tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21377208094305791832024-03-06T14:04:43.407-05:00The Paleo DrummerFood, Life, Music -- All Perched Precariously in Balance (or Not)Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.comBlogger475125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-86022133844587372532021-07-25T15:52:00.003-04:002021-07-25T15:54:59.232-04:00I think I'm... out?<p>Hey there. </p><p>If you were to take a serious look at my posting numbers, you'd see that in the last few years I haven't had much to say here.</p><p>I've been giving this fact some serious thought, and I keep hitting a hard truth: what I really like writing about these days, when my lawyer hat isn't on, is music. Not health and fitness. Not healthy food. I've said about all I can say about those things. </p><p>I'm, at heart, a music junkie. I've been one since I was ten years old. You'll see music scattered through these pages even though this was not intended to be a music blog. I decided to finally own up: I don't want to write here any more, at least not at the moment.</p><p>I started a music blog. It's called <a href="https://selfreferenced.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Self-Referenced</a>. The title comes from a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minutemen_(band)" target="_blank">Minutemen</a> song. If you don't have any interest in edgier music -- punk, alternative, etc., with a smattering of classic rock, soul, and funk -- then you probably aren't going to find much to like there. On the other hand, if you are a fellow traveler in the land of the music-obsessed, and you already like my writing, you might enjoy what you'll find there. I gave it that title not just because I love the Minutemen, but because it's intended to be a very personal account of my musical thoughts -- a self-referential trip into my life seeing bands and obsessing over albums.<br /></p><p>As of the day I'm writing this post, there are only three posts over on that blog. But that's three posts in three days. That fact gives you some insight into my desire and motivation to write there, rather than here where I can barely reach three posts in a year these days.</p><p>Whatever your level of involvement here over the past ten-ish years, I greatly appreciate it. No shit. Seriously. I just don't have anything more to add to the pile of health/fitness/food writing than I've already posted, whereas I have approximately 10,000 stories of seeing this or that band. But don't think that doesn't mean that I don't love and appreciate every damn one of you. Maybe I'll be back here. Maybe not. But I'll keep the page up.</p><p>In the meantime, I'll see you over on the other blog, if you want to stop by. Either way, thanks. Really.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-86429530382895315722021-05-10T09:03:00.002-04:002021-05-10T09:03:35.292-04:00I await your guidance, sir, with enthusiasm<p>As you might understand from my previous post, nothing would make me happier than getting rid of the mask mandate -- but only if it makes good scientific sense to do so.</p><p>Apparently we're getting there, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/09/health/us-coronavirus-sunday/index.html" target="_blank">according to Dr. Fauci</a>.</p><p>I trust the guy. He's had a long, storied career and he's been right much more than he's been wrong. Somehow he even managed to negotiate working for that fool Donald Trump and still dispense solid advice. </p><p>I don't have any profundities for you right now. I don't even have any humor to share at the moment. But I <u>am</u> excited to "get back to normal" as much as we can. So when The Doc says it's cool to ditch the masks indoors, I'm in.</p><p>Here's hoping....<br /></p><p>Thanks, Doc.<br /></p>Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-1261475364082986392021-05-09T17:25:00.004-04:002021-05-09T17:30:07.403-04:00Hoo boy... hmmm?<p>It's been awhile. I'll (mostly, maybe?) leave it at that.<br /></p><p>COVID-19 hit us all somehow, whether we got it or not (I didn't). Not for a goddamn moment will I compare my own vague mindfog/writer's block to the struggles of anyone who got the virus, lost someone to it, etc. It's not even close. </p><p>Around here, we stayed home, followed all the health/mask protocols, were there for each other when we needed to be, and stayed the hell out of the way of each other when necessary too. We had it VERY easy in comparison to almost anyone. Neither of us lost an income source, or even knew someone who passed away because of the virus.<br /></p><p>But it still messed with my head, and it probably messed with yours too even if you were as lucky as we were.</p><p>There was a joke-y meme going around at one point in Pandemia about how the pandemic was "an introvert's dream." I sort of doubt that, but I'll tell you one thing for sure: it was not an extrovert's dream, and I'm an extrovert. </p><p>The things I do -- other than work (from home) as a lawyer -- to keep my brain firing on all (or any) cylinders all got canceled.<br /></p><p>Band practice? Didn't happen other than a couple attempts at outdoor/driveway stuff that was hard to organize and likely enraged my neighbors with volume and a shitty PA. </p><p>Gigs? Hahahaha. No. We're not fucking stupid.</p><p>Meetups with friends? There were a few outside-'round-the-fire moments, but those got tougher to hold (or enjoy) as winter hit.<br /></p><p>Gym? No. Again, I'm not fucking stupid.</p><p>Volunteering at the animal shelter? Nope.</p><p>About all I did away from my home from mid-March 2020 until my vaccination immunity kicked in early April 2021 was occasionally go grocery shopping -- with a mask on. </p><p>Shit, man. I didn't realize how much I missed the most basic/mundane of human interactions -- casual conversations with strangers in places of business -- until those weren't happening. In the beginning of Pandemia, it was particularly desperate and nuts. Fellow shoppers weren't just masked and silent; they were fucking rude. Costco became a place to avoid except on weekdays, or else you could risk some sort of Mad Max remake over a 50-pound bag of beans in Aisle 12. But even after things settled down in that respect, shopping for food was still grim. I remember one particular moment that I recounted in a text exchange with a bandmate in about August 2020:</p><p><span></span>Bandmate: "Hey, how you holding up in all this?" Me: "Uhhhhh, I don't want to complain but some basic human conversational interaction with anyone other than my wife would be good. My wife is a spectacular human being but I'm an extrovert and I need lots of conversations with lots of people, and there's none of that." Bandmate: "I kinda figured. You're not the shy, reserved type. Introverts are winning at the moment." Me: "Ha. No. I'm not. You wanna know how bad it is? The only conversation I have had in-person with anyone in the last I don't know how long was with a Whole Foods cashier who recognized me despite the mask and she had a very quick, 'Hey, good to see you healthy, etc." convo with me. The result? That night I had a sex dream involving that woman." Bandmate: "Hahahahaha. That's amazing." Me: "I'm not sure that's the word I'd choose. But it's certainly a sign that my brain apparently believed that that convo was about all the mental stimulation I was gonna get so why not run with it?"</p><p>Seriously. Dude. Come on, now.</p><p>Anyway, I said I wouldn't go on and on about why I disappeared from the blogosphere, but I just kind of did despite myself. What <u>did</u> I do during Pandemia? I worked a <u>lot</u>. I'm fortunate that I at least had that outlet. Some clients got some extra-high-quality work out of me (if I do say so myself). I also mostly didn't drive my wife crazy. Together we watched more TV than ever in our lives. I also worked out a lot and played drums a fair amount as well. That's about it, although I'm sure I have some stories for you that will pop up here with any luck -- just as soon as my still pandemic-scarred brain gets its act fully back together. I'm happy to be (at least allegedly) immune, post-vaccination.<br /></p><p>So, I'm back? I think? Band practice is slowly getting itself back together. Everything else will too. Eventually, when it's safe, the mask mandate in New Jersey will be eliminated and a band that I'm in will play a gig, and I'll go see others play gigs too. Fuck, I miss live music. I'm ready.<br /></p><p>But no, I don't think I'll be able to get through that cashier's line at Whole Foods without laughing to/at myself.<br /></p><p> <br /></p><p> <br /></p><p> </p><p> </p><p><br /></p>Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-49828684780191983762019-11-23T08:13:00.000-05:002019-11-23T08:16:41.833-05:00Hey, look! It's time to quit something again for a while.I'm writing this just to let you know that even the people who seem generally to have their diet and exercise together may not be as care-free about all this shit as it might seem.<br />
<br />
My personal battle du jour is, apparently, coffee.<br />
<br />
I love the stuff. Too much, it would seem. My stomach is objecting. In precise medical terms, it burns like a motherfucker too often lately and coffee seems to be the cause. (I also have had a mild hiatal hernia for most of my life and that's involved too, but trust me when I say that coffee really seems to be the most direct agent of doom here).<br />
<br />
Funny thing is: I never drank coffee until my forties.<br />
Another funny thing is: I'm really bad at moderation.<br />
<br />
When I plunged into the big, bad world of coffee, in 2005 or so, I did not do so in a measured way. I dove in, off the ten meter high dive, and immersed myself fully. I've been there ever since.<br />
<br />
So I'm committed to two things:<br />
--getting an endoscopy to find out if this situation is worse than "usual"<br />
--quitting coffee for an extended period<br />
<br />
In fact, if quitting coffee has the immediate effect that I expect it may, I probably can skip the endoscopy, which is scheduled for mid-January at the moment. <br />
<br />
I know how to do this quitting thing.<br />
<br />
I've done it before. I can quit anything.<br />
<br />
But, with coffee, you really can't just cold-turkey the quitting. Not without a lot of pain anyway. That will bring crushing headaches of doom. You have to taper down using black and green tea.<br />
<br />
Fuck. I really like coffee.<br />
<br />
I'm going to miss it. But I'm at a point in life where I work for myself, when I feel like it. I get up when I want. I rarely have to be TOTALLY FUCKING "ON" in a manner that demands/requires the "zoom" that coffee supplies.<br />
<br />
But, oh, I like that zoom.<br />
<br />
I also previously lived 40-something years without it, and it's not like black tea is caffeine-free.<br />
<br />
Wish me luck. This sort of sucks right now. I have to throw an old friend out on the street, and then see if he was actually the problem.<br />
<br />
Onward.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-69166021314268927422019-07-16T09:32:00.002-04:002019-07-16T09:35:33.512-04:00Dan John -- Simple Strength, a.k.a. restarting my deadliftFive or six years ago, this was me, deadlifting 425 pounds three times using a trap bar:<br />
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It's nothing spectacular (that third rep... as I say in the video: "Hooooooo!"), but it's pretty damn solid for a then-early-fifties dude who never made powerlifting anything other than just a way to stay strong. I wasn't competing, just lifting at a CrossFit gym. I bet you know someone that can deadlift a lot more. But more on-point is that you probably know a lot more who can't.<br />
<br />
Fast forward to the present, and that "pretty damn solid" deadlifting person is not really me. I'm not weak by any means, but I am pretty sure that I've let my deadlift atrophy to the point of not being able to do anything close to what's in that video. The excuses pile up fast: I didn't have time because of work; I was doing a lot of (valuable) HIIT-style training; I got injured. Blah blah blah fucking blah....<br />
<br />
I'm semi-retired now. I have time. I'd like to get my deadlift going again.<br />
<br />
When I want to do something simple like "get stronger," my go-to person -- my <i>guardo camino</i> -- has always been Dan John. He's not fancy. He's just simple and direct. Currently, I would fail his basic test of being in really good shape: being able to deadlift 60 reps in 30 minutes at 315 pounds. I'd like to get to a point where I can do that again (yes, <i>again</i>; back when that video was filmed I could pass that 30-minute/60-rep/315-pound test).<br />
<br />
So I found <a href="http://danjohn.net/2017/01/a-simple-strength-program/">this Dan John article</a> online.<br />
<br />
It's called "Simple Strength." It's... simple. After warm-up, take the biggest weight that you can lift comfortably for five reps and, instead of five reps, do: 1-2-3 (with breaks) three total times (so 18 total reps). The reps should be easy-ish, not a struggle. Bump up the weight as it gets too easy.<br />
<br />
I started last night (on a straight bar; I don't own a trap bar), and today I have that glorious just-slightly-sore post-deadlift feeling that I've been missing. I'm planning on deadlifting twice a week for now. I may never get back to three reps at 425. That's fine. I just want to recover what I can and be stronger than now.<br />
<br />
And stay stronger than all those old dudes who don't deadlift.<br />
<br />
Let's go.Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-52322765636431762792019-07-11T18:27:00.002-04:002019-07-11T18:47:33.954-04:00Catching up.... with a question about the carnivore dietSometimes people email me questions. Usually I just respond directly, but I'm tellin' ya... <a href="https://www.thepaleodrummer.com/2019/07/well-that-was-bad-idea-time-to.html">that job that I just quit </a>had me so busy that I was ignoring a lot of things that I usually pay attention to. One was my Paleo Drummer email account. Another, by the way, was the task of approving comments on this blog. I'll approve almost any comment, except spam, that is. But if I didn't have the comments set up the way they are to require approval, the comment section would be overrun with Viagra spam or, lately (why????), escort-service ads. Anyway, if you were waiting for your comment to be approved, it's been done. Or it's been rejected as spammy. Either way, I've slogged my way through that list. So now it's on to the mailbag....<br />
<br />
I've gotten this question emailed to me a <i>lot</i>: <i>"What's your opinion of the carnivore diet?"</i><br />
<br />
My answer is neither entirely pro nor entirely con. I'll start by saying that my initial reaction was the same as a lot of yours: how the hell do you not end up with scurvy from eating <i>just</i> meat? I don't know what the "how" part of the answer is, but it seems that if you really <i>just</i> eat meat, somehow your Vitamin C requirements to avoid scurvy (which are <a href="https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vitamin-c-deficiency-symptoms">reallllllly low</a> anyway) get even lower. There are people who have been strictly adhering to a carnivore diet for 10, or even 20, years and they are not suffering from scurvy. On the other hand, if you eat some grains regularly and otherwise just eat meat -- in other words, if you don't go all-in on carnivore and half-ass it -- you may find your Vitamin C needs are higher than for the all-carnivores and you may have a deficiency in that regard. Why? I do not know. I'm not a doctor, or a biochemist. But it appears that if your sole concern is scurvy, <i>super strict</i> adherence to the carnivore diet is not likely to be the first train to Scurvyville for you.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, the pluses of the carnivore diet seem real. Reduced body fat, higher energy, super low triglycerides, weight loss if that's what you're looking for. Honestly, the benefits seem, most of the time, to be almost exactly the same benefits as you'd get from eating strict very-low-carb paleo, but they are the real deal. <br />
<i> </i><br />
My best guess is that the reason people who are metabolically damaged see such spectacular results from going all-in carnivore are mostly the <i>very same reasons</i> the same type of drastic improvement occurs with a Whole 30 or all-in paleo. Elimination diets do wonders for short-term results. There is a huge benefit to ditching grains and sugar.<br />
<br />
So have I considered going all-carnivore? I have. But I'm not likely to do it for two reasons. First, one of the principal reasons I'm not a vegetarian or [shudder] a vegan is because I think that vegetarianism and veganism often leave you <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23356638">lacking in important nutrients, particularly B-12</a>. I feel the same way about the lack of antioxidant intake for a carnivore diet. Vegetables, particularly organic ones, are a rich and varied source of antioxidants that are plainly beneficial. <i>Can</i> you live without them? Sure. <i>Should</i> you though? I really haven't figured out why you would want to unless you are a rare one-percenter for whom all vegetables seem to be a gut irritant. <br />
<br />
The second reason I'm not all-carnivore is just because I like eating meat <i>and </i>vegetables too much, and I feel great eating that way. Eating only meat is, for me, going to rob me of some of the joy of food to a degree that I'm not interested in it and I can't imagine the pluses are going to outweigh that minus. (On the other hand, eliminating most carbs is a huge plus for me. I feel way better low-carb than I do eating grains regularly). It's all about weighing the individual costs and benefits. If I ate only meat, eating meat would seem like a job, and I'm against turning food prep and the act of eating into a job. As I've said before in other contexts, I'd eat dirt if you can convince me it's a great idea in terms of costs versus benefits. But I'm, so far, unconvinced on this one that it's for me. I'm good with mostly meat and greens.<br />
<br />
However, am I telling you <i>not</i> to go carnivore? Of course not. I think you should try it if it interests you. See how you do on it. You may love it. You may live a long and healthy life that way. I have friends who are all-carnivore or 98% carnivore (with the remaining 2% just a few greens and berries). <i>My doctor</i> is mostly carnivore, fercryinoutloud. Give it a shot. Hell, I feel the same way about veganism. Try it. See what happens. There's enough sucks/rules dogmatic bullshit and food-related hysteria out there already. But there's your answer -- for me. I'm not likely to jump on that train anytime soon. I'm good with low-carb paleo/primal eating. Cheers.<br />
<br />Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-74461847943326696572019-07-06T14:07:00.000-04:002019-07-06T22:27:14.173-04:00Well... That was a bad idea. Time to reconsider. And move forward.I've led a sort of charmed life when it comes to employment. When I retired last December from a 30-ish-year stint as a public defender, I could honestly say that I'd never had a job that I didn't like. Really, <i>never.</i> When I was in high school and college, I worked as a stock guy at a KMart, as a cashier at a convenience store, and as a data-entry guy at an office. I liked all those jobs just fine. They served their purpose -- cash for the money-strapped student -- and I am still friends with some coworkers from way back then. As a lawyer, I went from judicial law clerk to a stint in a private firm to a career as a public defender and I loved every one of those jobs too.<br />
<br />
So back in January, when I wrote <a href="https://www.thepaleodrummer.com/2019/01/stepping-up-to-brain-challenge.html">this article</a>, I made a joke about possibly hating a new lawyer gig that I was taking on -- a public-interest position in Philly.<br />
<br />
But that was gallows humor. I didn't <i>really</i> believe that I'd hate that job.<br />
<br />
Well, shit.... As it turns out, I hated that job.<br />
<br />
It was a confluence of blech -- a lot of hours away from home, work that I wasn't crazy about, and a strange prison-like solitude because of the odd structure of the office where my work group was small and stuffed into an office with a larger group that knew nothing of what we were doing.<br />
<br />
Seriously, other than some of the people, whom I genuinely liked, I really hated that job.<br />
<br />
So I quit. After only five months. <br />
<br />
Now it's time to sort out what "retirement" really means for me. Once again, I'm lucky: I bring home a large percentage of my former salary thanks to a pension. So that frees me up to, well, dabble. There will be some law -- I'm still really good at that, particularly in New Jersey, where I practiced law for more than three decades before the unfortunate detour into Pennsylvania. But there will be vacations to take, and bands to play in -- I'm in three of those right now: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/LowerWolves/">one</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/All-Violet-2922775061281267/">two</a>, and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thesparklers/">three</a>. I've even decided to offer myself up to friends (who live in cool places) as an occasional live-in dogsitter. And there will certainly be more time for the gym and yoga.<br />
<br />
And maybe, just maybe, there will be a lot more writing here. I'm not going to promise you anything reckless like a daily post, but I really want to get back to the frequency of, say, 2014 or so when it comes to spewing my blahblahblah on this page. It's fun and sometimes creative. Occasionally I even say something smart. And I meet more of you that way. Really!<br />
<br />
I'll end by quoting Frank Costanza -- not for the first time: <br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iNXhh7D9_cA" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-39542495865340353022019-01-26T10:16:00.002-05:002019-01-26T10:22:37.780-05:00Stepping up to the brain challenge<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
It's a repeating theme in my head: I'm <i>running out of time</i>.<br />
<br />
No, not imminently (that I know of), but I'm 56 years old. If I'm really lucky, I'll get 30 or so more very healthy years on the planet. What am I going to do with that time?<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.thepaleodrummer.com/2018/09/cutting-cord-aka-ladies-and-gentlemen.html">As I told you a few months ago</a>, I recently "retired" from a job, as a public-interest lawyer, that I had for almost 30 years. When I decided to leave, I hadn't nailed down <i>exactly</i> what the next step was. But I knew one thing for sure: I wanted to keep my brain busy.<br />
<br />
Just about every study/article/conclusion on healthy aging involves an active mind. Gray matter will rot, figuratively speaking, if not stimulated.<br />
<br />
Well... here comes the stimulation: shortly after I made the retirement decision, a public-interest law practice in Philly chased me down and made me a full-time offer. I accepted. So I "retired" for all of two months, and I'm headed back to work, in a different state, doing work that is related to my old work, in a <i>very</i> general sense, but it's really not the same kind of job.<br />
<br />
"You understand that basically <i>no one</i> does what you're about to do? <i>No one</i> jumps jurisdictions at age 56 and takes on a whole new body of law. This move is going to be amazing for your brain." That was a friend telling me the positives of the new gig. "No one" is an exaggeration, but the point is a solid one. My aging brain will be still on the move, and that's awesome.<br />
<br />
But it's going to be a hell of a challenge too. There's a reason that "no one does what [I'm]] about to do": because it's really hard work. I'm a very good lawyer. But, unlike my old job, where I already knew 98% of what I needed to do the job, this one has required me to realize that I have a lot of information to amass in a short time. I know New Jersey law; Pennsylvania is a land of mystery, so to speak.<br />
<br />
So the last few weeks, I've been studying up. I've spent at least a few hours each day, sometimes a lot more, reading (and reading and reading...) case law with which I was previously mostly unfamiliar. I'm entering a new arena.<br />
<br />
It's a little daunting.<br />
<br />
It's also exhilarating and cool. And really, I don't screw around when it comes to being prepared. I don't know if "most people" would start prepping three to four weeks in advance for a new job, but I'm not most people, and prepping is exactly what I've been doing.<br />
<br />
If I'm lucky, I balance this job with all the fun creative things I do as a drummer, and my brain is so awash in endorphins, challenges, and growth that I am -- to quote a tattoo artist who made me laugh when he applied the phrase to me -- "<i>crushing</i> life."<br />
<br />
Or I suppose that I<i> could</i> hate it.<br />
<br />
I'm about to find out. Wish me luck. My brain already is thanking me.<br />
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<br />Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-16489112309553387242019-01-23T14:48:00.002-05:002019-01-23T14:48:35.990-05:00An "aging" podcast that's well worth your time, or: how eating paleo/primal matters a lot more as you get olderAs I've been heard to say: "As you get older, don't eat like a six-year-old and
don't drink like a college student."<br />
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Here's some science behind that
concept:<br />
<br />
I started playing catch-up with some <a href="https://robbwolf.com/">Robb Wolf</a> podcasts recently and stumbled on <a href="https://robbwolf.com/2018/11/13/episode-416-dr-michael-rose-aging-adaptation-and-diet/">this one</a>. Wow. What a keeper.<br />
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<span data-offset-key="9o40d-0-0"><span data-text="true">Dr. Michael Rose's research, which he describes at length in the podcast, has led to the conclusion that aging represents a cessation of adaptation. Translated, from a dietary perspective: at a certain age, our bodies cease to be able to handle certain neolithic foods as well as we previously have. </span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="4pjtt-0-0"><span data-text="true">So, while no one should be eating crappy processed Frankenfood at any age, younger folks can do fine, even thrive, on a wide-ranging diet that is not remotely paleolithic. However, at a certain point -- Rose says between 30 and 50 years old for most people -- the ability to handle that neolithic food load decreases sharply. </span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="5agud-0-0"><span data-text="true">In other words, between ages 30 and 50, the *adaptation* to neolithic foods disappears and those foods become a significant source of inflammation and aging. His prescription: eat paleo as you get older than 30, and certainly by age 50.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="6v4ap-0-0"><span data-text="true">The concept makes sense to me. I watch 20-something friends shovel in all sorts of things that I wouldn't eat now, and they do so without significant current consequence. When I ate those things in my thirties and early forties, I got heavier, softer, less-athletic, and generally less healthy. When I went paleo in 2010 at age 46, things changed quickly for the better. I leaned out, gained energy, and generally felt stronger and more alive. </span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="8qie6-0-0"><span data-text="true">You probably knew the basic idea already: when you get to a certain age, you cannot eff around with bad food and drink like you used to. Dr. Rose's research provides a strong genetic/evolutionary-science basis for that "obvious" fact.</span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="536ok-0-0"><span data-text="true">Link to the podcast is <a href="https://robbwolf.com/2018/11/13/episode-416-dr-michael-rose-aging-adaptation-and-diet/">here</a>.</span></span></div>
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Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-8566719407559937702018-12-28T13:20:00.002-05:002018-12-28T13:34:15.566-05:00I do yoga because I suck at yoga "Adult humans are really bad about sticking with something that is good for them, but that they aren't great at. Doing something difficult requires strength. Be strong. "<br />
-- my yoga teacher this morning, dropping a truth bomb.<br />
<br />
*************<br />
<br />
For a while now, I've been operating under the theory that we are happiest if we are really good, even great, at at least two things. It helps if one of those things is the way the person makes a living -- you know, a skill that leaves you able to afford food/housing/etc. at a level that makes you happy/comfortable or at least takes away some worries. I also think that, ideally, the second thing ought to be a hell of a lot of fun. (Obviously, if you're lucky enough to combine fun <i>and</i> making a living, you get some sort of Life Bonus Points).<br />
<br />
I'm doing OK on both of those fronts. I've always been pretty accomplished at my attorney day gig. And I've become a pretty damn good drummer too. "10,000 hours," and all that. <br />
<br />
But lately I've been thinking about another category: doing something that you suck at. Because if "relentless self-improvement" is the goal -- hint: it <i>is; it really is</i> -- just improving the things that you're already great at seems like cheating, or selling yourself short.<br />
<br />
************** <br />
<br />
I've been going to the same yoga studio for the last three years, and they're closing. No big deal, right? Just find another, you say. There are tons of yoga places around. OK, sure. So I shopped a bit, looking for a mix of different types of classes, at convenient times, etc. And I found a studio that seems to fit the bill.<br />
<br />
When I got out of the chilled-out/hippie comfort zone of my usual yoga place, I was then almost immediately reminded of one thing: good lord, I suck at yoga.<br />
<br />
I'm 56 years old. Despite being in generally good shape -- healthy, decently strong, good aerobic capacity, etc. -- I have arthritis in both knees, both shoulders and at least my right elbow (and probably the left one too). That right elbow is also damaged enough from 37 years of drumming that it doesn't allow my right arm to fully straighten in a locked-out position. I was at the old yoga place -- a quiet studio with a mostly older clientele -- for so long that I sort of forgot how many rungs down the proverbial ladder of yoga skills I am. I can get left in the dust pretty quickly.<br />
<br />
At the new place, a lot more than at the old one, the proverbial dust and I get a little time together quite often, while the rest of the class plows ahead at full speed. The clients here are all ages, and all skill levels, but mostly they are much more accomplished at yoga than I am. It's a humbling exercise to be practicing at this studio. <br />
<br />
**************<br />
<br />
But yoga is not about competition, you might say (and you'd be right). Sometimes, being a bit of an overly-competitive jackass, I have to remind myself of that fact over and over. "YOGA IS NOT ABOUT COMPETITION," I mentally yell to my inner self as I wait for class to begin and the room fills with beautiful people who can accomplish twisty/bendy things with their bodies that appear to be flat-out sorcery.<br />
<br />
I mostly focus inward and, depending on the class and the teacher, struggle somewhere between a little and a lot.<br />
<br />
But, in the new studio, I'm already learning cool new things too: like that doing yoga when the room is already warm-ish and there is also a giant infrared lamp turned on does crazy positive things to both my state of mind and my flexibility. That ginormous glowing infrared lamp doesn't heat the room. Nope, in its own bit of sorcery, <i>it heats the people in the room</i> <i>but not the room</i> <i>itself</i>. My only prior experience, a couple years ago, with "hot yoga" was in a grossly humid studio that was so unpleasant that we were one small step from doing yoga in Satan's armpit (or close to <a href="https://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sea/2597736393.html">this</a>). The infrared experience is nothing like that. Or at least the humidity/armpit part is removed. You get really warm; you sweat; but you do not feel like you are in a rain forest. The heat comes from within because the lamp heats your insides. I told you: sorcery. Wonderful wonderful sorcery.<br />
<br />
Just the other day, in an infrared class, instead of mentally mumbling, "Oh I don't think so," to myself when the teacher suggested transitioning one difficult pose into another tougher one, I just... did the harder pose. When sweat is pouring out of me, I am not thinking about anything else. I'm <i>in the moment</i> -- you know, that place we're always supposed to be?<br />
<br />
*************<br />
<br />
But this post is about sucking at something, not about success, and let's not pretend -- despite small gains being made in the mental and flexibility arenas -- that I don't suck at yoga. I <i>definitely</i> suck at yoga.<br />
<br />
But here's the thing: in a Zen trick of sorts, that's kind of the point, hmmm? Somewhere, even amidst the modest improvements, there is an ever-present thought that no matter how much yoga I practice, I am never going to be able to do whatever the hell that pose was that the teacher showed us at one point today. And that's OK. <br />
<br />
Really, it's not just OK; it's why I keep moving forward. <br />
<br />
It's fine to do things that you're good at, and it's even better to get really good at those things, but sometimes -- despite my reflexive recoil against such new-agey phrases -- it really <i>is</i> the journey and not the destination that's important. That concept right there is why I do yoga: because I suck at yoga, the "journey" will be an endless path forward, and forward is a good direction. Indeed it's the only direction worth going.<br />
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Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-34618386884068313972018-12-17T13:04:00.001-05:002018-12-17T13:04:33.462-05:00When the going gets tough...."This was us all on the planet lamenting the loss of a man who was a master human being. And the density of that loss is of great weight: a mass of massive missingness."<br />
--Howe Gelb (1994) in the <a href="https://www.pioneertownsun.com/pappy-allens-legacy-a-master-human-being/">Pioneertown Sun</a> lamenting the death of friend and collaborator Pappy Allen.<br />
<br />
"The massive missingness." That wordsmithery stuck with me all these years. Mired in New Jersey at the time -- in every way <i>not</i> romanticized by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Springsteen">Artist Formerly Known as Mr. Julianne Phillips</a> -- I never read that particular issue, or any other, of the Cali-desert-based Pioneertown Sun. But I was a big fan of Gelb's band Giant Sand -- deeply obsessed with their then-current album, <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/glum-mw0000118205">Glum</a> -- and I must have read an interview with him, likely in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Option_(music_magazine)">Option Magazine</a> (speaking of obsessions), where he employed that phrase. I read that line, dug it, remembered it, and put it into the tool kit, filed under: "Don't overuse."<br />
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******<br />
More than once in the blahblahbloggery of these many years, I've made reference to my alleged superpower: mostly I look forward, not back. That approach is <i>mostly</i> positive, some sort of nod to the wisdom of Zen. I am generally not bogged down in the slop of the past. Hell, I can't even stay angry with anyone for very long. I'm just driving toward that shiny thing on the horizon, figuring that we've all been through some shit and that we'll all break through it. Or not -- and having watched the "or not" play itself out in the lives of others is a scary incentive for me to rarely look back much at all, and almost never at losses.<br />
<br />
Or at present-tense losses to be.<br />
<br />
*******<br />
I'm usually someone that bangs out a blog post pretty quickly. But not this one. I wrote a little and then it has sat, untouched, for a few weeks. When I first began this post, I wrote what you see above and also the following bit:<br />
<br />
"In a few days, I'm out the door at a job as an attorney that I've had for 29 years.<br />
<br />
I'm not leaving because I'm burnt out, or feel myself slipping, or winding down. (More <a href="https://www.thepaleodrummer.com/2018/09/cutting-cord-aka-ladies-and-gentlemen.html">here</a> if you really care about the reasoning). <br />
<br />
More than one person has noted to me that I don't seem very sentimental, and that <i>others</i> are a lot more sentimental about me leaving than I am.<br />
<br />
I plead (mostly) guilty. And here is your explanation: forward means forward, and the fear of the massive missingness is strong. We all build up walls. They aren't all bad. Some are extremely useful. This particular 'always forward' mentality is generally a good one in that regard."<br />
<br />
*********<br />
Well, non-sentimentality and forward thinking was the plan anyway.... I <i>thought</i> I could just plow through all those feelings in a Cyborg-like way.<br />
<br />
But then my job threw me <i>two</i> different retirement parties, and I got to thinking -- always dangerous, I know -- and I got a little better realization of how some people were really positively affected by my work over the years, and how much we'd miss each other. Sure enough, the Guy Who Doesn't Really Do the Past got forced to take the past into account. The "massive missingness" was present more than I expected.<br />
<br />
It took about a week post-job, but, damn, when the "feels" hit after all those goodbyes those feelings were truly something. Like all sources of stress in my life, this particular one visited most prominently at 3 am one night, and then the next night again. Despite being "retired" -- supposedly free from the bullshit demands of a job, at least temporarily (more on that in another post -- we can't cover <i>everything</i> in this one) -- I was a bit of a sleep-derived mess after just a couple nights like that.<br />
<br />
**********<br />
If you've been around these parts for very long, you'll know just what I decided to do next:<br />
re-start my meditation practice.<br />
<br />
"WHY DID YOU EVER STOP?' some of you are yelling at me. Because, like most of us, I have -- I dunno -- shit to do, and, like some of us, I usually feel pretty good most of the time. So I get lazy. When I have lots on my plate and I am not feeling bad, I often slowly but surely lapse out of daily meditation.<br />
<br />
Ironically, just two days before I left work at the old job forever, we had a continuing legal education (CLE) seminar on mindfulness for attorneys. It was run by a guy named <a href="http://www.mindfulnessforlawyers.com/">Jon Krop</a>, and his meditation pitch was simple -- very close to what I've previously said on these pages, actually (and, yes, then ignored myself) -- and direct: just do it, every day. A strong theme of Krop's talk was that repetition is more important than duration. In other words, ten minutes of meditation <i>every </i>day is far more valuable than a whole lot of meditation crammed into one day a week.<br />
<br />
Krop is specifically a proponent of morning meditation, for a basic reason: it just <i>fits</i> better into the day. "Just do it first thing," he urged us, "Before anything else." I decided to give that strategy a shot. I'm a nighttime/before-bed meditator traditionally, but, as I've made clear, I'm also known for ditching meditation too easily sometimes. "Too tired to meditate" is an easy excuse just before bed. Maybe my morning routine could start with 10-15 minutes of meditation? Maybe I'll keep at it for a longer while that way? I jumped back in.<br />
<br />
**********<br />
Unsurprisingly, the results have been spectacular. Yes, I've had all the usual thoughts that I never should have stopped meditating. But the stressful 3 a.m. wakeups also immediately vanished. I learned to address some of those "missingness" feelings more head-on than I'd been doing. Hell, I even made a few changes to my fitness routine to get me to the gym and to yoga more often than I'd been going in the last couple of months.<br />
<br />
It's almost like when your head is stress-free (or at least lower-stress), you make better decisions more often. Almost exactly like that.<br />
<br />
Granted, restarting meditation for me is like the proverbial bicycle ride; I never "forget" how to meditate. That's because I've been at it for years. A few months away? No big deal. I just settle in, and let that wave of calm wash over me and, yeah, I invariably wonder what my damn problem is that I quit too easily. But it's not a struggle to restart. If you've never been as deeply into a meditation routine, your mileage may vary in that regard.<br />
<br />
But really, whether you are an experienced practitioner or not, Mr. Krop has the one critical part of meditation right: just do it, every day. Repetition is the key to success.<br />
<br />
Maybe we should start another meditation challenge soon? I think so. More on that idea soon. In the meantime, I'll be staying the course, every morning.Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-85059462361408837872018-09-28T12:35:00.001-04:002018-09-28T18:40:36.371-04:00Cutting the Cord, a.k.a. Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in SpaceHonestly, it's a little weird.<br />
<br />
I've been in the same job for 29 years, and I'm leaving in two months. <br />
<br />
Thanks to a retirement system that I never used to think about when I was younger, I don't <i>have</i> to get a new job to have enough money to live on. I'm a lucky man, and I'm grateful as hell.<br />
<br />
But I'll almost certainly keep working in some form or other.<br />
<br />
I'm leaving because I have pretty solid info that moves are afoot -- among those who have the power to make such moves -- to change aspects of that very retirement system in a way that would cost me a lot of money if I stick around. It would be a ridiculous and foolish risk to stay -- or so say those who advise me on financial decisions. The math on leaving adds up -- easily -- whereas the math on staying makes the obvious sentimentality of that potential course of action seem something close to reckless.<br />
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************** <br />
By the way, in case you can't tell, I'm being intentionally vague. If you're a long-time reader of this blog, you'll know that we don't <i>ever</i> talk about my day job as a lawyer here. I'm trying to maintain that facade, for now anyway.<br />
**************<br />
<br />
OK, it's probably closer to <i>really</i> weird. I'm really good at my day job. I <i>could</i> keep doing it forever.<br />
<br />
But it's also exhilarating as hell to be free-falling, with a giant safety net below me.<br />
<br />
I'm 56 years old and in two months I can do <i>whatever</i> I want.<br />
<br />
Have I mentioned the exhilaration part of the deal?<br />
<br />
I'm in two bands. I do volunteer work. I teach. Add in travel, gym, yoga, playing sports, etc., and I don't think I'll be anything close to bored. Last night I had a few ciders with a guy that works in a law office that I might want to join one day. Or not. I can also just handle individual cases once I'm "retired." There's talk of relocating to the Mountain West some day.<br />
<br />
Hell, there might even be a book in me. There could be some freelancing or other work in the "paleo" world.<br />
<br />
None of these things could come true, or all of them, or, more likely, something somewhere in between.<br />
<br />
The exhilaration is real. The uncertainty is pretty cool. <br />
<br />
It's time to have (more) fun (than ever). Let's go.<br />
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<br />Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-7159438507583124332018-09-25T22:46:00.002-04:002018-09-25T22:49:48.407-04:00The Little Garage Gym That CouldIn June 2010, I quit the standard-issue gym where I'd been keeping myself in okay shape, and I showed up at 7 a.m. at a one-car garage in the suburban town of Cherry Hill, NJ, ready to try CrossFit.<br />
<br />
These were the early days -- for New Jersey anyway -- of CrossFit. At the time, there were two CF gyms in the area, and I chose the upstart for a really simple reason: I was fairly sure that I was a decently fast runner for an old guy, but I otherwise didn't know <i>anything</i> about barbells. So, my brain reasoned, I could embarrass myself a lot less at a smaller CrossFit gym, especially a <i>new</i> one. We'd all be newbies in this thing together, sucking toward some higher goal, right? Right.<br />
<br />
When I say, "One-car garage," I shit you not. This wasn't one of those sort of 1.5-wide garages where you could keep the beer fridge on one side of the car and maybe a folded-up ping-pong table on the other side and still have room to open your car door. Nope. One car. One. (Count it). To make room, the car was parked outside. There was a pullup bar. One. There was a barbell and there were some weight plates. There might have been two barbells, actually. There were some dumbbells and a fucked-up-looking thing or two that I later learned was called a kettlebell.<br />
<br />
I remember a few very specific things about that morning:<br />
<br />
--Justin and Alycia, the owners, were really nice, enthusiastic, and ready to talk all things CrossFit at the drop of a hat. As a new convert, so was I, so the CF-oriented yapping was exactly what I wanted.<br />
<br />
--Justin played loud music and also told me that he played bass in a band. <i>Now</i> we were getting somewhere. CrossFit and music/band talk? Sign me up. (I signed up).<br />
<br />
--I deadlifted for the first time ever. Dude. Deadlifting. I felt like Barney in the Simpsons when he has that first drink ever and yells, "Whoa. Where ya been all my life?" It was like Jesus, the Buddha, and the Quaker Oats man had all shone their little lights -- or whatever it is that they do -- on me simultaneously. I was hooked. This deadlifting was a thing I could get into. It was nothing like Olympic lifts -- cleans, snatches, or jerks -- all of which seemed at the time more like magic tricks than actual achievable feats. Deadlifting was just digging in, with the right basic form, and standing up while holding a heavy thing that had been on the floor. I've never stopped loving deadlifts. Ever.<br />
<br />
When I joined CrossFit Aspire, I think I was the fourth member. I learned a lot. I got really fit, not just runner fit. I eventually, a few years later, got a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/311241758925358/videos/660228300693367/">three-rep deadlift at 425 pounds</a> that made my then-51-year-old self pretty effing happy.<br />
<br />
But back to 2010. Fast forward to the end of that first year and there were enough people showing up on a regular basis that Justin and Alycia ditched the garage for a rented space. The new place seemed <i>huge</i>. <br />
<br />
A year later the gym got even bigger, moving to a much larger space. That one seemed <i>extra</i> huge.<br />
<br />
From 2010 through 2015 -- when an injury sidelined me enough that I quit CF altogether -- CrossFit Aspire, whether located in a garage or a giant warehouse, was a centerpiece of my life. CrossFit gyms are rarely <i>just</i> gyms. They have parties and dinners and pig roasts and generally become an important part of a member's social life. Even after I quit, my wife remained an Aspire member and we still hung out with lots of CF friends fairly often.<br />
<br />
My wife got an email yesterday that CrossFit Aspire is closing -- for good -- in less than two weeks. The gym world is rough, and never stays the same for long. A thriving enterprise one year is yesterday's news the next year. I don't even know all the details. I just know all that matters: that consistently, without fail, over the years Justin and Alycia ran a top-notch facility where the nice people were in charge and attracted a clientele that includes some of the best people I know.<br />
<br />
Impermanence is a repeating-theme blues in all of our lives, and gratitude is not overrated. So you cherish the good times and the people that made them. And you move on, but always remember. Thanks, CrossFit Aspire. "You changed my life for the better" might sound trite. Nope. Really. You did.<br />
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<br />Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-62006797220755725992018-09-09T20:46:00.001-04:002018-09-09T21:17:43.414-04:00Live Review: The Jesus Lizard, Philly, September 8, 2018"Oh, stop!" were the first words out of David Yow's mouth last night in Philadelphia as his band, the Jesus Lizard, took the stage at a sold-out Union Transfer and he waved his hand dismissively in a faux gesture of humility. A few seconds later the rest of the band was off into the crushing riffage of "Puss," and he was off as well: <i>off</i> the stage -- horizontally riding the crowd as he delivered his vocal chaos -- seemingly <i>off</i> balance, and <i>off </i>the hook. Within a few more minutes, as the band ground another song to a simultaneously punishing and precise halt, another Yow emerged.<br />
<br />
The faux humility was gone. He <i>knew</i> they were killing it:<br />
<br />
"Amazing. Fucking amazing," Yow said in wonderment of his bandmates. "I am SO HAPPY for you people to get to see this." And then a wry smirk came across his face: "This has to be the highlight of your life. I mean, after all, you live in Philadelphia."<br />
________________________________________________________________<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"One [Steve] Albini trademark was to mix the vocals very low -- on the Jesus Lizard albums that Albini recorded, singer David Yow sounds like a kidnap victim trying to howl through the duct tape over his mouth; the effect is horrific."
--Michael Azerrad ("Our Band Could Be Your Life")</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> ___________________________________________ </span><br />
<br />
My attempts to describe the sound of the Jesus Lizard invariably end up at some sort of melange of noise and math rock -- maybe the Butthole Surfers and Fugazi had a love child? (That's reasonably close, actually). But I most like what my rock-critic friend Mark Deming just today said about the band: "An amazing balance of precision and chaos."<br />
<br />
Yeah. That's the one. Precision and chaos.<br />
<br />
Mac McNeilly (drums) and David Wm. Sims (bass) lay down a thunderous groove, often in time signatures that seem familiar, but which then veer off to something more unsettling -- after which they return to the familiar. Repeat, ad infinitum. The two are so inextricably bound together that I just assume that they eat meals at the same time even when they are thousands of miles apart. They sound a little bit like it would if, in a cartoon, you threw a perfectly-tuned drum kit and bass guitar down the stairs, and they landed together. The rumble is frantic, but with the exacting perfection of genius musicians.<br />
<br />
Over top of that rhythm ride two things, one providing shimmering texture and one... uh, not. Duane Denison's guitar is the texture. While McNeilly and Sims roar and seeth, Denison adds flavor, sometimes joining in the musical brutality of the rhythm section, but more often operating in (somewhat) more ethereal tones.<br />
<br />
When I first heard this band, I thought vocalist David Yow's name was Yowl. It would fit. He provides most of the chaos. Yow speaks, growls, screams, and occasionally sings the words. Most of the time, I have to look up the lyrics; sometimes when I do, I wish I hadn't.<br />
<br />
I knew all that -- I've owned this band's records for years -- but nothing prepared me for the first time I saw them live.<br />
<br />
That first time -- inexplicably (I have no excuse) -- was last night.<br />
<br />
Christ, it was powerful. It was, no shit, one of the greatest performances I have ever seen. My thesaurus is broken. I have no more words. Everything I just said about the nearly disturbing power of this band? In the live context, it's increased by several orders of magnitude. These men are all in their late fifties, just a couple years older than I am, but McNeilly attacks the drums with the testosterone-fueled aggression of a teenager and Yow spends song after song stage diving while continuing to vocalize as the crowd passes him around. Sims and Denison are less physically aggressive than their bandmates, but their musical delivery is no less precise, mathematical, and deadly.<br />
<br />
I really don't know that in 41 years of seeing bands that I've ever seen anything better than the Jesus Lizard last night. And they went on for 26 songs -- 15 in the regular set and then three multisong encores. I believe the set was the same exact order as <a href="https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-jesus-lizard/2018/the-black-cat-mainstage-washington-dc-73e9bed9.html">this one</a>, but I'll post the Philly setlist when it gets published. <br />
<br />
Ordinarily, I'd tell you what the <i>very</i> biggest highlights of the evening were, but every single song fit that bill. Yes, 26 strategic blasts of perfect tactical chaos. I'm a drummer; I've played in bands for years, and I simply don't know how they pulled off that sustained intensity for a whole set, and I don't know, specifically, how Mac McNeilly isn't in the fucking hospital, or, at a minimum, on long-term doses of anti-inflammatories.<br />
<br />
I hit the drums really fucking hard, harder than most guys my age. But Mac hits them harder. Sometimes most of the joints in my body ache as a result of the way I play. In fact they ache so hard that a soon-to-be post will address the relative wonders of CBD oil for chronic pain. But... Mac, dude, sir, I do not know how the hell you do what you do. But please keep doing it.<br />
<br />
This band is a multiheaded hydra of power and precision. And, yeah, chaos too. They have no peers.<br />
<br />
It may take weeks for me to fully recover from this one.<br />
<br />
Dig in:<br />
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<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/b8AkgxQ3KaI" width="560"></iframe>Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-18665237191718682302018-08-16T17:25:00.000-04:002018-08-16T17:39:20.595-04:00Aretha Franklin, 1942-2018The Queen of Soul had been ill for quite a while, and I don't feel particularly well-qualified to wax poetic on her staggering value to the musical universe other than to say that it was profound. Goddamn, it was profound.<br />
<br />
So I'll let Billy Preston tell you better than maybe anyone ever:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"I don't care what they say about Aretha. She can be hiding out in her house in Detroit for years. She can go decades without taking a plane or flying off to Europe. She can cancel half her gigs and infuriate every producer and promoter in the country. She can sing all kinds of jive-ass songs that are beneath her. She can go into her diva act and turn off the world. But on any given night, when that lady sits down at the piano and gets her body and soul all over some righteous song, she’ll scare the shit out of you. And you’ll know—you’ll swear—that she’s still the best fuckin’ singer this fucked-up country has ever produced.”</span><br />
<br />
Indeed.<br />
<br />
Here are a few that you may have forgotten.
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<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4tMFqa_K7bg" width="560"></iframe>Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-34347960649963326442018-06-17T14:55:00.000-04:002018-06-17T15:18:48.156-04:00Anthony Bourdain: I'll miss him more than I might even have imagined<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uie3aLDdIYU" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
I'm not much on heroes. They invariably disappoint me.<br />
<br />
But, at least for the ten-ish years that I "knew" him from his books and his "Parts Unknown" and "No Reservations" series, Anthony Bourdain seemed worthy of the title.<br />
<br />
The guy was punk rock to his core: "Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don't have."<br />
<br />
His "fuck the chains; eat local" mantra was great advice. Quotes like "to me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat,
demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living" hit my paleo-ish/real-food heart right in the feels. I can't tell you how many times I've made the more-adventurous food choice -- heading for the nasty bits usually, like sweetbreads -- because Tony Bourdain urged us all to stop being so fucking boring with food.<br />
<br />
Bourdain's near-constant touting of local (to the episode) musicians and artists was not just doing a solid for those folks, but indicative of an appreciation for the grittier aspects of art and music that made me always wish I could shoot the proverbial shit with him, preferably over drinks and hunks of meat. For godssakes, he had Mark Lanegan sing lead on the theme song. I felt like we dug the same stuff. His magic was in making a <i>lot</i> of people think exactly the same thing.<br />
<br />
He was gloriously judgmental in his non-judgmental-ness (or was it the other way around?): "Assume the worst. About everybody. But don't let this poisoned outlook
affect your job performance. Let it all roll off your back. Ignore it.
Be amused by what you see and suspect. Just because someone you work
with is a miserable, treacherous, self-serving, capricious, and corrupt
asshole shouldn't prevent you from enjoying their company, working with
them, or finding them entertaining."<br />
<br />
Tony dished casual life advice with a smirk: "Next to making a proper omelet or wiping your own ass, knowing how to roll a joint is an essential life skill for any self-respecting member of society." <br />
<br />
But to paraphrase one of the thousand or so Twitter accounts that I read when mourning his sudden death, Anthony Bourdain's greatest accomplishment by far was to try to make white-majority Americans less afraid of people that don't look like them. That approach obviously only succeeded to a point -- take a look at the festering nativist carbuncle that we elected as president if you think otherwise -- but it could make a person think. Hard. And lots of us did.<br />
<br />
His LA episode wasn't about the sunshine or the glitz. It was about the vibrancy of the Latino community, in and out of the restaurant world. The Beirut episode somehow embraced all the contradiction of that war-torn spot and made it glow with beauty amidst the conflict. In the Bronx, he interviewed hip-hop legends and local artists. In New Mexico, he embraced the mishmash of many cultures. And in Lagos a white dude from NYC taught us about Nigerian garage rock.<br />
<br />
This is the description of the Houston episode on Wikipedia: "Tony showcases the extreme ethnic diversity of Houston, Texas. Anthony visits the Little India neighborhood; attends a quinceañera, meets with refugee students at Lee High School, as well as the principal, himself a former Vietnamese refugee; explores African-American 'slab' car culture with rapper Slim Thug; meets Vietnamese fishermen and Congolese farmers; and attends an Indian cricket game."<br />
<br />
Notably, no episodes would have fit the description: "Tony hangs out only with privileged white people, doing privileged-white-people things, eating at cookie-cutter chain establishments, and acting like a superstar."<br />
<br />
He brought diversity into our lives with an equal helping of empathy. He made you question your choices and your values: about food, about music, about friends, about world leaders and politicians. About life. <br />
<br />
I'm not much of a TV guy -- for no reason other than I don't particularly sit still well while staring straight ahead without being involved in a dialogue. (Why do you think I force myself to meditate, hmmm?) But Tony Bourdain -- particularly on Parts Unknown -- was a big exception to that rule. I have my DVR set to record very very little, but it's been recording every single episode of Parts Unknown for a while now. Bourdain has been, and still will be, my default choice for an hour of unrelentingly interesting television.<br />
<br />
Sure, I'm sad that I never met him, but I'm really upset that the world lost his voice. The brotherhood and sisterhood of iconoclasts of the restaurant world and elsewhere is down a member. The punks and the artists have lost an advocate. So have the disenfranchised, especially people of color, everywhere, whether in the back room of a New York kitchen or in a remote village in Laos.<br />
<br />
I'm glad your pain's gone, Tony. I just wish you didn't leave with it.<br />
<br />
Shit. Shit. Shit.<br />
********************<br />
Here are the closing five minutes of the Seattle episode. I'll eventually get through it without tearing up, I swear. But not yet.<br />
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Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-51000854299044951692018-05-27T14:07:00.000-04:002018-05-29T09:56:14.315-04:00Five Years Five years ago today, my dad passed away. I miss him sometimes, but, as I documented <a href="http://www.thepaleodrummer.com/2013/05/there-no-manual-and-you-muddle-through.html">here</a>, the last few years of his life were really rough, and I don't look back fondly on those at all. Back then I wrote some things about what was going on, and very few of them have seen the light of day. I found the simple act of writing to be cathartic. Here's one of those pieces. (It just kind of slams shut at the end because it was part of something larger at the time). <br />
<br />
**************<br />
<br />
<div class="Body">
No Fun</div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
[1976 or so]</div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
There was a real familial/fraternal tipping point sometime in my
early teens. It was when my younger brother Paul and I both decided we were
better off as a two-man team organized against the perceived oligarchy of our
parents than we were battling each other in sibling rivalry. </div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
We rode that partnership through a lot of teenage hijinks, and,
thanks to cunning, planning and a solid bond with each other, we spent most of
our time back then trying hard to do two things: enjoy ourselves, and not
be like our father.</div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
And that’s probably just two versions of the same thing.</div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
Make no mistake: our father was a good guy underneath it all. He
loved his family, and did his best to provide for us, but he was not, in any
sense of the word, fun. He was very Catholic, in, yes, an über-religious sense,
but even more so in a <u>dutiful</u> way. When I was a kid, my dad went to
Catholic mass <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">every day</i>. And let’s
put it this way -- and, really, I shit you not: I heard a lot more references
as a child to “offering up suffering for the souls in Purgatory” than I ever
heard any emphasis on, say, having a good time, or enjoying life. We would joke
in later years that “the pope has Dad on speed-dial.” </div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
A teenage friend, who was terrified of my stern-faced father,
dubbed him “Party Bill” -- a nickname that stuck for years, through a lot of
laughter, although Bill never knew about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There could not have been a less appropriate -- and, thus, irony being
what it is, more appropriate -- moniker for him.</div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
[April 2010]</div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
Not long after his hospitalization in March 2010 -- after falling
and spending three days on the floor before he crawled to a phone and called
me, in a whisper, to tell me that he was “having some trouble” -- it became
clear that, this time, the party had nearly ended abruptly. My dad had come
perilously close to dying. When a living human body lies in one spot for that
long, toxins build up so fast in the muscles that the kidneys become
overwhelmed and can’t clear them all, leading to a potentially fatal condition
called rhabdomyalysis. His rhabdo was advanced, and I was told that he wouldn’t
have survived a fourth day on the floor of his house. </div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
But he was tough. Good Christ, he was tough. A few years earlier,
around 2007, he had fallen, alone, in his basement, causing a fracture of the
tibia that was so close to “compound’ -- <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">i.e.</i>,
the bone breaking free of its corporeal prison to find daylight -- that the
skin in the area was stretched from the pressure of the jagged, broken leg bone
against it. His response to that accident was not to somehow crawl or scoot on
his butt up the stairs to the phone and dial for help. No, he <u>walked</u> up
those steps -- 13 of them -- and then sat in a kitchen chair until the next
morning, waiting to summon help until he was “absolutely sure that it wasn’t
just sprained.” The surgeon told me back then, “Your father must have a pain
tolerance that is superhuman. I get squeamish thinking about taking one step on
that leg and he took 15 to 20. And he damn near turned some of the bone into
powder doing it. I have no doubt that he walked on it, as he says he did,
because it is damaged in a way that matches that kind of behavior.”</div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
By the way, my father later admitted that the real reason he
didn’t call for help sooner when he broke his leg in 2007: he was afraid I
would (again) bring up how maybe, just maybe, this time it was time to move. </div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
So rhabdo a few years later, after a few days on the floor? That
was just a bump in the road for Bill. He bounced back enough within a week or
so that he was transferred from the hospital to a nursing-care wing at local place we will call the Q.
He fought me hard on that one, but acceded when he still couldn’t stand up
without assistance. Then, within another couple weeks, he was able to shuffle
along slowly using a walker, and he was shifted to the next step down,
so-called “assisted living.” The notion is that residents in that section of
the Q can perform the basic tasks of life -- dressing, bathing, bathroom
issues, etc. -- but need to have their meals prepped for them, and just
generally get checked in on by staff a few times a day. Assisted living at the
Q was apartment living, but with community meals that commingled everyone. So
in one dining hall there would be folks with very moderate memory/dementia
issues and others, like my father, who were there solely for
orthopedic/physical problems.</div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
Again, he battled me -- “If I can walk, why am I not going
home?!” he yelled -- but the switch from nursing to assisted living was so
seamless, from one building of the Q to another, that he hardly had time to
complain. In fact, I think staff told him they were just taking him for a
“short ride in a wheelchair.” He was mighty pissed off when I said, “OK, so
this is your new apartment for now.” His first question, “What do I have to do
to get out of here and go home?” </div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
Those were his second and third questions too.</div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
In 2010, my dad was not yet showing any outward signs of
dementia. He was nearly blind, couldn’t walk without a walker -- and even then,
did so with great difficulty -- and he was not a good candidate to return home,
but, as a doctor put it to me back then, “His MRI shows a prior stroke and a
normal, aging 80-something-year-old brain. He is old, stubborn and cranky. He
even qualifies as miserable. But he isn’t incompetent. There is no doubt that
he shouldn’t go home because he can’t get around. But....”</div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
The doc trailed off. The unstated conclusion to his summary: we
can’t legally keep your dad here against his will. We can make it seem as if he
“needs to stay,” but if it comes down to it and he calls a cab, we can’t stop
him from leaving.</div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
But, almost immediately, the staff at the Q tried to incorporate
my father into their daily routine. Maybe he’d like to join a group activity?
There were many of those! </div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
He refused every offer. </div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
He sat in his room all day long listening to classical music on
the radio, or occasionally turning the television to basketball or baseball.
The only out-of-apartment adventures were for meals, and, he told me that he
hated those “because the food is terrible and there’s nothing here but crazy
people.”</div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
Toward the end of April 2010 there was a standard monthly “care
conference” held about my father at the Q. He had only one question -- repeated
so many times that it became painful: “How do I get out of here?” When staff
and I dodged his first few stabs at that interrogatory, he began yelling it. So
the director of the Q tried to distract Bill with another subject: “Hey, let’s
turn the floor over to Karen for a moment. She is the activity director, and, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">William</i> [she said his name somewhat
schoolmarm-ishly, somewhat singsong-ishly, in a way that made me cringe because
I knew what he would think of that], Karen says that you haven’t agreed to participate
in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a single activity</i> since you
arrived here a few weeks ago.” </div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
Karen (a lovely, polite, well-mannered young woman, speaking in a
truly earnest and caring tone) stepped in: ”William, we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really</i> want you to enjoy yourself while you are here. But I need to
know what it is you like to do. What do you do for FUN?” (She put heavy
emphasis on that last word). </div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
My dad looked at her incredulously, then contemptuously. Then he
squinted a little, as was his habit at the time, peering through the fog of his
awful vision, to glare one-by-one at each of the four other people in the room,
including me. He paused, put his head down for a moment, then reared up a bit
in his wheelchair, slamming the palms of his hands down on his thighs, and
bellowed, louder than I had ever heard him speak: “FUN?! [Profoundly long pause
for effect]. I’M NOT INTERESTED IN FUN!!!”</div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
The care conference ended.</div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
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</style>Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-76958108675092079302018-03-21T14:15:00.000-04:002018-05-27T13:52:54.890-04:00I stopped eating fruit for now; here's whyI'm doing a little experiment, and it <i>seems</i> to be working.<br />
<br />
I'm in <i>pretty </i>good shape fitness-wise for a mid-fifties dude. Nothing spectacular, but my deadlift is around 405 pounds, and my aerobic capacity rarely flags. I'm not remotely overweight (6'2"/180).<br />
<br />
But good god, man, I'm banged-up. I have arthritis in both knees, my right elbow and both shoulders. It's mostly from 37 years of drumming (still doing that) and probably a bit from five-plus years of CrossFit (don't do that any more). I do what I can to avoid taking anti-inflammatory drugs, and most of that consists of keeping my version of paleo/primal on a low-inflammatory track. The food/inflammation nexus has been pretty obvious to a lot of us for a while. <br />
<br />
But why the hell did my arthritis/creakiness seem <i>so</i> bad lately?<br />
<br />
I could blame the pain on physical activity, but that's pretty much a constant; I haven't been ramping up my exercise (or my drumming) lately. So I decided to take a hard look at my food.<br />
<br />
I cut out alcohol entirely for almost a month. Nothing. No effect.<br />
So what the heck might it be? I eat: meat, fish, eggs, vegetables (but hardly ever any nightshades), a little cheese, a little heavy cream, coffee, water, fruit (various berries), and some nuts.<br />
<br />
That's pretty much it. So I looked at that list and saw nothing inflammatory, except maybe the fruit and the dairy (and okay, theoretically, the nuts, but my O-6/O-3 ratio is 2:1, which is, as the doctors say, "fucking spectacular"). (Yup, that's what they say).<br />
<br />
I hoped really hard that it was the fruit. :) Because cheese.<br />
<br />
I like fruit, but I <i>love</i> cheese. So I started with fruit.<br />
<br />
Realizing that I was eating a bowl of berries pretty much every day, I vowed to eliminate them. My thought was that if fructose in the form of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is an inflammation bomb, maybe some people (read: me) don't handle regular old natural fructose so well either.<br />
<br />
I've told you before that I can do, or not do, just about <i>anything</i> if I think it's a healthy idea. Willpower is not my problem. Convince me that eating a handful of dirt every day is a solid health plan, and I am in. With bells on. The convincing is the only hard part. But quitting berries is not eating dirt. It didn't take all that much arm-twisting of the self-inflicted variety for me to give it a shot.<br />
<br />
So I quit berries cold turkey. No gentle decrease. No trips to the berry methadone clinic. No hanging around sketchy street corners waiting to score some <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueberry"><i>vaccinium cyanococcus</i></a>. (Cue: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hugY9CwhfzE">Lou Reed</a>). Cold turkey.<br />
<br />
The result has been pretty dramatic. I was so used to limping the first few steps when I would just get out of bed or out of the car that, when I suddenly didn't limp in those situations within two days of beginning this regimen, I was all, "Whoa. No, really, wait! Whoooooaaaaaaaa. I feel much better than usual."<br />
<br />
I'm two weeks in now. I feel really good.<br />
<br />
I miss the berries. But I miss the pain less. It's not 100% gone, but I don't expect it ever will be. I'm all banged-up and have hobbies that keep banging me up. I may try eliminating dairy too at some point to see if that makes an appreciable further difference, but the nearly-zero-fructose approach (I say "nearly" because it's in most vegetables in small amounts) seems to be a <i>very</i> good thing for my arthritis.<br />
<br />
And I don't really know what to say about why there isn't very much on the interwebs about getting rid of fruit as a possible source of fructose-based inflammation. Everyone tells you to shitcan HFCS, but almost no one says that eliminating actual fruit might help too. That's probably because of anti-oxidant positives from fruit. It's generally good for most people. It's... HEALTHY!<br />
<br />
But I'm not sure it's a good thing for me.<br />
<br />
One of these nights, I'm going to eat a big-ass bowl of berries to test the theory. I bet my joints ache the next day.<br />
<br />
To quote Hunter Thompson, and those in my chosen day job, "<a href="http://injury.findlaw.com/accident-injury-law/res-ipsa-loquitur.html">Res ipsa loquitur</a>."<br />
<br />
Whatever works. And this seems to work.<br />
*******************<br />
UPDATE (May 27, 2018): I think the issue really was fructose, and, in retrospect, I was eating a lot of it. The complete-elimination idea was a good one, and now I'm back to occasionally having some berries (occasionally = probably four times a week). Moderation and all that.... (I'm not always good at it). Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-3287618109571209572018-03-21T10:35:00.001-04:002018-03-21T10:50:50.010-04:00"Float. Freeze. Listen. Walk. Alternatives to Traditional Meditation."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCkITZ26q8B43fEmsIlp9KqUNqbhEGjwE8wLwu2PR6MXAW9YO_O6N_7d_YGjLW6UPunkKoWCkxi_AWoM0TsDJ7CDrIzuryGmADeti0WCqJNLYluDCEwuyIt4BvMTdDM2fLXjq8a95nYoDe/s1600/Paleo+Mag+Medittation+Alternatives.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1006" data-original-width="1600" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCkITZ26q8B43fEmsIlp9KqUNqbhEGjwE8wLwu2PR6MXAW9YO_O6N_7d_YGjLW6UPunkKoWCkxi_AWoM0TsDJ7CDrIzuryGmADeti0WCqJNLYluDCEwuyIt4BvMTdDM2fLXjq8a95nYoDe/s320/Paleo+Mag+Medittation+Alternatives.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Last fall, the fine folks at <a href="https://paleomagonline.com/">Paleo Magazine</a> had me write an article about alternatives to traditional meditation. I always viewed the end result as a sort of compendium of things one could do <i>in addition to</i> meditation, but, yes, you meditation-phobic folks can dig in too, if you want to just dip your toes into the Zen pond. (Then I'll get you hooked. Mwahaha).<br />
<br />
The article ran in the Paleo Mag Insider, which is usually a limited-edition publication that only the highest levels of PM subscribers can get their (virtual) mitts around. But, as I said, they're fine folks over at the magazine, and they gave me permission to share the link to that edition. It's <a href="http://view.joomag.com/paleo-magazine-insider-october-2017/0079975001509120098">here</a>. My article starts at page six, or you can read the whole thing by clicking on the photo above.<br />
<br />
The best news? The PM folks liked it so much that they had me do the ultimate "prequel" article: about the What/When/How/Why of meditation. It's <i>huge</i>. It's in the April/May issue. Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-89971763520502575602017-11-05T16:24:00.001-05:002017-11-05T16:26:36.117-05:00Shut your piehole and stop snoring -- a.k.a. why mouth-taping may be the key to better sleep and better health<span style="font-size: large;">"Don't get me wrong. He's a nice guy. I like him just fine. But he's a mouth breather."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">--The Jesus Lizard ("<a href="https://youtu.be/JoxXKKQYJYQ">Mouth Breather</a>")</span><br />
<br />
You've probably been told that it's much better to breathe through your nose than your mouth. But why? Aesthetics? Well, yeah, but that's not why.<br />
<br />
Nitric oxide! A large chunk of your body's production of nitric oxide is triggered by nasal breathing. You inhale into the parasinuses, and nitric oxide is produced there through a chemical reaction (the details of which are waaaaay beyond my pay scale, but see more about it <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8971255">here</a>). Mouth breathing doesn't just produce <i>less</i> nitric oxide than nasal breathing. It produces <i>none</i>.<br />
<br />
Why should you care? Because proper levels of nitric oxide <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/033332_health_breath.html">are critical</a> to a whole host of metabolic processes: digestion, testosterone production, blood-pressure control, better sleep, better brain function, and the like.<br />
<br />
So let's assume that you've got the nasal-breathing thing going pretty well when you are wide awake. Yer sizable maw isn't agape on a regular basis.<br />
<br />
But then you lie down to go to sleep....<br />
<br />
And your mouth drops open like you have a rock attached to your lower jaw.<br />
<br />
You start snoring.<br />
<br />
Your significant other starts complaining.<br />
<br />
But it's not <i>so</i> bad that you ever head for a CPAP machine.<br />
<br />
"I could breathe through my nose just fine when I sleep, if my mouth didn't immediately open when I nod off," you say to your health-conscious bad self. You might even say that to the person that's complaining about your snoring.<br />
<br />
Let's examine these facts for a moment:<br />
<br />
1. You are only snoring when your mouth is open.<br />
2. If your mouth were not open, you would not snore.<br />
3. If you were breathing through your nose, you would be getting seven to nine hours of additional nitric-oxide production.<br />
4. If you were breathing through your nose, your main squeeze would stop considering asking you to sleep in another room. <br />
5. Seriously, dude, you need to shut your mouth while you are sleeping. Better blood pressure. Better health in all regards. Better everything.<br />
<br />
If only there were a way to close that thing up and force you to breathe through your nose.<br />
<br />
There is: tape it shut.<br />
<br />
I'm dead serious.<br />
<br />
It's not my idea. If you were to Google this (admittedly odd) practice, you'd find all sorts of people have given it a shot. You'd find there are a variety of specially-made tapes to do the job.<br />
<br />
There's a reason for that second part. The first time I tried mouth-taping, I slept like a rock, breathed through my nose all night, and my wife complimented me on my snoreless slumber. I also woke up with gross adhesive all over my mouth. That's because I used duct tape.<br />
<br />
Pro tip: Don't use duct tape.<br />
<br />
Second pro tip: Don't use painter's tape either. (I did this too for you, so you don't have to).<br />
<br />
Buy an actual brand of sleep tape made to do the job without leaving you feeling like you've been huffing adhesive all night. (Seriously, that can't be good for you, can it?). I use <a href="https://www.consciousbreathing.com/product/sleep-tape/">this one</a>. But Google the phrase "sleep tape" and a bunch of products come up for your perusal.<br />
<br />
The verdict: IT'S INCREDIBLE!! Really.<br />
<br />
I'm not snoring at all (says my wife, and she'd know). I am waking up <i>a lot </i>better rested.<br />
<br />
Those two benefits alone are spectacular. <br />
<br />
And yeah, it's a little weird at first.<br />
<br />
Now, let's take a small time-out to say that if you actually have been diagnosed with sleep apnea, or you can't breathe through your nose because of a deviated septum or from a round or two in the ring with the world champ, or whatever, then check this whole mouth-taping "fix" out with your doc first, but I can't find <i>anything</i> negative about it on the web -- other than comments about its weirdness. Indeed, it seems to me that it could be a seriously cheap fix to a whole lot of bedrooms that are noisy for all the wrong reasons.<br />
<br />
I love it. My wife loves it. That's all that matters here.<br />
<br />
Your mileage may vary, and you'll hate this idea. Or, it may not, and I may have just changed your life. It's your call whether you decide to find out.<br />
<br />
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<br />Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-81567664840008671472017-09-17T20:57:00.000-04:002017-09-17T21:41:38.137-04:00"She said, 'You wanna go for a ride?'" -- Live Review: The Afghan Whigs, Philly and NYC, 9/12/17 and 9/15/17"<i>It's a really good band, man. We're playing great shows. Even on an off night, we're better than most. And if we're on, no one's better</i>."<br />
-- <a href="http://www.popmatters.com/feature/afghan-whigs-greg-dulli-interview-spades-prince-critical-beat/"><i>Greg Dull</i>i</a><br />
<br />
If a band leader is going to talk like that, his band better deliver the goods.<br />
<br />
On Tuesday night at Union Transfer in Philadelphia, and again on Friday in New York City at the Bowery Ballroom, the Afghan Whigs validated all of Greg Dulli's claims -- in spades.<br />
*************** <br />
<br />
The number of bands that have successfully come back after a long layoff and released great new albums is small. <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-obliterati-mw0000525005">Mission of Burma</a> certainly did that. <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/album/no-cities-to-love-mw0002789003">Sleater-Kinney</a> did too. So did <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/album/i-hate-music-mw0002546563">Superchunk</a>. But it's a short list of successes in that regard. (And no, I'm not going to name the failures, but their ranks are legion). The Afghan Whigs, two albums into a career restart after their 2001 split, are breathing the rarefied air of bands that have truly done a reunion right.<br />
<br />
My reaction to 2014's <i>Do to the Beast</i> album -- their first after the layoff -- was something along the lines of: "Very good, gentlemen, but I feel like you can do even better next time." It was a solid effort, but not up to their very best. When your previous output includes a three-album run with the brilliance of <i>Congregation </i>(1992), <i>Gentlemen </i>(1993)<i>, </i>and <i>Black Love</i> (1996), standards are high. But on their latest album, the Afghan Whigs stepped up their game to meet higher expectations. <i>In Spades</i> is not only a collection of ten great songs; it has cohesion. It's truly an <i>album</i> -- a record that sounds its best when played in order. Sure, "Demon in Profile" is a menacing/soulful single unto itself, but <i>In Spades</i> is no collection of random songs. It <i>flows</i>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Kp7ooQ_7TPg" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
I wondered how the new album would translate to the live setting. It's a little quieter on the whole than most AW albums.<br />
<br />
I shouldn't have wondered.<br />
**************<br />
Tuesday night in Philly, we got the more typical tour setlist. It looked like <a href="https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-afghan-whigs/2017/union-transfer-philadelphia-pa-43e23323.html">this</a>. The set was heavy on the new album, but it also spanned the Whigs' career. And, as always, it did so with a little extra power than the studio albums.<br />
<br />
This band has made its living delivering brilliant albums full of soul/funk influenced rock, but nothing on those records fully prepares you for their live show. It's James Brown fronting the Who with more than a small dose of punk rock. It's why you started listening to rock music in the first place: the sweat, the grime, the dynamics, the groove. That Dulli quote that led this article? Fuck yes. That's the thing with this band: a "normal" AW show is better than most bands can offer; an "on fire" one is the product of one of the very best live bands in the world.<br />
<br />
In both Philly and New York, I witnessed the "on fire" version of the band.<br />
<br />
Philly highlights mostly came from the "pin your ears to the back wall" version of the Whigs -- the band that thunders and grooves with metallic precision ("Debonair," Light As a Feather," "Honky's Ladder," "John the Baptist," "Amphetamines and Coffee"). But it wasn't only the big/loud/funky Afghan Whigs that ruled the roost that evening. The quiet hush of "Can Rova" -- complete with a gorgeous tribute to recently-deceased guitarist Dave Rosser -- left no dry eyes in the house, and the lighter "slight return" take on "Going to Town" was unexpectedly powerful amidst its deep smolder. Additionally, somehow -- fucking <i>somehow</i> -- the band figured out how to make "Demon in Profile" even more soulful: have opener Har Mar Superstar (he's the guy lip-synching in the above video) actually sing the song while the Whigs backed him. It was devastating. And then there were the final two songs -- the Who-ish "Summer's Kiss" where drummer Patrick Keeler added Keith Moon-ish fills that the original cried out for, but never had, and the classic Whigs closer, "Faded," which featured a foray into "How Deep is Your Love" before heading back into its own Who-ish finale.<br />
<br />
I was spent by the end of it. "These are the end times, Philadelphia. It's time to make some noise," Dulli had exhorted us. We made the noise. They made the bigger noise. It was a goddamn cathartic roar of a gig.<br />
<br />
"How could they top that?" I wondered.<br />
<br />
"Hold my beer, dude," the band replied.<br />
***************<br />
<br />
Friday night's show at the Bowery Ballroom was intended to be something special right off the bat. It was announced later than the rest of the tour and the format was preordained: the band would play a first set consisting entirely of the <i>In Spades</i> album start-to-finish, and then there would be a second set. Yes, Har Mar came out and sang "Demon In Profile" and it was even tighter than in Philly. The full-album format also meant that the three lesser-played songs on In Spades would get a full airing. Of those, both "Copernicus" and "The Spell" were played perfectly, but, wow.... "I Got Lost."<br />
<br />
Greg Dulli spoke to the crowd just before the band launched into "I Got Lost." He told us that, live, it was the least-played song on the record, but that it also held a special place in his heart because it was the one he wrote after he learned of Dave Rosser's terminal cancer diagnosis. Then he told us something that hit my punk-rock heart hard. He spoke of Grant Hart's death and told us: "If I hadn't seen Husker Du back in 1984, I wouldn't be up on this stage." I have no doubt that that statement is true, because Husker Du changed a lot of lives, mine included. Then Dulli said that he hung out twice with Harry Dean Stanton, and a smile crossed his face. "I Got Lost" felt like a New Orleans funeral for the honor roll of the recently-deceased: a triumphant mix of sorrow and celebration.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MZ8_1B48a5A" width="560"></iframe>
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The song that closed the first set -- "Into the Floor" -- continued that theme. "I remember you always this way," Dulli sang, before letting the band thunder for the last minute of the song and bring it to a close. It was a brilliant move playing the album from beginning to end like that. All of its studio track-to-track cohesion shone through amidst that extra BOOM that the live Whigs bring to everything.<br />
<br />
And then there was <a href="https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-afghan-whigs/2017/bowery-ballroom-new-york-ny-3be218a8.html">set number two</a>.
That second set was a mix of the familiar from the tour -- four from <i>Do To the Beast</i> that made frequent, if not nightly, appearances in the setlist --and then the surprises. There were some covers: Prince's "I Wanna Be Your Lover (which had also been played in Philly), "Dear Prudence" (which, despite being a straight take on a Beatles song, really was a hell of a version) and Sinead O'Connor's "Mandinka."<br />
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It's 48 hours later and I am still singing "Mandinka" because of how great the Afghan Whigs' version of that one was. <br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7liJyxyT1mo" width="560"></iframe>
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<br />
Dulli joked right after that one: "That vocal was so high my balls are way up in my body." Judging by what followed, he recovered quickly.<br />
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The surprises didn't end there. One of my favorite songs from the '90s run by this band was "My Enemy." They haven't played it much on the current tour, so in the spirit of "why not?" they whipped it out on Friday night. The fact that it sounded like it had been played <i>every</i> night was a testament to just how tight this band is live. It was just like this one, which I give you because Dave Rosser is in it:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3vXE7dqRFBk" width="560"></iframe>
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There were two other highlights to the second set at Bowery Ballroom: a "Debonair" that was somehow just a little more menacing and savage than the one in Philly, and a version of the Twilight Singers' "Teenage Wristband" that was the sort of life-affirming take on a crowd singing along to a balls-out rock song that still has me flying high a couple days later. I don't have a video of Friday night's version, so, in keeping with the theme of giving you a version with Dave Rosser, there's this:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fJlIFhDWM8c" width="560"></iframe>
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The Afghan Whigs are a force of nature live. They played, by my count, 32 different songs over these two nights and left me wondering how anyone else can match them live. Many will try -- I see a lot of bands -- but I wonder if any will succeed. Greg Dulli's self-assessment of his band is dead-on.Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-50550233343161912462017-08-07T08:43:00.002-04:002017-08-07T09:27:27.036-04:00Cyrus<br />
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It's the little things, like when you go to prep their meals, and now suddenly there are only two bowls. Or when you go to give them their "right before bed" biscuit, and you grab three and, half a second later, you think, "Damn. Right...." and you put one back. Or when, for the first time in three years, you walk through your kitchen, free to change direction at will without being impeded by a knee-level nearly-concrete noggin, followed always -- always -- by a wagging tail, even when the knee/noggin collision was pretty hard. And then there's the middle of the night when you realize there's no longer the chainsaw sound of a pit bull snoring.<br />
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********************* <br />
By and large, you expect your dogs to traverse through this life in the order that you got them.<br />
<br />
However, that rule goes out the window when you adopt an old dog.<br />
<br />
All we knew about Cyrus when we met him in early 2014 was that his life had been miserable thus far. He and two younger dogs had been taken from a local home by the SPCA. The living conditions were awful. That house was filthy and there was not enough dog food. In fact, the lack of food was the source of Cyrus's facial cuts. His own daughter had attacked him over some scraps.<br />
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At the time, we didn't even really know how old Cyrus was. We just knew that, although he looked like he'd gone a few rounds in a losing title match, he had good energy and tail-wags to spare. My wife and I volunteer at the county animal shelter where he'd been brought and so we got to know him over a few months of shifts there. We kept expecting him to get adopted based on his unfailingly -- some might say <i>absurdly</i> -- positive attitude. But a few things seemed to be impeding his adoption: (1) he was clearly not a young dog; (2) he was scratched-up enough that he looked like he'd been the victim of a fighting ring; (3) his paperwork said he didn't like other dogs.<br />
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With three other dogs in the house at the time, we initially didn't even consider adopting Cyrus. We'd walk him when we were at the shelter, but we couldn't bring a cut-up old guy who hated other dogs into our pack. But then we slowly noticed something: he didn't <i>really</i> seem to dislike other dogs. He seemed mostly indifferent to them. There are, generally speaking, two kinds of dogs: "dog dogs" and "people dogs." Cyrus was clearly a people dog -- he loved all people -- but, despite his history of getting his ass kicked at least once by another dog, he didn't actually seem to fall into that subset of people dogs that hate other dogs. He just didn't care.<br />
<br />
So one day, my wife came home from the shelter and said, "I think I found a dog that we should take in." When I asked who it was, she said, "You're going to be surprised. It's Cyrus. He's kind of old and he's <i>really</i> hurting on the concrete floors at the shelter. He's suffering, and no one's adopting him. It's been months." I agreed. And so we developed a plan.<br />
<br />
For three to four weeks, we used baby gates and ran the house like a prison. When the minimum-security inmates (our usual three at the time) were loose, the maximum-security inmate (Cyrus) had to be behind the baby gates. And vice versa. He was just happy to be here:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIc7_FO-Z2hY-XW9AaxI_aSifWRy3H-nGoUhuYkAu_DSBD2fHBWqntThLQmYfQ6bLZ92Qajd4HcWU_ahmjC4J1y0b8TcwoER9ghgyZLGkA_ZWLMu-23VY9NtVlI_xz6JgNh6NiDcbP_Fcx/s1600/cyrusbabygate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="718" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIc7_FO-Z2hY-XW9AaxI_aSifWRy3H-nGoUhuYkAu_DSBD2fHBWqntThLQmYfQ6bLZ92Qajd4HcWU_ahmjC4J1y0b8TcwoER9ghgyZLGkA_ZWLMu-23VY9NtVlI_xz6JgNh6NiDcbP_Fcx/s320/cyrusbabygate.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
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The system worked like a charm. They got all their suspicions out of the way over that time. Eventually, we'd let them hang out together as long as we were supervising.<br />
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Not long later, we had scenes like this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYAd4m4IBIXMTrwrMXs6-S-bvVqd381Bv9Wq_PazWNZq-_-XaQnDTYx_z3oZQXK3VB_y0KqTPNHCD_TGUUEhuo3BTgfQ7KWtDwKedtxu-bqX8zGorzE1pSDdh0ZSNP7Lg_k3tSOC_yzkOl/s1600/cyrusmilorubycouch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="537" data-original-width="960" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYAd4m4IBIXMTrwrMXs6-S-bvVqd381Bv9Wq_PazWNZq-_-XaQnDTYx_z3oZQXK3VB_y0KqTPNHCD_TGUUEhuo3BTgfQ7KWtDwKedtxu-bqX8zGorzE1pSDdh0ZSNP7Lg_k3tSOC_yzkOl/s320/cyrusmilorubycouch.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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We had brought him home on July 14, 2014. When we took Cyrus to his first vet appointment, we got a surprise: he was even older than we thought. The vet guessed nine or ten years old. At the time, I remember saying that, in light of all his years of rough living, we'd be lucky to get two years out of him.<br />
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We got three.<br />
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We were lucky to have him in our lives. Cyrus loved us both, but he spent every day with my wife, who works almost entirely from home, and so he established a regular routine for a pit bull: following his favorite person around. Upstairs, downstairs, outside, inside, from room to room to room. Only the basement was off-limits (the cat box is down there; the dogs aren't allowed), and so, if she went down there, he'd wait for her at the top of the basement stairs, wagging his tail. If she were out of the house, I would immediately become his favorite person, and he'd pull the same routine with me. If we were gone, he would deign to hang with the other dogs. But mostly, he hung out in my wife's office with her.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1fNUxcPiUYAEY-fBAd_bLxUzWphW6r0YBGGmV4FPsVjvqd5M77SaoBWkxvzoG1OCLorFcJ86dmtrrDE2gCb5mrFPCzT9F0hZKbWyCAQI87yC8RWrqveLnQIN_hRgPLsO-Ph-3oMDiRWqn/s1600/cyrusdogbed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1fNUxcPiUYAEY-fBAd_bLxUzWphW6r0YBGGmV4FPsVjvqd5M77SaoBWkxvzoG1OCLorFcJ86dmtrrDE2gCb5mrFPCzT9F0hZKbWyCAQI87yC8RWrqveLnQIN_hRgPLsO-Ph-3oMDiRWqn/s320/cyrusdogbed.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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We used to joke that Cyrus's nightmare was to be alone with his thoughts. He didn't like to go outside alone. He could be bursting at the seams to pee, mind you, but he'd insist on waiting for another dog to accompany him. Solitude was not a priority for him; it was the enemy to be avoided.<br />
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Cyrus was also young at heart, but old of body. So he'd grind his gears trying to keep up with Milo, our younger male boxer/hound mix. And grind he did.... He came to us with significant arthritis, but it got worse. He played hard, and he slept more and more. Slowly, but surely, he picked up the nickname "Captain Naps." He'd build a pillow fort on the couch and settle in.<br />
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Sometimes his napping was so sound that he'd sleep right through the arrival of one of us through the door. Then suddenly he'd wake up, startled, barking an alert: "Invader! Invader!" <pause> "Oops. It's you! Hi!!" and he'd wiggle and wag.<br />
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<i>Always</i> the tail would wag. Cyrus was so pleasant that, in what turned out to be his final weeks, when he was going to a water-treadmill physical-therapy routine that he <i>hated</i>, he'd still wag his tail through every part of the adventure except the time in the water tank, and he'd even wag there a little. We used to joke that if we just took him on rounds through our town to meet everyone, he would have been elected mayor soon thereafter.<br />
<br />
But old age is rough. Cyrus didn't just have arthritis. There was more going on inside. A few months ago, an ultrasound to try to figure out the source of stomach problems revealed a mass on his spleen. We spend a lot of money on our dogs' medical care, but we also try to take a balanced approach to pain management and comfort for them. And surgery to do a biopsy on that mass seemed like too much for a 12- (or 13, or 14) year-old dog. Back then, we knew the clock was ticking. (The clock's always ticking, by the way; hug your loved ones, canine and otherwise).<br />
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We had a few months after that of helping him through daily struggles. The stairs became a really big deal. Getting onto the couch required assistance. He was tougher than most dogs to read because his pain tolerance was so high. He never whined. But he grimaced and grunted a little. And he fell down the stairs more than he grimaced. He'd "run" out into the yard, and faceplant when his back legs would just stop working. The faceplants and grimaces were getting more frequent.<br />
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A few days ago, my wife -- who is <i>really</i> good at these decisions (I tend to wait a little too long) -- said to me, "I looked in his eyes today and I don't think he is happy anymore. He's still trying to be the tail-wagging guy that we love, but he's really miserable." And sure enough, Cyrus had begun spending almost <i>all </i>his time hunkered down on a dog bed, looking sad.<br />
<br />
So yesterday we did the right thing, with a vet who loved Cyrus so much that she actually apologized at one point during the procedure for getting a little emotional herself. "Sorry guys, I'm probably not helping here," she said at one point. No, she was definitely helping. <br />
<br />
We're getting awfully experienced at handling all these end-of-dog-days decisions. In less than four years, we've had to make the tough call on three different elderly dogs. But every time, as you hear that big sigh as they let their last breath go, you know you made the right move. He was sad and hurting; he's not anymore.<br />
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Thanks, buddy, for some great times. It was the shortest stay ever, but you packed a lot of love into three years.<br />
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<br />Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-706135442104283952017-07-21T22:13:00.000-04:002017-07-24T07:46:21.443-04:00Live review: Warpaint at Williamsburg Hall of Music, July 18, 2017<br />
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Generally speaking, when it comes to music, I'm all about grit and sharp corners. The Minutemen. The Stones circa <b>Exile on Main Street</b>. Uncle Tupelo. The Band. Neil Young. Social Distortion. Sleater-Kinney. Even the gloomier things that I gravitate towards -- early Echo and the Bunnymen, early Cure, Joy Division, and the like -- have more angular and dynamic bits than you might think.<br />
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That's my way of telling you that sometimes I'm surprised at how much I love <a href="http://warpaintwarpaint.com/">Warpaint</a>.<br />
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But, seriously, I <i>love</i> Warpaint.<br />
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Warpaint is the sheen and gloss of the interwoven guitar work of Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman over top of one of the most solid rhythm sections going. Jenny Lee Lindberg plays intricate Jah Wobble bass grooves that lock down hard with Stella Mozgawa's stellar timekeeping. "Timekeeping" does not imply a Charlie Watts laid-back-in-the-pocket approach, mind you. Try and casually tap along with this:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AFP29ZFVSk4" width="560"></iframe>
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You got lost, didn't you?<br />
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Stella Mozgawa can play drums in circles around us all, but she can also settle into the deepest darkest groove with Lindberg. Sometimes, like in "Keep It Healthy," she does both. <br />
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And then there are the vocal harmonies. Jesus, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSzCoj3iD7s">the vocal harmonies</a>....<br />
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I like Warpaint best when they work inside that dark chamber of chill. But they have a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PhAMlJDMeI">whole 'nother side too</a>, what the Mekons called "a dance band on the edge of time."<br />
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Tuesday night at Brooklyn's Music Hall of Williamsburg (in a FREE show, no less) all sides of the band were on glorious display.<br />
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For fans like me, who like the denser/deeper excursions into the dark groove, Warpaint did more than half their debut EP, <b>Exquisite Corpse</b>. "Krimson" was particularly sublime.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q4SlVpOU3H4" width="560"></iframe>
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And, moving away from that EP, "Keep It Healthy," "Love is to Die" and "The Stall" were all in that same neighborhood where the early Cure get together with Massive Attack in a trance-like swirl of stunning. <br />
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Conversely, the kids who came to Brooklyn to dance got "New Song," "Heads Up," and "Dre" from the most recent album and "Disco//Very" from the self-titled album.<br />
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Through it all -- whether purveying a dark trance, a joyful dance, or both -- the formula was simple, yet spot-on: the alchemy of Lindberg and Mozgawa's nimble, yet muscular, rhythms blended with Wayman's and Kokal's chiming, jangling guitars. I'm a drummer, so my rhythm-section prejudice is alive and well. I'm pretty fixated on this one. Jenny Lee Lindberg is a blast to watch onstage; she's either in a closed-eyed dance/groove or smiling and laughing with the ever-perfect Mozgawa. But this whole band conveys an unremitting in-the-moment "Yaaaaaassssssss!"-filled joy onstage that is a rarity to watch. Nothing bugs me more than a band that mails it in. Too many bands mail it in.<br />
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Warpaint does <i>not</i> mail it in.<br />
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If I have one regret, it's that they didn't play this one in Brooklyn:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-PXqJuJW1sg" width="560"></iframe>
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For my money, it's their finest moment -- from the brilliant weirdness of Stella Mozgawa's drag on the initial groove to the way it all comes together into that "She said" final verse. I was sorry to see them omit it from the set.<br />
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But that's my uber-fan pickiness. I'm <i>really</i> happy that I made it to this particular show. Last October, I saw Warpaint at Union Transfer in Philly and they blew me away that night as well (including a sublime "No Way Out"). I was psyched to see that their upcoming tour opening for Depeche Mode (in monstrosity venues all over our fine land... no thanks) was taking a few breaks to allow for headlining Warpaint gigs in places like my home base of Philly. And then... I realized I am going to be out of town when they play Philly. Damn.... So this one was extra special.<br />
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There's <a href="http://www.brooklynvegan.com/warpaint-played-mhow-pics-setlist-talk-touring-w-harry-styles/">a great account of the Brooklyn gig at Brooklyn Vegan</a>, along with a set list and an array of stunning photos from photographer <a href="https://twitter.com/ebruyildiz">Ebru Yildiz</a> that make me glad I didn't bother with crappy iPhone pics.<br />
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Warpaint are on a roll.<br />
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Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-65121993925530514462017-07-10T21:11:00.000-04:002017-07-11T06:55:03.551-04:00Live Review: King Crimson, Red Bank, NJ, July 9, 2017<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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What is King Crimson? The answer is notoriously hard to pin down, because the band has rarely stayed the same for very long -- in sound or in membership. The monster morphs at will -- the "will" in question being that of Robert Fripp, guitarist extraordinaire and the only constant in a nearly 50-year span of King Crimson.<br />
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I won't pretend to know everything there is about King Crimson, nor to have been a life-long devotee of the band. I bought their first album -- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Court_of_the_Crimson_King">In the Court of the Crimson King</a> -- around 1977 or so, as my Yes/Genesis prog days were giving way to my Clash/Jam/Damned punk days. By then, Crimson was on hiatus, and, already being the sort of gig-obsessed music fan that I still am, when I realized that fact, post-purchase, it took a little gild off the lily, as it were, for me. I liked that record, but never quite got around at the time to <i>loving</i> it because, when I bought it, the band wasn't a practicing entity any longer. By the time that status changed -- 1981 and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline_(King_Crimson_album)">Discipline</a> album with a reformed four-piece Crimson -- most of my listening had moved on.<br />
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So when that early-'80s reunion occurred, I skipped out on all that, somehow, and, while I was busy listening to some genius American and English punk in the early '80s, the boys in Crimson were putting out some of their best material (I later learned).<br />
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Then they split again; then they were back together in the early '90s for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrak">Thrak</a>, with some of the same characters from the '80s plus more.<br />
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I <i>still</i> didn't catch back on.<br />
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There were a few more releases, more tours, membership changes. Me? I didn't really check back in for quite some time.<br />
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Then, about 2010, not having given a thought to anything Crimson-related in years, but beginning to revisit some old prog and jazz, I stumbled across a cheap copy of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_(King_Crimson_album)">Red</a>. I bought it, eager to delve into what <a href="http://thequietus.com/articles/13802-king-crimson-red-review">one reviewer</a> has called: "a new type of heaviness. . . one that effectively
disengages itself from the blues-derived riffology practiced by the big
three of early 70s hard rock – Sabbath, Zeppelin, Purple – and instead
creates a starker, colder, darker version of heavy that nevertheless
still delivers serious cathartic thrills."<br />
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I like cathartic thrills. I like dark. I like heavy.<br />
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I dug in.<br />
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I dug <i>it</i>.<br />
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I was hooked. The mid-'70s version of Crimson that released the trio of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larks%27_Tongues_in_Aspic">Larks' Tongues in Aspic</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starless_and_Bible_Black">Starless and Bible Black</a>, and Red was significantly more <i>dangerous</i> than the first-album version of the band. Yup, that means that I followed my purchase of Red with those Larks and Starless albums. I loved them. If they lacked anything, it was solid production. They sounded, well, a little old, but, god, they sounded good. And weird. And dark. And, yes, dangerous.<br />
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If the fringes of punk rock had taught me anything, it was the adage, "<a href="http://alibi.com/feature/36013/Punk-Is-Whatever-We-Made-It-to-Be.html">Punk is whatever we made it to be</a>," and, it appeared to me, nothing was more punk in spirit than the ever-shifting persona and sound of King Crimson. <br />
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The next step for me was to explore the '80s and '90s incarnations of the band. Sure, I could have headed for the band's second through fourth albums from the early '70s (post-Court, but pre-Larks), but reviews told me that the '80s and '90s versions of the band had more in common with the power and unpredictability of Red than did those second through fourth albums where it seemed, from the reviews, things were a little lighter, albeit still challenging. I didn't want light. I wanted thundering, disjointed darkness with a side helping of weird.<br />
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I loved it all, but I fell particularly under the trance of this one:<br />
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Sure, it's prog as hell overall -- with Tony Levin anchoring down the basic rhythm on his Stick contraption while Bill Bruford plays drums in circles around and over and under him and Belew and Fripp weave with shards and spindles of broken glass -- but the harsh edges are the best punk to me as well. It challenges; it pulls you back close; it punches you in the face.<br />
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Fast forward to 2016. <br />
<br />
I read an article about a King Crimson tour. They had seven members and three of the seven were drummers. It sounded heavy and dark and (there's that word again) <i>dangerous</i>. Moreover, from what I read, the typical setlist that tour was, for the first time, spanning the entire Crimson catalogue as Fripp and company reestablished their five-fingered death grip on songs that had long lay dormant, but they did so in a rejuvenating way. This was no greatest-hits/resting-on-one's-laurels/cranking-out-the-same-old-crap tour. This was experimental and cutting edge, but with the feet of the beast planted in many different eras, stirring the musical pot.<br />
<br />
"Don't disappoint me, gentlemen," I muttered as I hit the "buy" button on the 2016 live box set. <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Radical-Action-Unseat-Monkey-Blu-ray/dp/B01IG74EUA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499714796&sr=8-1&keywords=radical+action">"Radical Action to Unseat the Hold of Monkey Mind"</a> is the title. Readers of this blog will know that I'm definitely against the hold that monkey mind sometimes has on me. I'm also most certainly in favor of radical action to unseat that hold. I had high hopes.<br />
<br />
The album did not disappoint. For my money -- and there are likely legions of Crimson fans worldwide that will want to draw and quarter me for this statement -- it is the best thing the band has <i>ever</i> done. That tinny-production complaint that I blasphemed regarding some of the older albums? Not here. <br />
<br />
It's <i>heavy</i>. One of the discs is called, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, "Mostly Metal." But it kind of <i>is</i>. The 2016 takes on "Larks' Tongues" Part 1 and 2 render them nearly different songs. "Red" has a little extra oomph and I dare say that there is not a studio version of one of these songs that I prefer to the Radical Action version.<br />
<br />
There are also a few newer compositions that hold their own. I was ready for a Crimson appearance in Philly.<br />
<br />
They announced a tour. Philly wasn't on it. But Red Bank, NJ was. Re-muttering, "Don't disappoint me, gentlemen," I hit the "buy" button on a single second-row ticket that I bought when I could not find anyone that was both willing to spend the substantial price for a ticket to this tour <i>and</i> not already busy that night. I was going to be on a rare solo trip for this show. <br />
<br />
**********<br />
Fast forward to Red Bank, July 9, 2017.<br />
<br />
First observation: the crowd is a bit of a dude-fest. I can't say I expected any different. But the lines for the men's room are going to be epic. The queue for the merch counter was already considerable at 7:10 when I walked in for the 8 p.m. show.<br />
<br />
Second observation: damn. Mr. Fripp and company apparently <i>do not </i>want their photos taken while playing. Honestly, I totally get the no-video thing, and I get the no-flash thing. But no pics at all? I was sitting right in front of Gavin Harrison and I would have some pretty formidable shots of him playing drums if it weren't for the rules, maaaaan. But the rules were so clearly stated (signs!) that I didn't dare violate them from my vaunted spot near the front.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD0ekJ3PoH1NB_YoWJ3_UgjgvzG41LRqI9lnsEpOeXP0n6VXERZJzx_F1YfQ4JC5jRCsf2LOR7X88SgIDmfG7-jE0hlJeZoYaGd0dv7USx9rvOFI57mX0wFWM3BZFcvpyQgK5eZug9yF80/s1600/kingcrimsonemptystage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="621" data-original-width="1600" height="124" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD0ekJ3PoH1NB_YoWJ3_UgjgvzG41LRqI9lnsEpOeXP0n6VXERZJzx_F1YfQ4JC5jRCsf2LOR7X88SgIDmfG7-jE0hlJeZoYaGd0dv7USx9rvOFI57mX0wFWM3BZFcvpyQgK5eZug9yF80/s320/kingcrimsonemptystage.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Third observation: sweet mother of god, I'm glad I brought earplugs. The speaker stack was, oh, seven feet in front of me at most. <br />
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Final observation: my mind is fully and completely blown.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/king-crimson/2017/count-basie-theatre-red-bank-nj-43e407f7.html">Here is a link to the setlist</a>.<br />
<br />
Sure, I'd have liked a little heavier concentration on the Discipline/<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_(King_Crimson_album)">Beat</a> era if I were writing my own "perfect" Crimson setlist, but this was, hands down, the tightest band I have ever seen in my life. They hit on almost all eras of the band, and paid a little extra effort to re-work songs so the "now" version of everything presented a cohesive feel. Go listen to tracks from the band's early years, then some from Red/Larks and then some from Discipline and Beat, and tell me you hear <i>one</i> band. Nope, but when those songs are performed by King Crimson circa 2017, they all come from the same primal core. I like the studio versions of <i>almost</i> everything they played (full disclosure: "Islands" has never been my cup of tea) but the 2017 live versions of everything truly breathe "radical" life and dynamics into all the songs. <br />
<br />
The most "radical" concept of "Radical Action" is clearly the use of three drummers. Apparently it was going to be <i>four</i> drummers this tour, but that plan got scrapped along the way. But three is still one more drummer than I have ever seen playing at the same time on a stage and I wondered: would it all be a giant mess? With a resounding, "No!" the trio of Gavin Harrison, Jeremy Stacey, and Pat Mastelotto somehow managed not merely to avoid getting in one another's way, but they made everything <i>better</i>, as if they are actually constituent parts of a six-handed drummer with one collective brain and two feet. The fills never clashed, spinning glorious circles around one another, and the rare moments of simultaneous collective bashing were exactly the oomph the songs demanded at those spots. From my second-row position directly in front of Gavin Harrison, I'd say he's the most Bruford-esque of the trio, but it may be that my seat location led to prejudice in that regard. All three of them were jaw-droppingly skilled, and when they alternated fills -- like on "Lizard" or "Indiscipline" -- it made me simultaneously want to practice drumming more often and just give up. These men can play.<br />
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Speaking of "Indiscipline".... As a devotee of setlist.fm, I had noticed that most of the second sets this tour opened with that favorite of mine. When this one didn't, and the band launched at that juncture into a pounding, menacing take on "Larks' Tongues Part 1" instead, I shrugged it off. They were killing it anyway. I was good. By the time they played "Easy Money" as the third song of that set, I had mostly cast aside <i>any</i> thought of "Indiscipline."<br />
<br />
Trust Robert Fripp to always keep me on my toes. Tony Levin began the rhythmic trancelike tap of the opening lines on the Stick, and they were off to the races on "Indiscipline." On the studio version, or even the live version in the video above, the intro section is short, much less than a minute. But 2017 Crimson is not mired in the past. It does what it wants to. It wanted to ride that intro groove for what seemed like a full five minutes. Levin played the bass part in 5/4 (or is it sometimes 6/4, or 11/4? Oh hell, I don't know) and locked that down while, I swear, the drummers alternated fills designed not merely to enhance the song but in a spirited competition to try to do the impossible: make Levin stumble. Levin emerged unscathed from the battle; he cracked a few grins, but he did not drop a beat. For five minutes of fury. And they paused for a second, as if all the air were momentarily sucked out of the room. Then.... pow. The main riff began and the band was on fire. But then came the biggest surprise of all -- a harmonized, <i>sung</i> jazzy vocal from Jakko Jakszyk and Tony Levin. I don't know if I like that vocal <i>better</i> than the original Belew one, but it was stunning. To quote the lyric, "I wish you were here to see it!"<br />
<br />
What about, well, everything else? It was all perfect. There are many little moments that are etched on my brain:<br />
<br />
-- Mel Collins' sax work that added a glorious Coltrane-esque skronk to whatever he played on.<br />
<br />
-- Fripp strumming the hell out of his guitar to start Larks Pt 1, and nothing coming out, until it built slowly, methodically into a wall of noise.<br />
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-- My unremitting freaking joy when the usual first-set closer ("Islands") ended and the band didn't move. Instead, they all looked to Fripp, who began "Larks' Tongues" Part 2. It thundered and was the perfect finisher to the the opening set. <br />
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-- Every little visual cue traded between musicians, particularly Tony Levin's apparent near-constant bemusement, Jakko's and Fripp's beaming pride as Gavin Harrison took a drum solo that even I loved (I really don't like most drum solos), and the grins of delight between drummers as they took their turn on increasingly challenging fills.<br />
<br />
-- Just how perfectly "Cirkus/Lizard/Red" is as a trio of songs in the middle of a set. Those first two are a bit similar in vibe, coming from the same album, but "Red" is, originally, a whole different level of menace and noise. The 2017 Crimson solution? Bring the first two up to the level of the last one. I like the studio versions of "Cirkus" and "Lizard" just fine, but what happens to those songs these days, with three drummers, and a significant increase in <i>attack</i>, is a wonder to behold.<br />
<br />
-- The setlists are perfectly constructed to leave us spent and exhausted in all the best ways. <br />
<br />
-- And, finally, yes, this, even though it sounded too "normal" for the rest of the night in many respects. It's a great song, and they did it well:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8eBmRcVMu74" width="560"></iframe>
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I could go on and on.<br />
<br />
I think I already have.<br />
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Damn, what a performance. I'm psyched for the next tour already. Philly, gentlemen? I hope so.<br />
<br />
<br />Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2137720809430579183.post-15063952863337196512017-06-25T14:49:00.000-04:002017-06-25T17:44:58.887-04:00Bring on the vegetables, or why I've started to think: "Vegetables first."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
The idea started with a realization -- as ideas tend to do. OK, actually it started with an expletive, as <i>my</i> ideas tend to do.<br />
<br />
"Shit. I really need to focus more on eating vegetables."<br />
<br />
Let me clarify, though. I eat a lot of vegetables, if "a lot" is measured on a scale of "everyone jammed into this <a href="http://www.thepaleodrummer.com/2013/06/paleo-perfectionism-aka-everyone-please.html">particular baseball stadium</a> [or wherever humanity congregates] at this moment." In other words, I eat more vegetables than "most people." But this is America. "Most" of us <a href="http://www.healthdata.org/news-release/vast-majority-american-adults-are-overweight-or-obese-and-weight-growing-problem-among">are overweight</a>. I'm not and I don't want to be.<br />
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You probably eat more vegetables than "most people" too. You likely wouldn't be here if you weren't interested in good health, and vegetables are awesome in the good-health department. <a href="http://www.rd.com/health/healthy-eating/best-antioxidant-rich-foods/">Antioxidant-rich</a> vegetables are particularly great.<br />
<br />
But do you really eat "a lot of vegetables?" Or do you just eat more vegetables than "most" people?<br />
<br />
I got into a lazy habit over the past few years of making fermented vegetables a large portion of my vegetable intake. They are good for you -- probiotics and all that -- but no one eats as many fermented vegetables as they would fresh vegetables. I didn't either. <br />
<br />
But there's a bigger issue here. If I think the dead-animal part of my plate is overly large and the vegetable portion overly small -- and I'm right about that -- how did that <i>really</i> happen? Was it just the laziness of reaching for that jar of Wild Brine fermented veggies more than I was cooking vegetables? Yeah, sure, that had something to do with it, but the bigger problem, for me anyway, is one of <i>mindset</i>.<br />
<br />
Here's how I traditionally think about the answer to the question: "What's for dinner?" It begins with an animal: chicken, beef, lamb (mmmm, lamb), fish. Only <i>then</i> do I think about what the vegetable will be and it's only an add-on in my brain to the animal protein. You know, like: "chicken and asparagus," or "lamb and broccoli," etc.<br />
<br />
I've decided to knock that shit off.<br />
<br />
The plan is called Vegetables First.<br />
<br />
I bulk-cook a lot. I don't mind eating the same things -- or bouncing back and forth between a few things -- for days and days. I used to bulk-cook meat and vegetables, but there was always -- ALWAYS -- more meat than vegetables in the pot<br />
<br />
Now I've started bulk-cooking vegetables -- huge pots of things like eggplants and red peppers, or Brussels sprouts, or broccoli. I still bulk-cook meat too, usually still with vegetables, but the answer to "What's for ____ [breakfast/lunch/dinner]?" begins with one of those bulk-cooked vegetables. Only then do I consider what animal protein I am adding to my vegetables. It leads to conversations with myself that go:<br />
<br />
"What's for lunch?"<br />
"Um, eggplant and peppers. And I'll add some ____ [lamb, sardines, beef, chicken, whatever dude] to that." <br />
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The difference, measured in numerous ways -- increased vegetable consumption, decreased meat consumption, lower grocery bills -- is <i>insane</i>. The ratio of meat to veggies on my plate is less. I'm eating <i>so</i> many more antioxidant-rich vegetables, and our grocery bills are lower. And yet I'm still low-carb.<br />
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But, you say, loudly: "HOW WILL YOU GET ENOUGH PROTEIN???!?" Let's put it this way: I've never been in danger of eating too little meat since I started my paleo/primal journey and I'm still not. Yeah, I'm eating <i>less</i> meat, but the main difference is that I am eating a lot <i>more</i> vegetables. It's like I'm living that piece of advice from Michael Pollan about: "Eat [real] food. Not too much. Mostly plants." I've even been working out <i>more </i>lately too, and haven't had a bit of trouble with "recovery." Take that, protein-powder junkies.<br />
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My primary mantra in this lifestyle has always been "whatever works for you." Only you know if you should be eating more vegetables and only you know, if the answer is that you should be, whether a "vegetables first" mindset will help you eat more. But it sure does here.<br />
<br />
Like they say in the law, "Res ipsa loquitur."<br />
The thing speaks for itself.<br />
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”</div>
Steve Kirschhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07196209369347662434noreply@blogger.com0