A Rain of Frogs

Just recently, I ripped my entire Zeppelin collection (Zep I, II, III, and IV, Physical Graphiti, Houses of the Holy, and the Boxed Set with the wicked crop circles on the cover) and have been listening to the songs with renewed interest.

I cut my bass teeth on Zep, and was inspired to copy Jaco Pastorius by the song What is and What Should Never Be. Sans frets, I was forced to learn a whole new way of playing bass – and to this day I am equally comfortable on a fretless bass as I am a standard fretted model.

Since I spent so much of my “Zep years” listening to bass lines and melodies, I never paid close attention to the lyrics. Sure, I knew them, but I didn’t give them any sort of deep thought. This recent reintroduction of Zep to my listening repertoire has given me a chance to get familiar with the songs in a whole different way.

Holy Tolkien!

Over the Hills and Far Away, Misty Mountain Hop, Battle of Evermore, Ramble On... you get the feeling that Plant was deeply into the Tolkien books when he wrote these songs. Even Bron-Y-Aur Stomp, the end of which features Plant yelling the name of his dog (Strider) over and over again is affected. I had never noticed the connection before, with the exception of Ramble On, which obviously mentions Mordor, Gollum and the Evil One.

I am sure this is old new to most of you, but sometimes I catch on slowly. It made the songs more interesting to me. I first read the Tolkien books when I was really young – I was seven when I read the Hobbit (the dragon on the cover of the book my sister had to read for school intrigued me, so I shadow-read it) and the Lord of the Rings at eight (I made a deal with a much older cousin that if I read the books she would quit smoking). I didn’t get into Zep until I was a teenager.

Pretty fascinating links, nonetheless. It took a movie to bring the Ring to the masses – on the season finale of Will & Grace (I was told, I don’t watch) there was a Hobbit joke, for crying out loud. As always, Zep was ahead of its time, in this case about 30 years.

The link between Zeppelin and Dungeons & Dragons makes so much more sense to me now

A lot of retailers could learn a thing or two about service from GPSCentral.

On Monday, which was a statutory holiday in Canada, I ordered a new Garmin GPSMAP 76 (for the new Alberg, of course) and a mount from their website. The company appears to be located in Alberta, which is a fair distance from here. More than half-way across the country, in fact.

Today the GPS arrived. 1.5 business days. Plus emails confirming my order, confirming that it had shipped, and notification from Canada Post of tracking numbers, etc.

I’ll have the new GPS set up for the trip home on Satuday (barring weather). Not only was this service and delivery amazing, the price was lower than all of their competitors. If only ordering everything online was that fast and easy.

I highly recomment GPSCentral for all your GPS needs.

This weekend, as anyone on Lake Ontario knows, was not an ideal sailing weekend. It was cold. It was windy (48 knot gusts on 35 knot steady winds) and, depending on where you were, wavey.

Winds were NW, so the North edge of the lake was spared the waves. The southern shore wasn’t quite so lucky, with 1-2 meter waves. I know these aren’t huge, but they can be unpleasant, especially when they’re sporting foamy tops like they were this weekend.

I will stop here, momentarily, to mention that I have sold my Contessa 26 to a wonderful young man from Quebec City. In its place is a larger sailboat – with more room for my family and more room for me to stand up. Its a lot more boat, on the order of double the weight. And so I digress.

My new sailboat, a rare Alberg 29, is located at the Niagara-on-the-Lake yacht club, pending a nice sail across the lake. For those who have been anywhere near Niagara-on-the-Lake or Youngstown NY, you know there’s a shoal at the mouth of the river, formed by silt being deposited as the water slows down entering the lake. It’s called the Niagara Bar. Further, there is an intereresting current in the river – more lumpy than simply moving water. None of this, of course, bothers me.

On Saturday we attempted to sail the Alberg home. I am still trying to get used to the strange, distant, hydraulic wheelsteering, which is so much less responsive than a Contessa 26 tiller. Over the bar the NW wind pushing past the opposing current raised some hellishly steep froth, and coupled with the sudden decrease in depth, resulted in water that, for the first time in my sailing life, significantly scared me. It wasn’t the height of the waves (around 3 meters) it was the steepness. They were like walls of water. I’ve never experienced anything like it in my life, and would like to avoid any possible repeat.

After about 15 minutes of trying to battle through this, of burying not just the bow, but the forward part of the cabintop up to the mast, I decided I’d had enough, and turned about and took her back to the yacht club, where she still lays. Hopefully this weekend will be more favourable for the trip. At least it will be warmer. It snowed not far form here this the other day…

I would like to say that the Alberg 29 pleased me to no end in these conditions. She is, in every way, a seriously seaworthy boat. Like a giant Contessa 26, really. One you can even stand up in. I had concerns about moving away from a boat I trust so much to an unknown quantity, but this experience totally put me at ease in her seakeeping abilities.

The experience also reminded me of the importance of a safety harness – which I wasn’t wearing. After dropping off one ledge of water and finding myself only attached to the boat by the deathgrip I had on the wheel, I am going to purchase an inflatable PFD with integral harness at some point this week, and not sail without such in the future. They aren’t cheap, but as I reminded myself when my feet finally came back in contact with the boat, life isn’t cheap either.

Seriously, someone needs to buy me one of these things.

I’ve never been so jazzed about an Apple product as the new Macbook makes me. And the black is just so damned sexy.

Please?

(Yes, the irony of this post following the previous one is apparent to me. Save yourself the time and don’t bother emailing me about it.)

There is a cultural revolution brewing in the West. For too long, too many generations, the money men and engineers have systematically sought to excise that which they couldn’t control or understand.

For too long, Western culture has been associated with hollywood, with the beautiful elite. With perfect smiles and predictable plot lines. Moneymen figured out how to package and sell beauty.

The perfect body can be quantified, measured, and the engineers have made it possible to shoehorn everyone into this mold. Graphic Design, the only art form acceptable to the moneymen for its ability to sell water to the drowning, convinced everyone that they were imperfect if they didn’t fit the mold.

The music industry (and just the fact that its called an industry boggles the mind), riding on the backs of mathematics and marketing, has developed a formula for music that will sell. It often involves a barely legal, barely clothed blonde girl doing things in front of camera no mother would be proud of. Soft porn with a soundtrack you can buy through the iTunes Music Store.

Culture is meant to fill the void in our souls, not stretch it wider. They profit on our misery, and we willingly let them.

It’s time for a change. Stand up. Tell the labels and radio stations you’ll no longer stand for the garbage they’re trying to spoon-feed you. Tell the television networks that you will no longer tolerate mindless tripe. Turn off the television and send a message, that you will no longer subsidize the production of trash.

Go support original artists, who are trying to expand the human condition. Go see unknown musicians. Support the good ones, encourage the poor ones. Buy original artwork that speaks to you. Tell Oprah and her book list to stuff it and choose your own reading material. The library makes it cheap to experiment. When you find a good unknown author, buy the work. Support and encourage. Tell your friends to do the same.

You are more than a variable in a mathematical profit model. Revolve.