Highway 84

 Mus from Yellowstone. Driving the Beartooth Highway, a protected historical "All-American road"or "national scenic byway"
and through Yellowstone Park were two of my favourite routes. Just stunning. We were excited to get into Boise early and have a walk around the town and some dinner. We had perfect weather and got into Boise about 3 in the afternoon. Found a patio for happy hour cocktails and then walked around the cute town. Stagg and I were in Boise two years ago...it was one of our favourite places on our road trip then.

 When we were looking for a place to eat supper in boise...we came across this place below...which really gave us a laugh. We actually found a place down the street. There are all kinds of awesome bars and restaurants in a small group of blocks in downtown Boise making it a great place to relax and shop. We drove from Yellowstone Park, via Highway 33 and Highway 20 to Interstate 84. This took us from the Park to Boise, Idaho and then to Pendleton Oregon.

 Tis swimming pool was one of the utstanding places we stayed. We would set up a few driving goals, no longer than six hours of driving a day...and book hotels accordingly.  This hotel pool is in Pendleton oregon, at a Red Lion Hotel. I kind of fell in love with this chain of hotels as they are retro vintage decor. Sort of the 70's slash 80s. I might try to post a series of hotels interiors later this month if I can track down the pics I took of some great hotels. This pool was great because it had such a stunning view...and we made cocktails and took them to the pool and really kicked back this night in Pendlton. We also had a great meal in their restaurant. Steaks, highbrow meatloaf, garlic mashed potatoes and fish and chips. Excellent food! We ate some terrific meals most of the trip.

 The mountains in these last two pictures are at the edge of Oregon and Washington. We were pretty excited to get to the "pacific northwest" and the climate change was immediate. As were the forests.

Boise And Beyond

A lot of you don't know this, but I had done some contract work for the CBC Newsworld during the 90's. It was some of the most fun working I've ever had and a time period very dear to my heart. Some of the footage and research I did was used and some of it wasn't which is fairly typical of the situation...but always rewarding for me. I was attending a friends wedding in Vegas and the CBC asked me to look into "alternative" lifestyles in Vegas...real people off the strip kind of idea. So I had filmed a lot of interviews with locals who were in the tattoo industry or second hand clothing industry, star gasses for ufos, landscapers and construction workers etc etc. As a side project I thought I would offer the CBC a visit to Area 51. Now this wasnt before X Files so I was a little going as a long time interest in conspiracy theory and X-Files fan...( story didn't get used actually). I had been looking for this so~called UFO experiment way back on another road trip with friends in the early 80s. Maybe growing up west coast and for directory a mum who believed in alien visitations I was a little ahead of the tome once the 90s it got so widespread. I hadn't found this sign (if it even existed in the 80s I wonder?) but I did some work and figured out how to get to Area 51...and I spent a day out there taking pictures and filming. I saw a lot of military aircraft and tinted windowed security vans and the odd freak and student out looking for ufos.

So we leave Las Vegas a few days ago...and we are heading to Boise Idaho because I have spent a fair bit of time in "the west" but Stagg hasn't. He hasnt been to Wy. or Montannna or Idaho...so I figure we can get to Boise. And we're driving and things look familiar from the route the gps has given me and dagnabbit if we don't come right up to the turn off to Area 51. I couldn't believe it! I actually had taken a still photo of my friend jumping in front of this very sign. when I can I will cross reference that for you when I get my picture albulms from Toronto some day. I just was flumoxed to see this sign again I never figured I'd be out this way again. Of course...the ufo secret study research location is not here but another couple hours away...but still...to see this funny sign again really threw me.





So my photo taking has become sort of erratic the past week. No logic. I didn't take one picture of Boise Idaho and it is a very clean friendly pretty town. Stagg is always going to have some funny stories to tell about the place. The best place to be homeless in United States. The homeless people we saw were dressed way better than us and people were talking to them, joking with them, they looked healthy and well fed. We stayed ina hostel (long story) and went out for cocktails and walked around the downtown then went a pub for supper. It was delicious...gourmet upscale mac and cheese. Everything seems upscale in Boise. It might be the Denmark of America. Denmark being one of the happiest places to live on earth (Blue Zone Theory). And I just simply didn't think of taking pics. I've been there a number of times and the evening just flew by. We got up pretty early the next morning and headed to Portland. Stagg has also never been to the Pacific Northwest...and we thought we would stay in Seattle but I wasn't able to drive that long...felt pretty tired and realized that Portland is like the new Barcelona so we should check it out, heh heh. So the following pics are from Portland in no particular order. We found a pub and Stagg got some local brews to sip, I had a vidka tonic. We had an amazing upgraded hotel...just awesome...and we could cook dinner there and so we did and just watched a bunch of tv into the late night. We had visited an outstanding old school record shop, Powells, some outdoor sculpture etc etc.

More Connections To Monsters Of Folk...The Felice Brothers

One of the best bands I've seen in the last five years has been The Felice Brothers. They used to play at their parents bbqs and in the subways in New York. They have toured with some of the guys from the "supergroup" Monsters Of Folk. I love this whole scene of music.

“Hey, there’s an interview goin’ on in here, asshole!” James Felice calls out the door of the Winnebago in the direction of guitar music. His brother Ian is strumming outside with a wild-eyed, fu-manchu’ed man named Searcher, who is singing along in falsetto.

Searcher pokes his head through the passenger’s side window. “Hey, you don’t need to call people ‘asshole,’ douchebag!”

Ian’s nasal voice arrives with the crown of his head at the side door. “I had to get the secret cigarette I keep here.” He produces a cigarette from somewhere.

“There’s only one? Ah, fuck.” says James.

“Yeah, and you don’t get one, you know why?” says Searcher through the front window.

“There’s an interview goin’ on in here!”

These are the Felice Brothers at home. They’ve lived in the beat-up Winnebago for the duration of their summer tour opening for Old Crow Medicine Show—the two brothers, their bassist, their fiddle player, two drummers, and their tour manager. It’s a crowded little cavern, with every surface buried beneath clothes, books, and miscellaneous clutter. There’s a tub full of beer, wine, and ice on the floor inside the door. James has poured us Delirium Nocturnum ale in plastic cups.


“Even though I specifically asked him to get a cigarette for you and I, do you know why you don’t get one now?” says Searcher.

“No, I was calling Ian the asshole,” James explains, grinning.

“Let’s smoke a cigarette, then!”

“I’m doing an interview here!”

From an interview with James Felice



Below I love...it's Tim Kasher playing with Cursive ina record store in Boise in 2006...





The only thing missing from this set of music is Bonnie"Prince" Billy...here we go...this round off these bits of music nicely. If you get a chance check out the brilliant Old Joy thatstars Bonnie Prince Billy, aka, Will Oldham...



Related Links:

1) Interview with James Felice I can’t decide which he finds weird and sad: the idea that they could play rockstars, or the concept of ‘playing rockstar’ in general. It might have been the former—a token nod to the self-deprecation you’re supposed to exhibit in interviews. But then, the Felice Brothers’ entire act does seem to mock the rockstar pose. It’s messy, unglamorous, unadorned; there’s an overwhelming sense that hey, these are just regular folks.
2) Interview with Coner Oberst of Bright Eyes and Monsters of Folk
3) Interview with Tim Kasher
4) The Felice Brothers joined Old Crow Medicine Show, Justin Townes Earle and the Dave Rawlings Machine for a nine-city package tour called The Big Surprise Tour, after the lead track from the Yonder is the Clock album. Wiki Page on Felice Bros.

Reasons for Hope...or How To Shop!

Believe it or not, I am actually a fun loving person...but I read a lot of depressing things. I say things like how we live is ridicuous and counter-productive, stressful, we eat crap, and the planet is all going to hell in a handbasket...and I keep following blogs that are quite depressing...I happen to believe that people who don't read are happier folks than people who do read, heh heh. Unfortunately, I am a bookworm. And reading for me includes blogs. Apparently I am attracted to wise but depressing blogs.

But I don't believe in apocalypse or an endgame scenario. Maybe I am in denial...no I don't think so.

I am a big fan of Jared Diamond and often link him here or plead with friends to read his stuff...at the end of his book...depressingly titled COLLAPSE...he closes with why he has reason for hope for our societies to survive their immediately pressing challenges...

He says...

My remaining cause for hope is another consequence of the globalized modern world's interconnectedness. Past societies lacked archaeologists and television. While the Easter Islanders were busy deforesting the highlands of their overpopulated island for agricultural plantations of the 1400s, they had no way of knowing that, thousands of miles to the east and west at the same time, Greenland Norse society and the Khmer Empire were simultaneously in terminal decline, while the Anasazi had collapsed a few centuries earlier, Classic Maya society a few more centuries before that, and Mycenean Greece, 2,000 years before that. Today, though, we turn on our television sets or radios or pick up newspapers, and we see, hear, or read about what happened in Somalia or Afghanistan a few hours earlier. Our television documentaries and books show us in graphic detail why the Easter islanders, Classic Maya, and other past societies collapsed. Thus, we have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of distant peoples and past peoples. That's an opportunity that no past society enjoyed to such a degree. My hope in writing this book has been that enough people will choose to profit from that opportunity to make a difference.



And instead of listing the 12 environmental pressing issues that Diamond maps out...I thought I would post here instead his advice for consumers and their power...

(I think you can guess and find the 12 most pressing environmental issues online, or in the news, orlikely, you already know waht they entail.)

I think one of his most compelling suggestions for change is in our consummer personal power.

Diamond writes...


Next, you can reconsider what you, as a consumer, do or don't buy. Big businesses aim to make money. They are likely to discontinue products that the public doesn't buy, and to manufacture and promote products that the public does buy. The reason that increasing numbers of logging companies are adopting sustainable logging practices is that consumer demand for wood products certified by the Forest Stewardship Council exceeds supply. Of course, it is easiest to influence companies in your own country, but in today's globalized world the consumer has increasing ability to influence overseas companies and policy-makers as well. A prime example is the collapse of white-minority government and apartheid policies in South Africa between 1989-1994, as the result of the economic boycott of South Africa by individual consumers and investors overseas, leading to an unprecedented economic divestiture by overseas corporations, public pension funds, and governments. During my several visits to South Africa in the 1980's, the South African state seemed to me irrevocably commited to apartheid that I never imagined it would back down, but it did.

Another way in which consumers can influence policies of big companies, beside buying or refusing to buy their products, is by drawing public attention to the company's policies and products. One set of examples is the campaigns against animal cruelty that led major fashion houses, such as Bill Blass, Calvin Klein, and Oleg Cassini, to publicly renounce their use of fur. Another example involves the public activists who helped convince the world's largest wood products company, Home Depot, to commit to ending its purchases of wood from endangered forest regions and to give preference to certified forest products. Home Depot's policy shift greatly surprised me: I had supposed consumer activists to be hopelessly outgunned in trying to influence such a powerful company.

Most examples of consumer activism have involved trying to embarass a company for doing bad things, and that one-sideness is unfortunate , because it has given environmentalists a reputation for being monotonously shrill, depressing, boring and negative. Consumer activists could also be influential by taking the initiative to praise companies whose policies they do like. ...Big businesses adopting environmental policies know that they are unlikely to be believed if they praise their own policies to a cynical public; the businesses need outside help in becoming recognized for their efforts. Among the many big companies that have benefited recently from favorable public comment are Chevron-Texaco and Boise Cascade, praised for their environmental management of their Kutubu oil field and for their decision to phase out products of unsustainably managed forests, respectively. In addition to activists castigating "the dirty dozen," they could also praise "the terrific ten."

Consumers who wish to influence big businesses by either buying or refusing to buy their products, or by embarassing or praising them, need to go to the trouble of learning which links in a business chain are most sensitive to public influence, and also which links are in the strongest position to influence other links. Businesses that sell directly to the consumer, or whose brands are on sale to the consumer, are much more sensitive than businesses that sell only to other businesses and whose products reach the public without a label of origin. Retail businesses that, by themselves or as part of a large buyer's group, buy much or all of the output of some particular producing business are in a much stronger position to influence that producer than is a member of the public.

For instance, if you do or don't approve of how some big international oil company manages its oil feilds, it does make sense to buy at, or boycott, praise or picket that company's gas stations. If you admire Australian titanium mining practices and dislike Lihir Island gold mining practices, don't waste your time fantasizing that you could have any influence on those mining companies yourself; turn your attention instead to DuPont, and to Tiffany and Wal-Mart, which are major retailers of titanium-based paints and of gold jewlery, respectively. Don't praise or blame logging companies without readily traceable retail products; leave it instead to Home Depot, Lowe's, B and Q, and the other retail giants to influence the loggers. Similarily, seafood retailers like Unilever (through its various brands) and Whole Foods are the ones who care about whether you buy seafood from them; they, not you, can influence the fishing industry itself. Wal-Mart is the world's largest grocery retailer; they and other such retailers can virtually dictate agricultural practices to farmers; you can't dictate to farmers, but you do have clout with Wal-Mart. If you want to know where in the business chain you as a consummer have influence...

Check here...

Mineral Policy Center/Earthworks

Forest Stewardship Council

Marine Stewardship Council

From Discover magazine by Diamond, 1995...

Eventually Easter's growing population was cutting the forest more rapidly than the forest was regenerating. The people used the land for gardens and the wood for fuel, canoes, and houses-and, of course, for lugging statues. As forest disappeared, the islanders ran out of timber and rope to transport and erect their statues. Life became more uncomfortable-springs and streams dried up, and wood was no longer available for fires.

People also found it harder to fill their stomachs, as land birds, large sea snails, and many seabirds disappeared. Because timber for building seagoing canoes vanished, fish catches declined and porpoises disappeared from the table. Crop yields also declined, since deforestation allowed the soil to be eroded by rain and wind, dried by the sun, and its nutrients to be leeched from it. Intensified chicken production and cannibalism replaced only part of all those lost foods. Preserved statuettes with sunken cheeks and visible ribs suggest that people were starving.

With the disappearance of food surpluses, Easter Island could no longer feed the chiefs, bureaucrats, and priests who had kept a complex society running. Surviving islanders described to early European visitors how local chaos replaced centralized government and a warrior class took over from the hereditary chiefs. The stone points of spears and daggers, made by the warriors during their heyday in the 1600s and 1700s, still litter the ground of Easter today. By around 1700, the population began to crash toward between one-quarter and one-tenth of its former number. People took to living in caves for protection against their enemies. Around 1770 rival clans started to topple each other's statues, breaking the heads off. By 1864 the last statue had been thrown down and desecrated.

As we try to imagine the decline of Easter's civilization, we ask ourselves, "Why didn't they look around, realize what they were doing, and stop before it was too late? What were they thinking when they cut down the last palm tree?

I suspect, though, that the disaster happened not with a bang but with a whimper. After all, there are those hundreds of abandoned statues to consider. The forest the islanders depended on for rollers and rope didn't simply disappear one day-it vanished slowly, over decades. Perhaps war interrupted the moving teams; perhaps by the time the carvers had finished their work, the last rope snapped. In the meantime, any islander who tried to warn about the dangers of progressive deforestation would have been overridden by vested interests of carvers, bureaucrats, and chiefs, whose jobs depended on continued deforestation. Our Pacific Northwest loggers are only the latest in a long line of loggers to cry, "Jobs over trees!" The changes in forest cover from year to year would have been hard to detect: yes, this year we cleared those woods over there, but trees are starting to grow back again on this abandoned garden site here. Only older people, recollecting their childhoods decades earlier, could have recognized a difference. Their children could no more have comprehended their parents' tales than my eight-year-old sons today can comprehend my wife's and my tales of what Los Angeles was like 30 years ago."