ALL THE NEWS THAT'S . . .

First the important stuff.  Arizona shortstop Stephen Drew broke his ankle in last night's Diamondbacks game and is out for the season.  He was trying to score from second on a fly to left field and when he slid at home, his right foot got caught, twisted and snapped.  Oddly enough, on the very next play Milwaukee's center fielder,  Carlos Gomez, made a spectacular diving catch of a blooper, landed on his shoulder and broke his clavicle.  He's out of the lineup indefinitely.  Baseball ain't no sport for sissies, in spite of what the football fans say.

Now then.  My pal Danny Bananas sent me a link in an email to some spectacular aerial photographs by Yann Arthus-Bertrand.  They're well worth a look and you can seen them here.

That's all for today, folks.

A LITTLE BIT OF THIS, A LITTLE BIT OF THAT

Sometimes one's best posts are merely referrals to those of another blogger.  Such is the case today as I encourage you to read and view Lucy's post from Brittany about the whimsical work of scrap merchant artist Robert Coudray.

On another subject, I have just finished the late Frank Conroy's wonderful book on the life of a musician "Body and Soul."  It gets a bit deep sometimes when talking about the theory of particular compositions or styles but, all in all, it's a wonderful gripping read.  In tribute to it, I offer this video of one of the musicians mentioned frequently in the book, pianist Art Tatum.

AWRIGHT ALREADY!

My former colleague and long-time friend Tommy the C sent a short e-mail today, gigging me a bit about my lack of posts of late.  So . . . here's a compendium of my most original thoughts recently.

When Rupert Murdoch got pied this morning during a hearing before a Parliamentary committee in London, the only hero was . . no, not Rupert . . no, not James . . no, not the pie tosser (a supposed comedian) . . and no, certainly not the rather spineless questioners among the MPs;  no, the hero of the day was Rupert's wife, Wendy, who leaped up and slapped the pie tosser with a long, right arm.  One of the typically idiot MPs later complimented Wendy on her left cross.

 = = =

It's been hot across the nation this week.  But nothing out of the ordinary here in Arizona.  108 in Phoenix today.  About 85 up here.  We had a little rain today.  Ho hum.  Just normal.

= = =

My Diamondbacks have been on a bit of a run lately.  Until tonight.  Right now it's 11 to 3 in favor of Milwaukee in the 9th inning.  Might be a hill to high to climb.  Yup, it was.  Game over.

= = =

The Republican presidential field continues to grow.  Former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer is going to announce tomorrow.  Texas Governor . . oh, wait a sec . . . oh, yeah, Rick Perry.  I had to Google it to remember his name.  He's apparently thinking more and more about taking the bait.  And yet another group of Big Biz money men are trying to convince New Jersey Govenor Chris Christie to get in.  And Michelle Bachmann's people were roughing up a reporter trying to ask about her migraine headaches.  Does this sound like a crazy campaign to you?  Too?

= = =

So, yadda yadda yadda.  You see?  I really haven't had much to say lately.

YIPPIE-KI-YI-YAY!

This is a fairly common sight in my town.  You see, once upon a time this was a huge cattle ranch, owned by the Fain family.  Little by little the Fains either donated or sold the land so Prescott Valley could be established.  But not all of it.  So that's why you can frequently find cattle grazing within sight of town buildings and residences.

So far, it's an easy accomodation and everybody lives with it.

'Course there are these two who seem to be doing a line from the movie "Taxi Driver" - "Hey, are you lookin' at me?"

By the way, this was not an original idea.  Jarart/Judy did it first last month and better than I did.  You can see her post here.

BLACKWELL . . . IS . . . BACK!

For those of you who have expressed concern about our Big Black Boy Cat, Blackwell, here's a photo I took on the patio this evening.

As you can see, he's back in the prime of life.  He had us pretty worried for awhile because he was acting just like our beloved Smoke was right before he left us.  But SWMBO began dosing him with some antibiotic the Humane Society had given us back when we had him neutered.  As it happened, he hadn't needed it back then.  But this time, it seemed like it was "what the doctor ordered."  He's back to eating and drinking as normal and has lots of energy.

Welcome back, Blackwell.

AND THAT'S JAZZ!

SWMBO and I went to an outdoor jazz concert the other night.  In the middle of the monsoon!  We had doubts about it but got there early enough to shelter under the roof of the amphitheatre.  It was an occasion because we knew the keyboard player, Joel Robin, from way back in the 70's.  We had never heard his wife, Delphine Cortez, but knew she was one of the premier jazz singers in Phoenix.  And how much can I say about the fabulous Margo Reed.  As I told her at intermission, we had seen her and her sister Francine the first time they sang publicly in Phoenix.  There was a jazz festival going on at a shopping center and these two girls, in their cutoff shorts and t-shirts came up from the audience and just took over the stage.  Margo told me the other night that the band was led by Keith Greko and "he didn't like performing with chick singers!"  But they were fabulous.  Margo later went on tour and became a very well known performer.  Later her sister Francine did the same thing, performing with Lyle Lovett's Large Band and leading her own group, as she was when we saw them in Guadalajara, Mexico during the Cervantes Festival.

At any rate, the concert the other night was a great experience.  Margo was as sassy as ever with all the style of a great singer.  Delphine, as I told Joel, just creates a symphony on stage and she's a great scat singer.

As for the band, Joel is better than I can ever remember him.  He does a number of arrangements as well.  Drummer Cleve Huff kept everything on time and showed some great skill as a soloist.  Saxaphonist Tony Vacca was a new find for us and he was spectacular, whether playing his solo riffs or doing back-and-forth with Delphine.

It was a great evening.  Now, gentle readers, go out and hear some live jazz!

CATS

Something is wrong with our big black boy cat, Blackwell.  He's only eating a bite or two and has cut down on his water intake.  He spends a lot of time under the bed.  We're worried as this was how Smoke behaved before we had to put him down.  But what can you do?

Meantime, I spotted our oldest cat, Muggles, in an uncharacteristic pose today cuddled up for a nap with a ceramic cat.

And a few feet away, Jazz has found yet another box that just  seems to suit her fine.

A CLOUDY DAY IN MONSOON COUNTRY

To the north . . .

To the south . . .

To the west . . .

Hmm, a little rain dripping out of that one.  Well maybe it will dampen down the radiation from that mushroom cloud to the northwest.

Gee.  Right over a fitness center, too.

O.K. Just kidding.  But it does have a somewhat familiar shape.

Meantime, where I live?  Blue skies.  No rain.  Heat.  Bah, humbug!
==============
Update: About 3:30 this afternoon the rain finally came.  It's been raining steadily now for 15 or 20 minutes.  Hooray!

THE MONSOON

I should have told you this before but the summer heat has given me a bad case of lassitude.  But here it is.  The monsoon has arrived.  As I have written before,  that means a change in the direction of the wind.  And that brings us rain from, of all places, the Gulf of Mexico.  Up here the sky begins to darken and look something like this.

If we're lucky - - and I say lucky because our state has been dealing with a drought for years and years - - we may get some rain.  Here it's been relatively light so far.  Actually a long light rain would be the best because when it comes down really hard and severely it just tends to run off, cause flooding and actually doesn't do the land a lot of good.

So it's the good and the bad.  Or maybe we might stretch things a bit and call it the devil or the angel.




Incidentally, Bobby Vee (Robert Velline) was a young man from Fargo, North Dakota, and the first entertainer I ever saw "up close and personal" right before he became a star.

NICE HABOOBS, EH?

So.  It's Wednesday.  Night.  A lot of people have been blogging about last night's dust storm in Phoenix.  So.  It's a dust storm.  We live in the desert.  In the monsoon season, as I've been trying to tell you guys, the wind changes direction and it blows.  Sometimes it picks up sand and dirt from the few open spaces we have left and it forms a huge cloud which is what we call a haboob.  It's an Arabic word.  But we got it and it's ours now.  So the dust blows in and nobody gets hurt.  Except, maybe, some of those newcomers from Chicago.  Other than that, the swimming pools get full of mud, the dust covers your cars, and it's gone.  In spite of the rather spectacular pictures, it's no big deal.  Life goes on.

O.K.  Enough with the dust storm.

Up here in the mountains, we don't get dust storms.  We get rain.  Sometimes a little.  Sometimes a lot.  Sometimes the dry washes around here get hit with a ton of water and sometimes some dumbass drives into it and gets swept away and, if he's not real lucky, he dies.  But that happens everywhere, folks.  If you're dumb enough to risk your life with weather phenomenons, you can lose your life.

I lived for many years in North Dakota.  They get blizzards there.  Sometimes people would try to drive through them.  (O.K.  Personal note here.  I drove through one for about 300 miles the night my son was born.  When I got there, he was perhaps 6 hours old.  So why did I do it?  Stupidity.)  Anyway, sometimes they get through, sometimes they don't.

I also lived in Indiana for awhile.  Occasionally they had tornadoes there.  I can remember one Easter Sunday when one came within, oh, maybe a mile, maybe a half mile of where we lived.  We got out, took our "stuff" and drove in an opposite direction.  Later, we drove to where the tornado had touched down and witnessed massive destruction.

So what am I trying to say here?  Don't be afraid of weather but don't tempt it either.  You get a big dust storm?  Stay in your house.  Close the windows.  It's only going to last for a short time and then you clean up the mess.  No big deal.

You hear me?  NO.  BIG.  DEAL.

AMERICA

How could I forget this.  Many is the time when I had to work in the t.v. newsroom on the July 4th holiday when suddenly our pal Steve Widmann would put a recording of this on and crank up the sound.  It was sensational.  And it still is.  No one ever did this song better than Brother Ray.  Just listen.  (And turn up the volume!)

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY

MATERS

Our backyard tomato plants are coming along.  First a couple of cherry tomatoes.  They're about ready to pick.

But wait.  Here come the Romas.

Sure they're green now.  But they're big and beautiful and they, too, will turn red one of these days.  There isn't anything like a home grown tomato.

NOW WHERE'S THAT DAMN CAT??!!

KING OF THE HILL!

Blackwell has become used to our evening cocktail hours on the patio.  He was a little early yesterday.  He came in to the den about 3:30, sat down and stared at me.  He should know by now that we don't go out until the heat is off the day, at about 6 p.m.  But he waited patiently, until I had made a drink and headed toward the door.  Then his usually flaccid state accelerated and he sped past me to the door.

So we went outside.  We had a quick little bit of adventure when Blackwell apparently flushed a young mourning dove
somewhere near the tomato plants. I was across the yard and suddenly this dove came, fluttering along the ground but not making any elevation. Another dove, probably his mother, was right with the young one, maybe six inches above him, shepherding him along. Blackwell was as surprised as I was and stayed back, then made a lunge for the birds, then stopped again as they headed up the passageway between our house and our neighbor's. Then he suddenly made a rapid dash toward them but I accomplished two things at once by slapping my hands together and yelling "Blackwell, no!" The two birds lifted into the air and Blackwell made a 180 and came running back. I'm not sure whether it was fear or inexperience that, for a time, caused the young bird to not be able to lift off the ground. But he overcame it. Later we saw the two doves sitting side by side on a tree branch for the longest time. I think the fledgling learned a lesson.

A little later, I went into the house to replenish my glass. When I came out, Blackwell had taken my chair for his own and stayed there, with a satisfied and kingly expression.

C'MON RAIN!

It occurred to me today that my last three blog posts all had to do with water.  Two of them with way too much water.  I found that kind of interesting, considering that I live in one of the hottest, dryest states.

Yup!  Some people think of it as hell.  The rest of it call it Arizona.  I just checked the weather page and it says the current temperature is 95.6 degrees Fahrenheit.  'Course, that's over in Prescott, which is higher and cooler than where I live.  But in this range, what's a degree or two difference?  And we high desert dwellers do have one advantage.

Yes, the humidity is low here, only topping out at about 30 percent and dipping as low as single digits.  I have been to New York in the summer.  One time I was there in August and the temperature and the humidity were matching each other . . . in the high 90's for both.  As I was waiting on a curb for a light to change I was hit with a sudden cloudburst.  I just stood there getting soaking wet and enjoying it..

Nothing like that in the forecast for today but y'know what?  The longer range forecast says there's a "slight chance" of showers and thunderstorms starting on Saturday.  Maybe that monsoon prediction I was talking about awhile back will come true right on schedule.

We're ready for it.



Come to think of it, one of those Bud Lights wouldn't be bad right now either.

MAG 71

I know these are probably glass sculptures, most likely done by the artists at Dale Chihuly’s place up around Seattle. But, they look like undersea creatures to me. And that scares me.

I’ve done a wee bit of snorkeling and I loved when a school of fish would surround me and I could move my hand through them without ever touching any of them. They didn’t dart away but they somehow always avoided my hand.

But what panicked me were the gars, or needlefish, that streaked through beneath me, zig-zagging back and forth in a thrice. This picture kind of reminds me of those needlefish, long and narrow and deadly (?).

I never did enough snorkeling to be able to learn to go beneath the surface. I just paddled around up top, looking at what colorful spectacles were beneath me.

Once I went snorkeling with a friend down around Puerto Vallarta, in Mexico. My companion was more experienced than I was. He dove. I don’t know if he saw anything more than I did. But I do know that I lost sight of him and while I was dabbling around on the surface, he came up behind me and grabbed my foot. I nearly drowned! I was sure a Great White Shark had me in it’s jaws.

My pal (?) got a big laugh out of it. The bastard!

But he paid for our snorkeling expedition and for the beer so I guess it was okay in the end.

I do remember that we went out to this site in a boat and when we were done with our swimming we had to hoist ourselves up over the side into the boat. I couldn’t do it and he and the Mexican boat owner had to combine to drag me up over the side.

But, like I said, my pal paid for the beer. What our friends for?

However. I still shivver a bit when I look at this picture.

Magpie Tales is a little game played by participants each week.  Mistress Willow/Tess posts a picture and challenges any and all to write whatever based on it.  You can read more entries at Magpie Tales and even get into the game yourself.

MINOT UNDERWATER

To give you an idea of what has been capturing my interest for the past several days, here is a video of what Minot, North Dakota, looks like.



The boat ride and the video was provided by a crew from Minot Air Force Base.

DISASTER IN MINOT

My working career started at the Minot Daily News in Minot, North Dakota, then moved to KCJB radio and KXMC-TV way back in the early 1960's.  I grew up only 55 miles away.  I have relatives living in Minot.  Now, the city is facing a catastrophic flood.  The last major flood was in 1969.  The spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers now says the city will face twice that amount of water in the next few days.  Much of the city, which lies in a valley formed by the Souris (Mouse) River will apparently be covered with water for about a week.  It sounds like the disaster that was New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina slammed into it.

My cousin, only a few months younger than I, has been evacuated from her home.  When I spoke to her, she was tearful when we talked about the force and scope of this flood.

It is a terrible, terrible flood and, as many of the news reporters are saying, Minot will be changed forever.

One of my former employers, KXMC-TV, has been broadcasting news reports live and continuously, 24 hours a day.  You can find them here.  I've been glued to it for most of the past couple of days.

I covered floods as a news reporter in North Dakota.  It's hard work and it's not a lot of fun.  If you're the type of person who prays, you might add the beleagured residents of Minot to your prayers.

SUMMMM-MER-TIME!

Yes, it's the first day of summer.  The temperature where I live is supposed to soar into the 90's today and probably will hit 100 degrees tomorrow.  (World citizens, don't panic: that's Fahrenheit, not Celsius.)

The heat will be with us until the monsoon arrives with some cooling rain. 

So . . . what to do?  Well, here's a couple of guys with the perfect solution.