Bring Back Rock & Roll Television!

Whatever happened to Rock & Roll on TV?  Sure,  there are "On Demand" music channels and VH1 and, if your cable system carries it, Palladia.  But what is there for the person who has only BASIC CABLE channels?  The regular networks are devoid of Rock Music shows.  I'm talking about more than just 1 song per show, like you get on Conan, Letterman, Leno, etc.  What I am talking about is 90 full minutes of multiple Rock acts, each doing 3 songs per set.  That's what I'm talking about, man.

Is anyone old enough out there to remember "The Midnight Special"?  Burt Sugarman's Midnight Special ran from 1973 to 1981, and it was freakin' great.  Over the years, the program featured performances by AC/DC, Aerosmith, David Bowie (as Ziggy Stardust), Electric Light Orchestra, B.B King, Beach Boys, Blondie, James Brown, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Bo Diddley, Doobie Brothers, Fleetwood Mac, Peter Frampton, Heart, Billy Joel, Elton John, Kiss, Eddie Money, Van Morrison, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Todd Rundgren, Rod Stewart, and many more.  I looked forward to it and would always try to tune in.  Now, it's available on DVD, I've heard.  Great Christmas Present Idea, in my opinion.

As long as we are reminiscing, remember RADIO?

I'm not talking about TALK RADIO.  I'm not talking about SATELLITE RADIO.  I'm talking about AM Radio, played on a transistor radio so bad that you could hardly make out the words to any of the songs.  Then came smooth FM radio...not playing simply the Hits, but playing "entire sides" of LPs.  My theory was that the FM DJ's were smokin' funny stuff, zoning out, and just forgetting to lift the needle off the record.  Anyway, it was freakin' great!

On the radio, in the old days, you could hear entire concerts sometimes.   The mighty "King Biscuit Flower Hour" was awesome, and some of those classic shows are now archived on the Internet at:
concerts.wolfgangsvault.com/ct/king-biscuit-catalog/2.html

If you were in the mood for very odd and/or funny tunes, there was the "Doctor Demento Show" which featured "Two Hours of Mad Music and Crazy Comedy".  I am very happy to say that the good Doctor is still "In".  He is still doing his weekly show which is as funny as ever.  You can find it at:
http://www.drdemento.com/
 
I may just have to do an entire blog, or maybe a whole week of blogs, about Dr. Demento.  For fans, the realm of "dementites and dementoids" encompasses an entire vast bizarro universe. 
 
It just occurred to me that what we really need is:   DR. DEMENTO TELEVISION.  That would be freakin' great!

Hail to Thee, Inner Sanctum!

The first indie music store in Texas was in Austin and it was called "The Inner Sanctum".  It was a glorious place where you could find new and exciting music that was unavailable anywhere else in the state.  When I was a very young man, I frequently travelled from my small, conservative, rural hometown of La Grange to the relatively larger, very liberal, city of Austin.  Back in the late Sixties and early Seventies, the Hippie vibe was strong, outlaw Country music was still in its infancy, armadillos roamed in great herds, and Austin was just beginning to establish itself as a Music Mecca.  Psychedelia and High Times prevailed. Grassroots counter-culture politics, environmentalism and freedom of expression were just beginning to sprout.  Today, you can buy tee-shirts that proclaim, "KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD".  Some of us remember when things first started getting weird.

Before I found "The Inner Sanctum", my record library was limited to whatever Mr. Schroeder would stock in the back of his Pharmacy, or whatever Mr. Adamcik would stock in the back of his appliance store.  Mostly easy listening records,  like Andy Williams and Perry Como, or Polka records by the mighty Leroy Matocha orchestra or The Vrazels, were my choices.  Reading Rolling Stone and other music magazines, I noticed an advertisement for a free record catalog from a company called "Dedicated Fool".  I began ordering strange and wondrous gems from the Mothers of Invention and the Velvet Underground.  It was revelatory stuff.  It prepared me for what I would find inside "The Inner Sanctum".  (For more about "The Inner Sanctum", check out www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_Sanctum_Records and for more about "Dedicated Fool" see www.dedicatedfool.com/index.htm.

Time passed and, during my college years at Texas A&M,  I spent some time as a record reviewer for the university's student newspaper The Battalion. My main recollection of that experience was when I wrote a particularly scathing review of an album by the group U.F.O. and was bombarded by a ton of hate-mail from irate U.F.O. fans.  The other things I remember was all the free albums I got for doing the reviews and the fellow record fanatics I met during my stint as reviewer.  One of them told me about a great record store in Houston, Texas, called "Infinite Records" and about the travelling record shows that would come to town annually.  The record shows were chock full of interesting new music, bootlegs, and plenty of other stuff I never saw anywhere else, and they helped to expand my musical horizons.

Luckily, my current hometown of San Antonio, Texas, now has an excellent indie record store called "Hogwild Records".  They don't have a website, but you can learn about them at www.nationalgrooves.com/hog_wild.html.  They remind me of "The Inner Sanctum", although these days the vibe is generally more DEATH METAL and less FLOWER POWER.  If you're a collector, Hogwild is the place to go in San Antonio.

These days I am downloading tunes for my iPod and musing about its storage capacity.  Just the idea of carrying around so much great music in my pocket is truly amazing, and something I would have craved as a young man.  That said, as an old man, I am still glad to see that many mainstream contemporary artists like U2 and Pearl Jam are still releasing their album on vinyl.  And those vinyl records can still be found at great record stores like Hogwild Records in my hometown and Amoeba Music on the West Coast.  A couple of years ago, my wife and I travelled to Hollywood for one of my scientific conferences.  Of course we took the tour bus the Hollywood sign, Mulholland Drive, Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive.  Of course we put our hands and feet in the imprints at Grauman's Chinese Theatre and followed the stars down Hollywood Boulevard.  But, the trip would not have been complete for me without visiting Amoeba Music
(www.amoeba.com/).  It has to be the largest indie record store in the world and, if you are a collector, it is definitely worth the trip.

Now Hear This!

Finishing up our survey of the FIVE SENSES, let's "Listen to the Music", all the time, like the Doobie Brothers recommended.  Unless your ear canals are clogged with EAR WAX you can listen to HOT WAX.  The Pixies told us about the "Planet of Sound" we live in and the group called Gossip advise us to "Listen Up!"  Paul McCartney & Wings urged us to "Listen To What the Man Said".  "What'd I Say?" asked Ray Charles.  "Is Anybody Listening?" inquired Danity Kane.  As a college professor, I wonder that everyday.

At Christmas time, we hear lots of songs that talk about hearing things.  "Angels We Have Heard on High", "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day", and "Do You Hear What I Hear?"  The message is loud and clear, but are we listening?

Kanye West "Heard 'Em Say".  Marvin Gaye said "I Heard It Through the Grapevine".  ZZ Top "Heard It On The X".  The Marshall Tucker Band "Heard It In A Love Song".  What did they all hear?  The Velvet Underground said "I Heard Her Call My Name".  Dave Edmunds said "I Hear You Knocking".  Jimi Hendrix said he could "Hear My Train A'Comin'".

"Tommy Can You Hear Me?" ask the Who.  That depends what you're saying.  If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.  Randy Newman wrote, and Dusty Springfield made famous, the song entitled "I Don't Want to Hear It Anymore".  Sometimes we get tired of listening to the same old song.  The Eagles said "I Don't Want to Hear Anymore". What terrible things were they referring to?  Hank Williams knew too well when he wrote "Last Night I Heard You Crying In Your Sleep" and "I Heard That Lonesome Whistle".  Hank Williams was listening.  "Let's Hear It For The Boy".

You Gotta See This!

In 1957, the year I was born, Ewan MacColl wrote a folk song called "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face". It would later become a signature song for Roberta Flack, and was also recorded by Celine Dion, Johnny Cash and Leona Lewis. It's a beautiful song that says "The first time ever I saw your face, I thought the sun rose in your eyes, and the moon and stars were the gifts you gave". I have felt that way 3 times in my life, first when I looked into my wife's eyes, then when my daughter was born, and most recently when my granddaughter was born. We see God when we look into the eyes of those we love.

Today's blog (4th in the series about the FIVE SENSES) is about SIGHT. Vision plays such a big role in songs, I believe, because "Seeing is Believing". Like a familiar melody, we immediately recognize "A Face in the Crowd". Think about when you are waiting for friends or family to arrive at the airport. In a big herd of people, you can instantly see them. Many people, and many songs, make reference to Love at First Sight. Because love is the subject of multitudes of songs, it is understandable that the songwriter would tell us about the first time they saw their loved one, or about wanting/needing to see them again.

A lot of songs are written while songwriters are away from their loved ones, while they are on tour for example, and those songs express their loneliness (often in a crowd) and their desire to see their love again. "See You Later, Alligator" wrote Billy Haley & The Comets. "See You Soon" sang Coldplay. And "See You Later, See You Soon" wrote Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers. A standard from the Great American Songbook is "I'll Be Seeing You", which tells us that the singer will be "seeing" their loved one in "all the familiar places" eventhough they are apart.

Hank Williams and Todd Rundgen each wrote a different song called "I Saw The Light". George Strait admits "I Saw God Today", looking into a baby's eyes. Many of us feel that way, George. The Beatles also saw a lot: "I've Just Seen A Face", "You Won't See Me" and "I Saw Her Standing There". So did Creedence Clearwater Revival: "Have You Seen The Rain?", "Long As I Can See The Light" and "Lookin' Out My Back Door".

Like Miley Cyrus, let me say "See You Again".

But wait, if you like CRAZY SQUIRRELS, you've gotta see this video I found on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbHtwLjjBsg&feature=related

Touchy-Feely

Today I will touch on the third of our FIVE SENSES, the sense of Touch.  The feeling of being touched is possible through all those receptors in your integumentary system (in your skin) communicating with your somatosensory system (in your brain).  Your skin is your largest organ (on you maybe) and with it we feel the world around us.  At an AC/DC concert, we feel it, bombarding us in the chest.  I love that feeling.

"See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Heal Me" screamed Roger Daltrey in Tommy.  The deaf, dumb and blind boy experienced his world primarily through touch.  Going to a Who concert is a tactile experience.  You feel it.  Carole King said "I Feel the Earth Move".  MGMT had an "Electric Feel".  And Lil' Wayne's basic request was "Feel Me".

There is a difference between FEELING and FEELINGS.  In the greatest song of all time "Like A Rolling Stone", Bob Dylan asks, "How does it feel?".  He is not asking us to describe the our sensation of touching something that might be rough or smooth, cold or hot, etc.  He is, of course, referring to an emotional feeling. A lot of songs containing the word FEEL are referring to emotions, like Lou Reed's "How Do You Think It Feels?" or Madonna's "What It Feels Like For A Girl".  For me, it's fun to think about those songs and other FEEL songs as if they were referring to the Sense of Touch.  For instance, songs like Kid Rock's "Somebody's Gotta Feel This", Brian Eno & David Byrne's "I Feel My Stuff",  or Dylan's "To Make You Feel My Love" take on an entirely different meaning.  Morris Albert gave us "Feelings" (I won't say what kind of feeling that was for me).

Because feelings are complex, let's concentrate on TOUCH instead.  The Doors put is very simply..."Touch Me".  The lead singer of the Divinyls was equally blunt when she declared "I Touch Myself".  The Black Keys want "Your Touch".  Joan Jett asked politely "Do You Want To Touch?".  Journey were out of control with their "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin".  That certainly was not the "Invisible Touch" that Genesis said she had. Perhaps it was the "Bad Touch" that the Bloodhound Gang craved.  Bruce Springsteen realized that we all want the "Human Touch", but often "You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)".

Sometimes were not allowed to touch.  Kevin Fowler did not want his girlfriend to put her grubby mits on a particular LP in his collection when he told her "Don't Touch My Willie".  And Lyle Lovett has often said "Don't Touch My Hat".  Sometimes, we are commanded to touch. Mike Myers said "Touch My Monkey!  Touch Him!"

If you enjoyed Samantha Fox's song "Touch Me", be sure to check out the recent remake by Gunther (the Pleasureman).  Many of his videos are on YouTube.  Let Gunther touch you, now.

Tastes Like Chicken

Continuing with our exploration of the FIVE SENSES, today we will consider the sense of TASTE.  Everything has a flavor.  Some flavors are unforgettable.  Some are sweet. Some are bittersweet.  Most songs mentioning the word taste are not referring to gustatory sensations of sweet, salty, sour, bitter or creamy, but are using it metaphorically, like the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Taste the Pain" or Lenny Kravitz' "You're My Flavor".  Despite the cornucopia of exotic flavors to please the palate, in music the word flavor is used to describe "The Flavor of the Week" (by Obscure), "Flavor of the Weak" (by American Hi-Fi), or "Flavor of the Month" (by Black Sheep).  Clearly, Tori Amos was not savoring pizza when she composed her song "Flavor".

Love tastes sweet.  June Carter new that when she wrote the famous lines in Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" stating "...the taste of love is sweet, when hearts like ours meet".  Herb Alpert compared love to the "Taste of Honey". Johnny Lang was "Back for a Taste of Your Love". Because taste is sensual, it is often used to describe the lustful side of love, as in Rick James' "Taste", INXS' "Taste It", or the exotic "Taste of India" by Aerosmith.  The extraordinary band Jesus & Mary Chain liked taste so much that they put it in 2 songs on their album Psychocandy, "Taste of Cindy" and "Taste the Floor".  That's a lot of tasting going on.  Usually, as The Cramps point out, it's in "Good Taste".  Rarely, as in the song by the Kooks, it leaves a "Bad Taste in My Mouth".

If you are wondering whether any songs really refer to the actual Sense of Taste, there is the Austin Lounge Lizards' "Taste Like Chicken"  and another exceptionally great one by They Might Be Giants called "John Lee Supertaster".  Here's how it goes:

"(Spoken Part) When I was 39 years old, I heard a story. I found out that there [are] people walking among us who have superpowers. These people are called Supertasters. To a Supertaster, bitter fruits taste far more bitter, and sweets far more sweet. Then, just a few months ago, I had the chance to meet a real, live Supertaster named John Lee.  And this is his true story:

(Sung Part) Nothing tastes the same (nothing tastes the same)
To a Supertaster (Supertaster)
When he tastes a pear (tastes a pear)
It's like a hundred pears (it's like a million pears)

He's got superpowers (superpowers)
He is a Supertaster (Supertaster)
Every flavor explodes (explodes and explodes)
Explodes and explodes

John Lee Supertaster
Tastes more than we do
Everything has a flavor
Some flavors are too much

Can't shut his mouth (can't shut his mouth)
'Cause he's a Supertaster (Supertaster)
Though he looks like a man (talks like a man)
He is a Supertaster (Supertaster)

Can't drink coffee or beer (coffee or beer)
'Cause he's a Supertaster (Supertaster)
Loves ice cream and pie (ice cream and pie)
He is a Supertaster

John Lee Supertaster
Tastes more than we know
Everything has a flavor
Some flavors must go"

Now savor this super-tasty video by the Magik Markers for their epic tune "Taste"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrYS9FW73EA
 
Life is sweet.  Let's eat.

What's That Smell?

Despite what M. Night Shyamalan might want us to believe about "The Sixth Sense", most of us experience life through FIVE SENSES:  Touch, Taste, Smell, Hearing and Sight.  Listening to music is about more than just hearing it.  Great music will evoke other senses.  It might remind us of a love at first sight, or the touch of a loved one, the taste of fine wine (or beer), and the smell of a sea breeze.  Let's explore some of those songs that reference our Five Senses.

Today let's consider the Sense of Smell.  We remember smells, like the smell of chicken frying in your grandmother's kitchen, the smell of our first new car, or the scent of our lover's perfume/cologne. Odor information is stored in long-term memory and has strong connections to emotional memory. Our brains are hard-wired to relate smells to certain memories because our olfactory system has close anatomical ties to the limbic system and the hippocampus, areas of the brain that are involved in emotion and place memory, respectively.  However it works, smells can be good or bad.

Here are some songs dealing with SMELL:

“Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXO3OMGKPpw

“Smells Like Nirvana” by Weird Al Yankovic
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnuHJZMdako

“Smelling Like Ed Asner” by The Vestibules
click on the icon which looks like a speaker & a musical note to hear
www.themadmusicarchive.com/song_details.aspx?SongID=12128

“Love Stinks” by J. Geils Band
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GluCM_ggMvw

“Love Stinks” sung by Adam Sandler in “The Wedding Singer”
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhRMeiyret0

“Odorono” by The Who
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABwXi4M3PX8

“My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, and I Don’t Love Jesus” by Jimmy Buffett
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpk8W9XlWEk

“That Smell” by Lynyrd Skynyrd
www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6q9nBusrq8

“Stinkfoot” by Frank Zappa
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9FBQ1O5F8k

What's your favorite smell?

Here Comes The Sun

"Why Does the Sun Shine? (The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas)" is an edutaining song by They Might Be Giants that explains:

"The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is built into helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees

Yo ho, its hot, the sun is not
A place where we could live
But here on earth there'd be no life
Without the light it gives

We need its light
We need its heat
We need its energy
Without the sun, without a doubt
There'd be no you and me"

They are exactly right, because without the sun's light, heat and energy combined with our waste products (carbon dioxide and water), green plants would be unable to perform photosynthesis and produce oxygen which is essential for us to live.  We really take the sun for granted, but none of us would be here without it. Just think about how lucky you are that the sun is just far enough away (about 93 million miles) so that we don't either fry or freeze.  And while we are the ones that are lucky, many artists have sung a great old song called "That Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around the Heaven All Day)".

Here are three really cool SUN songs:
     "Another Sunny Day" by Belle & Sebastian www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2lviob9xAQ

    "Holidays in the Sun" by the Sex Pistols www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP_X0gmgtk0

    "Yellow Sun" by the Raconteurs www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8bnPUkd71w

In addition to making life possible, there is also something very important that the Sun does.  It shines. Consider the number of songs that remind us of that fact.  "You Are My Sunshine", "Ain't No Sunshine (When She's Gone)", "And the Sun Will Shine", "Sunshine (Go Away Today)", or "Sunshine of Your Love".  The Beach Boys spent a lot of time in "The Warmth of the Sun", U2 were "Staring at the Sun" and Kenny Chesney thinks that things heat up "When the Sun Goes Down".

Everyday, the sun rises and sets.  That too has been documented in song.  The Animals gave us the classic "House of the Rising Sun".  Uriah Heep watched the "Sunrise" and Roxy Music watched the "Sunset".  The Eagles enjoyed their "Tequila Sunrise" and the Kinks marvelled in their "Waterloo Sunset".   In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye and Golde reflect upon their lives while singing "Sunrise, Sunset".
 
"Is this the little girl I carried?
Is this the little boy at play?
I don't remember growing older
When did they?...
Sunrise, sunset....
Swiftly flow the days"

What'ya gonna do?  That's Life!   Just do what Sheryl Crow and ZZ Top do,
"Soak Up the Sun" and get yourself some "Cheap Sunglasses".

The Man in the Moon

According to the B-52’s “There’s a Moon in the Sky, It’s called the Moon”. A lot of people have written songs about the moon. Probably since the dawn of man, we have been crooning about the moon. “Blue Moon” written by Rogers and Hart in 1934 has been recorded by through the decades by Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, The Marcels, Sha Na Na, Chris Isaak, Cowboy Junkies and Rod Stewart, to name just a few. “Sugar Moon” is a Western Swing love song written by Bob Wills and Cindy Walker. It was first recorded in 1947 by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys and was more recently covered by Asleep at the Wheel, who recorded it with four of the original Texas Playboys.


So many artists have been lunatics, inspired by the beautiful “Moonglow”, that there are just too many MOON songs to list. Cat Stevens was followed by a “Moonshadow”. Van Morrison wanted just one “Moondance”. The Police went “Walking on the Moon”. Creedence Clearwater Revival warned us about a “Bad Moon Rising”. And R.E.M. asked if you believe they put a “Man on the Moon”. I sure do, because I watched it live on TV back in 1969. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were walking around up there, I remember walking outside with my grandfather and staring up at the moon. He said, “just think, people are walking on the moon for first time ever…that’s incredible”. It was a Bella Luna.

For my whole life, I have been staring up at the moon, looking at the face of the Man in the Moon, knowing that it is the same moon that every human that has ever lived has gazed upon. But, until today, I did not know who the real Man in the Moon was. Today I learned his name in Frederick Banting. Read on and I will explain.

The Man in the Moon is the figure resembling a human face that we see in the bright disc of the full moon. The figure is composed of the dark areas of the various Mare, or “seas”, and brighter highlands of the lunar surface. The dark areas look like the eyes and the mouth of the Man in the Moon. His eyes are Mare Imbrium and Mare Serenitatis, his nose is Sinus Aestuum, and his open mouth is Mare Nubium and Mare Cognitum.

In one of the eyes of the Man in the Moon, in the middle of Mare Serenitatis, is a relatively small, bowl-shaped impact crater called Banting, named after Frederick Banting, the principal scientist responsible for the discovery of insulin. Frederick Grant Banting was born on November 14, 1891 in Alliston, Ontario. He went to the University of Toronto to study divinity but changed his major to the study of medicine. World War I intervened and Frederick went to fight in France. He was wounded and was awarded the Military Cross for heroism under fire. When the war ended in 1919, Banting returned to Canada, studied orthopaedics and became Resident Surgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. From 1920 until 1921 he did part-time teaching in orthopaedics while maintaining his general practice.

In Toronto, Dr. Banting saw children with Type I diabetes and began studying the disease. He read the research papers of Dr. Oscar Minkowski who had found that diabetes was caused by lack of a protein hormone secreted by the Islets of Langerhans in the pancreas. However, early attempts to control the disease by giving patients pancreatic extracts failed. Banting believed that the protein insulin in the extracts was being destroyed by protein-digesting enzymes also found in the pancreas. The problem, therefore, was how to extract insulin from the pancreas before it was destroyed. Dr. Banting had a mission to figure it out.

One day, he read a journal article by Dr. Moses Baron, which demonstrated that, when the pancreatic duct was tied off, most of the cells of the pancreas degenerate, but that the Islets of Langerhans remain intact. By this time, Banting was working in the laboratory of John James Richard Macleod, with whom he would later share the Nobel Prize. Macleod was initially very skeptical, but eventually agreed to let Banting use his lab space while he was on vacation for the summer. He also gave Banting ten dogs for the experiments, and two medical student lab assistants named Charles Best and Clark Noble, before leaving for a delightful vacation in Scotland. Banting said he only needed one lab assistant, so Best and Noble flipped a coin to see which would help. Loss of the coin toss was unfortunate for Noble, because Best eventually shared the Nobel Prize money and fame for the discovery of the method to purify insulin. Banting and Best tied a string around the pancreatic duct in the dogs, waited several weeks for the pancreatic digestive cells to degenerate, then harvested the intact insulin-producting islet cells, and produced a new kind of extract. They tested the extract by re-injecting it back into some of the dogs. Those dogs survived for the entire summer, until Dr. Macleod returned from Scotland, and learned that Banting was correct, and had made a great discovery.

After the success with the dog experiments, they started giving the purified insulin to human patients. Banting and his colleagues knew that children were dying every day because of the disease, so from the initial dog experiments in the summer of 1921 to January 11, 1922, when a 14-year old boy named Leonard Thompson was given the first insulin injection, they had to work fast. In one of medicine's most dramatic moments, Dr. Banting and his colleagues went from bed to bed, injecting an entire ward of diabetic patients with the new purified insulin. Before they had reached the last dying child, the first few were awakening from their coma. Just imagine the relief and joy their parents and siblings must have felt. It was a miracle drug.

In 1923, Dr. Banting shared the Nobel Prize and the patent for insulin was sold to the University of Toronto for one dollar. This and other interesting information about the discovery of insulin was taken from www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin . For the next 55 years, many lives would be saved by insulin purified from cow pancreas. In 1977, because of advances in molecular biology and genetic engineering, the first synthetic human insulin was made available, and it continues to be a miracle drug.

Dr. Frederick Banting died in a plane crash at age 49.

My daughter has Type I diabetes and takes insulin every day. Whenever I look up at the moon, I think of the Banting crater, and say “Thank You” to the real Man in the Moon.

Thank you Frederick Banting. God bless you.

Going to the Zoo

One of our favorite activities lately is taking our grand-daughter to the zoo.  Watching her expressing joy and wonder looking at all the different kinds of animals makes us feel like kids again ourselves. Going to the zoo is both educational and entertaining.  Plus walking for miles around the zoo in San Antonio heat is good exercise as well.  So, it's good on so many levels.  My beautiful grand-daughter just thinks it's FUN!!!

Strolling around the zoo got me thinking about how many songs I know with animal names in their title.  I thought of as many as I could, off the top of my head, and then went home and checked my library of mp3's for animal songs.  Here are just a few of them:

"The Lion Sleeps Tonight" by the Tokens, or by Robert Johns
"Crocodile Rock" by Elton John
"Bears" by Steve Fromholz, or by Lyle Lovett
"Penguins" by Lyle Lovett
"See the Elephant" by James McMurtry
"Chickens" by Hayes Carll
"Porcupine Pie" by Neil Diamond
"Horse with No Name" by America
"Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy) by Big & Rich
"Beer for my Horses" by Toby Keith
"Boris the Spider" by the Who
"I've Got a Tiger by the Tail" by Buck Owens
"Dead Skunk" by Loudon Wainwright III
"Little Pig" by Two Tons of Steel
"Chipmunks are Go!" by Madness
"Barracuda" by Heart
"Your Bulldog Drinks Champagne" by Jim Stafford
"Mississippi Squirrel Revival" by Ray Stevens
"Will the Wolf Survive?" by Los Lobos
"Pigs on the Wing, Pt. II" by Pink Floyd
"Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor (featured every Friday night at High School Football games across America)
"Rocky Raccoon" by the Beatles
"And Your Bird Can Sing" by the Beatles
"Blackbird" by the Beatles
"Bluebird" by Paul McCartney & Wings
"Ali Baba's Camel" by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band www.youtube.com/watch?v=HotmPv2tjFo
"Baby Snakes" by Frank Zappa
"Bad Fish" by Sublime
"Banana Slugs! Racing Down the Field" by the Austin Lounge Lizards
"Black Cow" by Steely Dan
"Black Dog" by Led Zeppelin
"Big Electric Cat" by Adrian Belew www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFvS1RcK7o8
"Cats in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin
"Ant Man Bee" by Captain Beefheart www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_nDCG1PchY

One branch of the animal family tree seems to dominate in song titles.  THE MONKEY

Multiple artists have released songs called simply "Monkey" (George Michael, Counting Crows, Boss Hog, and others).  Here a just a few of MONKEY songs:

"Monkey Man" by the Rolling Stones
"Monkey Gone to Heaven" by the Pixies, here they are on Letterman www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRRrTl2J2w8
"Monkey in your Soul" by Steely Dan
"Monkey and the Baboon" (a cool rockabilly tune) by Eddie Bond
"Monkey Song" by the Mountain Goats
"Monkey Wash, Donkey Rinse" by Warren Zevon
"Hockey Monkey" by the Zambonis www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1dPIfra9DY
"Porcelain Monkey" by Warren Zevon
"Proudest Monkey" by Dave Matthews Band
"Brass Monkey" by the Beastie Boys, or by Richard Cheese
"Code Monkey" by Jonathon Coulton
"Guarded by Monkeys" by Cracker
"Shock the Monkey" by Peter Gabriel, or by Coal Chamber

Here's a video of a monkey washing a cat  www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkviIYKjPyw
and the now famous Piano-playing cat www.youtube.com/watch?v=J---aiyznGQ

Simon and Garfunkel said it's all happening "At the Zoo" www.youtube.com/watch?v=65YUe2PJTAQ
I do believe it's true.

09 09 09

Did you know that the sum of the two digits resulting from nine multiplied by any other single digit number will equal nine? Like 9x3=27, and 2+7=9. Or 9x4=36, and 3+6=9. You get the idea.

If you multiply nine by any two, three or four-digit number, the sums will also break down to nine. For example: 9x62 = 558; 5+5+8=18; 1+8=9. Or 9x137 = 1233; 1+2+3+3 = 9. Wow!

September 9 is mysteriously the 252nd day of the year (2 + 5 +2 = 9) OK, now I’m getting weirded out.

For more interesting stuff about 090909, check out www.livescience.com/culture/090909-2009-date-nines.html (I found the fun math stuff there because I suck at math and would not have thought of it on my own).

I do know a thing or 9 about music, and nines keep popping up.

The punk group 999 had great tune called “Homicide” www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMlpqOsc2BU

The Searchers gave us “Love Potion #9” www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rXhXLsNJL8

“Lucky Number Nine” was a nifty little ditty by The Moldy Peaches www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj_Fuu8TwvY

“Section 9” by Polyphonic Spree was featured on “Scrubs”.

“If Six Was Nine” by Hendrix was faithfully covered by Todd Rundren on his album Faithful.

“#9 Dream” by John Lennon is a great tune, is is the jaunty “One After 909” by his former group, the Beatles. Perhaps you’ve heard of them. They’ve been in the news a lot lately.

Trent Reznor liked the number 9 so much he named his band Nine Inch Nails. NIH released an album called “The Slip” which contains the musical offering “999,999” www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc5G7r3PUlM

Dickey Lee cried “9,999,999 Tears” www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TRgnBoeGpM

And the granddad of all songs containing the Number 9 is The Beatles’ “Revolution #9” that contains the  refrain…“number nine, number nine, number nine…” and which, when reversed, sounds like “Turn Me On Dead Man”. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is7SQO6Ws0g&feature=related

News Flash: Paul is NOT dead.  He is still making compelling new music, like his 2008 collaboration with Youth & Fireman called Electric Arguments.  And he still plays Beatles songs with great vigor.

Today is 09-09-09.  Nothing mystical or cataclysmic has happened so far today.  We're finally getting a good soaking rain here in San Antonio, and that seems odd.  I forgot to bring an umbrella or a lunch today, which is very typical, and all the lines at the cafeterias in the building are miles long.  I'm hungry!!!!  Time to check out the vending machine.  No paper money in my wallet.  Anything in my front pockets??

Nine cents.

Master of Space and Time

Remember my blog about Woodstock?  I'm going back to Woodstock again to start today's blog.  When the Original Soundtrack LP of Woodstock was originally released, it was a relatively expensive multi-album record.  I was a poor, unemployed 14-year old and could not afford it.  I would go over to Dyer's Pharmacy & Soda Fountain, walk to the back of the store where they had a small rack of record albums for sale, lift a copy of Woodstock out of the bin, and stare at it.  Its now iconic cover of the embracing hippie couple covered in the blanket really caught my interest.  I would read the list of musicians and try to imagine how great the live performances of some of my favorite songs must be.  The Who playing songs from Tommy, and Jimi Hendrix playing "Purple Haze".  I had to own it.  But it was not within our budget, and my mother said, "you're not bringing that trash into our house...those hippies were all naked and taking drugs...that's no way to live".  It was taboo.  I had to have it.

A young waitress named Mary Lou working with my mother at the Dairy Mart fast-food emporium heard that I was longing to hear the Woodstock album.  She said that she had bought it and I could come over and listen to it.  That very first listen was amazing.  I expected that Hendrix and the Who and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and Sly and the Family Stone would be great.  They did not disappoint.  The surprises were Santana and Joe Cocker.  I had never heard either of those artists before, and I immediately became enthralled with their unique styles and powerful performances.

Joe Cocker, in particular, did a one-of-a-kind version of the Beatles' "With A Little Help From My Friends" that absolutely floored me.  In fact, it still sends chills down my spine today.  The performance was transcendant.  From that first listen, I became an instant Joe Cocker fan, and would continue to follow his discography.  A few years later, Joe Cocker released a double live album called Mad Dogs and Englishmen.  By that time, I had a job, could make independent decisions on how to spend my money, bought it, and began listening to it.  I drove my family completely nuts playing it over and over and over.  Inside the album cover was a picture of one of the musicians in Joe Cocker's band.  His name was Leon Russell and underneath his picture were the words "MASTER OF SPACE AND TIME".  I thought that was funny but I had no idea who the guy was or why he merited the title of Master of Space and Time.

On Mad Dogs and Englishmen, Leon Russell plays mostly piano, some guitar and provides some vocals, but largely has a supporting role, leaving the showmanship to Joe Cocker.  I noticed that he wrote the song, "Superstar", sung on the album by Rita Coolidge.  Later that song would become a major hit record for the Carpenters.  And if you've seen the movie Juno, you know that Sonic Youth's version of "Superstar" was also pretty cool.  Leon Russell is a great songwriter, a great session musician, and an awesome piano player. I began to learn that while listening to Mad Dogs and Englishmen.

The rest, as they say, is history.  I started following Leon Russell's solo career and watched as he played alongside George Harrison, Badfinger, Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan at the Concert for Bangladesh.  In fact, over the years, Leon Russell has recorded with George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elton John, B.B. King, The Byrds, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, Glen Campbell, Eric Clapton, J.J. Cale, Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, both Edgar & Johnny Winter, Willie Nelson, Frank Sinatra, and even Bobby "Boris" Pickett.  Leon Russell's masterpiece "A Song For You" has been covered by multitudes of recording artists and it won a Grammy Award for George Benson.  His duet of "Heartbreak Hotel" with Willie Nelson made it to #1 on the Country Music chart, and you might remember "Tightrope" which made it to #11 on the Billboard chart, or "Back to the Island", which is now frequently covered by Jimmy Buffett in concert.

Leon is 67 years old, still touring honky-tonks, and still rockin' the house.  He has certainly earned the title of Master of Space and Time.  Go hear him play, and be prepared for greatness, and for a very good time.  If he's not playing anywhere near you, pick up copies of  Carney and Leon Russell & the Shelter People.  You will be glad you did.

Work, Work, Work, Work...

In honor of Labor Day today, I thought we should consider songs about working.  Yes, there are a few songs about the working life that celebrate the joy of having a job.  Usually, they reside in the realm of fantasy, such as the "Happy Working Song" from the movie Enchanted, or those memorable little ditties from Disney films.  The tireless dwarves in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves displayed their superior work ethic when they sang  "Whistle While You Work" and "Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, It's Off To Work We Go."  Just thinking about them marching to work in the mine makes me tired.

More often, work songs address the unpleasant side of work, such as being overworked, under-appreciated and under-paid.  Here are just a few:

The Beatles – “A Hard Day’s Night”
     "It's been a hard day's night, and I've been working like a dog".  Sound familiar?

In “The Pretender”, Jackson Browne talked about being  "caught between the longing for love, and the struggle for the legal tender."  Not a happy spot to find yourself.

Elvis Costello,  in “Welcome to the Working Week”, wrote  "I feel like a juggler running out of hands." Obviously his boss was asking him to multi-task to work more efficiently.

For all the "Working Class Heroes" out there, or anyone who considers themselves a "Blue Collar Man", your jobs may consist of toil and sweat and pain.  You might be like Lee Dorsey in his classic “Working in a Coal Mine”, and feel the same "when Saturday rolls around, I'm too tired for having fun."   Or, you may have to do a lot of heavy lifting, like Tennessee Ernie Ford in “Sixteen Tons”, if  “you load 16 tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt."

Maybe you don't carry a shovel or swing a hammer.   Maybe you spend the day staring into a computer screen, typing away until you have carpal tunnel syndrome, lower back pain, severe eye strain, a migraine, and a humungous badonkadonk from sitting in one spot all day.  Like Jonathan Coulton, who wrote the ode to computer programmers and gave us one day in the life of a Code Monkey:

“Code Monkey get up get coffee
Code Monkey go to job
Code Monkey have boring meeting with boring manager Rob
Rob say Code Monkey very diligent
but his output stink
his code not functional or elegant
what do Code Monkey think
Code Monkey think maybe manager want to write goddamn login page himself
Code Monkey not say it out loud
Code Monkey not crazy just proud”

Work is good for your soul and your bank account.  If you are lucky enough to enjoy your job, take pride in your daily achievements, and feel as though you are not only helping yourself and your family but also serving the common good of humanity, then all these work songs are merely amusing little tunes.  But what if you were trapped in an oppressive work environment, like Bob Dylan on “Maggie’s Farm”, who tells us about his boss.  “He hands you a nickel, he hands you a dime, he asks you with a grin if you're havin' a good time, then he fines you every time you slam the door. I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s Farm no more."
Sometimes you just have to endure it. Remember that you or your kids need new shoes, like the quintessential working man in Merle Haggard's "Working Man Blues".  Just be glad you have a job, like Huey Lewis & the News in "Workin’ for a Livin'", who says “I'm taking what they're givin 'cause I'm workin' for a livin’.”

Just remember that it's not 24/7 and you get to go home sometime, like Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett in “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere”, who tell us "I'm gettin' paid by the hour and older by the minute", but remind us that it will all be OK at quittin' time.

America is a great country, and its people make it great.  "We Built This City" and we are "The Hands That Built America".  We can continue to make it great, through hard work.  Billy Joel gave us a history lesson about the steel mills in “Allentown”, where "Every child had a pretty good shot, to get at least as far as their old man got, but something happened on the way to that place, they threw an American flag in our face."   (Incidentally, whenever I sing it, I like to say "they threw an American Pie in our face.  It's funnier.)

I'm not going to forget about the ladies.  After all, "She Works Hard for the Money".  Dolly Parton certainly does in “Nine to Five”, when she sings "workin' nine to five, what a way to make a living,  barely gettin' by it's all takin' and no givin'.  They just use your mind and they never give you credit.   It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it."  So true.

Let me wrap this up with three of the FINEST WORKSONGS:

Bruce Springsteen – “The Promised Land”
"I've done my best to live the right way; I get up every morning and go to work each day; But your eyes go blind and your blood runs cold; Sometimes I feel so weak I just want to explode."

James Taylor – “Millworker”
"But it's my life has been wasted, and I have been the fool, to let this manufacturer use my body for a tool."

...and the National Anthem of Work Songs:
Johnny Paycheck – “Take This Job and Shove It”

“Well, I been working in this factory for now on fifteen years
All this time, I watched my woman drownin' in a pool of tears
And I've seen a lot of good folks die who had a lot of bills to pay
I'd give the shirt right off of my back if I had the guts to say
Take this job and shove it I ain't workin' here no more.”

Now, set the alarm on your clock radio and get a good night's sleep because tomorrow is another working day.

Along for the Ride

Back in 1975, when I was a High School Senior, it was easy for me to ignore Bruce Springsteen's masterpiece album "Born to Run".  Several of my friends told me about how great Springsteen was and how that album was fantastic, but I didn't pay any attention to them.  That's because I was from Texas, not New Jersey, and Bruce's previous albums had tunes that I simply could not relate to. Plus, being from Texas, I was listening to ZZ Top's "Fandango" that came out the same year.  It had terrific songs, that spoke to my local interests, "I Heard It On the X", "Balinese" and "Tush".  Moreover, at the time, I was working part-time at a grocery store and, whenever we were able to play the rock radio station over the store's PA system, all we ever heard was The Eagles' "One of These Nights", Elton John's "Someone Saved My Life Tonight", or, if we were lucky, Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody".  Never Bruce Springsteen.

Eventually, the tidal wave named Bruce Springsteen finally reached my small town.  There he was on the covers of Time magazine and Newsweek.  He had arrived. But I still wasn't listening.  Why not?  Because 1975 was an amazing year for great rock albums.  Here are just a few of the now classic LPs that I bought new in 1975:  "A Night at the Opera" by Queen, "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd, "Toys in the Attic" by Aerosmith, "By Numbers" by The Who, "Blood on the Tracks" by Bob Dylan, "Horses" by Patti Smith, "Young Americans" by David Bowie, and for me the topper of them all "Physical Graffiti" by Led Zeppelin.  So, you can see how "Born to Run" got lost amongst so much great music.

Making the transition from High School to College life was a revelatory time for me, as it is for most young people.  What am I going to do now?  Time to get serious. I'm not a boy, I'm a man. That's when I heard Bruce Springsteen's next album "Darkness on the Edge of Town", which had a song called "The Promised Land" which contained the line "I'm not a boy, no, I'm a man". All the songs on that album spoke directly to me at that time.  "Badlands" struck a nerve:

"Baby I got my facts learned real good right now
You better get it straight darling

Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king
And a king ain't satisfied till he rules everything
I wanna go out tonight, I wanna find out what I got

Now I believe in the love that you gave me
I believe in the faith that could save me
I believe in the hope and I pray that some day
It may raise me above these Badlands"

Despite the poverty and turmoil I was enduring at that moment of my life, I was embarking on a new life, escaping the small town, going into the big world, finding out about love and life.  It was at that time that I started dating the woman who would become my wife and, I am lucky to say, has put up with me for over 30 years.  It was at that time that I started my life's mission.  Bruce Springsteen was instrumental in helping me find myself. It was as thought he opened his car door and said, "Get in...we're going for a ride".  I got in.

Only after many listens to "Darkness" did I buy "Born to Run".  By that time, I had a real appreciation for the title track.  It told me to get out while we were still young, and that someday we would "get to that place where we really want to go and we'll walk in the sun".  I believed Bruce, and I was along for the ride.

When you are a fan of someone's music, you can't wait until their next album.  Before Springsteen, I had been that way with Led Zeppelin; eagering awaiting each album and being the first person in the record store on the release date.  Now, I couldn't wait until Bruce's next album to come out.  He did not disappoint us with "The River".  It was a double album, like the Beatles "White Album", similar in many ways in its scope and majesty.  There were dark brooding songs, rockers, and funny songs, just like the "White Album".  It is one of Bruce's best works and, not surprisingly, it had many songs about cars, such as "Stolen Car", "Drive All Night" and "Cadillac Ranch".  One particularly funny song about driving his girlfriend's mother to the unemployment agency every monday morning was "Sherry Darling".  Here's a snippet:

"You can tell her there's a hot sun beatin' on the black top
She keeps talkin' she'll be walkin' that last block
She can take a subway back to the ghetto tonight
Well I got some beer and the highway's free
And I got you, and baby you've got me.
Hey, hey, hey what you say Sherry Darlin'"

The highway's free, Bruce reminded us that we should get free and drive on.  Bruce celebrated that freedom by exploring new landscapes and new styles in the stark "Nebraska" and the nostalgic "Born in the USA", which became his most popular album and permanently fixed him as a rock icon. "Born in the USA" clearly must have been a difficult act to follow creatively, because Springsteen has since dabbled in a variety of musical styles from pop to folk, always interesting and compelling songwriting full of rich imagery and universal themes.  Cheers to the American Dreamer, Bruce Springsteen!   He is clearly still "Working on a Dream" and ready to take us all along for the ride.

The Man Burns Tonight!

The annual Burning Man festival is going on right now in Black Rock City, Nevada.  Every year, something compels thousands of people to congregate to celebrate self-expression, community and art.  It's very tribal. It's now very high-tech; you can watch the proceedings via a webstream; but it's essence is very primal, something from our distant past.  Tribes gathering for a celebration.  There is something very intrinsic in our nature to want to connect to kindred spirits, often in large numbers.  Consider the unity of spirit we feel at stadium sporting events or rock concerts, or the solidarity of an army going off to war, or the reverence of worshippers in church.  From the atomic level within the cells of our body tissues to the expanse of our collective consciousness, we are bound together by vibrating forces.  We are carbon-based life and carbon atoms prefer to bind strongly to each other and often form long polymeric chains that provide structure and function and keep us alive. We feel connected because we truly are.

Music connects us in the same way.  Regardless of the type of music you prefer, there is something magical, like magnetism, vibrating at the core, resonating with our psyche. Music lifts our spirits from the depths of despair to the heights of ecstacy.  And it has been heard since the dawn of man.  And it has brought us together to celebrate and dance.  From tribal chants, to sock-hops, to raves, there is a continuum that spans human history.  The joy of music is imprinted in our DNA.  We are musical beings.