Steve Earle has a tremendous, gritty populist feel. He’s like a perfect combination between Bruce Springsteen - many of Steve Earle’s songs have a definite E-Street Band feel to them, but with a John Mellencamp populism. What separates Earle from Springsteen and Mellencamp though, is his balls. Steve Earle wears his politics completely on his musical sleeve, which is something I don’t think Mellencamp or Springsteen have been able to do with a lot of sincerity for many years, certain acoustic tours excluded.

On those times when “Washington Square Serenade isn’t on the playlist, the Very Best of Steve Earle is also on heavy rotation. He also did a bluegrass CD with Del McRoury, which I’ve just started to listen to, and unlike many bluegrass CD’s, this one holds my attention from start to finish.

NOFX
There are some people whose tastes I often defer to with blind obedience. One of those people is Kilgore Trout. I know that if I want a great, thinking man’s atheist punk group, I need look no further than the front page of Quintessential Ramblings to find a great NOFX song. That, and a nod from Precocious Meg was all the cred I needed to explore this band.

On Kilgore’s advice, I listened to what if anything, qualifies as their greatest hits package - The Greatest Songs Ever Written (By Us). I love it. They’ve got the irreverence of They Might Be Giants with an edgy punk that can border on Sex Pistols. If I needed to forgive NOFX anything, their politics would compensate for any musical shortcomings.

Their politics is bundled into a perfect GenX package. Their songs usually aren’t longer than two minutes thirty and so their political messages are packed quite bluntly into their songs, a refreshing change from the 30 second barrage of bullshit that comes from the TV.

Rolling Stones - Shine a Light
I know, I know…. how many fucking “Greatest Hits” collections can the Stones drag out? But this one is different…. REALLY!!

Knowing that this is a soundtrack to a Martin Scorcese IMAX film about the Rolling Stones would be enough of a draw for me to this collection of Rolling Stones songs, but the soundtrack CD, like that of The Band’s The Last Waltz, can stand on its own as an outstanding collection of priceless Rolling Stones recordings.

In the CD, the admittedly aging Stones playfully romp through their massive playlist possibilities to produce a lot of early hits with many MANY years of road muscle that only the Rolling Stones could produce. The opening “Jumpin Jack Flash” carries the same urgency and energy as earlier recordings and the rest of the set carries the same feel.

Although they didn’t need any help from their friends, the Scorcese pulled out all the stops for this film. Most notable Buddy Guy’s appearance on the classic Muddy Waters tune “Champagne and Reefer.” Jack White III (who it appears Keith Richards is ready to legally adopt) also makes an appearance on the classic “Lovin’ Cup” and Christina Aguilera adds her formidable vocal talents on “Live with Me.”

Pixies - BossaNova
I always listen to the Pixies, but one CD I haven’t listened to a while, which never seems to leave my heavy rotation list is Bossanova. From the Classic Surf tune “Cecilia” that starts the CD, the Pixies go off with playful and at times reckless abandon. BossaNova is often overlooked in the shadow of the monster “Doolittle” but it shouldn’t be. This CD also has the song “Dig for Fire” which would probably be on my list of top 10 favorite songs, which I don’t have.

COMMENT DAMMIT
What’s on YOUR heavy rotation list?

Technorati Tags: Steve Earle, August Rush, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, NOFX, They Might Be Giants, Sex Pistols, Martin Scorcese, Rolling Stones, The Last Waltz, Jumpin Jack Flash, Muddy Waters, Champagne and Reefer, Jack White, Keith Richards, Christina Aguilera

black mulch

I’m learning that mulch, in almost all cases is bad news. It prevents important insects from doing their jobs. They then roam the neighborhood in unruly gangs.

Unraked Grass
Yes… this grass is unraked and it’s going to stay that way. All those leaves on the grass provide way more nutrients than the grass itself. Besides, I freaking hate raking.

fairly worthless hedges

Ever heard the phrase "you can’t polish a turd?" I’m not sad to see these guys go.

invasion central

In one month, this will be entirely covered by knotweed and various other forms of invasive plants. Why? Because every year I try to cut it back like a damn fool. Every time you rip everything down to bare soil, you make it open season for invading, often very ugly plants.

protection from invaders

This is all the brush I cut back last year. I think its only value is protection from potential invaders, like those who would harm our cats. Bushism.

butt ugly shed

This shed is just a slap in the face to aesthetic virtue. I wish we could blow it up, but I think we’ll have to settle for watching Bill’s backhoe rip it to shreds.

inedible flower bed

There were some pretty flowers in this bed, but it’s the most intense sunlight in the back yard, and therefore must be sacrficed to the Gods of Edibility. There’s still tons of Iris every year.

just one composter

We got this last year, and over the winter it’s developed into this wildly nutritious goop that will make everything grow at lightning speed. The problem is that we only had one last year.

lotsolawn

Did you know that a lush, chemically treated lawn is one of the worst possible things for your soil, and devastates your lawn’s natural ecosystem. I wanted to explain this to the Chemlawn guy who was roaming the neighborhood, but I didn’t want to shatter his world and force him to examine some fundamental existential questions.

charlie brown tree

This tree eventually gets a few leaves, but it never seems to thrive. That’s because we’ve choked out the bottom of the tree. The mulch raises the soil level, so the roots go to the surface of the mulch and get all tangly. Bad scene man.

When work started last October or so, we really didn’t have much of a clue about Peak Oil and all that comes with it… running out of oil, rolling blackouts, the likely collapse of the energy grid… all that fun stuff. Now, as the work grinds on ever nearer to completion, we’re wondering how long we’ll be able to use all these sexy toys.

The appliance that will, unfortunately have the least use will be the Miele oven. I fear our years of slow-roasted rotisserie meat may be measured. This summer I’ll be trying out a more energy-efficient replacement, which is the solar oven we bought this winter that’s buried under a bunch of construction stuff.

Our cooktop is gas, but it needs electric to start. And of course.. the coolest part of the cooktop is the Thermidor downdraft. This is what I show everyone as the climax of the kitchen tour. Check it out.

Behold the Thermidor from Robert Coats on Vimeo.

Ever since I can remember, including my childhood, I’ve wanted one of those fridges that you can cold water out of at any time. For a while I had an ice-maker in an older fridge but it only worked for about a month. Now we finally have one, but how long will I be able to perform the operation that I’ve waited some forty plus years for? The good part is that the fridge will continue to function in a post petroleum world, except that it will have to be stored outside and will only work in the winter. I’m sure we can get wheels for it.

And of course there’s the dishwasher. The kids were with me when we went dishwashwer shopping, and Medium does a great imitation of it. She does this great buildup and stands there absolutely quiet. I already have experience with non-functioning dishwashers though, so it’s a great consolation to know that in a post-petroleum world, we’ll have one of the most ornate dish drainers in town. And it will function even more quietly than it did in the showroom.

All of this adds to my impatience as the months unfold. With the possibility of all these appliances only working for a couple years (or more if we’re lucky) I want to get as much use out of them as possible.

It sounds better in another language doesn’t it?

My most terrifying experience as a Catholic boy was on Good Friday when I was 12 or 13. That was the day I went to Good Friday mass for the first time. This was the day that I learned in graphic detail what happened to the person who at that time I was supposed to believe was my savior.

The whole experience is captured in horrific detail with the stations of the Cross. Basically, we would walk around the church where details of the murder and torture of Christ played out in front of us. It was glory as hell.

I mean, think about it, the guy is put before a kangaroo court in clear violation of his first amendment rights. Then, because the local authorities had him pegged as a troublemaker he was found guilty and sentenced to death. At the last minute the people in the crowd had a choice of killing either Christ or a thief named Barabbas. They chose to kill Christ.

The method of execution then used by the Roman state was crucifixion. Those to be crucified were lined up, given a heavy wooden cross, humiliated, stripped and been forced to carry the cross as the people watched in delight.

After that, the victim is placed on his cross with one nail in each hand and one bigger nail through both feet. The person hangs this way until they’re dead.

So there you have it, the number two source of Catholic guilt. Of course, the number one source is Original Sin. That’s the deal you feel just for being born.

After that, I did just about everything humanly possible to avoid Good Friday mass. In fact, as a form of rebellion I tried to commit some kind of hell-worthy offense while I was supposed to be at mass apologizing to the Savior on behalf of the crazed mob that killed him. That’s who we were.. that fucked-up bloodthirsty mob.

Fast forward to this past Good Friday. Doug and I I were out running some errands in the sports car, and one of the errands on our journey involved us scaling a very snowy hill. As we made our way up the hill, I noticed that at each corner, or at each particularly treacherous part of the road, there was a painting of one of the stations of the Cross with its description below.

I don’t know if all of the stations of the Cross were posted on the road but I got phone pictures of as many of them as I could. For all the non-Catholics out there I put in the stations that I didn’t have pictures of as well, just so you could share some of the guilt.

Jesus is condemned to death

Jesus receives the cross

Jesus falls the first time

Jesus meets His Mother

Simon of Cyrene carries the cross

Veronica wipes Jesus’ face with her veil

Jesus falls the second time

Jesus meets the daughters of Jerusalem

Jesus falls the third time

Jesus is stripped of His garments

Crucifixion: Jesus is nailed to the cross

Jesus dies on the cross

Jesus’ body is removed from the cross (Pieta)

Jesus is laid in the tomb and covered in incense.

So, even today I’m haunted by this story, and the added bonus of getting a fictional walk-through as part of a yearly ritual. Yes, I feel that that Jesus died as a result of our allegedly being such bad people. Supposedly, Easter Sunday is supposed to make up for all of this gruesome shit. As far as I was concerned it never did.

I mean, sure the road really sucked, but it was nowhere near as bad as the crucifixion. I did however, get the general idea.

Apparently, President Bush threw the first pitch out at the season opener of the Washington Nationals’ game. It’s important because it’s their first game ever as a new franchise. As a matter of fact, Tim Redding, one of my former students is a member of that team.

So, here, in its apparent entirety, is President Bush going out to the mound.

This clip inspires me more than I can possibly say. This reminds me on a very small scale of hundreds of thousands of angry Russians protesting outside the Kremlin after Gorbachev’s ouster. Of course this won’t happen at nationals game, but to hear the president so roundly booed at the beginning of the season for what many call America’s sport is a wonderful sign that ordinary Americans are getting pissed off.

But alas, many people won’t see the version that you see above. Here’s an exercise in free press. Notice how this video clip has been edited.

Since the boos began long before the cheering, this version makes it seem like more people are cheering than booing. Furthermore, you don’t get that really worried expression from the president as he initially reacts to the boos.

As the queen of my universe just IMed, so much for free press. Viva the blogosphere.

Technorati Tags: President Bush, Tim Redding, Kremlin

So, I’ve started reading Gaia’s Garden, which is the gardener’s permaculture bible. For those of you, who like me didn’t know what the hell permaculture was until a couple months ago - here’s the definition. Permaculture is a set of techniques and principles for designing ecologically sustainable human settlements. The term was coined by Bill Mollison, a schoolteacher, trapper,naturalist and permaculture guru.

Without barely getting past the introduction, the book has turned my view of the enivironment around us, both the larger and smaller picture, completely on it’s end.

For you visual learners who have a few minutes to spare… check out this video.

In his foreword to Gaia’s Garden, John Todd, an ecology teacher , conducted an experiment in which each student in the class created their own ecosystem inside a mason jar. He loaded each jar with a small amount of muck from a nearby pond. He introduced some of his own variables, but for the most part the ecosystems in the jar began to develop in fascinating ways.

Each system developed in complexity in completely unique ways, however all the jars went through remarkably similar patterns in their development. Each environment went through a miniature process of evolution as some organisms survived and others thrived.

It reminded me of a scene in Animal House in which Tom Hulce’s character, Pinto, smokes pot for the first time. The camera pans in on Pinto as he’s responded to something Donald Sutherland’s character had just told him. “So… you mean there could be a tiny universe on the head of this pin?” Then the character collapses into fits of laughter.

Returning to the Mason Jars now, these systems, although complex and able to absorb most internal disruption have a hard time dealing with even the smallest “invasions” of species from outside their environment. It’s a trenchant reminder to us of what happens we mess with our environment.

What we hope to do on our lovely slice of Naples heaven is to create our own sort of eco-system based on what kind of plant life thrives in our climate, instead of what’s artificially introduced from other climates and therefore not sustainable. Finding virtually nothing of nutritional value on our property, we’re starting completely from scratch, thanks to the eventual services of Bill’s backhoe.

For me, learning to garden this way has forced me to toss out many of my long-held beliefs about gardening. Not that I’ve ever had dogmatic rules about gardening, but very few upon closer inspection held up to any level of scrutiny. No big really since I didn’t know diddly-squat about gardening anyway.

It’s like I took everything I know about horticulture, put it inside one of those snow globes, and completely shook it up, completely displacing everything.

The incurable romantic in me was a little disappointed because I thought we would be completely sacrificing beauty for functionality. As it turns out, that’s not true at all. There are a few species of flowers that, while not readily edible, help improve the nitrogen level in the soil. Many flowers are awesome in tea. If you’ve ever seen a thriving wild forest, you know how beautiful it all can be when it’s functioning properly.

This is DOUG’s house. He bought it for he and his mom and now he owns it outright. It’s an awesome old farmhouse on Naples luxurious lower East Side. DOUG’s mom had a massive stroke a few years back, and DOUG took complete care of her until the very bitter end. This was a full time job that he seldom grumbled about, but it was a huge sacrifice on his part. This underscores his intense loyalty to friends and family.

DOUG has a foofie dog named Sally who he takes everywhere and gets attention wherever they go. Of course Doug hates this. His cat Simon is a handsome studly fellow who is intensely loveable.

This is DOUG’s wood stack and fireplace. He never has a problem getting wood. In fact, Doug can probably get wood faster than any other 51 year old guy. Even during the coldest parts of the winter, you’ll stay warm and cozy with DOUG.

DOUG has an ass-kicking kitchen. As you can see, he doesn’t fuck around when it comes to kitchens. That’s why we put him in charge of rebuilding ours. He’s a great cook and he loves cooking for other people. We know this because he’s been cooking for us while he’s rebuilding our kitchen. He said he’s going to be bummed when our kitchen is finished and he won’t be able to cook for us. Somehow we’ll find a way to feed his cooking jones.

DOUG is a jack of all building and landscape trades and has a great eye for design and execution. He also works with a lot of big, impressive manly-looking tools that unhandy, uncoordinated people like me suffer tool envy over.

DOUG loves animals. Okay.. if you have the Bambi complex, DOUG isn’t your man. This fall he got a huge deer with his bow. This whole winter Doug has made every meat meal with Venison, and it’s freaking incredible. Venison burgers, Venison meatballs, Venison steaks. Nothing on that deer was wasted. It’ll be cool when he mounts the deer he just got, because we’ll remember how tasty it was.

DOUG is the master of manly, yet tasteful decorations, especially antiques. In terms of clothing and home and garden design, he’s an admitted metrosexual. (As metrosexual as any man in Naples can get away with being) He’s fun to go shopping with, except he stops and talks to everyone he knows or doesn’t know. He’s REALLY personable. And he cleans up nice.

But, most importantly…. he lives on this creek and is surrounded by really cool people.

Is Leap Day more significant than most people tend to acknowledge? What exactly does “any day” to the calendar do to our intrinsic sense of time?

One of the things that becomes apparent if we ask the two questions above is that our calendar has anomalies: the days do not fit smoothly into the years. Figures are real but imprecise. The days are a human convention.

Leap Day is an attempt to correcting inaccuracy in human perception. We perceive days. We wish to mark the annual progression of the Earth’s dance around the sun. If we don’t add a day every four years we would fall further and further behind in our calculations until summer would be in winter and vice versa.

Humans and other small creatures perceive the sun rising and the sun setting and we call it a Day. From a larger perception the light of the sun pours over the earth as it turns. And every 24 hours, approximately, the earth makes one turn, but night and day continue nonstop in a process not unlike the in and out of breathing of our lungs.

To sneak in an extra day in order to make us feel more comfortable with the universe seems pragmatic there are subtle and not-so-subtle repercussions.

If we can acknowledge that on some level we have just been shoved into a new pattern, we may be able to take in stride the arrogance and added stress, or change associated with weekday.

Quantum leap or quantum jump is a term invented in 1926 to signify an abrupt transition from one discrete energy state to another.

So one of the first things we did was to look at our land very carefully from front to back assessing all the different plant forms we have throughout the yard. As it turns out there were only four plants in our yard that are actually edible.

First there’s a small clump of raspberries the back yard that I was very close to digging out last year. I thought they were ugly. That’s one big change in my gardening thinking. It’s not about pretty or ugly anymore… it’s all about edible.

There’s also a couple of Barberry bushes in front, but I have no idea what Barberries taste like.

The first thing I noticed that was edible was a clump of Japanese knotweed along the creek that I tried in vain to rip up last year but failed when it quickly got ahead of me. I was all excited to have the Japanese knotweed in our front yard and he thought it would be exciting news for the queen of my universe. But as it turns out we don’t want the knotweed. It spreads like wildfire on to all the surrounding vegetation. Our village just put in a nature trail connecting two different parks and within a couple months and was almost completely grown over with knotweed.

Japanese knotweed has about a three-week window of tastiness, during which time it’s supposed to taste like rhubarb into supposed to be phenomenal in pies. After that it just spreads like the plague through everything. There’s so much of it around in it so easily harvested that there’s no need to infest our yard with it.

Another thing that there’s plenty of around that grows even in winter and the shady part of our yard is chives. As a matter of fact as we were doing our lawn assessment our cat Chaplin was munching happily on some wild chives, almost daring us to pull them out.

The fact that he missed the chives altogether is a good indicator that I have a ways to go on my journey of wild food recognition.