Hummingbird Wars

There is safety in the screening of window, cover of darkness and ridiculously small area it takes to have an arial dog-fight when you are a hummingbird. I am an imbedded correspondent coming to you from the front lines of a skirmish at the Western side of the San Fernando Valley here in Southern California. Gathering material from the front lines is simple enough indeed armed with a cool beverage, swim trunks, computer and a good book I can leisurely ponder the maneuverings of the little buggers as they chirp and flutter around like Star Wars Tie Fighters. Today's battle is over a red plastic flower that holds the nectar of the gods. Like a religious warlord there is one who stands guard over the siphon of sugar like an Oracle at Delphi carefully hidden behind a shrub in wait for the next kamikaze wave to come attempt a tasting of the forbidden. Swift retribution is dealt out on the daring, although no contact is ever made between the birds the fear is enough to keep away and try, try again.

From what I have been gathering about my current place in life is that the melee once known as the "record industry" is very much like the combat I just described. The red plastic feeder is the airplay and charts that track them the warlord protectors are the critics and deep pockets that either stub off the creative but weak or fund the good looking and popular acts that promise the most sugar. Hollywood is the patio and music is the air through which they fly actively pursuing a more creative means to reach the goal, a red plastic flower.

First Days Forever Amazing

Wednesday morning 1am August the 25th I became a Californian once again. My Dodge Caravan surviving the journey west until I reached my destination. Having passed through Herndon, Norfolk and Richmond Virginia I headed west towards Denver Colorado and points beyond. All along the my route heading west my mantra for me and my caravan was "I am resigned to live where my car breaks down" having loaded it up with tools and guitars, soldering-irons and spare parts and almost all of my earthy possessions I had loaded myself for bear. Last night as I was driving home from a drink with some of my friends from the last time around I pulled onto the 101 and drove up Cahuenga Pass my temperature gauge pinned on HOT! and suddenly I was in the throws of my mantra being actualized its a strange feeling not be be panicked by situation such as that. I reached down and turned the heat on full blast, hazard button depressed, blinker to the right and slowed to a crawl hoping I could find a station open to remedy my heat issue. Opening the radiator is not a smart idea when the engine is hot but with the right precautions (and no fluid in it) its not very hot so I opened it and poured a whole gallon of green stuff in and headed home with an even temperature and clear lanes on the over-sized highways. So here I live!

I had thought I might stop in Vegas coming down from the heights of the Rockies and Vail, Colorado but once on the road I decided to push on through to the end of my road and as the previous paragraph illustrated it's a good thing that I did otherwise I'd be living there. I wasn't here more than 20 minutes after pulling in at 1am and being greeted by Abe Parker, (Wendy's son), that I was invited to join his band "Like Baboons" as guitarist and singer. We stayed up till 4am talking about songs and music theory and laying plans for the domination of the scene up here in "The Valley." Yesterday and today its been over 100 degrees here and my new room just like my van doesn't have A/C I guess it's my cross to bear this summer.