November 20, 1943.  17 aircraft carriers, 12 battleships, 8 heavy cruisers, 4 light cruisers and 66 destroyers bombard Tarawa atoll for 3 hours.  At the lifting of the fire, the Marines are sent in.  Expecting 5 feet of water over the coral, the Higgens boats grounded in 3 feet of water.  A New Zealand expert was ignored when he told them of the neap tides and exactly what would happen.  The island had 500 pillboxes and most had survived.  When Tarawa was secured on the 23rd, all but 1 Japanese officer and 16 men were taken alive.  The Second Marine Division lost over 900 dead, with a total of 3166 casualties out of 12,000 men, 25 %.  Other than the Japs, our leaders were the worst enemy out there.  The Marine Commander, Holland Smith, blamed the Navy, but Smith was a paranoid and a liar who ruined Army-Corps relations for decades.  But the Navy did fuck up, and badly.  The bombardment should have gone on for three days, and the planning staff responsible for the neap tide thing

This is a shell that some craftsman ground down on a wheel to look like a fish.  He glued a bit of shell for the fin, and I will glue something where the eye was, perhaps a bright blue glass bead or something.  So much work, and it was 50 cents.  Not usually my thing, but I respect the amount of trouble people put into the things they make.  It has a wall hanging attachment on the back, and I think it is very lovely. Miniature hand carved Noh mask, 2 dollars.  At first I thought this was Tlingit or some such, but a stroll through the web and I changed my mind.   Two sided Flip Wilson doll, marked Operation Bootstrap, 1970.  The small rip on the left shin is where I cut the tag off and touched the doll with the scissors.  Fuck.  The other side is, of course,  Geraldine.  This has a pull cord record in it, that certainly used to shriek, "The Devil made me do it"! I wouldn't even attempt to fix it.  I liked

So tonight my brother and I are watching Susan Cabot in "The Wasp Woman", a movie I had for years and never saw.  It was her last film role.  I think this is Roger Corman at his best.  The above is her and Charles Bronson in "Machine Gun Kelly". Susan Cabot in "Tomahawk". She was very pretty. But something went horribly wrong.  She became a recluse in her palatial, filthy house, with only her son and four dogs as company. Her dwarf son beat her to death with a barbell.  They both seemed to be unstable, and it sounds like she treated the boy badly.  Since the dead cannot speak for themselves, I shall leave it at that. This is worth reading: https://www.criminalelement.com/blogs/2015/11/the-wasp-woman-murder-the-death-of-susan-cabot-by-james-marrison-true-crime-hollywood Roger Corman is something else. Sometimes I forget celebrities have problems also. https://youtu.be/9PFtCthVnVs No

I found this today for 60 cents.  Cheap newsprint, the only flaw is where I turned the first page and ripped it a tad.  Conkey and Co. 1903.  The red binding tape is original.  Superb condition, excellent artwork which appears to have been cribbed from Dore.  1903.  The only one I could find for sale was about 18 bucks, more than I expected. Cartoon pig with wheelbarrow, Shawnee Pottery.  Shawnee bought the American Encaustic Tile Company, founded 1875, in Zanesville, Ohio, in 1936,  They produced ceramics until 1961.  There a number of ceramics companies in that area of Ohio.  This guy is flawless. Carnival glass bowl.  Orange with iridescent layer.  I have no idea about when this stuff was made, only that what was once cheap is now overpriced. Porcelain slip cougar, exquisite modeling.  Marked Aldon Accessories LTC, 1973,  N Y C.  These are fairly common on the web.  I sent this to an Fur Affinity artist with the necklace as

In less than an hour I turn 59.  Never have I felt the icy wind of age as bad as today.  From an abstraction, the grave is becoming a destination in sight.  Living as I do in a town with an elderly population I see myself everytime I go to the grocery store, when I watch young people, when I stare out over the Gulf.  If I had only, if I had just known, why did I not.... These buildings were new, once.  These people were the lords of creation.  But speaking of new or old is like labeling individual waves.  I don't think time ever begins or ends.  While time travel is probably impossible, chronoscopy will finally make history an exact science.  We may be able to communicate with others very far away in time and space. But that does not change my situation. In death, an organism contributes to life.  Yet we encase our dead in boxes that deny the return of minerals and microbes to usefulness, at least for a very long time.  I have no children,

So, once, I was running this mining operation on an island in the Pacific.  I had three men working under me, a German, an Italian, and a Japanese fellow.  I put the German in charge of personnel, the Italian in charge of operations, and the Japanese was in charge of supplies.  I had to leave, but a month later I took the seaplane back to see how things were going.  I asked the German, how are the men working out?  Fine, he said, and I inspected the barracks with him.  Okie dokie, smokey, looking good, and then I went to the Italian and asked him how the work was going.  We went together to the quarry and things were moving along better than I expected.  But- I could not find the Japanese guy.  So we searched and searched, nothing had been done, and we could not find him.  Finally we went into one of the tunnels and he was nowhere to be found.  As I was leaving, exhausted, I rounded a corner and the Jap jumped out and yelled   "Supplies"!   You read this all the

One from Steve Davis, who I consider incomparable.  And now, a lion carved from a redwood tree in China! "What makes the muskrat guard his musk"?

That is Dave with the white Jazzmaster.   The cat  with the sax is Johnny Paris.  The man at the keys is still alive and gives interviews.   The reason for this post is not about Johnny and the band, but about how much I admire Dave Yorko. To me, he is the most scintillating electric guitar in Rock.  Sometimes these guys are classified as Rockabilly, which they certainly are not.  These guys are lounge bumped up to hard core roknrol. This is the song that made me long to play electric guitar. https://youtu.be/o5I-dUCKfqk Listen to that crazy guitar solo, baby, and know power. Johnny apparently controlled the band and did not treat his former high school friends right.   He would boast about having 500 musicians in the band. https://youtu.be/-CRzxnpeifo That was my favorite rock instrumental.   These guys are best known for this- https://youtu.be/RIMY7kB6-KY But the thing that I wish to tell

This is a surprise gift from a friend on FurAffinity.  He dropped out of sight a while back, then all of a sudden he sent me this.  I am blown away that someone would take the trouble and do such a good job on my fursona.  I mean, a lot of work went into this and it shows.  I promised not to reveal his name and I try to keep my word, but I wish he would go back up on FA.  I fear that he has an exaggerated idea about that damn rabbit I draw but hey, it ain't bragging if you can do it.  I have spent all day trying to learn old songs on the Dobro I got recently and my fingertips are raw.  However, I can now play Polly Wolly Doodle and Oh, Susanna, and believe me that resonator guitar has put new life into my enthusiasm.  Thank you, P--, and I owe you one.  Well done!

So today, as is my wont, I parked behind this building and worked on my guitar homework for awhile.  I was pounding away on the guitar when a gentleman pulled in in a truck, got out and started talking to me.  He was a SeaBee, so I mentioned I was in the Corps.  I had neglected my homework as usual and was trying to keep from being thrown out of the school by my excellent but put upon teacher, Mr. Scott Plant.  Scott plays 17 instruments but is primarily a violin player.  I asked him why he was not in Austin and he said there was far too much competition, fair enough, but I doubt there are very many people that could outdo him in much of any type of music. So me and this gentleman were talking and he is an old friend of the owner, Bob Clawson, who has  been playing country and rock since the '50s.  Then this man says, here son, I got something for you to play on.  I was all like, sure, great, another old guitar.  Then he gave me this, and it still had the price tag on