Totally Random!

Helen Campbell’s Letter

Now that Katy is just weeks away from becoming a mother the letter seems very apropos. I forwarded it to her.

Photo Trick

I see great images out my car windshield. So recently I installed a windshield-mounted iPhone holder.

I used it to get this shot of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.

The camera can be clicked with a remote clicker or an Apple headphone jack so you keep both hands on the wheel. Give it a try. Let me know.

Street Photography

Young or Old… I Scream, You Scream… We All Scream for Ice Cream

Song Titles: There Is Gold In the Ordinary

Ain’t That a Shame #1

Fats Domino used to hear the elderly ladies in his New Orleans neighborhood complain to each other: “Ain’t That a Shame #1″

Blue Suede Shoes #2

A young, unknown Carl Perkins was playing a rowdy beer hall. Just below the stage he heard a young dancer yell at his girlfriend, “Don’t You Step on My Blues Suede Shoes.”

Good Vibrations #1

As a boy Brian Wilson was walking with his mother when an angry dog lashed out. He asked his mom why, “Well Brian, dogs can sense things and sometimes they give you anger, but sometimes they give you “Good Vibrations.”

(If you like Good Vibrations, please check out Sally Go Around the Roses and Donovans Colours by VanDyke Parks)

To Know Him is to Love Him #1

Phil Spector found engraved on his fathers’ gravestone: To Know Him Is to Love Him.

Big City #1

Dean Holloway had been Merle Haggard’s driver since his career took off in 1966. They had been friends since grammar school in Bakersfield. After a two-day, hard, hot recording session in LA, Merle went out to the bus to find Dean hot, tired and pissed off. He told Merle, “I hate this place. I’m tired of this dirty old city.”

Songwriter Haggard could hear a potential song in Dean’s frustration. He coaxed a few more words from Dean, like “If it were up to me, I’d be somewhere in the middle of damn Montana.”

Haggard went back into the studio where the band was packing up, and said, “Hold on. We’ve got one more song to record.” An hour later they had a #1 record, Big City. Merle took the tape back out to the bus and played it for Dean, who loved it. Merle said, “Dean, you just wrote a #1 record. I’m going to split the proceeds with you 50/50.”

Just before he retired, Dean told Merle he had made $500,000 on that record. Merle Haggard was not only generous, but also improvisational.

What Can the Democrats Learn from Merle Haggard?

In this story is EXACTLY why the dems lost. They ran an unpopular black female. They rattled on about trans gender bathrooms and the glass ceiling. They called the white working class who supported Trump “deplorables,” and “garbage” (Biden). They used words like “oligarchs,” (WTF -what does that even mean and how to spell it?).

Haggard, on the other hand, celebrated the talent of his bus driver and shared the profits with him. Dems… are you listening? It ain’t about different messaging. Since you are not listening, I’m afraid the only answer to Trump is violence.

Think Kent State X 1,000. Trump must order the National Guard to mow down the old white-haired “cat ladies” with their signs as “domestic terrorists.” At that point he will lose support of the MAGA nutjobs and the Army. Remember, India won its independence when the British soldiers could no longer stomach killing nonviolent protestors in the streets.

Remember, too, how fast support melted away from Joseph McCarthy when we had finally had enough of his nonsense.

Speaking of Gold in the Ordinary

My latest project is made of tools I have duplicates of.

Title: Let’s Build Some Shit