Thursday, January 20, 2011

PHOTOGRAPHICAL SERENDIPITY...
...it exists, ah say, it definitely exists...
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A musician I know through the "Huckleberries Online" website, headquarted in North Idaho, where I used to live, posted this picture (below) of a really strange-looking cloud formation, and when I first saw it, I just about stripped my gears! Why? Because I'd been out, taking pictures today since it was only the 2nd or 3rd sunny day we've had here on the Oregon Coast this year. And I believe I took a picture of the same sunset, 500 miles west of where Don's picture was taken. Could it be? You be the judge. Below, you'll see his photo of the Sunset Skies over Coeur d'Alene Lake...
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Now, below, you'll see pictures I took on this very same evening at almost the same time. This was taken through the windshield, so it looks a little grainy. The Sunset, happening at Bastendorff Beach, Oregon. Actually, you can't see the sun set just yet; the days are too short and the Sun is too far south. So instead, the sun sets over the ocean cliffs here. The coastline here faces Northeast, so that throws off the the whole East-West orientation thing. Anyway, here's my photo #1...
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I'd been looking at the Ocean all day, ignoring what was happening overhead. It was quite a show. When I looked to the skies, I saw one of the weirdest cloud formations I'd ever seen. In this second photo, I Actually Got Out Of The Car to take it. Ah, the sacrifices we make for our art...
Here it is, folks; photo #2...
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The advancing bank of clouds looks like what we'd see if the planet Mercury drifted off-course, to smash into Earth. Or if the Moon decided to just give up, end it all, and crash into the Pacific Ocean, this might be what we'd see? Actually, I was watching the History Channel last nite, which informed me that the moon is getting further and further away from earth, at the rate of about one-and-a-half-inches per year, so we won't have any Lunar incidents anytime soon. At least, that's the theory.
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Finally, here's one of the Best Photos I Will Ever Take. As I was panning the camera around, this shot Announced Itself to my brain, so 'whirrrrr-click', here we have a two-tone sky with monochromatic forestation in the foreground. Just beyond those trees is where the ocean is. So, buoys and gulls, (a little bit of ocean humor there), here's the Grand Finale...
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The fact that both of us were out there with cameras, at virtually the same time, photographing the same thing 500 miles apart just blew my mind. Small World Indeed. Earlier, I referred to the Huckleberries Online blogsite, and here's its Cyber address: www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/hbo. On that site, there's Never A Dull Moment.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

THE RAPID DECLINE OF CD PACKAGING...
...is it too much to ask for protective measures?
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With alarmingly increasing numbers, the Compact Discs you buy are being packaged in Cardboard or Posterboard sleeves, and I don't like this development one bit. The packagers are always saying that they're protecting the environment by wrapping up your CD in allegedly organic material. On one level, it makes sense, and although I'm not gonna go out and hug a tree after I post this, yes, we need our trees. But...as you've no doubt found out by now, CD's are very delicate. One little dust particle on your disc, and the player sounds like Armageddon, making all kinds of rude electronic skip-noises. (I do know that CD skips sound weird, and a CD that skips sounds a lot more bizarre than a record that skips...)
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One of the first times I'd run across this allegedly ecological development was back a few years ago when I bought the new Eagles CD. It's a double-disc set, and both discs are housed in a stiff pseudo-cardboard package, which makes about as much sense as filling up your car's gas tank with Clorox. CD's are very, Very easy to scratch, so why do the CD packagers force the consumer to slide the disc in and out of a cardboard cover, exposing it to Wood Fibers? Eyeglass specialists tell you that it's not a good idea to polish your lenses with toilet paper. Paper can scratch Plastic, as well as Glass, after all. Why, then, is a plastic CD, which is nowhere near as durable as Glass Lenses, packaged in a damn pasteboard sleeve? This really sticks in my craw. (Actually, I don't know what a craw is, but it sounds good.) The folks who came up with this idea of CD packaging say it's The Right Thing To Do. They say the packaging is Ecologically-friendlier-than-ever to the Environment. Balderdash. I think the CD companies do it to save money, but they trumpet their cause with politically-oriented justifications, so that we can pay to have a CD in a type of packaging that can, and does, harm the CD! And some of the packaging, (for instance, The Beatles Remasters), forces you to slide the CD in and out of a curved slit in the packaging, packing the CD in so tightly that the wood/paper fibers can do a really great job of rendering your CD unplayable after a few times. You can actually hear the friction as the CD slides in/out. It makes me absolutely CRINGE. I can work with CD's that are packaged with a straight slit along the edge, though. I keep lots of paper CD-sleeves on hand, which are lined with Cellophane on one side. I trim the top off the paper sleeve, place the CD in sleeve with the recorded side sliding on the plastic, then I shove the whole shebang into the posterboard outer sleeve in which the CD originally came in.
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I'm very finnicky when it comes to caring for my records, tapes or CD's. I have my original copy of "Sgt. Pepper", which I got in 1968, and it still sounds pretty good for a a 43-year-old record that's been played on numerous rotten phonographs over and over and over. Those of you who can actually remember buying new records at your local dealer can recall that the LP came in a paper sleeve, so the LP wouldn't get marked up by the cardboard outer sleeve. Yeah, the paper sleeve did put surface scratches on the LP, but not deeply enough to affect the record's playability, since the needle tracks inside a physical groove. A Cardboard-packaged CD innersleeve comes in direct contact with the disc's playing surface. An insignificantly-appearing surface scratch can affect your player's laser-beam to go all askew, causing your CD to make all sorts of rude noises, best described as "Nya-Nya-Nya-Nya-Nya-a-a-a-a-a-a-a..."
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As this blog has demonstrated time after senseless time, I don't know very much about anything. But I know shoddy packaging when I see it. I don't like it at ALL. It makes about as much sense as a Brick House with a Balsa-wood foundation. (Hey, I like that one!) And I think all CD owners need to address this issue. If you agree, post something about it in my Comments section, or on your blog, and then tweet-it to everyone on the planet.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

BANG BANG, SHOOT SHOOT...
...history repeating itself again and again...
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They called him a hero in the land of the free
But he wouldn't shake my hand, boy, he disappointed me
So I got my handgun and blew him away
That critter was a bad guy; I had to make him pay...
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There's an old song from the 1930s or 40s with the title "A Hundred Years From Now", and perhaps it's true; all the issues we're facing today won't mean a tinker's damn (!!!), and today's high-tech society will seem oh, so primitive. History has a way of repeating itself though, as we saw over the weekend when a Congress Lady, a Federal Judge, and a 9-year-old child among others were shot at by some wacko who managed to fly under the radar and got himself a semi-automatic weapon. Several people died tragically. How do people like that get guns so easily? Until we get stricter with gun purchases, stuff like this will continue to happen right here in America, where one shouldn't be afraid holding a sort-of outdoor Town Hall Meeting in front of a grocery store. Obviously we haven't learned from history; we keep repeating it...and the shootings continue.
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In the course of my own brief lifetime, I remember President Kennedy's assassination; it's the first Politically-oriented memory I have, since I was only 10 at the time. I was a little older when Bobby Kennedy got shot. Martin Luther King comes to mind here also. There was the attempt on President Reagan's life, and how about the murder of Egypt's Anwar Sadat...the killing of TV actress Rebecca Shaeffer, the infamous deaths of Nicole Simpson & Ronald Goldman, the gunning down of John Lennon, and the 2002 deaths of folks like you and me, pumping gas, delivering the mail, leaving the car to go shopping, or just standing on the corner during that rash of killings. And all that doesn't even come close to the total amount of violence in cities, large or small around the country. How bizarre.
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The Arizona shooter evidently was nursing some nebulous anti-governmental obsession. Timothy McVeigh comes to mind here, even tho he was a bomber, not a shooter. Some murders are committed for religious reasons. The conservatives shoot the liberals (the murder of Denver Radio talk-show host Alan Berg, for instance), the fan shoots the star, the poor guy shoots the rich guy, and so on...now, toss all of the above into the bin with the rest of all the stuff, like Murdering someone for the Insurance Money, or Child Custody issues, jealousies, Robberies, Road Rage, or even someone looking the wrong way at someone else. Oh, I almost forgot drugs, gang-banging, embezzlement, divorce, and psychic issues, and I'm sure if I slaved over this paragraph for a while longer, I could come up with more reasons why people are killed with guns. But I think that'll do for now. All I know is, the many cable crime-channels won't run short of material to air anytime soon.-
It's safe to say that in most cases, all of these tragic events have one thing in common: A Gun. So we're back to the same old argument. As long as guns remain so easily available, vicious murders are gonna happen. "Well, what about knives and other weapons", you ask. A Gun can kill people from far away, as the D.C. Sniper shootings demonstrate, and automatic weapons can kill many people in a split-second. Guns enable the shooter to stand far, far away, or mow down a bunch of people in an instant. Stabbings or stranglings involve a closer, hands-on manner of Murder. It's just easier to use Guns to kill people. Sad but true. I'm watching "The First 48", an MSNBC crime show as I'm typing this. Each episode features two crimes in two different parts of the nation, and tonight, as usual, both Crimes involved Guns. People killing other people, thus throwing their own lives away. No one wins in a murder case.
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She was my lover, it was a shame that she died,
But the Constitution's right on my side
'Cos I caught my lover in my neighbor's bed
I got retribution, filled 'em with lead
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I don't know, really, why automatic and semi-automatic guns need to be manufactured and sold (unless for wartime uses) and for that matter, I don't understand how some crazy wacko can get a gun of any type. Some folks say, "we need new gun laws", and those who say No to that instead say, "we need to enforce the rules already in place". As long as guns are made easily available, the carnage will continue. I'm all for gun-rights. I've never shot a gun, but I used to shoot a bow & arrow, and wouldn't have wanted my bow to be taken away from me. Enforce the Gun Laws we have today! Put amendments on those statutes so that guns will not be available to those who shouldn't have them! So, the gun issue will be once again debated furiously in the coming days, until a high-profile murder hasn't happened for a while, but ain't that the way it always is?
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You know a gun never killed anybody, you can ask anyone,
People get shot by People...People with GUNS!
Put out the fire...put out the fire...put out the fire...
You need a Gun like a hole in the head...
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Lyrics taken from "Put Out The Fire" from Queen's "Hot Space" album, released in 1981, just after Lennon's death.

Friday, January 07, 2011

IT ALL STARTED WITH A PIANO IN A SNOWBANK...
...and ended up in the vast attitude/aptitude conondium...
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It all started last night on a website I visit frequently ("Huckleberries"), a blogsite that's part of the larger site of The Spokesman-Review newspaper (located in Spokane, WA). It's the sort of site where people chime in and others respond, and the contents of that blog are more-or-less dictated by what's happening in that area. (http://www.spokesmanreview.com/, if you're curious. It's a fun place to be, and some of us have been visiting that site for years). It turns out someone who lives up that way actually moved an old Piano out of the house and deposited the thing in a SNOWBANK. A poor old piano. Instruments have character, you know. I think it's tragic. It's also a terrible way to keep a piano in tune, but whoever threw it out probably wasn't thinking about that.
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Alas, there are compassionate people out there, who offset the goofballs who deposit Pianos in Snowbanks. And someone picked it up and took it home. Good thing, too, since Animal Control doesn't pick up pianos. And certainly the Department of Sanitation wouldn't try to stuff a large wooden musical instrument into one of their gas-guzzling ever-rumbling garbage trucks. This is the kind of stuff that would make Billy Joel shudder. A Piano in a Snowbank, for cryin' out loud.
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One of those who posts on the above-mentioned website plays the organ; his actions are very smooth as his hands roam unguardedly over the keyboards (I use the plural because the big organ he plays is an old three-tiered model). I know this because I've played drums in a square-dance band while he led the way. One of my comments on the blog revolved around how amazed I am when I see people walk up to a keyboard and can play anything by ear. My Mom could do that, too. Another blogger replied that to get that good, you have to practice, practice, practice. Implying that if I wanted to be any good at playing the piano, all I had to do was live, sleep and breathe keyboards. But the keyboard player commented that it's not just Attitude, it's also Aptitude that determines good musicianship.
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So I've been thinking about that all day. Attitude, Aptitude. Aptitude, Attitude. My parents always thought that I was going to be some kind of a great musician. Why did they care if I took violin? It didn't mean that much to me; besides, I got beaten up and called a sissy for lugging a violin case to school. For three years, I had to miss valuable classes and go play the violin instead. My first violin teacher, Miss Mary Ann Torrence, was a wonderful teacher, and under her tutelage, there I was, in the "first chair" week after week. That was in 5th grade. In 6th grade, Mr. Terris took over the violin class and he was hard-driving and mean. I mentioned that to him a few decades later, and he told me that he was a new teacher with a lot to prove. I can understand that. Trying to teach a class of young kids to skree-skraw semi-accurately week after week. It's gotta be exasperating. I lost "first chair" when Mr. Terris took over.
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Finally, my last violin teacher was Mr. Gilbert Burns. He made Ebenezer Scrooge look like a Welcome Wagon representative. During Mr. Terris' class a year earlier, we all had to learn a thing called "The Lilliput Symphony". And I thought I had it down pretty well; we all played it a number of times, culminating in a city-wide band/orchestra performance which is as close as I'll ever get to stardom. A year later, Mr. Burns had us play "Lilliput", so I played it the same way I'd played it the year before, and I got yelled at, Mr. Burns saying I was playing it all wrong, a song I could play without having to read the sheet music. And that's kinda when I lost my interest in the orchestra. Besides, violin class made me miss a lot of Math classes, and I'm no good in math at all. On top of that, my Dad joked, in front of me, to the rest of the family, "Dave plays violin while Gilbert BURNS". That was a cheap shot I wasn't expecting, and I was embarrassed in front of the family, you know, those who are supposed to be at least A LITTLE BIT SUPPORTIVE, f''cryin' out loud!!!!! I still remember that vividly, although it happened in 1967.
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Strangely, magically, my parents didn't seem to care when, in 8th grade, I wasn't playing Violin anymore. Conversely, though, they made my little sister take violin. I have no idea how good she was; maybe she achieved "first chair"; I don't know. What I do know is that she took the violin by the neck one fine day and SMASHED IT INTO THE WALL!!!!!!! I find it quite satisfying, somehow, that I remember that. So where am I going with all this? Well, my parents then forced me to take Piano Lessons. The layout of the piano dictates that both hands navigate the fingers over different notes and chords simultaneously, and I just never felt "natural" playing piano. I literally could feel both halves of my brain grinding against each other as I struggled to plink-plunk my way through whatever song I was trying to play. It was painful. I remember one song, "Little Spring Song", a waltz that I can still play. But let's face it, I would never have been able to give Bob Ralston (Lawrence Welk's Keyboardist) a run for his money. So I abandoned piano too.
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One Christmas, I found a guitar under the Christmas Tree. I had never shown any inclination to play the guitar. I didn't ask for a guitar. But, this time around, I WANTED to take lessons. Boy, was I excited! Maybe someday I could also be a Beatle! And again I was a total washout. I had a hard time, because the guitar fingers differently than the violin, so I'd end up trying to play violin notes on guitar, which doesn't work, and I couldn't forget one instrument while trying to play another. This time I quit. I wasn't getting anywhere, and I knew it. I'd sit at home, trying to play bass notes of whatever record I had on the player. I didn't know any guitar chords; I was just fumbling around. The years went by...I quit playing guitar in 1970. My Dad show me a few guitar chords, but I didn't know what to do with chords, how they related to music, and for 4 years, my guitar went unplayed.
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Later on, I ran across some fellow college students playing popular songs on guitars, using the chords my Dad taught me. And I put two and two together, and that's how I ended up playing to this very day. I hit the chords and work off them. Chords are basically the cornerstones of music, and if you know those, then you, too, can play. I know a couple hundred songs. But ya know, I can't play a musical scale to save my life; something within my brain bucks me if things get too technical or complicated. I also have coordination problems, trying to pick one of the middle strings independently of the other strings. With chords, you can pretty much bash your guitar rhythmically and make a lot of noise, and that's what I do. Although in later years, quieter music has increasingly found its way inside my brain. I practice finger-picking on a classical (nylon-string) guitar, although I can only use my thumb and first two fingers of my picking hand; so again, those ol' complexities have taken hold.
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Maurice Minnifield, one of the characters on the old "Northern Exposure" TV show, was a rich guy who had more money than he knew what to do with; in one of the episodes, he bought an ultra-expensive violin. And then he found a violinist who could come up and play the violin. After each playing, Maurice would take the violin and put it back in his airtight safe, which exasperated the violinist who said, "the violin must be allowed to Breathe". The violinist went so crazy over Maurice's violin that he ended up becoming a basket case and was taken to a psychiatric-sort of hospital. Maurice would go once a week and check the violinist out of the looney-bin so the Violin could be played. Bizarre story, yeah. But something Maurice said stuck in my head when I started thinking about this whole attitude/aptitude thing. Maurice said that he himself didn't have the ability to play, but wanted the violinist to play the notes that Maurice himself couldn't, to revel in the experience of enjoying music. And that's why I find good keyboard players so fascinating. I can't do what they do. But I can enjoy them creating their music, their fingers dancing on the keys.
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One night, I was playing guitar at a jam session. I was doing the vocals and playing rhythm guitar, although I played a few lead notes occasionally. One night, a really good guitarist got up on stage with me, and we began doing "All Along The Watchtower", a fairly easy song based in E-minor, and after a couple of verses, I nodded to him, and he began playing sheets and sheets of machine-gun-style guitar leads, and it was fantastic to hear what he was playing, so fantastic in fact, that I just wanted him to play and play. I was keeping the rhythm, I could've taken a few lead passages but didn't want to; that would've interrupted his creativity. In that case, I was content playing a supportive rhythm. I am a very good rhythm player, and in that case, I knew my place. I stayed on rhythm, and we ended up playing a 15-minute version of that song. Talk about Far Out!
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In anything I've ever done, I start fast out of the gate, then hit a "wall" which keeps me from progressing any further. I've got tapes of my guitar playing from 20 and 30 years ago, and I haven't progressed that much since then. I'm no genius at anything. I guess I lack the aptitude. While I sometimes feel like a smart guy, when push comes to shove, I'm not. I still haven't found anything that I'm Really, Really good at. Except for rhythm guitar. And even then, I have a tendency to play fast, or accidentally increase the tempo as the song progresses. And this is where attitude and aptitude come together. Maybe if I'd practiced scales all of these years (attitude), maybe that would've made me a very good guitarist (aptitude). But some people are given more talent than others. I ran into a blues guitarist who'd only been playing six months. Six Months! And he was good! Some things I just don't understand.
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So how do I deal with my limitations and yet come away feeling fairly positive? I think playing music is like anything else; if you operate within the boundaries of your limitations, then you'll not overreach. It's hard to fight the tendency to "push it" just a little bit...walking a musical tight-rope, I guess. And to the organist (referred to in this post), keep on playing, Sir; you have a real gift.

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

IT DOESN'T MATTER BUT MAYBE IT DOES...
...so I went ahead and installed it...
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Maybe I don't have the most profound blog ever. Maybe some of it is really really dumb. I know at times, my thoughts race ahead of my typing ability. Many is the time I've proofread the blog, content that there are no mistakes in it, but the next time I saw the blog, it had mistakes that I hadn't caught the day before. But lately, I've received no responses, no feedback, no nothing...so it all boils down to this...are people actually lurking here but not commenting? (Those who fall into that category are called "blurkers", I've found out.) If you "blurk", it's time for you to stand up and be counted. But wait, I've let technology do that for you. It's a Hit Counter, it's the first thing you come to in the left margin, and there it is, beseeching everyone worldwide to keep returning time and time again and ye shalt all be counted. Which means that when I'm editing this blog, I have to remember to use the "Preview" function so I won't inflate my 'visitors totals'.
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I've been posting a whole lot lately. Why, I'm not sure. I think some of it has to do with the new pair of Cockatiels that moved in with me a little more than a month ago. They will scream their little bird-butts off if I don't have the bird room totally dark by 5PM. More time for me to blog, since they've chased me outta the bird room, into the bedroom, where this blog is posted. Yes, that's my life. What do I do in the bedroom? I post, then I sleep. Yawn. But there is a silver lining to that, which is, since I don't keep my new computer in the bird room, I don't get bird seeds working their way in-between the keyboard buttons. Occasionally, on my old computer, once in a while I'd press a key and hear a "crunch" noise, in which I'd squashed a seed as I attempted to type.
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They're not yet a year old; the white one is the female and the gray one is male, who sings and carries on, and he's fun (at times) to listen to. His previous owner taught him the Andy Griffith song, you know, that tune that's whistled at the beginning & ending of episodes. Thing is, the bird knows probably a third of the song, after which the following notes just kinda scatter all over the place. The female just sits there, aloof to everything, spending a lot of her time preening herself, and makes it obvious she doesn't like me very much. The male is a bit tamer, although he doesn't like a lot of handling either. I try to make sure and give them 2 or 3 supervised hours out of the cage a day, but any more than that and they end up driving me nuts. So I put 'em in the cage and then go away. I got 'em for $75, with the cage included, which is a good deal as long as I don't go crazy trying to figure them out. So why did I get them? How long will I keep them? Answer to both: I don't know.
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Ohmygosh, another blog post. How about that. So far this blog, this year, has been more reactionary than it was for much of last year. Maybe I'll make it to 2,000 posts. Which means I've got 1800 more posts to do. I'd better stop thinking like that, tho, or I'll never get anything posted.

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

ALREADY WE HAVE 2011's FIRST ROCK FATALITY...
...gawrsh, the new year ain't even a week old yet...
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I Heard it on the radio newscast today; Gerry Rafferty, the guy who had such a huge hit with the song "Baker Street", which described the pitfalls of the music business from an English point of view, died at age 63. Reportedly, he'd had some sort of alcohol problem, and now he's gone. I'm sure almost everyone's heard the song, "Stuck In The Middle With You"; he's the lead singer on that track, recorded when he was part of the group, "Stealer's Wheel". After that album, Rafferty and Joe Egan, both original group members, released the next Stealer's Wheel album as a Duo, and even though that effort, "Ferguslie Park" was given a lot of good reviews, the single from that album, "Star" didn't do so well and the Stealer's Wheel name was retired.
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Gerry Rafferty recorded several solo albums in the mid-to-later-1970's, among those, "Can I Have My Money Back" along with several others whose titles I can't remember. All of his music was well done, with intelligent lyrics, but somehow, didn't attract a whole lot of record buyers. That changed, though, with the release of "City To City" in 1978; that album featured "Baker Street", which fairly jumped out of the radio speakers with that really fantastic Saxophone part (The song contains a great guitar solo as well). Very Popular. #1 record, on the charts for a long, long time. This song had some well-thought-out lyrics, but usually people who play or listen to the hits don't care about all that, what they need is "ear-candy" and that "Baker St." saxophone riff really set the table for Mr. Rafferty.
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But, there were more hits to come from "City To City". "Right Down The Line" (which I thought was a little bit weak as far as the song's rhythm went) got radio play, as well as another song from that album, "Home And Dry", which I thought was his best song of all; it contains a thumping bass line which really drives the tune. Imagine that, three hits from one album; I'll bet he was happy with that. His next album, "Night Owl" wasn't quite as effective, but it did contain "Get It Right Next Time", a little R&B-flavored number that was really different-sounding from anything else on that album. So anyway, I was surprised to learn that he died; I'd always pictured him as someone who was very mild-mannered, but I guess we all have our demons and alcohol was his.
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I've become fairly accustomed to Old Rockers Dying...in the last few years we lost Denny Doherty, lead singer in the Mamas & Papas; James Brown passed away not long ago, Robert Palmer (the guy who sang "Addicted To Love") is no longer with us and Dan Fogelberg (author/singer of the huge hit "Longer", as well as "Language Of Love", "Part Of The Plan" and "Same Auld Lang Syne") bid us adieu a couple of years ago, and Arthur Lee, leader of the fabled '60s group "Love" succumbed to leukemia a few years back. Back in the old days, Rockers did dumb stuff that got 'em killed, whether by overdoses of drugs or alcohol, or in the case of Randy Rhoads, Ozzy Osborne's guitarist, who was killed when the small plane he and a few other people were in crashed after buzzing a school bus in which other band members were esconced. Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, who drowned in his swimming pool in 1969, officially died of "death by misadventure". But now, Rockers are getting old and dying from things that the rest of the population die from; old age, blood disorders, heart attacks, whatever. Rock and Roll deaths aren't as glamorous as they used to be.
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Speaking of Rockers no longer with us, I've listened to two Elvis Presley concert albums this evening, both of which feature close to twenty songs done in one hour. That's under three minutes per song, if you throw in stage patter. He sailed through many of his songs at breakneck speed, so fast that he has trouble fitting all the words in. Was it Drugs? Was he "speeding"? Sounds like it. On the other hand, I've got a bootleg DVD of Elvis in concert in 1977, in which he could barely talk; which put him on par with M-M-Mel Tillis, the country singer. Like Tillis, once Elvis began a song, he sounded just fine. But he really did look awful in his last year. My theory about Elvis is that the Only Place he felt comfortable and in control was On Stage. Which is why he kept touring instead of resting up. One final quote about Elvis: John Lennon once said that "Elvis began dying when he went in the Army" (in 1959). That's because Elvis' music became Extremely Mild-Mannered, compared to the material he did in the early-to-mid 1960's. I agree with Lennon on that.
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I must confess I'm Officially Really Out Of It. How do I know? I had never before seen or even heard of the artists who were featured on Dick Clark's most recent Rockin' New Years' Eve Party. I watched and listened, but didn't see or hear anything that was even close to Rock and Roll. On the other hand, 84-year-old Chuck Berry had to cut a gig short because he wasn't feeling well. My advice to Chuck? Rest up, buddy. We don't wanna lose you anytime soon.

Sunday, January 02, 2011

IT MIGHT NOT BE A PLANET...
...but we'll get there sooner or later...
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If you look in the left margin of this blog, you'll see a Countdown Clock set for July 14, 2015. That's when the New Horizons spacecraft, proudly launched by NASA, will at last reach the planet/planetoid/big rock/small rock/whatever you wanna call it, PLUTO.
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The planet PLUTO is way out there. NASA launched a probe to Pluto back in 2005. It is now halfway there. I guess this proves that Pluto ain't exactly the easiest place to commute to. There's been a great debate; is Pluto a planet or not? I would tend to think that any body of mass which has smaller bodies revolving around it is a planet, and according to that definition, Pluto IS a planet. Or maybe a Planetoid. Or Perhaps a Space Pebble?
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Here's Pluto (foreground) with its moon, Charon, with the sun a long ways away. I've read that in relation to Pluto, Charon is a very big moon, and actually both bodies of icy rock revolve around each other at a point between the two (Epicenter). Pluto also revolves the sun at a pretty steep angle, going above, then below the average plane of the rest of the Solar System. To get there, NASA's "New Horizons" Pluto-probe has had to get gravity assists by sling-shotting past Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. The gravity assist is akin to one skater slinging another skater ahead in a Roller-Derby match. Some think that Pluto's orbit is so eccentric because it once was an asteroid, zipping thru space 'till the Sun reeled it in.

Since a space probe has never been to Pluto, it'll be really exciting to actually see Photos of Pluto/Charon and any other moons (if any) Pluto has. There are already a couple of Voyager spacecrafts out there, each zinging its way through Deep Space after taking pictures of most of the outer planets. Now they're sailing beyond the Solar System, and who knows what they'll find.

One more thought: I'll be 62 when "New Horizons" reaches Pluto. A 62-year-old "ME" is more difficult to imagine than all of those vast planetary distances!

ANOTHER NEW YEAR'S ROCKIN' EVE IN THE BOOKS...
...oh, I don't wanna look, I just don't wanna look...
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First of all, there wasn't any rock and roll on ABC's year-end-countdown-program. The music I saw on that show was just a lot of in-your-face rap stylings, or young chanteuses oversinging everything, in order to put across a song that had nothing going for it to begin with. ABC-TV's young geek broadcasters were in Times Square, pumping up the crowd..."HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE HERE, TO SEE THIS EXCITING MOMENT IN TIME, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT ALL THIS...OKAY, WE'RE GONNA COUNT DOWN THE FINAL SECONDS...AIN'T IT GREAT TO BE HERE'...and now here's DICK CLARK counting backwards from TEN as we ring in the New Year (cut to Dick Clark)...Tennnnnn...N-Nine.....uh, Eighhhht, SevvvensssSSSixxxx, ffffFFive....fff-ff-f-Four, th-th-threeeee...t-t-t-Two; Onnnne....Happy New Year...
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And so there ya have it, the biggest non-event event of all...the New Year's Observance. When you boil it all down, it's just one more tick of the clock...tick, tock, tick, tock, and that's four seconds that are gone, over, and ya can't get 'em back. On this program, the youthful ABC-TV purveyors were shoving microphones in people's faces, asking, "How do you feel about this; it's New Years' Eve in New York City!!!" "Oh, it's Great!!! I'm from Canada, where New Year's is more formal; here, it's WILD!!!" A young short-skirted female was asked about what she'll do differently this year, and she said, I swear she said, "I'll try not to be a D*****bag", right there on Network TV! And ya know what? I've come to the conclusion that there isn't any Culture anymore; everyone's just in yer face, saying what they wanna say with no decorum whatsoever.
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The main reason I tuned in was because I wanted to see if What's Left Of Dick Clark was gonna be trotted out for one more year, and alas, there he was. And here's where the subject matter gets tricky...I'm a fan of his. I watched Bandstand for a lotta years. He shared great music with us, and and was a very important figure in 50s and 60s Culture. I am very happy that he more-or-less recovered from what must have been such a devastating stroke, and he's a real trooper to still want to be involved in broadcasting. If I were in Mr. Clark's position, I'm not so sure I'd want to be seen by the General Public, all stroke-affected, slurring my speech, my face being stretched all out of proportion, with a low-throated croak instead of one of the most identifiable voices ever.
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I couldn't watch him. I found myself looking at the TV screen thru closed fingers, like whenever I see a scary movie. This is supposed to be a politically-correct age, and it's great that people with disabilities have more rights and are treated more fairly, but I couldn't watch Mr. Clark, not even thru a sympathetic eye, which is how I should have viewed him. I could barely tolerate listening to him, trying to speak, with a barely-controllable low croak of a voice. I know I'm not being nice here. It's a hell of a way to ring in a New Year, saying these things about our beloved Dick Clark. I couldn't help my reaction. Maybe it's the part of me that doesn't want to make an ass of myself in front of a whole lot of people, or maybe it's the insecure part of me that fears I'll get embarrassed, and so I don't wanna try and reach out for the brass ring.
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As I plod through the age of 56 on my way to 57 and upward, I realize that the years ahead are going to be the time in which Things Happen To Me. Although I've had my tough times, I've sailed right thru my life so far, and while I haven't felt invincible, I 'spose I've taken it for granted that the Sun will always rise in the morning, and here comes another day, another nite, another day and so on and so forth. And indeed, that will happen, but one day I won't be part of it. And maybe seeing Dick Clark the way he is now scares me just a little bit. Okay, a Lot. Only, there's no point living in fear, and we all just have to take each day as it comes. That's easy to say, right? Let me wish you a happy new year and the best of health, and I'd like to wish that for me as well. And may Mr. Clark continue to progress in his recovery.
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Resolutions department: I firmly resolve to come up with some resolutions for this year. I want to walk, or at least MOVE more; I've got weight to lose. It's gonna be tough, tho. I bought 4 candy bars on the way home tonite. Ain't that awful?