Wahoo Ranch 2008

There are nearly a dozen of us who went to school at U.C. Boulder and/or lived in Boulder CO in the 70's. We had some pretty adventurous times back then and formed pretty strong bonds that persist in spite of time, distance & diverse lifestyles. Every ten or so years we meet somewhere in Colorado where we haven't been before. The death last year of our good friend & group member John Roush spurred us to get together this year. We got two cabins near the Frying Pan River a few miles east of Basalt. Sort of halfway between Glenwood Springs & Aspen. That's me on the right, above, with Steve. I worked with Steve framing in Wyoming in 1975 & doing concrete work in Utah 1976. We both liked Hot Tuna, Jefferson Airplane, Kinks, John Mayall, Arlo Guthrie. He builds & remodels houses in the Denver area.

Here's Nancy & Pete on the left, Betsy & John on the right. That's one of our cabins behind them. John was my freshman roomate. If I was a superhero or a Mars explorer or a viking, I'd want John as my side-kick. (Actually, come to think of it, it would probably be best if I was the side-kick & John was the Masked Ranger. As a group, now that we are older, we have developed the good sense to let John make the decisions when they really count. It's a little bit like what my girlfriend Jen means when she says - while we are watching "Lost" - "Give Sayeed the car keys!")

Ron works for the feds in Idaho. Nancy's a teacher.

Had a nice hike one day. Kinda short but at least the thunderstorms missed us.

Lynn, Pete, Olga, Ron, me, Nancy, Betsy, John. We had a nice couple days. All their kids are grown now & off to college, so it was just us & the wild stories could get told again. Too short a time together. But isn't that always the case?

Denver 2008

After leaving the cabins, we convoyed over Independence Pass, where there were snow flurries & we saw what its owner called a domesticated red wolf, although that is pretty unlikely.

The mountains were all dusted with new snow.

That night in Denver I visited with Jennie, the older of my two half-sisters.

And the next day I had lunch with fellow American School of Paris alumnus Phil Rowland. This is the view from the roof terrace of his mid-20th century condo building overlooking Cheesman park.

Swimming in Austin

I sure do like splashing around in the water. Jen's friend Lauren has a swell pool.

Kayaking In Austin

It was my own fault for insisting we go take a closer look at the geese. They attacked us, scared shit out of me I have to admit, all that noise & their beaks biting the kayak as we tried to turn & haul ass away.

We escaped with everything except my dignity, though the camera lens had gotten wet & I didn't realize it until I downloaded the photos later & saw that they were blurry.

Saw dozens & dozens of turtles.

Houston

Jen & Kara Hearn & I are having drinks in Duke of Hollywood Tailors Char-Bar in downtown Houston after taking a boat tour of Houston harbor while Hurricane Dolly wandered by. This is an excellent place: a functioning tailor shop, shoe-shine stand & bar. In the photo below, Jen has just spied the shoeshine guy, Weldon Renfro, pull out two pair of cowboy boots. In a second, Dick DeGuerin's assistant will come in to pick up the shined boots, but not before Jen scoots over to have a look. They turn out to be a pair of Dave Wheeler boots & a pair of Charlie Dunn Texas Traditions - which is now Lee Miller Texas Traditions. DeGuerin was one of Ken Lay's lawyers during the Enron trials & was a classmate of David Koresh.


Our cool motel in Houston.

Houston sites/sights

Two shots above are of The Beer Can House in Houston.

The Orange Show in Houston was closed the day we went. Hurricane Dolly was passing close by & the were probably worried about lightning hitting this structure, which is probably 25% iron.

The Flower Man in his new digs in the Project Row Houses neighborhood of Houston.

As far as I know, this is just a cool private home in zoning-challenged Houston.

Seeing friends in Texas

My old pal Dan Plunkett in front of his record store in south Austin.

Bootmaker Lee Miller, Jen & former Austin mayor Lee Cooke, who is picking up his repaired boots from Lee & his wife Carlin's shop in south Austin.

Jen & I visit bootmakers James Morado Jr. & James Morado Sr. in their shop in north Houston.

Some boot brushes in Morado's shop.

ZOVIET YOUTH

Another bunch of people with energy to burn were the phenoms in Zoviet Youth. Here are some photos from a show at the Sound of Music in - what? 1981 or 1982 or something like that.

Peter Edlund, Amy Elliott, Lise Swenson, Patti Davidson

Amy

Lise, Patti & Reg

Amy & Reg

Amy, Peter & Lise

I know where Peter, Lise & Patti are, but does anybody know where Amy is? Last time I saw her was in late 1990's when I picked her up in Fearrington NC and dragged her along on a house-hunting expedition in the hills of Eastern Tennessee & Western North Carolina. We grabbed John Van Balen & made him come with us too. I thought maybe this house, in a tiny tiny hamlet named "Relief" in NC, might be the house of my dreams, but it wasn't.

Redwood Highway

I went to visit Mia Houlberg & help her sand & paint her new house in the Myrtletown neighborhood of Eureka California. As usual, I took the scenic route, going through Ashland , Medford & Grant's Pass, Oregon on my way from Oakland to Crescent City that first day. Here's a shot of a beach next to Crescent City Marina the next morning before I headed south towards Eureka.

The photos I shot while commuting to Benicia turned out so well I thought I'd shoot some while barreling down the Redwood Highway.

The Redwood Coast

At Trees of Mystery, the seams are starting to show around Babe the Blue Ox's neck, but Paul Bunyan's boots are kept in fine shape. Across the road is the coffeeshop, which features a breakfast special of eggs, bacon & Dutch apple pie. And no, I didn't.

Stopped for lunch at the restaurant at the base of the pier of Trinidad Harbor. It's to the left just out of the frame of first picture below. I had a nice bowl of clam chowder and some coffee that wasn't too bad. Right above the small rock next to the pier, the returning fishermen are cleaning fish and throwing the scraps to a half-dozen seals swimming below.

This photo's taken on the back side of that large large rock that sort of splits the view of the harbor in two. The whole scene reminds me of where many of my dad's relatives live, in Mid-Coast Maine.

At the mouth of the Klamath River, just a hundred yards south of the scene below, is the Yurok tribal ceremonial ground. I didn't feel like taking pictures of that specifically.

At Mia's House in Eureka

While waiting for Mia to get off work, I farted around Eureka & found some guard geese patrolling what might be some sort of artists' complex in Old Town, across from Accident Gallery, a Mexican restaurant & an Irish pub.

Finally I went to see Mia. I took this photo as I pulled up in my car. The house looked kind of small & depressing at first & I was thinking uh-oh did Mia make a mistake buying it? But inside it is really sweet & cheerful, with large well-proportioned living room & kitchen, & two smaller but also cheerful bedrooms. Lots of light everywhere. A really nice house to be in. All redwood exterior siding. A two-story garage that used to be a pot farm & meth lab. Huge backyard.

The whole place needs & is getting fixing up. I scraped & sanded for two days. Mia's spackling & caulking. The goal is to get the exterior at least primed & water-tight for the coming rainy winter. While I was there, Mike Fadeff was finishing up the mudding & taping of the new sheetrock in the living room & kitchen.

Since I was scraping & sanding for free, I let Mia take me out for Mexican food. I introduced her to my guard-geese friends on the way to dinner.

Next day Mia & Mike & I roamed around getting bagels & coffee & having adventures. Mia & I convinced Mike to mimic the pose of the statue which is, I think, associated with a marble plinth carved with the names of all the Eureka fishermen lost at sea.

I had a really nice time visiting Mia & meeting Mike, but next day I had to head home.

A couple more LA area photos

André Stitt's planned gig in San Francisco fell through, so I went up to Portland to see him there at Sabala's, on Hawthorne near Mt. Tabor. Except for 5 minutes in a Reed College dorm parking lot in 1977, and 15 minutes standing on the curb outside Union Station in 2003, I'd never been to Portland, & I'd always meant to go, so this was a good excuse.

I also wanted to meet Paul Lambert, a writer & artist I'd been corresponding with for the past 8 or 9 months. Paul had offered me bunk space at his house in SE, not too far from Sabala's, so I dropped off my bag & Paul & I went out for Thai food. Here's Paul at his house:
After dinner Paul & I went to the show. For some reason I'd thought he knew André but I was wrong. André's a pretty hard-core performance artist originally from Northern Ireland, lived in London for a long time, now he's living in Cardiff, Wales, directs the Time Based Arts course at Cardiff School of Art, teaches at University of Wales, founded & directs trace: installation artspace.

I first met André in 1989 when he, Shaun Caton & Tara Babel performed in San Francisco at Artists Television Access, had seen him a couple times since, most recently in 2001 when he invited me to London for the Span2 festival he'd produced. Anyway, on this tour he's doing music, as Panacea Society, he's the singer, with guitarist/programmer Matt Cook. Here they are at Sabala's: