Tintin

About the same time we started reading Asterix books in France, we also got into Tintin, the Belgian intrepid reporter (though we never see the newspaper offices) with his little dog Snowy and host of friends and adversaries.  We read the books in English, so for some time I thought he was English, until I read “The Black Island” and saw him get on a ferry TO England, which ruled that out.  As for Belgium vs. France…too difficult to tell.  He never went to Paris, nor, for that matter, to Brussels.  Here’s a brief summary; the names are the English ones, as those versions were the ones we read – they are different in the original French.

 Tintin.  Slightly below average height, with a curly lock of hair on his head.  In “Asterix the Legionary”, the Belgian legionary has a similar lock (just so we can tell he’s Belgian and not Gaulish).  He always wears knickers and a blue sweater (except when in some sort of disguise or in native clothing).  He has no female love interests, nor any male love interests for that matter.  He’s clever, resourceful, and scrappy – very similar to Asterix.

 Snowy.  Tintin’s small white dog of some terrier breed.  Snowy can “think” to himself, but cannot communicate these thoughts to anyone else.  He often helps Tintin out by biting the bad guy’s ass at the right moment.

 Captain Haddock.  After “The Crab With the Golden Claws”, the sea captain retires from active maritime service (except a brief stint in “Land of Black Gold”, “off page”) and takes up residence at Marlinspike Hall, an inheritance from his equally fire-breathing ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock (as described in “Red Rackham’s Treasure”).  One whole story, “The Castafiore Emerald”, takes place entirely at the hall.  But of course, Haddock still accompanies Tintin on his adventures, as far as the Moon itself.  Unfortunately, the captain has a drinking problem, and is a nasty, mean John Bonham type of drunk.  A “cure” is finally discovered in “Tintin & the Picaros”

 Professor Calculus.  The typical absent-minded genius professor.  He gets them to the Moon, and develops a “sonic attack” weapon which gets him captured by the Bordurians (Romanians?  East Germans?  Who knows) in “The Calculus Affair”.  He is atrociously hard of hearing – with the notable exception of clearly hearing Haddock accuse him of “acting the goat” (in “Destination Moon”).

 Thompson and Thomson.  The bumbling detectives, identical twins and always identically dressed.  One of them always misquotes the other, “To be precise…”   They are well-meaning but not too bright.  In “Asterix in Belgium” they appear to announce Julius Caesar’s entry into Belgica.

 Bianca Castafiore.  The “Milanese Nightingale”, an Italian opera singer who is hopelessly self-absorbed but also has an inexplicable attraction to Captain Haddock (whose name she constantly butchers) an affection which is definitely not mutual.   She seems fixated on The Jewel Song from “Faust”. 

 Booze/Humor/off-color.  Despite the nominally mundane subject matter and lack of sex, there are ample examples of somewhat off-color elements which seep into the stories.  Alcohol plays a consistent role: not only Haddock’s own problems and issues, but sometimes Tintin gets loopy himself – with dramatic consequences in “The Broken Ear”.  There are also strange dreams from time to time (opium induced: Cigars of the Pharaoh), and Calculus’ prototype TV in the jungle (“Picaros”) had me in stitches with its malfunctions.  Also, “The Congo” portrays blacks in a very cartoonish, Buckwheat style which is egregiously politically incorrect by today’s standards, and “Shooting Star” has a villain, Bohlwinkel, who is obviously Jewish and resembles in manner and appearance the typical Nazi anti-semitic charicatures of Jews.  Finally, Thompson and Thomson exhibit bizarre side effects when they inadvertently mistake Dr. Muller’s gasoline exploding pills (“Land of Black Gold”) for aspirin; the side effects resurface as flashbacks in “Explorers on the Moon”. 

 The stories.  The first story came out in 1929, in black & white: “Tintin and the Land of the Soviets”.  The author/illustrator, Georges Remi, reversed his initials and referred to himself as Herge, which is how R G is pronounced in French.  His last story was “Tintin and the Picaros”, in 1976, and he left specific instructions that the series and character were NOT to be continued after his death.  Some of the stories double up (one being an immediate sequel to the other).  The stories, with their titles abbreviated, are: Land of the Soviets, Congo (B&W), America (first color story), Cigars of the Pharaoh (Egypt), Blue Lotus (Shanghai 1930s), Broken Ear (see below), Black Island (Scotland), King Ottokar’s Sceptre, Crab With the Golden Claws (North Africa), Shooting Star, Secret of the Unicorn, Red Rackham’s Treasure, Seven Crystal Balls >> Prisoners of the Sun (Inca temple in the Andes), Land of Black Gold (Middle East), Destination Moon >> Explorers on the Moon, Calculus Affair, Red Sea Sharks (Middle East again), Tibet, Castafiore Emerald, Flight 714, Picaros.  Plus there was an animated film, The Lake of the Sharks, turned into a comic book.

 My favorites:

 Land of the Soviets.  Crude illustrations but lots of action, and a brutal view of Russia in the late 20s: a land of starvation, poverty, and a ruthless Soviet regime which hoodwinked gullible British communists with fake factories, and starved its peasants to death exporting wheat overseas to show the world how successful their experiment was.  Needless to say, Remi was not a fan of the USSR.  That’s one reason I love this story so much.

 The Broken Ear.  An earlier cartoon, though in color.  A fetish (small wooden idol) of the Arumbaya (Amazon forest tribe) is stolen from a museum in Europe.  Tintin and two Latino lowlives pursue the fetish into San Theodoros, a fictional country modeled on Brazil or Paraguay.  Tintin becomes the aide-de-camp of General Alcazar, the military dictator of San Theodoros.  This story is somewhat dark and violent, but it has its charms nonetheless.

 Calculus Affair.  The Bordurians capture Professor Calculus in an attempt to force him to produce his sonic weapon for them, a plot lifted from “Asterix and the Goths”. 

 Flight 714.  En route to Australia via Djakarta, Tintin and Captain Haddock are sidetracked by an eccentric and misanthropic billionaire, Laslo Carreidas.  Carreidas invites them to travel with him on his private jet, unaware that his crew – aside from faithful Estonian pilot Skut, who they met previously in “The Red Sea Sharks” – is part of a plot to kidnap Carreidas and extract the secrets to his fortune via truth serum.  Once on the remote Pacific Island, where we meet Rastapopolous once again, and Haddock’s former corrupt first mate Allan, the adventure really begins.

 Tintin in America.  Tintin travels to America and takes on the Mob.  He meets gangsters, Indians (the cigar store, not Seven-Eleven…enough of those in “The Blue Lotus”), becomes a cowboy of sorts, and generally “experiences” America of the early 30s. 

 The Picaros.  As mentioned above, this is the last one.  Tintin, Haddock and Calculus are lured to San Theodoros when General Alcazar’s nemesis, General Tapioca, wrongly imprisons Bianca Castafiore on a visit to Tapiocapolis, the capital city (supposedly modeled on Belo Horizonte, Brazil).  Eventually Tintin and the gang escape into the jungle, meet the Arumbayas again, and team up with General Alcazar, who runs a small rebel army (very Castro-ist) called the Picaros.  Despite the Cuban appearance of the guerillas, Alcazar shows no Marxist ideology.  Alcazar is hampered in his quest for power by Tapioca, who perpetually drops shipments of Loch Lomond whiskey (Haddock’s favorite brand, by the way) and keeps the Picaros bombed and wasted.  It’s up to Tintin to find a solution.  Hey nonny-no!

 Beware: Steven Spielberg will be adapting “The Secret of the Unicorn” and “Red Rackham’s Treasure” to film in 3D.  We’ll see how well that goes.

Amazing Northern Lights Time Lapse

Aurora Borealis light show in Norway. Amazing.

Frank Zappa

Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.  I’d been listening for years – since high school – but more recently the interest has mushroomed.  The more I hear, the more I’m impressed.   I can’t claim to have heard every album – he has over 60.  He was, by far, the most creative and versatile musician I can name – and that beats Robert Fripp.  It seems like every Zappa album was unique, you never knew what to expect.  He covered a wide range of music: Monkees-sounding pop (We’re Only In It For the Money and Lumpy Gravy), jam band mode (Hot Rats), novelty/humor, jazz, fusion, 50’s rock and roll, psychedelic, classical – he was all over the place. 

 The Mothers.  This was his late 60s band, “of Invention” being added to avoid the “MF” connotation which was gaining popularity at that time.  The band, though, was essentially his, so “Mothers” vs. “FZ” is fairly meaningless.

 Hot Rats.  I love this album: almost nonstop jamming.  I was used to much of Zappa’s later material with a surplus of humor and less serious music, so I was pleasantly surprised to hear this album.  It includes “Peaches en Regalia”.

 “Smoke on the Water”.  In December 1971, Deep Purple were due to record an album at the Casino at Montreux, Switzerland.  Immediately beforehand, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention played a concert, which was interrupted by “some stupid with a flare gun”, who “burned the place to the ground”.  Fortunately Zappa and the Mothers were unhurt, but the experience inspired Deep Purple to write the song “Smoke on the Water” about it, and about recording Machine Head at the Grand Hotel in very ersatz, makeshift conditions which probably produced a much different album than otherwise might have occurred.  At the very least, their anthem would have completely absent.

 The Blow Job.  In his autobiography, The Real Frank Zappa Book, Zappa describes his constant problem with musicians: invariably, his male colleagues were obsessed about performing music in a way calculated to ensure female attention, particularly oral sex. 

 “200 Motels” and “Baby Snakes”.  These are his movies, from 1971 and 1979.  “200 Motels” features Ringo Starr as “Larry”, but clearly meant to be Zappa.  His band at the time, another lineup of the Mothers, plays various tunes with Zappa himself, although Zappa himself contributes no spoken words to the whole thing.  Much of it is avante garde, trippy, and difficult to follow, very similar to the Monkees’ “Head” film a few years before (in which Zappa has a cameo).  “Baby Snakes” is more of the same, with extensive use of trippy claymation, much of the musical material coming from Sheik Yerbouti.

 Valley Girl.  In the early 80s, on his album Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch, his daughter Moon Unit “sang” this one, which parodies the Valley Girl slang of California of the time.  Although most of the particular jargon (“tubular”, “gag me with a spoon”) are long gone, the basic speech patterns, liberally dosed with “like” and “you know” remain a typical feature of many US teenage girls.

            Zappa’s music has a heavy dose of cynical humor.  Some of it is silly (“The Dangerous Kitchen”, “Help! I’m A Rock!”), some is naughty (“Easy Meat”, “SEX”), some reflects his anti-drug attitude (“Cocaine Decisions”, “Who Needs the Peace Corps”).  Often times his singing is more like talking, but it’s not nonsense or rambling – he has a point.  Sometimes there’s even a story (“Jazz Discharge Party Hats”).   In fact, if all you knew were those songs, you’d think he was simply a novelty song writer, like Weird Al Yankovic.  Which is why you have to listen to more of his serious music.

 Zappa vs. Gore.  In the 80s, Al Gore’s now ex-wife Tipper went on an ill-advised and idiotic crusade to save America’s children from rock’n’roll music.  In particular, she wanted warning labels attached to records; her Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) demanded censorship.  Zappa himself testified before Congress and made them look like idiots, particularly Al Gore and his wife.  Although Dee Snider (Twisted Sister) and John Denver also came out on his side, Zappa himself was the most outspoken, articulate and intelligent. 

 Zappa For President.  I usually don’t think rock stars have the appropriate mentality and mindset to be politicians.  Most can write decent lyrics or good music, but fall far short of being intelligent enough to be put in any position of leadership.  I’d even put Roger Waters and John Lennon in that category, but to their credit I’ve never heard of either of them espousing any political ambitions whatsoever, notwithstanding their consistently strident political views and expressions thereof explicitly in the music.  The one notable exception to this is Zappa.  And I was surprised to hear Jeff Beck, of all people, sharing my opinion that Zappa should have been in our Oval Office.  It’s too bad he died of prostate cancer in 1993.

 Zappa Plays Zappa.  His son Dweezil learned to play guitar – many lessons from Eddie Van Halen.  In recent years, DZ has started playing concerts playing his father’s music, mainly in the hopes of keeping his father’s memory alive but also emphasizing the MUSIC part of the career, as the HUMOR and NOVELTY seem to be most of what people associate Zappa with.

            I saw them play in Baltimore at the dedication ceremony to a Frank Zappa bust at the corner of Eastern Ave. and Conkling (northeast Baltimore, close to Johns Hopkins): a two hour show that rocked big time.  But rather than review the show myself, here is a Classic Rock magazine review of a similar show in Europe, which pretty much sums it up:

 ‘The Best Tribute Band in the World…Ever,’ Zappa Plays Zappa are astonishing as the virtuoso collective romp through easily the most complex, unique and demanding music of the HV weekend.  Resurrecting Frank-favourites such as “Easy Meat”, “Cosmic Debris” and, of course, “Peaches En Regalia”, and aided hugely by an almost hi-fi scound, they’re worth the price of admission alone and are rewarded with a deservedly enthusiastic reception.  In a nutshell: brilliant.

TV

It’s been around longer than I’ve been alive (41 years) and still going strong, in fact now available in HD.  For the purpose of this blog, I’ll include cable TV, not simply broadcast.  Here are my thoughts.

 B&W.  Plenty of TV shows from the mid-60s and early were originally in black & white, but I recall us having a small black & white TV in the guest bedroom in the 70s.  Europe switched over in the 70s to color TV, with Romania and Albania being the last (1978).  I can’t really think of many early 60s and earlier TV shows I really cared for – including “The Honeymooners”.

 Cable.  Growing up in the 70s, we knew NO ONE who had this.  In fact, we were unaware it even existed until the early 80s and MTV.  By far, MTV is what put cable TV on the map.  This was back when they actually played music videos (if anyone can remember that).  I was never that impressed by HBO, though the new Pacific series has me vaguely tempted.

 FOX & UHF.  Back in the 70s, there was no “FOX”.  We just had the big three: ABC, NBC, and CBS.  There were various UHF channels, plus PBS.  PBS mainly gave us “Sesame Street” and “The Electric Company”, and also showed “Benny Hill” and other British shows.  The UHF channels mainly showed offbeat movies.  The prevailing wisdom was that no one could compete with the big three.  WRONG.   Fox gave us “Married With Children” and “The Simpsons” and has been going strong since then.  

 Game Shows.  I prefer “Jeopardy”.  I like to play along at home.  If I don’t know the answer, I’ll come up with something.  “He invented mustard.” “Who is...Madonna?”  The “$64,000 Pyramid” was also damn good.  Sometimes I wonder if the point of “Let’s Make A Deal” was specifically to ridicule and lampoon game show contestants – “Jerry Springer”, ahead of its time.

 Sit-Coms.  Usually these are stupid beyond words.  But “Two and a Half Men” is hilarious, despite its dull and unoriginal premise.  Is it my imagination, or did the sit-coms get duller and more wholesome in the 80s?  I’m thinking of “Family Ties”, “Growing Pains”, “Full House”, all those family shows with annoying little morals and squeaky clean kids.  Not that “Roseanne” was really any better.  Back in the 70s, the shows were more cerebral and pretentious: “The Odd Couple”, “Rhoda”, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (check her out in the opening credits wearing a purple Vikings jersey, #10!).

 Soap Operas.  Daytime, I never watch – usually I’m at work anyway.  These are clearly for people who stay at home during the day.  I am catching up on “Dallas”, and follow “Desperate Housewives” (as mentioned earlier).

 Late Night.  First there was Johnny Carson.  ZZZ – humor for the WWII generation, of which I’m not.  Leno, in that respect, was a big improvement (plus he’s a huge car guy).  Letterman I never liked: he’s an uptight doofus pretending to be a cool guy.  Conan is probably the best of the three, very real but funny.  And remember Arsenio Hall?  Or Chevy Chase?

 TV nonstop.   I am not one of those people who watches it nonstop, putting it on as soon as I get home from work and leaving on all the time, even while I sleep.  I watch it when I have something I want to watch.

 “Reality” TV.  Whether it’s “Jerry Springer” or “Survivor”, I zone out.   What annoys me about the “Survivor” shows is that it’s 30% “actual survival” and 70% “stupid office intrigues, personality conflicts, ratting people out”, things of that nature which never interest me.  The same with “Biggest Loser”, which seems at least as much of this backstabbing and personality conflicts as about... losing weight?

 Drama.  I tend to ignore most of these.  I don’t watch “Grey’s Anatomy”, any “CSI” or “NCIS” show where they cleverly solve all sorts of crimes with advanced technology.  Give me “CSI LONDON 1888” where clever Scotland Yard detectives FINALLY tell us who Jack the Ripper was.  And please bring back “Life on Mars”.

 Crime/Cops.  I never watched “Miami Vice”.  I wasn’t really into “Starsky & Hutch” (though the car was cool), “Knight Rider” (it was on when I was in France, I only got into after I bought my black Firebird), “Baretta”, “Mannix”, “Hill Street Blues” (talk about a bewildering array of characters on that one), “The Rockford Files”, “The Streets of San Francisco”, etc.

 Sports.  Usually I watch NFL and soccer (including the World Cup).  I ignore most of the Olympics, ESPN, baseball, basketball, hockey, tennis – and GOLF is dull to watch, only marginally less dull to play.  I’ve finally got RedZone, but haven’t had a chance to watch it yet.  But I am not one of these guys who zones out in front of the TV for a game, which during football season would be 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Sunday, with a break between the end of the 4 p.m. game and the beginning of the Sunday night game for dinner + Monday Night Football.

 HD.   FINALLY I got an HD TV, and scroll down past channel 702 to get all the HD channels.  The resolution is astonishing.  It simply has to be seen to be believed.

 The Best.  If I had to name the best, I’d say here are a few:

“Two and a Half Men”.  Charlie Sheen plays Charlie Harper, a jingle writer, single with no kids.  His brother Alan (John Cryer), is a divorced chiropractor who moves in with Charlie after his wife Judith kicks him out.  He has a young son (the same actor all this time).  The humor is astonishingly adult for a sit-com, and Sheen’s real life is mercilessly ridiculed. 

 “My Name is Earl”.  Quality insanity from Jason Lee.  He’s got this list, see?  And he has to keep crossing off the bad things he’s done and make up for them, one by one.  His brother Randy isn’t too bright, his ex-wife Joy clearly uses those white trash bags, but the latina maid is very hot.  I like the odd mix of low-class & deep philosophy.

 “M*A*S*H”.  I’ve already gone on about this at length.

 “Friends” was OK. I got into this because it came on after “Seinfeld”, and continued to watch it after “Seinfeld” ended, following it until this show itself ended.  With “My Name is Earl” gone, Thursday night is basically “The Office”, which while good doesn’t compel me to set aside the evening for TV.

 The Office.  No laugh track, simply humorous situations, particularly Michael Scott (Steve Carell) who is (of course) consistently unintentionally funny, which is the whole point.  I loved the one where Dwight (Rainn Wilson) “catches” Oscar playing hookie, oblivious to Oscar’s much more controversial secret, his special friend (!).  Or when Michael is unaware he’s wearing a suit designed for Hillary Clinton.

 “The Simpsons”.  Remarkably, this has not “jumped the shark” (peaked) but is still getting better.  Matt Groening is the Steven Spielberg of TV.  I don’t know how they keep coming up with new ideas, but somehow they do it.

 “Seinfeld”.  This show was fantastic.  You never knew what was going to happen, it was completely unpredictable.  And they would run with stuff – George didn’t lose his Yankees job in the next episode, nor did Elaine’s job with Peterman fizzle out by the end of the episode.  About the only thing you could predict is that whatever idiotic scheme Kramer and Newman had, it would end up badly. 

 “South Park”. Winding up the three S-shows.  Although it can be extremely offensive at times, Parker and Stone leave you wondering: did they deliberately try to mess with us, or is this just their twisted sense of humor?  No one is tackling delicate and controversial issues more directly and more humorously.  And this is a crudely animated cartoon show about 4 10 year olds in Colorado.  Sad to say it, but “Family Guy” – as clever and funny as Seth McFarlane may be – is simply a tagalong copycat. 

Guns & Ammo

In October, 1992 I began working for an attorney, Jerry, who used to work for the NRA.  He was heavily into guns – even had a safe put in his basement for all his guns.  We would go to the range during business hours or on the weekend.  He was the one who infected me with an interest in guns which went beyond my normal intense interest in the military.

 In the past, I’ve had a few guns.

 Beretta 92FS.  This was the first gun I bought, when I was working for Jerry.  It’s a 9mm automatic, and replaced the Colt 1911 .45 as the US military’s handgun of choice.  It comes with a double-stacked magazine holding 15 rounds, and I secured a few extra mags, and an inside the belt holster.  It’s also the gun Riggs (Mel Gibson) uses in the “Lethal Weapon” movies.  At some later point I sold it.

 AR15.  The civilian, semi-auto version of the M-16.  My version had the standard barrel and jacket, making it look like an M-16.  I fired it once, shortly after purchasing it in 1993 (right before the assault gun ban went into effect).  It fires .223, aka 5.56mm.  I sold it to Jerry.

 .32 Revolver.  My dad’s brothers were cops, so they gave him this gun, and he had a DC (!) gun permit for it.  Unfortunately, it was a small, underpowered gun.  Compared to the Beretta, the sound was “pop!” and the recoil nonexistent; with the ear protection on the impression is of firing a cap gun.  Not only that, the permit was non-transferable and not valid for any other gun, i.e. worthless.  I ended up selling it with my dad’s OK.

 At this point, I only own two:

 Mauser Kar98K.  A few years after buying the AR15, I bought this one.  This is the standard infantry rifle of the German Army during WWII, in 7.92mm, best known in the US as 8mm Mauser.  It has a 5 round internal magazine, typically fed by stripper clips.  The recoil is noticeable but not too bad.

            Arguably, the Mauser rifle deserves a blog entry of its own.  The design was perfected in 1898 with the Gewehr 98 model, which served the German Army throughout WWI.  In the 1930s, the K98 model was designed, a compromise between the longer Gewehr and the shorter carbine.  Even the US copied it to make the 1903 Springfield (they had to pay a royalty to Mauser).  So many countries used a Mauser variant that it might be easier simply to name the ones which didn’t.  The notable non-Germans were the Israelis, Yugoslavians, Chinese, Russians (captured from the Germans – and supplied to Soviet satellites as late as the Vietnam war), Portugal, Norway, and even France. 

            Ages before I got my rifle, had been collecting WWII German militaria.  I had the ammo pouches (black leather) and the bayonet.  Sure enough, the pair of pouches fit 12 stripper clips of 8mm Mauser (60 rounds) and the bayonet slipped right on. 

 Walther PP.  Jerry gave this to me.  The PPK (K = “kurz” or short) is the better known variety of this gun, which comes from Germany.  It’s .380 ACP, just short of 9mm.  James Bond carried the PPK, and Hitler shot himself with a PPK, so it’s not an obscure gun.  Personally, my preference would be for a Luger, but I’ve never been able to afford one.

 Revolvers.  I never really liked revolvers, never had any interest in a .357 Magnum or .44 Magnum, Dirty Harry notwithstanding.  “Lethal Weapon” gives the clear example: the young guy, Riggs (Gibson) uses the Beretta, while “I’m getting too old for this shit” Murtaugh (Glover) still carries his revolver.  And don’t get me started on single action revolvers; last I had one was a toy cap gun as a kid.

 Shotguns.  I never really got into shotguns, whether for hunting or “combat”.  All I can say is that a 12 gauge has a heavy kick to it.  I never really got into skeet shooting.

 Ammo.  Aside from shotgun shells (and slugs), the main deal is FMJ vs. JHP, regular bullets (full metal jacket) vs. jacketed hollow points.  What I’d typically do is get a single box of (expensive) Cor-Bon JHP for self-defense and rely on tons of surplus or reloaded FMJ for target practice.  The hollowpoints have a hollow point (obviously) which is designed to expand into a mushroom shape when striking human flesh, doing considerably more damage (!) than a regular bullet which might simply pass through the body. 

            But by the same token, against body armor a hollowpoint would be useless – it would expand against the vest instead of penetrating it.  Thus to call hollowpoints “cop killer” bullets is stupid.  Really what would qualify as such are armor-piercing bullets, which would go right through a bulletproof vest.  Such vests, though, tend to be designed to stop handgun rounds (up to .357 magnum) and not so much even against rifle rounds.  Rifle rounds tend to have twice the velocity of pistol rounds.  Only Type III and IV body armor are proof against rifle rounds, only Type IV against armor piercing rounds.

 Class III.  All of these were/are semi-auto, or in the case of the Mauser, bolt-action.  I’ve been to a Class III shoot at which various wealthy non-drug-dealers brought a variety of fully automatic weapons: an MG-34, an MG-42 (on tripod), a Browning .30, a Lewis, and maybe a few more I can’t recall.  These require a special license from the BATF, but the main obstacle is price:  there is no such thing as a cheap full auto weapon.  Most WWII submachine guns, M-16A1s, or machine guns run $20,000-40,000.  The cheapest I could find was an M2 carbine for $7000.  Of course, that doesn’t count all the ammunition you’d run through.  Well, if I win the lottery…

 Concealed carry.  I’ve noticed that most jurisdictions have a law that says you don’t need a carry permit to take your gun to and from the range, provided you make NO detours and securely lock up the gun en route.  The exceptions are so narrow, that getting a concealed weapon permit makes sense even if you have no intention of carrying the gun around with you all the time.  Unlike the 90s, by now most states – including Virginia - have passed “shall issue” carry laws, which means that if you aren’t a criminal or a wacko, the local court has to grant you the permit.  In the past, the laws gave the court discretion to deny the permit based on need, and of course the liberal courts found that no one – even Oliver North or crime victims – had any legitimate need to carry a weapon around.  They do require that you take a handgun safety course, which is sensible enough.  I let my earlier permit expire, but I plan on getting a new one as soon as I can find my safety course certificate.

            Florida was the first state to pass that kind of law (aside from Vermont, which has no law regarding concealed carry) and the anti-gun, Brady Bunch crowd predicted mayhem in the streets, Dodge City, as anyone with a beef and a gun would be settling disputes with bullets and not words.  Didn’t happen.  Nor did it happen in Virginia, or any other state which followed suit.  The Brady Bunch are liars, plain and simple.

 NRA.  The National Rifle Association gets a bad rap.  Their national headquarters is in Fairfax, very close by and convenient.  Their indoor range is fantastic: decent distance, open 7 days a week, and they allow you to fire rifles, not just handguns and shotguns. 

            As for their politics…a few years ago Guns & Ammo magazine posted an “Election Guide” which warned off voters from Libertarian candidates.  “They don’t have a chance, don’t waste your vote.”  The NRA Guide was more lenient:  it made no recommendation one way or another, and simply said, “Libertarian candidates as a matter of ideology are consistently pro-gun.” 

            Back to the Brady Bunch: the NRA has never advocated that “everyone” should have a handgun or weapon, or that basic gun regulations (e.g. felons and insane barred from having guns) are objectionable per se.  What they object to are blanket bans – no one can have weapons – or hidden bans, such as prohibitive taxes on guns or ammunition.  As usual, the Brady Bunch plays the “straw man” game, of attributing bogus arguments to the NRA to discredit the organization.

            Where the NRA went astray was focusing too much on hunting.  Somewhere along the line they decided that no one would ban hunting, so to associate guns with hunting would be a good way of protecting gun rights and ownership.  Of course, they ran afoul when liberals took the ball and ran with it, proposing to ban anything other than a hunting rifle, making the NRA look foolish for defending handguns and “assault rifles” which few people hunt with. 

            But it’s not just about hunting – which I don’t care for and have no interest in – but personal protection, and even “tyranny deterrence.”  In terms of the former, we have a right, under criminal laws of most states, to defend ourselves with deadly force when faced with an immediate threat to life or property.  Even with a duty to retreat, that duty does not apply when you’re in your own home.  The law never requires you to be a victim at home.  Moreover, the police are not, and never were, our bodyguards.  The police simply come by to pick up the bodies and maybe (!) solve the crime after the fact, which doesn’t do us much good.  As hard working or brave as they may be, their duty is not to protect us before a crime is committed.  Most rank and file police officers tend to support gun rights, it’s their politically motivated police chiefs and FOP/union heads who have to fall in line with the liberal agenda of disarming America’s lawabiding citizens while being unable to effectively disarm the criminals who would harm us.

            As for “tyranny deterrence”, as radical as it seems, ordinary citizens have the right to military style weapons, not just sporterized hunting rifles, precisely to deter Obama, Janet Reno, or whoever, from trying to oppress us and take away our freedoms.  To those who shudder at the thought of illiterate inbreds from the backwoods of our country constituting our “militia”, the answer is, as Daily Kos put it, that there is nothing in the 2^nd Amendment preventing the Paul Wellstones, Al Frankens, or Michael Moores from strapping on a rifle and declaring their own militia. 

Double Albums

By this I mean double studio albums, which are rare.  Since a headliner’s concert show lasts about 90 minutes, and an LP is 40-60 (usually 40, 60 minutes only with the best recording engineer, Iron Maiden seems to be the only band to bother) this means a full concert will take two LPs and won’t even fit on a single 70 minute CD.  But for those brave souls who dare to inflict 90 minutes of new material on an unsuspecting audience…what are the results?

 The Who Tommy.  Concept album about a boy, Tommy, who looks like Roger Daltrey and whose parents resemble Oliver Reed and Ann-Margret.  Also known as “rock opera”, with a plot (fairly convoluted).  Pete Townshend’s attempt to top Tommy with Lifehouse wound up as Who’s Next instead, hardly a bad album but well beneath his lofty ambitions; as Daltrey explains, “the problem with Pete’s ideas is that he is the only one who can understand them.”  This was turned into a movie with the afore-mentioned Daltrey, Reed and Ann-Margret, but also Keith Moon, Eric Clapton, Tina Turner and Elton John.  I found the music to be fine, but the plot to be a bit Byzantine.  In any case I prefer Who’s Next.

   I've seen the movie, Quadrophenia, but not heard the double studio album of the same name.

 The Beatles, White Album.  Now we’re talking.  I think Sgt. Pepper is heavily overrated, especially relative to this one.  Although it has a few turds like “Wild Honey Pie”, “Why Don’t We Do It In the Road”, and “Revolution #9”, the gems more than make up for those: “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” (stunning guitar solo by Clapton), “Back in the USSR”, “Rocky Raccoon”, “Don’t Pass Me By”, “Happiness Is A Warm Gun”, “I’m So Tired”, “Helter Skelter”, “Birthday”, “Long, Long, Long” and even “Good Night”.  I have fond memories singing along to “Back in the USSR” in a hotel room in Kiev with my ASP buddies.

 The Rolling Stones, Exile On Main Street.  Let me say this: the Emperor has no clothes.  This album, far from being the masterpiece that rock journalists – who would bear Keith Richards’ children if male pregnancy were at all possible – make it out to be, has not ONE “Jumping Jack Flash” or “Gimme Shelter” on it to justify the purchase.  The “hit”, “Tumbling Dice”, is mediocre, as are all the rest.  Its mystique appears to be solely supported by Keith’s drug habit.

 Led Zeppelin, Physical Graffiti.  For an album of tracks simply thrown together at random, this has no turds and several gems: “Kashmir”, “In My Time of Dying”, “The Rover”, “In The Light”, “Ten Years Gone”, with the rest being no worse than mediocre.  

 Pink Floyd, The Wall.  Waters’ epic story about a jaded rock star (himself) who builds a wall between himself and his audience.  Like Tommy, this is one where I think the story is less impressive than the music itself: “Another Brick In The Wall (Part II)”, “Comfortably Numb”, “Mother”, “The Thin Ice”, “In The Flesh”, and “Waiting For The Worms”.  I’ve grown tired of the movie itself (I much prefer “Live at Pompeii”, as anyone who follows my blogs will guess) but I do like the marching hammers and Gerald Scarfe animation.
   Does Ummagumma count? It's one disc of live material and only the second is studio.  Of the latter, Gilmour's "Narrow Way" parts I-III are by far the most enjoyable.  I'm not keen on animal noises, ranting Picts, Sisyphus or the Grand Vizier.  Likewise, Cream's Wheels of Fire album is half studio, half live.

 Miles Davis, Bitches Brew.  I'm not a jazz fan, but I do like psychedelic music, so this "free form jazz odyssey" didn't tax my patience.  Along that same line, I like Can's Tago Mago (mentioned in my "Psychedelisch" blog).

 Jimi Hendrix, Electric Ladyland.  Not too bad, but too much of it doesn't match up to the quality of the two tracks most often lifted from this one, "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)" and "All Along the Watchtower".

 Baroness recently atoned for their noise-laden Blue and Red albums with the double Yellow/Green album, which has more normal singing and a proggy feel to it.

 Frank Zappa has his Mothers of Invention debut album, Freak Out!, and his later triple album, Joe's Garage Acts I-III.  Both have a heavy dose of humor (as we expect from him) to avoid the length being tedious.

 Double studio albums seem to be a relic of the vinyl era, when sound concerns limited bands to 20 minutes per side of vinyl, or just under 45 minutes total for a single LP; some bands like Iron Maiden were able to cram almost 60 minutes of new studio material onto a single LP with no loss of sound quality.  Martin Birch: "the best sound engineers can do that, and Maiden only use the best."  A modern CD can fit 80 minutes of material, almost double the vinyl capacity, so as of this point, the only double studio CD album I know of is Judas Priest's Nostradamus concept album.  Give them credit for mixing it up a bit, because after the Ripper Owen Experiment, Priest then went "prog" for this project.  

 Techincally not double albums, but honorable mentions:

 Judas Priest, Turbo/Ram It Down.  The band originally intended to release them together, to juxtapose the commercial sheen of Turbo with the rough-edged metal of Ram It Down.  Of course, the record company argued that no one wants to buy a Judas Priest double studio album, and got their way.  I actually like Turbo, though, and Ram It Down doesn’t impress me nearly as much as Defenders of the Faith.  While I can understand the fans’ antipathy for Turbo – it certainly SOUNDS like a sellout album – to me, even with the synths and goofy lyrics (worst offender: “Parental Guidance”) it still rocks.

 Guns N’Roses, Use Your Illusion I & II.  They were released simultaneously.  Unfortunately it seems that GNR had one good album’s worth of music and another’s worth of mediocre tunage; had they distilled them to one album, they would have had a classic arguably stronger than Appetite For Destruction.  But the best song here, “Estranged”, ranks as possibly the best GNR song ever.  “Civil War”, “You Could Be Mine”, “Pretty Tied Up”, “Locomotive” (all from II) and the nice epic “November Rain” and impressive Wings cover “Live And Let Die” (from I) fill out the highlights.  Having heard Chinese Democracy (which, contrary to the rock press’ predictions, was released before true democracy did in fact make it to Red China) I’d say that it’s not as good as the “best of” Use Your Illusion.  Not a bad album, but to take 14 years to put out you’d expect another Pet Sounds.