Author Archive for tmangan

Cub scouting

by  • October 28, 2004 • 1 Comment

I saw a baby mountain lion on the road this morning.

It was trotting along the westbound lane about a mile and half down the hill from where we live. I was in the car on the way to work. I thought that looked like an exceptionally large house cat as I got closer. Then I got closer and noticed the spots on its body, the very large paws, the long tail. It looked right at me before it fled up the hillside. Housecats don’t have faces like that.

I got to work and looked up mountain lion cub pictures on the Web. I wasn’t sure it was a mountain lion till I saw the pictures. Yep, a positive identification.

The slightly unnerving thing about this sighting is that I walk right past that area pretty much every morning. Fortunately, mountain lions prefer to feed on deer. Unfortunately, our neighborhood is run rampant with deer. So there’s a fair chance I’ve been strolling through this cub’s mama’s range for months now.

Babies are cute, mamas are another matter. And daddies.

I’m definitely getting a walking stick and a whistle to scare off any more kitties that might be hanging around.

What happened in this World Series?

by  • October 28, 2004 • 1 Comment

OK, so being a Midwesterner, I was pulling for the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series. I had to stop watching in the third inning of Game 3 — I just couldn’t stand to see such a good team get beat up on so badly.

What a crappy capper to a wonderful playoffs. The Red Sox seemed dead after Game 3 against the Yankees, then scratched and clawed their way to a four-game sweep. A comeback for the ages, probably the best seven games of postseason play that I can remember seeing.

And the Cards had a wonderful series with the Houston Astros — pounding their way to a two-game lead, then losing three in Houston — then storming back to win it at home in seven games.

In the National Imagination, though, the real Series was between the Sox and the Yankees. The Cards were an afterthought. But who’d have expected them to play that way in the World Series? Guess they bought into the myth as well.

I’m glad that the Sox fans’ anxiety wasn’t dragged out for seven games. It was impossible for them to truly enjoy this Series, because their imaginations were haunted by fear of the Inevitable Collapse. None dared to become optimistic as long as the Curse was lurking.

Except there never was a curse: there was only the New York Yankees, the winningest team in Series history. The road to the Series runs through Yankee Stadium, and if the Yanks are hot, the rest of the American League is toast.

Cards fans can take a little comfort in knowing that the Sox and their fans have won the Series but lost their mystique. But really, mystique is bullshit — fodder to help sportswriters fill space. Winning is what matters, elsewise they wouldn’t keep score.

I’d have traded all the mystique in the galaxy for a few timely triples from the Cardinals.

A jaunt down the hill and back

by  • October 25, 2004 • 0 Comments

The rainy season arrived last week, which turned the trails nearby to mush…
I resorted to walking the road down the hill to Ed Levin County Park — about
five miles each way, so it was a nice workout. I see the same sights every morning
on the way to work and back so it’s not exactly the most exciting walk, except
when the cars zip past too fast and too close.

I took the camera along so we’d have fresh pix, but before we go outdoors,
we have to share a moment with Floyd.

This is about as relaxed as I’ve seen him lately. Usually he runs away when
I get too close to him.

OK, back down the road.

Horses hang out next to a retired utiltiy truck. There’s zillion-dollar homes
way back in the distance but around these parts we still have the charm of old
broken stuff decorating property along the roadside. You just don’t get that
in the suburbs.

Horse to farmer: "You want me to pull what?"

A gazebo and flowers at Ed Levin County Park, which was mostly empty when I
dropped by.

Well, there were some deer hanging out.

I’ve walked up those hills a couple times, but had no such inclinations yesterday,
having walked five miles already to get to this point and facing another five
uphill to get back home.

Here’s an old cemetery whose headstones have all been vandalized. Children
are such fun sometimes.

Nice clouds.

The storm that blew through last week knocked this tree across one lane of
the road.

That’s it for this week, see y’all next time.

Monarchs and other migrations

by  • October 17, 2004 • 0 Comments

One of the coolest things about the California coastline is all the animals
migrating along it. Seals migrate. Whales migrate. Monarch butterflies migrate.
The monarchs come up from Mexico and spread out across North America. Every
October, thousands of them stop by (well, flutter by) at Natural Bridges State
Park in Santa Cruz. It’s one of the most amazing things you’ll every see: the
sky filled with butterflies like an old Disney cartoon come to life.

Melissa and I went last year, and this year we took Melissa’s mom, Mary, to
monitor the monarchs.

Uh, ladies, the trail’s over that way.

This wooden foot bridge goes down into a valley that shelters the butterflies
from the strong Pacific breezes. The bridge also keeps the humanoids confined
to small area least likely to annoy the monarchs.

This isn’t really where they rest. They prefer tree limbs way up in the forest
canopy.

Mary and Melissa making initial Monarch sightings.

Pictures of the humans are often far more entertaining than the butterflies.

Butterflies fill the sky — people with expensive cameras and high-power zoom
lenses could see the butterflies packed together on tree branches; they actually
entertwine their legs to hold on against strong breezes.

This is about as close as one came within range of my digicam, whose manufacturers
obviously neglected to take butterfly viewings into account.

Another one rests on a branch nearby … this picture looks vaguely artsy but
it wasn’t intentional; just too much backlighting.

A volunteer at the park explains how around 9,000 butterflies came last year
but only 2,000 have arrived thus far. The monarchs come from Mexican mountains
that are rapidly being deforested, and it doesn’t help that theri sole food
source — milkweeds — often gets killed off by herbicides. If you’re thinking,
"yeah, there sure used to be a lot more monarchs around when I was a kid,"
you’re right. It’s us doing them in.

Back up at the park’s headquarters, an exhibit shows a monarch caterpillar.
It wasn’t moving, so I suspect it’s been freeze-dried or something.

You can’t go to Natural Bridges Stage Park without going down to the beach
and checking out what’s left of those bridges. There’s a hole in that chunk
of rock, carved out by millions of years of saltwater pounding against it. Those
are pelicans up on top of the rock, which is white from their poop. Which makes
walking down to the beach an aromatic experience that compares favorably to
a field trip at a wastewater treatement plant.

Having adapted to the smell, Mary and Melissa admire the crashing surf.

Does this jacket make me look fat?

Melissa’s million-dollar smile (the cast is from the surgery she had to fix
her carpal-tunnel difficulties.)

These two chunks of rock used to be connected by natural stone arch, but I
suspect one of the recent earthquakes knocked it down.

We left the beach and headed up California Highway 1. Pigeon Point Lighthouse
is one of our favorite stops. A couple years back, Melissa bought her mom’s
twin sister, Marie, a shelf-size replica of this lighthouse, so it made sense
to take her sister over to get a look at the place.

Mary approves of the decision.

There’s a little hamlet called Pescadero up the road a ways. We stopped in
to check out the local arts and crafts, many of which are made locally.

A house converted into a curio shop.

Turning off the flash produces warm hues you might not expect from a digital
camera.

Art deco doll in cabinet. Cool.

A shop called "Made in Pescadero" sells furniture handmade by local
folks. Slobber-inducing to people who are into such things.

Pretty glasses on a table.

This is a local landmark called Duarte’s Tavern. They make wonderful soups
and pies, and there’s always a waiting list to get a table. Tasty meals, reasonably
priced; a rarity in these parts.

Another curio shop up the street a ways.

A stained-glass angel keeps an eye on the place.

You can’t miss in a shop that sells Buddha cats.

Hardly Strictly speaking

by  • October 3, 2004 • 3 Comments

Every year for the past four, this millionaire from San Francisco has been
bringing the world’s greatest bluegrass performers to town and inviting everybody to come
see them — and the admission’s free. Just bop over to Golden Gate Park, pull
up a patch of grass and listen to two days of amazing picking and fiddling.

Originally it was called the Strictly Bluegrass festival but it evolved into
the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival — which is where I spent most of Saturday
and Sunday. One nice side benefit of this free festival is that you can walk
right up to the front of the stage and take pictures of the performers. Two
days of this gave me a fresh appreciation of what concert photographers go through
— it takes exact timing to anticipate when an interesting expression will appear
on a musician’s face, then you have to hope there’s no microphone in the way
and reconcile yourself to the fact that the minute you set the camera down,
something really cool will happen. The highlights:

Saturday:

Imagewise, the day got off to an auspicious start when I took the BART train
to San Francisco on Saturday and noticed this little baby peeking his head behind
his carrier and making impossibly cute faces at me.

OK, enough of full-cuteness mode. Back to the main topic:

The festival is on four stages, and as I approach the first one, I hear this
guy named A.J. Roach singing — I kid you not — about dying of black-lung disease.

His band seems pretty cheerful, considering the subject matter. Maybe they
think "if he keeps this up I’ll have no choice but to launch my solo career."
A.J was a capable mountain wailer but I had to see who else was mixing things
up elsewhere.

These jumbo hula hoops are always popular.

Here’s the Hot Club of Cowtown, a really swinging Austin, Texas, string band.
I had to leave before I developed a crush on the blonde fiddle player.

It was a day for Emmylou Harris sightings. That’s her in the black cowboy hat.
She closed the show Sunday.

I was wondering what it is about bluegrass that ignites an irresistible urge
to dance. Best I can figure is that the rapid-fire plucking of guitar, mandolin
and banjo strings becomes a kind of percussion, which just seems to set toes
tapping, legs twisting, hips shaking. (OK, so I’m asking you to accept the premise
that percussion makes music danceworthy … it’s just a thought, but I’ll stuck
with this theory till a better one comes along).

Speaking of pickin’, here’s a couple guys from Hot Rize attempting to warm
things up. They were a pretty hot combo, but no match for what the weather gods
sent us this weekend: Cold, windy, damp — hell on any exposed extremities,
and hard on wooden musical instruments that kept expanding and contracting and
getting out of tune.

The Banjo Stage draws a nice crowd.

Kevin Welch, center, Kieran Kane, left, and their fiddler, whom they called
Fats (because he’s the skinniest guy in six counties, I suspect). Their set
was better suited to a small, smoky room in a bar rather than the expanse of
the outdoors. If you’re into singer-songwriters who don’t suck, check these
guys out. Excellent lyricists who harmonize well. One of the funniest moments
from the weekend happened during their set: Between their songs, one of the
bands at the next stage over receives a thundering ovation, and Welch says in
this droll twang of his, "sounds like they’re having more fun over there
than we are." Yeah, you had to be there.

After these guys finished, Nick Lowe, who had some hits in the ’80s, came on
the same stage — his name alone attracted twice the audience and triple the
applause but he didn’t seem nearly as good as Welch & company. Could be
an example of fame distorting reality, or merely me identifying with the unfamous.

These kids in front of us were a hoot: constantly raising hell to their mom’s
chagrin.

Shay, a guy I work with who knows more about bluegrass than anybody else I
know. He used to work for Rounder Records, which handles tons of folk/roots
bands. He’s always seeing former clients of his at these concerts.

John Prine, who dusted off an anti-war song of his from the Vietnam Era. It
goes like this

"But your flag decal won’t get you into heaven anymore,
they’re already overcrowded from your dirty little war,
Now Jesus don’t like killin’,
No matter what the reason’s for,
And your flag decal won’t get you
into heaven any… more"

Prine’s voice sounds like a gravel road but he’s still got a lot of singing
left in him. He played a fabulous set — lively, sarcastic, well paced, covering
a 30-year career. He’s the real deal … catch him if you get the chance.

Emmylou, center, guest stars with Buddy and Julie Miller. Buddy’s a fabulous
guitar player and Julie’s a bit of a space cadet but she’s got fine pipes. I
caught a few of their songs and wished I’d have seen more. With four stages
and dozens of bands there were lots of tough choices: I had to miss Steve Earle
to see Prine, and I never even made it over to one of the four stages. But nobody’s
complaining at these prices.

Saturday’s headliner, the living legend and godfather of bluegrass, Ralph Stanley
— center, holding his hands to keep ’em warm. He did the a capella version
of "Oh, Death" from "O Brother" that was a bit too haunting.
The lyric goes, "Oh, death, won’t you spare me over for another year,"
and I got the feeling that Ralph — who’s been at this for half a century —
was hoping his song might ward off the Reaper.

Sunday:

Lest you worry that all his music distracted me from my hiking, rest easy:
I walked four miles from City Hall the park site both days. I invited the folks
at Walk South Bay to come along for Sunday’s walk.

That’s the San Francisco city hall up ahead. It’s uphill most of the way to
the park from here, but the hills are mild compared to what I’m used to. Only
two of the Walk South Bay folks took me up on my invitation: Gilad, an immunology
researcher at the University of San Francisco (he’s one of the mosaic of scientists
searching for a cure for AIDS) and Angelika, a research assistant at the university.
She’s from Germany, he’s from Israel — a true international couple and wonderful
company for a walk through the city.

We stopped at the botanical gardens in Golden Gate Park — they are truly stunning.

Gilad and Angelika stopped by the bluegrass fest for awhile, but they found
they weren’t dressed warmly enough to stand still and watch music, so they kept
on walking another couple miles down to Ocean Beach. I’m hoping I’ll see ’em
on another hike.

OK, back to the festival:

Here’s the Texas singer-songwriter Jimmie Dale Gilmore, who played an extremely
polished set. He sings in a high register that reminds me a lot of Willie Nelson,
except Jimmie Dale has a smoother voice — the pitch without the crackle. This
guy proves why you have to peel past the layers of fame to find to the really
interesting musicians. Willie Nelson is an icon for sure, but the key to his
appeal is not his fame or his hit records: it’s his distinctive musical style.
Willie can make anybody’s songs sound good, and the same is true of countless
indie musicians like Jimmie Dale Gilmore who barely scratch out a living playing
music. It takes a lot more patience to sit through songs you’ve never heard
before but the payoff is hearing something amazing for the first time.

Steve Earle sits in on a songwriters session. He’s singing a song about a 19th
century juvenile delinquent; earlier he sang that song of his written from the
perspective of a guy about to be executed by lethal injection. Amazingly powerful
song, really gave me the chills. (When Steve trots out his causes at every show
the audience is silently saying, "Shut up and sing, dammit" — and
it’s like he reads our minds and knows it’s going to take some kick-ass performing
to melt that annoyance away. Then he does it.)

Ricky Skaggs, center, and Kentucky Thunder. They play fast and furious, tight
as a snare drum.

Del McCoury, right, and his band. The best bluegrass combo I’ve ever heard.

A dancer nearby swings to the twang.

The Gourds, another good-time Austin band. I stayed for a couple of their songs,
then headed home.

Yeah, it was cold, windy, and all-around terrible weather for an outdoor music
festival. But the only regret I have is a kind of buyer’s remorse that happens
when you’re grooving along to one band and hear a huge round of cheers for a
different band closing its set at a nearby stage. Even then you realize somebody
else is having a good time over there so it’s hard to feel too terrible about
missing their fun, especially when you know they’re missing yours.

ArtCarfest 2004

by  • September 19, 2004 • 1 Comment

Downtown San Jose, typically the squarest place in 50 miles, became a tad cooler
yesterday with the arrival of ArtcarFest 2004.

The premise of ArtcarFest is that people who have made a canvas of their cars
gather all their zaniness into a single zipcode. There’s a strong aroma of hippiedom
— lots of peace symbols, feminist agitprop, antiwar statements, etc — but
the tone is light, frivolous, antic, occasionally silly. ArtcarFest presumes
to be the exact opposite of the typical classic-car show, but the people who
put 90 coats of paint on a 1950 Mercury have a lot in common with the people
who glue 90 Disney figurines on the roof of their 1969 Beetle. The classic car
buff wants to celebrate the automobile; the carart buff wants to subvert it.
Either way, cars provoke a creative obsession that produces more photo ops than
you can shake a hubcap at. Just what I need on a cool, cloudy Saturday.

An early ’60s Caddie covered with costume jewelry. Because the car was so tired
of its owners getting to wear all the fake pearls.

The couple kicking back in Snorky’s back end are having a high old time.

A Bug, with wings. Somebody had to, right?

Sometimes an artcar is a concept. The frame rail says "Guitars not guns"
but from this angle those axes look remarkably similar to firearms.

I’m pretty sure I saw this car built in some Discovery Channel show. Note how
unromantic cigarette smoke is from this angle.

No, bud, it’s a lot longer than that.

This creation was absurdly over-chromed.

It looks much cooler from the rear — suddenly "Rudolph the Red-Assed
Reindeer" springs to mind.

Who profits from your self-loathing, this car with curlers on the roof asks.
One of those "message" cars that’s about as subtle as a blown engine.

… because we all should tremble before the Creator, right?

Look, it’s interactive: people write their suggestions for Scooby doings on
the paper.

Some people you just know were hippies back in the day.

Two guys having a deep geographical discussion — good thing somebody left
that globe there. (this is weird: every time I try to write globe, it
comes out blog.)

For those lacking a globe: a pickup truck coated with maps.

File under: What’s the wackiest thing you could do to four-door Ford Maverick?
You start with tailfins, naturally….

… but you keep adding stuff like this compass and all these mechanical-looking
contrivances.

Some carartists just stick as much junk as they can find on the roof.

Others stick to a theme. Note the cat ears up there on the roof.

One car was covered with snow globes: I wanted to shake it real hard and see
what happened, but I figured it might shake the globes off the roof (which,
come to think of it, might not have been a bad idea. I love the "Rosebud"
moment of a snowglobe exploding.)

I took this only to get the downtown fountains in the background.

This guy took the "cover it with junk" ethic to extremes. Fortunately
he eventually ran out of car.

Here’s a little girl checking out the famed Carthedral — an old hearse done
up in Gothic fashion.

The guy next to the Carthedral had this little black dog that attracted a very
large dog to stop by and sniff.

A carartist with her art, her dogs and her lunch. All that matters in the world.

Critters ahead

by  • September 19, 2004 • 0 Comments

Another quickie hiking report. Last month I joined a group called Walk South
Bay for a sweltering, challenging hike in Rancho San Antonio Park near Mountain
View. Sweated a lot, drank lots of water, got sore feet. Thought: Next time
there’s an easy hike with cool weather, I’m there.

A member of the club named Debbie had a nice little five-miler planned for
this weekend. The forecast said high of 72 — 25 degrees cooler than the last
Rancho hike — so I hopped in the car and sped over there Saturday morning.
Turned out Debbie and I were the only ones who showed up; I’m sure she’ll show
up in future hike reports .. .this time I was skittish about taking pictures
of one person and saying "this is half my hiking group."

Spotting this deer made Debbie’s day.

This guy was doing the little freeze that all the "prey" species
do just before they flee. The old "Maybe if I stand real still, the mountain
lion won’t notice me." It never works. Good thing they can run so fast.

We also passed through a section of the park called Deer Hollow Farm, which
gives city kids a chance to gape at farm animals and squeal loudly when amusing/amazing
things happen. I need no provocation to take pictures of livestock.

Goats are about the most relaxed farm animals you’ll ever see. Maybe it’s because
we don’t eat goats.

Chickens are, understandably, a bit more tense. This rooster was making all
kinds of crowing sounds, though the hens were no doubt thinking to themselves,
"for God’s sake, buddy, it’s past lunchtime. Give it a rest."

Pull open the door and it says…

I like cows because they seem so resigned to their fate as meat-, milk- and
leather-bearing servants of human appetites.

Really needs some people in there with a sign saying "Earthlings, in their
19th Century Habitat." (A great Twilight Zone episode has an ending like
this.)

Gonna go see me some artcars

by  • September 18, 2004 • 0 Comments

I was thinking of taking my laptop and blogging ArtcarFest 2004 live from downtown San Jose, but an observation I made last week has me thinking it’s best to leave the laptop at home.

As I was sitting on the park bench typing into my iBook last Sunday, enjoying the free wireless access in the Cesar Chavez Plaza, I had a paranoid thought: how easy would it be for a sneaky, speedy thief to run up, grab the thing out my hands and sprint away at top speed. I’m staring into my screen, paying no heed to my surroundings. I realize five pounds of laptop computer would slow the guy down a bit, but probably not enough for me (slowest living white guy in San Jose) for me to catch up. And even if I got close enough to to catch him, he drops it on the sidewalk — dashing it bits — and makes good his escape.

In any case it’s silly to carry a whole computer along when there’s no pressing need to post instantly. That’s what cameraphones are for, right? I’m trying to see how long I can hold out without buying a cellphone — despite all my other gadgets I’ve gone all this time with no wireless phone. It’s becoming an absurd point of pride.

I’ll have artcar pictures posted tonight or tomorrow.

A bit o’ culture

by  • September 12, 2004 • 0 Comments

So there I was in downtown San Jose, hoping to see how the free wireless Internet access works.
Before I got sat down to fire up my laptop, I heard this drumming coming from
down the street. I notice a bunch of people lined up along the street and I
realize, "hey, a parade. How cool is that?"

The event is Fiestas Patrias, which means a celebration of the fatherland.
An announcer tells us the Aztec Dancers are heading our way.

The outfits are pretty ornate. They dance in formation, pound drums and look
outlandish.

One of the dancers walks right past me. He seems a bit pale for an Aztec, but
a few more hours in the sun’ll take care of that.

The home country is Mexico, if you haven’t figured that out already.

There were lots of people on horseback. This guy had quite a way with a rope.

Here’s a car I saw in the parade. It’s about a half-hour after it’s over, and
some of the participants are heading home.

This is one of my favorite sights in downtown San Jose: People on horseback
waiting in the turn lane for the arrow to give them permission to execute a
legal left turn. It would’ve been even better to see this without having seen
the parade — the surprise/incongrousness factor would’ve been at least double.

Next week the annual Art Car Fest returns, and I hope to blog it live. Should
be lots o’ fun.

Reporting live

by  • September 12, 2004 • 0 Comments

This morning’s experiment: Free wi-fi in downtown San Jose.

The guy next to me can’t get his wi-fi setup up and running. Shoulda got a Mac, eh?

I was hoping to post pictures from here but in a supreme act of techno-incompetence, I forgot the USB cable to connect my camera to my iBook. A bummer too, because there’s a cool Mexican-heritage parade going on. I got some swell pix of dancers in Aztec costumes. Fortunately there were no human sacrifices.

Other downside of taking the laptop along: the weight of the laptop. It’s 10 pounds, max, but it adds up.

I’ll post pics when I get back home.