Bill Hicks

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the passing of Bill Hicks. I first discovered him when the Comedy Channel broadcast a documentary called "It's Just a Ride." I remember watching this comedian say amazing things. He said things that really grabbed me and, not only that, but he was hilarious. His worldview was one I really identified with but once you get beyond that you quickly see that his writing and presentation were on par with the great ones. He was as funny and intelligent as Carlin and Pryor with the timing of Steve Martin. He was brilliant and I was hooked. I had found a new great comedian. I had found a new Carlin or Pryor! How many times in your life do you come across an artist like Bill Hicks? I was ecstatic.

Of course you can guess what happened next. After a few minutes more of watching the documentary I realized that those talking about him were memorializing him. Bill Hicks was dead! I had discovered and lost my new favorite comedian in the span of ten minutes. I was crushed.

I have wondered a lot how I had no idea Bill Hicks existed. I love stand up comedy. Especially comedy like his. He appeared on Letterman a lot in the 80s. In the 80s I used to record Letterman on our home VCR. You know what I used to do? I would watch the first twenty or thirty minutes of each Late Show. I did that because I loved how Dave would screw around for the first two commercial breaks and once the guests came on I would lost interest. I wonder if any of those shows I recorded had a Bill Hicks appearance at the end? He would have perfectly augmented my tastes back then. He would have fit in perfectly with Tom Waits, Was (Not Was), Bill Cosby, Jimi Hendrix and Neil Young. If only!

I also wonder if Bill Hicks played the Comedy Zone in Charlotte in the early 90s? At that point I was going there occasionally and I saw some good comedy. You know what, though. If Bill Hicks did play the Comedy Zone while I was in Charlotte I really don't want to know. That would really bum me out. If I had caught him early in the week there would have been a good chance I would have been there every night for a week.

Siskel and Ebert on the 1989 Batman Movie

As I think back there were two things I had that talked seriously about art when I was growing up. Rolling Stone magazine and Siskel and Ebert. I can directly attribute my love of Was (Not Was) to a review from Rolling Stone.

I was first attracted to Siskle and Ebert because of their supposed arguing, and they did argue. But to me they were a revelation, They were my first example of two adults discuss seriously the merits of a piece of art. I bet their show created a billion new little critics and here we are clogging the intertubes with our shit.

I just found their review of the 1989 Batman movie and I find myself agreeing with both of them in a way. That is another aspect of their show that I loved, they could completely disagree on a movie but both would have a valid reason why they felt that way. That was a revelation to me. Often when that happened they would compromise like they do at the end of this review, showing that compromise isn't a weakness but a strength.

New Cat

A couple of weeks ago this big beautiful gray cat showed up on our back porch. Being suckers we fed him. He started coming by every morning and night for food. One morning he was even sitting in our bedroom window mewing to be fed. When it started to get colder than normal we put a pet carrier outside on the porch with some towels inside to keep him warm. He slept in there a couple of days, coming out when it was time to eat. A few days after that it started to get really cold, the temperature was getting down into the teens. We then put him in our laundry room. This last Friday I took him to the vet to get checked out and then we introduced him to the other two cats. We call him Mongo.

Flickr Finds

One of my Grandma Zimmer's favorite places was the Tahquamenon Falls, located in Michigan's upper peninsula. I remember she had a set of place mats with photographs of the falls. A unique feature of these falls is the brown water caused by tannins leached from cedar swamps.

Tybee Island

This last week Melanie and I spent another week at Tybee Island, GA. We picked the wrong week to enjoy winter at the beach. We arrived Monday afternoon and Tuesday and Wednesday were too cold to really enjoy the beach. At least Thursday was nice and we were able to get a couple of beach walks in. Fortunately, we are lucky in that we are able to spend two days in a small room together without being reduced to fisticuffs.

I took a few pictures.

When we first arrived on Monday afternoon Tybee Island was as beautiful as I have ever seen it. Late afternoon sun and weather moving in. You can see a bunch of birds in the foreground. Most of them are black skimmers and they are facing the wind. Anytime the wind shifted the birds would turn to face the wind.


Melanie standing in the wet sand on Monday afternoon.


The black skimmers were still out on Tuesday. Even though it was in the mid 30s and the wind was whistling steadily at around ten mph I had to go out with my camera and get a better shot than I was able to get with my phone the day before.


Black skimmers in the back and gulls in the front, surviving the cold.


On Wednesday it was still too cold to really enjoy the beach. We drove into Savannah and went to Barnes and Noble and got some Chinese takeout. When we got back there was some nice afternoon light again so I took a solo trip to the beach.
No black skimmers this time but plenty of gulls were hanging out. Whenever the surf rolled in they were pecking organic matter out of the water and gobbling it down.


Panorama taken on Wednesday


On Thursday the weather improved and temperature pushed 60. We got a couple of nice walks in. We even went to the pier where I got this shot of a surfer


Friday morning there was fog. I call this one, "Foggy Ocean"


On our way home on that foggy day Melanie captured this image of Savannah from the bridge. Beautiful

It's Not a Myth

These images are cropped from a photo I found on the Library of Congress' website. The panoramaic photo was taken at Bennett Park in Detroit during the 1909 World Series. What fascinated me is what you see in the background, fans perched on telephone poles in order to see the game. That can't be safe. You can view the original image here. There are several telephone poles with these funny little birds perched on them.


These guys are down the rightfield line


These daredevils are just beyond the left field wall.


Even further down the right field line. Out near where the outfield wall starts


This group is between homeplate and first base

British Library Flickr Page

The British Library recently updated a million images to their Flickr page. Is it a good thing or just a mass dump of useless crap? Who knows? I found some interesting images.

Jerusalem, from a book published in 1852.


Scrooge waking up happy to know he hasn't missed Christmas. From 1869.


The hunter and his two wives from the Richard Francis Burton book Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo published in 1876.


Robin Hood's last shot. This is where he a dying Robin Hood shoots an arrow out the window and asks that he be buried wherever the arrow lands. This is from 1884.


The crusader castle Krak des Chevaliers from another Richard Francis Burton book Unexplored Syria. Visits to the Libanus, the Tulúl el Safā, the Anti-Libanus, the Northern Libanus, and the Aláh, 1872.


And whatever the hell this is.

Grand Theft Auto V

Oh sure, it's tasteless, ultraviolent and insults you as you play it but GTA V sure is purty.

That Dress

I was looking at how other institutions use technology to share their collections and came across the dress Carol Burnett wore during the sketch that parodied Gone with the Wind. This is in the American History Museum which is part of the Smithsonian.

Trip Glasses

The other day I stumbled across a neat contraption called Trip Glasses. My set arrived in the mail on Saturday and, surprisingly, they work. You put on the glasses and headphones and close your eyes. When you turn the Trip Glasses on a red light starts flashing and a tone plays in each stereo channel. As your brain tries to makes sense of the audio and visual inputs you see patterns and colors. It is rather striking. It's like bad 60s television special effects taking place inside your brain. Or, more like the Joshua Light Show that played behind bands at the Fillmore back in the day.