I had words and then I wrote it down

Happy Jack lived over there on the Isle of Man
banging drums and sand, couldn't stop Jack
couldn't prevent Jack from being happy
the waters still came on

ten years man, ten years
can you count all the dead? there are bones enough to do so
i can't count all the dollars
war on the cheap costs a helluva lot
whip their ass and take their gas never came to pass

ten years ago we let loose the dragon
rolled out the cage, unlocked the bastard and he roared
oh and how he did roar
the echoes linger today
nay, nay dear sir
the fires still burn

i once said I wanted Osama's head on a stick
a watery grave was good enough
i can handle that
that was last election cycle
and ten years later ten fucking long ass years
nobody seems to give a shit about that
nobody gives a damn
about a million dead
faces they never saw
voices never heard

there isn't enough whiskey in tennessee, kentucky, ireland and scotland combined
not enough weed in cali, british columbia and colorado all put together
to smoke out, drown out or fade into oblivion of mind
the blood we shed for no good reason

we owe a weregild

far more than we can ever pay
tears. tears and some half-assed syllables.

Seen any hope or joy around?

I re-read an entry into this digital diary of sorts written about 2 years ago. I was out of a job and in the middle of having to move. It was a particularly bad time. I heard the other day that David Letterman gave an interview to somebody or another, a frank and open interview, in which he told of his struggle with depression. In his understanding of the condition he likened it to having 20/20 vision of the world. Seeing the world with a clear vision of how awful it really can be. Is this to say that those of us that are experiencing joy are somehow looking at the world through eyes that see less than they are capable of seeing? Or do they simply not choose to look upon those things that are terrible and ugly? Is truth beautiful or ugly or neither or both? Perhaps I am trying too hard to distill down everything into one lump that is either/or. Perhaps all of life is a mixture of good and bad. 

It is funny to me how I can find humor in odd spots and laugh at things that shouldn't be funny. Why did you laugh at that sir? I do not know, somehow it was funny at the time. I know a thing or two of gallows humor. Laughing in the midst of a horrific situation because at that moment there is no time for reflection. Laugh at the absurdity of it. Later we can be hurt and angry. Right now we have to deal with this situation. It isn't always funny. Sometimes there just isn't anything to laugh at and the absurdity of it all confounds me. 

Absurd random chance, both good and bad, happens to everybody. Whether we like it or not, this world is not under our control no matter how much we would like it to be. The best we can do is to control ourselves. I can't control the behavior of an ant. I can't even remotely eliminate them. Keeping them at bay is the best I can hope for. 

Keep the world at bay. That is probably your best shot at survival. Let's just deal with survival shall we? Thriving and growing for another day. Let's just stay alive first ok? This is the attitude of the cactus. It is part of why I admire them. Survival in a harsh and unforgiving land. If that prickly pear can withstand Texas every summer then I can too. If it can soak up the infrequent good rains that come its way and make flower and produce seed and fruit then it has exceeded expectations. I can ask no more. It is my task to make the most of the good times and slog through the bad. Survive, then you can thrive. 

Pre-Emergent Application. Or...Kill it early.

Get out there and do something in the yard. At the moment we are enjoying the spectacularly wonderful weather in Texas that draws snowbirds here. It won't stay this way forever. Eventually we will get one of those blue northers and freeze up for a whole day. But, somewhere out there 100F is lurking. I know it. I can feel the heat of it on my head. Looking around the area you can see the trees changing. There are ripples of green on the lawn where some of the frosts we have had are beginning to send the turf into dormancy. But I also see thin spots in the mulch. Acorns and pecans all over driveways, weeds growing in the bare spots and dead shrubs in beds. Now is the time to repair, expand and maintain your spot of earth. 

Whether you are a tofu-eating vegan that would no more spray 2,4-D than you would poke a sharp stick in your eye or you are hardened chemical slinger (ahem, don't judge me!) now is the time to get with it. There are a few reasons why this time of year is crucial to your overall success with your landscape. I am often asked " Is it too late to apply pre-emergents?" First, I had better define "pre-emergent." A plant can be characterized as pre or post emergent. Meaning it has either not sprouted (germinated) from the seed or it has. Big fancy words for still in the seed or sprouting leaves. Now it might bother some of my earthy friends but when I apply corn gluten to my beds or yard I am applying an herbicide. That is what I am trying to do, prevent the germination of undesirable plants. It is in effect a pre-emergent and is marketed that way and registered with the EPA and TDA as such. If I go apply it at your house I have to have a license same as if I was applying simazine or pendimethalin. Those are two popular and effective pre-emergents widely available. Note I do not name a particular brand name. I would recommend looking at the bottom of the label, over to one side of the front or wherever they stick the fine print box of active ingredients and looking for those chemically inclined names with far too many syllables. They can call it "Kill a Weed." Weed Hammer" "Bash a Nettle!" or whatever snappy name the marketing dept comes up with, I could not care less. I don't care if it looks like the old generic "Beer." I buy my fertilizer in a brown paper bag. It has the requisite label and all the info I need on a 3x5 square. It is just like buying meds. Aspirin is aspirin whether it is the CVS brand or Bayer. Ok now that I have gotten that out of my system, here is what you need to know about applying pre-emergents. 

KNOW the area. Even a rough estimate of pacing the area off will be better than a wild ass guess. This is important because how much product you put out, whether corn or chems is dependent upon not only the target species but how big the area might be. For example, if the label calls for 4.5# of .5% pendimethalin to control sandburs (aka stickers) per 1000 ft sq. Then knowing that your hard is 30x40 you can determine how much of this canary yellow stuff you need to put out. Well, let's just work that problem shall we?

Ok 30 times 40 = 1200 sq feet. So another 20% over our 1000. We need to add a bit. Tack that 20% to 4.5 lbs and we have 5.4 lbs. Ok this is a good estimate for weight. A cup is usually about a pound. You can get really picky and weigh it out exactly and mark it on a measuring device but a standard cup is fine. Close enough. Just don't mound it up or leave it low. A nice measured cup, flat and even. Just like flour. So in our area in question we can dump five and allllmost a half a cup in our little grindy grindy spreader and walk around . Don't run around with it wide open trying to get full coverage! Open it up about halfway and walk normally back in forth until you have good coverage of the entire area. If you made it all the way across and still have some left, finish it off by going perpendicular to your original pattern until it is gone. Sweep or blow it off the sidewalks where you inadvertently got some product and turn on the water. This scenario applies to corn gluten the same as it does chemicals. Rather than the 4.5 lbs per 1000 it is 20lbs, so adjust accordingly. 

Or you can just go out there in the yard, pull the dandelions and chickweed and eat them. That works too. 

Maybe next time I will talk about planting trees and roses. 

I bought 12 beers from Shiner Texas
not too terribly far from Austin
wintry festivusal blend with peach and pecan
that is what that flavor was!

Austin seems to be weird enough for Texas
to be acceptable to the rest of DKos
I would submit that there are weed smokers from
deep East Texas
where they have to pump the sunlight in
and far out in West Texas
where the wind draws the water
that will still benefit from the fact that
somebody in DC still has a hand on the tiller
because it has been obvious for years that Goodhair does not

It was when Sam heard the union was dissolved that he died
Barbara Jordan did not go there to leave here
I will not leave! I absolutely fucking refuse to leave!
If you want a fight to leave
well i will fight to stay.

I cannot explain bitterness and rage
some idiot test I took a while back
said that my ultimate failing was that
i expected people to make some sense

yeah, I guess I kinda do
sorry, i thought reason and logic
facts and shit like that
still applied
my bad

 Run it back again

If I am to roll this stone up the hill and forever be running away from it

as it hurtles back at me down selfsame hillock

It would be nice to find a beer and sandwich at the bottom 

before I have to push the bastard back up again

A new pair of boots, more piss in a cup

exercise in the early dawn! once more with feeling!

a shovel in hand to find the leaky pipe 

riding around roads I have known and

new ones without a map for them

over a decade ago was I here

in that time so much has changed of the appearances

more humans! more money! 

and not one thing has changed of any of it

the same school where I went

is where my daughter will go

the same road I traveled in the throngs of morning

is where I will beat a trail

I can show you the pho noodle houses

I can show you the missing farms

I can point to what used to be open pastures

I can read the demographics of the census

and in my heart know not one thing has changed

Carpe Diem

With a grin on my face I met the world

it was the best defense I had

wrinkles in time, folds of yesterday and tomorrow coming together

in one big fat now, one yesterday in a lump of today

I drove up to the rusty bridge and hoped it would hold

as they pointed the radar gun at me

yes!, I did pass inspection.

When I chucked Four door doves don't ski 

off the patio and onto the parking lot

I did not expect Fr. Gregory to return it to me

Crime and Punishment visited me later

much to my chagrin and hard it was on my wallet

and my soul

Who are these people? Why did they find me?

I did not go looking for them!

11 children. Evicted from her home. Goats upon delivery as the tire went flat in the speed trap.

who are you? How did you find me?

I can't fix or repair myself. Stop! I stand athwart the sand of time and I say halt?

no. it does not stop. I have 3 good legs. So they tell me.

the buffalo springfield raises me down to the pavement. No lumps in me as they cover me up.

let the haters hate! let the lovers love! It matters not to me!

Let me life be as it is. I did not choose all this! As much as I am to blame for my own mistakes 

as much as they might honor me

I did what I had to do. 

I was an unprofitable servant. I did what I was told to do.

I has hope, so said the cat. I love you, so said the dog. 

I will not give up, so said the weed in the ditch. 

How can I? said the man without a grave. 

There will come a time when I and my last electrons and all the substance that is me

goes to rest in the dust. It is better to hear the song of mourners For that is the end of all men.

Seize the day! Seize the moment! Shed no tears for me! Laugh and be happy!

For this day will be no more. Take this time to love and be loved. 

We get no better chance than now. 

Life goes on, whether we do or not

I heard a widow say one time when she was sitting in the back yard looking around
"The grass keeps growing." Life had kept on moving while she was dealing with the big sad.
Everybody gets sad, it is a fact of human existence. What we do with it and how we deal with it is up to us.
Last time I visited this page I was starting to realize that what I thought was there was not.
That what I wanted and what she wanted were and are two entirely different things. That can be a shock.

I had to let it go. I had to step back and look around at all the other stuff of a relationship.
Do we actually get along? Do we enjoy each other's company? Are we good for each other?
I can honestly say "no" to all of those questions. It wasn't fun all the time as a matter of fact there were some that were genuinely worried about me when they saw pictures of me. From across the ocean somebody saw the sadness behind my eyes. That was probably 6 months ago, before I finally said, "You want me out? Fine, I am gone." That wasn't the first time she had said it, but that time I took her up on it. I made it stick when she called me about fifteen minutes down the road and I made it stick again when I came back to get the rest
of my stuff. I gave in later. I gave in when she said, "Come see me". Maybe I had to go back one more time. Maybe I needed reminders of why I left. It is still hard for me to let someone go. It isn't as though there aren't  others out there that want my time and my body and brain. There are lots of fish in the sea and apparently they like my hook.

somme was there was death and the revealing
flowers in the distance
of blasted trees and holes in the ground
wherewith we hid ourselves
saki died there hh munro with stories in his head, laughingatmadness

how so can i survive this day?
save me ghosts and saints
send prayers and hopes and a few syllables me way
down in the gutter where the dirt and silt and the rain and the sweat
are all I have in my hand
shake out your boot from the pebble that irks you

she is there and here and over and there and
what the hell was i thinking@!
i just want a warm bed and somewhere to lay me head
up against someone else in a somewhat clean house
where i dont have to worry about where she is
or when i might hear from her again

i know where mom is sleeping
i know where the dog is
i know where my daughter lays her head
but where I might find my other half
well
well
i just dont know
the one i thought i had
died one christmas
life is not for the the lonely
lonely are the brave

dirt and much tears and sweat and blood and the occasional scar
have been the sum total of my life
somewhere somehow
i gotta make it til tomorrow
i used to think i knew where i was going
now i just hope i am headed in sort of the right direction

i saw a tree
and i think it saw me too
i saw a lizard and it posed
i saw a wave on the ocean
and i thought i was there

i read a book and i dreamed i was there
reality took me back
and i fought it
i grasped at the vision in me head
paper and pen were not enough
it eluded me
these electrons on the page are all that I have left

in the murky hours of the night

Fun, Fun and More Fun

Back earlier in the week when it was contemplated
about goingout and doingstuff
she wasn't feeling exactly great
would you rather me stay back?
no no, fun fun and more fun
ok, so here i am again. Saw a pink and black Harley
last night at the local bar
then a Roothog Barback that I know knew the score
that last shot of Patron did me in. Liquor first then beer
or just stick to the cold malted beverages

Headed out on the town
Feels good after a week of stone, bone and dirt
bloody arms and sore back
liquid muscle relaxer helps, but not in excess
woke up sideways in the bed that we did
I better go easy on this wonderful night

I'd kinda like it to last

Pictures do not suffice and there are no words
but I will try to find them when I may and capture them when they come to me

did I find the rose or did she find me?
the perfect flower of my existence
the rose and gardenia, camellia and orchid
as if all the flowers I ever knew were summed up in a person

the flower of love when it blooms
is stronger than any I know

joepa and cain, the truth shall set you free

Might free them up from their present gigs, but oh well.

My maternal grandfather who had about 3 political chromosomes dedicated to democratic principles called it right when he said Nixon should have just followed the advice given to him and 'fessed up to what he did. It would do Joe Paterno and Herman Cain good to follow the same advice.

Neither one has to completely divulge every sordid detail, merely admit some sort of culpability and fall on their symbolic sword. Joe has to leave, Herman might get to stay and make more fun happy for the D side of the aisle. I kinda hopes he does. He is siphoning off lots and lots of cash away from other candidates by his mere presence. The longer he is in the race the better it is for my man. He is an anchor now. One big massive freaking pile of iron that drags down everybody else. I personally don't give a big rat's ass if he manages to salvage his campaign or not. I kind of hope he continues on his present path.

Joe Pa on the other hand... well as much as I might despise PSU I don't really want to see his legacy so tarnished that this is the major bullet point in his bio. "Joe Paterno was asleep at the switch when his Defiendsive coordinator was butt-fucking boys in the shower"

He has to quit and like tomorrow. Tearful replies to students from his back porch notwithstanding. He has to go. Him and everybody that might even remotely have had a clue that this was happening. If PSU wants to ever and I mean fucking ever wants to get on the good side of the football gods they had better clean house and I mean now. El Presidente must fire at will and then fall on his own sword and resign. That alone will salvage their reputation and repudiate this mess. Joe can avoid the damned media a while but eventually his ego will get the better of him and his age will allow him to forget that they are still gunning for him. The PR dept will remember but he will overrule them and then he will march out there to be eaten alive. If he stays that WILL happen. He cannot avoid them forever. Sorry Joe, you gotta go. You had the power to fix this earlier and you didn't. You were the bishop in charge of this wayward priest and you just tried to hide it. That won't fly. It didn't in church and it won't on the gridiron. Your ass is grass.

Herman is toast. Joepa might be able to salvage something out of this, but it is all about ego now. Humble yourselves and admit some fault and it might go better for you. Stick to your story and it all falls down.

I personally don't give a damn if you lie your ass off.

Hans Arp, by Man Ray

We are political beings by our natures
even if you say you are apolitical
it still affects you and touches your life
this concern of the polis

bootcactus
flowerinclay

how

doIsurvive?

eachday

oneday

isfollowed,bythenight

andthenthesun

comesagain

whenIremember

tinycactus

growinginflint

seedscast

generations,ago

ifigure

ought

tohangon

too

battlefiends

whenwill

it

end

pleasestop

findsome

peace

in

your

self

tiredoflooking

for

kindness

and

finding

grim

passthatlamp

overhere

Diogenes

The dreaded and feared Sandbur, aka The Sticker

If you don't have to deal with stickers/sandburs/Cenchrus then goody for you. The rest of us sorry individuals have this rather nasty weed to contend with every summer.
Let the battle begin.


From: Cummings, Dr. Hennen
Subject: Controlling field sand bur in your home lawn
To:
Date: Wednesday, January 19, 2011, 3:19 PM

If you are interested in controlling sandbur (stickers) or crabgrass in your lawn this summer, now is the time. Please go to Home Depot in Granbury or Weatherford. The brand name is Lesco which is why you have to go to Home Depot. You are looking for a 50-pound yellow bag kept with the fertilizers. The product is Lesco 0-0-7 PRE-M. The active ingredient is pendimethalin. Apply it like a fertilizer according to the directions using a rotary spreader. Uniform coverage is very important to prevent weed escapes. The product will stain concrete, so make sure you blow if off your driveway when you are finished. It may also stain on your pants' leg and spreader. The product needs to be watered in with a 1/2 inch of water (run the irrigation until several tuna cans laid out across the lawn are half-full). The product will control summer annual weeds like field sandbur when applied in Feb. before the weed seeds germinate. It will not control perennial weeds like dandelion that come back from vegetative structures. The bag will cost about $21.00 per 12,000 ft². Be careful putting herbicides on St. Augustinegrass. The fewer herbicides placed on St. Augustinegrass the better. Even if St. Augustinegrass is on the label, it may still be stunted for a month or more. Fall preemergence herbicide applications for winter annual weed control (henbit, chickweed, annual bluegrass) are safer on St. Augustinegrass than spring applications, but they control different weed spectrums. The active ingredient can stunt root growth. Do not apply the product anywhere you plan to plant seeds like vegetables or flowers or have wild flowers. Apply 4 pounds/1000ft² of Lesco 0-0-7 Pre-M. You may need to apply again in July, but hopefully, a dense, aggressive turf will prevent sunlight from reaching the soil and stimulating summer annual weed seeds to germinate and a second application will not be necessary. It is too soon for nitrogen fertilizers, so do not apply a preemergence herbicide on a nitrogen fertilizer carrier. Apply the nitrogen once a month starting in April; May would be better if you can be patient. The more nitrogen fertilizer one adds, the more often one should mow. If one cannot mow more often than once a week, then use nitrogen fertilizer more sparingly. Always maximize the amount of slow release nitrogen and iron in the fertilizers for lawns.

Fire ant control measures are available in stores now, but you have plenty of time to get those applied. Products containing fipronil work well for a long period of time.

Rock on,

Hennen Cummings, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor and Director of Turfgrass Management
Tarleton State University



As the timestamp shows, this was THIS WEEK. In the middle of the winter, frost on the ground and colder than a well-digger's butt outside this college boy wants us to start on the yard NOW?
Why yes indeed he does and he is right.
Here is why.
Long before you want to have that cookout in the backyard and long before the seedheads form on the varying species of Cenchrus later this summer the seeds lie in wait for the warming sun of early spring to germinate. Once they have sprouted out of their infernal seedcoat and begun the process of producing more of these awful impediments to bare feet it is too late for this product mentioned to have any effect. The term pre-emergent is what we use to describe a product that prevents or kills a seed at or very close after germination. Now, for those that don't even know the term germination that is when the root and leaf or leaves emerge from the seed. Remember the bean in the cup? Root goes down, leaves go up and what a miracle it appears to be. In the case of the widely despised sandbur this is something we should try to prevent or inhibit as much as possible but not to the detriment of desirable plants.
Pendimethalin is mostly benign to critters that you might have including chickens or other fowl. Since we want to water it into the soil the risk of exposure to you or your animals or any other individual animal is minimal. I can hear that moaning too. Yes, you have to water it in. Yes, it has to be at least a half an inch. Don't tell me you can't come up with some cans resembling a tuna fish can. I can go in your kitchen right now and find some good candidates for water sampling. Don't trust your gut in knowing how much water your irrigation system puts out, whether it is an old school impact sprinkler, high tech rotor or your thumb over the end of a hose.
Do you think for one minute that Colonial or any other golf course would just fling water around willy-nilly with no accurate assessment of how much is actually going on the course? It isn't hard to accomplish the task. Get a dozen or so conveniently open and somewhat flat cans or other containers, spread them randomly but evenly over your given space and turn on the water.
Go away. Leave. Go have a beer, glass of wine or other beverage of your choice.
I'll take a double shot of whiskey, thanks.
Sip on it. Take your time. Check out your spreader. Does it need new tires or just some air?
Spray some WD-40 on the parts that move around and sometimes get stuck. Use duct tape on the parts that should not move but do.
Brace yourself it is time to calibrate this thing.
Got tired head already? Ok go hire somebody. Ask them the last time they calibrated their equipment. Don't remember? Thanks, buh bye. Click. I don't care about how much or how little they charge to apply pre-emergent. If they don't calibrate their spreader it is close akin to a nurse shooting you up with drugs from a syringe without a means of measuring. Gotcha some Demerol, half a tube ought to be about right. There ya go! Brilliant. Your yard is no different.
You need to know exactly how much of whatever you are putting out is going on your yard or pasture. If you are putting out a product over a large area it obviously is going to be more dollars that we are putting at risk, but in any case the effectiveness of the product and its level of impact are determined by the dosage. Duh. Just cranking open the chute on your spreader and stomping around the yard with no concept of how much is being flung around is quite possibly dangerous and certainly less than effective. In the case of pendimethalin it is not so much the risk of toxicity as it is the lack of effectiveness. Note that he says 4# per 1000ftsq. That means you need a way to measure exactly how much stuff your spreader is spreading at a given setting and adjusting that setting to get the correct amount over the desired area. This is called calibration of a spreader. Look it up. Follow the directions. Get on it.
If you know you have a yard that is prone to sandburs I would highly recommend using this product. If you have a yard that is prone to crabgrass, the same stuff works on them too.
I would recommend some old nasty boots or other footwear that you don't care what they look like being used for this operation. DO NOT USE WATER TO GET IT OFF THE SIDEWALK OR DRIVEWAY! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. It will dye it a nice bright yellow. Canary yellow, lemony lemon yellow. A broom will work and so will a blower. Save the water for the irrigation.
Speaking of which, you can go check the water now. Not up to a half inch yet? Repeat process until you do.

Believe it or not. Spring is right around the corner.

Root hog

Brodt!

I suppose I just have to keep on digging. Somewhere somehow some way.
The other side of the river and the valley. I do not know what is there.
I hear the platitudes. I hear the well wishes. I sense the compassion and care.
I have to do it myself. And I get a lot of help.

Bad recordings of things we tell ourselves and others have to show us

the silliness of what we believed. perception of us as we saw ourselves in another
it is like the man said to me about all manner of therapy
when we have been wounded
the ultimate answer and final resolution after we have cried our tears
and been consoled in our misery
is to pick yourself up and get going again
Get up and go out the door out on the street all alone. Busted if need be

Crushing Depression

I have heard the term before. I have probably seen it in other people. Now, I get to experience it for myself.

I suppose I can go copy and paste some clinical checkmarks to describe how I feel right now, but even that seems like a waste of time. I know them by heart anyhow.
1) nothing seems to matter. what I do seems to have no positive impact on my life. No matter how many resumes I send out or how much I polish my resume, there is no response. The things that I do seem to have no importance.
2)It is hard to be around other people. If I could lock myself away or walk off into the wilderness and abandon it all, I would be sorely tempted to do so. I can't because I am a dad and a member of a family that would break down the door or send bloodhounds to find me.
3)I have no desire to do anything. When I can muster up the energy to do things they have lost flavor and any impetus for me to continue doing them.

Ok, I am rapidly losing the desire to even write this down. Nobody will read this besides me and it sounds too much like whining. It is so hard to go out and look for a job that I know is not there. It is hard to see people that do nothing and have more money than they know what to do with. It makes me jealous and angry. I can understand why people would eat a bullet or down a bottle of pills or drive off a cliff. It feels like God has set me adrift. I can understand why someone would become agnostic or actively dismiss God entirely. Yeah, I might be saved into the Bosom of Abraham, but I might also be the starving leper outside the gate of the rich man destined to poverty my entire natural life and only after dying experience my basic needs of existence met. That prospect does not engender hope in me. The fact is that even Jesus himself said that the poor would always be with us. Perhaps the "us" is me. I do not think he was referring to the poverty of the soul. I think he meant what we generally understand as poor; broke, unemployed and without visible means of support. Elijah got sent to the poorest widow in town and her one son and then asked them to bake the last bit of meal they had and feed it to him. She has more faith than I do. Abraham was told to sacrifice his son and got held back at the last second. Job sat there and pondered his fate, argued with his friends and even was so bold to ask God "why". The answer he got was simply, sit there and take it, you're man and I am God. Not telling you why I do what I do or when I am going to do it. Gee, that makes me feel SO MUCH BETTER. Random chance is even more impersonal. At least the despondent believer can still cling to the idea that he might be saved from himself. The atheist believer in random chance has resigned themselves to the idea that very little in this life time is at our control or that things happen for any reason whatsoever.

Gone by the point of caring. some old bed i'll soon be sharing
Gloom, despair and agony on me. If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.

It is so tempting to curl up on the couch and shut out this day, but I have to come to grips with the failure of my life and continue packing up my stuff as evidence of it. I hate moving, even under the best of circumstances and these are decidedly not that.

Country Music and what passes for it.

At the risk of being called an old geezer, sexist and backwards I submit to you that country music does not deserve that name any more. It ceased to be country some years ago and is now masquerading around in that costume, but underneath the rhinestones and satin it is pop music and soft jazz. It is one or two notches up the valium scale of sleep-inducing music above Muzak.
Let me be perfectly clear about this. I do not fault anyone at anytime for making the most of their opportunities. If I could figure out how to make millions of dollars off of the millions women that buy what Nashville is cranking out by the truckload, I would do it and stuff whatever conscience remained in me in my back pocket. I do not blame Shania for taking the money and doing the videos. I do not blame Jack Ingram for dying his hair and playing Happy Happy Country Country songs for the masses that listen to the radio. Jack went from a seldom-played -on -most- airwaves to being all over the world in a few short years. Jack has changed over the years. And the links I had are now busted. I bet though if you go looking around on the intertubz you can see the progression in time of the changes in the man. There is no shame in it Jack, take the money and run. Jack isn't radically different in presentation of music from those days back when he played little bars and rode in a van, what changed was that Nashville figured out they could make a buck off him. I hope he keeps the same fire he had back in the day, but hell even U2 had a Blackberry Tent in Dallas and big sponsor presence. But, if he starts to sound like smooth jazz I am done with him. Nothing against jazz either, love me some Sade, but she isn't trying to convince me she could sing rockabilly.

This really isn't a rant about being a sell-out. I don't give a damn about that. It is about honesty. It really isn't even dishonesty on the part of the artist. They are just being themselves. It is Nashville. They are the ones that made Dwight Yoakum change hillbilly music to et cetera. It is they that told us that some songs are just too twangy and we should really not be too much like Bill Monroe or Hank Sr. Better to be like his son, better to polish up that production value and get a good set of backing singers. I think it was Ann Murray that pushed them over the edge. "You needed me" went to numero uno. All that outlaw stuff that had been happening was just a blip on the radar. People don't want long-haired dope-smoking cowboys singing honky-tonk music. They want soft ballads and soothing vocals with strings and horns.
That was the foothold. Ann Murray is and was a great singer, but she isn't country. Never has been, not going to be. Shania isn't country either. Again, not their fault, I just wish that Nashville would quit telling me they are.

George Jones got interviewed the other day about this phenomena of one music genre pretending it is another. He isn't fond of it either. When the reporter asked him about Johnny Cash singing "Hurt" and was that a violation in his opinion he didn't answer it directly but responded to her follow-up about rap. In his geezerly downplay of rap as a viable music he missed the opportunity to smackdown her insinuation that somehow the pop/jazz renditions of what is called country are somehow equal with Johnny's minimalist approach to Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode. I challenge you to find me the similarities between the lone piano and guitar in those two songs with the lush production of Shania.

Look, I know there are a lot of females out there like the one named 'ohiocarebear' that posted a tribute video of Carrie Underwood with a bedding track of Kenny Chesney's "Big Star". If fat bottomed girls make the rocking world go round as Freddie Mercury so clearly reminded us, then they also are major contributors to the continuing success of sappy lyrics and slushy strings that pervade modern country songs. It isn't as though there aren't musicians still playing what would commonly be recognized as country, but because they are so atavistic they are lumped into the catch-all term of Americana. This is merely Nashville's attempt to distance themselves from their embarrassing past. They really don't like to acknowledge that they are indeed sons and daughter's of coal miners and cowboys. A nice mythos, but in reality let's not remind people about that so very much. It is as if our ancestors of George Jones and Lefty Frizzel are drunken uncles to be kept out on the fringes where polite people won't get offended. Notwithstanding George's well-documented encounters with the bottle and the law, his music is no less appreciated today than it was forty years ago. I will agree with the man on his disdain for modern country, but not his dismissal of other genres. I don't really mind if they keep on cranking out music for carebear2398 and txsweetie1123, just stop calling it what it ain't.
On that note, I will leave you with a song that will never ever ever be heard on KPLX or any other Nashville outpost, but is more country in the first bar than ninety-five percent of what will be played there today or any other day,

Native Grasses vs. St. Augustine, et al.

Ok, I will admit that there is a primal need and desire in mankind to feel grass upon bare feet. Landscape companies play on this market demand by having nifty names with an implied statement that they can render your pock-marked lunar landscape that is known as a yard to resemble one that would be acceptable at your local high dollar golf course.

Yeah, right.

I know you want to feel a carpet of green between your toes, well then get ready to shell out the money. It really doesn't matter if you want to plant native grasses or ones that have been brought in from somewhere else, you are going to spend some money to get them into that state. The Houston Chronicle ran an article today about some research being done over at the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Research Center. The upshot of it was that people spend a lot of water and fertilizer to grow the typical species of turfgrass in Texas. It is a well established fact that half of our water consumption is poured out on the ground to irrigate turf. That is an inescapable, undeniable fact of life in Texas. Tom Hicks and George Strait represent the higher end of homeowner consumers of water. Both men spend thousands of dollars a year in water alone to keep their vast lawns a vivid green. I suspect both men have either a bermudagrass hybrid or St. Augustine. It is entirely possible that they have bentgrass in some areas or another high maintenance species of grass. Now, bermudagrass will survive our brutal summers with very little to zero supplementary water. Note that I said it will survive. It is going to go mostly dormant and appear brown and dead. This is not an acceptable alternative. It is fine out there in the pasture, not exactly desirable, but it is the nature of how the grass behaves under pressure from the hammer of July and August. St. Augustine will not survive. It needs more water than our summers provide. This is the major driving force behind a recommendation for native grasses. The three species used in the research by the wildlfower boys are ones that stay fairly short and require far less water to remain green in summer than do the other two. If I could go all summer and water maybe once or twice a month, instead of once or twice a week, that would effectively cut my water consumption. Then there is the pollution factor, that deserves a whole blog in itself, but we will wade into that area too.

Look here, check your dirt. About twice a year. Middle of the summer and the end of the season. It costs all of ten dollars to get the results from the Aggies down in College Station. EVERY state in the union has some Local Agent that is more than willing to give you a bag so you can put dirt in it and send it off to the Land Grant University to determine its requirements of N,P and K.

Why would you want to do this? So you don't put any more than is required on your soil.

Farmers do this all the time. When you buy fertilizer by the ton, it is in your best interest not to put out more than is required. How do we determine this? When you send in your sample form and sack of dirt, you will put on the form what sort of grass you grow and for what purpose. In Texas there is an urban form and a rural form. One for pastures and one for yards. The grasses may be exactly the same, but what we are asking them to do is different. However, the nature of the results will be identical. They, the labcoat boys from Aggieland, will tell you in no uncertain terms exactly how many pounds of nitrogen, phosporus and potassium that your yard requires per a given area. If you are doing a pasture it is in acres, if it is a yard it is 1000ft sq. You can obviously convert from one to the other, but they did at least some of the math and will give it to you in one equation or the other. Well now Mr. Plant dude how do I get from 1lb of N per 1000 to where I know how much to put on the lawn of my 15-5-10?

Break out your calculator. Quit your bitching! I promise it won't hurt your head that much!

It is a really simple equation. Simple enough for the most doltish of agricultural students to understand. Want over got. I want one pound of N I have got 15% per pound of fertilizer soo

1/.15 = 6.66666666666666and a bunch moresixes and then a 7 or 6 and 2/3rds of a pound of 15-5-10 per 1000 feet square. Well how do I know how much to put on with my spreader?

Uhh, that is called calibration.

First you mark off a nice area on the driveway, some parking lot or any other large area or you can put some sort of catch device on your spreader. Then you measure off how big your spreader throws. Four feet, five feet Take that length and then divide 1000 by it and that gives you the distance. Dump some fertilizer in the hopper and take off at normal speed. Start off on a lower setting. After you have covered the entire area measure/weigh the amount of fertilizer dispensed. This means you get to sweep up what you flung out on the driveway or dump your catch device into another bucket and weigh it. Adjust until you are putting out the correct amount of product for 1000ft sq. Yeah, it is a beating, that is why somebody pays me to do it. If you ARE hiring this job done, inquire as to how often they calibrate their machines. Ask to see the soil report, do they not do one? Fire them immediately or at least demand that they do two a year from now on. Why does all this make a damn bit of difference? Two main reasons, if you do not know how much of these three elements are required, then you will either under apply or over apply. This wastes money and is the reason why homeowners are often bigger offenders of run off pollution than many farms. If you do not know that your yard has reached a toxic level of phosphorus then in all likelihood you are going to continue to apply it as has been done for the last decade. Even if we decide to do native grass blends instead of bermudagrass or St. Augustine knowing their requirements and our soil's nutrient availability is still crucial. But, Mr. Plant dude they keep telling me that the buffalograss requires less water and fertilizer, is that so?

Yes, but it doesn't preclude you from knowing the content of your soil or calibrating your spreader. Even if buffalograss only requires one pound of nitrogen per year instead of per month in the growing season, it is still necessary to know how much nitrogen you are applying per 1000 ft square. There are the long term benefits of native grasses over those that are typically grown in landscapes. They require less water to be comparably desirable and less fertilizer to maintain that desirability. There will be initial outlays of money for seed and the high labor input of removing the existing landscape if you are converting a bermudagrass yard to one comprised of buffalograss, curly mesquitegrass and blue grama, but in the long run they will be more fiscally responsible as well as ecologically less impactful.

Think I left me ove here, somewher

I used to sort of pay attention
then I stopped caring
and it took more than i figured to shake me out of myself
used to was
i had timeandmoney
andi gave me
where could and would
the person i was and will be
are there and gone
all i have is dollars now
where is he!?
apply now at most urgenty dispatch
was i there yesterday?
did you see me
and my wallet?
did i have it with me?
so far away

i had pieces of me
sure i left them here
i remember it
honest now
swear to you
i am and was or will be here
yesterday
and tomorow

time and words i leave behind

an excellent idea.



i don't remember words or when they came to me
I know the smell of a library and the touch of paper

i remember a blob on my algebra folder
this was before the Cistercians in a folded corner
it was just a spill that looked like a soldier in his great coat
words found me

now words are what i punch on a screen
instead of trying to prove to someone else that i know what the hell i am talking about
check that
yeah i got that paper to do on that too, meetings
still going before the committee of judges
instead of money or was it grades or was it time

i was a junkman selling your cars
washing your windows
and shining your stars Neil Young

when i said to the man from Saltillo
whose grandmother ate chicken feet that scared him
that the history of his country was like a big, loud fiesta
he knew i was right and he nodded
i remembered that it was all a tapestry
just a thread, a tiny braid in time
that tree is far older than I will ever be

if all i have left is the words that i leave behind
if all i have is the children that grow and know
then some part of me is still being ornery and hard headed
somewhere I am laughing