Notes and Musings Blog2007-10-23T08:03:42-05:00http://joenickp.com/notes/index.phpjodi@io.comThoughts from Joe Nick Patoskitag:pivotpowered,2007:notesandmusingsblogPivotCopyright (c) 2007, Authors of Notes and Musings BlogJoe Nick has a new Blog2007-10-23T08:02:00-05:002007-10-23T08:02:00-05:00tag:pivotpowered,2007:notesandmusingsblog.1552007-10-23T08:02:00-05:00Check out my new blog with photos! joenickp.blogspot.comJoe Nick has a new Blogjodi
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Selena theory2007-09-04T14:30:00-05:002007-09-04T14:30:00-05:00tag:pivotpowered,2007:notesandmusingsblog.1542007-09-04T14:30:00-05:00A reader writes, positing an interesting theory:
"I have been a fan of Selena’s music, and promptly purchased a copy of your book “Como La Flor” when it was first published. I read it cover to cover within hours. As a die-hard fan, I was anxious to learn the facts.
I recently read a letter sent to you from another reader, in which you attempt to answer some unanswered questions, and even 12 years after the fact, it is difficult to truly clear up some of the inconsistencies. I am no expert, and I don’t have ANY of the answers myself… but could it have been that maybe, as rumored/hinted/what-have you, Abraham Quintanilla was in fact hiding an affair with Yolanda Saldivar? Could this have been a contributing factor to the mysterious ‘secret’ behind the whole unfolding of events?
I have long-maintained that I dislike the angle most people view Selena from: Highly revered, almost saintly, and always heavily laced with emotional undertones. Selena could have done no wrong! Selena was perfect! Selena was everyone’s dream child, everyone’s dream wife. That’s all fine and good, but there are a million directions from which her death was ultimately executed from… and people are too afraid to unmask the truth out of fear of marring her perfect image. At this point, and so long after the murder, what could Yolanda Saldivar possibly lose in speaking the truth, rather than coyly dodging and weaving around the facts? She killed a young entertainer… true. But she is not the witch the media has made her out to be. She is not the cold-blooded murderess the Quintanillas would like everyone to believe. There is a truth, and Abraham, I think, is biding his time, waiting for his own death to preserve his own selfish sanity and his positive image."
I wrote back and said the theory is interesting but I don't buy it for a number of reasons.
What do you think?Selena theoryJoe_Nick
"I have been a fan of Selena’s music, and promptly purchased a copy of your book “Como La Flor” when it was first published. I read it cover to cover within hours. As a die-hard fan, I was anxious to learn the facts.
I recently read a letter sent to you from another reader, in which you attempt to answer some unanswered questions, and even 12 years after the fact, it is difficult to truly clear up some of the inconsistencies. I am no expert, and I don’t have ANY of the answers myself… but could it have been that maybe, as rumored/hinted/what-have you, Abraham Quintanilla was in fact hiding an affair with Yolanda Saldivar? Could this have been a contributing factor to the mysterious ‘secret’ behind the whole unfolding of events?
I have long-maintained that I dislike the angle most people view Selena from: Highly revered, almost saintly, and always heavily laced with emotional undertones. Selena could have done no wrong! Selena was perfect! Selena was everyone’s dream child, everyone’s dream wife. That’s all fine and good, but there are a million directions from which her death was ultimately executed from… and people are too afraid to unmask the truth out of fear of marring her perfect image. At this point, and so long after the murder, what could Yolanda Saldivar possibly lose in speaking the truth, rather than coyly dodging and weaving around the facts? She killed a young entertainer… true. But she is not the witch the media has made her out to be. She is not the cold-blooded murderess the Quintanillas would like everyone to believe. There is a truth, and Abraham, I think, is biding his time, waiting for his own death to preserve his own selfish sanity and his positive image."
I wrote back and said the theory is interesting but I don't buy it for a number of reasons.
What do you think?]]>
FarWestTexas report2007-08-13T17:21:00-05:002007-08-13T17:21:00-05:00tag:pivotpowered,2007:notesandmusingsblog.1532007-08-13T17:21:00-05:00August 2007FarWestTexas reportJoe_Nick
BALMORHEA POOL at Balmorhea State Park, my favorite swimming pool in all of Texas, is even better on a 100 degree day on the edge of the Pecos Plain. The 76 degree water is deliciously cool, the clarity beyond comprehension, and the pupfish, minnows, black catfish and turtles are pretty much oblivious to the 1,500 visitors who show up on a hot weekend day.
Superintendent Tom Johnson reports record attendance this year at Balmorhea, meaning it’s no longer and secret and that the CCC-vintage guest cabins are booked into October, which is still a fine time to swim – I can personally testify that any month is a pretty great time to swim at Balmorhea although there have been times in January and December when I had to gut it up to get out of the warm pool.
Friday evening August 10 was near perfect. Late Sunday morning August 13 was just as sweet, watching members of the San Angelo Dive Club scoot along the bottom of the springs as I do my laps.
It was fun watching ground squirrels sneak up within inches of a sunbather sprawled out on her towel in the grass and observing a young girl trying to sneak up on the squirrels before they inevitably scurried into their burrow, poking their heads out whenever the coast was clear.
The crowds were tolerable in the pool, but not so tolerable when it came to leaving litter on the grounds around the pool or in the desert cienega nearby, which was trashed with plastic bottles, cans, and cigarette butts. I’m headed back soon to help the park staff clean it up, but it’d be nice to hit litterbugs with a $1,000 fine to discourage such disrespect of the resource.
We did some stargazing while in Balmorhea. We found the darkest skies by driving west of town on Highway 3078 towards Kent, pulling over, and laying down on the hood of the car. We also sat on the playground slide by the Balmorhea pool but had a hard time focusing due to being divebombed by bats eating the mosquitoes that were trying to eat us. Some bats swooped close enough to touch and we left with nary a skeeter bite.
STACKED GREENS AT BEAR’S DEN
The cheese and chicken enchiladas, stacked (not rolled) and topped with green chiles and onions at Cueva de Oso, $6.50 for cheese, $7.50 for chicken or beef, were the culinary highlight of my weekend. There may be other items on the menu, but that’s the call for me at Florinda and Joel Madrid’s family restaurant curiously described as the “cutest restaurant in Balmorhea.” The décor is cute, I guess, although I think of it more as functional with frills (plastic flowers in the flower bed by the entrance, calendars of the high school’s sports teams, a corner display of family photographs in the second dining room) with an outdoor patio on the side. The menu is basic Mexican and American cuisine with hamburgers and fries to placate the tastes of the community, but more important to any west bound travelers on IH 10 in Texas, this is where the green chile cuisine belt begins (the cafes of Sierra Blanca west of Van Horn are another green chile hotspot, leading to other meccas such as Chope’s west of Anthony, Texas and the cafes of Hatch on IH 25, just north of the IH 10/25 split near Las Cruces. Cueva de Oso in Balmo also deserves an AJUA! for their righteous homemade red salsa (the bowls were too tiny for us) and ice cold Bohemias for $3.
http://www.balmorheatexas.net/bearden.htm
There’s two competing snow cone stands on the main drag across the canal along the highway, one that stays open late in the summer.
Watch out for the wild turkeys on the street while driving through town.
MOUNT LIVERMORE
On Saturday, we climbed the highest peak of the second tallest mountain range. It was one of the weekends that the Nature Conservancy opens the Davis Mountains Preserve to the public. The preserve has an extensive trail network including a new 2.5 trail that will be open to the public year round accessible from the roadside park near the preserve’s entrance. Wildflowers were in full glory near the summit of the 8,378 feet peak including one native that was so smelly, everybody in our party later confessed they thought they had forgotten to use deodorant or wipe. We sighted two stands of quaking aspen, craned our necks admiring Ponderosa pines and Texas madrones, dipped a toe into a cool, swift-running mountain creek watched zone-tail and red-tail hawks and turkey vultures ride the wind currents, and picked up two horny toads, icons of my youth which are rarely found elsewhere in Texas anymore (one squirted blood from its eye, a defensive measure and the other went to sleep when you rubbed its belly). The summit swarmed with ladybugs. Turns out ladybugs seek out mountain peaks in the southwestern United States, according to James King of the conservancy, to breed and then ride the winds hundreds of miles. The best part of making it to the top was watching the play of light and shadows on distant mountain ranges and being high enough to appreciate the vast grasslands as a desert sea.
STARGAZING SATURDAY NIGHT
Unlike most of the rest of the United States where the phrase suggests chasing so-called celebrities, stargazing is the real deal in Far West Texas which has some of the darkest night skies in North America (and some of the most agreeable August temperatures – upper 80s, low 90s for highs, upper 50s and low 60s for lows, the least humid atmosphere in the state). We booked Saturday night at the Harvard Lodge on the H.E. Sproul Ranch behind the Prude Ranch, in the mountains eight miles from Fort Davis and eight miles from McDonald Observatory. Indian Lodge at Davis Mountains State Park was booked full so we picked the closest nice lodging to the observatory. The rooms in the small eight-room spread on a working ranch were spacious and comfortable and within eyesight of the observatory domes on a distant ridge. Next door to the ranch headquarters, about a couple hundred yards to the east, was a giant radio telescope in keeping with the astronomical theme. The huge extraterrestrial-appearing contraption was one of ten radio telescopes from the Virgin Islands to Hawaii comprising the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Long Base Array. Here’s where you can get a real time view of the Fort Davis telescope and the others of the VLBA: http://www.vlba.nrao.edu/
Once again, we found the best viewing for stargazing was away from the lodge on the road by the radio telescope, which startled us whenever the telescope was repositioned.
The Harvard Lodge where our room for two with a king sized suite went for $125 a night plus tax, was a mixed bag as a place to stay and watch stars. The site was once where Harvard University had an astronomy facility. Its primary function now seemed to be as a hunting lodge, with a skeet shooting facility and a skinned bobcat hide on the wall of our room as part of the décor. And for all the isolation it offered such as the unobstructed view of high country grasslands, which are all greened up from the summer monsoon rains, it would have been nice to find someone in charge to turn off the country music blaring on the big screen television by the pool or to help us figure out how to make the satellite TV operate or hook up the advertised wireless Internet connectivity, both of which proved to be harder than Chinese arithmetic.
Those are minor quibbles because we got what we came for: a deep, dark black sky, stars to infinity, and wonderfully cool breezes in the evening.
For details on Harvard Lodge, go here: www.harvardhotelandlodge.com
BLUE JAVELINA
We were starved after mountain climbing so we drove over to Marfa to check out the newest high-end restaurant in a town of 2,500 that already has more than one. A reservations-only joint in a remodeled gas station on the west side of town, the Javelina delivered fine dining with a definite Moroccan streak (couscous, lamb burgers, goat cheese) in a casual atmosphere. With a cool, spare layout with original art on the walls, the place felt right. Running into writer Pete Szilagyi and his wife at the Blue Javelina was a good sign we were in for some good groceries. The proof was in the plates. The wife went for the quesadilla appetizers with ground lamb, blackened pistachios, olives, cilantro, feta and jack cheese and aioli ($9) and a dreamy cold citrus soup swimming in avocado and cilantro. I devoured the pork tenderloin in a raspberry chipotle glaze ($17).
You don’t expect adventurous dining in Far West Texas but that’s exactly what we got. Next time, we aim to check out the Sharkmobile food wagon we heard about that serves hummus and tabouli on the streets of Marfa. Sadly, we missed the food wagon in Fort Davis that did fish tacos for awhile. www.bluejavelina.com
TWIN SOULS
We enjoyed some serious Peruvian coffee two mornings in a row at the Twin Souls coffee shop and gallery on the main drag in Fort Davis. My-T-Fine in our book.
VAN HORN NEXT?
I caught wind of the pending purchase of the bank building in downtown Van Horn that once was the El Capitan Hotel by Joe and Lanna Duncan. Joe and Lanna are the owners of the Hotel Limpia and the Veranda in Fort Davis and the Hotel Paisano in Marfa. Like the Paisano and the Gage, the Pueblo Revival-style building was designed by Henry Trost, the great architect of the Southwest whose early 20th century buildings are landmarks from Marathon to El Paso to Albuquerque (The Franciscan Hotel) all the way to Douglas, Arizona, home of the wonderful Gadsden Hotel (www.hotelgadsden.com). I know Joe and Lanna are fans of Trost’s work because they gave me a hard-to-find book of his work.
Not too long ago, Betty Moore and I argued whether Sanderson or Valentine would be the next happening town in Far Out Far West Texas. With the Duncans’ redo of El Capitan, one of the most adventurous designs Trost ever did, Van Horn, notable for its strip of franchise motels and restaurants, John Madden’s Haul of Fame museum in Chuy’s Restaurant, the Red Rocks Ranch, a blimp refueling station, and the best water in the state, instantly has potential as a destination rather than a place to pass through.]]>
No Cal Report2007-07-27T15:48:00-05:002007-07-27T15:48:00-05:00tag:pivotpowered,2007:notesandmusingsblog.1522007-07-27T15:48:00-05:00I went to northern California and all I brought back was this report.No Cal ReportJoe_Nick
So the wife and I went west for some coolness in the spirit of Mark Twain, who once observed the coldest winter he’d ever spent was a summer in San Francisco, and to check out the north coast village where my ol’ buddy Sir Doug Sahm observed in his 1969 hit single “life is such a groove you’ll blow your mind in the morning.” (The same song also refers to a “teeny-bopper, teen-aged lover,” which revealed in song to Doug’s wife back home in San Antonio that her old man was chipping on her.)
The weather was superb – upper 60s in San Fran and Mendocino during the day, low 50s at night, lots of fog, no AC necessary, although jackets and sweaters were. I also rediscovered the joys of microclimates in NoCal. Parts of San Francisco, like Clay Street in Chinatown where Andy Lesko has his chiropractic clinic and art gallery and studio, are ten degrees warmer than the area around Haight and Fillmore where we stayed with our friend, the writer Sylvie Simmons. In a matter of an hour of driving from Santa Rosa in Sonoma County north of San Francisco to Mendocino on the coast, the temp dropped from 97 to 67. You pick your heat this time of year.
Sylvie put us up in her Victorian and showed us around her neighborhood, serenaded us with her Ukulele skills and entertained us with stories about Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, and Serge Gainsbourg -- all subjects she has written about extensively; she recently interviewed Spinal Tap on the environment in conjunction with the Live Earth concert for the BBC’s Radio Times (the rockers are tree-huggers, it turns out) and pointed out Jack’s Records where Tom Waits shops when I noticed Chris Strachwitz standing out front with filmmakers Maureen Gosling and Chris Simon, who are doing a documentary of Chris, America’s premier folk music record label. It turns out Chris started Arhoolie in the basement of Jack’s (his rent was 15 albums a month) more than 40 years ago so they were filming where it all began.
This is the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love where the hippie thing started in Haight-Ashbury and we could tell, since the famous intersection, now dominated by a Ben & Jerry’s was jammed with tourists and parking spaces were non-existent for blocks. I like the lower Haight more these days anyhow.
The premium on parking is intentional. San Francisco is a city of neighborhoods made for walking (not a whole lot of jug butts in the City) with plenty of mass transit and a strong European flavor, about as good as an urban environment gets in the United States, which is one reason it’s so dang expensive. Everyone wants to be there.
Plus, the Muir Woods and Muir Beach are just across the Golden Gate with incredible scenery laced with hiking trails and really incredible majestic redwood forests farther north, and literally hundreds of wineries in Sonoma, Napa, and Mendocino counties in between. All in all, it’s the kind of place where life really is such a groove that you’ll blow your mind in the morning with or without help from some of the highest-quality homegrown marijuana in the world.
After two days on the coast in and around Mendocino where our friends gave us an insider’s lay of the land (basically, the groovers are being slowly squeezed out by a wealthier class led by the dot com crowd) we stayed on the Oakland side of the Bay with old friends Michael Goodwin and Jennifer Oliver. Mike was our introductory guide to SF thirty some odd years ago when we stayed at his old place by Golden Gate Park. Now he lives on the other side, right by what used to be the old Nimitz freeway that was destroyed by the October 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, where the old ‘hood has been spruced up considerably.
Earthquakes are not such a groove, although they do have the potential of blowing your mind in the morning.
Although we missed out on Sylvie’s home cooking for Eric Drew Feldman (ex Captain Beefheart) and Chuck Prophet (Green on Red) and their mates, here are 30 Hot List highlights of things to do and places to see in NoCal:
*Haight Street west of Fillmore. Sylvie took us to Visit, the new Thai restaurant at 518 Haight St., whose design is as pleasing as the cuisine served (reasonably priced too), although some grousers complain it is too upscale for the neighborhood. Forget the look, grumps; the food is great. The surrounding two blocks have something for everyone -- the new Baghdad 1,001 Nights opens next week (if Vietnamese restaurants are all the rage now, will Iraq eateries be the next post-war foodie trend?), the Vapor Room, a medical marijuana clinic that espouses carbon-neutral methods of taking marijuana (it sure smelled fragrant whenever we walked past), Mediterranean, more Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Ethiopian, Mexican, and Hawaiian restaurants, pizza joints, burger joints, hip cafes, loads of coffee shops, organic bakeries, seedy bars, swank bars, natural food stores, record shops, poster shops, jewelry stores, Hairdo Voodoo, galleries, and semi-normal places specializing in turkey sandwiches, sausages, and beer.
*Guitar Solo, 230 Townsend by the Giants’ ballpark, where Sylvie bought her Flea model uke, is one of the great acoustic guitar stores in the world.
*Lark in the Morning, Mendocino. About as full-service a stringed instrument and percussion music store as I’ve seen.
*DeYoung Fine Arts Museum, Golden Gate Park. The art inside is pretty great. The building that contains it, which sort of resembles a big chocolate dessert with a hard-shell exterior and mousse on the inside, is even better.
* Chinatown. It’s the biggest Chinatown outside of Asia and full of Chinese who live, eat, shop and work there. One of the few Chinatowns were the locals outnumber the tourists.
*Bombay Ice Creamery, Valencia Street. On a street packed with great taquerias, Vietnamese, Indian, Chinese and Thai, and even a French joint so cool there’s no sign out front, the Bombay rules with some of the finest ice cream and most exotic flavors anywhere. Do try the Rose Petal and saffron pistachio flavors. Ain’t ever tasted anything like ‘em.
*The Golden Gate bridge. Because it’s there. $5 to enter the San Francisco side or you can walk or bike across for free. The views from the Marin County side are better than postcards.
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*Muir Woods. Redwoods less than a half hour from the Marina District. $3 entry, parking in the summer and especially on weekends is a bitch. The main trail is paved and flat; I saw a woman do it in heels. The trails above offer better views and fewer people. The Muir beach, a couple miles away, offers an easy slice of the rugged California coast.
*4.2 Earthquake which on Sylvie’s 3d floor apartment felt like living next to a freeway when a big ass truck rumbles past. I knew it was a quake because I’d been in one in Mexico City and in a temblor in Antigua, Guatemala. Thankfully, it was brief and only a 4.2 magnitude according to a guy at the coffee shop the next morning who said he knows these things. Maureen Gosling who lives on the east side of the bay closer to the quake’s epicenter, told us she thought it was the Big One. But it wasn’t. Kris slept through it.
* “San Francisco Nights” by Eric Burdon. The lyrics are kinda goofy, especially where Burdon sings about “warm San Francisco nights” which don’t happen, but the beatnik groove more accurately captures the city vibe than Scott MacKenzie’s insipid advice to wear flowers in your hair “if you’re going, to San Fran-cisco.” I was humming it in my head all week.
*Clarion Alley between Mission and Valencia Street near 17th Street. Street mural after street mural, most all the artwork interesting and artful as well as punk and political, most reflecting the city’s and Cali’s underappreciated Latin street soul.
*Mission Dolores church, 16th and Dolores. The 1918 vintage basilica next door catches the eye, but it’s the smaller squat, adobe-walled slice of New Spain next door that is the oldest building in SF, completed in 1786, and California’s oldest original church. This is where the Bay Area began. Despite SF’s rep as Babylon by the Bay, there are a surprising number of old, beautiful churches throughout the city.
*The hustle and hum of Valencia Street on a Saturday night. One of the best street scenes in the city and one of the few that is practically devoid of pretension.
*The Out of the Closet thrift store on Church Street across from the Safeway in the heart of Noe Valley, one of the gayest parts of Gay San Francisco just down the block from the Gay Dog Park. Don’t know about the merch, but the name fits the place.
*Jack’s Record Cellar, 254 Scott, Lower Haight. A real, real old record shop, established in 1951 and the birthplace of Arhoolie Records, featuring vintage rock, blues, jazz and big band platters in 78, 45 and LP formats. Not as splendidly cluttered as Music 101 in North Beach, but still…..Say Hi to Roy Loney, an exquisite rocker in his day, who sometimes works the counter.
*Tommy’s, Geary Street, between 23d and 24th. I don’t do Mexican food in Cali normally because the best of US Mex is here in Tex. But Chris Strachwitz invited us to Tommy’s, which has been doing the real deal comida Mexicana since 1965 and I was converted by the huachinango mojo de ajo broiled red snapper, the variety of salsas, and yeah, the margaritas too.
*Alamo Square Park, Steiner and Hayes streets, one of the best free hilltop views in SF and surrounded by some of the most stunning Victorians in the city including the same row you see in advertisements and tourist brouchures.
*Boulevard, in the Embarcadero downtown at Mission and Stueart by the Ferry Plaza at the head of a restaurant row. This is my friend Mike’s favorite restaurant largely due to his history with chef Nancy Oakes. Sorta French in vibe and design but with culinary emphasis on American regional cuisine, Boulevard is sleek, stylish, and expensive. I can recommend the pork tenderloin, the rack of lamb, the wines and the various presentations of ‘taters, and beets and French beans and crab and ginger salads.
*Visitor Center, Fourth Street, just west of Highway 101 in the old train station, Santa Rosa. This is the best place to get maps and the lay of the land to the 200 wineries in the heart of California wine country. Our hostess hipped us to Ferrari-Cabrera Winery for its English garden, which was as impressive as the chateau and the wine, and the nearby Luther Burbank Gardens. The bigger wineries charge for tastings these days but one not-so-pretentious winery, Hook and Ladder in Santa Rosa, whose wine we sampled in Mendocino, did not. The tasting room was nothing fancy but the product was excellent.
*Luther Burbank Gardens, Santa Rosa and Sonoma avenues, Santa Rosa. Before Charles Schulz of Peanuts comics fame, Luther was the most famous resident. The father of modern horticulture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he developed the spineless cactus among other botanical wonders. The acre of gardens surrounding his house showcase his work on roses, grasses, medicinal herbs, and fruits.
*Jimtown Store, northeast of Santa Rosa in the heart of Alexander Valley, Healdsburg, was a community store once upon a time that has morphed into a pit stop on the wine trail featuring some of the best gourmet sandwiches and wine in the world. I went for the special sausage number Goodbye Sopranos while Kris got down on a grilled cheese and poblano number. Brie and chopped olive and grilled eggplant and provolone are among the other house specialties, all under $10. The wine was fine.
*Paddling the Big River, Mendocino. A scenic river trip by the sea up and down a wide river valley flanked by redwoods and hardwoods by the sea with a sighting of a pair of otters who paid us no mind. We rented an outrigger canoe especially designed for the Big from Catch A Canoe & Bicycles Too for $50 for two hours. (707-937-0273)
*Hiking the Little River, Mendocino, taking the Fern Canyon Trail in Van Damme State Park, two miles south of Mendocino. A wonderful two hour hike along a babbling salmon stream into a primordial redwood forest choked with ferns. Cali’s state parks are a tad nicer than those in Texas.
*Walking the moors by Mendocino town to the beach. Giant waves crashing into the rocks, sea caves below a sweeping grass highlands straight out of Scotland was otherworldly.
*Patterson’s Pub, Lansing St.,Mendocino. Where the locals hang (some guy was doing pushups on the floor when we walked in) and drink fine handcrafted beers, $3.50 for a half pint. Solid selection of local wines and imported whiskeys and spirits, too. The garlic fries rock. Sports on TV if you need it.
*The Olive Bar at Harvest at Mendosa’s, next door to Patterson’s Pub, Mendocino. Watching the longhair semi-street person wearing a widebrim hat and trenchcoat in the summer, eating at the olive bar when no one was looking reminded me why I don’t do olive bars in groceries, no matter how organic they are.
*Moosse Café, Kasten Street, Mendocino. Impeccable service, sumptuous cuisine (the North Coast seafood cioppino was sublime) with an emphasis on local and organic offerings, in a warm, intimate setting. Easily worth the splurge.
*Nellie’s, 1155 3d St. Oakland. Soul food in the classic sense, fried chicken, meatloaf, smothered steak, yams, greens, and good grease included.
*The Albany Bulb, Albany Waterfront Park, just north of Golden Gate Fields, East Bay.
Mike took us on a drive up the East Bay on San Pablo Avenue through Berkeley up to a former dump site overlooking the bay once favored by the homeless and now a hangout for dog walkers. There we discovered the gallery of Sniff painted on boards, driftwood, trash, and other found objects. Sniff is/was an art collective that painted in the Albany Bulb, as the point is called, from 1998 to 2006. It was real deal art, with a carny, circus tent sideshow aesthetic, and hellish themes straight out of Hieronymous Bosch.
Themes depicted people and devils underwater, in lowrider land, atop the girders of skyscrapers in SF with two images of the Transamerica Pyramid, one depicting the skyscraper almost complete, the other a mirror image, in rooms of the Seeside Motel, a hottub, a couple playing strip Scrabble, a bus driving through the countryside full of people who resembled the Diablo ceramic figurines from Ocumicho, Mexico, a perverse Christmas scene, and in a movie theatre where the audience was looking not at the stage but at the viewer of the art, and in a boxing ring. .
Many were of a sadistic nature with decapitated heads, people falling, and other weirdness.
One piece that was a roulette wheel titled Step Right Up To The Wheel of Life and another board depicting a convict and a pretty girl with cut out heads for souvenir photos suggested a carnival sensibility bolstered by the renderings of the figures. All that was missing was a two-headed calf or a monkey boy. A woman’s face was painted on a pipe and entire scenes were painted inside the decking of a rowboat, in a concrete bunker, and on concrete blocks.
Huge sculptures of found objects littered the site, some intact, some vandalized or fallen down. Yarrow weed covered some pieces. Others were weathered or destroyed, some by the elements, some by intent.
More than one painting included messages that placed a curse on vandals with one piece depicting a member of the Sniff collective chopping off the head of a destroyer of the art.
Four whirligigs of found metal objects projected more spiritual themes.
Little details like David Hockney sitting on a bench and the card David Hockney vs the Maestro in the boxing ring scene was a new variation of the Andy Warhol vs the Maestro mano a mano standoff talked about by the Maestro, the self-taught Bay Area artist featured in a film documentary by Les Blankgoing head to head with the British artist by way of LA showed whoever Sniff was/is knows their art.
On the frame of another scene, someone left the graffiti message: “James Dobson Says Sniff is the Focus on the Manson Family.”
I googled Sniff and the Albany Bulb and found that the Sniff collective was four artists who met in a figure drawing class - David Ryan, Scott Meadows, and Scott Hewitt of Oakland and Bruce Rayburn of El Sobrante. All are friends who have day jobs. Three have art degrees. Another Sniff, Osha Neumann, is representing Sniff in court where Albany and the California parks system are seeking to tear down the art for a state park. .
You can see the art yourself by following these links:
http://projects.is.asu.edu/pipermail/hpn/2000-December/002286.html
*The wisteria in bloom and the ripe plums in Mike and Jennifer’s backyard. Woody Guthrie called California the garden of eden where you can sleep out every night. Now I know why.
That said, it's sure good to be back home.]]>
Ladybird2007-07-16T15:37:00-05:002007-07-16T15:37:00-05:00tag:pivotpowered,2007:notesandmusingsblog.1512007-07-16T15:37:00-05:00The passing of Claudia Taylor Johnson marks an end and a beginning.LadybirdJoe_Nick
I remember Austin's Town Lake just after Ladybird announced her initiative to beautify the area around the lake, which is the dammed up part of the Colorado River that runs through downtown. It used to be the kind of place you didn't want to go. Now it's a showcase hike-and-bike trail used by thousands every day - even the current President of the United States used the trail to jog back when he was Governor, a job he was much better suited for.
The wildflowers along Texas highways were a Ladybird-inspired project as is the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center south of Austin. She picked a good time to depart this world because even in mid July when most of the countryside is usually burned-up from the summer heat still has a springtime green to it thanks to the abundant rains we've had this summer. The creeks and the rivers are clear and flowing and there are winecups, Mexican hats, yellow composites, white daisies and all kinds of flowers still blooming. Were the Hill Country to be like this forever. Unfortunately, Ladybird's efforts to rid highway landscapes of billboards proved to be not so successful, and even the highways around Johnson City including Highways 290 and 281 are becoming blighted with monster signs, many of them advertising developments like the Summit eyesore near Fischer. It makes me wonder what kind of people are moving into my part of the Hill Country and what their values are, especially regarding land use and preserving the wide open spaces. But for this moment, Ladybird's good works give me comfort. In many ways, her ideas jumpstarted the environmental movement.
Her passing also makes me think of her hometown Karnack on the edge of Caddo Lake in northeast Texas, one of the prettiest spots in Texas with its tall cypress trees and mysterious sloughs and creeks. Growing up there gave her a sense of how powerful the natural world can be. I'm glad I've seen it because it makes understand her worldview all the better. If only there were more Ladybirds out there now to help preserve Texas' beauty.]]>
Fave New Song Title2007-04-26T09:34:00-05:002007-04-26T09:34:00-05:00tag:pivotpowered,2007:notesandmusingsblog.1492007-04-26T09:34:00-05:00Further proof that zydeco is more country than country music as well as one of the most vital sounds in popular music is the new tune by Zydeco
Joe "You Can't Rooster Like You Used To."
I heard it on Texas Fred's Zydeco Hour on XM satellite radio's X Country Channel 12 during which he played other songs about horses and mules and other subjects relating to rural living in the USA.
Et toi.Fave New Song TitleJoe_Nick
Joe "You Can't Rooster Like You Used To."
I heard it on Texas Fred's Zydeco Hour on XM satellite radio's X Country Channel 12 during which he played other songs about horses and mules and other subjects relating to rural living in the USA.
Et toi.]]>
Naomi Judd2007-04-13T12:59:00-05:002007-04-13T12:59:00-05:00tag:pivotpowered,2007:notesandmusingsblog.1482007-04-13T12:59:00-05:00"Country music's most famous mom tells how to heal, let go, and age gratefully", as profiled by yours truly in the latest issue AARP: The Magazine the largest circulation magazine in America.
http://www.aarpmagazine.org/entertainment/naomi_judd.htmlNaomi JuddJoe_Nick
http://www.aarpmagazine.org/entertainment/naomi_judd.html]]>
Obama, Sammy and me2007-03-06T07:59:00-05:002007-03-06T07:59:00-05:00tag:pivotpowered,2007:notesandmusingsblog.1462007-03-06T07:59:00-05:00Last week, Austin disc jockey Sammy Allred was suspended by KVET radio station in Austin for
referring to Barack Obama as "clean" and as a "darky."
The blogosphere and the mainstream media picked up the story and on Saturday, March 3, Sammy was interviewed by
the Austin American-Statesman for his side of the story. Sammy said he was making fun of Joe Biden, the Delaware Senator and presidential hopeful who
referred to Barack as "clean" and "articulate" which set off a shitstorm that essentially sunk Biden's chances, as if he had any to begin with. Sammy went on to say he was a Barack supporter.
Meanwhile, KVET issued a lame ass apology - if you could call it an apology - and buried it deep at the bottom of the Sam & Bob column on their website.
On Tuesday, the Austin American-Statesman's humor columnist, John Kelso, said many Austinites will rejoice if Barack got Sammy fired and essentially called the 70 year old plus Sammy a grumpy old man -- hey, Kelso. Watch out! You're in pot/kettle territory when you say that.
It's been kind of amusing to see how this pissant controversy has played nationally. And it's made me wonder what Sam and Bob's traffic reporter T-Bone thinks of all this because T-Bone happens to be African-American.
So this week on KVET, Kinky Friedman is sitting in Sammy's chair and I'm sitting at home scratching my head because three weeks ago, I appeared on the Kenny Rahmeyer Show on KLBJ-AM, the local news talk station that carries Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, and made basically the same comment, minus the "darky" reference, describing Barack as "clean" and "articulate" as a dig at Biden. Kenny didn't call me on it, other than to clarify I was making fun of Joe Biden's comment, nor did any of the listeners. Instead, one called backed up my praise for Molly Ivins by pointing out she got the US debacle in Iraq exactly right in 2003 and had been consistent all the way to the present, unlike many flippers and floppers on both the left and the right.
I hope Sammy is back on the air soon. No matter what Kelso says, I think he's one of the funniest people in Austin, no matter who he's insulting. I also hope we can move on beyond taboo words and actually discuss issues that effect us all - even on KVET.Obama, Sammy and meJoe_Nick
referring to Barack Obama as "clean" and as a "darky."
The blogosphere and the mainstream media picked up the story and on Saturday, March 3, Sammy was interviewed by
the Austin American-Statesman for his side of the story. Sammy said he was making fun of Joe Biden, the Delaware Senator and presidential hopeful who
referred to Barack as "clean" and "articulate" which set off a shitstorm that essentially sunk Biden's chances, as if he had any to begin with. Sammy went on to say he was a Barack supporter.
Meanwhile, KVET issued a lame ass apology - if you could call it an apology - and buried it deep at the bottom of the Sam & Bob column on their website.
On Tuesday, the Austin American-Statesman's humor columnist, John Kelso, said many Austinites will rejoice if Barack got Sammy fired and essentially called the 70 year old plus Sammy a grumpy old man -- hey, Kelso. Watch out! You're in pot/kettle territory when you say that.
It's been kind of amusing to see how this pissant controversy has played nationally. And it's made me wonder what Sam and Bob's traffic reporter T-Bone thinks of all this because T-Bone happens to be African-American.
So this week on KVET, Kinky Friedman is sitting in Sammy's chair and I'm sitting at home scratching my head because three weeks ago, I appeared on the Kenny Rahmeyer Show on KLBJ-AM, the local news talk station that carries Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, and made basically the same comment, minus the "darky" reference, describing Barack as "clean" and "articulate" as a dig at Biden. Kenny didn't call me on it, other than to clarify I was making fun of Joe Biden's comment, nor did any of the listeners. Instead, one called backed up my praise for Molly Ivins by pointing out she got the US debacle in Iraq exactly right in 2003 and had been consistent all the way to the present, unlike many flippers and floppers on both the left and the right.
I hope Sammy is back on the air soon. No matter what Kelso says, I think he's one of the funniest people in Austin, no matter who he's insulting. I also hope we can move on beyond taboo words and actually discuss issues that effect us all - even on KVET.]]>
Sam The Sham2007-01-29T18:15:00-05:002007-01-29T18:15:00-05:00tag:pivotpowered,2007:notesandmusingsblog.1452007-01-29T18:15:00-05:00Sam The ShamJoe_Nick
Casey Monahan, the director of the Texas Music Office, called me the other day and invited me to join him and Domingo Samudio aka the Sam The Sham, leader of the Pharoahs and composer and performer of the musical classic "Wooly Bully" for lunch at Hoover's. Accompanying Sam was his friend Ron Rogers, the keeper of the flame for Freddy Fender, and Rose Reyes, director of marketing for the Austin Convention and Visitor Bureau, and Annette Fradera who does song placements for films including Tommy Lee Jones' "Three Burials of Meliquiades Estrada" and an upcoming documentary on the killing of Ezequial Hernandez, the Redford, Texas goatherder who was shot by U.S. Marines patrolling the border, who mistook the 17 year old American citizen for an illegal alien.
Domingo bka (best known as) Sam was a pleasure to break bread with. A resident of Memphis for the past thirty years, he came to Austin to prepare for his appearance at the Austin Music Awards in March, the annual party and show that is the unofficial kickoff of the music portion of the 21st South By Southwest.
He looked great, talked a humble but wizened game, and charmed the whole table. Rarely have I met someone from the music business who has such a well-centered grip on his life and his music achievements.
He recalled growing up in West Dallas, the same stomping grounds as Bonnie and Clyde, where his parents and grandparents had been working the bottomlands of an expansive tract known as Trinity Farms that extended from downtown to Texas Stadium in Irving ever since they fled the Mexican Revolution of 1910. He speculated that Trinity Farms may be the source of the song “El Rancho Grande.” Working the cottonfields as a boy, he could sing and make people laugh so well that other pickers picked his cotton for him, just to keep him entertaining them.
Sam radiates happiness, a state of being he attributes to finding the Lord. And he’s as funny as he was when Doug Sahm first described seeing him on the Sunset Strip of Los Angeles, sitting on top of the back seat of a convertible cruising the Strip, wearing his turban, screaming his head off, full of wild joy.
When I said I was sorry after he told me he lost his mother when he was only three, he didn’t miss a beat. “Don’t worry, you didn’t kill her,” he grinned.
He told stories about Ed Sullivan cancelling a booking when a conflict in the Middle East broke out. “He thought we were A-rabs.”
He'd left Dallas and was working on offshore oil rigs based in Louisiana when he hit it big. He talked about coming from the Delta the root source of all music to New York arriving at La Guardia Airport at the height of Beatlemania, when the single “Wooly Bully” knocked the Fab Four off the top of the charts. Asked by a reporter what he thought about the Beatles, he made a statement that even had the band worried. “You steal my dog, you take it home, clean it up, dress it up real nice and try and sell it back to me. You think I’m going to buy it? You think I’m afraid?
Ron Rogers, who was squiring Sam the Sham around Austin, is working on a Freddy Fender museum in San Benito and collaborating with Bill Crawford on a biography of Freddy. Bill was my collaborator on the Stevie Ray Vaughan book and wrote the book on Border Radio with Gene Fowler. He’s one of the few gabachos who understands and appreciates the beauty of the Texas-Mexico borderlands.
When Casey almost spilled his glass of water by unknowlingly knocking it over with his elbow, Sam saved the day, reaching his hand across the table with his trademark advisory, “Watch it, now, watch it now” straight out of “Wooly Bully.”
Ron gave me a copy of Sam’s latest CD, a curriculum vitae of Sam that he autographed, and a beret with a Sam the Sham autograph logo.
The CV has a poem explaining how he sees the success he achieved in entertainment and elsewhere with this nugget, Early Conclusion:
Life is Swift & Death is Sure;
When it’s your time;
There ain’t no cure.
Fame & Fortune fade away
But when God smiles,
It’s a sunny day.
(No “Po” Story Here)
The House of Sham has a website www.samthesham.com
I haven’t taken off the beret yet.]]>
National Geographic2007-01-19T14:55:00-05:002007-01-19T14:55:00-05:00tag:pivotpowered,2007:notesandmusingsblog.1442007-01-19T14:55:00-05:00My first byline in National Geographic appears in the Februrary 2007 issue and online at NationalGeographic.org
I'm very proud to have collaborated with photographer Jack Dykinga on "Desolate Majesty: Preserving Beauty Without Borders" focusing on wildlife conservation efforts on both sides of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo including Big Bend National Park, Big Bend State Ranch, and Black Gap state Wildlife Management Area in southwest Texas, the Canon Santa Elena Protected Area in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, the Maderas del Carmen Protected Area and the Cemex Sierra Del Carmen Preserve in the Mexican state of Coahuila. Together they comprise one of the most important wildlife corridors in the world. Check it out.National GeographicJoe_Nick
I'm very proud to have collaborated with photographer Jack Dykinga on "Desolate Majesty: Preserving Beauty Without Borders" focusing on wildlife conservation efforts on both sides of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo including Big Bend National Park, Big Bend State Ranch, and Black Gap state Wildlife Management Area in southwest Texas, the Canon Santa Elena Protected Area in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, the Maderas del Carmen Protected Area and the Cemex Sierra Del Carmen Preserve in the Mexican state of Coahuila. Together they comprise one of the most important wildlife corridors in the world. Check it out.]]>
