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Dark Cloud's Passing Acquaintances
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Recommended sites of friends or nodding acquaintances but all people for whom I have regard. Tell them I said so should the subject arise.
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Mark Boslough, who's become a hero to landowners across the nation fighting the RS2477 detritus (an old law's residue that Congressman Udall is attempting to put to bed), has become an inflamed advocate of bringing off-road vehicle traffic under control. Especially, you know, when that traffic putters across his land and despoils it. He owns the now rather famous Barking Dog Trail which wanders across a series of plots and mine claims that he unifies under Balarat Creek Ranch in the mountains by Lyons, Colorado.
His RS2477 url is here.
He's won annoying lawsuits and is now attempting to bring some 4x4 clubs to heel for past threats and fabrications, and doing it in the open via the press. Takes some courage and stamina to keep at it this long, while doing whatever it is scientists do at Sandia Labs in New Mexico. Something about comets and their geology. Or maybe that's his wife, who's also doing fairly intimidating work about which I can only nod idiotically.
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Blues Access Magazine is devoted to the appreciation of this classic American music genre, the bedrock of a zillion dollar industry today that continues to shoo it under the rug in hopes no one will notice. This is something that deserves your support.
The Blues and financial stress are old bar stool buds, traditionally my wing men, but while fellow beer drinker Bluegrass now has social aspirations, the Blues rarely escapes to fiscal stability. Cary Wolfson (the Red Rooster) originated and ran Blues Access Magazine for about twelve years before the burden of a print magazine compelled transition to the WEB, a business sensation that, well, I experienced when I clamped down on that large wallet leach: the printed Boulder Lout, 1996-2001, R.I.P.
Cary has twice been honored with W.C. Handy Keeping the Blues Alive awards from the Blues Foundation in Memphis, TN. The Red Rooster Lounge continues as a national radio show and Cary has sufficiently recovered to entertain physical threats to get him to write for The Lout. Check back. When he was still at KGNU in the early 1980's, Cary also framed Dark Cloud by providing an opening and closing that I'm going to revive as soon as I can find it again.
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Boulder International Hostel
1107 12th St.
Boulder, Colorado 80302
303.442.0522 | Owned by Ron Mitchell and managed by Deepak and Suhita Sinha, I lived and worked there for four years and count them among my friends. You pay less for less, but for bed and shower and – mostly in the summer – a hysterical congregation of people with kids and tales from all over the world, it is worth the visit.
The on-site material is as I wrote it for them in 2002, so check with them to make sure all is up to date. |
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Boulder Shipping & Mail Boxes is a locally owned mail and shipping center offering very competitive prices with all major carriers. We are an Authorized UPS Shipping Outlet, a FedEx Authorized ShipCenter and an Authorized Airborne Shipping Center. We are also an Authorized Western Union Agent Location and can transfer money anywhere in the world. And we have 400 mail boxes for rent. So whether you need to move mail, packages, or money, stop on by. We even ship cars.
I'm going to ask Deepak and Suhita about the logo. I am. But I know they want me to ask and I would hate to give them that satisfaction.......hm.....hmmmmmmmm.
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Unpacking in my new place, I found a copy of a book I hadn't read in years. Inside the front cover was an inscription, "To My Guardian Angel" from Nancy. I had to put down the book and remember.
Sometime in the late 1970's, I worked for Nancy Cook as her booking agent here in Colorado. Of all the people I worked with, she's the one still there on the trail, still making a living at it and doing well. From then till now, she's one of the few performers who can call her audiences, in dead sincerity, friends and not sound corny. Or subject to hyperbole. Go hear her and see what I mean. A genuine sweetheart to boot. Tell her "hi," from a well-lapsed angel who retains a feather or two.
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I enjoy revealing the beauty inherent in utilitarian objects, and amusing myself and others in deciphering their original functions. Many of these objects were already recycled on the farm. Thus, as I reincarnate these agri-industrial kachinas, they are often on their third lives, and carry much soulful energy from their rich pasts. My intent is to embrace this rhythm of life and death, this endless cycle of decay and rebirth, evoking crumbling ruins and ancient cultures, earth spirits brought to life."
Bruce Campbell was Art Director of the Boulder Theater in the early 1980's when I started there some weeks after he had. Without question, one of the funniest and best people I met in my years there. Certainly, the best artist.
Much of his poster art, which was beautiful and original, has vanished, and never did anyone produce better for the money lavished upon them, often as high as $5 an hour. He still speaks to me, inexplicably.
A formerly committed Luddite, Campbell has recently opened his own website himself and well nigh about time if I say so myself. He mostly makes his living through galleries around the country, Highlands Gallery in Breckenridge being a homebase. I expect his own site to edge them out sooner than later.
There are many artists who wish they could say that, but Campbell's popularity is easy to see and understand. His sculptures are as charming to children as to adults: sorta silly, sorta sublime, fun, easy on the eye and different. Picasso in 3D.
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"I am fascinated by the marks of humankind. Sometimes I use parts of pieces of written communications to create my own visual alphabet. Using a fragment of a recognizable letterform creates a new form of pictograph. A lost word is transformed and the curious viewer is engaged in its content. I sometimes think of my sculpture as a three dimensional Haiku using the alphabet of pictographs. Other times I use the innate but overlooked characteristic of steel as a recording medium to codify my own abstract language, whether through landscape, portrait, or some other sculptural form."
This was a pleasant surprise. Cha-Cha (I'll let her explain it.....) is one of those personal forces of nature who can pretty much meld into any given situation and conversation, take it over, pat it into shape, bend it to her wishes, bounce it off the wall, dribble it across the table and back - actually torture it if the mood suggests - and at will vanish back into this realm without really leaving much of a clue what just happened. She's a unique pleasure to know.
When she announced some years ago she was learning how to wield a welding torch and work on metal, leaving behind wimpy paper and paint, somehow that didn't shock as much as it normally would from a woman not large or visually muscular. But that mere metal or rock would do what it was told if it damned well knew what was good for it also didn't surprise, either. And yes, since you ask, I do believe that's part of her technique.
Cha is a gifted artist in numerous disciplines and it's good to see her work out where it belongs. If I hadn't seen her beneath Mr. Campbell's work at Highland Galleries' site, I'd not have known. Casting no stones........ Still.......
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Mark Cohen is a former JAG, a civilian (argh!) attorney and judge, a former member of the Nederland Town Trustees, and now a published author. This normally is considered the Complete Dark Cloud Prerequisite for Condemnation, if not outright proscription, but given that liberal Air Force officers are an endangered breed, he escapes my wrath.
Besides which, anyone who can conceive of a private eye operating out of Nederland (well, I don't know.... but I keep visualizing Tommy Chong as Sam Spade...) has a strange mind set that is no lack of recommendation to me. Bluetick Revenge is the followup to The Fractal Murders, and it's in stores now.
His book was just picked up for national release!
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When my wife and I got here in 1971, and had a group called Bear Hug, Chris was in a band called Magic Music. We've bumped into each other through the years, and share some of the same scars of the music scene in Boulder. He's always had a good, tight band and put on a great show with an eclectic mix of music.
If you get a chance to hear Chris Daniels and The Kings, do so only if you want to get up and dance. Tell him 'hi' when you do, and recall me to him.
Thanking you in advance.
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DataLever Corporation is the premiere provider of data-programming productivity solutions. Our mission is to drive down the cost and time of the myriad IT tasks that challenge today's IT organization. We deliver productivity gains from data center to desktop
DataLever Corporation - formerly Acme Software - is run by friends John and Laura Lilley (Stinson) and operates on a technological level I cannot fathom or fully appreciate. My computer expertise is limited to Word, WarCraft, and FTP, provided someone sets it up for me. I smile and nod when they explain their projects. I have not the slightest idea what they are talking about and struggle to appear comprehending before they break out the animal hand puppets to help me along.
They developed DataLever, a program that has set the hearts of government and business I.S./programming techs a-thumping. You do not read Letters of Recommendation like these guys get at, say, other software development sites known to man or geek. The people who need and use it sob with appreciation, which is something to bear in mind when your company needs data compilations, transformations, or related help. Um. Let's listen in as Mr. Moose here chats with Arnold the Squirrel about data transfers...
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Massage by Elizabeth. at - wait for it - massageby.elizabeth@yahoo.com It's where to go in Boulder.
Liz DeFrias is my masseuse. She's nationally certified and practices in a city with its own Massage College and was the birthplace of the Rolfing Institute, so you can understand this is a place that knows the value of learned and strong hands. None but the best are here in Boulder, and after thirty five years, I made the obvious choice: a skydiver and athlete who knows what is needed, not only for fellow athletes but biodegrading olde men with testy backs. The best only, for Dark Cloud.
Anyone who's from New Bedford - where, Jay Leno, please note, men are men and not the la-di-dahs of the Revere Beach area - knows Gaspar's Linguica. It's a distinctly Portuguese sausage, an acquired taste, and in my Pleistocene youth New Bedford - or at least my family, meaning my three brothers and I - lived on it. There is other linguica but only Gaspar's counts. I'm serious. Liz understands this.
When I met Liz at the Boulder Hostel, her accent (Acushnet, east side, north of the big oak, right next to New Bef) suggested to me she and I shared a common background, but we didn't bond till the Gaspar's Linguica subject was broached. She and I are now as the veterans of Garibaldi, were we Italian, such is the bond of Gaspar's Linguica. Clearly, you won't understand till you are accepted into this gastronomic elite. Till then, we pity you.
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EcoArts is a new event, a new model, a new way of thinking, bringing together scientists, environmentalists, performing and visual artists – along with spiritual leaders, educators, politicians, businessmen and women, and people from all walks of life – to investigate and celebrate the possibilities of a sustainable future
This is friend Marda Kirn's new endeavor building on her years of running the Colorado Dance Festival (which she founded from a tipi on Magnolia Road....one tough visionary and cookie). It's only EcoArts second year, so it's all an exciting period for her and it.
Visit and get involved.
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Four Mounds sits on high bluffs along the Mississippi in Dubuque, Iowa, and since the days of its last private owners - William and Elizabeth Burden - has become a park run by a Foundation with some of the Burden's grandchildren playing a large role. They have done an exceptional job, restoring architecturally remarkable historic housing on the property and maintaining extensive grounds. The family had decided views on things, once expressed by the firing of Frank Lloyd Wright because he was 'difficult.' The building in question apparently emerged fine.
The Burdens, by the by, were a unique and gracious couple, and I expect they would be pleased as punch with the usage of their lovely home. Bill was an accomplished musician (harmonica and a great whistler; he would have been beside himself if there had been a Blues Festival in Dubuque as there is now) and an exceptional cook. His recipes are published, and there are restaurants on Tobago where they would welcome him to their kitchen when he felt like it. Lizzy was a world traveler of note, and made it to places where they have, to this day, never heard of Starbucks. (Only partially kidding, unfortunately. The world is much changed since she took passage.) They were great hosts, and the public services offered today betray that heritage.
It is an absolutely beautiful spot and includes, rather obviously, four mounds that are attributed to the Native Americans, probably pre-Columbian, and were assumed to be burial barrows. All supposed knowledge about those times is being rewritten, given what is coming to light about the initial pandemics unleashed by European contact with Indian populations. It may prove that Four Mounds is of the same interest level as - and may be part of - the Hopewell culture whose most famous exponent is in Ohio, or that fascinating city of pyramids and mounds outside of St. Louis about which current ignorance is almost stunning in its completeness.
I have actually wondered, with no evidence, if Four Mounds is an American Mycenae waiting for its discovery, because it certainly is situated perfectly for a trading city in the ancient Amerindian world. It has a commanding view of the river, where you can as easily visualize flotillas of trade canoes as the ghost of General Grant across the way in his Illinois birthplace, or paddlewheelers sliding up and down the Mississippi at your feet.
It is place that lends itself to thought, and would make a unique overnight stop on your next cross-country road trip. I know. I've been there.
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A group of dedicated Information Technology professionals, the Free Range Geeks believe in working with clients to find the right solution for their needs, not just handing them a preconceived idea of what the solution should be. Every service provided is tailored to client needs.
The Free Range Geeks of Boulder, Colorado are also employed periodically to bail me out of self-inflicted fiascos. Good bunch.
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Lannie Garrett was one of my vict..... guests on a self inflicted fiasco called Boulder Theater Presents. She was, as always, a pro and a half and did a terrific job, shamefully repaid by me. (It's a sign of weakness to admit flaw, and I'll never cop to the previous sentence. I never said that. I did not.)
Lannie has pretty much owned Colorado for some years, now, and ever reinvents herself to different idioms and genres. Although many - far too many - try, few succeed convincingly as a singer of rock, country, and jazz; Lannie does, having the necessary aggregate of pipes, understanding, and talent. She is also hysterically funny, and there is no performer who can pretty much walk off the stage with the audience in her pocket as often as she does. Check out her cd's and go see her. Tell her "Hi" from....... Well, just say "hi."
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Martin Heigl worked at the Boulder Hostel when I was there, but had been there for a separate stint long before I entered its doors. A teacher from Germany, Martin is one of those annoying people who used their youth wisely, unlike myself, travelling broadly at every opportunity, and finally returned to Augsburg in, I believe, the summer of 2001. He was a lot of fun and a good employee and the Hostel misses him yet. He had a burning interest in American music and attended all the shows here he could.
So back in Germany, he's formed a blues band, Gin Pan Alley, formerly Big Daddy and the Special Guests, and has a CD coming out soon. Give a look and listen.
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Doak Heyser, a chess whiz and friend from the 80's (the distant 80's) is gathering steam as a photographer of native american rock paintings that grace the (mostly) Southwest.
You can look at these things and know without question that the hands that drew them, given time and more modern utensils, could have been hosting tony cocktail parties in all white Manhattan lofts and selling their overpriced work to people looking for tax havens.
There is deep art in the old lines.
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During my college years, my plan was to become a songwriter, reluctantly emerging from a mound of publishing checks and performing only for huge amounts of fiscal liquidity. Attorney John Harris was a fraternity brother of mine, which is how I met his younger bro Hank (the same year I met a future wife) while borrowing Chad Mitchell Trio records from his stash. If you ever meet Hank (and he’s a hoot; do so if you make it into South Dakota) make sure to remind him loudly and often his first job in show business was as the roadie for my band (The Drambuies…I don’t want to talk about it….) when we played the Grand Ole O’pry in 1971.
The fact that two years later he was a better guitarist than I could ever hope to be, and a far better singer, and – damn it – a better songwriter than most combined with artistic talent and a born photographer’s eye cannot be allowed to overshadow that salient point, okay? HE WAS ONCE MY ROADIE, for God’s sake. The numerous awards, acclaim, respect, and enjoyment he gives to his many fans are as nothing compared to that. In passing, I grudgingly admit his various CD’s are terrific and you would probably like them. Too, you should make the effort to hear him, solo or with band. Tell him “Hi” and I still have his Chad Mitchell Trio records and he was once my roadie. Mumble.
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JENNIFER HEATH was born in Melbourne, Australia, spent her toddler and little-girl years in Japan, her childhood in Bolivia, Chile and Colombia and finally came of age in Afghanistan. She studied in Switzerland and Venezuela and has spent her adulthood “traveling like a tinker,” as her Irish mother put it.
Look, everyone loves their former editors, right? Like the one sorta/kinda college yet independent that was probably the most popular newspaper in Boulder, Colorado for years, right? Right? Of course. Everyone does, I know it. Who wouldn't love the hand that held the red pencil that circled whole paragraphs with the adorable side note "Are you SHITTING ME?" next to the paragraph you'd labored over most, well, eh,laboriously. (Like, I needed an editor at all....).
Most hard...ly. Labored over the longest. Had the most difficulty with..... You know, an editor. Your editor is your friend.
Ms. Heath was my personal red pencil during the 80's and, having weathered that, has now several books published. For that alone, I hate her. But others, apparently, do not. And really, it is hard to hate The World's Foremost Authority on Black Velvet Painting. It is. I've tried and can't do it.
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Baine Kerr wrote the emotional Harmful Intent about conflicts between the law and medical professions - wrapped in a moving story - back in 1998 - last century - and is another one of my acquaintances who is published whereas I, me - Mr. Wonderful - am not. Mumble.
I met Baine Kerr though his wife Cindy Carlisle who has been a good friend ever since our first argument over an Arts Center for Boulder back in the Cambrian of the 1980's. The newer book draws heavily on Boulder and Baine's visitations to the Hague for the war crime trials involving the devolving Yugoslavian nation.
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KGNU is the independent, noncommercial, community radio station for Boulder, Denver and beyond. We are a mission-driven, nonprofit media outlet. We are not beholden to corporations or the government.We are community-powered. Volunteers produce, host, report, DJ, administer and govern the station. We broadcasts 18-20 hours of locally produced programming per day. We provide hands-on training for volunteers.
KGNU broadcasts at 1390 AM from Denver, and at 88.5 fm in Boulder. We have expanded our range with translators here and there, and of course, we're WEBcast 24/7.
I started Dark Cloud on KGNU in 1981. One thousand words a week times fifty-two times twenty-four. Well over a million words. Each buffed and burnished and singing in the Hall of the Immortals.
KGNU has bought an AM station in Denver, and that pretty much makes it a major player in Clear Channel Acres, as Denver is never laughingly called. It fights the good fight for diversity and taste of all sorts. I'm proud of it and the very small part I've played through the years.
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This is my sister in law, Carol, way up in Maine, who's going full time into art and photography and not a moment too soon.
Already accomplished in the darkroom, she's vanished into the computer and digital world with the enthusiasm that, well, only actual talent and the sensitivity of a born artist for new media can excuse. I could hate her for that, having no artistic talent myself, which I resent, but she's bought me off. She recently got a photo of the Charles W. Morgan, a whaling ship now at Mystic that my greatgrandfather once captained briefly, and injected some life and clarity into it, and it now comfortably hangs in a prominent spot. Delicate work with old photos and plates. Beautiful job, beautiful ship.
I'm very proud of her work and blooming into her own gallery and site, and encourage you all to visit it and enjoy.
While there, a bracing pivot kick to Carol's husband, my brother, a photographer also but mostly a painter, would be considered helpful by me to focus his own inner quest to get serious, get his own site, and get his paintings up for perusal and purchase. This applies especially to those paintings of his ancient fishing tackle and related items up, since anything actually unique would be of great interest. My coldly objective opinion.
But what could I possibly know? I'm his kid brother. Mumble..........
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"Ashley Macomber's paintings describe the difficulties of human relationships involving the pain, vulnerability, strength and entanglement of love. Though her work is about how one experiences these feelings, Macomber uses images of animals with human attributes to narrate these emotions and emphasize also how we often force these human feelings onto animals."
Ashley Macomber has no finer or more impressive rec on her resume than that she shares a birthday with me, and there is, after all, a lot to be said for the second most important person born on that date.....
Oh, and she's family, although I haven't been in contact since she was - I'm guessing - ten years old about fifteen years ago. At that time, she was into Scottish/Celtic dance steps, not excluding the rather terrifying sword dance, which naturally and irrevocably led her to her current success as an artist and illustrator and bi-coastal bon vivant.
Young, talented, successful artist. Say that with me. I always knew they existed, and that eventually I'd know one.
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This site is designed and hosted by Andy Ciszek (andy@mtntop.com) - the SiteSultan of Dark Endeavors here in Colorado - and is vastly improved over my concept that was hardwired to my family tartans. Of these, periodically, Andy makes light by a series of barbed references to the gene for color blindness, the great advances the MacLeods apparently made in the use of Etch a Sketch units and their applications to weaving, and the fact we were asked not to participate in the Battle of Culloden Moor, which he feels was because our kilts clashed with, well, everything. I so enjoy talking to Andy.
True, of the MacLeod Tartans, the olive, teal, and puce option was canned, and the one with the crest of an enraged gorilla brandishing a beer stein and swinging a human leg around his head while screaming "Yeah? You and What Silverback, Nancy Boy?" in Latin was deemed offensive to PETA, leaving us with the yellow and black number, but still, there are worse. They were invented by the Brits, after all and in any case what the hell is Andy getting so uppity about: the Ciszeks don't even have a crest, much less a tartan, just a placemat from a 5th Century roadhouse in what is now Lesser Bucharest.
Not to betray a trust, or anything, but you should know he still considers Windows XP 'new-fangled fragundamufpin' and is prepared to explain that all to you in some detail from his porch in the mountains after he finishes the milking of the cows, the sawing of the wood, and the feeding of the misohippus before breakfast, which is prepared over an open fire next to said porch. Andy hopes to have a house to go with the porch soon and will get on it as soon as the folk from over the mountain bring new flint shavings in time for The Moon of the Mammoth Shedding.
Not that I carry grudges or have anything against Andy or his venerable Windows 2000 server, you understand. Really. It was cutting edge in its time, back in aught one, and I think it important for children to see how work was once done so long, long ago in the traditional manner and by some of the same individuals. History to Life! is my motto.
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Her close friends, fans, and utter strangers refer to her deferentially as La Olga, which was a hard fought compromise between two of her other titles: The Blues Babe, Mistress of Music. Remember when music was fun (and, for that matter, good...), first and foremost, and performers and audience looked forward to sharing that together?
Olga Munding is an energetic and fun performer, not a guarantee with a Blues singer, and she's now operating out of Nawlings. She has found the Big Easy area compatable, and she's recorded her new CD Now Is The Time and is in the process of mastering it as we, by which I mean "I", type this out in August of ' 05.
She did much voice work for me in the past, most notably as a District Attorney whose name I forget. She has some of her radio interviews up at various sites, most famously her session with Los Lobos, and maintains her interest in radio journalism. Her site is fully functioning now, so check it for live dates in your neck of the woods.
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Leland Rucker, now working with NewsGator, is my former Editor and a fellow acoustic musician and Kingston Trio reverential. I think that the right word. If not, he'll tell me.
He how has his own site and Weblog together - and I cannot resist a 'finally!' - which some people might go so far as to say looks far, far better than mine, but what do they know? I ask you? What? They probably read him, as well. Harump.
He has written about the scrape alongs and the celebrities in music for decades, did a well received cable television documentary on Boulder's music history, and written a couple of books with his bud and music partner Gil Asakawa.
His writing has the easy, inclusive manner of the beer-on-the-back porch discussion in summer, with the easy southern narrative so many try to emulate but cannot. It's there early, or not at all. You'll like it.
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Sea Fiji Travel is the only Fiji based Dive Travel Operator. We provide a free service, making all of the arrangements for Air transportation, transfers, scuba diving, accommodations, meals, and more.
Run by Scott Kukral, if a scuba vacation in the South Pacific is of interest, he’s your choice. He’s dived virtually all of the locations himself and knows first hand the good and not so, the challenges and the easy reef for poking around. Scott has offices in Colorado and Fiji.
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Mindy Sterling (now Sterling-Houser) is a terrific singer I've known for about thirty odd years, starting when she was a solo singer at the keyboard here in Colorado. She returned to California in the early 1980's, some malarkey about Los Angeles being the place to be (more than Boulder??? Come on......) and mumbling she was born there (her Dad between mountain climbs was Art Linkletter's director on two of television's longest running shows), and getting married.
She went to work for, in no accurate order, John Cougar Mellancamp, Donna Summer, and eventually was Don Henley's featured singer and dance partner on his tours around the world. As a songwriter, she's been covered by other songwriters of note and/or fame, and when LA finally exerted the predictable, she returned to sanity and friends in Colorado. She worked with childhood friend Jan Mitchell to set up Kindness, International, where they taught animal husbandry to Ethiopians and eventually set up orphanages for numerous kids in that continent of need.
She still sings, both solo and with a band when the spirit moves her, and should you get a chance, tune in. A sketch, a huge range, and a wonderful performer.
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TouchStone is a monthly online publication dedicated to keeping people informed about topics of civic and political activism, published since 1997 by Dan Culberson and Old Stage Publishing in Boulder, Colorado. Each month it provides a forum for community organizations and individuals to disseminate information about current events and actions affecting the political landscape.
Dan Culberson started at KGNU when it went on the air in 1978 with his weekly "Hotshots" movie-review commentary, and he and it are still there. One of the very first Daily Camera 'Pacesetters' (which I refuse to let him live down, ever...), Dan has been an actor, director, and IBM component, as well as a frequent voice for Dark Cloud promos and skits.
Dan has just published An Atheists Handbook and runs various other weblogs and publications listed in Touchstone.
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