Across the years...

"The Berlin Stories" have illuminated much. How anyone could have claimed "they didn't know", or "they weren't sure" in the late 30's is beyond me; people were telling Isherwood in '30 and '31 "just wait until they get them in the concentration camps".

With his words evoking the people and their times, I dug out a disc I bought a few years ago of Ute Lemper's called "Berlin Cabaret Songs". English translations of the original tunes playing in the clubs there when Marlene Dietrich was headlining...when Louise Brooks was lighting up the screen...

From the first track on the disc, 3rd verse:

"Politicians

are magicians

who make swindles disappear

The bribes they are taking

the deals they are making

never reach the public's ear

The left betrays, the right dismays

the country's broke and guess who pays

But tax each swindle in the making

profits will be record breaking

Everyone swindles some

so vote for who will steal for you

Life's a swindle..."

from "It's All a Swindle" written by Mischa Spoliansky and Marcellus Schiffer.

I'm guessing I shouldn't read anything into the fact that the composers, born in 1898 and 1892, died in 1931 and 1932...

Each day I hear people proclaim they aren't trying to take away my rights, only those of someone else. That I'm entitled, but someone else isn't. They step behind their masks of religion; they hide behind a flag and don't realize; I've seen it all before, if only in the history books, in literature, in poetry.

If the revolution is lost, now (and I fear it is) then it's only a matter of time before the knocks on the door start coming...

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Old loves...

While in Vermont this last summer, we visited the Shelburne Museum. Among the standard displays there (well worth a visit in themselves) they had two special attractions going on as well. There was a Tiffany exhibition (more later) and a motorcycle show, with not only some Arlen Ness "dream" bikes, but some of the loves of my youth.



I was lucky enough 36 years ago to meet an old gentleman in San Diego who was supplementing his retirement by selling basket case motorcycles he had spent his lifetime acquiring. He had been a machinist, a tool and die man in the aircraft industry; he used to say he never married because his job was so critical he wasn't allowed to enlist during WW2. He was the lead inspector at Rohr Aircraft; they were building engine nacelles and other things related to the war effort. He said that during the war all the girls wanted a hero; right after the war they wanted a returning one and then, suddenly, he was too old for anyone to want.

He was the first "Anglophile" I ever knew; his mechanical loves in this world were Triumph and Ariel motorcycles & British motorcars. Born in 1910, he had attended machinist school at Ryan in San Diego the year after they built the "Spirit of St. Louis".



In 1936 he bought his first motorcycle, a Royal Enfield. It had it's share of mechanical deficiencies and in '37 he sold it and bought a new Triumph Speed Twin. He was still riding that Speed Twin when I knew him, though he had pulled the original girder front end ("two sheets of paper with an axle bolted between them" was his description) in favor of a later set of hydraulic forks, and bolted a sidecar on it. He used it as his parts chaser and it was ridden almost daily, up until the day he died.

During the war he acquired an Ariel "one-lunger", a 500cc single cylinder bike for the economy during rationing. They became his second love and he had 3 different models of the singles while I knew him, along with two of the "Square Fours" that have gone by in the photos thus far. I was lucky enough, having worked for him a bit to earn parts, to have him let me ride his '56 Square Four to a show for him one day when he was taking the Speed Twin. It was a treat I've not forgotten!

After the war as everyone traded their "rigid" Triumphs for swingarm ones, he bought them; as the "non-unit" bikes were traded for "unit" construction ones, he bought them as well. He did machine work "on the side" and did some race tuning along with a lot of riding, including some with a group of "desert rats" that included Keenan Wynn and Steve McQueen back when you rode the same bikes off road you rode on the street. I have an accessory "oil bath" he made that was intended to keep sand from getting into the motors; apparently he made a good little fortune selling them. Later, after he retired he also was doing Smiths speedo and tach work and rebuilding magnetos and generators, as well as assembling engines and transmissions.





Though he really didn't approve, a lot of the knowledge I acquired from him was applied to BSA's and a few Norton's I ran across through the years. He had no use for Harleys at all- "tractor engine in a cultivator frame" was his description of them.

I bought three basket case Triumphs from him. Mine was a stocker, a 1958 TR-6 4-speed. The one I bought to put together for my wife was also a '58 and looked stock, but had later model 750 internals and a 5-speed (some of that machine work he was so good at was involved in relieving the engine and transmission cases). The 3rd was a '47 500 rigid. To this day I regret parting with them during a long lay-off from GM when my boys were small...

So with all the fond memories the Ariel above brought me, for me the Crown Jewels of that display were:



(a World War Two flathead Triumph messenger bike)

and



(a 1952 Trophy model racer)

We had always talked of buying a bike again once the kids were grown and gone (and every now and then I can't help but go price a new Triumph) but the reality is that with her hip and knee replacements she'll never dare get on one again and so I can't really bring myself to be selfish enough to ride when she can't...

After we had moved here, in the early 80's I got a phone call from someone I had introduced to my friend as they were looking for Triumph parts. During one of those awful Santa Ana days his emphysema had finally gotten the better of him and someone found him in his shop.

I was told his nephew was going to sell the parts off along with the machinery and keep the technical stuff for those he knew to use as an open library. I hope he did; there was far too much knowledge there for it to end up in a landfill somewhere!

Dwight Dean, it was an honor to know you and to call you friend!

I hope you and Lou Kaiser and Jimmy Phillips and Wynn and McQueen are all out somewhere having a helluva good time!

May the week be kind to each of you (especially if you made it all the way down here)!

alan

(a click on each photo will enlarge it. They have pretty good detail for handheld 1/8th and 1/15th exposures at 200 ASA setting...wanted to go back the next day with a tripod, but there wasn't time!)

The Doctor says...

keep doing what you're doing; if it hurts, stop doing it, at least for a bit!

He showed me the MRI slices; the bone bruise on the upper legbone that is still healing, the partially healed extent it started out at; the swelling around the partially damaged MCL ligament that "gave" and started this all; the fluid around the rest of the joint.

He also told me there is arthritis under the kneecap that was aggravated by all of this, but it's not something that needs surgery until much further down the road.

He told me not to start the therapy his assistant had written me the scrip for 12 days ago (was kind of avoiding that 'til I had the MRI results). He said I can go downstairs and start walking on my treadmill when I feel like; if it aches to get off it and let it rest.

They faxed me in a 90 day prescription for the anti-inflammatory, Meloxicam, they started me on the other week.

So that's the health update...time for some late lunch and maybe a nap!

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Awareness...

Not so many years ago, in reading Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" I was astounded by her calling out of the treatment doled out by "Americans" to the native populations that were here when they arrived with their "manifest destiny". After all, an 18 year old, writing in 1816...her awareness of what was going on in another "world" far removed from hers was quite amazing to me.

Last night, partway into "The Berlin Stories" I've had another such moment. Christopher Isherwood bringing up the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria with the ensuing murder, rape and pillage as he was writing in Germany during the Weimar Republic just before Hitler's rise to power. (In doing a bit of reading this morning, I just ran across a Time Magazine article from 1932 about a small part of that invasion and the "accidental" beating of an American ambassador by Japanese troops.)

I realize that nothing on Earth ever occurs in a vacuum; that there is always some news "out there" for those willing to look for it.

I also realize, having lived through the time of the Balkans and Rwanda and Darfur, that seldom are things like this ever halted before the wreckage of lifetimes is scattered. The toothless "League of Nations" of that day; the inadequately funded and under-empowered United Nations of this one aren't so very far apart in their abilities.

That so many generations have passed since Mary Shelley called attention to the plight of the Native American and yet 200 years later they are not given their due, or given apology, but have to fight in court against the government that has robbed them at every turn...

That so many years after our "War Between the States" to have a Senator stand up and say that had the "Dixiecrats" elected Strom Thurmond president in 1948 we'd all be so much better off now...

That so many years after "The War to End All Wars" the bullets and shells still fly...

That at this point that should be the pinnacle of human existence there are those who feel that they can vote away the rights of anyone they disagree with; they may imprison them in law as surely unjust as any prison camp...

That they may be executed or imprisoned for life if some of the "new laws" under consideration in some places aren't stopped!

Will we ever realize that every life is just as precious as our own?

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

"No use permitting those prophets of doom...

to wipe every smile away..."

Lines from old songs haunt me; like the headers on a page, they set the tone or summarize; they cajole or commiserate.

I was playing music from "Cabaret" 40 years ago, in band at school and along with Armstrong albums; I knew a bit of the mythology of the story. It was many years before I would see the movie; even more before I read of "The Berlin Stories" that first the stage play "I Am a Camera" then the musical "Cabaret" were sourced from. On my "bucket list" of reading material ever since, I finally caught up with Mr. Isherwood last night and am delighted.

So now I'm having a hard time convincing me to go out and chip the icicles off the facias and such and do some of the other things I'd been putting off while gimping around this last month. T'would be so much easier to escape to the Berlin of Sally Bowles and Lulu, Peter Lorre and Marlene Dietrich...

"Life is a cabaret, old chum..."

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Beginnings...

It's been hard to come here and write of late; I've been "living" on hydrocodone a lot of this last month as I blew something up in my left knee four weeks ago. In the beginning I thought I could give it a week and it would be better, but that has not turned out to be the case and I have an appointment tomorrow morning so someone can figure out whether it was one of the cruciate ligaments I blew out, or something worse. It's not much good like it is, or me along with it!

I hobbled through the holidays; everyone else's were great! The grandkids, the boys and their wives; my sister and her family. Bill and Laura made it home to D.C. yesterday after a detour through North Carolina for a rockslide the wiped out the Interstate highway they were on as they trekked east. After an afternoon's rest in Charlotte, they got home about 1:30 Tuesday morning.

I've not been sleeping well, so falling asleep sitting in my chair reading, trying to watch TV, sitting here at the keyboard, playing a video game; they've all become new experiences for me. Part of my excuse for not blogging...waking up as you rock forward in the chair because your knee is saying "don't do that, dummy"! isn't fun!

May the rest of the week and may this month and this New Year be especially kind to each of you!

alan

Postscript: Thursday afternoon...

X-rays inconclusive; they don't show anything wrong, only the things that should be there...MRI tomorrow.

At least I know now it's not cancer! Not everyone's first thought, but my favorite jazz saxophone player went in 15 years ago for some knee pain, found out he had bone cancer and was gone in 6 weeks...as much as my family has been decimated by so many different kinds of it, it wouldn't have surprised me!

alan

New Year's Eve...

strains of Guy Lombardo's "Auld Lang Syne" remembered from my childhood playing in my mind...

Off to my sister's in a bit for the family birthday/New Year's Eve parties. My nephew (Christmas Eve), myself (the 29th) and Bill's wife Laura (Jan. 30th, but, hey; while she's here)!

I've often spent this last week of the year in a funk of reviewing and lamenting (see my last post) but not this year. I refused to wallow in it and have actually succeeded, though I'm not sure how much is due to my own free will and how much is due to how busy things have been.

Last year I said I was going to try to keep things here on a more positive note; that ended up with my not saying things at times because there just wasn't anything positive to say and my feeling guilty when I wrote things that weren't; neither was much good for me. So this year, I'm just going to write and let it fall where it falls.

I've made many wonderful friends here; each of you has touched me in ways that have helped me, guided me, healed me...I owe you all so very much!

So I'll hope that tonight finds you somewhere you'd like to be; that tomorrow you are still somewhere you'd like to be and that both of these days, the weekend and the New Year that begins tomorrow are all very kind to each of you!

alan

The day before...

always abounds in 2nd guessing and other musings; rather like reliving your life in short order...

What if?

Should I have?

Would it have been better?

The voices all whisper and this time I'm going to fight them off, because I know, deep down, that none of what is past can be changed by any amount of giving in to them!

This time, I will look forward not behind!

Ahead lies the time that is left me; the only things I can change are "now" and "the future".

So bring on 54 and we'll see how it plays!

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Christmas Eve...

and after a madcap week of shopping, cleaning, rearranging the house for guests, wrapping and more shopping it's all come down to these last few hours.

Bill and Laura and Obie just got here after a 19 hour drive straight-through from Maryland. Obie apparently did well on his first road trip, especially for a shelter dog who was so very sick when they adopted him. He's made friends with Angel and peace with Frankie, so that bodes well for the human's holidays!

What the poor dog doesn't know is that the rain they drove through for about half their trip is starting to freeze right now and we're in for some of that good old Kansas ice before 8 inches or so of snow comes down over it. Apparently he wasn't very happy with the blizzard they had last weekend in D.C. and here they've driven him into another one for Christmas!



Dottie works today and then since she just had her annual review, a slight pay increase and a warning that it's very hard to use up 4 weeks of vacation so she should spread it out, she turned around and said "OK, what about next week while my son is here?". Her boss said that would be great and (so far) none of the higher-ups have rescinded it so we're hoping she's off until New Year's Day!

So that will be a treat for the whole family...

I hadn't planned on her being off on my birthday (the 29th) and had planned to bake my own cake, along with maybe sneaking off to an arthouse movie that I know she wouldn't have liked; instead I'll be trading my movie for her making her Mom's chocolate cake, the "Miracle Whip" one that has been my favorite chocolate one since the first one I ever tasted...I remember observing that if they buried the Pharoah's with things for their next life, she needed to bury me with one of those cakes! That was before I settled on cremation; there's no way I could waste one of those cakes that way!

I am adding all that because with extra houseguests and my antiblogging spouse at home, the chances of me getting here are slim to none!

May Christmas find you near to those you hold dear, in your hearts if not in person. I hold each of you that way; you have all come to mean so very much to me!

And may 2010 be the Happiest of New Years for you all! We are all due for some bluer skies and maybe that silver lining I keep hearing of...

Though in truth, the silver lining is here...with each of you!

May your days be Merry and Bright!

alan

Another day, another letter...

I wrote my Senators last week (that word "my" is kind of sticking in my craw at this point; they sure as hell don't represent me) asking them to support the repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell". I even started my letter with "I know that next week I will receive a letter from you saying how much my thoughts on this matter mean to you, and then you both will proceed to tell me you support the status quo"!

Which is exactly what showed up a bit ago...

Mr. Brownback wrote to tell me how much my thoughts matter, then how wonderfully the current policy has worked and how "he'll listen to the military" when it comes to making policy...

Had Harry Truman listened to the military 60 years ago it would still be segregated!

The laws of inertia are that a mass in motion will continue in the direction it's going unless it's acted on by some outside force.

That "change from within" is impossible would be evidenced by the fact that during the Revolutionary War the army WAS integrated, as it was during the War of 1812, yet by the time of the Civil War it became segregated...outside forces had their influence and it stood for over 100 years!

I remember the rants in the 70's that there would never be women on carriers or their escorts; that there was just no way that could ever work. There was no way you could put women on ships that were going out for 8 or 9 months and have it not cause a problem.

Yet today women fill every billet in the Navy, just as they should.

'Tis truly sad that good lives are being ruined by those who reap political hay!

Didn't mean to start the week with a rant...

May the week be kind to you each!

alan

"Silver Bells..."

a bit of Christmas time from the city...



I was doing dishes at my sister's the other night as my wife packed up and my camera was on top of her pie safe. They found it yesterday afternoon and brought it when we did the traditional day-after-Thanksgiving "family movie". Walking back from where they were parked to where we were parked I shot a few frames, handheld, 1/15th wide open aperture 100 ASA setting.

I hope each of you who celebrated had a lovely Thanksgiving; may the weekend be kind to each of you!

alan

Oh to be a mouse...

inthe corner of this wonderful room...

or a trumpet player growing up in love with music...

New on my Christmas list:

"The Jazz Loft" by Sam Stephenson; photos by W. Eugene Smith! Like the author of the Vanity Fair article, I can only hope someone starts editing down these tapes for release!

W. Eugene Smith had already been a leading light at "Life" magazine; during WW2 he island-hopped across the Pacific with our troops. He is attributed by many to be the originator the "photo essay" which he used to help bring world attention to Minamata disease, a horrific form of mercury poisoning named for the city in Japan where the chemical was dumped into the bay, poisoning the food chain. Smith and his wife moved there in 1971 to help document the ravages of the disease; for his trouble he was beaten in 1972 by those who wished to suppress his work. He lost part of his vision in one eye and never fully recovered.

I'd like to think that perhaps these memories of an earlier happier time finding their way into print would please him!

May the rest of the week be kind to each of you! May those who gather 'round tables the day after tomorrow be blessed by those you care for most; may those who will be other places in the world know that each of you will be counted among my blessings!

alan

"Slip slidin' away..."

Another week rapidly disappearing "over the hill"...

but while scanning and Photoshopping things for that project I mentioned my sister working on, I took some time to go through some of what I shot while we were in Vermont in August.

Each trip we try and work in sightseeing as well as spending time with family; this time we managed a family trip to "The Shelburne Museum". I'll put some other photos up soon, but when I saw these I was as awed now as I was then.

I read this exhibit card and think of all the hours I've spent sitting in front of the TV or surfing online...

(Click to enlarge and please forgive my handheld 1/8th and 1/15th exposures, and the lack of a polarizing filter to kill the glare on the glass case? Next time I'm going back with a tripod!)












High wire acts, bicycles...the Wild West show...an amazing creation for the hands of one man!

Coming later...motorcycles...Tiffany lampshades...a paddlewheeler transported overland from Lake Champlain...

Well worth a visit if you ever get a chance to!

May the weekend be kind to each of you; may it be warm and dry (especially for those of you floating away in the UK) and for those who get to celebrate next Thursday, may your preparations for Thanksgiving be filled with love and knowledge that I'll be saying thanks for each of you next Thursday!

alan

One of the best photos I ever shot...

I've been scanning some old things for another project and though I couldn't get this one out of the "sticky" album it's been in for almost 40 years (it started to tear) I scanned it anyway...



Old Rolleiflex, Plus-X Pan developed in Edwal FG-7 and printed on #3 contrast Kodak paper.

I've tried to get this effect a dozen times in the 38 or 39 years since I shot this and never ever managed to...yet!

May the weekend be kind to each of you!

alan

Happier things...

Dorothy and Toto; an aerialist wanna-be; and the Man from Brown...

Somewhere there's a photo of a little boy on his way to kindergarten next to that tree; I need to find that!

Hoping that no matter what's going on in your world, somewhere there's some kindness in it!

alan

How the other half lives...

Not what I had planned to put here today...had planned on putting up a Halloween pic of some grandkids...

It really saddens me to see how much delight some of our electorate takes in disenfranchising others. Elsewhere this morning a wag pointed out that had abolition been subjected to popular vote in 1866 it would have lost as well...

I think it's time for me to start collecting signatures for a ballot initiative to ban ice storms!

No doubt I can get the necessary signatures; I am sure it would pass with a number that would stagger the pundits, pollsters and politicos! It would become the law of the land and every major winter storm could be touted as illegal from then on!

That it wouldn't change a damn thing doesn't matter, I'd still get to gloat over my victory!

May the rest of this sad day and the rest of the week be kind to each of you...

alan

Excuse the dust...

as I settle back in here, please?

The time away from here was interesting and not just the "net withdrawals" though they were in abundance, along with the worrying and wondering about each of you. Between a very sore wife sleeping on the couch in the living room and a very sick dog not understanding why her body was letting her down, the first two weeks were especially rough. Having to scoop the dog up with a sheet and carry her outside once she could sit up again after what I still think was a stroke was awkward for both of us, though she was grateful not to be "messing" herself and having me trying to clean up her and our (thankfully bare) floor.

She has gradually regained about 85% of her use of her hindquarters, is very stiff turning one direction and her head still lists as she gets tired; I'm very much hoping we don't get much ice this winter as her hips roll one way or the other without warning and I fear her "going down" on the ice like the German Shepard we had that had belonged to Dottie's Mom.

Dottie finally moved back into our bed last week, fearing if she slept on her side before she was mostly healed the "mesh" they sewed into her would not heal evenly. She was very grateful to be off the couch when she finally did and with the arthritis that has settled into her back, very grateful to be off of it! She returned to work yesterday and came home very sore, but OK.

There was a lot of quiet time that first few weeks when she would "nod off" for a while and so I started a book I'd had put away for many years, having spent more time reading shorter and lighter things. I stayed up on "current events" by leaving the TV in our bedroom on as I cooked and cleaned and such, with it set on "closed captions". Some of what I was reading intersected with those current events in ways I never dreamt of!

"The Reconstruction Finance Corporation is made up of fine men, honest, and mean well and if it was water they were distributing it would help the people it was meant to help. For water goes down hill and moistens everything on its way, but gold or money goes uphill. The Reconstruction loaned the railroads money, medium and small banks money, and all they did with it was pay off what they owed to the New York banks. So the money went uphill instead of down. You can drop a bag of gold in Death Valley, which is below sea level, and before Saturday it will be home to papa J.P. [Morgan]."

Will Rogers, 1933

Whether you look at the money that was supposed to take care of refinancing the homeowners losing their homes to foreclosure; the auto industry bailouts; the credit card companies raising our rates and such; the billions of dollars profit that the health care industry is making while they fight any change to the status quo; the Wall Street companies paying bonuses to their execs...old Will seems to be pretty spot on!

I was thinking last night that the last time we saw real "for the people" changes come from Congress it was what L.B.J. called the "Great Society" legislation. Perhaps if we called healthcare reform "The Healthy Society Act" or something similar the it might be more palatable to that "upper crust" who think they're the only ones entitled to society...it's so funny to hear them screaming that healthcare reform might change Medicare when they fought tooth and nail to keep Medicare from passing all those years ago!

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

A house full!

Dottie's feeling enough better she asked for all 3 grandkids this weekend. Giving up the couch for the first time since her surgery meant she's actually sleeping in bed again...not comfortably, as she's still on her back, but at least in bed.

So it's 8am on Sunday morning and I'm sitting here with 2 of them watching "Snorks" on Boomer while she's gone to the store with one of them to get some "Children's Tylenol" for the one that woke us up crying with a fever. Glad I got my flu shot last week!

Hope all is well with all of you! Miss bloghopping and keeping up with you all!

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Quick note...

4 weeks out now, Dottie is healing slowly. She still can't sleep on her side, so she's still on the couch, but the outside parts of things are healing and we're hoping everything inside is as well. That she can "feel" the mesh at times is worrisome...

Angel is back to about 80%, maybe 85% of where she was before her stroke/ear infection/brain tumor struck. She's finished all her meds, still wobbles and falls sometimes as she walks and her head lists more the tireder she is through the day. Bill made it home last week to spend 4 days with her and really brightened her days! He always considered her "his" dog anyway, though she lived here with us...

Winter is setting in, I've had to vacuum and light furnaces the last few days, along with patching another limb-punch in my roof. Had I worked this last summer I'd have replaced it as it's 25, but next summer will have to do...

Sorry for my lack of time here of late; rather closely supervised right now!

:o)

May the days be kind to each of you!

alan

14 days...

and Dottie's checkup today was fine; she hadn't "coughed" anything loose and the surgeon said that everything seemed to be right where he left it, despite the cold that lingered into a 2nd round of antibiotics.

Angel is stronger and walking further each day; though her head is still at a 30 degree list and her balance is very "off", she walks to the front door now and only wants a finger on her collar to steady her as she goes down the two steps to the yard; yesterday she walked the 100 feet to the backyard for the first time and wandered around her favorite haunts, then back to the front door.

Of course, eating canned dog food for the first time in her life seems to be her favorite part of the whole thing! (That and dinner rolls with her meds in them...)

Dottie is on the phone now talking to her sisters and updating them; thus my chance to do the same thing here...

May the week be kind to each of you! Thank you for all the well wishes and warm thoughts!

alan