w i e r d n e s s . . . 7.30
okay, so we finishing off loading the dumpster today, and it should be picked up sometime later this day as well. Coach S. has been over and done some painting in the now extremely well cleaned rooms of chez d'monquis, and damn, what a difference a fresh coat of paint makes, unfortunately it doesn't do much for the creaky foundation
and bats in the belfry (actually skunk under the cottage).
Little adventure with the automobile, investing some $$$ in the monkeemobile for the trip ahead (some of it, at least...) & one of the things done recently was installation of new radiator and while out to El Cerrito recycling center yesterday, an alert forklift operator waved us down and said "man, you got a big coolant leak there". Lo and behold, we did, and hied the damn monkeemobilie right back to mechanic, so overnight in the shop, hopefully getting it back today, seems our plans for
departing local environs on Sunday morning might be delayed a day or two.
s'always sumtink...
w h e w . . . 7.27
caught up in whirlwind of activity over the last week or so, the Momz and Brother Dave making brief visit here to chez jaypea, multipurpose kind of thing, celebrating Brother K's 20 years of service in the Coast Guard, very fine & informal
retirement ceremony held at small C.G. station in Pt. Reyes, all of us a tiny bit choked up sometime during ceremony thinking how fine it would have been to have the Popz around to have witnessed this, and believe the ol' chango tonto when he tell you that there be a L O N G story behind alla 'dat...
yourstruly also in final stages of "letting go", emptying out chez d'monquis, putting a few things into storage, good pal Coach S & the Cully-dogg going to be inhabiting the ol' homestead for some little while, as yet undetermined, as mineowndarnself intends to spend much of the rest of the year journeying about, will be in the desert S.W. for portions of the months to come, visiting some amigos in Texass, also out on the other coast, largely the NYC area, with some luck up into Vermont, intending to include visits to N. Carolina and Tennessee and who knows what other destinations we may wander into during these travels.
part of what l'Marquis' experiencing currently might be best described as bittersweet, looking forward to adventures and
sights heretofore unseen, but in pulling up the roots so firmly established over the last couple of decades, he's been
undergoing much travel down memory lane as he sifting thru the detritus and rubble acquired and stashed away over those many years: the joys and mournful times, acquaintences fondly remembered, some of the remaining bittersweet ache left behind by old love affairs. He also kind of upset at himself for turning into the hoarder of crap that he has become, so underneath all of this is the positive effort of unemcumbering himself of the weight of all of that stuff. We keeping
a positive frame of mind for the most part, even though a lot of the response we have been getting from pals of late is that kind of "hey, you not gonna be around any longer, you gonna be missed", and it's all just temporary, in some fundamental way, mienen freunden, you likely see me 'round these parts again sometime...
okay, una cosa muy importante, a fine night out and a way to help support a fine radio station here in the Bay Area,
An Evening with Arundhati Roy & Friends to benefit free speech radio at KPFA. oh Oh OH, and we almos' forgot, long admired
diarist/weblogging librarian J. West is on scene at the DNC, reporting her adventures there at librarian.net/dnc. & as for ourowndamnedself, we be back here sooner than later, datz a promise...
waiting for the tree guy... 7.19
and while it likely not what Beckett had in mind, certainly leaves yourstruly feelin' stuck out there in existentialville; so, in the meantime, lots of chewy, linky goodness. Let's begin with Curing Casanova (nonono, then l'Marquis'd have no fun at all...), ourowndarnself mentioned getting 'round to seeing this film a while ago, and as we didn't catch it in the theatre first time 'round, we'll make of point of doing so this time; rounding out this N.Y. Times hat trick, posthumous work by Elliot Smith due in the fall. okay, still no tree guy, dammit, so we make the obligatory phone call, leave message on voicemail and hope for the best...
okay, we ask ourowndamned self, why not share some of the new additions to our bloggos favoritos? Ready? here goes: Gorilla Mask; American Amnesia; Sacramento is the New New York; flatlander; fatshadow; politrix; Immolation.org; Beautiful Horizons; Cruft; The 18 1/2 Minute Gap; and likely best describes what we often suffering from, bloghorrea. okay, enough, basta, no mas, no mas, put a cork in it you big dumb ape. Alright, we can take a hint. We leave you with one last thing for today, written for an audience in another place, but seems like it would apply to a good many of us, no matter where it is we call home, a brief treatise on how to fight corruption
just a little reminder of a particular reality... 7.17
from the New Yorker issue of 7/12 & 19, by Gahan Wilson,
also from same issue, Books: Fathers & Sons by David Greenberg.
and then, as is our habit, some chewy linky goodness, jessferdahalibut...
gleaned via another visit to the cornucopia overflowing at wood s lot, A Cloud over Civilisation;
harvested from the many items posted by the MeFi community, Gargoyle or kin to l'Marquis;
then, as we're contemplating grilling some fish later today,
from the tao te ching, chapter 60;
from the pages of the Marin Independent Journal, Use a delicate touch when grilling fish
;
from the still waters running deeply known as Whiskey River, If you want to be a Buddha "The Buddha is within yourself, the real Buddha. The Buddha you see in the garden is a Buddha, but made with plaster, it's not a real Buddha. When you bow to that Buddha, if you bow correctly, you touch the Buddha within. Because everything has the Buddha inside, has the ultimate dimension inside - to bow to anything is fine, to the moon, to the morning star. You produce your true presence, and be there with one hundred percent of yourself. A real Buddha is not made of copper or gold or plaster - a real Buddha is made with mindfulness. So bow to the Buddha in such a way that you touch Buddha inside and you know Buddha is not something abstract, it is your mindfulness. If you want to be a Buddha, you can be a Buddha. A Buddha is someone who is made of mindfulness." - Thich Nhat Hanh
pass this along to your friends & family... 7.14
we've not made mention of j. carroll hereabouts for some little while, might have something to do with our great, hirsute personage no longer wandering the hallways of Fishwrap HQ any longer, but after reading his Tuesday column thought this was something we had to share with our dedicated dozen visitors.
sorry, dere ain' no sexy grandmas 'round heah...
and yet we be tickled that d'monquis be in the top 10 results in this fervent search for sexy grandmas...
later that same day... 7.13
added a link to the sidebar there on the left, the POAC,
and in the way of an introduction, particularly since we mentioned fine documentary from years ago entitled Coverup: The Iran Contra Affair a few days back, here is link from POAC entitled Return of the Iran Contra Crew. OH, and they gotz some pretty groovy T-shirts, too...
something akin to a hissy-fit...
having spent the better part of the last day exchanging email with the head cheesemaker of the hosting service utilized by d'Monquis Inc., after the frustrations experienced with this company over the last six months or so, well, perhaps yourstruly should cease ignoring the writing on the wall, so to speak, and look around for another host somewhere. Should anyone out there be utilizing the services of a company with whom you have been entirely satisfied and would unhesitatingly offer up a recommendation, oh do please let us know.
Now we can get around to item we wished to include with the post celebrating Neruda's centenary yesterday...
to the young turk at forty-five... 7.12
remember that ol' saw 'bout old age & treachery, m'lad. happy b-day to the wizard behind the curtain at Ethel...
psssssst...
mid-morning mention of big bunch of linky goodness celebrating Neruda
alongside the usual overflowing cornucopia of great stuff over at wood s lot
some things we happy 'bout this morning... 7.11
the cherry tomatoes we picked up at the Monterey Market on friday morning are delicious (!) (and the watermelon ain't bad either); made pancakes this morning for visitor and ourowndamnself from scratch, utilizing the recipe provided in Joy of Cooking, and they came out fine, the blueberries saved the day as it likely our baking powder has lost some of it's whiz-bang element, nevertheless 'dem pankakes were yummy ones; long conversation w/amigo Jamie yesterday afternoon, good fellow he, concerned enough a neighbor to drop in and check on chez d'Monquis whilst we away recently, even tho' we had arranged for another pal of our (the fabulous Ms. Janey-Kakes) to provide same sort of keeping an eye on the monkeemansion, water the plants, etc. Jamie is originally from the other coast and upon learning of our plans to spend some time there in near future made mention of several places to include on our list of locales to see and be seen, got to met up with hisowndarnself again soon and glean more info from that fine mind of his. During our chat, which leapt hither & yon over many subjects & ideas, he described dilemma he was facing lately, his employer being government agency concerned with environment and one of his specialities bringing him into contact with female of the species who is attempting to use him & his position as leverage with state authorities in re something to do with cattle waste and methane production as alternative energy source, her primary reason to get into this (she is deep pockets kind of gal with much money made in bio-tech investments) appears to be largely, ahhhh, well, likely for personal gain, and we be the first to admit we assuming onehelluvalot. Couple of items in the local news brought this methane digestion/alternative energy thing to yourstruly's attention recently, an article out of the S.F. Chronicle from 6.27 regarding impediments towards wider utilization of this technology that can be blamed on P.G. & E. We came across earlier success story (also in Chron, but not able to locate link to that item) in re to the Straus Family Creamery's successful effort, and damn, it just seems that the Governator ought to be all over this RIGHT NOW, if he be so concerned with alleviating some of the state's energy woes, and come to think of it, not just the Governator of the state of Kalifa, but shouldn't this kind of thing be encouraged NATIONWIDE? oh yah, Binky, you know it, s'only there happens to be such a huge number of ignorami in high places with other things entirely on their agendas, and now, dammit, we ain't feelin' so happy at all...
so, we leave ya with just a couple of items from the desktop of d'Monquis, some of them be items very handy to send to pals & relatives of thine, you know which ones, the ones whom you have paid good money to take along on trip to see Fahrenheit 9/11 and remain stubbornly attached to their mind-set, unwilling to expand their horizons enough to contemplate the idea that we've been lied to over and over and over again-- ohOh, we be digressing, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, so on with the show: from Mother Jones, The Lie Factory; from Information Clearing House, Exposed: The Carlyle Group; another documentary which may or may not be available in your area, but as it is on DVD, do us all a favor and buy a couple of copies to send to your pals & loved ones, ask them to invite a bunch of folks over for some barbeque chicken and a little socializing/screening of Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War; and yahhh, yourstruly well aware this comes from a couple of years back, but damn, don't you wish now that we'd all have made a bigger stink over the administration's intentions, that we ought to have been all over our congressfolk & selloutators-- ooops! senators, local paper's editors, favorite news shows for kowtowing & playing along with their bullshit? Shame on us, katz und kitteez, shame on us. Let's do everything we can to make certain that cretin in the white house gets booted out and all those clowns who rode into town with him get their just desserts. Or is that asking too much?
sheeee-iiiit, now we be feelin' REALLY unhappy...
something akin to a prayer answered... 7.8
here's a contrast for you, 100-102 degree temperatures experienced over the last couple of days then landing in
the Bay Area a bit after 10 Am, arriving at chez d'Monquis by nearly noon, local temp at that time pretty close to
sixty degrees beneath the residual cloudy skies leftover from foggy morning. Utilized public transportation on our
return to the Albany house, AirBart shuttle, the Richmond train on Bart to Berkeley, AC Transit's 43 line to Solano/Santa Fe, and one block walk to the house, thankful for the opportunity to continue to take advantage of that transportation option, getting from Oakland airport to home for about seven bucks as opposed to $23 on the shuttle or $50 bucks for a taxi, could've been cheaper by just using the bus, likely that would've added an hour or so to the travel time.
so we get on the plane in EPT, 3 or 4 fellows boarding with us, apparently sales reps for some company involved in production of those custom tour buses you might have seen on the road, often carting about some group of musicians or another. Anyway, this particular flight stops in Albuquerque, where another 4 or 5 fellows join up with the group already aboard. Difficult not to overhear snippets of their conversation, sort of a loud & loutish bunch, three in the seats in front of yourstruly, three more in front of them, and three across the aisle. Some conversation between them about an earlier adventure, "hooking up" with some females of the species, one of the group being needled for his choice of "hook up", evidently a match made on the internet off of Yahoo personals. The needle being applied in this particular case was in re this woman's size, evidently a pluz sized gal, the needle getting quite crude, with one of these geniuses in the row ahead of me doing that soooooo-eeeeeee-eeeyyyyy pig holler thing, his seatmates jumping in with a few choice comments of their own. Evidently these fellows all headed to Napa for some kind of get-together with others in the industry, and once we got off the ground in Albuquerque and the bar was open (so to speak, as the beer & liquor was not available during that brief initial leg of the flight) these intrepid travelers were ready to lubricate. Stewardess made
judgement call after the second order of cocktails and refused any other orders, by that time the flight was 10/15 minutes from landing in Oakland. Later conversation overheard, again, same fellow doing the pig call earlier, speaking to seat mate about how his mother wanted to set up the seat mate with his sister, his discription of Sis? "Fake tits, BIG ones brother, great ass, long blonde hair, forty-nine looking like twenty-nine and fine."
Egads... came across the Time magazine issue with Michael Moore on the cover, pretty decent piece on the man and his latest cinematic endeavor. Those of you who've been regular visitors here know our opinion of the major players in the cad-ministration is not a positive one,
and the great dismay that crushed us on the day of that election in the year 2000, well, we knew it was going to get ugly, we just had little idea of how ugly it was going to get. Anyway, yourstruly has some large admiration for Mr. Moore and his efforts, wethinks his heart in the right place, his agenda well-intentioned, his motivations honest, so we've little reluctance to encourage folks we know to see Fahrenheit 9/11. We'd like to encourage them to see a few other things as well, like something else we saw in the theatre recently, The Corporation, and something we re-viewed
just before departing on our brief desert sojourn, Coverup: Behind the Iran Contra Affair. If it wasn't after midnight already and yourstruly hadn't had to be up at dark-thirty to make certain he got to the airport on time this Am, perhaps our grey matter might be more cooperative and we could better recall a few other titles worthy of mention alongside those. Maybe, if anybody wants one and they ask us really nicely, l'Marquis will dupe a copy of Coverup and send it along to you, likely a little hard to find in your local video emporium these days. Oh, these shenanigans go back a long way, you know, and as to why it seems that those folks labeling themselves Republicans seem to be the ones with the dirtiest hands more often than not, well, that's a matter for conjecture, all ourowndamnedself's gonna cop to is we ain't one of them and you can take that to the bank, Binky. okay, it is late, we be tired and ready for a few hours respite after a pretty long day so we leave you with just a couple of items. From ZNet, The Problem is Bigger than the Bushes, and you know it is too, don't you Binky? hell, ya don't need to hear it from l'Marquis, eh? Next item is a hefty little download (1.7 megs), another item sent our way from pal who is paying plenty of attention to what's going on, The Sloganator; alright then, una cosa mas, what we've been watching while sitting here and working on this, locally broadcast on KCSM, from the PBS Wide Angle series, The Rock Star and the Mullahs, entonces, pues, gatos y gatitas, muy buenas noches a ustedes...
102 degrees & dreaming of a cool, foggy morning... 7.7
alright, still in the desert S.W., back at chez d'Monquis by midday on Thursday, celebrating the second of a couple of family birthdays tonight, this one is our sis Victoria's, of whom l'Marquis be especially appreciative of for the degree of concern & amount of energy expended in providing the MonkeeMomz some companionship and assistance. Before we get much farther here, want to point thee in the direction of esteemed C.J.'s BookNotes and his mention of an anniversary of event that also played large part in yourstruly's formative years, oh yah, we wanted nothing more than to be a Beatle, be like a Beatle, be somebody like John L. Then from another highly thought of pal of ours (smart and single too, fellas!), in re to Fahrenheit 9/11, A searing portrait of Bush's America. Ourowndamnedself has viewed the film on three occasions so far,
it be one of the great pleasures we have enjoyed of late, introducing folks we know to this film in particular,
and perhaps widening the perspective of one or two folks that hadn't (to this date) been as aware of things as they might ought to have been. More to say on this later, again, dealing with dial-up here and, well, l'Marquis' got some other things on his mind as well. Come September his royal heinieness will be wending his way eastward, hoping to raise
some ruckus during the RNC occupation of NYC, you katz & kitteez in the neighborhoods there consider yourselves forewarned...
holiday weekend in the high desert...
typically this time of year is recognized to be local monsoon season, great magnificent thunderstorms releasing deluge of rainfall, so much sometimes that it results in flooding the lower lying areas, but usually quickly percolates thru the sandy desert soil, and in most places leaving little trace of having been rained upon except for the residual piles of sand left by the flooding of street intersections due to temporary overwhelming of the drainage ditches & canals. l'Marquis and his Momz went to see F. 9/11 at local theatre yesterday afternoon, happy to see Moore's film open on second screen now, initially only available at one screen in theatre way out on east side of town. Good crowd for early matinee and what gave ourowndarnself hope was the crowd was largely appreciative of Mr. Moore's effort and seemingly weary of the shenanigans foisted upon us by the Moron in Chief & his cad-ministration, all of this providing us with some small measure of hope for some positive change to occur in November. While we mentioning movies, the other thing yourstuly enjoys doing whilst here amongst members of the tribe is introducing them to films they might not have had opportunity or inclination to see. Two in particular we enjoyed very much, Station Agent and In America so, katz und kitteez, if you've not been able to avail thyselves of opportunity to enjoy those yourowndarnselves, they be out there and available on home video. oh Oh OH... something else to mention before we forget, wonderful movie we caught in theatre on its initial domestic release here, marvelous & lovely little film from Japan, Shall We Dance; caught part of it yesterday evening on cable television which is reason why we mentioning it here and now, also because Hollywood has intentions of remake starring that R. Gere fellow and you all know as well as l'Marquis does, when H-wood gets its claws into fine original material with intention of making star driven remake thingie from it, well, it is almost always a BIG disappointment, so, meine freunden, locate that little jewel of a film at your local video emporium or online rental agent of choice, take our word for it, you'll be enjoying something pretty special...
the evolutionary scramble onto dry land that became june '04
came across the Time magazine issue with ![[Optimized for PinealWeb]](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tilt/pinealweb/pineal.gif)