So Im watching American Idol last Tuesday and Wednsday since Peter Noone was on the show. Being a big fan of that genre of music, Ive had the pleasure of his company many times and what you see on tv is just the way he is. Fully as hell and way to quick witted for most people to be able to keep up with. But in a way it was also a piss off. Here are these 17-25 yr old brainless spawns talking with Peter and Lulu and have no real appreaciation of what they were a part of. The contestants seemed to take it all in stride and butchered most of the songs. (I do have to admit that both guys did good jobs on the Zombies tunes tough). Mostly they tried to fill the songs with runs and melodies that werent in the original songs. I guess they were trying to make them contemporary but ruined them in the process. Contemporary music isnt 1/4 as good as the oldies were. Now if I had been one of the contestants, I would have been jamming with Peter Noone and would have learned how the song was originally done before trying to personalize it. BUt, thats cause that music had meaning to me and wasnt just an assignment like it was to them. I can also tell you that if I was a judge on that show, Id probably have to kill myself. With the exception of 2 contestants, I dont know their names but they are a very short blcak woman and a heavier black lady, the rest of the bunch is your average vanilla carbon copies. They all sound like each other and everybody else but no real distictive qualties exist. Yawn... yawn..yawn. Yeah yeah, I know, well Mr Clip YOUR not the best singer weve ever heard. So what. Many great entertainers were not great vocalists. What about Dylan?? YOu think Simon would actually LIKE him if e was on there today??? How about Ringo, Cash, Kris, Waylon, Hank or Hank Jr???? Cold these guys modulate thru the scales...ahhh no! I have a friend who says vocalists who modulate thru the vocals do so to thid the fact that they cant really hit or hold the note. I think hes right. This morning on KRTH, I heard a vocal coach for American Idol tell the listening audience what he would advise the contestants to do to improve their singing. After he did a rundown on the contestants, he was asked what he would advise Peter Noone to do to improve his singing. To my disbelif, he had several suggestions...dont hold the "SSSSSS" when singing "Hush" etc. What an idot. Peter Noone is an enternational singing star who has sold a bazillion records and is a multi gazillionaire thr his music and YOU think YOU have something to tell him to help him improve???? Bite a rock dumwad. YOU are nothing but a CRITIC. Someone who cant do it themselves so they want to tell YOU how YOU are supposed to do it. That makes you almost as bad as a teacher. Teachers are infamous for not being able to perform in the real world and YOU mister critic are about as usless as they are. Whos gonna win idol? I hope its the sort shy black woman. Now there is some real talent. 8 out of the 10 that are left belong in vanillaville.

In 1976 Im walking along the beach in Malibu with some friends when a security gurad (aka rent a cop) comes out and advises us that we are walking on private beachfront and have to get off. I never saw a sign and thought that the beaches were public but I guess we were making Johnny Carson and Barbara Streisand nervous. So a few months later when there was a severe storm, a set of doo gooders approaches us at the local Malibu market and asks us if we would like to volunteer to help sandbag for the Malibu Colony residents so that they woud not get their home damages from te severe tides. Hummm you mean Johnny and Barbara? Yeah right. So nowadays Barb is protesting the war via the stage. Humm same private beach owner doesnt want anyone to do anything she doesnt like. Well, I think Pres. Bush should immediately stop the war cause Barb has spoken. Lets just ignore the fact that the soldiers in Iraq are volunteers. They were not drafted, they signed up. Most of em wanted to serv. and hey if that what they want, so be it. Weather your for or against the war- who are you to tell someone what they should be doing... Wait till they start drafting people again, then you can scream. But Nixon stopped the draft. Remember that? He also stopped rampant runaway inflation left over from Johnson, opened relations with China and took the necessary steps to the war in Vietnam. Oh yeah, there was Watergate. THAT made him a villan. Same guy that save your dumbass from the Army MIGHT have had a hand in the Watergate break in. So the F**k what. Its not like he lied about getting blown in the oval office! I wish he had hung in there, he ould have never been impeached. But for the good of the American Morale, he resigned to save the honor of the office. Yeah for the Honorable dufass Jimmy Carter and Bill Clintion. Well it looks like Hillary is now going to make a run for it. I bet she gets the full support of Barbara!

I came to work looking like a slob today. That is a slob by my definition. Jeans and a black pullover. Hey its my office I can dress any way I like! But I always find it interesting that while I think I look sloppy, when I start looking around, even at my worst, I look better than most prople do at their best. And Im not talking about physical looks, Im talking about personal presentation. Most folks today, both male and female, have had absolutely NO instruction on style, grace or elegance. I guess that is something that died with the Hippies. Most everybody these days is unshaven. Both men and women hehehehe. And it seems EVERYONE has a friggin tattoo. I despise Tattoos! Tattoos are for sailors or idiots who dont have any respect for their bodies. My Uncle, the drunken bar brawler had a tattoo on his arm. It said "Born to die". I decided young if that was the mentality of people who get tattoos, tattoos are for fools. If I was a single man today, I swear I would NEVER date a girl with any sort of tattoo. If she would let herself be defiled that way, no tellin what else she might have done. The new "in" thing is to get a foreign laguage tattoed on your arm. Usually Chenese or Indian or something like that, so that poeple dont automatically know what it says and assume there must be some profound meaning behind the ink scribble. To me it reads loud and clear "I am dumb". Another site that just pisses me off to no end is these damn tounge rings. Now what fool thought that one up. Hey man, Ill stick out my tounge and you can stab a rod through it. It will be fun!!!! Ill look cool or hip or whatever they think it does for them. Personally I think it was something concocted by the dental industry so that when you come in to have dental work, they can use the rod to clamp your tounge to the side of your mouth via a dental hook and keep you prisoner while they do their sadistic work on your dumb ass. And whoever told anyone that the look good with bed hair. I certainly didnt. Let me clue you in, you look like a silly, sloppy, goon straight from Slobovia that way. Is that what it looks like inside your head?? I think tomorrow I will be a real rebel and wear my Brooks Brothers suit with a silk tie. That ought to fix em.

Sometimes life throws unexpected curves at you that you dont see comming. 2 years ago my Son and his wife were expecting a baby, so I was waiting for that call tht Amanda was in the delivery room. It came one Saturday late in Feb 05. Feb 26 to be exact. Brett and she were off to the AV hospital for the birth. After a long night of waiting the call came in around 1:30am, they had a baby girl and named her Lilly. I promised to come in the morning and see her. As I was getting ready to go to the hospital to see Lilly for the first time, I got a call from Brett. Something had gone wrong in the delivery and Lilly had an intercranial bleed that was going to require surgery. UCLA was sending an emergency helicopter to get her. So I got over to the hospital just as fast as I could and when I got there the helicopter had just landed. Brett was outside and looked like a Zombie that had been sent through the blender. He said that they could not go on the helicopter, there was not enough room and that Lilly needed to get there asap. Perhaps she might not survive. So, there we stand watching Lilly be taken off by helicopter to UCLA hosp, more than 75 miles away but a complete set of strangers, to be operated on before any of us could get there. Talk about feeling small and helpless......and alone.. As it turned out when Lilli arrived at UCLA they had the best nuerlogical team available in the world there ready and waiting for her arrival. Her surgeon was a Dr Lazuras who is the same surgeon that seperated the Guatamalin Twins that were conjoined by their heads the year before. The3y spent 2 hours with Lilli and told us that the operation had went well and time would tell. They had to drill into her skull and operate on the back of her brain to stop the bleed. Brett and Amanda got to the hospital soon after the surgery and stayed there with her for the next month while Lilli recovered. Both of them, 24-7 practically until after a full month in intensive care. But with the grace of God and miracle medical care she was able to come home on March 21 2005. So if you think your having a bad day sometimes..... If what is so, is so....so what.

As it turns out, Mike and I know a lot of the same people. And he finally asks the magic question... Do you play??? DO I PLAY???.... well lemmie tell ya.... So I give him a Bullets CD (I had one in the car). While we were chatting I pointed out to Linda that Mike was wearing a little metal electric guitar replica on his jacket lapel. Well this just happens to be the same guitar replica I had for many years and had put into my Dads pocket (along with his and my business cards) the day he was buried. So while Im buying Mike another drink I tell him about the meaning behind the guitar ornament. He gets chocked up and says that the ornament was a gift from a friend of his at The Rock N Roll hall of fame who said that these replicas are special and that this particlar one (the one he gave MIke) was to have a meaning that someday would become clear. Hummm, MIke said hes going to share the story and the CD with his friend at the RRHOF. Meantime on stage is Ian Hunter, formally of Mott The Hoople. I couldnt care less. By now I was feeling no pain and was having a good time chatting with Linda, Paul and Mike, when up walks Keith Airey, the lead guitar player of The Zombies. Now, Keith is a real gentleman and he recognizes but Linda and myself and now it is the 4 of us chattng. I but everybody another round. That is except for Linda who knows she is now the one who has to drive us when the concert is over, so she stops drinking knowing that Im well beyond the point of stopping. Ya know, you can really find out a lot about people by having a drink with them. While I have chatted with Keith many times, I never knoew that he became a Zombie because his brother was acquainted with the band. I asked who his brother was and he said Don Airey of Deep Purple. I hope the blank look didnt give me away cause Im not a fan of "Heavy Metal" rock, but in some circles I guess Don is quite famous. Anyway we talk about his background and his family when he mentions that is is currently working with the Mama Mia production in London and is responsible for all the guitar work in the production. He also says that he is performing Monday night with the show in London. He is probably preforming right now as I type this. So its now about 9:30. The Zombies go on at 10 and I but one last round when a fellow walks over and comes straight up to me and askes (I kid you not) Hey man, you look like one of the Zombies, are you? This Damn near sent Keith and Paul into spazims. I advised sadly I wasnt and the fellow looked disappointed and walked off. I didnt bother to introduce the the others.. but I did take the opportnity to tell Keith that being a guitar player and lookig like a Zombie, Id kill to be able to jam with them......no such luck though. Anyway it was time for the show and its amazing to watch these guys perform. Each member has a touch of genious to their music. Rod plays the keyboards (and piano too Im sure) with the brilliance of a Bach, Beethoven or any of the great masters. Too good actually for the average ear to realize just how intricate his playing is. But backed by the vocals of Colin Blunstone, there is no other Rock band that could incorporate the jazzy, blusey, breathy sound tha is The Zombies trademark. BUt them Keiths solo kicked in and I was suddenly glad that I was NOT trying to jam with them. Keiths guitar playing rivals that of anyone including Hendrix, Clapton, Stevie Ray and such. It becomes clear why some folks are famous.........Im glad I just got a chance to share a drink and some good conversation. Linda got us back to our hotel sometime around 1:30 am. She tells me I fell asleep in the middle of a sentence. But that is no surpise, I do that a lot even when I havent been drinkinnnnnnnnn.