Trash

I took this with my phone on the way to work. This is a trashed up spot adjacent to the San Mateo Caltrain Station and North Railroad Street in San Mateo. I wonder if it is the resposibility of the Caltrain or the City of San Mateo to clean this up.

Speaking of Writing ... or was I Talking to Myself

It's autocratic, much like riding a bike. You can write me a ticket(thanks for the link, fritz), sure. Provided you can ride on the sidewalk, the wrong way up alleys, through tight spaces made up by fixed objects and moving cabs, into doorways to run up staircases, all the while acting nonchalantly --like it's an everyday thing -- like, "Hey man, I'm just on my way to get some coffee," all at 20 miles an hour. I can write you a ticket -- Mr. Authority, and publish it in my blog.

Seriously. I can write publicly about anything -- I don't need Simon and Schuster. I am a published author and have the equivalent of a novel in print. I have been writing almost daily for about 2 years. About 30-100 (care to hazard a guess?) people read what I write with some regularity. I have no idea why. But, they do. I read what some of them write and I know some of them. I am getting to know some of the one's I have never met. Some of them are my friends. I have friends I have never met.

Many of us having been trying to get out of the more populated areas, and as I grow, my friends have managed to succeed, for the most part. They are spread out like the leaves of an old maple. There are about a 1000 photographs taken by me exposed (published) onto the world, in the form of a casual travelogue, helping my friends and family know what I am doing. I know you've enjoyed some of the photos and some of the stories. I can share the travels, tales and work of my life with a few friends, not to mention an occasional spattering of wisdom.

I really like to hear when you, gentle readers, tell me that you enjoy what I have done. Or that you feel my pain, sorrow, boots, pain, frostbite, glee, victories, anger, adventures, see my successes, fear, dismay, love ... beauty.

I learn and enrich my own life when I read your stories and read what you've done. Or get a happy chance to develop a real relationship via an online world. Or as I develop and craft the stories I must tell to an unseen world.

I have been meme'd (hereinafter pronounced "maimed") by fritz. Frankly, I dislike the tagging activity, but, I am a good citizen. So that's five reasons I blog.

John, Tom, Eclectchick Michelle, Joann. You've been tagged. Five reasons you blog. Since I now have tagged everyone I know. I am no longer allowing myself to be tagged -- at least not until my third bloggerbirthday, which is slightly more than a year from now.

Beef Stew with Dumplings

Date: 25 February 2007
Mileage for the week: 82.68
February total: 286.30
March total: 47.26
Max: 28.3
On the Ipod: The Gypsy Kings, Un Amor

Ummm.

That's the 15" braid.

Leaving me looking a bit straight.

bzzzzzzz, click whirr ...

Night Studio

Back in the day, before Ipods. Philip Guston's daughter wrote a book called Night Studio. I bought a pair of 36" Cerwin Vega speakers. I moved into a warehouse. The warehouse was, well -- It was sweet. Me, a crow, three feral cats, a junkyard next door, a crazy girl, and about a hundred orchids. Juliana Hatfield at volume 11, a screamin prayer from a secret god. The coolest neighbors.

Late night workaholic, seriously loud, no one notices, -- way too cool. One night my friend JT came by and the crow sat on the edge of his cup and drank wine from it. Jim would drink -- and the crow would drink. I told a story about Jim today -- to some aspiring young artists. We talked about making art with our hands and tools like paint brushes, and how much fun that was (it used to be). So I told them a story about Jim and myself.

Jim called me one Friday night late, years ago. He said -- "I need your help. I am painting a 6' tall copy of Norman Rockwell's Home for Christmas".

"You don't need my help for that."

"It's due Monday at 9".

"I'll be right over."

Back to the warehouse.

Grinding sounds, Sculpture. "The Edge of Nowhere". A place where no one notices what you do. Me and a crow. In the warehouse santuary. The Warehouse Sanctuary. "Hello Girls!" Said the crow. The smell of paint. Linseed oil.

I am an expert in turning it up. The shower floods daily. Turn up the music. Neil Young, Prince. No -- really turn it up. Steely Dan. The Doobie Brothers, Marta Sebestyen. Finding a way to an unknown land. A place where hands create a magic that no one explains. Eric Clapton and Cream. Louder, please.

When I was faithful student at Cal State Hayward I met a man with a book that claimed artists were Shamen, and so was I. The book was The Artist as Shamen in the 20th Century, by Mark Levy. Later, as a graduate student, the music was louder. The drum beats grew firmer. My presence grew richer. I became stonger in my way.

"Who will take the only hearts they've got and throw them into the fire,
Who will risk their own self respect, in the name of desire,
Who'll regret everything they've done, and who will get the bill" Bonnie Raitt, Lover's Will.

It's like a switch, the way to making art. The way to knowing more than you thought possible, the way to communicating more than you could before. It's like the Shaman swimming under the ocean to see an underwater demon, to find an answer to some question. The night studio -- you wake in the day and look at what you've done and say, "wow" quietly to yourself so no one will hear you.

My daughter sent me a note today that said, "In the studio again." Good for you. Turn up the music. She knows. I know this. When she could barely talk, she walked into the living room of our old bungalow, and pointed at every painting I had painted and said, "See," as if she had finally put it together. While she was sleeping, I was painting those. In the mist. In the Mystery. She knew. My son never quite knew that. But tonight he played that Gibson in a very accomplished way. He knows something. Maybe he has a secret god. Or simple Voodoo Magic.

"What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away? ...
How do you sleep while the rest of us cry,
How do dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye,
How do you walk with your head held high, Can you even look me in the eye? " Dear Mr President, Pink (with the Indigo Girls)

Turn it up. Crank it up. All the way. There's a paradise. It's a paradise of desire. The band leader looked across at my son tonight and said, "What do you got?" My son hit a note and the man said, "Turn it up" and pointed his thumb at the sky. It's there, where the volume is high.

In the Mystery. There's where it is. Secret God ... Something. I am trying to find my way to paradise. I am trying to find my way into an unknown world where there is a truth I can get to know.

I don't know. But, ohhh, how I do know. Turn it up.

I miss my studio. It's been replaced by an Ipod, which isn't quite the same. The reason I turn it up, is to unleash the angels, and silence the demons.

Green Manalishi -- What Ever That Means

Playlist:

Nina Simone: Wild is the Wind
Elvin Bishop: Stealing Watermelons
Fleetwood Mac: The Green Manalishi
Blind Faith: Can't Find My Way Home
The Cream: Crossroads
Delany and Bonnie Bramlett with Duane Allman: Living on the Open Road
Bonnie Raitt: The Road is My Middle Name
Fleetwood Mac: The Way I Feel
Cowboy Junkies: The Way I feel
Cowboy Junkies: Good Friday
The B52's: Roam
Pink: Dear Mr President
The Cowboy Junkies: Misguided Angel
Patsy Cline: Walking After Midnight
The Indigo Girls: Closer to Fine
Sarah McLachlin: Building a Mystery
Maryann Faithfull: Sister Morphine
Derek and the Dominoes: Got to get Better in a Little While (for mile 85)
Fleetwood Mac: Why (Mile 86)
Blind Faith: Presence of the Lord (mile 87)
Drive By Truckers: Gravity's Gone
Cream: Badge (Mile 88)
Steely Dan: Peg
Steely Dan: Time Out of Mind
The Carnival Steel Drum Band: Under the Sea
Cowboy Junkies: Just want to See
Charlotte Church, Chorus of the Welsh National Opera: Amazing Grace
Fleetwood Mac: Black Magic Woman
Cowboy junkies: A Common Disaster
Fleetwood Mac: Revelation
Cowboy Junkies: Pale Sun
Quiksilver Messenger Service: Mojo
Howlin Wolf: The Red Rooster
Jackson Browne: The Road and the Sky
Niel Young: Cowgirl in the Sand
The Pretenders: Middle of the Road
The Ronettes: Be My Baby
Lou Reed: Sweet Jane
Jane's Addiction: Jane Says
Tori Amos: Winter
The Doobie Brothers: China Grove
The Doobie Brothers: Black Water
Daryl Hall and John Oates: Abandoned Lunchenette
Blind Faith: Sleeping in the Ground
Eric Clapton: Further on up the Road
Duane Allman: Please be with Me
Bonnie Raitt: I Can't Make You Love Me
Indigo Girls: Secure Yourself
The Cowboy Junkies: 200 More Miles

Heel Carving

Date: 25 February 2007
Mileage for the week: 75.67
February total: 251.98
Max: 25.1
On the Ipod: Alison Brown, The Promise of Spring

Riding Home

"Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?"

Pass me the lemon peel. Today's ride home was like a ride in a shaker. "Shake very well till it's ice cold." Add ice pellets and mix with cars, ride until frozen.

The ride started at 6:10 for the 6:33 train -- plenty of time to travel a mile and a half to the station. I stepped out the door to put my purple shower cap on, when a guy standing in the shelter of the door said into his phone, "It's really hailing now." I slipped onto my bike and rode out into it, figuring -- it could never last. It was surreal and strange. Lights and cars and snowpellets in a dark, very windy torrential downpour. A Slushy. The ice pellets, hail, or freezing rain, whatever it needs to be called, added a reflective characteristic to the very air. After the first crossing of railroad tracks it became more difficult to see them as the water on the roads collected to about an inch deep.

As I sorted out the pedestrians and cabs in front of the train station and made my way to the sidewalk, there was easily 2 inches of standing water on the roadway, but the rain was less icy.

Miso Soup

Here is Fritz's contribution to the soup cookbook. Except for adding tofu -- This is his recipe as posted.

Miso soup
By Fritz

Shawn asked for soup recipes from around the world . I'm happy to oblige.Miso is basic, simple to make, and yummy to me. Here's how I do it.

Start water to boil.
Mix in a spoonful or four of miso paste. I like the strong-flavored aka or 'red' miso paste.
Add chopped scallions, mushrooms, soft tofu (added by me) and/or kombu seaweed.
When the miso paste is completely dissolved, remove from heat and dissolve in about a teaspoon of instant dashi powder.

My grandmother would sometimes boil up a big pot of clams and then make miso soup using the clam stock. She also didn't use instant hondashi -- she kept dried, moldy fish hanging on the kitchen wall, and she'd scrape the moldy fish flesh straight into the soup pot. Good stuff before and after a bike ride.Because of the dead-fish flavor, Japanese miso soup typically is not vegetarian. Link to his post.

Trophy Water Bottles and Rain Storms

They are more like trophies of my past accomplishments. In the early days of my life we weren't as sophisticated. Gallon milk jug filled with Tequila Sunrise for three days in a canoe on the Russian River. Vodka to mix with bags of plums on Mount Diablo summit. Gallon jugs of passed around koolaid. Gallon water bottles clipped right onto you belt for fifty mile desert hikes. Waterdog lake and the sand caves, and sawyer camp road when you could drive on it . Freezing cold water blown on the wind for San Bruno Mountain hike.

The stainless "grand canyon discovery" cup that went down the colorado with me, The water bottle I bought for my first century, and the one I forgot. The stainless thermos I bought to drink the coffee on the way to work. The water bottle I carried empty across four mile s of Joshua Tree, and the one I tried to give away to some ill prepared hikers near the oasis of mara. The one that froze solid in Mokulemne, and the ones I carried on the Superstion Ridgeline trail. Then there's the two or three I actually use. I have too many, too.

Did I forget to mention that this drizzle is trying to become a rainstorm.

Head Carving

Another Day in Paradise.

Today was characterized primarily by time spent with my parents. With a 1:30 hair appointment, then an early dinner at Fernando's in San Mateo, it was a great day. If you are one of those people who might want to be jealous of those of us that live in California, today would be a good day to express your emotions. It was incredible out in Pacifica today, at least for a couple of hours. Everyone was out, not just the surfers. Surf's up. This photo is of Linda Mar.

This person is riding his bike backwards while sitting on the handlebars. During the hair appointment, the sun just went away, being changed to fog, leaving a bunch of people in shorts standing out in the cold. It was summer for a split second -- then it was winter again.

Here's a photo of the guitar's headstock veneer being glued into place on the neck blank. This is not the clamping technique mentioned in the book.

Here's the guitar's neck after yet another -- albeit short -- day at the project. The truss rod is now inserted into a routed slot in the neck and a tenon exists to attach to the body of the guitar. I added the Zebrawood veneer for the head and trimmed everything. I think I am about ready to carve the neck.

Nah, silly, that's my mother working a puzzle with her new do.

Date: 17 February 2007
Mileage for the week: 94.67
February total: 176.31
Max: 28.1
On the Ipod: Howlin Wolf, Built for Comfort

Dear Asshole,

Before.

After.

Dear Thieving Asshole,

I could understand that you might need my rear light to put on your cool bike, so that you won't get hit riding brakeless through the night. I could understand that you might be able to sell that light for six or eight dollars and get some beer.

Although the light was basically free for the taking, I wonder why it was necessary to destroy my seat bag by ripping it to remove the light. Did you almost get caught? I actually don't mind that much that the light was taken -- I probably would have given it to you if you had convinced me that you needed it for your bike. You could have easily slipped that light off without damging the bag. Please try to be more considerate when stealing my shit. As you can see, I was barely inconvenienced by the loss of the light, Nick helped me to bolt the new one onto the bike, for lack of a better place. Please try not to hurt yourself attempting to steal the new one. I don't want to be subjected to a personal injury suit.

Shawn

P.S. If you try to sell it back to me on the street tomorrow, I'll do my best to steal it back from you without damaging your hand.

Go Jill

I'll be watching along ... Go Jill.

I look Interesting in Korean

I was looking at the referrals to my blog and I found someone using the Korean version of Google to find my Korean Soup post. The google page offered to translate me into Korean. I of course had to see it. One thing I noticed is that none of the Korean words are translated, which I found quite funny.

My son's in this movie, you might be able to recognize him near the end.