Music and Reflections

I love music, and have a wide range of tastes from some old country to classic rock of the 50s/60s/70s to rap and pop from the 80s/90s to some very heavy metal.  I used to think my parents were crazy for not wanting to become very immersed in the music of "the now".  They loved listening to what they always loved, and weren't too impressed with what was coming out when I was a kid.  I always thought to myself that I'd never get out of the loop like that, that I'd always want to maintain relevance in the music world.

Fast-forward to aught-10s, and hear the music that spews forth from the radio.  I find much of it to be garbage, and find myself hearkening back to the 60s and 70s rock and roll...the golden age of rock, where new sounds were being forged and boundaries pushed.  When artists actually played instruments, wrote songs, and toured shit-hole bars and clubs making a name for themselves as well as learning how to perform live.

I grew up listening to the likes of Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, and a large assortment of "trucker" style songs via my Dad.  I have a fond recollection of our vacations, driving to campgrounds listening to this music blaring with "4-55s" as my Dad used to say (4 windows down at 55 mph, the only a/c available in a truck at the time) cooling us off.

My Mom has more of a rock background in her, coming from the hippie 60s growing up in larger cities being a Navy brat.  I didn't realize she had a little hippie in her until much later in life when she told of Joplin concerts and getting in to trouble for fraternizing with the "wrong color" in high school during the times of integration.  Her station of choice was always "Oldies 96.1" on the radio.  They played a lot of 60s rock and roll - Beatles, Doors, Led Zeppelin, Monkees, Kinks, Animals....on and on, some of the greatest music ever, although  I didn't realize it at the time (it WAS called the oldies station).

Many of you reading this know already I tend to listen to some pretty heavy stuff.  As a kid, my first foray in this direction is now known as hair metal.  I still have a soft spot for some 80s hair metal - Poison, Cinderella, Motley Crue, Whitesnake, Crocus, and on and on.  I was coming in to my own at a pivotal time in music, perhaps the last real movement in rock, that of Grunge.  Guns N Roses and Metallica of the late 80s and early 90s did a good job of putting a death stake in hair metal, but when Nirvana came on the scene, they decimated it, fully decapitating the beast.  Grunge was and still is such a great genre of music - the aforementioned Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains...They took stripped down elements of punk, turned it on its head, added chunky and highly distorted riffs, threw on a flannel and gave a big middle finger to the decadence of the hair bands preceding them.  In the background though, heavy metal continued to churn along.

I started college in the fall of 1997 at the University of Detroit Mercy.  Having grown up in a small farming community in mid-Michigan, I wasn't too familiar with the "big city scene".  I quickly gained some new friends who had similar affinities for rock music, and they showed me the heavier side of things.  Marilyn Manson (who was fairly new on the scene of shock-rock, clearly taking cues from Kiss and Alice Cooper) was the first real heavy concert I ever went to.  It was downtown Detroit at the State Theater (now called the Fillmore Detroit, for some unknown reason).  I've now seen him probably 7 times in concert, but I'll never forget the first - being smashed in tight when he came on stage, some crazy bitch biting my arm, the mosh pits and crowd surfing.  I had never been to anything like it, and I loved the energy of it all!  It seems violent, but not all things are as they appear.  There's a real camaraderie within a pit, a mish-mash of like-minded people syncing up with one another, feeling the music.  If someone falls, many people help pick them up. No one really wants to hurt anyone else, and no one passes judgement on you if you can only muster a couple minutes in the ring.  The pit is still my favorite location to be at a concert, even though I'm now the "old guy" in there.

Just a friendly get-together

By going to these concerts, my friends and I learned of other heavy acts.  One friend listened to Type O Negative, and he introduced us to them (they're now my favorite band, and I've seen them in concert about 8-10 times, mostly at the greatest venue in Detroit - Harpo's).  We gathered music collectively - Korn, Limp Bizkit, Static X, Rammstein, Deftones, Chevelle, Hatebreed, Mudvayne, Tool, Coal Chamber, Slipknot, Dope, Rob Zombie....and we went to as many concerts as we could.

R.I.P Green Man

I'm a lifetime member

After college, I went to work at  Plootie Holmes, and met more metal heads.  A guy, Rob, who started working the same day as me, was/is an old-school metal head.  He started getting me in to the older heavy stuff, and I found a bunch of "new" music that I'd never really known or listened to - Danzig, Pantera, Slayer, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Rainbow....I also began revisiting some of my old music like Ozzy, Megadeth, Metallica and even Guns N Roses - all of which had been releasing new albums.  I continued to discover new bands and go to concerts as often as I could, and the atmosphere of music-sharing was again that of college.  When we found something great, or got something new, we made sure to inform each other.  One of the guys formed his own band, Recoil, and we helped encourage them as often as we could.  We also got in to Tenacious D, who if you haven't listened to, you really should.

I've since left Plootie and all my friends in the D (which is still difficult for me as I miss them very much), and moved to the great white North of Petoskey, MI.  I still listen to as much music as I can get my hands on, and try to find some new bands to listen to (like Five Finger Death Punch and Chimaira).  I continue to hearken back to the classic rock, and find "new" artists within that era that continue to excite me.  There really is nothing as sustainable as those great bands from the 60s and 70s...

Losing some el bees, Redux

Well, not only has it been quite some time since I've posted in my blog, but it's also been nearly 5 months of time that I've been working out and trying to get into a different shape than round.  I begged you all to follow me, and I left you waiting on the front porch.  I have 4 entries in the works, and I promise to get them all out this month and keep on top of this thing.  The positive feedback is helpful, and I greatly appreciate you telling me how much you've enjoyed my ramblings.

So, on with the fat-boy talk.  As I mentioned, I've been heading to the gym now for about 5 mos.  I very quickly lost 30lbs, 50% due to some illnesses suffered this winter.  Getting to my goal #1 (from my first el bees post) has proven much harder than I allowed myself to believe when I quickly achieved the 30 pound peel.  In fact, I still have not cracked 40lbs, but I continue to work on it.

Despite not being able to lose weight at will as I'd hoped, I do see significant changes and improvements in my overall health.  At the end of the day, this really is the ultimate goal - to not keel over at a young age, and to be fit enough to play at will with my boys.  Since my weight seems determined to hover between 255 and 260, I recently (last week) decided to change up my workouts.  I had a good friend (Paul Gotowko) put together a 4 day workout instead of the 3 I was doing.  I think adding another day will help get my fat moving along, and off of my ass (or gut).

I have seen fairly impressive gains in my cardio abilities, particularly in the last 2 weeks.  The gym purchased some new cardio equipment, in particular some new elliptical machines.  The older ellipticals measure speed in RPMs, which doesn't really mean much  to me.  But the new ones actually measure in MPH, so I can accurately gauge how fast I'm running.  Running is a term I used fairly loosely when I started this quest, it was more of a brisk walk.  But, I've built myself up to 25 minutes on the elliptical machine 4x a week, and this morning I managed 2.35 miles in that time (averaging about 5.6 mph), which I don't think is too shabby for a 260 lb man.  I run on the "random" mode, which adds hills and things and makes it seem more like you may be running in the real world.  I don't plan on ever taking up my brother and sister-in-law's ambitions of half marathons, or even quarter marathons for that matter (there is a fun-sounding race that I am thinking of entering called the Warrior Dash, though).  I try not to let my heart rate get beyond 145 bpm during my cardio time.  When I first started, I was "running" at 3.4 mph for 20 minutes, 3x a week.  So, I'd say, a good and measurable improvement there.

In weight lifting, I've also seen improvements.  My weights have been steadily increasing, and my muscles are starting to come back to life and showing some definition on my body.  My gut is not, but it's a process.  I can see changes in the mirror now, my shoulders arms and chest taking better shape and forming some lines.  I have never worked out before how I am now - in utilizing focused muscle groups per day.  This new program has me working out specific areas on specific days (chest/tris, back/bis, shoulders/abs, and legs).  Before, I would just do a general "hit-all-areas" core-type workout.  The change is very welcome, as I was getting bored in my previous routine.

In all, the greatest change I notice is how my clothes fit now.  My pants need a belt, my shirts are too baggy...I've even managed to wear some shirts that I haven't been able to in a few years (not sure why I held on to them, apparently waiting for the time I got off my lazy ass).  I feel pretty good, too - more energized.  I have to keep seeing these little things and try to ignore for the time being my weight loss so as not to become discouraged in my pursuit of better health.