I've got five possibly six shows in twleve days and each with different requirements/times and set lists.
Suffice it to say, Imma gone be busy.
But it hasn't been all about making Jack a dull boy. When it comes to rehearsals, there is a point where you don't get any better, you just start to tear callouses off your fingertips. And then you have to boil blood off the strings.
Ew.
Anyway, here's the Week in Review*
Week in Book(S): Galapagos
I'm a Vonnegut fan. No getting around it. I just love how he'll spend and entire chapter setting you up for one single lazy pun. It must be the Dad in me. This week I reread Galapagos, his quirky tale about characters on the edge of the end of mankind, and the evolution that follows. It's my wife's favorite (cause it's that good) because Vonnegut uses this convention where he adds an asterix at the end of a character's name letting you know that that character is going to die soon. A cruel man might sneak into all of his George RR Martin paperabacks and do the same. I don't have time for that this week.
Week in Movies:
First up: Moonlight Kingdom, another Wes Anderson movie. I might be on a kick. It's about a boy and a girl, both troubled, who decide to run away from their respective homes and go all Blue Lagoon on a hidden stretch of beach. Again, perfectly written/filmed/acted, interesting and delightful. Although, I must say, I know she's really very pretty, but there is something about Tilda Swinton that I find lightly terrifying. Kinda like I upset her at some point and she's just waiting to get back at me.
Second: Oblivion starring Tom Cruise. That was one of those late night, how could it be that bad, I'm not tired yet and I've already watched Luise CK's comedy special twice this month, sort of viewings. The worst part about not expecting anything, is actually getting it. Joann warned me to miss it entirely, and she was probably right. Damn it.
Week in Music: Mania
Tommy Ramone* (Not his real name) died this week. He was the last remaining original member of the punk band the Ramones. He was their drummer by default, and this is a great story, he was originally their manager, and would sit in on rehearsals and auditions, but there wasn't anyone that could keep up with their break neck speed except him and eventually they decided he was the guy.
I was first introduced to the Ramones back in the late eighties. My Uncle took me to a SF Giant's game at Candlestick Park and told me the story of 'Bonzo goes to Bitburgh' a Ramone's song about Ronald Reagan's visit to a German WWII cemetery where he praised the soldiers. Kinda sorta in a perfectly Reaganesque way, not realizing it was a cemetary for the SS.
Up until then, I did not know you could do that with a song.
Like . . . actually say something.
In corporate speak that was an "Aha!" moment.
Later, might have been the same trip, my uncle took me to a used record shop and we found Mania, Combat Rock (The Clash) and Apollo 18 (They Might Be Giants). All three of which remain in heavy rotation on my iPod, and was my first introduction to music that wasn't on MTV.
That was when Music Television played videos.
Anyway, now my audiophile friends will disagree with just about everything I'm to say next, but it is my firm belief that the Ramones were, by a wide margin, one of the most influential rock bands of the 20th Century. See, rock was born out of the blues, and blues was born out of simplicity. Up until they cut an album with Phil Spector, you could pretty much produce a Ramone's album on a basic four track by just turning all the knobs on an amplifier to 10.
There is no 11.
Get over it.
What it means is that rock can and should be a democratic art form. Anyone can do it if they're careless and crazy enough to try. And if you don't have any real talent then you have to be bold enough to redefine what talent is. And without the Ramones or The Clash or The Pixies, you don't have an entire generation of the bands that follow. Hell, you might not even have an indie music scene at all.
And that would be sad.
Unless you're Justin Beiber.
Which is a whole different kind of sad.
But thanks to their careless insanity, Sheena is, and will remain, a punk rocker.
And so will I.
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