Now if this sort of thing works, I thought I'd add to it. Mr. Costner, please have someone in your office return Ms. Deanna McDaniel's phone calls. We mean no offense, but just want to know how your wonderful Tatanka foundation, which our company donated some money to, is coming together. The concept of awarding a young Native American student a scholarship to study and learn his or her tribes great wisdom is important to us. Also, I want you to know you are one of the very few out there that can direct and act in a quality "A" Western. Thank you.


This is the new name for your festival, not Ears on 66. It's not about us, it's about you. I love Albuquerque.

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE GREAT COSMIC EGG.

INSIDE THE EGG WAS CHAOS, AND FLOATING IN CHAOS

WAS P'AN KU, THE DIVINE EMBRYO.


P'an Ku myth (China, third century)

Our new logo just came in. How do you like it?

don't worry...it's just me

WITH NO BOUNDARIES

I RIDE TO MEET ALL PEOPLE

I AM BIKER CHEF


I'm thinking about using this as my opening Biker Chef haiku.
Do you like it?

There were some rumors going around Hollywood that they were going to do a remake of "Return of the Dragon" with an all Italian cast. They were looking for a Coppola to play Bruce Lee's part. Someone actually approached me. I had to do a screen test. I doubt I'll get the part but it was a fun thing to do on my birthday. Besides, I love Bruce Lee.

It was a cold foggy San Francisco day. We were very young walking hand in hand out of the Haight and into the Sunset District. We were lost. We came up to a street called Hugo and stopped. I looked around. I was trying to find the ever elusive crumpet store. She loved English stuff, especially their style of whipped butter and high tea. I thought to myself, 'maybe that's why she looks so much like Emma Peel from "The Avengers"?' We were students with very little money. I worked at the pubic library as a page and she worked as an assistant for an accountant. So, this low cost crumpet store was the perfect romantic place to have a bite and a pot of tea. We stood there under the Hugo street sign. Do I go left, right or straight? I wasn't sure. I looked at her to let her know I had everything under control. She smiled and said, "I go where you go, Hugo". Getting there didn't matter. She was just happy to be with me. I knew I found someone rare or what some of the old timers would say, "a good one". We've been together ever since. Happy Birthday, Adrienne. I am so happy you were born.

Actually, our image of God is outmoded, whether the tsunami occurs or not. Religion has become divisive, quarrelsome and idiotic. Religion is the reason we have all this conflict in the world. We have squeezed God into the volume of a body and the span of a lifetime; given God a male identity, an ethnic background; made him a tribal chief and gone to war. Yet people are not ready to forsake their image of God...I think God is more likely to be a woman because women are nurturing and caring and loving. The human male has become the most predatory animal on our planet. It's time we embrace the feminine face of God.

Deepak Chopra from Time Magazine

You have to understand where I am coming from. As a boy, I loved the chivalrous Knights as well as
the poetic Samurai Masters. It was all about Errol Flynn, Toshiro Mifune and the art of fencing for me.
I had a wonderful fencing teacher, Sensai Heisaburo Ogawa. I consider him
one of my greatest mentors. He gave me structure that I still use to keep my life focused and worthy.
He also taught me some dirty fencing moves in which I could break my opponent's sword
with a quick coupe to get that last elusive touche. You see, swords are expensive and when you
manage to break one you fluster your opponent which enables you to strike. It was also dangerous
because now the broken sword did have a sharp point. I love living on the edge.
For the Japanese it is all about honor and respect. Yet, there's a place to let off some steam,
goof off so to speak. They understand it is all part of the system. I don't mind drinking a few bottles
of sake at Nanbankan while chowing down on the best Japanese barbeque in Southern California.
They understand that I am having a respite and still let the honor
and respect shine on me.

Tonight I snacked on quail, chicken hearts, chicken tails (the Pope's nose), tongue and the best
lamb chops you can get.

My two chef friends-- the Sensai Master barbeque-ist, Matsu and the younger barbeque-ist, Hide.
I respond to Matsu. He reminds me of my sensai fencing teacher. Matsu and I like to talk about
Miyamoto Musashi and his "Sword of Life".

Takashi, the ultimate host. He's the reason why I consider Nanbankan another home away from home.

And my waitress friends, Takako and Mimi. They are always poised and polite, but there's something
about them that seems dangerous and magical. I love those big nosed masks on the wall. They're called Tengu,
Japanese carnival masks. Takashi told me that in the 1700's they represented white people.
It was a way to scare the kiddies especially when the Dutch and British were coming around to do a little "trading".
To me, they seem like symbols to celebrate the goof cutting loose, letting of some steam, enjoying life.
Even though I have a relatively small nose, I see myself in the Tengu.

Keeping a bead on Planet X.

photo creation by Britt/Leggio

Sorry, you dogs and pigs...Nothin's Better Than Ears.

I want to know how God created the world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details.

--Albert Einstein

This guy singlehandedly kept a gang of swaggerin' English holigans on the British docks from robbing him. All he had was a chain. Well, he's also 6' 6" with shoulders like an ox. These holigans were pretty stupid. Most holigans are, that's why they run around together in a stinkin' cowardly pack. Anyhow, I want to wish him a very happy birthday and some seriously good karma. He went off to the far east to help the tsunami kids. He's a good man.

The blue, white, and red French flag took shape during the French Revolution. The three colors represent the Republic's three ideals.

A VERY HAPPY BASTILLE DAY TO ALL MY FRENCH FRIENDS! PARTICULARLY MY GASCON FRIENDS. WE HAVE MORE IN COMMON THAN NOT. OH, BY THE WAY, THANK YOU FOR OUR STATUE OF LIBERTY AND YOUR FABULOUS FROMMAGE, MON DIEU!

What am I thinking?! We're not in July! We're in January! All this hyperspace mind and time warping has put me exactly 6 months 15 hours, 5 minutes and 10 secs Pacific Time ahead of schedule. I have absolutely no sense of timing. But isn't Freedom and Liberty something we should celebrate everyday?

Huygens sends back pictures of Saturn's rings.

sohapp.mid

I wonder if I am still a member of this professional fraternity. Back 1979-80 at the University of Redlands Music School, I was initiated in it. I remember creating a ruckus. The Older Brothers had some interesting ideas for us Worms to do to be initiated properly. Besides the rules of the professional fraternity, doing community service and a concert (Good Stuff), they wanted us to do jockular guy things (Bad Stuff). I didn't mind listening to Swan Lake while watching a porno film. That was pretty funny. I also didn't mind being woken up at 3:00 am for a crazy drive to Tommy's burger in downtown LA. That was good comradeship. But the concept of the giant wooden apple with all the worm holes in it (you can picture what we were supposed to do), I had a serious problem with that. My grandfather Carmine Coppola was a member. Igor Stravinsky was a member. I wondered what they would have done if they were presented with a giant worm-holed wooden apple? I know one of them would've had them "sleepin' with the fishes". Anyhow, I refused to do it. I refused to let any of my other worm comrades do it. In fact, I became so fierce about this that I dictated what we worms would do and not do and would back it up with fisticuffs. Much to the annoyance of the Older Brothers, they relented. Anyhow, I hope once you are initiated you remain a member of this honestly wonderful professional music fraternity. Remember, it's all about music to me.

P.S.
I still remember the secret handshake.

I'll let you know when I am thoroughly crazy.

I'm sick at home today. Damn sore throat. My dog's keeping things in order.

Let the sunshine in.

Just in case anyone was wondering, Bob Gordon is still slaving away on the editing. We're definitely getting closer.

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an
unchartered land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.

--Helen Keller

The Maestro.

What a shallow, juvenile popular culture we live in when we are programmed not to grow old naturally or with grace and wisdom. Why? Because we are so afraid of not being wanted or loved. Why? Because for the most part it's true. My wife was reading Family Circle which she has decided to stop reading when there was a supposed important article about "TV viewing with your Kids". The writer of this article spoke of watching the reality show SWAN with her ten year old daughter. SWAN is all about people rushing to have plastic surgery done. The winner is the one who has it done the fastest and looks the "best". Why the hell would she be letting her daughter watch this show in the first place? What does that have to do with family values or human wisdom? There's nothing sadder than walking around a Bristol Farms in Beverly Hills and running into a lonely elderly woman with horrible make-up, face lift and insect-like nose job. She did this to herself to be accepted, but look at her now. Why bother playing the game? Be yourself. That is where real love can flourish for eternity.

I remember way back in the old 1970's Long Beach days my younger brother had a skinny orange cat with a crooked neck and tail named Razzmatazz. He fetched a small rubber creepy-crawler lobster. He was a bit of a clown and a very close comrade for my brother. One day, I yelled at my brother to keep quiet and went back to my room. I didn't have my shirt on. I sat on my floor indian style to finish reading Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. Suddenly, I felt a warm spray on my back. Razzmatazz had just marked his stinky scent on me in retaliation. I couldn't believe it. I'm still astounded. How did he get his cat to do that? Now my brother is one of the few megastars who can actually say he has universal talent. Happy Birthday to him.

I needed a fresh start this year with no one's agenda or baggage. I am so happy we found this old Hollywood building directly across our future home which is under construction at 6500 Sunset Blvd. It is the great Hollywood Athletic Club building. I had my first professional meeting at the building back in 1986 for a project called "The Apothecary" which was co-written by myself and the late great Nat Kelly Cole, Nat King's son and my dear friend. Today I just noticed the historical plaque stating January 25th as an important date for the building. That's my birthday. I think Kelly is looking out for me from the heavens. I couldn't be happier.

My son and I walked past this store front window in the Grove shopping mall today. It angered both of us. I wondered what kind of response this store would get if it said "Girls were stupid. Throw rocks at them." He asked me if I could find the artist Todo so he could throw one of his fast balls at his kisser. I told him calling Todo an "Artist" was way to kind and we shouldn't waste our time on such drivel. The store that proudly displays this juvenile slime is Entertainment Art. However, I do like that they have a still of Marlon Brando petting his cat from FFC's "The Godfather" right next to it. Maybe they should think about removing the Todo if they know what's good for them.

January 5, 2005. 8:40 PM.
At this precise moment I know exactly where she is coming from.

I love Westerns. There's another more basic reason I like EARS XXI. Hired gunslingers use to have to prove they got the job done by bringing back the shriveled cut off ears of the target. "Bring me back his ears" was a common expression of the wild west. I like that expression. That's the fighter in me coming out.

Get your ears out of the easy chair.
--Charles Ives

Everything is music and everywhere is the best seat.
--John Cage

The above are idols of mine. Their legacies empowered me through my youth. This is another reason I like EARS XXI. I believe they would approve. EARS XXI is a "hearing aid" for the digital arena.

...AS A TEAM WE WILL SUCCEED IN 2004.

THIS IS MY WISH FOR 2005.

photo by BIC