Would The True Uncola Be Alocnu?

As if the last post wasn't enough, let's have another word from another sponsor, (but not one that sponsors this blog!)

Only a soda-drinking, bar-code reader of Adbusters will truly appreciate this video. Sphere: Related Content

Are You Excited About New iPhone Apps?

Sometimes it takes a dramatization to make the point. Forthwith, this little video about the latest Apple iPhone invention. Enjoy the newest advance of tech. Sphere: Related Content

How Smart Is A Cockatiel?

Only life with a pet bird, a cockatiel, (ours is named "Buddy") could inspire this nugget of a story idea.

Suppose for a moment the bird is super-smart. You whistle to him and he whistles back and you're entertained. You care for this wonderful, grey-winged squawker.

You line the bottom of the cage with newspapers. The financial section, the sports section. Week after week.

Buddy reads the stocks, keeps up with sports. He's got some tips for me. I hear him whistle in an unusual way, and I investigate. It's some kind of...code...and I figure it out! His stock tips actually...make me money! Think of the ramifications.

I begin to wonder. Just how "old" is Buddy? Are there any more of his type out there? And how can I keep this avian wonder a secret?

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Is California Trying To Hurt Women?

Watched the start of David Duchovny's "Californication" (Showtime) series. He plays a convincing role as talented writer Hank Moody dealing with his former significant other and their teenage daughter.

But since the show's setting is today's Hollywood, he's also finding various women (for various reasons) hitting on him. And we see how he does--and doesn't--resist temptation. After all, he's a troubled genius. (He's "moody," get it?) And his publisher is pressuring him to blog--yep, blog--for an entertainment web site.

Hey...blogging is getting some recognition now, eh?

Somewhere in the show, Hank observes that he thinks "California is killing it's women." Then I thought of the crash dieting, liposuction plastic surgery, vaginal reconstruction surgery, excessive spa time, general "beauty" advertising which implies women can always be "better," but only with the sponsor's product(s).

Then when a woman has her "looks" together, it's another tough hill to climb to advance in the workplace, often dominated by men. I'd love this to change, but the program's picture of women's status is pretty depressing.

No wonder Hank thinks what he thinks. What do you think?

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Fast Forward To Summer 2009

Yes, a couple of years goes by fast and before you know it, the summer of Woodstock's 40th anniversary is upon us!

It will be a tie-dyed haze for a bit, but then the fuzziness wears off and you're "back in your own reality, driving something other than that VW bus from back in the day.

I'm now 62, married (last October) to sweet Deborah and moving forward into the future. Gladly accepting the Social Security I've contributed to for most of my working life and receiving high-level health care from the Veterans Administration. If this is "socialism," then that's ok with me.

[But if it's "socialism," then what about your local fire department, police department, public works department--road paving, etc.--library, the country's armed forces, etc.?]

Some people confuse the role of government--doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves--with a governing system disconnected from its population, allowing no input to the process. Sorta like what the pure "Objectivist" free-marketeer philosophy of Ayn Rand would do to a nation.

At the moment, "the Woodstock Nation" has voted a Democratic black president into the White House and the Democratic Party controls the House and Senate. Our pragmatic selves and children now have that moment for "change" we have been waiting for and are up to the challenge, because, "we can!"

My hunch is we'll see a public option health care reform enacted into law. After that, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) will be approved. Of course, this will not be easy because the status-quo resistance of entrenched "big money interests" will try to block progress every step of the way. Look for lunatic reasoning and fear-mongering. It's the only tricks they have left!

Much closer to home, I'm reactivating this blog to create a space for my writer's instincts, because these thoughts don't always lend themselves to the Newsmission focus. Here's where I'll ask "what if?" and jot down ideas. Make of it what you will.

Feel free to post a comment. This writer loves fearless feedback.

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60 Was A Wonderful Birthday

It was what could be called a small birthday party, but it meant more to me than ever. In fact, all birthdays mean more to me than they ever have.

Sixty years ago on November 17th, a pink-skinned, eight and a half pound infant saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I arrived in this world kicking and crying at St John's Hospital in Santa Monica. Been kicking and questioning things ever since.

My sweetie, Deborah, planned a great party with my sister Margo, Deb's friend Carla and my two other buddies, Mark and Jim (whom I have known for 35 years).

This party took place at the Marriott Newport Coast Villas. It's got everything, including an Italian marble fountain topped by King Neptune and a herd of seahorses.

We had a great cake to look at (and munch on) and a healthy salad. Our birthday team barbequed gourmet sausages and New York sirloin. Yum! Sphere: Related Content

Welcoming The New Year!

Well, well, New Year's in Santa Barbara county was a fine time indeed.

Deborah and I began with a great dinner at AJ Spurs in Buellton. We enjoyed a table next to the bar and guitarist Mike Shelton provided the tunes. He played my Marty Robbins request ("El Paso") and James Taylor and Willie Nelson songs in his setlist.

Mike later made the rounds of the tables and said he plays three nights on the weekends and golfs the rest of the week! Great work if you can get it and he can. Shelton told us he has worked in the Elvin Bishop band during the "Fooled Around" (And Fell In Love) era, and with It's A Beautiful Day and with members of Pablo Cruise. All great Northern California bands.

The virtual time-capsule trip continued after dinner, as Sherman set the Wayback Machine for my high school years and the songs of Little Anthony and the Imperials...in concert at the Chumash Casino. What a great show! Deb bought a cd of their live performance and each member autographed the cover.

We counted down the last minute of 2005 with hats on our heads and horns tooting a big welcome to 2006! What a great way to begin the year!
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25 Years Ago Today, Sergeant Pepper's Was The Band To Play

I had been a radio disc jockey for nearly 10 years, when on a crisp Monday evening in Seattle, 1980, the news came through the radio speakers of my car. "John Lennon has been shot..."

From that moment on, my memory seems a kaleidoscopic blur. Went home, slept fitfully. Got up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head. Went to work still not wanting to believe--just hours ago, John Lennon had breathed his last.

Shot by a psycho killer with a hand gun.

The station program director came into the studio to make sure that I knew one thing was expected of me--play lots of Lennon and Beatles music. Don't talk much and play lots of it. Lots and lots of it. To celebrate Lennon's creative life; to drown out my own mournful wail at the death of my childhood idol; to honor the Working Class Hero.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. My idol, I'm not afraid to say it now, more precisely, my inspiration. Spiritual guide to a greater awareness and good humor. He once nick-named himself "Dr. Winston O'Boogie."

I'm sure he knew how he had affected his listeners and peers. We were all one. In the joy of the music, album after album, as the sounds grew in sophistication, moving from the socially active Sixties to the spiritually active Seventies. On a parallel with my own growing anti-war awareness.

He showed us how he did what he did. Seems to me, he encouraged us all to do what we could do for a more peaceful world filled with the best music possible. Just imagine.

You can still do that, can't you? Sphere: Related Content

My 59th

There must be something magical about having yet another birthday. On last Thursday, the 17th. I have always said after May 15, 2001, I'm in "overtime," after surviving six strokes. Whew.

Everyday since then the adventure of life has been more intense, more mystical and guided for certain by the One who sent us here. Over the last few weeks I have been of service to a friend who injured himself in an accident. He was transported to the hospital for emergency care.

His apartment...well, let's just say it needed a massively extreme cleanup job. My friend's obsessive compulsiveness became a chain-smoking, frozen dinner fed, descent around the sink drain of life. Now, he's in much better surroundings and is relating to people who really care.

And I've been on the crew helping to rehab his dwelling before he comes home from the recovery room this Monday. It will be a great homecoming and I'm looking forward to his reaction to his "new" place.

So while going to Von's to buy cleaning gear, my sweetheart noticed a sign at the Petco advertising a pet adoption day. My honey and I had been talking about getting a companion dog for her Pixie beagle. The adoption volunteers were hoping these doggies, in the system for more than two months, would be taken to a new home. Instead of being taken to be put down.

We strolled into the store and saw two circular wire cages. One held a lazy, brown farm dog. The other barely contained a leaping, energized chihuahua/jack russell mix: Alexander. He saw me walk up to him and jumped up the wire rungs, onto my shoulders and into my life.

The most unexpected birthday present possible. Alexander is the first dog that's been by my choice. Never thought it would happen so soon. So naturally.

But you know it's real when it feels so right it makes you cry--with happiness. For two friends, each with a new lease on life. For this birthday and the cards I've received from my brothers and sisters.

For this is a beautiful world, after all. Sphere: Related Content

Veterans' Day And Weekend 2005

Thirty-six years ago this month I was on the USS Constellation steaming off the coast of Vietnam. 1969, my Navy tour of duty was known as a "WestPac" or Western Pacific cruise.

Veterans' Day... today it's another day, yet unlike most any other day for me. My service enlistment seems so far away, but when I think of my two nephews going over to the mess in Iraq, I'm yanked back into today's headlines.

Certainly lots of good things have happened in the last 36 years.

But here we are, mired in another overseas war with lies as reasons for being there. What will it take for humans to stop believing in war as some sort of solution? As the song asks, "War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing."

The Veterans Weekend event in Santa Barbara is scheduled tomorrow, Saturday, November 12th at 4:30 pm, Stearn's Wharf.

Join us for the two year anniversary of Arlington West Memorial on the beach at Stearn’s Wharf. We will be holding a candlelight vigil in commemoration of the Veterans' Day weekend.

Bring candles, lighters and clear plastic bottles to cover the candles and join the walking "River of Light" to honor the Iraqi civilians killed.

Invited guests are: US Representative Lois Capps, Iraq Veterans Against the War founding member Kelly Dougherty, the Reverend Babatundi Folayemi, former California Assembly Member Hannah Beth Jackson, Korean War Veteran Ron Dexter, Arlington West founder Stephen Sherrill and Gold Star family members have been invited.

For further information please contact Lane Anderson 564-2698.
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