There Will Be A Light

....For Anthony Hill....For Bettie Jones and Quintonio LeGrier....For Keith Lamont Scott....And for the Rhoden Eight of Pike County, Ohio (three children of the family did survive through the nightmares in their heads, and should live though they might forever be scarred....)

So many of us still live, and through this day, scores drown in the Mediterranean escaping North Africa; Athens is on fire; Cairo and Caracas bleed.

But this isn't over, and we shall overcome.

UPDATE: Just on PBS: Since 2005, 82 non-federal police officers have been charged with murder or manslaughter after having taken another's life in the line of duty....

...

I have yet to be compensated to my satisfaction by Walmart for the fact that one day, I put Clackamas meat in my mouth that never should have been sold. They still try to put on their self-indulgent little shitshow every time I come in to buy groceries, but as recently as yesterday, what did I see in the meat department but this:

I have a pretty good feeling about Doug McMillon in Bentonville, and I doubt he'd have a problem chucking the several thousand I averred would mollify me onto the NetSpend card for which I gave him and his people the routing number and account number.... Then again, he could always just donate to my GoFundMe site for these dang house renovations that are so pressing....

...

Jonesy's still missing, I'm pretty sure; it looks like somebody else dropped off a "new" cat of the same breed by our house -- one that is still under the house and has no interest in us. I hope she is altered, otherwise mom's going to have more kittens on her hands....

Sarah at the San Francisco SPCA (where Jonesy has her papers for having been altered and innoculated) asked if I had reached out to local law enforcement and animal control. I assured her that they've made clear, in both Colusa and Glenn counties, that I'm not to expect to be protected or served.... Odd man out, for some reason or another (not that I didn't try.)

...

Memorial Day Weekend 2017

Busy day at East Park Reservoir -- all of the spots may be taken! (The cutie-pie Deputy was riding my ass hella hard all the way home from town as I drove my brother's Chevy Bolt -- what an otherwise smooth ride!)

Unfortunately, I may not get to really blowing up my Instagram account, but my big plan is to focus on fauna (mostly animalcules) in the 95979 ZIP....

Yellow Gazannias

Purple Clematis

********

FYI

I live in an area populated by people who need painkillers or who (seldom, I'm sure) use heroin. These are, according to Redding first responders on the news, approximately $80 per dose IIRC. I myself am listed as having had Narcan training with the City and County of San Francisco, and can procure a box of them at least once a year...

They are Carpuject cartridges, injectible (similar to the EpiPen.) If an opiate user has darkened in color, and has become non-responsive, one of these can be used to save his or her life. (Bear in mind, of course, that the person to whom it is administered comes out of it in withdrawal -- not terribly pleasant!) Anyway, I'm offering these for free to anybody who contacts me for one (mum's the word -- your business is your own.) I'll try to always carry at least one on me when I'm out and about... Feel free to approach me and talk to me about them...

Local Irises (And Dare I Call It? One Example of ハナショブ)

To the ancient Greeks, Iris was a divine messenger, and a rainbow made apparent her passage through the heavens...

All around Stonyford right now, from the General Store to our humble home, we've got a riot! (Oh, and PSA: please don't cut other people's irises, m'kay? Not the way to win friends and influence people -- I know they're pretty, but come on now...) :-)

(All photography William Way originals, done on -- I shit you not -- a Kindle Fire... Free to the public for pretty uses, or other punk shit... Much love!)

********

AVISO -- BAD MEAT (Carne Molida de Res)

It's just as well Walmart/Sam's Club and Michael Duke [correction: Doug McMillon -- I can't keep up with these corporate yahoos] haven't dealt with me to my satisfaction over the yuck sitch in March... A friendly reminder, since I'm going grocery shopping this weekend: If you must have ground beef, AVOID WHAT COMES FROM INTERSTATE MEAT DISTRIBUTORS (Walmart's sole provider of such at, for example, their Willows, California store -- #02053.) Should you desire hamburgers or meatballs or meatloaf or whatever, you're better off going to the Formerly Known as Sani-Food or Orland's Grocery Outlet, or grinding your own by cubing chuck, setting the cubed meat in the freezer for a bit, and shoving it through your fancy-pants Mr. Expensive hand-cranked meat grinder at home, Rich Guy who must have ground beef LOL...

(Still het up about getting contaminated product from a long-trusted purveyor, but on the bright side, had I not had to go through all this, I never would have found out that some poor guy from Portland fell into the meat blender at Clackamas in 2013 -- bad karma to eat any of their meat, yo!)

P.S. Michael Duke is a scaredy-cat hillbilly. Pass it on.

P.P.S. I'm not as smart as the Muppets' Janice. Damn me. Fixin' my red face-inducing stuff forthwith...

********

Dang!

Just heard the sad news, that the historic -- opened 1931, no lie! -- one-screen movie house in the city of Colusa has been closed as a cinema-screening theater (complete with an old-timey box office)  since March 6th. Colusa itself is long-storied and otherwise still thriving, as it has been since the 19th century along the Sacramento river (boats used to haul people to their second homes there from San Francisco, through the bay and up through the delta, long ago...) -- despite the fact that the I-5 has changed so much else of California over the past many decades it's existed.

I wish there was some way someone could help (yes, they are still available for private parties and such, but dang...) I just saw STAR WARS: ROGUE ONE (2016) there in December, right around the time one of my greatest faves Carrie Fisher passed...

********

A Bit of Stonyford History

These are the "message stones," at Stonyford Museum, in Stonyford California:

The plaque reads:

MESSAGE ROCKS

THE TWO MESSAGE ROCKS ARE LOCATED AT THE STONYFORD MUSEUM. AT FIRST GLANCE THESE ROCKS COULD BE MISTAKEN FOR TOMBSTONES BECAUSE OF THEIR SHAPES. THEY WERE ONCE LOCATED AT CATHOLIC POINT WHICH IS NOW AT WATERS EDGE ON THE STONYFORD END OF THE EAST PARK RESERVOIR.

BACK IN THE 1800S AND EARLY 1900S LOCAL RESIDENTS WOULD PULL OUT THE SQUARE ROCKS IN THE BIG STONE AND PLACE A MESSAGE IN THE HOLE. USUALLY, THE MESSAGE WAS A REQUEST FOR AN ITEM TO BE BROUGHT UP FROM THE VALLEY BY WHOEVER WAS MAKING THE TRIP. BUT OTHER MESSAGES WERE ALSO LEFT AT THE ROCKS.

WHAT STORIES THESE ROCKS COULD TELL IF THEY COULD SPEAK. THE STORY OF THE MESSAGE ROCKS WERE TOLD BY LAWRENCE SHARKY MOORE AND BEULAH (MOORE) VANLANDINGHAM.

Certainly, the Northern California Corvette Association makes it to the museum every year that they converge on Stonyford. The lake is open for summer (check with the County for hours of operation and info) -- maybe you should stop by!

********

Ravens

RIP, Miz Mary DuMont, November 13, 1955 - February 28, 2017

(These pics are from the celebration of life yesterday in San Francisco, at Lennon Studios, which are primarily for music performance and production -- 274 Dore Alley, I think?)

Mary was a good person to know... She was such a great help in times of need, and a better friend maybe than I deserved...  So much about her passing leaves me mystified: some of the details, and the fact that the cause of death, as related to me, was cirrhosis caused by Hepatitis C... I don't quite get it, but it isn't maybe mine to "get."  Miss you much, Miss Thang.

Hep C info and support group at 117 6th St., San Francisco, where Pauli and the gang can set you up with peer help and info -- CDC Hep C FAQ -- Harvoni article

++++++++

CASA DE MEEEOW RENOVATION CAMPAIGN; WILLIAM R WAY BOX 206 STONYFORD CA 95979 or william.robert.way@gmail.com...

FACECROOK TWITCHER

BAD MEAT ALERT: WESTERN STATES

Did your meat -- one pound, in the tubular, shrink-wrapped package from Walmart (or another store), ultimately from Interstate Meat Distributors of Clackamas, Oregon -- did it have a chewy, fibrous consistency when you cooked it? Mine did... I have the receipt somewhere here, but I definitely saved a portion of the cooked hamburger, as well as the package -- mine was dated Freeze By 03/07/2017, and the lot number under that began with D2... I called them in Oregon, and was put in touch with Ryan, who is sending me an SASE with biological sample bags to return to them. I AM NOT RETURNING THE WHOLE THING -- just a portion of the hamburger, as well as of the package... It will be sour by the time it gets to them, but still...

In the meantime, I thought you should all know...

(Also, I'm double-checking my garbage today, to make sure I have the right package -- pretty sure I do...)

UPDATE: Spoke to Ryan at their office, and he assured me he's sending a package with an SASE and baggies for samples of the hamurger and package... Others of you may of course want to contact your local health departments directly, as well as any consumer advocates (KCRA 3's "Call Kurtis" in Sacramento, for example) you know of...

UPDATE II: I would rather eat lead than say what I'm a little too emotional about. The $20 Buck Fuck abides...

UPDATE III -- MUY IMPORTANTE:  *Sigh*... So I've followed the necessary steps to make a consumer complaint, and I'm linking to the Colusa County Sheriff's Department, as well as the Glenn County Sheriff's Department from this post, just to be on the safe side (am I leery of the latter? Well hell, I lived in San Francisco for years, and law enforcement has been known to have shady elements everywhere... But I digress.) Also, e-mailed KCRA 3's Call Kurtis and the North State's News & Review in Sacramento on Friday. Tim Crews of the Valley Mirror may be next...  As for the meat in question, it looks like they're letting it sell out and they're not re-stocking it at Willows...

UPDATE IV (3/26/2017): In case my initial post and ensuing updates came across as too remote or impersonal.... I used this meat for months (maybe years) without any problem, until the incident prompting my BFD: I made hamburgers for me and my mom, and after serving her I took a bite out of mine and had to spit it out because it was TOO DAMN NASTY FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION, its fibrous texture in my own mouth being the proverbial straw....

UPDATE V (3/28/2017): Item #1: Well, duh, Interstate is a shady, direct, and wholly owned subsidiary of Walmart. Item #2: No doubt Oregon does not allow the sale of Interstate packed meat within its borders (especially after that incident of some poor dude falling into the grinder several years back...) -- unlikely that Washington allows it either; maybe this CA link helps? Item #3: I'm finally sending Ryan Licklider in Clackamas his samples of the meat and the packaging today -- will it go through the USPS system? We'll see...

I KNOW WE'RE DOWNTHREAD AND I DO MY UPDATES ASS-BACKWARDS, BUT YOU PEOPLE DO KNOW THAT SEVERAL YEARS AGO AN EMPLOYEE BECAME ONE WITH THE PRODUCT IN A GRINDER?!? I READ IT ON THE INTERNET AND, I DON'T WORRY WHETHER IT RINGS TRUE, I NOTE THAT I JUST HATE THAT STORY...

########

CASA DE MEEEOW RENOVATION CAMPAIGN (Venmo.com); WILLIAM R WAY BOX 206 STONYFORD CA 95979 or william.robert.way@gmail.com...

FACECROOK TWITCHER