The Watering Hole, Thursday May 9, 2013: Cabo San Lucas

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Since there’s not a single thing going on anywhere in the world that’s worth talking about today — even as this United States of America moves steadily, courtesy of Republican lies and bullshit, in the direction of that ultimate goal of a universally small-minded, i.e. a fascist-styled “government,” maybe now’s time to revisit that ancient (and slowly vanishing) concept once called “Beauty” by poets, by ‘alladem’ weirdos who never managed to grasp the concept that it’s GUNS that are . . . umm . . . really important . . .

Anyway . . .

I’ve recently spent some time plowing through piles of old transparencies, digitizing the better ones in the hope that the recall of messages implicitly embedded within those ‘moments’ of shutter click . . . and always in the hope of recording the essence sensed, the essence that drove the mind to insist that the finger press down on the shutter button . . . etc., well, you know. Standard routine.

Following are a mere eight photos, each courtesy of a now ancient Mamiya 645 camera loaded with Ektachrome film and snapped some thirty years ago by a then aging (now very old) dude who thought he saw something. There. On the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula. Cabo San Lucas. My sense way back then was that it was a grand place wherein to exist, perchance to live . . . if only for a moment or two . . . in anticipation of ‘that’ shutter click. Or two or three. That ‘sense’ remains intact, this day; it’s still out there. Somewhere. Hopefully.

Enjoy the traverse.

Cabo 1Sunrise over the Sea of Cortez            The Pacific shore at the Cape of San Lucas

Cabo 3Cabo San Lucas: Pacific side       . . . .       And from The Sea of Cortez

Cabo 4Hibiscus flower, early morning at Hacienda Cabo San Lucas — Sunrise, a moment later

Cabo 2The tip of the cape at Cabo San Lucas: Pacific waves crashing ‘neath a rock arch, and a seal sunning himself on Pacific cliff

Interesting, I think, that human presence is not always necessary when Beauty is the goal. Why is that? One could easily assume that those created in God’s image (I assume, btw, that alladem must surely be bankers, politicians, Wall Street executives, Insurance Co. executives, gun guys, etc. . . .) might be more important, but . . .

Well, intellectual blindness — that inability to see or sense the Beauty embedded immediately within each and every surround is, apparently and sadly, absent enough to suggest that it is exactly such absence alone which defines the point where both the soul, and its nation, die.

We. Have. Arrived. There.

This. Is. Today’s. Open. Thread.

73 thoughts on “The Watering Hole, Thursday May 9, 2013: Cabo San Lucas”

  1. It’s nice to see a beach that isn’t obscured by condo’s and packed with people.
    I live near Plastic Beach. It makes me sick.

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    • I think people no longer teach their children to leave nothing when they visit natural area. The world is their trashcan. That makes me sick.

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  2. John Fugelsang: Rush Limbaugh has chased away more sponsors than Lindsay Lohan at Betty Ford

    I kind of want to be serious for a second, if that’s OK. Like many of you watching, I was shocked to hear of how the Rush Limbaugh show is dying in the ratings. One trade publication called it “the end of right-wing, conservative talk radio.”

    And the reason, of course, is that Rush Limbaugh has scared away more sponsors than Lindsay Lohan did at Betty Ford. Forty-eight [out] of 50 top advertisers exclude the Limbaugh show now from their radio ad buys.

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    • “the end of right-wing, conservative talk radio.”

      I doubt it. People like Huckabee are starting to siphon off Rush’s audience.

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      • The other day, Huckabee implied he might not keep doing his radio show when his contract at Cumulus expires. Of course, that’s just to get them to offer him more money. If he were to add all 40 of Limbaugh’s Cumulus stations to his affiliates, he would be on some big stations in some lucrative markets. I think the fungelicals prefer listening to him over Limbaugh. Rush just doesn’t appeal to them in the same way as he does the ‘xenophobic, woman-hating, aging, bitter white guys with impacted colons’.

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  3. Whilst Cabo has it’s innate beauty, it is still primarily a tourista destination, and the hordes leave plenty of trash and crap all over the place. I’ve been there once, may go back again as the kids get older…

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    • It was about thirty years ago that I was there. There were, I think, two hotels on the Pacific side and maybe two or three on the Sea of Cortez side. The airport was in San Jose del Cabo, a fair drive up the road from Cabo San Lucas, and the tourist population was, overall, pretty small — and most were either there for fishing or for beaching. There was nothing ‘raucous’ available.

      I suppose things have changed over the decades. Seems to me that whenever there’s a chance to make money in a place by contaminating it with hordes, it gets contaminated. Probably that’s a global issue these days, what with 7 billion of us two-leggers.

      Maybe we’ll do the planet a huge favor and extinct ourselves.

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      • I was at San Jose del Cabo in 1991 and there were several hotels along the beach, maybe 5 and at least 3 more under construction. I imagine San Jose is fully touristed up now like Cabo already was then. We had some great meals in San Jose away from the hotel. We don’t particularly like the beach so I doubt if we will every go back there. Big Cities get us excited.

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        • “. . . great meals . . . away from the hotel” —

          Reminds me of my first trip to Guaymas (Sonora) back in the early sixties when I was a college student in Arizona. There were five of us. We each had ten bucks. We slept on the beach, still had enough cash to buy the gas to get down there and back (in a ’53 Oldsmobile), and to buy a case of Carta Blanca each day, to breakfast at a local Paneria on oven-fresh bread, and to dine exquisitely each night down there ‘on the docks’ in a little restaurant where a dozen huge shrimp, in Pilaf, went for eighty cents.

          And on the way back to AZ, three of the five had enough cash to visit the Canal Street Red Light District in Nogales (Sonora) — a (negotiable) buck-fifty per. I didn’t partake, spent my pocket change on a beer and some refried beans instead.

          Times have changed, sounds like.

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  4. I had partial knee replacement Tuesday (unicompartmental arthroplasty). at home, miserable waiting on homecare to call and show up..

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      • morphine pumps are the greatest but im home with Oxy…so things could be worse.

        the PT lady hurt me badly yesterday, and i think this is some residual suffrage.

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    • Misery loves company, fatherbob. Ice is your friend as well as Vicodin for the first week or so. I’ve found that every time I sleep, the pain drops another level. I’m up and walking a mile or two each day after my back fusion. But the first 5 days or so really suck. Good luck.

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    • After cranial surgery a baker’s dozen years ago, I fell in love with morphine. That shit would SELL, it’s so good! Shoot for the moon: get some, and soon you’ll enjoy both the pain AND the funk!

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      • When my mum was on morphine, although we strictly measured her dosage, there was always a drop or two left in the shot glass in which we served it to her. So I would lick it out after giving her her dose. When she died, there was a full bottle (8-oz at least) that the hospice/pharmacy accidentally left behind. I’m wondering if my brother still has it. 🙂

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      • Wayne….i think i worr this knee out kicking my own ass, so perhaps i need to take heed any aim at some RW tush

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  6. My father has always said that the only way a developer can have a sexual climax is if he is watching a bulldozer level a forest.

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    • Hmmm. Good point. Explains a lot of the “ecstasy” I saw when I lived in St. Louis County back in the late sixties. Forests gone, hills leveled, streams diverted or ‘culverted’, all replaced by shitty housing sprawls.

      Then I moved to Phoenix where the ‘targets’ were mostly saguaros and mesquite, but still destroyed in order that someone could either make some bucks or have an orgasm. Or both, maybe.

      As a species, we humans ain’t worth a hell of a lot.

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    • Watch closely: if Gilkerson is a Saudi Muslim, Michele Obama will see that he gets deported soon, so that . . . .

      Oh, wait. The police killed him. Hmmm.

      Did he have roots in Uz-becky-becky-stan-stan, I wonder? I mean, he had bombs and shit, and a RUSSIAN!! gun, AK-47, and not an AMURKAN gun like an AR-15.

      The whole thing smells like a conspiracy, a White House coverup.

      Anyone have Darryl Issa’s email? He should probably be brought up to date, and fast.

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  9. My husband received a WARN notice (legally required notice that you will be laid off in 60 days) on March 1 of this year. It has since been rescinded and we’re ok until November. However, in planning for the layoff we noticed yet another subtle way that workers are losing everything companies once provided that contributed to worker security. When layoffs last threatened, in 2005, the severance policy provided for one week of pay for each year with the company up to a max of 26 weeks. The current policy provides for one week of pay for each year up to a max of 10 weeks. That’s bad enough, but now the severance pay begins on the date the employee receives the WARN notice. So my husband (8 years with the company) would be receiving his regular pay for doing his regular job for eight weeks and that would be called severance pay. Yeah, I know we’re lucky to even have some sort of severance plan but that still sucks.

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    • As the lady who works our local Post Office window would say, “IT’S OBAMACARE!” Fortunately, the House is going to repeal it for the fortieth time, so all should soon be well.

      How’d that old sixties song go? “Somethin’s happenin’ here. What it is ain’t exactly clear . . . “

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      • I’m wondering how this will work in practice. Normally the company extracts a signature on a promise never ever to sue them in exchange for the severance package. If my husband declines to sign, I doubt they can take back the so-called severance pay and pay him $0.00 for 8 weeks of work.

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          • Agreed. It was creepy, and sounds like someone trying to form a breakaway religion on some island; no mention of the zoo except in the headline. I haven’t been around much due to work stuff for several months, so I likely missed earlier encounters with this person. Hey, is there any way I can contribute photos? Thanks zooey for the explanation…

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            • That person used to be associated with the Zoo, but as you can see, we decided to go in separate directions.

              You (or anyone who would like to do so) can contribute photos by emailing them to the Zoo email: tp_test@hotmail.com

              Include your preferred attribution and caption, since I really dislike trying to do that for someone else — I might get it wrong! 🙂 Also, make sure you leave a comment on the current open thread that you’ve emailed a photo, and I’ll do my best to keep up with comments.

  17. It’s 27 Celsius right now (81 F) and the record high is 28 back in 1906. So can I go to climate denier sites and say “it’s hot today so I guess the climate is getting warmer”?

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  21. As big a fan I am of Star Trek: The Next Generation, I never noticed how often Will Riker straddled the back of a chair before sitting down it it, but someone has collected a minute-long mashup of him doing it, and it actually comes out kinda funny.

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