CIAO!

So the day is finally almost here. We leave for New York in the morning and then for Italy on Friday.

We have to take Molly to the kennel this afternoon. She senses something's up. It's a nice place where she's staying, but it's the hardest thing about traveling for us.

I posted a silly storyboard for my section of Toons x 9 here. The illustration above is from the storyboard. Just something to keep you laughing. It was a peculiar project- 9 animators retelling Faust.

I opted for a soap opera approach to hell- at the time airlines weren't as nasty as they are now and computers weren't part of most people's lives. I didn't ever color it in and got rushed to even scan this and put it on line. I never saw what any of the other animators did. In fact I don't even know who they were. Marv Newland (Bambi Meets Godzilla) paid us to do it. Faust is no treat to read, let me tell you! The link is slow to load even though I broke it into segments, and you'll see a white screen before the loading symbol kicks in.

One more thing about the toons project. Aloosha was based on a woman I met the last time I was in New York, 22 years ago! Her name was Lizzie Borden and she was a filmmaker who hoped we'd collaborate on something. She had that "I work out all day" look. I forget if she was a kleptomaniac or not!

I had insane good luck at the track last week and will buy a new tablet computer when I get back, and I guarantee no way in hell will it be a Mac.

Don't even get me started on Steve Job's arrogance re Flash, when you can read it in the paper anyway!

Have fun while I'm away, and hope to check up on you all from an internet cafe in Italy.

No More Mr. Hot Stuff?

I went out to Santa Anita solo yesterday and was on fire as a handicapper. I got the pick 4 which means you pick 4 winners in a row, on an $8 bet. It CAN pay hundreds, sometimes thousands, but in my case it paid $84. That will buy a lot of oranges at the Farmers' Market in the morning. Got a lot of other bets right too.

But a horse who's drop dead gorgeous, Mr. Hot Stuff, was running yesterday, and that was actually the reason I went out there. I love this horse's looks, I admit it. He's a sleek well built truly black horse. He hasn't won a race since before the Kentucky Derby and I've bet him to win every time, including in the Derby. He didn't win yesterday either and he still looked like hot stuff. Plus he had my fave jockey, Smokin Joe Talamo on board.

But while walking Molly this morning I thought I could turn him into an internet cartoon strip character, with Whinsey, maybe for the phone. We'll see. I "worked" on it all day. Hard to get good expression on a jet black horse. And then when you're working in Flash you start thinking, gee, if this moved it would be more fun than a still comic- and take a lot longer to do. Rainy weather, sometimes I love you.

shadow of your smile

It's hard taking pictures with the cell phone because there's a delay, just like in the earliest days of digital cameras. But I kind of liked this picture, taken at Santa Anita as I waited for the horses to load. A weekend of lots of betting and no winning at all.

Books recently read:

• Gone with the Wind (just leave it alone.)
  
• 2 books by John Sandford (decent crime novels)
• Slouching towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion ok but California has really changed
• Evidence, Jonathan Kellerman enyuh
• Jam Today by Tod Davies nifty anecdotal cookbook by a smart pal who writes about making tasty meals from whatever you already have in the closet.
  

A friend brought a crate of crime novels over so I've been picking through them.

Hey Look at what I won!

Not going to scoop this ultra cool contest, visit Mary Forney's blog. She was my best The Pamplemousse bud last season and is a favorite of mine!

Nice Day!

Molly and I had a surprise walk with our best German Shepherd friend and her dog Tilden at dawn, then we went to the Farmers Market and my bud tasted her first cherimoya, which is a wondrous fruit if you've never tried it.

Without doing my usual frantic handicapping, Jon and I headed to Santa Anita because I wanted to try to find the statue in Mary Forney's contest. A season pass to the Clubhouse is an exceptional prize, and I was sure I knew where the little horse statue would be hiding. The hint was that it was amidst some potato chip displays. Do you know how many kiosks and cafes at a giant racetrack sell potato chips?

Between races I scurried here and there looking for the statue. The food stand person would say to me, "May I help you?" "No, thanks, I'm just looking." How pathetic, just looking at the potato chips.

I thought we'd found every possible display of chips but then we went into the paddock room, where I'd never been before, a basement area filled with people, and there in the corner was one more potato chip display. And what was that? The little statue. I was so excited that most of the pictures I took with my phone were impossibly blurry. I emailed one to Mary. I won the contest, I'm going to get my season pass! For someone like me, this is worth hundreds!

Every bet I placed was wrong until the 5th race when I bet on the horse Chantal Sutherland was riding to win, and in an exacta. She won. I won. The exacta too.

If you haven't seen Chantal Sutherland she is incredibly pretty and has a goofy website. I believe she used to be a flight attendant. She's Canadian and has a bit of Princess Diana about her. (be sure you see the first image on the site). She's a really great rider and has just returned to Santa Anita.

The woman next to me said, "Oh yeah Chantal beats the snot out of the guys every time." euw.
Not exactly Chantal's intended image. The same lady told me my jacket was worth at least $800. Jon's been trying to get me to throw it away. It does have a few stains. euw.

Down at the actual paddock we stood next to a friendly young woman who was about to start photographing the horses coming into the circle. We made some jokes and she said she was practicing taking pictures because she wanted to go to Kentucky to take pictures of horses breeding. Um, do you mean like, -breeding? Oh yes, she said, and you have to be very fast with your camera.

Jon said, "Maybe you can sell those pictures as a calendar, with Chantal photoshopped in the background."

We left after I had my wins. Great day. It is such fun to search for something in a contest and find it.

Jury Duty?

This legs table was in a bail bonds window near the courthouse.

Wacky weekend around here but now we're grounded because the biggest rain of the season is supposed to slam Los Angeles all week. We'll see if that's true. It's raining now and still dark out. Glad I'm in the middle of "Gone with the Wind" which I'm enjoying.

All last week I dutifully called in to see if I had to report next day for jury duty. Thursday night I thought I'd gotten off the hook for at least a year, but no, had to show up at 8:30 the next morning. Spent the whole day reading "Gone with the Wind" in a big room with several hundred unhappy people. Around 3:15, when the room was nearly cleared out, they called the last group of potential jurors and we shuffled across the courtyard and upstairs to room F in the criminal court building.

The judge asked for a juror pool of more than 100 people for one case. That's unusual. If I get chosen I can't say more about it, but they aren't doing the selection until next Thursday.

We (last jury pool group) sat in the courtroom behind the FOUR defendants accused of extortion and murder. Two had big shaved heads and skull tattoos, and two were Russian looking in leather coats. Central casting!

Do you suppose their appearance might affect the outcome of the case? It's like with Phil Spector- why didn't his lawyer tell him not to wear the Bozo Clown fright wig to trial? That wasn't his hair. When he checked into jail he just had a little flat hairstyle and looked like an old retired raisin.

Then to add to weekend fun we took a quick trip out to Santa Anita and watched some horses run, came home and went to the Golden Globe party given by Paramount. I was on the guest list- insane, we don't know why.

I thought I'd post my twitter tweets. Many people are bewildered by twitter but I enjoy it and it doesn't track you the same way Facebook does. The 140 maximum letters per post make it challenging but more fun. A weird thing on twitter if a person is trying to tell a story is the sequence is backwards since you read the last post first.

These are my tweets (corrected in order) when we got home:

we only stayed for four races cause we're going to Paramount's Golden Globe party tonite woowoo. Told hub to bet Rummysecretwar - good..

At party tonight: Marty Scorsese, Ray Liotta, Len .DiCaprio & Don Rickles plus about 750 peeps for the food & drinks at Chateau Marmont

also me & hub & Robert deNiro who looked very confused. We stood at side door & watched the stars get wrangled in. Actors smoke a lot.

Party Food: macn cheese, paella, eggplant dish, filet mignon wrapped in bacon, sliders, mystery puffs and a tower of mini cupcakes. I ate 3.

(next day)
Just realized the weird guy with the icky face tattoo we stood next to last night at the Golden Globes Paramount party was Mike Tyson.

Somehow I only managed to identify the guy celebs, but there were many gorgeous women there too. The oddest dress was an absolute lampshade style. Strapless white bouffant with a ruffle on the bottom, which barely covered the bottom. The slightest move and you saw her black underpants. No lightbulb underneath.
There was a pretty strict no photos policy at the party, even outside with the line of valet parkers. With cel phones they can easily pop a shot just like a papparazi.

Here's a link to a gossip report on the party.

hostess dilemna

I saw this cute lady at Santa Anita the day after Christmas. Her hat was covered with sequins but I don't know how to get a sequin effect. Hope she was luckier than I was in her horse picks. We got to see Zenyatta one more time, and Brian and Dinah came too.

For Christmas we had invited nine guests. We had cooked about 20 dishes to accomodate various diets. Three of the guests were traveling together and they were picking up a fourth guest in Hollywood who can't drive. This had been arranged over a week's worth of emails.

When the carload of four arrived, guess what? There were only three. They had forgotten to pick up the fourth guest, and they were late. The food was all cooked. They'd totally forgotten.

Dinah got an A+ for volunteering to drive over to Hollywood and retrieve our guest who was patiently waiting. (But couldn't she have called to ask what's up?) Our cooked food also patiently waited for more than an hour. By the time we ate the food had patiently waited for more than two hours. We managed not to get mad and had a jolly time but it was a dilemna (that's the old fashioned spelling).



Here we are with Dinah's chickens. Remind me to wear makeup next time I get my picture taken with spring chickens.

ZENYATTA!!!

Here she comes the Queen of England- no wait, it's prancing princess ZENYATTA! Her trainer next to her.



Many wonderful hand made posters. Women were declaring this horse as their horse.



There goes Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird above, with Calvin Borel.



Doin the Chanel thing. I need a suit like this.


doin the Diane Arbus thing. This going to the chapel gal was alone the whole day, even at the very end when I was waiting with her to see jockey Mike Smith walk back to the jockeys' room.



Hey, where'd you get your poster?

Below are my twitter posts when I got back from Santa Anita yesterday, where Zenyatta won the Breeders Cup Classic racing against the very best horses in the world. Female beat all the males, unheard of, bigger, better even than Rachel Alexandra's victories this year. I really enjoy my twitter life! My posts:

Most exciting racing day EVER! HISTORY IS MADE!

Squeezed in the basic crowd all day& squished at rail into saddle area. When Z headed to saddle area shout outs SHE'S COMING! Like Q of E!

The dance she did as she passed the screaming squeezed masses is something I'll never forget.

The start of the race was so CRAZY with Zenyatta doing her dressage wiggles on way to the gate...

Then she didn't want to go in the gate, then she came out the open front end, and then QUALITY ROAD oops

Everytime QR kicked out or bucked the crowd roared like it was a prizefight.

When QR scratched (we could hear the phone ring like it was on stage) , the crowd roared. The excitement was so intense.

(since my twitter pals all had seen the race one way or other I didn't describe it- astonishing victory by this great big filly)

and the smile on Mario Espinoza, Zenyatta's groom, as he led her back thru the tunnel, I'll also never forget.

Breeders Cup Day 1

wow how cute are these girls? That's me on the right.



No wait, I guess this is me. oh well.



Wish I could look more mysterious, like she does. I found if you say to folks, "You look so cute- may I take your picture?" you get the shot. Single people take notice.



This guy brought his lucky bear.

The guy below trained this year's Kentucky Derby winner. Lots of cute girls around him. He's no longer on crutches, and looked much jollier than his (snarly) press presentation last May.



The horse below is Mr. Hot Stuff. He didn't win, but he almost did, and he deserves his name, don't ya think?



I had so much fun I can barely control myself, and it wasn't just because I made some dough.

The Breeders Cup races run for two days at Santa Anita. I purchased two special Tweeters Event tickets for Jon and me. It seemed incredible that for $25 we'd get reserve seats, gifts, entertainment and a full and delicious lunch but it was that good. Plus got to meet online racing bud Kevin Stafford (remember the Rachel Alexandra contest?) and Julie the sweetheart.

Going back tomorrow and hope to see more of the buds, but the crowd is going to be a nightmare. Insane that I didn't get pictures of the buds, but I was so excited I was practically foaming.

Rachel Alexandra

Wondrous horse!!!! Filly for the Ages!!!

Thanks!

Thanks all around. Kevin Stafford won the Ultimate Rachel Alexandra Fan Contest and will get all the goodies tomorrow at Monmouth Park. If you get TVG you'll see him walking with his new favorite horse. I know many of you voted, and that was so nice of you.

And I started this twitter drawing chain and wonder where it's going, and what's the protocol. We had Linda Davick, (ldavick), Namowal (othernamowal), RussellSteeleOH, wegwag (Marti Mcginess), tinyowls, and tasha26 all drawing.

If you choose to start a chain or continue one, be sure to add the @biz in the box at the bottom, otherwise the others may never see it or know anything was drawn. It seems to spiral out.

All were based on one lumpy drawing at the start. It's fun to run the playback over at twitter and see what was changed. I don't even know how tasha26 ran into the picture or who tasha26 is, but a nice contribution.

Have a good Saturday. I'm reading an excellent mystery, "Don't Look Back" by Karin Fossum, a Norwegian writer I found by accident in the library.

Rachel Alexandra

photo credit: Kevin Stafford

Don't you love the look of intensity on Calvin Borel's face?

Go to this link on Facebook and click "like" under the video tribute to Rachel Alexandra!! Help my pal Kevin win the contest!!

Kevin Stafford is my favorite horse racing pal on the internet. His great blog "The Aspiring Horseplayer" has helped educate me in the intricacies of betting on racehorses, and his enthusiasm and intelligent commentaries on horses and races are a delight. His weekly racing tips are also reliable and sometimes a jackpot. Thanks Kevin!!

Rachel Alexandra is the amazing filly who won the Preakness this year running against the boys. "Her Royal Freakness" some people call her, because her racing career has been so incredible. She's a gorgeous dark horse with a funny blaze that looks as if she got hit in the middle with a chocolate ice cream cone. Her tongue is always hanging out.

Rachel's running against the boys again at Monmouth Park in New Jersey on August 2, in the Haskell Stakes.

To highlight this important race, Monmouth Park is running a contest via Facebook , " The Ultimate Rachel Alexandra Fan Contest". Here's what the winner will get:

• VIP Haskell Seats (or an upgrade if you’ve already purchased your tickets)
• Designation as the Haskell Facebook Fan of the Day
• TV interview on Haskell Day with host Mike Curci
• Private backstretch tour and breakfast in the track kitchen

And here is where it gets good…as the Ultimate Rachel Fan, you will accompany the Haskell field up the racetrack, including Rachel Alexandra, to the English Walking Ring and Paddock prior to the Haskell!

Help Kevin win this contest- no one would enjoy this win more. Just follow that link and click like. Thanks!

Racing Redux

Jon came with me to the second day of racing in Norwood, Co. today. We got there before the second race.

I liked this jockey. He seemed a cut above. He won for me twice the day before and he won two of three times today too. I'll be watching for him next month in Ridgway when the bush league racing circuit picks up again locally.



(See Ms. Frazzle in background?)

I MISSED the Belmont race entirely. I left Norwood early so I could watch it on my computer and still have time to pick up Jon from his fishing lesson, (which he didn't like.) But my source for races on line was BLACKED OUT for this final race of the Triple Crown. My pick, Chocolate Candy, seemed to have stopped to offer samples and took his time to the finish line. If favorite jockey Joe Talamo had still been on Summer Bird I would have bet that horse and done well. But the trainer of Summer Bird got changed and Joe lost the ride last week I think.

Racing Saturday

While million dollar horses raced each other at Belmont today, bush league two year olds competed in Norwood, Colorado. I watched several races.

I thought this horse looked like real quality in the first race and bet on him. You can only place bets to win at the options window, and the people at the window use paper punchers and plastic cups to keep track of what's been bet.



My horse came in last.

Next race I had a winning bet. But out of six horses, only two crossed the finish line with riders on them.





This long line is all the ticket holders who'd picked the horse I picked!



This auctioneer was handling the Calcutta bets, where you bet to own the horse in that race or something. The bets are way too big for me to consider. ($100 dollar range.)



This woman was running the race. She looked pretty frazzled, and so did her hair.



These two were leaving when I was leaving. He ignored my camera.



We might go back tomorrow.

Old Friend Roundup

I was surprised and happy to see this video of my favorite racehorse The Pamplemousse noisily enjoying an apple at Hollywood Park just last week. Youtuber johnchen provided the video. The P was scratched the morning of the Santa Anita Derby and hasn't been heard from since.

Last night I got sent a nice link to an interview with my old pals Bob Armstrong and Allan Dodge talking about their music over the years at Fretboard Journal. About 45 minutes in they talk about working with me. I was trying to find a picture of us this morning but came up empty. Al's all mixed up about the Academy Award stuff but it was great to hear their voices and brought back so many memories.

The Preakness is today, and it would be great if filly Rachel Alexandra won but there are a lot of great horses in there.

I Phone Idea

What do you think? I got this idea in the middle of the night last night and couldn't wait to try coding it.

Let me know if you have ideas for improvement. The horses she's mentioning are really running and I'm not the one who chooses them, they're Whinsey's idea.

(All done with php and mirrors.)

Tell me if the font on top matches the one in the racing tip. I'm not finished with this, just testing to see if it seems to work. You can't chat with her-- just get your racing tip and check back tomorrow to see if she was right or not.

Think this might be one of those iphone ideas? But they still don't do Flash, do they?

O. Henry moment

The short story author O. Henry used to be taught in English classes but he may not be relevant any more. He often wrote stories that had serendipity events that turned out exactly wrong, like a woman sells her hair to buy a watch chain for her husband for Christmas while her husband pawns his watch to buy the hair comb his wife coveted.

The candy bar is not named for the author, but it's rather tasty. It's been around since the 20's.

We had a little bit of an O. Henry moment yesterday at the track. I'm the one who bets and Jon just enjoys the scene, especially looking at the horses in the paddock and all the characters. He listens to me prattle about what I like and don't like. Sometimes he'll bet one horse to show in the course of an afternoon.

So yesterday I'd picked wrong about four races in a row, and we were looking at a group of bay horses that looked almost identical. There were maybe twelve in the race. I said, "Oh I don't know," and headed to the betting window anyway.

He headed there in front of me!

"What's he doing?" I wondered.

I got in a line longer than his. He placed a bet, then came over to where I was standing and couldn't believe I placed a bet on HIS choice. We'd both picked the same unlikely horse. Together we had this horse to win, place, or show, without talking to each other. The horse wasn't on any handicapping sheets.

Of course you guessed it, the horse won. We got about $26 on our total bets of $6 and were both bewildered we'd picked him standing side by side without ever talking about the horse. (And no, Joe Talamo wasn't riding. The rider was Martin Garcia.)

One More Race

One week until the Kentucky Derby, and this 19 year old, Joe Talamo, has a very likely chance of winning it. If he does, he's giving 25 % of the money to a children's hospital in his home state Louisiana, where they don't turn anyone away. How can you not be charmed by this guy? (and did I mention he's following me on Twitter?)

I happen to like the horse he's riding too, "I Want Revenge." After I picked myself off the floor when The Pamplemousse fell out of the Derby trail, I looked right to this horse. I'd been really impressed by him in January in a race which was won by one of his main Derby competitors, Pioneerof the Nile. I've been following the horse ever since. The trainer of this horse has a checkered past with substance violations...

Many of the jockeys riding next Saturday in the Kentucky Derby are riding at Hollywood Park today: Joe Talamo, Garrett Gomez, Rafael Bejarano, Mike Smith, Corey Nakatani, Aaron Gryder. That will make it fun to watch and to handicap.

So I can't stay away: off to Hollywood Park!

My New BFF

(whatever BFF means) Yesterday I met marvelous cartoonist MIMI POND at Santa Anita and we had a great time. How great?

So great that I had more fun talking and laughing than betting on the horses-- in fact I hardly paid attention to them. (except when I won, which we celebrated with a second beer.)

We know a lot of people in common from long ago and find the same things weird and funny: there was so much to talk about and laugh about that it was kind of wondrous. She says we met before but my memory cloud hasn't lifted on that one.

When I told my mother about meeting Mimi she was thrilled-- it made her day too. She's very aware that our family sense of humor isn't universally shared, and to think I had a new friend who's in on it was just too good.

On top of that I got to watch the World Cup in Las Vegas on my computer last night, and Richard Spooner had a perfect ride.

If all days were like that I'd be a total goofball.

Easter Cake

I sure hoped Albertson's would have mini coconut cakes when I stopped by to pick up some cheese this afternoon, but all they had was teenagers being chased in the parking lot for shoplifting.

I intended to post a militaristic postcard with chicks and guns from 100 years ago, but I got wrapped up in reading Guthrie's "The Big Sky" and did nothing Easterish at all aside from picking a few winning horses on line at Santa Anita. Um, how is that Easterish?

My mother was feeling depressed today, because she couldn't get out and do anything. She went to an Easter Egg roll at the White House in the 20's when Calvin Coolidge was the prez, and was amazed by what an automaton he was, "How do you do, I'm pleased to meet ya."

When I was little one Easter my mother baked a wondrous coconut Easter cake: it may have been shaped like a lamb. Easter morning I went into the dining room to admire it, and it had turned into chocolate. NO! It was covered with black ants.