As always, sometimes it pays to display a little independence and click pause on the music player located in the side bar before playing the YouTube.

These stands pop up at random places, when the tomatoes are ready. There used to be more of them it seems.

I reached in my pocket and pulled out a meager three dollars. Three dollars won’t get you far in this old world but. it will serve you well at the tomato stand. I hung up with Sis and made a U-turn.

$1.00 a pound! the young man told me. So. I handed him my three bucks and made my choices (a fun game and an art unto itself) until I had a sack full…three pounds! (a little over, actually)…

Off the county road and down the gravel road and I pulled up on my solitary neighbor’s place. Now, the neighbor and my landlord have a long history of ill will…some pretty crazy stuff that seems to keep accumulating on both sides…lots of pressure there and I don’t want to stick a needle in the balloon, you know? I got no beef with the guy. He may have been erratic with others but, just a good old boy with me. Kind of guy I’ve been around my whole life. I always slow way down when I pass his place; it’s just something you do. He’s out in the yard, overalls and no shirt, leaning against his work truck.

“Ya’ liking this cool weather Jack?”

“Yeah, I’m digging it”.

“Won’t last. What ya’ up to?”

“Just stopped up the road and got a sack full of tomatoes”.

“Good sh*t man! Home grown. Enjoy ‘em Brother.”

And just like that, he was grinning ear to ear, and I rolled off slowly toward the end of the road.

I showed my prize with pride as I walked in to the apartment and said; “home grown…from up the road”. She’s a Tennessee girl and she smiled in acknowledgment…delight.

The power went out. Just like that.

First time that’s happened in this new place.

I checked the fuse box and checked the other fuse box in the adjacent shop building. She dialed the co-op, a little frantic, and we heard the recorded message that said we were smack dab in the middle of an outage and, it would be restored as soon as possible.

I sat in this old, worn yet comfortable, faux leather office chair in the middle of the living room. There are no curtains in there and we’ve decided we want to keep it that way. Windows on two sides and surrounded by the trees.

“What would the pioneers, the settlers do?”

I got up and sliced a big tomato. Arranged it on a plate and reached for the salt and pepper.

“No salt for me please…”

Another plate and it messed with the presentation but, no worries.

We sat on the couch, powerless, as we ate.

“Good, yes?”

“Hmmm…good.”

When the power came back, we heated left over chicken Alfredo with diced, fresh tomatoes. Like little prizes scattered amongst the pasta that was still worthy but couldn’t hide the fact that it had already peaked.

Later, around 10:30, after Blue Bunny ice cream, while watching a movie (”Benny And Joon”) streaming on the web…there was a “shave and a haircut” knock on the front door. It was unsettling because, I did NOT see any movement outside and did NOT hear the tires on the gravel and I was already real close to padding off to bed.

A songwriter friend, creeping silent through the night. High on weed and manic, preaching, proselytizing, stomping and rhyming. He went on…venting, throwing jabs at the universe, right hooks at the cosmos.

I saw an opening and said; “If two have the power to turn 2,000…then the two must think they are right and the 2,000 are wrong…right?”

That got his back up. It was an irritation, a fly in the ointment at the worst possible time as he was on the cusp of tying it all together, answering the unanswered questions and solving all the problems of the world. I mean, this was the big one and he was on…it…Man!!! And, I wasn’t seeing it.

I could tell he was running out of gas and I smiled and interrupted a half-hearted new volley; “You got groceries out there. If you got ice cream, it’s going to melt, Brother.” That hit the mark and pulled him back. He was up from the chair, smiling, “thanks for letting me ramble”, all in a motion headed for the door.

“Hold on a sec…” I got up, went to the table and looked in the sack. Three tomatoes left and one was the biggest of the batch. She looked over…silent disapproval morphing in an split second to “oh yeah, that’s the right thing to do”…all unsaid, all instantly understood without hesitation.

When I handed him that cat daddy tomato, he held it, clutched it with both hands, and said; “really”?

Strange thing to say but, what do you do?

“Yeah, really.”

As always, to get certified, click pause on the music player located in the side bar before playing the YouTube.

From Softpedia…

Far from being a cold and passive game, the vacuum tube chess set is very alive and even more alluring thanks to its very lifelike functionality: each square has been endowed with a tube socket so that the “pieces” stay well in place even in case of an accidental bump on the table. If you want to make a move you have to carefully pull out a vac tube and insert it in the desired slot corresponding to the position you intend to occupy.

Once the tube is set in place in its socket, a small lamp atop of the valve lights up in either a hot-glowing red or a cold and eerie blue tone,

Looks cool. Nothing in there about “creamy sustain” or “mojo” though.

As always, you might ought to close your eyes for this one after clicking pause on the music player located in the side bar before playing the YouTube.

Iowa State Fair organizers announced Tuesday that in addition to their annual butter cow statute, there would be one of the pop music icon. Jackson died Thursday at age 50.

Both the butter sculptures will be on display in a 40-degree Fahrenheit cooler throughout the fair from Aug. 13 to 23 in Des Moines.

What better way to pay respects for the newly, dearly departed?

Previous Iowa Butter Cow

Next time you want to show you really care; do it with butter!

Oleg Kislitsyn, a deputy in the regional parliament, said villagers in Oktyabrskoye, located in the Zaporizhia region in the country’s southeast, had approached him with a proposal to rename the village “Jackson”.

“There are many fans of Michael Jackson there. They want to immortalize him,” said Kislitsyn, adding that he was in favour of the proposal.

“They want to create a house-museum and collect his records there. This is a depressed region, all the factories are closed. They hope this will attract tourists,” he added.

Depressed region, bad economy, might bring a little revenue; why not? It happens all the time. There is a town over here that changed it’s name from “Lakeview” to “Branson West” in order to cash in on the Branson boom.

But why Oktyabrskoye in the Zaporizhia region?

When asked what links existed between Oktyabrskoye and Jackson — whose death in Los Angeles last week prompted a worldwide outpouring of grief — Kislitsyn said the world was in the process of “globalization.”

He added: “I am not a fan but I respect his work. He had an iron-clad will for victory.”

Ahhh…the old “Globalization”. Makes sense. But…I don’t know…”Jackson”…not very original. I mean, you already got Jackson Mississippi, Jackson Tennessee, Jackson Missouri…Jackson in the Zaporizhia region might just get lost in the shuffle.

I’m all for these people capitalizing on the big Michael Jackson death obsession/multi-media extravaganza but, I can’t help but think there’s a better way than just “Jackson”.

Any suggestions?

The future of content outside of the music industry is exactly what you are now seeing inside the music industry. The music industry uses what they have learned from more than 10 years of competing with free. First they cut the size of their organizations to the bone, keeping just those they hope and pray will know best how to guide them through the world of free.

And, of course, the world of free means a glut of music. Mark may have stumbled on to a possible solution…

You get the music industry. Anyone can create any song for no cost, and they do. The problem of course is getting your music to stand out among the millions of songs available at any given moment. Its expensive. Very, very expensive. (If it werent for groupies, would the number of musical artists contract 90pct ?)

Just get rid of the groupies!

Can you imagine? It would be like one giant MySpace/sensitive singer, songwriter/death metal/rap/hip-hop/alternative/folk/white guy blues band/indie bug bomb.

As always, bite the hand that feeds you then click pause on the music player located in the side bar before playing the DailyMotion clip.

ELVIS COSTELLO / RADIO, RADIO
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As always, in America any individual can achieve greatness so, click pause on the music player located in the side bar before playing the YouTube.

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