thegaygardener

Changing The World One Pansy At A Time!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

White Trash Front Porch





Kudos to the town of LINCOLN, NEBRASKA. The City Council has outlawed the use of “indoor” furniture outdoors. Mainly aimed at the students in this college town who spend the semester studying & drinking beer on any old piece of furniture they can manage to haul outside & then celebrate the end of finals by setting fire to that nasty couch or wheel-less desk chair. TheGayGardener thinks this should be a Federal Law. I mean seriously, those hideous molded plastic chairs are like $5 each. Or better yet just park your ass on the steps & leave the porch bare rather than clutter up the neighborhood with some vinyl eyesore on the front porch. (Photo:smalltown07)

Oh My God!!! Tom Cruise? I’m sure. Daniel Craig? Mmm maybe. George Clooney? I wish. BUT CLAY AIKEN??????? G.A.Y.????? Oh sure, KATHY GRIFFIN long ago christened The American Idol runner up “The Gayken” & there was that little dust-up with the online hooker who allegedly had saved some “DNA” soiled towel & tried to sell it on EBAY & he loves to tour with Musical Theater Companies but GAY???? I’m stunned.

I just saw a YOPLAIT Yogurt commercial with perennial Queen, RICHARD SIMMONS. And you know I love Richard, he is uniquely himself. But you know what Richard? YOUR FAT!!! No, not obese like many of the poor mascara stained faces that you counsel; but Jesus! You’ve been “Sweating to The Oldies” for 20 years now & still have no discernable waist! In fact with those glittery tank tops & awning striped silken shorts you look like a fuzzy beach ball. I’ll stick to my Sugar-Free-RED BULL-Coffee-Parliaments (& the occasional “white fatty” )Diet.


Wow! Weren’t the EMMYS Dreadful? Six hours (??) And not a laugh to be had! Happy for Tina Fey who is so abundantly talented but I think that after you play a character for a few seasons & win a truckload of awards at some point you need to withdraw from competition. (SEE: JEREMY PIVEN) And give others a chance. Remember the classy CANDACE BERGEN recused herself after winning something like 5 in a row for MURPHY BROWN.

Speaking of Awards: If you do have any trophies or “loving cups” hanging around they make lovely vases for flowers & what the hell else are you doing with them? Nobody “quaffs mead” or booze out of them anymore…use ‘em!

Thursday, September 11, 2008

One Last Hurrah!




Can you feel it? See it? Yep, the days are growing shorter. The light is changing rapidly & before we know it Halloween will be here then Thanksgiving then ChristSTOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We can still bleed a little bit of summer out of the remaining days of the month! A few things to do right now:

Prune your roses & cut back the dead blooms to encourage one last cycle. Cutiing only encourages more growth so make a nice centerpiece. Don’t be too severe with the pruning right now, wait until it’s totally dormant (late November) for that.
House Plants: Now is a good time for re-potting. Get new (used!) larger pots for all your houseplants so they have room to grow this winter. New soil will give them some new life too. Also start to bring in any of your houseplants that have been enjoying the summer sunning on the patio. They’ll need time to readjust to being indoors.
• A great time to start an herb garden too! You can start your favorite herbs outside while it’s still warm & sunny, then bring them inside to the kitchen when it starts to get too cool. Rosemary is so easy to grow & there are many new, very sturdy, varieties. I love this herb. You can use in to cook virtually any dish, as a garnish or a decoration & it also looks simply perfect growing in a pretty pot!

Mix up another pitcher of WHITE SANGRIA* throw some burgers on the grill, put some little glass jars of roses in every room of your house (one bloom in a votive candle glass can also = perfection!) invite some friends over before everyone gets too crazy & say “Adieu to Summer 2008!”

* WHITE SANGRIA RECIPE (from THE SILVER PALATE COOKBOOK-TheGayGardener’s Favorite!)
1 Bottle dry White wine
2 kiwis, peeled & sliced
1 large pear, sliced very thin
1 cup seedless green grapes
2 tablespoons “superfine” sugar
2 tablespoons Calvados or Armagnac
2 tablespoons Cointreau
1.5 cups bottled sparkling water
Sprigs of mint


1. Pour wine into a large glass pitcher, add kiwis, pear, grapes, sugar, Calvados, and Cointreau. Cover & refrigerate for 4 to 5 hours***
2. To serve, stir well, add sparkling water & pour over ice in tall glasses. Garnish with mint sprig.

***remind me to tell you about the time I made a traditional red sangria & thought it would be a good idea to have it “ferment” for 4 DAYS!!! That stuff was like moonshine! A lovely dinner party turned into a bacchanal with clothing discarded & crimes confessed. At least that’s what the Police Report alleged.

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WALT DISNEY PRESENTS: CAMPAIGN 2008

Another reason I love THE TALENTED MR. DAMON

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RICKROLLING!!!

Rickrolling! Have you heard of this? It's an internet "prank" where you type in keywords for a "search" and instead of getting the likely site you want, you're transferred to a site featuring British singer, RICK ASTELY singing his big hit: "Never Gonna Give You Up!"

Some clever guys had a little fun with the phenomenon & gave us the RNC as it should have been


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Art is All Around Us!






On this anniversary of that sad, horrific, day in September seven years ago; I always remind myself that as trite as it sounds life is a big, fat, GIFT. What always gets me is the utter ordinariness of those folks on that day. The waiters,chefs, brokers, secretaries, assistants, police & fire persons, just doing their jobs, going to work or flying to another city to do a job. And a few hellish minutes later their lives & our lives & the life of the country changed forever.

Though I loathed it, & clearly saw it for the passive/aggressive threat that it was meant to be; whenever I said; "Good Night,Mom! See you in the morning!" before going to bed; her response was always: "God Willing!" I used to think: "Jesus! WOMAN! "YOU CAN'T EVEN COMMIT TO HANGING AROUND FOR THE NEXT 8 HOURS!!!" "No wonder I have separation anxiety & trust issues" (though I would not learn those handy terms until decades later with that very expensive therapist!) But now I think she really meant "You never know" (her other favorite hostile phrase!)

And you know what? You NEVER do know! You can leave for work in the morning & not return in the evening. You can say good night to your family & "shuffle off this mortal coil" while dreaming. So all we can do is GRAB as much as we can. Not STUFF... but grab the minutes & the moments, grab each other...& just squeeze as much as we can out of every single day we have! Yike! I'm not even drunk yet!

I was thinking of all this today when i was riding my bike around town on yet another gorgeous, sunny, September morning!
I took these photos in just a three block span of Fairfax Avenue in L.A.

Art! Beauty! Love! Life! Everywhere we look!
Damn! We're lucky!

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Yes! We Have NEW Bananas!!




I LOVE L.A.!
I didn't plant these, they were here when I moved in.
I never feed them. A little pruning, a little watering, but still they come, every year.
And know what? They're delicious!

If anyone told little Charlie Trainer that one day he would live in HOLLYWOOD, become a gardening & design maven, meet a handsome man whom he could legally marry, have a lovely house, & grow BANANAS by accident, he would have laughed out loud.
Because all little Charlie ever wanted then (truthfully!) was to meet FARAH FAWCETT & all of CHARLIE'S ANGELS & become friends with them (& BOSLEY too) and solve crimes wearing great clothes with flawless hair. I was such a simple child.

Friday, September 05, 2008

"SANDRA BULLOCK IS V.P. PART II"


God !I hate to get all political on you all of a sudden (!!!) Or as my mistaken white-trash friends say: “all of THE sudden” but seriously…

My friend, J, Harvey, has the funniest blog ever called: “A Socialite’s Life” this dude is hysterical!! I ONLY WISH I could write like him! Like a lot of gossipy/gay blogs he has a thing or two to say about the Republican nominee for Vice President: SANDRA BULLOCK err, I mean SARAH PALIN. He was the first to point out that instead of a a wedding ring, the hot mess/fiancé of BRISTOL PALIN (and her babby daddy) LEVI JOHNSTON had the name “BRISTOL” tattooed on his ring finger!!! See Photo!

J. Harbey sums it all up by saying: “Levi flew to Minnesota to accompany Bristol at Day 3 of the Republican Nation Convention on Wednesday and was "warmly greeted" by John McCain. For real? He's against gay marriage but teenage Alaskan rednecks who get their fingers tattooed with each other's names should totally marry and breed? I quit.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject. I LOVE how the Christian Right is always making fun of the names “HOLLYWOOD STARS” choose for their children (APPLE, MOSES, LEON, PAX, SURI, ZUMA ETC) But how about this Palin chick? I mean, her kids are called: TRACK & FIELD, & TRIG & ALGEBRA or GEOMETRY, or somesuch & NO ONE says a WORD!!!

I do realize that this election is LOST for the Democrats though! My best friend from PA tells me his Mother was watching the RNC & felt moved by the fact that CINDY McCAIN & LAURA BUSH were very “lady-like” in their skirts (uhh yeah to the tune of almost $500,000 thank you OSCAR DE LA RENTA!!!) while MICHELLE OBAMA? “I just don’t trust her” Hmmmm Michelle wore nothing but beautiful skirts & dresses during the entire DNC but yea! You know what? SHE’S BLACK!!!! End of story I guess!

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Ready on Day One...



"I'VE GOT YOUR FOREIGN POLICY EXPERIENCE RIGHT HERE!"

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Tuesday, September 02, 2008

And Starring SANDRA BULLOCK as SARAH PALIN!




Blessed Mother of God! That’s what my Grandmother used to say when she was really upset. I’m not really upset. I’m stumped, I’m mystified & I am just smart enough to think that this cynical ploy on behalf of JOHN McCAIN could work.

The nomination of Sarah Palin for Vice President on the Republican ticket has been the obsession of the main stream media & blogosphere for more than 5 days now. And I just don’t know what the hell to think. I do know this:

She is damned attractive.
I don’t give a crap that her unmarried daughter is knocked up (Christ my own mother was knocked up with me when my parents got married!)
She seems like a nice lady.
The daughter’s baby daddy is also hot (as seen on his MySpace page)
The whole family is hot.
The fact that she gave birth to a down’s syndrome baby 5 months ago only WINS her votes, not COSTS them


Her Unorthodox religious views (creationism, Iraq is part of “God’s plan”, home schooling) endears her to the Christian Right; which has won more White House victories for the Republicans than it has lost.

The Democrats have got to tread very carefully and not seem to be “piling on” her

But is it just me or does this whole thing reek of some B Movie “chick flick” by DISNEY where the role of SARAH PALIN is played by SANDRA BULLOCK??? You know, pretty former Beauty Pagent Contestant( Sarah WON the Miss Congeniality Award while SANDRA only starred in the film!) marries her High School sweetheart, has a bunch of kids in some frigid outpost somewhere, and based on her “MOOSE BURGER RECIPE” is elected Governor of a small state & by some incredible fluke finds herself headlining a National ticket?? Except of course in the movie, the role of the Presidential candidate would be played by KEVIN COSTNER not 105 yr old John McCain, just to keep up the sexual tension element of the story!

The scary thing is that THIS AIN’T THE MOVIES!!! And since John McCain would be (if elected) the OLDEST President in the history of the Republic; this chick could be running the whole damn country in 3 years time!!

Speaking of the movies, I saw a wonderful film over the weekend; FROZEN RIVER. It’s bleak, and cold, and raw but very powerful. And features an amazing performance by an actress named MELISSA LEO. Leo was one of the stars of the late, lamented, t.v. series; HOMOCIDE; which I have to admit, I never watched. But I did see her on an episode of LAW & ORDER a few months back where her performance was so riveting, I had to “google” her to find out who she was. Then when I saw her name attached to this film, I KNEW I had to see it! Well, in the interest of full disclosure, I should say I only saw three quarters of the film. I went to see it at the new LANDMARK THEATRES at The Westside Pavillion on Sunday night & wouldn’t you know it, BOMB SCARE!! Or something like that because we were all forced to EVACUATE the theatre & in fact the whole mall! So I have not seen the whole film yet! But what I did see was enough to recommend this movie & to applaud this amazing actress! Yea, I’m going back!

Let There Be Light!




You know how I love recycling. Not just the normal bottles & cans-in-the-big-blue-containers kind but the finding-new- uses-for-old-or-discarded-objects kind! Check out this “chandelier”

I found this old wire basket at a thrift shop for $1.00 (!!) White washed it a bit but still left a loft of the rusted red original paint shine through. Filled it with votives & strung it from my tall jasmine with some old rope. Twined the leaves of the jasmine through the openings in the wire and VIOLA! So perfect, so pretty, so GREEN, & all for under $5.00! Can you beat that?

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