Entymological Moi

WARNING INSECT PICTURE FOLLOWS!



So I'm sitting at my computer this morning, as usual, writing code for the searchers 2.0 website, when Jon comes in and says, "Do you want to see something weird?" I said, "Is it disturbing?" He said, "It might be."

dread...

I follow him out back. He points at the big, woody rosemary bush in our brick planter. It's covered with white fluff. I look closely. It's foamy fluff.

We don't know what the heck it can be, but it doesn't look good. We've had a problem with black widows in that area in the past, but this year, perhaps because it's been so dry, we haven't seen any. It reminds us of what the pond looks like when fish spawn- you get the idea? I thought if all these foamy sacs hatch we're going to be in a plague of bugs. I used to have insect fear. I've gotten over it, mostly...

Jon left me in charge of solving this . He was suddenly quite busy. Where to start? I opened a guide book I bought long ago, "Insects of the Los Angeles Basin." (I was really into nature guides for awhile!) Somehow I found what they were: Spittle Bugs!!



But as you can see they don't actually spit, um, no... Anyway, I chopped the rosemary bush way way back and put all the stems in the green can, with a heavy lid on top. Just hope no one opens that can before trash day and lets loose the plague of spittles.

It made for a less than lovely Saturday.

Graduation Night

Dinah's graduation was held at the Alex Theatre, a beautiful small Art Deco movie theatre in Glendale. It was air conditioned. The event was very non-traditional, with students wearing just about whatever they pleased. Actually many girls wore the same ugly style baby doll dress, a bad fashion idea that seems to have come back.

All the awards are given out before the graduation day, so that parents don't feel the pressure. Parents at this school are super aggressive. I never made a friend there in eight years, but that's my problem!

Whoever wants to sing, or dance, or tell jokes, can, within reason, do just that at the ceremony. Since it's an artistic school, (sort of), and many parents are involved with movies, the level of talent was decent and performances surprising. Dinah did her weird "Caribbean Amphibian" song a capello, dancing with Uncle Frog while wearing her riding helmet and her sexy chevron dress.



She said she liked this dress I bought on ebay. I thought my arms looked too big till I saw the general size of 18 year old arms these days. Notice how I artfully cropped mine. Thanks, Photoshop.


She is quite the babe.

I'd made reservations at an Italian restaurant up the street, for dinner after the ceremony. Linda Pearl and her daughter Olivia came, and so did Dinah's boyfriend Cameron and Rubi and Rosita. Rubi was Dinah's babysitter in the early days, and a wonderful person. Rosita is another fine Guatemalan lady who used to work across the street. She was near tears a few times. She saw Dinah a lot long ago, but not at all in recent years. Uncle Frog was there too. Rosita pointed out that it maybe wasn't an Italian restaurant, since there were so many swords on the walls. HAH! It was Lebanese, to my surprise. The food was good, and we had a jolly time.



Afterwards Dinah and Cameron went to the class party, an all night affair in South Pasadena. Can you imagine being the parents who agreed to let 150 kids come to their house and spend the night? Dinah said they had a big back yard, with a pig, and that both parents are psychiatrists. I said maybe they never got over "Charlotte's Web." This morning Dinah had to go to work early, but all the kids' car keys had been hidden, and she had to wake the parents up at 6:30 am to get her keys back. Maybe she should have told them she had a bad dream. (maybe that's why I never made friends at Oakwood.)

The Impossible Dream

A possum cake... found at same site as the graduation cake below, which also is known as a Linda Davick special, though the cakemaker, cakesbydarcy, is in Georgia. Since this cake was listed in the groom cake section, maybe it has dirty symbolism, but I don't know what it would be. (Your fiance looks like a possum?)

A couple of years ago I found a realistic opossum dog toy and put it in a serving dish with a lid, for Thanksgiving. I walked around the table with it, and asked a guest who didn't know me well if he'd like to try an old Southern favorite. Haha funny when I lifted the lid.

Graduation Day

We're off to the Alex Theatre in Glendale, for Dinah's graduation from Oakwood.

got Blackberry?

another ugly picture!
My birthday present, perhaps. Do you have one? Do you like it? We're going to be travelling more next year, and Jon thinks we need one of these. I get minus zero phone calls most days, but I am an internet fiend. I've never had a cel phone. I don't even have a laptop.

What I really want is a phone like Linda D. designed...

Clicking on the above link will make your day/week I guarantee. Brilliant and Hysterical! Ultra ultra desirable and peculiar and perfectly designed... as usual... not sure if it's approp to post an image in my blog from this futuristic emotional phone so I'll keep the ugly dotty image I've got.

Once I saw a cel phone that actually heated up in relationship to the caller... for under 30s only. You assigned temperature to people in your phone book.

I'm a phone phobic. If any of you have berry experience, give me some advice, please. Otherwise I'm dependent on cnet, and they are usually cruising a year behind, as I've observed.

igoogle

I'm ever so fond of google for all kinds of things, including this nice little topper, called TeaHouse, which changes a little during the day, though it would be nice if it changed more. igoogle is my home page.

I tried the theme called "Seasonal Scape" but liked it less. What I notice in both of them is the artist observes small, dear details and that seems to really click. The tiny shoes, and in Seasonal Scape the tiny cardboard drink warmers. I guess this was done in Illustrator. Linda?

Google images can keep me clicking along endlessly, and google earth is also an amazing tempting tool. I also use google analytics, google maps, everything but g-mail.

What are your favorite google features?

decor slut

see if this works!

actual url is here.

ebay card I didn't win

It's the message that makes it such a great card.

M.C. Escher Vegetable

Last year this amazing cauliflower-like vegetable was for sale for a month at the Encino Farmer's Market. I bought it each Sunday and marvelled at it. The picture is inadequate. Its head was comprised of flowerets, and each one was a spiral, going to a point like a conch shell, and each floweret's spiral was also a spiral! The flowerets were also arranged/grew in a spiral form. It was chartreuse color. The flavor was bland. No one had a name for it. Wondrous vegetable.

Vintage Clothing

I moved to Los Angeles around 1980. My job at Snazelle had ended, and I was directing the animation for Joe Dante's Twilight Zone episode. The production house was in North Hollywood, which was then a sad, deserted commercial area. At lunch I wandered into a shoe store where they still had shoes from decades before. Of course I was the only customer. The predatory elderly shoe salesman seized the opportunity.

He squeezed my big feet into shoes that were way too small and convinced me they fit, that they just needed breaking in. It was absurd. I bought about five pair which I carried back in a big stack. Jon was appalled when I told him about it.

I think I saw it as a window into the past, that somehow, wearing them, I could cross over. nuts!

Lovely vegetables

Encino Farmer's Market.

Obsolete Formats

Don't click there because nothing will happen...

Thanks for the nice comments on Sado Air. When I read the requests for further chapters, I got sort of sad. (Sad, not sado!)

I started the long Charbucks saga somewhere around 1998, or maybe earlier. It was when Starbucks were just starting to appear everywhere. It was just gifs, one episode at a time, with the characters repeating their lines over and over, until you clicked the next button.

I started looking for ways to make it livelier, found some script that allowed the girls to say things randomly, which seemed wildly wonderful.

Then a mysterious fellow in the Netherlands contacted me to beta test a web program he'd created himself, which simplified using JavaScript to create web animation and break out of the gif format. I should have been looking to Flash...

I built a long story about Whinsey and Anita travelling on the Titanic Two, after their plane crashed in Mesquite, Nevada. (And the plane crash too was in an obsolete form of code.) A very cool composer, Peter Drescher, provided music for me in the Beatnik format. Beatnik had some amazing code which made midi files sound like real music. This was before there were alternatives like mp3!

Beatnik is now obsolete, and the files don't play. The Titanic Two files also no longer play, because of changes to web browsers. I suppose I could recreate them, but not easily, as there were just masses and masses of code and engines in this program of Sada's. (That was his name.) He's completely vanished from the internet world as well.

Recently the New Yorker profiled Gordon Bell,
who's basically scanning/digitizing his entire life. But he says it's all dependent on the jpeg and word docs still surviving as valid formats. Don't count on it, bud!

yet more

click on the picture and see the face we see at home. click again and see who won "Athlete of the Year" and seven trophies.

This is maybe awful but funny. As she was accepting her big award, she said "Cheesits make you run fast." (She's a junk food vegetarian.) But most of the students at her school are Jewish, and Jon thought she said, "Jesus makes you run fast."

She's totally areligious, but the whole thing cracked us up.

Sado Air

Here's a new bit of animation I put together, based on the old gif story I told episode by episode back in the 90s on my web site. You have to be a fast reader.

I heard on the radio that a British film director, Michael Figgis (name?) arrived at LAX last week. As he passed through customs, they asked his purpose in visiting. He said, "I'm here to shoot a pilot." He got hauled off by TSA! True story!

Dinah Wins Again

The headmaster at Dinah's school emailed us Saturday that Dinah was going to receive the headmaster's award at the ceremony Monday morning. This honors the most outstanding student, though the criteria are not just academic. It's quite an honor.

We received elaborate secret instructions on where to meet, because the parents are included but the honor is a surprise, and no one is supposed to see you until the name is announced. Jon couldn't go because he'd booked an editing session, but I headed down there today at the appropriate time. A boy and girl each receive the honor. I was escorted backstage and stood in this dark closet-like hallway for the WHOLE ceremony, until her name was announced, then I walked out, got a hug, and was motioned aside so official pictures could be taken. Couldn't even peek out under a curtain.

We were thrilled she won it though.

My Favorite Candy

Thank goodness these are hard to find, because I can inhale these British candies. They have a gritty sugar coating and intense, not really like fruit, flavors. I used to also really like the American candies Jujyfruits and Dots, but they've changed the recipes and have a really weird spikey industrial aftertaste now. Red Vines taste better than Dots these days. Almost makes me want to do a search for vintage Dots. And how about Bonamo's Turkish Taffy? I once read Joe Bonamo's autobiography. (Bonomo?)

Years ago a British friend came to visit and I asked him to bring me some rolls of these Rowntree treats. I think he thought they were going to last half a century, but they were gone in two days.

Once on an airplane I sat next to a woman who offered me some of her Jujyfruits, and we got to talking about candy and discovered we had the exact same obsessive love of certain gummy candies-- but hated gummy bears. You know, candy fetish talk. And we continued to talk, which I never do on airplanes. Gradually I realized a common interest in candy doesn't equate to a common interest in life's bigger pictures.

ps my Father in law prefers See's Candy (of course) but also likes peanut brittle, generic.

frog fun for the feeble (or not)

Paprika opening credits

This opening sequence was exquisite, and the movie was astounding. It is a very trippy story about dream manipulation, and I've got to read more about how it was done.

Paprika

Going to see this movie today. I haven't been in a theatre in about a year.

Floating Sculpture

I studied sculpture in college, and made painted reliefs mostly, although my plaster of paris electric lamb with blue light bulb eyes was memorable. In the 80's I thought I had to personally help the trash stream with all the giant pieces of styrofoam packing material that were un-recyclable. I made numberous painted sculptures, using the bigger size styrofoam and cel vinyl paint. They looked quite nice floating in the pool. This one had a hook nose but you can't tell from the picture. I had a very cool electric wire styrofoam cutting device but it gave off a hideous odor and after awhile I felt the two were cancelling out-- the awful odor versus the styrofoam in trash cans. Besides, where do you store all this junk after awhile...

Bad Day on Google for me

I can't believe I spent almost the whole day online, trying to find the right drivers for Dinah's old cel phone, so she could save all the pictures she took, onto her pc, now that she has a new phone. I don't even have a cel phone, so that sets me back a bit.

There were hundreds of posts by frustrated phone owners who'd bought the cable, as I did two years ago, so they could download their camera phone pictures. But the drivers are elusive, and of course you're always walking into a mine field when you're looking for free drivers to download. And all the cell phone forums (and there are many!) I passed through today... with the same topic chewed on in different ways, and no sure solution... For many of them you have to join just to do a search, and joining is a three or four step journey.

By the end of the day we tried propping the cel phone on the step and taking a picture of its image with the digital camera. aah. Seen here is dear old Luna from her last summer.

And I did get my baklava!

Already eaten three, trying to achieve the whale look on the tray in one day.

Persepolis is now an animated feature

Jon pointed out a review of Persepolis from Cannes Film Festival, in Variety today, written and directed by Marjane Satrapi, based on her fine graphic novel of same title. It was produced in France, and looks as if it retains the interesting graphic style of the novel. No immediate release date announced.

The Beat Hotel

Since I was stuck in the lawn chair or bed all weekend, I mostly finished this book on Beatniks in Paris in the late fifties, early sixties. It was fairly interesting and remarkable in how different the attitude towards poetry is today, fifty years later. These poets really felt they were important-- and in their way, in history, they were. The book is all about the inhabitants of this one nasty hotel in Paris where Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, William Burroughs and others came and went and wrote lots of poems.

Allen Ginsberg seems like he was a decent guy. He loved looking at old buildings-- I liked that, and there's a wonderful short anecdote about him discovering a chateau within the city that seemed as if it had fallen out of time. It was occupied by the Russian Royal Ballet. He seems like he had a big heart, and when he leaves the book, 2/3 through, to go back to the states, the book drags.

The book has no index, which is annoying, because many odd unheard of books are mentioned, which I thought I'd look into later. I was surprised how much heroin Ginsberg and everyone else mentioned in the book was freely consuming in Paris. William Burroughs seemed like an evil snaky presence, but then I never read NAKED LUNCH. There was no crossover of cultures, with the Beats and the intellectuals of Paris at the time, even though the Existentialists were right there in the same city, and they all seemed fond of being seen and published. A number of the minor poets earned checks writing dirty novels for Olympia Press.

I saw Allen Ginsberg once, and I think it must have been at Smith. He was fat, his hair was long and wild and he seemed so launched into his point of view regarding politics, drugs, Jack Kerouac, (who might have just died then) that it was hard to get much sense of him. It was a time when people's politics could make them seem so one dimensional, especially if they were also stoned.

They brought a number of unusual writers and artists to Smith, including Tom Wolfe, Anais Nin, Anne Sexton, filmmaker Stan VanderBeeck, W.H. Auden. I distinctly remember each of these-- I'm sure there were lots more.

The image isn't an advertising link, ie I don't get 5 cents back, but you might be able to go straight to a look inside the book from it, I'm just not sure if that's how it works. I use the look inside feature at Amazon a lot, since I'm such a fussy reader. Sometimes you have to sign in before you get your free look.

Prom Night 2007

Dinah last night, on the way to the prom. She picked up her date, Cameron, in Santa Monica. (where he LIVES!-- I don't mean she PICKED him UP!) We had her car detailed before hand, and it also looked beautiful.

Too bad I didn't get her room detailed too:

Prom Night 1967

As Dinah was getting ready for Prom last night, I showed her a picture of me at prom my senior year at St. Mary's in Raleigh. It was called Freshman Sophomore dance, because the school was two years of high school and two years of college. My father's side of the family has long ties to this old school, which started in 1842, before the Civil War.

What's weird about that prom, aside from my sour expression, (the one on the left), is they let me do the decorations and I painted grotesque giant sized American tourists on banner paper that covered the walls! (Like the tourists in my film four years later, "fun on mars." ) Talk about romantic decor. Where are my crepe paper roses, lady? My date's name was Bob Kluttz. He was a great guy. The girl on the right is Jane Snyder.

I want my Baklava

Every year the Valley Greek Festival is held right around the corner. Greek music, Greek food, and Greeks! The menu never changes, and I start salivating just thinking about the feta cheese and sausage plate, and the fried calamari, and best of all the Greek pastries which the ladies of the church spend the year preparing, and freezing, and finally baking for this event. Sometimes I take home eight of them and eat them all myself. I especially like the novelty ones, one of which is made with cornmeal. The rest of the year I have no interest in baklava, but I'm a major pig come Memorial Day.

But.. but.. I got a stupid cold and just don't know if I'll even make it over there. I'm wondering if I caught it at the all "girls" party I went to last weekend, where you were supposed to bring clothes you don't wear anymore and take home whatever you want. Jon and Dinah were appalled by my choices. There was a girl at the party who said, "My mama used to call me Peaches, but now she calls me Ho-Rina." Nice name you got there, Horina. Hope you didn't give me this cold, though.

Another silly bit of code

from about five years ago...flash 5 code... click the yellow button with indecipherable writing. It's all done with numbers in arrays. funky old code.

what's on your Tennesseeasel?

Tennessee Sally
wants to see the same easel redecorated. If you draw on this one and press go, you should see some action.

Face Like A Frog Artwork

An online art gallery selling my art

After about a week of intensive code work with Flash's new language, ActionScript 3, I managed to build this html page, with video of my film Face Like a Frog, and means to go to the approx. place in the video where the background was used. This new code language is extremely different from the old days of on(press), so I was amazed that I could get it together.

my old flame

tried to post this last night without success. mae west was the anita inspiration.

LAMBCHOPS

This Vitaphone short is utterly charming. Gracie Allen was brilliant! Love everything about it!

I've always loved horses

Linda asked who liked horses first, Dinah or Sally? I've always loved horses, started riding when I was seven, and used to walk out the door and become a horse when I was a child. I rode in high school, in college, then couldn't ride when I lived in San Francisco and didn't have a car to get to a stable. When Jon and I met we went on wonderful rides on the beach, and then in England, and even once in Scotland.

My dear friend Kerry Mellin used to live in Sylmar on a chicken ranch that had belonged to Marlene Dietrich! Kerry and I would go for weekly rides galloping in the hills above Sylmar, the best riding times I ever had. She found Luna for me, the first horse I owned, a truly great horse. She was half Throughbred and half Appaloosa, brave and kind. When I got into show jumping, I bought Pepper, and Luna eventually became Dinah's horse. Luna died a few years ago at age 25 or so. We still miss her.

This is a picture of Dinah and me on Southern Comfort, one of Kerry's old horses. Dinah's not even a year old here. I think this was the first time she was on a horse.

The Banquet at Sportsmens' Lodge

Last night was the Interscholastic Equestrian League banquet at the Sportsmens' Lodge in Studio City. We'd received a call checking whether Dinah was coming or not, which implied she might be winning an award. That's Dinah on the left, with Randy Cano , (I designed his site here) and Ben Banuelos, her riding trainers since she was five years old. We love them! She's eighteen now!

The senior awards came at the end of the evening. The winners were still a secret. The speaker described a wonderful girl who'd spent countless hours working with handicapped children at Strides, and was so kind, devoted to helping others, etc. etc. I nudged the nice trainer next to me, whom I hadn't met before, and said, "they're talking about Dinah."

Haha, foolish me.

As Dinah is about to put her napkin on the chair and stand up, they read off another name. woah.

But, but, the next senior award recipient is described as funny, eccentric, original, determined to change the world, one of a kind, eccentric (again) and yes it was Dinah and look, she won a $2000. check! Thanks, IEL!

A Racetrack Contest

Here's a cool contest that starts Sunday- it's free, and you'll waste lots of time trying to win-- at least I know I will. Each day you pick one horse in one race that you think will win, place, or show. If you're right, you proceed. If not, it's over. It goes on for about a month, with ultimate prize of $5000. Make Me Psychic, again!

Laurel And Hardy 'The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine' 1937

I love this and have looked for it for a long time.

are you my?

Out at the stable, Dinah and I were crabbing about this and that. She's 18 and I'm not. I looked over at this scene and saw the cat walking away. I grabbed that cat and placed it back and took the snap. Sort of resembled our relationship or maybe not...

It's official: I'm a Dummy.

I tech edited this book, and one or two editions before this also. I got my free copy today. I'll probably sell it on ebay, oops. They put references to my site in the book, which really pleases me. The editor was charming and friendly, which made it more fun.

In a tech editing job like this, I get sent the manuscript in Word, (a horrible program), and am allowed to beta test the new software. The job is to find errors or things that don't make sense or seem obsolete, and also to test all the examples. It's a job where I get paid to be critical, thus rewarding an irritating personality trait of mine.

About five years ago I tech edited a whole string of beautifully designed books on Flash for the Brit publisher "friends of ed." There was no ed, and they stiffed me and everyone else mightily in a surprise bankruptcy. Tech editing pays very little, and even less when they go Chapter 11.

I love Flash and feel it's underused by experimental animators. Adobe owns it now, and this new version has a code language that is so complex, it's sure to shut out most newcomer designers and animators, unless they have a back up coding team, which is too bad. (This book barely touches code-- it's truly for dummies.)

I still think interactive animation is the future for 2-D animation, but waiting for the rest of the world to agree with me.

Happy Mother's Day!

Do something about it! My mother is really, really funny, and at 92 can still tell a great story and crack people up. This picture was taken two years ago on her 9oth birthday.

Her eyesight isn't so good any more and neither is her way of thinking. Yesterday I called her to thank her for the little flowers she sent me, and asked if she'd gotten the flowers I sent her. She said "I wondered who sent me those flowers. I thought the florist sent them to thank me for my order. I thought these florists were getting awfully extravagant with their thank yous." (The flowers I sent cost $80!)

An ongoing dilemma concerns the books I published for her on lulu.com this year. She's got about fifty copies, and I made little inscription labels for them so she can give them to special friends, and those are all signed, and we have envelopes for them. But she still hasn't given them out, because she doesn't want people to thank her and secretly think she's conceited. So she has decided she wants to wait and give them out at her funeral.... MOM!

We're going to the racetrack with a group of friends today, and we're betting money! I'm even going to try for the Daily Double! exacta, trifecta, all these terms had me tossing in bed last night. A horse named Sally So Sure is even running. Dinah's bringing her boyfriend Cameron. Wish me betting inspiration. Make me psychic!

Post race wrap-up! We had a great time. I goofed on the Daily Double, but our friend Linda Pearl won that one. (You bet on who's going to win the first and second race.) Then the next race I did an exacta box but one of the two horses I picked had acquired a different number since I studied my info, so blew that one too. It wasn't looking so good. Then a $2.00 bet to show brought me $15, and I was looking better... goofed on a few more, wondered why I read all those handicappers' reports.

But then, ah psychic joy... the last race, #8, the only stakes race, I had a sudden inspiration to add to my studied bets, and put $2.00 across the board, meaning win, place, show, on a horse nobody had mentioned that looked hot to me when I saw him walking in the paddock. Odds were 17-1, and d@mn if that horse didn't win, and I got $54 . Now I'm way over confident and can't wait to go back.

I Am a Mole

I spent too much time this week doing this silly video. Song was from "Hello Children Everywhere", a set of British audio tapes.

I blogged this from youtube, which is a new feature they have.

I didn't imagine the Southlanders were a real group, or one that existed anymore, but then after Linda posted her note I googled them, and discovered their site here! Off to the lake with Molly, will explore this later.

Beezie Madden World Cup 2007

Beezie Madden went into the World Cup as a likely US favorite to win. When she fell off Thursday night, her horse continued to jump two more fences, including the one where Beezie went off. Pretty amazing.

Interesting Art Form I didn't know much about

Smery Tofu Keychain

My friend Rob Hardy directed me to this site, kidrobot.com
Feel like spending money?

Futuristic Me

Just got this email from cnet:

Subject: Better check to see if your car is spying on you!

Dear CNET members,
Last week's community hot topic was about alternative fuels for cars. Usually I don't make it a habit of doing two car topics in a row, but I just couldn't pass this one up. You folks have to check out this latest Security Watch column: Is your car spying on you?...

I did an animated piece on this theme in 2005! Let's see if I can link to it. HERE!

Fiery Sunrise

This was around 5:30 this morning at our watering hole, Lake Balboa, where Molly and I go most mornings. We're about 15 miles from Griffith Park.

Fire Season so soon

(right after i posted this, i pulled the roasting asparagus out of the oven, and the hot olive oil spilled all over my left hand. we googled burns, and are following advice, ooowwwwwww! one handed typing.)

Everything is so dry here it is just weird. It's been the driest year on record. This fire shot is from two years ago, when Bell Canyon was on fire and we had to evacuate the horses. (We've had to do that twice.)

We live in suburbia: Northridge, Ca., so the wildfires don't affect our houses, but the horses are another story. When I was at the stable this afternoon all the horses were acting a bit loco, spinning around on lead ropes, and not just my old horse Pepper who always does that. I was checking the sky to make sure there wasn't an unreported blaze, but it was clear, and the Griffith Park fire was far away.

But can you imagine the procedure to evacuate a zoo, which was being discussed this afternoon. (now it seems to be out of danger.)

New Tree

In January our Pepper tree blew down.

We had a new one planted this week. It looks like the old one just fell in a big hole.

Break Out Sunday

We're going sheep herding.

Kentucky Derby today!

It's Derby Day, and I've spent the last hour reading Daily Racing Form and trying to decide on my favorites.

I'm not planning on betting, but I'll be in front of the tv and taping it. Is there a way to bet on line? I like Great Hunter, Street Sense, and Curlin, in that order, but I'm just an amateur.

Hardspun and Zajero also look nice, and Storm in May is a mudder. It's been very wet in Kentucky. The Queen of England will be there. Who would you pick?

I always love hearing Stephen Foster's "My Old Kentucky Home." I wish they'd play that at big horse shows instead of "Star Spangled Banner", which is a dreadful tune and singers puff up and do such silly and grand versions of it.


Post Race:they came in 1. Street Sense, 2. Hard Spun, 3.Curlin. I picked two out of three, and got Curlin right in three. Dinah put Street Sense as first, and I picked Hard Spun pre-race as my wild card. So our horse sense was not too shabby, but just as well that we didn't put money down.

String Devils Beta Site

I didn't use this garish cow image, but if you have a chance, please beta test the site I've just done for The String Devils, and tell me what you think. Thanks!

They must live in Northridge

Found this in google images while looking for a Mexican devil mask.

Chased by Pitbulls!!

We went for a nice little morning hike in Ahmanson Ranch this morning. Molly, my German Shepherd, was on leash, and I was keeping an eye out for rattlesnakes. We were half an hour out when I turned a corner and saw in a flash some guys with bandanas and a German Shepherd off leash, and shovels. So I turned fast and headed back down the trail, ran down the trail, coward that I am.

We're getting close to the park entrance when I see a PITBULL off leash running towards us. I use my Exorcist voice and yell "NOOO!!". (Summoning my Bart the Bear spirit of course.) The dog turned around and ran off. I took a side trail and waited out of view until the dog had passed, as well as the woman who owned him. We start back on another little trail, turned a corner, and there stand two teenage boys smoking dope. I scared them. I told them there was a pitbull loose, and their eyes got round like cartoon eyes. Now they were more scared. They took off.

I followed them. As I came around the next hedge there were the bandana guys with the German Shepherd on a leash now and no shovel, so I followed along behind them back to the street.

I'd just come out of the gates to the park, when I see a dog charging down this ditch walk at righ angles to the street, with its owner screaming behind him to stop. He's a Pit Bull mix. He bolts across the street straight at us. I yell "NOOO!" in my Exorcist voice and turn Molly away. It doesn't phase him. I throw my water bottle at him. Doesn't phase him. Both dogs are doing the growl bark and lunge thing. The lady grabs her dog, but then he breaks loose and comes at us again. I throw my keys at him. (Another stupid thing to do.)

When she finally grabs her dog, she yells at me that I shouldn't have kept running off because it made it harder to catch her dog. I told her she shouldn't let a dog off leash that she can't control and I didn't say anything insulting.

Great Horned Owls

inquisitive owl?
Originally uploaded by artolog.

Art Siegel has documented a pair of Great Horned owls on Bernal Hill in San Francisco, in an amazing series of photographs which he's kindly allowed me to link to. These photographs are truly beautiful. One of the pair of owls has since died, sadly.

Cowboy Sundae

We had the bestest time today.

Girl above is an example of fashion surprises at the Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival. Since no cameras are allowed, I have to work from memory. This overweight but stylish gal caught my eye in spite of my tattoo phobia. She was wearing a strapless red and white polka dot dress with tattooed bows on the backs of her legs. Talk about accessories (that trail you for a lifetime.) On her back was a brand new dish plate size floral tattoo, and her hair was two tone, blonde and raspberry with a double Anita roll in front. Harlequin glasses and a friend not quite as outstanding completed the look. (you thought I'd draw the friend too?)

Otherwise the main fashion dos were cowboy hats, big buckles, big bellies, big arms. It was 103 yesterday, but today was cooler. I began to realize that the people in really fancy period Western dress were paid to do so.

We were delighted by David Bourne
who plays classic saloon piano with verve and education, a treat. He knew Pete Clute, who was the piano player at Earthquake Magoon's, where I spent a few months as cocktail waitress long, long ago. (1971!!)His specialty is tunes from before Ragtime. He started his career at Knott's Berry Farm, and has published a book about it. I'm interested in the early days of the KB Farm myself, but that's another story.

Best for Last: The String Devils played before a huge audience who were all on their feet cheering at the end. I spoke to Whit Smith, before the show and am going to build a web site for them. yay hooray, happy day for me.