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groundhog day all over again It's official then - human beings have caused the current trend in global warming. This doesn't come as a surprise to most of us. It just makes it harder for those who would prefer to see this as a cyclical thing or even an act of divine vengeance on Bill Clinton to justify ignoring the fact that the culture of over-consumption is killing the planet. Of course, we can say that really we're all to blame, not just the SUV drivers, but sometimes progress has to come from the top. Our governments have to want to cut emissions, have to want to find ways to promote renewable energy, have to want to make it easier for people to buy hybrid and electric cars, and force these standards upon businesses and upon us - it can't simply be left to the individual, though we must all do our part. It's not easy, but small raindrops soon fill an ocean. (Probably the wrong metaphor, given the sea levels are rising)
meanwhile, in punxsatawney... (i'm not sure what a groundhog really looks like) |
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3.2.07 09:50 |
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rock on
watercolour, micron 03 pen: we spent the day in san francisco today, and very nice it was too. It was fairly hazy over the bay, but the sun was shining, and it wasn't cold. This is alcatraz; i think you can just about make out clint eastwood swimming away from a furious patrick mcgoohan. And isn't that jean 'dark phoenix' grey turning a load of people into mush? In the evening, for it will soon be pete's birthday, we had a really nice meal at the fog city diner. I had salmon, angela had scallops. I seem to have scanned this at a funny angle. Or did i draw it that way? |
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4.2.07 08:26 |
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the silo; et devenir plus vieux
watercolour, micron pen, made in yesterday. Half an hour at lunchtime. I found a table on which i could lean. Today (7th) is my birthday. There will be cake ce soir. Father ted too. And 'lost'. And a bit of champ (aka wsm07, or fm07 if you will). I feel older today. A day older than yesterday, anyhow. I'm officially at the point where i stop revealing my age (except when i want to buy a beer, growl). |
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7.2.07 20:57 |
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a pair of tits running the country Watching the CBS 13 news on Thursday night, I almost came to the conclusion that there was, at last, peace on earth. All evil was gone, nothing bad was happening anywhere, because the first two news items were not about the ever-worsening situation in Iraq, nor about murder on the streets of Sacramento. It was about the death of Anna Nicole Smith, and then went straight into the weather. This was the most important thing we needed to know, according to CBS, so that's what we were shown. "And this is a shot of her body being brought out," one anxious and -surely not - grief-stricken news reporter announced gravely, "covered in the same red material that was used to cover her son's body recently, what that signifies we don't yet know but we'll keep you updated here on CBS-13 News..." Thanks, yes I know that'll keep me up wondering about that. While I was trying my best to suppress all possible sick and inappropriate jokes about y-shaped coffins and wondering if she'll be buried, cremated, or melted down and recycled, the weather report started. Yes the rains have come back to the Valley, but in the mountains, after a terribly dry winter, the snow is back. The first shot was of a man walking through a blizzard, with flakes of white snow swirling around, and I immediately thought that this was still part of the Anna Nicole Smith story: a report from the scene inside her hotel room with the fans turned on. Apparently not. And the snow-bound reporter, much to the mirth of the studio-bound CBS-13 laughing-boys (like Dave Bender, lord of the Vipir), had forgotten the hood on his jacket, and his ears were cold. Oh, ho ho ho. You see, there is nothing serious happening in the world. Oh anyone's death is serious of course, even dubious false icons like ANS, but more serious than those hundreds of people in Iraq who are blown up by car-bombs in market-places? Meanwhile in the world, further reports that the Pentagon deliberately exaggerated and doctored intelligence of Saddam's capability and alleged relations with Al Qaida before the decision to invade Iraq and begin this dreadful and endless and unwinnable conflict are brought to light, casting an even darker shadow across the doings of king george's Administration. But nothing will be done about it. There will be no enormous public outcry on this matter. There will be no mass popular demand for an immediate investigation and maybe an impeachment (such as there was when Mr Clinton occupied the Oval Orifice, ahem). Because the news media wants us to believe that the death of Anna Nicole Smith is much more important than the lies of a government causing the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and countless thousands of Iraqi citizens. Support the troops, eh. |
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10.2.07 17:12 |
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Who I'm listening to the new album by The Who, Endless Wire, and it's pretty wicked, the first Who studio album in almost a quarter of a century, and they are reduced to two: hello Roger, salut Pete, RIP John, RIP Keith. I expected it to say on the cover, "no guitars were harmed or trashed during the making of this album", because let's face it, they're getting old now. Oh they still have it, no doubts there, they're still The Who; Daltrey's voice may not be able to hit the notes it once could, but he tries, goddarnit at least he tries. But you can tell the Who are getting old by looking at the last two track on the album: they are extended versions of previous tracks, but they run at no more tha 3:03 each. Yep, at just over three minutes long, that's actually the extended version. Remember when their songs would last so long that in America they actually had to have commercial breaks? Well, they're getting on a bit. But they're still The Who. Right. I'm going to go and put on a bit of Meaty Beefy Big and Bouncy on vinyl, on my new record player. Rock out on a saturday morning, in my slippers, with a nice cup of tea, while doing the washing up. I'm getting older too, y'know. |
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10.2.07 17:39 |
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tales from the river city
micron pen, watercolour; it was very quiet down the capitol mall in sacramento, not many people about, perfect for me to sit and draw. The rain of this week stopped today, and so I went for a little drawing trip to Sac, the river city; while this is a nice quiet scene, under arnold's governating eye, it's generally very scary downtown, always a feeling of having to be on your guard, gangs of kids hovering about in very baggy clothing (they'll grow into it in a couple of years). The old gold-rush downtown is less scary, but was full of long-moustachioed leather-clad bikers with shiny harleys and choppers, not really chicken-head-munching hell's angels but weekend rebels with a lot of shoe polish. And then there's the river, well there are two of them really, big and brown and full of currents. That's currents, not currants. Mind you I did see them raisin' the tower bridge, yes it's different from our tower bridge, the whole thing lifts up and then goes down again, book-ended by an air-raid siren, it's very exciting. Anyway, the bridge is below. It was built in 1935 you know. And it's very very yellow.
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12.2.07 05:40 |
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day of the prez Yesterday was Presidents' Day, which meant an extra day off, which meant mini golf, trying to get a little blue ball into a door on a pretend neuschwansteinisch castle, followed by further victories at air hockey and donkey kong junior (you never lose the touch); I would have attempted the swanky mariokart machine, to see how it fared against the original (of which i'm the master, lord of the green shell), but I'd wasted my last tokens on a single disastrous podracing lap on tatooine - I blame anakin's engineering, mate. Good fun in the february sun. President's Day though - it's really just an amalgamation of Lincoln and Washington's birthdays (and mine, I tell people; it's close enough) (actually Ronald Reagan's is the day before mine), but now celebrates all Presidents, bad and good. Even Him. Well, King George is the patron of all days off, especially those that involve playing a bit of golf (and let's face it, he plays mini-golf, not real golf; there are Golf/Gulf jokes brewing about how he went into Iraq saying "this one's for pa", but I'm not going to say them). He did do some work last week though, giving his valentine's press conference (or 'prez conference' as he prefers to call it, "heh-heh, 'cos ah'm the, ah'm the prez, yeh" ). He let slip a phrase that seems to have gone unnoticed, and although I think he was attempting to use this phrase to put down countries who don't want to impose sanctions on any country the Bush regime is trying to start a war with, it is a phrase that excellently sums up the attitude of the Decider and his band of Administraitors: money trumps peace. Money trumps peace. It's brilliant, isn't it? He says it so succinctly. Money, yeah, trumps peace. It trumps it. Doesn't even come close. Oh yeah. Peace...money? Sorry, money trumps peace. Ever played scissors paper stone? (and really, why would you though) It's like that, but there's just money and there's just peace. Well, money trumps just about everything anyway. That should be the catchphrase of his legacy: money trumps peace. Hang on though, is he accusing the rest of the world now of just being greedy money-grabbing bastards who prefer war to peace? Insert cliche about pots, kettles and racial insults here. But yeah, money trumps peace. Keep saying it. It's probably the most important thing he's said since "bring 'em on". |
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21.2.07 08:03 |
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Yr2, wk 73: Le Tour de Californie
While I was busy playing mini-golf (that's crazy golf to you) in Santa Rosa on Monday afternoon, about a hundred and forty cyclists in tight bright lycra were whizzing up the coast of California from the San Francisco Bay. It was the first leg of only the second annual Tour of California, our very own Tour de France (but without the whole France bit). Funnily enough, I don't remember it happening last year, but they assure me that it did. Anyway, it was going to be finishing in Santa Rosa, and I considered going downtown to watch them come in, but the thought of standing beside forty thousand people watching a load of people I've never heard of in a sport I'm not interested in didn't really appeal (I might as well watch the England cricket team, for example). I'm a bit bummed that I didn't, though, because right at the end there was a crash, a load of cyclists toppling over one another in a mangle of metal, fibreglass and lycra. Yes, yes it's sadistic I know, but that's the only reason a lot of people watch such sports, for the crashes. England in the World Cup, for example, they always crash out. When I lived in Belgium it was the turn of the millennium, a time for Belgians to reflect on their home-grown heroes of the last century. Crooner Jacques Brel was up there, of course, along with the Smurfs, but the one who topped the most polls in that bike-mad country was Eddy Merckx, the 'Cannibal'. There was always drama around that guy, from serious and lethal crashes, and being punched by Frenchmen incensed about a Belgian dominating their Tour, to breaking all the cycling records anybody could throw at him. Anyway, apart from Lance Armstrong and that kid in ET, he's the only other cyclist I've ever heard of. No chance of them showing up in their yellow jerseys. But when I heard that the second stage of the Tour of California would pass through Davis on its way to Sacramento, well I had to go and have a look. I'd been ill that morning, but decided to cycle downtown on the way to work to see what the fuss was all about. People were starting to line the streets with bright things to wave at the cyclists (would that not put the poor sods off?), while news crews constantly checked gear, touched up make-up and downed decaf cappucinos. Well, they had to cover the event in Davis, it is 'Biketown USA' after all. Occasionally word would get around - 'they're twenty minutes away!' - 'they're fifteen minutes away!' - but in reality they were much further, held up by the wind. A lot of people stood patiently with cameras at the ready, but still no sign of the racers. There was a general feeling of having been stood up, but nobody wanted to leave before the date called to cancel. And then, a distant cheer, an advancing motorcade, and there they were, the three frontrunners who had broken away from the main group. They were gone in an instant, followed by a couple more pacers on Harleys. "Well those guys are cheating," I said of the following motorcyclists, my public joke for the day. "No, they're not actually in the race," a woman pointed out helpfully and utterly without irony. A couple of minutes later came the main crowd, tightly packed together, zooming down 2nd Street like a herd of wild antelope in plastic helmets. The battle of the digital cameras began and ended before excitement could reach fever pitch, but I have to admit, being there while that pack of cyclists flew by in a blur was slightly trippy, and reminded me of standing hypnotised by those shimmering shoals of fish in the huge tanks at Monterey Bay Aquarium. And then they were gone, leaving nothing but dust, and the crowds dissolved into thin air. And that was the Tour of California. They're heading south now, towards Big Sur and onto LA. I still won't follow cycling as a sport, and I still won't learn any of these world-renowned cyclists' names, but I'm glad I saw it all the same. |
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21.2.07 08:15 |
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waiting outside the mason's
micron pigma pen, 18 feb 07, yes last weekend. Hanging around outside the mason's means something else in edgware, and usually involves vomit and/or brawling; in santa rosa, it just means it's sunday afternoon and i'm waiting for my wife and her mom while they look at an apartment that's being built right next door. I always thought masons had something to do with building. Weren't they time travellers too? Oh no, that was in peggy sue got married. I think that was filmed around here though, so there might be something in it. Whatever it is, they wear funny hats and have secret handshakes and rule the world and are actually aliens. And isn't boycey out of fools and horses a mason? Funny, one of the apartments they looked at had two floors, but nobody got it when i said it's actually a mason-ette. Mind you, no-one heard it either. |
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25.2.07 09:58 |
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midtown sacramento
watercolour, pen, paper; the church (and friary) of st francis (of assisi) in sacramento (midtown) on 26th St (& K St). There's me trying to draw this when there's nowhere to sit or stand comfortably, it's a little windy, there are smelly people about, it's muddy because of recent rain, and the birds are dropping smudgy black things from the trees above. I did what I could, and finished it off over a beer in a pub called 'the streets of london', a 'british' pub. in which they were showing ireland beat england at the rugby (hooray!) (i say hooray, i'm not a rugby follower, and i follow england as much as ireland in that sport, and i only really know jonny wilkinson, who really was playing; i juts had a beer and got me paints out). |
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26.2.07 04:27 |
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