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COOL-DISNEY-WARNER-BEAN & ANIMATION PLUSHES-STUFFED ANIMALS: DISNEY-TRUSTY-LADY&THE TRAMP- BEAN PLUSH-8"-"TRUST...

COOL-DISNEY-WARNER-BEAN & ANIMATION PLUSHES-STUFFED ANIMALS: DISNEY-TRUSTY-LADY&THE TRAMP- BEAN PLUSH-8"-"TRUST...: DISNEY-TRUSTY-LADY&THE TRAMP- BEAN PLUSH-8"-"TRUSTY COLLAR-DISNEY STORE-NEW/TAGS https://lovethemtoyz.com/ http://stores.eb...

JUST PONDERING ON A SLIGHTLY WINDY DAY

talking today and the subject came up about looking your age and how some people look way past where the clock has struck...and i wondered if, how people age sometimes is who they are,
 
 i believe truly kind people exude a beauty that transcends words and because they are truly kind…

..time has been kind to them also, and with those who are not truly kind, even good looks can not hide the ugliness that resides within, and time has in turn not been kind..
 
.i guess that hate, just so slick, self-loathing, nastiness and foulness of spirit seems to rise to the surface, cutting thru whatever mask one may wear,

 
 
never at peace with themselves or the world and so alone,
 
 the bitterness seems to manifest itself physically....
and many times they devour themselves with their own flaws they think they see in others...
 

 
truly you can run but you can't hide and who you are comes to the surface....and those who are truly kind, do have a light that shines from them, ever so subtle,
 but so powerful, that we see true strength can come from kindness and compassion, for that is the hard path to take.....and yet the joy is two-fold not only for you but for those around you

PUTTING IN A SMALL POND AND IT AIN'T EASY

www.gifbay.com

PUTTING IN A SMALL POND AND IT AIN'T EASY

 

with spring coming about....i put in a small pond (300 gallons?) heavy black plastic 2-tiered...and i learned that i was not in tip-top shape-i had gotten the back of my pick-up a short bed 73 stepside chevy give you an idea of the size of and the amount of sand i had to help level the pond base-so i dug sweat dripping in my eyes even with a head band and wrist band..
so when i thought i was done after drinking about 300 gallons of water, i saw i have to dig another foot to put the sand in, which was in 5 gallon buckets about 200 feet away, now i know what it is like to be on a chain gang-get the sand in, offer to make a sacrifice to some obscure gods to let me put in the pond base level-so eyeballing it and barley using a level i had handy i put water in the pond and even without a sacrifice to the gods that pond sunk and leveled out after another 2 hours of feeding sand along the sides of the pond- now that was after spring and first of summer...so a bit late to attract any frogs...as summer paled we realized that frogs were not going to come this year....forward to the present-just starting this week we now hear a male frog crooning away..and this bad boy is loud, can be heard over a sound system and a film...with our backyard, it is hard to figure where he is, our neighborhood is relatively quiet...so if i went to look for him...it would be a case of keystone cops...me wandering aimlessly and forgetting the frog will be quiet on he hears me pounding about....so as he croons and can offer his own pond, bubbling slowly, bugs galore, greenery to hang-out and bid their time for bugs...sprinklers with water to bring more bugs abounding...not sure if quail would bother the frogs..i.e. eat them...there are robin red-breasts who hop thru the yard after a good watering, bug hunting...the sparrows and finches seem more interested in the bird feeders or the sunflowers later in the summer...don't want to get store brought frogs as they are not acclimated to our yard and survival may be minimal...now one of our cats, tinker does cruise the yard and drinks out of the pond, hopefully as much cat food as she eats, will be less inclined to eat a frog, but cats like to play with their prey also, a bridge i am crossing too early...need to set some drip lines a we are doing a boxed planter deal with herbs and vegetables this year...i digress-so the hunt for the frog will continue..or at least see that he has made a home in the pond and secondly will find his true love smiles until later
 

Many simple things get lost in our own confusion…..

Many simple things get lost in our own confusion…..

 
A psychology professor of a Missouri State University told associated press years back that he had developed a method for improving memory and told the reporter how he could recall, say, that a particular painting done by Degas in 1865.First, think of an object that sounds like “Degas”
 
(day-GAH), for example, ‘dagger’ AND Then memorize the last two digits of the year by learning the sentence “Twin new moons rise low, just clearing four saplings”, in which the first word begins with a “T” and stands for “1”,the second, N, stands for “2”, and so on
 
.Thus, 1865 becomes “65”
, which becomes “just “low” which could translate to J-L, which could mean “jelly” which would produce a “jelly dagger” with that the subject tries to find a resemblance, somewhere in the Degas painting.Simple as that.
 

The above is true…..life is stranger than fiction~!!!~

And when we complicate the simple…..We lose the beauty of the simplicity…..That would have enhanced our lives…..

But, we must try, try again…..

Smiles
Nevada
jojokejohn

My Dad and World War II

www.archives.gov

My Dad and World War II

My Dad and Memory of World War II
This is for and from my dad, Frank Osalvo, and his thoughts one day on his service in the European Front. Dad shared this message in the 1980's as he passed in 1982.
He said that he was fixing gravy in a kitchen that had been messed up by the chef while a General's assistant was with them in the kitchen. Dad fixed the gravy and he was later taken to a General and became the chef for Eisenhower, Patton, Montgomery and others. This happened, I am thinking, in Europe. He became a Sargent and had a cooking crew working for him. Dad said, Patton had pearl-handled guns and was larger than life. I believe he referred to Ike as being a very nice man.
Dad said while in London, he remembered that there were many bars, people drank and fought a lot, and much rain and fog. That they were V-bombed constantly and they would rush down into basements when the sirens blasted.
Dad was there for D-Day and was quiet about that.
He received a Bronze Star, he had a jeep and interpreter, and was getting fresh foods for not just the Generals but also for the Troops in battle zones.
There was a story he related as an aside, he had keys to the Generals spirits (BOOZE). A Lieutenant had ordered my dad to give him the keys which he refused, and was called a monkey and other slurrs.
The next day, one of the Generals noticed my dad was not quite himself but my dad said he was fine. The General ordered him to tell them what had happened.
The jackass that harassed my dad was broken down in rank and put to work peeling potatoes and onions under my dad.
Dad said as they drove into Berlin, there were bodies everywhere on the road and he remembered being stunned by what he saw ahead. This really affected him….

At this point, my dad had a faraway look on his face and said, they had arrived at a concentration camp (not sure which one). Dad told me, “no sucha thing." I know this meant what he had experienced was unbelievable! He said people,.…and became very quiet…he said they gave them whatever they had, chocolate, food, clothes, and again anything….my dad was not overtly emotional but I had never seen such a look of sadness on his face…and I just sat there with him quietly…
Dad said when they reached Berlin it was bombed to devastation and yet they found underground levels, with food, arms, and ammunition that had been untouched….
That was the only time he ever talked about the war with me, and sometimes I think he just wanted me to know ….
He was in the 6^th Army, and was one of the Bantay Boys who had served in World War II; had come from the Philippine Islands back in the 1920's to America, and that's another story….

​AS WE STROLL THRU OUR MINDS

some days you feel like your brain is in a jar....usually when i wake up and haven't meandered over to drink some coffee...


when you look back at things....and people you have known, it seems that the people who were kind...true friends come to mind...now that doesn't mean that you have agreed upon everything or hadn't had a heated argument.....to the contrary...that was part and parcel of the melting of souls between the two...the fond thoughts that swirl thru the past...put a smile...truly upon your heart.....some friends are gone and there is an echo in our souls...but the thoughts of them alone keep those within you in the corners of your thoughts..not gone, but not forefront...those still with us...even in distance and we know they have changed...that is life...are swirls of sweet thoughts as to there place in time....the space of time that you have frozen to peruse and grasp those feelings that have no true name.....a form of love undoubtedly....and the camaraderie () and that moment in time....


that we have captured forever within ourselves...for me...i think i hold things in...or bypass them to a degree when it is sad.....and sometimes reflection, cleanses your soul and the gloom that could overcome you only last for a mere few moments and in time you relish the cool thoughts, how you honestly know that person would want you to feel and think of them...i do believe all would want to bring a smile to your lips and a grin on your heart....
 


smiles


JOJOKEJOHN

GOTTA STRETCH...TO BE ALIVE....

GOTTA STRETCH...TO BE ALIVE....

Joan Abery, seventy, passed away in Reading, England in 1992 after having lived entirely in the garden outside her house for the previous thirty-five years.....
Joan moved there, among twigs, umbrellas, and car seats, after being spurned at the altar----so that she could leave her house in the same condition it was at the time she was jilted.
For all of us.....
moving on and getting out of our comfort zone is no day at the park, but the results will well surpass a day at the park~!!!~
But once we learn to love ourselves and that we are special and unique we connect with the world andfocus on something other than just us.....our compassion....our empathy become alive again...and in that the world shines as do our souls again
smiles
Nevada
Stretch your hearts and minds.....

A ROCK GUITARIST INTRODUCED ME TO HERBIE HANCOCK'S MUSIC

A ROCK GUITARIST INTRODUCED ME TO HERBIE HANCOCK'S MUSIC

A ROCK GUITARIST INTRODUCED ME TO HERBIE HANCOCK'S MUSIC

Music is always a cool escape in a world that can try its best to squeeze the joy out of you into my teens and forever after.
 Always a part if my life, my older sister was into music to the point where she won dance contests for the hully gully and the Watusi. the was Motown, r&b, blues and rock and roll basically in that order,and became a cool part of my being fiber.
Coming into my teens with music like r&b was a part and slowly i listened to the Beatles, Yardbirds, Stones, the Temptations, Smokey Robinson and others captured my ear. That was when garage bands started and in the tradition of all of the great, you gotta start somewhere. I myself have always played a mean  stereo -vinyl at the time (the height of audio technology in that day) my musical tastes covered a large spectrum. And as fate would have it, many friends had started bands and i had met some in the Haight playing locally, such as the Grateful Dead, Santana, a Beautiful Day, Janis, Big Brother and the Holding company and many other local San Francisco bands. Before working at the Avalon puppet show, I usually went to concerts with my road dog Bart and some other friends or just run into some at the concert, the Fillmore, the Matrix, Longshoreman's hall, The Avalon Ballroom, Golden Gate Park, Speedway Meadows, Mount Tamalpais and there was a few at the beach. So it wasn't just rock, blue too had taken hold as many knew this to be the root of rock and roll. Steve Miller blues band for example, Muddy Waters, Big Momma Thorton, Buddy Guy too. So garage bands like all varied, but those who went to concerts and listened to music tended to start a style of their own, all a process. So going to rehearsals, they was always one member if not more or all who wanted an opinion. Since we tended to enjoy like music and I was honest, without fangs and usually pretty close to an accurate assessment. If they sounded like a band and if they were off, but really didn't care to go to rehearsals, not being in the music world quite as literally, but did enjoy concert going and that was as I have written, a rite of sorts and one aspect of many's social interactions, add in not the just the concerts both paid and free I had gone to, but the time at the Avalon ballroom and the puppet show, my musical tastes had added in rock and roll and blues, listened to some jazz but it didn't really catch my ear until later. It was a different era where most bands who played the Fillmore and were local you could bump into on the street or in a store or cafe and many times knew where the house they lived in, the bodyguards and the limos (usually the roadies were considered a bodyguard of sorts) were more so a thing of the large venues and the likes of the stones or Beatles.
So now to Los Angeles from the 70's to the mid 60's-its not just an actors mecca, it is truly an artists mecca of all kinds and types. Lofts, studios, rehearsal halls, sound studios, theater and more. A melting pot of various art forms like many big cities but on a much larger scale.There was a cool energy cool creatives meeting or in competition with ..All cities have areas of conspicuous consumption L.A.. truly seemed to have much more square mileage.


All cities have areas of conspicuous consumption. Los Angeles seemed to have a more blatant display of big money and the both cool and frivolous things that were available for a big price tag.
I digress....so music was always a part of my life. I have had musician friends since jr. high in San Fransisco and when I moved to L.A. the story was no different. One musician had met had played since he was young and had been the guitarist in Steppenwolf, prior to that it was The Sparrow and the irony was i had seen them play as The Sparrow back in S.F. in the mid-sixties. Michael was the youngest band member and to get in some clubs (he was15-16, I believe) he painted on or put on a fake mustache. As an aside, he had a choice in the beginning, he could have gone with The Sparrow or Iron Butterfly, either way he would have made him part of Rock History.
At that time I was a bachelor again and sometime would visit Michael and go out and eat or just have conversations that ranged from music to gossip to the odd meaning of life.
This day I had come over because he wanted to show me a new contraption he had gotten and wanted to try it out, it was called an octave divider for guitars and this was about in 1973 or 4. He had a small Marshall Amp, the mainstay of many who practiced away from a rehearsal stage or studio- (if I recall Michael usually had a wall of Marshall amps behind him when he played on stage. Anyway, i made my way over after i had visited a girlfriend whom i knew from the club scene and other friends and had had dropped off a satin shirt i has needed the armpit threading sewed, as the older materials (which usually had the cool and most unique designs) we not treated for the salt that we sweat and these were probably for some satin curtains or dresses. It was a dark green but had these little birds as part a design and was one of several different shirts that one store carried from a local seamstress, they were tailored to fit and the sleeves were long enough, a rarity and were cut so you could tuck the shirt tails in easily and they wouldn't untuck, but then too, cut so you could wear them outside, moreso at home. So the salt had taken the threading out and i would never find this patter or material again so i wanted to save it as best i could.
Got over to Michaels, which was off the strip (Sunset) and actually at the bottom of the hill, as Sunset from the club strip part was either uphill and downhill, if you walked it was an exercised in itself, but as the song says, "nobody walks in L.A."
As another aside, I was with some friends,husband and wife, he was a roadie and i was with a girl well we were heading up the hill to get to Sunset and maybe eat anyway, the car they had we lovingly called the "shitbox" as we always wondered when the threadbare front tires would blow. As we headed up and we chatting as to where to eat, someone honked, actually laid his hand on the horn behind us, we where waiting as the light always favored the traffic on Sunset and to try and make a right was a suicide dance against traffic that gave you no quarter. So it always took a while to get up the Sunset hills. Well this couple must have felt too important to wait, as they were in a Rolls Royce, so in this case the elitist came out. Well knowing Glen, this would not sit too well., and in his Boston manner said "O.K. mister, you want me to move, then I'll move". Well. lo and behold he put the car in neutral, foot on the brake because of the hill's incline and with the other foot hit the gas. As the car revved up..i believe i said "oh shit" and his wife Debbie said Glen!!!! He the let slammed it into reverse, let his foot off the brake and we bolted backwards into the front of the Rolls. They sat in the Rolls with their mouths open and we drove up and luckily we able to turn right and off to eat. Now Glen had brought this car from some English musicians who only wanted it for the time they were in town, in those days many of the acts from abroad came here to showcase and either play, get a record contract or stay until either happened, you could run into the Baby's (telephone line-isn't it about time) band members, to name one walking around the strip or West Hollywood area. Well that being said, the car was not registered, the prior owner had gone back to England for the time being, so the plate on the car, even though it appeared current, actually had no owned, at least registered, so taking down the license plate was an act in futility.
So I get to Michael's which was an older classic apartment building that had housed stars and starlets-to whatever degree over the years and this was the Art Deco style with a bit of an ancient  Egyptian touches like stairs that had at the start of the handrails, Anubis Dog statues and all the intricate wall designs and hidden lighting. The elevator had a glass door, but you still closed a scissored iron  gate and then pushed your floor. Once in a while I'd see one of the other residents, once an older woman dressed in classic 50's outfit with that calm air of knowing she was dressed to kill, even though it was in the daytime. Knocked at the door Michael opened and i went in, he had a girl over we both knew who was making a health drink of carrots and some sweet fruit, for us. We went over what was going on in the music scene and within our circle of friends.
The girl had come over to let us try her new health drink concoction which i have no bad memories of, and was off to let other try her new drink of the day.
Now, Michael was a rock guitarist but also played piano, classic guitar (had a Martin 12 string) and Flamenco guitar too. He had wanted to try an octave divider and had brought out his wah wah pedal too. He set up his small Marshall amp and hooked up the octave divider and the wah wah pedal too. We were both interested in the sounds he could create, so at first with the octave divider some cool and some strange sounds, he was truthfully a master with the vibrato (whammy ) bar, very much in the vein of Jeff Beck and was bending and stretch sounds with the addition of the octave divider, now he said that he had learned new riffs thru many jazz artists (which i hadn't known) and r&b artists -i recalled another musician who had tried playing some Stevie Wonder songs and said, that was no as easy as it appeared, there was unique counterpoint and syncopation like he'd never scene and that it was fun but a challenge.
Well, in those days a phonograph was the thing, and so a Herbie Hancock LP was put on, the arm alighted and then Chameleon came on, and now i understood why he had the wah wah pedal, and commenced with playing along with the song but adding variations with the wah wah-or the octive divider and the slick use of the vibrato bar. We went through several jazz albums throughout the after noon and then put on Jeff Beck Truth album and it was interesting to see his guitar versions of  the Beck songs.
So, i had listened to jazz, but in L.A. got in a Rock groove and now found myself later listening to more R&B and jazz.
It was later afternoon and with a afternoon of new and experimental music, i headed out to see if my shirt was done and Michael said he was going to keep playing around with the octave divider.
This was a year or so prior to being signed by Swan Song Records (Led Zepplins label) the only other band besides Bad company, the band "Detective".

 From the left Tony Kaye-keyboards (YES)-Bobby Pickett-bass (Sugarloaf, Etta James) Michael DesBarres-vocals(Silverhead) Michael Monarch lead guitar(Steppenwolf) Jon Hyde (Hocus Pocus)-
vocals-drums

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03mGRXHbn_M



Steppenwolf days Michael on the Left


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XqyGoE2Q4Y




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dAwI_jqcFQ

 







here's a poster of the sparrow (before being called steppenwolf) and the doors, may have worked the puppet show at the time, but did go to the dance floor to see them play



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbLof-GKWOo