John Bonham

Today is John Bonham's 61st birthday. Which means it's time to get down and get crazy. If you don't know who Bonzo is you may as well click your way outta here and never come back, or better yet, just crawl into the nearest hole you can dig up and die.

The rest of us are gonna stay right here and partay and rock and roll...

John Bonham

5/31/48-9/25/80

This interview cracks me up. Apparently, it's the first British TV interview with The Led Zeppelin...



And possibly the last televised interview with the man of many words before his untimely passing...



And the most rockin' LZ youtube vid I could find that didn't deny embedding...



Feel free to pull out your Zeppelin collection and celebrate all day long.

Happy Birthday, Bonzo...from me and the rest of your kabillion fans!!

You can see lots more pictures and learn more about John Bonham and the 47 other musicians in my tribute book, Everybody I Shot Is Dead.

Road Trip Diary Day 16+

This is the beginning of the end. It goes something like this...

I pretty much vegged on Saturday, other than a pit stop at Starbucks, another at Safeway and some fun time watching Pumpkin get her ya-yas out at the Mill Valley puppy park:

The nicest dog park I've ever seen...

And the best part about Saturday...NO driving (at least nothing more than about 5 miles.

Sunday was another story...had to pick up Jaimie from camping. Make that 300 miles and 5 hours behind the wheel. That bought me a Monday of no driving.

Tuesday morning I took care of a little local book business. After that I followed Jaime across the Richmond bridge.
She was on her way school and I was on my way Kevin's office in Berkeley to drop off Frank...

He's the happy winner of the old skool vs. digital photo contest I had a ways back. His comment was that the Zappa print looked even better in person. That's old school silver gelatin photographic prints for ya.

A short visit with Kevin and I was back on the road for the final leg of the road trip. The home stretch. The final 370 miles. Of mostly nothing.

It was 95º at the Coalinga junction. That was a warm welcome to SoCal...

I knew I was getting when I made it to the mouth of the Grapevine...

And really, really close when I passed Magic Mountain...

Five hours and ten minutes after leaving Berkeley I was home. When I pulled into my driveway at 6:10pm on Tuesday evening, I had clocked nearly 5500 miles and hours upon hours rolling on down the roads.

The trip was a blast. All the way around. Makes me wanna get one of those little RVs and go wherever the wind takes me. Listen to stories. Maybe never come back.

Road Trip Diary Day 15

Geez, 8:15am blasts in like it's 6am when you're in a car for 11 hours the previous day. There was no way I wanted to get up and wet myself (as in, take a shower or maybe pee on myself because I was too bleary-eyed to find the toilet) at that unGodly hour and be back on the road by nine. But that was the way it had to be. Jaimie had to be in Laytonville by noon for her camping thingy.

I forced myself into the shower, packed up my pack (which wasn't much since I hadn't unpacked), we ate some shitty food at the free continental breakfast and we spent 10 minutes trying to find the Starbucks that was right under our noses. But once we had the coffee we were golden. I was really happy that we were driving during the day...I had been bummed on Day 14 when the drive from Reno to Yuba City was in the dead of night. I hadn't driven that route before but I have the feeling it was/is stunningly beautiful.

I had also never driven Yuba City to Laytonville. The biggest surprise was when we hit Clearlake. I had no idea there was a lake that huge in Northern California. We were on the 20 and followed one side of the lake through several towns for over 45 minutes...

It went on and on. We may have seen two boats on the water. At 11ish am on the Friday of the Memorial Day weekend. I so wanted to go water skiing.

We made it to the camp about a half hour later than Jaimie thought she should be there but all was well. Here she is walking in with all her gear...

I helped her set up her tent and then took off for a couple of days of alone time...with Pumpkin. It started with the drive back to Mill Valley. Another two and a half hours behind the wheel.

This is the 101 highway between the small towns of Laytonville and Willits....

Really beautiful with lots and lots of trees. I love roads like this. And it's a good thing, because I had to drive it twice that day. I was 45 miles south when I got a call from Jaimie that she had left her all-important sun hat in the car. She said she had chased the car all the way to the one lane bridge as I was leaving in property but I didn't see her. I felt really bad that I was so oblivious, so I turned around and went back with her hat.

I made to Mill Valley around 8pm and immediately went into a vegetative state. I could finally sleep when I wanted, as much as I wanted. I could be online or offline. I could watch TV or a movie or listen to music. Loud or soft. Ahh, heaven.

I initially took this picture to show the Friday holiday traffic heading north out of the Bay Area. It was a lot heavier than it looks here. But I'm posting it anyway because I love the way I managed to bend the road as if it's the curvature of the Earth. It was taken at 7:15pm, one week ago.


Miles traveled: 390

Time in car: 11 hours

Went to sleep: I didn't check or care...I had nowhere to go the following day.

Happy Friday.

Road Trip Diary Day 14

Day 14 was hella-long. Even though we didn't have to check out of the Red Lion until 1:30 and the car wouldn't be ready 'til 2:30, we had to put a lot of miles on the odometer.

I was looking through the pictures I took on Day 14 and was astounded at the variety of images, and since it ultimately became a car day, I've decided to let the pictures tell the story. It may sound simpler to do that than figure out a story in words but trust me when I say editing photos eats time...as in over two hours.

Surprise, surprise...I was the first one to wake up. I hightailed it to the Starbucks in the lobby to drink coffee (obviously) and do some work on my computer. And to take the first picture of the day...

Why do casino pictures taken at 11:15am look like they were taken at 11:15pm?

I took a coffee back to Jaimie, then dropped off the rental car, then came back and she had packed the luggage cart...very well I might add...

We had our second breakfast of the day - being that we ate breakfast after midnight - this time Jaimie had the pancakes and I went for eggs o'er easy.

We picked up the car, I choked on the bill and we hit the road.

We're on new terrain here, past Lovelock. An important stop for my movie. I really like this picture. I'm calling it "The Shootout."

Dead Drum
Like redrum, but different.

I shot this one from the car, while moving...

Dead Building

Also shot while moving...

Mile 3639.1

Yup, still moving...

WARNING!! Do not scroll down if you hate clowns. Another from the car, while driving (don't try this at home)...

Another shot through the car window, while moving. Betchya can't guess where we are now...

And last but not least, the photo that appeared in a previous post that no one guessed where it was taken...

Welcome to the Reno-Tahoe International Airport

We ended up stopping hours after this at a Best Western in Yuba City, California.


Miles traveled: 412.25 - not counting all the miles we traveled when the GPS lady directed us to some dinky airport on the north side of Reno and out little off-road jaunt.

Hours in car: 11 hours

Went to sleep: 2am

Road Trip Diary Day 13

I got the bad news at 10am. The Jeep needed a new radiator. One word. Expensive. And to make matters worse, they wouldn't get the part until the following day. At noon. And it wouldn't be fixed until 2pm. Ack!

We were already supposed to be in Lovelock the night before and were supposed to spend this day taking a tour of the town with Mike the Mayor. I had made the dreaded call the day before with the "Sorry the car broke down" excuse. How was I going to call him and say I'd be delayed yet another day? Besides, he wasn't going to be in town the next day and I had to get Jaimie to her camp thingy by Friday noon. It was already Wednesday. I had only one option...rent a car and head to Lovelock and drive back to Elko to pick up the Jeep the next afternoon.

I got a car from Enterprise. We checked out of the Gold Country. Stopped by the dealership to pick up some things from the Jeep and drove the 200 miles to Lovelock. Knowing that we would be driving it back and then driving it forward one more time. Yay.

We saw several signs prohibiting hitchhiking because of nearby correctional facilities. And sure enough, here was one of them...

I was anxious to get to Lovelock. I was looking forward to meeting Mike the Mayor and having my private tour of the city. And I wasn't disappointed. According to Mike, there is a Chinese tradition of locking your love...

When he first told me about how couples came from far and wide to lock their love behind the courthouse, I somehow thought they actually locked themselves together on a chain. So much for my imagination. Turns out they put locks on these chains...

The courthouse is the benchmark/landmark/whatever mark you want to call it. It's round on the outside...

...and the courtroom on the inside is also round. It made me want to remake 12 Angry Men...

After the courthouse, we strolled over to the cop shop and I politely asked if I could go inside and check it out. We went inside and Mike asked Tom, the deputy on duty, if I could take a look around and shoot some pictures. He did a total double-take and was staring at my boobs...or so I thought, until I realized I was wearing my t-shirt that says Everybody I Shot Is Dead. Oops. Not exactly how I wanted to be perceived at that moment. After a quick explanation of the shirt, Tom gave me the royal tour and allowed me to shoot photos and video. I even saw a few prisoners in the back and was surprised that they were wearing Old West-style black and white striped uniforms. Very cool.

I'd love to show you some of the pictures but I didn't ask for clearance to plaster them all over the world wide web so...you're s.o.l. How about a cow family instead?

...or this one where Jaimie insisted I get a photo in the side mirror of the dust she was kicking up on a gravel road...small things amuse small...nevermind...

After being in Lovelock for several hours, we decided to forgo staying the night there and drove straight back to Elko. It was a long ride, again because we knew we would be doing it all over again the next day...

We made one stop on the way back because Jaimie was hungry and she wanted me to drive. The stop was Valmy, NV and this was it...

Seriously...all of it. Except I didn't get the tiny stand-alone building off to the right and behind this building. It was really small and had a little sign above the door that simply said "Laundry." Jaimie was not impressed with the food offerings and chose to go hungry. That black car was our rental.

The sun finally set on Day 13...

...and it was close to midnight when we finally rolled back into Elko and checked into the Red Lion. It was across the street from the Gold Country. We decided it was better because it had a Starbucks in the lobby. I went to the 24 hour restaurant - also in the lobby - and ordered French toast (for Jaimie) and pancakes (for me) and took them back to the room, where we thoroughly enjoyed our midnight breakfast knowing that we could sleep in 'til noon.


Miles traveled: 400

Time in car: 6 hours

Went to sleep: after breakfast

Road Trip Diary Day 12

Our optimism ran high on Day 12. Waking up in our lovely room after a good night's sleep. Enjoying the hotel's continental breakfast. Driving through the rest of Idaho...which had to include this:

In case you can't tell, it's an Idaho Spud...and it may not look like much but it was mucho tasty.

Then we hit the infamous bridge in Twin Falls...I love this picture...

I walked over to the other side and caught this guy hopping over the rail. "Dude, it's a long way down."

Fortunately he had a chute.

It was very exciting to see their jump - I shot video and stills - and learned that this is the only bridge in America where it's legal to base jump. This group of guys had traveled from South Carolina...or was it North?

Looking away from the west side of the bridge reminded me of the dinosaur movie, Land Before Time.

It wasn't too long after that we hit Nevada...and the teeny tiny border town of Jackpot. Obviously, we were feeling very lucky...

So much for Lady Luck...

An hour later our Knight in Shining Yellow showed up...

...and gave the bleeding car, and us, a ride to the nearest town that had a Jeep dealership, 50 miles from where we were but 200 miles short of where we had planned to be...

I took a bunch of terrain-type pictures as we drove...at 3:31pm we had this...

And 3 hours later it looked like this....taken through the tow truck window...



This is where we were dumped after we dropped the car at the Jeep dealer...

I was thinking about trying my luck at the tables in hopes of winning the money I knew I was going to get raped for on the car...and Jaimie was looking for a new ride...

Needless to say, it was a helluva a day.

Miles traveled: 285

Time in car: 7 hours

Went to sleep: 11ish after praying for good news on the car.

Road Trip Diary Day 11

After a great sleep at the Hampton Inn in Butte, I was ready to rock'n'roll during my last few hours with John. That is until 8:50am when my phone rang. It was John. Calling to tell me he was barfing again. Ugh!!! We hadn't done any locations in Butte yet and I was bummed that I'd have to get another map from him and find everything myself.

But all was not lost. John had a Plan B. Her name was Sara. A mucky-muck at the Butte Visitor Center/Chamber of Commerce. At first John was talking about her giving us great maps and locations but it ultimately turned into something much better. Even better than John. Sara offered to drive me around. Wow, more rally nice people in Montana.

Sara was an amazing pinch hitter. She took us everywhere. Not just the locations I needed to shoot but to some touristy-type spots as well. In an antique store I found this:

Other than the spinny thing near the bottom and the engraved paque below that, it's an exact replica of the clock that I inherited from my dad. There were actually two in the store. And the owners of the store also offered to show us an apartment they had for rent above the store. It was at least 1500+ sq. ft. and I think they were only asking $875...furnished...with cool antique painting and photography on the walls.

We also caught one of Butte's main attractions:

Don't ask me why it's called Berkeley Pit. I'm guessing that whoever created it was expelled from Cal. It used to be a mining pit but then it started filling with water that is now saturated with all kinds of toxic shit. It may look pretty, but if you take a dive in there you will die...of poison...like a bunch of geese did. Maybe Jimmy Hoffa is down there somewhere.

After hitting up the Pit we were suddenly hungry - go figure - and Sara took us to a fabulous little sandwich shop called the Humming Bird Cafe. If you are ever in Butte I highly recommend it.

From there it was off to the airport. No, we weren't flying out. Remember this is a Road Trip. But I did need to check it out as a location.

The weird thing about the airport is it is flanked on both ends by graveyards. Not just one graveyard on one end. A different graveyard on each end. If you went to the left of the photograph you'd be in the graveyard where Evel Knievel is buried. I believe he is Butte's most famous native son. And if you go to the right of the picture you'd be in this graveyard...

...you'd be where 14 people, including seven young children, lost their lives in a plane crash this past March. There's no sign of it now but we drove through and said prayers for the families.

We left Butte around 4pm and headed to our next sleepover in Chubbuck, Idaho.

When we got to Dillon - the one in Montana not the one on Friday Night Lights - I was getting tired of Jaimie and Pumpkin so I sent them off on their own...

Unfortunately, no one else wanted them so I had to pick them up again.

And don't ask me why this place is in the-middle-of-nowhere-Montana...

...but this Bud's for you.

We finally found Idaho...

I have no idea why this photo came out yellow. My only explanation is that we were suddenly transported back to the seventies, where everything had a yellow hue...at least according to the ABC show Life On Mars. I liked the show but damn that yellow hue drove me crazy.

We ended up at a really nice Best Western in Pocatello (it borders Chubbuck where I wanted to stay but couldn't find any decent hotels). There were hundreds of June bugs to amuse Pumpkin in the field behind the hotel.

Oh, and one last amusing photo...in the very old fashioned Butte airport I found this techno-advanced toilet:

I decided to flush it for the photo but I promise you that is not my (or anyone else's) pee. The water was yellow. Really. I swear. On any bible you want to throw at me.


Miles traveled: 255 + the driving in Butte

Time in car: probably around 10 hours, including all the hours running around Butte

Went to sleep: at least midnight by the time I did some work on the computer