jethrotull.com

I wished I lived in Italy - what a great name for a fan club - or in England - you know that I'd shop there.

They apparently know who Tull is. And what. All I ever get is, "Is he still alive?"

I was asked just this at the US/Canadian border when returning from the Tull concert last year in London.

"Well, they are still together, touring, yes," was my polite - if terse - reply.

I assumed that they meant the rock band, not the inventor of the seed drill (in 1701), who died in 1741 in England.

Please note the obvious difference:

Jethro Tull the man

Jethro Tull the band

And while we are on this topic, a great and funny bit of correspondence...

"Dear Ian (the above pictured front man for Tull),

...My question is this, at the end of the concerts you push out into the crowd large pink balloons. The crowd enjoys the activity; pushing and jumping for joy. It came to me that these balloons may symbolize life, or an embryo and the crowd is the sperm. The breaking of the pink embryo is fertilization... I know you receive thousands of messages a week, but would you mind telling me if this is how you see it also...

All the best,

Ric"

"Dear Rik,

The way I see it is this: Many years ago, I bought a huge lot of discounted balloons which I am still getting rid of. I toss them out into the audience at the end of the show to take their attention away from me since I am sweaty, a bit fat and balding.

Regards,

Ian Anderson"

...anyway - I had some surgery a few years ago and laid there on the couch, so I am told, loopy on some pretty good painkillers... and babbled-on non-stop for quite a while, again, so I am told, about how very, very wrong it is to have Jethro Tull albums in record stores under "T" for Tull - instead of "J" for Jethro Tull. My wife and kids just shook - and shakes - their collective heads in embarrassed disbelief.

In fact, to this day, when I take it upon myself to reorganize the cds at "f.y.e" at the mall to correct this frequent and horrid mistake, my family suddenly finds themselves busy in another part of the store.

I generally dislike actor Owen Wilson with an intensity usually saved for dictators, despots and drivers who pull in front of me and then go slow... but in the 1998 movie "Armageddon", he has one terrific line with an encounter with a NASA shrink:

Oscar: "I tell you one thing that really drives me nuts, is people
who think that Jethro Tull is just a person in a band."

Psychologist: "Who's Jethro Tull?"