And now...clouds

Mountainous, massive, moving structures,. Hundreds of miles of mist and cotton balls float across the sky, their shadows float across the earth. They carry rivers in the sky, dump a continent’s worth of water, drop whirling winds that touch the ground and produce unstoppable, destructive messengers that remind us puny humans that we aren’t and never have been in charge of this place.

And they provide lovely backgrounds that, if we look up enough and at the right time, present birds for us to wonder at and envy, and we might spy bald eagles.

I’m not a big fan of cold rain — I don’t think anyone is — but winter here in Northern California provides for galleries and galleries of cloud shows. We might not get many 40,000-foot high anvil headed thunder monsters like many other parts of the country, but we get some pretty nice shows. And our hills brighten like Ireland.

These clouds are Story and Pictures' transitional content, something nice for everyone before a few more serious pieces to come in a few weeks, and I’ll have more music-related anniversary tales too.

To wrap up this issue, I point you to new music from my friend, bassist Ross Valory, original Journey founder and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member. His sites include notes about his ‘new’ music, and the accompanying visuals are pretty fab. The first tune, Tomland, released a few weeks ago, includes legendary drummer Prairie Prince (The Tubes, and ‘first’ Journey drummer), and the music’s animation is a creation of Michael Cotton, former Tubes keyboardist. Prairie Prince and Cotton are not only stellar musicians, they have for decades teamed up to provide amazing creative design and illustration. Lots of other cool players involved in Ross’s project, including Journey bandmate Steve Smith, and Nightranger’s Eric Levy, who co-produced with Ross. Here's the second single from the project, Wild Kingdom.

Enjoy all this, be well, safe, and warm. 

MWH