Better Call Saul

I’ve exhausted the Christmas topic, and don’t want to address – or spoil – any Star Wars “The Force Awakens” – issues, so I’ll tackle this one: “Better Call Saul”.   Season One is complete, and received sufficient ratings and applause to merit a second season, due out in 2016.  As an attorney myself, I found the subject matter extremely interesting, relevant, and relatable.  See below.

Background.  If you’re a “Breaking Bad” fan, you know who Saul Goodman is.  If you’re not…. Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) was the attorney who represented Walter White (Bryan Cranston) in his crystal meth business.  Because Walt’s business was not legal, he got a shady lawyer to represent him.  Saul wore double-breasted suits, had a flashy office in a non-flashy location (a decrepit strip mall), and advertised aggressively.  He had an arrogant and flamboyant style and no issue with not merely defending criminals such as Walt but also helping them perpetrate their criminal activities…for an appropriate fee. 

“Breaking Bad” is over, but Saul lives on.  Part of the charm of “Breaking Bad” was the host of fascinating characters:  not only Walt, but Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), Walt’s brother-in-law, DEA Agent Hank Schrader (Dean Norris), Gus Frings (Giancarlo Esposito), Mike Ehrmentraut (Jonathan Banks), and many more.  If it were just Walt, we’d have lost interest long ago.

Fans of “Breaking Bad” will recognize Mike (Banks), whose background gets far more attention now that we have the luxury of not dealing with Walt or Jesse, neither of whom seem to show up here.  (Maybe they’ll show Walt teaching Jesse chemistry in high school…in Season 2). 

This show takes place a few years before “Breaking Bad”, but still in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  It has a habit of going to flashbacks without warning, leaving you to guess the time frame from context.  It seems that Saul, who isn’t even Jewish, used to be James “Jimmy” McGill, originally from Chicago, Illinois.  His older brother Chuck (Michael McKean) is a former partner in a prestigious firm, Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill (aka “HHM”) but is now semi-retired due to a bizarre allergy to electricity.   Jimmy used to be a scam artist back in Chicago and only moved to New Mexico to start a new life, starting in the mail room at Chuck’s firm.  

As yet, he’s still Jimmy.  Since this takes place before “Breaking Bad”, we know that both Saul and Mike survive whatever challenges and dangers they face, but it’s still entertaining to see how they do it – Saul/Jimmy through fast talking, Mike through general bad-ass-ness, a former cop from Philadelphia who had to move west under questionable circumstances. 

Inspired by Chuck, Jimmy finished his college online and managed to get a Juris Doctor from an online law school, the University of American Samoa.  On his third try he managed to pass the New Mexico bar exam (I have to wonder what the State Bar of New Mexico thinks of the show).  With no help or support from Chuck, he started his own practice, with an office tucked away in a Vietnamese nail salon.  He drives a used, beaten Suzuki Esteem with mismatched doors.   Still “James McGill”, most of his cases are flat-rate court-appointed criminal cases, representing mostly guilty and unsympathetic defendants. 

For the meantime, he’s trying to build a practice as a sole practitioner.  Normally you would expect he could get into his brother’s firm on the ground floor – he started off in the mail room – but alas, it’s not that simple, for reasons which become clear by the end of the season.  Aside from court appointed work, he’s also trying to do wills for elderly clients, which leads him to a huge class action case – and eventually friction with his brother. 

Usually a lawyer has two paths to stardom.  Either he 4.0’s in college and then gets into a top law school, then does law review and gets hired by the top law firm.  OR… he slogs along either as a sole proprietor or in small firms, hoping to ace a super huge, impressive case which will get him the attention of a big firm (very likely the big firm he won that case against), willing to ignore his lack of pedigree and recognize his talent.  The latter is Saul’s “career track”.

Is he unethical?  That’s the initial impression and one the show enjoys reinforcing – up to a point.   Taking court-appointed criminal cases, representing defendants who are mostly guilty and unsympathetic, inevitably reflects poorly on the attorney himself, even if he’s just doing his job. 

A lawyer with a better pedigree would probably start out as a junior prosecutor and eventually establish a private defense practice after earning the top prosecutor job (District Attorney, or in Virginia, Commonwealth’s Attorney), or possibly US Attorney (federal prosecutor).  My experience has been that even for junior, entry level prosecutor positions, the US Attorneys’ offices only hire Ivy League, law review, law school graduates.  There’s definitely an upper stratosphere of the legal profession which begins in law school and continues throughout the career tracks of attorneys.  Breaking into that upper crust, if you didn’t start out there to begin with, is almost impossible – as Jimmy is finding out.  As of “Breaking Bad” he’s still a sole practitioner, so we’ll have to see what happens in later seasons of this show. 

Myself, I went to George Mason University School of Law, which could be considered a second tier law school.  Even there, I didn’t finish in the top of the class or do law review.  Upon graduating I worked for a sole practitioner until he got hired by a firm, worked for various small firms, and still work for myself, as a sole practitioner with two attorneys working for me as independent contractors.  I never won any big, huge, high publicity cases which would earn me the attention of a big firm.  To that extent I can identify with Jimmy, even though I was never a scam artist; I went to law school directly from college, with that plan as far back as high school.  I was honest prior to being a lawyer and remain honest and ethical as an attorney, whether I’m doing divorces, bankruptcies, criminal defense, or personal injury.  I neither seek out nor attract sleazy clients nor do I associate with meth dealers or corrupt cops.  What I share with Jimmy is surviving in the lower tier of the legal profession with neither glamor nor riches.   At least not yet, but I have no more hope or expectation than Jimmy has of breaking into the top stratosphere of wealthy attorneys.  We’ll see. 

Jimmy’s case is off-kilter because of his colorful past.  The assumption is that “Slippin’ Jimmy” from Cicero, IL will simply be an equally unethical attorney in Albuquerque.  The law office in the nail salon and mismatched Esteem reinforce that.  Sure enough, some of his initial business is shady: he runs a scam with some skaterats, which ends poorly [“You’re a lousy attorney!” “Hey, I got you from down from a death sentence to a broken leg.  I’d say that’s a good deal.”]  

In fact, you may wonder, never mind passing the bar exam on three tries, how the board of bar examiners even let him take the exam at all.  The Bar is highly sensitive to its reputation and diligently screens applicants for background and ethics.  Presumably his “Chicago sunroof” incident may have been the only transgression which made it into the court system.  We can’t give Chuck any credit, as Jimmy did all of this without Chuck’s knowledge.   Chuck probably would have torpedoed Jimmy’s bar application had he known about it – which explains why he was unpleasantly surprised rather than proud to hear that Jimmy passed the bar exam.

Anyhow, notwithstanding the Chicago sunroof, Jimmy is slowly but surely changing his attitude.  He knows he won’t get respect as an attorney – least of all from his prestigious but arrogant brother – until he cleans up his legal act.  He wants to do the right thing.  And ultimately, forced to make a hard choice, he usually decides to do the right thing. 

Or does he?  The last scene of Season One leads us to wonder.   Those of us who know him as Saul Goodman might conclude that he remains in the nether regions of the legal profession because he knows the top lawyers will never accept him as one of their own no matter how hard he works and what brilliant jobs he does for even the most respectable and sympathetic clients.  Stay tuned.

                                                                         * * *

By the way… 1) I still think of Michael McKean as a) Lenny from “Laverne & Shirley” and b) David St. Hubbins from “Spinal Tap”.  He always has an indelible stamp of arrogance he can’t seem to avoid no matter what the role.  2) If you REALLY like Bob Odenkirk, check out “Mr. Show”, a variety show he did a few years back (before “Breaking Bad”) with David Cross.  I found it funny, if a bit hit-or-miss.  

The Taiping Rebellion

Known as the bloodiest conflict before World War II, this took place in Central China between the Imperialists (Qing Dynasty), i.e. the government, and Christian rebels.  As so often the case, I’m running off OMA, in this case, 275, The Taiping Rebellion 1851-66, and my old friend Wikipedia.

Rebels.  The Society of God-Worshippers in Kwangsi Province.  Hung Hsiu Chuan, their charismatic leader, founded the movement based on visions he had leading him to believe he was Jesus’ younger brother.   They started with large numbers of volunteers, then resorted to conscription, and even drafted children.  The Taipings generally grew their hair long.  Hung himself died of food poisoning in 1864 as the siege of Nanking entered its final phase.

Government.   This was the Chinese Qing (aka Manchu) dynasty, the last before the 1911 revolution.  Its regular army was the 8 Banners and Green Standard, plus a large number of militia and irregulars.  Morale was low, corruption high, and desertion high.  Retreat was not disgraceful, so the forces melted away whenever met with resistance.  Imperialist forces generally kept the long pigtails.

The rebels initially took Nanking by March 1853, and from there made efforts to take Peking and Shanghai, both of which were unsuccessful.  For their part, the Imperialists also tried to take Nanking, but their blockade was beaten several times.  After the Taiping attacks on Shanghai failed, the Qings took the offensive back to Nanking and finally managed to take the city in 1864.  Remaining Taiping forces kept the Qings busy until the last forces were wiped out in 1866. 

Weapons.  This was a transition period between medieval weapons – swords, spears, bows & arrows, crossbows, etc. – and firearms, breech loading matchlocks and pistols, even huge muskets, jingtalls.  Cannons and rockets were also used.

Charles “Chinese” Gordon & the Ever-Victorious Army.  Despite British conflict with the Qing during the Opium Wars, the Europeans in Shanghai were actually concerned about the Taipings and allied with the Qing against them.  Since Imperial forces were typically poorly equipped and trained, a strong nucleus of well-trained and equipped Chinese volunteers – officered by experienced Westerners – helped out immensely: the Ever-Victorious Army.  Initially led by an American, Frederick Ward, eventually Gordon took over.   His role in leading this army gained him the nickname “Chinese”.  He was later killed in a revolt in Sudan in 1885.

Death Toll.  The main distinction of this war was the horrendous death toll – 20-30 million dead - far above World War I (8 million) and only exceeded by World War II (50 million).   Although the actual armies weren’t that large, the forces attacked and conscripted civilians regularly, with many massacres on a regular basis; thus the majority of casualties were civilian.  

C.L. Moore

Several months ago I read an article, I believe it was in Reason Magazine, about a relatively obscure author from the 1930s & 40s, Catherine L. Moore, popularly referred to as C.L. Moore.  In addition to being a contemporary of H.P. Lovecraft (HPL) and Robert E. Howard (REH), she also wrote stories for Weird Tales, and I’ve read at least one letter between her and Lovecraft, so they knew each other.

I managed to snag a compendium of her stories, used, The Best of C.L. Moore.  Incidentally, she tended to use “C.L.” to avoid being typecast as a female author, but given the subject matter my guess is that any experienced reader would be able to tell anyway.

Shambleau.  Her protagonist, Northwest Smith (possibly an inspiration for Indiana Jones) barely escapes the clutches of a seductive Medusa-like alien he saved from a lynch mob.

Black Thirst.  Northwest again.  A Minga woman invites Northwest into the forbidden Venusian fortress where she lives.  It turns out to be far larger than expected.   WHOA.

The Bright Illusion.  True love between a human male and an alien woman.  Kinda trippy and romantic.

The Black God's Kiss.  Moore introduces us to Jirel of Joiry, a female equivalent of Conan.  She too kills - in a different way.  This appeared in Weird Tales, and is truly weird.

Tryst In Time.  More love - a love that transcends and spans several different ages and epochs, souls reborn yet still the same.

Greater Than Gods.  A man is forced to choose between two very beautiful but very different women, and is shown the consequences, throughout his future lifetime, of each choice.  How can he choose?  Stay tuned.

Fruit of Knowledge.  The story of Lilith, Adam's first wife, before Eve.  Scandal!  Betrayal!  Jealousy!  It's Blake, Miranda, and Gwen in the Garden of Eden.  

No Woman Born.  A beautiful woman suffers a terrible accident which disfigures her - until she's turned into a beautiful robot - imagine those "Marilyn Monroe robot" posters from the 1970s.  What happens now?

Daemon.  No women in this one.  A feebleminded, soul-less Brazilian from Rio de Janeiro is stranded on an island with a wise old man, who dies on the island.  The pirate captain who stranded them both comes back to kill him off.

Vintage Season.  This features an amazing clique of eccentric tourists renting an oddly nondescript house in L.A. It turns out that these are tourists from another time coming to witness a historic natural disaster they know will soon occur.  This was turned into a movie, "Timescape", with Jeff Daniels, which I haven't seen.

Her style is densely verbose, similar to HPL and REH.  The majory difference is how often women and their issues become involved.  HPL himself almost completely ignored women, which led some to speculate that he was gay.  His wife, Sonia Greene, dismissed those rumors, and you would imagine she would be in a position to know.  For REH, women are mostly tagalong companions, except for Red Sonya ("Shadow of the Vulture").  Give HPL and REH a vagina and a heavy dose of estrogen, and you might wind up with CL Moore.  If you can tolerate their writing style you might enjoy hers.  They're all fairly long, but that aspect is at least novel.  Go for it.

Reefer Madness, Alice in Acidland, and Smoke & Flesh

I’ve already blogged on Thanksgiving, so I’ll go for something “completely different”: In other words, a horrendous trio of anti-drug films.  

“Reefer Madness”.  This is the original, from 1936, when marijuana was still called “reefer” and not yet (1937) illegal.  The characters look like typical characters from a contemporary film but generally tend to smoke pot and then everything goes downhill from there.   Apparently they all get addicted, go insane, and commit all sorts of crimes.  At the most benign, they laugh hysterically, play piano fast, and jump in bed with each other.  It’s so sensational as to be unbelievable.   Stoners seem to enjoy it precisely for that reason.  I find it more annoying than entertaining, but it has some inherent charm due to its age and unique implausibility.

Incidentally, they remade the film more recently (2005), with the remake being a full parody.  I watched it once and immediately erased it from my memory.  It’s in full color with fairly mainstream actors, follows the original plot loosely, but isn’t all that entertaining. 

“Alice in Acidland” and “Smoke & Flesh”.   Fast forward to the late 60s and LSD makes its debut.   If the first movie is any indication, it’s a powerful aphrodisiac which will make everyone have sex with everyone else – male and female.  More likely they would vegetate and watch the wallpaper scroll, or venture out in public to see what happens with the visuals.  Some might freak out – paranoid and overstimulated - and stay at home.  But chilling at home with lava lamps and music doesn’t seem to be on anyone’s LSD agenda in this film. 

            The second movie features marijuana but remains just as implausible.  Bikers and orgies.  Both have lots of skin – but if I wanted that, I’d watch something else.

The sad part about this is that as of 2015, very few people take these seriously, and the only people who watch them are looking to be entertained rather than warned.   As “warnings” they are too ridiculous to be credible.  As entertainment?  Scarcely even that, as the novelty wears thin almost immediately and they lose whatever entertainment value they might have.  They wind up as simply annoying.  Of them all, I’d say “Reefer Madness” is strange enough to be somewhat entertaining, while the other two have some nudity which may arouse some people.  None need to be permanent additions to your movie collection.  

Listening to idiots like Chris Christie – dude, NO ONE wants Fat Jerk from New Jersey as President – champion the drug war even now, it’s clear that some people are still stuck in the backwards mindset which produced these films.   

Yob and Kadavar

Another two stoner rock bands worthy of note and attention.  But before I reach them, I have a few comments.

First, as I noted before, notwithstanding the label, you don’t have to smoke marijuana to enjoy stoner rock.  Plenty of non-stoners enjoy Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, and the Grateful Dead.  If you can enjoy those bands without weed, you can enjoy any combination thereof.

Second, Brazil – again.  To my knowledge there are several Brazilian stoner rock bands, but as yet I haven’t heard them and can’t tell which are the Fu Manchu, Kyuss, Sleep, Saint Vitus, etc. of that country.   “This merits further study.”  When I have completed my analysis, rest assured, my loyal readers, you will hear about it.

Third.  The Portuguese word for marijuana is maconha, pronounced “mah-COIN-ya”.  In English we generally refer to marijuana smokers as being “stoned” and, refer to them as “stoners”.  Brazilians turn maconha into an adjective, maconhado (stoned – male; a stoned woman would be “maconhada”) and a noun, maconheiro (female, maconheira).  So a stoner rocker would be a metaleiro maconheiro.  A Brazilian stoner rock fan?  Metaleiro maconheiro brasileiro.  Being VERY stoned?  Maconhadão (-ão = BIG).   

Anyhow.  After awhile all those bands tend to sound the same, so when I find one that doesn’t, it’s a nice surprise.  Here are two who are sufficiently different – and different from each other.

Kadavar.  From Berlin, Germany.  This band has Christoph "Lupus" Lindemann (guitar/vocals), Christophe "Tiger" Bartelt (drums), and Simon "Dragon" Bouteloup (bass).  I have their most recent album, oddly enough titled Berlin.  It’s damn good.  Good hard rock, not too drony, and nice, airy production.  Too many bands compress the hell out of their stuff and it winds up sounding like some putrid fruit cake.  [QOTSA, please get Chris Goss back as your producer.]

 

YOB. Shamelessly ripping off Wikipedia (thanks!), YOB is a doom metal band from Eugene, Oregon: Aaron Rieseberg, Travis Foster, and Mike Scheidt. While Kadavar have shorter, snappier songs, Yob go for more an Electric Wizard style drone.  However, I was pleasantly surprised that the drone has some articulate jamming in it, instead of merely being endlessly repetitive.  The best analogy I can make is being smothered by a very dark, elaborate oriental carpet.  The melody changes up enough to avoid boring you to sleep.  I have Clearing the Path to Ascend, their newest album, four tracks between 11 and 18 minutes. 

Both bands are available on Spotify, so you have NO excuse not to get listening.  Now.  Thank you.  

Islam Re-Revisited

Another Friday the 13^th.  I hate the films.  And it’s rarely bad luck.  Here’s something completely different.

Obviously Islam is a relevant topic these days.   I can’t turn on the Book of Faces without seeing someone bark and bray about “banning Sharia” or “Muslims taking over America”.  I have a few things to say on this topic, which might be rather provocative.  Bear with me.

Misguided Satanists.   As we know, Islam is the religion founded by Arabian warlord Mohammad in the early 600s.  He claimed Allah told him a bunch of stuff, most (if not all) of which was fairly self-serving.  The most accurate description of this religion is that it was made up by him to justify his military campaigns to take over as much of the known world as he could.  His followers carried on the tradition after his death in 632 and continue worshipping Allah and attempting to spread his Word even to this day.   There are several predominantly Muslim countries, and one (Shi’ite) theocracy, Iran.  The Sunnis of Iraq and Syria have attempted to set up a competing Sunni theocracy in those countries.

C.S. Lewis.  In his The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe series of books, Lewis created a fictional race of Calormenes, who worship a deity named Tash.  These were obviously meant to be Muslims worshipping Allah.  Aslan, the wise and benevolent talking Lion, tells the children that Tash is essentially the Devil.  “Good deeds done in Tash’s name are in fact done in my name, and evil deeds done in my name are actually done in Tash’s name”.  Even Lewis, having identified Allah as Satan, still recognized that there were good Muslims and evil Christians. 

If you don’t believe God or Satan exist, then “Allah” is an imaginary being created by Mohammed to justify his exploits.   Neither option – Satan or make-believe deity – reflects well on Islam.

Reformed Church of Satan.   It’s too difficult for me to conceive that Muslims around the world consciously worship the Devil.  Naturally they view Allah as God.  And Islam has a Devil, Iblis, in their theology.  I’ve yet to hear of any sect of Islam that worships Iblis, as the Devil.

            In the US, we have self-professed Satanists.   In particular, I’m familiar with Anton LaVey, his Church of Satan, and his Satanic Bible, which I own and have read.  Oddly, despite ostensibly worshipping the Devil himself, these “Satanists” are really atheists.  Their brand of Satanism is more accurately described as a deliberately provocative form of atheism which personifies Man and his right to carnal and physical pleasure while he lives his short and brutal life on this planet, followed by eternal oblivion.   LaVey’s positions were extremely close to Ayn Rand’s, and we know she was an atheist too, although I’m not aware of any actual connection between the two.  Rand would have considered LaVey as an arrogant huckster who elevated atheism into a circus sideshow to gain popularity and notoriety for himself.

…so what?   Having said that, I don’t believe Muslims in the United States are any threat to us.  Here is why.

Rome.   This is the capital of world Catholicism.  Rather, I should say, the Vatican City, which has a population of ….557.   Rome itself has a population of 4 million.  There are 1.2 billion Catholics around the world.  The largest Catholic country is Brazil, with 124 million Catholics.   Clearly, 1.2 billion cannot fit in the Vatican, nor in Rome, or even Italy.  I visited Roma and the Vatican myself in 1981 on a school trip, but have no desire to live there.  Nor, it seems, do the Catholics living outside Rome. 

Israel.  There are 14 million Jews worldwide, of which 83% live in Israel and the US.  Zionism aside, not all Jews want to live in Israel.   Half the world’s Jews live in Israel, most of the other half in the US.

Mecca.  Islam’s holy city has a permanent population of 1.6 million.  While all Muslims have a duty to make a lifetime pilgrimage to Mecca, living there permanently appears to be neither required nor expected.   Worldwide there are 1.7 billion Muslims.

Muslims in the US.  Less than 1% of the US population is Muslim.  There are far more Buddhists and atheists – plus Jews, of course – than there are Muslims.  The US is almost 80% Christian.  Of a population of 321 million, that means 256 million Christians and 3 million Muslims.  By numbers alone, it would be almost impossible for Muslims to establish a majority in this country.  And I don’t even think they want to do this.  Why?

Someone posted an infographic on how the world’s Muslim countries are the poorest, shittiest, countries.  Maybe true for Bangladesh, less so for Turkey or Saudi Arabia.  Iraq and Syria are unlikely to get better any time soon.  Egypt isn’t too bad.  Libya is having problems.  Anyhow.

Islam has different varieties:  at the very least there is Sh’ite vs. Sunni, and even the Sunnis have different sects.  If you live in Iran, you have to be Shi’ite.  Presumably living in ISIS controlled territory you have to be Sunni.  When Muslims get uptight about their religion, they are particularly harsh on fellow Muslims who don’t worship Allah quite the same way. 

We take our religious freedom in the US for granted.  We don’t have to worry that our church will blow up, that strangers will accost us on the street and threaten us if we don’t convert to Mormonism, or receive thinly veiled anonymous threats of violence.  Christians in Egypt come to the US to escape persecution, and Muslims come to the US for similar reasons.  (Also, to leave places where suicide bombers and rocket attacks, or all-out war, are a daily risk.)

Again, here in the US, which is less than 1% Muslim?  No one gives a damn.  If Abdul wants to get a bacon cheeseburger at McDonald’s or Burger King, or drink alcohol, or do any of the things which Islam declares “haram” (forbidden), who will stop him?  Who will even care?  Abdul and his family are free to do as they please, without being harassed by the locals about how they practice Islam.  They get to enjoy the benefits of living in a huge, rich country with no Civil War (since 1865), no suicide bombings, no Sharia, no Imams, none of the hassles Muslims have to deal with in Muslim countries.  And most likely they came here for THAT REASON.  So turning the US into a Muslim country is not only impossible, it’s highly undesirable – it defeats the purpose of why they came here, which is not to turn the US into another screwed up Muslim country, but to live somewhere that isn’t a screwed up Muslim country. 

Suicide bombers.   Ok, take away the risk of an outright takeover.  Muslim suicide bombers could still cause problems, right?  Not really. 

            Aside from 9/11, we haven’t seen any suicide bombings in the US.  That Muslim guy in Texas – the Army guy who went BSI – didn’t even blow himself up, nor did the idiots who tried to blow up the World Trade Center back in 1993.  It looks like the shooting spree yahoos who do shoot themselves at the end were all non-Muslims.  The guy at Initech with the unpronounceable name isn’t blowing himself up.  And I don’t see Arab oil sheiks who already have harems of 72 women on this worldly planet blowing themselves up.  Mostly it’s loser virgin boys from Loserstan who do that.  Muslims in the US know they’re well off.  They have too much to lose.  Not gonna happen. 

9/11 & ISIS.   The attack on 9/11 was definitely a bad one.  19 Saudis learned to fly jumbo jets and took down the World Trade Center, knocked a hole in the Pentagon (now fixed), and messed up the Pennsylvania countryside – plus all the crew and passengers on all 4 flights and many firemen and first responders on the ground.  To date, ISIS remains dominant in much of northwest Iraq and northeast Syria.  The Taliban looks like it’s taking back much lost ground in Afghanistan.  The crazies are definitely NOT done yet.  However, those theaters are on the other side of the world from us and no threat to the continental US.

            Closer to home, and more relevant to our concerns here, among all those “peaceful” Muslims coming to the US, who knows how many are truly peaceful and how many are Al Qaeda sleeper cells?  It might be arrogant to assume that 100% of them succumb to the charms of American society.  The FBI needs to remain vigilant at home (while respecting our Constitutional rights, a balance we can acknowledge is not always easy or obvious to make), and the cowboys from Langley better be on top of their game overseas.  Aside from the yahoo in Fort Hood, Texas, and the Boston bombings, all of our mass shootings since 9/11 have been home grown nutjobs with non-Islamic agendas.  But that doesn’t mean there’s not another cell of the same caliber as the 19 from 9/11 cooking up a scheme to do something bad.  However, we’ve seen those to be few and far between.  We have far more to worry about in our daily lives from the mundane dangers of cancer, highway accidents, or random, good old American street crime, to make it sensible to worry about the extremely remote odds of another terrorist attack from Muslims.  They are, in fact, the least of our worries. 

So if you’re obsessed about Muslims invading from Mexico or another 9/11…get a massive clue and CHILL OUT.  They may be Satanists but they’re really no threat to us.  

Pickups

By this I mean the kind that go in electric guitars, not pickup trucks.   I’m also ignoring bass guitar pickups and acoustic pickups.

Anyone who has ever strummed an electric guitar when it wasn’t plugged in knows you need an amplifier to make noise.  Anyone who has ever played a Stratocaster AND a Les Paul can probably tell the difference between a single coil and a double coil pickup.

Single Coils.   These were the first and featured on Fender Telecasters (2) and Stratocasters (3).  Gibson’s P90 and Soapbar pickups are also single coils.  They have a very bright and twangy sound – as a baseline.  But Jimmy Page reminds you that Led Zeppelin I, including “Dazed and Confused” and “How Many More Times” was recorded on his Telecaster, not the Les Paul he acquired by the time LZ II came around.   Even so, even with a Marshall 1x12” tube amp, I still didn’t like the single coil in my ’62 Vintage Stratocaster, and traded the guitar in for a Fat Strat with a humbucker in the bridge position.

Double Coils.  Most famously done by Gibson and its “PAF” “humbuckers” from 1957 onward.  The Firebird pickup is a variation of the “mini-humbucker” later released on the late 60s Les Paul Deluxes.  Double coils have a noticeably chunkier, meatier sound, even when clean.

Active vs. Passive.  Most pickups are passive, but some – EMGs are the most popular – use a 9 volt battery to supercharge them to active status.  I’ve found the EMG81s in my Gibson Explorer to be warm and thick sounding, even more so than most humbuckers.   EMGs have gotten much more popular in recent years, probably due to James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett (Metallica) installing them in all their guitars, including their signature models from ESP and Gibson. 

Ceramic vs. AlNiCo.  Here’s where it starts getting esoteric.   Recently I joined the Gibson Firebird group on Facebook, and the issue came up that Gibson currently equips its Firebirds with ceramic magnet pickups, whereas the original 1960s models had Alnico magnets in the pickups.  There’s a Johnny Winter signature Firebird pickup which has Alnico magnets.  As you can imagine, the purists scoff at ceramics, while the rest of us wonder, “what’s the difference?”  I watched a Youtube video someone posted of a Firebird being played, before and after, re: a swap to Alnico magnets.  Verdict?  To my ears, a VERY small difference, barely noticeable.   

Bottom line, if the word “ALNICO” makes you hard or wet, by all means indulge yourself.  Eric Johnson claims he can tell the difference in sound in pedals depending on what brand of 9 volt battery you put in.  Is he right?  Who knows.  Do what you want.

So what’s in my guitars?

Gibson SG Standard (ebony, small pickguard).  Stock Gibson humbuckers.   I had Iommi models in my prior SG ’62, but to be honest I never heard much of a difference.

Gibson Explorer (ebony).  EMG81s.

Gibson Les Paul (Black Cherry Pearl).  Stock Gibson humbucker in the neck position, but bridge switched out to a Gibson 500T (black & crème zebra coils).   This is the hottest pickup Gibson makes, and it blazes through the Marshalls.  Gibson used to put this in the Les Paul Classic, which is how I found about it, but not anymore.  Fortunately it’s still available as an aftermarket pickup.

Gibson Firebird (2013 reissue)(ebony).  Stock Firebird pickups, ceramic model.  I’m not sold on the Alnicos.

Fender Stratocaster (Fat Strat).  This has a S-S-H format (humbucker in the bridge position).  I replaced the Fender humbucker with a DiMarzio Tone Zone zebra coil (black & white).  I also replaced the tuners (vintage) with locking tuners – just insert the string, turn the knob, and it locks – and a V-Runner Tremelo, which ups the sustain a bit.