***** MUSIC *****

The Black Keys
'Brothers'
2010, Nonesuch Records

If you're not yet acquainted with The Black Keys, you had better get off your rock ass.  These two guys from Akron, Ohio, have released their sixth disc, 'Brothers'.  And it is chock-full of tight, simple rock and blues songs that will leave you sweating.  And crying.

Eleven of the 15 tracks are under four minutes.  Concise.  The other four top out around five.  Precise.  If you like the spare but bombastic style of  The White Stripes, duo excellente, (and I do), then T.B.K. is waiting to smack you in the face, massage your cheeks, then bang on your head again.  It's all about two nerdy-looking guys sounding like they've reached back  into Muddy Waters and R.L. Burnside, grabbed some early Zeppelin and mixed in today's DIY technology to create some fine tuneage.

The opener, "Everlasting Light", has the T-Rex stomp all over it and Marc Bolan's falsetto provided by guitarist/vocalist Dan Auerbach.  "Next Girl" is classic Keys with dirty guitar and drummer Patrick Carney banging as if he's trying to knock your house down with a baseball bat.  Frail vocals on "She's Long Gone" with unforgiving drum beats and fuzz lead is one of my favorites.  As is "Black Mud", perhaps in reference to a delicious relic by Muddy called "Electric Mud".  ( Note : Waters hated the raunchy tone of his guitar on this '68 LP, but I dig it.  So will you.)  It psyches you back a few years and coulda shoulda been longer than a meager 2:09.  "Ten Cent Pistol" is another T.B.K. sound that lulls you into their bleak and violent world with a way-back guitar lead, complimented by Auerbach's morose vocals.  This should be in the next Tarantino film.  This is followed by "Sinister Kid" with its sticky guitar that is just plain cool.

The only drawback that I see is the lyrics.  I'm not much into meaningful words when I want to rock out, unless I'm in a teenage wasteland mood. Lyrics like 'Oh darling can't you see / I'm shining for you' or 'I'm just one wishing / that I was a pair'  kind of rubs me wrong in a right way.  I mean, these guys have always sung about lost love, no love, being lonely or forgotten or invisible.  It's their thing.  And remember.  KISS.  Keep It Simple Stupid.   The blues and rock are simple.  Exalt in all 15 songs.  The sound is past, present and future.  Raw and tarnished.  Please, keep getting acquainted with The Black Keys.  I won't say I told you so.

*** LAST WEEK ***

Top 3 Things That Irked Me

1. Stop the oil rupture already.  Anybody?
2. "The Scourge of Summer" begins
3. Ronnie James Dio - R.I.P.

 Top 3 Things That Did Not Irk Me

1. Cake (dessert and the band)
2. Chicago Blackhawks - Stanley Cup
3. Memories of simpler times

The Graduate

Hopefully everyone has gone through some sort of graduation ritual or process, either themselves, their kids or relatives.  My stepson, Forrest, graduated from high school May 26, 2010.  We are all proud of him that he made it through remarkably, as far as we know, unscathed.  No bad grades.  No bad attitude.  No bad girlfriends.  That last one might be a stretch.

Initially I was going to be clever, or try to be, and take images and /or dialogue from the coming-of-age flick, "The Graduate", and correlate it with Forrest's various steps through this learning process.  I stopped after realizing that there really wasn't anything clever to write about.  I hate trying to be clever.  Then, I tried using the symbolic vehicle of a seed growing upward toward  treehood in this immense forest.  Comparing his name with the trees and such.  I hate trying to be symbolic.  That didn't turn out so hot, either.

I came to the realization that making fun of graduation is not fun.  It is serious business, at least to these kids.  The public school of choice that Forrest attended is The Rocky Mountain School of Expeditionary Learning in Denver.  RMSEL (pronounced Rem-Zill) had a graduating class of 23 this year.  It was tight-knit group with a communal aspect.  Not hippie communal but a community that involved learning expeditions such as Outward Bound-type survival trips or studying ancient ruins by tracking what the various cultures encountered in their time.  The total population of this K-12 learning center is around 300 with very little fluctuation in number.  One intriguing aspect was a semi-annual 'showcase' that features the students expressing their various electives such as dance, poetry, music or comedy.  Very entertaining for all the parents and friends.  And the students.

RMSEL's mission statement is "to empower students and staff to be learners, thinkers, citizens and explorers engaged in and inspired by the real world.  We are crew not passengers."  That says it all.  Conscious of our environment, conscious of society's strengths and weaknesses and engaging all this with future focus, has been an eye-opener for me.

Graduation was a chance for the crew leaders (teachers) to individually address each student on a personal level and express what each student meant to that teacher.  Very emotional and inspiring.  Inspiring in a world of educational turmoil.  This school is a breath of rejuvenated air.

Forrest will take this experience with him and use it wisely and worldly.  Thinking small on a community level and bringing it to a global level is the key.  These future leaders have been given a chance to think small but act large.  All RMSELians carried a unique swagger reflecting their own personalities as they accepted their diplomas.  I am proud to have experienced and interacted with a great bunch of kids.  The ability to think outside the box, leadership and mentoring relationships and to communicate intelligently, will serve Forrest and these graduates immensely.  Congratulations Forrest and we are looking forward to another learning year with Blake who will be graduating next year from RMSEL.

FORREST WILLIAM LAMBERT
Class Of 2010

The Gymnasium

Going to the gym for over 20 years has produced some interesting results for me.  I think, and hope, it has been beneficial to my overall health and state of mind.  Friends of mine that don't work out think that I go there to flex and pose in front of mirrors. Ya, that's one of the reasons I keep going: to ogle myself and really love me.  Now, don't get me wrong, you really do need some mirrors, though.  Seeing yourself  in the mirror when you're pumping iron (for me, aluminum), helps you see your form on any given exercise.  And form is very important to achieve the maximum results.  You don't want to go out and pull your Achilles tendon or tweak your thingamajig. 

When I was single for most of those 20 years, it was entertaining to watch the skimpy gym attire and the girls that were poured into them.  Some weren't so entertaining.   Glancing in the mirror as they strut by, gave you a chance to not look like a sexual deviant or stalker.  And complimenting them on their hard work and sweat, you could get away with some close contact.  Until, of course, one of them took it wrong and accidentally (?) dropped a 10 lb. dumbbell on some dumbbell's foot and they had to go to the emergency room with fractured toes and fractured ego and had to explain it to their boss.  I only heard about that one as the story circulated around the gym.

  Getting dates was a priority for some, but my main purpose was to add some muscle onto my skinny frame.  And I did.  It took rigorous lifting, a sensible diet and the realization it wouldn't happen overnight.  It took me several years to put on just two pounds of bulk.  And a lot of hard work.

For all the people that don't have the self-motivation, there are trainers.  A word of advice : they can be expensive with no guaranteed results.  It comes down to you and your perseverance.  Enjoying the gym is a big factor.  What's not to enjoy with all the self-ogling going on?  I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn about their body and have the time and energy to do so.  And it's never too late to start.  Some great results can change your life and enrich it beyond the "looking good" aspect.  No, I didn't become some famous bodybuilder that is pushing his supplements or knows somebody that knows somebody who knows Barry Bonds.  (This is starting to sound like a PSA.)

My results of going to the gym are twofold.  One is the healthy lifestyle.  But Two is the biggie :  meeting the most beautiful, the most intelligent, the most caring, the most zany and the most compassionate (and passionate) woman I have ever been lucky enough to meet.  At the gym.  And that is, Laura Bell, my wife, my heart, my soul. 

I still go to the gym religiously to keep in shape physically and mentally.  This is essential for the "old man" to keep up with his "young lady".  Ogling is still a pastime of mine but now I only ogle Laura.  And I think she still ogles me.  Well, glance maybe.  And dropping weights on each other is definitely a no-no.  Way too much pain.  And no gain.

This is a humongous world wide web shout-out to Laura : my life-partner and muse extraordinaire.  I love ya,

baby.

Winter VS. Summer : FISHING

As a former Minnesotan, I am an avid survivalist.  I have survived 80 below zero and army ant invasions.  I have survived the outdoors and the indoors.  I have survived eating lutefisk and drinking snowshoe grog.  I have survived camping trips and all other trips involving moving vehicles.  I think I have survived.  Here are two contrasting seasons that separate the men from the women.  And usually the women out-survive the men.

WINTER
In winter, all 10 million lakes in the state are frozen to unbelievable depths.  The fish usually have to survive on the bottom eating discarded junk from humanity.  Bottles, boots, tires and fishing lures turn up in the stomachs of these fish that desperately want to get caught so they are relieved of all the crap they have tried to digest. These gillies (little-known term for fish) get fished for even in the winter by gillers (little-known term for fishermen and fisherwomen) in a sport called, surprise, ice fishing.  And you thought it would be ice gilling, didn't you?  Now, I know everybody has heard of ice fishing, except maybe those that don't have ice nor fish in their environment.  They probably are better off not knowing because the sport is quite ludicrous.  My few times ice fishing were a dream come true, though.  Maybe to some a nightmare, true.  But to me, well it's all the same.  Being hearty souls that we are, lineage probably from the Arctic Circle or Neptune, we could endure walking onto a lake with bitter winds that immediately freeze your eyelids.  Hopefully open, because you need to see any stray open gill hole and falling into the murky, frozen water would be just another day on the lakes.  And a little annoying.

Bringing an auger, fishing poles, food with live bait, beverages and the intellect of the dodo, we cheerfully find our spot.  Out in the open.  No high-tech wind screen and no icehouse like Norv Norkoven.  Norv, legend has it, lives on the lake all year long.  We don't know how he does it.  Nor do we care.  He's just plain kookoo.  But a survivor.

As the auger slams onto the surface, which feels like a frozen diamond field, my fellow giller looks at me.  I can't tell if his eyes are frozen over; he kind of flutters his eyes and gives me the thumb up.  At least I think it was his thumb.  I can hardly keep my eyes from freezing shut as the wind picks up.  We both grab the 85 pound Ace Hardware Super Titanium-tipped Auger Deluxe model # 9 and go to town.  Not literally, but of course that's where my mind is.  After several brutal minutes, which seemed like hours, even days, we take a break.  A couple more yards to go and we break through the first of nine layers.  In my opinion, lighting a fire and letting it burn a hole sounds extremely enticing.  And warm.

Finally the gill hole is there.  A window to an underwater playground - undulating organics, floating organics, undulating, floating pieces of inorganic rubber boot.  And the gillies!  Look at them!  They are, wait, where are they?  There!  There is a silverfish!  No, those we only find by our furnaces that frightfully and translucently scurry away onto your bare foot and up your leg!  No, that's not a silverfish.  The fish is, well, silver but no bigger than a sardine.  Then I look closer.  My fellow dodo has dropped our live bait, minnows, into our portal.  They remained there for awhile, as if frozen (imagine that) in time.  We hurriedly brought our poles to the ready, with lures attached, and proceeded to catch our limit.  Now I don't know what the limit for bait was but it had to be about 20.  Ten each.  We proudly called it a day.  A very successful day.  Our limit (?) in only a few minutes.  A legend was born.  Take that Norv.

SUMMER
And summer fishing?  Do you actually think survivors like us prefer to fish from a trolling boat along a glass-like surface or on a sandy shoreline with gentle waves lapping onto our feet or sitting on a dock, lazily watching our line in the still of the near-evening?  I mean mosquitos big as Arne Lundquist's head swarm, the sun burning and the leeches.  Oh, those slimy, squirmy, tar-black leeches stuck to your feet and legs, sucking your blood slowly from your body, get the salt, quick, losing consciousness, waking up on an ice floe?  What?  Recovering in Norv's icehouse on the lake, I firmly declared that this is how survivors survive.  Now, could you pass me that Jasmine tea?

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.