1,000 words

Thass wass a picture (pix) is said to be wurf, HOMES!

However, in the cases we see here, because of the peculiar nature of the subject, Mike Pence, one of the crowned heads in this  years'  political beauty contest (yay, hooray), there's so much content, indeed narrative  in each shot that considerably fewer than 1,000 words is necessary to convey the topic to a state of utter redundancy.

At 57, Mike Pence is a very  good-looking man -- you'd have to be blind to miss it -- and he's good looking in a particularly politician-conservative kind of way. Although he's easily

 the best appearing of the four crowned heads this year, Mike hardly ever wears a crown. To  do so would draw attention away from his most important feature -- vice-presidential  hair, and not a single one is out of place. (74 words) As you can se it's my best feature 2, even when wet. 10Q  bubbles, every noche.



And on occasion, storm clouds pass over the veepish visage, rendering it stony & cold, and not belonging 2 one who is wanted in the White House except maybe 4 security detail.   

The picture in this case says "Mike Pence is pissed -- and we're told it happens frequently." (9 words).
        

Here's another possibly less obvious but I've been told more typical Pence anger routine, the one that begins with "I'll bet you didn't know this finger was loaded, Buckwheat!" in this case it's aimed at George Stephanopoulos, who refused to abandon a line of questioning re: Indiana's new anti-gay-and-lesbian law minted under Pence's governorship. He insists it's for their "equal protection" and ordered George S. to cease his line of questioning or face a discharge from the incident...

To his credit, that's the only finger I've seen 
Gov. Pence use. He's a clean-cut, middle-class white boy, polite and not given to profanity. His homicidal instincts are buried deeply enough that Mom will never notice.

 

the water thief

Water never  tastes as good as when it comes from a free-flowing source such as a creek or natural spring, and it belongs to someone else.

To illustrate this principle, Sammy takes a big, satisfying drink from Kit's cup.This  underscores her motto, "Su casa es mi casa."

calavera

            

Eram quod es;

Eris quod sum.

use 2 bee & spoze 2 bee

 Let me apologize once again for promising this op-ed (what should I call these things other than blog pieces?)11 days ago-- almost 2 wks -- that I promised a compare-and contrast between modern forms of entertainment and the primitive Punch & Judy shows you can see on the streets of London 

town in season. 

The problem is that we're talking about such vastly different species there's hardly any room for comparison. I chose Milli Vanilli, the great pop phenomenon of the late 80's, not least because they turned out 2 B fraudulent -- a verdict I have trouble accepting even today.

The late-80's duo called "Milli Vanilli," hit show business with tremendous impact in 1987 with their first and as it turned out, best big hit, "Girl you know it's true" If it had just been a simple matter of a couple kids from the neighborhood getting a band together and doing their own songs, they'd have never come to grief as they did, but this was the late 20th century, and neither Rob Pilatus (l) nor Fab Morvan was from the US; both grew up in Munich and neither even spoke English when the project began. Even though they were universally vilified for fakery in selling a lip-sync job under false pretenses, I tended then as now to see them as naive, modestly talented victims, ground up in the SoCal production machine.

Frank Farian, the producer of this piece, and also the true founder of Milli Vanilli, is a shadowy figure who had ambitions of his own, but also but also felt he lacked the looks or dynamism to beome a level 1 star. When he heard "Girl you know it's true" he bought it, then began looking for front men to deliver the song. He did a lot of the lead singing for the  the "product" as it took shape, but was both too old (early 40's) and too white to appear on camera.

He got really excited over the appearance of Morvan and Pilatus, but decided working on their English skills was not worth it, as he was contracted to deliver a record by a certain date.

In 2011 Morvan claimed that Farian manipulated the two by giving them a small advance when he signed them. The pair spent most of it on clothes and hairstyling, then several 
months later Farian called them back and told them they had to lip sync to the prerecorded music or, per the contract, repay the advance in full. "We were not hired, we were trapped" Morvan recalled. (Wikipedia, s.v. MIlli Vanilli) 

("[GRIL you know it's true] - -awoo woo woooo - I love ayou hooo!). Yes !U know its true!!  (GRI*I*I*IL*LL)    Awoo hoo hoop, I LOVE YfsOU-HU!

official video of "Gril (sic) U know it's true" here.

However I feel the best and 'truest" version of this song is the one the producers of the grammy awards uncorked in 1990, starring the original quintet, but weighted down with all the enormous impedimentia of the era --backup singers, a dozen or so dancers, extra musicians and imported sound effects. Watching, you may realize you know the exact date the era of bread and circuses arrived.


It just as quickly departed.

(Charles) Shaw, a US Army veteran, was reportedly paid $6,000 to perform the rap on Milli Vanilli's hit "Girl You Know It’s True". In December 1989, Shaw disclosed to New York Newsday writer John BLeland that he was one of three singers (The other two were John Davis and Brad Howell) on Milli Vanilli's hit debut album, and that Milli Vanilli frontmen Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan were impostors. Milli Vanilli producer Frank Farian reportedly paid Shaw $150,000 to retract his statements.^[1]

Morvan and Pilatus went on to win the 1990 Grammy Award for Best New Artist, but rumors about Shaw's involvement persisted. Eventually the true story of the band was exposed in November 1990 when Farian broke the story himself, and the duo's Grammy Award was subsequently withdrawn. (Wikipedia, s.v. MIlli Vanilli) 

After 1990 the duo, formerly kings of the world,were driven from door to door.

The real tragedy of Milli Vanilli didn't occur until 1998--the year Rob Pilatus took his life, with an overdose of opiates and alcohol. The other guy, the pretty one in the red jacket with the outrageous shoulder pads, is still plying the rocky shoals of showbiz, knowing how badly they can injure and that they're occasionally fatal. Looking at various current interviews with Fab, who is now in his late 40s, He seems to have adopted a middle-aged philosphical outlook on past disasters and  takes his biggest pleasure from gaining credibility the hard way -- by getting up on stage and singing -- and with some commercial success.  KFC is the beneficiary of Fab's newfound vocal abilities, which he comes by as honestly as any singer who ever sang an ad jingle.

my cat, count wallerstein, und all z other devils

I really like the photo. taken by my wife during our most recent road trip, which ran here yesterday. (Scroll down -- thru Z magic of blogging it's still here.)

Then aggressiveness of the black/white contrast, a motif the cat fits into perfectly, is what I like.

The funny thing about great photos is they're almost all accidental, or at least their effect is untintended. What a great composition though intentional or not, is Sammy the travelin' cat relaxing.

Reminds  me of some of the 17th century portraits of military types I've seen; those devils who ran the 30 years war, such as yr famous Count of Tilly, Johannes Tserklaes, whom we see impaling us on the evil beam of his one good, right eye.

Weekenders quadruped blog

From a Motel 6

Deep in Utah,

Sammy the travelin' cat 


relaxes on a pile  of luggage.

Punch & Judy

punch & judy

CAST OF CHARACTERS
                                                                              
1. mr punch                               

2.  judy (his wyfe)                                                                     

3. ye baby

4. toby (a dog)

5. ye devil

6. ye crocodile

7. a constable

8. a skeleton

9. ye hangman

10. joey the clown
(from london town)


Punch & Judy is a mini-drama performed with hand puppets, & always by a single person who does all the voices, plays the music and/ or operates the phonograph, and does everything necessary to the
 performance of these one-act, set pieces.

In addition, this "professor of punchology" carves the heads of the puppets, makes their bodies and their clothing, and even makes his own prosceneum arch and theatre booth. I can't think 
of any other dramatic mode in which  cooperative endeavor is not just frowned upon, but absolute anathema.

The emphasis on the lone puppet master makes the quality of these performances almost too easy to judge.

The best professor of the craft today is an old gentleman named Glynn Edwards, who is unfortunately nearly totally retired. What makes him the best is his mastery of the fundamentals; he moves from one voice to another seemingly without effort, and since one of the two conversationalists is always Punch, whose voice requires speaking thru a contraption called a swazzle, it can't be as easy as it sounds. The movements of Edwards's puppets are also graceful and natural, and I especially enjoy the little dog who introduces the show, and moves in a most expressive and joyful way.

I also immensely enjoy the work of Professors John Thursby and Rod Burnett, who, like Edwards, have mastered the elements of "the script," such as it is, so thoroughly that they can easily improvise to fit the requirements of any audience. I should mention here that to some extent, if you've seen one Punch & Judy show, you've seen 'em all. The scripted a elements follow each other not precisely in a strict order, but in a series of predictable vignettes which increase in violence as the show winds out its roughly 20-minute duration.

It's this violence, and the coarse and aggressive nature of Mr. Punch which has caused this show, performed steadily in England for over 350 years, to fall into disrepute amongst the PC university crowd. I'll say more about political correctness vs Mr Punch tomorrow, plus a bunch of disorganized (at this point) thoughts about this topic and others relating to the primitive but strangely engaging Punch & Judy shows.

However I've borrowed your eyes too long already today, and I need to go cook dinner.

ye last road trip (again)

We arrived home on Monday at ye end of what I REALLY hope was ye last rode trip. Now I know you’ve heard it B4 — I think the first “last road trip” was in 2005. .

 

At that time I wrote," Once upon a time, when gas was cheap and motel rooms were reasonably priced, I took to the road whenever the impulse struck, often just for the hell of it. Cruising along some remote two-lane blacktop (I never liked traveling the interstates) conferred a sense of freedom and independence. It fostered an illusion of power -- omnipotence, almost -- best expressed as, "I can go wherever I want, and do whatever I want, whenever I want."
"Sure. Until the money runs out. Or more importantly, until you're out of gas. And we are.

"Among the innumerable casualties of hurricane Katrina was our notion that gasoline is an infinite resource.

"But now we've breached the three-dollar barrier, the point at which many Americans find their formerly unlimited mobility curtailed.

"It's now extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a family of four with modest means to gas up the old Ford Explorer and go tooling off to visit Aunt Mary in Lubbock."

But now we see expense is only one facet of the "petroleum problem;"there will be times when the environmental problem is that gas is too cheap and too available. We are in a radically different scenario now, what Jim Kunstler called "the bumpy plateau" in "The Long Emergency." and it's not easy 4 me, confined to a wheel chair and carrying an oxygen tank, to deal with those bumps.


As things have turned out, gas is so cheap right now that traffic is THE problem in nearly every city & town, as people for whom recreational driving had not been an option for quite a few years suddenly take it up again with a vengeance; we were in a two-hour jam on the run into Portland on our way to Seattle, & a four-hour jam leaving Tacoma for Boise & points south on a couple days later.

Some recreation. If the folks up in Washington, in Portland, OR & LA & Frisco want to have fun in their own way, that's OK I spoze (or it would be if it wasn't demolishing what's left of our optimal 80% nitrogen & 20% oxygen atmosphere). But I can tell you it makes the wheechair life look a lot better. 

That final day took a lot out of us, and a lot out of the cat (she travels with us everywhere we go); unable to drink for over 8 hrs, she was a ghost of herself the day after her return, but has since reverted to normal behavior.

j'ai un trou dans ma tete

Woozenweezer K. Trumpf

I had heard about this dude for  a number of yrns,m.  d took no more  pleasure in than I would if I was floatin down wb troubkllese

ie treek wih a 5-inch blade in my neck.

monkey & a rangatang

Monkey & a rangatang a-settin in the grass;
one say "no" and t'uther'n say "yass."

She knows a .38 slug, Beedle-e-bom,                
He knows a .38 slug, Beedle-e-bom,           
                             
                       
                                               Howler Monkeys howling "No."           

Well, cain't nobody use it;
Mama got a .38 slug.                       

                             

untitled

Elizabeth the Great.

I don't know ye, but how important is' t? with Twitter you don't really have to know any body.

Easy Rider Yellow Dog

Since the Miss, Susan lost her jockey Lee
Was more than excitement.
You, she Moanin 'night you can hear the morning
"Wonder where is my easy rider is lost."
Cablegrams is out of sympathy
Telegraph moves inquiries.
Alabam character 'comes from
Anywhere that Uncle Sam has
Delivery to rural areas as well.
Phone rings all day
But it was not for me.
The final good news
Please fill our hearts with joy.
This message comes from Tennessee.

Dear Sue your Easy Rider hit the fortress today
South Saidodoa puruman rattler car.
I saw him, he was a pig.
Easy Rider is now away
So he had to repair it, hiking is not far.
He has just gone over the South Yellow Dog.


I know this area like the back of a Yellow Dog
I know the route took the riders.
All tie, the Bayou, Burg and quagmire.
This is down south-way cross the dog.
Please do not exactly grow money trees.
Cotton is grown on the stem easily.
No horses, horseracing is not grandstanding
Old Beck is shot like a land
Down here in the south, cross the dog.

000! the yellow dog the yellow dog, Ridin Z. back of a yello dog,
Don't yu know I'm on Z. hog when I ride on Z. back of a yello dog  x
>^<
 x x
   .4.
L^^^L

who is she?

Can anyone out there identify this little waif? She's famous today; not so much then.

I know who it is but I'm not sayin until someone out there gets it right.

You can reply to this blog, or to 8103 E Southern in Mesa, AZ (85209).

Answer: even after 3 days on Facebook, there is no correct answer. (so, trumpet blatt, drum role) IT'S KELLY RIPA.  

friday cat blogging

It's a common enough topic heading this week, with a singular subject.

"Most everyone's mad here," said the cat.  "You may have noticed that I'm not all there myself."

nightmares & hallucinations

The Duchess's Kitchen, by John Tenniel.

I've been here in the kitchen for 9 yrs now. Except for the normal-looking little girl entering at right, the cast of characters is perpetual. 

The Duchess holds a baby who is writhing in pain and rage, as she makes ineffectual attempts to comfort it. She looks like Broderick Crawford in dire need of a fifth and a pack of Luckies, partly because the baby screams incessantly, and partly because she's been carrying the burden of monumental ugliness all her life.    

To her right, in front of the stove is the stoic-looking cook, holding a phallic-shaped pepper shaker and filling the air with that abrasive substance. Try sitting in such an atmosphere, with your nose burning, your eyes running, your ears assailed by howls and  enormous thumps, and I believe you too will conclude that imprisonment in such a place as the Duchess's kitchen, every day for 8 or 10 years constitutes torture.

It does get better at times. At night the fire dies down, and everyone goes to sleep -- the only relief. I'm certain that's why I've learned to sleep 13-14 hrs a day.

Did I leave anyone out? Yes -- barely noticeable under the cook's feet is the house cat -- a Cheshire Cat to be exact. Cats and dogs pictured in domestic scenes confer the status of households on them. A smiling cat is an evil image, and the Cheshire Cat designates the Duchess's kitchen as an evil place. If you want to see what it's like, stop by any time -- I'm always here.

more of d same

I guess I'm too old to be disappointed by presidential elections any more, but I'm still angry as hell.

We've learned to expect the Republicans to be a bunch of nut cases, rageaholics, warmongers, religious fanatics, and apologists for capitalist pirates and blue-blooded aristocrats. That's never a surprise, and it's just the same old big, big deal.

But the naive and gullible American public is fooled one election after another, and continually disappointed to discover that the Democrats they thought were so wonderful are just a bunch of bimbos. Our wide-eyed innocence is perpetually taken advantage of by candidates who run campaigns exactly like the current one -- an exercise in feel-goodism, in which cynical establishment operatives manipulate us with pollyanna platitudes and glittering generalizations.

Things did change a little this year, and one candidate appeared willing to talk about the fact that since 1980 the United States has become a society composed of a tiny enclave of haves sitting atop, and on the backs of, a population of debtors. [The numbers prove it (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit … §ion=4), so don't even bother telling me it ain't so.] He's losing, by the way.

No candidate is willing to bring up the fact that this country is dying under the weight of an empire and a military establishment more massive than anything the world has ever seen, capable of both casual violence and murderous, rage-driven wars of acquistion in which we drop cluster bombs on little kids. Economically, this war machine is bleeding us dry, but on this subject our vaunted "liberal" Democrats remain as silent as a row of cathedrals.

Instead of honest assessments of these and other life-threatening issues, the Democrats give us silly personality spats and feel-good, mealy-mouthed nonsense about "change" and "hope." To hell with them.

I'm appalled by the ease with which many of my fellow posters are taken in by this cynical twaddle. You're good, loving, well-meaning people, and I love the hell out of you, but most of the liberals I see here have a few things to learn about what actually drives the political process in this country. And here's a clue: it's not idealism.

z word of z day...

...from z greatest pundit, Mr Atrios, at his blog Eschaton.

It's Really Happening

Trump is going to be the Republican nominee for president. There's going to be a convention. I might actually watch it.

oooh,that musta been a bed-bug... (lemon jefferson)

Public records show that Sen Sanders was paid in excess of $1,800.00 in 2015 by two private organizations. He must make  the contents of those speeches public, or otherwise surrender credibility in his ongoing feud with Mrs. Clinton, in which he insists she must divulge the contents of speeches she made to Goldman-Sachs and elsewhere on Wall Street. 

What happens in Phoenix gets spread all over the map. Sort of like Marinera sauce, but not near as tasty. I'm Joe Friday;  it's that day again.

OK, you're saying that what Bernie Sanders did is equivalent to what Mrs. Clinton did when she harvested millions from Wall Street Firms for speeches. And even though we know how much she got 4 each speech  the content of all of them is a closely-guarded secret (like the nuclear codes) -- no transcript, no synopsis for any of em.

I moseyed on over & decided to stick around & have a look-see. When I got over there it was ø but a rehooligan mob, so I thought I oughta "Stick Around" & have a hear-listen also 2.

PROFESSOR BRICE STICKS AROUND ON POOR HAPLESS MR. GREENJEANS. Engafgesin the dreaded spying technque, "hear-listen!"

The greatest carrier of "hear-listen" campaign microphones is Z bed bug, a pest for reasons other than this vermin's copious eagerness to be trained as spies, which augments and competes with his natural tendency and bloody enjoyment of painfully biting humans. 

I'm sure you know what I mean, and puhleeze do me the kindness not to evah ask me to explain it 2 U. 

friday cat blogging

Sammy' last haircut,on April 8 of this yr, was very x-citing, but it now must be repeated, as we've entered on the hottest days & weeks of the yr, & not even 90 days is gone since de last 1. 

I spoze if she had 2 have 3 haircuts this summer it wouldn't B Z end of Z world.

a gnu post

Horrorshow.  I made it back without letting a whole month go by.

About halfway thru our "Southwest Wanderslust" trip I decided I should get a *device*  of some kind  so I could write on the blog. Got me a Samsung tablet which turned or 2 b a bad mis-take, as the ANDROID™ operating system concerns itself only with creating a platform for advertising. It does so with amazing efficiency, and makes a simple action like signing into facebook impossible, unless you're already registered and inspected on that computadore.

 I'll return it 2 where I got it from this morning.