Pigsty Is Moving Cross Town

Hey Pig Fanciers,

If you dropped by the Pigsty over the weekend you probably noticed the mess. Looked like a pig lives here. Stories were flung helter skelter over the page, margins mislaid, images in the wastebasket.

I was packing up, okay? I hadn't meant to move out, just fix things up a little. But here I go.

It was spring. Time for frolicking in the daffodils. Except here in Spokane, where it is wintertime again. Snow in your eyes time again, Freeze your patootie off time again. So I thought I'd put the miserable weather to use by staying in and creating a fresh new look for the blog, something modern and appropriate for a pig of stature.

I decided to put up a new picture, write a little poem to go under it and then have Taj Majal play the opening bars of Statesboro Blues on Henrietta, his favorite Strat. Next an animated curtain would open and Jinx The Cat would come out in a top hat to warm you up with a few cat jokes and then do the Charleston with Reese Witherspoon. Set the appropriate mood, you know? Was that too much to ask?

Well, I made a few mistakes. What do I know about HTML? CSS? I know how to make a word italic and that's about it. I can make a link if I look it up. But my creative vision overcame me. I wanted comfortable little armchairs for you all like in my living room and a fire in the fireplace where we could sit around and trade stories of famous beatniks. When the tempo slowed I could read aloud from my first edition of Thrilling Stories For Boys: Bomba the Jungle Boy Goes Over The Falls.

But it turns out wholesale blog remodeling is a little over my head. What looked great on the sketchpad didn't translate. In fact, because of one misplaced HTML bracket or something my new up-to-date blog wouldn't publish at all. And I forgot to backup my template first like all the bloggers tell me to do. And I couldn't remember what I actually changed.

Okay, so a pig is a pig. What can I do? Well, I could get help. (I know. I need help.) But all my blogger friends know even less than I do and Blogger gives absolutely no support. You made you own mess, now lie in it. That's their moral philosophy. Finally, as you can see, I did get the Pigsty back up. Looking exactly the same as it ever did.

So I'm moving cross town to the Typepad neighborhood. It's a little more upscale. They promise help if I bollox up my template again. The mess you saw was me packing up boxes and moving out of Blogger. I'm just moving in to my new digs, of course, but I'll give you the new address soon with an invitation to my open house. Maybe tomorrow. It'll be the same old blog of course, but in a slick new 2008 format. Polished steel. Robots. Gandalf the Good. Jinx the Cat doing the Charleston with Reese Witherspoon. That kind of stuff.

Secrets of A Semi-Fiction Writer

In case you haven't noticed, The Pondering Pig has been writing fiction lately. Or something impersonating fiction. Or something completely different. Actually, he's not quite sure what he is writing because so far he has been a ponderer, not an imaginer. He didn't really set out to write a novel or a serial. He just thought it would be interesting to add dialog and create some little illustrative scenes of his life as an original hippie in San Francisco back before the world knew about such things.

But as soon as I gave them some lines, my characters started acting uppity. Like Walrus Pemmican, for instance. As soon as he sat down in Sylvie's room I could tell he was pissed off about something, and was just itching to pick a fight with Paulie. And Paulie got carried away and imagined the Syndicate of Eternal Friendship should corner the Haight-Ashbury retail marijuana market. The real Paulie never said that!

It was too absurd. In the Haight, of course, we all just wanted to be flower children and wear flowers in our hair and listen to Donovan records, and suddenly these guys are shouting at each other and plotting dreams of empire and acting like crooks! And poor Allen Cohen.

Allen was a real person, a poet and the founder of the San Francisco Oracle, one of the first and most influential of the underground newspapers of our era. We shared a flat in the City for about a year and I got to know him well. Yet I found I couldn't give him any lines because I was afraid if I did he would start acting like a crook too! He was a man of respect in our neighborhood. And I don't want to dishonor his memory. So he ended up just sitting on the mattress waiting for his cue - which doesn't come.

You start changing people's names and creating dialog for them and suddenly anything can happen. The police may break down the door any second and the Syndicate of Eternal Friendship will have to run out the back. Or the girl on the merry-go-round might turn out to be a messenger from God. Or an Indian princess in disguise who's seeking the Lost Ruby of Khalimar. And maybe Walrus Pemmican is actually a real walrus! Just a very skinny one who lives in the Haight-Ashbury.

What I found is you start giving people dialog and new clothes to wear and pretty soon they don't like any of it and want to choose their own costumes. Flowers in my hair? Forgeddaboudit.

And then there's names. Real living people can sue you for libel if they start abusing children and robbing banks in your story. So I realized I'd better change everybody's names before I'm subpoenaed.

Now I've got a new set of problems. Take Howie, for instance. He's a minor character so far -- you probably forgot about him already. So far, he's just one of the guys who bought the marijuana and brought it back to 1736 Page. But you never know. The first time he opens his mouth he wants to know all about Machine Gun Kelly!

So my first inspiration was to call him 'Howie Kalishnikoff'. Has a certain drama to it, sort of like 'Sylvia Potemkin'. Then I thought - why not change his first name too - to, uh, 'Lennie'. Sounds like Howie, except it's Lennie. How about 'Lennie Kalishnikoff'? Trouble is, the reader is going to expect exciting things from a guy with a name like that. Is he a walking time bomb? Seething behind that smiling mask? Ready to go off like an AK-47? Or maybe he lives for his 'gun'?

Nah. And besides, Kalishnikoff is too hard to spell. I'd be looking it up all the time.

OK, then I thought, well - the guy I'm basing this character on had one of the most common surnames. Maybe a nice, ordinary name would work. So I looked up America's most common last names. Here's a good one: White. Number 14.

How about 'Willie White'? Nice alliteration - but he sounds too much like a bluesman from the Mississippi Delta. Blind Willie White. Recorded one earthshaking session in 1928. Then he disappeared into the night and my character is his kid! Except he doesn't know it! He thinks he can't even play the kazoo! What do you think?

Nah.

Onward - well, the 16th most popular name is Martin. So how about 'Mel Martin'? Yeah, that's it! Mel Martin! He's a smooth lounge singer from Vegas who's on the run from the Mafia because he was making love to Duh Capo's beautiful wife and Mickey Duh Mouse caught them in the linen closet. Now he's hiding out at 1736 Page pretending to be an original hippie.

Nah. I think my character is more of a 'Howie Morris'. Just an ordinary pussycat of a name to hide an extraordinary person.

On the other hand, maybe I should give up the whole thing and write history, plain and simple. With footnotes, like this:

Chap 3, p.47: According to Ronald Palaver (op cit. p. 38), a gang of evil hippies once lived at 1736 Page Street. After cornering the Haight-Ashbury marijuana market they kidnapped Patty Hearst and insisted she go to college. Later, the FBI shot them down like dogs. Except for Walrus Pemmican, who remains missing to this day.

So much simpler.

One Misty Morning 1907 (Anarchy in the UK)

Well, I'm in a quandary. And I hope I can get out before nightfall. Kind of spooky around here with all these bodies floating in the marshes. And I hate the way they turn into demons if you accidentally fall in. Then there's a big fight and you're lucky to escape with your teeth intact.

Actually, I can go on for hours like this and not make a bit of sense and nobody notices because nobody's reading the blog. Why? Because I'm not writing the blog, of course.

Day after day it just sits in cyberspace while I go prune the pear tree or loll about on some hillside with a loaf of bread, a bottle of red and a beautiful babe beside me in the wilderness (that would be my Patrushka).

I just sat down to blog about the necessity of anarchism. Anarchy in the UK I called it, even though it had nothing to do with England. Just an old Sex Pistols song and I like to make those little connections. It had something to do with the horrible uselessness of all governments for anything people truly want, and how we should just ignore them and do it ourselves. Something like that. But you know what? It was turning into a rant. I could just feel it.

Who wants to read a rant by a pig? Not me. I'm supposed to write about seeking God. And the sorrow of life. And misty mornings on the coast of California a hundred years ago. And Linda Lovely and Bess Faraway and Carmen O'Shaughnessy and Lamie da Kink and all the girls I loved and still love somewhere in time. And Way Out Willy and Bear Mattson and Chet Helms and Alan Cohen and Rockin' Rodney and all my friends and pals and brothers of longtime passing youth.

I think I'm supposed to tell what happened so you can feel it too.

I might be back tomorrow. Or maybe never. I just got to get back to what counts. Maybe I'll go up to the lake and do a little fishing. Or go for a real long walk. Try to stop blabbing for a while and start listening again.

Photo by Patrushka

Meet the Grandson!

World, say hello to Mr. David Christopher Pfurr of Clinton, New Jersey. David arrived March 30, in a flurry of excitement and quite a bit of uncomfortableness, including a C-section, - all ten pounds, four ounces of him. What a kid! This guy is ging to take Goliath on. A world-changer, for sure.

Mom is doing okay, but it was a rough go and she just got out of intensive care yesterday, praise God from whom all blessing flow. What a kid!

We're grabbing a plane for New Jersey tonight to spend some time getting to know him. What a kid! Oh, did I already say that?

A Peeved Pig

I'm a little peeved at Blogger this morning. A few weeks ago I changed my web address to ponderingpig.com (or www.ponderingpig.com works too). Bought space on my own server and now I'm all set up. A free and independent blogger.

The same day I upgraded the Pigsty to New Blogger, which many of you guys already use. It's advertised as having all kind of drag and drop options so you can mess around with your blog's layout without needing to know HTML and CSS. I thought, hey, I can freshen up the look around here. Put up pictures and paint the living room so to speak.

I also liked the new labels. I wanted to replace my current sidebar topic list with a list of these labels.

I spent much of yesterday trying to do that. Finally a guy named Peter Chen at Blogger Tips and Tricks informed me none of those tricks are available to people using FTP and their own servers - like me. We have to do things the old way. I have to learn HTML, and instead of pondering the truth of the universe I have to read CSS for Dummies.

What peeves me is there is not one word of this restriction anywhere on Blogger Help. Not one syllable. I combed it yesterday. If it hadn't been for Peter Chen I would still be combing.

Now if I can just get Blog Search to actually search the Pigsty I will at least be back to where I was a month ago. Botheration!

Why I'm Not Posting Much Right Now...

Sorry, I haven't been posting much of late. It's not that I'm not writing, but the piece I'm working on is taking a while.

This whole 'writing your memoirs' thing requires waiting - waiting for the fog of memory to clear so I can see back forty years ago. In order to describe stuff I have to see clearly what it looks like. Imagine trying to listen in to a conversation going on in 1965! Could you please repeat that?

I'm trying, not very successfully, to write about the stuff I just breathed in - the color of the sidewalk on a foggy morning, what the streetcar sounded like as it lumped through the tunnel under Twin Peaks.

Then there is the whole part about digressions. I open little doors and interesting thoughts fly out and I follow them and realize I'm not getting anywhere. So I have to backtrack.
And there's the whole depressing realization that I haven't really captured what I was trying to capture and I have to shut down and wait till I slept on it.

I like writing about my early life. I'm convinced the people I knew and the things I saw are worth writing about. But it just takes longer than the other things I like to write about. So I'm not posting much.

Come back to check, okay? I'll be up again soon. And, hopefully, it'll be anygood....

Photo credit: Flickr: Photos from pbo31

Hidden Lives of Pigs

For years I've been trying to tell you I have intelligence beyond that of the average three year old. And why not? I'm a pig! We pigs are loyal, brave, play video games, never eat like pigs unless injected with HogCrave, and are generally the kind of guy you want to have around in a firefight or hanging our with your pals.

I learned all this from a web page reader and photo blogger Leo Sadorf just emailed me. If you ever want to enjoy your eggs with bacon again, don't read this link, The Hidden Lives of Pigs. As for me, I'm swearing off my cannibalistic habits. Soon as I finish up that pound of bacon.

A Pig Ponders Goodness and Catwomen

Here's a few things I've been pondering...

I know there's a super-heroine named Catwoman, but how come there's never been a superhero named Dogman?



What's more good than goodness? Why, goodnessness, of course. And what's even better than goodnessness? That's easy...goodnessnessness, as in "the delicious goodnessnessness of fresh raspberries." And you know what's even better than goodnessnessness?

Oh, shut up!

Merry Christmas, Ponderers

Where children pure and happy pray to the blessed child,
where misery cries out to thee, Son of the mother mild;
where charity stands watching and faith holds wide the door,
the dark night wakes, the glory breaks,
and Christmas comes once more.

O Little Town of Bethlehem 4th stanza

Merry Christmas, Ponderers --
Join us on the truck, wherever you may be--
There's a lot to see out there, and we're headin' out.
From The Pondering Pig and Patrushka

A Rooster at the Crisis Pregnancy Center

Foghorn Leghorn, the fabulous talking rooster of Toronto, reported in yesterday. He's been volunteering down at the local crisis pregnancy center. Here's his report...

"I talk to men and couples. The ladies talk to the girls and there's usually a lot more of them than guys for sure...Some of these kids just don't get it and the guys are, well, dopes a lot of them.

"It's sad but it would be a comedy if it wasn't so sad. I had 2 guys that didn't know how the gals got pregnant since they pulled out before they were completely done. Gee, kid. It only takes one. One guy thought his girl was cheating on him because they only had sex a couple times one month so it couldn't be him."

I have a lot of respect for the Foghorn. It takes an uncommon man to be willing to get down into the grit and sorrow of life like that.

Through Kiva, We're Coloring the World

Hey, check the new map to the right. There you'll see all the countries the Pondering Pig Social Investment Group is already impacting, $25 bucks and up at a time through Kiva.org. Drag on the map to get more detail.

Pig SIG investors are savvy investors. Using Kiva.org, we've scoured the world for opportunities in Kenyan cows, Bulgarian bakeries, and Ecuadorian shoe stores. We've found the wide awake, geddupandgo entrepreneurs who just need the infusion of a few bucks to get out of street peddling and into their own kiosk. Hey, the skies the limit when your business has credit.

And poverty sucks.

Join the Savvy Seven and let me know who you're investing in so I can add you to the PigSIG stats.

Seven PigSIG Kiva investors today, up from two on Tuesday:

Belladonna
Hannah
Greg
Leo
Kirstie
Patrushka
PonderPig

I've added links to all seven lender portfolios in my index. Just click on Pondering Pig Social Investment Group.

Hard Rain Falling

Here's a special Thanksgiving treat. I'm not writing anything! Instead, I'm putting up this poem sent by correspondent Carrie Helser the other day. It's just too good, and very piggish. Carrie kiped it from Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac.

Hard Rain
by Tony Hoagland

After I heard It's a Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
played softly by an accordion quartet
through the ceiling speakers at the Springdale Shopping Mall,
I understood there's nothing
we can't pluck the stinger from,

nothing we can't turn into a soft drink flavor or a t-shirt.
Even serenity can become something horrible
if you make a commercial about it
using smiling, white-haired people

quoting Thoreau to sell retirement homes
in the Everglades, where the swamp has been
drained and bulldozed into a nineteen-hole golf course
with electrified alligator barriers.

You can't keep beating yourself up, Billy
I heard the therapist say on television
to the teenage murderer,
About all those people you killed—
You just have to be the best person you can be,

one day at a time—

and everybody in the audience claps and weeps a little,
because the level of deep feeling has been touched,
and they want to believe that
the power of Forgiveness is greater
than the power of Consequence, or History.

Dear Abby:
My father is a businessman who travels.
Each time he returns from one of his trips,
his shoes and trousers
are covered with blood-
but he never forgets to bring me a nice present;
Should I say something?
Signed, America.

I used to think I was not part of this,
that I could mind my own business and get along,

but that was just another song
that had been taught to me since birth—

whose words I was humming under my breath,
as I was walking through the Springdale Mall

"Hard Rain" by Tony Hoagland from Hard Rain: A Chapbook.
© Hollyridge Press. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

Envy of the Pondering Pig

The Pondering Pig has a cold. He has not been feeling well, poor chap. He can't think of a word to say. He wants to go on with the college series, but the opening into it eludes him. He reads all you other bloggers with alarm. How come you have something to say, but I don't?

Genevieve can always come up with something. A tulip in the windowsill is all she needs. Or a clipping from the newspaper.

Spoke, the Ranter of the North, gets upset over injustice wherever he sees it. Walmart opening a new chain in Canada! Or a thoughtless remark at church. He's excitable and gets comments just by sneezing.

Then there's the other terrific Canadian, Paula. She's silent for a while, then bam! another perfectly cut gem memory from her childhood and youth appears from the air, like magic. So simple and clean and crafted. Go, Paula!

Even Leo Sadorf, the Great Commenter, has started up his own blog in addition to his excellent photoblog and soon will be filling the airwaves with his brand of wisdom and bemusement (in addition to playing with his cameraphone).

I like to go to Belladonna's site, Mind-Muffins, and see the same old post up again for yet another day. It eases my mind. But she has an excuse. She's traveling in Egypt!

And please don't remind me about Peggi Graminski. Every day she puts some new treasure up online. And sometimes two or even three. She never seems to hit the wall. Peggi is something else and if you haven't been over to Desert Photography lately, go right now.

But the Pondering Pig has nothing to say this morning. Again. Shall I have peanut butter on toast for breakfast? Or would a soft-cooked egg be better? If only I could save the world from hunger and sorrow. But then when would I take my nap? I hope you feel the depth of my misery.

Well, as John and Paul once said...You know, if you break my heart I'll go, but I'll be back again.

Oh, that reminds me. Lately I've been visiting The Walrus Speaks, blog by a couple of guys who think about the Beatles all day and all night. It's a pretty good little blog. They never run out of things to say. And Ringo always writes in to correct their spelling errors. (not really)

Oh again. I nearly forgot my own wife's new photoblog, Patrushka's View. It's taken off very well in its first few days. If you haven't been over yet, stop by. I never get tired of looking at her photos, and I've been looking at them since 1970!

The mouse who envied the lion used with permission Rick Lovell Illustrations.

Come Visit Patrushka's New Photoblog

My Patrushka just doesn't get enough exposure here at the Pigsty. So we've started a new photoblog just for her pics. Could you drop by and check it out please? And leave a comment? I especially need to know if you you have to wait a long time to get on to her site, or if there are problems with the comment system - that kind of thing. Especially if you use a dial-up connection. Here's the link: Patrushka's View

Lindy-Hopping To Glory

With apologies to my dial-up readers, I just have to post one more quick video clip. It's got everything pig pals commented on yesterday after the Anita post. Great jitterbugging, the export of American culture worldwide, the gutsy spirit of the "greatest generation", and a time when the whole world, with the possible exception of the Third Reich, believed the Americans were the good guys. This is good stuff, folks. It's from a 1944 film called "The Canterville Ghost" and I just have to see the whole movie...

The Canterville Ghost (1944) -- Jitterbug / Woogie Boogie

What Does A Pig Ponder?

Exactly my question. I decided to find out - and I spent much of yesterday going through porcine perturbations for nearly a year, assigning categories to every post. It's not like I write about root beer or something. I kept coming up with categories like 'Stupid Evil' and 'Pigs Go Mad'. So now I know what I write about, and I'm foolish or vain enough to think you might enjoy rummaging through the back files too - at least if you're mad too to know more beatniks, hippies, Laurel and Hardy, and a pondering pig's perturbations. There they are - over in the sidebar. Have fun, and let me know if you find any mistakes.

Pondering Pig's Tour of San Francisco

Planning your big trip to San Francisco? Don't forget your coat! I know you want to see Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum real bad, and, oh those cable cars climbing halfway to the stars, they’ve got to be great. How about a trip to the Haight-Ashbury to see where the Grateful Dead lived? Maybe a topless bar (wink wink nod nod), and a nightcap in the bar of the Holiday Inn.

But hold on for a minute. There’s another city hidden beneath the glitter and gloss of "My Enchanted City”. A city with hidden treasures and landmarks that only the talking pigs know about. Let me take you down, cause I'm going to...San Francisco's Richmond District, Home of the Talking Pigs!

Oh, there’s not many of us left now in the City. We’ve dispersed across the world. I’m an exile myself, sleeping in an abandoned mobile home far down the coast with only an owl and a feral cat for company. (Besides the beautiful Patrushka and her indomitable Mom, of course, both of whom insist they like it)

Oh, perhaps it's quiet, perhaps it's a little lonely today. But there was a time when the Richmond resounded to the throng of happy snorts and grunts, when little curly tails disappeared into the bakeries and came out with pies and cakes and sugar cookies to take home for tea. Young pigs such as myself studied in the libraries and parks of the Richmond and learned to ponder deeply into the mystery of things.

Wandering through the muffled streets, we learned to love the fog and moist grey gloom. For us it was a warm cozy blanket. The wind barreling off the Pacific, it filled the lungs with glee. Ah, for the life of a talking pig in the Richmond District in those golden times of yore.

Certain among you are beginning to wonder when the show starts and I wish you’d have a little more patience. I’m just getting warmed up. But ever it shall be. Okay, next picture, please…

The Temple of Learning. Ah, the lines of merry young pigs that stood outside the Balboa waiting for the box office to open and the Saturday matinee to begin. Some Saturdays we heard a lecture on Aristotle. Other Saturdays it was six color cartoons, a Superman serial, and Mickey Rooney in “Penrod Fights The Gangsters”. Even today, the remnants of the Golden Age remain. Where else could you have your choice of Nacho Libre or Army of Shadows, a phenomenal, magnificent 1969 French film about the Resistance during WWII, and don’t miss it if you trust a talking pig’s judgment). But it’s not coming soon to a theater near you. Sorry. Maybe on DVD.
The Secret Treasure Statue. I boldly proclaim its location because I know how to get to the treasure and you don’t. No, it’s not symbolic of the treasure of the imagination – it’s money. Gold beyond your wildest dreams! And it’s mine, mine mine! Hahahahahahahahah.


Adolf Sutro. How we honor Adolf. Not only did he build San Francisco’s Sutro Park, most beautiful park in the known universe, he was the first talking pig to successfully pass as a human for most of his life. We don’t like to do it, but it’s so much more convenient. People are always asking embarrassing questions like “How come you’re not wearing trousers?” But they never guessed the truth about Adolf. What a pig! Too bad about the name though. It was a perfectly nice name in 1890.












The Old Manse. Pigs lived here once but now they’re gone.




Our tour of San Francisco's Richmond District is about halfway through. We'll be stopping for lunch today at The Blathering Pig. Please try not to encourage the proprietor or we'll never get served!

Patrushka At The Beach

Yeah, It's Sunday at Pismo Beach and the whole world has come to bask and dance and shriek with delight...


Or be young and beautiful for an hour of summer...


Or ponder 'bout why mustard is yellow...


Or sit quietly and wonder if there might be a whale...


Or just be out for a stroll 'cause it's summer,summer, wonderful summer at Pismo Beach.

Photos by Patrushka

Where's That Pig?

Hey, how come that pig don't come round no more?

Guys, I'm not coming round cause I got no internet connection. That's the sad truth. I don't know what Paula or Spoke are blogging about up in Alberta. I haven't checked out Foghorn Leghorn's new blog in weeks. What's Genevieve thinking about down in Hopkinsville, Kentucky? What's on the Little Pig's mind down in Dallas? I don't know because I haven't gone to look. Same with my photoblog favorites. What are Leo and Peggi and Nitsa putting up for my admiration? I wish I knew.

I miss the snappy repartee at The Pondering Pig, although I thank you all for coming by and leaving encouraging notes. Patrushka has been really touched by how much you like her stuff and is talking about getting a better camera. We were looking at the Pigblog at Woodstock Pizza in San Luis Obispo yesterday, and she said, "Even Spoke came by and left an encouraging note! He NEVER comes by!" So you cheer her up considerable, as you do me.

Gabbin, our trusty nag, says to say Hi. He wants his own pasture and we want our own little hovel again.

Meanwhile, back in Nebraska…

Mysteries of My Web Log

My employers, the mighty Schraf Syndicate, provide each of their star bloggers with tools to analyze and build their web traffic, none of which make much sense to me.

From reading the comments here at the Pigsty, one would think a nice little group of web friends drop by the Pigsty regularly for a cuppa and a comment. Let's see, there's Leo and Hannah out in Arizona, and Paula and Spoke up in Alberta and Kirstie here in Rhode Island, plus my brother Gary in the Santa Cruz mountains of California and Carioca out in San Francisco and, did I miss anybody? Oh yeah, a cat dropped by once - that was unique. But he never came back. Apologies if I missed anybody else.

Yet the Schraf web logs indicate that the Pig's Pad gets nearly 500 "hits" a day and about 60 of those folks stay here for up to an hour each visit to read up on the doings in PonderPig's mind.

Man, I wish I knew who you all were and how you found the Pigsty! It's like there's a big party going on here but I didn't happen to notice. Did a friend tell you? Were you just in the neighborhood and saw my sign?

The Pig Sty is: Open.
Cream teas $.75
Espresso: $.25
Cappucinos $.30

If you're in the mood - drop me a line in the Comments box. Just where you live or something. And is the Baby Beatnik thing working for you? Enquiring pigs want to know!