ok fine. this is what i've been doing.

...by the way, Blogger is being a roly-poly poop butt lately, isn't it?
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This is what I have been doing since about the 20th of last month!


Here is my shed. See the sophisticated lighting system in the shed. This is what happens to lamps that have been bad.
There are no robots inside the shed.
It is sad.



See the front bed. See the dirt. Wow, dirt! It is soil.
Is that a tricycle in the front bed? Yes! Yes, it is a tricycle! A tricycle fastened to a buried cinderblock with a logging chain!

See the flowers! They are red! They are black! They are Primula 'Velvet Moon'!!!
They are in a cooking pot! That is a very funny place for a flower to be!
The cooking pot came from the dump.
The creepy greasy man who ran the dump traded it for the opportunity to frolic around in the garbage I was hauling.
EEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWW.

See the funny plants! They are called 'sedums'. They are a kind of cactus!
They grow in phones and old cooking pots. Really. Robots plant them there.

The dead weeds are on the grass. They are dead. DIE WEEDS DIE. I am laughing.
This area took me 4 hours to weed! This one area! It is a small, small area.
800 million bazillion, two hundred thousand three squillion and seven weeds, and five garden plants were in this area.
I am laughing at the dead weeds! Hahahahahahahahaha!

I am beginning to sound a little hysterical.


See the species tulips! They are red, yellow and black. They are short. They are little. I love them REAL GOOD.
This is the mommy tulip of all the tulips in every garden in the world. Tulipa Speciosa. That is Latin. Latin is a dead language. That means that only zombies speak it.

See the artemesia! It is pretty.
It is also an ingredient in a bad drink that can make you very dizzy. It is DRUGS.
Only bad people take drugs. Drugs are bad. Some drugs come from plants. Thujone is a bad drug. It comes from plants.
This is where I always find Toulouse Lautrec passed out. I call the policeman, and he takes him away. Bad, bad Toulouse Lautrec, the drug taking passer outer man.

What a nice tree! The nice tree is small. The nice tree is healthy!
The nice tree is made of small smelly dog and human birthing waste!
Hippies fear it.


Look, look! See the pots! See the plants! See the pots and plants!
See, Tommy? See, Mary? See the pots and plants? There are many pots and plants!

Look! See? More! More pots and plants! See the many pots and plants?
I told your juvenile shit there were many pots and plants! Don't be calling me a liar, Tommy! You either, Mary!
I made the medium!
I sifted the compost!
I dug the soil!
I weeded the overwintered plants!
I inspected the roots!
I market trimmed!
I moved plants up to the next larger size!
I watered!
I staked!
I rested over!
I set out!
Don't come up in my goddamn face and tell me 'OO, that doesn't look like very many to me', you little shitholes! I know who your real daddy is!


A baby plant starts from a seed. It is called a 'seedling'.
Here are baby squash, beans and peas. The seeds came from vegetables. I saved the seeds over winter and kept them safe. Then I planted them in dirt. They are small!

See the baby seedlings? These are baby tomato plants. Someday they will grow tomato fruits. They are good to eat.
Big, medium and small, red and yellow tomatoes. They all start with a tiny seed.
Seeds that I saved over the winter from other tomato plants that I grew from seeds that I saved over the winter before that. And before that, and before that. And so forth.
It is trippy.


These are seedling sunflower plants. You can see the sunflower seed still stuck to the tiny leaves. These baby leaves are called 'cotyledons'.
I bought these seeds from the store. They are for fancy sunflowers; red, black and striped! Last year I let the poor birds eat all my sunflower seeds because it was cold. I am a big sappy dork like that.

These are weeds. Weeds are bad. Weeds need to die. This is what every single inch of every single one of my beds looked like a couple of weeks back. This is what happens when you get very sick and are not able to take care of your garden. Weeds take over.
This is why I have not been blogging. I have been gardening. I have been killing weeds. DIE WEEDS DIE SCREAMING IN TORMENT UP SATANS BUTTHOLE EVIL SMELLY CRAPPY WEEDS DIE DIE DIE

That is what all these beds looked like. Every single one. In the front yard, and in the back yard too.

See FirstNations backyard? There are raised beds!
They are for growing vegetable plants. They were full of weed plants.
I KILLED THE WEED PLANTS.
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

Here are some more raised beds. I have nine. Nine is a lot.
Oh, and once I weeded these, I had to cultivate the soil, too. And repair the boards. And sort through the beds where the strawberries and herbs and the asparagus grow permanently and put compost on them. Compost that I had to screen and haul.
By the way; I planted everything you see in these last two pictures, except for the grass.
Yes, I did.

See the front yard? This is the northeast side of it! I planted everything in this picture that you can see except for the tallest evergreen tree. And the goddamn trees in the background there; geeze.
I weeded it all too.
Yes I did.
I kick ass.



Same here. Only the weeping alder was already there. I still had to weed the bastard though, didn't I? And I'll be trimming it up pretty soon too. But everything else? I planted.
Except for the grass.
Oh, and guess what? I made all those beds. Me. Alone. No help. Eleven years ago I cut the turf and I dug down all the way to the substrate and backfilled with compost and chopped in more compost when I re-filled them and planned the plantings and hauled stone and

...you get the picture?

Now. Are you gonna bitch about how you had to have a bunch of reruns? Are you going to say 'Waa waa waa, if I don't get my full ration of new new new I get all constipated and grouchy and bitch and waa like a big rashy baby'?
Because you can get down on all fours and kiss my flat red ass, Paco.
I am not playing.
YOU SHOULD THANK ME FOR EVERY BREATH OF CLEAN OXYGEN YOU TAKE! OH YES YOU SHOULD! IF IT WASN'T FOR MY PLANTS AND MY GARDEN YOUR WRETCHED SHIT WOULD CHOKE OFF AND DIE AND EVERYTHING WOULD JUST GO RIGHT TO HELL, BUCKWHEAT!
YEAH THATS RIGHT!
WORSHIP ME!!!





So, um yeah. That's what I've been doing for the last coupla few weeks.

A little educational primer on factory plants

Plants that you can buy at most retail outlets these days are grown in factory conditions. This is NOT a bad thing. In most cases it has meant an overall improvement in the quality of the stock, in my opinion. But there is one drawback, and it's inherent in the mechanization process. I'm going to have to explain that to help you understand what the dealio is.

These days, most plants for sale are started in what are called 'plug trays'.
...that thing right there. See?
A plug refers to one tiny, tiny little 'potlet' in a large square tray of the same. One tray might have, say, 50 of these little 'plugs'. This is filled with medium (dirt) and then the seed is planted, by a machine, right in the center of this small cup.

After the seed germinates and the first true leaves appear, the plug tray is loaded into another machine which uncups the new little plant, medium and all, into the center of a somewhat larger sized plug in another tray, fills in with a little more medium....and so on, until optimum sales size is reached.

Now depending on the plant, this 'moving up' process can take place up to three more times until the final 'sale sized' plant is achieved, at which point it goes onto a refrigerated truck and ends up at Lowes. Lots of plants never have a human touch them until the final 'grading', which entails pitching the crappy looking ones. Nobody has actually taken the plant out of the dirt and put it into new dirt; its all been done by machines. Not a bad thing in and of itself at all.

The problem is, there are two different types of plants: ANNUALS, which only live for one year and have a very accelerated growth pattern, and PERENNIALS, which nature has designed to last over a period of years. And in the case of perennials, you have a very, very short window of time during which you can 'move up' the plug into the next larger pot size.

Here's why: A perennial plants' root system grows fast, and it grows big. A perennial plants roots are used for more than temporary anchoring and feeding...it's meant to carry the plant through lots of changes over the years, supplying food, supporting the plant through potential extremes and storing carbs over the dormant season. It's an entirely different kind of system than the roots on an annual plant.

What happens when the perennial is not moved up quickly enough is a condition I call 'plugbound'.

A 'rootbound' plant is one that has filled its entire pot with roots and 'eaten up' all it's medium. This can happen with any plant, annual or perennial. When it happens, it's not a terribly big deal as long as you catch it soon enough. You can fix it by tearing off the bottom half of the root ball, giving the remainder a shake and sticking it in some new medium.

Plugbound perennials happen when the baby plant spends too long in that first, tiny little container. It makes lots of roots that circle around and around looking for new medium. But because those first roots are permanent structures used for storing carbs, after that plant is moved up into the next larger size of container, the 'knot' that the roots formed when it was in the tiny container will remain that way in that same contracted position, growing bigger and wider, until they actually squeeze the crown to death or split it apart.

I have to say that most growers probably aren't worrying about when specific crops need to be moved ahead; they're just moving them up according to a 'one size fits all' business schedule. And this won't wash. It doesn't matter too much with annuals, like I said...a week here or there is no big deal. NOT SO WITH PERENNIALS.

I've seen this happen time and time again and it pisses me off. I pay 7.00 for a specialty perennial plant, I expect to have it for longer than one goddamn season. 'But, I checked the pot when I planted it, and the roots weren't circled or anything," you say. And yes, the plant you bought was just beginning to fill in its new, larger layer of medium with new growth. Remember, those very first roots right next to the crown are tied in a large, ever-expanding and tightening knot, way in where you don't generally see, right in the center at the place where the stem enters the dirt.
This is what it looks like when you saw apart the root ball of any typical 4-inch potted perennial late in the season. You can actually see the different pot sizes by where the roots all gathered and 'paused' against the wall of the pot. Look carefully next to the stem there. Lots of times the plugbound roots will have balled themselves so tightly around the crown of the plant that they'll actually be heaving above the surface of the medium. If you see this, it ain't good. Don't buy the plant if you don't want to fool with it. Yes, you can fix it, but you risk killing the plant, so don't pay full price for it. Refuse. COMPLAIN.*

Until consumers become more educated and demand that this situation changes, you'll have to check TO MAKE SURE that the perennial you're buying is not going to kill itself a couple of months down the road. Here is how you do that:

Here's a little gaura lindheimerii that I've just taken out of its sales pot. Looks pretty standard from the side; this is what you want to see; lots of medium with roots all the way throughout it.

Here's the bottom of the root mass. Again, this is looking good so far. The roots head south chasing after the water so the bottom of this pot should be filled with them. Perennials make A LOT of roots, and they make them fast.

The first thing I do is I knock the top layer of potting medium off and get rid of it. You can see here its kind of greenish looking? That's algae, which promotes rot. Also, God only knows what kind of weed seeds have blown onto the top of that medium while it was sitting out on the sales yard or riding around in the back of some scody old refrigerated container. You'll save yourself a lot of headaches if you just shitcan this top layer, believe me. so then...

The next thing I do is fill up a container with water and swish the rootball around in it to wash out the medium, so I can get a look at the root structure. Take hold of the rootball and the plant and hold it the same way you'd hold a baby chicken...kind of make a supportive cage of your fingers but don't squish. Then, abandoning the baby chicken image unless you are very sick indeed, immerse your hand and the rootball into the water and swish it about gently, maintaining your grasp of the whole structure. This isn't a mop. Don't grab it by the stalk and slosh it around. Roots are breakable. Be nice.

And this is what I end up with. You don't need to wash out all the dirt; just enough so that you can see what's going on. And what I see (and what you can't because this is a shitty picture) is that this is a nice little rooted cutting. All the roots come out of a central little knob of crown at the base there and head straight out and down. This is what a well-grown little perennial SHOULD look like.

Now (because I am cheap and picky) I'm going to re-pot it in a larger pot and let it rest for a month. It's pretty early in the season here and if I were to plop this right in the dirt outdoors with its little roots all interfered with it would stand a pretty good chance of dying before it got established in my heavy, cold soil. So...

I put it right into the pot, with it's roots spread out,

...and then I backfill with my medium; 2 parts compost to one part soil from my garden thats been sifted together. I firm the plant down and give it a few taps to settle everything in, but I don't mash it down.

Now I set the newly potted plant into a bowl. I fill the bowl up halfway with water and let capillary action wet the medium from the bottom up overnight, in the shed. This sets the plant in nicely and doesn't pack the medium down the way top watering does. This is how I set in all my perennial transplants and it works really well.

Tomorrow it will go outside to where I hold my potted stock and it will stay there until I'm ready to plant it out.

Now I have between late May up until mid-September to transplant this guy. When I do, I'll transplant in the evening. That gives the plant all night to get used to it's new home and take up some food via it's roots, without the added stress of the light and heat of the day stimulating it to try and do too many things at once. (Thats what causes 'shock' and kills plants.) This really works, and besides, it's so nice to plant in the cool of the evening anyway.

So there you go. If you spend good money on a perennial plant, this is what you should be prepared to do, if you buy from a large retail outlet. Just be advised. Until people begin complaining things arent' going to change. Perennials aren't meant to be disposable. If you pay more, you should get more. Right? Right.
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*READ ON!
.....so you got your plant home and discovered too late that it's plugbound? do not despair. simply unpot the plant, shake out all the medium you can and carefully try and untangle the roots with your fingers. about half the time this will work, and you can re-pot your plant in a nice big pot with new medium and let it rest.

if this doesnt work because the roots are too tightly knotted or are very brittle, you can do one of two other things before you give up and pitch it out-

1. soak the entire root ball in water overnight. the next day, gently swish the rootball back and forth, supporting it with the 'baby chicken' hold, until the roots untangle. then pot up and hold for a month.

2. try the above, and if the roots still hold the bound form, take a knife and shear off one entire side of the rootball, starting to one side of the crown.

yes, literally cut or saw it right off. then cut off about 1/3 of the top growth and all the flowers or flower buds, and pot up the remains. hold it for a couple of months, or until you see new growth. I know it seems savage, but this works. the cut roots that are still tangled in the remaining half simply decompose into the medium and new storage roots grow out of the cut side of the crown. it's worth giving a try; and you'll feel so heroic when it works!

Flower favorites!

I will probably be updating this with a couple of pictures from my garden later on today. Until then, read this and droooooooooool with envy.
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I GROW ALL THESE (EXCEPT THE ROSES.)

Iris Chrysographes

There is nothing bad to say about this gorgeous plant. (This picture doesn't show the fine golden 'writing' on the fall, unfortunately) It is very nearly perfect in every way. The leaves are narrow, graceful blades that come up about 24 inches, attenuate like sumeo-e brushstrokes, and steel blue-green. The blossom follows the oriental iris design, a fine, delicate dragonfly shape, velvety blue-black and slightly diamond-dusted. The falls are decorated with the finest, glittering golden line, and bumbles find it endlessly interesting. They wander around inspecting the writing until they blunder into the throat and find the nectar, which seems to surprise them. They'll visit the same blossom three or four times in rapid succession as though they're amazed that this thing really is a delicious flower.
The plant springs from a fiberous crown and forms coronas and tufts. It needs to be divided every 2 years or else the crown will heave itself out of the ground and center kill. It dies down to a mound of fibers in the winter.

Primula 'Velvet Moon'
A primula leaf is not my favorite leaf in the whole world; to me it looks kind of like a mutated lung or something. But these leaves are dark shining green and on the smaller side, and from the center of the rosette rises the most gorgeous blossom; typical single primula in form, but a velvet, deep, black-red with a small golden throat. It is the most gorgeous flower in the springtime when everything else is coming up in Easter egg pastels, and it works well next to those hard rhododendron pinks. The blossoms are carried in clusters of 3-5 above the rosette about 5 inches high on a dark stem. If you can keep the slugs from chewing on it, this makes a wonderful specimen planting. I hold mine in planters that I set on the ground, and when the blossoms die back I clean them out and refresh the medium. This keeps them looking nice. toward the end of the summer offsets can be separated from the main crown and potted up. Let them get a good start. They can be overwintered out of doors; just don't let them flood. They're pretty hardy...but like all primmies, the slugs LOVE them.

Hemerocallis Lilioaesphodelus 'Lemon High'

A beautiful daylilly with a tall form and a large yet graceful, trumpet-shaped flower, that smells good. Yes! The blossom is a hard canary yellow, and it is EDIBLE! It tastes like butter lettuce. The only drawback is, that honeybees find something so attractive about the nectar that they will literally chew a hole through the side of the petals to get at the throat-I've stood and watched them do this. If you've ever grown cabbage roses you know what I'm talking about.

Hemerocallis 'Golden Chimes'

A medium-sized daylilly with a mahagony-brown stem and a mahogany stripe up the backs of the graceful, buttery, cadmium-yellow flower. The leaves are bright spring-green and on the grassy side, at least for a daylilly, and the flowers carry high above the clump on branched stalks. This is the most refined of the daylillies.

Tulip 'Black Parrot'
Big, blue leaves followed by a 15 inch stalk atop which the oddest and most beautiful black blossom opens. The petals are 'parroted', which means that they have an odd, ripped-up or tendrilled appearance. It is a single blossom, so it retains the classic 'tulip cup' shape. The color is deepest purple-black-red, shiny on the outside and super velvety on the inside. This is a plant that no photograph has ever done justice to. In life this is a showstopping flower, proportionate in all it's parts and made for the sun to hit and the wind to sway.

Pulmonaria 'Mostly Boys'

(pictured is 'Blue Ensign'. Imagine this with three pink flowers and you have 'Mostly Boys'.)
A lungwort with a plain, light- green leaf and the most incredible, peacock-blue blossoms, with just enough pink ones to draw the attention. It comes out in April and grows in the shade, so its appearance is a benediction in the rain and the gloom. And what a blue!! This is a sport off 'Blue Ensign', I think.

Magnolia Stellata

Just a glorious little flowering tree.

Papaver somniferum, various colors

The blossoms come in every combination of colors there is, but it's the blue ruffly foliage and the Aubrey Beardsley form of the plant, with it's arching neck and odd seed pod that really earns its place. A drift of these is beautiful in bloom, and just at beautiful when the blossom has fallen.

California poppy 'Thai Silk' all varieties esp. Fire Bush

(This is 'Mission Bells. Imagine this, but with fewer pure yellows and shiny.)
A California poppy is a gorgeous little plant anyway...ferny, delicate blue-green foliage and simple orange cups rising above that. Thai Silk is something special again, though. The foliage is the same, and the shape of the blossom is too, but the petals themselves are crisp and pleated lengthwise, and they shine with the exact luster as silk fabric. The color range is cinnebar and golden yellow and peach-orange and purple-mahogany; a very Indonesian palette. It is simply yummy!!!

" " 'Mission Bells'
Very similar to 'Thai Silk', but without the shimmer. Color range is buttermilk white, clear yellows, oranges and mahoganies.


Artemesia 'Spanish Lace'

(Like this, only without the guys' head in the middle.)
You could call this a crappy shrub, or a sturdy herbaceous perennial. It likes very dry soil and full sun, and the foliage is the main attraction. It will get small round yellow button flowers on it, which look something like a chamomile blossom. You cut them off. The foliage is like a cloud of needle lace and is a bright silver-blue-grey. 'Spanish Lace' is a very apt description. I've had mine in a galvanized bucket directly in the path of the northeaster for the past 5 years and it comes back every year like a champ.

Snapdragon 'Apricot Fire' 'Black Prince'



These two look good together. Apricot fire is a 12 inch bushy plant with green leaves and a blossom that is apricot above and yellow below. Black prince is a 16 inch spiring plant with dark leaves, black stems and a red-black blossom with a lighter red to orange throat. Super striking on their own too, but stunning together.

Nigellia Damascena

Words cannot express. Lacy, delicate green foliage... Beautiful, glorious peacock blue blossom....MMMMmmmmm!!!

Delphinium Blue Mirror

This is a short-lived perennial in this climate, but it comes pretty readily from seed. The blossom and the foliage are a lacier and more refined version of the usual delphinium pattern, and the blue....! Maxfield Parrish would have killed for this blue!!

HTR 'Don Juan, Tropicana


I will never grow them. HTR's are simply too demanding. But I love to see them well-grown in other peoples gardens. They are truly an ornament. Don Juan is a climber-rambler, and the leaves are dark glossy green. The flower is dark, dark red with a glowing red heart. Just dreamy.
Tropicana is like a pillar version of 'Josephs' Coat'. The blossom colors are more pronounced and it carries its red tones more aggressively than Josephs Coat; a variety that tends to run to washed-out yellows and peaches.

Rosa 'The Mermaid'

A well-grown tree of this rose in full bloom is a like a tidal wave of whipped cream. Pretty, simple-double blossoms are on the smaller side, but it flushes in the hundreds of thousands. Imagine an apple tree in spring, but with larger blossoms. That gives you a rough idea of the size and effect of this rose.

gardening

I'm sitting here with my hands swollen up like two baseball mitts, feeling as though someone has kicked me in the side of the neck with a pointy shoe. One hip is seized up about an inch higher than the other one, which puts quite a hitch in my giddyup. I am in pain, and I am lopsided. And I have gardening to thank for this state of affairs. One weeks worth of weeding, digging, cutting, trimming, planting and roaming around with my hands on my hips going 'Huh....' and my shit is RACKED UP.

There is simply something in my DNA that makes me want to annoy vegetation. I don't always love it, but I have to do it the same way I have to sleep or eat. I don't feel right if I can't.

I had a few forewarnings....once, when I was 13, I started a few flowers on my windowsill that quickly went from mint out of the back yard to a redwood burl to marijuana, and just as quickly got quashed by the parental units (never plant dope in the street side window of a house, kids.)

A few years later I 'got the call' to become a nun. Not just any nun, though; one of the Sisters of Canaan- a cloistered order that was reclaiming unused land for agriculture somewhere in the Midwest. It sounded great to me at the time...of course, so did Elton John.

Years later I asked for a job at a local garden nursery. I was spending most of my time there anyway, so why not get paid? That's where I really learned how to garden-how to pot up plants and take cuttings and make medium and all the other stuff. And I liked it real good.

Now, my grandmother gardened, although by the time we moved next door the main work had been done for years and all that was left was trimming and weeding. My father gardened too, and he did a damn good job of it. The problem was, I was the kid, and so I never got to do anything but tote and pull weeds, which didn't suit me one bit. I finally put my foot down and refused to do another thing after I found a tomato hornworm and made a giant dramatic screaming scene about it.

...EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW.

I didn't want the garden to be associated with punishment or drudgery, and so I didn't insist that my daughter be my yard slave*. She learned to garden from the same woman I learned from, which probably was all for the best. And now my daughter is teaching my grandson, and he goes out into the yard and digs holes so that Grandma will give him a flower to plant in them, and is proud to select a baby flower to take care of at the nursery. So I feel like my job is done.

Gardening can be hard work. I don't mind that. I don't mind being cold or filthy or wet or miserably tired if it's related to gardening. Gardening is also, for the larger part, a sheer joy. I certainly don't mind wandering around the pretty flowers with a pair of clippers going 'snip, snip...la la la....snip, snip' all afternoon with the fat bumbles making circles around my head. And let me tell you, after wasting two years in college on a business degree and another year trying to convince myself that I didn't mind wearing nylons every day and making copies for a living, I can state conclusively that I would much rather be ankle-deep in rotting pumpkins wearing a 'Fuck Off And Die' t-shirt, and drinking cheap warm beer in the sunshine.

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*watch the comments, though. accounts may vary.

NEW POST!!!!

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Nope, still another rerun: Oaks Amusement Park

What was your most memorable amusement park experience?

I'll be honest right at the front here and tell you that I cribbed this idea from another site. Not like either one of us care, but if you should happen to visit the same site and have an 'aha' moment I will have already trumped you. This one goes out to Tazzy the Yorkshire sex god and Piggy the...whatever he his- who never visit any more because there are too many big words. Cunts.

New York had Coney Island, California had Knotts Berry farm. Portland Oregon had Oaks Amusement Park. It was not world famous like Coney and it was not state of the art like Knotts Berry was at the time, but what it was, was stone fucking cool.

This midway area was still present in large part when I was a kid, but most of the buildings were boarded up, gated over and flood damaged. Spooky? Romantic? The very definition thereof, my dear.

I defy you to find another amusement park with as much pure class as the Oaks had back then. Think of the myriad haunted amusement parks in Scooby Doo...bullshit. Think of the best midway you had ever visited...roadkill. The Oaks had it ALL. And all of it was blessed with that perfect touch of dereliction, sleaze and enchantment that all proper amusements parks should have.

It had been built at the very beginning of the 1900s on what at the time was a small island in the Willamette river...far enough out of town at that time so that a special excursion trolley ran out to it on a trestle over the water, hung with strings of lanterns at night.

It was a fantasy of carved wood, Victorian lace, gargoyles, a little Venice, a little New Orleans and a lot pure Americana. Straight out of Dandelion Wine was this place.

The main portion of the old park was shut down save for a very few of the pitches. You had to traverse this entire midway to the far end to reach the remaining few operating rides, pitches and roller rink. All of it was set in the midst of huge oak trees full of swallows and bats and the rich smell of the river and cotton candy and diesel.

in the 1960's and '70's, you crossed over a small bridge and the first thing you passed was a tiny cinderblock radio station on the right hand side down amid the blackberies. KXI, I think it was*. It was painted sea green with glass blocks by the entry and a tall tower rising from the roof with blinking red lights on it at night.
And it was haunted.

The story was, a night shift dj had played a farewell song dedicated to his girlfriend...'Misty'...and when someone came in a few hours later to find out why the same song had been playing over and over they found the dj hanging from the overhead pipes with the phone cord wrapped around his neck. Sometimes, late at night, it was said that the 'On the Air' sign would light up, and you could hear 'Misty' playing inside, but there never was a night shift after the dj died.

Wooooooo!

Next you came onto a huge picnic and outdoor gathering park. The living trees were used as part of the decoration, hung with electric lights and incorporated into bowers, bandstands, and picnic enclosures, all of them fancifully themed with spiders webs and wooden vines. John Phillip Sousa had played here during his heyday.

An elfin railway ran the circuit of the park with a tiny engine and 20 cars, a scary tunnel and a causeway out over the water that crackled when the train passed, making fish jump out from around the pilings to take a look as you chugged by.

There was a permanent midway with carnival games of skill. Most of it was shabby and abandoned and cooler than jeezley fuck. All the joints had been decorated with gilt and glass gems, applied- relief cherubs, theatrical masks and gargoyles, monkeys and pierrots and ladies and gentlemen in domino masks dancing minuets, and all this ornament colored. Everything else was painted white. Most of it was fancy with turrets and widows walks and fretwork and oriental arches all falling into the most delicious, mysterious shadowed ruin!. this pitch still operated intermittantly, the faded origional lettering showing up behind the new signs. later it was gated off and used as a storage area and was full of old ride cars and carnival flash.

At the very end of the place was a funky rollerskating rink that was built on a floating platform. It had been added in the 1930's. The place had a pipe organ for music. The works were suspended over the center of the rink and covered with colored lights. The organist sat in a glass block booth high up above one end, wearing a suit with a ruffled shirt. He rang the skates and took requests and controlled the lights and everyone waved at him as they rolled around.

this is a very spic-and span picture of the pipe organ works suspended over the rink. in my day they were crusted with blowing dust scarves and old crepe streamer fragments. the whole place looks like it got the 'Pine-Sol and paint' treatment, which is all for the good.


The thrill rides, I now realize, were probably as close as I ever came to a horrible death in my youth.

I don't think these things had ever been inspected for safety. I don't think that most of them were built during a time when safety codes existed. The oldest and most beautiful of them all was called The Caterpillar. All it was, was a kind of roller coaster that ran in a circle on a planked runway that dipped and banked. The cars were driven from a single engine in the center from which diabolical blue clouds would billow as it chuffed and blew and gathered speed. A fan of iron spokes ran from the central turbine to the cars.

The whole ride was decorated with 'Alice in Wonderland'-y scenes....it had kind of an 'Early Campbell Kids meets Arthur Rackham' look to it. The Caterpiller himself was a cheery, googly-eyed bug with fat green segments for cars and jolly rubber wheels with red centers. As long as you didn't look too closely, this was all very reassuring. Jolly Green Caterpiller was the childrens' friend!

As the ride would gain speed, the fissured, chewed-up tires would begin to skip and sing over the boards, making the cars rattle and bash against one another and tug at the spokes. Faster and faster the ride whizzed around the track, harder and harder you were pressed against the rattling half-moon door of the car, louder and more alarming became the truly amazing creaks, bangs, snaps, sudden jolts and screeches of the machine. Boards would lift away from the racecourse and rattle. Huge blasts of steam would FASSSSSHHHHH! out of the engine unpredictably. The platform of the ramp-in other words, the entire base of the ride- would lift up off the ground on the opposite side and wham back down when the cars passed over it again.
And then, at the height of all this, The Caterpiller Canopy began to deploy.
All along its length it began to unfold from the inner side like an accordian, revealing thousands of brightly colored dots and squiggles, and slowly, slowly, the canvas arched overhead and came down on the other side, latched-
and then the ride REALLY SPEEDED UP.
You were entirely in the dark. Inside the Caterpillar.
The whole thing felt like it was going to wrench itself apart at any moment.
Some of the cars were rattling and skitttering so hard that they juddered back and forth like marbles on a roulette wheel. The platform was lifting off the ground in full earnest now, WHAM!WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAMWHAMWHAMWHAMWHAMWHAM!
Until there was a sudden huge screeching and squealing of brakes and an exhalation of steam, and the entire ride came to a complete stop in the space of a single rotation.
The canopy unlatched and slowly accordianed back overhead; folded itself away with a 'whapkechunk'.

It was the Goddamndest thing!

The Carousel, back then, was a thing of splendour. It had been built by convict labor, horses, decoration and engine, up at Rocky Butte prison**. It was everything the rest of the park was and more. It was a jewelled wedding cake, a castle, a hall of mirrors, a pile of pirate treasure. I have yet to see a carousel to equal it for sheer Victorian glory.
The central pillar was shaped like an octagonal castle tower. Its sides were covered in painted french panels...lady Columbia danced over the river with a star on her forehead that sparkled when the light caught it. Triton rode a sea-chariot pulled by white horses with manes of wave-crest, surrounded by nymphs. A dawn-lit view of Mt. Hood. Men in leather helmets scored a touchdown with a cheering crowd in the background. America the Beautiful, revealed in triumph with an eagle and star spangled negligee; a gorgeous, rosebud mouthed Gibson girl. In fact for years I was certain that this merry go round had really been decorated by Charles Dana Gibson, because that was the style and the skill of the work.

Imagine it!

My favorite mount was a sable charger with patriotic banners and rubies studding its equippage. I loved that horse. It had a real bridle and reins and real stirrups with starred spurs. It was a beautifully executed thing. All the animals on the circuit were-ostriches, kangaroos, sea beasts, zebras, eagles, swans and a jewelled throne for mothers with scared children to circle around in with a little dignity saved.

below is is a picture of the pavillion that housed the carousel taken from a rollercoaster ride that was derelict by the time I came along. unfortunately, the carousel was the victim of a tasteless and unskilled restoration in the 80's.

The other ride that I will never forget was The Mad Mouse.
Remember the Milton-Bradley game 'Mousetrap'? Kind of a Rube Golberg rack of rails and clackety rickety things? That was this ride.
It was based on a roller coaster, but with a twist-the cars were single, and they made right angles. There were no macaroni curves, just ramps and angles. And the whole thing ran at light speed!

The cars got released from a starting gate at intervals with split second timing and passed each other as though they were going to collide. In fact, there was a segment of rail that shunted open at the middle where two cars would suddenly find themselves speeding head on, then at the last possible moment race off at right angles to each other.
This fucking thing scared the living piss outta me. I ALWAYS rode it.

The last time I rode, I was the only rider on the course. That was fine. It must have been about 1969-70. The first stage of the ride was a long, slow incline up from the starting gate, upon which you gained speed until you reached the top just screaming along, came to a dead stop, spun in a circle and headed down a zigzag.
My car gained speed going up the hill. All around me flakes of rust are falling off the track scaffolding, rivets are visibly pivoting, some are completely missing and replaced with wire looped around and around.
My car gains speed. My braids are flying straight back.
My car reaches the top.
It comes to a whiplash stop.
And the entire structure continues to move.
Creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaak k k kkk k.
I look out over the marsh below me. My braids are in front of me now.
The car pivots around in a circle and comes back to the starting gate. The operator hands my father his money back.

It took me years to put it all together and realize just how close I came to taking a swim that day.

The Oaks is still there. It's on the national register of historic places and has been completely restored from what I understand.
I will never go back and visit. I like it just the way it is now.


update:
this brought the memories tumbling back. i visited some historic sites for the pictures and was pleased to find that the stories i had heard, and my memories, were pretty accurate. interestingly enough very few pictures survive from the 60's and 70's, when the parks finances were at their lowest point. I did find mention of the midway being haunted by a kid in 70's clothes, though... I remember when that rumor started! the owners were just beginning to think about reviving the place and everyone pretty much knew that it was something they had cooked up. I found the story on a ghost site! But no mention of the haunted radio station.
*if somebody knows, please tell me!!
** the history says that this was a 'noah' ark' style carousel manufactured back east. I recount the story told me by my father and grandmother. they were certain that the animals had been made locally by convict labor. i remember they had to ship in a tiny litle guy from italy to fix the animated musical contraption inside about once a year, too.

RERUN: The DaVinci Code: Fiction or Documentary?

I need to garden and you need something to read. It's either this, or dredge up some more stories about the Meadows family, and NOBODY WANTS THAT, do they.
Have I edited this? Yes, I have. Because I can.
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Anyone who has read 'The DaVinci Code' knows that religious art is teeming with secret symbols and messages; truths only meant to be divined by the initiate; truths consciously withheld from the greater part of mankind by a jealous Papacy and the universal, unswerving complicity of Catholicisms' innumerable adherents. Secret, secret truths. Which are secret.

While I was still too small to give my consent my initiation into the rites of the Roman Church began. Each new year built new levels of esoteric knowledge onto that primary foundation, each stage of indoctrination capped off by rites, obeisances and cryptic oaths administered by black clad virginal acolytes of the inner circle.

By the time I had reached adulthood I was ready to go forth and fulfill my role in the Popes great army of world domination.
My orders: Seize control.
My rank: Uterus.

I have come to the conclusion that to continue to hide these secret teachings from the rest of mankind is to do my fellow man a grave disservice. Therefore let me begin by revealing a despicable incident known as The Suppression of J. M. Barrie:








...'We simply do not see the Blessed Mother battling pirates' says Rome.

The first version of 'Peter Pan' was banned by Pope Pius X.



Oh yes....our obedience was never taken for granted. Here is a surveillance device familiar in all Catholic homes:
The Disaproving Icon.

"The saints are very, very disappointed in you.
The saints are ALWAYS very, very disappointed in you."

The tentacles of the Pope remain a strong yet invisible presence in modern popular culture. Here is the proposed cover art for 'Hallelujia Kid Hitz volume 14' featuring Sir Mix A Lot:

"...I like big butts but I can't deny...that horse is gonna smush that guy!"

Oh yes. The Church is 'Down' with the 'Street'.



The true message of many paintings has long been a subject of debate among scholars. Know them now.

The flying babies failing to arouse St. John's enthusiasm at the prospect of being martyred in boiling oil.



You cannot escape the possibility of uninvited company when you have a glowing baby.


If Mary had owned one of those really big bug zappers history would be different.



Not even matters of the most basic household management or personal life were exempt from the mandates of the Church:


"...Yes I know you're the King of the Beasts and I know you have wings but as long as you live in this house you'll crap in that box."


When the hallucinations get shitty about your spelling it's time to go to bed.


Things you leave outside during a tornado will get blown away.
Know where your grandpa is.


Before you demand that miracle, balance how much you really miss the deceased with 1. how dead he is, and 2. how comprehensively freaked out you'll be when he comes back to life in the middle of August.




In some instances, a spray-on repellent like DEET simply isn't enough to keep away flying baby heads. Sometimes you need a flying teenager with a flail and a grenade.

UPDATED: Excuses

BLOGGER HAS DECIDED, IN ITS INFINITE WISDOM, THAT I HAVE ENABLED COMMENT MODERATION.
I HAVE NOT.
I HAVE CHECKED. NO.
STILL, SOME OF YOUR MESSAGES ARE GETTING BOUNCED TO MY E-MAIL, AND NOT GETTING PUBLISHED ON MY BLOG.
I AM NOT DELETING YOUR COMMENTS.
I BLAME FRANCE.
does anyone know how to fix this? i think one from surly just got lost in space, and a couple from the last post ended up in the nowhere also. WTF?????
HAPL!@
_______________________________________


I love you all desparately and unreasonably. You know that.
But the sun is out, and I'm gardening, and the dirt smells so good....!

He's taken, Back off.

I'm sitting here at 8:30 pm and my Biker is making a country sausage gravy to take for a breakfast potluck at work. He's using organic boar sausage and making the cream gravy base from scratch, whisking the milk and flour and spices about behind me here in the kitchen and making the place smell like heaven.

As I've said before, this man is a genius of flavor. We can confidently hold our own against most restaurants serving American home cooking and better most of them; but its his ability to divine the source of the flavors and knowing how to bring them into the mix that makes what we cook here so goddamn excellent.

It's 9:pm and the sauce is finished. The Biker is in bed. The sauce will mature overnight and tomorrow morning when he serves this at work he's going to have straight men begging to suck his
*ahem*
begging for the recipe. 20 minutes spent, scratch to done. Sausage browned with onion, cream sauce thickened, corrected and finished. Simple and absolutely SUBLIME.

Another guy is making southern style beaten biscuits, and this gravy will go over top of that, with eggs on the side.

You WISH you could be there, bitches.

If Pither can do it then so can I

In this corner, God of rant REG PITHER !















Well informed! As far as I know, anyway;
he writes about British stuff. Sounds good.
Pissed off anyway.

IN this corner: DANGER MUK!

....um.... Heavily medicated!

Waaaaay heavily medicated!
Um....has a corndog!

_______________________________

I swore that I wouldn't turn this into a relevant topics blog* but dammit some things just gotta get said.

1. Researchers are claiming that they have found the reason the Titanic went down: substandard rivets.

Folks, the Titanic hit an iceberg the size of the Balkans. At that point the quality of the rivets became moot. Get over it already. It sank. It's over. Move on.

2. Was there a US-government based conspiracy to assassinate JFK?

Yes, and J. Edgar Hoover masterminded it. In fact, J. Edgar Hoover ran this country for 48 solid years. He is currently serving eternity in Hell as Satans buttplug.

3. Was there another shooter on the grassy knoll?

Your momma was on the grassy knoll. With J. Edgar Hoover.

4. Was Marilyn Monroe killed by the FBI?

No. Kennedy played hide the salami with every woman who crossed his line of vision. Some of them were married to his political cronies and some of them were the girlfriends of mobsters for heavens' sake. He wasn't exactly scrupulous - OR careful. So out of all the women he ever nailed why kill the one who posed NO THREAT WHATSOEVER TO HIS REPUTATION? (Enhanced it, in fact. The leader of the free world was 'entitled' to bonk Monroe. It was a man's world back then and they're still going 'har-de-har-har' about it the same way they did when Clinton nailed Lewinsky. Please.) Is anyone dumb enough to believe that he laid up in bed with her and gave her a bunch of ICBM fire-codes or something? She was Marilyn Monroe! They weren't talking! The poor woman accidentally did herself with booze and pills. Please just leave in her grave already.

5. Was Princess Di killed by the British Government because she was making squishy squishy with a sand minority?

Princess Di should have been knocked upside the chops for even coming within a city block of Dodi 'Greasy Lowlife' Fayyed, but she was killed in a drunk driving accident. Shit happens. Nobody killed Chuck 'Cardboard Applicator' Windsor and look what he's been...*ahem* up.
To.


6. Did Bush steal the election?

He got Christmas presents that year, didn't he? Well, there ya go. Do you think he would have got any Christmas presents if Santa Claus thought he'd stolen the election?
See, now you're just starting to piss me off.
Did your mother huff Regular or Ethyl? Did she drop you a lot? Have you spent the last 30 years of your life wearing a helmet and eating sugar out of the bag? Jesus CHRISTgrab a CLUE.

7. Should Northern California, Oregon, Washington, Montana and Idaho secede from the Union and set up a sovereign nation of their own and call it Ecotopia?

Yes. If y'all hadn't been so busy selling Oregon to the Japanese and mating in public discotecques like a herd of Aquanet-glazed mink with the music all going WHUMPA WHUMPA WHUMPA WHUMPA you would have realized that Ernest Callenbach was a prophet inspired by GOD, and done the right thing. Well, like any prophet Ol' Ernie wasn't honored in his native land, and now his native land is overrun with trash-ass lowland Southern Californians and effete failed New Yorkers who won't be satisfied until this place is just as big a shit-up wasteland as the toxic sewers they left in their wake. You had no excuse. The technology existed. Disney preserved Walt's brain in a jar so they could hook it up to a motherboard and route their payroll department through it; well, you shoulda done the exact same thing with Tom McCall. We could have mounted it in a Dalek-type thing with a toilet plunger on the front and he could have rolled around and been in parades and levitated and shit. We'd all be living in an environmentally pristine, socially enlightened country instead of a place that the rest of the nation considers an inexhaustable grab-bag of natural resources where picturesque Native Americans roam through the forest primeval bapping each other with little sticks and Laura Ingalls Wilder kicks the shit out of gas station attendants and pees in their soup. Tom wouldn't have put up with that shit!! OO! You don't want to pay a reasonable market price for timber? You don't care if our native salmon are getting ground up in the Bonneville hydroelectric dam just so you can leave the Hubble space telescope on all night long and spy on naked broads in Iowa? Is the mean ol' president gonna get pissed off? Is he gonna send some black helicopters? SEND THE MOTHERFUCKERS! OOOOO, IM FRIGHTENED! OOOOO, WHERE DID THESE MYSTERIOUS UNMARKED HELICOPTERS COME FROM! OOOOO, MAYBE I OUGHT TO USE MY DALEK DEATH RAY ON THE HELICOPTERS! HUH? WHADDYOU THINK, BITCH? And he would win!!!! Then we'd all be happy walking through our old growth forests breathing our clean air and drinking our nice espresso behind our nice safe wall and everyone would say 'Thank you, thank you, Tom McCall, you saved us!'
And there would be a big party and you would be invited!
But you'd have to go home after.







_________________________
*which is a total lie and not even true. if i felt like it i could do a whole post with just the letter e: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee OH MY GOD I'M OUTTA CONTROL PEOPLE! OH NOES!
SOMEBODY STOP ME!

...See? Theres nothing anyone can do about it. I'm drunk on power, baby.