The Cliffs of Nyoka (The Iverson Ranch Series)

This one is an easy so I will make it quick. I won't give out gps coordinates because it is almost at the same spot as Lone Ranger Rock. Go back to that blog for that and another picture of these rocks. If you know where that is you just look south, and it is there. You can't miss them. These rocks get their name from a serial called, The Perils of Nyoka. In the scene Nyoka, played by Kay Aldridge, is being chased by a gorilla called, Satan. He forces her off the cliff where she falls to her death...well..watch the video on for this one for more explanation on this cliffhanger.

The Cliffs of Nyoka (Youtube Version)

The Comanche Station Location (The Alabama Hills Series)

(GPS: N36 39.550 W118 08.461)

Here is one that is a bit different. Technically, it really is not in the Alabama Hills area. It is much further north on Movie Road and out of the way of the great rock structures of the area. Not too many things have been filmed out here compared to the rest of the Alabama Hills.

Notice the trees in this next still from Comanche Station:

Now compare to this:
The common theme in my Alabama Hills Series is that people and environments change, but rocks and hills/mountains pretty much stay the same over a period of time. Trees tend to live short lives. Although I must note, the Bristlecone Trees about 80 miles away outside of Bishop and Big Pine in the Ancient Bristlecone Forest are the oldest living organisms on the planet going back a few thousand years. It is possible that some of these trees go back to the time of these movies, but you can see that a lot of other trees have grown in that were not here back during that time.
The actual "Comanche Station" in the movie was really not a big part of the movie. Budd Boetticher's movies with Randolph Scott tend to have titles that are a red herring to the real story. On the other hand, the house on "Anchor Ranch" in The Violent Men was featured throughout the movie here. Including the climatic final scenes. I will say something about "Anchor Ranch" and the real one at the bottom. The following picture is the entrance into the area with Movie Road in the foreground passing by.
"Comanche Station" would have been in the background right side of this next picture. The house in The Violent Men would have been much further back near the incline.
The small horse stable would have been to the left in the background of the following picture:
One of the silly things I mentioned in the video is something I call the "Comanche Station Guardian." Whenever I visit this area there is always this guy sitting by on one of the trees:
He usually starts making loud sounds. In the video, he was flying around and at one point I thought he might dive bomb me. I have seen more than one of these there, but if you see him there tell The Comanche Hawk I said, "Hi!"

I mentioned that in The Violent Men they refer to that ranch here as "Anchor Ranch." I was told the story once, but can not remember all the details. Someone in Lone Pine would be better explaining this. As I remember, this movie took place here and you might notice that there are a bunch Anchor signs in the movie. When you first head into Lone Pine heading north on the HWY 395 on the left side you will see the real Anchor Ranch and there is a Anchor Sign near the private road that takes you into the ranch. Originally, if my faulty memory is correct, they took one of the signs from the movie and put it there. The one that is currently there is not from the movie, but a replacement. There really is not any connection between the two locations other than that. However, the real Anchor Ranch I have just described was used for tons of old b-westerns going back to the 1940's. There used to be something called the Hacienda that shows up in a lot of Hopalong Cassidy movies. I was there last October. The last remains of a wall fell down a few years ago. One of these days I might put up a funky video of a dead cow being dragged by a truck near there. Kind of dark and morbid; it is April Fool's Day type of material, but may not get the best reactions. ;) I have pictures of this area, but there really is not much to see there other than using your imagination.

Christmas in May (aka Sounds of Silence)

Memorial Day weekend was rather unique this year in the Sierra Nevada. The weekend is traditionally, for practical purposes, the beginning of summer to a lot of people. Usually, the area is not hot, but rather warm with the sun out. The area is not totally predictable though since thunder showers can happen on any day in the afternoon. I would have never thought that it would rain and snow the whole time I was there last weekend.

If you have seen some of my blog entries in the past I have shown this area before. I will list them at the bottom. I went to bed on a Saturday night listening to a random pitter patter on the roof. I figured it would be gone in the morning. I woke up and heard the same random pitter patter. The visibility outside was very poor, but then I saw that I had awoke to a winter wonderland. Some guy greeted me with, "Nice spring weather." I replied with, "Yeah, Merry Christmas!" Here is how the visibility was looking across Upper Twin Lake:

This next picture is close to Mono Village. Normally, with this location, you would be able to see Matterhorn Peak (aka The Great Silence, my emblem, my icon, etc.) in the background. This was not the case at all this weekend. I never saw it while I was there along with practically all the other mountain peaks in the Eastern Sierra.
In the above picture there are switchbacks that begin the hike to Matterhorn Peak (and a few other areas; like a different way into Yosemite). I usually go up those switchbacks ever few days over the summer. Of course, during the summer the weather is totally different. Here are how these switchbacks looked during the snow:

This is looking down on Upper Twin. Lower Twin is barely visible in the distance.
As I went higher the snow started to get deeper. I could have forced the issue and continued, but I really did not have the desire because there was some other areas I wanted to take pictures of down below.
Looking in the western direction was interesting to me because there is a hike I do ever few years that way. It takes you to Barney Lake (and then Peeler or Snow Lake if one wants a much further hike). I have a lot of pictures looking this way, but with different colors. Having the snow and clouds like this was something I have not seen very much of here at all. I was here on Oct. 31 some years back. When I started that hike it was cold, but after I had cleared the switchbacks the first major snow storm of the season happened. It was really depressing at the time since I had to turn around. This was much more enjoyable. I am just glad it does not usually happen in the middle of August.

If you want to compare with how this area usually looks during sunny conditions then check out these old blogs:

Out of the Past at Upper Twin Lake
Out of the Past Part 3

John Wesley Hardin vs. Charles Webb Gunfight

Today marks the anniversary of the John Wesley Hardin vs. Charles Webb gunfight (May 26, 1874). The following are edited clips of a documentary on John Wesley Hardin. I edited it to deal just with the parts regarding this gunfight. The video is good, but like most documentaries it had to leave out a lot

(EDIT: I took down the video mid-2010. Look for the Gunfighters series on DVD)

I am not a very good story writer since I tend to be very analytical in my writing. The gunfight has been covered a lot of times. I will list my favorite sources below for it. They explain it way better than I can. Let me just cover some of the issues not mentioned in the video.

One thing of importance that is rarely mentioned in popular stories about the gunfight is the issue of John’s brother, Joe Hardin. Joe came to the small town of Comanche in Texas in the early 1870’s. He had made a name for himself in the community and established himself in such a way that the rest of his extended family came to live there.

Many at the time did not realize, or at least did not come out publicly at the time, that Joe was doing illegal land deals for profit. By creating phoney documents he would “sale” land between different people. A typical deal might start with papers that were to show that land was owned by someone years earlier, then be sold to another person, then sold to another person, sold to a friend or relative of Joe, and back and forth. The paper trail would be such a confusing mess that if someone tried to verify the sources it would be too much trouble, and they would probably give up. Joe’s land scheme would come out much later. He not only did this with land, but with cattle as well.

Meanwhile, John Wesley Hardin had been preparing a herd of cattle for Kansas. Jim Taylor, a friend and ally in the Sutton-Taylor feud, decided to come along since he had just killed Bill Sutton a few months prior. It was a way he could stay out of trouble since he was being looked for in the Dewitt County area. Hardin had given the order to some of his men to take the herd north. He, Jim, and a few others would meet them on the way.

Hardin took off to Comanche to visit his dad, mom, and the rest of his family. A second herd was being worked out in Comanche. This was going to be the real problem and cause of the gunfight. This was a typical deal Joe Hardin had worked out with his phony paperwork. The disputed cattle were in nearby Brown County. Brown County cattlemen were already concerned and discussed the issue with the local law enforcement. It was decided that former Texas Ranger, and now deputy sheriff, Charles Webb would now be on the case.

The herd was in litigation, but John and his men forced the issue and took them. Webb, realizing that local cattle rustler’s Jim Buck Waldrip and James Beard were probably involved, arrested them. John, Joe Hardin, and the rest of their men ate dinner at the ranch of Jim Buck Waldrip. Mrs. Waldrip, complained over the Webb arrest. A crucial point was made later on in the trail against Hardin later that it was here a conspiracy was made to kill Webb. Joe Hardin was alleged to have something like, “When the time comes we will take care of him (Webb).”

On John’s 21st birthday there was a major celebration in the town. There was a festival, with the saloons running wild, and a race track going with horse races. John and his men did very well in the horse racing and won a lot of money. They spent the evening doing rounds at two saloons. It was at Jack Wright’s saloon that the local Sheriff Carnes and others like Jim Taylor were concerned about John because he had had too much to drink. Like most gunfighters, the more drink they had the better chances bad things would happen.

John could be very obnoxious when drunk. This would be another factor for what was about to go down. Charles Webb had been at the celebration. He was seen in the distance approaching the saloon.

John claims that he had never met Charles Webb before. If, and that is a big if, he had not met Webb before this confrontation, it does appear that he was probably pointed out to John during the celebration. There are some claims that John and his men had met Webb before and cursed him in Brown County.

In any case, Webb approached and John confronted him. He asked Webb if he had the papers to arrest him. Webb denied this. There was an exchange back and forth with John being verbally aggressive while Webb being rather soft and calm. A friend of Webb, seeing what was about to happen, called over to Webb since they were to eat dinner together. John held Webb and said something to the effect of, “Your not just going to leave me here are you?”

The next bit of dialogue has Webb saying that he was "not afraid" of John. It seems that some dialogue is missing in the accounts here because John said something accusing Webb of being a coward. At least that is what I get out of his response of not being afraid.

At this point, both John and Webb both go for their guns. Some say that Webb drew first, but both men seem to fire at about the same time. Webb grazes John's side, but John hits Webb in the left cheek. Jim Taylor and Bud Dixon (John's cousin) start firing their guns to finish the job.

Within minutes a crowd of angry residents appear at near the saloon. John surrenders his gun to Sheriff John Carnes. Carnes attempts to protect John and company from the mob who want to hang them. John, along with his men, slip out the side door and take off.

This killing marked the end for John Wesley Hardin and his gang. In the following days a massive manhunt started with posses and Texas Rangers. Joe Hardin, Tom and Bud Dixon would be placed under arrest only to be hanged by a hooded mob. Two other cousins, Ham Anderson and Alexander Barekman were killed after they decided to leave John. Other members of his gang would eventually be lynched. A few years later, after leaving Texas for Florida, John was captured and sent to prison.

What is interesting to me is the aftermath of the gunfight. The town of Comanche was hysterical over what they thought John might do. There were rumors he would come back and burn the town to the ground over the hanging of Joe Hardin.

Mollie Godbold's two part article is my favorite reading of how this all went down. She really gives a good account of the fear of all the people involved.

Godbold, Mollie Moore. "Comanche and the Hardin Gang," Southwestern Historical Quarterly, June and July, 1963. 

Hardin, John Wesley. The Life of John Wesley Hardin. Norman; University of Oklahoma, 1961.

Marohn, Richard C. The Last Gunfighter: John Wesley Hardin. College Station, TX; Creative Publishing Co., 1995.

Metz, Leon. John Wesley Hardin: Dark Angel of Texas. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996.

Alright, my last few blogs have been a bit lengthy, but, believe me, I really abbreviated a lot. I will go back to shorter location hunting blogs at the beginning of June. Until then...

Reconstruction and John Wesley Hardin

The area I spend a lot of time reading about is the time period right after the U.S. Civil War. The Reconstruction period where the former rebel states come back into the Union I find even more interesting than the Civil War itself. Part of the reason for this is that in some ways the war was still going on. Some people refer to this period that started in 1865-1877 has the Second Civil War.

In any war there really are two main phases. There is the invasion phase where one side tries to conquer and occupy the other. If the side that is being attacked defends itself then the invasion side is defeated and the war may stop. Or, the defensive side can continue the war by then becoming the invasion side, and the roles then reverse.

The second phase is the occupation phase. This may or may not be a peaceful time. If the victorious side intends to keep the land conquered, it tries to assimilate the conquered people into society. This is typical of the days of empires. On the other hand, if the goal is just to get a country working again under new conditions then the occupation phase is meant to be temporary. In a sense, it really is not a war compared to the first phase because the major war operations have stopped. However, guerrilla warfare consisting of ambushes might take place by groups of conquered people at this time.

A lot of the issues we face today have patterns seen in the past. It is one of those reasons history is studied because history tends to repeat itself. We know that after WWI, Germany was really punished and left to start itself up from scratch. The country was not helped build itself back up and went through a depression. Part of the reason Hitler rose to power was because of this. This is a part of the reason that there is major concern about how the situation in Iraq is handed.

A lot of the same issues that are going on in Iraq occurred during Reconstruction. I can not speak for everyone’s education in this area, but I suspect so much emphasis is put on the actual leading to and actual fighting of the U.S. Civil War that Reconstruction tends not to be seen as important. The idea may be that southern states just had to ratify a few new amendments and approve a new state constitution and they were back in. The areas I spend the most time reading about show that it was really a bloody mess. When it was all said and done, the south ending up winning the war of reconstruction.

The U.S. Civil War, the war itself, and Reconstruction are probably the most controversial issues in U.S. History. Issues of the authority of the federal government vs. the state’s rights, issues regarding race rights and relations were still strong issues up to the 1960’s. Of course, some would say those are still major issues today.

I do read the governmental history of the time period starting with Lincoln, to Johnson, to Grant, and then to Hayes. As an aside, it turns out Rutherford B. Hayes is my fourth cousin. What I like to do when I read history is read about the real top down history which usually deals with the government policies, but I also like to read stuff during the same period that is from the bottom up. The grassroot perspective. This is looking at the common persons issues on the field and not in some committee.

My favorite person to read about during this period is outlaw John Wesley Hardin. I have mentioned him before in a prior entry, but during his time in El Paso he was really on the downside of his life. In the overall study of history he is not that important, but what I find is that studying his life and relating it to the big picture of Reconstruction history it actually makes a lot of sense.

I am just going to abbreviate here how things worked out, but his life is fun to follow from the years 1865-1877. In my view, the first of three phases starts when Hardin was a young boy through the Civil War, but more importantly through the next few years after the war when he started killing. In Texas there was a lot of resentment over losing the war. Some guys, like Bob Lee in the north eastern part of Texas claimed they never surrendered creating what was known at the Lee-Peacock feud. From 1865-1870 the military occupied Texas. They were to keep the peace, but also allow elections to be held to get the state government going again.

Hardin started killing by shooting a former slave called Mage. In his autobiography he claims to have killed some military soldiers not too long after. He claims to have done this in the name of the lost cause which was the way of justifying the loss of the Civil War, but at the same time resisting the abusive north.

Once Republican Edmund Davis became governor in 1870 and Texas became part of the union again, the military left the state. This started the next phase of Hardin’s life. Gov. Davis introduced the state police which were to take care of all the crime in Texas. Under captains, like Jack Helm, the state police started sweeping the state looking for outlaws. An important point to make is that a good percentage of the new policemen were black. This was quite a shock since many of them were former slaves which had a new superior authority. The state police was obviously controversial. A lot of Texans saw them as abusive, undisciplined, and corrupt.

During this phase with Gov. Davis in power Hardin not only fought against and killed many state policemen, but he was introduced to the Sutton-Taylor Feud or the Dewitt County War. I mentioned this some blog entries back when I was talking about opposing viewpoints, but James Smallwood argues in his new book that what was really happening here was the Taylor’s were really criminal gang that were continuing the fight against the Union, in other words, the second civil war. In any case, the Hardin-Taylor gang became well known as is the high point of Hardin’s outlaw career.

Gov. Davis and the State Police only lasted a few years. Like most republicans that were put into power in the south, their reign as leaders was quite short. Once the democrats were put back into power, things for the outlaws changed. For quite some time many Texans put up with and encouraged crime and outlaws since it was against the dreaded rule of the north. A lot of the outlaws were looked at as the good guys and the northern Yankees were the bad guys. With the Yankees and republicans out of the way this would change.

So, by the end of 1873, Hardin did not realize this, and he had no way of knowing this, his reign of power, so to speak, was coming to and end. A great victory took place in the feud where Bill Sutton was killed by Jim Taylor in the early months of 1874. Then in May of 1874, Hardin ended up killing the wrong man on his 21st birthday. This killing was his major downfall and created the biggest manhunt for Texas at that time. My next entry will cover this event. In my view, the killing of Webb began the third phase of his life during Reconstruction.

After leaving Texas he went to Florida, and during the presidency of Hayes, he was caught and sent to prison. This was in August of 1877 right as Reconstruction had really ended with the compromise that put Hayes into power as president.

As I said, even with all of this, I had to abbreviate a lot because it is a very complicated area. I like it because it really goes into that area of the old west I like, but is important in understanding U.S. history from the top down and the bottom up. I will continue with the crucial gunfight next time.

Thou Shall Not Kill

When I was about ten years old my grandfather introduced me to a BB gun. He gave me this long lecture on the rules and dangers about using guns before I could shoot this "toy" gun. He took me out and we spent some time shooting cans as targets. I would say about a half hour later a bird flew onto a telephone line. He motioned to me to line up a aim for it. I went and did it. I hesitated since I knew I would only get one shot, but my aim was true. Down the black bird came. My grandfather was shocked since he did not seriously think I would hit it.

I was really excited about it and wanted to tell my mom and grandma about how good my aim was. Later that evening I started to feel really bad about what I had done. I knew it was an animal, and a lot of what I ate was taken from dead animals. Still, something really bothered me about taking the life of something that way. It had not done anything to me, and I deprived it of living out its life.

When it comes to humans killing other humans there are two parts to it like what I described above, but obviously at a much higher level morally speaking. One is actually being able to do whatever is physically necessary to take the life out of another human. Be it pulling a trigger, pushing a button, using a weapon, striking someone, etc. Then the second part of it is living with what one has done. This is usually described as "having a conscience" which is the guilt one has to live with over doing the act.

One would think that those two issues are easy to overcome due to all the violence one sees on television and in movies. In fact, most of the population seems to think that it is very easy to become a professional soldier that can deal death to anyone at a moment's notice. This is not the case.

Just about everything I am going to say now comes from Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's book On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. When I read this book much of it came as a relief to me. Everyone has bouts of anger, frustration, and to some extent violence in them, but it seems like in the everyday news, TV, and movies this is the norm regarding humans. This book was rather helpful in helping understand some issues we seem to understand intuitively about ourselves and morality.

Grossman starts out with showing there is a lot of posturing done in fighting and war. This is almost always harmless and is like sticking the chest out to intimidate. Someone may fire a weapon with no intention of causing injury only to scare off the individual from fighting. This is part of the bluff. If it continues then it becomes a case of fight or flight. If the fight occurs then is usually ends in submission and is usually never to the death.

Grossman goes through a lot of examples in military history and shows that up to the Vietnam War only about 15-20% of all soldiers on the front lines actually took part in the actual fighting. Most of the other soldiers could not do it and found ways to support the 15-20% group. He spends most of the book leading to why Vietnam was different, and this had to do with the training the soldiers received. Up until Vietnam one drilled by firing at targets, but once we entered the 1960's new ways were created to have human like targets used to desensitize soldiers so they shot at these new targets instinctively. Then the rate of soldiers actively fighting using their weapons became over 80%. The tragedy became that they could actually do the physical technique of killing, but the conscience and guilt of it became a lot more problematic.

He shows that the average soldier can only handle about 60 days of combat. This is about 98% of all soldiers. There is the 2% that has the aggressive psychopath personality. That 2% does not mean they have the mentality of a serial killer, but just means they have either learned to overcome these feelings of conscience or are born that way. For the 98%, they will eventually hit fatigue, become confused, hysterical, obsessive, or develop other personality disorders.

The biggest fear a soldier has is letting down his fellow soldiers. What I have read about Audie Murphy was much like this. He was haunted not by those he killed, but those fellow soldiers that he knew killed on the battlefield. The thing that is interesting that Grossman states is it is not uncommon for someone rather he die himself than kill a fellow human being. Self-preservation is not as important as we may think in this area. The thought of seeing the pain on someone's face when you pull a gun and shoot can be really tramatic. It is really difficult to deny someone's humanity; there is something in us that tells us this is wrong. This is why I am convinced that if someone like Osama Bin Laden was found and locked in a room with someone with a weapon who lost a love one on 9/11/01 he would probably come out of the encounter alive. A good portion of the population, no matter how evil a person is, could not do the act of killing no matter how justified it maybe.

Grossman covers a lot of other areas I have not mentioned. Enemies must be dehumanized by showing they are inferior forms of life, that there has been a great evil to be morally avenged, etc. An emotional distance must be created. He shows that there are degrees to the "easiness" of killing depending on the range. That would be from dropping bombs from planes, to artillery, to grenade range. In those cases you do not see the faces of your enemy. On the other hand at closer ranges this changes. With guns all the way to hand to hand combat it becomes more certain of who is responsibly with the killing. He points out that shooting someone in the back is much easier to do that from the front. Seeing someone's eyes (the window to the soul) changes things dramatically.

One final thing in his chapter on atrocities is that most know that it is not a good idea to kill POW's. This is because you want to encourage the enemy in surrendering. Otherwise they will fight until the death because they know they have little to live for. This is why it is important to give your enemies a sense of hope and not treat them so badly. That is what I take out of this in that you want to give them a way out rather than force them into a corner where they have little hope and just want to fight more.

I wanted to bring this issue up as a reminder about the realities of violence. It is not an easy thing to do, and when it is done causes a lot of grief. This is something that is a part of human nature. It is the same for us as for anyone in the past. Keep this in mind when you watch a movie or when I am talking about some old west gunfighter.

Grossman, D., On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. Little, Brown and Co.: 1995.

May 13, 2008 = WESTERN DVD DAY

I will get back to uploading more movie location videos in June. It will probably be a slower pace than my recent onslaught which was doing a video every 2-3 days. If all goes well I will probably go back to weekly uploads and have something interesting for most of the summer.

It seems like once a year in May a bunch of western dvd's come out. Today is the day for the following:

From Fox:
The Big Trail (2-Disc Version with the full and wide-screen version)
Rawhide
The Gunfighter
Garden of Evil

From MGM/Fox:
Day of the Outlaw
Gunfight at Dodge City
Man of the West
Man With the Gun
Navajo Joe
The Way West
The Westerner

I have most of these on dvd-r so I will probably not rush out and buy these right away. My favorites being Man with the Gun, The Gunfighter, Rawhide, Day of the Outlaw, and Man of the West. Just an FYI, DeepDiscountDvd usually has a sale at the end of May to the beginning of June where they discount all their dvd's and you get free shipping. They usually have a code you type in when you purchase. It is a good sale and is probably when I will purchase these.

It turns out August 26, 2008 will be a great day for releases. I know How the West Was Won will have a good rerelease and The Law and Jake Wade will have a release.

Speaking of The Law and Jake Wade, one of the videos I will eventually do will have the location that the ghost town was at. There is nothing there now since the town props were taken down, but you can see the area. It is the same situation with Bad Day at Black Rock.

In my next entry later this week I want to talk about violence.

Objectivity and Human Nature

This is a follow up of my last few entries where I have been talking about how I deal with opposing viewpoints, etc. I am just setting the groundwork for how I approach a lot of everyday life issues and how I go about understanding history.

One of the guys I debated years back had a real hang up towards the word objective. Meaning, real apart from one’s mind. He was convinced the area of science was the only real area of objectivity. So, just about any other area be it history, religion and morality was subjective. Meaning, only existing in one’s mind.

I am not going to rehash how I responded to him, but there is a philosophical or logical trap one can get into by thinking like that. It has to do with making the statement, “X is subjective.” The statement is either true or false. If it is false, then we know “X is not subjective,” after all. On the other hand, if it is true then it self-destructs because it is making an objective statement about “X.” It is like someone saying, “I can’t utter a word in English.” Well, they just did. How about, “There is no truth.” Great, now we have a truth that says, “There is no truth.”

The same can be said with something like, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Someone may say that, but they usually have an idea in their head what they think Beauty is. Same with people that dispute academy award movies. The debate is going to be on what criteria is used to judge whether something is beautiful, or which movie is the best. It is the same with history too.

As far as history is concerned, and related to my last entry on opposing viewpoints, the key to being objective is how one goes about getting and presenting their information. Objectivity, in this sense, is having a rationally informed opinion by considering other points of view besides your own. By considering and acknowledging what others say prevents bias on the topic.

Again, like I mentioned in the opposing viewpoints entry, when I talk about controversial subjects I will try to provide the best sources on the issue. This may not always be successful, but that is what I attempt to do.

I wanted to say something else about how I view human nature because it does relate to what I was just talking about. I think humans, although they have great ideals and conscience in them, tend to be very selfish creatures. The first thing we do in the morning when we get up, through the day, until we go to bed is we think of ourselves. We may try to help others and do great acts in the process for our fellow humans, but we tend to think of ourselves before anyone else. If someone said I could go off to any 3rd world country I wanted to in order to help my fellow humans I would, but then the next question might be where am I going to live, or will I have enough food to get me through it. That might deter me from the trip.

I wanted to bring this up because there are a bunch of historical areas I examine where they are a lot of different types of people. Many are considered “Heroes” and other might be considered “Villains.” In Old West history, this usually comes up. It can always be disappointing to find out someone that some considered heroic turns out not be heroic all the time. On the other hand, some guys considered evil may actually do some charitable act or put there life on the line for someone.

I like to come back to human nature on that. I do not expect everyone to live black and white lives like this. All people have their own failings, temptations, addictions, etc. they have to deal with. If some source I read says a person did an act that they normally would not do, then unless I have reason to believe otherwise, I assume they did what they would not normally do. I do not come in with a bias assuming they can or can not have done something based on their previous behavior. This is the hang up a lot of people have who have studied Wyatt Earp have gotten into. Let the guy be human like the rest of us and do not worry about it.

Finally Saw Iron Man (and an update on the movie's locations)

My latest location from the new Iron Man movie is linked below.

When I was younger I really enjoyed comics, animated stories, and movies about DC and Marvel comics. At one point I was really into Batman, but over the years it was so overdone, and some of the movies were just downright bad that I burned out of it. I did some reading of Iron Man, but was never truly into that character. Honestly, most comic book movies that come out these days I usually pass up. I might see them on cable at some point and watch parts of them, but I can't remember anything I have watched from start to finish. I probably would have passed on this one too if the Alabama Hills were not in it.

I saw it earlier today. Overall, it was a real fun movie and well done. The only concern I had with something like this is if the action would be overdone. I had read that there is an explosion every twenty minutes. I do not know if that is the case or not, but I did not feel like I was overwhelmed with action at the expense of the story. There was a good balance in all of what they did. I think when they do the sequels they have set up a good foundation to work with so they can improve on what they did here.

I am glad to see that Robert Downey Jr. pulled this off and will create a following with this. Hopefully, he can keep himself in check for other roles.

The Alabama Hills locations turned out pretty much like I thought it would. They do not last too long in the movie. In fact, be sure you are there when the movie starts to see the part I refer to in my link below or you will miss it. What I have shown in the two videos I have done pretty much covers the major scenes there.

The airport scene looks like it was just done in Lone Pine. There is an airport right as you come into town heading north on the right. It is across from Anchor Ranch.

The "cave location" is an interesting one that I am not 100% about the location, but is on a road just outside of Keeler. Iron Man is shown flying out of the area on what would be the Inyo Mountains which is the mountain range to the east of the 395 HWY. I always like pictures from this way because Mount Langley looks really huge from this angle compared to the others. Give me a few months and I'll see if I can get an exact location.

The thing with a movie like this is the editing is very quick and they do not always show you everything around the area. So, the "cave" and some other scenes might take a bit of work if I want to try to figure them out. Although I am crazy enough to tell you that there is about one second where one of the villians is in a truck later in the movie that is on movie road. It is near what I am calling the Iron Man Ambush Location. That is just my intuition of the area kicking in after seeing a split second of where they were. It seemed to me they cut out a lot of the action during the ambush that we saw in the trailer. That is slightly disappointing, but maybe they will show more on the dvd release. It seemed like a lot more of that area was used in the trailer.

The sandy desert area is just outside the town of Olancha. There is a tradition of movies that want to look like they were filmed in the Sahara Desert come here to film. Even Hopalong Cassidy went "overseas" to this desert here in one of his films.

Regardless of the locations used, it was still a fun movie that I am glad to have seen. I do think it was a lot more adult than some other comic book movies I have seen. I await the dvd after the summer.

Okay, to see my latest video, which I may take down and redo at a later time with better conditions go here:

The Iron Man Ambush Location

For the old video I made back in October that, I guess, holds up pretty well after seeing the whole scene go here:

The Jericho Missle Launch Site (Originally, based on the movie trailer)

Be sure to stay after the credits of the movie to see an additional scene that sets up the sequels.

Opposing Viewpoints

I am very used to dealing with opposing viewpoints. I have spent many, many year’s examining reasoning and arguments back and forth on a great many topics. This is an area that can be very difficult for many people that are not used to having their beliefs challenged. I think what happens to a lot of people is they have had certain beliefs for a long time, been isolated with people of similar beliefs, or just really have taken for granted a lot in life. Then when someone sees something that completely contradicts their point of view there is an initial shock of seeing this happen. This might bring about some fear and anger. It is almost as if someone is telling them the sky outside on a normal day is green. The thought might be the person contradicting his or her ideas is crazy or a crackpot. If you could only see some of the looks I have gotten when I have been seen with a book that others know I probably don't agree with, "What are you reading that for?" It can really be upsetting to others if you talk in hypotheticals to people that are not used to various ways of argumentation even if you have the same beliefs.

This is why the old saying, “one should not talk about politics and religion with others,” came about. Although, I have noticed in my experience, right after that said a lot of politics and religion still comes up. Part of the reason for that is one can never really escape those issues if they are taking the issues of life seriously. Although I keep up on those issues, this blog really is not the place for them; at least not a full discussion of them. Most political viewpoints one has can be strongly opposed by about 50% of the population. I figure if someone really wants those types of debates and discussions they have better places to go.

Even in issues of history strong disputes are certain because, as I just mentioned, one can never really escape the big issues of life. Those issues are always mixed into history. Let me give you some examples.

For quite some time I have had an interest in a Japanese police force called the Shinsengumi. They were a group of samurai hired out to protect Kyoto near the end of the Japanese shogunate in the 1860’s. Eventually, when the Tokugawa shogunate ended and the Meiji era began, those who had not died or left had lost their jobs. Lots of books and movies have been based on these men. I own a bunch. There story has been told in fiction a lot because there is this idea of their strong loyalty and ideals. They would fight to the end no matter what the cause for the authority of the Tokugawa (and Aizu clan who hired them). There is a lot of “if’s” and “but’s,” but that is the favorable side. The other side is much more negative. With the fall of the shogunate brought about the Meiji Restoration. The Meiji Restoration brought about many political changes after the year 1867. Naturally, if one sees the restoration as being good politically then whatever was trying to hold it back would be a bad thing. So, from the negative point of view the Shinsengumi have been described as Nazi like cultists who used their rules and power as an excuse to commit murder. See, a whole political viewpoint may determine how one views the Shinsengumi.

I enjoy reading and watching both perspectives. Some years back I was told that a new book in English about the Shinsengumi by a guy known as Romulus Hillsborough would come out. I knew right away, based on his pro-Meiji stance in previous works, what viewpoint this book would represent. I did not care about that though, but just wanted to see it because it would be the first real book written in English about the subject. However, I knew this might be a problem for those that really advocate a more positive viewpoint of them. It took a long time for the book to come out, but when it finally did it was the way I expected it to be. I have not really kept up with that “fanbase” on this since I left it, but from what I have been told since then the response has had downright hostile toward the book. One of the most recent messages I was forwarded was about a guy who was declaring that the book should be banned and not purchased.

That is the worst attitude one can have when investigating history. In order to come to a greater understanding of anything one must allow for opposing points of view. If there are errors of fact, bad assumptions, etc. so be it because those will be corrected in the overall process. In the long run, more essays and books will come out in response and, the way I look at it, the truth will come out. Also, allowing other points of view allows you to strengthen your own point of view. Can your viewpoint hold up under rational thought? Maybe you have made some simple errors and the other viewpoint helps bring them out. So, although it can be painful, one should welcome other points of view and have a more humble approach. There is tons of stuff that I have had to correct over the years due to different outlook.

The book I was referring to was really written as a popular level book. The author writes more from a narrative approach where he is trying to tell a good story, but also includes themes and facts. To me, that is more of a historical fiction perspective. The book is not a university press book. The difference is that, for the most part, university press books tend to be more professional with scholars in the field. I suspect that a lot of the criticism taken is because it was not written like a professional historian would write it.

I am currently re-reading two old west books that have just come out that are university press books. One, Salt Warriors by Paul Cool, is about the El Paso Salt War in which a group of Mexicans forced the Texas Rangers to surrender. This is the only time that has ever happened. Some time back I mentioned there are three major stories about the El Paso area that could use a movie. This is one of them. The book is to some extent revisionist in that it goes against some of the popular thought of whether the Mexicans were a chaotic mob, but well organized insurgents. I’ll write about it at another date since the book is rather detailed and, in all honestly, rather tough read for me. It is a good book because of this, but you really have to want to know about every person involved in the conflict and not just the conflict itself.

The other book I am currently re-reading is the most radical book I have read in a while. The Feud that Wasn’t: The Taylor Ring, Bill Sutton, John Wesley Hardin and Violence in Texas by James Smallwood is a rather hostile point of view in regarding something called the Sutton-Taylor feud. You can see there might be a problem right away because the book even disputes that there was a feud. I’ll have to come back to this at another time because to explain what has traditionally been called the feud would take a long blog entry in itself. Let me point you here: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/SS/jcs3.html

In the feud traditionally understood, after the Civil War in the United States, the Taylor family got in a dispute with the Sutton side. The Sutton side is really not a family since Bill Sutton was the only participant, but it represents the law enforcement side. The Taylor’s were seen as outlaws who preyed on the cattle in the area. The Taylor’s saw the cattle as free to those who could catch them; this was known as mavericking (taking unbranded cattle). The Sutton side saw this as cattle rustling. I am really simplifying things here, but that is how it is traditionally understood.

Lots of books have been written on the feud. Most of them are from the Taylor point of view. Finally, a book has come out that gives more of the other side of the story. The author, James Smallwood, has written a lot in regards to the Reconstruction of the South after the Civil War. This book is another part of his view of the bigger picture. Now I am glad that the Shinsengumi fans I knew of are not into the Taylor family history. They really could not handle this. Smallwood is very hostile to what he calls the Taylor crime ring. In his view, the Taylor ring not only represents the family, but a lot more outlaw individuals associated with them. On each page he seems to constantly indict the Taylor’s with murders, rapes, racist acts, etc. as recorded by local law enforcement, the state police, and eventually the Texas Rangers. Again, some of the politics of the time period influences how one sees the Taylor family and the law enforcement of the period. If you think the south was mistreated during reconstruction by Yankee abusive rule then you might be sympathetic with the Taylor side. On the other hand, if you see the people like the Taylor’s as unrepentant confederates, criminals, and racists who were fighting a second civil war during reconstruction you probably will take the law enforcement side.

I have had some sympathy for the Taylor side from what I have studied in the past. Some of what Smallwood has presented is rather shocking. Some I would have expected. In Some instances I think he is rather biased and assuming the worst possible interpretation of the situation. At times I do not really care for the way he uses his sources in presenting the material; part of that maybe because he was limited to 200 pages and could not give full quotes of his sources. What is going to have to happen is a full examination of his sources that are mostly taken from the National Archives. However, when it is all said in done, I welcome a book like this. It helps in understanding the overall process of trying to figure out what was going on with the violence in Texas after the Civil War. Smallwood has filled in some of the details in some instances I have not found elsewhere. I think it will be a great thing to see further books on the subject and those in response to it.

I had to write a long blog to get out some of this. Seeing someone contradict what you believe can be a bit unnerving. It may produce fear and anger if you are not used to it. If you really are after truth then you will welcome it. It will help you reflect on what you really believe and whether would you really should believe it. I can not say I will do this with every entry I talk about regarding this, but I do try to give you sources for both sides when I can. At the end of the day, it is not up to me to figure out what you believe regarding anything in history or life. I will tell you what I think, point to a few sources, and it is up to you to figure everything out for yourself.

Let me give you some sources and alternatives. Regarding the Shinsengumi:

Hillsborough, Romulus. Shinsengumi: The Shogun's Last Samurai Corps. North Clarendon: Tuttle Publishing, 2005.

The next book is not so much an alternative point of view, but a university press text. The Shinsengumi are practically footnotes in this book. I wanted to refer to this book because it is done by a professional historian. There is a completely different style of doing history in both books. This is not a cheap shot at Hillsborough because he is using a historical narrative approach which is good when writing a story for the general public. Totman, on the other hand, is not so much trying to tell a story, but give you solid reasons for why the shogunate fell using historical sources.

Totman, Conrad. The Collapse of the Tokugawa Bakufu, 1862-1868. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1980.

Regarding the El Paso Salt War:

Cool, Paul. Salt Warriors: Insurgency on the Rio Grande. College Station:Texas A&M University Press, 2008.

As I mentioned, a great detailed and epic book, but IMO not the easiest of books to read; okay, for those of you that obsess over everything in the old west I am not talking to you. There are a bunch of earlier books, but let me just give this one by Sonnichsen. He had a stand alone version with just the Salt War section, but one might as well just get this one for the extra feuds. It maybe good to read this one first then compare with the above book.

Sonnichsen, C.L. Ten Texas Feuds. University of New Mexico Press, 2000.

Regarding the Sutton vs. Taylor Feud (or No Feud):

Smallwood, James. The Feud that Never Was: The Taylor Ring, Bill Sutton, John Wesley Hardin, and Violence in Texas. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2008.

For the classic telling of what traditionally was called the feud I again refer to the other book by Sonnichsen about Texas feuds. This book covers lots of other interesting feuds so it is worth getting.

Sonnichsen, C.L. I'll Die Before I Run. New York: Devin-Adair, 1962.

For a free account that is actually pretty good from the time period download the Victor Rose book:

The Texas Vendetta, Or, The Sutton-Taylor Feud

or go to the google page HERE.

James Dean Knife Fight Location

This is a well known one and is one of the ways the observatory people promote their location. Even before I was even into location hunting, as a kid, I could have told you where this one was.

There are some differences with the way it is now compared to then, but it is obvious that it is the same area. When you are facing the front of the observatory just follow it around on your left and you will run into this place.

Personally, I would have kept the lug wrench and not thrown it like James did. Ehh, I would not fight fair in a situation like this. That is just me though.


As I mentioned, part of the way they promote this place is with this movie. There is a plaque located here dedicated to James Dean. You can see the Hollywood Sign in the background. If you want to go to the observatory it is free. There are some short science movies they show for a fee, but the rest is free.

The Tunnel to the Griffith Observatory

I guess you could say this is one for the kids. I think Nancy Drew (2007) bombed at the box office last year, but at least it provided this one location. In this scene Nancy Drew and her friend almost get run over.

The picture below is the direction you have to go to get to the observatory. You just take a left out side of the tunnel, and within a minute or two you should find somewhere to park. That all depends on the day you go. During the week you should be able to get really close. Other times you may have to park down the hill a bit to walk up it.

When I did this I was wondering if I had the right side of the tunnel. After all it could have been filmed at the opposite end.
To make sure I had the right spot I examined the left side of my picture...
with the one below. The bush on the left is the same one, but there are some color stains on the wall that are the same.
The first picture from the movie was helpful too. With location hunting there are certain thing you look for in comparing stuff. This was not that tough, but you do develop an eye for detail. I can not remember since I have not seen the movie in ages, but it seems to me that the movie about Who Framed Roger Rabbit had something here too or the other side. Okay, duh, I just looked up the filming locations on imdb and it says it was the entrance to Toontown. Naturally, within Los Angeles there is tons of places movies are filmed that people walk by everyday.

My Days of Debates

While I was in my second year of college a friend and I would talk about the various issues regarding history, philosophy, religion, and politics. He made the comment one day that I was going into areas that, “you have to expect people disagreeing with you all the time.” I understood at the time what he meant, but for some reason it was not as powerful to me at the time. I think I had this idealistic view that others will disagree with each other, but if you present the better argument then your chances of coming to an agreement are better. I still do to some degree; otherwise, why even present arguments? Let me give you some personal history on how I have changed a bit on this.

Not too long after what I mentioned above with my friend, I was on a Bulletin Board System (BBS) corresponding with others by message boards and e-mail. A BBS was a pre-cursor to the internet. The internet was really just taking off at this point, but BBSes were still in vogue until about the mid-90’s. There was this man I noticed debating a lot of teenagers on these message boards. How do I explain this guy? He had this 1960’s Existentialist Hippie thing going, and he had this way of really talking down to the teens on there. I decided to step in and debate this guy so the teens would not feel like they were walked on, but mainly because I thought the guy was wrong on so many things.

After months of going and back and forth with this guy something always came up. He would always say something like, “There are lots of people that disagree with you.” I would acknowledge that, but then try to get him to respond to the particular argument I had made. You know, “Which premise do you think is not true? Let’s talk about the reasoning.” Later, it would come up again that others disagree with me. Then I would respond with, “If everyone disagreed about what 2+2 equaled would that mean that it did not equal 4?” Or, how about the people that thought before Columbus crossed the Atlantic the world was flat (It turns out a lot of people going back to the Greeks thought the world was round, but you get the point)? He had this hang up over the whole concept of truth and, in his mind, the argument was over once he pointed out others disagreed with me.

I ended up debating another guy sometime after this that was a lot smarter. The problem was he was not as educated in the areas we were talking about. What happened is whenever we came to a point that he was not comfortable with he would make some sarcastic remark or try to be funny at my expense. I had a “stick to the facts” attitude about it because I did not want to get into just name calling. Eventually it got to the point where I felt like all he wanted to do was take cheap shots. It was not about having good reasons, but seeing if he could get me angry, the upper hand emotionally, or something.

This is part of the reason I do not get involved with online debating very much. Usually, if it is something I really care about I might try to present a few facts and let it go. My days of big, drawn out debates are long gone. It just is not worth my time. If someone likes that sort of thing then he or she should do it. However, I would encourage doing it to see how well your arguments hold up rather to see if you can “convert” someone to your point of view. Also, asking probing questions to better understand what a person means to create clarity is probably just as important for your own understanding.

That last sentence is what I want to emphasize. In any issue you care about it is important that you study the issue and find good reasons for what you believe. A few blog entries ago I mentioned that to know something means you have to have true beliefs, but also good reasons for that belief. This is not an easy thing to do because of some of what I have just mentioned.

Now on this blog I do go into a little bit of history from time to time. On just about every issue there is an opposing viewpoint. On a lot of things it depends how skeptical one wants to get. This is especially true in old west history because of the fragmentary nature of some of the history. On the other hand, it has to do with assumptions or biases involved what one considers a fact, and what one considers evidence. Next time I will go more into the issues of opposing viewpoints and how I deal with them.

The Hollywood Sign Hike

A few months back my partner and I decided we wanted to go up to the Hollywood Sign. It turned out that Huell Howser had just had his special episode up there where he had permission to go pass the fence to get directly under the sign. For normal people you have to stay behind the fence.

We decided to start the hike off at Griffith Observatory. I had been there recently and wanted to back again. To get to the sign you do not have to start there. You can get there from Beachwood Blvd., then park, but you still have to hike up the road that goes behind it. The whole point of us doing it from the observatory was to make it a fun exercise hike. I think it only took us about 2 1/2 hours to go up and back that morning. We really were not going that fast because we knew we had to wait until the observatory opened that morning anyways. No need to hurry just to wait around for it to open. Here is a picture on the trail we took looking back at it.

In all honestly, this hike is just walking a fire road after fire road. It is not the most scenic area to go to. It is nice if you just want to find a place close to the city to hike around. There were a bunch of Koreans out that morning for some sort of jogging race around this area of Griffith Park. The morning was really hazy, but not smog hazy, just a real foggy look that early morning. The trails took as back and forth so we curved around rather than head straight to it. We got to a short hill called Mt. Chapel that when we got there was covered with fog. There we took a quick break.

We moved down and on to Mt. Lee where the Hollywood Sign resides. The road took us back behind it. We looked down and saw the Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills Memorial Park. I told my hiking partner that I thought I saw Lee Van Cleef down there. Lots of celebrities gravesites are there. We turned another corner and saw the fence. We were there.
I went the extra distance to get to the top of the benchmark indicating Mt. Lee and took these pictures looking down on the sign.

We spent some time there and then just head back down, but decided to get a good shot at the end of Beechwood.

I see the sign all the time in the news and in movies. There area I shot this was nearby a place used in the movie Mullholland Drive; the mysterious cowboy scene. Some of the areas I walked down to get to this point definitely looked familar from that movie. I can imagine something going on at night where someone would have to meet someone up near the sign. The whole end of the hike could have a real suspenseful feeling to it. Then again, I thought Leslie Nielson was up here somewhere in the first Naked Gun movie, "And where the hell was I?"

So, the hike was nice. I am not sure I really have the motivation to do it again. This is one of those hikes you do once, and you probably don't really want to do again unless you are just doing it for a bit of excercise. I have excercise hikes I do closer to home anyways. There is another nearby hike from the cemetery side that I would not mind doing.

The Official Hollywood Sign Site

The Arrastra (The Alabama Hills Series)

(GPS: N36 36.090 W118 06.855)

This is another one I have wanted to do for a long time. This is one of the man made artifacts that has been left behind in the Alabama Hills. The movie The Yellow Sky has the Arrastra in it. When the men are working in the mind not too far from this location they hear some Apache Indians coming and run over here to see them below.

This is one of those things that I am not sure there is some Wikipedia type of articles to explain it. I did not look to hard. I did a simple search and found THIS. Basically, it was used to grind up the quartz to remove the gold found. Something like a donkey could be used to walk around in a circle to get the "machine" going. It seems to me the movie The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly had one at the beginning with the intro to Lee Van Cleef. There was a boy riding the mule around. Here is the way the one in the Alabama Hills looks today: I mention this in the video, but the story I was told was that this Arrastra was designed for the movie The Yellow Sky. When the movie was finished the guy hired to take it down only cut off the top part of it so it could not be seen from the nearby roads. He took his money and ran before this was discovered. The problem is that I have seen this used in other movies. The movie Kim has it briefly and you have to look or you will miss it. That was filmed a few years after The Yellow Sky. No problem there, but one day I was watching an old Rex Allen western, West of Nevada, which for a few seconds had this: At first I thought this must have been another area, but then I matched up the big rock behind them that looks like it has a bunch of lines going through it with my videos. Sure enough, it is the same location. It is possible that it was a movie set piece for this movie or another movie done here before it. My gut feeling is that this was a real arrastra used for some mining at some point. I could be way off though. I do not know enough about mining in this area. If someone knows the real story on this please let me know. Either way, it is pretty cool that it is still out there and has been used in movies. Although I have a bunch of other Alabama Hills videos I am going to post, I am going to take a break from this since I have posted a lot lately. For a change of pace, over the next week or two I am going to cover a hike I went on a few months back and some movie stuff related to it.

YS: The Arrastra (Youtube Version)

Making a Blog Relevant

In the past few blog entries I have talked about living in the information age, setting priorities, some of the pitfalls regarding the millions of blogs, vlogs, magazines, books, etc., and a little about knowledge and giving good reasons that are of concern to me. I will spend some more time regarding the last two in a blog I will do next week on how I handle various contradictory points of view in controversial areas. This is important in the areas of any type of history, so it is relevant here on this blog. However, in this entry, I want to focus on things I have kept in mind while doing this blog. Whether this is helpful or practical to you is something you will have to decide, but I wanted to just get this out there.

When I started this blog, my intention was to make it fun and deal with things that I consider hobbies. One may think I have many hobbies, but really a lot of what interests me comes down to the same things. I have found that a lot of the stuff I have been into in the past like locations, martial arts, movies, hiking, history, and a few other academic fields to name a few things, are very similar when I start to really examine why I enjoy them. Certain areas cross over into other areas the more I study them.

Most of what I have done so far in this blog is primarily in regards to my location hunting. Even with that, there is usually something related to one of the interest areas I just mentioned in the last paragraph. So, not only am I finding some interesting location, but there is usually something else involved along with it that is still as interesting to me as the location is. I like to integrate different areas of my life like this. I am slowly going into other topics that I have wanted to. These last few blog entries are my indication that I intend to slowly start branching out here and there a little more than I have done in the past. I still will be doing a lot of locations and will continue to do that. I have tons of more videos I am slowly going through to put out on my youtube account; I am actually a bit behind on a bunch of stuff. I think on any blog there is a time where one has to try to branch out when one is ready to do so to avoid just doing the same thing all the time.

My basic approach on this blog from day one, and here is where I start giving my “advice” which you can take for whatever it is worth, is that I do not focus on myself, but on something that exists apart from me. When I was kid I used to start these notebooks where I thought I might have a journal or diary. I would think to myself that I would record what happened during the day or write about something that interested me. Within a few days I would quit because I could not think of anything important to write about myself. The problem was, I was kid without a lot of life experience, but I was starting internally and trying to write about myself.

Now writing about oneself, one’s mental life, is not a bad thing. I think the pitfall that one encounters is that over time everything starts sounding the same. Then, it is just a matter of burnout and quitting. I suspect that there are a lot of people out there that have this problem. I know I have seen it on youtube where some younger people burn out of doing their videos.

My suggestion would be is to start with something external to you. Begin with the “outside world” and not just the contents of your feelings, desires, and thoughts of your inner mind. The focus of this blog is not ME. In fact, most who have read this blog in the past probably know very little about me from it. I do, from time to time, give you my thoughts and opinions on a few things, but this is just a small part of my life. Part of the reason for that is I like to keep a bit a mystery about myself, not that I have anything to really hide about myself or that I am really all that interesting either, but I write and show things that I think are interesting in the real external world.

One of the things that I get slightly annoyed about (pet peeve time) is when someone starts to focus on him or herself rather than the topic or area I enjoy. I encounter this a lot in an area I try to get hiking information on. One of the persons I know of that constantly writes messages about her hiking trips does this very thing. She has gone on a lot of interesting hikes and has posted tons of pictures. It is not a bad thing if done once in a while, but it seems like every hike she goes on or any information she gives there is always a smiling picture of herself showing every accomplishment. There is no problem with people posting pictures of themselves, but in what I am talking about is if someone makes him or herself the focus of everything then something has gone seriously wrong. Sometimes I feel this is more of an indication of mental problems, self-esteem issues, or trying to get approval from others.

The next thing I think of is related to what I just said regarding getting approval from others. My approach has always been that one should write his or her blog with entries that can be appreciated in the long term. I think one should be able to enjoy a blog two days from now, two years from now, twenty years from now, two hundred years from now, etc. In all honestly, I do not write, show pictures, or videos worried about how many people are viewing my stuff every day. It is nice to be recognized with whatever you do, but I like the stuff I do because it is good in and of itself. The nice word is intrinsic. There should be a timeless element to one’s blogs if you want it to be successful in over time. If you truly want more readers over a longer period of time this is the way I would suggest you do it. You will probably last longer than others out there this way, chances are someone will google search you out of nowhere, and you might get more readers this way.

If I want to get inspired to do new blog entries I do not go reading other blog entries, watch youtube videos, or whatever the latest computer or internet invention is. Those might have some interest, but actually going out to explore the real world, reading old paper books (both classic and modern), listening to the radio (both music and talk), and watching old and new movies. This is somewhat related to what I was saying in the past few entries about staying balanced in the life of the real world. Many would like you to think that the internet is the happening place where all knowledge is, but this is not the case. No, google searches do not give us some sort of omniscient access into all information. Do not give up the old ways of information transmission for the new ways because a lot of the new ways of the internet depend on the old.

Finally, in all of this, I do not take myself too seriously. I have made lots of mistakes in how I have done this blog. I have corrected a few recently with, “What I was I thinking when I wrote that way back then?” I try to keep a sense of humor about myself and what I write about. On the other hand, I do want to take the people that read my blog seriously enough that I give the best information possible as I know it. Everyone makes mistakes, but it is important to “not sweat the small stuff” and keep a sense of humility.

Enough of this. In my next entry I will talk about another cool location in the Alabama Hills. Sometime next week I will go into how I deal with different points of view on controversial subjects.

Bad Information, False Realities, and Why Should I Read This?

This video is good for a laugh about what I am about to say. Take a look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-Lovt_kmXM

The amount of information out there in the world and online is enormous. For every topic there is to know about there are subtopics, links, and captions going on at the same time. A computer can multitask, but now a human is expected to do the same thing. The attention span of a viewer is supposed to be a lot faster. Everyday one is bombarded with advertisements, but the situation is even worse when people are bombarded with information that may end up being very trivial. I fear that this can cause anxiety problems because a person can feel he or she can not keep up. Somehow a way of keeping one’s life in proper balance must be taken.

I mention this because in the past I have had times where I tried to keep up with everything, and in the end it was just a waste of time. I am not just talking about being online and television, but I am talking about books, newspapers, and magazines in print too. I think the internet is the most obvious candidate for what I am talking about. First, if you are reading this you are online, but the main reason being the billions of websites, blogs, vlogs, message boards, etc. you have access too. Even if you narrow it down to the topics you care about there is still thousands of things you can spend your time with.

The thing to remember is the internet is accessed by people from all walks of life. This is good because it allows a certain level of freedom to explore and write or video aspects of things that interest you. The bad side is that not everything any particular person writes about is worth reading. This is a really strange thing about the internet, partly due to the anonymity one can have with an alias, that one can talk like they are an expert and may not have any authority in what they speak. As a hypothetical example, imagine an Albert Einstein still alive in the year 2008, under an alias, writing a message about his theory of relativity. Then someone who has never studied the theory, has had little education, but has an interest in science comes on and explains why Einstein is all wrong. Of course, theoretically, it is always possible a person like that could show Einstein’s theory is wrong, but in the real world this is not something that is taken too seriously.

Now imagine that this hypothetical person that thinks he or she has proved Einstein’s theory wrong creates a website, blog, etc dedicated to this. This person writes up hundreds of articles about this. We can not doubt the person has spent a lot of time in doing this, but at the end of the day is it really worth our time reading what this person has to say?

I admit that I do not spend my days reading too many blogs. I do some searches when I am in the mood, but there just is not enough time to read everything. Part of the reason I do not is because there is a lot of junk out there. A lot of them are cheap advertisements. On the other hand, it is like what I have written about above where people that really have not proven themselves start talking as if they are the authority in a topic. There are a lot people who write blogs online that do it for fun or have a humble attitude. Those I have no real problem with. Then there are those who are terribly obsessed with letting others think they are an expert. Ever read a really long rambling blog entry and then wonder, "Wait, what was the point of this? "
It gets really strange when people start fabricating and lying about themselves online. I have seen this happen a bunch of times. I do not want this to come across as a political cheap shot, but it does bring out a point I want to make. You may remember recently some statements Senator Clinton made about avoiding sniper fire in her Bosnia trip in 1996. As a factual statement, we know that never happened. This is not something unique when we examine the whole internet. There are people out there, for some reason, really like to tell stories that exaggerate and not give the whole story. I have even seen people make up more than one puppet account just so they can agree with themself. How do I know they were doing this? They were caught. There is some pride and ego building going on in those cases.

The internet, in all its various forms, can give a lot of bad and false information. It is almost like a person can create a false reality online. One might get the impression that some idea, product, etc. is very popular and mainstream by looking at some website or blog. There maybe a dozen people constantly writing messages about it back and forth on a message forum. I wonder how many hits the Flat Earth Society gets. Sometimes I tell others that I think the internet is where a lot of people go when no one in the real world takes them seriously. It is kind of like, “This journal will not publish my work. I will show them by posting all my research online and making a name for myself there!” Or, how about this, "I am really popular on the internet." Which has led to the "internet celebrity" which really makes me laugh. ;)

All the above are things that need to be kept in mind when you prioritize what is important about what you really need to know. There just is not enough time to read, watch, and listen to everything. If this is all anyone does they will have created an extremely unbalanced life. It will create anxiety about trying to keep up with a lot of stuff that probably is not worth the time anyways. Also, do not spend too much time on junk sites, articles, or books that lack that authority and the ability to provide good reasons whatever content is. The next entry I am doing regarding this will be about the approach I have taken on my own blog to avoid some of the traps I mentioned above.