Strange Pulse

You just have more and more crazy stories to tell.

Or maybe that’s the lame part about getting older.

I went into downtown LA in the morning to walk around and take pictures. I was in the Toy District/Historic Core. Basically in some areas with a lot of homeless and sketchy people.

I was crossing a street and there was a homeless man asleep or passed out on the sidewalk on the far side. A mentally ill man was crossing the street towards me, shouting stuff. I waited until he was halfway across the crosswalk before venturing out towards him. He was yelling, “Have to go to the Little Store! Have to go to the Something-something Restaurant!” (I don’t remember exactly.) I thought I was going to get past him without him noticing me, but as soon as we were next to each other, he interrupted his yelling to ask, “Do you have a dollar for some food?” I said no and he immediately carried on his way, repeating the same phrases at the top of his lungs. “Have to go to the Little Store! Have to go to the Something-something Restaurant!”

I continued on my way, snapping a couple pictures of the passed out guy on the sidewalk.

Don’t know if those pics came out yet. Here’s a shot from earlier in the day:

Hard to tell, but the people in the distance are homeless, their possessions piled around them in garbage bags and grocery carts.

Earlier I passed a man whose eyes were all bloodshot, like he was drunk or had been up all night. He was all smiley at me and asked me my name but I didn’t understand him, and when he repeated it, I just waved him off like I didn’t speak English and kept walking. Why is it the only men who come on to me are drunk Mexicans?

My youngest, Elijah, is a senior in high school this year. He had to have his senior portraits taken a week or so ago.

Elijah is weird about having his picture taken–pretty standard for a teenager, especially one in my family. For a long time he just didn’t want to have his picture taken at all. Which is what I mean about being standard for my family. We’re all photogs; we don’t like being in front of the camera.

Well Elijah has changed his tune. He’s discovered the joy of making goofy faces into a camera, apparently. Something that is pretty standard for a teenager, especially one in my husband’s family. Daniel cannot be serious in front of a camera (unless he’s really tired, or grumpy, which for him is often the same thing). A lens comes into view, Daniel turns into an idiotic goofball.

He knows it, and accepts it for who he is.

Elijah was never like that. Until now.

When he discovered he had to dress nicely for his senior portrait, he wasn’t too keen on it. He has two uniforms: black shoes, black pants, and a black heavy metal band t shirt, or black shoes, black pants, and a white dress shirt with a tie. I’ll let you decide which uniform he wears to church on Sundays.

He did not want to wear a white dress shirt for his senior portrait. So I dug through Daniel’s closet and came up with a short-sleeved nice-looking shirt that was a dark greyish. Elijah knew it was the best option he was going to have and grudgingly agreed to wear it.

At some point recently, Elijah found a broken pair of eyeglasses. The lenses are gone. The frames are a brass-color metal, and they’re slightly misshapen. They look kind of like this:

Except the wire part goes around the entire frame. And the lenses are gone.

He looks like a complete dufus in them. Which was all part of his master plan.

He went to the portrait studio (which incidentally, my daughter Cat works at) and sat for his portrait. He didn’t tell them he didn’t want to smile. He just refused to do it. Instead he made a face that is sort of hard to describe. His mouth hangs open a bit, and his eyelids droop. He calls it a rapist face. I think it leans a little bit more to a serial killer look, but maybe that’s just splitting hairs.

When they really got on him about smiling, he’d smile and then quickly revert to the dufus face just before they snapped the photo. (I wish you could see him do this in person–it’s hilarious.)

They sent us the proofs. They were some of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. I wish I’d scanned them before sending them back with our choice for the yearbook (it was tough choosing the stupidest-looking one, but I think we managed it). When we get prints, with his permission I’ll post them.

So in the Los Angeles area there are a lot of street artists. This is different from graffiti artists, which seems silly to me, I mean graffiti is art that’s on the streets, too. But the term street artist usually refers to someone who makes some art, usually on paper, and most often printed art (rather than hard-drawn or painted), and then pastes it on buildings and utility boxes. (It’s also known as wheat paste.)

One of my favorites is a guy who uses the name Morley. His posters always have some printed text and then a drawing of himself. The text is usually clever and cute and funny and positive. I don’t really have any pictures I’ve taken myself of his stuff to share–except these two:

It says “It gets better” over and over and then it says “it just has to.”

Here’s a few pictures I’ve stolen from his blog:

I especially like that last one, probably because I’m so morbid.

Anyway, his blog is pretty entertaining, if you’re bored you should check it out. Here’s a recent post I thought was funny:

In Charge of the Parachute

But really you should just read it all.

It’s been hot here the last couple of days. In the 100s. Daniel’s sister was here visiting, she left at lunchtime today, and I wanted to run up to Lake Gregory to cool off. Daniel and I hopped in the car, and the thermometer in the dashboard said it was 112.

112!

When we got to Lake Gregory it was cooler. 95!

Actually we weren’t hot in our house. I didn’t want to run up there to cool off. I just wanted to go somewhere. The problem with this heat is it traps you inside! And I knew the mountains would be cooler than here. And it’s closer than the beach–only 20 or 30 minutes. I must be getting used to the heat, because 95 didn’t feel that bad–in the shade. With a breeze. And water to wade in.

Here’s a 30 second, 360 degree view of where we were–taken with my cell phone:

Here’s some pics from a previous afternoon up there:

I’ve got some film I need to develop from today.

Mostly, anyway!

Someone I know has a web server and let me host my domain on it. So Strange Pulse isn’t going anywhere! Well, it did, but as far as anyone’s concerned, it’s staying put.

I had to export my blog posts from my old host and import them on this new one–and I stupidly messed a few up and I think they’re lost. But I have no idea what ones–old stuff.

My theme/appearance is also kinda screwy because I forgot to back up the most recent theme files. I want to redo some of it anyway. And now I have to.

But I’m back!

I can’t afford to renew my hosting for strangepulse.com, so it’s probably going to go offline soon. I haven’t really been posting regularly anymore anyway. I just need to figure out how I can back up all my old posts before it’s gone! I might set up a free blog somewhere else or renew my hosting when I can afford it. Just didn’t want to let it disappear without warning anyone!

Something about this song is so irresistible to me. “Do you picnic?”

Everyone should know this next one. I just love the sentiment of it. It’s about giving up your dreams to settle for a suburban/consumerist/materialistic lifestyle. Like so many of the baby boomers…

One more from the same album, “The Only Child.” Favorite lines:

Let the disappointments pass
Let the laughter fill your glass

икониПравославни икониикони на светци

I’ve been watching a couple of my old musical dvds…Tonight I watched The Harvey Girls. Judy Garland and Angela Lansbury…great stuff. And Ray Bolger! Recognize this guy?

Yep, it’s the Scarecrow, in a different Judy Garland movie! Check out what a hottie Angela Lansbury was:

I couldn’t find a video of her in the movie on youtube.

Apparently Cyd Charisse had her first speaking role in this movie too! She’s the girl on the balcony listening to the man singing:

She starts singing (and a little dancing) at 4:15 in the clip.

I was reading about Ray Bolger on wikipedia, and it says this at the end:

“At the time of his death, he was the last surviving main cast member of The Wizard of Oz. An editorial cartoon on January 17, 1987, two days after his death, by Chicago Tribune artist Dick Locher, depicted the Oz cast dancing off into the setting sun and toward the Emerald City, with the Scarecrow running to catch up.”

Here’s the cartoon:

Another quote from Wikipedia:

“Whenever asked as to whether he received any residuals from telecasts of the 1939 classic, Bolger would reply: ‘No, just immortality. I’ll settle for that.’”

Only Gene Kelly! The tap dancing starts about 2:15 if you want to skip ahead.