The dark, the light, the tunes, and dogs

This issue’s pieces range from dark to light. But there is also some smile stuff, a music tale, and Open Tabs.

I’m going with the darks first and, frankly, they’re both serious darks, so if you read a few lines and think, “um, I don’t really want to…” it’s okay, jump to the next piece. There’s no contract here. If you’re a regular reader, or you’ve known me for awhile, you know I goe after a diverse range of stories, and those have to include examinations of uncomfortable subjects. I can’t help my deep dive nature, but I understand not everyone wants to go deep diving too.

As a quick aside, I don’t know any writers who don’t want to deep dive into things, because we can’t present good nonfiction or fiction without learning as much as possible about a subject. Most good writers tend to focus on finding the why of it all. We want to know why someone would do X, would behave in that certain way, make certain choices.

I’ll get you out of that dark valley with a music tale, a few Open Tabs, and finish up with cartoon dogs — Dogtoons — in the hope of sending you off with a slight smile.

End Times 

People who adhere to or follow the tenets of certain forms of religion (or philosophy) are familiar with the End Times concept, best described generally as events and happenings that indicate the coming cataclysmic end of the world, the final act of our existence. A god whisks all his good folk to heaven (‘his,’ because traditionalists still portray the Christian god as a bearded old white guy…something I’ll address in a future piece) and leaves the rest of us heathens here to experience hell on earth before we then actually go to hell.

I can certainly understand believers’ concerns. I’ve understood their concerns every time the question comes back around: are these the end times? The better question is: are these end times the real end times, or like all the other previous announcements of end times that weren’t end times?

I remember hearing about the concept in grammar school, hearing things about the Beast arising in the Middle East and how clairvoyant Edgar Cayce’s pronouncement’s matched up to then-current events, no matter when ‘those’ events were happening. There have been lots of warnings by soothsayers and seers made during our lifetimes, including specifics — for example ‘the world will end this Saturday’ (so get your shopping done now). There have been exceptions, end times that did come around for groups smaller than the world’s seven billion. Sad, unnecessary, and cruel exceptions wrought by prophets and cult leaders who orchestrated end times for their followers, like Jonestown and Waco, or the members of Heaven’s Gate who poisoned themselves in preparation for the spaceship fleet coming to whisk them away from this terrible mess of a planet. That would be the planet we still occupy, the one we’re destroying piece by piece.

But I digress.

Humanity on a global scale is the victim in the classic end times concept. There are subsets to this “we’re doomed” group: conspiracies about entities manipulating world currencies and controlling national leaders, which will lead to our downfall, the end times stuff. My personal perspective on the world manipulation conspiracies is that they tend to be more dangerous to the followers. Believers of these notions find each other, they reinforce the dangerous illogical nonsense to each other, memes and bullshit like-minded net‘casters amplify it, and the believers act, to varying degrees, to draw focus upon a heinous something or other. Occasionally, their actions damage institutions and/or harm people.

But the people harmed also include the misguided believers, believers sometimes so troubled or in need of mental health assistance they make an ultimate sacrifice. Last April, something agitated a man to the point that he orchestrated his own end times, dying after setting himself on fire outside a New York city courtroom. The New York Times did a story on him, and it seems his ultimate act of protest may have been the result of his deteriorating mental health, although to him, he carried out his act due to sincere concern and adamant belief. 

It saddens me to think about how broken he must have been. I started this piece referring to End Times, even though I know acts of self immolation are not undertaken because of concerns the world is ending, but rather, it seems, because someone has committed to their own demise as the ultimate protest. They alert us to something horrible and in need of our intervention, to stop something, make something right, bring enough awareness to something and alter its course.

I don’t pray but I do sometimes put some energy out to the universe in some form of ‘ask,’ and relative to the above, I’m hoping that someone doesn’t do themselves ultimate harm to protest the current Mideast situation, because self immolation protests have happened during another period of protest in our lifetime: the Vietnam war era.

As a kid, I first became aware of self-immolation because of a 1963 incident presented to news viewers and news readers, now historically preserved on film and photographs. A monk doused in flammable liquid sat in the middle of a street intersection and set himself on fire. Hundreds watched him die as flames engulfed him. What I didn’t know until I researched around for a few details, was that there were other self immolating protesters of war, including a man who did his protest outside the Pentagon, only a couple of hundred feet from the Secretary of State’s office. And there is a long history of monks, and a couple of Quakers (kind of an American version of monks, really), using self immolation as protest.

We live in times when the news is about children dying in wars they and their families have no ability to stop and very little ability from which to escape. Governments wage their own internal wars over political philosophies, interests, and pandering to a party’s base. Dangerous beliefs and philosophies are making incremental political gains around the world.

And we, as a global population, still can’t seem to comprehend that the planet will be what the planet will be, and what it will be is a planet without us if global science continues to be ignored and dismissed, and if we continue to lose ground literally and figuratively to those who use brute force, greed, and deceit to warp the balance of power.

Sheesh. With all that, it’s a no wonder the End Times concept endures, and no wonder some feel so affected by things they are drawn to make the ultimate protest statement. I feel for them, and I feel for us.

That’s my close here, because we all know the things we need to do and I’m not the kind of seer with a sudden, insightful vision for world peace. What I am though, is someone who feels that the story of a man who sacrificed himself should have some awareness among us for longer than a few days. In this case, while the issues of his protest were real and serious to him, his choice of making a final statement about things should keep us all pondering, and living with a little more empathy.

If you’re feeling things that you should talk to someone about, someone who won’t judge you and only wants to help, or if you know someone who needs connection, remember there is a number to call, available 24 hours: 988

When politics kills

Another piece on death? Yes, but in a different way, not like the preceding piece. Still, it’s not inaccurate, and it’s not something generally known.

Tobacco products kill or severely compromise the majority of its users’ health. This is undisputed, except by people who believe OJ didn’t do it or that the world is flat. My mother’s addiction to cigarettes and the nicotine contained in them killed her, as it has over 214,000 people in 2023.

Menthol cigarettes, like Salem, the brand that eventually prevented my mother’s lungs from functioning, are heavily marketed to Black smokers. Easily accessible data support this. Menthol cigarettes could arguably be designated as the first flavored cigarette for the masses, and through its lifetime has become popular with 80% Black smoking sector.

Which leads to a significant number of those African Americans smoking menthol cigarettes to develop significant health issues, leading to the death of many those users.

In a ‘what the hell took you so long but okay’ development — starting DECADES AGO — the federal government decided it would be best to ban the sale of menthol cigarettes and save users and their families the grief of cigarette-related ill health, which would also positively alter the costs and reliance on the health care system.

The tobacco industry and its lobbyists have successfully delayed any implementation of the ban.

Now we’re in political campaign times, and what’s happening makes me angry and sad. Here’s a pull quote from an online CNN report about the current state of this situation: Public health experts and civil rights groups have repeatedly urged President Biden to finalize the ban, which was originally anticipated last summer but has been opposed by the tobacco industry. Political advisers have warned that Biden could lose support by banning products popular in the Black community, jeopardizing votes in what is expected to be a close election in November.

If I interpret that logic correctly, it seems that the current administration’s advisors to the current President’s reelection efforts believe the Black community will be so angry at him for attempting to save Black smokers’ lives, a market specifically targeted by tobacco companies to make money by providing something that kills the users, that the President will lose votes.

Politics over public health. Politics over people. Wow.

I have friends and acquaintances that will counsel me not to be surprised, that even presidents who are decent people, with all the ‘better’ motivations for making national moves still got into the office — by getting votes from people who like his ideas and moves.

Could be that the plan to get him reelected includes instituting the menthol ban during his next term. Well, what about those smokers in the interim?

It’s disappointing, and it’s not garnering much media notice. I obviously feel this shouldn’t happen this way, because we’re talking about an industry with no redeeming value. I understand it still employs a vast number of people, keeping those people and their families housed and fed, and certainly providing its workforce some kind of health care benefits. That’s important context, certainly, but it parallels what happens in illicit drug producing countries and communities where drug sales proliferate, when local communities are seeded with a quality of life financed by the local narco-industry. Killing one population to uplift another population is abhorrent.

So is the choice that’s apparently been made in this instance.

To provide some personal background, here’s an NPR All Things Considered story I did about what cigarettes took from my mother and our family. I have researched the tobacco industry for decades. While the number of U.S. smokers has dropped, numbers have increased across the globe, because that’s where America’s cigarette industry now focuses its efforts.

Fuckers.

Onward.

Things more uplifting — Open Tabs, Music memories

Open Tabs

I have more open tabs than I realized, which means I’ve found a few waiting in the wings for awhile.

And re the above, no pun intended on this one — There’s more to bees than their buzz. Much more, apparently.

From the How Cool is This department, it would be so cool to know you've saved a plant species from extinction, like this guy.

A special music Open Tabs — When the RRHOF performance of While My Guitar Gently Weeps first aired, I turned to my wife at its end and said that we had just seen one of the greatest guitar solos ever. I’m a player (I make reference to this in the Journey related post coming up), have been since sixth grade, so I do some things well enough, I still have my weaknesses, blah blah blah, but one of the things I also have been lucky enough experience is seeing, sometimes from only a few feet away, many of the generally agreed upon ‘best’ rock, jazz, and acoustic musicians of the last fifty years or so. As if the sheer musicianship of the ‘band’ that played While My Guitar wasn’t enough, there was the trippyness of seeing Dany ’looks exactly like his father’ Harrison playing along. And then Prince.

I witnessed a little music-related Prince thing during my road days that so impressed me it remains one of the three or four memories that I still easily share from all those years ago (apologies, but I’m saving that for another post).

I read other comments that echoed my thoughts about the solo some time after the RRHOF performance. Now, Prince’s estate has released a re-edited version of the clip with a few more camera angles. Do yourself a favor — when you have the time and the wherewithal, get comfortable with your favorite adult libation and watch it. There might be some other music that you enjoy more, or that you think is the ‘best,’ but I assure you, you will not be disappointed by this.

This is the First Time tale

If you haven’t read the anniversary road trip piece from last October about the eventful cross country van trip and the Steve Perry first gig, good; read this one first, then go back and check out that other crazy tale when you've got time, here.

That I can name a band I first worked for in 1976 and know that the majority of people I mention the band’s name to now know of the band is more than a bit trippy. That the band achieved everything it has over the close to 50 years since I was pulled into its universe is impressive on many levels. I let a personal anniversary date pass a few weeks ago without any reference to it, but only because I had somewhat demanding work to finish outside my personal sphere of stuff, simultaneously with personal research and writing happenings, all taking up more time than usual.

For the record, and according to info via the ‘net (which generally corresponds to my foggy memories of the time), I first met Journey and their road manager on May 3rd, 1976, during their afternoon soundcheck for a show later that night in the Waukegan Ice Arena, also the first time I would see them live. From that first meeting would soon come a decade of my life filled with work for and fun with many of the most popular recording artists of the time that, like Journey, still tour and whose music is popular with old fans and new.

And it all happened for me because of a phone call. Well, technically, two phone calls. 

Only a year out of the Army, I’d returned to Elmhurst, Illinois, and as May of ’76 neared: I was finishing my first year of art school; I’d auditioned and would be working in an act for the soon to open Mariott’s Great America in Gurnee, Illinois; played in a band, painted murals, and reconnected with friends. Raised in Chicago until my sophomore year, I’d stayed in touch with Bob S, buddy since seventh grade when we’d met and formed my first band, and called him when I had come back. We yacked about this and that, saw each other a couple of times, and one night he calls and says, “Come over tonight, you gotta hear this album with this incredible guitarist.”

That night he handed me the album cover as he dropped the needle on the album’s first song and said, “This guitarist is only sixteen.”

I’m a guitarist. Played since sixth grade. That doesn’t mean I was good or bad at that time, but I could play. As a kid I listened to my parents’ Ventures, classical, and popular artists albums. I’d come out of my service time with a ’69 Les Paul and an Ovation twelve string. I’d been an early listener of Jimi Hendrix and Cream. I had taste, I think.

The album was titled Journey, the band’s first album. The first cut is Of a Lifetime, five-plus minutes long. Starts soft, kind of spacey mellow, and builds…and builds…

A necessary digression: fifth and sixth grade for me was ’65 — ’66. The popular music of the era is all over the place, the Beatles have landed, and in addition to Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, there are other music shows: Where the Action Is (where my memory has every band on a stage at a Southern California beach, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Beach Boys, James Brown), and on evening television Shindig and Hullabaloo had great live performances. The Glen Campbell show premiers in ’69, and even though I’ve been playing for a few years, learning songs by ear or sheet music, Campbell becomes the first real influence on my playing style, not just because he was a monster player, but because I could see him play on TV. I didn’t know how to play that style of scales with accuracy and speed, but I sure tried.

So years later I’m listening to a guitar played in a way and with a fury that resonates in my soul. That may come off as grandiose or fanboy-ish but, truly, I was entranced. I buy the album and play it for my close friend since high school and eventual fellow road dog Gonzo. The music hits him the same way. We wear out that album.

Steve Perry won’t be in the band for a few years yet, and the music is jam-ish, and there won’t be any big hits for awhile. Their second album, Look Into the Future, is, to our ears, more amazing than the first. Then Gonzo hears an ad for Journey coming to the Riviera, one of the now historic Chicago venues. Cool!

But I can’t go, because…I’m playing the role of Adolf Dingle, a German blacksmith character (I’m not sure about the first name, but I’ll never forget the last) in a 1976 bicentennial tribute play in Addison, Illinois’, to be performed for the town of Addison at my old high school.

Really. I’m not making that up.

Gonzo will go to the show, tell me it was amazing, crowd roaring, four or five encores.

Time goes on, Gonzo says he heard another ad, the band is playing again, but he didn’t hear a date. Doesn’t matter, hell or high water, I’m not missing that show. I’m a goofball, but a resourceful goofball. I look at the back of Journey’s albums and find the small-ish print at the bottom that gives me my way forward: Weed High Nightmare, the band’s management.

Back then there was a thing called directory assistance; you dialed 411to get local phone numbers, and a 515 area code number for out of state. I did that, got the number for Nightmare in San Francisco, and called. A pleasant female voice answered, “Nightmare,” and I simply stated that I was a huge fan of the band, couldn’t see the last Chicago concert, heard they were coming back but couldn’t find a date or location. She, again pleasantly, said, “Hmmm…” and in that kind of stretched out way we talk when we’re looking for something, said the band wasn’t scheduled for another Chicago show. “Sorry.”

Bummer.

And then only days later I hear it, the radio commercial about the upcoming Journey show! And I. Am. Livid. Now, remember that at the time I have the mindset of a young creative guy in his twenties, in school on the GI Bill, don’t really have to work, doing everything creative that I want, life is a party, which means that my worldview is kind of narrow and immature. So almost missing the chance to see my favorite band for the first time is to me, apparently, a very big deal.

So I call Nightmare again. Why? Oh heck, just to give that young woman a piece of my mind: why the bad info, what the heck? I could’ve missed them, for gosh sakes.

A guy answers the phone, “Nightmare.”

I don’t go off, but I’m ticked. “Yeah, hi. I called before when a friend of mine heard that Journey was coming to Chicago, I called because I couldn’t find out when, and I spoke to the woman who answered and she told me the band wasn’t coming. Now I heard a commercial saying they are and if I hadn’t heard it I would have missed them, and why would she do that?”

“Hang on, hang on. You’re calling from Chicago because you’re angry that you almost missed seeing Journey.”

“Yes.”

He explained that at the time I called the dates hadn’t been final and the young woman wouldn’t have known about it. Then he asked for my name, and said, “My name’s Pat Morrow, I’m the band’s road manager. You come to the gig at two o’clock, ask for me, Bubba, I’ll put you and  your friends on the guest list for the show, that okay?”

I was stunned. I’m sure Bubba doesn’t remember the call, but it was life changing for me, even though I didn’t have a clue just how life changing it would eventually be.

Again, goofball yes, but there were things about me that were a little more mature than others. I was married at the time; I was only a year removed from jumping out of airplanes; I had an approach to things that many guys my age didn’t. I told Gonzo about the call the next day — “Hey, you will not believe what happened, we’re going to see Journey…” — and within days of the call I began work on a poster sized painting for the band as a thank you (in the years that followed I’d think about that often due to the sheer number of items I saw fans bring to the shows over the years).

As a town, Waukegan, in northern Illinois, was best known to many for its lake beaches, but on May 3rd we arrived in my van at the Waukegan Ice Arena, a small venue that, like many unused ice rinks during summer months, put on concerts. I remember it as a quonset-like structure, a big metal building with an arching roof. I carried my painting and with my then wife, and Gonzo, entered as several guys my age, and a few older, worked on a stage at the other end of the building amidst amps and keyboards and drums and mics and lights above and PA cabinets on each side. It was unglamorous; it was way cool.

One of the older guys — we might be talkin’ late 20s — barrel chested, sleeveless tee, slicked back hair, big smile, hopped down and came over to us. “Hi, I’m Bubba. Glad you could make it.” We shook hands, I said thanks for letting us come to the show, and that I’d brought a painting for the band.

“Great!” he said, turned and shouted, “Hey, guys, come on over here for a sec,’ I want you to meet someone.”

And several of those ‘guys’ working the stage hopped down and walked toward us: Greg Rollie, Neal Schon, and Ross Valory. We all shook hands, exchanged ‘good to meet ya’s and Bubba said, “Mike made a painting for you.”

To which Neal said, “We like cool art.”

I turned it around and showed it, a ‘being’ flying though space and planets, each planet with a face of the band member.

Neal said nice, Greg noted that I’d painted Aynsley with a beard and he wouldn’t like that (I’m not sure what reference photo I’d used for it), Ross said thanks. It might have been Greg who said, we’ve got some stuff to do, and they walked back toward the stage. As the band started soundcheck Bubba told us to stay as long as we liked.

We stayed for the entire soundcheck, and I heard sounds I’d never heard before; this was real, these were musicians from bands with albums that I owned. I wish I could tell you the songs they played, but I can’t, because — no pun intended for the oldest Journey fans — it was all too much.

We went somewhere, probably to eat, and came back later for the show.

The show. 800-ish attendance. Popular local band Pearl Handle opened, more popular Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush next. We stood out front for their loud and rockin’ sets.

As the stage changed in prep for Journey, I asked Bubba if we could watch from the wings. He said, “Sure. Go right there,” and pointed to a space stage left (audience right) behind the PA cabinets and in a direct line with Ross and Neal.

That’s where I watched my first Journey show, and it was like, like, nothing I could have imagined. I might as well have been watching them in a big garage, it was that close.

After the show we again said thanks and our goodbyes, and hung around for awhile, and on our way out I can clearly remember seeing the band in a station wagon as they left the venue, their manager Herbie Herbert behind the wheel (it would be several more gigs before I met Herbie, because back then he ran the soundboard during shows, and until my work for the band changed much later, I was always backstage).

During our goodbyes, Bubba had said they were playing in Wisconsin night after next (I think it was Milwaukee) and I was welcome to come to that show too. At the time I thought I had to work, so I had to decline. He gave me the hotel number where they’d be and said call if things changed.

Things did change, I did call, and a couple of nights later I went by myself to the show, where Journey was opening for Elvin Bishop. [Full disclosure: long and intensive searches in online concert and venue databases have failed to turn up any Elvin Bishop show in Wisconsin during the week I’m referencing; I am as sure as I can be about it without documentation, though] I hung out, made small talk with Ross, stayed out of the way, watched the band’s set, during which some of the crowd booed, apparently impatient to see Elvin (only later would I come to know the close relationship between Neal and Elvin. When Neal was too young to get into clubs, Elvin had taken the teen phenom around to Bay Area clubs to jam with other musicians).

After the show, I was hanging around and, in part because of one of the more experienced elements of my life, I helped move and load road cases into the rental truck, because it seemed wrong to just hang around and watch. Bubba noticed, which was probably one of the reasons he pulled me aside before he left and said, “If you’re interested, I’ll let you know when we’re coming back to the midwest, you’re welcome to come out and see us any time.”

Uh-huh.

Those times happened. Gonzo and I would meet up with the band in Iowa, Indiana, wherever, and we became the extra hands, pushing road cases, acting as security, driving the rental cars, whatever. We wouldn’t get paid, sometimes slept on a motel room floor, but we got fed, and after several weeks when we’d have to leave, Bubba would give us each a hundred dollar bill.

It went like that… and then one night after a summer Aragon Ballroom show (another historic Chicago music venue), I spent the time after the show helping load the truck in sweltering humidity, again because… why not.

That night stuck not just with Bubba, it made an impression with Herbie that I hadn’t been aware of until a few years ago. There was a memorial in Oakland for Benny Collins, one of our guys who over the years went on to be recognized as the industry’s go-to production manager for the biggest shows in the world. Many of us at his memorial hadn’t seen each other in decades, and it had been that long since I’d seen Herbie, but when I made my way through the crowd to say hi to him, his face brightened and he shouted “Harkins!” as we hugged. Then he looked at me and said, “The Aragon,” and I knew exactly what he was talking about.

Those earliest days, and that fateful cross country trip to SF that I’ve written about previously, led to an April ‘77 call from Bubba (another caveat, don’t hold me to the accuracy of that date) to tell us the band wanted to fly us to a New York city gig and talk about some things.

The some things turned out to be the offer to join the Journey road crew and be the band’s merchandise guys, which Gonzo and I would be for years, and which would become, like every element of Journey, a multi-million dollar, state of the art enterprise (we had the first semi just for the tour merchandise, and as far as we know, the first custom built, ten-foot sleeper cab so we could travel with the truck).

In later years I would transition to camera operator for some of the coolest tours of the time, do some stage managing, and end my ten-year concert career as Michael Jackson’s road manager for the ’87 Bad tour in Japan and Australia.

All because of two phone calls, Pat ‘Bubba’ Morrow’s open arms approach to the band’s fans, and his willingness to let a goofball ex-paratrooper music lover from Chicago work his way into a one of a kind organization that influenced not just the music industry but the way tours were organized and presented.

Yeah, I was very, very lucky.

Thanks for picking up the phone, Bubba.

Dogtoons

A comic strip about dogs. That’s it. Nothing fancy, just quick squiggles serving as  observations about dogs and us. Plenty of material there…

Today's lesson, Learning to Fetch...

As always, thanks for reading, I always appreciate your time. Be well, be safe, and be kind (pet a dog and support your local bookseller).
MWH