Smile!

Happy Taco Tues... Thanksgiving!            Photo: © S. Banos

Don't know how many times I've said how I absolutely hate photos of people smiling and/or mugging for the camera, but every dog has its day and I just kinda like it for the silly snapshot that it is. It was taken on Halloween, the eve of my three week illness, and I had no idea that the thing that kept flopping on his head from side to side was supposed to be a taco, until I saw it on my monitor. But then, who knew Thanksgiving marked the beginning of the end of the dinosaurs?

That said...

Hope everyone reflects, takes stock and gives thanks in a life that is woefully short and made only shorter by all the things we humans purposely sabotage ourselves with: war, racism, greed... the whole sorry lot of human faults and frailties that plague the very nature of our being. And, not surprisingly, this holiday set aside to do just that has predictably mutated into one of gluttony and spending. Try as we might, the ideal somehow always devolves into the trivial, that realization being both the key for enlightenment, and the very basis for indoctrination, division and subjugation.

Oct. 31st.

Photo: © Stan Banos

Halloween is supposed to be the scary day, but nowhere as scary as Nov. 3... could be.

Photo: © Stan Banos

Happy 4th- And Don't Forget...

Photo: © Stan Banos

 Fourth of July! The day when even... Archconservatives celebrate- REVOLUTION!!!


But this- this is where it lives....

Is What It Is...

Well, I'm holed up here in my SRO for the immediate interim, Translation- I'm sick as a dog with one severe cold deluxe that is kicking my sorry ass butt but good! At least I got food, entertainment, and some cold medicine I purchased just before becoming bed ridden. I was reading the labels on cough medicines at the drug store when I had a coughing fit so severe- I had to vamus the premises, thinking I was gonna upchuck my small intestines all over the cold remedy counter!

Can't really concentrate to read American Witness, which I just started before becoming ill, but I got NPR, Pacifica and lots and lots of You Tube videos (yes, I'm a fail video junkie). Also got a video on Koudelka I'm dying to see- more on that later...

But for now, this video alone has taken me to new heights in this new year of a new decade! Start at 1:02- and make sure, MAKE SURE, you watch till the end (only 40 seconds)...
 

Maybe If Women Were In Charge...

 

        Photo: © Stan Banos

To a new decade of hope, promise and human potential coming right at ya! Of course, climate change alone will doom this once beautiful planet, this noble human experiment to cataclysmic conflicts, floods and famines by the end of this century. Of this, there is little doubt- but as I've been saying... I'm trying to stay positive! So...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

WELCOME 2020!

Good Advice for the next decade... Photo: © Stan Banos

I was gonna at least attempt the requisite annual retrospective, but then I saw that there were a whole  lottta decade reviews floating around on just about... everything.  So, in the interest of compromise, here's my half decade review- 2015 to 2019 were the absolute worst fuckin' years of my life, saving 'The Best' kick to the head and groin for very last! So, good Fuckin' Riddance 20Teens!!!

But... I'm trying to stay positive! And as trying as those last five have been... they've also been my most productive- photographically. That's hardly Even/Steven, but better than absolute nothin'! And with the passage of time, the acknowledgement that each day, each hour, each minute, is in turn more valuable than the one before it- thus it has always been.

Happy New Year!

 

Photo: © S. Banos

The third absolutely shittiest year of my life in three consecutive years! Is there a pattern in there somewhere, anywhere? And what are the chances of breaking out in 2018 when our glorious leader is a narcissistic moron deluxe on a scale that even his Propecia addled cerebrum cannot possibly twitter away???

Well, I ain't throwing in the towel just yet, least not while I can walk and talk, and my extended family continues struggling away on a 30X100mi island with little more than elbow grease and... paper towels. 

So here's to 2018, Leonard Cohen said the one thing he learned from Buddhism is not to whine so much. If we somehow manage to avoid a nuclear exchange between two equally repugnant Man-Babies trying to out manly the other so they can make their dead daddies & imaginary girlfriends swoon- let's make it a good one... for ourselves and one another!

 

Photo: © S. Banos

"... All the losers will be winners, all the givers shall receive ..."

Merry Xmas!

The one SantaCon photo that I really wanted this year came out unfocused (Bad Fuji!). This one is... OK, even if it doesn't truly do justice to the Santa on the left. When I first encountered he she it, I must admit to doing a double take not quite realizing what had just quickly waltzed by- a rather clever mask that upon close inspection reveals two rather well obscured eyes peering out at you behind the mass of hair. But I digress- what I really enjoyed most was when that particular Santa's helper started handing out sweets to small children. Their looks ranged from outright confusion to abject terror- the perfect Holiday Cheer!!!

OK, OK...

Much as I want to, much as you want to, we all can't stare at Santa forever... Let's try this seasonal take on David (minus the naughty bits) for a more classical (and classy) change of pace...

Photo: © S. Banos

HO! HO!! HO!!!

Ya didn't think what Santa does came easy, did ya? It takes practice, patience, years of trial and error, in season and off, before he can finally assume the position. You know, that jovial, familiar, holiday pose for which so many of us remember him so fondly- to this very day!

 

Photo: © S. Banos

Best of thoughts and wishes in the Holiday Season- MERRY XMAS, y'all!!!