Allergy Season and Long Hair

Alright, another allergy season is in full swing.  If you don't have allergies, you won't understand this at all.  I feel sorry for you people.  You don't know what you're missing.  Growing up in northern Minnesota, Hibbing to be precise, allergies were brief and pretty much non-existent.  That's because by the time plants and flowers bloomed, they were immediately killed off by the first of countless Arctic blasts.  I can still feel my nostrils being unstuffed and replaced by icy, sharp crystals that blurred the vision and you had to blow your nose until your sinuses were completely devoid of some foreign gooey substance.  The spring and winter nose-torrents were very similar.

Moving to Colorado was just dandy or danderly.  Is that a word?  The ragweed was and still is fun-time. Still blowing my Italian honker.  Where does this goo come from?  Hopefully not from the brain or I would have drain bramage by now.  I recently read about allergies in one of the funniest free weekly newspapers around : The Onion.  A must-read for anybody trying to have a sense of humor and for the eternally frugal reader.  Or is that the eternally cheap reader?  The Onion is available online, as is everything these days, but having the paper in your hands is very charming because of the fingerprints you leave everywhere at the crime scene.  A tad dangerous but thrilling.  They (The Onion) had in the April 29- May 5 issue a list of techniques to help your allergies.  Quite funny.  I'll rewrite 2 of the 9 tips:  ---cut down on watery eyes by sleeping with them open all night to dry them out.     ---increase circulation to your sinuses and throat areas by complaining endlessly about your allergies in that nasal little voice of yours.

My stepson, Forrest, has seasonal allergies and is quite miserable for a short period of time.  Somebody in our family, probably the one who doesn't look good in long hair and you know who you are, heard that long hair collects more pollen and thus keeps these allergens on your person.  Kind of like dandruff without embarrassing white flakes of skin on your favorite black Molly Hatchet 1979 "Flirtin' With Disaster" tour shirt that you swear you would throw out as soon as another moth hole appears around your nipples or exposes that nasty-looking mole by your belly button or erases the 1979 that would ruin the whole mystique of still having and proudly wearing a t-shirt of a band that produced maybe a handful of songs that are worthy of ever listening to again.  Also, how can you possibly even still fit into it?

So, Forrest was thinking maybe of cutting his hair for high school graduation anyway (congrats, now get out of the house, boy) and, to kill 2 birds with one stone, (wait, killing and birds should not be used together around me) [see my story entitled 'A New Cat In The Home' for further clarification if you're so inclined or bored or just curious] he could head-off (puny pun, I know) the allergy season before it began.  I, on the other hand, will keep my long hair and my soggy hankie in my back pocket, thank you very much.

When it came time for the trip to The Scalper (that's what us long-hairs call it, not to be confused with the money-grubbing, cheats around a ballpark), F-Bomb balked.  That's when the family decided to take it unto their collective hands.  Especially the one with the short hair.  Yes, you do know who you are.  It wasn't easy, though.  Forrest is a gangly 6'2" slippery little devil capable of getting out of several of my patented Handsome Harley Race headlocks (too much hair in the way) or my Verne Gagne figure-four leglocks (hairlocks?).  I'm not as good as I used to be with my 4-year-old sister when I was 14.  As 3 of us, my wife, my older stepdaughter (see my article, you know, the cat one) and myself jumped on his back and brought that sucker down, my other stepdaughter (you know which story by now) tried tying up his feet with yarn.  She didn't want to get cut and it was right there on the floor.  She was kicked aside like a yarn ball but our ace in the hole was our 65 lb Chow.  She barked and yelped into Forrest's face, making him stop to catch his breath and sneeze.  It was all over.  Not only the epic battle but also his goo.

Forrest is now a clean, short-hair, slightly deflated ex-long-hair with only a slightly drippy nose.  As for me, I only sneeze and blow my nose when I absolutely have to.  Alone.  Away from the family.  Away from now 2 short-hairs.

***** MUSIC *****

Initially, this was going to be a review of the Jimi Hendrix 2010 release, "Valleys of Neptune".  Music on this CD is from the LP Jimi was going to make right after "Electric Ladyland", 1968.  However, I decided that the booklet included with the disc and research any music lover could gather would be enough insight into this CD.  Instead, these are my observations and emotions that were triggered once again after 40+ years.

When I first heard Jimi Hendrix in 1967, "Purple Haze" confused and tortured my ears.  I had heard nothing like it and I wasn't alone.  Age 12 doesn't give you deep history of any of the arts obviously, but my parents always enjoyed music and movies.  And soundtracks.  "The Music Man" ('62), "The Sound of Music" ('65) and "Camelot" ('67)  were always on the Victrola and provided me with sounds that told a story.  The complete picture, of course, would come together when we saw the movie.  It made sense.  Songs like " Tutti Frutti" ('55), "Great Balls of Fire" ('57), "Johnny B. Goode" ('58) and "The Twist" ('60) all made sense.  Some of this was a little racy for our virgin ears, as I found out later.  Didn't really get it and looking at my parents' moderate disdain for some of it, it sparked our interest in something taboo and dangerous.  So, as kids, we investigated.  And learned.  And pushed boundaries through our musical tastes.  Now, music wasn't something operatic with visuals on screen.  Now music implied something more.  Imagination took us for a ride.  What were they singing and feeling?

This atom bomb of music dropped into my lap from the 60's was a little overwhelming.  After all the early Beatles, Dave Clark Five, Monkees, Cowsills, etc. which all seemed sterile and cute, then came Hendrix.  When I first heard "Purple Haze" and "Foxey Lady" I thought 'What is that grating, distorted sound?  What kind of rhythm and beat was this?'  It actually made me dizzy.  But I didn't understand.  I mean "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" was harmless and seamless streams of smooth structures of sound with a little mayhem thrown in.  A little mayhem.  Jimi's music was total mayhem.  Stops and starts.  Assault and anger.  Squalls of sound so peculiar that I thought something was wrong with our turntable or needle.  Loose cannons going off in all directions. I didn't like it.  Sounding disjointed meant to me that the band wasn't playing together.  And playing together was what every band was doing.  Or so I thought.

I went back to Jerry Lee Lewis and "Great Balls of Fire".  I loved this song.  The more I listened, really listened though, I could feel the tension, the unloosing of rhythms and structure and a feeling of abandoning all semblance of "a nice song".  I was starting to get it.  Little Richard also gave me directions toward that "live, raw sound".  Not slicked down and predictive.  There was still plenty of sugar and spice but things were starting to unravel in my harmonious and relaxed musical world.  Agitation was on the horizon.  Wild abandon.  Freedom.  Chaos.

So Hendrix suddenly made sense.  And now with "Valleys of Neptune", it threw me back to an innocent time where "Stone Free", "Fire" and "Red House", all different renditions here, made more sense than ever.  A scathing, heart-searing Elmore James tune, "Bleeding Heart" is a classic as is "Sunshine of Your Love", with Jimi's guitar filling in for vocals.  "Mr. Bad Luck" , when he sings 'I just broke a guitar string', we can feel him wince.  "Lover Man", with 1:30 of intro lead brings shivers and explodes all 4:18.  The last 2 minutes of  "Ships Passing Through The Night" total solo freak-out that make Slash's guitar sound like a toy.  And the 7&half  "Hear My Train A Comin' " is pure joy and ecstasy when he vocalizes alongside his guitar.  His backing band of Noel Redding, bass (on 9 of 12 songs), Billy Cox (on 3 songs) and drummer Mitch Mitchell deserve a shout-out.  They ably sustain the devastating demolition of Jimi's carnal carnage of what is now considered psychedelic music.  Jimi Hendrix, like Mozart, like Dali, still and always will thrill anybody that is open to wild abandon, chaos, freedom, agitation, danger.  Oh, and a whole lotta mayhem.