Never talk about your past injuries while cooking meat. I told my wife about the time I stubbed my toenail off while I was browning some ground turkey & suddenly the meat looked like the inside of my toe.
Category: Uncategorized
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R.E.M. – I Walked With a Zombie (Roky Erickson cover)
If a pregnant woman becomes a zombie will the fetus claw it’s way out or just go along for the ride? Presumably it wants to eat brains also. I know it doesn’t work that way in The Last of Us, but I don’t know if that counts since they weren’t brain-ivores.
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Charles Platt’s 1979 interview with Phillip K. Dick
Phillip K. Dick is a fascinating figure for me. Terribly unstable yet visionary. He said several profound things during the above interview by Charles Platt. I was especially intrigued by the part about how someone with a powerful psyche can invade the psyches of others.
He admits to being easily persuadable. While undergoing “attack therapy” he found himself agreeing with statements about himself he knew to be false. Exactly the same mechanism used to extract false confessions and create cults and totalitarianism.
It gave me an image: Comic book thought bubbles, floating around invisibly, taking form in the actions of people.
It’s interesting to think about political and cultural changes not as people & countries making decisions, but more like clouds of psychic energy, traveling through the airwaves, through the Internet, through advertising and political campaigns.
Battling it out and making alliances. Merging and splitting apart. Some more powerful than others. Many small ones, gradually absorbed into larger ones.
I’m not a New Ager. I don’t believe in “psychic energy” per se. It’s mostly a metaphor, but a hell of a strong one.
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View from a trail in Franklin Mountains State Park – Blooming yucca, with a nice view of West El Paso in the background.
After scrolling through my rectangle of doom, I had to get out of the house and the backyard would not do.
I’ve been a city dweller for years now, but I grew up in the country. Concrete, asphalt and technology make me weary. Sometimes I just have to get my nature on.
This one I couldn’t identify and Google Lens was no help. If anyone knows, please share.
Greater Earless Lizard
El Paso is built around Franklin Mountains State Park, a beautiful tract of West Texas desert.
I’ve loved the desert ever since my Boy Scout troop took us to Big Bend National Park in 7th grade.
The trail kicked my out of shape ass, but I found some of my favorite desert plants as well as a few I didn’t recognize. Also lost a race to a lizard. I wasn’t much of a challenge.
Featherplume (aka Dalea Formosa)
Southwestern Barrel Cactus in bloom.
Blackfoot Daisies
Sotol – kinda looks like a yucca, but it’s related to the Agave and they make a delicious spirit out of it.
Creosote Bush – I love these plants. When it rains in the desert, the air fills with their perfume. To me it smells like ozone.
Ocotillo – I saw some in the Franklin Mountains, but they weren’t in bloom.
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Beau of the Fifth Column gives his take on Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” as a gift to public school teachers.
I was a big Billy Joel fan who kinda felt like he lost his way with An Innocent Man, even though it had a lot of hits. Another classic rock guy who crashed into New Wave.
First time I heard Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” I thought, “Hey, return to form.” I will still defend Billy Joel to any music hipster who comes at me, but I wasn’t empressed with the other songs on Storm Front (Hmm. Unfortunate album title nowadays…)
But I still love that single. It deserved to be a smash hit. It made an important subject fun to a lot of people, which is the first step toward making them curious.
I just discovered a fun video of Beau of the Fifth Column doing a version of that song that mentions other world events. Excellent idea. Way more history took place during the Cold War than could ever go into one song. You could make a million just like it.
I got C’s in most of my History classes even though it was a minor, but I couldn’t resist a great story, though I had a hell of a time remembering when they happened for the test. I’m still glad I took those classes. Knowing history is a great way to guess the future.
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Ryuichi Sakamoto – Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
Just found out last night that Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away and thought I needed to show my appreciation. I first came across his music via the Yellow Magic Orchestra.
I found them on Napster back when I thought I was a pirate trying to download the entire internet. I was way into techno and all kinds of electronica back then. Any kind, from any place.
Yellow Magic Orchestra – Rydeen
YMO sounded like the future – and also the past. It reminded me of my teenage years in the early ’80s, at the arcade. The ’80s were when I knew for certain that the future was coming. I think I still have a few of those tokens. Anyone remember those?
Yellow Magic Orchestra – Firecracker
YMO definitely put their stamp on the future, but Sakamoto was way more than that. He composed the soundtracks for numerous movies, including The Last Emperor and the Revenant. But what really blew me away was discovering songs from his soundtrack to Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, a movie Sakamoto appeared in, along with David Bowie.
I found that thanks to another of my musical heroes, David Sylvian, formerly of the group known as Japan. I followed Sylvian’s career after Japan. I really love his unique voice. Sylvian and Sakamoto collaborated more than once, but “Forbidden Colours” is the one that really turned me onto Sakamoto. Such a beautiful song.
Yellow Magic Orchestra – Ballet. Vocals are by Yoshiro Takahashi, who also passed away earlier this year. I definitely need to show him more love. I totally mistook his voice for Sylvian’s at first. Maybe that explains why he and Sakamoto were able to collaborate so well.
Yellow Magic Orchestra – Cosmic Surfin’. How cool is this? Wish I’d been there.
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Just figured out what’s happening in my “Starry Night with UFOs” T-shirt. The aliens are coming back to blast that village for being mean to their boy! Take that haters! Zzzzt!
I’ve always loved Van Gogh and his unique vision. I was an art student for two years, how could I not? I still don’t know if he’s been honored properly in recent times.
I like “American Pie,” but I’m frankly underwhelmed by Don McLean’s “Starry Starry Night.” It comes off kinda maudlin to me. I also wasn’t as impressed with the Doctor Who episode as my wife was, nor could I get into the Willem Dafoe movie.
I get the impulse we all have to try and make up for how shitty he was treated in his day, but the Doctor Who fantasy is not possible. He’s never going to know.
Maybe I have trouble with all the tributes. Of course his life makes a good, if sad, story. Who wouldn’t be interested? But I would focus on what he created, rather than how sad his life was.
That’s what he wanted. For people to look at his art and try to get it, not talk about his various humiliations.
I went to one of those traveling Van Gogh exhibits where they project his art on the wall and the floors. I still don’t know if it did him justice, but at least his art had the biggest part in the show.
What I see in Van Gogh is a challenge to creative people. How much are you willing to sacrifice to remain true to your vision? How much are you willing to compromise in order to be accepted? (Or as is increasingly the dilemma today, pay rent?)
He painted the way his soul demanded and gave up everything. Eventually it became impossible to ignore him.
I don’t like to like to dwell on “tortured soul” Vincent. I prefer to think of him as a badass.
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This is still International Trans Day of Visibility, so I thought I would share some musical awesomeness by some trans performers.
“Follow Sun Ra” is from the After the Flood 2 album, a really obscure project with experimental ambient and related music, although this one is a bit industrial. Scottish singer #CinderSharp from #Cindytalk is on vocals.
“Burning the Old Home” is from Psychic TV, featuring singer Genesis P-Orridge, who sadly left us in 2020. This song is so good I’m going to have to check out their whole catalog – that guitar solo at the end!
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My dad spent a lot of time outdoors and knew a lot about the wildlife of Texas, including the kind of critters most folks just step on or ignore.
Each of those white spots on the lower pad are hiding cochineal bugs, source of an important red dye.
Dad knew which ones were harmful, which ones were useful. He loved seeing ladybugs and praying mantises in the garden. He taught me to be curious.
Once he scraped some white web-like stuff from the pad of a prickly pear cactus with a stick. “Inside each one of those spots is an insect called a cochineal bug. Indians used to get red dye from it.”
Dad didn’t like to squish bugs willy-nilly and neither do I – I’m the kinda guy who rescues insects from scared ladies – but that was a pretty neat discovery.
Sorry little bug. I promise I won’t do it again.
Now when I see those white spots on the pads of a prickly pear, I know what they are. And they’re not just a curiosity. Cochineal bugs are still important.
They’re the source of the natural dye carmine. You probably ate or drank some of it today.
It’s been a source of income in Mexico for a long time apparently. It’s a tradition I hope they can keep alive. Apparently that’s up in the air at the moment.
Interesting video about how cochineal bugs are cultivated in Mexico to produce the natural food dye known as carmine.
Late Boomer's Den 
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