News

George McFly's Left Hook has a spin-off. The website is http://www.tobysnewtrick.com/. This site is designed by staff of George McFly's Left Hook from start to finish. The new site features a totally unique, non-intuitive design, which allows you to enjoy more time at the website, trying to figure out how to navigate to the dozen or so populated pages. It is like an Easter-egg hunt, where your uncle gets carried away and becomes way too complicated with his choices of locations to hide the Easter-eggs.

So check it out: http://www.tobysnewtrick.com/. Enjoy!

A Nice Reflection...

...on our Blessed Mother. Enjoy!

Talkin' Beards

This Week in Art

The photo to the right was taken during July 2009 at Glacier Point, in Yosemite National Park. It has quickly became an internet sensation, spreading through photo sharing sites such as facebook. Its reception within the art community has been varied, marked by controversy almost as often as by admiration.

What is so charming about this piece is that the artist has dared to depart from the norm. He has chosen a subject that is as profoundly unique as it is perplexing and mundane. One can almost picture him, scrambling about shoeless on the rocks, in search of the most appropriate angle from which to capture this fine specimen of footwear.

The results are worthy of the effort. Critics may reduce the portrait to folly (a mere advertisement at best), but others will find more. See how the grays and blues of the shoe blend with the soft tones of the rocky valley. It is almost as if the colors of the shoe are brought alive by the park, in a joyful reminder that man and nature harmoniously coexist. There is, also, a protagonist. The imposing Half Dome peak is fuzzy, yet undeniably ruling the horizon. The mountain is issuing its ever-present challenge: Climb if you dare! With that challenge, it all comes back to the shoe, which likewise dares the viewer to expand his own horizons about what attributes make art truly valuable.

When a person brings a camera to a place like Glacier Point, it is most often put to use for portraits of friends. Those who wish to be photographed here must suppose that the dramatic backdrop of Yosemite's famous vista will be something that they can one day point to, as proof that their lives have been lived well - that they have seen many distant and marvelous sites. Others make an attempt to capture the overwhelming natural beauty of the location. They take careful aim toward the breathtaking cliffs, squinting with determination into the mass-produced view finders of their $200 point-and-shoots (the kind they bought after they saw Ashton Kutcher present it on television). It is as if, for the moment, they are pretending that this landscape has never before been preserved upon canvas. It is up to them, at least in their minds, to bring this view to the eyes of the world less traveled.

Consider, for a moment, how many photos there must be of Glacier Point. Are they not all, hundreds and hundreds of them, these same two sorts of images? If one must cry "folly", then please level your charge towards one amongst these masses, for surely another will immediately rush to take his place, clamoring, as they do, always to the same cliched vantage points.

Do not follow the way of the impudent grizzly bear, who chooses to dine on the lone salmon found swimming with the current (in the opposite direction of all the other salmons). Instead, make a choice to nurture a solitary pumpkin vine, should you be so lucky as to discover one growing in a field of zucchinis.

Two Locations to Serve You Better!

Cul de sac parking shenanigans will probably continue for as long as there are Suburbans and Explorers to patrol the streets of Park Grossmont. Someone else will need to tell those stories though, because GMLH has left its former headquarters. There is now an El Cajon branch, maintaining the East County presence, as well as an auxiliary San Diego office. The Coupe Deluxe will enjoy its own reserved parking space at the San Diego office, spending each night in the lap of luxury, perhaps never again to lack a safe place to rest its weary CV joints.

What does this mean for you the reader? It means a better blog, that's what. There had been some hope that the Historical Marker review would result in more visits to this site from pottery enthusiasts, especially at this time of year when the Iowa Pottery Association embarks on their annual pilgrimage to Zanesville. There have not been dramatic results from that effort though, so some changes are needed. The direction we've decided to move in for the time being is to have more offices. This will hopefully translate to more blog content.

Lost Dog

What has happened to "Vincent" on LOST? Is there a scientific explanation, tied to recent plot developments, for the disappearance of Walt's furry friend? Or is this just another case of a cast member asking to be written off of the show, ala Mr. Eko? Madison, who plays Vincent on the show (convincing performance by a girl-dog in the role of a boy-dog) turned 63 in dog years during season five, and may just be getting tired.



It could also be the case that Madison has left the show over disappointment with the lack of a prominent role. It is easy to envision a Vincent-centric episode: The audience could learn, via flashback, of a troubled past, in which Vincent is a puppy-mill escapee, and that the puppy-mill was actually run by Charles Widmore, and how anger from experiences at the puppy-mill drove Vincent to become a VERY BAD DOG, and he has never been able to forgive himself to this day.

No such episode has aired, but Madison could, on the other hand, have left the cast over concerns of having too much airtime. With an excessively prominent role on such a memorable program as LOST, Madison runs the risk of getting typecast, and ruining her career. Producers might hesitate to hire a dog like Madison now, believing that audiences will be distracted by the association with LOST, and fail to take scenes with the yellow Labrador seriously.

Review: La Jolla Recreation Center

Home to the rich and famous, La Jolla is a resort neighborhood with striking ocean vistas. It takes some time to get there from the highway, so it is easy to suppose that most patrons of the La Jolla Recreation Center are residents - the aforementioned rich and famous - and they are probably there to play tennis. Something about being in this atmosphere of wealth is conducive to a sort of internal transformation. A person who leads a comfortable lifestyle in reasonable prosperity, may begin to believe that he is underprivileged, and perhaps feel a slight resentment toward these opulent surroundings.

This phenomenon can be used to the advantage of a person who enjoys pickup basketball. During those times when you've lost your swagger, and the bullies, egos and trash talk of a typical pick-up venue have got you down, there can be no better remedy than a couple games amongst opponents who may possibly be perceived as "softer" than you. The experience can really provide that chip on your shoulder that has been missing from your game.

The basketball courts at the La Jolla Recreation Center are therefore worthy of mention. It begins before you even get out of your car. Maneuvering into a parking space between a Bentley and a Maserati, your perspective on life changes: Suppose that you departed from your home in a freshly washed Saturn, still under the manufacturer's warranty. Well, you've now arrived in La Jolla, driving a vehicle that you may simply refer to as your "hooptie" (a large older automobile, often in poor condition).

"NO GOLF" is the message of the sign attached to a rugged chain link fence, overlooking the facility. These forbidding words are driven home, so to speak, by the image of a golf ball, overladen in red with the international symbol for "No". If there could be an opposite to a graffiti covered "No Hanging on the Rims" sign, this is it. Golf must be the main game here, most likely followed by tennis, with basketball pretty far down the list - after shuffle board and croquet. There is presumably little risk that the rims here will be bent by ferocious dunking in the absence of a prominent "no dunking" sign.

So even if you don't have a lot of experience, you can be pretty bold on these courts. Start working on some of your still-in-development moves: Dribble through your legs, dribble through the defender's legs, work on your off-the-backboard passing.

Best of all, there is a very real chance that you will break some rules while playing basketball here. "Pushing" is prohibited, according to the sign posted at center-court, and sportsmanship must be maintained "at ALL Times", so it's not out of the question that a generally law-abiding person, with no criminal record, could get to experience rebellion against oppressive rules from The Man.

New experiences like this are invaluable in the formation of the playground basketball player, and hopefully, when it's all over and you climb into your Saturn hooptie, your newly acquired rugged, rebellious edge will carry over to your home court. Just to be safe though, leave the off-the-backboard passing in La Jolla.