In the Future

Yesterday was another day of doing this.

Today we're in the deepest reaches of Silicon Valley.  Two locations of companies employing AI that is central to it's product.

And after listening all day to the people talk about what's to come, when it's coming, what it's going to look like, how it's going to impact us and maybe the cost both in financial and human terms I walk out into the sunshine.  This didn't look like reality either.

ULS

Yesterday morning, the quiet wake up to the day time for me, I'm sitting.  Accessing the Universal Love Shack time.

I have a new wine client...the best type of client.  They give me bottles of their wine and say "Do whatever you want with these."  I love these jobs.  They may not like some of the shots.  That's ok.
It's like the shot below, I don't think they'll buy off on looking up from below at their bottle but in my mind doing this will lead me to do something else.  It's a process.  It's playtime for me.
Or maybe they will.

And I'm shooting this stuff at the same time I'm working the wood in the post below this.
I love it.  While the glue dries, I turn back to the meticulous and small movements of studio still life.
And then back to running 12' pieces of 12/4 walnut through the jointer.

But like so often, self doubts bore themselves into the head.  So I'm accessing the Universal Love Shack about this.  Saying listen, even though I've been doing this for 30 years, this is one job I'm going to fail, the time I'm exposed to be the poseur...finally.  The ULS remains silent, just listening to my insecurities.  Pretty soon I've righted the listing ship though and say,  It will all be alright, just start on it and it will come.

Ken's E'ville Legs

 Lookin' oh so evil....

Headed over to Emeryville, first town over the Bay Bridge to look at the legs that Ken fashioned for the bar table.

Ken has one of these studios that you drop your jaw when you walk in.  And it's still open when you walk out.  The place is filled to the gills with his and Robin's art.  Along with the tools, various projects in different stages and the stuff one accumulates after settling into a space for a long time, you walk around and look and shake your head and feel the creative energy.
Love just hanging out there.

These are the legs, now I need to make a foot step sort of thing that hangs off the bottom of the intersection where the two meet.

Yes, Ken wears safety glasses when using an Xacto to cut corrugated cardboard.  "Been to the ER once too often for stuff in the eye, Paul.  Force of habit at this point."

Talk about eye stuff, it's everywhere.

Fairing the curve

Boy, those Iwasaki rasps are so nice.  They cut aggressively but leave a smooth surface at the same time.

Three Days Before the Beginning

And three days after the start.

I've always said that woodworking reveals the personality of the woodworker.  Whatever holes you may have are shown, the solid areas are seen as well.  The negative and the positive.


The slabs come into the studio and I study them just like the I Ching says to do.  Walk around them, eye them, put them together in the various combos, make the plans, work out the steps.  And wait.  And do it all again.  Three days before the start.

You think you are ready to start so you tentatively take the first steps.  And stop again.  Is this the right way, is the plan still sound, should you change anything?  Three more metaphoric days after the start.

The wood didn't go down without showing me my weaknesses in my personality.....a couple of times actually.

Like the I Ching says though, what has been screwed up by man (not being sexist here by the way) can be made right again by the actions of man.  At one point I doubted this wisdom.  Didn't know if I had the giddy-up in me.  But I stopped again and did the three day contemplation thing and found the way back.

The glue-up, oh...the glue-up.  So so fraught with anxieties.

A preview of some of the grain.  Like angel wings.  Golden Brown ones.

 And for some synchronicity in the Carl G Jung's original definition of the word in the preface of the Richard Wilhelm's German translation of the I Ching....1949.

Should've been here in the 60's

Cary's got a gig but Cary doesn't have a guitar.
He's hocked all of them.  Well, he still has a ukelele and a dime store Fender rip-off.

But you can't play a gig with those he tells me.

Awhile ago I help my friend Bill put in some new windows in his house out in the East Bay.  He wants to pay me for my time.  I refuse of course, he's one of my oldest friends and hell, I love working him.  We catch up on things and drink beer and swear and fart. We work well together.
Anyway, his insistence wins over my "Hell, no, you're not paying me."
So the money wasn't really mine in the first place.  I shouldn't even have it.  It's not real money to me so I decide to get Cary's best guitar out of the pawnshop so he can play the show.

We meet at the Utah for quick one before heading out to the Mission.  He tells me he has 60 bucks for the cause.  I'm not quite sure why he decides to put on the Maple leaf bandito mask.

He takes the bus, I go on my bike of course.
When I get to the window to pay he hands me $40.  "What happened to the other twenty Cary?"
No answer. 

I start to talk to the guy behind the counter.  Ron.  He's a fourth generation pawnshop guy.  He makes it clear he doesn't give a shit about the business, it's only because it's been in the family forever. Cary tells his sob story of habitual guitar hocking and Ron's like shaking his head.
"You know how many times I've heard this?  You should've been here in the 60's, that's when I heard it two dozen times a day."

I feel Cary is trying to hustle me out of the store.  He's like that.  I get very little time with Ron.

Oh, and if you're in San Francisco this Thursday, Cary's playing the Utah.  I'm going to be doing some mountain clog dancing for a couple of his songs.  He likes that clip clop of shoes keeping the beat on the old wooden stage floor.

Muscle Up

We had to wait for the check to clear.
Headed down to Gilroy again.  Mike drove this time, he's got a proper rack on his truck.
The old guy was a completely different animal today.  He even cracked a few jokes.
Forklifted the three slabs onto to the truck, wrestled 'em down by hand when we got back to my place.

Giving some orders.

Ken's a gruntin' here.

Henry said he would drop by and help me when I needed it.  I can already feel my muscles buffing up from moving these a thousand times.