The Yutes of Today are the ...

MUSIC at funkoma here in T Town on Friday Night !!

short sweet....

here's the fo...


Gonna be at six. The bands playing are Apache Chief, Hippo Critt and Sugar Beats. Apache Chief, we're pretty much garage punk. Hippo Critt is indie rock with poppish tendencies and Sugar Beats are a psychedelic two piece influenced by 13th Floor Elevators and the Velvet Underground. All of the bands are made up of the youth of Tacoma. Uh. I dunno what else besides that.


See you there:

Roses, Night Gardening and your love....

roses...roses...sultry nights in the garden
#2 in Tressie's Garden post series...
This one was first published in June 1996...in the Senior Scene...cause back then...only aging flower children...and old folks gardened...maybe some religious folks, but it was a bit of a strange avocation..
After the hippie back-to-the-earth movement of the 60s and 70s, gardening, canning, and making stuff went out of fashion...people wanted to trade stocks and snort cocaine and vote Republican...see where that got 'cha!
At Last a Decent Plot

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may...
June is for roses. Roses speak of love and kisses. They require some special care, but they are so worth the time. Gather ye rosebuds and petals while ye may, and use them for potpourri.
Planting
June is still a good month for planting four-inch and bigger size plants. Water well, daily at first, until the plant settles in, then mulch to hold in moisture during the hot summer months. Large-size containers are available all summer but be sure to check nursery stock for good health. You don't want a plant that's been under-watered and chewed up an put under stress. It won't stand the heat and bloom well.

Use annual marigold, alyssum, petunia, marguerites, zinnia and portulaca for sunny spots. Hardy summer perennials for sun that are drought-resistant include helenthemem (sunrose, yarrow, black-eye Susan, hollyhock, lavender, baby's breath, and sedum Autumn Joy.

Many herbs take little water once established. Try thymes, sages catmint, and rosemary. All these plants look great together and take the same care. Accent your plantings with gray-leafed plants. these tend to like drier soil too. Gray leaves soften bright orange, red and yellow, or add punctuation to soft pink, white and lilac.

Several artemesias with their finely cut leaves and fragrance are good for drying. Look for Sweet Annie, mugwort, wormwood or the many varieties of fern leaf artemesias.

Bought some roses in pots? Dig a hole twice the width of the container slightly deeper. Remove part of the soil (put it in the compost along with the peat pot) and work in some well-rotted manure. Soak the rose thoroughly, remove it from the pot, and plant it at the same level as it was. Toss in your prepared soil and water.
Form a watering basin slightly wider than the rose and mulch. When you cut flowers for bouquets, cut the stem cleanly just above an outward-facing leaf with five or seven leaflets. Later, keep the old petals and toss the rest on the compost.
Fertilize monthly until August, then stop and allow the growth to harden for winter.
In late fall, remove all leaves to stop wintering pests and diseases. Consult a garden book for more help.

Fragrant Gardens
Plan now for sultry summer nights outside. Plant your garden beds near entryways, window boxes beneath open bedroom windows, and deck and patio pots with fragrant flowers and foliage.
Nicotiana, alyssum, stock, lavender, roses, petunias, honeysuckle, evening primors and heliotrpe are easty to find. Use boxwood shrubs and mix flowers with pineapple sage and mints from the herb garden. Surround steps and walks with creeping thyme. All these release fragrance when you brush past them.

An especially romantic night garden uses the white flowers of those mentioned above. Mixed with gray leaves, white flowers reflect the stars and moonlight.
A garden should always include comfortable benches and seats. Place tables around to set down a plate of summer barbeque while rubbing a leaf to enjoy its scent.
To encourage long romantic visits in the garden, purchase or make overstuffed cushions. Use duck or canvas in solids or stripes, or heavy printed denim to make a basic rectangle, square and even hearts. Stuff with polyester fiberfill to withstand summer showers. Bring fabric cushions in during a real downpour to extend the life of your cushions.

Stroll through the garden at sunset with candles or kerosene lamps. Many plants release a fragrance only at night. Our summers are so fleeting. Will this season be dry or damp?

Create an oasis under a covered porch and hang a hammock under an arbor. Close your eyes and listen to the birds, and breathe.
Summer afternoon, summer afternoon.

****Rose Recipes ****
Potpourri **
Mix dry wormwood leaves with lavender buds and dry rose petals, your choice of fixative, and a few drops of rose oil. This potpourri sewn into sachets and stored with winter and spring sweaters and woolens helps to protect them from moths. Store garments after dry cleaning or washing because moths are attracted to body soil. The lavender and artemesia seem to confuse the moths so won't damage your clothes.

Rosewater**
Rosewater can be used for many things--cooking, drinks or a hair rinse.It was an essential in great-grandmother's day. Gather four cups of fresh, unsprayed rose petals and bring to a boil with five cups pure spring water or distilled water in a glass or stainless steel pot. Simmer for 10 minutes and stir gently with a wooden spoon. Strain, bottle and refrigerate, and use within a week. This recipe makes about a quart of rosewater.

My anniversary bash...the shop and gardening...

I really didn't wanna go to Neil's new 1022...I liked the Monsoon Room just fine, thank you...
but after having tons of fun at the Tempest, and chatting with George, Bender, and Teddy....and a very drunk Mark (not my Mark, someone else's), it was time to go...and when you are at the Tempest...
you just naturally go around the block (don't trip on the busted sidewalk, please)

(sorry for the lack of pretty pictures, I'm back to my old camera, and I'm feeling lazy right now...)
It was plainer and there's no outside seating which is very very upsetting...I spend 9 months a year inside (what, am I a fetus??)
and also, I am a Californian...
I expect some outside action (so get busy....)

But Cory, tender of the evening's entertainment and Jessica, who works at The Art Place...and wears moccasin type shoes (sorry for being all happy and drooly)
but no one wears moccasins..so I get a little excited...made it all better.
Absinthe is bad, and good. That's all I'm saying about that.
Except, this anniversary will be memorable....

It was a learning experience, too.
I learned that some people think LeMay should team up with HotRodARama...to lend some credibility to it.....
folks who haven't been in Tacoma very long are very impressed with LeMay... well, Mark knows way too much about LeMay and old cars, so LeMay is not impressive at all...
but since humans have now been trained to want a Disneyland-Style experience of the most trivial of pursuits.....LeMay will generate copious amounts of money....

HotRod on the other hand is a 100% different kind of experience. It is LeMay that would benefit from the genuine art, intelligence, and kindness that is HotRod...

HotRod would not benefit, because the object of HotRod is not to generate money, number 1, it is to celebrate creativity and the old ethic of people to people fun and art that swells up inside the chest of us who didn't go to art school and wouldn't apply for an art grant if our life depended on it.....
because for a large bunch of humans....
Simply doing something wonderful and satisfying... is what it is all about.
So,
while I wish the folks who work at LeMay and the folks around the Dome who will make some money (finally)....huzzah.
This difference is absolutely crucial to understanding our culture today....and a lot of otherwise smart people (mostly university graduates...) MISS this crucial difference about what is happening in human history now.
Bigness is losing out....and the small, and the personal, and the local is what is coming back.... Social Media is a Big Thing, not a small thing....and I'm sorry if you don't know that. Blabbing on the internet....is a sorry excuse for real life. Which is why I make the rounds....all the time and drool on your shoes.

Farmer's Market today..I shall be jumping the fence to set in my vegies and seeds...
the shop is going along pretty good with the massive cleaning and rearranging project..it looks like a bomb went off...but soon it will be all pretty.

Then.....OMG! WE ARE GETTING ASPHALT STREETS WITHIN A FEW DAYS !!!!!


The other thing I learned was that my favorite Greener who is older than me....has had some very serious health problems.
Love one another, hug and make merry.
Too soon our mortal coil may unwind....

Vote For Salmon Swimming thru the North End !

Time to Vote!
Time to vote for salmon streams running through Tacoma!
Vote for Puget Creek Restoration Society
Vote Green
Vote Scott



Scott Hansen, founder of the Puget Creek Restoration Society, and our sweet neighbor here on Broadway, funky funky dirty dirty Broadway, is a finalist in the Cox Conserves Heroes program, presented by KIRO 7.

This program honors people in the community that help create, preserve or enhance places for everyone to enjoy...you know...like creeks, parks, gardens, plazas, streets and public squares.........the places that make life beautiful......
the places that make life possible.

go here... Then click

• Scott Hansen - Environmental Non-profit of Choice: Puget Creek Restoration Society

to see a lovely website....ahhhh...breathe deep...........

then, on the

Welcome to the Seattle Market

page, click finalists and watch a sweet video about what Scott and the folks do...
then come back and click vote.........
and click for Scott........
You'll feel better......

and omg........the Puget Creek Restoration Society can win
5 Thousand, yes, bones or clams or whatever you call them
.....to continue the fabulous work...and get a load of urban achievers in the vid....

so VOTE you hooked up monkey...Scott Hansen is at the bottom of the vote page......
DO IT.

This'll be short and sweet.....

like me. So, I've been told that I have readers...yeah me. and that I am passionate. thank you. Yes, I will say things out loud that others may be thinking.
I also do not have a 100% cheery outlook...I see things as they are...and how they could be........

so I hope some love Neko because she is not 100% cheery and her songs are hauntingly macabre and strangely uplifting because they are about humanity and the natural world...it's not always a pretty sight, and we must. look.

so. Neko Case. Pretty nice eh? I didn't go because I don't go to big concerts anymore (much). Here's my 2 favorite vids on YouTube, baby.





Well, work continues on my street...It will never ever end...
from Morgan's Brain post (via feedtacoma)...got me thinking about this:
from wikipedia's article on Florida's Creative Class theory....(in bold)

The Creative Class is a class of workers whose job is to create meaningful new forms (2002). The Creative Class is composed of scientists and engineers, university professors, poets and architects.

The Super-Creative Core is considered innovative, creating commercial products and consumer goods. Their primary job function is to be creative and innovative. “Along with problem solving, their work may entail problem finding” (Florida, 2002, p.69).

The Creative Class also “includes people in design, education, arts, music and entertainment, whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology and/or creative content” (Florida, 2006, p.8).

Their designs are widely transferable and useful on a broad scale, as with products that are sold and used on a wide scale. Another sector of the Creative Class includes those positions which are knowledge intensive, these careers usually require a high degree of formal education (2002). Examples of this sector are health professionals and business management, who are considered to be a part of the sub-group called Creative Professionals.

back to the Super-Creative Core theory....
Their primary job function is to be creative and innovative. “Along with problem solving, their work may entail problem finding” (Florida, 2002, p.69)
Even though the Creative Class has been around for centuries........

well, yes of course...I'll take issue with the business management folks...they better get their head out of their asses because I don't yet see much change in corporate culture that embraces intelligence...yet...I see glimmers of hope in small business...ala Paul Hawken's theories, for example....

Additional to these two main groups of creative people, the usually much smaller group of Bohemians are also included in the creative class.

ah yes, Bohemians. The sub sub culture that is entirely misunderstood and ripped off. We're creating all the time. The air we breathe is different. We do our own thing, man, and dip our toes in the common culture to test for love/hate. But we mostly watch our ideas get co-opted. There is some satisfaction knowing that trends and general enlightenment start with us.

Here's where bohemia culture in the most modern times has been co-opted and then moved into mainstream culture....just a few examples from the last 50 years....

*Wearing of work clothes as a fashion statement..Denim/Painters pants/work boots...
*Home gardening, once the hobby of the homemaker and immigrant is now Big Time!
*Organic foods, and slower lifestyles, once the purvey of back-to-nature types of Rousseauian and 20's boho Back To The Land movement that spawned Hippies and Diggers and Flower Children....
*Poetry/Open Mike/Indie culture have arisen into mainstream because of co-option by corporations that are empty vessels of profit-obsession...

well, there's a few to chew on.
Me, I'm gonna go cut up some t-shirts and creatively re-fashion them into something new ....I started doing that about 40 years ago (yikes!) and selling my wares on the streets of San Francisco, in my high school, and on and on and so forth.

Florida may have flaws in his theories, but I think his detractors don't know boo about creativity...and how it is nurtured. It isn't nurtured by gentrification!
The fact that the most creative group of people in Tacoma have long congregated around the Broadway/St. Helens/7th -9th street area...and are now being gentrified out...is a perfect example of the co-option I was talking about.

I still have to stare at 505 Broadway and those lions (?) and the FAKE PEOPLE in the windows.

FAKE PEOPLE. In the windows.
and read the sign in the window of the condo building...
warm and fuzzy huh?
You just can't make this shit up.

The City has not done everything it can...

no way Jose......
we've lost about 17 businesses on the block, Antique Row, since last summer. Some due to the toxic Bush/cheney regime, and some due to construction.
I've been on this block,off and on for about 14 years...I think the construction had the most destructive force against small business.
And I think this is really what pleases the city......move out the small potatoes...so the corporate stores and shops can move in...
ColdStone Creamery, TGIFridays, Cheesecake Factory, and every other bland sanitized corporated yekkk you can name ...in Lakewood.

Why? bigger payrolls of minimum wage workers, and tourist-purchases and therefore more taxes for Tacoma....
To do what with? Fix potholes?
That wouldn't be there but for increased traffic from the subsidized wealthy who bought condos and drive their SUV's and Explorers from downtown to Target and Costco.

But what makes a community isn't the bigger business, faceless corporate Xanax'd to death and meaningless.........
It the small business, the micro business....do I need to remind you again, that small businesses make about 80+% of all American Jobs.
Off Shore This Wal-Mart !!
So there are what, 5 "antique" stores left on Antique Row...........
I just heard this comment "Where's Antique Row?" (she was standing in my store just 10 minutes ago)
"We saw more stores in Puyallup".........
"When are they going to be done?"
My answer is "Never".

The object isn't to make a pretty streetscape, tho that is a benefit...
the object isn't to replace aging services, tho that is a benefit...
everything done on this BroadwayLID could have been done over a 3 -5 year timetable with a minimum of disruption....that would have allowed all the small and micro businesses to stay and weather the storm of construction.
(and let me take this moment to tell you that the crews, the mens, the womens, have been Fabulous!!)

But the cost to us has been several hours every week, just cleaning up the muck and dirt.
We'll be cleaning for months to come.
Nobody gives me a deal on cleaning staff! Hey city! Give me a case of paper towels, and some CitraCleaner!
Nobody pays me to vacuum and wash my car once a week, instead of once a month (maybe).
The filth is tracked everywhere.
I have to drive in with merchandise ..I can't bring in 25 jackets and cute dresses, on the bus/hobo train.
I don't work in a cubicle.

What ...the city upped the parking time to 2 hours instead of 1???
bfd.
the city was just doing their job, so why am I supposed to jump up and down like a mindless cheerleader for that?


The most often heard comment is "Those big machines are scary...I'm afraid of them"...
So City...
Where was the special advertising dollars to get folks down here?
Where was the occasional midweek day of rest from the destruction so maybe we could have a weekday without the trauma?


The object of the BroadwayLID was to kill community and rebuild something like Westworld.
And they just about succeeded.

Enjoy the robot serving you a Jack in the Box burger when they locate in my building next fall.
(yes that is a CityArtsMagazine picture...)

Let's Get This Garden Started !

I've been a gardener all my life...pulling weeds, which is a vital part of gardening, was my first job (that I remember) when I was 4, and got paid a penny a weed! Them's some big bucks.
I so clearly remember crawling under the big hydrangeas and the scent of the cool earth....the mystery of being the size of a bug under the big leaves and mop-headed periwinkle violet flower balls.......

so, I used to write a gardening column for Tacoma Monthly, then Tacoma Weekly...yes, that one!
I called it At Last A Decent Plot

I researched this article in the Tacoma Library downtown with child (Annie) in tow...she loved it...being inside the library all day...(no really!)

this was originally published April 12, 1995. I've added some internetz links because that is something one can do...that is not too possible with newsprint...much. Besides, I don't think the Google was invented yet.....wow, 1995. Let's go back to the Clinton days of yore, blue dresses and good wars, when acid wash jeans weren't yet ironic.
Each week I'll try to publish a new/old article from those days...and well, continue on writing, cause I like to do things...

Killer Chemicals


The recent subway poisoning incident in Tokyo may seem to have no relationship to gardening--but there is a connection. Sarin, the deadly nerve gas used in Tokyo, was developed during WWII by the Nazis.

American scientists regarding their own nerve gas during the war discovered that low concentrations of some lethal chemicals will act as pesticides, herbicides, or fumigators.
The end of the war left America's large chemical companies with vast knowledge of chemical killers. Knowledge they kept a top secret, right? Not a chance. Seeing the deadly chemicals as a potential money-making bonanza, they aggressively marketed them as new, modern solutions to the "bug problem".

The result has been that, as biologist Rachel Carson exposed in her 1962 book Silent Spring, chemicals synthesized into unnatural molecular chains have permeated nearly every ecosystem on the planet. Scientists have found post-WWII chemicals everywhere they've looked , including in samples taken from the top of Mt. Everest.

Many garden chemicals are billed as harmless, but don't bet on it. DDT, Chlordane and Dieldrin are "chlorinated hydrocarbons", while Sarin, Malathion and Parathion are "organo-phosphates".
Though anything made from elements native to the Earth is by definition, natural and organic, to make this a badge of harmlessness is deceptive. Chemicals in the DDT family are stored in the body. Both the FDA and EPA have agreed that there is no safe storage level because these chemicals interact with other chemicals, producing increasingly toxic results. Sarin and Malathion work on the nervous system, the effects resembling the alkaloid poison, muscarine.

So what are some chemicals to watch out for? Chemical nitrogens available so plentifully at nurseries -- Nu-Life-- is a common brand--work wonders for your plants. The nitrogen makes your plant's leaves green and encourages them to grow. While the nitrogen itself is a good thing, the concentrated chemical soup used to create chemical nitrogen, including ammonia and chlorine -- wreaks havoc on the environment. It's toxic to workers and the area around the chemical plant that produces it. It's harmful to nursery workers who deal with it. And, it eventually pollutes your local water supply.

Phosphorus is another gardening essential. Chemical companies mine rock phosphate, a wonderful source of natural phosphorus, and treat it with acid to create superphosphate. While your plants will become supercharged with phosphorus, they won't thrive. Why? When the superphosphate is added to the soil, it combines with the necessary micronutrients iron and manganese, making them unavailable to plants. Without iron and manganese, the plants become vulnerable to insect and disease damage. To an unsuspecting gardener, this action can create a vicious cycle.

The bottom line is that there is no need to use chemicals in your garden. Unadulterated sources of nutrition such as manure for nitrogen, crushed phosphorus rock for needed phosphorus, and wood ashes for potassium are available for your organic garden. Combined into rich compost, these sources will provide all the nutrients your plants need to stay healthy as well as capable of resisting insects and disease.

Hundreds of organic gardening books and magazines are available to help with basic information. One of my favorites is Rodale Press The Expert's Book of Garden Hints, edited by Fern Marshall Bradley. I also like Organic Gardening Magazine. Once obscure, it's now available on the magazine racks in most grocery stores. Besides information about organic gardening, you'll learn about the latest research on nontoxic insecticides and techniques to lessen the occurrence of fungus or bacterial attacks.

But what about chemicals used by large corporate farms? A scary example of chemicals resulting in tragedy occurred recently in Olalla. Two horses died from eating hay (grown in Eastern Washington) that had been sprayed with an organo-phosphate pesticide. The pesticide had drifted in from an adjacent potato field, said Cliff Weed, program manager for the State Department of Agriculture compliance division for pesticides.

Now that you're afraid of everything you might eat, remember that you're not gonna get out alive. Still the best cure for cancer is to try to prevent it. Requiring multi-national corporations to avoid using dangerous chemicals which contaminate our water, air and food should be an obvious step.

What can we do to save ourselves and future generations of children and wildlife? Make a personal committment to stop using dangerous chemicals in our own gardens as much as possible. Just as important, write letters to congress, imploring them to continue enforcing environmental laws. This isn't an issue that is liberal or conservative. Newt Gingrich and Jesse Jackson breathe, eat and drink the same food and water the same as you and I. Remember, the life you save may be your own.
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So there ya go....
across the street from the shop is a chunk of land at the top of a parking lot...I"m gonna just go over there and guerrilla-garden it....I suggest you do the same!