crazy love

hurricane dolly came by town yesterday, what was left of the rain anyway. it was yummy, and heavy-fallin for awhile, and for us, thats just fantastic. its so dry i havent had a green blade of grass in my yard for 2 months, since there are rules about watering lawns and anyway after so many years of cali conservation and desert-type foliage and growing things, i just dont feel it for keeping lawns green. even tho i sure do miss the color and the luxe of it. i used to go up to the getty museum up off sepulveda at mulholland just to get me some green in the summers in LA when all the hills were burning. or over to the observatory, which horribly they closed for "renovations" several years ago and still hadnt "completed" last time i was in town. btw, if youre in LA this weekend, go check out ainjel emme over at the mint. i'll be missin it but you dont have to.




another green drive was sunset all the way down to the water, you could be sure of green through brentwood and the palisades and then it didnt matter because it was just all blue once you got west. before venice was a maze of highrise lofts and studios, it was a mess of burned out warehouses and corner lot coke deals and i lived in a little craftsman house with a bunch of guys about four blocks from the boardwalk. i would keep carrots and hummus in the fridge, which was what i lived on at the time, and listen to my roommate's mix tape (read: cassette) of tangerine dream, phil collins, george benson and james taylor. i never thought it was a strange mix. we used to play pinball on the front porch--the guy who owned the place had one of those old pinball machines standing out there. i got pretty good at one-arm pinball in my underwear eating carrots sticks and blasting "on broadway" on tom's stereo. it was a house full of calarts grads or dropouts, all huddled up in venice working on film or video or music. the front gate was hard to open because there was a trumpet vine so overgrown on it that it rested on top and essentially ate the latch.



been messing around with a new rhythm thing-- have to say, the drums have it.





these are photos by anke voss, which i stole clean off her post-site: here

Hadijatou Mani takes matters into her own hands

crazy love

hurricane dolly came by town yesterday, what was left of the rain anyway. it was yummy, and heavy-fallin for awhile, and for us, thats just fantastic. its so dry i havent had a green blade of grass in my yard for 2 months, since there are rules about watering lawns and anyway after so many years of cali conservation and desert-type foliage and growing things, i just dont feel it for keeping lawns green. even tho i sure do miss the color and the luxe of it. i used to go up to the getty museum up off sepulveda at mulholland just to get me some green in the summers in LA when all the hills were burning. or over to the observatory, which horribly they closed for "renovations" several years ago and still hadnt "completed" last time i was in town. btw, if youre in LA this weekend, go check out ainjel emme over at the mint. i'll be missin it but you dont have to.




another green drive was sunset all the way down to the water, you could be sure of green through brentwood and the palisades and then it didnt matter because it was just all blue once you got west. before venice was a maze of highrise lofts and studios, it was a mess of burned out warehouses and corner lot coke deals and i lived in a little craftsman house with a bunch of guys about four blocks from the boardwalk. i would keep carrots and hummus in the fridge, which was what i lived on at the time, and listen to my roommate's mix tape (read: cassette) of tangerine dream, phil collins, george benson and james taylor. i never thought it was a strange mix. we used to play pinball on the front porch--the guy who owned the place had one of those old pinball machines standing out there. i got pretty good at one-arm pinball in my underwear eating carrots sticks and blasting "on broadway" on tom's stereo. it was a house full of calarts grads or dropouts, all huddled up in venice working on film or video or music. the front gate was hard to open because there was a trumpet vine so overgrown on it that it rested on top and essentially ate the latch.



been messing around with a new rhythm thing-- have to say, the drums have it.





these are photos by anke voss, which i stole clean off her post-site: here

Hadijatou Mani takes matters into her own hands

ok, so: (part IV)

ts a matter of pride for someone born a leo to be very very good at things. just is. so being humble, which is important as a human being but for a large feline as well because it has to do with understanding and compassion, is also big. as in, 'portant.

early morning, just got back to town from some travels, which included as many imaginary miles as real. so it was far. ;) but esp, its good to be back and also: omg, how many miles to go!!!!! ("before i sleep")

this week i saw blue herons over a green lake. one morning, a heron was strutting very slowly and deliberately, the way i imagine one of the wigged gentlemen of the law in england might still do, around the dock of our neighbor's boat pad. he'd a big fish in his beak, and it was still. prob hoping to go unnoticed--sure understand that! but no, the grey (not blue) gentleman had a clearer notion and the thing got dropped to the deck, where it lay helplessly flopping about in the oxygen-heavy air while the heron slowly stood and then stepped and then stood and then stepped. and then struck. quickly, and accurately, through the chest cavity, if fish have those. and there was less flapping, but some, and then-another strike. it sort of recoiled and then with huge forward motion sent it's beak right through the head of the fish ending it absolutely. it was a merciful killing, as i dont like to think what its like to feel lungs filling with water instead of air. must be terrible. but now the fish was dead. and the heron stood over it quite distinctly, and made a point of moving about the cabin importantly, gently victorious. i imagine it was hungry. there's not much time for anything but eating when you're hungry. and sure enough, in minutes, the thing had the entire fish, something easily nearly the weight of its own slender silly self, engulfed in its beak and swallowing without any chewing. it ended badly because before it had completely ingested the thing, we had run forward with cameras and thought to take a picture over the fence, three of us, and startled the poor thing as if it couldnt see us, into flying out over the water and losing the fish into the waves. such is the self important ignorance of the recently-fed sapien!

anyway, great time--the moon got bigger, apparently mars aspected something, venus?? dont know, and things got heavy, but i was oblivious. (ok, im never absolutely oblivious. ever)) what i mean is: i thought on the greens of the lake, the hillside on the other side of it, the gentle curve of the hillside which looked a lot like the small of a waist of a woman lying on her side, and trees filling the whole body, and the fish lept, and the birds variously called, and my heart sank and rose like a metronome, and hope was dashed and then revived, and so: it was your average week and plus some days.

listened to a gigantic amount of house music and christmas songs kept coming to mind. do you have that problem? i sing for christmas, in july, every year, just getting ready.

ps i got to the lake and my camera was full of these urban images, which i hadnt yet saved to disc, so instead of peacefule nature, here's is urbannoia:

happy 4th

secret garden

photography by anna kariel, whose work is amazing and hangs in my house. keep an eye out for her.

i can't quit you, baby

(photos by juliet tondowski and devan mulvaney)

the willie dixon birthday bash organized by harry bodine and spencer thomas was actually a fundraiser for music for literacy project started by issa medrano, a librarian at an eastside elementary school, in memory of omar dykes' late wife lyn. theyre looking to get a lot of books into the hands of young folks without the means and access so hook em up if youve got some spare reading material.