No. Just fucking no. David Carradine, dead. Time to break out the Kung Fu collection.

I’m saddened by this.

It’s never been much of a secret that Phil Spector was mad as a hatter, even at the top of his game. Still, in the category of how the mighty have fallen, seeing Phil get 19 to life for murder is right up there with Syd Barrett dying as an overweight recluse or Jocko Pastorius getting beaten to death by a bouncer. It stung me, is what I’m saying. Enough that Phil and his sentence has been a topic of conversation for me. To this end: Who? What? Because I work with fucking children. Once I reminded them that Phil Spector was the rock producer who was on trial (again) for the mysterious gun-shot death of a b-movie actress he’d met in a bar and taken home, the next question was: he was a producer? I said, uh, yeah, the “Wall of Sound” to which the response was “I never heard of them.”

After my co-worker removed my stapler from my hand and prevented me from stapling myself to death, I explained that the wall of sound was not a who, but a musical style. Still rang no bells for this kid. The Ronettes? Be My Baby? The Chrystals? Da Doo Ron Ron? Nothing. Nada. This traumatizes me to the point where I find myself yesterday retelling the story to the Number Two Surrogate Daughter (my own child in an alternate reality) and her friend. They both look at me with googly eyes. Phil Spector means nothing to them, either. Nor does the concept of the wall of sound. Now I had a hand in the Number Two’s musical upbringing and this is causing me much distress. She calls her boyfriend, a certified rocker. Zip. Zilch. Not a faint hint of a whiff of a clue.

So, the Number Two and her friend pull my head out of the oven, and I show them the Wikipedia entry on Wall of Sound. Uh-huh. Fine. Now we know. Will you please go back to showing up how to make a pie crust?

Gah!!!! What the fuck are kids learning in college these days? How can any self-respecting rocker NOT know about Phil and the wall of sound? I’m reading this out loud to the girls, and asking questions of them as I go along. It is painfully like the classroom scene in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

So if Phil called his sound “Wagnerian”, then it is a direct line from him to? Anybody? Anybody? (sweet tapdancing jesus, people, haven’t you listened to anything I’ve given you?) Jim Steinman and Meatloaf. Yes??? The girls roll their eyes. I put away the lap top. Kids. No sense of history.

One morning, you go outside and the poinciana is bare. You think it will never have leaves again. The next morning, there are tiny green furls on the branches. Within a week or two, the leaves have opened and there are masses and masses of orange and yellow flowers. In the tropics, there is truly and literally an explosion of color.

The Nature Notes meme, begun by Michelle at Rambling Woods, and embraced by RJ at Flamingo Musings.

Today is Bob Dylan’s birthday. It is, as I have often said, one of my personal high holy days, the others including the Oscars, Bruce Springsteen’s birthday and the opening day of the major league baseball season. I’m planning a bar-b-que, and if Bob’s in the area, he’s welcome to drop by for mango pie and green tea ice cream (that was a hit around here, so we’re reprising it). Don’t get me wrong, if Bob wants burgers, he’s welcome to come for the whole party. Oh, there’ll be the usual potato salad and cole slaw, but I’m pretty sure that the mango pie will be the part my guests remember.

Speaking of memory, I took a quiz that I saw on RJ’s blog: What Flower Are You. Much to my surprise, I’m a snapdragon. My grandfather grew snapdragons in his garden in Newport. He was not much for tender moments, my grandpa, but I remember he used to show me how to make snapdragons snap. And I remember his garden. He had flowers and vegetables. There were pear and apple trees, and of course, there were the raspberries.

“Mischief is your middle name, but your first is friend. You are quite the prankster that loves to make other people laugh.”

The other night the RLA was out with his friend, and I was home on the couch watching a very good little documentary. Around a quarter to nine, the dogs started to bark like crazy and the phone rang at the same time. I answered the phone to find The Girl Cousin calling about family business and the dogs continued to bark. I tried to shush them, but they wouldn’t be shushed. Just as I got up to smack them on their butts, I saw that the RLA was standing in front of the house, and I figured that he’d been teasing them, or talking to a neighbor before he came in and they were just idiots. It’s a reasonable conclusion… particularly with JoJo, the dog of very little brain.

Except, when I got up the next morning and went outside to get the paper, I discovered that someone had ransacked Tweety McPeeps. I never lock the car when it’s in the driveway, and besides, it’s a convertible. Locking it seems pointless and maybe even a little stupid. If someone wants into a convertible badly enough, they will just slit the roof. Why tempt fate? Don’t lock it. So no windows were smashed, no rag tops were eviscerated, but the glove box was emptied out and the contents strewn around the interior.

Someone violated Tweety, and the only thing that stopped them from doing anything more was the return home of the RLA. And yes, the gate was closed, but not locked. I love my neighborhood, but this makes me uneasy.

Never one to let a sleeping meme lie, I’m jumping on the Nature Notes meme, begun by Michelle at Rambling Woods, and embraced by RJ at Flamingo Musings.

My first entry, baby lubbers. To quote from the second best Star Trek movie ever made (Galaxy Quest) “Oh, sure, they’re cute now, but in a second they’re gonna get mean, and they’re gonna get ugly somehow, and there’s gonna be a million more of them.” When these little guys hatch, they are soft, tiny and black with that little yellow racing stripe. Then they eat everything in your yard, and within the month, they are Kodak yellow, armor plated eating machines. They have hot pink and black wings, and they spit an irritant that looks like tobacco juice, only stinkier. And they average about 4 inches long.

Any child raised in South Florida has nightmares about lubbers.

The other morning, as I pulled open the gate, I saw a herd of the little bastards happily munching on my copper leaf hedge.

To truly appreciate the horror, view the full-size image.