Fixing a forward lean on the back squat

I am not a strength coach, or any kind of coach. Hell, I am not even particularly strong, but I make lots of mistakes and try to learn from them. So here's a solution that worked for me to a fairly common problem.

The problem: when a back squat gets heavy, the lifter has trouble maintaining an upright position, back on the heels. Instead, the lifter begins to pitch/lean forward. This is, to use a technical term, fucking scary, because it makes it much harder to ditch the bar if you fail the lift.

The solution -- completely and totally stolen from Greg Everett at Catalyst Athletics,who *is* a strength coach and made this suggestion on one of Robb Wolf's podcasts: front squat more. A front squat forces you to adopt a more upright position or you will lose the bar.

This was an amazing fix for me. For a few weeks, every time a back squat was part of my gym's programming, I front squatted instead. Boom. Problem solved. Next time I back squatted, I stayed significantly more upright. That upright position has allowed me to push my back squat numbers a bit and even finally allowed me to have the confidence to ditch a back squat behind me when I failed it, which was never ever an option previously. I always used to use a spotter when it got heavy.

Like I said, I take no credit for this idea at all. It came straight from Greg Everett, but I have passed it on to a number of people at our gym, each of whom had never heard the advice before, so I figure there might be a reader or two who could put it to good use as well.

Have fun. Lift big.



*pic/diagram is from this site.

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Album review: "Psychedelic Pill" -- Neil Young and Crazy Horse

I am a cynical bastard and I don't have too many heroes. Neil Young -- particularly, but not exclusively, with his band Crazy Horse -- is one of my very very few musical heroes. But before you think that fact destroys my objectivity about the man's music, well....let's just say that it has been a *really* long time since I truly loved one of his albums.

In the 1970s, just about every Neil Young album was killer. I mean.... if you hold a gun to my head and make me pick my absolute favorites of his '70s stuff, I will head for the ditch a bit and name Tonight's the Night, On the Beach, Time Fades Away, Rust Never Sleeps and Zuma, but, damn, nearly *everything* he released in that decade -- -- save the tepid Journey Through the Past soundtrack -- is several cuts above the drivel of most bands' outputs these days. Can you imagine if some overrated bozos like Kings of Leon released something as good as even American Stars 'n Bars (which has its moments, but isn't near the top of the Neil canon)? God, the critics would be falling over themselves. There are very few indisputable facts in rock and roll, but this is one: Neil Young was pretty much unstoppable in the 1970s.

The 80s? Welllllll... they started OK, and then Neil had his famous row with Geffen Records, resulting in him releasing some really awful nonsense that was so bad that you had to think its suckage was intentional as a passive-aggressive middle finger to the industry (Landing on Water, anyone? Nope, me either).

Then, just when I thought he might have, artistically speaking, left the building for good, as the '80s rolled into the '90s, came Neil's Big Comeback #1. Freedom was a definite keeper, and Ragged Glory and the live album (Weld) that followed, were five-star-out-of-five journeys into the distortion-soaked/jam-heavy genius that is Crazy Horse at its best. It had to be obvious: Neil could crank out near-perfect records at will and he was just messing with us for that awful mid-'80s stretch. In fact, sometimes he was even *better* than in the 1970s. Listen to the glory of the Weld versions of both "Powderfinger" and "Cortez the Killer" and bask in the realization that Neil and the Horse circa 1992 were at the very very top of their game.

Except.... Maybe his omnipotence wasn't so obvious after all. What followed those perfect years of the early '90s didn't ever measure up to the standard that the Ragged Glory/Weld combo set. Sure, there were definite keeper moments on Sleeps With Angels, Broken Arrow and Mirror Ball, his collaboration with Pearl Jam where the boys from Seattle took on the Crazy Horse role, and, in doing so, lost some of the groove but sped up the stomp. And, hell, I even liked some of Greendale, even if its story line was delivered in an ungodly clunky way and even though the decision to stick rhythm guitarist extraordinaire Frank "Poncho" Sampedro on keyboards instead of guitar for that whole record was an inexplicable mistake that robbed the Horse of much of their oomph. Yeah, post-Weld Neil was all right. But the excitement was usually dwarfed by the yawn.

See, post Weld, there never was that start-to-finish genius album. In fact, I had pretty much given up on a return to the glory days when I heard the standards/covers album, Americana, that Neil and the boys released earlier this year. It was, oh, okay, I guess. It had some of the Crazy Horse loud/soft, jam/sing, crank-up-the-amps-and-the-pedals-for-the-sheer-joy-of-the-ruckus glory, but, for godsakes, it has "Oh Susannah" and "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain" on it and, for me, that was about all I needed to know. I listened. I gave it a chance. I hated almost all of it, and I hoped that somehow this year's tour -- the first for the band since Greendale and the first for me since Broken Arrow in 1996 -- would focus on something, anything rather than that new record.

Then, mid-summer, the announcement came from Neil: there is *another* new 2012 album from Neil and the Horse. To be released on October 30, it's called Psychedelic Pill, and it's all originals. My hopes went up a bit, but not *too* high.

Said hopes had taken a real hit with that Americana record.

Well, I am happy -- no, make that completely effing thrilled -- to tell you that Psychedelic Pill is a great record. It is the bastard son of Ragged Glory, crossed with all sorts of other bits from across Neil's career that leap out at you and then fall seamlessly into the swirling guitars. And god, those guitars swirl. It's like longtime producer David Briggs (R.I.P.) came back to fit all the pieces together into a maelstrom of rising and falling layers of guitar.

Half of the tracks -- "Walk Like a Giant," "Ramada Inn," "She's Always Dancing" and the opener "Driftin' Back" -- could fit right in with the "sing a little, jam a little" ethos of Ragged Glory's best. "Ramada Inn" also has touches of Neil's storytelling vocal style from Greendale, but where that album fell flat in the dynamics department, this one roars on the instrumental passages.

The shorter, less-jam-based, tracks are no slouches either, and each hearkens back to another chapter of the Crazy Horse history book. "Twisted Road" is a trip down memory lane to the first time Neil heard "Like a Rolling Stone" -- not all that lyrically removed from "Days That Used to Be" (from Ragged Glory). "Born in Ontario" sounds like a cousin to the title track from Everybody Knows This is Nowhere. "Psychedelic Pill" (the song) reeks of all the best parts of "Cinnamon Girl," and "For the Love of Man" could be a grittier track on Harvest Moon.

Another stroke of brilliance is the sequencing of this record. It is an "album" in the best sense. While its individual tracks are top-notch, its whole is so much more than the mere sum of its parts. Sure, the long songs alternate with the shorter ones; that's easy. But, even better, for my money, those longer songs keep improving as the album progresses. So, yeah, opener "Driftin' Back might start to wear on you a little (27 minutes *is* a bit much), but "Ramada Inn" tightens things up, "She's Always Dancing" a little more so, and, by the time you get to the raging, stomping, crashing fire of "Walk Like a Giant," you have loaded up the van, turned up the volume and headed for what Neil once called the place "where the pavement turns to sand." And then, when that one ends in a wreck of pounding drums and feedback, there's the "clean" version of the title track to take you into the sunset.

This record is not quite the picture perfect brilliance of, say, Tonight's the Night or On the Beach, but, man oh man, for a nearly 67-year-old guy who has, once again, discovered that he is at the top of his game when backed by the lumbering behemoth that is modern-day Crazy Horse, it is truly as close as you are going to get to Neil's Big Comeback #2. Get on it. I can barely wait for the upcoming tour -- with its setlist freed at this point from all vestiges of that Americana record -- to thunder into town. This band is, still, the real deal.



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Hurricane Sandy thoughts

The bottom line is that we got really lucky.

The power's out, but last year, post-Hurricane-Irene, we made an executive decision of sorts and splurged on a full-house generator. It's something that I, literally, didn't realize existed until, just after Irene, I saw a genius ad by the Generac company. I knew you could go to your local hardware center and buy a portable, gasoline-powered, generator to run certain things, but I had no idea that there was a more permanent solution available to power most of the house. This thing is huge and is permanently hooked up to a natural-gas supply line. The electricity cuts out, and, within 30 seconds or so, the generator kicks on. It's important stuff because we live in an area with well water, and electric well pumps require, er, electricity. And not having water really sucks.

So, while I am hoping that the electric company does much better than their current estimate of restoring power to us six days from now (six days?!?!?), in theory anyway this generator will do us fine until then -- just with a significantly higher gas bill than usual.

Anyway, I apologize for not having any tales of Bear Grylls-style survivalist routines, but it just wasn't a *huge* deal right here in terms of actual damage, and, mind you, we were right on the northern side of the hurricane's eyewall where the wind was ripping. It was, on the other hand, a little tense to say the least in terms of thoughts like, "Holy shit. It's windy. It sounds like the siding is peeling off the house and a freight train is passing by within five feet of the window even though there aren't any train tracks in the area," and the like. All those thoughts are greatly enhanced at 2 a.m., two feet from a second-floor window.

But that doesn't mean I am completely absent of thoughts about this storm. So here, in no particular order, are a few of them:

-- First of all, even though we got lucky, a whole lot of folks didn't. Keep them in your thoughts, and, most importantly, send the appropriate charitable organizations some money to help them through this mess.

-- It never ceases to amaze me how one's focus can instantly narrow to the essentials when necessary. We used to always run into this phenomenon up in a friend's cabin in Maine on one of our early winter trips up there to play music and hang out. There was no heat source beyond the fireplace, and it wasn't rare to have it be 15 degrees F when we would arrive. *Everything* would center around staying warm. All the other thoughts and worries that you might have brought with you to the cabin? Gone in a flash. This hurricane was a lot like that. There are a thousand potential things to think about and focus one's energy on in a given day. Not so much when Mother Nature is beating down the door. It's like forced meditation.

-- What a lousy piece of timing it was for me to decide on Saturday that I have been drinking both alcohol and coffee too often lately. "Too much alcohol" equals just a daily drink the last couple weeks, but, dammit, it messes with my sleep when I indulge even that much. So does any caffeine after noon, unless I am going to be awake a lot later than usual for some reason. As a result, I resolved Saturday to knock out the booze entirely for a little bit, and limit myself to one cup of coffee each morning. God, it worked like a charm. Sleep was well on the way to being fixed within a day or two, but reading all my friends' Facebook posts about their epic hurricane alcohol stockpiling just made me want to pour a delicious whisky or two. I didn't. My willpower is pretty strong, especially when I know there will be an immediate negative effect, but, yeah.... The timing could have been better in the fun department.

-- I realized that sometimes -- in some sort of vain effort to avoid putting on my reading glasses, I guess? -- I shop by color. So there I was, buying a little extra dark chocolate for the ensuing storm. Lots of dark-brown packages. Yup. Half of it turned out to be milk chocolate, Shit. I ate it anyway, mind you, but shit. Not only is dark chocolate so much healthier, but I really like it much better. The offending item was chocolate with cherries in it. The dark version of that sounds unbelievable. The reality of the milk-chocolate version was a disappointment. But I still ate it. Let's not be silly....

-- Dogs are a riot when it comes to intuition. Our three (two older, one younger) are great almost all the time. But the youngest -- a hound named Ruby -- needs her exercise. Fail to walk her at least once a day for a decent couple of miles at a good clip, and she will torture you, the other dogs, everyone for that matter, with hyped-up energy levels. But somehow -- and really, I don't know how -- she figured out that the weather was so bad that she wasn't getting walked. She has been sleeping almost all the time for over two days now. Amazing.

-- The election is only a week away and, although Romney is nipping at the president's heels, I have to think the hurricane -- and both of their responses -- is a net political benefit to the president. Romney looks like a jackass. I just saw him at a political rally first urge everyone to put politics aside and think of the hurricane victims and then, a short time later, urge everyone to get out and vote early -- for him. So much for "apolitical." In contrast, the president looks, well, presidential. I have told you elsewhere that I am not a huge fan of either one, so don't view this as an endorsement, but the contrast has been striking.

-- But, much like last year, during Irene, the award for Awesome Governance in the Middle of a Natural Disaster goes to NJ Governor Chris Christie. The man is utterly above politics during this type of event, and, instead, just gets the job done. Hell, he even went out of his way to praise the president's response, despite the fact that he is an ardent Romney supporter. Well played, governor. Well played. I don't always agree with you, but this was, and continues to be, your finest hour.

-- Finally, it is almost impossible at this point to imagine this type of disaster without social media. You are stuck in the house, roads closed, etc., but somehow it is comforting as hell to get on Facebook or even Twitter just to see what your peeps are up to. Utterly ridiculous and fluffy most of the time too, but there ain't nothing wrong with a little fluff in the midst of the madness.

That all I have for now. Hope you and yours are safe.




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Striking the balance, and questioning (your own) authority

I got into an interesting conversation recently about exercise. It had begun with a friend complaining that her heart and lungs felt great after a long run, but that her body was taking a beating. I suggested maybe shortening those runs, and picking up the pace. You know....The bang for the buck without the ouch. Then the subject of weight training came up and I said that it seems indisputable at this point that everyone should be doing *some* kind of resistance/weight-based training along with whatever else you're doing to get your heartrate up. No one really disagreed, but I remember the following line, uttered by someone else, really standing out:

"Everyone's different. In the end, the best form of exercise for you is the one that you enjoy doing the most."

And it got me to thinking. (Uh oh).

I just can't sign onto that theory.

I mean, OK, if what we are talking about is moving versus not moving -- exercising *somehow* versus not exercising at all -- I suppose that the statement is true. But, when life is (appropriately, I think) viewed as a neverending work in progress in which one is constantly trying to tweak and improve the good stuff and shed the bad and/or counterproductive, that sort of thinking strikes me as a sort of copout once you have already embarked upon the path of exercise.

Before you accuse me of being Captain Bringdown on this subject, please.... Exercise any way you want. Hell, for that matter, eat any way you want. I don't care. However, don't conflate what you enjoy doing or eating with what's "best" for you. You could very well be fooling yourself.

And I think that all is pretty easy to see when it comes to food. That double-chocolate-bomb milk shake? Delicious. Eminently enjoyable. Live it up. But no one thinks that is the "best" choice for you. Even if you take a less preposterous example, you can envision maybe something like 60/40 paleo (or primal) being a balance that you like and enjoy and which reaps a few benefits for you, but let's not confuse it with what is "best." If you dialed down the 40 part, you would likely be doing a lot better for your health.

Somehow, though, that thinking seems more unclear when it comes to exercise. People are doing all sorts of things that they enjoy, and which are often hard to do, but is it really the "best" for them? Maybe not, but somehow that gets lost at some point where enjoyment and pain/effort intersect, and people end up thinking that if they are working hard, sweating a lot and mostly enjoying it, it *must* be a very good thing. And it just isn't always. There are a lot of folks grinding themselves to bits, thinking that they are doing themselves an enormous favor, when, in fact, only their orthopedist is reaping maximum benefits from their exercise-related pursuits.

So I don't seem like I am picking on long-distance runners or other endurance athletes, I should mention that I would feel the same way about heavy powerlifting every single day, or CrossFit seven days a week. You may love it -- and, undoubtedly, there is extreme Zen value in doing fun things that you love -- but you also would be doing yourself a huge favor if you honestly evaluate whether what whatever pounding you are inflicting on yourself is really "best" for you, or whether you need to tweak that programming a bit (or dial it back).

Or maybe you say, "Eff it," and plow full speed ahead because you love whatever it is you are doing -- in exactly the volume and intensity that you are doing it -- so much that the cost/benefit analysis pays off for you in the end despite increased injury, wear and tear. I understand that approach, as long as it's done with a full awareness that you have elected "fun" over "smart." Hell, I do it myself to some degree with drumming -- an activity which brings me so much enjoyment that I try to ignore the damage it inflicts on me, but I also try to do it with some measure of restraint that I once didn't have. Maybe playing only a couple times a week, and not always at the speed of sound any longer. It's a big balancing act, but I would never think that drumming is, physiologically speaking, some sort of net positive for me at this point. I just love to do it and I have made a cost/benefit analysis that I am sure to revisit often.

So.... Just don't fool yourself. *That's* the point of today's little spiel. Honest reevaluation of, well, *everything* is healthy, and often that gets lost in the grind of the gym, the road, the trail, and, yeah, the drum kit.

Figure it out, and then never stop figuring.




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Location:Striking the balance, and questioning (your own) authority

A corner, turned

This blog is a little like "Seinfeld"; it's not really "about" anything. Yeah, it has the paleo/primal/CrossFit angle going for it, or maybe I'll tell you about a gig or an album that blew my mind. Other times it's just about the weird twists and turns of life. File this one under that last category.

A long time ago, I told you about my dad's descent into dementia. At that time -- August 2011 -- when he went into nursing care, things were pretty chaotic, for him and me. He was, literally, physically attacking staff at the hospital, and was put on an anti-psychotic drug so strong that I could find *one* facility in the area -- short of a full-on psychiatric hospital (and for the love of Jebus, we don't need him in one of those places in constant physical danger) -- that would take him in upon his discharge from the regular hospital. So I had him sent to that one place, a locked-down, not-terribly-nice-but-better-than-a psych-hospital home for (mostly, but not all) elderly folks with mental issues of one sort or another. It wasn't great, not entirely safe, but it was the only option at the time.

Within a couple of months, he had calmed down and stopped physically acting out, and they were able to decrease/change his meds to the extent that I was able to get him transferred to a wonderful, safe little place where he has been since. Mind you, he doesn't think it is wonderful, but it is, relatively speaking, and he is safe, which is the important part. He has been in the new facility for a year now, and he is in increasingly declining shape, as you would expect for an 87-year-old. He has been placed on technical "hospice" care because at one point he stopped eating, and, apparently, if you aren't a hospice patient (who can basically do what they want), the facility would have to tube-feed you if you stop eating. The lawyer in me understands fully the legalities at work here; the human being wonders what the fuck we have gotten ourselves into when we are sticking tubes down the throats of 87-year-old mentally-ill people unless all the right forms have been signed to avoid a lawsuit. We wouldn't do that to a dog, but I digress....

So he muddles through the day -- endlessly listening to the radio, choosing never to leave his bed and screaming bloody murder if anyone tries to take him anywhere. And he has invented quite a tale. Someday, if I am organized enough, I will -- mostly for my sake, just to remember it, but you will be, no doubt, fascinated, perhaps even pretty amused, by it -- set forth for you the multilayered chapters of this fantasy. The core of it is that my dad thinks that he died back in March, was cremated and his ashes are interred next to my mom's. The guy in the bed, according to the story, is a victim of amnesia who was brought in the day my dad died, and who looks just like him, suffers from many of the same ailments -- but with little variations -- and is visited by many people, including some woman he apparently had a crush on years ago, a Delaware state trooper who was there to fix the washing machine and dryer in the facility but ended up pulling strings to an extent that the FBI fingerprinted the amnesia victim and determined his "real" identity (the same name as my father's but for one initial), and not one, but two, talking monkeys -- from Gabon. (The level of detail is amazing). But he still wants me to visit him even though he begins every visit with: "Now, you remember, of course, that, even though you call me 'Dad,' I'm not your father," after which the tale re-ignites with new layers, twists and turns, and the pronouns he uses become increasingly confusing. ("Dad, when you say 'I,' which 'I' are you talking about? My father, or this new guy?") It is a hell of a story, and I really need to write it all down before it goes away entirely -- which I suspect it is going to do soon because the doc just had to increase his meds, a step which, in the past, has always produced rather dramatic changes in the direction of the catatonic.

But this isn't about all *that*. This is about his house.

That fucking house.

Up until the time that he was carried out of his home by paramedics in August 2011, my father lived in the same three-story/five-bedroom house where I grew up. It was ludicrous that he stayed there that long, but there was no budging him. But once he was moved, it wasn't a simple matter of selling the place. First, the vagaries of tax/estate law being what they are, it makes significantly more financial sense to wait until he dies, have the place transfer to my brother and me, and *then* sell the house. But that isn't the *real* issue.

Haven't I told you before? My dad didn't throw very much away.

Yeah, he threw away *real* trash -- you know, garbage, the stuff that otherwise would attract rodents. But anything else you might expect someone to get rid of, like, oh, toys from when my brother and I were, respectively two and six years old? Half-full cans of paint from 100 different touch-up painting jobs over the years? 300 jars of various nails and screws? No, that shit -- and believe me, I have listed only a few of tens of thousands of things -- never got tossed out. It was put in the attic, the basement, various of the five bedrooms. Everywhere.

And clearing this out mostly falls on me. Yeah, my wife and my kids have helped when they could, but my brother lives 450 miles away. And we all have lives and responsibilities that have nothing to do with cleaning out the house of a crazy man who happens to be my dad. Plus I pay all the old man's bills (with his money, not mine), organize his taxes and other finances and generally keep the ship of his wrecked life as afloat as I can, interrupted by handling fantastic little digressions like dealing with the bank when, a couple weeks ago, someone *somehow* charged something to one of his credit cards that hasn't been used in over three years. (But now *I* am wandering again....)

So I have been chipping away at The Big Dig Out from his house. Since last December, when I finally got down to beginning this project, I have filled *six* dumpsters with trash. Not those little tiny square/cube ones you see behind a local restaurant, mind you. Six full-on giant rectangular dumpsters. When I haven't been filling dumpsters, or otherwise attending to things in my own life, I have been sorting papers.

Think about it: if a man has six dumpsters of trash in his house, guess how much *paper* there is to sort through? And I have to sort it, because there is, amidst a whole lot of nonsense, some important stuff in there.

Which brings us, finally, after a gazillion paragraphs of prelude, to the point of this post: yesterday, I sorted what was, I believe, finally (FINALLY!) , the last scrap of paper. Everything that remains in his house is now sorted into two categories -- trash for the seventh (and final) dumpster, or a donation to charity. The dumpster will be ordered soon, the house finally (FINALLY!) emptied and a bunch of cosmetic work done inside to purge the place of its current stylistic rut that we will call "1972."

This may not strike you as a big deal, but, trust me, if you were in the middle of the multi-month/mostly-solo spectacular that this has been you would have joined me in the butt-shaking touchdown dance that I did yesterday. Exile on Main Street was on the boom box that I always bring over there to stave off boredom and panic, and I joined Mick and Keef in the muted, but intense, celebration that is my very favorite Stones song. Dig.







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The "wasted" vote

I have told you before that I am voting for Gary Johnson for president. I don't care if *you* do. OK, I would love it if you did, but I won't think any less of you if you don't -- as long as you vote for whomever you really like the best.

And that's the point of this post. No vote is wasted. (Or else, a whole lot of them are).

Think about it. On a purely mathematical/logical level that views a "wasted" vote as defining "a futile act that makes no difference," if you vote for anyone who loses an election, your vote was "wasted." If you hadn't voted, the result would be the same. Indeed, unless the election were decided by one vote, your vote would be "wasted" even if you voted for the winner. The same thing would have happened if you hadn't voted at all.

Really? Well yeah, if you want to get all mathematical about it.

But fuck that. Let's get back to basic democracy. Vote for the guy (or gal) you want to be president.

The funny part about voting for a third-party candidate is that sometimes *both* sides will tell you how you are a traitor to their cause and just helping the *other* guy win. If you go to any libertarian site, the comments from GOPers are overwhelming in declaring that "a vote for Gary Johnson is a vote for Obama." Among my mostly lefty friends, I am told that a vote for Johnson "is a vote for Romney."

Maybe, just maybe, a vote for Gary Johnson is just.... a vote for Gary Johnson and what he stands for.

See, if forced to choose between Obama and Romney, I would take Obama every time, but there is no "forcing" at all. I have spent most of my adult life voting for the lesser of two evils, and I am tired of it. My vote hasn't made a mathematical difference in *any* of those elections. But it sure did make me feel lousy sometimes (Michael Dukakis? Jebus....) And this time around, when the major-party candidate I like "better" is a guy who swore to me last election that he he was going to let states decide one of the most basic issues of compassionate medicine/freedom that I can think of -- medicinal marijuana -- and then turned around and raided more med-pot facilities than George W. Bush in states that had decided that yeah, medicinal pot is OK with them, I don't feel a lot of compelling loyalty-based reasons to vote for that guy, particularly when the person on the Libertarian Party ticket is, quite literally, my favorite politician of my lifetime -- Gary Johnson, a guy who is truly pro-choice about just about everything. (Go here if you want to read Conor Friedersdorf's eloquent statement of reasons in The Atlantic regarding why he is voting for Johnson, if at all).

So how about this? Do what *you* really want to do. Your vote matters a lot, except that, mathematically speaking, it doesn't matter at all. So vote for the candidate you like the best, and to hell with all that "wasted vote" nonsense.

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Peanut butter and paleo

It's an interesting issue. If you are a paleo eater, you know the deal: nuts are cool in moderation, but peanuts are not a nut. They are a legume, and legumes are out. The best reasoning I ever heard for that rule is that when it comes to the stuff that legumes do well -- like contain protein -- they are beaten hands-down by animal protein, and the stuff they do badly, like expose you to gut-irritating lectins, makes them mostly not worth the hassle.

Mark Sisson has dealt with the peanut-butter issue really well. You should read that article. But I thought I would add a thought (or two).

And that thought is this: like most on-the-edge of paleo items, you need to chart your own course. Paleo isn't a religion. Figure out what works for you. For me, the occasional rice and beans don't do me a whole lot of harm, but eat 'em too much and the old "beans, beans" rhyme/song seems unduly apt. Peanut butter seems a little weirder. I ate a number of *jars* of it while hiking in California this summer because it was easy to throw in a backpack, with a spoon, and almond butter was not very available where I was. It was, seemingly, no big deal.

But I am not sure that vacation, with its amazingly relaxed vibe, is the best test. Real life has a few more stressors, and stressors affect digestion. And sure enough, when I decided to dive back into some peanut butter recently -- Whole Foods in-store grind, to be exact -- it was fine for a few days, but, as I ate some *daily*, my skin got a little blotchier and a few zits popped up.

And really, what is a surer proof that there has been a dietary derail than the emergence of the dreaded zitstorm?

So I think, for me anyway, Mark Sisson nailed it: a little peanut butter here and there isn't the end of the world, but I will do better not making it a frequent staple.

Now where is that jar of almond butter? I think it missed me....




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"Enjoy the %#*$ out of it."

The "cheat." We paleo practitioners know all about it. Unless you literally have a serious medical reason to eat paleo -- and, if you do, then, like my wife, you probably are on the even-stricter autoimmune paleo protocol -- sometimes you fall off the wagon.

My CrossFit trainer has wise words for that moment: "Enjoy the shit out of it."

See, there is more to eating paleo than strict compliance to a set of rules. Yes, that is what we are striving towards, but sometimes you can get wildly stressed out over the whole venture, and sometimes you even crack and succumb to the joys of CoffeeCoffeeBuzzBuzzBuzz (or, if you are foolish and didn't read the Manual of Life that you were handed, some *other* Ben & Jerry's flavor).

If you do -- and mind you, this shouldn't happen, and certainly shouldn't happen often -- at least, for the love of all that is good and right.... *enjoy* the moment.

Savor it. Don't rush your way through that beer, cookie, ice cream, booze, whatever.

Part of the processing of food is determined by your mental attitude. Rush your way through a meal -- and, yeah, I have done that a few times -- and you just don't digest it as well. If you wanna walk the walk as a paleo master with a Zenlike calm, you can't approach your food like it is a battle to be fought.

The same is true of your cheat food. For godsakes, if you are going to venture into that glass of bourbon, at least approach it with some respect and reverence as you enjoy it.

You have heard me say it before: life is short; enjoy the ride. If you are going to fall off the paleo truck, savor every morsel.

And then climb back on. We've been waiting for you.

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Indie rock goes gray, to great effect; Mission of Burma and Yo La Tengo in Philly -- a review

I am not sure when it started -- likely somewhere in my mid-forties when I got healthier and my typical bedtime got earlier, and my mornings a little correspondingly early -- but sometimes, not always, I will be on my way to see a band and thinking, "Ugh. I hardly want to bother. Seems like a lot of trouble...." I *never* actually skip the show and stay home, mind you, but the thought crosses my mind, a little more often each year.

So there I was, last Friday night, dragging a bit as I headed out the door to see Mission of Burma -- Boston post-punk legends, and wearers, in my opinion anyway, of the crown that is inscribed "Greatest Reunion in the History of Rock." See, I was a Burma fan in the early '80s. Trouser Press magazine did a review of their classic Vs. album and I got it and was sold. I picked up the EP that had preceded it, and dutifully waited for a tour. And it didn't happen, or I didn't notice it. The band broke up before I ever saw them. Sure, there were some glorious Volcano Suns tours, featuring Burma drummer Peter Prescott, later in the eighties, but the Real McCoy had disappeared.

Or so I thought. Then, back in early 2001 (or was it 2002?), they got back together for supposedly one-off shows in NYC and Boston. And my god, they were amazing. They had lost nothing. In fact, judging by the somewhat sloppy live stuff I had heard from the early days, they were better. Much better.

And they had so much fun that, well, they just sort of kept going and never really broke up again. They are now four albums and a decade or so into a reunion that has been a neverending mindblow of great records and gigs. For my money, The Obliterati is the stone-cold classic of the four newer albums, but every single one is a keeper. The new one -- Unsound -- even heads for shorter, tighter, punkier ground while still retaining that wonderful undulating downright *squiggly* bottom end fueled by the intersection of Prescott's drumming and Clint Conley's bass. And, as always, there are yells and whoops of joy audible on nearly every song. This band's music is, uniquely, dense as all hell -- almost impenetrable on first listen -- and yet infused with a chaotic joy that is palpable.

Friday's gig, at Union Transfer in Philly, was no exception to the simple rule: there is no such thing as a bad Burma show. It was heavy on the recent record, but they took time to hit lots of the rest of the catalog, even playing a handful from The Obliterati, and making sure to leave us pulverized with perfect versions of early songs like "Trem Two," "Red" and "Mica" along with the expected classics like "This is Not a Photograph" and "Academy Fight Song."

They did not disappoint. But one day they actually will stop doing this, so, once again I have vowed never to skip a Burma show, no matter how damn old I get. Because, you know what? They are even older than me and they still are as vital-sounding as ever. Salut, boys. You tore it up.



And then.... came Yo La Tengo. I have told you in painstaking detail my sonic love affair with the music of this amazing little band from Hoboken, and I won't repeat it here. But suffice it to say that the timing of this show was, for me, perfect. I had just read the band's new bio by Jesse Jarnow, had spent hours playing their music after that bio inspired me to go explore parts of their catalog that hadn't necessarily blown me away the first time around, and, by the time I decided to go see Saturday's free YLT show sponsored by WHYY as part of their Connections Festival, I was, well, stoked to put it mildly... as psyched as ever to see them (again).

Good lord, they were great. It was, first of all, one of those gigs where you feel at first like outside forces are conspiring against you. The weather was rainy and awful -- although, thankfully, the predicted thunderstorms stayed away. And the band was late getting onstage because the rain had pushed everyone's set times back a bit at the festival. A few of us wondered, as they took the stage at 9:15 p.m., if the announced end-time of 10 p.m. for the festival would be strictly enforced. If so, it would be a short show. But all those worries went away as soon as they banged and rumbled their way into the faster/louder version of "Big Day Coming."

They were well and truly on fire from the outset. There were the usual instrument switches and near perfect note-sustained segues between songs as those switches took place. They all rotated between guitar and keyboards and drums and bass through "hits" like "Autumn Sweater" and "Here to Fall" as well as through a few new ones off an upcoming album.

And then it got.... completely amazing. And, strangely enough, while my definition of "completely amazing" at a Yo La Tengo show usually revolves around the loud stuff ("Mushroom Cloud of Hiss," anyone?), this particular episode of Yo La Tengo Blows Steve's Mind began with a few quieter ones. First, there was a new one, and then "Black Flowers." I don't recall ever seeing them do that one, in all its Kinks-ish glory, live before, and I was pretty transfixed.






Then they headed into "Nowhere Near," even quieter than the album version because Georgia played keyboards instead of drums. Beautiful, wonderful.... And *then* they turned it up.

There may be better ways to end a show than a quadruple of "Nothing to Hide"/"Decora"/"Tom Courtenay"/"Pass the Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind," but I wouldn't bet on it. The loud/intense ante was upped on each succeeding song, so by the time they got to "....Hatchet..." it was a 15-minute seething monster of Ira Kaplan's best distortion-ridden lead-guitar work. Wow.



It would have been fine to end it all there. In fact, I kind of expected it. It was a festival. Encores aren't really expected at festivals, and this one was already running late. It was 10:30 at this point. Allegedly, the music was supposed to have ended 30 minutes earlier.

But we cheered, and they returned, and... what? Ira *and* Georgia headed behind the drum kit while James strapped on a guitar and they played "Antmusic." Yes, YLT did an Adam and the Ants cover. God, it was awesome. The show then closed with a couple acoustic ones -- "Griselda" and "Center of Gravity," the latter featuring a drunk birthday boy named Greg. It went something like this:

Ira: "Anyone wanna do like a little maraca thing for us?"

I almost volunteered. Had he said "a drum thing," I would have been onstage in a second, but, instead, a cheer went up from my right, and Ira says, "Oh right. You are the guy with the birthday. All right, come on up."

A few seconds pass while Birthday Boy tries to hoist himself onstage. He is a bit (not a lot, but a bit) intoxicated, and the stage is pretty tall, and there is a moment where he has gotten his head onto the stage, and his ass is sticking into the air and he is struggling, like a toddler trying to get onto a couch for the first time, when Ira quips, "Clearly, this was a great idea."

The place busts up laughing, but the guy makes it onstage. He then introduces himself to the band and Ira tells us his name is Greg. Greg is handed one of those shaker eggs and heads.... for Ira's microphone. Ira dissents, and gives Greg his own microphone, at about navel level so as to make for easy shaker-egging. They begin to play.

Greg is awful. Greg is beyond awful.

The band starts "Center of Gravity" with its groovy little rhythm, and quickly it is evident that Greg is a problem. The song stops and Georgia heads to a snare drum to give Greg some assistance with the beat. James loudly says into a mic something like, "Way to ruin *everything*, Greg!!"

The place busts up laughing again.

But somehow, Greg then gets it. He is in. He is a transformed groovy rhythm monster, so much so that Georgia is able to give up the snare drum and head for the vocal mic.

And it's all great. Greg is grooving. Then he is grooving *and* moving. Then, most of the way through the song, Greg's groove and move overtakes whatever is left of his good sense, and he begins to join in on backing vocals. Mind you, his shaker-egg mic has descended to crotch level, so, rather than raising the mic, Greg is shaker-egging into it while bending over 90 degrees at the waist to add "Ba-da-bah!" backing vocals.

It is ungodly funny. It is also awful. Which is even funnier.

The song ends. Everyone cheers. Greg has had the time of his life and shakes Ira's hand and hugs Georgia. More people laugh.

Greg heads offstage from the direction he came, but not before Georgia stealthily and strategically repossesses her shaker egg by snatching it from Greg's unsuspecting hand.

It was a perfect ending to a perfect show. Thanks, YLT. You never ever disappoint me live.

"Black Flowers":

"Pass the Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind." Ira throws down:

"Antmusic," with the four-armed drummer:

 - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Heartrate variability and the EmWave2 (a review)

I am finally, mentally speaking, back to the real world after an unbelievably great hiking vacation with my kids in the Eastern Sierras in California. Read the last bunch of posts for more on all that, if you are interested in tales (and pics) of stomping around the mountains.

So, what have I been up to? Trying to re-orient myself to CrossFit and lifting, first of all. Hiking a whole lot of miles with a pack on is a great time, and it certainly was made easier by all my CrossFit training and general strength training, but not touching a barbell for almost three weeks made for a rude return to the gym. All that hiking was pure endurance work, not strength training, and the damn barbell felt very heavy upon my return. I am working hard on containing the ego and trying to train smart, meaning not pushing too hard too fast to get back to form, but there is always that damn ego, pushing the other way. "You can lift more than that," it whispers to me, switching to yelling if the whispers are ineffective. It is the old battle, winnable only if I double down and fight that ego-driven crap.

So the usual meditation practice comes in handy, but lately I have upped the meditation ante -- into the previously (for me, anyway) unknown realms of heartrate variability..

Defined as simply as possibly, heartrate variability (HRV) has little to do with your overall heartrate and everything to do with the overall changes between beats, the so-called beat-to-beat interval. The operation/intersection of the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems -- and particularly one's ability to calm oneself out of stress through breathing and other meditation-based techniques -- determines how high (good) one's (HRV) is. Stressed-out or depressed people have awful HRV.

So you would think that a person who practices Zen-based meditation would have good HRV. Good HRV is a strong indicator of overall nervous-system and cardiac health, as well as psychological health.

But I wondered. I *think* I can get pretty far into The Zone when I meditate, and it certainly helps my sleep and mood. But how is my HRV?

Pretty damn good, as it turns out, but not perfect.

See, I had some birthday money burning a hole in my pocket, so I picked up an EmWave2, which measures and tracks HRV. It even operates at different degrees of difficulty, which, I assume, is just a function of a higher level of sensitivity to HRV as the difficulty levels increase.




I plugged it in and, well, kinda kicked ass at the lowest level. I was able, through pretty simple meditation/breathing techniques, to get my "high coherence" (best) levels at about 95% of my overall time on the machine right off the bat. But when I bump the difficulty level up a bit, it becomes (surprise!) more difficult. And then I really have to zero in on creating that empty mind that the Zen stuff teaches you to strive towards. It is very cool, and, no surprise.... My scores are way better when I am not stressed. Even cooler: when I *am* stressed, I can usually breathe myself into lower stress and higher coherence pretty easily.

I am, ultimately, of two minds about this device. I highly recommend it if you can afford it. It is both a great measuring stick, for a meditation practitioner, of how one's HRV (and resulting health) is affected (and improved) by basic meditation techniques, and a way for the non-meditation person to begin meditation practice in a way that is -- because it's on the computer and can be enhanced with games, music, etc -- designed to be "easier" and more "fun" than staring at a wall. But my second thought is that you shouldn't break the bank to get one of these things. Standard meditation practice gets you all the same results. You just won't be able to measure them so quantitatively. Don't worry about that; you will still feel the difference.

Bottom line: I like my EmWave2 a lot and will keep using it as a way to measure the "success" of my meditation practice, but if it got stolen, I would be fine and would keep on meditating like i was before. Me and the wall.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad