Dogging Them Dog-Days

Well, at least the bloody heatwave broke for a bit here.  Felt good to sleep with the AC off, and the window open last night.  My sympathies to those of you who are still baking - locally, we'll be back in the oven by the middle of next week.  Hey, it is still August, after all.

Things are s-l-o-w-l-y starting to move in the right direction again, and I'm pleased to say that September will be a minor return to form, with a couple surprises to look forward to.  I've been so busy and frazzled the last couple months that my ulcer revived, and has been demanding attention.  Attention will come, but without pause for recuperation.  I'm nowhere near out of the hole the damn d'horse left me in, and any setback short of me permanently assuming room temperature will be glossed over as much as possible.  I've been out of circulation far too long already, and I want my life back.


The payoff down the road ought to be pretty sweet, though.  I just hope I live long enough to see it!!  A recent near-fatal encounter with one of them free-range John Deere 7R's has made me appreciate how fleeting life can be, even if the going is rough already.  Hopefully, things will begin to balance out, my labors will finally be rewarded, and all shall be well.  We shall see.


Lay back and groove for a bit, Fellow Babies.  The fourth quarter of 2011 just might be the first rays of a new rising sun..........  {word up, Jimi!}


More shortly.

Buffalo Stampedes!!!

What, August already?  How did that happen so damn fast?  Geez, I just start getting back on my feet, and some joker bumps the calendar's selector switch up to 78rpm's.  Sigh.

Besides the obvious of being summer's peak, our eighth month always gets me to thinking about Buffaloes.  No, not just the familiar four-legged kind.  I'm talking a couple different other varieties of the species.  First and foremost is a mechanical variety I became fascinated by around the age of 10 or so:

This odd beast belonged to the Union Railroad.  It started life as an ordinary Baldwin DRS-66-1500 that looked like this:

Around 1960, it was shipped off to GM's then-Electro-Motive Division {now E-M Diesel, owned by Caterpillar}.  EMD put a new prime mover in place of the original, and added one of their own hoods to the long end of the carbody.  The short hood remained as-built, but nine years later it was cut down for better visibilty.

This fact, coupled with the down-sloping panel that joins the taller EMD hood to the shorter Baldwin cab, gave this unit, and the rest of her sisters the look of a "buffalo grazing," hence their nickname.  They survived in service until 1980, when they were retired and scrapped.  Although I never got to see one in person, I did stumble across a very similar Chicago & North Western rebuild, being scrapped in the old St. Louis Auto Shredder's complex between Granite City, and East St. Louis,  Illinois around August 1985 or so.

As locomotives go, I've always had a soft spot for such "Frankenstinian" units - they gave the railfan hobby a great dash of spice, and were also a pretty good illustration of railroads making the proverbial lemons into lemonade.  Not all such "freaks" worked well, or lasted very long post-surgery, but the Buffaloes sure did.  As one shop foreman said, "An EMD motor with Westinghouse electricals is nearly indestructable."  Since the Union was at the time a subsidiary of US Steel, their Buffaloes literally had their hooves - er, wheels run off them as they lugged heavy ore, coal, limestone, and finished steel trains 24-7/365 for a score of years.

Although I only briefly glimpsed a mechanical Buffalo in person, the more organic varieties soon made presences in my life, with considerably more impact.  Classic was the incredibly tame and friendly one who "adopted" me during a visit to Grant's Farm in St. Louis when I was in my 20's.  See, I had some sugar cubes in my pockets that I was going to feed to the always-present Clydesdales in the stables during my tour of the park.  Before I could, I was waylaid by a frisky bison who was most curious about what was in me pocketses; he literally started nuzzling my hip when I visited his part of the range.

Now, having a 2500 pound, seven-foot tall {across the shoulders} beast nuzzle you like a puppy-dog is not an every day experience.  One half-forceful butt from his muzzle alone would have given me compound fractures, and let's not even think of what the rest of him could do, if even mildly preturbed!  After quickly bogarting the whole of my sugar-stash, my new bison-friend decided that this hairy toothpick wasn't a bad sort, and proceeded to follow me all around the park for the remainder of my visit!

Me and my new one ton shadow traumatized the stables, petting zoo, tram-ride station, and Michelob-sampling pavilion before he was finally corralled by the staff, allowing me the chance to escape.  I don't think I've ever seen SO many stunned faces, outside of a gig situation!!  All in a day's work, far as I'm concerned.  A critter's a critter, and I dig critters, so 'nuff said.  However, there was one more Buffalo destined to  cross my path, in the tradition of "good things come in threes."  Regular readers of my old MySpace blog will know what's coming next, but for my new Friends here, consider the following:

That's me on the right, alongside my Great Friend Buffalo Bob.  We first crossed paths around 1989 or '90, bumped into each other again in 2003, then finally began building a proper friendship starting in 2008, which continues to the present, I'm proud to say.  BB digs the real buffaloes too, and whenever we get together onstage somewhere, it's fair to say we both cut loose with our best stampede-impressions!  Aside from music, we see eye-to-eye on a lot of other things, and BB's take on all of 'em reminds me very much of that frisky bison with a sweet-tooth at Grant's Farm.  If the hairy toothpick is into it, he'll get into it as well.

Of course no friend of mine - Great or otherwise - is entirely safe from my legendary teasing-habit, and BB is no exception.  We got to talking about buffaloes {of all things} one day, and he made some remark about the Sacred White Buffalo that turns up in many Indian legends and customs.  Curious, I did a quick Google image-search - and nearly fell out of my chair in helpless laughter.  Five minutes with good old MS Paint gave me a hilarious take on "separated at birth?"  

For his part, BB took my joke in stride when I slammed him with it on my old MySpace blog.  Oh, he's clobbered me back several times since, but I think this incident was the start of a lot of silliness between the two of us, which is ongoing as I type this post.  BB's sense of humor is just as broad {and warped} as mine, and we go to great lengths to regale each other whenever the opportunity arises.  My favorites have been the times we've gone after each other onstage.  BB lays down a lick he knows will set me off, I obligingly go off, and then we try our best to baffle each other with some of the craziest musical tangents one could imagine.

Afterwards, he'll always slam me about drinking too much Tea, or having a flashback or whatever, and I usually toss a "serves ya right" right back at him, always with a huge grin on my face.  BB's not afraid of much as a musician; if I want to try something silly, he'll go along with it on the spur of the moment. He's one of perhaps four other musicians out of the hundreds I've encountered in the last 25 years that has that special quality.  It makes for some magical times onstage, believe me.  Hopefully, we'll have some more good times together in the not-too-distant future, now that I'm slowly coming back to life again.

So, that's my tale of the Buffalo Stampedes.  Animate or inanimate, I've yet to encounter a more fascinating species.  Strong, no-nonsense {well, maybe a little nonsense}, and steadfast-to-the-last; I consider myself very lucky indeed to have them as a part of my life experience.  These hot August days always remind me of the noble Bison, and how much I dig 'em, even if they do think that jazz smells funny.

More shortly............ 

The Time Machine

Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to open a window on time, and step right through it.  Such happened to me when I was sixteen, and recalling the event now is a dandy way to beat the heat, as you'll soon see.

The time machine in question was Union Pacific #8444 {nee 844}; "Uncle Pete's" last 4-8-4 steam locomotive.  She was active in both freight and passenger service since her construction by American Locomotive Company {ALCO} in 1944.  In 1962 she was assigned to "special service" {excursions, business trains, etc.} and remained very much active, often having 20 or 30 outings a year.  She had never been retired, making Union Pacific the very last North American railroad to roster and operate a mainline steam locomotive.


The setting for this time-warp was the Union Pacific's Sedalia Subdivision main line, specifically the western slope of Kirkwood Hill, very near the Museum of Transport in St. Louis, Missouri.  Uncle Pete inherited the route when it merged with Missouri Pacific in 1982; it was originally laid out as the Pacific Railroad in 1852, and became MoPac around 1870.  The stretch between Kirkwood west to Barrett Station was originally single-track, with two tunnels at Barretts.  The MoP double-tracked the line in 1944, bypassing both tunnels with a new cut about 50 feet south of the original right-of-way.  The original alignment - including both tunnels - became property of the new Transport Museum when the new line was opened.


I grew up in a subdivision that bordered this intriguing main line on the south; and the Transport Museum was less than 3/4 of a mile from my home, to boot.  My brother and I both became rabid railfans at an early age, spending a great deal of our time either on "the Hill," or wandering around the Museum, oftentimes both in  the same day.  Oh yes, to make things even more interesting, the St. Louis - San Fransisco {Frisco} main line to Springfiled Mo. was 1/4 mile to the south, and eventually was integrated into our stomping grounds as we got older.


By the time I was 16, I knew both the MoP's and the Frisco's complete history backwards and forwards {as did my brother}.  Ironically, by that time {1984} both roads had been merged; the Frisco went into Burlington Northern {now Burlington Northern Santa Fe} in 1980.  I missed both roads, but I got a real treat when I heard that the UP was sending #8444 to the Louisiana World's Fair - via St. Louis, over the Sedalia Sub!!  More than anything else, I wished I had been born about 20 years before I was; that way, I could have seen MoPac steam on The Hill.

Now all of a sudden, #8444 was going to give me a real taste of "the way it was."  My time machine was on its' way.  March 10, 1984 was a typical late-winter day for St. Louis.  We had had a 4'' snowfall the night before, which was enough to close my school - leaving me free to go time-tripping!  I lost no time putting on my hiking boots and parka, grabbing a camera, and hotfooting it down to the tracks.  I was struck by the beauty of the setting when I got there, and fired off a quick shot: 

The shot is looking west {downgrade}; the #8444 would be coming east, up the Hill.  The blue arrow I added in the brush to the right of the tracks is pointing at the mouth of East Barretts tunnel on the old alignment.  Just after grabbing the shot above, I heard the unmistakable sound of a deep steamboat whistle, accompanied by the sounds of a hard-working locomotive coming up the hill fast.  Simultaneously, a tornado of steam exhaust materialized on the horizon above the bridge in the distance.

I had just enough time to clear the tracks, wind the film, and hit the auto-flash, before my time-machine made her grand entrance:



Such was her speed, I barely had time for one more shot:

In the space of about 45 seconds, beginning to end, #8444 took Kirkwood Hill in stride, her 12-car train sailing along at about 45-50 mph {note the passenger/freight speed limit sign just ahead of 8444}.  However, she also transported me back in time a good four decades; in my mind's eye, I was seeing a MoPac 2101-series 4-8-4, rushing a troop train east as part of the buildup for the D-Day invasion of Europe!  All but forgotten was the snow and below-freezing temperature, and I got a second pleasant jolt as the aroma of 8444's rich "Bunker C" exhaust wafted down to my nostrils.

Thanks to the aroma, my mind's eye caught a glimpse of my Dad as a new high-school graduate, preparing to enter the Navy, and eventual assignment on transports, PT boats, and the odd minesweeper, during his tour of duty in WWII.  Bunker C oil was the fuel of choice then, and remained 8444's diet long enough to bridge the gap between my Dad in 1944, and me in 1984.  As the final cap to the festivities, this day in question {March 10} just happened to be my Dad's birthday!

The rest of that day passed very quickly; I took the film in to 1-Hour Foto at the mall that afternoon, and the shot of 8444 with the World's Fair '84 banner on her smoke-lifter was sitting by Dad's place at the dinner table when he got home that night, as an impromptu birthday present.  Dad was surprised and got quite a kick out of it.  "If I could have, I would have gone in late to work just to be able to see that engine with you, Chris."  I just shook my head and laughed; I didn't have the nerve to tell him he had been there {in a way}, thanks to my time-tripping, and #8444's magnificent sights, sounds, and smells.

It's been more winters than I care to count since that magical March day when I became a sixteen-year-old time-traveller.  Both the Union Pacific and the #844 are still with us, and going strong {she became #844 again in 1989, when the diesel that she had been renumbered for was retired}.  Dad left this world in 2002, but not before we had experienced five active steam locomotives together - including 844 again {the other four were Norfolk and Western #611, and 1218; Frisco #1522, and 844's big brother, UP #3985}.  Oh, and my brother is now a conductor on the BNSF.

No, despite conventional wisdom, you really can go time-travelling any time you want.  All you need is an active steam locomotive, a bit of historical knowledge, and a touch of imagination - the experience will do the rest, and you simply won't be the same when it's all over with.  I know; I've literally been there, and done that, as the saying goes.  And I can't wait until the next time I can do it again, too!!  Perhaps next time it'll snow just a bit more; sure beats these dog-days!!

A Steam time-trip is COOL, Boys and Girls.  I hope this tale was the same for y'all, as a way to briefly escape the dog-days.

More shortly............. 

Hot Enough For Ya (Slight Return)?

Heat got ya down?
Why not try a MANLY drink:

Hot Enough For Ya?

My local Good Humor man sure thinks so..........

Did Somebody Say "Passion?"

I've been thinking a lot about all manner of passion in my life lately, thanks to my newfound friendship described in the previous post.  No, not so much the fact that Aneet happens to be a beautiful woman {my favorite snack-passion}; it's more along the lines of my daily or near-daily passions, writing and music.  A couple other online conversations I've participated in recently also got me to thinking about what gets the old adrenaline going, and why.


My writing is the more complicated answer.  If it's a non-earnings piece like a blog or whatever, then pretty much anything goes with me, depending on the subject matter.  I'll always inject a healthy dose of the warped humor, even in a "serious" piece.  The trick in those instances is cloaking the humor as irony, sarcasm, or a Twilight Zone-esque twist out of left field {which usually comes across as black humor}.  Sometimes all three at once, again depending on the material.  


For the paying freelance stuff, I go by whatever guidelines are dictated in a fairly straightforward manner.  The humor still lurks though; I just have to be a bit more careful about how and when I employ it, if at all.  I mean, a misplaced one-liner can stand out like a banana on a Christmas tree; rather bad form in say, a medical treatment breakthrough-analysis article written for a hospital journal!  I tend to avoid "straight" journalism pieces, like old-school newspaper articles {think Joe Friday's "just the facts, ma'am,"}, as well.  They're just not appreciated - let alone even written - anymore; nowadays it's all politics, personal bias, or both.  Boring as hell, and rather self-serving, to boot.  Not my bag at all.


Common to both forms is the very medium employed - printed words on a page or a screen.  It's very difficult to really convey strong emotion in print, but I've acquired a rather large bag o' tricks over the decades - and this is precisely where the passion kicks in.  Those "tricks" are actually techniques I employ to bring the writing to life, make it reach out and grab a casual reader's attention.  If done properly, the reader's focus is also captured, hopefully with a positive feeling left in them at the end.  Even in something like the hypothetical medical journal article mentioned earlier, the right editing of a piece can make or break it, even if no silliness is employed.  This is simply passion for the craft of writing as a whole, in other words.


With music, well, it's much easier to convey emotion, capture focus, blow some minds, etc.  Music excites me and stirs the passions in far more dramatic ways, and on good plays I do my level best to broadcast that energy any way I possibly can.  I don't care if it's the thousandth time I've played a "moldie oldie," or the tenth time I've played a new song I've discovered; if it moves me in some way, that's all I need to take the ball and run like hell.  On good nights I can project this energy directly into my bandmates, get them as riled up as I am, and then we proceed to blow away the audience as a unit.  More often than not I'll get my passion jump-started by what the other cats are doing; once I pick up on their vibe or groove I lock it down tight, then go like a bat out of hell.


If I'm the engine of the band, then passion is my fuel - and I'm damn proud to be an unrepentant FUEL-HOG!!!  As perfect illustration, have a gander at this:




 
Now, one thing you must keep in mind - this vid was shot at a jam-session.  Oh sure, a lot of musicians wouldn't get so worked up over a "mere" jam - because they aren't passionate in that way. I bounce off of my colleagues here pretty much the same way I do at a regular concert, and I daresay the energy and emotion come across pretty clearly, no?  Watch carefully, and you'll see I don't go in for any sort of theatrics or stage-cliche`s at all; the music is doing all the  heavy lifting, as it should.  All it takes is some passion, and a little conviction.

Either writing or music, it's impossible for me to say which I love more, because the passion flows differently for each.  From a purely physical standpoint, the music is way out in front, for obvious reasons.  Adrenaline coupled with passion is like a match to gasoline - or even atomic fission, on just the right occasion!  I'd have to type something like 3,000 words per minute to work up even a fraction of the adrenaline that flows when I make music.  I guess the easiest way to look at it is to say writing represents the Dr. Jekyll side of me, and music is good old Mr. Hyde.  They can co-exist quite nicely, and even swap sides on occasion, but they're both aspects of the same thing - passion - and I don't ever want to be without either one. 


More shortly.............

Return to Blogging pt.2: Of Blogs, Burnout, Blues, and a Beauty.......

Okay, we're gonna start all over again.

How ya doing, boys and girls!?   Nice to see y'all once more.  Welcome to the re-launch of my modest blogging efforts.  Ironically, I seem to have come full circle in a way - the immediate predecessor to this blog launched in early 2006, before I split Blogspot to concentrate on MySpace.  Over the next five years, the MySpace thing took off on a pretty crazy ride; blowing my way back into music {both taking and leaving several wounds}; suffering along with everybody else as this country fell for the charms of a jumped-up snake-oil salesman; and not a little personal drama now and again to add spice and stir things up.


Regular followers of my MySpace chronicle will know the back story already, but for the newcomers it is strongly suggested you peruse the older blog archives to get you up to speed:

MySpace Blog

Yeah, I know five years is a lot of material to sift through, but the MS blog remains the best chronicle for the historical stuff.  And it does contain a handful of pieces I'm rather proud of - you might say writing, like music, is one of my passions.  However, things came to a head at the end of last year / beginning of this year and I pretty much abandoned any kind of social interaction, save for a half-hearted presence on Facebook.


Fed up with blogging the same old mess, and rather pissed off about MySpace's "re-launch" in October of last year - which destroyed all the best features of MS blogs - I threw in the towel and went off to lick my wounds.  My Mother's passing in January of this year made it much easier to up and split, but I really just needed a break from what had become more grind than fun.  It weren't that way in the beginning, and I needed some time to figure out why.

Now, a good six months later, things are sorted out for the most part - and the old passion is starting to make a comeback of sorts.  During my down time, I must have been subconsciously searching for a bit of understanding, because I eventually stumbled across another blog that contained many expressions of how I was feeling; better still, it is written by a rather charming lady - Anitra Ford, to be precise:  

  














If you're near to my age, and a fan of old-school daytime TV game-shows, you'll recall Anitra from The Price Is Right - she was one of the original "Barker's Beauties," and I had a heavy crush on her for many years as a lad.  She left the show in 1976, and slowly "faded away," or at least out of my ken.  Flash forward three and a half decades, and through the minor miracle of this Interwideweb-thingy, who should I stumble across online but the very same Beauty who had stolen my youthful heart?


Turns out she's had her own set of ups and downs that left her wondering about the "meaning of it all" much like I have been doing the first half of this year.  After a time chasing a career in the "Dream Factory," Anitra found other outlets for her creative talents; photography and poetry writing - which eventually led to trying her hand at blogging herself, so she could combine her two passions into one.  After quietly soaking her blog in for a time, I nerved myself and attempted to make contact.  Stone me if she didn't promptly give me a big welcome as a new Friend - on the strength of one or two little notes!  {She really does do wonderful photography and writing; check out her site, which is linked over there ----->  in my complete profile}.


LSS, thanks to Anitra's kindness and creative abilities, I'm once again exercising some of my own passion.  Oh, and did I mention that she's still a Beauty???  I never would have thought I'd meet a former model and actress in this way, but there you go - for me at least, life is consistently unconsistent, no matter how hard I might rail against it.  Anitra echoes a similar sentiment on her own blog, so I feel somewhat vindicated, if not totally mollified {which I'm not}.  Where things might go from here is anyone's guess, but it's a fairly safe bet I'll be here writing about it in some fashion {and having a good time with all my accustomed "blog SFX."}.  

So stick around and see how things might shake out.  Feedback is always welcome, so long as it's CIVIL.  I don't "discourse" any other way, dig?      Poke around in the MS archives, visit Anitra's site, or simply sit tight and wait for the next ping; just know that I really do appreciate all of you who read or follow these silly little ramblings of mine.   


Anyone up for sharing another roller-coaster ride?