Sunday night, my lovely wife and I hit The National Theater for a pretty great show from Dweezil Zappa’s amazing band playing the music of his immensely talented (and musical influence of millions, particularly a couple of musical mentors of mine going way back) father, Frank Zappa.

For the last decade or so, Dweezil’s been taking this show on the road, keeping the memory and music of his father alive, and bringing it to, ideally, a whole new generation of fans. This show covered the entire gamut, running from tracks from ’66’s Freak Out! leading up through all the good stuff through arrangements of tunes like “Black Napkins” from Frank’s last tour in ’88, with lengthy detours into Joe’s Garage and all the other places in between.

I was really excited about this one, discovering this particular tour stop very recently (and grabbing tickets for a very reasonable price as soon as I was able!). I’ve always been aware of and enjoyed Zappa’s stuff, reading the amazing “The Real Frank Zappa Book” and a couple of other biographies, admiring Frank for his genius musicianship, tireless work ethic, and his social stances on his art, as expressed most eloquently in his testimony to Congress back in the 80s during the PMRC song lyrics fiasco. I’d had a couple of albums over the years (mostly the novelty stuff), but when I had some pretty great musical mentors (including my guitar teacher Rich as well as some positive mentions from my jazz band director and my dad), really pointed me toward it, I wasn’t quite ready for it. I find that with a lot of stuff; back when stuff was really cool, I wasn’t emotionally ready or mature enough to really get it.

Having grown up watching MTV, though, I knew the older Zappa kids, Moon and Dweezil, who both, to some extent, did the veejay thing, hosting shows and showing up in the occasional video (like this awesome tune he did with his sister; also Dweezil played guitar on Don Johnson’s “Heartbeat”, which seems to have been scrubbed from the internet, rightfully). They seemed like cool, slightly older kids (they’re about five years older than I am) I wouldn’t have minded hanging out with, and Dweezil was a pretty good guitarist, to boot.

That Dweezil, after a couple of aborted bands in the 90s, decided to take this show on the road, playing his dad’s stuff, for fans of Frank, and (especially) those of us who didn’t have a chance to see Frank live back when he was still with us, is admirable, and awesome, and all kinds of great things. Watching this show, it was clear he loved his dad dearly, tearing up playing “Watermelon in Easter Hay”, for example, and regularly letting the amazing folks in his band catch a breather while he told stories about growing up with Frank and where all this music came from. It’s a really heartfelt, amazing tribute to Frank’s legacy, and also kind of amazing that Dweezil can play all that stuff, which isn’t easy.

He’s often had along members of Frank’s old bands sit in on these tours (guys like Ike Willis, and Steve Vai, for example), but sadly, not for this show. The group he’s got here, though, is pretty damned amazing; skilled multi-instrumentalists and vocalists who do the music justice, and add more than a little bit of personality to the live show – watching Scheila Gonzalez play keys, flute, and sing difficult harmony -all on the same song- was damned impressive. Dweezil’s no slouch either; I might go out on a limb and say on a good day, he’s got better tone than his dad (it’s gotta be hanging with those 80s metal guys).

Like I’d said earlier, I love the fact that he’s out there bringing attention to his dad’s stuff, which is part of the great American musical tapestry, and influential as hell, even if a lot of folks don’t know much beyond “Valley Girl” and “Yellow Snow”. I can’t say it enough; this guy’s really carrying a huge musical and artistic legacy on his shoulders, and doing it admirably. I couldn’t help but apply the “me and my dad” template over the proceedings a bit; it was kind of emotional for me, seeing the vintage looking (although they’re modern models) Gibson SGs on stage, given that both my dad and his dad played them, and my dad’s ’61 is one of my most prized posessions/heirlooms.

Traditionally, this band has toured and recorded as “Zappa Plays Zappa”, though given some recent family strife between Dweezil and Moon and the Zappa Family Trust, now in the hands of their younger siblings after their mother died last year, there’s all kinds of regrettable and unfortunate litigation (this Rolling Stone article is probably the most balanced presentation of things out there, though I’m #teamdweezil pretty clearly; listen to “Cosmik Debris” – Frank wouldn’t want his name on yoga pants) about use of the family name and merchandise and everything, it seems he’s not allowed to do that anymore – after a couple of “cease and desists”, he’s taken to calling this leg of the tour “Dweezil Zappa Plays Whatever the F**k He Wants”. It’s a shame; this guy is out there tirelessly evangelizing and promoting the Zappa legacy in ways that the “official” organization/family isn’t, and really seems to be in it for the love of the material and the creator. I hope it works out, and the bad blood within the family works out – I know that doesn’t always happen, but I wish everyone involved the best.

That said, the show was pretty amazing, both as a show, and as an experience. The crowd was different than the typical Richmond crowd I’ve seen. It was primarily a bunch of old guys with thinning hair and wild beards (I kinda fit right in), very few ladies overall, which is surprising, as my wife (who was there largely humoring me, but had a good time, even though she’s not a music history dork like me), agrees with this particular reviewer that Dweezil is a “total dreamboat”. We were some of the youngest people there, apart from a handful of guys who looked to be there with their dads (again…tugging on the emotions there). Still, everyone behaved themselves, unlike most shows I see locally; barely a disruption in the bunch. People were there to listen and enjoy, whatever came their way.

The best bit, though, that says a hell of a lot about the particular kind of music fan that’ll come out to see some Zappa on a Sunday night in November? Other than a couple of quick photos (like the pics above I took), people were present, enjoying the communal show experience, and not watching everything through the little screens on their phones.

That bit was glorious, and something that Frank would have appreciated.

Once again, I’m taking a long weekend (use-or-lose leave, planned gig didn’t work out), so I’m tossing this out there on Thursday again, because while I may be on a computer, I don’t want to feel like I *have* to be on a computer, even though these are totally arbitrary self-imposed obligations, but whatever.

Other than some weird sleep issues I won’t bore you with, it’s been a relatively uneventful week personally. I had a bunch of meetings cancelled (yay), but stayed just busy enough to make it go by relatively quickly. I’ll take it.

On the external front, it’s been politics (as one would expect being less than a week out from a presidential election) – I even got involved a bit – look down a bit, you’ll find my endorsement post. I’ve also gotten mildly caught up in the World Series business. Not enough to actually watch the games on tv, but enough to keep up with the events of the day, and to enjoy seeing the Cubs break their 108 year streak. It was kind of cool. Not as cool as baseball in the ballpark (which is an experience I really love that can’t be replicated on television no matter how hard anybody tries), but cool in a historic sort of way that fits baseball’s inherent sense of nostalgia. Anyway, congrats, Cubs, you only missed Back to the Future: Part 2 by a year!

As for the weekend, Doctor Strange is definitely happening, likely tomorrow. I’ve been waiting for this thing for way longer than the original announcement of this movie. I’ve been tracking all the weird aborted attempts at making this since at least 2008 in this space, if my search function is to be believed. I just dig Doctor Strange, to the point that I put an order in for the newly-released DVD of the ’78 tv movie starring Jessica “Mallory Archer” Walter as Clea that should be in my hands tomorrow. Anyway, an old friend of mine out west managed to catch a preview screening this earlier this week and says it’s got the same feeling seeing The Matrix for the first time back in ’99, which I consider high praise.

Other than that, we’re looking at diving into college applications (both admissions and financial aid), which might be a little stressful, but necessary. I don’t know what else. All I know is that I’m not going back to work until Tuesday, and I have Dweezil Zappa tickets for Sunday night!

Also – while I won’t be there (sixteen hour round trip for very little guaranteed playing time), my bandmates and a bunch of other cool wrock folks will be in Atlanta for ConJuration 2016, which should have some cool stuff to enjoy if you’re in the area.

Here’s this week’s pandora pull- try listening to #2 and #3 back to back sometime; it’s a weird transition, as their underlying riffs are very similar (other than the minor/major), it’s eerie, kind of like this. In any case, this list came out interestingly, sounding, with few exceptions, like my heavy-rotation record collection in 1989:

1. “Wig Wam Bam” – The Donnas
2. “Dream On” – Aerosmith
3. “Eternal Flame” – The Bangles
4. “Bad Medicine” – Bon Jovi
5. “Pumped Up Kicks” – Foster the People
6. “The Drama You’ve Been Craving” – Sleater-Kenney
7. “Dimetrodon” – The Doubleclicks
8. “Sweet Child o’ Mine” – Guns ‘n Roses
9. “Jesse’s Girl” Rick Springfield
10. “Seventeen” – Winger
11. “Youth Gone Wild” – Skid Row

Okay fine, I’ll keep doing the “random eleven” at least for this week, if only because, surprising no one at all, Millie Bobby Brown will be back for season two.

Back in June, I pretty much already did an endorsement post, which I’ve just re-read, and it is pretty much still on point, though as this is my space, I reserve the right to revise and extend remarks, so that’s what I’m going to do.

I’m still very much of the opinion that Hillary Clinton will make a perfectly effective Chief Executive. As I’ve said previously, she is, by virtue of being an active and engaged First Lady for most of the 1990s, an objectively effective Senator from New York, and a competent Secretary of State in the first Obama administration, probably the most uniquely qualified person to ever compete for the office, in the sense that she, more than anyone else pretty much ever, knows exactly what she’s getting into. Her break-in period is going to be shorter than most.

In terms of policy, I expect that an H. Clinton presidency isn’t going to look all that different from an Obama presidency (though I expect it’ll probably be a little less affectionately dorky); in a lot of ways (barring Clinton’s somewhat more hawkish tendencies in foreign policy), there are opportunities for much more interesting socially liberal initiatives; one needs to only consider her key initiative as First Lady during her husband’s first term, The Health Security Act, which, while not perfect and ultimately a failure at the time, was slightly more progressive than the current Affordable Care Act, and given the current issues with that system (largely due to prevention of the expansion of Medicaid in certain states like mine, and tepid cooperation from the commercial health care industry), something like real universal single-payer healthcare like the rest of the civilized world might be in the cards in the next decade, assuming a somewhat cooperative legislative branch.

Also, I’ve been pretty thrilled with Clinton’s enthusiastic adoption of a lot of Bernie Sanders’ (who I voted for in the primaries) signature issues into her platform, particularly affordable higher education (which may be personal for me, as I’m staring down the barrel of a kid starting college next year). She’s not as enthusiastic in terms of banking reform, though I expect Senator Elizabeth Warren <swoon> will hold a President Clinton’s feet to the fire on that one, given her dedicated support during the general election.

In the past, I also expressed some personal discomfort with the dynastic appearance of another Clinton presidency (after two Bushes and another Bush half-heartedly running this time), and toward Clinton’s Boomer “power grandma” stance that must work for somebody, but not necessarily for me. I said then that it was probably a personal issue, and I’m now sure it is, one that I’ve worked through, though it was never anything that would ever scuttle my vote in a general election – Mrs. Clinton is smart, saavy, well-prepared, and well-practiced at taking the slings and arrows of inevitable critics, and if she’s a little wooden and robotic in public (though reportedly warm and witty in private), I can understand that; I’m apparently scary and intimidating to those who don’t know me – our public face, which is not entirely ours to craft, isn’t us, especially for us who trend toward introversion. I’ve come around to sypathy and identification with her public/private dichotomy – I think we’d both rather get down to digging through the data than gladhandling everyone; I can respect that.

In the last few paragraphs, I’ve made mention of a theoretical “cooperative legislative branch” and “inevitable critics.” Depending on how the down-ticket races go, we might get the former this time, and we’ll definitely get the latter – few public figures have been the subject of more scandalous accusations and “-gates” and “-ghazis” than Secretary Clinton, and none of them have stuck or had much basis in actionable reality. If she was half as evil and corrupt as her critics say she is, something would have caught over the last quarter century. Much has been made of the email business, with few people actually understanding it. Her use of a “private email server” was probably not the best solution to the problem, but neither was her predecessor, Secretary Colin Powell, using an AOL account for the the same sort of thing. I’m also not vastly concerned about the “classified info” bit. As someone who’s held a government clearance, I know that “classified” is a weird and varied landscape, and the vast majority of the information people are harping about wasn’t actually classified at the time, and the rest was likely improperly marked and, well, “classified”, before it passed through the Secretary’s inbox. I’ve also worked for many years in public sector information technology, and can confidently say that federal technological infrastructure isn’t typically state of the art; it’s likely that even during her relatively recent time in the State department, there weren’t any better, more secure options.

In any case, that paragraph was a bit of tldr; take it as “If she was actually evil, she would have been caught doing something bad by now; also the email thing doesn’t matter”. She’s as clean as anybody else at her level. That said, she’s probably going to take a bigger hit from critics on the right than either her husband or her predecessor in the office have. Bill Clinton got impeached (but not removed) for some pretty weak legal (but still kind of icky) actions; it’s not out of the question that her opposition won’t try something similar.

And, in the unlikely event such a thing happens and goes farther than the last Clinton impeachment, we get Tim Kaine, and I’m very cool with that.

While I have occasionally struggled in mustering emotional enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton in the past, I’ve never had that problem with Tim Kaine. I’ve been in his geographic and political orbit since his days as in Richmond on the city council and as mayor, where he, by all rights, did a good job making the city and its environs a pleasant place in which to live, work, and visit (He also used to call into local radio morning shows and goof off with the hosts, where he always came across as personable and funny). He’s also served admirably as Virgina Lt. Governor and Governor, doing much to advance a progressive agenda (in terms of climate and the environment, education, and public health) in the face of a strong opposition legislature, with whom he maintained friendly, cordial relations despite their political differences, which is a tremendous skill to have as an executive if you’re to get anything done. He’s been a pretty solid Senator for the state as well, continuing to advance a progressive agenda, and maintain pleasant relations with both sides of the aisle, a rare feat indeed in these terribly divided times.

It sounds like I’m writing my 2020 endorsement here, because in a way I am; quite simply, Tim’s ready to step up immediately if unfortunate circumstances require it of him.

Also, he’s good people, and, as I see it, kind of a kindred spirit; we’re a bit a like, Mr. Kaine and I. We’re not that dissimilar in age or temperment, are both amateur musicians (“four harmonicas”), have a traditional background in Catholicism and the Jesuit tradition of social justice (insert reference to his Honduran misson trip here, everybody’s already made one) and fighting poverty that carries through to the way we see the world and how to go about making it better, and our dad-joke fu is strong. He’s always been careful to avoid scandal and perceived conflict of interest (after his term as Governor, he taught a class or two at the University of Richmond law school; he specifically signed on to a private university to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest of teaching at a public university he had, in the past, been involved in budget discussions for). He’s clean, respectable, and gets along with everybody. Tim Kaine feels like a more optimistic, aspirational version of me, if only I could let go of this cynical streak I’ve got going.

I honestly really admire the guy, and he’s a person I’d trust to use the power of the (Vice) Presidency fairly, responsibly, and for the forces of good.

Also, his Spotify playlist recently published by the campaign feels real, and not completely focus-grouped. It’s got two really good Replacements tunes on it (we’re both fans), and the Springsteen song is a deep cut, non-single from Lucky Town for $diety’s sake; if that’s not a true fan’s list, I don’t know what is. I’ll spot him the DMB tune; being a Virginia politician and all; for a devoted music fan such as myself, this says a lot toward Tim’s authenticity as a person.

So anyway; that’s my endorsement. I even did it without mentioning the other guys once! If you respect my opinion, I hope you’ll take it into account when you vote on or before this coming Tuesday. Heck, even if you don’t take my recommendation above into account, make sure you vote anyway; it is, as I’m fond of saying, the absolutely least you can do to participate in this little experiment we call American Democracy (or “Constitutional Republic-cy” if you wanna get technical). It’s your civic duty. I can’t stress that enough.

I began the day with a discussion of the reproductive biology of certain Hershey (née Peter Paul) confections.

the eldest child was scraping the leftover Halloween hand-out candy for an Almond Joy, and noticed that there were none there. I told her I had a Mounds last night, though that if one was present, the other likely is too, because I suspect that they needed both sexes for reproduction.

Which led to a discussion, of course, of sexing (as in identifying, you perv) each variety of coconut-based candy bar. I made the case that Almond Joy was the male of the species, given the obvious reference to nuts, as indicated in the classic jingle, helpfully included below:

Of course, my lovely wife made the counter-argument that Almond Joy, by virtue of having curves (ooh, those almonds are sex-ay!) is obviously female and better suited to childbearing.

Given what she was wearing, having just climbed out of bed? I couldn’t argue. not really. Curves are distracting.

The groggy teenager just rolled her eyes at us, as is appropriate.

Truly, the LGBT Ally that I am, I felt kind of bad about assigning definitive gender roles based on secondary (sexual? maybe not) characteristics of confectionary products without asking, especially since candy bars can’t express a preference, but then, as they’re non-sentient junk food products, I’m not going to worry about it too much.

What we should really be worrying about is where all those “fun sized” bars come from this time of year, but not thinking too hard about what kind of unsanitary substances are left behind on retail candy racks full of regular and “king size” bars during rutting season.

ew.

‘Twas a long weekend, but it was a good one.

As detailed previously, I had a pretty full weekend booked, beginning with a trip down to NC on Friday for the gig at HonorCon. Traffic, thanks to construction, accidents, and certain late-model Dodge Chargers and Subaru WRX STIs driving like assholes down I-85 (you know who you are), my trip took me a little longer than expected, but because I’m a responsible adult, I’d left myself plenty of room for error.

Anyway, I got to Humdinger Central with enough time to catch up, run through a couple of new-ish songs (including the really great “Son of the Sea” by Scott’s SCA friend Ken Theriot, which Scott and I have both been singing and humming involuntarily since Friday afternoon) and wrangle our gear for the evening’s activities.

The gig itself? A total blast, for, I believe, everyone concerned. We played the “Main Stage” at the North Raleigh Hilton, on a real temporary stage, for, on average, thirty people (which I guess isn’t bad for a con that tops out at an attendance of around 300), but those thirty people were the *right* thirty people, who were really into things, singing along (which is cool, since a bunch of them had never seen us before), and laughing in all the right places. they were having fun, and were a great audience for giving back to the performers, which made us give even more, creating a positive feedback loop of fun and merriment. Also, thanks to a little bit of alcohol and the fact that there were no kids in the audience, we may have gotten a little naughtier than usual (I kind of hope some video surfaces eventually…), though it was all in good fun, nobody seemed to mind our playing a bit later than scheduled, and seemed somehow appropriate given the rampant rumor that Republican VP candidate Mike Pence was staying in the hotel that night after his event down the road in Smithfield. I don’t know if it was a true rumor, but we like to think it was (given our naughty liberal selves and the military sci-fi con attendees who trend libertarian).

I spent the night in the Humdinger guest room, then hopped on the road early to get back home to drop a few things at home and spend a little while visiting the VA Comicon over at RIR, which I haven’t been to in a while. I caught up with a few friends, such as Dan Nokes and Chris Otto, picked up a great little “storybook for adults” called “Put Your F**king Phone Away”, by and generally took in the ambience of the whole geek gathering. They always get some pretty great costuming at this thing, and I kind of wish more of these folks would show up at the more local sci-fi cons (Marscon, Ravencon) because I think they’d really get a kick out of them, and would definitely bring something to the table.

After that, since I was more than half-way to Ashland anyway, I took a swing by Center of the Universe brewing Company for the annual release of El Duderino White Russian Milk Stout, one of my favorite seasonal brews in a town full of amazing brews, so why wouldn’t I grab a couple of bombers (and a growler of Pocahoptas because I was already there and had the empty vessel in the car)?

With that, my day was mostly done, other than to drive home and see the teenagers off to Halloween parties, and have a “Movie Marathon” with the youngest, which meant popping some popcorn, and falling asleep on the couch 20 minutes into Guardians of the Galaxy.

Sunday was pretty chill, overall. The eldest was off visiting an out-of-state friend who was in town, and the other two kids were running around the neighborhood with friends catching Pokemon, and I was mostly sitting on the couch with a cat watching Flash Gordon and various and sundry other things on the TV while getting up occasionally to do some laundry.

As for the coming week? I dunno. I’m doing another short one (because of use or lose leave), though the week at work looks pretty standard. Friday we’re going to work on getting out to see Doctor Strange because of course we are, have you been reading this damned blog for the last decade(?), and who knows what else. Also, I hear tell that we might be resurrecting the Jenny Hendricks Experience acoustic combo, so I might go meet with that crew to run some songs.

Anyway. That’s all from here, because honestly, it’s probably enough.

Except for this: I evolved this Pokemon this weekend; this design has to have been intentional, right?

Gotta be.

Okay, sure, it’s Thursday. I’m doing the random tunes thing a day early. It’s my life and my blog. Sue me.

In any case, the reason I’m doing it early is that I’m taking a day off tomorrow and don’t really plan to be on the computer all that much. As I have enough service time to earn a ridiculous amount of annual leave, I once again am stuck with “use of lose” leave in the bank, so I’m spending it on a couple of long weekends before the customary end-of-the-year holiday break. Also, when I’m not out catching spooky pokemon during the Halloween event, I have weekend stuff in meatspace I gotta do.

Even if it means going into Zubat country:

Pokemon puns are fun. While I didn’t actually come up with Rick Gastly first, I think this one might be a chuck original.

Tomorrow, I’m playing a show in Raleigh with the Humdingers at HonorCon. It’s not necessarily “our” crowd (other than the fact that it’s geeks in the Triangle, so there’s probably a bit of crossover), but I think our stuff is pretty universal. If you’re a geek, “Natural 20” is gonna resonate at least a little bit. We’re on at 8:30, so if you’re of the mind and in the area, come on by.

I’ll be back in Richmond Saturday morning sometime, and I’m planning on swinging by the VA Comicon’ big two-day show for a while to take in the scene and catch up with some friends I haven’t seen in a while.

I’m also on the hook to crack the highway barrier with my kid behind the wheel of a car at some point. I’m not worried. She’s way better at this than she thinks she is.

Semi-related to the weekend’s activities, the Harry Potter Alliance, the social action “ministry” of Harry Potter fandom has seen fit to make some of it’s limited edition fundraising wizard rock compilations available for purchase on bandcamp, including last year’s 10th anniversary A Tribute to Harry and the Potters, which features a bunch of wrock friends covering classic HatP tunes, and perhaps also some of my best recorded guitar playing ever on track 15:

Anyway, that’s my weekend and other various and sundry crap. Here’s some tunes outta pandora that aren’t awful, but don’t actually feature my guitar or bass playing:

1. “Nothing to Prove” – The Doubleclicks
2. “Code Monkey” – Jonathan Coulton
3. “All Cats are Grey” – The Cure
4. “Heavy Cross” – The Gossip
5. “Do You Wanna Hit It” – The Donnas
6. “Little Talks” – Of Monsters and Men
7. “Eternal Flame” – The Bangles
8. “The Hunt” – Grand Magus
9. “You Make My Dreams Come True” – Hall & Oates
10. “Another Genius Idea from Our Government” – Erase Errata
11. “Deceptacon” – Le Tigre

As for today’s random eleven, check out this cool Stranger Things eye makeup that I expect my kid will probably be into:

Odds are, at some point in your life, you found a strange little comic in a rest stop restroom, wedged into a crevice on a rural gas pump, or amongst the fun-sized candy bars in your trick-or-treat bag. These comics included kitschy and campy art decrying the evils of rock music, role playing games, or the Roman Catholic church, and often ended with an EC Horror comics-worthy tragic twist, an image of a light-bulb headed God or an altar call sermon by a guy who looked a bit like John Waters.

If you did, you found a Chick Tract, one of the stranger ways conservative evangelical churches “witnessed” to unbelievers.

These little comics, however, due in large part to the ham-handed campiness, distinctive art, and collectable form factor, over the years developed a bit of an ironic following amongst heathens and comics fans, who would get a little surge of excitement when we encountered one in the wild.

This week, sadly, word came out across the internet that Jack Chick, prolific artist and independent publisher of these little “treasures”, has passed away.

While a lot of the views expressed in these comics are repugnant (to the point that the Southern Poverty Law Center lists Chick Publications as a hate group for it’s anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim, and homophobic content), and often traffic in weird illuminati-conspiracy theory drivel; they’re also kind of neat, and enjoyable in a deliciously ironic way; in particular due to their greatly exaggerated presentation of Christian theology, and interesting in terms of pop art history, distinctive in their own way, and owing much to Depression-era Tijuana bibles in terms of form, style and attitude, if not in artistic intent.

These little books are an interesting low-fi cultural artifact that operates mostly under the radar, but has a devoted following. Growing up, I’d seen these things around, but developed something of a fascination with them (and other similar works) after reading links and discussions in the early aughts on fark.com about them, which often discussed favorite comics and particular artistic tics. There’s actually a wealth of discussion, including some legitimate academic analysis of these things out there, if you care to take a look.

A few have crept into more (aguably) mainstream popular culture, in particular, Dark Dungeons, a tone-deaf but appealingly batshit condemnation of role-playing games, particularly Dungeons and Dragons, drawing from the very real “Satanic Panic” in the 80s. This particular strip’s popularity culminated a few years ago in a film adaptation of the comic by some of the folks behind the popular The Gamers series of indpendent features, with the approval of Chick Publications.

I don’t expect we’ll see these little things disappear from the landscape any time soon, though with the passing of the mysterious and reclusive Mr. Chick, the world will feel a little less strange and interesting in his absence.

The girls danced the Celtic Festival and I did my dance dad thing. I made a pretty good vegetarian shepherd’s pie. I cleaned the fish tank and watched a couple of movies.

Pretty typical for a low-key weekend. I’m okay with that.

The week ahead? Nothing special. Four days’ work (I’m taking a long weekend), some rehearsing for the Humdingers gig at HonorCon Friday night (why I’m taking a long weekend), and working on getting some tickets for Dweezil Zappa’s 50 Years of Frank: Dweezil Zappa plays whatever the F@%k he wants show in town in a couple of weeks. Tickets are really reasonable (like 20 bucks), but I need to go to the theater box office in person to avoid the “convenience fees” that are literally half again the cost of the ticket via the web sales service. Think Ticketbastard is bad? AXS is worse.

I never got a chance to see Frank. This feels right (especially after I missed Willie’s show this year).

…and finally, the relative density of metal bands in Europe based on population:

…I may have spent a little time calculating the actual number of metal bands for say, Andorra (4.04), early this weekend.

So, this week has been…this week. Life’s been life, work’s been work. I’ve spent most of my time at the office tying up loose ends and documentation from last week’s dog and pony show in Northern Virginia, and most of my time at home sleeping off migraine-like symptoms that I thought were actually allergies (my seasonal allergies have been worse this year than any time in recent memory; i.e. when I originally moved south), but given the digestive issues and swelling in the throat, I think is actually viral. Oh well. I’ve gotten some rest, and I’ve finished two books this week.

This weekend should be pretty low impact for me. I need to pay bills, swing by the library, and hit up the VA Celtic Festival tomorrow, as the girls will be dancing in the afternoon. It’s a cool place to hang out, check out the caber tossing, and maybe eat some good Irish food if my system ever settles out.

While I won’t be there (lotsa driving and expense for not much show, family doing other stuff) the rest of (i.e. the main, pretty ones) the Humdingers and many other good friends will be at the Geek Gala in Charlotte, so if you’re down that way, go get your geek on. Scott and Kirsten are playing Saturday at 2pm, if you need your wizard rock fix.

A few other things happened this week worth mentioning, I guess, with nasty women getting shit done, a new teaser for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and this morning, when I find myself wishing that certain insufferable millenials in my social media feeds would be half as incensed about (or at least engaged with) the current political climate in America as they are angry about Laverne Cox playing Dr. Frank-N-Furter last night on tv*.

Anyway, some tunes. I purged and rebuilt my Pandora back-end shuffle sources this week, so the mix is changing up a bit (but not as much as I think I’d like – I’m coming to the limits of the application’s library). It was better yesterday. More Bowie.

1. “Tighten Up” – The Black Keys
2. “Africa” – Toto
3. “Rock of Ages” – Def Leppard
4. “Entering Eternity” – Falconer
5. “Don’t Stop Believing” – Journey
6. “Not The One” – The Donnas
7. “Cry Baby” – Kitten Forever
8. “Something to Do (live)” – Depeche Mode
9. “Somebody’s Love” – Passenger
10. “State Trooper in the Left Lane, Nattles” – Cold Cold Hearts
11. “Hazy Shade of Winter” – The Bangles

Also, no Stranger Things news this week worth talking about. You’ll just have to take your Eleven without context (other than the fact that track eleven was in the show, and anachronistic to boot, so maybe context).

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*- For the record, I didn’t watch last night, but, like a lot of people, I think it was a bold, inspired choice, and well in line with the themes inherent in the property, so f**k those kids.

Beyond the “ooga chaka” in the first Guardians of the Galaxy trailer, Marvel’s never really made the move to tease its movie music before. Normally, MCU scores are kind of anonymous background noise, and on the whole pretty forgettable other than perhaps the overall Marvel Studios Fanfare they use during the studio tag. The piece linked below is different, and I hope this bodes well for future films; veteran composer Michael Giacchino really nailed a pretty great aural accompaniment for the screen version of Doctor Strange that is anything but forgettable:

This is purportedly the Strange end credits, and it’s a definite departure from the kind of anonymous symphonic scores we’re used to (apart from G0tG, of course); first of all, there seems to be an actual theme in there (that repeating eight note baroque-y sounding bit with variations, which as I listen to it, kind of leans on the fanfare linked above), and a very art rock/progressive vibe, with heavy influences from Pink Floyd, a bit of Queen, and some Jon Lord style organ for good measure. I’m really digging it.

It makes sense though, since Doc Strange himself cameoed on the cover art of Pink Floyd’s second studio album back in 1968:

My excitement for this flick is really starting to pick up. November 4 can’t come quickly enough.