Hail Hydra

It was a tough night for me (and for many in our nation) and looks like it will be one of the worst birthdays imaginable, for a variety of reasons that I don't feel the need to un-peel here.

But I bet that they are popping champagne corks in Moscow, and in Pyongyang too for that matter. 

All hail the new world order!

And please for those responsible, down the road, own this one. It is on you.

The Things I Do For You

I have seen a lot of great music in my life and I feel lucky. But you think of the ones that got away... I never got to see Jim Morrison or Hendrix. Ditto Janis or Otis. The Beatles. Alas, I am too young. Never saw Van Ronk or Fred Neil either. Or Prine.

But I did get to see Mose Allison. And Duane Allman when practically no one knew who he was. And Howling Wolf. And Lightning Hopkins. Elizabeth Cotton and Fred McDowell. Steve Goodman, Michael Bloomfield and Grace Slick. Chambers Brothers. Big Mama Thornton. Arthur Lee and Love, many times. The debut of Thick as a brick. Lee Michaels, Buffalo Springfield. The Cream reunion in New York. The Rolling Stones with Stevie Wonder for Mick's birthday at the Garden in 72.

One of the greatest performers I was ever able to hear was one Jr. Walker and the All Stars at the Belly-Up. God bless him, he was one of a kind. No one could blow the sax like Junior.

Population Puppets

There's an interesting phenomenon happening globally, the birthrate is falling dramatically in industrialized countries. This is creating havoc because all economic systems, like here in the USA, depend on younger people to bear the economic brunt of the effects of an aging populace. Social Security and Medicare programs all work by putting pressure on the young to support the old and infirm. 

And now all of these childless cat ladies are throwing a real wrench in the system.

Countries are dealing with the problem in different ways. I had to laugh recently when Russia told its citizens that they needed to make more babies. The country recorded its lowest birth rate in the past 25 years for the first six months of 2024, according to official data published this September.

When the workers asked when all this shtupping was to take place, already feeling beleaguered by long workdays, they were told to go home and screw on their lunch breaks.

The birth rate "is now at a terribly low level—1.4 [births per woman]," Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in July, according to AFP. "This is comparable to European countries, Japan and so on. But this is disastrous for the future of the nation."

Putin has previously stated the importance of boosting the nation's birth rate and population, saying that "the preservation of the Russian people is our highest national priority."

Health Minister Yevgeny Shestopalov said Russians should "engage in procreation on breaks" during a recent appearance on Russian national television, according to The Mirror.

He told an interviewer that there was no reason why Russians shouldn't attempt to conceive during the work day.

"Being very busy at work is not a valid reason, but a lame excuse," he said. "You can engage in procreation during breaks, because life flies by too quickly."

Asked when people who work 12 to 14-hour days would have time to procreate, Shestopalov replied: "During break times."

China is in a similar crisis. They have had shrinking birthrate numbers for three years in a row. The country that once instituted a one child policy is now encouraging people to have three. The numbers haven't been so bad since Mao engaged in his reign of terror against his own citizenry.

The total number of people in China dropped by 2.75 million – or 0.2% – to 1.409 billion in 2023, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday. The drop surpassed that recorded in 2022, of about 850,000 – the first time the recorded population had declined since the mass deaths of the Mao-era famines.

In 2023, total deaths rose 6.6% to 11.1 million, with the death rate reaching the highest level since the chaos of the cultural revolution in 1974. At the same time, new births fell 5.7% to 9.02 million. The birthrate was the lowest ever recorded at 6.39 births per 1,000 people, down from a rate of 6.77 births in 2022.

China has for years been battling trends that have led to an ageing population, which were driven by past policies of population control –including the one-child policy – and a growing reluctance among young adults to have children. In 2023 it was overtaken by India as the world’s most populous nation, according to UN estimates.

Chinese officials fear the impact that this “demographic timebomb” could have on the economy, with the rising costs of aged care and financial support in danger of not being met by a shrinking population of working taxpayers. The state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences has predicted the pension system in its current form will run out of money by 2035. By then the number of people in China above 60 years old – the national retirement age – will have increased from about 280 million to 400 million.

Japan is also struggling with an aging population problem. It has the highest percentage of people over the age of 65 in the world. But in an artistic sense at least, one town, Ichinono, has come up with the most elegant solution to not having people around - make puppets to take their place.

Read this article, very cool.

With most of the population gone, residents of one village in Japan have come up with a novel plan to make it less lonely — replacing people with puppets.

Fewer than 60 people live in Ichinono, and most of them are past retirement age as younger people have moved away for jobs or education.

So, using old clothes, fabrics and mannequins, residents have stitched together their own population of puppets to keep them company.

Some of puppets ride swings, others push firewood carts, smiling eerily at visitors.

“We’re probably outnumbered by puppets,” Hisayo Yamazaki, an 88-year-old widow, told the Agence France-Presse news agency.

Incredible photos by the AFP/Getty's Philip Fong.

I know many people who have led full and remarkable lives and chose not to procreate. My wife and I made that decision as well and I am glad that we did, my cancer causing such turmoil and uncertainty in my life and not wanting to put children through that.

With all the trauma, environmental degradation and existential angst present in our world, I understand why many people no longer want to leap into parenthood, biological clocks and species survival notwithstanding.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the U.S. is also at a historic low fertility speaking. And what is the only thing keeping the population number steady?

Immigration.

Egads, can this be true? The conservative bogeyman might be our only salvation? Say it ain't so, Joe. Of course, we don't want any of those poisonous, inferior genes from third world countries, however nordic models and psychotic capitalists from South Africa are acceptable.

And there is another factor at work or at play here. Go to any jobsite, at least in my corner of the United States and see who is working construction?

Latinos.

Not white kids, they don't get their hands dirty anymore and they don't like to show up for work. Manual labor is beneath them. I worked construction from a laborer and electrician to superintendent and project manager before I had my own company, I did every shit job imaginable.

But kids for some reason would rather live their parents until they are forty these days and not sully themselves with hard or dirty work.

So when the new Trump regime gets rolling and starts with the mass deportations they may want to ask themselves how they are planning to pick the fields and build the houses, cook the food and get their geriatric asses wiped.

Because there may not be anybody left to do it.

Let's bring back polio

 

Many of us, on either side of the political equation, are stressed out by the coming election. Unfortunately, the problem we have is really not with our leaders, it is with each other. So, after Tuesday, the ongoing culture war will continue.

No matter what happens, the chasm between us is so wide, the demonization so great, and the absence of a middle ground so palpable that we are guaranteed to have four more years of political misery.

Why? Well, we have gone through this before but it bears repeating. The twin political silos make so much money on their partisan slants that they can't afford to offend their readership and be neutral and objective. 

Every syllable on Fox is uttered in order to fulfill a prior scripted frame, the Dems are evil and I suppose Democracy Now is similar on the other pole of the equation. 

Once upon a time, we worked together, on both sides of the aisle. Hatch and Kennedy, Rudman, the Concord Coalition, we managed to achieve something for our country and rise above politics. No more. This largely ended with Clinton. From Bush II on, it was ram it through through with sheer political muscle. Obama was as bad as Bush and it got worse from there. 

We are completely polarized. And now a Donald Trump can bitch about immigration and pretend to forget that he killed a bi-partisan fix because he didn't want to see it accomplished on Biden's watch. Great country we have here, filled with imbeciles.

Not garbage per se, just low information dunces who are perfectly content to accept cockamamie conspiracy theories because they no longer have the faculties to process critical information, if they ever did.

And that, unfortunately, is not going to change.

*

Hungary's Victor Orban is joining his friend Trump in calling for no more war in Ukraine. Which really means total capitulation and letting a murderous aggressor win and take its neighbors land.

Fine world we live in.

*

Interesting article. Not content merely to control women's ovaries, we are going to make it impossible for women in shitty or abusive relationships to leave their husbands too.

Vance has been outspoken in his disdain for divorce and has blamed it for what he characterizes as the breakdown in the American family. During an event at a California Christian high school three years ago, he claimed that Americans can obtain divorces too easily, shifting "spouses like they change their underwear," and suggested they should remain in unhappy marriages for children's sake. 

“This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is the idea that like, ‘well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally, you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy. And so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that’s going to make people happier in the long term,’” Vance said in a video published by Vice, arguing that the children of those failed marriages bear the brunt of the split.  

Autumn Leaves for cello and piano

Pangenome

 

New evolutionary discovery, the pangenome.

In simple terms, the pangenome is the complete set of all genes found within a species.

It includes every gene present in all the different strains or individuals, covering both the common genes shared by everyone (the core genome) and the unique ones found only in some (the accessory genome).

So even though individual members might have different genetic makeups, the pangenome represents the full genetic diversity that the species has.

...they discovered an invisible ecosystem where genes either get along or clash with each other, making evolution unpredictable.

“These interactions between genes make aspects of evolution somewhat predictable and furthermore, we now have a tool that allows us to make those predictions,” added Dr. Domingo-Sananes.

More on the human pangenome here. 

Billy Strings

Shanky Saturday

So these two gigantic lamb shanks have been sitting in our freezer for like, forever. 

Fred Flintstone could have rolled his car over with one of these bronto babies on the window sill.

We bought them at the beloved and greatly missed TipTop Meats to cook for Stan and Tracy in La Jolla but never got around to it and let's face it, neither we or the lamb shanks were getting any younger.

So we had a change of plan, we would cook steaks down there instead, which would not require the dutch oven or three hours of work in a kitchen that practically has never been used.

The appointed night for the shank's consumption was tonight. 

I came home early, browned these ungulate behemoths, then prepped the usual accompanying vegetables, added a nice jammy red wine from Portugal, beef broth, tomatoes and a host of seasoning and got down to cooking. Or should I say braising? 350 degrees in the oven for two and a half hours, turned them an hour in.

I was going to make a polenta but decided there was already too much food and that it wasn't necessary. 

I sort of followed Chef Billy Parisi's recipe.

I have made shanks quite a few times but this time I removed the lamb and big chunky vegetables to a platter at the 2:30 mark and strained the liquid in a sieve.

I cooked down the liquid for about twelve minutes at high heat and made a thicker sauce, added a bit of corn starch and flour. 

Leslie came home and plated the dinner and poured the extremely tasty sauce on top.

Pretty outrageously good.

Grateful Dead 5-31-92

Well, Phil is gone and I haven't played any dead music in a while so here goes. The second set of this show was one of my favorite later era dead shows. Tune in around 2:16:19, The Attics of my life, Spoonful > Other One > Morning Dew was inspired and powerful as was the encore.

I was thinking about a good other one for Phil and this is one of my very favorites.

We always baked in Vegas, in more ways than one, it was incredibly hot but it was also a beautiful venue with the long desert sight lines and occasional storms. Very treasured moments for me. Dosed to the gills, of course.

I went to Vegas every year until Jerry passed, not sure which year this pic is from but I think Julie Bowers took the shot.

Thank you, for a real good time. 💀

Bird of a feather

I saw a merlin in the river valley the other day. 

The merlin (falco columbarius) is our second smallest raptor in the area, the only thing smaller is a kestrel. I have never seen one here before.

But you will have to take my word for it because I didn't have my camera and had to make the capture with my cellphone.

That doesn't work too well.

The merlin is not endangered but it is rare to see one.

I texted Beth and sent her the pic and she told me that I had probably seen an osprey.

I'm like, gimmee a break, I have hundreds of merlin pictures and way more osprey shots and I do know what they look like.

This was a small falcon, but not a kestrel.

Here is a picture of the first merlin I ever got a shot of, up at San Jacinto.

Really lovely little raptors, very distinctive.

Here is a kestrel.

Very different.

And here is an osprey, in case you forgot. Or a pair of them, rather.

I dare say, not even close.

So I stand by what I saw, a merlin. 

I am told that we once had kites in the river valley and when I moved here forty four years ago I knew where there was a golden eagle nest upriver, past Morgan Springs. Can't get up there anymore, everything has been gated off.

I don't have a lot of things that bring me joy anymore. I don't touch my guitar, stopped doing martial arts decades ago and never get to the beach. Stopped playing blackjack and can't afford Hawaii.

Life has got me in a headlock.

One of the things that makes me happy is getting out and taking pictures of birds and I have been so busy trying to survive and have a go of things that I haven't had my camera out in about three months.

I understand that even the birds are worrying about me.

"Where the heck is he?"

We all have to survive, and create joy in our lives. 

Hopefully I will make it back out to my raptors soon.

James Taylor

Fall Modernism

Palm Springs Modernism started out with a bang for me and ended in a whimper. Better than a total bust but I had high hopes after a rocking opening. Ended up doing nothing on Saturday except drinking bloody mary's and had one small sale on Sunday.

Oh well!

My booth partner Steve and I looked like brothers with our matching bolos, a tradition for him.

I think we had a nice looking booth.

Steve needs to get a lower center of gravity...

Unfortunately the Fall Show never draws the same crowds or has the same gravitas as the February. And a rival promoter decided to put his own Modernism show on in Los Angeles the very same weekend, which did not help at all.

Rosemary says the gate was the same and I believe her but a lot of my buyers did not show up, probably decided to stay home and watch the Dodger game! 

I put overflow material in her booth and I appreciate her letting me do so.

*

One of the cool things at the show was that Lawrence Schiller was exhibiting. Schiller is a five time Emmy winning producer, filmmaker and photographer and he was showing some incredibly iconic images.

He was signing books and telling stories and I wish that I had had more time to chat. He was friends with Leary and Alpert, Kleps and Hitchcock and he told me that his 1966 book on the deleterious effects of LSD helped to criminalize the substance. 

I told him that I had had mostly smooth sailing.

He had some really stunning pieces, very fairly priced.

A legend.

*

Crowd was a bit subdued this year but still fun.

I have three more days around here and then the fun starts again while I go up north to do Hillsborough.

Hiding Out

Bobby's Eats

Still on my new fried rice jag, I made barbecued pork fried rice 炒飯 last night. I still had cooked rice leftovers that Leslie had made the other night in the fridge.

I was down at Ranch 99 is San Diego and decided to get something to eat.

I was buying chili oil but decided to eat some xiao long bao and to buy some of their barbecued pork to take home. 

It was hard to find the chili oil Leslie wanted because she wants the stuff cut with sesame oil as opposed to soybean, grapeseed or canola.

Preferably organic and non GMO.

Very tough to find, even at Ranch 99. 

This blend, La Yu, was as close as I could get. 

Sesame oil, but as my wife pointed out, still a blend with corn oil.

Small and expensive. Need to find an alternative.

I bought the pork from the deli counter, probably should have gone to Sam Wo's next door instead but next time!

When dinner time approached, I prepped broccoli, garlic, ginger, carrots, cabbage and celery. 

I took out my trusty red skillet, got it super hot and fried them in the peanut/sesame chili oil. Added red pepper flakes. Salt and pepper.

Then I added my rice and really let it cook and get toasted and crunchy.

I diced the char sui pork and added that to the mix along with a healthy dose of soy sauce.

I then added two eggs whisked up with a little sesame chili oil to the basin I had created in the center of my pan.

This dish gets really messy, especially not having a proper sized wok. 

Always a big cleanup job in the kitchen! 

Stuff flying everywhere...

So, same deal as before, I let the eggs cook and after scrambling them with a chopstick, then mixed it all in. 

We had talked about adding cashews but didn't have any and used cilantro peanuts instead, which were delicious and added a great  "woody" component to the flavor set.

We topped the dish off with a few splashes of sweet Thai hot sauce. 

Not real pretty, but definitely delicious, pretty in the stomach.

Next I will try shrimp or crab, haven't decided yet. 

Fried rice is definitely a welcome new addition to my culinary quiver.

It is a relatively quick meal and so easy to make.

You can practically throw anything you want that is sitting around lonely in your vegetable bin and it will work.

Wish you could smell it through the computer.

Leslie says that she liked the broccoli in the fried rice better than the sugar snaps, liked the pork and duck dishes equally well.

It's all good.

*

p.s. My great friend Doug Garn in New York, who I have known for over 48 years, wrote me recently and said that I was his personal Anthony Bourdain and that he would just like to eat with me for three days. I feel honored with the compliment.

*

Halloween fare at Fallbrook Donuts.

The Stranglers

Thursday Blur

The problem with stupidity is that stupid people are too stupid to recognize it. Speaking as a dummy of course. * We changed coffee shops after a new owner, several days of the cook not showing up, shitty coffee and a lot of crappy attitude all of a sudden on the part of the staff. Now we are crammed together at the donut shop but at least the coffee is better and cheaper and the vibes are better. * We were talking about a 21st century problem this morning, what do you do with the people who have died in your phone's contact list? To a man, we keep them, denuding their names would be disloyal to their memories. I started counting, made it to C, lot of folks passed over but still alive on my iPhone. * Howard Lutnick, Trump's campaign transition co-chair, wants to pull vaccines off the market, made all sorts of false claims. not covid, all vaccines. these people are truly dangerous, will cause children to die. What a schmuck. * I watched the Unauthorized American Gladiators documentary on Netflix last night. It was very interesting, talk about ripping off the help and leaving them hurt. Samuel Goldwyn Jr., you were a jerk and a disgrace to your tribe. * When is Mike Tyson going to kick Jake Paul's butt? Can't be too soon. * Aztec Basketball is back. Last night was the first exhibition game, I think it will be another great year even with all the new bodies. * Michael Flynn wants Trump to declare victory before the results are in. Isn't democracy a beautiful thing? * Trump and Johnson once again want to get rid of Obamacare so that insurers can go back to charging ridiculous money to high risk patients or people with pre-existing conditions. Trump had a whole term to do this of course, but could never even get a bill through a Republican Senate. Good luck.* Deport illegal immigrant Musk. * Back to pickin' cotton.

Comments revisited

I have been getting a lot of feedback about people not able to post comments. I took the anonymous function off when the trolls got out of hand and got hateful. My blog, my rules.

It has been a while. I will reset it and see if people are better behaved or now have the courtesy to sign their comments.

If not, I will ixnay it once again.

Guy Clark

Sing out for Linda!

I have an amazing cousin I have never actually met in person. 

Her name is Linda and she sometimes comments on the blog. 

I believe that she is eighty years old. We met through our dna research, she is related on my mom's side, the site says first cousin 1x removed.

Linda lives in Massachusetts, but our family is originally from Rhode Island. She used to own a restaurant in Lenox.

We share a lot of the same passions, one being folk music and the other our politics, which must be baked in genetically.

I believe that she was sort of married once to a guy with a bluegrass band, the Grass Menagerie. It's a long story and I am not going to get into it.

She is so kind that she recently sent me her collected editions of Broadside Magazine, which she has had since 1962.

Broadside is sort of like a bible of folk music.

These songbooks she sent me cover everybody from Woody to Phil Ochs, Zimmy, the whole shebang.

And not content to gifting me these, she sent me a box of vintage Singout magazines as well.  Singout is even older, it started in 1950.

Whenever I hear from Linda I can't help but think of my older sister Liz, who shares much with her cousin. Liz lives in Virginia, I wish they would take the time to get in touch with each other. 

They both had very similar and rather eccentric orbits and are both very smart. Both love country music as did my late mother.

Make it happen, girls!

烧鸭炒饭 Shao Ya Chao Fan - Robert's duck fried rice

I had to pick up a painting in San Diego the other day and decided to have dim sum at Jasmine on the way back. 

Good but expensive. 

I love to get there as soon as it opens, the food is very hot and fresh.

I only got four things but it turned out that I had ordered too much food and brought back roast pork and roast duck to share with Leslie.

Leslie ate the pork but we had a lot of duck left so I decided to make duck fried rice last night.

We loved the duck fried rice we used to get at Thai thai and I thought I would make something similar but a bit more Cantonese in flavor.

I know the dish sounds simple but as a beginning cook it was new to me. 

I made up a recipe that I thought might work.

I don't own a wok so I used my trusty Le Creuset skillet.

I bought an extra duck breast at Major Market and sliced it up after thawing. 

I prepped all my vegetables in advance, knew I had to to work fast.

I put a tablespoon of peanut oil in the pan, added chili flakes and gave the duck a quick sear in my very hot pan, then removed it to a plate.

I then added finely minced carrots, celery, sugar snap peas, ginger and lots of sliced garlic to the hot oil and duck fat, then cooked it down for about three or four minutes. 

We do not use onion in our home but we do use onion powder and I gave it a dash. 

Salt and pepper. Squeeze of lemon.

We have some sesame oil from Hong Kong infused with chili, added that and a healthy dose of soy sauce.

I had made rice the night before in preparation and added that along with the dim sum and the new duck breast. 

By the way, you never want to use freshly cooked rice. I used a long grained basmati but jasmine is also good.

I let the rice fry for a few minutes and then made a well in the middle of the dish with my spatula. Many recipes call for two eggs, I whisked up one and poured it into the center of the pan, letting it cook and then spreading it around with a chopstick to scramble.

I mixed everything up and achieved something that looked like this. 

Added another dollop of soy and sesame oil and then chili crisps on top of the serving bowls.

It was delicious, Leslie says even better than the restaurant.  

The duck fat really lends itself to the rice. 

Honestly I wouldn't change a thing with the exception that next time I will let the rice cook a little longer in the cast iron and get even crunchier.

Leslie says that I should cut the sugar snaps in half. 

Will do.

I have a lot of rice left over as well as leftovers. 

I am thinking that I will try crab or pork fried rice next, see what happens.

慢用！