“I doubt anyone has read less poetry than me. Like jazz, I just don’t get it. Both seem to be exercises in how to make something simple, complex for no reason at all.“
Maybe not reading it – but …
Tear it open let it bleed Scream the truth I can’t concede Burn the lies consume the ash Rise again from the devil’s wrath
* * * * * * *
Rusted walls closing in too tight Echoes scream in the dead of night Cursed by the weight of what I’ve done Falling deeper nowhere to run
* * * * * * *
Shadows creeping whisper my name Chains of despair drag me deep Underneath where no light can creep
“Newsom quickly condemned the move as a “blatant abuse of power” that puts the nation on a path to authoritarianism … California may be first, but it clearly won’t end here,” the governor said. “Other states are next. Democracy is next.”“
The Democrats are screaming the same old song about Trump destroying democracy.
Good. I hope he succeeds. It’s among the reasons I voted for him.
I get so tired of hearing that.
The US is not a democracy, it’s a constitutional republic. I believe it was Justice Scalia that reaffirmed that the Constitution is not a living document, it’s a legal contract. Democracy – particularly the Democrats version – needs to be flushed away along with the rest of the crap they continually spout off.
Franklin (maybe): “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch“. Our Constitution allows the lamb to be armed.
Foreign troops waving foreign flags on US soil? There’s an answer to that. Legal with long historical precedent. And it’s what the Marines do.
But I’m probably preaching to the choir with this group …
Every once in a while, rarely planned, never expected, and usually off the back trails further out than what most consider back trails, I’ll come across a surprise.
This pan, deep up a canyon in the Owyhee Mountains, was found hanging on the wall of an old miner’s cabin. The cabin was still mostly in good shape – not really habitable anymore, but worthy of shelter if caught in a storm.
I don’t know what I was thinking taking a vehicle up that “road” – brush cutting, rut filling, tree moving … Well, yes I do (“I wonder what’s up here?“) … but I might have needed that cabin for shelter.
As far as I know, the pan is still there.
Over the past 45 years or so wandering in places a thinking person normally wouldn’t go, I’ve collected a few of these surprises – some I can prove such as this, some perhaps subject to an aging memory.
The few certain things I’ve learned of these findings is that 1) it’s no use taking someone with me with the purpose of finding “something”, 2) I will find nothing if that is my intent, and 3) it is not uncommon for me to not find “it” again if I try to return.
I should be ashamed having read so little of so few poets and nothing at all of so many more. they’ve spent their lives writing words just for the likes of me and I barely know but a few. I should be ashamed to do what I do like I’m the only one who has ever done it when it’s mostly been done already and better and oftener before. I should be ashamed and burn my notebooks and break my pencils and read what’s already been written and what’s being written now. But I am reading what’s being written now this minute by me and some others here and there when I can and when I want. I should be ashamed of thinking about quitting. someone somewhere might someday read what I wrote yesterday or today and think about writing what they have to say in their own way and another link gets added to the chain and another chapter is added to the story. I should be ashamed for doing so little. But I’m not.
There’s something about this photo I’ve always liked. It was taken in 2013 and something inside back then inspired me to play with color settings on one of my image processors. I liked what I had come up then with so I re-did the processing here some 12 years later.
Original image: NEF to TIF to zero-compression JPG, no further processing other than scaling.
The original NEF image was taken under natural daylight, has pixel size of 7370/4916, was translated to TIF with ProPhoto color, then scaled with no further processing to 800/534 JPG with zero-compression and print resolution of 300px/in.
But I go further … and y’all get to experience the joy of pretending you’re in an art gallery, examining works of “fine art” exploring variations in hue, saturation, and a bonus example image of edge detection.
Or not …
The same conversions and scaling were used as in the original print with the addition of adjusting hue and saturation. No mixture of hues was utilized; color filters were RED, YEL, GRN, CYN, BLU, and MAG. Saturation levels for each color were 0% or 100%.
Only RED:
Only RED
The RED only appears more orange than red and appears over-emphasized when other colors are removed.
Only YEL:
Only YEL
On the other hand, while YEL-only is mostly emphasized on the edges, the color is not as over-whelming as RED-only.
All colors except RED and YEL:
RED, YEL both at 0%
Other than a small hint of green grass through a gap in the machinery, it appears to be a black&white image.
All set to 0% saturation:
All saturation levels at 0%
With all colors set to 0% saturation, the image appears fully B&W
No adjustments to saturation or hue; conversion of ORIG to Gray-scale (B&W)
Color Conversion to Gray-Scale (B&W)
At this scale, it’s hard to differentiate between the last three, but there are subtle differences between the 0-saturation image and the gray-scale image. Differences in the conversion algorithms but subtle enough to not be noticeable at first glance of a scaled image.
Just for grins, I applied a basic EdgeDetect filter:
Shall we say “avant garde“?
There you have it. The original is OK as is, but I believe my preference is B&W.
Yesterday – June 9, 2025 – “Sly Stone of Sly and the Family Stone, dead at 82“
A sample of some obscure – and some maybe not obscure – tunes from my strange and off-the-wall collection.
Today’s selection: Sly and the Family Stone “I Want To Take You Higher“, “Everybody Is A Star” 1969
I Want To Take You HigherEverybody Is A Star
Both cuts were B sides; both cuts ranked high on the Billboard charts.
Bonus cut – Woodstock version of “Want To Take You Higher“
Woodstock: “What we would like to do … is sing a song together …“
” “I Want to Take You Higher” is not a message song; instead, it is simply dedicated to music and the feeling one gets from music.” The performance at Woodstock – about 3AM – was considered one of the best of the festival.
“Everybody Is A Star” wasn’t released on an LP until a Greatest Hits compilation was released.
Sly & The Family Stone put on a good show – when they decided to show up, something not always certain.
just to stop California from thinking they can tell the rest of us what to do and how to live.
“Full Marine Battalion Of 500 Deploying To LA As Newsom Sues Trump Over National Guard“
Navin Grewsom: “Californians pay the bills for the federal government. We pay over $80 BILLION more in taxes than we get back. Maybe it’s time to cut that off, @realDonaldTrump.“
[then why are you running such huge deficits?]
Cut them off. Let them keep their $80B. The rest of us already need permission to enter – the state has “customs” stations at the border; make those work both ways.
Let them get it shoved in their faces they’re not as independent of us as they’d like to believe; that they need the rest of us for such things as electricity and fuel and water.
The expression “Don’t Californicate xxxx” didn’t come about out of nowhere – look what happened to Oregon.
Winter. Late afternoon. The beach is empty. The air is grey-blue. The ocean is grey-silver, scattered with foamy white waves.
At the high-tide mark is a long wooden, railed walkway leading to an old gazebo perched on top of the highest dune. Inside the gazebo is a picnic table with benches.
Under the table is a pair of small deck shoes. Between the shoes is an empty styrofoam coffee cup.
The most interesting thing is on the table. An open book. The pages on the left are flapping lightly with the breeze. The pages on the right are clipped together by a pen. They struggle to move with the wind..
On that first page on the right is a single handwritten line. In the most delicate and precise penmanship. It says…
