Mountains of Snapshots

I don't take vacation snapshots
with me in the foreground any more.

I take this snapshot of this mountain
and am there as the experiencer of it.

Yosemite in Memory and Reality

For Peggy's birthday, we drove up to Yosemite for the weekend.

We last visited the National Park in March 1976 and had stayed in the Curry tent cabins with the outdoor toilets and showers. We were in our late 20s then.

This time we stayed in a Curry cabin with indoor plumbing, an amenity you care about a lot more when you are in your 60s.

The park is changed some since President Gerald Ford was overseeing the National Park Service.

There are more amenities -- pizza parlors, taco shops, Starbucks knock-offs -- for tourists.

And there are a lot more tourists.

Even in October when the water falls are running dry and Mirror Lake looks like a sand pit.

There are tons of tourists who have flown into Fresno and been bused into the park.

In March 1976, it was too early for the tourist season and you could still have the valley pretty much to yourself.

Ansel Adams, who still lived and walked among us in 1976, used to say he could hike 100 yards off the beaten paths in Yosemite Valley and have perfect solitude for his photography.

Now, Ansel would have to trek a lot further to get away from the Yuppies pushing their baby strollers and their cranky children, screaming and crying so the hike to Mirror Lake now resembles recess at kindergarten.

One guidebook said irritability is a symptom of altitude sickness and there seemed to be a lot of it going around.

Ansel's iconic photographs of Half Dome still inspire amateur photographers to try imitating the master craftsman. (See photo by me above.)

They have digital cameras and equipment Ansel never dreamed of.

But it's not very creative to tread in another artist's footsteps and it is grandiose to believe, as so many still do, that they can equal or surpass Ansel Adams.

And now meadows and lakes that Ansel knew are dying.

Hard driving Yuppies in SUVs ran over 16 bears last year and appeared to be ignoring the Park Service signs warning that "Speed Kills Bears."

The good hearted forest rangers have their hands full trying to keep the hordes of tourists from trampling fragile ecosystems while busily chatting and texting on their iPhones.

"I'm here in Yosemite. It looks just like the pictures."

Oh, Ansel, you were too good.

You made Yosemite a world famous icon.

Now, come the iconoclasts.

Happy Birthday Peggy

love lost and found
every time a rebound
but we never lost us
on and off and off the bus
we were always where we were
lived the Sixties in a blur
we loved cats & one hound
got off on Stones' sound
lost ourselves & disappeared
into the void, very weird
re-found ourselves in '94
gone again and back for more
mattress came with bedding
Harry sang at our wedding
INTJ meets INFP
I mirror you & you mirror me
track's fast, race's won
may you stay forever Jung
Dylan could've said it better
but he lost his Orlon sweater
so happy birthday 2009
true love forever mine

The Desert in Double Digits

You have to live in the desert to appreciate what a relief it is to see that the Weather Channel forecast high today is only 99 F.

Temperatures in the high 90s, which could cause a killer heat wave in Chicago, signal the onset of cooler days in Southern California's Mojave Desert.

Fall brings the return of double-digit days after more than three months of triple digits, including 110 just this past weekend.

Talk about a long hot summer.

The seven-day forecast calls for a high of 88 this coming Sunday.

To put that in perspective, we had nights here in August when the overnight low was in the 80s.

The overnight low tomorrow is supposed to be 62. The fall chill is definitely in the air.

Now, it will be possible to walk around the block without fear of heat stroke.

Smart shoppers in Palm Desert keep coolers in the back of their cars so the meat and milk won't spoil on the drive home. Soon they will be able to store the cooler until next summer.

Pretty soon it will even be possible to buy a candy bar in a store and not have it melt in your hand as you walk out into the parking lot.

When you live through a desert summer, these little gifts of fall mean a lot.

Relatively Cool

Thanks to Herr Prof. Einstein I understand why high temperatures in the 90s feel relatively cool.

Living in the desert we've just been through three months of temperatures with highs every day in the 100s, and sometimes 110s. (This summer gets a gold star however since we didn't get a week with highs in the 120s.)

Monday was the first day where the high was in the 90s and the forecast for today is 97.

If it ever got up to 97 in Santa Monica, they would call in the Red Cross to minister to overheated surfers.

But out here in the Mojave Desert, 97 is reason to celebrate with a walk in the park.

In our case, we got in the old Celica and drove up to Joshua Tree National Park yesterday.



We learned that the Joshua Tree is actually a giant member of the lilly family.

According to local legend, the "tree" got it's name from Mormon missionaries who came to California in the 19th century to bring the Good News to ranchers, miners and the assortment oddballs and misfits, who were the original sinners in the high desert.

The Mormons thought the tree with limbs reaching up to Heaven looked like the Biblical Joshua raising his arms in supplication to God.

Or maybe Joshua had run across and unrepentant highway robber who told him to "stick'em up."

Looking at the Joshua Tree yesterday, I imagined he was saying: "Thank God it's only 96 degrees."

I guess everybody's got their own idea of the Good News.

Cat Ergonomics, Lesson 2

Proper use of computer monitor
as demonstrated by Charly Cat
age 10

Cat Ergonomics

Proper use of desk chair
as demonstrated by my officemate
LiPo the cat

Snapshot of a Heat Wave

Empty concrete benches

midmorning in Palm Springs park

concrete holds heat and stays hot

to the touch even after dark

high/low today 111/83

Thursday 114/83

Friday 116/86

Sign of the Times?

Sign in trading post Idyllwild, California

Is insanity going around?
Is there a dearth of reason?
Does craziness not abound?
Is it sanity's vacation season?

Emergency Vehicle NOT!

Forget the "emergency vehicle" cop shop and TV newspeak.

This is an honest to Christmas firetruck.

More specifically it is a Dodge Power Wagon (1945 - 1968).

It is still in use up in the mountain village of Idyllwild, California.

In a Mountain Town in Southern California

The idol of Idyllwild

the gray squirrel

seldom idle often wild

Lurking for Peanuts

Photo by R.W. Seeley

Who knows what peanuts
lurk in the hands of men?
The Shadow knows!

How Did I Get Here?

Once a tall tree
now a water logged log
funny how the world works

The Coy Pond at the Lodge

Accomodations
commendable
swimming unendable

How to Get to Heaven

Wending up 6,000 feet from the 110-degree desert valley
we find a cool stream shaded by pine trees of seniority.

Shadow of the Hummingbird

hummingbird so fast
we think we see you but it's
only a shadow's memory

'boundless occurrence goes on and on'

Chuang-tzu dreams he's a butterfly,
& a butterfly becomes Chuang-tzu
-- Li Po

Li Po, the Taoist poet, dies in 762.
In 2007, I name a kitten after him
& now that cat is Li Po.

Canary Sings

Ananda Canary
sings and the phone does not ring
this is paradise

The Haiku of Saint Francis

Doves cast out all fear
They are an instrument of
love and hope for peace.

Cats Can Always Get What They Want

Study: Cats overpower owners with purrs
British researchers say they have determined that cats use a "soliciting purr" to overpower their owners to get food and attention. USA Today

"You can't always get
what you want," Rolling Stones say.
But cool cats know ways.

Lizard Lessons

On the vast sidewalk
a little lizard reminds
us to walk softly.

My Breakfast with a Black Vulture

ME: Good morning.

BLACK VULTURE: You say.

ME: How's it going in this recession?

BLACK VULTURE: Same old. Same old.

ME: Business not what it used to be?

BLACK VULTURE: It would pick up if you would drop dead.

ME: Oh my.

BLACK VULTURE: Yeah, I know. You can sentimentalize or intellectualize the whole thing. But eventually what it comes down to is you're going to drop dead one these days on one of your desert morning hikes. Then I will pick your bones clean before the park rangers get here.

ME: I think you are the pure Buddha understanding the impermenenace of all things including human life. You represent the reality that we are all only passing incarnations living in the illusion of this dream world we call reality.

BLACK VULTURE: Whatever. You don't happen to have a cigarette and one of those Bic lighters on you, do you?

ME: For you?

BLACK VULTURE: No dummy, for you. I haven't got all day here.

Living room with room to live

Canary in his
table top garden fortress
no fear of house cats

What We Can Learn From Cats

Two cats and one chair
they could fuss and fight over it
but instead they share.

'Barn’s burnt down. Now I can see the moon'

As the story goes, this actually happened to Mizuta Masahide, 17th century samurai poet in the Zeze domain of Ohmi Province, Japan.

His barn did burn down. But instead of lamenting his fate, he wrote this famous haiku.

It is the exact opposite of our usual reaction to trouble, summed up in the pop poem:

Poor me
poor me
pour me
another drink.

While Masahide reputedly loved to drink, he apparently did not like to cry in his beer, or perhaps it was sake.

Masahide's attitude toward his troubles might be helpful to those of us who have been hit hard by this recession/depression/collapse of Western Civilization or whatever you want to call it.

For example:

At 62, laid off from my job at the Technology News Factory since December, and looking at an economy where there are five seekers for every available job, I can either bemoan my fate or start collecting Social Security.

Because I am unemployed and at my age probably unemployable in the youth-oriented job market, I can now realize my 1960s dream to sit watching the river flow, drinking wine and writing haiku.

My generation,
aging hippies, finally
tunes in and drops out.

The Lost Temptations of Christ

The Devil wore a digital watch.
This is a little known fact.
Jesus was in the wilderness
for 40 days and didn't know
what day or time it was.

Then the Devil showed up
and said: "It's the Sabbath."

And Jesus said: "How do you know?"

Then the Devil showed him his
digital watch and said:
"See you should be in temple."

But Jesus said: "The Sabbath
was made for man, not man
for the Sabbath."

And generations of football fans
yet unborn and un-named gave
thanks for this teaching.

However, the Devil would not
give up that easily.
He whipped out his Blackberry.

"Look at this! It's a combination
telephone, digital time keeper,
personal calendar, and you can
check out your favorite Websites,
and send email and Twitter."

But Jesus said: "I don't Twitter.
I don't email. I don't have
favorite Websites and I keep my
personal calendar in my head."

At this point the Devil saw
a potential sale slipping away, so
he produced a hi def flat screen TV.
"Look you can watch all your favorite
shows in high definition."

But Jesus said: "I don't have any
favorite shows and I already see
the whole world in high definition."

In desperation the Devil took Jesus
to a big box electronics store,
which was a wholly-owned subsidiary
of Hinges of Hell Enterprises, Inc.

There were rows of personal computers,
and all manner of hi def televisions,
and tons of portable mobile accessories.
Everything sparkled like new wine.

"All this plus iPhones yet to be
invented can be yours if you will
just follow me," the Devil said.

"You can't fool me," Jesus said.
"All this will turn to rust and dust,
except for the plastic parts that
will pollute landfills for millions
and millions of years."

"Oh, come now," the Devil replied.
"Surely you could use an MP3 player
to play you some tunes during those
lonely nights in the desert. It's
a great little device. It brings you
full surround sound stereo through
these little ear buds. Try it out.
You can hear all the instruments."

But Jesus looked around the store
and said: "These are instruments
of the Devil. These are the Devil's
own devices of distraction."

Then Jesus walked out of the store,
passing the counter where he might
have applied for easy credit with no
payments due until January 2010.

And the Devil stood there screaming:
"Socialist! Luddite! Environmental
extremist! Anti-American! Killjoy!
I hope I'm not leaving anything out!"

Jesus just kept on walking, never looked back.

Dragonfly on Top of Western Haiku

If I could be a
dragonfly in LA I'd
sell my camera.

In honor of William Wadsworth inventor of the Western haiku, who explains it this way:
Just as haiku conventionally invoke nature and leave out the lyric "I," a Western Haiku (my invention) must invoke an urban environment and be as self-centered as possible, preferably with an "I" in each of the three lines. Any other way the true haiku is subverted, besides the three line and 5-7-5 syllable construction, is welcome in a Western Haiku. -- from today's Poetry Speaks calendar

Affordable Environmentally-Friendly Desert Home

Don't wait to get your bid in for this cozy, affordable environmentally-friendly desert home.

Constructed entirely of natural materials with no added chemicals, this desert beauty, built in the early Southern California utilitarian style, is the perfect home for the budget conscious.

Say goodbye to utility bills as this home features all natural lighting, solar heating, and wind-powered cooling.

Enjoy cooking in the handy outdoor fire pit with ample free fuel available nearby.

Natural springs just footsteps* away offer plumbing-free access to water to meet your family's drinking and bathing needs.

All natural landscaping with surrounding heavy brush cover means you'll never waste water flushing a toilet again.

Yes, friends, they just aren't building homes like this any more.

So don't wait, don't delay another minute, act today, right now, right away, before time runs out and it's too late and you miss this opportunity of a lifetime.

Supplies are limited!


* your footsteps may vary

Doves Mating in Trees

doves mating in trees
pattern of wood grain
in every single feather.

- Photo & words by Rich Seeley

News Under the Republicans and the Democrats

Last year's news
two categories
Hate for Bush
Love for Bush

This year's news
two categories
Hate for Obama
Love for Obama

And news people
fret because
the public
is not interested

Grass Eating Boys: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

It seems hard for Americans to understand that not everybody in the world wants their lifestyle.

Cut throat competition in the marketplace.

Office politics and vicious gossip in the workplace.

The 24/7 rat race.

Long commutes and longer hours.

The pursuit of money, which turns out to not be the same thing as the pursuit of happiness.

The trivial pursuit of the trendiest fashion, the hottest car and the coolest gadget.

Even some Americans opt out as the Beats and the Hippies did in the 1950s and 1960s when the beast of capitalism slipped the leash.

Now in Japan come Grass Eating Boys as profiled in a Slate article Peggy pointed out to me the other day.

It seems a significant number -- up to 75% in one survey -- of Japanese men in their 20s and 30s are opting out of their country's knockoff of American capitalism.

Raised by parents, who bought into it by working 24/7 for Toyota and Honda and Sony, these boys were left home alone.

They stayed in their rooms and played video games. They found a new world on the World Wide Web. They did not develop any interest in sex.

This latter seems to be what Japanese culture watchers worry about the most.

The consumers gone wild boom in the 1980s, followed by the recession and lost decade of the 1990s, produced a generation of young men who show little interest in the traditional values of capitalist society.

They have lost interest in going to college, getting a good job, marrying the woman of their dreams, buying a house, and raising 1.6 children.

They watched their hard working, dressed for success fathers strap on "the heart attack machine" that Bob Dylan warned them about.

The Grass Eating Boys are saying thanks but no thanks to that lifestyle.

These sons of the bourgeoisie also reject the more ancient Japanese macho culture of the Samurai.

Growing up solitary, only sons in empty houses where parents were otherwise engaged, the Grass Eating Boys are leading a silent and virtually invisible rebellion.

This revolution will not be televised. There is nothing to see.

The Grass Eating Boys do not gather in groups to protest the way things are.

They are simply walking away, quietly walking their own way.

They are home gardeners and vegetarians, thus the Grass Eating Boys nickname.

They like to go for hikes and photograph Zen temples.

They are a living critique of the American illusion that the American Dream can be exported, or that it is even a dream worth following.

What Would Thoreau Twitter?

"Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which detract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easily arrived at ... We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate." -- Henry David Thoreau, Economy, WALDEN: Or Life in the Woods, first published Aug. 9, 1854

There's an old saying that if 40 million people believe in a dumb idea, it's still a dumb idea.

While I am generally fond of new technology, Twitter is a dumb idea no matter how many users it attracts.

After being bombarded by Twitter hype, I went out and looked at the Website for it.

It turns out to be a very simple idea, dumb but simple, which is probably why it is attractive to so many people.

The Twitter user is asked to answer a single question: What are you doing?

While the user answers in a manner similar to email or instant messaging, there is a 140-character maximum, so it avoids the run-on brain dumps that are the bane of email and IM.

There is a video cartoon on the Twitter home page that explains how it works. A skeptical cartoon character first discovers that a friend, who is also a cartoon character, loves baseball. This leads to some kind of epiphany for the skeptical cartoon character.

All this convinced me that Twitter is an ideal means of communication if you happen to be a cartoon character.

However.

For human beings it would seem to be one more trivial pursuit to distract ourselves.

Other examples in the Twitter cartoon suggest that you could let your friends know that you are mowing the lawn or out having coffee.

What are you doing?

Drinking an iced mocha.

What are you doing?

Mowing the lawn.

Certainly drinking an iced mocha or mowing the lawn are noble pursuits but do they deserve to be memorialized on Twitter?

Human nature being what it is, there are probably more intriguing Twitters as day turns into night.

What are you doing?

I'm drunk in this bar and somebody is putting the moves on me.

What are you doing?

I'm letting the grass grow to see if the neighbors complain.

That would not be so noble but might be more interesting.

You might even get true crime stories on Twitter.

Imagine if Lizzie Borden had had Twitter.

What are you doing?

I've taken an axe and given my mother 40 whacks.

And Lizzie's father might also have used Twitter.

What are you doing?

Lizzie's gone postal. I'm dialing 911.

Oh dear.

I also wonder if after the Twitter hype cycle peaks, people won't get tired of answering the incessant question that would border on boorish behavior if a human being was constantly asking it.

What are you doing?

None of your damn business!

As HAL learned in 2001 A Space Odyssey there is a limit to what flawed human beings will put up with from a computer.

So there may be a Twitter backlash.

The self-absorption of the 1980s ME generation led to the slang retort: "Get over yourself."

Some similar fate may yet befall the narcissists of 2009 when they discover that their friends no longer care what the hell they are doing because they are too wrapped up in what they are doing.

At that point, it may be best to follow a more old fashioned methodology.



Get a puppy, who will be infinitely fascinated with whatever you are doing.

But remember we live in an imperfect world, so although you believe your own special self is absolutely fabulous and unbelievably interesting, eventually even your puppy will get bored and fall asleep on you.

Zen & The Art of Doing Dishes

Lesson from the Guru

It may not be the most important lesson
my guru taught me that I can pass on

But after every meal at the monastery
he did something that's very ordinary.

The guru didn't always grant our wishes.
Instead he went in and washed the dishes.

After the meditation and doing the chants
if you don't do the dishes you draw ants.

Students worry about reaching Nirvana or not.
The guru showed us that little things mean a lot.

Enlightenment may be the student's ultimate goal
but be sure you don't leave behind a dirty bowl.

You can wear robes, be a snake charmer
but an unwashed cup is still bad karma.

- Rich Seeley

Forget the Whales! Save the Rich!

ACTIVATE SATIRE DETECTION SOFTWARE BEFORE READING


"The very rich are different from us," F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said to Ernest Hemingway.

"Yeah," Hemingway replied. "They have more money."




Susan Molinari, the former Republican Congress member and now a lobbyist in Washington, was on the cable news the other day weeping and gnashing her teeth over President Obama's plans to tax rich people.

In the worst recession since World War II with almost 10 percent of working people unemployed, the Republicans are launching a lobbying campaign to save the rich?

Suddenly the rich are an endangered species?

Forget the whales.

Save the rich!

They are the true downtrodden in this recession because they might finally be forced to -- gasp! -- pay taxes.

If they can't hide their income using corporations based on obscure Caribbean islands they will surely perish.

If Congress won't uphold the Bush tax cuts for them then the rich are doomed!

Who is going to buy all those new made-in-China Hummers if the rich are taxed out of existence?

Why if President Obama has his way the rich might end up being treated like everybody else. Then where will we be?

Of course, there's the rich and then there's the RICH.

During last summer's Presidential campaign, Republican nominee John McCain was asked how much money you needed to have to be considered rich. His answer was $600 million. That about what McCain's wife, the beer distributorship heiress, is worth. McCain, who made his money the old fashioned way by marrying into it, was apparently trying to distance himself from then candidate Obama, who has only made a few million in book royalties and therefore is still a working stiff by McCain's standards.

But what about the Billionaires who consider $600 million chump change?

Rumors are floating around the Web of a bizarre meeting of the SUPER RICH, who are apparently trying to figure out where they stand in this economic mess:

The mysterious, media-blackout meeting was called by Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire-Hathaway; Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft; and David Rockefeller Jr., chairman of Rockefeller Financial Services.

In addition to Gates, Buffett and Rockefeller, the attendees included Oprah Winfrey, George Soros, Ted Turner, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, among others.

Before you can say "conspiracy theory," you might wonder if Gates, worth $57 billion, and Buffet, worth $37 billion, aren't looking to cut a deal with the Democrats who seem intent on sacrificing the rich to the budget gods.

Sure let them tax those losers with a mere $600 million as long as they spare the billionaires.

This is class warfare on an unprecedented level.

The mere rich versus the SUPER RICH.

It could lead to a new version of Whack-a-Mole called "Who Wants to Beat a Millionaire."

Members of the middle class (those with less than $600 million according to the McCain standard) are advised to stay indoors during this phase of the upper class warfare.

Meanwhile reality bites: If only one class of rich people can survive, guess who it is going to be?

Forget the whales.

Forget the rich.

Save the billionaires!

F. Scott Fitzgerald & the Last of the Booze

The Typist's Tale is a feature story on The Los Angeles Times website today about Frances Kroll Ring, the last person to work with F. Scott Fitzgerald during the last months of his life as he struggled to write one last novel, The Last Tycoon.

Ring, who is now 92, had a distinguished career of her own as the long-time editor of Westways magazine.

But in 1939 as a 22-year-old, who had just arrived in Los Angeles from New York, she got a temp job as typist for the famous novelist.

Fitzgerald, while only in his early 40s, was already seriously ill with the disease that would kill him.

When Ring met him, he was recovering from a booze cruise to Cuba with his wife Zelda, who after the trip had to be institutionalized in what in those days was called an asylum.

Ring recalls that Fitzgerald conducted the job interview from bed in his Encino, California home. He was too weak and perhaps too drunk to get up.

At one point during that interview, he asked her to open a bureau drawer where she expected to find folded shirts. Instead, she found neatly stacked bottles of gin.

She surmised that this was a test. Fitzgerald wanted her to know what she was getting into and the nature of the demons he was struggling against.

Fitzgerald never finished the novel Ring typed for him. He died of a heart attack in December 1940. He was 44.

Tender Is the Night, Fitzgerald's last completed novel, published in 1933,is an autobiographical account of the author's descent into the bottle.

Dick Diver, the Fitzgerald character, is a famous psychiatrist who is part owner of a clinic that treats wealthy mental patients including those who a century ago were diagnosed as dipsomaniacs.

Set in Europe in the 1920s, the story begins with Dick as the hero of French beach parties attended by the rich and famous. The wine flows like wine usually does at such events and it all seems like so much summer fun in the sun.

But as the story progresses so does Dick's drinking and its characteristic self-destructiveness.

In Italy, Dick gets drunk and causes a scene. Taken to a police station, he is about to be released more or less with a warning. But walking out the door, he insists on decking a police officer, which leads to his being severely beaten and jailed.

This is said to be based on an incident from Fitzgerald's own misadventures.

Throughout the book there are keen insights into the pitfalls of the drinking life although the author was powerless to apply them to his real life.

Fitzgerald appears to have known exactly what he was doing wrong but was unable to learn from the lessons he was teaching.

This is the irony of Dr. Dick Diver.

Late in the novel, the psychiatrist's drinking has reached the point where his patients and their families are complaining to Franz, the doctor who is his partner in the clinic practice.

The confrontation between Dick and Franz is a blending of the drunk's denial that anything is wrong and a kindly and almost timid psychiatrist's attempt to get at the truth without stating the obvious.

Despite incidents including the drunken brawl at the police station, Dick tells Franz: "You must know I'm the last man to abuse liquor."

Franz replies: "Dick, I know well that you are a temperate, well-balanced man, even though we do not entirely agree on the subject of alcohol. But a time has come--Dick, I must say frankly that I have been aware several times that you have had a drink when it was not the moment to have one."

This classic understatement begins a conversation that ends with Franz buying out Dick's share of the clinic, and sending him packing.

It is followed by the unraveling of Dick's marriage, and his once famously promising medical career.

Unlike popular fiction and biographies of today, Tender Is the Night does not end with an uplifting recovery.

For all his obvious flaws, Fitzgerald was too honest to work up a happy ending for himself.

SoCal Myths: The Great Dodger in the Sky

Storm clouds over Mt. San Jacinto, June 3, 2009. Photos by Rich Seeley




Rain is so rare at this time of year that records were broken in Palmdale, Sandberg and Camarillo, where there had been zero precipitation on June 3 in all the years that the National Weather Service had been keeping records, the Oxnard office reported. -- from today's Los Angeles Times.

Grandma Saveraid lured my mother to Los Angeles at the end of World War II by writing her letters claiming "it only rains here at night."

My mother was living in Nebraska at the time and this sounded too good to be true.

And like everything else that sounds too good to be true, it was.

Eventually, my mother, who spent most of the rest of her life in Southern California, found out that it does occasionally rain here during the day.

But it mostly rains during just two months -- February and March -- all year. Dodger baseball games are rarely rained out because it almost never rains here during baseball season -- April through October.

So while Grandma's "it only rains here at night" was a bit of a stretch, it is true that there are very few rainy days in Southern California.



The fact that California has a unique climate when compared to the rest of the country and much of the world, causes meteorologists based back East to make strange statements on national television.

Sometime in September, when the fire season begins here, a guy on the Atlanta-based Weather Channel will say: "It's been five months since they've had any measurable rain in the Los Angeles area and by now they desperately need it in the fire-prone foothills."

Of course, anybody who had lived here for more than a year or two knows that it ain't going to rain in September. Except for a few little drizzles it isn't likely to rain here until February, if then.

Except right now because the high and low pressure areas are out of kilter off the Pacific Coast, we are getting freaky weather this June.

Yesterday and last night it actually did rain in Southern California.

But it still didn't rain out the Dodgers home game, which they won thanks to a great pitching performance by Chad Billingsley, and the benevolence of a local deity known as The Great Dodger in the Sky.

The Great Dodger in the Sky is supposed to protect us against rain outs. Among the other deities this is called nice work if you can get it.

Allen Ginsberg: 'Die when you die'

My "Poetry Speaks" calendar reminds me that today is the birthday of Allen Ginsberg, who died in 1997.

I remember going to see Ginsberg read and sing his poems at McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica in 1982 with my friend Lisa, who died in 1989.

Lisa was even then fighting the cancer that would eventually kill her.

Most of our friends in L.A. went to movies or dance clubs or rock concerts on Friday and Saturday nights.

But Lisa and I went to poetry readings. We were especially drawn to the aging -- even then -- Beatnik poets.

A few months after we went to see Allen Ginsberg at McCabe's, we drove down to Laguna Beach to see Gary Snyder, a Zen Beatnik survivor still living and writing today at 79.

Every time we went to hear a poet the occasion had the importance of maybe being the last time.

As far as I know, that Friday night in 1982 was the last time Lisa ever saw Allen Ginsberg.

Despite his reputation for being the outrageous hero of the hippies, Ginsberg was impossibly gentle and charming and funny in person.

Lisa was fond of him because he was the kind of Jewish uncle she wished she'd had if she'd had better luck in relatives when she was growing up in Queens. A happy Buddhist convert rather than the dour Reds of her 1950s childhood.

The little bio on my Poetry Speaks calendar recounts Ginsberg's conversion: "After years of dabbling in various narcotic substances, a trip to India proved life-changing for Ginsberg. His exposure to Indian culture introduced him to meditation, a mode of mind expansion that replaced his former drug habit."

By the time Lisa and I saw him at McCabe's, Ginsberg was practicing Tibetan Buddhism at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. He had taken on the happy outlook of the Dalai Lama. He was funny in a spiritual way.

That night, playing a harmonium usually associated with Hindu chants, Ginsberg performed his country western version of the Buddha's Four Nobel Truths. (You can see a video of his Gospel Nobel Truths on YouTube.)

The song is all about not taking your suffering too seriously and accepting life and death and everything in between.

The last verse says:

Talk when you talk
Cry when you cry
Lie down, you'll lie down
Die when you die

Lisa, in her gallows humor way, thought that was very funny.

It reminded her that although she was dying, as every one is eventually, there was no need to get ahead of herself.

The Virtue of Sitting & Doing Nothing

It is better to see God in everything than to try and figure it out.
- Neem Karoli Baba

Sitting & working.
Sitting & texting.
Sitting & figuring.
Sitting & talking.
Sitting & eating.
Sitting & drinking.
Sitting & waiting.
Sitting & worrying.

Sitting on the phone.
Sitting up straight.
Sitting pretty.
Sitting duck.
Sitting in the catbird seat.
Sitting on the edge of your seat.

But sitting & doing nothing?

There is a virtue in just sitting.

And doing nothing.

Now when Buddhists talk about sitting they usually mean some kind of insight meditation practice, which can be a good thing but it does take some effort.

But another good sitting practice, which has the virtue of being easier, is just sitting quietly doing nothing.

There's no need to wrap your legs into the Lotus position. You can sit on a park bench or in a chair or on the grass.

Just sit out in nature and watch the birds and butterflies.

Or watch the clouds go by.

If there are no clouds or this seems too active, sit and watch the rocks.

If the rocks prove too distracting, close your eyes.

Charley on the Edge

Charley sits on the edge
One paw away from the fall
She sits easily, never tense
Not a care at all

Charley likes the edge
With the heat of the sun at its peak
She likes the view, the air
Nothing more to seek

Charley watches the birds
In the tree just feet away
On the edge, she’s as carefree
And wild as they

Charley sees the dogs below
On leashes she’s always shunned
Tied to people, to being good
Something she’s never done

Charley lives by her own rules
Makes it up as she goes
Confident of the way she is
And of the love she knows

Charley dreams of sailing
Across the sky and the sea
She loves the edge, for here
She’s as free as she’ll ever be

I see her there and wish
I were small enough to sit
Beside her on the edge
Just one more aging misfit

- Peggy Radcliffe

Stealing Light

This Chollo Cactus reflects
sunlight so elegantly
it appears to be illuminant.
It is as if this cactus
rivals the sun's power
producing its own light.
But it is desert trickery.
The Chollo steals sunlight
from that source of plenty
and offers it to us,
who have so little
illumination of our own.

- Photo & words by Rich Seeley

Wild Life Around The Home

Too many treadmill stints
left me with shin splints.

Couldn’t walk at the zoo.
Didn’t know what to do.

Confined with my Coolpix
in this apartment complex.

Dreamed of photographing lions,
a wolf or bear I might spy on.

But in this suburban bog
nothing but humans walking dogs.

Photo safari falling flat
can’t even find a cat.

Dullsville up to the gizzard
then I spot this little lizard.

But as I point the camera
lizard makes like a chimera

Before I even focus
he goes hocus pocus.

My finger on the shutter falls,
producing close up of stucco walls.

Reptiles may make some queasy
but photographing them ain’t easy.

So I revert to subjects inanimate
but I missed that lizard damn it.

It’s no use, photo shoot done.
Suddnely lizard comes out to sun.

Around the garden he is nosing
then stays still, almost posing.

He lets me focus, click bam, bam.
This lizard turns out to be a ham.

So despite my home bound strife
I’ve photographed some wild life.




- Rhymes and photo by Rich Seeley

Our Mormon Neighbors

Photo by Rich Seeley

O Give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: because his mercy endureth for ever. Psalms 118:1

We live upstairs from an apartment occupied by young Mormon missionaries.

I have to admit that at 62, I am incredulous that some twenty-something is wearing a badge that identifies him as an "Elder."

The Mormon missionaries turn over every few months. One new group once asked me if I had been proselytized by former groups.

I said I am a confirmed Lutheran, hence all the beer you see me bringing upstairs.

This is bad fudging on my part. I have not been in a Lutheran Church in at least two decades.

Since 1969 I have been hanging with Hindus and Buddhists.

Is there such a thing as a Zen Lutheran?

I have no idea.

My beliefs or concepts merge Hindu, Buddhist and Christian teachings.

I am dangerously New Age.

An Irish Catholic friend believes I am a closet Catholic because I read Thomas Merton.

Oh well.

The point is I am not a missionary field for the Mormons.

When backed against a wall, I will throw in my lot with that ill-tempered borderline alcoholic egomaniac Martin Luther as opposed to whatever and whoever the Morons have to offer.

However.

I want to say something good about these Mormon missionary kids.

These Mormon kids downstairs are the best neighbors we've ever had.

They do not get rowdy and play loud music after 10 p.m. The police and paramedics don't visit them on a regular basis. They are polite and are not dealing drugs.

They do whatever they do to bring the good news of Mormonism to the great unwashed of Palm Springs, California.

The photo above shows some kind of giant stuffed animal that the Mormon missionaries have placed on their patio.

If you are not a Mormon, if you have ill-feelings about them from some childhood or adult experience, you will not love what I have to say.

I don't know where they got this giant stuffed animal, but it gave me the subject for the best photograph I have made in a long time.