R.I.P. holden (June 7, 1998 - April 9, 2010)

holden had to be put to sleep last night, he ate a stick that lodged in his intestines and poked a hole through both sides and became infected. he was his normal happy self yesterday morning, went on a walk jumping around a creek and everything, and then yesterday afternoon threw up and started acting sluggish and by 4pm for the first time in his entire life he wouldn't eat a treat i put next to his nose so we took him to the vet and he could hardly walk and they took xrays and gave him a morphine drip and got him ready for surgery and we went back there with him and petted him and told him he's a good boy and they called a couple hours later while he was on the operating table and said the infection was too bad and i gave permission to put him to sleep and cremate him. he was only in pain for a few hours tops. he was almost 12 and his cancer was growing back and i feel lucky he didn't go through more suffering. i'm okay and nacho is okay, we're all okay. he taught me so much about responsibility and commitment and unconditional love. sorry for the bad news HUG your pets from holdielocks. i love you dog.

banana peel squirrel

you'll feel better next time you throw a banana peel out the window and say 'the squirrels will use it for a nest.'

don't touch til november

spring is here and it feels like summer. full sun and low 80s. i want to do cartwheels.

i went to the dentist this morning and i have one baby tooth and in that baby tooth lives a cavity. i was expecting at least 4 cavities, so i'll take one.

no congrats from me to the men's basketball team which shall not be named but rhymes with puke.

in a fun small world situation, my friend michelle is good friends from alaska with jason the mandolin from bearfoot, who will be playing on my friend daniel's radio show in arkansas tonight:

Hello! Wanted to let you know about a live band playing on my radio show tonite (Tuesday) for your calendar and listening enjoyment. Spread the word to anyone who would be interested in a young bluegrass band featuring 3 women and 2 guys, acoustic instruments and vocal harmonies.

Bearfoot 4-6-2010 Honest Tunes Radio Webcast:
http://dgold.info/radio/webcast2010/music519

Bearfoot bluegrass band live in-studio, plus more Honest Tunes 8pm to 10pm Central on KXUA Fayetteville.

Go to www.dgold.info/radio to listen to the live webcast stream – at Showtime

easter in asheville

i hope everybody has a spectacular easter.

may all your lambs of god rise from the dead, just as the dead brown and gray branches are rising with pink and green fluorescence.

may you find all the eggs that bunny hid.

may your new shoes not give you blisters and your easter bonnet not mess up your hair.

prewash

had a fantastic couple days in new york last weekend which involved many things including a baby shower, making a poster, flower arranging, eating meatballs, octopus, and a baby-shaped cupcake, family funtime, playing shufflepuck in the world's smokiest bar and saying 'kisses henry' to my furry brother henry to get him to jump up and lick me on the face.

treacherous

the only thing more fun than moving is moving during a sleetstorm up and down crumbing stairs on the second day of spring

hooray it's over! hooray i'm not moving for another year! at the least! the very very least!

morning has broken

sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven
like the first dewfall, on the first grass

holdenfur

nachappy

spring is springing around here. have a great weekend!

tragedy

"mentally preparing" for a possible tragedy or misfortune in the future is toxic. when you imagine it happening and feel the emotions, you make yourself live through the hell, not matter how unlikely it is to happen. you can handle it. you can always handle it. it's never too much. it's always okay.

delicate arch

this was me
taking this picture

last september

it was as big of a rush as jumping from a plane telling myself i was not scared of heights

you mean like lesbian?

nature is god is love

dirty joke

a white dog fell into a mud puddle.





(this was one of my grandfather's [named flops] favorite jokes - but it was a white horse)

tea leaf green webcasts tonight!

From DGold:

I am hosting 2 webcasts with Tea Leaf Green on Tuesday March 9th.

First live acoustic plus interview on my radio show at KXUA 88.3 FM Fayetteville Honest Tunes after 6PM.

Later that night I will attempt to ustream their live concert at George's Majestic Lounge around 9PM.

The links, embedded Ustream, setlist and all details posted here:

http://dgold.info/radio


Please send out the information through your channels. That would be awesome. Help me let others know. The important info is simply this:


Tea Leaf Green Webcasting Tuesday March 9th, http://dgold.info/radio

------------------

Thank You for helping me to get the word out about this live music from San Francisco rockers Tea Leaf Green.

One of my favorite bands & highly recommended. Enjoy the show if you are around on Tuesday.

DGold
Honest FM, Fayetteville ARK

i'm going to put up my antenna cuz i want to tune on in.

Kevin Welch - Millionaire

Love is more precious than gold
It can't be bought, and it can't be sold
I've got love enough to spare
That makes me a millionaire

I've got a woman
with eyes that shine
Down deep
as a diamond mine
She is my treasure
So very rare
She's made me
a millionaire

When we ride around
this old town
in my beat up car
with the windows down
People look at her
then they look at me
say that boy
is sure living in luxury


Her kisses fall
from everywhere
like riches on
a millionaire
So when my pockets are empty
and my cupboard is bare
I still feel
like a millionaire

melt

it's going to be in the 60s this weekend and i will be outside. can't wait.

mini mountainranges

we got about 5 inches of snow today. and coincidentally also 5 lbs of peanuts in the mail.
nutsonline.com is awesome.

difference between butterscotch and caramel

butterscotch is made with brown sugar, caramel is made with white sugar. nacho is made with bunnyfluff.

bounty

i don't have much to say. just kind of waiting on a bunch of things. first and foremost waiting for the weather to warm up. a new heater was installed yesterday, so hopefully the house will be warmer and the gas bill won't be double the rent and there will be less carbon monoxide released every time it turns on. i was starting to feel hints of brain damage. looking forward to going to a soup social birthday party tonight. i'm going to try to make kettle corn for the first time, and if it doesn't work, i'll buy some. all's well.

north mississippi allstars

ventured out last weekend to see the north mississippi all stars play at the orange peel. i was amazed and relieved and gleeful that the guy at the door took my ticket, stamped my hand, and let me inside. no pat down. no opening my bag. no rifling through my pockets. no opening up my wallet and change purse. it's the first time i've been back to the orange peel since being rabidly searched at the door last year and i was so impressed with how pleasant it was to enter.
the show was pretty good. of their first 5 songs, 3 of them heavily involved "SHAKE IT" in the chorus. most of the instrumental noodling sounded like the allman brothers' 'jessica' on repeat. i know about 6 of their songs and they played them all.

75 and Sunny - Ryan Montbleau

music can be sunshine

75 AND SUNNY - Ryan Montbleau

I’d had a bad night. I mean a night so bad, I thought I was king of the world. And I drank ‘til daylight. I mean I never stopped once until my hands finally fell. And I fought my daytime self with a mighty dose of, “Hey, look at night time me!” And I never do win that battle, but I fight it over and over and over and over, it seems.

And I saw an old man smiling on a park bench feeding the pigeons. And my head was spinning, and as my young body ached I wished for an old man’s vision. And I watched the way he moved--slow, serene and lucky to be alive. And I thought to myself, “I’m never gonna make it that far with too many more nights like last night.”

And I’d rather be 75 and sunny than acting like I’m 17 and freezing again. I’d rather be up early in the morning than up late at night erasing memories of where I’ve been. Or to be through at 52 someday stone-faced and bleary-eyed. You’d better believe I’m living for the moment but my moment’s growing bigger by and by.

And I’ve got a best friend. She don’t drink or smoke like I’ve been known to. She’s got religion. She’s a one-woman dynamo and shines a light in every room she goes to. She says the light that’s there won’t go nowhere, no way. She don’t spend every second smiling, but she’s learning something exciting every day.

She’d rather be 75 and sunny than 29 with a chance of showers all the time. She’d rather be old as dirt than new as any $9 bottle of wine. Or to be thawed at 35, mama, stoned with her back to the wind. You better believe she’s living for the moment but her moment is the whole damn thing.

And I see these spin kids, double wide-eyed rolling and rolling and tumbling. They’re roaming in inches, taking the high dive approach and screaming towards the water. Their hearts race a million miles as they buy another smile from a jar. Their bodies are screaming for the water and, you know, I just hope they can make it that far.

I hope they’re 75 and sunny, not 29 with a chance of flurries all the time. I hope we’re all old as dirt, not new as every $25 trip that we could try. Or to be thawed at 35, mama, stoned with our backs to the wind. You’d better believe I’m living for the moment, but my moment, son, is the whole damn thing.

And I say I’d rather be 75, oh, how nice, oh, how easy for me to say. I’ve never broken a bone in my life, let alone had my heart or a hip replaced. And I keep this furious pace, and I still feel so good and strong. And I still get tempted for a taste, just a taste to keep me going, going, going, going, gone.

But I’ve got a notion that everything I’ve leaned been coming ‘round. And my devotion to the new thing and the next thing and the hip thing is slowing down. And I’ve got a light in here, won’t go nowhere, no way. And I don’t spend every second smiling and I ain’t trying, but I’m excited for every day, every day.

‘Cause I’d rather be 75 and sunny than 29 with a chance of showers all the time. I’d rather be old and in the way than this year’s new kid running for my life. Or to be thawed at 35, mama, stone-faced and bleary-eyed. You better believe I’m living for the moment, but my moment… You better believe I’m living for the moment, but these moments… You better believe I’m living for the moment, but my moment’s growing bigger by and by…by and by.

snow lounge

i'm just not that into the winter olympics.
ooh look at us...instead of chopping wood and foraging for food, we have enough money and free time to play games in the snow all day...
just kinda rubbing it in the face of the rest of the world...
i know it's about dreams. and it's great these people are pushing their physical limits. but all the nationalistic competitive crap is heavy.

see what inspired tiger woods

let me guess...fake boobs?

moving tomorrow

i seriously couldn't be more thrilled and grateful to be moving back to asheville though all the chaos and disorder and fear that comes with moving do take a toll when you do it more times than years you have been alive and i am looking forward to staying happily in this next place for at least 15 months which is the lease length.

holden is so excited he's crapped twice on the floor.

after looking unsuccessfully for non-skid stair treads my fantastic roommate went to lowes and found a roll of gym floor matting and cut it in strips and holden will now tentatively go up and down the stairs by himself which is extremely promising since the new place has 4 staircases. it's a canine miracle! onward! forward march! westward ho!

hope

i don't want to get too excited and count unhatched chickens, but i think we're moving to back asheville next week.

this house in charlotte is going on the market and the realtor thinks it has a better chance of selling if the dogs and all my shit are out.

spent yesterday looking at 8 places all over asheville and went back to the first one at the end of the day and realized it was the best and went to the rental office and applied and she thinks it will be ready by the end of this week.

the house is very old and up on a hill and has a spectacular view of mountains to the west and is a mile and a half from downtown. it has a dog door into a fenced yard. it has a slanting funhouse staircase. it has high ceilings and clawfoot tubs and ancient glass windows and a weird layout with no bathrooms on the first floor.

i am really excited.


a half foot of snow fell here last weekend, and super trouper friends came down to visit from asheville and more friends braved the roads to come over for saturday night and we had a good old time full of gumbo and a mountain of minicornmuffins and many extra furry retrievers.

the insides of orchids are extremely pornographic.

oral hygiene survey

so, how often do you brush the roof of your mouth?

tar heels

went to the unc-wake forest game this week at the dean dome in chapel hill.
after a competitive first half, the good guys lost, by a lot. the heels looked smaller and less aggressive than the deacs, and have lost their last 3 games. everybody is injured, and if they're not injured, they're an undeveloped freshman.

they're still national champions for a few months but it's not looking good for a repeat performance. count this a building year.

brave man

went to the bobcats game last night - they slaughtered the suns. the crowd was blase considering how well they were playing, we decided it's hard to cheer for millionaires. at halftime they should let people in the upper deck move down, and fill in all the empty seats.

during halftime 100 people came out to jazzercise, 99 female.

jazzercise halftime

rustic martini

what the hell kind of name for a bar is that? it looks like a post office.

dog's nose front door

welcome wagon evidence

wrinkled sunrise

it's so cold the reservoir froze. i am very grateful to be in an insulated house with working heat and pipes that aren't bursting. not everybody is so lucky. i would like to eat a giant hot apple crumb cake and hibernate until april.

ebony and ivory and chocolate

there was a lady on 'the dog whisperer' last week, very uptight and botoxed and anxious with a spastic chihuahua and she was on the street with cesar and her dog, and another dog started walking up the sidewalk to them which was making her dog go berserk, and cesar asked the lady how she was feeling. and she said she didn't know. and he said if you don't know how you're feeling, look at yourself, and he swept his hand down in front of his chest indicating his powerful balanced upright wide tall stance, as opposed to her slouched, twisted, tight hunched shoulders and she looked down and understood and as soon as you see it you can start to fix it.

like michael jackson man in the mirror said, take a look at yourself and then make that chaaaaange

happy new year

ready to put the glory of 2009 to rest, and welcome 2010 with open everything

kisses from nacho

...and his bunny fur gullet

1 gator vs. 10 turtles

went to wakulla springs in the florida panhandle last week. it's where the tarzan movies with johnny weissmuller were filmed in the 1930s, and is the longest and deepest known submerged freshwater cave system in the world, with about 300 million gallons of water flowing every day.

we took a jungle cruise on a pontoon boat and saw some beautiful birds, manatees, snakes, spiders, cypress trees, and spanish moss.

this gator had his choice of 10 turtles to snack on, but they seemed to be peacefully coexisting in a log top face-off.

happy holidays

since monday the days are getting longer and longer, i hope everybody's spirits are light and holidays are bright. even though the world is crazy we have so much to be thankful for.

duskfog

i think it's dashing

There's a fantastic article in yesterday's Palm Beach Daily News about my Grandpa Wallace. (photo by Joyce McTammany, Warwick, RI, 1984)

Architectural delineator Wallace McTammany has made a career out of being very deliberate

By JOHN NELANDER
Special to the Daily News Monday, December 14, 2009

Daily News Photo by Jeffrey Langlois

Wallace McTammany shows some of his architectural renderings. 'I was always interested in drawing. I had a lifetime of it.'

Perhaps the most prominent landmark on the West Palm Beach skyline is the Northbridge Centre on Olive Avenue. The building, which rises tall, sleek and black into the warm, azure sky, is better known by its local nickname: "The Darth Vader Building."

Here's an interesting factoid about it: The first person ever to see it — to admire its jutting, quirky coolness towering over the South Florida coast — was Wallace McTammany. It came out of his head.

He worked slowly and methodically to create a picture of it from an architect's plans. When he was finished, McTammany looked at the building and said: "This is it. This is what it will look like."

And he was right. The Northbridge Centre is one of the 3,512 projects he has brought to life as an architectural delineator over his career, which has spanned seven decades.

"I don't think anybody has made as many perspective drawings as I did," he says. Of the Northbridge Centre he adds: "It's a landmark. For a modern building, I think it's dashing."

McTammany and his wife, Margaret, have lived in the Patrician condominium in Palm Beach since shortly after it was built in 1969. Until this year, they spent summers at a home in the North Carolina mountains.

McTammany's home office is decked out top to bottom with memorabilia from his long and colorful career, highlighted by some of his most striking renderings. He has a framed 1960 letter on the wall from the governor of Rhode Island, congratulating him on his rendering of the Providence post office, which was made into a commemorative stamp.

On another wall there are photographs of his 1951 Jaguar, a classic car he drove to parties in Newport when he lived nearby. That was a sprawling home he designed on 10 acres — the structure was based on a 1698 house in Massachusetts.

"I tell you," he says, nodding in the direction of the framed Jaguar photographs. "That was really a flashy car."

He's put together a booklet featuring some of his favorite renderings. An accompanying list of project sites goes on and on, from St. Augustine to Immokalee to Key West. In the United States, from Maine to Kentucky to Colorado. Worldwide, from Acapulco to Paris to the United Arab Emirates.

Architect Eugene Lawrence, founder of the Lawrence Group, has been working with McTammany since the mid-1960s. He says the business now uses a lot more computer-generated images, but they still can't match the detail and quality offered by McTammany's brand of hand work.

"To this day, some of the better delineations are done by hand," Lawrence says. "They have to give people a 3-D look at what something is going to look like, whether it's for a homeowner or a potential investor. That's why it's so important for them to be accurate.

"Wallace has always been very deliberate. When you got a Wallace McTammany delineation, you knew what your building was going to look like."

Drawing and painting

McTammany has been doing renderings in Palm Beach for more than half a century, from private homes to hotels to fire stations. He began in 1944 when the Allies were still fighting their way through France. He was in the Army stationed in West Palm Beach with an office on Clematis Street.

His personal story, though, begins in 1921 when he was born in Providence, one of a family of five boys. His father was an architect but left the family when McTammany was 4. His mother managed to keep things together while nurturing her children's varied talents.

"I was always interested in drawing," McTammany says. "I had a lifetime of it. At our home in Providence we had a blackboard in the kitchen. Half the blackboard was my mother's notes — what to buy at the store. The other half was my drawings, in chalk."

McTammany always preferred to work in charcoal and pencil. "It's softer, I think." But one day his mother brought him a set of oil paints, and he recalls: "I wouldn't go to bed. I stayed up all night doing all sorts of things, just fooling around. I painted a guy in a Mexican sombrero, someone else skiing."

His favorite oil painting hangs on the wall of his dining room — a picture he made of Margaret. "He did it when I was 60," Margaret says. "But when he did it, he made me look younger."


War and paradise

McTammany wanted to be a pilot in the war, but couldn't because of an eye problem. So, he decided to be an airplane mechanic. He arrived at Morrison Field, the military forerunner of Palm Beach International Airport, in 1942.

"I immediately got out of my heavy clothing and into a light khaki uniform. Then they said, 'We're going to send you overseas,'" he says. But overseas turned out to be Nassau, and he spent a year living in the classic British Colonial Hotel.

McTammany got married — to his first wife — and lived in an apartment on Worth Avenue toward the end of the war. He eventually designed and built a home in the south end of West Palm Beach.

As the war ended, South Florida remained and undeveloped paradise, its potential untapped. "I used to take my children out to Military Trail so they could listen to the frogs at night. The only other way for them to keep cool was for them to lie on the terrazzo floor."

Love of the classics

Through it all, McTammany has always worked at home. He says he'd still be working now if it weren't for the economy — projects have been canceled or put on hold.

One such project is a hotel in North Carolina, for which he recently finished a strikingly detailed charcoal and pencil rendering. Color would have come next, had the project not been shelved.

Of course, the truth is that McTammany never really liked working in watercolor anyway. Clients began demanding it, so he complied. But even the color work is completed with astonishing detail. He has spent his life, he says, working under a magnifying glass.

"I love the classics," McTammany says, paging through his booklet. "I love the refinement and scale, the artistic stuff. Like this house in Beaver Creek, Colorado," he adds, pointing to a mountainside mansion on the front cover. It's a single-family residence with 10 bedrooms.

"I thought it was just so neat," he says. "If you look very closely, in the doorway you can see a tiny 6-foot man."

Wallace McTammany

Occupation: Architectural delineator.

Favorite quote: 'See what you're looking at.' — A principle developed by McTammany.

Most admired person: New York architect Seth Harrison Gurnee, who was involved in the design of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Favorite movie: 'Summer Lease,' a 1989 UK film about an English family who rents a villa in Tuscany for the summer.

Photo courtesy of Wallace McTammany

Wallace McTammany with his 1951 Jaguar Mark V drophead coupe.

old age is not a disease!

the vet hasn't called with holden's blood test results yet, but at the appointment she said he looks like he's in great health and there doesn't seem to be any medical physical reason for him to poop on the floor after 10 years of never pooping on the floor. she said, and i quote, "holden, i'm looking for something to blame it on other than that you're being a bad boy, but...."

diagnosis: BAD BOY.

i've changed some things around, and now he's sleeping upstairs with everybody else, and he hasn't pooped in the house for almost a week. so really the diagnosis probably should have been: BAD OWNER.

up under the power line tower

if you stand under an eiffel tower-like power line and look up, this is what you see.

holden & nacho are going to a new vet today for yearly checkup & vaccines. holden has been having some trouble pooping in the house during the night, something he has never done in all his eleven and a half years, and i hope it's just that he is a brat who doesn't like moving, and not anything wrong with his hips, or nerves, or blood, or bowels. i had to get the old vet to fax their records to the new vet, and i'm sure holden's records are thicker than 'war & peace.'

fuck you and your blog

journal at malaprop's bookstore in asheville.

best show on tv

it involves two dogs, they sit on their bed, looking cute.

odd wreath placement

aren't the two on the sides enough? do you have to cover up the words? they did this last year too. thinking about putting on deer costumes in the middle of the night and taking the middle wreath down. also might raid a neighbor's kale garden in the deer costumes.

his & her barbery

need a haircut? i know a place...very inviting...bars on the windows...used to be a gas station...right by the power lines...next to a junk car lot...with a beautiful mural...

dumbass dog

nacho left this evidence on the bedroom carpet. working backwards, i deduced he ate all the cherry tomatoes out of the container, tried a nibble of ginger, decided he didn't like it. tried a bite of jalapeno, decided he didn't like it.

this will make you happy

michael franti - say hey - it's so fun it's like a kids song

deer carcass

there's a squirrel stuck in the chimney. or a raccoon. i heard banging yesterday and closed the glass doors on the fireplace. this morning i could hear it scratching its little claws against the metal trying to get out. i'm going to do nothing about it because i'm paralyzed by fear. i need clark griswald to come over and catch it in the coat, smack it with a hammer.

the aerogarden is doing great, italian basil is in the lead, the only one sprouting already.

the tar heels are looking okay this season, but nothing sparkly and spectacular like last year. last year i loved danny green, ty lawson, and wayne ellington. this year, i like marcus ginyard and ed davis. the freshmen have not dazzled me, and zeller looks like he should play for duke. and poor roy williams and his shoulder, looked like he was in a lot of pain as he won his 600th game the other night.

it's december first already, going to be 60 and sunny today here in charlotte, can't really complain about that.