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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Apr 15, 2013 - 01:28pm PT
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I refuse to bow to the temptation to pun on the word 'knot.'
I refuse to admit that I have never read the Cleary books about Ralph.
There can be no connection to Ralph from Happy Days and why isn't his name pronounced Rafe Mafe--is it some Euro thing or just when is the honeymoon starting, Ralph?
That was Uncle Ray from My Favorite Martian that played the sly-sounding Matt.
Naturelement, we come to Arlo Guthrie, again, sliding sidewise at X km/h and singin'
[Click to View YouTube Video]Yur not gonna die any time soon.
I do feel like havin' me a pickle, though, thinkin' on it.
Polski wyrob, py got!
My brother Tim was on a Kawa when he got T-boned in Jamestown about twenty years ago. He lucked out and only had three limbs broken.
Not my style. I've ridden bicycles, not motorcycles, and Liz even rode a bike a lot when she was young and selling Avon. She hauled young Michel-Jon round in a seat on the back. It was a three-speed.
Then she met that motorcycle mechanic...
http://www.buzzhunt.co.uk/2011/05/06/polish-guy-makes-100-wooden-bicycles/
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zBrown
Ice climber
chingadero de chula vista
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Apr 15, 2013 - 01:38pm PT
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Climbing content @ 2:02
don't put on any heirs
sure hope they don't fall, would be nobody left to follow them down
http://vimeo.com/29988524
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Apr 15, 2013 - 02:39pm PT
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Just got home from Illinois, lock the front door, oh boy!
Got to sit down, take a rest on the porch.
Imagination sets in, pretty soon I'm singing,
CHORUS:
Doo, doo, doo, Looking out my back door.
There's a giant doing cartwheels,
A statue wearing high heels.
Look at all the happy creatures dancing on the lawn.
A dinosaur Victrola listening to Buck Owens.
CHORUS
Tambourines and elephants are playing in the band.
Won't you take a ride on the flying spoon?
Doo, doo doo.
Wond'rous apparition provided by magician.
CHORUS
Tambourines and elephants are playing in the band.
Won't you take a ride on the flying spoon?
Doo, doo doo.
Bother me tomorrow, today, I'll buy no sorrows.
CHORUS
Forward troubles Illinois, lock the front door, oh boy!
Look at all the happy creatures dancing on the lawn.
Bother me tomorrow, today, I'll buy no sorrows.
CHORUS
Here's the story I suppose I might have told you, neebee, had I gone on.
The mechanic, Rick, took his son, Scott, from his mother and her first son and headed Back East, eventually to Cincinnati, where there were no tacos in '83, according to Liz's tale.
Canterbury, you got nothin' on this one.
She-mom extraordinaire set off in chase and went 'round and 'round in Ohio and got her Scotty back to Merced, and so the soaps continued until we met in the ER and as the poet Eurante once said
terra met foima
Rock climbing is perfectly safe--it's the dismount that's hazardous!
Liz and her Oh Boys! Someplace along Feather River.
She collected postcards and elephants. Long poems were no match for her memory. The Night Before Christmas was child's play. A Midsummer Night's Dream was her only live Shakespeare experience, here in Merced, at the first performance given at the new outdoor theater in Applegate Park, a modern adaptation.
We were in the Guild of St. Thomas More and our "period" was truly the earlier faires, the Henrician faires as we called them, but we adapted to the Elizabethan mode easily enough and had great fun at both. Liz recited some "poesy" at one faire as a part of our act. I challenged her to memorize some Shakespearean sonnets, but she informed me in her best "period-Nazi" impression ever: "It's not the right period, good sir. Period."
I saw no tear in her dress, neebee. Maybe that was a tear in your eye.
You meant in this dress, eh?
Here's that other of the grand-Lizzie.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Apr 15, 2013 - 03:23pm PT
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Apr 15, 2013 - 03:58pm PT
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In hearing of the Boston Marathon Massacre just now, it seems to bring to mind the thrilling days of 9-11 when flags were flown on Fords, flower carts, and taco wagons.But even so,
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zBrown
Ice climber
chingadero de chula vista
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Apr 15, 2013 - 06:07pm PT
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OUCH!
Take a lesson from the lovely lemon tree, but it's still only gonna give you lemons in the end, unless of course you are a meadowlark, in which case life is golden
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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zBrown
Ice climber
chingadero de chula vista
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Apr 15, 2013 - 11:28pm PT
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Bruce Penninsula Park
http:// link hosed up - will fix
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Apr 16, 2013 - 05:16pm PT
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A Short
The Barisov Parcel
It was a standard USPS ready-to-post mailing carton, but what it held was far from ordinary.
It was a Mulligan. Also known as a Ginsberg. Sometimes called a McGuffin, in error, but well-intentioned error, one hopes. There are worse errors than calling a Ginsberg a McGuffin, like calling a Hitler a Ginsberg, I suppose.
Blue suede, usually, but this was Blue Velvet, it had a plush feel to it. I thought it might BE a real Vintage Vinton, but there was something missing.
A blue velvet McGuffin, being mailed to Boston, the day after an afternoon of terrifying bombs going off in crowds of spectators at the finish of the marathon. Hmm...
At first, it’s not too obvious what’s happening, but it gradually begins to occur to me, that I know what is inside this parcel which I am holding, yet it is still wrapped inside, the package is intact.
Whoa!
Whoa! And wait just a freakin’ minute, Jack! I cannot know this is a McGuffin, much less know it’s blue velvet. I’ts not possible, just like that contraction of “it is.”
Aha! But there ‘tis, so it’s not “IMPOSSIBLE,” is it?
How do I know it is “plush” and how do I know it is “blue?”
That is rich, but sad, too, that I feel this way.
And how do I know it is a Mulligan/Ginsberg/McGuffin when they are, after all, just do-overs and mysterious objects themselves? Ephemera, photo-proof; no nest in te, visibilite.
It is a question that I am willing to turn over in my mind to Nowhere Man, champion of nothing, obliged to nobody, and best of all, he works for free.
I have a contract with him. He does not accept contractions as valid. I use ‘em all the time, but cannot use them now that Nowhere Man is on the case. He is nowhere and everywhere at once, but he cannot contract, only expand. So he is unlimited in what he can and cannot do at the same time.
Do not ask.
I will not tell.
Story
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Gypsy
Social climber
NC
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Apr 16, 2013 - 08:15pm PT
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Early morning on the beach at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk
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zBrown
Ice climber
chingadero de chula vista
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Apr 16, 2013 - 08:21pm PT
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Truckin'
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Apr 16, 2013 - 08:27pm PT
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This is not about the Cobra climb on Royal Arches. Or malt liquor.
As Largo goes back to Led Zep, Mouse backs up time to the year 1971. I'm nailing one of the pitches on Carbon Wall. Bruce Price is my belayer and the instrumental in my head driving me is Quicksilver Messenger Service's "The Cobra." It features the lead by the late John Cipollina. I used to own the album "Just for Love" and "Happy Trails" on eight-track. Half of the band were Mercedians. Andy Cox and Ron Cagle and similar types would beg to ride around the Valley in the White Van, the DORF, so they could burn one to some good sounds. I obliged whenever I could, cruising slow. We had Zappa's "Chunga's Revenge" and "The Blues Project," an anthology with Jeff and Maria Muldaur for back-up. Later, the last Stones album I ever bought and I feel their greatest, "Exiles on Main Street," accompanied me on trips to the Valley after I moved out in 72.
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Another band which de Flames listened to back in the day in Merced: The Seeds. Check them out on Youtube and catch Betty Paige dancing to their song "I Can't Seem to Make You Mine." Largo, listen to "Pushin' Too Hard" by the Seeds. I am reminded of thee, somehow. I remember the first time I heard Led Zepp being played by the weekend workers from Fresburg in the tent cabin out by Leidig Meadow I shared with Richard Carlson, a bus person at the Caf and also a Merced guy. And who tried to ruin the night by drunken furor in the dorms parking lot but the Millis himself, prior to his conversion to gentler substances.
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For the sake of the young who never heard of de Flames, we were "just a bunch of rock and roll kids from Merced," none of whom owned cars, with the exception of what seemed like only one guy at a time. It was a farcical schtick invented by bored teens. It was essentially a car club, but for guys w/o wheels. Our members were augmented by the low-riders, Benny Bengosgos, and others of Latino origin, all fake. San Joaquin, patron saint of hitch-hikers was revered. There was a chapter in Campo Quatro: Millis, the Bircheffs, Randy Hamm, and Steve Walstead (our guy Throwpie), Cowboy Larry, all were definitely enrolled, and I think Bonebrake, as well. A lotta maids were Flames mammas at one time or another.
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As long as I'm here, there is a story I'd like to relate. In late October, 1971, nine of us from the Valley drove to Tuolumne for a hike in to Boothe Lake. I distinctly remember nine. We were in Rich's (last name?) station wagon, the Blue Polluter. Rich, me, the Bircheffs, Anne Baker, Julie Mathis, and another maid, maybe Karen Anders, Pettigrew and maybe Cagle, we all came back from Boothe in about 4-6 inches of new snow. Winter all of a sudden. We were the last campers that year.
We headed down the road and not far above Smokey Jack or Tamarack the Buick slid left and the left front wheel was over a bank, but there was no way it was going over. Rich had been driving real slowly and managed to keep us intact. It was slushy and I was the only one who refused to start walking. Someone had to watch the packs, so I sat there while they got wet. I dozed.
The snowplow was on me like a train, very loud. It was followed by a NPS ranger in a station wagon. The plow avoided the Buick, thank you Jesus. The ranger didn't hit the plow, but it was close. The f##k got clustered immediately when the ranger's vehicle wouldn't start (battery). The plow went down the hill, picked up some of the walkers who then called the tow truck. The tow truck got there, the driver turned off his motor. His battery died, too. The ranger started his car with a jump from the Buick. The tow truck driver started his unit off the ranger, then hauled the Polluter off. No harm, no foul, just a constant reminder to me to always high-tail it out of the high country by late October.
Someone's got to remember this tale of near-woe. Stories like these make it worthwhile being an OLD FART.
And the beat goes on. The above's from an old thread about the Cobra. I know now that they belong over to El Cap Bridge now, and can't think of much besides neckties and Shelby right now. Yesterday's gone, but this is some of the stuff I saw at Skip's place.
Skip Johnson of Merced.
Hangin' around.
Showin' off.
Jackin' my memories.
And Throwpie's.
Ducks on the pond.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Apr 16, 2013 - 09:11pm PT
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Apr 16, 2013 - 09:14pm PT
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zBrown
Ice climber
chingadero de chula vista
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Apr 16, 2013 - 10:19pm PT
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damn! (mighty) mouse that's an impressive display ya got there up yonder.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Apr 16, 2013 - 10:22pm PT
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It is like walikng into a museum with no lights, no real organization, and no cleaning staff. It's the exhibition equivalent of a rat bike.
I've always had cool friends.--Dylan Thocking
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zBrown
Ice climber
chingadero de chula vista
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Apr 17, 2013 - 11:49am PT
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I've never been here. Sainte-Marie Among the Hurons.
Kinda reminds me of Mestigoit.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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