Oh Captain, My Captain

When contemplating the Bible and your relationship with God, consider the time in which it was written.

In the time of Jesus Christ and for nearly 1,900 of the 2,000 years which have followed, the most common method of transporting goods and people over great distance was done by ship - a method in many ways still true today.

It is commonplace to hear people speak of "turning it over to God", to "Let go and let God", or any number of other similar sounding personal responsibility-dodging clichés.  God gave man free will in the very beginning and almost immediately man showed God why this was a bad idea.  In any number of 12-Step programs one will hear the common refrain that in order to conquer ones addiction, one must be willing to abandon the concept of self-will.

What it does NOT say is that there are times when self-will is appropriate, even necessary, for survival.  God did not give us the authority - the dominion over this world - and the ability to reason in order for us to watch all of creation evolve around us independent of our influence.

How I like to examine the idea of "willpower" is not as the shiny new sports car which God wants to drive while you sit in the passenger seat fiddling with knobs and flipping the sun visor up and down.  I suggest that willpower is as a ship at sea.  God is the wind.  I have complete control over which direction I want to steer.  I can chart any course I want.  But if I want to get somewhere I have to learn how to read the wind and I have to use it to actually GO anywhere.  With God as the wind, He is directing me with His will, it is up to me to steer in the direction which takes advantage of it.  If I choose to steer a course contrary to the direction the wind is blowing, I will move slowly, if at all.  And in doing so, I will become more and more frustrated as I fight with the rigging, the helm, and even with myself to do that which is against God's will.

Why make it so hard on yourself?  Give in to God's WILL.  He is not telling you what decisions to make, He is SHOWING you the proper course.  Your responsibility is in deciding to heed His advice.

Healthcare.gov

So I did it.  I went to Healthcare.gov and checked out available "Silver" level plans for my household, an ordinary nuclear family of four (4).  Holy cow.  In Virginia there are seven (7) available choices in that tier, not including dental.  The premiums range from $803/month to $875/month with annual deductibles between $7,000 and $3,000, respectively.  Presently my family, between the two (2) Optima policies (including MetLife or Delta Dental) incur roughly $7,000 in premiums between us.

Consider that my wife and I would be INELIGIBLE for assistance because, well, we make too much money to qualify for a subsidy.  WAY too much.  Even by myself (single-earner income) it would be well above the subsidy cutoff.  So that's good, right?

Not exactly. Obama SWORE that if you liked your plan you could keep it.  Well, nobody has taken my plan from me, but my out-of pocket costs have skyrocketed in the past couple of years, from an annual deductible of $100 to $500.  My wife's plan has gone from a $300 deductible just four years ago to a $1,000 annual deductible.  These numbers are not sustainable for families or small businesses.  If our children get sick we have to decide whether or not to get them the urgent care they may need, based solely on cost.  That is unfair both to us and especially to our children.

I get it.  He wanted to provide for people who didn't have healthcare available through their workplace.  That's fine.  But to violate the free-market economy by price-fixing and gouging, well that's not just disingenuous, it is criminal.  My wife and I would LOVE to make it so she doesn't have to work anymore, but there is no way we could afford healthcare for ourselves (much less our children) if she decided to take some time off.  Absolutely no way.

This healthcare debacle has jeopardized America's ability to get quality care at reasonable prices.  Instead of being able to visit a doctor and get qualified medical advice WHENEVER someone feels like it, they will have to balance that decision against their financial situation and decide whether a roof over their head or food on their table is more important than medical care.

I urge anyone who may read this to go to the government-run website and see for yourself.  You can shop plans without entering any critical personal information (it asks for the ages of household members and estimated income; no names, no ID numbers) and come to your own conclusions.  My conclusion is that for the cheerleaders out there still touting this as some kind of magic potion that will cure the ills of society, it isn't.  It will certainly level he playing field - by making health insurance yet another "graduated" tax which punishes producers and rewards consumers.

America's First War in Defense of Secession

Prior to the conception of the colonial revolution - a war of SECESSION by thirteen (13) Independent nation-states (countries) from England - the Constitutional Monarchy of the Crown was widely considered the most permissive an libertarian of governances on the planet.

Even the French, without whom the revolution would most-certainly have utterly failed, fell victim to their own monarchical malfeasance shortly after aiding and abetting our liberation.  A large component of society would agree that what we have today - industry, social and economic freedom, systems of law - is directly attributable to the shaking off of the shackles of King George's arguably soft-tyranny and sallying forth on our own into the vast unknown of self-determination.

So, then, who - or rather, WHAT - is to say that waiting on the other side of a total collapse, or an exodus from the reign of the united State does not await the next era, the next iteration of human genesis?  When the "greatest country on earth" was formed out of the smoldering ashes of a war for independence from the previous most "greatest country on earth", would logic not bring one to the possible conclusion that by abandoning the American experiment, we may experience a metamorphosis, a step of such evolutionary magnitude that all social, economic, and cultural boundaries are shattered and a new "GREATEST COUNTRY ON EARTH" would not be waiting for us on the other side?

People are complacent.  People are comfortable.  People are fearful.  What people fear most is change.  Change on the scale that revolutionary acts like secession suggest is absolutely terrifying to most people.  They know, innately, that if the present system is dispelled or dismantled that their comfort and their component contribution to it will be immediately devalued to zero.  In a new system NOBODY is ANYBODY.

And who does that scare the most?  The people at the very top.  Human nature is always to control others.  But it is imperative to realize that the most sacred right of ANY HUMAN BEING is to exercise control over and responsibility for oneself.  Once you subcontract any portion of that contract between yourself and God, you are a slave.  There is no such thing as "kind of" a slave any more than you can be "a little bit pregnant".

History, Legacy... Heritage?

This past weekend I was chance to participate in a conversation between a number of people when the subject of "possessions" arose.  More particularly was the subject as it related to heirlooms and family history.

One young man man had been set in the predicament of selling his father's house and the possessions therein.  At one point an "estate specialist" had been brought in to consign or resell the contents of the house in order to get it ready for a pre-sale inspection, as a contract had been entered into for sale of the home.

In the interim the sale fell through, but the contents, having been removed from the home, were sold.  The young man came upon an old receipt from an appraiser done some twenty years prior and he was appalled to discover that the things which ultimately needn't have been sold so hastily, had been sold for what amounted to pennies on the dollar.  He of course felt betrayed by the home inspector who had told him the house had to be empty in order to do an inspection, by the realtor who validated that falsehood, and by the "estate specialist" who had undersold a house full of family heirlooms and various antiques.

It is how the conversation evolved which struck me.  This young man was now at odds with HIMSELF because he was trying to rectify why that should be so important.  They were, after all, just THINGS.  Possessions.

As I listened to this young man troubling (and rationalizing) himself and his situation, I came to appreciate the dichotomy we all face when it comes to remembering and honouring our past(s).  In certain "things" there are stories, stories sometimes which cannot be told using just words, but which demand visual aid or accompaniment, like scenery in a play.  Sure, the story is intriguing, but what, exactly, are we talking about.  Where is the vessel, the vehicle which drives the story?  One person can tell that story to a dozen people and tell it a dozen different ways, but the object of that story is static, unchanged.

In the South we are very fond of our "oral histories".  Stories are told from one generation to the next to entertain, to hazard, to educate.  Without OUR STORIES it is likely that future generations of Southron will drift a little further from that place from whence we came.  So are they just "things"?  Or are they subtle reminders of who we are and where we came from?  Are they a tangible, physical link to our past that allow us to connect with our ancestors in a way which cannot be duplicated by mere spoken or even written word?

I decided not to interfere with this young man's apparent serenity over the things that he had lost at the hands of such scoundrels and ne'er-do-wells.  Beyond that is was out of his hands, he had made his decision on how to handle his own disappointment without rancor or malice.  Rather than dwell on that over which he no longer had control, he chose to to be gracious and search for a new peace.

And that is a pretty humbling lesson in itself.

Album Review: Blanco Diablo - Attack the Fire

No review of a record of this sort would be complete without a backstory.  And my backstory for this review is pretty extensive.

Back sometime in 2006 or 2007 I was invited by a friend and local music promoter, Chris "Big Daddy" Serrano to join him at Zakk's Coffeehouse in Murfreesboro, NC to go see "House of Lords", a rock outfit featuring Jimi Bell on guitar.  Jimi Bell had been considered the shoe-in to take over guitar duties in the Ozzy Osbourne band after Jake E. Lee's ouster... right up until Ozzy was introduced to Zakk Wylde.

Also featured on the bill that night was a metal band out of Richmond whose lead guitarist eventually became one of my closest confidants in the regional music scene, Ed Savoy of "Bullistic".

The third band was a three-piece outfit called "Blanco Diablo".  I had never heard of them before, but the venue wasn't too filled, so I took a space up front just before I had my face torn completely off.  Blanco Diablo is fronted by Jamie Ray who, if you squint just a little, could be a perfect doppelganger for the aforementioned Mr. Wylde, circa Pride & Glory.  Long, flowing blonde hair, whispy, barely-there beard stubble, cleft chin, Les Paul slung insanely low, cockney swagger, road-worn faded jeans - and chops.  My God, this guy could play.  I have been listening to rock-and-roll music for almost three decades and this was only the second or third time I actually felt like I was witness to something phenomenal, remarkable.

At the time I was also promoting shows in the Hampton Roads area at a club called "Steppin' Out" (a location now occupied by The Jewish Mother) and I absolutely HAD to have this band come and play one of my shows.  I wanted EVERYONE to hear what I had heard in this band.  Their first record "Paper, Poison, Revolution" was exactly the raw, raucous, uncompromising, "snarling firepiss rock-and-roll" that I felt the scene desperately needed to light a fire under its butt.

I invited them to come headline one of my shows and they agreed.  Between then and the date of the show I nearly wore their CD out, listening to it over and over again, mesmerized by the songwriting, the arrangements, and the intensity they managed to inject into every song.

In the ensuing handful of years I had Blanco Diablo back to town a half-dozen times, sometimes playing support to other bands, sometimes headlining on bills where I only wanted the opportunity to hear them again.

Their sophomore effort "Killing Kings" was a lesser-publicized release and did not see a lot of fanfare or resultant airplay on terrestrial radio, though the title track was picked up by a handful of streaming radio stations online.  To me "Killing Kings" seemed like it was never intended for mass consumption.  The copy I was given contained no liner notes, no gatefold; only a CD with a black-and-white inkjet-printed label in a compact jewel case.

But I listened intently because I was hungry for anything new I could get from them, and I was not to be disappointed.  "Killing Kings" was what I would call "studio raw".  It sounded almost unfinished, like a record that got put out before being sent to final mastering; demo tracks.  But that's the sound I like from bands, when their sound is CAPTURED rather than manufactured.

Over the years, the Blanco Diablo lineup has consisted of guitarist/singer/frontman Jamie Ray, bassist Patrick Jason Boswell and just enough different drummers for me to lose track.  Prior to the recording of "Killing Kings" drummer Bradley "B-rad" Snipes took over the hitherto ephemeral position and made it his own.  That lineup is the same one which we hear on the third release, "Attack the Fire".

In casual conversation with Jamie (who along with the rest of the band I now consider PERSONAL friends) I congratulated them on their new record, produced by the legendary and incomparable Chris Tsangarides (Anvil, Bruce Dickinson, Y&T) and Jamie asked me for my address.  About a week went by and (as I had expected) a copy of the new album arrived in my mail.

I have to make an aside here: I WANTED to like this record immediately... but I couldn't.  My head just wasn't in it.  I told Jamie about my misgivings and he responded "Yeah, bro, it's not Paper, Poison.  That's the thing.  There can only be ONE Paper, Poison.  We're proud of that record, man, but this is the record we did this time, and we're proud of this one, too."  Jamie is a godd*mn warrior poet.  What he said wasn't the kind of bulls**t you hear from musicians all the time who make a great record and then follow it up with another record that sounds so exactly the same that you forget which record you're even listening to.  It was a real statement about Blanco Diablo, and it made me put the album on and spin it over and over and OVER again.  It made me go back and give it the kind of listen that ANY record deserves.

The production values are what you would expect from a world-class engineer like Tsangarides.  At times though, I can almost hear him in the background demanding one more take or one more track to overdub into the mix.  As a result, "Attack the Fire" is very clean and polished and that amount of lustre tends to take away from the rawness, the grittiness of the experience.

Jamie's guitar tone hearkens back to that mid-heavy, chugging mid-to-late '80s sound of players like Jake E. Lee, Dave Meniketti, Sammy Hagar, Tommy Shaw, etc.  It is meaty and cuts, unlike a lot of today's super-scooped, detuned tone hacks.  His setup has ALWAYS been very minimalistic, and I have deeply respected him about that, being able to coax most of his sound out of just his hands, a chunk of lumber and strings.

And, to be brutally honest, some of it is quite amazing... but some of it, well, here goes:

Track No.

1. No More Promises

This song has a catchy hook, but ultimately fails to deliver as a "great" song.  Somewhere along the way the lyrics, especially in the chorus, just kind of disconnect.  I can't place my finger on it exactly, but if I was to try and say what I didn't like about this song it would be that it doesn't really have anything about it that stands out to me.  This song reminds me of something I might have written and then tried to force-fit to an existing arrangement, rather than write a entirely new song.


2.  All I Know

This song starts out with a kind of Slade, "Run Run Away" vibe to it and then almost becomes a surf-rock song.  The transitions remind me of Gary Hoey, particularly his earlier stuff off of "The Endless Summer II" soundtrack and "Animal Instinct".  It is a very up-tempo, jingly song, something you can really tap your fingers to when you're out on a drive.


3.  Combination

Listening to this song makes me wonder what the name of the girl is who pissed Jamie off.  It's obviously an ode to someone, but who?  This is one of those tunes that is either one or the other of two things:

Inspired by a bar brawl.
Intended to start one.

Whoever the antagonist is, she's a real mean catch.  Like the girl in Y&T's "Keep on Running".


4.  Monsters

Now we're getting somewhere.  "Monsters" starts off with what sounds like a nod to Black Label Society, segueing into a Jerry Cantrell (Alice In Chains) type melodic riff before really taking off.  I believe this song was intended as a "single" and has received some advance screening and critical acclaim in the music industry community.  That being said, "Monsters" is an inside-the-park home run.  Well, maybe ground rule double.  It has a slickness and production that wouldn't scare off someone listening to Blanco Diablo for the very first time, but is certainly genuine enough to tantalize long-time fans.


5.  Trouble Walkin'

This track starts out with a classic AC/DC-style boogie riff and settles in to a steady groove throughout.  One of the standout parts of this song is the solo.  There is slide.  Slide, slide, slide.  My ex-guitar player used to play a lot of slide.  Killer slide.  I could never get it down, but he had it.  Damn, I miss it sometimes.  In this song Jamie goes to the slide and unleashes a torrential downpour of unassuming, rotgut, cajun deep-south blues.  It's a rollicking little ride, but it's one of those rides where you don't feel like you're going to fall off and get hurt... but just barely.


6.  No Prophet

This song has all of the trimmings of a mid-career Led Zeppelin tune.  I hear "Dancing Days" and "The Crunge" (both off of Houses of the Holy).  The progressions are very mid-'70s without being overly nostalgic and there's that kinky fill which makes me want to ask someone where to find that confounded bridge.


7.  Shadows of Angels

Track 7 turns the "blues" knob down a notch while turning the "rock" knob up.  It actually sounds a lot like any number of songs that I've written but could never get to come together, always missing the mark by a lick here or a transition there.  Jamie must have found those missing pieces and put this song together.  I'm glad somebody finally did.  I always wondered what it would sound like finished.  And I would be remiss if I did not point out how much I dig the solo in this song.  The first movement sounds like something my old boy Dave Coleman would have written.  I mean, I can almost even hear him playing it.  The middle of the solo is a bit disconnected and sounds less rehearsed, while the last movement is Dave all over again. 

Seriously, listening to this song made me kind of wish I HAD written it back in my old band so I could have heard Dave write this solo.

Additionally, and while I cannot be absolutely sure, it sounds as if Jamie clicks over to the neck pickup for the solo, a-la Alex Skolnick (Testament) in one of my all-time favorites, "Electric Crown".


8.  Hot July Damnation

This song, of all the ones on the record, is the one that has grown on me probably the most.  There is an eerie "wubba-wubba-wubba" thing going on under the guitar in the very beginning which kind of reminds me of "Legs" by ZZ Top.  But the main riff; very heavy, almost like a thick treakle.  It is syrupy and sticky... but not in the way that makes you want to wipe it off like, say, a Nickleback riff.  It remains heavy throughout and that drives the song like a coke-addled long-haul trucker trying to sneak past one more weigh station so he finally crash.


9.  Season in Hell

"Season in Hell" is the obligatory slow song.  Every record seems like it has to have one, and this is theirs.  I don't have much of an opinion either way on this track.  It starts out like a brooding, sad ballad-ey kind of thing and then becomes more of a dirge.  Overall it was hard for me to follow because it is the one track that really sticks out to me as being the odd-man-out.  It just doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the record.


10.  Pretty in Pieces

And then.  And then.  Now that I have listened to this album AND watched the video produced for this song... every listen to this record leaves me wishing more of the songs were like this one.  It is attributed by Jamie Ray to be a kind of ode to the television show "Dexter" which features the main character leading a double life as a blood-pattern splatter analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department and, alternately, as a serial killer.  There are so many things this track brings to mind.  In one moment I recall the first time I heard "Painkiller" by Polish metal band "Mech".  Crushing.  Brilliant.  Terrifying.  In another moment I can hear Chris Tsangarides channeling John Lord on a Hammond B3.  In yet another instance I can make allusions to key components of a song my band is in the middle of writing, except now I have to double-up and make sure I don't end up writing this song again by accident.

If I only had one song on this record that I could choose to try and explain to someone what I thought Blanco Diablo was about, this would probably be the one.  I said there were some songs on this album that were truly amazing.  This is their granddaddy.

"Pretty in Pieces" is that naughty girl you could never bring home to mother.  The whole "madonna/whore" complex.


11.  Locked and Loaded

If you can believe it, this sounds like a poppier version of Van Halen's "Feel Your Love Tonight".  Now that I've said that, I dare you to listen to this song and not hear it.  It's not necessarily a bad song, I just wanted to mess with your head a bit.


12.  Walk On

This tune has a main riff reminisce of Ozzy Osbourne's "Bark at the Moon", a song I KNOW I have heard Jamie cover and one I myself used to noodle with from time to time.  It's kind of a "goodbye" song of sorts in its lyrics.  I really like the solo break in this song despite that nagging sensation that there's something missing and I just can't put my finger on it.  It may be that I know Jamie's style and it is apparent he wrote multiple guitar parts for one [each] song, knowing full-well he can only play one part or another at any given time.  In those instances, since I haven't heard any of these songs live (yet!) I hope that Patrick steps up to the plate and fills the gaps.

So there you have it.  My in-depth and completely 100% incontrovertible and inarguable opinion of the third salvo from Blanco Diablo.  Ultimately, because I love this band and think that overall, they are STILL one of the best bands I have ever heard, this record deserves a spin or two from any fan of hard rock and heavy metal, if for no other reason than to give Jamie, Patrick and B-Rad the motivation to keep slugging it out in the clubs and bars, to keep writing, and to keep recording their brand of snarling firepiss rock-and-roll.  Because, dammit, I'm already looking forward to their next album!