22DEC2018 – Photo of the Day
Month: December 2018
A Photo Theme for the Next Few Weeks
I dug out a bunch of shots I took back in 2012 with my Sony mirrorless crop sensor NEX 5N camera at the American Museum of Natural History. This was an earlier mirrorless and really didn’t have good low light capability or auto focus but for non-moving dinosaurs and stuffed african animals it was mostly okay. That museum is probably my favorite place in NYC. A less well known fact is that the museum’s charter states that any resident of NYC can get admission by paying any amount of US currency he desires down to a penny. But the museum posts admission fees that are over twenty dollars a head. When I saw this that day I gave them hell and told them I was paying a buck a head for my family. Hoping to get me out of earshot of the rest of the crowd they took my reduced price and rushed me in. It’s a great place. And the statue of Teddy Roosevelt on a horse with an African and a North American native flanking him is so politically incorrect that it always does my heart good.
Have You Ever Wondered Why Uranus is Lopsided?
That wasn’t meant as an insult!
https://apnews.com/d1e2c440af57450ab82b62d035adac61
Apparently several billions of years ago it was side-swiped by a planet at least twice as big as Earth and has been out of kilter ever since. Probably a female planet like Venus not paying attention to the road (sorry Camera Girl, I had to say it).
Interesting article. They even tackle the embarrassing alternate pronunciation for the planet’s name.
Bader Ginsberg Undergoes Surgery to Remove Lung Cancer
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/21/supreme-court-justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-85-reportedly-undergoes-lung-procedure-.html
I wonder if this is what the broken rib incident was really about.
This is significant. At the very least I would assume she will need recovery time and absences to allow for chemotherapy. I could be wrong but I believe that her time on the bench will be less than two years.
Flash of Genius – A Movie Review
This was a 2008 release that’s based on a true story. Greg Kinnear plays Bob Kearns, an engineering professor in the Detroit area in the 1960s who along with his wife Phyllis (played by Lauren Graham from the Gilmore Girls) and their six kids are living a happy mid-western existence. One day Bob was driving and he came across the difficulty of having single speed wipers in a light rain. If he left the windshield wipers on then the window would get dry and the blades would squeak and streak, but if he left them off, he couldn’t see. Being an inventor, he came up with an electronic device that allowed the wipers to work with a variable delay between cycles, now known as intermittent wipers. With the help of a friend who had an automotive component company he approaches Ford Motor Company about them purchasing his wiper invention to use in their cars. They convince him they need to have a copy of the device to get it approved by the federal agency that oversees automotive safety equipment and he provides it to them. Kearns leases factory space and goes into production on the device. Then Ford backs out of the deal and starts producing essentially the same device on their own.
The rest of the movie chronicles Bob’s twenty-year crusade to bring Ford to justice for stealing his invention. During that time, he loses his job, his wife and almost his mind. At a certain point he becomes so desperate that he jumps on a bus to Washington D.C. to “talk to the White House” about his problem. This lands him in a mental ward for several months. When he gets out, he hires a lawyer to sue Ford for stealing his idea. The lawyer (played by Alan Alda) gets an agreement from Ford to pay Bob several hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle. But when he finds out that Ford wouldn’t be admitting to the theft, just paying him off, Bob balks and refuses to give up his crusade against Ford. At this point he’s several years into this nightmare and without a job. His wife, exhausted with raising six kids and supporting the family leaves him.
Now alone and miserable, he spends all his waking hours teaching himself the law applying to theft of intellectual property and fighting off Ford’s counter-suits and other delaying tactics. Finally, twelve years after initiating the effort his suit goes to trial. He represents himself and blunders through the various amateur shortcomings of being a make-believe lawyer. But as the end of the trial approaches Ford’s representative suddenly offers him thirty million dollars to drop the suit. He refuses and everything comes down to the jury decision.
I won’t give away the ending but I will comment on the dilemma of this poor man. Basically, he traded away the best years of his life and the happiness of a family for the chance to get justice from a court over being robbed of an invention. I am an engineer but I’ve never had a “flash of genius.” But I think as much as I am a vindictive bastard, I’d have recognized that spending decades of my prime and losing the woman I love to be proven right is an obsessive-compulsive fool’s errand. Even if you win, you’ve lost. A corporation is an immortal being with godlike power. It can outlive you and overpower you. The best thing you can do is steer clear of them. They are by definition soulless and amoral. I think the lesson learned from this movie is that life is short. Justice that costs you your reason for living is too costly for real people. It’s a good movie and the character Bob is a recognizable type that I have met several times in my life. And I felt sorry for him but I think he made a big mistake. Good movie about a cautionary tale for nerds. Don’t trust the man.
Portly Politico – A Very Dokken Christmas, Part I: Breaking the Chains (1983)
To celebrate the Christmas season, I’d like to explore 80s hair metal giants Dokken’s first three albums, starting with their 1983 debut, Breaking the Chains. The story of this album is curious in itself, as there are actually two versions: one recorded in 1981, then in another with the classic Dokken line-up of Don Dokken, George Lynch, Mick Brown, and Jeff Pilson (Pilson played bass on the tour, but not on the album). The best treatment of that story is The Rageaholic’s Metal Mythos: DOKKEN video; indeed, that video first turned me on to Dokken, a band I’d almost entirely missed in past forays into 80s metal.
This review will cover the 1983 album, as that’s properly when “Dokken” as such began (some pressings of 1981’s Breakin’ the Chains—note the dropped “G” in the ’81 version’s title—listed the artist as “Don Dokken”). Also, I haven’t heard enough of the ’81 cut to comment upon it adequately.
Breaking the Chains kicks off with its excellent title track, a tune that’s both rockin’ and sleek. It’s central riff—built around a persistent transition from E minor to D to C, and back again—is simple but effective, and resolves nicely into the G major of the distinctive chorus. Like much of 80s hair metal, the tune effortlessly combines a brooding sense of rock ‘n’ roll machismo with a catchy, radio-friendly chorus.
The album’s second track, “In The Middle,” is another mid-tempo rocker, but feels like a missed opportunity. The opening track itself, while exquisite, is already a slower tune. The decision to follow that up with another andante selection makes for a lackluster double opener. Dokken would perfect the “rockin’-double-opener” approach on future albums, but the best tracks on Breaking the Chains await.
Really, the album doesn’t really get cooking until the fifth track, “Live to Rock (Rock to Live),” an unapologetic rocker all about, well, rockin’ out. I’ve yet to give this track the “drive test” I referenced in my Down to Earth review, but I’m sure it would pass. Speaking of the drive test, Dokken follows “Live to Rock” with “Nightrider,” which sounds like driving a sports car with a panther on the roof through the rain-slick neon of an 80s night. These two tracks should have appeared a bit earlier on the album.
The album closes with a live recording of “Paris is Burning” from a 1982 show in Berlin. That track rips open with a George Lynch guitar solo that sounds like Van Halen’s “Eruption.” That kind of guitar pyrotechnics is missing from most of the record, so this live recording is a welcome addition to the album.
Much of this initial effort is enjoyable but forgettable, but there are some real gems on Breaking the Chains, not just the title track. All in all, it’s a solid record that points to the intensity and power of future Dokken releases.
21DEC2018 – Photo of the Day
21DEC2018 – Quote of the Day
Another (shudder) Romantic Poet. Well, we have to see both sides sometimes.
History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Φωτογ Λυόμενος – Photog Unbound – O Frabjous Day! Callooh! Callay! I Chortled in My Joy
If the Fates allow, I like to take off some time at the end of the year away from the sausage-making-factory. And as things worked out, I am off until the Second of January. There is no more wonderful prospect for a man of my temperament, than the prospect of escaping the treadmill for a few days. And because of this situation I will be able to indulge my inclination to publish frequent posts to the site. So if reading my ramblings is pleasant for you then you are in luck.
The Portly Politico’s Review of Rainbow’s Down to Earth
The good folks at Orion’s Cold Fire have generously allowed me the opportunity to contribute to the site. I write primarily about politics, economics, and history at https://theportlypolitico.wordpress.com, but as a “semi-pro” musician (and a full-time music teacher), I enjoy occasionally critiquing music. The purpose of this feature is to review classic 70s and 80s-era hard rock and heavy metal albums. Why such a specific genre and time period? Essentially, I believe this genre represents the pinnacle of rock music. With its confluence of blues, acid rock, country-western, and all the other distinct musical “flavors” of the mid-twentieth century, rock and roll reached its greatest artistic and technical summits during the “classic rock” era. I’ll write further about that contentious claim at a later date; but now, let’s boogie!
When considering an album to review, I more or less use this criteria: does it sound like hard rock/heavy metal? Have I listened to it enough to comment upon it? And does it rock? That’s not the best criteria, as it predisposes me to writing glowing reviews of every album, but there you have it—the highly unscientific approach I take to writing about music I generally love.
All that aside, my first album review for Orion’s Cold Fire was a no-brainer: 1979’s Down to Earth by Rainbow. This album perfectly encapsulates the direction of rock music at that crucial turning point between punk and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.
Down to Earth was the first and only Rainbow album to feature Graham Bonnet on lead vocals, who replaced legendary metal vocalist Ronnie James Dio. Rainbow’s guitarist and mastermind, Ritchie Blackmore, was notorious for sacking musicians on a whim, so most of the album’s personnel was wildly different than even the previous Rainbow release.
Regardless, this album rocks. While he’s no Dio, the songs on Down to Earth are uniquely suited for Bonnet’s vocals—probably because he wrote the melodies after the band had already recorded all of the tracks.
The album’s big hit—and Rainbow’s first hit single—is “Since You Been Gone,” a Russ Ballard-penned tune that strikes the right balance between rock and pop. The chorus is catchy as the flu, but like any good hard rock song, the pre-chorus build really sets up the triumphant release of the chorus beautifully. Listen to the bass and guitar after the line “Your poison letter, your telegram” and you’ll see what I mean.
That said, my favorite tracks are the opening and closing numbers, “All Night Long” and “Lost in Hollywood,” respectively. Musically, they rock, and “Lost in Hollywood” passes what I call the “drive test”—I drive much faster when listening to it. It also features some of Rainbow’s signature neoclassical embellishments, pointing to the rise of neoclassical metal.
Lyrically, they’re fairly depressing commentaries of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, not to mention the Sexual Revolution. “All Night Long” is sung from the point of view of a jaded, lonely rocker, searching the crowd for a babe to spend the night with him (the most poignant line, from the third verse: “I know I can’t stand another night on my own”). “Lost in Hollywood” describes a man so dedicated to rock, he’s lost the woman who makes it all worthwhile.
There are some less memorable tracks—the neoclassically-inflected “Eyes of the World” is a commentary on humanity’s rapacious capacity for violence and waste, but is a bit ponderous; “Makin’ Love” has its moments, but is forgettable—but, from start to finish, Down to Earth is as good an introduction to classic hard rock as I can conceive. Crank it up!