Metal Hearts

Last night the "Metal Masters Tour" came to Houston, and Lisa, Justin, Kevin and I took our expensive seats in the 4th freaking row! We got to see, up close and personal, all the facial expressions, all the gestures, and all the rock theatrics of classic metal gods Judas Priest, Heaven and Hell, and Motorhead.

As I watched my heroes onstage, I couldn't help but pinch myself -- Tony Iommi, Ronnie James Dio, Rob Halford, Glenn Tipton -- they're RIGHT THERE! When they'd come over to our part of the stage, they'd just look and smile, or point, or nod. Folks, you just don't get that when you're sittin' waaaaaaay back next to the hot dog stand.

Just ask Kevin about wanting to vomit when the pounding bass drums of Heaven and Hell vibrated every part of his body. Justin joked, "I thought it was going to collapse my lung!"

All of us jumped and pumped our arms to all the metal anthems you could want in a single evening. There was the trademark epic and namesake, "Heaven and Hell," "Sign of the Southern Cross" (from H&H), "Breaking the Law," and "The Hellion/Electric Eye" (from Priest). Justin says Heaven and Hell's performance of "Falling Off The Edge of the World" was the best, and Kevin got his wish to hear both "Metal Gods" and "The Green Manolishi" from Judas Priest. Lisa said she preferred the sound of Motorhead to the "mash" of the two other bands. To each her own, I guess. Me? I kinda liked watching my peeps get off on the kick-ass rock 'n roll I've been worshipping for all these decades. The family that rocks together, gets tinnitus together. Or, something like that.

Fontspace: The Final Frontier

If you're looking for cool fonts to dress up your documents, make cool stationery, or just to add zip to your Myspace page, Fontspace is for you! They have almost 9000 free fonts for you to download, organized by category. I typed in the search keyword "Beatles" on their site, and found the fab four fonts, as pictured here. Whatever your thing is, they have a font for you. Check it out.

Beatles Nugget

Goldmine magazine is a bi-weekly publication for music collectors that runs an annual Beatles-themed issue. They've collected the last ten years of these special issues onto a CD-ROM , in PDF format, called "Goldmine Presents Meet the Fab Four. " I just received mine in the mail, and I'm happy to report that it's well worth buying. The nicest thing about it is that all those articles (featuring interviews with McCartney, Starr, and so many Beatles "insiders") are completely searchable. And, if you're like me, you'll appreciate the saved space, without all those magazines stacked around the house!

Emo Fudd

We were celebrating Kevin's 12th birthday at Fuddrucker's yesterday, and I was describing the various photos of the Beatles hanging on the restaurant's walls. One of them is from September 1962, and George Harrison was sporting a black eye. Ringo had recently joined the group, and legend has it that George was popped by an angry fan, who preferred original drummer Pete Best. (Except, the legend is really a myth -- but that's another story.)

Note the early haircuts in the photos. Paul has the famous "Beatle Haircut" going pretty well, but contrast that with the cut of new kid on the block, Ringo. (Click the photos above to get an enlarged view.) One of their German friends, Jurgen Vollmer, had his hair styled that way, a little long for the times, and combed to the front. John and Paul asked another German friend, Astrid Kirchherr, to cut theirs that way, too. These German friends were known as "Exis," from existentialism, who dressed in black, were intellectual, artistic, and avant garde.

In our discussion, the young ones dutifully put up with yet another lesson from me about the Beatles. The insightful Justin, in his wise years of 17, commented, "That's what the Emo's do, now." Very interesting observation, I thought. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Today's kids who call themselves "Emo" dress and look very much like the Bohemian youths did way back in the early 1960s. OK, Emos, go find a copy of the film "Backbeat", a dramatization about the Beatles' early days in Hamburg, for your own little deja vu.

Weigh With Words

I was reading a book by another of my heroes, the great scientist Carl Sagan. Sagan said that his teachers were not particularly great, except for his parents. My parents were great teachers, too, but what Sagan was really complaining about was a lack of inspiration from his teachers. That's a shame, because I can name a few teachers who greatly inspired me.

Dr. Judith J. Kollmann was my English 102 professor at the University of Michigan-Flint. Like all great teachers, she was demanding. More than that, she had a conversational approach to her teaching that I really appreciated. As kids say these days, she was "keepin' it real." I try my best to do the same in my own classroom.

One of the dreadful things she required of her class was to keep a daily journal. "Ugh!", I thought. I mean, I'm studying to be a high-falootin' mathematician! Why do I need to consume my time with a journal, for crying out loud? She told us we had to turn it in every few weeks, and that she'd grade it.

Whenever I could squeeze in time between my "real studies," I'd write something in my journal. I started very slowly, to say the least. What would I write about (daily!), and who would even care? More to the point, was that crazy Kollmann even gonna read the darned thing? I had my doubts about that, you see. There were a bunch of students, and how could she possibly have time?

Sure enough, she read everything I ever wrote in that journal. She made pithy comments in the margins, too. Better still, and much to my surprise, she actually liked my ramblings. "Excellent journal," she wrote, attaching a score of 9 out 10, in the very first grading. Hmmm. I didn't know what to say. My Chatty-Cathy journal entries were like, ya know, good? Who knew?

She gave me advice too, when I blathered on about personal goings-on. She asked questions about me. She responded to some of my comments with answers of her own, and gave insight into her own viewpoints. A real personal touch. And gosh, she actually...cared!

She was very encouraging, too, to this wacky kid.

One day, in that fall of 1981, she came into class, her arms full with our journals. She had read them all. She pulled one off the top of the pile, and told us all that she liked this one particular journal entry. She liked it so much that she read it to the class, right then and there. Try to stick with it, as I re-tell what she read:

Oct 25, 1981

You're not going to believe this story. It's my alibi for missing the English class on Friday, October 23. Now, I never go anywhere except to work and school. Well, this particular Thursday, I went to the planetarium to see the new Laserdrive show. I was gone about 2 hours. When I was returning home, the only passage to my house was road blocked by the police. So, thinking logically, I went around trying to get in another way. (I didn’t know it was completely blocked off.) This failed. So, I spoke to an officer, hoping to find out how I was going to get home. He told me that it would be a while. So after he explained that a madman was now in an apartment building holding a girl hostage with a shotgun (absolutely true!), I drove around, and checked back to see if I could go home. I did this every few minutes. I didn’t get home until 12:30 am. Well, when I got home, I began working on my English paper as I had planned to do at about 10:00 pm. (Honest to God, I did my paper!) I didn’t get to bed until nearly 4:00 am. Well, what happened was that I overslept Friday morning, and I missed my English class. Sorry! Hard to believe? It’s all true.

Yup, I still have that journal.

When Dr. Kollmann read it, I just kept my head low. I was proud, though, when my classmates laughed in the appropriate places. The manner in which Dr.Kollmann read it sure helped, too. She didn't mention any names, and I didn't tell anyone that it was my journal she read, either, but her actions sure were a big boost of confidence for me. She didn't know it, but her attitude, her methods, and her approach influenced and inspired me more than I can say.

I try to remember that when I'm standing in front of a room full of impressionable kids. Today, I actually require my students to keep a journal of sorts. We call it the "Calculus Manual." Kids tell me every year how helpful it is to them when they move on to college.

I e-mailed Dr. Kollmann a few years ago, and finally thanked her for being such a great teacher. She remembered me, and my journal story. I shouldn't have been surprised -- she really is that good. If Carl Sagan had been as lucky as I to sit in her class, I'm certain he'd have a different opinion of at least one of his teachers.

Dr, Kollmann is retired, now, and she was named Professor Emerita at the university.

Lucky me.

Paris Hilton Plays The Hair Card

Last week, John McCain launched an ad comparing rival candidate Barack Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. The people at Funny Or Die approached Hilton to make a video rebuttal. Not only did she agree to shoot the video, she did so without compensation. (View the video by clicking here.)

Wearing a bathing suit, Hilton said, "that wrinkly, white-haired guy used me in his campaign ad, which I guess means I'm running for president. So thanks for the endorsement white-haired dude."

Ever watch McCain read his note cards on camera? He could use a course in public speaking, to be kind. The folks at Funny Or Die say that Paris didn't even use cue cards. Take that, wrinkly, white-haired guy!

Storm Troopers

Tropical Storm Edouard spun through the Houston area on Tuesday. We spent all day Monday moving everything we could off the floor in my house. The good news is that we didn't flood, this time. (Just last August, with 9 inches of rain, the flood waters came within 3 feet of my house! Fortunately, Edouard only brought about 6 inches of rain.) A big sigh of relief, here. Now the task of putting everything back in its place...

Radio Free R.E.M.

My Phone Call to R.E.M.

Rock band R.E.M had just released their album Automatic For The People, and as part of their promotion tour, they appeared on the Global Satellite Network's call-in radio show, "Rockline." This is the still-running show that allows listeners to interview their favorite rockers, live, and on-the-air.

On this particular Monday (October 12, 1992), band members Peter Buck and Mike Mills were behind the microphones and fielding the questions. Well, I just happened to dial in and pose a question of my own.

As you might guess, getting through on the 800 number isn't an easy task. Every R.E.M. fan and his mother is trying to do the same thing -- mostly dialing frantically and getting a busy signal, and then dialing again. Even if you get a ring, I discovered, there's no guarantee that someone on the other end will pick up the call. After many, many rings, the call may be dropped, and you can start all over again! After dozens of attempts, I finally got through, to a real live person. I was ready; I went through my list of questions until the screener agreed one of them was worthy. Then, I just had to wait with the phone pressed up to my ear for my turn to talk to two of my musical heroes live on the radio!

After letting Peter and Mike know that they were both my favorite half of R.E.M., I asked them about the expectations of AFTP being a "return-to-rock" album, and what had changed that idea. Here is Mike's answer:

"Well, we kind of expected that too, but when we wrote all the songs, we looked at 'em, we picked the best ones, and Michael chose the ones he felt like writing words to, and we found that they were slower and mid-tempo. And, you know, our main interest is in creating the best record possible, with the best songs possible, so rather than take the rockin' songs that might not have been as good as others and trying to force them into a record, we took the ones that we thought would make the best overall sound. And it turned out that they were this way. We were as surprised as anyone I think, by this turn of events, but we're very pleased with it, I think that the songs are all very well realized, and I like the record."

Bob Coburn, the host, then asked "In general terms, is it easier to write an up-tempo song?"

Mike replied, "It's easier to write an up-tempo song, but it's harder to write a good one, one that hasn't been heard a million times."

After my part on the show ended, I stayed on the phone line listening in to the off-the-air conversation taking place while “Man On The Moon” was being played, and then even longer, during the commercial break. I was supposed to hang up, but this fly on the wall opportunity was in my grasp! I listened for 5 or 10 minutes before they disconnected me, and I wish I could have recorded it, but I'll tell you what I remember. Drummer Bill Berry had called two callers before me, so during the break Peter commented that he wished lead singer Michael Stipe would call.

Mike Mills: "I doubt he's listening. No offense!"

Peter said that Michael never knows about the media and promotion side of things. "We'll be doing some promotion and we'll come back and he'll say 'where you guys been?'"

Mills: "And we'll say ‘what do you mean, mother ___, we're out plugging your record!'"

Another topic of their discussion dealt with Al and Tipper Gore, and the Parents Music Resource Center, etc.

Mills: "She means well."

Bob Coburn talked about censorship and said someone had made the argument "Why don't we start with Shakespeare?"

Mills: "...or country music."

Mike also commented that he still couldn't figure out the lyrics to "Ignoreland!"

As an added bonus to calling in, the good folks at the show sent me two REM cds, and here you see the letter that was mailed with them. (Click it for the bigger picture.)

REM also has archived every appearance they've made on Rockline on their website, and you can listen to my actual call here!

By the way, I made it onto yet another Rockline show a few years later, but you'll have to wait for that story!

Catcher In The Wry

The scene is a warm summer evening (July 28, 1991, to be exact!), still very daylight, at Arlington Stadium, home of the Texas Rangers. Of course, I was there to see the visiting Detroit Tigers. This was the third game of the home stand, and my brother Clarence and I, as we did for several years, saw every Tigers game there. For the last game of each of their visits, we liked to sit in the cheap outfield seats for one very good reason: We shagged home run balls during batting practice. We caught many a fly ball at that park, as we camped out in the hot sun with our baseball gloves. Batting practice catches were nice, and snagging a foul ball from an actual game was even better, but to catch a real home run ball from a Detroit Tigers player, that would be a rare prize.

So, there we were, in the front row of the left field bleachers, rooting for our Tigers. It was the top of the second inning, and Tigers shortstop Travis Fryman was the batter. On the mound was the feared flame thrower and future hall-of-famer, Nolan Ryan. The count on Fryman was two balls and a strike. Ryan reared back and hurled a blazing fastball. Fryman swung hard and lined the ball into left field, right up into the glaring sun. It was nearly impossible to see -- I had no sunglasses, and all I could focus on was a black dot in the middle of a bright flash of light. My brother yelled -- "It's coming your way!" Indeed it was, but would it be over my head, or would it land short? Now, I played outfield for many years, but from the crowded grandstands, one can't exactly chase the ball down! Here it comes! I could now see the ball was going to be a little short, so I leaned over the short fence that lined the bleacher seats, stretched my glove out, and smack! The ball was safely in my webbing. In one motion I grabbed the homer and sat back in my seat, quick as a wink.

(Click on these photos to get a bigger picture!)

Clarence leaned over to me and mumbled "Did you get it?" He was standing right next to me, but that sun was so bright he didn't know for sure! I showed him the ball, still tucked carefully in my glove. "Cool!" he said. Then a guy behind me asked the same thing. "Yeah," I replied, trying to downplay it. Have you ever seen folks on TV grab a home run ball, after it bounced all over Timbuktu, and then they start jumping up and down like they won at Vegas? Yeah, I didn't want to do that. But when I realized that even the fans sitting closest to me didn't know I caught it, well, I decided I should tell 'em! I turned around, and sure enough, everyone in the bleachers -- thousands of baseball fans -- were looking at me! Except, um, almost all of them were Rangers fans, and there I was, decked out in a Tigers shirt and baseball cap! Oops! What else could I do, but stand up, thrust my arm high into the air, and let them know I caught that sucker! To my surprise, they all started clapping! A truly awesome sight! Feeling cocky, how could I resist pointing to the "D" on my baseball cap, so they'd all know I was a true- blue Tigers fan! Right away, the entire bleachers turned into a chorus of loud boos! Clarence started laughing! Next thing you know, they're all chanting "throw it back, throw it back, throw it back!" Yeah, right!!

Then a security guy from the Rangers came down and asked me " Are you okay?" Of course I was okay! "Well, if you want me to, I can take that ball for safekeeping. Sometimes the fans get rowdy." "No," I assured him, "this ball isn't leaving my sight. I'll take my chances!"

I later had Travis Fryman sign it for me, when the Tigers came back to town the following year. At right is a picture of the baseball Nolan Ryan pitched, Travis Fryman knocked out of the park, and I caught!

Below is a video clip I made of the home run. (approx 4 mins 15 sec)