You're a big girl now

Holy Mack'rel

For a guy who pretends to know it all, I have some remarkably wide holes in my knowledge base. There is a smart rabbi from San Jose named Reuven Goldstein on Linkedin who offers very interesting historical posts and I saw this one the other day that got me to thinking.

My first thought was wondering if I had it all wrong and if the fish on Friday deal for the Catholics could have been a later invention than I had surmised. On second reading it made more sense.

These people were fleeing the inquisition in Iberia and merely bringing one of the customs of the old Catholic culture with them.

So when did the fish on Friday thing start? Supposedly in the first century b.c.e.

This article says that Jesus died on a Friday and he was a warm blooded animal so we don't eat warm blooded animals. Fish live in cold water so they are cold blooded so they are okay to eat.

Here is the original article at NPR.

Fish are coldblooded, so they're considered fair game. "If you were inclined to eat a reptile on Friday," Foley tells The Salt, "you could do that, too."

Alas, Christendom never really developed a hankering for snake. But fish — well, they'd been associated with sacred holidays even in pre-Christian times. And as the number of meatless days piled up on the medieval Christian calendar — not just Fridays but Wednesdays and Saturdays, Advent and Lent, and other holy days — the hunger for fish grew. Indeed, fish fasting days became central to the growth of the global fishing industry. But not because of a pope and his secret pact.

And what else did they eat? Herring. I got news for you, my ancestors ate it too, once it was pickled. 

At first, says Fagan, Christians' religious appetite was largely met with herring, a fish that was plentiful but dry and tasteless when smoked or salted. And preservation was a must in medieval times: There was no good way for fresh fish to reach the devout masses. Eventually, cod became all the rage — it tasted better when cured and it lasted longer, too.

U.S. Catholic has a slightly different take on the subject , more religious in tone, which reaches back to Genesis in the Hebrew Bible.

Christians have fasted (gone without food) and abstained (gone without certain foods, especially meat) since the beginning. The Book of Genesis teaches that all the plants and animals that God created and entrusted to human beings are good, especially those given to us as food (Genesis 1:29). Jesus taught that nothing that a person eats makes him or her evil (Mark 7:18). So why then do Christians fast and abstain?When the devil tempts Jesus in the desert with a comfortable life and a full stomach, Jesus recalls the wisdom of Deuteronomy: “One does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (8:3). Fasting and abstaining makes this real. It also hones our appetite, training us for the basic stance of a baptized person in this world:  gratitude. Doesn’t something taste better once you’ve truly hungered for it? Aren’t we more grateful for what we’ve hungered and thirsted for?Jesus recommended fasting, but not as a mere formality—and certainly not as a burden to be imposed on the poor who have to eat when they can, even if in violation of religious tradition. Instead Jesus recommended fasting when one fails to sense that God is near.The practice of eating fish is related to the day we typically abstain from meat: Friday. This is the day that Christ died, so abstaining from the shedding (and consuming) of blood seems appropriate. Friday, the sixth day, was also the day that God created animals, so abstaining from meat is a symbolic “stay of execution” for cows, pigs, and sheep—just as the cross saves us from eternal death.

So the Jews and the Catholics were down with the fish thing. What about the Protestants? Glad you asked. You probably know that Henry VIII started the Anglican Church when the Pope would not let him become Catholic because of all the divorces. 

Henry jumped gills first into the fish on Friday thing. Made it the law in fact.

Henry ascended the throne in 1509, fish dominated the menu for a good part of the year. As one 15th century English schoolboy lamented in his notebook: "Though wyll not beleve how werey I am off fysshe, and how moch I desir to that flesch were cum in ageyn."

So now back to the kids. Their tradition predates so many Christian ones, were they eating Fish on Friday too, before the previously mentioned Portuguese started the fish and chips craze in England?

Well, that's a good question. I found this on a Jewish site.

It is the custom of Jewish communities to eat fish on Friday night. Fish are seen as animals that are protected from the evil eye, since they live in the water and cannot be seen from outside the water.
Another explanation attributes the custom of eating fish to the fact that the eyes of the fish- as opposed to other animals- are always open, which is an indication to Devine Providence.
An interesting midrash states that in the desert the people of Israel tasted in the heavenly manna every flavor in the world but fish. Therefore, some link the custom to eat fish with the wish to complete the missing manna favor, thus creating a perfect "oneg (joy of) Shabbat".

Gefilte Fish

The stuffed fish, known by its Yiddish name "Gefilte Fish", is considered in some Jewish communities as a "must" dish for Friday night meals. The filling hints to the manna, the bread of the sky which did not fall on Shabbat, and was places between two layers of dew.

Meat and Fish

According to the Kabbala literature, the Shabbat is called 'a taste of the world to come'. Various midrashim describe miraculous animals such as the leviathan and the wild bull, which will be used to make a banquet in the world to come. Eating fish and meat on Shabbat reminds us of that meal.

P'tcha

Hasidic literature explains that p'tcha- jelly made out of calves' hooves- is eaten on Shabbat because it is a day of truth. Since 'lies will not stand', the p'tcha is eaten to emphasize that Shabbat symbolizes the truth, which unlike the lie, stands on firm feet.

And more from Chabad.

In Talmudic2 times, fish was considered a “delight” and was often savored on Shabbat. In fact, the Talmud relates the story of how Yosef Moker Shabbat, “Yosef Who Cherishes Shabbat,” would always buy fish in honor of Shabbat. He thus merited to discover a precious gem in the belly of a fish, which resulted in him becoming very wealthy.

So on a basic level, it seems as though fish is really just a preference, and if one prefers another food over fish, there is no reason to specifically seek it out and serve it on Shabbat.

However, the mystics explain that one should try to have fish at the Shabbat meals.3 In the words of the Shulchan Aruch Harav (quoting the kabbalists):4

It is desirable to be meticulous and partake of fish during every meal unless [a person’s physical constitution is such that eating] fish is harmful to him or he dislikes it, i.e., it brings him discomfort, not pleasure—for Shabbat was given for the sake of pleasure.

Jews throughout the generations have been meticulous to eat fish on Shabbat. In fact, halachah discusses the not uncommon scenario where non-Jewish fishermen would specifically raise the price of fish before Shabbat due to the demand.

There are many reasons given for the custom to eat fish on Shabbat. Here are 11 of them.

1. Triple Blessing

Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech of Dinov, known as the B’nei Yissaschar, explains that during the six days of creation, G‑d blessed three things as they were created:

1. On Thursday, He blessed the fish: “G‑d blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters of the seas . . .’”5
2. On Friday, He blessed mankind: “G‑d blessed them (Adam and Eve). G‑d said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth!’”6
3. On Shabbat, “G‑d blessed the seventh day and He declared it holy . . .”7

“A three-stranded cord will not quickly be broken,”8 says Scripture. Thus, we combine all three: man eats fish on Shabbat, and is thus blessed with the threefold Priestly Blessing:9

1. May the L‑rd bless you and watch over you.
2. May the L‑rd shine His countenance upon you and grant you grace.
3. May the L‑rd raise His countenance toward you and grant you peace.10

2. The Number Seven

On Shabbat, the seventh and final day of the week, we eat foods that are associated with the number seven. The Hebrew word for fish is דג (dag), which has the numerical value of seven.11

3. Souls of the Righteous

The mystics explain that if the souls of the righteous must return to earth, they are often reincarnated as fish, which are one with their surroundings. Unlike other animals, fish don’t need to be slaughtered, and thus they cannot become unkosher due to the preparations or any damages to their innards.

On the holy day of Shabbat, we have the extra merit and energy to elevate these souls through using them for the mitzvah of delighting in Shabbat.12

Another take.

Religions always have their fair share of strange and arcane traditions that begin to lose their meaning over the centuries, even for the most devoted of followers. 

One such tradition that is well known among Catholics around the world is the practice of only eating fish on Fridays during the Lenten season.

While this tradition has many proposed origins floating through the rumor mill, the true basis for the practice of abstaining from meat is actually much simpler and interesting than most of the standard urban legends that many people believe. 

Historically, the Jewish people would fast on Tuesdays and the Sabbath, or Friday evening to Saturday evening, and many early Christians were Jewish converts.

However, some time in the late 3rd century, the practice changed and fasting during Lent occurred on Wednesdays and Fridays. Wednesdays were significant because it was the day Jesus Christ was betrayed by Judas, and Fridays because he was crucified on a Friday just before the Sabbath began at sunset. 

And there you have it.

Guy Clark

Abandoned

There is an interesting article at the Guardian, The great abandonment: what happens to the natural world when people disappear?

In many parts of the world, people are fleeing rural communities and moving to cities for work. Coupled with a declining birth rate, many areas are literally going back to seed. Nature is reclaiming many once urban landscapes, both here and abroad.

Bulgaria lies at the extreme end of this kind of demographic change, but the forces reshaping it are acting everywhere. Over the past half century, the global portion of people living in rural areas has decreased by almost a third. Farming is becoming increasingly industrial and concentrated. More than half of all people now live in and around cities, and that figure is expected to rise to 70% by 2050. In many countries, birthrates are dropping steadily, and while the global population is projected to keep growing until 2080, around half of that growth is being driven by fewer than 10 countries.

As populations move and shrink, people are leaving long-occupied places behind. Often they leave everything in place, ready for a return that never comes. In Tyurkmen, Christmas baubles still hang from the curtain rails in empty houses, slowly being wrapped by spiders. In one abandoned home, a porcelain cabinet lay inside a crater of rotted floorboards, plates still stacked above a spare packet of nappies for a visiting grandchild. Occasionally, abandonment happens all at once, when a legal ruling or evacuation sends people scuttling. But mostly, it is haphazard, creeping, unplanned. People just go.

Since the 1950s, some scholars estimate up to 400m hectares – an area close to the size of the European Union – of abandoned land have accumulated across the world. A team of scientists recently calculated that roughly 30m hectares of farmland had been abandoned across the mainland US since the 1980s. As the climate crisis renders more places unliveable – too threatened by flooding, water shortages and wildfires to build houses, soil too degraded and drought-stripped to farm – we can expect further displacements.

I will never forget the photos a few years back of trees growing through old factory ceilings in Detroit.

Entropy can be a beautiful thing, especially for an artist. But the back to nature scenario is not all rosy.

An abandoned house in Kreslyuvtsi village, Bulgaria. Photograph: Ivo Danchev/The Guardian

According to the article, when a dominant species like man moves out of the landscape, unfortunately a dominant monoculture moves right back in, usually an invasive species.

The brambles illustrate the first force that abandoned land faces: when humans leave en masse, new dominant species can make a clean sweep. The worst offenders are not brambles, but imported, invasive species. In Poland, where about 12% of farmland was abandoned after the fall of communism, the fields have turned thick mustard yellow, blanketed by the bright pollen cascades of Canadian goldenrod. This species has colonised about 75% of the country’s abandoned fields, and where goldenrod grows, little else thrives. Scientists studying this abandoned land found that wild pollinators decreased by 60%-70%, and the number of birds halved. In Bulgaria, an emerging threat is the Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima), a hardy, fast-growing, disease-resistant tree from northern China, with bitter-smelling sap that repels other plant, animal and microbial life.

These monocultures can create “biological deserts”, where just one species grows. The need to diversify them is not only an aesthetic, human preference. Monocultures are associated with soil degradation and nutrient depletion, extinctions of other species, difficulty purifying water, catastrophic wildfires, vulnerability to drought and the rapid spread of disease.

*

I have been wrestling with personal feelings of abandonment. One of my closest couple friends has just left for Asia for four months for their annual pilgrimage. Another very close friend has sold her home and will be leaving the area forever. Another close friend has died after a short illness.

I started compiling a list this morning.

Jack and Jill - Spring Valley
Lemon Avenue - La Mesa
Lancaster Elementary - Lancaster
Mariposa Elementary - Las Cruces
McArthur Elementary - El Paso
South Woods - Syosset
Hauppauge Middle School - Hauppauge
Lewis Junior High - San Diego
Desert Sun School - Idyllwild
Dwight York Preparatory School - New York
Walden School - New York
Oxnard High School - Oxnard

I think that is all of them, might have missed one.

These are the schools I attended through high school graduation. Twelve schools. I spent a year and a half at Lemon Avenue, four years at McArthur and a miserable year and a half at Oxnard, fighting Hep C. Everything else was a year or less. Some were six month stretches. You keep your suitcase half packed, like I do today.

My parents divorced when I was four and my mother married a guy who designed missiles and rockets.We moved from missile base to missile base for his job. He was also a physically abusive alcoholic who could only be trusted for two things, to beat my brother and I with regularity and to drink to oblivion. My mother started drinking too and popping pills, mainly valium, darvon and librium. Life was serious hell for us.

My late brother and I shuffled back to California for one stretch in 1970, when things became completely unbearable. Alone to the world. Unfortunately my father, a wealthy man, was now married to a woman who wanted nothing to do with us and I was sent to boarding school and Buzz to military school.

I don't think I need to spill much further into my personal bio, but I developed some weird habits and phobias. My real father never paid child support and we never had a dime when I was growing up. I was the middle child in a house full of strays. Food was scarce at times. And I would steal bread and hide it in my drawers. They would find these old rye crusts in my dresser. WTF?

I think that I was afraid that I would starve one day and it was security for me. Who knows? Perhaps that is why I overeat today, I'm not a shrink?

But the point I was getting around to is that when you move every six months or year or so, you gain and lose friends real quickly. You expect things to be taken from you and for things to fall apart. Wait for the shoe to drop. Without fail, until my sophomore year in New York, I never reconnected with anyone from my past.

I was exceedingly good at being a chameleon, making friends and recreating my persona at will and then it was on to the next gig. Poof. All those people gone forever.

As an adult, my life changed. I developed friendships that have lasted in some cases fifty years or more now. I talk to certain people every day of my life. I put incredible effort into being there for my friends and showing up and holding each other accountable.

And I hurt deeply when I or they don't, a rare event.

Perhaps that is the reason I have written a blog for eighteen years now, a virtual network for friends and strays that can be counted on, that offers some solidity and fellowship in this transient world of ours. Because I need to maintain friendships, something that was denied me most of my fledgling life. I have this inordinate and unnatural need to hold people together.

I hate feeling abandoned and I hate feeling tossed aside. I have let people go too but only when it became absolutely necessary for me.

I lost my best friend in 1985 over something stupid. He invited me to New York but unbeknownst to me he was in the middle of a break up. I stayed a week and he said I was not sufficiently sympathetic to his cause so I was jettisoned. That damn objectivity again.

I hurt for a long time. It was actually a good thing all in all because I realized that our whole friendship was asymmetric. He lived at my home for free, blah, blah, blah. I mourned the loss for a long time but at a certain point realized that I was being used and that I no longer cared if he lived or died.

I stopped associating with people who failed to live up to their word or bargain. Thankfully there are a lot that do.

Whew, I got that off my chest.

J.J. Cale

Birdstuff

 

Bruce Cockburn

Giving thanks

Although many of us in today's world have ample reasons to be feeling less than sanguine about the current state of affairs of our nation, I would like to take the opportunity to thank those that make my life richer on a daily basis.

My wife Leslie, number one, who has always been there for me, thick and thin. My sisters and Johnnie. Big Dave, Lena and Renee, who I speak to practically every day without fail. Warmboe, Barry, my coffee peeps, Wagman, Neon and the rest of Los Meshugganahs.  My cancer doctor, Carol Salem, for keeping me alive and with all my factory parts. Stoops and Saylor.

Melissa, Garn, RoxAnn and Mick, Kent, Lois and Bob, Loughlin. Debbie and Jim. Jeff. Brett. Ronnie. Cam. All of my clients, my promoters, my friends here and abroad. Horsley, who is always there for advice. My new friends Steve and Mary. Peter, Kip and Chip. Stan and Tracy. Shawn and Ricardo. Pecore. Todd. Linda and Joseph. Big Mike. Leven and Beth. Dixon. Andrew. Ron Munn. Terry. Ralph. Retha and Doug. Jerry. Pat. Ron W. Millard. Ken. Heidi. Gary at Pro-Tire. Bill and Jean. Brian. Chuck. Bruce, occasionally. Richard. 

Some of you have literally saved my life and kept me from cracking. You know who you are. Eternal gratitude.

There are too many people to list, all of my blast readership, the lurkers, my cousin Linda, Stepmother Shela and stepsister Sarah. John Feldman.  My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Bingham.

I would like to give thanks to those that are gone as well. Linda Wilson, John Morris, my mother and father, Garry Cohen, my brother Buzz.

The people who have made an effort to stay close.

Life was better because of each and every one of you. I will miss those that have passed forever.

My friend Jamie Phillips used to shoot photography for Joseph Banks. 

I needed head shots for the self portraits I will be painting for next year's show and he was kind enough to take a hundred plus recently. 

Not really sure what I will be using yet.

Thank you Jamie!

I wish you all the best of thanksgivings!

Canned Heat

11/27/24

Strange symmetry, I visited my paper restorer this morning and without me saying a plaintiff word about my current fiscal condition, he told me that not only was he sixteen hundred dollars in the hole but he owes another 4k on his truck and has been diagnosed with myasthenia gravis.

My pal has been doing work for me for over 30 years, has four full time employees and many part time. He is really good at what he does. He will survive the financial crimp, as I will. The tough thing is that his medical condition is affecting his eyesight and a restorer who can't see so good is a bad problem.

The doctors wanted to give him a shot that costs $150k. Such a world we live in. Dentistry, veterinary care, medical care, the costs have just exploded. Far cheaper to die and many people are taking that route, fuck it, I give up.

They know they won't see the great Trump renaissance but they will just have to well, live with it.

*

We went out for sushi last night, to the best place around, in Temecula. A young couple came in, she a thirty something, pretty blond, he a rather long haired guy with a MotoX hat. They were talking about how much they loved the Garbage Pail Kids when they were kids and I mentioned that they might enjoy the currently streaming American Gladiators unauthorized documentary.

Somehow talk went to the WWE and she started going off on how great Linda McMahon was going to be for our country at the Department of Education. 

"That girl has spunk, she will get things done."

And I choked down my albacore a little and asked her if she knew all the sexual abuse allegations directed at McMahon and her husband? She said something nasty under her breath about the Clintons.

Like this one. 

A recent lawsuit alleges Linda McMahon, who President-elect Donald Trump tapped to lead the Department of Education, knowingly enabled the sexual exploitation of children by a World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) employee as early as the 1980s — allegations she denies.

McMahon is the former CEO of the WWE, which she co-founded with her husband, Vince. As head of the WWE, Linda McMahon oversaw its transformation from a wrestling entertainment company into a publicly traded media empire. She stepped down in 2009 to run for Senate, but she lost in Connecticut in 2010 and 2012.

As McMahon — who co-chairs Trump’s transition team — vies to be confirmed as Education secretary, a recent lawsuit raises questions about her care for children’s safety at the WWE.

The suit alleges McMahon, her husband, the WWE and TKO Group Holdings, the league’s parent company, knowingly allowed employee Melvin Phillips Jr. to use his position as ringside announcer to sexually exploit children.

The filing alleges Phillips would recruit children to work as “Ring Boys,” helping him set up and take down wrestling rings at WWE events. However, the job was a guise for sexually exploiting the children, which Phillips would do even in front of wrestlers and executives in the locker area, the lawsuit alleges. He also would often film his sexual abuse, according to the filing.

The suit was filed in October in Baltimore County, Maryland, on behalf of five John Does, who say they were ages 13 to 15 when Phillips met and recruited them to work as “Ring Boys.” Each of them say they suffered mental and emotional abuse as a result of the alleged abuse.

“Phillips lured and manipulated the young boys with promises of meeting famous wrestlers and attending the highly popular wrestling shows, experiences that were otherwise unattainable for these kids,” the lawsuit alleges. “(The McMahons, WWE and TKO Holdings) allowed Phillips and others to engage in, and foster, the WWE’s rampant culture of sexual abuse.” 

Both Linda and Vince McMahon were aware of Phillips’ abuse, the lawsuit alleges. Vince McMahon admitted that he and Linda were aware as early as the early to mid-1980s that Phillips had a “peculiar and unnatural interest” in young boys, according to the filing.

This is not the first time there have been similar allegations. The other ones involve her husband's sexual behavior.

Allegations of sex trafficking and abuse have followed Vince McMahon for some time. In 2023, Vince McMahon paid a multimillion-dollar settlement to a former employee who accused him of rape, and he stepped down this year as executive chairman of TK Holdings following allegations of sexual assault and trafficking. He has denied the allegations.

Most recently, Vince McMahon is a subject in a federal criminal investigation and a separate lawsuit in federal court in Connecticut.

So why do you pay millions of dollars if you aren't admitting guilt. Must be a very rich guy?

The Journal reported Thursday that McMahon completed a settlement last month with Rita Chatterton, its first female referee, who accused him of raping her in 1986.

She demanded $11.75 million in damages for the alleged rape, per a November letter provided to the Journal. However, a single unnamed source told the Journal that she “agreed to a lesser amount in the millions of dollars,” although the exact amount of the settlement is unclear. 

Of course rumors have surfaced for years that Vince McMahon is gay and that Linda is a beard. He admitted to a gay experience in an early interview with a now deceased wrestler. Whatever. 

Admittedly these sexual allegations involve her husband and not the one time Trump cabinet member. But do we really want to put somebody who was willing to look the other way at the top job in the Department of Education, with its responsibility to the well being children of America?

Screw them, word is that we are going to get rid of the whole Department of Education anyway, transfer all the money to the religious charter schools that discriminate.

Anyway back to my sushi, which Leslie bought me for my birthday since I was in San Francisco at the time. It was so much easier in the 60's and 70's when long haired people tended to be uniformly liberal in nature. 

I have seen too many men wearing ponytails with MAGA hats the last couple years to make that supposition again.

We were obviously sitting next to some serious Trumpers and not wanting to hurl a lovely supper, we got up and left.

*

I have been reading a lot about Sarah McBride, the trans congresswoman who has caused such a stir among some because of House bathroom accommodations. Give me a break, who cares? I have been in many unisex bathroom situations, notably when on Grateful Dead tours and nobody cared. Just wash your hands. 

Dave said that he and Jeff once got a standing ovation from the women in the Grateful Dead restroom for handwashing, they were apparently the anomaly.

I don't care where you or anyone else pees, but I still don't want biologically born males competing against girls in sports. Never will, it is not fair. But lay off the congressmen and the kids.

*

My cousin Linda back in sent me this cool shirt that she made:

Do you note the family resemblance?  We Weinrobers are obviously a subversive lot. No wonder they kicked us out of Romania. Hope that we can withstand the coming purge as well.

*

As I noted earlier, I am in my winter depression mode which is odd because it is still autumn until the 21st. Thought I would get a jump on things. And while I feel a bit tawdry and guilty for emotionally spilling when I am feeling in print while so distraught, several wrote to tell me that they admired my willingness to go public with my misery.

The great sage Mike Halter once shared with me that the ancient Chinese sages said to treat your victories like funerals. Not to go off about your plaudits and to soft pedal your success.

Is it equally true that one should not treat your funerals like victories? Just asking, for a friend...

I would consult the I Ching but it is currently not taking my calls. Never want to importune the sages, or so I have been told.

And the tarot is just a bit too baroque for my modern constitution and has been for the last forty years or so.

Going to have to gut this one out on my own.

*

I got a letter from a friend who has a friend who is a recording engineer with a funny request; listen to the Grateful Dead with him. 

He has never really liked them that much and he wants me to help me explain my affinity. 

He wanted to invite me to a listening session.

“...Are we asking Robert?  I would love to do a deep dive with him on the Dead.  I never caught the bug but in his recent email to me he cited this song and a particular part of it that I thought was *excellent.   Good writing and lyrics.  Frankly, the vocal quality was superb as were the harmonies, etc. Over the many years in the Audio business I have had multiple friends who I respect tell me to do more Dead  listening.  Anyway, I was just thinking it might make for a fun night to add into the jazz and the other usual genres that we listen to.  Plus I like the guy.”

Now I am honored and really like the gentleman as well but I am not so sure the deed can be done. You either like them or you don't.

And I can't help but go back to myself at an early outdoor Dead concert where I was grokking on the corrosive quality of the tie die and the garish and almost pagan iconography and I absolutely remember having the particular thought in my psychedelic wave stream that if you were not tripping there was no way for the stuff to make much sense.

Now I know that there are A.A. deadheads and Christian deadheads and GOP deadheads and a whole lot of different flavors but I still think the lion's share got at least one dose along the way to put them on the bus.

And while most of us stopped using psychedelic substances long ago, I think the memory of the excursion is still fresh enough to make the necessary nexus between the music and the interstellar travel part present.

Why do people dislike the Grateful Dead? There are many reasons. Keith Richards said they aimlessly noodle or something like that. John Fogerty says that they put people to sleep. Steve Miller said that he despised their music and then jammed with them anyway. 

Many are put off by their country and bluegrass underpinnings. Jerry copped a lot of his sound from his early time as a banjo picker. He listened to a lot of "Stony Stoneman's" violin work and transcribed a lot of it to guitar. He also studied the Bakersfield sound of Don Rich and Roy Nichols and integrated a lot of that telecaster sound into his playing.

Many people can't stand country music. Well, the Grateful Dead is full of the idiom. Lots of twang, not very sophisticated to the urban elite.

My jazz friends find the song structures somewhat elementary and I can also see why.

I guess my point, if I have one, is that the Grateful Dead were best listened to live when they were jamming. It was the music between the songs and the notes for that matter that were the most beautiful. The way they listened to each other and usually found the perfect note. So while Keith Richards thought the noodling was meaningless, it was the only thing with meaning for me and I saw them hundreds of times.

Every Other One, Playing in the Band or Darkstar had the possibility of turning into something gorgeous and bigger than life. Any song really was a departure point for a long musical adventure.

I thought about bringing some music for my friend to listen to, to try to help Henry "get" the dead. I thought a nice Estimated Prophet/ Eyes of the World from 1977 might open up a veil, when Jerry was a at what I considered to be his peak. Or maybe a Brokedown Palace or High Time, something slow and poetic but rich with emotion.

Or should I play a Help on the way or Terrapin? Or just make him smoke a joint and go right to a 1969 full cranial Dark Star?

Of course, I am projecting. Get them really high and it will all make sense. Dave B. did mushrooms and saw them and still thought they were terrible. Just not for everybody. Not sure it can be done at this point, bringing people into the fold. I'll give it my best shot, I promise.

Tull

Was a new day yesterday...an old day now.

I had another tough show, made much tougher by my own negligence and stupidity. I loaded in to Santa Barbara on Wednesday around noon. It was a hard drive up, over five hours in traffic. I stopped at a client's to look at a painting, which I took on consignment but ultimately failed to sell.

I woke up to a text alert in the middle of the night from my bank, dangerously low balance. What? There should have been close to ten grand in the account. It turns out that somebody held a big check for about three months, one that I had assumed, shitty bookkeeper that I am, had been cashed. Why they held it I don't know? Turns out I bounced a couple grand in checks too. The bottom had officially fell out.

I was underwater and not breathing oxygen on any level. Feelings of failure and melancholy coursed through my being, what the fuck could I do? What a loser. Serious existential dread.

I texted my sister my sos. She put some money in the account that night. Thank god for her. Alyssa fronted me until the end of the show. Thank you both so much.

The show itself was slow. I had a decent Friday, no Saturday and thankfully sold better on Sunday but it was very weak. Still I managed to bring my balance up to a near respectable level, just not nearly enough. These three shows were supposed to provide me with a cushion. Guess again.

ot of the big time buyers didn't show, lack of interest, rain falling, post election angst or joy, I don't know? 

I do know that it was my last show of the year with the exception of the flea market in a couple weeks and I have one course of action left, keep grinding.

I did have a real estate billionaire who has bought from me before decide to see if I would bark like a dog again, offered me a third of my list prices on a painting and silver. Way under cost.

I declined the shopping center magnate as gracefully as I could. Perhaps I should have taken the money?

He likes to watch me break. It is plainly fun for him.

Every time we do manage to do business I feel like I need to take a bath to rid myself of the toxic grunge and shame, it is plainly sport for him and survival for me. Glad to give him his kicks.

Oh well, it is the life I have chosen and it has done well for me, for the most part. But it is not like there is a retirement plan or anything and I have seen more collecting fads come and go in my lifetime than I care to list. I have always been the young buck in the game and then you hit a point where you are one of the older lions and wonder, what the fuck happened?  

Where did it go? Most of my comrades have given up the ghost long ago and got into something else. A few of us stuck around and waited for the promised comet to provide us with the fated epilogue, we are apparently the slow learners in the group.

Some people I know managed to work the gig until they were eighty or so before giving it up, I don't think I can go much past seventy five. Give it eight more years and cash out whatever chips are still cashable if I make it that long.

The drive is killing me. Three shows in four weeks plus a trip to the flea in Long Beach. Bad motels, too much meat and not enough salad or exercise. My feet and ankles are sore from pushing the pedals. My legs are swollen from too much sit time around the booth.  My brain is tired from talking and trying to sell. I just unloaded my truck this morning with its three shows of contents and I feel whipped.

I sold mostly cheap stuff this show. I think I am going to come to the next one with junk, people seem to be intimidated by prices and just looking for a bit of color, regardless of pedigree. Fine, I can do that too. Tired of being a museum. Tired of being a chump.

Will try to resuscitate the magic tomorrow, put the shop back together. Supposedly it is a new day.

Going Home Blues (Going Back and Talk to Mama)

Cognitive Dissonance

As I drove up and down the Interstate 5 a week ago on my trip to San Mateo I could not help but notice that practically every large Corporate Ag Farm I passed bore a Trump Vance sign. These were festooned with a liberal helping of Democrats are the party of evil signs and Newsom, stop wasting our Dam Water.

If you have driven into the Central Valley on either the 5 or 99 in recent years, you know exactly what I am talking about. Can't miss them.

And as I was driving and watching the workers in the fields, I had the thought; the principal current evil for the GOP are illegals. How many of these workers had papers? If we have a mass deportation, just who in the heck do these giant agri-farmers think will pick their fruit and hoe their vegetables? It doesn't make sense, seems quite counter intuitive in fact.

I saw this site today, 31 facts about California Farmworkers and it shored up my line of thinking.  Although the link is new, the data seems to be about twelve years old but I doubt much has changed, in fact, it has probably become worse. I'll give you the first seven facts, if you want more you can visit the link yourself.

1. California farm workers help produce over 350 commodities; including 1/3 of the nation’s vegetables and nearly 2/3 of the nation’s fruits and nuts. 
2. California produces 90% of the strawberries grown in the U.S.
3. Between 1/3 and 1/2 of all farmworkers in America reside in California, or roughly 500,000 – 800,000 farmworkers.
4. Approximately 75% of California’s farmworkers are undocumented.
5. National Labor Relations Laws (NLRA) do not apply to farmworkers.
6. Farmworkers are exempt from many Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA) protections, including most minimum wage and hour guarantees, overtime pay, and mandatory breaks for rest and meals.
7. Most farmworkers are excluded from federal minimum wage laws and other labor protections, including overtime pay for working more than 40 hours per week.

 So California has nearly half of all the farmworkers in America, approximately 75% are undocumented and the farmers want to kick them all out? Doesn't make a lot of sense. To me anyway. But by all means, do it, let's see what happens. I can't wait to see how you get your crops picked.

Be careful what you wish for, Central Valley.

Vox on vaccines

 

Good article. Share it with the denier in your life.

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.