Jimi

What could I possibly write about Jimi Hendrix that hasn't been written before? Looking at his brief life and even briefer recording career, and the number of books and articles that have been written about him, you'd have to say that he probably has the highest ratio of words to career time of any artist around, with the possible exception of the Beatles. (And, like the Beatles, the scavengers have foisted huge amounts of posthumous slag on uninformed record buyers.)

My favorite Hendrix-related quote, which I can't find and have to recall from memory, came from a review of a Cream album, where the reviewer was talking about Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton's relative overdubbing abilities. "Beck is actually better than Clapton at fusing together four guitar overdubs," the reviewer opined. "Hendrix is better than both of them. He does it all at once."

In fact, reviewers of Hendrix's first album searched the band photos in vain, looking for the second guitarist. There HAD to be at least two to make all of those lovely guitar sounds.

Which reminds me of my second Jimi item. Like most rock artists, Jimi couldn't read (or write) music. All music publishing houses that published rock music had folks on staff who would listen to recordings and write out the notes and chords the artist was playing (and also write out the lyrics when they weren't supplied by the artist, occasionally leading to some  hilariously inadvertent errors).

The transcriber who was given the first album by the new Jimi Hendrix Experience listened to the feedback laden disk repeatedly, then stormed into his boss' office. "It's music," he told his boss, "but not music I can transcribe." The problem: many of the sounds didn't lend themselves to the usual neat notation of notes on a staff. Much of it couldn't be classified as notes in the traditional sense at all.

In high school I once blasted Jimi's version of The Star Spangled Banner as the introduction to some long forgotten American history presentation. I got sent to the principal's office. It was worth it.

The Wheel World

If you ever want to scare the piss out of yourself — and get a free T-shirt — watch for the return of the General Motors Autoshow in Motion.

A friend and I love to go to driving events, including one where Mitsubishi had a stunt driver from one of its commercials test our ability to withstand carsickness (I failed) while simultaneously sliding a Gallant around a track at high speed and chat about being a stunt driver. But the greatest event of all was the GM Autoshow in Motion, which I went to twice before GM "temporarily" (their words) suspended it in 2006.

The event was simple: GM brought all of their cars and trucks, all of the vehicles made by companies GM owned or partially owned (Saab and Hummer) and competitors' cars to the parking lots of Fed-Ex Field, where the Washington Redskins play. GM would set up a bu ch of courses with traffic cones, and you could drive as many vehicles as you wanted. No salespeople, but a box lunch and a T-shirt when you were done. All free.

Most of the courses were fairly low speed, but two stood out. In one section of the parking lot they'd trucked in tons of dirt and made an off-road course for the Hummers. Unlike all of the other vehicles (save the Corvettes), someone from GM rode in the passenger seat, mainly to help you out. The GM person would tell you when to stop, switch into low range, etc. One hill was so steep that as you began climbing it your view through the windshield was nothing but sky. It was a view I've never seen through the windshield of my Subaru.

But the best part was the Corvette course. Here the folks had laid out traffic cones so the course had a long straightaway and some fairly high speed turns. The guy rising with you — at least my guy — encouraged me to wind it out.

There were two lines to drive the Corvettes, one for the automatic transmission models and one for the folks who wanted to drive a manual. The automatic line had a dozen people in it, while the manual line had none. I've driven a stick for years, so I got in that non-line and was whisked into a Z06 that was loaded (heads-up display, trick suspension, the works).

I started driving and the GM guy in the passenger seat spoke: "When you get to that third cone, nail it." "Really?" "Really." Holy guacamole. If that car had had a back seat I would have ben in it, the beast accelerated to quickly. Without the headrest I would have snapped my neck.

When we completed the course there was still no one in the line for manual transmission cars. "Want to go around again?" "Hell, yeah." He encouraged me to go faster this time, and I didn't want to disappoint him.

At the time I owned a 1993 Mazda Miata, which was just like the Corvette except for four fewer cylinders and about 300 fewer horses.

After the second drive, I reluctantly got out (even though no one else was in line), so I didn't take advantage of the GM guy's good nature. He'd already given me an extra turn.

"So, is this different from what you're driving now?" he asked me. "Yeah," I replied. "Right now I have a Mazda Miata."

"You know, the Corvette is much more practical." "Really? How so?" "Bigger trunk."

He was right: the Corvette's trunk was twice the size of the Miata's. As fine an argument as that was, however, my wife was unconvinced.

And she claimed my free T-shirt.

Thanks For Saying That

Here's the most valuable piece of advice I ever received from a women's magazine. (It has nothing to do with hair care.)

I read it while waiting for a blind date set up my mother, so it already didn't look like a promising evening.

What happened was this: my sister's mother in law has two sons, Bruce and Paul. Bruce married my sister. Bruce and Paul's mother, despairing of Paul ever getting married, advertised in a national Jewish publication for a date for her son, something along the lines of "Your wonderful daughter should met my wonderful son." I won't get into the issues raised by this, which are pretty self apparent.

Anyway, apparently there were some responses from meddling mothers of daughters in the Baltimore-Washington area (my sister's in-laws are in Richmond, Virginia), and for some reason those responses were shared with my mother, who took it upon herself to call one of these women and ask if she wanted to meet me. (Obviously, this was when I was single.)

When my mother told me what she'd done I was furious. I told her never to do it again, but because she'd called one woman and told her I was going to call her, I thought it might be hurtful if I didn't call. So I did.

When I went to pick her up for our date she wasn't, of course, actually ready, so I waited in her living room while she finished her preparations. Some women's magazines were on her coffee table and I, bored, picked one up.

One of the articles — I wound up having a lot of time to read — was about how to say thank you. Essentially, it said that most of us, taught by our parents to be modest, rather than boastful, slough off compliments. "Wow, you did really well on that test." "Ehh, I was lucky." And it's true.

But the point was this: If I compliment you and you pass it off, saying it was luck, or circumstances, or anything but your own actions, you're saying (by implication) two things: you didn't really achieve anything noteworthy through your own efforts, and I'm wrong in complimenting you. In essence, under the guise of modesty, you've just criticized yourself and me.

But what if you say, "You did a great job organizing that event," and I reply differently? What if I say, "Thanks. I worked really hard on that, and it makes me feel good to have you say that." Or, "Thanks, I worked really hard on that, and I appreciate your saying that." Or even, "Thanks."

Now you've acknowledged the compliment and praised both yourself and the person who complimented you, but not in an egotistical way. You both feel good.

It felt awkward and a little artificial the first time I tried it, and the second and third times as well. But eventually it started to feel natural, and now It comes naturally.

Try it and see what I mean.

Oh, and the date? Religion was a very big part of her life, and her dream was to move to Israel and raise lots of Jewish children. That wasn't my dream.

Plus, she let her mother set up her blind dates. How creepy is that?

Hot News

Last night our PTA went to a Japanese steakhouse — I hadn't been to one in years — and although the food has remained the same mildly spiced beef, chicken and shrimp, the show has been improved.

I don't ever remember seeing the egg toss, but our chef (I guess that's the right title) tossed a raw egg up in the air, caught it on his spatula, tossed it in the air and bounced it off his very snappy red hat (it had a vaguely Russian look to it) and finally cracked it on the grill in front of him. With a great clanging and banging he chopped food, tossed sauces around, and flipped bits of scallop and shrimp into our mouths. (His deal was that he kept tossing food at you until you caught a piece in your mouth. If you caught the first piece, he moved on to the next person. If it bounced off your face and onto your plate he tossed another. And another. So if you caught the food on the first try, you got one piece. If you missed, you got more. Once again, incompetence was rewarded.)

But my favorite part — my eyebrows might disagree — was when he set things on fire, which happened very 15 minutes or so. It was Flambe City. One exciting torch escapade is one I'd love to be able to duplicate at home.

With a great whirling and swirling of his knife blade he sliced an onion, separated one slice into rings, then stacked the rings in an upside down cone. He poured some liquid, no doubt alcoholic, into the center of the stack and then struck a match. The flames shot three feet into the air and the heat, no doubt, could be felt at the next table. As the flames were dying down he grinned, shouted "Lava!" and squirted some kind of thick red-brown sauce into the center of the stack, which immediately bubbled up and over the sides of the stack, very much like lava.

That was way cooler than watching people do seal imitations, opening their mouths for tossed food.

I'm thinking about trying the same thing at home, but our kids don't eat onions. Maybe I can do a mini version with Cheerios.

Bass Instincts

Today I champion the career of yet another obscure musician — I've got a million of 'em, as Jimmy Durante used to say — bass player Colin Hodkinson.

The British-born bassist was the first, and probably the most successful, rock/blues/jazz bassist to treat his instrument like both a rhythm and lead instrument, often in the same song. (There are a number of songs, in fact, where it's just his bass and his voice, playing thick chords and dazzling single note runs, sometimes simultaneously.)

This guy has technique like Bill Gates has money.

He has a couple of solo albums, a number of collaborations with folks both known (Brian Auger of Brian Auger's Oblivion Express and Pete York, late of the Spencer Davis Group) and unknown (Frank Diez, Konstantin Wecker).

His best work was with a sadly overlooked trio of the 1970s, Back Door. WIth a lineup that featured a drummer, a sax/flute (and occasional keyboards) player, and Hodgkinson, whose bass is out in front most of the time, Back Door played jazz rock, not in the fusion sense, but in the "play the piss out of whatever we want" sense.

He's a monster, monster player: Jack Bruce would give his left testicle to be able to play like this. Hell, who wouldn't? (Well, maybe Jaco.)

Now, in the interests of full disclosure, I must admit that Hodkinson briefly played in Whitesnake, a waste of time hair metal band of the 80s. (I guess we're all allowed one mistake. I'm sure the gig paid the bills for awhile.) In an odd career move, Whitesnake leader David Coverdale (former Deep Purple vocalist) recorded a version of the album "Slide It In" with Hodkinson on bass and guitarist Neil Murray, which was released in Europe, then rerecorded the entire album with a different bassist and guitarist in the U.S. The U.S. version was a big seller.

If you want to hear a complete rethinking of electric bass guitar, played with both exquisite taste and jaw dropping speed, seek out any of his discs, especially with Back Door. Subwoofer recommended.

The Impossible Dream

This morning I went for a job interview, and I was asked a question I struggled with a little bit. The interviewer asked me to describe my dream job, and I'm afraid I wasn't 100% honest.

I think the correct answer was to describe a position almost exactly like the one for which I was interviewing. Unfortunately, the folks interviewing me hadn't yet told me the specifics of the position, so I wasn't sure what to say.

The honest answer to "What would be your dream job?" is, of course, "Driving to the bank to deposit my multi-million dollar lottery check."

Somehow, I didn't think that's the answer she wanted. I also thought it might imply that I had a poor work ethic.

The trickier question, at least for me, is why so many of the places I've worked went out of business. The first newspaper on my resume went under (publisher owed money to the IRS). I quit the second to move from New Jersey to Maryland. The third, which was my first in Maryland, went out of business six weeks after I moved here and started working. (Too bad about that one-year apartment lease, eh?) The fourth was killed by the publisher.

The first ad agency where I worked was obviously going under, so I quit to avoid the rush. (I left in March; it closed its doors in June.) The third ad agency where I worked is now also out of business.

It got to the point where I was once offered a job and I told the boss that I wanted to interview the comptroller, if only to assure myself that the place was solvent. (No doubt surprised by my request, he said okay.)

I'm also pretty good at putting restaurants out of business, too. I guess I'm the business equivalent of Typhoid Mary.

Maybe that's my dream job.

Board Games

If you're ever looking for a food product that's the perfect combination of cardboard and styrofoam, have I got a snack for you: Bothers-All-Natural Crisps.

The brothers — brothersallnatural.com is mum on the exact number of brothers or if, in fact, there are any brothers at all (could be a side gig for the Keebler elves) — have hit upon a unique strategy: take sweet, juicy, apples, Asian pears, bananas, pineapples and strawberries, and suck all the juicy and most of the sweet out of them. They call it freeze drying. I can't repeat what I call it, just in case there are impressionable young minds reading this.

Sadly, though the freeze dried fruits are all natural and have no added anything, they don't have the fiber that the cardboardy texture might lead you to believe is in them. In fact, they have very little of anything, including taste.

In the interest of science, we attempted to reconstitute some of the bananas and strawberries after popping a few dried ones in our mouths. The results were soggier, but no more flavorful.

The company's motto is "The Healthy Snack... the one Mother Nature would eat." If Nother Nature is a non cannibal, and thus wouldn't eat her own fresh fruits and vegetables, I suppose that's true. (What would Mother Nature eat, anyway? Those of a certain age are pretty sure she doesn't eat margarine.)

One daughter and I were at a festival yesterday, and received free packages of the pineapple, pear, apple, banana and strawberry products, So far we've tried three, and I defy you to sample one with your eyes closed and tell me which one it is.

According to the website, the company does the same things to potatoes that it does to innocent fruits. The potato chips, or crisps, or whatever they are, are said to be gluten free, nut free, dairy free, soy free and fat free. If only they weren't taste free as well.