Get Me To The Show Ontime (circa around 1979)

9:15 am     I get a call from Rocker letting me know the show is at 7:30 tonight at the Duluth Auditorium.  I confirm this.  Back to sleep.

10:45 am   Bud calls and wakes me up from one of my vivid dreams.  Led Zeppelin is ready to play at our high school (ya, right) and Robert Plant can't sing.  They ask me if I could fill in (hey, it's my dream).  I say, "You're bloody well right I'll sing" or something like that.  Then, the phone rings.  I slam the phone down.  So close to being a star.

10:46 am    Bud calls back.  I ask what the hell is his problem.  He mumbles something (he's a certified mumbler) and I think he says thickets for the hugfest in foo-foo.  What?  Oh, the concert.  Ya, got it.  Why?  Bud says the show might be sold out.

10:48 am    The phone is left dangling as I vaguely hear some mumbling.  I'm high-tailin' it to my '69 Ford Custom 500 and drivin' crazy- fast.  For all of  five blocks.  I hope Mrs. Adams isn't takin' her morning slow-walk next door.  She just might have to fast-jump out of the way.

10:54 am     I brake and jump and roll.  Not really, but it sounded good.  I dash into Good Earth Records and look for Jerry.  It's a landmark store in our little town which sells albums, tapes, posters, smokin' apparatuses.  And concert tickets.  In this bygone era, you had to purchase them at a store or order them and wait for the mail.  There was no waitin' here.  Jerry is not around.  Only a dimwitted worker bee, Jimbo.  He hadn't seen Musket (nickname for Jerry) in awhile.  He didn't know when he'll be back.  'LA Woman' is blaring on the stereo which disrupted my thinkin'.  I was thinkin', "Shit, I better get four tickets or I'm dead."  I promised Bumbler, Rocker and, the most important one, our driver, Jonesy.  If only I had woken up earlier.  Preferably yesterday.  "Calm down.  Musket will be back.  It's his store and looking at Jimbo, I'd say he had better hurry."  Jimbo was air-drumming on top of the cash register.

11:23 am     Ok, the whole album of 'LA Woman' is now over.  No Musket.  No tickets.  No way.  Where the hell is, wait, here he comes.  With a smile as big as a double-wide and eyes as red as a baboon's butt.  Oh oh.  Pushing his glasses back on his nose, as they always slid down, he looked at me.  "Hey Alto.  What's up?"  "I need four tickets for the concert tonight."  "What concert?"  "You know, the Slade and Brownsville Station one.  In Duluth."  Jessica Sampson saunters by and Musket's attention is not on me anymore.  The Boss is now screaming.  Internally, so am I.

11:42 am     Watching Jerry run his store was a thing of beauty.  He started Good Earth on his own and had a vision of what a record store should be like.  And he nailed it.  Not only was the selection diverse but it was a cool place to hang out and talk music.  And he knew his music.  And was passionate about it.  He could talk for, literally, hours on why John Lennon should've killed Yoko Ono.  Or what Jim Morrison meant on an obscure poem he wrote.  But this was getting ridiculous.  He was ringing up some Billy Squier and a button (the Rolling Stones logo) and was deep in conversation about Elvis Costello with some high schooler who should take a freakin' bath (not many showers in those days).  I nervously flipped through the G-H album section keeping my eye on him.

12:12 pm     My patience is exhausted.  Jerry was now out the back to get a shipment of albums and cassettes.  Man, can he move fast when he has to.  I caught up to him and asked if I could help.  "Oh hey, Alto.  What's up?"  "Any tickets?  Jerry?"  He was already gone to the back.

12:25 pm     Jerry comes back.  Finally.  "Oh hey, Alto.  How long you been here?"  "Musket, the tickets.  I need four tickets.  Remember?"  "Oh ya.  I think that show sold out."
 
12:26 pm     Plan B.  "Are you sure?  Could you check?"  "Ya, I can call Freddy over in Chisholm.  He might have some."  "Oh man, that's be great."  He was gone in a flash.  Jimbo can't figure how to ring up a blank cassette.  Jerry rings it up and then goes into a rant about how bad the Stones are these days.

12:36 pm     Jerry is gone again.  How does he move so fast?  I look at Jimbo.  He just shrugs.  Now I'm starvin' marvin'.  Figuring Musket will be back soon (fingers are crossed), I go next door to grab a burger.  The best in town.  Except the half-pounder with fries has gone up.  Geez, now $2.99?  I've lost all my patience and my money.

1:02 pm      I reenter Good Earth full and ready to keep up with Musket.  If he tries to escape again, I'll have to tackle him.  He's bigger than me but I'm desperate.  It'll take us at least an hour and a half to drive to Duluth.  I still have to shower (one of the lucky families) and get prepared for the show.  That takes a lot of time and effort.  I'll stay calm and see what's in the bargain bin.

1: freakin' 52 pm    Guess who decides to show up?  Yup, Musket.  With a pizza and beer.  "Hey Alto.  Want some 'zza?"  "Jerry."  "Hey man, you look a little stressed.  How 'bout a beer?"  "Thanks but no thanks.  How about those tickets?"  "What tickets?"  Deep breath.  "THE CONCERT TICKETS FOR TONIGHT."  "Oh those.  I have to go get 'em.  I'll be back in about an hour."  Now I don't know about you but one hour really means two, maybe three.  Exhausted, I gave in.

5: oh my God 38 pm    A knock at my door.  I answer in full concert mode.  My hair combed just right, an old Black Oak Arkansas t-shirt and my fav-o-rite blue jeans, a little torn.  "Hey Alto.  Sorry 'bout that.  We got to talkin' and well, here they are.  You can pay me whenever.  I don't know why you needed them so fast.  They don't play till tomorrow."

5: is that me sobbing? 45 pm   I am back asleep.  With the phone off the hook.
                 

-- Recent Reads --

The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen, 2001
A dysfunctional, quirky and very real family story that displays harmony, personal anguish, humor and an ending that left me weeping.  But also upbeat.  Yes, you can have it both ways.  An emotional, taut and excellent read.  Franzen is somebody to follow.

The Enchantress of Florence
Salman Rushdie, 2009
Yes, that Salman Rushdie.  He who had a fatwa on his head for years after writing 'The Satanic Verses' in '88.  He is a vivid and colorful storyteller but peculiar in style.  I felt as if he was talking down to me.  Oh well, off with his head.  This will challenge you in an intellectual way but still very entertaining.

Benjamin Franklin : An American Life
Walter Isaacson, 2003
By no means boring, this biography by Isaacson tells us stuff about Ben that you didn't get in high school.  But what else is new?  This is one man who shaped America, possibly more than any single person.  Tons more interesting than the John Adams book, not the cable presentation.  I will read Einstein's bio by this author as soon as I can.  Supposed to be scary good.

Childhood's End
Arthur C. Clarke, 1953
Everybody knows Clarke as the author of  '2001: A Space Odyssey' in '68.  But this overlooked gem by one of the top five sci-fi writers ( in my humble opinion), will have you guessing and wondering long after you've finished reading it.  Discussions about 2012 collide in this fast-paced, 200+ page novel.

Riven Rock
TC Boyle,1998
If you haven't read any TC, get out your reading glasses and read.  He transforms this simple nonfiction story (with maybe some fiction?) about the mental state of one powerful 1800's tycoon into a humorous romp.  Anything Boyle writes, please read.

American Goliath
Harvey Jacobs, 1997
The Cardiff Giant.  General Tom Thumb.  P.T. Barnum.  Another possible bending and blending of a real story into a sometimes uneven read.  However, fun as hell and compelling.  Jacobs hasn't done much but his '09 book, 'Side Effects' sounds enticing.

Winter VS. Summer : HUNTING

When men find out I'm from Minnesota, they glance at me hopefully. 

"Pretty good hunting up there, right?"  Visions of venison, bear rugs and goose-down pillows.
"Ya, I guess."
"And fishing."  Stuffed otters and coonskin caps.
"Ya."
"I remember when I was on a hunting trip .."
"Excuse me, but I don't hunt."
"Huh?"
"Maybe a little fishing."
"What the?"
"I mean, I tried.  I really did."

So, I explain in brief how terrible I am at hunting and the fish stay away from my line as if the lure has rabies on it.  I wonder what a rabid walleye would look like.
The man is now very suspicious and shakes his head.  

Winter
We are off to track down and hunt the wily, tricky and foxy rabbit.  First of all, calling out  'Kill the wabbit!' didn't exactly help in my instructional part of  hunting this noble creature.  Sheesh, hunters have no sense of humor. I guess, when you have a rifle in your hands, this is no time to crack jokes.  This is serious.  The snowshoe hare (lepus americanus) or varying hare, is our prey.  This reminds me of the cult movie, only-meant-to-be-played-at-all-drive-ins, 'Night of the Lepus'.  Does anybody remember that gem?  Huge rabbits pounce and destroy a poor town, that, I suspect, have had one too many rabbit hunts.  Of course, with modern technology at that time, the gigantic bunnies were normal sized and the town was plastic.  You could actually see the shadows on the background.  Movies used to be so real back then.  I couldn't quite get that image out of my head, so I kept looking above me.  Just in case these varying hares did vary in size. In winter, we have snow.  In winter, the rabbit is white as snow.  So, shooting at white while walking in and through white might seem a tad difficult to distinguish snow-covered, white fur from something, say, a snow-covered mound of dirt.  As my instructions from fellow hunting friends were ( in the near future not-so-friendly), shoot at anything that hops, bounds, scrambles, scampers, zigs or zags.  I immediately grasped the situation firmly.  And another important lesson : don't shoot in the vicinity of another hunter if you see darting movements.  I didn't know my peripheral vision was that good.  My fellow hunters dropped to the back of me and for good reason.  I was the brave leader who will get first shot at our future rabbit stew.

The first 50 yards of trudging through a field of bright, shining, blinding ice crystals was peaceful and invigorating.  I was going to kill and eat the flesh of a fluffy, furry and flop-eared rabbit.  Sounds really manly.  The serenity was shattered as I stepped in a white hole ( damn, probably a rabbit hole) and  let out a shriek not unlike that of a hungry, five-month old baby girl.  As I fell, I lost grip of my rifle (damn, my hands were already frozen) and it went off.  That was the second thing I shouldn't have done.  In less than an hour I had two hunting strikes against me.  But, as fate would have it (others call it beginner's blind luck) I was vindicated.  My shot blasted into a pile of snow about 20 feet away and out sprang a white and red (?) rabbit.  He kind of looked at me, well, he would've looked if he had had a head, and fell over.  It looked like that solid white-chocolate bunny I had for Easter when I was young.  After I had bit its head off.

The rabbit stew was tasty.  I don't eat Easter bunnies anymore.  At least not the snow-covered ones.


Summer
We are off to track down and hunt the wily, tricky and foxy partridge.  Now, I know we don't have pear trees in the Land of 10 Trillion Lakes.  So I didn't quite get it.  I let my hunting buddies (no longer friends, numbers dwindling) give me the tips for shooting something that goes airborne.  The first tip : don't be alarmed when they take flight.  This graceful bird appeared in Greek mythology when Daedalus threw his nephew, Perdix, off a roof in a jealous rage.  The partridge or perdix stays amongst groundcover and avoids high places like trees.  Poor guy.  He has wings but is paranoid of falling.  Kind of like a fish (gilly) scared of swimming.  You have to hand it to those Greeks.  They sure know their mythological ornithology.


Walking down a dirt road, thick foliage (are those pear trees?) on both sides of us, the graceless, scared-of-heights partridge and his/her pals will suddenly and noisily crash through the trees, out to the open road and fly.  They come out of the trees low and they fly even lower if that's possible.  This is the time to fire before they get too much, uh, air.  Ok.  Check.  As our crunching Red Wings crunched, various birds other than partridges were singing a song.  Was that The 12 Days of Christmas?  Suddenly, swiftly and urgently. without warning, a clatter shattered the bird chatter.  As I almost swallowed my tongue, I instinctively reacted.  By not swallowing my tongue.  I also pulled up the rifle and shot.  The sound of the blast was like AC DC's 'For Those About To Rock' cannons.  We looked down the road in front of us and, laying in a clump of feathers, was a bird.  My bird.  My headless bird.  Another head-shot.  Partridge is tasty but always needs a pear.

After those two mind-blasting shots, I couldn't hit the ground if I was tossed off a roof.  I tried duck.  I tried goose.  Is that the same as duck-duck-goose (duck-duck-gray goose, in Minnesota)?  I have heard that the rare skeet is easier to get or the cool coot.  I may try.  Or I might just stick to music hunting and gathering.

Oh, and when women find out I'm from Minnesota, they ask about The Mall of America.  Go ahead and ask me about those pillows and caps.

-- Recent Listens --

Faith No More
Angel Dust, '92
Not quite as good as their '89, "The Real Thing", which charted 'Epic' and the redo of 'War Pigs'.  This still is a solid disc, rolls and rocks and socks with crazy lyrics of Mike Patton.

Eric Clapton
Journeyman, '89
UGH!  With a couple of lame radio hits, this overall stinks.  Sorry E.C.

Radiohead
In Rainbows, '07
Since '93 and their single 'Creep' off 1st release "Pablo Honey", this rock/experimental group has consistently challenged listeners.  This disc is no different.  It will, however, test your patience. But what else do you have to do?  Sit back and enjoy.  It'll be worth it.

Soundgarden
Louder Than Love, '89
Close to hitting all cylinders with following classics  "Badmotorfinger", '91 and "Superunknown", '94.  Hard sludge rock that'll boil your brain.  Chris Cornell is undeniably one of the greatest rock singers.  Check this stuff out.

Flaming Lips
Embryonic, '09
Strange.  Grand.  Far-out, man.  This Oklahoma City band has no restrictions.  Their first seven CD's were punkish rock with nutty, catchy single in '93, 'She Don't Use Jelly'.  "Soft Bulletin" , '99 got me hooked into their weird construction of music.  This release takes you to another plane of rock.

Derek and the Dominos
Layla Sessions, '90 (from '70)
This is what E.C. really sounds like.  Alternate masters, jams and outtakes.  Only a handful of songs done with different takes and structure, but to hear Duane Allman again is always worth it.  And E.C. probably at his best.

Hear Ye Hear Ye

One of the funniest comics in the newspapers today (yes, I still read the daily Rocky Mountain News and yes, I still read the comics) is Mr. Piraro at    www.bizarrocomic.blogspot.com     I don't read all the sappy comics but I always read Dilbert, Dustin, Brevity, Zits, Scary Gary, Pearls Before Swine and F-Minus.  I'm still a kid at heart, if you didn't know, and still am clinging to the hope that newspapers will somehow keep going.  I have been involved with newspapers since my first job at 13 as a paper delivery boy.  I do have a few stories about that gig and may release them unto the public if I can.  Putting a smile on my mug everyday is important for me and maybe for everybody.  Oh, and by the by, I don't like reading the news on the damn computer.  I still like holding periodicals in my grubby hands and my two favorites are Rolling Stone and National Geographic.  RS has amped up the last few years and NG doesn't show as many saggy boobies anymore.  Drats.  So, here's to all struggling artists, no matter if you write, paint, dance, sing, play music, etc. and to all the people that support the arts.  Let's not lose sight of the fact that we all need something to entertain us and keep our minds from filling up with real life garbage.  I'd rather fill 'er up with fun stuff.  And who knows.  Maybe my own comic/cartoon creation will be born, as it's still in the womb, and everybody can enjoy.  Maybe.  So, check out Bizzaro and have a great day.

 PEE ES.  I really appreciate all the support from the few that get a chuckle from my scribblings.  I hope to continue and, at the very least, entertain myself.  Keep the comments coming.  Thanks again.  Now, I must use the restroom with the sports section.  I know, TMI....................

It's Alive

Coco Montoya / Tinsley Ellis
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
The Toad Tavern, Littleton, Colorado

I was initially going to do an old-fashioned review of this show that brought two top-notch blues guitarists together.  Pen and paper.  The set list.  The venue.  The audience.  And maybe an interview for spice.  Exchanging e-mails with the booking agent for the Toad, I had requested, with a bare hope, for an interview with either musician.  The PR men from Coco/Tinsley needed to know what publication or entity I was representing.  My reply - just little 'ol me.  Shot down.  Ok, I then requested some set lists.  Not much help there, either.  I then imagined that a full-blown review was tenuous, at best.  Could I really capture the moment when Tinsley played his Les Paul with his teeth (he didn't) or when Coco set his Strat on fire (he didn't)?  This left me feeling a little uninspired to write.  So, I decided that this night I wouldn't be a music journalist.  Just a music lover.  So, the pressure of  'getting it right'  was lifted.

This little bar (capacity around 150) was packed.  My wife and myself were lucky to get close enough to the stage as to see all the crinkles in the faces, all the road rash, all the hard miles.  We voluntarily moved a few rows back.  I was shocked at the sound system.  It was well- suited for the HOH (hard of hearing) group but not mind warping.  It was actually nice not to be blown away by the VW-sized speakers.  The clean and crisp sound was perfect.  Only my bad ear is experiencing chimes ringing after the show.  Bonus.

I had previously seen Tinsley's trio in Charlotte, N.C. about nine months ago in support of their 2009 release "Speak No Evil", a bluesy, rock, fret-pounding, slide-soloing, riff-solid effort.  Tinsley, that night and this night, was locked into a world of his own searing, guitar bravado.  His vocals reminded us of Robin Trower's singer, James Dewar and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, thick and rich.  Displaying a warmer, textured, stripped-down, guitar-slinging, Coco Montoya nimbly picked and tricked throughout his set.  With a blistering keyboard player that almost, not quite, but at times, stole the show, Coco sounded loco.  However, after seeing Stevie Ray Vaughn several times, this brand of electric blues seemed anticlimactic.  Oh oh.  My 'music journalist snobbery' was forcing its ill-will on me.  I fought back this urge and enjoyed both 90-minute sets of power blues.

At times, we couldn't help but notice the older (older than who?) crowd breathing heavily around us.  We guesstimated an average age of 57.  How did we come up with this?  A not-so-secret formula :  count how many guys with grey, thinning ponytails; add the girth of their midsections; multiply the number of times 'awesome' was shouted; subtracting the amount of beers spilled equals average age.  Give or take a few.  Try this the next time you see Eric Clapton.  We also witnessed a Richard Gere-wannabe, countless Girthers, male and female faces that only a mama would pinch, martini-slurping (then martini-puking) women and the inevitable Coiffs.  Men with perfectly coiffured hair covering up bald spots, meticulously groomed with a dash of fake (or real) salt-n-pepper and glistening with, I suspect, the backwash of The Gulf of Mexico.  Ah yes, the over-50 crowd is here.

Going to a concert these days still gets my engine revved.  It feels like only yesterday, if a yesterday was 40 odd years, that I was driven by Dad to the Virginia (Minnesota) Armory to see Crow ('Slow Down', 'Evil Woman') and opener The Litter, two 'awesome' Minneapolis bands at the time.  Follow that innocent experience with a bus trip (our annual Concert Choir shindig) to the Duluth (Minn.) Auditorium in '71 to see Guess Who with opener, and on their first tour, REO Speedwagon.  This was my first arena show and it made a monumental impression. REO guitarist Gary Richrath had a 10 hour guitar solo (come on, it seemed that long) under one large spotlight with a darkened stage.  Blisters on me fingers.  I was 'blown away' (I know, another redundant redundancy of cliched cliches).  The sheer force of this music live was, and still is, epic and ingrained into my DNA.

As a music fan, just relaxing with family and friends, drinking a few cold beverages, without pen and paper, without the need to dissect the show, is still as invigorating as it was those decades before.  At least to this pony-tailed, non-coiffed, non-girthed, small-town boy.  The engine sputters a little more often, missing some noise along the way and the revving process takes longer, but when the gears mesh, you will inevitably hear me scream something we've all heard for a long time: Awwwsssome !

This All Makes Perfect Sense

Taking for granted any one of our senses is commonplace.  Even a partial loss can be devastating.  A popular question amongst bored individuals is:  If you were to lose a sense, which one would you choose? 

Let's take a look at the five traditional senses.

Taste and Smell
Sometimes these are listed together as if they are co-senses.  The Grand Poobah of Senses or GPS (coined years before Global Positioning Satellite and still in a trademark dispute) disagrees.  GPS says, to wit, "Taste ( gustation) is as disparate from smell (olfaction) as is seeing and hearing.  (See the example of  'tree falls in woods' for further clarification)  The sense of taste is somewhat compromised if your sense of smell is compromised.  This is purely subjective conjecture.  Think of cheese.  Most of the cheese in the world is stinky but tastes good.  What if it was the other way around?  You wouldn't eat much cheese unless you were from Wisconsin.  Therefore, taste and smell are both considered, and always will be, separate senses."
[ Section 1A, pages 32-161, Book of Traditional Senses (BOTS) ]

Eyesight
This is a huge sense.  For one, you wouldn't be able to read this.  Braille on a computer is still a few years away, I think.  I had better research that one, just to be safe.  Most jobs would be affected, unless you can operate by sound or pure willpower.  GPS says, to wit, "The sense of sight (vision) is a no-brainer as a top two sense.  In conjunction with hearing, the human body can do some wonderful things.  Sight is a sense that is here to stay, sight unseen.  And what fun is going to the movies without it?"
[Section II B, pages 212-449]

Touch
The sense of touch (tactition) has been hotly debated as to when it was indoctrinated into the sense category.  Some believe it was when Michelangelo, circa 1511, painted God touching and thus creating Adam on the Sistine Chapel.  From then on, we assume, because this was before BOTS, it had to be a sense because it was from a higher power or divine entity.  According to GPS, to wit, "I have no problem with that.  I go to church every Sunday.  Well, almost every Sunday.  Groping, fondling, caressing, heavy petting or anything related, in anyway sexual, should be considered sensual, not sensesual.  There is a big difference.  The sense of touch is considered to be in the bottom five of senses.  Touching nowadays can be overtly personal and non-hygienic and we wouldn't want that now, would we? 
[Section III A, pages 460-539]

Hearing
This just might be the granddaddy of all senses, at least according to myself.  I really don't care who agrees or disagrees.  You can go talk to a wall.  See how that works out for you.   But plenty of people do disagree.  People that don't like music (is there really such a freak?).  People that don't want to hear one more pitiful excuse.  The yelling.  The laughing.  The swearing.  Thunder.  A baby crying (for God's sake, a baby?).  Oh yes, this sense is one of those that many people can do without.  There's sign language.  There's lip-reading.  There's pen and paper.  The computer.  But, as GPS states, to wit, "Hearing (audition) shall be the number one sense because it just is.  The old mystery and befuddlement of  'If  a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it really make a sound?' is one example.  Just ask families of the deceased.  Countless ground squirrels, eggs in nests, the termites.  What would they say?  "No, we didn't hear the crash of falling timber ripping through the canopy crushing our homes, our newborn chicks.  No, we didn't hear a thing."  We here at the Senses of the Environment Committee (SEC, ongoing trademark dispute) are insulted by this riddle or whatever theoretical discussion it has wrought.  The bigger question should be : If a tree was about to fall on you, your voice is lost, vision blurred, no feeling in your feet, the smell and taste of the pines are stifled, how in this world could one sense, hearing, make a difference?  Something to think about.  Is thinking a sense?  That will be addressed at the next World of the Mind Discovery (WMD, no trademark dispute).
[Section IV, pages 550-1142]

This opens up the debate for other aspects of senses.  Should nonsense be considered a new sense?  Should the sense of foreboding be included with the sense of well-being?  What really is a sense of humor?  Will The Book of Traditional Senses make sense?  Hopefully, all these questions will be well-thought out.  I mean, if common sense was truly common, why is there so little of it?

** NOTE :  This writing is in no way attempting to demean anyone with sensory deprivation.  And, no animals, trees or humans were hurt during the research of this article.  Thank you. **