California Dreamin’ Turns to Georgia on My Mind

by

At least somewhere will have a “rainy night in [Georgia]” tonight – with a nod to Brook Benton.

Captain Gooding checks in today from lands east of the Appalachains.

“”Here come those Santa Ana winds again…” from Babylon Sisters, by Steely Dan

Southern California evolved to burn. The rugged hillsides around the Los Angeles basin, stretching north and south along the coastline after taking a short east-west detour around LA, are covered in chaparral and manzinita scrub. Making use of the almost randomly available rains to slowly grow, dumping leaves and discarded branches to the ground around themselves, their tough, hard wood clings tenacious to the hillsides. Their roots hold back at least some of the soil during periodic torrential rains, while the vegetative litter helps in a small way to prolong soil moisture during the all too often prolonged droughts.

Further northwards, from south of Carmel Vally and Monterey Bay to the fogbound coasts running up to southern Oregon, coast redwoods, the world’s tallest trees, reach their feathery fronds cloudward, scraping moisture from foggy skies, dripping on themselves, watering their own roots. But their thick, fire resistant bark is mute testimony to evolution hand in hand with periodic wildfires. Their cones open up and drop their seeds only after fires have cleaned up the forest floors beneath the lofty giants.

And that is as it should be. For tens of thousands of millennia, the geography of California has resulted in the periodic funneling of hot, dry winds from the interior deserts over the steep, folded hills and out towards the sea. Those winds have periodically fanned naturally started fires into conflagrations which have swept those coastal mountain ranges. From southern chaparral to more northerly redwoods, California’s coastal vegetation is considered pyrophitic. It coexists with wildfires. In many ways, it needs those fires. Those wildfires clean away undergrowth and open pine cones to release their seeds, or turn dead leaves and sticks into soluble ash, allowing the next rains to move the released minerals back into the soil, where those tenacious roots can once again use them to regrow new branches and regreen the scorched hillsides.

In California’s interior valleys, winter rains also moisten and renew verdant grasslands, which then parch, turn tan and dry out in the long summers, inevitably also burning and renewing the soils in a cycle of life, fire and regrowth stretching back into prehistory. The same cycle has shaped the giant sequoias on the western slopes of the Sierra mountains, which also have massively thick bark, protecting their huge trunks from wildfires which periodically  clean up understory vegetation.

In short, California’s hills and valleys are clothed in vegetation which has evolved over the eons along with periodic wildfires. Unchecked sweeping flames, driven by those Santa Ana winds, are an integral part of California’s ecology.

In a strangely resonating way, Tinseltown – Hollywood – the cluster of people, products, and places that form SOCAL’s media industry – “the film business” – has an earily familiar ecology as well. Each movie grows from a seed, an idea, a pitch. If that falls on fertile soil, producers bring in the money like roots bring moisture. The script grows, the cast is found, the massive cluster of skilled trades persons weaves the complex structure of green room, digital inputs, actual physical sets and models, and paper, so much paper, from incunabla to laser printed pulp into what will become the final product. And then, like the wind driven flames light up the skies and fill the air with smoke and embers, comes the flurry of filming, where light and magic come together, their essence captured digitally (or even, still, sometimes on film,) and like a seed pod, become filled with the actualization of the idea. And once canned, and edited, and released to the world, it all goes away. The sets are dismantled – some hauled off to the dump, other parts sold off, or given away, some bits eventually reused. The cast and crews disperse. The musicians, like songbirds, fly off to other branches, other venues for their talents. And like a post fire, scorched hillside, that world awaits for the next ideas, the next rains, to recreate new life.

But the continued existence of an overall ecology does not mean any given bush or tree lives on. Sometimes the fires are too hot. The underlying soil is sterilized, not simply scorched. The smoke-filled winds sometimes carry away almost all traces of what was. Sometimes the wind fanned flames burn Tara as well as Twelve Oaks, and all that was is gone with the wind, never to return. Inevitably, the blue coats and the carpet baggers show up, as the survivors stagger about, dazed, in shock initially, and all too often subsumed with post-traumatic stress as time passes. What grows from those ashes often has little resemblance to what was, ante ignem (before the fire).

Just as generations of American Southerners clung to their memories of the Ante Bellum south in the aftermath of the War Between The States, it is likely that in the decades to come, some, perhaps many of those who inhabited and energized Ante Ignem southern California’s Tinseltown are equally likely to live in an unrealized dreamland that never will return. But Georgia awaits. Its movie sets, and massive studios and media friendly business climate and tax codes, not to mention a willing workforce, are poised to scoop up new talent set adrift from those Hollywood chains by the flames of 2025.

Will Silicon Valley’s digital currencies become the new Confederate dollars? The flames of the LA fires are destroying very real wealth. Lots and lots of very real wealth. Much of that wealth will never return to Cali. The underlying financing structures can, and likely will, go elsewhere. Money is, pretty much by definition, fungible. Treasure moves around. But that collection of talent, who made southern California what it was? Time alone will tell who remains there in the ashes, dreaming of Ante Ignem Tinseltown, and who drives or flies away elsewhere in search of greener pastures, gone with those Santa Ana winds, never to return. Sherman Oaks, not General Sherman, may soon be marching through Georgia, resumes in hand. Time alone will tell how this story ends, but we’ve seen those flame-filled skies before, and then, as now, they portended the downfall of a way of life, and an inflection point in the history of this nation.

-30-

Marvel Studios, Capt. Gooding reminds, already has a sizeable lot in Georgia:

“Trilith Studios. Trilith Studios is an American film and television production studio located south of Atlanta in Fayette County, Georgia. Originally known as Pinewood Atlanta Studios, the studio has been used to produce many films and television programs, especially those produced by Marvel Studios.”

He points out another marketing pitch that could be used: “Georgia’s geography has a wide range playing from the pines of the Georgia Mountains, tumbling down the Chattahoochee River some 430 miles.  After merging with the Flint, it eventually slow rolls into Florida and thence the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

There’s a lot more to be discovered in Georgia; another river waiting for location scouts? It’s small, sure.  But with a unique vibe. The Altamaha.

With SoCal still deeper in danger, the entertainment industry has to be asking:

“What were you doing ante ignem?

Continuity of Government was a small bit of The Captain’s previous career.  But who would have ever imagined, that America would have to face Continuity of an Industry at such a fundamental level?

Damnare ventis quoque.

-The Capt. & Ure

45 thoughts on “California Dreamin’ Turns to Georgia on My Mind”

  1. Why did Michelle Obama not attend Jimmy Carter’s funeral in Washington DC last week? A little background gives us a look at her divisive view of communities. In Mrs. Obama’s words, “the White Community” or “White Folks” shows us her Democrat Liberal view that Whites see themselves as entitled, ie a superior race. That may have been in 1964 when she was born, but those days are over (but not for her). The majority of our country accepts all races as equal in today’s world, no matter how hard the Democrats try to divide the Country by race. That dividing rhetoric cost them the election with President Trump now in charge with a Republican House and Senate. Eventuality the people wake up and respond intelligently at the polls. Jimmy Carter’s family owned slaves in the 1800’s per internet records. It was a Michelle Obama boycott. As simple as that. Now you know the whole truth.

    • Hmm.. I never thought about that as a reason.. SLAVERY….I actually had someone in the family get upset with me over the holidays over my point of view. I am sure this will upset a few lol…
      they were discussing marriage licenses..
      I mentioned that I had a negative view of the licensing process. In the earliest days and even today in some countries if you want a woman you make arrangements to buy her..go up to dad or if they are obtained by being the wife or daughter of an enemy they are taken and sold as slaves. one guy I worked with only came here to make enough money to buy twelve wives and a herd of goats..( long story about this asshole )
      or the suiter would offer dad a goat or cow in exchange for his wife.. women and children were viewed as property even a hundred years ago in our country if the mom passed on the eldest daughter took moms place..its one of the reason why Joseph Smith was detested and hunted
      https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Loneliness-Plural-Wives-Joseph/dp/156085085X/ref=sr_1_1?
      you don’t actually have to read the book..all the Diaries are available for download to read at the BYU library..
      in ancient times any woman you had sex with was considered your wife that you were required to provide for.
      many historical examples were someone wanting one daughter but had to take possession of the ones older first.
      .. essentially the marriage certificate is basically a receipt of ownership. my view is I don’t feel I need to own anyone.
      so if its viewed in the same context Michelle Obama is a slave already… or is she or he…For years there was the controversy of the birth certificate.. what about the marriage license..

        • And I have Hemeroids so going to some event would be a pain in the ass to attend. who really gives a s@#t about it anyway.. jimmy didn’t know or care.. his legacy left behind is what matters.. a man among men..did his best to do the right thing..
          I was talking about my thought on the creation of the marriage licensing and its inception ..
          love companionship is between two people.. sex is not a licensed right..its a woman’s personal gift to summit herself to another..her body her choice..

        • the past administration’s attendance is only a show of respect.
          I made my plans and there won’t be one..the obit says I went on vacation and I hope the temperature is moderate..that I loved everyone very much..and a photo of me at five..
          if anyone is curious where in the hell I went they will stop out and ask..then everyone can head to pizza ranch give the kids a roll of quarters for the ga.as crack open a few bottles of wine and beer and enjoy a good meal.. reminiscing old man crazy mad science projects or any of the other projects I have going..
          my view is.. if they wanted to see me then show up while I’m still kicking..

  2. Captain Gooding has written the finest deep explanation of how productoin of films (and programs) happens.
    ‘
    I offer this as an addendum:
    The means and process of producton will change prmanently to become much less centralied. The high-end physical tools of hardware and , now, software can be had and used anywhere. This is much the same way the internet de-localized business generally to make location no longer particularly relevent.

    Excellent movies (and programs) can now be made anywhere. The on-screen talent and the crews and managers are everywhere now. Previously, these resources were gathered in a few busy hot spots.

    This is huge. It is a broad and irrevocable deep change in how things are done to meet new realities and new capabilities.

    Lots of untutored krappe nad swill will gush forth, as usual; but Real Talent will out, and be enjoyed by a wider audience,

    I’m sorry I’m old. I’d like to ride this horse.

    Distribution and consumption will also change to match and make best use of new paradigm stuff.

  3. Wow, compliments, eloquence at it’s finest!

    I had a very strange dream last night. I was invited to visit a woman named Cathy that I used to work with in the 90’s. She lives in a high rise building and there is a hair salon on one of the floors. She exits the salon with a device that she wants to demonstrate, a type of canister, she opens the lid and sprays a solution on the floor, explaining that in a few minutes the floor will be perfectly clean, no wiping or mopping needed.

    Then we go to her apartment, and on her balcony I hang two carpets that I brought with me and then a friend arrives and says she wants both of them.

    Next, Cathy and I go to the lower level of the building and there is a type of control panel on the wall… I start pushing buttons without knowing what I am doing and somehow we have been transported into another dimension. We are walking along a crowded street, there are a lot of people, they look human, but a bit different.

    Cathy stops at a store front snack place to get some food, she says it is soy based and then a guy that was walking with us got upset about that and left.

    I tell Cathy I think we should get out of here, we go back to the control panel, and I notice that the metal around the panel is slowly disappearing… I push some buttons again and what happened after that I don’t remember…

  4. Don’t forget that a lot of TV production, if not movies, has been moving to Canada for years. I watch a lot of Sci Fi and it seems to be mostly made in Canada, with Canadian actors, and actresses, in many roles.

    The fires are likely to spur more movement to the North as well.

  5. Didn’t I say this would happen? Lahaina was the model. Sue the power company, even if it’s not their fault. Who needs insurance?

    “L.A. Residents Sue Edison Utility Over Potential Role In Palisades Fire”

    https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/inferno-plagued-palisades-braces-santa-ana-windstorm-death-toll-rises

    So… net net… electric users pay not only for what they use, they are charged insurance underwriting costs for brush fires anywhere in the system. It’s happening to me in Hawaii right now.

      • I can’t be terribly sympathetic. If’fn I lived in Greater L.A. I would be on a slow cruise to Hawaii, and my true valuables would be in a UPS or FedEx box, headed for one of my kids’ places, in the Midwest.

        I can NOT understand why the L.A. basin is still inhabited. This flat doesn’t make sense to me…

        Folks are going to sit around until they receive an “evacuation alert” from the same people who couldn’t fill a reservoir or flush fire hydrants; who eviscerated physical qualifications to get a bunch of women and people who (theoretically) could tell whether they had innies or outies, but couldn’t draw a salient conclusion regarding their gender by using this clue; who have really strained reality and believability to attempt to assign blame for the fire response and the resultant damage, to anyone or anything they possibly could, other than themselves?

        Really?

        Among other people and things, yesterday Newscum blamed Trump and asked why DJT wasn’t in SoCal with an aid package, by now.

        I would guess Mr. Trump WILL be in SoCal in eight days (or less) to present the fine folks of L.A. (including about a million newly-converted Republicans) with a comprehensive aid and reconstruction package. I’m also guessing it will not involve Ms. bASS, nor Mr. Newslum and will be constructed in such a manner that Gavin will have to either publicly humiliate himself, or blatantly (and obviously to everyone in L.A.) move to prevent Trump’s rescue from being implemented.

        • (“Folks are going to sit around until they receive an “evacuation alert””)

          many cannot afford to…..where do you go …you essentially become a slave to your own environment and social status.. people living in neighborhoods where the view of the women that cannot afford the latest fashions and styles is considered a cheap thot.. ( thirsty hoe over there) their only value is to be used and tossed aside as trash.. do they like living in such a demeaning neighborhood.. or why don’t they move..because they are a slave to their social position.
          the authorities can yell scream and say leave save yourselves..but how , where.

        • On choosing where to live and knowing the dangers: Know the risks of where you are, and how to avoid predictable disasters. Most people think I’m nuts, living on a volcano. But I know it well, and survived the biggest eruption in 100 years that happened in 2018…. because I knew in advance where the safe areas were and chose to live THERE… instead of near a historically active crater. I keep remembering a video clip of a tearful woman whose back yard cracked open and erupted, swallowing her new two year old house. She tearfully exclaimed “We knew it was ‘Lava Zone 1’, but we never thought THIS would happen!” [Definition of ‘Lava Zone 1’ = “May Erupt at Any Time”] Cognitive Dissonance at it’s finest. People that stupid need to suffer the losses.

        • (“Educatiobn most painfully admin’ed”)

          exactly…. my kids travel all around the globe..
          I joke about our international vacation as going to a nearby town or casino..we like many are prisoners of our position in society.. everyone can make changes and overcome..that’s what we have done.. either give up and fail to make the most of your position that your in..or you can make the most of where you are..
          https://youtu.be/xQyVBxABGxw?si=SSXOeC6QXrExw_KS
          Arthur the robot bartender..great movie..I love the message it has..
          https://youtu.be/Jr7mTCCqcFg?si=rAwYFNgXHD8OivbI
          the ending..

        • @LOOB

          “many cannot afford to…..where do you go”

          Where do they go when they leave 20 minutes ahead of a 150ft high wall of flame?

          ” …you essentially become a slave to your own environment and social status..”

          Bullshit! If you are going to be forced to either move or die, it is ALWAYS better to choose when you move, whether you can choose where you’re going, or not.

          The people who hang on until the last minute don’t realize that nobody burns to death in a big fire. They suffocate first, via asphyxiation. The fire sucks all the oxygen out of the surrounding atmosphere and they pass out and die before the flames reach them. They think as long as they can see space between themselves and the flames, they’re safe.

          It doesn’t work like that.

          A mammal can suffer from lack of oxygen when the fire is still a mile or more away. Have you seen any pix of the UNBURNED CORPSES of the dead dogs, cats, horses, etc. from the fires? I saw one photo which looked like a killing field. Neither grass nor fur were singed, yet the field held several dozen dead critters — not pleasant.

          Hanging around until the fire is ravaging the next block is criminally stupid and Darwinist-insane…

  6. George, don’t leave Austin and Central Texas out of the H-Wood succession mix. I think the climate and strategic geographic location might be more attractive to the H-Wood power elite than hazy, hot and humid Georgia. The area is already a budding player in the U.S. film industry.

  7. Hmm.. my daughter asked me..about mice deterent..
    honey you got this.. saw dust in tea bags…
    https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0CX191D7C/?
    then essential oils.. I believe Gaye had this on her backdoor survival she years ago..spray citronella oil and speed mint oil on the saw dust then toss the bags in the pantry or grain bin

    thanks for the steely dan.. he’s one of my favorites..

  8. New Mexico has a thriving movie industry and has had for many years. Netflix moved here and has become a significant employer in Albuquerque. They, and others have significant studio space, and there are many foks living here associated with the movie industry. There’s also a large talent pool of both experienced and inexperienced extras. We’re less than 800 driving miles from Tinseltown and even less by air. There’s good weather here for most of the year and we have many CAVU days. There’s varied scenery from woodland to raw desert and proper mountains. We even have lakes and rivers.

    Breaking Bad put us on the map for the general public. There are other places that movies can be made, but NM is a contender.

  9. “Here come those Santa Ana winds again…”.

    Quoting further from that great Steely Dan song…

    “My friends say no don’t go for that cotton candy
    Son you’re playing with fire
    The kid will live and learn
    As he watches his bridges burn
    From the point of no return…”.

    The Los Angeles Basin can appear like cotton candy — light and fun. But folks there are always indeed playing with fire of various kinds. And today, sadly we watch their bridges… and most everything else… burn. To a maybe that point of no return that Donald Fagen sang about.

    Perhaps Santa Ana Winds are God’s warning that no obesely-sized metropolis like the Greater LA Area should have anywhere near that amount of human habitation. A few tribes scattered here and there as existed before people from Lands Elsewhere came in and too over? Fine. This area could handle that. But not the stuffed sausage casing of wall-to-wall humanity as exists there now.

    The countless millions of people who dwell in the LA Basin are in a place they should not be. Mother Nature designed this part of the Earth to be a natural fire trap. Yet, stubborn humans decided that they would overpopulate this area anyway. And decisions bring consequences with them – some quite bitter and nasty.

    And as we all know — it’s ‘Not Nice To Eff With Mother Nature…’. For sooner or later, Mother Nature will Eff you back.

    There is very little ‘California Dreamin’ any more.

    All the leaves would still be brown today… if there were any leaves left to burn. And the sky is not so much gray as flaming orange… as if some fire god is bringing wrath up from Hellish Realms.

    But as the Mamas & Papas song goes on to tell… it’s time for all now to stop into a church… get down on our knees.. and pray. No more California Dreamin’ on such these Winter’s Days.

    Is this catastrophe some freak of Nature beyond the norm? Is it some kind of punishment for cancerous Wokeism and celebration of appearances and human vanity? Is it terrorism? Something else?

    Whatever this event is… this will have profound effects that will affect the entire World for the rest of Time. Things have changed forever. Many things will now have to questioned… the process of healing must soon start… tears must still be shed… and one hell of a lot of work to clear the scorched landscape and figure out now what do with that will soon begin.

    Will Californians learn the message from Mother Nature? Or will they mindlessly just try to rebuild everything again that has just been turned to ashes? And if They choose to once again take on Mother Nature again… what will Her response be again one day?

    If the Eagles were right that California is a kind of Hotel… perhaps they were wrong about what they sang about it. Maybe you can Check Out. Maybe you can Leave.

    And just maybe, Mother Nature is trying to tell you – you should.

    The line between a Dream and a Nightmare can often be so very… thin.

    • Honestly, I expect the political Leftists who run the State have a group hard-on, visualizing the entirety of the burned-out area being rebuilt with population-dense Soviet slum style apartment-hovels, not the hundreds of thousands of single-family homes which occupied all that space until a few days ago.

      You DO realize everything you said in your first few paragraphs of actual commentary could be applied equally-well to Greater Phoenix? The Phoenix oasis is capable of supporting about 35,000 people. Without heavily-managed water supplies from without, the other 5mln people who live there, couldn’t. For some reason, Americans seem to like living in places where few are capable of existing without artificial assistance.

  10. Captain Gooding wrote a wonderful piece, beautiful prose!, in explaining what California is, and what may happen to it now.

    Captain Gooding is correct, the change in movies from film to digital and the development of the internet has broadened the potential geographic dispersal of that key California industry.

    What was left unsaid about California though is that the Financial Capital to develop Southern California came not from Entertainment but from OIL … MASSIVE QUANTITIES of easy and cheap to “harvest” from under the LA basin and the areas just to the East of LA.

    At it speculative peak soon after it’s discovery the pictures of the drilling rigs throughout LA and Longbeach made it look like an entire forest had moved onto the land, a forest of drilling rigs.

    Even to this day if you drive from the 405 towards downtown the SMELL of oil is everywhere, since they still continue to pump pump pump oil from under the soil all the way from the Coast to the La Brea Tar Pits. (and all the way down to Huntington Beach plus offshore). Without Oil … southern California would not have had the “Risk Capital” to develop as quickly or as thoroughly as it did. Oil money greased the wheels of Southern California’s development, not Tinsel Town.

    Alas … Southern California is not only potentially losing Tinsel Town but is intentionally kicking it’s oil industry (which in dollar terms is much bigger) out the door, and in addition has already lost most of it’s aviation manufacturing along with all of it’s related high paying manufacturing jobs.

    Alas the California’s “problems” are not just limited to Southern California.

    San Francisco was built via the excess profits made by it’s long ago Gold strike, and since the 1960’s it’s economy has been increasingly driven by the high tech world, both electronics and biotech /medical.

    Because of costs and taxes both of those industries are starting a migration out of California to other parts of the county. For San Francisco proper the exodus has become a Stampede! Down Bay the companies are putting more and more of their newer facilities in secondary locations outside of California, with Oracle even moving it’s Corporate Headquarters from the Bay area to Texas (now moving it again, this time to Nashville). Several other long time California Mega Companies have similarly moved their headquarters out of the state.

    The working upper middle and middle middle class (the taxpayer class in other words who’s taxes support the government) in California are reportedly leaving the state now in large numbers even as third world immigrants with low skill levels, and even lower tax payments to government coffers, flood in.

    “California Dreaming” … ah the Beach Boys song of the 1960’s captured a time and a place that no longer exists for the working middle class. As Captain Gooding said though … it will remain in the imagination of people for a long time into the future even though it is now turning to ashes.

    • I heard it mentioned that many of the burned-outs were ~$20,000 houses that’d been owned for 40 years or more by the same family, and were presently-appraised for anywhere from $2.5-$4.7mln.

      That is udder insanity — L.A. (or Orange) County “milking” an obscene amount of property taxes out of the residents (and then pissing it away…)

      • My grandparents home in the Pacific Palisades was about 100 yards from the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, my grandfather built it in the 30s. Every home within 2 square miles has been burned to the ground.
        My mother and uncles sold it a few years ago after my grandparents died. That property was valued at 7 mil a year ago and many in the area are even more. This area is the definition of old money. The true financial loss will be hidden by the gv because it is astronomical. This will be one for the history books for California. I hope it wakes people up about the failed policies of this once great state. People ask why would anyone would want to live in such misguided land and my answer is always the same.
        ITS THE WEATHER.
        Usually perfect everyday, except when the Santa Ana’s blow.

        • Usually..
          cept for early 80’s when I classed up in BUDS during the worst storms in SoCal 4 years. Coronado was cut off from mainland south Imperial Beach ways. The bridge was fine – all traffic had to go around SD to get to points south Imperial Beach.
          The video’s from our “Surf Ops” in IBS (inflableboatsmall) was epic and immediate classics.
          Vids still used today to scare the shit out of new tadpoles. Huge waves bending the IBS in half, tossing paddlers up into air in the surfzone. We had 2 Kenyan Officers (masai) in our class, and one Sri Laken ofc.- never seen the Ocean in person before that time.
          I never seen so much White in a black dudes eye balls before, as I did one day on same crew as those 2. Those 2 Kenyans graduated BUDS- Brave ass, steady MOFO”S, the sri lakan didnt last a whole week.

          Imagine Ureself trapped inside a surfzone with waves’ facing a good 6 foot – the face. A Kapok life preserver strapped in around Ure nutsack..keeping You afloat as the Waves just pound in on you – washing machine got nothing on that khaos, nothing.
          Nightime surf ops ? always cheated on those exercises, really didnt want to get all that wet. Couldnt really cheat Wednesday night(Hellweek) paddel around the world, which ended IN the Tijuana mudslews – open sewers swamp into Pacific. to further dox myself – mine was last class to go thru the mudslews – too many tadpoles got really sick, nasty infections, walking pnuemonia..nasty business. Think I lost like 6 toenails at the end of it all, but all in all it was just another easy day.

        • Y’know what might be the last straw for a lot of those folks? After the ground is cleared by fire, and the root networks begin to rot, the rains will come, and bring…???

      • My 93 year old dad lives in the Corona del Mar house overlooking Newport Beach purchased in 1977. With Prop 13 property taxes fixed at 1% he pays 1/6 the property taxes I pay in Colorado. What was an eye watering price in 1977 of $97,000 is now worth almost 10 million…

        Whoever buys the house will have an enormous property tax bill… that will be pissed away by the state govt.

        I left Cali in 1982, and will never go back there to live.

        • Marine Mammal,
          You have to look on the bright side of those ocean conditions.
          We would just call it a tasty wave surf session. The only priority there is to get some righteous barrels.

  11. (“Each movie grows from a seed, an idea, a pitch. If that falls on fertile soil, “)
    one of my most prized possessions is a farmers diary. when Russian citizens were starving because of poor crops..the czar asked for help. the USA sent farmers over to teach the farmers there our way. unfortunately he waited to long to recognize the problem that he should have addressed immediately. I thought Anastasia survived because at one point a member of the staff of the royal household asked them to take the little girl with. after reading about the DNA tests done on the remains I now believe the nanny sent her daughter with them.. the same thing happened with Mari Antoinette..the staff kept telling them the people were hurting and needed help..not sensing the urgency of the situation at hand ..( it didn’t affect her she didn’t have a clue) she made the comment well let them eat cake. we know what happened. she thought I hide the crown jewels and later we retain our elite position in society. we also know what the results were for every instance this same scenario played out. Nero fiddled as Rome burned..
    Mari lost her noggin and the Czar and his family perished..
    so what is real wealth? if we look at historical events its always been the same playbook.. leaders become sheltered by position fail to sense the urgency of the situation and a new civilization is born.
    I think of the book table of the gods. the annanaki teaching the people about foods and all those that discovered new foods are heralded by being listed in history of a god. George has listed it several times..what do you need..food , shelter, water, heat , communications etc. gold and silver was used by ancient civilizations as an indicator of their social separation.
    an archeologist last June uncovered what could be considered a vault a cove in a wall with a fresco painted over it.. hiding the valuables. what was in there a wine jug sealed inside with a wax coating ( Garum spiced wine ) a hair comb a necklace of baked clay beads and a short sword..
    we read stories about how the Spaniards came got gold crazy and when the Mayans and Aztecs rebelled forced them to drink molten gold telling the drink what you value..
    what is true treasure corn wheat.. Egyptians had warehouses of grain.. so did every other civilization..
    in the news printings of the USA and this past election..we read stories similar to those of civilizations that have fallen and our legislators basically saying let them eat cake.. bringing in millions of illegals then telling the citizens deal with it..then an overwhelming response at the poles..will the usa go through the drastic changes of the past. or will the leadership realize that there’s a different path that should be taken.

    https://www.tableofgods.com/

  12. I’ve been an HF ( Shortwave radio) fan since Ben Franklin tempted lightning. Had my Novice as a 1962 Junior High kidd. Worked for “Sam” in far-flung locations, and generally had my ear to the HF radio on “roads less traveled by” for decades.

    I like to listen to otherwise boring HF MIL frequencies for several reasons. One of which is that they aren’t terribly busy — no constant din of chatter.

    Occasionally, somebody screws up, and some interesting info can be overheard, (Rare — but it does happen.) Sometimes the message traffic is in the clear, and sometimes it’s encrypted, and sometimes it’s intermingled. — voice and digital. A casual civilian listener like me doesn’t have the ability to de-crypt a lot of it. (Which is fine. One can deduce quite a lot from what one CAN understand.)

    Now, for them that has ears, the following Observation.

    Recently, on a few dfferent frequencies, I have heard a sudden proliferation of numerous digital, presummably encrypted traffic, in quite a few “new” formats. They sound markedly different from each other. They seem unrelated. (Different “owners” and purposes, depending on the frequency.)

    Some sound similar to well-known and popular formats, and some are Truly Weird. Some are continuous over long time periods like tens of minutes to a few hours, and some are brief bursts of a few seconds or less. ( I would expect a mix such as this.)

    I have ham radio “format identifier” software, but it recognizes few to none of them, while being quite good at “normal” signals identification.

    So.

    No conclusions, but it IS an interesting observation. Different. Encrpted. Recent. Seemingly un-unified. Seemingly routine to the users — when heard, saying anything.

    Mysterious. (I do not expect to ever know much more.)

    73
    Bletchly sends

  13. re: “The End”
    feat: a “Tosca” kiss

    Folks,

    Is it the beginning of the end, or merely the end of the beginning? Lunation circles around us. History books say that the English explorer Henry Hudson was for a time in the employ of the Dutch East India Company. In1609 his ship Halve Maen (‘Half Moon’) dropped anchor in the Hudson River at Weehawken (‘at the end of’) Cove adjacent to the Hudson Palisades with views of Manhattan. Hudson’s first mate, Robert Juet (‘Gift from God’?), recorded that “…we saw a good piece of ground, and hard by it there was a cliff that looked of the colour of white-green…the trees that grow upon it, for they are all burned, and the other places are green as grass”.

    Wednesday next week will mark the 150th anniversary of Hollywood director D.W. Griffith’s birth. According to “Wikipedia”, Edwin S. Porter, was head of motion picture production at Edison’s New York studios. Apparently Mr. Edison wished him to pay $15 for a parody of Puccini’s Italian opera about the knife-wielding “Tosca” killing two birds with one stone as Rome faced conflagration. The entry from a destitute Mr. Griffith did not make the cut, but he was given his first starring film role in “Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest” which was released on Jan. 16th, 1908.

    Spoiler alert: DW’s character rescues his baby from an eagle’s nest and kisses the happy mother. The eagle succumbs to multiple ‘tosca kisses’. Some of the outdoor scenes were filmed at Hudson Palisades.

    Here is a Youtube link to the movie. I think the original has no music at all. However the YT uploader here has subtly propagandized his edition. It features three snippets performed by the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine from the work “Adventures in a Perambulator” (baby carriage). It’s by the late American composer John Alden Carpenter.

    https://youtu.be/sfuBjS4NTDU

    Perhaps some people in this world would stoop to steal candy from a baby and make a production of it?

  14. “California Dreamin’ Turns to Georgia on My Mind”

    In the prophetic words of Mister Mojo Risin

    “Took a look around, see which way the wind blow”

    “L.A. woman Sunday afternoon
    Drive through your suburbs
    Into your blues, into your blues, yeah
    Into your blue-blue blues
    Into your blues, oh, yeah

    I see your hair is burnin’
    Hills are filled with fire

    If they say I never loved you
    You know they are a liar
    Drivin’ down your freeways
    Midnight alleys roam
    Cops in cars, the topless bars

    Never saw a woman
    So alone, so alone
    So alone, so alone

    Motel money murder madness
    Let’s change the mood from glad to sadness”

  15. Well said.

    You remember what the old wise Hopi elder said to me George>? “If you don’t like the movie Andy, Change it to something else. He said, you have the power. it’s really easy. Click the button. ”

    I said what If I just shut the movie off and went outside to play? He replied only with a smile.

    Yes, to The Point, The tipping point of the movie and music industry….

    Today’s Creation goes with a similar theme. Quite the Suprise. I best get busy being about it.

  17. re: “Ship of Fools”, 1965
    feat: Vivien Leigh

    Folks,

    There are a couple of 20th century connections of sorts between explorer Henry Hudson and Manhattan. Henry Hudson and some supporters were cast adrift in a lifeboat on James Bay by mutineers in 1612. They were gone with the wind and never seen again.

    A construction crew building highway #17 near Deep River, On. found a rock with an inscription on its underside: “HH captive 1612”. Was it really carved by the missing explorer? Who knows. The rock now sits in a local park.

    As the group noted a short time ago, President Carter led a group of US Navy volunteers at the 1952 Chalk River nuclear accident event. The facility is actually situated on the Deep River. It was the first nuclear reactor built outside the US under the Manhattan Project.

    [Henry Hudson appears to have completed two voyages under the umbrella of the Muscovy Company. It was chartered in London in 1555 between Tsar Ivan the Terrible and Queen Elizabeth I operating until 1917. (He actually requested Elizabeth’s hand in marriage!) The Company’s Moscow headquarters, Old English Yard, still stands in the Kremlin on Verkova (‘Barbarian’) Street. Queen Elizabeth II and President Yeltsin presided over its opening as a museum in 1994.]

    The 2007 Russian epic movie, “1612”, was released on President Putin’s initiated National Unity Day. The film celebrates the defeat of Polish invaders at the Kremlin in The Battle of Moscow in 1612. The Unity Day holiday coincides with the Orthodox feast day of Our Lady of Kazan, the Holy Protectress of Russia.

    Followers of Western ways may wish to avail themselves of Brant’s 1497 tome “Stultifera Navis” (Ship of Fools). Explore humanity’s voyage across satirical seas of time with jesters.

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