Thursday, May 27, 2010

WOLFMAN


















When Shaun Ellis came upon three abandoned wolf pups, he decided to raise them to be wild in a most unconventional way -- by pretending to be a wolf himself.


http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/a-man-among-wolves-2926/

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

FAVORITE THINGS



















Forester Sisters - Men

Well, you can't beat 'em up 'cause they're bigger then you.
You can't live with 'em and you just can't shoot 'em.
Men! I'm talkin' 'bout men.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

MY WILL


























THE BIG LEBOWSKI, 1998

WALTER: GODDAMNIT! IS THERE A RALPH'S AROUND HERE?!

Walter is carrying a bright red coffee can with a blue
plastic lid.

*sigh* "coffee can"...yeah, that's what I want. :)
Ooohhh, Body Farm! :)


Sunday, May 16, 2010

FAVORITE THINGS
























We Didn't Start The Fire - Billy Joel

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

Rosenbergs, H Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye

Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiov
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc

Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron
Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around the Clock

Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland

Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge On The River Kwai

Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather, Homicide, Children of Thalidomide

Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia
Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go

U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion

Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatle mania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex
J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock

Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan

Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz

Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and Roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
It will still burn on, and on, and on, and on...

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire...


Monday, May 10, 2010

FAVORITE THINGS


















"Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places." - H.P. Lovecraft

Sunday, May 9, 2010

FAVORITE THINGS





















"I don’t trust anybody who doesn’t like Led Zeppelin" - Jack White

FAVORITE THINGS

















Everyday Is Like Sunday - Morrissey

Trudging slowly over wet sand,
back to the bench where your clothes were stolen
This is the coastal town,
that they forgot to close down.
Armageddon, come Armageddon!
Come Armageddon! Come!

Everyday is like Sunday,
everyday is silent and grey.

Hide on the promenade, etch a postcard:
"How I dearly wish I was not here!"
In this seaside town,
that they forgot to bomb.
Come, come, come Nuclear Bomb!

Everyday is like Sunday,
everyday is silent and grey.

Trudging back over pebbles and sand,
and a strange dust lands on your hands,
and on your face,
on your face, on your face, on your face...

Everyday is like Sunday
"Win Yourself A Cheap Tray"
Share some grease-tea with me
Everyday is silent and grey.

FAVORITE THINGS





















China Girl - David Bowie

I could escape this feeling, with my China Girl
I feel a wreck without my, little China Girl
I hear her heart beating, loud as thunder
Saw they stars crashing
I'm a mess without my, little China Girl
Wake up mornings where's my, little China Girl
I hear her heart's beating, loud as thunder
Saw they stars crashing down
I feel a-tragic like I'm Marlon Brando
When I look at my China Girl
I could pretend that nothing really meant too much
When I look at my China Girl
I stumble into town just like a sacred cow
Visions of swastikas in my head
Plans for everyone
It's in the whites of my eyes
My little China Girl
You shouldn't mess with me
I'll ruin everything you are
I'll give you television
I'll give you eyes of blue
I'll give you men who want to rule the world
And when I get excited
My little China Girl says
Oh baby just you shut your mouth
She says ... sh-sh-shhh

FAVORITE THINGS
























Addicted To Love
The lights are on, but you’re not home
your mind is not your own
your heart sweats, your body shakes
another kiss is what it takes

You can’t sleep, you can’t eat
there’s no doubt, you’re in deep
your throat is tight, you can’t breathe
another kiss is all you need

Whoa, you like to think that you’re immune to the stuff, oh Yeah
it’s closer to the truth to say you can’t get enough,
you know you’re gonna have to face it, you’re addicted to love

you see the signs, but you can’t read
you’re running at a different speed
your heart beats in double time
another kiss and you’ll be mine, a one-track mind

you can’t be saved
oblivion is all you crave
if there’s some left for you
you don’t mind if you do

whoa, you like to think that you’re immune to the stuff, oh Yeah
it’s closer to the truth to say you can’t get enough,
you know you’re gonna have to face it, you’re addicted to love

Might als well face it, you’re addicted to love 5 x

your lights are on, but you’re not home
your will is not your own
your heart sweats your teeth grind
another kiss and you’ll be mine

whoa, you like to think that you’re immune to the stuff, oh Yeah
it’s closer to the truth to say you can’t get enough,
you know you’re gonna have to face it, you’re addicted to love

might als well face it, you’re addicted to love 8 x

Robert Palmer, 1949 – 2003

Saturday, May 8, 2010

BLUES BROTHERS - STAND BY YOUR MAN

FAVORITE THINGS



















One of these mornings the chain is gonna break
But up until then, yeah, I'm gonna take all I can take
Chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools

Aretha Franklin, Chain Of Fools

FAVORITE THINGS























The Wind Cries Mary

After all the jacks are in their boxes,
and the clowns have all gone to bed,
you can hear happiness staggering on down the street,
footprints dress in red.

And the wind whispers Mary.

A broom is drearily sweeping
up the broken pieces of yesterday's life.
Somewhere a Queen is weeping,
somewhere a King has no wife.

And the wind it cries Mary.

The traffic lights they turn blue tomorrow
And shine their emptiness down on my bed,
The tiny island sags downstream
'Cos the life that they lived is dead.

And the wind screams Mary.

Will the wind ever remember
The names it has blown in the past,
And with this crutch, its old age and its wisdom
It whispers, "No, this will be the last."

And The Wind Cries Mary.

Jimi Hendrix, 1942 – 1970

FAVORITE THINGS





















I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
I keep my eyes wide open all the time
I keep the ends out for the tie that binds
Because you're mine, I walk the line

Johnny Cash, 1932 – 2003

Sunday, May 2, 2010

FAVORITE THINGS










TERRY MATKINS/Special to the Acorn TOGETHER- Animal keeper Mollie Hogan sits with Phoenix, a 19-year-old cougar she helped raise.

Lion cub in the bathroom

Eighteen years ago a bundle of tawny fur was brought into the Los Angeles Zoo. Who could imagine then that it would one day become a 150-pound, 7-foot-long mountain lion?

We called him "Phoenix"- not for either the Arizona city or the fabled bird, but just because it sounded like a good name for a mountain lion.

As an animal keeper at the zoo, I started working with the little 4week-old male cub. With a wild animal this means controlling some of its natural wild instincts. The little cub had plenty of time for spontaneous play and exercise in what we called the "fun cage" at the zoo, a roomy area of grass and water and objects to manipulate. But for his own safety, as well as ours, he had to be taught manners- taking food "nicely" from my hand, adjusting to a leash, going to his "mark" and staying there.

To further our bonding, I took him home each night; he slept on a bathmat in my bathroom and played in my backyard, which was enclosed by a 6-foot fence. He liked to romp with my two Australian shepherd dogs, stalking them as though they were prey and pouncing on them playfully.

During his kittenhood he went everywhere with me, out to breakfast on my day off and on all my errands after work- even riding on the bus once when I was having car problems.

Of course, the time came when Phoenix grew too big to be taken away from the zoo. But over the next five years I continued to work with him in the zoo's popular "Wild in the City Show" that featured wildlife from our local area. This meant training him to do things on cue, like scratching a log, jumping up on a stump and placing his big paw in my hand, allowing me to show the audience a close-up look at his impressive claws.

But then funding constraints forced the show to be canceled. The animals no longer had a place at the zoo. I was especially concerned about the fate of my longtime close companion, Phoenix.

What to do with a wild animal that has been raised and cared for in captivity and, as a result, is unfit for the wild is an all too familiar problem created by people- all the more so when the animal is a 150-pound puma.

Puma concolor

Once, in a time long before Columbus, this magnificent species of cat- Puma concolor, "cat of one color," and cat of many names: cougar, puma, painter, catamount- roamed freely over the North American continent. Then the Europeans came and instantly defined all large predators as enemies, striking them down with guns and traps.

Gradually, the mountain lion gave ground- seldom seen anymore east of the Mississippi and, in the West, retreating into remote areas, keeping its distance from people. An expert at staying out of sight despite its size, it is among the shyest and most wary of the large carnivores.

Today, however, with the encroachment of human activity and the diminishment of its own natural habitat, the big cat is sometimes forced into confrontations with humans. In most instances this creates more of a threat to the animal than to the human.

Goodwill ambassador

Phoenix, however, is his own special story. Living with humans and serving as a goodwill ambassador for his kind in the wild, Phoenix grew up graciously allowing the public to view him up-close.

With his displacement from his zoo home in 1993, I became determined to provide a new home where he and other wild animals could receive quality care and shelter for the rest of their lives. That's why, in the early 1990s, I established The Nature of Wildworks, a decision I've never regretted.

Along with varied diets and enriched habitats, our resident animals are provided with opportunities for natural activity. A favorite mountain lion game is having a thick telephone book tossed inside the enclosure. The cats pounce and chew and rip apart the pages with claws and jaws just as they would live prey in the wild.

Has Phoenix ever turned on me? Yes. Just once. But it was my fault.

Acting on instinct

One must always remember that a wild animal is a wild animal and, in particular, that a predator never loses the natural instincts of a predator. I wasn't keeping that in mind when it happened.

One day, several years ago, Phoenix seemed sick, and I was concerned. He wasn't acting like himself, and when I went into his cage, I was preoccupied, looking quickly for a sign of something he might have eaten that he shouldn't.

Then, when I faced him, I saw the look on his face suddenly change from the benign, "Hi, Mom" expression he always gives me to the focused stare of predator-on-prey. The pupils of his eyes contracted into pinpoints. They call it "pinning."

In the next instant he had knocked me to the ground. I managed to scramble up, grab a stout stick and rap him on the nose. He backed off, and I re-emerged as the "boss."

I wasn't seriously hurt. But I came way from the incident with a renewed respect for my old friend's natural wild instincts. I threw him a phone book.

Many animals have taken up residence at Wildworks since the original few came here from the zoo. At present our wildlife center is home to a diversity of species, including the African serval cat, North American bobcat, red fox, gray fox, African Fennec fox, coyotes, kinkajous from South America, a wide variety of raptors and, of course, the mountain lion. Our facility is not open to the public, so the smaller animals are transported off-site for programs at public venues, such as schools and parks, where people can see them and learn about wildlife and habitat.

Phoenix is now almost 19 years old. I walk him on a leash through the oak forest every sunny day. He is still my best friend. Phoenix is an amazing animal.