsoever. I would never pay for my time. Lets see if I can sneak out the back, jack.

I am done. I was trying to help them but nothing there I really need and nothing I can't live without.

I won't be making a special trip back, probably easier to write the whole thing off and just stick them in the mail.

Whoops, I did it again.

*

Had a cool thing happen the other day. I get up at five and got dressed, sat on the couch and watched my two cats fixated on something outside the screen door.

Hmmm, wonder what they are checking out?

I never went over to look and went my merry way. 

Leslie called a few hours later. She said that she got up shortly after I did. She actually walked over to the door and saw a giant buck mule deer out the window. For months we have seen the large doe and her fawn but not the male deer.

We rarely see deer in Fallbrook and in forty five years have never had one in the yard. He jumped a four foot fence. Leslie said he was proud, strong and grateful.

Once again, sorry I missed it. I'm happy that she was there to see it.

*

"Measles and Polio Down in the Schoolyard"

eight days on the road...

I thought that this was going to be my month to chill and get in touch with my artistic inclinations but it hasn't quite worked out like that. Life got in the way again.

I left for the Bay Area at five in the morning, Sunday before last.  Reached San Mateo at 1:30. Bought an incredible collection of antique Persian  silver from Isfahan, made by some very prominent artisans. Bought a rare antique Persian opium pipe.

I had three meetings the first day, stayed with Melissa.  Next day I drove to Sonoma and did some business with Rick, got a few paintings and a Pillin piece.

I stayed with Renee Monday night, saw  Big Dave on Tuesday and came back home.

Tomorrow I drive to Chatsworth to look at another collection, this time from a forty year client who is downsizing.

Hopefully, guitar and painting next week, after I do my taxes of course.

Texas will be here before I know it.

Short rib time

A few months ago I bought one of those enormous packages of plate ribs at the Costco Business store. 

Also known as Dino ribs in some parts of the country, these are massive beef bone in short ribs.

I had never bought bone in ribs this big before and cut them up so that the package would fit in my freezer.

Tremendous amount of meat per rib.

Normally I braise short ribs in the Dutch oven but Leslie doesn't like it when I heat up the house in the hot summer, says that is winter food.

I decided to smoke the ribs last night, something I never do. Went home early to start things off, put out the new fireproof mat under the Weber. Understand, I have very little experience smoking, never been my thing. New territory.

I  patted them dry and did a heavy pepper, salt rub with a bit of garlic but not too much. Kept it simple. Threw some hickory wood in and started my briquettes. 

I placed the ribs on the indirect side of the kettle, bone side down.

An hour went by.

And then another.

And another.

And  my temperature was static. 

I needed 190 to 200 degrees and was stuck around 170.

I was in something that I had read about. 

The dreaded brisket stall. 

Large hunks of meat often hit a crescendo around 170 and just won't budge. 

I decided to take evasive action. 

I stuck them directly on the fire and seared all four sides, about a minute and a half per side. 

I had built a nice bark by then and the searing sort of  made the perfect crust less pretty but all in all things were still looking good. 

There is a lot of info out there on smoking short ribs but very little on grilling them. 

Those that do take them to 140 but this is not enough heat for the connective tissue to break down and make them super tender.

I waited for another hour, still stalled, regularly spritzing them with water so they wouldn't dry out.  I ended up wrapping them in foil, got them to 189 and that would have to do. 

About a five hour cook.

We ate two small ribs and grilled organic summer squash as well.

Really delicious, everything was great. But we got really full.

Tonight  I shredded the fattest remaining rib and made a short rib pappardelle ragu.

I chopped carrots and garlic and sauteed them. Leslie made mushrooms. 

We cooked it all up and put some fatty short rib pieces in as well.

I added red wine, tomatoes paste, cherry tomatoes which I smooshed down, thyme and rosemary.

Added all the  beef back and simmered it up for about ten minutes with the cover on.

Leslie made the noodles and we added a ladle of pasta water to the ragu, then mixed it all together.

Topped it off with fresh parmesan.

Absolutely scrumptious.

I have two more sections of plate ribs stuck in the freezer somewhere.

I am going to do this again.

Winning much?

Hippie from Olema No. 5

Katie Porter

Last week my wife asked me if I would like to see ex California congresswoman and current gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter speak.

I eagerly said yes, as I have always liked her style and savvy and thought it was a shame she went up against Schiff in the last senatorial election.

It balkanized two excellent candidates. 

I didn't follow the race very closely but I guess it got pretty ugly in the end. 

Losing can be tough for any of us.

The meet and greet was put on by the Fallbrook Democratic Group of which I was once a member, about forty years ago when we had roughly ten people in the club. 

I left decades ago when I started hearing anti semitic comments and felt it was time to make my exit.

Truth be told I relinquished my Democratic party membership about a year ago and am greatly dissatisfied with both the right and the left. I guess I am a mostly liberal centrist that will rarely if ever tilt right.

Now the club has over three hundred members and I am told is one of the most robust clubs in the state.

There was one ticket left, seventy five bucks at the door and I claimed it.

The event was held at a beautiful home overlooking Fallbrook Winery, a place that as a teetotaler, I have never visited. 

We were brought up the steep drive in a golf car, past a lot of vitriolic signs castigating the current regime.

I love to see a little liberal passion in our notoriously conservative community.

I saw several people I knew and enjoyed talking to our host, Pepper, who used to be acquainted with my father in San Diego.

We met Katie and then heard her speak.

A Harvard and Yale educated lawyer, Porter originally hails from a farm family in Iowa.

She graduated magna cum laude and clerked for the eighth circuit court of Appeals under Richard S. Arnold.

She currently lives in Irvine and teaches law locally.

Porter is a self professed numbers nerd and has a penchant for getting into the economic nuts and bolts.

And this is where she lost me.

You see she started out her talk describing the underlying crisis in California as being the fact that our mean demographic is getting older.

We need more young people to take care of the old people and they are currently priced out of affordable housing.

We need to streamline permitting and regulation and build more units, environment be damned. Because there are too many forty year olds still living at home.

I waited for the question and answer period and asked her a question. We are facing a water crisis in Southern California, which is basically a high desert, have two pending rate increases on Colorado River water, where will we get the water for these new housing units?

She said that she is from Irvine and that they ar a model city. They evidently have purple pipes for recycling up there and better recycling and purple pipes would solve the problem.

Which is total malarkey.

The reality is that we have reached a tipping point for water, our California ecosystem and roads can only support so many more humans and the reality is that not everybody will be able to live in California. Unfortunately, the old people will have to fend for themselves. 

She says that we need more water pipeline projects. Sounds like the right wing signage I read up and down the central valley this weekend, screw the fish and the indians, give the water to corporate farms instead. 

In addition, our snowpack is reduced every year due to climate change and megadroughts. Aquifers have been depleted throughout our state and are not being recharged,

Interesting, her college thesis at Yale was titled The Effects of Corporate Farming on Rural Community. I wish I could have asked a follow up question. Because here we have a person from Orange County, trying to impose an Orange County solution on a rural community that would like to keep its character and generally loathes Orange County density. Frankly, if we wanted to live in Irvine we would.

At least the people here who have a clue who live on this side of Interstate 15. 

Katie Porter is a hammer who sees the rest of the world as a nail. I fear for our rural area's lifestyle and environment if her build at all costs mentality is allowed to transform and destroy our state and rural residents' quality of life. 

Where exactly will the water come from? One must be quite careful when trying to impose a malthusian economic solution to a quintessentially environmental problem.

What works in Irvine won't necessarily work in Fallbrook, Garberville, Santa Paula, Ramona or Ojai. And of course will never be seen in Rancho Santa Fe or Tiburon.