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Thursday, November 03, 2005

Journalist's Tool Kit, on sale at K-Mart

The secrets, if you don't have time to look:
1. Glitter gel pens.
2. Lockable journal
3. Confetti flowers
4. Gemstones, sequins, denium, glue
5. Also, 2 bottles of glitter glue
6. Idea booklet

In a related vein: Am I the only obit writer here who receives emails from funeral directors whose communiques are adorned with animated smileys? I can only imagine what the families think when they open an email from this place. It make an excellent detail in a novel though.

1 comment:

Alana Baranick said...

ah, yes. glitter pens are an integral part of the practice of journalism - especially writing about the dead.

i believe the dancing, laughing and otherwise engaged smiley faces are eliminated by our systems folks at the plain dealer before they reach us.

but i get that type of email at home from caroline richmond on occasion. hers are quite elaborate - much more than just smiley faces.


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Longtime OB Barber Passes the Scissors and the Business to Haircut Heir

by on July 16, 2014 · 4 comments

in Civil Rights

After 40 years, Ron Pilcher (front) is passing along his business to Jason Bullard. Here, the two give haircuts to longtime customers. (Photo by Matthew Wood)

By Matthew Wood

Ron Pilcher has been cutting hair for 40 years at Sunset Clipps in Ocean Beach. That all changes this week when he passes the torch to the next generation.

“I’m 70 now,” he said. “My wife is getting ready to retire. It’s time to hang up the scissors.”

It’s a veritable changing of the clipper guard, so to speak.

It was a long journey to find who would take over the shop at the corner of Santa Monica and Sunset Cliffs. Enter Jason Bullard, 45, a trained stylist and longtime OBcean with big plans for the place. He says taking over the shop is a dream come true.

“I’ve been here (in OB) 22 years,” he said. “I always drove by that place and loved it. I wouldn’t want to have any shop anywhere if it wasn’t this one.”

Bullard said it wasn’t until about two years ago that he came in to check out the place. He says he and Pilcher hit it off immediately.

“I told him this is a great shop. He’s a lucky man, I would love to have a shop like this,” Bullard recalled. “He says, ‘What do you think of this place?’”

The two made a gentleman’s agreement that when Pilcher was ready to sell the shop, his first call would be to Bullard. That day came a little over a year later … or so Bullard thought. Pilcher told him he was ready to sell, only to change his mind a little while later.

“I remember feeling really empty, because I was fantasizing about the place,” Bullard said. “He was like a ballplayer who wasn’t ready to hang it up yet.”

But the time would come soon enough. Around February, Pilcher finally decided he was ready to call it quits.

“I had Ron’s card on my mirror and would look at it every day,” Bullard explained. “The day I took it down, that’s when Ron calls me. He told me, ‘Guess what. It’s time.’ I immediately put the card back up.”

Bullard said that moment changed his life. He lost nearly 40 pounds and had a rejuvenated spring in his step.

“I would have to say it’s the best thing that’s happened to me. It’s an amazing life shift.”

Pilcher’s career in cutting hair actually started long before taking over the shop on Santa Monica. Growing up in the Chicago suburb of Elgin, he came back from serving overseas with nothing to do. He started hanging out with a friend who worked at a shop in downtown Chicago.

“He always had plenty of money and said he really enjoyed it,” Pilcher remembered.

So he found himself in barber school, with dreams of fat pockets of his own. That dream took him to a Beverly Hills salon, cutting the hair of L.A.’s most fashionable.

Next thing he knew, he was in San Diego, looking for his own shop. He found the spot in OB, bought a house in 1977, and the rest is history.

Pilcher’s current clientele can succinctly be summed up as … well, pretty old. But also very loyal. It isn’t easy getting a spot in his barber’s chair, especially since he cut down his hours a few months back to just working mornings.

“It’s pretty much appointment only,” he said. “It wasn’t like I didn’t want walk-ins. I just didn’t have time.” He pauses. “And that’s not boasting. It’s just from being around here forever.”

These are guys who have known Pilcher for years. Much of their time spent in the chair is done while busting Pilcher’s chops.

Bullard said he loves that atmosphere but would really like to make it a more inclusive place.

“I have two goals: First, I want to handle all of Ron’s clients better than he did and keep them happy,” he said. “But I also want to create an environment where the whole family will be happy. I want women to be comfortable coming in here.”

He also has big plans for the shop itself, which could definitely use a makeover. Bullard, who has interior design experience, readily offers up his aesthetic vision for the shop. He wants to serve beers to those who want them. But he also wants to have Playstation systems set up for the kids (complete with headphones so they don’t bother the rest of us) and a more inviting waiting area.

“It should be an enjoyable experience,” he said. “Not like going to the dentist.”

So, as Pilcher rides off into the sunset — he plans to move to Arizona this fall to a house he has built — Bullard’s time has finally come. We’ll see what he does with it.

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

avatar Frank Gormlie July 16, 2014 at 11:44 am

When I was a teenager, back in the dinosaur days, I used to have my hair cut at that shop, altho it was under different ownership back in the mid-Sixties. Spent many hours there as my mother insisted – for a while – that I have haircuts every 2 weeks or so. Then I grew up and stopped getting hair cuts.

avatar Jon July 16, 2014 at 11:48 am

Timing of this story couldn’t be better! My friend who has cut my hair for the past 5 years just moved out of state. I’ve been dreading going to some other place. Wish I could just flowbee my head. But I think I’ll check these guys out. Love supporting local!

avatar OB Mercy July 16, 2014 at 1:26 pm

Hey Jason, want to make this woman feel comfortable?? Please offer trims for women for a decent price. I would love to support some of the hair shops in OB, as I do love to shop local, but they are mostly out of my price range. I just can’t see paying $30 and more for a quick trim. Don’t know why they have to charge women so much more than men if it’s a simple long haired cut with some bangs.

Other than that, Mazel Tov in your new venture!

avatar Dave Rice July 16, 2014 at 11:37 pm

I’m a little rough around the edges myself – once I get done playing Handyman Dave and settle back into Desk Jockey Dave for a while I’ll have to give them a shot…

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Randy Polumbo’s ‘Love Stream’ Comes to Steven Kasher Gallery

  • Artist Randy Polumbo will install his latest work, Love Stream, a commission by collector Beth Rudin DeWoody, inside Chelsea’s Steven Kasher Gallery this September.

    The piece is a refinement of Mr. Polumbo’s earlier work, The Garden and Grotto of Manifest Destiny, which was installed at Burning Man in 2008. For that, he built a solar-powered, mobile trailer command post that was about 40 feet long. Inside were clusters of dildos, tapestries of anal beads and, in the words of Mr. Polumbo, “a lot of things people wouldn’t even recognize.” Lately, he’s been working with glass and crystal to fabricate these sexual devices rather than use the real thing. For Love Stream, these suggestive sculptures are arranged in bouquets and adorn a vintage 1960s airstream trailer.

    “They’re not really sex toys,” Mr. Polumbo said on the phone last week. “They’re more like my take on my favorite things from that world. I’ve taken something very kind of super male–this giant bouquet of wieners–and tried to make it into something feminine, a nest-like symbol of fertility.”

    Mr. Polumbo is currently based out of New York, though he has also built a second home for himself–a junkyard shotgun shack of repurposed materials in Joshua Tree. There, he installed a work called Buttercup in Joshua Tree’s small downtown area. It was his first piece to make use of real sex toys and it looked like a garden of LED-lit dildos surrounded by four solar panels.

    “At one point,” he said, “a born-again Christian group covered it with a tarp and preachers were preaching at it. I was just about to go to Burning Man for the first time, and someone told me I should take Buttercup with me.” He lit the whole thing up and drove it all the way there and, among the Burning Man crowd, people gathered around it like it was some monument to be worshiped.

    Ms. DeWoody said over the phone that she hopes Love Stream will stop by Art Basel Miami Beach or one of its concurrent fairs before she has it installed in her art-filled Florida home. There are no plans yet, but since the piece is fully mobile, Mr. Polumbo joked that he should start staking out parking spaces now. Ms. DeWoody has not seen the completed piece in its crystal phallic glory, and only knows vaguely what to expect. Mr. Polumbo wanted to surprise her when the show opens. Neither of them are too worried, though.

    “Not coincidentally,” he said, “a lot more people are interested in this than in my clusters of butt plugs.”

  • Courtesy the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery

  • Courtesy the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery

Galleristny.com is now bigger, and part of Observer.com. We’re bringing you more arts news, as well as culture, design, style, real estate and politics.


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Rob Ford Accepts Basketball Bet From Brooklyn Borough President

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford speaks during the kick off of his re-election campaign at a rally in the city's north end April 17, 2014.  Ford, who made worldwide headlines last year after admitting binge drinking and smoking crack, has been stripped of most of his powers. (Photo: Geoff Robins/Getty)

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford speaks during the kick off of his re-election campaign. (Photo: Geoff Robins/Getty)

It’s on–just leave the booze behind.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who infamously admitted to binge drinking and smoking crack last year, reportedly says he’s happy to accept Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams’s proposed bet over the Brooklyn Nets vs. Toronto Raptors NBA playoff series.

“It’s a great series with two good teams,” Mr. Ford said at a recent press conference, according to the Toronto Sun“And the fans in both cities are amazing.”

His only condition: “I don’t want it involving alcohol because [I] know it will get spun.”

Over the weekend, Mr. Adams rushed to defend his borough’s basketball team after the Raptors’ general manager yelled “Fuck Brooklyn!” to rally fans in Canada. (The general manager, Masai Ujiri, eventually apologized for his language.)

“It’s unfortunate that the Raptors’ GM felt so desperate facing against our Nets that he would throw profanity around discussing our beloved borough, but I can’t say I’m surprised. After all, Brooklyn is a classier place. Just compare Babs to Biebs, or spend some time with their…colorful mayor,” Mr. Adam declared, offering to bet a six-pack of beer from Brooklyn Brewery on the series’ outcome.

Mr. Adams formally wrote to Mr. Ford today accepting the alcohol-free challenge, according to a letter obtained by Business Insider.

“I am pleased to learn that you are interested in this opportunity, so I would like to offer you the terms of the winner receiving a CD of our favorite local artist,” Mr. Adams wrote. “Best of luck to both teams (and go Nets!).”


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Grateful for help of Fredonia officers

January 8, 2014

Without help from two Fredonia Police officers, I may still be stuck inside my vehicle. I began my journey home from the office in Jamestown just before 1 a.m., surprised by how clear the roads wer....

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Jan-13-14 11:07 PM

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Jan-08-14 5:29 PM

Great exhabition of "Serve and Protect". Nice Job Ben and Amy. A real tribute to all the leadership, staff and training that goes on at FPD.

4 Agrees | 0 Disagrees | Report Abuse »

Jan-08-14 1:35 PM

Good Job Officers!Glad that your good deed was acknowledged.

4 Agrees | 0 Disagrees | Report Abuse »

Jan-08-14 1:28 PM

Can't believe they wouldn't let a tow truck out even if the police escorted it to the scene. Good job Fredonia Police.

4 Agrees | 0 Disagrees | Report Abuse »

Jan-08-14 10:13 AM

Nice letter. Its outright appalling how many of the "lets-cut-the-payroll-& benefits-of-police-officers-&-firefighters in-the-name-of-lower-govt-spending -&-taxes" tend to forget how much we owe these selfless folks in uniform...very glad you showed first responders your appreciation.

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Jan-08-14 9:34 AM

We have some good folks in uniform around these parts,observed that sort of help more than once over the past few days.

4 Agrees | 0 Disagrees | Report Abuse »

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Thanks For Coming here! Welcome to Octonauts Wiki!

303pages on
this wiki
Dr. Shellington Sea Otter

Shellington Sea Otter

Sea Otter

Favorite Gup

Keith Wickham

Shellington Sea Otter is the Octopod's marine biologist with a Scottish accent. He's a cute, nerdy sea otter who loves doing field research and working in his lab. He's easily distracted by rare plants and animals, but his knowledge of the ocean is a big help in Octonaut missions.

Though he may be knowledgeable about marine life, Shellington is a terrible driver and has crashed the GUP-D twice and the GUP-E once. When out on missions, he's usually sitting in the back or in the passenger seat, and for good reason.

Some of his talents include playing the harp, golfing, sleeping during missions, crashing the GUPs, and being humorous.

Just like Tweak, Shellington appears to sleep where he works so his room doubles as the ship's lab. The shelves are filled with many different samples that he has collected while out on missions. This is where he is usually found, viewing samples through his microscope. When not in his room, he is also found in his seat up in the HQ where he assists Dashi with the ship's computers.

In both the original UK version of the show and the US one, Shellington has a Scottish accent.

Shellington has a sister named Pearl and a nephew named Periwinkle. Oddly, unlike his sister and nephew, he wears a helmet while diving, like the other Octonauts. Also, he's allergic to red sea urchins- a delicacy for sea otters.

Shellington happy

His fur is brown, with some spiky looking fur hanging down over his forehead, and a sand colored face. He's normally seen wearing a waterproof satchel, and wears a pair of blue boots and a blue hat with the Octonauts' logo on it. He's usually seen holding his favorite magnifying glass as well. Of all the Octonauts, he is the only one, other than Peso, who has a mouth that doesn't have a peanut-shaped "mustache" as some people call it. His pajama outfit includes green plaid slippers and a striped green nightcap with a fluffy pom-pom on the end.

Other Outfits

Deep Sea Suit

Octo Alert

Shellington is found in his science lab for the Octoalert and Launch Bay.

  • "Jumping Jellyfish!"
  • "Fascinating!"
  • "Amazing"
  • "Look at this"
  • "Octonauts, to the Jellybay!" Shellington making a mistake for the meeting location after telling Tunip to sound the Octoalert, [Octonauts & the Immortal Jelly].

If you wanna see more pictures of Shellington, See Shellington Sea Otter/Gallery

  • Shellington seems to fall asleep as he research day and night at the lab. It was confirmed in Octonauts and The Crab and Urchin. as well as Octonauts and the Jellyfish Bloom.
  • Shellington also has a preference for kelp cakes and clam sandwiches. Octonauts and the Jellyfish bloom
  • Shellington seems to get easily distracted and is the worst driver there is on the Octopod. Octonauts and the Remipedes
  • Shellington is allergic to red sea urchins.
  • Shellington is scared of heights, as seen in The Octonauts and the Pelicans.
  • Shellington is very keen on reading and reads his books almost always and everywhere - even at the wheel of the Gup!
  • He can (usually) understand the vegimals.

Other friends

  • Remipedes
  • Garden Eels
  • Bowhead Whales
  • Baby Snails
  • Vegimals

Known Family

  • Pearl the Sea Otter (Sister)
  • Periwinkle (Nephew)

Around Wikia's network

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Mushroom Hunting

Posted: May 16, 2014 in Uncategorized

I’ve been wanting to go hunting for morels for years, but I never had anyone to take me.

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

I mentioned this to a friend a while back, and she said her mother goes every spring. I got her number, and after a little back-and-forth on scheduling, we’d booked a trip to the woods.

First off, I was expecting to have to go mushroom hunting way out in the middle of nowhere on some farm in eastern Oklahoma. That wasn’t the case at all. In fact, the place we went was about a 10-minute drive from my house. We never even left the city. That’s one of the (few) advantages to OKC’s massive urban sprawl. You’ve still got a number of undeveloped wooded lots scattered around the city.

I was warned in advance to do three things:

1. Wear bug spray. Ticks are rampant in the woods, and you don’t want catch lyme disease. I saw that episode of House. No thanks.
2. Bring a cloth bag to carry your morels in, not paper or plastic. Turns out there are a crazy number of brambles and thorns where morels grow, and only a cloth bag will survive the encounter. It is because of these brambles that…
3. Bring pruning shears. It isn’t just the bag that will get caught in the thorns. You will have to cut yourself loose or risk some fairly painful cuts. Even with the pruning shears, you’re going to get some scratches.

I arrived early in the morning to find my guides already in the woods. In fact, my main guide had already located a couple of morels.

Morels are pretty hard to spot in the wild. They blend in quite well, and I didn’t notice any discernible pattern to where they were located. Nevertheless, I soon picked up the knack of spotting the little buggers.

Here are a few of the ones I found.

It was fairly dry, not ideal conditions for mushrooms. Nevertheless, we were able to find a few. My guides were quite generous, giving me the ones they found as well. In the end, I had enough to make a family meal.

I prepped the morels by first splitting and washing them. I then soaked them for about a half hour in salt water. This drove out any bugs still living inside.

You can find a number of morel recipes online, but I don’t think you can beat fried mushrooms. I treated mine like a chicken-fried steak, with an egg wash and a milk wash before a roll in flour and a final egg wash.

Morels don’t taste like the mushrooms you get at your local grocery. The texture is spongier, and the flavor is much meatier. They reminded me a lot of chicken livers without the blood taste. Since I like chicken livers, that’s a good thing.

The final product was incredibly popular with the entire household. If you get the chance to go hunting for morels with someone experienced, don’t pass it up.

If you look on the cover of the Oklahoma Gazette this week Odd Oklahoma will be splashed across the front, but not because of this website.

The Gazette decided to feature the weird side of the state with an article that covers “Oklahoma obscura”.

The article is pretty interesting, covering a lot of the whackier stuff around the state. None of it was covered in depth, and of the things we’ve also written about, like the Spiro Mounds and the Holy City of the Wichitas, this site had the time and print space to go into a lot more detail. Nevertheless, writer Devon Green turned me onto several things I’d never even heard of, and several others I’d forgotten about or just never gotten around to. I plan to save this article and refer back to it when I’m looking for something to write about in the future.

Good stuff.

I have another piece up over at This one looks at HB2625 and it’s potential impact on the Oklahoma Governor’s race.

HB2625 is the bill that would address the controversial law that requires third graders to pass a high stakes reading test to advance to the next grade.

I have a piece up for looking at the strengths and weaknesses of contacting your representatives through social media.

In it, I have a couple of links to some useful tools. I’ve created a spreadsheet of Oklahoma politicians on Twitter and I created an easily subscribable list so that people can with one click see a Twitter feed of what Oklahoma’s politicians are talking about.

In the piece, I also mention that I’m working on a similar set of resources listing candidates on the Oklahoma City ballots this year. That list and feed are currently being developed, and should be published either late this week or early next week.

Back from the dead.

Posted: April 28, 2014 in Uncategorized

After some prompting from a couple of former readers, I’ve decided it is time to start writing again intermittently. Posts will only show up when I have something interesting to talk about. No more trying to meet some self-imposed quota. That just leads to burnout.

Since my last post, my family and I have bought a house and moved into Oklahoma City.

I’ve got a few story ideas written down, including a few follow-ups to topics I’ve written about in the past.

I’m also currently working on a couple of useful tools for those interested in being active/informed about Oklahoma politics. Expect to hear about those as they become publicly available.

A long time ago, I wrote about the Oklahoma Capitol Ten Commandments monument. Yeah, the one carved by people who couldn’t spell and the subject of an ACLU lawsuit.

Since then, a number of groups, including Satanists, Hindus, Animal Rights Activists and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, have contacted the Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission about putting up monuments of their own. This left the Oklahoma legislators shitting a brick, and hilarity ensued in the local media.

Now, there is a new development. Yesterday, the Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission unanimously voted to impose a moratorium on any new monuments being built on the capitol grounds.

This is banana crazypants for two reasons.

First, it means that the people in charge at the Oklahoma State Capitol know they are in deep trouble legally. They simply cannot come up with a legal criteria for denying Satanists et al (and if a little birdy I know is correct, possibly atheists soon) a monument that will pass muster with the courts.

Second, it is going to make the ACLU lawsuit even more of a slam dunk than it is already. I can’t wait to see the Hindus and Satanists fill friend of the court briefs claiming they are currently being denied the opportunity to place a monument while the Ten Commandments are prominently on display, and now with correct spelling.

Right now, the Satanists have an IndieGoGo page up to take donations for their proposed monument. No word yet on what will happen now that it looks like it won’t be happening.

For more details on this story, and frequent updates, keep track of Hehmant Mehta’s Friendly Atheist blog.

To celebrate the return of my laptop from the doctor, I decided to make a Saturday trip to the Oklahoma State Fair in search of blog fodder.

Between wine, beer, and going to Disney on Ice with my wife and daughter, I was able to make a run through of the Cox Pavilion in search of health scams. They weren’t very hard to find.

The first thing I ran across was a chiropractor diagnosing people using a bogus device called the MyoVision Static Graphic. Basically, his assistant would place these two things on each side of your vertebrae and click them. After moving up and down your back, a printout would display the misalignment of your back.

This is a total scam, for a number of reasons. First, chiropractic itself is a scam. It is to America what homeopathy is to Europe. The entire theoretical concept behind chiropractic is that subluxations of one’s spine accounts for a whole variety of ailments, and that by cracking the back into place a chiropractor can solve these ailments. The inventor of chiropractic claimed to have cured blindness in his first patient just with spine manipulation.

Chiropractic is nothing more than very invasive, and potentially life-threatening, placebo. In my opinion, it shouldn’t even be legal. At best, it is no more therapeutic than a strong massage. At worst, it can cause strokes.This product the chiropractor was using also can’t do what its manufacturers claim. If you look on the Myvision website, you’ll find plenty of pretty pictures and testimonials. What you won’t find is clinical research. The reason is that, clinical research has shown that Myovision isn’t effective. Since it can’t meet the criteria for being a useful medical device, it is aiming its product at people who aren’t real medical professionals…namely chiropractors. The fact that these people were using Myovision to diagnose potential patients and get them to come in to their clinic, shows that they aren’t trustworthy or they’re incompetent.

The second health scam booth I visited was hawking Foot Relief Insoles. Insoles are fine and all. Dr. Scholes never hurt anybody, but these guys were making health claims that were bonkers. They had this chart…

Here is a link to a less blurry version of a similar chart that conveys the same idea in more detail.foot-reflexology-chart1

This is a very common chart in the reflexology world. Reflexology is basically the chiropractic of foot massage, with a little acupuncture theory thrown in for good measure. Just as chiropractors claim that back manipulation can cure a variety of ailments, Reflexologists claim that massaging specific places on the feet can help things like kidney function and thyroid problems. This is complete hogwash. Don’t buy your insoles from people claiming they can help your kidneys work better. Their claims are full of piss.

The next booth on the list was selling Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulations (TENS).

Blurry scam is blurry

Blurry scam is blurry

This is a very fancy way of saying things that electrocute you through your skin. The idea is that by electrocuting yourself, you can relieve pain. While this on its face isn’t completely ludicrous, we do have electroshock therapy for brain disorders after all, they “HOW DOES IT WORK?” section on their website gives away just how bs this product really is.According to the website, TENS makes use of qi and ‘traditional Chinese medicine’ as the theoretical explanation for how it relieves pain.

Word of advice, if a website selling a medical device has a testimonials tab, a ‘how it works’ section that mentions Chinese medicine, and includes vague references to studies or ‘research shows’ without ever actually citing a paper in a reputable medical journal, you’ve got a health scam on your hands. Run away.

Our next product is the Euro Body Shaper.

body shakebody shake2

Yes, it does what it looks like. It is a weight loss machine that claims to exercise you by shaking the weight off. That anyone would actually fall for this makes me die a little on the inside. The only possible response to this silliness is…
fat belt

It was a scam then and it is a scam now.

Finally, for nostalgia sake, I include the handwriting analysis machine. This machine is great because it isn’t even pretending to be real. It has this massive bank of what is supposed to be old-timey computers, and if you give them money they’ll effectively give you the equivalent of a fortune cookie slip.

Love it.

Love it.

The reason this is so great is because it puts all of the other scams that are trying to pretend to be real in context. It is like placing a Cleveland Grandma Fortune Teller Machine in a room full of would-be psychics.