Chief Dan George

Chief Dan George: "If you talk to the animals they will talk with you and you will know each other."

I just like this quote. I didn't know Chief Dan George - the humourous indian who acted in "Little Big Man" with Dustin Hoffman (a great movie by the way) was an actual chief.

The rest of the quote goes on to say "...if you don't talk to them, you will fear them. And what you fear you will destroy."

Have you ever known anyone who was actually at Woodstock in '69 ?

dude... so i've finally met someone who actually was at theWoodstock Festival in 1969 ... we partied last night with some friends and it came out that Tom Mullen, a quiet unassuming obvious old hippie, was there... he recalls it as "we were just hanging around and we heard about this concert so we went to it ..."

he remembers hearing the "FISH" call out... but we asked asked if he was naked and he just smiles and says "probably".... i asked him about the rain... (kind of a test question) ... he just looked down kind of said drearily remembering and says, "yeah... it rained a lot." :)

for the record.... he didn't really remember Hendrix or Joplin ... but he remembered Joe Cocker. (Which in fact when I look up the hisotry in Wiki was the opening act the third day at 2:00 PM... right before Country Joe and the Fish.)

Later, Tom - this counter revolutionary living remnant of Americana past, tells me he was also a biker (he mentioned San Bernardino, CA) and did some hanging out with the "Angels" but "never got his colors" he shamefully admits.

He remembers this writer that liked to hang out with "the Angels" at the time.... says he was writing a book. His name was Hunter S. Thompson but didn't think much him at the time.... "he was just a writer" is all he says.

I quizzed him with all I knew and he seems straight up. I'll quiz him more tonight and this weekend over a Margarita and whatever (and whoever) else shows up. If he wasn't so non-chalant about it and didn't actually look like a remnant hippie/biker type of guy, I probably wouldn't believe him.

Which conviences me even more, that all the hippies settled down in Austin and then the best of them moved on finally to Wimberley.

:)


Should be fun :)

We Can't Make It Here Anymore

the scariest essay i've ever read mostly because it rings so true... this should probably be read while listening to James McMurtry's "We can't make it here anymore" song... you can downloaded it for free if you don't have the CD yet. (it's a great CD, by the way, so you should get it.)

2 big hogs, 3 big fish, and 2 big cats

Ok... i know this is old-skool web, but hey it's fun. Here's a few photos i've snagged off the web that i've had for a while and have meant to post 'em as a page of "Big Animals". I'll probably never get around to it, even though i have the data, names, and such of where these animals came from somewhere deep in some file on some computer somewhere.... probably in my barn on an old hand-made box i used to use on my old ISDN line back in Houston... (whew... those were the days).

Anyway, here's 2 big hogs, 3 big fish, and 2 big cats. Click 'em and save 'em to disk or something.... just fun to look at.

One of these days i'll drag up the actual "python eating a man" picture. But its pretty gruesome.

Charles Bukowski Poems

I'm not a poetry reader but these were actually fun to read. Charles Bukowski was a horrible fellow who lived what I would call a horrible life that wrote good poetry. He eventually made some money at it, but I don't think he ever quit his job at the post-office.

Here's the one I liked the most.

NIGHT SCHOOL
from Dangling In the Tournefortia

in the drunk driver's class
assigned there by division 63
we are given tiny yellow pencils
to take a test
to see if we have been listening
to the instructor.
questions like: the minimum sentence for a
2nd drunk driving conviction is:
a) 48 days
b) 6 months
c) 90 days
there are 9 others questions.
after the instructor leaves the room
the students begin asking the questions:
"hey, how about question 5? that's a
tough one!"
"did he talk about that?"
"I think its 48 days."
"are you sure?"
"no, but that's what I'm putting
down."
one women circles all 3 answers
on all questions
even though we've been told to
select only one.

on our break I go down and
drink a can of beer
outside a liquor store.
I watch a black hooker
on her evening stroll.
a car pulls up.
she walks over and they
talk.
the door opens.
she gets in and
they drive off.

back in class
the students have gotten
to know each other.
they are a not-very-interesting
bunch of drunks.
I visualize them sitting in a
bar
and i remember why
I started drinking
alone.

the class begins again.
it is discovered that I am
the only one to have gotten
100 percent on the test.

I slouch back in my chair
with my dark shades on.
I am the class
intellectual.

Ease of Alteration Creates Woes for Picture Editors

This is old news, but in case you don't know the details, "Little Green Footballs blog" bustered a Reuters photographer for doctoring his photographs. Here's an example where he took two photos and merged them into one to make an American soldier seemingly waving off a father with one hand while holding a machine gun. The father is holding what appears to be a possibly wounded small child.

This is also the same blog responsible for revealing the details that led to the resignation of Dan Rather.

Now it seems that some photographers are actually staging photographs even to the point where they are digging up buried children.

Maybe Too Much Nature in this Texas Hill Country

Yesterday as I'm sitting down to eat supper I see through the window a baby deer crashing into the corner of the my back fence frantically looking for a way out. I knew in a heartbeat the dogs were chasing it and it somehow got stuck in my fenced four acres of woods.

I jumped up, hollared at my wife, found a couple of leashes and went running into the back shouting for my dogs.

After much hollaring and screaming and watching this spotted fawn run to and fro, I got the dogs leashed (who really were not in as hot pursuit as I thought) and figured I could chase the fawn from the corner where it now stood trying to squeeze between the fence and the rock wall and possibly out the front gate.

When I walked up to it, its face squeezed into the gate, I could see it injuries were probably not fatal but not pretty either. It let me pick it up (I folded its legs under to avoid getting kicked) and it bleeped helplessly like a sheep or a goat. I saw its mother a few minutes earlier at that corner looking worried, but she was now scared off into the woods. I picked the baby up over the fence and let her go. She went running out after her mom.

We were stressed. I went back and ate my cold supper. I told my wife, this hill country may just have a little too much wildlife.

It's starting to wear on my nerves.