On The Road Again

Long Beach Flea Market, November 2024

I honestly haven't picked up my camera in three months. I thought that I would break it out on a nature excursion but life had other plans.

I woke up at about a quarter to five yesterday and asked myself if I wanted to go to the swap meet in Long Beach or not? Leslie had other plans so I would have to go it alone. What the hell, I went for it.

The drive should only take an hour and a half at that hour. I threw on some clothes and grabbed a jacket and headed down the road.

I walked the whole lot, only bought one thing, a really nice reverse painted Pittsburgh lamp with a Classique butterfly shade. 

But I had brought my camera along, with a 85mm 1.8d Nikkor portrait lens, not the lens I normally take on these types of trips. 

Had some problems with it initially, got a rare error message but made it work finally.

I love Long Beach for street photography, the people are different and beautiful and comfortable in their skins and don't mind having their picture taken. 

I didn't have a single refusal yesterday, a record.

Second or third time for these two!

I've known a lot of these characters for over thirty years and I feel the need to capture them for history's sake!

I take my hat off to all these stalwart folks.

It ain't easy to sit on a cold street at three in the morning and to set up and shop, at any age.

But it is the life that many of us have chosen, for better or for worse.

Some of the faces are getting a bit worn but hey, look in the mirror.

You want to shoot pictures of people? Head to the swap meet.

Can of whoop ass

The bacterial infection whooping cough is hitting the nation hard, from Texas to the east coast to California. I have read reports of major breakouts from Boston to Washington. The Bay Area and San Diego are suffering greatly as well.

Why?

Because of the anti vaccine kooks.

Recent data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that nationally, whooping cough cases are about five times higher this year compared to last year. In 2023, the U.S. saw 4,809 cases, but as of Nov. 2, there had been 22,240 documented cases. 

The spike in cases suggests that the U.S. is starting to return to pre-COVID-19 pandemic patterns, which typically bring more than 10,000 cases per year.

“It’s clear we’re seeing common pre-pandemic illnesses return with a bit of a vengeance. And the reality is, we don’t quite understand exactly why all of that happens,” Dr. Michael Koster, the division director of pediatric infectious diseases at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, told The Boston Globe. 

Koster said that unvaccinated individuals who are young or elderly are at the highest risk of severe health complications from the infection. 

“We’re just seeing a lot more vaccine hesitancy. We’re seeing a lot more vaccine-preventable illnesses that we could be controlling better with vaccines,” he told the Globe.

I think that we can blame the people who politicized Covid for the anti vaccine hysteria. People like RFK Jr. who made the asinine statement that it was created not to hurt Chinese people or Ashkenazi Jews. Or that vaccines cause autism, which they do not.

The World Health Organization (WHO) states online that “vaccination is one of the best ways to prevent diseases,” noting that childhood vaccines save 3.5 to 5 million lives every year.

Vaccines didn't stop people from getting Covid but the evidence is clear and empirical that they kept the vaccinated who contracted the virus from dying at a much higher rate. Compare the red state and blue state data and you can see a huge contrast in mortality. Nationally you were fourteen times less likely to die from Covid if you had been vaccinated than if you had forgone the vaccine.

But now vaccines are part of the vast medical conspiracy and parents are forgoing them. A full 51% of the American populous are now suspicious of vaccines. This will lead to a host of old diseases revisiting us and wreaking havoc on the young and unvaccinated.

It is true that there were complications from the Covid diseases that affected people's hearts in rare cases. But if you look at the numbers, your small chance of damage sure beats dying, something that happened to a lot of unvaccinated people.

Let's see how many diseases we can bring back in the next four years, polio, tuberculosis, whooping cough, diphtheria, chicken pox, tetanus and scarlet fever. With a little luck, we can set healthcare back in our country at least a hundred years.

*

Idaho health district bans Covid vaccine.

Albert Collins & The Icebreakers

Same old scam

Turns out they knew about the effects of fossil fuels and global warming way back in 1954. Great article at the Guardian.

Major oil companies, including Shell and precursors to energy giants Chevron, ExxonMobil and BP, were alerted about the planet-warming effects of fossil fuels as early as 1954, newly unearthed documents show.

The warning, from the head of an industry-created group known as the Air Pollution Foundation, was revealed by Climate Investigations Center and published Tuesday by the climate website DeSmog. It represents what may be the earliest instance of big oil being informed of the potentially dire consequences of its products.

“Every time there’s a push for climate action, [we see] fossil fuel companies downplay and deny the harms of burning fossil fuels,” said Rebecca John, a researcher at the Climate Investigations Center who uncovered the historic memos. “Now we have evidence they were doing this way back in the 50s during these really early attempts to crack down on sources of pollution.”

The Air Pollution Foundation was founded in 1953 by oil interests in response to public outcry over smog that was blanketing Los Angeles county.

Here's an interesting part:

In the mid-1950s, climate researchers were beginning to understand the planet-heating impact of fossil fuels, and to discuss their emergent research in the media. But the newly uncovered Air Pollution Foundation memo represents the earliest known cautionary message to the oil industry about the greenhouse effect.

The Air Pollution Foundation’s board of trustees, including representatives from SoCalGas and Union Oil, which was later acquired by Chevron, approved funding for the Caltech project. In the following months, foundation president Hitchcock advocated for pollution controls on oil refineries and then testified in favor of state-funded pollution research in the California Senate.

Hitchcock was reprimanded by industry leaders for these efforts. In an April 1955 meeting, the Western Oil and Gas Association told him he was drawing too much “attention” to refinery pollution and conducting “too broad a program” of research. The Air Pollution Foundation was meant to be “protective” of the industry and should publish “findings which would be accepted as unbiased”, meeting minutes uncovered by John show.

After this meeting, the foundation made no further reference to the potential climate impact of fossil fuels, publications reviewed by DeSmog suggest.

“The fossil fuel industry is often seen as having followed in the footsteps of the tobacco industry’s playbook for denying science and blocking regulation,” said Supran. “But these documents suggest that big oil has been running public affairs campaigns to downplay the dangers of its products just as long as big tobacco, starting with air pollution in the early-to-mid-1950s.”

We've been getting scammed for seventy years and we never learn. And won't, until it is way too late.

Laura Nyro

Birmingham Blues - Charlie Daniels

Dearborn Dupes

If I may be permitted to stay in anger mode for just a while longer and not "be pleasant" I would like to do a quick post mortem on Michigan and the recent election. 

It swung to Trump, largely on account of a very pissed off Muslim demographic, angry about Gaza. 

Good article on the subject at Foreign Affairs, Why Michigan Arab Americans voted for Trump.

Arab and Muslim Americans in Michigan, especially in the city of Dearborn, shifted away from the Democratic Party and toward President-elect Donald Trump in 2024. The Biden-Harris administration’s unwavering military assistance to Israel—and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s willingness to continue this policy—drove Arab American voters in Michigan away from a party that the community had consistently supported since the early 2000s. Trump won the state by  more than 80,000 votes after losing it to outgoing President Joe Biden by more than 150,000 votes in 2020.

Trump won Dearborn, where more than half the population is of Middle Eastern or North African descent, by capturing 42 percent of votes to Harris’s 36 percent; the Green Party’s Jill Stein also took a substantial 18 percent of the vote in the city. In neighborhoods within the city where Arab Americans are the majority, such as eastern Dearborn, Harris performed even worse.

For example, in 2020, Biden beat Trump in eastern Dearborn by nearly 10,000 votes. On Election Day this year, the Detroit Free Press reports that Trump defeated Harris in eastern Dearborn by nearly 3,700 votes, accumulating 45 percent of the vote in 2024 after receiving only 18 percent in 2020 resulting in a 27 percent swing toward Trump that demonstrates how the Democrats’ refusal to restrain Israel as it destroyed Gaza likely pushed Arab Americans to the right.

Now I understand their disaffection. But they will find out that the are sadly mistaken if they think that Trump will be a better friend to the Arab world than Harris would have and Biden has been. With his Pro Israel Christian constituency and relationship with Netanyahu, it just ain't going to happen.

They just voted against their own self interest and they will get absolutely nothing for it.

*

Speaking of Michigan, I was talking to Barry and he asked me where I thought Ted Nugent would land in the Trump Cabinet? It's a good question but do you think there is enough room for both Terrible Ted and Kid Rock in the same administration?

Spanky and our gang

Where's my beret?

I haven't touched my paints since I got sick with kidney cancer in 1985 and closed my sign shop. 

A few weeks ago I was asked to put a self portrait in an upcoming art show and I agreed.

I bought some oil paints and canvases yesterday, meant to gesso them but it will have to wait until tomorrow. 

Will be interesting to see if I still have the knack or not.

If I come up with anything interesting I will share it with you. 

I miss painting, this should be fun. Will probably take a while to get in tune with the brush again.

A friend is going to take some head shots tomorrow that I can work from.

Wish You Were Here

Ostriching

The path of developed people is to cultivate themselves seriously and to regard the faults of other people as their own.

Observing - Hexagram 20, Line 5 - Buddhist I Ching

I have a lot of Republican friends that I like and admire, even love. It is not really very easy to talk with many of them right now, emotions being rather raw.

But at the show, my GOP pals, dealers and customers alike, were pretty gracious and not a lot of people felt like rubbing it in. One fellow pirouetted elegantly when I brought up the election, you guys had a long run, give us a turn. I appreciated his restraint. 

It is a far cry from Millard comparing Kamala to a bucket of warm spit. A few made cracks about drowning in liberal tears, to be expected. Not a lot of spiking the football. Sue said that there were things about Trump that she found offensive but she liked his policies, a recurring theme. Now I hate his policies and was considering going down a laundry list but no matter, everyone is entitled to their opinion. What's the point?

I am giving up. You got it, let's see how you do, hopefully the environment can take another four years of fracking contamination, carbon emissions, cancer causing carcinogens, smokestack emissions, phthalates and forever chemicals in our food. And if it can not, it has been a good ride. Trump will make the environment all better. Let's make the whole Supreme Court conservative, give Leonard Leo and Opus Dei everything it could ever wish for. Good time to start drilling in our national parks again.

The other side might find out that it was easier when they were sniping on the sidelines than actually enacting laws and governing, witness Trump 1.0. Where is that great health care law again?

I think it would be best for my fellow liberals and I to stay far from media for a while. If you don't have a drug or alcohol problem, this might be a good time to pick one up to get through the next four years.

I got this email from an old friend and partner this morning:

Democrats haven’t got a clue. | Fox News

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/one-reason-trump-won-democrats-cannot-admit

Pretty well sums up the facts

JS

I read the column and wanted to scream. And honestly thought about telling my friend to never contact me again. The upshot is that the reason they elected Trump is because millions of Americans like, even love him. No shit. And maybe he lies but Dems lie more. Blah, blah blah. Standard Fox palaver.

I wrote him back. And lost it in a most unbuddhist way:

I think we know exactly who is and I think he is the most dangerous man who has ever run our country. And I think that the people who voted for him are mostly ignorant dumbshits.

He offered a rejoinder:

By almost every measure, his first term was far better for our nation than Biden’s.

I am glad to see you changed your blog focus…now more interesting and pleasant.

J

My rebuttal - 

I think he fucked up the environment incredibly and it will now get even worse. what he did at the EPA was criminal. His saying that water and air will be cleaner now is a bad joke.

He responded:  

You know what? In the 1970’S Jimmy Carter said we would run out of oil in a matter of years. I sold my

high end machine shop because of the doom and gloom forecast of a serious energy shortage. I conserve, I recycle,  but the people today

throwing paint on rare art objects are the destroyers of their cause.

I will agree to common sense environmental issues, but screw all the Ivy League nuts.

So now environmentalism is to be conflated with the absolute worst proponents, those few young people who throw paint at art objects? All of the scientific research on Climate Change, which is accepted by 97% of all scientists, is merely Ivy League bunk. Why bother to listen to research scientists and doctors when you have Elon Musk and Joe Rogan? As long  as you separate your plastics from your banana peels, everything should be okay, right JS?

I may not be the smartest or sharpest tool in the shed but I know one thing. Money always wins and money interests win and by the time we figure out that the problems are real and that there is a reason that we have just experienced the five hottest years on record and that Phoenix is now largely unlivable is because we would rather make that dough, even if it kills us.

And I don't know what else I can say. Maybe we better steer clear of each other for a while. Nice that my one time friend likes baking and birds better than politics but what we have here is an obvious failure to communicate and I have lost the patience to even try. 

Lose my number for a while.

Costs a lot to win, and even more to lose...

Is this a nightmare we are going to ever wake up from? 

Like an episode of WandaVision or Pleasantville?

 

Or the movie it most resembles, Idiocracy?

Please tell me it's just a bad dream.

My mother had polio as a child. 

She walked in braces for three years. 

It was terrible, for both her physical and emotional health. 

I know several other people who have suffered from polio during their entire lifetime, Richard B and Suzanne P being two of them. 

Their parents were smart, they knew it all. Didn't believe what the doctors were peddling. They didn't believe in vaccination. And apparently, neither do the American people. 51% are now against mandated vaccination. They got brainwashed during COVID.

Trump is appointing ex junkie, quack loving and vaccine hater RFK Jr. to run HHS. He will have us all drinking bleach and engaging in very high risk behavior in no time. And I'm sorry, there are no credible studies that support ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine or any of the other snake oil he is peddling. They have been refuted again and again.

But no matter. Onward we plunge into the bizarre future. All those mainstream skeptics who would rather rely on science and medical facts than the latest craze or cure promoted on X will be sent to re-education camps until they wise up. People will die, of course, but that's all part of god's great plan for them and better luck next incarnation. 

People are honestly going to get hurt by this, just like the people who refused to vaccinate or stop congregating did four years ago but no matter.

Which brings me back to my favorite quote, which I have quoted umpteen times.

And remember boys and girls and lovers of the orange monster, you own this.

Como se dice "pound sand" en Espanol?

The latin swing to Trump is a little dumbfounding. I have read scads of hispanic commentators trying to break down the portent of his gains with latinos in the recent economy. Democrats take them for granted, they share cultural conservatism with the GOP, they are not monolithic, Trump is better for the economy, his masculine image appealed to latin machismo, etc. 

I am sure that many of these issues are responsible. But I thought that his announced intention to deport 10 million undocumented people in this country would be a deal killer. 

I was wrong. 

And I find the attitude of many Latinos on the subject a bit bewildering.

Cesar Espinosa, a leader in Houston’s Hispanic community, said he’s had many calls and messages from worried people since Trump won reelection early Wednesday.

“We can feel the sense of uncertainty from a lot of people. A lot of people are asking, ‘What happens now? What do we do?’” he said.

Some are in so-called mixed status families made up of US citizens and undocumented immigrants. And the fear is that non citizens will be targeted immediately, said Espinosa, who is a legal permanent resident, or “green card” holder.

He says he tries to calm fears by saying that mass deportations, particularly of non-criminals, will take time. Meanwhile, he keeps count of the time when he can apply for US naturalization, still more than two years away.

Espinosa said machismo among Latino men may have contributed to support for Trump.

“Unfortunately, a lot of people in the Latino community have bought into the rhetoric of being anti-immigrant, even the immigrants themselves,” he said.

There's the rub, the last sentence. People that are immigrants who are also anti-immigrant may be in for a rude awakening. Because when people tell you what they are going to do, it makes sense to believe them. 

Call me old fashioned, but Hitler called out the final solution in his book a mere ninety years ago and ultimately did exactly what he said he was going to do.

It is amazing how many latino immigrants don't realize that they are coming not just for the criminals, but maybe for their grandmothers who have been inculcated into the American landscape for the last forty years or so. 

Talk about wishful thinking. Now I have always been for strong borders but also for fixing a very broken immigration system. Employers need labor in this country and we are facing a crisis. This will be devastating, for America and for our economy.

I was reading about a district in Florida with approximately 200,000 undocumented residents that went heavily for Trump. The woman who was quoted was sure that he would only target the "bad" people. 

Perhaps they are right. Resources are scarce for a full scale purge and they will certainly go after the gangbangers first. But then?

Tom Homan, the ex cop who has attended white supremacist meetings and will be running the show, says that after the bad apples are deported he will be coming after the rest of them. And that they should get their effects together now and self deport if they know what is good for them.

“But for those others, the non-criminals, you wanna self deport I’m all for it,” Homan said. “Because when they self-report they can put everything in order, their family business that they got, homes, or whatever. They can put all that in order and leave with their family all together. It makes perfect sense for the ones that are not criminals.”

Homan is prepping up for workplace raids. He wants the military to help him. 

Homan, an early proponent of the “zero tolerance” policy that separated more than 4,000 children from their parents in the first Trump administration, said he will prioritize “public safety threats and national security threats” for deportation as border czar.

But Homan said foreign nationals with orders of deportation “became a fugitive,” suggesting immigrants without criminal records but with final orders of deportation would be high on the list of deportation priorities.

With Homan, Noem, Gaetz and Gabbard at the helm, I shudder at what the future portends.

But it is not like we were not warned.

I am sort of ambivalent about everything now. I believe in America and I believe in democracy and the people have spoken. They will get what they deserve. They chose to believe a man who thinks that more drilling and less renewables will make our air and water cleaner. A man who wants to get rid of the Department of Education and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and will hamstring the ballte against climate change.

The hispanics who flocked to Trump and believed and voted for him should not expect much sympathy from the rest of us when they see what it brings them in the future.

You made your bed.

King Midas In Reverse

The past week in Robertville. the continuing saga

Was a long week. Tuesday was the election and I was on the road the next morning. My wife did not win, bless her heart. Her opponent billed himself as the non woke candidate and I listened to a podcast he did on a Christian radio station. I think the religious right was really gunning for the school boards.

Unfortunate.

I am proud of her for trying and throwing her hat in the ring. 

I left at six in the morning. For some reason, my GPS told me not to take the standard 91/71/210, to instead go north on the 15. I did so but somehow missed the turn for the mile and a half jag to the 395. 

The next thing I knew I was stuck in the middle of the Mojave desert. Hesperia, Phelan, Adelanto. Oh shit, what have I done?

After a long period on the Old 395 I wondered what would happen if I just shined on the show and drove to Bishop or Mono Lake and enjoyed myself? Would the world come to an end? In any case, the show must go on and besides, I didn't bring a camera.

Next thing I know I am driving past Boron, the place where my friend Kevin was imprisoned for several years for growing a couple pot plants.

Leslie and I visited him very early on.

It was actually pretty driving across the Tehachapis on the 58 but it took about eleven hours to do it and I was pretty fried.

I checked in to the dingy Motel. 

Warmboe came by and picked me up and we had dinner at Max's.

I had their excellent broth and tasteless matzoh balls and bantered with my friend.

The next day was my birthday. 67, if you need to know. 

Either an old fossil or a spring chicken, depending on your personal vantage.

I set up my booth, only to find that they were short eight foot walls for an important dealer who was pretty finicky and rather put out.

I told them to take mine and to give me shorter ones so they didn't have to build more. 

They were very appreciative but it meant I would not have walls paper or lights in my 32' booth until the next day. 

It would be very tight making everything work in my setup, an interesting challenge.  

It usually takes me a day and a half and this was an incredibly large booth. 

I must say that henceforth on, the crew could not have been nicer.

I managed to get it all together and finish and went back to the hotel to change for my birthday dinner.

I picked a Hong Kong style Cantonese restaurant that Dave, Melissa and I had eaten at before. HL Peninsula Pearl in Burlingame.

Alyssa, Loughlin, Dave, Melissa, Paulina and Warmboe joined me. 

The food was delicious and I think it was a good choice. Lobster noodles, duck braised in blood orange, fried rice, pork chops, ginger beef, sweet and sour, we went for it.

At least one of our party was a conservative Republican and with nerves being so frayed I let word out prior to our supper that there would be no political discussion. 

We didn't miss it.

All I can say is America, you made your bed. 

You deserve everything that you are about to get. 

More politics later, if and when I am finally able. 

Matt Gaetz, Attorney General. 

Clown show. 

Really putting your best foot forward.

Next day the show opened. I had a really good day, selling five or six nice paintings. No home runs but some good sales. Hot dog.

Unfortunately, like the Palm Springs Show from ten days prior, the next day I sold very little.

Sunday was nothing. I wasn't despondent but I know that I will have to kill next week in Santa Barbara to take any financial pressure off.

Hopefully I will do okay. You never know.

My old friend Fred Salazar came by. 

He had been absent from the show scene for years. 

We used to go to blues clubs in the city after the shows in the old days. The Saloon, Slims.

I miss Fred, it was good to see him. So many people left the antique world, either by choice or on a gurney. Once we filled six rooms, now we barely make a half a room.

But the people that are left, my fellow dinosaurs, are survivors and very good at what they do. 

The only ones left.

Where is that comet again? Strike us quick.

I lost a great friend to pancreatic cancer on my birthday, Linda Wilson. 

She fought the great fight, went out on her own terms.  By the time it was diagnosed it was too late.

She was a dynamo in Fallbrook, one of the most incredible and charismatic people I have ever met.

She will be sorely missed. 

Loved her and still love her husband Peter.

I am so happy that I got the opportunity to know her and to be her friend.

*

Not much else to report. Breakfast at Christies ever morning. Another dinner or two at Max's with Bill, JP and Alyssa.

I stayed at Bill's my last night.

His place is quite a trip.

Crazy piles of this and that.

Tortured doll parts and lovely flowers and pottery.

After breakfast with Bill Monday morning I got back on the road. It still took me ten hours to return, fell asleep at a rest stop, exhausted. Drank a red bull and promptly fell asleep. This shit is getting harder and harder to do, especially three shows in four weeks.

This Fosters freeze going to seed on the 5 was about the only interesting site I saw.

If I had brought my good camera I would have wandered inside.

I got back Monday night, quite grouchy, poor Leslie. I apologize. Too much time in traffic sours my disposition.

So that's it. A decent week, some good sales, a few leads. Good food, great friends on my birthday. I am about to do something I haven't done in 39 years tomorrow. I am going to paint again, I was asked to be in a show. 

I sold a painting today. 

Tomorrow I will buy canvas and get prepared to dive in to painting again, see if I still have it. Which reminds me, this great quote was on the Fallbrook School of the Arts a few months ago. I really like it.