I`m late this week in posting my “Distractions”.

I do hope you`ll overlook my tardiness, especially since, at the end of my essay,

you`ll see my sunset efforts.

Tonight I`ll start with a reef face.

It`s quite pretty when I wear my reefer face, & just fantastic when I have my mushroom face on.

REEF FACE

Here are some of my distractions for you.

I`ll start with an old Frank Sinatra one called

Old Blue Eye Stalks

I posted an essay a few weeks ago about the people & their table at my local market.

They were back last night with different morans.

The manager this time confronted them, as I did the last time. See here:https://www.docudharma.com/diary/15080/im-a-nice-guy

There was a bit of an aggressive interaction, by some of our local liberals.

The manager decided to park his personal vehicle inches away from their table to conceal the rude images these fools were displaying.

The morans called the police demanding that their rights to free speech be honored.

The police, (eventually three units), told the morans there was no parking violation on the part of the manger, & that he was as free to park as they were to spout their agenda.

It did get a little heated.

As for myself, I really don`t need any police looking into my “stuff”, so I didn`t interact anymore than get in the mix & shoot pix.

Here we go.  

I`m a little early today.

I have to go to a beach ceremony for the passing of a friend.

These images are my distracting offerings this weekend.

I do have to thank all those who do comment or ask questions.

The wood carvings of the ladies are those bequeathed to me by a neighbor who took her life.

I put necklaces on them to photograph.

I think I`ll start with an Emerald Scarab.

I found this one a few miles from home, but due to unusual circumstances I did not have one of my cameras.

I put it inside my hat & was bugged all the way home with it wandering around on my head inside my hat.

EMERALD SCARAB

Striving to remain on schedule for my Friday night distractions, I seem to be gaining ground.

This week I hope to take you here to my house where all these were taken.

I should correct that statement.

I do believe one, “Sunset Panorama”, was shot at my previous home of 18 years.

As you`ll see, many of the images are composites that I manually merge, & that some are in the final stages & not yet cropped.

There are some that have been cropped to a final image.

The images are comprised of, sometimes a single shot, to up to 16 shots, sometimes three high also.

So come on over to my place.

I`ll set the tone with this mess of shots.

Hey I`m ahead by a day this week.

Yesterday & today I was the one distracted.

Yesterday, I spent many hours with two of my little friends, but the best part was coaxing Niki, who is not yet three, to handle a quite rare snake.

This snake, which for people not familiar with snakes, may be confused with the dangerous Coral snake.

This snake is a Santa Monica Mountain King Snake & is found solely in my local mountains, the Santa Monica mountains.

After mastering the snake handling, Niki would in no way handle another local animal, the Black Tarantula.

They are harmless if not aggravated, so just don`t piss them off.

Then today, I got “Distracted” again when learning the two nicest words in the English language.

I will tell you what those two words are in my first comment, but I did want to show you a series of shots I took today of our future.

These images are the subjects of why I`ve always been a loud yelling, no backing down, agitator.

So for this week`s Distractions, I`ll first present a child of this world, one of my granddaughters I shot today.

She was not harmed.

If you wonder how I get her to smile, I scream & shout at her, something that usually terrifies civilians, but my “girls” know me.

Here we go.

Late as usual.

This week, I`m presenting images from Lithuania.

They were taken by a friend of my client Villija, who just returned from there with her daughter Kendra.

All I know about this mount of crosses is that under Soviet rule, no displays of a religious nature were allowed.

If a cross was put up to commemorate the death of a loved one, the authorities smashed it down.

The Lithuanians then began to bring their crosses to this remote area, & a tradition began & more & more crosses were erected till this is what it is now.

Villija & Kendra were there to bring clothing & necessities to babies in an orphanage there that they collected through a network here in the US.

Here is the

Mount of Crosses

As usual, I`m late by a day with my Friday distractions.

These ‘Distractions in Color’ are from my sister Gypsy`s  serendipitous meeting with a lady who rescued them.

After getting permission to shoot them, photographically speaking of course, she sent them to me for this weeks distractions.

I`ll start off with some color.

I stopped at my local market after a hard week at work this late afternoon.

I usually post my distraction essay on Fridays, but had a heavy work schedule this week.

I`m self employed & have been for thirty plus years around the world.

When I got to the market, I was distracted by these offensive images.

I went & parked my truck & approached the people manning this little booth & confronted them about their disgusting display.

Being simply a DOFH(dirty old fucking hippy) they seemed to simply try & laugh me off.

I told them I would be back within 20 minutes to take photographs of them & their display, which was met with more derisive chuckles.

At that point, a man in a blue cap, (he is in the images) walked by & told me, he was proud that at least someone was in their respective faces.

He wondered how the market could allow this.

I told him it was a ‘Free Speech’ issue.

He was quite surprised at that.

I had him follow me into the market, (a quite large Pavilion , btw) to confront the manager, a person I`m familiar with, who is also likewise with me.

He stated, as I had told the “blue cap guy” that the market was powerless, because the property outside the market was public space, & free speech rules applied, but that the market did non endorse the ‘petitioners’ outside.

Within 15 mins. I was back with my camera, & announced my return.

I immediately noticed that these three men, moved out of the picture frame.

I told them to please move closer together so their “moms” could have a shot of them with Adolf Obama in the frame, since I was going to post the images of them online today.

I eventually shamed them into the frame.

I may seem mellow recounting this but I was stopping passersby & asking them if the Adolf Obama poster offended them.

Almost all were disgusted, but some may not have “glommed onto ” or “Grokked” the idea.

I kept shaming them into getting into the frame by arguing that if their “health care” argument was so persuasive, they shouldn`t have to revert to vile caricatures, nor depictions of Obama.

That started the Obamabot argument.

I asked them if they were here now, where had they been for the last eight years at “my” market.

The next part was that I didn`t have a sense of humor, so I told them that I was also a “stand-up comic”.

I told them their dismissiveness (of me) was really a true measure of their lack of commitment to their cause,(whatever it was besides being offensive)

Oh Oh! here comes a lowrider with four “Brothers” (I won`t call them “OG`s since I`m not a profiler, but I moved to their car, & asked them for an opinion.

They mentioned, “you mean those fools with the Nazi Obama, we`re cruising to do a “drive-by on them”.

I instinctively knew there would be no shooting, so I told them to not use that terminology,”Please”.

The carload of “gangsters” laughed at my comment, both knowing we both knew who we were, & familiar with our status, in the eyes of outsiders.

I kept stopping people going in & out of the market & asking them to comment.

I know most of the people in the area, & if I don`t know them, they know me, (or about me)

These three guys are now demanding that I do a stand-up routine, but as Jon Stewart said,”I`m nobodies` monkey.

This transpired throughout maybe 20 minutes.

(that means I`m real pissed off). IOW`s I usually don`t have time for “morans”

A lady comes out of the market & says, “Tony, are you doing a story on these idiots for the local paper?”

I told her, what a great addition to my purpose, but would you please tell the aforementioned idiots how you know me.

Her name is Justine, & she told these “guys” that 30 years ago at this same location where she had a kiosk, that I`d bought roses for everyone working in the area, that didn`t get time off to serve customers who needed their services,

She told them, (& I blush) that the last person they should ever hope to be dismissive of was me.

Justine knows some of my other secrets.

So in closing, I have not had time to prepare my “Distractions” that I so love to offer all of you here, but was so distracted by these offensive images, at my own market, (we are possessive aren`t we) that I spent my time elsewhere, (here)

In lieu of those usually posted distractions, see if you can find me in the background of these images.

Have a great weekend, & I`m always in the background,, Yelling Louder.

Shamed into stupid,(for his mom)

The large guy in black with “evil horns” finally opened up a bit but shame will do that.

If your argument is that good, make it merit, not on offensive imagery.

Friday Distractions,

Again I must apologize for being a day late from my normal posting, of the distractions I try & bring each week to make the upcoming few days as little less of a bad taste in your memory.

Is that a complicated sentence?

Ok, So far so good.

I`ll start with a singular composite of stars, but please remember, let`s strive for “Green”.GREEN STARS

These distractions are mainly subjects of rescues of animals I`ve undertaken, in the past years.

Some I still have at my house & some are occasional visitors, a result of an intimate relationship, regarding the difference between life & death.

At times I believe the life I saved was my own.

I do have many many more images of other animals involving this strange relationship, but I`m already late posting, what is usually titled as “Friday`s Distractions”.

I was personally distracted by incidents in my life, resulting in my tardy post.

I`ll strive to not let it happen again, but that`s the extent of my responsibility.

These are to provide you with a simple distraction from the strife of your everyday efforts to overcome the penalty of living in these trying times.

The white parrot nodding off to sleep in the images, I rescued about 10 years ago, & He just was put to bed a few minutes ago.

He`s one of my best friends, & I think this image is the mellowest, of the hundreds I have of him.

Sometimes, a smile to a stranger can be just as much of a “rescue”, so Please, be kind to strangers.

BWAAAHHH

Well it`s Friday & I`m back for your instant therapy.

Just mix images, imagination, your mind, & your worries, in an essay, & hopefully you`ll forget your troubles for a few minutes.

I may as well open with the theme of the day.

Happy fourth of July.

What does a flag mean.

CHARGE