Maxwell's Bookmark

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Maxwell's Bookmark

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." G. Marx

Used & rare books and ephemera on the subjects of California, Western and Local History, Children's books, Art & Photography, Scotland and the game of Golf.

10/31/2024

This just in: the Yankees refused to accept that they have lost the World Series. They say the Dodgers stole it and cheated. During the award ceremony, Yankees fans stormed the field and took the trophy and presented it to the Yankees team, where upon the Yankees declared there would be no more World Series and that they would keep the trophy forever.

10/24/2024

Thursday morning, cranky pants : Gee, it would’ve been nice if the city had let those of us who live on Smith Canal know about the dedication ceremony of the new $96 million floodgate. Lots of politicians in attendance and various officials, but very few members of the public it appears. I may be wrong, but I seem to recall that the original price tag on that boondoggle was somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 million. I look forward to being invited to the first demonstration of its usefulness.

10/19/2024

Hope y'all can come to this event:

10/10/2024

all those evangelicals out there stumping for Trump should lose their tax exempt status.

10/06/2024

Saturday nigh crankypants: Although I fear I'm being redundant, I can't help but wonder why the city of Stockton is willing to pay Wells Fargo, a $1.7 trillion corporation, with a market capitalizations of $129 billion, and who pays their CEO $23 million a year, why the city council would vote to pay Wells Fargo $425,000.00 for the privilege of tearing down their building on El Dorado & Miner? Why not just do like the city & landlords always do in Stockton: let the building sit empty and abandoned for years until someone breaks in and set the place on fire. There are numerous examples of this scenario, most recently with the old YMCA building right up the street. Let Wells Fargo pay to tear their own building down. They can afford it way more than Stockton's tax payers.

10/02/2024

Wednesday morning crankypants: I went to the city council meeting last evening to contribute my 2 cents worth about the fire at the YMCA. Ironically. prior to the meeting the mayor & council honored the local crew of code enforcement officers. Good thing they were gone by the time I stepped to the podium to accuse the city of negligence in allowing the conditions to persist in which we almost lost our central library. Equally ironic was the speaker before me who complained about conditions on Smith Canal. The oil slick on the canal last Friday will be repeated in a few weeks and annually when the first winter storm arrives and creates the "first flush" when all the oil & gas & tire residue & French fries & condoms will wash off the streets and into Smith Canal creating not just an oil slick but also killing thousands of fish. All those state & federal agencies that were johnny on the spot last weekend will once again ignore this annual event. Let's keep pressuring the city to install cameras along Shimizu Drive to discourage dumping and allowing the city to identify dumpers. And while Wendi Maxwell and I were off galivanting in Europe, the council approved $425,000.00 to purchase the Wells Fargo building on El Dorado so they can tear it down. Why are we paying a $1.7 trillion corporation to tear down their building? Does the city have a developer waiting in the wings to develop that block? Probably not because the plan is to use it as parking in the foreseeable future. Hopefully, the South Pointe project will actually come to fruition and not be just another developer who is all hat and no cattle.

09/29/2024

Still a visible oil slick on Smith Canal this morning.

09/24/2024

after reading the book The Wolves of K St. about lobbying, I followed it up by reading a book titled Barons: Money, power, and the corruption of America’s food industry. I have come to the opinion that the federal government is wholly owned and operated for the benefit of international corporate capitalism. I see no clear path out of this situation.

09/16/2024

Could Elon Musk be more of a dick? If anyone other than an entitled billionaire had said what he said about Harris & Walz, the FBI would be pounding on their door.

09/12/2024

I just sold a copy of my book to a guy in Australia. Now I can claim that I am an internationally selling author on two continents and in two hemispheres.

08/31/2024

my new favorite phrase: it’s not an election, it’s an auction.

08/28/2024

I was trying to correct a Stockton history post about the The Henery Apartments (1913) but AI kept changing the name Henry no not Henry Henery to Herbst. Then I touched the wrong thing and my incomplete message got posted. I was going to point out that they were named for the man who built the building and lived in the penthouse. At the time that apartment building was one of the toniest addresses in town.

08/19/2024

We went to the The Catalyst reader's theater on Saturday to watch Paula Sheil as a drunken Martha from WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? Perfect casting! Last night I watched the movie (Wendi Maxwell declined) with Taylor & Burton. Quite a gulf from there to the Marvel Universe.

08/11/2024

courtesy of Scott Mastores, MD
Trump sandwich ingredients:
White bread
Cheese
ham
Russian dressing
and a small pickle

08/07/2024

A fatal shooting on market Street in San Francisco on Monday night across the street from the Warfield where we had been on Sunday night at the Dweezil Zappa concert.

08/06/2024

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdc9cb286-fb9c-4d78-b389-dbd37ca0be12_3066x1748.png?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

07/30/2024

On a more positive note, Port Stockton Nursery is approaching its 100th anniversary. Read the article on stocktonia.org.

07/30/2024

Tuesday morning cranky pants: Modesto has approved a new housing development of over 500 houses on 87 acres of prime agricultural land, with the prices starting at $400,000. The city council in Modesto claims that this will ease the housing shortage. Apparently, They think that apartment dwellers and folks living on the streets are going to be able to afford half million dollar houses.

07/28/2024

so the city of Stockton turned 175 years old a few days ago. Did anybody notice? The Stockton record gave it front page news however, the article was mostly fluff. They mentioned that the city was named for Commodore Stockton, but they did not mention why Weber chose the name for the city he founded. Also, the article pointed out that a Stockton couple holds the record for being the tallest married couple in the world. Or was it the United States? Anyway, I suspect my friends Martin Glaenzer and Amber Darby would give the other couple a run for their money.

07/25/2024

Installed my new printer this afternoon. My old one did not like being abandoned for a month. The new one works with wifi and has ink tanks rather than cartridges. Installation was like being in a Sci Fi movie where you have to follow computer generated instructions in order to keep the spacecraft from exploding. Finally got her hooked up. Only took 2 hours. I had to laugh at my own incompetence. "Hey you kids! Get off my lawn! Oh, and help me boot my computer!"

07/23/2024

Tuesday morning, cranky pants: isn’t requiring the Bible to be taught in public schools an obvious violation of the constitution? And this whole America being a Christian nation thing. What about the 20% of us that are atheists and agnostics? Are we just to be cast aside? Not to mention the myriad of other churches and religions that have thrived over the centuries in this country. The whole idea runs counter to the concept of freedom of religion, which is one of the founding principles of this country. currently reading the book Wolves of K Street. A real eye-opener co-authored by a Wall Street Journal reporter. At the same time reading about the student movements of the 1960s. quite a journey we have seen in the last half century in American politics. But as the eternal optimist says “things are never so bad they can’t get worse.”

07/11/2024

Just read a review of the book WOLVES OF K STREET. It dovetails right into Project 2025. Further supporting my claim that we are all being played for suckers.

07/08/2024

A small orb weaver spider was spinning a web in our dining room window yesterday. It was fascinating to watch it make the spokes and then weave the circles around them. I've seen only a few small ones this year. Some years we get so many large one that I wonder if they would be good to eat batter fried like calamari. Here's a photo of one from a few years back. I'm told they weave a new web every day. The one in the window yesterday is gone today.

07/06/2024

Check out the list of tax scofflaws on the next city council agenda item 12.3 and the utility scofflaws under item 16.3.

07/06/2024

To honor the memory of the unique individual that was and is Gary Putnam, I came home and pulled down my copy of Mark Twain's book ROUGHING IT, turned to Chapter 53 and reread the story of Jim Blaine and His Grandfather's Ram. I recommend any of y'all that knew Gary to do the same. Cheers.

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