California's Governor Jerry Brown gave his state of the state address a week ago. I managed to listen to most of it while driving taxi. Jerry is the hero now... the California Budget went from a 6 Billion deficit to a 16 Billion deficit to a balanced budget in about two years. Wow!
His speech was full of great concepts and ideas for the proper moral developement of children through education to common sense approaches to law where he sounded almost T Partyish, enough with the bills
legislators why do we have thousands of new laws every year. Jerry is on top of his game and the great state of California will only continue to get better.
Skunk Cabbage! (That phrase was just 'channeled' like his plan to improve the ecology of the Delta by building tunnels under the Delta to ship water to Southern California from the North)
Where does one start looking at the dots and connect them creating .. revealing sadly the same old story corruption and bankruptcy.
From a state where Schwarzenegger rode in to save us, with the support of So California Real estate developers... let's go even deeper into .. a deep rose colored hole.
... California faces a crisis in quality of Life and if we face it squarely we can do the whole planet a favor. More people more growth is not the answer. More water pumped to Southern California is not a solution in sustainability. They claim only 16 Billion for that project. Why not give the younger generations of Californians the gift of a less crowded world. We need to end the model of California developers massive 'villages' 'communities' dumped everywhere. Destroying the quality of life, suffocating us in too much humanity who rather than bringing more money, bring more issues... sewage crisis, water crisis, food crisis. Am I over reacting. Maybe. What happens when California's Katrina comes along? Why not take care of our existing community rather than building the great Ponzi scheme of infinite growth to even more perilous heights.
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/01/26/5142201/jerry-browns-water-plan-faces.html
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/01/13/5111910/californias-debt-still-a-heavy.html
Then there is this adventurous High Speed rail plan that Jerry is so thrilled with. Somehow they have got the cost down to only $57 Billion of which California has $12 Billion covered enough to begin thanks to the Federal Government (which owes15 Trillion to somebody) generously giving away your tax dollars. Wake up California! What's behind the dream here? I am not sure but my hunch there is huge money betting on huge developements out there in the 'wastelands' of Bakersfield... shuttle them in and out of LA. Cha Ching!! We can borrow the money like we have been so successful at borrowing over the past few years.. see that article referenced above about California's debt. Where do you borrow money from?
Cha Ching China!! Let's go to China.
http://www.sfgate.com/business/bottomline/article/Jerry-Brown-to-tout-state-on-China-visit-4222198.php
Hey there is nothing wrong with having strong ties with China. But what are we selling off to ' borrow' money from 'the state-owned' Banks of China. Isn't our problem 'debt' in California. Isn't that the USA's problem... When do we ever stop? According to Amtraks available online information regarding their prettty strong locomotives, they can easily reach 100 mph (120 mph is top) if the tracks are maintained. A hundred mile an hour train can get from downtown SF to downtown LA in .. what 4hours? That's pretty good. That's a nice ride, with beautiful California passing in front of your eyes. Or maybe you want 200 miles an hour with a blur of massive housing developements throughout the central valley.
You can't stop progress Guy.
I don't buy that it's progress. Who is going to fill those massive developements, who gets to build this railroad...? Just questions I don't have the answers. But the people who we borrow the money from are going to have quite a bit of leverage you would guess.
Speaking of California's state of the state how do you define Corruption?
State Parks/ Cal Fire
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/01/24/5139400/prosecutor-rejects-calif-ags-parks.html
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/01/26/5142092/cal-fire-kept-36-million-from.html?storylink=lingospot_related_articles
The SF CHronicle had a story I can't find that was a headline during the Schwarzenneger years.. 250 California government workers make $250,000 or more per year..
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Saturday, January 12, 2013
The Last Night in British Columbia
I am in the great library in downtown Portland, Oregon.
Satya and Odell summer 1959
It was already two nights ago on the third and final night of my stay with my older Half-Sister,
Satya and her husband John. This would be the night that Satya would join John and I in a music jam.
Satya on Accordion, John on Mandolin and me on guitar, where I was able. After a tune I asked Satya if she could remember the songs that she and Odell, played for us in the summer of 1959 when one very cool Road Trip reached it's destination with a week visit to her 'real Dad' and his family where we lived in the small village of Round Pond, Maine.
'Of course I remember those tunes.' she told me. We proceeded through a long set list, with various degrees of musical success but definitely with great fun..
Here is a partial set list of what you would have heard in Satya's music room in Surrey BC in 2013 and what you also would have heard in the Meyer living room in Maine on a certainday/evening in the summer of 1959.
Bye Bye Love
How Much Is That Doggie in the Window
Fraulein
Heartaches by the Number
Jambalaya
The Irish Washerwoman
Que Sera'
Here is a little more of the story of their trip. Satya and Odell were 17 and 16 years old, Satya had just graduated High School. She (They) bought a brand new Renault automobile with the engine in the back, she says Renault and VW were competing for business so they were offering pretty good deals. They traded their 10 year old car in as the $75.00 downpayment and off they went.
They had written all kinds of relatives across the country telling of their impending trip, and usually she says they would be sleeping in the car (Satya on the back seat, Odell on the front) every other night and they had enough relatives across the country that they would be put up somewhere with family the next night, they came across the Rockies and across the country when most of the interstate system had not been built. They stopped at their (and mine) Uncle Normie's and Uncle Andy's place first in Massachussetts before finally making it up to Maine. They showed slides with the projector that they brought with them. They brought their accordion and guitar. They stayed with us for a week.
She tells me relatives sent them a little money before the trip began. She tells me my Dad sent $25.00
which I was glad to hear, sounds like real big money though, for a family that didn't have too much.
I can somehow remember the trip out to Loud's Island. I remember the music (kind of). Not much more. I must have been a bit in awe of the whole moment of time.. still am.
10,000 mile round trip total cost $95.00
Am running out of time here at the computer, now a day later, at the Woodstock, Oregon Library... story to continue
.......
Odell was at 16, already a pretty good mechanic. She says she remembers driving through NYC on the return trip with the engine 'sputtering' as she says. Odell had the car back to running well the next day. She created a 2 hour DVD with slides and photos from their entire journey. She tells me they even have a musical soundtrack. I never got to hear it, we just didn't have the time.. maybe next time.
I wish I still had a digital camera and had made some recordings like I used to do... Course there was always the issue if I could ever get around to do anything near as together as Satya's DVD.
Satya and Odell summer 1959
It was already two nights ago on the third and final night of my stay with my older Half-Sister,
Satya and her husband John. This would be the night that Satya would join John and I in a music jam.
Satya on Accordion, John on Mandolin and me on guitar, where I was able. After a tune I asked Satya if she could remember the songs that she and Odell, played for us in the summer of 1959 when one very cool Road Trip reached it's destination with a week visit to her 'real Dad' and his family where we lived in the small village of Round Pond, Maine.
'Of course I remember those tunes.' she told me. We proceeded through a long set list, with various degrees of musical success but definitely with great fun..
Here is a partial set list of what you would have heard in Satya's music room in Surrey BC in 2013 and what you also would have heard in the Meyer living room in Maine on a certainday/evening in the summer of 1959.
Bye Bye Love
How Much Is That Doggie in the Window
Fraulein
Heartaches by the Number
Jambalaya
The Irish Washerwoman
Que Sera'
Here is a little more of the story of their trip. Satya and Odell were 17 and 16 years old, Satya had just graduated High School. She (They) bought a brand new Renault automobile with the engine in the back, she says Renault and VW were competing for business so they were offering pretty good deals. They traded their 10 year old car in as the $75.00 downpayment and off they went.
They had written all kinds of relatives across the country telling of their impending trip, and usually she says they would be sleeping in the car (Satya on the back seat, Odell on the front) every other night and they had enough relatives across the country that they would be put up somewhere with family the next night, they came across the Rockies and across the country when most of the interstate system had not been built. They stopped at their (and mine) Uncle Normie's and Uncle Andy's place first in Massachussetts before finally making it up to Maine. They showed slides with the projector that they brought with them. They brought their accordion and guitar. They stayed with us for a week.
She tells me relatives sent them a little money before the trip began. She tells me my Dad sent $25.00
which I was glad to hear, sounds like real big money though, for a family that didn't have too much.
I can somehow remember the trip out to Loud's Island. I remember the music (kind of). Not much more. I must have been a bit in awe of the whole moment of time.. still am.
10,000 mile round trip total cost $95.00
Am running out of time here at the computer, now a day later, at the Woodstock, Oregon Library... story to continue
.......
Odell was at 16, already a pretty good mechanic. She says she remembers driving through NYC on the return trip with the engine 'sputtering' as she says. Odell had the car back to running well the next day. She created a 2 hour DVD with slides and photos from their entire journey. She tells me they even have a musical soundtrack. I never got to hear it, we just didn't have the time.. maybe next time.
I wish I still had a digital camera and had made some recordings like I used to do... Course there was always the issue if I could ever get around to do anything near as together as Satya's DVD.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
'Psycho' Bell Ringer/Civilization Reset
After two days what can I say?
My computer is bad for my health. That is why I am never being responsive lately.. maybe I am/was always poor at response. Driving cars is bad for my health that's why I do it for 10-12 hours a day
scratching out a living. Actually I drive as little as possible but now when I want more than anything to be in Oregon with my sister and family now I am driving every day desperately trying to have some money in my pocket, but I may not be able to escape. It's all right.
For a year or two I've been watching this Mayan date with destiny approach. A couple of weeks ago I posted I wish people (look in the mirror Guy) would take it seriously 'Judgement Day' now it seems all of us got our bell rung. I pray to God that there is not another eruption coming before the 21st. The day before the Connecticut horror, there was a show on the Bay Area radio station KPFA, that old lefty Public Supported radio station. A couple of Mayan scholars were chatting about this Calendrical event and it was fascinating and a little inspiring. The basics were that there was no prediction from the Mayans as to what to expect next Friday but this event happened before when the last Bhaktun the 13th
was inaugurated, back somewhere 3,000 some odd years BC and supposedly there were a couple of ancient Vases from the Mayans that commemorated depicted this event in the past when either 7 or 11 Gods revisited the Earth and the message depicted these scholars agreed was somehow that they 'reset civilization' back on course after it had strayed. Don't think for a minute that the (Aztec) Civilization that the Spanish Europeans encountered was somehow anything to be respected or admired as if connected with some greater harmonic course. I don't blame the Spanish for taking their cannon to the great city and blasting it to smithereens. If you don't know you can dig for some information on what the state of that Civilization was... but enough digression.
Or maybe just a little more. I was listening to Sports Radio on KNBR that morning as the news broke. I really appreciate Gary Radnich and Krueger for their letting their show go in the only direction it could that morning. Heart to heart nothing more about BS spoiled millionaires chasing bouncing balls. Anyhow.. as the day faded into night ... my last fare took me into the town of Fairfax. That in itself was a story. As i write someone is screaming insanely in the city parking lot in San Rafael, wailing now, I guess I'll open my window and try to... 'Where am I supposed to go!' a female voice wails in an urban homeless domestic dispute echoing through the 4 story parking edifice, that is part of landscape. Do I get involved? No.
'Urban Pscychosis' How come neither Presidential contender could mention Homelessness as an illness reflecting the rot at our core? How come? I guess that is a dumb question. Because neither one dares address the rot at our core. I am trying to give President Obama fresh slack for his new term.
So this morning waking up and feeling deep guilt for all of my sins of existence, for whatever reason, resign myself to drive again another day. I refrain from even turning the radio on, no music, no news, nothing, until finally I brake down and end up right to the core going to PBS radio and listening two the interview with the rabbi who held in his ..... so skipping ahead right back into the heart of emotion I went. To the depths maybe to appease the guilt from they night before wherein I had shared such happiness at the Sleeping Lady Cafe with friends and new friends, despite the national trauma, and we were loud and happy. It's all my fault.
Tonight after an exhausting day i finally take in a Movie it's been 6 months and maybe I'll see Lincoln, because it's a big movie and maybe it will benefit me, but instead I see 'Hitchcock'
My computer is bad for my health. That is why I am never being responsive lately.. maybe I am/was always poor at response. Driving cars is bad for my health that's why I do it for 10-12 hours a day
scratching out a living. Actually I drive as little as possible but now when I want more than anything to be in Oregon with my sister and family now I am driving every day desperately trying to have some money in my pocket, but I may not be able to escape. It's all right.
For a year or two I've been watching this Mayan date with destiny approach. A couple of weeks ago I posted I wish people (look in the mirror Guy) would take it seriously 'Judgement Day' now it seems all of us got our bell rung. I pray to God that there is not another eruption coming before the 21st. The day before the Connecticut horror, there was a show on the Bay Area radio station KPFA, that old lefty Public Supported radio station. A couple of Mayan scholars were chatting about this Calendrical event and it was fascinating and a little inspiring. The basics were that there was no prediction from the Mayans as to what to expect next Friday but this event happened before when the last Bhaktun the 13th
was inaugurated, back somewhere 3,000 some odd years BC and supposedly there were a couple of ancient Vases from the Mayans that commemorated depicted this event in the past when either 7 or 11 Gods revisited the Earth and the message depicted these scholars agreed was somehow that they 'reset civilization' back on course after it had strayed. Don't think for a minute that the (Aztec) Civilization that the Spanish Europeans encountered was somehow anything to be respected or admired as if connected with some greater harmonic course. I don't blame the Spanish for taking their cannon to the great city and blasting it to smithereens. If you don't know you can dig for some information on what the state of that Civilization was... but enough digression.
Or maybe just a little more. I was listening to Sports Radio on KNBR that morning as the news broke. I really appreciate Gary Radnich and Krueger for their letting their show go in the only direction it could that morning. Heart to heart nothing more about BS spoiled millionaires chasing bouncing balls. Anyhow.. as the day faded into night ... my last fare took me into the town of Fairfax. That in itself was a story. As i write someone is screaming insanely in the city parking lot in San Rafael, wailing now, I guess I'll open my window and try to... 'Where am I supposed to go!' a female voice wails in an urban homeless domestic dispute echoing through the 4 story parking edifice, that is part of landscape. Do I get involved? No.
'Urban Pscychosis' How come neither Presidential contender could mention Homelessness as an illness reflecting the rot at our core? How come? I guess that is a dumb question. Because neither one dares address the rot at our core. I am trying to give President Obama fresh slack for his new term.
So this morning waking up and feeling deep guilt for all of my sins of existence, for whatever reason, resign myself to drive again another day. I refrain from even turning the radio on, no music, no news, nothing, until finally I brake down and end up right to the core going to PBS radio and listening two the interview with the rabbi who held in his ..... so skipping ahead right back into the heart of emotion I went. To the depths maybe to appease the guilt from they night before wherein I had shared such happiness at the Sleeping Lady Cafe with friends and new friends, despite the national trauma, and we were loud and happy. It's all my fault.
Tonight after an exhausting day i finally take in a Movie it's been 6 months and maybe I'll see Lincoln, because it's a big movie and maybe it will benefit me, but instead I see 'Hitchcock'
New Year's Eve in Eugene
Can't even communicate these days. In Eugene with the mystery of Life plus health issues, and car issues and money issues. Sheeesh Guy when are you ever get anything together?
Saw 'the Hobbit' last night... too bad Peter Jackson feels the need to conform with the modern action movie format.
Maybe my car will make it back to Marin on it's bad transmission, or maybe I will make it back the 10 mile drive to sister's farmstead tonight. Phewww!! Maybe Maybe Maybe...
I need some healing. Peace and Goodwill to all the People, may the Red White and Blue wake up to discover that those colors are the color of a Peace Symbol.
Saw 'the Hobbit' last night... too bad Peter Jackson feels the need to conform with the modern action movie format.
Maybe my car will make it back to Marin on it's bad transmission, or maybe I will make it back the 10 mile drive to sister's farmstead tonight. Phewww!! Maybe Maybe Maybe...
I need some healing. Peace and Goodwill to all the People, may the Red White and Blue wake up to discover that those colors are the color of a Peace Symbol.
'on the trail'
Sitting up here in Surrey BC way the heck up here. (Actually just across the border.) John and Satya's home is one of the most beautiful simple suburban homes, that I have ever been in. Centered around a music room, with a living room adjacent with a nice wood stove in the middle and surrounded by windows that look out to Satya's gardens that occupy all sides. Satya's gardens are in what I would describe as the effusive joy of greenery and flowery. 'and this is the winter' she tells me, 'imagine what it looks like in the summer.'
Surrey BC reminds me a bit of Portland Oregon, or anywhere USA population about 200,000 right next to Vancouver. Madscale growth , that old urban sprawl every lot has to be built a little McMansion, but enough of human dementia in misguided sense of what wealth truly is.
I Love Canada as I do the good old USA. Yesterday John and I did the proverbial dump run in the rain. Nothing like a dump run in the rain to kick the day in gear. We had his trailer hooked up to the back of his
little Ford 4wheel drive vehicle. 'Just give me 10 acres and I'll get this thing where it needs to be' .... as he backed up that trailer, with some pretty good maneuvering skills. John grew up on a farm in Manitoba. He's another young man who has been around long enough to somehow get the honour of being an 'old man'.
After that we stopped by his daughters Consignment shop where... the next great TV reality show needs to be created...
But I can't sit here typing this story there is more to do today.
Surrey BC reminds me a bit of Portland Oregon, or anywhere USA population about 200,000 right next to Vancouver. Madscale growth , that old urban sprawl every lot has to be built a little McMansion, but enough of human dementia in misguided sense of what wealth truly is.
I Love Canada as I do the good old USA. Yesterday John and I did the proverbial dump run in the rain. Nothing like a dump run in the rain to kick the day in gear. We had his trailer hooked up to the back of his
little Ford 4wheel drive vehicle. 'Just give me 10 acres and I'll get this thing where it needs to be' .... as he backed up that trailer, with some pretty good maneuvering skills. John grew up on a farm in Manitoba. He's another young man who has been around long enough to somehow get the honour of being an 'old man'.
After that we stopped by his daughters Consignment shop where... the next great TV reality show needs to be created...
But I can't sit here typing this story there is more to do today.
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