Marley and Me, Tom Clancy & Journey

Having been off work for the past week, I've had more time to be a little prolific with blog posting. I also had some time to do some reading and video game playing. I finally finished reading Marley & Me, a book about a hyper and destructive lab. The book was a gift from my mother in law last December. Having a dog that's half lab myself (the other half is Sharpei) that acts similar I found the story very relatible. The book followed the story of a news paper columnist and his wife building a family and choosing a dog as part of that. The couple had fond memories of obedient dogs from their childhood. What they chose would turn out to be an uncontrollable Lab, hyperactive, undisciplined and very destructive. While my dog, Dixie, was never quite as crazy as Marley (Marley was able to break out of metal crates, drag heavy furniture he was tied to, destroy drywall) there were definite similarities. Reading the book gave me an appreciation of my crazy dog.

Dixie is somewhat large but not as big as a regular Lab. We got her in 1999 and was named after the Jeep that Daisy Duke drove in the original Dukes of Hazzard TV series. Over time, she has garnered a number of nicknames, like "Doodle", "Suede Face" and "Major Hoolihan". There are other nicknames, but they are meant in fun (like "Bucket Head"). She has been very energetic for years though she is slowing down a little bit now. Like Marley, Dixie is a beloved member of the family and is the undisputed princess of the household. She is friendly, but not cuddly and is very clingy to people. Also like Marley, Dixie becomes destructive when left alone as Dixie has eaten parts or all of trunks, blankets and walls. She is very stubborn and is difficult to discipline. But, despite her faults she is very loveable and has more friends in the neighborhood than me or my wife. She's nuts, but she's ours!

Another gift I've recently had time to invest in is PS2's Rainbow Six Lockdown. A gift from my cousin, Rainbow Six is part of the Tom Clancy series of video games. The game is about being a sniper and/or operative in a anti-terrorism task force. It gives fairly realistic game play and gives a variety of missions in the infiltrate and shoot 'em up mode. It is intense but fun to play and the AI is unusually clever for the enemy agents compared to most games.

After playing this game for a while, I came to a conclusion: It's a REAL good thing I never went into the military. I get killed so often in this game I spend half of my game play time saving and re-loading just to make progress on the various levels. My character is always in critical condition, I try to sneak up on the enemy while the Commander screams "You're losing blood Alpha 2!!!" on the comlink. I accidentally shoot my own team members and drop grenades on civilians. This adds up to a simple math equation: Me + Gun = Bad.

In other Journey news, it seems Jon Cain of Journey has clarified the reason for dropping Jeff Scott Soto is so they can sound more like their classic material. So much for creative reinvention, Soto sounded very Steve Perry live so it must be that old "creative differences" that got in the way. Here's to hoping Kevin Chalfant gets his shot!

The Police in Concert

After 24 years of dormancy, the premier New Wave act of the early 80's has reformed with drummer Stewart Copeland, guitarist Andy Summers and of course, Sting. After sitting through a decent performance by the new band The Fratelli's (think the Strokes meets Wolfmother) The Police took the stage. The set list went:

Message In A Bottle / Synchronicity II / Don't Stand So Close To Me / Voices In My Head - When The World Is Running Down... / Spirits In The Material World / Driven To Tears / Walking On The Moon / Truth Hits Everybody / Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic / Wrapped Around Your Finger / The Bed's Too Big Without You / De Do Do Do De Da Da Da / Invisible Sun / Walking In Your Footsteps / Can't Stand Losing You / Roxanne

Encore: King Of Pain / So Lonely / Every Breath You Take (assumed performed)

The Police came to town on a comfortable Wednesday evening at the MacAfee Coliseum in Oakland. I had seen the Police in 1983 at the same venue on what was Day On The Green #3 (included the Thompson Twins, Madness, Oingo Boingo and The Fixx) and remembered it as a fantastic show. The Police folded up camp shortly after so I had the added bonus of saying I saw them live because many people my age missed seeing them before they stopped. We had great seats, the memorabilia was plentiful and aimed at nostalgia (only the tour program included recent pictures of the band, everything else was pics from the 80's) and all of the rowdy New Wave fans of the 80's had turned into the laid back super wealthy. It had the makings of a spectacular concert.

The Police took the stage and started off with a solid version of "Message In A Bottle". It was a strong start, but then thing's got dicey with a sloppy "Synchronicity II". A new arrangement seemed to baffle the band, fortunately the audience sung along with the words (even the ones Sting didn't sing) so it wasn't as noticeable. "Don't Stand So Close To Me" followed next, which was played a little seductively like the slowed down '86 remake.

A few things stood out to me at this point. One, this was The Police in the raw with no backing musicians and a minimum of flown in tracks. Two, this included replacing what were originally synthesizer parts with Andy Summer's guitar and changing many of the original song arrangements. I respected them for this though I was taken by surprise with their newly loose and ragged sound. The band simultaneously recalled their earlier Punkier sound while adding a bit of Jazz in the mix to mellow things out. It created a new approach that was inventive but a little hard to take in: Punk Adult Contemporary.

On the fourth song they started to hit their stride with a great medley of "Voices In My Head" to "When The World Is Running Down...". "Voices" was a good album track at the beginning that led to a sped up version of "World". The song ended with a Jazz fusion crescendo, Andy Summers soloing furiously while Sting laid a fat, muscular bass line underneath. By the end, Stewart Copeland was grinning visibly.

Then followed a guitar driven "Spirits In The Material World" that was pretty good. The great "Driven To Tears" was next but sounded a bit disjointed. An excellent "Walking On The Moon" followed, as Sting's rubbery reggae bass line bounded across the coliseum. The band rocked on "Truth Hits Everybody" which is a song I really liked from their second album.

The lack of synthesizers made some of the songs unpredictable to me. Apparently, the audience didn't always follow either as some seemingly random playing morphed into "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic". Without the keyboards, it seemed like an entirely different song. The audience shot to their feet once they recognized it.

A heavily rearranged "Wrapped Around Your Finger" with Stewart Copeland hitting a variety of percussive instruments was pretty enjoyable. Then, the high point (for me), "The Bed's Too Big Without You" came up in it's original arrangement. One of my favorite Police songs, with that deep reggae groove unchanged and the rhythm section locking in like they did in their prime.

"De Do Do Do De Da Da Da" was also performed in it's original style and sustained the momentum. "Invisible Sun" benefited from rearrangement (in my opinion), the cavernous synths replaced by Andy Summer's guitar added muscle and intensity to the tune. The always fun "Walking In Your Footsteps" kept their streak going and was the most fun number of the evening.

The main part of the show ended with a strong "Can't Stand Losing You" with a bit of "Regatta De Blanc" thrown in the middle for good measure. "Roxanne" closed out the first part of the set in style.

The encore began with "King Of Pain", another keyboard driven song altered to guitar. I left during "So Lonely" to avoid getting stuck in parking lot traffic.

Although it wasn't the phenomenal concert I hoped for, I had a lot of fun listening to these classic songs live and appreciated that The Police opted to challenge themselves musically by playing everything as a three piece band. The band struggled to stay on the same beat for half the concert, but were close enough to keep the songs from falling apart. This show had me doing the closest thing I know to dancing (shifting weight on my feet back and forth before they fall asleep) to the songs that didn't have arrangement changes. Those songs that have changes (mainly the synth driven songs like "Spirits", "Every Little Thing", "King of Pain" etc) sounded bare without that key instrument. For all the missing synthesizers, I just want to say...Squonk! (synthesizer noise)

The Win Some, Lose Some week of pop culture

You know the old saying from Physics, "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." Well, this week is particularly true with the recent events in pop culture, at least the stuff I see. for me the big one is...

1. Journey! One of my all time favorite bands has renewed visibility due to "Don't Stop Believin'" being used for the final moments of the Sopranos. This may be the only time the band has a shot at a half decent comeback...but new singer Jeff Scott Soto has just left the band. So much for performing the song live for anyone anytime soon.

It's likely they will pick another singer to sound like Steve Perry and in a way that's too bad. Journey needs a new direction at this point, but on their nostalgia tours they aren't paid based on creativity but how much they can sound as they did twenty years ago. That being the case, they won't be choosing my number 1 pick to replace Perry: Michael Bolton!

Yes, it's that "Can I Touch You There?" Michael Bolton. Bolton had Journey produce and perform on three songs of his Hunger CD (1987) and they sounded great together. Bolton's gravelly voice would change the sound of classic Journey material and encourage them to stress newer material. On top of that, the publicity would be tremendous.

My second pick would be Kevin Chalfant formerly of The Storm. The Storm was the best Journey knock off band of all time (it included three former Journey members) and came the closest to capturing (not a Journey pun) the classic sound. Chalfant was overlooked before due to rumors of writing incompatablility and not wanting to give credibility to The Storm as a band. If he got the position, Chalfant would ace mimicking Perry placing Journey in a good spot for the next round of nostalgia shows. Chalfant is also releasing a CD of Journey cover songs called FLy 2 Freedom (2007). If anyone doubts this guy's knack for Journey material, check out http://www.cliquerecords.com/ to hear clips of the upcoming CD. If Chalfant gets it, it would be like when Pierce Brosnan finally became Bond.

At any rate, it's great that "Don't Stop Believin'" keeps coming up in popular culture. Journey has been and always will be the "people's" band and never get any respect from the Rock press. The continued success of the song proves their influence and talent was much greater than they received credit for.

2. Dustin Diamond and Celebrity Fit Club - Dustin Diamond continues his campaign to be the worst grown up child star ever. His behavior on Celebrity Fit Club has sabotaged his castmates and defined him as a bigger assh*le than anyone could have imagined. He does it all for attention and he's got mine, which makes me hate him more. Which means I will be watching the series finale of Fit Club. I guess he wins for now. Damn!

3. Paris Hilton - She almost bought her way out of prison! Poor Paris, she has to spend 25 or 45 days of her life not being the richest, shallowest person alive. I don't doubt her psychological stress, finding out you're just like everyone else when you've been told different through your entire existence is certainly rough. I still don't feel sorry for her though. Unlike most people who go to prison, Paris will leave jail as wealthy as she went in and go back to her high maintenance lifestyle with the world back under her feet where it belongs.

4. The Summer movies are coming and the previews are giving me mixed feelings! Bruce Willis returns in Live Free and Die Hard (or something like that. Maybe Live Hard and Die Free?) The other three movies were so strong I find it hard to believe a 4th could be as good. Transformers' trailer went beyond underwhelming to the point it was just sad looking. If you've seen one CGI robot, you've seen them all. Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer looks promising until you remember how lame the first movie was.

Well, that's it! You win some and you lose some. Tomorrow I'll get to see The Police for the first time since 1983. That's so 80's!