Whitesnake

Reviewing my blogs I realized I’d never reviewed this band, per se, though I’d mentioned them earlier.  A proper blog entry is in order at this…juncture.

In 1976 Deep Purple had run its course, with the Mark IV line-up crashing and burning.  Although their sole album with guitarist Tommy Bolin, Come Taste The Band, was up to standard, it turns out he had a heroin addiction the rest of the band had no clue about – until they toured overseas in places like Indonesia where he couldn’t score from local sources and he buzzed out on withdrawal symptoms.  Hint:  “drugs are bad, m’kay?”

The band decided to call it a day and go their separate ways, Bolin himself dying of a heroin overdose a few months later. 

Ian Gillan, fired from Mark II a few years before, formed a solo band.   Ritchie Blackmore, who quit after two albums with Mark III, started his own band, Rainbow.  The most substantial project was Whitesnake, centered around vocalist David Coverdale.

Initially this was just the name of his first solo album (David Coverdale’s Whitesnake), followed by Northwinds.  Then he started a proper band, Whitesnake, with an EP, Snakebite, and an album, Trouble.  This early stage of the band was R&B, classic rock, with provocative album covers and a familiar sound.  Maybe too familiar – my high school buddy Sean C. dismissed them as Led Zeppelin clones.

Subsequent discography:  Lovehunter, Ready An’ Willing, Come An’ Get It, Saints & Sinners, Slide It In.  Of these, my favorite is a toss-up.  Lovehunter has by far the best album cover, with the attractively proportioned and above all naked woman riding an improbably large snake (which isn’t even white, by the way), but I’m less keen on the music itself.  I did get the t-shirt of the album before getting the album itself, even wearing it to high school on the last day   Saints & Sinners has my favorite collection of songs, including the original versions of “Here I Go Again” and “Crying in the Rain”, which resurfaced on the self-titled album, and the very first song I ever learned to play on guitar, the title track itself, “Saints & Sinners”. 

The line-up tended to change regularly, with singer Coverdale the constant along with guitarists Bernie Marsden and Mickey Moody.  Ian Paice and Jon Lord ( >> 3/5 of Deep Purple Mark III/IV) served a short stint, as did bassist Neil Murray.  Glenn Hughes was never asked to join.  This era ended with Slide It In, released in 1984.  Sadly, I never got to see this era live; my brother and I only started going to concerts in late 1984. 

At this point Coverdale took the band in a completely new direction, more hair metal, Dokken, Motley Crue, etc. with the self-titled album three years later (1987)  Having said that, he mastered the genre and the album sold like crazy.   It was this tour that I finally got to see them play live – Baltimore Arena, 2/4/1988.  “Still of the Night” is probably one of their best songs.

Whitesnake, Slip of the Tongue, Restless Heart, Good To Be Bad, Forevermore, The Purple Album, Flesh & Blood.

White I have all the prior albums, I don’t have all of these.  We did see the Purple album tour, at NYCB Westbury on Long Island (7/27/15), the night after seeing Deep Purple.   This album has Coverdale, with his current lineup, cover Deep Purple Mark III and IV songs, from Burn, Stormbringer, and Come Taste The Band.  Can’t say I enjoy these versions as much as the originals, but I certainly did enjoy hearing them again, along with the rest of the material, on Long Island. 

Gentlemen Comrades

Not to be confused with “Comrade Detective”, a miniseries which takes place in Bucharest in 1984, back when Ceaucescu was still running things.  That deserves a brief mention on its own merits.  All the actors are Romanian and speak Romanian (with English subtitles), but in addition to the subtitles, they are overdubbed in English by A-List actors such as Channing Tatum, who seem to heartily enjoy the whole thing.  It hit a soft spot for me, having been to Bucuresti in 2006 and having a failed romance with a buxom and provocative but unfaithful Romanian woman, Gia.  Maybe that affair deserves a blog entry – maybe not.  Anyhow.

This one is in Russian with English subtitles and takes place in early 1918.  It seems Bolsheviks took over and immediately fired all former Tsarist police officers, and/or Okhrana, Tsar’s secret police.  By way,  Okhrana, in 1904 (!!!!) was investigating whether someone would fly a biplane loaded with TNT into Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.  Decades before 9/11, and only a year after Wright Brothers flew, someone in law enforcement was already checking this out.  Amazing.

Anyhow.  Firing all former cops didn’t magically make crime disappear in USSR, and new Bolshevik cops, perhaps politically reliable, had zero experience chasing down ordinary criminals, so Reds reluctantly realized that maybe – just maybe – it might be a good idea to swallow their pride and ask a former Tsarist police detective, one they didn’t summarily execute or send to Siberia, to help out.   Fortunately for them, they found a very competent and patient man to do so: Varaksin.   They team him up with a new Bolshevik officer – still wearing his striped shirt from the Navy’s Baltic Fleet – Sokolov (catchphrase: “friggin’ soot!”) – and together they solve crimes in new U S S R.  Quite interesting.

I have several guns – not an Arsenal, of course – and if one of those guns figures prominently in a movie or TV show I can’t help but pull it out while I watch and enjoy.   In Season 4 of “Man in the High Castle”, rebels are equipped with Russian submachine guns and AK47s, latter of which I own, so naturally my all-black AK47 wound up in my arms as I saw Juliana and her comrades attack Nazi portal in Pennsylvania.  

Here, most prominent weapon is Mosin-Nagant bolt-action rifle – usually with bayonet attached.  (One character, Melnikov, accuses Bolsheviks of waving Mausers around, to which Sokolov replies that he prefers Mosin – although only weapon I see him brandishing on a regular basis is his revolver.)  I have 91/30 rifle, from its markings produced at state arsenal in 1932, full length with bolt sticking straight out (like original German Mauser Gewehr 98 of WWI) – carbine and sniper models have bolt turned down (like Mauser 98K of WWII).  Although I have bayonet, I prefer not to attach it to avoid accidents. 

Up to now there are 16 episodes.  No word yet on whether there will be subsequent seasons, as they haven’t even reached July 1918 when Tsar and his entire family were murdered in Sverdlovsk amidst the Civil War.  Latter only petered out in 1922 when Bolsheviks finally managed to defeat each of competing forces in turn (see my reprint of my Russian Civil War blog).   Intriguing that Bolshevik officers recognize Varaksin’s competence but also reliability, especially since Cheka is here in black leather jackets (English subtitles prematurely referring to them as KGB).       

Ghost Riders

At the end of World War II in Europe, things started getting pretty chaotic.   On two separate occasions, US and German forces wound up cooperating.   The earlier occasion, as described in The Last Battle, a castle housing high profile POWs came under attack by Waffen SS forces and was defended by a joint force of US troops AND regular German Wehrmacht, i.e. US and German forces fought alongside each other against the elite Waffen SS forces – successfully.   

The second occasion involved the Spanish Riding School of Vienna, Austria, which had been moved from Vienna to Czechoslovakia to escape Allied bombing, only to come under threat of winding up in the Soviet sphere of occupation.   The bigger issue was that the riding school had fancy Lippinzaner horses, Europe’s finest, but by that time in the war the Soviets were 99% likely to simply kill and eat the horses, which many considered suboptimal.

A dialogue opened between the Germans and US forces nearby coming under the command of Patton himself.  The complications were that remnants of the Second SS Panzer Division “Das Reich” were in the neighborhood, as were advance elements of the Red Army, and the latter were, by prior agreement, to have exclusive control over Czechoslovakia. 

Fortunately, conflict was avoided between US and Red Army forces.   Moreover, by this time what experience the SS had was compromised by its Tigers and Panthers being out of gas, reducing them to an infantry unit with zero air support.   US forces briefly scuffled with them, but unlike the other incident, did so without any regular Wehrmacht units fighting by their sides.   The horses were saved, “and there was much rejoicing”.

Remarkably, they made a movie of the incident the early 1960s, by Disney (!), featuring Roger Taylor and Eddie Albert. 

The Miracle of the White Stallions (DVD).  Ghost Riders helpfully noted that the events in question were dramatized in a Disney movie from 1963, this one.  It doesn’t follow exactly the same parties, but the story is essentially the same:

 

1.         The fancy horses are in danger

2.         Conscientious German officers (e.g. Robert Taylor as Pojhadsky and Eddie Albert as another high ranking German officer, identified as “Rider Otto”) move them out of Vienna,

3.         They determine that the Soviets will most likely end up with them and at the very least reduce them to pack animals (affected shudder of effeminate disbelief), if not actually eat them as juicy, delicious horse steaks washed down with vodka;

4.         Germans meet up with Americans and reach an agreement, including an appearance by General Patton himself who appears unimpressed with a horse show but eventually decides that the whole endeavor is still worthwhile;

5.         brief encounter between US forces and Waffen SS;

6.         No sign of Russians (not on best terms with them as of 1963)

7.         Horses successfully moved out of Soviet zone to safety in US zone, Bavaria

8.         1955 Horse show after everything sorted out.  Look!  Lippinzaners! 

Note that the only combat occurring in this whole business was between US forces and the Waffen SS (Second SS Panzer Division “Das Reich”).  I never thought I’d see the Waffen SS appear in a Disney movie.   The dot cammo uniforms are not authentic but close enough – only Waffen SS nerds like me are liable to notice, let alone care.  Bu they did have Mausers, MP40s and MG42s, which was nice and authentic. 

What’s funny was that although technically many of the German units still alive at this time – mid-April 1945 – still had some Panther and Tiger tanks, they were almost all out of gas, so they couldn’t go anywhere.  Around this time Hitler sent his remaining forces into Hungary, when Berlin itself was under siege by the Red Army, because with Romania long gone, the depots in Hungary were his last remaining source of gasoline for the German armored units.  Oh, and the Germans had long lost any air cover, so in the unlikely event they did scavenge enough gas for a tank to move anywhere, Allied fighter-bombers would blast them to oblivion.

 

Obviously the Americans in the movie are heroes, including Patton himself (not played by George C. Scott, though his “Dr. Strangelove” role was about this time), but it’s odd that with the exception of the brief appearance of the Waffen SS units in one combat scene, all the Germans in this film are effectively heroes as well.  Not only that, when they’re transporting the horses to St. Martin, the train comes under attack by fighters.  These are almost certainly Allied.  So we have the Germans as good guys and the Allied air forces as bad guys.  D’oh!

Shazam!

Normally I’d post on Friday, December 27, but I was in the hospital for a tongue swelling, only released the next day, the second time since summer with the same problem.  As it was the following weekend I finally finished watching the Shazam! TV series which dates from 1974-76 on Saturday morning TV.   That finishes the trio:  “Shazam!” (movie which came out), the 1940s serial, and the 70s version.

Growing up in Montgomery Village, Gaithersburg, Maryland in the mid 1970s, I’d watch these, though no specific episode strikes me specific recollection.   I also had a large compendium of the original comics.  Recently I caught the movie version.

1940s.  A true serial, back to back episodes, though the final didn’t make any sense.  Special effects about what you’d expect for that that era.  Obviously I’m too young to remember this firsthand, nor did I read any of the Whiz! Paperback comics for the source material.  Watch it once and that’s it.  

1970s.  Three discs, 1974-76.  Billy Batson (Michael Gray) and The Mentor (Les Tremayne) drive around the L.A. area in a camper lecturing local youths about how to behave.  Captain Marvel is magically summoned by Billy Batson simply saying “Shazam!”, played initially by Jackson Bostwick, then by John Davey, not exactly a twin.   It turns out Bostwick was injured while filming, his doctor advised him to take a few days off, and the producers accused him of holding out for more money, fired him, and replaced him with Davey, cynically arguing – incorrectly – that the audience wouldn’t notice.  Bostwick argued otherwise and was proven right, even won the remainder of his payroll.  So much for teaching morals and ethics.

I grew up watching these as a kid.  They were teamed up with the “ISIS” show, back when Egyptian mythology was big.  As an adult I find the dialogue extremely limited in entertainment, as with the special effects.   To the extent we all grew up watching shows filmed in L.A. in the 70s we kind of grew up there without ever actually visiting there.  And somehow we survived the insipid dialogue. 

Movie.   Put out by the DC Comics people.   Apparently someone realized that Deadpool (Marvel) was getting all the laughs and the DC crowd needed someone willing to make a joke, so they co-opted Captain Marvel and voila!   Actually they did a fairly good job of it.   Zachary Levi plays Captain Marvel himself, whereas Mark Strong plays Dr. Sivana, the traditional evil mad scientist villain nemesis for Captain Marvel. 

Natural High

I had occasion to drive to Winchester, Virginia, for a divorce case in Frederick County, Virginia, only my second occasion to practice in this neck of the woods.  The drive took 90 minutes from Falls Church, and went through some extremely aesthetically pleasing parts of the Virginia countryside.   Thankfully this was during the day and sunshine; a nighttime or cloudy journey wouldn’t have been nearly as enjoyable.

Circa 2019, cannabis has expanded in legality throughout our country, with many states legalizing its use medically, if not recreationally.  Virginia remains one of the few to refuse to even decriminalize it, though the recent victory of the Democrats in taking control over our General Assembly (Virginia state legislature) in Richmond might finally overcome the forces of Phillip Morris and R.J. Reynolds in at least decriminalizing the use of marijuana, which remains a misdemeanor with jail time on the table for simple possession.  

That being the case, not everyone in the Commonwealth has the luxury of indulging in the enjoyment of marijuana.  Thus we’re induced to seek other sources of euphoria, a “natural high”.  

Note: it is not my intention herein to either encourage or promote, or to discourage or disparage, marijuana use.  Some reasons for not doing so:

1.         It’s illegal in my state (e.g. Virginia)

2.         I don’t know anyone selling it

3.         My job drug tests

4.         I have a spouse and minor children in my household

5.         I have respiratory issues, e.g. asthma

6.         Not my scene, man.

Any of these are fine.   Each of us has to make our own decision, taking into account our lifestyles and the relevant laws of our jurisdiction.   When in doubt, ask the prosecutor charging you with possession with intent to distribute. 

As noted, idyllic countrysides certainly do it for me.   Here are some other examples.

1.         Winning a court case, or at least leaving the courtroom with a satisfactory outcome.

2.         Settling a case on favorable terms.

3.         Receiving a package in the mail.

4.         Receiving a letter from my comrade on Long Island.  Yes, some of us still write letters, though by now it’s on word processors and not by hand.

5.         Opening presents on Christmas morning or on my birthday.

6.         Seeing my Minnesota Vikings defeat another team, ideally the Packers, Lions or Bears.

7.         Enjoying a steak & cheese sub, Domino’s or Vocelli’s pizza, tacos at Chipotle, or other delight.

8.         Enjoying a good movie or TV show

9.         Enjoying a good concert, or music at home/car/treadmill

10.        Sleeping late during the weekend – waking up when I normally would on a weekday, and turning back to sleep as long as I want (probably an hour or two more)

11.        Blasting away at targets at the range, in the following calibers:  9mm, 8mm Mauser, .30-06, .223/5.56mm, 7.62x39, and 7.62x54R.   Still working on getting an FN FAL to shoot 7.62x51.

12.        Hanging out with my brother, my relatives, and my friends.   I’m happy to say our family doesn’t seem to have any black sheep with whom we don’t get along – to my knowledge.

13.        Playing guitar.   Usually a Gibson, but sometimes a Stratocaster.   My preference is for the warm, thick, smooth distortion of a Marshall tube amp, but Marshall does not have a monopoly on aurally pleasant tones:  Mesa Boogie, Orange, Fender, Hiwatt, and other amp companies have also managed to give us such beauty for our ears.

14.        Going through my old neighborhood where I grew up as a kid – Montgomery Village, near Gaithersburg, Maryland.  Driving up and down Rockville Pike, aka Route 355.

And last but not least….

15.        Intimacy.   I think we all know what that means.

MJ advocates might well argue that all the forgoing are made more enjoyable with the assistance of cannabis, though some – such as concerts – are more amenable to such improvement than others, e.g. court appearances.   Most likely true.  But even if you were able to toke, you couldn’t do so 24/7.   I can imagine some might try, but at some point you’ll have to derive some form of pleasure from something other than marijuana.  Which puts you with the rest of us seeking some pleasure from non-THC sources.  Let our lives be a optimal aggregate of maximum pleasure from whatever sources we can find, and not at anyone else’s expense.   AMEN.

Babylon Berlin

Friday the Thirteenth!  Well, I don’t care for horror movies, including that one.  Sorry, Jason.

This TV series, two 8 episode seasons, is on Netflix, in German with English subtitles. 

Ok, now my all-too-patient readers are sensing MORE NAZI CRAP on the way, but rest assured, not quite.

This takes place in – drum roll, please – BERLIN, Germany, but during 1929, before the Crash in October.   Nazis do appear briefly, as a bunch of SA stormtroopers on a train platform in a later episode, but otherwise not mentioned or important.  The party really didn’t get in high gear until after the crash occurred and a third of German workers were unemployed, seeking answers from either the NSDAP or their major competitor, Kommunist Partei Deutschland (KPD).  So as yet the Nazis are NOT a factor here.   The Soviets are, and the embassy has some cool Stalin stuff, the NKVD, Cheka, or whatever they had at that time being very active – as are the Trotskyists, who remained active up until the man’s own demise in 1940. 

Among the Berlin police are a few interesting people who are wrapped up in crimes going on for 16 episodes.

The main guy is Inspector Gereon Rath (Volker Bruch), originally from Cologne.   Like most adult males in Germany, he served in the trenches in WWI and still has nasty flashbacks, which we’d describe as PTSD.   He takes morphine, because apparently killer weed was not available in Germany at the time. 

His partner is Detective Chief Inspector Bruno Wolfer (Peter Kurth), a chubby, highly cynical guy who is easy to hate but not impossible to like.  He’s one of the more corrupt police officers on the force and we eventually see how bad he is later. 

The third is cute flapper Charlotte Ritter (Liv Lisa Fries), who works as a police clerk pending her attempts to break through the glass ceiling and become an actual police inspector.  She moonlights as a “compensated female companion” at the Moka Efti cabaret – which proves inconvenient when her boss Wolfer shows up expecting to actually patronize the establishment.  Oops. 

There are many, many others, including the charismatic crime lord known as the Armenian.  Believe me, lots of stuff going on, you’ll love it, unbelievable, it'll make your head spin, trust me, etc.   Apparently Berlin back then was fairly swinging and exciting, an image the show is trying hard to promote.  How that translates to tourism 90 years later in 2019, I don’t know.  Thank God for the subtitles because as Germanophile as I am with a year of high school German and two semesters of college GERM classes, it’s not nearly enough to catch the dialogue. 

Oh, and there’s a third season on its way, so maybe we’ll see what happens when the market crashes….   

Geezin'

I’m getting older, as we all are.  In my case, it’s 50 (born in 1969).   Here are a few things I’ve noticed.  Those of you in my age bracket may relate, and those of you who are younger, here’s what you can expect.   As a male, I can’t comment on menopause, so I’ll stick with what I know.

Metabolism.   This has gone down, so I’m up at 225 lb from 200.   Moreover, exercise no longer succeeds at keeping weight down or losing it the way it used to.  The most effective way was the treadmill, but whereas I could run at up 7 mph in the past, anything past 5 mph these days causes Mr. Ankle and Mr. Knee to stridently complain.   So I’ve had to change over to bicycle and elliptical, and keeping treadmill time down to 4 to 4.5 mph, a brisk walk and not a full run.   Absent some disease eating me from the inside out, I don’t think I’ll be seeing 200 lb again in my lifetime. 

To assist in this, I’m switching out steak for chicken (e.g. Chipotle), diet drinks and green tea for full on Coke Classic, and dark chocolate for milk chocolate.  An obnoxious smoothie – apple, banana, broccoli, avocado, carrots, cabbage, celery, spinach, and kale all go into the mixer and produce something best washed down immediately with a delicious zero calorie Ice drink, preferably in black cherry flavor.  I suppose every little bit helps.

Injuries.   These are fortunately few and far between, but when they do occur they take longer to heal.  Just have to be more careful.

TMI Department, aka Mr. Happy.   He seems remarkably robust for his age, though his output is less and he’s less insistent on attention.  For the former, the urologist told me that’s normal.  For the latter, once a day is perfectly fine for him, whereas as a teenager he might be up for two or three sessions.

I read that President John Tyler, who took over from William Henry Harrison (who died in 1840) still has living grandchildren TODAY.   That was because he remained virile and fertile into his old age, as did his sons.  Biologically, men are capable of conceiving children up until they fall dead at 100.  

Memories.   I’m finding that while I can still tell you what all the Beatles, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin albums are, tell you what songs are on each albums, and recite lyrics almost verbatim, telling you what songs are on No Comfort, the newest Monolord album – which I’ve listened to several times - is a bit of a challenge.  It looks like my brain has reached its capacity and any new memories are at the expense of old ones. 

Here’s where it gets depressing.  Say, for the sake of argument, we manage to extend our life expectancy from 100 (using a round number) to 200.   All well and fine, but if we don’t extend our memory capacity past 50 years, we can only remember 50 of those years.   Which 50 will they be?  And as we extend that life expectancy further without increasing memory capacity past 50 years, we’ll be left remembering a smaller and smaller proportion of that longer life. 

I recall some Greek myth in which Eos, goddess of the dawn, fell in love with a handsome mortal, Tithonus.  Sadly, she would live forever but he would eventually grow old and die.   So, on his behalf, she wished he could have eternal LIFE, but forgot that what she really wanted for him was eternal YOUTH.   So he kept getting older and older without dying, to the point where he shriveled up into a grasshopper.  Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.

Predicting Lines.   A special power I seemed to have gained in my old age (such as it is) seems to be the newfound ability to predict lines in TV shows and movies – and no, I don’t mean ones I’ve seen before, or frequent catchphrases (“make it so”, “Make my day”, etc.).   It’s reached the point where I’ve been able to predict lines verbatim.  In “Two Mules for Sister Sara”, Clint Eastwood’s character escorts a nun (Shirley MacLaine) to Mexico City in the late 1860s, back when the French puppet Maximillian is on the throne – making this a rare occasion where the French are actually the bad guys.   At some point in the film, his character remarks, “I’ll bet you do” – which I predicted seconds before, word for word.  Again, this was a movie I’d never seen before.   And I’m finding that more and more often.  Not sure it’s of practical usefulness, but still interesting.

Wasting Time.  While I think of 100 as life expectancy, for me, 75 is probably a more accurate prediction given the absence of any especially long-lived uncles in my family and the age my father died at.  That means I’m already 66% through my life as it is.

I’ll save any speculation about What Comes Next for another blog.   For now I’ll bitch about wasting time.  With a third of my life left, wasting that remainder is more of a concern than it was when I was younger.  Working, sleeping, sitting on the toilet, are things I’m going to have to do anyway, so that leaves my leisure time.   I don’t think I’ll plow through “Game of Thrones” or “Breaking Bad” a second time, and I’ll hold off on starting many new TV shows, instead finishing the shows I’ve already been watching.  Beyond that I’d say I’m OK in terms of finding things to do with my spare time that I doubt I’ll regret later.

Inanimate Objects.   If there’s one area where I’m devolving into Crazy Old Man is a strange antipathy when ordinary objects suspiciously behave as though some conscious, sentient force was moving them.  A door that closes a bit too quickly; a six pack of beer in the back seat of the car which tumbles over no matter how carefully I secure it before driving home; flavored water bottles which work their way out of the shopping bag and under the car seats, apparently hiding from me.  I know none of these are likely to be caused by some unseen, intelligent force, but that doesn’t stop me from getting upset about it.