Tom Petty -- "You Wreck Me" (1994)

Tonight we ride

Right or wrong

Tonight we sail

On a radio song

"You Wreck Me" was released on Tom Petty's 1994 album, Wildflowers.  This post will feature pictures of some of the wildflowers I saw on the walks I took on a recent sojourn in Rochester, Minnesota.  (I was there because my mother was having a shoulder replacement done at the Mayo Clinic.)

That's a pretty thin connection between the subject matter of this post and our featured song, but it will have to do.

In fact, the pictures that appear in this post are all of one wildflower – the Maximilian sunflower, or Helianthus maximiliani, which is a perennial wildflower that is native to the plains states.

Maximilian sunflowers at Silver Lake
(Rochester, MN)

The plant's single stems are three to ten feet high.  Here's a plant that was considerably taller than I am.  (The building in the background to the left is the main Mayo Clinic building, which is about two miles away.)

Rochester has an extensive system of paved hiking-biking trails.  One of the trails nearest our hotel skirted Cascade Lake, and there were plenty of Maximilian plants along that lake.

The Maximilian sunflower is named after Prince Alexander Philipp Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied, a German explorer and naturalist who encountered it when he travelled up the Missouri River in 1833.

Prince Maximilian

Maximilian was accompanied by Karl Bodmer, a Swiss artist.  The drawings and paintings Bodmer created during his time on the Upper Missouri has been called "one of the most perceptive and compelling visual accounts" of the American West.

Especially remarkable are his portraits of native Americans, which were probably the first truly accurate portrayal of plains Indians in their native environment.  Here are Bodmer's portraits of two chiefs:

I like and respect Tom Petty, but I've never bought one of his albums, and I've never bought a ticket to one of his live shows.  

He's just not a guy who really excites me.  I don't think of him as a superstar, even though nine of his singles reached #1 on the Billboard "Mainstream Rock" singles chart, and he's sold roughly 60 million albums.

Tom Petty

Petty is the tortoise, not the hare.  He's like a baseball player who never broke any significant records, and never won the MVP award, but who played at a high level for a long, long time.

Think Roy White, who was one of my favorite Yankees of the post-Mickey Mantle era.  White played 15 years – his entire career – for the Yankees.  He never finished in the top ten in MVP voting, and appeared in just one All-Star game.  (He batted only once, as a pinch hitter.) 

His "Triple Crown" numbers – batting average, home runs, and RBIs – were not impressive.  And he was 5' 10" and weighed 160 pounds – not exactly someone whose physical presence struck fear in the hearts of opposing pitchers.

Roy White

But White was a solid, competent professional you could rely on.  He led the league in games played and plate appearances twice.  He walked a lot – he led the league in walks once, and finished in the top ten six other times – and almost always had fewer strikeouts than walks, which is an uncommon accomplishment.  He finished in the top ten in singles, doubles, triples, hits, total bases, and stolen bases a number of times, but was never #1 in any of those categories.

He was also a very good left fielder.  He got to more fly balls than any other LFer eight of the nine seasons from 1969 to 1977, had the best fielding percentage among LFers five different seasons, and led all AL LFers in assists twice.  But hitting gets a lot more attention than fielding, and LF is not a very glamorous defensive position.

To sum up, White showed up and did a very good job every day.  He rarely missed games, and rarely made a mistake on defense.  He was a patient hitter with an excellent batting eye, who focused on getting on base, not swinging for the fences.

He was arguably the best position player on what were admittedly some bad Yankee teams of the late sixties and early seventies – and a solid contributor to the teams that went to the World Series in three consecutive seasons (1975-77) near the end of his career.  (Oh, yes – his postseason stats were even better than his regular-season numbers.)

Roy White was no Reggie Jackson, George Brett, or Rickey Henderson.  And Tom Petty was no Mick Jagger, Elton John, or Michael Jackson.  But Roy White won a lot of games for the Yankees, and Tom Petty made a lot of very good records.  Their accomplishments should not be lightly dismissed.

Here's the official video for "You Wreck Me":

Click here to buy the song from Amazon:

Bon Jovi -- "Wanted Dead or Alive" (1986)

I'm a cowboy

On a steel horse I ride

Jon Bon Jovi is so full of crap that it's a 100% lock that his eyes are brown.

In this song, he would have you believe that he's just a humble rock-and-roll journeyman, slogging from town to town in hopes of eking out enough money to keep body and soul together and put gas in the tour bus.  He's sleep-deprived and lonely, but it's all worth it:

I been everywhere, and I'm standing tall

I've seen a million faces and I've rocked 'em all!

If you watch the official music video for "Wanted Dead or Alive," you can see that Jon Bon Jovi and his bandmates spend a lot more time riding big-ass chartered jets than steel horses:

I, on the other hand, spend a lot of time riding steel horses that aren't contributing to global warming by burning up a couple of tons of aviation fuel every hour.  My steel horses are powered not by fossil fuel, but rather by two magnificently sculpted (albeit somewhat hairy) thighs.

Here's one of my steel horses -- my battered, 20-year-old Mongoose "Rockadile" mountain bike:

And here's the steel (or perhaps aluminum) horse I rented when I was in Rochester, Minnesota last month:

I was in Rochester to help my parents navigate the Mayo Clinic.  On our first day there, they had eleven appointments over a nine-hour period -- we didn't even have time for lunch.  But on our second day, we were done by noon.  After lunch, I dropped them back at our hotel so they could rest up, while I went in search of a bike ride.

Rochester is not a large city -- it has a population of just over 100,000 souls -- but it has an extensive system of paved hiking-biking trails: 85+ miles.  In addition, the southern terminus of the 12.5-mile-long Douglas State Trail is in Rochester.

I began my ride at Silver Lake, a small freshwater lake just north of downtown Rochester.  The municipal electric utility uses Silver Lake for cooling its boiler water, so it never freezes -- even in the brutal Minnesota winters.  The warm water attracts a large flock of Canada geese, who hang out at Silver Lake year round:

You can rent paddleboats with supplemental electric motors at Silver Lake:

You can also rent bikes.  The selection is very limited -- especially for a strapping lad like yours truly.  I saddled up just about every bike they had, hoping to find one with a large enough frame to fit me.  I eventually found the Mongoose hybrid depicted above.  It was smaller than what I needed, but if I raised the seat well above the warning line printed on the seat post, it was acceptable. 

The Rochester trail system is unusually well-marked:

After riding west several miles on the city trails -- most of which bordered busy streets -- I finally hit the Douglas State Trail.   It occupies a section of the abandoned right-of-way of the Chicago Great Western Railway, which once linked Chicago with Minneapolis-St. Paul, Des Moines, Omaha, and Kansas City.  Minutes later, I had left the city far behind and was riding through the rich Minnesota farmland. 

The Douglas State Trail requires passes if you want to ride a real horse on it, or if you want to use it for cross-country skiing:

Horseback riders not only need a special permit to ride the trail, but also have to get off and walk over this bridge:

Fortunately for me, the People's Republic of Minnesota doesn't require a permit or charge a fee for bikers to ride on the trail.

Here's an old railway mile post that still stands (barely) adjacent to the old railroad right-of-way.  Looks like it was 136 miles to somewhere from where I was:

On my way back to Silver Lake, I rode along Cascade Creek, which flows through a residential neighborhood in Rochester:

After riding roughly 22 miles, I was ready for a quick visit to the 63 Club for another pint of Grain Belt before joining my parents for dinner -- carryout pizza at our hotel:

Jon Bon Jovi started life off in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, as John Francis Bongiovi, Jr.  He was the son of a barber and a former Playboy Bunny (both of whom had been Marines).  

Jon was a music-obsessed kid, and was playing clubs by the time he was 16.  The first song he recorded, "R2-D2, We Wish You a Merry Christmas," was released on the 1980 album, Christmas in the Stars: The Star Wars Christmas Album:  

(That was really bad, wasn't it?)

Bon Jovi was a hugely successful band, so Jon has been rolling in the dough for years.  Today, he's just another ex-bad boy rocker who has sold out and become part of the establishment.  He's campaigned and raised money for the Democrats in the last four Presidential elections, and has also attached his lips firmly to the backsides of local politicians -- especially former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine, a filthy-rich Wall Street type who was the CEO of MF Global, a financial derivatives broker that went bankrupt in 2011, sticking its customers with $1.6 billion in losses.  

Corzine really didn't need Bon Jovi's money -- he's the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, and made a cool $400 million when the firm went public.  He spent about $130 million of that on his successful 2000 Senate and 2005 gubernatorial campaigns and on his unsuccessful 2009 re-election campaign.

President Obama campaigning for Corzine

By the way, it looks like Corzine won't be criminally prosecuted even though he knew or should have known that the company was illegally using client funds in a desperate attempt to stay solvent.   The Wall Street Journal recently wondered if Corzine was given a get-out-of-jail-free card by the Justice Department because he was a major fundraiser for the campaign of President Obama, who once referred to him as "our Wall Street guy.")  

Here's "Wanted Dead or Alive."  (It's a great song, but I still say the guy is full of crap.)

Click here to buy the song from Amazon:

Dandy Warhols -- "Minnesoter" (1997)

I could own her, the crazy loner

If I found my way to Minnesoter

This is the third post in a series about my recent visit to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, with my parents.  Click here if you'd like to read the first post in the series (which featured a song by the young rapper, Mayo).  Click here if you'd like to read the second post in the series (which featured a song by the British group, Clinic).

(Did the penny just drop?)

While driving my parents from our hotel to the Mayo Clinic, I saw this highway sign:

I wonder if Winona Ryder's father saw the same sign 42 years ago, when his wife was great with child.  You see, Winona's parents -- her real last name is Horowitz -- were living in Olmstead County (which includes Rochester) when she was born.  They named her after Winona, which is a town of some 28,000 souls located on the Mississippi River less than an hour's drive east of Rochester.

Winona Laura Horowitz had an interesting family.  She was given her middle name in honor of the wife of Aldous Huxley, who wrote the famous dystopian novel, Brave New World.  Winona's younger brother, Uri, was named for Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man to travel into outer space.  

Christian Slater and Winona Ryder in Heathers

Her father once worked as an archivist for the guru of LSD, Dr. Timothy Leary, who was Winona's godfather.  The family was also friendly with "beat" poets Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti and science-fiction novelist Philip K. Dick.  (Winona later starred in A Scanner Darkly, a movie based on the Dick novel of the same name.)

When Winona was seven years old, her family relocated to a commune in Mendocino County, California, where they lived with seven other families without electricity or television.

She read a lot -- Catcher in the Rye was her favorite book -- watched movies on a screen that her mother set up in the commune s barn, and began to take acting lessons in San Francisco when she was 12.

A very young Winona Ryder

Winona adapted the stage name of Ryder because her father was listening to Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels when her agent called to ask how she wanted to be identified in the credits of her first movie, Lucas, which was filmed when she was only 14.

Ryder has appeared in just about every kind of movie you can think of.  When I hear her name, I immediately think of oddball characters in oddball movies -- like Beetlejuice, Heathers, Edward Scissorhands, and Reality Bites -- but she has also appeared in movies based on famous literary works (The Age of Innocence, Little Women, The Crucible), chick flicks (How to Make an American Quilt, Autumn in New York), and science-fiction and horror movies (Dracula, Alien Resurrection, Lost Souls).

One of Ryder's best performances came in the 1999 drama about life in a mental institution, Girl, Interrupted.  That's not surprising because it seems like like Ryder is pretty crazy in real life -- not surprising  given her rather eccentric upbringing.  

That craziness really came to the forefront in 2001, when Ryder was arrested in Beverly Hills after shoplifting $5500 worth of merchandise at a Saks Fifth Avenue store.  (Saks is an expensive store, but $5500 worth of stuff is a lot of stuff -- I'm a little surprised she could carry it all by herself.)  Ryder was also accused of possessing Valium and a couple of pain medications (oxycodone and Vicodin) without valid prescriptions.  

It's possible that Winona's erratic behavior was the result of her recent breakup with Matt Damon.  Or it might go back to her somewhat less recent breakup with Johnny Depp, who ranks just as high on the crazy scale as Winona does.  (Depp got a tattoo reading "Winona Forever" on his arm when they were dating.  After they broke up, he altered it to "Wino Forever.")

Winona Ryder didn't live in Minnesota that long, but I like to think that her years in the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" had some influence of her craziness.  

I've written before about the cheery, polite, and utterly clueless residents of Minneapolis-St. Paul.  I still remember taking a walk on a trail that went around one of the numerous small lakes in the Twin Cities on a visit there a couple of years ago.  I noticed that the locals were sunbathing on what appeared to be beaches bordering that lake, but which turned out on closer examination to be 100% unadulterated dirt.  Apparently they didn't know that beaches consist of sand, not dirt.

I saw other evidence of this cluelessness on my more recent visit.  Here's a water fountain I saw in the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport.  It is specially designed so you can fill up a water bottle.  The water fountain actually counts how many times people use it -- there's a small meter built into the upper right-hand corner of the water fountain that indicates this fountain has filled up 4090 water bottles.  

It makes a big deal about how many plastic water bottles it is keeping out of the local landfills, but I've never had much of a problem filling up a water bottle from a regular water fountain.

Here's a thought -- why not just drink directly from the water fountain until you're not thirsty?  When you get thirsty again, just get up and walk over to the water fountain for another drink.  (I've never taken a water bottle to the airport, and I don't recall it being that inconvenient to stay sufficiently hydrated.)

One more thing -- this water fountain was outside the security checkpoint.  Have you ever tried to take a filled bottle of water through airport security?  (You have?  Care to tell the class what happened when you did?)

Before flying back home at the end of my Mayo Clinic visit, I took a hike through the Minnesota River National Wildlife Refuge in Minneapolis.  I'm sorry, but it was the most unattractive outdoor area I've ever taken a hike in.  

I saw absolutely zero wildlife that morning -- except for this very tame hawk in the visitor center:

Maybe that's because the wildlife refuge is only a few minutes away from the Mall of America (the largest shopping mall in the United States) and the airport.  Planes took off over the refuge every couple of minutes -- if you look closely, you can see one in this photo, which also shows some of the many suburban office buildings and airport hotels visible from the refuge trails:

No wonder there were no birds or other wild critters around.

The entire Danish army appeared to be checking in at a Delta gate in the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport that afternoon:

(I can just hear the disappointment in the soldiers' voices when they return to dear ol' Denmark and are asked by their friends and neighbors where they went.  California?  New York?  Florida?  "No," they reply sadly. "Minnesoter.")

I saw some puzzling sights in Rochester as well.  For example, there's a 50,000-gallon water tower that was built to resemble a very large ear of corn just a block east of that Winona highway sign at the beginning of this post:

I'm not sure what use the Snappy Stop burger carryout (which feature "California-style" burgers, whatever those are) puts these critters to:

I dropped into the 63 Club to wet my whistle with good ol' Grain Belt lager a couple of times.  Apparently, dogs are just as welcome as people at this friendly establishment.

I'm not sure why there were hundreds of dollar bills with handwritten messages on the walls and ceiling of the 63 Club.  But I was glad to see that they had a strict dress code:

(It you can't read that sign, it's just as well.  It would probably offend you.)

"Minnesoter" is from the Dandy Warhols' second studio album, The Dandy Warhols Come Down.  Another Dandy Warhols song was the 7th song featured on 2 or 3 lines -- we're now well over 500 songs.

Here's "Minnesoter":

Click here to buy the song from Amazon: