Monday Morning Melange

Saw this guy playing his unplugged electric guitar in the middle of the road in Murrieta the other day. Oh, my kingdom for an outlet.

We had a really nice weekend. Good day in our respective shops on saturday. Leslie and I got up at four yesterday morning, drove up to the Rose Bowl for the swap meet (where we cut our teeth in the business) and it was like old home week.

I go maybe once a year and Leslie even less frequently, but we saw a million friends and managed to score some neat stuff.

I found a 1963 Frank Patania Sr. silver and turquoise belt buckle from the New Mexico State Fair Commission. Then Rick Pettiford and I bought a large Roycroft chair.  I went across the river and got a really nice trench art vase and an Archibald Knox tudric bomb or bullet vase from another guy who didn't bother to research the marks. Ran into Eliot from New York there and just tons of other folks and I sat down and even played a little guitar with Dane Heller.  Sorry we couldn't hook up for lunch Eliot. Hope you can make it to the shop one day.

We cruised over to the greatest mexican restaurant on the planet, La Cabanita in Montrose and had sopas and chuletas and read the Los Angeles Times while drinking the excellent coffee. It really doesn't get any better than that.

Speaking of the times, we got the first installment yesterday of Robert Hilburn's interview regarding his new book. Quite fascinating stuff on John Lennon, a very personal view.  Most fans of the genre are aware of the competition between the Beatles and the Stones, with the Stones tending to pillage and copy the fabs every move, and Lennon's disparaging remarks about Mick Jagger are pretty hilarious.

Also Lennon's reverence for Elvis and recollections of their meeting and Elvis's nervousness are recounted. Talk about different paradigms connecting.  I think that Elvis had the best male voice of the last fifty years, with Dean Martin a close second.  I was listening to Elvis Radio on Sirius this morning and can't remember the tune, but a song from 1968 was playing and the jazz guitar sound just knocked me out. Such a great band. And he displayed a physicality that few others shared.  Otis Redding, Mick, who else?

I have just finished a great book on Vietnam, Patrick Hearden's The Tragedy of Vietnam.  There are so many corollaries to the current situation in the middle east, I can't even begin to express.  But one thing that struck me was how lame the South Vietnamese ARVN seemed compared to their crafty and motivated foes, the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong.

And I get the same feeling when I see the Taliban daringly march in to the Pakistani Army Headquarters and take hostages. Makes you feel really secure about Pakistani Nuclear armaments. But why do our local allies always look and perform like the gang that couldn't shoot straight? When their countrymen are so crafty?

We went to Ted and Sandy's Golden California Antique Show after breakfast. Along with Eric Berg, these guys have really put together a beautiful show with very fine dealers in paintings, prints, monterey furniture, mission, early california, the whole enchilada.  Sandy even let us get in for nothing. Saw more friends than I can even name, the show looks better every year. Diane Keaton was there, and Byron and Jill Crawford, Roger Genser, Robert Bijou. Terry S. and Jan and Bill Warmboe. Danny V. and Theresa. And the really great thing was I could just leave and not have to worry about breaking down, and smiling and being nice
and all that shit.

Terry Schurmeier told me that her son, who lives in New Mexico, saw me in a restaurant in Fallbrook ranting and raving at somebody and remarked that I was a bit scary. Felt the same way at the show. Perceptive kid. She penned a new name for me, the Jewminator.

Got a great mass email from Michael Grimes, the Del Mar promoter the other day.  He thinks it would have been nice if someone had let him know that his jewelry appraiser was suspected of theft.  They caught the guy red handed up in Temecula. Always thought the culprit was a good egg. Big expose in Collector Magazine this month.

Speaking of thieves, someone reached into Leslie's helper Cher's purse at the store on Friday and helped themselves to her wallet, which police returned missing money the next day. It had been thrown on somebody's front yard. Leslie thinks she knows who the culprits were, two young girls.

The weather in Southern California lately has been so perfect.  About a week to 10 days ago, fall arrived, with chilly nights and gorgeous days and a beautiful October full moon.  Hear tell it was the brightest of the year.  Used to meet my spiritual advisor in New York on October full moons. Strange. It just happened.

Business has continued to be brisk and I am starting to enjoy life without a boot on my windpipe. Hope that things go well for all of us. Saw an article about some very normal people who have lost their jobs and are now living under bridges. And something in the WSJ about the experiment in credit democratization being officially over. And Lloyd Blankfein at Goldman doesn't feel the least bit guilty. I think that Paulson, Geithner et.al. should be ashamed and might even consider public suicide like they used to do in Japan. They have strengthened the big guys and let everyone else sink.  And the big guys aren't doing much lending, just eating the smaller prey. Absurd and disgusting.

The mayans say that the doomsday hippies don't know what they are talking about and that they have calendars that extend to like 4775. Whew, that was close!

The San Diego Chargers are going to beat the unbeaten Denver Broncos next week. Not close, I am talking serious ass kicking. Go bet on it, right now.