Yep… after much organizing, planning, and a bit of mental stress, I’m here…
just a few hours away!

http://www.youtube.com/embed/MNPhpbNfVcg

Cars screeching to a stop over several yards - Even the cheapest economy cars these days some with anti-lock brakes.  The old days of your movie hero running into the street to be narrowly avoided by a sedan sliding to a screaming, smoky halt are over.  Unless he happens to run in front of a classic or an old junker, instead of a noisy near-miss, the average ride would instantly and quietly halt on a dime.

People saying their goodbyes at the airport gate - Thanks to Osama and his cronies, airport scenes have been completely different.  No more hugs at the jetway entrance.  No more heroes chasing the one they now realize they love through the airport to catch them just in time as they’re boarding their flight.

Heavy reliance on phone booths – No more dodging a phone trace by using a pay phone!  First of all, these days, a criminal would have to be really well versed on his city’s infrastructure to even find a pay phone and with today’s computerized call routing he’d be located instantly, and there might even be a camera somewhere to take a picture the perp!  Superman?  Well, he has to change with the times too!

Smoking – Sure, people still smoke in the movies (usually the bad guy, not the hero), but not like they used to.  Back in the day, they’d smoke on planes, in clubs, in hospital waiting rooms… one of my favorite scenes in Bullitt is of all the physicians smoking in the doctors’ lounge!  Modern day social taboos on smoking get reflected on the big screen as art imitates life.

Drivers chatting on huge car phone receivers tethered to the car by a cooly cord - These days, this could only happen in a comedy, because, while back in the days of the Sean Connery Bond flicks, this looked really cool, it just looks stupid now.

Greg Hawkes, David Robinson, Ric Ocasek, and Elliot Easton are together for the first time in a quarter century, the new album sounds pretty decent (although with how the music business is these days, most people will never hear it), and the band’s reunion seemed a sincere effort rather than a “money grab” like so many other 80s bands have done ($250 tickets for The Police, anyone?).

Actually, to me, The Cars are a 70s band.  I first heard “Let’s Go” in 1979 on one of my dad’s friend’s stereos.  I instantly loved it and after paying close attention to the songs that followed on the album, decided I must have it.  I’d not seen the Candy-O cover because as my dad’s buddy had been playing it from a reel-to-reel tape copy he’d made from someone else’s LP, so when I saw the album in the mall record store, I felt a little awkward as a 12 year old boy.  I really like the music but was sure I would be accused of buying it only for the image of a catsuit wearing pinup sprawled over a car hood, prominently displaying her “camel toe.”  It was a few weeks later that I heard the first record, and soon bought it and memorized both The Cars albums.  I wasn’t as impressed with Panorama or Shake it Up. By the time Heartbeat City came out in 1983, I’d already lost interest in the band the first time.  But I’m digressing here…

The band started with “Let the Good Times Roll,” one of their stronger songs.  My excitement to see them was a bit muted at first because of the sound mix, which was very muddy and lacking high end.  Discerning the vocals and guitar over the mud of the synth bass and drums proved difficult.  Song number two was “Blue Tip,” which I have only heard a few times before, so I waited through it for a more familiar number, as the mix was making hard to just enjoy the musicianship.  The third song was the familiar “Since You’re Gone,” which grabbed me a bit more, but I was distracted by a guy in front of me who went completely unconscious, bashing his head on a railing on the way to the concrete floor, where he would remain unconscious for a while.  I’m an RN so my first instinct was to rush to him and check his pulse and protect his airway, but that wouldn’t be much help either in a crowd of concert goers in the dark especially if he were in real trouble.  Instead, I rushed back through a crowd of people, literally shoving people out of the way to find a venue employee with a radio.   I shoved through some guys at the bar and yelled at the bartender.  Just as one of the crowd of guys I’d pushed through was about to kick my ass for pushing him, two other people rushed up behind me reporting the same incident, exonerating me in the eyes of Mr. Asswhopping.

I made my way back to my spot to watch venue staff people help the now conscious guy to his feet.  Just as I was suggesting he should probably not try to stand, the guy went unconscious again and fell back to the ground.  He was eventually carried out of the place in a groggy state.  By then, the band had finished “Up and Down” and was starting into “Best Friend’s Girl.”  I turned my attention back to the concert, which thankfully had become a better experience since apparently the sound engineers had worked out the mix by the fifth song.

The rest of the show went great, despite Mr. Ocasek’s resemblance to an animatronic statue of himself.  My friend Mike said he has “the stage presence of a thumb tack.”  Most of the band’s energy came from Greg Hawkes, the band’s keyboard player and now also bassist since Benjamin Orr is no longer around.  Most of the bass duties were handled by a synth, although Hawkes did step away from the keyboards to play bass for a while, letting the sequencers handle the synth work.

Apart from what I’ve already mentioned, the band superbly played familiar songs like “Touch and Go,” “I’m in Touch With Your World,” “You Might Think,” “I’m Not the One,” “Heartbeat City,” and “Let’s Go,” and played “Moving in Stereo” and “Just What I Needed” as encores.  Probably the first song many people think of by The Cars is “Drive,” which they didn’t play, probably for the best as Ocasek’s vocals could stand up to how Benjamin Orr has sung it.  In between the familiar numbers, they fit several songs from the new album, Move Like This, which really didn’t get much attention from the crowd.  The true highlights of the show were “Let’s Go” and the encore.

We thought for sure there had to be a second encore in store because we hadn’t heard “You’re All I’ve Got Tonight,” “Bye Bye Love,” “All Mixed Up,” “Shake It Up,” “Magic,” and “Tonight She Comes,”  but the house lights came on and the theater played their traditional “get the hell out of here” song, Johnny Cash’s version of “We’ll Meet Again,” through the PA.  Out we went.

In conclusion:  Great musicianship, very little energy, and too many new songs and not enough classics from the band.  It was a really good show that could have been much better if it didn’t seem like Ocasek wasn’t really into it. Oh, and the sound engineer should have spent more time pre-show to get the mix right before song number five.

I forced my fiance to watch the original Star Wars movie (Episode IV – A New Hope) with me yesterday.  When I was a kid, I remember it being the most action-packed theatrical thrill ride ever. It was so much to take in all at once, and with one exciting scene after another, I could hardly keep up.  Did I still feel that way yesterday?  Not so much.  I actually felt kind of bored.

The version we watched was the “new and improved” one with the CGI animals and Jabba, which I last saw when they first released the updated version.  Other than that, I hadn’t seen the movie in its entirety since I was eleven years old. Personally, I didn’t think the movie needed updating.  Perhaps digital mastering was in order, but not major story changes (Jabba at the Millenium Falcon right before they took off for the first time) or CGI (the extra animals).  It certainly doesn’t need to be made 3D, but I hear they’re doing that too.  Oops!  There I go digressing again!

Compared to today’s movies, that old Star Wars flick is slow-paced, but is it really as slow paced as it felt to me?  After all, it was fine when I was a kid, and kids are supposed to have shorter attention spans, right?

I’m positive my attention span has shortened over the years.  When I was thirteen, I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in the span of a month or so.  For those of you not familiar, that’s four books totaling about 1600 pages to tell a story that keeps track of several different characters with confusing names (Fili, Kili, Dwalin, Balin, Oin, Gloin, Ori, Dori, Nori, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Frodo, Bilbo, Boromir, Legolas, Samwise, Sauron, Saruman, Galdalf, etc.) who who split up in different directions on their adventure.  If you think the Harry Potter books are confusing, you’d hate The Lord of the Rings.  At least Harry Potter’s books are written with a modern audience in mind.  Now?  I don’t have the patience to sit through the damned movies, much less the books!

These days, I get my news from Google and The Daily Beast, I check the weather on an iPhone app, I keep in touch with most people through Facebook updates… Get it quick and go.  Coffee?  If there’s a place on the way as I head somewhere, I let someone else make it, otherwise, I make a cup of  Starbucks Via in a travel mug.  Who has time to brew the stuff?  French press?  Pfft!  Then I’d just have to clean the damned thing.  I get my hair cut at Supercuts, I go to quickie old change places (but only if my iPhone is charged enough for internet surfing), I buy my music from iTunes, I rent movies via streaming services like NetFlix and Amazon ’cause I don’t want to be bothered by visiting Blockbuster or finding a Redbox machine, and when I watch the movies I’m usually simultaneously doing internet stuff with my MacBook.

I used to love record stores when I was younger (my brother loved them even more).  I’d walk around for hours perusing all the covers, flipping through every LP in the place before making my decisions.  Who has time to do that anymore?  I also used to peruse books in such a manner (I even worked in a book store for a while), but I hardly read anymore.  I’ve recently started listening to audiobooks on my iPhone as I do other stuff (driving, working out, etc), but I listen to them on double speed because the narrators talk too slow.  They seem to talk like William Shatner as Capt. Kirk when I want them to be more like a drugged up Hunter S. Thompson.  Besides, listening my way gets through the books much faster.

Internet reading?  I’ll tell you what, if I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t have read this far into this rinky-ass blog.  It really makes me wonder, because as I think I’m seeming to get more done in less time, I don’t really have much to show for it in the end.  I should really probably rethink my ways and do something to slow down or whatever, but not now… I’ve got so much other stuff to do.

Just watched The Green Hornet, which was a far better movie than the critics give it credit for.  Great character development, great silliness, and I LOVE that they kept the Black Beauty looking as it looked back in it’s heyday rather than making it some ultra-modern thing.  In fact, the newer version looks better than the original because it has less apparent modifications, more chrome, and better paint.

I only cringe that they apparently destroyed 26 classic Chrysler Imperials to make it… but apparently Sony claims the cars they destroyed were more rust than metal.  Apparently, there’s going to be a sequel, which means they’re likely to smash up a lot more Chryslers…

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Photo Matt Young/SPE via Business Wire

I’ve heard somewhere that there is actually a physiologic need for sleep.  Apparently, without sleep, your body doesn’t fold its proteins right.  That sucks.  All those unfolded proteins laying around.  But sleep is such a waste of time.  A serious waste of time.  Not that I’ve been that productive with my available time lately, but I do think all the time about how much more stuff I could get done if I didn’t need to sleep.

When I was young, I could pull it off for a few days.  I remember a period of three days where I spent every non-working hour re-plumbing my house.  In my college career, there were days on end where I’d sleep no more than four hours at a time or so, while holding down a full time job, a full time class schedule, and remodeling a kitchen.  Every time I had a major test, I studied all night.  Oh, and my house was an hour’s drive from my college.  There were so many times I could accomplish so many things without the need for sleep.  I could really pull it off.

Or maybe I only thought I was pulling it off.  Looking back, I wasn’t a great student, my jobs were mostly the type that didn’t require any serious efforts and I wasn’t the greatest performer, and looking back, I can think of several likely building code violations in that old house.

When I was even younger, I could dive into anything that interested me.  I could go without rest, food, or even heat from the moment I got home from work or school until well into the night.  In high school, it was art projects.  I’d shut myself in the basement and paint or sculpt for hours.  Later, it was music.  There were times I would head to the garage at about four in the afternoon and play music until the neighbors called the cops because it was so late, often insisting others do this with me as members of a band.  Mind you, this would be in an unheated garage in the winter in Illinois.  Not a problem.

Now?  Forget it.  I get home and immediately have to rest before I even think of what I want to do.  Music?  Pfft.  Riiiight.  YouTube videos?  When I get to them.  Blog entries?  You’re reading this, look at the dates on the previous entries.  I have a model that I’ve been building for half a year, and that has nothing to do with the model’s detail, but with the amount of time I spend on it at any given interval.  At my age, I have to exercise in the morning or it doesn’t happen.  There’s no way I’m dragging myself to a gym after a work shift, especially if my butt has made contact with a couch.

Why am I like this now?

I just read more about the protein folding thing and learned that as you age, quality control goes out the window regarding protein folding, especially with lack of sleep.  It has something to do with endoplasmic reticulum, and I think for most of you I’ve already said enough about endoplasmic reticulum.  Anyway, apparently, not only does lack of sleep lead to unfolded proteins, but as you age, your body has less of the proteins that refold abnormal proteins than when you were younger.  That means as you neglect to fold your proteins, eventually, they end up laying around stinking up the place like a crazy old fart’s dirty laundry.

After a while, the accumulated dirty laundry really begins to stink up the place.  By that, I mean they’re toxic on a cellular level.  Also, since an older body folds proteins at a slower pace, the laundry just keeps piling up.  Some scientist think it a positive feedback loop, meaning the unfolded proteins cause a response that makes for more unfolded proteins and no amount of sleep will make up for it… and is the nature of science, there are those that don’t have this belief.  I’ve never actually seen a protein, folded or not, so I have only to guess.  It makes sense to me, though… or at least I think.  I’m not sure.  I can’t quite concentrate.  I guess I didn’t get enough sleep last night.

Just a little help in hopes of keeping my fellow gabachos from making an ass of themselves if they run into actual Mexicans today:

Cinco de Mayo is NOT “Mexican Independence Day,” that’s September 16th.  It’s a holiday to celebrate a victory over the French at The Battle of Puebla.  Outside of the state of Puebla, Mexicans don’t really celebrate it much.

Tequila does not have a “worm” (moth larva actually), that’s mezcal.  Both are made from agave, but tequila is distilled twice and agave once.  The worm is actually a pest that deteriorates the agave plant’s quality, but its presence in the bottle has proven to be a great marketing ploy for gringos who will get drunk on a Thursday because it’s “The Mexican Fourth of July.”

Corona and Dos Equis, while they may be yummy, are very commonplace beers pretty much along the lines of Budweiser and Miller.  If you want to step up a notch, go for a Bohemia or a Negra Modelo.

Also remember, dressing “Mexican” can be really offensive, especially with the mustache, and nachos aren’t really “Mexican food”

Remember everyone, don’t drink and drive.

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Image Creative Commons Flickr k4dordy