"In the hopes of reaching the moon men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet."
 

~Albert Schweitzer

Saturday Happy Song - Li'l Red Riding Hood - Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs (1966)

I came across this on Sur La Lune Fairy Tales Blog today and just had to share.
I love that this person edited it together with a Betty Boop video, I frickin love Betty Boop (I just can't stand all the crappy souvenirs that she get's stuck on in Hollywood.)

Rundown of the month gone by

So, in the interest of continuing to keep my sanity AND not allow this blog to be entirely consumed by Robert Plant (although that could be totally worth it, but I have other interests) I'm gonna ramble off another post. July flew by, the entire month was a win; I had SO much fun! We had fireworks, bonfires, drunken escapades in Long Beach and Hollywood, Hot Tubs, Bike rides on Venice Beach, and 100 year old Balsamic.

August has been more, trying...We did a great photo shoot in the beginning of the month, and it left me quite inspired.
 
The Man and Ms. Jillian modeled in an engagement style shoot cause Richie is gonna be shooting a wedding in November and I always look for excuses to work on my photographs cause...well if I don't force it a little right now it doesn't happen. I hate to say it, but it's true.I hope to have the whole set finished on Monday night now, there are so many other projects....

Last Friday we went to The Getty Villa which also left me itching to work on the post production of my photography. I am also trying to make a dent in my dept however, and that has taken up a lot of my thought space lately. Working from home has presented a whole new set of challenges and the art has suffered, again. I am working out the bumps, stay tuned.


(Richard Castaeñda)
In other news, last Sunday we went up to Santa Barbara and saw Primus. It was one of the best shows I have been to in a while, Les Claypool is always a good time. I have never seen Primus. Les Claypool yes, 5 or 6 times now, but not Primus. It was a good show. Mr. Claypool was not very talkative, and they ended abruptly after a spirited encore of Southbound Pachyderm and Too Many Puppies; but still totally worth the drive AND the sweaty shirtless hippies! Richie had the great forethought to bring the perfect camera and got some amazing pictures. Do make sure you read the accompanying review.

Got lots of belly dance practice in last week! I am can almost completely roll my belly now!
That's about all the good news I have...I am gonna go read, have lots of that to catch up on too. I'll be back with some other random stuff later, and lots of pictures as they get edited. Have a great Saturday!

~Hell

Happy Birthday Robert!

WOW.

Just one really big wow. I am in awe in so many ways. So, so many ways. I can't believe it's been over a month since I said anything here, I can't believe how fast this month has flown by, I can't believe how fast this WEEK has flown by! It's already Friday again! I really can't believe it's Robert Plant's birthday and I totally forgot! What the hell?I needed the radio to tell me, and that didn't happen till an hour ago when I went out to take my father home and buy ice cream. What the hell man, I have been so...out of touch.

I got this job, and I am working form home, and it rocks. But, I am having a hard time getting enough hours in to live comfortably because, some weeks are just freaking hell. This was one of those weeks...But I digress. The point is I am totally obsessed for some completely unexplainable reason to Robert Plant, and on this day 62 years ago he was brought into this world from some amazing portion of heaven to forever change music by singing in one of the most powerful rock bands in history.
Yes, I realize that he is only 2 years younger than my own father, it's creepy for some of you, blah blah blah. Well get over it, Mr. Plant is still an amazing singer and that makes him sexy. Very Sexy. In fact, look how great he looks in his very recently updated home page photo:

He just finished a one moth tour of the mostly southern portion of America and will be touring Europe and the U.K. starting Sept. 2nd.

No other dates in America are planned. Neal Preston was misinformed! Drat! Well, that's ok. We still have youtube!
Here's Robert singing one of my favorites Tall Cool One in Austin Texas last month:



The audio doesn't rock, but Robert's still got it. The Man found this great one of Robert having to excuse the bands horrible confusion of songs on the flu, I ove the way he smiles in this one, I love that he calls NyQuil and Dayquil the "Night Nurse and Day Nurse", EEEEK! So fricken cute!

♥ Happy Birthday Robert! ♥

(Neal Preston)

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

 (RobertPlant.com)

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

 (RobertPlant.com)

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

  (RobertPlant.com)

I ♥ you SO much! Rock on!

Band of Joy

(photo)

Mr. Plant was honored with a star on the Orpheum Theater's sidewalk in Memphis Tn. this morning! Such a great picture of him too! Tonight he will play there, kicking off 12 show tour, only lasting for the month of July, only in the south. Boo! The closest he gets to me on this tour is Phoenix Az. I wanted to go, but have been so broke it's not funny. Also, when I met Neal Preston in April and got my copy of Led Zeppelin singed he told me not to worry, Robert wouldn't completely avoid Los Angeles.

(Cynthia Fox from KLOS, Neal Preston, and I @ UCLA Festival of books)

Well, it looks like this tour, I'll be missing out. I can't wait to read the reviews and see the bad cell phone video on youtube, and really, I'm not that worried. The album is out in September, I'm pretty sure this is just the warm up part of the tour, and who wanted to drive two states away?..I did.

Please, please Robert announce more tour dates!

I don't think I posted this, I wanted to scan some of the pages to give you a look at what an amazing book of photography this is. Neal Preston is freaking gifted, and the nicest guy! It reads: "To Sydney, give my regards to Culver City" right over Robert's beautiful silhouette.

The Dark Master, in his youth

Image via Wikipedia

Those that know me well could probably ramble off the short list of my all time favorite bands because I am so very, very obsessed with them. I like music from all over the world, however, if I were to narrow it down to music I couldn't live with out; music that I would require to keep me sane on my proverbial desert island it would come down to about 5 bands. Sadly or not most are rock, I realize Led Zeppelin is a given here seeing as I have sung loudly the praises of one Robert Plant. I also realize, startlingly in fact, that you wouldn't be able to claim to know me so well without one vital piece of information I have neglected to mention in this space: I love, LOVE, LOVE...Oingo Boingo.


In the earlier days of seeing each other, The Man and I realized we were having one of those I'm really gonna like this person moments when I asked if he liked Oingo Boingo and it happened to be the CD he had grabbed to put on.


The music of Oingo Boingo shaped my youth and may be a very good indicator as to why I am so...unique.


Anyhow, you can imagine how surprised and delighted I was to find this as I was going through my fathers slides:





That is an approximately 20 year old Danny Elfman, in approximately 1974, on the beach in Venice California. EEEEEEK! What a fricking find!


The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo formed in 1972 by Danny's older brother Richard Elfman as a performance art group that toured large parts of the world. In 1976 Richard retired the group to Danny who turned it into the Punk/New Wave wonder that took over the 1980's and toured for 17 more years.

Incidentally I also happen to have a photo of Richard taken on the same day!!


Double Eeeeeeek!

Both Elfman brothers in one day! I nearly fell over when we found these. There are a few more, of the band in costume, with instruments. I haven't photoshopped those yet, so I'll post them later. Till then you can just bask in this rare and amazing Boingo find.

Love

"The hardest-learned lesson:  that people have only their kind of love to give, not our kind."


~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960