Link Wray

Day at the fair

My buddy Jim is Ratmaster of the 5150 Ratrod Club, which has members in two states and might be the largest club of its kind in America.

Their cars have graced the cover of Motor Trend and you could not find a nicer, more creative bunch of guys.

They design and build the cars themselves or with a little help from their buds.

He invited me to hang with the group at the fair.

It is an annual appearance for them and people love to check out their rides.

We met in a parking lot in Escondido, we would all ride in together. 

I was supposed to ride with Don but somewhere near Lake Hodges his throttle cable broke.

Snap!

Luckily, Debbie was behind us, she picked me up and Don waited for Triple A. 

Second road catastrophe in Del Dios for Lehrman, he may want to stay off that road in the future.

Anyway we all got an easy way in and everybody set up, next to the monster truck. 

Arrived about an hour before opening.

I left my chair in my car as Don said we had plenty but ended up borrowing Jim's most of the day. My left knee is really aching, thing the time for a replacement is coming soon, that is if the rest of my parts don't break first.

Walking was tough but Debbie and I decided to have a walk around.

Ran into Pinks and had to stop, their first sale of the day. 

Good hot dog.

Chased it down with an excellent corn dog soon thereafter.

My job was done there.

We went into the ag buildings and saw a wallaby at the petting zoo, some pretty cows, goats and some incredible chickens.

There were some very psychedelic looking birds.

I ran into this girl at the birds, knew I knew her!

She was our long time favorite waitress at the much missed Le Bistro restaurant, now helping her children with their poultry.

Also ran into our old friend Shiram from Roxy, the falafel guy.

We went back and found friend Ginger and we all explored the garden collection.

Just my luck, they were showing dahlias, roses and glads, my favorites.

There was a time I was planting 500 glads a year at my place. I miss the color!

Debbie and I continued over to look at the photo exhibit and find the hobby collections area, which has been moved since the last time I looked. Always loved that and the old guys that worked on the model trains which is now gone.

Collections are such a trip, from smurfs and Kiss to staplers and pencil sharpeners.

We checked out the confection contests, honestly the stuff looked good enough to eat.

Watched the monster trucks driving people around but it was a little boring, would rather watch things crashing into each other or getting a little air perhaps.

We decided to bail a little early and it was such a hassle leaving. 

Took forever, traffic nightmare. 

I toyed with the thought of bringing Leslie tomorrow but was dissuaded by the aggravation which will only get worse on the last day.

It was fun, like to thank Deb and Jim and all the 5150 guys for letting me hang out.

Happy fourth of July, everybody!

Harry Partch

Comfortably Dumb

© Robert Sommers 2026

Wallethub came out with a new survey on the most and least educated cities in America. 

They used a variety of eleven metrics including percentage per capita with high school diplomas, college experience, pubic school quality, gender gap, racial gap, etc. The most educated city in America? Ann Arbor, Michigan. The least, Visalia, California.

The report ranked Visalia at No. 150, the lowest overall rank, followed by Bakersfield at No. 147, Modesto at No. 146, Salinas at No. 145, Fresno at No. 144 and Stockton at No. 143.

The analysis compared 150 of the most populated cities in the US across various metrics including the number of adults age 25 and older with at least a bachelor's degree, quality of the public-school system, and the size of the gender education gap.

Bakersfield and Visalia are among the bottom five cities, with the lowest percentage of residents with high school diplomas and adults with college experience. The two cities have the least percentage of people who hold a bachelor's degree.

Shockingly, six of the least educated cities are right here in the Golden State of California. Sort of tarnishing our reputation.

Now I have friends and family who live in or are from these Central Valley areas and I was tempted to needle them but they are better educated then I am for the most part.

But being a political person by nature, I had another thought and question? Just who do non educated people tend to vote for?

Here's a map from the 2024 presidential election. Notice anything?

Every city on the non educated list is located in a county that voted predominately red. Coincidence? Right. Of course, pollsters have long known that Trump polled best with uneducated white males and this area of dumbfuckistan has them in spades and takes great pride in that ignorance.

Now I am sure that contrarians will blame or assign these results to the hispanic farm workers that are employed in the area and hurting the curve. And it is one thing to employ them to slave in your fields and another to let their children go to your kid's schools, I get that.

But I don't think that explains the voting pattern, in any case. Contrary to what many people would lead you to believe, undocumented farm workers aren't voting. Perhaps we should look at religion?

Notice anything? Lots of overlay. Keep them stupid and in church and you can get them to vote anyway you want to.

Dylan's new guitar player

Caridad

I have been at the art and antiques game for a very long time. In all humility I would like to say that I have a pretty good batting average when it comes to sizing up inventory. I would have to to stay in business for all this time.

But do I make mistakes? You bet I do. All the time. No one bats a thousand. Unfortunately the strikeouts hurt a lot worse than the doubles or triples feel good. You are supposed to win.

However, if you don't have an occasional failure you are probably playing the thing a little too tight. You just move on to the next thing or hope that you will live long enough for another poor soul to eventually relieve you of the item and take it off your hands. You keep swinging the bat.

The reason I mention this is that I got called to an old San Diego estate yesterday to look at some inventory that will be coming up for sale. I don't get a lot of calls like this from other dealers and I went partly out of appreciation.

It was not my finest hour. I bought eight or nine things and now in retrospect, the great majority look very foolish to have been purchased. I got caught up and overpaid a little but did not do significant damage to my bankroll.

A couple things might prove okay when they are restored so the jury is still out on the whole affair. Hopefully can get my money back or maybe even make a little.

I bought a lovely English drawing by James Seymour (1702-1752) that should be magnificent if I can manage to clean it properly. 

I sold one of the pieces this morning, a historical photograph and made a small profit out of a client's generosity so I am 1/8th there.

One of the other things I bought was this print by Francisco de Goya (1746-1828), Caridad.  

This translates to charity in English.

This is part of Goya's Disasters of War series and was originally pulled in 1810. 

It is the 27th plate in the series. It was made by etching, wash, drypoint, burin and burnishing. 

From the Goya en Aragon Foundation:

In the state tests, a gradual softening of the musculature of the corpses being thrown into the mass grave can be observed.

The title of the print was handwritten by Goya on the first and only known series at the time of its creation, which the painter gave to his friend Agustín Ceán Bermúdez. The title was subsequently engraved on the plate without any modification, based on Ceán Bermúdez's copy, for the first edition of The Disasters of War, printed by the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid in 1863.

A preparatory drawing is preserved in the Prado National Museum.

I love Goya and have sold one or two for significant money in the past at auction. I thought that this print might save me from my ineptitude. 

But when I brought it out of the car I flipped it over and saw this sticker. 

Holy Hannah, my print is from Sears and Roebuck?

Robert, you idiot, you've done it again. Just what you need, more junk.

No snatching victory from the jaws of defeat this time.

But wait, not so fast. I started doing a little research.

Perhaps this is not so bad.

This comes from the Vincent Price collection, a true renaissance man and like Edward G. Robinson and Andy Williams, a true lover of art and antiquities.

It turns out that Vincent Price was buying real art and real prints for this venture with Sears, Roebuck & Co.

Sears’ plan was ambitious. By all accounts, Price was handed a blank check for The Vincent Price Collection of Fine Art, which was intended to attract both millionaires and factory workers. An accomplished connoisseur and collector, Price already had contacts in the art world and was given carte blanche to choose the works for the initial collection.

The Vincent Price Collection opened in Denver on October 6th, 1962 to great success. The collection included paintings, prints and other works by the likes of Rembrandt, Chagall, Whistler and many contemporary artists of the day. There was a watercolor by Andrew Wyeth, a drawing by Picasso and a painting by Salvador Dali commissioned by Price specifically for the opening.

Vincent Price - 1955 (check out the Mesa Verde mugs)

There are various stories about Price's involvement with Sears. I am not sure what to believe about the value of this print. It sold originally I believe for $35.00.

I talked to a fellow art dealer, he said that I might be okay with this particular print. He has seen the Price prints before. I know that there were five printings. I will take it out of frame and look for a palmetto watermark, if it has it it will help the cause greatly.

If not I will move on to the next thing. I am looking at another collection tomorrow.

I will let you know how this one turns out.

*

I had some bad UTI symptoms the other night and took an anti-biotic. I talked to my doctor and she said that I couldn't do chemo tomorrow, that I had screwed up the test metrics. Consensually we have now decided to stop further treatment until September. I will have three more infusions at that time.

I didn't want to go into Santa Barbara and New Mexico feeling like I was going to die, remember I checked myself into the hospital last year without chemo.

I look forward to feeling normal again soon, in fact I feel better already. Free from the poison.

Neil

Home front

I just had a strange epiphany. I have been live streaming my life to you for going on nineteen years. How very strange. What possessed me? What the hell, too late to stop now.

My wife is visiting kin back east. So I have the ranch to myself and a list of various tasks that I have to accomplish to keep the motor running here. Damn, she does a lot. She stayed up until three in the morning the day before she left so I would have clean clothes. Bless her.

I watered the hay line this morning, she had already ran all the other sets, watered the flowers, fed the cats, fed the birds, did everything but clean the catbox, which I hate doing and am saving for last. The best parts.

Marriage is somewhat of a compromise, as we all know. You stop doing things you might enjoy if your partner does not favor them. Due to the cancer drug, I have not had an appetite this week, a quite unfamiliar feeling for me. 

I decided to make myself a couple soft boiled eggs. And I realized that I haven't made hard or soft boiled eggs in over thirty years because my wife doesn't like them. She likes her eggs scrambled.

So I did. Showed my newfound liberation. Didn't do the best cracking job on the eggs but hey, I am out of practice. In a further show of my independence I am going to not shave today. If I can stand it anyway.

I am staying home today, continuing to recharge the battery. 

Want to take a short walk around the place?

I took a little tour of the property this morning and noticed some things. I have several trees that have tried to commit suicide repeatedly over the last thirty something years. But they just keep coming back. 

Like this mimosa tree. 

It has split at least twice in the past but now is getting a classical asian flat top canopy shape.

Same with the Chinese pistache. 

Survivors.

Has split so many times I can't count but always comes back looking beautiful, although it is not in its most presentable form right now.

Sort of like me.

Ranch is in various states of entropy but holding together and I still really enjoy it.

Leslie does most of the work and our arborist Todd helps.

Not a fashion plate but we aren't trying to impress anybody either.

An old house and an old ranch but it is home and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

The lemon tree is a beaut and has a most unusual squat and sprawling shape but man does it bear fruit.

What else?

I stuck these epiphytes on the old butia capitata about thirty five years ago, can't even begin to see the trunk now.

I get quite the incredible cereus flower show throughout the year but man it must be a lot of weight to carry.

A true symbiotic relationship.

Here's an old pic of Leslie standing beneath its boughs.

The plant is getting crowded out below by another plant which I love and my wife can't stand.

"Why does everything you buy to plant have sharp points?"

My bromeliad ballensae.

It is blooming again. 

It is a green plant sitting there minding its own business and then one day it wakes up with a red center and then starts growing this enormous and beautiful center flower spike.

This plant is taking over and it is large, about five or six foot wide. 

It loves my shady habitat, underneath the butia and a fuerte tree with a really nice fruit set right now.

How could I remove something so beautiful?

I was fixated on this one and didn't notice that the plant next to it was even farther along.

The peppermint stripe center flower will continue to grow and it is pretty magnificent.

Anyway we need to make it over to the bird feeders now.

The birds here live a plush existence.

Leslie puts out quite a buffet.

Peanuts for the scrub jays, nijer for the lesser goldfinches, seed for the house finches, grape jelly for the orioles and sunflower seeds for everybody else.

It was quite a day today.

I had the California thrasher stop by with his long beak, very terrestrial, always good to see him. 

A rare sighting for me anyway of a brown headed cowbird, actually a very pretty bird with its blue base.

We have a huge resident covey of quail, they were there. Bushtits, scrubjays, grosbeaks, finches, California towhees, no spotted towhees today but they have been around of late.

All these guys.

We have at least two mature male hooded orioles living in the Washingtonia palm with a female. 

They are always pretty furtive but getting less squeamish than they once were.

Still there is a definite pecking order at the feeder and these small birds know their place and tread lightly.

They wait for the bullies and pigs to eat, the scrub jays and doves.

I was just complaining that we never get bullocks orioles at the feeder although I see them in the wild and an immature male visited this morning.

I just had to ask!

Anyway, that's the tour, going to take a nap, you should too,