Dean Clough

March 31, 2023

Portico Darwin: How The West Was Won?

TODAY'S RAMBLINGS

The Attached Article is a Long Read
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Thanks to those of you that completed the survey; for everyone else, there's still time to take your shots.

The Portico Darwin Blog Survey

I will keep the survey open for a week, and give my thousands hundreds dozens of subscribers plenty of time to tell me what they really think.  Thanks again.

This is both the shortest and longest post yet.  My writing - mercifully, for you - is the short part.  The long part?  

Well, I found what I consider a must-read article about the American West - but as seen by Esquire magazine in August of 1961.  This thing is ginormous - like its subject.  As is the article's innocence and naïveté.
But OMFG what a time capsule, at least for those that live, have lived, or care about the American West.  I felt it so vital a slice of history, I've attached a PDF (sorry for its 11 Mb girth) of the complete article, such that you can download and read it offline.
The West Esquire 1961.pdf
The West Esquire 1961.pdf 11.4 MB

But you can also use this link as an alternative.

Please don't let its length scare you off.  You've got all weekend.
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FROM THE UNWASHED MASSES

I was very happy to see my neighbor Laura Gonzalez didn't miss the premiere of Roy Dirwin, Self-Entitled Millennial:

Morning!!! I just LOL'd so hard at your blog today!😂😂 Roy Dirwin!!🤣🤣

Our upcoming houseguest, the doyenne of dignity Nicki Vale, went much farther, with a whole series of takes.  

I have so many thoughts about this blog, and thanks for giving me a good chuckle!

  • I have to know, when you put Roy Dirwin's box of fruit in front of his door, did he finally take it inside?  I am on the edge of my seat.  I can't wait to hear all about it this week 😂

  • Watching videos in public without headphones - how many times must flight attendants make that announcement on a plane, yet people still continue to do it?  Or worse, when people take a Facetime call in public, on speaker - oh the horror!

  • Flip flops - no one should ever wear these in public:  they are loud, easily broken, don't really protect your feet, and plain look trashy.  Keep those for kids, and the water park only. 

  • Phones in the bathroom are just disgusting and you know the person on the other end knows you are in there as soon as they hear the echo.  Can't we have privacy in just one place? 

But I didn't bring up phones in bathrooms?

And perhaps the sloth poster child Hunter Deuce needs to rethink his defense of flip flops and the pleasure he derives donning them?  This came in from his wife, Fi:

Hunter wears flip flops down the street in the winter and it drives me crazy! 

I wonder if he has the guts to wear flip flops to tonight's Old 97s show at The Fillmore?  

Thank you to any one that is reading this newsletter.

KLUF

I must, plus it will be the first time this has been played on KLUF.  It was always quite odd that Led Zeppelin never had an official live album as good as, oh, I don't know, UFO's Strangers in the Night?  Many believe that was rectified by this release, which came out in 2003 - a very long time after the band existed.

No matter.  Here is the mighty Led Zep and How the West Was Won.
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About Dean Clough