The San Diego Zoo is a spectacular place. This week Elana and I are attending watercolor art camp. We spend some time with the animals and then create paintings of them. Here is a great picture Lana took today of a hungry and angry tiger.

I figured it would be OK to help get a better photo by dangling her into the tiger enclosure, and I’m sure you agree that this would be a much less interesting picture if there were bars or reflections off the glass to get in the way of our view of this magnificent predator. Plus, it’s important for parents and kids to bond. Not only do we get  a great photo, but a young woman gets a chance to look death in the face without fear before her 12th birthday.

Here is my watercolor of the same animal.

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“Scott, there’s a new video with Lady Gaga and Beyonce.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh.  My.  God.  It’s the nastiest thing I’ve ever seen…”

After she filled me in on some of the details, I had to go watch it for myself.  It happens this song, “Telephone,” is one I noticed on the radio a couple of weeks ago.  I really liked the song a lot from the first time I heard it.  Thinking about what the video might look like, I had mental images of the two divas dancing in a packed club and being frustrated with their cell phones.

If you haven’t seen it, the music is only on for a bit less than half the time of the video.  I think this is better – drastically better – than “Thriller” or anything Madonna or ZZ Top or Duran Duran put out in the 80′s, or any music video that has followed. Watching this video reminded me of how I felt the first time I heard “F*** the Police” or “Anarchy in the UK.”  I think it’s totally brilliant, up there with Little Richard, Elvis and the Beatles.

My gentle and well-educated wife likes the classics, you know, life-affirming art such as “Romeo and Juliet.” For me, this video is a lot more entertaining than a lot of Shakespeare, and it gets the job done in ten minutes instead of several hours.

I admit it: for many years I have been whining about how everything in Western Society is in a terminal decline. Finally I find something I can point to as a sign of hope for the future – and my family and most of my friends disagree! They think this is “just vile and depraved.” Oh well.

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Like going swimming, taking the dog for a walk (or vice versa) always is a good idea. Who knows – maybe there will be some good flowers to look at and photograph!

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We begin 2009 with a Presidential innaguration coming up and hundreds of millions of people all around the world yearning for peace.

Here’s a campaign poster that has been on the wall since I was 13 years old. See the big burning pile of American wealth behind Mr. Nixon? We’ve been stoking that fire ever since, sadly.

Mr. Obama has promised to spend more, not less, on war. What a tragic waste.

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Today my beloved spouse celebrates a birthday. To commemorate this event on-line, I offer a Spirograph flower I drew in 1968. Did you know that Spirograph patterns are hypotrochoids and epitrochoids?

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Here’s a splendid bit of visual art that’s been on display in various rooms I’ve slept and worked in. Rosco  Wright and my parents were friends at the University of Oregon way back in times that appear to have been mostly black and white, and in the decades thereafter.

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Gardner Street School is a block north of Sunset Boulevard and a few blocks west of La Brea. I showed up here for first through fifth grade and I hadn’t been back inside the place since the last day of school in June of 1969. I used to walk half a block to buy the occasional hot dog or baseball bubble gum pack at the Sunset Grill twenty years before it was made famous by Don Henley.

My nephew Sam just started school at Gardner, and Halloween gave me a chance to take a fifth grader of my own to the party. The school is a lot more crowded than it was when I went there, and the nicest building was destroyed by an earthquake a couple of years after I left, but the place is very much the same.  We took the kids out to collect candy.

40 years ago to the day, Alexis and I went trick-or-treating with a big swarm of kids in the same neighborhood. Quite a few of the old houses have been replaced by big apartment buildings, but a surprising number of the old places have been restored with loving care.  The trees are 40 years older and seemed gigantic and vigorous. Most importantly, the streets were crowded with friendly, happy people. Plus, we agreed with most of the political signs on the lawns!

For no extra charge, here is some art I did at Gardner Street School at about this time of year back in 1968.

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Charles Whitebread died a few days ago at the age of 65. He never smoked cigarettes but lung cancer killed him anyway. I knew him at USC and in the bar review business.

Professor Whitebread was one of the best lecturers I ever watched and listened to. He joined the faculty at the USC Law School in the summer of 1981, which is when I started my first year at the same institution.

I took three classes from him: Criminal Procedure, Gifts Wills and Trusts (GWATS), and Juvenile Law. His classes were packed and people didn’t skip many sessions.  Each 50 minute lecture was a model of clarity and precision, engaging and entertaining. This guy loved and respected his students. He showed up prepared and he inspired everybody to care about the material the way he did.

Here is a drawing of Professor Whitebread that I put on my folder for Gifts, Wills & Trusts back in the spring of 1983. I respected this professor, but I developed a fierce contempt for law school. The only thing about law school that was an improvement over junior high was the fact that it was OK to drink alcohol in class.

Listen to Charlie tell a quick story about a marijuana dealer, a fleeing felon, and hot pursuit.

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Maria Bennett was a great lover of cats and a talented artist. This is one of my favorites.

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“I sold pot in the U.S. A quarter ounce. It cost me 40 years in jail, where I have been raped and beaten. The Supreme Court says this is not cruel and unusual.”

“Hi! I’m a rich, deceased lawyer. My picture is up in room 1 of the USC Law Center. I was convicted of tax fraud, but over the years I donated $160,000 to USC.”

“I’m Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. Who says my brains need to be reasonably related ty my job?”

“I’m a haggard USC 1st year law student, the victim of a brutal socialization (brainwashing) process. I feel as if my arms have been tied behind my back.”

“I’m a woman associate at a large law firm. My chances of becoming a partner are cut by my dislike of playing softball and my interest in becoming a mother as well as a 1st rate attorney.”

“I’m a fertilized egg in the womb of a poor woman. I present a threat to the life of the woman I’m inside. The courts say it’s OK for the government to deny the woman a free abortion, despite the direct threat to her life.”

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