TODD RUNDGREN: Veg-O-Matic Into The Void

I would much prefer Todd Rundgren had a squirrely girlfriend—you know, one of those emaciated things that is always curled up cross-legged with her bespectacled nose in a book—than this show biz creation Entering and Exiting grandly with the bazoombas ever so thinly veiled beneath white crepe pajamas. Though it's nearly midnight, Todd himself is squirreling about in the backyard visiting his saplings and his would-be saplings, his corn, tomatoes, and cauliflower, his eggplants—which, he points out with the flashlight, are finally developing that all-important second layer of leaves that is their natural protection against the Nasty Eggplant Bugs.

We've just arrived at Todd Rundgren's dream home in the Woodstock forest. He has turned on the outdoor spotlights, and, within the house, where paramour Bebe scurries about turning down the house for the weekend, lights illuminate the large stained glass windows. It's pretty and impressive. Crickets crick or whatever. Mosquitoes dine luxuriously (their first taste of good red man-blood in a week) as Todd and I check the week's vegetable body count (the heavy rains of two days before had b^en hard on some of the pussier plantlife hereabouts) and.. .there's not a delicatessen in sight. I'm hungry. Todd and Bebe are vegetarian. And salami doesn't grow on bushes, trees, or vines. Do cheeseburgers?