Bird of the Day: Laughing Gull

Laughing Gull

After 5 years of walking on the beach almost daily, I've never seen this bird until today.

Laugh and the world laughs with you. Unless you're this bird who was flying solo as far as I could tell.

Whimbrels on Hollywood Beach

Pelicans

 I love their even spacing.

A real photographer could do so much better, but I'm okay with that.

Tuesday Morning Beach Report: First Day of Summer

The crowds arrive! I've always wondered about these meetings of gulls. Dozens more arrived as if there was an appointed time and place for a big meeting.
Where are all the humans?

Looking towards Ventura, not a soul on the beach.

Looking toward the harbor, a lone beach walker.

Then just as I was leaving, this happened. A crowd of middle schoolers, struggling to set up beach umbrellas in the stiff wind. Flying projectile alert on Hollywood Beach today. Don't get stabbed by a beach umbrella.
Oh, and god bless the chaperones.

Monday Morning Beach Report: What color is your ocean?

I want to drink this color, stuff it into my ears, and bury my face in its perfume.

Saturday was gorgeous too.

Where the Muse Can Find Me

Since May 7th, I have written every single day (except one) for a minimum of two hours. The first night was in a weird motel room in Needles, CA where I used the same table and chair to later barricade my door. It's been easier since then.

It turns out that what my favorite mentors told me years ago is true (at least for me right now.) If you park your ass in a chair and get ready to write, the muse will know where to find you.

Saturday Beach Report

 Inventory:

Dark sky, blue sky
parade of sailboats

Terns crying overhead
a flock of whimbrels at water's edge
a lone sea lion swimming close to shore

Beachgoers of all varieties
swimmers, fisherman, castle builders, loungers in beach chairs staring out to the horizon,
a man on horseback looking like a vacation ad in a magazine

And a message found on the sand.

Beach Report: June Gloom

June Gloom Explainer

I lived in L.A. beginning in 1975. Culver City, Wilshire District, Silver Lake, Los Feliz. Then the San Gabriel Valley--Sierra Madre and South Pasadena.

I had no idea about any of this. I had no idea about a lot of things.

June 6, 2017

It just seems impossible that Dan Paik has been gone for 3 years.

The March for Truth, Los Angeles

 It doesn't get better that this. Behind the plaza where we were waiting to begin the march was a giant excavator digging up shovel after shovel of dirt. No, this was not the movie called March for Truth; this was the March for Truth.

Some of my favorite signs

Afterwards I went to see the play Archduke, a fictionalized exploration of the backstory in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. While I did not find the play emotionally involving, I did find the questions it posed food for thought. Are terrorists/assassins all just crazy psychos? Are they fervently devoted to their mission or manipulated by a mentor? What part does prejudice, politics, and hopelessness play in their radicalization? In a totalitarian regime these are not idle discussion points over dinner.

My favorite chant in every march I've attended has been this call and response:
Tell me what democracy looks like.
This is what democracy looks like.