Intelligent Evil

 

The events of January 6, 2021 provided the spectacle of a mass of clue-deficient, so-called “patriots” storming the US Capitol in a traitorous attempt to prevent Congress certifying the November 2020 election victory of Joe Biden, according to a bogus and idiotic assertion that somehow that election was “stolen”.   Trump himself tried to have his cake and eat it too by tweeting law and order, respect for the police, but also reiterating the underlying premise of the protest, that the election was stolen.  By doing so he encouraged the protesters to make a clumsy and retarded attempt at a coup.  Sorry, but incompetence in attempting your crime is not a defense.

For all the rampant idiocy among Trumpers, sadly there’s also a more subtle, behind-the-scenes support by those who “should know better”.  That’s all the Trump supporters out there, not wearing MAGA hats or carrying misspelled racist signs, Confederate flags, or swastikas, who nonetheless defend Trump and criticize his opponents.  They are very intelligent, but sadly use their intelligence not to objectively evaluate which candidate is best for America, but simply to take Trump’s superiority as an irrebuttable fact and then work backwards to justify that decision. 

From January 1933 to April 1945, Europe in general and Germany in particular suffered the scourge of the National Socialists, better known as the Nazis.  While the mass of brownshirted stormtroopers may have struck many as idiots and morons, unfortunately for Germany not all Nazis were stupid.  Probably the cleverest Nazi was their propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels.

In “Life of Brian”, the People’s Front of Judea, led by Reg (John Cleese), demand, “what have the Romans ever done for us”?   The answer?  Sanitation, wine, and – it goes without saying (!) – the roads.   I was re-watching “Band of Brothers”, and there’s a scene later in the series in which two German boys look from an overpass as US troops in troop carriers travel east through Germany on the Autobahn, on both sides of the highway, while German POWs march on foot, using the grassy median, westward into camps for the duration of the war.  Then you’ve got the Blue Oyster Cult album Secret Treaties, the cover of which shows an ME262, the first widely used operational fighter jet (with BOC markings rather than the swastika).   The Stg-44 was the world’s first assault rifle.  The Nazis also gave us reel-to-reel tapes, Adidas and Puma shoes, and Hugo Boss.  Generals such as Rommel and Guderian were very good at what they did, and the Waffen SS had no shortage of capable commanders.  Again, sadly for Europe, intelligence and evil are not necessarily mutually exclusive.  We can be thankful that the world’s best nuclear physicists at the time were Jewish, and the non-Jewish German nuclear scientists took a wrong turn at the conceptual level, a dead end which prevented them from developing nuclear weapons.  See Stephen Fry’s Making History, an alternate history novel in which a different, more astute leader led Nazi Germany, hiding his anti-Semitism until after the Nazis had developed nukes and won WWII – and then wiped out Europe’s Jews. 

It’s clear to me that Trump himself and many of his minions definitely have fascist tendencies.  Fortunately for us, Trump himself is too lazy to be a dictator.  That’s too much work.  Moreover, the critical mass of public opinion in this country is sufficient to induce his more intelligent supporters to keep a low profile, rather than actively work to make him an effective dictator.  For all his dull mediocrity, “Sleepy Joe” Biden managed to persuade a majority of American voters to support him.  As I noted earlier, that itself doesn’t surprise me; what surprises me is that his margin of victory wasn’t higher.  He was less divisive than Hillary Clinton, who herself won the popular vote in 2016.   Trump himself alienated so many Republicans that prominent ones such as GWB and Colin Powell actually endorsed Biden.  When top level politicians in your own party endorse your opponent, that’s a sign you may lose the election.  Certainly it was NOT stolen. 

That being the case, however, we’re on notice that a subsequent potential dictator who is smarter and more motivated than Donald Trump has a deep and wide – though numerically minority – wellspring of support on which to build and draw should the occasion arise.   This isn’t over yet. 

GOP & LP 2024

It looks like we’re finally getting rid of #45 and replacing him with a Democrat who most people choose because he’s not nearly as obnoxiously incompetent as Trump and not nearly as arrogant and unlikable as Hillary Clinton.  Over the last 4 years, the Republican President cost his party the House (2018 midterms) and the Senate (losing both Georgia seats).   He’s compromised the integrity and reputations of all the Republican congressmen who were induced to follow him, not that we’re particularly sympathetic to their plight.  What’s next for the GOP?

 My suggestion, likely to be immediately rejected by everyone, is for the party to break up.  Any Republican with something close to ethics and real values should defect to the Libertarian Party.   I can understand most politicians’ reluctance to do so piecemeal, in dribs and drabs, but a wholesale defection of sitting Congressmen should be another story entirely.  Possibly, but not likely, some Democrats could also defect, though as I write this I can’t identify any plausible candidates by name.  The leading Republicans would be Mitt Romney, Justin Amash, Rand Paul, and Thomas Massie, just to name a few. 

I’ve been re-reading, for the third time, Harry Turtledove’s alternate history series which begins with How Few Remain and continues with three WWI stories, three interwar stories, and four WWII stories.  Herein, the CSA won the Civil War (1861-62), also defeated the US in the so-called Second Mexican War (1881-82), and allied itself with Britain, France and Russia in WWI.  For its part, the US found itself allied with Imperial Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.  Now imagine US and Confederate soldiers fighting in trenches, with biplanes, machine guns, and poison gas, but in western Virginia, Kentucky, and other locations.  The CSA had purchased Sonora and Chihuahua states from Mexico in 1881, so their territory extends westward from Texas, along the New Mexico/Arizona border to the Pacific Ocean, giving the CSA a Pacific Coast port city at Guaymas.  They also have Cuba.

 In the aftermath of the Second Mexican War, Abraham Lincoln – who was not assassinated in 1865 but survived to become a Marxist – split up the Republican Party in 1882 into a Socialist Party, with the Democrats taking the role of a conservative/reactionary party.  The twin Presidents in 1914 are Theodore Roosevelt (USA) and Woodrow Wilson (CSA).  By this time the Republicans are reduced to an insignificant third party.

 The LP candidate in 2020 was Jo Jorgenson, who had no experience as an elected official and her prime political experience was being Harry Browne’s VP candidate back in the day.   Gary Johnson, the 2016 candidate, was much stronger: a successful two term state governor (New Mexico).  His 2012 result, 1%, was somewhat disappointing, but he was up against both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.  In 2016 he received 3%, and probably would have gotten more had he known where Aleppo, Syria, was.  If the LP has former state governors or US senators as its candidates – the kind of candidates the major parties run – they may well have a much stronger shot. 

 Returning to reality, I do believe the heretofore marginal Libertarian Party may well be able to accommodate a large influx of dissatisfied Republicans.  Sadly, over the years the Republicans went from Lincoln’s party abolishing slavery to a conservative party giving lip service to capitalism but more accurately being a quasi-fascist party giving us a corrupt form of capitalism mixed with religious right nonsense telling us how to live our private lives.  The Libertarians, in many ways, are a more pure and principled form of what the Republican Party would be if it actually adhered to many of the ideals which it claims to stand for but which fall by the wayside either due to true indifference or political reality.   Trump’s debacle here in 2020 can serve as the impetus for the more principled Republicans to abandon the party altogether and turn the Libertarian Party from a marginal third party to a real competitor with the Democrats. 

 Quoting Picard:  MAKE IT SO.

New Year's Eve 2.0

 

My prior blog on this matter was written and posted in January 2010, 11 years ago.  NYE 2009-2010 was spent in Fort Lee, New Jersey, watching the Times Square festivities with my then-GF, Loni.   That relationship had started in June 2009 and ended in May 2018 when she told me not to bother coming up to visit her anymore.

This year we had darker concerns on our minds – more so than last week, when I wrote my Election blog on Christmas Eve.  Our 86 year old mother had gone to the hospital in July for an operation, and from then to the present had been switching back and forth from hospitals to assisted living facilities, with her mental health severely deteriorating.  We last saw her in person on December 16, and last saw her on FaceTime (smartphone video conference) on Christmas Day.   On December 17 we were informed that she tested positive for COVID.  On Sunday, December 27, despite initially resisting the illness, we received word that she was being transferred back to the hospital again.  My brother and I, by her bedside at the ER, watched her breathing get progressively slower until it ended altogether.  By now, at 51, I’ve experienced multiple family deaths, including my own father’s departure in December 2004 of a stroke.  However, his removal from life support and expiration took place outside my personal presence.  In this case I was in the room when she actually passed away.   We’re talking about my second parent, from whom neither I nor my siblings have ever been estranged.   It’s a savage blow, and it will take awhile to recover. 

This New Year’s Eve, as with those of 2018 and 2019, was spent alone, in my apartment, watching the Times Square festivities on TV in warmth and privacy with the prerogative to immediately go to bed after the “ball dropped”.  I watched Joel McHale and Ken Jeong (both “Community” veterans) trade off on insulting each other.  Kelly Osbourne reported live from Times Square itself.

Of the umpteen New Year’s Eves spent with Loni in Fort Lee, on no occasion did we actually go to Times Square.  Oddly, that part of NYC is only a Forty-Second Street block from Seventh to Eighth Ave. and the Port Authority Bus Terminal, the 158 Bus to Fort Lee, an hour trip which ends two blocks from her house.  On one particular NYE, she was actually working at Citizen, its flagship watch store at Times Square itself, that day, and returned to Fort Lee long before midnight, watching everything with me on TV.  But we shared the indifference to being in Times Square itself.  Most of the crowd acknowledges being from out of town. 

As noted, on two NYE’s I was in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with my prior GF, Leila.  In 2000-2001 our lodgings were in Ipanema and we watched the fireworks on the beach from Leme, which is the opposite end of Copacabana.  It was raining, so after the fireworks everyone left the beach at the same time; it took us an hour to get back to where we were staying (in between the beach and the Lagoa).  In 2002-2003 we were staying in Copacabana, there was no rain, so after the fireworks we simply walked back two blocks to where we were staying.  Winter (June through September) in Rio means 70 degrees, fog on the beach, and it gets dark at 6 p.m.  NYE is during Rio’s summer, which means 90 degrees, no fog, and it gets dark at 9 p.m.  Spending NYE outdoors makes a bit more sense in this context – or in someplace like Miami, Phoenix, or California.   Just my two cents.

Chinese/Vietnamese New Year.  Both cultures follow a lunar calendar which puts the New Year sometime in January or February.   In 2021 that will be February 12 – for Year of the Ox.  Those of us familiar with the Vietnam War know that the Viets call this “TET”, and in 1968 the VC/NVA launched a huge attack all over South Vietnam.  During the course of that battle, ARVN general Loan Ngoc Nguyen summarily executed a VC prisoner, Lem Van Nguyen, who himself had murdered an ARVN officer’s entire family – including wife and children.  The picture and movie footage are abrupt and disturbing, but even cameraman Eddie Adams regrets it, as you can’t see the full circumstances of that incident. 

My own experience is two-fold.   First, the aforementioned Loni – from Shanghai, China – would take us to Flushing, Queens, and we’d have some sort of meal at a restaurant there.   Second, the firm I work at in Falls Church, Virginia has a majority Vietnamese clientele, so around Tet-time our office manager would have the Buddhist monks bless our office, and the nearby Eden Center would be in Tet mode. 

With that, absent any more developments, I have exhausted what I might have to say about this topic.  Happy New Year!

Election 2020

 One day early this week, but not about Christmas.  What can I say?  Birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, Christmas carols, presents, Santa Araya, etc.  Too much about Christmas is common knowledge and too obvious to discuss.  I don’t bring anything different or special to the table to make a blog entry worthwhile.

Ah, but this last election.  

First off:  BIDEN WON, TRUMP LOST.  The electorate is 1/3 Republican, 1/3 Democrat, and 1/3 independent.   It’s possibly ¼ Republican, ¼ Democrat, and ½ independent.  Either way, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have enough of their own voters to elect the President without the assistance of independents, most of whom are in the middle.  If your candidate’s popularity has dropped to the point where your own party members are supporting the other candidate, that’s a bad sign. 

Second.  I voted for Jo Jorgenson, not Trump or Biden.  I live in Virginia, which has become bluer than it was in 2016, when it voted for Hillary Clinton.  The governor, Ralph Northam, is a Democrat.  Both US Senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, are Democrats.  The state legislature in Richmond, the General Assembly, is now majority Democrat.  Sure, there are plenty of Republicans and Trump 2020 signs in Virginia, but not as many as Democrats and Biden-Harris signs.

Jorgenson got 1% of the vote, and won no states.  That doesn’t surprise me.  She has no political experience as an elected official – unlike two term New Mexico governor Gary Johnson – and there’s really no reason for anyone to vote for her except because she happened to be the LP candidate.  Ideally the LP should pick candidates like Johnson who would qualify as major party candidates, but obviously I didn’t choose her.  We’ll see what happens in 2024. 

Third.  This business of “interference 2016” vs. “interference 2020”.   The 2016 interference alleged was that the Russians leaked unflattering information about Hillary Clinton which induced some people to vote for Trump instead.  I don’t recall a single allegation that the Russians tampered with voting machines or absentee and/or mail-in ballots, and for that matter I don’t recall anyone actually determining how many erstwhile Hillary voters switched their votes to Trump in swing states, thanks to this leaked information, pushing the election in his favor.   The more plausible explanation is that Hillary Clinton was less popular than she believed herself, and with her heavily favored to win the election anyway, the only people intensely motivated to vote were people who drank the Trump Kool-Aid (actually, it was Flavor-Aid in Jonestown).

Fourth.  I’m hearing lots of people on the Book of Faces and elsewhere expressing skepticism about the legitimacy of the election and insinuating that Trump’s allegations of fraud are legitimate.  Apparently they have more evidence than Trump’s own attorneys.  More evidence than Trump’s own attorney general, Bill Barr, who advised the President to concede the election.  More evidence than Mitch McConnell (R-KY) or Pat Robertson, who likewise accepted, however reluctantly, Biden’s victory.  Not a single judge, least of all the US Supreme Court, which is 5-4 conservative (Trump’s own three appointees, Barrett, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, plus Alito and Thomas), accepted these arguments.  Likewise with lower courts, many of whose judges are likewise conservative.  These judges have consistently chastised Trump’s lawyers for filing suits without any evidence to support them.  Trump apparently believes that all you have to do is file a suit and you win the case – bullshit and arrogance are acceptable substitutes for evidence.   This vast conspiracy of judges seems to disagree.

Moreover, there’s a runoff election in Georgia, and both Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell won re-election.  If the Democrats learned how to manipulate the elections, common sense dictates they would have made Rand Paul the senior senator from Kentucky and made sure to flip the Senate. 

I’m not surprised Biden won.  I’m surprised the margin wasn’t even higher.  Many Republicans and independents only voted for Trump in 2016 because they couldn’t stand Hillary Clinton.  Joe Biden is considerably less arrogant and unlikeable among non-Democrats.  It reached the point where many high profile Republicans were endorsing Joe Biden.  I didn’t hear any high profile Democrats endorsing Trump.  If there was any chicanery going on, logic suggests it was on the Republicans’ part.  Some recounts were seeing Biden’s lead getting bigger, not smaller.   The absentee ballots were clearly Biden supporters who wanted to make sure that Trump did not win a second term.  Trump’s own voters assumed he would win re-election and simply voted as usual on election day.  Not only that, although absentee voting started weeks before, many states have rules prohibiting these votes from being counted before election day, instead of being counted when they came in and added to the election day votes to reach the final outcome.  So I knew we wouldn’t know the true outcome on election night.  Whether that changes by 2024, we’ll have to see.   In the meantime, enjoy 4 years of Joe Biden.

Live Stream!!!

 

This weekend my writer’s block was cured, but on Saturday, meaning I missed my (self-imposed) Friday deadline.  As before, I remain incredulous that my weekly ramblings suffice to engender anyone else’s attention, but since they do, I’m happy to continue, to the extent I can come up with anything remotely worth discussing.

By now we’re all painfully aware of the COVID crisis and how it has made a major impact in our lives.  For those of us who enjoy live music, that’s been even worse.

2020 Shows.  2019 was capped off with Clutch’s late December show at the 9:30 Club in DC.  2020 was ushered in by Church of Misery, a Japanese stoner rock band, at the Rock’n’Roll Hotel in DC – up there on U Street, a few blocks due east of Union Station.  Next up was UFO – the British band famous for Michael Schenker, “Doctor Doctor” and ‘Rock Bottom” – who I enjoyed at the Tally Ho in Leesburg, Virginia, with my brother, Matt.  Then was Opeth (as mentioned last week), at the Fillmore Silver Spring, in Silver Spring, Maryland, also with Matt – and it was his first Opeth show.  Finally OM – Sleep bassist Al Cisneros’ side band, very much drone-y like SunnO))) – at the Black Cat, right on Fourteenth Street in DC.   

Then the manure hit the oscillating climate control device.

Here are the shows we had tickets to see, and which were cancelled due to the COVID shitshow. 

TOOL, 4/24/20 at Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore, Maryland.

Fu Manchu, 5/6/20 at the Baltimore Soundstage in Baltimore, Maryland. 

King Buffalo, 6/27/20 at the Metro Gallery in Baltimore, Maryland.

King Crimson, 6/30/20 at Wolf Trap, Vienna, Virginia. 

Guns N’Roses, 7/16/20 at Nationals Park in DC.

All Them Witches (ATW), 7/22/20 at the Otto Bar in Baltimore, Maryland.

Roger Waters, 7/30/20, at the Capital One Arena in Washington, DC

Dead & Company, 8/5/20 at Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow, Virginia – with my former boss, Jerry, who hadn’t seen the Dead since …maybe before 1986. 

Judas Priest, 9/9/20 at the MGM Grand in Oxon Hill, Maryland.

Elder, 11/13/20 at the Richmond Music Hall down in Richmond, Virginia.

As you can see, it was some pretty big shows.  Fortunately Bobby Weir, Fripp, Maynard, Halford, Waters, Axl & Slash, are all still alive – Maynard surviving COVID – so hopefully those shows will be back online in 2021 after we get a vaccine that works.  My concern is that if the virus mutates to make the vaccine ineffective, and continues to mutate, we may be looking at a scenario where COVID is effectively permanent.  But let’s hope and pray that this vaccine gets the job done.

Fortunately, despite all this, some bands realized that this Internet thing could let them play a live show and stream it online.  And yes, that has happened.  Here are the live streaming shows I’ve seen so far:

Clutch, 5/27/2020.  Their first live streaming show, called “Doom Saloon”.  An hour, well done.  From Maryland, this band is mostly straightforward rock’n’roll, though the lyrics are somewhat offbeat, and bassist Dan Maines gives a bit a funk step, mixing it up a bit.  Moreover, the band has kept the same lineup all this time:  singer Neil Fallon, guitarist Tim Sult, and drummer Jean-Paul Galter.  If you haven’t heard them already, by all means check them out on Spotify. 

Clutch, 8/7/2020.  Their second show, called “Doom Saloon 2”.  They solicited proposed setlists from the fans and picked one to do.  This setlist had a fair amount of deep cuts.  They also sold T-shirts and recorded the show onto vinyl.

DOWN, 8/29/20.  This is the “supergroup” with Pantera’s Phil Anselmo on vocals, Corrosion of Conformity’s Pepper Keenan on guitar, Crowbar’s Kirk Windstein on guitar, and Pantera’s Rex Brown on bass.  I think the drummer was from Crowbar.  They played their first album, NOLA, in its entirety.  Despite liking DOWN and having all three studio albums, both EPs, and their live album, I had somehow never managed to see them in concert – until now.  They sold t-shirts of the event. 

Crowbar and the Obsessed, 10/3/20.  Crowbar is a thrash band from New Orleans, and the Obsessed features Maryland’s own stoner doom god, Scott “Wino” Weinrich.  This time around he was doing an acoustic set.  Of all these shows, this was my last favorite.

Earthless, 10/17 and 10/24/20.   This is another psychedelic band that does long, extended jams.  Both shows were fine, with different setlists.

Alice in Chains.  On 12/1/20 the Museum of Pop in Seattle, Washington, saw fit to pay tribute to the Seattle grunge band and its late singer, Layne Staley, with a free tribute show of various bands, including Metallica and Mastodon.  The material also covered some later Duvall-era tracks.  The performances were live and streamed in from various sources, all four members of Metallica performing "Would" from separate locations.  

Clutch, 12/18/20.   “Doom Saloon 3”.  Nominally this was supposed to start at 8, but from 8 to 9 what we got was the guys reminiscing over footage of them opening for other bands back in the day, and drummer Jean-Paul Gaster giving us a tour of their home base somewhere in Maryland.  Wagon wheel chandeliers will be sold out now, thanks to him.  The set itself was culled from the most requested songs in all those fan-profferred setlists which weren’t chosen for Doom Saloon 2.   This elicited some displeasure at the absence of deep cuts and obscure tunes, as if the band has some duty to play these songs to the exclusion of fan favorites just so the Old Guard can smugly remark that they recognize tracks which the main base of fans don’t.   Yes, that means don’t hold your breath to hear “Binge & Purge”. 

All Them Witches, 12/19, 2 p.m. and 9 p.m.  The two sets were different, but not completely so – about 70% of the material was the same, 30% different.  The combo pack includes a t-shirt, but no actual recording.  ATW do a good job of mixing TOOL and the Grateful Dead, if you can imagine that.  They don’t sound like anyone else, itself a miracle these days.  They’re from Nashville, Tennessee. 

in January there will be a full series of concerts out in the Mohave Desert:  Earthless (1/23), Nebula (2/6), Spirit Mother (2/20), Mountain Tamer (3/6), and Stoner (how’s that for subtle?) a band put together by none other than Brant Bjork and Nick Oliveri.  We’ll see how that goes.  

Benefits.   Most of us prefer live shows, in person, but these live streaming shows do have some major advantages over shows on location.

Logistics.  No driving to DC, Baltimore, or wherever, trying to find parking, then driving back at 1 a.m.  Just turn on your computer and watch (assuming you have an Internet connection); so far all seemed to fit well within my bandwidth.  From the privacy of your own home, you can attend the show wearing as much or as little as you like, and as inebriated or otherwise chemically altered as you see fit, without the issue of how you’re supposed to get home in that condition.  When the show is over, just crash in bed – if that’s your inclination.

No Crowds.  No moshing.  None of this BS where the tallest guy in the club decides to stand front center and block everyone else’s view.  No asshole screaming at Phil Mogg to play “ROCK BOTTOM!!!” through the entire set.  And I’ve yet to see a live stream show sell out.  Mind you, as you can see above, the big shows which would have been at arenas and stadiums haven’t made their way to streaming.

Recordings.  As yet, only Clutch seems to be actually recording these shows, though only on vinyl.  Metallica and Dead & Company are the two current bands (along with Phish and Widespread Panic) who seem to be recording all their latest shows – not just one per tour – and making them available on MP3 or CD. 

If you haven’t already, I would strongly recommend determining which, if any, of your favorite bands have gotten the memo and are live streaming upcoming shows.  Not really a substitute for real shows, but better than spending an hour to ninety minutes surfing Amazon or Facebook. 

Opeth

 

Another Friday with writer’s block, but my Opeth hoodie provided the inspiration – plus I checked my records and verified that I have not yet blogged about this band…per se.  So I can take a break waxing poetic yet again about the PONTIAC FIREBIRD FORMULA 350 and bore everyone about this band from Stockholm, Sweden.

They started out as somewhat of a thrash band with “Cookie Monster” vocals, until singer/guitarist Mikael Akerfeldt either discovered prog bands or finally decided to blend those elements into Opeth’s repertoire.  In fact, they have a full-blown prog album, Damnation, which is still my favorite, though Watershed was the first album I bought.   Live, Akerfeldt is highly humorous and entertaining.  An interview with him turned me on to British 70s prog band Camel, and he is also a big fan of Deep Purple.  The artwork for their show at the Royal Albert Hall in London was done up like DP’s Concerto, and I have a Come Taste the Band (DP Mark IV with Tommy Bolin) tribute shirt. 

Studio Discography:  Orchid (1995); Morningrise (1996); My Arms, Your Hearse (1998); Still Life (1999); Blackwater Park (2001); Deliverance (2002); Damnation (2003); Ghost Reveries (2005); Watershed (2008); Heritage (2011); Pale Communion (2014); Sorceress (2016); In Cauda Venenum (2019).  Still Life is the earliest album I have – never got around to getting the first three.  They are long overdue for a covers album.

As the years progress they get more like a prog band and less of a Cookie Monster band, which is fine by me.  Maybe I’m getting older, but my tolerance for the same old thrash, especially with unintelligible, “Cookie Monster” vocals which winds up being just a bunch of angry noise, gets less and less.  Here’s a band which mixes in prog elements to change things up, and they have a singer who can actually sing. Of the big 4 thrash bands, Joey Belladonna (Anthrax) has the best voice, followed by Dave Mustaine (Megadeth), James Hetfield (Metallica), and finally Tom Araya (Slayer), but even he is singing and you can understand the vocals.  Anyone less intelligible than Araya I zone out about, and unfortunately that does include some of Opeth, particularly the earlier material.  Anyhow.     

I’ve seen them live, five times between 2008 and 2020 (yes, this year).  The band consistently plays well, and Akerfeldt’s humor, as previously noted, is much appreciated.   Be prepared to hear earlier material with about one song from Damnation.      

And if you love buying band merchandise, you’ll love Opeth.  The US webstore doesn’t have a whole lot, but the UK/Europe store – which will ship to MAGA-Land, though the shipping costs are a little higher and you may wait a little longer to receive your stuff – has a MUCH larger selection.   Whoever does their merch is highly imaginative.  Their variant on Sweden’s national team soccer jersey (yellow and blue, of course) is excellent, though as yet I’ve resisted the urge to spend $100 on it. 

Storm Corrosion.  Steven Wilson, the main guy from Porcupine Tree and a producer for prog bands, did a joint project with Akerfeldt – if you like Opeth, you’ll probably enjoy this as well.

The Formula - AGAIN

 Maybe a broken record, here.  I had a dream the other day that I got the Formula back (1992 Pontiac Firebird Formula 350) and was driving it down the road.  It was VERY fast – as I remember it being – but would need tags and insurance, and a place to park it.  As my 2009 Dodge Charger R/T was totaled in September, I’ve been driving my mom’s Chevy HHR around, and it clearly has far less than 370 HP.  Since I haven’t paid off the Charger, I won’t be buying another one for a few months. 

Blogs:  “The Formula” (11/24/2006); The Beast is Back in Black (5/24/2007); Hello Neon, Bye Bye Formula (1/31/2008); The Beast is Back….Again (3/17/2011); Welcome Back to 1995 (7/31/2015) and More Fire Birdy Stuff (8/24/2018).  Suffice to say I’ve talked about it.  I’ve also mentioned the 1976 Esprit, which I still have; the 1980 Trans Am I had in 2000 and which never ran – even before pulling its anemic 150 HP 301 V8; the 1968 Pontiac Firebird 400 my buddy Phil and I tried buying in Flint, Michigan in fall 1995; and the Pontiac 400 V8 I bought in 1998.  At least this car I had for 17 years.

Both the Chevrolet Camaro and the Pontiac Firebird were meant to compete with the Ford Mustang, a relatively inexpensive 4 seater, 2 door, front-engine rear-wheel drive car of fairly light weight.  The base models started with inline sixes, then V6s, and in some years, 4 cylinder engines (Fox body - 1979-93 - Mustangs and 1982-86 Camaros and Firebirds).  The performance models had a V8 of varying power depending on the years, with the 20th Anniversary Trans Am (1989) having a special turbocharged Buick V6, the same engine as the Grand National and GNX.  The top performance model of the Camaro started out as the SS (Super Sport) and then switched to the Z/28 and IROC.  For the Firebird, that was the Trans Am and the Formula.  Generally the Formula was available with the same engines, transmissions and suspension as the Trans Am but was a bit more subtle.  Even the '73-74 Super Duty Formulas got the Trans Am's shaker hood but not its "Screaming Chicken" hood bird.  I generally prefer the Formula to the Trans Am.  

Sometime in 1992 I acquired a Pontiac catalog which listed all its 1992 vehicles, including the Firebird.  From that I learned that the Formula – much slimmer than the Trans Am, lacking the ground effects package – was available with the 5.7L V8, 240 HP.  But without a decent job, I wouldn’t be buying one any time soon.

November 1992.   My third year in law school, I went from putting books back on the shelf in the law library for $5.50 an hour, 10 hours a week, to working for a real lawyer (Jerry), on real cases, making $10 an hour for 20 hours a week.  This meant I could finally qualify for a new car loan.  I couldn’t afford a Formula 350 ($19,000) but in any case by then, those were all gone.  But I could afford a new Firebird, base, with the 5.0L (TBI) engine.  Black on black, loaded with options (unfortunately including ground effects) it was my first new car.  The 5.0L V8 wasn’t a rocket, but the car could certainly get out of its own way.  Plus it had T-tops.

June 1995.  I was back to earning a full salary working for Jerry, and could qualify for a loan again,  I purchased a used 1992 Firebird Formula 350.  This was in aquamarine, black interior, but with almost no options:  no t-tops (which I didn’t miss), no power windows, no power door locks, but at least it had A/C.  Moreover, the original owner had upgraded with the SLP Package, which added 50 HP.  That included a cool air intake, larger throttle body with air foil, siamesed intake runners, a performance PROM chip and cooler thermostat, 1 5/8” headers, 3” exhaust running from the dual catalytic converters to the muffler, and a freer flowing muffler with both tailpipes going out the same side (driver’s side).

For my part, I had a Jacob’s Ignition system installed; 2800 stall converter with shift kit in the 700-R4 automatic transmission, 3.73 gears in the rear end (10 bolt), and sturdier trailing arms and panhard rod.  I also had installed the TPIS Big Mouth (lower) intake manifold.  I still have the original as well.  

September 1997 to January 1998.  Jerry and I had a client down in Stafford, Tim, who ran a body shop.  Tim wanted more custody with his son, so Jerry took his case in exchange for doing a color change from aquamarine to black.  The car was supposed to be done by late October, but ended up not being done until January 31, 1998.   

12/4/07.   In fall of 2007 I was working for a law firm buried in the woods near Fairfax.  Driving home in the cold, the car spun 180 going around a curve and plunged backwards into the woods.  Somehow I managed to get Tim to fix it up again, though it wasn’t back on the road again in my possession until May 23, 2008. I never did put the decals back on (FORMULA on the doors and rear bumper, “5.7 LITER F.I.” on the hood bulges, Firebirds on the sail panels).

Through much of 2008-2009 the Formula had engine issues which prevented it from passing emissions, until a hot rod shop at Fairfax Circle managed to figure out what was wrong with it and get it running property again. 

12/8/2012.   I was working at the office on Saturday and my Formula had an engine fire.  The car wound up in a towing lot in Stafford, the engine wound up in a machine shop in Fairfax.  Efforts to fix the Formula without an engine went nowhere and I eventually simply signed off on the title to Billy, who owned the towing lot.  The engine was rebuilt by a machine shop, but I ran out of money halfway through the rebuild.  In February 2013 I purchased a brand new Honda Civic.  On January 22, 2015, I traded the Civic in for a 2009 Dodge Charger R/T.  

On September 1, 2020 I had an accident which resulted in the Charger being totaled – less than a year left on the loan.  As of now I’m driving my Mom’s Chevy HHR, as noted above.  I stopped by the machine shop and made another payment on the Chevy V8.  

Sadly, circa 2020, Firebirds of all years are very rare.  When I took classes at NOVA Alexandria in 1995-98, I spoke with a fellow Formula 350 owner who had been living in L.A. at the time he bought his own ’89 model.  He actually saw it built at the Van Nuys factory which was making F-bodies back then (up to 1992).  He said they were making 3-4 Camaros for every Firebird.   By now all third generation Firebirds (1982-92) are at least 28 years old, and they only made Formulas from 1987-1992 of those years; the mid-model from 1982-86 was the S/E, somewhat like the 1970-81 Esprit.  Oddly, on the rare occasion I find someone selling an 1988-92 Formula in decent condition, they’re asking at least $10,000 for it. 

Dragstrip.  I took the car to Maryland International Raceway (MIR) once, on a hot summer day when no one else was at the track.  The best I could do, after dropping the tire pressure in the rear tires, was mid-14s in the quarter mile.  Then I learned about 75/80, up near Frederick, and took it up there a few times.  By that time I had it down to 14.28, around 99 mph.  The original owner, shortly after installing the SLP package, had it doing high 13 second quarter mile times.  Though I never took the Charger, rated at 370 HP, there, according to the specs, those are the same times a stock Charger R/T will do.  Go figure.