Collections

 

The challenge of coming up with another blog hits again.  Let’s see how this works.

 Maryland band Clutch recently reissued – yet again – its album Blast Tyrant on vinyl.  It was a limited release including a t-shirt, which caused muito problemos and much anger and frustration.  Mind you, it’s one of their more popular albums and has been out for awhile – originally on CD in 2004, with a two disc reissue in 2011 - including this newly resurgent vinyl format. 

 Having only one of something varies.  Can you collect spouses?  Maybe in a Muslim country, and only if you’re male.  Polyandry (husband equivalent of polygamy, having multiple wives) doesn’t seem to be common anywhere.  And the Mormons have dropped their own polygamy.   Some people collect real estate.  I see some on Facebook bragging about having 10+ vinyl copies of Machine Head (Deep Purple).   I’d just as soon find the best version and stick with that.  I thought my 1998 CD version was optimal, until I discovered that they reissued it yet again in 2012 with not just two songs in quad but the whole album.  D’oh!

 Stamps.   When we were kids in Paris, we’d collect this, even going to the stamp market, which – to the best of my recollection – was somewhere close to the US Embassy.  That collection has fallen by the wayside for decades, but I still have my blue book of stamps.

 Compact Discs.   By now I’ve lost count, having started with Van Halen OU812 and Judas Priest, Ram It Down, both in 1988.  My brother’s first were KISS Double Platinum and Poison, Look What The Cat Dragged in, back in 1987.  It’s still my preferred format.

 Vinyl.   Until 1987-88 we were collecting music on vinyl.  One thing we were NOT doing was buying as many different versions of the SAME album as possible, and I still find picture discs somewhat nonsensical.  The vinyl experts complain that the sound quality is inferior and they wear out quicker.  Anyhow.  Now that 180 grain has come by, I periodically purchase records in that format, even if I have it on CD.  Unless the band – for whatever reason – insists on ONLY releasing the album on vinyl, I’ll buy the CD.  Sleep and SunnO))) have been the only ones to do so.  I am NOT collecting vinyl of albums released once CDs became the standard, I’ll stick with material originally released on vinyl. 

 Soccer jerseys.   In 1999 I started dating a Brazilian woman, Leila, from Rio de Janeiro.  In summer 2000, when we visited her home town, I bought my first jerseys:  Flamengo and Botafogo, followed by Fluminense and Vasco da Gama, the four teams from that city.  Bayern Munich, with Giovanni Elber’s name and number on the back, I bought from the team’s own website.  The premiere soccer jersey websites will sell personalized jerseys with star players, though the team’s own website will sell you a jersey with any current player’s name and number.  I’ve lost count of how many I have, but continued even after the relationship with Leila ended in February 2005.  These include other Brazilian teams, Bundesliga teams (several Bayern Munich), Premier League (Arsenal being my favorite), a few from Real Madrid and Serie A, but none from MLS.  Fortunately, despite putting on weight over the years, my 1999 Flamengo jersey still fits.

 Concert T-shirts.  When we first started going to shows (1984) we’d get a shirt from each concert.  Nowadays I’m more selective.  Dead Meadow didn’t have any nice ones, so I got a poster instead.  It’s reached the point where I have to separate them out into black A-K, black L-Z, and non-black.  It’s also nice when the band puts tour dates on the back and doesn’t simply default to the current album cover for the front design.  Iron Maiden are probably the most imaginative when it comes to this.

 Pint glasses.  These are taking up space in my freezer now.  That being the case, I’ve cut down on seeking out more pint glasses and only get one if it catches my eye.  I can’t stand drinking beer or cider out of the can or bottle, and prefer drinking from a pint glass.   From King Crimson I have Red and Discipline, and a nice FARM one from the dispensary in Boulder, Colorado.

 Guitars & Amps.  Although I’m not, and never have been, a professional guitarist, I do have multiple guitars: a Fender Stratocaster, a Gibson SG Standard, a Gibson Explorer, a Gibson Les Paul, and a Gibson Firebird (reverse).   With the exception of the Black Cherry Pearl LP, the others are all black.  I see people bragging about having 10 sunburst Les Pauls – again, I don’t see any reason to collect more than one of each model, let alone several in the same color.  I pick the version I like the most and personalize or customize it as I see fit.  The Stratocaster is a Fat Strat made in Mexico, with locking tuners (large, 70s style headstock), a DiMarzio ToneZone zebra coil humbucker in the bridge position, and V-Runner tremolo.  The Les Paul is a Studio Pro with a Gibson 500T in the bridge position.  The Firebird is stock except for a black pickguard – it has the Firebird-specific pickups (which are NOT mini-humbuckers) and Steinberger locking tuners.  The Explorer, a ’90/’76 Reissue, has EMG81 pickups and a mirror pickguard.  And until recently, the Gibson SG Standard was stock, I added in locking tuners. 

 Electric guitars are useless without amplifiers, but I can’t say I’m really “collecting” amps per se.  I have a Marshall 2554 1x12” combo, a Marshall 4100 Dual Reverb head with 1960AV slant cabinet (a half stack), and a Laney L20T-112 combo.  Were I to start collecting, I would get a Fender Twin Reverb and a Mesa Boogie Mark II.  Not anytime soon. 

 Guns.  Hardly an arsenal, but here it is:  Beretta 92FS, Springfield Armory Saint (AR15), AK47, and three bolt-actions:  Russian 91/30 Mosin-Nagant, 1917 Enfield (US WWI), and WWII German Mauser 98K.  Those went from plentiful to rare.  About the only addition I’d prefer – absent winning the lottery and going Class III crazy – would be an FN FAL. 

Cars.  I’ve never been rich enough to accumulate a collection.  Again, if money were no object, I’d purchase a ’89-92 Firebird Formula and put my rebuilt, car-less L98 in it, and restore my ’76 Firebird, then add a ’67-68 Firebird 400 and a 1974 Trans Am SD455 in dark blue.  That begs the question of where I’d park them all. 

Hmm.  I've identified seven different types of items I collect.  It looks like I have a collection collection.   

Other stuff.  I was at Third Eye Comics in Annapolis recently and saw they had a huge selection of Pop Vinyl dolls - those pop culture dolls with the oversized heads - and late model action figures (same size as the Star Wars ones we had back in the day).  What I can't figure out is what these are for, since they're clearly marketed for adults.  How are adults supposed to play with dolls - sorry, "action figures"?  Maybe my imagination is defective here.  The only other reason I can see is to collect them.  But to me, collecting things for the sake of collecting, something which doesn't have any use in itself, is a bit strange.  I can drink beer out of my pint glasses, wear my t-shirts or soccer jerseys, shoot my guns or play my guitars, and listen to my CDs and vinyl.   What can you do with dolls if you're an adult?  Anyhow.

Some Assembly Required

 

Until gramophones and 78s became common around the turn of the century (1900), then electrical versions in the mid '20s, if you wanted music, you had to make it yourself.   A music store could sell you a musical instrument, of course, and the sheet music to play the music yourself.  If you wanted to hear someone else play it, you’d have to attend a live concert.   Perhaps, back then, there were bootleggers, sitting in the audience at concerts, rapidly transcribing them into sheet music for sale or distribution among kindred souls.  Who knows.

 Throwing sheet music at someone and telling them, “play it yourself”, strikes me as an example of “some assembly required”.  Years ago, when I was taking guitar lessons with my teacher, Joel, in Paris, I asked him about reading sheet music.  He advised me that he could teach me, but for guitarists, reading sheet music was somewhat of a waste of time.  By that time (mid-‘80s), something called tablature existed, showing 6 lines (representing the six strings of a guitar) and noting which frets and strings the activity occurred on.  Traditional sheet music is considerably less direct and more complicated, especially since it was never originally designed for guitarists in particular.

 Sears Modern Homes.  From 1908-1940, you could buy an entire HOUSE from Sears.  Sears Modern Homes had various different styles available, though the “bungalow” strikes me as most noticeably from that time period.  Mind you, the house would be sent to you in two box cars, then delivered by truck to the building site.  You could pay someone to put it together for your or, if you were handy enough, assemble it yourself.  It did NOT come fully assembled.   Back in the nineteenth century, many communities would gather together to build their homes, balloon frame houses.  Of course, back then there was no electricity or indoor plumbing, a house was simply a wooden structure, with glass windows, as shelter from the elements. 

 Obviously I’m too young to remember when electricity first made its debut in homes in offices, some time around the turn of the century.  Somehow I doubt codes and standards existed back then, nor electric utility companies with monopolies.  Pictures of cities show bewildering arrays of electric lines strung up all over the place, possibly from competing firms.  And without stringent standards, fires were common.  My father used to joke, whenever balking at taking us somewhere like the toy store, “didn’t you hear?  There was a huge fire, the place burned down.”  Not sure if Brooklyn had its act together by 1928 when he was born, but I suspect that expression had its roots in his parents’ time and experience when substandard building codes made electrical fires far more common than they are these days.  Hell, some of the Vanderbilt homes in Newport, Rhode Island, burned down – these were huge mansions built for the richest Americans.   Even they couldn’t count on competent installation of electricity in their homes. 

 Anyhow.

 Sadly, Sears itself had a corporate paperwork housecleaning which destroyed almost all of their prior records, including their records on Sears Modern Homes.  Since they were copying existing designs, and apparently there aren’t design patents on home designs, they could do so at will.  These homes did have electricity and plumbing but not air conditioning or internet.   Anyone wondering if their early twentienth century home originally came from Sears would need paperwork from the prior owners. 

 I am seeing some newer homes built in the older style, presumably with modern amenities and less prone to fires.  And I would also imagine they are being built by contractors – not by the owners themselves.   My own home is an efficiency on the twentieth floor of a twenty-six story high rise apartment building.  I can bet that the first owners in the 1970s did not build Skyline themselves….

Deer and Dogs Delivered

 Three movies starting with “D”:  The Deer Hunter, Dogs of War, and Deliverance.

 The Deer Hunter.  I mentioned Michael Cimino’s epically horrible film “Heaven’s Gate” earlier, but now I’ll review his other masterpiece.  This is three hours long.

 Four guys in Pittsburgh, in an ethnic Russian community.  Stan/Stosh (John “I knew it was you, Frodo!” Cazale) is exempt from military service for some reason;  Steven (John Savage); Nicky (Christopher Walken); and Michael (Robert De Niro).  They celebrate Steve’s wedding to Angela, who is pregnant with another man’s child.  They go deer hunting, and Mike kills an impressive male deer.  They go to Vietnam (minus Stosh), and get captured (together) by the VC/NVA and forced to play Russian Roulette.  Mike figures to play with three bullets, and then uses those three shots to kill the three most attentive NVA, takes their weapons and shoots the rest.  In the process of being picked up along the river after escaping, the three lose track of each other.

Mike goes back immediately with no apparent injuries or PTSD.  He hooks up with Linda (Meryl Streep).  Angela is catatonic, but manages to reveal Steve’s location:  missing his legs, playing bingo at a VA hospital.  He wants to stay there indefinitely, as despite being drab and depressing, he’s not much worse off than anyone else.  The only news about Nicky is that he’s AWOL and has not come back.  Ironically, Mike saw him in Saigon before leaving, but couldn’t chase him down after finding him in a Russian Roulette gambling club.

Mike returns again to Saigon, where it must be April 1975:  all hell is breaking loose and civilians are storming the US Embassy compound to leave the country with the Americans.  After some difficulty, he finally tracks down Nicky through the Frenchman.   Sadly, he doesn’t quite manage to get Nicky back to Pittsburgh.  There’s some residual scenage back in Pittsburgh, with Steve now rejoined the community with Angela, but mostly it’s over.  Three hours with only two truly memorable scenes in the entire movie. 

 Dogs of War.  Lately I’ve been checking out older actors’ earlier roles.  Helen Mirren is a major babe in “Age of Consent” (and showing considerable skin).  Jay Pritchett (Ed O’Neill) actually had a career before “Married With Children” – he’s a NYPD cop in “Cruising”, Al Pacino’s NY cop movie in which he tracks down a serial killer preying on NYC’s gay community.  And in this movie he’s a mechanic who briefly meets with Shannon (Christopher Walken).  

 Shannon is a covert ops guy from NYC who’s hired to assist with a regime change in fictional Zangaro, a country in west Africa.   First he goes on a reconnaissance mission to scope the place out, is badly mistreated by local authorities, barely managing to survive to return to NYC.   Despite this, or maybe because of this – and a huge paycheck promised – he agrees to assemble a team to return and put in a marginally less crappy dictator in place of the crazy current guy.  Lots of violence and explosions.  Tom Berenger is the only other major actor in this. 

 Deliverance.  Four normal guys – Lewis (Burt Reynolds, sans mustache), Ed (Jon Voigt), Bobby (Ned Beatty), and Drew (Ronny Cox) - go on a canoeing trip in Georgia.  The river in question has some dangerous rapids, but the bigger picture is that they are building a dam in the local area which will eliminate the river and put much of the local area permanently underwater.  Although not a hunting trip, per se, Lewis has (helpfully) brought along a bow & arrow.  After Drew has a brief jam with the local banjo kid, they set off down the river, having paid difficult and hostile locals – all of whom consistently give them the “you’re not from around here” treatment – to drive their station wagon and Harvester Scout down to Aindry, the town at the end of the river where they expect to end up.

            Along the way, Ed and Bobby are captured by local Trump supporters and forced to endure unwanted sexual advances that go well beyond merely sniffing their hair.  They are rescued by Drew and Lewis; the consensus seems to be that the locals intended to murder Ed and Bobby after their involuntary romantic interlude.   Then and there, the four agree on a “story”, an alternative explanation of the events, knowing that honestly relating the facts will simply get them a jury of locals sympathetic to the deceased.  On the way back, Drew drowns and Lewis is badly injured.  The authorities suspect foul play but can’t prosecute anyone as the stories are consistent enough and the evidence is buried.   And there was much rejoicing…

Confess, Maynard

 I put two books on my Amazon Wish List last Christmas, and my Santa-esque brother (my only one, Matt) thankfully got both for me.  The first is Confess, the autobiography of Judas Priest singer Rob Halford, and the other is A Perfect Union of Contrary Things, by Sarah Jensen with Maynard James Keenan, the enigmatic singer for TOOL, plus his side projects A Perfect Circle (APC) and Puscifer.  Confess is told in the first person by Halford himself, and covers the period all the way up to Andy Sneap’s replacement of Glenn Tipton for Firepower, the band’s latest album.  APUCT is in the third person with some direct quotes from MJK himself.

 Confess.  With the exception of original singer Alan Atkins – who left the band long before its first album, Rocka Rolla, was released in September 1974 – and brief replacement singer Ripper Owens, who only sang on Jugulator and Demolition (1995 and 1998), the singer for heavy metal band Judas Priest has been Rob Halford, from Walsall, a suburb of Birmingham, England. 

 Defenders of the Faith.  We received this album, on cassette, for free, in spring 1984 (i.e. their newest album at the time) and immediately got hooked on the band. That summer we picked up Sad Wings of Destiny on vinyl and discovered Early Priest.  When the issue of Halford’s social life came up, we took at face value his denial of homosexuality, but my friend Sean said – back in 1984 – “if he isn’t gay, why is he dressing that way?”  When Halford finally did “come out” in the early 90s, it was hardly a surprise.  Well, whatever.  We still bought Angel of Retribution, Nostradamus, Redeemer of Souls and Firepower, and still went to the concerts. 

 Having said all that, his autobiography is a bit heavy on the gay-ness, roughly 50%.  I wasn’t concerned about his “keeping in the closet”, of cruising and hooking up, of winding up with straights who have sex with men (“then you ain’t that straight!!!! Tiger Guy).  Talk about a heavy dose of TMI.  He could cut it down by half and still tell us all the stuff we care about:  how he joined Judas Priest (long before Rocka Rolla came out), the circumstances of each lineup change (particularly drummers), the background on each album and tour, and the band’s interaction with other metal bands.  Oh, and he loves “Spinal Tap”.  That’s the part I care about, and fortunately it’s here. 

 Gay Stuff.  I don’t want to devote an entire blog to this topic so I might as well address it here.   I am straight and always have been.  I have very few friends these days, and none of them are gay.  I’ve had gay acquaintances but not close relationships.   But what other people do among themselves, as consenting adults, is their business.  I have enough to worry about in my own life without getting bent out of shape about others.  Moreover, most people who bark and bray the loudest against gays usually turn out to be deep in the closet.  Again, I don’t care.

 If there is one part which does bug me, it’s this business of gays being pretentious.   I love watching “Modern Family” (though Sofia Vergara, Ariel Winter, and Sarah Hyland receive most of my attention) and the gay couple, Mitch (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Cam (Eric Stonestreet) seem to click all the boxes on gay stereotypes, even to the point of their friends, e.g. Pepper (Nathan Lane).  Of course, the show makes fun of Colombian drug lord culture (Gloria Pritchett, played by Sofia Vergara), goofy magic nerd realtors (Phil Dunphy, played by Ty Burrell), and stupid hot chicks (Haley Dunphy, played by Sarah Hyland), so the ridicule is evenly spread throughout. 

 In any case, Halford’s orientation was already common knowledge when he formally “came out” in the early 90s after leaving Priest, and certainly is now.  So “Confess” is somewhat of a meaningless title.  Anyhow. 

 A Perfect Union of Contrary Things.   Apparently MJK grew up in the Midwest, Ohio & Grand Rapids.  He joined the Army, but though picked to go to West Point itself from West Point Prep, actually decided to go to art school (????) in Michigan, then work in a pet store in Boston, and eventually relocated to L.A., where he worked at another pet store and met guitarist Adam Jones and drummer Danny Carey.  They formed TOOL with bassist Paul D’Amour in 1992.  After only 6 live shows, all as opening acts at microscopic clubs in L.A., somehow they got a record deal almost instantaneously. 

 After Aenima, their second album, TOOL had legal issues regarding their record contract, so MJK wound up with free, idle time, which he spent getting A Perfect Circle off the ground.  At some later point he started his second side project, Puscifer.  He also discovered jiu jitsu and set up a vineyard in Arizona.   ZZZ.

 Awhile back I read the autobiography of Brian Johnson, the singer for AC/DC (Rockers and Rollers), and blogged about it (back in 2012).   I also blogged when Axl Rose took over on the recent tour.  Brian Johnson’s voice has been accurately described as “Marge Simpson”, and of all the band members, he’s clearly the band’s weakest link.  Whether it was 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, or 2020, Angus could find any number of singers, either professional or undiscovered in a club somewhere, who could do better than Brian Johnson. 

But to get back on topic:  Johnson’s autobiography actually made me like him LESS.  And same deal with Maynard’s.   Goes to art school instead of West Point?   Jiu jitsu and wine?  The utter pretentiousness of the book is off the chart, yet this is not a critique or expose, it’s supposed to be HIS story. 

 In fact, it does such a spectacular job at making him appear pretentious that I begin to wonder if that wasn’t the whole point all along.  Of course he’s pretentious.  He’s Maynard.  Listen to TOOL lyrics and you’ll figure that out.  The book just adds into the whole equation, a Fibonacci spiral….

 Will I stop listening to TOOL or going to their shows?  Of course not.  Same deal with seeing AC/DC live even if Marge Simpson is still their singer.  And Halford’s private life is not my concern, his music is.  These people are imperfect humans just like I am and their music is still top quality.   Sometimes, though, you find your heroes have clay feet.  And life goes on.