Hearing Aids

Recently we caught AC/DC on what will probably be their last tour.   A concert originally scheduled for March 2016 was postponed six months to September, and longtime vocalist Brian Johnson was replaced – for this tour – with infamous Guns N’Roses singer Axl Rose.  It turns out that Johnson, who had weathered 36 years of touring with AC/DC, lost his hearing not from touring, but from his side hobby racing cars.  D’oh!   Contrast that with Pete Townshend, whose hearing loss is directly related to those full power Marshall stacks behind him.

My hearing has always been subpar, even before we moved to Paris in 1979, and well before we started going to concerts (1984).   I’ve never seen The Who in concert – was never that much of a fan.   I’ve seen Motorhead a few times, but the loudest concert was actually Y&T at Jaxx in 2002 – that was actually painfully loud. 

Originally my ambition was to attend the US Military Academy, aka West Point, and become an Army officer.  Life had other plans:  my hearing was below military specifications.   This also disqualified me from ROTC, the National Guard – as a private – and even JAG (military lawyers) as the JAG recruiters refused to waive the hearing requirement even for a non-combat role.  

Eventually I wound up getting hearing aids, the newest set of which I finally got today.   This pair can be calibrated and tweaked by – guess what? – an app.  We’ll see how they work.  The prior set, also purchased from Costco, lasted about five years before the left one crapped out.

I recall one set which fit in the ear itself, filling up the entire space.   The next set went down inside, with a small antenna to pull them out.  The current format is behind the ear with a bud going into the ear canal, plus a small rubber earpiece. 

With eyesight, glasses or contact lenses will bring you back up to 20/20 vision.  Unfortunately, hearing aids are not the same.  They take  you from abysmal hearing just up to marginally less than bad.  However, they do make a big difference.   Listening to music, for one, is a remarkably more pleasant experience with them, as they pick up the higher frequencies I’d otherwise miss.  Without them, music is muddy and dull.    Plus hearing all the awful noises my car makes as it gets older is another benefit.  And of course, hearing people talk, especially if they’re not standing right in front of me. 

 

The other major necessity is being able to hear in court:  the judge, the witnesses and/or parties, and opposing counsel.  Lately more courts have hearing assisted devices (e.g. Fairfax and Loudoun), but unfortunately this is more the exception than the rule.  I had a trial in Loudoun County a few years ago and the device worked perfectly in a huge courtroom: I could hear the Judge, the witnesses, the attorneys, everyone.  Hopefully the new ones will help for those courts, the majority, which don’t.   We’ll have to see.

Never Say Die!

It’s not here because I only now discovered this album, or because I bought a new and amazing remaster that changes the game completely.  In fact, I stopped upgrading our original Paris (FNAC) purchased vinyl to 180 grain at Sabotage, so our vinyl version of this album is the one we bought in high school in the 1980s.  I do have a remastered CD (2004 Universal/Sanctuary).

I’m commenting on this because this was on my DP/LZ/BS queue and it came up to listen to.  It’s the last (#8) of the original slew of Black Sabbath albums with Ozzy Osbourne, and its tour was the last with Ozzy, Van Halen being the up and coming band opening for them.  My impression is that it’s generally held in bad repute by 1) non-fans who don’t really like Sabbath and only willing to say good things if the album, e.g. Paranoid, is so obviously musically significant that they would look like idiots if they ignored or criticized it; and 2) Black Sabbath fans who prefer Ronnie James Dio over Ozzy Osbourne.  For them, Heaven & Hell trumps any of the Ozzy albums, even Paranoid or Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath (my favorite).  Us Sabbath fans who do prefer Ozzy to Dio (like me) generally concede it’s a substandard album, but listening to it again, sober on the treadmill, I’ve come to some fresh conclusions.

First off, Bill is drumming like crazy here.  Moreover, the solos on even some of the otherwise less memorable songs is still blazing.  So whatever else might have been going badly for them at the time – e.g. Ozzy leaving and then coming back, refusing to sing any Dave Walker material – when it came time to press RECORD and PLAY THE MUSIC they stepped up and got the job done.  Were they coked up?  Strung out?  Hung over? Who knows.  Somehow they did it.

Actually, I should add a third category of NSD haters: the band itself.  Bill Ward seems to be the only one who defends it, and given his performance I’m not surprised.

Second, the prior albums were so good, that this album was doomed to suffer by comparison.  Only the Beatles seemed to rise to the occasion of consistently outdoing themselves – coming from a fan who prefers the White Album to Dr. Pepper (and I know others who prefer Abbey Road). 

Third, while I hear some jazzy stuff in there – particularly “Air Dance”, which is actually my favorite track, “Junior’s Eyes” being #2 – it still rocks.  In a sense, they wound up like Budgie, pushing in some non-rock directions to break up the monolithic mold of the prior doomy albums.  They recorded the album at Sounds Interchange in Toronto (the Canadian capital) and Rush Jr. aka Max Webster were recording Mutiny Up My Sleeve at the same time.  Kim Mitchell mentions this, though no one in the Black Sabbath camp seems to mention Max Webster.  Then again, Tony was also hanging out with Frank Zappa, who accompanied them on the tour, so perhaps yet another famous mustache-and-SG guitarist had his own influences which no one seems to acknowledge.  Frank Sabbath?  Perish the thought.

Fourth, listening to this not immediately after Technical Ecstasy (#7), but with the benefit of a few proto-Whitesnake albums by David Coverdale, returning to Sabbath was actually more of a relief and welcome rather than a disappointment.  So I may have been more predisposed to be favorable than previously.

The bottom line is that if you listen to it on its own, without trying to compare it to the prior or later albums, you might actually enjoy it.   

The Sword and Witchcraft

I’ve been trying to get my brother – who mostly shares my taste in music and is my most consistent concert companion - into stoner rock, but he’s been reluctant and indifferent.  Recently he articulated his major beef:  “all the bands sound like they’re ripping off Black Sabbath.  If I wanted to listen to Black Sabbath, I’d listen to Black Sabbath.”  Fair enough dispute, though after having listened to Pentagram and sHeavy, plus Witchcraft & The Sword, adding in some Obsessed, I’d say the more accurate critique would not be that they all sound like Black Sabbath, rather that they all sound like each other.

http://thehardtimes.net/news/innovative-stoner-metal-album-blends-influences-black-sabbath-black-sabbath/

Funny enough, let’s talk about Witchcraft.  They’re from Sweden, of all places, so add them to ABBA and Ace of Base, then add in Opeth and Ghost BC.   Supposedly they started as a de facto Pentagram tribute band, which are for their part Washington DC’s answer to – drum roll, please  - Black Sabbath.   I can hear that.  But I hear enough other stuff thrown in that it becomes a bit different.  Still heavy, still droning, still riffing, but different.   Why?  Because vocalist Magnus Pelander, instead of copying Ozzy Osbourne, as sHeavy vocalist Steve Hennessy does (while looking like early-era Whitesnake David Coverdale) – mind you, Hennessy is the only one who comes close to getting Ozzy’s voice down - or even copying Pentagram vocalist Bobby Liebling – who looks more like a long-haired Marty Friedman than Ozzy Osbourne – he’s actually copying The Sword vocalist John Cronise.   See?  Mixing it up by copying each other instead of Ozzy, Tony, Geezer or Bill.  

For that matter, I’ve yet to hear a stoner rock vocalist who sounds anything like Ronnie James Dio.  Then again, Hennessy is the only stoner rock vocalist I’ve heard who sounds like Ozzy.  But sHeavy sounds so much like Ozzy-era Sabbath that many of us thought their early track “Electric Sleep” was a long-lost Sabbath song.  Listen to it yourself and decide.

 

Incidentally, Pentagram won’t be touring much anymore these days, as Liebling is going to prison for beating up his mom.  Yeah.  Liebling has been a heroin addict for a while, but like most addicts swerves from periods of relatively clean stability where he has his s**t together, to other times when he’s more of a colossal screwup.  It’s sad because musically the albums, including the most recent, Curious Volume, are actually pretty good.  In fact, you’d never know what a colossal screwup Liebling was by his music.  They’ve been around since the early 70s, but attempts during that decade to get a record deal went south on two major occasions:  he turned off Gene Simmons & Paul Stanley (KISS, you know), and then Sandy Pearlman and Murray Krugman (Blue Oyster Cult, you know).  It wasn’t until the 1980s that Pentagram finally released an album.   I managed to catch them live at American University and then the Baltimore Soundstage, both times headlining.  Anyhow.

Back to Witchcraft.  They have five albums, Witchcraft, Firewood, The Alchemist, Legend, and Nucleus.   All of them are pretty much the same, of equal quality as well as sound, with no major departures.  There’s some softer interludes and change-ups which break the monotony, so you can listen to an entire album without getting bored – though a five album marathon might be pushing it.  I haven’t been able to see them live yet.  They’re from Sweden.  They need to ask Papa or Mikael Akerfeldt who does their visas, as neither Ghost nor Opeth seem to have any trouble getting into the US to tour. 

Having absorbed their repertoire with much appreciation and satisfaction, I’m now swerving back to The Sword, who are from Austin, Texas.  Although I’ve yet to catch Witchcraft in concert, I’ve been lucky enough to see The Sword a few times:  the (new) 9:30 Club in DC in 2010, opening for Kyuss Lives at the Ram’s Head Live in Baltimore (2011), headlining the R’N’Roll Hotel in DC in 2015, then opening for Opeth at the Fillmore Silver Spring in 2016.  Not particularly energetic or exciting live, though: more of a band that just comes out and plays their music.  Now they have six albums, plus a live album:  Age of Winters (2006), Gods of the Earth (2008), Warp Riders (2010), Apocryphon (2012), High Country (2015), and an acoustic version of that album, Low Country (2016).  The Sword are somewhat faster than Witchcraft, but share this deal where every album sounds pretty much the same, making a multiple disc marathon somewhat dull. 

Song Length.  Black Sabbath songs are relatively short, with “The Warning” from the first album being the longest studio track and the extended “Wicked World” from Live At Last being the longest live track.  Witchcraft have several 10-15 minute songs.  The Sword songs are about 5-7 minutes long.  And The Obsessed scarcely tax your patience, with songs which are 3-5 minutes long, fairly brief and intense.   Though if Wino’s on it, be it The Obsessed, Saint Vitus, or Spirit Caravan, we’re talking some measure of doom involved.

Then you have Earthless.  They’re coming around on tour next spring, so I decided to listen to them again to determine if I wanted to see them for the first time in concert.  I only have two of their albums, the split with Harsh Toke and Rhythms From a Cosmic Sky.  Here we’re talking 15 minute instrumental jams.  But it’s not mellow and laid back like the Grateful Dead or the Allman Brothers, rather it’s intense soloing like Deep Purple’s “Child In Time” or Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird”.  You kind of have to be in the mood for that kind of thing.  But it’s clearly different than Black Sabbath.

Even bands which sound like each other, like Fu Manchu and Nebula (thanks to Eddie Glass, a common member), there’s subtle distinctions.  FM are more straight ahead and even somewhat punk oriented, with shorter songs and subject matter about skateboarding or vans, whereas Nebula have longer songs and are space-oriented.  Bottom line is that you have to have the patience and inclination to really listen to the music before you can begin to distinguish them from each other – and from Black Sabbath – but the differences are there.  Black Sabbath obviously serves as the starting point, but each of these bands take slightly different directions.   For some, Pink Floyd is the opposite end they’re going for; for others it’s the Misfits or Ramones.

As for the overall resemblance to Black Sabbath?  As it is, they have 9 studio albums with Ozzy Osbourne, three with Dio + the Heaven & Hell album (The Devil You Know), 5 with Tony Martin, and one each from Ian Gillan and Glenn Hughes.  Is that really enough?  

Colin Firth

Writer’s blog up to Thursday night, and then – thanks to a movie! – the subject presents itself quite logically:  British actor COLIN FIRTH.  I'll stick to the films I've seen, as anyone with a brain and the Interweb can access IMDB.

The movie in question is Magic in the Moonlight, a recent film with Emma Stoned as the female love interest.  CF plays a Houdini-type character, a professional magician who crusades to expose mystics and psychics as fakes.  It takes place in 1928 in Berlin (briefly) then mainly in the south of France.  He meets his match in a cute American girl (Stone), Sophie, who seems to pull up all sorts of privy information which she normally would not know.   Despite his inclinations he still falls in love with her, and remains in love with her even after uncovering the truth (pool halls are TROUBLE in River City!).   Well done!

My first exposure to him – movie-wise that is – was Fever Pitch, a light romantic comedy about a London school teacher who is obsessed with local Premier League soccer team Arsenal.   Note: I REFUSE to see the Jimmy Fallon US version about the Boston Red Sox (ZZZ).   He falls in love with a fellow teacher.  Ironically, he thinks she views him as a “yob” (lower class scumbag) for his Arsenal passion, while in fact she sees him as bourgeois, using his Arsenal passion to pretend to be a yob.   Anyhow.  Mark Strong plays his best friend.

Most recently he was in the Kingsman movies.   He’s steering away from a James Bond role in that regard, cultivating his own style.   Well done.  [And Mark Strong is back.  But no mentions of Arsenal.  Too bad.]

Earlier he won praise for The King’s Speech, in which he plays George VI, the King between “abdicate to screw the American woman” Edward VIII and our current Queen Elizabeth II.   G6 had a bad stutter, which he had to overcome with the help of a speech therapist played by Geoffrey Rush, probably better known from the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films opposite Johnny Depp.  In particular the speech was expressly intended to warn everyone about Hitler, at a time which the Make Germany Great crowd – and their admirers in England – were inclined to overlook the Austrian’s minor totalitarian issues because he was an acceptable foil to Stalin.  How about this:  neither Nazi Germany nor Soviet Russia are acceptable models for a decent country?

Firth is also Mark Darcy in the Bridget Jones films (Renee Zellweger).   The original BJD film is a plot-wise ripoff of Jane Austen’s “Pride & Prejudice”.   Well before another “Pirates of the Caribbean” alumni, Keira Knightly, came around, there was a BBC production putting Colin Firth as Darcy.  The BJD people were so impressed with Firth in that role that they basically had him update the character to modern day London for the Zellweger films.  Needless to say he does all of them very well.

Those of you who like ABBA musicals might recognize him as one of Meryl Streep’s three suitors (Harry) – along with Pierce Brosnan and Stellan Skarsgard – in Mamma Mia!  

Mom

Recently I eulogized my father, who died way back in 2004.  My  mom is still alive, although she’s now 83 and not getting any younger.  Since my brother has three children and my sister two, my mom is a grandmother to five grandchildren.  The oldest, Zoe, is 17 and since we’re no longer in the Middle Ages when people died at 32, no one – least of all my brother – is pressuring Zoe to go out, get married, and have children before she’s even graduated high school.   So great-grandchildren will have to wait. 

Also, I just been to three funerals in rapid succession, two of them being mother-in-law and daughter-in-law (Aunt Lorraine followed by cousin Gail).  They were all well-attended by caring relatives, who had nice things to say about the dearly departed.  No nasty surprises there. 

The sad thing about funerals is that the deceased aren’t in a position to observe the outpouring of sorrow and remorse on their behalf.  I dare say all of us will eventually learn if that’s possible, but right now – while I’m alive – I can do no more than speculate, which I won’t.

One advantage of a funeral homage is that with the person’s death, their life is conclusively capped.  We know how it ended and what they accomplished (if anything) during their lifetimes, however long or short that might have been.  With regard to very old people, I might argue that the marginal cost of pre-emptively summarizing a person’s life while they’re still alive is offset by the marginal benefit of showing love and respect to someone still alive to enjoy it.   So here goes, Mom.

Born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1934, the second to last of 9 children.  Aunt Irene [oldest sibling] was a teenager when she was born.   My maternal grandparents were very busy.  Did I mention they were Catholic?   Anyhow.  She went to college at Boston College.   Recall that bombing at the Boston Marathon a few  years back?  That location was where she would arrive in Boston from Worcester.  By now I’ve been to Worcester and Boston a few times, and we visited our grandparents home awhile back.  Mom still has a slight accent from Massachusetts. 

US Navy, Lieutenant Commander (LCDR).   The equivalent of Major.  Retired, by now.  Her Navy status gave us access to US military PX shopping and health care until we turned 23.  In fact, I was born at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in 1969, just days before Nixon took office (thus the kind tribute from the First Lady). 

Nurse.   She started with Kennedy in 1961, but was in Washington, DC when JFK was shot in Dallas (so no, she’s not a suspect – she has an alibi).   When LBJ became President, she became his nurse as well.  She has fond memories of him.   This business of LBJ whipping his Johnson out she says was nonsense; the worst he would do is continue a conversation on the toilet without shutting the door (as shown in the recent biopic with Bryan “Walter White” Cranston as #36, which we watched together: "Say my name" "Lyndon Baines Johnson").

 

Retired.  She retired when I was born.  (Sorry).  Then came my brother Matt in 1970, followed by my sister Sarah in 1975. 

Mom’s Job.   I suppose I’m somewhat old-fashioned.   Generally the Dad’s job is to make money and keep discipline so the kids don’t graduate to prison (boys) or brothels (girls).  The Mom’s job is to complement the father’s discipline with love and compassion so the kids aren’t growing up in a boot camp.  But my dad was also very warm and funny, so in a sense he took over both jobs.  He also cooked, so this marginalized my mom even further.  To make matters worse, he didn’t teach us how to do the things he did, but accepted the duty to do them for us during his lifetime.  If he taught, it was by indirect example rather than direct, explicit instruction, teaching character rather than skills.   I’m nowhere near as handy around the house as my father was, but I did learn how to work on cars, which I understood and did far better than he did.  Our role as offspring is not to directly copy and emulate our parents – except royal heirs continuing a dynasty – rather to make optimal use of our parents’ material and non-material resources to build our own independent, and hopefully successful, lives.   On one hand, my sister is also a nurse; on the other,  I am an attorney, and my brother is a computer programmer.  So two out of three of us are pursuing careers different than our parents.   While my sister isn’t looking after #45 (maybe a good thing) as an ER nurse she is helping far more people directly than she would if she were in the White House. 

Having said that, Mom did her job 100% and still does so today, which is to remain caring and compassionate and offer financial assistance as necessary, by way of redirecting her own Navy pension and my father’s Dept. of Commerce pension to us where the situation warrants or permits.    I would prefer if my legal practice were more lucrative, but I haven’t given up on that, even now. 

Thanks, Mom!

David Coverdale vs. Glenn Hughes

As noted on Facebook, I’ve digested Burn and Stormbringer – the two Deep Purple Mark III albums – yet again.  Moreover, back in 2015 I caught Whitesnake at the NYCB Westbury on their Purple tour, in which they played ‘Snaked versions of DP Mark III & IV songs along with Whitesnake songs. 

The backstory on the Purple album is that Coverdale had originally planned on working with Ritchie Blackmore.  These days Blackmore is doing his Blackmore’s Night stuff, Renaissance music, though very recently he whipped out the Stratocaster again and did some electric shows.  Long story short, the reunion didn’t work out.  [For that matter, current Purple nixed Blackmore’s bid to play with them at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, despite current guitarist Steve Morse waiving objection to this, presumably because Ian Gillan hates his guts, for good reason.]  So Coverdale is the only former DP member in this project, which remained a late model Whitesnake endeavor.  

One person he didn’t indicate contacting was Glenn Hughes.  His recent deal with Black Country Communion was on hold thanks to Joe Bonamassa’s busy solo schedule.  But I can figure out why.  It looks like the two of them don’t get along together.

Deep Purple Mark III & IV.  In 1973, Mark II fell apart when Ian Gillan quit and Roger Glover was fired.  The remaining members decided to hire vocalist David Coverdale and bassist Glenn Hughes to replace them.  They put out Burn & Stormbringer before Blackmore quit, complaining of the excessive soul/funk direction the band was going, which he dismissed as “shoeshine music”.  They got Tommy Bolin to replace him (Mark IV), did one album, Come Taste the Band, and then disbanded after the trainwreck of a world tour supporting the album.

So what happened next?

David Coverdale.

Whitesnake.   David Coverdale formed this band, which has two phases:  blues-rock (1976-84) (White Snake through Slide It In) and hair metal (1987-present) (self-titled Whitesnake through Purple).   Jon Lord and Ian Paice were in the band on Ready & Willing (1980), making this 3/5 of Mark III.  I prefer the earlier incarnation, and “Saints & Sinners” was the first song I learned how to play on guitar.   The bluesier incarnation certainly has more interesting and provocative album covers, Lovehunter being my favorite.  The Snake is Coverdale’s animal and he’s been the only consistent member.   He really doesn’t need a solo band as this is firmly under his control.   [Steve Harris’ solo album British Lion really makes no sense.] 

Technically White Snake and Northwinds are solo albums, with Trouble being the first actual Whitesnake album. As a practical matter I consider them the first two Whitesnake albums. 

He did a one-off album with Jimmy Page, Coverdale-Page.  It’s heavier and not as AOR as I thought it would be.  I guess this came from all those complaints that Whitesnake was essentially ripping off Led Zeppelin.  Sean C at ASP was a big proponent of this thesis.  After having heard Led Zeppelin I through CODA, and White Snake through Slide It In (not sure anyone would accuse hairmetal ‘Snake of this) I’d say it has a modest plausibility, but not a whole lot. 

Glenn Hughes.

He recorded three albums with Trapeze before joining Deep Purple.  He has 14 solo albums from 1977 (Play Me Out) to 2016 (Resonate), of which I only have Music for the Divine (2006).  There are the three albums with Deep Purple Mark III and IV, plus umpteen live albums associated with those two lineups. 

Black Sabbath & Black Country Communion.    Hughes did a one-off album with Pat Thrall, bounced around, did Seventh Star with Black Sabbath – right after Born Again with Ian Gillan – and eventually wound up with Bonamassa, Jason Bonham, and Derek Shirinian as Black County Communion. 

To be fair, he’s toned down the “shoeshine music” somewhat over the years, but never completely.  And generally he remains on the bass as well as vocals, still a Fender Precision.   

Ipswich vs. St Etienne

Another Wednesday entry as I’ll most likely be in Fo’Lee, NJ on Friday.  Enjoy!

Way back when – 1981 – I was attending a Catholic school in Paris, France, called Marymount.   The NFL was all but unknown and the Internet as well.   Errr, the school did replay the 1982 Super Bowl, 49ers vs. Bengals (with Joe Montana).  Anyhow.  The student body got into a huge uproar about a soccer game (???) between Ipswich (who?) and St. Etienne (who? Part 2).   I figured out that Ipswich was from the England and St. Etienne was from the France.   Did I care?  No.  But I felt like I was the only one who didn’t.

Eons later, with this Internet thing – and having finally gotten “into” soccer, since 2000 – I finally delved into this and determined what the hell was going on.

This was the UEFA Cup Quarter Final – not even a FINAL! – between Ipswich Town FC and St. Etienne (ASSE).   UEFA isn’t even Champions League, which takes the best European teams and plays them against each other (in 1981 Liverpool beat Real Madrid).  UEFA is for the teams not quite good enough to make it into Champions League – think of it as Champions League Jr.   Nowadays Ipswich is in second tier English soccer, demoted thereto in 2002 from Premier League (first division).  St. Etienne is in French First Division but hasn’t won that division since…1981.  Back then they had Michel Platini and were actually competitive.  Not so much nowadays.

Ipswich won that match-up (two games, home and away) and went on to beat FC Koln (German team – currently in last place in Bundesliga 1, in danger of being demoted down to Bunda-2) in the semi-final, then beat AZ (some Dutch team, currently in fourth place in Dutch First Division) in the final.  For all the hoopla about the Ipswich vs. St. Etienne match-up, no one said any word about FC Koln or AZ, which leads me to suspect that 99% of the people going on about it were probably – out of loyalty to the host country – supporters of St. Etienne.  Actually I have two St. Etienne jerseys, and no Ipswich jerseys.  So count me in favor of the French team, although (as noted) I was militantly indifferent to the two at the time. 

If I had to pick a favorite for French First Division I’d probably pick Paris St-Germain, especially now that they have star Brazilian player Neymar.  Arsenal are my favorite English team (the cannon is so damn cool), Bayern Munich for Germany (visited their Olympic stadium in January 1990), and Flamengo for Brazil.  These are mild preferences though, ones the true fans would scoff at.  (Groundskeeper Willie:  “You call this a soccer riot??”).  I don’t have any MLS preference, not even for DC United, the local team – though I have seen them play Bayer Leverkusen and FC Dallas. 

Oblivious to soccer when I lived in Europe, I corrected that somewhat on my latest trip to Paris.  Although Paris St-Germain was out of town playing a Dutch team (RSC Anderlecht, who they beat 4-0), I visited their store, and picked up the newest Bayern Munich away jersey at the Adidas store on the Champs Elysees. 

Soccer vs. Football.   I might as well address this topic, which I don’t feel is substantial enough to merit a blog entry on its own.  I grew up in the US in the 1970s and adopted the Minnesota Vikings as my favorite team, mainly due to three Super Bowl appearances and Fran Tarkenton.  Plus I like purple and the helmets.  While the Vikings have been to the NFC Championship game several times since then – the winner advancing to the Super Bowl – they have not won (yet).  This includes heartbreaking losses to the Falcons, Giants (41-0…WTF?) and Saints (Brett Favre as QB for the Vikings).  While I wear many different soccer jerseys, including jerseys of mutual rivals, for the NFL I only wear one team’s:  the Vikings.  I have an older #10 Fran Tarkenton jersey, a slightly newer Brett Favre #4 jersey (the throwbacks version, not the contemporary version), and two fairly new ones, #69 Jared Allen and #28 Adrian Peterson.  All are home jerseys.  With the obvious exception of Tarkenton – I was 9 when he retired – the other three I purchased when the players were still on the team. 

I got into soccer in 2000 after visiting Rio de Janeiro a few times and even seeing Flamengo play Fluminense at Maracana in 2004 (an unusually exciting game, 4-3 for Flamengo after falling to 3-1), immediately before the Patriots-Panthers Janet Jackson Super Bowl.  I got cable expressly to watch soccer.  Then….never watched it.   I catch most of the World Cup games, particularly Brazil and Germany, and the Final.  The US didn’t qualify this time, but neither did Italy.  We’ll see what happens in Russia.  FYI, NONE of Brazil’s 5 World Cup victories were in Brazil:  they lost in the final to Uruguay in 1950, when Maracana had just opened, and in the semi-final to Germany (7-1!!!) in Rio this time around.

I can’t say I diligently watch the NFL, but you can bet I watch the Super Bowl and most playoff games, and any locally televised Vikings game.  Of the rest I watch about half, depending on who’s playing and how busy I am.   I try to watch Monday Night Football with my brother, but our schedules don’t always allow it.   

Oddly, I’ve seen only one NFL game – Redskins against ??? at FedEx – but several soccer games.  I don’t even watch Champions League finals, nor Premier League, Bundesliga, Serie A, La Liga, nor the Brasileirão.  Mind you, the Vikings have played local games against the Redskins, but even then I didn’t bother.  RFK Stadium, where the Redskins used to play, isn’t too inconvenient, being right next to the metro.  I’ve been to a few concerts there, including two Dead shows and two Metallica concerts.  Actually, I’ve seen soccer games there (DC United and AC Milan vs. Barcelona).  But my brother has warned me off seeing any games at FedEx, which he says is a huge pain in the ass to get to.  Maybe someday I’ll make a pilgrimage to Minneapolis.  I hear they have big mall there, too. 

Of course, I’ve been to more concerts than all sporting events, of whatever sport, combined.  The larger concerts are held at indoor arenas (where basketball or hockey would be played), the biggest at football stadiums, e.g. RFK.  My brother had the unpleasant experience of bringing his son to a Redskins game at FedEx Field (the boy was born long after the Skins moved there from RFK) and had to put up with foul language and behavior from the notoriously ill-behaved Redskins fans.  By its nature, a sporting event celebrates adversity:  the outcome is a zero-sum game with one team’s victory at the expense of the other team’s defeat.  Naturally this elicits a dynamic of aggression and hostility.  Some of the nastier thrash bands do this as well – Slayer and Metallica come to mind – but for the most part at concerts the entire crowd is essentially cheering for the same team.  Moreover I’m far more of a music fan than a sports fan.  Anyhow.

The sad truth is that I find soccer more fun to PLAY than football (though I haven’t played in ages), but football is more fun to WATCH.   Not even close.

SKOL!!!

Y & T

Recently I watched the Band Together show on Metallica’s YouTube channel.  It featured Dead & Co. (the Grateful Dead’s current incarnation) and Metallica (Metallica’s current incarnation) playing live somewhere in Northern California to benefit all the people who were screwed by the recent wildfires going around up there.  Although that place is a bit far off for me to attend in person, fortunately Metallica made the show available live and free on its YouTube channel.  Thank you!   I ignored the bands up to Dead (last one being Dave Matthews…ZZZ) and focused my attention on the last two. 

By now both could be considered the biggest San Francisco bands – rightfully so.   Dead & Company currently feature three original members:  Bobby Weir (rhythm guitar and vocals), Bill Kreutzmann (normal drummer), and Mickey Hart (“world” drummer & percussionist).  John Mayer has taken over Jerry Garcia’s role.  Some unimportant but competent people are on bass & keyboards.   Phil Lesh still tours with Phil Lesh & Friends (apparently Weir, Kreutzmann and Hart aren’t his friends anymore).  Their last keyboardist, Brent whats-his-name, died ages ago, after Pigpen-whats-his-name and Keith whats-his-name.  Anyow.   Metallica are still James, Kirk and Lars, with Robert Trujillo taking Jason Newsted’s place on bass, who in turn replaced the unreplaceable Cliff Burton (RIP).

Anyhow.   When we think of San Francisco bands, the late 60s come to mind.  Of that original crop, only the Dead are still around.  Big Brother lost Janis Joplin, and Jefferson Airplane seems permanently grounded:  Paul Kantner is dead, but Grace Slick and Marty Balin are still alive.

However, there are more bands.  Blue Cheer could be considered a SF psychedelic band, though they were the heaviest.  Dickie Peterson resurrected the band in the mid-80s as a more traditional hard rock band and kept it going until his recent death.  Since there’s really no Blue Cheer without Dickie, the band died with him.  I suppose Duck McDonald (guitarist) and Paul Whaley (drums) have to do something else.  Prior guitarists Leigh Stephens and Randy Holden are still alive, but mostly retired.  In any case I’ve blogged about them already.

The final band, and which I’ve never blogged about yet, is Y&T.   Originally called Yesterday and Today, this is a hard rock band started in 1974, centered around lead guitarist-lead singer (!) Dave Meniketti.  We first learned of this band in 1984, when we picked up Black Tiger and Mean Streak on vinyl at our school fair.  Many decades later we finally got to see them in concert.  Meniketti is the only original member left and still tours.   

  

Classic Lineup.  Dave Meniketti (vocals & lead guitar); Phil Kennemore (bass); Joey Alves (rhythm guitar); Leonard Haze (drums). 

Discography:  Yesterday And Today (1976); Struck Down (1978); Earthshaker (1981) [band changed its name to Y&T]; Black Tiger (1982); Mean Streak (1983); In Rock We Trust (1984); Down For the Count (1985); Contagious (1987); Ten (1990); [brief disbandment from 1991 to 1995]; Musically Incorrect (1995); Endangered Species (1997); [longer disbandment from 1997 to 2009]; Facemelter (2010).  

As noted, the band is still active.  Phil Kennemore died recently, but Dave Meniketti still keeps the band going.  Arguably they were at their peak in the early 1980s.  They even played at Donington – 1984, the year before we went. 

Incidentally, we saw them a few years back (2009) at a local club, Jaxx.  Meniketti and the other band members stayed around to sign autographs and speak with fans.  They did not charge for this.  Meniketti recently went on record as saying that as a matter of principle, he does not charge for these meet & greets and holds in contempt any musician who does.

In terms of sound, they are essentially a regular hard rock band.  Meniketti plays a Les Paul through Marshall cabinets.  Their show at Jaxx was actually painfully loud – more so than Motorhead.  Their later albums are more commercially oriented, and their only hit song, “Summertime Girls”, comes from Down For The Count.  My favorites remain Black Tiger and Mean Streak, not merely for sentimental reasons but also because they seem like High’n’Dry (Def Leppard):  the optimal mix of balls & polish.  The earlier albums aren’t as well crafted (Earthshaker being the first truly competitive album) while the later ones sound a bit too commercial.   I can’t say I’m well acquainted with the albums after Down For the Count, though.  

The Family Car

At a loss for a better topic this Friday, I’ll fall back on a fairly mundane one: the family motor vehicle. 

Chevelle/Malibu.  This is the earliest one I remember.  It would have been an early 70s model, and NOT an SS, let alone an LS6 454.  I can’t recall the color, or whether it had an inline six or a small V8.  Most likely the former.

Gran Torino.  Made famous by the Clint Eastwood movie more recently, and Starsky & Hutch in the past.  This was a sedan in dark brown.   As with the Chevelle, not sure what engine it had.  The base engine on these was an inline six (most plausible), with a range of V8s starting with 302, 351 Cleveland or Windsor, up to 429.  Since my dad made it a point to mention his ’55 Chevy Belair had a V8, and said nothing about a V8 in the Gran Torino, I’ll say it most likely it had the six cylinder.  My parents didn’t care about performance and never got the top engine as a matter of principle.

Volvo Station Wagon.  Orange, without the rear-facing seats.  We sold this when we moved to Paris in January 1979.  I’m guessing we probably bought it at the Volvo dealer on 355 near Hungerford Drive and the old drive-through movie theater and Hechingers.

Chrysler-Simca.  As noted, we moved to Paris in January 1979.  My father noted that bringing a car overseas is not worth the bother unless it’s really special, which the Volvo wagon was not.  This was a Chrysler model not sold in the US.  It was magenta, a sedan, and of course, stick shift, as so many European cars are.  We took this up to SHAPE a few times.

Peugeot 505.  Our second of two cars in Paris.  This was silver, and manual transmission.  I tried learning to drive, but in Paris traffic AND trying to learn a stick shift at the same time, it’s hopeless.  As a practical matter I taught myself on the Cavalier.

Chevrolet Cavalier.   I started college at University of Maryland in fall 1986.   Although by this time I had my driver’s license (and almost no practical experience driving) the College Park campus had a parking shortage, meaning students couldn’t keep a car on campus until they finished their sophomore year.  I was angling to get a late 70’s Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, ideally a Special Edition with t-tops and Screaming Chicken, but my parents ultimately did me a favor and bought this one:  a 1984 Cavalier, blue-grey sedan with 2.0L four cylinder, an auto-reverse tape deck, and air conditioning.  It got fairly good gas mileage:  round trip to Ocean City from College Park AND Baltimore on a single tank of gas, about 8 hours of highway driving.  By 1991 it was acting up.  My sister totaled it driving it in the local neighborhood in Montgomery Village.

Toyota Tercel.  The Cavalier was replaced by a deep blue 1991 Toyota Tercel sedan with stereo, A/C and automatic transmission – FYI, except for the two cars in Paris, all our cars were automatics.  My parents never considered the marginally superior fuel economy to be worth the hassle of shifting manually, and I share that assessment.   I drove this in law school until finally scoring my own car, a 1992 Pontiac Firebird (base), in November 1992 (fall of third year).  Then Matt inherited the Tercel, which he drove to and from Memphis, Tennessee after graduating from business school in Phoenix, Arizona.  He ultimately replaced it with a 1995 Pontiac Firebird Formula in black, a year after I got my own 1992 Pontiac Firebird Formula 350 in Dark Aqua Metallic – later painted black. 

Nissan Sentra XE.  Shortly after returning from Paris, my parents bought this one.  Dark grey (black was reserved for GXE models like the one Phil had).   I drove it a few times, including my first road trip to Long Island in March 1991, when I got my first speeding ticket – on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Nissan Pulsar.  When my sister finally got her driver’s license, this was the car my parents got for her to drive.  Fairly small but fun.  Gold.  She may have brought it with her when she moved to Arizona back in 1995. 

Honda Accord SE.  A gold model, this replaced the Sentra.  The SE model had all the bells & whistles, except a V6.   I don’t think my parents ever bought a car with the biggest engine available.  I did that with the 1992 Firebird Formula 350, but couldn’t afford the SRT 6.1L V8 in my Charger.  

Cadillacs.  My parents had two of these:  a dark grey model – I’d say Allante except that I know it wasn’t a convertible but was a coupe, in gun metal grey - and a Catera.  Both were used, fairly unreliable and unimpressive.  Neither were the fullsize land yachts. 

Chevrolet HHR.  My dad passed away in 2004.  As of now my mom is driving this.  It’s not bad, and it has a substantial load capacity.  It’s silver.

Paint Your Unsinkable Wagon Brown

Last December, actress Carrie “Princess Leia” Fisher died, followed the following day by her mother, Debbie “Molly Brown” Reynolds.  I decided to put “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” on my Netflix queue, but it seems I wasn’t the only one who did so.  Only after I returned from a recent trip to Colorado (!) did I find the DVD waiting for me, and of course I watched it.  I’d seen it before, eons ago with my parents, but I find that rewatching movies after I’ve experienced life a bit more makes them a different experience. 

The Unsinkable Molly Brown.  The true story of this remarkable woman who grew up and developed in late nineteenth century Colorado, Denver in particular.  It seems she and her husband were both of hillbilly background but struck it rich, much to the annoyance of their snobby neighbors in Denver.  She went off to Paris, learned French and other languages, got “culture”, and eventually came back to impress everyone for good.   She went back to Paris again, this time returning on a so-called unsinkable ocean liner, the Titanic.  She was one of the survivors.

The movie features Debbie Reynolds in the title role, with Harve Presnell as her husband.  It’s a musical, and it’s long.  However, it’s charming enough to be endurable, and I love the Paris scenes.  She picked the right time to go, right before WWI.   If you haven’t seen it, and you have 3 hours to spare, knock yourself out – especially if you like musicals.

Paint Your Wagon.  As it happens, I don’t know why, but I also put “Paint Your Wagon” on my queue as well.  Eventually Netflix decided to send it to me, and for some reason I decided to watch it.   Guess what, it’s another long-ass musical.   The main characters are Ben Rumson (Lee Marvin) and a character only known (his name only revealed at the very end) as “Pardner”, played by Clint Eastwood.  There are other actors as well, which I’ll get into.

Rumson and Pardner start off as gold prospectors in northern California in the mid-1800s.  A Mormon man comes to town and is forced to auction off his second wife, Elizabeth (Jean Seberg), and Rumson manages to win the auction for her – by drunkenly offering to double the last bid, which no one can match.  At this point she’s the only woman in a mining town of 300+ men (apparently all of them straight).  When they catch word that a shipment of 6 French ladies can be hijacked, Rumson goes off to head the hijacking party to capture them, leaving Pardner to guard Elizabeth.  In Rumson’s absence, the two fall in love.  When Rumson returns, she decides she loves both and the three wind up in a very unconventional lifestyle.  The town develops into a Sin City, with several brothels, saloons and casinos to cater to every vice imaginable.  Eventually it all comes crashing down – literally.  I found it highly entertaining, despite its length.  Part of the charm is hearing Eastwood sing in his own voice, a talent which didn’t come up in the Dirty Harry films.  “Make…My….Day…!”

A familiar face, Ray Walston, is here too.  But one guy, Rotten Luck Willie [ironically named, it seems], who winds up running one of the main saloons, caught my eye – and my ear, as he had a particularly strong singing voice.  Where had I seen him before?  (Slaps head):  it’s Harve Presnell, better known as Mr. Molly Brown. 

So that makes TWO musicals worth wasting time watching, with a common actor.  ENJOY.

Retour A Paris 2017

As my Facebook posts gave away, I managed to visit Paris again, albeit for a week.   Thanks to our friend Jean, ASP Class of ’86, we had a place to stay, and managed lunch at the US Embassy.  Thank you Jean, thank you Loni, and thank you Matt.

Background.  In January 1979 our family moved to Paris.  Our father was with the US Dept of Commerce and had a post at the Embassy which allowed us to remain there until 1990.  From February 1979 to April 1984 we lived at the US Embassy compound in Neuilly, then in April 1984 we moved into Paris itself, on Blvd. Malesherbes just up the street from St. Augustin.  In August 1990 we moved back to the US.  I had never had a chance to get back since then, so this was also my first visit as a tourist.  As my GF-companion Loni had never been, I also had the opportunity to play tour guide to an extent.  Fortunately the changes from 1990 are less significant than all the things which are pretty much the same.

Mandatory Sightseeing:  Eiffel Tower, for the first time since spring 1979; Versailles (again); the Louvre (first time since summer 1987); Notre Dame; Montmartre.  We did pass through Pigalle, Paris' red light district, without doing much more than observe its nature - the circumstances of our lodging prevented any subsequent appropriate activities in the same spirit.    

Charles De Gaulle Airport.  Terminal 1 still has its tubes.  Awesome.  Plus now it’s connected by the RER, which wasn’t the case back when I lived there.  Jean and I joked that Petain doesn’t have an airport named after him.

Fun stuff.  FNAC.  The Wagram location is gone, but now there’s one on Ternes down the street, on the Champs Elysees itself, and another at Passage du Havre near Gare St. Lazare and Galeries Lafayette.  The store’s music selection pisses all over Best Buy and Barnes & Noble, giving an in-store selection comparable to Amazon.  Brant Bjork?  Kadavar?   Awesome.  If I lived in Paris – again – I’d be there nonstop.

Metro.   I love the Metro.  Flat rate tickets.   Stops mere blocks from each other.   A comprehensive network.  Actually, we didn’t take cabs or Uber at all on our visit. The Metro and RER got the job done, plus our own feet.   Now the #1 line, La Defense (formerly Pont de Neuilly) to Chateau de Vincennes, has doors on the platforms themselves and automatic, driverless trains which presumably do not go on strike.  [To be fair, though, no strikes occurred during our visit.]

Food.   Convenience alone forced us to visit Evil Clown (McD) at least once.   I didn’t see Chipotle around.  The Burger King on the Champs seems to be gone.  KFC in Versailles was good.   No free refills, though, and what passes for “LARGE” in Paris would be “MEDIUM” back in the US.   We did enjoy Hippo and Relais de Venise, though.

Notre Dame.  As my readers know, I’ve been visiting the local cathedrals in the US.  By nature, they are recent additions, almost all built during the twentieth century.   Here was a big thing actually built in the Middle Ages, in fact taking about 200 years to build thanks to constant CGT strikes.  It’s big.  It’s dark.  It’s actually THE cathedral of the archdiocese of Paris and has two statues of St. Denis carrying his own head (which is pretty badass).   Now they have a cute electronic pen thing you can point to items on the map and it will tell you what they are.  Also, the crypt is good, as you see the Roman stuff that was there underneath.   What I didn’t realize was that even in Roman times, there was a substantial Left Bank development of Lutetia, so it wasn’t just on the Island. 

Left Bank vs. Right Bank.  We did not visit the Latin Quarter, so our sole Left Bank fun was the Eiffel Tower.   I also missed out on the Franco-Prussian War exhibit at the Musee de L’Armee – odd, as it was the only Franco-German war the Germans won.  We also missed out on The Bones, as Loni calls the Catacombs.  Well, put them down for next time along with Aquaboulevard and the full Versailles gardens. 

Napoleon III and Haussmann.  Now I know what role they had in redeveloping Paris from 1848-1870, so I saw much of the city with new eyes.  The current 20 arrondissement size, an absorption of the immediate suburbs, dates from their partnership.  Nowadays N3 is better known for his unsuccessful adventure in Mexico, colonizing Vietnam, and losing to Prussia in 1870, but his legacy in Paris itself is far more substantial in real terms today.  I also recognized Louis Phillippe, the last French King (1830-48) in many of the paintings.  

BladeRunner

Recently I caught the long-awaited sequel to 1982’s “Bladerunner”, thankfully including Harrison Ford back as Deckard, though by now long-retired from the replicant-retiring business.  I’ll try to avoid spoilers for those of you who haven’t yet seen the new film and intend to see it.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?  The original Philip K. Dick story.  Mostly identical in plot to the movie, but the book has several elements missing from the movie: this whole business of robot animals (real animals are so rare as to be priceless, and even synthetic animals are valuable enough that a catalog of values – like the Blue Book – exists with regard to them) and Mercerism.  I should re-read it again, now that I’ve finally finished reading all of PKD’s scifi novels.

Original.  Ford stars as Deckard, an LAPD cop whose job it is to take out rogue replicants.  Apparently the replicants off-world achieved self-awareness and returned to earth, hiding out among humans.  The most deadly are Roy (Rutger Hauer) and Pris (Daryl Hannah).  Roy in particular is trying to find out from Tyrell, who originally designed them, if there is a way around their hard-wired life span.   Note: if Deckard could simply keep these two away from everyone else, they would expire on their own.  But how exciting would that be?

Sequel.   It’s thirty years later and a new replicant (Ryan Gosling) is trying to track down rogue older models, none of whom resemble Rutger Hauer or Darryl Hannah.  Clare Underwood is his boss.  He even has a virtual GF who keeps him company in his apartment.  Tyrell Corp is gone, replaced by Wallace (let’s see Neil Fallon wear that on a t-shirt at the next Clutch tour), led by an equally enigmatic CEO (Jared Leto).   In this particular case, what he’s got on his hands is evidence that Rachael, the replicant originally played by Sean Young in the first film, had a child – theoretically impossible for a replicant.  Who would design a female replicant with a uterus, ovaries, etc. and allow it to actually conceive a child?  Then again, Tyrell indicated that Rachael was different.  So it would seem...

Overall I’d say it’s a good sequel.  Gosling’s replicant is sympathetic.  Deckard is back - and just as crusty and badass as you would expect him to be 30 years later.  Lots of action and wastelands.  Pretty much what we’d want from a sequel.  Thank you, Denis Villaneuve (director of “Arrival”), for not messing around.  He did his job properly and didn’t let his ego turn this into something stupid. 

*

Here’s an issue loosely raised by both films.  Some people believe that Deckard is actually a replicant.  That theory should be conclusively shot down as he appears in this film taking place 30 years later.  Mind you, Dick himself addressed this issue during his lifetime and confirmed that Deckard is human after all.  Ford said the same, and only Ridley Scott advocates this – plus useful idiots on Facebook who love to cling to provocative but stupid ideas.

Humans have to eat, sleep, pee, poo, vomit, get sick, age, and die.  Female humans have menstrual cycles and give birth.  A replicant doesn’t have to do any of that and – unless programmed otherwise as the original series was in the first film and PKD’s book – effectively have eternal youth.  So for a replicant to truly emulate a human, it would have to be programmed to do all these things.   A huge pain in the ass for what?   

Moreover, the original series was expressly designed as workers.   You created robots so you couldn’t have to hire unreliable humans.  Why create unreliable replicants?  That makes no sense.  Moreover, K (Gosling) appears to have self-awareness:  he knows he’s a replicant.  Logical, as Roy and Pris (Hauer and Hannah) did too.  If I were a replicant, I’d be happy that I don’t have to eat, drink, pee, poo, get sick, and eventually age and die.  If I ever got tired of living, I could just kill myself.  Well, so long as I wasn't hardwired to die...

Can we combine the two?  Remember “Robocop II” where the bad guy was created by removing his brain & nervous system and implanting them into a robot.  The prior two specimens went nuts and killed themselves, as turning into a full-on robot was too nuts.  But how about implanting them into an expressly humanoid and/or replicant body?  Get working, people. 

Then take opposite scenario:  a replicant who is really human.  Huh?  The replicant wouldn’t need to sleep, eat, pee/poo, etc. any biological functions.  How would a human survive without doing all these things?  Unless some dumbass was creating replicants which did all this stuff, the sole purpose of which would be to pass them off as humans.  WHY? 

Bottom line is that anyone/thing expressly identified as human is 99.999% likely to be human, and anything expressly identified as a replicant is 99.999% likely to be a replicant.