Be that as it may, that's a nice VW Minibus (or was it a Micro, will have to ask Arlo). Why it wasn't just a VW Bus is beyond me. Ours was named Rex, not Alice.
This is about 23 minutes, but how many times a decade do you listen to it? Arlo explains what it is about.
Credit: zBrown
It all depends on how you look at it, I guess or
Notes from Underground (now available in PDF) (Pretty Damn Fine?)
6:20 a.m. this morning, dead calm and only about 36 degrees. I went back to the warmth of the mouse pad and had coffee, went back at 7:00 to the hanging belay below the cornice.
Credit: mouse from merced
Peep o' day.
Credit: mouse from merced
Babysitting, uh-huh.
Credit: mouse from merced
It's the Rev! Praise de Lawd!
Credit: mouse from merced
Get down!
Credit: mouse from merced
Get down?
Credit: mouse from merced
I wanna get UP!
Credit: mouse from merced
Credit: mouse from merced
Credit: mouse from merced
5.10, let's go to the coffee shop.
Credit: mouse from merced
Check out this baby! '63 ragtop Nova.
Credit: mouse from merced
Credit: mouse from merced
End o' day.
Credit: mouse from merced
Still no package. CosmicCallled. He's in Calabashus.
zBrown my children have come of age as millennials but they know old Jimmy Buffet songs well and together we have listened to and laughed with Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant many many times. Because you know it all started on Thanksgiving (and we had never heard of a dump being closed on Thanksgiving before).
The pleasure I had of seeing a silver maned Arlo Guthrie sing his signature song (but I always liked Mr Customs Man better, must be the airplane thing) in the Fox Theater in Stockton California back in 90s was only surpassed by the delight of seeing my kids run around the house shouting Kill! KILL! and then we would each start jumping up and down yelling KILL, KILL! And pretty soon the whole house was shouting KILL KILL! and we had a great old time playing with the pencils there on the Group W bench with all the father rapers.
And sh#t.
Seriously. My kids LOVE that song. I listen to it at least once a year.
Around the back of ALICE's, after ya get there--which is hard to do cuz it's around the back, too, and that's confusing to ANY body--yer gonna see the Bitch and Moan-Go To the Bounce-House Shack that Alice installed when the peace talks were just beginning in Paris. She thought that they might do better in a smaller venue--with fewer distractions and a ot less stress, but she was naive and didn't KNOW that both sides wanted to drag it out, but that's ANOTHER STORY--and when they got upset then they could go out and bounce it all out.
Credit: mouse from merced
The idea was rejected by both sides so when the war dragged to a close, she moved on out to SF and set up on Skyline Blvd. Melanie Melonsugar told me this, so there are of course, missing pieces to the story.
Jap bike, not a door prize in the raffle.
Credit: mouse from merced
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Are you OTAY, zBrown?
One sweet little gal, here. She is the world's champion chatterbox. Hello, Kitty!
Credit: mouse from merced
NO, it won't ruin Quizmas if it's bad sh#t.
Life, and maybe even our whole existence, is fragile. Christmas teaches respect for life, or should.
Credit: mouse from merced
As Dickens points out in the classic A Christmas CArol, and taking from that other classic, the Gallic Wars by jCsesar, and as JC Himself revealed, things come in threes, the important ones, anyway.
Past, present, future;
Belgae, Aquitani, and Gauls;
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit;
food, shelter, clothing;
NBC, ABC, CBS (when I was a boy);
football, basketball, baseball (if you are American);
me, you, them.
I guess a case could be made for vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate.
The one thing we as a country need to fear, though, is the beard! Beginning with the Duck Commandos, ZZ Top, and Braun Freres, and being here now with Baba Ram Das, Father Time, and Mr. Natural, it's all about the beard 'round Christmas.
God himself has one, when He so ordains.
Meantime, the Santa imitators are more numerous than Elvis imitators because Elvis looked terrible in a beard. He settled for sideburns.
Johnny, boss of the El Cap hotel. I interrupted his conversation with the texter.
Credit: mouse from merced
In the shop window at the LP Depot.
Credit: mouse from merced
Vern at the Cigar Monkey. Of course Santa PREFERS pipes, but one of these every so often is a change for him. Peppermint Fantasia is his normal blend.
Credit: mouse from merced
Yamaha Hendricks, singing Grandma Came At Me Like a Zombie (So I Had To Blow Her Head Off). a song request of mine with which he was glad to comply.
Credit: mouse from merced
Hendricks's guitar, "Ma." He brutally stabbed it forty times when shitfaced and painted the puncture marks in remorse.
Mornin Mouse,
Sweet Nova! Dad had one BITD, not a rag top though.
Thanks for the Arlo fix.
Happy Holidaze,
and may the Flames continue to blaze!
Thaddeus
My Pop traded a 60s era Nova in for a Chrysler Valiant which in turn became my car in the late 70s. I dropped the slant 6/auto/stock rear end out of it and replaced that (very good engine) with a 340/4-speed and some whachamafuk rearend... Pop's old Valiant had a tiger in its tank :)
Say I never wrecked that car too bad and didn't blow the engine up either... that may be the only car that ever survived my loving touch! Have to think about that.
See? He's a boy who "grew up" (HA! Mr. Urbanity Jones hisself) tinkerin' so he turned out like he did, a climbing junkie stuck in overdrive, even after all these years.
Credit: mouse from merced
He follows roads we'll never see at any time of day, on the ground, in the air, Dingus turns up everywhere.
Conyardo grew up tinkering and I presume John Salathe had a bent for steel, as well.
And that Wilson, crazy kid, who drove like the bat out of hell.
And Dolt, and Rhorer, and countless more,
The Lowes? And Frost? Locker!!!!!!!!!!? Bill Forrest?
Good company, Tennessee.
And the more I see of thee, the more my posts have more climbing content.
We can't have a content contest, though it has definite commercial potential. I'll just say your climbing is head and shoulders above my climbing. It doesn't mean squat, though.
It's not fun if I'm competing.
So, like Paul says in the Faux Good Epistles, "I will accessorize and you can call me Mal. Or Saul. Paul's good, of course. I like the nickname, Pratt, too. Doom is not in my glossary."
This, of course, was way later, after that fall off the boulder on the road to Damascus and became a saintly fou and a Jew for Christ.
A light in the window, a song in our heart. Tough rhyme.
Credit: mouse from merced
Morning has fallen, no...morning has come now, no...morning is early. No, I might have to break down and buy a rhyming dic...Morning has BROKEN! That's it!--Cat Stevens, BITD
Credit: mouse from merced
Eight shopping days till Christmas if you drop today and Sunday next.
Ten if you're a merchant.
Oh, Brother Tad, here's a blast from the past, and it may be older than the slick dude on the album cover. CLICK TO ENLIGHTEN.
"He does the head fake and drivel drives left--and it's another perfect lie up!"
Phylyp, as the "doyenne" of our little art thread, and one of our worthy practitioners, you might really like this one--Matisse, Modigliani, and a lot of mid-Twentieth C. art. I found it fascinating.
Aye mate that is for youngsters. Its not even fair to them if we old ones get in the way, slows em down.
The secret sauce for me?
Desire.
And that desire fuels a need to remain (or return to) fit. And being fit enables the desire to go. And going puts me in a position to explore And exploring fuels the fire that burns within. And keeping the flames alight is what its all about. Even if its just nursing the pilot light through a cold and drafty night. Gotta keep it lit because restarting it is a motherf*#ker.
To me? Its all about getting myself to the base of a rock with the urge intact. There have been times when the journey TO the rock sufficed. I did not climb. Somehow, those lean meals weren't as satisfying.
But we build our lives and make our money and buy our things and study our craft and assemble our kits and make our journeys and hike through the woods and after all this seemingly endless friggin around?
We touch the stone. And then?
"Suddenly"... we're climbing.
And then it all makes sense. And then? We're climbers. New skin? Meet the old skin.
:)
At least that's the way its been for me these past 40 years. Ah she was my first love, climbing.
And that desire fuels a need to remain (or return to) fit. And being fit enables the desire to go. And going puts me in a position to explore And exploring fuels the fire that burns within. And keeping the flames alight is what its all about. Even if its just nursing the pilot light through a cold and drafty night. Gotta keep it lit because restarting it is a motherf*#ker.
To me? Its all about getting myself to the base of a rock with the urge intact. There have been times when the journey TO the rock sufficed. I did not climb. Somehow, those lean meals weren't as satisfying.
But we build our lives and make our money and buy our things and study our craft and assemble our kits and make our journeys and hike through the woods and after all this seemingly endless friggin around?
We touch the stone. And then?
"Suddenly"... we're climbing.
And then it all makes sense. And then? We're climbers. New skin? Meet the old skin.
:)
At least that's the way its been for me these past 40 years. Ah she was my first love, climbing.
DMT
//**
Thank you DMT. I was just telling another climber the other day the reason I must get back into shape after all this is because there is nothing you can do alone that feels better than being balanced on a ledge, with your body pressed from cheek to toe against the rock, being warmed and held safe by Mother Earth. The only thing that comes close is being high up, where the air is clearer, and as you fall asleep, looking up, you fall up into the stars. Those two sensations will keep me in the mountains and rocks as long as I can be there.
Thinking a lot about Doug today, sending lots of gratitude to the Universe for his love.
I got to chasing the dance tune neebee wanted to know about.
After checkin' it out, Monkey Business on hulu, brought on a tide of goodies. This was among the drek on the hulu beach.
It's very ON THE ROAD. Secret agentry for the good King George III, seeking the temple of the WallaWallaBingBang and the Chango d'Or.
"What makes you think I can't play "Monkey in the Middle" for a day, Jack?"
It begins with an abseil into a sink-hole, too. And digresses from there.
Let us know!