All posts by tim

i sell stuff, i love my family, art, music, political involvement, intellegent discussion, low stakes card games, guitar jams and a hat that fits just right.
The Baboon Congress

Things Left Unsaid

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Today’s guest post comes from tim

i am so pleased that our blog has proven to be self sustaining.

i miss dale ad his notes on things like the planets being so  close together last week that they looked like one. i dont like relying on the outside world to bring me my trail info. last week on my way home the guy on the radio was telling me and he was a weather guy not a planet guy but i guess he sounded the alarm for me.

our little family has taken form as guest  bloggers with clyde is clicking on all 8 cylinders and sherrilee barbara and jacque cranking out the blogs.

we made it what a month so far. my ideas focus and unfocus as the days go on and if i dont hurry up and take notes they are gone. 

what was that great idea i had?

dale has realized by now what it is like to be a normal human being with 24 hours of your own without having to dedicate 2 or 3 hours per day to tour merry band of blogmates who reside here on the trail. i have come to realize what a remarkable run 6 days a week for 5 ears truly was and am thankful for the ride.

i hope he returns but i think we have proven that we have the ability to start a conversation for the day and carry on in the baboon tradition. the old regulars the occasionals and the newbies. returns he old alpha for bringing us together

i remember the first physical coming together at the russian museum where i got to meet a fistful of baboons and the extension of the camaraderie was formalized. since then the rock bend the bbc the state fair the concerts and other activities (pj i want to meet up with you at the farmers market and learn your favorites and i am an early morning person so it might work and hmong village is not forgotten either)

sometimes the best stuff comes from unexpected sources and if you think about it too hard or too long its gone.

time waits for no one and the trail is a nice place to practice spouting off what you have learned and observed and thought about with those who stop in.

what do you wish you had said to who?

The Baboon Congress

Chicken or Egg?

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Header Image by Nisargam

I have decided to look at the world a bit more through the eyes of a blog writer.

I was at the Edina art fair a week ago Sunday for a glorious day and while looking at the booths of numerous photographers made the comment that it must be interesting looking at the world with the filter of how would this be for a photograph

It occurred to me today that for the last 5 years and likely 30 more before that our blogmeister has undoubtedly been influenced by the filter of the trail and the docks to flavor spice pervert and steer his brain and perception of the world

I have a new appreciation for the portrait of a wordsmith photoshop artist as a middle aged and getting older every year man.

I hope many of us get the chance to take a swing at posting guest blogs (are they that any more) and discover the fulfillment dale discovered in his 1200 good blogs (and the others too)

Topic before the question or the other way around?

File of topics that are not time related and  Where the heck did he always find the top news tidbit before it hit the morning lead story status on the places that know when to put a 72 point font on a headline.

Top stories for my sons would be sports leads, for my daughters something else again, for Fox News, public television, cbs and the New York Times all different again

So to hit it right once is understandable but over and over is a legacy left for us to ponder.

My first guest blog year and years ago was on Friday the 13th and dale suggested I use that as a topic but that being my first I had other stuff on the tip of my fingers so I told him no. I don’t think it’s come up again but I will craft one for the next Friday 13 unless one of you want to.

Timely is now or forget it. Other ( this one for example) can be used a filler from the blog of the day file I hope we offer to dale to make the summer go by without too many discussions that drone on for multiple days.

We all have different filters and I have enjoyed participating in the interaction to dales blogs with you all over the last 5 plus years

Now I hope I get to enjoy some additional filter results from one and all.  Music , food , art , seeds, recollections, views of life…we can do this baboons with our eyes closed. And as you can see from my typical typos that’s usually how I type.

Which comes first the question or the story?

The Baboon Congress

life can be easy

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In the header photo: oldest son on left youngest daughter on right all the ones in the middle are in the middle except the old ones in the middle that are not in the middle.

Today’s guest post comes from tim

the art of guest blogging is a mission worthy of pursuit.

when i was a younger man ( i guess i have alway been a younger man havnt i?) i used ot ask people for topics to write songs on. like improv acting. i would take an idea and work it sometimes to my and other delight sometimes to death and with the like i do with potatoes. familiar and i like it but others either do or they dont without much variation. if you liked the least one youve got a shot if you didnt youre likely in for a repeat.

life is a little like that. if you did good you are likely to repeat if you didnt you are likely to repeat. its not like tyou are doomed to goundhog day but it kind of is exactly like you are doomed to groundhog day. unless you are able to swap brains midway through the process the ability to reinvent the essence of you is suspect.

the problem is that if you didnt find great enjoymet in the last version of the sojourn it is unlikely that you will adjust this time unless…… unless you figure it out.

my kids are all coming of age. 28 year old is ready to go make a life, 26 year old is working on hers., 22 year old is fresh out of college and the 16 year old is singing acting and deciding on a course that will allow her to appreciate those things rather than be jailed and a starving artist y looking to find career paths in paying professions that will challenge hr sense of daily heroics and allow her to go for it on a continuing basis.

youngest daughter just got her invite to drivers training and you should have seen the smile. priceless. lord knows what she will end up doing but the 26 year old guesses that emma will likely turn out to be a corporate ceo. just that kind of make up. focused and personable with a take no crap kind of personna.

my job today is to teach them that you never give up.

my wife is form a family where the 9-5 routine is the way it worked. nice folks but a different cup of tea from the roll with the punches life i came from. when we met i was a high rolling young pup on my way to fame and fortune and she bit. we had a kid then two then three and decided to get married and all was grand with a city mouse country mouse kind of theme. then the fan entered the picture and holy moly. it is different when you need to adlib plan

it is a stroke of luck that i can always find a worthy pursuit ti keep me occupied and i have a couple now. the 22 year old told me yesterday when i was talking to him about options i am pursuing right now that he thought i ought to focus on one thing and stay with it. and i told him i have heard that one before and while it sage advice it is not for me. i cant do it. while i am in the midst of one pursuit i a plotting another for tomorrow. multitasking is part of the dna
i hope to show them that if you find a vision and pursue it life will be ok.it works good for me.

i used to work with a guy who wanted me to take a title with his company and i couldnt do it. i told him im a good worker but a poor employee. truer words have never been spoken.

i hope my kids can learn how to find their way in this cold cruel world bt taking care of the things that are important to them as the make therir way throgh the maze and try to find the key ot lifes mysteres. one foot in front of the other a stitch in time saves nine. do sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me and dont let anyone give you a wooden nickle. when someone asks if there are any questions? i always ask for the secret to lifes true meaning. . the response is always worthwhile. every now and again i get a predetermined answer or one off the cuff that the person is comfortable or pleased with and tha tis a good time to pause a moment and reflect.

today was one of the 10 perfect days you get a year in this part of the world and when i went outside at 3 and discovered it was perfect out i went into the office and told my colleague that unless he had something very very pressing he needed to get out and enjoy this perfect day and do whatever the next two hours were going to produce another time and another way.

life can be easy. life can be rewarding, dont think too hard. you know how to do it. just do it.

even nike knows that

The Baboon Congress

Cousin Dan Keeps It Simple

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Today’s guest post comes from tim.

i may have mentioned cousin dan before here on the trail.

this time of year i have to call him and thank him one more time for making me aware of the special circle we live in.

dan comes from fargo, i come from fargo. i got out, dan didnt.

when cousin tim would come up from the cities it was a special time. the cities were like the emerald city in fargo in 1960-70. i would come in in my twin city finery with peace sign pendants and floppy hats from the mod psychedelic stores in the heart of minneapolis.

dan was a wild man and did things i would never dream of doing. reckless drug trials, trouble that anyone would know better than to try but in fargo you knew where to draw the line, when you could get away with it,  and when you were pushing your luck.

dan went off to study fine art painting with figure studies and landscapes as his focus. i love his work. his hay bales in the field and his rolling fields with the focus being the rows of corn stubble and large cloud skies took my brain away on trips to the places i visited when i had time to look and enjoy

about 4 or 5 years ago he had an aneurism and today reminds me of chauncey gardner in jerzy kosinskis being there which peter sellers brought to life. its fitting. he has traded in his wild youth for the most laid back passive existence on the planet where he paints and watches people on the sidewalk scenes in his world and enjoys the simple things.

the paintings he did and does are of the landscape and the gentle surroundings we miss if we are not paying attention.

for the next 3 or 4 weeks the greens are magic. the developments in the world of leaves make the world a kaleidoscope of greens. today i saw willow leaves sprouting almost dandelion yellow the celery green and moss and white hued buds popping as the leaves do their butterfly form the cocoon imitation and sprout from those tree branches like aliens form a sigourney weaver movie.

so thanks to dan for making me appreciate green in april and may.

what do you do to simplify your life?

The Baboon Congress

Halloween Hijinks

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Today’s guest post comes from tim.

My 13-year-old daughter is very excited that Halloween is on Friday night this year.

She asked me about the origins of Halloween and I being a good recovering Catholic coming from a good Catholic household knew that Halloween is the celebration of the fighting from the spirits on the day before all souls day.

On all souls day heaven comes down and takes the good spirits directly to heaven with no stop in purgatory on the way but if you’re not  a good spirit you may end up going to hell instead.

My father was a person who was involved in activities at the Catholic church and was asked on numerous occasions to spend the night of all souls day in church guarding against the possibility that the spirits could be taken to evil places if they were not guarded properly.  This evolved into our wearing costumes and hiding from the demons.

When people from other parts of the world, and ask what is this Halloween holiday it’s a hard one to explain.

“Well we have the children dressed up as ghosts and goblins and they go knock on peoples doors and threatened that we will trick you if you don’t give us a treat and beg for candy expecting for the house to be prepared for our begging.  Some of the side benefits are that you can go to someone’s house you don’t like and toilet paper their tree sold their windows egg their cars and do awful things to people in the name of the holiday tradition.”

I remember my favorite costume was that of a pirate in fifth-grade complete with big blousey sleeves on my pirate shirt.

In later life I went to the barbershop and got hair clippings to glue on  along with a putty nose to complete my Wolfman attire.

At my house now if I get 10 kids it’s a big year – this is because of my long driveway.

My work associate took great delight in hiding in the bushes outside his house so that when children came to get candy from his wife at the door upon their turning around to leave the house he would spring out with raised hands and yell boo and make them cry and run away sometimes dropping the candy bags they were so scared.

I think any place that allows people to exhibit such behavior should be celebrated.  We are such a predictable anal society today that I think finding an excuse for people to get into costume and take on identities while dangerous is also good therapy.

It makes me think that I should start contemplating my costumes once again.  The only thing that’s kept me from doing it is the realization that it’s just going to be for those 10 kids to come down the driveway.

What would you be if you could?

The Baboon Congress

Hat Dogs

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Today’s guest post comes from tim.

Hats. I like hats. I always have. I like hats like Humphrey Bogart style hats. Fedoras. I like a hamburg, which is a bankers or a lawyers hat. I like the different style of western hats available. The way a cowboy wears his headgear tells you a lot about the character of the guy under the hat. That’s true of all hats – a bucket hat from Ireland or a newsboys cap, a racing style little cap or a kangol knitted golf cap. Today the return of the 60’s stingy brim fedora is all the rage with the kids but the panama hat and the Milan straw classics form the 50’s and 60’s is what I lean towards.

Dogs, I really like dogs. I always wanted one and when I was a kid. I have had one pretty much steady for the last 40 years but the old saying about if you feel like you want to get married just go find yourself a woman you hate and give her a house and most of your money and save all the other anxiety … does have a relative statement in dog world. Just go find a best friend who is going to die and rip your heart out out every 10 years. My lab basset and my wolf dog did my heart some serious damage when they died. Today I have a fistful of dog love running around and the knowledge the other shoe is going to drop is part of the deal but still you have to remember to make a point of enjoying the moment. With kids I tend to be a bit preachy and try to teach life lessons, some of it is acknowledged most is in one ear and out the other. Dogs get less preaching, more constructive direction and lots more toleration on not quite hitting desired goals. You have to catch a dog to give him hell, not so with kids. You need to praise a dog every time they get caught doing good. That may be what I’m missing with my kids.

Back in 1968 I went into Sears surplus and saw an item I will never forget. It was a band saw with a radio in it. It struck me as funny at the time and I started laughing in the store so hard I couldn’t catch my breath. I like a band saw and I like a radio but I had to question the guy who thought they should be packaged together. A band saw rarely gets used and while its not being used a radio sure would come in handy. But the notion of putting them together struck me as so unlikely I could not believe I saw it in real life production right in front of my face. When ever I think of it, I smile again.

This is also true of dogs and hats. I like dogs and I like hats but I don’t like dogs in hats. A simple search on google will show you there is a market for dog hats and on you tube the cats do not have an exclusive when it comes to odd posts. Dogs with hats have a spot in the bandwidth also. I hope it is not the first thing intelligent creatures from another planet see when they discover electronic communication from mother earth.

What really stupid earth guy stuff would you have a hard time explaining to creatures from another planet?

The Baboon Congress, Uncategorized

Surrounded By Ideas

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Today’s guest post comes from tim.

I was in the bookstore waiting for my wife the other day. I still use it for a meeting place but have begun to think maybe a park is as good a spot now with the internet serving the purpose that the bookstore once did. The diference being that the book store has stuff to put your hands on and touch and suggest that your brain would never come up with on its own.

Or would it? That is the question.

bookshelves

If left to your own design you would be able to come up with all the cool stimulation of thought to send you surfing into infinitium and off into uncharted worlds like a book store can do. You don’t have to do anything other than pick up a copy of whatever is on the shelf to see if you care. How many times have you picked up a book at the bookstore read 10 words and put it back down. A look at a cover an author a theme that takes you off to somewhere else where you see a realted idea you would never have googled but as long as it is this easy you just pick it up and browse for a minute. It may be that I am more of the mile wide and an inch deep than the average person but I love the ability to walk through the bookstore and breathe in all the possibilities for avenues to cast my brain into.

I think of the time I waited in barnes and noble in galleria to get jimmy carters signature on my book. I got there an hour or so before the book signing was to begin and found the end of the line was already a good ways back through the lower level of the store. Jimmy being the overly conscientious man that he is has anticipated the demand and was there over an hour early signing a book in a little over one thousand one one thousand to one thousand three with a pair of assistants on either side one ot place the next book in front of him, one to take the signed copy form him and prepare for the next and the next and the next. The line in this scenario kind of inched alone even ½ a mile back which is about where i believe when I began.

As I wound my way through the bookshelves I recognized all the authors topics genres as the went by. The line organizers did me the favor of running it through the fiction section and the Margaret atwood kickoff followed by the brontes the and so on past faulkner, hesse, hemmingay twain, Vonnegut, wolfe and into the genre stuff of travel and poetry western and I realized how much I enjoy the process of seeing the title and author and the idea that comes to mind with the snap associaton.

Today I was looking at dc comics and marvel comic section across from manga that new form of picture books that are action stories where the pictures tell the stories and the words go along instead of the other way around. I was looking for the brother of a friend who is a gifted comic book artist. And I came across anne rice who I had been telling my daughter about and suggesting she look into as kind of the grandmother of the vampire flying death angel genre my daughter is very into these days. I thought it was in the wrong place then I discovered it was a picture book version of the story and it did a decent job of telling the story. I looked next to that and there was a copy of farenheit 451 by ray bradberry. He had writen a preface about how farenheiht 451 came to be with a 50 year hindsight viewer as an aide he hadn’t been able to use before. He talked about how he arrived at farenheit 451 from a little incident that happened to him a couple weeks earlier and that he had always attributed that to the origins of the story only years later did he ralize that the story came from deep down in his subconscious and he recommended that when you write you allow the ideas to flow and follow them rather than thinking you have an idea of what you are doing,

Ray bradberrys close on the preface was this: if you had to memorize one book like the people in farenheit 451 did for preservation and to contribute to the furthering of the world, which book would you chose and why?

The Baboon Congress

Nuances of Taste

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Today’s guest post comes from tim.

I like marilyn monroe.

marilyn the look

i watched a movie about her, well actually in my own adhd way i enjoyed a movie about her. got the gist of it and got back to my life in about 10-15 minutes and was able to plug in the theme of the movie, lawrance olivier was a great stage actor who wanted to be a great film star and marilyn was a great film star who wanted to be a great actor. it is said marilyn had a hard time getting it right but when she did every eye in the place was on her.

brad pitt is dumb as a rock.

robert redford chose brad pitt to be in a river ran through it and turned him into a star. i happened at the time to be listening to a books on tape story that had brad reading from his pre star days. he stumbled his way through the reading mispronouncing the hard words and doing that stammer when you see the word coming and you dont know how to pronounce it, then pushing forward in a way that results in a cadence that makes your voice do a herky jerky tempo that reminds me of a rumba line. a river ran through it was a beautiful movie, story, was beautiful cinematography it won critical acclaim but what it will go down as in my book is as the vehicle that launched brad pitt.

entertainers are allowed to be wonderful at what they are at and no one asks brad pitt to read anymore but he has a wonderful future as eye candy.

johnny depp may or may not be sharp. it doesnt matter because he is so creative.

jimmy stewart and tom hanks are the same person in different generations.

sophia loren, emmie lou harris and cher are incredible 70 somethings.

i like bob dylan, tom waits, andrea bocelli, ella fitzgerald, chet baker, willem de kooning ansel adams, art deco, raspberries, pinot grigio,pesto, mornig fog, a sultry voice, a cats purr, sunshine on my shoulders, ice cold water and i dont know why. marilyn sure was pretty, jimmy stewart is personable, who doesnt like sun on their back and isnt life great when we appreciate the simple gifts we have. no one ever looks at a mountain and says it is beautiful but the mineral deposits are not as strong as those in theurals, no one looks at a raspberry and says yeah it tastes good but it is lacking in terms of beta carotene.

we have a set of values in our head that says good or bad, pleasant or repulsive, i want it or get me outta here. i dont know where you got yours and i dont care where i came upon mine but you are not going to be able to talk me out of the things i like.

sometimes its simple. ice cold water on a hot day vs putrid eggs in an unopened garbage can. you know which you want and what to choose but what about all the other stuff we run into every day?

isnt it amazing others dont see the beauty and feel the attraction to the same things that call out to you?

how can pink martini not be the most popular music in the world?

how can there be any pistachio’s left?

why isnt there a radio station that just plays miles davis kind of blue 24/7?

What is taste?

The Baboon Congress

Happy Birthday, Roger Miller

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Today’s guest post comes from tim

roger millers birthday is today. he’s not around to enjoy it anymore but he left something behind for us to enjoy in his absence.

roger miller was a blip on the screen in the 60’s when his hits , dang me, do wacka doo, king of the road and you can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd were topping the charts. i enjoyed them and thought they were good songs. i gave them more credit than the equivalent guitarzan by ray stevens which sort of appealed to the same demographic.

king of the road upon inspection is a tune that offers a view of another mans shoes that is not really given enough credit for how different it was from everything else out there and if you actually went into the thoughts behind dang me and do wacka doo they show that there was a serious thought behind the semi babble top 40 pop effort of the times.

my first marriage gave me many unique memories two wonderful kids and one mother in law that insisted on knowing exactly what gift to buy for christmas and birthdays before she went out to shopping . i told her album collections were the way to go. dylan, the stones the beatles, roger miller and she chose roger miller. i already had too many dylan albums and most of the beatles so if it comes down to the stones or roger miller , roger miller won.

each album was 8 dollars and 50 was the budget so 6 was the number of roger miller albums I received . I had no idea you could get so much music form 6 albums. in addition to king of the road, do whacka do and dang me there were tunes like husbands and wives and other heartfelt balads he was incredible at writing that never made the radio and….there was an album called big river which was roger millers broadway musical i had no knowledge of at all at that point. it turned out to be a turning point for me and roger.

he spent three years writing big river. unlike all his other efforts he put time and energy into the production and it showed. he even played pap on broadway when john goodman had to leave the broadway production to take the role of dan conner on the tv series roseanne. if you haven’t heard the album recording of the musical do it. it is the best musical ever.

that fistful of roger miller albums caused a backwards biography of roger miller that informed me that while he was a kindred spirit he had a troubled history with many problems starting when his dad died during the depression in the dustbowl era of oklahoma and he and his two brothers were each shipped off to live with a different uncle.

shep wolley was another relative who taught roger to play violin and introduced him to the nashville end of showbusiness where roger got his start writing tunes for ray price and someone else on the grand ol opry and then befriended chet atkins and johnny cash and became part of the nashville scene. along the way he burned through life with ex-wives drug problems bouts with depression and kind of a death wish outlook on his career.

he was given one of those tv show in the 60’s. remember them all, the nat king cole show, ed sullivan, dean martin, red skelton, jimmy dean, judy garland, johnny cash, well they cut rogers out after the first 13 weeks, showing up for work was not a good job description for roger who did best shooting from the hip and writing songs when inspired.

while i am fortunate enough to be able to claim no depression, drugs and relationships had taken their toll and offered their challenges.

sometimes you are attracted to a guy and then find out the creative juices that he oozed were not a celebration of life but a pressure relief valve. if its in there its just gotta come out. when it does how you deal with it determines where it goes from there.

there are lots of roger miller clips out there on you tube. its like looking into steve goodman or john prine or a bag of lays potato chips once you get started its hard to stop. you guys are all fine but i may need to do some serious accessing.

name a creative artist who you would consider a kindred spirit.

Poems, The Baboon Congress

tim’s turkey verse

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in the name of virtual family values and holiday togetherness, today’s guest post is, of course, by tim

Its thanksgiving week here on the trail
were doing guest blogs in the absence of dale.
the week should be 7 days same as before
but without dales guidance
we could have crap blogs galore.

will jacque be sticking here head in?
will clyde show us that hes alive?
I love it when hes feeling chatty
but sad when its all before five

we all have some family to gather with
my wifes got to gather with mine.
last year we did it with her family
and other than that twitch im just fine

what im thankful for after watching the dust bowl
is for friends who will stick it out here
we miss the old days and we do all remember
and sometimes it does bring a tear.

this trail is the center of mornings for us
and the crew digs in deeper it seems.
we loose one and then two and then add a couple
wwhile dale cooks up stuff behind the scenes.

word press is a challenge for steve the blue doily
pj keeps us from going off track
renee is the foreigner among us
from dakota so cut her some slack

linda and ben offer baboon stability
sherrilee anna and krista our soul
we miss mig bib and allanna, hope someday they come back
jim has taken first to blogs daily role.

its an odd clan our internet family
who meet here each day on the trail.
news from space are our cranberries
and or politicic gravey prevails

discussions replaced the good music
obamas the turkey we share
dr baboon and bubby and old captn billy
cover topics about which we all care.

thanks to chidrader, the guy in the hat
and regulars who are not daily
we really enjoy the participation
and love it when you come in and playly

with donna we pass through school season
with holly we pull it together
and summarize days conversation
with a song that is true as the weather.

Ffod, books and politics theater arts
solar news and the state of the state
the baboon trail moniker touches our hearts
and makes us look forward to wait

the next days blog topic is always a treat
it’s a great way to start out anew
you have to react to the sideways end question
realizing someone is messing with you

its an odd way of life that weve grown to depend on
heart string tied to typewritten keys
with the people you list as your friends on
the place where the aim is to please

id like to say that it is you all im here for
im such a giving kind of guy
but the truth is that i do it all just for me
this blog daily fix makes my spirits fly high

so thank you to each and every baboon
who share the light of the new day
and all of the thoughts weve shared on the trail
and the things that you’ve all had to say

lets not forget lisa on edith or robin
cb bill and all of the newbies we’ve gained
ba’s back of late love to have her drop in
without them were only half brained

together we are better than we all are apart.
the power in numbers baboon
so along with the stuffing and pies this good season
thank the trail now please holly a tune….

What groups, clubs or organizations claim you as a member?                              Are you proud to belong?