"The Perfect High" by Shel Silverstein

I mostly remember Shel from his having written "A Boy Named Sue" that Johhny Cash had a hit with. But he wrote a ton of silly songs, poetry, and children's books, along with some very tawdry drug culture poems too like this one. There's a lot of dirty words in it, but boy is it funny. Shel's the only I guy I know who could give you a poem full of dirty words about a hippy cat looking for the perfect drug and still manage to give you a nice moral at the end. I also find him an enigma in that he was friends with Hugh Hefner and yet wrote nice clean children's books too. He was one strange hippy dude.

This poem is read by Shel's old friend Larry Moyer at the Sausalito Woman's Club.

Nicolas Cage is a Vampire!

That's the latest rumor, albeit a tongue-n-cheek one, that the owner of this photograph has started with this Ebay auction.

He says the following:

Original c.1870 carte de visite showing a man who looks exactly like Nick Cage. Personally, I believe it's him and that he is some sort of walking undead / vampire, et cetera, who quickens / reinvents himself once every 75 years or so. 150 years from now, he might be a politician, the leader of a cult, or a talk show host.


This is not a trick photo of any kind and has not been manipulated in Photoshop or any other graphics program. It's an original photo of a man who lived in Bristol, TN sometime around the Civil War.


I've had a lot of questions asking where I purchased this. As followers of my website know, I collect antique memorial photography - images of dead people - from the 1800s. This photo was found in the very back of album that contained an unusual number of Civil War era death portraits (which is why I purchased it). All of the other people in the album, living and dead, were identified by name - this man was not.


Photographer is Professor G.B. Smith. A contact of mine forwarded this interesting article (link) about the photographer, Smith. Turns out he was a confederate Civil War prisoner of war photographer.


Guaranteed to be an original 1860s-70s photograph and not a modern reproduction, copy or photo manipulation.


4" x 2.5".

He's asking one million dollars for the photograph, but you'll be happy to know that he'll accept the best offer he can get. He so far has declined 106 offers!

No, he probably won't even get a thousand for it, but you'd be surprised what some of his old photos sell for. He specializes in, get this, post mortem photographs before 1950. It seems that people used to dress up the dead in strange ways before first photographing them and then burrying them. Here's one that sold for $1,275.00 on Ebay:

Many of the 1,500 or so photos in his collection are from the 19th century and feature young children. People think we're living in strange days now, but believe me, humans have always been strange. Here are a few examples:

Sometimes You Just Gotsta Hear Some Doc Watson

This is one of the better renditions of "Summertime" you'll ever hear. I have what I think is a real nice arrangement of “Wayfaring Stranger” that has parts of Summertime incorporated into it (the two have very nearly the same melody). Unfortunately I can’t sing it. I should have married a girl that could sing.

Jeff Beck's Hot Rods

I saw this video a couple of years ago and neglected to favorite it. Darn if I could find it again. Then today I found it right off after typing "Jeff Beck" and Hot Rods into Google. Anyhow, this is about a 45 minute interview done at Beck's own home and garage, and you get to see every car he has in his collection and hear him talk about building them. You also get to see the elusive Mrs. Jeff Beck and her artwork, and she's quite good.

Tom Jones and Jeff Beck???

Hell yes!

The H-1B Genius Visa

Physicist Michio Kaku speaks in very plain language as to how the H-1B Genius Visa is the only thing propping America up in the face of our pathetic educational system. If not for the fact that at least half of the geniuses in this country that create the technology we take for granted are actually here on visa from other countries, America would not enjoy its leadership status in the world. And as the good scientist points out, many of those geniuses here on visa have been going back to their countries and taking their technology with them. It's only a matter of time before America will be defeated and thoroughly brought down by high technology from abroad. Your grandchildren will very likely be living in a third world country one day without having to move.

Something About Isabella

I stumbled upon this girl today. Her name is Isabella Selder. There are only three YT videos of her. Two as a child and one as a nineteen year old. She's twenty one now and I can find nothing of her anywhere on the internet. Here she is at seven years of age playing some flamenco music. It's not terribly dificult for an adult, but for a child this age it's amazingly good.



I know that she's German, but you wouldn't know it listening to her sing "Yesterday."



Now here she is at nineteen playing a sonata by Paganini that's one of the most dificult peices I know of in the classical guitar repertoire, and playing it better than I've ever heard it played. From just this one piece of music I could almost say that she's already the best classical guitarist I've ever heard, providing she plays everything else as well. Why isn't she better known?