Pink

I've seen pink cars before but this one takes the cake. That would be a little girl's birthday cake with pink icing. As if it weren't pink enough, there's a subtle but gorgeous rainbow metalflake job in the finish. I doubt it's factory but it's a high-end paint job. It may be a custom ride altogether because I didn't notice a brand name. It did have a name but I can't remember it. Hopefully I'll see it again. I'd like to get a closer pic of the finish.
 The first thing I thought of when I saw this, besides "pink," was Jerry Nolan; the drummer for the legendary Proto-Punk (IMHO) band The New York Dolls. He talked the Ludwig Drum Company into making him a pink drum kit. I don't remember all of the details but I know it caused quite a stir in everyone from Ludwig ("Jerry wants a PINK kit?") to the press ("Does this mean he's GAY?") to the audience. Photographers jumped all over it and you can find some iconic photos if you're interested. I'm pretty sure he was the first Rock drummer to use a pink kit, although there was another guy who's name I can't remember who had the Phibes Company build him a pink kit out of acrylic at around the same time I think. He really upped the ante having them pink and clear, and if I'm not mistaken he'd play naked sometimes. With clear drums and clear drum heads I suppose you could see his mallet through the kit if you looked from the right angle.
 My next thought was about that cosmetic company that I think was called Mary Kay. They used to give pink Caddies to select salespeople. I remember seeing ladies drive those monstrous things around with the biggest shit-eating grins you ever saw. They loved those things. My mind was just wandering and still a little taken aback by all the pink, and I half-wondered if this might be a modern version of that, but the mag wheels spoke otherwise, and I doubted that Mary Kay would spring for such an expensive paint job. Not to be sexist or anything but it also occurred to me that very few ladies would opt for black mags on a pink car. That's mostly a guy thing. And then I had a moment of serious comic relief.
 A pink car with black mags. Hmm...with men wearing skirts, high heels and feminine-style makeup and shit like they've lopped off their dicks or something, I wondered if this might be a flagship car for a new line of men's makeup...Barry Kay. I laughed so hard my dog looked up at me. I sure hope the owner didn't hear it and think I was laughing at the car, because actually it was pretty bitchin' and you have to respect such a fine paint job on anything. BTW this isn't "hate speech" since I don't hate anyone. I sure did get a good laugh out of it. Barry Kay...that's funny. Sometimes I crack myself up.

Photo of the Day (reposted from an old blog)

I took this photo several years ago at the Kangaroo Mart (RIP) which is now a Circle K in Cahaba Heights. FYI Cahaba Heights (now Vestavia) is one of the last bastions of sanity, civility, serenity, clarity, community, citizenship, common sense and whatever else noble this country was once known for. In case you haven't read the summary of this blog you can click to enlarge this image.
 I happened to catch this well-dressed young lady waving goodbye to her equally well-dressed friend. For a convenience store it almost looks like an angelic scene. In fact I named it "Go to the Light" for obvious reasons. There's even a sign with the letters "Celes" visible. That's the beginning of "Celestial" of course. Cool, huh?
 With a little imagination maybe you could say that it looks as if the girl in the beautiful tie-dye is embarking on some incredible journey; perhaps even the afterlife, yet she's still a bit hesitant and is looking back to an angel for reassurance. The angel in the purple dress, and for those keeping score she was beautiful, is gesturing for her to go ahead. Her arm is out in a welcoming posture. She's telling the traveler that everything will be okay. To me it's a remarkable image but I can certainly see it being viewed as nothing more than two hot babes, and I can't disagree. I say it's angelic; all things considered. It's at least "techgelic." I may not know shit from apple butter but those look like high-end dresses to me, if nothing else.
 In any case always go toward the light, but make sure the light is right. If you don't know what that means, I can almost guarantee that at some point you will. What counts is at what  point "some point" is. Beware the light-bearer, as cra-cra as that may sound. Otherwise love and light are absolutely key, and positive thoughts cancel out negative ones. And, the veil is lifting. You'll get that too soon enough. Have a blessed day.

Random Funny #79,840,223,830,480: Smokin' in the Cooler

I just ran across this and it cracked me up. Maybe it's a "You had to be there" deal or only funny if you know anything about the crazy restaurant biz, but I like it. It's almost suitable for framing. Thrift store here I come.
 Said biz is most definitely crazy, but if you eat in restaurants that have servers, know that your server could be an honest, upstanding college kid who's sober as a judge and is putting themselves through medical school and could conceivably one day operate on your brain. You might not want to piss him or her (or LBGTQ, etc. or whatever it's PC to say these days) off too much.
 Having said that, your server is quite a bit more likely to be a freewheelin', free-thinkin' and free-imbibin' person who marches to the beat of his or her (or LGBTQ, etc.) own drum. I don't know of any restaurants (at least not the corporate ones) that drug-test, and I'm cracking up right now at the thought. There'd be very few people to hire. Artists, musicians, aspiring whatevers, freaks, Generation Whichevers, nightowls, flexible-schedulers and the like, yes; God bless 'em, but lots of potential employees that can ace a drug test...maybe not so much. I can say that most of them are really good people though. Interesting too, to say the least.
 I know some people who work in a 4* restaurant we'll call "Eats" for the purpose of this post. Once again as in most restaurants not everyone partakes of alcohol and/or substances, but the majority favors one or more "mother's little helpers" from time to time, if not all the time. These guys don't really go for the "stupid drugs" like meth or heroin, but every other category of substance, even a little toot, is well-represented. During office hours though they mostly stick to a drink or a happy pill here or there. A few of the servers smoke but that's mainly the kitchen staff's territory. As far as availability goes, let's just say that if you're looking to score dope, a restaurant is a very good place to start.
 Unless the owner is staunchly anti-drug or something like that, the cooler becomes the defacto smoking parlor of choice. It's a great place to get away from the madness and chill for a minute, and since the air is constantly being drawn from the room the rest of the place generally doesn't fill up with wacky smoke. True to form the good folks at Eats used the cooler for more than chilling things. So much so in fact that the occasional waft of smoke made it to a few of the more discerning customers' noses. Another issue is that the kitchen area along with the cooler is clearly visible from the bar and about a third of the tables. Some of the customers began to notice that some of the employees would drift in and out of the cooler, and seem to stay long enough to catch cold, and would often walk back out with nothing in their hands but a smile on their faces; not to mention the aroma of burning rope mixing with the heavenly scents of Chilean Sea Bass and the like.
 After a number of comments from customers; mostly friendly but possibly a few not so much, the mgm't decided to designate the cooler as a no-smoking zone. The new policy was passed down orally at first but no one took it seriously and they continued to spark-up in the cooler. One night a jovial, loaded gentleman sitting at the bar noticed the monkey business in the cooler and made a clearly-audible comment about it. I wish I could remember what he said because it was hilarious but it was enough to make mgm't put its foot down. They installed a new policy where the first offense was a week's vacation and the second offence was termination. That seemed to get everyone's attention.
 I figured they'd need a sign to mark the new policy so I made the one you see here. It made the policy changes clear and I thought the skull-and-crossbones was a nice touch. My sign didn't get used. I don't know if it's because it never made it to them or if they took issue with my extrapolating and taking the liberty of saying that it was still okay to smoke, as long as they did it in the parking lot. Anyway I thought it was sorta funny but then I'm easy like that. I thought it would especially benefit any newbies or anyone who might have gotten so high before they got to work that they forgot about the changes, and believe me it happens.
 As an aside...speaking of getting high before work, I have to tell on myself, and in my defense this was waaaay back in the day when I was in my early 20s. I'd do as many bongs as I could possibly do before I left for work at the crazy, wonderful restaurant I worked at forever. For even most hardcore smokers, about 7-8 rippers is plenty. I'd try for fifteen. The ride to work was every bit of two miles; mostly along one road and with only three or four turns between my apt and it; depending on whether I parked in front or back. Halfway there I'd quite literally forget what part of town I was in or what road I was on or where I was going or why I was going there. Many days I'd be too high to talk to anyone for at least half an hour, and generally that was respected. Almost without fail I'd get to work at least half an hour early anyway; mostly because I knew at least one or two other people would be late from being hungover or sleeping late or whatever, and I wanted to make sure everything was set up. It also made up for the half-hour I was unable to speak. It wasn't that I was too stoned to work. I was too stoned to talk.
 It wasn't that I was unfriendly or antisocial or anything. I was just so fucking stoned I might as well have been on the Moon, so everybody left me alone until I came down enough to be just ordinarily stoned as shit but I could speak again. Ha ha...don't speak until spoken to. The truth is, as cool as the place was and as nice as the vast majority of customers were and as much as it was really like a family, and one that actually liked each other and even hung out outside of work, it was still hectic as hell most of the time, and I credit reefer for at least half the reason I could do it for over fifteen years. The irony is that most servers whether they imbibe or not can handle a cocktail or two before a shift, which I absolutely couldn't do, but most servers wouldn't consider smoking before work. There's so much to remember all at once, and lots of people were afraid to even think about doing it.
 I totally get that but I'd been trying to do little exercises here and there to improve memory and observational skills and such, and a childhood tradition came into play. There was a barbecue restaurant called Ollie's that was in business for many years. Most all of the servers in the early days were sweet black women. When they took the orders they didn't write a single thing down. They didn't even have a pad and pencil in their hand. As a kid I was impressed by that and I told myself that if I ever worked in a restaurant myself one day that's what I'd do too. And I did. Any tables up to six people I never wrote anything down, and there were a lot more options to remember that "Pork or beef...chopped or sliced...regular or jumbo...fries?' There'd be drink orders, salads, entrees, desserts, after-dinner drinks and whatnot; not to mention any and all special requests, because after all, special orders didn't upset us, and I didn't write a thing down until I went back to the bar and wrote everything down fast as fuck while I could still remember it. It impressed quite a few people like it did me as a kid. And remember...I was stoned as a house 99.9% of the time.
 Anyway I digress, but anyone who may have waited tables might find that interesting. I bet most of them never smoked pot before a shift. Eats didn't use my sign. I'm glad to have it in a bittersweet way. It's a reminder of a perplexing relationship that recently ended after a very long time. "Funny" wins big time, and if I can get a cheap frame for it I'll probably hang it up. I think most people would think it's hilarious. My bedroom is decorated nicely but my bathroom is decorated as if it could be anyone from a juvenile to a collector of quirky photos and drawings to, well...a juvenile, but there are a few things there that might be nice to a woman's eyes; should I ever be granted the pleasure of hanging out with another one. I do have some really nice photos and artwork but some of it is kid stuff. Who cares? Might as well lean toward young as old.
 One more side thing before I go. If I were king I'd make everyone of legal age wait tables for three months, and I'm not kidding. You learn to deal with people with at least some respect (whether you want to or not) and that applies to assholes too, and if you get good at it you can show total respect while letting them know at the same time that they indeed are being assholes, without stooping to their level and doing nothing except perpetuating a fight. I came up with many "restaurantisms" as it were but the best as far as dealing with rude people and being able to get just under the threshold of no longer completely showing respect to the asshole, was a saying I came up with when dealing with people asking "Is our food ready?" which is probably the single most common question in the biz. I wanted to say: "Does it LOOK like your food is ready? Do you see me holding it? Good food takes a bit. When your food is good and fucking ready I'll have it out to you with the fucking quickness and before you can say 'I was an asshole.'" But no, I held in that urge, and I'm kidding of course; I didn't get that annoyed by it.
 Instead of being obviously rude but still pushing it as far as I could, I'd reply: "Ma'am (or Sir, or LGBTQ, etc), the Health Department insists that we fully cook your meal before we serve it to you." I can't remember a single time when that didn't silence even the loudest asshole, and usually everyone else at the table would look at them like, "Asshole!" It was great. Luckily our policy was "The customer is usually right," and the management would go to bat for us if a customer got too out of hand. Again it was rare there but it did happen, and I'm totally serious that everyone should experience waiting tables. If you should happen to decide to wait tables for a fortnight or so just as a lark or God forbid, to learn how better to deal with people in just about every frame of mind (and that includes you too), I definitely wouldn't recommend getting high on weed, unless you have memory of steel or you're an idiot-savant or whatever like me. In fact my attorney advises me to say at this time: (NOTICE) I do not endorse the use of ANY substance at ANY time for ANY reason by ANYONE. Clear? Have a nice day. 
 This has been another rambling blog post, although it's actually a public-service announcement for the 1,000th of 1% of people who would actually see the validity in learning how to wait tables for a month or two. The sign is funny to me anyway and I'd like to get a frame for it. Friends don't let friends wait tables stoned. Also, if you must try to score drugs, a restaurant is safer than the streets. I've met people who basically bus tables or whatever just to support their habits. For the record though, you really can make very good money waiting tables if you're at least decent at it, but it definitely takes a certain mindset and skill set. Both are worth learning. Don't forget to tip your server. Have a nice day.

Quote of the Day

"Count the number of coincidences, for they are the fabric of truth." - unknown

Quote of the Day

"The more a society drifts from the truth, the more they will hate those who speak it." - George Orwell

Quote of the Day

"It's hard to play simply and still put emotion into it." - Johnny Radelat

The Skies in 2018

[NOTE: All of these photos are click to enlarge.] I get it when I mention to some people that the sky is changing and they don't see anything different. It isn't the whole story, which I won't go into here, but mostly it's because the general public doesn't spend much time looking at the sky, and it's understandable.
 I come from a generation before almost anything modern existed, and things like meteor showers were still a big deal. They'd announce it on TV and in the paper and people would take blankets and sodas out on the front lawn to watch, weather permitting. It started for me by age three or four, so I just developed a love for looking at the sky day and night.
 And that's a far cry from the (not so) ancient times when people did everything from planting to harvesting; from navigating to copulating and many other things according to the phases of the Moon and what stars were where and which constellations the Sun rose and set in and so forth. The sky was entertainment, but it helped keep people alive. Celestial events were cause for great wonder, joy and sometimes fear. The ancient Chinese and other cultures thought that an eclipse; especially of the Sun, was the Sun being eaten by a dragon or some such beast. During an eclipse they'd beat drums and yell and even shoot fireworks and cannons and whatnot to scare the monster away and keep it from devouring the Sun. Boy, were they wrong. Luckily we're much more civilized today. We have Google and GPS and YouTube and Dominoes online and stuff. We have calendars. They're still based on what goes on in the heavens but most people don't look at it that way.

From more recent times, this is one of the many fantastic woodcuts depicting the legendary Leonid meteor shower of 1833. It still holds up as the most intense shower of the last two centuries. People literally thought the sky was falling. Many people thought that it was the end of the world because the stars were falling out of the sky. Some people just stared in amazement and wonder without being afraid but of course there was a lot of fear for the most part. Many people panicked and a few people even committed suicide. No doubt a few local preachers, priests and maybe the odd Voodoo practitioner here or there did a good business that evening.
 There are more truly astounding images; all woodcuts, of the Leonids of 1833 if you want to do a quick search. One woodcut of the meteors over Niagara Falls stands out, and somehow the images have a way of almost drawing you into the event, but maybe that's because I like meteors. By all accounts the woodcuts depicted the event just as it was without any exaggeration or embellishment. There's something of a magical quality to those images. Google it, Dylan, if you want to see what the most kickass, scary-as-fuck, run-for-your-lives, end-of-the-world, kiss-your-ass-goodbye, later on, Chicken Little-esque meteor shower in recent history looks like.
 I spend a bit of time looking at the sky in fact. Most people who hear about something might even look up at the sky for a few minutes and see nothing unusual, and I get that too. Although the strangeness is really picking up lately, you have to spend some extra time looking to catch anything crazy, but if you do look for a while you will see stuff. You'll at least catch a shooting star or two, guaranteed. You might get lucky and see a Saucer. You never know. I couldn't guess the average time I spend looking at the sky in a day...maybe 45 minutes to an hour or more. Even if I'm inside and it's raining I'll look out a window. I know that that's like watching paint dry to some people, but once you see something like a really bright meteor or one of these crazy neon/plasma pink sunsets or the odd flashes being seen everywhere to crazy cloud formations to God forbid...something you can't readily explain, you'll be hooked. I saw my first  meteor at age three. I never get tired of seeing them.
 It would literally take a separate post to talk about all the interesting things I've seen in the sky over the last few years; much less the even crazier things that are being witnessed and caught on video all over the world. As I've said back in 2016 they introduced a dozen brand-new types of clouds. For one thing that's not front-page news, but even the people who heard about it didn't really pay too much attention. I'd at least want to know how 12 new species appeared out of nowhere; just for curiosity's sake. Right now I'm listening to a site on YouTube that tracks incoming meteors. They register as colorful dots or lines, and there's an audible ping; long or short. There's quick pings coming in which means that there are lots of small (and a few larger) meteors coming in at the rate of about 20 a minute, which qualifies as a pretty good shower. Three years ago this much activity would've freaked out people like me and other sky watchers, but to those of is on that page, who've seen massive meteors and insane energy readings coming in off and on for the last two years or so, tonight so far is just a swarm of gnats.

To those who say nothing strange is going on in the sky, the good people all over the UK might differ. Check out these photos from I believe two days ago. These are cloud formations filmed by folks in parts of the island. They covered the sky and pretty much stopped traffic for a while. I guess so. There are several videos but as of last night no stills had made it into image search. I snagged these from a video with permission. I reckon they'll have to come up with a new name for this type of cloud too. Hello, #13.

 These images remind me of the cool experiments they do where they take a big upward-facing speaker and place a sheet of glass or metal over it and sprinkle it with salt or sand. When they run a tone through the speaker the grains align into a pattern which is an exact copy of the invisible sound wave itself. The pattern changes with each different note.
 In fact it demonstrates how you and I and everything in the Universe is created and held together by different frequencies. It isn't a stretch at all to say that this could be caused by some sort of electromagnetic energy. That's what it closely resembles, only on a much larger scale. Anomalous energy readings are being picked up on everything from GOES satellites to weather charts to various solar charts to our very own meteor page, where not even the experts can determine what's causing the intense and bizarre readings, except to say for sure it's definitely not meteors.

            WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG POST TO BRING YOU A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT.

 Talk about timing. I just now heard a long ping on the meteor site so I clicked over to see how thick the line on the chart was, which indicates how big the meteor is. It was nothing special, at least lately, but someone had left a comment about an object that was captured today on one of the Alaska FAA skycams. Sure enough I went there and saw it for myself, and here it is. These images aren't timed perfectly but the average is about ten minutes between images.

The first image, taken at 01:02:16 UTC on 8/28, or 8/27 at 17:02:16 Alaska time if you prefer, shows a mostly-clear sky.

In the next image an object can clearly be seen. Before you go jumping on the bandwagon and say "It's a lens flare," keep on looking.

About ten minutes later the object is still there.

Still there.

Much fainter but still visible.

By the next frame it's gone. Of the people who even care to begin with, probably most would still say lens flare, and I can't say with 100% certainty that it isn't, but since I was a kid and into photography I've seen countless lens flares; not to mention hundreds of movies and TV shows, and I've never seen a lens flare that looks or behaves like this. Lens flares generally don't change in size. They aren't shaded with a crescent on one side. They usually don't stick around for over half an hour, you know? Look at it again. Do an image search and see if you can find any lens flares that look like this. If I saw this without knowing it was in our skies, like a telescope photo of outer space, I'd say definitely this was a planet or moon or some other type of heavenly body. I'd probably rule out lens flare without having to think about it.

For comparison this image, taken from the same day a few frames later shows lens flares. For the record these are definitely lens flares but up until a few years ago are different from any I've seen in the past. Typically the lens flares I recall were mostly iridescent circles in prismatic colors but mostly red and blue. They tend to follow along one or more of the axes in an "X" pattern that fans out. Sometimes there are multiple flares with smaller ones near the source (usually the Sun) with larger ones further away.
 It's just an observation and doesn't have anything to do with whether or not I think there could be other planets nearby, although for the record I do see a lot of evidence supporting the idea. In any case what a coincidence that I'd be doing a post about interesting things in the sky and right in the middle click over and see an interesting thing in the sky. Ta-da.

Before I go here's a photo my friend George from California took and sent me a couple of weeks ago. This isn't a lens flare. George saw it with the naked eye. He said he didn't think it was the Moon, and as I immediately texted back, "That isn't the Moon, my friend." The night this photo was taken the Moon was maybe half-full, and in a totally different place in the sky, if it had even risen yet. To me it looks pretty much like the Moon only it isn't, so again I'd have to say it was some planetary object, and lens flare wouldn't even cross my mind. In any case it's an incredible photo; lens flare, phenomenon or whatever.
 Strange things are being seen in the sky. These pics are just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of videos and thousands of images of some seriously strange phenomena in the sky. Again, right off the bat people will say that the images are 'shopped. Of course some of them are faked, but to say they all are is ludicrous. Given the thousands of images and videos, to say they're all faked means that every single person submitting an image or video would have to have not only some fairly sophisticated photo-editing software but more importantly know how to use it; much less the time and money. Come on. It's impossible.
 Another interesting thing to consider is that often within 24 hours or so any frames that show similar anomalies are simply deleted. It happens all the time and you can check the archives for yourself, which you probably won't do but I have, so you'll have to take my word for it. For example the previous sequence show four frames that show a "lens flare" or whatever it is, but if you look in the archives in the next few days those few images may be gone. The frames will still be there at ten minutes apart but the image will be gray and say "Image not available." It happens pretty much every day but there are too many images to catch every one. Isn't it interesting that those frames, and only those frames, are repeatedly deleted from the archives? Again you can check these cameras in real time for yourself. Go to "FAA webcams" and start with Alaska and see if you notice anything similar. It's interesting to see the weather in different parts of the country and some of the views are amazing. Depending on what direction and time of day you choose you can see sunrises and sunsets as well as the night sky, with all the interesting things going on there lately too. If it's overcast or raining pick another camera somewhere else. There are cameras all over the US and beyond.
 Much of the stuff can be explained but some of it can't. It's certainly like nothing we've seen in our lifetimes until recently. They can put a name on it and say it's ice crystals or Sun Dogs or "climate change" (formerly known as "global warming") or they can call it Your Granny's Fanny if they want to, since they can call it anything they damn well feel like, but the question you have to ask yourself is "Have I ever SEEN this before?" The answer is probably not. "Signs in the heavens?" Maybe.
 Take it from someone, and others like me, who have looked up at, and I suppose you could say studied the sky virtually every day and night for most of our lives, that things are getting very, very interesting up there, and they're ramping-up exponentially. Someone might actually stumble on this post and decide to have a look up and see if anything's happening, and they might see nothing. It could easily happen more than once. You never know, but I will say that if you look long enough, you WILL see something amazing. I guarantee it. Oh, and one more thing...if you haven't packed up your car with a blanket, a pickanick basket, a jug of wine, a loaf of bread and Thou (your significant) plus a doob or two, and driven out into the country at night to watch a meteor shower, you haven't lived. That I can also guarantee, no matter the generation. It's good for your soul. You need it for mental balance. You might even fall in love. The skies are getting crazy and I predict it'll get crazier. Maybe I'm wrong. Have a nice day. Heads-up.