Rain in the morning, sunshine in the afternoon. Yearling Deer on Woodland Drive -- velvet antlers and all.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Saint Paul, Minnesota; Sydney, Australia; Flushing, New York; Jamaica, New York; Plano, Texas; Salmon Arm, British Columbia; Louth, Ireland (Hello Hooray to Evan Brennan!) and Marion, Ohio (Tari DeWille, methinks).

ROCK against Reaganomics at: Theater X-Net

Starring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Ida's Places in Paris -- from my first jet-lagged day by the Seine.
Read more about Ida in Sisters of Salome by Toni Bentley

Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
NEW --Launching NOW! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and Cellulose to Celluloid, Flash Gordon in the Saturday Matinees and Sunday Comics.





Many thanks to Jim Keefe (Visit his Website) -- the LAST Flash Gordon illustrator of the 20th Century, and Flash's first illustrator of the 21st, for his recommendations -- HERE!

Charity Alert: Check into Terra Sigilata blog -- donate $$$ to cancer patients just by clicking onto the site. Keep that Resolution to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: The Hockaday Museum of Art has Frank Tetrault's sculptures, and Greg Siple's playful bicycle photos.
Check out Fall for Glacier -- a fundraiser for several programs that make Glacier National Park even better!

Media Watch: I've seen a few episodes of So You Think You Can Dance? I don't mind dancing on TV, or seeing my old hometown of Salt Lake, but I wish they'd stop with the tired riff of showing schlubs without talent, just for some conflict when the judges throw them out. It's video tape, so this kind of time-wasting is unnecessary. I can't say I even like this show -- I hope the young dancers get some more work out of it, though.

Ch-ch-changes: Day-um! Yves St. Laurent passed away at the age of 71 -- I wrote about him awhile back. He was an artist with sensibilities deeper than what is common in the Fashion Industry. In fact, he was an uncommonly deep and sensible artist -- period.

Yves St. Laurent, as pictured by Andy Warhol, along with a few sketches from St. Laurent's prodigious work -- all pasted over a composition by Dutch formalist Piet Mondrian, who died in 1944. Those severe windowpanes inspired St. Laurent to create playful dresses using similar patterns in the 60's.

Double Day-um! Ellis (Bo Diddley) McDaniel passed away from cardio-vascular failure. He collapsed on the road last year. I saw him in 1970 -- pure guitar-driven FUNK, backed with a band of razor-sharp players. He wrote some of my favorite rock jams: Diddy Wah Diddy; Mona; Who Do You Love, and the epynomous Bo Diddley. He deserves beatification for Love Is Strange, his cover of I'm A Man (which inspired Bad To The Bone), and the ground-breaking Bad To The Bone video itself! He toured with the young Rolling Stones, and encouraged them to persevere -- he insisted they would outlast the Beatles. Their version of Mona still challenges guitar players everywhere with Brian Jones' mastery of Bo Diddley's technique for weaving sound and rhythm together. He and Chess Records blazed the way for progressive Rock Guitar.

A redigitized image of Bo Diddley performing in England circa 2006. He once told a story to one of his staff about sharing a limo with Ray Charles after a show and falling asleep in a rear seat. When he awakened, he noticed the blind genius in the front seat was driving the car, guided by his whispering assistant. Bo Diddley decided to close his eyes again without making a fuss, according to the tale.

Election Madness: Montana's primary election tomorrow. We'll have a Democratic Party nominee this week, and then we'll campaign for some public servants, instead of GOP cronies and thieves. The people of this country must defeat John McCain and his "100 years in Iraq" stupidity.
Support the troops -- bring them home.