John & Rob

Heard an interview the other day on NPR with Terri Gross on Fresh Air. The subject of the interview was Rob Halford...lead singer of Judas Priest, and a self-described conservative gay man. He's smart, articulate, ain't into bondage, apparently. Stage-wear notwithstanding. Alive. Vibrant. His coming out didn't get rid of Judas Priest's audience. He has great personal dignity, and he knows exactly what he's doing. Judas Priest has new CD and world tour. He's a business man who loves what his band does.

On the other hand, my teen-age hero, John Enwistle, one of the two people(Stanley Clarke is the other)who invented melodic bass playing, and thereby revolutionised bass playing, died under a prostitute in Las Vegas..whilst stuffed full of cocaine. A couple of years ago he passed, WAY TOO OLD for that kind of behaviour. HE was full of coke, I mean, I'm not sure about the hooker.

Something tells me, John, that if you have a heart condition, and you did, ..cocaine is a no-no. Also...if you're married, like you were, John...a hooker is also no-no. What is it about these people that more than enough is never enough? No is never no to some rock stars.... You paid the ultimate price for your no-no's, John. How do you afford your rock n' roll lifestyle?

Pete Townshend(my former pen pal) is a pederast, stupid cunt, and Roger Daltrey is a really bad actor...and the only reason they go on tour is to flesh out the bank accounts. The best rhythm section that ever graced this earth has died of stupid excess..which is what we punks/rockers/alternadudes always accused metal bands of. Hey, their hair was stupid, their clothes were stupid, their music was arguably stupid...I guess THEY must be stupid. I guess I should have hitched my star to metal, instead. They were stupid like foxes, and they laughed all the way to the bank. And still walk the earth. And have reunion concerts. If they die, it's in car accidents, or they just come back to torment on "Behind the Music"

As a rhythm section, Entwistle and Moon were fluid and melodic and dynamic and elemental, in a way that hadn't been heard before, in a way that made asshole jazz fucks sit up and take notice, and in a way that I'm not hearing now, anywhere...though jesus christ, I sure as fuck am straining to hear it (Which is NOT to say that I don't like new music, in fact, I prefer it. Complicated doesn't mean good). It wasn't about awesome schooled chops, at least in Moon's case...it was about turning yourself inside out in front of an audience every night. That's the only way to do it...INSIDE OUT. Watch an Iggy Pop show...the guy is pushing 60 HARD...and every night...he leaves an appendix or upper intestine on stage, I'm sure.

My heroes always let me down, big time. Serves me right, I guess, for even having them . If I die stuffed full of coke...it's no big deal...I'm nobody. I expect my heroes to be different. Or, at least not dead about 25 or 30 years before they should be. THEY were talented, THEY were cool...their long slide into non-coolness got interrupted, I guess.

Don't even get me started on Keith Moon. Or Kurt Cobain.

I don't like Sundays.....

Really, I don't, because they lead directly and inevitably to Monday. However, today is a nice Sunday. Its father's day. The weather is warming back up again and should be back in the sweltering catagory by mid-week. Glad I had the A/C on my car fixed. I have nothing pithy to say or earth shattering to report. The garden is looking swell. I'm watering the prairie as I type...it has been so dry here we now have watering restrictions, which I'm flouting. The prairie has to be watered once a month until it's more established. Unless it rains, which it hasn't, lately.

I hope that the release of the Downing Street memo, and subsequent memos, get GWB impeached. Why people are not out in the streets about this baffles me. Complacency, thy name is America. Why people still listen to and BELIEVE(!)what conservative talk show hosts have to say is beyond me....they've proven themselves, over and over again, to be liars who stand up for the big liar.

Thursday, Thursday....

Yay, it's Thursday, and the weather is fine. I'm at work, the bosses are all in a meeting, so here am I. I will write more, later, when I get home.

H8R

Yep, I'm in a hateful mood today. Here's a partial list of the things I despise, in no particular order except for the first 4:

George W. Bush and his Cabinet
Evangelical Christians
Most Republicans
Most Conservatives
Most Libertarians
Work
Iraq War
Wal-Mart
People who drive slowly
Traffic Jams
Infants
SUV's
Money
Lack of Money
T. Shannon
Global Warming Deniers
Anti-Itellectuals
Creation Theory Believers
Intelligent Design Believers
Pepsi
Book Banners
Anti-Choice People
Anti-Environment People
Jazz
Opera
Pop-Music
Reality TV Shows
The People Who Watch Them
Fox News
The People Who Watch It
Bill O'Reilly
Anyone Who Believes a Word He Says


That's all I can think of for now. I hate them all. Whew....I feel cleansed and refreshed.

Time to go sit out on the bench for a while, and imbibe my sleep aid. A nice french Merlot. I buy only french wine now, as France had the balls to stand up to the King of America. It has been a nice, cloudy day here..much cooler. No rain though. Maybe someday.

I was gonna get all topical, about how the Downing Street Memo puts the Chimp squarely into the "should be impeached" camp...but there are so many others out here who do it so much better than me. If you voted for W, you're a complete doofus, and you have blood on your hands. How does it taste? Your boy has the lowest approval rating of any president in the last century or two. HA HA HA!

Mom's in the hospital...she was at the computer and pushed back in the chair and it tipped over backwards. She has a moderate concussion, a badly torn up(tendon-wise)left leg, and possibly a broken tailbone or hip. The results of the MRI she had yesterday are supposed to be in today, I am going to go call her now. She's 85 years old. Poor old gal!

The Longest 4 day week...

I swear..I thought this week would never end. I'm gonna go sit on the bench. More later!

Garden Report

Took another day off of work...I was spazzy, stiff, in pain and dull all day. How do I love thee, Avonex...not much. the heat gets to me. I wish it would cool off...I spent the whole weekend indoors. MS doesn't like heat and humidity.

Late Spring to mid to late summer are pretty dull, native flowerwise, here in the midwest...our native flora is smarter than we are...it rests during the hottest part of the year, for the most part. They know it's too hot and humid for bees and butterflies. Why bother blooming if you're not going to be pollinated? Mother Nature watches and waits, and sends up a big crop of pollinators in the spring, when temps are manageable, and the Spring ephemerals are blooming and another big push in the late summer/early fall, when things have cooled down a bit, and the prairie will be blooming with a vengeance.

I rely on interesting shades of green and interestingly shaped foliage in my one tree native shade garden. Right now...the soloman's seal is getting ready to bloom, but really, it's about the last of the last to bloom. And subtle. And about form. Graceful, arching plants they are! The tiarella are about bloomed out. I really like tiarella and huecherella, and have decided I must have more. The virginia waterleaf are getting ready to quit, too. Which reminds me, I must go cut off the spent blooms...they seed around like crazy! If anyone needs some virginia waterleaf seedlings, let me know, I have plenty.

Thank goodness for ferns and foliage! And the Penstemon Digitalis, which will bloom soon! Yay!
The elm-leafed goldenrod will start blooming later this month, and the wood asters after that. Not much else going on in my one tree native woodland garden. The wood aster is very aggressive and rhizhomatous, and I'm afraid it's going to meet it's maker(via Roundup)after it blooms this year. I'm sick of trying to keep it in check.

My front yard is blooming nicely, however. I have a slightly higher percentage of the non-native there. And Irises. While I think native plants are superior, there are some non-natives that I just will not give up. Irises are one of them. They are beautiful, non-invasive, and I have this one that smells just like grapes.

It's a buzz when people stop their cars and tour your garden spontaneously, and when the small town garden club asks you to please join. Almost as good as being in a band. Almost. I've worked hard on my garden, and have spent lots of time correcting planting mistakes! I'm still making them...D'OH!

My little prairie is biding it's time..it's heyday is in the late summer through late fall. Right now, the Dame's rocket and daisies are blooming faster than I can kill them off. They look nice together, but...they're not native, so they have to go. Off with their heads! They will crowd out the native plants and grasses I have seeded back there.

We sure could use some rain..you know it's droughty when your native plants start drooping from lack of water..you just know it's the definition of drought. You also get out the sprinkler. God save the farmers. The baptisia australis(picture #2)I have, which is the species and not a cultivar(to my knowledge), just gets bigger and better every year. It doesn't have the competition in the flower bed that it gets in a prairie. It's about 4 1/2 feet high, and about 5 feet across.

It has been transplanted at least once, and after one season of confusion...has gone gangbusters! Don't believe it when people say you can't transplant Baptisia...you can! You just have to get as much of the root as possible..in this case, I dug down about 2 feet.

The white flowered plant in picture #1 is known commonly as "meadowfoam", it's native, and it's binomial is Filipendula somethingorother. The Black iris is called "Before the Storm" The purple Iris is a named Iris but the tag was destroyed by my DH, also known affectionately as Big Foot, or FH. The F does not stand for fabulous. The bright red thing is Yarrow "paprika" The yellow thing is Iris pseudocarus, Yellow Flag Iris. This plant is a noxious, invasive non-native weed that disturbs wetlands and pushes out native irises like the blue-flag iris (Iris Cristata). I dead-head them religiously, so they can't spread off my property. It looks nice in my front yard, and that is exactly where it stays. I have a big Dame's Rocket in my front yard. Non-native, and an aggressive seeder that will push out native plants. I cut it to the ground before it even has a chance to set seeds. I leave it to bloom because DH likes how it smells, and frankly, so do I. I plant a row or two of marigolds for him every year.

The street in front of my house

I have a bench on the walkway in front of my house. I like to, after a day's work, sit on the bench and read, look at my garden, look at other people looking at my garden, or just sit and watch....

Sparrows flying low and fast across the street like line-drives. Squirrels hop and skip and bounce back and forth across the street like infield ground balls. No rhthym or reason. I hold my breath every time...we feed these squirrels, and I consider some of them outdoor pets. Especially Blacky, who I haven't seen in a couple of weeks. Hope she/he is nesting. Crazy got hit and killed by a car. Crazy used to see me come out the back door and charge!!!!, in the hope of getting some peanuts. He took one out of my hand, once. I felt his whiskers on my fingers. It was nice to have a wild critter trust me that much.

The dying maple tree on the parkway filters the sunset, giving me some dappled shade and light with a greenish tint. It's actually very peaceful. The farmer down the street manured his fields again, so it's also a bit stinky, but not necessarily bad.

I don't know why the baseball metaphors came to my head...but they did. So I'm writing them. I used to be quite a baseball player until my knees messed up, whilst playing baseball, of course.

Went to a garage sale today and bought a wallet kit that had been hand tooled. It is half stitched together, too. The guy running the sale was teh gay, and very, very funny. I said to him, oh, I used to tool leather. And he said, so did my sister, then she had to switch to needlepoint. I started chuckling until the guy said...it's quite a story, and you'd need a hanky. At which point I quit chuckling and said oh so sorry.

I think I may have found a shrink. I have an appt. @ 11AM next Saturday. I am just out of control, and jumping out of my own skin with self loathing. I can deal with the self loathing, it's always been there....the out of control-ness I can't, cuz it hasn't. I 'm not a control freak, but I do like steering my own ship. And I haven't been for the last couple of years.

We had a nice thunderstorm a little while ago. I rescued a snapping turtle..it was in the street, overheated, barely alive. I gingerly put it on the library grass, pointed away from the street. I know it was trying to head to the lake to breed or lay eggs, but it would have never made it there. To move a snapping turtle you really need a net or thick leather gloves..I saw a big one break a broomstick in half with it's jaws. This one was about 6 inches across, and certainly able to take off a finger...It would be nice to go back and find it, net it, and give it a ride to the lake, and maybe I will this evening. It has cooled off and rained...I'm hoping it helped the turtile! My sis and I have a history of rescuing turtles.

The sun is out again. We're supposed to have thunderstorms on and off the next few days. We need the rain.